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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.
@00nevermind00 wrote:
I don't know much about coding but it seems to me that a couple of plugins would have done this. Providing links to the T&C page isn't enough. Most people aren't going to read it, either due to lack of time or because the thing is about as appealing as an afternoon at the dentist getting your teeth drilled.
Making the program attractive to sellers isn't enough. Without buyers, sellers don't sell. I wonder how many repeat buyers the GSP is attracting.
The GSP T&C for buyers are a pretty serious legal agreement as--among other things--in its current incarnation it grants Pitney Bowes the right to appoint itself importer for the purposes of the transaction and shipment. There must be some way to convey this agreement in a fairly palatable and easily understood manner. Maybe a funky Flash animation? 
It is a pretty steep learning curve, though, and at least one Canadian poster has noted that PBI likely misjudged the type of buyers and sellers who would be most likely to use the program. Some users have taken me to task for not being a "power buyer" like them, but quite honestly, I think my views are just as valid as theirs as occasional eBay users are eBay buyers nonetheless, and probably make up a greater proportion of eBay users than "power buyers". I just happen to spend quite a bit of time making sure that I'm up to date on changes and developments on the various eBay sites. I'd be interested in knowing how many other occasional eBay users try to stay abreast of the changes on the sites.
I doubt GSP is coming to Canada ever and even if it did....it's OPTIONAL.
There is no real incentive for eBay to bring a GSP type program to Canada because virtually all Canadian sellers already ship internationally while in the US it's a major restraint of growth because so many US Seller are paranoid and feel that they can make all the sales they need just selling within the USA without having to deal with all those thieves which as everybody knows are rampant outside the US and don't exist in Amerika!
I wonder what incentives ( if any ) they give to the American seller that are using it . This has to hurt there sales.
The "incentive" is that US sellers using GSP don't have to deal with the enormous task of taking 10 seconds to complete a customs form and they will (in theory) be protected from scammers (while alienating good buyers).
There is nothing inherently wrong with a GSP type program, the problem is that Pitney-Bowes are incompetent and eBay failed miserably to educate sellers on when GSP is appropriate and when it's not.
@marnotom! wrote:The GSP T&C for buyers are a pretty serious legal agreement as--among other things--in its current incarnation it grants Pitney Bowes the right to appoint itself importer for the purposes of the transaction and shipment. There must be some way to convey this agreement in a fairly palatable and easily understood manner. Maybe a funky Flash animation?
How about a simple Q&A that wouldn't look like a monolithic block of text that goes on for several pages? One that would go the the heart of the matter. Question #1 could go something like this:
Q: What is the GSP?
A: The GSP is a program that lets you sell internationally while shipping domestically. It is free to use for sellers but since there are added costs to the buyer, not all items are suited for GSP shipping. We recommend that it be used for items over $50 and items that cannot be mailed by First Class International Mail.
And so on. I suppose we could even add some measure of funky flash animation to it 😉
But before any of this happens, step #1 would be for eBay to stop enrolling sellers into GSP without their knowledge or consent. Sellers are unlikely to read the details (no matter how they are presented) of a program they don't even know they're using.
