Why should you include a customer map on your eBay listings?

1. Your map will attract more international buyers. FACT: About 1 in 10 eBay buyers purchase from a seller in a different country. Look at your current listings — are you ignoring 10% of all eBay buyers by not talking to them? A picture is worth 1,000 words. Include your own map in each listing and international eBay buyers will buy more from you.
    
2. Your map will increase your credibility and trust. Buyers feel more confident buying from a seller who has shipped around the world. Your map will be a powerful and graphical way for you to show-off your worldwide customer base. Increase your level of trust by adding a map.
    
3. Your map will make your listing stand-out. Look at any listing without a map and the same one with a map added. Which one is better?
    
4. Your map will increase viewing. People love maps! The longer your buyers stay at your listing, the more likely they will purchase from you. Even domestic buyers love maps!
    
5. Your map will give critical information to your international buyers. Every international buyer wants to know if you will ship to their country or area. It is the most important thing they need to know. Your map will tell them that instantly. Once they know, they will bid and buy.
    

>> Back to Top <<

How does your customer map work?

Our maps help you merchandise your experience selling domestically and overseas. We want international buyers to buy more from you — over and over. What's more, we guarantee they will.

To merchandise your experience, we create your own customer map which demonstrates the depth of your selling experience anywhere in the world. Have you already sold internationally? Show off your experience! Just starting to sell internationally? Start right by merchandising yourself to your international buyers.

Getting started is simple.

When you register, you will choose the world map -- or regional maps where you sell. Most sellers choose the world map because they ship to buyers all over the world. Others focus on just one geographic area.

Whatever map(s) you choose, you can choose to start simply or more advanced. If you want to start simply — we automatically set your map account to start tracking sales from the day you add them to your listings. You can also start by entering the current number of shipments you have made to the countries, states or provinces covered by that map. For instance, if you have shipped 54 packages to Ireland since you began selling on eBay, you can enter "54" in the box next to Ireland. You can always start simply and go back and add your historic counts by country later.

Each map also includes an area for you to enter your own personalized shipping, payments and returns policies for international sales. International buyers want to see these policies in one place, and your map is the right place to merchandise your policies.

After you enter your number of shipments and your policies, you are done.

Next, our service will create your customer map for you highlighting all the areas where you have customers. We will send you HTML text which you can place on your listing template or within any of your listings manually. Your customer map is like a picture image, and our service is the host of that image. We constantly update your personalized map based on your real-time sales. For those sellers who use a non-eBay checkout or do not use PayPal payments, you will need to mark your items as paid and sent so our system can add them to your map

You should also know that your buyers can click on your map from within your eBay listing page and a second, more detailed map of your customer counts can be viewed by your buyers. The detailed map optionally shows the actual customer counts you've made to each country, state or province. Giving your buyers the actual counts of your shipments helps you merchandise the depth of your international sales experience.
 

>> Back to Top <<

What does the MyStoreMaps service cost?

Our annual fee is based on your eBay feedback. We tiered our pricing so our service is affordable to all sellers no matter what size. Below you can see our tiered base pricing:

MyStoreMaps fees
eBay Feedback Score				Annual Fee
0	to	500		$19.95 per year
501	to	1,500		$33.95 per year
1,501	to	3,000		$44.95 per year
3,001	to	5,000		$69.95 per year
Over 5,000				$99.95 per year
Unlimited eBay auction and store listings!

The MyStoreMaps service fee covers the creation and insertion of your own real-time customer map for all of your eBayŽ listings for one full year. At any time, you can also view your own report showing your total sales, your international sales and your repeat sales by logging into your account.

>> Back to Top <<

Does MyStoreCredit verify the numbers of items I enter when I register for the map service?

When you first sign-up for the map service, you will have the choice to enter the total number of items you have shipped in the past to the specific geographies covered by your selected map(s). You can also return and enter this information later if you choose the simple start-up option. Entering your historical shipments allows you to immediately start showing your actual experience in shipping items to various countries/states/provinces.

After you sign-up, we automatically track your shipments and update your map with all future purchases. Please note: Your initial shipment totals are made under the honor system — please be truthful in entering the actual items shipped in the past to each geographic area.

We do believe in the eBay philosophy that people are generally good and do the right thing. However, since our maps also provide future buyers with a count of your items shipped, we feel obligated to perform checks and balances on the counts you enter.
 

>> Back to Top <<

Can I request that my actual counts by geography not be shown?

Yes. You will have the option of showing your shipment count by geography. We have spoken to buyers about this question and they find the exact counts to be very informative. Exact counts help them clearly understand your international shipping experience. We recommend you let your exact counts be shown to buyers. Nevertheless, we do recognize that many of you do not want the exact count of shipments to be available for your competitors to see. So, we have created a cap on how many items we show in your shipment counts. Once your shipment totals reach 250 items to any geography, we show potential buyers only that you have shipped over 250 items to the target geography. This 250 shipment level merchandises your shipping experience with out publishing your total counts by geography.

You will still get a report showing your actuals by geography.

>> Back to Top <<

I just signed up. Why hasn't the map been inserted into my listings?

When you initially start, it takes up to 24 hours for maps to load. After that, we update the map every 2 hours and we insert the map into your listings every 4 hours into as many new listings as eBay will allow (if you have chosen automatic insertion). Please allow up to 24 hours for the map to appear in your listings when you start and 4 hours thereafter. Also, please note eBay will not allow us to insert into listings with less than 12 hours left, that are second chance offers, has bids, and/or are in violation of eBay policies.

>> Back to Top <<

How can I enable/disable the automatic insertion of the map into my listings?

Simply, log into your account. Once there, click on the "Map properties" link in the left navigation and then click the "Enable/Disable insertion" link. Please note, when you unsubscribe we cannot delete the MyStoreMaps image from your listings. We will mask the map as opaque but eBay does not have an automated method for us to delete existing text from an existing listing.

>> Back to Top <<