Friday, May 17, 2013

Ebay Global Shipping Program:SNADs as extraordinarily dangerous to seller

Ebay touts its new GSP as making life simpler for sellers, hassle free international sales.

Given that most transactions go off smoothly, for some sellers, this might well be a good idea.  However, the program has some major gotchas for seller.

First understand how GSP works. Buyer pays two people, seller and the GSP program operator. Seller ships the item to Kentucky. GSP payment covers shipping from kentucky to buyer, plus prepaid customs fees to buyer's country, plus profit for the GSP operator.  On a $100 item, could easily be an extra $75.

The Big #! threat.  SNAD resolution. 

Consider a SNAD case involving an item, $100 price, $15 shipping to Kentucky, $75 to the GSP, total $190. The item arrives broken.

Now some might focus on :who broke it, but there is a threat which is independent of that.

The only way buyer can be made whole, including the GSP money, is to file, escalate, and win the SNAD case.  That will get seller's money plus the GSP money returned to buyer.  It will also get a domestic SNAD case strike filed against seller, and there's nothing seller can do about it.  Seller cannot resolve the issue by refunding all money seller received. Seller can't even resolve it by covering the extra $90 himself, because there is no formal association between any such refund and the case.

Doesn't seem well thought out.


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