"but Canada Border Services and Canada Post don't charge the importer for them."
Small correction.. Canada Border Services doesn't instruct Canada Post to charge the importer for them. Canada Post does not ever make that decision themselves. CBS applies the invoice to the package for them to collect. Picky technicality but figured I'd toss it in 🙂
Okay :
- What has worked well for you with the Global Shipping Program?
Nothing. 2 items purchased with this program, one arrived broken (according to seller was repackaged without half of its packaging etc.), the other one was repackaged as well, from a box to a plastic envelope (again according to seller) but was not broken.
- Any ideas to help improve the experience for Canadian buyers?
Remove the GSP program. Let sellers, buyers and the Canada Border Services look after applicable charges and taxes.
- What has deterred you from buying items offered using the Global Shipping Program?
I don't like paying for shipping twice, and I won't purchase anything that gives me an 'estimate' and tells me 'final values will be calculated at checkout', at which point I am commited to honoring the purchase. Call me a silly consumer but I like to know the total cost BEFORE I commit to buying. Duh. If I walked into a china shop for that porcelain figurine and the seller said "it might cost $35 but it might cost $40... can't tell you till you're at the checkout" I would look at them like they were out of their mind (here's looking at YOU ebay! 😉 ) Then I would walk out and not buy anything.
- How have you managed to search for items outside the program?
I have but I'm not telling you. I have little trust or confidence in ebay with respect to this program and I'm not so sure that asking that question isn't just to find out how much more you need to 'hide it' from buyers. I'm sure if you wanted to come up with something to enable buyers to search for items that didn't use the GSP you could do that without our help, so I strongly quesiton the motives in asking that, sorry.
On another note, I recently asked a seller of an item I wanted who had the GSP on the item if he had listings without the GSP or could make one. His first response to my pm? This seller had 1,000+ feedback, so not a 'newbie'.
"Whats the GSP?"
I sent him a screenshot of how the listing appeared to me and showed where it had the GSP info and 'estimated' costs, gave him links and explained my point of view. Unfortunately by the time I'd received his response I'd purchased the item from another seller.
He thanked me for the information and said that explains why the bottom has fallen out of his sales to Canada. He said he used to ship 3 - 5 times a week to Canada and it has dropped to 1-2 times A MONTH. Asked me to be sure to contact him in future if he had something I wanted, as he had no trouble listing it without the GSP and would be more than happy to.
15 - 20 lost sales a month.. thats substantial. He's not getting any money and neither is ebay.
You can have all the details on this program that you want on information pages but the plain fact is that shopping on the internet is supposed to be EASIER than heading out to the store to hunt something down. Or to find something unusual. It's not supposed to involve a half hour of reading and then another half hour of trying to decide if what was read is decipherable. People aren't interested in that. There's a lot of people that say "hey the information is there, too bad for you if you didn't read it first" but thats not what shopping online - and formerly on ebay - is supposed to be about.
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