I’ve always been a big fan of eBay. It’s allowed me to get hold of lots of things which I otherwise wouldn’t have got, or payed a ruddy fortune for, well relatively. My first purchase, if I recall correctly, was a new lithium ion battery for my Archos Media Player. The old battery had kinda “swelled” up and no longer retained much of a charge. So for R150 or so on E-bay, I got a new battery shipped out of Hong Kong, and on my doorstep 4 weeks later.

I’ve had both good and bad experiences. Majority of my purchases have been from Hong-Kong sellers, whether it be dodgy memory cards and electronics or plain USB cables. I’ve received packages in 3 weeks and I’ve waited 8 weeks as well for a package to arrive. But I understand this, that’s what

But alas, I’m currently trying to acquire one or two products from my old Chinese friends and I look through the lists of pages, sorted by Price (including shipping to SA) and I click on a few products, find one that looks good and go on to buy it, only to be met by a page boldly proclaiming: “This seller does not ship to South Africa.” This is quite disappointing, because it happens over and over again. I’m battlign to find Honk Kong shops that will ship to SA, or practically any other country for that matter. If you check their shipping preferences, most of them look somethign like this:

Item location: HongKong, Hong Kong
Shipping to: Worldwide
Excludes: Aruba, Afghanistan, Angola, Anguilla, Albania, Andorra, Netherlands Antilles, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Armenia, Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Azerbaijan Republic, Burundi, Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Bahamas, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Barbados, Brunei Darussalam, Bhutan, Botswana, Central African Republic, Canada, Chile, China, Cote d Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Colombia, Comoros, Cape Verde Islands, Costa Rica, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Algeria, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Western Sahara, Spain, Estonia, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), France, Gabon Republic, United Kingdom, Georgia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Guinea, Guadeloupe, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Greece, Grenada, Greenland, Guatemala, French Guiana, Guam, Guyana, Hong Kong, Honduras, Croatia, Republic of, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Saint Lucia, Sri Lanka, Lesotho, Lithuania, Latvia, Macau, Morocco, Monaco, Moldova, Madagascar, Maldives, Mexico, Macedonia, Mali, Malta, Montenegro, Mozambique, Mauritania, Montserrat, Martinique, Mauritius, Malawi, Malaysia, Mayotte, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Paraguay, Qatar, Reunion, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Saint Helena, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, San Marino, Somalia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Serbia, Suriname, Slovakia, Slovenia, Swaziland, Seychelles, Turks and Caicos Islands, Chad, Togo, Thailand, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, British Virgin Islands, Virgin Islands (U.S.), Vietnam, Yemen, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Africa, Central America and Caribbean, Middle East, North America, South America

Now by looking at that page, I honestly can’t see a country it doesn’t mention, although it claims to ship worldwide, the list of exclusions is ludicrous! North America, Africa, South America as continents are all excluded. Heck they don’t even ship to Hong Kong or China, so wtf do they actually ship to?

I hope this won’t be the end of my ebaying days, because I’ve always revelled in the variety and ease with which one can purchase, and always envied the Americans and their “Daily Deals”.