Several UK sellers have noticed over the last couple of days that their items were no longer showing up on the default search from eBay.com. As usual, there has been no announcement about this change, but one seller on the UK International Trading message board was told that
During the week of January 29, 2007, eBay will be testing a feature where items listed on eBay UK (ebay.co.uk) will not appear in search results on eBay U.S (ebay.com). Members can still choose to view these listings by selecting “Worldwide” as a search option from the search results page. Additionally, items located in the UK that are originally listed on eBay U.S. will still appear in eBay U.S. search results.
Frankly, I don’t think anyone should be shocked by this. .com is the only eBay site which defaults to include other countries’ listings, and changing that has been talked about for at least seven years that I know about. I would predict that the change will be made permanent, but really, those who are crying that their businesses are “ruined” are overreacting. There is nothing to stop UK sellers who want to sell to the US market listing directly on eBay.com, and in fact that’s the strategy we’d recommend, given the well-known problems with American buyers not understanding what “GBP” means.
Meanwhile US sellers who were threatening to move their inventory to the UK to take advantage of lower listing fees on media items might want to think again.
10 Responses
If you have mixed listings (ie UK ebay and ebay.com) in an UK ebay shop would it have mixed currency? Would ebay.com listings be seen in an ebay UK default search? Would you think about having the shop on ebay.com?
Which sites they’d show on would depend on the locations you ship to. For instance if you log into my eBay shop from .co.uk you’ll see my listings. If you log into .com you won’t because I don’t ship to the US.
If you do ship to other countries then your listings will appear on both sites, but eBay will show the price as “GBP 9.99 (Approximately US $19.49)” when looking at .com for a UK listing. If you list on the US site in $ the opposite will happen when looking at your listing on .co.uk – you’ll see $ with an approximate £ value.
You can see the day in the future when you will have to list on the separate sites to get exposure to both markets, that way ebay will get two listing fees. I wonder how long before that gets implemented!
The big problem with “mixed currencies” is that you cannot combine items bought in different currencies. If you’re really intending to target a non-UK market, then personally I would recommend having a shop based on that site, as I do with eBay France. (Of course, if the UK would join the Euro, I wouldn’t need to…. but that’s a whole other argument :-D)
Terrible news for us Antique sellers who rely on a mixed market 🙁
The currency issue may not be such a great problem to overcome. The search issue is the greatest threat to my business. I’m going to test the water and start some direct ebay.com listings.
Is it possible to move an UK ID to ebay.com so you can keep your feedback rating?
Good news for you – your eBay feedback will show up on ALL eBay sites. One tip for you – if you list directly on the .com site they have implemented “My World” features. Even though they’re not enabled in the UK we’d suggest UK sellers listing on .com customise their “My World” on the .com site.
To see the difference this is my mountcomp myworld on eBay.com and this is my mountcomp myworld on eBay.co.uk (which defaults to my feedback page… but they’ll enable it soon I hope) 😀
The UK Powerseller boards are pages and pages long -lots of very hurt sellers. Some like me ready to retire and get a real job
Every week there is a new post from a seller who has just discovered why sales have disappeared – eBay need to come clean about what has happened.
As usual no communication from eBay HQ and they tell us customer service is important
Commission on sales is up so they won’t notice the difference.
Avoid auto-relist at this time is my best advice
Andrew, eBay *have* come clean: they’ve stopped showing UK listings on .com, and they did eventually announce it, albeit in a slightly wussy “open-ended trial” kinda way:
https://www.tamebaynew.wpengine.com/2007/02/too-lame-too-late.html
Its true, even today sellers are only now finding out why their sales are gone. If a warning had been given people would of had the choice to cut back on their listings, saving paying money on fees when little chance of sales.
They could of then worked out new strategies, before throwing good money after bad.
We were told by a ebay pink, if selling items to the US, then list on the .com site. This was also stated on the working lunch programme.
Now sellers in the UK are unable to list any more items on the .com site due to quota limits.
These sellers can not get any response how to have this restriction lifted to carry on selling on the .com site. Add to this the problem with searches, things are not looking very good for sellers on ebay.co.uk.