eBay

threebears63 · ‎01-31-2013

Hi all,

I read the CP and ebay information regarding the end of small packet surface mail, as well as the end of the included insurance in small packet airmail shipments.

However, lately whenever I pop over to the CP website to get an estimate for shipping, even if the package size and weight is within the light packet restrictions, light packet is not shown as an option. What gives? I though they were just getting rid of small packet surface.

I have been able to choose light packet as a shipping option through PayPal, but is that about to go the way of all things as well? When items are light and inexpensive I always prefer using the light packet option because it is quite a bit less expensive than small packet so it is more attractive to buyers.

Any information anyone has would be appreciated.

Cheers!

Heather

ypdc_dennis · ‎01-17-2017

@westernstargifts wrote:
DH went to both our postal outlet today and to Canada Post. Neither one had any literature on the new postal rates and they could not tell him what the Light & Small Packet rates were. I had already placed stamps on my packages using the old rates and told DH just to drop them in the mailbox. CP doesn't even let their own employees know the new rates, let alone their customers.

All the employees had to do was look then up on the Canada Post computer system. But printed literature should have been available.

As for rates, in the past, parcels at the old rates were accepted for a day or so, before Canada Post bothers with underpaid penalties.

USA (2017)

000-030g .. 1.20 lettermail under 5 mm
031-050g .. 1.80 lettermail under 5 mm
051-100g .. 2.95 O/S lettermail

101-200g .. 5.15 O/S lettermail
000-200g .. 6.84 Light Packet

201-300g .. 8.60 Light Packet
000-250g .. 8.61 Small Packet (Air)

201-500g .. 10.30 O/S lettermail
251-500g .. 11.29 Small Packet (Air)
301-500g .. 11.75 Light Packet

501g-1kg .. 16.82 Small Packet (Air)

Rest of the World (2017)

Small Packet (air) is divided into 10 rate zones -- + UK zone 2 rate shown.

000-030g .. 2.50 lettermail under 5 mm
031-050g .. 3.60 lettermail under 5 mm

051-100g .. 5.90 .. O/S lettermail

000-200g .. 10.10 .. Light Packet
101-200g .. 10.30 .. O/S lettermail
000-250g .. 10.27+ . Small packet (air)

201-300g .. 11.50 .. Light Packet
251-500g .. 19.75+ . Small packet (air)
201-500g .. 20.60 .. O/S lettermail
301-500g .. 21.00 .. Light Packet

500g-1kg .. 38.72+ . Small packet (air)

1.0-1.5kg .. 48.46+ . Small packet (air)

1.5-2.0kg .. 58.20+ . Small packet (air)

-..-

westernstargifts · ‎01-17-2017

All the employees had to do was look then up on the Canada Post computer system. But printed literature should have been available.

As for rates, in the past, parcels at the old rates were accepted for a day or so, before Canada Post bothers with underpaid penalties.

That is what I told DH but I guess they couldn't be bothered to look it up for him. And yes, printed material should have been available but they never seem to get it on time anymore.

I put stamps on because i knew they would accept mail at the old rate for a few days. If they want to raise the prices they should have the new rates posted ahead of time.

Thank you very much for posting the rates for me.

free-n-r-g · ‎03-02-2017

I had this same glitch. I say glitch because when I refreshed the Paypal page, Light Packet magically reappeared 🙂

trikiliki · ‎05-17-2017

Sorry to revive a zombie thread but now Light Packet USA is all of a sudden not showing up for me in the shipping options drop down menu, for two days now. I have refreshed, signed out and back in, cleared cookies, re-started my computer, even ran a virus and network scan and still the same issue; Light Packet is not an option.

To ship with Small Packet is significantly more expensive and it would come out of my meager profit. I called PayPal and they don't have a clue, say there have been no news of Canada Post stopping that option and don't know why this is happening. Is any one else experiencing this currently or know something that can shed some light? This is a big problem for me, its already hard to be competitive, adding $3 more to my shipping costs going forward will sink my business.

femmefan1946 · ‎05-17-2017

Start a new thread.

These zombie threads get ignored because there is so much out of date and incorrect information on them.

PS I use postage stamps, and never have a problem with Light Packet/LetterPost rates.

LP shipments are not tracked anyway so there is little advantage to having a label.

And did you know you can buy discount mint/never hinged postage stamps on eBay? Discounts are often 20% less than PO counter rates.

rose-dee · ‎05-17-2017

@trikiliki wrote:
Sorry to revive a zombie thread but now Light Packet USA is all of a sudden not showing up for me in the shipping options drop down menu, for two days now. I have refreshed, signed out and back in, cleared cookies, re-started my computer, even ran a virus and network scan and still the same issue; Light Packet is not an option.

My apologies for keeping the zombie alive, but I can tell you that twice now I've not been able to find Light Packet on the Paypal label drop-down list. Then it magically re-appeared a few days later.

I don't think it has anything to do with Canada Post, nor with your computer or a virus. I've had some really serious issues with the eBay-to-Paypal shipping label link the last couple of weeks, and I suspect the programmers are busy tinkering around in the background.

My guess is that all the recent issues with eBay labels might possibly have something to do with the fact that eBay is introducing a new shipping platform soon (something called "Shippo", yikes).

Since Light Packet doesn't seem to be available even on the new Canada Post website (at least I couldn't find it the other day), your only option is to go to the Post Office I suppose, or if you have no qualms about sending an item to the U.S. or overseas with lettermail, use postage stamps.

As if we didn't have enough issues already with shipping...

dutchman48 · ‎05-17-2017

Light Packet may also go away , as has been rumored for some time.

Then we will be forced to use small packet and get another increase.

ypdc_dennis · ‎05-17-2017

@dutchman48 wrote:
Light Packet may also go away , as has been rumored for some time.

What rumours?

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-18-2017

You are not seeing light packet USA on PayPal shipping? I haven't had any problems with it and am still seeing it now. What measurements and weight are you entering? Are you using cm and kg?

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-18-2017

On another topic....I noticed that on your listings you are using usps priority for a shipping option to Canada and internationally. If you are using Canada post you shouldn't specify usps but instead use standard or economy internationally shipping. You should see it in the drop down on the listing form.

rose-dee · ‎05-19-2017

It's not related to the weight/dimension inputs. Three times now I've gone to do a shipping label in the usual way for items that fit within the Light Packet parameters, and Light Packet had simply vanished from the drop-down list on Paypal.

The first two times I paid more and used Small Packet because I was in a hurry to get a label done. Yesterday, when Light Packet was gone again from the Paypal drop-down list, I stuck stamps on the parcel and drove to the Post Office to mail it via Light Packet.

I have a running discussion with one of the new "pinks/blues" over this issue. I'm going to give him the link to this thread, because he did say that Paypal labels should continue to work properly during their transition away from eBay, and that he'll contact them if sellers are still having issues.

So please, anyone who has, like me, encountered missing service options (Light Packet or otherwise) on Paypal labels, or been unable to actually get to the label screen (you get a red message saying labels are not available when you go to pay and continue), then please post your experiences here so the eBay rep will see them.

trikiliki · ‎05-19-2017

I think the postage stamp option will not work for me but thanks for the suggestion Femme.

No, I still am not getting the light packet option! Its so strange and I am quite annoyed about it. I hope it comes back...

Thanks so much for the tip about correcting the usps to standard/economy intl from outside shipping, I didn't realize. I haven't updated my listings in forever since business dropped to a trickle in May 2014! I am finally getting the motivation to see what I can do to revive things so I will do that.

I think I'm also going to increase my prices just a touch and offer free Canadian shipping (My fees to sales ratio is downright rude!) and adjust my international shipping accordingly based on the increase in item price and make sure it covers small packet rates just to be on the safe side since I don't know what is going on with light packet!

trikiliki · ‎05-19-2017

Oh so Im not the only one! The PayPal rep had no clue why this was happening and was no help. I really hope this gets fixed. I am curious to know why its only a select few encountering this problem.

trikiliki · ‎05-19-2017

Oh by the way, is there a bulk shipping editor that will adjust my selections for everything, or must I go through each listing one at a time? I looked but I didn't see anything of this nature, maybe I am not looking in the right place...

rose-dee · ‎05-19-2017

@trikiliki wrote:
Oh so Im not the only one! The PayPal rep had no clue why this was happening and was no help. I really hope this gets fixed. I am curious to know why its only a select few encountering this problem.

Yes, when I phoned Paypal they blamed eBay. EBay says it's a Paypal problem. I have no idea why only certain people have encountered it, and apparently neither do Paypal or eBay. Let's hope it gets fixed asap, whoever is responsible.

trikiliki · ‎05-19-2017

Yes please! I also ended up using small packet for 2 orders. I would not have been able to get to the post office in a reasonable amount of time to do it manually so I just bit the bullet on those two, but I can't keep doing that.

By the way, I should have mentioned this and I am not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I had a strange pop up in PayPal from Canada Post wanting my account number and to verify my return shipping address, which was pre-filled in the pop up box. I had gone through Ebay "print shipping label" for this transaction and it took me there. It would not let me bypass it to continue on to complete the shipping transaction, every time I x-ed out of it, it brought me back to my PayPal main page with this stupid box. I also tried just going directly to the transaction in PayPal, not through Ebay and the same thing kept happening. So I assumed it was mandatory (and PayPal condoned since it was happening within PayPal) and entered my venture one card number and clicked accept. Then it brought me to the shipping transaction and this was the first time I encountered the missing light packet option, which is still missing, going on 4 days now.

When I called PayPal I told them about this, they said this Canada Post account request pop up had nothing to do with them and they don't know anything about it but did say he had also spoken to someone else getting this box but they had been able to x out of it and continue (I was not able to do this) and they did not report any missing shipping options or anything else out of sorts.

I ran a virus scan, nothing, malicious software tool, cleared cookies, refreshed browser, tried other browsers (initially it was happening in Explorer, but Firefox does the same, tried on my mobile device, its the same across the board.

rose-dee · ‎05-19-2017

@trikiliki wrote:

By the way, I should have mentioned this and I am not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I had a strange pop up in PayPal from Canada Post wanting my account number and to verify my return shipping address, which was pre-filled in the pop up box.

When I called PayPal I told them about this, they said this Canada Post account request pop up had nothing to do with them and they don't know anything about it but did say he had also spoken to someone else getting this box but they had been able to x out of it and continue (I was not able to do this) and they did not report any missing shipping options or anything else out of sorts.

Yes, I ran into that box as well. As for Paypal's response to your query, frankly, I think Paypal's CS is becoming as clueless as eBay's CS.

After hearing that Paypal will soon be discontinuing its label service for eBay, I assume that box was to allow users to create labels directly through Paypal (for whatever purpose) and still get their "Solutions for Small Business" or other Canada Post discounts. Clearly someone at Paypal must have set it up, because it captured most of my user data. The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing anymore over there.

Actually, I think I can confirm this. Being unable to get the eBay linked label to print the other day on a Tracked Packet, I forfeited my eBay shipping discount just in order to get the label done (I had no time that day to drive to the P.O.). I printed the label from the Paypal transaction page directly. Of course, I gave up my eBay seller discount on the shipping label, but I did notice that I got my (smaller) Canada Post discount.

Although Paypal won't be doing eBay labels soon, we'll presumably still be able to generate labels from within Paypal in this way, and at least get our Canada Post discount, for what it's worth.

trikiliki · ‎05-19-2017

Id like to know what was up with that sketchy pop up box then and if it is the culprit behind the missing light packet and why does PayPal claim to know nothing about it? Were you able to bypass it or did you end up verifying your account and accepting it in order to proceed?

hlmacdon · ‎05-19-2017

@trikiliki wrote:
Id like to know what was up with that sketchy pop up box then and if it is the culprit behind the missing light packet and why does PayPal claim to know nothing about it? Were you able to bypass it or did you end up verifying your account and accepting it in order to proceed?

CSR's won't know anything about it as this likely the result of some developer tinkering on the paypal side. You would have to get through to someone in the technical support side. When paypal sends a request to Canada Post for the eligible rates through the Canada Post API (think of it as a software interface), Canada Post needs to see a user ID so that it can return the rates and eligible services that are associated with that account. From what ebay has told us, they are severing the relationship with paypal (and pittney bowes) in the coming months so it is likely that paypal is doing some backend tinkering to prepare for that eventuality. Either they are planning to do as Rose suggests, or they are going to be changing the user account (I have no idea if the current one is specific to ebay and their contracted rates with Canada Post, or if paypal/pitney have those rates and as a pass through reselling rates to ebay) that is used to generate their Canada Post labels. In either event paypal has handled this really poorly as changes like this should really be communicated properly.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-19-2017

Actually, I think I can confirm this. Being unable to get the eBay linked label to print the other day on a Tracked Packet, I forfeited my eBay shipping discount just in order to get the label done (I had no time that day to drive to the P.O.). I printed the label from the Paypal transaction page directly. Of course, I gave up my eBay seller discount on the shipping label, but I did notice that I got my (smaller) Canada Post discount.

You did not fordeit your discount. The exact same discount is available whether you start on PP or ebsy. Despite what eBay said would be happening, this has never changed. If you check your original thread about this you'll see that others have noticed this as well.