eBay

musicyouneed · ‎12-31-2016

I list on both .ca in CDN pesos and on .com in US $.

I have about 900 on .ca and about 560 on .com. and what I have sold in the last few days is:

10 sales off .com and 2 off .ca.

So it is pretty obvious that even though I have almost double the listings on .ca, it is the .com ones that are selling.

ypdc_dennis · ‎12-31-2016

And your point is what?

A seller determines what works best for them and uses it to their advantage.

...

I on the other hand, selling in Cdn dollars and US paper money this week had:

10 Cdn$ sales to USA (4), Canada (2), UK, Australia, Sweden and Germany

1 US$ sale to the USA

A good week for me.

...

musicyouneed · ‎12-31-2016

My point is that I have less items on .com but they are selling faster than the items I have on .ca where I almost have double the items listed. Alot of the items on .ca are also cheaper because they are in Cdn $ and a lot have free shipping to Canada.

I believe that most of my sales is because the listings in USD are more attractive in my category than in Canadian pesos. But I guess I already knew that as I am slowly moving my listings to .com.

recped · ‎01-01-2017

@musicyouneed wrote:
My point is that I have less items on .com but they are selling faster than the items I have on .ca where I almost have double the items listed. Alot of the items on .ca are also cheaper because they are in Cdn $ and a lot have free shipping to Canada.

I believe that most of my sales is because the listings in USD are more attractive in my category than in Canadian pesos. But I guess I already knew that as I am slowly moving my listings to .com.

Unless you are doing duplicate listings you are not talking about the same items so your comparison is faulty from the get go.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

gillian1023 · ‎01-01-2017

What's a Canadian peso? 🙂

musicyouneed wrote:

I list on both .ca in CDN pesos and on .com in US $.

I have about 900 on .ca and about 560 on .com. and what I have sold in the last few days is:

10 sales off .com and 2 off .ca.

momcqueen · ‎01-01-2017

You alone have total control what items listed you listed on which site so if your ebay Canada listings aren't selling as fast as the ebay.com ones then I'd have to suggest you re-examine which items you listed where. You really cannot consider this a valid scientific experiment nor draw any actual conclusion from it other than that you seem determined to downplay the effectiveness of ebay.ca for your product line. That would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if it were true. It works fine for the rest of us.

ricarmic · ‎01-01-2017

I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing experiences here, whether they're mathematically sound or not. With the unbelievable complexity of selling here now, creating a mathematically sound result would be very hard to do.

I think the good thing that sharing experiences like this does is that it makes us think about what we are doing, perhaps evaluate that, and perhaps experiment to see if changing things works for us.

Femme, myself, and other stamp sellers, even though we are all in the "stamp world" sell sometimes markedly different stuff, so even within our stamp realm, what works for me might not work for femme. So certainly between different categories one has to account for the difference in customer base, style, issues etc and weigh whether the experience might be similar, or worth trying experiments to see if it is similar, in one's own category.

With the duration of our 74ish dollar against the US$ and projections that our dollar will continue to drop, even as low as 65c in the coming year, I've been pondering whether I would begin listing items that would be Canadian buyer based in $C, especially since I seem to be finding more Canadian buyer friendly material to list in the last few months.

Since I've sold only on .COM and only in US$ since 1999, if I do this, it will be a big step out of the box for me.

Time will tell, I always have about 3 more experiments in my mind than I have time to execute so one never knows!!

Anyway, I don't mind reading experience reports to hear what's happening out there.....

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

I'm afraid I have to disagree with some of the above opinions. I think the OP has a point and I think his observations produced a valid concern. I also have to say that it's unfair to gang-jump the OP without thinking through the implications of what he's trying to point out.

The OP has a broad mix of titles, but they're all essentially in the same category (music CDs). He really doesn't have to compare Granny Smith apples and Granny Smith apples to conclude that apples sell better on eBay.com. To say otherwise is a dismissive and simplistic argument.

What the OP has observed is actually precisely what occurs in the vintage sewing pattern category. If I list 100 patterns on .ca and 50 on .com, I'll get 3 to 5 times the sales on .com. Why? It has very little to do with which particular designs will appeal to American buyers. People who sew will browse and buy patterns of various styles and people who love music will browse and buy music by various artists. I think there are other factors involved in what the OP is seeing:

a) The potential U.S. market is 10 times larger than ours, and Americans are more likely to choose an item with familiar currency ($USD) over something that appears "foreign" or unfamiliar -- if they get as far as looking at the actual listing. I admit this is a belief I hold from personal experience and experimentation, but it's been proven valid for my category.

b) I have observed that my .com listings have been getting better exposure/placement on eBay.com since eBay.ca dropped $USD listing. I can't say whether this is a mere coincidence or manipulation by eBay. Who knows, and what does it really matter anyway? The result is that after the currency switch on .ca I discovered I sold far more on .com than for listings that remained on .ca.

c) The fact that the OP has lower prices and free shipping on .ca and still can't generate a better proportional sales split from .ca suggests that there is more than coincidence involved, especially with the numbers of listings he's dealing with.

d) These sorts of phenomena may well be category-driven, and more prounounced with certain types of products.

e) We should admit the possibility that eBay may have altered the way it selects and displays items for buyers on .com since the dropping of $USD listings on .ca. What the OP is seeing may well be the symptom of a very intentional change by eBay. Exactly what that might entail is anybody's guess, but it could be very important for some of us to be aware of (especially for those of us who have most of our listings now on .com). Dare I mention it without being beaten up here -- could eBay be slowly moving toward enticing more Canadians over to .com so that they can eventually dump .ca entirely?

I should point out that for several months after the currency switch I actually experimented to see what leaving a substantial portion of listings on .ca (in $CDN) would do. I also left a portion in $USD on .ca, and moved about 40% of my total listings to .com. The outcome was incontrovertible: I did far better with my .com listings.

Since eBay has never been willing to disclose actual data to us, all we sellers can do is experiment, observe, and act accordingly. I think it's useless to suggest that we have any power to peer behind the curtain or collect data in any meaningfully scientific way.

Those of us who have been around for many years will recall that eBay used to tell Canadian sellers (for nearly a decade if I remember correctly) that they were better off (by 15%) listing in $USD on eBay.ca than in $CDN -- that is, until just before eBay decided to switch to $CDN-only on .ca. Suddenly they were reporting that their data contradicted their earlier stance, but we should recognize that data was also self-serving if they wanted Canadian sellers who relied primarily on U.S. sales to believe that what eBay was doing by dropping $USD listings on .ca was best for Canadian sellers. So, was the sudden about-face simply a convenient façade, or truth? We'll never know except by what we observe.

This is why I don't think we should simply dismiss the OP's observed phenomenon as meaningless or ill-founded. There may well be something going on in the background, through deliberate decision-making on eBay's part that has been manifested in the OP's sales split.

What I would suggest to the OP is to continue to observe and collate the sales data over the next few weeks (or few months), then decide whether the result justifies moving all their listings over to .com. So yes, adjusting to our particular situations is really all we sellers can do, but if someone doesn't point out an observation in the first place, how will we be alerted to a potential issue and check it for ourselves?

Personally, I'm thankful the OP brought this up, and I'm sorry he got smacked down so roundly for mentioning it. I think his conclusion was reasonable, based on what he's seeing: "I believe that most of my sales is because the listings in USD are more attractive in my category than in Canadian".

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

@ricarmic wrote:
I don't think there's anything wrong with sharing experiences here, whether they're mathematically sound or not. With the unbelievable complexity of selling here now, creating a mathematically sound result would be very hard to do.

I think the good thing that sharing experiences like this does is that it makes us think about what we are doing, perhaps evaluate that, and perhaps experiment to see if changing things works for us.

Hear, hear! Well said, I agree completely.

silverpinups · ‎01-01-2017

The population in Canada is 36.2 million people vs. 325.4 million people in the USA.

It's not rocket science to know that your going to have more sales in the USA then you will in Canada and Americans will prefer buying in their own currency.

But every eBay.ca seller has their own personal experiences to draw from on what works best for them when it comes to listing in CDN or USD.

i.am.vivian · ‎01-01-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
The population in Canada is 36.2 million people vs. 325.4 million people in the USA.
every eBay.ca seller has their own personal experiences to draw from on what works best for them when it comes to listing in CDN or USD.

That's true isn't it. Americans never have this particular debate.

silverpinups · ‎01-01-2017

Americans live in their own world and it's up to everyone else to adapt...... or of course carve your own path.

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
The population in Canada is 36.2 million people vs. 325.4 million people in the USA.

It's not rocket science to know that your going to have more sales in the USA then you will in Canada and Americans will prefer buying in their own currency.

While I completely agree that Americans will prefer buying in $USD and that this will account for a significant part of the discrepancy the OP is seeing, I think the U.S./Canada population difference is a bit of a red herring. The OP didn't say that most of his sales were to Americans (although they probably were), but just that his .com sales were higher -- which could have gone to anyone around the world, including Americans.

For one thing, the OP's .ca listings will (or at least should -- we would hope) be shown to all buyers on .com, presumably in no particular preference (we would hope) to items listed in $USD. This would mean that U.S. buyers should be just as likely to see those listings as listings made on .com. Why wouldn't a U.S. buyer choose a CD listed in $CDN from his search list? To him/her it would (or at least should) look no different.

Remember that in search results, only the "native" currency is now displayed -- so a U.S. buyer should really not be able to distinguish a .ca listing from a .com listing, at least at first glance in search.

At the actual listing level it's a different story, and that's where currency conversion and "foreigness" of .ca listings are likely to be a factor, but probably only to U.S. buyers. I doubt many Canadians searching on .com, are going to be put off by seeing a .ca listing that pops up in $CDN with no foreign conversion. With twice the number of .ca listings, you would think the OP would benefit from not only those Canadian buyers, but also non-U.S. foreign buyers searching on .com.

Raphael (the eBay rep who has now left) was adamant that currency was no longer as relevant anymore because of changes made by eBay to the way listings are displayed in search results. If his statement is correct, then the reasonable extension is that .ca listings should sell just as well as .com listings, for most categories, all other things being equal. In fact, if I recall correctly, this is exactly what Raphael suggested to us on more than one occasion. The fact that the OP found this was not the case, despite lower prices and free shipping on .ca, and despite twice as many .ca listings, suggests there is something else at play, possibly something new that we sellers weren't aware of.

In my mind the real questions then that the OP's report brings up are (1) whether .com listings are getting different treatment by eBay to make them more likely to sell; (2) whether this is a new/recent phenomenon; and (3) whether it has any connection to the removal of $USD listings on .ca. To me, that's what makes the OP's observations so interesting and potential important.

I hesitate to add that one possible conclusion is that eBay is intentionally giving preference to .com listings, in some manner unknown or unseen to us. I'm not saying the OP's observations prove this in any way, but they certainly beg the question.

silverpinups · ‎01-01-2017

You have to remember the OP is selling CD's which their could be 10 or more of the same item to choose from on eBay.com.

Which one do you think the American will choose from? The one listed in CDN with a USD conversion rate underneath or the one listed in straight USD?

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

One other explanation (or contributor) to what you've observed has occurred to me, in connection with what I posted above.

Is it perhaps possible that the display under .com listings of: "People who viewed this item also viewed..." has been set to favour listings on .com? In other words, to benefit primarily U.S. sellers?

These "items viewed by others" appear at first glance to be random, but they're really not. They're closely related to the item the buyer is looking at. So if many other U.S. sellers are listing music CDs and sewing patterns similar to yours (but not necessarily exactly the same), similar items will crop up that the buyer may actually end up buying, some of which may eventually be yours.

If most of the items viewed by others displayed by eBay are listed on .com, this could account for a heavier "cross-marketing" of .com listings to the detriment of listings on other eBay sites. Come to think of it, I've actually seen one of my own .com pattern listings in that "items viewed by others" display when I've been using my other ID to look for a particular Vogue pattern (listed on .com) for myself!

In other words, ironically, the more U.S. competitors (listing on .com) you have in a particular category, the more likely your own listings on .com will get cross-displayed, resulting in a larger sales potential. This may be a workable theory, since you'll have far fewer competitors listing on .ca, resulting in fewer potential sales opportunities arising from other sellers' listings. Actually, this makes even more sense than assuming eBay is somehow manipulating or giving preferential treatment to .com listings in search results. Effectively though it could amount to very much the same thing.

To test this, pick 4 or 5 of your .ca listings and look at them from another ID (if you have one). Check each of the "items viewed by others" under each of your own listings and see what site(s) they are listed on. Monitor over a 2-week period and keep a record of what you see. If the "other items" are all on .ca, you may have a big part of your answer and can make some meaningful decisions for your business.

I just want to add that cross-marketing like this must work, otherwise we wouldn't see it constantly in our faces all over the internet.

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
You have to remember the OP is selling CD's which their could be 10 or more of the same item to choose from on eBay.com.

Which one do you think the American will choose from? The one listed in CDN with a USD conversion rate underneath or the one listed in straight USD?

Although I don't disagree with the concept that Americans prefer to see listings in their familiar currency, as I said above, the U.S. buyer on .com won't see any difference these days between a .ca listing and a .com listing on search results. A .ca listing listed in $CDN will be displayed only in the $USD equivalent to that buyer at the search results level. If the U.S. buyer sees something attractive enough in the initial search to click through, there's a better chance he/she will ignore the displayed conversion at the listing level.

This was the entire crux of Raphael's argument to us (and it does make sense), i.e. that eBay had now removed some of the problem of "foreignness" from searches, by displaying items in the buyer's native currency.

However, what Raphael neglected to mention was the cross-marketing of .com items to .com viewers. That could account for a large divide between .com and .ca sales for Canadian sellers listing on both sites, particularly if the cross-marketing involves only items listed on the same (.com) site. That remains to be tested to be clarified (see my post above).

silverpinups · ‎01-01-2017

A .ca listing listed in $CDN will be displayed only in the $USD

The CDN Listing will be displayed in CDN with a USD conversion rate below it.

See below....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Waterbone-Tibet-Digipak-CD-2003-Intentcity-VG-9-10-/191962023632?hash=item2c...

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
You have to remember the OP is selling CD's which their could be 10 or more of the same item to choose from on eBay.com.

Actually, this is exactly why the results the OP has reported are so perplexing (and so interesting). The OP can certainly tell us better what percentage of his competitors are U.S. sellers, but I'd bet they make up the majority.

If that's the case, say if 7 out of 10 of identical items to the OP's are listed on .com, there should be no reason the OP's item listed on .ca, displayed to a U.S. buyer on .com in $USD in search results, at a lower price, and with free shipping to boot, should have a lower selling rate. This was exactly what Raphael was trying to convince us of over and over again a few months ago.

I presume the OP knows what they're doing in terms of listing at prices on .ca that are competitive with, and even under-cutting U.S. sellers. Which makes this even more mysterious unless you take into account all the automated cross-marketing done by eBay.

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

@silverpinups wrote:
A .ca listing listed in $CDN will be displayed only in the $USD

The CDN Listing will be displayed in CDN with a USD conversion rate below it.
__________________________________________________________________________________

I think you may have misunderstood. What you say is quite true -- but only at the listing level itself.

A U.S. buyer doing a search on .com under any subject will be presented with a list of items, whether listed on .com or elsewhere, and in whatever currency, only in $USD. That buyer will not know until they click through whether the particular listing they've chosen was set in $USD, $CDN, or any other currency. Once at the listing itself, they'll see the conversion to their native currency as well as the original listing currency price, which may be an issue for a U.S. buyer (or may not matter by that point, since the buyer is already interested enough in the item to click through).

This was precisely what Raphael was trying to explain to us several weeks ago to convince those of us who were skeptical to stay on .ca and list in $CDN. However, as I said, he conveniently didn't mention anything about .com to .com cross-marketing. That could make a huge difference for Canadian sellers wanting to list on both .com and .ca.

rose-dee · ‎01-01-2017

See screenshot below for an example of what I referred to earlier regarding "native" currency display. This is a search I did on "Vogue designer patterns" under my other ID, on .com.

Although the first 2 items are listed on .com in $USD, the second on .ca in $CDN, and the third in $AU on .au, eBay recognizes I'm in Canada and displays all prices in $CDN only, regardless. If I were in the U.S. searching on .com, I'd see all prices in $US, if in Australia, all in $AU, and so on.

This should mean that if the OP has listings on .ca that are actually lower in price than competitors' prices, they'll be shown as such to U.S. buyers/searchers in $USD, mixed in with the OPs .com listings (also of course shown in $USD), and should sell better, especially since there are twice as many of them.

This change by eBay in showing "native" currency in searches was a major step forward. However, one small addition I have to make to my earlier comments is that although the listings are displayed in the viewer's "native" currency, the actual location of the item is shown in small print to the right (e.g., "United States", "Australia", etc.).

Seeing the location of the item may arguably be a deterrent for a U.S. buyer, but at least that buyer will be seeing and comparing prices in his/her own familiar currency, a big improvement over the way things used to be.

Of course, when we Canadians were able to list in $USD, it didn't matter, those listings would be displayed to U.S. buyers in $USD anyway. But the point is that .ca listings used to show the two currencies in searches, and they don't anymore. So what is it then that's driving the OP's far better sales from .com than from .ca, despite lower prices on .ca? I think the cross-marketing may explain a lot of it.

Here's the sample search (hopefully it's large enough to be readable).