Ebay/Paypal making it more difficult to ship things, Canada to U.S.

[rander3127]

Suppose a customer specifies "Canada Post" for shipping.  Ebay tries to force you to sign-up with a company called, "Shippo" in order to generate a label and it won't show you the shipping address unless you do that.   I don't want to sign up for Shippo (whatever they are) so I go to Paypal to view the address because I have to fill-out an online Canadian Customs form on the Canada Post site, there is no choice in that if you want to ship outside Canada.  The form generates a bar-code which is scanned at the post office.

But when I get to paypal, the customer's info shows up for about five seconds and they GREY IT OUT again trying for force me to generate an account-based Canada Post shipping label which I DO NOT WANT TO DO.  I pay AT the post office, WHEN I go to ship the item.  I'm sick of this control nonsense Ebay is trying to enforce.

[slippinjimmy]

In Canada eBay dumped PayPal as a postage providor and switched to Shippo. You can still print labels via PayPal but you have to open an account with Canada Post first.

[valuestore]

Big fan of Shippo, I ship allot from both canada and usa and it makes life much easier. I rarely even log into ebay anymore, just check your shippo for orders and print.. for canadapost its cheaper.  

[duchess-at-speakeasy]

If you are paying retail postage at the PO counter, why are you printing anything? Doesn't Canada Post have paper Customs forms to be filled out by hand with a pen?

As a U.S. seller, I ignore online prepaid labels and simply hand-write a mailing label and keep a supply of Customs forms handy. Occasionally, I may create a mailing label in Word if I happen to be at work or at the library with a printer available. But I fill out the multi-part Customs forms with a pen.

~~C~~

[pjcdn2005]

@rander3127

I'm in Canada as well and have no problem seeing a buyer's address on eBay. The only time ebay guides you to shippo is if you click on print shipping label which indicates that you want to buy postage online.

If you want to copy and paste the address or do it by hand go to the sold item on my eBay and on the right side under print shipping label click on more actions and click on view order details. If the order has been paid for, that will be the ship to address.  It is a good idea to check paypal too though to confirm that you have been paid.

You can also see the address on the Paypal email that you receive when the buyer has paid. I don't know why you are having a problem on PP with the address graying out as I've never seen that happen.

I'm not sure why you don't want to print your labels online as it can be less expensive than counter prices but if that's what you prefer to do, the buyer's address is definitely available to you.  

[femmefan1946]

You are not required to use Shippo.

And there are so many complaints about it on dotCA that they are haveing a **bleep** session with Shippo on Sept 12

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Ask-Shippo-event-coming-September-12th/m-p/383109#M83801

I have been using Canada Post's Snap Ship*, it works much more smoothly than the older shipping service and with your Small Business Solutions card number you get a discount.

ypdc_dennis has been keeping us up on which service has the best prices. It's not always Shippo.

Many sellers have reported that PO clerks don't recognize Shippo labels as valid.

Personally, when I use a label I just drop the parcel in the nearest corner mailbox, since I already have the receipt.

But mostly I use postage stamps, because DH is a retired stamp dealer and I have a huge supply.

Enough that I sell really nice stamps mint never hinged in counted packages at a discount on eBay and have a few dozen regular buyers most of them eBay sellers.

* Snap Ship doesn't import your buyer's name, but it does generate it if you have a repeat buyer.  My US customers don't tend to repeat because of my type of products.