But what if PWCC’s new vault service fails completely while their sold auction prices plummets leading to less people consigning with them? Then maybe they will revert back to their old practices and it will be business as usual again. For now it is definitely a win for American buyers, but not so sure about American sellers that are playing by the rules, at least in the short term.
Also, generally when evaluating prices for cards any potential import fee is not shown. If a significant part of the higher end cards at PWCC were bought by international collectors (I expect this is true for both Magic and Pokemon) that means prices are somewhat inflated. If other eBay sellers expect similar prices while still declaring full value then perhaps they are being slightly naive.
Their vault service isn’t going to fail. It fills a need. Also a company that can build a massive vault as a side project might not be hurting for cash.
In regards to the never ending debate about taxes, so the seller should absorb all the risk because of your countries laws? It’s not pwcc’s fault, it’s your countries fault.
Overall customer loyalty is fickle, as seen in this thread. I don’t use gsp, only a handful of sellers don’t, and there is no real benefit; I absorb all the risk. Therefore there is no incentive as a seller. I only do it out of empathy for the buyer. But the tread on those tires is thin, as people complaining just want the cheapest option at all costs. The lack of customer loyalty and unrealistic entitlement is expediting the process of all sellers using gsp. It’s a market driven reaction.
No real benefit? Ofc there is. Sellers who offer non gsp shipping at a reasonable price will get way more international sales in return, even if your item is listed at a higher price compared to other sellers it will be worth it for buyers to purchase it from you when there are no absurdly high shipping charges and additional import fees. It’s risk vs reward, even if you need to issue a refund or two every now and then because of a lost non insured shipment, so what? Shit happens. It should still be really worth it in the long run.
And I’m not just some upset buyer whining about fees and trying to save every penny possible , I personally ship pretty much everything without insurance and items worth under ~150$ without tracking. If I had the same mindset about international shipping as most of the NA sellers, I would have barely any sales at all, 99% of the things I ship are non domestic. A lot of people just seems to read the horror stories and worst scenarios possible regarding international shipping and won’t even bother to try it out. For me, about 1 out of 100 untracked international mail gets “lost”, and as far as I remember NONE of my registered/tracked mail has been lost so far.
TL;DR: International shipping isn’t as bad and terrible as they claim…
So far in June I’ve internationally shipped 5 orders over $5,000usd… low declaration and uninsured. Most to people here. Never had one lost to solid buyers.
@emba, I ultimately agree with your general distinction. It is opportunity cost. I like your point about increasing the principle price for taking the risk.
The issue sounds like international buyers conflating the principle price with total price:
Seller doesn’t use GSP, but has a higher principle price = 10-15% added.
Seller uses GSP with a lower principle price = 25% added.
The fallacy here is the “principle price” isn’t real if you can’t get it to your door. The issue is buyers want both of those options (lowest principle price, with no gsp), which is absurd. I personally work with international buyers and find a middleground. However I am different from a new business.
I’ve also stopped using GSP and now absorb the risk myself. I do agree with @emba that there is incentive for me to do this because I’m able to make more sales. From my experience, international buyers tend to make very solid offers and I believe it’s because they’re used to having extra fees with GSP so their idea of a card’s price is slightly inflated.
Although I haven’t had any problems yet, one bad experience will most likely push be back towards using GSP.
@smpratte I don’t have anywhere near your selling experience, but I’ve found international buyers to be willing to pay 5% or so more than the price I’d charge in the US. This is much better than the 20% or so they’d be charged if I used GSP. I can then keep that 5% or so extra money as “insurance” funds for when a problem does occur.
@charizandrew, My experience is similar to yours, but I hear conflicted stories about new businesses who use GSP and have great sales. Perhaps the product they are selling, advertising, etc. is a factor. I remember @funmonkey54 used to not use GSP and does now and notices no difference.
I wont buy from any buyers that ship with the GSP. I made 1 purchase and it took almost a month to get to me and had to pay taxes and customs fees. $100 card became $142 by the time it got to me, not including shipping. NOPE!
Yeah, I didn’t lose any sales. And I even went back without it once when I added a bunch of inventory that was new and my sales didn’t go up, either. So I’m always hella skeptical of the increased sales argument. Especially as something that overwhelmingly outweighs the unreal peace of mind GSP provides. I see a ton of people talk about these millions of magical international buyers with a penchant for non-GSP listings, but I’ve literally never seen someone quantify the increase with data.
It would be nice to have data and compare which of the two strategies works best. However, you’re right that it varies based on so many factors. Most importantly, the customer shouldn’t criticize the seller and expect to not pay any import fees.
@funmonkey54, it’s hard to say if sales increase significantly, but I’m more confident there’s a slight sale price increase. This extra money can then be used to create an “insurance” fund for when a problem does occur. However, using GSP and having peace of mind may push it towards being the best option. I have zero concerns/anxiety when I ship with GSP, not so much without it.
Yeah, definitely. I’m 100% open to the possibility. I just haven’t seen hard evidence. And there needs to be more than just a break even. Because a dollar for dollar break even is still a lot more work dealing with those claims, shipping the extra orders, sourcing and processing additional inventory, etc.
GSP for the win, just had a Canadian customer claim he received an empty package. It was torn open over the Canadian postage label then taped shut he said. He claimed that he talked to eBay and Pitney Bowes for 10 hours and claimed they all said it was my fault. I Called eBay and they dismissed the case against me after talking to the rep for 2 minutes.
I think I’m gonna go with the GSP from now on, but for different reasons. I hate it when things sell and GSP makes that less likely to happen with no chance of hassles
It might have to do with your reputation and following. If people already regularly buy from you and trust you to get it to them, it doesn’t matter the price. However if you’re a new seller, I feel people’s attitudes are different. Hope the point came across the right way.
I could consider using GSP for higher value items. It makes no sense to me to buy a $20 PSA 9 card and pay another $25 for shipping. So I would imagine the people who buy internationally with GSP go with higher value items.
However… Even that doesn’t make sense for me, as I would face a tax problem. Everything over $25 of value outside of EU is going to be taxed. And if I buy with GSP, GSP will also charge me for taxes. And most likely our customs won’t have any information about me already being taxed. So then they would tax me again.
So let’s think… I pay $100 for an item. Shipping is $25. GSP would already charge me around $24 for taxes. That’s $149. Then the item arrives to Finnish customs and they would ask me to pay 24% tax from the total cost of the item and the shipping. That’s $30. = item ends up costing me $179 total unless I make a call to customs and explain taxes were already charged. But if our customs doesn’t somehow get the customs charge I’ve paid, it won’t matter and I will be slapped with that extra $30.
There’s no win with this system and the lower value items aren’t worth to be shipped with GSP. Rip.
The only one time I bought with GSP was from the UK. It was a card I really wanted and I won’t get taxed buying from the UK (yet…).
And being more in topic, I didn’t buy from PWCC before because their shipping costs were high even if they marked down. The shipping charge was based on location, the amount of items won, and the value of items, so not knowing shipping costs before winning (you never know how much a listing is going to end at) was a huge turn off for me. And now that they don’t mark down it’s even more sure that I won’t make any purchases from PWCC going forward.
I completely understand why they won’t mark down anymore as it’s a risk from their side. But I never bought from PWCC before as I said so I’m not really losing anything at this point…
You won’t get taxed twice, the courier who is delivering the package to you takes care of the custom clearance with the money already forward by you on checkout. You won’t be contacted by your country’s custom office at all. At least this is my experience on over 10 orders with GSP delivered to Portugal.
Actually, most of the times, it get’s cheaper using the GSP because my custom’s office tariffs are not clear and their formulas are also not explicit to the public, and I find myself paying more for some reason when it stops there.
But yes, GSP justifies on higher end collectibles. I would say anything below 150$ it’s not worth it
