eBay

huhtaca · ‎09-24-2021

Why? Why would a shipping company ship 4 or 5 states further southwest, away from it's destination to then turn around and fly it into Toronto, and then further onto Ottawa? Just ship it directly to Montreal, Quebec and then send it to Ottawa from there. Simple. It cuts a week from the shipping time. A logistical nightmare and extremly inefficient.

fh991586 · ‎09-24-2021

It actually make a lot of logistical sens to divert everything through one main hub. And that exporting hub is connected to another one in Canada, which receives everything before processing it to other divisions in the country.
Your problem is that you think you are entitled to be served before others, without paying the real fee associated with such a service...

marnotom! · ‎09-25-2021

It sounds as though you've purchased an item that's being shipped through the Global Shipping Program, which is not a "shipping company," but a network of carriers, logistics companies, and freight forwarders. Think of the GSP as the glorified forwarding service it is and its system starts making more sense.

The GSP serves about 100 other countries in addition to Canada. Sellers ship the item under their own steam and with the carrier of their choice to the Erlanger hub from where it gets redirected. There's now a number of US-based e-tailers that get stuff out to Canada in a similar fashion. Look out for items you purchase from the United States that have a Canadian return address on the shipping label. The address isn't for a Canadian branch of that e-tailer, but a logistics company or Canadian shipping hub.

The GSP wasn't built for speed, but my experience is that the delivery time estimates on the listing page are pretty accurate, or at least were when the COVID buying-spree wasn't at its peak.

Think of the GSP as like going on a city bus to the other side of town. It's not going to take the most direct route that you'd take if you were driving there, but it's going to pick up a lot of other passengers along the way, some who may share your destination, some who may get off along the way. The bus also cuts down on the number of cars on the road.

Also consider that for me on Vancouver Island, if I were to mail a letter to someone across the street from me, it would first go off the island and get processed in a Vancouver suburb before coming back to the island and my town.

reallynicestamps · ‎09-25-2021

The Global Shipping Program is a SELLER PROTECTION.

The seller is not responsible for delivery, or much else of the Money Back Guarantee, if she uses the GSP.

Public relations bumpf aside, it offers almost nothing to the buyer.

Nor was it ever intended to.

The SELLER PROTECTION program has one small bonus for buyers, the GSP service charge is ~$5 while it is $9.95 for Canada Post and $25 or more for private shipping companies like UPS.

intimewithmusic · ‎09-27-2021

Not sure if it's "logical" in respect to global warming...

marnotom! · ‎09-27-2021

@intimewithmusic wrote:

Not sure if it's "logical" in respect to global warming...

But the item isn't going on a solo road trip; it's travelling with many other packages, some with the same destination, some with different destinations.

For some airlines and some destinations, if I'm flying to a destination in the interior of British Columbia from an airport on Vancouver Island, my flight could take me to Edmonton or Calgary first before connecting to a flight to the Okanagan. Is this any worse for the environment than a direct flight when all the flights are in place and carry lots of passengers anyway?

Also consider that more parcel hubs means more destruction to the environment when those hubs are constructed. And then consider all those employees that have to commute to those hubs.

patchr_jth5b0r5m · ‎09-27-2021

As you can see by my feedback count, I'm a nobody, but I've recently had a few items delivered to a PO box address in western Canada under the GSP, and I'm actually pretty happy with the experience. I had a horrible experience a few years ago that almost vanished my parcel into the ether, but it seems like they've corrected most of the problems since then.

I do agree that it's perhaps not the most environmentally friendly system, but individual carriers often do some pretty weird routing on their own, so it's probably moot to worry about the GSP's Kentucky hub specifically.

aramatic · ‎09-28-2021

"Your problem is that you think you are entitled to be served before others." What an absurd claim. The writer is pointing out the nonsense of the GSP shipping hub. Everything has to go to Kentucky. That's not the case with USPS, which delivers items more quickly and less expensively than the bloated and glacial GSP.