As part of its push to grow international and cross-border sales, eBay has added Brazil to the list of countries supported by its Global Shipping Program (GSP). While meant to provide a worry-free, easy way for U.S.-based sellers to reach new markets, the GSP program – and the way eBay has “opted” sellers into it – is somewhat controversial.
The program works by making listings posted by sellers who are enrolled in the program visible to international buyers. The listings are displayed to international buyers with all of the costs, including shipping with international tracking and any and all applicable import charges. “There are no additional charges at delivery,” eBay explains to buyers. “You’ll see an estimate of the international shipping charges and any import charges in the item listing. The final charges appear at checkout.”
Sellers are responsible for domestic shipping only – they ship their goods to eBay’s partner Pitney Bowes, which then handles all the international shipping, customer support and returns.
But some sellers felt tricked into joining the program (without even realizing their listings were being offered to overseas buyers). One seller shared their thoughts, writing, “Apparently if you sign the new user agreement then you can be automatically opted into this program. There are lots of potential problems with this program for me, so to opt me in because I accepted their user agreement doesn’t feel right.”
Others say there’s no need to add all potential import costs into the selling price of eBay.com GSP listings and that it makes their items seem much more expensive to international buyers than goods they could purchase domestically.
Despite such complaints, eBay is forging ahead with the program, and Brazil is an important addition as eBay targets BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China. Brazil is the 54th country in the eBay GSP program.
In its announcement, eBay cited statics that showed retail ecommerce sales in Brazil grew almost 15% in 2013 with a projected growth of 12% in 2014 and wrote, “now’s your chance to tap into the nearly 200 million Brazilian buyers looking for your items.”
eBay is adding Brazil to the GSP program beginning May 5, 2014, but for the first three months, only a limited number of listings will be available for sale to buyers in Brazil. “Thereafter, we will make all eligible live and new listings from participating sellers available for sale to Brazilian buyers,” eBay explained.
“With online buyers in Brazil representing over 36% of all online buyers in South America, there has never been a better time to sell to Brazil. And remember that when you ship through the Global Shipping Program, you aren’t responsible for item loss or damage that occurs after the item is accepted at the US shipping center.”
See details on the eBay website.
