Deconstructing eBay, Part 3 of 3

April 22, 2009 | By admin In Uncategorized | Comments(0)

A look at the new eBay policy announcement and the likely effect on eBay sellers

The last few parts of the announcements include a new dispute resolution process, free access to eBay Selling Manager, moving the shipping process from PayPal to eBay and tools to bulk edit your listings.

The new Dispute Resolution Process will be the most controversial, because it puts eBay between the seller and the buyer. Other changes I am trying to confirm include removing the eBay seller’s location from the listings and removing the date that a seller joined eBay. Personally I think buyers like knowing if a seller started selling last week, last year or ten years ago.

I will be commenting more on the personality change eBay is going through over the next few days so stay tuned.

Also I am now on Twitter. If you would like to follow me on Twitter, I will send you a tweet whenever I do a blog post. Here is my Twitter Profile Page: http://twitter.com/Skip_McGrath

eBay Resolutions

Free Selling Manager with new applications

Pay for shipping, print labels on eBay

Tools to bulk edit your listings

The policy is so detailed and complex that it is just too much to describe here but it is critically important that every seller read this. Here is the link to read the full policy. I strongly advise you do this. There are a few highlights worth mentioning here.

· It moves the resolution from PayPal over to eBay where it belongs

· eBay will actually pay for the refund in some cases

· eBay will take the seller’s reputation and customer service rating into account when settling disputes

· As with PayPal you will need to get a signature confirmation on items shipped with a value over $250.

A major downside continues to be the feedback. Even if you ended up satisfying the buyer, they can still leave you a negative feedback.

On balance I like the new dispute resolution policy but I still think eBay could find a way to mitigate the feedback issue. That will be a big negative with sellers. The other downside is that this policy puts eBay between the buyer and seller –this is actually a precursor of more controls to come. So although some parts of the policy are welcome and useful, overall I have to give it 3-Stars.

Selling Manager is an eBay online tool that streamlines your selling activity, helping you monitor active listings, generate bulk feedback, and print invoices and labels in bulk. It’s a pretty good tool, but you still end up paying for photo hosting and scheduling. Personally I think the third-party solutions such as Auctiva, Ink

Frog, Vendio and others are a good value. One advantage of using Selling Manager is the bulk listing tool which will help sellers comply with the new policies.

Selling manager Pro is slightly better, but it will still have a fee. Overall this is a big yawn. (3-Stars).

This one I really like. It saves time and therefore money.

Now you can do everything right on you’re My eBay Page without switching back and forth between PayPal and eBay. Here is some of what you can do:

Create postage-paid shipping labels in just minutes.
Pay for shipping and insurance with your PayPal account, with no monthly fees or surcharges.
Create and print a pre-filled packing slip, detailing what you are shipping to your buyer.
Ship internationally with online customs forms.
Track and confirm the arrival of your shipments with delivery confirmation.
Void your shipping label and get a refund for misprinted labels canceled within 48 hours.

I give this one 5-Stars

These will be helpful for sellers who have to revise their return policy and other factors. Here is how they will work according to eBay:

1. Revise them individually (listing by listing) using Sell Your Item or your favorite listing tool.

2. Revise them in bulk using our Bulk Edit tool, which is available in My eBay and Selling Manager. The Bulk Edit tool allows you to revise up to 200 listings at one time.

3. Revise them in bulk using Turbo Lister. Use the Synchronize capability to bring your active listings into Turbo Lister. You can then bulk-edit all your active listings. After you have made your change, synchronize your changes back to the site.

4-Stars

So that concludes our review of the new policies. You really do need to read all of them which is why I provided the active links. Of course we still won’t know all of the details until they actually roll out in June, but I really give eBay credit for giving us this 60-day lead time to prepare.

As you can see I gave eBay a star rating (on a scale of 1-5) just like their DSR system. So what is the total for all the policies overall? It comes out to 3.7

Overall these changes are a big positive for sellers but there are two big disappointments.

1. It is pretty clear that eBay has permanently abandoned the level playing field concept. They have been favoring the mega sellers for some time now which is interesting because these guys are the least loyal of all the sellers and are all selling on other platforms. I don’t really have a problem with eBay giving fee discounts to large volume sellers. After all, you can get discounts for almost anything you buy in volume anywhere. But I don’t like the idea that large sellers get prominent placement and special promotions that the rest of us don’t get. If eBay is really into driving buyer satisfaction then give anyone who provides a stellar buyer experience the breaks regardless of their size or volume of listings.

2. The new dispute resolution process is another turn in the road that leaves the concept of community behind. eBay was founded on the idea of providing a marketplace where buyers and sellers could come together to do business with each other. Sellers were encouraged to brand their business and build an online personality through their feedback, their About Me pages, eBay store branding and on the forums and features like Guides and Reviews. With these changes and more changes planned for the Fall of 2009 eBay will cease being the provider of a marketplace to become the marketplace itself.

This is so strange because the rest of the online universe seems to be going in the other direction with platforms like Twitter, Facebook and My Space. Social networking is the fastest growing phenomena extant today. While people are seeking more connections and more interaction, eBay has decided to depersonalize the buying experience and isolate the seller from the buyer. Ina Steiner has already reported in AuctionBytes about the Certified Seller program now under study and the fact that eBay will soon restrict sellers from cross selling during the checkout process. I predict that the next steps will be total control of the communications. All email will go through eBay and sellers will have no way to let buyers know their email address or learn of the buyers. In the longer term, eBay could even get into warehousing. Sellers would have to ship all their goods to an eBay owned and operated warehouse. When a sale is made, eBay would ship the goods so the seller wouldn’t even know the buyers name or address.

Your Rights as an eBay Buyer.

April 22, 2009 | By admin In Uncategorized | Comments(0)

Your Rights as an eBay Buyer.

When you buy things on eBay, you pay the seller before they send you anything. This means that you, as a buyer, are vulnerable to all sorts of problems. You might not get the items you have paid for, or they might be damaged or faulty. Luckily, you have two very important rights when you buy on eBay.

The Right to Receive Your Item.

Maybe the seller never sent the item, or maybe it got lost in the post. Whatever happened, you paid for the item. If it doesn’t arrive in the post as described, you have the right to a replacement or a refund, whether it’s the seller’s fault or not.

The fact that you bought something on eBay doesn’t mean that you don’t have the exact same rights that you would have if you bought it in a shop (these rights are pretty much the same all over the world). Plus, under eBay’s rules, the seller isn’t allowed to change their mind about selling you the item: once the auction ends, it becomes a contract – you must buy and they must sell, or face eBay’s penalties.

The Right for Your Item to Be as Described in the Auction.

Sometimes sellers don’t wrap items properly, and so they get broken. Occasionally they write descriptions that are misleading or just plain wrong to begin with, leaving out vital details that would have caused you to change your mind about buying. If this happens to you, you again have the right to a replacement or a refund.

So How Do I Use My Rights?

First, you should take it up with the seller – most will be responsive, as do not want to have their reputation damaged when an upset buyer leaves negative feedback for all their future buyers to see. If that doesn’t work, report them to eBay.

While eBay don’t have many people handling complaints, they do have a relatively effective set of automatic process to handle common problems buyers and sellers have with one another.

Finally, if that doesn’t work, then you should seek advice from consumer groups in your country, and as a last resort from the police. You should never have to get this far, though: problems on eBay that can’t be resolved easily are extremely rare.

Don’t Be Too Quick.

Remember not to get too annoyed and be unfair to the seller: nice sellers have agreed to give me refunds for undelivered items, only for me to find out a few weeks later that they were being held for me at the post office! Always try your best to communicate and think of everything that might have gone wrong: eBay works best when buyers and sellers sort out their problems together, instead of reporting each other to the authorities straight away.

More often that not receiving what they paid for, buyers have an altogether different problem: they knew what they were paying for, but didn’t realise that what they were paying for was overpriced, low quality or a scam. The next email will give you a list of tips on how to avoid being ripped off on eBay.

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Deconstructing eBay, Part Two of Three

April 20, 2009 | By admin In Uncategorized | Comments(0)

We continue looking at the big changes eBay announced last week and their impact on eBay sellers

This is part two of the post I started yesterday about the changes to the eBay platform and the new policies announced by eBay that will take effect in June. You can scroll down to see part one. As I did in part one, I am giving each of these my Star Rating (1-5 stars) just like eBay has buyers do for sellers. When I finish the third and final post, I will calculate the total star rating.

By the way I am now on Twitter. I am not a big twitterhead, but I always do a tweet when I do a new blog post or upload a new edition of my newsletter. So if you would like to follow me, here is my Twitter profile: http://twitter.com/Skip_McGrath

New Smart FAQs

Package tracking in My eBay

Return policy and handling time-deadline extended

Customized Item Specifics

Category and item specific changes

Smart FAQs is a new free feature that draws on live information from your listings to answer the top 20 buyer questions before buyers reach you through the "Ask a question" or "Contact seller" links. This is a wonderful option for sellers who only sell one category of product. But in our case we sell in four different categories and some of the FAQs would just confuse people. (3-Stars)

This is potentially a great feature for sellers who ship everything themselves and a good feature for those of us who also dropship. If you print a shipping label through PayPal or eBay, tracking, a delivery confirmation numbers will automatically appear in the buyer’s My eBay. If you don’t use the PayPal or eBay label printing solution, you can enter tracking information manually in My eBay.

Unfortunately you can only upload USPS and UPS tracking information. I would give this a higher star rating, but for example one of our leading products is shipped by FedEx Ground so this system won’t work for us. (3-Stars)

Earlier in 2008 eBay advised sellers they are required to add a return policy and handling time to all your listings by mid-March of 2009. eBay has extended the timeline: Return policy and handling time will be required in all new listings and when you relist beginning June 15. The deadline for updating your Good ‘Til Cancelled listings has been extended to mid-September.

Personally I think this is something eBay should have done a long time ago and I don’t know why they are extending this. Small sellers have had several months to do this and large sellers have automation tools to do it for them, so I don’t see the point.

Having a stated return policy and handling time is a big positive for buyers and I don’t see any downside for sellers. I have used a formal return policy in my auctions for over 5 years. I don’t know why eBay is waiting, unless they plan to add some yet to be disclosed mandatory features which is what I suspect. (1-Star)

Item Specifics let sellers provide details about the item you’re selling, such as its condition, size, color, or style. These details appear at the top of your listing description, in a consistent format, making it easy for buyers to get the facts about your item.

eBay provides suggested Item Specifics in drop-down boxes during the listing process. However, if these suggestions don’t work for your item, you can create your own value for an item specific. These are customized Item Specifics. I really like this feature and am glad eBay is expanding it to more categories. (4-stars)

The big change here is in the jewelry and watches categories. This will force sellers to list fashion and fine jewelry and watches in the appropriate category and force sellers to use accurate terms. For example you can’t call something a diamond if it is not.

This means you cannot use terms such as simulated diamond. If it’s a zirconium you must call it a zirconium. This policy is going to upset a lot of jewelry sellers –especially low end and fashion jewelry, but will help buyers find what they are looking for. My take on this is strong agreement. Even though it will make life difficult for some folks, it is really good for the buyers. Some of my readers will hate me for this, but I strongly believe in not misleading people and making it easier for buyers to find exactly what they are looking for. I give this one 5-Stars.