madmaxmedia said: If you normally only sell within the USA, then I think using this Global Shipping Program is fine. Potential overseas buyers may be turned off by the added fees for customs, etc., but prior to this you weren't getting them anyway. So at worst you get some more eyeballs and watchers, and quite possibly end up with higher final auction price due to overseas bidders (even if your buyer is domestic.)
For sellers who already ship international, then this seems somewhat questionable, it depends on the extra fees the buyer will be paying, which will have an effect on international bid amounts. Shipping internationally is a great way to get maximum value for your auctions, but you do need to know what you're doing. I generally always ship Priority or Express which normally offers tracking/delivery confirmation, and only offer First Class for low value stuff. It's still possible to get scammed of course, but it's a calculated risk you take for higher selling price.
This is completely false logic, as any international buyer who sees the GPS Scam is simply going to avoid the listing completely. They won't bid it up. Think about it for a minute - the seller has to pay a shipping AND HANDLING fee to these GPS scammers, and the buyer HAS to pay a duty that is 30-50% higher than if the package had just crossed the border and got stopped at Customs - which happens less than 10% of the time!!!
The best retaliation is to give sellers Negative Feedback for using the GPS system. If consumers cause enough problems for eBay, either the sellers will figure it out, and/or eBay will dump it when the sellers start flipping out about their ratings.
I agree with Viridel. I, for one, will avoid ANY auction if I see this GSP crap. I love shopping on eBay but, please, there are other places (Etsy, Amazon, Overstock, Shoes, Freshpair - that's just a few I online-shop on) to get stuff. That "item" must be very special, or extremely hard to find AND at a very good price for me to even consider spending extra money on the GSP fees. What do I, as a buyer, get from spending this extra money? Nothing. No faster shipping (it might even be SLOWER as the item now has to go through yet another shipping center). No faster customs clearance. AND an extra pair of hands, hopefully clean ones, and not covered in snot or warts, that's going to be touching the item I bought? NO, THANK YOU. This extra charge is of NO benefit to the buyer, especially international one. It *maybe* is of benefit to sellers but, frankly, I'm not so sure. Once the sellers see that the buyers have started to avoid their auctions, they might dump the GSP.
eBay will not let you change a listing that is already listed with the Global Shipping Program & you cant "opt out" of the GSP for that listing -They give you a B.S. excuse from the "technical dept." that says the the local "Laws" wont allow this commodity( a record album) to be sent to these 25 different countries -This is total garbage and is also fraud -I wish someone would file suit on this unethical behavior...How convenient that they cannot fix one of their problems..
Furthermore, and that's from my experience from 3 days ago, if you don't have a Buy It Now option, you don't know the cost of the "import charge".
There was a clothing item I was interested in buying (auction, no BIN option). It listed the shipping cost, which was at the higher end, but I was still fairly comfortable with. It also listed that there will be an import charge. How much? No idea; I would only find out how much that is AFTER I'd win the auction. How retarded? How can I bid on something without knowing the total shipping cost I will be saddled with if i win the item?
So, I sent a message to the seller asking if she knows what that import charge is going to be, approximately, +- 5 dollars. She replied that she HAD NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT COST (and was funny enough to add "hope that helps", LOL). Well, she's just relisted the item, again. I don't buy a cat in a bag, and I'm pretty sure not too many international buyers would either. And, if you think about it, we are a better deal, so to speak - the shipping charges are always higher to send stuff out of your country and into the buyer's. You can make more money on international shipping than on a domestic one. So, who's untimately losing at this game? The sellers. The very same people who fell for this "convenience" scam.
Hard for me to figure out what all the gnashing of teeth is about. If you don't want to use the program, don't use it. At least for me I've had all sorts of trouble with international shipments... I don't LIKE subjecting my customers to import duties and all that crap, but after a couple of bad sales due to this stuff I just gave up and started selling only within the USA. With this program it's basically the same cost to me as "USA only", and I get at least SOME incremental customer base from the global shipping program. For overseas customers who aren't willing to pay the additional fees I do feel sorry for them, but we're not going to solve international trade/tariff problems on this board... and I wasn't going to get those customers anyway because I'm not willing to risk another set of painful "where is my stuff? what do you mean stuck in customs?" conversations.
To me, this basically puts all the work/pain/suffering for international shipments onto eBay. and yes, I'm quite sure they are making more money by doing it, but if people don't want to pay for it then they don't have to... if I was a high volume seller I might make more of an attempt to "roll my own" intl. shipping and deal with it, but I'm not... so I don't.
Again, I'm in no way saying that it's perfect... but to me it's like people griping about toll roads... if you don't want to pay, no one is forcing you to do it and there are alternate routes that are cheaper but maybe less convenient...
Hi, I'm some what new,I just staredted to sell autographed phot's again on eBay after being away from selling on eBay for little over a year,But I have been in the business for over 25 years,And keep seein the Gsp start now,all the time .I don't want to cheat anyone on a sale nor do I want to get cheated,but what I have been hearing about the GSP,I don't think I want.Even though I mite pick up some buyer's in other countries.I sent a item over sea's to South Africa proubly 2 month's ago and the buy'er did not get nor was it ever returned. So that was like $60.00 shot all to hell.,But I don't think I'm to fall fort Gsp deal.
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