eBay

kalvin@ebay.com · ‎09-26-2013

Do you have questions about the Global Shipping Program? Please post here & I'll do my best to track those answers down for you!

If you have any comments about the program, use this forum instead.

Thanks,

~Kalvin
eBay.ca Community Manager

kalvin@ebay.com

yumitreasures · ‎03-03-2014

I found the listing and wanted to purchase it because it said Free shipping. I asked the seller how to qualify for the free shipping since the listing was contradictory, and I got this response.

Hi,
We use ebay's global shipping program for international orders. We ship free to ebay's distribution center in Erlanger, KY and then ebay charges you separately to get the package from there to your final destination. We don't have visibility to how much they charge or ability to change it. I believe it will show you what ebay charges right before checkout if you add the item to your cart.

This just totally confused me even more because the prices for shipping can be set on the individual listings. Is there something I'm completely missing here?

bennett4612 · ‎03-04-2014

Hi chan247.

Your seller is correct, as far as how things work with the Global Shipping Program. Sellers can set the price and use whatever method they choose to get the item to the US Shipping Center. One the item arrives there, eBay / Pitney Bowes takes care on the international portion.

On a GSP transaction the international portion is then billed separately, to the buyer. Buyers see estimated Program fees on the listing (usually very accurate) and actual fees on the checkout page.

Here are some links to pages that explain the Program. It's pretty straightforward, but I'll include three links just to be thorough.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/shipping-globally.html

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/shipping/globalshippingprogram.html

http://pages.ebay.com/shipping/globalshipping/buyer-tnc.html

Hope this helps.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-04-2014

The seller should not have stated free shipping in the title since that only applied to shipping within the U.S.

The seller does not see the amount that other countries are being charged in the global shipping program unless they actually go into one of their listings and change their location to another country. Then they would see what the buyer sees.

00nevermind00 · ‎03-04-2014

Bennett, can you tell me why a buyer who is overcharged by GSP for the "import charges" portion of the transaction (whatever the reason is for the overcharge) isn't refunded? If I'm overcharged on a transaction, it's not much comfort to me that other eBayers somewhere may have been undercharged on theirs and that it all evens out in the end. It may even out for Ebay and PB but it doesn't even out for me.

Stuff like this doesn't help endear the program to international buyers. And when we look at the "import charges" for various items, they do seem to be all over the place.

marnotom! · ‎03-04-2014

@yumitreasures wrote:

I found the listing and wanted to purchase it because it said Free shipping. I asked the seller how to qualify for the free shipping since the listing was contradictory, and I got this response.

Hi,
We use ebay's global shipping program for international orders. We ship free to ebay's distribution center in Erlanger, KY and then ebay charges you separately to get the package from there to your final destination. We don't have visibility to how much they charge or ability to change it. I believe it will show you what ebay charges right before checkout if you add the item to your cart.

This just totally confused me even more because the prices for shipping can be set on the individual listings. Is there something I'm completely missing here?

The item in your screen capture does not ship through the Global Shipping Program. It is not mentioned in the top part of the listing page. "Priority Mail International" is the seller's shipping method, whether the seller realizes it or not.

As suggested earlier, some U.S. sellers put "free shipping" as an attention grabber in their listings as they're catering to the vast majority of their buyers who are from within the United States. This is one thing that irks me about some eBay sellers: they claim to welcome non-U.S. buyers but their listings aren't really designed with them in mind.

This seller is shipping a (roughly) three pound item by parcel post when oversize letter mail (First Class International) for about twenty bucks would do the same job just fine if not better.

I'd find a seller who knows what they're doing.

mr_spaiku · ‎03-04-2014

During the first week of February, I bought an item from a seller who is enrolled in the Global Shipping Program. I then received two tracking numbers (the UPAA variety), one of them has never once been updated, while the other one stalled at the Kentucky sorting facility all the back on February 10th. It hasn't updated since then. It's been 18 business days and nearly a month since the order shipped out. It was supposed to arrive on February 19th.

I have three questions:
1. What's the deal with tracking numbers that *never* update/are entirely blank?

2. How long should I wait before I file for a refund?

3. When I do file for a refund, what happens to the seller? I understand that the GSP is eBays responsibility, and I want to make sure that the seller doesn't get any headaches because of this.

marnotom! · ‎03-04-2014

@mr_spaiku wrote:

During the first week of February, I bought an item from a seller who is enrolled in the Global Shipping Program. I then received two tracking numbers (the UPAA variety), one of them has never once been updated, while the other one stalled at the Kentucky sorting facility all the back on February 10th. It hasn't updated since then. It's been 18 business days and nearly a month since the order shipped out. It was supposed to arrive on February 19th.

I have three questions:
1. What's the deal with tracking numbers that *never* update/are entirely blank?
2. How long should I wait before I file for a refund?
3. When I do file for a refund, what happens to the seller? I understand that the GSP is eBays responsibility, and I want to make sure that the seller doesn't get any headaches because of this.

1. No idea, really. There are several different shippers under contract to Pitney Bowes' Global Shipping Program. It may well be that some of them have tracking systems or software that aren't "communicating" with Pitney Bowes.

2. I'd say now is about as good a time as any.

3. The seller shouldn't be out of pocket for the sale when all is said and done, although they may have their share of the funds from the sale put on hold while this mess gets sorted out.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-05-2014

I understand that the GSP is eBays responsibility, and I want to make sure that the seller doesn't get any headaches because of this.

It was the seller's choice to use the gsp for their own convenience, not for the buyer's convenience so I wouldn't worry too much about causing them a temporary headache.

cujie · ‎03-05-2014

I recently bought a jacket for 34.40. The shipping listed when I purchased it, on ebay.com, on a mobile device, with my location set to Canada was $5.70. I bought it. Now it is part of the Global Shipping Program, fees are $15.92 shipping and $15.39 import taxes. These fees were not disclosed until I after I clicked Buy. In my "My eBay" it still says $5.70 until I try to check out and then it slaps all the fees on. I am logged in to my account. I obviously would not have bought this if all of this was known upfront, as it doubles the price of my item. This is ridiculous. I called the help number and they said well hopefully your seller lets you out of it when you contact them, and we will look into that glitch..

bennett4612 · ‎03-05-2014

Hi mr_spaiku.

marnotom! has provided excellent advice, as usual.

I would agree that it is probably time to go ahead and open a case. From your description it sounds like the item made it to the US Shipping Center (Kentucky) ok. If this is the case, and the item went missing from there, everything should move along automatically once the case is filed. In other words you and your seller should remain headache-free throughout.

Once you open a case, if you have any further questions please feel free to send me a Private Message. Please include transaction #, item #, + eBay user id and email address used.

Hope that helps.

---Bennett

bennett4612 · ‎03-05-2014

Hi 00nevermind00

I'm not clear exactly what your situation is. Do you feel you were overcharged because of an eBay/Pitney Bowes/PayPal error? Or are you unhappy with the GSP Program Fees?

I am happy to look into your transaction, if you feel that fees were applied incorrectly. Please send me a Private Message and include transaction #, item #, + eBay user id and email address used.

Thanks.

---Bennett

bennett4612 · ‎03-05-2014

Hello cujie.

Sorry to hear your transaction got all sideways. I'd be happy to look into it from this end.

Please send me a Private Message and include transaction #, item #, + eBay user id and email address used.

Thanks.

Bennett

00nevermind00 · ‎03-06-2014

@bennett4612 wrote:
Hi 00nevermind00

I'm not clear exactly what your situation is. Do you feel you were overcharged because of an eBay/Pitney Bowes/PayPal error? Or are you unhappy with the GSP Program Fees?

I am happy to look into your transaction, if you feel that fees were applied incorrectly. Please send me a Private Message and include transaction #, item #, + eBay user id and email address used.

Thanks.

---Bennett

Thank you for replying to my post Bennett. I do not have a GSP transaction to be happy or unhappy about. Although sometimes expensive, the items I buy are almost always very small and GSP simply tacks on too many extra charges. I doubt I'll ever use the program.

What I was referring to is expressed in Paragraph 3d) of the T&C for buyers (see the part in red at the end)

Program Fee Estimates. The Program Fees quoted in your Seller's listing are estimates only and are subject to change until you pay for the GSP Item and the quoted Program Fees in full during checkout. With the exception of the shipping charges specified by your Seller to ship your order to the U.S. Shipping Center, the quoted Program Fees are derived from real-time, proprietary estimates of applicable international shipping and import charges by Pitney Bowes. Pitney Bowes's estimates may not always reflect actual costs to Pitney Bowes; actual shipping and/or import costs may be more or less than the estimates. However, subject to your compliance with these Terms, your payment of the GSP Item price and quoted Program Fees during checkout represents the total amount of Shipping and Import charges for a GSP Item to be purchased, shipped to the delivery address specified by you, cleared by customs, and delivered to (or made available for pickup at) the delivery address that you specify. You will not request, and you will not receive, a refund for the difference, if any, between Program Fees paid by you and actual costs to Pitney Bowes in the event that actual shipping and/or import costs are less than the amounts paid by you.

That's the part I take issue with. Why not refund overpayments to international buyers? One of the most insistent complaints from international buyers since the GSP was implemented is the high cost to them. This simple gesture of refunding overpayments most likely would not placate all the anger towards the program, but it would be a start for making it more palatable to international buyers. After all, it looks like very little consideration was given to international buyers when the program was devised, and to how they would feel about being on the paying end when they have no say in when or how it is being used.

afantiques · ‎03-06-2014

The highlighted text is in my opinion legal boilerplate to cover possible if remote liability, not anything that is likely to happen or possible with the way the taxes are collected and remitted.

aqt_4life · ‎03-06-2014

My package was showing it's being delivered by FedEx but after a few days of tracking I couldn't see any info. I called FedEx to inquire and find out more detail with the UPAAB...# but it's not recognized on their system. They said I should contact the seller so I emailed them and they said it came from Ebay...how do I get in contact with someone to get some answers?

manofwax · ‎03-06-2014

I have a seller who has listed an item using the GSP but who said he will ship to me outside this program should I win his auction. Is it possible for the seller to do this? and how would he proceed? I won another auction that the seller listed using the GSP and he too told me that he would ship directly to me if I won his auction, however ebay would not let him.

marnotom! · ‎03-07-2014

@manofwax wrote:

I have a seller who has listed an item using the GSP but who said he will ship to me outside this program should I win his auction. Is it possible for the seller to do this? and how would he proceed? I won another auction that the seller listed using the GSP and he too told me that he would ship directly to me if I won his auction, however ebay would not let him.

It appears that the only way to get around the GSP invoicing process once the listing ends is for the seller to either send an invoice through PayPal for the item plus the conventional shipping price or else have the buyer agree to cancel the listing and relist the item without the program.

I would ask the seller what plan he intends to use.

brandeentertainment · ‎03-07-2014

The Seller is responsible for the product ...

If the carrier or post office loses the item the seller will get the refund from them and you get the refund from the seller...

Whatever happens make sure to file item not received case before the 45 day deadline if you have not received it ....

Ebay does not provide tracking numbers so either your confused abuot what the seller said or the seller is trying to BS you ..

Seller can use paypal to print labels but not ebay ...

Do you have an item number so I could take a look

afantiques · ‎03-07-2014

The Seller is responsible for the product ..

The post replied to refers to a GSP shipment. After the item reaches Kentucky the seller is not responsible for the package.

If the carrier or post office loses the item the seller will get the refund from them and you get the refund from the seller...

A lost GSP item gets a refund from the GSP direct. The seller is not responsible for making the claim, the buyer is.

Whatever happens make sure to file item not received case before the 45 day deadline if you have not received it ....

This is the the only point in the post that is correct. Replies to posts referring to GSP items will be wrong if you use the normal rules for postal shipments.

Ebay does not provide tracking numbers so either your confused about what the seller said or the seller is trying to BS you ..

The GSP does provide tracking numbers for the international shipment part of the journey, in the format UAxxxx, although they are usually useless.

Seller can use paypal to print labels but not ebay ...

Labels can be printed from ebay sold item details page.

reallynicestamps · ‎03-07-2014

I have three questions:
1. What's the deal with tracking numbers that *never* update/are entirely blank?

Tracking numbers are irrelevant to the buyer. If the buyer opens an Item Not Recieved claim and the seller cannot show that the item was delivered, the buyer will be refunded.

All a tracking number will tell you is that some shipper somewhere was paid to move the parcel.

2. How long should I wait before I file for a refund?

You have up to 45 days from cleared payment.

Ask the seller first about shipping date and shipping service used. If that answer is unsatisfactory -- or if the selller offers a replacement rather than a refund. go to a Claim after no more than 40 days.

3. When I do file for a refund, what happens to the seller? I understand that the GSP is eBays responsibility, and I want to make sure that the seller doesn't get any headaches because of this.
If he got the item safely to the GSP plant in Kentucky, nothing. Your refund comes from Pitney Bowes who run the program for eBay.
It would be polite to let the seller know about the problem without blaming him for it. It may improve his shipping choices.