eIS and the Lettermail "Problem"
Summary: The discussion focuses on the topic of eIS (Electronic Information System) and the issues surrounding Lettermail services. The conversation includes various participants exchanging views on the challenges and intricacies of the Lettermail system, potentially with a focus on delivery and communication concerns. Several participants interact, but the discussion lacks specific content or conclusions owing to the placeholder text. The dialogue suggests an ongoing conversation regarding improvements or changes in the mail service.
For years a large part of our business model has relied on shipping items such as DVDs, certain video games, comic books, CDs and other items that are eligible for Lettermail within Canada. Said items would be shipped using Tracked Packet to the USA or Internationally.
The Lettermail method of shipping within Canada is extremely cost effective to the extent that many items are only competitive when shipped via Lettermail.
Since eIS uses the domestic shipping on file when an international buyer places an order, we now have a problem. The eIS program requires that we use a trackable method. Lettermail is non-trackable. More than a third of our items only offer Lettermail as the domestic option.
We were enrolled in the eIS program on October 9 and made our first sale this morning (a Blu-ray). Unfortunately, the item in question offers Lettermail as the domestic shipping option. We charged $6 for Lettermail in this case. All of the tracked shipping methods available to us generally cost $18 or more for an item of this size.
We aren't willing to eat that cost, so we decided to cancel the transaction. This is not something we want to do because if we start cancelling transactions over and over it could lead to an account suspension.
We decided to check the eBay Shipping Label prices for the item before cancelling the transaction and were met with a potentially good surprise.
Shipping the Blu-ray from Halifax to the Mississauga hub via eIS is only $8 for Canada Post Expedited Parcel with eBay Shipping Labels for the item in question (in this case a parcel weighing 200 g in a 22 cm x 16 cm x 12 cm box). Knowing this, we are going to eat the $2 and give this a shot.
We checked to see what it would cost to ship a record using a record mailer (600 g in a 33 cm x 33 cm x 4 cm box) and the Canada Post Expedited Parcel price came up as $9.
The UPS prices were also less than expected, but were several dollars more than the Canada Post options in the tests we did.
If this is accurate, then it suggests that eBay and Canada Post (as well as UPS) have made deals on cheaper shipping to the hub and haven't made an announcement as of yet.
We realize that we are among the earliest invitees to the program. Has anyone else had a sale via eIS yet? If so, what is your experience in terms of shipping prices to the hub using eBay Shipping Labels?
440snojet
·10 months agoI shipped a lettermail order from MB to the hub on the 7th. It arrived at the hub on the 19th. Not sure if it actually took that long or just sat at the hub waiting to be processed. All my tracked parcels have taken a day or less to get a new label and sent out. Most of my Expedited lite parcels take 3 business days to get to the hub. Expedited lite is finally charging me the proper $8.xx now instead of the $11.xx, which was the same as regular Expedited.
So far DHL has been the main shipping method used by the hub for my parcels. 1 Asendia so far. Average delivery time from the hub to the customer is 7 business days. So my orders from central Canada to the US take around 10 business days to get delivered.
flipistics
·10 months agoI think if we can place a separate label on each box that only has the eIS information, we could use couriers that allow multi-package shipments when shipping to the hub (Purolator, CanPar, ICS). The net effect would be very similar to putting everything in one box.
That would be something to ask them, whether we can separate the C/O and evtn from the rest of the label and do that. I'm not sure if I can attend the webinar to ask them or not since our power company helpfully decided to schedule an extended power outage for that time (and the cell signal here sucks).
electronicsextraordinaire
·11 months agoThe other unfortunate thing for West/East coast users of Lettermail to the EIS hub is that Canada Post has plans to reduce/stop using aircraft for domestic Lettermail. The 4 business day delivery standard cross-province mail might start taking some extra days if/when it starts going ground instead. You'll get closer to Expedited Parcel speeds if you're lucky (2-8 days nationally). I wonder if banks might start printing their invoices and such in more than 1 place...
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-services-procurement/news/2025/09/government-of-canada-instructs-canada-post-to-begin-transformation.html
lotzofuniquegoodies
·10 months agoI've had recent letter type bubble mailers shipped on a Monday arrive the following Friday from Vancouver to Calgary. Unsure if dog sled was used. (9 business days + 1 weekend.)
Makes one wonder if business letter mail will get the same treatment going forward?
electronicsextraordinaire
·11 months agoThe other unfortunate thing for users of Lettermail to the EIS hub is that Canada Post has plants to stop using aircraft for domestic Lettermail. What had a 4 day delivery standard from Vancouver to Mississauga might start taking some extra days if/when it starts going ground instead.
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-services-procurement/news/2025/09/government-of-canada-instructs-canada-post-to-begin-transformation.html
recped
·11 months agoIf you don't want to use Lettermail to ship to the hub because it may in the future go by surface you need to also stop using Expedited Package which is also a surface service.
dinomitesales
·11 months agoThis. The most common domestic Canada Post service used by sellers is "Expedited Parcel", which is a ground/surface transport method.
The vast majority of the Canadian population won't see much difference in delivery times if the letters travel via surface vs air, unless you live very far off the beaten path. Maybe an extra day or two max if it has to go a long distance.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoI usually send everything I can with lettermail in Canada and the only city I saw with a HUGE delay was Toronto-I call it my lettermail black hole.....I've seen mail delivered to Vancouver in a quarter of the time it took a letter to get to Toronto from Halifax-now I've thought everything is by ground anyway so that doesn't really matter much seeing that statement about air travel.
reallynicestamps
·11 months agoHalifax seems to accept a lot more items for lettermail when I just put them in the outside boxes and not taking them into the post office itself.
Yep.
The carrier empties the box into their big sack.
It goes to the terminal.
And assembly lines.
The only human eyes from there on are looking for the postal code until the carrier puts it in their sack for delivery to the customer's house.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoI just had a strange transaction tonight which might be related to this...it's to a buyer in Mississauga, a couple of skeins of thread which the buyer paid the correct rate of shipping on my listing however the address shows this eBay Virtual Tracking Number: CMFBHXK
I've never seen this before....does anyone know what this is?
jtg204
·11 months ago@rainbow71113 That is a EIS (eBay International Shipping) order:
https://www.ebay.ca/sellercentre/shipping/ebay-international-shipping
On the order detail page's Shipping section you can see where it's going after you send to the hub in Mississauga by expanding the 'Show recipient address'.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoI didn't see that....yes, it says Tuscon Arizona.....didn't realize it was supposed to be shipped to the hub. The shipping paid was only $1.50 so that wouldn't have been practical for any tracked shipping. Halifax seems to accept a lot more items for lettermail when I just put them in the outside boxes and not taking them into the post office itself. Helps to have a lot of stamps on hand. By the way, the buyer cancelled saying it would take too long to get it, thank goodness. Also, they did say they will be setting up more hubs so I imagine you will have one in Vancouver.
That order that I showed the tracking for on an early page of this feed-I paid $15.93 for the shipping to hub and it came back to my account as $26.99 so I called ebay and they are refunding me the approx $9 difference since they couldn't find a reason why it was different so you should get your money back too
I noticed Temu and Aliexpress in China do a lot of consolidation with their orders, they have a consolidation hub where everything that has multiple orders goes and they combine them before shipping. Don't know if we are allowed to combine them to go to the Canadian hub, that would be more practical if you get a lot of orders but I'm barely getting any sales since the tariffs were announced about 1 or 2 a week...doesn't pay the bills.
jtg204
·11 months agoJust some more information I found today...the show recipient address and packing slip only shows me a postal code and country (maybe different countries are different), but for full destination address I have to go to the order details page and select "View tax invoice" from the 'More actions v' menu.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoeveryone-I found this https://www.ebay.ca/sellercentre/shipping/ebay-international-shipping
and in it, it says
"Buyers will be able to choose between eBay International Shipping or your existing shipping policy. The shipping price first shown to buyers in your listing page and search results will be the less costly of the two options. Buyers then have the ability to choose between your existing shipping policy and eBay International Shipping as they check out. "
so that last order I got to Arizona had chosen the option for the hub and then decided it was going to take too long...so in the info it doesn't say how much more time is tacked onto the shipment when it is going to the US via the hub....might be faster due to clearance on the border but also might be slower because of the "middle man" meaning the hub processing time.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoalso I noticed on my hub orders that they have the number 866-540-3229-haven't tried it so don't know if anyone answers or not
reallynicestamps
·11 months agoBuyers will be able to choose between eBay International Shipping or your existing shipping policy.
So the BUYER controls how we ship?
That's a big change.
The shipping price first shown to buyers in your listing page and search results will be the less costly of the two options.
Good PR, but a shock when the import fees are charged on the doorstep.
And leaving the Seller liable for the Trump Tariff, whatever it is that day.
Buyers then have the ability to choose between your existing shipping policy and eBay International Shipping as they check out. "
Personally I would not give the buyer a choice.
Because we are already seeing reports of US buyers refusing to pay the Trump Tariff and either returning the item or the Seller being charged a foreign tax by the shipper.
recped
·11 months agoreallynicestamps
·10 months agoI pay CANADIAN taxes not American ones, or Hungarian ones, or UK ones.
shawnspeller
·11 months agodinomitesales
·11 months agoIn my experience most single-disc Blu-rays should be under 100g even when placed in a bubble mailer (Blu-ray cases are lighter than DVD cases). Ships for $2.61 (plus applicable GST/HST) via domestic Lettermail. Some multi-disc sets might push you into the 100-200g range, but even then it's only $4.29.
$6 would be the rate for 200-300g; the heaviest Lettermail-eligible Blu-ray I could find in my inventory had three discs in it and a non-eco case and was still only 130g.
an_709184
·11 months agoAnother problem is that eIS shipping cost will be shown in the search results instead of the cheaper lettermail option, driving people away from clicking on the listing. There needs to be an option to change that or disable eIS per listing basis.
byto253
·11 months agoAre you shipping lettermail directly to the US and not using EIS? In that case put the flat rate lettermail shipping cost as an option in your listing, as that is lower than the EIS rate it is what buyers will see.
EIS will only show up if it is the lower cost option or for calculated shipping.
an_709184
·11 months agoYes, that is what I am currently doing. I think that is only the case when you are viewing the listing, but when your lising is shown from the search results, eIS shipping cost is shown by defaut. I tested it on Tuesday, from USA and from different countries around the world, maybe they changed it since.
byto253
·11 months agoI'll be danged, I checked my test listing and you are correct. I missed reading your post yesterday.
Wow, so it is sorting listing results by the EIS shipping cost and NOT the lowest. Buyers won't see the lower shipping cost until the click your listing and with the higher shipping from outside the country that becomes much less llikely.
Gee, thanks eBay for taking out the other kneecap.
byto253
·11 months agoSomewhere there has to be the same accountability for eBay as sellers have for their listings. Regardless of who the finger is pointed at, the seller should be make whole on this as it was false information provided on the eBay site by eBay.
As a seller I am held accountable and responsible for what I put out there and eBay makes darn sure I am and we pay when there are errors. Seems like a double standard that there is a mess with quoted shipping costs and it is just ooops, so sorry, you lose again.
Unacceptable for a company this size.
rainbow71113
·11 months agothat's absolutely correct, once I got a negative because the cover story on a magazine was only 3 pages and I called ebay and said...I didn't publish the magazine...but they said I had to have the negative because it was the buyer's "perception" of the transaction. What nonsense...so now I try to put how many pages on each of the cover items.
ecgt-you should call ebay-they might refund the difference that you were charged.
chicweb
·11 months agoThis is weird... because the feedback about the content of a magazine is not about the seller or the transaction.
It's like receiving a bad feedback as a seller because of a bad movie in a DVD or a bad story in a book... Sellers don't have to be held accountable for personal taste.
There's a difference between a seller feedback and a product review. The eBay agent should have known that.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoI have seen negatives because someone didn't like the movie and I always wonder if the seller tries to get it removed. I've even seen neutral when somebody bought some yarn and hadn't got around to knitting it yet....utter nonsense...I also think the feedback should be about the transaction but buyers seem to be clueless.
rainbow71113
·11 months agospeaking of lettermail....I read somewhere that they are letting items less than $100 that are NOT from a business through without COO and manufacturer info on the envelope. I've sent about 6 small envelopes with just my name and address written on instead of my labels with no contents info and all have gotten through and must faster than the stuff I've sent with Chit Chats
chicweb
·11 months agoI'm not sure I understand. Manufacturer info on labels/envelop?
We do not write any manufacturer info on any labels or envelop when shipping. Lettermail = Sender address, receiver address. Tracked national = Same thing with bar code and weight/service used. That's all. (As I understand, for eIS, the receiver address contain the ebay special code).
Content info is not needed on label at all for national postage (tracked or not).
rainbow71113
·11 months agosorry I was referring to sending lettermail to the US....seems they are letting things under $100 that are not from a business go through
darak10
·10 months agoI havent done this in a long time but I never had a problem getting them removed. I had some real clueless ones, including one who lost a gasket because I shipped them the item they ordered not the one they wanted (true story)
ecgt
OP11 months agoWe just got charged $12.63 for the shipping label to the eIS hub that was quoted as being only $8.00 when we purchased the label. Dimensions are accurate.
If we aren't receiving accurate shipping rate quotes when purchasing shipping labels to the hub this entire program is dead on arrival.
We are very **bleep** off right now. As a result of this we net less than $3 profit on this item. This is a disaster.
byto253
·11 months agoThat is just wrong. Even if the $8 had HST added it is still way to high.
Do you have to purchase a shipping label to the EIS Hub from eBay or can you arrange your own shipping there?
ecgt
OP11 months agoIt definitely seems like there is no problem arranging your own shipping to the hub, though it looks like other users have had problems with things getting delivered by Chit Chats.
Since they offered $8 shipping for Expedited Parcel via eBay Shipping Labels we decided to give it a shot. It seemed like they were offering a deep discount.
It still isn't clear whether or not shipping to the hub using Lettermail is acceptable.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·11 months ago@byto253
Just 1 more of the little Canadian quirks of eIS. If you ship direct to USA/Internationally no PST/GST for CP or courier. Not like sellers get a detailed receipt so they could easily claim it for eIS shipments to hub. Then you get dinged again on FVF's on that tax collected. Double bonus!! From a Western Canada perspective I am totally missing the/any benefits of eIS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfSJiaQURKI&list=RDyfSJiaQURKI&start_radio=1
dinomitesales
·11 months agoWell, from looking at your listings only 0.001% of them are currently showing to Americans, you don't ship to many other countries, and many of your listings ship only within Canada.
eIS will drastically increase the market reach of your listings by showing them to tens of millions of additional potential buyers without you having to do anything. Sounds like a benefit to me.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·11 months ago@dinomitesales
Because I ship out of Calgary, getting anything to the hub (with eIS) is more expensive than shipping directly to a country. Limited, if any savings for me and other westerners. The paperwork to send using CP is not that much trouble. Plus via tracked it arrives to customer quicker. (Recent Spain was 7 total days/Germany was 8.) With the extra handling to send to the hub, just not worth the frustration. As for countries I ship to I am selective based on past experience. USA via tracked for me averages 7 to 10 days vs sending to hub at 4 to 5 + however long they take to process. Anyone had any shipments via eIS where items were delivered to buyer? How long was total transit time? Have a hard time believing it was done in the 7 to 10 day range.
Until CP can figure out a way to ship to the USA directly so buyer pays any fees/tax, I am holding off shipping. (CP...USPS did have customs clearance in place in the past at 6.95 for US shipments. Unsure why/what caused it to be turfed.) Because I opted out at the beginning have yet to receive a second invite to use. Still leery to use until they (ebay) makes attempt to address all of our posted concerns. In practice there should have been an open forum for anyone with questions to ask and get a timely response.
Note: US is turned off due to reasons above.
jtg204
·11 months ago"Because I opted out at the beginning have yet to receive a second invite to use"
You might need to check the shipping preferences page instead of waiting for an invite or message.
I was opted out, and didn't receive any message that I could enrol when I could.
When another group reported being added, I checked the shipping page and seen this:
After a couple days it changed to 'Enrol' link instead of 'Opt out processing', which instantly enrols you with no confirmation step if you click it (I was curious to see the next step).
Opting out again, puts you back on 'Opt out processing' for a day or two until it turns to 'enrol' link again.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·11 months ago@jtg204
Double checked my settings on multiple occasions and option is still MIA. There's nothing there about opted out. Checked to see if it was in business policies and not there either.
reallynicestamps
·11 months agoWhere is the shipping preferences page?
rainbow71113
·11 months agomy package to Lithuania has been delivered, ordered Oct 9th delivered Oct 21st. Not too bad, I do get faster deliveries to European countries closer to Halifax -like the UK, France & Germany but it's nice to see that one delivered to a country I normally would not send to.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·11 months ago@rainbow71113
How was the eis cost compared to just sending tracked with cp?
easoss
·11 months agoI don't understand why eBay couldn't have set up an EIS hub in Calgary or Vancouver. The program in very GTA centric.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·11 months ago@easoss
When I spoke to eIS via zoom in Sept that was my first comment. The price and time to ship to an eastern hub. During my call got lots of oh's and huh. We will take that into consideration. (They added to a spreadsheet of concerns.) To date I have yet to see any of my or others posted concerns addressed. If they have been next to impossible to confirm. I tried following up but there has been zippo for a response.
Regarding the quickly posted concern about Canadian sellers who use letter for shipping in Canada being the default when something now is going to the hub, because they didn't have a way to address they just stated continue sending to hub via letter and take your chances. (Pretty sure eIS in the USA requires tracked service.) They couldn't be bothered to figure out a workaround to give Canadian sellers full protection.
marnotom!
·11 months ago@lotzofuniquegoodies, there's no eIS protection on tracked shipments that don't make it to the hub. That has to be sorted out between the seller and their shipping provider. eIS's protections only kick in when the item is scanned as accepted at the hub and eIS takes responsibility for the item's transit.
Presumably, eIS would refund its share of the shipping charges in a situation where the item--tracked or untracked--doesn't make it to the hub when the system is prompted by an INR claim. The rest of the refund would come from the seller.
marnotom!
·11 months agoMaybe they will if the volume of merchandise coming out of western Canada is great enough to justify the costs of a second hub, but for now Mississauga is pretty much considered the centre of the universe when it comes to international shipping and logistics in Canada. I suspect anything sent to a hub in western Canada would just end up being forwarded to a bigger hub after processing, anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if some if not most of gets sent to the eIS Canadian hub is just fired down to Illinois afterwards, even if it isn't US-bound.
For what it's worth, I've received a couple of non-eBay items from China that were sent to Mississauga before making their way to me on Vancouver Island. They were likely part of a consolidated shipment.
darak10
·10 months agothe same reason why at Oilers games when the Leafs are in town, the number of Leafs fans in the stands nearly outnumbers the number of Oilers fans. As much as we dont want to admit it especially out here, Canada = Toronto.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoI had this happen with a Fedex to Germany, not only did they charge her the vat, brokerage and duty/taxes etc but they charged me fuel surcharge with brokerage so my label on ebay was $36 and when it came back to charge me it was $90+ ebay refunded both of us but that's the last time I used fedex...UPS has charged a dollar more here and there but that's not a problem.
ecgt
OP11 months agoThat's a separate issue from the eIS program, though, right?
marnotom!
·11 months agoI think this issue is more about the glitchiness of Expedited Lite pricing right now than something that's specific to eIS. It's discussed a bit on this thread:
https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Expedited-lite-packet-rates/m-p/530734
ecgt
OP11 months agoWe paid for Expedited Parcel, not Expedited Lite.
marnotom!
·11 months ago$8.00 is more in line with Expedited Lite than discounted Expedited Parcel, though. The glitch you experienced is probably related more to the eBay shipping label client than it is to the eIS set-up.
rainbow71113
·11 months agoThat order that I showed the tracking for on an early page of this feed-I paid $15.93 for the shipping to hub and it came back to my account as $26.99 so I called ebay and they are refunding me the approx $9 difference since they couldn't find a reason why it was different so you should get your money back too