eBay advising sellers in China not accept sales shipping to Canada

[lavenderlane]

I bought several low-cost items only to have most of my purchases canceled.  When I asked 4 of the sellers shipping from China, why they were canceling my wins, the sellers said that eBay has advised them not to ship to Canada. 

I have contacted Canada Post who said there is no issue shipping from China and I then contacted eBay and received this response.   "It looks like that this is starting from May 24th, eBay wont allow any shipping from China to Canada due to some security reasons."

Can someone please explain why eBay is making decisions on behalf of the Canadian government related to shipping and eCommerce?  I'm also trying to find out the basis for their advisory.

If someone, more knowledgeable on Canadian import, is interested in pursuing this I have kept all the documentation.

[reallynicestamps]

tyler@ebay 

This is one of two questions about this apparent new policy.

Can you confirm it?

Many Western sellers would be delighted that eBay is no longer supporting Chinese sellers, but many Western buyers would be upset, especially if the listings continue to appear without fulfillment.

[lavenderlane]

Does anyone have an english copy of the advisory stating that Canada is no longer accepting packages from China as of May 24th, 2020 because I can't find any mention of it from Customs Canada or Canada Post.
I have also spoken to Canada Post Custom Canada.
I was directed to this page which is a listing of all places we accept parcels from and it clearly identifies Canada accepting deliveries from China.
https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/our-company/news-and-media/service-alerts.page
I'm trying to research and understand eBays' stance on shipping to Canada.

[reallynicestamps]

and I then contacted eBay and received this response.

EBay is made up of thousands of employees, and also subcontracts Customer Service to various call centres.

What part of eBay gave you that response? Was it signed? What was the job title of the responder?

[ypdc_dennis]

tyler@ebay  -- Any truth?

[lavenderlane]

I initially spoke to someone who told me it's part of their global shipping program and when I tried to explain that Canada has not shut it's borders to china shipping she told me we had and when I asked to speak with a supervisor she hung up on me.

So I had to move the conversation to the eBay chat and eBay was kind enough to send me the transcript of the chat.

[esclyons]

global shipping program has absolutely nothing to do with China..

[lavenderlane]

If you look that's eBays' response and not mine. MA. Cecilia is the eBay rep

[electronicifycanada]

I believe I managed to find some info on this topic. DHL is no longer shipping ePacket/letters to many countries (Including Canada) from Hong Kong and Singapore. They also added a emergency surcharge (No clue how much it is). I read this on May 20th on a few different websites. I believe that is what we are seeing now.

[fh991586]

I've had an item bought on February 24th, but only scanned as leaving China on April 10th, and it was never scanned after that date.  [Not on eBay, but a different platform.]

Right now, I would strongly suggest not buying from China (or Asia in general), simply because of the issues that the pandemic brought to shipping over the globe...  Unless you don't mind waiting for 2+ months, or not even being sure to ever get it!

[reallynicestamps]

The Global Shipping Program is a Seller Protection program which allows sellers in the USA and UK (and nowhere else) to ship their sold products to a central warehouse (the US one  is in Erlanger KY- you can Search the Boards for that name).

The GSP also charges the buyer import fees which cover the appropriate duty, sales taxes and a small service fee which goes to Pitney Bowes which runs the GSP for eBay. The seller is not told to ship until those import fees are paid.

At the warehouse they are sorted and sent on to the buyer's country. Canadian imports generally are handled by Canada Post usually out of the Mississauga Gateway Terminal, but we haves occasionally seen reports (well, actually, complaints) when other shippers like CanPar, Apple, or FedEx have been used.

All of which is to say, the GSP has nothing to do with any imports from China.

Cecilia may have been due for a coffee break or more urgently a pee break and wanted to get you off the line.  She was wrong which  is often true of Customer Service. Cecilia was breaking your heart. She was shaking your confidence. Daily.

[retroman_studios]

Actually, I'm remembering that eBay did start something along the lines of a GSP like system for China, although eBay doesn't administer it. Most likely due to laws and such from the PRC.

It's been a while and I don't know if that system was a pilot and never continued or not.

Now there are also other issues with shipments from Asia in the form of shipping container space, or rather lack of it and receiving ports are running out of room as previous shipments are still sitting in the docks as companies were in lockdown so nobody was picking up shipments, which only made our supply lines even more clogged when everyone started stocking up. As a result, even though we can get new products here quickly, we are simply short manpower and space to actually process those shipments.

Update: Check this update on the Chinese platform:

http://abpost.ebay.cn/logistics/253

This seems to be the source of the issue.

[snoopwiz]

Cecilia was breaking your heart. She was shaking your confidence. Daily.

Jubilation 

[ypdc_dennis]

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@retroman_studios wrote:
 Check this update on the Chinese platform:
http://abpost.ebay.cn/logistics/253
This seems to be the source of the issue.

---

According to Mr Google:

Canada Post suspends eBay’s requirements for sellers during processing
of incoming packages

Since Canada Post will stop processing all incoming packages from May 24th
local time and the service recovery time is to be determined, in order to
avoid serious delays in package delivery and disputes between buyers and
sellers, we ask sellers to: 

-Before Canada Post resumes processing of inbound packages, use international
commercial express (FedEx Global Service, DHL International Express Service,
UPS International Express Service) to ship Canada's wayward packages. 

-For Canadian transactions that have occurred between May 15 and the
release of this announcement (May 19), if the seller confirms that
international commercial express delivery cannot be used, please communicate
with the buyer and cancel the transaction. For transactions sent to Canada
from Greater China, and the trading day or order processing deadline is
within the above time period, the seller can submit an order cancellation
request before 23:59:59 on May 20, Beijing time, and the platform will
process it. Related transactions will not cause bad reviews to affect
account performance. At the same time, the seller must apply for
cancellation after properly communicating with the buyer to avoid
other transaction disputes.

In addition, eBay once again emphasizes that for the behavior of
uploading false logistics tracking numbers, eBay will take platform
measures such as freezing related accounts. 

[fh991586]

I wonder where they got that info about the 24th of May cutting date, because it's not official on the Canada Post website. Other countries made it clear at one point of another of the pandemic that international mail would be stopped for a period of time, but I can't find such a note regarding Canada Post. There's only a notice of staff shortage and unusually high mail volume, which explains part of the delay in treatment and backlog of mail.
"International mail and parcel services are severely impacted by the evolving COVID-19 situation. Many international postal operators are experiencing delays and some have suspended operations. However, Canada Post continues to deliver all mail and parcels once they arrive in Canada. If you have ordered something from abroad, you may experience a longer than normal waiting period."
https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/our-company/news-and-media/corporate-news/coronavirus-disease-covid...

[In French]
https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2020/05/23/postes-canada-croule-sous-les-colis-1

[darak10]

I wouldn't read too much into this...its probably the same reason why we can't ship to a number of locations - the normal routes of transporting goods across borders has changed dramatically in the last two months - and many of us sellers won't ship to these places as ebay guarantees shipment within a certain date and if doesn't happen, customers can file a claim and we are out the money and the item.  This is one reason why we need to be skeptical about the media talking about sales moving online....yes it may be true, but there are major major problems for online retailers right now in being able to ship reliably to most parts of the world due to the COVID crisis.  Its thrown a colossal monkey wrench into what used to be fairly reliable international shipping process - 95% of stuff got where it was going no problem, maybe 3% of stuff is late and 2% is well, sellers know lol.  

Its not in Chinese sellers best interests to ship to Canada and probably the US too right now given transport routes for mail and parcels are who knows?  nobody knows...does anyone know??  They obviously dont know, and they aren't going to take any chances of having to refund someone because it doesn't get here on time.   Sounds like they may have had a lot of refunds to give to Canadian customers in the two months since shutdown so they made the decision to shut down sales here....if that is the case, I would have done the same thing.  In fact, I told that to a HK customer last week - I just told him I have absolutely no idea when I am going to be able to ship to HK again and advised him it was in his best interests to look for the item elsewhere if he really wanted it.  

So therein lies the reason why they told you what they did - they just didn't know the reason or weren't confident enough in what they knew or in their English to tell you.  

[tyler@ebay]

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@ypdc_dennis wrote:

tyler@ebay  -- Any truth?

---

Hi @ypdc_dennis - looking into this. It appears to be a legitimate announcement from eBay China, but not sure about the impact this will have on folks, nor if there will be a more broad announcement about this. 

I'll keep you posted as I hear back!

[pjcdn2005]

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@lavenderlane wrote:

Does anyone have an english copy of the advisory stating that Canada is no longer accepting packages from China as of May 24th, 2020 because I can't find any mention of it from Customs Canada or Canada Post.
I have also spoken to Canada Post Custom Canada.
I was directed to this page which is a listing of all places we accept parcels from and it clearly identifies Canada accepting deliveries from China.
https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/our-company/news-and-media/service-alerts.page
I'm trying to research and understand eBays' stance on shipping to Canada.

---

That page is about shipping FROM Canada to other countries.  Unless I'm just missing it, I dont see any information about whether or not CP is accepting parcels from specific countries.

[tyler@ebay]

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@ypdc_dennis wrote:

tyler@ebay  -- Any truth?

---

Hi @ypdc_dennis - heard back on this and have some insight into it.

The announcement is a legitimate one and made to advise Chinese sellers about import restrictions. It encourages them to make use of different couriers where possible but also advises to cancel the sale if necessary because shipments made with Canada Post will not be accepted.

I can't speak to whether or not Canada Post has made their import restrictions public, but I do know that we wouldn't make a directive of this nature without feeling completely confident in the information we received from them. 

Because sellers should be finding alternative couriers, there are no plans to administratively block purchases of items located in China. In an ideal situation a seller wouldn't need to cancel many transactions, just those that occurred while they worked on arranging alternative shipping methods on their listings.

Thanks! 

[fh991586]

If the statement isn't public, then where did they get a copy of it?

I understand the concern about shipping through regular post, and ending up in the backlog at Canada Post, but stating that shipment will not be accepted is not a legal counsel if there's nothing to back it up, and eBay should stay clear of such behaviour (hearsay used for procedure with clients). Without evidence, eBay China is actually doing something illegal here!