eBay

i.am.vivian · ‎09-18-2016

Hey y'all,

Wondering if some of the GSP watchers around here have noticed that it is behaving a little odd lately, or odder than usual. I am not shopping for GSP items and generally pass them by as too expensive but when there is no fee I am curious what gives. Like this

i.am.vivian · ‎09-18-2016

When I click on the listing itself, no mention of GSP so the seller obviously does not want to sell internationally not even with GSP it looks like. But why is it still showing up then? GSP listings usually have a wrong fee when viewed in LIST but its there. This has no fee and none on the listing either but still appears for some reason.

i.am.vivian · ‎09-18-2016

Clicking on the Shipping tab is no help because there is no place to enter that valid postal code. You can't change the country, only to US and Brazil.

marnotom! · ‎09-19-2016

I checked the listing you posted the screenshot of and one more, and they appear to be from the same seller. You'll note that the seller has stated that they ship to Brazil (?!) as well as the United States.

As Brazil is a country to which GSP items can be shipped, I suspect what has happened here is that the GSP information has been dredged up by eBay's dodgy paper-clip and rubber-band propped-up system for all GSP-eligible countries, but only partially suppressed when the programming "realizes" that Canada has been excluded from the seller's list of ship-to locations.

ypdc_dennis · ‎09-19-2016

In the examples above:

It looks like the seller is ONLY shipping to the USA and to Brazil.

Global Shipping is set up ONLY for Brazil -- and all the other countries (like Canada) are excluded.

The item does have GSP, just not for Canada.

It's just like "Free International shipping" displayed on eBay,com when the only country with free shipping is Canada.

-..-

reallynicestamps · ‎09-19-2016

It's true! A seller can specifiy what countries he is willing to ship too, even with the Global Shipping Program in place to protect him against unwarranted Item Not Delivered claims.

He chooses the countries he is willing to ship too, slaps on the GSP to cover his assets, and Robert is your father's brother!

Maybe he has a very specific repeat customer in Brazil and the GSP is just for that customer? We may never know.

i.am.vivian · ‎09-19-2016

@marnotom! wrote:
I suspect what has happened here is that the GSP information has been dredged up by eBay's dodgy paper-clip and rubber-band propped-up system for all GSP-eligible countries, but only partially suppressed when the programming "realizes" that Canada has been excluded from the seller's list of ship-to locations.

That sounds about right but it sure is stupid! I didn't check other eBays but if an American seller can block off certain countries even when using the GSP but the items still show up worldwide only nobody can buy them even if they wanted to..............

Wow, talk about dumb! 🙂

i.am.vivian · ‎09-19-2016

@ypdc_dennis wrote:
In the examples above:

It looks like the seller is ONLY shipping to the USA and to Brazil.

Global Shipping is set up ONLY for Brazil -- and all the other countries (like Canada) are excluded.

The item does have GSP, just not for Canada.
It's just like "Free International shipping" displayed on eBay,com when the only country with free shipping is Canada.

-..-

You are right they only sell to those countries but I thought with GSP that was neither here nor there because GSP is on listings where the seller will only sell within the US and not internationally. Kentucky is in the US so I assumed a GSP seller would get the Erlanger pop-up when an international user bought an item and the seller only had to mail it there.

I think I get it now but it made no sense to see the listings so I thought it had to be a glitch or tinkering. It sure is idiotic that the listings show up worldwide through GSP only they are not actually available to buy.

i.am.vivian · ‎09-19-2016

@reallynicestamps wrote:
It's true! A seller can specifiy what countries he is willing to ship too, even with the Global Shipping Program in place to protect him against unwarranted Item Not Delivered claims.

He chooses the countries he is willing to ship too, slaps on the GSP to cover his assets, and Robert is your father's brother!

Maybe he has a very specific repeat customer in Brazil and the GSP is just for that customer? We may never know.

It does seem odd that of all the countries in the world, only Brazil is considered decent enough to ship to. I haven't checked if a buyer in Brazil can get the sellers items directly since that country is listed as a "ships to" country. Within the US they don't use GSP and for countries listed I would think not them either.

Strange. "You can use the GSP but not ship to anybody, we'll just dangle your items at prospective customers but don't worry, you will never have to make a sale."

reallynicestamps · ‎09-19-2016

Well, let's think about it a bit, while ignoring the insult to us fine upstanding Canadian buyers.

GSP or no, would you ship to Rumania? Botswana? Pakistan? Paraguay?

What are the chances of getting a Not As Described claim from those countries? Those claims are not covered by the GSP, I understand.

And in at least two of them, there is no Rule of Law keeping daily existence honest.

This seller is willing to ship to Brazil, a prosperous country with a notorious postal and customs system. Perhaps it is his home country. Perhaps he has just the one solid customer there.

He uses the GSP to more or less guarantee arrival, and is comfortable that his Brazilian customers will not be claiming SNADs.

marnotom! · ‎09-19-2016

Another possible scenario is that the seller made arrangements with a Brazilian buyer to set up the listings with shipping to Brazil but did not specify a shipping method and shipping rates to that country.

As a result, those listings saw the GSP automatically applied to them by eBay.

i.am.vivian · ‎09-19-2016

@marnotom! wrote:
Another possible scenario is that the seller made arrangements with a Brazilian buyer to set up the listings with shipping to Brazil but did not specify a shipping method and shipping rates to that country.

As a result, those listings saw the GSP automatically applied to them by eBay.

It sure makes you wonder. That must be it then, whatever REASONS the seller has buyers in Brazil they included that country and deliberately left out all others. I don't believe that the buyers from every other country on earth except Brazil are going to be more dishonest and file more false claims, even more than Americans themselves. What I CAN understand is that a seller does not want to ship outside USA it just seemed odd that a seller would pick Brazil "Yes" but "No" to everything else, "Yes" to GSP for protection to Brazil but not risking the rest of the world even with GSP. And then the items show up worldwide anyway because the computers can't tell the difference? Sheesh.

marnotom! · ‎09-19-2016

@i.am.vivian wrote:

It sure makes you wonder. That must be it then, whatever REASONS the seller has buyers in Brazil they included that country and deliberately left out all others. I don't believe that the buyers from every other country on earth except Brazil are going to be more dishonest and file more false claims, even more than Americans themselves. What I CAN understand is that a seller does not want to ship outside USA it just seemed odd that a seller would pick Brazil "Yes" but "No" to everything else, "Yes" to GSP for protection to Brazil but not risking the rest of the world even with GSP. And then the items show up worldwide anyway because the computers can't tell the difference? Sheesh.

I don't think the seller is aware that the GSP has been applied to their listings. I think all they did was specify "Brazil" as a shipping location but didn't include a shipping method or rate. The seller instructed the buyer to purchase the items they were interested in and then the shipping cost and method would be worked out after the cookbooks were purchased.

My guess is that the eBay spider trolling listings without international shipping methods and rates specified on them (and no blocks applied to buyers with non-US addresses) picked up these listings and the GSP was automatically applied to those listings by eBay.

It may be that the Brazilian buyer planned on having the books sent to a U.S. address anyway and the buyer and seller couldn't figure out how to do this without adding Brazil as a shipping destination on the listings.

marnotom! · ‎09-19-2016

Another possible scenario is that sometime in the past, the seller added Brazil as a shipping location for one listing as a favour to the buyer and this switch affected all their listings.

Out of curiosity, I clicked on Brazil for shipping rates on a couple of that seller's listings and got an eBay message stating that the seller had not specified shipping options to that country.

i.am.vivian · ‎09-19-2016

@marnotom! wrote:

I don't think the seller is aware that the GSP has been applied to their listings. I think all they did was specify "Brazil" as a shipping location but didn't include a shipping method or rate.

Even after all this time there are still lots of sellers who don't know that GSP is on their listings. 🙂 But that's part of what I don't get. Sellers only want to ship within the US, but the GSP latches on to all their listings and posts them worldwide.

The sellers don't specify "Kentucky" as a location but that is where the items are first mailed. The GSP adds on its costs to those American listings in its web so that worldwide buyers see all charges and costs.

It sounds like this seller must have BLOCKED every country except US and Brazil, not just chose to "Ship To" the US and Brazil only. Is that what you are saying?

Would that be right, then? A seller who BLOCKS all other countries in an exclusion list will not have GSP on their listings? They don't have to actually click a "Go away, GSP" box? Except in this case where only Brazil is allowed but What the Heck, Let's show everybody what they're not getting.

LOL! I can't help thinking I'm spending too much time on this! 🙂

owlgebra · ‎09-19-2016

I did a search for cookbooks martha richard and more in ebay.ca, and it did not show up so I don't think there's a problem with people seeing what they can't buy in their country anyway. If you mean it showed up in ebay.com, well that's standard and expected and the way I like it. Then you can ask permission to buy unless the seller has taken the extraordinary measure of blocking other countries in another setting, in which case communication is also blocked.

marnotom! · ‎09-19-2016

@i.am.vivian wrote:

Even after all this time there are still lots of sellers who don't know that GSP is on their listings. 🙂 But that's part of what I don't get. Sellers only want to ship within the US, but the GSP latches on to all their listings and posts them worldwide.

The sellers don't specify "Kentucky" as a location but that is where the items are first mailed. The GSP adds on its costs to those American listings in its web so that worldwide buyers see all charges and costs.

It sounds like this seller must have BLOCKED every country except US and Brazil, not just chose to "Ship To" the US and Brazil only. Is that what you are saying?

Would that be right, then? A seller who BLOCKS all other countries in an exclusion list will not have GSP on their listings? They don't have to actually click a "Go away, GSP" box? Except in this case where only Brazil is allowed but What the Heck, Let's show everybody what they're not getting.

LOL! I can't help thinking I'm spending too much time on this! 🙂

You and me both!

From what I can see, the seller doesn't presently have their buyer requirements set to block purchases from buyers with non-U.S. shipping addresses. Listings state "May not ship to Canada" in the shipping section, rather than "Does not ship to Canada." That doesn't mean, of course, that in the past the seller didn't have this block activated. It might be that in their attempt to add Brazil as a shipping destination, they messed up their other buyer requirements settings.

Having said that, I found a listing from that seller that ended in July that had no quirky mention of Brazil as a shipping destination on it and the GSP was fully applied.

marnotom! · ‎09-19-2016

@owlgebra wrote:

I did a search for cookbooks martha richard and more in ebay.ca, and it did not show up so I don't think there's a problem with people seeing what they can't buy in their country anyway. If you mean it showed up in ebay.com, well that's standard and expected and the way I like it. Then you can ask permission to buy unless the seller has taken the extraordinary measure of blocking other countries in another setting, in which case communication is also blocked.

Interesting. I was able to find this listing on eBay.ca, eBay.com and eBay.co.uk with a keyword search using "list view" for my results.

Item number is 282153394359 for what it's worth.

i.am.vivian · ‎09-19-2016

@marnotom! wrote:
@owlgebra wrote:

I did a search for cookbooks martha richard and more in ebay.ca, and it did not show up so I don't think there's a problem with people seeing what they can't buy in their country anyway. If you mean it showed up in ebay.com, well that's standard and expected and the way I like it. Then you can ask permission to buy unless the seller has taken the extraordinary measure of blocking other countries in another setting, in which case communication is also blocked.

Interesting. I was able to find this listing on eBay.ca, eBay.com and eBay.co.uk with a keyword search using "list view" for my results.

I just checked again (never know when my eyes are playing tricks on me) and from eBay.CA there it is:

i.am.vivian · ‎09-19-2016

@marnotom! wrote:

Listings state "May not ship to Canada" in the shipping section, rather than "Does not ship to Canada." That doesn't mean, of course, that in the past the seller didn't have this block activated. It might be that in their attempt to add Brazil as a shipping destination, they messed up their other buyer requirements settings.

Having said that, I found a listing from that seller that ended in July that had no quirky mention of Brazil as a shipping destination on it and the GSP was fully applied.

You're right, they usually have DOES NOT in big red letters when Canada has been blocked. Strange then that there is no FEE tacked on by GSP since they're showing the items. That is what I found so odd in the first place. And now you say former listings had it all set up as we would expect. Strange. You sure have tackled the puzzle from all angles. I bet you were top of your class in school! 🙂