sir recorder

Does anyone else use Ebay to buy goods from UK?

Do they ever arrive safely and in a timely fashion?

I ordered something 8 days ago, and am still waiting.

In UK I get stuff within 3 to 4 days.

liveaboard

I buy things from there from time to time.
You have to be sure that the good are located and shipped from within the EU; often goods are shipped from Hong Kong.
Then they get stuck in customs, and can take weeks; and you get a customs bill to pay before thay let your goods through.

For goods located within the UK, I received mail in anywhere between 5 - 14 days.

However, Royal mail now ships through GLS in Portugal instead of CTT [the post office]. GLS isn't doing very well with the new workload.
And they don't deliver to postboxes at all, so if you're adress isn't at your house, where someone is home to receive it, you might never get your parcel.

I now use my mobile number as the first line in my address. This has worked 100% so far.
I live in a numberless house on a nameless road.

scott909

I used to use eBay UK a lot, and everything worked perfectly. However, due to the problem that Liveaboard mentioned with GLS, I have now stopped as had many problems with deliveries. I might give the mobile number trick a whirl though!

Benny Dorm

I don't think there is a problem buying off ebay as long as you check the sellers feedback. Ebay have a habit of claiming that a seller is "Top Rated" and when you read the sellers feedback there can be many disgruntled buyers either because the item never arrived or was not as described. I recently bought an item that did not arrive after 21 days, fortunately the seller was honest and provided me with a refund, but don't expect much help from ebay when things do go wrong

sir recorder

Two items I have ordered have not arrived after more than two weeks. One seller says it takes time "to clear customs". Is that mail-order-speak for "don't expect delivery at all" despite advertising a short delivery time at time of ordering?

I thought UK and PT are both members of the EU with no customs barriers between its internal frontiers.

I won't be using Ebay UK again in PT. These sellers will get a bad report from me for effectively lying about delivery time.

liveaboard

If it was sent from the UK, there is no customs; but check carefully. Just because you order from ebay.co.uk, it doesn't necessarily mean that's where the item is shipped from.

There's a spot where "item location" is listed. sometimes also I found the sender's address on there.

Lots of things are sent from the far east or the US. Then you can easily wait for a month or two, and there can be a considerable customs demand as well.

There are some bad sellers, but I have to say I've always had good service fro Ebay sellers. As stated above, check their feedback ratings before you buy.

Lentisc

I dont use Ebay, but even companies like Amazon are tending to use couriers for delivery, these fail to deliver due to the problems mentioned above.

The Mobile phone idea sounds a good idea. I too used to send orders to family members in the UK who then sent on to me via CTT to my local Post Office.

I have had problems ordering items from a Lisbon based company who again use couriers, so it really is an headache.

sir recorder

One of the items I ordered eventually arrived this morning

Domino

never tried ebay but couple of weeks ago made a purchase on amazon, the goods arrived in 5 days by courier
excellent service considering it was postage free !

.

Mike

Between the 3 of us at work we must have at least one deliver from amazon a month. Courier is MRW. Same guy each time. Even knows not to come at lunchtime now! From order to delivery is normally 3-4 days if in stock.