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.

brixtonchrome · ‎04-04-2016

I have started to implement the change to CDN currency, and here is what I have noticed this past week:

1. Sales have plummeted.

2. The best offers I am receiving from US buyers are the same percentage of catalogue price, but are no in CDN so I cannot accept them because they are now too low. I've had three offers this past week and each time I countered and explained why I needed the offer to be higher and how it wasn't costing them more, they walked away.

3. I had one customer ask me why he had to pay two invoices and shipping twice even though I explained to him what was happening and told him that the shipping on one invoice was set to zero.

That is just this past week.

I just don't think these guys know what they are talking about.

I'm glad it works for some of you, but USD would have worked just as well for you too I think. Whereas I highly doubt that $CDN will work for most sellers.

Just my $0.02, which these days rounds down to nothing.

brixtonchrome · ‎04-04-2016

Oh and by the way, most of my sales - at least 75% are to Canadians. But it seems they are staying away now waiting until the know the listings will be in CDN.

antiquariusantiques · ‎04-04-2016

We sell vintage clothing and less than 1% of our customer base is from Canada. We operate exclusively in USD buying and selling.

As I often witnessed in the military what may seem wonderfully realistic in a "discussion group" has no basis in reality in the field. Put your statistics aside and listen to what we the small to mid size sellers are saying...leave things alone and allow the seller the option to choose what currency to operate under.

Plainly, this move is a mistake and we will be moving to Ebay.com when it comes into effect.

rose-dee · ‎04-04-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
@ dimitha wrote:
Worst idea ever! Most of our clients are in the US, and with the Canadian dollar going up and down everyday it look to the Americans
as if we keep changing our mind...
_______________________________________________________________________________
"Hi dimitha.

Actually this is one of the reasons why listing in CAD is advantageous.

When you list an item in CAD, you don't need to adjust your prices for fluctuations in the exchange rate. Just set the price in your currency and eBay adjusts the prices for buyers according to the exchange rate."
No, this is precisely why it is a disadvantage and a handicap, particularly for Canadian sellers who are competing primarily with U.S. sellers in their categories. Seeing prices fluctuating from day to day or week to week for the same item does not inspire customer confidence. That is the truth of the matter that Rodney conveniently ignored in his remark above, in order to put this forced switch in its best light.

The issue of displayed yo-yo pricing and resulting weird arbitrary price points aside, while eBay does indeed adjust the price according to the exchange rate, that adjustment only benefits the U.S. buyer if the $Cdn slumps. If however, the $Cdn rallies, it is a serious problem for the seller, whose price now appears to have suddenly and arbitrarily been hiked up. This is particularly so where buyers may be following an item over several days or weeks. Who wants to look at an item on Monday at $26.84 US, and find it listed at $27.53US on Friday?

On the other hand, if a downturn in the value of the $Cdn occurs as against the $US, Canadian sellers' items listed in $Cdn would be devalued (i.e. profits dribbling away) unless those sellers closely monitored and manually adjusted their pricing as the $Cdn falls (and rises again). It's a bit of a nightmare to consider, not to mention a colossal waste of time.

Either way, Canadian sellers listing in $Cdn on .ca who expect to continue to attract U.S. buyers are going to have to closely, carefully and constantly begin to monitor and adjust their pricing if they want to maintain a stable pricing structure vis-à-vis their U.S. competitors' listings.

These disingenuous comments by eBay to misrepresent the obvious do nothing to inspire sellers' confidence in eBay management either. It's very troubling.

abindigo · ‎04-04-2016

NOT AGAIN!

I'm so tired of feeling screwed over by eBay. They just what ever they want, whenever they want and to whomever they want. Maybe some smarter people should develop their own version of eBay and go up against these guys.

Maybe write or call Andrea Stairs. After a lot of frustration with eBay I actually contacted her on her LINKEDIN account and sent her emails as well as calling her office and getting a voice mail. I got a reply through email which was so disingenuous in which she said that she would help (it was probably her security detail that emailed me back) and she never did follow through; even after I left her a voice message.

Ebay makes it almost impossible to do things in my opinion and I believe never allows emails for the simply reason they don't want a record of the transaction or problem in case you ever decide to sue them. They claim that when you call they keep notes but at one point I asked for a transcript of the notes for an issue that dragged on for a long time. When I got the transcription the notes where almost non-existent.

With all the smart people out there why doesn't a group of developers create a format similar to eBay with all the features that are different from eBay.

- lower seller fees

- no surplus fees on shipping

- real email

Just to name a few. I mean how much money does a company need to make anyway?

It just becomes more ridiculous day after day

rose-dee · ‎04-04-2016

@antiquariusantiques wrote:

Plainly, this move is a mistake and we will be moving to Ebay.com when it comes into effect.

Yes, as I said earlier, I expect this is precisely what eBay wants -- an exodus of Canadian sellers to .com -- whether eBay is actually saying so or not.

This would certainly be one way to solve the cart problem and stop Canadian sellers complaining about it, wouldn't it? It might also be a way for eBay to smooth an ultimate transition of all Canadian sellers onto one amalgamated .com site.

Sadly, I gave up my trusting belief in eBay's pronouncements and their rationales quite some time ago.

tch_ca · ‎04-04-2016

@pierrelebel wrote:
"Ebay claims that Sellers who use free shipping do better"

That claim is quite correct.

Ludicrous. I have over 600000 in sales on Ebay. With extensive sales date selling similar and/or identical items both ways I almost ALLWAYS come out ahead charging shipping over and above. There is NO WAY that items in the $10-$100 range do better for the seller with shipping included. It's psychological. People look at the sell number and worry about the extras later.

xeposter · ‎04-04-2016

@abindigo wrote:
NOT AGAIN!

I'm so tired of feeling screwed over by eBay. They just what ever they want, whenever they want and to whomever they want. Maybe some smarter people should develop their own version of eBay and go up against these guys.

Maybe write or call Andrea Stairs. After a lot of frustration with eBay I actually contacted her on her LINKEDIN account and sent her emails as well as calling her office and getting a voice mail. I got a reply through email which was so disingenuous in which she said that she would help (it was probably her security detail that emailed me back) and she never did follow through; even after I left her a voice message.

Ebay makes it almost impossible to do things in my opinion and I believe never allows emails for the simply reason they don't want a record of the transaction or problem in case you ever decide to sue them. They claim that when you call they keep notes but at one point I asked for a transcript of the notes for an issue that dragged on for a long time. When I got the transcription the notes where almost non-existent.

With all the smart people out there why doesn't a group of developers create a format similar to eBay with all the features that are different from eBay.

- lower seller fees
- no surplus fees on shipping
- real email

Just to name a few. I mean how much money does a company need to make anyway?

It just becomes more ridiculous day after day

Abindigo, about your "wants..."

You want "lower selling fees?" You do know that eBay is not going to just let everyone sell on their site for free, do you? They have bills and people to pay just like all of us...

You say that eBay should not have surplus fees on shipping. Do you know how that got started? (Here is an example...) Some people decided to start auctions at $0.01, then charge $50 in shipping for their items. Obviously, eBay did not like this and added fees to their shipping to stop this problem. If they take away the fees, of course if people hear about it, they will start doing it over again. See how the fees do help even though they are sometimes painful?

You want a "real email?" There are MILLIONS, maybe billions of members on eBay. If eBay is having 1,000's upon 1,000's of items sell per day. How do you think they can afford the time to hand-send an email every time you sell something or they have a notification for you?

Alex

This is my POSTING id.

pierrelebel · ‎04-04-2016

"I have over 600000 in sales on Ebay. With extensive sales data..."

I have millions of dollars in sales on eBay and millions more over eighteen years on my own website and other venues (Amazon, etc,,,) and "free shipping" works. More than half all eBay listings offer "free shipping": those sellers are not crazy.

rose-dee · ‎04-04-2016

One other issue to consider, particularly for those of us who have been listing exclusively in $US to this point, and have a large U.S. customer base: if you switch to listing in $Cdn, you will no longer benefit in the long run if the favourable differential between the US and Cdn dollars continues.

I've listed for years exclusively in $US on both .ca and .com, since I quickly learned over 90% of my customers were Americans. Because a dollar is exactly a dollar, nothing more or less, to my U.S. customers, I've been able to keep my pricing stable for over 4 years, while at the same time being able to actually lower my shipping rates, despite constant Canada Post price hikes.

Why? For at least the past year, every US dollar I take in carries with it a 20% to 25% bonus -- the lower the $Cdn, the happier I am, and the more shipping "subsidies" I can offer. My U.S. customers aren't paying a cent more than they did 2 or 3 years ago, yet I'm gaining a benefit with every sale. Over the long term, I doubt the $Cdn will rise above the $US. If it does, by then I'll be able to increase my $US pricing slightly to compensate. I also buy most of my raw materials with $US, so for my own inputs a dollar is a dollar. It was all so simple and effective, until now.

Now, assume I were to switch, say a $15.95 US listing to $19.95 Cdn (using a 1.25 rate) today, and leave it without manually changing it (as I usually do with my multiple-quantity items). If the $Cdn were to drop to around $0.70 against the $US in 2 months, this same listing would be displayed as about US$13.95, effectively a $2.00 US loss for me as compared to continuing to list the item at $15.95US. The price will appear lower to my US customers, but the real effect for me would be a loss, and the chipping away at my ability to keep my prices competitive (including shipping).

Assume, on the other hand the $Cdn were to rise to the equivalent of $0.80US over the same period. That same listing at $19.95Cdn is now displayed as approx. $15.95US on .com, i.e. a price hike for the U.S. (.com) viewer -- don't forget that many Canadians log onto .com to shop too.

Currency exchange rates vary for buying and selling US dollars, and these figures are only approximate, but the concept remains the same. If you've been listing and selling in $US over the past year, you've been doing nothing but benefiting.

If you've been listing in $Cdn (unless you have a majority of Cdn buyers), you may have been doing nothing but losing ground, even if actual numbers of sales have risen somewhat. Unless increased sales have jumped 25% to 30% or more as compared to previous years, a seller listing in $Cdn won't have made up for the potential automatic 25% to 30% bonus that listing in $US has meant on every sale in at least the past 12 months.

So lower displayed prices may garner extra sales in the short run, but in the long run, the question is: will we be losing sales to the U.S. and giving up some of our profit margins due to fluctuating, yo-yo pricing, especially if the $Cdn strengthens?

I think eBay's "studies" can be completely debunked if they were done exclusively during a period when the $Cdn was lower than it has been in several years. Unless the sampling was done over a period when the $Cdn was close to par as well, how can eBay possibly predict their results will be valid into the future?

What this amounts to for those of us who have depended on selling in $US for reasons of consistency and stability, as well as for the benefits of the weakening Canadian dollar, is that we'll either have to be continually monitoring and adjusting our $Cdn pricing (a really onerous task, and disconcerting to buyers), or move over lock, stock and barrel to .com (a really sad prospect for many).

After reading through this thread and considering my (lack of) options, I'm feeling very depressed today. One more nail in the coffin.

rose-dee · ‎04-04-2016

@canadiangemstamps wrote:
I have started to implement the change to CDN currency, and here is what I have noticed this past week:

1. Sales have plummeted.

2. The best offers I am receiving from US buyers are the same percentage of catalogue price, but are no in CDN so I cannot accept them because they are now too low. I've had three offers this past week and each time I countered and explained why I needed the offer to be higher and how it wasn't costing them more, they walked away.

3. I had one customer ask me why he had to pay two invoices and shipping twice even though I explained to him what was happening and told him that the shipping on one invoice was set to zero.

Thanks so much for posting your experience here. I think Cdn sellers who do make the switch should continue to report back here, so we can see the effects in reality.

These 3 issues you mention are precisely my biggest concerns. I'm especially worried about continuing to use Best Offer if I list in $Cdn, because the vast majority of my buyers are in the U.S.

Can you elaborate a bit on the text I've put in bold in item 2) above? I don't quite understand -- are your buyers making an offer in $Cdn or $US? Are the "catalogues" you refer to in $Cdn or $US? (I don't sell stamps, so I didn't quite follow this, but I would imagine that if a U.S. buyer makes an offer, it would be in $US, or are they mis-calculating the exchange rate and offering a $Cdn price that is far too low?).

My concern is that if I determine an item's value is $300Cdn and list it as such, if it's shown on the .com site as converted to say, $225.00US, that my buyer will try to make an offer in $US (a lower "number"), that is much too low when converted to $Cdn. And that doesn't even take the shipping cost conversion into account! This just seems to get so unnecessarily complicated for both parties.

Another issue: If I were to counter in $Cdn (a higher "number"), will the US buyer think I'm counter-offering in $US, and reject the counter-offer? This is a worry, since I often do counter my U.S. buyers' offers, but it's always been $US on $US listings.

I'm especially concerned about Best Offer, because I've used it a great deal over the years, with good success, and have never -- ever -- had a bad experience with it to date. This factor alone may convince me to move everything over to .com.

Thanks!

pierrelebel · ‎04-04-2016

The trend towards free shipping for e-commerce:

http://www.stamps.com/whitepapers/gaining-edge-ecommerce-free-shipping.pdf

It is a bit dated but we all know the trend has grown since this article was written.

There is an old saying: "If you can't fight the... join them!"

rose-dee · ‎04-04-2016

@canuckcoin wrote:
"Unless Ebay is going to enact CAD fees that don't fluctuate with exchange this is of little help. If a someone has hundreds or thousands of listings in US Dollars and pay insertion fees in US Dollars they can properly project their costs. If I list a large number of fixed price listings in Canadian Dollars and their is a big move in exchange as we have seen in the last year, then seller faces a huge task to change pricing in all his listings to keep the margin needed to be profitable. First Ebay eliminates buying from the US with the poorly run international buying program and now this."

You are one seller on this board who has seen this aspect of the problem with some clarity. By the way, it isn't just fees that are an issue, but also other costs where a Canadian seller can benefit from the favourable currency exchange differential if they list in $US only.

I thought it was worth re-posting your comments here, since we're now on page 45 and many readers won't have time to look back over the whole thing.

brixtonchrome · ‎04-04-2016

It is my pleasure to do this. I believe that it is my duty in fact to report my experience here. I see I had a typo in my last message, but you looked past that. Anyway to answer your question:

The catalogues I refer to are in CDN$. I would often list my stamps at 40-80% of the catalogue price, but in USD. So for example a stamp listing for $10 CDN in the Unitrade catalogue might be priced for $8 USD. Now when converted, my asking price might actually be slightly higher than full catalogue. I did this because I know full well that very few people are going to pay full asking price for a stamp, but I would rather they tell me their price than for me to just go out and say "Hey everyone I sell everything for 50% of catalogue!". If I did that there would still be a lot of people who would still expect a discount. So the way I did things, the average person would offer say 60% of my asking price and I would accept. On the $10 stamp above, I would get an offer of $4.80 USD (60% x 8 USD), which at 30% exchange would convert out to almost $6.30 - a decent price.

Now though, what I see happening is that now that I have that same stamp priced at $8 CDN, the buyer comes along and now offers me $4.80 CDN. Not so good. Not horrible, but not good enough to compensate for the low turnover rate in this business. Sure, there are sellers who price everything at auction for $0.01, but those are consignment sellers selling other people's collections who have absolutely no skin in the game. You can turn your inventory over as often as you want if you are willing to give it away. But of course that requires no vision, no discipline and no great business acumen.

And I'll tell you something else. I think the reason sales are plummeting even with Canadian customers is because they know that come August, everything is going to be 25-30% cheaper than it was when most sellers were listing in CDN. So they are just going to hold off until listings start appearing in CDN. Stamp collectors are a patient lot. Makes sense to me.

Unfortunately 2-3 months of little to no sales is enough to kill a lot of businesses.

pocomocomputing · ‎04-04-2016

xeposter · ‎04-04-2016

@poco

I believe you edited your post and deleted everything you typed...Not sure if you noticed yet. 😉

Alex

This is my POSTING id.

arkh_angel · ‎04-04-2016

@canadiangemstamps wrote:
I have started to implement the change to CDN currency, and here is what I have noticed this past week:

1. Sales have plummeted.

Just my $0.02, which these days rounds down to nothing.

Although it is too early to see if that's really what it looks like, but after a bit more than a week and with more than 40% of my item now available in CAD, I can say the following:

1. 0 (that's ZERO) sales for items in CAD.

2. Regular sales for items in USD, but overall there seems to be a general slowdown. It seems to follow the same trend as last year though.

Unfortunately I can't time travel to see if in another timeline with everything still for sale in USD it would be better or worse.

I'll wait and see, and as I said earlier, if on May 2nd it doesn't get any better, I'm moving to .com

On a side note, I personally would like to thank the GSP program, because the increased shipping/import charges only helped my products to be much more competitive on the Canadian market, even when listed in USD.

rainbow71113 · ‎04-04-2016

I also would like to thank all those US sellers who put shipping charges of over $30 to Canada on little 2 page booklets when I can ship them internationally for $5.90....

rainbow71113 · ‎04-04-2016

Rose-Dee- why don't you put an accept above and decline below on your best offers? That would weed out the low end offers. I don't do best offers because I find too many people want a $200 book for $20...it's ridiculous. That said,I still get buyers sending me offers and if they are ridiculous I say, "I'm sorry, this is not a best offer listing" and in most cases the item has sold to those same buyers.

I do see an issue with offers from US buyers, if you list something for $126 Canadian (assuming the rate is $1.26) and the US buyer sees it as $100 US, they may offer $50 thinking it's US which would net $63 with exchange, when in fact offer that would be Canadian $50 losing the extra $13. I wonder how UK sellers do with US buyers, if they have similar issues.

westernstargifts · ‎04-04-2016

Perhaps if Rodney or Raphael ever return to this thread they can explain why it is that eBay has never adopted $US as the sole listing currency across all its sites. Most people outside the United States understand very well the value of their country's currency in relation to the U.S. dollar. Why the need for the complication of several currencies in the first place?

I understand the reasoning that Pierre described in regard to the eBay sites in different countries offering payment in their own currencies. But what you say, rose-dee, also makes sense, especially in light of the fact that we are being told that U.S. buyers are now used to buying in other currencies. If that is also the case for the majority of buyers in other countries, then why not have one single currency to simplify the whole thing.

I am certain this will never happen but it is an interesting concept.