eBayShipping Costs Weirdness?

[vaualbus]

After years of been on eBay I a little in doubt of shipping cost in general.
I'm living in Europe, Let me explain better.
Way back in like 2015/14 I bought for 50$ a beast the HP 8922M that is  32Kg and very big in general and was like 50$ of shipping via eBay shipping (that that allow you to know at priori and pay the import charge),
now I'm back on eBay and what I see is that buying anything oversea is like impossible.
When you got an interesting item the shipping cost is like twice, or even more, the item so that it make no sense to buy it.
When you have a super expensive item for what is it, like 800$ for a TDS540, the shipping cost are small.
Are people try to scams buyers by taking set an higher shipping cost and than take the difference respect the real shipping cost?
Or the eBay shipping program have some draw back, of which I'm unware, that make no feasible for a lot of users?
Like I got 32Kg for 50 bucks and people want like 500$ for sending a TDS scope to me it's bullshit. (the TDS is way smaller than the 8922M by any meaning).
The same is happening on something I looking at it one if the HP86xx signal generator some one have it with a higher price but only like 60$ of shipping while some one else have it for 180$ but with almost 4000$ of shipping, it's bullshit again as, yes it have the same size of HP8922 as they use the same chassis, but it's like 10kg less.
PS: The most funny thing was what I found the other day someone was selling the TDs knob for like 20$ but was literally 80$ to send a piece of plastic to italy. 
I feel I'm missing sometimes.
Alberto.

[Stray Electron]

  Sellers trying to hook buyers in with cheap prices but then charging insane shipping charges has been a "thing" on E-bay for many years.  Ebay did eventually ban the practice of charging grossly excessive shipping charges and they added a button that buyers can click on to report that violation (and others) but I doubt that they're actually enforcing it.

  As always, the rule of "buyer beware" applies.

 And ever since the rise of E-bay, I've noticed that the USPS, UPS and other shipping companies are taking full advantage of the increased demand for shipping and have been increasing their shipping charges well in excess of the rate of inflation. I'm sure that that was why Amazon chose to create their own system of delivery vehicles, otherwise the shipping companies would be eating up all of their profits as well.

[vaualbus]

Yeah is the conclusion I come at too, basically now for people like me in Europe we search by shipping cost.
I agree that eBay should too create their shipping "company" because otherwise is just a scam a lot of the time.

[Stray Electron]

    Ebay did create their own shipping company. IF you can call it that!

   It's their Global Shipping Program and sellers in the US that want to ship to buyers overseas are almost mandated to use it.  Basically; the US seller ships the item to a US location, Ebay then puts all of the items that are bound to certain countries into one giant shipping container and ships that to the country, where it is then opened and the items sent through the local mail system to the buyer. Ebay claims that it saves money by bundling many shipments into one but in reality the buyer gets nicked for three shipping charges instead of one!

  Once again, the shipping company (this time E-bay) is eating into the value (price plus the shipping costs) of the items being shipped.

[vaualbus]

Yeah but as I said in my cases that result, at least  for me, in overall smaller shipping costs.
I think in US people can also ship using any method they want, as is in the case I mentioned where the lower price signal generator is shipped via USPS for 310 bucks inbstad than 60 when using the ebay program.

[Stray Electron]

Yeah is the conclusion I come at too, basically now for people like me in Europe we search by shipping cost.
I agree that eBay should too create their shipping "company" because otherwise is just a scam a lot of the time.

  I shop Ebay by the distance from me. A lot of the stuff that I'm interested in is too heavy to ship for a reasonable costs or too delicate. So I look for items that are within driving distance and I try to pick them up in person. If I can't find something with driving distance then frequently I just do without or wait until one is within driving distance.

   A lot of the books that I'm interested in only seem to be available in England and for some reason, the shipping costs for a simple book is often 25 to 30 Pounds! But occasionally I find one for a very reasonable rate and I then buy it.  FYI the shipping cost on a book within the US (but Cali is still further away than London) is typically only a dollar or so. 

[langwadt]

  Sellers trying to hook buyers in with cheap prices but then charging insane shipping charges has been a "thing" on E-bay for many years. 

what I hate the listing with multiple things, so you see the low price and then when you check the listing, the low price of for a power cable for the thing or something

[Jan Audio]

Shipping companys should have the prices on the website, you can compare.

[Jwillis]

There are a few American sellers that don't use the global shipping program and the prices are quite reasonable. It's Pitney Bowes that's screwing people not the sellers .

[CatalinaWOW]

I am one US seller willing to sell to Europe.  And shipping costs are insane.  It isn't me, it is the shipping companies.  The Ebay Global Shipping turns out to be somewhat cheaper than many options and is much more convenient for the seller.  It handles all customs forms and other administrivia.  But I am sure their costs are getting more whacky. 

To control shipping costs I have long been willing to work with companies such as Parcel Monkey (just one example out of many).  For quite a while they would bid roughly a third of the big guys (Fedex, UPS, DHL etc.) and they somehow used the big guys to do the actual shipping.  But recently these guys costs have been more or less the same as going direct to the big guys.   The result is that shipping a 10 kilogram package to Europe from my northwest US location is in the neighborhood of $200.

I have no idea if someone is getting rich here, or if that reflects the real cost of shipping in the current world environment, but it certainly discourages overseas sales.

[Stray Electron]

Shipping companys should have the prices on the website, you can compare.

  The USPS has all of their rates on their website but I could never get buyers, either inside or outside of the US, to use it. Instead every time that I listed something on Ebay, I always had several people from various countries request that I look the cost for them even though I posted the package weight and dimensions in the listing. It was always a PITA. That said, shipping to some countries such as Italy was always a minefield! Buyer's usually wanted their items insured but when it comes to some countries, the USPS will only insure the item if it's sent a certain way. And that always costs more than the standard shipping class.

   

[vaualbus]

That is exactly my point with this price it basically impossible to buy from you guys and it's a pity because there are a lot of interest stuff in the US!
I wish things gonna change, I really hope.

[Stray Electron]

   I shipped one item to Italy and it took forever (almost 3 months) to clear Italian customs and they also charged the receiver a small fortune.  The item was something I had repaired for him and was returning to him and I clearly marked the item as such but they still charged him a hefty tax on it and he complained endlessly to me about it but it was completely out of my control.  After that I refused to ship anything else to Italy. Another problem with Italy is that theft in the regular mail system is so commonplace that the US Postal Service will not insure a package unless it's sent by one of their very expensive, premium mail classes.

  If you want to be able to buy from US sellers, then you're going to have to eliminate the long delays in the Italian mail system, and the eliminate the theft in the Italian mail system and lower the insane customs fees that Italy charges. But I know that that's not likely to happen and with the rise of the EU, buying anything from outside of the EU is probably just going to get more problematic.

  My advice to you is that if you live anywhere near a border then get a mail box in the other country and have you items delivered there and then drive across the border and pick up you item and take it back to Italy with you. I don't know if that's doable for you or not.  When I lived in Canada, the Canadian mail system was so slow that I used a mail box in New York state and drove down there every few days and collected my mail.

[kripton2035]

I used to buy ebay items 20 years ago, from USA to France, and the shipping costs were low.
since the ebay global shipping program, prices became crazy high.
side new: it has become the same from UK since brexit. some small items could be send for €5-10 evan last year
today the same item shipping goes to €50 !

[jfiresto]

I used to buy ebay items 20 years ago, from USA to France, and the shipping costs were low.
since the ebay global shipping program, prices became crazy high....

The U.S. used to have a public post office that shipped at close to cost and kept prices down: to promote industry and commerce. But now parts of it have become another unregulated, predatory shipping company - "because markets".

[Chris56000]

Hi!
Just before Christmas this year there was a domestic (Wales) listing for a Tek 465 mains transformer @ £34 + £999.50 postage (about 90 miles from where I live!) but I think either someone queried it or the seller realised he'd over–estimated the price of postage a bit, when I looked again the next day the postage had been amended to £9.95, far more reasonable for a heavy Tek transformer!

Chris Williams

PS!

I think that might have been a simple mistake by the seller in typing "995" for postage and assuming that would be entered as £9.95 !

[Stray Electron]

  It never hurts to contact the seller of an item and ask about shipping or local pickup.  But do your homework and read the list first and make sure that your question hasn't already been answered.

  I have a FedEx account and several times I though that the seller's shipping charges were excessive so I asked if they would simply drop the packaged item off at FedEx and have the shipping charged directly to my account.  They've always agreed to do that and has always saved me some money.

   For you guys in Italy and other places that have expensive shipping, how close are you to a border and have you checked on getting items shipped to that country and then driving over and picking them up? When I was living in Canada I was only a few miles from the US border so I got a US PO box and it cut the shipping time by weeks! I never shipped packages that way so I don't know if it would have reduced the cost but I expect that it would have because the shipping companies are notorious for turning items going to Canada over to third party "Brokers" that hold packages for ransom.

[jonpaul]

Bonjour a tous, been an Ebayer in USA since 2000 and also now  in France. Our  business (NOT ebay!) ships internationally from USA every week to EU and Asia

A few points:

1/ The UK is now extremely costly to impost or export due to UK and EU rules and VAT changes. We avoid any commerce with UK and ask our UK customers to arrange freight themselves or use a freight forwarder. I now exclude UK from any Ebay activity.

2/ Shipping within EU or France is fine, no VAT or paperwork issues, La Poste or equivalent works fine.

3/ Ebay and Government restrictions now make export from USA more costly and complex, especially if an item is worth >$2500 or is large and heavy.

4/ Fed Ex is best, UPS soso DHL now has many issues since unbundling worldwide.

5/ Customs documentation is critical and shipment often delayed days or weeks at outbound or inbound terminas for lack of perfect Commercial Inv, etc.

6/ Ebay  International shipping ...no experience but they must make a profit on this service, and probably use various freight forwarders.

7/ A friend in EU  who buys   many  USA Ebay lots, has them shipped to a USA contact  who then travels to EU.

8/ With your own Fed Ex or UPS account you can use it to generate a pickup airbill, the seller has only to pack it and print a FedEx tracking barcode label, the ge t it to a Fed Ex station or call for pickup.

9/ It is critical to negotiate and communicate with any seller BEFORE bidding or winning, any exception to the standard shipping!

After ebay  sale, almost  impossible for the seller to change the shippings and tax costs!

Hope this is interesting,

Bon Nouvel Année!

Jon

[sairfan1]

eBay is not an ideal place to buy, I noticed they force to pay through PayPal and PayPal apply very unrealistic exchange rates. when you see your CC bill you will find that PayPal breaks payment in to many small pieces it becomes hard to understand what was the breakdown of the payment.

[wraper]

eBay is not an ideal place to buy, I noticed they force to pay through PayPal and PayPal apply very unrealistic exchange rates.

Completely outdated. Ebay spun off Papal a long time ago and since last year ebay forced sellers out of using PayPal. https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/service-and-payments/managed-payments-on-ebay.html

when you see your CC bill you will find that PayPal breaks payment in to many small pieces it becomes hard to understand what was the breakdown of the payment.

Never seen that and you can select so you card is charged in original currency so it's your bank doing conversion.

[sairfan1]

Completely outdated. Ebay spun off Papal a long time ago and since last year ebay forced sellers out of using PayPal.

Not debating here, but I'm talking about it as a buyer not a seller, i tried to pay right now still ebay's default and preferred method is paypal, what i said in my previous post it could be an old news but since my bad experience on ebay i reduced buying there.  if ebay is not owning paypal anymore then it makes sense that its not preference anymore.

Never seen that and you can select so you card is charged in original currency so it's your bank doing conversion.

You need to pay attention to your payments and CC bills, when you pay through PayPal it clearly tells you what exchange rate they are going to charge, that's not by our bank but its by PayPal, (right at that time google the exchange rate) you have been paying extra in that case, there is an hidden option (you need to put a little effort to find it) to pay directly by your bank (while staying on PayPal), in that case PayPal  will warn you that whatever exchange rates will be applied, it will be decided by your bank. i notices there is at least 4/5 cent difference, if you are buying an expensive item it becomes a considerable amount.

[wraper]

Completely outdated. Ebay spun off Papal a long time ago and since last year ebay forced sellers out of using PayPal.

Not debating here, but I'm talking about it as a buyer not a seller, i tried to pay right now still ebay's default and preferred method is paypal, what i said in my previous post it could be an old news but since my bad experience on ebay i reduced buying there.  if ebay is not owning paypal anymore then it makes sense that its not preference anymore.