eBay

timtosino · ‎07-13-2019

Is anyone less than impressed with the rollout of this announcement? I was away for two weeks in the latter half of June and came back to see a Chat Support message in the Chit Chats interface about no longer accepting 3rd party labels. I had to extract from the rep that this means they will no longer accept Fedex shipments as well since they don't sell FedEx labels, a huge blow to me as FedEx Smart Post was the only economical service for many of my shipments. This is a major change that would have warranted an email, but they didn't even post it to their blog or mention it in their monthly service updates.

marnotom! · ‎07-13-2019

How can a FedEx shipping label generated through FedEx itself be considered "third party"? That makes no sense.

femmefan1946 · ‎07-14-2019

More important-- do they still accept eBay USPS labels?

ypdc_dennis · ‎07-14-2019

It looks like ChitChatsExpress is streamlining/simplifying their operations.

Pushing people to use their system for labels (eBay integration available) and only dealing with certain carriers (Canada Post, USPS, Ascendia).

https://chitchats.com/how

Current users may want to check with CCE about changes that may effect them:

"Some services may only be available for grandfathered accounts."

hlmacdon · ‎07-14-2019

Probably more profitable to make margin on the shipping. No real reason otherwise as carrier choice doesn't effect the actual importation process into the US.

timtosino · ‎07-14-2019

3rd Party to Chit Chats maybe? This is why I called them on their confusing wording, they should have just outright said they won't accept labels printed via the eBay/Amazon/Etsy interface. and you must purchase everything through them now.

timtosino · ‎07-14-2019

No, they won't accept eBay printed labels and are forcing you to purchase all postage through their service.

ypdc_dennis · ‎07-14-2019

@hlmacdon wrote:
... No real reason otherwise as carrier choice doesn't effect the actual importation process into the US.

It does cut down the number of places they have to deal with in the US when sending the parcels onward. Plus reduces the workload when filling their trucks.

timtosino · ‎07-14-2019

But it does reduce the number of options we have, as said in my op sometimes USPS isn't the most economical option. While I understand the rationale behind their decision I'm more upset on how hidden and confusing their announcement was with nothing else on their website or blogs to explain this meant all labels must be purchased from them and discontinuation of FedEx. Makes me wonder also if there are customers who advertised that they ship FedEx who will be in for a rude surprise in August if they didn't catch on what that single chat message meant.

hlmacdon · ‎07-14-2019

@ypdc_dennis wrote:
@hlmacdon wrote:
... No real reason otherwise as carrier choice doesn't effect the actual importation process into the US.
It does cut down the number of places they have to deal with in the US when sending the parcels onward. Plus reduces the workload when filling their trucks.

I suppose there is that, but most border crossings tend to have clusters of shipping/forwarding providers that all act as drop off points for all the carriers. Some minor savings I guess, but they'll be making more on the postage spread. Less options and forcing people into their preferred carriers might not be the best idea. I can see them losing some SMB commercial business to other forwarders but I'd guess they are more focused on the casuals since larger shippers have figured out the process for themselves or just engage with UPS or Fedex directly on their cross border forwarding services.

cottagewoman · ‎07-22-2019

They will most certainly be losing SMB business - I'm my case it'll be going from 1500 packages a year to maybe 500. The PayPal exchange fee to pay for labels from USD is an instant 2% hit since buying labels from CCE can only be done via credit card. More daily book keeping hassle. And to top it all off a minimum of a 40% price increase on handling fees for my bigger packages since CCE is now using dim weight - an 8 pound VCR packaged properly for safe shipment was 2.00 handling, it'll jump to 5.00 handling with dim weight. Really sucks that what was a service that wanted to help resellers in Canada is now forcing us into their corporate structure, not offering us options.

timtosino · ‎07-22-2019

Agree with you totally, I didn't even mention that exchange rate issue as my sales are mostly to the states and most of the money in my PayPal is in USD. Having to purchase the label with my CDN balance in ChitChats just adds another level of unwanted paperwork. The dimensional weight change hasn't affected me or their site is still buggy. I shipped a board game earlier this month and the site calculated my rate to be $2 but only $1 was deducted from my balance. Speaking of the website there's still no mention of the change anywhere in their blog, all leading me to believe they wanted to cover this up for a long as possible. A great place to put the notice would have been where they ask if you need to purchase postage or not.