eBay

2756anderson · ‎05-23-2018

1. It adds delays to deliveries, sometimes 4-5 days on cross-border (U.S. to Canada) shipments. I assume there are some delays in the U.S. as well, compared to direct shipping.

2. On cross-border sales, the buyer ALWAYS pays taxes. Before, when an item was shipped by post, it was common not to be charged tax for items costing up to $100.00, depending on whether or not they had official invoices attached or if shipped by stores or private parties.

3. There is a FEE added in addition to shipping.

If you were an average buyer, who spend $100 in $20 increments, the total increased cost of global shipping over normal post to post shipments could be as much as $20.00 a 20% overall cost increase over shipping direct using the postal system.

4. The psychological effect of seeing the global shipping cost on the top of a listing is to dissuade some buyers from ever buying, even if they'd owe nearly the same amount using the old method.

dasia143 · ‎05-28-2018

Returning to Canada and eBay buying after being out of the country for some time, I'm discouraged to see the GSP more entrenched than ever. I just looked into buying again a very small, light item I bought some years ago from a US seller. The seller is now in the GSP. There should be no customs fees, since the item costs much less than CAN $20, but the shipping cost is US $15. Maybe a fee is embedded in the $15? How would I know?

I have not and will never buy from a seller using the GSP, mainly because of the high shipping costs. Other compelling reasons: the use of CANPAR for deliveries instead of Canada Post (if I'm not home, the delivery goes to a depot far from my home instead of being left in my mailbox or at a neighbourhood Canada Post outlet). And of course: no combined shipping.

I have to add, tongue in cheek, that the GSP seems to meet the needs of one Canadian, who for years has been trying to persuade the rest of us that it can be a good deal. Maybe for him or her it is, but many more of us have become only occasional users of eBay because of it.

femmefan1946 · ‎05-28-2018

Maybe a fee is embedded in the $15?

Probably. And the rest would be tracked shipping.

Unlike private sellers, PB/GSP always uses tracking. And international tracking is expensive.

https://postcalc.usps.com/?country=10440

Plug the dimensions and weight for your item into that website and you will see the current costs.

Then add on the ~$5 service fee.

PB/GSP usually uses Canada Post for the last leg of the delivery. CanPar is mentioned from time to time, usually as a complaint like yours.

You can ask your seller, as a returning customer, if she is willing to set up a private listing for you and to use USPS shipping. The website will give you an approximate price.

dasia143 · ‎05-29-2018

I would prefer for inexpensive items (less than the $20 customs limit) to have the option of lower-cost USPS shipping without tracking. In more than 400 eBay purchases, the vast majority untracked, only one went 'missing' and it turned up eventually. I realize I may have been lucky.

Even as a returning buyer with a good reputation, two polite requests for listing outside the GSP were refused. Once someone did it for me as a new customer, but it was a rather special case of a collector item the seller wanted to pass on to someone who would appreciate it. I was apparently the only person interested.

The light, inexpensive object I'm seeking is available from multiple sellers in China and South Korea, with free or negligible shipping. I have ordered from China before and received the items, though they did take a long time to arrive. If I can't find the item in Canada, which it looks like I won't be able to do, that's the route I will go.

marnotom! · ‎05-29-2018

@dasia143 wrote:

Returning to Canada and eBay buying after being out of the country for some time, I'm discouraged to see the GSP more entrenched than ever. I just looked into buying again a very small, light item I bought some years ago from a US seller. The seller is now in the GSP. There should be no customs fees, since the item costs much less than CAN $20, but the shipping cost is US $15. Maybe a fee is embedded in the $15? How would I know?

Actually, we don't know for sure if there's no taxes or duties on items forwarded through the GSP with declared values of less than C$20. That exception is for items sent by mail or courier. GSP items are shipped as freight.

In the early days of the GSP, "import charges" of around US$3.34 seemed to be slapped on items that sold for under C$20. In other countries, "import charges" were similarly levied on items that were below those countries de minimis. Many buyers didn't seem to understand that even if items aren't subject to levies of taxes and duties, they're still subject to various customs processing fees. I have no idea how much of the US$3.34 was for customs processing and how much may have been alloted to estimated tax and duty, but it does seem to be about the same amount that was left over for most items with selling prices above the C$20 tax/duty-free threshold.

Now that extra amount is added to the shipping charge, so I'd say that about US$5.00 of that US$15 shipping charge is going towards various customs processing fees. Also consider that if the seller does not ship the item free within the US, some of that shipping charge is actually from the seller for shipping the item to Kentucky, although in your case I rather doubt that the GSP would be charging US$10 strictly for getting your item from Kentucky to you.

@dasia143 wrote:

I have not and will never buy from a seller using the GSP, mainly because of the high shipping costs. Other compelling reasons: the use of CANPAR for deliveries instead of Canada Post (if I'm not home, the delivery goes to a depot far from my home instead of being left in my mailbox or at a neighbourhood Canada Post outlet). And of course: no combined shipping.

If you've never purchased an item from a seller using the GSP, how do you know that the logistics firm contracted to handle your item will ship it from Mississauga by CANPAR? The complaints about CANPAR seem to date back from the early days of the GSP.

For what it's worth, CANPAR no longer serves my area. The parent company of both services shut down the CANPAR hub nearest my town and replaced the DHL hub with a Loomis one.

@dasia143 wrote:

I have to add, tongue in cheek, that the GSP seems to meet the needs of one Canadian, who for years has been trying to persuade the rest of us that it can be a good deal. Maybe for him or her it is, but many more of us have become only occasional users of eBay because of it.

I'm not sure who this Canadian is, but in my case I have found it a good deal for the items that I purchased, but nothing else. I'd continue to buy mobile phones forwarded through the GSP, but I certainly wouldn't buy cases for those phones that were shipped in this manner.

I just think that people need to do their homework and come to their own conclusions based on their own purchasing habits. Would I buy a bag of potato chips shipped by a courier's next day express service? Of course not. Does that mean that next day express services are rubbish for everything? Again, of course not.

Also consider that not everything is suitable for shipping by means such as mail, courier OR the GSP. The shipping price, even by mail, can add too much to some items' overall price. I still special order items from my local hardware store or appliance parts supply store because it's more economical to do so, and quite often the turnaround time is faster.

femmefan1946 · ‎05-30-2018

Even as a returning buyer with a good reputation, two polite requests for listing outside the GSP were refused

Yeah.

As a seller, I can understand.

Buyers may not see how much work /expense any listing is for a buyer.

Ignoring promotions, sellers pay 30 cents for a listing. The 10?% of the selling price and 10% of the shipping fee to eBay. Then 30 cents plus between 2.9% and 4.4% of the entire payment to Paypal .

So allow a good 20% of your payment as fees that your seller never sees.

Now allow 18 cents a minute (based on my BC minimum wage) to make a special listing just for you.

It may be worthwhile if your purchase is $100 or perhaps even $50.

But if you want the seller to remove GSP on a $10 item, dream on.

In Technicolor.

Many seller do not even know that they have been enrolled in the GSP program. But that doesn't mean they want to sell internationally nor that they will be willing to make an effort for a one -off customer.

And, as Lily Tomlin said, that's the truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJMKupYF14I

dasia143 · ‎05-31-2018

Marnotom, Unfortunately CANPAR is still active in my area and so are complaints from neighbours (and GTA residents at large, if one checks Yelp reviews) about how you have to drive an hour northwest of the city to their depot if you're not home when your parcel arrives, and it's only open in business hours. The GSP is so opaque about how the items are shipped, I won't risk ordering because there's no way to know who will be the shipper on the final leg.

"I just think that people need to do their homework and come to their own conclusions based on their own purchasing habits."

I find that reply a tad patronizing. It should be obvious from my first post that it's precisely because I have done my homework that I don't use the GSP. For example, I learned from this forum that they use CANPAR and don't allow combined shipping. I do appreciate the efforts that you and others put in to inform Canadian buyers of the few instances it can be useful, and to attempt to satisfy the curiosity of people like me as to why the shipping charges are so high.

dasia143 · ‎05-31-2018

Thank you for the detailed explanation, FemmeFan. I understand better why the sellers for whom I was a returning customer and the one who made the private listing made their decisions.

While the GSP may not quite be a "disaster" for Canadians, I do agree with the original poster 2756anderson that it sure hasn't been an enhancement to our eBay buying opportunities. Just the opposite, as he or she says, it's a deterrent. It would be very interesting to know if it's had a positive or negative effect on the US and UK sellers who are enrolled in it, but I suppose there are just too many variables involved.

marnotom! · ‎05-31-2018

@dasia143 wrote:

I learned from this forum that they use CANPAR and don't allow combined shipping.

The posts about CANPAR date back to when the GSP was originally introduced several years ago. I don't recall any posts about CANPAR in the last couple years' worth of posts to the two now-locked mega-threads about the GSP. That's not to say that it's not one of several domestic shipping carriers being used by the logistics companies that handle GSP items on behalf of Pitney Bowes, but the complaints about it certainly haven't been sustained.

Information on shipping methods employed may be lacking when it comes to a GSP-forwarded item's domestic leg, but keep in mind that the GSP serves about 100 different countries, and the shipping method is up to the company processing the item in the destination country. It's probably impossible for Pitney Bowes to keep tabs on everything going on in the multi-ringed circus that is the GSP.

As for combined shipping, the fact that the GSP technically doesn't support it is also mentioned on the terms and conditions page for buyers that's linked to every listing where the GSP is being used. The forums have actually suggested that combined shipping may be possible if the buyer uses the Shopping Cart when purchasing their items.

marnotom! · ‎05-31-2018

@dasia143 wrote:

While the GSP may not quite be a "disaster" for Canadians, I do agree with the original poster 2756anderson that it sure hasn't been an enhancement to our eBay buying opportunities. Just the opposite, as he or she says, it's a deterrent.

No quibbles with you there, although in my case I probably wouldn't even have considered purchasing mobile phones from the United States on eBay prior to the GSP. Sellers wouldn't have bothered offering international shipping or else it would have been crazy expensive.

@dasia143 wrote:

It would be very interesting to know if it's had a positive or negative effect on the US and UK sellers who are enrolled in it, but I suppose there are just too many variables involved.

I'd say that most sellers using the GSP would not offer international shipping if the program didn't exist, or if they did, they would be using--in the name of "protection"--shipping methods that would be totally out of line for the types of items they sold.

eBay seems happy with how much the GSP is being used for international sales. Keep in mind that 99-or-so other countries are served by it and not all of them have a combination of postal services and customs bureaux that handle casual imports in such a relaxed fashion as ours. In Germany, for instance, practically anything sent by mail that can have taxes and duties on it will have taxes and duties and processing fees added to it, and to add insult to injury, buyers have to go pick them up under their own steam.

ca_cunn · ‎05-31-2018

so0 what you are telling me is that if I don't put on my Super Sleuth costume and do more due diligence than HHS I will get royally screwed and that is OK on Ebay. That is a valuable insight, thanks!

ca_cunn · ‎05-31-2018

Simply by virtue of involvement they are ripping people off. If 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' does't want to ship to Canada, that is fine by me. I do not and will not buy from US sellers that are involved in the GSP. It costs me dearly and gives me as a buyer nothing.

dennisbenoit1 · ‎10-29-2018

I really do not like this service as well, it is crazy inefficient. Here is a snippet of a package that I have currently shipping through gsp. I am amazed that it even arrived on time, considering that it sat in Cincinnati for 2 days just to get a double Arrival scan. From the map plotted with the route below, they took the long way around to get the package to Erlanger, making a big U turn and actually doubling back from Cincinnati to Erlanger.

Package sat in Cincinnati for 2 days just to get a double Arrival scan.This is the route that UPS took to delivery to Erlanger.

femmefan1946 · ‎10-29-2018

That is all about UPS, what happened when it actually arrived in Erlanger?

And since it left Palantine on Thursday and arrived at Erlanger on Monday, I'm not clear why the route is a problem.

There is a weekend in there.
UPS like USPS* uses a hub and spoke delivery system. Your purchase was not travelling individually but in a truck with thousands of other parcels. This is counter-intuitive, but actually very cost-effective.

*And Canada Post and FedEx and CanPar and most airlines, for that matter.

momcqueen · ‎10-29-2018

for example, my Canadian-based FedEx shipments generally fly from Mississauga to Calgary before they return to Winnipeg. Spoke and hub. I get the parcels within two business days so it cannot be inefficient.

so-calslots · ‎06-09-2020

I agree wholeheartedly , I now avoid selling on eBay as you can’t leave bad ratings for buyers who don’t pay and I avoid buying as the shipping to Canada is ridiculously expensive , some times four times the value of the item and so slow. I do anything to buy or sell on other platforms and am having great success with Facebook Marketplace