Ebay sellers not shipping to Canada?

[LanceRoten]

before getting back into sportscards, I collected/dealt with Action Figures, GI Joe's and such. I dreaded Canadian buyers. I dreaded shipping to Canada. I don't blame the Canadian citizen, I place full blame on Paypal and Ebay. Like others have said, that delivery confirmation is the key. I had an instance last spring in a which a Canadian buyer, from Edmonton, filed an Ebay dispute with me within something like 10 days. I live in South Carolina. I ended up losing(of course), so I was out $50 and my merchandise. Even with that particular buyer being WAY too impatient, I still blame Paypal and Ebay. Neither entity has a clue when it comes to customer service, and seeing things objectively. On the other side, i've sold some hockey cards to Canadians that have taken 3-4 weeks to arrive(and have bought a couple of cards from across the border that took roughly the same amount of time) and never had an issue. Problem for me is, one idiot impatient buyer, and two dishonest entities in Paypal and Ebay(or maybe one, under the same umbrella, which seems like a conflict of interest), ruined a lot of the Ebay experience for me.

[Kawika]

I just moved to Canada. A lot of American sellers won't ship here. Canada Customs dings me 12% HST (Harmonized Sales Tax whatever the heck that is) over items of a certain value. The Royal Mail is slower than the Second Coming. It is going to suck being a baseball card collector in Canada. That is all.

[chaddurbin]

just let them know first class registered shipping is $15 to canada...if they're willing to pay then you can ship by that method. no need to cut our neighbors from the north out.

[Mr. Zipper]

Originally Posted by LanceRoten

one idiot impatient buyer...

One is all it takes. With low margin sales, plus the eBay and Paypal fees, for an occasional collector seller, all it takes is ONE loss to wipe out what little profit I make on all my sales.

[Leon]

I ship to Canada but I don't like it. NO tracking and it takes forever and a day. If I want tracking then it's some outrageous shipping fee. I usually just pray when I ship there .

[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.