eBay

jt-libra · ‎08-03-2013

I always expect sales to drop off during the summer but I thought this year might be different. We're not having summer in Manitoba this year so I thought maybe people would start browsing eBay .

The warm weather didn't come until July -- we had two hot weeks and then cool temperatures for the last 3 weeks. We're lucky to get a high of 20 degrees and the long-range forecast is the same. So depressing Well, it gives us more time to dig out the jumper cables and shovels for the next 8 months of winter.

I hope the rest of the country is doing better.

computervalleyca · ‎08-04-2013

Perhaps you guys are correct as if they set to default Canada only>>> then international shipping sellers will be in nightmare from Canada. But still I have run some test and has seen US sellers gets the priority on search on both eBay.com and eBay.ca but not in the eBay.co.ok even they ship to the UK. And that is actually my point. Perhaps the cross border shipping making it like that between .com and .ca

You can only feel the nightmare if you are not selling anything unique. Unique products always perform the best if there are market demands. 🙂 no matter what is the search settings on ebay, people will find you for sure.

femmefan1946 · ‎08-04-2013

Going back 20 years (OMG! actually 30 years!) I was selling Vermont Castings woodstoves here in Ottawa. These things weighed 300-500 pounds and cost $500-$1500 .

Vermont Castings had been selling their products by mail in the USA for years, but found that the Canadian market just did not like catalogue/mail order sales. So they went with B&M stores, allowing us to do mail order as needed.

For a time there were three times as many B&M stores selling VC stoves in Canada as in the USA.

And again, they were sending expensive heavy items by mail and US buyers were quite happy with that.

My point is that Canadians are traditionally not big mail order buyers. It would be interesting to know if this is still true. Certainly the mail order catalogues I get tend to come from US sellers , like LL Bean, while those I get from Canadian sellers usually point me to their stores.

i*m-still-here · ‎08-04-2013

@femmefan1946 wrote:
My point is that Canadians are traditionally not big mail order buyers. It would be interesting to know if this is still true.

It's very tempting to agree that this attitude towards "mail order" generalized to on line shopping, BUT if Canadians were not buying on line then there wouldn't be so many complaints about "all the associated problems" with shipping here. (IMO these issues are seller related, but that's another story.

In other words, Canadians must be buying.

In the areas I deal in I know that Canadian collectors are well represented.

I also know that my items are getting a lot of views so for me that is not the issue.

What I don't know is why Canadians seem to resist buying Canadian.

I also believe that if my fellow Canadians would give me the edge (at least a little bit) that my sales would boom because I have great items at competitive prices with reasonable shipping ......................... and without the hassles of GSP, taxes, or high over-the-border shipping costs.

jt-libra · ‎08-04-2013

Well rose-dee, if I knew what the heck to do with those patterns or collected vintage clothing, I would certainly buy from you. Your pictures are stunning (especially that Edwardian bridal gown) and your descriptions, with their level of detail, are incredible. And from what I know about these types of items, your prices seem very reasonable. I don't know why everyone with a need for (theater?) or an interest in these types of items isn't buying from you. Seriously!!

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-05-2013

That's a similar breakdown for me .................. 10% to Canadians.

I think that in some cases, it is a matter of population. We have approximately 10 percent of the population of the U.S. so it makes sense that 10% of our buyers are Canadians. If you also sell to other countires on a regular basis, Canadians are even a smaller portion of the mix.

i*m-still-here · ‎08-05-2013

I know............. It explains why 10% or my (our) sales are within Canada and at the same time it suggests that the feeling that Americans are sticking to their own is not correct.

It still doesn't explain why Canadians are not buying Canadian though.

I think that femme is right and Canadians are less likely to buy on line than Americans are and that explains some of it.

I also think that Canadians are more inclined to stop shopping on line very easily when they encounter hassles such as the GSP than to buy Canadian.

When I mention eBay to someone, it seems that almost everyone has had a bad experience never to return.

Go Figure!

rose-dee · ‎08-05-2013

@jt-libra wrote:
Well rose-dee, if I knew what the heck to do with those patterns or collected vintage clothing, I would certainly buy from you. Your pictures are stunning (especially that Edwardian bridal gown) and your descriptions, with their level of detail, are incredible. And from what I know about these types of items, your prices seem very reasonable. I don't know why everyone with a need for (theater?) or an interest in these types of items isn't buying from you. Seriously!!

Thanks so much for the kind words - you've boosted my mood today!! Sometimes it does get a little depressing to put your heart and soul into presenting your wares and have virtually no one buying.

Yet this wasn't the case even a year ago - I could hardly keep up with the demand for antique patterns and replicas. I expect the downward turn many of us here have been seeing lately is the result of a convergence of a whole range of factors, not just one issue (I won't repeat my views on that here because I've set them out elsewhere on these boards).

I expect that in my category, discretionary spending, both by individuals and groups like theatres, film makers, etc. (who used to make up a good percentage of my buyers) has dried up. When economic hardship hits, the arts are always the first to suffer.

Concerning Canadian sales, I disagree with what some posters have said about expecting 10% of our sales to be from Canadians because we have 10% of the U.S. population. You would think Canadians would prefer to buy from a Canadian seller, and as "i*m-still-here" pointed out, Canadians are buying from U.S. eBay sellers, at least in some categories. The question is, how to shift those buyers to choose to purchase from a Canadian seller. I think Canadians are perhaps less likely to filter results on eBay.com (which is probably where the majority of them start out looking), to see Canadian-only items. The upshot: only about 10% of listings that come up will be from Canadian sellers, hence 10% of their choice. Here the population theory makes sense.

>

One thing I think eBay.ca could do that might help is a little more "front page" promotion of Canadian sellers on .ca (or elsewhere - how about a few ads on yahoo.ca, etc.?), so that if a Canadian buyer finds .ca, he/she spends more time there rather than on .com, and comes back to it again (or better still - bookmarks it!).