Email a copy of 'eBay Warns Shipping to Canada Is at a Crawl' to a friend
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Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.
We had a sale to a Canadian customer through our eCrater store and shipped the order via the USPS on 8 December. It delivered on 11 January. What a joke. We have a great contract with UPS and ship everything with them domestically. Their Canada rates are too high so we have to use USPS, but with poor service it’s not worth it.
I live in western Canada, and we’re still getting Christmas cards from California, mailed before mid December.
Even internal Canadian mail is taking forever. I had one package that had to travel 8 miles to its destination – took 27 days. The buyer had opened an INR after 2 weeks, but I tracked him down on Facebook and explained (a) it was going to take a while to reach him and (b) opening a case was detrimental to a seller – he had no idea. He closed the case and waited. I could have strapped the packet on a turtle and it would have got there faster.
For the past while, I’ve been restricting sales to Canada only – as folks in the US are not going to pay around US $18 for shipping a $10 postcard via Xpresspost USA, which my local Postmaster advises me will not get there any faster than FCM, no matter what it says in their ‘anticipated delivery times’ or in eBay’s ‘estimated delivery times’. .
Thanks for sharing that, Michael – hope things improve.
Already got burned by a Candian scammer and eBay did NOT back me.
Used PirateSHip Simple Export, got stuck in Candian customs, buyer won INR case but PirateShip would not let me file an insurance case until like 45 days.
So now buyer is refunded and item gets delivered later but eBay sticks with it and PirateSHip won’t approve insurance cause the item was eventually delivered.
The only affordable option for inexpensive lightweight items is USPS First Class Mail International, by UPU regulation, off limits to merchandise. If eBay adapts a system similar to Australia where tax information is appended to the address for shipments to Canada or other countries, if may be no longer feasible to ship inexpensive items.