AuctionBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on ecommerce and the online auction industry
by Ina Steiner, Editor of AuctionBytes.com
February 09, 2010
eBay Provides Answers on Buyer Protection Program
By: Ina Steiner
Tue Feb 9 2010 10:33:52
This month, eBay began prominently displaying messaging about its new Buyer Protection Plan on the eBay.com website. eBay responded to some questions I had about the dispute process, which it had announced in April (see "eBay Resolutions FAQs").
Before getting to Senior Director of eBay Resolutions Lynda Talgo's responses, here's some background on the program. Previously, buyers with a problem would use PayPal's resolution center. Now, the new on-eBay resolution process serves as the primary entry point for buyers, regardless of the payment method used in the disputed transaction.
eBay told sellers on January 26, 2010: "We're making a big move to bring buyers and keep them on eBay with the new eBay Buyer Protection program. All over eBay, the message to buyers will be loud and clear: "eBay's got you covered," so buy on eBay with the confidence and satisfaction you expect from a trusted retailer. As always, direct communication between buyers and sellers to get issues resolved will continue to be encouraged."
Here are our questions about the program, from the sellers' perspective, with responses provided by Ms. Talgo.
We're hearing from some sellers that eBay's protection plan does not necessarily honor seller's stated return policy; eBay may refund a buyer for a claim even if the seller says no returns, or returns within a certain time period, or store-credit only, etc. And if eBay reimburses a buyer counter to a seller's policy, what recourse does the seller have?
Lynda Talgo: eBay's buyer protection program does honor a seller's stated return policy when the item arrives within the expected delivery estimate and is described accurately in the listing. In addition, eBay encourages buyers and sellers to work together to resolve disputes.
If the buyer and seller are not able to resolve the issue, and we find that the item is not accurately described, eBay will cover the buyer through eBay Buyer Protection and seek reimbursement from the seller.
It's important to note that eBay Buyer Protection's claims decisions take into account all communications between sellers and buyers, including listing descriptions and other information that help determine the appropriate resolution. If a seller feels the wrong decision has been made, we want the seller to contact eBay Customer Support to file an appeal.
We think last May's AuctionBytes Blog about best practices in ensuring buyer satisfaction outlined some key takeaways.
eBay is requiring sellers to set up a payment method to fund disputes in the eBay Resolution Center and for any future reimbursements owed to eBay. Why not take out of PayPal if it buyer paid via PayPal?
Lynda Talgo: eBay Buyer Protection includes several options for sellers to settle their eBay claims. First, eBay encourages buyers and sellers to first work together to solve any disputes. In the cases where this happens, no reimbursement is needed.
In the unlikely event buyers and sellers aren't able to resolve the issue, and the seller is found responsible, the seller can settle the claim via either PayPal or an alternate payment method such as credit card.
eBay does not credit PayPal processing fees that sellers paid for in the original transaction?
Lynda Talgo: eBay always encourages buyers and sellers to resolve disputes together. If a seller takes care of a buyer's issue - for example, by proactively providing a refund - eBay refunds both the eBay fees and the PayPal fees. In a case where the buyer or seller asks eBay to get involved and decide the case, the eBay and PayPal fees are not refunded. This is consistent with the PayPal Online Dispute Resolution process.
With the eBay Buyer Protection Plan, a buyer can file a claim with eBay, and it may refund the buyer without waiting for the seller to say the item has been returned to him/her. The seller is out the item; the cost of the item; the packaging costs; the shipping costs; the eBay insertion fees, and the PayPal processing fees (and possibly the eBay Final Value fees?).
Lynda Talgo: The buyer must return the item to the seller to qualify for a refund unless the buyer obtains manufacturer's or law enforcement certification that the item was not authentic. In most cases, the buyer will pay for return shipping. In some cases, eBay will pay at its discretion.
Here are the criteria for return shipping:
Buyers must return the item using trackable shipping with delivery confirmation and signature confirmation for items over $250 or risk not qualifying for a refund if the item is lost in transit. (These are the same requirements sellers must abide by for item not received claims.)
If tracking or delivery confirmation is not provided by the buyer returning the item and the item does not appear in a reasonable amount of time, then the seller is not obligated to refund the buyer.
If you have specific questions about the Buyer Protection Program and dispute resolution, please post them in the comments. Let's keep this post on topic, so I can follow up with eBay on additional questions sellers may have.
Survey Result Are In: eBay Sellers Weigh in on New Fees
By: Ina Steiner
Sat Feb 6 2010 22:26:27
eBay is changing its fee structure at the end of March and is doing away with Store Inventory format. We asked readers to tell us how the changes would impact their businesses, and over 1,100 eBay sellers took our survey (see overall results).
Here are the major questions we asked sellers. If you didn't take the survey, feel free to share your opinion in the comments.
Are you a Top Rated Seller (TRS)?
Do you currently have an eBay Store?
What is the value of all items you sold on eBay over the last 12 months (in dollars):
How many items do you typically have listed on eBay in the STORE FORMAT?
How many items do you list per week on eBay on average in the AUCTION FORMAT?
Which one category best describes the type of item that you most frequently list to sell online?
eBay announced on January 26 that it would change its fee structure at the end of March 2010. Please indicate what impact the changes will have on your business.
As part of its changes to its fee structure, eBay will change fees for auction listings; please indicate the effect on your business.
eBay will offer sellers the opportunity to list up to 100 auctions a month for free for auctions with a starting price under $1 (Final Value Fees will apply). How will this impact you?
eBay is changing the fee structure for Store subscribers, please indicate the effect these changes will have on your business.
eBay is doing away with the Store Inventory Format - all fixed-price listings will appear in the core eBay.com search results. Please indicate what kind of impact that will have on your business, regardless of whether you have an eBay Store or not.
Please indicate the effect you think the elimination of the Stores Inventory format will have on the sell-through rate of your listings, regardless of whether you have an eBay Store or not.
Do you plan to make any changes to your business due to fee and/or policy changes announced by eBay on January 26, 2010?
The results are published in the February 7th issue of the AuctionBytes Update newsletter (found here), and in the February 8th issue of Newsflash, we'll break down the results by category, annual gross sales, and seller status (Top Rated Seller versus non-TRS). We'd also like to get a little "interactive" with the results. If you have some thoughts about how you'd like to see the results filtered - let us know. If it's possible to break the data down in that manner, we'll post the results right here.
Money Woes May Put eBay & Bidtopia Bidder Names Up for Grabs
By: Ina Steiner
Fri Feb 5 2010 11:56:23
AuctionBytes wrote on Wednesday about problems plaguing Bidtopia, the online auction site started by Paul St. James, a top PowerSeller on eBay selling as Bargainland. We've since learned that the company laid off employees on November 9, 2009.
According to several sources, the company has been negotiating with a third party interested in acquiring the assets of Warehouse 86 Ventures, LLC, which owns Bidtopia.com and Bargainland.net. At stake is the company database containing over one million names of eBay and Bidtopia bidders who purchased from Bargainland and its third-party marketplace sellers.
Ken May and Bill Doherty, successful FedEx executives, came to the rescue of Bargainland in 2009 after a tornado and fire decimated the company's Memphis warehouse. A source close to the situation who wished to remain anonymous said Bidtopia's current problems stem from threatened litigation from a vendor who had redesigned the site, which put new, necessary funding in jeopardy. The owners of Warehouse 86 Ventures were reportedly trying to negotiate with that vendor to settle out of court so they could sell the assets of the company to a B2B liquidation outfit trying to get into the B2C overstock space.
Warehouse 86 Ventures generated revenue primarily through a consignment model - Amazon.com was among the companies supplying it with consumer returns to sell on Bidtopia on a consignment basis.
We have been unable to reach Ken May or anyone at the company since phone lines have been disconnected. Paul St. James is not returning messages left on his cell phone. We cannot confirm the status of inventory that was housed in the warehouse before employees were laid off in November.
eBay has a search problem, according to the former Director of eBay Express North America. Adam Nash, now Vice President of Search & Platform Products at LinkedIn, blogged today about the difficulty shoppers have in finding products on eBay. Mr. Nash is qualified to discuss the issue - among his tasks at eBay: "Define product features and strategy for search classification & infrastructure supporting the eBay marketplace."
While there are plenty of eBay critics on the Internet, none are as interesting as the company's former employees. They have unique insights into the company culture, management thought-process, and approaches to technology and their blog posts offer the occasional glimpse into the inner workings of the company. Alan Lewis has blogged about cultural issues that impact strategy (link); Raghav Gupta about eBay search; Shripriya Mahesh about innovation at eBay; and Dave McClure blogged yesterday about PayPal's "password problem."
In Mr. Nash's blog post, "eBay's Value Problem is a Search Problem" (link), he explained that his friend, a Google engineer, could not find a particular Star Trek DVD set on eBay at a significantly lower price than he could find on Amazon.com, even though they existed. "(eBay) can never beat Amazon or traditional retailer e-commerce sites on trust and convenience. They can, however, beat them on price and selection. But customers have to be able to find those advantages to value them." (He was able to find the DVD set on eBay for $198 from a "top rated seller with returns" using some intricate search techniques.)
This was not Mr. Nash's first blog post about problems at eBay. In 2008, he wrote "A Eulogy for eBay Express" in which he covered in some detail "why eBay launched eBay Express, what we got right, what we got wrong, and why eBay Express likely doesn't fit with eBay's current strategy." The post is especially interesting this week, following eBay's announcement of changes coming at the end of March in which it pushes sellers into Store subscriptions. Mr. Nash explained eBay's premise in creating eBay Express, a fixed-price marketplace it launched in 2006 and closed in 2008:
"Our entire reason for building a separate site was because we believed that the changes needed for buyers and sellers in a massive fixed-price marketplace were not compatible with the experience of the traditional eBay auction site. As I used to tell buyers and sellers, we built eBay Express so that we would not have to change the auction experience that millions of buyers and sellers loved on eBay.com."
Raghav Gupta, a Research Scientist at eBay Research Labs from 2002 - 2008, built eBay's Related searches product in 2005 and agreed to an interview with AuctionBytes in 2008 after I spotted his blog post, "An Ode to eBay." He discussed eBay's search features and stated, "I think individual users should be able to choose the factors they want to sort/filter their result by, without anything being imposed. In that scenario, you will agree that the more factors available, the better. Imagine being able to combine keywords and factors as you see fit to create your own perfect search."
He also said he believed that while there was a lot of good innovation happening at eBay in terms of demos and prototypes and contests, "hardly anything worthwhile ever makes it out."
But ex-eBayers are also concerned about potential signals they may send when they write about their former employer. Shripriya Mahesh, former Vice President of Corporate Strategy, recently bloggedabout eBay's lost opportunities in a post about the problems large corporations have in fostering innovation.
When I invited Ms. Mahesh to an interview to discuss her blog post last week, she declined, writing, "If I keep blogging about this topic, it will be seen as something more negative than constructive criticism and that is not my goal at all."
While eBay employees blogs may get passed around the user community when they are discovered, they generally don't make a big impact on the more general blogosphere. But former PayPal employee Dave McClure made a splash yesterday with a post about PayPal's "password problem." (Warning: his post includes cursing and is not suitable for children - link.)
Mr. McClure's post, which lit up the Twitter-sphere with retweets, was about what he saw as a necessary change in business models from CPM- or CPC-advertising to subscriptions and transactions (ecommerce, digital goods). In it, he revealed that the far-and-away number-one customer service problem and cost at PayPal was something called "forgotten password recovery." "That's a nice way to say that people can't remember their (expletive deleted) password." He went on to write that, "Password Friction at PayPal led to an unfortunate series of events which caused some signicant (sic) percentage of our users to HATE us with a PASSION that is usually reserved for politicians and lawyers."
Mr. McClure has been investing in early stage startups for years and recently launched his own venture fund and is well known in Silicon Valley.
It would be interesting to know what eBay's top management thinks of the perspective of former employees. Interestingly, eBay CEO John Donahoe himself once considered blogging. He consulted eBay's corporate blogger Richard Brewer-Hay, who advised Mr. Donahoe to leave his blogging to eBay's internal Intranet, and leave the public blogging to him on the eBay Ink blog.
Perhaps we'll have to wait until Mr. Donahoe leaves eBay to hear his thoughts (and perhaps rebuttals) on his former employees' critiques.
eBay Reveals It Conducted a Test of All Stores in Core
By: Ina Steiner
Sun Jan 31 2010 21:55:25
Sellers who are wondering what impact eBay's pending changes will have on their own business may want to check their October sales data. In a podcast interview with AuctionBytes on Friday afternoon, eBay executive Todd Lutwak revealed that eBay had put all of the SIF inventory in Core for a period of time in the fall.
AuctionBytes Blog readers may remember our October 15th post about eBay's test of Stores in Core. At the time, eBay said, "We are currently conducting tests that may result in the inclusion of Store inventory format items in the main search results for a small percentage of traffic." To my knowledge, no one was aware of the extent of the test.
Todd said in Friday's interview, "We actually put all of the SIF (Store Inventory Format) inventory on Core for a period during Q4 on the U.S. marketplace in order to test this. So not only do we have all of the data from the European markets on the success of this, but we actually did test this already in the U.S. market in October or November."
You can hear exactly what Todd said about this in the AuctionBytes podcast. The SIF in Core section starts at the end of the interview at (20:06). Todd revealed this information as part of his explanation of why eBay is so "very confident that these changes are the right thing to do for the marketplace."
During the interview, Todd also provided answers to questions, including:
If being an eBay Store subscriber affects the exposure of fixed-price listings in search results.
Whether Subtitles, which formerly cost 2 cents for Storeowners, will now cost $1.50.
In addition, Todd said Trust & Safety will not punish a user for listing 100 free auctions in each of their User IDs
Amazon.com's press release dated 1/28/10 follows. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced financial results for its fourth quarter ended December 31, 2009.
Operating cash flow was $3.29 billion in 2009, compared with $1.70billion in 2008. Free cash flow increased 114% to $2.92 billion in 2009, compared with $1.36 billion in 2008.
Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards outstanding totaled 461 million on December 31, 2009, compared with 446 million a year ago.
Net sales increased 42% to $9.52 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $6.70 billion in fourth quarter 2008. Excluding the $354 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales would have grown 37% compared with fourth quarter 2008.
Operating income increased 75% to $476 million in the fourth quarter, compared with $272 million in fourth quarter 2008. Excluding the $31 million favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, operating income would have grown 63% compared with fourth quarter 2008.
Net income increased 71% to $384 million in the fourth quarter, or $0.85 per diluted share, compared with net income of $225 million, or $0.52 per diluted share, in fourth quarter 2008.
"Millions of people now own Kindles," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "And Kindle owners read, a lot. When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books. This is year-to-date and includes only paid books - free Kindle books would make the number even higher. It's been an exciting 27 months."
Full Year 2009 Net sales increased 28% to $24.51 billion, or 29% excluding the $182 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the year, compared with $19.17 billion in 2008.
Operating income increased 34% to $1.13 billion, or 39% excluding the $40 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the year, compared with $842 million in 2008. Included in 2009 operating income is the impact of our settlement with Toysrus.com LLC for $51 million. In 2008, operating income included a $53 million non-cash gain recognized on the sale of the Company's European DVD rental assets.
Net income increased 40% to $902 million in 2009, or $2.04 per diluted share, compared with net income of $645 million, or $1.49 per diluted share, in 2008.
Highlights
Kindle and Kindle DX are available for immediate shipment to over 100 countries. Additionally, the Kindle for iPhone App is now available from the Apple App Store in more than 60 countries. Customers around the world can now synchronize reading between their Kindle, Kindle DX, personal computer, iPhone, iPod touch and soon, Blackberry, Mac and iPad.
The U.S. Kindle Store now has more than 410,000 books, including 100 of 112 New York Times Bestsellers, more than 8,000 blogs, and more than 130 top U.S. and International newspapers and magazines, including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Times (U.K.), Le Monde, The Economist, The New Yorker, Newsweek, and Time.
The Company announced that authors and publishers around the world can now use the self-service Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to upload and sell books in English, German and French to customers worldwide in the Kindle Store.
Amazon.com announced a new 70 percent royalty option for Kindle DTP, enabling authors and publishers to earn more royalties. Beginning June 30, authors and publishers who select the new royalty option will receive 70 percent of list price, net of delivery costs.
The Company introduced Kindle Development Kit, which gives developers access to programming interfaces, tools and documentation to build and upload active content for Kindle.
North America segment sales, representing the Company's U.S. and Canadian sites, were $4.96 billion, up 36% from fourth quarter 2008.
International segment sales, representing the Company's U.K., German, Japanese, French and Chinese sites, were $4.56 billion, up 49% from fourth quarter 2008. Excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, International sales grew 37%.
Worldwide Media sales grew 29% to $4.68 billion. Excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 23%.
Worldwide Electronics & Other General Merchandise sales grew 60% to $4.61 billion. Excluding the favorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, sales grew 54%.The Company completed its acquisition of Zappos.com on November 1, 2009. Zappos.com contributed approximately $200 million to fourth quarter revenue.
Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), a new web service that makes it easy to set up, operate and scale relational databases in the cloud, was introduced by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon RDS provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming database administration tasks, freeing users to focus on their application and their business.
AWS introduced Spot Instances for Amazon EC2, a new option that allows customers to purchase and consume Amazon EC2 compute resources. With Spot Instances, customers bid on unused Amazon EC2 capacity and run those instances for as long as their bid exceeds the current Spot Price. Spot Instances can enable lower costs and provide significant short-term capacity for customers with flexibility in when their applications can run.
Both Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3 lowered pricing during the quarter. Amazon EC2 lowered prices up to 15% for all On-demand instance families and sizes, while Amazon S3 introduced new pricing tiers that will reduce storage cost for multi-petabyte customers by more than 15%.
Separately, the Company is announcing that its Board of Directors has authorized the Company to repurchase up to $2 billion of the Company's common stock. The program allows the Company to opportunistically repurchase its shares from time to time when it believes that doing so would enhance long-term shareholder value. The repurchase authorization does not have a fixed expiration. Purchases may be effected through one or more open market transactions, privately negotiated transactions, transactions structured through investment banking institutions or a combination of the foregoing. This stock repurchase authorization replaces the previous $1 billion stock repurchase authorization, approved by the Board of Directors in 2008.
Live Blogging eBay's Town Hall Meeting on Seller Release
By: Ina Steiner
Wed Jan 27 2010 18:32:45
eBay is hosting a Town Hall meeting to discuss Tuesday's Seller Release announcement. I'll be live blogging the session. To listen to the event, taking place today from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm Pacific, visit this page. (You have to join the eBay Radio group to listen.) Like past events, you can call in to the show.
I'm was looking for a link to the broadcast (this is a new system for broadcasting eBay Town Hall) - you have to hit that big round button to access the broadcast.
Stay tuned for updates.
In attendance at the Town Hall meeting (excuse any spelling errors in people's names): Dinesh Lathi Todd Lutwak Jamie Stark Kristina Klausen Kelly
Dinesh is explaining the rationale behind the SR1 announcements. Now an overview of the new pricing structure. Overview of other changes: Buyer Protection Program (moving disputes to eBay, increased onsite and offsite promotion about the program); changes to eBay Motors; expansion of multivariate listings.
Already taking questions at 6:41 pm (Eastern time).
Bernard in Washington - FP, multi-item listings, sells dog doors. Wondering if all fixed-price items will receive full search exposure. Jamie says yes, effective March 30th.
Jerrod in Los Angeles - Selling on eBay since 2004, he is seeing fees raised and is "being killed." He said the 9% Final Value Fee is going to kill him, is eBay trying to get rid of small sellers like him in favor of corporate sellers? Why no way to opt out of the 9%? Add in the Free Shipping eBay requests sellers offer, plus PayPal fees,....
Griff asked Jerrod about his business, he sells once or twice a month. He has 150 things in his garage to sell on eBay. Griff says eBay is looking for candidates to figure out a strategy - no change in fees, but he will help him utilize one of the options, he'll be able to reconfigure his strategy to increase sales.
An ironic moment: Jerrod said he called in with Skype and could only hear every third word from Griff.
Rob from Brooklyn. He echoes some of Jerrod's comments. Selling since 1998, he's a consignment seller of collectibles. eBay's new 9% commission combined with PayPal's 9% fees is not going to support his consignment model.
An unidentified eBay exec said to double-check his PayPal math, Rob said many of his items sell for under $10. Griff suggested he look into PayPal micro-payments. Rob said he hopes they can help him stay profitable so he can stay on eBay. Another eBay exec tried to talk, but Rob keeps talking!
Griff refutes Rob's claim that items won't get fair price on eBay. Griff tries to get things back on track - they will take questions about the changes, not about specific seller's selling strategies.
Connection died for me, I believe eBay Town Hall is experiencing Technical Difficulties.
Back online as if nothing happened???? Kristina now talking.
Mike from Trenton, New Jersey. It is a fee decrease for him, but is concerned about duplicate listings. (Referred to Stores in Core from a few years ago)
Todd said back then, Time Ending Soonest was default sort - now the logic ranks FP listings by quality.
Griff talks about the impressions metric that puts listings that don't get clicks and sends them to the bottom. Todd talks about quality measurement also punishing dupe listings.
The seller Mike said that feature was removed from collectibles and art, wasn't it? Griff said collectibles search is different. (This is getting a bit confusing - Ina.) The seller lists reproduction posters, and his concern is that his category might see a significant increase in listings.
eBay exec says they will keep an eye on this issue.
Wayne from Ontario, Calif. For collectibles, can you let people list more than one picture without charge? Top level category is sports cards and memorabilia.
eBay exec said they started a pilot in certain collectibles categories offering free pictures. Just recently, in new announcement, we announced free pics for all Stores subscribers.
No, Wayne does as a hobby (but has 3,000 feedback, wow!).
Kristina says look at the fee illustrator tool - it's possible a Basic Store with free photos may be worth his while.
Wayne said his cost was $9, it will be $16 under new price structure. eBay exec says - you are eligible for free listings for auctions for under $1 starting price. etc.
Wayne said you aren't helping small-time seller. Griff said depending on Average Selling Price. As Jamie said, Wayne might be better off with eBay Store - explore ALL options before drawing conclusions. Griff said sellers are not trying it out - use the Fee Illustrator tool.
Todd said it worked in the UK - this is already out there and works on other platforms.
Kim in Andover, Kansas. I don't understand new system. She has a Basic Store for $16/month. Jamie asks for more info....Kim says roughly 50-50 format.
Kim: Are all 3-cent listings going to turn into 20-cent listings?
Jamie: Answers question - equals yes. However, she says Kim may be better off upgrading her Store level.
Kim: FVF question - in Store it's 12%, and 8.75 for auction listings. Jamie: For auctions - continue to be on Auction rate card. Fixed price - vary depending on category item is listing in.
Sayde in Canada: Sells camera lens, some old, some antique. He sells in auction format, 20/month. He must pay an extra 3.5 percent fee for PayPal, and his bank charges him another 3.5 percent, because of currency issues. He does not think auction format will work for him. He's disappointed that he must remove the PowerSeller icon. On Canada, TRS icon not active yet. In U.S., TRS must sell 100/month. His items are $1500, sells $100,000 annually, but doesn't qualify for TRS in U.S. (Hope I captured the sense of what he was saying, and sorry for the spelling.)
Griff: we hear you. Donna heads TRS program. There is no TRS program in Canada. Yes, you need 100 transactions. (Sounds like he's out of luck.) Sayde says he sells all over the world - very difficult to get 100 U.S. customers. He doesn't want to sell low-priced items just to qualify for the program, his items are very expensive.
Griff says this is an edge case. (Ina's editorial: great inventory - unique items that buyers will want, but he may not be able to continue to list on eBay.com, that's too bad.)
Todd from Tennessee: Buyer Protection Policy - will eBay allow paper payments? Kelly says eBay is expanding coverage to approved electronic payments, but not paper payments.
Dan in New Jersey: Seller on eBay for 10 years. Lists 1,000 in Basic eBay Store. Concern is possibility that I could be paying more money instead of less money as you have been promoting this. I've been paying $15.95/month and 3-cent listings. If I want to continue, I must go to Premium account, but it costs me $50/month and 5-cents per listing. How is that a cost savings?
Griff: what's your average sell-through rate?
Dan: price was low enough that it didn't have to sell this month. There's a percentage of listings (20%) that have been there more than a year. But for 1,000 listings, it creates a cycle.
Jamie: Some Store items would sell more frequently with increased exposure. She repeats that the 35-cent fixed price listing is going down to 20 cents for Basic Store owners.
Dan: Long-time concern: I don't have a problem paying to get items sold, and I expect fees to go up over time. But bigger concern is that there are sellers like myself - I have a positive feedback rating above 98% - automated system where if there is an issue - buyer satisfaction - if it dips below a certain amount - seller is automatically slapped on the wrist. I go through the trouble of beefing up this Premium Store and time in putting auctions together - my goal is that I can increase to several thousand items in the Store. (Lee cut him off.)
Jamie: sounds like based on your reputation, you should have no problem meeting the standards of the Premium Store, which is Above Standard.
Kristina: How to find Fee Illustrator: www.ebay.com/feeillustrator You can enter your category, etc. and you'll see different scenarios and get a sense of how it will impact you.
Maryanne from (Washington?): Re fee increase or decrease.... Been on eBay since 1997, had eBay Store for last 3.5 years. Glad about visibility of Store listings, but shocked at fees. To continue - must have 227 fixed price items in Store. I would like customer service - I want to give my customers the best customer service.
- What are you going to do to increase traffic, now that there is a large influx of equal items.
- Will the traffic be high enough (I'd rather quit doing auction style listings) will traffic be enough?
Todd: Auctions are an excellent way to get visibility, and we're not advising you to move away from that. We want people to come on to eBay and select best format for them and get best visibility.We're expecting moving Stores to core will make it easier to sell those items. Ina paraphrase: If you are paying higher for a listing in 1 month, but you have it listed for fewer months because it sells faster, then that could be better. Look at the visibility issue.
Griff: non-performing inventory is a drag on your business.
Larry from Wilmington DE: TRS, will benefit from changes, will save 2/3 of my listing fees. Thank you for the changes, they work for my biz model. My question: may I have 2 User IDs, one for auctions, one for Fixed Price?
Jamie (I think): we don't limit number of User IDs you can have.
Al from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: on eBay since 1998. Sells vintage drums and few other items. Is there a possibility that sellers can get stock options, even a point zero five for every 20 items we sell? Are you negotiating with UPS and USPS for better rates for us?
Griff: No. SEC would not allow that (re stock options)
Mike from eBay: Are you a PowerSeller? (yes) Take advantage of PowerSeller discount with UPS. Go to PowerSeller pages.
Ten minutes left.
Phone board completely lit up.
Cindy from ?: I don't think eBay is pushing us to succeed? New pricing for auctions - to get everyone to list under $1 or sell in Fixed Price. There's a push for Free Shipping. If I list for 99 cents, I'll lose money - it's casino gambling. How is this helping me? How can I get profit - all I see is the fees.
Jamie: We know 99-cent auctions doesn't work for everyone. We have reduced insertion fees for up to 50%. Your insertion fees are going down. (Ina: FVF are going up)
Griff: FVF are fees you only pay if you sell. It's imporant to understand the difference between the two (insertion fees and Final Value Fees). (Sounds like Griff is reading a script about the rebalancing of fees.)
Cindy: I'd list more but people are confused in directions eBay ultimately wnats to go because our impression is that eBay wants to turn into a store. But this is our auctions, and once we understand something, it changes. I encourage everyone to look at. I spend 13 hours on the boards every day to stay on top of this game. (Lee cuts her off for the second time.)
Griff gives pep talk - "I know you can do it!"
Lee Mirabal is wrapping up.
Griff wraps up. eBay is hosting a webinar tomorrow (Thursday).
You can listen to the Audio archive of the Town Hall meeting. ebay.com/townhall
The Town Hall meeting is over. There were some technical troubles in the beginning, but they were resolved. Some excellent calls from sellers, many of whom have been selling for a really long time on eBay. Signing off....
Note from Ina: In looking over these notes, I realize I was likely identifying Dinesh as Todd by mistake in some cases - I apologize if I misidentified eBay executives.
This month, eBay began prominently displaying messaging about its new Buyer Protection Plan on the eBay.com website. eBay responded to some questions I had about the dispute process, which it had announced in April (see "
eBay is changing its fee structure at the end of March and is doing away with Store Inventory format. We asked readers to tell us how the changes would impact their businesses, and over 1,100 eBay sellers took our survey (see 
AuctionBytes wrote on Wednesday about 
Sellers who are wondering what impact eBay's pending changes will have on their own business may want to check their October sales data. In a podcast interview with AuctionBytes on Friday afternoon, eBay executive Todd Lutwak revealed that eBay had put all of the SIF inventory in Core for a period of time in the fall.
eBay is hosting a Town Hall meeting to discuss Tuesday's Seller Release announcement. I'll be live blogging the session. To listen to the event, taking place today from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm Pacific, visit 