eBay Global Shipping

[Simpo Two]

I know that it will cost about £4 to send my parcel to Italy or Germany. But when a buyer from Europe buys it, eBay engages its GSP and suddenly they want £11-13 for 'expedited tracked'. What if I (or the buyer) don't want that?

If I choose 'Send payment details', to enter my own postage, it says: 'The Global Shipping Programme already provides your buyer with an invoice for all applicable item, postage and import charges. Unfortunately, you can't edit these charges, even to offer a P&P discount. When your buyer pays, just send the item to the UK Shipping Centre and the Global Shipping Programme will take care of forwarding it to the buyer. Your buyer will directly pay you the purchase price of the item, plus any domestic postage cost you specified in the listing.'

So he will have to pay this ridiculous rate (as much as the item cost) AND UK postage as well? This is madness - how am I supposed to sell overseas? Can I opt out of GSP? Did I miss a checkbox?

Not surprisingly the buyer hasn't paid yet, and I'd be surprised if he will, because the cost he thought he was paying has more than doubled. He won two items - so he may be faced with a total postage bill of about £30 when I could send them both for £4...

[chowiekid]

You can opt out in account settings.

Or I believe you can add your own international postage in shipping settings and give the buyer the option.

We do around 60+ parcels daily to a gsp shopping centre so it didn’t seem to put a lot of ppl off.

[Simpo Two]

Thanks - I suspect it's in by default and I missed it.

The buyer bought two items and asked if I could combine postage. The system wouldn't let me so I said 'pay what it says and I'll refund one lot of postage'. Payment arrived today and shows the postage paid as simply 2x UK postage. I don't know what the buyer paid - maybe £30 postage and the system has simply kept most of it? I can't refund what I haven't had. We'll see what he says...

It is much simpler to go to the PO and say 'One for Germany please'!

[Simpo Two]

Well, I found where to opt out, and have done so. But despite having most European countries listed as destinations, there's nowhere to set international postage - it's all UK. I've lost interest.

eBay used to work well, now it's too complex and greedy.

[ReverendCounter]

Open the ebay live chat support, I'm pretty sure someone will help you put the options in place that you want:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/start_chat

[Simpo Two]

Thanks Rev. As above, interest lost now but maybe I'll pick it up again one day when all the paint is dry and I've finished the internet.

[ReverendCounter]

Have you got Click & Drop connected to your ebay account? If not, could be useful in the future.

[Simpo Two]

There's Click and Collect - which I didn't ask for - but eventually I figured out why so many of my buyers seemed to work in supermarkets...

[Lemming Train]

Simpo Two said:

There's Click and Collect - which I didn't ask for - but eventually I figured out why so many of my buyers seemed to work in supermarkets...

Click & Collect is a good option to have. I only buy from Ebayers that offer it as it's so convenient to call at Homebase (Argos) round the back of Sainsburys when I do my food shopping and pick up the parcel. In fact many of Argos collection points are inside the main supermarket now, making it even more convenient. Ebayers that don't offer this are living in the past and lose a lot of sales imo.

[Simpo Two]

Lemming Train said:

In fact many of Argos collection points are inside the main supermarket now, making it even more convenient. Ebayers that don't offer this are living in the past and lose a lot of sales imo.

It's remarkable how much business the PO must have lost to the new breed of couriers. I think the 'If it doesn't fit through this tiny slot we'll charge you triple' was the beginning of the handover.

Argos was remarkably adept at picking up an opportunity. My local corner shop is a MyHermes point, and the hairdresser does the same for UPS.

[kingston12]

I thought I'd bump this old thread up rather than starting a new one.

I hadn't heard of the Global Shipping Programme and didn't realise it applied to my account. I listed a small item with £2.90 domestic postage, and it sold to someone in Spain. They paid more for shipping and I shipped it to the GSP address for £2.90.

The problem is that the buyer now wants to return the item as faulty. The cheapest he can send it back to me is €22.

Should I have to pay the full return shipping amount? If the item was damaged during the GSP leg of the delivery, how would I ever prove that?

I'm guessing I'll lose this one and have now made sure to opt out of GSP, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has had similar problems.

[TooLateForAName]

He needs to return to ebay.

My understanding was that the only benefit of gsp was that once it hits ebays uk depot then ebayu are responsible for ant damage.

[48k]

https://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/private/global-shi...

eBay Global Shipping Programme said:

You aren't responsible for item loss or damage that occurs after the item reaches the UK Shipping Centre. Once an item has been forwarded by the UK Shipping Centre, you won't be responsible for refunding the buyer if an eBay Money Back Guarantee or PayPal Buyer Protection case is filed against you for one of the following reasons: A buyer claims an item isn't received or a package is damaged in transit.

[kingston12]

48k said:

https://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/private/global-shi...

eBay Global Shipping Programme said:

You aren't responsible for item loss or damage that occurs after the item reaches the UK Shipping Centre. Once an item has been forwarded by the UK Shipping Centre, you won't be responsible for refunding the buyer if an eBay Money Back Guarantee or PayPal Buyer Protection case is filed against you for one of the following reasons: A buyer claims an item isn't received or a package is damaged in transit.

Thanks. The problem is that the buyer hasn't claimed that the package itself was damaged, just that the item doesn't work.

It worked perfectly when I sent it, and eBay won't take responsibility for damage during transit because the outer packaging was fine.

My view is that it is basically a scam by the buyer who knows it will cost almost as much for me to get the item back as it will just to refund him. If the item genuinely is defective (or he sends me a defective one instead of mine) then I lose twice.

I'll just refund and put it down to experience. I have opted out of the Global Shipping Programme!