Blocking countries

As many of you, I am a seller who is NOT here to LOSE money. Some countries have very poor postal services, where the package is almost guaranteed to be lost every single time (during covid or otherwise).

Tindie does not make it easy to block countries in my shipping options.
What I want to do is BLOCK ALL then ONLY ALLOW the countries that I wish to ship to.

What I am having to do now is create a number of shipping options for each item which seems unnecessary to me.

Once an item is lost, I will never deal with that country again. There is no point in continuing to lose good money after bad.

Using a shipping option with tracking (for some countries) is hugely expensive which makes selling to that country impossible.

I hope Tindie will update the shipping options soon.

A few changes I have made:

Using tracked packages which I was pricing at $15 to European countries. It seems a lot for one item but I created a Buy More Save More rate that allows the buyer to have free shipping for all additional items. If they buy 10 products they are only paying $1.50 each for shipping

During the pandemic I did lose a couple of packages but because the shipping was purchased through PayPal I filed a claim for the shipping. Less lost revenue I know but at least a partial refund. Some packages were delayed but eventually turned up.

I have very recently decided to use Priority Mail for International. It is very expensive but I offer the same Buy More Save More deal. As a result I have had much fewer orders but when I do get them they are larger and guaranteed insured delivery.

I am very happy to share what I can from experience if you would like to find out more.

Best wishes.

Here in Canada the tracked packet shipping cost is way too expensive for anywhere other than North America. Sending a small item in an envelope overseas using tracked packet will cost more than $80.

When you are selling a $30 item, this is unreasonable, and nobody will buy your item.

I see that you are mostly selling ISP programmers so it is difficult to see how someone would want to buy more than one item at a time. I don’t really get any international orders now that I have increased my shipping charges.

Let’s hope these postal services and customs improve soon. They can’t use the pandemic as an excuse for ever surely

I know this is an old thread, but Tindie shipping options does allow this and I have been using it for years.

I have 3 basic shipping options with USPS. US Only. Canada. Everywhere Else.

In the Everywhere Else option I select the countries I won’t ship to. This is currently

a) countries that apparently can’t deliver mail
b) countries that USPS can’t currently ship to (check this for updates monthly)
c) countries that participate or support in the invasion of neighboring democracies.

If you wan to block all and then select what you want just shift-click on the whole Exclude These Countries list, then ctrl-click on the ones you want to permit.Easier than shift-click them on one by one…

Thank you arielnh56,

As you mentioned those are the alternative choices many store sellers can adjust on their product listing pages.

Thank you for sharing and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day,

Bryant Ramirez
Tindie Customer Support Specialist

Let’s hope these postal services and customs improve soon. They can’t use the pandemic as an excuse forever surely

I don’t know why it has to be so complicated.
Control click does nothing.

Why can’t the countries on the LEFT be selected or highlighted, then click an arrow (>>) to send the blocked countries to the blocked countries list? Or would that be too easy?

I would think that (logically) the countries in the Blocked list are countries that are actually blocked this doesn’t seem to be the case.

The instructions here:
https://sf-tindie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4401798924692-How-do-I-create-a-shipping-rate-
are totally useless.
Specifically this statement:
Just highlight the ones you want excluded and use the control/command key to select multiple.

Ok so then what? Once highlighted, how do you send the highlighted selections to the blocked side?

I am trying to block specific countries. This is what I am doing:

Select Everywhere else.
Then on the right, the list is populated with countries I DON’T want to BLOCK! (Like Australia, Germany, etc.)
There is no way to remove them from the list unless there is a keyboard sequence that Tindie is keeping secret from its sellers. The instructions in the link above do not describe how to do this, is it me?
As far as I can see, you have to have a separate shipping option for every single country in the world!
That would have no common sense whatsoever.

This is normal web dropdown multi-select stuff.

The set of countries the rule applies to is:

The countries you select on the left MINUS the countries you select on the right.

So you can create your rule by selecting the countries you want on the left.

OR

You can select Everywhere Else on the left and select the countries you don’t want on the right.

If you want to select (exclude) most countries on the right, then (on PC) click the top one (Australia) then scroll down and shift-click last one (Zimbabwe) to select the whole list. Then control-click to de-select individual countries that you don’t want to exclude. Careful here - if you ever click or shift-click at this step you mess it up and have to start again.

The keyboard options for this are different on Mac, but they do exist. I don’t Mac.

Thank you for responding but I think you did not understand my question.

I understand the normal web dropdown multi select stuff.

The question is what to do when it is selected? is there a hidden key that I am not seeing?
Do I select save? What then?
This is a very simple question that I think Tindie should have included in the “how to” link I provided above.
It would be very exhausting to have to refund the buyer every single time and explain to him/her that their country is on the blocked list.

Re-reading your comments I think I see your misunderstanding. The stuff that counts in the list at the right is the stuff that you click/select/highlight.

The list gets populated with unselected stuff when you select a region on the left. They don’t count as excluded until you select them.

Yes, you need to click Save to save your changes.

Hey mcuprogrammers,

Would you mind connecting with support at hello@tindie.com so that we can further assist you with making your selection for blocked countries for international shipping.

Looking forward to connecting,

I tried saving but it does nothing - the problem still exists:
all of the countries that I do not want to block are in the list!!

(please look at the picture I uploaded)

Countries Australia, China, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom.
I want to remove these countries from the blocked list on the right.

I don’t see a logical way to do this.

here’s mine. note the ones I block are highlighted. In yours you have not highlighted any

Thank you again.
I got it now. It is extremely tedious to have to do it this way.
Why wouldn’t a check box suffice? (it’s how ebay does it)

I can’t tell you HOW MANY TIMES I pressed shift by accident and had to start all over again!!

I have multiple items with multiple shipping options.
This is going to take a long time.

I wish there was an easier way (you know, one that makes common sense).

Thanks a million Arielnh56 for all your advice!

I don’t really get any international orders now that I have increased my shipping charges.

yeah, you need to click Save to save your changes.