PayPal improve echeque notifications
August 20, 2008
If you’ve been paid by PayPal echeque in the last couple of days, you’ve probably received a nice email from PayPal explaining that it’s going to take nine days to clear, and that you need to communicate with your buyer and let them know you won’t be shipping for a while: “teaching your grandmother to suck eggs,” as one shooting star PowerSeller commented to me this morning.
click to embiggen
But the good news is the email that your buyer is getting. Finally, buyers are being given accurate information about how long UK echeques take to clear: “around nine working days”. Better still, they’re being told why their payment has gone through as an echeque: either their card has expired, or they never added a card in the first place. And best of all, buyers are being encouraged to fix it, with a great big link to add or amend their card details.
Sellers will still need to ensure they keep their buyers up to speed on when their item will be shipped, but this is a very welcome, if rather overdue, change from PayPal.
eBay.com changes : we’re no longer only a venue
August 20, 2008
Rather late in the day on this side of the Atlantic, the US fee and other changes have been posted.
eBay.com fee changes
There is no change to auctions or SIF listings: unlike the UK, SIF remains. Insertion fees for BIN listings are 35c across the board. 30 BIN listings, with the option to automatically renew, are now available.
Final Value Fees have changed quite drastically on a per-category basis: I’ll spare you the breakdown here, as eBay have already posted it.
Free shipping incentives
From October to December, sellers who offer free shipping will get free subtitle on their listings, and double PowerSeller discount if they’re eligible for this.
Special deals for Media categories
Until the end of the year, IFs for listings in Media categories which utilise pre-filled information are just 5c. This should help off-set the pain of a 15% FVF for the under-$50 sale price tranche.
Likely to cause more anger amongst Media sellers, however, is the introduction of maximum shipping prices. Perhaps some US Media sellers would like to comment on this, but the prices set seem very low to me: $4 for an antiquarian book looks like an impossibility. Sellers will be required to offer at least one shipping option within the maximum permitted range: they will also be allowed to offer other more expensive options for expedited or international shipping.
Expect to see this in more categories soon: Germany has this in categories as diverse as jewellery and mobile phones, so sellers not affected yet should not assume this change isn’t coming to them too.
No more paper payments
Checks and money orders will no longer be permitted as a payment method. Sellers with merchant credit card accounts will be able to accept payments via eBay Checkout.
Minimum DSRs for sellers
Sellers will be required to maintain minimum DSRs of 4.3 across the board, as in the UK. eBay suggest that around 96% of sellers already achieve this: those who do not are advised to spend the next two months improving their service (or realistically, opening new seller accounts).
eBay.com have stopped short of the radical format changes we’ve seen today on eBay UK. SIF remains, Store subscription fees remain the same. What’s significant about the .com changes is not the new fees, it’s everything else. On eBay’s biggest marketplace, they’re asserting more control than ever over the way that sellers list and the way that buyers buy: limiting payments to electronic transfers only, and the carrot-and-stick approach over postage rates, says very strongly that eBay is no longer “only a venue”. eBay will be accused of Amazon-izing their site: I think frankly that this is irrelevent. The changes are about offering buyers a predictable, safe experience, so that they can arrive at eBay and know exactly what they’re going to get.
eBay UK fee changes : goodbye SIF and Gallery fees
August 20, 2008
It’s the news everyone has been asking for: Gallery on eBay UK, which has been free for the summer, will remain free forever instead of returning to the 15p per listing of the past. But that’s the least of the changes eBay UK are announcing this morning.
SIF replaced with 30 BIN
Shop Inventory Format is to be retired and replaced with a 30 day Buy It Now listing format. There will also be an option for Good Til Canceled self-renewing 30 day BINs.
Fixed price insertion fees fixed at 40p
Pricing is changing yet again. From September 24th all fixed price listings, regardless of quantity or value, will have an insertion fee of 40p (previously varied up to £1.90). This might not sound great news when compared with SIF insertion prices (previously varied from 3p - 11p) but there are discounts available, 30 day BIN will appear as standard in search results and of course it includes free gallery.
FVFs increase
| Selling price | Old FVF | New FVF for auctions | New FVF for BINs |
|---|---|---|---|
| No sale | no fee | ||
| £0.01 - £29.99 | 7.5% | 8.75% | 9.9% |
| £30.00 - £49.99 | 4.5% | 5.25% | |
| £50.00 - £599.99 | 5.9% | ||
| £600.00 or more | 1.9% | 1.5% | 1.9% |
Despite this increase, most sellers of fixed price listings will be better off or at least fee-neutral under the changes. The big opportunity is of course to increase the number of product lines offered for sale taking advantage of lower fees.
FVFs are only payable when a product sells, so fixed price sellers will be able to budget for this up front in their pricing. The sellers most likely to be disadvantaged will be those who run auctions with low start prices as their insertion fees are already low but FVFs will increase.
Shops subscriptions increase, but offer discount on BIN insertion fees
For professional sellers, eBay shops now have a real tangible benefit. The price of a basic eBay shop rises to £14.95 but fixed price insertion fees are then halved to just 20p. A featured shop will cost £49.95 and benefit from fixed price insertion fees of just 5p, and an Anchor shop will cost £349.95 with 1p insertion fees for BINs.
DSR requirements for Shop owners
This is exactly what sellers have been asking eBay for - less up front risk enabling them to place more inventory on eBay. Only sellers who reach certain standards will be entitle to Featured (DSRs above 4.4) or Anchor shops (DSRs above 4.6), ensuring that those placing large quantities of listings on eBay maintain high standards.
Changes to search
One significant change is that listings with sales will be promoted in search. This means for the future, listing strategy should be to place your entire inventory of a product line onto a single listing, rather than use multiple listings to ensure exposure under ending soonest.
International visibility will not be available for Buy It Now
That’s not going to be very popular.
Featured First : the new “featured plus”
There will be a new feature to bump listings to the top of search results for the first 7 days, or first 30 days. Fees are £44.95 for up to ten days, and £134.95 (ouch!) for up to 30 days. Although the cost for this appears high, if you have sufficient inventory to justify the costs it’s a great way to jump start sales which will then cause your listing to be promoted. You’ll still be able to add more inventory to the listing without losing the search advantage gained so for a 30 day GTC BIN the benefit could conceivably run for months if not years making the initial investment worth while.
Tech and Media Categories
Good news for Tech and Media categories - final value fees are not changing but Insertion fees are - that means it’ll cost you less to list but you won’t pay more when you sell.
Irish Fee Changes
There are similar changes for eBay Ireland, see the new Irish fee schedule for details
The changes fulfill the promise made by Mark Lewis earlier this year “to get to the point where there is no reason you wouldn’t put all of your inventory on eBay“. For those sellers with sufficient product lines, the 1p insertion fees with unlimited multiple items lowers the risk of listing a full range of products in unlimited quantities.
This set of changes will benefit many sellers, and should encourage sellers who have previously listed a limited range on eBay to offer a much larger inventory to buyers.
UK, US, Germany make major announcements today
August 20, 2008
eBay will be making major announcements today regarding the US, UK and German sites. We expect to hear of fee changes, as well as changes to seller requirements, payment policies and Shops’ structures. Stay tuned - we’ll bring you updates as soon as the official announcements happen. We’re in for an interesting day.
R.O.EYE to support eBay affiliates in the UK
August 19, 2008
eBay have appointed R.O.EYE, a specialist affiliate marketing agency, to support the eBay Partner Network (EPN).
EPN was launched by eBay on April 1st, after many years of running an external affiliate scheme managed by Commission Junction. The affiliate scheme pays publishers (website owners) for sending customers to eBay with rewards paid based on new accounts open and activity on eBay such as purchases.
R.O.EYE aim to support the existing EPN team acting in a supporting role for existing publishers to bring more publishers on board, especially within the UK.
They’re available to contact through the R.O.EYE website, or by emailing Chris Worthy at R.O.EYE. If you have a website or application that can send traffic to eBay, they can assist you in making money from the users who click through your site to eBay.
Skypephone S2 now available
August 19, 2008
The Skypephone S2 is now available for purchase from the 3 Store. It’s sleeker, shinier and all round better with a bigger screen and higher resolution camera. It also has the all important modem drivers built in to turn the Skypephone into a 3G broadband modem for your laptop.
Pricing is £69.99 on PAYG or free on a contract and a minimum spend of £10 a month gets you access to Skype for free.
For all those mourning the loss of SMS Twitter messages you’ll be pleased to know you get up to 10,000 free Skype chats and using a service such as twitterforskype or Twitt’d will hook you back up to Twitter. The Skype chats and any Skype calls you make are free.
I’m still waiting for the new Skypephone to arrive, but if you’ve already got one let us know what you think of it compared to the original.
Terapeak to replace eBay Marketplace Research
August 19, 2008
Terapeak are to offer an alternative to eBay Marketplace Research, which they say is to be retired on 15th September this year.
Marketplace Research by Terapeak will be offered to all existing eBay Marketplace Research subscribers and all eBay users will be able to subscribe in the future. Terapeak plan to extend the range of reports and features available including up to two years of category trends, seller-specific
searches, and dedicated customer support.
If you’d like a preview of Terapeak they offer some free eBay research tools as well as paid reports
10c listings for PowerSellers on eBay France 21st August
August 19, 2008
This Thursday, 21st August 2008, eBay France are holding a cheap listing day for PowerSellers. Insertion fees for BINs and auctions will be 10c. All other normal fees apply, and media and motors categories, which have their own fee scedules, are not included. For non-PSs, insertion fees will be capped at 25c.
Sales in a Click now available for eBay.com
August 15, 2008
Sales in a Click, the email marketing solution from imn is now available for Stores on eBay.com. I first saw the ProStores edition of Sales in a Click at eBay Live! and it’s the easiest way I’ve seen to produce quality email marketing.
The Stores version integrates fully with your eBay account and provides professionally written editorial which is presented alongside promotions to your eBay store and to featured products you have listed on eBay.
Emails are sent to subscribers who’ve chosen to receive email marketing from you along with any email addresses you choose to add manually. A thank you email will also be forwarded to any future customers when they purchase from your eBay store, with an explicit opt in request to receive your future email marketing.
There’s a free 60 day trial available during which two monthly marketing emails will be sent and of course full click through statistics are provided so that you can measure exactly how many sales were influenced by the emails sent.
Email marketing is one of the most underused features on eBay, possibly because sellers have to manually create and send the emails. Sales in a Click automate the entire process, although you can of course select which articles and products are used in your marketing emails.
Sales in a Click will be available for eBay shops in the UK in the near future. For those with an eBay.com store you can sign up for your free trial and start sending quality email marketing today.
eBay UK testing new view item page
August 15, 2008
Following yesterday’s announcement on .com, eBay UK have now announced testing of a new design for the view item page. From their description, it sounds very similar to the .com one; the promised “preview” function for sellers to see what their items will look like, however, seems to be missing as of time of writing. The test is promised to last for at least four weeks. More information as we discover it: if you’ve managed to get a preview on eBay.co.uk, let us know what you think.
eBay.com testing new view item page (still)
August 14, 2008
eBay.com have announced some changes to their proposed new “view item” page, and a further two months of testing. During that period, “a very small percentage of members will be randomly selected to see one of several new page variants” being tested.
Thanks to TameBay reader Seanie, we have a sneaky peek at one variant at least:
If you want to see how your own listings will appear, view one on eBay.com and click the link “switch to the new version of this page” at the top right. I’m pleased to say that my own slightly overcomplicated layouts don’t seem to be broken, but I’m extremely concerned that some essential elements are missing.
- No About Me page link eBay may have given in to pressure from sellers to allow website links from Me pages, but if they’re not linked from listings any more, the links are practically useless.
- No “listing frame” The current frame for eBay shop owners, with branding in the form of logo etc., and cross-promotion via list of category links down the left hand side, is gone. This is a great big blow to shop-owners, and for me, takes away one of the biggest points of having a shop in the first place.
- No red door The “red door” highlight for the shop/store link is gone. Instead, a text link to the store front is given equal prominance with a “view seller’s other items”: this is much less useful for buyers *and* for sellers, and should be removed. (Weirdly, the red door does appear before the item title. I don’t see the point of this.)
- Report item has moved to the top of the page I must admit, I’m ambivalent on this one. It will make reporting much easier, but it also slaps a great big “this might be dodgy” thought right under buyers’ noses. I don’t think I like it on such prime real estate.
- Related items and services is empty I’m hoping I’ll be able to choose cross-promotions to go in this area, but I’m perhaps being a little optimistic. eBay are also testing a new “merchandising module with seller opt-out”, with various positionings on the page, which will show related items from the seller of the item you’re looking at, plus other sellers. Sellers will be able to opt out of this altogether if they wish, which will mean that their items don’t show on other seller’s pages either.
- No button at the bottom The button to bid or buy from the bottom of the listing has been replaced with a not-very-visible text link. Buyers have to either click the button at the top without reading the whole listing, or scroll back up… did anyone usability-test this?
I think we can all see the way this one is going. The individual item page is no longer the seller’s sole domain: it’s slowly, and subtly, being de-branded back to a generic eBay page. Though sellers will still be able to do some branding within the description area, that no longer dominates the page. Instead, viewing an item is very much about eBay displaying the data that they want to present to buyers.
For sellers, I think this is a horrible step. The loss of the listing frame in particular is a massive blow to those who’ve built businesses upon selling multiple items to each buyer. And it’s a loss for buyers too: the variety of useful clicks-through to sellers’ shops have vanished, and that is only going to make shopping on eBay harder work. And that shouldn’t be what eBay want.
Asked if and when these changes will be coming to eBay UK, community manager James told the PS board that there is currently no date planned for changes in the UK: “I have been given assurances that any changes will be announced well in advance.” Let’s hope we can get through the spendy season without having to redo all our listings yet again.
What do you think? Love it or hate it? Leave us a comment.
eBay moot purchase of 2nd South Korea marketplace
August 14, 2008
eBay are in talks to buy a minority share their largest South Korean competitor - Gmarket Global marketplace. eBay’s current South Korean site is it’s subsidiary Internet Auction Co which they bought a 49.9% stake in, in 2003.
eBay have said “There can be no assurance that the Korea Fair Trade Commission will approve the possible transaction, that an agreement will be reached or that a transaction will occur“. Growth by acquisition is something eBay is no stranger to - their 2nd biggest territory came from their purchase of Alando which became eBay Germany. If the minority share in Gmarket goes ahead it’s likely eBay will want to increase their stake buying out other shareholders.
Postage, despatch and return option changes
August 14, 2008
eBay have today given advance notice of changes that sellers need to make to their listing templates by October. The intent of the changes is to give better visibility of important information to buyers and was first revealed on the Developers Blog last June.
From October eBay will highlight to buyers when they should expect to receive their item based on the sellers despatch time and the estimated delivery time of the chosen shipping option. From next year sellers will be required to enter a despatch time but I’d recommend sellers add it to their auctions by October if possible.
Hopefully this will improve the despatch time DSR if buyers have a cleared expectation of the time to receive their items but I can already see problems where the carrier takes longer than normal to deliver an item. If no transit time is specified (e.g. for “Seller’s Standard Rate”), then eBay will indicate the despatch time only.
There will also be a change to the returns section of listings. From October every seller will have to indicate if they accept returns, but the option to specify within 7, 14 or 30 days of receipt will be removed. Sellers will have to edit their returns policy on every listing to indicate how long buyers have to return an item.
Business sellers already have to offer returns for at least 14 days from the buyer receiving the item even though the law specifies 7 working days as the minimum.
It seems a backwards step that a clearly defined returns time will not be presented to buyers - they’ll now have to read through sellers returns policies to find this information.
If you want an easy method to edit your listings I highly recommend Bulk Reviser from Comsulting which enables you to edit returns and shipping information.
Beat the credit crunch with Small Business 2.0
August 14, 2008
If you want to expand your online selling beyond eBay, need imaginative ideas to survice the credit crunch, or you’re just missing see friends at eBay Universities this year, you’re going to be interested in Small Business 2.0, a one day event being held this October.
I spoke to Dan Wilson, ex-eBay community manager, blogger and chum of TameBay, who’s organising the event. Dan told me, “I’m putting together the speaking programme and thinking very hard about how we ensure that people who attend get the most out of the day and, most importantly, value for money. With a recession almost certainly around the corner, it’s important that people understand that ecommerce is forecast to grow year on year to 2012.” It’s an opportunity not to be missed.
Who should be at SB2.0? Is it just for eBay traders? No, says Dan: “we’ll obviously be taking a look at eBay and what it has to offer, it remains one of the great ecommerce opportunities for every small business in Britain. But a lot of established eBay traders want to diversify. So we’ll be looking at Amazon, Google, establishing your own website and online marketing. I’m also thinking about small businesses that have a website, selling goods or services, and who want a bit more out of the web. So anyone interested in improving their website, advertising on search engines or plugging into social networks will be catered for.” And of course, those who don’t have any web presence at all can find out just where they need to start.
Even those famously cynical about the value of eBay events are being provided for. Dan says, “if Northumbrian wants a free ticket, he can have one on me, and I’ll even buy him a pint of Deuchars afterwards. Out of my own pocket.” How could North resist? 
The rest of us will naturally be popping over the road for a drinkie or three afterwards too.
The event’s being sponsored by Royal Mail, who will be showcasing their latest products designed specifically for small businesses operating online, and by BT Tradespace, perhaps best described as “like Facebook only with business, not zombies” - it’s well worth checking out if you’re not already on there. PayPal, ChannelAdvisor, Frooition and others will be there: new exhibitors will be announced over the next few weeks, so keep an eye on the website.
Small Business 2.0 will being held at the New Connaught Rooms near Covent Garden in London on Saturday 11th October, and you can book your ticket through www.smallbusiness20.co.uk.
eBay Motors’ price changes bad news for small business
August 14, 2008
Last night, eBay announced some major changes to pricing for North American Motors’ sites. The restructuring continues eBay’s current trend towards ’success-based fees’, moving more of the fee burden onto final value fees and away from insertion and other up-front fees. The changes are effective from September 2, 2008.
There’s great news for private sellers who might list just a couple of vehicles a year: on .com Motors, the first four listings in a 12 month period have no insertion fees at all, a saving of $40 per listing. The catch - and you knew there’d be a catch - is that the Successful Listing Fee (Motors’ fixed-price equivalent of FVFs) will increase from $50 to $125 (or $100 for motorcycles). Still, you’ll only have to pay this if you’ve sold your car, so it reduces the risk of listing on eBay Motors to pretty much nil.
Once you’ve sold four vehicles in a year, insertion fees are $20 and SLFs $100 ($15 and $80 respectively for motorcycles): the total fees payable on a sold vehicle thus increase from $90 to $120. I’d suggest that if you’re a business, you’re probably keeping a pretty close eye on your sell-through rate; you won’t want to pay $40 a time to list something that won’t sell, and you’ll list accordingly. So this new “you’re better off when you don’t sell your car” fee structure is going to hurt. Of course, the really huge dealerships like GM’s network have already negotiated their own fee structures with eBay, so the people who are really going to be squeezed are the small dealerships, who’ve just seen their fees jump by something like 33%.
If you think that’s bad, spare a thought for the poor Canadians: they’ve got the same new fee structure, but their old fee structure was much nicer. Insertion fees were only CA$4.25, so even for the four “free” listings, that’s an increase of $70.75 per sold vehicle.
Generally, I support eBay’s trend towards putting more of their fee onto sold items, and less upfront. But I can’t help feeling this hasn’t got the balance right. It seems rather to reward not selling your vehicle, because that’s where the big money savings are - and surely that can’t be what eBay want?
For the sake of clarity, these changes apply only to Motors’ sales on eBay.com and eBay.ca, and no announcement has been made for eBay UK or any other eBay site.
eBay Germany 1c listing promotion extended
August 13, 2008
eBay Germany have announced that their long-running promotion of 1c insertion fees with free Gallery has been extended until 24th September. The promotion is valid for sellers offering PayPal as a payment method, in the categories:
- Audio & Hi-Fi
- Books
- Computer
- Photo & Camcorder
- TV, Video & Electronics
The offer is valid for business sellers’ auction and Buy It Now listings only.
eBay Canada 5c listing day 13th August
August 12, 2008
Lucky for some, eBay Canada are holding a 5c listing day on 13th August. Insertion fees for auctions and BINs will be 5c regardless of start price; this also covers the media categories which have their own fee structure. The offer is available for Canadian resident sellers only, and to qualify sellers must list a shipping price for their goods. There is, as ever, some more small print so please read before you list.
Belgian court rules for eBay against L’Oréal
August 12, 2008
A Belgian court has dismissed a case brought by L’Oréal against eBay. The cosmetics manufacturer had taken legal action against eBay, saying that they did not do enough to stop the sale of counterfeited products on the site. The court ruled that policing the merchandise was not eBay’s responsibility, though a spokesperson for eBay did stress that the company does work with rights owners to remove fake goods. Similar cases brought by L’Oréal in the UK, France, Germany and Spain are yet to be decided.
Neutrals will be neutral again from next week
August 12, 2008
eBay UK have just announced that the promised feedback recalculation, which will exclude neutrals again from percentage scores, will take place from next week. Under changes made earlier this year, neutrals had counted the same as negatives for eBayers’ feedback percentages, but last month eBay said that this decision would be reversed. Neutrals will therefore not count against PowerSeller eligibility for the month of August. Good news.
Multiple fixed price listing promotion for eBay UK
August 12, 2008
eBay are running a six week promotion where you’ll only pay the cost for listing a single item regardless of the quantity you list.
Items have to be identical, but you can list any quantity on fixed price (BIN or SIF) listings and only pay the listing fee for the first item. The promotion runs from the 12th August (today) until the 23rd September. There are a few restrictions so check the Ts & Cs for your particular categories.
Don’t forget that on eBay UK there’s also free gallery until the 30th September, effectively this promotion enables you to list your entire quantity of stock for the cost of listing a single item.
eBay France bring in proper business registration
August 11, 2008
eBay France have announced today that business sellers on the site will need to prove that they are officially registered as businesses. eBay are checking the information on sellers’ accounts against that held by the Registre du Commerce et des Sociétés, with which all companies and sole traders should already be registered.
Those whom eBay can link with their official registration need do nothing more. Those who can’t be matched will need to supply an official registration document plus a copy of their national ID card or passport, and then complete telephone verification with eBay Support. Registration will have to be completed by 30th October, or within 30 days of eBay notifying sellers that proof of status is required, whichever is sooner. Business sellers who do not complete the verification process will not be permitted to sell on eBay.fr after 30th October. From 6th October, new business sellers on eBay.fr will have to complete the verification process before being allowed to list items for sale.
To the best of my knowledge, eBay France are the first site to check all business sellers for proper registration. It’s perhaps easier here than it might be in some other countries because the necessary information is already in the public arena, but I think we can expect to see other eBay sites following France’s example in the not to distant future.
I would love to be able unreservedly to praise eBay France for taking this unprecedented step in cleaning up the site and ensuring their sellers are legal. In theory, I do that. But in practice, it all feels rather hit and miss: the overall time-scale, just ten weeks, seems short to complete everyone’s registration, and the lack of any more detailed up-front plan (”if we haven’t notified you we’ve found you by such-and-such date, then we need you to send your information in…”) leaves me as a seller feeling extremely insecure. I’ll let you know what happens.
Tiffany to appeal eBay fakes ruling
August 11, 2008
Tiffany have said that they have filed an appeal against the ruling that eBay are not responsible for counterfeit merchandise sold via the site. The judgement made in a US court last month said that eBay had taken reasonable steps to stop the sale of fake jewellery, and that the primary responsibility for policing Tiffany’s trademarks lay with Tiffany themselves. The jeweller’s lawyer James B. Swire stated, “we do not believe the law allows auction sites like eBay to continue to turn a blind eye to this problem while reaping profits from the listing and sale of counterfeit merchandise. Trademark law does not impose a duty on Tiffany to police eBay’s site: eBay designed the site and has the responsibility to police it.”
Sending personal money with PayPal
August 11, 2008
It’s not often I use the “Send Money” tab in PayPal - as a I seller I receive more payments than I send. Today however I had to send a payment to a friend for some tickets they paid for and it gave me the opportunity to send a personal payment.
Personal payments are free (when made via eCheque or PayPal balance) so the entire amount will get paid into my friends account.
To send a personal payment through PayPal simply click the “Send Money” tab in PayPal and the click for personal payments. I then selected the “Personal Money Owed” option as most appropriate.
If you owe someone money and want to send it to them quickly and easily try PayPal personal payments. It’s free, easy and instant.
eBay Spain introduces PowerSeller discounts
August 11, 2008
eBay Spain have announced that from 24th September, Spanish PowerSellers will receive a discount of 20% on their Final Value Fees, so long as they have a minimum DSR rating of 4.5 on each of the four criteria over the previous 30 days. The discount will apply to Spanish-registered PowerSellers who are resident in Spain, regardless of PS level.
The minimum rating is a little lower than the 4.6 required for PS discounts on eBay UK and eBay.com. Anecdotal evidence from sellers says that Spanish buyers on average leave lower feedback ratings than British or American buyers, and the more generous discount criterion might suggest that eBay’s own figures support this.
If eligible sellers have previously declined invitations to join the PS program, they need to contact Customer Support.
[P.S. M. von Schirmeister, can we please have some discounts on eBay.fr? Merci.]
First impressions of the new My eBay beta
August 10, 2008
The new My eBay beta is now available for users to check out and is looking great. The clunky headers from the old eBay are gone and have been replaced with a newly-,designed tabbed page complete with drop downs to access the key sections.
However when it comes to using it, it’s not nearly as feature rich as the old My eBay. While the aesthetics have obviously been given a high priority, it doesn’t appear that enough thought has been given to how people use the site.
My eBay beta positive changes
The entire My eBay look and feel has been updated; the graphic designers really have done a good job in making the page easy on the eye with newly designed icons and section headers.
The introduction of lists is a great new tool. You can create lists for gift ideas, products you want to research, a wish list of items to buy, in fact a list for pretty much anything. The only drawback is that you can only add items to a list if they already appear in My eBay. Do I really want to add things I’ve already added to my watch list or already bought? Apart from that the only items I can add are those I’m actually selling - not a great source of gift ideas, but I’d hope it’ll be expanded to enable items to be added from elsewhere on the site in the future.
Shortcuts replace the links section of My eBay, but they’ve been expanded so that you can now add your own links to this section. Do you want instant access to your blocked bidder list? How about a link to the PowerSeller board? You can even add links to sites off eBay: maybe a link to your online banking would be useful?
The ability to customise My eBay to display the information that’s important to you has always been great and the new My eBay allows you to do this. The new My eBay takes customisation even further to the extent of allowing changes the colours of the page headers.
Sidebar adverts have been removed from My eBay: no longer are they slowing down the page load and hopefully it’s not a temporary move. Adverts in My eBay have largely been irrelevant to users and leave parts of the page unusable until they have loaded.
My eBay beta neutral changes
The summary page is simply a summary of summaries. It adds nothing and doesn’t give enough information on anything to be useful. This is a page that might as well not exist bar the fact that it displays buying and selling totals and they’re no longer available anywhere else. The only thing it might do is scare buyers into curtailing their spending as it highlights how much they’ve already spent.
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