eBay tries things out there to see how they work and how loud members howl before rolling them out in the US. Here is an interesting email I received from one of my readers.

Hi Skip

Just on the odd chance another Aussie fan of yours hasn’t brought this to your attention already.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/au/200804101058562.html

We’re a little upset down here in Australia as we have a very efficient internet BANK deposit system (which works between every financial institution in the country) and permits leaving detailed payment references for easy payment tracking, it also incurs sellers and buyers ZERO fees for transactions.  I know your books and columns advocate Paypal, but we still like to offer choices especially when direct deposits work well for us. I think once again as with FB 2.0 we are the test dummies for the market!

——————————————————-

Today is our first day in Venice. We are here for the Venice Festival of Media –an annual meeting of some of the top online media executives in the world. All the big guys of online marketing and media are here. I was eating breakfast and a group from Yahoo was heatedly debating who they should merge with. All of them are terrified of Microsoft and hope one of the other suitors wins out –but one guy who was obviously a political liberal, was deathly afraid of Rupert Murdoch’s group (owner of Fox News) as he thought Yahoo would be forced to become the conservative voice of the Internet. Interesting?

Karen and I flew direct from Seattle to Paris on Air France. We used our credit card airline points to upgrade to Business Class which was wonderful. We each had our own pod with a full recliner and a media center with a choice of over 20 movies, games, a selection of popular TV shows and some really great food. We changed planes in Paris for Venice and boy was inter-Europe business class a come down. The seating was essentially standard economy seating, but in business class the middle seat was empty. The breakfast was some little inedible snack in a sack and the aircraft looked like something that operated in a third-world carrier –run down and beat up.

Well enough of work. We are off to a walking tour of Venice then a city boat tour of the Grand Canal.

Ciao – Skip McGrath

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At the present time if you offer worldwide shipping and check the box to add a country, you listings will show up on that country’s site –but not very well.

In May, eBay will offer sellers who list on US and Canada sites a better option for international exposure by introducing the International Site Visibility listing upgrade. With this listing upgrade, eBay US sellers will be able to list on their local site and pay a small upgrade fee so that their listing also shows up in the main default search results to buyers on eBay.co.uk.

In the US, the new eBay fees to use this optional upgrade are as follows:

Start Price -$0.01 -9.99
International Site Visibility Listing Upgrade Fee -10 cents

Start Price – $10 – 49.99
International Site Visibility Listing Upgrade Fee – 20 cents

Start Price – Over $50
International Site Visibility Listing Upgrade Fee – 40 cents

The International Site Visibility listing upgrade offers eBay sellers who want to expand their international business  the ability to show up by default for international buyers in the market selected in addition to the buyers in the seller’s own market. This makes international listing economical and easier to manage than listing separately for international sites.

Data shows that depending on the category and start-price, it only takes one or two extra bids from international buyers to make up the cost of the International Site Visibility fee.

For PowerSellers, using this feature also ensures that these UK sales are counted towards their Final Value Fee discounts.

UK, Ireland, US and Canada International Support Only

At launch, the International Site Visibility listing upgrade will only be available for eBay UK, eBay Ireland, eBay Canada and eBay.com. US and Canada sellers have the upgrade option to list on eBay UK, and UK and Ireland sellers have the upgrade option to list on the North America sites.

I don’t understand why eBay is only offering sellers this option in one country. It would make more sense if my listings would show up in any English-speaking country (Ireland, UK, Canada, Australia, etc.)

Skip McGrath

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Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes has a story today about the new deal between Yahoo Japan and eBay.  Japan and China are the two overseas markets where eBay failed to get traction and was beaten out by competitors.  But eBay’s growing relationship with Yahoo may lead to some gains.  Click here to read Ina’s Story about how this will work and how it will help US eBay sellers.

The model they announced could be a harbinger of things to come.  International shipping problems are a pain for eBay sellers.  If some one does for Europe what Sekaimon is doing in Japan this could solve a huge problem for small online sellers both on and off of eBay

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Now, however, eBay has gone one step further in favor of US sellers. In the next few days, US eBay sellers in collectible categories will find their items automatically showing up in searches on eBay UK. Exactly the opposite of the older UK to US policy. The test is expected to last until early next year and has some specific criteria:

• You must have over 100 feedback at 98% positive or higher
• You must have specific shipping instructions for UK buyers
• Your item must be listed in the Collectibles, Antiques, Stamps, Coins, Art, or Pottery & Glass categories
• You must offer PayPal (of course).
• You must be in the U.S.

So, if all of these apply to you, congratulations! You’re about to see a lot more visibilty for your items. If you’re a UK seller in one of these categories, I’m sorry, but you’re about to get a lot more competition.

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eBay UK has made a good functionality change which I haven’t seen on the US site yet, but I think is likely to appear shortly.

When a listing is first posted it will show at the top of a category/search results page when the sort order is Time: Newly Listed. However, there are times when there is a delay in the listing because of high volume or other issues. In those circumstances, these listings may not ever show at the top of the results pages because they were technically "listed" before they actually showed up on the site.

So, to counter this eBay UK has changed the order the listings display to reflect the time they showed up on the site, not the actual time they were listed. This won’t affect any listings other than the ones that were unavoidably delayed in posting. The option in the Sort By menu will remain the same.

I think this is being piloted on eBay UK and, if all goes well, it will end up being rolled out on the US site as well. So stay tuned!

On another note, I reported that eBay UK would be begining Feedback 2.0 at the end of February. I am still looking out for it. I think it may be a pilot group because as far as I can tell it hasn’t been rolled out site-wide yet.

Over the next few weeks you will likely notice a reduction in eBay UK listings in your search results pages. For the past few years eBay sellers who list on eBay.co.uk also had their listings show on eBay.com searches. But as eBay.co.uk has increased in popularity and the listing volume has significantly increased, this is no longer feasible.

eBay is reducing the number of UK listings displaying in searches on eBay.com. You will still see some, but not all of them. eBay UK sellers who want to guarantee that their listing displays on eBay.com will have to list the item specifically on eBay.com. This is still in testing, so it might take a while to be in full effect.

This is a good change for eBay.com sellers because it will bring the native listings higher in the search results so you should get better visibility. Personally, I usually set my Search Options to US Only for shipping cost purposes unless there are very few US results, so this will save me a step. It’s not such good news for eBay.co.uk sellers. Still, this has always been a bit of an added bonus, and they do have the option of listing directly on eBay.com.

For more information from eBay.co.uk click here.

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My daughter-in-law just returned to England to visit her parents for the holidays.  I got an email from her and she was complaining at how expensive everything was because the US dollar has fallen so low against the British Pound. Then today I was reading a newsletter for eBay UK sellers (UK AuctionLine) and they mentioned the same thing as it relates to selling on eBay.  Their buyers are finding bargains on eBay US and their sellers are having problems selling to the US.

In the past year the dollar has fallen in value against the British pound (GBP) and the Euro (Eur) more than 12% and it is down almost 30% against these two currencies over the past two years.  When the dollar falls it makes it more expensive for us to purchase goods from overseas using dollars, but it also makes our goods less expensive to those who can buy in Pounds and Euros.

If you don’t understand currency fluctuations that is OK.  Let me put it in simple terms.  Someone working in the UK is paid in GBP. Most of the rest of Europe uses the Euro.  Just like us they have expenses for food, living transportation and so on. And they usually have a little extra money for shopping.  Lots of people in the UK and the rest of Europe shop on eBay. 

Lets say someone in London wanted to buy one of my Starbucks City Mugs.  Currently I list one of my most popular mugs with a a Buy-it-now price of $29.  That is GBP 14.80.  But a year ago that same mug would have cost GBP 16.57.  If someone in France was buying that mug it would cost Eur 21.89 today, but a year ago it would have cost Eur 24.51.

Most US e-commerce web sites will not ship overseas. So at the moment, eBay US is the place for Europeans to hunt for bargains.

There are two ways to offer your goods on eBay internationally.  You can actually open an account on eBay UK or eBay Germany, eBay France, etc., or you can list your items on eBay US and specify which countries you will sell to in your listing. The second way is much easier and except for the UK, unless you can read and write in French or German perhaps the only way to go.

When you list an item on eBay’s Sell Your Item Form, there are some check boxes that come up when you get to the shipping part of your listing.  All you have to do is check the boxes for the continents and countries you will sell to.  Now when someone in one of those countries searches on their home-country site it will also show results from eBay US.

There are some problems and pitfalls with selling internationally but most of them are exaggerated.  We have been selling overseas for the past five years.  Yes we have had a couple of transactions go bad, but we have also made a lot more money than we would have if we had only sold domestically.  Overseas buyers will often pay far more for an item that they will here in the US. 

I don’t have room in the blog to cover all the ins and outs of selling overseas, but if you want to start selling on eBay overseas, click here to read some really good information from eBay to help you get started. My daughter-in-law, Lissa, recently wrote an article about creating internationally-friendly listings for AuctionBytes that you can read here.

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Since I introduced The Complete eBay Marketing System in 2004, we have sold over 5000 copies in the US and Canada.  Every month I manage to sell two or three copies in the UK, even though the shipping and custom’s charges are almost as costly as the book itself.

All of my books are produced (and shipped) on demand by a company here in the US by the name of ViaTech Publishing.  ViaTech now has a plant in the UK, located in Oxfordshire, a little ways outside of London.

Earlier this month, I launched SkipMcGrath.CO.UK where we now sell a UK version of the book.  When buyers order, the book is printed, bound and shipped from ViaTech’s plant and reaches most UK buyers within one or two days.  The British Complete eBay Marketing System is not just a rewrite of the US book that changes dollars to pounds –the UK edition is a completely new version written specifically for eBay UK users.  It contains UK resources and available tools and is tailored to the UK market.

If you currently reside in the UK and would like to learn more about the book, please visit my web site at www.skipmcgrath.co.uk.

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