eBay

rose-dee · ‎02-14-2015

Hello all -

I think those of us who have been following the boards all know about the discussions and complaints concerning what I call the "cart disconnect" between eBay.ca and other eBay sites. I've had some very illuminating responses from Raphael in follow-up to this week's board hour (which wasn't terribly productive itself). Please see my Post #39 in http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/buyers-saying-item-is-unavailable-when-trying-to-purchase... for my summary of his comments.

Essentially, he finally made it clear that the carts are site-specific, were not intended to be universal across all eBay sites, and that a "universally workable" cart is not realistically feasible due to eBay's decades-old and complex site design. Basically, WYSIWYG.

However, eBay apparently believes the "cart disconnect" is not an issue for the vast majority of Canadian sellers. My view is that the reason for this is because we can't be aware of something we don't see -- how do you measure the number of buyers from other sites (e.g. eBay.com, eBay.UK) who may have tried making a multiple purchase using their own site's cart, failed and given up?

So, given the fact that we're stuck with what we have, I know my multiple orders were working fine before the .ca cart was introduced. Perhaps --- just maybe -- if enough Canadian sellers ask for it, I wonder if the .ca cart could be pulled completely?

It would be very interesting to hear from Canadian sellers on this thread as to:

1) Have you seen a significant downturn in multi-item orders from non-Canadian buyers since about mid-summer of 2014 (in comparison to earlier months or years)?

2) Have any non-Canadian buyers contacted you to tell you they're having trouble getting through the checkout/payment process when attempting to make a multi-item purchase?

3) Do you sell regularly to U.S. buyers?

A "yes" or "no" to each of the above would be enough -- I just thought it would be interesting to gather some numbers. Whether it will do any good or not, well...

Thanks!

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

Yes, that's what I thought about the MBG, although many US buyers will believe otherwise, as "mj" said, bad things will happen.

If eBay Bucks is still big in the US, then that's another factor to consider in Americans' reluctance to leave home ground. I had never considered it before; come to think of it, I've never had any US customer ask me about it.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

When I logged into ebay.ca with my new ebay ID and created a valid Canadian ship-to address, my calculated shipping discounts worked, again, flawlessly with my items. Exactly as they should in the www.ebay.ca cart.

You said that you had a U.S. address as well for your new id? If so and if you have international shipping discounts set up you should see if those discounts are working in the .ca as well.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Oh dear! Be safe. It seems incomprehensible in Winnipeg. We are sunny and warm and there is no snow to be found anywhere.

Now, I know there are others who will disagree with me but I found that listing in USD did nothing to accelerate my American sales and only irrupted my Canadian buyers. Plus, it made tax time a huge irritant for me because I was dealing in currency conversions every which way I turned. Every time I see that statement on the listing page claiming that items listed in USD are 15 per cent more likely to sell, I roll my eyes.

USD is a turn-off to my Canadian buyers. My buyers form overseas don't care. Do the Americans? Maybe they like the sale on goods when looking at CAD. Either way, my American friends can't buy more than one item at a time so big whoop it's listed in CAD for me. Paypal gets rich with the additional currency conversions.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

You said that you had a U.S. address as well for your new id? If so and if you have international shipping discounts set up you should see if those discounts are working in the .ca as well.

Yes, they worked perfectly too. Everything I attempted to do with the www.ebay.ca cart worked for me exactly as it should, regardless of what variables I threw at it.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

Yes, I had more or less come to the same conclusion from reading "pj's" posts, i.e. that listing in $Cdn would at least make the Canadian cart work for buyers logged onto .ca, and that $US listings are not something the .ca Cart can handle. I believe Raphael acknowledged this today at the Board Hour.

Nooooo. I've never said anything like that and I'm sure that Raphael didn't either. The .ca works with multiple currencies which is the main difference between our cart and the .com cart. As mentioned before, your promo works fine in the .ca cart as long as the 5 items have a shipping charge associated with them. The promo should work even if there are 4 items already with free shipping and one without but for some reason it isn't working that way but that has nothing to do with the currency that you list in.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Oh, right. It worked for mine: flat rate or calculated, one flat-rate with free shipping already added just fine to nine calculated shipping items. Could it be a flat rate free shipping conflict with flat rate promo that is causing her error?

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Forgive me, I am experiencing technical difficulties. I posted the wrong screen shot for a moment.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Rose-dee, isn't this working? Or did the calculations fail only when the address was USA?

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Here I am again, in your store as a 'Merican, y'all.

Five items, one at least with a pre-existing offer of free shipping and it looks right, doesn't it? Again, this is the ebay.ca cart.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

It looks like it is working fine now! I tried it with 5 separate items rather than having 2 of one item and it worked...all free shipping even though 2 of them already had free shipping.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

Again, my profuse apologies for the many, many replies. Anyone with an email subscription to this topic is going to want to ring my neck at this point.

Rose-dee, when I went into your store through the ebay.ca Cart and added a variety of items to get to a quantity of five in order to trigger the override that means the whole order ships free, it worked for me both as a person with a Canadian shipping profile and as a USA buyer with an American address. In both instances, I threw in one item with free shipping offered already. So....? Isn't this good? Isn't it working the way it should now?

p.s. Anyone who wants to strangle me can find very nice neckties offered for sale from rose-dee. Free shipping when you buy five or more items. See my previous two replies on this topic for screenshots for a sample of the selection available.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:

Five items, one at least with a pre-existing offer of free shipping and it looks right, doesn't it? Again, this is the ebay.ca cart.

So --- were you logged onto .com when you ran this, or logged onto .ca? I assume the latter.

This is staggering. Five days ago I did the same type of test (tried putting 5 items in my cart using my alternate ID logged onto .ca, and the discount did not work. At the time it appeared that that was because there was a mix of items with shipping and with free shipping.

It's just possible that in the time since I brought this problem to Raphael's attention, it's been fixed. I should try my own test again.

Now 'pj' says currency is not relevant to discounts in cart checkouts. I'm sure someone mentioned it was. I'll have to look back to find the reference(s).

I'm so confused at this point that I need time to sort through this whole mess. One thing I did ask Raphael to do today was to post an announcement for Canadian sellers if and when the whole cart disconnect problem has been resolved.

In the meantime, I'm removing my discount, since I almost never get multi-item Canadian orders anyway.

P.S. Thanks for plug for my neckties -- I could use a few sales -- anybody??

jt-libra · ‎03-18-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:

Oh dear! Be safe. It seems incomprehensible in Winnipeg. We are sunny and warm and there is no snow to be found anywhere.

It's been years since I can remember all the snow being gone in Winnipeg by mid-March. We needed a break after last winter's record snow and cold. Hang in there rose-dee; you've had a hell of winter. Hopefully this is the end of it.

USD is a turn-off to my Canadian buyers.

I haven't found that to be true. To be sure, when our dollar continued to drop, so did sales to Canadians -- and who can blame them? But I immediately began to drop my prices accordingly, taking into account the exchange. And so I would say that Canadians have continued to buy from me. An added benefit of lowering my prices was having more American sales as I was then more competitive with U.S. sellers of the same products.

momcqueen · ‎03-18-2015

I haven't found that to be true. To be sure, when our dollar continued to drop, so did sales to Canadians -- and who can blame them? But I immediately began to drop my prices accordingly, taking into account the exchange. And so I would say that Canadians have continued to buy from me. An added benefit of lowering my prices was having more American sales as I was then more competitive with U.S. sellers of the same products.

I'm glad to know you have a way of doing things that works for you. I kept my CAD prices as they are because the Americans and Brits can afford it but, to be fair to my fellow countrymen, I'm offering domestic postage discounts to try to offset it in terms of an overall cost. As much as I'd like to drop prices accordingly, my cost in supplies has risen against the dollar.

Also, I'm just stubborn and don't like having to pay the extra currency conversion to payapl for a USD payment from a Canadian.

Plus, the mental math irritates me.

And, I'm just irritable.

But, yes. No snow in March in Winnipeg. Who'd have thunk it? Last year, it was still up to our ears (literally) at this time.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Yes, I had more or less come to the same conclusion from reading "pj's" posts, i.e. that listing in $Cdn would at least make the Canadian cart work for buyers logged onto .ca, and that $US listings are not something the .ca Cart can handle. I believe Raphael acknowledged this today at the Board Hour.

Nooooo. I've never said anything like that and I'm sure that Raphael didn't either. The .ca works with multiple currencies which is the main difference between our cart and the .com cart. As mentioned before, your promo works fine in the .ca cart as long as the 5 items have a shipping charge associated with them. The promo should work even if there are 4 items already with free shipping and one without but for some reason it isn't working that way but that has nothing to do with the currency that you list in.

I've copied your post to Raphael today so I can understand what you're referring to:

"[...] it seems that if a listing has been done in Canadian dollars, that particular 'add to cart' choice does not come up on the .com cart. It seems to only happen with .ca listings done in U.S $ which makes sense since that is the only currency that cart can work with."

(Raphael said he'd pass this information along).

So, if I can paraphrase, this is another way of saying that on .com the "go to Cart" option only appears if the listings in question are in $US. Is that what you are saying?

If that's the case, then this really is making matters worse. I would rather simply have US buyers forced to follow through with BIN, item-by-item, as in the old days. At least that worked.

I tried again today, and instead of the pop-up, I got a screen with a link near the top saying "Go to cart". I was on .com, using my alternate ID, attempting to purchase a 2nd item from my store. I still only had 2 choices at that point: either abandon the second item and pay for the first, or go to the cart and be unable to check out. Neither of which is a good option from the seller's point of view.

jt-libra · ‎03-18-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:

And, I'm just irritable.

Oh, don't be You said yourself it's warm and sunny today. Take a break from the "cart disconnect" issues for a while.

Also, I'm just stubborn and don't like having to pay the extra currency conversion to payapl for a USD payment from a Canadian.

You make a good point!

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:

Now, I know there are others who will disagree with me but I found that listing in USD did nothing to accelerate my American sales and only irrupted my Canadian buyers. Plus, it made tax time a huge irritant for me because I was dealing in currency conversions every which way I turned.

Much has to do I think with where the majority of a seller's buyers are. As I said, I typically have 90%+ US sales. I used to list in $Cdn a few years ago, but found my sales did increase significantly once I switched to $US. Of course all my shipping labels and packing materials are paid for in $Cdn, so I'm saving 20%+ on those right now as well. It helps me to keep up my shipping subsidies for my buyers.

Everybody has to do what works for them of course. But I did want to mention that CRA permits you to use a general annual conversion rate as posted by the Bank of Canada early each year for the preceding year (tax year). I just take my totals in $US and convert them at that rate for my tax returns. (For the "Future Reference" file just in case you ever change to $US).

[Looking outside right now, I'm amazed we still have power. 50kph sustained winds with 80km gusts and heavy snow. Something's gotta give...]

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

So, if I can paraphrase, this is another way of saying that on .com the "go to Cart" option only appears if the listings in question are in $US. Is that what you are saying?

Yes.

That has nothing to do with the .ca cart.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-18-2015

I still only had 2 choices at that point: either abandon the second item and pay for the first, or go to the cart and be unable to check out. Neither of which is a good option from the seller's point of view.

Perhaps you are saying this already but in case you aren't.....you would have had to remove the first item from the cart too in order to check out.

If you want to continue to sell in U.S. $ then maybe going immediate payment is the way you want to go. But I don't see why you would remove the promo from your listings now that it works on the .ca cart.

rose-dee · ‎03-18-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
It looks like it is working fine now! I tried it with 5 separate items rather than having 2 of one item and it worked...all free shipping even though 2 of them already had free shipping.

I may have gotten excited too soon. I just tried the same sort of test I did a few days ago -- logged onto .ca with my alternate ID, and tried to purchase 5 items from my store, with a mix of free and existing shipping. No discount (see below).

I've given myself a headache today. I think it's time I took a break from the cart disconnect. I'm going to decide what to do about it tomorrow, probably remove my discounts as a start. What a mess.