EBay International Shipping (EIS)

[names_all_taken]

I refuse to buy from any seller that does not offer an alternative to EIS. As a Canadian, I have bought items (not necessarily on EBay) from all over the US. EIS is by far the slowest system I have ever dealt with. For example, I bought an item from a seller in Colorado. The vendor shipped it out in less than 24 hrs. It took USPS a day and a half to get it to Chicago area (Glendale Heights). It sat there for 10 days before it was “processed“ and re-shipped to Toronto, ON Canada. It took another day and a half to get to my door. Total travel time - 3 days. Total time in transit - weeks!! Ouch!
Do better EBay!!

[Anonymous]

Agree Once they see that a lot of international buyers will avoid it they will do something as it will affect THEIR bottom line It’s atrocious service and they know it I’m sure

[Anonymous]

Agree Only shows the ineptness or the complete contempt they have for their Canadian customers

[mrdutch1001]

Highly doubt there will be anything significantly changed anytime soon...it takes years for eBay to act on anything newly implemented as it takes a great length of time for all the glitches to be worked out and this shipping program is still a fledgling project...

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Agree Once they see that a lot of international buyers will avoid it they will do something as it will affect THEIR bottom line It’s atrocious service and they know it I’m sure

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@Anonymous 

@intimewithmusic 

@names_all_taken 

The same issues with GSP and now with eIS have been reported forever. Unfortunately they replaced an apple with apple wiith little in the way of improvements. As it has been mentioned these programs have been designed mostly with the seller in mind.  What boggles the mind with all the complaints over time no one has ever shown up from eBay to state they are working on improvements. Basically or sadly, it is what it is. From a customers perspective you find out by trying. Refunding is okay but the buyer really just wanted what they ordered originally. 

With any programs/features where there are middle people involved it increases the chances of something going off the rails. That's not going to happen in ALL situations but still does happen. Nature of the beast.  That goes for shipping(forwarding---potential for fumbles), product grading, postage and the dreaded customer service. 

-Lotzofunquegoodies

PS. Regarding dropping it. That's not going to happen because of the A)revenue it generates and B)Simplifies things + reduces costs for sellers.

[Anonymous]

Have to say never had any issues with the GSP but this is the first purchase with the EIS and it will be my last It’s just a money grab for eBay Using a shipper that has a horrendous reputation judging by the reviews I’ve read about them OSM So at this point I’m not sure if I’ll ever see what I purchased EBay getting too big for their boots Total contempt for some of their customers Not quality but quantity to make their stockholders happy Shame on you EBAY

[Anonymous]

No one from eBay speaks out because they know very well what they done and they have no defence for t This is what happens when you get too big for your boots and do whatever you want

[intimewithmusic]

Not to forget these issues are a buyer's prospective. I pointed out this is to our advantage as a seller. 

 The S&H I paid to the Californian seller on Dec 11 for the 1" hardcover Oz book was $28.44 cad. Most US sellers are charging $25 to $40cad to ship a regular 1" hardcover to BC via EIS. On Dec 26 I sold and shipped the same size book to a buyer in Pennsilvania. The eBay Tracked Packet label cost me $12.79 plus I charge a $3.00 packing cost. The total cost to the Pennsilvania buyer was $15.79 cad or about $11.68usd.  That's pretty good with tracking and insurance. 

As long as our cost for under 2 Kg USA bound shipments remains below the EIS program after March 31 we're VERY formidable competition for US sellers using EIS!

Of course they have domestic media mail which isn't helping but that only applies to media. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@intimewithmusic wrote:

Not to forget these issues are a buyer's prospective. I pointed out this is to our advantage as a seller. 

 The S&H I paid to the Californian seller on Dec 11 for the 1" hardcover Oz book was $28.44 cad. Most US sellers are charging $25 to $40cad to ship a regular 1" hardcover to BC via EIS. On Dec 26 I sold and shipped the same size book to a buyer in Pennsilvania. The eBay Tracked Packet label cost me $12.79 plus I charge a $3.00 packing cost. The total cost to the Pennsilvania buyer was $15.79 cad or about $11.68usd.  That's pretty good with tracking and insurance. 

As long as our cost for under 2 Kg USA bound shipments remains below the EIS program after March 31 we're VERY formidable competition for US sellers using EIS!

Of course they have domestic media mail which isn't helping but that only applies to media. 

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@intimewithmusic 

There's a good bet for most of those US sellers they are building shipping into their prices and then shipping either included or minimal shipping within Continental USA. That would make Canadian/Intl shipping as mostly pure profit even once you take off best offer. Then reduced FVF's on their end. 

-Lotz

[marnotom!]

So I received my sweater today.  My wife hates it but it's growing on my son.  It arrived within the timeframe stated on the listing page despite a slow start due to snowstorms in the US northwest (and coastal British Columbia) in a Priority Medium Flat-Rate box that didn't look like it had been used as a football.

If the seller had shipped it in that Flat-Rate box directly to Canada, the USPS retail ratre for shipping would have been US$61.80.  USPS retail for First Class Package international for an item that size and weight would likely have been US$36.70.  eIS charged me US$29.74, but the price showing on the completed listing page is now US$42.05.

At this point, I don't see anything that would stop me from making a third purchase of an eIS-forwarded item as long as the shipping price wasn't stupid and the estimated delivery time wasn't longer than what I'm accustomed to for a standard USPS shipment (generally 2-3 weeks but occasionally 4).

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@marnotom! wrote:

So I received my sweater today.  My wife hates it but it's growing on my son.  It arrived within the timeframe stated on the listing page despite a slow start due to snowstorms in the US northwest (and coastal British Columbia) in a Priority Medium Flat-Rate box that didn't look like it had been used as a football.

If the seller had shipped it in that Flat-Rate box directly to Canada, the USPS retail ratre for shipping would have been US$61.80.  USPS retail for First Class Package international for an item that size and weight would likely have been US$36.70.  eIS charged me US$29.74, but the price showing on the completed listing page is now US$42.05.

At this point, I don't see anything that would stop me from making a third purchase of an eIS-forwarded item as long as the shipping price wasn't stupid and the estimated delivery time wasn't longer than what I'm accustomed to for a standard USPS shipment (generally 2-3 weeks but occasionally 4).

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@marnotom! 

Have you tried any tests with the dot com discounted calculator? Definitely a lot more working options for services compared to the what we see when we use the Canadian version. Discounts are minimal but there (US) compared to what we are able to offer.

https://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator

https://www.ebay.ca/shp/Calculator

Unfortunately the ca calculator is still a work in progress. You can choose all 3...CP/USPS/Fedex discounts or none of the above. Very limited selection of services compared to each individual service offers if you went in person or purchased online. The ca tool still is missing options so not really 100% functional.  US version gives sellers the option to choose any or all of USPS/Fedex/UPS methods.

From a CA perspective it has become very difficult to find US sellers using the that broad range of listed standard options vs eIS. Not really optimum for a buyer that may need something quicker that what is currently routinely found doing eBay searches. (As a side note if you search listing on dot com for shipments going within the USA you are able search by service...1,2,3,4 days. Something that is unavailable for ca buyers in Canada.)

-Lotz

Correction. There are a few glitches in testing the US calculator. Shipping to Canada with UPS standard arrives in 0 days. Same 0 days for the 3 fedex services available to Canada. So guessing actual final testing of these tools was not completed. 😳 For both. 

[marnotom!]

@lotzofuniquegoodies, the breakdown of the "new" shipping charges for the listing is as follows:

US$15.38 - The seller's charge for a domestic Priority Flat-Rate Medium Box (USPS retail US$

US$26.67 - eIS's charge for shipping the item from Illinois to Vancouver Island

My item travelled from Chicago to Vancouver Island through the postal system with an "LX" prefixed tracking code, so the shipping method was First Class Package International and I'd assume it would be the same for the "updated" version of the listing.  As the retail for FCPI is US$36.70, there's a US$10.03 discount--roughly 27.5%-- on eIS's portion of the shipping charge.

So it appears that eIS is passing along at least some of the discount on shipping it gets from Asendia.  eBay's contention that eIS shipping is less expensive than USPS retail is technically correct.  The problem is that that discount gets eaten up and then some by the seller's domestic shipping charge to Illinois leading to a higher overall shipping charge for the listing than USPS retail First Class Package International.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@marnotom! wrote:

@lotzofuniquegoodies, the breakdown of the "new" shipping charges for the listing is as follows:

US$15.38 - The seller's charge for a domestic Priority Flat-Rate Medium Box (USPS retail US$

US$26.67 - eIS's charge for shipping the item from Illinois to Vancouver Island

My item travelled from Chicago to Vancouver Island through the postal system with an "LX" prefixed tracking code, so the shipping method was First Class Package International and I'd assume it would be the same for the "updated" version of the listing.  As the retail for FCPI is US$36.70, there's a US$10.03 discount--roughly 27.5%-- on eIS's portion of the shipping charge.

So it appears that eIS is passing along at least some of the discount on shipping it gets from Asendia.  eBay's contention that eIS shipping is less expensive than USPS retail is technically correct.  The problem is that that discount gets eaten up and then some by the seller's domestic shipping charge to Illinois leading to a higher overall shipping charge for the listing than USPS retail First Class Package International.

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@marnotom! 

All the extra handling for little gain makes me a bit nervous when it comes to using eIS. To my mind it is not a value added service from a buyers perspective. I would much rather take my chance with a seller that ships using USPS and then gets DIRECTLY handed off to CP for final delivery. That way no surprises. Maybe I pay tax & processing. Maybe I don't. Just sounds like there have been too many horror stories to make it worth taking the chance. I know and have spoken to many long time users of eBay the feel the same way. Because eBay is so big on clicking boxes, like I've suggested in the past a method to filter eIS off or on would be big time solution for many buyers. eBay tends to take away choice vs giving it my making things by default.

-Lotz

[marnotom!]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

@marnotom! 

All the extra handling for little gain makes me a bit nervous when it comes to using eIS. To my mind it is not a value added service from a buyers perspective. I would much rather take my chance with a seller that ships using USPS and then gets DIRECTLY handed off to CP for final delivery. That way no surprises. Maybe I pay tax & processing. Maybe I don't. Just sounds like there have been too many horror stories to make it worth taking the chance. I know and have spoken to many long time users of eBay the feel the same way. Because eBay is so big on clicking boxes, like I've suggested in the past a method to filter eIS off or on would be big time solution for many buyers. eBay tends to take away choice vs giving it my making things by default.

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I think you're going to be hard-pressed to find US sellers who ship to Canada without using some sort of discount-and-consolidation service, particularly for smaller items, @lotzofuniquegoodies.  You may recall that I bought three cellphones that were forwarded through the old GSP and cases for those phones that weren't handled by the GSP.  Two of the three cases arrived after the phones and they all seemed to be handled by some sort of consolidator or forwarder.  One of them even had a postage label on the envelope that indicated that it entered the mail stream in Sweden!

We Canadians do the same thing when we use services such as Chit Chats.  Sauce for the goose and gander and all that.

As I think I noted in this thread, the option for sellers to offer international shipping services in addition to eIS on the same listing appears to be rolling out now, so that may be of some benefit to you and others who feel that eIS needs to be avoided at all costs.

[intimewithmusic]

@lotzofuniquegoodies    I agree Lotz.  ....Here's some perspective.

"All the extra handling for little gain makes me a bit nervous when it comes to using eIS."

Let's look at "extra handling". On one hand we have a sweater. On the other we have an antiquarian book. 

Photo 1: Map of  less than HALF of the books journey from San Fran area to Kelowna. After this part of it's journey the book went north to Canada, west to Vancouver (Richmond) BC and then East to Kelowna.

TRIP-Red Arrow = Destination

Photo 2: Tracking and handling for just the map's portion. Tracking & Handling to Chicago.

Photo 3: The book is on the very bottom loosely wrapped in small bubble wrap. . No tape. No waterproof enclosure. The seller used seven unused new  10x13 USPS Padded flat rate envelopes on top of the book for packing material. Not sure why he didn't just put the book in one of them!

Book at bottom of New USPS Mailers

[flipistics]

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@marnotom! wrote:

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As I think I noted in this thread, the option for sellers to offer international shipping services in addition to eIS on the same listing appears to be rolling out now, so that may be of some benefit to you and others who feel that eIS needs to be avoided at all costs.

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One of the YouTube resellers was saying the other day that he's switching from using eIS to using Pirate Ship simple export rate for Canadian orders.

[Anonymous]

Yup Purchased item on Jan 24 picked up very next day by USPS took 6 days to move from Texas to Glendale heights Since then nothing so it’s just sitting there or is it fallen into an abyss not to be found and I’ll have to wait until the delivery date passes and receive my refund Whuchever way it goes it will be last purchase with any seller who used this abhorsnt service For me the GSP worker great So why world eBay change it ?? To make mote money who cares about the customers Quantify over quality Been on eBay 20 years and it will be my last plenty of other ola es to get what I need Shame in you EBay !!!

[marnotom!]

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@flipistics wrote:

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One of the YouTube resellers was saying the other day that he's switching from using eIS to using Pirate Ship simple export rate for Canadian orders.

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There are a number of sellers on the .com boards that suggest that Canada is probably the easiest country to which to ship directly and are aware that eIS isn't always a good fit for shipments to Canada, or at least they know that many of us don't like it.

[marnotom!]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yup Purchased item on Jan 24 picked up very next day by USPS took 6 days to move from Texas to Glendale heights Since then nothing so it’s just sitting there or is it fallen into an abyss not to be found and I’ll have to wait until the delivery date passes and receive my refund Whuchever way it goes it will be last purchase with any seller who used this abhorsnt service For me the GSP worker great So why world eBay change it ?? To make mote money who cares about the customers Quantify over quality Been on eBay 20 years and it will be my last plenty of other ola es to get what I need Shame in you EBay !!!

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There's really no reason to check the tracking of your item until a few days before the last estimated delivery date, but here's something interesting I found with the tracking of my item after it arrived.

I've started getting into the habit of using Parcelsapp.com for checking on tracking if I really need to.  With the first eIS-forwarded item I purchased, I received one tracking number from eBay and it worked for the entire shipment.  The problem was that on Parcelsapp.com the tracking was a mess of duplicated information because the shipment was handled by three different carriers.

With the sweater I recently received, I had to enter a separate tracking number to cover each stage of the item's transit: one for the leg from the seller's location to Glendale Heights, one for the leg from Glendale Heights to the Chicago USPS whatchamacallit, and one for the leg from the whatchamacallit to its final destination in Canada.

What might be up with your item is that the tracking number you have is only good until Glendale Heights and further tracking information hasn't been added to wherever you're checking the tracking.  (I'm assuming your "My eBay".)   If you really need to know where your item was last scanned, use the tracking number you have on Parcelsapp.com and there might be additional tracking information, or else there might be a note with the next tracking number on it.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@marnotom! wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yup Purchased item on Jan 24 picked up very next day by USPS took 6 days to move from Texas to Glendale heights Since then nothing so it’s just sitting there or is it fallen into an abyss not to be found and I’ll have to wait until the delivery date passes and receive my refund Whuchever way it goes it will be last purchase with any seller who used this abhorsnt service For me the GSP worker great So why world eBay change it ?? To make mote money who cares about the customers Quantify over quality Been on eBay 20 years and it will be my last plenty of other ola es to get what I need Shame in you EBay !!!

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There's really no reason to check the tracking of your item until a few days before the last estimated delivery date, but here's something interesting I found with the tracking of my item after it arrived.

I've started getting into the habit of using Parcelsapp.com for checking on tracking if I really need to.  With the first eIS-forwarded item I purchased, I received one tracking number from eBay and it worked for the entire shipment.  The problem was that on Parcelsapp.com the tracking was a mess of duplicated information because the shipment was handled by three different carriers.

With the sweater I recently received, I had to enter a separate tracking number to cover each stage of the item's transit: one for the leg from the seller's location to Glendale Heights, one for the leg from Glendale Heights to the Chicago USPS whatchamacallit, and one for the leg from the whatchamacallit to its final destination in Canada.

What might be up with your item is that the tracking number you have is only good until Glendale Heights and further tracking information hasn't been added to wherever you're checking the tracking.  (I'm assuming your "My eBay".)   If you really need to know where your item was last scanned, use the tracking number you have on Parcelsapp.com and there might be additional tracking information, or else there might be a note with the next tracking number on it.

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@marnotom! 

devon@ebay 

Based on your tracking information findings it sounds definitely like something eBay needs to improve within either help or at the tracking details point. Main reason folks check tracking is to make sure what they ordered IS moving in the basic correct general direction. There is nothing in eBay help that clarifies how an eIS parcel will move vs standard packages. In a perfect world IF/WHEN there are second parties involved buyer would know at checkout who these parties are. Not all end of line couriers work for all areas in Canada. (Remember Apple?)  As for ParcelApp as a backup that is just something regulars here have discovered from research and their own testing. Buy once and gone will never know about it. Better, easy to find help from eBay and maybe less panic from buyers after the fact. Like they say, best surprise is NO surprise!!

-Lotz

[marnotom!]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:

Based on your tracking information findings it sounds definitely like something eBay needs to improve within either help or at the tracking details point. Main reason folks check tracking is to make sure what they ordered IS moving in the basic correct general direction. There is nothing in eBay help that clarifies how an eIS parcel will move vs standard packages.

To clarify my post, @lotzofuniquegoodies, what I was reporting on was what I saw when viewing the tracking on Parcelsapp.com.  I didn't really check on the tracking in "My eBay" while my item was in transit, but it looks pretty solid to me.  The item showed "delivered" the same I received it, so I can only assume that updates were relayed to eBay in a timely fashion.

What I like about the tracking on My eBay is that it shows what stage the item's at in transit.  There's a general graphic at the top, along the lines of what you'd find if looking up tracking on the Canada Post website, and then there's more detailed information below that that describes these stages.  The first stage is "Seller to hub."  The second stage is "at hub" and the third stage is "hub to you."  If someone has purchased an item that's handled by eIS and hasn't done their homework so they know how the system works, that information may be enough to get them to read up on the system or make some inquiries on these discussion boards.  So I think there is information from eBay to "clarify how a package moves."

I was just suggesting Parcelsapp.com just in case the information on the second and third stages in the item's transit hadn't been transmitted to eBay's database for whatever reason.

As for buyers checking tracking "to make sure their item's going in the right direction," okay, but what are they supposed to do with this information?  The item technically isn't there's until they take possession of it.  If there were tracking for that phone case I bought that stated that the item was in Sweden, what good would that information have done me, particularly when it was on its way to me all the same?  If the item's on the way, does it really matter where it goes as long as it arrives within the timeframe the recipient is expecting?