Change in search parameters for international buyers. More specific item info required

[padraicpaul91]

Because my international sales have tanked in recent times, I did some seaching on several ebay sites: USA, UK, France, Germany, Canada. With the exception of the UK, none of my items appeared, using my most basic search.

I mainly sell posters and prints. Until very recently, say if I entered 'Foo Fighters poster' in search on these ebay sites, my items would be seen. That is no longer the case. For mine to appear, I must add more of the item specifics appearing in the title, such as the artist, city or the year. 

This is concerning, as my basic search is what I think most buyers would enter into the search. And I wonder why other international sellers do appear in those results.Search results can be large or quite small depending on the band / artist.

I did start a thread last week asking whether a new selling tool, callled ebaymag, would be useful when I already have these items available worldwide. ebaymag is a tool for listing on a number of other ebay sites, including the countries listed above. Now I am wondering if it will become a necessary listing tool if I am to sell internationally.

I will sign up to ebaymag and give it a try, in the coming days. Yet another house keeping chore. But there's more work invoved.

[instylecollectables]

And I did mention to you what the benefits might be if you did join ebaymag on your other thread but like you I didn't see this happening to your listings.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

[jellybirddesigns]

I stopped my international shipping last year, but restarted again around 4 weeks ago.

I have not had any international sales on Ebay, however I have had about 10 through another site I sell on.

My international sales accounted for around 30% of my volume pre-pandemic, so it is a bit concerning that they are not flowing through again on this site. I don't really want to add more complexity and tools and maybe it's just a coincidence, so I will wait it out a bit longer.

[digital*ghost]

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@padraicpaul91 wrote:

I did start a thread last week asking whether a new selling tool, callled ebaymag, would be useful when I already have these items available worldwide. ebaymag is a tool for listing on a number of other ebay sites, including the countries listed above. Now I am wondering if it will become a necessary listing tool if I am to sell internationally.

I will sign up to ebaymag and give it a try, in the coming days. Yet another house keeping chore. But there's more work invoved.

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Be wary of this tool - I have only been able to find one user "review" of it and it was decidely negative (and by review, I mean this rage comment posted on a vimeo ad of theirs, two years ago)

I found a website post  that details what it does, which is create listings on multiple sites, automatically translating your listings into the language of that site, and apparently updating inventory if something sells. This kind of software makes me a bit nervous - more particularly, relying on that kind of software to make sure inventory is properly managed makes me nervous, and that would be increased quite a bit if I only had one or two of a lot of items.  I'd be a little worried about auto-translations of decriptions, as well, but it's probably along the lines of what Google translate would throw back if a non-English speaker translated the page via Google's tools. 

[padraicpaul91]

I hear you when talking about use of third party applications. I kept looking for reviews of ebaymag and found just that one criticism, which was unintelligible, and three positives within the ebaymag promos. They were up to four years old and related to Eastern European sites.

I think ebay has now bought the tool and is rolling out an updated version for another try. Yesterday,I had a lengthy conversation with the ebay person responsible for this promotion. They has undertaken to send more information about it. The promo material is just that: hoopla with insufficient substance.

Unless something very attractive comes up, regarding functionality and value, I will not use it. The burning question I had was whether there will be fees down the track, and the answer is yes. How much, I don't know, but will hopefully have that answered soon.

[padraicpaul91]

Like you, my international sales had been an important part of my turnover, over 40%, and about 30% of items sold. They tend to spend more than locals. Now it has been just 12% of sales over the past three months, with none over the past month. I think this also speaks of how badly things have gone for buyers out there.

I talked (chatted) this over with CS and then with the technical team. It would seem that ebay has cut out items from search results that lead to a lengthy delivery timeframe. They were unable to specify how long this might be or when this cut started to happen.

Due to getting burned by some customers for items not received, I had increased my handling time last year and sent express only. This was to account for what I saw as under estimates given by ebay, via Australia Post. I still see them as inaccurate but getting closer to reality.

I played around with handling times in my postage policy, reducing them until my items appeared in searches on other ebay sites.That happened when I made it a three day handling period. Not happy about that, as I think a fair proportion will still arrive after the estimate but I'll see.