Some Euros Ruined My Record Auction! Part Two

Alright, picking up where we left off yesterday: Let's get into the financials. As you recall, I said that I bundled up the albums into groups of 6 and 9. I think I had 13 or 14 auctions going, give or take. A few were a bust. In the chart below, you can see my winnings for the week of April 3rd.



So, not terrible. I mean, I was really happy with the results. Here's where the problems start, hence the title of this post/article.

My counsel suggested it.

I agreed with it.

US buyers only.

In general, I love my European brothers and sisters. They have fantastic taste in music, hence their infatuation with all things American Hardcore. But it's those mother-fing shipping and customs forms that queers the whole deal. Have you ever filled out a shipping form to Germany? I'd rather be back in school writing an essay! It's absolutely miserable.

So on one of my typical listings, I would have it laid out, US bidders only:



But that certainly didn't stop European bidders from asking me questions about how much to ship. And then the auctions started ending. And the offenders started rolling in: Germany. Canada. Peru. Oh God. Have you ever seen a Peruvian address? It looks like a chalkboard in that movie, A Beautiful Mind. Anything with this in the address: (Por altura de la 16 de la Av. Velasco Astete) spells trouble in my book when you have to transcribe it to a tiny customs form. In the US it's easy: 12 Main Street. Done.

It was recently brought to my attention that if someone is, say….German, they should not have an Amercian eBay account, rather they should be going to ebay.de So essentially, they are jumping through hoops and breaking the rules to establish an American account. A lot of work to be a pain in the ass to us American sellers. And something you won't realize until they win your stuff.

Back to my auction: Now, I am *reasonably* a nice guy. I was only charging 4 dollars to ship out lots of 6 or 9 records AND offering a reduced rate on multiple wins. Despite inflation running rampant in the United States, you can still ship things fairly cheap. But Christ almighty, you should have seen the rates to ship international. To ship a small box of records to Canada (or as I call them, the Euros to our north) was over $30! Are you kidding me?? This wasn't a bag of golf clubs, it's 9 lousy records in a small box. So I got hosed on that one.

I believe I promised you a pie graph. Now, my math is absolutely terrible. I'm sure this isn't dead-perfect, but it gives you an idea of the the distribution of funds. (not to mention the corporate swindling) Let's break down the numbers.



Yes, thanks to a Canadian and German bidder, I had to tack on over $60 to the shipping fees. And fill out painfully long customs forms. My problem was that I only made up slightly inflated shipping charges when I sent them the invoice. "Oh, just add $9 instead of $4." When in fact, it was a hell of a lot more. My fault entirely.

Actually on that note, here is a much more accurate pie graph of the process on a whole:



So it was a lot of time & work for about 500 bucks. And I don't really feel like I purged our house of anything substantial. If you are in the boat that I was in, take this as a lesson. You want to ship to Europe, fine…they do pay top dollar for records. Just find out up front what postage is going to cost and make sure you pass the buck to them. On second thought, I just would ship within the continental US.
Or put the records here. -->