eBay UK Seller Release: Cross Border Trade

eBay have three enhancements for sellers to assist them with selling internationally. Out of all the changes announced today these three, and especially the third, could have a bigger positive impact on an eBay business than any change announced in recent years. This is the big news.

Cross border trade is what’s keeping eBay UK’s sales rocketing and it’s growing rapidly. Every seller I’ve spoken to recently has told me that their overseas sales are up and becoming an ever growing percentage of their overall business. eBay recognise this and have put a great package together to help sellers and save them money.

New! Set postage costs per country

From September, sellers will be able to set postage costs and services on a per country basis. You will also be able to offer different services for different countries. For instance, you might offer an Economy, Standard and Express service to Germany, but only a Signed For Express service to Italy.

Importantly, it will be easier to specify costs by region so that if you have great courier rates to Germany and France, but your carrier charges more to delivery to Greece, you’ll be able to reflect this in your pricing to each country. This will mean more boxes to tick for sellers, but should grease the wheels (and minimise buyer confusion) for overseas trade.

New! Translation on eBay.com

Many International buyers shop on eBay.com as their default site. Later in the year, International buyers will only see items listed on eBay.co.uk, eBay.com, eBay.com.au or eBay.ca where the seller has specified postage to their country.

eBay will then add a “Translate” button on the View Item pages on eBay.com and when your listing is shown to an International buyer, they will be able to request your Item Title and Description to be displayed in their own language.

New! Free International Listings

eBay are to offer free International Listings on all European eBay sites and eBay Australia from November this year.

Currently sellers have two choices – list from your eBay UK shop and pay consumer rates for all your overseas listings, or open multiple eBay accounts and open an eBay shop on each site you wish to trade on. You can carry on trading as you currently do, or if you subscribe to an eBay UK Anchor shop for £349.99 from November then you can duplicate your listings on as many eBay sites as you wish, for free.

Currently I don’t know many sellers who list all of their products on every European eBay site. On most EU eBay sites you’ll be paying consumer rates of €0.35 per fixed price listing (€0.50 on eBay.ie), so in comparison to 10p, 5p or 0p in the UK, it’s quite expensive. If you list on eBay Australia then the cost could be anything up to AUS$3 per listing.

Most sellers appear to look at Germany, Australia and France as the first overseas eBay sites to start listing on. However, there is also eBay Italy, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium (benl.ebay.be/ and befr.ebay.be/, Poland, Switzerland and Ireland.

If you have as few as 100 products and wish to have 100 fixed price listings on eBay Australia, then that justifies upgrading from a Featured Shop to an Anchor shop. If you then list on all 10 EU sites, the cost savings are massive. In addition, eBay are throwing in fixed price listings on eBay.com for just US$0.03 per listing.

You will of course pay for any feature fees that you use on overseas sites, so check things like Gallery Image fees before you list. Final Value fees will be charged according to the published rate card for the site you list the item on.

The Opportunity

Unless you already list on all eBay’s EU sites, eBay Australia and eBay.com, then this represents a fantastic opportunity to increase your overseas sales whilst keeping listing cost under control. It boils down to a monthly fee of £349.99 to give unlimited free listings and gain direct exposure to millions of Europeans on their domestic sites.

An added benefit is that you no longer have to pick and choose your best performing listings to make listing on multiple eBay sites cost effective. You also no longer need worry about how well a particular country site is performing for you: if you have an item listed on eBay UK then it won’t cost you a penny (or a € cent!) to list that same item on to every eBay EU site. Even if sales are slow, it’s all incremental business.

Listing on eBay.com at $0.03 is the lowest price available and a substantial saving on the normal $0.50 listing insertion fee. Again, you can only access this through an eBay Anchor shop.

Preparing for Cross Border Trade

All listings on overseas sites will need to be 30 day Good Til Cancelled listings and you’ll want to talk to your third party software providers to ensure they support the new sites you’ll be listing on. So long as your management solution supports a site, there’s no reason not to add in every eBay site included in the program.

Although there’s a fairly large jump in costs from a Featured Shop to an Anchor Shop this really is splendid value for money. So long as you’re willing to ship overseas (and why wouldn’t you?), then being able to launch unlimited numbers of listings on to all eBay sites is bound to increase your sales. Best of all, the cost is pre-determined up front and if you currently have a Basic or Featured eBay UK shop then as an added bonus your UK listings will also attract free insertion fees as soon as you upgrade to an Anchor shop.

We’ll let you know as soon as we know exactly when this will launch in November, but in the mean time start preparing. Make sure your software is ready to launch and manage inventory on all eBay sites. Check your courier contracts to ensure you can ship to the countries you wish to trade with. Consider translating your listings where appropriate. Check payment methods used on each site. Get ready for a flood of new orders from countries you may never have shipped to before.

As we noted before: this is probably one of the most significant developments we’ve seen on eBay Uk in recent years. Get ready to benefit!