eBay

chicweb · ‎08-22-2025

When I block the United States, my items disappears entirely from ebay.com, even if my address is in Canada.

devon@ebay this is an enormous problem for canadian sellers. A LOT of people around the world uses ebay.com (canadian, european, etc) to buy. If our items are entirely removed from the .com, even for people in other parts of the world, this will kill any possibilities to continue doing business.

chicweb · ‎08-25-2025

@lotzofuniquegoodies devon@ebay

Here's a few pictures. This is for the "Store" problem only.

First. USA Unblocked. Normal/default situation.

I configured my Pinback products to block United States in a business policy.

The three pinbacks disappeared from homepage. Even if I'm still set to Canada.

If I click on the Pinbacks category

If I switch to another country, "Nepal" as an example.

They are back. If I click my category, I see them too.

If we are set to be in Canada and we block the United States entirely from everywhere (all business policies/shipping), no items at all are shown in the store. The same message as the "No items in your area" is shown on the homepage with no categories at all.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎08-25-2025

@chicweb wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies devon@ebay

Here's a few pictures. This is for the "Store" problem only.

First. USA Unblocked. Normal/default situation.

I configured my Pinback products to block United States in a business policy.

The three pinbacks disappeared from homepage. Even if I'm still set to Canada.

If I click on the Pinbacks category

If I switch to another country, "Nepal" as an example.

They are back. If I click my category, I see them too.

If we are set to be in Canada and we block the United States entirely from everywhere (all business policies/shipping), no items at all are shown in the store. The same message as the "No items in your area" is shown on the homepage with no categories at all.

@chicweb

As a test I have been running about 10 items on dot com with flat rate shipping. Last night I disabled shipping to USA. When I check my ca listings (store) it confirms NO listings available for shipping to USA. When I check dot com listings the 10 display with shipping to USA/Canada. (Double checked com settings and no way to exclude USA.) Next plan of attack to move those listings to ca. (There does need to be an easier way to move.) So this factoid is extremely important to remember for sellers that list on both sites.

Going forward as per your recent testing, added visibility may be entirely limited to debate and only based on where you list vs where you are.

PS. When I have checked traffic for those particular dot com listings the visits/impressions are miniscule . So again it appears the 2 sites are not super interconnected.

lacemaker3 · ‎08-26-2025

@musicyouneed wrote:
On Friday, I blocked sales from United States on .ca and all of a sudden I don't have any sales from my Canadian buyers. I checked .com and my listings do not show up. Most buyers search on .com probably using an app. So I have unblocked US but no shipping indicated on Buy It Now Immediate Payment Required. If I get an email from a US buyer, I will explain.

@musicyouneed -- FYI

As of today, 8-26-25, I can still see 172 of your listings on ebay.com, which have shipping available to the US. Canada Post tracked packet.

itolduandso · ‎08-27-2025

I am getting used to the chaos so much that when there isn't going to be enough of the chaos, I will feel desperate to get more of it, like the Trump PSTSD sort of way.

tavman · ‎08-28-2025

If you do this be aware that eBay fees are calculated using the lowest Domestic shipping rate on .com. So if a Canadian purchases an item from .com your eBay fees for that item would be calculated using the inflated US domestic rate. At least this is my understanding of it. If you drill down into fee details on an order from a Canadian buyer you will see the calculation always uses the lowest Doemstic US rate.

tavman · ‎08-28-2025

Hi,

My understanding is eBay fees will be calculated using the 250.00 Domestic shipping rate if someone outside of the US purchases your item.

phc64 · ‎08-28-2025

@busybeas_books wrote:
I just blocked my listing going to USA. Don't forget US protectorates/territories: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. No idea if they count in this tarif nonsence. I've mailed stuff there via Canada Post, same price as to USA.

Yes, the same tariff rules and regulations apply to US territories (not sure about 'protectorates').

swiss_bianco_canada · ‎08-28-2025

As of now, 2025-08-28 8:30 EDT, the problem (system bug?) still remains - when the US is excluded from shipping destinations, none of the items listed on eBay.ca show up on eBay.com regardless of buyer's specified shipping location.

In poking around, I discovered that this is also the case for other "country-specific" sites - I do not ship to Germany due to the perennial delays in their Customs and my items don't show up on ebay.de.

The "good news" is that for country-specific sites of the countries to which I do ship (eBay.fr, eBay.ch, eBay.es, etc.), the listing do show up. So, it seems that there is an incorrectly coded "hard filter" that forces listings to be suppressed if the shipping is not available to the country associated with the site, with ".com" requiring shipping to the US to be available to show listings.

I hope eBay will fix this issue (after all, it's in their best interest), but I am not holding my breath (they can declare that "it works as designed").

chicweb · ‎08-28-2025

Yes. The bug is still there and even worse, my temporary solution don't work anymore.

Now, a shipping method must be configured to the United States to appear on .com.

.com must be treated differently being the main and only hub for a LOT of countries in the world.

ypdc_dennis · ‎08-28-2025

@tavman wrote:
If you do this be aware that eBay fees are calculated using the lowest Domestic shipping rate on .com. So if a Canadian purchases an item from .com your eBay fees for that item would be calculated using the inflated US domestic rate. ...

The calculation is based on the lowest Domestic rate or the International rate -- whichever is less expensive.

Plus the international fee of 1.65% for foreign sales not shipped through the eBay International Shipping program.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎08-30-2025

@swiss_bianco_canada wrote:
As of now, 2025-08-28 8:30 EDT, the problem (system bug?) still remains - when the US is excluded from shipping destinations, none of the items listed on eBay.ca show up on eBay.com regardless of buyer's specified shipping location.

In poking around, I discovered that this is also the case for other "country-specific" sites - I do not ship to Germany due to the perennial delays in their Customs and my items don't show up on ebay.de.

The "good news" is that for country-specific sites of the countries to which I do ship (eBay.fr, eBay.ch, eBay.es, etc.), the listing do show up. So, it seems that there is an incorrectly coded "hard filter" that forces listings to be suppressed if the shipping is not available to the country associated with the site, with ".com" requiring shipping to the US to be available to show listings.

I hope eBay will fix this issue (after all, it's in their best interest), but I am not holding my breath (they can declare that "it works as designed").

@swiss_bianco_canada

@chicweb Definitely in agreement in your observations regarding how a listing is configured and what displays.

@tavman

@phc64

In doing some random item specific searches with a large number of results, (searching on ca using the default on left side and my postal code) the repeating observations are the first volume of listings displayed are ALL USA. I had to check 6 pages of 120 results to find UK/France. Zippo for Canada. This search brought up 1500 + results. Updating to Canada only brought up 39 results. Closest 2600 km away.

Doing the same search on dot com brought up 1100 + listings. Because (in this case) there was no filter for country or region you are unable to search by distance or Canada only as examples. (That option seems to be hit or miss depending on category.) Updating to closest first listing displayed was USA 256 miles away. Zippo for Calgary/Edm as possible results. Filtering by Coo reduced results to half. Anything without a Coo is not included. Clicking on free intl shipping brings up mostly China, some UK and a tiny assortment of US. Canada "seems" to be almost invisible with most basic searches on dot com.

It is a current unknown as to how many Canadian sellers have US turned on or off but would be a good bet that for sellers playing along with Tariff Insanity - 2025 Edition, that many have.

From our testing and observations is this a built in glitch or how it was specifically designed as to how it works?

My current traffic report 5 days after turning off shipping to USA on Aug. 25.

dot ca:

dot com

tavman · ‎09-01-2025

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. I'm wondering if you have actually tried this approach. I have received cotradictory info. Nsmely that the FVF alwsys uses the lowest domestic rate and ignores the international rate even if it's lower.
Do you know if eBay has this information anywhrre on line?

Thanks again

amphibolous · ‎09-08-2025

I'm based in the EU, and normally list on eBay.co.uk but pay additonal fees to make sure I'm also indexed on eBay.com. I also have a shop on eBay.com on another account. I recently blocked the US, for all the same reasons, but continued to pay for eBay.com inclusion, which did work when I tested it on the first day of the listings. It was only when the traffic crashed the following day, that I tried searching by item number only to find they were completely invisible on eBay.com, and then after a google search I was led to these Canadian forums.

Like others, I need to that extra traffic to reach countries and buyers that use eBay.com but aren't necesarily from the US, which is not an inconsiderate amount of potential buyers. Very disappointing to be paying for a service I can't get. eBay need to be more on the ball in light of these recent changes... In the meanwhile I think I will try unblocking the US but removing shipping options... It's really not ideal, but my income has gone off a cliff this month. The vast majority of my buyers are from the US.

flipistics · ‎09-08-2025

@amphibolous wrote:
I'm based in the EU, and normally list on eBay.co.uk but pay additonal fees to make sure I'm also indexed on eBay.com. I also have a shop on eBay.com on another account. I recently blocked the US, for all the same reasons, but continued to pay for eBay.com inclusion, which did work when I tested it on the first day of the listings. It was only when the traffic crashed the following day, that I tried searching by item number only to find they were completely invisible on eBay.com, and then after a google search I was led to these Canadian forums.

Like others, I need to that extra traffic to reach countries and buyers that use eBay.com but aren't necesarily from the US, which is not an inconsiderate amount of potential buyers. Very disappointing to be paying for a service I can't get. eBay need to be more on the ball in light of these recent changes... In the meanwhile I think I will try unblocking the US but removing shipping options... It's really not ideal, but my income has gone off a cliff this month. The vast majority of my buyers are from the US.

If you're listing on the UK site, shouldn't your ads be visible on any other sites that use your eIS program (or whatever the UK version is called)? I don't think you should have had to pay extra for indexing with dot com.

People using dot com instead of the localized versions is definitely an issue and one that eBay needs to deal with rather quickly. Once the various eIS programs work for the USA again (or for the first time in our case), that should reduce the visibility issue considerably.

amphibolous · ‎09-09-2025

@flipistics Thanks for the reply.

I'm based in France, so whilst the UK has a global shipping programme, the only information I can find on EIS both on eBay and within the French forums refers to buying items from the US. I can't see any means to do that in the other sense. I've always sorted out my own shipping.

I mostly list auctions. If I unblock the US, but don't specify shipping, does it prevent a potential US customer from entering a bid unless they get in contact?