International Site Visibility launches 20th May

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Back in March, eBay announced that UK sellers would be able to buy visibility on eBay.com and eBay.ca. The listing upgrade means that items listed on eBay UK will be visible in the default search results on eBay.com and eBay.ca. , priced thus:

Start/BIN price ISV fee
£0.01 – £4.99 £0.05
£5.00 – £29.99 £0.10
£30+ £0.15

ISV is available for auction and Buy It Now items only, not for Shop Inventory.

There are of course some eligibility criteria: you must have more than 10 feedback, offer PayPal and list shipping available to the relevent countries (preferably but not compulsarily with the shipping rates listed). Some categories are excluded: Motors and Residential Property, unsurprisingly, and also DVDs and Video Games, presumably on the grounds of region compatibility. And the upgrade is only available from your home site: in other words, a UK seller can’t list on .com and use ISV to show up on .co.uk too.

Sales made using ISV will be eligible for .

When this was announced, many sellers seemed cautiously enthusiastic, despite the exchange rate working massively in favour of US sellers listing on .co.uk. For those who sell one-offs and collectables particularly, I think it’s a great way to increase your potential buyers without having to split listings between two or three different national sites.

Will you be paying the extra next week, or are you sticking to your current listing strategy?

14 Responses

  1. I will be paying the extra as soon as Channel Advisor pull their collective fingers out and make it an option. Plans are for a 20th June availability on CA.

    It’s a pity eBay did not make this an option a year ago. But better late than never 🙄

  2. I shall wait and see what happens to my international percentages and prices before making a decision.

    It’ll be interesting to hear from people who DO try it out if they feel that the extra effort / expense is worth it.

    Mind you, just thought, I could spend my gallery saving from now until September, and be no worse off….. 😆

  3. I already have .com vis because my category also defaults there. That will of course stop next Tuesday.

    I will be paying for ISV.

  4. That’s a good point to make, John: anyone in one of the lucky categories which has had default international visibility until now, is going to lose it now unless they pay for it. I can understand Lynne’s “wait and see what happens to the traffic” stance though, but switching your spend from gallery to ISV isn’t a bad idea 😀

  5. “And the upgrade is only available from your home site: in other words, a UK seller can’t list on .com and use ISV to show up on .co.uk too.”

    Do UK based listings on the .com site automatically show up on the UK site at this stage? Will they do so after the implementation of this?

    Kevin

  6. Kevon,
    My (simple) understanding is that they no longer will.
    A point eBay seems to leave in the very small print.
    ie. They want/will get your money.

    I can see though it will make life a lot easier for eBay if all sellers end up listing on their own site.
    Trouble is ISV is a money spender for sellers going forward.

    How much for default global?

  7. If John is indeed correct in his interpretation, I can only assume that it is “crush Australian Ebay sellers month”. No discounts, but MUST pay extra fees for services we don’t necessarily want (and many buyers do not want), no entitlement to set any of our own payment terms from June 17th, we pay about 50% more for gallery than the US did even when they paid for it and don’t get freebies across the summer like the UK, and now we have no entitlement to be seen internationally even if you choose to pay fees to use the “world wide” part of the “world wide web”. I guess we deserve to be punished for rejecting PayPal.

    I have listed my international stuff on .com since long before there were UK and Australian sites, and list items with more specific appeal on the Australian, British or American sites as relevant. On my international stuff at the moment, it shows up on the Australian site when people are searching items in Australia, and Australian bidding underpins the prices (as the shipping charge is cheaper locally), while International competition can create huge prices on some items that would not be acheived by listing in Australian currency as many Americans are nervous about bidding in other currencies. This effect undoubtedly is the same for UK users when they have American items that they target at the American market by listing in American dollars.

    American bidding can be hugely influenced by listings being in US dollars, and it does help competition and prices. In my experience many other people (but not all) see US as the “universal currency” and are more willing to bid in that currency than any other currency that is not their own. Why does Ebay strive to fragment the net and reduce competition and prices? Would it help if someone in Ebay headquarters actually went to an auction and learned how bidding and competition work in the marketplace to increase prices, instead of trying to get sellers to compete to list the same items (eg: the current pre-filled information promotion in France) so that the lowest price wins?

    Admittedly PayPal rewrote their user agreement this week, so at least seller protection is no longer voided by shipping multiple items in one parcel. However I should not have had to fight for six weeks to be able to offer shipping discounts without losing my rights as a seller!

    Frustrated, Kevin

  8. At one time we always listed in US dollars ,indeed 100% of our sales were to the USA
    selling to a UK buyer was a remarked upon event,
    though gradually more and more UK based buyers bought our items, then whinged because they were listed in Dollars, it became easier just to list on the home site.

  9. same here too Sue

    we have had UK buyers sending us money orders in US dollars,

    we aretoying with the idea of listing in $ on the US site if EU buyers cant see the listing by default,
    for Vat purposes

  10. I am certain there will be US sellers considering the GST angle when looking at the UK market

  11. North, re #10 – if you do that and only list shipping prices to the US *and* block buyers from countries to which you don’t ship, then it should stay under your control pretty much even if EU buyers search worldwide. 😉

  12. This is bad news for us as we list on .com.

    And there is no market for us on .uk.

    The beauty about Ebay, is that it used to be one International giant Marketplace.

    Why are Ebay so intent on fragmenting their most valuable asset?

    Mark

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