Global Shipping Program/Pitney Bowes - Is it lost??

[jabby_collect]

Hi all,

I have an order I'm tracking with GSP and it hasn't updated since Sept 22. I've attached a pic of it. Is it lost for good? How long should this normally take? I'm worried because its now Oct 12. It's coming from US to Canada.

[theoldestfart]

I contacted Intelcom Express yesterday via their website (forget using their chat it is useless). This morning I get an email saying "Your shipment is currently scheduled to be delivered tomorrow before 9 pm at the very latest. ".  Strange how it showed up here in Winnipeg a week after it cleared customs and the day after I asked where my parcel was. Their tracking system is useless to show that they actually received the parcel at the point of entry after customs clears it. That does not mean I am out of the woods yet. This company is well known for losing parcels or having parcels delivered elsewhere than the correct address with no signatures or forged signatures.

I have created a FlexDelivery and if I am ever stupid enough to buy a GSP item I will use the FlexDelivery address so that Intelcom Express does not get their hands on the shipment.

[theoldestfart]

Yes, buying from the US has become more difficult, but I don't think it's strictly an eBay thang.

I beg to differ. When purchasing off eBay in my opinion the experience is worse in some cases due to eBay's various shipment methods. When one deals with most US websites you know who the carrier will be for the shipment. This allows you as the buyer to avoid dealing with that vendor if that carrier is the only one they used and you have had issues with prior shipments with that vendor.

WIth eBay pre-sale you as a buyer do not always know who the carriers will be that will be handling your shipment.  eBay has several shipping plans available for US sellers which are clearly spelled out who the carriers are. Even if you have used a service before i.e. GSP and CPost was the carrier in Canada it does not mean every shipment will be as I recently found out. It is Pitney Bowes decision on who they will hand off the shipment to and if that carrier has a track record of poor service by the time you as a buyer discover that carrier is involved you are SOL. If the carrier has a habit of not providing tracking, loosing parcels, delivering them to the wrong location or creating fake signatures as is the case with Intelcom Express then that only adds to the frustration.  If he item is lost sure you will get a refund but it does not replace the month you have waited for the delivery nor, in the case of a hard to find item does it allow you to replace the item.

[theoldestfart]

"eBay has several shipping plans available for US sellers which are clearly spelled out who the carriers are" Should be "eBay has several shipping plans available for US sellers which don't clearly spelled out who the carriers are"

[marnotom!]

I'm not really clear on whether you're referring to shipments where the GSP has been used as a forwarding agent or if you're referring to shipments where the seller is shipping directly from the United States to Canada, so I'll try to cover both and keep my comments pithy.

I think it's unreasonable to expect a forwarding agent dealing with over a hundred different countries to be able to provide definitive information on "last mile" carriers on listing pages, particularly a country like ours which has its sparse population spread out unevenly over an extremely large geograpical area.  Also, the GSP bot really has no idea what is being shipped; that has to be determined by a human being checking the item in at the Global Shipping Center, and that probably has some bearing on what last mile carrier is selected.

Sellers who don't use the GSP for their international sales are free to elaborate on their chosen shipping methods in the item description if they feel that the descriptor used by eBay is inadequate.  Buyers are also able to ask the seller about their international shipping methods if they feel there's insufficent information on the listing page.  Yes, it's a hassle, but you're dealing with a human being, not a corporation, at least.

I suspect the ecommerce sites where you're getting shipper information are ones where the merchant has a lot of control over their inventory and knows it well.