US only sales WHY???

Even if you list for US only you still get inquiries from other countries. I just got one from a buyer in Asia with a track record asking if I would ship there and offering to pay with wire transfer. I told him I would for my asking price and never heard back. I received another inquiry from someone in Asia whom I was willing to deal with but I had already sold the item. I shipped a tonearm to Australia last fall. But there are too many buyers like the guy from Hong Kong who "bought" an item from me and never sent the payment. The main thing is having a history of positive feedback. But there are some countries that the Postal Service will simply not offer insurance to. My bank has discouraged me from using wire transfer unless you set up a separate account for it. Has anyone had experience using them? By no means are dud buyers limited to overseas, I recently waited 2 weeks for a payment only to be finally informed that he hadn't sent it and wasn't going to but I can deal with problems here easier than overseas.

Because international law is a bitch!

I sent an item to Spain, within 24 hours of the sale.
It got hung up in Spain Customs for some time and the customer gave me some grief!

I've been liquidating a lot of gear here on Audiogon over the past several months. And, based on my previous experience with sending gear back and forth from Canada, I explicitly say, "USA Sales Only!" It was simply too much of a headache on many levels. For whatever reason, whether I was shipper or receiver, both UPS and FedEX were constantly slamming me with outrageous fees that I could never shake.

Nevertheless, I still get a lot of inquiries from Canada, and an appreciable amount from Europe and Asia. Call me foolish, but I'll settle for a far lower sale price before I send anything out of this country. As they say, been there, done that, don't want to do it again, forget it.

All that being said, I'm going to have to figure out some strategy in the not too distant furture, as I'm about to begin selling some new gear, and I'll be looking to sell internationally.

When I've dealt with Canada sales transactions which I have several times I always end up receiving a bill for additional fees from the carrier. I hate that.

Largeyo, from the majority of posts in this thread I think you get the point now.