eBay International Shipping does seem to be seeing a pretty rough rollout, but few new eBay initiatives seem to come out of the box glitch- or controversy-free, so I see this as pretty normal insofar as what eBay's version of "normal" is.
I've purchased only one item forwarded through eIS so far. I feel that the shipment went pretty well, but I'm trying to wait for the dust to settle a bit more before having another crack at it.
@johnnesbitt wrote:
Without exeption, transit time is desperately slow. Slower even than Erlanger at its worst.
Can you elaborate on this a bit? Are your items arriving late? I'm on Vancouver Island and I generally expect direct mailed shipments from the US to take two to three weeks to reach me and I don't start worrying about their whereabouts until almost the four week mark.
The item I bought took twenty days to reach me, one day shy of the delivery estimate time window. It might have arrived a little quicker if the seller hadn't taken full advantage of their three business day handling time.
@johnnesbitt wrote:
Global gave you a fixed cost, including any customs or GST. International leaves that undefined. With Canada Customs, there is some number below which they do not assess fees, and some other number above which they do. But there is a wide fuzzy area where they may/may not.
For what it's worth, the tax-free threshold for items sent from the US is C$20 for items sent by mail and C$40 for items sent by courier. My item was valued at less than C$40 but more than C$20 and I didn't get a tax bill on delivery. The package was actually stickered "DDP" (delivered duty paid) to ensure that I didn't get assessed and charged taxes and duty.
As you seem to have found, Canada Border Services isn't particularly stringent about hitting low-value items with tax and duty charges for items sent directly through the mail, so that may be part of the inconsistency you're finding.
@johnnesbitt wrote:
Finally, it appears that every US seller is being shoehorned into the International program. Sellers can no longer offer to ship directly? This is often much less expensive, and invariably the item arrives faster.
That paragraph can be read a couple of different ways, so I'll try to cover all the bases in my response.
All qualifying US sellers are being automatically opted into eIS. While some people feel this is pretty hamfisted, opting out does seem to be a pretty straightforward process. I suspect eBay did it this way to ensure that sellers were aware of the existence of the program. Many US sellers seemed to miss the memo about the GSP when it was first unleashed and this led to some rotten buyer experiences.
One of the most significant differences between eIS and the GSP is that the GSP could be applied on a listing by listing basis but the eIS is a "seller setting" that applies to all the seller's listings. Removing the GSP from a listing meant cancelling and revising the listing (although some sellers seemed to think that was "eBay illegal" and buyers requesting this were up to no good). However, sellers can only remove eIS from a listing by revising their selling settings, which would affect all their listings in one fell swoop.
Sellers can still sell internationally under their own steam if they opt out of eIS. However, eIS is currently an extremely attractive proposition for most sellers. It offers perks and protections that aren't even available with domestic sales, so that's a big reason you're seeing it applied to so many listings. As far as eIS's pricing goes, I get the sense that its rates are pretty competitive with USPS's counter rates (base rates) for its international services. The rub is that once you add the seller's charge for shipping the item to Wherever, Illinois, the service doesn't look nearly as attractive cost-wise. And shipping costs have jumped considerably over the past twelve months, to boot.
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