Sellers refusing to ship to Norther Irela

[thebouldpete]

This has to stop, full stop!

A note to Ebay..... apart from this whole Brexit faf.... please admend listings espically from Mainland UK to force sellers accept to ship to Northern Ireland as I see absolutely no reason why they shoud'nt.

All, and I mean All delivery firms and companies including couriers will and do deliver to Northern Ireland without exception. While there may be a small surcharge, this is all.... I constantly use Royal Mail and they have never ever failed me (same delivery charges all around NI/GB). I am fed up by the fact that I sometimes have to have items sent to my siblings in the UK only to have them re-directed to my Northern Ireland address.... not on!

please Ebay.... without going polical set all listing to automatically allow delivery to Northern Ireland.

[cooksongold]

But again, what exactly would providing a Northern Ireland address achieve? Unless you mean that your address, and you are then the responsible person?

[jumblemaster]

HI!

It appers you are not a large sale / mainland Uk based seller like me and therefore youcan't see my position - despite what's been written previously. You still see no reason why such sellers are / will / have already refused to supply Northern Ireland and you would force them to accept orders that they obviously cannot fulfill - So I'll clarify further.

I'll remind eveyone why Northern Ireland is now blocked and I refer to historic examples - 

In about 2021 the Brexit  & World Post Authority changes along with Ebays response to these were something that seems to have been forgotten / or were simply just the sellers problem - and they're somehow obliged figure out...

At that time, no one was told that everything had to have a Tarriff Code, the Post Office didn't know, their website said nothing, nor did the Royal Mail Rep, the ebay site & no other sellers knew this, it wasnt on any forum - It wasn't ANYWHERE.  So sellers sent parcels overseas only to have them all returned / lost / destroyed and suffer the loss of the parcel and then had to pay the post costs for this priviliege. Ebay then considered those sellers to be 'Below Standard' and applied a Surcharge onto their selling fees - Then the all Neg feedbacks followed.... 

Furthermore at that time, overseas buyers argued they wanted the customs fees  back because no sellers were told how to use the IOSS - Or in fact what IOSS is.

During this time the post system got so ludicrous that An Post (Irish Post Service) publishd on its website that they were so busy sending items back to the Uk - that they didnt have time to deliver any mail.

In short, everything about that period was an almighty Flip Up.

And so it will be with the Northern Ireland thing. 

All this WILL happen again and I'm not prepared to go through it again.

Furthermore,as a large scale seller I also have to -

Do a VAT return, do a Tax Return, deal with the accountant / payroll,  make sure everything is in stock, unload deliveries, workout trade prices, answer the phone, find suppliers, find new products, reasearch these parts /type them in & describe them, keep updating prices, keep updating post costs, deal with staff issues, deal with the landlord,  deal with the barage of daft questions, deal with returns I've been forced to accept, deal with IT issues, wrap up x100 parcels every day & get them to the Post Office etc....

There's no time for the Windsor thing, the GSPR thing and all the rest of this Fluffing about.

If my life depended on it - Idont think I could get so much as a Postcard to your front door once all this nonsense has kicked in.  

[jumblemaster]

HI!

It appers you are not a large sale / mainland Uk based seller like me and therefore youcan't see my position - despite what's been written previously. You still see no reason why such sellers are / will / have already refused to supply Northern Ireland and you would force them to accept orders that they obviously cannot fulfill - So I'll clarify further.

I'll remind eveyone why Northern Ireland is now blocked and I refer to historic examples - 

In about 2021 the Brexit  & World Post Authority changes along with Ebays response to these were something that seems to have been forgotten / or were simply just the sellers problem - and they're somehow obliged figure out...

At that time, no one was told that everything had to have a Tarriff Code, the Post Office didn't know, their website said nothing, nor did the Royal Mail Rep, the ebay site & no other sellers knew this, it wasnt on any forum - It wasn't ANYWHERE.  So sellers sent parcels overseas only to have them all returned / lost / destroyed and suffer the loss of the parcel and then had to pay the post costs for this priviliege. Ebay then considered those sellers to be 'Below Standard' and applied a Surcharge onto their selling fees - Then the all Neg feedbacks followed.... 

Furthermore at that time, overseas buyers argued they wanted the customs fees  back because no sellers were told how to use the IOSS - Or in fact what IOSS is.

During this time the post system got so ludicrous that An Post (Irish Post Service) publishd on its website that they were so busy sending items back to the Uk - that they didnt have time to deliver any mail.

In short, everything about that period was an almighty Flip Up.

And so it will be with the Northern Ireland thing. 

All this WILL happen again and I'm not prepared to go through it again.

Furthermore,as a large scale seller I also have to -

Do a VAT return, do a Tax Return, deal with the accountant / payroll,  make sure everything is in stock, unload deliveries, workout trade prices, answer the phone, find suppliers, find new products, reasearch these parts /type them in & describe them, keep updating prices, keep updating post costs, deal with staff issues, deal with the landlord,  deal with the barage of daft questions, deal with returns I've been forced to accept, deal with IT issues, wrap up x100 parcels every day & get them to the Post Office etc....

There's no time for the Windsor thing, the GSPR thing and all the rest of this Fluffing about.

If my life depended on it - Idont think I could get so much as a Postcard to your front door once all this nonsense has kicked in.  

[thebouldpete]

Your message makes sense for the business seller who uses eBay as a selling platform, however for the private seller I see no reason not to accept orders from NI purely as the condition imposed should not really apply, and all major delivery companies do deliver to NI regardless.

As mentioned above, a way around this would be for eBay to permit orders from NI providing the buyer has an UK mainland address to rely on for fowarding purposes..therfore the UK addressee could simply re-send the item to NI without the faf?

[earsmedia]

what makes no sense? I'm a business seller and simply wish to continue
selling my products (radio equipment) to customers in NI. None of the
brands I sell bar one have a manufacturer presence in NI - just lots of
independent dealers, who are in compteition with each other.

[jonatjonatjonat]

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@thebouldpete wrote:

Your message makes sense for the business seller who uses eBay as a selling platform, however for the private seller I see no reason not to accept orders from NI purely as the condition imposed should not really apply, and all major delivery companies do deliver to NI regardless.

As mentioned above, a way around this would be for eBay to permit orders from NI providing the buyer has an UK mainland address to rely on for fowarding purposes..therfore the UK addressee could simply re-send the item to NI without the faf?

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That wouldn't matter, as it would simply be an order to GB. EBay wouldn't even see it as an order to a Northern Ireland address.

[earsmedia]

If you are a business seller on GB EBAY, from December your listings
will not be visible to customers in NI.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Yes...if you don't comply with GPSR

[outbidthebidder]

I know this topic is a month old, but I just came across it by chance after watching a video on YouTube. That was from a seller in NI who talked about how NI is getting screwed over by eBay come December. Ironically for him, he can continue to sell items to people in GB, but cannot sell to people living in NI. He also said that in order to make all his listings/products eligible to be sold in NI (and not hidden by eBay), it will take his staff 7 years to complete the documentation for the 13,000 products. All that work just so he can account for 10% of his total sales. As others have said above, that's why so many sellers have already excluded NI, so we'll be forced to use eBay.ie or eBay.ge, and then IF they deliver to NI, we'll have to pay a lot more for shipping.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Not getting screwed over by ebay - again, this is an EU mandate that ebay have to comply with - they have no choice.
Worth noting, even if the seller was on .ie or .de, well, they'd still need to comply with GPSR - so a seller in the case of the person on YouTube would still need to document 13,000 lines.

[earsmedia]

I'm not so sure they could not have solved it, like they clearly have with GSP. with their clout, they could offer product safety insurance, which for EU and EU linked countries could solve the problem - so the responsibile person would be ebay themselves, as they have a presence in most countries. All sales to problem destinations could involve a fee. The £6.99 item becomes £7.99 and everyone gets the sale? with so many sales of this kind of item, ebay could probably meet any claims themselves rather than use an insurance company. A bit like when you sell your house and do not have electrical certificates, you simply pay a small fee and an insurance company foot the bill if it later turns out to be dangerous.

[alcas1265]

under the Equality Act of 2010, Ebay are in breach. Recently and in light of my videos on you tube, i have reached out to government departments, and to make this clear. Ebay have breached numerous acts with regard to Geographical discrimination, Geographical Equality, and moreover breaches of the Levelling up Government scheme. This enabling GB sellers to turn off part of the UK is illegal and can be a high court issue coming for them. As one Government Commission, my group of people, my YouTube followers, my customers are behind this issue.

I am going to be seeking a group of people, to whom, due to this, and Ebay constantly enabling this to occur with zero impact assessments or communicating with any larger sellers or stakeholders in Northern Ireland

Ebay haven't realised this, but they have sleep walked into a major country wide legal issue. And the press are being informed, MLAs in Stormont, with press releases being made very soon.

Ive been ignored by ebay regarding this issue since it started and its got a lot worse since GPSR started which has turned off a majority of GB sellers being allowed to simply switch of a country, Which is discriminatory by country. (and is unlawful)

[thebouldpete]

Good seeing you here, and yes I have seen your YouTube channel and your difficulties with eBay, making phone calls and the lack of ‘real’ communication with them, the list goes on….I commend you for pursuing this just case.

I’m merely a simple buyer/seller on eBay so have no concept of what difficulties you have encountered throughout your business.

eBay need to be taught a hard lesson and thank you for going this route head on clearing all this GPSR headache, especially for Northern Irish buyers/sellers.
I will be watching your YouTube channel with real interest.

thank you.

[nattynu80]

Apologies, this is a little ‘after the fact’. This is all new to me, but having an item sell to someone in Northern Ireland for the first time this week, the postage via the committed courier (DPD) costs more than the item and the original listed postage put together, when it was less than half this for other UK addresses. So, it appears that Northern Ireland buyers can still see and buy other UK items and the cost can by significantly more (and a bit of a shock!).

If international postage to N. ireland is going to be forced, allowance within the set up needs to be made for the increased cost, rather than seeing it as the same grouping, which it is now. 

I have since communicated with the buyer and moved postage to Royal Mail over a longer delivery, but it is still more expensive than the postage cost I had set and this wouldn’t have been possible if the item was much larger. Fingers crossed that it actually gets to the buyer after reading all this as well. I honestly wonder if the people making decisions about international trade and shipping policies have come straight out of school. It’s like they have no life experience and don’t understand the massive impact even small decisions can have. The cost of these changes seems to far outweigh the benefits.

[outbidthebidder]

@nattynu80 I've been buying off eBay for over 20 years, and I've never understood why a lot of sellers refuse to use Royal Mail or ParcelForce for items up to 20kg. Instead, they opt to use other couriers like Evri or Yodel, or the bigger named ones. In my very early days, I did sell some stuff, and always used Royal Mail, and never had issues with them. Living in NI, I'm accustomed to the usual promised 48 hour delivery taking a week, but with Royal Mail, I've received probably around 90% of the stuff ordered within the timeframe.

To counter those that use the other couriers, I've ordered stuff from eBay Germany (car parts) and received that quicker than I've ordered stuff from GB. How exactly does that work when both sellers offer free postage, but because the GB seller insists on NOT using Royal Mail, it takes 3-4 days longer to get it. It's not as if the German seller is incorporating the postage fees into the item price.

NI has always been a mystery to people in GB, as they don't seem to realise that it IS part of the UK, and as a result, they think they're posting to a foreign country. The lunacy of all this is that, come 13th, GB sellers will still sell to European countries, but won't sell to another part of the UK.

[cooksongold]

If its for GPSR reasons - they'll be turning off EU countries as well as NI.

[earsmedia]

Surely, with Ebay having a Global Shipping Program, that works quite well - they've been very lax not sorting this. They need a responsible person in each country, so pick an ebay staff member in every country and either take responsibility for safety themselves, or use an insurance company. Sellers cannot do this, but ebay could, very simply. The fact they are willing to do nothing, suggests a problem. After all, my ebay selling margin means ebay fees are often more than my profit, so if ebay can afford to lose the business because of non-compliance, then we have to lose it too.

[cooksongold]

But ebay/Pitney Bowes isn't the seller of the product, nor is it the exporter, as per the terms.

based on information provided by you, Pitney Bowes will designate you as the exporter of GSP Items

Now it does then state or, at its discretion, will designate itself or one of its service providers as the exporter but it isn't clear under what circumstances that occurs.

But you can assume they would ideally want you the seller as the exporter - and as such, its on you to the GPSR diligence.

They COULD be the designated exporter I agree - and who knows, if there is enough of a drop off in GSP usage....

[ett1954]

"They COULD be the designated exporter I agree - and who knows, if there is enough of a drop off in GSP usage...." - Considering, as the 'responsible person', they would be required to stand in should there be an issue such as a recall or serious harm was caused, I doubt they would take this role - it would require substantial cover through any liability insurance.  The cost of such insurance would be astronomical.  It would also not negate the need for the seller's documentation which would of course include that safety manual written in around 27 different languages.

Small businesses cannot afford the time or costs required to complete the documentation and the bureaucracy required to be compliant in GPSR unless their business deals with only a relatively small number of individual  items.  This is the reason sellers are dropping Northern Ireland in addition to the EU, EEA, and EFTA member countries.

Northern Ireland didn't want a hard border with the Republic of Ireland resulting in the Irish Sea being that border.  This is a consequence of that.

[myriad*seller]

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@alcas1265 wrote:

under the Equality Act of 2010, Ebay are in breach. Recently and in light of my videos on you tube, i have reached out to government departments, and to make this clear. Ebay have breached numerous acts with regard to Geographical discrimination, Geographical Equality, and moreover breaches of the Levelling up Government scheme. This enabling GB sellers to turn off part of the UK is illegal and can be a high court issue coming for them. As one Government Commission, my group of people, my YouTube followers, my customers are behind this issue.

I am going to be seeking a group of people, to whom, due to this, and Ebay constantly enabling this to occur with zero impact assessments or communicating with any larger sellers or stakeholders in Northern Ireland

Ebay haven't realised this, but they have sleep walked into a major country wide legal issue. And the press are being informed, MLAs in Stormont, with press releases being made very soon.

Ive been ignored by ebay regarding this issue since it started and its got a lot worse since GPSR started which has turned off a majority of GB sellers being allowed to simply switch of a country, Which is discriminatory by country. (and is unlawful)

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The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination, harassment, and victimisation based on nine protected characteristics:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation