@marnotom! wrote:
Also keep in mind that GSP items are likely transported to Canada in a different manner than mailed shipments, which also affects the shipping charge.
[snip]
A significant problem with the GSP is it makes shipping (an already very exhaustive and labour-intensive process) even more exhaustive and labour intensive. There is zero streamlining of the GSP into any sort of logistics chain so sellers end up having to ship packages way out of the way to get to the destination. And on the logistics chain of the GSP itself there are way too many hands involved, it may be a job-creator for the centre(s), but it's far from efficient and that is most likely one of the reasons it's so expensive as a programme.
Another aspect about the GSP is the sheer amount of complexity about how it works. In-line with my previous paragraph in how it's labour-intensive and exhaustive, why should a shipping programme need education at all? Shipping is about handing a package off to another trusted party with an appropriate method who knows how to deal with the logistics, knows how to get it to the destination and offers a peace of mind to the sender and expectant receiver.
This isn't helped by the programme's monolithic administration where a breakdown would need entire courses to understand properly and further isn't helped by the operational opaqueness in that there's no breakdowns of anything and the only practical information is speculative and assembled from bits and pieces (as highlighted by countless non-staff posts on these forums making various authoritative assertions, I wager in good faith, but it shouldn't need to be). It shouldn't be up to people to assemble information from bits and pieces, it should be on eBay and PBI in all of this to bring the programme back to the "I don't need to think about it" shipping model with effective pricing and transparency that the postal service does well in comparison.
Getting back to the operational aspect (was getting off point into the administration of the programme), one significant sign of inefficiency is when the GSP centre employees have to unpackage an item just to repackage it (for economy reasons.. none of which are passed onto the consumer of course since the employee needs compensation for the time spent on repackaging) which introduces MORE links in the already extremely long logistics chain where accountability of loss and damages is already impossible. Even further, the PBI employees likely aren't all experts in fragile items and how to ship them properly while a seller may know better than PBI in how to properly package a specific item to guarantee its proper shipment in a wide range of motions while PBI employees may deem that the package "has too much air" and proceed to repackage it. The item leaves the GSP centre undamaged, but gets damaged in transit so operationally, the damage was PBI's fault, but administratively, it'd be on the shipping company (postal, freight, etc) due to "pass of the buck" syndrome.
Also too, as I've remarked again and again, (again operationally) I feel that the ebay.com/ca website itself needs to be reprogrammed so that the GSP is disabled and made unavailable to sellers on items under $20[1] where there are no import charges like tax or duty (since that's the main focus on the programme, so why lengthen the logistics chain and make things more expensive where it isn't needed?).
It's amazing how many hours of back and forth have been going on on these very forums to discuss a white elephant in an administrative capacity where a lot of the issues come from the operational aspects of the programme and it is those operational issues that need discussion AND action to make the programme better, once those operational aspects are adjusted to make more sense the administrivia will fall in line.
It's no wonder GSP pricing is so expensive when such inefficiency is to be had with so many links added to the chain.
The GSP is a white elephant and needs significant revision.
[ 1 - http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/postal-postale/duty-droits-eng.html ]
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