eBay

billybishop72 · ‎09-09-2016

10. Canadians realize they do a better job at repackaging items than Pitney Bowes.

9. Canadians are amazed that the 9 specific GSP charges are more atrocious than the pocket-picking greed of the Canadian banks.

8. By ignoring GSP items, Canadians save money on junk they don’t really need.

7. Canadians can’t figure out why Americans are too lazy to fill out a few words on custom form and go to the post office for proper postage.

6. The GSP is good for the Trans Pacific Partnership…it encourages more buying from China.

5. The GSP reduces Canadians to searching for hours for sellers that still use USPS

4. Canadians realize that there is actually is a worse delivery system than Canada Post.

3. Canadians don’t understand why ‘slow delivery’ now costs 2-3 times more than fast delivery.

2.Canadians dream of the day they can send their packages to Canada Post’s Nunavat depot first

just to get even….

Any finally, the number 1 way the GSP has affected Canadians on Ebay….

1. They get a lot of practice pressing the ‘back’ button…

reallynicestamps · ‎09-10-2016

Amusing.

but.

6. The GSP is good for the Trans Pacific Partnership…it encourages more buying from China.

The TPP began as an expansion of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPSEP or P4) signed by Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore in 2005. Beginning in 2008, additional countries joined the discussion for a broader agreement: Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the United States, and Vietnam, bringing the total number of countries participating in the negotiations to twelve.-- Wikipedia

China is not part of the TPP.

4. Canadians realize that there is actually is a worse delivery system than Canada Post.

Most GSP parcels are delivered by Canada Post, and were sent to Kentucky by USPS.

If there is a slowdown it is between KY and the border.

sylviebee · ‎09-10-2016

I would love to have access to the data and crunch some numbers.

Not the finished analyses eBay presents to the public as it's easy to make the numbers come out the way one wishes.

But the raw data.

When controlling for normal fluctuations, I wonder if the numbers would show a difference between pre-GSP Canadian purchases and the current state of affairs.

The many posts by Canadians regarding the GSP give the impression that Canadians have all but stopped buying on eBay.

However, if that's the case then why is the GSP still available to US sellers shipping to Canada?

I wonder what story the numbers would reveal?

reallynicestamps · ‎09-10-2016

I suspect that the numbers of US and UK sellers offering international shipping has increased.

But I also suspect that many of those who were put into the system have in the past two years have yet to get an international sale.

The US market is HUGE, to quote an orange skinned egomaniac, and non-US purchasers are often a shock.

Witness the number of buyers here who can't get their sellers to understand how to handle problems.

The number of international sales have probably increased, but from a drop in the bucket to two drops in the bucket.

I have noticed that when someone complains about the GSP, it's not just once, it's over and over and over, even if there is only one transaction being complained about.

This leads me to think that Canadians are more accepting of this urine-challenged program than appears at first glance.

marnotom! · ‎09-10-2016

@sylviebee wrote:

I would love to have access to the data and crunch some numbers.

Not the finished analyses eBay presents to the public as it's easy to make the numbers come out the way one wishes.

But the raw data.

When controlling for normal fluctuations, I wonder if the numbers would show a difference between pre-GSP Canadian purchases and the current state of affairs.

The many posts by Canadians regarding the GSP give the impression that Canadians have all but stopped buying on eBay.
However, if that's the case then why is the GSP still available to US sellers shipping to Canada?

I wonder what story the numbers would reveal?

Unfortunately, the GSP isn't the only factor that generally affects Canadians' (or other non-Americans) decisions to purchase from a US seller. The Canadian dollar comes to mind as a variable that could affect analysis of the GSP's impact on Canadian buyers.

As the Canadian dollar increases in value, the pricing of the GSP becomes more attractive. For example, I think one reason we've seen the GSP's cut of the "import charges" rise from about US$3.50 to around US$5.00 is the fall in the value of the Canadian dollar.

Any decent analysis of the GSP's impact on Canadians' buying patterns on eBay would have to factor in other variables, and one could conclude that if there are Canadians who are no longer using eBay for their purchases from the US, these other variables could well be responsible.

marnotom! · ‎09-10-2016

@reallynicestamps wrote:

I suspect that the numbers of US and UK sellers offering international shipping has increased.
But I also suspect that many of those who were put into the system have in the past two years have yet to get an international sale.

Definitely agree with that. I still maintain that the GSP is largely being applied to listings from sellers who don't realize that they've been auto-enrolled into the program or people who don't care that they are enrolled.

@reallynicestamps wrote:

I have noticed that when someone complains about the GSP, it's not just once, it's over and over and over, even if there is only one transaction being complained about.

This leads me to think that Canadians are more accepting of this urine-challenged program than appears at first glance.

Possibly, but I'm more inclined to conclude that these complainers have just learned a hard lesson and are now shopping with a few more smarts.

I do have to admit that I'm really astonished by the number of "buy first, complain later" posts when there's links to info on the GSP on the listing page and these help boards exist. Why do buyers not learn about the program prior to making their purchases? Is it because they're so accustomed to getting their items tax/duty-free that they feel the notes about import charges don't apply to them?

sylviebee · ‎09-10-2016

Yes, a HUGE market; Tremendous, tremendously biglee.

There would have been an initial surge but now that would have levelled off.

It would be interesting to see how many GSP sales from the US to Canada involve new buyers as opposed to experienced buyers.

and: Do new buyers who have been subjected to the GSP return to eBay or do they avoid eBay as posts here suggest?

Questions like that.

Also, it would be interesting to know if the GSP has resulted in more cancellations and nonpaying buyers, and those kinds of issues.

I can think of a long list of questions about the GSP. I have the impression that US sales to Canada have decreased biglee, and it would be interesting to know if that's an accurate impression or not.

marnotom! · ‎09-10-2016

@sylviebee wrote:

I can think of a long list of questions about the GSP. I have the impression that US sales to Canada have decreased biglee, and it would be interesting to know if that's an accurate impression or not.

There's too many variables involved to accurately ascertain whether a decrease in US sales to Canada (assuming there is one) can be attributed solely to the GSP. See my previous post if you haven't already read it. It won't bite you.

00nevermind00 · ‎09-10-2016

Canada is only a drop in the GSP bucket. I'd bet money that the program was designed with an eye to the huge Asian market (no offense to the Orange One, but that market is a lot bigger than the US market...) There is a new middle class in China, India and elsewere in Asia. Those people want to buy stuff and eBay wants them to buy as much of it as possible on eBay. Next to a market of more than a couple billion people, our 36 million just didn't matter all that much to the program's designers.