GSP >> Pecking Money off Canuck Buyers

[tobey_arih]

Ok.  I don't usually buy when the Seller is in the GSP.  Unless, I really need it, I'll buy it.  Much to my dismay now, that this type of pecking is beginning to be quite evident that some of that money is going into the pockets of Ebay + Pitney Bucks.  For instance, a 47CAD item,  and weighing 76g, has a shipping + import charges totally 29CAD.  The math does not add up. I looked at the bubble mailer and I see USPS's charge of 3.50USD with a Ebay + Pitny bucks label plastered over it. 

Then there is CPC' label from Pitny bucks and some of the details are incorrect too.  the weight states 2KG! the dimensions is so way off that I am competely boggled.  Does Pitny bucks reship by using that money I paid for  shipping? There is no way with brokerage fee + import charges + shipping add up to such ridiculous high cost.

I have bought gear from "rave" sites. When they ship with USPS, there is no import charges no matter how large the cost (200CAD range for each purchase).  The same with Wish that I order from  and no extra charges are ever collected.

So I wonder what rubbish Ebay and PitBo is pulling with this non-sense.

Is there a way to ask the Seller to revise the listing without the GSP bunk so I am more amenable to buying his/her stuff?

[marnotom!]

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@tobey_arih wrote:

For instance, a 47CAD item,  and weighing 76g, has a shipping + import charges totally 29CAD.  The math does not add up. I looked at the bubble mailer and I see USPS's charge of 3.50USD with a Ebay + Pitny bucks label plastered over it. 

Then there is CPC' label from Pitny bucks and some of the details are incorrect too.  the weight states 2KG! the dimensions is so way off that I am competely boggled.  Does Pitny bucks reship by using that money I paid for  shipping? There is no way with brokerage fee + import charges + shipping add up to such ridiculous high cost.

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I'm not a huge fan of the GSP,  although it worked out quite well for me when I did my homework and found it could work reasonably well with cell phone purchases.

What you seem to have run into here is a sale where the seller provided Pitney Bowes with no information on the item's shipping size and weight, so the GSP "bot" had to apply a category average.  That's where the two kilo package weight on the Canada Post mailing label comes in.  

It's important to keep in mind that the GSP is a glorified forwarding service.  The $3.50 charge you see is what you were charged by the seller to have your item shipped to the Global Shipping Center in Kentucky.  While it had a short vacation in Kentucky, your item had a Canada Post mailing label put on it (amongst other things done with it) before it went on a freight truck to the Canada Post Gateway Sorting Facility in Mississauga to be shipped more directly to you from there.

Since you combine the shipping and import charges in your post, it's hard to give a somewhat detailed cost breakdown for your item, but let's assume that your item wasn't subject to duty.  That means that $2.35 of the $29 you paid in shipping and import charges went toward GST.  Some of those shipping charges are the seller's, so at current exchange rates let's estimate those at C$5.00.  That leaves about C$21.65 for Pitney Bowes.  Pitney Bowes usually charges around US$5.00 for various customs processing fees.  Let's convert that to C$6.65, which would leave C$15.00 for shipping the item from Mississauga to you.

Since a regular parcel not subject to volumetric weight pricing weighing 2 kg would cost Joe Blow about C$20 to ship from Mississauga to Calgary and Pitney Bowes probably gets a bit of a discount from Canada Post on parcel post rates, I'd say that Pitney Bowes likely broke even on this sale because your seller didn't provide them with enough information on the package.

Actually, they may have lost a bit on the sale as I haven't taken into consideration the cost of shipping your item as freight from Kentucky to Mississauga.

That's my math, at any rate.  If you don't like sellers using the GSP, your alternatives are to ask the seller politely to relist the item with their own shipping rates to Canada on the listing page instead, or having your item sent to a US address of your own choosing and figuring out how to get it up to Calgary from there.

[femmefan1946]

And if the item were not made in the USA (NAFTA) but only purchased there, some duty would be assessed on the $47CDN.

If any Canadian can get a 5% discount on parcels just by asking, I suspect Pitney Bowes has a substantial discount, especially if they are bagging all their Canada bound shipments by city.  Canada Post has a discount for that. We looking into it once, but our labour costs were higher than the savings on shipping 500 one kilo catalogues four times a year.

But once again.

The GSP is a SELLER PROTECTION  program and has few benefits for buyers.

And those few are unintended consequences.

[bpl521_sell]

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@tobey_arih wrote:

I have bought gear from "rave" sites. When they ship with USPS, there is no import charges no matter how large the cost (200CAD range for each purchase).  The same with Wish that I order from  and no extra charges are ever collected.

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Consider that a gift from the Federal gov, years ago you were charged a handling fee and any applicable duty if the value was over $20.00 Canadian (literally one penny). Over the last few years they don't seem to enforce for personal importation it as it costs them too much to collect.  I suppose somewhere there is a threshold, but with the current trade dispute I think you will find this practise will discontinue. They re already warning of collecting duty and taxes on groceries brought across the line and you can bet they will soon follow the letter of the law when it comes to personal exemption on mail ($20.00Cdn). Oh and the handling/brokerage fee which used to be $5.00 is now $10.00.

[tobey_arih]

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@marnotom! wrote:

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@tobey_arih wrote:

For instance, a 47CAD item,  and weighing 76g, has a shipping + import charges totally 29CAD.  The math does not add up. I looked at the bubble mailer and I see USPS's charge of 3.50USD with a Ebay + Pitny bucks label plastered over it. 

Then there is CPC' label from Pitny bucks and some of the details are incorrect too.  the weight states 2KG! the dimensions is so way off that I am competely boggled.  Does Pitny bucks reship by using that money I paid for  shipping? There is no way with brokerage fee + import charges + shipping add up to such ridiculous high cost.

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I'm not a huge fan of the GSP,  although it worked out quite well for me when I did my homework and found it could work reasonably well with cell phone purchases.

What you seem to have run into here is a sale where the seller provided Pitney Bowes with no information on the item's shipping size and weight, so the GSP "bot" had to apply a category average.  That's where the two kilo package weight on the Canada Post mailing label comes in.  

It's important to keep in mind that the GSP is a glorified forwarding service.  The $3.50 charge you see is what you were charged by the seller to have your item shipped to the Global Shipping Center in Kentucky.  While it had a short vacation in Kentucky, your item had a Canada Post mailing label put on it (amongst other things done with it) before it went on a freight truck to the Canada Post Gateway Sorting Facility in Mississauga to be shipped more directly to you from there.

Since you combine the shipping and import charges in your post, it's hard to give a somewhat detailed cost breakdown for your item, but let's assume that your item wasn't subject to duty.  That means that $2.35 of the $29 you paid in shipping and import charges went toward GST.  Some of those shipping charges are the seller's, so at current exchange rates let's estimate those at C$5.00.  That leaves about C$21.65 for Pitney Bowes.  Pitney Bowes usually charges around US$5.00 for various customs processing fees.  Let's convert that to C$6.65, which would leave C$15.00 for shipping the item from Mississauga to you.

Since a regular parcel not subject to volumetric weight pricing weighing 2 kg would cost Joe Blow about C$20 to ship from Mississauga to Calgary and Pitney Bowes probably gets a bit of a discount from Canada Post on parcel post rates, I'd say that Pitney Bowes likely broke even on this sale because your seller didn't provide them with enough information on the package.

Actually, they may have lost a bit on the sale as I haven't taken into consideration the cost of shipping your item as freight from Kentucky to Mississauga.

That's my math, at any rate.  If you don't like sellers using the GSP, your alternatives are to ask the seller politely to relist the item with their own shipping rates to Canada on the listing page instead, or having your item sent to a US address of your own choosing and figuring out how to get it up to Calgary from there.

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I coudln't provide the breakdown of which cost goes where. It was all lumped together.  The seller charged me 5US for shipping. PBUCKS charged me 17US, both payments are shown in paypal.

ah, doing by freight is so non-sense since it was coming from colorado. 0_o

I'd say it is still profitable for PBucks when a canuck (me the sucker!) pays for half of the cost of the item in shipping. I ended up sending back for refund.  Cost of shipping + tracking = 13CAD

[retroman_studios]

See my reply in a previous thread on how I attempt to break down the cost of GSP based on what we know. It's not 100% accurate but goes a ways to showing how it works. Global Shipping Breakdown

One important factor to understand about the GSP is that when it was rolled out, sellers were automatically enrolled without their knowledge. So many sellers even to this day may not know they are selling to a customer in Canada. eBay has made it very difficult for sellers to opt out, in fact if memory serves, they can only opt out on a listing by listing basis, but that may have changed.

I can't stress enough that if you feel that the cost is too much, don't buy it, or communicate with the seller, some *might* be willing to not use the GSP.

I have had my share of frustrated GSP shipments, but many a time, for the items I wanted it simply was the only choice. 

The political scene is changing when it comes to duty and taxes, so although we may have had an unofficial "it's all good" when dealing with imports and fees, sooner or later our turn comes up.

[tobey_arih]

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@bpl521_sell wrote:

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@tobey_arih wrote:

I have bought gear from "rave" sites. When they ship with USPS, there is no import charges no matter how large the cost (200CAD range for each purchase).  The same with Wish that I order from  and no extra charges are ever collected.

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Consider that a gift from the Federal gov, years ago you were charged a handling fee and any applicable duty if the value was over $20.00 Canadian (literally one penny). Over the last few years they don't seem to enforce for personal importation it as it costs them too much to collect.  I suppose somewhere there is a threshold, but with the current trade dispute I think you will find this practise will discontinue. They re already warning of collecting duty and taxes on groceries brought across the line and you can bet they will soon follow the letter of the law when it comes to personal exemption on mail ($20.00Cdn). Oh and the handling/brokerage fee which used to be $5.00 is now $10.00.

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Hmm.. DHL charges the B-fee at 10CAD, the cheapest one out there. 

these packages are clearly labelled by description and by price on the shipment.  NOt sure why customs just let it go as a "gift."

[tobey_arih]

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@retroman_studios wrote:

See my reply in a previous thread on how I attempt to break down the cost of GSP based on what we know. It's not 100% accurate but goes a ways to showing how it works. Global Shipping Breakdown

One important factor to understand about the GSP is that when it was rolled out, sellers were automatically enrolled without their knowledge. So many sellers even to this day may not know they are selling to a customer in Canada. eBay has made it very difficult for sellers to opt out, in fact if memory serves, they can only opt out on a listing by listing basis, but that may have changed.

I can't stress enough that if you feel that the cost is too much, don't buy it, or communicate with the seller, some *might* be willing to not use the GSP.

I have had my share of frustrated GSP shipments, but many a time, for the items I wanted it simply was the only choice. 

The political scene is changing when it comes to duty and taxes, so although we may have had an unofficial "it's all good" when dealing with imports and fees, sooner or later our turn comes up.

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Gawds.. how the fudge do I quote this properly?

Anyways. I read the breakdown but still it is not not like over a decade ago when the dutes + tax would be collected at the point of release.  At that point I can see the itemized list of which cost goes to where.  With GSP, I haven' the foggiest clue what is the breakdown.

[tobey_arih]

My mistake. the item was 39CADish and Import C (7.23) + shipping (20.39) = 27.62. Was resealed. Still too much for a Canuck.

[marnotom!]

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@tobey_arih wrote:

My mistake. the item was 39CADish and Import C (7.23) + shipping (20.39) = 27.62. Was resealed. Still too much for a Canuck.

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Well, at this point you have a pretty good idea of the charge breakdown and why you're paying import charges.  While you're paying a fair bit on top of the item charges, I don't think you're getting ripped off.  You're certainly getting a better deal than if the item were shipped directly to you by FedEx or UPS.  And also consider that if oversize letter (First Class International / Small Packet) wasn't available as a shipping option from the US to Canada, your item would have to go by parcel post, and the cheapest shipping option there would be about C$30 and you wouldn't know if your item would be hit with fees from Canada Border Services and Canada Post until you received it.

[2756anderson]

1.  The often L-shaped shipping (seller-Kentucky-buyer) wastes time and energy (fuel).  Typically, 4-5 days are added to shipping because of it.

2.  It costs more, always, because you always pay TAX on importing into Canada.

3.  There is an added FEE charged in addition to any taxes.  With Canada Post/USPS you pay about $10.00 for processing only on expensive items, sometimes not at all, depending on where they come from.  Personal shipments tend to be ignored, as opposed to company shipments with invoices/waybills.

4.  There ARE NO IMPORT DUTIES on most things from the U.S.  If anyone implies there are, they are wrong.  So you should never see a charge.

5.  Brokerage only comes into play when using the cheapest UPS or FEDEX GROUND services. Any service above that does NOT carry brokerage fees.  Brokerage also comes into play on freight shipments (palletized/skid) that are large and heavy.

[retroman_studios]

#1:

It's a moot point as every distribution system now uses hub and spoke for sorting, so even if you buy direct with USPS it will still jump around. Welcome to modern shipping.

When I buy stuff that seller sends by USPS it never goes via LAX to YVR, it goes to Mississauga, then has to travel back West to me.

#2:

I know folks have a hate relationship with tax, but the law is the law. Now if your friendly CBSA decides not to charge that is their choice. Courier and private forms like PBI have no choice. CBSA gives them two options: 1, pay the tax and be done with it. 2, don't pay the tax and you don't operate in Canada and you go to court. Besides, we estimate PBI only charges $5 handling fee, much less then $9.95 CPC charges.

#3:

See above

#4:

What PBI refers to "Import Charges" is a loose term to denote whatever the CBSA is gonna charge you, whether it be taxes, duty or a fee to recoup losses from the Boston Tea Party. That group of fees is there to ensure CBSA is happy. You don't want to be on the receiving end of unhappy CSBA.

#5:

See above posts as per what CBSA requires.

In a nutshell, yes the program makes a bit of money, but it's not like eBay gets much of it. The flip side is that the less your seller accurately describes an item, the more likely the amount will be inflated.

Is it perfect? No! Should you use it? You decide.

[momcqueen]

Excellent answer, drummond.studios.

[reallynicestamps]

4.  There ARE NO IMPORT DUTIES on most things from the U.S.  If anyone implies there are, they are wrong.  So you should never see a charge.

No.

There are only a few US goods that still carry duty (cheese is the example that springs to mind).

But if the goods were only purchased in the USA, not manufactured there, there may still be duty

Duty or no, most of what is collected are Canadian sales taxes, which are collected whether the imported items are dutiable or not.

Brokerage only comes into play...NOT carry brokerage fees.

That's just....

On some courier services (the express ones) brokerage is handled at the beginning of the process, before the border.

The shipping charges include the brokerage fees, duty, and sales taxes, so when the item is received all the importer has to do is sign.

Pitney Bowes/GSP does this too. The 'import fees' they charge cover brokerage/service fee, duty if any, and sales taxes. And they pay them, which is why they specifically do not handle business to business importing through the program, because they cannot and will not break those import fees down  as required by GST-registered businesses.

[tobey_arih]

I I agree. The simple point is that the US sellers should opt out of the GSP.  LIke this one I dealt with.  I asked and the seller ah, well, did not use GSP but did the calculation, which turned out much much less than GSP by half of the cost.

Finally, I don't see any point to keep GSP operational in regards to the canucks.  This third-party PB sounds like dead printing company from way way back.  Use DHL to import into canada.  Their brokerage fee is 10CAD.  Next, use USPS, the best and cheapest depending on the dimensions of the package, and rarely do canucks get dinged on import charges.

Shall we raise our complaint with Ebay?  I would join if I could get some direction to petition the ridddance of this inefficient program, and the likelyhood of stimulating the canadian members  intersted in buying from the US sellers.

[tobey_arih]

Your PB's fee is off. 

All things consider, there should be a breakdown of the charges and where it goes.   Why don't ebay go back the classic way.  let the US seller use USPS.  When it transferred to CPC - they will regulate the import charges. When the canadian buyers received the package, it is there, all the charges and where it goes.  Pay right there,  even get a copy of it, and the package is released.

Not this GSP, that I haven't a clue what is the breakdown of the costs.

[rander3127]

Except Canada Post doesn't charge $10 on every shipment.  Probably on average about 1-2 out of every hundred average price shipments. 

[momcqueen]

We cannot possibly speculate on the percentage of parcels designated for import fees by CRA which Canada Post is compelled to collect. None of us know. The law says the de minimus is $20 CAD on (most) items import by mail. It’s zero dollars for others. Those that fly under the radar should be considered a gift not a given.

[reallynicestamps]

Most of what is paid when  a seller exports using GSP is Canadian sales taxes plus about $5USD in PB/GSP service fees.

This has been ascertained by several members working backwards on the reported questionable cases.

There are not many imports with duty over 5% but sales taxes range from 5% to 15% depending on the province.

[marnotom!]

It's important to keep in mind that the GSP isn't always replacing a different international shipping method employed by a seller. It's sometimes offering an international shipping option where none would have been otherwise offered by a seller, even on the request of a buyer.

Also consider that for some items, the alternative to the GSP may not be shipping by mail but using expensive overkill tracked shipping that may or may not see crazy customs-related charges to process the item and advance and remit taxes and duties due to the feds and provinces.

The problem isn't that the GSP exists. The problem is that the GSP is often used inappropriately. Get a US shipping address and have your items sent there and figure out how to get them to you from that address if you find that sellers of your absolutely-must-have items won't send them directly to Canada under their own steam.

Unless you feel that this solution is terrible for the environment, I guess. But I've come to the conclusion that the GSP is no worse for the environment than direct shipping as it uses shipping channels already in place and items travel with hundreds of others at the same time, just like with most other shipping methods.