Best way to send something valuable to Italy ? - advice please

[roselover]

I am selling stuff on Ebay to fund extra treats for our holidays ....(OH My God the euro is so strong!!!!????) - and I have sold a designer handbag for a 100 pounds (it was a gift I never use - dont ask)....and it has been bought by a woman in Italy - what's the best way to send it securely to Milan .....any ideas - would Royal Mail by ok (signed for obviously) ....or should I do Hermes ?.....I am in the dark here - would love some sound advice - thanks in advance. Dont care about the cost just want to to get there safely.

I'd take the belt and braces approach and use Royal Mail International Tracked & Signed. I used to work in fraud prevention for a major online retailer and then ran my own mail order business - Italy always had a higher percentage of missing post than any other western European country.

I don't send to Italy as the postal service is shocking- in 17 years on eBay had about 5 things go missing and 4 of those were italy. All signed for.

killers is right the postal service in Italy is renowned for being shot and things getting lost / taking ages to get there which enables the seller to claim it hasn't arrived in eBay's window for a refund, then it appears later. So you're an item down AND the money.

Personally, I wouldn't.

You can cancel the order citing "there is an issue with the sellers address". And you won't get a defect.

And you could always switch on your global shipping settings then offer to resell to the buyer as a "buy it now" for what they paid.

This basically means you pay to send it ebay in Northamptonshire, then they charge the buyer the postage to send it to Italy. If it gets lost it's not your problem, as long as you can prove it arrived to ebay in the uk.