eBay

ca_cunn · ‎06-25-2015

Ebay has done the impossible!

The GSP is no longer alive and well on Ebay!

The indicators that showed us that a seller was using GSP are gone!

Now for the truth! Ebay has now hidden the fact that a seller is using GSP due to immense consumer criticism. That criticism was, in my very humble opinion well warranted. The GSP did absolutely nothing for Canadians, other than add time and expense to our purchases if, IF, we were stupid enough to buy from a seller in the USA who ships via GSP.

Well Canadians rose up in anger, all one needs to do is read all the unfavourable comments on this site to know just how displeased we were. So GSP is no longer with us..It is however very much still alve in the USA where many of our purchases would normally come from. The 'Customs Service and brokerage' has been replaced with a miniscule warning that 'items may be subject to additional fees for customs and brokerage' warning.

You, as Canadian buyers, are expected to just accept what they tell you to do. When you have purchased an item showing a shipping fee 'EXPECT there may be additional charges due'. What those additional charges may be shall be revealed to you when, and only when, you have committed to buy an item!

No way to run a business on such subtrafuege, Ebay, you ought to be ashamed. Frankly I, as a Canadian buyer an very insulted by this gambit.

I have items coming off in the next five days. Once they are complete, Ebay is welcome to continue their game with any Canadians dumb enough to continue. I won't be buying another item once the bids I have posted are complete.

marnotom! · ‎06-25-2015

GSP is still very much around. What may be happening with you is that your search results are being tweaked to push down GSP listings as being "not so good" matches.

I still see the "customs services and international tracking provided" message on GSP listings when I view my search results in list view, rather than gallery view.

femmefan1946 · ‎06-25-2015

It is however very much still alve in the USA where many of our purchases would normally come from.

Well, yeah.

The GSP never was available to Canadian sellers who are quite comfortable dealing with foreign buyers.

From all reports the GSP is very popular with US sellers, who benefit from the program with more potential and actual buyers, reduced stress about slow international shipping and protection against negative feedback from GSP customers.

The program has been so successful in encouraging US sellers to ship internationally, that it has been extended to UK sellers, another group that is apprehensive about international sales.

That the GSP is not helpful for Canadian BUYERS is not important to eBay. It was never meant to help buyers.

ca_cunn · ‎06-26-2015

Case in point... I buy a non-GSP item and "Usually" it is out of the US and into Canada within four days, depending where it comes into Canada, it will 'usually' be in my hands with in four to five days after it lands at customs. I buy a GSP item, it must now travel to where the GSP sort Centre is and then turn around and be re-routed to Canada. The net benefit to me? at least twelve dollars that I must pay to Pitney Bowes for a service USPS provides free then they usually apply HST regardless of the value of the item AND an additional three to four days delay in delivery!. It is my understanding that items under twenty dollars are admitted without HST to Canada. Yet these folks routinely add 13% and label it HST.

Far as I am concerned if the Americans are that paranoid about selling out side their "ZONE OF COMFORT, I won't bother to buy from them any more. I suspect the element of surprise on the extra charges issue may convince other Canadians to do likewise. That will help their sales won't it?

marnotom! · ‎06-26-2015

@ca_cunn wrote:

Case in point... I buy a non-GSP item and "Usually" it is out of the US and into Canada within four days, depending where it comes into Canada, it will 'usually' be in my hands with in four to five days after it lands at customs. I buy a GSP item, it must now travel to where the GSP sort Centre is and then turn around and be re-routed to Canada. The net benefit to me? at least twelve dollars that I must pay to Pitney Bowes for a service USPS provides free then they usually apply HST regardless of the value of the item AND an additional three to four days delay in delivery!. It is my understanding that items under twenty dollars are admitted without HST to Canada. Yet these folks routinely add 13% and label it HST.

Far as I am concerned if the Americans are that paranoid about selling out side their "ZONE OF COMFORT, I won't bother to buy from them any more. I suspect the element of surprise on the extra charges issue may convince other Canadians to do likewise. That will help their sales won't it?

Perhaps much of that is true for you in Ontario, but as a buyer in British Columbia, I've occasionally had to wait up to a month for parcel post items to reach me from the eastern United States. I'm not saying that the GSP would necessarily be much faster than that, but at least an item from New York wouldn't be taking a significant detour before being shipped by a freight carrier from KY to BC.

By the way, I've never seen a sub-CDN$20 item sold through the GSP that's had what appears to be GST/PST applied to it. Can you provide an example? Perhaps those are duty charges that you're seeing? One of the GSP's many problems is that the program may miscalculate duty if the seller doesn't provide information on the item's country of origin.

I've only purchased one item through the GSP--a mobile phone--but I likely wouldn't have purchased the item if it had been shipped by what other sellers were offering as an alternative: a pricey tracked service that may have seen me paying a schwack-load in brokerage fees upon or after receiving the item. I think these are the types of items for which the GSP was designed. Unfortunately, sellers of less expensive, less fraud-prone items either don't realize they're using the GSP or aren't aware just how much in additional fees their potential non-US buyers have to shell out in order to purchase their item.

(Incidentally, thanks to a quirk in BC's tax regulations, I didn't have to pay PST on my phone, just GST.)

arlene_v · ‎06-26-2015

Well I'm thrilled that the GSP listings are so low in my searches now on the eBay.ca site that they might as well be invisible

It really does feel like "the good old days" around here again, and I am loving every last minute.

Strange that they didn't just offer a filter as so many have asked for, but I think most will be pretty happy with this alternative (i.e, bumping GSP listings right to the very bottom of any search result on the .ca site)