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eBay on BBC Watchdog 7pm tonight

eBay have just given advance warning that BBC Watchdog will be featuring them this evening. It’s just over a year since the program last featured eBay which generated widespread criticism from eBay sellers who viewed the program as biased.

The previous program focused on counterfeit goods and gave the impression that all PowerSellers sold fakes, although Watchdog insisted their coverage was balanced.

Tonight’s program looks at the eBay feedback system, and in particular on instances where sellers have threatened to retaliate if given negative feedback or refused to offer refunds or replacements until buyers withdraw negative feedback that they have already left.

eBay state that they “Will endeavour to put the cases raised into context, and to take strong action against feedback abuse to prevent future publicity of this nature.”

Hopefully Watchdog will emphasise that instances of sellers using feedback in this manner is almost unheard of in comparison to the millions of feedback left on eBay each week, and especially that the sellers featured in the program aren’t typical of the thousands of sellers giving fantastic service to their customers.

Sadly programs of this nature have the potential to harm all sellers businesses, Watchdog would do well to inform their audience of how to buy and pay safely on eBay and remind buyers that feedback should only be left when they’ve resolved any queries regarding a transaction with the seller.

I’ll be very interested to see if they mention the opposite situation where a buyer threatens a seller with negative feedback to give a truly balanced program.

eBay fresh on 3

There’s a bonus appearance for eBay in this Christmas’s commercial breaks, as the site features in phone network 3’s new ad. Best known at the moment as the provider of the lovely Skypephone, 3 have their mobile eBayer followed by a string of desirable objects: who says you have to stay in the house to do your Christmas shopping on eBay this year.

BBC Children in Need on eBay

It’s the annual BBC Children in Need appeal from 7pm on BBC 1 tonight and Terry Wogan will be dusting off his tuxedo for the event. You don’t have to wait until tonight however to get involved. As well as the many events and fundraising taking part across the country eBay are hosting hundreds of charity auctions to support the appeal.

As well as the official auctions listed on the eBay User Id bbc_children_in_need many other sellers have listed items with a percentage of the sale price raising money for Children in Need.

If you want to support the appeal from the comfort of your computer simply bid on any of the charity auctions on eBay, or of course why not list just one item through eBay for Charity with the proceeds donated to the cause?

Christmas ad campaign begins

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the first in this year’s series of Christmas adverts for eBay. I’m happy to say that the word “cheap” isn’t mentioned at all: the emphasis is strongly on the idea that you can just whatever your loved one wants on eBay. Anyone who can possibly justify including the words “yellow” and “retro” in their listings should grab the chance of some extra traffic before this one’s off our screens!

Sky News Technofile features my auction

Sky run a feature called Technofile presented by Martin Stanford from Sky news. The latest installment was of great interest because not only did it talk about online selling but I was featured too!

Topics covered included about broadcasting yourself online big brother style, collaboration online, and advertising online, which is where eBay auctions come in. How to get your message across online more effectively? Well the answer is with video and along with vzaar they used one of my auctions as an example.

Technofile finished up with privacy online, if you’re using search engines or using a wireless hotspot you may not be as anonymous as you think you are. It’s like someone looking over your shoulder online, but if someone really is shoulder surfing consider a 3M privacy filter as recommended by Sky News!

Rambo socks lawyer

eBay featured on Radio 4’s You & Yours again today, with the old story that L’Oréal are suing eBay for allowing the sale of fakes on the site. You can hear the programme for yourself here.

The programme opened with some fairly impressive statistics, claiming that £15bn of fake goods were sold via the internet annually and that 75% of those were through “online auction sites like eBay”. Though no actual evidence for the source of those figures was adduced, the IP lawyer being interviewed did cite a survey by Louis Vuitton that famously claimed that of 450,000 alleged LV products sold on eBay, some 90% were fake.

Asking “how would you spot a fake”, the host cited an Armani tie he saw on eBay this morning. Armani ties “retail at £80″, he said, so how on earth could an eBay seller be selling one on an auction starting at £1? I’ve been a seller of genuine Armani ties on eBay, so I had a little bit of insight into this that You and Yours seem to lack. First, Armani ties might retail for £80 in Knightbridge, but they do *not* retail for £80 on eBay. eBay buyers want cheap. But that’s okay, because Armani ties don’t wholesale for anything even close to £80. The markup on them is scary, and so it’s perfectly possible to sell them on eBay at what looks like a crazy price, but still be making a crazy profit. Putting a tie on with a £1 as a lure to your eBay store full of designer ties is a perfectly sensible strategy, and is in no way in itself indicative of counterfeiting.

Richard Ambrose, eBay UK’s head of trust and safety, said as much. He also reaffirmed eBay’s dislike of counterfeiting with his customary refreshing directness: “we hate having counterfeits on the sight; they make us look bad.” But Richard also emphasised that eBay need the help of rights’ owners to remove counterfeit items from sale. Being expert in every product from perfume to handbags to software is not something that any one organisation could ever achieve: “the challenge of getting them off the site is going to involve partnership with rights owners, it’s not something we can do on our own.”

John Waite’s petulant demand that eBay filter out fakes like they filtered out Live 8 tickets just shows how far these story-tellers are from the realities of internet trade. Sellers of counterfeit items don’t mark their sales as such, so just what does he want to filter for? Moreover, how does he want to deal with those sellers of perfectly legitimate items who complain when their listings are held up due to anti-counterfeiting measures?

His friend the IP lawyer, trying to side-step the accusation that *he* was making money from the fakes issue, just as he accused eBay of doing, went on to complain that “eBay don’t have a three strikes and you’re out policy”. He’s obviously never bothered talking to any of the 18,000 members of the VeRO programme, or any of the sellers they’ve stung, because that’s EXACTLY what eBay have!

There is no denying that there are problems with fakes on eBay. But litigation like this is not the answer. L’Oréal’s action has come at the same time as other, less publicised action, to stop sellers of grey imports. One might think that their decision to stop working with eBay and to go the legal route, has more to do with their desire to protect their distribution networks by closing off secondary markets, as it does to stop the sale of counterfeits. This is, in the end, the action of a greedy company trying to protect its bottom line. As another Rambo once put it, “Let it go. Let it go.”

Bid price accurate 20 seconds ago

I’ve just found on of the first in new series of eBay.co.uk TV adverts. In a television first they featured live listings with pricing updated only 20 seconds prior to the commercial airing!

With the title “Did you eBay today” it shows the current price plus posting the actual time and the end time of the item, a “Day Birger + Mikkleson Silk Dress”.

It’s time to keep an eye on the TV, do you know who listed this dress or who bought it? Have you seen and advert with a different eBay listing on it? Was it one of yours?

The US have released new TV adverts too under the theme “Shop Victoriously” playing on the Windorphins theme.

Sneak Peek at new eBay.co.uk adverts

The eBay primary coloured logo people have gone 3D with hair!

I’ve not managed to catch one of the new adverts on TV yet, but we’ve had a sneaky preview of what the new logo people look like. If you manage to catch one of the new adverts let us know what you think.

eBay documentary on Australian TV

Tuesday evening Australians will be getting a dose of eBay piped into their living rooms. Cutting Edge: Traders’ Dreams is due to air on SBS at 8:30 pm and covers eBay success and failure stories from around the globe. Billed as a look “at the world as a global department store” if nothing else it should prompt a few Australians to log on to eBay and hopefully protrays eBay in a positive light.

Now I have a small problem, I can’t actually get Australian TV. So if anyone from the antipodes wants to volunteer a review of the program please get in touch

eBay spends £10million on advertising

eBay has awarded a £10m advertising contract to Albion, they’ll be creating the next series of eBay adverts and it’s thought they’ll carry on using the primary coloured Logo People from recent campaigns. The logo people have appeared in a series of TV adverts as well as on billboard posters and in the national press.

Albion is no stranger to eBay companies, they’ve managed the Skype account since 2005 and have recently started working with Joost, an Internet TV company started by the creators of Skype.

Eurovision triumph for Ireland

The BBC bumped Dr Who tonight and gave Terry Wogan his annual three hours of prime time telly for the Eurovision Song Contest. This year it was live from Helsinki, Finland and ended in predictable fashion with the Eastern European countries voting for each other, the Scandinavians voting for each other, Southern Europe voting for other Southern European countries, and of course inevitably Cyprus voting for Greece!

The United Kingdom managed to enter a group with their arms outstretched pretending to be aeroplanes. Called Scooch, they quite honestly deserved a splendid “Nul points” which was spoilt when Ireland awarded them seven points swiftly followed by another 12 from Malta. France was level 2nd bottom with the UK on 19 points but Ireland triumphed with just five points coming last.

The winners, Serbia, have the dubious honour of hosting next years competition. Without a doubt the cost of hosting the show far outweighs any benefit, and is definitely one to avoid.

If you missed the annual shamefest don’t worry - you can buy the Eurovision CD on eBay!

WAGs GOSH hoodies now available online

Following the enormous success of WAGs Boutique Nicola T has set up a website to carry on selling the Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital (GOSH) hoodies and other clothes that she designed for the show. She said:

The WAGs Boutique Bows raised over £320,000 for Great Ormond Street from selling hoodies in their Marshall Street Boutique and in their eBay shop. Buyers were so eager to purchase and support the charity that they were constantly sold out and additional supplies were still being manufactured just a couple of days before the shops closed for the final time on Saturday 21st.

You can find the GOSH hoodies to purchase online at Nicola T’s Boutique. We wish Nicola every success in her new venture to raise money for GOSH.

When to buy Bows WAGs Boutique GOSH Hoodies

A post on the Wagging Tongues forum has revealed when the final Great Ormond Street Hospital, Bows, GOSH Hoodies will be listed on eBay. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week the Pink GOSH hoodies (SM, M, L, XL) and White GOSH Hoodies (SM, M, L) will be listed in limited quantities at 9am, 11am, 2pm, 6pm and 8pm. There will be a final listing of the remaining hoodies at 9am on Saturday.

The GOSH hoodies are available exclusively in the Bows eBay shop.

Working Lunch features .com visibility issue

The BBC’s Working Lunch programme today featured some eBay sellers who have been adversly affected by the new lack of visibility of UK listings on eBay.com. There wasn’t anything particularly new in the report - UK sellers are infuriated by the change, eBay claim it’s for the benefit of their US buyers - but apparently an eBay representative is going to appear on Friday’s show (sadly I’ll be on a plane, so be sure to let me know what happens).

Sellers banging their heads on the brick wall of eBay’s general indifference to anything outside the US at the moment might at least take comfort that they’re a group to be taken seriously by the BBC.

WAGs Boutique eBay shops success

It’s been a busy weekend for the WAGs selling in their eBay shops. They’ve sold an enormous amount of charity Willow Foundation and Great Ormond Street (GOSH) Hoodies and T-Shirts and their eBay shops have proved to be a roaring success. The picture shows just part of the shipment on it’s way to the Royal Mail today to be delivered to their buyers.

eBay has proved such a success they’re struggling to keep up with supplies but have more on order so it looks like another busy week for selling. They’ll be taking advantage of the cheap listing day on Thursday, but will be listing new items every day of the week so if you haven’t got your WAGs Boutique clothing on eBay yet it’s not too late!

The battle of the WAG’s hots up

A press release goes out today from eBay which will raise the profile of WAGs Boutique Bows and Better Half eBay shops. Listings are ending sold, almost as soon as they’re listed and the two teams arranging extra supplies to stock to meet demand. We recommend adding the two eBay shops to your eBay favourites to receive emails when new items are listed.

WAGs Boutique Charity Hoodies only available on eBay

The ITV WAGs Boutique website has announced that eBay is now the only place to get Bows and Better Half charity items - they will no longer be available in the boutiques! This includes the WAGs Hoodies, Sweatshirts and T-Shirts for both Great Ormond Street and The Willow Foundation.

GOSH Hoodies, Sweatshirts and T-Shirts will be available in the Bows eBay shop, and the Willow Foundation Hoodies Sweatshirts and T-Shirts will be exclusively stocked in the Better Half eBay shop.

Although the first items were only listed this afternoon Bows eBay shop sold out entirely within hours, but both shops will have new items listed daily while the program is on air. If you don’t want to miss out add the shops to your favourites to be emailed when new stock is listed. You can add Bows to your favourite eBay shops, and you can add Better Half as a favourite shop too!

WAGs Boutique Bows & Better Half sell on eBay!

If you’ve not heard of WAGs Boutique it’s billed as “The battle of the babes” as two teams of WAGs (footballers’ wives and girlfriends) compete to turn their passion for fashion into a hot profit. WAGs Boutique is presented by June Sarpong WAGs Boutique airs at 9pm, Tuesdays, on ITV2.

The two teams - Bows and Better Half have been working for almost three solid months to raise money for their two charities, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and The Willow Foundation. Such is the demand for their items, the WAGs have seen buyers purchasing in bulk in their boutiques and reselling charity items on eBay at a profit. Recognising that there are many unable to make the trip to their boutiques in Marshall Street, London, they’ve decided to set up shop on eBay themselves.

The WAGs from Bows and Better Half asked TameBay to assist in setting up eBay accounts, opening their eBay shops, advice on registering with eBay for Charity and PayPal, and getting their stock listed on the site. We were more than happy to help and the first official WAGs Boutique listings went live on eBay this afternoon.

100% of the profits from every item sold will go to the charities the WAGs have chosen. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether Better Half or Bows will sell most on eBay, and of course which team will win the overall competition. Either way they’ve all worked incredibly hard over the last few months and TameBay are delighted to have been able to assist.

You can visit their eBay shops at wags_boutique_bows and wags_boutique_betterhalf

Bows & Better Half Wags Boutique charity goods on eBay

Wags Boutique are the latest to complain about their charity items appearing on eBay. Wags (Wives and Girlfriends of celebrities) have set up two competing fashion outlets in London’s Marshall street with all profits from both boutiques going to a charity of the winning team’s choice. Currently Wags Boutique is aired on ITV.

Each shop, as well as stocking fashion clothes and accessories, have charity items such as Wags hoodies. Currently due to the exposure on television these are hugely popular with queues forming daily in Marshall street from eager buyers. Many have started to purchase extra to resell on eBay.

Typically this has caused major controversy, many are crying foul with the normal complaint that sellers shouldn’t profit from charity. Others rightly point out that the only way to obtain the items is to travel to London in the hope the boutiques will have stock when you get there, and often they don’t!

Demand is so great for the Great Ormand Street Children’s Charity clothing a website, GOSH Hoodies has been set up to take orders. Obtusely they state that “while the show is still in progress the Hoodies and T-shirts will only be sold in Bows Boutique”. The TV show is to run for 13 weeks and demand is naturally greatest while the series is live. For those that are unable to make a trip to London in the hope of finding stock buying on eBay is an obvious choice.

It should be noted that all the items for sale on eBay have been purchased in either Bows (33 Marshall Street, London) or Better Half (34 Marshall Street, London), the two competing Wags Boutique outlets. That means that the charities have already received their donation, and some sellers on eBay are using eBay for charity to make further donations out of their profits.

Whether you agree or disagree with resale of charity goods, making them too difficult to obtain will naturally lead to people willing to buy from alternate venues. All the time buyers are bidding someone somewhere will be happy to fulfil the demand.

Bids out for the lads

After the last eBay advert which was firmly playing to female stereotypes, we now have one for the boys with records, golf clubs and a Scalextric to be sold.

Though ostensibly aimed at those clearing out their lofts, the underlying message really seems to be for buyers here: what could be more reassuring, after all, than the thought that once they’ve finished with their new purchase, they have a ready-made forum to sell it on to the next buyer?

eBay does joined up advertising

Joined up writing is a sign of a child progressing at school and in a similar vein it’s becoming more apparent that eBay is growing up too. Take their latest TV advert, it’s all about turning the things laying about your house that you no longer require into cash. Most households have unwanted possessions and increasingly they’re finding their way onto eBay rather than the local car boot sale. This has boosted the value to about £3000 for items that previously may have sold locally for pennies. To complement the TV advert eBay have a Cha-Ching graphic on the home page linked to the eBay house showing typical goods families may be able to sell on eBay.

But that’s not the end of the story - lets think for a moment what eBay are trying to achieve. They’re aiming to gain new sellers, probably these sellers will have previously been eBay buyers, but they could well be brand new to the site. It’s likely that casual sellers will never become full time professional sellers (although a tiny minority might) so why are eBay spending so much money on adverts to attract them? Well the secret is brand loyalty. Anyone who’s seen someone list and sell their first item on eBay will know that it turns them from a casual buyer into an avid eBayer. They may not make much money, but because they’ve made a sale they never forget the experience and go on to become a more enthusiastic buyer.

It’s not just the latest eBay TV advert though, this is a long term aim which eBay have been working on for a number of years. For instance eBay University has just announced the 2007 dates, the selling basics course is firmly aimed at those who want to list their very first item on eBay. Again some attending the course may hope to go on and become full time sellers, but it’s likely that most will sell just a few items as casual sellers. The low cost you pay to attend eBay University in no way pays for the actual cost to eBay, in fact eBay subsidise each and every attendee as the cost is over double that actually charged. With thousands attending each year this represents a significant investment training people the majority of which will remain casual sellers. The upside and the reason the course is so worthwhile to eBay is that again attendees go on to buy more and more on the site.

eBay Educational specialists are another area eBay has invested heavily in, and one that is yet to reap the full rewards. Currently educational specialists are only authorised to teach the Selling Basics course, again aimed at people learning how to sell their first item on eBay. Once again we see eBay putting processes in place to encourage people to sell their first item on the site.

There is a big difference between eBay and other auction sites in their advertising, the others are promoting their sites specifically to buyers on one set of adverts, and to sellers on others, often through different media. eBay however are doing joined up advertising which benefits everyone.

Check out the eBay House, it’s a quick fun engaging experience that your buyers will also be checking out. Don’t forget though, it’s not aimed to get more sellers to compete with you. eBay are aiming for avid buyers to buy from you. As eBay say in the 123 of selling tips - “Once you get going and see the bids rolling in, you’ll be hooked”, and hooked buyers is something we sellers never tire of!

Prince Charles “sells tickets on eBay”

The Royal Variety Performance was hosted by Jonathan Ross who opened by joking that the host should have been Nick Ross. He then went on to quip he had to buy his ticket on eBay and the seller was HRH from Highgrove (whilst smiling at The Prince of Wales - Prince Charles).

The Royal Variety Performance took place on Monday 4th December and is to be screened on BBC1 on Tuesday 12th December.

It’s intersting to see just how ingrained eBay is into the media, even with Royalty present. Lets just hope eBay UK don’t have to do what the Australians did and fight to keep Ross’s ticket

The twenty-first century’s when everything changes

Controversial Dr Who spin-off Torchwood’s most recent episode featured an eBay sale at the heart of its plot. If you missed it, you have another chance to catch it tomorrow.

Eugene awakes to find himself both dead and invisible. Though the rest of Torchwood dismiss him as just another loner obsessed with aliens, Gwen feels drawn to him and his collection of ‘alien artifacts’. Together, they reconstruct Eugene’s last two weeks alive, hoping to discover just why he’s still here.

The answer (and if you haven’t seen the episode yet, look away now), is a Dogon’s sixth eye, part of Eugene’s collection, which he’d put up for sale on eBay. Bid up to £15,005.50 by two of his workmates for a joke, there’s a strong hint that the underbidder might have been genuine. Could Eugene have sent a second chance offer to an alien? Sadly, the program didn’t go there.

Though it’s tempting to point out that Eugene’s friends bidding on his auction is in violation of the shill bidding policy, and bidding with no intention of paying is also against eBay rules, really it was a great indication of how ingrained eBay has become in popular culture. “Sold online” and “sold on eBay” were synonymous as far as the programme was concerned, and the writers found no need to explain what eBay was or how it worked.

Sadly, it wasn’t the most thrilling episode of the series so far. The most exciting part was probably the live-updating eBay bid amount: how cool would it be to watch your high bidder hit £15,000 without having to sit hitting the refresh button? Now *that* would be a excellent new feature.

I wanna box vs National Sleep In Day

Very different to the UK the eBay.com adverts feature real people rather than the UK’s logo people. The adverts still based around the IT campaign now have a decidedly Christmassy feel to them… bar the last one which is based around National Sleep In Day on 24th November. Bearing in mind in the UK site maintenance is carried out on a Friday this seems like a great idea to me

BBC Watchdog delays answering PowerSeller concerns

Following on from the Watchdog program on 7th November this year the BBC are still being very coy regarding the content of the program. They have yet to come clean on how they purchased only a handful of goods from PowerSellers and yet 80% of them were counterfeit. I’ve bought a fair amount in my time and I certainly haven’t had a problem. Having said that it’s no great secret that eBay isn’t as free from fake goods as it could be. There are buyers out there however more than happy to buy copies, so long as they know up front that’s what they’re getting.

Whilst it’s against the law to sell counterfeits and morally wrong if you do not to state up front so the buyer knows what they’re getting there is a bigger issue. As Dan Wilson pointed out they portrayed the issue to be a PowerSeller problem. The program was not a balanced and fair portrayal of trading on eBay in general, or with PowerSellers in particular.

I wrote to the BBC to complain, this is my first email and the BBC response: