Category Archives: Selling Online

Where To Get Long Stainless Steel Barbecue Skewers BBQ

Where to buy long stainless steel Russian barbecue skewers.

Where to buy long stainless steel barbecue skewers? Finding good quality long barbecue skewers in the UK can be a drag. But you are in the right place to find out more.

BBQ skewers are a sector of the market that cheap Chinese manufacturers and ‘pile em high, sell em cheap’ eBay and Amazon merchants have been all over for some time.

Finding the good stuff at the right price among all the cheap rubbish out there can be hard.

If you want long stainless steel barbecue skewers, you want stainless steel.… Click here to continue reading this article

Parcel2go and Hermes (Evri) Overweight Parcel “Extra Payment Required” Rip Off.

Have you had the “Extra Payment Required” email from Parcel2Go or Evri?

As online sellers, we access the services of Hermes/myHermes (2022 edit – now Evri) sometimes direct, and sometimes through parcel2go.com – depending on which platform we are booking from.

Years ago, everyone used to book everything at 0.99kgs and anything up to about 3kgs would go through without a hitch. That was never going to last.

In the last 18 months, Hermes has started routinely weighing everything, so weights must be accurate. No big deal and not rocket science to make sure which band your parcel falls into, right?… Click here to continue reading this article

Warning About MyHermes – Delivering To a Nearby Random House is “Delivered”

If you are selling online and using MyHermes as your delivery service, here is a cautionary tale.

We send perhaps 50 parcels a day with Hermes, they seem to get most of them right. We get a few bouts of stupidity such as stuff delivered to completely different addresses, one customer found one on the road outside his house, the odd one gets damaged and the odd one has been stolen in transit (vanished).

But the numbers of those are quite low. MyHermes are as good as any other budget delivery outfit.… Click here to continue reading this article

Selling Online to Americans and Canadians: The Pitfalls.

If you are a UK online seller and want to sell into the USA, this article is for you. Selling into the US from the UK is full of pitfalls.

We all love selling online, don’t we? Especially in the UK.

America and Canada are potentially important markets to look at, as there are over 330 million people there. So we want to sell online to Americans, right? (And for simplistic purposes, we include Canada in the term ‘America’ and ‘Americans’ from here on in.)

However, selling from Europe or Australia to Americans can be fraught with problems.… Click here to continue reading this article

Paypal Access Card Problems: Transaction Declined – Money Taken

Are you having problems with your Paypal Access MasterCard?

I have started to refer to mine as the “no access” card. Rather often I am getting ‘transaction declined’ notices for no clear reason. Who needs a debit card that is unreliable?

If you have a Paypal Access Mastercard (PrePay Solutions), do PLEASE be aware that it wont always work and you must always have back up funds on you! Never rely on this card for subscriptions to anything, either.

A few days ago, my Paypal Master Card was declined (again) in Morrisons supermarket (which isn’t very cool because it makes you look like a skint member) but this time, they took they money from the Paypal account!… Click here to continue reading this article

Nochex Review. The Paypal Alternative. Or is it?

Looking for a user review of Nochex? Looking for a UK alternative to Paypal? Read on.

Later edit: thanks to the article here and teh interaction with Nochex in the comments, I have made some progress with Nochex. We are about to expand our eshop considerably and I wanted non-Paypal branded international card acceptance capabilities. Paypal pro was the obvious choice, but I don’t like all my eggs in one basket, and Nochex are a UK outfit (gotta support UK business).

I contacted Peter, who put me onto another chap, I outlined previous issues, and eventually they offered me a merchant account on agreeable terms.

… Click here to continue reading this article

Name and Shame Bad eBayers

Since eBay made the feedback system a one way street, it added yet another level to the disadvantages that must be endured by eBay sellers. Buyers (even the ones that don’t pay) now operate with impunity on eBay. Sellers are unable to leave anything other than positive feedback for buyers. This assumes all buyers are without blemish and in possession of a clean set of morals and ethics. All very well if you live in The Night Garden, but not entirely realistic in the real world.

The Paypal scammer is the worst of these.… Click here to continue reading this article

How to deal with slow, late and non eBay payers

As an eBay seller, you will have had your fair share of slow, late or non paying eBayers. We get them all the time. This article deals with how to deal with them.

The various forums attached to eBay are full of all kinds of flowery crap about how you should “wait for people” and generally sit around wondering if you are going to be paid. I don’t subscribe to those theories.

You are on ebay to sell stuff. If they “buy” it (win the bid) your next job is to get them to pay in a timely manner.… Click here to continue reading this article

eBay Buyers and Their Use of Capital and Lower Case Letters

Like any eBay seller, you want to mail an item and have it arrive. Nobody wants “item not received” claims. Our Post Office is not perfect though. The days of 1st Class being one day transit time and 2nd class being 2-3 days transit time are long gone. In reality, 1st class tends to be 1-4 days and 2nd class up to a week. That is assuming they are not on strike or delayed by snow or leaves on the line or whatever it is this week that makes it slower still.… Click here to continue reading this article