eBay gives you the opportunity to sell whatever you are selling to the whole world. This is one opportunity you should definitely take advantage of. eBay has millions of members all over the world: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom.
Even though eBay is an international phenomenon it is still most popular where it originated, the United States. And that is exactly where most items are bought and sold. The American eBay is the most visited and most popular of all the eBay websites, and even people from countries that have their own eBay website often choose to buy from the American eBay website rather than their own.
So if you live anywhere other than the good old U.S.A. you can't afford not to make your auctions available to the whole world. Some sellers choose to sell only to their own country because of the fear of getting scammed. Once again the benefits greatly outweigh the risks.
While it is true that you are more likely to be the victim of an international scam artist if you sell to people all over the world, you will also a lot more likely to make a lot more money by allowing everyone to buy from you. The more people are able to buy from you the more people will actually buy from you.
It doesn't make any sense to refuse someone's money just because they don't live in the same country as you. And that is exactly what a lot of sellers are doing by making their auctions available only to the people in their country. Why would you ban millions of people from buying from you? Why would you choose to lose a ton of money in order to save a few bucks?
It often has something to do with Indonesia or a small handful of other countries. A lot of sellers seem to be scared to death to sell anything to someone living in Indonesia (or wherever). The reason for this is because credit cards fraud seems to be a very popular scam in that country. And if you are scammed by someone from a far away land there won't be any ways to get your money or merchandise back.
This can be done from any country, but this scam is most often done from countries in Asia. Whatever the sellers' fears may be, it is stupid and even costly not to sell internationally. Especially if you don't live in the US. One of the first PowerSellers that I have ever talked to is a wonderful woman by the name of Eliza.
Eliza is a talented painter from Australia that sells her paintings on eBay, she does pretty well and she was the first PowerSeller to fill out one of my questioners and give me advice about selling on eBay. When I asked Eliza if she recommends selling internationally, her response was:
"Definitely. Most of my clients are overseas. Last September I only had one customer for the entire month, and he was in Singapore. He has bought a total of 18 of my paintings! If I didn't sell internationally I would hardly sell anything! It always surprises me when people aren't willing to sell internationally. The only thing I would warn against is sending to countries where you can't insure."
So there you have it, you heard it straight from a PowerSeller. You should definitely sell internationally. To check out the beautiful works of art Eliza crates you can go to her website; www.elizasart.com There are lots of beautiful paintings to look at and more information about Eliza.
Here are a couple of good reasons why you should make your auctions available to everyone, regardless of what part of the world they live in. The biggest reason to sell internationally is obviously because your listing will be exposed to a lot more eBay members.
If you make your auctions available to everyone, then everyone will be available to you. I am sure you understand that the world has more people than your country and the more people see your listings the bigger the chance of someone actually buying what you are selling is.
Another reason for selling to the whole world is something that is not very popular in your country may be selling like hot cakes somewhere else. So just because you can't sell a certain product in your country doesn't mean that you can't sell it somewhere else.
And that is the beauty of eBay, if something is not popular in America you can try France or England or Germany or Spain etc. Something that can be acquired easily in your country can be next to impossible to find in another country. An example of this is Ural Motorcycles.
Ural motorcycles are tough and reliable Russian made army motorcycles. These motorcycles have a cult following in Germany and throughout Europe. The problem is that parts are sometimes hard to come by and can be way too expensive to buy from a parts store.
In Russia however, these same motorcycle parts are extremely cheap and easy to come by. So if you live in Russia you can make a fortune selling Ural motorcycle parts through eBay to motorcycle enthusiasts all over Europe. To see exactly what I am talking about go to www.ebay.de and search for "Ural"
You will find that most of the listings have bids on them, but most of the sellers are in Germany. If you are in Russia you can take advantage of this opportunity. Regardless of what you are interested in, if it's not popular in your country it's probably popular somewhere else.
So if you aren't getting any sales in your country, go to all of the different international eBay websites, search for your product and see how well it sells there. Who knows you might find a hungry niche market. I am sure you understand the benefits of selling internationally.
It is pretty much common sense. And I am sure you can think of your own reasons to sell internationally so I won't give anymore examples. But what I will say is that eBay gives you the wonderful ability to sell products to customers anywhere in the world, why not take advantage of it?