Ran a giveaway, but can't ship to winner.....

Giveaways and Contests
1

…so, I ran a giveaway on Facebook only for the winner to live in a country where Sofirn currently are having issues with Customs. What should I do?

I had a deal with Sofirn to get cheap flashlights for my giveaways since I’m a dealer, but this really sucks and I have no idea what to do. I have messaged the winner and suggested I transfer money via PayPal, but this will end up costing me more since it’ll also include the transaction fees. I was getting 20% discount on everything, but transferring money for that 20% discounted price would make it so they can’t get the flashlight in the future which would be kind of sad.

Sofirn have said shipping could be available in 2 months

2

Don’t drop ship it from Sofirn, ship it to yourself and ship from your country. That will probably be more $ but thats how to make it right.

China to Spain might be an issue, but I doubt NZ to Spain is.

3

Tell him about the two months, apologize but say you didn’t know this could happen since you had no idea what country the winner would be from.

Hell i am still waiting for a flashlight i bought on Back Friday (end of November). Last year i ordered a Convoy on Black Friday, got it in the end of January.

4

Lesson learned I suppose sad though that is, next time exclude countries that have customs or shipping issues. Getting them sent to you wouldn’t help in either scenario.
I’m not sure what customs issues would stop a flashlight from being delivered though? seems a bit weird, if it were a knife maybe, but a flashlight?

5

Welcome to my world :D

I feel for you.

I've done giveaways on this forum and on my own sites, (10-20?) and sent stuff all over the place, and certainly not without issues.

Issues I ran into:

  1. Some stores only accepted certain payment methods for certain countries, even though the same store accepts PayPal for my own country (Aliexpress)
  2. Shipping cost to the winner's country were much higher than to other countries (quite common)
  3. Sellers didn't ship to the winner's country
  4. Winner was given the choice, and opted for something that wasn't available (certain LED) yet
  5. Winner kept asking where his prize was, because it took 2 months for shipping (I can't help that)

Some of the solutions:

  1. Order it at a different store
  2. Find an online store in their country, that accepts a payment method you can use (if you can't find one, ask the winner of the giveaway)

And if there is no solution, offer him/her a paypal payment, so they can order it themselves at their favorite store?

Tell in the rules that in some cases the winner receives a different prize? That you are not responsible for DOA stuff / prize lost in the mail, refunds, import fees etc.

Sometimes, a giveaway can be troublesome, and most people probably don't realize this.

6

Maybe the giveaway winner would be okay with waiting a couple of months for the light to be shipped?

It wouldn't hurt to ask.

7

I would be ok waiting. I have no expectations going into GAWs, provided entry is free and relatively low effort.

8

Thank you for all the comments. I think I’m just going to offer funds on PayPal, the same amount without a discount, and lesson learnt aye.

That would be an extremely expensive solution. Shipping from NZ is much higher than out of the US.

The plan was to run a GAW every 2 weeks to grow my YT channel, but this is a bit of a put off, but ChibiM’s suggestion about the rules is a great idea, I always wondered what happens when they get lost or are DOA.

The guy tagged over 200 people, so feels a bit sad in this case.

Batteries could be the problem. Sofirn said they recently had heaps of packages returned from Indonesia.

Oh, actually Indonesia has Shopee and the flashlight is on there. That’ll be the best option :slight_smile: . Thanks for the suggestion