Saw a sketch card of an artist I wanted. It was a huge amount in dollars and I went to see what it would be in £'s until I noticed it was a UK seller. When I messaged him, he could only give me a rough price because he doesn't deal in the currency of his own country. I've also seen this artifical price hike with Australians and Canadians. Maybe Ebay should make sellers price their goods with the currency of the country they registered in.

quote:

Originally posted by Graham:
Saw a sketch card of an artist I wanted. It was a huge amount in dollars and I went to see what it would be in £'s until I noticed it was a UK seller. When I messaged him, he could only give me a rough price because he doesn't deal in the currency of his own country. I've also seen this artifical price hike with Australians and Canadians. Maybe Ebay should make sellers price their goods with the currency of the country they registered in.

He could be selling through eBay.com rather than ebay.co.uk. I have accounts on both myself and anything I list on eBay.com is always in US Dollars. He cannot list in Dollars through ebay.co.uk. If most of his customers are in the States then it makes sense for him to operate that way as, sadly, a lot of Americans do not like to convert from UK Pounds to US Dollars. Of course, that is no excuse for him being unable to give you a UK price if you contacted him direct...but he can't give you a UK Pounds price if you want to go through eBay. I hope that makes sense.

Why do you consider this to be a price hike? Sure the price goes up when the GBP weakens, but it also goes down when the opposite occurs.

When I was in Australia I always sold in USD because buyers understand it but also because I needed USD for paypal to actually buy cards. If I sold in AUD, I would have two currency conversions to go through (with a cost for each).

I typically sell now in GBP because my buyers are about half UK (or EU) and half US, so I have to convert currency for half my money anyway and I am currently selling more than buying (so GBP is more useful since I am withdrawing rather than buying more cards).

BTW I think you can have eBay set up to show all prices in your own currency anyway. When I am browsing cards, I see everything in GBP.