Info For Canadian Ebay Sellers - List In CDN $s

Not getting ripped off at all. Who is ripping Canadian buyers off is the Bank of Canada and their insane race to the bottom monetary policies. Reality bites but that is life. We did not hear too many complaints when we were getting only 93 cents on the Canadian Dollar. As an ebay seller it will be US dollars only for us.

Shipping costs are a huge part of it. The cost to send a small tracked under 3 ounce package from WA state is $2.04 to any where in the U.S. . To send the same tracked package to a major international destination is $7.00 . Both quotes are of course USD. Shipping in Canada is just ridiculous by comparison.
Also since we buy most of our inventory in the U.S. ! our purchase cost and related travel expenses are all US as well. The ebay and PayPal fees are also USD. Makes no sense converting back and forth. All that does as Kuh previously stated is add more expenses.
Another advantage to listing on .com in USD is your items show up in almost any search quicker than if you list in CAD on .ca..
One thing that we do is adjust our prices downward as the dollar drops on Canadian coin listings and do our very best to entertain reasonable offers. Also many Canadian buyers who deal with us appreciate the quality that they receive and often times the extra little gift we include to offset the high Canadapost charges.
It is not an easy time staying competitive with ugly exchange rates, and you just have to dig deep and do what you can to make it work.

Interesting. I don't for a moment question US interest in Cdn coin - obviously the Canadian market is small and probably still shrinking, for whatever reason, and U.S. buyers greatly assist in creating demand. For that same reason I can understand why sellers are attracted to the U.S. market. It's a matter of business - you do what you got to do.

However from a buyer point of view - and I'm only expressing my opinion, nothing more - but somewhere amidst such things as converting metric measurements to imperial or vice versa, flipping around packaging boxes or upside down instructions looking to a language that I'm able to read, calculating USD to CDN especially for ebay auction maximum bids to fit my budget is yet another reminder of why this country lacks a strong, viable identity.

And because coin collecting is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, therefore I endeavour to remove all possible irritants to keep it so. I have no idea if other Canadian ebay buyers feel as I do, but it's the reason why I firstly support Cdn $ sellers.

I'd be interested in seeing an example of a Canadian company's website that sells their product in USD to Cdn customers because it certainly isn't common. Every example of an international commerce site that I've ever visited has a separate linked webpage for Canadian or US customers in the respective country's local currency.

Secondly, just a casual observation, it strikes me as somewhat contradictory the numerous discussion threads by many Canadians sellers who feel ebay's policy pertaining to US approved grading companies is unfair --- yet at the same time selling on ebay.ca in U.S. Dollars is supported.......

Seems we want to have our cake and eat it too!

Unless buyers live in a cave they know that the CDN$ has dropped drastically over the last 9 months






ebay.ca listings are shown in Canadian dollars even if the sellers chose to sell in US$.




Conversion fees can be avoided by opening a US$ dollar bank account. So you take out US$ without any fees should you travel in the USA.
Also, have you should have 2 currencies in your Paypal account: One Canadian and US. So if you buy/sell in US$ the transaction will go to your US$ balance while CDN$ transaction go to your CDN$ balance. In other words, there are no conversion fees if transaction is Cdn and your bank is Cdn.

For auction items, even though the starting bid is shown in Cdn $, all bids are in US$.

Edit to add: .....if the seller lists the auction item in USD.

Conversion fees: Yes, USD bank accounts, USD Visa or UDS holdings in a Paypal accounts are a viable option when travelling to the U.S. but that doesn't mean conversion rates can be avoided when the funds are initially exchanged to US because that is not so. The US buy rate in Cdn funds is always higher than the US sell to Cdn rate, even on the same day.

What that means is when the Cdn seller converts the U.S. funds back to Cdn $, their settling rate then is far lower than the buying rate their customer paid. Obviously that loss has to get written into a higher listing price.

http://www.tdcommercialbanking.com/fx/rates/

Also, the Canadian prices shown don't factor in the exchange fee. You don't see that until you go to pay. And with the current volatility in the exchange rate even that shown Canadian price can change noticeably within the 7 day time frame of the standard auction.