Selling Internationally on eBay.ca Is A Trainwreck

[locoworks]

I'd love to know how the rest of you guys sell internationally from eBay.ca (and by internationally I mean beyond Canada & USA -- for USA I use flat rate pricing and that works pretty well). Here's an example. A guy in Austria wrote me wanting to get a shipping quote, which I got and replied to him. He says great I'd like to buy those items (it was for three different listings), bill me and I'll pay with PayPal. There are lots of mentions of "reply with offer" in the eBay help pages but that apparently doesn't exist for eBay Canada for unknown reasons. I don't have his email address to send him a PayPal request until he checks out, and he says he's unable to check out because eBay on his end says "This seller didn't include shipping costs to your location. Please contact the seller or change your address." So where do I go from here?

Dave

[lady.stark]

You can create a "bundle" listing with all the items included and add calculated shipping to the listing. If you don't want someone else to buy it, you can write in the title something like "Private listing for xxx". The "xxx" is the first name of the person or his eBay ID.

[momcqueen]

Is the purchase already made? If not, add Best Offer to your listings and then Send Invoice.

[momcqueen]

Also, I find calculated shipping works best for me on ebay.ca. It's one of the chief advantages of using ebay Canada versus ebay USA.

[hlmacdon]

Ebay has long been missing a system to create a direct invoice for customers. It is a head scratcher why they have not implemented this as the inability to do so it is a big source of people taking transactions off ebay. 

[femmefan1946]

The "private listing" part is probably not a good idea. There are those who scoop up bargains by Searching on the keyword "private".  Just the customer's name is safer.
I'm probably being paranoid about this though.

I'm also worried about the "I'll pay by Paypal" part. To me that sounds like an attempt to take the sale off-eBay.

PP still offers excellent Buyer Protection even if a sale does not go through eBay. Seller protection is no better though.

[femmefan1946]

On the Sell Your Item form, do you have Europe chosen as a destination with shipping charges given?

The form does specify France Germany UK and Russian Federation , but also the larger Europe.

I noticed you Block sales to several European countries, not including Austria but including Lichtenstein and Malta, both of which I would not have considered difficult destinations.

[pjcdn2005]

Has the buyer tried adding the items to their cart and then use request total in the cart?

[recped]

About two-thirds of my sales are overseas.

Your problem is very simple, you offer to ship Internationally (with restrictions, some of them truly bizarre) but you do not specify shipping for these destinations.

You have to actually have the shipping included in the listing to allow the buyer to complete checkout.

This is what your buyer in Austria sees:

" This item will ship to Austria, but the seller has not specified shipping options. Contact the seller- opens in a new window or tab and request a shipping method to your location."

[locoworks]

"You have to actually have the shipping included in the listing to allow the buyer to complete checkout."

Not true, I had a purchaser from Norway today who was able to checkout and request a total just fine. That's the weird part, it's very inconsistent. Also thanks for calling my chosen policies "truly bizarre", very helpful.

[locoworks]

I've had horrible results with calculated shipping in the past. And I can't pre-box, measure and weigh 800 widely assorted products; I don't have the time or energy for that. Also I'm generally shipping international with Asendia and other carriers that eBay doesn't calculate for. Appreciate the suggestion though.

[locoworks]

Agree 100%. It's hurting their own profits not having it. I could definitely make more sales on the platform with that feature.

[locoworks]

Possible but definitely a hack. They're usually one-off or not replaceable items so I'd have to end all the original ones to make sure I don't double sell, create the new listing, send the new listing to the buyer, then undo it all if it falls through. I was hoping there was something I was missing or hadn't enabled or something like that but it sounds like just typical eBay BS. Thanks for the suggestion though

[hlmacdon]

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@locoworks wrote:
Agree 100%. It's hurting their own profits not having it. I could definitely make more sales on the platform with that feature.

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Yep. This is particularly the case with multi-item transactions. eBay's cart is about 10 years behind in functionality for the seller in terms of the sort of shipping flexibility and accuracy you need to get down to the gram/ounce level. The bandaid solution ebay always throws out is just add free shipping buyers love it! That is true of the uneducated buyer, but any seasoned buyer knows this is going to cost them more money. These seasoned buyers outgrow ebay and eventually leave to seller platforms better suited.

It has left the site pigeonholed as a single item sale venue to the point where the head of buyer engagement wants to waste time and marketing resources on focusing on products under $10. From a business point of view this is preposterous, borderline imbecilic, and demonstrates why he has a track record of burning through venture capital and offering zero return on investment. It is a totally unnecessary source of buyer/seller friction. You want to engage with your buyers? Figure out how to get them to buy more than just the one item because coupons! Any hack can temporarily fudge revenue numbers that way but that is precisely why your TAM never grows.