Is Ebay Global Shipping worth it?

[Darkowl]

Totally woth it.

 

 

 

-slym

 

[Darkowl]

I actually just recently used it with some software I sold on ebay. This service is great for the seller, but bad for the buyer. The main problem is that the buyer ends up paying a lot more for shipping and customs costs than they would normally. I've heard of a lot of ebay buyers being very upset about these additional costs.

[Pete Marino]

If you refuse to ship international it can only help you.

 

If you take a little while and figure out how to ship international you'll have a bigger customer base and happier customers.

 

BTW, if you don't want it, you have to keep checking that it's staying to "off". Ebay turned it on for me 3x now. And also somehow they added every country in the world to my exclusions list for countries at one point. Both issues took a bit of digging around to fix....

[FlyingDonut]

Do not use it EVER. You will alienate all of your overseas buyers. All of them.

 

I simply do not understand people who won't ship overseas. Use Priority Mail International.

[chromium]

It's a bit of a read but is quite enlightening...

This was sent by Dutch art dealer Marc Mokken to an OA mailing list...

 

Since a couple of months eBay has a new “service”

for US sellers to make international shipping and selling easier for them.

As a non US buyer I strongly suggest not to use that program for the following

reasons.

 

Ebay has set the import taxes at the highest import/tax rate of a 21% minimum and in some cases even up to 30%!! while the actual/official import fee for original art and for books in the Netherlands is only 6%!!!!!

 

And that’s if I am charged import fees at all because it happens very often,

even for higher priced items, that a package simply slips through customs and I don’t have to pay anything.

I’m sure this is not only the case with the Netherlands but for all other countries for which this scam program is valid.

The import fee for a lithograph is print is 0,00% of the value and guess what eBay/Pitney Bowes charges?

Exactly, 21%. For a $1000 print eBay/Pitney Bowes would charge me $210!!!!!

Money that I would never have to pay if a US seller simply sends it himself directly to the Netherlands doing everything official, putting the full value on the customs form.

 

It gets even better. I recently bought a Japanese print ($195) from a US seller who offered me free shipping. I could only purchase this through buy it now and by doing so was immediately charged the shipping costs and 21% import fees total $82,61!!!!

When I informed the seller about this he thought that I was wrong because he only received a paypal notification that showed the $195 for the print.

 

When I showed him the separate shipping/import fee transaction he was stunned.

He never joined the Global Shipping program and never knew that while he was

thinking that he was offering free shipping his customers already paid for

everything.

 

So Pitney Bowes/eBay are getting paid for undelivered services.

I pointed this out to eBay and also the fact that the import fees on eBay for books and art send to the Netherlands are 15% higher than the official Dutch import fees and the only answer was well we made an agreement and these are the taxes they gave us on which we agreed.

 

It does not end here. He has packed the art and shipped it directly to me.

He marked the package as shipped on eBay but he can’t fill in his own tracking

number which is on the package because as soon as he marked it shipped on eBay

the package received a tracking number from Pitney Bowes, Inc!!!!

They haven’t got the package, have never seen the package, never shipped the

package!

They only thing they have is a tracking number of a package that doesn’t exist

because the actual package was shipped by the seller directly to me.

When I received the package I had to pay import fees, only the afore mentioned

official 6%

I now have proof that the package was send to me directly by the seller, I have a written and signed letter by the seller that he send the item directly to me, that he paid the shipping costs and that he never joined the shipping program, I have the import fees bill from Dutch customs proving that I paid the import fees proving that Pitney Bowes didn’t

ship or paid any import fees and guess what, eBay insists that they/Pitney

Bowes has send the package.

 

In short, anybody, sellers and most certainly buyers, should avoid this rip off program like the plague. Sellers will lose buyers who don’t want to pay ridiculously high import fees.

I am no longer checking any art or comics that are listed with the Global Shipping program.

So US sellers, even if you think you have not joined this program be sure and double check and uncheck the Global Shipping box in your sellers settings because you are not giving extra service with the Global shipping program but you’re helping eBay/Pitney Bowes to seriously rip off non US buyers.

 

To change the Global shipping program option you go to your eBay page, click the account tab, then site preferences and on that "page" you click shipping preferences, the top one is offer global shipping program, click show and change the setting.

Last but not least a great 2014 to all of you!!!

Greetings,

Marc

Art of Comics

[gaz973]

I won't go near any auctions using Ebay's Global Shpping.

[mrc]

Do not use it EVER. You will alienate all of your overseas buyers. All of them.

 

I simply do not understand people who won't ship overseas. Use Priority Mail International.

 

+1

[loadstone]

The only way I would use it is if there was a hybrid option where I could disable it for the countries that I am well versed in shipping directly and enable it only for those countries where I'm not and the category designated import fees are already equal to or greater than what eBay charges.

for now I'd like to keep my international customers happy.

 

[Loki]

Most Canadians I know will either;

 

A) email you and ask you not to use it if they were to bid with you OR

 

B) just avoid your auctions

 

So basically it is the same as not shipping Internationally. Only really green Canadian ebayers will do it, I don't know about the rest of the world but it won't help shipping to Canada.

 

Jay

 

This is a pretty good assessment. I've passed over quite a few auctions / BIN in the past few months because the "import charges" are at least double what they ought to be (assuming the package even gets assessed, and over half of the ones I receive don't). The only buyers from Canada that you'll get will be the people who don't know what the import charges actually ought to be...

 

It seems like a huge, outrageous cash grab, on par with the usurious brokerage fees UPS charges.

[Taco]

I've used it several times as a seller. Only received one complaint for damage which was done on the way to the UK. eBay took care of it right away because you are completely covered.

 

I think the shipping department boxes up the boxes you send because a few I sent out were in Priority Mail flat rate boxes and I know an international buyer isn't paying that crazy amount.

[Black Lantern]

I can only recommend US sellers who want to ship overseas not to use it. I'm used to buy books from the US (ebay and here on the board), otherwhise I would have never gotten so much nice books for my collection, but I avoid all auctions with Global Shipping. I don't even click on the auction to look at it.

 

Seriously, you are all losing potential customers who are willing to buy your books!

[Dmac538]

Thanks guys for the input, I have not used this option, nor will I do it in the future after reading all of this. So what is the best way to ship internationally? Priority Mail International is way too expensive, even to Canada.

[999ghosts]

It is the worst ebay ever did. I will never buy from any seller using this rip off program. The worst is that ebay doesn't care.

 

It is a shame sellers using the program don't see it or even get it how bad this is for their sales.

[Trapezetony]

I can only recommend US sellers who want to ship overseas not to use it. I'm used to buy books from the US (ebay and here on the board), otherwhise I would have never gotten so much nice books for my collection, but I avoid all auctions with Global Shipping. I don't even click on the auction to look at it.

 

Seriously, you are all losing potential customers who are willing to buy your books!

 

I agree completely.

I avoid any books that are shipped this way.

When ebay introduced this program I got stung a couple of times as I was not aware it was happening until too late.

Now it's the first thing I look for as it's really nasty!