11-20-2024 06:52 PM - edited 11-20-2024 06:54 PM
I sell on eBay.ca and my listings are almost exclusively flat rate shipping, not calculated. This works well for me and I'd prefer not to change. I only ship to North America. I don't include international shipping on most of my items, just a select few.
My question is, can you list on eBay.ca and exclude Canada? With Canada Post on strike, I'd rather not ship to places like NWT and Yukon. The rest of Canada I have many options with private shippers/couriers etc. but many of them don't ship way up North. So for the duration of the strike there are a few items that I only want to ship to the US.
As a Canadian seller, can I exclude my own country? I know I can't exclude individual provinces/territories so I'd have to exclude Canada as a whole for these few items. I know I can make it Canada only, but can I do the reverse and make it USA only?
11-20-2024 07:52 PM
No, you can't exclude Canada on ebay.ca.
11-20-2024 09:46 PM
In order to exclude Canada you would have to set up your listings on another site such as .com
11-21-2024 11:26 AM
Thank you both for your answers. After browsing the community boards I set up a rate table instead with one shipping surcharge to the far North, and one to Newfoundland. It appears to be working as I sent an offer to a watcher this morning and the shipping came up as my flat rate + the surcharge. Hopefully this resolves my dilemma, particularly during the Canada Post strike when alternative shipping arrangements to these areas can be limited (and expensive).
11-21-2024 11:53 AM
You could exclude by proxy by charging a very high shipping rate that nobody would pay. That is the only way to do it. If someone by change orders a $10 item and pays $200 shipping, you can just cancel it.
With that said, I would strongly consider using calculated UPS rates if they are available to you. You will still get sales to urban areas where the shipping cost is similar to Canada Post, but it will accomplish the same thing I outlined in the first paragraph. It will exclude rural areas by proxy, because the calculated rate to those areas will be too high.
The only hitch with calculated shipping is that you have to know the weights and dimensions of your items when they are packaged. You could consider separating your items into two or three pools based on what you'd expect the ceiling to be for them to weigh and then just overestimate the weights at what the ceiling might be.
An example of what I mean. Let's say you sell DVDs. They typically range from 100g-500g and 24x19x2 CM to 24x19x5 CM in a bubble mailer. You could just do 499g 24x19x5 for everything instead of weighing each individual item. Yes, you risk (slightly) overcharging on the calculated shipping, but if the other option is to not offer shipping at all because you don't want to weigh 200 items, the tradeoff is worth it. You can also always issue partial shipping refunds to customers if needed.