Hi. confusion on my part, but this is nothing new.

[williamf6194]

I posted on a now discontinued subject, and a v. helpful forum member provided some helpful advice.  I sell on ebay.ca living in Canada.  Most of the items I have sold and still have for sale are more specific to the U.K. market.  I find that buyers in the U.K. do respond to foreign sales without me listing on ebay.co.uk.  - which in the past has severely restricted the postage that I can charge to send the item to the U.K. from Canada (it has price restrictions 'thinking' that the item is being posted from the U.K. (Note: ebay.ca could not help me on this problem, an agent only telling me that I could not list on ebay.co.uk, even though I had successfully used it half a dozen times previously without a problem).  I have recently placed an item for sale on ebay.ca and when I check the price for International postage and click on the U.K., it notes that: "This item will ship to the United Kingdom, but the seller has not specified shipping options.  Contact seller etc."  If I go to ebay.co.uk, where it shows my listing as an international listing, on the main listing page it notes postage from Canada of £8.07 (8 Pounds Sterling and 7 pence)  or $13.94 Canadian at this month's average exchange rate.  The actual price from Canada Post is $35.22 or £20.38 Sterling at the current exchange rate.  When I click on postage cost on the U.K. ebay site, it doesn't provide a price, but immediately changes over to ebay.ca, shows my item listing price in Canadian Dollars with postage to Canada, but increases the 'buy now' price by $24.00 Canadian.  I never had problems in the past with postage, and no complaints from buyers. Obviously I charge the exact actual cost to post the item from my location to the buyers, but I have recently found differences in what ebay.ca states will be the postage cost, and what Canada Post will charge me for the exact same dimensions and weight. I weigh my items on a Starfrit letter/small parcel scale, and when I check at the post office nearby, my measurements and parcel weight have always been spot-on.  Has anyone else noticed the discrepancy between the ebay quotes and Canada Post?  Long post - my apologies. WF

[femmefan1946]

Anyway, I have changed the listings to free postage in Canada, and will also do the same thing for International.

Okay.

First Free Shipping is NOT FREE.

It just means you have put the cost of shipping into your asking price.

Which is cheapest?

A $5 item with $10 Shipping?

A $10 item with $5 Shipping?

 A $15 item with Free Shipping?

Free Shipping is easy if you are using LetterPost (under 2cm thick/under 500grams) and are willing to go without tracking.

You just mark your UK domestic shipping as Free Shipping.

Then for any international destinations (like Canada) that you will use Free Shipping, you mark the Flat Rate as £ 0.00.

And any where you will be charging you use £ 5.99 (or whatever covers your cost of shipping from Canada to Australia or Uzbekistan).

You can choose several different shipping rates by clicking on Another Service.

Although the amount is showing in sterling -- you are basing the amount on the Canada Post rates.

Now to get complicated.

Most of your sales are to the UK.

So your $10Price  +Free Shipping might be$10+ $11 to the UK but only$10+ $4.44 within Canada. 

What will you charge your buyer in the UK? In Canada?

If most of your sales (80% or more?) are to the UK, you could decide to forget your few Canadian customers and make the price of your product $21 (@59 pence to the loonie exchange)   or £ 12.39.

This is the same price you would likely charge all overseas customers.

But-- the downside is that your Canadian and US customers may find it too expensive and you may lose almost all of those buyers.