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.

[reallynicestamps]

he shipping cost with USPS is twice expensive

Because when you import something with a value of more than $20. the shipping company is required to assess and remit the applicable duty and SALES TAXES. For this they are allowed to collect a service fee (which is given various names).

This has been Canadian law since the mid-Eighties.

Shipping from the USA to Canada is not cheap.

https://postcalc.usps.com/?country=10440

You can punch in the dimensions and weight of your purchase to see how much it really would cost for tracked  shipping to your doorstep.

With the GSP, the seller ships to a central plant from which thousands of parcels are re-directed daily.

This hub and spoke system is also used by USPS and Canada Post. Unless you are tracking a parcel daily you would never notice it.

[afantiques]

It is arguable that the way sellers are drafted into the GSP selects for the most incompetent  ebay sellers, so it is not altogether surprising that there are quite a few reports about dumb and puzzled sellers.  This has been a feature since the beginning. They probably figure that enough people manage to muddle their way through that it does not matter much about the dimwits.

As for the shopping cart thing, anything complicated programmed by ebay is liable to belly-up without notice.

[trojun74]

 Do Not use this service. I live in the west coast Vancouver Canada. If I buy an item from Seattle Washington ( 140 mile south of Vancouver), it get routes south to LosAngeles (1136miles), across to Erlanger Kentuckty (2171 miles), up to Toronto Ontario (502miles) , across Canada to Vancouver 2684 (miles) . That is a trip of 6493 miles and a waste of 6353 miles.

 On March 2 2018 I ordered a golfbag from Surprise Arizona, It went to Los Angeles (365 miles)and 13 day later it is sitting in Ohio????(2125 miles) I guess it will go to Toronto (492 miles) and back to Vancouver (2684 miles) totaling 5666 miles. A waste of 4141 miles and two weeks of wait time.

[marnotom!]

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@trojun74wrote:

 Do Not use this service. I live in the west coast Vancouver Canada. If I buy an item from Seattle Washington ( 140 mile south of Vancouver), it get routes south to LosAngeles (1136miles), across to Erlanger Kentuckty (2171 miles), up to Toronto Ontario (502miles) , across Canada to Vancouver 2684 (miles) . That is a trip of 6493 miles and a waste of 6353 miles.

 On March 2 2018 I ordered a golfbag from Surprise Arizona, It went to Los Angeles (365 miles)and 13 day later it is sitting in Ohio????(2125 miles) I guess it will go to Toronto (492 miles) and back to Vancouver (2684 miles) totaling 5666 miles. A waste of 4141 miles and two weeks of wait time.

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There's a delivery time estimate on every listing where the Global Shipping Program has been applied.  I've got a listing for a golf bag open right now with a delivery time estimate of 8 to 15 business days, which would max out at about three weeks after shipment date, possibly a little longer with a holiday weekend coming up.

If it's taken 13 calendar days for your item to reach Ohio, that's not the fault of the Global Shipping Program.  It seems likely that the seller chose a cheap and slow method of shipping within the United States in order to offer "free" or economy US shipping.  Since the Global Shipping Program is a forwarding service, the seller would have used that same shipping method to send the item to Kentucky for processing.  I can't help but wonder if the seller would also have "cheaped out" on shipping directly to Canada if they chose to do so and used a shipping method that would have seen you paying heftier import charges than the Global Shipping Program.

I live on Vancouver Island.  I've purchased three items from sellers using the Global Shipping Program.  They've all been cell phones.  The latest one arrived this week.  It shipped from a suburb in Los Angeles, went a similar roundabout way to Kentucky before going to Mississauga and heading back west.  Total shipping time was two weeks, pretty comparable to items I've received from sellers in the US shipping directly to Canada via USPS, and with a shipping cost comparable to oversize letter (First Class International) and with lower import charges than any other carrier I can think of.

No question the GSP isn't suitable for every transaction, but no shipping method is.  I wouldn't want a five dollar magazine shipped to me by FedEx Overnight Express, and I doubt you would either.  If you're faced with a listing that's being forwarded by the Global Shipping Program, you have to do your homework and decide if it makes sense to be shipped that way.  To me, it makes sense to use it with mobile phones.  It doesn't make sense to use it with beer coasters.

[bear_paws]

This program is the worst thing Ebay ever did; it doubles the shipping time on average and if a package arrives damaged Ebay and Pitney Bowes washes their hands off of it blaming it on the local carrier. Us Canadians are getting screwed by this. Moreover for small cost items we are getting charged custom duties which we were not before. Fragile items are being repacked in flimsy bubble pack envelopes are being mishandled and no one at Ebay cares. I will no longer buy from a seller using GSP.

[trojun74]

very eloquently written, however, I will never buy from GSP shippers.USPS delivered and golf club from Florida 5 days to my liking. Below is the nonsense  

March 15, 2018, 9:26 am 
Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility 
CINCINNATI OH NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER  
Your item arrived at our CINCINNATI OH NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER destination facility on March 15, 2018 at 9:26 am. The item is currently in transit to the destination. 

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March 15, 2018, 9:26 am 
Arrived at Post Office 
CINCINNATI, OH 45235  

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March 7, 2018 
In Transit to Next Facility 

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March 6, 2018 
In Transit to Next Facility 

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March 5, 2018 
In Transit to Next Facility 

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March 4, 2018, 4:21 pm 
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility 
LOS ANGELES CA NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER  

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March 4, 2018 
In Transit to Next Facility 

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March 3, 2018 
In Transit to Next Facility 

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March 2, 2018, 5:00 pm 
Departed Post Office 
SURPRISE, AZ 85379  

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March 2, 2018, 3:13 pm 
USPS picked up item 
SURPRISE, AZ 85379  

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March 2, 2018, 11:54 am 
Shipping Label Created, USPS Awaiting Item 
SURPRISE, AZ 85379  

[marnotom!]

@trojun74, while I can appreciate your annoyance with the slow shipping of your bag, please also understand that your item isn't even in the hands of the Global Shipping Program yet.

Your frustration would be better directed at your seller for choosing a slow USPS shipping method for getting the bag to Kentucky.

Just out of curiosity, what sort of delivery time estimate is on the listing page or your emails from eBay?

[trojun74]

Expected Delivery On

15

Mar

 

 

By 8:00pm

[trojun74]

i dont care so much about the date, just the extra 5000 miles of stupidity

[marnotom!]

I don't recognize the style of graphics in the screenshot you posted.  I think that information might be something via USPS giving the estimated delivery date for Kentucky, not your item's ultimate destination .  I received this from eBay in my email:

As per the email, my phone showed up on Tuesday, March 13th.

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@trojun74wrote:

i dont care so much about the date, just the extra 5000 miles of stupidity

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Well, going by the tags you added to your post, the delivery time seems to be an issue for you.  As for the extra 5000 miles, I've wondered for a while if the workings of the GSP would make more sense to buyers and sellers if it had been marketed as a forwarding service.  Items get shipped to a central location (everything goes to Kentucky, whether it goes to Whitehorse, Winnipeg, Wolfville, or Wagga Wagga) and it gets dispersed from there.  Canada Post does something similar with letter mail in many parts of BC.  If I mail something to my neighbour across the street, it goes across the creek to Richmond to be processed before coming back to Vancouver Island to my town's post office before being sent out for delivery.

Your item isn't making a solo trip to Kentucky.  It's travelling with a lot of other packages with similar destinations.  You can think of it as like taking a trip through town by bus.  You're likely going to hit a lot of places you wouldn't travel past if you took a faster, more direct route by car, but on the other hand all those people taking the bus mean that there are fewer cars on the road and fewer parking and traffic problems downtown.

As fuel and transportation costs rise, you're likely going to find more instances where "spoke and hub" shipping is employed.  It may be slower, but it's also more economical.  Fewer transportation trucks on the road and fewer large sorting and distribution centres and fewer employees mean cost savings that can be passed along to consumers.  (Or not.)

[trojun74]

hey great news....the package headed 250 miles south to Kentucky...that will speed things up lol

March 16, 2018, 7:17 am 
Delivered 
ERLANGER, KY 41025  
Your item was delivered at 7:17 am on March 16, 2018 in ERLANGER, KY 41025. 

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March 15, 2018, 9:26 am 
Arrived at USPS Regional Destination Facility 
CINCINNATI OH NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER  

[marnotom!]

So your golf bag's reached the Global Shipping Center in Kentucky, where the Global Shipping Program takes over responsibility for its delivery to you.  It will probably sit there over the weekend and get processed for trucking over to Mississauga on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'd still like to know the estimated final delivery dates as stated on the listing page, if you have a moment to check on those.

[trojun74]

Sat in Kentucky for 2 day, where will it go next, back to LosAngeles?

Time and date Place Message Monday,

Mar 19, 2018 1:43 PM Erlanger , Kentucky Shipped from the Global Shipping Center to InternationalDestination

Saturday, Mar 17, 2018 12:06 PM Erlanger , Kentucky Customs Documentation and Labeling

Saturday, Mar 17, 2018 11:50 AM Erlanger , Kentucky Processing at Global Shipping Center

[femmefan1946]

Sat in Kentucky for 2 day, where will it go next, back to LosAngeles?

Those two days being Saturday and Sunday?

The slow part of that trip seems to have been by USPS, not GSP.

The shipment bundled with others, went to the USPS hub in Los Angeles, then bundled with others to the hub in Cincinnati, then bundled with others to the GPS plant in Kentucky.

Which took 15 days.

Next stop Canada, probably the Canada Post hub in Mississauga.

Then to the CPO regional hub for your location (for me that would be Richmond BC) then to your town then your post office then your carrier.

Who will bundle your purchase with all the other letters and parcels on his route and deliver to you.

Probably on Wednesday.

[cflfan]

GSP is just a cash cow for Ebay

[cflfan]

GSP is just a cash cow for EBAY

[momcqueen]

I'm not sure about it being a 'cash cow' for ebay. There is a $5-handling fee on GSP transactions, and it goes to Pitney Bowes for administering the program so far as I am aware. I suspect ebay makes their money on the Final Value Fees on sales that might otherwise have not been made if the item was not offered for purchase to customers outside the USA. 

[grendal_6]

I believe it is more insidious how ebay is making money off the GSP. I'm not sure how Pitney Bowes and ebay got together in the first place, but they must have cooked up a kickback system before the program was launched. The GSP makes no sense unless you see it as a moneymaker for them both. It certainly was not set up to benefit American sellers or Canadian buyers.

For decades, Pitney Bowes has been lobbying both the Canadian and American governments to privatise all or parts of the US and Canadian postal services, so that they can come in and carve off the lucrative parts of both systems. UPS has also tried to do the same. The Tories in Canada were about to do just that before they were thrown out. The Liberals aren't much better, but at least they have stopped the loss of door to door delivery and cut out the privatization talk. But the resourceful folks at  Pitney have carried on and managed to get their hands on free money by setting up this middleman-filled remailing service and upping shipping fees and pocketing the import duties they collect. I (and most Canadians) have never been charged duty or import fees when American sellers have used the USPS and Canada Post. The only times I've ever been charged is when a US seller uses UPS, who always have extra charges.

You know the GSP is a horrible program when 12 commenters are in favour and 6156 hate it. ebay certainly does not listen to its members (or care about them) when it allows this to go on this long. They must have signed a long term secret deal with Pitney, but if they were smart, they would pay off Pitney and cancel the GSP just to get rid of them and keep their members happy. Plainly, ebay does not care about their Canadian members.

This seems to have been implemented like the negative option that cable and cell phone companies used. Many have said the American sellers are really unaware of the GSP and that is my experience as well. Whenever I ask a US seller to ignore the GSP and mail direct, they are surprised, but usually do it. There is really no difference in preparing the parcel and paperwork for Erlanger or just filling out a customs declaration for the USPS. 

A question for ebay: why the silence on this issue and does Kalvin even exist or is he/she/it just a bot?

[femmefan1946]

It's possible eBay gets a share of the ~$5 service charge that PB sets for the GSP.

It is equally likely that eBay pays PB to run the programme for them.

The reason eBay started GSP was that US sales were flatlining, while international members were anxious to buy from the US market.

American xenophobia and paranoia made the US sellers unwilling to export.

And while the Trumpettes are unwilling to admit it, the USA is a strongest economy in the world and produces more goods than any other. There is really little reason for an American to sell outside the lower 48.

So whether PB approached eBay or eBay approached PB, the GSP was introduced as a SELLER PROTECTION PROGRAM.

And that is what the haters (and the somwhat grumpy like me) tend to forget about the GSP.

It was not put in place to help buyers.

Nuh-uh.

It protects those snowflake sellers who panic at the thought of foreigners buying their goods. Shudder with fear at the idea of filling in a customs form (two lines on a standard USPS label), and have hysterics when the customer has  a funny name.

The seller who uses the GSP has no responsibility for delivery once their shipment reaches Kentucky and the gentle hands of the minimum wage staff in the freight forwarding plant.

It's not a conspiracy.

There are private agreements. Most businesses have them. Not exactly the same as 'secret'.

And the GSP means that non-US buyers can buy in the USA and eBay sales from US-based sellers have risen.

The GSP is so successful that it has been expanded to the UK. (Because eBayUK had the same problems with foreign sales. See also: Brexit).

I've made a grand total of two purchases from GSP users since it came into play. One was repacked, but arrived on time, in good shape, and was, even with the GSP charges,cheaper than any other on AZ or eBay. The other was a stupid impulse buy where I didn't notice the GSP (aaargh!) and paid $20 for what I thought was a $2 comic book. Mea culpa.

[momcqueen]

“You know the GSP is a horrible program when 12 commenters are in favour and 6156 hate it....”

You have confused and misunderstand ‘in favour’ for ‘comprehend its strengths and weaknesses’. It’s well-established that you could walk into any assembly of people anywhere and find an angry mob of people whose anger is based on misinformation and misunderstanding against a handful of people who understand whatever it is and are therefore not angry.