eBay

raphael@ebay.com · ‎03-18-2016

Hello Canadian sellers,

This thread is open for discussion regarding the recent announcement about eBay Canada retiring USD support from its selling flows. Myself and other employees will come visit this thread and do our best to answer any questions on this topic.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-24-2016

@canadiangemstamps wrote:
I appreciate these answers, though I am still not convinced that listing on .com does not constitute doing business in the US (I am a CPA by the way). The general test is conducting business through a permanent establishment in the US. I would think that since e-bay has separate sites set up in other countries, that in order to NOT be doing business in the US, you would have to be registered on the site of your home country. I don't for certain - the law is extremely complex. But I would tread very lightly before just moving everything over to .com.

As dennis mentioned you would simply be moving your listings to .com you are still registered on .ca. Even if a seller was registered on .com I doubt that they would have to pay U.S. taxes otherwise all the Canadians who started selling before .ca existed would have mentioned that fact. I've sold on .com for years and this is the first time i've ever heard the subject been brought up.

Being that is is a long weekend and that the majority of questions being asked have been answered on this thread, Raphael and Rodney might not be replying to it any longer.. But if you do want to double check with one of them, you can ask them on the weekly discussion board each Wednesday. It is usually open at 11 a.m. est and open until Thursday morning.

ypdc_dennis · ‎03-24-2016

@albionike wrote:
Your missed the part where I said 'primary currency'.

I didn't miss that part at all.

If your sale is in US$ paypal pays it to you in US$

If your sale is in CA$ paypal pays it to you in CA$

PayPal will only convert your sale to your primary currency if that is the only one you have available.

If you have both CA$ and US$ set up in PayPal then the sale money will be put in the proper section -- no conversion fees at on the sale.

-.-

I use my Canadian balance to pay for shipping, to buy stuff in CA$, to pay myself

I use my US balance to buy stuff in US$ (eBay and other sites)

And if all possible I don't do conversions between the two currencies

-.-

lorraine_carol · ‎03-24-2016

Should Canadian sellers wish to continue to list in USD on ebay.com, I am curious as to why ebay will not allow the option for Canada Post shipping on .com. Upon doing a trial listing on .com, I noticed the option for "Expedited Shipping from China/Hong Kong/Taiwan to Worldwide". Ralphael or Rodney, can you explain why this is?

Thanks.

hlmacdon · ‎03-25-2016

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
@canadiangemstamps wrote:
I appreciate these answers, though I am still not convinced that listing on .com does not constitute doing business in the US (I am a CPA by the way). The general test is conducting business through a permanent establishment in the US. I would think that since e-bay has separate sites set up in other countries, that in order to NOT be doing business in the US, you would have to be registered on the site of your home country. I don't for certain - the law is extremely complex. But I would tread very lightly before just moving everything over to .com.
As dennis mentioned you would simply be moving your listings to .com you are still registered on .ca. Even if a seller was registered on .com I doubt that they would have to pay U.S. taxes otherwise all the Canadians who started selling before .ca existed would have mentioned that fact. I've sold on .com for years and this is the first time i've ever heard the subject been brought up.

Being that is is a long weekend and that the majority of questions being asked have been answered on this thread, Raphael and Rodney might not be replying to it any longer.. But if you do want to double check with one of them, you can ask them on the weekly discussion board each Wednesday. It is usually open at 11 a.m. est and open until Thursday morning.

The issue for me is what information is being reported and whether or not they require a W8BEN on file to avoid any reporting issues for Canadians selling on .com. Other marketplaces do in a situation like this, but they also have integrated payment processing a withholding responsibility as a result. There are situations where paypal needs a W8BEN on file, but that may be specific to individuals who hold a US paypal account rather than a Canadian account and are conducting business outside of the US. I don't recall if ebay.ca has our SIN's on file (been years since registering) to identify us Canadians. Unless you've sold over 20K USD in a calendar year the issue wouldn't have cropped up. A response from corporate would be appreciated.

hlmacdon · ‎03-25-2016

@lorraine_carol wrote:
Should Canadian sellers wish to continue to list in USD on ebay.com, I am curious as to why ebay will not allow the option for Canada Post shipping on .com. Upon doing a trial listing on .com, I noticed the option for "Expedited Shipping from China/Hong Kong/Taiwan to Worldwide". Ralphael or Rodney, can you explain why this is?
Thanks.

They point blank refuse to answer that question (Canada Post services). Don't expect an answer.

mindbender3 · ‎03-25-2016

I suspect that Canadian sellers end up listing their items in CAD by accident seeing as eBay some time ago has an "auto populate" feature for the currency option which immediately points to CAD. If you are not watching your listing closely it will automatically list in Canadian funds. You have to physically change it to USD.

rarebird1976 · ‎03-25-2016

Another Move on the way to the Bottom for E-bay....Though e-bay.ca was a Swiss sight but I guess only to avoid paying Canadian taxes...

raphael@ebay.com wrote:
Hello Canadian sellers,

This thread is open for discussion regarding the recent announcement about eBay Canada retiring USD support from its selling flows. Myself and other employees will come visit this thread and do our best to answer any questions on this topic.

iwc · ‎03-25-2016

Another stupid idea. Congrats Ebay you keep on digging a bigger hole. After 18 years on Ebay I understand Ebay biggest goal is to improve corporate profits, Instead of following Amazon the smarter companies move you only work as hard as you can at **bleep***** off both buyers and sellers. Global shipping SUPER STUPID MOVE. As a Canadian business the Tax I could get back from Revenue Canada is now lost to IMPORT CHARGES.

Here a smart move stop taking HUGE kickbacks from Pitney Bowes. Start looking at Ebay shipping with companies like UPS like Amazon did. I now sell 80% off my goods on sites other than Ebay. Another reason I need to stop selling 100% on Ebay.

Oh by the way buy most of my everyday goods from Amazon, free shipping most of the time MUCH cheaper prices.

labellea · ‎03-25-2016

PERHAPS EBAY.CA SHOULD CLEAN UP SOME OF THEIR SITE INFO. FOR EXAMPLE - IN CREATE SHIPPING POLICY SAYS ( (LISTING IN US $ WILL ATTRACT MORE INTEREST FROM US BUYERS & ON AVERAGE ARE 15% MORE LIKELY TO SELL) THIS CONTREDICTS WHAT YOU ALL AT EBAY ARE NOW TRYING TO SELL TO THEIR CAN. CUSTOMERS ?? 75 % OF MY PERCHASERS ARE USA CUTOMERS. PLEASE ADVISE

omegakap · ‎03-25-2016

The majority of my buyers are outside Canada, and rightly so as Canada is a limited market compared with the rest of the world. The rest of the world prefers USD over CAD, so I see this move as many others do - disastrous for sales. Please reconsider. eBay has long been one of the best marketplaces out there, but this sort of policy of forcing sellers to do what eBay thinks is best rather than what works for sellers is slowly eroding that.

dwhall12 · ‎03-25-2016

I would like to go .com when the time comes but what is going to happen to the shipping through paypal? Right now if on .com and you sell and item the usps site comes up and you have to ship from the u.s. The only options will be lug your parcels to the post for shipping and use your venture one card (primitive old way) or go to the Canada post site to do your labels and that is a lot of work.

Will ebay make changes so we can still print our lables through paypal canada post or are we stuck going backwards.

i.am.vivian · ‎03-25-2016

@ypdc_dennis wrote:

It would be really, really nice if the folks at eBay.com could be convinced to add a calculated shipping rate option using Canada Post. The tricky part would be what exchange rate to use when converting from Canada Post CA$ to the listing's US$ (possibly by setting the exchange rate at the time the listing is posted, so same rate would be used for the entire time the listing is active).
-.-

Thank you for your response to my post. They may eventually add a link for Canada Post if almost everyone moves to the dot com site. If it comes from Canada, a $10 fee would read $13 in USD the same way prices are converted now on listings. I am not sure how it would work but they will have to join somehow, I would think.

i.am.vivian · ‎03-25-2016

@ypdc_dennis wrote:
Here's a list of current
Shipping choices when listing on eBay.com for the Canadian seller
(who ships from Canada)

-.-

To the USA
All flat rate, no calculated, with expected delivery time.

Economy Shipping from outside US (11 to 23 business days)
Standard Shipping from outside US (6 to 10 business days)
Expedited Shipping from outside US (1 to 4 business days)

Economy Shipping (1 to 10 business days)
Standard Shipping (1 to 6 business days)
Expedited Shipping (1 to 4 business days)
One Day Shipping (1 business day)

FedEX International Economy (2 to 4 business days) ???
Flat rate Freight

-.-

Outside the USA, to the rest of the world (including Canada)
All flat rate, no calculated, countries are selectable.

Economy Int'l Shipping (Varies for items shipped from an international location)
Standard Int'l Shipping (Varies for items shipped from an international location)
Expedited Int'l Shipping (Varies for items shipped from an international location)

-.-

A Canadian seller can still buy discounted shipping through PayPal from Canada Post.

-.-

Thank you for posting this for everyone. I think we all mostly know it, but a refresher never hurts. It will be good when we can just click to have a Canada Post calculated shipping displayed just by entering the dimensions and clicking the service.

i.am.vivian · ‎03-25-2016

@mjwl2006 wrote:
(Thank you ypdc–dennis for taking the time to thoughtfully answer these questions from other sellers.)

It's good somebody is. I don't think we will be hearing much more from The Official Responders. It is a long Easter weekend now and my guess is that they have said about all they plan to on the subject. This thread will likely go the way of the GSP boards where users are left to hash it out among themselves. The best help always seems to come from other members so that is probably the very best thing, imo.

davesmemories · ‎03-25-2016

why must canadians pay a 10% final value fee on s&h when the americans postage costs are 2 to 3 times less

this reeks of bias to your obvious buddies -- the american sellers.

i suppose i'll get the usal response to this question ---NONE

(explanation)-- i pay $12.00 postage on a particular item -- for the same item, the americans postage is 3 to 4 dollars.

my final value fee is a $1.20 -- the americans pay .30 to 40 cents.

it doesn't take rocket science to see that canadians are being grossly overcharged in this situation .

you call yourselves ebay.ca but i doubt the ca part very much.

davesmemories (an honest canadian seller)

pierrelebel · ‎03-25-2016

"They may eventually add a link for Canada Post "

Sorry but that will not happen, anymore than eBay.com offering British sellers listing on eBay.com services offered by the Royal Mail or Australian sellers listing on eBay.com the services of Australia Post, etc...

Canadians are a very small percentage of the eBay.com world. We are welcome of course but we are not that "special" as we will never bring that big percentage of business (like the Chinese for example). That is simple reality.

A year or two from now I expect the vast majority of Canadian eBay sellers will list on eBay.ca in Canadian dollars....

.... and life will go on.

pierrelebel · ‎03-25-2016

"why must Canadians pay a 10% final value fee on s&h "

First of all, the fee schedule applies to ALL eBay sellers, not just Canadian sellers.

American sellers listing and selling on eBay.com also pay FVF on the shipping and handling charge. We are not that "special". There is no discrimination against Canadians on this subject.

Second, while you pay 10% most eBay transactions result in a lower percentage. Sellers with a store pay lower fees with some categories offering a much lower fee (I pay 6% on stamps for example)

When the policy was implemented several years ago, eBay reduced the FVF on most transactions. Many sellers in fact ended up paying lower final value feeds as a result of the change, more so for sellers listing with "free shipping" (I have for years)..

Since more than half all eBay listings offer "free shipping" domestically, most sellers do not have to pay extra FVF.

i.am.vivian · ‎03-25-2016

@pierrelebel wrote:

"They may eventually add a link for Canada Post "

Sorry but that will not happen,

You could be right about that. I am not so sure. It would not be a difficult addition and as the world becomes more integrated online, I see it as a real possibility. Not next week, but down the road.

@pierrelebel wrote:
Canadians are a very small percentage of the eBay.com world. We are welcome of course but we are not that "special" as we will never bring that big percentage of business (like the Chinese for example). That is simple reality.

It is also a simple reality that these kinds of integrations are becoming less complicated, easier to implement, and more prevalent around the globe. I see the Chinese example as a starting point, not the final finish.

@pierrelebel wrote:

A year or two from now I expect the vast majority of Canadian eBay sellers will list on eBay.ca in Canadian dollars....

And I expect they will be listing in $USD on dot com. 🙂

@pierrelebel wrote:

.... and life will go on.

On that, we agree.

ferret-mom · ‎03-25-2016

How kind of eBay.ca sellers to offer free shipping. But unless those sellers are altruistic, or selling very lightweight, flat items with fixed postage costs, the postage fees must be included in the starting bid or buy-it-now price -- on which the seller will eventually be paying a percentage in final value fees. Either way, eBay takes its cut.

moltencore · ‎03-25-2016

I used to list everything of ebay.com (in fact I started selling on eBay before there was a Canadian site) but then I had to move all my listing to ebay.ca a bunch of years ago because I sell records and the rules changed so that the most I could charge in postage on the .COM site was $4 for media mail to US customers. There is no way I could afford to do that. That is the only reason I'm listing on .ca.

I've already removed most of my vinyl and will soon remove the remaining.

I want to keep my memorabilia on eBay, but if I'm unable to list the stuff on .COM due to my Canada Post shipping requirements, I'm done.

At least 80% of my customers are USA and International.