eBay

snoopwiz · ‎11-11-2025

Hi all. Please only respond if you are currently enrolled in EIS and are active in the program but still offering your "old" shipping options as well..

Just trying to get an idea of what an International buyer would see when they looked at your listing.

Thanks so much.

john_koenig99 · ‎11-12-2025

I am registered with eIS and my listings (in .ca and .com) show with CP Expedited to Canada, with eIS shipping to USA and Europe, and with my previous setup (CP Tracked Packet - non US) to pretty much all other countries not restricted by my shipping policy.

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john_koenig99 · ‎11-12-2025

I am registered with eIS and my listings (in .ca and .com) show with CP Expedited to Canada, with eIS shipping to USA and Europe, and with my previous setup (CP Tracked Packet - non US) to pretty much all other countries not restricted by my shipping policy.

snoopwiz · ‎11-12-2025

Thanks much, will have a look see. Enjoy your day.

snoopwiz · ‎11-12-2025

As an aside, does anyone using EIS offer their buyer both options of either using their "normal" shipping or to use the EIS? Thanks again.

troys_toys1 · ‎11-12-2025

I am enrolled, I used to get 3 sales or more per day to the USA, since EIS I have not gotten a single sale to the USA or internationally. Shipping costs 3-4 times more now (a t-shirt that used to cost the buyer $7 for shipping is now $27+). EIS is garbage.

troys_toys1 · ‎11-12-2025

I was thinking of offering my normal shipping as well but then you're responsible for paying the import fees and the amount changes based on what the country of origin is and I have no idea how I'm supposed to get those fees from the customer ahead of time and even if you could charge a certain percentage you're not guaranteed to even get the correct amount because of the changing amount based on country of origin, this whole situation is a complete mess.

Just before the tariffs took effect I had shipped a bunch of packages via UPS to the USA and everyone got billed at the door by UPS asking for $30+ in fees before they would release the package, buyers obviously declined, I was then forced to refund my buyers, 2 months later I still have packages that have not been returned to me and UPS automatically charges the fees to my ebay account just because the package crossed the border.

intimewithmusic · ‎11-12-2025

Hi. My store was enrolled today. We have a lot of categories of music related items. fortunately all items already have the COOs and our shipping policies relate mostly to weight and value. these samples are what my buyers see on dot com.

The big problem EIS causes is the shipping cost from Kelowna to Toronto. The smallest business card size items are $37.08. Oddly enough a single LPs shipping cost is less at $33.22 to the hub. Our magazines are $31.08.

As far as Import fees go they are all over the map. a 70s Sammy Hagar shirt (MI Canada) is $34.42 USD and a 70s Festival Express all Access pass (MI Canda) is over $50USD. ..dumfounded on those.

My guess is we will remove low value Can Post Expedited Lite items from the EIS program as a start. they are mostly US bound & highly US competitive. I will switch them to Zonos and then address the rest of the pile in groups by business policy.

Being located this far from eBay's hub has turned out worse than I thought. I will be looking into the EIS shipping costs to see if us West Coasters are getting the shaft. All Canadian sellers regardless of location should be paying the same from point A to the Buyer's point B. It's stagging to think I have to ship 9000kms to get something to go 250.

Please let us know what your plan is @snoopwiz .

Thanks

marnotom! · ‎11-13-2025

For what it’s worth, @intimewithmusic, the website for Sincro—the EasyShip division that operates the eIS hubs—seems to be developing a warehouse in Calgary, although it’s not clear at this point how (if at all) it’s going to be used with eIS.

https://www.gosincro.com/contact-us

snoopwiz · ‎11-13-2025

Thanks so much.

snoopwiz · ‎11-13-2025

Thanks very much.

snoopwiz · ‎11-13-2025

Thanks so much. The plan is to come up with a plan. I have zero incentive to join EIS as (for now) they will only ship to the same countries I am already shipping to. Why should my buyers unecessarily incur extra costs? If/when the program expands to the rest of the world, sure, I will be happy to revisit but, for now, probably nada.

intimewithmusic · ‎11-13-2025

Agreed but so far this is just "Stage one". Regardless of pleasing buyers the bottom line is profit for the seller. Watching this play out so far it's been about buyer happiness. Only after locking into a variety of shipping methods and testing them over time will allow us to measure any net profit after fees. It's honourable to do what you can to please buyers but not if it means making $10hr for your trouble.

I'm guessing there will be a huge increase in US letterpost abuse to please buyers and lower fees but how long will that last? Sellers will find some "fixes" to be temporary. For the heavier stuff choices for me are EIS or CP Expedited USA. They will be close. I expect to choose the most profitable (not necessarily the cheapest for the buyer).

I looked at my generous list of available countries in EIS. It's a big plus but only if those countries have buyers and only if shipping to them doesn't create compounded high fees (based on EIS shipping) and jacked up promoted listing fees. I haven't run the scenarios for those countries yet. I will start doing that today. I don't want to get wrapped up tweaking 10 shipping policies only to find I'm just breaking even.

I don't think the perfect plan will be possible for maybe a year or more until things become less volatile in the USA. Hopefully more options become available due to inter courier competition, mourning the loss of any kind of lifeline US de minimis passes, and there is tangible profit at the bottom of your P&L statement from selling on eBay.

If I sell a $30 vintage synthesizer manual and only net $5 bucks after eBay and Trump clean me out, well, you know...instead I'm better to put it back in the vault and store it until this blows over. For one-off vintage collectibles "storage appreciation" in value for a year or two might outweigh flogging collectibles in a very weak and troubled economy. What's another year or two in storage if you double or triple your profit?

For those like myself that depend on US sales it's pretty hard to form a confident long term plan.

intimewithmusic · ‎11-13-2025

You and others might be interested in the "European experience". Sticking with ephemera I just started looking at the numbers. EIS does not appear for Norway. For a 250 gram air jacket with a synth cat inside it's rate to Norway is $22 CP Trk Pkt. No EIS option is available for Norway.

The same cat shipped to the UK has EIS as an option at $32.74 with Import Fees of $0. CP TRK Pkt at $21.91 is at the top of the options and includes the "Possible Duty On Receipt" discalimer

this is a $20 BIN 8 heavy stock page (double sided) catalog and the EIS to the USA is $32.74 with no import fees. If anyone has these numbers already I would like to know the Final Value fee breakdown for similare items sent to the USA with fees based on EIS and FV fees based on Zonos. You have to go into the Order Details and drill down to get the full FV and Int fee breakdowns.

Thanks

marnotom! · ‎11-13-2025

@intimewithmusic wrote:

This a $20 BIN 8 heavy stock page (double sided) catalog and the EIS to the USA is $32.74 with no import fees. If anyone has these numbers already I would like to know the Final Value fee breakdown for similare items sent to the USA with fees based on EIS and FV fees based on Zonos. You have to go into the Order Details and drill down to get the full FV and Int fee breakdowns.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it really matters that much as eBay would use your lowest offered domestic shipping option in its calculation of the FVF on both versions of your US sales. The eIS-facilitated shipment might be a little less expensive as the International Fee doesn't come into play.

intimewithmusic · ‎11-13-2025

Selling Ephemera In The US

The US domestic ephemera market with their USPS rates has always made competition an art for Canadian sellers. Maybe it's getting harder but there are some different paths to choose based on profit losses.

Until now it was reasonable to expect a gross return of 85% on BIN with ephemera. 12.5 FVF, 2%min promo listing and the Int fee. It's obvious EIS can't compete with domestic USPS to sell one $20 catalog. The alternative is;

a) Raise your BIN and absorb Zonos

b) Eat Zonos and lose profit

"A" makes it harder to compete. You probably won't sell it in the US and now you European and Australian prices are also jacked up.

"B" means a drop in margins. January will bring more PL fees if anyone buys a promoted listing.

(These options were both included in the recent eBay survey. )

Now your P&L sucks.

Option "C" could be grouping five catalogs, manuals, etc into an EIS package that ships for $33. With EIS to the USA you get some features some might like that are not available with Zonos;

No international selling fee
Ship to our domestic hub and you’re done
You do not need to worry about shipping internationally, customs or duties, or returns.
Buyers pay for duties at checkout. If any import fees apply to your item, your buyer will have the opportunity to pay those fees upfront at checkout.
There is no need for you to include the cost of duties in the item price where other countries will see them.
Keep the sale even if it’s returned
Buyers don't have to dig through your listing looking for the "No Fees" comment sellers are adding.
Fees are transparent right in the listings as illustrated in my posts. Buyers know "it's them, and not you".

Option C is selling batches not singles to collectors. The math needs to be done. It's working for me to some extent with media items.

Option D is not to list ephemera at all. Rather than take the hit subsidizing import fees and hits from rising eBay fees to simply put them back in the vault and wait. I've had fire sales before. 3, 6 or 12 months after them I've regretted losing that profit when something changed. They are over 20 years old anyway. All it would take to restore gross profit for many eBay sellers is a cross border decision to implement a $50 US de minimis after they tire from processing. No more Zonos and for ephemera no EIS on singles.

If you have 5 wine boxes of ephemera with 1000 $20 items in each box you may have an $85,000 gross potential (BIN - 15%) by waiting instead of having a fire sale. You might be better off to put the boxes back in the closet.

snoopwiz · ‎11-13-2025

All valid, well thought out ideas.

All our paper products have been shipping in the U.S tariff-free, using Zonos and Snap Ship. Zonos does not charge a service fee or any similar fee when the item is not tariffable (such a word?)

Only our turntable parts to the U.S are subject to tariffs (15%). We upped our shipping costs to the U.S (already favourable on our end) on our turntable parts to more than include the tariff charge that We pre-pay to which of course is the end user, (Hello U.S.) that is paying the tariff by way of increased cost of shipping.

snoopwiz · ‎11-13-2025

Figures don't lie. Thanks for sharing.

dinomitesales · ‎11-13-2025

@intimewithmusic wrote:
Until now it was reasonable to expect a gross return of 85% on BIN with ephemera. 12.5 FVF, 2%min promo listing and the Int fee. It's obvious EIS can't compete with domestic USPS to sell one $20 catalog. The alternative is;
a) Raise your BIN and absorb Zonos
b) Eat Zonos and lose profit
"A" makes it harder to compete. You probably won't sell it in the US and now you European and Australian prices are also jacked up.
"B" means a drop in margins. January will bring more PL fees if anyone buys a promoted listing.

Why are these the only alternatives? You don't need to raise your BIN (which, as you've indicated would negatively affect your non-US international buyers), you just need to raise the US shipping price to include the duty (if any even apply - sheet music would incur no additional import costs, for example).

intimewithmusic · ‎11-13-2025

Thanks

Your so lucky. I just looked at your store and was hard pressed to find anything as heavy as 2 kgs. Less than half of my stuff is paper. I'm in the wrong business.

I use Calc Trk Packet with a few bucks handling on the small stuff. I'll figure it out. I'll get a Zonos account and test. I thought they added an admin fee whether an item had a tarrif or not.

there are definately bugs in EIS. Below I noted EIS didn't show up as an option to Norway for a catalog. I just ran another test with an electronic device and sure enough EIS was an option.