eBay introduce new International Site Visibility upgrade
eBay recently announced that, from May, a new International Site Visibility listing upgrade will be available which will give eBay UK and eBay Ireland sellers’ listings full visibility to buyers on the USA and Canadian eBay sites and vice versa.
The fees for this upgrade will be:
| Starting or reserve fee | |
|---|---|
| £0.01 - £4.99 | £0.05 |
| £5.00 - £29.99 | £0.10 |
| £30+ | £0.15 |
| Starting or reserve fee | |
|---|---|
| €0.01 - €6.99 | €0.07 |
| €7.00 - €49.99 | €0.15 |
| €50+ | €0.20 |
| Starting or reserve fee | |
|---|---|
| $0.01 - $9.99 | $0.10 |
| $10 - $49.99 | $0.20 |
| $50+ | $0.40 |
| Starting or reserve fee | |
|---|---|
| C$0.01 – C$9.99 | C$0.10 |
| C$10.00 – C$49.99 | C$0.20 |
| C$50.00+ | C$0.40 |
Reading through several pages of posts on the eBay UK discussion boards, I didn’t find one positive comment about this change. Personally, I welcome the upgrade, although I must say that I would have liked it even more if it had included other English speaking sites such as eBay au and eBay New Zealand. No doubt they will be filtered in at a later date and be used to justify another price increase!
Obviously none of us likes to pay extra fees, and listings on eBay UK used to show up on eBay.com automatically - at no extra cost - if sellers elected to sell worldwide. But when the search criteria changed some time ago this was no longer the case.
This upgrade, like any other, is optional so no one who objects to paying the extra fee is forced to use it; in fact, it would be pointless to use it if whatever you are selling is of little interest to buyers in other countries. However, if your product has international appeal the increased visibility should result in extra sales and higher profits.
My advice is to forget that we are now being asked to pay for a service that we used to get for free and focus on the positive aspects of this upgrade. ebay.com has millions of users (not only in the USA, but worldwide) and I am happy to pay a few extra pence per listing to guarantee that my items will be seen by many more potential buyers.
Maybe sellers on the other side of the pond are not getting quite as good a deal as we are since the UK and Ireland sites are smaller than eBay.com but I’m sure that many sellers in North America and Canada will still benefit from the extra exposure.
We’d love to hear your opinion of this latest upgrade so please feel free to leave your comments below.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:09 am
Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Chris Moran