eBay

mroparts · ‎08-20-2020

Hi there,

I've been experiencing this issue for over 24 months, especially moreso now that the online tax collection for the US came online. I was promised a fix by July 1st, but it is still happening and I am massively losing out on sales.

I offer shipping to the USA from Canada on all of my listings - Currently most of them are free express, or free economy. Ebay is telling my US customer base that "This seller does not ship to your location", even though I do (trust me, I've double checked and had it verified by eBay). I had this problem previously with Calculated shipping costs, so I switched everything to "Free shipping" but this issue still occurs.

Furthermore, when a US customer does purchase and requests a total, I get this message:

"There was a Technical Error, please try again in a moment"

The invoice will still send but I am completely frustrated and tech support has been terrible. Nobody ever calls back with an answer as promised. I estimate that I've lost out on tens of thousands of dollars in sales over the past year, which means eBay is also not collecting. Why is this issue not a priority and how do I make it one?

I'd like to see some sort of resolve, but it looks like I'm going to have to switch to my own platform very soon.

mroparts · ‎10-18-2023

Hey neighbours! I found a solution that worked for me and I hope it works for you! When shipping with Canada Post, especially stateside, there must be a minimum parcel size or this error message that you do not ship to your buyers may occur. Previously I had some parcels registering at 15x15x15cm and this was too small. I used the bulk edit tool to change the parcel size on eevrything in our store to a default of 21x21x21cm and we have not had the errors for buyers since we made this change. If you are concerned that this may increse the shipping cost to buyers, you can add a shipping discount to blanket either domestic or international orders. In our case, setting the domestic discount to 20% seemed to balance the rates with our current discounts with Canada post.

I hope this helps you! It took me a few years to find this solution so please let me know if this works for you.

Happy selling!

Bulk Edit ToolEdit package details

View solution in original post

reallynicestamps · ‎08-20-2020

FWIW - I looked at one of your high value and one of your low value items and both gave shipping cost to the USA (90210). The low value one appeared to be Calculated Shipping.

It may be helpful to include a few listing numbers to show where there are problems.

tyler@ebay

mroparts · ‎08-20-2020

Hi Tyler,

Its pretty all over the place and it affects some but not all. I usually don't catch them until I've sold an item, but I get 2 or 3 of these almost every day.

tyler@ebay · ‎08-21-2020

Thanks for the tag @reallynicestamps!

Hi @mroparts - would you be willing to provide an item number example I can work with to test? I normally would go through your items and test them individually but due to some staffing changes on my team I do not have a lot of time to be able to do so.

Speaking purely from my own memory, I remember that there can be times this happens with calculated shipping and dimensions that are below the minimum thresholds for a stated service. The fix for that would be to switch to a Flat Rate shipping model for .com-listed items. However, that's really just a stab in the dark. If you can get me a few example items to work with I should be able to find out more.

I will be back in the office on Monday and can review then. Please 'tag' me in your reply by typing the @ symbol followed by my handle: tyler@ebay. You should be able to select my name from a drop down and that will make sure to give me a notification that you replied.

Thanks!

Tyler,

boutiquestepup · ‎08-21-2020

Hi, I have the same issues with my ebay store. I had several customers contacting me in the spring with the same problem, they were trying to buy an item in my store, and ebay was saying at the check out that I was not shipping to the USA. Yes I do ship to the USA, and I have USA shipping on all my listings. I contacted ebay, they said that it should work, the client waited for a couple of days, and then requested to cancel. They could not make the transaction go through. the message was always showing.

boutiquestepup · ‎08-21-2020

northernmrosupply are you creating your listings directly on ebay, or are you making them on another platform and sending them on ebay via an app?

reallynicestamps · ‎08-22-2020

One of the big problems can be that USPS and Canada Post services do not match up perfectly on dimensions.

When that happens the US buyer cannot buy easily because the shipping won't work.

Canada Post's rate card is here.

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

And USPS is here.

https://dbcalc.usps.com/

Unless you are using the same size boxes every time, which might be true for your skates and boots, but less so for dresses and tights , part of the problem might rest there. Even with standard boxes, weights would vary.

boutiquestepup · ‎08-22-2020

I enter the dimension and weight within the small packet air service. However, I ship with shipstation and noticed that sometimes the items imported from ebay sales the dimensions are showing really messed up like 12364.9 x 14392.984 x 32105.4. That could be where this error message is coming from. I was thinking that the error was coming from shipstation. I will pay more attention in the future. unfortunately the error message only show when the client is trying to check out.

boutiquestepup · ‎08-22-2020

femmefan1946 · ‎08-22-2020

You can check your listings by going to them as a guest buyer or from a different account that you run, but giving yourself a US address.

The zipcode I use when I do this is 90210.

That should show the problem listings.

And those dimensions are definitely part of the problem. I assume you are using metric measures?

What is shipstation?

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-22-2020

One of the big problems can be that USPS and Canada Post services do not match up perfectly on dimensions.

When that happens the US buyer cannot buy easily because the shipping won't work.

Any problems with the Canada Post calculator on ebay.ca have absolutely nothing to do with USPS dimensions. The problems are often because the package has measurements entered that are less than the CP minimum for that service.

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-22-2020

The next few times that you have that problem you should post the item numbers on this thread so that ebay can see it happening.

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-22-2020

@mroparts

There is no shipping cost for any international location including the US on quite a few listings, including the following ones..

item 133063045155

item 143098168186

What are your dimensions on those listings and which service have you specified?

boutiquestepup · ‎08-23-2020

Hi Femme, Its funny I also always used 90210 for zip code when checking USA rate. Probably the most popular zip code in the US. Shipstation is a web-based shipping software where you can link your online stores, and shipping accounts. They will pull in all your orders and shipping info, you can quickly check for the best shipping rate, buy your shipping label, print packing list, and they will update all your selling platforms with trackings and shipping information. So when shipping you can go on shipstation do all your shipping without having to go through all your stores. its a real time saver when it come to shipping, and when you go to a Canada Post commercial account, Canada Post recommend to use Shipstation. I was not too convince when I first started, but I am sold to it now.

boutiquestepup · ‎08-23-2020

Hi Femme, To answer your questions in regards to what unit of measurement I use on my listing, I always used metrics measurements that is what work best with Canada Post. However I am wondering if imperial measurements would be best. What is everybody else using?

ypdc_dennis · ‎08-23-2020

@boutiquestepup wrote:
... wondering if imperial measurements would be best. What is everybody else using?

For ebay.ca I use metric for calculated shipping.

femmefan1946 · ‎08-23-2020

Canada Post went metric in 1974.

Some sellers yet to learn how to use it.

collectingsmiles · ‎08-28-2020

I am experiencing the exact same problem, and have been for a number of months as well!! This is beyond frustrating as I have spoken with numerous Customer Service Reps and, each time, they put in a report to the Technical Service Team. There is no way to actually speak to someone from that department however which needs to be an action item for ebay.ca to change! I don't understand how an organization as large as ebay.ca can continue to do business when they have such scathing computer complications which, to my mind, should be totally fixable. Any employer that I have worked for would have made this a top priority as IT Service is paramount in any business! For this to have continued for so long shows a high level of incompetence at the management level and I implore the new Canadian Head Honcho to look into this at once!! My solution thus far has been to remove my listings from ebay.ca and to list them instead on ebay.com where there are no issues at Check-Out. I, too, have lost many many customers due to this computer glitch and am investigating other avenues for selling my items outside of ebay altogether. It would be really nice to receive a reply from someone in authority at ebay.ca PLEASE!!!

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-29-2020

@collectingsmiles

You could be having problems with the US shipping cost because of dimensions or the type of service you have specified. Since there is no shipping cost specified for the US for all or most of your .ca listings, I suspect that it’s a service type problem. You have to specify a USA service to the US and international services to other countries. For example, tracked packet international to the UK and tracked packet USA to the United States.

If you are already specifying a service ending in USA to the states, then it might be a dimension problem. What are the dimensions and US service used for item 133242258713?