eBay

inook30 · ‎07-24-2024

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.

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-24-2024

If 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

pjcdn2005 · ‎07-24-2024

It'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 · ‎07-24-2024

@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 · ‎07-24-2024

I've heard that Canadians can buy USPS postage on Pirateship.com and on Shippo. Has something changed recently?

sin-n-dex · ‎07-24-2024

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
It'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.

The 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.

sin-n-dex · ‎07-24-2024

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I've heard that Canadians can buy USPS postage on Pirateship.com and on Shippo. Has something changed recently?

From 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 · ‎07-24-2024

I'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 · ‎07-24-2024

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
I'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.

I'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 · ‎07-25-2024

Hello 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.

inook30 · ‎07-25-2024

Hello 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 · ‎07-25-2024

@inook30 wrote:
Hello 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.

If 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.

sin-n-dex · ‎07-25-2024

@inook30 wrote:
Hello 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

You'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.

gone.c-33 · ‎07-25-2024

I 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.

inook30 · ‎08-01-2024

Hello 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. 🙏🏻