With 187m customers in 190 countries eBay is a great way to find new customers worldwide.
There are two ways to sell internationally on eBay:
- Standard. Listing on your domestic site but making the product available for international purchase.
- Advanced international listing. Listing directly on international eBay sites. These listing will have the same
Standard international selling
A domestic listing with international shipping specified will appear on overseas eBay sites. eBay will automatically translate the listings and also automatically convert the currency.
International listings will get a lower ranking than domestic listings, showing as ‘available from international sellers’.
Advanced international selling
‘Advanced’ international selling is where eBay sellers list directly on international eBay sites. This has the benefit of being able to tailor listing to each international site. It is however more difficult to manage as there will be a separate listing for each marketplace. The advantages of advanced international selling are:
- You can create separate listings for each eBay site.
- Tailor your pricing to suit each market.
- Your listings will have higher visibility as they will appear in the search results on those local sites.
- You can translate item descriptions into the local language and appeal to more buyers.
- You only pay the applicable selling fees for that country (and not the UK).
Shipping Programmes
eBay runs two programmes to make international shipping easier for sellers
Global Shipping programme
If the Global Shipping programme is selected at the Shipping Business Policy level, international customers can buy your item, but the international delivery, including shipping pricing, will be managed by eBay. This programme is excellent for destinations such as South America where shipping is problematic
European Booster Programme
This service is run by a third party called Webinterpret and automatically localises and locally publishes your UK on 13 international eBay sites. This makes eBay international listings much easier to manage.
