eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎04-30-2025

So I got a notification today that untracked shipments do not fall under "Global Entry Direct" which is what Stallion has to adhere to, in order to get our shipments across. Apparently the postage labels printed on Stallion (and likely any other service that's like Stallion) are considered domestic postage and not allowed to be printed outside the US. US Customs is the ones enforcing this and they rejected a bunch of shipments at the border yesterday.

So the immediate problem is that I dropped off 6 untracked letters on Monday (that were supposed to go over yesterday), plus two more letters yesterday (that I assume are not going over today on account of this change, Customs has told them not to bring any untracked letters on their trucks and they've disabled it on the portal).

The longer term problem is that I have numerous items which are not reasonable to ship tracked (because postage will be too high), like stamp lots that I'm selling for $2, or postcards, I have some banknotes that I generally ship untracked if it's just a few dollars.

I'm currently updating my listings to show these types of items ship from Canada (that's the first step), my listings are hidden right now anyway because of the tariff situation, so I don't think there's any hurry to do this update.

One problem is that when the Canada Post Strike happens on May 22, all these "ship from Canada" items will need to be removed from my store so I can keep selling, or the store will have to be on time away because I can't ship them. Someone here got bad feedback because a customer didn't know about the strike, bought something and then cancelled when they heard of the strike and got mad at the seller (like as sellers we REALLY want there to be a strike [/sarcasm]... we have way bigger problems to worry about than some irate customer who's upset there's a strike).

So it's going to be a nuisance regardless to deal with this whole problem, which is something I didn't need this week on top of worrying about the tariffs on Friday (and now I'm worried about getting these 8 items back so I can ship them again, another problem I haven't yet solved). At least the store is in time away at the moment which stopped any further sales of untracked items since my shutdown yesterday.

C.

cottagewoman · ‎04-30-2025

Please clarify - at the beginning your statements seem to imply that US domestic labels are being refused at the border for Stallion? Like USPS Ground Advantage? Thanks.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-30-2025

@cottagewoman wrote:
Please clarify - at the beginning your statements seem to imply that US domestic labels are being refused at the border for Stallion? Like USPS Ground Advantage? Thanks.

Ground Advantage is OK as long as you purchase from Stallion (or whoever your cross border shipper is, they are supposed to be providing Global Direct Entry USPS labels).

The ones that have been refused (and no longer allowed to be purchased) are the 1.23 and 1.66 labels for US stamps (that's just metered postage), and not tracked. These labels are considered to be domestic postage and not allowed to be purchased outside the US (even though I purchased them from Stallion).

If you're shipping a tracked service with USPS you're fine, I'm presuming all cross border shippers are now on board with the new regulations for Global Entry Direct shipments.

C.

cottagewoman · ‎04-30-2025

I buy my USPS labels directly off eBay, not through any of the cross border services.

cottagewoman · ‎04-30-2025

Interesting - I do have a stallion account, and was able to create a shipment without purchasing one of their labels. Hoping this is only an issue with the metered letter postage you're using

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎04-30-2025

@sin-n-dex wrote:
@cottagewoman wrote:
Please clarify - at the beginning your statements seem to imply that US domestic labels are being refused at the border for Stallion? Like USPS Ground Advantage? Thanks.
Ground Advantage is OK as long as you purchase from Stallion (or whoever your cross border shipper is, they are supposed to be providing Global Direct Entry USPS labels).

The ones that have been refused (and no longer allowed to be purchased) are the 1.23 and 1.66 labels for US stamps (that's just metered postage), and not tracked. These labels are considered to be domestic postage and not allowed to be purchased outside the US (even though I purchased them from Stallion).

If you're shipping a tracked service with USPS you're fine, I'm presuming all cross border shippers are now on board with the new regulations for Global Entry Direct shipments.

C.

That would also elliminate USA small packet air which CP/USPS is unable to track externally for anyone who still may be using (vp online, depot and ebay labels). If you call a US mail depot/sort centre they ARE able to track them internally from previous testing. Unsure if tracking by way of eBay is still possible/live. No onger personally use due to USA tracked discounts.

@sin-n-dex Wonder how many issues would be generated for anyone using regular letter mail from Canada going to the USA. You might pay a few dimes more but maybe less hassle? If they don't have time to process each package/box individually, pretty sure they won't have the time to process every envelope. Call this a back up back up plan.

recped · ‎04-30-2025

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
That would also elliminate USA small packet air which CP/USPS is unable to track externally for anyone who still may be using (vp online, depot and ebay labels). If you call a US mail depot/sort centre they ARE able to track them internally from previous testing. Unsure if tracking by way of eBay is still possible/live. No onger personally use due to USA tracked discounts.

This change has no effect on shipments sent to the US via Canada Post. This only affects USPS Postage using the Direct Entry process.

"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.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-30-2025

@cottagewoman wrote:
I buy my USPS labels directly off eBay, not through any of the cross border services.

eBay uses Pitney Bowes, which is a GDE service (so they are allowed), but Stallion's contract with USPS states that only their labels (for USPS) can be used.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-30-2025

@cottagewoman wrote:
Interesting - I do have a stallion account, and was able to create a shipment without purchasing one of their labels. Hoping this is only an issue with the metered letter postage you're using

I bought my metered postage on Stallion's website.

They never updated their website to disallow people to indicate they already have postage (and just pay the 70 cents or whatever fee). So technically you can still buy a label on eBay and purchase the transport from Stallion. But if this gets caught at a branch, it will be sent back to you.

I contacted Stallion to tell them I use Pitney Bowes (I was using ESE for my banknotes) and they said their contract with USPS stipulates only postage purchased from Stallion can be used.

I can dig up the message Stallion sent to everyone updating of this change (that we must use Stallion labels, this has been in effect since November), I followed up on that to see if exceptions could be made for untracked letters and they said no.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-30-2025

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@sin-n-dex wrote:
@cottagewoman wrote:
Please clarify - at the beginning your statements seem to imply that US domestic labels are being refused at the border for Stallion? Like USPS Ground Advantage? Thanks.
Ground Advantage is OK as long as you purchase from Stallion (or whoever your cross border shipper is, they are supposed to be providing Global Direct Entry USPS labels).

The ones that have been refused (and no longer allowed to be purchased) are the 1.23 and 1.66 labels for US stamps (that's just metered postage), and not tracked. These labels are considered to be domestic postage and not allowed to be purchased outside the US (even though I purchased them from Stallion).

If you're shipping a tracked service with USPS you're fine, I'm presuming all cross border shippers are now on board with the new regulations for Global Entry Direct shipments.

C.
That would also elliminate USA small packet air which CP/USPS is unable to track externally for anyone who still may be using (vp online, depot and ebay labels). If you call a US mail depot/sort centre they ARE able to track them internally from previous testing. Unsure if tracking by way of eBay is still possible/live. No onger personally use due to USA tracked discounts.

@sin-n-dex Wonder how many issues would be generated for anyone using regular letter mail from Canada going to the USA. You might pay a few dimes more but maybe less hassle? If they don't have time to process each package/box individually, pretty sure they won't have the time to process every envelope. Call this a back up back up plan.

Global Entry Direct is a program with USPS that states shipping labels have to be purchased by an approved vendor if purchased outside the US.

Has no effect of any other country services shipping items to the US. It's only for USPS.

The GDE program doesn't apply to UPS or FedEx, etc. Stallion said third party labels for UPS are still allowed. It only affects USPS shipments (like Ground Advantage, Priority, etc).

C.

cottagewoman · ‎04-30-2025

Sounds like Stallion got **bleep** from USPS for dropping metered letter envelopes when their other packages are GDE, doubt it has anything to do with CBP.

cottagewoman · ‎04-30-2025

Either that or CBP is picking nits to make things miserable for Canadian shippers - this is a trade war, as a broker friend of mine rightly stated. Heap misery on Canadians however possible.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-30-2025

From the email I got, it sounds like CBP was the problem (and they rejected some letters, six of mine were in that batch but so far no email confirming an issue, it's untracked, so I have no way to know if it made it to USPS).

See message from Stallion:

Seems like only people who use untracked postage got this, so I'm sharing for the benefit of anyone who hasn't used their untracked service (and it's disabled now).

You know what's funny... it was disabled on Thursday when I went to ship one of those letters, I figured they didn't disable it on purpose because there was no email advising such, I emailed them on Thursday and got a reply later that they "fixed it" and I purchased postage (untracked) for this letter on Friday evening and dropped it off Monday.

why is it the customers that are screwed over by circumstance get screwed over again by another crisis? It's kind of like the time when I mailed one customer's stuff to another customer (who lives in Europe, so that package wasn't coming back). I looked to see if I sold to him before and how to approach my error and realized that the one time I did something like this 8 years ago it was to that guy, the very same customer. (I really don't feel lucky when that happens, good thing I had extra coins and I made it up to this guy, and refunded him since I didn't have exactly what he purchased).

C.

cottagewoman · ‎04-30-2025

@sin-n-dexthanks for the image! This is all sounding to me like everyone is preparing for the end of de minimis as we know it - I've read a bit about a different informal entry, type 86, that I have a feeling will replace section 321 which is still duty free under 800USD however from what I remember each shipment will require a tracking number, and possibly a link to a photo or marketplace webpage with an image of the item. So if that's the case, untracked postage will be a no go. That'll probably spell the end of CP small packet air to the US as well.

sin-n-dex · ‎04-30-2025

@cottagewoman wrote:
@sin-n-dexthanks for the image! This is all sounding to me like everyone is preparing for the end of de minimis as we know it - I've read a bit about a different informal entry, type 86, that I have a feeling will replace section 321 which is still duty free under 800USD however from what I remember each shipment will require a tracking number, and possibly a link to a photo or marketplace webpage with an image of the item. So if that's the case, untracked postage will be a no go. That'll probably spell the end of CP small packet air to the US as well.

This is a good theory, and it's a lot more promising than some what I fear will happen soon. If you recall from the thread that mentioned DYK's announcement they said they want to check each package and have a photo of the item proving it's origin for reach package.

For the most part this isn't a really bad thing, I will be able to provide the eBay listing for my items. It will be a more tricky for the guy that purchased 100 tokens at auction. so inconvenient at best. I prefer the inconvenience if it means I can keep shipping with USPS.

Right now I'm modifying the store to accomodate for the "no untracked packages" change that happened today and am almost done updating the 4000 listings that ship untracked (usually, unless someone buys several of these items). I haven't put any verbage in the listing regarding tariffs or my shipping methods for these items.

Anyway it seems that CBP just decided to start enforcing this, it was supposed to be enforced almost 6 months ago but I've been shipping untracked letters all this time with no problems (sometimes a dozen or more in a week).

There is a silver lining in my house regarding all of this... I still have some $800 or so of unused postage that can be put on envelopes to mail these. I already own the stamps, so I won't have to buy postage for these letters for a long time to come.

C.

cottagewoman-ca · ‎04-30-2025

From the Gemini AI summary of what a GDE compliant shipment entails (this seems like a fairly succinct and accurate summary after reading through the program details on USPS):

A shipment is Global Direct Entry (GDE) compliant when it is shipped through the Global Direct Entry Wholesaler Program, where a wholesaler tenders international inbound shipments to USPS after U.S. Customs and Border Protection has cleared the items. This means the shipment is already processed and cleared through customs before reaching the postal service.

So any cross border shipper who clears items through customs is bringing over 'GDE compliant' shipments through their service. I think this is more to do with what I stated above than GDE compliance, that in itself seems simple enough.

ae_purveyors · ‎04-30-2025

I understand wanting to use Stallion untracked in the event of a CP strike.

However, if you've been using Stallion's Letter postage rates as a savings to CP's USA Letter Rates, I've done the math and they are almost identical to using Canadian Discount Postage stamps.

I can typically get postage at 30% of Face Value.

A 27 gram letter with Stallion shows up as $1.25 for me.

A 30 gram letter with CP is $1.75. At 30% off, that's $1.23.

A 100 gr Large Envelope 10"x13" at Stallion is $4.32.

With Canada Post, it's $4.29 - or just $3.00 when factoring in the discount on the face value.

To be honest, I don't even bother with Stallion Untracked anymore. It's untracked, just like postage stamps are too. Just stick them in the red mail box.

Of course, all this is good so long as Canada Post is running.

ae_purveyors · ‎04-30-2025

Sorry, I meant I get my discount stamps at 30% off Face Value…not 30% of Face Value.

What a deal that would be!!!

dinomitesales · ‎05-01-2025

@ae_purveyors wrote:
I understand wanting to use Stallion untracked in the event of a CP strike.

However, if you've been using Stallion's Letter postage rates as a savings to CP's USA Letter Rates, I've done the math and they are almost identical to using Canadian Discount Postage stamps.

I can typically get postage at 30% of Face Value.

A 27 gram letter with Stallion shows up as $1.25 for me.
A 30 gram letter with CP is $1.75. At 30% off, that's $1.23.

A 100 gr Large Envelope 10"x13" at Stallion is $4.32.
With Canada Post, it's $4.29 - or just $3.00 when factoring in the discount on the face value.

To be honest, I don't even bother with Stallion Untracked anymore. It's untracked, just like postage stamps are too. Just stick them in the red mail box.

Of course, all this is good so long as Canada Post is running.

The problem is, of course, that you technically aren't allowed to do this. Anything you sell online is considered "Goods" and you are not allowed to mail "Goods" internationally via Letter-post; they must go as a parcel with a properly completed customs declaration.

If you've had success with this method thus far, then I'm not the one to tell you to stop, but they are within their right to refuse the letter from entering the United States (or any country) if they deem the contents to be inadmissable.

ae_purveyors · ‎05-01-2025

Yes, very true and very correct. Just like those sellers who were getting their video games and DVDs returned from the US by CP because they weren’t paper. At that point, it’s no longer feasible to do untracked shipping if it’s no longer available through Stallion/CP. Buyers will have to start paying more, either for the product, or for shipping.