eBay

sin-n-dex · ‎02-03-2025

It's good that tariffs were paused for 30 days, and both Chit Chats and Stallion Express are working to find solutions for customers if they become a reality in 30 days.

I couldn't take a chance on having problems shipping and shut down Saturday night, cancelled all the auctions ending Sunday without bids, and stopped all future auctions from running (I'm loading them up to start next Sunday, with bonus auctions running to make up for the loss of revenue this weekend).

I'm not sure about anyone else, but this ruined my weekend. While it would be nice to say enjoy life and don't let what you can't control affect you, the business is a big part of my life. It's what I do every day when I finish my workday at my day job, building rapport with customers and sending collectables to people who will cherish them is my joy in life. Even if only for a few days that was taken away from me. I can't say I knew what to do with myself if I wasn't going to be working on my eBay store.

Supposedly this had affects in our economy, I've been told that people in Hamilton that work in steel were affected by this, and prices will go up, even if it was called off at the 11th hour. The whole thing wreaked a lot of havoc for Canadians this week. I just can't believe we've gone back to this chaos (and round 2 is worse).

What I'm worried about now is the loss of trust I have with my buyers over the tariff threat. I have no way to directly communicate with everyone to tell them I'm going to come through with shipping their orders (at least for the next 30 days). I've reached out to a few disappointed buyers who missed out on my auctions, thankfully they were an understanding bunch and will come back to bid next weekend.

You'd think after this weekend I'd be happy, and I am, but it's going to take some time to pull out of my depressive slump that I've fallen into as a result of this bad news. At least in 30 days I'll be ready, will have to shut my store down again, but I'll be better prepared now that I know how things will play out (to some degree) if there are tariffs. What we didn't know before the order was made was if de minimis was going to go away, so I wasn't worried all last week when they were talking about it, and then on Saturday it became clear with the order. Well next time I'll know better, and hopefully there will not be a next time.

C.

sin-n-dex · ‎02-04-2025

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
@carlmarxx wrote:
I know , there hasn't has been anyone from his first term that ever explained how why he thinks that shipers in countrys out side of U.S. pay's it . he is clueless about econmices work. Considering he destoryed the trad deal packed signed by Presdent Obama , and has destroyed other deals signed into place by presdent Biden . Nobody know's why he destroyed low cost pharmcy medication perscription deal policy .
@carlmarxx
@sin-n-dex
Here is how it looks from a personal perspective after turning off shipping to the USA for a few days.

Promotion traffic was due to promotions ended at end of Jan and then being restarted. Having Canada as your only ship to will make life very challenged for majority of Canadian sellers. Finding other markets is difficult due to the fact shipping anywhere a great distance suddenly becomes more expensive. Customers in Mexico and Greenland just don't buy the same kind of stuff. The EU is a problem because of packaging regulations. (And possibly VAT to some extent.)

As a side shipping within Canada especially if you are on either cost is substantially more expensive compared to being located in one of the more central provinces.

I have a similar looking graph, only I had only one sale on Jan 31, a couple on Feb 1, and just the 99 cent auctions on Feb 2 (ones with bids I couldn't cancel). All the Feb 2 stuff except one item were going to Canada.

I'm willing to try and diversify and reach out to Canadian buyers, but I list on dot com because most of my business is to the US (maybe 80%, with 15% for Canada and 5% international). I would try to do more internationally shipping but if Stallion goes down, then the rates of international shipping go up with Canada Post.

Lots of problems if tariffs come into play. I'm thinking there was never any intention of following through with tariffs and it was just a bullying tactic to get something from Trudeau. When you think about it, they didn't have the means in place to be tariffing every single package coming across, it would have been a huge backlog of packages. As I said a few days ago, I don't think they thought this through, which i think plays a big part in why it didn't end up happening. However lots of damage has been done to the Canadian economy and trust lost between Canadian suppliers and US buyers.

I think Canadians will keep purchasing from the US (at least lots of them will, I know I will continue to purchase US items if I can't find them here), but I'm not so sure US buyers will continue to purchase from Canada. I'm hoping my buyers are following the news and know nothing has happened yet, and it's still OK to buy from Canada without tariffs.

C.

carlmarxx · ‎02-04-2025

I will always keep buying from Canadian sellers .

itolduandso · ‎02-04-2025

I assume you have multiple ebay accounts you sell.

For EU packaging is the issue with Germany right now, is it already for other parts of EU?

VAT is an issue so it's hard to predict beause it varies but VAT doesn't play a role, all sales in EU charge VAT regardless. It's shipping that is the issue and with the US dollar up, shipping is only going up, unless oil goes down significantly.