US Tariff Chaos - Can Ebay Help Sellers

[picture_box_postcards]

Good Morning All,

Just logging the worry that the chaos caused by US Tariff confusion poses a huge risk to sellers and the platform as a whole.

The current Royal Mail cessation of shipping to America continues and there is no clear info as when they will get a new system in place. For our part we sell Postcards (theoretically exempt still) which we can only send economically via royal mail ( GSP or global couriers are prohibitively expensive  ) so currently we can only cancel orders bound for the Americas (They won't even ship to south America it seems) there is no news or clear guidance from any party involved.

Given the platform seem to take great delight in sanctioning sellers and rejecting appeals for faults / late deliveries (even when its clear the seller has behaved in the correct manner throughout)  I fear for the ramifications of this mess.

Anyone had any insight or conversations with ebay that may help.

[style_wise]

The new Royal Mail system went live yesterday.

[picture_box_postcards]

Hi Style_wise

They said it was going to ... It has yet to materialise.

In fairness to RM it must be a huge system change encompassing lots of export categories hopefully they'll get it up and running soon.

[silicon-press]

eBay's only help as yet is to helpfully tell people how to add country of origin to item specifics, so that US customers can make an informed choice.

No help on how to actually price items to the US to include the tariff, the Post Office fee for taking the tax, the extra fees that eBay will charge for collecting the money from the customer at the point of sale.

As it stands the only way I can see of doing it, is to create a specific section in each postal policy just for the US - but I will then have to create postal policies for bands of item prices - £10, £15, £20.

At the moment it is simply easier not to sell to the USA.

[pegr-834437]

I'll do the rare thing and stick up for eBay here, its not really anything simple and with TACO in charge you can make some huge change and within 24 hours (or 2 weeks as he likes) its totally pointless. I feel for any company that has to do any sort of business with America currently as you have no idea when or why things will change and it can be a huge waste of money/time. I suspect something will come in but as it'll stop so many sales its probably not a priority for eBay as harsh as that sounds.

[pafishlock]

Spoke with eBay this morning.  Told that Global Shipping Program UK to USA also suspended.  Sent one parcel with Royal Mail as a test.  Charged the tariff by RM.  No way to recover this via eBay. Nothing on the RN label to suggest that the tariff was paid. After almost 2 hour wait got through to RM.  Told that they just hand over to USPS.  Could not tell me if tariff info was passed on.  Sounds like fingers crossed all round.  For the moment I am just excluding USA on eBay.  Think its time to set up my own website and abandon eBay after 25+ years. 

[silicon-press]

Most of what I sell is exempt from tariffs, but do I trust Royal Mail and USPS to get it right?

[pillarboxred]

It is for buyers to decide how much they want items and whether delivery is economical or not. You could either exclude the United States from the countries you sell to or quote GSP prices.  If items cannot be found in the USA, collectors will have to pay the cost of international collecting or go without. 
Postcards often have "country of origin" printed on them so that simplifies the tariff problem as eBay will work out the tariffs for US buyers if you enter that information in the Item Specifics.  GSP is a good system as it automatically displays the prices to buyers in different jurisdictions around the world and we don't need to think about it.

[pillarboxred]

I see no point in offering goods to the US which shoppers can find there locally at lower costs. We should be offering items that are hard to source in the US but we have. Whether consumers will be prepared to pay the prices will depend on how badly they want things and what alternatives there are.

[kyanyama]

Just saw something on the BBC this morning something about small parcels now being charged tariffs.  I don't post outside the UK now after a few hassles with overseas purchases but until there is some clarification perhaps it's better to wait before posting to the US.

Things are in flux worldwide at the mo - and changes are happening at an alarming rate.

Don't sell unless you can afford to lose it.

[pafishlock]

You mean like things sold only in Europe or Japan or Australia?

[pafishlock]

Ebay told me this morning that Global Shipping from the UK to US is suspended. Otherwise I would use it!

[*vyolla*]

Just took a small item to the local PO to see what's going on with this, it was an item of clothing - got charged 10% of the declared item value plus a £1.50 RM admin fee (I thought this was going to be 50p but apparently not!). 

[pafishlock]

A phrase containing arses and elbows springs to mind.

[silicon-press]

Should have only been 50p so it looks as though Royal Mail and the Post Office are out of sync again

It was 50p for me when I did a test run on the Royal Mail website.

[a45heaven]

@*vyolla* 

I WAS UNDER THE IMPRESSION IT WAS THE BUYER WHO PAID THE TARIFF?

[silicon-press]

The postal service collects the tariff - if the seller hasn't been able to charge the buyer then the seller has to absorb the extra costs.

I don't know how true the story is (it is the internet after all), but I read that this is because when tariffs were first applied, carriers were collecting the tariffs from the buyer upon delivery, but a few buyers then refused delivery, but the carrier still gave them the parcel (and sucked up the tariff costs themselves) probably because it would have been more expensive to store all these refused parcels. This was down to poor communication by the US government, as it seemed quite a few people thought tariffs were something that sellers would have to pay.

[a45heaven]

@silicon-press 

The postal service collects the tariff - if the seller hasn't been able to charge the buyer then the seller has to absorb the extra costs.

With online payment of shipping costs by the seller, extracted from the buyer or not, it seems less than a disciplined process with the shipper?

Im struggling to get my head around ebay setting the charge to the buyers so they can pay the Tariff when they make the payment. Im glad i dont sell overseas on this platform anymore now.

[*vyolla*]

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@silicon-press wrote:

Should have only been 50p so it looks as though Royal Mail and the Post Office are out of sync again

It was 50p for me when I did a test run on the Royal Mail website.

---

Same, and media have reported it as being 50p though I can't find any clear guidance from RM. PO's machine was definitely coming up as £1.50 though.

[pillarboxred]

Another problem is that the tariffs change the Grand Totals buyers pay. EBay will charge sellers 10% of the larger Grand Total.