Conflict with Canada Post Solutions for Small Business discount and applying eBay shipping discount

[action-power]

I do all my shipping with the integrated Canada Post calculator in eBay.ca. Recently signed up for Canada Post Solutions for Small Business and currently qualify for "Level 1 Online" discounts. 

The conflict is that the discounts for Solution for Small Business customers vary wildly - both based on shipping method (Regular, Expedited, Xpress, USA/International), as well as package dimensions. The discounts are always listed as "up to" a certain percentage. You would have to look them up in a chart for each customer, depending on shipping location, method, size, and weight. This in itself conflicts with the benefit of having an integrated calculator do it for you.

Under eBay site preferences for Canada Post shipping, the interface only allows a flat percentage discount from a list of presets (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70%) which is applied to all listings. A preset discount percentage can be set for each of Domestic Shipping and International Shipping.

I have called Canada Post already and spoken with 4 different departments for Small Business customers before reaching a dead end. Nobody seemed to know anything about it or what discount would apply for eBay sellers in particular.

What do I do? Wing it and set a reasonable discount to be competitive with US sellers? Calculate an average discount between all the available rates and apply that? Call Canada Post back and request to negotiate a flat percentage discount for my SFSB account?

[reallynicestamps]

Small Business Solutions is fine for occasional sellers who are buying shipping labels over the PO counter.

But Paypal labels are often cheaper, as are the new Shippo , which I understand will replace it soon.

These are also integrated with eBay so addresses, customs labels and payment are pre-filled.

And Canada Post has a much simpler service now called -- aaagh, senior moment!   ShipSure?

Any discounts are yours. You don't have to, nor should you, pass them on to your customers.

When you use Calculated Shipping, you enter the dimensions and weight of your packaged item into the Sell Your Item form.

Your customer then sees the cost to his doorstep as a flat fee.

If your items require a lot of packaging, you can also add a 'handling' fee to cover your materials and labour costs. This is not separated out from the shipping fee your customer sees.

Well, maybe I'm not a fancy gentleman like you, with your... very fine hat. But I do business. We're here for business.-- Captain Malcolm Reynolds.

[reallynicestamps]

Ah-- It's SnapShip.

The biggest problem with it is that you have to pay by credit card (rather than a PP balance like Shippo and Paypal itself) and the discounts are not as generous as Shippo.

Check out the various posts by ypcdennis for more on this.

He makes charts.

[action-power]

So bit of a problem with some of the things mentioned...

SFSB only offers a post office rate designed for occasional sellers at Level 1 - called Level 1 Post Office. Past that is all geared for online sellers (Level 1 Online, Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 are all for online sellers).

Printing labels through Paypal with the integrated eBay Canada Post calculator - although a small discount is offered by making an online label - will actually be more expensive compared to if I were to apply a SFSB discount directly through eBay. Also, the online label printing discount and a SFSB discount applied to my eBay shipping charges would technically stack saving both myself and the customer money on shipping.

I would have to disagree with keeping my shipping discounts. I don't believe it is correct to profit from shipping charges that my seller pays - profit should be in the price of the item and/or its markup, shipping is merely a service. I would hope to hear more peoples' opinions on this though.

The goal is to increase sales and lower shipping prices for the customer. My item prices are competitive, but my shipping charges are not competitive with US or international sellers, which seems to be a major gripe of almost all Canadian sellers using Canada Post. Canada Post has overpriced retail rates for nearly all types of parcels and everyone knows it.

I need to, and want to, pass these shipping discounts onto my customers because I would rather increase my views and number of sales by having lower shipping, rather than keep my prices the same (no change from buyer's perspective) but take a cut of the shipping as profit...

[ypdc_dennis]

---

@action-power wrote:

I do all my shipping with the integrated Canada Post calculator in eBay.ca. Recently signed up for Canada Post Solutions for Small Business and currently qualify for "Level 1 Online" discounts. 

The conflict is that the discounts for Solution for Small Business customers vary wildly - both based on shipping method (Regular, Expedited, Xpress, USA/International), as well as package dimensions. ...

Under eBay site preferences for Canada Post calculated shipping, the interface only allows a flat percentage discount from a list of presets (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70%) which is applied to all listings. A preset discount percentage can be set for each of Domestic Shipping and International Shipping.

---

It's called calculated shipping -- on eBay.CA Canada Post is the carrier. On eBay.COM the carrier used is USPS. The default calculated value is the official rate with no discounts.

The discounts you can set on eBay have nothing to do with Canada Post. The discounts are generic.

eBay's discount system is very primitive and really should be improved -- it can work for those sellers who only use one service for all of their domestic sales and one service for all sales to the rest of the world.

But for sellers (like myself) who sell a variety of products and use different shipping methods as appropriate, it's useless. Particularly when I want to use a discount for Canada, but no discount for out of country -- but that can not be done since the minimum is a 5% discount (you can't use 0%).

...

The option to have calculated shipping display the eBay discounted shipping rate would be a nice choice to have.

-..-

[ypdc_dennis]

---

@action-power wrote:
... I have called Canada Post already and spoken with 4 different departments for Small Business customers before reaching a dead end. Nobody seemed to know anything about it or what discount would apply for eBay sellers in particular.

What do I do? Wing it and set a reasonable discount to be competitive with US sellers? Calculate an average discount between all the available rates and apply that? Call Canada Post back and request to negotiate a flat percentage discount for my SFSB account?

---

Canada Post can't help because the eBay shipping discount percentage is an eBay generic term and not designed with Canada Post in mind.

You can't negotiate rates for you SfSB account -- you'd need to be big enough to step up to a Canada Post commercial account (last time I checked, more than 900 parcels / year)

I tend to just wing  it. Most of the SfSB discounts are fairly small for the first level (I consider it the cost of packaging).

...

Canada Post's Snap Ship: until the end of July there is an extra 15% off your SfSB discounted rate.

Supposedly (I haven't been able to test it yet), eBay has special discount for Small Packet of 25% off until January 15 -- when handled by Shippo (currently in beta test).

After July 31, if you buy shipping directly from PayPal (not through eBay) you will see the same discount as if you bought online from Canada Post (advantage over CPC is you can use your PayPal balance to pay).

...

For International sales, never use a surface service, while inexpensive, it just takes too long for eBay selling.

-..-

[action-power]

---

@ypdc_dennis wrote:

---

It's called calculated shipping -- on eBay.CA Canada Post is the carrier. On eBay.COM the carrier used is USPS. The default calculated value is the official rate with no discounts.

The discounts you can set on eBay have nothing to do with Canada Post. The discounts are generic.

eBay's discount system is very primitive and really should be improved -- it can work for those sellers who only use one service for all of their domestic sales and one service for all sales to the rest of the world.

But for sellers (like myself) who sell a variety of products and use different shipping methods as appropriate, it's useless. Particularly when I want to use a discount for Canada, but no discount for out of country -- but that can not be done since the minimum is a 5% discount (you can't use 0%).

...

The option to have calculated shipping display the eBay discounted shipping rate would be a nice choice to have.

-..-

---

As far as I can tell it seems you are correct SFSB discounts do not take in account package dimensions... BUT it does take weight into account. See https://www.canadapost.ca/assets/pdf/smb/Parcel_PriceGuide_SFSB_level_1-en.pdf

Also you are right that the site preferences for shipping discounts does refer to calculated shipping which should apply overarchingly on any all shipping methods chosen - but be careful, the interface does clearly says Canada Post discount which is why I mentioned it, even though it would seem technically incorrect. Check out the attached screenshot.

I don't think it's fair to say that the shipping discounts have nothing to do with Canada Post, because if you were to set one and you ship by Canada Post as the majority of Canadians do, then the domestic shipping discount most definitely applies to Canada Post rates!

I can definitely see how a seller like you shipping with many different methods and may not be using Canada Post - neither having a Canada Post discount rate nor the current discount interface options on eBay will work for you. For me, since I ship everything with Canada Post, and if SFSB had a much more simplified discount rate structure for eBay sellers, being able to apply a percent discount on all my items could be extremely beneficial.

[ypdc_dennis]

---

@action-power wrote:

I don't think it's fair to say that the shipping discounts have nothing to do with Canada Post, because if you were to set one and you ship by Canada Post as the majority of Canadians do, then the domestic shipping discount most definitely applies to Canada Post rates!

---

I'm referring to contacting Canada Post with questions about it --- this is entirely an eBay issue.

-..-

[ypdc_dennis]

---

@action-power wrote:
I can definitely see how a seller like you shipping with many different methods and may not be using Canada Post - neither having a Canada Post discount rate nor the current discount interface options on eBay will work for you. For me, since I ship everything with Canada Post, and if SFSB had a much more simplified discount rate structure for eBay sellers, being able to apply a percent discount on all my items could be extremely beneficial.

---

I ship everything with Canada Post. Different mail services have different SfSB discounts.

...

eBay has their own Canada Post discounted rates -- if you buy shipping through eBay -- then that is the discounted rate you pay -- not the rate you get for your level of Solutions for Small Business.

Until last year most of the eBay discounts were around the SfSB level 2.  Canada Post has been making some big changes this year to make SfSB more attractive to shippers, so that is no longer true.

...

Canada Post will not modify SfSB to have a special eBay discount. That's what the eBay CPC shipping agreement is for.

-..-