eBay

ecgt · ‎10-17-2025

For years a large part of our business model has relied on shipping items such as DVDs, certain video games, comic books, CDs and other items that are eligible for Lettermail within Canada. Said items would be shipped using Tracked Packet to the USA or Internationally.

The Lettermail method of shipping within Canada is extremely cost effective to the extent that many items are only competitive when shipped via Lettermail.

Since eIS uses the domestic shipping on file when an international buyer places an order, we now have a problem. The eIS program requires that we use a trackable method. Lettermail is non-trackable. More than a third of our items only offer Lettermail as the domestic option.

We were enrolled in the eIS program on October 9 and made our first sale this morning (a Blu-ray). Unfortunately, the item in question offers Lettermail as the domestic shipping option. We charged $6 for Lettermail in this case. All of the tracked shipping methods available to us generally cost $18 or more for an item of this size.

We aren't willing to eat that cost, so we decided to cancel the transaction. This is not something we want to do because if we start cancelling transactions over and over it could lead to an account suspension.

We decided to check the eBay Shipping Label prices for the item before cancelling the transaction and were met with a potentially good surprise.

Shipping the Blu-ray from Halifax to the Mississauga hub via eIS is only $8 for Canada Post Expedited Parcel with eBay Shipping Labels for the item in question (in this case a parcel weighing 200 g in a 22 cm x 16 cm x 12 cm box). Knowing this, we are going to eat the $2 and give this a shot.

We checked to see what it would cost to ship a record using a record mailer (600 g in a 33 cm x 33 cm x 4 cm box) and the Canada Post Expedited Parcel price came up as $9.

The UPS prices were also less than expected, but were several dollars more than the Canada Post options in the tests we did.

If this is accurate, then it suggests that eBay and Canada Post (as well as UPS) have made deals on cheaper shipping to the hub and haven't made an announcement as of yet.

We realize that we are among the earliest invitees to the program. Has anyone else had a sale via eIS yet? If so, what is your experience in terms of shipping prices to the hub using eBay Shipping Labels?

wheelersndealers · ‎10-24-2025

It showed up today as just "delivered". No indication if that was to the customer or to the hub which doesn't really matter since our job is to get it to the hub safely... but it finally had an update at least.

dinomitesales · ‎10-24-2025

@shawnspeller wrote:
$6 for lettermail, woof. Blurays are heavier than I thought.

In my experience most single-disc Blu-rays should be under 100g even when placed in a bubble mailer (Blu-ray cases are lighter than DVD cases). Ships for $2.61 (plus applicable GST/HST) via domestic Lettermail. Some multi-disc sets might push you into the 100-200g range, but even then it's only $4.29.

$6 would be the rate for 200-300g; the heaviest Lettermail-eligible Blu-ray I could find in my inventory had three discs in it and a non-eco case and was still only 130g.

dinomitesales · ‎10-24-2025

@wheelersndealers wrote:
It showed up today as just "delivered". No indication if that was to the customer or to the hub which doesn't really matter since our job is to get it to the hub safely... but it finally had an update at least.

Awesome! Free delivery confirmation on Lettermail transactions to boot 😂

rainbow71113 · ‎10-26-2025

what country is it going to?

nostalgicaftertaste · ‎10-26-2025

Were there no other status updates prior to the item being marked as Delivered? Is there no tracking number for when it transitions to US shipping?

byto253 · ‎10-26-2025

I'll be danged, I checked my test listing and you are correct. I missed reading your post yesterday.

Wow, so it is sorting listing results by the EIS shipping cost and NOT the lowest. Buyers won't see the lower shipping cost until the click your listing and with the higher shipping from outside the country that becomes much less llikely.

Gee, thanks eBay for taking out the other kneecap.

wheelersndealers · ‎10-26-2025

Nope nothing at all. Its going to th UK as well so I would say it was just marked as delivered to the hub as I don't think it would hae been at its final destination given the timelines especially for just lettermail.

dinomitesales · ‎10-27-2025

@wheelersndealers wrote:
Nope nothing at all. Its going to th UK as well so I would say it was just marked as delivered to the hub as I don't think it would hae been at its final destination given the timelines especially for just lettermail.

Keep checking the order details over the next few days. If the "Delivered" note does indeed just mean delivered to the hub, I'm curious if you'll get the international tracking number added to the transaction in the same manner that tracked shipments to the hub get it.

fh991586 · ‎10-27-2025

Lettermail is only for Canada. Letter-post is for the USA, and it's only for document; you can't use it for merchandise.

rainbow71113 · ‎10-31-2025

I just had a strange transaction tonight which might be related to this...it's to a buyer in Mississauga, a couple of skeins of thread which the buyer paid the correct rate of shipping on my listing however the address shows this eBay Virtual Tracking Number: CMFBHXK

I've never seen this before....does anyone know what this is?

easoss · ‎10-31-2025

Funny part is for a very long time nobody gave a hoot whether the item was merchandise or not. 20+ years for me smaller items freely flowed at cheap shipping rates which meant more sales. Canada Post started getting picky and enforcing the rules roughly 2 years ago (my belief was to make more money). How we got from the best system of buying/selling to the burdensome red tape tariff 💩 show that now exists is mind blowing.

jtg204 · ‎10-31-2025

@rainbow71113 That is a EIS (eBay International Shipping) order:

https://www.ebay.ca/sellercentre/shipping/ebay-international-shipping

On the order detail page's Shipping section you can see where it's going after you send to the hub in Mississauga by expanding the 'Show recipient address'.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-31-2025

@reallynicestamps wrote:
@dinomitesales
Unless the people at eBay Canada are completely clueless regarding how Canadian eBay sellers operate, they must have planned

As the Americans say: "Bless your heart..."

@rainbow71113
We can use postage stamps to pay for Canada Post labels.
It's a pain in the butt, because it has to be done at the counter and the clerk is slooooowwwwly entering the information manually.
But it is possible.

It's very likely eBay and eIS did NOT take into consideration that a good % of Canadian items are sold with untracked shipping in Canada (Shipped to USA for those that did at their own risk). Important to remember US sellers have a cheap version of tracked letter plus numerous options for parcels shipments within the USA. Something we don't have. No real override if the item accidentally sells via eIS so if you ship to hub via letter you are taking your chance. (Where the dreaded cookie jar insurance kicks in.) Sells your item...takes your chances!!! Until eBay comes up with an internal over ride Canadian sellers using eIS have 2 choices. Ship letter to hub or update all listings to a tracked service. US buyers are just going to choose the cheapest option displayed. As I recall its not like sellers can offer eIS or their own shipping methods. It's a 1 or the other.

Then there is the do you happen to be a seller in far west where shipping to hub is expensive.

As someone else suggested the option of consolidating into 1 pkg could work for some sellers vs doing individually. That's not likely to happen.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-31-2025

@byto253 wrote:
That is just wrong. Even if the $8 had HST added it is still way to high.

Do you have to purchase a shipping label to the EIS Hub from eBay or can you arrange your own shipping there?

@byto253

Just 1 more of the little Canadian quirks of eIS. If you ship direct to USA/Internationally no PST/GST for CP or courier. Not like sellers get a detailed receipt so they could easily claim it for eIS shipments to hub. Then you get dinged again on FVF's on that tax collected. Double bonus!! From a Western Canada perspective I am totally missing the/any benefits of eIS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfSJiaQURKI&list=RDyfSJiaQURKI&start_radio=1

dinomitesales · ‎10-31-2025

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
From a Western Canada perspective I am totally missing the/any benefits of eIS.

Well, from looking at your listings only 0.001% of them are currently showing to Americans, you don't ship to many other countries, and many of your listings ship only within Canada.

eIS will drastically increase the market reach of your listings by showing them to tens of millions of additional potential buyers without you having to do anything. Sounds like a benefit to me.

easoss · ‎10-31-2025

I don't understand why eBay couldn't have set up an EIS hub in Calgary or Vancouver. The program in very GTA centric.

rainbow71113 · ‎10-31-2025

I didn't see that....yes, it says Tuscon Arizona.....didn't realize it was supposed to be shipped to the hub. The shipping paid was only $1.50 so that wouldn't have been practical for any tracked shipping. Halifax seems to accept a lot more items for lettermail when I just put them in the outside boxes and not taking them into the post office itself. Helps to have a lot of stamps on hand. By the way, the buyer cancelled saying it would take too long to get it, thank goodness. Also, they did say they will be setting up more hubs so I imagine you will have one in Vancouver.

That order that I showed the tracking for on an early page of this feed-I paid $15.93 for the shipping to hub and it came back to my account as $26.99 so I called ebay and they are refunding me the approx $9 difference since they couldn't find a reason why it was different so you should get your money back too

I noticed Temu and Aliexpress in China do a lot of consolidation with their orders, they have a consolidation hub where everything that has multiple orders goes and they combine them before shipping. Don't know if we are allowed to combine them to go to the Canadian hub, that would be more practical if you get a lot of orders but I'm barely getting any sales since the tariffs were announced about 1 or 2 a week...doesn't pay the bills.

rainbow71113 · ‎10-31-2025

That order that I showed the tracking for on an early page of this feed-I paid $15.93 for the shipping to hub and it came back to my account as $26.99 so I called ebay and they are refunding me the approx $9 difference since they couldn't find a reason why it was different so you should get your money back too

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-31-2025

@dinomitesales wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
From a Western Canada perspective I am totally missing the/any benefits of eIS.
Well, from looking at your listings only 0.001% of them are currently showing to Americans, you don't ship to many other countries, and many of your listings ship only within Canada.

eIS will drastically increase the market reach of your listings by showing them to tens of millions of additional potential buyers without you having to do anything. Sounds like a benefit to me.

@dinomitesales

Because I ship out of Calgary, getting anything to the hub (with eIS) is more expensive than shipping directly to a country. Limited, if any savings for me and other westerners. The paperwork to send using CP is not that much trouble. Plus via tracked it arrives to customer quicker. (Recent Spain was 7 total days/Germany was 8.) With the extra handling to send to the hub, just not worth the frustration. As for countries I ship to I am selective based on past experience. USA via tracked for me averages 7 to 10 days vs sending to hub at 4 to 5 + however long they take to process. Anyone had any shipments via eIS where items were delivered to buyer? How long was total transit time? Have a hard time believing it was done in the 7 to 10 day range.

Until CP can figure out a way to ship to the USA directly so buyer pays any fees/tax, I am holding off shipping. (CP...USPS did have customs clearance in place in the past at 6.95 for US shipments. Unsure why/what caused it to be turfed.) Because I opted out at the beginning have yet to receive a second invite to use. Still leery to use until they (ebay) makes attempt to address all of our posted concerns. In practice there should have been an open forum for anyone with questions to ask and get a timely response.

Note: US is turned off due to reasons above.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎10-31-2025

@easoss wrote:
I don't understand why eBay couldn't have set up an EIS hub in Calgary or Vancouver. The program in very GTA centric.

@easoss

When I spoke to eIS via zoom in Sept that was my first comment. The price and time to ship to an eastern hub. During my call got lots of oh's and huh. We will take that into consideration. (They added to a spreadsheet of concerns.) To date I have yet to see any of my or others posted concerns addressed. If they have been next to impossible to confirm. I tried following up but there has been zippo for a response.

Regarding the quickly posted concern about Canadian sellers who use letter for shipping in Canada being the default when something now is going to the hub, because they didn't have a way to address they just stated continue sending to hub via letter and take your chances. (Pretty sure eIS in the USA requires tracked service.) They couldn't be bothered to figure out a workaround to give Canadian sellers full protection.