MAJOR problems with Ebay's GSP

[electricalley]

1-eBay's GSP ads anywhere from 7-14 days when shipping to Canada since the package MUST go to the eBay Erlanger, Kentucky hub NO MATTER where the eBay seller/item is located in the US! THAT is total nonsense!

2-eBay's GSP will NOT ship to a PO Box in Canada because eBay's GSP uses either UPS or FedEx and NEITHER will ship to a PO Box in Canada.

3-HOWEVER, eBay will allow me to bid and buy items which can then NOT be shipped to my default Canadian PO Box address!

4-This is going to drive me and thousands of other Canadians away from eBay

5-Because of Porch Pirates I have no choice BUT to use a Canada Post Flex Address

6-Why is no one at eBay FIXING THIS immediately?

7-One month ago, eBay "LOST" a package worth over $700 because their system could not figure out how to hand off the package from UPS to USPS who DOES deliver to Canadian PO Boxes; luckily I was refunded

8- I just made 4 purchases today and the eBay Checkout page tells me that the seller will NOT ship to Quebec, Canada! All of the sellers have confirmed that THEY DO ship to Canada and to a PO Box.

9-I've spoken with 6 eBay reps, 3 on chat and 3 on the phone and NONE of them know what to do about this

10-I now have 4 purchases and eBay will NOT allow me to pay for them!

11-Is this supposed to encourage Canadians to continue shopping on eBay?!

12-If eBay does NOT fix this, we will leave eBay in swarms.

[reallynicestamps]

The GSP still exists in the UK, but was replaced a couple of years ago in the USA by eBay International Shipping (eIS).

Both are Seller Protection programs.

1.) Neither program ships to KY. When GSP-US did, Erlanger is a suburb of Cincinnati and 15 minutes from the Cinncinnati International Airport. 

It has been my experience that shipping from the USA to Canada takes about three weeks, and has since I started selling mail order in the mid-70s.

What is the window for delivery you are given when ordering?

2.) I agree. Couriers will not ship to PO boxes because postal employees cannot sign for their clients.

3.) 

4.)

5.) Part of the problem is the carrier does not have a secure place to leave your purchases. Part of the problem is that your local police are not working to prevent porch theft.  Have you reported every theft? 

But the courier should be leaving you a Notice that delivery was attempted with a time and place where the shipment can be picked up OR a contact to arrange delivery when you can be available.

7.) You were refunded. The seller was not penalized because eIS is a Seller Protection program

8.) This came up once before. devon@ebay  has this been addressed?

9.)

10.) This is a different question than delivery.  What reason are you being given?

11.)

12.)

[marnotom!]

The GSP, a forwarding system first launched in 2013 in the United States and a few years later in the UK, was phased out in the US over the course of 2023.  What US eBay has now is a system called "eBay International Shipping" (eIS) which is, unfortunately, no better when it comes to serving The Great White North and appears to be what you're expressing your concerns about.

eIS currently has one forwarding hub in a suburb of Chicago.  From what I've gleaned from the discussion boards on US eBay, there are plans to use a hub in California when the volume of merchandise handled by eIS justifies its use.  Remember, this system serves about 199 countries in addition to Canada and while purchases from Canadian buyers probably make up the largest proportion of merchandise that it handles, they're probably still not enough to justify a second hub for Canadian use at present, despite all the delays the hub seems to be experiencing.

The only carrier that you can count on to deliver to post office boxes is Canada Post.  Any other carrier likely will not have access to them, and as there's only one Canada Post and lots of other commercial carriers out there, it stands to reason that you're going to need some sort of backup plan that doesn't involve Canada Post if you're unable to provide carriers with a secure delivery location at your home address.  I have my doubts that a Flex Delivery address will work with eIS because from what I can see, Flex Delivery is just an overhyped post office box system.

One alternative to Flex Delivery that you may want to consider is renting a "UPS box" from the UPS Store or an equivalent service from a competitor.  The addresses used for UPS boxes look like street addresses and are compliant with eIS terms and conditions.  Another alternative is getting an account with a forwarding service based in the US and either picking up your items from them or having them mailed to you from their location.  A variation on this would be having the item sent to a friend with a US address to mail or hold for you.  Keep in mind that you're going to forego most of your eBay buyer protections if the item gets damaged or lost between the forwarding service's/friend's location and your P.O. box.

As for your items not being able to be delivered to Quebec, my guess is that it has something to do with Quebec consumer law differing from that of the rest of Canada and something about the nature of these items or how they were listed triggered a red flag in the system's AI.  This block was automatically applied--a human being didn't look at your sale and quash it--and it may have been applied incorrectly.  Such is the nature of AI.  (My wife thinks "AI" should stand for "average intelligence" because the humans that program AI routines can't make something smarter than they are.)

If it's not an issue of consumer law at play here, the PO box is probably the stumbling block if the seller has chosen to have eIS handle the shipment and the "Quebec" message may be the only thing that the eIS AI can provide as a reason.  The seller may ship to PO boxes for domestic sales, but they have no control over who's handling the shipping once it gets sent to the eIS hub.

As @reallynicestamps suggests, eIS (and the GSP before it) is designed more to encourage sellers to sell internatonally than to encourage buyers to purchase stuff from outside their home country.  eIS has a lot of perks for sellers who are able to make use of it.  It seems to be going through more growing pains than the GSP did, unfortunately, and it's going to require quite a few workarounds by buyers willing to put up with its quirks and issues while things get sorted out with it.

[electricalley]

1-What you said about GSP having been replaced by EIS in the US is incorrect. I received an email from an eBay rep a few hours ago stating: "Upon checking the details on our system, I can see that item under GSP can't be delivered to P.O. Box numbers or APO and FPO addresses that is the reason why you are unable to pay for the items."

1.5-My experience in the past year with half a dozen packages shipped from the US has been that it takes TWICE as long to receive them as it did BEFORE eBay started directing all international packages to their HUB.

2-There is no reason why a Canada Post employee who has gone through a criminal check cannot sign for a package headed to Canada Post's Flex Delivery address in their post office. That's partly but not entirely Canada Post's fault.

5-It's a problem with all online purchases and deliveries. The police have bigger fish to fry and when I called them about this issue they made it quite clear that there's not much they actually do. My porch cam is useless when someone avoids showing their face.

7-Yes I was refunded and the seller go paid. Meanwhile some jerk pocketed two laptops! Who dished out over $1500? eBay of course, who will pass that cost on to sellers and buyers.

8-The error message I get at eBay checkout about the seller not shipping Quebec, Canada is a total lie, since that is NOT the reason I can't pay for my purchase. The reason is: eBay's GSP + UPS/FedEx.

9-From my point of view it is ALL about paying and delivery. The eBay reps stall, put me on hold for 10-15 minutes, then tell me they'll escalate the issue, advise their supervisors, conatct their IT department, etc.

[electricalley]

Thanks very much for your detailed reply 🙂

The UPS box suggestion is certainly something I will look into.

The "seller not shipping to Quebec" message is a glitch since if I change my default address to my street address, that message magically disappers.

Is another solution to this PO Box dilemma for the seller to include a USPS shipping option in addition to eIS?

From what I've read, you are correct in suggesting that eIS favors sellers rather than buyers. It's hardly a smart or economically viable reason in the long run.

Why does eBay insist on using UPS/FedEx for their eIS deliveries to Canada knowing full well that it will cause all these problems along the way starting with their own CHECKOUT page? How can eBay NOT be aware AND concerned about this?

Why is eBay insisting on shooting itself in the foot by discouraging and alienating Canadian buyers?

This kind of unfixed and persistent blindspot is the reason why companies eventually go out of business.

[mrdutch1001]

"Why is no one at eBay FIXING THIS immediately?"

Because this is eBay.CA and this branch of eBay has no significant importance/no priority for.CA that requires eBay to fix anything immediately...

"If eBay does NOT fix this, we will leave eBay in swarms."...

NO, not all buyers purchase from the USA and not all those buyers that do purchase from the USA purchase from sellers who use EIS.

It is also in a buyer's best interests to know what items can and cannot be shipped from the USA to Canada via EIS:

What kind of items can I buy using eBay International Shipping?

At the moment, eBay International Shipping is available on most items up to $2,500 item value (excluding taxes, duties, and delivery fees) and located in the US.

However, items included in eBay’s hazardous, restricted or regulated materials policy, and items that don’t follow our International trading policy are not available with eBay International Shipping. View a list of restricted or prohibited categories.

Note: This is not an exhaustive list and it may be updated based on transportation regulations and export laws, and on macro environment or international regulations."

[marnotom!]

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@electricalley wrote:

Thanks very much for your detailed reply 🙂

The UPS box suggestion is certainly something I will look into.

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You're welcome.  I have no personal experience with UPS mailboxes and I'm not the owner of a UPS Store franchise location nor do I know any.  I just hope the costs involved with this possible solution aren't too high to make this worth your while.

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@electricalley wrote:

The "seller not shipping to Quebec" message is a glitch since if I change my default address to my street address, that message magically disappers.

Is another solution to this PO Box dilemma for the seller to include a USPS shipping option in addition to eIS?

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So the message itself is a glitch, but the prohibition from shipping to your default location isn't.  That makes a weird sort of sense.  Yes, if the seller offers a USPS shipping method in addition to eIS, they'll be able to ship to your post office box if you choose that option.  The ability for sellers to offer alternatives to eIS in their listings is slowly being phased in, but keep in mind that not all sellers will be willing or able to offer that option.

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@electricalley wrote:

From what I've read, you are correct in suggesting that eIS favors sellers rather than buyers. It's hardly a smart or economically viable reason in the long run.

Why does eBay insist on using UPS/FedEx for their eIS deliveries to Canada knowing full well that it will cause all these problems along the way starting with their own CHECKOUT page? How can eBay NOT be aware AND concerned about this?

Why is eBay insisting on shooting itself in the foot by discouraging and alienating Canadian buyers?

This kind of unfixed and persistent blindspot is the reason why companies eventually go out of business.

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The thing with the GSP and eIS is that they serve(d) many more countries than Canada and as a result, shipments made to Canada make up a small proportion of the total volume these schemes handle.  Also, they were designed more for countries that don't have the same sort of trade relationship with the US that we in Canada do.  The US and Canada have spent the last 75-plus years since the Second World War getting impediments to trade between our two countries removed.  Not all 200-odd countries on eIS's list have had things worked out as well, and some non-US buyers actually appreciate the GSP and eIS because it can bypass a lot of these impediments.

I don't think Canada is a blind spot for eIS, though.  eIS is a work in progress, and I get the sense that those who run it are trying different strategies to get it to work for shipments to Canada in a way that doesn't break the bank for buyers while still being reasonably efficient.  eIS was unfortunately launched around the time that Russia invaded the Ukraine and sent oil-prices on an upward spiral, and I think increased transportation costs put a wrench into the plans originally put in place for it.

I agree that the prohibition on shipping to Post Office boxes is a real concern for Canadian eBay users, particularly if they live in rural or remote locations that aren't served by commercial carriers.  Often what happens to shipments to these locations that are sent with couriers is that they get handed off to Canada Post at the courier's hub nearest to the recipient's location and go by mail to the item's final destination.  At least, that's how things worked when I lived in a remote location on Vancouver Island that was accessible only by boat, float plane, or a dangerous 80 km logging road.  I wonder if a buyer in a remote location were to use their physical address for an item that was to be forwarded by eIS, if the same thing would end up happening anyway or if they'd get an error message along the lines of what you got?