Listing on ebay.ca AND ebay.com from the same account....? Are there issues?

[momcqueen]

At the risk of exposing myself as the dimwit that I apparently am, I had NO idea it was possible to create listings simultaneously on ebay.ca and ebay.com with a single account until Raphael from ebay Board Hour confirmed last week that it was something that can be done. Apparently, I had always tried to 'sell similar' from an existing listing of mine on ebay.ca and could therefore not avoid being hijacked back to ebay.ca to proceed. 

In my own defence, I'm fairly certain that I called eBay Customer Service for advice in the early days of struggling with this and my person was unable to help me so I had assumed that it was just some weird technical glitch thing that showed I had all kinds of free listings remaining on ebay.com when my own on ebay.ca were used up. Again, I had long given up hope of trying to relist anything that way (which cannot be done) and apparently it had not ever occurred to me to try to create an entirely new listing from scratch. (Also, I'm a pretty loyal person to ebay.ca and figured it wasn't worth the hassle to create a new account to sneak over to ebay.com and try to sell stuff there.)

Imagine that my head is now spinning. Let me make sure that I understand: if I have a store subscription for 500 listings on ebay.ca that means I also get another 500 listings on ebay.com? What is the reason for that? If so, I do not want to consider what I could have saved on insertion fees over these past two years if I had created the most recent of my new listings on ebay.com instead of ebay.ca and listed my overseas items directly on ebay.co.uk instead of paying 50 cents per piece each month. 

My question to the sellers out there who obviously have more experience in this respect than I do is this: have you simultaneously listed your maximum on ebay.ca and then gone to ebay.com and also ebay.co.uk to use that maximum allotment as well? And this is all a legitimate business practise on ebay? What issues do I need to anticipate if I have items listed on ebay.ca and ebay.com and ebay.co.uk all at the same time on the same account? I expect that there will be difficulty with:

(a) conflicts between calculated shipping on ebay.ca and flat-rate (by necessity) on ebay.com and ebay.co.uk;

(b) combined orders that will have to be manually sent as an invoice through paypal if a buyer accidentally purchases one item listed in CAD and another in USD and a third in GBP;

(c) confused buyers who check-out with half an order but don't realize the rest was listed on a different site;

(d) potential problems with duplicate listings. If I have a quantity of three of one particular item, can I list it one each ebay.ca and ebay.com and ebay.co.uk simultaneously with the same description and photographs or do I need to list each one as unavailable to ship elsewhere so that there is no question it will show up three times in the same search results?

Thank you for your thoughts. And please feel free to correct any misunderstandings about how this might work from what I have laid out here. 

M

[mr.elmwood]

Why would you want to make so many listings of the same thing? Plus, I think that would run you a fowl of the duplicate listing policy.

Make one listing showing shipping to the various countries. It is the shipping that makes them visible in otehr countries.

[momcqueen]

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@mr.elmwood wrote:

Why would you want to make so many listings of the same thing? Plus, I think that would run you a fowl of the duplicate listing policy.

Make one listing showing shipping to the various countries. It is the shipping that makes them visible in otehr countries.

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International Site Visibility. While I can't see it being necessary to list one each of two identical items on ebay.ca and ebay.com simultaneously, I can on ebay.ca or ebay.com and ebay.co.uk because on ebay.co.uk, private sellers get:

20 free listings per month, list now! No insertion fees for auction or fixed price listings at any start price

Why pay 50 cents per item for International Site Visibility on the first 20 that I list on ebay.co.uk if I can avoid it? I spend anywhere from $45 CAD to $100 per month on International Site Visibility. But if I list that item ONLY on ebay.co.uk and not ebay.ca it won't show within domestic offerings, will it? It would become part of the International Sellers soup at the bottom of the page regardless of whether it is located in Canada or not. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[mr.elmwood]

Oh, I get it now. I list on com and get my visibility there and on ca. I have never had, nor will I ever have, a UK sale.

I do believe you are correct in what you are saying. I apologize for not understanding. You want the boost in visibility. Are you in that crowded a category?

[pjcdn2005]

Many posters here such as myself list on both .com and .ca. I'm surprised that you weren't aware of it.

You don't have to register on .com to list there. The .ca and .com site interact differently than other sites.

My  husband lists a few items on the UK site but the rules are different there so you would have it to look into that. He's not home right now but I'm fairly sure that he can only list a certain amount of listings there unless he was registered in the UK as a business seller so I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get  500 free listings there.

(a) conflicts between calculated shipping on ebay.ca and flat-rate (by necessity) on ebay.com and ebay.co.uk;

Are you talking about listing different items on each site? If so, shipping might vary between similar items but I don't know if that is a big deal.

If you wanted UK visibility and listed the same items on that site as you had on .ca and .com you would have to make sure that you didn't have shipping to the same places otherwise they would be considered as duplicate listings. For example, if you posted a listing on the uk site you wouldn't want to show shipping to North America if the same items were listed here.

(b) combined orders that will have to be manually sent as an invoice through paypal if a buyer accidentally purchases one item listed in CAD and another in USD and a third in GBP;

Even if you listed in $U.S. on both .ca and .com they would still have to pay separately if the items were purchased on a different site. You would probably have to try it first to see how buyers react to it. I haven't run into that problem however,  the items listed here are aimed at a different type of buyer than the items I list on .com so it would be rare to have a buyer for both types of items.  I'm sure that it would be more likely to happen with you.  

(d) potential problems with duplicate listings. If I have a quantity of three of one particular item, can I list it one each ebay.ca and ebay.com and ebay.co.uk simultaneously with the same description and photographs or do I need to list each one as unavailable to ship elsewhere so that there is no question it will show up three times in the same search results?

Answered under (a)

I know that some will disagree but I do think that international visibility used to be much better. In the last 2 years it seems to have changed and my international sales have decreased dramatically so I can understand why you are thinking about this.

Listing on .com and .ca isn't difficult but i do think that bringing the UK site  into the mix would be a bit confusing.

Also, if you start listing on the UK site you would have the 21 day hold and listing limits. I don't know if you could appeal that or not.

[momcqueen]

I know, it seems incredible now that I was unaware but in the past when you all said you listed on both ebay.ca and ebay.com, my assumption was that each of you had another account for the purposes on doing so.

Like I said, in the beginning of selling here I tried and tried again and was always unable to 'sell similar' or 'relist' so when I called ebay for help, I was patched through to a very young and friendly girl who was very nice to speak to but, in hindsight, no help whatsoever.

It did not phase me overmuch to see the unused free listings on my Selling Manager Summary page whenever I logged into ebay.com (not often) for the simple reason that so many ebay links lead to dead ends that make no sense. Like Sales Maximizer on ebay.ca and anything to do with a direct link to even paypal shipping now from my any of my Sold items because 'the site certificate has expired'.

If I called eBay Customer Service for advice every time that something didn't make sense -- like when a buyer asks to cancel a transaction and you send them the Mutual Cancellation Request that they asked for, the email from ebay that the seller receives afterwards contains contradictory instructions -- I'd be on the phone every day. Nothing was ever done about that so I just don't have time to waste. And the chance of actually speaking to someone at ebay Customer Service that has an idea of what I'm talking about is, unfortunately, slim. They listen only long enough to call up a page to parrot back at you. 

Thank you, PJ and Mr. E for your advice. I have some thinking to do now to be certain that I proceed with listing directly on ebay.com and ebay.co.uk in the smartest way possible.

[sheepgal54]

I have asked these same questions BUT the difference is that when I log into .com, selling manager I still see only the .ca free listings (used up). I don't get the extra 20 freebies on .com.  I also thought that I had to have 2 different accounts to take advantage. I still don't know how to do that!  So I misguidedly opened a store again on .ca  I should have the free listngs for auctions on .com shouldn't I? 

[pierrelebel]

" I don't get the extra 20 freebies on .com. "

You do.

They show up once one has been used.

"  I also thought that I had to have 2 different accounts to take advantage."

No.  One account is all you need to sell on ALL  eBay sites (.ca, .com, .uk, etc...)

[momcqueen]

If you log into ebay.com with your user ID and try to create a new listing from scratch, what happens? 

With my Premium Store subscription on ebay.ca, this is what I see when logged into Selling Manager on ebay.ca

When I go to ebay.com and log in, it says this:

[momcqueen]

Finally, when I log into ebay.co.uk, I see this:

I had only ever tried to 'relist' or 'sell similar' from an existing ebay.ca listing. Now, I understand. 

[momcqueen]

You've been here since the dawn of time, pierrelebel, so can you explain the reason for this? How is it that it makes good business sense to ebay to to give each user ID double the 'free' listings on ebay.com and ebay.ca with or without a store subscription?

And if I were registered as a Business Seller on ebay.co.uk, would my 'free' listings with Premium store subscription also be lifted to 500? 

What would I find if I logged into ebay.it and ebay.es? Another 500 in each place? It seems like it could become problematic. 

[momcqueen]

Well, it seems I could list 50 directly on ebay.it. I'm not suggesting that I will but if a person was so inclined, could they not travel the world of ebay and take their 'free' listings on each national site if they were careful not to duplicate their listings?

There are oh so many to choose from and Google Translate is already being utilized to provide automatic translation services on listings created in one language when they show up on another. This is from ebay spain.

And with that, I promise you my final screen shot of the day. 

[pierrelebel]

"... so can you explain the reason for this?"

It is just the way the system is designed.

Now, you can get carried away if you wish or use the KISS principle.

Over the years I have listed on foreign sites in foreign currencies (€, £, A$, etc...) hoping to get additional exposure.  To be honest, it was a total waste of time and effort.  Yes I may have got a few more sales but, was it worth the time and effort?  NO.  That same time could have been spend on eBay.ca and eBay.com for maximum exposure and sales results.

Now, most of us Canadians have known all along that we can list on both eBay.ca and eBay.com.  Until a few years ago it did not really matter because we all had to pay a listing fee for every listing.  Then eBay changed the way they were doing things by offering "free" listings, either as part of the regular fee schedule (started about three years ago) or as part of regular "limited" promotions - some by invitations, some open to all sellers.

Americans have the same ability as we have to list on both eBay.ca and eBay.com.  They simply do not know about it nor do they want to be bothered. As a seller who has listed extensively on both sites for a very long time (until my retirement a few years ago, I maintained 3,000 to 4,000 listings most with multiple quantities (about 40,000 items) in my eBay store, I understand the limitations and little frustrations of listing and selling on both sites. In addition to currencies, most problems centered around shipping methods and costs.

Is it worth it?  It depends on the value you put on your time.  It may work great if you really understand the system, are willing to use the KISS principle, and accept that things will not always work the way you want them to work, adding some expenses along the way.  Yes, it will always be easy to blame eBay for not having designed their systems to fit our needs but, at the end of the day, it is their playground, their rules and we have to accept to play their way.

For the last few years, I used KISS by simply:

1) listing in Cdn$ items listed on eBay.ca ( I use eBay.cafr so I get free subtitle promoting my name and "free shipping - no tax added")

2) listing in US$ items listed on eBay.com

3) offering "free shipping" worldwide

4) gave up completely listing on other eBay sites to take advantage of "free listings" or other promotions.  NOT worth it.

Yes from time to time buyers of multiple items will make multiple payments.  So what?  I got the sale! I got the money!

KISS and Good Luck.

[3dartsinc]

I listed on ebay.com after unsold and listing ended now i want to relist on ebay.ca how to do it bulk or easy way any suggestion.

no foolish question and no foolish reply please only reply if you know the solution thanks.

[reallynicestamps]

ZOMBIE THREAD FROM 2015.

The problem with zombie threads is that the information in them may be out of date or incorrect.

[cumos55]

and... ghosts

elmwood ... and ... pierrelebel

[reallynicestamps]

I was Messaging with mr. elmwood a couple of weeks ago. His eBay business is alive and well.

[kh-leslie]

Hello Everyone,

Due to the age of the thread, it has been closed to further replies.  Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thanks for understanding!