Today the new goes live, giving UK sellers the ability to list on multiple eBay EU and Australian sites for free as well as $0.03 listings for eBay.com
The big difference with the new rate card is that instead of listing on eBay UK and making your products “available to” overseas customers to buy, you’ll be “listing on” each site which will have a material and significant uplift in exposure and number of sales.
Who’s it for?
Latest exchange rates suggest that if you list more than 500 products on eBay UK plus two more EU sites then with as few as 500 listings you’ll benefit from the new deal. If you list as few as 150 products on eBay Australia as well as the UK then you’ll save money by upgrading to the anchor store deal.
Eligibility
To be accepted for the rate card you’ll need to be a Top Rated Seller in the UK when you apply. However once you have the International Rate card it wouldn’t be taken away if you lose Top Rated Seller status, you’d only lose it if you dropped below standard in the UK. It’s also worth remembering that your UK DSRs are not affected by International transactions.
What to do now
If you want to access the International Rate card then you’ll need to manually opt in, even if you already have an anchor store. You can as of today.
When you start listing internationally you may also need to edit your existing listing’s shipping rules to make sure you don’t have duplicate products available to and listed on the same eBay country site.
We understand that all the major multi-channel management providers are up to speed and ready to assist with the new rate card. Whilst it would be possible to manage your listings and inventory manually, it would quickly become unmanageable for most sellers to adjust their inventory of 10 or more eBay country sites every time a single product sold.
You’ll want to check the individual country sites for local rules, legal requirements and favoured payment methods. Whilst there are only a few eBay difference (e.g. some EU sites still don’t support variant listings), there are very different legal requirements. For payments PayPal provides and easy option.
Translating you listings into the local language will make a huge difference to your overseas sales. Whilst best match doesn’t take language into account, buyers will and that will impact your listing popularity score.
More for the future
We’re expecting more features to help sellers sell internationally next year. We’d expect machine translation to become available to translate listings along with options for human translation. The Global Shipping Program should see low cost, fast, tracked international deliveries for sellers in early 2013. We’d also expect at some point in 2013 the ability to have multiple countrysite eBay shops on a single eBay user ID.
Today should be an exciting day for those who want to take advantage of cheaper overseas listings. There will be many who complain at the £349.99 cost of an Anchor shop but for those already listing a modest amount on overseas site it’s an absolute bargain.
11 Responses
RT @tamebay: eBay International Rate card goes live today: https://t.co/vVFpJ3OB
RT @tamebay: eBay International Rate card goes live today: https://t.co/vVFpJ3OB
So it must make sense to upgrade to an Anchor Store, list on eBay.com direct at $0.03 and save paying the International Site Visibility Fee
It is good to see eBay trying to encourage sellers to grow their business with international trade.
I doubt there is any other way to open a store in 10 European destinations with £349!
If one is looking to find long term value in this program as a seller there are (as always) caveats.
It seems oddly disconnected that the main prerequisite can be bought with the store subscription while eligibility depends on TRS status – which has been discontinued effective yesterday in the US.
Very informative article, particularly regarding future predictions. I sell internationally already, from Asia, and list across 5 sites.
One observation: if you go this way you are more or less bound to listing BIN ads, now this may be ideal for one site but a real flop for another. USA for instance, is very difficult to get established on single listings in my experience.
With the free listing promotion ( 2 in the past month) for business sellers, Buy it Nows, for a feature shop I would be losing out, I have listed over 3,000 items for now’t
International visibility ???….If they want it they will find it