Can you select new international ebay international shipping for US only or specific listings?
Summary: historysci initiated a discussion about whether it is possible to select the new eBay international shipping option for only U.S. or specific listings. Throughout the conversation, dinomitesales, reallynicestamps, femmefan1946, and other participants such as marnotom!, recped, and lotzofuniquegoodies joined in to explore the nuances of the shipping options available. The participants exchanged their experiences and insights on using eBay's shipping services, reflecting both confusion and seeking clarity on how to tailor international shipping settings. The conversation highlighted a shared interest in optimizing eBay listings for better international reach while navigating the platform's shipping policies.
I just sold an item to a buyer with a US address (I suspect a forwarder, but that is OK), I accepted an offer and without me knowing the ONLY shipping option available was to use the eBay International Shipping (EIS). I went ahead anyway just to see if it works as advertised. I could also not send an invoice to give shipping options. I checked some other listings I have and one for some books with value less than $200 would cost $133 to ship to California by EIS, vs $65 by UPS, so that is not going to help me sell! I then opted out as I could not see a way to either select which listings I would want EIS, which countries I would want EIS or a way to offer either the normal shipping which I handle, buying an eBay label or EIS and let the buyer choose. If I could do any of those things I would opt back in. EIS in my experience as a buyer is almost always SLOOOOOOOOWWW, and the slowest shipping maybe next to ground from the other side of the world, but it may be a bit cheaper sometimes. Things I order from the US that way usually take longer to get here than from China!
As expected I already found bugs in the process (we are again Alpha or Beta testers for stuff they throw out without doing proper QA). So far: the tracking for Canada Post to the EIS hub in Canada, even though I specified it is a Canada Post number only shows up as a USPS tracking number on the order, so it will never work! I let the buyer know what is happening, as it looks like I have not shipped the package,... so not to be concerned (yet!!)
intimewithmusic
·7 months agoWhy on earth (no pun intended ha ha) would a seller not want free exposure around the world to sell globally???
For items you can't make a good profit paying Trump thru Zonos forget the USA. Until some de minimis returns ($150 please), or you have a "magic bullet widget" the USA is "OOS". Items unprofitable by prepaying Import Fees yourself and are under a massive landing cost thru EIS cannot compete in the USA unless you do it for free.
For those folks forget the USA. If you list on EIS, even if your item isn't "accepted for EIS USA, items that qualify are still listed by EIS globally. Free exposure ....free .
All you have to do is hike your widget to TO. One country on hold. Big Deal.
List/Sell/Ship.
You can use eBay International Shipping to ship to buyers in the following countries:
lotzofuniquegoodies
·8 months ago@historysci
A few of your current listings may not qualify for eis due to allowable weight limits. As per eIS help page. You could still ship with your standard methods.
marnotom!
·8 months agoThis is probably regarded by eBay as a beta-test of sorts. Apart from someone with or contracted by eBay to post bogus listings, I’m not sure how else eIS’s functionality can be tested. What would an eIS beta-test look like to you?
I think the big issue here is that Canadian sellers want to do things with (or without) eIS in ways not considered by most US sellers using their version of the program. US sellers generally seem happy to just "set it and forget it."
historysci
OP8 months agoAgreed! I would think a basuc test for eIS would be for the QA team (if they have one) to create a couple of accounts on ebay.ca as would a user in Canada and create test listings (they could simply be normal listings and flag them as things not actually for sale), and another or others to buy them in Canada, US and elsewhere. Create a list of things you would do as a buyer or seller to fulfill and ship an order and do those things trying all the options within reason, report, fix bugs as they appear and retest. If they had done that with the ebay shipping labels for Canada a couple of years ago they could have avoided the myriad problems they have (for a couple of years!)
femmefan1946
·8 months agoWhat I can't work out is whether my listings on dotCOM are going to show eIS although I ship from Canada.
And can I ship Lettermail, untracked, to the eIS plant securely.
And how do I bulk edit to put eIS on my current listings.
dinomitesales
·8 months agoNo, the listing needs to be on dotCA to be eligible for Canadian eIS.
Lettermail shipments to the eIS hub are allowed. It has been confirmed by employees directly involved with eBay Canada, as well as by first-hand accounts of sellers that have successfully shipped their Lettermail items to the hub and had them processed and delivered to the international buyer. It's as "secure" as any other Lettermail shipment you would send.
You don't have to bulk edit or do anything. Once you're enrolled in the program all your eligible listings will automatically show the eIS option to potential buyers. Enrollment is automatic by eBay assuming you didn't already opt out when they sent emails out in September, but it's a slow roll-out. Everyone that wants to be in the program should be in the program by early 2026.
I would suggest reading through this page, especially the FAQ sections at the bottom.
reallynicestamps
·8 months agoI checked some other listings I have and one for some books with value less than $200 would cost $133 to ship to California by EIS, vs $65 by UPS, so that is not going to help me sell!
NEVER decide for your customer what they can afford!
They wouldn't be shopping in Canada if they could find the books locally, or in the USA, for that matter.
Remember that eIS price includes, I believe, the various import fees, including whatever the Trump Tariff is today.
The UPS price does not. UPS will charge your buyer on their doorstep. And the customer is not going to be pleased.
EIS, like GSP before it, is Seller Protection programme.
Don't look at what it does for the customer, that is not the point.
Look at how it protects you -- particularly with Claims for INR ( you are not responsible once the shipment gets to the eIS plant in Mississauga) and Not As Described (which seems to be the item is returned to the plant, the buyer is refunded, the product is liquidated, you keep the money).
I am willing to be corrected on any of this.
historysci
OP8 months agoMy point is the buyer does not have a choice. If I opt in to eIS, the only option is to ship by eIS. Given the mess in the US, I would prefer to use eIS for the US only. I have plenty of experience shipping worldwide and would rather take care of it using the regular method, caustoms forms etc. In most cases I have been shipping expensive, delicate parts, not low value commodity items. I and typical buyer would rather get the item in a few days or a week or so rather than many weeks through the eIS. If I could select which listings I wanted eIS for, rather than all, or have eIS for shipping to US, but leave the rest of the workd out, that would be great.
dinomitesales
·8 months agoThis isn't how the program works. It shows eIS in addition to your existing shipping options.
You've opted out of eIS so we can't troubleshoot your existing listings, but if you opt back in and it isn't showing your other shipping options in addition to eIS then that is some kind of glitch.
reallynicestamps
·8 months agoMy point is the buyer does not have a choice.
Why should the buyer have a choice?
The Seller chooses the services they wish to offer, the packaging they want to use, and the fee they want to charge for the service.
If the Seller wants to give multiple choices, fine.
But the buyer will choose the cheapest service which will probably be slow and be mad when they don't get the faster more expensive service they did not pay for.
I am old and cynical.
historysci
OP8 months agoI have contacted eis by the email provided earlier to ask them what is going on. After 2 days from enrolling back in again, listings (that meet eligibility requirements - I checked!) do not show eIS option except for one, but in one instance I could create a duplicate listing and it magically shows eIS along with other options, have not been able to do that again, so have given up. I intended to list some items this weekend, but I am holding off doing any selling on eBay- this all seems to be a dog's breakfast the way it has been launched.
eriekexouwyrn0
·8 months agoWhy aren't you able to set the other option in your shipping policy? I can select additional flat rate options apart from IES and select which carrier ie FedEx. UPS. I can't see why you woulden't have that option. Plus you seem to be confusing your tracking number shipping your item to ebay's warehouse with the one ebay provides the customer. Not sure why you are worrying about that, since ebay provides that to the customer. All you have to do is get the item to ebay.
historysci
OP8 months agoThanks, but not sure if you understood my question. I can't get listings to consistently show eIS as an option when it should. Fedex etc. or whatever else I select in listing shows up as options.
I was not mixing up shipping to hub and from the hub (that was by DHL). The Canada Post tracking number to the Canadian hub showsed up as USPS tracking whihc would never show it shipped as USPS would never get it. Anyway the item got there and tracked onwards by DHL. Not sure if it was the most cost effective and best option for the buyer, but whatever.
I am likely just putting this aside and opting out of this mess, and probably exploring other avenues for selling the items I usually sell on eBay.
historysci
OP8 months agoWhat happens if I sell, say a $2000 item to someone who realises they don't want it, but want to return avoiding the shipping cost by declaring item not as described and making something up. This has happened to me more than once. eBay will side with buyer even if I provide evidence, and I will have no choice but to take it back at my cost as I will not abandon a $2000 item I coudl sell again. Or if they are honest and send it back at their cost, how would that work through eIS? Then I could sell it again to someone not cheating the system.
I have opted back in to see what happens hours ago. I found that even though the listing shows eIS is active when I reviese/edit and I have other options listed, eIS does not show up in the listing (when I set my location to the US or other country), or any listing. I tried a few things and found in ONE instance had to create a new (create similar) listing and then it shows up. I tried again and it has not worked with any listings again. If I don't add other shipping options the listing shows up as "may not ship to US". I did nothing differently for the one listing that has eIS, tried a combo of adding/removing lsitings and shipping options, and they do not show up with eIS. So this is messed up! I will try again later, but I fear again this is eBay not testing functionality for Canada and having us Alpha/Beta test. I don't have much listed now, but I really don't want to end up in some eBay Kafka-esque situation where I will lose an expensive item due to a mistake in the eIS system - so guess I will have to do their developers jobs and debug it for free!
recped
·8 months agoIf you ship via EIS and a buyer wants to do a Not As Described return EIS will handle it, they will accept the return and refund the buyer. YOU get to keep your money. EIS will get the item which they will liquidate (they have selling accounts for this purpose).
Once your shipment reached EIS and it shipped to the buyer you are no longer responsible for ANYTHING.
This is really the ONLY benefit of using EIS. Might be worth it if you have a lot of buyer issues. For most sellers who have very few returns EIS is really just a VERY expensive insurance plan and under the current crazy tariff situation relieves the seller of some paperwork.
historysci
OP8 months agoThanks recped. Regarding "If you ship via EIS and a buyer wants to do a Not As Described return EIS will handle it, they will accept the return and refund the buyer. You get to keep your money. EIS will get the item which they will liquidate (they have selling accounts for this purpose)." (sorry I could not see the option to quote text in replies!). I'm sure you are right, but do you have experience with that? I could imagine this would be open to abuse - what if a crooked seller ships something known to be broken, but misrepresents it as tested/working, I am sure a couple of returns would cause eBay to investigate, but it just seems something given eBay's behaviour, their current return policy that favours buyers to a ridiculous amount, and way they arbitrate any conflicts, not to even open themselves up to. I would be surprised if someone bought a specialised microscope part for $2000, damaged it or just realise they bought the wrong thing and claimed an item not as described to return for refund and eBay would eat the $2k.
I hardly ever have had returns, but I sporadically sell often high value items to support my microscopy hobby (basically sell stuff I don't use to buy more things I want!). If I can't select which listings use eIS and which won't I don't think it makes sense. Maybe marginally for shipments to US only given the chaos and madness there, but I have not had problems shipping by Fedex, UPS etc. (or expedited postal) to the US recently as generally the buyers understand customs etc. BUt I do not see the advantage for shipping anywhere else, except maybe if there is a very generous seller protection on every kind of return as you state.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·8 months ago@historysci
According to the rules and regulations eis still has the option to dispute a INAD at their discretion. What that means in practice and how often they will be doing that is anyones guess.
historysci
OP8 months agoAfter a few days after enrolling, none of my other listings show eIS as an option even though they show it is along with other shipping options when I edit. Likewise, same for creating a new listing. I also have had no response from eis@ebay.ca as to why. I am not listing anything on ebay for now as I don't think this is ready for prime time and I now do not know what shipping terms will actually be shown to a buyer and if/when it would change without my knowledge.
marnotom!
·8 months agoI see that eIS has been applied to your microscope light source, but not to your beading machine.
As @lotzofuniquegoodies has pointed out, the weight of some of these items may be why eIS hasn't been applied to their listings. Or it may be carrier restrictions. The beading machine already has a $180-or-so shipping charge within Canada, and that's the least expensive of the shipping options you offer. Adding that to an eIS charge would probably be pretty steep, although not as steep as the C$1200 shipping charge to Australia that it has with your shipping methods.
Also, from what I've seen on the .ca and the .com discussion boards, antiques appear to be problematic for the US eIS even if they're not on the eIS restricted items list. There are quite a few posts about antique items dead-ended at the Illinois hub likely because there was some uncertainty about their safety or legality to export, or possibly for insurance reasons. I think the code for eIS gets tweaked every so often to reflect this, so it may be that your listings that haven't got eIS applied to them are "benefiting" from past situations where there have been problems forwarding the relevant items to the hub.
dinomitesales
·8 months agoThe buyer would have had the choice of selecting eIS or any one of your other shipping options. They specifically chose eIS either because it was cheaper than your other options, or they were comforted by the fact that all additional duties/tariffs were taken care of (which wouldn't be the case with your other available shipping options). Since they chose eIS, then you must ship it to the eIS hub and not to them directly. There is no option to send an invoice as that would be an attempt to bypass the buyer's chosen shipping option of using the eIS program.
The $65 rate shown to your buyers by eBay (I'm assuming this is a Calculated Shipping rate you set up on the listing) doesn't include the duty/brokerage fees that would be included in the eIS price. Yes, $133 is high, but it's very possible that the buyer would have had to pay more than that if shipped via UPS (and instead of paying it all up front they would have received a 'surprise' bill upon delivery).
This is confusing, and I've never heard of another anecdote such as this. If you shipped to the hub via Canada Post it should show you both the Canada Post tracking details and the international tracking details using whatever company eBay is using for the international leg of the journey. Can you show a screenshot of what you're seeing?
historysci
OP8 months agoTo ship an item, say it sold for $175, by UPS would no way incur $70 in taxes and duties to the US. When I looked at the EIS option setting my location to US, it showed that import fees would be less than $2. Likely UPS would have charged $10 + sales tax in this case, maybe $20...
Here's a screen shot of the tracking info. I sent it using a flat rate box and entered the CANADA POST tracking number indicating the carrier is CANADA POST. It forces it to USPS and shows that I have not shipped yet, just gave tracking. I even tried editing it twice with same info - no difference. I can track it on Canada Post and see it will be delivered tomorrow. I doubt that ebay does proper QA on the Canadian site from my previous experiences, ie. no one creates an account on the site and tries things out as a user.
dinomitesales
·8 months agoYou're forgetting about the brokerage fees which can be obscene and calculated completely randomly at times. Plus UPS has a terrible reputation of mis-classifying things and seemingly making up government charge amounts. Spend some time on the UPS subreddit if you want some good chuckles lol. I've seen people get UPS brokerage charges of like $50+ on $10 items.
That's definitely strange. Shouldn't matter too much as the order details should update once it's received at the hub. Nonetheless, it shouldn't be doing that; I assume it's a glitch of some kind. Highly recommend sending that screenshot into eBay at eis@ebay.ca so they're made aware of it.
historysci
OP8 months agoThanks. Regading the ability to invoice the buyer: Once I accepted the offer, I could not send an invoice with shipping option as the site said it is being handled by eIS. The buyer did not pay until hours later so I suspect they must have only been given the eIS option. I would expect to be able to invoice and see the options, but eBay forces eIS and does not allow you to invoice if you have opted in. For some items that may be OK, but for many other items, particularly anything of value, maybe not. Although with the tariff mess with the US as a destination, having the option to have eIS only for the US would be appealing to me.
reallynicestamps
·8 months agosold for $175, by UPS would no way incur $70 in taxes and duties to the US.
trump was charging Chinese imports at 143% for a while there.
That would be a tariff, exclusive of state taxes and longstanding duties, of $250 on a $175 import.
The product is subject to duty.
But the tariffs are based on the place of manufacture as well as the type of product and are separate from and in addition to duty.
historysci
OP8 months agoIn this case the item are books printed in USA with origin clearly declared so there should not be tariff, but there will be brokerage fee and sales taxes
femmefan1946
·8 months agoo there should not be tariff, but there will be brokerage fee and sales taxes
Trump's Tariff does not replace the duty already being paid on imports.
So those books which were printed in the USA may not be subject to tariff, but still be subject to duty.
As you say, state sales taxes still apply in either case.
I and typical buyer would rather get the item in a few days or a week or so rather than many weeks through the eIS.
I've been selling by mail order since the late 1970s.
In my experience it often takes about three weeks for a shipment to arrive anywhere in the USA.
It's often sooner, and not often longer, but 21 days is normal and has been for decades.
The AZ promise of 24 hour delivery has warped our perception.
DD ordered a window closer from AZ on October 25. It arrived yesterday. That's more than two weeks (!!) Yes, barely more than two weeks but we've all had that customer who doesn't understand how calendars work.
historysci
OP8 months agoMy experience shipping to the US is days to about a week by Tracked Packet or Expedited parcel or 2 days by Fedex. Same or Slightly longer for rest of world
recped
·8 months agoYou are way off on this.
A - There is not tariffs or duty on books imported into the USA regardless of country of origin (possible exeption for books made in China or Hong Kong)
B - There are no tariffs or duty on goods made in the USA when shipped into the USA (from Canada or any other country (possible exeption for books made in China or Hong Kong).