running an e-bay shop from BA - viable?

[diosaarenosa]

i run an ebay shop selling vintage clothing here in london, and want to pursue it in BA, sourcing lovely treasures locally, but concerned about the reliability of the postal system. my mother recently sent money carefully concealed in a letter to BA to a friend and it never arrived.
would love to hear from anyone with experience of running an ebay shop and what they do regarding postage.

 

[Stanexpat]

Go to EBAY and search under Argentina, you should find some other people doing this and perhaps you can contact them to find out how they do their shipping. Somebody has probably figured already figured this out.
The post office here is not good. My experience has been long waits to mail things and things mailed to me from overseas often doesn't arrive. Also you might want to look at MercadoLibre.Com which is the South American version of EBAY. It might give you an idea of the type of stuff people sell here.
If you plan on selling used clothing just remember people here usually don't get rid of stuff often until it's completely worn-out. Stuff that would be thrown away in most places is often repaired and used again.

 

[diosaarenosa]

i'm not talking run of the mill clothing the way you might envisage. i'm talking anything from the 20s - 90s, which one would deem 'vintage'. there are plenty of ferias/caritas over there, sales run by churches where clothes are sold at one peso or less, often old ladies heirlooms or people doing a random clearout, not aware of what they might be throwing out giving away. admittedly these are often out of town in gran buenos aires, or in affluent well to do areas like recoleta or similar. plus my friends in ba are involved in fashion and tend to know the places of note off the beaten track. there are still plenty of bargains to be had over there i'm sure. i've been charity shopping in the uk since i was 12 and still find amazing valuable pieces even here in london for 50p or a £1, even in today's saturated, savvy marketplace. it's having the patience and knowing where to look. yeah, i agree tho, it would be worth while liasing with other argie ebay members to get the lo-down. thanks for the advice.
thanks.

 

[mcaffa]

I am a bit of a local eBay specialist, so to speak. I have quite a bit of experience running eBay stores for local clients attempting to sell Argentine goods to the US and Europe. Since you are selling clothing, you won't have to worry about customs but you will have to keep hefty shipping prices in mind. Correo Argentino is very unreliable so to play it safe, do all shipping through FexEx or DHL. The two main issues I've run into as a seller here are:1) Lack of trust. Frankly, some people will get turned off when they see that your store is located in Argentina. Many reasonably fear that if they get stiffed, they will have no way to track the seller down and take any legal action.2) Shipping costs. Sometimes shipping can end up costing more than the actual price of the item. Shipping costs are easier to absorb or cover in your asking price if you are selling expensive luxury items, but if you are selling cheaper items you may run into some issues. Some eBay sellers have made deals with local courier services, so you may want to investigate that option.Please send me a note if you have any questions.