And the rest of the "detail"!

When you purchase an item through the Global Postage Programme, you receive international tracking at no additional charge and pay any applicable import charges upfront. There are no additional charges at delivery. You'll see an estimate of the international postage charges and any import charges in the item listing. The final charges appear at checkout.

Import charges include certain fees, such as export classification, importation risk premium, and variance fees, which are assessed by the global postage provider as part of the services provided by the Global Postage Programme. These fees are in addition to the customs duties and taxes imposed by country tax and customs officials. For additional information about applicable fees, see the eBay Global Postage Programme Buyer Terms & Conditions.

Note: The charges that you are quoted in the item listing are not final until paid and may change - for example, if you change your delivery address during checkout or if the applicable import rules change before you complete your payment.

BH

The most important statement is: "These fees are in addition to the customs duties and taxes imposed by country tax and customs officials.". These are fees levied by the company behind the "Global Postage Programme". Nothing to do with the UK HMRC.

BH

The rest of the detail is even more worrying!

When you pay for the item through PayPal, you are authorising 2 payment transactions. The first payment goes to the seller and consists of the item cost and the domestic postage costs. The second payment goes to the global postage provider and consists of the international postage costs and any import charges.

After you've completed checkout, you can review these charges on the Order details page. The Order details page shows the total charges and the payment amounts to the seller and global postage provider.

Note: The Request total from the seller link is not available for Global Postage Programme purchases. You'll see the total, including postage, after you've purchased the item.

BH

The long & short of it: you will not know the total, for sure, until the auction is finished & you have gone through checkout. At this point the final total will be revealed! Sounds great...

BH

It sounds as though eBay have been taking lessons from Ryanair ...

- wellinghall

I think you have it almost in full now:

These fees are in addition to the customs duties and taxes imposed by country tax and customs officials.

And

The first payment goes to the seller and consists of the item cost and the domestic postage costs. The second payment goes to the global postage provider and consists of the international postage costs and any import charges.

Between those two, I think the fees are summed up. The seller ships (domestic) to a third party. The third party handles international shipment, and collects their own fees, which appear to be based on the value of the item being shipped (so "insurance" based on value is included).

I would never use a service such as this, personally. If I really needed to, I would ask eBay, PayPal, the shipping service and the seller - "Who is responsible for the item, and when? If I need to file a claim, where do I do so, and who is responsible for investigating/paying out? If an item gets lost or damaged, where did it happen in this process? How can that be confirmed or investigated? Is domestic shipping tracked? International? Separately or together?" I could think of ten more questions, and I don't think most of them could be answered to my satisfaction.

Although there is one point to note, as you point out Jeremy. The seller is meant to be collecting (from the buyer) only the domestic postage, apparently. Therefore, you shouldn't really be getting quoted a "international shipping" price within in the postage section, even though you are in the UK. Still, even if this was just a domestic quote the charge is going to be more than normal USPS international postage for anything costing over $50; as the example I posted shows.

I was looking at another item the other day & this damn Global Postage Programme thing came up again!

Check how ludicrous this price is:

LOL
I was glad you brought this up because I too was watching an item and must admit i didnt really pay too much attention to postage thinking it would be the norm from US. I checked mine and it was similar to above.

As a result cant be bothered, will not buy, not watching any more!

What a mad system. I can understand the thought process of why introduced but the figures have to be realistic otherwise who would risk it? too late once brought in theory !

I can understand it too laurel. My guess is, if you asked, they'd cite insurance etc. The problem is this charge, in the example above, is more than the value of the item (--unless that quote is assuming checkout at the Buy-it-now price.) Either way, when you use USPS (I guess) or Royal Mail, insuring a book to value (& tracking) does not currently increase the cost of the posting to levels near the value of said item.

Literally every item listed using this Global Postage Programme is going to have no international bidders, if people understand the detail. This is a big market (assuming you list internationally) for a seller to loose. And just damn annoying for collectors who cast the net beyond their own small shores...

BH