eBay

fergua3 · ‎02-01-2025

Still no official details on what level it is going to be at or whether it is going to be set at zero. But it is going to change and probably drop significantly as of Tuesday.

Seems like our lives are all about to change substantially. Not talking about our Ebay lives, i'm talking about our Canadian lives. If you read the official statements coming from the White House, Canada has now been classified as a threat to the national security of the US. If we retaliate to the tariffs coming on Tuesday, additional tariffs will be levied on Canada by Trump (this may not matter much because apparently the 25% coming on Tuesday will pretty much shut down all industry doing business with the US).

sin-n-dex · ‎02-01-2025

@38e_avenue wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:
Chit Chats and Stallion can take packages over because of de minimis. Once it's zero, I'm not sure if they'll be taking them over, charging us a tariff or what. Until I find out how that affects Stallion, I'm not wanting to take chances on shipping. I'm waiting for official word from them.
Indeed, ChitChats and Stallion is a different story. They will be probably not able to operate anymore 🙄

They can operate, just not with USA packages (until some guidelines are established allowing that to happen). They do shipping in Canada and internationally. I have been able to get great rates to the UK because of Stallion.

C.

flipistics · ‎02-01-2025

@38e_avenue wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:
Chit Chats and Stallion can take packages over because of de minimis. Once it's zero, I'm not sure if they'll be taking them over, charging us a tariff or what. Until I find out how that affects Stallion, I'm not wanting to take chances on shipping. I'm waiting for official word from them.
Indeed, ChitChats and Stallion is a different story. They will be probably not able to operate anymore 🙄

They do ship in Canada as well, and there will likely be a lot of businesses looking to expand their sales overseas. It's certainly feasible that they could survive it.

38e_avenue · ‎02-02-2025

@intimewithmusic wrote:

With all due respect, you're on eBay Canada's forum, not on the eBaydot com forum. Yes, there is a difference. Unfortunatlely you've disabled the "View Listings" toggle on your settings and from this place in the forum your US store is not visible to forum members to assist you. ( See photo. ) I assure you eBay Canada exists and your added emoji is an insult to all of us.

It's one of several accounts and stores I own. This one is my buying account - with no store, so posting a screenshot is completely useless, because it doesn't prove anything. I don't look for any assistance - did I ask for any? I'm one of the oldest sellers on this forum, posting since 27 years, with more than 40.000 of transactions. And what you are saying about Ebay.ca is simply not correct. In 1998 Ebay.ca do did not exist yet. Please educate yourself before posting. Thank you!

38e_avenue · ‎02-02-2025

@flipistics wrote:
@38e_avenue wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:
Chit Chats and Stallion can take packages over because of de minimis. Once it's zero, I'm not sure if they'll be taking them over, charging us a tariff or what. Until I find out how that affects Stallion, I'm not wanting to take chances on shipping. I'm waiting for official word from them.
Indeed, ChitChats and Stallion is a different story. They will be probably not able to operate anymore 🙄
They do ship in Canada as well, and there will likely be a lot of businesses looking to expand their sales overseas. It's certainly feasible that they could survive it.

Yes, I know. I shipped thousands of items with them. But I think the US is their main business. Also please note, that their international services often pass through US, eg. Asendia.

Their containers with US packages are always full, while the Canada/International container is always almost empty.

dinomitesales · ‎02-02-2025

@cottagewoman wrote:
Can Canada Post do full brokered formal entry?

No, absolutely not.

This is a giant clusterf***. I don't think anyone, including Donald Trump or U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has any idea how this will actually be implemented. If they're going to inspect and assess every package coming across the border from Canada, Mexico, and China, then there are going to be insane customs backlogs. They will need to hire thousands of additional personnel. The USPS is going to be in panic mode having to collect all these tariffs.

Canada Post is also probably in panic mode right now - I have no idea what they're going to communicate to their customers and the Canadian public as a whole. They're probably trying to figure it out themselves right now. Will HS Codes be required on all shipments? How are they going to enforce this? How are they going to deal with all the people complaining about late shipments to the States? How does this affect people sending gifts to the States? And so on.

Thankfully I have nothing listed on .com, and the majority of my shipments are to Canadians, so it's business as usual for me. I think every time I get a future order to the States I'll kindly reach out to them and remind them that they may have to pay an additional 25% when they receive the parcel, and give them the option to cancel if they wish. I just hope eBay has our back when dealing with eventual cancellations, complaints due to late shipments, and potential negative feedback from American buyers.

As for cross-border shippers, the only reason they came about in the first place is so people and companies could cheaply send things to the States. Yes, they've expanded in recent years to include domestic and international shipments, but I'd have to imagine that the vast majority of their business comes from people sending things to the States via a business model that relied on the $800 US de minimis. I don't see any realistic scenario on how these companies can continue operating at the scale which they currently are.

38e_avenue · ‎02-02-2025

@flipistics wrote:
They do ship in Canada as well, and there will likely be a lot of businesses looking to expand their sales overseas. It's certainly feasible that they could survive it.

It they could? I rather doubt. Please note, that ChitChats closed most of its branches 9 months ago, still having full access to the US market.

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎02-02-2025

If US orders represent a big portion of Stallion and Chit Chats revenue, I think one of them likely folds if de Minimis changes prevent them from exporting orders to the USA the way they do now. I highly doubt domestic and overseas orders for Chit Chats would support the same fixed costs that they previously could support also shipping to the USA. They already saw a heavy contraction after the COVID boom. My city went from 4 locations (3 branches, 1 drop spot) to 1 location. It might have even been more than 4.

If my assumption is correct, Stallion seems better positioned as it seems like they work with more carriers and offer a better overall domestic product than Chit Chats.

I could be completely off because I am making an assumption that USA orders are a big part of their revenue but I obviously have no way of confirming that.

38e_avenue · ‎02-02-2025

@ilikehockeyjerseys wrote:

I could be completely off because I am making an assumption that USA orders are a big part of their revenue but I obviously have no way of confirming that.

You are not. They had a branch almost next to my home, closed in April 2024. They had 2 containers inside, 1 blue for the US (always full) and 1 white for International/Canada. The late one was almost always half empty.

At the beginning, they were much cheaper than CP - especially for me (to keep my TRS Plus on US Ebay I need tracking). But since Ebay/CP introduced the discounted TP, which was often cheaper, than ChitChats, they started to loose customers.

nhl_automotive · ‎02-02-2025

Sales from US buyers will drop, maybe significantly, but aside from that there's no reason to stop shipping there. I am guessing ebay will give the buyer the option to pay tariffs up front or to pay upon delivery. Same as what they do when Canadians order from US ebay. Again, sellers are not responsible for paying tariffs, it's the buyers. There might be some upset buyers but I'm sure they'll fully know what to expect when buying from a Canadian seller.

busybeas_books · ‎02-02-2025

There might be some upset buyers but I'm sure they'll fully know what to expect when buying from a Canadian seller.

I get a few slow-mail comments every year where, after being told the reasons, buyer says 'Sorry, didn't realize this was coming from Canada'

byto253 · ‎02-02-2025

Not much to do until the details come out. It could be that the de minimus will be reduced to a much lower level.

john_koenig99 · ‎02-02-2025

@nhl_automotive wrote:
Sales from US buyers will drop, maybe significantly, but aside from that there's no reason to stop shipping there. I am guessing ebay will give the buyer the option to pay tariffs up front or to pay upon delivery. Same as what they do when Canadians order from US ebay. Again, sellers are not responsible for paying tariffs, it's the buyers. There might be some upset buyers but I'm sure they'll fully know what to expect when buying from a Canadian seller.

I just eliminated the problem altogether. All my listings now are excluding buyers from the USA.

cottagewoman · ‎02-02-2025

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/imposing-duties-to-address-the-flow-of-illic...

See point h

wilsonharborsales · ‎02-02-2025

I know a lot of you are packing and shipping your last orders with tears in your eyes and have had a pile of anxiety over the past few days. I built my business up to $300k annually on multiple different platforms. After 4 very hard years, I was finally at the point where I was getting comfortable and I was very satisified with how my business was taking shape. Hopefully there will be a time to rebuild. I have $4M in inventory that I will need to turn the lights out on. Everything is very uncertain right now. I hope that cooler heads prevail but for my business it is very important to act quickly on this so that I don't slowly bleed out.

This will cause backlogs, shipping complications and multiple policy changes in a very short period of time. The impacts of this will be wide ranging as the Canadian and U.S. economies have been fully integrated for the past 80 years.

So for now, I just want to say to you all that I appreciate you. I understand your fear and struggles. I appreciate eBay, despite all our ups and downs. eBay changed my life in so many ways and I was able to do things that I never thought possible. Good luck to you all!

byto253 · ‎02-02-2025

Best of luck in the future. Hopefully this will sort itself out before very long. Even then things like the de minimus are likely to change going forward.

sin-n-dex · ‎02-02-2025

@byto253 wrote:
Best of luck in the future. Hopefully this will sort itself out before very long. Even then things like the de minimus are likely to change going forward.

In less than an hour I'm going to Stallion with my last orders and praying that they will get them across the border tomorrow. (I don't know 100% how they operate, so I'm just guessing). There still has been no word from Stallion.

What I gathered from Chit Chats is it sounds like they might want a deal with CBP to collect the tariffs themselves from customers, so that us exporters pay when we bring the package to them (which will prevent the buyers from knowing they're paying, we would have to increase prices to cover this). That might be the best case scenario in the interim.

Some people said having eBay collect them is what they want, but I'd like to prefer to continue to pretend my business is in the US and use companies like Chit Chats to get my packages across, even if it means I'm paying the tariff as a fee when I buy postage. I don't have enough of a margin to give 25% of my gross sale to the US government, but I can increase my prices. I figure everything is going up in price anyway, if we increase our prices too we're going along with what everyone else is doing.

C.

intimewithmusic · ‎02-02-2025

Sounds like good common sense! Good luck to you!

intimewithmusic · ‎02-02-2025

That's helpful @dinomite

I am one of those who rely on the US. Can you offer any advice on how to re-open Germany? When the packing rules excluded small sellers like myself we lost a very good market. Do you think there's an economical way for us to get that back at least for ephemera??

Thanks

mrdutch1001 · ‎02-02-2025

Did Canadian buyers buying from the USA stop purchasing items less than the de minimus value ? NO!

Will USA buyers stop buying from Canada with our low Cdn dollar? NO, I do not believe so! (I believe those of us who still list on.CA in CDN will still see USA buyers)

Fact is, I just made a sale on my other selling site, to a USA buyer.