eBay

raphael@ebay.com · ‎03-18-2016

Hello Canadian sellers,

This thread is open for discussion regarding the recent announcement about eBay Canada retiring USD support from its selling flows. Myself and other employees will come visit this thread and do our best to answer any questions on this topic.

pierrelebel · ‎03-27-2016

Have you read the other 600+ posts on this thread. Many other Canadian sellers seem to have the same problem and are looking for an immediate solution.

I frankly do not know of any way to do it in bulk at this time.

Each listing must change the shipping method. When listing on eBay.com "domestic" means USA

So you need a shipping method and shipping rate for domestic shipment

Then you need a shipping method and shipping rate for Canada

Finally you need a shipping method and shipping rate for other countries (besides USA and Canada.

The shipping calculator cannot be used and fixed shipping rates have to be determined for each listing.

Good Luck

grandmasblueberries · ‎03-27-2016

Hi, I really surprise I have another store and I never had this information. Anyway, if Ebay force us to sell in Canadian, we will increase our price and we will loose all buyer in u.s.

lorraine_carol · ‎03-27-2016

Thank you PJ. I am sure I checked .com to ascertain if the ETA dates changed at the time of my question to which they didn't, at least not within a 24 hour period. Now I see they do.

Thanks so much for taking the time to help PJ.

Lorraine

crazy_for_comics · ‎03-27-2016

I get surveys from eBay all the time. I answer them accordingly, even though they are the exact survey as the ones before it. I'd like to get a survey on this change of currency and how we think about it on a wide spectrum of things (which this should've been done in the 1st place before implemented). Then make the survey public to sellers. I so want to answer one right now. Emotions aside, I still dont agree with this change.

pierrelebel · ‎03-27-2016

"Then make the survey public to sellers"

Based on the comments by most Canadian sellers in the last three days, I suspect a "survey" or "opinion poll" would show most Canadians sellers would prefer to leave things unchanged.

However, no business runs its affairs based on what customers wants in an opinion poll.

Imagine doing it for banks. Everybody would want lower fees, lower interest rates if they pay interest on a credit card.

Now do it for phone companies.... lower fees for sure,

eBay like all other business does not run on a survey. eBay-Canada management made its decision without any input from its sellers based on their own investigation of transactions. It is very clear in the message from Ms Stairs. Please read it again.

Canadian sellers are facing a "fait accompli" and will need to adjust their business plan accordingly.

Options:

1) continue to list on eBay.ca in Cdn$ if you already do it - no adjustment needed

2) switch from listing on eBay.ca in US$ to Cdn$

3) continue listing in US$ but move to the eBay.com site to do so

4) find another venue yo sell your products

Good Luck all

markelvr · ‎03-27-2016

Very well said, and true.

I don't imagine anyone making this insane decision has any idea on the impact for Canadian seller.

markelvr · ‎03-27-2016

I absolutely agree with this statement.

WHAT A BRIGHT IDEA!!!

rufis1966 · ‎03-27-2016

Just look at Your amount of feedback selling in US funds in one month and check out Pirrelebel 's feedback selling in one month...if these figures don't tell us how selling in Canadian ISNT WORKING...his feedback ( 4 in one month) isn't the only one Ive checked who seems to be all Gung-Ho for this change...I think they are working for Ebay Canada?? because Ive never read so much **bleep** for excuses of why Ebay needs to make these changes.

momcqueen · ‎03-28-2016

Pierre is retired.

You can like the coming changes or not, but you don't have to be rude to fellow sellers. Especially those who are here to help.

deeeight · ‎03-28-2016

i DON'T think the geniuses at ebay realize that buyers don't pay attention to currencies, they pay attention to NUMBERS... that $13 CAD is actually less than $10USD doesn't matter to most buyers... all they think is 10 is less than 13 so the one they'll click on is the one that is $10 to buy. It doesn't matter if they have their preferences set to convert currencies either, because the numbers ebay quotes for conversions are the big bank / government exchange rates... not something individuals actually pay/receive thru paypal or their credit card companies... so americans will be losing out further having to buy CAD dollars to purchase stuff from people selling on ebay.ca.

pierrelebel · ‎03-28-2016

" check out Pirrelebel 's feedback selling in one month"

Do you seriously believe that the amount of feedback received determines the credibility of the poster?

A "yes" ir "no" answer will do.

arkh_angel · ‎03-28-2016

@deeeight wrote:
i DON'T think the geniuses at ebay realize that buyers don't pay attention to currencies, they pay attention to NUMBERS... that $13 CAD is actually less than $10USD doesn't matter to most buyers... all they think is 10 is less than 13 so the one they'll click on is the one that is $10 to buy. It doesn't matter if they have their preferences set to convert currencies either, because the numbers ebay quotes for conversions are the big bank / government exchange rates... not something individuals actually pay/receive thru paypal or their credit card companies... so americans will be losing out further having to buy CAD dollars to purchase stuff from people selling on ebay.ca.

I've been exclusively a buyer on eBay for at least ten years before I started to sell. Although eBay now shows the amount in local currency, its no secret that some numbers have a psychological effect (like 9.99 vs 10.00). Trying to attain these important numbers in USD for someone selling in CAD is impossible with the constant currency changes.

I also have to agree that the high numbers also have an effect, no matter the currency. Lately I've been bidding on the same product from various sellers (Asus RT-N66U exclusively located in Canada). Some in USD, others in CAD. While it is hard to see if currency really accounts (because of a lot of factors such as numbers of units available at a certain time versus the demand), I've seen that final prices in USD were more constant, while the ones in CAD were jumping up and down. Personally, the first thing my brain tells me is I'd rather increase my bid on an item at $51 USD than one at 66$ CAD, even though these are roughly the same amounts at the current exchange rate.

My main gripe in listing in CAD is that buyers in the US will have to pay that extra ~3% for currency conversion. That is not included in the price shown to potential buyers and that may lead to a surprise once at the Paypal transaction page. Like someone said, if someone want an item they will pay that extra, but for some Canadian sellers who already have to compete with US sellers on many fronts, this just adds another layer of complexity.

I may sound stupid, but how can you manage to study if items really sells higher in CAD? Time traveling? One timeline an item is listed in CAD and on the other in USD? There are so many factors that accounts in the final price of an item listed in an auction. Just in my above example I've seen units selling as low as 41$ CAD and up to 102.50$ CAD. They are from the same seller and in equivalent condition. Also, the loonie kept going down since at least an year, for anyone selling in CAD this means the more time passes, the lower it is worth in USD. Obviously this makes CAD listings more appealing for anyone in the US. Of course this is good for long-time duration listings only. Still, I don't believe there is a way to truly see if listing in CAD is better than listing in USD nowadays. The closest you can be is by listing two items at the same time with only the currency as a difference. Even in that case there is small variations that can and will account, like the fact that there are two items added instead of one, which dilutes the focus from potential buyers.

I'm no stats genius but I know for sure that in my case, an item at 9.99$ is more attractive than one at 10$ at first glance. A lower number in USD will increase my likeliness to bid on it instead of its higher CAD counterpart. Of course I will do the calculation. But this is what my brain tells me first. And this is certainly what the brain of millions of buyers is telling them as well. Its been that way in the stores for decades (oddly enough, I don't use this as I prefer round numbers, but that's another story).

I'm currently giving CAD a try by listing new items and relisting old ones. On may 2nd I'll see how went my sales in the past month and decide if I move everything to .com back in USD or stay in .ca. Will post the result here as well.

@pierrelebel: Thank you very much for your invaluable help in the forum for many years. In that particular discussion, you certainly helped to settle down the actual crisis by giving clear answers that helped a lot of sellers, me included.

arkh_angel · ‎03-28-2016

@pierrelebel wrote:
"Then make the survey public to sellers"

Based on the comments by most Canadian sellers in the last three days, I suspect a "survey" or "opinion poll" would show most Canadians sellers would prefer to leave things unchanged.

However, no business runs its affairs based on what customers wants in an opinion poll.

Imagine doing it for banks. Everybody would want lower fees, lower interest rates if they pay interest on a credit card.

Now do it for phone companies.... lower fees for sure,

I beg to differ on that point. We're getting flooded with polls on every website we visit. Businesses want their customer's opinion. That doesn't mean they will listen to them. Rarely will they pull back from a decision they took, although they sometime have no choice to do so (ask Apple about their struggle with error 53 last month).

If more and more people ask their bank, credit card company or phone provider for lower fee/interest, they will come up with something. Simply put, they will remove features or increase some other fees so in the end, they will end up making as much money as before, added to the fact that they will have some happier customers who pays less (or think they are).

Not eBay. eBay is acting like Microsoft, they go straight in one direction, no matter what their customer (I mean sellers by that) think or want. Let's face it. When a company is #1 they most of the time don't have to listed to their customers to some extend. Thousands of forums have negative comments from disgruntled MS customers and still a lot of people rushed to the stores to buy their new Windows 10 or tried to upgrade their computer starting last July 30th. They're still #1. Let's talk about the Office suite. There are at least 4 alternatives, most entirely FREE, to replace the MS Office suite. Every business I've talked to about these alternatives are reluctant to even just try these solutions.

Same goes for eBay. For years, many sites tried to compete with them and ended up filing for bankruptcy. Even now, nowhere you can find an auction site which is half as successful as eBay. AND THEY KNOW IT. Sellers will go where they can get the most potential buyers for what they sell. You did, I do, we all do. Even though a few dissatisfied sellers quits because of the end of USD in ebay.ca, someone will fill in the blank sooner or later. We all need money and that accounts for much more than anything else so they can do pretty much what they want with us sellers. They know it as well. Where would I go to sell my goods? I'll have to put up the same work for half the sales I used to have before? No, of course. We'll just live with their decision, as stupid and negative as they are and will adjust our business. That's sad, but that's the way it is.

The true fact from that is businesses can do a lot of things as long as it only affects a minority of people. Everyone else will continue doing business with them anyway as they are not concerned.

I'm not here to teach you anything. You do for a fact have much more on-hand experience with eBay than I do. This simply reflect my opinion on that particular matter. And maybe that of a few people too...

Anonymous · ‎03-28-2016

@derby1010 wrote:

I currently use both sites .com & .ca using USD as currency to make it more streamlined for all my customers. Will there be a way for my customers to pay for items on one invoice/shopping cart even though now some of my listings will be in CAD (listings on .ca) and some will be in USD (listings on .com).

I list items on .com for 2 reasons; 1st is that US buyers will see the listing in searches as usd but then when they select to view the listing the CAD which is in much larger font, and is currently is much higher than the converted USD. When a buyer is comparing at a glance between multiple listings/sites before purchasing can cause confusion to the price they will pay. I use USD on listings to prevent any potential losses in sales. The 2nd is that I find the .com site to be much easier and has better selling tools when looking at creating or managing listings. It is mentioned that Ebay.ca is doing this change to help improve their sites tools. Will these be happening shortly?

Will the Migration Tool be available permanently or atleast a long period after; many sellers including myself may choose to have their listings on one site, only to realize months later that they may want to switch over to the other. Having the migration tool would give peace of mind when trying to determine the best course of action and the wrong one is initially chosen, or selling circumstances change.

If US sellers are confused, it doesn't seem to be impacting them in aggregate. They are buying millions of dollars worth of items listed in CAD each week.

This change will indeed make it somewhat easier for us to stay up to date with the latest tools and features, and that is part of the rationale of the change. Having said that, eBay.ca is ahead of most eBay sites on that catch-up curve, and we will work hard to keep it that way and bring you the best features we can.

The migration tool is not architected as a long-term part of the platform. Unless we add the functionality to move eBay.com listings to eBay.ca, as some posters have suggested, there would be no reason for it by this fall, when there are no longer any eBay.ca-listed USD listings to be converted. In the meantime, we are looking into what it would take to add .com to .ca migration functionality.

Anonymous · ‎03-28-2016

@martmaduke wrote:

Can we please get Canada Post as an option for calculated shipping on Ebay.com?

That is not going to happen. If you want to use Canada Post calculated shipping you will need to list on eBay.ca.

pierrelebel · ‎03-28-2016

"Businesses want their customer's opinion. That doesn't mean they will listen to them."

I absolutely agree with you.

Many businesses use opinion polls to allow customers to blow steam, get rid of their frustrations. At the end of the day it is good for business.

What many do not know is that in addition to those meaningless surveys, eBay.com has conducted focus groups for years (they are called Voices) where many changes of policy or new programs are discussed or tested prior to their announcement and implementation. Once again, eBay - like all other large company - will do what it wants to do but I have personally witnessed many instances where policies were modified before announcement and implementation because of the input of eBay members (both buyers and sellers) of the Voices program.

Of course eBay Inc is an American company based in San Jose California and most of its policies are prepared by Americans for the American market. They are then adopted for each international market, including Canada. Members should keep in mind that the servers servicing eBay.ca are located in California, not Canada.

On the other hand, it appears that the latest policy change - making eBay.ca a single currency site like all others - was made in Toronto by Canadian management and staff without prior input from a focus group. The decision was made about a year after eBay.ca conducted an extensive analysis of its marketplace and the effect of currency on buyers and sellers. From their analysis they feel most Canadian sellers will achieve better results when listing in Cdn$.

Many will chose to disregard and ignore eBay's advice. Some will even claim it is wrong and does not apply to their business and they know better than eBay. That is their right.

Anonymous · ‎03-28-2016

@canadiangemstamps wrote:

I am a stamp dealer with anchor store. I have almost 4,000 GTC listings as of today. Needless to say, this latest announcement has me very concerned about the amount of extra work that will be involved for me. You see this business is 100% of my livelihood. I am in a race against time to list all my stock in my store. If I have to spend days or weeks converting listings, that could kill my business.

I did call customer service yesterday, but of course I got routed to a call centre in the Philippines. I mean no disrespect at all - the person I spoke to was very polite, but entirely unhelpful in explaining to me how this change would work. They told me that all my existing listings would remain in USD. I now see that was not true: I have to convert them by August 1.

I looked at the tool being developed and my concern is that while the conversion of existing listings is easy, it does not automatically end the existing listings. I do not understand for the life of me why you would develop a tool that required sellers to do ANY extra work, unless you planned on compensating them in some way. It seems to me like the tool should simply convert the existing listings to CDN - not create duplicates so that I now have to go end the listings. I have no idea how I would do that without a TON of time being spent. Please explain it to me clearly because the information I read did not make that clear at all.

I know that moving to E-bay.com was outlined as an option, but on that I have two concerns:

1. When the time comes to charge sales tax, which for me is about 6 months away, it will complicate things, as I will not be able to opt out of charging tax.

2. I'm pretty sure that selling on Ebay.com constitutes doing business in the US for purposes of the IRS. Given that my business is incorporated, I do not want the complication of having to prepare both US and Canadian tax filings.

I know that the change is still a few months away. But as of now, I am uncertain as to how to proceed: do I continue to list in US and then covert everything over to .com? Do I start listing in CDN now? Will the tool be tweaked in such a way that I can have the whole thing done in a day? I can live with a day of downtime, but more than that will cost me very dearly in terms of lost productivity.

I can see a lot of anger here on this board. I read through all 15 pages of comments and I have to say that I am dismayed by the flippant and dismissive responses I have seen from E-bay brass to seller's concerns. I understand that not everybody here was polite in expressing their frustration, but the sellers have raised some excellent points about why this was not well thought out. Sometimes analyzing data can be misleading because correlation does not imply causation. In order to validly study causation, you must control for all the factors that could influence buyer choices, which is of course completely impossible. I believe that the increase in sales for sellers listing in CDN is simply because most of us do not have the time to bulk edit our listings, so when the exchange rate drops, things become a better deal for US and CDN buyers. Full stop, end of story. If all listings automatically convert everything and show the buyer's home currency as they already do, then it shouldn't make any difference what currency we use for our listings. That is, if you assume that buyers actually read this much detail.

As a buyer on E-bay (where do you think I get my stock?), I can tell you this isn't the case, I review probably upwards of 10,000 listings a week looking for items to purchase for stock. I look only at the price, the scan and the condition. I don't look at the shipping or anything else because I don't have time. Several times I've gotten stung by the GSP because the listing on my phone showed "free shipping" when it wasn't. So my belief is that over the long run this will cause me and other sellers to make less money.

What is beginning to concern me is the number of changes that E-bay is introducing by fiat. It is making the e-bay platform an unstable place in which to do business. It is very difficult to make a viable business plan and follow it when the rules are constantly being changed and the changes do not seem to be to the seller's benefit. Just because buyers want something doesn't mean that the marketplace should always give it to them. This way of thinking is unique to North America and it has resulted in a complete culture of consumer entitlement and race-to-the-bottom economics in terms of price being the only thing that matters: not quality of service, timeliness, product knowledge, and the other intangible elements that businesses used to be able to use to distinguish themselves. Things don't work this way in Europe for example. Nothing in Europe is free. Absolutely nothing -as it should be. Why should I have to offer free shipping?It is not mandatory now, but I'll bet that in another 2 or three years, it will be a requirement to selling on e-bay. That is fine if your customer spends $30 at a time. But what if he buys one thing for 99c and you have to pay 85c to ship it for free?

I really wish that this company was interested in actually sitting down and working with those of us with viable business plans and models that want to partner with E-bay to grow our businesses. But it seems like it isn't. I can't talk to anyone who has a clue, and given that I pay $500 a month in fees now, it seems like I should be able to.

The tool does not automatically end listings because it is not a full-featured listing tool but rather a tool intended to help perform bulk operations for the migration process that aren't otherwise supported on eBay. It only creates drafts in Selling Manager because Seling Manager supports many more kinds of other bulk operations and individual adjustments that you could not perform on the migration tool itself.

You should start listing in CAD now if possible. The tool will help you make your changes in bulk and unless your listings have a lot of other things that need revision or you are moving from calculated to flat rate shipping or something like that, I hope you will find that the process is quick and not too painful.

I would say on the analysis side that we took a lot of different looks at this because we also found the results to be surprising. With enough data points, the statistical validity of what you are studying eventually becomes too high to ignore, whether you have a perfectly isolated experiment or not. We have an unbelievably huge number of data points and some of eBay's top analysts looking at them.

Anonymous · ‎03-28-2016

@coastcafe wrote:

USD is the only Reason we are able to make money on E-bay!

If you take this away from us, it will be disastrous for you and us!

As far as I'm concerned you just gave us all our Walking Notice June 1st.

You'll be missed. I hope you reconsider.

pocomocomputing · ‎03-28-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
@canadiangemstamps wrote:
I am a stamp dealer with anchor store. I have almost 4,000 GTC listings as of today. Needless to say, this latest announcement has me very concerned about the amount of extra work that will be involved for me. You see this business is 100% of my livelihood. I am in a race against time to list all my stock in my store. If I have to spend days or weeks converting listings, that could kill my business.

I did call customer service yesterday, but of course I got routed to a call centre in the Philippines. I mean no disrespect at all - the person I spoke to was very polite, but entirely unhelpful in explaining to me how this change would work. They told me that all my existing listings would remain in USD. I now see that was not true: I have to convert them by August 1.

I looked at the tool being developed and my concern is that while the conversion of existing listings is easy, it does not automatically end the existing listings. I do not understand for the life of me why you would develop a tool that required sellers to do ANY extra work, unless you planned on compensating them in some way. It seems to me like the tool should simply convert the existing listings to CDN - not create duplicates so that I now have to go end the listings. I have no idea how I would do that without a TON of time being spent. Please explain it to me clearly because the information I read did not make that clear at all.

I know that moving to E-bay.com was outlined as an option, but on that I have two concerns:

1. When the time comes to charge sales tax, which for me is about 6 months away, it will complicate things, as I will not be able to opt out of charging tax.

2. I'm pretty sure that selling on Ebay.com constitutes doing business in the US for purposes of the IRS. Given that my business is incorporated, I do not want the complication of having to prepare both US and Canadian tax filings.

I know that the change is still a few months away. But as of now, I am uncertain as to how to proceed: do I continue to list in US and then covert everything over to .com? Do I start listing in CDN now? Will the tool be tweaked in such a way that I can have the whole thing done in a day? I can live with a day of downtime, but more than that will cost me very dearly in terms of lost productivity.

I can see a lot of anger here on this board. I read through all 15 pages of comments and I have to say that I am dismayed by the flippant and dismissive responses I have seen from E-bay brass to seller's concerns. I understand that not everybody here was polite in expressing their frustration, but the sellers have raised some excellent points about why this was not well thought out. Sometimes analyzing data can be misleading because correlation does not imply causation. In order to validly study causation, you must control for all the factors that could influence buyer choices, which is of course completely impossible. I believe that the increase in sales for sellers listing in CDN is simply because most of us do not have the time to bulk edit our listings, so when the exchange rate drops, things become a better deal for US and CDN buyers. Full stop, end of story. If all listings automatically convert everything and show the buyer's home currency as they already do, then it shouldn't make any difference what currency we use for our listings. That is, if you assume that buyers actually read this much detail.

As a buyer on E-bay (where do you think I get my stock?), I can tell you this isn't the case, I review probably upwards of 10,000 listings a week looking for items to purchase for stock. I look only at the price, the scan and the condition. I don't look at the shipping or anything else because I don't have time. Several times I've gotten stung by the GSP because the listing on my phone showed "free shipping" when it wasn't. So my belief is that over the long run this will cause me and other sellers to make less money.

What is beginning to concern me is the number of changes that E-bay is introducing by fiat. It is making the e-bay platform an unstable place in which to do business. It is very difficult to make a viable business plan and follow it when the rules are constantly being changed and the changes do not seem to be to the seller's benefit. Just because buyers want something doesn't mean that the marketplace should always give it to them. This way of thinking is unique to North America and it has resulted in a complete culture of consumer entitlement and race-to-the-bottom economics in terms of price being the only thing that matters: not quality of service, timeliness, product knowledge, and the other intangible elements that businesses used to be able to use to distinguish themselves. Things don't work this way in Europe for example. Nothing in Europe is free. Absolutely nothing -as it should be. Why should I have to offer free shipping?It is not mandatory now, but I'll bet that in another 2 or three years, it will be a requirement to selling on e-bay. That is fine if your customer spends $30 at a time. But what if he buys one thing for 99c and you have to pay 85c to ship it for free?

I really wish that this company was interested in actually sitting down and working with those of us with viable business plans and models that want to partner with E-bay to grow our businesses. But it seems like it isn't. I can't talk to anyone who has a clue, and given that I pay $500 a month in fees now, it seems like I should be able to.

The tool does not automatically end listings because it is not a full-featured listing tool but rather a tool intended to help perform bulk operations for the migration process that aren't otherwise supported on eBay. It only creates drafts in Selling Manager because Seling Manager supports many more kinds of other bulk operations and individual adjustments that you could not perform on the migration tool itself.

You should start listing in CAD now if possible. The tool will help you make your changes in bulk and unless your listings have a lot of other things that need revision or you are moving from calculated to flat rate shipping or something like that, I hope you will find that the process is quick and not too painful.

I would say on the analysis side that we took a lot of different looks at this because we also found the results to be surprising. With enough data points, the statistical validity of what you are studying eventually becomes too high to ignore, whether you have a perfectly isolated experiment or not. We have an unbelievably huge number of data points and some of eBay's top analysts looking at them.

rodney

You mention Selling Manager. So a requirement to use the migration tool is Selling Manager? Some sellers use only My ebay from all the posts I read about "only seeing 60 days of sales". I assume that Selling Manager is needed to be able to use hundreds if not thousands of drafts. My eBay limits drafts to 20 or so.

Is it mentioned anywhere that Selling Manager is required?

Anonymous · ‎03-28-2016

@hlmacdon wrote:

@martmaduke wrote:

Can we please get Canada Post as an option for calculated shipping on Ebay.com?

They are refusing to do this and Rodney has not elaborated on why. More transparency here would be appreciated.

Hi himacdon.

Adding calculated shipping is a huge project. Such projects require a business case internally to attract resourcing. I can't make a viable business case for it. It was difficult to make the case for the calculated shipping product we brought to eBay.ca about nine years ago, and took several years of lobbying to get done, and the better part of a year to complete the project end to end.

While I appreciate it would be really helpful for sellers who don't believe our guidance on CAD and want to use calc shipping on .com, I don't think there's the faintest chance of such a project being funded.

Part of the rationale for this change is to simplify eBay's global selling code base. Adding Canadian calculated shipping to the eBay.com site would create almost as much complexity as what we are removing with this change in the first place.