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By Ina Steiner
EcommerceBytes.com
May 28, 2013
In its push to promote international trade, eBay is making U.S. sellers vulnerable to negative and neutral feedback. The concept of helping international buyers purchase items from U.S. merchants by providing freight forwarding and associated services is nothing new (eBay did a deal with Shop Airlines in Japan a number of years ago), but the Global Shipping Program (GSP) takes the concept to a new level. But eBay doesn't appear to have built mechanisms to fully protect participating sellers for factors outside their control.
The program works as follows. When a buyer in the UK purchases an item from a U.S. seller who is opted into the GSP program, the seller sends the item to a domestic location and eBay's proxy, Pitney Bowes, is then responsible for international delivery to the buyer. The key to the program is that the cost of the item plus the full domestic and international shipping charges as well as taxes, duties and custom charges are all displayed to the international buyer fully - before they click the buy button.
It sounds good in theory - if the buyer doesn't like the high costs of international fulfillment, they will move on rather than purchase the item. But as almost any eBay seller can tell you, it doesn't always work that way. Buyers often purchase items and complain about costs after the fact.
for more: http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y13/m05/i28/s01
eBay Advice for Feedback Fallout from Global Shipping (for what it is worth)
This is a very old thread from over two years ago. Why address it?
Much has changed since then.
