eBay

kalvin@ebay.com · ‎09-26-2013

Feel free to share your thoughts about the Global Shipping Program here.

A few questions to get the ball rolling:

What has worked well for you with the Global Shipping Program?
Any ideas to help improve the experience for Canadian buyers?
What has deterred you from buying items offered using the Global Shipping Program?
How have you managed to search for items outside the program?

Please try & keep the comments constructive 🙂

If you have any questions about the program, please post them here.

~Kalvin
eBay.ca Community Manager

kalvin@ebay.com

golf6969 · ‎02-21-2014

I have bought numerous used items on Ebay and not once have I paid taxes on anything! Explain my latest post a $55 hat plus $20 shipping plus $40 import fee. Does it make sense to pay more fees then the actual value of the item?

shelleyinez10 · ‎02-21-2014

Why do we have to pay these ridiculous "import charges" that are now being added to cost of shipping charge. They are grossly too higher! They're more than duty charges to import. What a scam !!!!!!! E-bay has really taken a turn for the worse. Basically anything you could get out of country at a slightly cheaper price is now much more expensive.

Thumbs down E-Bay. You suck.

marnotom! · ‎02-21-2014

@golf6969 wrote:

The biggest scam I have seen. Have not purchased anything on Ebay from the USA since it was put in. Click on the auction to see why.
A $55.00 hat that has a $20 shipping charge and $40 import fee to Canada!
Seriously, the fees are more then the auction bid price!

Please explain why I would bid on this item?????????

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/2014-New-York-Islanders-NHL-Stadium-Series-Knit-Pom-Hat-LIMITED-EDITION-RARE-...

The listing is an auction with a "Buy it Now" option. The import charges in the listing are calcuated on the "Buy it Now" price. If you find the seller's other listing that's a straight "Buy it Now" you'll see that the import charges are just slightly higher because the seller is asking a bit more for the hat in that listing than they are in the one that you found and posted a link to.

If you were to win the hat for $55.00, you should be paying less in import charges than what's stated in the listing.

reallynicestamps · ‎02-22-2014

Import charges are made up of duty plus your province's sales tax plus a small (approx $5 usually) service fee from Pitney Bowes who collect and remit the Canadian duty and tax and then ship the item from thier plant in Kentucky to your doorstep in Canada.

The Canadian government charges duty (and tax) on any imports over $20.

If you think, as I do, this should be higher, perhaps matching what cross-border shippers can bring in, write to your MP and say so.

The address is

House of Commons

Ottawa ON

K1A 0A6

You don't even need a stamp on the envelope, so that's a loonie saved right there.

ace_4420 · ‎02-22-2014

For Gods Sakes... This GSP should NOT apply to Canadians buying from the USA or vice versa. We share the same continent. GSP is for International countries overseas (Australia, England Etc). .. Ace

afantiques · ‎02-22-2014

We share the same continent.

St. Pierre and Miquelon shares the same continent but it is a French 'Departément'

arlene_v · ‎02-22-2014

@marnotom! wrote:
@golf6969 wrote:

The biggest scam I have seen. Have not purchased anything on Ebay from the USA since it was put in. Click on the auction to see why.
A $55.00 hat that has a $20 shipping charge and $40 import fee to Canada!
Seriously, the fees are more then the auction bid price!

Please explain why I would bid on this item?????????

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/2014-New-York-Islanders-NHL-Stadium-Series-Knit-Pom-Hat-LIMITED-EDITION-RARE-...

The listing is an auction with a "Buy it Now" option. The import charges in the listing are calcuated on the "Buy it Now" price. If you find the seller's other listing that's a straight "Buy it Now" you'll see that the import charges are just slightly higher because the seller is asking a bit more for the hat in that listing than they are in the one that you found and posted a link to.

If you were to win the hat for $55.00, you should be paying less in import charges than what's stated in the listing.

This in a nutshell is an example of what is wrong with the GSP.

... how often haven't we seen this self same issue raised on various threads on various boards?

It's not that people are stupid ... but many report interpreting these auction style with a BIN "import charges" this way. So the "GSP team" needs to look into this, and change this somehow, to ensure that buyers can understand the charges more readily.

How to do this? Don't ask me, I didn't suggest the GSP is a good idea. In fact it is for reasons just like this that I think it a very bad idea.

People look at things quickly .. and reach a conclusion.

How much beta testing of this program was done with regular folks who buy on Ebay?

golf6969 · ‎02-22-2014

I would like to know the charges before I bid. I have no idea what they will be so I don't want to bid and they get stuck with a crazy high price. There has to be an easier way to figure this out doesn't there?
Frustrated Ebayer!!!!!!!

femmefan1946 · ‎02-23-2014

We share the same continent. GSP is for International countries overseas (Australia, England Etc). .. Ace

At a guess you are thinking of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which deals with items manufactured in Canada , Mexico, the USA and for some reason, Chile.

NAFTA does not apply to items assembled in NAFTA countries from parts manufactured elsewhere.

NAFTA does not apply to items sold in NAFTA countries but manufactured or assembled elsewhere.

Items that may be duty-free under NAFTA are still subject to Canadian sales taxes which range from 5% to 15% of the value of the item.

St. Pierre et Miquelon is in fact part of France. The principal occupations are fishing, smuggling and French Immersion courses for Canadian public servants.

bignosycat · ‎02-23-2014

bignosycat · ‎02-23-2014

And stop advertising this Program as a service to buyers because it is not!

Also have flashing red lights when someone goes to bid on an item and misses global shipping! On the USA board they have buyers who miss this one seller had 4 items that buyers would not buy they did not notice the program

bignosycat · ‎02-23-2014

"

Was on the USA site received a response about GSP from eBay employee. He states under $50 is not a good fit how does the seller know how much their item is going to sell for? Seller told me they could not take GSP down when they had bids. He lost over $100 the item sold for $200 I was going to bid $300 but would not bid due to GSP. I get items for $200 plus without duty and it written on the package. I like the random method.

http://community.ebay.com/t5/eBay-Chat/Global-Shipping-Charges/m-p/19148623#M19432 link to post

This is what I wrote on post: My writing skills suck at times sorry!

This is a money grab what eBay SHOULD be doing it TEACHING USA sellers how to ship to other countries. I asked a seller why are they charging Brokerage fees and she said what, where do you see that. The seller does not know what Import fee service is. She is using because she thinks it takes any liabiliy away from her and hidden expenses. If the seller wants to use it let them pay it! First it was PayPall (eBay owned) if they find this Pitney Bowes "import service" making money will they want to buy it? How much is eBay making from this venture? Are they getting money from advertising it on eBay site? There has to be something in it for eBay it maybe small and hidden

This is what eBay employed wrote

Quick note in response to this topic and thread.

In very general terms, the GSP is not considered a good fit for items priced under $50. You can read about that and more on the FAQ page: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/shipping/globalshippingprogram/update_faqs.html

When buying an item with the GSP an estimate of the total charges appears on the listing. And then the total charges are shown on the checkout page. Sellers can always check total charges on the View Order Details page.

And lastly, the newly-launched GSP landing page explains how the whole thing works --

http://ebay.com/gsp

afantiques · ‎02-23-2014

Also have flashing red lights when someone goes to bid on an item and misses global shipping!

Some people would give money to a crook who says 'I am going to steal your money' because they admire his honesty.

There is only so far you can go to protect people from the effects of their own stupidity, then you just have to stand back and watch the train wrecks.

afantiques · ‎02-23-2014

Unless sellers do something unusual, which is to look at their items with the ship to location set to somewhere abroad, they never see anything of the extra shipping costs and import fees.

Buyers, try to understand that the seller DOES NOT SEE WHAT YOU SEE.

arlene_v · ‎02-23-2014

Bignosycat - just a heads up - this thread of yours will almost certainly get merged with the comments or questions threads about the GSP ..pinned to the top of the page.

The vast majority of posters to this board think that the GSP is a very flawed program.

Had PB or Ebay done beta testing of this program with 100 randomly chosen Canadian buyers, they would have realized what this program is not a "good fit" for our unique situation regarding the way the CBSA assesses taxes (or rather, doesn't) on lower priced items coming over the border. The $50 amount is really neither here nor there.

Had PB or Ebay done beta testing of the program with 100 randomly chosen US sellers, they would have realized that opting sellers in through stealth (as has been done) is not good for anyone. Many sellers are unaware that they are enrolled in a global shipping program. This often results in major SNAFUs ...

Seemingly, very little research was done. They were too quick to roll out a program and make it very widespread, and international buyers and US sellers are the unfortunate guinea pigs in this corporate experiment gone wrong.

So I choose to boycott all GSP sellers. We CAN speak with our wallets.

00nevermind00 · ‎02-23-2014

I was about to say that this thread will certainly be merged into the huge mishmash, one-size-fits-all GSP comments thread, but Arlene beat me to it. I inquired about this merging of all GSP threads on a recent board hour and was told that this is done so that the GSP team can read all the comments from Canadian buyers and get a sense of how the program is received. I replied that this should be abundantly clear by now and asked whether they were going to stop merging the threads. I was told that no, they weren't. So if you don't like it (I know I don't), tough!

Bignosycat (I LOVE your screen name BTW), you got the canned reply that also seems to be a one-size-fits-all. Instead of repeating ad nauseam on the boards that the GSP is not a good fit for items under $50, why don't they do something about it? Why don't they make it so a pop-up screen appears whenever a seller is trying to list a (let's say) $2 item with GSP? Something like "You are trying to list an item under $50 with GSP. The GSP is not a good fit for such items because of the added costs to the buyer. Do you wish to proceed?" Then have the seller click "yes" or "no".

It seems to me that this would be a lot more useful than endlessly repeating the party line. Even though we know that the $50 thing is a gross oversimplification. I have seen $300 items that are not a good fit for GSP.

This $50 figure really appears to have been plucked out of thin air in response to the overwhelmingly negative buyer reaction to the program. This reaction was entirely predictable and should have been anticipated had the program been devised by people who have even the most rudimentary knowledge of what it is to buy and sell on eBay.

pocomocomputing · ‎02-23-2014

There was a Weekly Session with eBay GSP as the main topic a couple of weeks back

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Weekly-Chat-with-the-Global-Shipping-Team-F...

One seller (I can't name or mods will pull it) in post #8 comments on GSP that they are using it this year. They appear to know how to ship internationally (See their post #3 about customs disclaimer). The seller has 19,000+ feedback so an experience seller. Their current listings at all under $30 with the majority under $10.99.

Why did the forum GSP specialists not inform her that her items were not good candidates for the GSP from a product type and price point of view?

Also look at post #17 for an interesting tidbit of info on what a seller can see.

A feature that I have found very helpful when processing GSP sales is the Packing Slip that is available through Selling Manager. It highlights for the buyer exactly how much they paid the seller vs how much they paid eBay/Pitney Bowes/other.

I point out the info above because many sellers using GSP state they do not know what charges the buyer see. At least some sellers have the info if they use Selling Manager. Whether they see if is another question.

If the seller posted the above info, how come they are not sensitive to the amount charged.

i*m-still-here · ‎02-23-2014

@afantiques wrote:

There is only so far you can go to protect people from the effects of their own stupidity, then you just have to stand back and watch the train wrecks.

You posted that people who buy via the GSP and miss the fact that they will get smacked with unexpected costs are so stupid that there is no way to protect them.

You've just insulted the hundreds of posters above who did just that.

marnotom! · ‎02-23-2014

@i*m-still-here wrote:
@afantiques wrote:

There is only so far you can go to protect people from the effects of their own stupidity, then you just have to stand back and watch the train wrecks.

You posted that people who buy via the GSP and miss the fact that they will get smacked with unexpected costs are so stupid that there is no way to protect them.

You've just insulted the hundreds of posters above who did just that.

Please post the quote in question or the post number instead of paraphrasing unless you're happy to look as though you're slandering others. You must be referring to a different post as I don't see a reference to the GSP in what AF posted.

i*m-still-here · ‎02-23-2014

@afantiques wrote:
Also have flashing red lights when someone goes to bid on an item and misses global shipping!

Some people would give money to a crook who says 'I am going to steal your money' because they admire his honesty.

There is only so far you can go to protect people from the effects of their own stupidity, then you just have to stand back and watch the train wrecks.