What's the deal with shipping charges? Listing says free but at checkout it's showing $30-50 US

[kobre61]

Trying to buy an xbox controller but every listing hits me with these enormous shipping fees. What is this **bleep**? 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Re: Xbox Question

Are you signed in to ebay dot com or dot ca? Quite often with US sellers they ship to the rest of USA for free. When it comes to internationally suddenly shipping goes through the roof. The other thing that comes into play is a good percent of US seller use the Global Shipping Program for shipping internationally. Adds big time to shipping costs for us lowly Canadians.  When you try a search make sure you click either closest  or Canada only on left hand side. Should help with your search results.  (GSP is really best suited for high price items)

Which type of xbox unit were you looking for? I believe somewhere in my listings I have a few controllers listed for the 360.  Maybe I have something that will work for you.

-Lotz

PS. Also when you are searching confirm you have your postal code entered when you go to confirm shipping.

[femmefan1946]

To expand on the Global Shipping Program.

This is a Seller Protection Program for sellers from the USA and the UK.

The seller may not have any shipping charge for domestic sales.

But, even if he has Free Shipping to Canada, you are still required to pay applicable duty on any purchase over $20Cdn (~$14.00US).

Even if there is no duty*, you are still required to pay sales taxes which can be up to 15% of your payment.

In addition there is a ~$5US service fee for the GSP.

So again, if your purchase was made in the USA the "free shipping" may only apply to US customers.

Your seller may be protecting his business by using the GSP.

The GSP will charge you Canadian duty and sales taxes. (Plus that service charge for wrangling the controller over the border.)

*And NAFTA only applies to items manufactured in the USA or Mexico, not items purchased there.

[kobre61]

Yeah, I think my VPN tripped something. A short while later the prices went back to normal but I was seeing completely different listings and couldn't find the ones I was looking at initially at all, which was weird. I guess the different locations don't even search the same listings? 

[femmefan1946]

Well, if a seller specifically doesn't want to ship to somewhere (Nigeria? APO addresses?) members with those addresses won't see those listings at all.

If the seller doesn't give a shipping cost for a more general area (World wide, Canada) the members there will only see those listings if there are not many listings for similar items that the seller has given specific shipping for.

The member then sees "contact seller for shipping costs".  And do that. You may be shocked at how much international tracked shipping can cost even if the seller does answer.

And if he doesn't he doesn't want your business, either. It will not go well.

EBay sellers are independent businesses. Most are happy to have customers. Some are Soup Nazis.

[kobre61]

Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining.