Canadian trying to sell on ebay.com.... stymied by location specs

[charley5]

Hi. I am trying to sell on ebay.com but when i try to indicate location it won't accept a canadian postal code, which includes letters. Have i missed something? Are canadians allowed to sell on ebay.com? If not, am i shut out of the US market?

Thanks!

[rustictrollop]

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@charley5 wrote:

Hi. I am trying to sell on ebay.com but when i try to indicate location it won't accept a canadian postal code, which includes letters. Have i missed something? Are canadians allowed to sell on ebay.com? If not, am i shut out of the US market?

Thanks!

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@charley5

Hi!  I'm a Canadian seller and I've been on eBay.com since 1998.  Lots of Canadian sellers here.  Almost all of my Buyers are Americans and I have always listed in USD.  Setting up the shipping requirements is a bit complicated these days.  When I returned to selling this spring after a 10 year absence, it took me two weeks and dozens of calls to CS to try and figure things out.  The CSR's did not realize that Canada was a separate country from the U.S......so it's a good thing you came here.  Wish I had done that first.  Three weeks ago a couple of Canadian sellers on the board here helped me out with tweaking my shipping requirements even more.  Quite a few sell on the CAD and US sites.

I'm not great with computers or trying to figure this stuff out, but they patiently talked me through it.  I'm hoping that they will see your post and will be able to give you some help.  BUT don't give up, whatever you do.  I will try to find some of the info they gave me and transfer it over here.  

[pjcdn2005]

Are you referring to the item location area in the sell your item form? You should be able to enter your postal code and province where it says zip code and city/state. Make sure that you change the country first.

If you are referring to the shipping section itself, you can't use calculated shipping on .com if you are using Canada Post to ship. You have to use flat rate shipping and generic shipping services. For shipping to the US you would use either standard or economy shipping from outside the US. For shipping to Canada you would use standard or economy international shipping.

[rustictrollop]

@pjcdn2005

Thank you for coming on board to help out.  I was just about to go 'looking' for you.....lol   

Btw, everything is much better since you helped me tweak my shipping options.  Thanks again for all your help with that.  Now here you are again with the OP!

[charley5]

Yes, the item location! It specifically wants a 5-digit postal code. But i live in Canada, so have a 6-digit postal code that includes letters. I spoke to the sales dept and they say I can only sell on ebay.ca. I can't sell on ebay.com anymore. But they seemed to be caught off guard. Is that true? Is .com not available any more to canucks???

[pjcdn2005]

No, that isn't true. Anyone can sell on .com or .ca.  The phone reps are often clueless...especially when it comes to Canada specific issues.  It's been a while since I've set up a listing from scratch so I tried adding my postal code to one of my .com listings and there wasn't a problem doing that. Did you change your location to Canada in the item location before putting in your postal code?   If so and it still didn't work try putting in your province where it says state and just leave out your postal code information. Many of my listings were originally set up like that and still are like that.

[charley5]

 But under item location there is no opportunity to put in Canada or a state or province. All it says is: Item location (5-digit ZIP code)

I must be doing something wrong somewhere! help!!

[rustictrollop]

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@charley5 wrote:

 But under item location there is no opportunity to put in Canada or a state or province. All it says is: Item location (5-digit ZIP code)

I must be doing something wrong somewhere! help!!

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That is exactly the same problem I encountered!  It was very frustrating.  Problem is at the moment I can't remember how I fixed it and am wracking my brain trying to remember.  (I do remember being on the computer all night and swearing quite a bit...lol) I just kept trying different things and it finally accepted the information.

My niece just started up on eBay a few months ago, and she has  .com and a .ca  accounts.  I will try to reach her to find out what she did.  

[pjcdn2005 · Accepted solution]

I have a change or edit button next to my item location. If I click on it it brings up the country option.

It's possible that if you are using the quick listing tool, it doesn't have that option.  You used to be able to switch to the advanced listing tool by clicking on the top right of the quick listing page but I don't see the option to switch back and forth now.  I did find an answer on how to switch out of the tool on another post from May...it might help you.

To escape from  the new ultra-streamlined Quick version of the listing form: Click on "Save and exit" at the bottom of your draft listing. In the upper-right corner of the next screen there's a link for the Advanced version of the listing form. After you click on that, you can re-open your draft and it will have the regular options.

Many of the sellers who list on .com post or read the Canadian board so you could also try and ask your question there. Perhaps someone else has run into that problem.

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/bd-p/213

[charley5]

Yes, that did the trick. I had to go into the advanced version of the listing form to have the options I needed. Thank you for that!! I already listed it, but now I need to figure out how to deal with the shipping specs. I get this now:

US $4.50

Canada

USPS First Class Mail International / First Class Package International Service

Varies for items shipped from an international location

It is not from US to Canada, but the other way around. Is this aspect changeable?

Thanks again!!

-Charles

[charley5]

I just fixed the shipping specs. Thank you again for your remarkable insights. I am amazed that the sales tech support could not come up with this solution!

-Charles

[rustictrollop]

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@charley5 wrote:

I just fixed the shipping specs. Thank you again for your remarkable insights. I am amazed that the sales tech support could not come up with this solution!

-Charles

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@charley5

"Tech support" has never looked at a map of the world.  When I was having similar issues, I spoke with at least 6 different CSR's, none of which could understand that Canada, while sharing a border with the USA, was a completely different country with a different postal service.  A couple couldn't even wrap their heads around the idea that Europe was an ocean away.  To be fair the CSR's are offshore in the Phillipines (the ones I spoke to anyway), and have a limited basic understanding of english and read off the script they are given, so good luck with having any of them figure any REAL issue out.  

This board is where the real CS help is at.  So glad to hear that you were able to get the shipping sorted out!  Best of luck with selling on .com!

[charley5]

Thank you! You guys have been terrific... ay!

[pjcdn2005]

I'm glad that we could help 🙂