Ebay Global Shipping on postcards

[ghostownbabe]

My purchases consist mainly of postcards. Ebay sellers should note that if you're using Global Shipping and mailing from outside Canada, the shipping charges are being listed at anywhere from $15 to $30 on purchases of $5 to $10.

No way I'll ever pay those fees. I don't look at them anymore. In fact I've put together a list excluding all sellers that are using this program. If you're selling from outside Canada and want to use this program, be aware that this is what's happening and it might explain why your sales aren't moving. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@ghostownbabe wrote:

My purchases consist mainly of postcards. Ebay sellers should note that if you're using Global Shipping and mailing from outside Canada, the shipping charges are being listed at anywhere from $15 to $30 on purchases of $5 to $10.

No way I'll ever pay those fees. I don't look at them anymore. In fact I've put together a list excluding all sellers that are using this program. If you're selling from outside Canada and want to use this program, be aware that this is what's happening and it might explain why your sales aren't moving. 

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Unfortunately you are posting this to the Canadian board. US sellers will most likely never see your post. If you would like to pass on as a concern link attached for US board. eIS is just a very poor option for sellers to use for low valued items but from their perspective it's due a fear of non delivery and cheaper seller fees the reasons they use.

https://community.ebay.com/

-Lotz

[reallynicestamps]

This also affects Canadian sellers.

We can use LetterMail to ship domestically, and add Registration for only $9.75 on high value shipments , but the Universal Postal Union, which has regulated international postal shipping since 1874, no longer allows "goods" to be shipped internationally as "letters".

These must now have customs declarations and be sent as packages.

Most packages also have tracking which is a Seller Protection, but that was not the reason* for the increased enforcement.

So it's not eIS*.*

Also, the USPS has raised their international shipping fees greatly.

Enough that eIS, which uses palletted shipments of many items at a time rather than single item shipment, is often cheaper than USPS rates.

This is complicated because many US sellers automatically use Priority International shipping which is at the top of the list, rather than the (tracked) First Class International Parcel rate which is much lower, but at the bottom of the list of services.

You can try asking Before Purchase if the seller will ship by USPS rather than eIS. Some will cooperate.

*The reason might be the ongoing problem with Chinese manufacturers shipping small goods as letters without paying import fees.  And that is just a small part of how Western countries have been dealing with the explosion of China into the world consumer market.

**Global Shipping is still in place in the UK, but the US site has switched to eBay International Shipping (eIS). There are a few differences but nothing important.

[marnotom!]

I'm assuming you're referring to "eBay International Shipping," the replacement for the old Global Shipping Program, @ghostownbabe.

You've posted to a Canadian discussion board which is looked at and posted to mostly by Canadians.  If you want your post to reach the American audience that I think you want, you should be posting to one of the boards on https://community.ebay.com.  Before you do that, though, there are a few things you should keep in mind:

1.  eBay International Shipping is a package and parcel forwarding service, not a letter-forwarding service.  It can't handle postcards as international letterpost items, partly because they're untracked and tracking is an important part of the eIS service, and partly because. . .

2.  merchandise isn't supposed to be sent internationally (domestically is fine) by letterpost, even small, lightweight, paper items like postcards.  If it's merchandise, it needs a customs form and letters don't have those.  The Universal Postal Union is cracking down on this and members such as Canada Post and USPS are following suit.  I don't know how USPS is handling merchandise being sent out of the country, but there are several posts on these Canadian discussion boards from sellers who have had their letters to US buyers hit by random checks by Canada Post and returned to them with instructions to send the item as a Small Packet.

Last I checked, the least expensive counter option for sending a 50 gram item by the USPS equivalent of Small Packet was about US$17.  Since eIS shipping charges are the sum of the seller's charge for shipping the item to the eIS forwarding hub plus eIS's charge for shipping the item from the hub to its destination, that's going to be one reason you're seeing the shipping charges that you're seeing.  Another reason why you may be seeing shipping charges as high as $30 is if the seller has provided the eIS calculator with no information on the item's shipping dimensions and weight, so the calculator has to guess or estimate based on the category the item is listed in, and it usually if not always guesses on the high side.

For what it's worth, another Canadian posted their concerns with eIS's shipping rates to the .com community boards a few days ago.  You may find some of the responses by US sellers to be interesting:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-International-Shipping-is-a-rip-off-for-buyers/m-p/344193...