eBay is running a sitewide flash sale in Australia, but it includes listings on eBay’s US and UK websites as well. (To be clear, the sale only applies to eBay users in Australia when purchasing items from those three country marketplaces.) The sale kicked off on July 2 and gives shoppers in Australia 10% off the purchase price of items with a minimum purchase of $50 when they use the coupon code. The sale runs through Sunday, July 8th.
In excluded certain categories, including Real Estate, Coins, and Services (check complete list). In an unusual move, eBay excluded two sellers from the promotion: Officeworks and Fantastic Furniture.
The gist of the promotion is as follows: “The offer entitles you to 10% off the purchase price (excluding postage costs) when you spend $50 or more on Eligible Products in one transaction during the Offer Period, for up to 2 transactions and up to a maximum discount of $100 per transaction.”
Some buyers had problems using the coupon code, according to this discussion thread on the eBay Australia boards; readers described a possible workaround.
A reader sent us a link to the promotion and said he believed it was to “help take the sting off the new GST tax for AU buyers:
From 1 July 2018, Australian Goods and Services Tax (GST) will apply to sales of low value goods (less than or equal to $1000 AUD) imported by consumers into Australia. this will generally be collected from the business or platform selling the item, rather than when the item arrives at the border.
From 1 July, eBay will add GST to a buyer’s total at checkout when:
– The item location is outside Australia
– The delivery address is inside Australia
– The order value is less than or equal to $1000 in Australia dollars
The buyer’s payment will then be split:
– The order value (item price + postage costs) will go directly to the seller as it does today
– The GST portion will go to an eBay owned PayPal account. eBay will then remit this GST directly to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).
The terms and conditions of the current eBay Australia flash sale can be found on this page.
The ebay blurb says “8/7″…article says 7/7.
Is this a std SNAFU on ebay’s part?
I am looking at the coupon and it looks like it ends August 7th.
Maybe they need to spell out the date when including the different countries since they have different ways of writing numeric dates?
Or is a week long to eBay is until 8/7 Hmmmmm???
Don’t you just love the manipulation????
all items sold by the following Sellers:
Officeworks;
Fantastic Furniture.
Good grief.