Could I make a second account to sell exclusively in the US?

[vip-marketplace]

So here's my situation:

I have a warehouse in Manitoba that handles my domestic (Canadian) orders and ships themselves. However, for US orders, I have to have items shipped to me and then I ship to the US buyer which adds a good 5-6 extra business days to the shipping time. So my domestic orders are handled same business days and US orders are handled within 5-6 business days. However, I cannot set 2 different handling times. I guess I could set 6 business days for both but it seems to me it would hurt my domestic sales too much for no reason especially since I ship those the same day.

So far, I didn't have too much problems selling in both Canada in the US except a few US buyers inquiring about the delivery time of their order but that was about it.

Now there appears to be a new metric called "Late shipment rate" and pretty much all my US orders are flagged as late for "Carrier says late delivery". I am now dangerously close to 10% late delivery (which is incidentally my % of US orders).

I use to have free shipping on everything in both Canada and the US and that worked great but in an effort to lower my % of US orders, I decided to add huge shipping costs for US orders.

I have now lost 75% of my US business... but my "Late shipment rate" as finally started dropping a little and will most likely reach 3-4% in a few weeks.

I was wondering if I could create a new account that I could use to sell my items in the US and be able to use the right handling time (5-6 days). Would that make sense? Both account would sell the same items - one in CAD$ with same day shipping and the other in US$ with 5-6 days handling time.

Or would eBay consider this an attempt to have duplicate listings and ban my account forever?

If you can come up with a better solution to be able to sell in the US again, please let me know!

Thanks!

[pocomocomputing]

List on ebay.ca Canada in C$, sell only to Canada block USA, set handling time as needed.

List on eBay.com USA in US$, sell only to USA, block Canada, set handling time as needed.

If you want to ship internationally, pick one site and have international shipping excluding Canada.

I asked once long ago about this scenario if it would be duplicates and I was told no since the items and countries do not overlap.

How practical it is to manage such an arrangement and will buyers see the same item twice and be confused, I do not know. Theoretically it makes sense but this is glitchbay and defectbay now so who knows if it will cause issues.

I never tried because I do not have multi-quantity items that could be listed twice without fear of no stock, that is, selling the one item on both sites before I could cancel the listings on the site where it did not sell.

If you were to sell on another ID, you can do it. But you would theoretically have to block one country as described above or they would be duplicates.

A good question for the Weekly sessions to see what raphael thinks. I last asked about this years ago so it would be nice to have the yes in a public forum to use as backup if you had an issue.

[pocomocomputing]

I looked at a few listings. You seem to be setting up the shipping with Flat Rate shipping for both Canada and the USA with no International shipping.

For Canada you have chosen

Expedited Shipping (Canada Post Expedited Parcel)   Estimated within 2-8 business days

The short delivery time estimate for Expedited may hurt you since the new defect policy is based on shipping on time.  You could change this to Standard Shipping (1 to 10 business days) with 1 day handling to show 2 to 11 business days for a slightly longer estimate within Canada. Just in case some items are not scanned in time to avoid a defect or are not delivered in time.

[tobyshitzu]

Yes you can do it, but your big problem is the new account will have low volume restrictions, so will take a long tme before you can have that many listings.  It would have to be done that 1 id sold to US only, and 1 to Canada only so no duplicate would show on the same site.  

[vip-marketplace]

Instead of using 2 accounts, do you think I could list my items twice?

One in CAD$ and domestic shipping only and the other in USD$ and shipping to the US only?

Or would it be impossible to make a listing to ship only in the US with an eBay.ca account?

Because my current selling limit would most likely allow me to list all items twice and I wouldn't have to pay for a pro seller account x2.

Thanks!

[tobyshitzu]

yes,  with the US$ ones submitted on .com with USA shipping only, and the .ca ones without USA shipping.  

[vip-marketplace]

And you don't think they might be considered by eBay as duplicates?

I would like to be extra cautious here because I've already had a few suspension because of duplicates - some were my faults some weren't but none were intentional.

My last suspension was 30 days and when I asked an eBay rep what would the next suspension be and I was told it was permanent suspension... no less!

[hlmacdon]

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@vip-marketplace wrote:

And you don't think they might be considered by eBay as duplicates?

I would like to be extra cautious here because I've already had a few suspension because of duplicates - some were my faults some weren't but none were intentional.

My last suspension was 30 days and when I asked an eBay rep what would the next suspension be and I was told it was permanent suspension... no less!

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I would call them and ask given those circumstances, given the potential is permanent suspension. I might even be inclined to record the call so that there is a clear record.

[recped]

FWIW I have a 5 day handling time and my Canadian orders have been increasing steadily over the past year or so. They used to represent less than 2% of sales but now in some weeks it's as high as 10%.

I really doubt that many buyers see the handling time even though at 5 days eBay displays the orange warning. It does extend the delivery estimate and that's really the point.

Under promise and over deliver, it's the thing that helps eliminate a myriad of problems that some seller seem to run into.

[pjcdn2005]

If you ship to Canada only and U.S. only on their respectives sites, there will only be one listing showing on each site so it wouldn't be a duplicate.  You will have to pay for two listings and/or use 2 free listings.

It wouldn't hurt to phone eBay although their information isn't always 100% accurate.

If you are around on Wednesday you should ask Raphael about it on the weekly board. That way you have the reply in writing.

[recped]

Separate listings may be created for the same item on different eBay sites, as long as the international shipping options don't result in the listings cluttering the search results of any individual site.

To be safe you have to explicitly block everything except the US for .com listings and everything except Canada for the .ca listings.

[vip-marketplace]

Thanks guys!

I will also try to come on the boards tomorrow to ask that Raphael guy you're referring to.

How does it works exactly? Will there be a new thread with a special name created during the day that anyone can come in and ask questions?

At what time will that thread be visible on the boards? Will it be in the "Seller Central" section?

Is it fairly certain this Raphael guy will answer my question or does he only answer a few dozens among a hundred of questions?

Thanks!

[pierrelebel]

The Board Hour is on Wednesday (today):

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Weekly-Chat-Session/February-17th-2016-Weekly-Session/m-p/327093#U327093

Simply post your question including as much details as possible.

[mr.elmwood]

I'm liking this question. Theoretically identical listings. However, one can only be seen in Canada and the other only in the US. That then makes them unique.

Bet this question has never been asked.

[reallynicestamps]

Bet sellers have be doing this without asking.

Well, maybe I'm not a fancy gentleman like you, with your... very fine hat. But I do business. We're here for business.-- Captain Malcolm Reynolds

[pocomocomputing]

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@mr.elmwood wrote:

I'm liking this question. Theoretically identical listings. However, one can only be seen in Canada and the other only in the US. That then makes them unique.

Bet this question has never been asked.

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I asked this question way back in 2011 or 2012 in a weekly session back then and in some direct emails to kalvin when he was still around. I posted the idea and that ebay said it was okay to list with exclusions to the other site in a couple of forum topics since then but no one was interested in the concept. Most likely because it was complicated and only useful for items with quantity.

My purpose was to have free shipping for Lettermail / Light Packet sized items and give a correct price with free shipping for buyers in Canada or the USA.  I wanted to list an identical item on eBay.ca in Can $ with Lettermail Oversize shipping cost built in with shipping locations only to Canada. Then list the item on eBay.com USA in US$ with Light Packet USA shipping cost built in. I would add other countries to the USA listing and have a shipping cost for Light Packet International minus the amount for the built in cost of Light Packet USA in the item price.

This way a Canadian buyer would see the item in their own currency and the USA buyer in their own currency with international buyers seeing the item in US $ which was a currency understood by more International buyers than our currency.

The above would work fine if you had a quantity of more than one and could split the inventory across the two listings and manage the listings. But most of my items were one of a kind so the idea of listing on two sites was not practical since I could sell it twice.

[vip-marketplace]

Thanks pocomocomputing!

I asked my question in the Weekly Session a bit too late but Pierre pointed out you already forwarded it to Raphael and got the answer I hoped for! 

[vip-marketplace]

Just wanted to make sure of one more thing:

Do I actually need to go on eBay.com to list my listings in US$ with US only shipping?

If so, will my current account and Store Subscription still work on there?

Thanks!

[pierrelebel]

"Do I actually need to go on eBay.com to list my listings in US$ with US only shipping?"

Yes.... because, by default, when listing on eBay.ca it will ship to Canada. 

[pocomocomputing]

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@vip-marketplace wrote:

Just wanted to make sure of one more thing:

Do I actually need to go on eBay.com to list my listings in US$ with US only shipping?

If so, will my current account and Store Subscription still work on there?

Thanks!

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As mentioned by Pierre, you can use eBay.com like you use eBay.ca.

When listing on eBay.com, you will use for Domestic USA shipping, flat rate shipping and one of , either Standard Shipping from outside the US (5 to 10 business days) or Economy Shipping from outside the US (11 to 23 business days). It seems like you will need Economy shipping longer time.

Change you handling time to what you need on eBay.com

Make sure you exclude Canada on the USA site and USA on the Canada site. I would suggest checking regularly when you list.

I would also use this tool to check for duplicates. It probably will not find a duplicate if listed on two sites but use the tool anyway to make sure.

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/DuplicateListings.htm

Make a couple of listings on eBay.com and post their item numbers here and someone will double check that they are working properly and are not duplicates. Post the ebay.ca number so we can cross reference to the one on eBay.com. Better to have us check that you understand what to do before doing many listings and getting into trouble.