Originally posted by mikengstrom Hey SMC, I live in New Zealand our local Auction site never has more than 50 listings for pentax lenses at one time and that includes lens caps and hoods. By comparision you guys are flooded with options.
Originally posted by knoxploration Never fear, you needn't search anywhere else. It's not really separate - Ebay just looks at whether the seller or buyer limit restrict their auctions / searches to only other folks from their own country, and use that to decide which site(s) the item should appear on.
Here's the exact same auction on Ebay US as an example (it's a US auction, the seller lists their location as in NY):
All I did to get it was change ".ca" to ".com" in the URL. To demonstrate further, here it is for
the UK,
India, and
Poland.
:-)
This is true, but I have stopped using the "ca" site because I am in Canada. That sounds wonky, but there are two reasons;
The first is that the ebay search doesn't seem to always bring up all the listings it should from other sites. If I search the com site, it seems to do a good job of showing me the Canadian listings (since I am in Canada) and it brings up additional listing from the US that are set to ship worldwide that I would have missed otherwise.
The second reason is it will show listings not set to be offered in Canada (listed US only). If I decide that I would be prepared to buy/bid on the item, I send the owner of the listing to ask if he would consider shipping to Canada (unless his listing asks not to contact him/her from other countries). I've found that many will change their listing. I wouldn't have seen the item or had a chance to ask if I had used the ca site.
I have a feeling if I was to search other ebay sites, I would see listings only offered in those countries and could contact the owners there too.
I'm also exaggerating on the amount of Pentax gear here....we have a fairly small population, so per capita, Pentax has done very well here over the years, but it's not like the stuff is lying around all over the place.
Oh..one more thing on the CA site...shipping from Canada can be reasonable, but it depends on the shipping size/weight and the destination. Austrailia/New Zealand can be OK if the package is small and light but one you go over the limit, the prices get silly. Canada Post wanted over $150 to ship a lens I just sold to another forum member. Normally, for thta service and distance, I would expect $30 to $40. I ended up shipping for $20 but it's going to take 6 weeks. I felt quite bad about it.....
Back to the pricing issue.....seems to me that prices of older Pentax gear is going back up again....