Is this Shipping Safe?

Hey there! We actually get asked about international orders and freight forwarding quite a bit.

Swappa is primarily a US-based marketplace. The vast majority of the Swappa community resides within the US. However, we allow some international buyers to place orders on Swappa as long as a few criteria are met:

• Buyer must use a US-based freight forwarding service
• Buyer must use a US-based financial institution to pay through PayPal

In order to minimize hassle for sellers, we also require that buyers ask the seller for permission before making a purchase, in order to make sure that the seller is okay with shipping to a freight forwarding service.

Learn more on our FAQ:

• International Sales on Swappa
• Freight Forwarding on Swappa

Requiring buyers to ask if freight forwarding addresses are acceptable implies there is something unsavory about freight forwarding addresses. Is there something unsafe or unreliable about it? Have sellers gotten ripped off by shipping to these types of addresses? Thx!

Hey, Don -- thanks for the question!

There are actually a few reasons why we require that international buyers ask for permission before making a purchase using a freight forwarding service. The primary reason is that we want buying and selling on Swappa to be as simple, safe, and easy as possible.

Adding a freight forwarding service into the mix introduces an additional potential point of failure, as the item has to pass through multiple hands before it gets to the buyer. This could potentially result in issues such as lost or damaged packages.

In addition, shipping times will be longer and returns are significantly more complicated when buying outside the US.

Despite the potential issues, we would rather allow the practice than prevent it entirely. However, in order to keep our sellers safe and make selling on Swappa as simple as possible, we require buyers to ask for permission first -- at which point, it is up to the seller to decide whether or not they feel comfortable proceeding with the sale.