Here is another thing that I learned about UPS on Thursday. I tried to ship an item without a box although it was in a plastic hard case.

I ship spools of wire all the time with Fedex at work, but I don't pay the shipping bill, so I really don't care what it cost to ship. It's easier for me to just slap a label on the wooden spool then to try and find a box sturdy enough to put it in.
 

Mostly from work. I check the loading dock just about every day. Finding boxes usually isn't an issue, but packing materials is harder to come by.  One day there was two big boxes of bubble wrap, I took them both. Another day they got new chairs and they were packed in long sheets of thin foam, 1/8 inch by 20 inches by 30 to 40 feet. I took it all from the trash carts, brought it to a store room and rolled them up into 15 rolls. I attempted to sell them on Craigslist for $30, but no one was interested. I've been using them to pack my own Ebay shipments for the last couple months now. It's also been every useful as a background for my ebay photos as the attachment shows.

 

In all my years selling on Ebay, I've only once had someone do a local pickup, even thou it's on all my actions. And it was for a Word 97 CD no less. The guy sat in his car in front of the house installing it on his laptop before he left. Guess he was verifying I sold him a good copy/key code.
 

I firmly believe the value of items on the show are over estimated by the cast. I saw a storage unit with vending machines Dave Hester won for $1,850. They were estimating the value was 29k for 5 vending machines. I've personally sold vending machines online on Ebay and I can tell you they are not worth that much. A guy I know purchased four coffee vending machines for $1,500 each, with the plan of opening his own vending machine business.  Unfortunately he wasn't aware that the vending machine business has been saturated for years. The dream of starting your own vending machine business is pretty much a pipe dream, pushed by people who sell vending machines. When he realized couldn't start his own business, he tried to sell the machines back to the vendor he brought them from, they offered him $250 a unit, even though two of them were still new in the box, never opened. Which I'm sure they would have turned around and sold to another sucker. Anyway back to the point, I ended up selling these coffee machines for this friend of a friend for $300 each, that's the best I could get for them. So Dave Hester's estimation of is way over blown, only a sucker with a deluded dream of starting there own business would pay full retail for something a person in the vending machine business knows they can get for pennies on the dollar from a sucker that paid full retail.

I listed and sold one item on one of those free days, Ebay still takes there commission cut if you sell it. The last item I sold went for $300, Ebays cut was $29.16, not including Paypals cut. Free hell, they pay next to nothing for server drive space, it's all pure profit to them. 

I can say I know quite a bit about international shipping.

My first international shipment to Canada I used UPS to ship some software, UPS uses a private company to open the packages for customs and assigns a value to it for tariff purposes. Even though I only sold it for $40, the buyer was charge tariff's fees based on a $200 value. I refunded the guys money to cover the tariff fees and he rated me positively on Ebay.  So a word to the wise, never use Fedex. UPS or other private shipper for international shipments unless you make the buyer understand he is responsible for all tariff fees. What I usually have done since is say the item is a gift or repaired merchandise to help the buyer avoid tariff fees shipping via the postal office.

Over the years I've accepted Foreign Checks, Foreign Mail orders and Paypal transactions. I've always made it clear that the funds have to clear before I ship, for international checks it's generally 2 weeks. I never had an issue with any International postal shipments to Europe, I even shipped to Brazil and Singapore. The last international shipment I sent to Mexico never arrived to it's destination. I ended up received the package back after over a month with a few of the star war figures missing. So as a rule of thumb, no more international shipments for me.  

Would I ship packages internationally again for an EBAY auction that stated no international shipments? Sure, if the price is right, but next time I would only use UPS or FedEx and make the buyer aware that any tariff fees is his problem. I just don't trust the postal service in some of these third world countries anymore.    

In my case the buyer was much more understanding. How long has it been since you shipped? Any insurance? Will the package be returned to you if undeliverable? Out of maybe 20 international shipments I really only had an issue once and I did get the package back eventually.

I've had problems with Ebay before, when I attempted to sell Microsoft software in sealed boxes, they removed my listings. I send them a photo of the software box with a current issue of my local newspaper and I didn't have any issues after that.  They also removed a police badge I was trying to sell as well. I have a whole bag of old police badges and no where I can sell them. I believe the policy is the badges must be at least 100 years old and obsolete, the ones I have are only 70 years old and obsolete.

Currently I work 2-10 AM sorting packages. Worked this shift for 10 years until my job maintaining and operating high speed letter sorting machines was eliminated. ...

I did two years of Grave shift at a casino, I know how it is. You can't understand why the stores are not open 3am in the morning when your awake. Took me a good 8 years to get a normal 9-5 schedule job at the casino, that was until some investment company brought the company and forced me back to shift work. I hope they ROT in hell, but I'm not bitter.   Leaving there was the best career move for me.