How to list on foreign eBay sites

Patrick Smarzynski is the co-founder of WebInterpret, a leading e-commerce internationalisation software provider. WebInterpret have helped hundreds of e-sellers boost their international sales during the last few years and Patrick offered to share with you some of the best practices they have learned in a three part series.

Part 1: How to increase international sales effectively on eBay

Part 2: How to list on foreign eBay sites

Part 3: How to maximise results and keep them sustainable

Part 1 was published last week and today we publish part 2, the third and final part will be available on Tamebay next week:

Part 2: How to list on foreign eBay sites

There are basically two options for selling directly on multiple eBay sites worldwide.

OPTION 1. Through different eBay accounts

If you want to have one shop per country, you need to create one eBay account per country.

Advantages: Access to lower insertion fees if you subscribe to a local shop. You can set up a different storefront in each country.

Disadvantages: It takes time to create new accounts with shops on all of the different foreign eBay sites. Each new account starts with 0 feedback and no track record. Most of the time it takes a few months to take off and work your way up the search results. New accounts have limitations regarding the number of listings you can list. Also, you are not allowed to link an email address in PayPal to multiple eBay accounts – each eBay account will need a unique email address.

Therefore, it is a complex and time consuming process to manage multiple eBay accounts.

OPTION 2. Through one eBay account

Employing this approach means that you use your original eBay UK account to sell directly on the various eBay sites worldwide.

Advantages: You don’t have to create any additional accounts and you can list on all foreign eBay sites from day one. Also, and very importantly, the existing track record of your account will allow you to take off quicker and appear higher up the search results from day one. For instance, a UK seller listing through his original UK eBay account with a lot of positive feedback will also appear in the top search positions on foreign eBay sites.

Furthermore, there is the added benefit of customers finding their way to your original shop where they can access all of your listings. This even increases your domestic visibility and, as a result, your domestic sales.

Disadvantages: You don’t have access to discounted insertion fees. However this additonal cost can be factored in to the price of the item. Also, you are not able to set a seperate storefront on each eBay site. However most of the traffic on your listings comes from direct search results rather than buyers landing on your storefront.

Webinterpret Insight

We have found that when sellers use option 1 and list through different eBay accounts set up in each country, it takes a lot of time to get started and to manage all of the accounts. Also, sales take on average a few months to really take off. We have seen a lot of sellers give up on their foreign accounts after just a few months because they felt that the slow increase in sales did not justify the amount of time and effort being invested.

The goal of most sellers is to fully exploit their Gross Merchandise Value potential as fast as possible and in our experience we have found that this is achieved far quicker and easier by listing internationally through the one original eBay account.