Ebay Global Shipping Program

[SleightOfHand]

I'm selling some vintage magazines worth around £5 each, could be around 10 in total, buyer from the USA wants me to post using something other than GSP as it's expensive and slow they say. Would you think this is worth the risk? Or even possible at this stage, no bids as of yet, it's a couple of days before end of auction.

Make sure you weigh them. Magazines can be surprisingly heavy and once you get over 2kg Royal Mail (or anyone else for that matter) will be prohibitive. We have had no problems (yet) with using Royal Mail to USA. Hermes International I dislike because their tracking system is awful once they leave the UK so you have no idea if the parcel has arrived or not. I assume they must have done as no complaints but still marked as undelivered on my account.

Thanks for the tip OneInEight. I've just weighed them 1kg, I think I'm going to tell the buyer that due to insurance and postal issues I'll have to stay with GSP, I can't be doing with the worry without using GSP. Least once it reaches the depot after a couple of days it's Ebays problem. I was thinking of offering one free magazine if they order and stay with GSP.

I once had a buyer that won something on my auction, I am in U.K. She was in India or something. She then messaged me asking if I can cancel the sale, as eBay was charging her way too much, but asked me if I could still post it to her but outside of eBay. So, my only option was to receive funds from her then I posted it via Royal Mail, tracked n signed. She was very happy to do this, and also sent me the payment as friends and family so that I wouldn't get paypal fees.
Obviously there's a lot of trust in that and she trusted me. I could have just done one with her money and not bothered sending it! Of course I posted it and emailed her the tracking number etc.
Lovely girl, I hope she liked it.
But that's a one off I think. I doubt there's many buyers that would agree to such terms!

Yes, I think that was pretty risky but glad it worked out for you.
I have messaged hopefully my buyer about sticking with GSP and they seem fine about it, so, so far so good.