eBay officially announced that its new International Shipping program (EIS) has officially replaced the US Global Shipping Program (GSP) and would replace its eBay International Standard Delivery (eISD) offering by July 1, 2023.
On Thursday, eBay posted an announcement on the Seller Announcement Board, telling sellers:
“The new eBay International Shipping program has now officially replaced the US Global Shipping Program (GSP). All eligible sellers previously using GSP now have access to the new program, which provides even more benefits to buyers and sellers.
“Additionally, eBay international standard delivery will be discontinued by July 1, 2023 as eligible sellers are also upgraded to the new program over the next few months.”
The same day, it posted an announcement on the eBay corporate blog, where it said it was “dramatically opening up global access to eBay’s US inventory.”
“Building on this strategic investment to grow export capabilities by easing the complexities of international sales and purchases, eIS is slated to succeed eBay’s two legacy international shipping platforms — Global Shipping Program (GSP) and eBay International Standard Delivery (eISD) — by July 1, 2023.”
The General Manager of eBay US Adam Ireland was quoted in Thursday’s eBay corporate blog post: “eBay is passionate about giving people the resources they need to connect with the things they love — no matter what country or category. With eBay International Shipping, we’re making global connections even more accessible, affordable, and profitable, significantly increasing the volume of items available to shoppers in 200+ countries, and making it even easier for our sellers to tap a universe of new business opportunities.”
The two posts came after eBay began emailing sellers on Tuesday informing them they would be enrolled in EIS over the next few weeks (See Wednesday’s EcommerceBytes Newsflash article: “eBay to Migrate All Sellers to International Shipping by Summer, Mulls New Feature.”)
Sellers have voiced several concerns and questions about the program:
- No combined shipping: A reader wrote in a comment on the EcommerceBytes blog, “The biggest flaw with this program is the buyer cannot combine multiple purchases into the same order. Each item is charged separate shipping. This will not work for my business model as buyers from overseas try to bundle as much as possible to save on shipping costs. If eBay could fix this one issue I would be all in.”
- Authorized reselling restrictions: A reader who is an authorized reseller indicated that being opted in automatically to eBay’s International Shipping program could cause him to inadvertently violate the terms of his contract with manufacturers and distributors, explaining, “For retailers with dealer contracts, many of us are only authorized to sell products in the US and Canada (and some to Mexico),” and adding, “I have yet to see the Opt Out feature.”
- Can’t get items back if returned: eBay Director of Exports Chad Stewart confirmed that any items returned through the EIS program would be resold on the site by eBay rather than be returned to the seller. That’s generally a positive in the sense that sellers don’t have to deal with returns, but some sellers would wish to have certain items returned to them. Stewart said eBay was looking at an option where it would allow sellers to specify that in the case of returns, they could opt to handle it themselves, “at which point we would send the item back to the seller rather than essentially liquidating the item on their behalf.”
- Excluded countries: An eBay moderator wrote in response to questions over whether sellers could exclude certain countries when shipping with EIS, “After a seller has been migrated to EIS, we continue to respect any country exclusions the seller has applied to their listing.”
- Editing required to include weight and dimensions: One seller who wanted to use the new EIS program was concerned because their over 1,000 listings did not include weight and dimensions.
- Mixed messages: A seller said they were confused about whether they’d need to make any changes to their listings that only offer eBay international standard delivery, reporting they had received mixed messages from eBay about the issue.
- Opting out of EIS: It appears that sellers can’t specify ahead of time that they don’t want to be migrated to the new eBay International Shipping program, but must opt out after eBay enrolls them.
On the same day eBay issued its official announcement about the July 1st deadline, two companies issued press releases about their affiliation with the program.
Tax compliance service Avalara announced that “eBay International Shipping leverages Avalara software natively to determine Harmonized System (HS) commodity classification codes, identify item-level trade restrictions, and generate landed cost pricing for more than 200 million items hosted on eBay, and sold to more than 200 countries.”
And EasyShip said that its API had been supporting various services on eBay for label generation, cross-border compliance, and tracking in the US, and supporting domestic and international shipments throughout Canada and Australia since 2019, and announced on Thursday it had expanded its partnership with eBay, writing:
“Our technology and expertise in borderless eCommerce & smart logistics with eBay’s roadmap, enables us to now build a world-class logistics solution together,” Easyship co-founder Augustin Ceyrac said in a statement. “Easyship provides the infrastructure of eBay International Shipping, and we are excited to expand our footprint of logistics-enhanced ecommerce together, truly democratizing border-free sales for merchants of all sizes.”
