Selling on ebay.com in USD with Managed Payments for Canadian sellers

[laptops4sale2]

Hello,

Could anyone clarify if Canadian sellers can still list on ebay.com in USD after we switch to MP?

Can we receive payout in USD either to US bank or Canadian bank with USD account?

Can we even list on ebay.com with MP or are we going to be limited to ebay.ca with listing in CAD?

What should sellers do who have a bunch of listings on ebay.com listed in USD?

I did call ebay support seeking answers to these questions and reply I received was rather vague, but overall it seems like we may be limited to selling on ebay.ca in CAD only after the switch is made to managed payments.

Maybe Tyler@ebay could provide more information on this topic.

Thanks

[tyler@ebay]

Hi @laptops4sale2 - I don't have answers for you on multi-currency/platform listing, but I do know that you would be paid in the currency you list in. However, I don't have specifics on what that will look like yet, but as I learn more I will be sure to pass it on to you!

[ypdc_dennis]

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@laptops4sale2 wrote:

Could anyone clarify if Canadian sellers can still list on ebay.com in USD after we switch to MP? Can we receive payout in USD either to US bank or Canadian bank with USD account?

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I will use another platform as an example.

The A-river  .com sales pays US$ to accounts connected to the USA banking transfer system. So yes, to a US bank, but no to a Canadian based US$ account (those are connected to the Canadian transfer system).  This the same is true for paypal.  However, most Canadian banks do own US banks that have accounts that can be used for US$ deposits (cost vary).

For those without a suitable US$ bank account, the A-river converts the deposit from US$ to the currency of the Seller's country. 

What eBay actually does with MP when it comes to Sellers who list in different marketplaces is a big question.  I suspect even eBay does not know, since they have been concentrating on getting domestic sellers into MP.

...

As a small Seller on eBay.CA and eBay.COM  I fully expect the change to MP will result in me closing all my listing on ebay.COM (currently at a minimum because of covid-19 transport delays to USA destinations).

-..-

[cottagewoman]

The idea that is being promoted here is that in essence, with managed payments, sales can only occur in the currency of the sellers bank account connected to managed payments. That would then exclude eBay itself from displaying listings on any other localization other than the native currency site - because if an item ilisted on .ca is sold on .com it would be a US dollar transaction that couldn't be converted to another currency (CAD in this case) by the reasoning of the OP. I seriously doubt eBay would shoot it's feet off quite so thoroughly.

[pjcdn2005]

In the situation that you describe I’m sure that it would work the same as it does now. Seller lists on .ca, buyer buys the item on .com in $US and the money processor coverts the buyers funds to $C and the seller is paid in $C.  Listings would still be seen on other sites.

What isn’t clear is if a Canadian seller lists on .com in $US what happens when they are paid.  We are always paid in the listing currency so will we need a US bank account to deposit our US funds in or are they going to convert them to $C or??

[reallynicestamps]

I only know RBCBank which is affiliated with the Royal Bank in some way and TDNorth which has something to do with TDCanada Trust.

Sellers who get a lot of sales in US dollars might want to call one of those Canadian banks and ask about how a snowbird can set up one of those US accounts from Canada without a US address.

We did it when we had a full-time shop and while service charges were fairly high, it was worthwhile, if only to pay US based auction consignors.

Depending on your US dollar income the service charges may be higher than the savings on foreign exchange.

I wouldn't bother if you are not being reported to CRA by PP because you are over their $20,000 reporting level in all currencies. YMMV

Your bank branch manager needs something to keep her amused while she can't go to the office.

[a51split]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

.... without a US address.

.... service charges were fairly high, 

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What service charges?

Anyone can open a bank acct in a US bank without an address in the USA.  When the border opens, take a drive to a bank of your choice and open a checking acct. Use your Canadian address. Get a US ATM card for purchases when on holiday.

The checking acct I use pays no interest.  I could use a savings acct that does, but then you are generating income in the USA and you have to register with the IRS.  My bank sends me the form telling me I have to register all accts that bear interest with the IRS, but since my acct doesn't bear interest, I don't bother registering.

[ypdc_dennis]

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@laptops4sale2 wrote:

Could anyone clarify if Canadian sellers can still list on ebay.com in USD after we switch to MP?

Can we receive payout in USD either to US bank or Canadian bank with USD account?

Can we even list on ebay.com with MP or are we going to be limited to ebay.ca with listing in CAD?

---

Best guess (assuming .ca rules are similar to .com) from info leaking out on the Managed Payments FAQ thread on the USA forums.

Yes, Canadians will be able to list on ebay.com

eBay will convert the US$ funds to your payout currency using market exchange rate + 3% conversion fee. The currency conversion charge will be automatically deducted from your sales. Sell on .com and get paid by MP in Canadian $.

I'll probably cut back on my .com listings under MP since one reason was to get US$ (which I spend for purchases without converting).

[queensboroughhealth]

This is not good and not well thought out. We have a US based account with a US bank, convert the money through an online currency exchange service into Canadian funds and get it deposited into our Canadian account. This results in a savings of big dollars on an annual basis.

We sell mostly on amazon and shopify and started ebay last year, we have built up our sales over the last year to a decent $15000/month in US dollars selling on EBAY.com.

Even with just $15000/month, I did the math, it will result us in losing an extra $10 000/year in exchange losses.

The support agent I spoke to said I would have to have a physical presence in the US to have funds deposited in to a US based account for tax purposes. I am not a legal expert, but I know for Amazon and shopify we file something called W-8 Ben form so we don't have to pay taxes in both countries. The support agent was not sure what I was talking about. 

I'm hoping Ebay will get it together and be able to deposit to US based accounts for foreign sellers like Amazon, Shopify and Paypal.

We had plans to focus heavily on Ebay this year (don't like being so reliant on Amazon) but this puts a major dent in our plans and we will definitely be holding off investing time and resources into Ebay until we get more clarity.

[hlmacdon]

The support agent I spoke to said I would have to have a physical presence in the US to have funds deposited in to a US based account for tax purposes. I am not a legal expert, but I know for Amazon and shopify we file something called W-8 Ben form so we don't have to pay taxes in both countries. The support agent was not sure what I was talking about. 

I'm hoping Ebay will get it together and be able to deposit to US based accounts for foreign sellers like Amazon, Shopify and Paypal.

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Support agent has no idea what they are talking about.

Ebay Canada is well aware of how important this is going to be to sellers and how much of a dealer breaker it will be if they don't solve for this. This is one of the reasons why some sellers have not received a managed payments invite.

See here for further details 

What if I have a US PayPal account and accept US dollars on eBay.com?

As a Canadian registered seller, you will be able to actively list on eBay.com and link a Canadian bank account for your sales. We’re actively working on allowing Canadian sellers to link a US bank account to accept US dollar sales.

[reallynicestamps]

@a51split 

Service charges on business accounts are high in both the USA and Canada.

Writing cheques, annual fee for having an account, fees for paper statements, nibble nibble nibble.

We were putting about a quarter million in US through that account annually when we had our shop.
I tried having a personal US account for about a year, and the total fees were higher than what I was saving on currency exchange.

Drive across the border? I just dropped into my Royal Bank branch and opened the RBCBank account right there. Same with the business account.

[cottagewoman]

As a Canadian seller who sells only on .com in USD, the current arrangement in PayPal allows for simplicity in managing flow while minimizing exchange fees.  This is due to the fact that we have the ability to withdraw 'on demand' (obviously with some delays) and can hold USD funds in our PayPal account. 

As well we have set up a USD account on eBay so that our fees are not subject to any currency conversion as they are paid in the USD funds from our PayPal account. 

We also buy our labels from eBay for US shipments, since we use freight forwarding services (chitChats, another local provider).  Therefore we are paying for our labels in USD directly from our USD funds PayPal account with no currency exchange fees, etc.

As it stands we only pay the PayPal currency exchange once we transfer to our CAD account from USD.

With managed payments this seems like it will become quite a mess and could result in quite a cost hike, if the following information as given on the .com site regarding managed payments is true:

A - Payouts are either every two days or weekly.

B - eBay shipping labels can be purchased with funds in a managed payment account if they are available.

C - Currently eBay fees are billed and must be payed from our own banking source (not sure if this will be credit card only, direct funds pulled from our bank account?).  Some information hints that fees will be able to be paid sometime in the future by a managed payments account balance, not sure if true or when that will be implemented.

If A above is our only option, how are we to be sure we can perform B since the managed payment balance is 'zeroed' out every two days or weekly, which would then require payment by another form?

The same holds true for C above, if/when we can use this feature to pay fees.

If we are required to pay for labels via our own bank account(s), will there be a currency exchange fee included in the amount owing if the amount is billed in CAD?

Will fees have the same issue as labels, where there will be a currency exchange fee included in the amount owing if billed in CAD?

Costs here could be substantial if 3% fees are charged on the payout to our CAD accounts, plus another fee (assuming 3%) for both eBay USD labels and USD fees. 

Another 3% off my bottom line is getting a bit crazy.

If the billing is in USD, my bank currency fees will be 2.5%.  That's still a hit I don't want to take.

This poses some questions:

Is there any way to set a dollar amount to transfer on the two day or weekly schedule, so we can at least leave a balance available in USD? 

The best option I can see is to add a feature for 'on demand' transfer similar to PayPal, where the date and amount can be at our discretion (obviously with a transfer delay to our bank account).  This way we can more directly manage our costs and allow for a simpler process for one, less costly for two.  The amount of monitoring, transferring, juggling, etc here seems silly and complicated, not streamlining anything!

[j2ledflashlights]

We auctioned items in both eBay.com and eBay.ca. With the changes in Managed Payments, we can now only received payments under one bank for our auctions under eBay.ca or eBay.com.

That one bank is in Canada.

I have opened a bank account in Buffalo , USA many years ago. This USA bank was mainly opened for payments from eBay.com. Now that bank is useless as eBay.com does not recognized it.

I have talked to an eBay Managed Payment department today and he told me that eBay.com can only accepted one bank in Canada.  eBay.com can only deposit money onto our bank in Canada.

I will probably lose on the exchange rates when they convert the USD to CAD to deposit into our bank account in Canada. eBay suggested that I should mark up the retail prices a bit to cover the exchange rates lost.

I liked the old system better when we received USD payments from eBay.com and it will go to my USD bank account and when CAD payments are received from eBay.ca  and it will go to my CAD bank in Canada.

Either you have to markup the retail price on eBay.com to cover the lost in exchange rates or

cancel all your eBay.com auctions.

The another problem would exist when the USA buyer wants a refund of the items that they purchased.  You would have to convert the CAD into USD again to give him the money and then you lose another exchange rate lost.

Now my bank account in Buffalo, USA is useless.

[recped]

Now my bank account in Buffalo, USA is useless.

Don't close that account!

It might be "useless" at the moment but this situation is likely to change.

There was a similar mass freak out from coin sellers because Managed Payments prohibited them. eBay stated long ago that this was a temporary issue that would change......as of Next week, coins WILL be allowed under Managed Payments.

I foresee the same situation with separating US funds and enabling the ability to have payouts from .com go to US based banks.

I don't know the specific reasons why this is an issue at all but I do know that Adyen who operates the MP program has the capability to do it.

eBay will be requiring China based sellers to enter into the MP system this year, this currency issue is going to be a big deal for them so it's not just a matter of "it's only Canada so who cares".

[marnotom!]

Or we could just accept the MP exchange rates for what they are for the time being, like most Canadians who have currency to exchange at a financial institution.

The current mid-market exchange rate is US$1.00 = C$1.2716.  My credit union's buy rate for US dollars is currently US$1.00 = C$1.24.  One of the major chartered banks quotes C$1.23.  I really don't think this difference is egregious, even on US$1000.  It's certainly better than not having the money to exchange at all.

ADDENDUM:  I do agree with Recped that this situation is likely to change in the future.  Many services are not always released "fully formed".  It took a while for PayPal to get where it is today and I expect Managed Payments to develop and evolve over time, as well.

[pjcdn2005]

Or we could just accept the MP exchange rates for what they are for the time being, like most Canadians who have currency to exchange at a financial institution.

We? are you selling now?

You can't really compare 'most' Canadians since the average Canadian doesn't deal in another currency daily and are not having to pay a currency conversion fee in order to receive their money.  The point sellers are making is not about the actual rate.  The difference here is that in the past, sellers could hold their US dollars to either convert when they chose to or keep it in $US for when they purchased items in the US. The way MP is set up now doesn't allow for that so if the sellers usually sells on .com they either have to pay the conversion fee or change their listings to .ca.  I've also heard that they are looking into changing that so hopefully it will be before all Canadian sellers have to opt into MP.

[recped]

Yeah the double conversion is the major issue, if you buy your inventory in US Dollars or buy Postage in US Dollars (both fairly common nowadays). It's 5 - 6% cost to convert US to CA and then back to US.

Fortunately I only list in CAD on eBay and I have other USD revenue that I can use in the US to pay for postage and other purposes without having to covert.

[mchammered2001]

I have a second account that has been selling on ebay.com for over 10 years and now forced to this MP setup.

The ebay.com setup was simple. Get paid in USD to Paypal, transfer funds in USD to a Transferwise account, deposit USD from Transferwise to my RBC USD account OR conver USD>CAD using Transferwise and save a lot in FOREX fees and then deposit the CAD to my RBC CAD account.

I often kept a USD balance in the Paypal account for when I want to pay for items, now this is a headache to switch to MP and lose all of this.

Spoke to a CSR about setting up the MP setup and unless I have an EIN number for the business, or an ITIN as an individual, I won't be able to setup the MP for the ebay.com account. So a decade of feedback is going to be lost as a result.

I'm not happy at all with these changes and am looking at no longer selling on ebay as I'm not going to accept a 3% FOREX fee for them doing nothing.

For those of you wanting to save money on FOREX, go check out Transferwise as it works great.

[reallynicestamps]

eBay will be requiring China based sellers to enter into the MP system this year, this currency issue is going to be a big deal for them so it's not just a matter of "it's only Canada so who cares".

Interesting.

Can you point us to a link showing that ? 
Pretty sure that is the market that will force eBay/MP to allow multiple currency accounts.

Now if we could also get multiple bank accounts , no matter what the currency,  but that could be a unexpected consequence of the multiple currency correction.

Toes crossed.

[rcb123_5]

I watched a live feed on youtube from 2dogsdigs on selling on .ca vs .com, Craig mentioned that he's been told that Canadian sellers that do most of their sale (or at least a lot of sales) to the US should hold off on switching to Managed Payments for now. I'm not sure why that reasoning, but there must be something in the works to make it more viable for Canadians/MP/.com.

I've been on managed payments since November, but only started listing on .com at the start of 2021. Transactions are in US funds, but converted to CAD before it's transferred to my bank. They show in the transactions what they used for the exchange rate the day of the transaction, which is a bit lower then the bank rates. For example, one sale I had netted 26.28 USD after fees, converted at 1.23492 worked out to 32.45 CAD added to my available funds waiting to be transferred to my bank.