Ebay sellers not shipping to Canada?

[thecatspajamas]

I ship to Canada (and other countries) on a regular basis, but I have to admit, it's a bit of a crapshoot. I have gotten so many e-mails starting with "Where is my item?" that I have worked up a standardized response. The reality is that when you ship outside the country, you're working without a net. You can ship only Fed-Ex or UPS, or you can refuse to ship internationally. The result will be the same: no international business.

There are NO trackable USPS shipping options for international shipments. Reason being that obviously other countries have separate postal systems, so there's no way for them to scan the package at delivery. Fed-Ex and UPS work because they're still the same company in Canada and everywhere else, all connected to the same tracking system. The one USPS option that might work is Registered Mail with Return Confirmation (in which they have to sign a card which is then mailed back to you as proof of delivery) which usually costs way more than the regular shipping itself. The one time I've used it, it still took about a month to get there (to the Philippines, and it was at the buyer's request due to a large number of stolen packages in his location, yikes!), and it was about 3 weeks from the time he told me the package arrived to when the return card made it back to me. Had he been bent on fraud, the whole case could have been wrapped up by then, and I'm not sure if Paypal would accept the signed card as proof anyway.

But I still do ship internationally for the simple reason that there are no more fraudsters outside our borders than there are here in the good ol' USA. I've been taken advantage of more stateside than otherwise, but I still sell in the U.S.A. Whatever fraud protections eBay or Paypal puts in place, there will always be ways for people to get around them. I had a verrrry long conversation with an eBay rep one time about how I could, as a seller, protect myself 100% from someone falsely claiming that they did not receive the package. Was delivery confirmation enough? No, because that just shows the package was delivered, not whether it was delivered to the right address or not. Was signature confirmation 100% foolproof? No, because I have no proof that the person who signed for the package was actually the buyer (have you ever been asked for photo ID when signing for a package? Me either). The end of the conversation was when I bluntly asked the eBay rep if there was any way that I, as a seller, could protect myself 100% from a buyer who was determined to defraud me, and the answer was "no." If a buyer is determined enough to defraud you and lie throughout the Paypal/eBay claims process, there is no guarantee you will come out on top, even with delivery confirmation. In some cases eBay/Paypal may choose to back you under their "Seller Protection" policies, but if it's a high-dollar transaction or if there is any deviation from their very narrow set of qualifiers for the transaction, they'll just refund the buyer's money. (Incidentally, that's exactly what had happened in this case. DC showed the package was delivered, but the buyer said they didn't get it. Paypal removed the funds from my account and refunded them to the buyer. No recourse for me other than the long conversation and suggestion that I submit an official complaint about the policy, which as we all know goes nowhere).

But, all that said, I still continue to sell on eBay. Dealing with fraud-minded customers is a part of any sales business (which is another fun quote from that conversation. Thanks eBay rep). Thankfully, there are still far and away more honest buyers out there than dishonest, even north of the border So I say that the sellers should do what they have to in order to feel comfortable, but if you want to sell outside the country, you just have to suck it up and do it. It's really not that much of a stretch over selling to US buyers. It just takes longer.

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

I ship to Canada (and other countries) on a regular basis, but I have to admit, it's a bit of a crapshoot. I have gotten so many e-mails starting with "Where is my item?" that I have worked up a standardized response. The reality is that when you ship outside the country, you're working without a net. You can ship only Fed-Ex or UPS, or you can refuse to ship internationally. The result will be the same: no international business.

Snipped

But, all that said, I still continue to sell on eBay. Dealing with fraud-minded customers is a part of any sales business (which is another fun quote from that conversation. Thanks eBay rep). Thankfully, there are still far and away more honest buyers out there than dishonest, even north of the border So I say that the sellers should do what they have to in order to feel comfortable, but if you want to sell outside the country, you just have to suck it up and do it. It's really not that much of a stretch over selling to US buyers. It just takes longer.

While I agree in general, I do think this only applies for people who use ebay as a business.

Accepting risk, in various forms, is part of being a business owner. I think Cat is correct is that it must be factored in when calculating the "cost of doing business."

The problem lies in the part-time seller. If you're someone who does it to raise money to continue collecting or similar, there may be very little profit built in, so one loss could make a huge difference to them. As was stated above, you either use UPS/Fedex, which cost a lot, or USPS and have no protection. Most small sellers can't afford the loss.

[thetruthisoutthere]

Originally Posted by Lordstan

While I agree in general, I do think this only applies for people who use ebay as a business.

Accepting risk, in various forms, is part of being a business owner. I think Cat is correct is that it must be factored in when calculating the "cost of doing business."

The problem lies in the part-time seller. If you're someone who does it to raise money to continue collecting or similar, there may be very little profit built in, so one loss could make a huge difference to them. As was stated above, you either use UPS/Fedex, which cost a lot, or USPS and have no protection. Most small sellers can't afford the loss.

Mark, that is so true. I buy and sell on Ebay to own items that I want for my collection. It is not a business for me, so when those two transactions that I had with two Canadian buyers went sour, it wasn't worth it for me to sell to Canadian residents. I feel bad about that because I do receive various Ebay emails from Canadian residents asking if I would allow them to bid.

[thetruthisoutthere]

Ironically, I bought two nice cards from a very nice Japanese seller and received the cards (I only paid $3.50 for shipping) in eight days. Go figure.

[brandoningram]

Now what about if the Canadian...myself for instance...was willing to pay the extra for first class priority mail with a sig required...no problem right?

[glchen]

Originally Posted by brandoningram

Now what about if the Canadian...myself for instance...was willing to pay the extra for first class priority mail with a sig required...no problem right?

This is still a tough call if you're a Top Rated ebay seller. Top Rated gives you a 20% discount on all of your ebay fees, which can be pretty substantial. However, to get the discount, you basically need to maintain your Detailed Seller Ratings at a very high level, and the two big ones here are Shipping Time and Shipping/Handling Charges. If it takes a month to ship to Canada, you risk a serious ding for Shipping Time. If you send via First Class like in this case, the shipping charge to Canada may be $15+. Then you're risking that the buyer may ding you on Shipping Charges. (And to make this worse, ebay is now including shipping charges as part of the total sale that they charge the fees for.) The cumulative effect is that this is often too much risk for ebay sellers to sell to Canada. On the other hand, if some other alternative to ebay such as grandslambids is able to generate enough of a following, sellers would love to move their wares there. GSB has much lower fees than ebay, so the Top Rated system is irrelevant. Buyers are still protected if they pay via Paypal, and sellers can charge reasonable shipping fees to Canada that would include tracking and not worry about getting their DSR's dinged.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by glchen

Top Rated gives you a 20% discount on all of your ebay fees, which can be pretty substantial. However, to get the discount, you basically need to maintain your Detailed Seller Ratings at a very high level, and the two big ones here are Shipping Time and Shipping/Handling Charges.

Ebay is now looking at your international DSR scores separately from your domestic ones in figuring your Top Rated Seller status for that reason exactly. It's the one sensible move that they have made in recent memory, and sure enough, if I look at my international vs. domestic low-star scores, I have several in the shipping time category. Not enough to lose my status though. THAT I lost about 3 months ago when a single buyer won 21 items at auction and dinged me on EVERY SINGLE ONE because he thought my combined shipping price was too high (even though it was exactly what it was stated in my listing that it would be, he paid it without question, and never e-mailed me once to see why it was higher than he expected). It has cost me several hundred dollars in fees (due to not getting the 20% discount), so I definitely see where sellers should be concerned, but as long as eBay is considering the two separately, I don't think that shipping to other countries isn't any more risky to your DSR scores than domestic sales.

[Bilko G]

Thank you to all the sellers that ship to Canada. We love our Baseball cards, Hockey cards and Sports collectibles just as much as you Americans

Id also like to mention in the close to 10 years of dealings on the internet, I've completed about 3000 transactions between Canada and the USA (buying/selling/trading) and have ever only once had a package go missing and that was a $40 card several years ago. That's a pretty great track record i have had, id say.