@luv4orphans wrote:
Alright I get it. But think about it. What you are telling me is that the processing fees is in the import charges. If there is no import charges because item is under $20.00 then the cost of shipping this item to me by GSP (or Pitney Bowes I think is what they are called) is free? I don't think so, its already added on into the shipping fees no? I am almost certain that there is processing fees whether its $20.00 or under. They are certainly not doing this for nothing or out of the goodness of their hearts are they? Or do they only start charging a processing fee for items that are over $20.00 or above. Obviously not.
One more time. 🙂 When the value of an item is more than C$20, the processing charges are added to the taxes and called "import charges". When the value of an item is less than that, the processing charges are simply added to the shipping charge. The processing fees are never added to both the import charges and shipping charges.
@luv4orphans wrote:
Sellers in the US ship to this outfit which is cheap for them as they are shipping within their own country. So maybe they avoid a lot of the fees that the rest of us have to pay on shipping charges. One item doesn't make much of a difference but add 100 or 200 items at cheap shipping rates. Customs doesn't bother most of the time with collecting the duty and taxes. I was going to say something but I certainly don't want to put something like that on here. So they get this outfit to collect for them and of course its good for the US sellers. Do do they get nailed on the $3.00 that it costs to ship to Pitney Bowes or on the whole $15.59 that Pitney Bowes is charging me to ship the item to me?
If a US seller is doing their job properly, they'll only be paying Final Value Fees on the item price and their first listed domestic shipping option, no matter if they're using the Global Shipping Program or shipping directly to their non-US buyers.
The GSP has been around for over a year now. I think that at this stage, the sellers who are using it are ones who haven't offered international shipping in the past and have figured that the GSP makes it somehow easier for them. It's marketed as making international shipping as simple as domestic shipping. Once PitneyBowes takes possession of the shipment, the seller is no longer responsibility for loss, damage or delays in customs, for instance.
Of course, the marketers had to make this program somehow attractive to the buyers who are actually footing the bill for the service, so they went with the "all customs charges pre-paid" angle. That might work in some instances, but probably not for the types of items most Canadians buy from the US through eBay.
@luv4orphans wrote:
PitneyBowes is making money or they wouldn't be doing it whether an item is $20,00, $15.00 or $200.00.
Of course it is. Last I checked, PitneyBowes was a business, not a registered charity. 🙂 Having said that, on most of the items I've checked, the amount that PitneyBowes charges above the taxes and duties due seems to be less than Canada Post's C$9.95 charge for collecting and remitting taxes assessed by Canada Border Services. Given that there are several subcontractors working with PitneyBowes and eBay on the GSP, I suspect that PitneyBowes' slice of the pie is a pretty slim one indeed.
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