global shipping

[grifs.joh]

This is a scam and buy all the time on ebay and pushed me not to buy if seller uses global shipping

[reallynicestamps]

The Global Shipping Program is not a good fit for Canadian buyers.

But it is not a scam.

Just stupid.

The dutyfree limit for Canadian importers (buyers) is $20 Cdn (~$16USD). Any import over that can be assessed for duty.

Any item over that can be assessed for SALES TAXES.

And the shipper is allowed to charge a service fee (customs brokerage fee, import fee, handling fee) for wrangling the import through customs.

To complicate matters, CBSA and Canada Post have sensibly (if somewhat illegally) decided it makes no sense to assess duty and Sales Taxes when the amount that might be collected will be less than the cost of collection.

Apparently, less than 3% of small, low value imports are assessed when imported by mail.

Couriers have to obey the letter of the law.

Service fees are often in the $25 and up range.

There is a,now locked, thread about UPS made up of some 5000 complaints about their high fees.

You can avoid GPS sellers by:

• Shopping on a desktop or laptop not a phone
• Searching with List not Gallery
• Avoiding any listing that has the words
  Customs services and international tracking provided

[jt-libra]

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@grifs.joh wrote:
This is a scam and buy all the time on ebay and pushed me not to buy if seller uses global shipping

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A lot of people on this board have said that when they contacted sellers and explained how the GSP affects Canadian buyers, the sellers have agreed to ship by other means.

I only tried this once, asking a seller if he could ship directly by USPS at a much reduced cost.  The seller seemed agreeable enough but had no idea how to do this.  He said the only options shown him were UPS, FedEx or GSP.  If we constituted a high percentage of their sales, U.S. sellers might be more amenable to shipping outside of the GSP, but they don't need our purchases and the GSP suits their needs.

I've always bought Canadian whenever possible and, now, pretty much exclusively.

[widgetc]

Assess each purchase on it's merits including all charges including GSP. 

I have purchased large heavy but not expensive items and saved big $ through the GSP. 

[marnotom!]

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@widgetc wrote:

Assess each purchase on it's merits including all charges including GSP. 

I have purchased large heavy but not expensive items and saved big $ through the GSP. 

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Exactly.  Just as with Express Mail, there are times when it makes some sense to use it, other times when it doesn't.

I've only used it twice as it hasn't made sense for other purchases I've made, but where I did it was certainly preferable to the stupid expensive shipping methods employed by non-GSP-using sellers for mobile phones, and I'd likely have had to pay something to the carrier upon delivery, to boot.

I suspect that many--if not most--listings where the GSP has been applied (often inappropriately) would not be automatically available for shipping outside of the US if the GSP didn't exist.

[grifs.joh]

I wont use it again. The shipping is so stupid slows the whole process. And it does nothing for the buyer. Only a cash grab paying duty on a used product or being taxed

[marnotom!]

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@grifs.joh wrote:

I wont use it again. The shipping is so stupid slows the whole process. And it does nothing for the buyer. Only a cash grab paying duty on a used product or being taxed

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Who's grabbing the cash?  Used items are just as taxable as new ones.  I had to pay taxes on the last two used cars I bought.  Try buying something from Value Village sometime.