eBay

sassypanta · ‎11-16-2025

I’m a relatively new Canadian eBay seller. I was hoping to sell to the US, but unfortunately the tariffs are prohibitive. Has anyone tried selling the item really cheap but upping the flat rate shipping so that they’re paying less duty on the item because it wasn’t really worth that much. I know customs can adjust the value but if you buy a used shirt for let’s say $20 versus five dollars they may not adjust it that much.

mrdutch1001 · ‎11-16-2025

As "a relatively new Canadian eBay seller." it may be in your best interests to just let that idea of "hoping to sell to the US" sit a spell until you have garned more selling experience..,

Honesty & transparency go a long ways with customers.... and a conscience>>>>How you wanna tackle this is on you, so there's that...But no matter what path you take, there is something else to think about....you may want to ask your self Is this the way you'd want a USA seller to treat you?

I did it my way>I chose NOT to ship to the USA as that leaves me with 0 frustration, 0 hoops to jump though, 0 ways to try to get around the tariffs issue and 0 ways to screw the customers...and 0 issues on my conscience.

Whatever you decide that's the choice you must live with.....Good luck!

john_koenig99 · ‎11-16-2025

The race to the bottom usually leaves only losers.

dinomitesales · ‎11-16-2025

@sassypanta wrote:
I’m a relatively new Canadian eBay seller. I was hoping to sell to the US, but unfortunately the tariffs are prohibitive. Has anyone tried selling the item really cheap but upping the flat rate shipping so that they’re paying less duty on the item because it wasn’t really worth that much. I know customs can adjust the value but if you buy a used shirt for let’s say $20 versus five dollars they may not adjust it that much.

I wouldn't do this. Not only is it disingenous, but you're technically lying to customs. Is this customs fraud? Probably not. But at the same time you're not providing the whole picture and intentionally undervaluing the product on a customs form.

Also, what if a Canadian bought the item? Then you're losing money because you've priced it at less than retail. And if your answer to that is "well I'll just jack the price of domestic shipping up as well" then you're just screwing over Canadian buyers at the same time.

ilikehockeyjerseys · ‎11-16-2025

What it sounds like you're trying to do is to ship with everything paid ahead of time. You might want to look into DDP services offered by Stallion or Chit Chats. Otherwise, the most mainstream one is Canada Post Tracked Packet USA.

Sign up for a Canada Post "small business" account. Anybody can sign up, you don't need a business number. It costs about $15-$30 now to ship a package between 500g to 2KG to the USA if you have a small business account and print online. That's only for the shipping rate, not the tariffs.

What you need to do after that is you need to download an app called Zonos and input the info for your item as if you sold it. The info being, price, description, and the country it was made in. If you do this, it will give you a quote for how much tariffs+duties will cost. You need to do this before you list your item, so that you know how much to work into your shipping price.

Add the cost of Zonos with the cost of Canada Post Tracked Packet. You will need to weigh your items before hand to get the proper price.

To give you an example of this in action, I sell items that are typically around $100-$200 CAD. I charge "free" shipping to Canada, with the average rate baked into the price, and then I charge a flat rate of $39.99 CAD for shipping to the USA.

If you average it out, the $39.99 covers the Zonos fees. Sometimes, they are a bit less, sometimes, they are a bit more, but because there is no built in calculator, coming up witih a fair average is the best good faith way for me to do it.

Then the actual shipping charge is covered by the "free shipping" portion built into the price. Keeping in mind, that it's not a rigid thing. Again, it's an average.

$39.99 CAD (about $30 USD) is already going to be considered a turnoff for shipping. If I didn't bake some of it into the price with "free" shipping, for a heavier item I would have to charge $60 or $70 to ship a single item.