Why do U.S. sellers hurt themselves by charging 2x to 3x the postage to Canadian buyers on eBay

itoshi , Sunday, 22nd of August 2010 12:34:57 AM

After using eBay for 1 year and dealing with exchange rates and different

itoshi

shipping rates for USPS and Canada Post, I've had enough. Not only is it

Registered User

complicated, but U.S. sellers charge Canadians up to 3x the U.S. shipping.

Joined: Wednesday, 23rd of June 2010, 08:57:49

This practice hurts U.S. sellers and Canadian bidders. Lets use an example

Posts: 1880

based on a bid I am involved in right now on eBay:

Lets say a

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Canadian and American bidder are willing to pay the same maximum combined
shipping and bid price, say $40 U.S. to an American seller. Lets say the
shipping is $5 for the American and $15 for the Canadian.

The
Canadian will stop bidding when the bid price reaches $25; therefore, the
American gets the item for $30 combined bid price + shipping price. The
American has just paid $10 less than he was willing to pay. Better yet,
the Canadian mindful that he is likely to lose the bid anyways may not bid
at all saving the American bidder that much more money.

So the
winner is the American bidder, and the losers are the Canadian bidder, and
ironically the American seller who sets himself up to lose money.
/>Do not just tell me it costs more to ship to Canada.Yes, it costs more,
but not 3x more.Here are some items shipped to me from the U.S. to Canada
and what the USPS label says the cost is.l was able to confirm some of
these costs with a Salter brand digital kitchen scale and the USPS postage
calculating web page: http://ircalc.usps.gov/ :

1) VHS tape:
$3.81
2) DVD: $1.96
3) Snake light: $7.61
4) Wire mesh
small dog muzzle: $3.81
5) Beavis & Butt-Head, The Mike Judge
Collection, 9 DVD box set: $8.56
6) underwear: $1.90

The
last guy to sell me a DVD (101g/3.6 oz). only had the U.S. postage listed
as $3, which is what l based my bid on roughly, but then he sent me a bill
for $6 postage.According to the USPS postage calculator to mail a DVD, it
is $1.34 to ship within the U.S. and $1.70 to ship to Canada.The other
seller is DVD mentioned above had $1.98 in postage just to use up the
seller is stamps apparently.

So there you go, because it costs
$0.26 U.S. more to ship a DVD to Canada, the seller doubled my shipping &
handling cost from $3 to $6.Makes no sense, and is that good business
ethics to treat smaller markets worse than larger markets in this
fashion?
Oops, correction:it costs $0.36 more to ship a DVD from the
U.S. to Canada than domestically.

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Why do U.S. sellers hurt themselves by charging 2x to 3x the postage to Canadian buyers on eBay

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