on 01-15-2024 12:56 PM
If you are a Canadian seller looking to increase your international visibility to countries beyond the US, is it better to post your items to ebay.ca or to ebay.com? Of course .com is better for US buyers but I'm more interested in appealing to buyers worldwide. Does the .com site get more international traffic or anything like that?
Some items have a lot of competition in the US but are easy to ship abroad. And it seems many US sellers don't bother to set up international shipping, or only use the slow and costly International Shipping Program. There are faster and cheaper options available to compete abroad.
There is a more important question.
How are you going to charge for shipping?
If you list on dotCA, you can use Calculated Shipping and the buyer will get the exact cost for delivery to his doorstep.
If you list on dotCOM, you will have to use Flat Rate Shipping from an International Location, which means you have to work out how much it will cost to the most likely destinations and then advertise that amount.
Shipping is the hardest part of selling by mail order. And online is still mail order.
https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/tools/find-a-rate.page
https://postcalc.usps.com/?country=10440
Those links will give you something to play with. If necessary use a US zipcode near you for comps. I'm in BC and use 90210 regularly.
You can set several International Destinations, each with different Flat Rates.
You can set Free Shipping to the USA easily, and Free Shipping to Canada by giving the Flat Rate as $0.00.
Never offer Free Shipping to overseas customers.
Never ship Surface.
Got shipping figured out already, most of my stuff weighs <250g so the postage rates are fairly consistent to europe. In fact, it seems Canada Post's tracked packet option is exactly the same flat price for the major economies there (UK, France, Germany, etc.). So for light items I can use the flat rate shipping on .com and not have too many issues.