Shipping to Guam?

[Woodpuppy]

Well I have successfully navigated the process of listing items for sale on eBay. I intended only to ship to the US. Normally that means the lower 48 only, since I normally include shipping cost in my asking price. My first knife sold on eBay, and the buyer is in Guam. This is a first for me; it doesn’t appear shipping knives there is restricted, and it looks like USPS handles the destination just fine.

Are there any gotchas I need to be aware of? Any paperwork that I should include in the box?

Thanks!

[Ankerson]

Shouldn't be a problem, GUAM is a US Territory.

[Woodpuppy]

Thanks. Buyer said I need a customs form, so I filled that out on the USPS site. Should go smoothly at the PO.

[Freediver]

The only difference is you need to fill out a customs form. Even the flat rate boxes ship for the same price.

[akapennypincher]

Shouldn't be a problem, GUAM is a US Territory.

Ditto.

[RustyIron]

Are there any gotchas I need to be aware of?

Yeah, a few things to be concerned about. PayPal doesn't support the eBay seller. If the buyer is a kook who is dissatisfied in any way, you're on the hook. Having an item returned to the lower 48 normally wouldn't be a big deal, assuming you're here. But if you have to pay shipping across the ocean, it can add up to a lot of cash. PayPal/eBay has control of your money and can take it back at any time. It's something to think about.

[Woodpuppy]

After some sh..tuff PayPal just pulled I’ll be dissolving my account after some things clear. I’m probably going to kill my eBay account too. I’ve got an ongoing fued with them over a manual knife that they kept asserting violated the switchblade act. They finally admitted it’s not an auto, but now claim it’s a “switch button knife” which is not a thing lol. And since I relisted the knife without some keywords, they’ve shadow banned it. It still shows up in my seller dashboard like an active listing, but if I drop the item number in the search or search for the model it’s not there. Before this war with big tech gets hot I’ll wind up going analog. Petty tyrant bastages.

[RustyIron]

Yeah... I have no interested in selling anything on eBay. I still keep PayPal active because I administrate a separate account that I created for a 501(c)3 that I'm involved with. It would be imprudent to blow that up just because of my huge ego and perceived affronts.

[Bdubs808]

I'm glad this topic has been brought up. I live in Hawaii, and often times I find that some people in CONUS are extremely hesitant to ship to Hawaii. I've messaged sellers on ebay, practically begging them to ship a guitar to Hawaii and I offered to pay in full the shipping costs. And usually they just ignore me. Is there a specific reason people are hesitant to ship here? It's a bona fide State, and when I ship knives to CONUS it's less than $10 to use basic Priority Mail (no additional insurance). Does it cost more to ship stuff here from the mainland? Is it dramatically less than $10 to ship Priority within the continent?

[Woodpuppy]

I’m sure that’s frustrating. I was hesitant because the selling world acts like it’s a big deal, and I’ve never had to ship out of country or out of the lower 48 even, until this sale. I often include the price of shipping to the lower 48 in my sales because I know it’s only about $4.90 First Class for the size boxes I use; then I state that outside that we need to look up actual costs.

[standy99]

I'm glad this topic has been brought up. I live in Hawaii, and often times I find that some people in CONUS are extremely hesitant to ship to Hawaii. I've messaged sellers on ebay, practically begging them to ship a guitar to Hawaii and I offered to pay in full the shipping costs. And usually they just ignore me. Is there a specific reason people are hesitant to ship here? It's a bona fide State, and when I ship knives to CONUS it's less than $10 to use basic Priority Mail (no additional insurance). Does it cost more to ship stuff here from the mainland? Is it dramatically less than $10 to ship Priority within the continent?

Although a Aussie I travel to Hawaii every now and then and usually buy a few things from the states whilst there as I’m usually on a 4-5 week work trip.
Only issue I have had is it is usually a bit extra to ship to Hawaii (ie $10 anywhere in the US but $20 to Hawaii)
Always pretty quick shipping due to a lot of planes fly there each day.

Oddly shipping out of Hawaii was as you say only $10


I live in Northern Australia (a bit remote to the rest of Australia) and buying a bike lately became a nightmare as it was $50 anywhere in Australia but $200+ to Northern Australia by the 1 of 10 places that would actually ship here as most wouldn’t. Ended up buying local that charged me $100 extra than the rest of the country

[Bdubs808]

Interesting, the shipping system is certainly nuanced; thanks for the input. 95% of the time there are no issues so I consider myself lucky to be able to have access to the system in the 1st place. Back when I was a kid decades ago I would have to wait 3 weeks on average for goods to arrive in the mail, and most of the time these days every things shows up in half a week or less.

[Freediver]

I'm glad this topic has been brought up. I live in Hawaii, and often times I find that some people in CONUS are extremely hesitant to ship to Hawaii. I've messaged sellers on ebay, practically begging them to ship a guitar to Hawaii and I offered to pay in full the shipping costs. And usually they just ignore me. Is there a specific reason people are hesitant to ship here? It's a bona fide State, and when I ship knives to CONUS it's less than $10 to use basic Priority Mail (no additional insurance). Does it cost more to ship stuff here from the mainland? Is it dramatically less than $10 to ship Priority within the continent?

Where on Big Island are you? I’m in Kona.

[Bdubs808]

Nice, I live in Volcano.