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

henry-degra · ‎03-25-2014

I have seen people complain about $30 duties on something valued at $20, in addition to

shipping charges. I thought we had a FTA with the US but this is not free trade.

marnotom! · ‎03-25-2014

@henry-degra wrote:

I have seen people complain about $30 duties on something valued at $20, in addition to
shipping charges. I thought we had a FTA with the US but this is not free trade.

I haven't seen any complaints about charges quite that outlandish and I've been following this thread for a long time.

Free trade doesn't necessarily eliminate duty. Some items that are manufactured in the United States are still subject to duty, but just a reduced amount. Also keep in mind that we still have to pay consumption taxes (GST/HST/PST, etc.) on goods manufactured in the United States. And the Global Shipping Center doesn't process items out of the goodness of its heart. There are fees to be paid there, too. Free trade doesn't eliminate fees required for processing items destined for another free trade nation.

Having said all that, items that have wacky import charges associated with them are sometimes sold by sellers who don't provide enough or don't provide accurate information on the nature of the item for the GSC to work with.

chimera148 · ‎03-25-2014

@bettieluv5 wrote:
I agree and will NEVER AGAIN buy from a seller that uses the "Global Shipping Program", even if that means that I don't buy on eBay.

I found the DSRs of many GSP sellers, in regards to "Item as described", are often lower in comparison to the other DSR ratings.

The whole GSP program is turning me off from buying much mail order anymore, maybe not such a bad thing.

nickymigs192 · ‎03-25-2014

I would believe this if I didn't pay $28.77 to Pitney Bowes. Only to get a "duty" fee again of $19.27 when I went to retrieve my item at the post office.

That left the worst taste in my mouth. I've stopped dealing with sellers i've gone to for years due to just that.

afantiques · ‎03-26-2014

I would believe this if I didn't pay $28.77 to Pitney Bowes. Only to get a "duty" fee again of $19.27 when I went to retrieve my item at the post office.

This should only happen if the seller messed up and sent the item to you direct rather than sending it through the GSP.

Can you provide any evidence of what happened here, as this business of double charging has been mentioned occasionally and where evidence has been provided it emerged that the confused seller shipped direct by mail to the buyer.

For example, did the package have a customs form on it? Had it been re-labelled with your address? Did you ask the seller if they sent it direct to you? When did this happen? What was the value of the item?

brandeentertainment · ‎03-26-2014

I feel dumb asking this but what is the GSP Program...

OMG no wonder ebay needs forums ... EBAY your doing a really poor job of informing people .. Maybe too much fine print or maybe way too much print in general...

It is a shame ebay has US buyers Filing INR and IND when they only meant to ask a questions

Us sellers opting into programs they know nothing about and don't even know there in it ...

My god that is bad business ...

maximus7001 · ‎03-26-2014

We found a USA seller that was selling stickers and thought that they had to use GSP. Of course the cost to ship here to Canada was $14. We informed them of this and helped them out with instructions on how to opt out. They later sent a message thanking us for increasing their sales by 85%.

heebmun · ‎03-26-2014

I have never ever had to pay import fees before on any item sent USPS, why would I pay extra fees for a used item? I am buying a used item obviously because I don't want to pay as much as it would cost new, with these import fees plus on top of what some of these sellers want to charge for shipping I might as well go buy it new!!!

reallynicestamps · ‎03-26-2014

The Global Shipping Program has this note on any listing that will use it.

Customs services and international tracking provided

And BEFORE YOU BID you can see exactly how much you will be charged.

You don't have to buy if you find the price too high.

Most used products are dutiable.

Most products new or used are subject to sales tax.

Any item processed under this program will be charged a service fee of about $5 US by Pitney Bowes who handle the program for eBay and the Canadian Border Services Agency.

I avoid the GSP, but the only item I did buy was actually cheaper with GSP than any of the other identical items being offered on eBay or Amazon. My only problem was that because the seller did not mark it Made in the USA the package was opened and resealed.

karl*katz · ‎03-26-2014

Buy from Canadian sellers.

That is the primary reason custom duties & import tariffs exist they are to encourage people to purchase within there own country.

bennett4612 · ‎03-26-2014

Hi all. I haven't spent as much time on the CA boards lately, but we (eBay) are still listening. And believe it or not the comments (and questions) posted here ARE read, and taken into account.

There are several recent posts in this thread, regarding general info on how the Program works. I will share some links below.

As always I will try and respond to direct questions. Oftentimes I find that the Community does this more quickly (and better) than I can. So you won't see a "blue box" in response to every question posed here.

I am also always happy to answer questions on specific transactions, via Private Message. If you would like me to assist in this way, please send a Private Message and include transaction #, item #, + eBay user id and email address used.

This also might be a good time to paste the GSP-specific Customer Service info --

For Pitney Bowes customer service regarding GSP issues, you can email PBISGSPCS@pb.com to reach the GSP Customer Service group. Or you can call 1-866-235-9627, and press 1 to reach the same GSP Customer Service group.

To reach GSP customer service on the eBay side, call eBay Customer Service ( 1-866-540-3229 [ or ] 1-866-643-1587 ) and request to speak with a GSP Specialist. If the CS person on the line cannot help they can transfer you to someone who can. Hours of operation: Monday - Sunday, 6:00am - 11:00pm Mountain Time.

As mentioned above, here are some good reference points for the Program. For the most part they are seller-centric; however they still provide useful info.

New (-ish) GSP landing page. Good high-level place to start:

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/shipping/globalshippingprogram.html

More detail. Including best practices, eligibility, shipping options, fees, etc., etc.:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/shipping-globally.html

FAQs:

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/shipping/globalshippingprogram/update_faqs.html

Terms & Conditions. Not exactly page-turning stuff ... but lots of detail:

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

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

Hope this helps.

---Bennett

dasia143 · ‎03-26-2014

Well Bennett, since you say comments are taken into account, I will reiterate that I will not buy anything listed under the GSP. I posted that several months ago and in fact, since then my eBay purchases have declined drastically. The shipping plus import costs are exorbitant; when the item is under $20 Canadian so attracts no import costs, the shipping is still too high, probably there is a PB fee of some sort added to it.

Stories like ims-80's really give me pause: that could be me trying to convince them I didn't receive the parcel. And not that I ever returned anything to any seller, but it was nice to think one could if the seller agreed. With the GSP, apparently the hefty shipping and import fees are not refundable. I have also read posts about items being opened and poorly repacked in Kentucky. That is especially irritating when you consider what PB charges for shipping!

And there's no combined shipping, one of the things that made eBay economical.

It is no fun to comb through listings looking for the non-GSP ones, seeing so many things you can't bid on or buy because paying that much to receive the item would be just plain dumb. Unfortunately non-GSP and non-US sellers lose out as well since I rarely come here any more. From the posts I've been reading here it looks like many Canadian buyers feel the same.

Katz, the only reason I returned recently to buy one item is that I haven't been able to find it in Canada let alone through eBay Canada. That's the reality of the Canadian marketplace.

trythis00 · ‎03-27-2014

Plain and simple. It's a money grab and I won't buy from any seller with the global shipping system. In Canada the item has to be worth so much before we pay any duties and tax. A large percentage of items under this global system we wouldn't be paying anyways. It is a money grab for someone.

marnotom! · ‎03-27-2014

@trythis00 wrote:

Plain and simple. It's a money grab and I won't buy from any seller with the global shipping system. In Canada the item has to be worth so much before we pay any duties and tax. A large percentage of items under this global system we wouldn't be paying anyways. It is a money grab for someone.

In most cases, personal imports shipped to Canada have to have declared values of more than C$20 before they're subject to taxes and duty, although Canada Border Services doesn't always assess and charge taxes and duties due for items subject to those charges.

I've done the number-crunching on a number of GSP listings, and it appears that the program "grabs" about four or five bucks, give or take, after taxes and duty are taken off the import charges. Canada Post's "grab" for items that are assessed and charged taxes/duty is roughly twice that.

dasia143 · ‎03-27-2014

Quoting Marnotom!:

"Canada Post's "grab" for items that are assessed and charged taxes/duty is roughly twice that."

--yes, IF the parcel is worth more than $20 Canadian. and IF it’s one of the very few parcels they flag.

Today by chance I saw an item among the ones they show you when you sign in, which is the sort of thing I collect and probably would have bid on if it was not in the GSP:

eBay item number: 310911071736

It’s a lot of three doilies very likely made in the USA. There’s a good chance the bidding would finish under $20 Canadian. A couple of years ago I would have paid $5 - 7 shipping and might have bought or won one or two more doilies (still with a total value under $20) to be shipped together for little or no extra postage.

Yes, shipping has gone up but GSP wants a whopping $17.39 to ship these very small, light items. That probably includes $5.00 or so for absolutely nothing because the item wouldn’t incur duty or tax. It would take longer to reach me because it has to travel south to Kentucky before heading north again. If I pay that much in postage I want it tomorrow!!

Granted that pre-GSP, this seller might not have shipped to Canada. All I can say about that is, there seem to be more items in the GSP all the time and I think at least some of them would have been shipped to Canada before this money grab was foisted upon us.

snoooozyalose · ‎03-27-2014

Import fees for Canadians using the GSP

This is the transaction amount on a sale of a watch to Alberta Canada with a GST of 5%

Cost of item Total US $244.99

International Priority Shipping : US $13.71

Import charges: US $41.30

Subtotal =US $244.99

Shipping & Handling=US $13.71

Import Charges=US $41.30

Total = US $300.00

Now According to Canada Customs here is what the actual import charges should be on the total.

Calculation results are as follows:

Total Shipping value=CA$13.41

Total Customs Value FOB CA$273.55 This is the amount that customs value your import at.

Duty=CA$0.00

Total Import and Taxes due CA$13.68 This is the amount that needs to be paid to customs

Total landed cost CA$302.20 This is the total cost of importing,including product,shipping, insurance and import duty and taxes. at exchange rate of 1 CAD = 0.90 USD

Total import duty & taxes due: CA$13.68 This is the amount that need to be paid to customs.

Watch has an import duty rate of 5% and GST rate of 5%

Watch is duty free as NAFTA free trade agreement applies certificate of origin is not required as value is below threshold.

This is potentualy a case for defrauding the Canadian Government and the customer(s) involved. This figure was determined by talking directly to a Customs officer and sending copies of the original ebay sale.

The Customs Officer had the call directed to the supervisor in charge of that department. At which time he said that the customer should be entitled to a refund and he would forward this to the head of the departments involved. No if anything is done about it, well that I don't know.

Don't believe me; call them yourself 1-506-636-5064 (outside Canada )

I also pasted this on the Pitney Bowes forums usa site (you have to register) with no success to any answers or comments (of course) but at least they can read I think?

claymate4391 · ‎03-27-2014

As someone was saying before, the GSP has its own fees. So, why not just go back to the way it was. We dont need this huge system charging us up the behind for small items.

I was searching just yesterday for a small item and the lowest shipping I saw was $12... plus import fees of another $11 or $12. actual item was around $7.

just craziness!!

Either eliminate GSP, or only use it on large expensive items worth $1000+. and maybe educate sellers on how to opt out!!!!

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-27-2014

It's great to see a post with specific facts like this. Thank you for going to the trouble of posting it.I have one questions...Did Canada customs give you those specific dollar values or just the percentages for duty/tax etc? The reason I'm asking is that I thought that in past I was charged gst on the item value plus shipping...but perhaps I'm mistaken or just looking at your numbers in the wrong way.

I'm honestly not a gsp fan however and wish that it didn't exist but, I'll play devil's advocate here.

The seller might have been willing to send the item first class international if they weren't using gsp in which case the shipping would have similar or perhaps slightly less to what you were charged. That means that the totals would be similar to your second scenario (total of C$302 pd) but in both cases there would also be a $9.95 processing charge by Canada Post.

But because the item price plus shipping is more than $250, the seller might have been worried about getting a signature for Paypal seller protection and insisted on sending the item with USPS Express or at least Priority. Neither of those services specifically includes a signature but many sellers think that they do, plus CP does tend to get signatures for those type of packages. Postage cost for Express or Priority could be a minimum of $27 up to $67 so depending on which service and which packaging the seller used, the cost could end up being similar to what you paid with the gsp or even more.

Obviously that doesn't excuse that PB may be charging more than they should be for taxes/duty and their lack of transparency. But if you simply look at the numbers, a purchase this size 'might' be a better fit for the gsp than most items are.

snoooozyalose · ‎03-27-2014

Total landed cost CA$302.20 This is the total cost of importing,including product,shipping, insurance and import duty and taxes. at exchange rate of 1 CAD = 0.90 USD

I did ask the seller if he would ship it himself using USPS. He said he couldn't because it (GSP) would not allow him to send a invoice.

So I asked if he could just send it through PayPal invoice and he never got back to me..instead he opted to open a unpaid item case on me. Do you believe that? Oh well I did pay for it as I always intended to in the first place. I have bought over 40 watches from the USA and really never had a problem with shipping or import taxes when they used USPS and I never once asked them to send as a gift. I have never heard of this $9.95 processing charge by Canada Post and have never paid anything like that ever.

Hey if I have to pay import taxes I have no problems doing that as long as I am paying the right amount!!!! I have bought a $1500 watch and wasn't charged import charges but did have to pay taxes on it.

Americans (LET ME STRESS NOT ALL OFTHEM) have a hard time figuring out how to send to Canada for some reason which I still haven't figured out? That's why they opt to go with GSP because all they have to do is send to Kentucky go figure. I know what it cost to ship here with or without a signature but I always get tracking and I have NO problem paying for it. The whole point here is the import taxes we are getting charged are way off, so we end up paying more. Where is the extra money going? Where is the proof I even paid for it, they don't put any documentation on the package showing how much I actually paid to our wonderful government. US post offices sell prepaid postage boxes in various sizes. The watches I have bought usually come in a 8x8xx8 for $25.00 with sig and tracking. 9 out of 10 times when sent through USPS there is no brokerage fee and no import taxes and the ones that do have import taxes are justified as Canada Customs does the math for your specific province which in my case is Alberta 5% GST. I love eBay and a addictive eBayer buyer lol. But this GSP is ruining it for me and by the sounds of it a lot more Canadians as well. Checkout YouTube there are a few vids of unsatisfied buyers. I really wish that eBay.ca would implement this and give Canadian sellers a choice to use it or not. There is a PB located in Canada. Then maybe the US buyers/sellers would get a feel of what it's like. They can't see what it says atop their auction about import fees that we would get charged. I had actually took a screen shot and sent it to one seller and he couldn't believe it so he decided to opt out.

shopaholic90 · ‎03-27-2014

I am amused and befuddled by the relatively new charge for not only shipping but import charges from the US. I don't care what any US seller says, the cost for shipping to Canada is what it is, and is as easy as licking a stamp (almost). Free shipping within the continental US, but shipping to Canada is always at a cost. I so get that. Wrap your shipping and "import" costs into your shipping cost and lose the pretense of import charges. Free trade people, sellers don't pay that charge, it's a money grab and any US seller who charges it will never get my business. All Canadians should do the same!