Questions about the Global Shipping Program

[kalvin@ebay.com]

Do you have questions about the Global Shipping Program? Please post here & I'll do my best to track those answers down for you!

If you have any comments about the program, use this forum instead.

Thanks,

[pierrelebel]

You purchased an item being shipped from the USA through Global Shipping Program..

The listing clearly showed the shipping charge and "import charge" (taxes and handling fee).  They are payable to Pitney Bowes.

Many Canadian buyers avoid those listings.

[pjcdn2005]

The amount for shipping that you agreed to is split between the seller for the U.S. part of the shipping and PB who charge for the international shipping portion. If there are any import fees they are stated in the listing and those go to PB as well. They can be for a handling fee, taxes and/or duty....whatever is applicable.

[nuvistors]

Sometimes you have wait until you get to checkout until you see the actual  amount.

Import charges:

$14.62 (amount confirmed at checkout)

[deryck5]

For Canadian purchasers from eBay, this is a total abuse of the system, and my eBay purchases will be reduced because of eBay's cuddling with Pitney Bowes. I have been importing items from outside Canada for over 40 years, and many of the imported items have entered without customs because the value was low, or a border officer felt generous on that day, or because they just did not pay attention to the items. Now, thanks to Pitney Bowes and eBay's back-scratching, some non-customs officer is looking at a declaration on a package, and deciding what the charges will be, based on his interpretation of the declaration, and the customs regulations, Ebay profits, Pitney Bowes profits, PayPal profits, and the Canadian importer gets soaked. I will be very careful in the future over what I purchase from eBay, unless this abuse of the system stops!!

deryck5

[lafa_brands]

Been a member for over 10 years, As a Canadian Buyer and now have experienced this Global shipping program, I do NOT like this program. Import charges of 6 or 7 dollars on 20 dollar item? As I understand there is no charges on $20. Seems like higher shipping costs as well for smaller items. From now on I will give sellers that don't use this program my business first even if the item is slightly higher in price. I have also not made purchases because of this program which is losing potential sales for the sellers. ( Just today I declined to make 5 purchases because sellers were using this program.) With this program we all lose from my perspective, as a quick payer, the money I guess will stay in my pocket.

[afantiques]

Sometimes you have wait until you get to checkout until you see the actual  amount.

You can see the total before actually committing to buy, on BIN listings. Estimated is in fact generally the same as actual. The delivery address selected if it is not your normal registered address may cause a variance.

On auctions the charges are based on the current high bid but there is an option when placing your bid to see what the charges would be if your high bid was the winning bid. Obviously if the winning bid was below your high bid the charges would also be lower.

You need a masters degree in GSP to understand most of this stuff, and that is certainly what most users don't have. It is a defect of the system that they should need such advanced education.

[00nevermind00]

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@afantiques wrote:

On auctions the charges are based on the current high bid but there is an option when placing your bid to see what the charges would be if your high bid was the winning bid. Obviously if the winning bid was below your high bid the charges would also be lower.

You need a masters degree in GSP to understand most of this stuff, and that is certainly what most users don't have. It is a defect of the system that they should need such advanced education.

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This, again, shows how completely disconnected the GSP designers were from how people actually use eBay. A lot of people who bid on auctions like to snipe but doing so on a GSP item is like throwing the dice and hoping they'll fall on the numbers you want. This is on a par with the "no combined shipping" thing. Not cool eBay! Maybe you could have asked a couple of buyers how they use the site before coming up with this lame brained scheme.

A masters degree may not be enough. A Phd may actually be needed. Buyers should not have to read pages and pages of small-print legal mumbo-jumbo before they buy an item but with the GSP they really should.

And if you think there are lots of GSP items on the site right now, just wait until September 15! My purchasing has already almost ground to a halt thanks to the GSP. Come September 15, I may have to remove the word "almost" from that sentence.

Ebay seems to have forgotten that there are always two parties to any transaction: a seller and a buyer. In trying so hard to push unwilling sellers into selling internationally, they have been doing a very good job of completely alienating the international buyers who have to be part of the equation. Their program is so buyer-unfriendly that just about the only "selling" point they could find is that "international tracking" thingy which doesn't track anything. They're going to have to come up with something much better than that!

[dasia143]

I hope someone from eBay is still answering questions here. In case they're not, is there anywhere else a person can ask them a direct question? Also I wonder if any other Canadian eBayers have had this experience.

My question is about shipments handled by CanPar which I hear PB uses for some of its deliveries in Canada. Like many couriers, CanPar probably makes at most two attempts to deliver. If the addressee isn't home they get a card saying to pick up the item at the company's depot. CanPar's depot is very far from where I live.

If you're not home when they deliver, and getting to the depot is extremely difficult, can you ask for a refund and for the item to be returned to sender? Or does eBay consider the item to have been delivered to you if it's left at the depot?

Is there any way to specify before purchasing that the item be delivered by Canada Post only?

Thanks for any light anyone can shed...

[dasia143]

replying to 00nevermind00's comment, "some, and maybe many, people will discover that there is a "life outside of eBay", so to speak. Are there people who come to eBay to buy stuff that they need? Maybe. But I have a feeling that most come here to buy stuff that they want."

You have a point. I have already greatly slowed down on my "collecting" purchases because so many of them are in the GSP. Glad I bought when the buying was good! However, for Canadians there are still quite a few items one "needs"--maybe not a matter of life and death, but something one would definitely buy in Canada if only one could find it here. I have been waiting for months for a certain made-in-USA kitchen implement to appear in a non-GSP listing. And just today I bought an item I looked for in both Canada and Europe without success. It felt like winning the lottery when I found it in a non-GSP listing!

I will definitely miss eBay when the GSP completes its stranglehold, and hope a new auction/sale site will start up.

[pierrelebel]

"I hope someone from eBay is still answering questions here"

No they do not.  They stopped doing that several months ago.

"Is there any way to specify before purchasing that the item be delivered by Canada Post only?"

I do not think so.  Once your parcel leaves the eBay Distribution Centre in Kentucky, it crosses the border (with hundreds or thousands of other parcels) and will be handed to whatever delivery system (Canada Post, CanPar, etc...) best fit the bill from the forwarder's perspective.

Now, you will find staffers from eBay.ca (Toronto office) address members every Wednesday at 1:00pm (Eastern time).  You may  try your question on them at that time.

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Board-Hour-Session/bd-p/23000000073

Good Luck.

PS - The best solution is to find American sellers willing to ship to you directly using USPS (postal service) instead of eBay's Global Shipping Program (through Pitney Bowes).  If you see something you like, ask the seller.  Many will work with you.

[smooth_bomber]

There is a way around the GSP problem.  It does limit your choices but for some products it's extremely effective.  Simply put...don't buy from US sellers.  It's become much cheaper to purchase from China, the UK and other overseas sellers as compared to the US. Over time this will crush their international sales while strengthening the global marketplace.  Unless US sellers are fine with loosing their international sales I believe avoidance of US sellers will eventually put an end to this ludicrous idea.  Unfortunately, someone at Pitney Bowes is getting stinking rich in the meantime.  

This however does not work for specialty items and collectables n' such but many of these communities  have developed strong purpose built sites to allow buying, selling and trading of specialty products.  It seems these types of sites are growing in popularity and I suspect as long as the GSP is around they will also grow quicker. Examples would be Canuck Audio Mart and Audiogon for audiophiles.  More transactions through these niche market sites may allow those sites to grow and generate revenue enough to expand their security and service offerings and take a solid chunk of the eCommerce pie from eBay.  ...or eBay could just turf the GSP and keep their pie.

Either way change is inevitable as I'm not sure there are too many buyers out there anymore who are not wise the BS of the GSP.

[perfumeprincess38]

Why are people charging import charges now? Do sellers gave options? Some have import charges while others do not. I won't pay additional charges to sellers!

[007bond1]

will not buy from a seller who uses the global shipping program, my Question is how you could think that we would pay almost double the final sale price plus exchange rate to get something to Canada. I know we might be small potatoes as far as ebay is concerned but you just ruined a very good shopping site for Canadians

thankyou

[lda.lin.rv8pfvn]

Yes, I have a question about the global shipping program.  I purchased an item on ebay, and it was damaged when I received it.  So I was instructed to ship it back for a refund.  Who is going to reimburse me for the return shipping that I had to pay? 

Linda

[afantiques]

Yes, I have a question about the global shipping program.  I purchased an item on ebay, and it was damaged when I received it.  So I was instructed to ship it back for a refund.  Who is going to reimburse me for the return shipping that I had to pay?

If the item was sold with the GSP, you do not have to return it if damaged. If it was a normal ebay purchase direct shipping by the seller, the return shipping is your loss.

If it was a GSP item and you were instructed to ship it back, the instruction was wrong. The correct procedure is a Paypal claim for item not as described citing damaged in transit. This is the only way to get your GSP shipping and import fees refunded.

[jessymathault]

Hi,

I just bought an item via an GSP. I was happy to read : "No additional import charges at delivery!" and I told myself it was a clever way of avoiding surprise import charges and duties by paying them upfront. So foolish me paid these fees and bought that item. Well UPS gives me a nice invoice of 43.96$ for brokerage C.O.D. upon arrival of the parcel.

Is it normal? Who's wrong?

Thanks,

Jessy

[pierrelebel]

Contact your seller.  He most likely shipped to you directty (via UPS) instead of shipping to the eBay distribution centre in Kentucky as instructed by PayPal when you made your payment.

[jessymathault]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

Contact your seller.  He most likely shipped to you directty (via UPS) instead of shipping to the eBay distribution centre in Kentucky as instructed by PayPal when you made your payment.

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If he did, what do I do? 

[pierrelebel]

Once the seller confirms he made the mistake, you need to contact eBay/PayPal to get a refund of the "import charges" and "shipping charge" and, once they have that figured out, ask your seller to pay whatever extra charge you had because he used UPS.

It is his mistake and should have to pay for it.

[jessymathault]

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@pierrelebel wrote:

Once the seller confirms he made the mistake, you need to contact eBay/PayPal to get a refund of the "import charges" and "shipping charge" and, once they have that figured out, ask your seller to pay whatever extra charge you had because he used UPS.

It is his mistake and should have to pay for it.

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God this is so much troubles. The seller was unsure of my adress so he asked me to give it to him. (he was first instructed to ship it to Erlanger Ky). So I gave him my adress. He then paid 46$ of shipping (20$ more than what I've paid (and even asked for more money which I did not agreed to)) to ship it with UPS to my adress instead of Erlanger Ky. And I'll be asking him to pay 44$ of brokerage fees... For an item I paid 92$...