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Shipping on .com as a Canadian seller
Hello everyone!
This is my last attempt to find an answer to my question. Yes I have watched video explaining this and read threads talking about this but non applies 100% to my situation. I hope I’ll find good infos here. So thanks in advance.
I have been selling on .com for years while living in the USA. I am now back into my home country (Canada) and I want to continue selling on .com. I understand I could just used my home address here in Québec but figured I’d prefer to keep offering cheaper rates to the US buyers.
So, I read crossing the borders myself to get to the closest USPS (a 75 miles road trip) isn’t an option. Any thoughts of that as of July 2024?
Then, I hear about Cross Border Shippers. Oh what I great idea!!! But while looking into it some more (a lot more!!!) I figured the 2 closest companies from me are in Montréal (around 190 miles roadtrip). In my opinion there has to be a better option. While Chit Chats offers a pick up option I can’t seem to find prices before I sign up. And if I go to the pick up company’s website it’s over 50$ to ship a 5lbs box to the Chit Chats branch. I’m thinking there might be a discount if done through Chit Chats but still probably not that much to make it worth it!!!
So here you go!!! I’m lost. I don’t want to close my store but would like to be able to make money out of it not spend all the profits on shipping costs.
Any suggestions, ideas, respectful and constructive comments are welcome.
kh_femi
·10 months agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
bonanza125
·10 months ago@alexfacit
Thread is over a year old.
alexfacit
·10 months agoNo other options...I have a cross border shipper with location 15' from my place.
Since August things got more complicated as you have to have a broker as well with the shipper.
No problem here.
inook30
OP2 years agoI get what you are both saying.
1- Main EBay account address needs to match the address on my bank account where I will receive the payouts. âœ”ï¸ And it seems like the main EBay address can’t be changed on .com for a Canadian address (I did send a private message to them on Messenger, waiting for a reply!) And just for the record in case other people come across this thread, I have dual citizenship so I am allowed to work in the USA. But I don’t think it matters since what seems to be important is the country I live at the moment.
2- If I use ChitChats I can use their US address as my ship from and return addresses. ✔ï¸
3- After doing all that, do I have to start from scratch with my store on .ca? What about my feedbacks and all the listings? That part isn’t clear for me yet.
Thank you! I am sure you are helping lots of other people with their similar questions. I know for sure you are helping me.
pjcdn2005
·2 years ago3. If you start a new ID with a Canadian address you will lose your current feedback and yes you would have to start from scratch. It would be best not to open a store until your listing limits increase.
If you do open a store later on you would have to figure out whether it was to your advantage to open a .com store or a .ca store. With either store you can list on either site but since the .ca store is billed in $C it may be slightly cheaper. But you would be billed in $C (for the store only) and eBay would convert it to $US before putting it into your $US account. However, .com stores do have some benefits that .ca store does not. I'm not sure offhand if those benefits are available if your store has been opened on .ca.
If you list on .com you would be paid in $US and if your account was in that same currency then of course it doesn't need to be converted. Some people have had problem linking a $US chequing account with a .ca account even though it was at a Canadian bank. @sin-n-dex should be able to say which bank has worked for her.
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoI opted for Canadian currency (for eBay to convert it) to not have problems down the road. I have never linked a US account from a Canadian bank to eBay, so I don't know which bank would be good for that. I actually don't have a US account in Canada anyway, my US account is in Niagara, NY where I had to fill out a W8-BEN and proof of not being a US person for tax purposes to be allowed to keep the account. But I can't hook this account up with eBay, and not having a US SSN associated with the bank account means I don't get privileges like online banking.
C.
gone.c-33
·2 years agoI see you’ve already used this account to sell in the US with, I assume, Managed Payments depositing your funds in a US bank account.
Before you list anything from Canada, you’ll want to make sure you either can keep the same US bank account with your new Canadian address or that you are able to get paid in a US account at a Canadian bank. I’ve read many posts about sellers having issues when moving countries.
sin-n-dex
·2 years ago@inook30
Chit Chats charges $1 per shipment (CAD) if you buy your own postage and it's under 1 lb. The rates go up for bigger things and bigger boxes.
Before Chit Chats came to my city I was packing the big eBay box (16x12x8) with all my USPS envelopes and sending it via FedEx (or you could use UPS or CanPar) to their main office in Burlington and they process them for you there. There are quite a few drop spots in Quebec with Chit Chats (they are not branches, just businesses that will accept a box of your packages to go to the US).
Be careful when buying your own postage. You can buy it on eBay because they use Pitney Bowes, but Canadians can't use sources like stamps.com anymore to buy postage because of new regulations with USPS (Chit Chats can send you a copy of their bulletin, they mailed it to all their clients a few weeks ago).
There's another service you can look into called Stallion Express. I'm not sure if they allow receipt of boxes of packages by mail like Chit Chats does, but they only charge 70 cents per package, and their shipping options on their website are cheaper than Chit Chats (if you buy postage directly from them, especially Canadian and International postage).
C.
pjcdn2005
·2 years agoI've heard that Canadians can buy USPS postage on Pirateship.com and on Shippo. Has something changed recently?
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoFrom Chit Chats:
I inquired for more information and they replied this:
I mentioned eBay postage, they said "no eBay" in their email (I edited out that paragraph), but when I spoke to them on the phone and mentioned it's Pitney Bowes that eBay gets postage from, they said Pitney Bowes is OK (and there's a USPS website that mentions allowed vendors). Chit Chats is mentioned on the list, Stallion Express is not, however I have contacted the head of customer service who looked into this issue and said they were authorized to sell Canadians postage and export packages.
Chit Chats has also messaged me this when I required outside references to this regulation:
C.
pjcdn2005
·2 years agoI'll have to ask around and see if anyone here has recently printed USPS postage on Shippo and PS.
I know that it was possible in the past but perhaps that is no longer true. I don't want to suggest it if it is no longer possible.
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoI'm not sure where PS fits in, they might be under another company that's permitted. (This is my theory for why Stallion Express is not on the list, it's a sub company of something that's authorized).
They mentioned Stamps.com and Shippo in the email I posted as examples for third party postage. If a seller has an address with Stallion Express or Chit Chats they can print postage on the dot.com site on eBay. I did find out that if I log into dot.ca I can print Canada Post postage from there (but have to change my default address to an address in Canada to do it).
So I think if someone sells on dot.ca if they have a US address they can log into dot.com to print their labels. The only criteria for printing postage is that the return address and ship from addresses are in the country that the service is being used in.
eBay uses Pitney Bowes, so that's the important thing. USPS will allow it.
C.
inook30
OP2 years agoHello sin-n-dex,
thanks so much for all your inputs.
I have posted the same question on .ca and someone replied this to me:
« Since this ID was originally registered on the US site you may have to start a new ID to strt selling as a Canadian even if you list on .com. When eBay changed from Paypal to Manage Payments I think that the ability to change countries disappeared. »
Is that what I have to do for real? And loose all my feedbacks and everything else???
If I call EBay, would they be able to guide be with this issue or not?
I am a bit discouraged right now as to how to proceed… I mean it started with a shipping question and now more basic questions are coming up.
I get I’lll need a Canadian US checking account as the one I add associated with my .com account no longer exist.
Then, am I able to just switch the country on .com? If I use ChitChats, does it print USPS shipping labels? So I could just use their US address and « pretend » I’m in the USA.
You suggested to ship to Burlington. You mean ship in a bunch of packages directly to the post office there??? They allow that? What address would I use in that instance on my .com account?
I feel a lot of pressure right now as my vacation time for the transition (I put the store in vacation mode for 30 days!) ends tomorrow. Can I extend it until I figure all this out?
A million thanks again. ðŸ™ðŸ»
pjcdn2005
·2 years ago@sin-n-dexmeant to ship the packages to Chit Chat's Burlington office, not to the post office.
Some Canadian sellers that use forwarding services such as Chit Chats do show that they are shipping from a US address on their listings. But you would still need to change your official address on ebay. Your banking information name and address have to be identical to your ebay name and address.
If you go to your personal information in your account settings you will see that the area for country is greyed out so it does not look like it can be changed and others have been told that they would have to start a new ID to change countries. But you can check with ebay customer service to double check if it can or can not be done. You can contact ebay customer service on one of their social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram or X. You can send a private message with your ebay ID and eBay email and they will reply though the reply is not instant.
inook30
OP2 years agoHello sin-n-dex,
thanks for all the infos. When I look on ChitChats website, I only see on drop off location and it’s in Montréal. Where did you find other drop off location? That would be the best for me if there was one where I live (Sherbrooke).
I also found a Stallion branch in Montréal, but again that’s 306km away for me (back and forth). Not the best.
Thanks so much for the info on crossing the border yourself. I don’t want to have to deal with all that. I’ll remove that as an option lol
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoYou're right, Chit Chats has 5 locations that are all around Montreal.
You can mail your shipments to Burlington (best to use a courier like FedEx), and send them inside a box with labels attached. They will process your shipments in Burlington and transport them across the border. I don't know if Stallion Express does that too or if you have to drop them off.
The problem with taking shipments across yourself is that US customs likes to look at what's in the packages (and they've done this to me several times, then I spent three hours sealing envelopes when I got across the border). With Chit Chats you make a declaration of what's in the package, they may open your package to check for compliance. But they will take care of the transport to USPS.
C.
inook30
OP2 years agoHello sin-n-dex,
I have looked into shipping to the nearest US post office to me (in Beebee, VT) and with FedEx for 5lbs it would cost over $80. 😳
pjcdn2005
·2 years agoIt's complicated crossing the border yourself to mail items and you would have to pay some sort of fee. Again, someone on the .ca board may be more familiar with that. I'm about 5 or 6 hours from the border so I've never looked into it.
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoThe fee was 10.75 per trip when I used to do it on 2007, I imagine it's gone up now. You cannot use the personal travel lanes, you need to bring a manifest and use the truck lane. Be prepared to be pulled over and searched. My top time spent at the border is 4 hours (two of them were my passenger's fault, I probably would have gotten out sooner). Expect to be there for an hour if your paperwork is not in line, and potentially refused entry.
C.
pjcdn2005
·2 years agoIf I were you I would also post this on the .ca sellers board. There are a few of us Canadians who post here but the majority are sellers in the US who wouldn't be familiar with forwarders like Chit Chat. Some of them are in Quebec and may have suggestions for you. I will tag one Canadian poster who lives near Niagara on the Canadian side so she may have more information although she is probably more familiar with forwarders in Ontario.
@sin-n-dex
Have you looked at the ebay pricing for Canada Post lately? There pricing for smaller packages has really improved and you can ship a Tracked Packet from Canada to the US for under $10 which is much less than it used to be. You can list on either .com or .ca but on .com you would have to use a flat rate rather than calculated if you were using Canada Post. Tracked Packet is based on weight, not distance so it is easier to set a rate to the US. There is also a new expedited lite option for shipping within Canada but it is fairly limited in size.
Selling board on .ca - Seller Central - The eBay Canada Community
inook30
OP2 years agoHello pjcdn2005,
thanks for all the infos. I will look at Post Canada website for the pricing. I will also look at Pirateship.com and Shippo for more options.
I also posted the same question on .ca.
sin-n-dex
·2 years agoIf you're purchasing postage while phyiscally in Canada, you can't use Shippo. I'm not sure if you can use Pirate Ship, but USPS is flagging postage purchased in Canada as invalid for use with USPS. You are best to buy your labels on eBay, that is allowed by USPS.
C.