eBay

southfloridatackle · ‎05-27-2022

I'm not sure why eBay can't get this stuff right. It used to be when I sold something through the Global Shipping Program, if I had shipping charges for that item, the customer would get charged for shipping. All of a sudden several months ago I noticed they didn't charge the customer shipping. I chatted with a customer service rep who told me this was a bug that was being worked on and suggested I work it out with the customer. I said "No you guys screwed up you pay for it". They agreed to refund me my shipping charges.

Well here we go again. I've had two more orders through the Global Shipping Program and it's still not fixed. I feel like eBay just couldn't give a crap about addressing these problems or maybe they are so clueless they don't even know it's a problem.

What the heck?????

southfloridatackle · ‎05-28-2022

@wastingtime101 Okay so after wasting my time speaking to customer service I did go back into the shipping policies and figured it out.

I use a shipping table for my orders to charge different rates based on U.S. location, so normally eBay ignores the rates listed under the U.S. shipping section. In the case of eBay Global Shipping it ignores the shipping table and just uses whatever is in the U.S. shipping section. Since I had free shipping listed in that section it decided to give the international customers free shipping. This is the stupidity of eBay and it didn't used to do this. The customer service people were nice enough but they have no clue and eBay's interface is completely outdated and unintuitive. Once I updated the flat rate section now if I go to the listing and check shipping charges it adds in my shipping fees.

Thanks for everyone's help.

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caseypl · ‎05-27-2022

Offer free shipping and build it into the item cost. I have to factor in the potential an item I sell goes to the west coast and costs me more. It all averages our, but seemed to average out everytime when I shipped from Central US.

Now if a buyer from the east coast contacts me and asks about a lower price, I am more inclined to play ball and offer it less knowing my shipping gets cut in half.

southfloridatackle · ‎05-27-2022

That doesn't really work for the fishing rods that I sell. Shipping can vary widely depending on where it is shipping to so I have shipping charges based on region.

That doesn't really excuse eBay for not charging shipping properly for their Global Shipping Program.

kensgiftshop · ‎05-27-2022

@southfloridatackle

Buyer didn't choose Free Local Pick Up did they?

Sometimes all they see is the free, they don't see the local pick up part.

Have A Great Day.

reallynicestamps · ‎05-27-2022

GPS was designed as a Seller Protection.

Do you mean that there is NO shipping charged on your items?

Does this affect only one country?

I'm in Canada. Would it be useful for me to "buy" something from you to see what I am seeing from this end? Or do you already have information from several customers?

kensgiftshop · ‎05-27-2022

@reallynicestamps wrote:
GPS was designed as a Seller Protection.
Do you mean that there is NO shipping charged on your items?
Does this affect only one country?

I'm in Canada. Would it be useful for me to "buy" something from you to see what I am seeing from this end? Or do you already have information from several customers?

It would be nice if there was a way to place a test order to see what the buyer or seller are seeing when there's a problem.

Have A Great Day.

southfloridatackle · ‎05-28-2022

eBay Global Shipping Program was set up to make it easier for sellers to ship to international locations.

So when I get an international order I have to ship my item to Kentucky. eBay then takes care of all the paperwork and sends it to the international destination. eBay is supposed to include my shipping charges to Kentucky in the costs to the buyer. They used to do this. Now for some reason it stopped. The last customer service rep told me they were going to fix this but they haven't.

wastingtime101 · ‎05-28-2022

@southfloridatackle wrote:
It used to be when I sold something through the Global Shipping Program, if I had shipping charges for that item, the customer would get charged for shipping. All of a sudden several months ago I noticed they didn't charge the customer shipping.

Well here we go again. I've had two more orders through the Global Shipping Program and it's still not fixed.

I looked at the 2 items sold yesterday and something odd is going on with the shipping section of the listings.

When I enter various zip codes I see calculated shipping rates to those regions. However, when I remove the zip code and click get rates, the listing shows "free shipping" - typically in this situation it would show no rate at all.

This is someone else's listing with calculated shipping - see how the first screenshot shows a calculated shipping rate and the second screenshot with no zip code shows nothing:

This is your listing with calculated shipping - see how the first screenshot shows a calculated shipping rate and the second screenshot with no zip code shows free shipping:

I don't know why your listings are behaving differently @southfloridatackle, but I wonder if local pickup is somehow interfering.

Do you have any listings that don't offer local pickup (or could you revise one to remove LPU) and can you provide the item number? I want to see if your listings without local pickup display the same way.

GLORIOUS!

Seller Guide: Nonstandard Packaging

southfloridatackle · ‎05-28-2022

@wastingtime101 Okay so after wasting my time speaking to customer service I did go back into the shipping policies and figured it out.

I use a shipping table for my orders to charge different rates based on U.S. location, so normally eBay ignores the rates listed under the U.S. shipping section. In the case of eBay Global Shipping it ignores the shipping table and just uses whatever is in the U.S. shipping section. Since I had free shipping listed in that section it decided to give the international customers free shipping. This is the stupidity of eBay and it didn't used to do this. The customer service people were nice enough but they have no clue and eBay's interface is completely outdated and unintuitive. Once I updated the flat rate section now if I go to the listing and check shipping charges it adds in my shipping fees.

Thanks for everyone's help.

wastingtime101 · ‎05-28-2022

OK yeah, that makes sense and good to hear you figured it out. If LPU wasn't a factor, my next question was going to be if you could post a screenshot of the listing's shipping section to see if we could figure it out.

Update the rest of your listings and you should be good to go on this front.

GLORIOUS!

Seller Guide: Nonstandard Packaging

femmefan1946 · ‎05-28-2022

Were you dealing with the telephone subcontractors or with eBay employees on social media?
The telephone clerks are notoriously undertrained.

That being said, the usual complaint from Canadian buyers is that GSP is more expensive than USPS. Usually they say this because they don't understand that the GSP charge includes Canadian duty and sales taxes* plus a ~$5 service charge.

Most sellers seem still to charge an International rate for shipping, even though they are only shipping to KY.

Do you have any international rate set up on your S&H page?

jasmen@ebay

* For US imports we are charged duty on imports over $150Cdn and tax on imports over $40Cdn.

jasmen@ebay · ‎05-30-2022

Thanks for the tag @femmefan1946 looks like there's already a solution accepted here. Did you have a specific question for me?

Jasmen,
Community Team

southfloridatackle · ‎05-30-2022

jasmen@ebay Yes I figured out how to do it but please note this is very confusing. Not only that it never used to be this way. If I have a shipping rate table set up it should be using that. It seems to me like eBay hasn't done much in the past few years to modernize the platform or make things easier to use.