I have 1,468 listings on both .ca and .com. Guess what is selling?

[musicyouneed]

I list on both .ca in CDN pesos and on .com in US $.  

I have about 900 on .ca and about 560 on .com.  and what I have sold in the last few days is:

10 sales off .com and 2 off .ca.  

So it is pretty obvious that even though I have almost double the listings on .ca, it is the .com ones that are selling.  

[silverpinups]

Seeing the location of the item may arguably be a deterrent for a U.S. buyer

I don't think location is an issue as seeing odd prices of 7.06 CDN or 10.71CDN instead of seeing 7.00 or 10.75. Also when they purchase a item in CDN  @10.71 then pay for it a few days later it jumps to 10.78 or decreases to 10.64.

The fluctuating conversion price might confuse some American buyers....

[musicyouneed]

I really appreciate those of you who came to my defense.  I was not doing a scientific study, that my results were gospel.  I just was pointing out that I have a lot more listings on .ca than I have on .com and for whatever reason my .com listings were selling more than my .ca.  This to me was just more evidence that my focus was to list more on .com than .ca.  This image was only a portion of the past few days, but the 2nd image is from a period earlier to the prior image and it is pretty much the same. 

I went through the list to see who had bought and the 2 listings that sold on ebay.ca were to Canadians.  The listings on .com were to Canadian and US buyers.    I have indicated where the buyer was either in US or Canada.  During both these time, I did not have any international. 

[rose-dee]

---

@silverpinups wrote:

Seeing the location of the item may arguably be a deterrent for a U.S. buyer

@I don't think location is an issue as seeing odd prices of 7.06 CDN or 10.71CDN instead of seeing 7.00 or 10.75. Also when they purchase a item in CDN  @10.71 then pay for it a few days later it jumps to 10.78 or decreases to 10.64.

The fluctuating conversion price might confuse some American buyers....

---

Yes, I agree, I do think these factors play a role in why American buyers will be more likely to favour .com listings in $USD.  The price fluctuations and odd pricings are two of the main reasons I've stayed on .com to list. 

Still, the OP's list above seems to suggest what I was saying earlier: that a lot of our buyers on .com are likely to be Canadians, and I doubt they'll be put off by currency conversions or unusual price points.  Most of us Canadians are used to buying internationally and dealing with those realities.  

All of which in turn I think points to some other factor or factors that are influencing how much sells from which site. 

So what are those factors?  Cross-marketing that is naturally weighted in favour of.com listings on .com?  That would explain a lot, especially since there are more sellers in the U.S., and more buyers looking on .com. 

Or could it be that eBay is providing some preference to .com listings, either for the benefit of U.S. sellers specifically, or in order to make .com more attractive for Canadian sellers (so eBay can eventually quietly phase out eBay.ca entirely perhaps)?

I'd better run now before I get eaten alive for saying this!  

[momcqueen]

Or it could be that the players who already believe ebay.com to be a superior platform to ebay.ca will always find or create reasons to make that case.

I'm so very weary of hearing this same old argument.

If you don't find ebay.ca to be the fit you seek, by all means, take your show on the road. Send me a postcard! 

Adios, amigos. 

[rose-dee]

---

@mjwl2006 wrote:

Or it could be that the players who already believe ebay.com to be a superior platform to ebay.ca will always find or create reasons to make that case.

I'm so very weary of hearing this same old argument.

---

With all due respect, I don't think it's as simple as self-deception.  A lot of sellers (like me), have switched platforms more than once or sell on both and can see the comparative results clearly.  

For many Canadian sellers, eBay.com (selling in $US) has been proven to work better.  It's not that it's necessarily a superior platform, but that it's a platform that produces superior results for certain situations.  You've been critical of sellers' praise for .com for reasons that don't seem to be based in experience.  Although you're doing very well on .ca, how do you know you wouldn't do even better on .com if you haven't experimented with listing there?     

Some of us who sell mainly to the U.S. have tried (in my case for several months earlier this year) selling on .ca in $CDN but with less success.  For me, switching to .com wasn't a foregone conclusion, but an experiment that had a clear outcome which in turn led me to change my methods.  I'm sure a lot of Canadian sellers like me would love to stay on .ca if it proved to be more successful for our businesses.  In fact, up until about 4 years ago, I was doing tremendously well listing in $US on .ca and had no thought of leaving (I had listed in $CDN on .ca for about a year at one point, which turned out to be less successful, so I switched to $US).  

This may not apply to sellers whose buyer base is not primarily in the U.S., or for those whose items particularly appeal to Canadians.  I expect it would also work well to list on .ca if one had a fairly even distribution of buyers between Canada, the U.S. and overseas.  If that were my situation, I would probably never have left .ca.  Knowing as I do, after a number of relatively fruitless experiments to try to appeal to Canadians, that the vast majority of my buyers will always be Americans, means that listing on .com in $USD is the best choice. 

The point is that we sellers are always casting around to find what will work best for each of us and for most of us I think the decision is rational and results-based.  Even Raphael admitted one day on the Board Hour that if a Canadian sells mostly to Americans, it makes sense to list on .com in $USD.  

Still, all of the above is really a different discussion on the usual merits of one site or another for a particular seller.  However, what the OP is reporting is quite different -- and somewhat startling.  It's an unusual observation which must have some (new?) driver behind it, something that we hadn't noticed to date, a development which points to a previously unknown advantage in listing on .com.  In other words, it really shouldn't be happening, but there it is. 

Since I currently have very few listings left on .ca (almost all of which are still in $US), my own sales results wouldn't be a meaningful comparison at all.  Perhaps some other seller who lists on both .com and .ca (in $CDN) with a similar proportion on the two sites as the OP's (i.e. twice as many on .ca), might be able to check their recent relative sales levels and report here.  

It would be very interesting to see more of the OP's sales results over the next few weeks.  If these results continue, there has to be some explanation for it in the background.  

As I said earlier, the only thing I can think of at the moment that would account for the otherwise unaccountable discrepancy in sales levels that the OP describes is eBay's cross-marketing to other sellers' products, especially if that marketing is site-limited (e.g. .com to .com only).  

With twice the listings on .ca, lower prices, and "native pricing" in search results, selling the same sort of stock on both sites, there is no good reason why sales of the OP's .ca listings shouldn't be at least equal to those of the .com listings.  If anyone else has any ideas that would explain it, fire away! 

[musicyouneed]

I couldn't have said it better. Excellent explanation.

[musicyouneed]

It would be very interesting to see more of the OP's sales results over the next few weeks.  If these results continue, there has to be some explanation for it in the background.  

I will keep my eyes on it but I don't know. Up till now, I was listing on both .ca and .com.  I am now concentrating my new listings on .com, so of course that will screw up things a bit.  Also I am/will be having a bunch of sales over the next few weeks prior to shipping rates going up.  I am also taking off free shipping to Canada on .ca, lowering the price so it makes it more attractive to US buyers.  

I believe that you have to change things up a bit all the time, revise prices, revise shipping, offer free shipping, reduce prices and don't offer free shipping, switch from .ca to .com or .com to .ca.  I believe you have to keep things fresh all the time.   Experiment to see what works and what doesn't.  

All of us are here to sell and if you are like me will experiment to make more sales.   I don't care whether I sell on .ca or .com as long as it sells.

[ricarmic]

Sometimes selling is more a matter of patience....

In the last week I've sold several good sized items, which are generally slow to move.

I was at first thinking it was people spending their Xmas cash, which often happens.

However today on a whim I searched ebay for similar items.

At this moment, I'm about the only guy selling these items this way.

In the past there were lots of folks selling them, and mine were generally bigger (as in they cost more in total, not generally more expensive) than the ones selling.

Past experience tells me in a couple weeks, there will be several folks selling them again, folks seem to catch on to what's selling (at least when it's selling for me) and soon there's lots of it again.....

Whenever it ends, it was fun while it lasted, and I'll just be patient again till it occurs again down the road!

[momcqueen]

---

@rose-dee wrote:

---

@mjwl2006 wrote:

Or it could be that the players who already believe ebay.com to be a superior platform to ebay.ca will always find or create reasons to make that case.

I'm so very weary of hearing this same old argument.

---

With all due respect, I don't think it's as simple as self-deception.  A lot of sellers (like me), have switched platforms more than once or sell on both and can see the comparative results clearly......  

....If anyone else has any ideas that would explain it, fire away! 

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Confirmation bias

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias,[Note 1] is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities.[1] It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning.

[kh-leslie]

Hi folks! Please remember to keep the boards friendly and welcoming for everyone, further hostility/interpersonal disputes may result in this thread being closed.

[rose-dee]

I think -- again, with all due respect -- that if you haven't tried listing on .com to see the results, you are basing your charge of "confirmatory bias" on your own beliefs and prejudices, not on direct experience. 

I've switched selling modes a few times and I stick with what actually works.  My selling site and listing currency decisions are based on results.  I had no preconceived beliefs about listing on eBay.com; in fact I was extremely reluctant to feel more or less forced to move there over a year ago due to poor results on .ca related to the cart disconnect problem.  

I honestly don't care which site I list on, as long as it produces good results.  If eBay.de worked better, that's where I'd be.  If I have any bias at all it would be toward staying on .ca -- if only they hadn't taken away $US listing!  I find it ironic that now the cart disconnect is fixed and I could return to .ca, there is no point if I can't list in $US.  That one factor has proven over the years to be the primary driver of better success for my particular products and buyer base.  Again, for sellers with an evenly-mixed buyer base, listing on .com might be worth a try, but might not be any more successful than any other site. 

There are a number of issues for Canadian sellers related to the U.S. site that in fact make .com less attractive than .ca (e.g. the non-existent or hopelessly messed-up shipping options and delivery estimates).  Unfortunately though, for those of us who sell mainly to Americans, it seems to work better despite those drawbacks.  I'm not willing to shoot myself in the foot again by going back to listing on .ca exclusively out of some sort of sense of loyalty.  Why?  That would be crazy -- to quote Einstein, insanity is doing something over and over again expecting a different result. 

If we are being really analytical about this, I think we have to say the bias is actually on the part of eBay.  They are a U.S. company, and we've seen decision-making in the past that clearly favours U.S. sellers and the U.S. site (the on-time delivery policy for example).  

What the OP is observing should really not be occurring if all eBay sites were more or less treated equally by eBay.  As far as I can see, this is a relatively new development, and could be another means of eBay HQ giving a boost to eBay.com.   

[momcqueen]

With all due respect, rose-dee, I have shared the thoughts I have to share on this subject already. By all means, do whatever works for you. Congratulations on finding and hitting your stride with ebay.com and being agreeable to listing on ebay.de. Maybe I'll see you on the boards there. Please accept my wishes for good sales performance to you in the New Year. 

[momcqueen]

---

rose-dee wrote:

....That would be crazy -- to quote Einstein, insanity is doing something over and over again expecting a different result. 

 Oh, on another note, Einstein never said that. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Benjamin_Franklin

The citation is mid-page. 

[recped]

---

@rose-dee wrote:

I think -- again, with all due respect -- that if you haven't tried listing on .com to see the results, you are basing your charge of "confirmatory bias" on your own beliefs and prejudices, not on direct experience. 

I've switched selling modes a few times and I stick with what actually works.  My selling site and listing currency decisions are based on results.  I had no preconceived beliefs about listing on eBay.com; in fact I was extremely reluctant to feel more or less forced to move there over a year ago due to poor results on .ca related to the cart disconnect problem.  

I honestly don't care which site I list on, as long as it produces good results.  If eBay.de worked better, that's where I'd be.  If I have any bias at all it would be toward staying on .ca -- if only they hadn't taken away $US listing!  I find it ironic that now the cart disconnect is fixed and I could return to .ca, there is no point if I can't list in $US.  That one factor has proven over the years to be the primary driver of better success for my particular products and buyer base.  Again, for sellers with an evenly-mixed buyer base, listing on .com might be worth a try, but might not be any more successful than any other site. 

There are a number of issues for Canadian sellers related to the U.S. site that in fact make .com less attractive than .ca (e.g. the non-existent or hopelessly messed-up shipping options and delivery estimates).  Unfortunately though, for those of us who sell mainly to Americans, it seems to work better despite those drawbacks.  I'm not willing to shoot myself in the foot again by going back to listing on .ca exclusively out of some sort of sense of loyalty.  Why?  That would be crazy -- to quote Einstein, insanity is doing something over and over again expecting a different result. 

If we are being really analytical about this, I think we have to say the bias is actually on the part of eBay.  They are a U.S. company, and we've seen decision-making in the past that clearly favours U.S. sellers and the U.S. site (the on-time delivery policy for example).  

What the OP is observing should really not be occurring if all eBay sites were more or less treated equally by eBay.  As far as I can see, this is a relatively new development, and could be another means of eBay HQ giving a boost to eBay.com.   

---

The OP isn't observing anything they are drawing a conclusion based on a faulty premise with insufficient data from a time period that is far too short.

Then you are drawing additional conclusions based on nothing more than 2nd hand faulty data.

Probably other readers will then spread these faulty conclusions and pretty soon it will morph into another board myth based on nothing.

[momcqueen]

Nailed it, recped. Kudos x 1,000. 

[rose-dee]

---

@recped wrote:

"The OP isn't observing anything they are drawing a conclusion based on a faulty premise with insufficient data from a time period that is far too short."

The OP simply came here with some unusual and interesting results that begged investigation and was immediately trounced on for doing so.  His suggestion that his higher .com sales might mean that his listings in $USD were more attractive in his category than in $CDN is hardly revolutionary.  

"Then you are drawing additional conclusions based on nothing more than 2nd hand faulty data."

Yes, I'm drawing one possible conclusion from what the OP posted.  As far as I can see, his data is first-hand, i.e. his own results.  My suggestion is a theory, which now could use some further sampling.  This is the procedure scientists use all the time to test a proposition -- propose a theory or possible explanation based on preliminary data, then challenge or perfect the theory with further testing.  

Which is exactly why I suggested it would be interesting to see more sales results from the OP over a longer period (or from anybody else who cares to try and has a similar listing split).  

Probably other readers will then spread these faulty conclusions and pretty soon it will morph into another board myth based on nothing. 

So you have concluded the OP's observations and my proposition are irrelevant before they're even investigated further.  With this viewpoint, no one would ever be alerted to anything new or unusual that happens on eBay.  I would point out for example that a group of us sellers only managed to discover and parse out the problems around the dysfunctional .com cart (a very important issue) through precisely this process -- a couple of sellers reported an anomaly and concluded there might be a problem, and others experimented to test it.  

I think the OP's observations are interesting, and quite possibly meaningful.  I suggested one potential explanation, and would like to see more data.  I leave it to anyone who is just as interested in this to carry out more experiments and see if they get the same results.  Unfortunately though, if the OP's results repeat, it will mean a loss of sales, so there is a possible risk to the experimenter.  I'm afraid I'm not willing to be the guinea pig, at least not at the moment.  Perhaps the OP will come back with more results.  Or not.  I wouldn't blame him. 

[i.am.vivian]

---

@rose-dee wrote:

 I wouldn't blame him. 

---

Her.  You wouldn't blame her.   🙂  

Actually, all this to-and-fro makes me think it WOULD make a really great experiment.  Doesn't have to be CDs, could be anything outside of certain types of things that appeal more to one side or the other, such as little pins shaped like American flags.  

The experimenter first would need 2 of everything.  Identical in every way.  Identical listings, only one on dotCOM and the other on dotCA.  And as close to identical pricing as it is possible to get.  They have to be all "shipping included" to take that variable out of the equation.  

Then the experimenter lists one item in USD, like 12.99, then another with its CAD equivalent on dotCA, like 17.49, or even 16.99, assuming it is not all about the lowest "price + shipping" because a seller can change that anywhere anytime and in itself does not directly indicate a preference for US-dollar spending.  There is always the possibility of price perception.  These are listed with visibility on both sites.  To avoid the problem of international perception, a controlled experiment would need to restrict shipping to North America on these to make sure that any differences are currency-focused on the continent.  

But then to determine the rate at which each one sells, the experimenter would need a 3rd & 4th identical item, but which are NOT visible on both sites, one being in USD on dotCOM with ships-to-US only, and the other on dotCA with ships-to-Canada only.  That would prevent any cross-pollination when analyzing buyer choices.  

Factoring in the possibility of international effects on sales, a 5th & 6th identical item would need to be listed on each site which includes international shipping to see how much, if any, of the difference is based on international orders and the extent to which foreign sales affect the total outcome.  To rule out any alternate influences like seasons and holidays, the experiment would need to take at least a year.  

There now,  I've eaten up all my toast & coffee.  I guess I should go do something useful.    

[momcqueen]

Nailed it, vivian. Kudos x 1,000 for you too!

[rose-dee]

I don't think it would be necessary that the tested listings be identical on each site, as long as the items all fall into the same specific category, are well mixed, and have no particular appeal to either the U.S. or Canada.  

Actually, what the tester would want to do is try to replicate the OP's situation as closely as possible.  Otherwise the results would not be comparable. 

Music CDs are a good choice, as would be OOP sewing patterns.  Both have wide appeal, relatively low cost, easy to ship, and are the same general product with a lot of variation.  There would need to be enough of them listed to see a trend over time, probably more than a couple of dozen. The seller testing would also need to be sure to list twice as many on .ca as on .com (as the OP did) and with similar pricing and shipping offers.  

I don't believe a year would be required to spot a trend in sales between the sites.  In fact, too many other parameters might change on eBay during such a long period that could affect the outcome in unexpected ways.  A month would probably be more than sufficient to see a trend emerging, provided the listing base was large enough.  

Besides, what seller would want to continue the test for long if they discovered they were losing sales?  Frankly, it's a difficult thing to ask of anybody to do intentionally.  Which is another reason I'm glad the OP pointed out his experiences. 

Incidentally, sorry I kept referring to the OP as "he".  

[recped]

I don't think it would be necessary that the tested listings be identical on each site, as long as the items all fall into the same specific category, are well mixed, and have no particular appeal to either the U.S. or Canada

You clearly know little about selling prerecorded music, something I've been doing for over 40 years.

Actually, what the tester would want to do is try to replicate the OP's situation as closely as possible

Why on earth would anyone want to replicate the OP's situation given that from a statistical analysis aspect it's completely faulty.

This whole thread is one giant example of investigator bias.......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer-expectancy_effect