Anybody else finding ebay irrelevant?

[teddybearman1965]

I ordered a pump control 18 days ago. It shipped through the global shipping program, which I do know is absolutely horrible and out dated. No idea where it is now but it's late and my shower has no pressure. Contacted seller and received no answer. Tried to report missing item but I just keep getting returned to a page saying it's "on the way" with some nonsense about Covid. It's been "on the way" for 18 days. My house is 600 miles from the seller. I could walk there and back faster! Come to find I could have had the very same pump controller next day from Amazon. I don't order much from ebay these days, 99% of anything I order is from Amazon, I guess I was feeling nostalgic. Member since 2004. ebay customer service is horrible. They don't give a flying you-know-what  about people who's items are missing. Their global shipping program is a disaster and has been for years. This will be my last ebay purchase either way, I will delete my account in 5 days regardless of the outcome of this debacle. Just wondering if anyone else questions the relevance of ebay in 2021 when 99.999% of the merchandise on ebay is available on Amazon for less money delivered the next day or at most, a week later. Even if it ships from China...regardless of Covid?

[femmefan1946 · Accepted solution]

You can walk over 33 miles a day? You must be very fit.

What was the window eBay gave you for delivery?

If you have not received your pump by the last day, open a Dispute in the Resolution Centre at the bottom of this page.  State that the shipping was through the Global Shipping Program. GSP carries good insurance I guess, because if you are refunded they don't want the item back if it arrives after the refund.

[marnotom!]

I still find eBay very relevant.  I've only had four or five items of my eBay purchases handled by the Global Shipping Program, but they were items that either had no equivalent on Amazon or else they were stupidly expensive to purchase through Amazon as I would have had to purchase them from an Amazon seller and not from Amazon itself.

I find it useful to think of the Global Shipping Program as a forwarding service because, well, it is.  That's helped keep my expectations of the service realistic and reminded me to choose the sellers who use it carefully, because if they don't do their job properly, the whole transaction can collapse like a house of cards.  I also look closely at those estimated delivery dates on the listing page.

It's also good to keep in mind that this program is called the Global Shipping Program and not the Canada Shipping Program as it serves about 100 countries including ours.  Because of our geographical proximity to the United States and the fact that barriers to trade with our southern neighbour have been whittled away since the Second World War, the GSP isn't generally a great fit for most eBay sales.  But sales to Canada make up such a small proportion of most US eBay sellers' sales that it's not really worth anybody's while to have a fancier and likely more expensive system in place or to set up alternative shipping arrangments just for Canadians.  Some buyers in other countries actually don't mind the GSP that much because it bypasses a lot of problems they have when trying to import items from the United States by mail.  To each their own.

I could go on, but I'll just direct you to this recent thread instead:

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Buyer-Central/Why-is-shipping-via-ebay-so-much-slower-than-by-Amazon/m-...

[marnotom!]

Side note:  I followed the link to the pump control listing that was in @teddybearman1965's post and then looked up pump controls on Amazon Canada.  I was directed to two listings for the same model, neither of them were sold by Amazon and the two sellers that were offering them used shipping methods that had estimated delivery times that were a shade shorter than the one in the linked eBay listing.  The Amazon versions would have worked out to be more expensive for me, however, despite "free" shipping offered by both sellers.

[cleaninghouseinc]

Yes the GSP is terrible and the package goes into the black hole and might come out or may not.  Who knows.  The seller, ebay and pitney bowes will just shrug their shoulders and blame the pandemic.  Meanwhile I have received nearly a 100 other parcels shipped on real couriers and are fully trackable and transparent.

[teenytrinkets]

My answer is a clear, resounding NO. I can find stuff on ebay i can't get ANYWHERE else (except maaaaybe Poshmark or 3rd party Amazon, but i can't get free returns on those sites if my order ends up being SNAD).

I'm sure that's why any of us that sell on ebay, still actually have any success as sellers...