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Third party ads removed from eBay Oz after member complaints

Late yesterday, Australian eBayers began to notice third party ads appearing on their auction listings. A graphic and text link advert for Foxtel digital television was shown directly underneath the “your maximum bid” box on listings in some media and collectables categories: Auctionbytes has a screen shot.

As we might expect, the Australian community boards began to fill up with threads from members incensed that this had been foisted on them unannounced. Several sellers expressed a concern that buyers would assume that this “first month plus installation free” television package was included with the item they were selling, and that they would be left with the customer issues and the negative feedback when buyers discovered it was nothing to do with them.

eBay Support had no information to offer. Members contacting Live Help were told that they had received many complaints and were waiting to hear back from the business unit. Then they were told that the ads were “part of a test being done by our product development department”. Other support staff said they were “the result of a known eBay site issue”. New advertising space, test or glitch? Your guess is as good as mine.

And so some canny eBayers began to complain, not to eBay, but to Foxtel:

Send your complaint to Foxtel. If eBay stick their head in the sand about this, Foxtel certainly won’t, especially if they get lots of negative publicity about their product.

wrote one poster on the Australian PowerSellers Board. And that worked. Members who had complained directly to Foxtel received this email from their Corporate Affairs Co-ordinator:

These ads were placed on eBay by a third party, and it was never FOXTEL’s understanding that they would be placed in this way. We have asked that they be removed immediately.

I’ve got to applaud all those Australian eBayers who made their voices heard on this issue. It’s another appalling example of eBay’s inability to communicate, not only with its members, but internally: anyone could have predicted that 3P ads on the view item page would have resulted in an outcry from sellers, and Support should have been primed with correct information about just what was going on. Better still, eBay Australia should have announced the new ads ahead of time, so that sellers could make an informed decision about whether they wanted to pay for an eBay listing carrying someone else’s promotional material.

We’ve already seen adverts on eBay UK view item pages: I’m sure this won’t be the last time this happens. eBay’s belief is that they own the view item page, and can put what they like on it: but for sellers, it’s the page we’ve paid for and it should be all ours. The way this issue is resolved is going to shape the future of eBay: will it remain a marketplace where individual sellers can shine, or become Amazon Lite where you barely notice who you’re buying from? We’ve won a battle, but the conflict is nowhere near over.

10c listings for PowerSellers on eBay France 21st August

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.

eBay Spain introduces PowerSeller discounts

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.]

SellerDome lists top sellers by country

If you like to keep an eye at what eBay’s top sellers are doing, the nice people at SellerDome have broken down their top eBay sellers worldwide list by country. You can now view sellers ranked by highest feedback from the US, Germany, UK, France, Australia and Canada: just pick your country from the drop-down menu top left.

Of course, ranking by feedback doesn’t tell you who’s sold the most or who’s made the most profit (though you can see some basic figures for each seller on the site too). But for stats obsessives and very nosey people, it has some interesting information.

eBay France holds CLD this Thursday

eBay France are holding a cheap listing day this Thursday, 29th May. For PowerSellers, insertion fees are 10c and for everyone else, they’re capped at 25c on both auction and BIN listings.

Media categories, which have 5c insertion fees normally, are not included; Motors (which have free insertion fees) and some motors-related categories are not included. All other normal fees apply, and please read all the small print before you list.

60 days grace to save your PowerSeller status

A little bit of good news for any PowerSellers whose percentage score fell below 98% in the recent feedback recalculations: eBay are giving you 60 days grace to improve things. A post by Pink James on the UK PowerSeller board (valid PS sign-in required) reads:

PowerSellers who have fallen below the minimum PowerSeller requirement (98%) due to the recent recalculation will be given a 60 day grace period during which they will remain in the Programme and have time to improve their score.

US start-up takes on eBay

  A new startup is being billed as the marketplace that will rival eBay. Launched in public beta today, though apparently only open to US residents, Wigix is aiming for the Buy It Now, new items end of the market. The site, whose name stands for “want it get it exchange”, offers a stock exchange-type price matching mechanism, where buyers and sellers can add their desired prices for items, and the system will notify both parties when there is a match. Wigix will offer a ticker showing recent transactions and prices, hoping to entice browsers to become sellers.

No fees on items under $25

As has become the norm with eBay competitors, there is no fee to list on Wigix. Items sold for under $25 are fee-free even when sold. From $25 up, there is a downwards sliding scale for sellers:

• $1.50 for a sale $25 - $100;
• $1.50 + 2% of the amount above $100 for a sale $100 - $1,000;
• $21 + 1% of the amount over $1,000 for a sale of more than $1,000.

Buyers will - unusually - pay $1.50 per item themselves. This pricing structure obviously tends towards the higher end of the market.

But members also have the opportunity to earn money from the site, without needing to sell a thing themselves. Those who add new products into Wigix’s Amazon-style inventory, will earn 5% of the site’s transaction fees when items are sold from that listing. There’s a great opportunity for someone with a large database of products there…

Members can also become category experts, overseeing product submissions, blogging, posting on forums and dealing with other members’ queries: creating community around their categories. For a fairly hefty time committment, these members will earn 1% of the revenue from their category.

PowerSellers wanted

eBay PowerSellers will be able to import their catalogues into Wigix, and they say that from July, the site will offer store fronts.

I must admit, I’m more impressed with Wigix than with pretty much any “the next eBay” I’ve ever seen. Concentrating on higher-end consumer products rather than trying to take on the breadth of eBay’s marketplace, looks like it may attract experts in the relevent categories, as well as serious buyers and sellers. It’s a shame they’re limiting it to US residents at the moment, but perhaps that will change in time.

Neutral feedback to be counted as negative

A post on the eBay Developers’ Blog reveals some more details about the feedback changes coming in May. As we already knew, percentage calculations will now be on the last 12 months’ activity, not the entire lifetime of an eBay account. The formula used to calculate that percentage will now be “all positive Feedback earned in the past year by all positive, neutral and negative Feedback” (emphasis mine). Currently, neutrals do not count at all in the percentage calculation. If this new calculation brings a seller’s feedback percentage to below 98%, they will lose PowerSeller status, and thus FVF discounts.

Neutral is no longer neutral

This change is going to leave a lot of people questioning what the point of neutral feedback is. eBay have previously said that neutrals allow buyers to leave a non-positive feedback without the damage of a negative. This is obviously not the case any more: a neutral is just as damaging as a negative under the new calculation.

Sadly, I don’t think buyers will see it like that. Many neutrals are left simply because the buyer’s assumptions were incorrect, because something outside the seller’s control (delivery time) wasn’t quite satisfactory, or even because the transaction was ‘just ordinary’. As the leaver of my very first neutral told me, “don’t get your knickers in a knot, it’s only a neutral”. Except now it isn’t.

It’s time to get rid of neutral feedback once and for all; if buyers want to complain, they can leave negative feedback, and they can mark down DSRs. Giving them this ‘negative lite’ score which they believe doesn’t really matter is only encouraging them to damage sellers’ livelihoods without realising what they’re doing.

Limits on when feedback can be left

The Developers’ Blog says “We’ll block buyers from leaving negative or neutral Feedback for 7 days for active PowerSellers who have been on eBay for at least 12 months.” Whatever this actually means, it’s good news.

The feedback changes page says “A time limit should be placed on how quickly negative and neutral Feedback can be left.” I assume therefore the limit is seven days from the date of the sale, rather than - say - buyers indicating they want to leave negative feedback having to wait seven days before that feedback appears on the site.

eBay comment that this should “drive positive feedback”. I don’t think this is true: most genuine negatives are left more than a week after the transaction, when it has become obvious that the seller can’t or won’t make things right. But it will help to stop feedback extortion: quite why that should be limited to long-term PowerSellers, I can’t really see.

Help for sellers

As has been previously announced, there are several tweaks to the system being made which should help sellers limit the problems they have to deal with:

• sellers can block buyers who have two unpaid item strikes in the last 12 months
• sellers will be able to block buyers who have been reported for feedback extortion and email threats
• blocked bidder lists are increasing in capacity from 1000 IDs to 5000.

How will this affect you? Are you - like me - waving goodbye to all your 100% scores? Or do you still believe that feedback doesn’t really matter? Leave us a comment.

eBay.com 10c insertion fees for PowerSellers today

eBay.com are holding a 10c insertion fee sale today (22nd April) for PowerSellers only. Auction and Buy It Now listings in both regular and media categories will be charged 10c insertion fees. All other normal fees apply, and eBay Motors and some business and industrial categories are excluded so do read the small print before you list!

This is the first time eBay.com has held a PS-only cheap listing day, though similar events were held recently on eBay Australia and eBay France. It’s another first too: this CLD is sponsored by monster.com, who have an advert on the CLD page. What do you think about sponsored CLDs - is this a step too far towards tacky? Leave us a comment.

eBay UK : “we’ll process FVF discounts manually”

There’s good news this afternoon for some sellers with DSR/FVF discount problems. Those who are incorrectly being told they are not PowerSellers and have received zero DSRs in the last 30 days should be getting their discounts after all. Pinkie James has just posted on the PowerSeller Board [PS sign in required]:

We’ve identified the problem and confirmed that it has affected a very small number of members. We apologise for the frustration the wait will have caused as we’ve worked on the problem. It will be fixed in the next rollout of the Dashboard (this will be the rollout of the full version not the version currently in use. We will of course manually back-credit anyone who hasn’t but should have received their discounts and will pass on details of how this will be done once finalised.

Affected sellers, do feel free to keep us up to date on the status of your discounts. I’ve said it before and no doubt I’ll be saying it again: this roll-out has been the biggest fiasco I’ve ever seen in eBay’s history, and the program should have been delayed until everything was working properly.

eBay France offers sellers choice of tariffs

eBay France are trialling a new fees tariff for PowerSellers which places more emphasis on final value fees and less on insertion fees. Similar to the tariffs introduced on eBay.com and eBay UK earlier this year, the French fee structure has one important difference: sellers can choose which set of fees they want to be charged. The trial runs from 15th April to 14th July: sign-ups for the first month are now closed, but sellers can still opt in for the later two months.

The new trial tariff slashes insertion fees by 50%, but increases FVFs on tranches up to €1000: there’s a full list of the new pricing after the cut. Sellers who sign up for the trial will be shown a comparison of the old fees versus the new ones. Anyone who finds out they’re not saving money will not be able to quit before the end of the month.

I’m pretty impressed with this decision to allow sellers to opt in to a trial and see what works for them. There doesn’t appear to be any word on what will happen at the end of the trial, but presumably if it’s a success, the trial pricing may be adopted permanently. The new fee structure does not apply to Motors or Media, which have their own fee structures, or to Boutique (Shops) listings.

Many thanks to Jo from French Collection for the heads up.

Read more

PowerSeller FVF discounts : a tale of woe

You’d think that offering discounts to your biggest and most loyal customers would be a good thing, wouldn’t you? A thing that would make them want to spend more money with you, maybe even like you. But eBay have managed to turn their PowerSeller FVF discount scheme into one of the biggest fiascos I have seen in my eight years’ trading on the site.

First there was the Seller Dashboard, which didn’t roll out until more than a month after the new pricing scheme. Imagine if you asked *your* customers to guess the price they’d have to pay you. This should have been implemented at exactly the same time as the new pricing, even if that meant delaying the fee changes.

However, it gets worse. Imagine if you promised your customers a discount, and then charged them the full whack. That’s exactly what happened to me.

When the FVF discount scheme was announced, one of the first questions asked was how it would affect those of us who don’t trade on our national site: French residents who list on .co.uk, UK residents who list on .com, and so on. For a company that promotes international trade, it seemed a little bizarre that eBay didn’t think of this one for themselves. For a few days, Pinks made different statements. Some said that sellers would only be entitled to discounts on their national site, so if they sold elsewhere, they’d have to pay full price. Others said you’d get a discount based on your local site, but it would apply on sales from other sites too.

Then came the good news: an eBay employee, asked specifically about my account, said I would get the discount because it was based on your main trading area, in my case, eBay UK.

Have I got a discount? Dear reader, I have not. Nor have I got access to the seller dashboard. It seems French sellers stay French, even if they’re selling on eBay UK.

Now I know a lot of people are tempted to get protectionistic about this, but lets be logical: if I only get the discount by being UK-registered, that’s a pretty huge incentive to start lying about my location, put something in my listings about “your item may ship from my holiday home in France”, and get 35% off my fees. I won’t. But I would bet money that thousands of sellers from across the world who make their living on eBay UK are thinking of doing exactly that right now. I thought we’d largely cured the location misrepresentation problem, but this discount scheme might bring it all back again.

We asked eBay to comment on this more than a week ago, but they’ve been either unable or unwilling to clarify the position. I still don’t know whether I’m not entitled to the discount I was promised, or whether someone’s forgotten to push a button somewhere.

And it seems I’m not the only one with a problem. PowerSeller Lynne from Josordoni Collectables told me earlier today “I keep on checking and as of now the dashboard is still showing ‘not calculated’. My April invoice should have been available from yesterday, and that isn’t up yet either.”

A thread on the PowerSeller Board [PS login required] suggests that Lynne’s problem is far from unique. Some sellers are having the dashboard waver between ‘not calculated’ and ‘no discount’; some are told ‘no discount’ when they have four green ticks indicating they’re entitled to the discount; others are seeing their figures drop at the last minute, and inevitably this raises questions about their accuracy.

I loved the idea of this scheme when it was announced; rewarding good sellers seemed exactly what eBay needs. But in reality, the whole thing has become a farce that even eBay staff don’t seem to understand. It’s causing good sellers an immense amount of frustration and worry. It’s going to encourage location misrepresentation. This half-ready scheme should never have been launched until it was properly ready: sometimes, it feels like policy is being made up as we go along.

Expanded Seller Protection officially live for UK PowerSellers

eBay UK have just announced that Expanded Seller Protection is live for UK PowerSellers. Though some of us managed to sign up last week, it’s good to know that now, we are officially protected against against fraudulent payments and item not received claims with the following improvements to existing cover:

• any address: sellers are now protected whether or not their buyer has a confirmed address
• international coverage: posting is covered to any of the 190 countries supported by PayPal
• unlimited coverage: the previous limit of £3,250 is gone; sellers now have unlimited cover from PayPal.

Of course, there are some requirements of sellers too:

• for item not received claims, you’ll need to send within seven days of payment, with a proof of delivery viewable online (signature viewable online if the item is worth £150 or more), and
• for unauthorised payment claims, you will need to post to the address on the payment page, and be able to provide a proof of posting (PoP not proof of delivery seems rather nicely generous to me).

Most of all, you’ll need to register to be eligible, so get on over to PayPal and do it!

eBay Germany announce fee changes

eBay Germany have finally announced their fee changes effective from 20th February. These are some of the most complex changes any eBay site has undergone, so I’m summarising here; if you want to see the full details, this is where they are.

Different fee structures for business and private sellers

Private sellers can list auctions starting at €1,00 with Gallery picture with no fee. They pay 8% final value fee. Cars, motorbikes, boats, and other motors and sports vehicles can also be listed free; FVFs are dependent on sale price, with a sliding scale from 8% to 2%.

Category-specific pricing for business sellers

Business sellers‘ in certain categories will see a move to the lower-IF, higher FVF model seen on eBay.com and .co.uk.

• The lowest prices will be seen in media categories (films & DVDs, music, PC & video games) and tickets.
• Electronics (hi-fi, audio, in-car navigation, household electronics, TV, video, software and games consoles) do next best, and
• a collection of home and office categories (office & stationery, gourmet, furniture, toys, sports and home decoration) also see some changed prices.

All affected categories will see insertion fees cut for auctions starting at or fixed priced items at €10. The biggest cut is in media, where all items have a 5c insertion fee (private sellers do not get special pricing in the media).

For multiple item listings, eBay.de’s fees are charged according to the number of items being listed and the starting price of each individual item. In relevent categories, IFs for multiple items are being reduced, and the IF cap is also being reduced from its current €4,80 to as little as €0,05: yes, it’s the media categories again.

Correspondingly, FVFs are being increased in the sub-€50,00 tranch. In electronics categories, the higher tranches have FVFs reduced by 1%.

For auctions starting at €1,00 *only*, the price of Gallery is being reduced to 25c.

Further discounts for qualified PowerSellers

Those who are members of the German PS program, who maintain a minimum of 4.6 on all four DSR criteria, and who offer PayPal on at least 80% of their ended listings, will be entitled to discounts on their FVFs of between 20% and 26%, depending on PS level. Qualification will be on a rolling 30 day basis. Those whose DSR scores are all 4.8 or higher will be entitled to an additional 10% discount.

The PayPal criterion is likely to be very unpopular with German sellers: bank transfer is much more widely used in Germany than it is amongst UK eBayers. The rest of the changes are, I think, likely to leave sellers pretty divided: some will like the lower-risk pricing model, others will resent the increase in FVFS, and still more will wonder why their own categories have been ‘ignored’. What I think the rest of us can certainly take from this is that category-specific pricing is likely to become much more common on all eBay sites than it has been previously.

Lorrie: media fees cut, but nothing else changes

Lorrie Norrington has made her debut on the eBay Announcements Board with some good news for media sellers on eBay.com: insertion fees in the first three pricing tiers are to be cut from 20th February:

Start Price	Old IF	New IF
$0.01-0.99	20c	10c
$1.00-9.99	40c	25c
$10.00-24.99	60c	35c

She goes on to make some response to complaints made by sellers over recent days: “we’ve heard you” on DSRs, eligibility for the Powerseller program, Best Match and no negative feedback for buyers. “If buyer trust in the marketplace is not improving as intended within the next six months, we will take action.” I’d be very interested to know exactly how one measures buyer trust specifically, but largely the message is that eBay are confident that their changes are the right ones for the marketplace, and that whatever sellers think, they’re going ahead. The lady’s not for turning: haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

PayPal to offer better seller protection

PayPal have stated in the near future sellers will be able to ship to any address confirmed or otherwise and qualify for seller protection. Unconfirmed addresses which in the past made seller protection invalid, would no longer exclude sellers from protection for unauthorized funds, non-receipt claims and chargebacks.

This program known as Expanded Seller Protection will initially be made available to PowerSellers based in the UK, US, Canada and Hong Kong. In addition to all addresses being considered confirmed, coverage to all 190 countries served by PayPal will be included with no coverage limit on claims.

The vital missing information from todays announcements regarding PayPal Expanded Seller Protection is what it will/may cost. That fee could range from free, to a per transaction basis, to a set monthly fee, or a percentage of total transactions processed.

The dream of being able to ship to every customers to any address may be one step closer, it remains to be seen if it’s affordable.

eBay Australia holds Powerseller-only CLDs

eBay Australia are holding a Powerseller only cheap listing promotion next week. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday will offer free insertion fees and BIN upgrades on auctions starting at 99c or less, provided that they are listed by Powersellers.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first promotion of this type eBay have run purely for Powersellers, and it will add an interesting slant to the famous “level playing field”, which says that every seller, huge business or hobbyist, will pay the same fees. It should at least limit the sheer number of listings made on the day, which frequently on CLDs threaten to completely overwhelm eBay sites. We’d be very interested to hear from Australian sellers how you’re viewing this one, so please leave us a comment.

Sadly for those who sell to Australia but live elsewhere, you must have a registered Australian address to qualify. All other ordinary eBay.com.au fees will apply and there are some other restrictions, so do read the small print before you list.

PS Challenge returns for north American Powersellers

US and Canadian Powersellers have the chance to win up to US$1,500 this Christmas as eBay repeat last year’s Powerseller Challenge. Sellers who enter will be given a personalised sales target: those who beat the target receive up to 1.5% of their sales above the target back, up to a maximum of US$1,500. There are also ten sweepstakes prizes of US$1,500 to be won: so even if you’re taking December off selling (you crazy person!) you could still be a winner.

What’s particularly interesting is that eBay are using the DSRs (”the feedback stars”) to determine eligibility for the prizes: only those with 4.5 or more on all stars, and an average of 4.8 will get the 1.5% credit; anyone below that will only get 1%. From statements made at Live and elsewhere, we expect those stars to be more and more important for sellers over the next year.

Phone support available for Bronze PowerSellers

From September the 10th PowerSeller telephone support will be extended to include ALL PowerSellers in the UK. For the first time Bronze PowerSellers will be able to telephone eBay for all account related matters.

Gold, Platinum and Titanium PowerSellers can in addition request a dedicated Personal Account Manager.

To access the PowerSeller Telephone Support number simply log into the PowerSeller portal, for Bronze PowerSellers the number will be available from the 10th.

There’s something phishy about eBay

So as I mentioned in the forum, one of my IDs has been made a powerseller this weekend. Sadly my delight at receiving this ultimate eBay accolade has been slightly overshadowed by the frankly phishy nature of the communications I’ve received from eBay.

Firstly, the email has come via - uh - email: there’s not a sign of it in My Messages. Considering that appearance or not in My Messages is supposed to be the yardstick of a genuine communication, this isn’t good. Being the suspicious type I am, I went to the Powerseller Portal and signed up there, rather than using the button in the email. Then there’s the fact that over the last 48 hours, I’ve received three copies of the same email. I know they love me, but I got the message the first time

However, most worrying (and this is what I’ll be writing to Support about today) is the fact that the emails were all addressed to an ID which was changed almost a year ago. If eBay can’t get my ID right, how on earth am I supposed to tell their messages from the phishers’?

So two points in conclusion:

• even if you think it’s from eBay, don’t click the link in the email: go through the links on the site, and
• even if you think it’s phishing, it might sometimes be worth checking out!

eBay pilot: unpaid item feature fee credits

eBay in the US and Canada are launching an “Unpaid Item Protection Program“, designed to refund listing enhancement fees, if an auction results in an unpaid item.

Losing feature fees has long been a bone of contention for sellers, listing fees have been refunded if the item was sold successfully on a relist. With feature fees of up to £19.95 for Featured Plus listings it’s understandable sellers want enhancement fees refunded for void sales.

The pilot is limited to US/Canadian PowerSellers for Auction or Auction with Buy It Now items only. Shipping costs must be reasonable and PayPal accepted for payment. The pilot will run from now until the end of the year.

The program is not perfect however, excluding Buy It Now items may prove to be a mistake. The reason given is that immediate payment can be selected for these items. What eBay seem to have failed to realise is that insisting on immediate payments actually decreases sales!

Buyers can’t make multiple purchases and have combined shipping discounts. Buyers don’t want to make separate payments for each line item they choose from a sellers shop. Most of all sellers don’t want to have twenty separate payments (incurring a 20p PayPal fee on each) because a buyer selects twenty £1.00 paperback books to buy.

Using immediate payment to avoid the occasional non paying bidder loses more sales than most sellers can afford. The only way around this issue is if eBay were to introduce a shopping cart as they have on eBay India.

eBay have continually stated that they want to reinvigorate the core and bring back auctions. The immediate reaction of sellers who realise feature fees aren’t refundable on fixed price listings will be to list auction start price £49.99 with Buy It Now of £50.00. As Patrick Byrne of Overstock once said “Folks, that is not an auction, that is a classified ad. Our real auctions have disappeared under an ocean of such classified ads, which destroys closing rates for everyone.” Sellers won’t care though, a couple of unpaid item Buy It Now’s and they’ll soon catch on.

Now it may seem I’ve not been particularly enthusiastic about this new program, that’s not the case. Any wasted fees from unpaid items that are returned to sellers are welcome. It will also be a great (and one of the first real) benefits of being a PowerSeller. When the program moves from pilot to policy and rolled out worldwide I’d just like to see fixed price listings included.

PowerSellers’ Discussion Board to be split

There have often been calls on the PowerSeller Community Forum to split the board into different topics. The most common request on the UK PowerSeller Board has been for “Business” and “Chat” sections.

Now on the US PowerSeller Board it may become a reality with three different “sub-boards” being considered.

Whether this will become implemented is really down to the US PowerSellers themselves. PowerSellers can vote for “This board works for me as is”, “I would prefer additional boards for PowerSellers” or “I don’t care either way”.

eBay have often spun off new boards when exisiting boards reach a certain level of useage, it enables board contributors to find threads they’re interested in, and to post new threads on boards where they’re most likely to get the information or assistance they need. The US PowerSeller board is significantly busier than the UK PowerSeller board, but the move is still likely to renew calls for the UK board to be split.

(To log onto the eBay Community Boards linked in this post you must be a PowerSeller)

Have you phoned eBay yet?

It’s a new month, and for silver PowerSellers in the UK a new service level from eBay support. As of yesterday telephone support in the UK is extended to all PowerSellers of Silver and above. No longer will they have to wait for email responses, the holy grail of eBay’s phone number is available to call.

This is part of eBay’s long awaited differentiation of PowerSeller benefits. The question was long asked “What do I get when I progress from a Bronze to Silver powerseller, or from Silver to Gold” etc. In the past it was often suggested that the only real benefit was the PowerSeller community message board. Now at eBay Universities there is a PowerSeller lounge with PowerSeller support reps available for demo’s. Step up to Silver and you gain telephone support. Ramp up sales further to reach Gold PowerSeller status or above and you get a single point of contact with your own account manager.

There was outcry when eBay last changed the qualification levels for PowerSellers, but since doing so eBay have extended telephone support opening hours, introduced account managers, and now extended phone support for Silver PowerSellers. Sellers will always want more support, but contacting eBay today is more accessible to more sellers than at any time in the past. Have you called them yet?

Phone support for Silver PowerSellers update!

We have been contacted by eBay who wanted to inform us that Phone Support for Silver PowerSellers will be available to eBay.co.uk members from the 30th April and not as from today as the PowerSeller Portal would currently suggest. The new service has been mistakenly posted on the portal and is currently, we’re informed, in the process of being removed until the appropriate date.

eBay would like to apologise for this and any confusion caused and suggest that in the meantime Silver PowerSellers continue to use the dedicated email service that they can find by logging into the PowerSeller Portal and clicking on Benefits and then Customer Support.

Phone support extended to Silver PSs

eBay have announced that from 30th April, phone support will be extended to Silver Powersellers in the UK. Sellers who turn over £1,500 or 300 items per month qualify as Silver PSs. Those qualified can find the Support phone number by logging in to the Powerseller portal.

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• Recent Comments

  • ebuyerfb: If I had to speculate eBay made the initial policy for the reasons they’ve stated. Now that it seems...
  • Sue Bailey: Steve, I don’t know - I can only go by the announcement eBay make (and give em a few days to...
  • John Pemberton: #17 Hi Nick - please see my comment made( #11). 99% of our shipping is via Interlink Express. I use...
  • Steve: Sue, you mention “ten listings per seller per search results page.” results pages of what size? my...
  • John Pemberton: sounds logical to me!
  • Sue Bailey: Chris, is two months’ notice enough? The next one’s 15th Jan - see you there.
  • chris o'D: Can we have some more notice next time - sounds interesting Chris
  • Chris Dawson: #17 All the details are at http://www.meetup.co m/ebayuk/ Well volunteered to take minutes and report...
  • northumbrian: makes mental note, ***will need to order more Anoraks***
  • Andrea Kennard: Cool, will deffo come along to the next one. Will it be at the same place? Will anyone be...

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