My Two Cents Worth
Summary: The discussion centers around frustrations with eBay.ca and Canada Post's lack of preparation for new tariffs on cross-border shipping, particularly between Canada and the U.S. sylviebee criticizes both organizations for not implementing systems like those in the U.S. for collecting tariffs in advance. marnotom! suggests that eBay and Canada Post acted within a short notice timeframe and that Trump's policies have complicated matters. da6170 and others discuss the confusion over tariffs versus taxes and the complexities in proving the country of origin for goods. Solutions such as halting U.S. shipping have been suggested, but the situation remains uncertain, with many participants expressing disappointment over the current state of affairs.
EBay.ca and the Canadian Post Office knew this was coming for 6 months, yet they put nothing into place to make it go smoothly.
That procrastination will cost eBay and the PO dearly. eBay and the PO chose to loose all business which involved Canadians shipping to the States, rather than get on top of the situation and put something into place which allowed for the collection of tariffs
What a way to take care of your customers!
**bleep**??
So now eBay is telling us to ship via courier because they have no system in place to pre-collect duties.
How hard could that be? eBay.ca would simply have to follow the eBay.com model which has been collecting tariffs from Canadians for quite some time.
They should have been on that 6 months ago to have it ready to go now.
Shipping by UPS is tricky. UPS recently charged one of my customers US$600 for a US$1,400 item. That was for antiques which weren’t subject to duty at the time. (They are now.). There should have been no added charge.
There was no way for me to challenge that decision. UPS is not accountable for mistakes, and they make a lot of them as all couriers do when it comes to collecting duty. When there’s a complaint, UPS sends you to the agency which collects taxes, but they NEVER answer the phone. So, in short, there is nothing you can do about it. It’s possible that the buyer has some way to challenge the decision (you, as the seller do not) but it’s clearly twisted and difficult to do.
UPS is also tricky because it’s not unusual for them to ask for additional funds after the fact. I buy some labels via Shippo, and UPS often quotes very low prices to get the job, and then goes after the shipper at a later date for more money. (That’s what they’ve done to me.)
There are other couriers, but for now I’m still aghast at the way eBay.ca and our own PO has painted us into this corner.
If anyone here can help point me in the right direction that would be very much appreciated.
sylviebee
OP11 months agoDutch, yeah, it looks like you're in trouble.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·11 months agoPut another way, there have been systems to bill and collect from buyers for years. CP has been charging 9.95 CAD for the service. USPS around 6.95 USD. The only time those fees were collected from a seller was when there was a negotiated deal to. Standard practice is buyer pays. With regards to couriers there was the option to collect from buyer but the process was either completed by either an in house broker involving customs or the buyer had their own broker and you (the buyer) paid each time a shipment came in when the charge was applicable. Before de minimus vast majority shipments were duty free.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·11 months ago@sylviebee
add on.
With couriers, items could be sent duty paid by sender but the gold standard is buyer pays and the courier is doing on their behalf. Best resource is google Incoterms and you will see the available options. (When shippo was in play, they had the option with the long customs form to select the incoterms.) CP and USPS didn't have that option at least at the counter or via online tools.)
mrdutch1001
·11 months agono troubles here... I'm just an infrequent/occasional seller who doesn't have to count on any online selling for income >as an elderly senior eBay is just "something to do"....I sell more within Canada on Etsy than I ever did on eBay and I sell on Facebook Marketplace, so as far as I am concerned eff the USA!
easoss
·11 months agoI'm with you on this. Though I can certainly use the eBay income it's been going downhill for a while. Started with the postal disruption and hasn't really recovered in 2025. I make more on marketplace in a week than on eBay in a month. Luckily I don't have piles of money invested in stock as i was a flea market vendor years ago and have bins full of stuff still to go through. I really feel for those who stocked up for Q4 sales. It'll be a tough go.
sylviebee
OP11 months agoeasoss, I doubt that American sellers even notice you and couldn't care less if you're gone.
A lot of your items are USA made, so see what happens with that because they should be exempt.
The problem of course is that they'll likely have "import fees" etc even if there is no tarrif to pay. They'll find a way to get yu.
EBay could easily put something into place to pre-collect tariffs, and if they're motivated enough they should be able to do it without a lot of added fees.
You're not done yet.
mrdutch1001
·11 months agoHindsight is great...perhaps in hindsight you should have been a major shareholder in eBay so that you could influence eBay in all the ways you think eBay should operate its business...
In hindsight, we all got taken on the Trump rollercoaster ride so let's deal with what is not what coulda/shoulda been...
sylviebee
OP11 months agoNothing Trump does follows any pattern. This tarrif thing has been hanging there for quite some time and we all knew that it could happen any time regardless of what was said. For all we know he might still reneg on this most recent course of action. Thing is, eBay and the PO should and could have been prepared to deal with this if and when it happened. Then, if not needed, that's good.
Marmo: I have no advice to give anyone. I recounted my experience with UPS in my original post for what it's worth. Pretty sure that the course of action every seller decides on will be different for each individual.
In my case, most of my items are antiques made in the USA and should be exempt from tarrifs, but that doesn't mean that they'll be assessed that way. I think that a lot of us fall into that category. Just an observation.
easoss
·11 months agoYou say that eBay and the PO should have had ready to go contingency plan. Well Canada Post is in a long running labour dispute and is basically broke. Putting in a program to deal with this takes time and money to incorporate. The PO is rather short on both. As for eBay it's a similar situation. It may be easier to simply shut down the Canadian site rather than investing in it. How many sellers will simply quit. And lets face it, nobody is opening up an eBay store anytime soon. For me, the joy has been sucked out and my anger has turned to disappointment.
byto253
·11 months agoThe Big Beautiful Bill gave 2 years for the de minimus to be eliminated. Given that was a bill that passed through both houses, it certainly looked like that was set. Nobody expected that within days it would be zapped in 30 days.
sylviebee
OP11 months agoThat's just a lot of nit-picking. Everyone was aware that there were going to be tarrifs or duties (whatever you want to call them) coming up and obviously they'd have to prepaid the same way taxes are.
Not at all helpful marno!
marnotom!
·11 months agoeasoss
·11 months agoThe biggest failure is the United States Congress who are the body in charge of trade and tariffs. They have allowed Trump to use this security measure (using fentanyl smuggling) as an excuse to lower de minimus levels. When someone goes to those lengths there isn't much you can do. I also don't think American sellers are all that disappointed as a nice percentage of competition has been eliminated overnight. Until a comprehensive trade agreement can be hammered out (that probably is at least a year away) we are basically screwed as far as US sales go.
marnotom!
·11 months agoWhat eBay, Canada Post, and the rest of us didn't know until very recently was that tariffs were expected to be paid before shipment in all circumstances. What sellers had been generally agonizing over before then was how to incorporate the tariffs into the sale if they chose a shipping option that allowed for that, or they'd been agonizing over how US buyers might react to having to pay tariffs upon receipt of the item if they chose to continue to ship through the postal system.
There are other postal systems that are dealing with this issue by simply halting all shipments to the United States. Canada Post actually reacted to this issue surprisingly quickly (especially when you consider that it has contract negotiations going on at the same time) by international standards. Its solution may not be practical for some if not most eBay sellers, but this is a very difficult situation that requires difficult solutions.
eBay has been collecting squat from Canadian buyers. Assuming you're referring to sales that have been shipped through the Global Shipping Program and eBay International Shipping, that collection (or, more accurately, payment through the shipper that's in turn been reimbursed by the buyer) has been mostly for taxes, and perhaps duty in some circumstances, and it's been the shipper that's been handling that, not eBay. Taxes, duties, and tariffs have not been charged and collected by eBay on sales to Canadian buyers by non-Canadian sellers because eBay has not been empowered to do so by Canadian law.
I'm not singling you out on this, but I'm finding that in these discussions that a lot of people are interchangably using or confusing the terms "taxes", "duties", and "tariffs" and they're different things. Even before Trump took office, a US$1400 item could well have been subject to duty depending on its country of manufacture and if it lacked any sort of documentation to attest to the item's age as its value was above the duty-free threshold (US$800) for a casual import.
This problem was Trump's making. The convention and perhaps even internal law is that tariffs on imports are paid by the importer. Trump seems to be trying to get around this by forbidding DDU (delivered duty unpaid) shipments to the United States, a development that is extremely recent. I don't think eBay Canada and Canada Post can be faulted for trying to make sense of a declaration that makes no sense in terms of international conventions and laws. Perhaps a more workable solution will come in the next month or two, but it's a matter of waiting. Neither eBay Canada nor Canada Post had six months to come up with solutions to this.
As to workable solutions for you, you may want to read some of the other threads on this board, but I get the sense that the majority opinion right now is that it's probably best to cease offering shipping to the United States, at least in the short term.
da6170
·11 months agoWhat the ft article does not mention is, the 15th of August press release said the responsibility of collecting the tariff is on the exporting national postal services so the tariff has to be paid in advance. Normally buyers would need to pay import tax and collect their packages. That is what happens everywhere unless express or DHL etc. Many think this is to “pretend” that the tariffs are paid by foreign countries and not US buyers. Moreover, the us government does not have a system in place to collect and remit these taxes. They only announced these details less that two weeks before the rule goes into effect. It is complete chaos. Finally the ft also didn’t mention that for the first 6 months, the us will charge between 80$-200$ flat rate tariff depending on the new trump tariff imposed. E.g for Switzerland it would be 200$ per parcel given the 39% tariff - this is regardless of the value of the item. You also need to prove country of origin, so for antiques vintage second hand etc there is no solution. It is also not clear how to defund country of origin if items are made from different parts coming from various countries. This situation is also affecting e-commerce platform such as eBay Etsy Depop and many more…. Let’s hope we have another taco Tuesday when everyone stops shipping there and they have announced from new week.