Free P&P - decline in overseas sales?

booter

It was annoying that even if I charged the exact postage price, I'd still not get 5 stars for P&P in dsr :cool: So, I experimented with upping the start price and offering free P&P and I've had a certain amount of success but only from UK buyers.


Now, I quite like it when overseas buyers show interest and bid (I do like a good bidding war ) But now the start price is higher, I've had no enquiries or bidders from outside the UK *sigh*


I suppose this is just a moan really, but has anyone got any suggestions or thoughts? Anyone else had the same dilemma?

soolin

It shouldn't make a difference as although the item cost is higher the uplift for airmail is lower.

Currently 95% of my business items are free postage and my airmail postage costs are of course lower than the stamp price as I take into account the postage already included in the item cost.

sequence

Ebay seem to have destroyed international visibility for UK items. It appears to have happened at the same time as they launched their awful "List on international sites" promotion. Naturally, the chinese items on the UK site have not been decimated....

ballisticbrian

Have you had a look at your seller dashboard and you see some flags for different international zones. You could find your TRS status is rubbish international even though it's great at home. This is why I was predicting a lot less competition from Chinese sellers after D-DAY, as so many international sales are responsible for "where is my item" and that applies both ways, in and out of the UK.

booter

ballisticbrian wrote: »

Have you had a look at your seller dashboard and you see some flags for different international zones. You could find your TRS status is rubbish international even though it's great at home. This is why I was predicting a lot less competition from Chinese sellers after D-DAY, as so many international sales are responsible for "where is my item" and that applies both ways, in and out of the UK.

Well, I've just checked and although not a TRS, (I'm not a business seller, so don't have the volume or consistency!) the dashboard is showing "above standard" for all zones. But thanks for the suggestion

mrs_sparrow

OK, I used to sell 1/3 of my items overseas, then for a few months they have declined to the point where in July and August I sold pretty much nothing overseas. UK sales are always dire in the summer holidays as the kids are off school and parents have other things to buy not things for themselves, I use this time to get lazy and have some time off, LOL, switch listings to ship in 2 days for example so I get every other day off.

Anyhow, I was on the forums looking around and someone asked how they get their free international listings.....

Hmmm. It seems that from August, if you have a Featured shop you can get 200 Aus listings, 500 .com listings and some others which I was not worried about. It was my US and Canada customers I was more bothered about having lost as my items to buy over there are 3 times that of UK prices so it is a huge market for me.

I took the plunge and removed 40 items off my shop and, using Turbo Lister, listed them on .com. I had to do a massive update first and then you have to set up a new shipping policy which is confusing as you have to mark UK postage as being overseas shipping. I hope my customers realise I am in the UK. This was on Monday - and guess what - 90% of my sales since have gone overseas. When I get time I will be moving 500 of my listings over to .com.

The only issue I can see if that the money comes in US$ so I am going to be having a bit more paperwork to do to convert it into GBP at the correct rate and I am pretty sure Paypal will not give me the correct 'going rate' for conversion but as long as you have accounted for this, it will be all good. So, that is why. I, personally, think that they have reduced visibility unless you pay for it - which I have not done in the past.

mrs_sparrow

http://sellerupdate.ebay.co.uk/autumn2013/international-selling
Details

Reduced costs for listing internationally

From 1 August, we’re making further improvements to our Anchor and Featured Shop subscriptions to reduce the cost of listing on our international sites.
All Featured Shop subscribers will automatically get the following benefits*:

• Zero insertion fees when listing on our Spanish, French, and Italian sites.
• Zero insertion fees for your first 200 listings per month on our Australian site.
• Zero insertion fees for your first 500 listings per month on our American and Canadian sites.
• 0.05 CHF on our Swiss site, 0.05 PLN on our Polish site, and 0.05 EUR insertion fees on all other European sites.

All Anchor Shop subscribers – not just eBay Top-rated sellers – will automatically get the following benefits*:

• Zero insertion fees when listing on all of our European and Australian sites.
• Zero insertion fees for your first 2,500 listings per month on our American site (0.05 USD for each subsequent listing).
• New - Zero insertion fees for your first 2,500 listings each month on our Canadian site (0.05 CND for each subsequent listing).

*30-day and Good 'Til Cancelled listings.

ballisticbrian

The only issue I can see if that the money comes in US$ so I am going to be having a bit more paperwork to do to convert it into GBP at the correct rate and I am pretty sure Paypal will not give me the correct 'going rate' for conversion but as long as you have accounted for this, it will be all good.

I think there is also a fee, not just an exchange rate. That is, if it's still the same now as when I looked into it.


They have to waive the fee for Euro transactions because of some EU law about conversion between pound Stirling and Euro, but this won't apply to US dollar.


I avoid selling over seas because I sell low value items and the extortionate shipping.

mrs_sparrow

I guess it depends on what you are selling, I am always surprised when people buy low value items, but they do and they pay the shipping. I do have a good market, I thought it was going to be a hassle but it's OK and just takes a little longer to amend the listings. I'd rather have a sale than no sale.

ballisticbrian

I'd rather have a sale than no sale.

We would rather have "no sale" if the extra hassle is time we can spend making our business more profitable.

mrs_sparrow

ballisticbrian wrote: »

We would rather have "no sale" if the extra hassle is time we can spend making our business more profitable.

Not if you've bought a load of stock and there are no customers.... a sale is better than no sale!! This time of year is always dismal for me, we need to keep on ticking over with some sales else the defects rate will go over into 12 months instead of 3.