eBay

i.am.vivian · ‎01-11-2017

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

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-15-2017

US sellers do not use the gsp because of the $20 threshold in Canada, they use it because in their mind, International sales are risky and a hassle and the gsp minimizes that risk. Raising the de minimis is not going to make the gsp redundant. It is more likely to make it appeal to more Canadian buyers.....I am sure that is a large part of eBay's motivation.

i.am.vivian · ‎01-15-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
US sellers do not use the gsp because of the $20 threshold in Canada, they use it because in their mind, International sales are risky and a hassle and the gsp minimizes that risk. Raising the de minimis is not going to make the gsp redundant. It is more likely to make it appeal to more Canadian buyers.....I am sure that is a large part of eBay's motivation.

A very large part, yes. EBay is putting a lot of effort into fiddling around with the GSP presentation of fees & chargs to see what makes it more acceptable. All this about "Canada's customs laws make it difficult to buy and sell across borders" and that it "makes shopping more expensive" is just to get people who don't know enough about it to simply envision cheaper tax-free goodies. The GSP makes buying more expensive and that's a turn-off.

If there never was a GSP in the first place this issue would never have come up and Andrea Stairs would be doing something else for eBay but not badgering people to sign something the implications of which they may not fully understand. It wouldn't be an issue at all. Even this thread would not exist. 🙂

rose-dee · ‎01-15-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
US sellers do not use the gsp because of the $20 threshold in Canada, they use it because in their mind, International sales are risky and a hassle and the gsp minimizes that risk. Raising the de minimis is not going to make the gsp redundant. It is more likely to make it appeal to more Canadian buyers.....I am sure that is a large part of eBay's motivation.

I do understand of course why U.S. sellers were keen to adopt the GSP, but I don't know that they appreciated or anticipated the ramifications in terms of its (non)appeal to Canadian buyers. Perhaps neither did eBay.

Certainly eBay must be aware that they've created a monster that Canadian buyers now want nothing to do with. The very term GSP has become marketing poison for them in Canada. I don't see it as a matter of the GSP to Canada not being able to be made functional, but not being able to be made palatable.

Certainly you're right that if the Canadian de minimus were raised, eBay could leave the GSP in place and let its U.S. sellers continue to believe it was working in their best interests. But the customer relations issue -- Canadian buyers' perception -- would remain.

Once tainted, a scheme like this is pretty hard to rehabilitate. Besides, parcels would still go through the Kentucky hub, whether tax exempt or not, and presumably someone would need to be paying for all that handling of low value items that wouldn't generate fees for Pitney-Bowes.

Getting Canada's de minimus raised would allow eBay to rid itself of the GSP for its U.S./Canada transactions or perhaps either rebrand it or replace it with something specifically targeted towards U.S. to Canada sales that might function similarly but have a whole new shiny image, perhaps a 2-tier system based on item value.

Since eBay now has its simple "on-time delivery" policy, and U.S. sellers have affordable tracking available to them, the GSP no longer makes much sense as U.S. seller protection, especially since it angers Canadian buyers (whether they understand the principles of it or not). A higher personal import limit for Canadians would permit U.S. sellers to go back to using USPS (with tracking) for lower-value items and still be protected, eBay could remove the GSP thorn from its side, and attract its Canadian buyers back.

Which nonetheless doesn't convince me of eBay's integrity in putting out this petition. Let them find another way to solve the problem they themselves created.

rose-dee · ‎01-15-2017

@i.am.vivian wrote:
If there never was a GSP in the first place this issue would never have come up and Andrea Stairs would be doing something else for eBay but not badgering people to sign something the implications of which they may not fully understand. It wouldn't be an issue at all. Even this thread would not exist. 🙂

Yes, you're absolutely right. EBay has created a pariah, now they're looking for the Canadian government (through the unwitting help of eBay's Canadian sellers) to solve the problems that programme has caused, to the foreseeable detriment of Canadian sellers and retailers. This is why I call this campaign self-serving, disingenuous and disturbingly cynical on eBay's part. I do however have faith in our government's ability to see through it.

marnotom! · ‎01-15-2017

@rose-dee wrote:

Besides, parcels would still go through the Kentucky hub, whether tax exempt or not, and presumably someone would need to be paying for all that handling of low value items that wouldn't generate fees for Pitney-Bowes.

Don't forget that when the GSP was first unleashed on us, there were quite a few posts from outraged buyers who couldn't understand why their sub-C$20 item was subject to "import charges" of three dollars US and change. Pitney Bowes later responded by adding those charges to the amount charged for shipping.

@rose-dee wrote:

A higher personal import limit for Canadians would permit U.S. sellers to go back to using USPS (with tracking) for lower-value items and still be protected, eBay could remove the GSP thorn from its side, and attract its Canadian buyers back.

I think a large number of US sellers have nothing "to go back to". I believe that most US sellers with listings where the GSP has been used inappropriately have no idea that the program has been automatically applied to their listings because they didn't block non-US buyers/bidders and didn't provide any shipping information for countries outside of the United States in their listings' shipping section.

Some of these sellers might have a clue as to how to ship out of the country directly using the postal system, but I'm betting a significant proportion of them wouldn't.

sylviebee · ‎01-17-2017

Although I don't follow GSP posts as closely as some do, I've had the impression that the number of complains about the program has waned quite a bit.

I thought that was because they stopped charging import fees with everyone. It never occurred to me that my experience is different from others.

Haven't others noticed that GSP complaints are fewer than the used to be?

I used to avoid the GSP big time, but now I buy items shipped via the GSP regularly. As I pointed out above, for items the size and weight I buy, shipping cost is usually $15 via First Class International.

The GSP is a dollar or two more and for that you get a guarantee that there won't be additional charges upon delivery.

Hope I'm not just an experiment.

marnotom! · ‎01-17-2017

@sylviebee wrote:

Although I don't follow GSP posts as closely as some do, I've had the impression that the number of complains about the program has waned quite a bit.

I thought that was because they stopped charging import fees with everyone. It never occurred to me that my experience is different from others.

Haven't others noticed that GSP complaints are fewer than the used to be?

I used to avoid the GSP big time, but now I buy items shipped via the GSP regularly. As I pointed out above, for items the size and weight I buy, shipping cost is usually $15 via First Class International.
The GSP is a dollar or two more and for that you get a guarantee that there won't be additional charges upon delivery.

Hope I'm not just an experiment.

If you're purchasing on the .com site and you're not getting charged import charges that show up on the .ca site for the same listing and the shipping price is the same on both sites, you're very fortunate, not an experiment.

I haven't purchased anything GSP-related lately. My last mobile phone purchase was from a Canadian seller. However, when browsing phones on .ca, I've noticed that while less expensive phones (generally Androids) have "$0.00" for import charges, while more expensive phones (generally iPhones) still have the import charges listed as they have been in the past. I suspect this is because trying to add those import charges to the shipping charges would make the shipping amount appear to be crazy, crazy expensive.

i.am.vivian · ‎01-18-2017

@marnotom! wrote:

If you're purchasing on the .com site and you're not getting charged import charges that show up on the .ca site for the same listing and the shipping price is the same on both sites, you're very fortunate

Yes. Very. I'd still like to see an URL and screen shot supporting this alleged disappearance.

marnotom! · ‎01-18-2017

@i.am.vivian wrote:

I'd still like to see an URL and screen shot supporting this alleged disappearance.

Just tried bidding on the listing that Sylvie brought to our attention and I, too, got the import charges stated in the bid "pop up" the way you did, Vivian.

Without a screenshot, I can only conclude that the items that Sylvie has purchased on the .com site with no import charges in the past are ones that would show up as having "$0.00" as import charges on the .ca site, with the charges added to the shipping charge instead.