Shipping item from the US to Brazil using USPS experience (problem)

There are a lot of complaints from e-Bay community about shipping item to Brazil. Starting from fraud buyers to customs holding items for too long and also the tax (import duty) impost to the item. Most US e-Bay sellers are having trouble dealing with fraud buyers from Brazil. Although there are may some genuine buyers but most are giving them bad experience shipping to Brazil. The number one problem with Brazilian buyers those who buy item via Paypal and when the item has been shipped and received they open the dispute case especially non-trackable USPS service. They probably knows there are 50:50 chances to win the case but they have taken their chances. This has create a lot of anxiety to the sellers especially when the item is expensive and not including the hassle they are going through to provide all the necessary documents to e-Bay and Paypal to prove they have shipped the package. This is very frustrating to do a business with so many problems stand in the way. As a result most of the US sellers have stopped selling to the Brazilian.

The second problem of shipping to Brazil is their customs clearance - sometimes it took up to 6 weeks for the item being held in the customs until the buyers got frustrated and open a dispute to request for refund. However if the sellers agreed on the refund and then the item eventually release the buyer will get the item and their money which also a complete loosing situation for the sellers. So this is another significant hurdle stopping them to ship item to Brazil.

Last problem is with Brazilian customs tax (import duty) - the buyer having to pay 30% import duty of the shipped item value as too much especially if the item is very expensive. Refusal to pay the tax would leads to the item return or confiscated by the customs officers. And this frustration will leads to the buyer open dispute case in Paypal - which the sellers will have to deal with again.

The 3 major problems above are not the only one that stopped people from sending item to Brazil - there are other special cases. And in most cases the sellers usually at the loosing end of the problems. Despite eBay is offering Extra Protection program to 34 countries including Brazil but the hassle of time and money involved is very discouraging for most sellers.