pjcdn2005 wrote:
So, let me get this right: It appears eBay will likely force us to list only in $Cdn on .ca in the near future. Yet many of us who mainly sell to the U.S. prefer to list in $US for obvious reasons of profitability. At that point, the only option will be to list on eBay.com. In other words, the only way Canadian sellers will really be able to make a profit (if you sell largely to the U.S.) will be to list on .com.
Although I would prefer that we continue to have the option of listing in either currency, I don't understand your reasoning. Why couldn't you make a profit if you list in Canadian dollars? Many sellers do.
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My reasoning is this: the nature of my items is such that I have never had more than 10% Canadian buyers, even during the years when I listed exclusively in $Cdn, and even with offering free shipping domestically for the past year or so.
The buyer base for my type of items has always been enormously larger in the U.S. than in Canada, perhaps because of the greater interest in historical costume, perhaps just the larger population with more discretionary income. Interestingly, if you sell knitting patterns, one of the best places to find buyers is Australia (who would have thought?!).
Furthermore, almost all my competitors are American, and if list in $Cdn, I must always be watching currency fluctuations to keep my prices in line with those sellers. Listing in $US for my primarily US market has been simpler and less time-consuming for me, and of course clearer for my US buyers.
In fact, my US sales shot up significantly when I switched to listing in $US, which is why I've stuck with it. I can only deduce that sales to the US would slump badly if I were obliged to list in $Cdn, and I know from previous experience that listing in $Cdn would not attract significantly more Canadian buyers to make up the difference. I'm just not in the type of business that has a big Canadian customer base. I'm sure there are many, many Canadian sellers who are in the same boat.
I know you list in $US -- what is your reasoning?
Is it really just a coincidence that the recommended "workaround" for a longstanding and serious problem that we're told eBay will never fix (the ".com cart disconnect"), has been for Canadian sellers to list on .com exclusively? This would be a absurd suggestion if it were not that eBay might have other motives in trying to direct more Canadian sellers onto .com, i.e. to ultimately phase out (or at least pare down) eBay.ca.
Consider this: perhaps this was the true reason eBay never resolved the cart disconnect -- they never intended to in the first place. One might even cynically say that the disconnect was a deliberate step toward getting more Canadian sellers to list on .com.
The .com cart does not work with any other site so it affects many other sellers, not just Canadians. I can't imagine them setting up the .com cart and/or not redesigning it just so that more Canadians would list on .com. Unless of course they want all international sellers to list there too.
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Yes, I am aware the .com cart does not work with other sites. My point is that few other nations of eBay sellers are as dependent upon U.S. sales as we are (or as able, due to language and other commonalities, to conduct business with the U.S.). We have always had a special commercial relationship with the U.S.
I'm not saying eBay set up or redesigned the .com cart only in order to make more Canadians list on .com. I'm simply saying that there was no reason not to introduce changes that helped to create the "disconnect" -- for example IPR -- because the disconnect would work in favour of their longer-term strategy to either wind down eBay.ca to one degree or another, and/or to move a lot more Canadians over to .com.
Perhaps what eBay wants is to entice those Canadian sellers whose buyers are primarily in the U.S. to list exclusively on .com (in $US), and let the Canadian sellers who have a good domestic buyer base stay on .ca and list in $Cdn. If you think about it, this would make long-term fiscal sense for eBay, for many reasons.
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