Help Please - A parcel for Canada

[melinachristina]

Hi Guys, your suggestions please with how I should handle this without getting a big fat demerit from eBay.

Although the Canada Mail Stike has ended I was informed at my LPO this morning that Customs Canada is not yet receiving international parcels, although they expect to be doing so within the next 7 days or so.

So, I have a parcel here now that I can't dispatch. I've been in contact with the buyer who is quite happy for me to hold on the dispatch, but how do I do this without earning a late dispatch demerit from the eBay Bots?

Looking forward to your help.

As always, thanks 🙂

Melina.

[digital*ghost]

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@melinachristina wrote:

Actually, can anyone help me right now with a short list of countries considered to have the propensity for migraine headaches please?

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I'll preface this by mentioning I don't ship anywhere outside of Australia on eBay, but for whatever it's worth, I still ship to Canada, but only with tracked postage. If you send economy (untracked), it takes forever, but if you send tracked the delivery time is often halved. 

Italy is another one where a lot of sellers prefer not to send to, but again I do, just tracked only. If I were selling internationally on ebay, I'd probably keep Canada at tracked only, and block Italy, though. 

Germany can be super slow for merchandise, if there is no invoice or fully detailed customs declaration. 

I block all the other usual suspects, and haven't really had any other consistent issues that seem specific to individual countries, apart from those above. A lot of people say no to Russia and Malaysia, I've sent to both a few times with no problems, but as it was only a few times each, it's not much to draw on. 

[melinachristina]

Thanks Dave and Digi, the slow time over Xmas will be a good time to sort some of this. It’s only a matter of time before we have issues if we don’t.

Italy? Oh yes, we’ve been caught up in that mess elsewhere. It cost us 25 Euro to sort that, but it was cheap to what it could have been.

I imagine South America might be well up on that list too?

Thanks again,

Mel.

[imastawka]

Mel, Israel and Russia are also no-no's

Actually, I just decided to only ship to NZ, USA and UK   - solved all problems.

[melinachristina]

Yes Stawks, when you get interested and start reading of some of the issues sellers here and elsewhere have with other countries, I think you got it about right. There’s probably a handful more we’ll ship to, but only because we have some good customers in those countries and we’ve had no issues, Japan, Singapore for example, oh and France. A lot complain about France, but we’ve had good sales there. There’d be probably 3-4 others.

As i said. I think we’ve been very very lucky!

We’ll sort it Stawks. Thanks for your guidance 🙂

Mel.

[jamecos_1]

Malina,

Don't get your hopes up with Canada Post (CP). They have been ordered back to work but there will likely a "Work to Rule" strike ongoing. CUPW or the postal union does not really like there members ordered back to work. "Work to Rule" strikes can cause more problems than normal out front picketing, not working at all. This may not be advertised.....

Depends where in Canada parcel is going this time of the year, the weather also plays a factor, snow, sleet, slush, freezing rain etc. The Xmas rush is on, there appears to be a massive backlog of mail and parcels to process.

Try a simple Google search for "Canada Post" then go down to Top Stories. Note: If you read the comments at the bottom of the stories you will notice a lot of negativity toward CP and CUPW.

It has been over 18yrs. since I have had much to do with CP but I can not see much changing in that time. There is no comparison Australia Post is much better run, better set up, better service, and happier/helpful workers.

[queenslander-1]

Australia Post started accepting mail for Canada again yesterday the 10th Dec.