Optimal currency setup

[itolduandso]

Looking for advice on currrency exchanges.

I list items on Ebay.CA in CAD

Ebay seller account statement is in USD

Ebay monthly membership is on US website billed in USD

Resident in Canada and registered on Ebay.CA (not ebay.COM)

My Papal receives money in CAD
My bank account is in CAD (in Canada)

My sales balance is 65% for US and 35% fo Canada

Of the sales about 50% from what I sell in my PayPal balance I use for purchases again and it's split about 50% in Canada and 50% in US on ebay.

The rest 50% I withdraw to bank account to source my items in CAD.

Looking for suggestions based on previous experience on what should I do to optimize my current setup to minimize the currency losses. If you sell to the US and Canada what would you do?

I could crunch the calculator but without knowing exactly how much ebay charges on fees and what exchange rates they take it's hard to estimate it. Basic recommendation would help.  I appreciate.

[ypdc_dennis]

Switch your store from .COM to .CA (end on .COM, then restart on .CA)

If you have a yearly store subscription, wait until the renewal time, since there are closing fees if you end too soon. https://pages.ebay.ca/stores/subscriptionterms.html

Reason: Less expensive on .CA and you can still list on either site.

Basic store .CA = $24.95/mo ($19.95 yearly sub) in Canadian $

Basic store .COM = $27.95/mo ($21.95 yearly sub) in  US $

With current exchange rates you could save $9 or $7 per month in store fees.

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4122

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4122

...

eBay's Managed Payments, which is currently pushing Paypal out as the payment method, only allows payments to a bank account (ebay charges 3% to process a currency exchange). It also only allows one currency per selling ID.  For Canadian sellers CA$ with US$ as the alternate.

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[recped]

The Store thing is a no-brainer do as suggested in the previous post.

As far as choosing to get your Payouts in US Dollars vs CA Dollars.

With your 65/35 split you might better off taking your payouts in US Dollars BUT only if you can actually spend those US Dollars.

At the moment with the CAD on a tear anyone holding US Dollars are losing money every day, since March 1st the US Dollar has fallen 4.25% against the Canadian Dollar and it appears this will continue for some time.

Another option since you want to list on both sites it have seperate ID's for each site and have the one .com sales payout in US Dollars and the one for .ca sales payout in CA Dollars.

There are issues with that of course because you would need 2 Stores if having a Store is financially beneficial (lower fvf,  more "free" listings). Of course you could just have a single Store and attach it to the id you use to list on .com

A lot of this decision is impacted by how much overall sales you are doing or expect to do in the near future.

I have one active selling id that has not yet been invited to MP, although I haven't listed on  .com years I'm considering turning it into a USD payout id when I do get the invite and I might just use it to list a specific product line on .com, right now I'm just using it for a "parking spot" for non-sellers and consequently it doesn't have much in the way of sales compared to my current main selling id.

[itolduandso]

On my invoice I receive it says: eBay Canada Ltd.  But maybe not the case. I have the cheapo US $5 starter plan. It's only 250 listings (vs350)  plus the 5 cent reduction in listing. Was enough during the slow time last year. Reading on the forum looks like there is so much staff going on that my question is kind of strange timing I must say.  Checked 5 years back and see I spent quite a bit of money on currency conversion fees over last 5 years just because I didn't pay close attention and now I am finally ready to take on that currency dragon only to see it has another 3 heads growing. Managed Payments has forced currency conversion. It's a gift that keeps giving.

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/Selling-on-ebay-com-in-USD-with-Managed-Payments-for-Can...

Thanks for the thoughtful suggestion about the monthly fees. Not so completely convinced about the account trade thing because potentially giving up the starter plan and what's worse loosing the feedback over 20 years. 

I am split on that change CA-> COM after reading all that Managed Payment stuff. It only allows to choose once and can't be changed in the future. 

Haven't received the MP invite yet, so I'l wait and see what happens.

[femmefan1946]

I have the cheapo US $5 starter plan. It's only 250 listings (vs350) plus the 5 cent reduction in listing.

You must be registered on dotCOM, since there are no Starter Stores on dotCA.

These are the dotCOM fees- you have to scroll down.

That 5% reduction is for any listings you have OVER the 250 "free" listings. But do the math, you are paying $5 for UP TO 250 listings . If you list 250 they are only 5c each, but if you only list 25, they are 50c each.

I'm not sure there is any value in the Starter Store now that you have so many Free Listings with no Store at all.

And be sure to check the Final Value Fee comparisons.

[kawartha-ephemera]

As of this morning Monday, May 17th the MP USD to CAD exchange rate is 1.17455.

This sudden appreciation of CAD versus the USD is really starting to bite, just 2 weeks ago MP was at 1.21 and change. Towards the end of last year knowing MP was inevitable I stopped creating new listings on DOTcom, it was already more expensive to sell from there and I don't really feel good about handing ebay an extra 3%.

For some unknown reason I've always had much more success selling into the U.S. (and worldwide) from DOTca than I've ever been able to manage from DOTcom, so for now anyway I'm not going to worry about it.

[itolduandso]

For account fees starter plan:

+ US $5 dollars monthly

+US $26.24 (90 active listings right now)
−US $26.24 (Credit)

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Total fees US $5 dollars monthly

I can max out up to 250 listings and still pay same.  For 500 listings it would be another story, then it's worth to go with the Basic Store. Terapeak is now free with any level.

Why do you fee starter store is better?   Do you think it influences the ranking in listings?

[femmefan1946]

My error- posting after midnight I forgot to add this:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4122

[femmefan1946]

Because Store subsciptions are a Fixed Price, the cost of each listing (which are not actually free, you are paying eBay)  is the cost of the subscription divided by the number of listings.

If you list ONE item in a Starter Store you are paying $5 for that listing.

If you list 50 items in a Starter Store you are paying 50c for each listing.

If you list 250 items in a Starter Store you are paying two cents for each listing.

TANSTAAFL-- Robert Heinlein

[kawartha-ephemera]

At the present time there is absolutely no advantage in having a Starter store subscription.

Once MP is activated, a non-store account currently qualifies for 250 free listings on DOTcom and another 200 on DOTca for a total of 450.
Terapeak is free for all accounts, as are time away and scheduled listings not to mention whatever promotions are being offered. As long as a seller doesn't mind listing on both sites, my advice would be to forget any store subscription until well above 450 listings.

[pjcdn2005]

Having a store or type of store does not influence listing rank.

As mentioned by another poster, you can get basically the same amount of listings on a starter store as you can get free without a store at all. So why pay for a starter store?

If you have enough listings to make it worthwhile, store levels other than the starter level do have lower fvf's.

[itolduandso]

Thanks to all. Good to know. My yearly renewal date is Jul 1, 2021, so right in time. I'll switch it to monthly for the time being till I get the invite to MP. 

I am still on Paypal, haven't been invited to MP yet. I am just not sure what to do. Even if I open .CA account instead (that's hypothetical if I even can do that), I'll loose the feedback.

I know having multiple ebay selling accounts is allowed, but I wasn't able to have multiple. Anybody came across this issue if you have more than 1 selling account with ebay?

Is there way to move feedback from .COM account to .CA account?

[ypdc_dennis]

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@itolduandso wrote:
.... Is there way to move feedback from .COM account to .CA account?

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Feedback is attached to the seller ID -- it does not matter if the ID is non-store, .CA store or .COM store -- same feedback remains when switching between those plans.

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[itolduandso]

One more question..  I just looked at this again what @kawartha-ephemera mentioned:

"Once MP is activated, a non-store account currently qualifies for 250 free listings on DOTcom and another 200 on DOTca for a total of 450."

With this in mind, do I get into currency conversion issue if listing on DOTcom and DOTca, right?  So say if account is in CAD, if I am listing those 250 listings on DOTcom I will get into 3% currency conversion right?

[pjcdn2005]

If payout is in $C then yes, you would have a currency conversion fees for items sold that were listed on .com.  If your payout was in$US then you would have to pay conversion fees for sales listed on .ca