eBay

lms1123 · ‎11-01-2021

After being, what I would consider, a very good buyer on Ebay for many years, I need to share with the general community my total frustration with the Global shipping program. I am tracking an Item being shipped from the US to Canada and yet again it is taking forever. After 6 days it is still in the USA and has changed location 4 times so far, considering ebay estimate it should arrive in another 12 days total of 18 days? This is far from an isolated event, since the invention of this non-efficiant system, there has been no truly preceivable improvement, and I feel, my view is shared with many other users. (shipping before with USPostal was much better, about 4 days) The Global Shipping Program has only caused very long delays and massive increase in costs for buyers, which over time transforms to lower bidding and obviously less money in pocket for sellers,. Moving items around like this takes man power, time, and huge amounts of fuel, ebay is the only winner with what can only be classed as a money grabbing scheme. With the world turning to reducing greenhouse gases, it strikes me that should Ebay abandon this very frustrating program, it would have nothing but positive effects for Buyers, Sellers and the planet in general.

marnotom! · ‎11-01-2021

The Global Shipping Program is a glorified forwarding service designed to reduce the anxiety some US (and UK) sellers feel about shipping out of the countries. It wasn't designed with speed in mind, although some buyers in countries with problematic customs offices or postal services actually prefer it to direct shipping through the postal system because it bypasses those problem spots.

It serves about 100 other countries in addition to Canada. It's generally not the best way to get most items to Canada because of our geographical proximity to the United States and our generally solid trade relationship, but it seems to be the future of online cross-border shopping as a lot of US e-tailers are now using similar forwarding methods to get their merchandise to Canadian consumers as it's cheaper (and more environmentally friendly) than setting up Canadian branches and warehouses.

I don't know where you're located, but I'm on Vancouver Island and 18 days isn't unheard of for direct mailed shipments from the US to where I am. During the summer, my wife purchased some items that were sent by letter mail from the US and they took a month to reach her.

I don't think the GSP is any worse for the environment than any other shipping method out there. You seem to be envisioning your item going on a solo road trip when, in fact, it's travelling with many other items at the same time with similar destinations. My wife once ordered an item from Southeast Asia that first went to Alaska, then down to Seattle, and then Vancouver before making its way to Vancouver Island. Why wasn't it shipped directly to Vancouver Island? Probably because there are very few items getting shipped to Vancouver Island from that SE Asian location, so the carrier would either have to wait until more accumulated, which would delay her item, or send out a plane loaded with just the one package, which would add another plane to the sky and all the expense and environmental repercussions associated with that.

City transit buses don't take the most direct route to most places, either. But the routes are designed in a manner to ensure that people get picked up and dropped off at other important destinations along the way. And, more importantly, they get cars off the road.

The GSP has been around since 2013 so I don't think there are plans at this point to abandon it. There have been some tweaks along the way, some good, some not so good. Since the world went sideways in March 2020, the GSP appears to have picked up more transportation contractees, some good, some not so good. But I think it's important to remember that you're dealing with a forwarding service here. The seller is responsible for getting the item to the Global Shipping Center in Kentucky, so any perceived delays in that part of the item's transit need to be worn by the seller, not the GSP. More direct shipping might mean more warehouses having to be constructed on valuable land and additions to the transportation fleet which could add more CO to the atmosphere, and that's not an environmentalist's dream.

Think of the Global Shipping Program as the forwarding service that it is, and its quirks start making more sense. You don't have to like the GSP in order to understand it. I'm not a big fan, but I've been very selective about the purchases where it's been used and it's worked to my advantage.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎11-01-2021

For anyone interested International Standard Rate Sheet attached with rules and etc for shipments originating in the USA. In case you ever wondered.

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/shipping/ebay-international-standard.html#m22_tb_a1__5

-Lotz

Note: Milage may vary. For basic reference purposes only.

femmefan1946 · ‎11-01-2021

I am tracking an Item...

Don't.

The Global Shipping Program is a Seller Protection against specious claims of non-delivery. It has some other benefits for the seller, but none for the buyer.

Watching the tracking of anything is useless.

It will not speed it up and it will not prevent damage in transit.

EBay gave you a date for delivery.

Has that passed?

You say it is supposed to arrive in 18 days of which SIX have passed.

Just for the record six is a smaller number than 18.
If your purchase does not arrive by the last estimated date, you have 30 days to make an Item Not Received Dispute.

The GSP is very quick about refunds* and the seller is not responsible for that.

If the parcel arrives after than, the GSP does not want it back. Happy UnBirthday!

I have been selling by mail order for over 35 years** and in my experience parcels take an average of 21 days to arrive anywhere in North America.

*Because all the seller had to do was ship to the GSP plant and his responsibility ended there.

**Before the internet was a thing.

femmefan1946 · ‎11-01-2021

What’s the difference between eBay international standard and the Global Shipping Program?
eBay international standard is a Delivered Duties Unpaid (DDU) shipping solution—buyers won’t pay duties and tax at checkout on eBay but may have to pay the carrier for duties and tax on delivery.

The Global Shipping Program (GSP) is a Delivery Duties Paid (DDP) shipping program—buyers pay duties and tax during checkout on eBay via GSP.

eBay international standard gives you full control of what you* want to charge buyers for shipping (Free, Flat, Calculated) from end to end.
With GSP, the buyer always sees the GSP shipping charges, and also any costs you set for the domestic shipping leg (Free, Flat, Calculated).

*This is the seller/shipper.

If your purchase is over $150 you have already paid duty with the GSP . If your purchase is over $40 you have already paid sales taxes with the GSP.
If you had used a the postal system, you would be paying duty and sales taxes plus a $9.95 service fee to the Canada Post carrier- or more likely to the counter clerk, at the PO. since with COVID carriers are not taking payments but leaving pickup notices instead.

aramatic · ‎11-02-2021

I agree totally with all your points, but I'm afraid the apologists for the Global Suckers Program outnumber us. Whenever I question the spurious "import charges" (unique to GSP, since identically priced items sent by USPS never incur them) I get an unconvincing lecture on how the figures are not plucked out of the air . It's sheer nonsense to find a discounted item being slapped with higher import charges than it had at the original price. Apparently we're just to trust that somehow it will all work out right in the end. The bottom line is that GSP often discourages me from purchases that I would otherwise make.

aramatic · ‎11-02-2021

"If you had used a the postal system, you would be paying duty and sales taxes plus a $9.95 service fee to the Canada Post carrier- or more likely to the counter clerk, at the PO."

I haven't been required to pay either duty or the service fee in 19 years of receiving items from the US sent by USPS. That's surely not a matter of luck.

marnotom! · ‎11-02-2021

It surely is. I’ve been buying from the US on eBay for a few more years than you have, and before the Harper era, I could count on about half my purchases being assessed and charged taxes and duty by CBSA. I even had one item assessed on the item’s market value because someone at CBSA didn’t believe the declared value on the customs form. I’d guess that since the mid 2010s, my wife and I have had taxes and duty assessed on our mailed purchases fewer than half a dozen times, a small proportion of our (mostly her 🤪) items.

reallynicestamps · ‎11-03-2021

When the duty (and tax) free allowance was $20 , CBSA had the good sense to realize that they would be wasting taxpayer money if they assessed and charged duty (and tax) on every item valued over $20.

So they ignored 93% of them.

The 93% btw was from a CBSA announcement back in the day.

With the newest version of NAFTA, the duty free allowance from the USA and Mexico has risen to $150Cdn and the sales tax free allowance to $40.

Any thing purchased from the USA with the GSP will rarely incur duty. There will be sales tax, and that is calculated when the buyer buys -- based on his province. So anywhere from 5% to 15%.

What bugs me about the GSP is that US sellers who will be shipping to Kentucky, are still charging international buyers international rates, but only paying out domestic rates.

Now there's a money grab.

marnotom! · ‎11-03-2021

@reallynicestamps wrote:

What bugs me about the GSP is that US sellers who will be shipping to Kentucky, are still charging international buyers international rates, but only paying out domestic rates.

The shipping charges you see on a listing where the seller is using the Global Shipping Program are the seller's domestic shipping charge plus the charge levied by Pitney Bowes to have the item shipped from Kentucky to its final destination.

If the listing offers "free" shipping within the United States, the shipping charge to Canada (or wherever) is purely Pitney Bowes'.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your post.

dannyw1975 · ‎11-03-2021

The same 6 or 7 **bleep**s have been defending this garbage program on here for the last 8 years. They all have vested interests. The program is a **bleep**in scam for Canadian buyers, and no one should use it.

lms1123 · ‎11-03-2021

Thank you for helping me with your mastery of mathamatics and best wishes, but my point is that the Global shipping program diminishes the user experience for buyers, not that my package is taking too long. I feel sure that as a seller of more than 35 years you understand the importance of helping to improve your own buyer's experiences in their best interests in mind and your business too. From a more mathmatical angle, with close to 1000 personal purchases on Ebay I can confirm that my frustrastion is almost 100% related to the extended shipping times, extra shipping cost, extra duty related brokerage fees and what is obviously a system that waists resourses and money, all that whilst increasing co2 output, that being the Global Shipping Program.

regards.

lms1123 · ‎11-03-2021

Thank you for taking time to answer, I agree that it is unlikely that the Global shipping program will go away, It would however be very easy for Ebay to allow sellers to offer both the Global Shipping Program and other types of shipping at the same time. Even if both the seller and the buyer wish to ship directly, once purchased this is no longer a posibilty.

As a buyer, I can confirm that I would pay more for an item, when I have the option of shipping directly with US Postal, and I am sure that it will arrive faster more often than not, with only real customs fees and taxes to be paid at the post office.

Amazon build their business on the fact that items get to you fast, why can this vision not apply to Ebay sellers to, should they wish? bearing in mind that most Sellers are unaware of the negative side to the program until a buyer takes the time to mention it.

I must disagree with your thought that the GSP does not have a negative enviromental effect, How can shipping to a distrubution center prior to re-shipping the same package to the Buyer be equal or less than a direct ship, unless you happen to live in Kentucky? (based on an average and excluding the exceptions)

best regards

lms1123 · ‎11-03-2021

Hello,

Thank you for the reply, I am sure we are many in the same position. I hate complaining, but I hate even more being taken to the cleaners, how can a modern business think that worse service and higher cost is the way to go, the system actually takes away from their own clients on both sides of the coin?

theoldestfart · ‎11-03-2021

Just recently I purchased a $70 US item. Shipping was $28.47 from Indianna to Winnipeg. Import fees were $7.78. I concluded the $7.78 was Pitney Bowes brokerage fee to determine the item did not have any GST/PST nor Duties assessed on it.

Plus Pitney Bowes selected Intelcom Express whose tracking number never was included in the eBay tracking until AFTER the item was delivered 9 days after it cleared Canada Customs in Toronto. GSP is the only program that deals with CBSA that there is no paperwork accompanying the shipment through customs. UPS, FedEx, and Canada Post all provide paperwork showing the breakdown of the fees into duty, brokerage fee, GST, and PST.

I contacted eBay on Twitter regarding what the $7.78US charge was made up of. They told me to contact the last mile courier that Pitney Bowes selected after they had the package, Intelcom. Intelcom responded and told me to contact the seller.

femmefan1946 · ‎11-03-2021

The only shipping service worse than Intelcom is AppleExpress.

Both seem to be hiring drivers with no experience and give them no training. This may also apply to local managers.

GSP is the only program that deals with CBSA that there is no paperwork accompanying the shipment through customs.

Because the buyer did not technically pay duty or taxes.

PB/GSP was paid by the buyer an amount to cover duty and taxes - and a service charge of ~$5USD.

No one has ever been able to ascertain the exact service charge. It seems likely to be between $0 and in your case $8.

The excuse for not detailing it is that PB/GSP is dealing only with private people and not with businesses, and only businesses "need" the amounts to correct their taxes. For private sales, and all GSP shipments are considered private/ non-commercial, the buyer cannot use the number for anything and it is not provided.

Again, at a guess, since PB seems to palletize the shipments and bring them into Canada on a single manifest, they may pay less than a single shipment would cost both for shipping and for duty/taxes.

The $35Cdn you paid however would seem to be covered under NAFTA. We have a $150 duty-free allowance and a $40 tax-free allowance for US imports.

Even with imports from overseas, as a courier PB/GSP would be duty -free up to $40Cdn value.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎11-03-2021

@femmefan1946 wrote:
The only shipping service worse than Intelcom is AppleExpress.
Both seem to be hiring drivers with no experience and give them no training. This may also apply to local managers.

GSP is the only program that deals with CBSA that there is no paperwork accompanying the shipment through customs.
Because the buyer did not technically pay duty or taxes.
PB/GSP was paid by the buyer an amount to cover duty and taxes - and a service charge of ~$5USD.
No one has ever been able to ascertain the exact service charge. It seems likely to be between $0 and in your case $8.
The excuse for not detailing it is that PB/GSP is dealing only with private people and not with businesses, and only businesses "need" the amounts to correct their taxes. For private sales, and all GSP shipments are considered private/ non-commercial, the buyer cannot use the number for anything and it is not provided.
Again, at a guess, since PB seems to palletize the shipments and bring them into Canada on a single manifest, they may pay less than a single shipment would cost both for shipping and for duty/taxes.

The $35Cdn you paid however would seem to be covered under NAFTA. We have a $150 duty-free allowance and a $40 tax-free allowance for US imports.
Even with imports from overseas, as a courier PB/GSP would be duty -free up to $40Cdn value.

Not to defend Intelcom in any way, shape or form but my eyes were opened as to what is expected of their drivers over the course of a shift.

In a recent news program regarding the River a whole lot of everything was covered including Intelcom. They(Intelcom which handles the majority of deliveries) have been hiring and training extremely fast so some drivers are taking short cuts to get the work done. Over the course of a shift it was reported they had to deliver 170 packages or risk being written up. Drivers were having to eat on the fly and not so nice topic of personal breaks was included and how to "work" around them. I will skip the details.

I've personally had good and bad experiences with their service. It can be very helpful to tag your door if you have special delivery requirements. Something that many other platforms include are special delivery instructions. Unfortunately a short coming in eBay. (Signature required is not the whole solution especially when drivers do not have time to get one or have been told they can skip that step.) Watch for any alerts of items delivered and try to have someone home whenever you have an inkling of a delivery.

Because of these 3rd party couriers (Intelcom/Apple/DHL, etc) being in play with eBay, the who will handle part for the last leg of the journey, will be in question until some sort of actual customer applicable friendly system is in place that sellers can use when creating a shipment there will be problems. Remember pre MP when buyers could leave notes to sellers that were easy to find?

-Lotz

Re: Customs and Duties Refunds. Relatively easy peazy with CP/UPS/Fedex etc

https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/import/courier/crp-prio-eng.html

To request a refund or adjustment of duties and taxes for non-commercial goods, complete Form B2G, CBSA Informal Adjustment Request Form and mail it, along with the required supporting documentation

marnotom! · ‎11-03-2021

@lms1123 wrote:

Thank you for taking time to answer, I agree that it is unlikely that the Global shipping program will go away, It would however be very easy for Ebay to allow sellers to offer both the Global Shipping Program and other types of shipping at the same time. Even if both the seller and the buyer wish to ship directly, once purchased this is no longer a posibilty.

I suppose eBay could offer sellers the opportunity to offer both, but you know what? Most of them wouldn't bother. Sellers already have the option of making a small handful of exceptions to the GSP in their listings and shipping directly instead, but I've yet to find a listing where a seller has done that.

Do some snooping on the .com site's discussion boards for a while. There's a lot of apprehension about direct international shipping from the US for a variety of reasons, some of them justified, some of them ridiculous.

@lms1123 wrote:

Amazon build their business on the fact that items get to you fast, why can this vision not apply to Ebay sellers to, should they wish? bearing in mind that most Sellers are unaware of the negative side to the program until a buyer takes the time to mention it.

Because eBay sellers don't do nearly the volume of sales that Amazon does and they don't have the option of having their "host" warehouse their goods if they so wish. The greater the volume of sales, the better the deal a vendor can get on shipping. Fast = expensive. High volume of sales being shipped quickly = volume discount.

@lms1123 wrote:

I must disagree with your thought that the GSP does not have a negative enviromental effect, How can shipping to a distrubution center prior to re-shipping the same package to the Buyer be equal or less than a direct ship, unless you happen to live in Kentucky? (based on an average and excluding the exceptions)

I didn't say that the GSP doesn't have a negative environmental effect. I said that it's no worse for the environment than direct shipping. Again, you seem to be thinking of GSP-forwarded packages travelling solo rather than along established shipping routes with hundreds of other packages.

Let's try this: If I picked a certain airline to fly me out of a small airport on Vancouver Island to the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, that airline would first fly me to Edmonton and then turn around and take me to Kelowna because it doesn't fly directly from the small airport to Kelowna. "Wait!" you may be thinking. "That's terrible for the environment!" Hear me out. Those planes are going to fly from Vancouver Island to Edmonton anyway. Not everybody on those planes is going to Kelowna. Some of them may be Edmonton bound, some of them may be off to, say, Winnipeg.

Let's say three people on that flight to Edmonton had Kelowna as their final destination. Would it make environmental sense to have a special plane just for those three people?

Also consider that what we call a "direct" shipment likely has a few detours along the way, especially when the item goes through customs, which for some destinations is actually kind of out of the way as there are only three CBSA Mail Centres in Canada. For example, an item mailed from New York bound for Antigonish, Nova Scotia, would have to go to St-Laurent, Quebec, first.

marnotom! · ‎11-03-2021

@femmefan1946 wrote:

PB/GSP was paid by the buyer an amount to cover duty and taxes - and a service charge of ~$5USD.
No one has ever been able to ascertain the exact service charge. It seems likely to be between $0 and in your case $8.

The service charge varies with the amount of electronic paperwork and rubberstamping the bot figures has to be done on the item, and that would vary by category, I would imagine. I think it also fluctuates slightly with the exchange rate.

In this case, as the item was bound for Manitoba which has RST and GST, the amount set aside for tax would be $3.50 for GST (5% of $70.00) with the balance of $4.28 going toward whatever Pitney Bowes wants to do with it.

reallynicestamps · ‎11-03-2021

The $4.28 goes to pay the GSP minions in Kentucky to open every single package that arrives at the plant, damage the contents, and repack every one badly.