eBay has sent an email to US sellers informing them that they will be automatically migrated to the online marketplace’s International Shipping Program before the summer.
As well as opening up potentially lucrative new overseas markets, eBay’s International Shipping Program also promises to manage the tricky international returns process at no risk to the seller.
How Does eBay’s International Shipping Program Work?
eBay’s International Shipping programs aim to make shipping products globally as easy as delivering goods to your home market. International orders are shipped to a central US hub. Once the packages have been accepted at the hub, the sale is marked as complete, and eBay handles everything else.
This includes the tricky process of managing international returns.
No Sweat International Returns
In a move many eBay sellers have dismissed as “too good to be true,” eBay’s International Shipping Program will manage all international returns at zero cost or effort by the seller.
Speaking on a recent eBay for Business podcast, eBay director of exports Chad Stewart explained how the returns process works.
“So once an item comes to our hub, from that moment on, the sale is complete for you,” says Stewart. “You, as a seller, no longer have to worry about an international return from your buyer. And that includes the item and the international shipping.”
Stewart offers more context to explain how this works.
“When a buyer opens up a return request, that information comes to us. We’ll accept that return. We offer 30 days global returns. Those items come back to our hub in Chicago, at which point we are then preparing those items to be sold again on the site. So those items will not be destroyed unless obviously they’ve somehow come back to us destroyed. But the vast majority of these items end up just finding another home with a buyer within the United States as we tried to list those items on the site as well.”
Updating Your Listings
Once enrolled into the program, your new listings will automatically default to eBay International Shipping. In addition, any existing Global Shipping Program listings will be automatically updated.
Meanwhile, if you have existing listings with eBay international standard delivery or USPS international as shipping options, you will need to manually update those to receive the benefits offered through the new eBay International Shipping program.
To learn more about how Frooition can help you bulk update your existing listings, schedule a discovery call with one of our eBay experts.
