eBay

winepress780 · ‎01-31-2016

If you browse auction listings from the eBay site that is for that domain, such as U.S (.com) or U.K. (.co.uk) certain items have written in bold right below the listing "Free International Shipping." Yet navigate to the actual listing and it is never free. The only items I've ever seen that boldly state "Free International Shipping" that are actually free for shipping are from Japan or China.

eBay's system is littered with bugs (many continual long-standing) throughout, with stuff like this, false notifications in messaging, items bid on not showing up in the Activity tab until an entire day later, the Activity tab losing auctions I've recently won and not being able to see them again etc... Stupid bugs like every time for example I try to send a seller a question the system never recognizes the CAPTCHA the first time ever. The second time yup it will recognize it but never the first time. The notification system in eBay is absolutely useless, most of the time it notifies me that I have a new message long after I have read the message. I've submitted feedback many times to eBay about these things they don't care about the quality of their system or the user interface. The "Free International Shipping" bug which has been around for ages is yet another example of the poor quality of eBay's software.

winepress780 · ‎02-01-2016

You're right with the .com site. Actually I don't buy anything from the U.S. anymore. I buy almost everything from the U.K. and use the .co.uk site almost exclusively. There are huge differences in the listings between the .co.uk. and .ca/.com sites than between the .ca and .com sites. I also use the German, Italian, and French sites and yes I know how to navigate my way around them to a certain degree and communicate with Germans and Italians as some of them do speak English. If I want to for example see U.K. listings only (and not see U.S. listings) I'm not aware of a way to do that using the .ca site. I've seen this "Free International Shipping" bug on the U.K. site also but with what seems far less frequency than the .com site.

marnotom! · ‎02-01-2016

@winepress780 wrote:

Example
Digital Thermometer Food Meat Cooking BBQ Instant Probe Kitchen Electronic Oven

I used that title as my search terms on the .com site, but I didn't get the "Free International Shipping" message. However, further down in the search results I did see that message for another listing out of Hong Kong, and that seller did indeed offer free international shipping.

As Pierre says, though, there should be no real reason to do your searching on the .com site, or the UK site, for that matter. If a US or UK seller ships to Canada, their items should show up in your search results on the .ca site, although it may take a bit more teasing to get them out.

femmefan1946 · ‎02-02-2016

Are you Searching on a phone or on a desk/laptop?

Listings show quite differently on a mobile. Less information basically and the GSP is invisible.

And yes, if an item is available to Canada (with or without a shipping cost) it will show on dotCA, no matter where it is located. And in Canadian dollars for comparison with the listing currency.

Also, many selers are actually dropshipping from Asia /China/ Hong Kong. That may also be the reason for the Free International Shipping.

Have you asked any of the sellers about this? They may be as surprised as you.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-02-2016

Also, many selers are actually dropshipping from Asia /China/ Hong Kong. That may also be the reason for the Free International Shipping.

The items did not really have free international shipping when the listing was opened, only when the OP looked at them on the search page.

winepress780 · ‎02-02-2016

Thanks to everyone for all the replies.

Reasons I need the .co.uk site
- I want to see U.K. only listings and sometimes I want to see items from the rest of Europe. I do not want to see U.S. listings at all. I can't do that with the .ca site. The same goes for the .de site I want to see listings only from Germany for example or from Italy (.it) or France (.fr.)
- Close to I would say 70% of the items I buy from the U.K. are from sellers that "May not post to Canada." And a few of these have had in their description "Will ship worldwide please contact me for shipping quotes" or something like that. I do not believe these will show up on the .ca site.

To reproduce
- Close all tabs/everything in your web browser
- Clear your web browser's cache completely of everything and close it
- Open your web browser again
- Navigate to the .com (or .co.uk) site and DO NOT login
- I see "Free International Shipping" on some items from time-to-time, in particular those on the .com site more-so than on the .co.uk site.

I have not encountered a single one of these listings for a seller from the U.S. or the U.K. that actually have free shipping. I mentioned the issue with the .com site because it seems far more listings are advertised having "Free International Shipping" on the .com site as opposed to the .co.uk site. I just checked the listings again for that 400+ seller I previously mentioned and nothing has changed.

Contacting sellers
No I have not contacted any sellers. I don't believe these sellers know anything about this. It is simply a bug in eBay. And as such even if they contacted eBay about it eBay would very likely not do anything about it either.

Mobile/desktop
I have tried this on two different computers with different operating systems and two different web browsers made by different companies. I am using the desktop version of the website only. I do not use the mobile version anymore as I've encountered so many issues with it (like not being able to even navigate to the SECOND page of a search result for example) that it is totally unusable to me. These could be eBay bugs with the mobile version and/or bugs in the web browser on the phone or both I simply don't bother with it and use the desktop version only.

Drop shipping
I don't know what drop shipping is but the ones I've seen that are advertised as having "Free International Shipping" that are from Japan for example, actually do have free shipping. It is the ones from the U.S. and U.K. that I have noticed don't.

I don't know how long eBay has been around for at least 18 years I'm sure. So they have had some 18 years to work on bugs. If this was the only bug no problem, but I encounter silly eBay bugs quite often actually.

winepress780 · ‎02-02-2016

OK well I just found an option to see U.K. only listings on the .ca site. However, I'm going to take a guess that this is only showing items where the seller ships to Canada and won't include any "May not post to Canada" auctions. I normally don't browse logged in and I always clear my browser's cache when closing so it is still easier for me to just use the .co.uk site to see U.K. only listings.

winepress780 · ‎02-02-2016

Still getting way more listings on the .co.uk site than the .ca site (filtered to U.K.) for otherwise the exact same search. I noticed some on the .ca site say shipping not specified but the listings between the two sites are clearly different with the .co.uk having way more. Also see the annoying GSP auctions as expected which I'm waging trench warfare against

marnotom! · ‎02-03-2016

@winepress780 wrote:

Still getting way more listings on the .co.uk site than the .ca site (filtered to U.K.) for otherwise the exact same search. I noticed some on the .ca site say shipping not specified but the listings between the two sites are clearly different with the .co.uk having way more.

Do all those listings on the UK site specify that the seller ships to Canada?

faircrochet · ‎02-03-2016

@winepress780 wrote:
So I signed in to the .com site and the Free International Shipping did not show underneath the auction. I signed out and it still didn't show up again. However, when I closed the browser and cleared its cache and reopened the browser and went back to the seller's listing it showed Free International Shipping again. It didn't matter if I entered in my Postal Code or not. On the .ca site it did not show Free International Shipping.

Ok, here's a total guess. It seems you see the "free shipping" message when ebay doessn't know where you are - you logged out and cleared your cache. Is it possible that the seller offers free shipping somewhere in the world (outside of the US) so the message appears when you are anonymous. But then when you log in, it obviously knows where you are and can give you the exact shipping charge?

I don't need a reply to this - just musing "out loud".

winepress780 · ‎02-03-2016

No

@card-zonejen
I would think that they would ONLY advertise free international shipping if they knew for sure where you were from. A U.S. listing that is advertised as having "Free International Shipping" where Canada is not included would be ridiculous yeah? It would be like someone owning a shop and yelling "Free Soup!" but then when you see them they say "No Soup For You!"

winepress780 · ‎02-03-2016

They know I am located in Canada. Take a look at the screenshots for the Digital Thermometer. The first screenshot shows Free International Shipping beside the listing. The second screenshot showing the item as I clicked on it has quotes for International Priority Shipping to Canada.

marnotom! · ‎02-03-2016

@winepress780 wrote:

No

Well, no wonder you're finding more UK listings with a search on the UK site than you are on the Canadian site, then. Only UK listings where shipping to Canada has been specified by the seller will find their way into search results on .ca, unless it's a search by item number.

chimera148 · ‎02-04-2016

Some US sellers have been reporting this problem for years, since 2012, and taking losses rather than risk negative feedback. Usually, but not always, from smartphones.

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Tools-Apps/Why-is-shipping-showing-up-as-FREE-when-it-s-not-Its-on-a-Sm...

marnotom! · ‎02-04-2016

@chimera148 wrote:

Some US sellers have been reporting this problem for years, since 2012, and taking losses rather than risk negative feedback. Usually, but not always, from smartphones.

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Tools-Apps/Why-is-shipping-showing-up-as-FREE-when-it-s-not-Its-on-a-Sm...

I think what Winepress is referring to is a message that appears in search results. That thread seems to be dealing with how the mobile version of eBay or the eBay app is displaying its version of a listing page.

chimera148 · ‎02-05-2016

Some variations are mentioned similar to what Winepress has described, re the searches and the problems on the home computers.

reallynicestamps · ‎02-05-2016

just the other day I was outbid on an auction and then I see that I have been outbid on it in the Activity panel. It shows in red Outbid below it. So I go back to the auction and increase my bid and then become the highest bidder again. So far so good then I go back to the Activity panel and it shows the new price for the auction but it still shows in red that I have been Outbid?

Sounds like the Proxy Bidding system working correctly.

For example.

The opening bid is $10

I like it and bid $100 as my maximum. Then I go to bed.

The high bid shows as $10

You come along and also like it so you bid $11.

My high bid changes automatically to $12.

You change your bid to $13.

My high bid changes automatically to $14.

Until you bid higher than $100, I keep being the winner. Even though I have been sleeping soundly throughout the process.

And btw, your maximum could be $100.01 and you would beat me.

winepress780 · ‎02-05-2016

@reallynicestamps wrote:
just the other day I was outbid on an auction and then I see that I have been outbid on it in the Activity panel. It shows in red Outbid below it. So I go back to the auction and increase my bid and then become the highest bidder again. So far so good then I go back to the Activity panel and it shows the new price for the auction but it still shows in red that I have been Outbid?

Sounds like the Proxy Bidding system working correctly.
For example.
The opening bid is $10
I like it and bid $100 as my maximum. Then I go to bed.
The high bid shows as $10
You come along and also like it so you bid $11.
My high bid changes automatically to $12.
You change your bid to $13.
My high bid changes automatically to $14.
Until you bid higher than $100, I keep being the winner. Even though I have been sleeping soundly throughout the process.
And btw, your maximum could be $100.01 and you would beat me.

My post was not clear. Let's say there are three bids on an auction and the current price is $9.50. My maximum bid is $20 so I am clearly the highest bidder at this point in time with exactly three bids.

I placed the first bid
Someone else placed the second bid hours/days later and outbid me
I placed the third bid hours/days later and outbid the other bidder

The problem occurs when I placed the third bid. At this point there are two bids on the auction and I am not the highest bidder. The Activity panel shows the current price of the auction, say $6.00 with a red stripe below it saying OUTBID. The Activity panel is working correctly. I close that page and open another page to the auction. That also reflects that I am not the highest bidder. So I use the auction page and place my $20 bid. The price jumps to $9.50 and I can now see I'm the highest bidder.

Great so I go back and open the Activity panel. I expect to see my bid reflected there and the fact that I am now the highest bidder again. But guess what the panel shows the current price of the auction $9.50 but it still shows a red stripe below with the word OUTBID on it. Go back to the auction page and it shows the current $9.50 price and that I am the highest bidder. Go to the Activity panel and it shows the current price $9.50 and that I have been OUTBID.

There are only three bids on the auction. It's not a matter of refreshing the page. eBay's system will "update" my Activity panel whenever the heck they want to and I say it's non-sense. As I mentioned before sometimes I've bid on auctions and not had them reflected in the Activity panel for what seems like an entire day later.

winepress780 · ‎02-05-2016

@marnotom! wrote:
@winepress780 wrote:

No

Well, no wonder you're finding more UK listings with a search on the UK site than you are on the Canadian site, then. Only UK listings where shipping to Canada has been specified by the seller will find their way into search results on .ca, unless it's a search by item number.

That's why the U.K. is superior I can also see auctions for the European Union which you can't do on the .ca site.

winepress780 · ‎02-05-2016

@chimera148 wrote:
Some variations are mentioned similar to what Winepress has described, re the searches and the problems on the home computers.

Yup. Use eBay and you have to tolerate this two-bit mickey mouse system that tells lies. eBay is a dinosaur and turtle moving relic that is stuck in the dark ages. Until it starts affecting their bottom line they won't do anything about it. By then though it might be too late. Some companies, like Microsoft, while making strides in recent years in the quality of their software, have learned what irrelevance is like. Apple if they are not careful will go down the same hole because while their hardware is top quality, the quality of their software has gone steadily downhill. Once the reputation of quality is lost it is pretty much gone. Build a system on the cheap, turn it into a gas factory full of bugs, don't listen to customers, and people just don't care to report the issues anymore.