PayPal and eBay telephone support numbers
July 3, 2009
Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a long term, very experienced, eBay seller who I’ve known for a many years. Their telephone bill was unusually high and they found a premium rate telephone number to be the culprit.
Further investigation revealed an employee had searched for “PayPal help line” on Google and called the first number they found. Unfortunately it wasn’t PayPal they were calling, but an independent company charging £1.50/minute for support.
There are a number of these companies out there with names such as auction help or support line. The truth of the matter is that though they may give great information (I don’t know, I haven’t called them), in reality all the assistance you should ever need is freely available to you.
First port of call for PayPal should be to telephone them direct, you can get their number by logging into your PayPal account and clicking “Contact” at the bottom of the page. Through the PayPal website they’ll supply a unique one use PIN so that when you call they can confirm that the account really is yours.
eBay users who have access to telephone support will already have been provided with the relevant telephone number, whether that be as a PowerSeller, Business seller or as a Buyer.
eBay and PayPal help pages aren’t always the easiest to navigate but Louise, the friendly virtual agent, is always available to guide you to the information you need. (It’s also great fun to ask her totally irrelevant questions although I couldn’t possibly encourage anyone to do so).
For those needing further advice your online colleagues are almost certainly in a position to help. Use forums such as the TameBay forum, ask for help on the eBay community boards, use sites like Money Saving Expert – all of these sites are totally free to use.
If you have no need to ever call (or have your employees call) premium rate numbers ask your phone provider to block access to them. This will prevent all calls to premium rate lines and ensure that if someone does dial them by accident you aren’t faced with an unusually high and unwelcome telephone bill.
PayPal survey: why shoppers abandon their shopping
June 24, 2009
PayPal have published the results of their second annual Checkout Abandonment Survey, looking at why website buyers don’t complete purchases. Just like last year’s survey, an excessive shipping fee was the number one reason for shoppers walking away. It’s clear that if sellers are able to offer shipping-inclusive prices, this is something that buyers like, however counter-intuitive that might be for those of us who typically sell more than one item at a time. And even if your site charges separate shipping, making that cost transparent at the beginning of the checkout flow – or earlier – is essential.
There’s some suggestion, though, that buyers are getting more savvy with their online shopping: the second most popular reason for abandonment was that buyers wanted to comparison shop, and 25% cited leaving the site to look for a coupon or discount voucher. Sellers should be using this behaviour to their advantage: if you’re not currently listing website coupons on voucher sites, you’re probably missing out on some valuable free advertising, and a fair number of sales.
But there’s some reassurance: a third of shoppers who abandoned their carts later returned to the same site to purchase. Sellers should consider:
- making it easy for shoppers to bookmark their site and specific items they’re interested in,
- using social bookmarking tools as well as traditional browser bookmarks/favourites
- extending the life of shopping cart cookies so that buyers who return later can find the items they’d already added to their cart,
- and offering a wish-list facility for longer-term use.
PayPal are running a video presentation later today to discuss their findings further.
Turbo Lister updates (it’s actually good news!)
June 17, 2009
I spend a lot of time whinging about Turbo Lister, so it’s nice to be able to post about a nice new feature that just appeared in yesterday’s update.
Scheduled, Active and Ended Listings have all been broken down into some useful subcategories, so you can see at a glance – for example – what needs to be relisted, or which items have questions on them. It’s not quite turning Turbo Lister into a proper management tool, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Shoe sellers might also like to know that multi-variant listings are now do-able through TL: you’ll need to run the update first.
Are your listings ready for June 15th?
June 8, 2009
Back at the end of March, eBay UK made their announcement about what would be changing for eBay sellers this summer. The new rules and features launch on June 15th, so here’s our checklist: make sure your listings are ready!
Urgent changes
- Mandatory dispatch time: all listings must show a dispatch time.
- Free postage and packing in some categories: if you list in Video Games, Mobile & Home Phones, Consumer Electronics, Computing, Photography or Clothes, Shoes & Accessories, then check the list to see if your sub-category is affected (not all sub-categories are). If so, you must offer free P&P as one option for your domestic postage, though you may choose to charge for an upgraded service. If you’re a non-UK seller listing on eBay UK, this includes you.
- Category changes, which will mostly affect sellers in Clothing, Home & Garden and the Motors’ categories (not an exhaustive list, so check your own cat.s aren’t listed).
Some sub-categories are being done away with and all listings will be moved into the parent category: live listings should move automatically, but make sure you update your listing templates or new listings in vanished categories could (in my experience) end up invisible to buyers. And check your Item Specifics too: previous category changes have seen them wiped out.
New features
It’s not going to be possible to plan for these in advance, because they don’t go live til the 15th/16th, but at least be ready for the cool new stuff when it happens.
- Multi-variation listings: time for a little stock-take, maybe, so you can get all those colour/size variants listed as soon as possible.
- Free pictures in Clothing Shoes and Accessories & Home and Garden. Most business sellers will be using their own hosting, but the advantage with eBay’s is that you get the slideshow at the top. Worth considering.
- Custom item specifics
- Easy returns
- Smart FAQs: have a run through your ASQs – do the same questions come up again and again? If so, that information should probably be on your listings… but Smart FAQs may also be useful to you.
eBay have put out a timetable of when the various changes are supposed to go live on the site: we share their optimism that everything launches smoothly 
Additional terms and auto accept Best Offers
June 6, 2009
If you use automatic accept/decline on Best Offers you may think you have no need to check outstanding Best Offers. Since the ability of buyers (and sellers) to enter additional terms you need to start checking Best Offers regularly.
If a buyer enters terms in an offer, the offer will not be responded to automatically even if automatic accept/decline is set for that listing. Don’t miss out on sales by letting Best Offers expire before you check them.
More details emerge on eBay’s new buyer protection policies
May 29, 2009
More details are emerging on the theory and practice of eBay’s new ‘dispute resolution’ process, and frankly, they are not good news for sellers.
Firstly, we see the process in action. I heard this week from a TameBay reader we’ll call Bob, who bought a mechanical item through eBay which arrived with an important component missing. Bob had checked with the seller before purchase that the part was included, and so was extremely frustrated when the seller failed to put things right. He’d opened a SNAD claim with PayPal, but was contacted by eBay and offered a full refund if he closed the PayPal claim.
I asked Bob what eBay had done to verify his claim. He told me: “I contacted the seller through eBay messages. All contact with him was through eBay messages and I had the impression that eBay customer services had access to all this when I was talking to them. I was asked if I was able to buy a replacement part, but in this case I have been unable to identify the machine maker to source one.”
And what had they asked him to do with the goods? “I still have the machine, and nothing was said about what I should do with it.” This is significantly different to PayPal’s policy, which did require buyers to return the item to the seller.
Changes to eBay UK user agreement
Yesterday, eBay UK announced changes to their user agreement to make allowances for this new procedure.
Under eBay Buyer Protection … there may be instances where a seller doesn’t resolve a claim and we find in favour of the buyer, in which case eBay will pay the buyer and invoice the seller for the transaction amount. Where a seller fails to comply with the eBay Buyer Protection policy, eBay may also remove any special status associated with the account … and/or restrict or suspend the seller’s account.
The threat of negative feedback used to worry eBay sellers, but the threat of losing your money, your goods *and* your seller account under this new policy is a very real one. My advice to sellers in dealing with unhappy buyers has always been “don’t let it get as far as a PayPal dispute”: this now goes double under eBay’s new dispute procedure.
The best advice for sellers now is to be upfront about your own dispute resolution procedures: dispatch emails, packing slips and/or invoices should carry at least your contact details and advice on what to do in case of any problem. And if buyers have a problem, deal with that problem: if someone contacts you with an issue post-sale, don’t fob them off. Most buyers, most of the time, will go to the seller before they go to eBay – make sure you take that chance to put things right.
The new UA is effective from 8th July for existing eBay UK members. If you don’t want to accept it, you can, of course, close your eBay account.
Terapeak reveal British is best for value
May 20, 2009
Research by Terapeak into average selling prices for music albums has confirmed that prices in the UK are currently the best in the world. Doubtless this is in part due to the exchange rate, but it does mean that it’s an ideal time for overseas buyers to purchase from the UK.
Average price for a U2 CD in the UK is $8.25 with the highest price being $18.51 on eBay Canada, and that’s typical for the other bands Terapeak researched.
If you’re not already listing on sites other than eBay UK it’s time to do so, or at least to make your products available worldwide. I know sellers who list on eBay France and eBay Germany and are currently (in some instances) achieving prices above the UK RRP due to the currency variations.
Selling overseas isn’t a guarantee of success, don’t forget that overseas buyers may be liable for import duties and taxes, but if your products are competitively priced it’s worth trialling some product lines or at least doing some price research.
Terapeak have recently launched a new International search tool which allows you to compare pricing across the US, UK, Canadian, Australian, German and French eBay sites. Alternatively if you want to focus on one particular overseas eBay site you can use the standard Terapeak or any other eBay research tools to find out how attractive your current UK pricing to overseas buyers.
Disclosure: Terapeak advertise with TameBay.
Start to sell online seminar
May 18, 2009
I’ve always considered myself fortunate that I’ve been able to run a business on eBay, along with the freedom that it gives compared to a full time job. In today’s economic market many individuals and businesses are struggling financially and in recognition of this John Pemberton and myself have decided to give something back.
We’re going to hold a free to attend seminar in Reading, to enable local people and businesses to come and find out more about running an online business, both on and off eBay.
Speakers from companies including Royal Mail, Lloyds Bank and Business Link are supporting the event. As well as the formal presentation part of the evening there will also be a “Speed Dating” event, giving all attendees the opportunity to speak personally to senior director level managers from the companies presenting.
Covering everything from writing a business plan and raising finance, making money online, how to use rich media to best present your products, the best ways to get goods to your customers and where to turn for additional business guidance this is an ideal event for all online sellers
If you’re in the Thames Valley region, on the evening of June 5th, you’re more than welcome to attend, and of course if you have friends or colleagues in the area interested in starting or expanding an online business please feel free to invite them to the event.
Places are limited to 50 people, but you can sign up at Start to Sell Online
Question & Answers with Frooition
May 8, 2009
There’s been a lot of talk about Frooition recently, especially in connection with the new shops experience. We’ve taken some of the most asked questions by our readers and put them directly to Frooition and they were delighted to have the opportunity to respond:
What do the monthly subscriptions for “shop & template” and “image hosting” pay for?
Shop and template covers the hosting of the actual graphics which make up the design and branding inside a store and a listing template. Every time a listing or a store is viewed that means a call to our servers so that the graphics can be displayed. The fees we charge represent our costs, which with popular items and popular sellers – can be quite expensive.
Image hosting is exactly what it says – this is optional for eBay sellers. We also offer a website solution where our hosting is required.
Why did you charge for the NSE update on top of the monthly “shop & template subscription”?
We invest an incredible amount of time and money into developing our product and regularly launch free updates, which are often based on customer requests for enhancements etc. When eBay released NSE it meant a complete graphical structure change to the basic store template and in addition changed the way in which code had to be delivered. For any designer delivering advanced graphics (not basic logo and picture!) It meant a massive structural and coding re-write.
A popular misconception has been that the monthly subscription covers everything from hosting to free updates to 24/7 phone support. It would be great if we could offer all this for just £15 a month but unfortunately that is not economically viable.
Why have you started charging for support?
Frooition is committed to providing great customer service by ensuring that customers can keep selling successfully without problems. Our software is really strong and robust and now we have a great support solution, which suits all budgets. Whether urgent response times are needed or clients simply want minor changes making here and there we have a support structure to deal with it.
Can I still get support without paying?
Absolutely, we have a whole suite of video tutorials, a knowledge base, faq’s, a forum and a ticket system with a guaranteed response time. We are constantly adding to our knowledge base and video library to bring you the most up to date information, as well as hints and tips to help improve your workflow.
Do I have to pay if I find a bug/error.
Of course not, whether it’s a bug or a feature we don’t currently offer we have a facility for customers to notify us so that we can fix and perhaps include updates in future versions of our software.
Some say that Frooition have run out of cash and are now desperate to get cash off customers since the investors have left.
I am actually really pleased to say that Frooition is a profitable business and is completely self supporting. It’s true the seed investors are no longer involved in the business on a day to day basis and this is because the business has a strong and capable management team who are driving the business forward. Frooition continues to deliver great results for clients as well as the capacity to develop new exciting products and services for the future.
What do you say to users who think the Frooition NSE is not as fully implemented as the old Frooition shops – why is the design cost still the same when effectively you’re only doing one page?
NSE has meant change and there are huge pluses to the way the new store looks and feels. We have much more flexibility in terms of the style design and branding we can deliver per page within eBay’s guidelines. Listing templates are completely unaffected and there’s still loads we can do with these.
Why do you not template all shop pages when other designers do?
We work really closely with eBay to ensure that our designs are compliant. EBay are retiring their old storefront on May 20th2009. Frooition customers who have upgraded to NSE are 100% safe and compliant.
Using certain versions of Internet Explorer there is a pop-up blocker when clicking on custom promo boxes and the frooflow box – can you (when will you) fix this?
Currently links from the promo boxes on the new store experience launch to a new browser window. Following feedback from clients we realize that some browser toolbars maybe blocking these links. We will be implementing a change to this to launch links within the same browser window, which we will be rolling out automatically to all of our NSE clients with the next few weeks.
Why don’t shop categories on live listings update?
Categories can be updated within the frooition software, this does change this information dynamically both within the storefront and a users listings. EBay’s change to its store front does mean that the categories are displayed differently, but frooition has added tools to its software to enable users to change categories that will also change category content within live listings.
Similarly the “more items” box doesn’t update on live listings.
The “more items” cross promotion box on listings does update dynamically, even on live listings, this information is directly collected from an users eBay account, and the information contained within a “more items” promo box is wholly dependent on the cross promotion settings within a store owner’s eBay account.
Any comment on certain people’s insistence that your templates have been breaking eBay’s rules for years. Is the Frooition NSE fully compliant with eBay regulations.
LOL– yes, Frooition are 100% compliant and continue to set the standard in leading eBay design. With over a million live listings at any one time and combined feedback of over 11 million – we work very closely with eBay, they see everything we do so of course we are compliant and more importantly so are our clients.
There are reports your hosting was down on the weekend of the 25th/26th. Was this a temporary glitch or could it happen again?
Frooition continue to invest significantly in our dedicated server farm (hosted and managed by Rackspace in Dallas) to cope with growing demand for our services, and this is exactly what the hosting and subscription fees cover. The froo infrastructure has been designed and built with best of breed hardware, software, and network products from providers including HP, Cisco, Red Hat, MySQL, Panther and High-Availability.Com.
In order to significantly bolster system capacity and performance, on we recently implemented a new high-end database cluster and seamlessly brought it online with no disruption to any of our clients.
After this most recent investment, even during peak traffic times, our infrastructure is now running at less than 10% server capacity and we have a massively scalable infrastructure that will continue to grow with us.
Frooition will be reading responses to this thread and are happy to answer any additional questions. It would be helpful if you could state in your comments if you are either a Frooition customer, work for an eBay services provider (or eBay), or if you simply have a casual interest in the topic.
Disclosure: Frooition advertise with TameBay.
FAQs: How do I give a discount on an eBay invoice?
May 1, 2009
Lots of sellers seem to be asking on various eBay forums recently about how to give buyers discounts on their eBay invoices: it must be the credit crunch. So even though most experienced sellers know the answer to this one, here goes for the newer ones:
you can’t discount more than the postage amount. There is a “seller discounts/charges” box at the bottom of the invoice: this will allow you to add on extra amounts, and to take off up to the same amount as the postage charge. But if you enter a negative amount *greater* than the postage, you’ll get an error message saying that you’ve entered an invalid amount.
The easiest way to get around this is to invoice your buyer direct from PayPal (click the request money tab at the top of any PayPal page). Remember, though, you’ll be charged FVFs on the full sale price by eBay, so it makes sense to negotiate before the buyer buys, and either alter the price or agree to use Best Offer: that way, you’re only charged FVFs on what your buyer’s actually paid.
We’d hope that in the era of pushing free postage, eBay will see fit to change this silly restriction and allow sellers to change prices post-sale if necessary.
The Ultimate Guide to eBay’s Spring 2009 Changes
April 23, 2009
If you want a quick reference guide to the major changes eBay are making to International sites this year Scot Wingo has just released a white paper summarising them.
As well as a time line detailing the dates the major changes will roll out the paper is full of useful tips. e.g. What’s the ideal size for product images for the new eBay Item Page?
Scot’s paper is well worth a read, especially if the categories that you sell in will be one of the first in line for the introduction of Multi-Variant Listings
Disclosure: Scot Wingo is CEO of ChannelAdvisor who are an advertiser with TameBay.
5 sneaky photo tricks
April 20, 2009
Lots of online sellers put huge amounts of time, effort and money into getting perfect product shots. But photographs can do so much more than show off your product; they can be an integral part of your SEO and branding strategies too. Here are a few of my top tips for making your pictures work twice as hard online.
1. Make your first photo square
This is the picture that eBay use to generate the gallery picture, so it makes sense to stick with the square proportions of the gallery picture. That way, you get the maximum 80 x 80 pixel picture on-screen. A rectangular picture has its longest side shrunk to 80 pixels, with the shorter side kept in proportion, so your gallery picture will include white space just to fill the gap. That’s white space you could be using to sell in!
2. Use eBay’s free picture (even if you have your own hosting)
However good your web hosting is, you need to allow for the possibility that it could be down. You don’t want your sales to grind to a halt because all your pictures have disappeared, so take advantage of eBay’s free picture on every listing. That way, there’ll always be at least one image for prospective buyers to look at.
3. Use alt text on images in your description
eBay listings can bring in sales long after they’ve ended: there’s one obscure bit of kit that I sold for someone else a year ago, that’s still getting me emails asking if I have any more, just because I’m the only link in Google that looks like it has something for sale. Use this to your advantage. SEO for eBay listings is a big topic, but one easy thing you can use is alt text; this is an extra bit of HTML which tells browsers more about what’s in the picture. So for example, I might write:
<img src="http://mywebsite.com/red-beads.jpg" alt="6mm red Czech round glass beads">
This allows Google and other image-indexing search engines to see that my picture is of 6mm red Czech round glass beads, and a Google Image Search should show them up. Anyone who sells in a category with a strong visual element – from Clothing to Crafts to Cars… – should consider doing this.
I’m struggling to find any figures on the current percentage of searches run using images, but in 2007, it was around 15% and increasing rapidly. As more and more internet users are on broadband, we’re going to see increasingly that buyers use image search to browse products from multiple ecommerce sites at once, so it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for search engines to figure out just what’s in your photographs.
4. Use meaningful filenames
Another way to attract Google to your images is to use filenames that also describe the image: red-beads.jpg means a lot more than 456454fdfdsfr.jpg, after all. The same goes for folders for organising your images, and this is another good argument for having your own hosting rather than using freebies like Photobucket: http://beads-and-crafts.tv/glass-beads/red-6mm.jpg conveys much more information than a URL full of gumph like http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v692/biddybid/findx.jpg.
If you’re going to use multiple words, Google’s Matt Cutts has said that hyphens not underscores should be used to separate words, so red-beads.jpg not red_beads.jpg.
5. Use Gallery for branding
Gallery doesn’t have to be solely about your product – or even contain a product shot at all. If, for example, you sell computer memory from the UK, you might choose to include the message that you’re a UK seller, not a Far Eastern seller. Adding a “sale” flash to gallery pictures has worked well for me too. If you read #1 and thought “but all my product shots are naturally rectangular”, then how about adding your shop name or a logo if you can make it work at such a small size.
And if you’re a seller in Clothing, Shoes and Accessories, remember you’ll have Gallery Plus for free from June, so start thinking about those super-sized pictures and how to take advantage of them now!
If you’ve got a top tip of your own to share, please leave us a comment.
TameBay Tools: eBay Most Popular Items
April 14, 2009
eBay Tools on TameBay are powered by our chums at Goofbay and cover everything from finding a bargain, local search for buyers and a whole suite of research tools for sellers.
eBay Most Popular Items
Although the eBay Most Popular Items tool can be used to research the most popular items on eBay by keyword search and listings which attract large numbers of sales are worth examining for tips to improve your own listings, the real benefit of this tool is for buyers.
If you’re about to bid on an auction enter the item number into the eBay Most Popular Items tool. This will reveal how many buyers are watching the item you want, which can then guide your bidding behaviour.
If there are few or no watchers you’ll know there’s not likely to be much competition on that particular listing but if there are a number of buyers watching be prepared for a bidding war. As well as checking how many bids the item has already attracted, the more watchers the item has the closer to the end time you should place your bid and be prepared to pay slightly more for the item than a similar product that has no watchers.
If you find two or more items suitable for your needs, consider placing your bid on the listing with the fewest watchers, you’ll probably win it for a lower price.
FAQs: What do I do with my eBay Shop when I go on holiday?
April 11, 2009
Easter’s upon us, and even eBay sellers are thinking about taking a few days away from the PC. But what do you do with your listings while you’re on holiday? You could be like one poster on the PowerSeller Board and take a supply of all your lines on holiday with you, so that you can immediately post anything that’s ordered while you’re away. Personally that fails my definition of ‘holiday’, so let’s take a look at what you can do to take a few days off without your business collapsing.
I’m assuming here that you don’t have employees or a chum who can take over the entire show for you. If this is an option, then take it, you lucky thing. Next best might be someone who can deal with your email: however carefully you flag that you’re away, there’ll be one buyer who’ll slip through the net, and if there’s someone to respond to them, so much the better.
eBay’s holiday settings
eBay provide several “Shop Holiday Settings” options: find them in My eBay > Manage My Shop > Related Links. (Sorry, if you don’t have a Shop/Store, then these aren’t an option for you.) Choose from any or all of:
- Make my Fixed Price listings unavailable
- Display holiday message in all of my available listings
- Display holiday message near the top of every page in my Shop
These look like they’d cover all the bases, but in fact, none of them is adequate on its own, and even in combination, it’s easy for a buyer in a hurry to ignore all your messages.
Hiding fixed price listings works for new buyers, but buyers who have already purchased can still see and purchase from the listings. I’ve also heard numerous sellers say that buyers who’ve been watching their listings have also been able to purchase: whether this is accurate or not, I’ve not been able to prove, but suffice it to say that hiding your fixed price listings is potentially buggy. Auctions are not hidden with this option.
Displaying a holiday message on listings is the choice of sellers who want the holiday, but not the associated loss of income. The problem is that the message eBay display is not very noticeable: that yellow stripe across the top of listings is too easy to ignore, and buyers do.
A holiday message on your Shop pages can back up a message on your listings, but again, isn’t foolproof. Buyers can move from search, to your listing, to checkout, without ever visiting your Shop home or category pages, so don’t rely on this option for important communication.
In summary, eBay’s holiday settings are useful, but if you’re going to be away for more than a couple of days and don’t want to come home to angry and disappointed buyers, it’s worth backing them up in other ways.
Remember you need to actively turn holiday settings on and off: it’s incredibly easy to spend time crafting your message but forget to actually click the radio button to display it (I speak from bitter experience ).
A more visible message
It’s pretty easy to add a more visible message than eBay’s to your listings:
- If you’re not already using it, turn on eBay’s listing frame (Manage My Shop > Marketing Tools).
- Make a 310 x 90 pixel graphic with a BIG MESSAGE that you’re away.
- Upload the graphic as your new Shop logo.
- Don’t forget to change it back to the old logo when you get home.
Automatic emails
The most important issue here is communication: buyers who’ve been told they have to wait a few days will generally be okay about it; buyers who think they’ve been ignored will panic.
- Change your SMP automatic payment emails to add the “delayed dispatch” message.
- Auto-respond from your email account (at server level if you can) to PayPal payment emails. Auto-responding to eBay emails is also an option, though direct email to eBay’s disguised addresses seems so hit and miss recently, it’s not an option I’d rely on.
Remember that it’s not only new buyers who will email; people who’ve already bought from you will also email, and you need to have some kind of response to them that tells them you’re away.
Pull all listings?
If you’re more worried about bad feedback and PayPal chargebacks than loss of income (e.g. you already have the sword of seller non-performance hanging over your head) or eBay is only a small part of your business, then pulling all your listings might be an easier option.
Whether you end listings or just try to hide them will depend on what you sell: if it’s batteries or car parts or something else that people need urgently and that you’ve advertised as next day delivery, ending those listings when you can’t meet the delivery schedule is fairer on your buyers. Remember if you relist within 7 days, you won’t lose recent sales scores in best match.
Some people have said that saying “I’ll be away” looks unprofessional. Personally I don’t see anything wrong in admitting either to being a one person band or to needing a holiday – but if you have issues with either, then ending all your listings (and making your website unavailable too) for the duration might be preferable.
Scheduling listings
If you ended all your listings before you went away, then scheduling some to start a few days before you get back is a good idea, though bear in mind that if you’ve got your BINs hidden, any new BINs you schedule will also be hidden. And if you’re not going to be available to answer ASQs, it might still be worth putting the yellow stripe on your listings.
Or do nothing
I’ve been asked by a few sellers recently variations on the question, “I’m not going to be able to post on Wednesday, should I put my vacation settings on?” My response is an almost-unqualified ‘no’. Most eBay orders can take an extra day for delivery without problem; most buyers know that first class isn’t guaranteed next day. But there are steps you can take to make this easier: don’t promise one day handling time on your listings; 2 days is safer all round, even in normal circumstances. If you offer Special Delivery, then buyers reasonably expect quick dispatch too – so you might want to flag your day off in this instance.
Security concerns
Business sellers are required by law (within the EU) to display their address in their eBay Shops. This understandably raises concerns when indicating absence. I’ve got around this (or tried to) by saying “I’ll be away and I don’t trust my partner to post your order” – other sellers have mentioned being closed for stock-taking or moving premises. There’s no easy answer – but I’d guess that you’re more likely to be burgled by someone who’s seen you carry your suitcase to the cab, than by someone trawling eBay for empty addresses.
There isn’t one easy, catch-all answer. What you do will depend on what you sell and most especially on how long you’re going to be away. In summary, here’s my advice:
- If you sell things that people need overnight, end your listings.
- Otherwise, if you’re going to be away a week or less, use ALL eBay’s vacation settings options, plus emails as above. This is one time you can’t overcommunicate.
- If you’re going to be away longer than a week, at least hide your listings, and consider ending them altogether.
A year in the wilderness
April 10, 2009
I can’t believe it’s a more than a year since I first spoke to Stuart about his suspension from eBay. You might recall the sorry tale of several thriving eBay accounts suspended in March 2008 because they were associated with a NARUed account belonging to an ex-business partner of Stuart’s. A classic tale of “computer says” no, I caught up with Stuart recently to see how his year off had been treating him, and what he might do if and when his eBay accounts were reinstated.
How difficult was it to get your website going without eBay traffic? what did you do?
At first, I just thought the world had ended as 90% of sales came from eBay. But having no real choice but to get on with it, I picked myself up and started to get all the stock listed on the websites (two at the time). Within less than a week, our gardening site had tripled its turnover. Within a month, we had taken more than the past year’s worth of sales we had done from the site. It just shows what can be achieved when you stop relying on eBay for sales.
I then started to learn about SEO, site design, Google Adwords, newsletters and more. There is so much to learn and it’s always changing and evolving which I love. You can try anything and most of the time, it costs very little. The design and look of the site is very important: photos, graphics, colours all make a massive difference. I have learnt so much it surprises me sometimes when I talk to people just how much I now know.
I also applied to sell on Amazon which gave us an immediate uplift in sales. It was easier to list and sell on Amazon, although the jewellery side of the business its quite expensive at 25% commisson. We find however it’s a great way to gain regular customers for our website as we give each one a discount code for it.
We now have six trading websites and also six blogs as well: these really push customers to the site. We have plans for at least six more and will approch each one better and quicker than the last as we learn more. It does take about six to twelve months to really get them going so we have a sort of production line going to keep the flow of sites running.
How do you find off-eBay trading differs from on-eBay? which do you prefer?
I found off-eBay easier in fact: no stupid emails from customers asking questions about the listings. It’s easier to display what you want on a website, where you want it, in the form you want it. We are always changing the sites as we learn, so if we have customers keeping asking the same questions, we add it the site. For example customers on the gardening site kept asking about delivery charges, so we displayed it in the item listing and they stopped asking.
Trading through a website is much easier than eBay as there is no changing the goal posts all the time. And just look at the amount of traffic directed to your eBay store from eBay: that could be traffic going to your site!
What do you know now that you wish you’d known then?
I know now not to put all my eggs in one basket. It nearly ended our business and our income in one go and I worry just how many other people could get caught out like that and not be able to turn it around.
I also wish I had know just how much money we could take from our websites with no selling fees, for example Jan 09 website trading was five times the sales of Jan 08 on eBay!
How do you advise other eBay traders to ensure against what happened to you? is it possible to prepare for eBay suspension?
Yes I think its possible to prepare for a suspension by having other sales avenues to. eBay is easy just put the product there and they come (I know its not quite that easy but you know what I mean) and it feels like easy money. We never thought this could happen to us so it could happen to anyone. Just think about the amount of time you spend each week on ebay and put half to a full day down to your own site, or another sales avenue like Amazon.
And the $64,000 question – will you be going back when your suspension is lifted?
Well we are in the process of sorting the account suspensions out at the moment; two of them have already been reinstated, and we’re now sorting the rest. If I’m honest I feel left out by not being on there, if nothing else than picking up a bargin for myself. The plan for the business is just to sell a few key lines on there to have a presence for the business, and to hopefully push more traffic to the sites by promoting the brands through eBay. Rather than 90% of our business, it will be more like 10% if that.
Since I talked to Stuart, he’s told me that he’s back trading on eBay. Though I wouldn’t wish a suspension on anyone, I can’t help thinking that eBay did Stuart and his business a huge favour, and that both have grown stronger through becoming so much more self-reliant. I still hear plenty of eBay traders saying that they neither want nor need a website, and I wonder what would happen to them if they were in Stuart’s position? I hope they never have to find out.
How do I close my eBay Adcommerce account?
April 8, 2009
Since my grumble about Adcommerce earlier, I’ve seen a lot of people with a lot of complaints about this program, all with the same question: how do I close my account?
The short answer is, you can’t, but you can certainly make it inactive:
- Sign into Adcommerce and select the “campaigns” tab.
- Select all your campaigns.
- From the bottom, choose either to delete them all (if you’re certain you’ll never go back) or “pause selected” if you think you may want to start up campaigns again.
- If you choose to “delete”, the minimal impressions’ and clicks’ data will remain available on your dashboard.
Hope that helps some people.
TameBay Tools: eBay Best Offers
April 7, 2009
One of the things that may have passed you by while Sue and I were taking a sabbatical was the implementation of eBay Tools on TameBay. The tools are powered by our chums at Goofbay and cover everything from finding a bargain, local search for buyers and a whole suite of research tools for sellers.
Each week we’ll look at one of these tools, how to use it and how to interpret the results.
eBay Best Offers Tool
The eBay Best Offers was the tool which got an instant reaction from sellers with several jokingly contacting us asking us to take it down! It’s uses for buyers are obvious, but can be very useful for sellers too
The tool can be used for researching your competitors – recent sales play a big part in Best Match and especially when listing a new item it’s often worth accepting Best Offers to gain recent sales. Even if your Best Offers are at slightly less than you’d normally accept, the advantage of gaining recent sales can far outweigh the cost of using listing enhancements for the same visibility in search results.
One great idea is to use the Best Offers tool to find the price your competitors are willing to accept for an item (which is an indication of the current market price for the product) and then to use eBay email marketing to tell customers for a limited time you’ll accept a certain price for the item. I’ve used this tactic successfully in the past as buyers love special offers and I’ve sold out of entire lines by limiting the offer to just one weekend.
Finally, and possibly the most obvious use for the Best Offers tool is to check the average Best Offer that you yourself accept. If (like me!) you’re giving a large discount on a regular basis is it time to reduce your prices? Do you ever sell an item at the full asking price or is every sale a Best Offer?
We realise that we realise that not all sellers want to use Best Offers (or even sell in a fixed price format) but, for those who do, it can be a really powerful marketing tool. It’s worth spending a few minutes checking out what prices your competitors accept as well as reviewing the offers you yourself have accepted over the last few weeks.
One man’s junk is another man’s treasure
April 3, 2009
I often wonder what happens to some of the products I sell on eBay, most items are pretty obvious but I also use eBay to dispose of items that are old, broken or have missing parts. Why anyone would buy these is beyond me as often the cost of repair or replacing parts is way above the value of the finished item.
Worrying what someone would do with their purchase isn’t my main concern normally – getting rid of products which in the past would go to landfill but now have to be responsibly disposed of is – and eBay is perfect for that…. but what does happen to these items?
Today I found out the answer, at least for the seven old printers I sold, which were all missing various parts such as power supplies, battery cover, battery and paper trays. A forum post on PICAXE describes them as a “Bargain!” and the buyer has stripped one of them to use the parts “for that long considered CNC machine or robot”, going on to list the parts reclaimed from the printer.
I find it truly fascinating to discover just why someone might purchase items like this. I don’t have the time to question every buyer and it would be intrusive to do so, but it’s great to know in this particular case the printers, or at least the parts, will get a new lease of life.
Next time you have a load of (what to you may be) old junk, don’t simply throw it away – you might just get a sale and even if the sale price is pretty low it solves any immediate problems of complying with the WEEE requirements.
The one keyword you should have on adcommerce
April 2, 2009
I’ve seen mixed success with Adcommerce with generally low click through rates, but one tip I’ve picked up (thanks Clarence) is to make sure you include your own eBay User Id.
The chances are you don’t include your eBay ID in any listing titles and if you search for it on eBay it’ll probably be like mine and return no search results. Set up an Adcommerce campaign with a fairly low daily budget (a couple of quid will be fine), and set the click through rate to one pence. Make sure you include your eBay User ID, eBay shop name and any common mis-spellings or variations.
Now if any of your previous buyers need to find you on eBay and search for your eBay ID they’ll find you and it’ll cost just a single penny to bring a returning customer back into your eBay shop.
If you’ve got any other great tips around Adcommerce be sure to let us know in comments below.
[CA Catalyst] Multi-Variation Listings and Recent Sales
April 1, 2009
Following the announcement of Multi-Variation Listings I was curious to find out more about how this would affect Recent Sales scores in Best Match and eBay have revealed more information on how this will work.
Take the example of a seller who has sold 100 t-shirts from a single Multi-Variation Listing. You might expect the seller to have a recent sales score of 100 but this isn’t the case. The seller will have a score based on the highest individual variation recent sales score that fits the search term.
If for example a buyer searched for “Red T-shirt” in this example the seller has sold fifty red t-shirts (10+18+22) but the highest individual recent sales score is 22 so that’s what’ll determine your position in Best Match. Searching for a “Medium T-shirt will return a recent sales score of 18, but if the buyer searches for Medium Blue T-Shirt then the recent sales score will be just 13.
eBay say this is to stop the larger sellers swamping the smaller sellers, but it opens the question as to whether the larger sellers will want to use Multi-Variation Listings in the first place. With the current choice policy you can offer a selection of colours so long as you have sufficient stock to fulfill all orders in any colour. Offering a medium t-shirt with a colour choice of red/blue/green on a normal multi-quantity listing with the same sales of 18+13+5 will give a recent sales score of 36 instead of a maximum of 18.
Sellers will also need to consider the use of keywords in their titles. Although colour and size choices will be picked up for item specifics the item title will be too short to include all variations of colour and size. Currently items specifics for items such as “Mens Shorts” are S/M/L/XL – if I’m searching for waist size 34″ item specifics are of no use to me and unless you have 34″ in the title I won’t find your product. (Is a 34″ waist medium or large?).
It may prove that Multi-Quantity Listings make stock management easier for sellers to manage their stock, but it remains to be seen if sellers will get better visibility from recent sales with existing choice listings or by maintaining one listing for each product variation.
Giving it up for Lent to improve your business
February 24, 2009
During a call with a supplier today they reminded me that today is Pancake Day and tomorrow is the start of Lent. They asked what I was giving up for Lent which I hadn’t really thought about. In fact truth be known it had totally escaped me that today was Pancake Day.
The conversation did make me think though, it’s a couple of months since people made their New Year resolutions (are you still keeping yours? I’m current on about 50% of mine). Lent is another great time of year to make a commitment to put in place an improvement to your business or working habits.
Lent is traditionally the forty days (not counting Sundays) before Easter and begins on Ash Wednesday which is the 25th February this year. If you decide to give up (or to do) something, then in six weeks at Easter it’s likely to have become an ingrained habit which will continue.
I’ve decided that for the next forty days I’ll give up my morning laziness and get into work by 8.30am. That’s between 30 minutes and several hours early than my normal habits.
What will you be doing for Lent which can make a difference to your business?
eBay and Amazon directors to speak at Catalyst UK
February 19, 2009
“Hitting high growth on the world’s online marketplace” will be the topic for Mark Lewis, eBay UK MD, when he speaks at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst next month. Unsurprisingly the eBay session where Mark spoke last year was one of the most well attended sessions, and one at which he announced free gallery and the move towards lower cost insertion fees. I’d expect it to be equally well attended this year, eBay haven’t made any platform or pricing changes so far in 2009 but if there are any in the pipeline I’d expect to Mark give a preview.
Amazon Director, Matt Henderson will be hosting another Catalyst session. Amazon is the de facto 2nd choice marketplace for sellers looking to expand off eBay, and although they don’t report GMV generated by sellers, analysts estimate that 2008 third-party seller GMV was between $5 and $9 billion. Amazon overall grew 21% faster than e-commerce last year so this is definitely a site worth utilising.
There’s also a session from Silverpop about email marketing, this looks interesting one as I used to hate the medium – but love it now. It’s a great recession proof tool and the trick is of course to send emails to people that actually want to receive them, and of course to have content that grabs their attention.
Catalyst is always a good opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues (and even competitors ), plus the content is invariably superb. The dates are 30-31st March, the venue is The Brewery, London, the topic is “Don’t just survive. Thrive”. It’s looking set to be a great conference.
How a bottle of wine can fill a restaurant
January 17, 2009
I went out with friends for a meal last night to a restaurant that I haven’t visited for months. It’s way out in the country and normally I’d expect no trouble in getting a table without a booking but that’s no longer the case.
They’ve recognised that the current financial situation isn’t encouraging spending and have a whole raft of incentives in place and it’s winning them business – discounts on meals, £10 off a bottle of wine when two dine, set menu for £5 (and still take the wine offer so two meals plus their cheapest wine comes to just £11.50)! When you leave they offer a card with a link to review the restaurant online with a cash prize draw – that ensures they’ll get your email address for future promotional marketing.
They may not be making as much profit from each customer, but the restaurant was packed with a queue for tables. That led me to wonder what promotions online sellers can offer to attract buyers.
The most obvious are coupons, gifts and free shipping. Coupons aren’t easy to offer on eBay, but for website owners to mail a money off voucher to all previous customers is simple. For sellers in the US both coupons from eBay themselves and Microsoft Live cash back promotions are working well.
Getting something for free needn’t cost a lot. Book sellers could offer a free bookmark with all orders (in fact many book sellers already ship a free branded book mark with all orders anyway – tell your buyers you’re going to in advance!). Anything that you can send with orders for free sets you apart from your competition.
Free shipping is contentious, sellers don’t like to feel they’re paying fees to eBay on shipping, but there’s no getting away from the fact that buyers like it and it’s becoming a defacto standard. Everything from Play.com ships for free. John Lewis have one of the simplest postage policies ever which reads “Standard delivery is FREE on everything you order from John Lewis, either in our shops or online.”
Like the cut price bottle of wine that fills a restaurant free shipping is worth considering on all products and it’s imperative that sellers experiment with shipping offers to keep ahead of their competition.
What incentives are you offering to keep buyers buying from you, either on eBay or on your website?
eBay charity donations up 20% in 2008
January 15, 2009
Last year eBay buyers and sellers helped raise over $36m for charity which is up almost 20% on the previous year. Despite (or maybe because of!) the tough economic times sellers are increasing their charity donations with almost 1.5 million people supporting their favourite good causes.
There are really two basic reasons for sellers to use eBay for Charity (or Giving Works as it’s known in the US) – firstly because they genuinely believe in the work the charity performs and wish to assist. There are thousands of eBay sellers who only sell on the site to raise funds to assist worthy causes.
The other reason is because it makes business sense. By listing an item with a percentage donated to charity the item gets more exposure through promotions on the site – auctions often reach a higher final value and charity generated page views result in a greater sell through rate for fixed price items.
I have to admit that I use eBay for charity for the later reason, although the charities I chose to support are for the former. For me it’s purely a business decision to use eBay for charity to increase profits, but the causes that benefit are ones I wholeheartedly support.
Congratulations to the many staff who work for eBay Giving Works, eBay for Charity and Missionfish for making the program such a success. Without them eBay buyers and sellers would never be able to raise the enormous sums that they do.
Clarification of duplicate listing policy
January 15, 2009
From 27th January eBay UK will begin to enforce the new Duplicate Listing Policy which limits sellers to a single fixed price listing and no more than 15 listings in total for each physical product that they stock.
Many sellers have been asking exactly what is considered a duplicate. Essentially if the product is different (eg size) then it should be highlighted in the item title. For myself this could include products such as used printers with different page counts.
It’s a little less clear how to handle products which fit multiple items. e.g. a battery may fit a watch as well as a hearing aid, a spark plug may fit a Ford Ka, A Ford Mondeo and an S Type Jaguar and there simply isn’t room in the 55 character title of an eBay listing to fit this information.
eBay have confirmed that they will allow multiple listings of the same item to cater for fitment across a range of devices/products. Sellers will be allowed to list a total of 15 identical listings, with a maximum of one Buy-It-Now listing in each variation of the listing. This in effect means a seller could have 15 fixed price listings if each was in the form “XYZ widget to fit ABC device”.
Sellers should be aware that even though the fitment relaxation of the Duplicate Listing Policy allows for multiple fixed price listings there is still a limit of one per title and 15 per physical product. Launching 15 of each variant (even if only one of each variant is a fixed price listing) will not be allowed.
With just 12 days left before the policy comes into effect now is the time to cast an eye over your listings to ensure that you’re compliant or will be by the 27th.
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