‘Best match’ made default on eBay France
July 31, 2007
eBay France have just announced that “sort by relevence” will be implemented by default in three categories. Known as “best match” on eBay UK, this way of sorting search results is designed to show those most likely to be what the buyer is looking for at the top of the search results. It utilises not only title keywords, but other factors like item specifics, to present most likely matches first to potential buyers.
The French announcement takes pains to emphasise that this is a method of sorting only: it does not remove any items which would normally show in the search results. That will be some comfort to sellers, but those who currently rely on the vaguaries of keyword searches - sellers of accessories for mobile phones, PDAs and iPods spring to mind - might need to look at new ways of getting themselves seen on the site.
Only three categories - CDs/Records, Crafts and Coins - are being tested with this new sort so far, but with similar tests being run for some buyers on eBay UK, it seems that this is the favourite for the future of eBay. Results for those who browse by category - who seem to have slipped eBay’s mind recently - will continue to be sorted by time remaining.
Full translation of the announcement:
How to use VeRO to kill your competition
July 31, 2007
The VeRO program is a bit of a mystery to most eBay users. Often the first time they hear of it is the receipt of an email telling them their auction has been ended for breaching someone’s Intellectual Property (IP) rights. In normal circumstances it’s understandable you shouldn’t be using someone’s trademark, copyright or patent. In practise however it can be almost impossible to verify products from your supplier don’t infringe upon another manufacturers IP.
A major problem with the VeRO program is that some companies consider it a tool to control the market rather than to protect their IP. The VeRO program is not intended to either restrict sales or to control the price goods are offered at.
This popular misconception is still widely accepted e.g. in an article by the Internet Search Engine Database (ISEDB) titled “How Brands Can Mitigate eBay’s Aggressive Search Engine Advertising Tactics“.
They go on to state “There is a way for brands to address unauthorized sales activity on eBay for new merchandise, which essentially is an attempt to low-ball or undercut the retail pricing established through the corporate and authorized retailer channels.” That is going too far, there is absolutely nothing wrong with selling a product on eBay from a particular manufacturer and use of the VeRO program to limit or cease sales is an abuse of the program. VeRO is there to protect your copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights. It is not there to act as a price fixing tool.
Rob Chesnut (Head of Trust and Safety) at eBay Live!, made it clear he would not tolerate VeRO rights holders who use VeRO to control the marketplace rather than to fight fake products. He has actually in the past, following a conversation with a manufacturer who stated they use the program simply because they don’t want their products sold on eBay, terminated their VeRO membership as it’s blatant misuse.
The ISEDB article title is misleading and it’s opening statement encourages misuse of the VeRO program. Whilst VeRO is a great program to protect genuine IP rights restricting sales in an open marketplace or engaging in price fixing is wrong, and in many territories also illegal.
Item specifics: have your say
July 31, 2007
Love them or hate them, Item Specifics seem to be here to stay. If they’ve been recently introduced in your categories, eBay want to hear from you. Are there vital things missing, or things that shouldn’t be there at all? Now’s your chance to have your say.
And if you got a rather puzzling message this morning when you signed in, saying “categories you sell in are changing” and linking to what appeared to be a pulled thread from an eBay message board, this seems to be what they were trying to direct you to.
eBay Germany “Enter the Luxury Market”
July 31, 2007
The story is that eBay Germany have teamed up with six fashion design student to help promote their collections on eBay. A landing page has been created for the six eBay shops where the designers have selected garments from their ranges to sell online. The shops were launched during the prestigious Berlin Fashion Week.
It’s not all plain sailing though, Blognation questions how successful the shops will be as public perception of eBay isn’t one of luxury goods. PFSK points out that regardless of success the six chosen designers are receiving great publicity from which to launch their careers.
Of more interest is that eBay are promoting luxury goods, the market for which was decimated for many sellers by the “Building Trust by Reducing Counterfeits” policy introduced back in December 2006.
Germany is one of the few markets able to ship luxury goods worldwide, although they’re restricted to listing them on the German, Swiss and Austrian sites. Other European sites such as Spain can only list and sell on their own country site.
The current promotion is restricted to just the German site. Shipping from the designers is to Germany only and all items are fixed price listings. I’m unconvinced that eBay will be seen as the place for luxury goods if the designers fail to attract sales. Certainly it will do nothing to bolster the confidence of sellers affected by the counterfeits policy and fixed price listings don’t suggest the public would bid up the items to acceptable final value prices. This promotion has the potential to discourage more sellers of luxury goods from listing items on eBay than it attracts.
More tests on new search results
July 30, 2007
eBay UK have made another announcement about tests for changes to search results on the site. Beginning this week, until the beginning of September, 2% of users will be shown the new pages, which are designed to return more items for each search, and at the same time, to return only relevent results.
From the example given, “size 12 red shoes”, it seems that item specifics may be being looked at as well as just titles, so sellers should be even keener to keep those fully filled out. What’s not quite clear, however, is how these tests relate to the tests already announced at the beginning of July, which we think we’ve already seen.
If you’re one of the lucky ones to see the new results, please grab us a screen shot and mail it over (remove REMOVE): we’d love to see what’s in store!
Things you love to win on eBay
July 30, 2007
eBay are sending out thousands of “Find the things you love to win on eBay” Summer 2007 magazines. Each page is packed full of colourful suggestions of items available on eBay.
Inside are pages titled “Go for gold” with everything from a gold pocket watch, a gold Toyota Prius to a gold dress and shoes. “Grow your Garden” has wheel barrows, seeds a fountain and patio heaters. “Colour your world” includes my favourite - a murano glass vase and murano flower along with retro furnititure, perfume and Mexican tiles.
“Get Movin” suggest all things red from a Mini cooper, a Honda Shadow, Cannondale bike and even a canoe! Finally “Get your tech on” offers the latest gadgets from Robosapien to Apple MacBooks, Nike Shox to TomTom Sat Nav.
It’s great to see eBay reminding buyers to visit the site during the summer holidays. If you got a copy mailed to you let us know your thoughts.
eBay expects “increased litigation” in Germany
July 29, 2007
eBay have revealed that a German court has said they must do more to halt the sale of counterfeit goods on their site. The judgement by the Federal Supreme Court, Germany’s highest, is part of a long-running dispute between the auction site and Montres Rolex SA, over the sale of fake Rolex watches. Rolex claim unfair competition: at issue is the question of whether low start prices, with a bar currently set at €800, are themselves indicative that the item being sold is not genuine.
In the filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, eBay revealed the court’s decision that they must take “reasonable measures to prevent recurrence once it is informed of clearly identified infringement”. In certain circumstances, their responsibility to act against suspected counterfeit sellers might begin “upon first notice of infringement”. It continued: “We expect that this ruling will likely result in increased litigation against us in Germany, although we do not currently believe that it will require a significant change in our business practices.”
PayPal “moves” from Ireland to Singapore
July 29, 2007
The Irish Sunday Business Post today carries two articles about PayPal. In the first it states that PayPal have relocated “a significant portion of its business to Singapore for accounting and taxation purposes“. This follows on from PayPal establishing a Bank in Luxembourg to which all European PayPal accounts were transferred to on 2nd July this year.
The move to Singapore is part of an ongoing “tax realignment” and results in all of PayPal International’s business now being outside Europe with the exception of their intellectual property functions. Royalties from intellectual property are not taxed in Ireland, under a tax break designed to attract multinationals to Ireland. “Geographic Tax Savings” was referred to in the Investors conference call on 18th July and it’s no surprise a company the size of PayPal and eBay use different tax regimes to their advantage.
So has this resulted in job losses in Ireland? Not in the slightest - Day to day business carries on as normal, it’s just a holding company in Singapore. The second article refers to PayPal declining government grant assistance to open new offices in Sligo, Ireland. Instead they’ve decided to locate them in Dublin as it offers easier access to a larger pool of potential employees. With 1200 currently on the payroll and up to another 200 vacancies in the new PayPal location the move to Singapore makes little difference to PayPal and eBay being a significant Irish employer.
Judge refuses injunction against Buy It Now
July 29, 2007
A judge in the long-running eBay vs. MercExchange case has refused to order eBay to stop using the Buy It Now feature. U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Friedman refused MercExchange’s request for a permanent injunction against BIN; the US Supreme Court ruled last year that although eBay was infringing MercExchange’s patent, it was for the lower court to rule whether or not they had to stop using the technology. The case has thus become a rallying point for critics of “patent trolls” - those who try to sue established companies to enforce patents for ideas that have never been developed into products.
Judge Friedman said that MercExchange was not irreparably harmed as it continued to make money from its patents, either by licensing its technology, or by litigation against those it believed infringed its intellectual property:
“MercExchange has utilized its patents as a sword to extract money rather than as a shield to protect its right to exclude or its market share, reputation, good will, or name recognition, as MercExchange appears to possess none of these.”
However, Judge Friedman also denied eBay’s request to stay proceedings on one of the two patents in the case, saying that the “infringement suit has already been tried by a jury and a final verdict and damage award has been affirmed by the federal circuit”. This could see eBay paying US$25.5million in damages to MercExchange.
He did grant a stay in proceedings on a second patent, until the US Patent and Trademark Office has reexamined the validity of the patent granted to MercExchange: in effect, the Patent Office will decide that issue.
eBay have said that they have changed how their websites work so that they no longer use any potentially infringing technology, and that they have set aside reserves to cover the cost of the law suit and any damages. Spokesperson Catherine England said “we’re pretty pleased with the decision”.
For those at the back who haven’t been paying attention, here’s the background to the case.
Via Slashdot.
Should eBay decide your morals and beliefs?
July 29, 2007
It’s not a question I’d ever given much thought to in the past. Sure there are certain restrictions on what you can list for example some products are prohibited to follow local laws (part used cosmetics in Germany), and the groundswell of public opinion (Concert for Diana tickets). Adult products are allowed on the eBay.com site but not on eBay.co.uk. I hear rumours it’s because policing the category is just too much work and retrospectively eBay wish they’d never allowed adult products on eBay.com rather than because they’re particularly prudish.
That’s just what you’re allowed to buy and sell on the site however, the question runs deeper than that. Should eBay control deeply held personal beliefs, convictions and make decisions on your morals? According to Life Decisions International (LDI) that’s exactly what they should do. LDI are calling for a boycott of eBay and PayPal because of “their support of Planned Parenthood, the world’s leading abortion-advocacy group”. LDI states it’s primary mission as “challenging the agenda of Planned Parenthood worldwide” and maintains a boycott list of companies it deems to support Planned Parenthood.
So what has eBay done to gain entry on the list? Well eBay has two programs to support charitable giving which have raised money for Planned Parenthood. The eBay Foundation enables eBay and PayPal employees to raise funds for their favoured charities with donations from the foundation to support the work. eBay Giving Works (known as eBay for Charity in the UK) enables eBay users to raise money for their favoured charities by donating proceeds from items sold on the site.
As soon as eBay start making judgement calls on which charities employees and the eBay community at large choose to support they are stepping into an area of your private life that goes beyond running a marketplace to enable commerce. Thankfully they do not do this and the criteria for a charity benefiting from fundraising is simply that - that they are a registered charity. eBay leave it to the individual to decide which causes they would like to support, and which causes they’d prefer not to.
That’s why LDI’s call for a boycott of eBay is wrong. It’s not about the right to life or the right to an abortion. It’s irrelevant whether you agree or disagree with their aims and objectives.
It’s about your freedom, your morals, your beliefs and quite frankly your right to live your life without eBay making judgements on your behalf.
Read more
Shops links: eBay giveth, eBay taketh away
July 27, 2007
We were celebrating earlier this week that the Shops’ hub link has been added to the eBay UK header, but it seems the fight to get Shops’ links back where they belong (i.e. in buyers’ faces) isn’t over yet.
eBay announced at the beginning of the month that they’d be testing some new ways of displaying search results. One of the lucky 5% of members selected to see the new version was Martin from The Whirlpool Bath Shop, who was searching for his own items on eBay, and got taken to this page automatically. Conspicuous by its absence from the left hand side bar is the block of four featured shops.
As there is a huge white space just begging for a bit of content, it would be nice to know that this is just an oversight during the development process, and that in the final version, whatever it may be, the links will be restored.
Eight scammers arrested in HK
July 27, 2007
Eight people were arrested in Hong Kong yesterday for eBay fraud estimated at UHK$5million. Police believe that 10,000 buyers may have been cheated out of money for goods that were never delivered, though they are still trying to ascertain the exact number of victims, many of whom were from the UK and the US, with some from Hong Kong itself. It’s estimated that the scammers made more than HK$600,000 in the first six months of this year alone.
The gang listed mainly electronic items, including MP3 players and computer memory cards, took payment for them but never delivered the goods. Senior Superintendent Man Chi-hung of the Commercial Crime Bureau’s technology crime division said that the gang used a variety of sales techniques: some products were listed very cheaply to attract bidders, whereas others were listed at normal market prices, to avoid raising suspicion. None of the items allegedly sold has been recovered.
The investigation began after eBay made a complaint to police. Jenny Yip, communications manager of eBay Hong Kong, said “our team detected some irregular activities at eBay and we reported to police. We’ve also received complaints from buyers claiming they did not receive any goods after payments had been made.” eBay cooperated with the police throughout the investigation.
Via The Standard (HK) and Bangkok Post.
eBay.co.uk to launch buyer telephone support
July 27, 2007
Great news today for prolific buyers! From Monday eBay.co.uk are starting trials of phone support with their top buyers who frequently spend on the site. eBay have been increasing the amount of support available to top sellers with the recent introduction of phone support for Silver PowerSellers and Account Managers for Gold, Platinum and Titanium PowerSellers. It’s great to see them starting to address buyer support.
Initially phone support and priority e-mail handling will be made available for some of the top buyers as a trial. If this proves a success it will be rolled out to more top buyers over the coming months.
Top Buyer support will be available at the same times as the PowerSeller phone support - Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm and Saturday, 11am-5pm.
The service will go live on the morning of Monday 30th July and initially it will be by invitiation only to a selected group of buyers. Buyers selected for the trial will receive more details in the next few days.
This is a move that should be welcomed by all sellers, without buyers we’d have no one to sell to . Anything that helps prolific buyers buy more has to be good for business.
eBay Italy put the fun back into auctions
July 26, 2007
It’s eBay Pulse on Windorphins! All the amusing, unusual and downright bizarre items from eBay collected in one place and voted for by the community. That’s the new Incredible on eBay site from ebay Italy.
I do like the way that anything offbeat can end up on this page, and it’ll only stay at the top if enough other eBayers vote to keep it there. I’m hoping the site won’t get gamed in the same way that pulse does, but time will tell on that.
Either way is a fun new way to keep buyers engaged on eBay as well as a great way to encourage bidding on auctions. I like it, now where’s the UK version?
Fee changes on eBay Belgium
July 26, 2007
eBay Belgium today becomes the second eBay site this week to announce fee changes valid from 28th August:
- Items with a start price €2,00 - €9,99 have their insertion fee reduced by 5c to 15c.
- Gallery fee for the €0,01- €1,99 tranche reduced to 10c.
- Insertion fees for items starting at €200 or more are increased to €3,00.
- FVFs on items over €50 are increased: fees are being raised 0.5% on the €50-€1000 and over €1000 tranches to 4% and 2% respectively. FVFs for items under €50 are unchanged.
This is another move by eBay towards a lower insertion fee, higher final value fee pricing model, just as we’ve seen with UK media categories. The Belgians are quite open about their thinking here: “we hope to encourage sellers to list their items for sale with a low start price, which helps to improve their chances of success in attracting more bidders from the start of the auction”. With eBay’s continued emphasis on getting sellers back to listing on core rather than in shops, I think we can expect to see more of this on other eBay sites in the future.
Time to serve your community
July 26, 2007
ChannelAdvisor are looking for “bright, ambitious, tech-savvy individuals, with an interest in software and internet retail” to work in their Richmond offices. Positions are available in everything from product marketing to ecommerce sales and search and comparison shopping specialist.
If you’re an admirer of Scot Wingo and think you’ve got what it takes here’s the chance to work alongside his team in London. If you don’t fancy any of the positions available step right next door to eBay’s offices at the same location as they have a raft of career opportunities open as well.
PayPal teams with Red Cross flood appeal
July 26, 2007
PayPal and The British Red Cross have launched an appeal in support of the communities affected by recent floods throughout the UK.
They’re raising money to support individuals whose homes and lives have been affected as well as community recovery activities. The appeal will assist those previously affected by floods as well as those currently affected and any more victims affected in the next few weeks.
How to donate with PayPal mobile
Buyers encouraged to leave worse Detailed Seller Ratings
July 26, 2007
I get the impression that Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR’s) aren’t working as well as eBay would like. A new message has appeared when a buyer leaves feedback informing them that sellers can’t see what DSRs they leave.

(Click to embiggen)
Now this implies to me that eBay think too many buyers either aren’t leaving DSRs, or that they’re all leaving 5/5 for each rating. In other words they’re trying to encourage buyers to differentiate more between sellers. It appears to invite a more negative perspective rather than encouraging accuracy.
What will this mean for sellers? Well expect your DSR percentages to drop: to me as a buyer this says “Mark the seller down for every tiny detail you weren’t happy about with impunity”.
I know overall that good sellers will still get better ratings than bad sellers, but this does appear to go a bit too far in encouraging buyers with a grievance to put the boot in.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows misprint
July 25, 2007
Copies of the hottest book of the year are appearing on eBay. Not however the mint editions you might expect, but collectable misprinted copies.
It’s questionable what the long term value of these will be, as it’s the final book in the series pottermania may decline in the future. At the moment though the few hundred errors from the 8.3 million copies printed are highly collectable (well that’s what the bidding on eBay indicates!)
The misprinted copies include lettering missing from the spine and gold letting from the front of the books. Maybe you’d prefer one with the cover attached upside down or one of the copies that have 30 entire pages missing!
If you’re lucky enough to have a copy which isn’t in tip top condition whatever you do don’t take it back to the shop, sell it on eBay and buy another for yourself!
eBay France makes Gallery compulsory
July 25, 2007
eBay France have just announced that from the 28th August, Gallery pictures will no longer be priced seperately, but will be included in a revised insertion fee.
Intended “to make searching the site more visual and more intuitive”, the new fee structure is designed to reward low-start auctions: there’s a new cheapest tranche for items starting at €1,00 or less, and this will apply to auctions only, as the lowest price for BIN on eBay.fr is €1,99.
There’s also a new most expensive tranche for items priced at €250 or more. Between the two, sellers of lower priced items may find themselves 5c a listing better off, while those selling items €50 or above will see fees increase by 15c.
Here’s the new price structure in comparison to the old:
| Start Price | Current fee insertion + gallery |
New fee |
|---|---|---|
| €0,01 - €1,00 | €0,35 | €0,20 |
| €1,01 - €1,99 | €0,35 | |
| €2,00 - €9,99 | €0,45 | |
| €10,00 - €24,99 | €0,60 | €0,60 |
| €25,00 - €49,99 | €1,10 | €1,15 |
| €50,00 - €99,99 | €1,70 | €1,80 |
| €100,00 - €249,99 | €2,70 | €2,85 |
| €250 and above | €3,90 |
No doubt there will be some sellers complaining about this - after all, not everyone uses Gallery, but for the majority, and especially for buyers, this should be a great step forward. If your item doesn’t demand a Gallery photo, then why not brand your listings in search, and put your logo there instead?
At the moment, this change has been announced solely for eBay France. However, August has traditionally been a time when eBay UK fees are tweaked, so we’d expect to see some changes there over the next few weeks too.
First flight on new Airbus A380 on eBay
July 25, 2007
The new double decker Airbus A380 is due to make aviation history with it’s first commercial flight in October of this year. The flight will be between a return flight between Singapore to Sydney.

Due to the demand from aviation enthusiasts to be first to fly on the revolutionary plane Singapore Airplines have come up with a novel way to distribute the tickets fairly - auction them on eBay to be paid with PayPal! All the proceeds from the sale of tickets on the first flight will be donated to charity.
eBay and PayPal will subsidise the fees and ExxonMobil Aviation are donating the fuel for the flight to ensure the charities get the maximum benefit possible. The money will be split equally between, Singapore’s Community Chest, The Children’s Hospital (Randwick and Westmead), and Médecins Sans Frontières.
Singapore Airlines have set up a special website with further information, you can register there to be notified when the auctions go live.
Changes to eBay emails
July 24, 2007
If you use email filters or automated response systems to deal with your eBay email, you need to know that eBay are changing the email subject lines. The emails affected “soon” are registration, bid and listing confirmations, favourite seller update and daily buying and selling summaries - emails which I’d imagine most of the world has turned off - but “other emails will be changing in the next few weeks so please keep checking for announcements”.
PayPal cuddles up to Facebook
July 23, 2007
PayPal are running a developers competition for Facebook applications (sadly only open to US residents). Naturally the application has to use PayPal but it’s a great way for PayPal to make inroads into the 30 million odd Facebook users.
Judging will be based on:
- Creativity: Is the application engaging and innovative? - 30%
- Quality: Does the application work intuitively and as expected? - 30%
- Functionality: Is the application useful? Does it fulfill customer’s needs? - 40%
It will be interesting to see what the developers come up with, monitising Facebook for users will only make it more attractive, and of course if applications are developed first for PayPal it’s shutting another door in the face of Google Checkout. They’ll be playing catchup once again.
There’s one oddity with this competition, there are two “First Prizes” of $5,000, and four “Second Prizes” of $2,500. There’s also a “Grand Prize” of $10,000, but come on…… two first prizes?
10 ways to save money on eBay fees
July 23, 2007
I’ve just had a phone call from the landlord of my office this morning. He’s sold something on eBay for £70.00 and was asking how I can make a living when the final value fee was £17.00! Well the answer is I couldn’t…
He made a simple mistake, he listed a car accessory but picked the wrong category and listed it in the Motors Car category instead of Motors Parts and Accessories. It’s an expensive mistake to make, he’d also have paid an £8.00 listing fee.
If you haven’t checked the eBay.co.uk fee structure recently it’s worth spending some time reviewing it. Not only are Motors more expensive but there are some huge savings to be made.
- Did you know that Technology (Mobile and Home Phones, Computing, Consumer Electronics and Photography) or Media (Books, Music, DVDs, Film & TV, Video Games) products have a different fee structure? Property and Motors also have their own fee stucture.
- Several categories even have no Final Value Fees to pay, eg Property and Mobile Phones with Contracts! Others have fixed Final Value Fees such as Motors.
- Choosing a different (but relevant!) category to list in can give huge savings, for instance listing a multifunction Fax/Copier/Printer/Scanner in Office Equipment & Supplies (either Fax machines or copiers) will cost more in Final Value Fees then listing in Printers. Incidentally if you use Feature Plus that will cost you double as well! Listing a “How to” DVD in How To Guides will cost more in fees than listing the same DVD in Educational / Instructional DVD’s.
- If you have more than one of a particular item to sell the most you’ll be charged for insertion fees on a multiple quantity Auction or Buy It Now listing is £3.00. For a single item the maximum fee is £2.00. If you list items worth more than £100.00 in total placing them all on a single listings saves money.
- Second Chance offers incur no listing fees! If you have multiple items and auction a product you can offer as many underbidders the chance to buy at their highest bid free of charge. If they buy you only pay Final Value Fees.
- If you’re an authorised Motor Dealer you can list Classified Format ads and pay no Final Value Fees, only listing fees!
- Using Pictures on your auctions is a great way to attract more interest, but you only get one picture free for each listing. If you use more than one use your own hosting which is often free with your ISP or available from third parties like Photobucket and Auctiva.
- If you want to appeal to a worldwide audience listing item on sites other than eBay.co.uk have different fees applicable, you pay the fees on the site you list on. If you want to sell to the US consider listing on eBay.com. The downside is your listings will appear in US$
- If you list Shop Inventory Format items on other sites they’ll still appear in your eBay.co.uk shop. Some eBay sites have very very low insertion fees for SIF items compared to the UK
- Finally (and most important in my opinion), go through your eBay invoice, sort it by “Fee Type” and see where you’re spending most money. Look at each different fee type you’re paying and decide if you’re getting value for money and where you can make savings. If you don’t know what you’re spending you don’t know where you’re wasting fees.
If you have any more great tips for saving money please do add them in comments below.
eBay just made my day!
July 22, 2007
It’s amazing what you can find on eBay. TameBay reader Sean from IS Electronics found his own car, featured on a BT phonecard!

He said, “I was just browsing eBay as you do on a wet Sunday afternoon when I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was a card on auction with a picture of my actual car (note the reg) taken when it was new back in the 70s, it is a classic Hillman IMP, I had to have it and won it for a fiver, made my day.”
If you’ve found something that’s just made your day, come and tell us about it in the forum.



