The Yak Shack Forum

I just received a pamphlet in the mail today offering International Site Visibility - I was just wondering if that means every seller I see for in the UK in the US site is paying extra to be seen, and what about Japan and Australia, then? 

If we're only paying extra for UK visibility, does this mean we're not visible in the Australia forum or the Japan forum, or any of the rest of the other Country forums? If that's the case, then why don't they offer visibility in those sites?

Do people from other Countries have to intentionally sign into the US forum, to see sales offered in the USA? I guess I never thought about it before, but how is it that people in Japan and the UK and Italy and all else are able to find our sales if we don't pay extra to be seen there?

 :ebay: is on the verge of fslling on their own sword, named "GREED".
I am about fed up with them.

since when did you need to pay more to be visible on all sites?

Beats me, but I got a blurb about it in the mail, $.10 more per listing for the UK.

I got a card in the mail this week (US) about this.  I'm pretty annoyed and refuse to pay additional fees to be featured internationally even if that's where the majority of my sales are.  Ebay gets enough cash from me from listing fees, final value fees, store fees, and paypal fees (still can't figure out any good reason they charge for EVERY transaction even the ones made from paypal balances except to get more cash out of me).

It's $.10 for the cheaper items, $.40 for the larger priced items. 

On the main page, they have a link at the bottom under 'Meet our Family' and then Global Sites like China, France, Thailand - those I didn't think about, as their language is quite a bit different and I assume would need other programs for the characters and all of that - but when they're English speaking countries, why do we need to be kept seperated?

And I agree with tialessa on the Paypal bit.  If the buyer is using existing funds to pay another paypal account, then why isn't it considered a transfer?  Doesn't Ebay own Paypal?  Do they really need to sting us again? They raise the fees because they're not making enough, then they start experimenting (in Australia, I believe) with trying to require we use Paypal for payments - if they are going to make such requirements, then shouldn't they make it worth our time to do so, with less fees, rather than more?

I don't know, I guess it's just me being naive.

I was wondering the same thing.  I thought that as long as I offered international shipping for a listing, it automatically showed up on the sites for those countries.

(Edit) Here's the info from eBay US, from May 20, 2008:

When you choose this optional upgrade in the Sell Your Item form, your item will be displayed in regular search results for buyers shopping on eBay UK. This way, your item receives added exposure for less than it would cost to list directly on both sites. Although this feature is only available for eBay UK today, we'll be adding more markets as time goes on.

Outline of Cross-Border Options for Your Listing
We saw a lot of good questions about sellers' international options after our original announcement. Here's an outline to help US sellers understand the different ways to get seen by buyers in the UK.

When you list on eBay.com and select "international shipping" on your listing, UK buyers will see it when:

• they customize their search to find international items - your listing will appear within the regular search results, along with UK-based items.
• their search returns a low number of UK-based items - relevant international items, such as yours, will be displayed in a box underneath the results (just like on the US site).
• If you list directly on eBay UK, your listing will be displayed in search results just like any other UK-based listing. This would be completely separate from your US listings, and you would pay the UK listing fees.

NEW!! - If you list your item on eBay.com with the new International Visibility listing upgrade, your item will be shown in regular UK search results.
Now sellers also have the option of using our International Site Visibility upgrade to give the items you've already listed in the US extra exposure in the UK. Simply select the "International Site Visibility" upgrade during the listing process, and your item will be shown in the regular UK search results like other UK-based items.

More exposure means more potential buyers – and selling internationally is especially attractive right now given the weak nature of the US dollar compared to other currencies.

Important note: Whenever selling internationally, make sure to specify your international shipping costs. Buyers are more likely to purchase items with this information, and it can positively affect where your item is displayed in search results when the buyer is using the Best Match sort order.

Start Price -- Upgrade Fee
$0.01 - 9.99 -- 10 cents
$10 - 49.99 -- 20 cents
$50+ -- 40 cents


More info:  http://pages.ebay.com/globaltrade/

It's a good point. It's certainly not always been this way, but for the past year or so Americans/Australians etc haven't seen my ebay shop items when they search unless they specifically select to search the world... which is particularly bad when they are items that it says 0 results found...it sometimes doesn't even offer you the UK ones at all!

BAH!

eBay just goes up and up in price and down and down in quality...

It's certainly keenly felt in the trading card world where rare cards are often in another continent!

Odd behavior today on ebay.com.

My regular solution to the "international visibility" issue as a buyer is to start from an eBay search page that has the "show Worldwide auctions" box ticked. So I will always see the relevant auctions posted on ebay.co.uk, ebay.com.au, etc., merged together with the U.S. auctions and sorted properly by date or value (currencies converted) or whatever other option I choose.

But today it stopped working on the U.S. site, so they must be fiddling with the software. International auctions were relegated to a group after all of the rest, and although a link said "10 of 22 shown", it wouldn't let me see the other ones.

I tried using the usual methods on ebay.co.uk and they still worked correctly. I hope the U.S. site starts working again or I might have to delete all eBay-related cookies, which can be a real pain in the butt.