Global Shipping Program KILLING trade. seller shipping restrictions for victorinox swiss army knives

[6469buy]

Why is ebay trying to stop people from buying legal pocket kinves from the USA eg. Victorinox Swiss Army Knife

This Global shipping program is not helping people it is KILLING trade!

And stopping Australians from getting the best price.

Shame on you ebay!!! 

[afantiques]

I would bet that they will foist it on Australian sellers, sooner rather than later. They are rolling it out in the UK.

There is just about no chance it would appear in Australian ebay. It can be tacked on cheaply to the UK site because the UK has the distribution depot for the whole of Europe, in other words, it is already a hub in a hub and spoke distribution system. Australia is at the end of a very long spoke, and would not be a useful hub for anywhere.

The reason the rules are applied over strictly is that it is simpler, and the GSP shippers value their status as shipping agents able to prepare trusted customs manifests more than they value the costs of the odd 'unshippable' item.

[lyndal1838]

I am glad to hear that we are unlikely to have the GSP foisted on us, but a bit amused at your explanation of why PB applies blanket bans on knives for example.   And that is by no means the only items that they refuse to ship.  It seems that musical instruments are also on the banned list.  It is a pity PB does not put out a list of the items they refuse to ship....it would make life a lot easier for the poor buyers who live in hopes that they may actually get what they pay for because they are not banned items.

And I might add that Pitney Bowes are not doing such a good job with their paperwork.  It is well known here in importing circles that FedEx are having a lot of problems with Australian Customs.....a lot of parcels are being held by Customs while they ask for more information or clarification of the information that has been furnished by PB.

[afantiques]

It is well known here in importing circles that FedEx are having a lot of problems with Australian Customs.....a lot of parcels are being held by Customs while they ask for more information or clarification of the information that has been furnished by PB.

Who are 'importing circles' and exactly what is well known,and by what means is this well known.

Pardon my cynicism but I always assume anything well known, on the internet, has just been made up by the poster to suit their argument. There is also a tremendous amount of recycling of other people's fictions as fact.

Can you give the source of this information about Australian customs and Fedex?

[lyndal1838]

Now how did I know you were going to challenge my post?

In a past life I was a courier subcontractor.....in 15 years I made a lot of friends/contacts who I still keep in contact with.

My husband has had 25 years as a subcontractor and is still going strong.

My daughter is the state manager of the courier division of an International logistics company...she has clocked up 28 years in the courier/transport industry and deals regularly with Australian Customs.

If you know anything at all about the courier industry in Australia (and I do) you will know that it is a very tightknit industry.   Everyone knows everyone else and most couriers change companies regularly....5 years with one company is considered to be a long time.

I have made a point of asking questions about the GSP/FedEx, especially since my first experience of it was when my very small package arrived in Sydney before Christmas 2013 and I did not receive it for nearly a month.

I could name names but I am not going to do so on a public forum.  Whether you believe me is up to you, and I really don't care much.

[afantiques]

Could you be more specific about the nature of the problems?

[lyndal1838]

No, I'm sorry but I am not going to rehash all the posts that have been on the boards for the last year or so.

Every time I have answered a poster with any sort of information you have challenged me.  You have even gone so far as to call me a liar when I have posted my own experiences saying that the GSP does not work that way.  Maybe it is not supposed to work "that way" but it did.

My specific remark about Customs was in reply to your post that PB is more interested in clear paperwork for Customs rather than shipping perfectly legal items to Australia.

There have been a number of posters on these boards who have mentioned having items held by Customs until PB furnishes further information or revised paperwork.

I have confirmed with my friends/contacts that this is happening....and more often than we have heard about on these boards.

FedEx is getting a bad name in Australia for the length of time it is taking to deliver after the items arrive in Australia.....they just don't seem to be able to handle the volume.

[i-love-my-sheep]

---

@afantiques wrote:

Could you be more specific about the nature of the problems?

---

Why don't you ring up and find out for yourself before calling a very experienced ebayer, who has been in the business for years, a liar?

[afantiques]

There have been a number of posters on these boards who have mentioned having items held by Customs until PB furnishes further information or revised paperwork

You'll find everything from Elvis's current address to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the boards, but it does not make any statement true unless it is backed with some sort of credible independent evidence.

What adds to the confusion are the sellers who bypass the GSP and send direct. From the receiving end it's hard for the inexperienced buyer to know this has happened, and the reason for asking for further evidence is to eliminate cases where the customs delay is not due to the item being imported through the GSP process, but as an individual shipment.

Published scans of mailing labels soon clarify the situation, but of course, most folk do not see any need for this, and they assume that because they paid for GSP shipping, the problem is a GSPproblem.

I have never been a fan of the GSP and have studied it closely for 2 years or more, but "What the soldier said" is hearsay, it is not evidence.

Why don't you ring up and find out for yourself before calling a very experienced ebayer, who has been in the business for years, a liar?

I am not saying anyone is lying, unsupported assertions may well be believed by the person publishing them to be true, but without further confirmation they remain asserions,  not facts. I am also a very experienced ebayer who has been in the business for years, if it makes any difference.

[i-love-my-sheep]

So if I told you there is only about a 10% survival rate for people that have a ruptured aneurysm, would you believe me because that is my job, or would you want documented evidence? I could consult Dr Google and find anything I like to back up my claims, but the fact remains, it's what I've been doing for nearly 30 years, long before the internet and google, so I kind of have a bit of an idea about these things.

It's no different with Lyndal. She knows about these things because that was her job for many years and family members are still in the job. Would you like someone to question your knowledge of your job? When someone has been in the same job for a long time, they become familiar with a lot of things and a lot of people. 

[afantiques]

It's no different with Lyndal. She knows about these things because that was her job for many years and family members are still in the job. Would you like someone to question your knowledge of your job? When someone has been in the same job for a long time, they become familiar with a lot of things and a lot of people. 

My query was exactly  what the problem was. In the case of ruptured aneurysm I'd be interested to know if  there were any factors such as age, sex, occupation or race that predisposed to a higher or lower survival rate, without taking your basic assertion as inherently false or even questionable, since, should I actually be interested in such survival rates, this information might be useful in  dealing with such cases.

I'm not disputing the basic assertion, just asking for further details to better understand the process and the drawbacks. If individual items on a freight manifest are being questioned, this would imply considerable delays for the entire consignment of packages, since the whole shipment would either have to be held till the further information was forthcoming, or the questionable item physically located and isolated from a container full of packages, which would be quite laborious.

It would also be interesting to know how the consignments were identified as GSP items since these would be passing in the same inward freight stream as containers of mixed widgets from many overseas sources.

If anyone were to ask how I knew when a particular antique spoon or clock or chair was made, I'd not say "I just know"; I'd specify a few stylistic features and explain how they fit into the evolution and history of the design of that item.

At the moment the only answer is "I just know" to my question about GSP/Fedex problems.