The Potential for Ebay Authenticity Services Outside the US?

Note: this discussion branched off from this thread Should I cancel this order?

Ebay Canada needs to get the authenticity guarantee as well. In a situation like this, once the buyer pays it is a done deal.

The problem is we don’t have access to socialist shipping prices like you guys do with USPS.

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Haha yeah its cheap shipping USPS. They lose billions of dollars in operating losses. Leave it to governments to run something in the red

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They actually don’t lose any money from operating costs as a matter of fact. They are sabotaged by our government, and are independent of the actual government, strictly speaking. They are not funded by the government and are self operating.

The government forces certain policies and additional non operating related expenses on them that costs billions and is putting them in debt, and when you consider what the intentions of our government (big business and the politicians who benefit from them) is, it makes sense. Privatization is more efficient! propaganda.

Tired of seeing this misconception about usps.

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Having to fully fund a pension years in advance still hits the operaring margins, since the money made is used to fund those.
They also have crappy deals with Amazon for final delivery of packages.
I 100% agree if the government stayed out of it, it would be a smoother run entity at a net 0 profit

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I just like calling the most trusted institution in the USA socialist because it bothers a significant number of people

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I know your humor, I understood and grinned at it :pikajoy:

But also in reality, shipping costs would be a big burden for a Canadian authenticity service. You’re tacking on another $20CAD to every item for shipping. Maybe $10 if you do bulk shipping from a middle warehouse. And you’d have to ship across the border twice. Even if it was a Canadian buyer to a Canadian seller, you’d have to deal with whatever the customs implications are. Theoretically you probably wouldn’t owe customs on it, they would likely still charge the buyer and you’d have to request a refund

I was thinking a local office in Canada for authenticity guarantee. Wouldn’t cross the border and should be just local shipping. Unless it is USA to Canada or Canada to USA. Then it crosses just once.
The office could be used for PSA submissions and other things to make it financially feasible

Theoretically it’s possible but going international like that isn’t easy for PSA. You are working in a different country with different laws and tax systems. Overhead cost just to open up a place is pretty high.

I could see it as a long term strategy but they’d have to make sure the benefits outweigh the cost

Your entire country has a smaller population than PSA’s home state of California so truthfully there’s not reason for them to add authenticity and the extra burdens of it

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sent you a pm OP


While you may be technically correct, we are not really talking about a very large difference.

But that would put Canada above every other state. 10 million more people than Texas. 20 million more than New York or Florida. It’s also not really a relevant metric. You still have walmarts opening in the most empty US states. Because they still end up being profitable so not doing so leaves money on the table.

The difference here is that the costs and complexity of going international are significantly higher. It’s not just a matter of flipping a switch. You’d have to buy a physical location, hire new authenticators, enter negotiations with Canada Post and ebay.ca (which is a different entity from ebay.com).

The USA authentication guarantee process is being subsidized by either ebay or PSA or both. Running it in Canada would also be losing money but it would be operating at a higher loss per card. It’s not designed to be a service that generates profit, it’s designed to establish a relationship these two major companies in a way that locks out the competition. Similar to PWCCxCGC.

So with high expense, no obvious profit motive and little competitive advantage, there’s no reason for PWCC to open a physical location in Canada at this time.

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It would certainly make my life easier. I wouldn’t be suprised if PSA created some kind of presence in Canada and Europe at some point.

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EBay.de (Germany) has authenticity for high end watches and bags, I have been told cards may be added too at some point in the future. There seems to be a lot of legality issues when the transaction happens between two different eBay sites (.com , .ca , .de etc) more than the logistics of authenticating, which only really requires an office and a couple people to start.
To scale it to almost any value item like .com does is a whole different quest tho.

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Watches and handbags are very European so that’s not suprising that authenticity companies exist in the European single market. I’m sure the companies that produce these luxury items also want to protect their brand.

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Even Vinted.com, a big rival to Ebay (especially in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium) offers that.
A lot of people shopping for luxury bags I guess lol.

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