Hello Canadian eBayers!
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Good morning.
When trying to decide on a pricing strategy, eBay.ca advises sellers:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/starting_price.html
As you can see, there is no mention of the currency a seller should select.
Many many years ago, eBay suggested that, at that time, listings in US$ had a better chance to sell (14% if I recall well) than listing in US$.
My questions today are:
What is the current thinking at eBay.ca regarding listing currency? Does it really make a difference in 2014?
Should Canadian sellers listing items of interest to Canadian buyers list in Canadian dollars so both buyer and seller avoid wasting 5% in conversion fees to PayPal (2.5% each)?
Should Canadian sellers listings items to a worldwide audience list in Canadian dollars so they save the 2.5% PayPal conversion fee?
Do you have any recent or current studies showing the effect of the listing currency (Cdn$ or US$) on the success of a listing?
Follow-up on the same subject:
Do you have any Canadian studies or analysis showing an actual difference between categories? For example, do items listed in the "books" category in Cdn$ do as well as items listed in the "movies DVD" category for example?
@pierrelebel wrote:
Good morning.
When trying to decide on a pricing strategy, eBay.ca advises sellers:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/starting_price.html
As you can see, there is no mention of the currency a seller should select.
Many many years ago, eBay suggested that, at that time, listings in US$ had a better chance to sell (14% if I recall well) than listing in US$.
My questions today are:
What is the current thinking at eBay.ca regarding listing currency? Does it really make a difference in 2014?
Should Canadian sellers listing items of interest to Canadian buyers list in Canadian dollars so both buyer and seller avoid wasting 5% in conversion fees to PayPal (2.5% each)?
Should Canadian sellers listings items to a worldwide audience list in Canadian dollars so they save the 2.5% PayPal conversion fee?
Do you have any recent or current studies showing the effect of the listing currency (Cdn$ or US$) on the success of a listing?
Hello Pierre,
The SYI form still tells Canadian sellers that "Listings in US$ will attract more interest from US buyers and on average are 15% more likely to sell." Although we don't have any recent publicly available data and nor do we have any of this broken down by category, we are 100% confident that listing in USD is a far better option for any seller who offers shipping to the USA.
The only scenario where I would recommend listing in CAD is for any items which are only offered for shipping inside Canada. That would obviously also allow a seller to work around the PayPal currency conversion charges, but since listings in CAD are generally not well received by US buyers and since for a lot of Canadian sellers, most of the business goes to US buyers, so doing this may hurt sales... It's kind of a catch 22.
""Listings in US$ will attract more interest from US buyers and on average are 15% more likely to sell." "
This is what eBay.ca was telling Canadian sellers ten years ago.
Why is it still true today? Gut feeling or factual analysis?
@pierrelebel wrote:
""Listings in US$ will attract more interest from US buyers and on average are 15% more likely to sell." "
This is what eBay.ca was telling Canadian sellers ten years ago.
Why is it still true today? Gut feeling or factual analysis?
It came from analysis, but as I said in my last post, we don't have any publicly available data to share on this.
@rose-dee wrote:
Hi Raphael! There's a lively (but friendly!) discussion going on in this thread: http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Too-many-Canadians-don-t-know-about-eBay/m-p/262515#U2625...
Can you comment at all, from eBay research or otherwise, on Canadian buyers' knowledge of, or tendency to buy from, Canadian sellers (whether via eBay.com or eBay.ca).
I'm sure many Canadian sellers would love to be able to increase the percentage of their sales to Canadian buyers (including me!), but it just isn't happening. My US/Int'l vs. Cdn sales proportion remains at roughly 95%/5%. Any thoughts that might help us understand why this is?
P.S. These questions are related to Pierre's questions about listing in $Cdn vs. $US and how that might encourage Canadian sales. My view is that for some sellers it would actually risk losing US customers, often our biggest buyer group.
Hi rose-dee,
The reason you see a 95% - 5% cut between your US and Canadian sales is due to the relative size of eBay.com vs eBay.ca in terms of size of the business. I am certain most successful Canadian sellers see the same in their numbers.
@rose-dee wrote:
Another question related to the above: Does eBay.ca have, or are you planning, any targeted marketing to Canadian eBay users (buyers)?
That might go a long way to encouraging Canadians to buy from Canadian eBay sellers without reducing sellers' sales to the US. It seems like a win for everybody, but why isn't eBay pushing this aspect?
We have 2 local Canadian teams (Business Development and Deals) dedicated to ramp up Canadian inventory on eBay.ca. As such, we already do tons of targeted marketing to promote that inventory and will continue to increase this kind of outreach.
