Pitney Bowes and Global Shipping Program

[kelsy-gemstone]

It is unfortunate that these days most USA sellers on eBay choose the Global Shipping Program for sales to Canada.  That way the cost of shipping is higher, and it takes much longer to deliver bought items.

In my experience, Pitney Bowes who runs that shipping program, ought to be one of the most inefficient shippers in North America. Their dispatch center in Erlanger KY consistently takes up to 4 days to print a customs declaration label for Canada, and stick it onto the package.  That's a task that should not take longer that 5 minutes to complete even when filling the customs declaration by hand.

I do not think eBay should be proud of their business affiliation with Pitney Bowes.

[marnotom!]

The Global Shipping Program is being phased out and replaced by a scheme that is touted as being less expensive but still providing a lot of perks and incentives for sellers. None of us has any idea how it will be for speed, but as a general rule I allow two weeks minimum for non-express shipments from the US to reach me and don’t get too worried about their whereabouts if less than a month has passed since they were sent off.

Having said that, customs declaration labels don’t get affixed to items forwarded by the Global Shipping Program. I’m wondering if you’re thinking of the other international shipping program currently available to US sellers where customs charges are paid at the time of delivery rather than in advance.

[reallynicestamps]

I've been selling by mail order since the late '70s and like you I don't get worried about delivery for at least three weeks or even a month for goods coming or going in North America. At one time, delivery was faster with Europe than with North America.

[prismwave]

In my opinion the Global Shipping program is just a way to collect more taxes. I have been on ebay for 20 years and I am not impressed with it as a buyer in Canada. The shipping cost is indeed higher, still charging taxes on items less than $100 when the limit was raised a few years back already. It is also indeed slower, on average about 3 weeks to get from USA to my location in Canada. It is also a royal pain to combine shipping as the program is only set up to buy one thing at at time. Sellers have to come up with creative solutions to get around that problem, or refund excess shipping fees which takes 3 days to post to my credit card. Normally they create one new listing for the multiple items that I might want to buy. But it is a tedious time consuming process and creates a lot of work for the seller, just not ideal. Another thing is that they open EVERYTHING. The seller has nicely packaged it up but often receive things in less than good wrapping, clearly having been disturbed by inspection along the way. This is always the case. I have had things damaged by this process and in some cases wondered how things never fell out of the package as it wasn't sealed properly. As a collector this is very disheartening. So if the seller only uses global shipping program I usually don't bother, unless it is an item I really can't get another way. I don't have hope that whatever they replace it with will be any better. It's all about collecting taxes and finding things that should not be shipped over international borders.