I'm living in Canada now (wow, 25C in March?! ) and loving it

BUT...

Why is Ebay.ca as baron as a Nun's lingerie drawer? Common items that would be available in their hundreds on Ebay UK get from 0-5 results and usually 4 of those are located in USA. Even looking at iphone 4s - I found only one completed sale on the whole of Ebay Canada.

I know online shopping in Canada is about up to the level the UK was at in 1993 but I thought ebay would have caught on here a bit more than...um....nothing at all.

I'm not even going to start on the postal service. 8 days to post a letter....TO MYSELF! And 3 weeks to post one from London to Toronto!

Vast distances and ridiculous shipping costs basically.

Kijiji is more on a local scale so cuts out those issues.

I use ebay a bit for stuff thats not easy or cheap to find locally, and usually end up dealing with sellers in the US. Its just a bigger market, 350M people instead of 35M.

I use eBay all the time. 557 or so deals over the years.
I even use it to buy stuff from shippers who will not send outside of the US. I just have it sent here and the good old USPS forwards packages to me in Nova Scotia. Works like a charm and the service is free. I have never had a problem.
Canada Post on the other hand charges me $145 plus tax to redirect my mail from Canada to here for six months. Daylight robbery !

Why not compare 60M in the UK with 30M in Canada? There is a world outside of North America.

I haven't looked at it specifically, but I don't imagine that postal rates Canada/UK are so massively different that it is the reason why. I believe it is simply that Canadians are not very internet savvy. Compare most websites in most sectors in Canada with their counterparts in Europe and there is simply no comparison. Lack of competition and all that

I have

A box of sax reeds, maybe £2 to mail in the UK, $20 to mail from Vancouver. $3 from the US. Just one example why ebay fails. Canada post is a rip off, or more accurately cant be as cheap when servicing half the number of people spread over 100 times the area.


A lot of the deals my brothers do on ebay in the UK they pick up in person. Thats not all that practical here, not outside one or two large urban areas. I did drive to the other side of Toronto once to pick up a keyboard that I got on ebay for a steal, but thats an excption for a high value item that was worth the time and effort.

I bought some nursing books, less than a Kilo in weight....$100 to UK. Joke

It is the postal charges.

I just sent an envelope full of documents from one end of the City to another for about $9 with Canada Post...they said 4 to 5 business days. When I told them I could walk it in that time...they basically said 'fine do it'. A courier would have been $13 and it would have been there in an hour. I honestly thought it would be cheaper than $9 which is why I sent via Canada Post.

Post offices in Canada are quite empty at times and in my opinion they are pricing themselves out of the market due to slow delivery times, labour unrest, prices and bureaucratic attitudes.

I think people give Canada Post a bad rep...I posted a small letter/package to my dear old mum on Friday just passed from Toronto to Aberdeen, Scotland and it arrived yesterday, safe and sound.

I think people give Canada Post too much credit. I sent my nan a pair of yak slippers and the parcel took four and half weeks to get there and it cost $35 to post.

I used to use Ebay all the time in the UK, especially building up to our move over here to get rid of all the crap (sorry, quality items ) that we weren't bringing with us. I don't use it here although my husband does but he tends to use it for more expensive stuff (science fiction) that you can't buy or sell local. The majority of the stuff he buys and sells is with the US.

For the sort of stuff I sell (mostly kids clothes and toys) I use Kijiji now instead. Like for like, it doesn't sell for as much as when I used to sell via Ebay in the UK but at least I get a little something for it and it gets it out of the way once we're done with it.

Really? I must just be lucky...I've never had a problem with them.

I only have a problem with the price they charge to send stuff to UK, i am in the dark about the reputation they may have...

My only issue is the cost. $16 to send 4 kraft envelops with the kids school pics to the rellies in the UK just made me think next time I will just scan them and email. They got there soon enough. Quite often mail from here to the UK is quicker than local mail though, which is pretty bizarre.

Kijiji is an ebay alternative for me too.

I would second www.kijiji.ca Everyone here seems to use it rather than ebay.

ebay works

I use it all the time,

What I don't do is by in Canada unless I have to, due to slow post and provincial taxes

Buy from the US its cheaper just avoid FedEx and UPS as they screw you on duty, just use USPS its fast and very reasonable

or buy direct from China Hong Kong, just check carefully what you're buying