Has Ebay changed something with their shipping policy recently?

[Inzane]

I've admittedly not actually bought anything off ebay in quite a while. But when browsing listings, some time over the last few months I started noticing under the shipping costs another line item called "Import Charges (Amount confirmed at checkout)", and I'm wondering WTF?

Has Ebay gone and done something that now makes it automatic that we must pay all customs and brokerage fees, etc. UP FRONT on a purchase? (Assuming Canadian buyer, US seller)


Is this an option selected by the seller or by Ebay itself? It doesn't seem to be present in all listing i've looked at but certainly a good portion.

(What's somewhat bothersome is I can't seem to find a way to view the breakdown of how they come up with the numbers. I'm seeing import charges in some cases being triple or more of the actual shipping cost.)

[Tik-Tok]

Probably so that Canadians won't get a huge shock when they're UPS, DHL, or Fedex package comes with a huge duties&import bill.

[eblend]

Yah I noticed this as well, I think this is if the seller decides to use eBay's own shipping services functionality. Don't trust it though....I had a place give me a cost of the item + shipping and all that through e-bay, but when I went to pay with paypal, the payment was declined. I contacted the seller to see what's up as I could pay for other auctions, and they told me they don't actually ship to Canada....despite e-bay giving me the shipping + customs costs.

I think it's something new and many ebayers are not aware of how to properly use it yet.

[bignerd]

Yeah its their easy international shipping program.... Thing that pisses me off is that most of the time customs doesn't charge duty on smaller items anyhow so why do I want to pay duty and brokerage fee when canada customs most likely won't charge me?

[Crazyjoker77]

I've used the new service at least twice now since its been released. Its designed to try and make more US sellers sell to canada. basically the US seller ships the item to a ebay warehouse then ebay uses UPS to courier it across the border.

[Cos]

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[blairtruck]

more then you would pay if you just have them ship USPS

[Inzane]

Originally posted by bignerd
Thing that pisses me off is that most of the time customs doesn't charge duty on smaller items anyhow so why do I want to pay duty and brokerage fee when canada customs most likely won't charge me?

That's exactly what I was thinking when I first saw this.

[BigDannyCool]

It sucks. In the past sellers would be able to put gift or lower the value of an item, but now you're forced to pay full duty and customs

[Supa Dexta]

Its a god damn scam. And sellers once signed up cant work with you.. I was told they ship it to ebay and ebay ships it to you - but not sure I believe that part of things..

What I have read though, is that they collect the duty, but only pass it along to the collecting country if it's requested!

I refuse to use it. - I use ebay a lot and will take my chances. China, korea..etc ships everything for free most of the time! ffs

[G-ZUS]

Originally posted by Supa Dexta
Its a god damn scam. And sellers once signed up cant work with you.. I was told they ship it to ebay and ebay ships it to you - but not sure I believe that part of things..

What I have read though, is that they collect the duty, but only pass it along to the collecting country if it's requested!

I refuse to use it. - I use ebay a lot and will take my chances. China, korea..etc ships everything for free most of the time! ffs

I bought a pair of jeans off a seller that had it set up that way but we were able to work around it. An ebay rep gave us instructions how-to.

[Supa Dexta]

One seller I spoke to said they signed up because it took away all the msgs asking if they can declare a lower value or a gift. He was a high volume seller and was sick of it, which I can understand.

Asking a seller to declare something a gift is so 2002. Pay the shipping or buy it local. You think some random name is sending you a gift of car parts brand new in box? Ya makes sense

[Mitsu3000gt]

eBay fees are getting really high, I stopped using them a long time ago. PayPal is a nightmare to deal with as well, should anything go wrong, or should you be the seller and the buyer decides to screw you over.

I was looking to list a ~$1000 item and the fee estimator had me paying nearly $200 in fees all-in.

[Inzane]

^ 10 years ago Ebay was merely a massive skimming operation. It's become much worse than that now. It doesn't help that they own paypal now as well. Now they can double-dip too.

[thetransporter]

correct , now we are guaranteed to pay "import charges"

You guys should do what I do, ask the seller if i can send him a USPS label - just go to USPS .com and buy a label. much easier and cheaper.

Originally posted by bignerd
Yeah its their easy international shipping program.... Thing that pisses me off is that most of the time customs doesn't charge duty on smaller items anyhow so why do I want to pay duty and brokerage fee when canada customs most likely won't charge me?

[rage2]

So lemme get this right. For years we've been pissed off when UPS and FedEx rapes us on brokerage on ground shipments. Fast forward to today, ebay makes things easier so that you pay customs and duty up front, and makes it so we can't get raped by brokerage at UPS/Fedex, and we're pissed because we can't scam the system? You guys are hilarious haha.

The "fully paid duty" system has been out for a while and has been used by several eshops for years now. I'm glad ebay is adopting the system and making it easier for sellers, it means we'll have access to sellers that used to refuse international shipping due to all you fuckers refusing to settle your brokerage bills.

BTW - marking shit off as gift does nothing. Gifts are subject to tax and duty if it's over ~$20.

edit - the gift tax exemption is at $60.

[spike98]

Originally posted by Cos
It is run through Pitney Bowes.

The one time i have used ebay since this new policy, Pintey Bowes messed up the package. They re-packaged it for some reason yet didn't put the right product in the package to me. Instead of my nice PCIe riser cable, i got some crap self help book.

[2.2vtec]

I never used to pay any brokage fees when getting things from ebay. Usually my purchases range from 20 to 200 dollars.

Just find sellers that use USPS and you avoid most charges.

[Inzane]

Originally posted by rage2
So lemme get this right. For years we've been pissed off when UPS and FedEx rapes us on brokerage on ground shipments. Fast forward to today, ebay makes things easier so that you pay customs and duty up front, and makes it so we can't get raped by brokerage at UPS/Fedex, and we're pissed because we can't scam the system? You guys are hilarious haha.

I think you're mixing two different issues here.

IF the seller you're buying from was only going to ship from a courier anyway (UPS, FedEx), then it probably makes no difference. Just a pay now vs. pay later. On this I would agree with you on the "easier" part. But I think you're wrong on the raped by brokerage part. If UPS/Fedex are the shippers, you're still paying brokerage in there somewhere based on the numbers I saw. (not 100% sure, because like i said in the OP, when looking at ebay listings you can't see the breakdown of how they're calculating these import charges).

The other aspect though is when USPS has been a viable option. For one thing 1st Class used to be an option. However ebay and/or paypal has now almost exclusively forced sellers to use Priority, which is more $$. This loses much of the cost advantage over the couriers, particularly for smaller packages.

The second subject regarding USPS as others have mentioned already, chances were good they might clear your package with ZERO import charges. I don't have a statistic for you... 25%, 50%? (BTW, I'm not talking about people trying to deliberately scam customs, I'm talking about properly labelled fully declared parcels that get "let through".. it happens often).

With this new scheme ebay has implemented, if you're buying something that is coming via USPS and you're paying all import fees upfront, guess what... your chances of not having to pay have gone to ZERO.

Sorry, but I liked the status quo before (i.e. take your chances and hope you don't have to pay much if at all, but if you do so be it).

[Cos]

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