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

femmefan1946 · ‎01-03-2018

By the way, have you ever seen a listing for an item valued at less than US$50 where the import charges are more than the item's value? To me, this seems mathematically impossible.

Yep.

I recently bought a comic book for $1.91 USD and paid about $20 for GSP shipping.

Ghu only knows where that amount came from.

It was my error to order without noticing the GSP warning. And my only other GSP purchase was the cheapest on eBay (including overseas sites) so I won't complain. Just blame myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrPrr4wmnJ4 (NSFW)

femmefan1946 · ‎01-03-2018

@daviboru-0

Ok.

Your package went from the seller to PB/GSP in Erlanger KY.

That's where the USPS tracking ends, and also the seller's responsibility for the shipping.

(Which is the point of the GSP. It's a Seller Protection program, and basically useless for buyers.)

Then it does get hard to track but not impossible.

My computer is giving me a hard time about posting the tracking link. You can find it upstream in this thread. It gets posted about every 14th post.

Is your purchase past the last estimated delivery date that eBay gave you on payment?

If so, you can still open an Item Not Received Dispute.

You have 30 days after that last date to do this.

While there is a suggestion that you contact the seller, if she got the shipment to Erlanger, her duty is done.

So if you do contact her, let her know, politely, that everything went pear-shaped and you blame GSP (not her).

Let's try to train US sellers not to use this badly run program.

Back to the Dispute.

State in the Dispute that shipping was by GSP.

This should pass the Dispute on to a GSP 'specialist' who either shows that the item is delivered (not in transit, delivered) or refunds you.

Interestingly, the GSP doesn't want the item. If it turns up after you are refunded, it's up to you what you do with it.

Ethically, you can't have both the money and the item, of course.

Your choice.

Oh.

You can also Claim through Paypal if you are past the 30 day deadline.

femmefan1946 · ‎01-03-2018

found it!

https://parceltracking.pb.com,

marnotom! · ‎01-04-2018

@femmefan1946 wrote:

By the way, have you ever seen a listing for an item valued at less than US$50 where the import charges are more than the item's value? To me, this seems mathematically impossible.

Yep.
I recently bought a comic book for $1.91 USD and paid about $20 for GSP shipping.
Ghu only knows where that amount came from.

Okay, I see where you're coming from, but the "import charges" would be more like US$5.50 (GST + processing charges) and folded into the shipping charge. If I'm reading your post correctly, you're considering the shipping charge to be "import charges".

Where did that amount come from? Since the seller probably has their shipping set up as flat-rate letter or media mail shipping within the US, the GSP wouldn't have anything to work with in terms of the comic book's size and weight, so it probably just applied an average for the category in which the item was listed and calculated the shipping rate based on that. Garbage in, garbage out.

Since the GSP shipping rates are generally structured to be competitive with parcel post and not letter post, you're going to get a shipping rate that's something along the lines of what it would cost if the seller shipped the comic book by USPS Priority International.

femmefan1946 · ‎01-04-2018

Yes, I wrote a polite note to the seller, after leaving 5*DSRs.

I let him know about First Class International Parcel rates, how to find them, and a link, and that if all he wanted was Delivery Confirmation FSIP should have it covered.

He wrote back politely and thanked me.

I'll buy from him again if my local comic shop (Curiousity Comics) is out of stock.

This was a Free Comic Book Day title, so a little hard to find.

lady.stark · ‎01-05-2018

Interesting note: shippping your comic by FCMI to Canada directly through USPS would have been $15.50. So your $20 is not that bad... very, very close in fact. 😉

reallynicestamps · ‎01-05-2018

Yep.

International tracking is crazy expensive.

You'd think in this wired world it would be reasonably easy to set up, at least between USA/Canada/ UK/ EU and perhaps Australasia and Japan.

When is the next Universal Postal Union meeting?

ladygem2008gmailcom · ‎01-12-2018

I think the Global Shipping Program is absolute **bleep**! I placed an order that should have taken a maximum of 8 days if sent regular post, even going through customs. The Global Shipping had my parcel going all over hell and high water to get to me. Criss crossing the US before it even got to Customs! I will not be buying from Ebay again unless the item is from Canada just so I can avoid the Global Shipping program. It's really a shame as so many of Ebay's Sellers may loose business because of it.

ladygem2008gmailcom · ‎01-12-2018

You go davesplace89 I won't buy from seller using GSP either. Hmm wonder if you have anything I could use. I'm Canadian 🙂

m-banfill · ‎01-12-2018

How do you get first class international? All I could find was priority, I think usps makes it difficult on purpose

momcqueen · ‎01-12-2018

@vettefever333 wrote:
Kalvin,
Another EBay sale lost... found another vender in Michigan outside EBay, they had exactly the product I wanted, ordered and shipped this past week with $25.00 UPS fee, no extra charges. I am extatic. Tick Tock, Canadian sales are disappearing...

Don't celebrate yet; the couriers always charge a much, much higher brokerage fee than either handling fees assigned by Canada Post or GSP on top of the taxes or duty owed but will either bill you at the door or send it in the mail for payment in the week that follows delivery.

m-banfill · ‎01-12-2018

Canada post will collect directly on delivery plus a 10$ processing charge but they don't ALWAYS do so. I'd say ½ the time they don't collect for small items, I'd prefer 1 out of 2 than EVERY TIME.

@mjwl2006momcqueen wrote:
@vettefever333 wrote:
Kalvin,
Another EBay sale lost... found another vender in Michigan outside EBay, they had exactly the product I wanted, ordered and shipped this past week with $25.00 UPS fee, no extra charges. I am extatic. Tick Tock, Canadian sales are disappearing...
Don't celebrate yet; the couriers always charge a much, much higher brokerage fee than either handling fees assigned by Canada Post or GSP on top of the taxes or duty owed but will either bill you at the door or send it in the mail for payment in the week that follows delivery.

momcqueen · ‎01-12-2018

As a Canadian seller, I'm well aware of that.

What Canadian buyers may not be aware of is that couriers charge a much higher 'handling amount' amount in the form of a $20 + sliding percentage 'brokerage fee' 10 times out of ten or 100 per cent of the time for the same service rendered at less expense by both Canada Post and the GSP.

I'm not a Global Shipping Program apologist by any stretch of the imagination. It suits me fine if no Canadian shoppers want to risk paying import fees: buy Canadian from Canadians and the import taxes have already been paid for you.

femmefan1946 · ‎01-12-2018

@m-banfill

They do make it difficult.

You have to go to the icon on the far right (Shape and Size)

Then scroll to the very bottom of the list on the next page.

m-banfill · ‎01-12-2018

Then sell to your own Town and country be that as it may. Some Canadians may not be aware courriers charge an arm and a leg, I however do know hence I refuse any shipment sent via ups or FedEx. IMO FedEx are worse cuz they don't let you know "charges are forthcoming" they pretend everythjng is ok hen bam hit you with a bill a week or so later. I calculate the cost ahead of time if gap is ok? I'll buy over the border if not I'll buy canada.

What most Americans don't seem to understand is China is killing us all. Why America has a "buy America" and slap unfair tarriffs in Canadian goods Chinese are lapping it all up.

momcqueen · ‎01-12-2018

@m-banfill wrote:
Then sell to your own Town and country be that as it may....

I assume you mean that in a rhetorical sense as opposed to an edict issued to me, specifically.

As a seller based in Canada who ships Worldwide with exclusions, I don't have access to any Global Shipping Program offered by ebay, and I don't use couriers for international shipments unless the need merits speed and I am aware the value of goods sent doesn't exceed the de minumus of the destination country so it therefore won't trigger tariffs and the associated brokerage fees.

This isn't my first time at the rodeo.

lady.stark · ‎01-12-2018

@m-banfill wrote:
IMO FedEx are worse cuz they don't let you know "charges are forthcoming" they pretend everythjng is ok hen bam hit you with a bill a week or so later.

That is so true that FedEx are the worst! I had a package coming from the UK with them last summer. No COD on the box, nothing to pay upon arrival. One month later - yes, they took an entire month - I received the hefty bill for the import fees and taxes.

The money I had planned to use to pay the bill upon arrival had long been spent after a month! I had to figure out a way somehow to pay it. Not funny! 😞

reallynicestamps · ‎01-13-2018

and slap unfair tarriffs in Canadian goods Chinese are lapping it all up.

Many Canadians are under the impression that with NAFTA anything they buy in the USA is free from duty.

In fact, the import must be manufactured in a NAFTA country to be free of duty. You can buy Chinese or German* or Egyptian made goods in the USA and still pay duty on them

And of course most of the import fees are actually sales taxes, which are due whether the item is dutiable or not.

You may be interested to know that the Universal Postal Union has finally won its argument with China Post and Chines international parcel rates will be quadrupling over the next five years.
Labour costs are still lower in Asia, but Chinese manufacturers are moving factories to Africa and to other Asian countries as Chinese workers are demanding and getting more livable wages.

*When the CETA free trade agreement with the EU comes on line, we will be able to import European made goods without duty.

steve95780 · ‎01-21-2018

Way to lose a customer Ebay. I recently bid on and purchased an item from a seller 4 hrs away from me. I am in BC, Canada and seller is in Kent, WA. Didn't realize how high the shipping charges were with this global shipping program. But that was my fault for not checking first. No big deal, I thought, at least I get it quickly. Not so, 15 days later I am still waiting as the item got shipped across the US to Kentucky, then up to Ontario and is slowly meandering back to the West coast. What a joke. Aside from the excessive shipping costs involved, the most annoying part is that other items in the past have gotten to me via USPS quickly and for a fraction of the cost. Needless to say, I will not be making any more purchases where the global ship program is involved. As an aside I made a purchase 2 days later through a competitor and was pleasantly surprised when my shipping was only 1/3 of the cost (and waived) and the item arrived 4 days after I purchased it. The dissatisfaction with the delivery system has dramatically tainted the purchase experience.