Certain countries excluded from Global Shipping

[james_cumbria]

My sales have recently gone a little quiet and upon checking I see that certain countries - USA and China in particular - are excluded from my Global Shipping options.  Since Brexit (at which time all my European sales and core business dropped off a cliff!) nearly all of my international sales go to USA, China and Japan, so it is a concern if some items aren't available to buyers in these countries.  I have had this before and ended up setting up separate postage policies to these countries, but that's  not my preferred option as I like the way that GSP handles all the customs documentation and protects both the buyer and seller in the event of anything getting lost or damaged in transit.  Has anyone experienced similar issues?   

[mapatasy]

Yes, I've experienced this - mostly it's down to certain items being in categories that, if coming from the UK, are restricted for sale in those countries or key words, used in your item title, implying that the items cannot be sent to those countries through the eBay shipping service.

It's a good idea to add the package weight and dimensions to the relevant boxes in the edit listing mode too.

Can you send a link to a couple of the listings you're having trouble with?

[catshome1]

I searched for your listings with a UK delivery address and got 51 items.  Searched again with USA delivery address and got 50 items.  The only item I could see missing was the skeleton poster, and you have that set for UK only delivery.

The odd thing was, even though 50 items came up for delivery to USA, many of them had a message to say to contact seller for shipping costs, and did not come up with GSP.  Some innocuous items, such as the Columbia records books, did give GSP shipping.

I can only conclude that Mapatasy is correct about it being to do with GSP's restrictions.  Many of your items contain wood, and we have heard from quite a few sellers whose wooden items have been kept by GSP.  Perhaps eBay's system is getting a little more sophisticated and can identify items that GSP would not ship, and then exclude those countries from the postage information on the listing.

Perhaps a work around, as long as the issue is a GSP thing and not that the specific items affected are actuallly illegal to export to the USA, etc, would be to add postage costs for those countries to your listing.  I do understand you value GSP dealing with everything for export but, if that isn't an option, at least you could still sell to those countries.

[theomega75]

Hi

Yes lots of item won't appear on ebay UK from the USA and China even if they will ship here..... I have to go to ebay .com to view them as they suddenly just disappeared over night a few months back.  A recent seller has confirmed that the UK isn't on the list of countries that the global shipping program in the US will ship to.... no idea why and it's not even restricted items as these are 2nd hand toys 

[sheba-knows-best]

Hi. I had an issue a couple of months ago with some of my items not allowing USA shipping (possibly other areas too, but it is USA where I sell well). Fortunately quite a few of the disappointed potential buyers contacted me. I rang CS and the first lady tried to help by suggesting it was connected to leather and fur etc - but when we began to realise there was no rhyme or reason between some leather jackets having GSP and some not, we suspected a glitch. It was escalated to the 'technical team' as a glitch and I thought, oh well, that'll get buried then, but actually within a couple of days the glitch was gone.

As a temporary work around, I found that if a buyer contacted me (or if they had bought but weren't then being allowed to pay with GSP), I would end the listing, check GSP was ticked in my site preferences and the relist cleared the glitch. Once I had checked the listing for myself, I asked the buyer to buy again.

I'm not saying this is the same for you - maybe your items are restricted - But thought I would put it out there anyway.

[bravergrace]

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@theomega75 wrote:

 the UK isn't on the list of countries that the global shipping program in the US will ship to.... no idea why and it's not even restricted items as these are 2nd hand toys 

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Actually, these might be restricted, as there are rules about safety labelling for second-hand toys sold in the UK - there are exceptions, obviously, but it is an area where trading standards are quite strict.   It's possible that the GSP has just decided not to handle second-hand toys bound for the UK.

[emcy.embe]

I think someone in ebay has accidentally fat fingered UK / Ukraine exclusions for USA sellers' country lists. 

I'm accustomed to buying laptops and other tech from the USA for shipping to the UK with the Global Shipping Program.  This used to be easy but now all I encounter are listings which will ship to every country in Europe and pretty much the whole world except UK (and Ukraine ...).  You see where I'm going here (and 'uk' is the language code for Ukrainian too).

Take a look at the screenshot attached - this is the type of list I see every time I try to purchase from the USA for delivery to UK, even from private sellers.  The UK is missing all together, not even in the exclusions.

I don't believe the UK/Brexit mess is restricting sales to UK.  For example, the new ebay/VAT payment/collection rules work very smoothly for purchases from Europe. 

It would be nice if someone knows how to prod ebay to just check if something is broken for USA sellers listing the UK as a destination. 

I would really appreciate if someone has something to add or a further opinion.

[tommystrezures]

GSP I thought had changed in the US, is this the reason that these errors are occuring? ITs now called ebay international shipping, items go to  a new hub and I can't remember off the top of my head where. So in affect GSP doesn't exist for the US side of ebay.

[emcy.embe]

Thanks for explaining this.  I think the question then is 'why is the UK missing from ebay international shipping lists' ? 

Please see my attached screenshot.  Afghanistan is there, Ukraine is understandably excluded and the UK is just missing. 

At least a while ago I seem to recall shipping to UK with GSP worked very smoothly and I don't know when the 'ebay international shipping' system was introduced.  We have the Uraine invasion and now UK is missing from the 'ebay international shipping' lists althogether.  Coincidence or an error with UK/UKR ? 

We are hoping for ebay to explain why the UK is missing from the list all together, not just excluded from delivery for some reason - it seems from some remarks in the posts above that the USA based sellers don't even have the option to choose to deliver to UK.

[pillarboxred]

The United Kingdom is not shown in the list of GSP destination countries for items listed on eBay.co.uk shown to UK buyers. These listings just get a qr code label  but the item goes straight to the buyer's home not the GSP Hub.

If you don't specify weight and package dimensions and a secure postage method, eBay's machinery can't work out what postage to destinations outside the UK might be.

EBay Search tends to ignore items that you have previously been shown and not actioned guessing you are not interested and they will appear on page 999 of the Search returns. That's why you might not see your own items even though they are of great interest to you who is not going to buy them.

[pvision]

Same thing here. Just wasted 30 mins on chat trying to persuade them there is a problem. Waste of time

I agree it's a fat-finger problem

[freewood5000]

I cannot buy form some US sellers as UK is not on the ship to list or the not ship to list. Been happening a fair bit since October, i am buyer in UK, even sellers i used to buy from i cannot any more?

[malibutomi]

And this is still going on for like half a year now

I buy things from the US to the UK and 90% of listings now says don't ship to UK, and the sellers don't even know it.

Talked to Ebay CS twice both times i was told they know and working on it.
Well they must have the *bleep*tiest software engineers in the world

[kat23tak]

I've just had a buyer from US trying to purchase something and there got an error that US is not on the list (I'm in UK). Just spoken to cs and they told me that there is a issue with customs and now loads of other countries have been added to restrictions. Not sure now if it's customs or Ebay made a boo boo, but apparently I can use other couriers. Strange...

[kat23tak]

*they not there lol

[rlzb88]

I'm from Uk aswell and I ask the US sellers if they ship to Uk and they say yes but when I try and buy the item it says the seller doesn't sell to your location 

[pvision]

eBay say it's an issue they are looking in to

I think that's bull*bleep* and there's an underlying reason - business / tax / duty / VAT. etc - that is holding this up

If it's just a mistake in the drop-down list of countries it could be fixed in 60 seconds. It's been going on for months so there's more to it than that

[4_bathrooms]

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@rlzb88 wrote:

I'm from Uk aswell and I ask the US sellers if they ship to Uk and they say yes but when I try and buy the item it says the seller doesn't sell to your location 

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What sort of items are you trying to buy?

Many items subject to safety regulations (like toys, electrical goods, protective equipment etc) have recently become subject to tightened/amended regulation due to Brexit. In some cases it would actually be illegal for eBay to facilitate the sale of non-conformant goods. 

[rlzb88]

The items I try to buy are all under the same category (toys). But what doesn't make sense is that a few US sellers who are listing similar sets of toys Im looking for I am able to buy because the United Kingdom is listed on the 'posts to' section. 

[pvision]

If that is the case - that these can't be imported due to regulations - then eBay should be open about it

Right now they are saying it is an "issue" they are looking into - and giving no clue what the issue. is