Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why add a FREE North American MyStoreMap to your eBay® listings?
2. How does MyStoreMaps work?
3. Can I add more country maps to my listings? YES!
4. Can I see an example of the email sent to my buyers?
5. Can I request that my actual counts by geography not be shown?
6. I just signed up. Why hasn't the map been inserted into my listings yet?
7. How can I enable/disable the automatic insertion of the map into my listings?

 

1.

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

  1. Your map will increase your credibility and trust. Buyers feel more confident buying from a seller who has shipped around the world. Your map is a powerful and graphical way for you to show-off your worldwide customer base. Bottom Line: Increase your level of trust by adding a map.
     
  2. Add the world maps and you 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. You can add world maps to your FREE North American map for a low-monthly fee. We have scores of customers who see increased international sales when they add our world maps to their free North American 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. International and 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. You will definitely see increases international sales if you add the world maps.
     

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2.

How does MyStoreMaps work?

Our maps help you merchandise your experience selling domestically and overseas. We want international buyers to buy more from you — over and over.

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, every seller gets a free North American map. You can also choose to add world maps – by region if you wish. Most sellers sign-up for the FREE North American map and also add the world maps because they ship to buyers all over the world. It is your choice!

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 pull 120 days of history and we start tracking sales from the day you add them to your listings. You can also choose to enter the current number of shipments you have made to geographies older than 120 days. For instance, if you have shipped 54 packages to Ireland since you began selling on eBay, you can enter "54" in one box for Ireland. You can always start simply and add your historic counts by country later.

Your FREE North American map also includes an area for you to enter your own personalized shipping, payments and returns policies for international sales. This also helps international buyers see these policies in one place, and your map is the right place to merchandise your policies.

Sign-up takes only two minutes.

Next, our service will create your customer map for you highlighting all the areas where you have customers. We will insert that map into your listings (default) or you can choose to place the map anywhere 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. Whenever you have a sale, we automatically add that sale to your map and we send your buyer an email letting them know they were added. The email is a great way to connect you and your buyer.

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.


 

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3.

Can I add more country maps to my listings? Yes!

Every seller gets a FREE North American map including all US states, Canadian provinces, Caribbean countries Mexico. This is a fully functional map.

In addition, we strongly recommend that sellers add our world maps to your account. You can do so for a low monthly fee based on your eBay feedback at the time of billing. We tiered our pricing to add world maps 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 Monthly Fee
0 to 500 $1.95 per month  
501 to 1,500 $2.95 per month  
1,501 to 3,000 $3.95 per month  
3,001 to 5,000 $6.95 per month  
     Over 5,000   $9.95 per month  
     Unlimited eBay auction and store listings! This monthly MyStoreMaps service fee covers the creation and insertion of your own real-time map of every country/geography in the world. It covers the insertion in all of your eBay® listings. We also track every sale and add that count to your map. At any time, you can also view your own report showing your total sales and your international sales by logging into your account.


 

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4.

Can I see an example of the email sent to my buyers?

Every seller gets a free MyStoreMap of North America covering Canada, The USA, Mexico and all Caribbean countries. We encourage sellers to also sign-up for our world-maps for our low-monthly fee. In addition to the free North American map, we also send every buyer an email when we add the buyer to your map. To offset the cost of the FREE North American map (keeping it FREE for all sellers), we run an advertisement for one of our other eBay services at the bottom of the email we send. By running this advertisement we can make the North American map free to all sellers. The advertisement invites buyers to join our free SecretSale application. It is free for all eBay buyers and sellers. In fact, we strongly encourage sellers like you to also sign-up for SecretSale. Our SecretSale application is FREE to you and is like eBay's Daily Deal service.

Here is an example of how the email looks:

In summary, our FREE North American maps are kept FREE because we can run the advertisement at the bottom of the above email. The invitation and our SecretSale application meet all eBay rules. If you want to learn more about SecretSale or to join FREE – visit our information page here:

http://applications.ebay.com/selling?ViewEAppDetails&stab=1&appType=1&appId=onpagepromotion.secretsale


 

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5.

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.


 

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6.

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.


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7.

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.


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8.

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.


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