Location Discrimination

I really don't like that too but I think there are many problems when sending stuff outside their own continent to people they don't know, like stolen package in some European countries or some other problems like payment.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not trolling. If you are, you should be very ashamed of yourself, as I'm wasting very earnest and well meaning words here.

Foremost, this is not a strictly USA phenomenon;

Anecdotaly, almost every FS posting that originates in the UK, is UK only. Granted this is a smaller number of posts than the majority which come from the USA, but as a percentage, the UK seems to be less interested in international business. Probably because their taxes can get so ridiculous.

As what I presume is our second largest user base, they have the luxury of being discriminatory in their selling practices without cutting themselves off at the legs. Those in even smaller markets - such as specific countries within eastern asia - would be unable to sell anything if they were so restrictive.

In conclusion, it seems to be that if you are in a large enough market that you can probably sell your item without going outside your country, most people prefer to do that.

Now, to consider why;

• Time
• Customs

I'm fairly certain those two sum it up. It has nothing to do with racism or international bias, and has everything to do with expense and convenience. A transaction conducted within your own country will always be faster, and less complicated, than one that crosses international boundaries.

Shipping is slower, and if it's not slower it's much more expensive. For a seller advertising a price with shipping included, their $10 cost to ship within the USA just became at $25 cost to ship to their buyer in Japan, so they've lost $15 off what they wanted to get for the item - or they pass it on to the buyer, who feels jilted because the price went up just for them being foreign.

Worse still is the nefarious evil that is customs. All of our person-to-person trading is theoretically legal, within the country that you live, but it can quickly become "grey" in the eyes of the shipping or receiving nations customs officers.

Nobody wants to be involved in a transaction where the goods are seized by customs and held ransom for some exorbitant tax fee. The buyer is obviously upset because they paid for something they didn't get, and now have to pay more than they planned - and if they aren't blaming the seller for "disguising" the item better, they're wanting their money back for something they didn't get and may feel is the sellers fault.

Meanwhile, the seller is either forced to give back the money, and then try and get the item returned from the clutches of whatever customs agent decided to "confiscate" the goods, or they're out an expensive item AND their money.

Meanwhile, the for sale thread turns into what amounts to "negative feedback." This is a largely unprotected marketplace that goes only on the basis of goodwill, trust, and its only penalties are in public damage to someone's reputation. Nobody wins when this kind of thing goes wrong - both the seller and the buyer are likely to be turned down in the future based on obvious evidence of a botched transaction in the past.

In conclusion, or TL;DR - it's not racism, its risk from customs and inconvenience of slow shipping. Person to person international business is rife with both.

I agree with the above from a UK angle. I would have no problems selling anything to anyone abroad, but shipping costs are a joke here. I tried sending a 3 kg parcel to China the other day, and was quoted £70 ($110) for the most basic postage.

Outstanding post eneloquent!

Time, hassle, costs, insurance, tracking and customs pretty well covers why many folks prefer to sell within the borders of their own country. I haven't seen any evidence of Nationalism, racism or discrimination in the for sale threads as the OP infers.

The other item to keep in mind is that it is a free market ... as long as the activity is legal, the seller may sell to whom ever he/she wishes. These sales usually have qualifying posts giving the seller the right to choose who to sell to. Post count, feedback, history, quality of posts and etc may all be taken into account by a seller in determing who they sell to. The seller has to ascertain their risk and will choose who they wish to sell to. I've seen past sales posted CONUS only with the item going overseas to a well established head-fier anyway.

It is quite literally impossible to properly track a package that goes abroad - heck, it's very difficult to do so domestically!

I often find myself buying items that cost thousands of dollars. No matter how much I want to help out people in Asia/Europe get their hands on such gear, the lack of assurance breaks the deal.


It is not a very complicated issue, at its core

Agreed. I do ship internationally but I preferr not. Because if I can sell a headphone without extra VAT it will be a better deal for that person. And also since it´s so hard to get reasonably priced gear over here I sympatize with my fellow country men too.

But I have sent gear to both philippines and the US and I order stuff from all over the world. It´s not fun when you get to pay customs but you have to take that into consideration.

As for convenience it´s not that much extra work to ship internationally. Payment is a bit more tricky but not to much. Of course shipping costs is a bit higher but not to bad on light items like headphones. Either paypal but that have nasty fees. Or bank transfer... But again bank transfer within EU is virtually for free but as soon as you get out of EU it cost some extra and take longer.

I prefer not to ship internationally from the UK. Why? Oh where to start.....

PayPal. I'm not sure how this works in other parts of the world, but you can lose a disputed transaction even with a signature. I've had the misfortune of dealing with 2 people who knew how to play the system and ended up with the goods and a refund. For a start, using the basic Royal Mail International shipping with "Signed For" it can take weeks for the signature to be available online. If the transaction is disputed before the signature appears online - guess what, the buyer will be refunded. Also, depending on which way the wind blows and if PayPal want to be difficult, as "Signed-For" is not trackable from the point it leaves the UK to the point of delivery when a signature is obtained, PayPal argue that you haven't used a online trackable method of shipping. It's like playing Russian roulette with people who know how to play the PayPal game. I prefer not to take part unless the international recipient can be vouched for or has a heap of positive feedback.

Shipping Firstly, cost - especially when insured. Secondly, aside from the CN23 customs declaration, correct documentation is a pain in the backside. Easy way out is probably to tick the gift box and not need to provide any invoice. But do this and declare a high value and you run the risk of recipients customs "holding" the package. Provide a commercial invoice, (but you're not a business), and you also risk grief at the other end. Pro-forma invoice as well as the CN23 declaration, should be good enough, use any other courier than the PO and they don't like that. Then factor in my experience with shipping 15kg of Zana Deux to Japan last week. DHL wanted to unpack it before they would agree to ship it with insurance. I spent hours packing it! Too much grief!

I think my bottom line is that for low value transactions, dealing international is not a problem. For high value, it is.

Some answers to your questions:

Exporting is not easy! If an item has US made portions over 50% then even shipping out of Canada without an export permit can cause the item to be seized (taken away for ever) my Canadian customs. I don't think many people here are savy about this, so the easy answer is NO.

While I do understand a little about exporting and associated permits, I would much rather not deal with it and limit my shipments to Canada and US only.

Sorry dude...just the facts.

i just sold headphones to germany, so dont give me that.....

Did you remember

Did you remember to tick "EAR99" on the customs form?

i have sold headphones to many countries, including europe, asia, and south america. have not had a problem yet, but i make it clear to the buyer that i am not responsible for lost packages and customs. buyer chooses shipping options. basic shipping is generally pretty cheap from the usa but has no tracking

Personally, I do not have any issues with sending overseas, nor buying from abroad. The occasional hiccup but nothing major. But just one really bad experience would probably change that.

One thing people in the US don't get is how difficult customs can be in other countries. Here we just fill out a form a the post office and send it off... And the USPS really doesn't have any decent tracking system. I wouldn't equate unwillingess to ship overseas with racism or discrimitation -- it's just easier in many cases to ship domestically. Same reason that a lot of items on eBay are local pickup (although I see this more on european ebay than US or UK).

I've had very good luck -- I've only been scammed twice, by buyers in Vietnam (this was on eBay, not head-fi). So I don't ship there anymore. Paypal and ebay don't make it very easy for sellers when it comes to these cases -- the buyer can just say they never got the item.

I have had a litany of problems getting stuff into mainland China at work, but I've only ever shipped one headphone to china (HK) and it was a perfect transaction here on head-fi.

I have no problems with international transactions in general though -- just look at my feedback here, most of my transactions have been overseas.

Some countries have better customs departments than others -- I know for a while there were a lot of ebay sellers who refused to ship to Italy for some reason.

, i remeber filling out the form, but dont remeber what i wrote why,, whats ear99?