Outrageous Shipping Cost to Canada from the USA.

[wolfsden359]

Just a general question.. What is it with the shipping cost out of the USA to Canada... When I was recently looking to purchase a small travel tool kit for my motorcycle, I found two similar kits. Both were being shipped from Pennsylvania. Shipping cost for one is $14.02 Canadian.. which is reasonable..the second was listed at $106.98 Canadian.. just wondering who is setting these prices. I do know for a fact that shipping cost is dictated by distance and weight within the country and import charges are added on for international. Never in the 35 years of working in logistics have I seen shipping costs so high for such a small item from any country. I recently purchased replacement cell phone screens for my cell phone. Two exact items listed. One from the USA the other from Austraila. I saved about $100 in shipping cost placing the order for the ones from Austraila.  A country on the other side of the world from where I live whereas to go to the USA from where I am is a 3 hour flight including stopover... Unreal !!

[reallynicestamps]

@marnotom! 

There is a recent thread on dotCOM where a stamp dealer is getting some friendly ragging from other sellers about how little it costs to ship his goods.

While most of his stamps are in the $10-$50 range, he does sell some well over $200 , and the original question is about the sale of 28 lisitings with "free" shipping and his difficulties in discounting. For 28 $10 sales I would be tracking, and for 28  at $50 I'd certainly would be.

But his fellow sellers, teasing or not, do not seem to understand your point that value of contents has nothing to do with the cost of shipping.

[syfiguy]

It seems that  Ebay is trying to drive away Canadian business. I use Ebay less and less due to the excessive shipping costs to Canada.  A comic book I considered today listed free shipping in the US but was $76 to Canada. I am no longer using this service for this kind of product since Ebay does not seem to value my business. I recently had to search across the internet for an identical item and the shipping was under $20 dollars.  Judging from the number of similar concerns on this post many people are encountering the same outrageous fees. Will Ebay listen?   Is it merely a newly implemented policy glitch? Seems unlikely, this has been going on for a few years now.   It was nice to have such varied product in one place but I will simply have to search harder elsewhere where the service is of value. 

[flipistics]

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@syfiguy wrote:

It seems that  Ebay is trying to drive away Canadian business. I use Ebay less and less due to the excessive shipping costs to Canada.  A comic book I considered today listed free shipping in the US but was $76 to Canada. I am no longer using this service for this kind of product since Ebay does not seem to value my business. I recently had to search across the internet for an identical item and the shipping was under $20 dollars.  Judging from the number of similar concerns on this post many people are encountering the same outrageous fees. Will Ebay listen?   Is it merely a newly implemented policy glitch? Seems unlikely, this has been going on for a few years now.   It was nice to have such varied product in one place but I will simply have to search harder elsewhere where the service is of value. 

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I think part of the problem is that a lot of US sellers don't put dimensions in, which causes the algorithms to use some sort of worst case scenario that drastically overinflates most shipping quotes. I suspect if eBay started enforcing that, a lot of the shipping cost issues would go away.

[reallynicestamps]

 From eCommerce Bytes -- "USPS will raise rates for Priority Mail and Ground Advantage by over 5% in January. Priority Mail Flat Rates are going up by more. USPS is also raising non standard fees - "

The USPS is still controlled by deJoy, a Trump appointee with strong ties to the private sector shipping and courier industry.

Add to that, the setup of the rate card online puts Priority Shipping at the top of the list, with the cheapest tracked service (First Class Package International) at the very bottom.  Many sellers have never looked to see  their other choices.

It is possible to ask a seller BEFORE buying if they would consider using the cheaper service, emphasizing that it is a Tracked service. That tracking is the important part of the request.

[mrdutch1001]

although for many years I kept a good distance between myself & AZ, but during the Covid years, AZ was delivering hundreds of dollars worth of products,supplies,clothing, items of all shapes and sizes, etc,etc to my household...just about anything that was needed/wanted could be found on AZ and a Prime membership was so worth it. Rarely search for anything on eBay anymore and rarely ever buy anything on ebay...and really and truly who needs the hassles presented here on eBay when AZ can do it all and for cheaper...For my buying needs/wants, eBay is quickly becoming a thing of the past...

[marnotom!]

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@syfiguy wrote:

It seems that  Ebay is trying to drive away Canadian business. I use Ebay less and less due to the excessive shipping costs to Canada.  A comic book I considered today listed free shipping in the US but was $76 to Canada. I am no longer using this service for this kind of product since Ebay does not seem to value my business. I recently had to search across the internet for an identical item and the shipping was under $20 dollars.  Judging from the number of similar concerns on this post many people are encountering the same outrageous fees.

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In your case, however, we don't know the shipping service that the seller was planning on using to Canada.  If the customer were shipping the comic book in a USPS Global Express Guaranteed envelope, you'd be looking at a cost along the lines of what was stated in the listing.

[reallynicestamps]

For reference:

https://postcalc.usps.com/?country=10440

[nottoni_0]

After years of eBay who I loved, have to search elsewhere dut to ourageous shipping cost to Canada from USA. I don't think eBay will do anything about it since today it's the same High shipping costs to Canada, even 3-4 times highter than the item. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@nottoni_0 wrote:

After years of eBay who I loved, have to search elsewhere dut to ourageous shipping cost to Canada from USA. I don't think eBay will do anything about it since today it's the same High shipping costs to Canada, even 3-4 times highter than the item. 

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@nottoni_0 

Unfortunately the selling price has very little to do with the item price. It's all based on weight and size of item, distance and service options provided/available. Now if eBay could do something to make shipping a bit more economical from USA to Canada that would be very helpful. They should have some negotiating power...one would think.

-Lotz

[lu-c391]

I have completly left Ebay for this reason; paying a 30$ fee for a 5$ item, that a deal breaker to me. Now i'm mostly on Amazon, Aliexpress, Facebook Marketplace, Craiglist, Bonaza, ect. There is a life after Ebay.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@marnotom! wrote:

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@fergua3 wrote:

One thing i have noticed from the new Ebay International Shipping program (note this is replacing the GSP) is that many of the shipping costs have been very reasonable, on items i've looked at (haven't purchased anything yet).   Whether this refelcts reasonable rates or inexperieced sellers entering incorrect weights and dimensions resulting in too low shipping costs i don't know.

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eIS's shipping rates are definitely lower than USPS's counter rates, and possibly even lower than the discounted rates eBay.com offers to sellers shipping directly to international destinations.  The fly in the ointment is that these shipping rates are added to the seller's domestic shipping rate to Illinois, and while that might not be a big deal for smaller items, on larger items it can really hurt.

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@fergua3 wrote:

Anyway, it's no surprise that all of Ebay's international shipping programs have been terrible.  They seem to be a very disorganized company, with inexperienced people (as far as selling online) running the show.

If they really cared about creating a good buyer exprience, which they've been trumpeting for years, they would use a postal based international shipping service rather than one using flakey, flight by night, one star rating courier services.

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The GSP was orchestrated by Pitney Bowes, which I still regard as a postage meter company struggling to reinvent itself in the online age.  It made a number of acquisitions in its quest to become a "global solutions" "ecommerce" sort of company, but they may have picked some low-hanging fruit.  Anyway, as far as I can tell, the GSP's shipping partners were selected by Pitney Bowes or whoever Pitney Bowes contracted out to operate the Global Shipping Center in Canada, not eBay.

I suspect it's a similar deal for eIS, which seems to be orchestrated by EasyShip.  Their claimed list of Canadian shipping partners can be found here.

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@marnotom! 

Re: Claimed list of Canadian shipping partners states discounts up to 91%. Too bad anything with an attached discount rate seems to be next to impossible to find. Basically a needle in a haystack.

-Lotz