I can always view listings regardless of their postal preferences. For shipping choices I can see, Does not ship to Canada, May ship to Canada, various costs of USPS international First Class mail, or, for me, the DREADED GSP. For instance, you list a bag at 50.00 and have free shipping; the shipping for me with GSP, shows maybe around 16.00 to 20.00 depending on the size of the package because even though you ship free to the Pitney Bowes hub in Kentucky, I am still paying for the shipping Pitney Bowes charges to ship to me in Canada.
As well, the import charges can be a deal breaker for me. If an item starts low, let's say, 9.99 there are no import charges but after a certain amount they start to kick in, so it's really difficult to get a handle on what something is going to end up costing me. A bag with GSP that ends up with a 50.00 sale price can cost me 50.00 for the bag, 16.00 Pitney Bowes shipping, 16.00 shipping that you may have paid to ship it to Kentucky, plus 22.00 in import charges. That adds up to 104.00 I end up paying for a 50.00 bag.
And to add insult to injury Pitney Bowes makes it no secret that they "repackage" items to expedite shipping which means you could send me a purse nicely packed with stuffing inside, wrapped in bubble wrap in a box and they will take out the stuffing, ditch the box and send it in an envelope looking like it got kicked down a football field or run over by a dump truck. And then...yes, there's more!! AFAIK, no one gets a credit for the cost of repacking a item into a smaller package (at least I don't), plus I have to say that for all the purses that have been sent using regular USPS mail (which is around 80 or so) I have only had to go to the Post Office and pay duty or import charges twice!! So that really irks me, especially when it is a pre owned item.
I don't sell stuff so I have never set up an account where I have to indicate my shipping preferences but I am wondering if eBay is experiencing too many sellers opting out of GSP and have somehow hidden that items are being shipped through the GPS. The last two items I bought showed that the seller had listed using USPS with a calculation tool which I used to get a ballpark for costs but when I won the listing changed to GSP option. I contacted both sellers and asked them why they changed the shipping after I paid and both said they did not, so I don't know what's going on. I just know as a buyer, I would rather give my money to the seller, instead of PB.
