Should all US ebay sellers opt out of forced global shipping?

I'm definitely seeing an increase in sellers with GSP including couple that previously didn't (not that I was checking on purpose, I just noticed it by chance).

For BIN items I'll be asking sellers if they'll consider relisting without the GSP selected if I'm definitely going to buy. Not sure it'll work with that many sellers though

 

I'm sure a lot of US sellers will ship direct to Canada if asked. It becomes more concerning to me if it's overseas. If the sake price is higher than a hundred dollars I may use global shipping or it would have to go registered and insured which would likely be more than GSP.

I opted out of the automatic GSP.

 

Have just received the email from ebay TELLING ME that I am now enrolled in the GSP. Apart from feeling that I will lose numerous overseas buyers if they have to pay customs charges on my items, which are predominantly zero or low rated, I hate being 'opted in' to anything. The Orwellian creep appears to be incessant....on both sides of the Atlantic!

 

John23 above is stating (post 11) that PP accepts Registered Mail # for seller protection. I've never heard such a thing and thought that it might be a new development.

Btw I failed to opt out of this new shiiping thing, I never got the memo. I hope I still can. And yes, after a decade of heavy international shipping, I should consider dropping it. Thankfully I have my email address in my listings carefully hidden but not really, buyers can contact me and cut a deal if inclined.

 

I opt out every time. Especially with the $4 flat shipping charge

 

I just read up on the new GSP OP in thing. It seems that only sellers with no international selling shipping costs and preferences (set up in their seller accounts) were who got this automatic op in option. I have always shipped to the main countries that buy LPs, and only avoid (but not always) Brazil, Italy, France, and Russia - Eastern Europe. If it's a $15 or $20 CD I will risk a package to about anywhere. If it's a larger box of expensive LPs I get much more fussy.

I got no eBay message about this.

 

What kind of online shipping have you used and gotten the customs form to track items?

And as far as not wanting to shop international - I ran into the same issue. I found out that you must select the countries you do not want to ship to in the exception list under shipping options on list page. Taking away the shipping price for international shipping is not enough to block them. You must check off countries you do not ship to.

I had a guy bid and insist I ship to him after I stated no international shipping and I removed the cost of shipping for every international country. I contacted eBay and they told me ship the item to them anyway. Sure enough, buyer wanted to return and get refund. At least buyer had to pay $55 return shipping on this item. I learned that you never do what eBay tells you to do if it's not what you want to do and you were upfront. If anything like that ever happens again, I will simy fill in form that says "item lost or damaged, not available to send" and that is the end of that. Or ask for $275.66 in shipping costs, that will get rid of the buyer as well. I will do whatever it takes to ya by the rules and terms I set up for the item, with no room to move unless I want to.

 

I shipped First Class AND Priority International through eBay labels and I printed up 4 copies of the custom labels. Each one says "Del-Con" for first class and it tracked to the door. It was a delivery to Italy in less than 10 days. Priority had the dispatch number at the top center, ex: CF xxx xxx xxx US, and online tracking showed day and time it was delivered to the buyer. (Australia)
On the down side, the USPS tracking doesn't work delivering to Hong Kong.

 

I've been signed up for GSP for a long time but only sold a couple of things with it.

The problem for me was the new policy that my listings would be automatically listed for GSP if they were eligible items. I've always had the choice weather to list GSP or not. I envisioned a bot changing all my listings every day to GSP.

 

You should still be able to offer alternative international shipping even if GSP is enabled in your listing. It's more of a problem if you don't want to ship internationally at all.

 

How is that? How can GSP be a problem for sellers who do not do international at all? You just select the countries that................. on never mind I already stated what to do.

 

If ebay comes by and changes all your listings to GSP your items are listed internationally. Now maybe you can go in and deny shipping to all of the countries but I shouldn't have to do that.

 

Just to clarify, The new policy states that all items I list would be have GSP enabled automatically. I opted out of that but I haven't opted out of GSP. I want a choice.

I may chose to list with GSP and alternative international shipping options. I would set my defaults to ship to places I want to ship to when I ship internationally.

I have had a couple of items won by international buyers when I didn't offer international shipping also. It was a long time ago but it still is a pain to deal with. One guy was in Korea and called me on the phone so I sold the item to him even after I cancelled the auction.

GSP is not evil IMO. The duty fees they add are based on the countries policies. It's probably cheaper than USPS priority international after the buyer pays all the import taxes and duties to receive their package.

 

Yes I signed up for it. Haven't sold Intl. yet but after reading these type comments on several blogs I just edited all my listing to remove the GSP.

 

AND THAT'S WHAT THE BUYER AND SELLER ARE BOTH PAYING FOR (With shipping cost and fees to the seller/hassle when something goes wrong. Things don't go wrong nearly as MUCH but you pay for that).

 

What? I ship mostly eBay via PayPal first-class all the time. I even called PayPay to get instructions on shipping to a non-eBay customer (only that one so far)....and they sent me a link and I sent a first-class small package. So I don't know why you're being told THAT!!

 

There was just no option to ship first class packages to Japan on the paypal online shipping page. USPS let me get all the way to the end and print the customs form. Then it said I had to take the package to the PO to purchase the postage.

 

FYI I'm in Canada and flat out refuse to bid on auctions (primarily records) or BIN from US sellers using the GSP. I'm not paying taxes on used records AND having the seller ship to a depot which then ships to me. That's a double dose of me getting bent over.

I've done a couple hundred record purchases from all over the US and USPS/Canada Post has yet to lose/damage a single one. Not saying it will never happen but in my experience it has not yet and is extremely extremely unlikely to happen.

 

Do U.S. Ebay sellers see the fees shown to Canadian bidders when they list items under the GSP? It makes no sense for items priced under a certain threshold, because the shipping costs + "import fees" greatly outweigh the cost of the item itself.

For example, most items $ 25.00 and under will incur zero charges when coming across the border from the U.S. to Canada via USPS - so why would we pay Ebay "just in case"? By my calculations, Ebay are adding a "brokerage fee" in with the total, so that they may make money off of this too.

The other thing that sellers probably don't realize is the added time and possible screw-ups introduced by having multiple carriers. Simple items (like CD's) shipped from the U.S. via the GPS are handled by several different carriers, rather than just the two postal systems. It certainly isn't cheaper for the customer that way!

I can see the justification for more expensive items (where the customer is likely going to pay customs anyway), but to just apply a blanket policy like GPS to every item is just nuts.

 

That depot also opens the package to make sure there's something actually in there as well. That's another thing a buyer and seller might want to consider.

The sellers I have spoken to that opt in generally feel safer using it.