eBay International Shipping is a rip off for buyers!

[countdrewsky]

I live in Canada and will NEVER buy from a seller using eBay International Shipping (aka Global Shipping Program) and I know I'm not alone. It's a complete and total rip off for buyers. The shipping cost is outrageous and completely random. Two identical items from the same seller will have different shipping costs. I swear someone at eBay throws a dart a board and whatever amount it lands on is what they charge. To make it even worse, there is no combined shipping. If a buyer makes more than one purchase from a seller, they have to pay ridiculously high shipping on each and every item. Doesn't exactly encourage buyers to make multiple purchases, does it? The shipping time is so much longer than if a seller ships directly. A seller mails something that sold to a "shipping hub" where it sits of up to three weeks (that's no exaggeration) before a new label is put on it and it's re-mailed. That's it. A new label. That's all eBay does to rake in more profit at the expense of buyers and seller. Yes, sellers. eBay charges final value fees to sellers based on the total cost of an item including shipping. Higher shipping = higher seller fees = higher profits. Just look at the financial figures. In the 4th quarter of 2023 sales were down 4% over the same quarter in 2022, but profits were up 2%. It's a losing game for sellers. You sell less and pay more to eBay.

This is from eBay's own Q4 report on their own website:

• Returned $379 million to shareholders in Q4, including $250 million of share repurchases and $129 million paid in cash dividends
• In February 2024, the Board of Directors declared a cash dividend for the first quarter of 2024 of $0.27 per share, an 8% increase from the prior quarterly dividend. The Board also authorized an additional $2.0 billion stock repurchase program, increasing the company's remaining stock repurchase authorization to $3.4 billion

It's corporate greed, plain and simple.

[12345jamesstamps]

I don't use it either.

It's for bigger items for shipping.

We don't need tracking for inexpensive items under 20 bucks.

Funny thought...items shipped without tracking arrive real quickly...and that's a win for obtaining "repeat buyers" and not one time buyers.

Why would I buy ink, paper and use my printer to print a shipping label?

To save a few cents?

I don't get it.

[inhawaii]

I use it and I love it.

It gets me sales that I otherwise would lose.

I realize it's costly for the buyer.

The buyer has the option to buy it or not.

What's the harm in that?

[gamersbaystore]

Yep, the only reason ebay's profits are up is because they continually jack up fees and rob their sellers blind.

According to reports from financial analysts and media outlets, ebay has lost millions of buyers and sellers over the past 2 years alone, and the platform as a whole has lost billions of dollars in sales during that same period of time.

Those massive payouts to shareholders and ebay's executives comes at the cost of fleecing sellers for every dime they make. I'm paying 25% on average per sale now, no thanks to ebay's promoted extortion, which forces you to give up half the sale to get so much as a single view.

Not to worry though, ebay's competitors like Mercari are absolutely destroying ebay. Mercari also charges no fees of any kind to sellers, except for $2 for payouts.

I spoke with Mercari's CEO just a few weeks ago, a very kind and caring man, who unlike ebay, actually cares about the wellbeing of his sellers.

I'm getting personally involved to help ensure Mercari's long term success, and could care less if ebay fails. ebay treats its sellers like total dirt and it shows. I wont say what that involvement is, but it does involve the media, lots of surprises coming from Mercari in the near future, stay tuned.

[crazystuff4sale]

I am not concerned about any of the things you mentioned. I am a little confused as to why you think ebay and their share holder's profits would cause anyone to dislike the program. 

Many sellers who use the program are those who otherwise wouldn't do international sales at all.

The buyers I get with the program are the ones who simply don't mind paying extra for something they really want. I have never had complaints from any buyers with GSP or the new EIS program.

It's a win for buyers and sellers as far as I'm concerned.

[inhawaii]

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@crazystuff4sale wrote:

I am not concerned about any of the things you mentioned. I am a little confused as to why you think ebay and their share holder's profits would cause anyone to dislike the program. 

Many sellers who use the program are those who otherwise wouldn't do international sales at all.

The buyers I get with the program are the ones who simply don't mind paying extra for something they really want. I have never had any complaints from any buyers with GSP or the new EIS program.

It's a win for buyers and sellers as far as I'm concerned.

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Exactly!

We're not forcing it on them, it's an option that they can decline if they feel the price is too high.

[toysaver]

"Two identical items from the same seller will have different shipping costs."

I have listed identical items that showed different shipping costs because the shipping box was not the same size.  I try to recycle boxes.  I use what I have.  Sometimes I have to custom build a box.  I've had things waiting to list sitting around for months just because I can't find the right size box.  

[chapeau-noir]

I'm using EIS (first time I've ever tried an eBay program - before I always just shipped international myself) and it seems fine, but I'm thinking of excluding Canada from the program and just shipping there myself - the Canadian border is a hop, skip and a jump away from me (I've even ridden my bike up there a number of times) so it seems a bit much to be sending items through a fancy hub.

[ebeths_eclectic_collectibles]

Yup, I recently sold an item that went to Mexico. Without the program I would never consider shipping to Mexico 

[onlinecentral]

You have misdirected your anger at eBay. Contact the federal governments within USMCA to get cheaper trade on selling websites to benefit buyers and sellers. It costs less to ship to Hawaii than it does 60 miles across Lake Erie.

[therogue-trader]

With the old GSP, the international leg was insured and the insurance was pretty robust (i.e. not a big hassle where they give you the runaround).  I've been on both sides of GSP insurance claims (i.e. as a seller and a buyer) and never had issues with getting a payout and it was a simple process.  I assume with the newer EIS program (the one replacing GSP) it's the same, although I haven't had any need for the insurance yet.

tldr; the high shipping cost includes really good shipping insurance

[marnotom!]

@countdrewsky, once I realized that the old Global Shipping Program was basically a glorified forwarding service, a lot of its quirks made more sense, even though I still didn’t like them.

eIS works on the same principle.  The shipping rate you see on the listing page is actually the sum of two shipping charges: the seller’s charge for getting the item to the Illinois hub plus eIS’s charge for getting the item to its final destination.

eIS’s charges are actually less than USPS’s counter rates for similar services. Adding the seller’s charge to the eIS charge, however, can be a deal breaker.

Another thing that can mess up the shipping charge for an eIS-forwarded item is if the seller doesn’t provide the eIS shipping calculator with information on the item’s shipping dimensions and weight because they’re using flat-rate shipping for their domestic sales.  In situations like these, the calculator seems to use a category maximum, which looks really bad on smaller items.

I’ve purchased two items that were forwarded through eIS to me on Vancouver Island.  The total charges seemed a little steep, but if those sellers used the same USPS flat-rate envelopes they used to get the items to the hub to ship directly to me, I would have paid a lot more than I did to eIS, so there’s that.

Using forwarding and consolidation services for cross-border shipments is becoming more common as shipping costs rise.  My wife buys a lot from the US from non-eBay sources and they all come with a label in top of another one.  Direct mailed shipments from the US to Canada are becoming a rarity, from what I can see.  (Incidentally, the eIS hub does more than just relabel and redirect items. It also prepares items for customs.) 

[dbfolks166mt]

With the old GSP, the international leg was insured and the insurance was pretty robust (i.e. not a big hassle where they give you the runaround).  I've been on both sides of GSP insurance claims (i.e. as a seller and a buyer) and never had issues with getting a payout and it was a simple process.  I assume with the newer EIS program (the one replacing GSP) it's the same, although I haven't had any need for the insurance yet.

tldr; the high shipping cost includes really good shipping insurance

     With EIS the only time you would have to worry about or deal with insurance is on the domestic leg of the shipment. Once it reaches the hub the EIS program becomes responsible for the international leg and ANY issues or claims from the buyers, including chargebacks. 

[slati_2013]

The question is what would it cost to ship the same items via the USPS? I am going to go out on a limb and say no matter what eBay charges, it will still be probably cheaper than the USPS. I no longer ship internationally. The only times I do now is when someone buys through eBay's EIS. Without it, you would not be able to buy from many sellers. 

[iamalwaysright]

Personally I like the EIS, because I've never used it and have streamlined my international shipping operations for decades now. The only sellers who benefit from using EIS are the ones who don't already have a beneficial or practical way to handle international shipping themselves and would have never offered sales to international countries in the first place. So for a seller like me, it comes down to price and risk.

As the OP pointed out, EIS shipping price is much higher than what I would charge for international shipping. Granted that a buyer might think my international shipping price is high compared to domestic, if put side by side with many EIS listings, my listing would look cheaper by comparison. Having more EIS listings should raise the "going shipping prices" and thus make my listings more attractive in price.

Any issues I'll have with those buyers won't be covered by seller protection like EIS would. But I already added that risk into the shipping cost I charge. So by volume I'll have enough extra profit to just refund the buyer, much like how sellers tell you to "self insure" yourself by raising your shipping price a little for profit vs using that amount to buy insurance.

Combine that with possible quicker transit and my listings would be quite competitive against an EIS listing. Basically EIS listings would make my listings look better by comparison to a buyer since it'll be relatively cheaper.