Okay Ebay. What is going on? Why you lie about things to buyers? Since when do sellers pay tariffs?

[itolduandso]

devon@ebay  Ebay shows a misleading message telling U.S. buyers it is the Canadian sellers who are the ones who pay tariffs. Not it's the other way around.

Why is ebay telling nonsense to U.S. buyers. Like the information screens on check-out for every buyer int he US saying it is the SELLERS WHO PAY TARIFS!@!!@(*(@(*(*!(*)!*)!*@)(*$_)*($

NO!!!!!!!!

I DO NOT PAY THE TARIFFS.
IT IS THE U.S. BUYER WHO PAYS THEM.  I don't care if the buyer is US Citizen or an illegal immigrant. And Trump doesn't care either seems, he doesn't refuse tariffs paid by illegal Aliens living in the US, as long as it brings him money.

So Don't tell buyers I pay tariffs.

You put this screen there because you are rolling out Global shipping. There will be sellers who may opt out of Global shipping for various reason, for example because the rates are too high.

Secondly, you are barely rolling this out, 10 months after you should have started. You only offer it to selected sellers.

Yet you already assume the seller will pick the tariffs and pay for it.

NO!

I have the freedom to arrange separate payment from buyer to collect tariff payment and you won't stop me from doing it.  In fact, I make my US buyers pay those tariffs extra and Ebay earning 13% revenue on seller fees. So Ebay is even getting paid too.

You display that message prematurely as Global shipping is not available to all Canadian sellers and seconly, that message should show ONLY ONLY ONLY if the seller has ENROLLED into Glonbal Shipping.

IS THIS SO DIFFICULT?

WHY???????

[dinomitesales]

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@itolduandso wrote:

The problem with that is the seller is stealing the graphics, it's not his own, I assume, collage he/she created. If he was listing this on Etsy, it would be taken down because it's not original art-work. On the other hand, I wouldn't be opulent mentioning it's US tariffs. There is no point and no need. The second issue is the category is misleading. He needs to list it into something like printed art-work. Listing it into wrong category could get him the listing taken down.

US Tariff Charges for Buyer - dogood4 (Order: 20-13722-53248)

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There is no eBay category for "tariff charges".

I honestly can't tell if you're defending or condemning this practice; this isn't something eBay wants you to do, nor should you be doing. Period. 

[itolduandso]

It look at least in the Shipping, returns, and payments detail screen ebay shows the warning correctly! That's how it should be:

[itolduandso]

You can advocate for Ebay if you want but I will do things the way I can you smart pants. If ebay invites me to do EIS it would be a different story. I am not invited. I need to sell to feed a few necks. You probably sit on bunch of bitcoins and have time to waste here. I don't.

[mrdutch1001]

and some folks do have a life that that doesn't include dependancy of selling online a "life or death"requirement; as some folks have a little forethought in life than to expect eBay to make money for them as their sole income source or to expect eBay to hand them everything at the drop of a hat. Not everyone lives their life around the uncertainties of such an unpredicable income method. Some folks use eBay as a side hustle in addition to their full or part-time employment that already provides a good wage, and/or if retired may have a good pension...The realities of life are that no one should "expect" eBay to provide their financial necessities...

[marnotom!]

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@itolduandso wrote:

It look at least in the Shipping, returns, and payments detail screen ebay shows the warning correctly! That's how it should be:

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How do you know?  The seller is using an unknown flat-rate shipping method.

[dinomitesales]

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@itolduandso wrote:

You can advocate for Ebay if you want but I will do things the way I can you smart pants. If ebay invites me to do EIS it would be a different story. I am not invited. I need to sell to feed a few necks. You probably sit on bunch of bitcoins and have time to waste here. I don't.

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Uh huh. I can assure you that if I was sitting on a "bunch of bitcoins" I wouldn't be selling things on eBay or working at a Shoppers Drug Mart postal outlet (you can check my post history).

I'm actually trying to help you if you listened to what I am saying in my posts. There are ways to charge the buyer for the tariff that are proper and protect you, the seller (and by extension result in more money in your pocket to feed your "necks").

But if you’d rather ignore any advice given to you and keep doing things your own way - which leads to (a) paying higher eBay fees than necessary, (b) risking losing your money entirely if buyers file INR claims, and (c) turning away potential customers who’ll be put off by having to buy a questionable “tariff” listing just to complete their purchase - then by all means, go ahead. Best of luck.

[itolduandso]

I am sorry if I sounded harsh. What is the advice you are providing?

You had 3 posts in total. Please let me know where is your advice, I missed that completely.

Your post NUMBER 1:

Lol what a terrible idea. Not only does it look super sketchy to the buyer, it also provides no protections to the seller. They have to be banking on the American buyer blindly agreeing to "purchase" this tariff listing, and also not being smart enough to not file an INR on the listing and just get their money back from the tariff lol. They're also paying eBay fees on the tariff this way; if they just increased their US shipping rates they wouldn't have to do that. Weird choice.

Your post NUMBER 2:

There is no eBay category for "tariff charges".

I honestly can't tell if you're defending or condemning this practice; this isn't something eBay wants you to do, nor should you be doing. Period.

Your post NUMBER 3:

Uh huh. I can assure you that if I was sitting on a "bunch of bitcoins" I wouldn't be selling things on eBay or working at a Shoppers Drug Mart postal outlet (you can check my post history).

I'm actually trying to help you if you listened to what I am saying in my posts. There are ways to charge the buyer for the tariff that are proper and protect you, the seller (and by extension result in more money in your pocket to feed your "necks").

But if you’d rather ignore any advice given to you and keep doing things your own way - which leads to (a) paying higher eBay fees than necessary, (b) risking losing your money entirely if buyers file INR claims, and (c) turning away potential customers who’ll be put off by having to buy a questionable “tariff” listing just to complete their purchase - then by all means, go ahead. Best of luck.

____

If your advice is "if they just increased their US shipping rates they wouldn't have to do that", this is not practical for a number of reasons:

1.  The US Customs is suspicious of a practice where the shipping fees are too high, although they have been mostly lenient, I have seen reports they have charged tariffs on shipping if it was too high.

2. I sell on Ebay .COM (US site) and some categories I sell have restricted amount you can charge for shipping.

3. Most important reason of all: I would need to adjust the shipping cost all the time I reduce the cost of the item. This is not practical.  I use listing software because I have lots of items. The listing software reduces the price and I do it every 30 days or so. Over time I would need to readjust the shipping as well. How much do I adjust shipping every time. A little, or more, every time would need to do re-calculation.  Lastly, I use shipping policies in Ebay. Although I do have a few dozen policies for difference scenarios for shipping in Canada/ US / Worldwide, if I had to manually adjust the shipment, I couldn't do that without adding many more combinations of shipping policies to cover all various rates and amounts. And I can't override shipping cost if I use shipping policies.

I don't see any problem with charging buyer the way I do. In fact I have confirmed with Ebay support, they do not have any issue with me doing it. If buyer has issue, I resolve, I refund. That's okay. Live moves on.

I found this work-around feasible. I have sold 100's of items like this any Ebay didn;'t have any issues with single of them. Neither did Etsy.  Most buyers are fine with paying extra tariffs, most of them apologize for casuing the trouble to me.

[itolduandso]

Oh one more important point here #4, why adding the tariff to shipping doesn't work for smaller sellers (unless selling larger quanity of the same item):

Only about half of sales I do are to US buyers (down from 90% year earlier). If I put the tariff into shipping, I would have to effectively look up the HS Code for every single item and then find out the individual tariff rate and put the amount into the US shipping for every time including the ones that sell to Canada buyers or Europe buyers. 

That's waste of time.
I hope this clarifies the confusion.

[thebossorder]

in a way we do because of ZONOS but that cost is 100% getting sent back to customers. I will not lose money and give my items away for that

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@sapphyres-designer-jewellery wrote:

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@itolduandso wrote:

I don't use Zonos. I use Stallion Express (or ChitChats) and I generate separate ebay invoice and send to buyer who pays the tariffs extra. Then I create shipping in Stallion Express and ship the item. That's my process. I don't care about Zonos process.

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@itolduandso,

I'd appreciate it if you could explain in more detail how you generate a separate eBay invoice for the tariffs?

That seems like it would be a good solution, but I don't know how it is done.

Re: your second screenshot, eBay only shows that message (saying that the import fees are included in the checkout) for eIS shipments, and for SpeedPAK shipments (mostly from China).

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That poster is using a posting ID so we can't go and see... but from what I recall of their previous postings, when an item sells (and they sell lots made in China items), they create a listing for "tariffs" and direct the buyer to pay for that listing to cover the tariff.

C.

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@itolduandso 

@sapphyres-designer-jewellery 

@lacemaker3 

@byto253 

Re: Charging buyers for import charges/processing etc. 

Posting as a heads up only. Not sure IF this is being enforced or applicable for US direct shipments. As per link it specifies shipping to EU. Basically it's an eBay boilerplate for your (EU) buyer(s).

Conjecturing that if this is a rule for EU shipments it would also be applicable for US shipments. 

It wouldn't be the first time Canadian sellers were NOT looped in on a eBay requirement. (Overseas vs Intl).

Discovered this link on a new short cut that ebay added to my hub page. See part about charging buyers tariffs. (Note: From Dot com help page. A ca page does not exist.

https://export.ebay.com/en/fees-regulations-policies/taxes/vat/

Do I need to inform a buyer overseas about import charges?

Yes. Buyers are responsible for paying import fees, usually as part of clearing their parcel through customs or when they receive their item. If you offer international shipping, you can’t include these costs in the item’s purchase and shipping price. Make sure to let international buyers know this in your listings.

[marnotom!]

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@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:Discovered this link on a new short cut that ebay added to my hub page. See part about charging buyers tariffs. (Note: From Dot com help page. A ca page does not exist.

https://export.ebay.com/en/fees-regulations-policies/taxes/vat/

Do I need to inform a buyer overseas about import charges?

Yes. Buyers are responsible for paying import fees, usually as part of clearing their parcel through customs or when they receive their item. If you offer international shipping, you can’t include these costs in the item’s purchase and shipping price. Make sure to let international buyers know this in your listings.

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That’s a rather weird blurb in the context of that page which is about VAT, not tariffs.

I think whoever wrote that page conflated “import charges”—which is a catch-all, general term for a variety of different charges—with VAT. I think the point of that blurb was that sellers shouldn’t be adding VAT to their international sales as eBay or the importer’s customs authority will take care of that.

Tariffs are not the subject of that page and are a different ball of wax, particularly Trump tariffs.