U.S. Exchange Rates and Managed Payments

[ditzybeauty]

I am a Canadian Seller and my prices are in U.S. dollars and recently was moved to the Managed Payment system.

I notice that I am now paying  slightly more in fees as compared to the old PayPal system.

Also aside from this I am concerned with the exchange rate given by ebay.

Looks to me that they reduce the exchange rate by a good 3.5 points.

This to me is excessive and I am now considering closing my account with ebay.

I price my products in U.S. dollars to take advantage of the fact that our dollar is mostly much lower than the U.S. dollar. This is also how I cover the ever increasing Canadian postal rates.

Sure I can consider increasing the product and shipping price and I may in act do this.

Is there a Canadian seller out there you has thoughts on this issue?

[reallynicestamps]

Also aside from this I am concerned with the exchange rate given by ebay.

Looks to me that they reduce the exchange rate by a good 3.5 points.

There is no "the" exchange rate.

If you go to three banks and a credit union, you will get four different exchange rates.

The most quoted exchange rate is the mid-market rate, which is in reality only used for inter-bank transactions in the millions of dollars/euros/ yen/remibibi.

And that changes by the minute.

Banks usually only change their rates daily.

To say nothing of the buy/sell difference which gives me a headache.

our dollar is mostly much lower than the U.S. dollar.

Don't count on it.

The loonie has risen nearly 15c in the past year.

The mid-market rate today is $1.21 Cdn to $1.00US.

On June 13, 2020 it was $1.358

[marnotom!]

Just over a month ago, there was an announcement that Managed Payments would accomodate Canadian sellers who wanted to have their payouts in US dollars rather than Canadian dollars:

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Announcements/Important-updates-on-payout-capabilities-when-eBay-manage...

In a nutshell, the seller has to have a US dollar chequing account with a supported Canadian financial institution that will accept these payouts.

The considerations with this are the fee structures of these accounts and what you're going to do with all these US dollars sitting in your account when they accumulate.

As far as the eBay/Adyen exchange rate is concerned, I don't know if I'd call 3.5% excessive, but it does seem a bit better than what PayPal offers and is comparable to what most Canadian banks and credit unions offer.  If you want something better, the option seems to be using the US dollar payout option and having the funds in your account transferred by an online service (Wise--formerly Transferwise--gets mentioned a bit on these boards) that charges lower fees.  Again, you'll have to consider any possible fees your bank will charge for this sort of transfer on top of everything else.

(Some people may point out that credit card issuers generally charge a 2 - 2.5% premium for exchanging currency on purchases, but that's on top of VISA or MasterCard's exchange rate, which is nothing like the money market exchange rate.)

What's probably really stinging for you right now is the fact that the Canadian dollar busted through the 80 cent-US barrier in late April after tanking in March of last year, and hasn't really looked back since.

I'm a bit surprised but not surprised (given eBay's glitchy transition to Managed Payments) that you weren't given the US dollar payout option when you registered for MP.

[pjcdn2005]

Canadian sellers are given the option of receiving their payouts in $US (into a $US account at a Canadian bank) or in $C.  I don't know when you signed as the option is available now but wasn't when MP sign up first started.  

Unfortunately once you choose the payout currency, you can't change it.  You could start a new ID and sign that one up with a $US payout if you feel that would work better for you or list on .ca so you are paid in $C or  keep the conversion fees in mind when you price your .com listings.

[pjcdn2005]

Keep in mind that when you look at the exchange rate for $US to Canadian that it will be a different rate than the Canadian to US rate.  Also, those rates that you see on sites such as xe.com don't include a conversion fee. Ebays conversion fee is 3%. 

Also, if a  buyer is in another country there is an extra fvf on .4% for US buyers and 1% for other countries.  PP charged .8 for US and  1.0% for the rest.

[ypdc_dennis]

For MP the conversion is exchange rate plus 3% (for Canada/USA conversions)

PayPal is 3% extra between balances, 3.5% on the fly (for Canada/USA conversions)

When selling on .COM the selling fee is now 0.2% higher than on .CA (except for media which has a difference of 2.2%) -- ebay.COM raised the rates in the Spring 2021 update (ebay.CA did not).

Canadian dollar has risen 10% against the US dollar over the last 12 months (0.74 to 0.82).

-..-

[vox231]

This could be the last straw for me. I have been selling on eBay for 22 years but slowly have moved 80% of what I sell off of eBay. This "managed chaos" changes of the last month may drive me off completely now. EBay is a huge ship that is hard to turn around. Plus they dont really care about the people that helped to build eBay in the 90's and early 2000's.

I will likely just let my presence on eBay fade away over the coming months while I change what and where I sell. Fortunately I am retired now and eBay income is no longer critical for me.

Best of luck

[marnotom!]

The ship is large and hard to turn around, but it’s not on a collision course with an iceberg. It’s going through an extensive refit without going into drydock. It’s going to be rough sailing for a while, to be sure, but not forever.

You and I have been on eBay for about the same amount of time. We’ve both seen that changes rarely go smoothly. It’s the nature of the beast. It’s like renovating an old house. There are surprises and nothing goes completely to plan.

I’m not sure what to make of your statement to the effect that eBay doesn’t care about its veteran sellers. How would you like eBay to demonstrate that it “cares”? You have a business relationship with eBay, not a parental one. Your competition is more interested in what you’re doing on eBay. They’re probably quietly heartened by your plans to pull up stakes here.