eBay

lucitabby · ‎05-17-2017

Today I was unable to get Paypal to print a shipping label - after shutting down & trying 2 browsers, I gave up.

I went to Canada Post website - they have (new to me) Snap Ship with a promo extra discount when you use it, until July.

An expedited parcel to the US which was going to be $23.55 on Paypal - cost me $21.91 on CP Snap Ship.

Plus - bonus - it worked on my iMac just fine which the CP EST often doesn't. So, quite glad Paypal didn't work today.

If this is old news to everyone (I'm often the last to know stuff) I'm sorry - thought I would let people know about this rare CP savings.

recped · ‎05-19-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
If you haven't already asked, could you also please ask why light packet USA and international are no longer options on Paypal.

I can answer that........Pitney-Bowes are incompetent!

Shippo can`t come a moment too soon........

"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 · ‎05-19-2017

The CP website has been painful to use for Macs, so if those issues are fixed that might make a difference.

It can take an excruciatingly long time to get a legible printout with a Mac.

The other issue is that addresses have to be cut and pasted and it's tedious compared to PP and there's much more room for error.

If those things have been remedied it might be able to compete with PP.

If not: Not so much.

sylviebee · ‎05-19-2017

@qottie wrote:

We will be replacing PayPal with Shippo in a couple of months ....................

I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you'll be replacing PP with Shippo.

Scares me though. There have been times I've spent hair-pulling hours trying to get labels to print on the CP website with nothing to show for it but a whopping headache.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-19-2017

He means that eventually ebay sellers will not go to paypal to print a label, we will go to a company called Shippo.

Next time you use the CP site, sign in with your small business account number and then print your label using their new (?) system called Snap Ship. It looks fairly easy though I haven't used it yet.

sylviebee · ‎05-19-2017

Yikes!!

I did sign in but it looks like addresses have to be cut and pasted and I'm very suspicious that issues for Macs will be carried over to Shippo.

I've had such a bad time with the CP site that I get a headache just thinking about it.

sylviebee · ‎05-19-2017

Since I list on .com maybe this won't be an issue for me and I can continue using PP shipping? Please!

hlmacdon · ‎05-19-2017

@sylviebee wrote:
@qottie wrote:

We will be replacing PayPal with Shippo in a couple of months ....................
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you'll be replacing PP with Shippo.

Scares me though. There have been times I've spent hair-pulling hours trying to get labels to print on the CP website with nothing to show for it but a whopping headache.

Shippo will be eBay's shipping partner now, replacing paypal/pitney. You'll be able to import your ebay transactions and pay for your postage on the Shippo website. Canada Post Snap Ship will likely not connect to any ecommerce marketplace and import orders, but you never know they could surprise us. If nothing else it's a backup for when things break, as they do.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-19-2017

@sylviebee wrote:
Since I list on .com maybe this won't be an issue for me and I can continue using PP shipping? Please!

Why would where you list make a difference? You've never been able to print a CP label directly from .com.

The way that I understand it there will not be a CP shipping label interface on PayPal once the change to Shippo is complete.

As far as having to cut and paste the address, of course you do now because eBay shipping is not yet available on SHippo. Once everything is set up it should be similar to how pp works for eBay sellers now.....hopefully better.

sylviebee · ‎05-19-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
@sylviebee wrote:
Since I list on .com maybe this won't be an issue for me and I can continue using PP shipping? Please!

Why would where you list make a difference? You've never been able to print a CP label directly from .com.

The way that I understand it there will not be a CP shipping label interface on PayPal once the change to Shippo is complete.

As far as having to cut and paste the address, of course you do now because eBay shipping is not yet available on SHippo. Once everything is set up it should be similar to how pp works for eBay sellers now.....hopefully better.

My guesses are as good as yours.

Why fix what's not broken?

Sure there are problems with PP shipping but there will be with "Shippo" as well and it will take a long time before it's on par with PP.

Problem with printing labels are such a headache.

lady.stark · ‎05-19-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
As has been discussed a few times on these boards and again on your thread, the shipping discount has never been discontinued if you ship from paypal directly so you could have signed into paypal and then printed your label. I'm sure that a lot of people still don't realize that so I thought that I would repeat the info here again.

Unfortunately, the discount is not the same. With eBay's link, the shipping cost is $2 lower than directly through PayPal. I'll try to use Canada Post website...

hlmacdon · ‎05-19-2017

@sylviebee wrote:
@pjcdn2005 wrote:
.
My guesses are as good as yours.

Why fix what's not broken?

Sure there are problems with PP shipping but there will be with "Shippo" as well and it will take a long time before it's on par with PP.
Problem with printing labels are such a headache.

From the few test runs I did with Shippo for USPS it was problem free other than the clunky web interface at the time (this was last year and I haven't used it since). The difference with Shippo is there entire business model is based on API integration with shipping carriers. In other words, the bits that are required to make label printing less of a headache are their core competency as the entire purpose is to update and maintain their software stack to keep pace with any changes to carrier APIs. Paypal on the other hand is a 3 partner kludge, and software dev work isn't a paypal core strength. Hopefully Shippo will be a bit less pain free for users, I won't miss dealing with random paypal label printing issues.

lady.stark · ‎05-19-2017

I am so glad I found this thread! Thanks a lot lucitabby! Went to CP website and printed my label. The discount was $1 lower than regular Tracked Packet with PayPal/eBay. It was a bit longer for the copy/paste I had to do and I had to use my credit card to pay, but at least it worked! Well... almost. The label kept printing in 1/4 of the page only. I had to save the label and then print it at 165% to work correctly. But at least it's done 😉

sylviebee · ‎05-20-2017

@lady.stark wrote:
I am so glad I found this thread! Thanks a lot lucitabby! Went to CP website and printed my label. The discount was $1 lower than regular Tracked Packet with PayPal/eBay. It was a bit longer for the copy/paste I had to do and I had to use my credit card to pay, but at least it worked! Well... almost. The label kept printing in 1/4 of the page only. I had to save the label and then print it at 165% to work correctly. But at least it's done 😉

That's one of the problems I've had with using the CP site. When I call they tell me it's because I'm using a Mac.

Getting the label to print so it's legible has been a huge pain. My printer is at an age where it really has to babied and that coupled with printing problems on the site has been a humongous HEADACHE.

Cutting and pasting every address when I have a lot to ship would make me crazy. That process would also vastly increase the chances of sending an item to the wrong address.

I'd much rather pay a few dollars more and use PP shipping.

If PP shipping is any indication of what's to come then it will take years to clean up all the problems to come. PP shipping has sporadic issues but those issues are few compared to the CP site and any site will take years of cleaning up before it's on par with PP shipping. The CP site has had years to fix their issues and they aren't even close.

Just the idea of being forced not to use PP shipping makes me very very nervous.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-20-2017

Any site will take years of cleaning up before it's on par with PP shipping? What do you base that on? Have you used many shipping sites?

sylviebee · ‎05-20-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Any site will take years of cleaning up before it's on par with PP shipping? What do you base that on? Have you used many shipping sites?

I based my comments on logic.

The CPC site has the most direct line to labels because it's their product, and they've had years to get it up an running smoothly but haven't been able to do so.

The PP site which is a third party site runs much more smoothly than Canada Post's own service does.

Based on those observations logic suggests that Third Party services will be well behind the more direct CP site and PP which has been at if for a long time as they gradually fix the glitches which these sites experience on an ongoing basis.

In addition to PP and the CPO site I'm not aware of other sites where we can print CPO labels other than the more recent Shippo and Snap Ship.

However, it sounds like you are. What are the other sites where we can buy CPO labels in addition to the 4 above?

hlmacdon · ‎05-20-2017

@sylviebee wrote:
I based my comments on logic.

The CPC site has the most direct line to labels because it's their product, and they've had years to get it up an running smoothly but haven't been able to do so.

The PP site which is a third party site runs much more smoothly than Canada Post's own service does.

Based on those observations logic suggests that Third Party services will be well behind the more direct CP site and PP which has been at if for a long time as they gradually fix the glitches which these sites experience on an ongoing basis.

Canada Post spends most of their time supporting commercial customers. They seem far too wed to antiquated systems, EST seems like something from the 80's. The web front end has always been a bit of a mess and is where they could improve. Paypal is a clusteryouknowwhat as it is a three party arrangement with pitney bowes handling the Canada Post api lift, and paypal in the middle integrating two separate feeds. Pitney spends their time on a bunch of other platforms as well, handling many commercial customers. Way too many cooks in the kitchen with the paypal integration which is why problems don't get fixed in a timely manner and any changes are poorly communicated. Do you want to be dealing with one party to implement a fix or two parties?

I'd have more faith in this point with a single third party who spends 100% of their own time mainlining their software api, keeping it in synch with all the other carriers, and maintaining their own web interface. While there aren't many direct equivalents in Canada, other providers in the US like Stamps, Endicia (and all the many dozens of shipping integrators/resellers that use them ) are similar in nature and are very reliable in their implementation. In terms of being behind, there really isn't that much to the backend implantation. Canada Post has a software api which basically lays out the code format for third parties so that they can generate a valid request. Changes to the API are well documented, not that frequent, and announced ahead of time. As long as you are generating calls that are in synch with the current API format, everyone is on the same line so to speak.

With Shippo they are tying that API to their own web front end, meaning they have total control of everything. While change is scary (who wants to deal with angry customers/defects because you couldn't print a label?) I think people will be much better off. I'm still on their mailing list from a previous trial run and any service interruptions were well documented and status updates are available via https://status.goshippo.com/. Feel free to have a browse through the incident history to get an idea of how they respond to things.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-21-2017

I haven't dealt with other sites so I wouldn't assume that they better or worse than PayPal. But experience tells me that PP is slow at fixing problems and has been unreliable for a lot of people do I am optimistic that a site dedicated to shipping will be more reliable.m

lady.stark · ‎05-21-2017

@sylviebee wrote:
@lady.stark wrote:
The label kept printing in 1/4 of the page only. I had to save the label and then print it at 165% to work correctly. But at least it's done 😉
That's one of the problems I've had with using the CP site. When I call they tell me it's because I'm using a Mac.

Well, they were wrong, because I use a PC and have the same problem. 😞 But at least, I have a workaround if this happens again. I'm not ready to spend a few dollars more to use PP. When you have 10 packages to ship, it adds up really quick to $20-$30 depending on the service used!

sylviebee · ‎05-21-2017

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I haven't dealt with other sites so I wouldn't assume that they better or worse than PayPal. But experience tells me that PP is slow at fixing problems and has been unreliable for a lot of people do I am optimistic that a site dedicated to shipping will be more reliable.m

_______________________________________________________________________________

Your post suggested that you've been using other sites. That's why I asked.

Currently, there's a PP issue with light packets but that seems to be sporadic. Apparently at the same time the CP site doesn't even offer Light Packet and it's also having other issues which are not occurring on PP. By comparison the PP issue isn't nearly as serious as CP's many issues are.

Otherwise, PP shipping has been running smoothly for a long long time now. It looks like they finally have a lot of the bugs out but it took them years to get to this point. Why move from PP shipping now that it's working well for us.

What does make sense is having alternate sites in addition to CP's site to use as backups when there are occasional glitches, like now.

pierrelebel · ‎05-21-2017

"Why move from PP shipping now that it's working well for us."

That question was answered by eBay staff a few days ago.

PayPal (no longer owned or controlled by eBay) wants out of that "postage printing" business. There is not enough profit in it for them. They want to concentrate their efforts on the profitable payment side of the business.

And life does go on.