eBay

i.am.vivian · ‎01-11-2017

Did anyone else get this sent to their private email? Boy, they sure are persistent.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-13-2017

No. We will probably be saying worse things! It's a bit scarey actually. I just read about it last night. I'll start a thread about it in case someone wants to read about it

rose-dee · ‎01-13-2017

@sylviebee wrote:
The fact that eBay is taking this so seriously suggests that the $20 de minims is actually working the way it's meant to work.
It's incredibly annoying that eBay shows so little consideration for its Canadian sellers. Raising the $20 limit can only hurt Canadian sellers who have already been having such a hard time attracting Canadian buyers.

Why send out a petition to make our jobs as sellers more difficult?

I agree. The low de minimus for Canadians is a support for Canadian sellers, not just on eBay but elsewhere. If our government were to raise the limit significantly, it would have an almost immediate negative effect on Canadian retailers and sellers of all kinds, which would eventually begin to impact jobs in communities across the country. With the far bigger diversity of products and better prices available from U.S. sellers, how long would it take for Canadian shoppers to abandon Canadian sellers, who would find it extremely difficult to compete? It could devastate our retail sector.

As things stand at the moment, Canadian buyers benefit from a rather loose application of the law anyway in terms of taxes on imported purchases. Most parcels from the U.S. valued under $100 get through tax-free, some even up to around $150 (ignoring GSP of course). There is admittedly probably a threshold at which collecting the taxes costs the government more than what is actually collected, but the de minimus stands as a potential deterrent nonetheless, encouraging Canadian shoppers to look for a Canadian seller or retailer before they shop in the U.S.

I imagine this is the whole point of a legal limit that is low but often disregarded. Of course a Canadian shopper will still pay the HST/GST for an item purchased in Canada, but not the fee to collect it. Also, paying tax at the receiving end seems more distasteful than paying up front, at the time of purchase. The point is that a serious rise in the import limit from the U.S. would most likely encourage Canadians to look south first. I think our government has known this for decades.

This tactic of attempting to enlist well-meaning but unsuspecting Canadian eBay sellers to further eBay's U.S.-centred agenda, to the potential detriment of its Canadian sellers, is dishonest and cynical. EBay is in effect asking Canadian sellers to shoot themselves in the foot and believe it's a benefit -- in some circles it would be called being played for fools. It looks like a good thing, presented the way eBay has done, doesn't it? However, there are far more U.S. sellers than Canadian sellers, and U.S. eBay sellers would be the first to benefit from a higher Canadian de minimus. Canadian sellers/retailers would be the first to suffer.

EBay is hoping Canadians are naive enough to assist them in convincing our government to change a policy that is helping to support Canadian businesses. We should find this insulting as Canadians.

You might recall eBay tried exactly this strategy once before -- during the postal dispute this past summer. They likely didn't get anywhere with it then, or they wouldn't be reviving it. I would hope our government is smart enough to see through this self-serving lobbying effort on eBay's part and ignore it completely.

marnotom! · ‎01-13-2017

@maggiebvintage2010 wrote:

I too see $22.08 shipping and 50.86 import charges when viewed on ebay.ca. But when viewed on ebay.com, I see the same as sylvie:

What Sylvie's been referring to in the past have been listings for items valued at above C$20 where import charges were listed as "$0.00" when viewed on .ca.

I'm finding it a bit tough to believe that this is the case with this particular item, though. Usually I see what she sees on these "zero import charge" items viewed on .ca.

i.am.vivian · ‎01-13-2017

@marnotom! wrote:
for items valued at above C$20 where import charges were listed as "$0.00" when viewed on .ca.

I'm finding it a bit tough to believe that this is the case with this particular item, though. Usually I see what she sees on these "zero import charge" items viewed on .ca.

Do you think there is any chance it could be an experiment. Sounds dumb, I know, but I was wondering if it is something that only some people are getting, namely good buyers. That wouldn't be me so I see the charges. 'sylviebee' says she often buys so maybe she would be a good test subject.

Remember when the cart first came in and some people had it and others didn't? They'd go on and on about using it and nothing I did would bring it up. I just had to wait. Same for that "Search seller feedback". Some people got it but only in the US I think. I don't think it was ever in Canada. And in the UK they tried to hid buyer feedback completely which really infuriated the suspicious.

I was thinking about all this as part of eBay's fervent drive to get all buyers to vote to change the $20 limit. One way to know exactly what buyers hate the most is to experiment. And a good experiment would be to see if buyers who do buy but avoid GSP would use it if there were no import charges.

Remember how in the beginning the P-B processing fee was listed separate? Just reading those early posts gives a good idea about how enraging that was to people especially when the item itself did not have any charges. So they changed it, moved the $5 fee to the total shipping cost to make more buyers amenable to it. Not that it really did a whole lot because overpriced shipping is still a turn-off no matter how the bits are split up.

I thought maybe if eBay & P-B wanted evidence, something more than angry board posts, that the major reason buyers don't like and won't use the GSP is import charges, and therefore WOULD use it if there were none, the best and really the only way is to find out for sure. The import charges they subsidize now would pay off in a BIG way if they can get Canada to change the limit even just to $100, since that seems to be the unofficial amount.

'Raphael' on Weekly Chat confirmed that eBay is tinkering with ways to make the GSP more acceptable to buyers, so obviously they ARE doing different things. And 'sylviebee' would make a perfect test subject, along with many others who have reported the same findings on those big GSP threads. It is not ONLY 'sylviebee' who says sometimes there are no import charges when there should be.

It might also explain why you & I don't see the freebies. We're not good enough buyers. 🙂

marnotom! · ‎01-14-2017

Vivian, this is from listing 232199356206:

Do you see anything different when you look it up?

Does it look any different when you use my link to find the listing?

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/ALCATEL-ONETOUCH-Idol-3-6045-16GB-Black-Cricket-Smartphone-/232199356206?hash...

i.am.vivian · ‎01-14-2017

When I click the link I see the same thing you do. When I pretend to bid, I get NO import charges. The shipping fee seems high to me, could the charges be rolled into that? Does the shipping fee change any if you view it from that other Ontario address you used earlier?

I'm going to log out and try the different browser, see if I get a different result.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-14-2017

@marnotom! wrote:
@maggiebvintage2010 wrote:

I too see $22.08 shipping and 50.86 import charges when viewed on ebay.ca. But when viewed on ebay.com, I see the same as sylvie:

What Sylvie's been referring to in the past have been listings for items valued at above C$20 where import charges were listed as "$0.00" when viewed on .ca.

I'm finding it a bit tough to believe that this is the case with this particular item, though. Usually I see what she sees on these "zero import charge" items viewed on .ca.

Are you sure? Unless I missed her saying that, I think that she is looking on.com and I do not see import charges there until I add the item to my cart. There ARE items on both sites over $20 that do not have import charges but that seems to change after about $60/$70.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-14-2017

There have been experiments with the gsp, the cart etc when eBay would show different things to different users but I think that the end price would always be the same.

i.am.vivian · ‎01-14-2017

The view is a bit different in the other browser BUT still no import charges no matter what I do. I noticed that on a few cell phone listings there as I was looking around. There is no duty on phones but there still should be tax, unless the approximate tax is added to the shipping fee on all these items, because I did notice a huge discrepancy between the shipping fee when scrolling through many listings, and how much it jumps up when we click on the listing. But I'm just wild guessing.

No import charges,

Shipping fee when viewed scrolling through the selections,

But once we click on the link, it goes up by $7.78,

recped · ‎01-14-2017

No matter what you see or don't see on the listing page there is always this.....

This amount includes applicable customs duties, taxes, brokerage and other fees. This amount is subject to change until you make payment. For additional information, see the Global Shipping Program terms and conditions

That what's you see when you click the ?

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

sylviebee · ‎01-14-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Are you sure? Unless I missed her saying that, I think that she is looking on.com and I do not see import charges there until I add the item to my cart. There ARE items on both sites over $20 that do not have import charges but that seems to change after about $60/$70.

No. Yes, I'm looking on .com but what I'm saying is that the import charges haven't been added on at the checkout much to my surprise (at first).

zee-chan · ‎01-14-2017

I see the same thing from my phone too, zero import charges, 24.99 USD shipping. Too bad eBay doesn't allow me to post screenshots from phone.

marnotom! · ‎01-14-2017

@sylviebee wrote:

Yes, I'm looking on .com but what I'm saying is that the import charges haven't been added on at the checkout much to my surprise (at first).

Okay, thanks for setting me straight on that, Sylvie. That may be some sort of glitch, then, although it doesn't explain why other people are getting pop-ups with import charge warnings.

Silly question, perhaps, but it has to be asked: Do you have a Canadian postal code entered in the shipping information when you do your browsing? In other words, does the .com site "know" you're in Canada when you're browsing/bidding prior to entering checkout?

marnotom! · ‎01-14-2017

@zee-chan wrote:

I see the same thing from my phone too, zero import charges, 24.99 USD shipping. Too bad eBay doesn't allow me to post screenshots from phone.

That's okay. I see the same thing, which is 33 cents more than what it was yesterday. That might be a reflection of the change in exchange rate, or it may have something to do with the fact that the item's now at $73.

The auction ends in about two hours and twenty minutes. It will be interesting to see if the shipping price goes higher if there are more bids on the phone.

marnotom! · ‎01-14-2017

@i.am.vivian wrote:

No import charges,

Shipping fee [of $16.88] when viewed scrolling through the selections,

But once we click on the link, it goes up by $7.78,

Yes, I've noticed that discrepancy in the past, too. $7.78 must be the amount Pitney Bowes has "budgeted" to cover the import charges at that point in the auction.

marnotom! · ‎01-14-2017

@marnotom! wrote:

I see the same thing, which is 33 cents more than what it was yesterday. That might be a reflection of the change in exchange rate, or it may have something to do with the fact that the item's now at $73.

The auction ends in about two hours and twenty minutes. It will be interesting to see if the shipping price goes higher if there are more bids on the phone.

The auction ended with a final bid price for the phone of US$78 / C$102.36. The shipping price went up to US$25.23 / C$33.11. The shipping price displayed with an advanced keyword search on .ca is C$22.35. I can't get a US$ shipping price to show up in my search results on .com.

nikkow · ‎01-15-2017

Well said rose-dee. Take a hike eBay!

i.am.vivian · ‎01-15-2017

marnotom! wrote:

The shipping price went up to US$25.23 / C$33.11. The shipping price displayed with an advanced keyword search on .ca is C$22.35. I can't get a US$ shipping price to show up in my search results on .com.

I don't get what you mean by that last bit. Maybe its just getting late. I did, however, notice the jump in the shipping fee. It has to be the way P-B is shuffling the import charges around to see if that is a significant enough issue to press the Canadian government to change Canada's de minimis. I see no other explanation for SHIPPING fees to increase alongside bid price. Nor do I believe it is a "glitch" that some users report no charges at checkout, not when Raphael at Weekly Chat admitted that P-B is trying different ways to make the pgm more acceptable. Obviously they are doing SOMEthing, and the only way to know for certain if the biggest obstacle to that pgm is Canada's $20 limit is to put it to a hands-on test. I think this here shipping fee increase explains it. That extra $8.35 USD over the initially cited fee of $16.88 (before clicking the listing) would nicely cover the taxes.

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/October-12th-2016-Weekly-Session/m-p/353964#M5239

rose-dee · ‎01-15-2017

To return to the subject of eBay's petition to raise the de minimus, it's interesting to consider what the impetus behind this may be.

The GSP programme has been enormously unpopular with Canadian eBay shoppers, in fact it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that it caused an outrage. It certainly created one of the longest and most strident complaint threads on the boards. There have also been numerous complaints about the actual handling of parcels by Pitney-Bowes during the inspection and re-packaging process. I imagine eBay is not unaware of these facts.

The GSP programme (U.S. to Canada) was only necessary because of the very low Canadian de minimus. The GSP is a disaster in terms of eBay's Canadian buyer market. And U.S. sellers simply don't understand its implications. It was sold to them as a sales-booster and problem-solver.

Word has certainly got around within the eBay Canada buyer community -- avoid the GSP. Likely a large part of eBay's Canadian buyer market has decided to look elsewhere to buy, either online or in-store locally. I know I have. In its effort to make money through an arrangement with Pitney-Bowes and increase its U.S. sellers' sales, ironically eBay may have actually helped Canadian retailers and sellers to some extent.

As more and more U.S. sellers have been encouraged by eBay to opt into the GSP, it's safe to say it has probably reduced, if not destroyed U.S. eBay sellers' sales to Canada of inexpensive goods. Doubtless eBay is aware of that as well. (Whether the Canadian government has benefited as a result of the incoming tax revenue is moot if the actual level of purchases from the U.S. has dropped. Canada's tax revenues are meaningless to eBay anyway as a motivating factor).

If eBay were able to convince the Canadian government to raise the personal import limit sufficiently (say to $100), the GSP to Canada would no longer have any purpose. EBay could get rid of this albatross around its neck, make Canadian buyers happy (who wouldn't realize Canadian sellers and retailers would suffer as a result), and make U.S. sellers extremely happy.

Not only would U.S. sellers be able to sell directly to Canada again (without Pitney-Bowes' intervention), but would benefit from a whole lot of Canadian buyers who would start looking south before looking around their own country to buy. Why would eBay care what effect raising the personal import level would have on Canada, its retailers, and the people who rely on those jobs, as long as eBay's Canadian buyers come back to buy from U.S. sellers?

All of which is why I say this "petition" is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's a cynical effort on the part of eBay to enlist Canadian sellers to do its own dirty work. EBay surely knows that, as a U.S. company, it would have little clout or credibility lobbying our government directly.

I believe that anyone who cares anything about foreign corporations poking their noses vicariously into Canada's government in order to attempt to have our laws changed for their own purposes, should avoid this "petition" like the plague.

All of course my own opinion, as always...

(and forgive the mixed metaphors -- maybe it's a wolf with the plague?)

pocomocomputing · ‎01-15-2017

Having a higher de minimus of $100 would not make the GSP have no purpose. The idea was USA seller protection. All the seller has to do is ship the item to Kentucky and the seller is done with the sale. USA sellers will not remove it because of the higher de minimus in Canada. This would actually make the GSP more attractive for those sellers because their items under $100 would have a lower GSP cost and a better price.

Some Canadian buyers would still be upset with the double shipping costs even if it was minus the sales tax portion for those items under $100.

I think Canada Post will be the one to suffer more from a higher de minimus. Knowledgeable USA sellers who ship direct using USPS so that their package will be delivered by Canada Post with a high probability of the buyer paying no sales tax and processing fee will not have couriers as shipping options into Canada for under $100 items. Couriers always had to charge sales taxes and duties for everything over $20 CDN. Couriers like FedEX and UPS would get a lot of business especially from direct eCommerce sites, not just from eBay.

Having a higher de minimus like $100 would cause a huge influx of purchases directly from the USA and hurt Canadian eCommerce sites who would have to charge sales taxes and at the same time hurt brick and mortar stores even more. Unemployment would rise as less jobs in Canada would be needed in the retail store sector.