I sell over 1000 items a year on Ebay (under ronwc1), about 600 of those RC engines. It can be very difficult at times and learning to play ebay's game is not easy - but with that being said, it can also be profitable. They have changed their rules over the last year to greatly favor the buyer, with the seller paying all the fee's. Of course Ebay doesn't bother to tell you all the potential problems that can and do come up, their main concern is covering their *****. And it would take many pages to detail.

About 40% of my sales go international out of US. About 1/2 of those go to Australia with most of the rest to Italy and Brazil. If you don't offer international and sell outside of US, you generally won't get top dollar. As far as shipping goes out of US goes, Brazil is the worse, Mexico second and Italy third in my book. Australia is the best, very good buyers and have never had one "lost". Brazil recently changed their mailing system to "combat fraud", but did not add extra people to help, so their workers there are not happy, which results in "lost" packages. Lost a nice OS 120 four stroke there ($225) a few months ago, and got charged for it. Called ebay and paypal, their response was "that is part of the cost of doing business" - not very helpful. But in all fairness, that leaves about 399 packages that went out of the US with no problems.

The USPS is very good in US, resonable cost, very little damage and tracking is quick/easy. Once it leaves the US, they have no control. Tracking is cost prohibited going out of US, unless a very expensive engine, so you are at the other countries mercy. Shipping typical engine in US with tracking is about $6, shipping out of US about $15 (first class no tracking) - out of US with any kind of tracking/delivery confimation, has to go priority and cost goes up to about $40+.

In reality, most of my "problem" buyers are in the US. Although I manage to maintain a 100% rating, it can be very difficult, you better have thick skin. Not to mention the increasing number of US buyers that bid and then don't pay, takes a minimum of a week to straighten that out. I am starting to cancel bids and blocked most bidders that have zero rating, I would estimate that 80% of them don't pay. As mentioned earlier, as a seller you cannot leave bad feedback against a buyer, and some buyers use feedback extortion against seller to get money back after receiving item.