Buyer Traffic Dead Since Strike Announcement
Summary: wilsonharborsales expressed concerns about a halt in sales and traffic on eBay since the Canada Post strike announcement, despite not using Canada Post for shipping. lotzofuniquegoodies noted changes in traffic measurement tools, while mrdutch1001 challenged the idea of a 'complete halt' by checking sales records. Participants speculated whether Canadian buyers were wary of delays, influencing a shift towards platforms like Amazon, which doesn't rely on Canada Post. nhl_automotive highlighted the impact of extended delivery timeframes set by eBay, potentially deterring buyers, and others discussed alternative shipping strategies like using UPS or FedEx. The conversation also touched on eBay's reliance on Canada Post and the need for integrating other carriers to minimize future disruptions.
I believe that traffic to Canadian sellers is being gated to prevent BBE on the platform. It is going to be a tough Q4 for Canadian eBay sellers if this doesn’t get resolved soon.
Don’t think you are immune because you don’t use Canada Post. I have almost never used Canada Post and the faucet has been completely turned off for my eBay business.
Hang in there everyone. Hopefully they resolve soon.
ilikehockeyjerseys
·1 year agoWith the benefit of hindsight, I think allowing sellers to offer Canada Post with extended handling time was the wrong move.
They can't block those sales entirely because people can still switch to generic "economy shipping" type options, but they can find ways to reward sellers who switched to calculated rates using an eBay partner carrier. Things like dramatically boosting the Best Match placement for sellers using UPS and Fedex, offering buyers coupons specifically for listings that use those, or offering sellers who opt in a discounted final value fee.
Your average buyer is not deep into eBay. They likely assume that everybody on eBay is likely to use Canada Post and that their item will be delayed. eBay needs to be in a position where they can heavily market that they are "Open for business", but actually mean it. Taking orders with a 20 day handling time is not open for business. I suspect most buyers are either buying locally (which is a good thing for their community, just not for us), or buying on Amazon, because the average person (outside of rural areas) knows that Amazon doesn't usually use Canada Post.
Ultimately, I think this entire thing exposed a major weakness with eBay. eBay either needs their own version of Stallion/Chit Chats, or they need to directly integrate those services. They need some form of eBay drop spot at some sort of popular chain, the same way that Amazon's has partnerships through their carriers with Staples, Circle K, etc. Granted, Amazon's drop spots are for returns, but it's the same concept.
It's very obvious that the reliance on Canada Post and the lack of integration with alternate carriers represents a huge threat to eBay long-term. While eBay does have large business-to-business partnerships with sellers who have their own internal access to shipping at scale (Adidas for example), I would guess that a large population of eBay sellers vary across the board in size. Even if something like Stallion is available as an independent platform that is accessible to eBay sellers, the reality is that without it being integrated directly into eBay's label system, and without drop offs being very accessible, the only people who will use alternate carriers will be extremely motivated high-volume sellers.
chicweb
·1 year agoThe biggest problem is that Canada Post has a monopoly on lettermail. No competitors can offer that service.
All this situation would have been very different if other carriers could propose competitive prices on small items (aka lettermail).
I agree with you, with the current situation, eBay should promote more those using UPS/FedEx during the strike and also provide some kind of discount to customers to help the sellers. They must find a solution.
Otherwise, this might be a big hit on eBay Canada, which was already having problems gaining new customers.
Something must be done eBay's side.
A ChitChat like service would be the equivalent of Global Shipping on .com but for national. That's a good idea. But the shipping price would be enourmous (we would still need to ship the items to eBay using UPS/FedEx). I'm sure they would open dropoff only in big cities (Montreal, Toronto, etc). So, it wouldn't help all the sellers.
At this point, we are at the mercy of Canada Post/Union when using lettermail as shipping.
chicweb
·1 year agoThinking of that problem of using UPS/FedEx to send to this new hypothetical "National Shipping" that eBay could put in place... One solution would be to allow sellers to combine items sent to this "hub" in the same package. Sellers could wait to have 3 or 4 orders then send them to this hub.
But then ebay would have to separate them and send correctly.. That's another mess bound to happen.
Anyway, eBay could not use Canada Post lettermail either. At least, they could negociate with other carriers and find alternatives. Less hassles for sellers. But that doesn't fix the lettermail format.
mrdutch1001
·1 year ago"Sellers could wait to have 3 or 4 orders then send them to this hub.But then ebay would have to separate them and send correctly.."
exactly the problem that some buyers face when having items shipped via eIS from the USA...
buyers don't always get what they purchased, buyers don't always get a complete order, buyers receive wrong item, damaged/broken item ...because of the re-packaging process at the hub, there is no way to be confident in any of that process....
recped
·1 year agoNo competitor would want to deal with Lettermail if they were forced to offer the same universal service that Canada Post must by law offer.
If you eliminated the universal service requirement 90+% of Canada (by area) would have no Lettermail service at all.
wastingtime101
·1 year agoUSPS direct transfers to Canada Post.
gauld
·1 year agoMy asles have been pretty show for the past couple months even with promoted listing up to 12 % for a while there. In the past week i'm lucky to get 1 sale a day now. I am willing to shipping UPS for my items as long as people are willing to eithe pay the difference or buy more items. buying 3 letterpost items should make shipping UPS worth it to me. Anything that already has Expedited shipping I could ship UPS though. But not sure if I can get enough sales to make a difference until this is fixed. I just hope I can make it through this month, I'm doing a lot more local sales now so that might help and I have a 1 day job coming up soon too .. we have an provincial election coming up here.
thanks
-Bill
nhl_automotive
·1 year agoThe real problem is eBay has adjusted the expected delivery time frame to mid December. Many buyers will look at this and say no thanks.
pjcdn2005
·1 year agoI 'm not seeing that on your auctions. The last delivery date shows me Dec 3 when I use a Montreal postal code.
byto253
·1 year ago10 sales the last 3 days, and 3 are Canadian - way more than on average. Normally I may 2%, not 30%. I guess they figure I will get it there.
femmefan1946
·1 year agoIt's possible that Canadian buyers are avoiding mail order sellers until things settle down.
Only Amazon which uses their own delivery service, at least in urban areas, should be unaffected.
A lot of people still seem to think that AZ uses drones for deliveries.
recped
·1 year agoYou came to this conclusion 9 hours after the announcement?
mrdutch1001
·1 year agolotzofuniquegoodies
·1 year ago@wilsonharborsales
It appears several of the previous tools we had for comparing traffic have been majorly modified. Unsure when this happened. Just spotting now.
Previous view:
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Now seeing this as these as merged replacements:
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Anyone else able to find 3 shown above?