Comments about the Global Shipping Program

[kalvin@ebay.com]

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.

[femmefan1946]

Your best bet is to call Customer Service again and ask specifically for a GSP specialist.

[powercosmiccomics]

Femmefan1946 - thank you! I will give that a shot

[lodz-77]

1. God forbid if I would say GSP is any advantage. It is annoying money scraper. That is all. You never know what you final bill will be.
2. There is only one idea. Shut down the GSP. Let Canadians deal their costume office directly. If there will be any charges there is any third party interest.
3. Obviously the scraping money. In average I pay 7-10$ more for an item than before GSP and I see no advantage for me at all.
4. Let me know how I can made a search for item without GSP popping up unexpected in items description. There is no option - “NO GSP for me...”

Regards,

Andrew

[marnotom!]

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@lodz-77 wrote:

Let me know how I can made a search for item without GSP popping up unexpected in items description. There is no option - “NO GSP for me...”

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Do your searching on a computer or laptop, not a phone.  Make sure your search results are set to display in "list view" rather than "gallery view".

Listings where the GSP has been applied will have this notation in the search results: "Customs services and international tracking provided."  Avoid clicking on those listings.

[rockstar21021]

All values converted to USD to keep things simple.

I am located in Canada.  I won an ebay auction for a $700 used suit [clothing].  Shipping to Canada was $40 and import fees were $250.  If I selected a US destination for this item, the import fees dropped to $0.

This item is located in the UK, why no import fees to US?  Canada is part of the monarchy, you think that would get us a discount!

[marnotom!]

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@rockstar21021 wrote:

This item is located in the UK, why no import fees to US?  Canada is part of the monarchy, you think that would get us a discount!

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A personal import of that value that's shipped by mail or equivalent to a buyer in the United States attracts no duties, and it's up to the buyer's conscience whether they pay state use tax on them as that's done after the fact.

Here in Canada, we pay (or are supposed to pay) duty and applicable taxes (GST, HST, PST, etc.) up-front or at delivery for anything with a value of over C$20.

In the case of a GSP item, Pitney Bowes is on record of having paid the duty and taxes owing on the item.  The "import fees" are payback of sorts plus various small processing and customs clearance fees.

'twould be nice if I could get a discount on the GST I pay for all the British confectionary I purchase from the local supermarket, but it ain't gonna happen.

[i.am.vivian]

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@rockstar21021 wrote:

All values converted to USD to keep things simple.

I am located in Canada.  I won an ebay auction for a $700 used suit [clothing].  Shipping to Canada was $40 and import fees were $250.  If I selected a US destination for this item, the import fees dropped to $0.

This item is located in the UK, why no import fees to US?  Canada is part of the monarchy, you think that would get us a discount!

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The currency you buy in doesn't matter, only what it amounts to when converted to CANADIAN dollars.  The CDN limit is $20 but Americans have $800, and since we live here and not there, we have to go by the $20 rule.  Import charges are not about where an item is FROM but what it is and where it is imported TO. 

I had to search for the information link about importing to Canada (I knew it was here somewhere!):

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/menu-eng.html

Copied directly from that page it says:

Value in Canadian dollars

Under the provisions of the Postal Imports Remission Order, if someone mails you an item worth CAN$20 or less, there is no duty or tax payable. If the item is worth more than CAN$20, you must pay the applicable duty, the GST or HST, and any PST on the item's full value.

[moosejuicephil]

This has to be the worst thing for a Canadian Buyer on Ebay....

I have received two messages saying that my package has been delivered to Grande Prairie, Alberta...

and when I get home from work?  NOTHING. !!!!!

Not only that, but while reading through over forum posts regarding GSP and Canadian Buyers,

there may be hidden fees involved when the item gets delivered.

I called an Ebay rep and she said that I should refuse the item and get my money back and put in a complaint

against the Buyer.    Hmmmmm, let me put it this way, I'm gonna put in a formal complaint to the Buyer and Ebay right now.

In the future, I am gonna boycott US Sellers using the GSP, it is totally useless to Canadian Buyers since

it was cheaper just to use good ol' USPS and Canada Post respectively when it reaches the border...

PROS:?  I get accurate tracking and no hidden charges and the package would get there faster instead of ending up

in Kentucky, of all bloody places.... and the item is still insured too and if the package still gets lost, it is still covered

by Ebay Protection.

So, in a nut shell, i recommend a total boycott of sellers using GSP, unless you reside in the US....

totally a waste of time, patience and money to use GSP.....

Phil.

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[pocomocomputing]

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@moosejuicephil wrote:

This has to be the worst thing for a Canadian Buyer on Ebay....

I have received two messages saying that my package has been delivered to Grande Prairie, Alberta...

and when I get home from work?  NOTHING. !!!!!

Not only that, but while reading through over forum posts regarding GSP and Canadian Buyers,

there may be hidden fees involved when the item gets delivered.

I called an Ebay rep and she said that I should refuse the item and get my money back and put in a complaint

against the Buyer.    Hmmmmm, let me put it this way, I'm gonna put in a formal complaint to the Buyer and Ebay right now.

In the future, I am gonna boycott US Sellers using the GSP, it is totally useless to Canadian Buyers since

it was cheaper just to use good ol' USPS and Canada Post respectively when it reaches the border...

PROS:?  I get accurate tracking and no hidden charges and the package would get there faster instead of ending up

in Kentucky, of all bloody places.... and the item is still insured too and if the package still gets lost, it is still covered

by Ebay Protection.

So, in a nut shell, i recommend a total boycott of sellers using GSP, unless you reside in the US....

totally a waste of time, patience and money to use GSP.....

Phil.

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You will not get any hidden charges. Using the GSP prepays all charges like sales tax and shipping and duty if applies.

Be careful with the delivered message. Read it again. It may be for the first part of the shipping, that is, from the seller to the GSP center in Kentucky. Once at the GSP center, the package is forwarded by a freight shipment with more sales from other sellers in the freight shipment to a Canadian distribution center where it is mailed using Canada Post or shipped by a smaller shipping company like CanPar in Ontario. You should get a new Tracking number but this seems to not work well.

[afantiques]

I called an Ebay rep and she said that I should refuse the item and get my money back and put in a complaint

Typical CS nonsense for any GSP related matter.  This advice is completely wrong. You'd think after 3 years or so some effort might have been made to educate the CS people. Do not refuse the package and do not put in a complaint. Assuming the item was sent using the GSP and not shipped directly by the seller, the seller is blameless.

If the item has not arrived by the last due date, then it may be time to start an item not received claim, otherwise let things take their course.

[kitschnvintage]

I for one would like to see any GSP listings removed from the ebay canada site. I find it very discouraging to be shopping for items and all I see are pages and pages of GSP items that I cannot afford to purchase because the (2) shipping charges + customs fees (why are they shown in USD by the way ???  just another way for PayPal to make more money off of me on the exchange rate I guess...) make the $20 item too expensive. Out of 50 items I was looking at tonight, 39 of them were GSP. I am not saying to get rid of the GSP - that will likely never happen and it does serve a purpose as I know there are US sellers who refuse to ship outside of the USA - but remove them from the ebay canada site ... if I really cannot find something I am looking for here, I can always login to ebay.com and they will show up there anyway.  Also the way I see it, ebay Canada should only bring up listings where the Seller ships to Canada ...in the case of GSP the Seller is not actually shipping anywhere outside of his/her country ... just my 2 cents. 

[00nevermind00]

Many Canadian buyers would love to have a GSP filter but that will never happen. The next best thing is to use List View (not Gallery View) to search for items. With "List View" all the GSP items will have a grey-font blurb that reads "Customs services and international tracking provided".

The GSP listings will still show up in your search, but the blurb makes it very easy to bypass them all. On my screen shot, the first item is a GSP item but the second one isn't.

The "View" setting is located in the upper right-hand corner of your search page.

[kitschnvintage]

Hello! Yes I use list view, that's how I know 39 of the 50 "newly listed"  items in the category I like  had GSP ... it would be interesting to see what the actual listing volume on ebay canada would be with all of the GSP listings removed.

As an aside ... does anyone know what happens if the GSP Seller makes a mistake with the shipping calculator ? Let's say they input the measurements too small or the weight too low ...  does the package make it all the way to Kentucky and then get sent back to the Seller for insufficient postage paid or ??? I am looking at a christmas tree , 6' tall does not collapse smaller ... and the GSP shipping charges are showing me $12.22 USD .... there is no way a 6' tree is getting to Canada for $12.22 USD .....

[00nevermind00]

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themodernowl wrote:I am looking at a christmas tree , 6' tall does not collapse smaller ... and the GSP shipping charges are showing me $12.22 USD .... there is no way a 6' tree is getting to Canada for $12.22 USD .....

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The seller is clueless. The item is oversized for the GSP and won't make it past the Kentucky hub:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/shipping-globally.html#oversized

Clueless seller + GSP = not a good mix.

It did occur to me that you were using List View to search.  My post above was written for eBayers who may not know about how List View can be used to avoid GSP listings.

[afantiques]

It exceeds the maximum dimensions for a GSP item, but the seller does not know or care, and the listing software has no way of filtering it out unless the seller submits correct dimensions for calculated shipping.

If it was a foot shorter, it would probably make it, the GSP shippers do not look at individual items, just at whether the money they get for a ton of shipping covers the cost. The lighter stuff tends to subsidise the heavier making the GSP a good buy for heavy, bulky items, you need to play the system so it helps to know what the system is.

[marnotom!]

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@themodernowl wrote:

Hello! Yes I use list view, that's how I know 39 of the 50 "newly listed"  items in the category I like  had GSP ... it would be interesting to see what the actual listing volume on ebay canada would be with all of the GSP listings removed.

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In the early days of the GSP, I checked the number of listings for a particular model of cell phone available for sale on eBay.ca an eBay.com and compared that number a month or so later, and a month or so after that.  The proportion of listings available to Canada increased fairly significantly over those two months, but unfortunately I can't track down the posts on the discussion boards where I gave actual facts and figures.

If you're seeing a number of GSP listings in your category, which I'm reading as being one that's largely modestly-priced, smaller items, I'm surmising that these listings are having the GSP automatically applied to them by eBay because the seller didn't provide shipping information to Canada on them.  With the GSP removed, you'd be down to eleven newly listed items in your category unless the search engine started generating more search results from other eBay sites.

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@themodernowl wrote:

As an aside ... does anyone know what happens if the GSP Seller makes a mistake with the shipping calculator ? Let's say they input the measurements too small or the weight too low ...  does the package make it all the way to Kentucky and then get sent back to the Seller for insufficient postage paid or ??? I am looking at a christmas tree , 6' tall does not collapse smaller ... and the GSP shipping charges are showing me $12.22 USD .... there is no way a 6' tree is getting to Canada for $12.22 USD .

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The only shipping a seller calculates on a GSP sale is for shipping the item to Erlanger, KY.  The GSP calculates the rest.  I'm looking at a Christmas tree listing that also shows US$12.22 GSP shipping charges to Canada.  The seller offers "free" shipping within the United States, so that US$12.22 would be solely the GSP's charge.

This seller also offers two shipping options that are faster but have a charge attached to them, so it sounds as though the seller did their homework before setting their shipping charges.  This should be reflected in the GSP shipping charge.

AFAntiques has also mentioned on a few occasions that the GSP applies a shipping charge that is "average for the category" to items where a seller hasn't provided enough information for the GSP to make an accurate shipping calculation, so there may be that, too.

The biggest consideration here is that GSP items ship as freight from KY to the Canadian receiving hub, and when you've got an item on a pallet or skid of freight and its shipping cost is a proportion of that pallet or skid, it's going to ship for way cheap.  That's why that while we tend to pay more than Americans do for made-in-USA items, we don't generally pay two or three times what they pay if we buy them from a store or authorised retailer. 

The GSP often works well for larger items from a cost-effectiveness standpoint.  It was likely designed more with these sorts of sales in mind, not smaller, less-expensive items that most sellers with brains would ship as an oversized letter (small packet/First Class International).

[marnotom!]

The item is oversized?   Maximum length for a shipment to Canada is 108 inches.  The tree would probably be no more than 80 inches in box, which leaves 85 inches for the height and width.  What have I overlooked?

[kitschnvintage]

Hello! OK now I'm confused about how free US shipping lowers the GSP cost to Canada to $12.22 .... oooooh ... he ships to Kentucky for free (free shipping in the USA)  and then the GSP charges me $12.22 from Kentucky to Canada .... holy **bleep** that's a good deal ... I'm starting to like this GSP maybe ....

[kitschnvintage]

For an item to be eligible to be shipped to you through the Global Shipping Program, the seller's packaging must meet dimension and weight requirements:

• The package must not weight more than 66 lbs.

• The package must not exceed 66 inches in length. **** this might cause problems because 6' = 72"

• The package must not exceed the maximum dimensions of 118 inches.

  • Dimensions = length + 2 * (width + height).

  • Length is the longest side of the package.

• The package must not exceed the maximum dimensional (DIM) weight of 66 lbs.

  • Dimensional weight = (length x width x height) / (dimensional factor) where the dimensional factor = 166.

[marnotom!]

Interesting.

The page on the .com site that I looked at lists a variety of size maximums that vary with the country to which the item is shipped and it definitely states something other than 66 inches for the maximum length of an item shipped to Canada.

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

So much for the GSP making shipping internationally as easy as shipping domestically.