eBay

kalvin@ebay.com · ‎09-26-2013

Feel free to share your thoughts about the Global Shipping Program here.

A few questions to get the ball rolling:

What has worked well for you with the Global Shipping Program?
Any ideas to help improve the experience for Canadian buyers?
What has deterred you from buying items offered using the Global Shipping Program?
How have you managed to search for items outside the program?

Please try & keep the comments constructive 🙂

If you have any questions about the program, please post them here.

~Kalvin
eBay.ca Community Manager

kalvin@ebay.com

tikazyg · ‎10-24-2013

hey guys, i hate the global shipping policy as much as everyone else here

..see many posts about it here

why don't we take some of these complaints over to the US ebay forum? where they might actually help us.

i posted one the other day that's burried now. but if we all made our GSP complain posts in the US ebay sellers forum.. we might make a bit more progress against it. and might sway a few against using it.

i'm pretty confident most just don't realize how shady it is. how much they're losing and how much someone else is making off of their items.

the US sellers are the ones that need to see our complaints. we're preaching to the choir here, we need them to hear us (cause ebay obviously doesn't care)

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Central/bd-p/2143

bb_cool_stuff · ‎10-24-2013

We all know we're helpless against the Big Guy.

Thanks for the compliment i*m, but i wouldn't consider that a fair statement as i am still a lightweight seller.

marnotom! · ‎10-24-2013

@i*m-still-here wrote:

marmo......... No one here was "flattering themselves." On the contrary.

Everyone is well aware that we need them more than they need us.

We all know we're helpless against the Big Guy.

That's at the heart of almost every post on the subject and much of the reason Canadian buyers are so angry with the GSP.

@ Sorry, but you wrote:

They've probably already lost much more than 5% of their sales from US to International locations.

Canadians don't like the program, but European and countries other don't love it as least as much as we don't love it.

Firstly, your claim of a 5% loss of sales thanks to the GSP is pure speculation. I'll admit that I don't have statistics to draw from, but I get the sense that most established U.S. sellers don't see a significant proportion of international sales. From the posts I've read on the .com site's international trading board, I'd say that a U.S. seller with 20% international sales is jaw-droppingly high. Canadian buyers may well make up the highest proportion of internationals, but it's still pretty much a drop in the bucket in the overall picture.

I've set up a straw survey to see if I can get a better sense of U.S. sellers' international sales numbers.

And as I've suggested earlier, don't confuse a drop in Canadian or international buyers with a drop in overall sales. That's overestimating our "importance" to U.S. sellers.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-24-2013

marmotom............. Just follow the thread and put it into context.

marnotom! · ‎10-24-2013

I'd prefer a response to my comments about your speculation. I assume you posted what you did because you actually wanted to discuss it.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-24-2013

No, I didn't want to discuss it.

It was in response to parker's petition. Nothing more and there's nothing to discuss.

marnotom.......... what still has me curious, however................. and stumped is: Why you're so absorbed with the GSP?

I used to think that you were a P-B rep. but that no longer seems to be the case.

You say that you visit other boards to discuss it. Now you've even set up a survey.

From your posts it doesn't seem like you buy regularly. In fact, it seems like you've never even used the GSP to completion.

From a seller's perspective?? I know that your wife sells antiques, but it looks like her store isn't even up and running right now and from your posts it sounds like you yourself don't sell at all. (Or maybe you do?)

So.......... Just curious............... For most posters I can see why they post about the GSP, but in your case I can't see it.

Why is the GSP program so important to you?

marnotom! · ‎10-24-2013

I've explained my interest in the GSP elsewhere. Given that you're completely wrong about my wife (whoever you think my wife is) as well as once coming to a naive conclusion about my association with Pitney Bowes, I feel I shouldn't explain again out of concerns about being further misunderstood.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-24-2013

Where did you explain?

I must have missed it.

Would you please direct me there.

marnotom! · ‎10-24-2013

You've told me you don't like links. Sorry.

Good day, I*m.

i*m-still-here · ‎10-24-2013

Of course you don't have to explain marnotom.

Since you are so invested in the program I expected you to welcome the invitation to explain why.

Now it's even more of a puzzle.

mstickle01 · ‎10-24-2013

I will not purchase from sellers shipping with GSP. The reason? I get hit with higher shipping charges, extra tax that I normally wouldn't get hit with, and that wonderful itme known as brokerage fees, which I normally never get charged. If I do get hit with brokerage, it's usually only a few dollars when shipped via USPS vs anyone else.
That, and the fact that the fees aren't stated up front what, exactly, they will be until you go to pay, makes this a no brainer for me. I got stung once already. NEVER AGAIN!
The bottom line for me is NO THANK YOU to GSP!

bloke67 · ‎10-24-2013

This new program is awful; parcels shipped from the USA to canada via USPS and Canada post rarely incurred import charges for small items. By pushing this program on your sellers, an article costing $100 will have $30 shipping and another $30 import charges. It makes it prohibitavely expensive and will result in a drop in transactions. There is also no proof provided that Pitney Bowes actually paid the import charges and didn't just pocket the money. Do they reimburse the charges if they are less than the money paid?

Why not limit the program to articles costing in excess of say $500?

Its the most annoying and expensive change I've seen on ebay and will lead me to stop buying through it and switch to amazon and other sites.

bennett4612 · ‎10-25-2013

Hi mstickle01.

Not trying to "talk you into" anything, but thought I'd clear up a couple things.

#1 we have never positioned the GSP as a "one size fits all" program. For example, as stated in the FAQs, the program is not typically a good fir for items priced below $50 US.

And #2, the fees you see quoted on the listing are usually very very close to the actual cost. And then of course on the checkout page, once actual fees are visible, you still have one last chance to exit before completing the transaction.

Not the most fascinating piece of prose in the world ... but here's a link to the Buyer Terms & Conditions page, which contains an explanation of, well, the Terms & Conditions:

http://pages.ebay.com/shipping/globalshipping/buyer-tnc.html

Again, it's your choice of course.But wanted to clear up a couple things.

Hope this helps.

---Ben

afantiques · ‎10-25-2013

#1 we have never positioned the GSP as a "one size fits all" program. For example, as stated in the FAQs, the program is not typically a good fit for items priced below $50 US.

I have to disagree with you there. I suspect you have been brought into this relatively recently, and may have only an 'official' account of the early days.

In practice, it was being marketed to anyone as a one stop solution to every international shipping need. It was backed by offers of 50% off FVF (to me, and I'm not even in the US). It was also impossible to opt out once in, for at least 6 months. I have been following this from the first few days it appeared, about a year ago.

The problems and potential pitfalls were so obvious to several posters who have a lot of real world international shipping ebay experience that I have watched it closely ever since, like you'd watch a train heading for the collapsed bridge. Morbid fascination.

What it has revealed is how little people in general know about international shipping, and, surprisingly, how they manage to do it with very few problems if just left to get on with it.

pocomocomputing · ‎10-25-2013

@afantiques wrote:
#1 we have never positioned the GSP as a "one size fits all" program. For example, as stated in the FAQs, the program is not typically a good fit for items priced below $50 US.

I have to disagree with you there. I suspect you have been brought into this relatively recently, and may have only an 'official' account of the early days.

In practice, it was being marketed to anyone as a one stop solution to every international shipping need. It was backed by offers of 50% off FVF (to me, and I'm not even in the US). It was also impossible to opt out once in, for at least 6 months. I have been following this from the first few days it appeared, about a year ago.

The problems and potential pitfalls were so obvious to several posters who have a lot of real world international shipping ebay experience that I have watched it closely ever since, like you'd watch a train heading for the collapsed bridge. Morbid fascination.

What it has revealed is how little people in general know about international shipping, and, surprisingly, how they manage to do it with very few problems if just left to get on with it.

I have been following the GSP also since it was introduced and even before when it was announced on eCommerceBytes in August 2012 months before it was announced officially in November 2012 on eBay.com. I posted one of the first topics on eBay.ca on the program from the eCommerceBytes article back in August 2012.

As stated above, it was marketed as a complete solution for international selling on eBay.com with no way to opt out. The 50% discount on FVFs promo was used to get sellers into the program. The Sell Your Item form was charged to push the GSP option in a sellers face all the time. Very heavy handed marketing. Deceptive opting in by agreeing to an eBay user agreement. Absolutely horrible arm-twisting by eBay.com. A full apology to all sellers should be given to all sellers for such abuse of eBay power on their site. It went way beyond any normal marketing push by eBay in recent memory.

ricki865 · ‎10-26-2013

Thanks for letting me know, this is the first topic I have ever felt like expressing my opinion about, didn't realize I was only posting to Canadians here lol; this topic, it enrages me. I've been on eBay since 2002 shopping.

Lots of Sellers are charging the import charges for under $50.00 everywhere you turn! So if eBay is telling them not to, why are they doing that?

Or it's just dumb too because if shipping brings it over $50.00 even when the actual item is less, then the import charges are tacked on too making it ridiculous. I feel we are being discriminated against in the eBay community because of all this nonsense. They should be giving them warnings or fining them then!

marnotom! · ‎10-26-2013

@ricki865 wrote:

Lots of Sellers are charging the import charges for under $50.00 everywhere you turn! So if eBay is telling them not to, why are they doing that?

I'm not sure you understand how the Global Shipping Program works or what Femmefan posted.

Sellers don't "charge" the import charges on a Global Shipping Program listing. The charges are levied by the company contracted out by eBay to operate the Global Shipping Program: Pitney Bowes (better known for postage meters).

All merchandise with a declared value of more than C$20 is subject to being charged taxes and duties. Some items, such as books, have no such minimum. If the item is sent by mail, the taxes are applied--as suggested by you earlier--randomly, and a C$9.95 processing fee is tacked on by Canada Post. The US$50 value being mentioned is a value suggested by eBay as being the minimum value for an item where using the GSP may make some sense. Femmefan was passing along Pierre's suggestion that $100 may be a better minimum for Canadian purchases.

Have a look at item 161118129724. It's a leatherbound hardcover book with a selling price of US$39.00. Shipping price to me in BC is US$12.78, a better deal than a USPS Priority flat-rate envelope at US$19.99, and probably better than First Class International (an 800 gram First Class International package to Canada would cost $14.54 if postage were purchased online). Import charges to me in B.C. are US$5.68. Subtract the 5% GST on books (for me in B.C., at least) from the import charges--US$1.95--and that leaves Pitney Bowes with US$3.73, a much better deal than the Canada Post C$9.95, no matter what you use for a current exchange rate.

afantiques · ‎10-26-2013

That bookseller quotes $37 FCMI to the UK, the GSP shipping plus the import charge add up to $37. Books are not subject to import VAT in the UK, but even so the total is the same either way.

The trouble is that faced with a field of poisonous fungi, people will be reluctant to search for the odd edible example.

ricki865 · ‎10-26-2013

P.S. I just went to ebay (dot) com and would you believe there are no discussions at all on this subject on their site (that I could find) so I created a topic on it there. I hope more Canadians will go there and post so they know we are not liking this at all.