-------

Hello,
I am writing in regards to the new ups rates in one of your newsletters to me. I work for the post office as a contract box delivery carrier. We were informed about a month ago that ups had made an agreement with usps for us to deliver parcels from them to the more remote places in rural areas. Hence the new surcharge on the parcels. I didn't know if you knew this and I thought it might be of interest. Thank you for your time
Jodi

-------

Ina,
I have found that Fed-Ex ground is much cheaper than UPS or USPS to U.S. destinations.
Regards,
Steve

-------

Dear Ina,
Wonder how much of this increase by the brown machine is to just pad their bottom line?

Seems the brown machine will use my employer, the United States Postal Service, to deliver packages for them in rural areas! And of course, we (USPS) do NOT charge extra for residential delivery, rural delivery, etc!

I need Paypal to keep up an international presence for my businesses but at the same time I am extremely annoyed at the way non US and Canadian customers are blocked from using Paypal features. I've also noticed stroppy and delayed responses from customer service and I was treated very badly on the telephone when someone had hacked into my account and cleaned out the account. Paypal didn't care! I made the suggestion that the hacker could have been an employee with access to a password list and they reacted like I was calling them paedophiles!! They pretty much ended the call and hung up on me.

One such place that I can highly recommend is www.ebid.co.uk and although it seems to be a UK-only site at first glance, it has a small, but fiercely loyal, international support (for example, I am in Thailand). Ebid has no listing fee and no final value fee, therefore it is possible to list and sell completely for free - great news for sellers. It also has a very useful auto-relist feature, so after entering the auction length (1 - 10 days), you can choose to auto list it again if it does not sell. Those features can be a huge asset for promoting listings. If you have an item unlikely to attract a lot of bids, then using a 10x10 set-up means you can list it and forget it for 3 months. If it's an item that needs high visibility, using a 1x10 format will keep it near the top of the listings for 10 days or until it sells.

At eBid, the only things you pay for are listing enhancements. Most people use Gallery a lot - it's only £0.10 per listing, regardless of price. There's also a "front page featured" option that puts your listing on the front page for 24 hours, then keeps it at the top of its category until the listing closes. That costs £2.50.

The site administrators are really responsive. I've had support enquiries answered in minutes, and they do listen to the members - there's even a special site enhancements thread in the user forums, which they actively monitor. The forums are great fun, attended daily by the eBid "old guard" of most active sellers and buyers, but open to anyone. They're often used to pimp items for sale, and are a great short cut to finding the best deals, as well as tips about other sites and services.

If you're an eBayophile or PayPal addict, then you'll hate the eBid forums as their members regularly criticise those services for usury and indifference to users' problems. In fact eBid has developed and grown by removing from itself many of the complaints associated with using eBay.

Currently attracting around a thousand new members a week (not bad for a country the size of Florida), eBid is already the second largest UK auction site and is targeting the number one position. Can it knock eBay off the top in the UK? Probably rather than possibly is the answer I foresee. The corporate leviathan's inflexibility and fees (they recently started charging VAT on them as well) are losing them members hand over fist to eBid's "free to sell" environment.

Additionally, the eBid membership have a sense of ownership concerning the site, and that makes them each promote it wherever possible. ...

If you're looking for an extra outlet, or sourcing channel, then I'd recommend giving eBid a try. However, make sure you have an international payment system available, as UK bank fees for handling International Money Orders are very expensive. PayPal, naturally, is still the major player for that. However, new kid on the block www.moneybookers.com is catching on, and has the advantage that it will send money to, or receive it from, any country in the world ... unlike PayPal's restricted list of developed-nation countries. In the long run, MoneyBookers may win over PayPal, because they open access to developing nations' markets, and the wealth of traditional arts and handicrafts there. As an example, PayPal refused me an account because I live in Thailand despite all my banking being done in the UK with UK accounts. MoneyBookers had me signed up and able to send or receive money in less than 10 minutes. They're regulated by the British Financial Services Agency (FSA) and their site is very simple to use with a clear fees structure that is a lot cheaper to use than "Pay-up-Pal" - as eBidders have named it.

Another major consideration in selling from the US into the UK is that Brits are very impatient when it comes to mail order. They have an internal culture built around next day delivery, whether it's by express courier, or the Post Office. They're very understanding of the 3-7 days it takes airmail from Thailand to the UK, but equally, very derogatory of the 4-6 weeks often quoted by eBay sellers for shipment from the US east coast to Britain. Advice on this is to investigate the fastest methods, surprisingly you may find the most cost effective service is delivered by the post office, and it can be quick too. It works for me from Thailand, it should be good from North America as well.

I have been waiting to see an article on ebay's growing list of prohibited items. The latest prohibited item to make their list is a piece of Historical Americana the Purple Heart Medal. For no explained reason( only arrogant policy responses) ebay's policy is to no longer allow this item. Despite hundreds on emails from collectors and sellers ebay has given no reason way these items were prohibited last month.