eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition

Smooth Out International Transactions

Overcome the hurdles and gotchas associated with trading with members in other countries.

Everything gets a little more complicated when trading across international borders.Language barriers, currency confusion, payment hassles, and high shipping costs are all common problems. Here are some of the tools at your disposal to help simplify international transactions.

View Auctions on Your Native eBay

Although eBay has several international sites [Hack #19] , all auctions are contained in the same global database. For example, if you’re looking at an auction on the German eBay, like this one:

	http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3128013702

You can simply change the domain from ebay.de to ebay.com, for example, and you’ll see the auction details in more familiar terms:

	http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3128013702

The currency used for the starting bid, current price, and minimum bid will all be automatically converted to your native currency. Additionally, the end time will be changed to your country’s local time (e.g., Pacific time for eBay.com or eastern time for eBay.ca), and the payment and shipping terms will be translated into your native language. Almost every part of the auction page is changed—except for the auction description. See “Search Internationally” [Hack #19] if you want to convert an auction page back to its native language to enable access to its category.

Enter the Babel Fish

If the auction description ...