eBay

musicyouneed · ‎03-11-2017

I used to have free shipping to Canada. There was an incentive to have free shipping as I got 20% off, well now it is going down to 10% so not as much of an incentive to keep free shipping. So am slowing going through and removing my free shipping to Canada. The price has gone down of course as I have shifted the amount to the cost of shipping. Now that might change in the future but for now, no more free shipping.

recped · ‎03-11-2017

The incentive to offer free shipping within Canada is so that you don't pay any final value fee on the US & International shipping you do charge for.

If you are going to start charging Canadians US$3.00 on a cd you will now pay US$0.27 on every non-Canadian sale where previously you paid nothing.

The discount which is peanuts will soon become half a peanut! When you had shipping included it was only saving you US$0.06, now it will be US$0.03

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

maggiebvintage2010 · ‎03-11-2017

When you have a store, and "free shipping" is offered, FVFs are paid at 9% or less, depending on the sale category. For separate shipping charges, the shipping FVF is always 10%, so there is a bit of saving there also.

pocomocomputing · ‎03-11-2017

@maggiebvintage2010 wrote:
When you have a store, and "free shipping" is offered, FVFs are paid at 9% or less, depending on the sale category. For separate shipping charges, the shipping FVF is always 10%, so there is a bit of saving there also.

Can someone confirm my understanding of the shipping FVF rate for a store? I keep reading occasional posts in this ebay.ca forums and in the ebay.com USA forums that the shipping FVF rate for store owners is 10 %. I always understood it to be the same as the catagory FVF rate.

So if the store catagory FVF rate is 9%, the shipping FVF rate is 9%. If the rate is 6%, then the shipping FVF rate is 6%.

I keep correcting posts that say the store FVF rate is a flat 10%. But I am doubting myself. I have not had a store in 2+ years so i can not check.

momcqueen · ‎03-11-2017

I'm changing nothing. The TRS discount of 20 per cent less on nine per cent Final Value Fees was scarcely noticeable. Ten per cent will be even less noticeable but it's not as if they've taken away anything of substance to me. Chances are, they could have quietly changed this and I might not have even noticed. That's how little it will affect my bottom-line. The TRS discount was a thin and flimsy carrot to start. The badge and designation, I have to hope, is more meaningful to buyers and search placement.

By removing your Free Shipping to Canada, I have to suspect you are doing more harm than good. Free Shipping is a major factor in Best Match placement from what I can discern.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-11-2017

No need to doubt yourself, you're right. If the item fvf is 9%' the shipping fvf will also be 9%. I don't remember it ever being any different than that.

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-11-2017

I think that it is up to each seller whether or not free shipping (shipping included) works for them but I'm curious why the change to 10% makes a difference in your policy regarding free shipping. I'm not seeing how the discount relates to free shipping......perhaps I'm just missing something.

momcqueen · ‎03-11-2017

I don't see a correlation either, to be honest. 'Free Shipping' is really just 'Move Cost of Postage into Asking Price and Hope No One Notices' and with the CAD being low in comparison to USD it's easy peasy to build it into Item Price as a bone to fellow Canadians while still remaining competitively prices against the USD for whom CAD seems like a fire sale.

Free Shipping to me is about a boost to Best Match. Ebay continually tells us buyers love free shipping. I don't see it having any impact on TRS discount at any level whether it's 20 per cent or ten per cent.

If I considered eliminating Free Shipping form my listings, it's because I see it as a disincentive to combined shipping. Until we in Canada have access to Promotions Manager which would then also allow us to say something like 'buy two and save an extra 20 per cent on the second item' as an incentive to combine shipping on items even where cost of free postage is factored into the total cost.

zee-chan · ‎03-11-2017

Not changing a thing to my .CA listings as I'm lazy. The % of Canadian buyers I have is quite minimal compared to international buyers (<10%), so I've always had free shipping to both Canada and USA. The extra bucks with Canadian sales go into my cookie jar. But since the free listing promos have decreased significantly lately, I've turned some of my listings into lots to utilize the free 50 listings on .COM. Not sure how well that's turning out at the moment as out of 50 lots I've only sold 1, but I just literally started it two weeks ago so just gotta give it some time to play out.

I hope they would still throw us a 500 free FP/auction listings at least every 2-3 months so that I can keep my 335 .CA listings alive in some shape of form... because I'm not remaking them if they disappear after 90 days. I got 6 sales with the 500 free auction listings this week so far.

As for the TRS, I'm sorta mentally ready to lose it within the next few months, because my sales has dropped without free promos. I sold 4 items in February with only the monthly 50/50 going. I don't see the TRS discount as super significant since I price my listings assuming I DON'T have it (and I give bigger discounts to people who buy multiple items because I have it). I see it as a boost to my listings and give buyers a sense of confidence when they buy from me, so losing the TRS badge might hurt my sale =\

pjcdn2005 · ‎03-11-2017

If most of your buyers are international they are probably seeing your listings on .com or other sites. You probably don't have trs on those sites now so losing the badge on .ca isn't going to affect those buyers.

momcqueen · ‎03-11-2017

If those other sites are the Global ones like Canada, they will see the Top Rated Badge just as they do for Canada. Only USA, Germany, UK do not show it. Others like ebay France, Spain, Italy consider a Top Rated Seller in Canada, a top-rated seller in their country too.

Here I am in Spain.

Trust me, I don't sell the same volume to Spain as I do Canada.

momcqueen · ‎03-11-2017

It's a beautiful thing, really. I am a Top Rated seller in ebay Spain and ebay will translate my Item Description to any language they have available. Here my listing appears in French while viewed on ebay.es

momcqueen · ‎03-11-2017

If there's one thing about ebay that I absolutely love, this is it.....

ricarmic · ‎03-14-2017

No changes here.

I've used free shipping since it began because I very firmly believe free shipping gets significantly increased visibility.

My pricing model has never counted on TRS discounts*, free listings etc. If I acquire/maintain them they are a bonus.

*In another thread I've mentioned that the 20% TRS discount only saves me about 1.5% against sales (anchor store and 2 categories is relatively much more expensive against sales).

femmefan1946 · ‎03-14-2017

my listing appears in French while viewed on ebay.es

Why in French on the Spanish site?

momcqueen · ‎03-14-2017

The Spanish site because I was demonstrating Global TRS and French because it was a language I could show with the translator and know as correct. I'm much less adept at Arabic, and less fluent Russian.

rose-dee · ‎03-15-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
The Spanish site because I was demonstrating Global TRS and French because it was a language I could show with the translator and know as correct.

I agree it is helpful to have some sort of translation available to buyers, and this one isn't too bad overall. It's more intelligible than most Google translations, but that may be because the computer can recognize certain commonly-used phrases or terms that are typical of eBay itself.

I did have to LOL though at: "Montrer au monde comment grand un Star Wars fan vous vraiment sont." Oooh, ouch.

Still, the general intention will be clear to anyone reading in French. My impression was that the computer was getting weary the further down the page it went. Oh well, it is still better than nothing at all, and will provide some entertainment to native speakers.

momcqueen · ‎03-15-2017

Yes. But the gist of it is there, and the user doesn't have to navigate from eBay to view it. It's also a useful challenge to sellers to optimize their descriptions for ease of translation by not using as many contractions or colloquialisms.

femmefan1946 · ‎03-15-2017

GIGO

rose-dee · ‎03-15-2017

@musicyouneed wrote:
I used to have free shipping to Canada. There was an incentive to have free shipping as I got 20% off, well now it is going down to 10% so not as much of an incentive to keep free shipping. So am slowing going through and removing my free shipping to Canada. The price has gone down of course as I have shifted the amount to the cost of shipping. Now that might change in the future but for now, no more free shipping.

To answer your original question, I don't intend to change anything. Since I sell primarily to the U.S., the currency differential has been the biggest source of flexibility for me.

It was helpful to be able to use my TRS savings to subsidize my U.S. buyers' shipping costs when that rate was at 20%. A 10% discount though is barely meaningful, and not worth changing my plans over. As for the badge, well, I've never been convinced it makes a lot of difference. I think merely showing you're an experienced seller with a good FB score may be more important to a prospective buyer. I had the US TRS Plus badge on .com for many months, and it made no significant difference in sales that I could attribute solely to getting the badge.