Posted by
seal
20 yrs ago
Does anyone have English contact details at Ebay Hong Kong? The site appears only to be in Chinese characters and I wondered if they had any plans to intro it in English? Any help appreciated.
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no ebay in English and no plans to start one according to ebay uk.Their response to me was find a chinese friend and get the friend to translate
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Ed
20 yrs ago
Unlikely eBay would start an English site in HK - most people in HK would of course prefer a Chinese version...
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Woah, x that's pretty harsh. As far as I know, most of ebay's and Yahoo!'s local sites (e.g., Japan, Germany, etc.) are in the respective language only.
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Ed
20 yrs ago
I think that if there was an opportunity to make a business of an English ebay site that someone would do so...
One reason we never evolved our trading post (or launched another section) into an English ebay model to fill that void is because we dont feel there is enough critical mass (i.e. English speakers) to make it work... in my opinion an english ebay it is not a profitable business model - to make money and justify creating and operating an English site of this nature would require many thousands of people to participate - not likely in a place like HK...
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English and Cantonese are co-official languages of Hong Kong. I would have thought that that was enough to merit a bi-lingual Ebay site?
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hkkm
20 yrs ago
I'm trying to imagine how a bilingual Ebay site would work. It wouldn't be too hard for the front page, categories etc to be bilingual, but if the ad is posted in Chinese you still won't be able to read it. Or would you expect everyone to have to post their ads in 2 languages?
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seal
20 yrs ago
Why not just have two options and then those that cannot read/understand Chinese could deal in English? No need for two postings just a simple select language on the home page
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brandy x (not XO? ;-) : Absolutely true. Plus the aforementioned work-around of registering on another e-bay site and subsequently changing your location is available. In fact, you can even search for items listed on Hong Kong through other ebay sites (including the English language ones) - obviously, the limitation of many listings not being in English still applies.
I am baffled by the apparent sense of entitlement in some of the above postings. ebay is a commercial operation and not required to have an English language site or to provide their service to the 'English-speaking minority' (sic). It's a business decision and for a number of reasons (including the ones mentioned above, like lack of critical mass for internet retailing in general and online auctions in particular) they have chosen not to have a site in English for Hong Kong.
Deal with it – or consider it an opportunity if you believe that there is business proposition (obviously, ebay and Ed believe there is not).
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seal
20 yrs ago
There was no entitlement suggested in my comments beachball. It just seemed strange to me that it is possible to buy airline tickets, cinema tickets, hotels reservations, food etc etc online and yet the largest online auction site limits itself by language. The lack of critical mass etc is surely always going to exist if the site itself is limited and there is obviously a market for some online purchasing otherwise the other sites would nt exist.
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Ed
20 yrs ago
Selling airline tickets and the ebay model are very much different. There is a massive and important market for travel in HK that is English speaking so you cant ignore them... (expats).
ebay is different in that it would not be of much interest to the English (affluent community) in HK - unlikely you've have many bankers/lawyers etc... posting stuff to sell on there. And keep in mind, ebay needs literally thousands and thousands of sellers to justify its existence in a market. I cant see the English market providing this...
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seal: To clarify, I wasn't referring to your initial question (which is perfectly fair IMHO) and more to x's and WomanWithBrain's postings.
Ed and hkkm have captured the problems with having the site in English quite well - in particular the point that airline tickets, hotel bookings, food, and movie tickets 1) have a sizeable English speaking clientele, and 2) the actual listings can be in English because the products are pretty generic and sold by businesses (who generally have access to English language resources). Even if the ebay site were in English, John Lee in YMT selling his TV would only post in Chinese.
As for the size of the online auction market in HKG, note that even Chinese language sites like ebay and go2hk are struggling - only Yahoo! seems to have critical mass in terms of listings and completed transactions.
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seal
20 yrs ago
Fair enough BB I can see what you (and the others) are saying. Time will be a great test on this and internet purchases in general in Hong Kong.
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I was also disappointed about ebay in HK being only Chinese - it means I cannot buy anything from OS because I cannot even register having only english as my language. I do not have an address in any english speaking country. I emailed them about it but had no reply. Doesn't it restrict the ability of HK people to purchase from other places?
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To Dimac4 - you should have no problems. I am a registered eBay member in HK and have bought and sold around the world including HK. There are thousands of other HK users too.
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Hmm- I will have try again but I couldn't get past a certain point in the registration because I couldn't work out what the instructions were.
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One word with English more customers, besides if you noticed there are other auction site base on Hong Kong but mostly are in Chinese.
only red-dot are in English & Chinese if you notice I think since the 1997 hand over to china most of things are in Chinese which is good for Hong Kong people but if one has been to working Central/Admiralty/Tsim Sha Tsui area they will know English is just as importment as Chinese.
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