Ebay considering blocking Aussies from buying from OS

Also being reported on The Age etc -

http://www.theage.com.au/business/r...ralian-shoppers-over-gst-20170417-gvmkoe.html

With GST import charges likely coming in on everything, constantly climbing US and Aus postage costs, lousy currency conversion rates, all the various fees we pay on any transaction, and now these possible ebay restrictions, what should be a cheap and fun hobby is fast becoming unsustainable for the majority I fear.
 
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Our government is stupid, instead of coming up with ways to help local sellers compete and operate at lower costs, they want to cut out the competition at the other end. But you know what? there will always be loopholes where we can get things from overseas, they cannot block everything and new ways will appear. Like back then we relied heavily on eBay to get our cards, then it got a bit expensive, we trade on forums, then they raised postage costs in the US, we go through proxy mailers like COMC. No matter what they do, there will be a solution.
 
Does anyone really think for a minute that eBay would potentially turn away customers from it site from buying in a specific region? Think of all that Paypal interest and fees etc they may miss out on......It's in their best interests to be throwing out these sorts of threats to get this proposed change cancelled.

My guess is that this proposed change will be pushed back (its complex and unworkable at present) and will probably end up dying a slow death sometime in the next few years.
 
Matt26 said:
Does anyone really think for a minute that eBay would potentially turn away customers from it site from buying in a specific region? Think of all that Paypal interest and fees etc they may miss out on......It's in their best interests to be throwing out these sorts of threats to get this proposed change cancelled.

My guess is that this proposed change will be pushed back (its complex and unworkable at present) and will probably end up dying a slow death sometime in the next few years.
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Doubt they'd lose out all that much if they forced Aussie buyers to only buy from Aussie sellers - chances are they'd make more as prices will go up without the overseas competition.

And that'll be a side affect of this proposed legislation. The price on literally everything that could be bought somewhat cheaper from overseas will likely go up now as the sellers will be knowing they can try and make more margin as the competition just went up 10% !

There will still be times I suppose that it's still worth the extra 10% to buy from overseas, but the hassle of customs delays and the like will be a major pain. I've had to deal with them a couple of times way back, and they'd want to improve...

The pollies will defend it all by saying they're protecting businesses and jobs etc, but all they're doing is creating a bigger GST fund for them to waste, the businesses aren't going to see much more of a profit I'm sure. I think it's especially wrong when it's applied to stuff you can't get here half the time because no one even stocks/distributes it...
 
I think this will mainly affect people who buy boxes to break, but the secondary markets for singles should not be affected since I assume we are still allowed to buy second hand goods from overseas. The only issue here is that eBay is proposing a geo-block which will blanket block all Australian accounts from buying from overseas account, regardless of the nature of the sale, second hand or new products.
 
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