I sell worldwide, should my measurements be in inches or centimetres?

apprentice_tycoon

Which ever I choose I'm going to upset someone - do Americans 'get' centimetres? do the Europeans understand inches? If I put both terms in the listings it would look very messy as I often have to put 3 dimensions in one sentence, up to now I've only used inches but I'm beginning to wonder what to do....

Moglex

You'll probably need to wait and see where most of your orders come from.

Could you not have a small, subsiduary, section with the alternative dimensions.

e.g.

Super whizz wonderful box 5" x 7" x 3" in rhinestone encrusted bakalite.


(Metric dimensions: 12.5cm x 17.5cm x 7.5cm).

nightswimmer

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

Which ever I choose I'm going to upset someone - do Americans 'get' centimetres? do the Europeans understand inches?

A lot of Americans don't get centimetres, so it's kind of hit and miss. From what I have been told, American rulers for example, don't have metric on them, just imperial.

Not sure about Europe.

I guess it depends on where you are selling. If your market is mainly US then I would stick with inches, if it is equal throughout the world then if I had to choose one, I would choose metric, because more people use the metric system, including your home market.

I tend to list both.

sockospice

When selling clothes I always put measurements in both inches and centimetres. It's not like you're limited on how many words you're allowed to put on your auction, so the more info the better!

baffcat

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

Which ever I choose I'm going to upset someone - do Americans 'get' centimetres? do the Europeans understand inches? If I put both terms in the listings it would look very messy as I often have to put 3 dimensions in one sentence, up to now I've only used inches but I'm beginning to wonder what to do....

And you can't do both why?

Americans & older British folk use inches, everyone else uses metric measurements, except us middle-aged old farts who can often use both (usually intermixing them appallingly - thinking of 1" test tube, 150mm long ).

I supply stuff in both metric & imperial measurements, length & volume. After
a wee while it becomes second nature to show both. If you really don't want to show both, why not put at the bottom of each listing that 25.4mm = 1" or 1" = 2.54cm, or whatever? Think about where your main market is and aim for that.

Might be worth bearing in mind that very few UK listings show up on the .com site now ebay in their infinite 'wisdom' have moved the goalposts again, so maybe just forget inches altogether. My viewings from .com have dropped from 35% to less than 5%.

HTH

Baff

apprentice_tycoon

baffcat wrote:

And you can't do both why?

I'm describing antique china and I like to give full rein to my ahem..... artistic descriptions - so a jumble of numbers seems to get in the way because I write the description in a paragraph rather than give a bullet point list.
Being an oldy I've gone for inches because I still think in inches.. what about Japan and Australia, what do they use most?

nightswimmer

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

what about Japan and Australia, what do they use most?

Both Metric. Japan has been metric longer than us, Autralia about the same amount of time as us, so some people there (like some Brits) will use a mix of both.

apprentice_tycoon

looks like metric is inching ahead :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

nightswimmer

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

looks like metric is inching ahead :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

That's so bad, it's good! :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :T

nightswimmer

Wikipedia has an interesting article on Matrification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication

If you don't want to read it all, this part tells you all you really need to know:

"As of 2007, only the United States, Liberia and Myanmar (Burma) still widely use non-metric units over metric ones,[1] although it is widely used in all countries in science, medicine, and engineering. The United Kingdom and St Lucia are currently in the process of official conversion (although the metric system is now used universally in all but a few fields); other countries in the former British Empire completed metrication during the second half of the 20th century, the most recent being the Republic of Ireland, which finalised conversion in early 2005. Only the United States and the United Kingdom continue to see significant popular opposition to metrication, the main objections being based in localism, tradition, cultural aesthetics, economic impact, or distaste for measures viewed as "foreign". While France and Japan also had significant popular opposition at one time for similar reasons (although the measures were largely invented in France), metrication is now largely accepted."

ormus

just quote both.
never ever cramp your market.
id put zogmetricfeet/martian units on if i thought there was a potential market on mars.