Bidding on a USA auction, impossible challenge nowadays?

[rawx4u]

Hi, it seems that I am unable to bid on any item that has not been added on the international shipping program. And even if the seller is telling me the item is on the international program I can not bid on it "unfortunately the seller is not offering a shipping to your address"

I'm trying to buy stuff and 90% of the time the shipping to Canada has not been set so I cannot bid on anything anymore!

[marnotom!]

Some US sellers appear to be confused about the eBay International  Shipping service and how to get it working for their listings.  Conversely, a seller may be opted into eIS but the service won't handle shipping of certain items to certain countries, so the item may offer "international" shipping through eIS without Canada actually being on the list of "ships to" locations.

Are you browsing/searching/bidding through the eBay.ca site or the eBay.com site?  If you're eBaying on the .ca site, items that don't ship to Canada shouldn't even be coming up for you in search results, but extra-weird things have been happening on the eBay sites lately.

If you're running into this problem a lot, there may be some issues with certain types of merchandise in which you're interested.  You may want to consider getting a US address that you can either have items sent to for pickup later or to forward the item in a manner similar to what eIS does.  The big drawback with this option is that you're going to lose most of the after-purchase protections that eBay offers buyers.

This is the best information and advice I can come up with given how little I know about what you're trying to buy and from whom.

[rawx4u]

Thank you for the reply, I am trying to buy from guitars to computer components or CDs , anything. It seems USA sellers who ship to Canada (able or willing) are very rare nowadays.

It looks like this is caused by the US sellers inability to find the solution to this in the options, that's what they answer me when I ask them if they can ship to Canada.

Usually we were able to bid and deal with the seller for the outcome afterward, now we cannot do that anymore it seems.

Our buying power on ebay is considerably reduced

My money is not spend as much, it's been a couple of years like this, I'm waiting

[pjcdn2005]

If you're eBaying on the .ca site, items that don't ship to Canada shouldn't even be coming up for you in search results, but extra-weird things have been happening on the eBay sites lately.

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I've found that most EIS items ship to Canada but if they don't, they usually are not blocked on this site.  The listing will still show on .ca and say shipping not specified and that the seller may not ship to Canada . I couldn't find any example as I'm not sure what doesn't ship here  if EIS is used but if you change your location to the UK on this site and search for  diecast cars, any EIS  only listings will show as shipping not specified.   Either the block in the buyer requirements doesn't work for EIS or less and less sellers are using that block.

[marnotom!]

@pjcdn2005, the last time I saw a listing from a seller who claimed to be using eIS but it had the "shipping not specified" message on it, I tried going through Checkout on it only to be told I was blocked from bidding.  It appears there may no longer be a distinction between "Does not ship to Canada" and "May not ship to Canada, contact seller" on at least some US-based listings.

I'm guessing this is the problem that @rawx4u is running into. They're accustomed to bidding on listings where the seller "may" not ship to Canada (meanwhile being blocked from seeing listings where the seller definitely "does not") but even those listings aren't coming up for them when they search.

I'm wondering if this has something to do with the new-ish advance payment details option.  Since the seller has no shipping price to Canada on their listing, the OP can't automatically make payment if they win the item at auction's end.

[marnotom!]

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@rawx4u wrote:

It looks like this is caused by the US sellers inability to find the solution to this in the options, that's what they answer me when I ask them if they can ship to Canada.

Usually we were able to bid and deal with the seller for the outcome afterward, now we cannot do that anymore it seems.

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Shipping directly out of the US (and even Canada) has become more complicated in the past few years.  Given how international sales make up a small proportion of most US sellers' sales, it's easier for them to throw their lot in with eBay's international forwarding service, which has a heck--a heck, I tell ya--of a lot of perks to go with it.  At least for the sellers using it.

As for the seller "dealing with the outcome afterward," see my note about confirming payment details before bidding.  I do hope you were bidding on these auctions after getting the seller's permission to do so.  That's considered good eBay etiquette.

For what it's worth, using some sort of forwarding agent for international shipments seems to be becoming pretty common in electronic retail.  It's easier for the vendor, and often cheaper than shipping directly to foreign buyers.