eBay.ca vs eBay.com

[fallsavenue]

I've decided to list more now (been here 1.5yrs) and have reached the 250 free listings limit. My choices look to be either open a store or use the free 250 listings on .com. Read through the posts here but most aren't very recent so hoping to get your insights.

1) As I understand it, visibility is the same on both sites as long as US shipping is set up. However, I read a (much older) post where a seller felt their sales increased after listing on .com. Is there any reason for this and/or are some items better to list on .com? 

2) A drawback of .com appears to be currency conversion fees on .com. Since I don't have a US$ bank acct, is this correct? 

Would like 500+ listings so unless there's a good reason to begin listing on .com, a store seems to be the way to go but maybe I'm missing something.

TIA!

[recped]

An alternative is to start up additional selling accounts with each one getting the 250 free.

Managing 2 or 3 selling accounts is not that difficult, you just use different browsers for each account.

[fallsavenue]

Think I need to build up my feedback and sales so maybe not a good idea for me. It's been slow so would like to build up my metrics for just the fallsavenue account. Thanks for the tip!

[ricarmic]

In my world (stamps) Canadians tend to want to pay the same in $C as folks in the US are comfortable paying in US$, however shipping costs figure into the equasion as well.

I've been selling on both sites "forever" about 50/50 split with just under 5,000 items running (you wouldn't know that at the moment as my store is on summer vacation till september).

Generally if it is stuff that folks in the US would tend to be as interested in as Canadians and the shipping cost makes sense (I'm free shipping everything up to bankers boxes of stuff) I list it on dot com. If it is something that is more likely to be Canadian interesting or the free (but included in the cost of course) shipping is too high relatively for US folks it is listed on .CA

Traditionally I've believed that US folks tend to favour stuff on .COM but in the last few years I'm not sure it matters so much anymore - if that's true you might as well put stuff on .COM to the max as well.

It doesn't cost anything to try, you have to flip between the sites to do things like send invoices etc, but if you change your mind all you have to do is end the .COM stuff.....

PS's:

-you can't automagically move stuff from .COM to .CA or vice versa

-nor can you change the currency as eventually someone will ask you to do

-if you're listing on .COM depending on their expectations you can add some to cover the $ conversion cost, but if that is enough to be a problem, you already have margin problems.

[fallsavenue]

@ricarmic  Thanks for the info. I found most of my .ca listings on .com (some were a little tricky to find but there's search for ya) so not seeing any advantage to listing on both aside from the free 250 listings. 

A while back, there was a poster who said their sales increased when they  listed on .com but I can't find anything to back it up. This was my biggest concern but looks like that was an anomaly for the seller. 

I don't offer free shipping but don't gouge either. The way USPS has been raising rates these last few years, Canadians can finally compete (with exchange) but you raised some good points there. Food for thought!

[ricarmic]

A possible drawback of listing something on .CA that is more likely to be of interest to US folks is the ever changing value, ie if you list something for $14.99 $C on .CA today on .COM it looks like $9.56 US tomorrow $9.51, the next day something else.

However if it's listed as $9.99 US today on .COM, it stays $9.99 US for .COM viewers forever. (looks like a weird number on .CA though of course)

Having said this, if our $C continues to slowly drop, our .CA stuff will get cheaper, albeit a weird price.

I haven't done any fees comparison for 250 plus 250 vs the store price but that would probably be a good thing to identify....

As a note on the shipping, ebay search does favour free shipping items, I don't know the market for your stuff, but if you're selling one of the catalogues for $85 and $5 shipping, selling it for $90 with free shipping domestically will have it seen by more people and it saves you the selling fees against the shipping cost for anything international including the US (ie my stuff is free shipping domestically and extra shipping for US folks and International on .CA and for international forlks on .COM). Of course the shipping vs item cost is relatively high for a good chunk of what you sell but it is something to consider for the stuff that you could sneak it in.

PS doesn't matter which site you sell on all of your payments will be converted to $C. Once you pick a currency thats the only one you can use.

[reallynicestamps]

2) OTOH- you are buying in loonies and selling in American dollars.

The currency exchange is in your favour.

(Buy for $1.00Cdn/75c USD , sell for $10USD/$12.50 Cdn)

The money goes into your checking account in loonies. That's part of what the fee is for.

1) The US market is ten times larger than ours. DotCA listings only show there once "enough" dotCOM listings are shown.

I list everything I can ship "free" on dot COM.

DON'T PANIC!

Free shipping just means you include your shipping costs (including packaging and insurance) in the Asking Price.

Which is cheaper $10 + $5 shipping or $15 +Free Shipping?

You will be listing in US dollars and your shipping will be Flat Rate.

Flat Rate included Free shipping.

Just enter $0.00 when you choose Canada as the destination to offer Free Shipping to your Canadian customers.

[recped]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

2) OTOH- you are buying in loonies and selling in American dollars.

The currency exchange is in your favour.

(Buy for $1.00Cdn/75c USD , sell for $10USD/$12.50 Cdn)

The money goes into your checking account in loonies. That's part of what the fee is for.

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You seem to be ignoring the 3% currency exchange that you will pay when US Dollars are converted to CA Dollars by eBay.

If you want to regularly list on .com using a CAD Managed Payment accounts you can eliminate the 3% exchange by opening a additional selling account and having that one depositing US Dollars to a US Dollar account.

If we are talking about an account that sells $100/month it's not a big deal, if it's $1000/month then you are flushing $30 down the drain every month.

The other possible benefit of using a US Dollar denominated account is that you can pick and choose when to convert to CAD which can be a better deal for the seller (can be worse as well if the currencies are having large fluctuations and you pick the wrong day to convert). You can also obtain a much better exchange rate than eBay or your bank will offer by using a currency specialist like Wise. Even better if you buy from or spend time in the US so you can completely eliminate exchange charges.

[recped]

Another thing to consider is that some Categories still have reduced FVF rates if you have a Store (used to be all Cats now it's just some.

I sell in Media almost exclusively, there is no Store discount for Media so it's no good for me. For most of the OP's stuff would qualify for 12.25% instead of the non-store rate of 13.25%

If you have a $20/month Basic Store, the FVF discount will cover the subscription fee if you sell $2000/month, in that situation all those extra listings are essentially free.

[fallsavenue]

That's the problem, shipping is too high for many of my items and burying $15-20 in the cost just makes my items look much more expensive than competing listings.

I believe buyers have become more savvy about shipping costs and know that they're paying for it regardless of how it's charged. Even if eBay favours free shipping, if a buyer searches by price (low to high), then my listings won't show up high in results anyway if my prices are higher.

In looking at my listings on both sites. not really seeing much of a difference. The store vs free listings is only a little more and that's still cheap (about $20/month) plus your shop name shows up on Google shopping. Without a store, only eBay shows up and since Google relies on metrics, a store might have a more postive effect on traffic.

Of course, everything is conjecture when it comes to search placement and this is all just my best guess.

[fallsavenue]

 DotCA listings only show there once "enough" dotCOM listings are shown.

Not too sure about this since many of my listings show well-placed on .com. I coudn't find anything to support there was much of a difference, According to eBay, as long as you ship to the US, your listing will show on .com.

Perhaps the only advantage comes from when you first list since new listings always get a boost. This might explain why someone would feel they got a bump in sales when they first start listing on .com.

[fallsavenue]

That was my math too, definitely going for the store. And, as another poster noted, it's a better organizational tool. I've read it doesn't offer many beneficial seller tools but at least it's all in one spot. $20 is just too little to worry about the extra hassles with additional accounts and browsers.

[byto253]

"That's the problem, shipping is too high for many of my items and burying $15-20 in the cost just makes my items look much more expensive than competing listings."

Totally agree.  Free shipping is an arrow in the quiver, not a pancea to be used in all cases.   I have had items listed with free shipping, but don't sell until I drop the price and charge shipping.   For light items with low shipping costs free shipping is easy, for other items it really depends on the item, category and situation. 

[ricarmic]

RE Free shipping, yep totally agree/understand about the majority of your listings not being appropriate based on related/relative shipping costs.

I would still suggest picking something with relatively low shipping cost and experimenting with a few lots to see if it makes a difference.

All of my "bag of tricks" I use today are either ones I've learned from experiments or things I've learned from the board here...both take time but when you find a winner it makes it so worthwhile!

[pjcdn2005]

 DotCA listings only show there once "enough" dotCOM listings are shown.

I've never heard of that either and I don't believe it is true. 

[recped]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

 DotCA listings only show there once "enough" dotCOM listings are shown.

I've never heard of that either and I don't believe it is true. 

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I agree at least as far as listings from Canada.

At one time and maybe still it was true for listings on other eBay (Europe etc)  sites just as listings from .ca or .com may or may not be relegated to the "listings from International Sellers" section that comes up after local listings if you search on a Euro site using the "default" option.

Although I haven't checked for quite a while from time to time I use a US Based buying account to search on .com for my listings and they always come up in the same way, mixed with US listings.