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Seller non-performance policy finally clarified

Nearly three months after the policy began to be implemented, eBay have finally revealed more details of their seller non-performance policy.

Before we get into the details, let me say that this is absolutely not good enough. Message boards, blogs and even eBay Live have been filled with speculation about the details of this policy and how it might impact sellers, and yet it has take until now for eBay to clarify things. Over and over again we see them apologise for their poor communication, only for the same problem to occur the very next time there’s a major policy change. Once upon a time, Meg Whitman was praised for listening to her customers and creating community: these days, we’re all just treated like mushrooms.

So, on to the nitty gritty. Firstly the good news: seller accounts will not be restricted on the basis of neutral feedback alone, nor on the basis of one single negative feedback. There is “a minimum threshold of two unique negative feedback received” before any seller will be targetted under the SNP policy - so those worried that a single negative might close their account can sleep easy.

Once this two-neg threshold is reached, there are three possible scenarios, depending on the seller’s sales volume, and the level of their non-positive feedback. All figures are calculated over the previous 90 days.

• Low-volume sellers (less than $3000 sales) with 5% or more non-positive feedback will receive a 14 day selling suspension: they will still be able to bid, communicate and otherwise access the site during the suspension period. After the 14-day period has passed, selling privileges will be automatically reinstated.
• High-volume sellers with 5%-10% non-positive feedback will be restricted to 75% of their previous sales volume. After 30 days, the account will be manually reviewed. If non-positive feedback has been reduced to less than 5%, the restriction will be lifted: otherwise, it will remain. As the calculation is taken over a rolling 90 day period, presumably this extension of the restriction will mean a further reduction in allowed sales volume, as it will then take into account the previous 30 days of restricted sales.
• High-volume sellers with 10% non-positive feedback or more with at least 3 unique negative feedbacks “will receive a full selling restriction“: it’s not clear whether this is a permanent restriction or limited to a 14 or 30 day period.

It has still not been made clear how PayPal disputes are brought into this. The Chatter only gives feedback examples because “most sellers who fall into a category of SNP enforcement are there due to feedback rates”: nevertheless, as many buyers will put in a PayPal claim before leaving negative feedback, we need to know how the PayPal aspect works too.

Neutral feedbacks are being included because “vast majority of neutral comments indicate an issue. We felt that leaving neutral comments out of the calculation would mask a significant part of the bad buyer experience problem.” Though some have agreed with this, I personally don’t: the very word “neutral” precludes negativity, and if “neutral” on eBay means “thinly disguised negative, please don’t neg me back”, then it is indeed time to get rid of neutral feedback.

Non-positive feedback from non-paying bidders is, for the moment, included in the calculations. While I agree with eBay that there are legitimate reasons why a buyer may not pay, or why they may be in a situation where they receive an unpaid item strike (for example, some sellers will give a buyer a UIS for claiming from PayPal for non-receipt or SNAD), there needs to be a way to ensure that revenge feedback from NPBs does not impact a seller’s business. It’s hard to see any way out of this apart from manual evaluation of *all* accounts, though eBay will certainly not like the thought of the extra staff that would require.

Finally, detailed seller ratings (the stars) are currently not being used as part of this calculation - however, this will change in the future. Stay tuned.

Bid up on bid history

The new bid history page is now live on the site and I think it’s great!

Why it’s taken eBay so long to realise that if buyers are looking at the bid history it’s because they’re interested in the item I don’t know. Making certain a buyer interested enough to check previous bids can easily make further bids just makes so much sense!

For those that haven’t checked it out yet this is what it looks like:

RIP eBay.com.cn

Yesterday marked a new begining for eBay in China. Eachnet was launched and eBay have announced that eBay.com.cn will be closed down at some point in September.

China has been a failed territory for eBay from day one, and PayPal hasn’t fared any better. The new Eachnet site is a joint venture between eBay and the Tom Group, a local online media company.

Of eBay’s three main businesses currently only Skype has been successful in penetrating the Chinese market. Hopefully the new venture will end the run of failed foray’s into the far east.

Airbus A380 tickets now selling on eBay

Back in July we told you it was coming, and now the auctions are live. If you want to be first to fly on the Airbus A380 it’ll cost you a whopping £10,000 for a suite although bidding on economy seats are starting from just £2.00. Don’t expect to get seats for such a low price though, competition is fierce.

Of course if you have deep pockets the ultimate seats were always going to be the first two tickets sold which come with a choice of suites on the plane for the very first commercial flight. You’ll also receive a 1:100 (2 by 2 meter) model of the A380, a flights paid trip to Singapore Airlines headquarters in Toulouse, France to witness the delivery of the first Airbus A380, VIP transport to and from your flight on the A380 including first class tickets from anywhere in the world to Singapore and limousine transfers between flights. The cost? A mere £125,000!

All proceeds from the flight will be going to charity.

Pokemom sells cards for $142

A frustrated mother sold a pack of 44 Pokemon cards her kids snuck into her shopping trolley for US$142. Her auction began:

I’m selling a bunch of Pokemon cards. Why? Because my kids sneaked them into my shopping cart while at the grocery store and I ended up buying them because I didn’t notice they were there until we got home. How could I have possibly not noticed they were in my cart, you ask? Let me explain.

She then told the entire story of a frustrating trip to the supermarket with her family in tow, finishing up with the cards that were dropped in with the shopping:

They’re in perfect condition, as I took them away from the kiddos as soon as we got home from the store. Many of them say “Energy”. I tried carrying them around with me, but they didn’t work. I definitely didn’t have any more energy than usual.

Dawn Meehan is a mother to six kids, aged 1 to 12 years. She comes from Illinois, she has a blog, but most of all, she knows how to tell a great story. Why were buyers prepared to pay $142 for a $10 pack of cards? Because they wanted to be part of that story.

It’s something that, as sellers, we can all learn from. I’d expect a rash of copycat “OMG my kids are so frustrating” listings over the next few days, but for a story to be truly worth the telling, it needs to be original. What story have you got to tell?

Full text of this fabulous auction after the cut:

Read more

Blair’s new My eBay

Back in June at eBay Live! in Boston, Sue and I were lucky enough to meet Blair Hamilton, the eBay product manager who’s been working on the new My eBay for the past year. Blair was infectiously enthusiastic about the work going on to improve the user experience on eBay and today Blair announced on eBay Chatter My eBay is ready for beta testing.

Initially just 1% of selected users will be invited to test the new My eBay, but by early September it’ll be opened up to more users. In October additional features will be added and in the New Year the new My eBay will be rolled out site wide. The launch dates may change depending on results of beta testing.

So what’s the big deal? Well firstly buyers will get more item details, pictures, seller information and critically the ability to bid and raise bids directly from My eBay. If a buyer logs on and sees they’re not winning an auction they can instantly raise their bid directly within My eBay. Anything that makes it easier and more convenient for buyers to bid is great news for sellers!

The ability to make notes on items will also be added, plus the ability to add reminders un-associated with any particular buying and selling activity. This will be great for buyers to add “This is a Christmas present for mum” and to personalise transactions in new ways, as a seller anything that makes eBay more personal and fun is great news. For sellers to be able to set reminders, such as “Run out of xyz product, add to order on Friday” and have it in My eBay where it can’t be missed, will be invaluable over time.

The final change will be update to navigation around My eBay, currently my left navigation bar in My eBay has 48 links, and invariably to get to the one I want I have to scroll down the page. This will be simplified, customisable by the user so that the parts of My eBay that are most important to them appear in the summary page . The summary page will also highlight items you need to take action on such as for buyers they need to pay for three items and sellers may need to ship ten items that have been paid.

New technology will allow the pages to load faster, I’m really looking forward to trying out the new slicker My eBay!

RM scrap Sunday & Bank Holiday collections

If you’ve ever popped a parcel in a post box on Sunday as a favour for a desperate weekend buyer, you won’t be doing so much longer. Hellmail report that Postcomm, the postal services watchdog, have given Royal Mail permission to end Sunday and Bank Holiday collections in an effort to cut costs. Boxes in high usage areas, will, however, be monitored and emptied if they are likely to overflow.

Skype’s missing link

eBay don’t exactly have a great record on cross-promoting their own products. eBay Live didn’t take Paypal when we booked our tickets, and it took months to set up IM notifications from eBay via Skype. Now it’s Skype’s turn to fall out with PayPal:

Spot the missing link? If you want to purchase credits via your Business Control Panel, you can’t pay with PayPal because they’ve lost the button. Apparently they’re aware of the problem and are working to fix it, and in the meantime, “please use an alternative payment method.”

I wonder if they take Google Checkout? ]:)

Many thanks to Eddie for the heads up.

Month long cheap listing with gallery for eBay.com and ebay.ca

Philipp Justus has just announced a month long cheap listing promotion for eBay.com. The promotion is duplicated on eBay Canada and runs from August 29th to September 30th.

The promotion which is based on the last eBay.com cheap listing day waives listing fees for items with a start price under $10.00. For items over $10.00 insertion fees are discounted by 25%.

This promotion has to be a precursor to all eBay sites world wide having gallery included in the basic listing price, a move which ebay France has already made. Gallery pictures are such an important enhancement to eBay search that some third party tools such as the MyEBayFox plugin for the Firefox browser show gallery pictures even if the seller didn’t pay for them.

Justus states that buyers benefit from a richer shopping experience with gallery pictures and can shop in a more visually appealing way. This being the case just why do eBay allow listings without gallery pictures? eBay is all about buyers and anything not designed to give the best buyer experience possible just isn’t good enough.

Competitors such as Amazon have gallery pictures as default, it’s time eBay followed suit.

eBay university is coming to Ireland

Two eBay University dates have been announced for eBay Ireland in September. The venue is the National College of Ireland in Dublin and the courses run in the evening.

The Selling Basics course is to be held on the 4th September and is ideal for those with little or no experience selling on eBay. This course takes you through the steps from opening a seller account all the way to listing your first item on eBay.

The following week on the 13th September Beyond the Basics course is designed for those who have already sold some items on eBay and want to further their eBay business. The course will look at what makes a good listing and which tools are available to make selling on ebay troublefree.

Having attended eBay University in the UK I know that these courses are worthwhile. Often it’s not just the course content but the opportunity to network with other sellers that makes attending a must. Just one new idea can more than pay for the €40 registration cost.

Eddie pix a winner

Auctionpix have announced the launch of another product designed to make buying and selling on eBay easier. Slideshow creates a gallery from your auction and BIN items which can be used to cross-promote between your listings. It’s free to use if you insert the code in your auctions yourself (though if you want it automatically posted for you, you’ll need a paid-for Auctionpix account @ £40 pa). There are a few of these slideshow widgets about, but Auctionpix’s is my favourite for a few reasons.

Firstly, it’s not all about the advertising: there’s a discreet link back to auctionpix in the top right, but it doesn’t have the IN YOUR FACE links that some others (Auctiva, for example) use.

Secondly, it’s intuitively easy to use - move the mouse pointer to the centre, and the slideshow stops. Start moving left or right and the pictures slide with you. Move the mouse further out, and the pictures move faster: “just to be different”, says creator Eddie St Clare, but I think this is a very useful feature, especially when a seller has hundreds of listings to look through.

Finally, it’s more flexible in what you display. The eBay ID can be any that you choose - though eBay’s link policy says it must be an ID that you own. You can also filter by eBay site - so if you’re listing on multiple sites, you can promote just the relevent listings. (Sites currently supported are .com, .co.uk, .ca, .ie, .fr, .de and .com.au.)

Items on display are auction and BIN listings only: SIF is not included. While this does give eBay’s own slideshow the edge if you’re using it in a promotion box, you *are* limited to using that in promotion boxes. If you’re looking for an easy way to show off your other items in the body of your listings, Auctionpix’s slideshow is a definite winner. Go give it a try.

All white now: changes to search results, bid history pages

eBay UK have announced two upcoming changes to the site which should make things much easier for buyers.

Firstly, there are some cosmetic changes to the search results page: the alternating grey and white bars are going, to be replaced with an all-white background which, eBay say, should make the items stand out more. For those who are, like me, still getting the old version of the search page, the Playground on .com probably gives a taste of things to come, and very nice and up to date it looks too.

Secondly, the bid history page is also being prettied up, and perhaps more importantly, it will now be possible to place bids directly from this page. Anything that makes it easier for buyers to place a bid is alright by me!

Easy bid, speedy bid

eBay are testing a change which all sellers should appreciate. There have often been calls for auction extenders to allow time for buyers to raise their bid if they’re outbid at the last second. Now eBay are going to make that even less an attractive proposition with some changes to how bids are placed.

They are about to start testing one click bids on eBay.com which about 2% of buyers will see.

This is great news, no longer will you have to click the refresh button to see if you’re outbid, for the last couple of minutes this will automatically update. The ability to enter a new bid and confirm in a single click should encourage more bidders to up their price and more importantly they’ll have time to do so.

At the same time eBay will be adding a place bid box at the top of the auction page. Buyers will no longer have to click the “Place Bid” button but will be able to enter their bid direct on the view item page.

I’m wondering why they see the need to test these enhancements, anything that encourages easier and faster bidding is good news for sellers and makes buyers spending easier. Everyone wins!

eBay home page gets a face lift

Last Christmas eBay.co.uk made a radical decision. Rather then revert to the old home page when the Christmas season was over they unveiled a completely new home page. The eBay.co.uk home page has set the standard for other eBay sites around the world who have replicated the look and feel but eBay.com has been one of the last sites to follow suit.

Now eight months later eBay.com has launched their new homepage at the same time combining it with a snapshot of “My eBay” activities. This is great for buyers and occasional users of the site as it brings their recent activity into view on what’s to most casual users the eBay landing page.

For established sellers the changes will probably go largely unnoticed. Most sellers have their eBay shortcut set directly to “My eBay”, and for most to the selling tab - they have little interest in visiting the home page.

For buyers the “Watched items” is a feature sellers should appreciate, buyers are reminded of the items they were interested in bidding on. The selling tab with just five items on view is a needless waste of space for all but the most casual of sellers. The reminders tab again is useful for casual buyers but pointless for sellers, there’s no point eBay telling me I have x number of feedback to leave when it includes a load of transactions that haven’t even been paid for! It might as well just be for buying reminders.

That might sound slightly negative about the homepage from a sellers perspective, but I still like it! Buyers are the most important commodity that eBay has and tailoring the home page to buyers is just what eBay should (and have) be aiming for.

Sadly eBay.com haven’t had the courage to scrap the home page featured section, the eBay.co.uk home page is much improved by not being filled with get rich schemes or spoof listings designed to rip buyers off.

If you haven’t already have a look at the new home page demo, or even better just log into eBay.com and see it in action for yourself!

Nice try…

Something amusing amongst the normal flood of Chinese “authentic designer gear” spam this morning:

As ebays only aortorised serplier if your dont buy our products you will suffer suspensions from selling.

You have to give them full marks for trying!

eBay enrage high-end outlet store owners

The latest edition of the “Power Up” newsletter is causing more than a little controversy. (Power Up is the eBay.com equivalent of the PowerSeller News Letter).

It carries an article on “Sourcing for Profitability” where it suggests “When sourcing at retail, check the return policy before you buy. If items are returnable, you can always return the inventory if you find it doesn’t sell at a good profit.”

I’m not sure just why eBay would give this advice in the current climate of retailers scrutinising eBay. This advice is clearly aimed a new sellers looking for an easy route to market but checking return policies and “borrowing” stock from retailers will do nothing to endear eBay to the high street.

In recent news stories many brand names and designers are vigorously protecting their image and restricting eBay sales. Auctionbytes reported that Williams-Sonoma’s Pottery Barn Outlets banned eBay sellers from purchasing in their stores. Lancôme are suing several eBay sellers (and eBay) for selling US product in the EU.

A thread on the US PowerSeller board [log in required] points to Vera Bradley a designer of handbags, luggage and accessories. They state specifically on their about me page that purchases made outside their retail outlets are not for “new” products. Anyone reselling their products on eBay should describe them as used or “secondary market” products.

Of course avoiding the wrath of brand owners by reselling their products on eBay isn’t the only issue sellers have to face. Some sellers will find they’re unable to actually list designer products on eBay due to trust and safety trading limitations.

It’s unsurprising retailers take a strong stance against eBay sellers. They not only perceive their brand to be diluted but now eBay are suggesting using them for sale or return stock!

In the same news letter eBay have a “Keys to Success” section pointing to a profile on Seller Central. Selling adverts from magazines they state “Primarily we list in the Toy category because that’s where people are looking, but we make it clear that we are selling the ads not the toys. We don’t want people to be angry and disappointed.“

Not just an unlocked iPhone, more a piece of history

If you’re feeling like you have money to burn, or your lottery ticket came up tonight, you might like to bid on the first unlocked iPhone to be sold. At the moment, bidding is over $15,000, with six days yet to run on the auction. Billed as “the most hyped unlock for arguably the most hyped product in history”, it’s actually the second iPhone to be unlocked: the seller’s keeping the first for himself.

Introducing PayPal’s new logo

PayPal is possibly one of the most recognisable brands on the Internet today with over 140 million account holders using their payment services. They’re in the process of updating their website to a blue/grey look and have now revealed they’re getting a new logo as well!

The familiar outlined PayPal logo that every one has grown used to will be retired, the replacement comes in comes a two shades of blue.

I’m not certain that I like the new logo, but I guess it’ll grow on me. More to the point thousands of sellers who host the logo on their own servers will hate the change as they’ll have to update all instances of it on their websites. Google finds about 457,000 copies of the PayPal logo and I’m betting it’ll be years until the old one finally disappears from websites.

Insight on ChannelAdvisor Insite

Bev and Andy Toogood are successful eBay PowerSellers trading as Little Sunflowers as well as running their own website and a retail outlet in Wendover, Buckinghamshire. Yesterday Andy took time out to attend the ChannelAdvisor Insite conference in London and today shared his take on the day with TameBay.

ChannelAdvisor Insite has the stated aim of ‘providing you with the information you need to build the most successful online business and encourage exponential growth’. Whilst I wouldn’t say I came away feeling as though that was achieved in 8 hours yesterday it was a fantastic day with good insight into current trends and the opportunity to network with other sellers sharing experiences and finding solutions to problems with people who have been there before.

My own driver for attending was about trying to keep up-to-date with information in an ever changing e-commerce landscape and with some hope to pick up a few pieces of information that would improve our own offering. Things change so quickly that it’s hard to keep up, even from week to week, and this event certainly provided lots and lots of very good information on what’s going on where with tidbits of information thrown in on how to improve your own online presence.

What impressed me most and has done so in the past with ChannelAdvisor events is that whilst the organization clearly offers solutions for just about everything that is ecommerce they always steer well clear of promoting or even entering into discussion on what they offer as solutions during any of the sessions. This makes the events a pleasure to attend because rather than feeling as though you’re in the middle of a sales pitch it is pure information provision and advisors are always eager to offer advice and assistance whether you are a ChannelAdvisor client or not.

Would I recommend attending? Yes, I would. For £49 it’s very good value for money and you definitely won’t regret it.

There are four more opportunities to attend ChannelAdvisor Insite this year in Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Dublin.

How not to say sorry

Why do companies find it so hard to rectify mistakes, especially when they’ve caused their customers heartache? In the last few days there have been a couple of notable instances:

Firstly Skype, yes we know it’s largely a free to use service but thousands of people rely on Skype and many have also paid for services like SkypeOut, SkypeIn and voice mail. So when the service hits a problem and they’re off line for a day and a half, it’s understandable that their customers are more than a little disgruntled.

This is the time they should be talking to their customers but it was noted on several forums that the top management were absent. No announcement from San Jose, no announcement on the System Board (which seems reserved for eBay and PayPal glitches), nothing on the general announcement board, in fact the only place information was made public was on a couple of Skype blogs.

Even the email that Skype has sent out to all it’s loyal customers talks about how great the community is to stick with Skype and it’s only if you read it carefully you’ll find hidden away the word “sorry”. It would have been so much easier to apologise publicly at the time Skype went offline instead of to selected paying customers days after the event.

Google also has come under fire for the way it treated customers of it’s Google Video download to own/rent service. Customers paid to download films with the understanding it’s like music on your iPod, once you’ve paid you’re free to watch as often as you like. Google decided to discontinue the service, customers could no longer watch the films they’d paid for. Instead of refunding customers they gave them Google Checkout credits!

Google customers were livid and Google soon backtracked and are refunding all buyers credit cards in full. They are also keeping the service live for six months so people can watch their saved films a few more times. Customers get to keep the Google Checkout credits as a “we’re sorry we goofed” bonus.

Companies need to realise that when there’s a problem they need to do their best to rectify the matter, and both Skype and Google have both done their best to do this but it’s too little too late. Skype should have said sorry sooner and Google should have realised their refund method would be unacceptable.

When someone is paying you for products or service and there’s a problem you need to think about how the buyer feels, not what’s the most convenient way for you and your company to remedy the situation. Most importantly saying sorry as soon as possible goes a long way to keeping customers onside.

There’s a valuable lesson here for eBay sellers.

1. If a transaction doesn’t go smoothly firstly say “Sorry” even if it’s not your fault, let the customer know you care.
2. Don’t assume your method of remedying the situation is acceptable to the customer - offer the customer a proposal and ask them if they’re happy with your suggestion, ask if they have an alternative that would satisfy them more.

Generally customers will usually accept your suggestion if it’s fair and equitable, but they always appreciate you asking them what they’d like to happen. Getting the customer to buy in to the remedy is vital for closing the transaction with a happy buyer who will trade with you again in the future.

At the end of the day it’s an easy thing to say “We’re sorry”. It’s not so easy to appear sincere unless you put the customers interests first.

Problem with item sold emails

If you’re not getting your item sold emails, you’re not alone: eBay report that there is a problem with item won/BINned emails and that they are working to correct it.

Cross-border trading policy stops French sellers selling in France

Yes, it’s true, it’s crazy, and it’s just happened to me.

As most of you know, I live in France, though I’m English and my original selling account was registered in the UK. I re-registered it in France when I moved here (essentially, that just means putting in a change of address) - though I still mainly list with that account on eBay UK. The tag on my feedback page says “registered in France”.

So this afternoon, I was uploading some listings with Turbo Lister, some to eBay UK and some to eBay France. Back comes the TL results: eBay UK items uploaded successfully, eBay France items blocked because I have reached my international selling limit. Let me stress: this is an account that was registered more than seven years ago, it’s about to hit a shooting star and it’s been regularly listing on eBay France for a year now. If upping the qualifying feedback from 25 to 50 for Irish sellers to sell internationally was crazy, how much more crazy is this?

According to TL’s error message, I have to send a list of my eBay IDs into the black hole that is eBay customer support, and await further instruction. There is no indication of how long this will take, or indeed if the restriction will be lifted.

So, in order to preserve the safety of the international marketplace, it seems I should abandont the ID with the proven track record and start listing on the always-been-French one that I wasn’t going to list on until nearer Xmas. This new ID barely has enough feedback to open an eBay shop - and why would it, it’s brand new - but I have a living to earn, and these kind of out-of-the-blue restrictions are not helping me do that, not one little bit.

I apologise for the rant - but no doubt this will happen to other people too. I’ll post updates if/when I hear back from eBay. My account manager is, of course, out of the office.

Update Friday: Have been able to contact a very nice lady who is standing in for my AM. Her advice was to send an email to the same email address that came up when I tried to list. The problem with trying to resolve anything with eBay is that the people you can get to speak to (Powerseller Support and Account Managers) are *not* the people with any power to do anything. Although she can see that my account is in good standing and should have the trading limit removed, she can’t do anything about it. Her only option is to chase it up through eBay’s system, while I wait for her to get back to me.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy buying things from sellers who leave feedback on receipt of payment, so that I’ll have (10) and can open my new, French shop.

Update Friday night: I’ve just had an email from PayPal to say I can list on .fr again - and they’re right!

I started off this little saga very worried that the problem might last indefinitely - other sellers told me it took “ages” to get their accounts sorted, and there is a serious lack of information from eBay on just what needs to be done. But I’m very impressed with how quickly eBay sorted this out. Whether this means their systems are now efficient, or just that AuctionBytes shamed them in to action, I guess I’ll never know.

E Bay

Today’s “It’s only a story because it involves eBay” prize goes to the Rocky Mountain News for their headline Drug suspect allegedly got ingredients through eBay.

29 year old Carl Dubois from Boulder, Colorado, was arrested last week for manufacturing Ecstasy. Obviously not one to be subtle, Dubois purchased all the ingredients and equipment through eBay, and paid for them using his Paypal account. Both accounts used the email freebasing@h*tm**l.com, and all but three of his orders were delivered to his home address. A search of the house found enough chemicals to make up to 80,000 E tabs, with an estimated street value of up to US$3.2million.

The affidavit for his search warrant noted that “although many of the items Dubois purchased can be used for other purposes, when used together in the proper quantities and procedures, these items can be used in the illicit manufacture of Ecstasy.”

Ozzie eBayers can win AU$10,000

Here’s a very nice promotion for Australian eBayers, offering the chance to win a $10,000 shopping spree courtesy of PayPal. Just register to play and buy four items on eBay Australia using PayPal before 23rd September, and you’ll be in the draw to win. Refer three friends to the competition, and you’ll get an extra entry. And if you don’t get the grand prize, there are 300 $50 prizes up for grabs too.

eBay UK slashes Gallery price for Media, Collectables

eBay UK have just announced that the price of Gallery in media categories will be reduced to 5p from 1st September to the end of this year. The offer relates to auction, auction with BIN and Buy It Now listings in the following categories:

• Books, Comics & Magazines (excluding the Accessories sub-category)
• DVDs, Film and TV (excluding the Accessories/Storage, Film Memorabilia and TV Memorabilia sub-categories)
• the Games sub-category of Video Games (excluding the other sub-categories of Video Games)
• Music (excluding the Music Memorabilia and Accessories/ Storage sub-categories)

• the “Collectables” categories:
  • Coins
  • Stamps
  • Collectables
  • Sports Memorabilia

This is undoubtedly designed to ensure that these high profile categories are attractive to buyers during the spendy season about to start: figures quoted by eBay (admittedly from a few years back) say that auctions with Gallery pictures do around 70% better than listings without Gallery.

However, sellers in other categories not selected for this promotion will inevitably ask why they’ve been excluded: what is it about Gallery pictures in Women’s Clothing, Jewellery, or Crafts, that makes them worth three times the price of Gallery pictures in Media? Of course, Media sellers have another site to go and sell on, so perhaps this is nothing to do with improving the buyer experience and everything to do with stopping the haemorrhage of sellers towards Amazon Marketplace.

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• mmmmm... that went to plan..not
• 2 weeks in the sun
• Nochex is no better than PayPal
• Spattzz!

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