We are often asked how to get selling on different international eBay sites.
The reason for that is clear. There are 30 different local eBay sites worldwide, targeting each one its own local audience. The thing is that eBay always prefers displaying the local items to visitors, before showing the relevant items from other eBay websites. SO if your item does great on eBay.com it doesn’t mean it will appear in eBay.co.uk top results.
Thus, once you get used with eBay and it becomes an effective sales channel, you prefer to have your jewelry listed and exposed to as many eBay users as possible. So as an example, once you get your eBay.com doing well, the next logical step would be to increase your presence to eBay.com.au, eBay.co.uk ect. Naturally theUK, Australia, Canada will be the easiest sites to continue with, as they target the English speaking audiences.
There are basically two options for selling directly on multiple local eBay sites.
OPTION 1. Separate eBay accounts
Generally, eBay allows having 1 shop for 1 eBay account. So if you want to have a store in different eBay sites, you have to create a separate eBay account for each eBay site.
Pro’s:
- Fees: Opening the local account with eBay store subscription opens you to the lower insertion fees. In many eBay sites, having no store subscription makes the eBay site super expensive. F.i., eBay Australia charges $3.50 (!) listing fee for each listing above $100.
- Adaptation to local market: having separate accounts You can set up a different storefront in each site, use local holidays for right exposure etc.
- Sustainability: once one of your accounts (stores) gets into trouble other stores and eBay sites are not influenced. BTW not always this is true, sometimes the accounts might get closed all together on the account owner’s level, especially if there are serious policy violations.
Con’s:
- Setup effort: It takes quite an effort to grow each additional account. So you have to prepare for several months of work to have an established account. New accounts have various limitations and you have to work your way through them.
- Ongoing maintenance: once the accounts are separated, they do not get advantages neither from existing history, nor from the success of other stores. If will require more work to maintain stores performance on a proper level: number of sales, feedbacks etc.
- Accounting: as you are not allowed to link same PayPal account to multiple eBay accounts , it will require having several PayPal accounts for each eBay account. This means also credid car, bank account and email address. Work to do.
OPTION 2. one eBay account
You can use your original eBay account to list your items directly on the various eBay sites worldwide. This is done by simply logging into each additional local eBay site with your existing account and posting directly to this account.
Pro’s:
- Simple: You can list on all local eBay sites immediately.
- Common history: Your existing account history (sales, limits, feedbacks score, Top Rated Seller status etc. )will be relevant for all eBay sites you use. This makes life much easier helps your items appear higher in the Best Match (eBay search results algorithm), from day one.
- Status maintenance: Similarly, your achievements on one marketplace will reflect the other eBay sites. Your feedback score will grow faster, the GTC quick-selling items will push your store forward, with less effort for you. Also, your international listings will improve each other and main store performance by driving traffic to the main store.
Con’s:
- Expensive(!): No access to discounted insertion fees. Again, it will not be easy to make eBay UK site profitable , if it charges charges £0.35 listing fee for each listing… So you will probably have to reprice your items for secondary eBay sites.
- No localisation: Having one account and one storefront means you won’t be able to adjust it to the local needs. This is not the worst thing as most traffic comes from the search results, but if you are going to specialize in some market it is worth to consider.
Conclusion
There is no Wrong and Right, how to manage your sales on several international eBay sites. Having several eBay accounts definitely requires more work, preparation, ongoing attention and promotion budget. With that in the long term it can change all the business. The most probable scenario would be using your existing eBay account for pitching your jewelry to new local audiences, and only once you’ve identified the potential market(s), starting with the development of the new account to best utilize its advantages.
Things to remember:
- Considering the “International visibility” option of the listings: This option comes first in mind when considering the international sites exposure. With that, this will doubtfully become the serious work tool. It is limited to the precisely identical categories of the eBay sites, which not always the case. In addition, it is limited to specific eBay sites. More importantly – being one listing, it will result in your inability to define the listing time for each marketplace. So, your jewelry will be posted at the same moment on eBay.co.uk and eBay.com. Which is not what you would like to see, as you will loose the peak hours in one of the eBay sites because of the time zone differences.
- While creating listings on several eBay sites, it is very important to avoid the situation when duplicate listing appear on the marketplaces. For this it is necessary to exclude the countries where the listing is posted from shipping profiles on the other eBay sites. For example, if you post same jewelry listing on eBay.com and eBay, make sure to exclude shipping to UK in the eBay.com listing and vice versa.
- Regulations and carriers: When selecting the targeted country, consider your ability to ship your jewelry to the specific countries, especially for the fine jewelry and loose gemstones and diamonds. There are many legal limitations about shipping your jewelry and they should be taken into account. For the same reasons, an additional thing is to check which carrier will be able to complete the delivery of your jewelry into the destination country.
Enjoy selling!
