eBay

tsuioku · ‎01-31-2021

The seller of an item I am watching just sent me an offer which I accepted. Upon checking out though, I noticed that GSP shipping costs have increased! The net savings between the Seller discount and shipping cost increase is a whole whopping 2 CENTS!

I reached out to the seller and they claim that they have no control over the Global Shipping Program. Is there any way to reach out to eBay to investigate why they increased the GSP price?

What's especially frustrating is that you can only preview total costs AFTER you accept the offer. So looks like I'm stuck with either buying the item now or risk taking a strike against my account.

marnotom! · ‎01-31-2021

Did the price of the item drop below CDN$40?

Did the import charges go bye-bye?

Without knowing the item in question and its selling price, I'm going to guess that the item's price dropped to an amount within the tax-free threshold. However, import charges also include various customs processing fees. I'm betting these were added to the shipping charge.

Some numbers from you would be useful if you're comfortable sharing them.

tsuioku · ‎01-31-2021

Yes, you are correct. With the offer, the price of the item dropped below CDN$40.

Here are the before and after numbers in USD for you to verify:

Price: $33 --> $29

Shipping: $16.91 --> $20.88

Import Charges: $5.77 --> $0

At a glance, seems like the Customs processing fees may have been moved to shipping. If ebay left it under Import Charges, it would have been less confusing.

marnotom! · ‎02-01-2021

@tsuioku wrote:

Yes, you are correct. With the offer, the price of the item dropped below CDN$40.

Here are the before and after numbers in USD for you to verify:
Price: $33 --> $29
Shipping: $16.91 --> $20.88
Import Charges: $5.77 --> $0

At a glance, seems like the Customs processing fees may have been moved to shipping. If ebay left it under Import Charges, it would have been less confusing.

Thanks for that. 5% GST on a US$33 purchase would be US$1.65. That would make the non-tax portion of the import charges US$4.12. The shipping price for the "best offer" went up US$3.97, almost the same amount. I wouldn't lose sleep over the 15 cent difference, especially as it's in your favour. 😁

Yes, it's confusing to have customs processing charges in two different places on a GST purchase, depending on the value of the purchase. In the early days of the GSP, those customs processing charges did show up under "import charges" on listings for items selling for amounts below a particular country's de minimis threshold. However, too many buyers didn't understand why that charge was there, so it was shifted to Pitney Bowes' portion of the shipping price instead.

reallynicestamps · ‎02-01-2021

Wow, that's a lot of energy over two cents.

You are paying in US dollars.

But unless you have an American* bank account and pay all your USD purchases from that, the two cents are likely a fluctuation in foreign exchange.

Two cents?

Seriously?

*That's a bank in the USA, licensed by the American government, not a Canadian bank account in US dollars.

tsuioku · ‎02-01-2021

Wrote the post on impulse so looks like I wasn't too clear.

TLDR: ebay shows you offer from seller then increases shipping after you accept which effectively negated the offer.

The energy is over effectively a bait and switch. The offer system really needs to be updated so that total cost is shown to the buyer as part of the offer and not visible only after you accept.

marnotom! · ‎02-01-2021

@reallynicestamps wrote:

Wow, that's a lot of energy over two cents.

You are paying in US dollars.
But unless you have an American* bank account and pay all your USD purchases from that, the two cents are likely a fluctuation in foreign exchange.

It's roughly a US$5.80 difference because the OP wasn't originally taking the adjusted import charges into account. See earlier posts.