Low US sales rate

[rocketscollectibles]

Just wonder your experience as canadian seller, is it something usual to have a very low selling ratio to US?

The biggest market in my category is the US, it would make sense to me to have buyers, but weirdly my sales are maybe something around less than 5% to US

Just wonder if it's something usual for everyone or if i'm doing something wrong. I'm shipping letterpost at low price already, unless i'm taking a loss by offering a real free shipping i have no idea how to improve. And with international fees, plus fees on taxes, there's already a loss on US sales

Are they avoid canadian sellers? Or do we have less visibility by listing on .ca?

[marnotom!]

You probably have less visibility on the .com more due to the fact that you're still considered a pretty new seller.  I went on the .com site and did a search for "pokemon 9x"  using "best match" and there were 481 results.  On the first page, the top result was from Australia, with eight listings for Canada, none of them yours, unfortunately, but the sellers had more feedback and had been on eBay longer than you.

[kawartha-ephemera]

My sales on DOTca usually run roughly Canada 50%, USA 40 %, and Internariona 10%. 

I keep a few listings on DOTcom, whenever something does sell there which is infrequently, the buyer is almost always American. I don't understand what exactly happened but after the GTC changeover and PL expansion my sales on DOTcom suffered badly. Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason for things. I guess it hasn't helped that I pretty much stopped creating new listings there once the free promos got rolling in Canada.

[femmefan1946]

There has certainly been a change since early 2020 in my sales to the USA. They used to run about 90% of sales, with about 5% to Canada and 5% overseas.

While I got the same pandemic surge that most online sellers saw, my US sales definitely dropped to 80% or less-- and I list most of my items on dotCOM in USD, usually offer Free Shipping to the USA, and have decent FBratings.

I wonder, and I'm just spitballing here, if that surge in online buying in the States was from the same people who were staying home in fear. That they would also be afraid of buying from us dangerous foreigners would make sense  then too. 

This does not take into account that many were buying from China, but I can pretend that

a) they are used to buying Chinese goods

b) Chinese goods are much cheaper than Canadian

c) many of the sellers of Chinese goods are American dropshippers who do not reveal that purchases will be shipped from Shanghai not from Seneca NY.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I get about 1 US sale for every 4-5 Canadian sales I get. Still, it's a big chunk of my business.

If you want to get sales from the US, you have to offer more value than their domestic options. People look at importing as a hassle. The wait is longer. They might fear the possibility of import fees. You sell cards. If someone can find the same cards you're selling from someone in the US for a similar price, they have no reason to buy from you in Canada. There is negative value in the perceived headache of importing an item. Which means, even if you offer a slightly better price, a buyer may still opt to go with the more expensive domestic option.

My guess would be that if you started selling more high end cards, your US sales would increase. Those types of cards are more exclusive. Buyers have less options. They cannot be as choosy. Otherwise, there isn't a realistic way to increase US sales because as a Canadian seller, you're already starting from a point of negative value to US buyers compared to US sellers who are starting from a point of neutral value.

[ricarmic]

As you know I sell stamps which have worldwide approval, however generally speaking, I put stuff that is more likely to sell to US folks on .COM and stuff that is more likely to sell to Canadian folks on .CA

As a note, as postal prices have risen in the last few years, I have had to move smaller traditional "US Interest" stuff to .CA with free shipping here and a shipping price to US because there is such a difference in the relative postal rates.

So for an example a 1,000 sized pack of stamps is on .CA now for this reason with shipping cost for Americans, and a 2,000 sized pack is on .COM (with free shipping to both USA and CA). It is interesting to me how many Canadians are still buying more expensive packs off .COM and Americans buying more expensive packs on .CA when they could be getting slightly cheaper ones off their "home" site. It is probably because they don't notice the other one, I've 4,000ish items and without searching specifically they'd never notice them.

For reference here is my normal approach (keep in mind this is for everything right up to Bankers Boxes of stuff)

On .COM

Domestic (USA) ships free

Canada ships free

Problem countries ship tracked/parcel

The rest of the world ships small packet/parcel

On .CA

Domestic (Canada) ships free

USA ships small packet rate/parcel

Problem countries ship tracked/parcel

The rest of the world ships small packet/parcel

[femmefan1946]

I'm a believer in Free Shipping (that is, in including the cost of shipping in the asking price).

Considering that you are shipping LetterPost for the most part, think about using Free Shipping for your US buyers.

You can do this by using Flat Rate shipping and making the price to the USA $0.00.

Remember you already have the cost of domestic shipping buried in your asking price. If that is 200gr or less you have $3.19 in the asking price, can you afford $2.38  to ship to the USA "free"?  Would added sales make up for lower profit?

And I agree with @ilikehockeyjerseys  that the higher value cards are where you will find more US customers, because they are harder to find nearer home.

[parts_and_diecasts]

"My guess would be that if you started selling more high end cards, your US sales would increase. Those types of cards are more exclusive. Buyers have less options. They cannot be as choosy. Otherwise, there isn't a realistic way to increase US sales because as a Canadian seller, you're already starting from a point of negative value to US buyers compared to US sellers who are starting from a point of neutral value."

BINGO!

[rocketscollectibles]

Don't you guys think it could have something to do with the search engine too?

I started to notice recently and observing some weird tendancies in my sales about regions of buyers. I'm from QC and i must say that maybe 80-90% of my domestic sales are QC/ON. I do not offer calculated shipping so it seems weird. If i would analyze stats, it's would be like if the farest the buyers are, the least sales i have

It would make sense if i had caluclated shipping or oversea, but i use flat shipping and it's the same for domestic

[richardcm]

Population of each province or state plays one of the most important role in distribution of sales.

I did a study of population by time zone for Canada and USA years ago. Basically the population is 45% in Eastern Time zone, 35% in Central Time Zone, 5% in Mountain Time Zone and 15% Pacific Time Zone. Atlantic Time Zone is 1-2% for Canada.

So sales overall within Canada should follow that pattern. Ontario then Quebec then BC.

In the USA, New York State, Florida, in Eastern, then Illinois and Ohio area Texas in Central, nothing in Mountain, California in Pacific.

And North South differences in USA with I think Northern States having 70% of population and 30% in south.

I don’t think I ever got a sale to North West Territories, maybe 1 or two to Yukon and each Atlantic province.

In the USA, California, Florida, Texas, all the big population states lots of sales. Low population states like Rhode Island none, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut very low, Montana, Idaho and others low sales.

Demographics by age, sex, climate, type of product further alter sales distribution.  And fads or trends. 

[msau4301]

My sales to US versus Canada have a significant drop the last couple of years. My product has remained roughly the same. The only changes I can see for me personally are ones that I had no control over - site changes and of course the pandemic! My items are usually too thick for envelope so I ship parcels with tracking.

I would say previously my US sales were about 60%, Canada 20% and International 20%.

I had 12 items sell today - 2 were for the US, 8 for Canada, and 2 for Italy. Interestingly the two US sales were the two highest valued items in the group. This supports what others here have said, harder to find items and higher priced might make there way to US eyes before some others.

I list on .ca by the way.