Confusing ebay international shipping

[peter-pan]

I'm in the USA and have an item for sale on ebay. Originally I was just selling within the USA, but someone in Canad asked if I would ship there. I used the ebay calculator to give them an idea what it would cost, but that turned out to be a waste  of time because the UPS options I found were actually not valid anymore, according the an ebay CS rep. Instead he told me to add the international shipping option to my listing. So i did that and the person wanting to buy could now see it. Sadly his ship cost was significantly more that the UPS option would have been, but the buyer made a reasonable offer, understanding his increased cost and I accepted it. But when I went to print the shipping label that where the confusion began. First of all, despite the fact that this was a 20x15x4 inch package weighing 14 lbs, the shipping label (had I taken it) was for a large flat rate envelope. Second, I was being asked to pay about $8 of that shipping label, and third the destination address was somewhere in Kentucky!

Nothing there made sense. I called ebay customers service and they explained that all international sales are first routed to Kentucky. A little disturbing since it means I had no way to verify or confirm to the buyer whether the final destination was his correct Canada residence.  But that accepted, I still have no clue why the mailing label for my large box was something I was being asked to pay for, since the shipping was supposed to be the buyers responsibility. Maybe the money would just come out of my income from the sale but that did not seem an option. All I could use was my ebay credit card or paypal on record. More important, what was the postal clerk going to say when I show up with the 14lb 20 inch box with a label for a flat rate envelope?

Since customer service cold not really explain these items to me, I agreed with my buyer to refund his payment and relist once both he and I were sure that this ebay process makes sense. It sure seems crazy, but the buyer seems willing to try again once we have confidence in the process. Can anyone explain some of this to me? I'd really hate to lose the sale permanently, but I also would like to avoid a complete misunderstanding or worse, and item intended for Canada shipping and staying in Kentucky.

Thanks for any help!

[pjcdn2005 · Accepted solution]

Your listing is set up to use ebay's global shipping program (gsp) which means that you ship the item to Kentucky and the gsp forwards it from there.    If you wanted to use UPS you would have had to figure out the cost and then use a flat rate on the listing form.  But I wouldn't recommend ever using UPS for outside of the US as they buyer would end up paying extra brokerage fees when the item was delivered.  You could also have set up calculated shipping using USPS Priority International but for a package that size, it would definitely  be more expensive than the GSP.

When you print a label for the gsp you would use the same shipping service that you would use to other locations in the US. If I am looking at the right listing, it shows that you will ship Parcel Select Ground. Since eBay does not print labels for that service, it defaulted to a flat rate envelope but that isn't what the buyer paid for or what you should be printing a label for.  You can print a label for parcel select at paypal.com/shipnow or at stamps.com or pirateship.com.  You can also buy the label at your post office.

When you look at the order details for that order, there will be some sort of number on the label indicating to the GSP where the package is going.  Normally if you print your label on ebay, that number will come up automatically but because you will be buying your label somewhere else, you will have to manually add that number.

You mentioned that you were confused about having to pay for the shipping label.  When a 'buyer pays' that simply means that the buyer pays you for the label and then you buy the label for them. Since you are using the gsp, you will receive the amount that the buyer paid for parcel select to Kentucky and the gsp will receive the import fees and the international shipping cost.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/shipping-items/setting-shipping-options/global-shipping-program?id...

[velvet@ebay]

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@peter-pan wrote:

I'm in the USA and have an item for sale on ebay. Originally I was just selling within the USA, but someone in Canad asked if I would ship there. I used the ebay calculator to give them an idea what it would cost, but that turned out to be a waste  of time because the UPS options I found were actually not valid anymore, according the an ebay CS rep. Instead he told me to add the international shipping option to my listing. So i did that and the person wanting to buy could now see it. Sadly his ship cost was significantly more that the UPS option would have been, but the buyer made a reasonable offer, understanding his increased cost and I accepted it. But when I went to print the shipping label that where the confusion began. First of all, despite the fact that this was a 20x15x4 inch package weighing 14 lbs, the shipping label (had I taken it) was for a large flat rate envelope. Second, I was being asked to pay about $8 of that shipping label, and third the destination address was somewhere in Kentucky!

Nothing there made sense. I called ebay customers service and they explained that all international sales are first routed to Kentucky. A little disturbing since it means I had no way to verify or confirm to the buyer whether the final destination was his correct Canada residence.  But that accepted, I still have no clue why the mailing label for my large box was something I was being asked to pay for, since the shipping was supposed to be the buyers responsibility. Maybe the money would just come out of my income from the sale but that did not seem an option. All I could use was my ebay credit card or paypal on record. More important, what was the postal clerk going to say when I show up with the 14lb 20 inch box with a label for a flat rate envelope?

Since customer service cold not really explain these items to me, I agreed with my buyer to refund his payment and relist once both he and I were sure that this ebay process makes sense. It sure seems crazy, but the buyer seems willing to try again once we have confidence in the process. Can anyone explain some of this to me? I'd really hate to lose the sale permanently, but I also would like to avoid a complete misunderstanding or worse, and item intended for Canada shipping and staying in Kentucky.

Thanks for any help!

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Hi @peter-pan! There are a few international shipping options to use. Both the Global Shipping Program and eBay International Standard Delivery program's have the seller shipping to a shipping center.  If you charged the buyer for shipping, then that was included in their payment to you.

You'll then purchase the label and ship the item to your buyer, and you can go here to learn more about how that works. I hope this helps and you can get the item relisted and sold once more to the buyer. 

[pjcdn2005]

velvet@ebay 

One of the things that the op was confused about was that the label defaulted to a flat rate envelope . That happens because ebay no longer prints parcel select labels.  I'm sure that this has been mentioned before this confuses so many sellers and often results in them cancelling the transaction as they think that the buyer has only paid for a flat rate envelope. What a poor buying experience!   When the listing states a shipping service that is not printable on eBay, they really should have a note for the seller to let them know that the label will have to be purchased elsewhere not just default to another service that wasn't charged for and that in probably won't fit the item being sold.

[peter-pan]

OK. Well I don't think I;d want to try to buy my shipping label outside of ebay, but its nice to hear some confirmation that its the "new normal" for everything to go through Kentucky. I guess if the buyer hasn't yet been permanently scared away, I'll take his next "offer" and will just have to trust the process. The buyer did ask me about a private sale, but that's even scarier. The UPS website is a nightmare for international sales. You can easily waste a day there and end up with nothing but incomplete results and error messages, and in the end not do any better than ebay.

Thanks for the link too! Its weird that I can't specifically select "Canada" as an option with UPS, but like I was told maybe they aren't doing that anymore. But Canada is probably the farthest from my location I'd ever want to ship anything.

[peter-pan]

And really, if that is the case... a seller can't just print the label from ebay as is and bring it to a local carrier, it pretty much means I can't sell internationally on ebay unless I'm shipping a piece of paper that fits in an envelope. They (ebay CS) told me I can just print the label, put it on whatever package I originally specified, and just bring it to the post office. But like you they told me I should "select" the package and postage type. Well I can tell you from the memory of the sale I decided to cancel there is no way to make any such selection. So I see this as a big "cluster F%&K" when I bring the package to the post office. I'll try it once, and I guess I can always eat the $8 spent on the mailing label, return the rest to the buyer, and find another way to sell outside the USA than ebay. Just seems ridiculous that a company could be in business shipping seller merchandise for probably 25 years now, and not have their act together.

This is what happens when a company grows so big, they have no way to hear customer feedback. And as I told another person who answered, if you try to ship anything direct from the UPS site internationally, you're in for a pretty dysfunctional and frustrating time there too.

[velvet@ebay]

You're right that we no longer offer the option to print parcel select @pjcdn2005. It will default to the flat rate envelope and then the seller can choose an appropriate method on eBay if that won't work, or purchase the shipping label for parcel select outside of eBay. We don't require shipping labels be purchased on eBay @peter-pan, so should you decide to purchase shipping outside of eBay, just come back to add the tracking number if you're shipping with a service that tracks.

As for verifying the buyers address, you're right that you can't really do that with these two international shipping options as you're being provided the shipping center address to get the package to. Whatever they entered will be going to the shipping facility to use to send the package on though, so no worries there.

Also, if you had the buyer pay for shipping, then they will be covering that cost like normal even though you're first shipping to the shipping center. If you use flat-rate shipping then there could be an added cost depending on what you charged, when compared to what it will cost you to ship the package to the shipping center. 

I hope that helps to clarify things!

[janet9988]

Great answer!!!!!!!!!!! @pjcdn2005    😍

So sad that is has to be this complicated and cause a buyer and seller have misgivings about how convoluted things on here are.

Your response hopefully cleared up that confusion the best way.

In NO WAY should the shipping default to some random unusable option (envelope). WITH NO EXPLANATION OR WARNING.

One would think that a simple note when selecting a shipping option at the time of listing that  parcel select can be purchased off the ebay site and not through ebay. That would inform the seller ahead of time to know the plan. I

[peter-pan]

Well, it definitely confirm my experience, but to be honest it doesn't clarify things very much. I have tried in the past to ship things to people in other countries like Canada using carriers like UPS. Surprisingly for all the years they have been in business, its still a confusing mess. Quite often you think you're ready to print a shipping label only to find out there are unspecified customs issues such as added fees and taxes, for which you have to have a UPS account to cover. It is complicated enough to motivate me to try to stick to ebay for such sales. That way the buyer is agreeing to shipping costs, and all the seller has to do is print a shipping label and bring it to a a carrier.

But as you've explained, that really is no the case at all. When I get a buyer from Canada, the ONLY choice I'm given is to print a shipping label for a package that doesn't match mine (a 20 inch 14 lb box is definitely NOT a flat rate envelope), and it is addresses to a location in Kentucky. That is the only choice I'm given. I may not be being forced to buy that flat rate shipping label, but the the fact is  it is the only choice ebay gives me, and I am left with no clue at all how to do anything differently.  You may not be forcing me to buy ebay's shipping label, but you are definitely leaving me as a private seller (not a business) of a single item with no clue of what to do. Hence, I end up refunding the money.  The seller, the buyer, and ebay all lose in this situation, and ebay's customer service is no help. Maybe its's true, as you say, I don't have to use ebay's shipping label, and I guess I don't have to use ebay's international shipping at all. But I think its a fair question to ask what good is the ebay international shipping process?

You, or maybe your management, has to realize what this means from a small seller's point of view. What it means simply is that we may have a buyer, but we have no clue what to do to get the sold item to the buyer, and NOTHING said so far (by you or anyone at customer service) can tell me how to proceed.

Now it has happened again. The buyer (from Canada) has once again made me an acceptable offer on the "Roland VG8 Guitar Synthesizer". In my listing. And once again, though I am glad to make the sale, I am faced with the same problem. If I accept the offer, I will be presented with one choice... to print a "flat rate envelope" shipping label for my 14 pound 20x 15x4 inch box, to send it to Kentucky, and once again I have no clue what to do. There will be no other option offered, and I have depended on ebay for the details. So unless you (or some representative) can tell me how to handle this, I will have to decline the offer again. Is this what ebay wants? I'm sorry but that is ridiculous, and its hard to believe ebay is content to see so many successful sales be refunded and cancelled.

Looks like I have 47 hours to respond to the offer. If someone can work with me on it that would be great. But if all they can tell me is that it's "up to me" to figure out how to ship  then it seems I'll lose this sale too.

Very frustrating!!!

[buyselljack2016]

other shipping options are there

click on the blue "compare all services"     to see other options.

That is down just a bit on the page that opens.

You can "void" your other label.  You have 5 days from the time of purchase to void the label. 

Refund shows up in 2-3 weeks if not used

[whiteparrot2003]

I haven't sold internationally recently but I really liked the GSP when I did.  Mail to KY based on normal shipping cost to there.  Sounds like the size or type of package was a problem for the system but others have answered that.  I never had any problems with delivery through GSP either and my understanding is once it gets to KY you are no longer responsible for delivery.  

[buyselljack2016]

@peter-pan 

You would be given other choices for shipping to Canada if you were not using the eBay "Global Shipping Program".

You can ship directly to Canada if you add "international" shipping, but uncheck the GSP box when listing. 

When you ship international without the GSP you can limit the countries that you will ship to.  You could narrow it down to just Canada if desired.

I am still offered Parcel Select when I print labels. Many sellers are not. I now offer Retail Ground (pay/ship at the Post Office service) or Priority for buyers to choose from in listings.  If they choose the cheaper Retail I can then use either Parcel select, or Priority when I ship. I usually ship Priority, as the cost generally is not that much more than Parcel Select.

[whiteparrot2003]

Nobody forces you to use an ebay printed label.  You can purchase at the USPS desk or online based on weight, size, etc.  You may not get the ebay discount though unless you are signed up online with USPS.  You would still be mailing to Kentucky GPS address.

[buyselljack2016]

to add

 Shipping directly to Canada may allow the buyer to not have to pay some "duty" that sometimes is not required to be paid, but is charged in the GSP, and when UPS handles the delivery.

[peter-pan]

So in other words, the buyer making an offer has already agreed to some total amount for their offer plus shipping, but I am free to pay MORE to ship some other way (than the quoted amount for the unusable flat rate envelope). I guess I'm just dumb because I don't understand how that makes sense. This could easily double to total shipping cost for a heavy box, except it would no longer be the seller paying the extra, it would be me.