From today eBay Australia are opening up number of listing categories on eBay.com.au to include relevant listings from eBay.com and eBay.co.uk in search results.
This is being done in selected (but unspecified) categories where eBay Australia has inventory gaps or where Australian buyers already have a high rate of purchasing from overseas-based sellers.
To help Australian buyers eBay will be incorporating additional messaging to help buyers identify when they are purchasing items which are of overseas origin and alert them to the potential downsides of importing some goods.
eBay have been quick to allay the fears of Australian sellers facing increased competition saying:
- According to Forrester research commissioned by PayPal, Australians prefer buying from Australian sellers
- Local sellers have a geographic advantage in offering faster and in many cases cheaper postage
- Local sellers have the ability to allow pick-up, and to process returns more quickly and cost effectively
- More sites are included by default in listing search results on other eBay sites (such as eBay.com or eBay.co.uk), so Australian sellers offering international purchase and postage can benefit from more buyers viewing their listings
For eBay UK and eBay.com sellers if you already offer postage to Australia then there’s nothing you need do, apart from hopefully sit back and see more orders flood in from the Antipodes. If you don’t offer either worldwide postage or at least postage to Australia then you should consider doing so in order for your eBay listings to appear on eBay Australia.
4 Responses
Why no mention of what is happening with non UK listings appearing in UK core searches?
In my category (for example) non uk BIN’s have gone up by around 78% in the last 85 hours, the rise is steady and ongoing.
The raw listing numbers are from around 146,000 to 260,000.
That sort of rise can only be explained by an ‘opening up’.
To Australia, New Zealand is often added – they make a nice couple… but not according to eBay.
I really don’t understand why New Zealand isn’t grouped with Australia.
I sell a lot to NZ and had the insane situation over the weekend that when I blacklisted Russia (too many packets gone missing) eBay automatically blacked everyone from NZ too on the basis that it’s not a listed country… or maybe they think NZ is part of Russia.
One of my biggest buyers had a fit when he realised he couldn’t buy from me.
This has been resolved by setting the Kiwis who contacted me as “exceptions” but it’s a very poor show from eBay and what about the Kiwis who haven’t contacted me?
NZ is a good place to ship to, as royal mail have airsure capabilities
If you ever watch a Quiz programmes you will know that the subjects that usually catch the contestants out are History and Geography. Since the total collapse of the British Education System about 30 years ago education standards have declined drastically. So the question comes out “What is the Capital of France, or Germany or where ever and the Contestant just looks blank. They haven’t a clue. Then they come out with an answer “Italy” or something equally stupid. So yes I wouldn’t be at all surprised if ebay didn’t think that New Zealand was in Russia.