Ebay Makes Paypal Mandatory for Sellers

Scared you, right? Well if you're a seller on eBay AU or eBay UK, you've already been met with this fate. Yesterday, eBay announced that all sellers on the ebay.uk site must accept PayPal to sell on the venue. eBay AU's announcement came just a month earlier.

What does that mean for US sellers? Historically, eBay tests new features and/or majors changes on eBay UK about 6 months to a year prior to introducing it on eBay.com. So.....

eBay.com sellers MUST EXPECT that PayPal will be a required payment method to sell on any of their auction sites in the next couple of months.

What does this mean?

Well, probably not all that much. eBay has been trying to make themselves into Amazon.com for quite a while now. Amazon only processes their own payments, but it's included in their fees. EBay, on the other hand, will allow other payment methods other than PayPal.

In fact, our most successful clients all accept PayPal. Yes, there is a bit more fraud to deal with, but you should already have a third party insurer to back you up in case this happens. We still see that when presented a choice between CC and PP, over 80% of eBay purchases (on average) will go PP.

The only thing to worry about is if PayPal will be raising their rates. I doubt it, since PayPal is ever trying to expand their off-eBay business, and trying to compete with other merchant service providers.

Bottom line? Not much to worry about here... Read More...

Worried about Best Match? Check out BayEstimator

The little tool that helps you build eBay titles that rank well in best match is back!

If you're worried about how your listings are ranking in best match, and you haven't check out this tool, get a move on (click)!

Side Note: Take a look at the huge terms and disclaimers section they've added at the top. It's amazing the flak you get when you offer a free tool! Read More...

EBay Sellers: Check out SquidBids from Squidoo

I remember when MySpace pages were all the rage on the eBay Powerseller forum. Turns out that I was witnessing the beginnings of proof that social networking can drive a significant amount of traffic to your eBay business.

Well now web2.0 allstar Squidoo has Squidbids, "The place for trusted eBay sellers to strut their stuff, showcase their auctions and stores, and get more traffic." I think it'll be worth spending a few minutes creating a SquidBids profile. At the very least, another valuable incoming link to your business can only help your search engine rankings. Read More...

Famed eBay Hacker Vladuz Finally Arrested in Romania

If you've been a participant of the eBay seller community through the past couple of years, you probably heard of a hacker named Vladuz. He taunted eBay and other users by posting lists of usernames and addresses and logging into administrator accounts. Take a look at the auctionbytes article for a more in depth account:

http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m04/i18/s01

My only question here is, did eBay learn anything? Have the security holes been patched? I can't seem to find any type of response to that question on the net yet. If you find anything, leave me a comment. Thanks! Read More...

EBay Powersellers: Don't Forget to ENROLL in Expanded Seller Protection

Early February, PayPal announced it would be giving special benefits to powersellers. Especially of interest, transactions without confirmed addresses would qualify for Paypal Seller Protection.

Well, it's finally come to pass. Just remember...you have to sign up for it! Enroll for expanded seller protection here.

Read the following excert from the eBay Powerseller Program Benefits page to learn more:

PowerSellers that reside in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Hong
Kong with a registered PayPal account in one of these countries that is linked
to their eBay account are eligible for expanded PayPal seller protection against
claims, charge backs, reversals for unauthorized payments, and merchandise not
received. The expanded protection covers transactions on eBay paid through
PayPal. It's free, there's no annual limit, and transactions no
longer require confirmed addresses to be covered.

Read More...

What Sellers Should Know about EBay's Latest Shipping Announcement

Ebay's Kristina Klausen recently posted a "Shipping Update" that implys some heavy hitting changes.

Beginning in the next "few months," all sellers will be required to use eBay's shipping calculator instead of other 3rd party tools. Let's touch on the pros and cons...

The Good:
Ebay has been focusing on improving and standardizing the buyer experience. This is definitely a step in the right direction.

The Bad:
Ebay's calculator is very limiting in both shipping carriers (only supports USPS and UPS) and concurrent service level offerings. Is eBay expecting all sellers to ditch DHL and Fedex?

The reality is that many people still distrust buying on eBay. With all the heavy changes lately, eBay has obviously decided that it will no longer be entrusting the important aspects of the buyer experience to its sellers. And, while it's causing a lot of drastic changes for sellers, remember that eBay's end goal is increased traffic, ASPs (Average Sale Prices), and STR (Sell Through Rate).

As a side note, Amazon doesn't even let sellers specify their own shipping rates on most products.

Here's a quick summary of the points in the announcement:
1. Reiteration of shipping costs factored into best match
2. New policies to require specified shipping through eBay instead of description
3. USPS Large Flat Rate Box integrated into calculator

Extra Note to Laris Customers: We're opening up the eBay shipping calculator beta integration to current customers to help get ready for the change. Read More...

EBay Cooking the Numbers Again to Boost Best Match and Q1 Changes?

I've read a lot of commentaries and data intepretation praising eBay's Q1 changes and their drastic positive effect on conversion rates. Most reference eBay's pricing structure change, eBay gallery becoming free, and eBay's switch to "Best Match" in search. One such blogger is Scott Wingo, CEO of Channel Advisor, is his article "Q1 data is telling us that the eBay changes are...."

What's most interesting to me, however, is that I can't find any in depth analysis on the topic. Take a look at the comments to Wingo's blog post here.

"...the medved graph for the last fortnight implies that the UK's Free
Listing Day (6 Mar) listings were displayed on the US - the jump is just too
steep to be otherwise. Additionally, considering those listings are not
supposed to be seen on the US according to UK policy, it seems strange that the
vast majority of our buyers for those listings are US residents.

I'm suspicious there is some more eBay numbers-cooking similar to the
shopping.com listings in core fiasco - right now I believe eBay management will
do anything they can to persuade the members that their policies are
correct"

Another commentor writes the following:

"...just taking a quick look at Medveds sell thro rate says it all…worst downward spikes ever this year (below 25%) and still on average hovering around 30-40%..so where are the fantastic numbers ???????"

Of course, with conversion data, it's very hard to tell where the influences lie, especially since e-commerce comes with such a diverse set of variables and influencers. The question, then, is eBay deliberately trying to tip the scales to fulfil their own proficy?

Drop me a comment with your opinion! Read More...

EBay Desktop is EBay Done Right

I just noticed that the eBay desktop beta recently launched on February 24th. The desktop program features a drastically improved interface for both surfing and purchasing.

I especially like two features. Search results stay to the left after clicking on a product to allow faster navigation. Also, the Bid/Buy page allows updating your bids all on one screen. It's definnitely worth checking out.

What's most interesting to me is that the entire interface could be replicated using web 2.0 technologies like AJAX. For a great example of a real website that fuctions this smoothly already, check out my favorite website, mint.com. It's a personal finance manager that fully leverages cutting edge web capabilities to create a stellar user interface.

I can only imagine the benefits to eBay sellers if the main eBay site was this easy to navigate. I'm hoping that this is truely the future of eBay. Read More...

5 Secrets to Improve your eBay Business DSRs (Detailed Seller Ratings)

It seems that the new eBay US pricing structure hasn't made as much of an impact for most sellers as everyone thought, but the new worry is shifting heavily to DSRs (Detailed Seller Ratings). EBay's switch of the default search to "Best Match" is looming, and the new powerseller discounts started yesterday.

It's now more important that ever to formulate a plan to get those DSRs up. So let's go through a few tips to help you boost those ratings:

1. Keep Domestic Shipping Options and Policies Simple. Offer two carriers and 4-5 total options.

2. Simplify and Display Return and Shipping Policies. Write policies at an 8th grade level rather than taking a shot at "legal speak", while still making sure policies cannot be misinterpreted. Incorporate policies in main eBay template page in plain sight.

3. Have a seperate International Shipping Policy or FAQ with expected times, carrier info, and customs info. Remember, keep it simple and friendly. You're trying to encourage good ratings not cover your butt in case of something going wrong.

4. Offer free shipping on less competitive products (build shipping into price). Also, consider offering volume-based free shipping (e.g. Orders over $100 earn free shipping).

5. *Most Important.* Ask for a 5 star rating in your correspondences. Especially if you have a system that automates your emails. Let your customers know that a clean transaction deserves a *5* star rating.

Read More...

EBay Leverages Web2.0 with Best of EBay

Ebay's been trying to join the Web 2.0 world with a vengeance this past year. We've seen rollouts of blogs, wikis, neighborhoods, and eBay matchups.

Their latest venture, Best of eBay, a Digg.com site for eBay listings, is finally right on the mark! This new technology is finally perfectly in line with their public initiative to "bring the fun back" to core auction style.

Definitely worth checking out... Read More...

Ebay's Identity Crisis - New Feedback Survey Creates Controversy

After eBay introduced DSRs (Detailed Seller Ratings) with the release of eBay's Feedback 2.0, it was clear that eBay was trying to make its buyer experience a bit more Amazon-like. The buyer experience improvement project seems to be continuing as eBay posted this latest survey:

Sellers on the powerseller forum are all up in a huff, but it might not be a bad thing. Taking the complications out of feedback, and also taking the retaliatory negative option off the table, should increase buyer activity on the site. More buyer activity, of course, leads to higher average prices.

EDIT: An EcomInsight reader pointed out a blaring error in this entry!

Old Text:

After all, sellers on Amazon don't even get to leave feedback for their buyers (although sometimes you really want to). I bet eBay will follow suit and limit seller feedback options. I'd say watch out for testing this coming summer in the UK or AU.

Reader:

For what it's worth, Amazon sellers *can* leave feedback for buyers, but it's very hard to find how to do it and it's not clear where the feedback is shown. I only found out about this after it was mentioned on a board.

If you look in your Seller Account area, and then go to the "View your orders" section, making sure you have some orders visible. Click on one of the order numbers to view an individual order.

At the very bottom of the order page, you should see a "Feedback received" box. On the righthand side of that box is a link called "Leave buyer feedback."

Thanks for the correction! Read More...

EBay and Paypal Changes that Will Affect your Holiday Sales and Q1

Why, oh why, does eBay have to mess with things during the most important months of the year. I don't think I'll ever understand it. I've been reading a lot about the recent and upcoming changes to eBay and PayPal, and I decided I should compile a list of ones that will affect business as we know it.

1. PayPal recently announced it will be delaying "select" transactions for up to 24 hours. From what I've heard thus far, buyers are not notified of the delay via email. I have heard reports that it shows up in the buyer's PayPal as "pending." I think this change is going to drastically increase customer service emails and wreak havoc on your DSRs (Detailed Seller Ratings).

2. *Sigh* EBay announced it will be making major changes to the checkout. It sounds like it will actually be a beneficial change, but why change the buyer experience at such an important time? Luckily for our Laris E-commerce Management Software users, you won't be using eBay's checkout anyway ;).

3. EBay Neightborhoods - EBay is dabbling in mixing social networking with e-commerce. While this is definitely the way of the future, and one of my favorite parts of today's web 2.0 revolution, eBay didn't really hit the mark here. They got the social networking part down, combining eBay groups, guides, and discussions, but the e-commerce part is lacking. It just diplays a complete mess of listings with little organization. For this to be at all useful to boost sales, they're really going to have to do a lot of work on the e-com module within Neighborhoods.

While this change actually won't be impacting your holiday business much as it is now, it's something to look into as it evolves.

4. Some Good News!!! EBay is actually slashing rates on insertion fees for the next two weeks by 33%. Auctionbytes.com reported that a major factor in the decision was to "see what happens" and also to ensure that sellers will be pushing a wide variety of inventory for the holiday season. NOW is the time to test out product lines for the holidays on EBay.

5. EBay is testing longer BIN options on auction style listings. Normally, a BIN will disappear after the first bid is placed, making it useless to to a BIN on an item that normally gets a lot of bids. The most prominent experiment seems to be on the Austrialian EBay site where they are leaving the BIN available until the bidding reaches 50% of the BIN price. I'm game for this one =). EBay is currently testing difference variations in a few categories on the US and Canada sites.

----------------------------------------

That's all for now. As if you didn't have enough to think about going into this holiday season, right? Just make sure to keep these points in mind as you refine your sales planning. I'll be continuing to cover the impact of changes to the selling environment as we head through Q4 and into Q1. If you have anything I missed, please share it with everyone in a comment! Read More...

EBay Ramps Up Innovation to Improve Bid Prices

First off, I apologize for not blogging! There's a lot of really exciting developments going on over here at Sell Center that we'll be releasing very soon. Hint: Be sure to check out this blog on October 1st!

With the general discontent over the past year or so with eBay ASPs (Average Selling Prices), it's no wonder eBay has finally starting innovating to bring them up. I think eBay is finally starting to come to their senses! I wish they would have figured this out about 2 years ago, though. Anyway, on to the cool stuff!

A new eBay feature just became available to users with a feedback score of five or greater, Bid Assistant. The way it works is that you first create a group of items that you are interested in. Next, you set your maximum bids on each item. Then, Bid Assistant will bid on your behalf until you win one item from the group.

This is a great feature for both buyer AND sellers (when was the last time eBay accomplished that??) Buyers will find it easy to bid and win an item they need/want; sellers will benefit from the fact that buyers won't be weary about winning more than one item.

Another feature I'm excited about is the one click re-bid. They are currently working on a 1 click re-bidding button that appears after you have bid on an item and is less than 15 minutes from closing. When you rebid using the one click button, a small window pops up that shows the current high bid, how much time is left in the auction, and if you are the current high bidder. They are also working on having this little window that appears to refresh every 3 seconds during the last 2 minutes of the listing. By providing buyers a quicker way to place a bid, we can finally get some real action on these listings!

These features really should start bringing those end prices back up. With the ASP trend falling over the past couple of years, I'm glad eBay is actually doing some productive innovation to help! Maybe then we won't be so made at the next fee increase! Ha. Read More...

Noteworthy Ebay Developments: Facebook apps, New Homepage, Google vs. eBay battle, ...

A lot of news is coming out around the EBay Live trade show. Here's a few things I took away of interest:

1. EBay is working on a new homepage. The prototype looks like a much more web2.0 experience, and I think they're on the right track with this one. Hopefully they'll be incorporating some of their new community focus into it. I'd really love to see eBay wiki more involved. You can check out their new prototype here: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200706111436382.html

2. Since Facebook announced developer tools, eBay and some other third party software providers are already beginning to make apps for it. They are fairly simple listing displays and searches thus far. I'll cover them in more detail when I find one that's actually interesting. Expect this to be an area of rapid growth, though.

3. Paypal announced some interesting new tool to assess the riskiness of dealing with payments. Not too much info provided yet, but it might have a large impact on how payments are dealt with by sellers.

4. EBay and google are still battling it out (see my previous post). Rumor has it that EBay shut off their entire adwords campain today, boycotting google ads. Tests around 12 noon eastern time showed this to be the case. I've also heard that EBay has ended talks with Google on adding Google Checkout to EBay's E-commerce platform, ProStores. Unfortunately, I think this is a battle that EBay is going to lose. EBay depends way too much on Google for traffic. More importantly, it's EBay's sellers who ultimately feel the impact. Read More...

Google Holds Party to Protest EBay's Ban on Google Checkout

Head over to cnet for an interesting article on google's latest action to protest eBay's ban of Google checkout; they're throwing a party!

Ebay still claims that a year of operation is not long enough to prove the payment service is trustworthy. For once, I actually see where eBay is coming from (a little). EBay has had an increasingly negative brand connotation with fraud. If they allowed sellers to use google checkout, and checkout screwed up a bunch of payments, it would reflect highly negatively to those many buyers. Many buyers would not understand that eBay really had nothing to do with it.

With all the bad press lately that Google Checkout is getting in the UK—decling credit cards, double charging, and not allowing withdrawls—there might be some validity to eBay's claims.

Eventually, I hope eBay caves. I'm not a huge fan of Google Checkout, but I do think it's going to be increasingly necessary. See my post on Google Checkout's Effect on Hits and Sales for more info. Read More...

EBay Allows Embedded Video Again

Just a quick note: eBay announced that embedded video is again allowed in eBay listings so long as its hosted on one of its approved sites. While I have not personally tested video in listings, some of our clients claim great success. Read More...

EBay buying Stumble Upon for $75 Million?

If you read the WSJ, you should have seen an article yesterday about eBay's rumored acquisition of StumbleUpon for $75 million. Scot Wingo from Channeladvisor actually has a very interesting post about it on his blog at ebaystrategies.blogs.com.

I'd like to add another theory into the mix. EBay has been spending a lot of time and money trying to bring back the "fun" of eBay for buyers. At the expense of their reputation with sellers, they have been making a strategic move back to the Core auction format.

With Stumble integrated into the eBay system, eBay enthusiasts could vote for their favorite eBay listings. Then using the eBay toolbar, you could "Stumble" upon cool eBay listings, bringing back some of that "fun" (and more press about Jesus-shaped cheeses) that eBay is trying so desperately to reacquire.

It's just a theory, but it seems to fit with eBay's current disposition. Any other eBay theorists have any ideas? Read More...

EBay Feedback 2.0

Well it seems that everyone is talking about feedback 2.0, so it looks like I'll have to post something to keep up.

I'm not really sure what all of the fuss is about. It seems like a fairly good system, almost CSE (Comparison Shopping Engine)-like.

Here's what *I* think you should take away from the change:

1. Ebay is trying to build more trust through a model that online shoppers should be already familiar with - stars and ratings based on a scale. Unfortunately, I think they only took a baby step. This might have been a worthwhile change in 2003. At least they're moving in the right direction.

2. Customer service is now more important than ever in the highly competitive sectors of eBay. Sellers who dropship products that come from large dropshippers will gain an edge with high customer service and great FB2.0 ratings.

3. Sellers who have a niche following and plenty of repeat buyers should stop fussing about FB2.0 and keep running their business the way they are running it.

From some of my discussions with our clients, I believe it's important we keep from letting this over-hyped minor advancement to eBay's system from averting our eyes off the prize: a sustainable competitive advantage in today's ever-evolving wo