eBay

northern-telecom · ‎09-28-2017

eBay is a Global Marketplace, yet its shipping policies have racist undertones.

Why? Because they allow sellers to discriminate against buyers based on where they live.

If an African-American or Italian-Canadian walk into a store, I can't refuse to sell to either, can I?

If I said, "I only ship to addresses in Hollywood, Brentwood, or Beverly Hills, CA", that wouldn't stick.

The Global Shipping Program has so many problems, I tend to avoid it. US sellers are defaulted to it. Yet, there is no Erlanger, KY in Canada. Why? I've never seen a Canadian seller not ship to the US. Now that speaks volumes.

It's only in the US that we see this nonsense. Certain items are restricted, and that's OK, but there's no excuse for what I see -- packages travelling hundreds of miles in the wrong direction. The shipments aren't brokered.

Why didn't they set up a deal with UPS or FedEx?

These US sellers and US GSP sellers shouldn't be on eBay ... period. You want to sell with us, you sell to everyone. That should be eBay's policy.

The USPS 2976-R is so simple.

HS Code:    8517.12.00.30
Description:    Cellular Telephone
Value:    $399.99 USD
Country of Origin: MX (Mexico)

Tick NOEEI 30.36 [X] and tick MERCHANDISE [x] or OTHER [x] EBAY #12345678

Include the URL of the item on the box in text or a scannable QR code.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/xxxxxxxxxxx

That saves customs and/or your broker time.

Done. How hard is THAT? 5 mins of extra work.

marnotom! · ‎09-28-2017

A seller restricting to where they ship to is not an act of racism. Some US sellers don't even ship to Alaska, Hawaii or what's left of Puerto Rico because of their choice of shipper. Does this make them racist?

Besides, Canada and other countries aren't races. They're geographic entities. Perhaps the term you're looking for is not "racism" but "xenophobia".

For what it's worth, if you as a Canadian were to have an American address as your primary shipping address, you could still purchase from a seller who only ships within the United States. The restriction is only on where the seller ships, not to whom the seller ships. "Ships to" is not the same animal as "sells to".

This phenomenon you describe is not unique to the United States. The United Kingdom also has more than its fair share of sellers who won't even ship within the European Union, preferring to either stick to that scepter'd isle or using the UK version of the Global Shipping Program.

I doubt that most Canadians would be in favour of eBay striking a deal with carriers such as FedEx or UPS, particularly the latter. While their ground shipping costs are pretty competitive with USPS's parcel rates, they don't include customs clearance charges which can be a lot more than what the GSP is asking. Too many Canadians appear to be accustomed to getting their items tax and duty free due to CBSA's lax approach to assessing and charging those fees on imports sent through the mail.

femmefan1946 · ‎09-28-2017

Canadians appear to be accustomed to getting their items tax and duty free due to CBSA's lax approach to assessing and charging those fees

You say 'lax' while I say 'sensible'.

Customs officials are reasonably well paid, starting around 40K a year.

That's around 33 cents a minute.

Spending five minutes assessing and charging duty and sales taxes (if any) on a $40 package of auto parts made in the USA? The agent would have spent more than he collected.

Didn't the newish Liberal government promise to raise the duty free for postal imports to match the US $800? Whatever happened to that idea?

ypdc_dennis · ‎09-28-2017

@femmefan1946 wrote:
Didn't the newish Liberal government promise to raise the duty free for postal imports to match the US $800? Whatever happened to that idea?

No. They did not make a promise to match the newish $800 USA exemption.

A $800 exemption would be giving up $40 of GST revenue -- so not going to happen.

-..-

reallynicestamps · ‎09-28-2017

And of course, Canadian retailers (are there any left?) might not be too pleased with cheaper imports.

I still think it could be raised without huge problems to perhaps $200 which is I think the crossborder shopping rate. Not sure because crossing the border from here requires a boat.

marnotom! · ‎09-29-2017

Well, now that we're well and truly off the myriad of topics brought forth by the OP, I can pass along this:

http://business.financialpost.com/news/retail-marketing/unlevel-playing-field-retailers-suffer-as-po...

robbwell · ‎10-01-2017

If the duty and tax free exemption is raised to $200 then there should be an offsetting increase in revenue to Canada and the Provinces ... perhaps a Medicare user's fee. Now, would you still want the exemption raised?

nuvistors · ‎10-09-2017

A small fee each time a person uses a medical service would stop some people from using the ER as a form of recreation. It would not stop those who really needed to see a doctor.

northern-telecom · ‎10-09-2017

The time and admin work to collect on LVS given the volumes they must process means that what the CBSA is doing through Canada Post is CORRECT. Therefore, you are CORRECT when you say sensible. I don't spend $2 to collect $1.

20 years ago, you would get hit on $20.01. Not anymore.

northern-telecom · ‎10-09-2017

Nobody buys anything from the US if they can get it in Canada. There is no loss to Canadian retailers -- none whatsoever.

northern-telecom · ‎10-09-2017

Thanks for that link.

The study is bull. The gov't would lose money collecting that revenue. It would cost them more.

I object to the GSP -- why on earth do they open every single package? Even customs doesn't do that. If they did, everything would come to a grinding halt. And the US-centric sellers really irk me, or the default GSP.

When you cut a deal with FedEx to broker, they'll charge peanuts -- around $10, and the correct exporter is recorded.

Shipments can change carriers in the world of shipping logistics. Do you think they stop to open every single one to check for damage to determine where carrier liability lies. No -- they cut deals and spread the cost around.

Americans who would rather have an item sit unsold for MONTHS and reject the only buyer who is interested in it -- who may be foreign are either bad at business, stupid, or "racist".

I can do an import control shipment, and they refuse. Well, screw them.

Studies have shown that Canadians purchase items from the US which cannot be found in Canada.

Canadian retailers lose nothing. There are a small percentage of idiots who drive to Buffalo and don't factor in gas, and all that. Where are the savings? There are none.

northern-telecom · ‎10-09-2017

I said a form of "racism", not racism in the true sense -- they are discriminating against a group of people, and the shipping policy is based on ignorance. I see no difference. USPS makes it so easy.

Cross border is HS Tariff, Country of Origin, Transactional Value, and NOEEI 30.36.

European sellers have always shipped globally until GSP came in. Never saw one who didn't, so don't excuse American behavior. I would love to say I only ship to Canada, and have Americans beg me, and me say to them, GET LOST.

I would enormous satisfaction out of that, and see how they felt. I'm not anti-American, but actions speak louder than words. When I offer to walk them through the process, or send them a prepaid label (I can do that), and they still refuse, then they really need to be told where to go.

If you're an American seller who is deathly afraid to ship to ship to Canada, I've got news for you. You're not shipping to Mars. Smarten up. USPS will help you if you don't understand.

northern-telecom · ‎10-09-2017

Please excuse the typos. My message to eBay is ... get rid of the GSP and boot sellers who don't ship internationally where delivery confirmation is reliable.

marnotom! · ‎10-09-2017

@northern-telecom wrote:

I object to the GSP -- why on earth do they open every single package? Even customs doesn't do that. If they did, everything would come to a grinding halt. And the US-centric sellers really irk me, or the default GSP.

The official word from PitneyBowes is that packages forwarded through the GSP are opened to determine the item's country of origin or manufacturer if this information isn't given on the listing page. Most of the time sellers don't provide that information either because they're unaware that their item could be forwarded through the GSP or else they haven't studied the terms and conditions closely enough.

Also consider that PitneyBowes is consider the importer of record on a GSP shipment, so my guess is that they're also going to make some efforts to ensure that they're not "importing" something they shouldn't be.

Shipments sent directly by FedEx and their ilk have the actual importer answerable to the shipment. Not so with the GSP.

@northern-telecom wrote:

When you cut a deal with FedEx to broker, they'll charge peanuts -- around $10, and the correct exporter is recorded.

Not sure what you mean by "correct" importer. The way the GSP operates is pretty similar to how freight exports/imports work insofaras who gets "credit" for the shipment. Besides, for low value shipments, the exporter's identity is far less important than the importer's.

You're right about those brokerage deals, though. If you do the number crunching on several GSP shipments, you'll likely find that after taxes and duty are factored into the "import charges", there's typically around five bucks US left over, and that's what goes towards the various and sundry customs processing charges, just over half of what Canada Post charges.

@northern-telecom wrote:

I said a form of "racism", not racism in the true sense -- they are discriminating against a group of people, and the shipping policy is based on ignorance. I see no difference.

No. If I were an Italian-Canadian living in the United States, a seller who doesn't ship to Canada would ship to me even though I'm not an American citizen.

The "discrimination" is a matter of geographical location, not the individual's national or racial background.

@northern-telecom wrote:

European sellers have always shipped globally until GSP came in. Never saw one who didn't, so don't excuse American behavior. I would love to say I only ship to Canada, and have Americans beg me, and me say to them, GET LOST.

I would enormous satisfaction out of that, and see how they felt. I'm not anti-American, but actions speak louder than words.

You're misunderstanding my post. First of all, I was referring to British sellers (some of whom probably don't regard themselves as Europeans). And it wasn't an attempt to excuse American behaviour, but simply an attempt to point out that this sort of behaviour is not uniquely American.

For what it's worth, I just visited eBay Germany and found a seller of iPhone 7s that "may not ship to Canada".

But why would you want to tell potential American buyers that they're not welcome to purchase from you? Surely those would be the enlightened ones who would likely ship internationally under their own steam if they were also sellers? Isn't tarring all people with a single brush the type of behaviour that you're decrying?

northern-telecom · ‎10-10-2017

If you refused to ship to Israel but shipped to Italy, does that not reek of anti-Semitism?

Canada is a bad example as it is a multicultural country by almost 50%.

USA xenophobia against Canada? It's the most similar country to the US, except for one thing -- we ship to the US. You don't. Only God knows why.

There's no excuse. PayPal isn't a mandatory form of payment anymore.

There is no excuse ... period. There are reliable ways of shipping anything to anywhere on this planet.

Duty rarely applies -- I deal with telephones, and it doesn't matter where they're made -- they're duty free, even if they were made on Mars, yet eBay GSP opened every single package to me from various sellers.

Are we all profiled as drug smugglers? Come on. They put stuff in smaller boxes which resulted in damage upon delivery.

marnotom! · ‎10-10-2017

@northern-telecom wrote:

If you refused to ship to Israel but shipped to Italy, does that not reek of anti-Semitism?

The restriction is not to whom the seller sells but to where the seller ships.

It's simply a matter of geography. Jews live in Italy, after all. If one were to refuse to sell to them, then, yes, a case could be made for antisemitism. But a case can't be made against a seller who doesn't want their goods shipped to a particular section of the planet.

@northern-telecom wrote:

Canada is a bad example as it is a multicultural country by almost 50%.

A bad example of what? What do you mean by "multicultural. . .by almost 50%"?

@northern-telecom wrote:

USA xenophobia against Canada? It's the most similar country to the US, except for one thing -- we ship to the US. You don't. Only God knows why.

God isn't the only one who knows why. The United States is a Colossus that has touched almost every nation in some way economically, politically and culturally. Canada not so much. We just don't get nationalistic face-time the way our neighbours to the south do. If you watch any of Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans interviews, you'll soon see that there's a lot that the typical American doesn't know about Canada. Just out of curiosity, could you name the vice-president of Mexico if you were asked on the street?

@northern-telecom wrote:

There's no excuse. PayPal isn't a mandatory form of payment anymore.

By the way, PayPal has never been a mandatory form of payment on eBay.

@northern-telecom wrote:

Duty rarely applies -- I deal with telephones, and it doesn't matter where they're made -- they're duty free, even if they were made on Mars, yet eBay GSP opened every single package to me from various sellers.

You're forgetting that the GSP deals with shipments to about 100 countries. I suspect the training, working conditions and wages for those working in the Global Shipping Center aren't the greatest and there's a fair amount of staff turnover. I doubt that a typical front-line employee of the GSC is going to see many phones with Canadian destinations in the course of their employment, so they're not going to remember that they're duty-free. Besides, they're probably ordered to inspect the package if the smallest piece of information on its contents is suspect or missing.

By the way, the only two purchases I've made of GSP-forwarded items have been smartphones. Both purchases worked out well for me as the sellers offered "free" domestic shipping, so I ended up paying less than US$15 to get the phones to me. In addition, thanks to a quirk in BC sales tax regulations, it appears that the make-up of the import charges was a US$4 or so "brokerage" charge and 5% GST. No PST.

The GSP isn't suitable for about 95% of the stuff I'm interested in purchasing on eBay, but if you find a seller who's using it to its best advantage, you can come out a fair bit ahead compared to alternative direct-to-buyer shipping methods.

If you're really fed up with trying to purchase phones on eBay, have a go trying the .com version of A-nother site. You'll likely find that an even bigger exercise in frustration.