Why can't US buyers use "Add to Cart" for listings on Ebay.ca

[ssales12]

For our listings denominated in CAD, US buyers do not have the option of "Adding to Cart".  This is negatively impacting our sales.

Why does Ebay design their system this way?

Thanks,

[momcqueen]

It's not a CAD thing: it's a created-outside-of-ebay.com-thing that causes this phenomena. And it's also found on ebay.co.uk with listings created outside of ebay.co.uk. Their shopping cart (ebay.com ) and shopping basket (ebay.co.uk) do not support or accept listings created outside their native sites. 

As I list on ebay.ca in CAD by choice, this is my workaround for the past 12+months:

Seller's payment instructions

If you are shopping from eBay USA or eBay UK, you will discover you cannot add items listed on eBay CANADA to your US Cart or UK Basket. Log into www.ebay.ca to take full advantage of our combined postage discounts and FREE SHIPPING promotions. You’ll be glad you did

Feel free to adapt to meet your own needs. You can Bulk Edit to add it to all your listings at once, should you desire to do so. 

[fashionoutletdeal]

wow thats great !!! Can I steal it ? I will pay for it .

[momcqueen]

It is yours to use as you like! I'm happy to help.

[ssales12]

Thanks so much for your comments. However, it still makes no sense that Ebay would prevent US buyers from adding to cart for CAD purchases - and it definitely hurts our sales opportunities.

[momcqueen]

I do agree with you. During one of the many times ebay Canada staff was forced to explain why these usa- and uk- carts/baskets behave as they do, all he could say was that the respective systems were grandfathered and that the number of listings/sellers adversely affected did not make it a high priority for ebay.com or ebay.co.uk to fix. Despite ebay.ca asking for it. It's a big deal for us in Canada but not a big deal for them in the States.

[momcqueen]

I will also mention that when I have usa buyers or uk buyers make multi-item purchases and submit payment for way more postage than required, I refund all but one postage payment, combine all items into one order and then call ebay to demand my final value fees on shipping be refunded to me since the postage was refunded to my buyers. If you can prove that, they have to give the FVF on shipping back to you. Be polite but firm. Or ask the buyer to log into ebay.ca to use the cart. They may or may not want to do that since a US buyer cannot accrue ebay Bucks on ebay.ca only ebay.com and ditto goes for that Nectar program they have in the UK.

But if ebay has to refund FVF on shipping over and over again, I assume they will start asking questions and eventually fix it. 

[aubreyclay56]

That has happend to me in the past and i let it slide but now that you bring this up,i wont be letting it slide again

[momcqueen]

While it is an enormous pain in the butt to have to call to ask for a refund of FVF for $1.23 each time, I do it on principle.

The CSR always make a big deal about how they are giving me a one-time pass on it. Not a good value fort time spent, I would think, but it's the point of the matter. The cart doesn't work, the buyer gets refunded their extra paid shipping, so therefore ebay has no right to keep that final value fee on shipment.

It's already so much extra work to have to manually combine the orders, issue refunds, compile separate customs paperwork into a single transaction et cetera et cetera. Free money to ebay is the insult added to my injury.

I always ask for it back when I can prove I refunded the buyer their postage in full and combined that item to another item in their order. Otherwise, it's like rewarding ebay for a job poorly done in the compatible-shopping-cart-department. Sooner or later, when it starts to cost them money, surely they will take note and fix it.

I keep hoping.