Insider’s Secrets to Selling on eBay

Is eBay Moving Toward a Free Listing Model?

By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com
April 22, 2008

eBay UK executives told attendees at a conference on Monday to expect more pricing discounts, and announced it was moving towards a free listing model, according to Chris Dawson who was blogging the event. When asked about the statements, eBay spokesperson Usher Lieberman told AuctionBytes he could not comment on what was said at the UK Catalyst Conference, but said President of eBay Global Marketplace Operations Lorrie Norrington might address it in her keynote session at this week's Spring E-Commerce Summit (http://www.tamebay.com/2008/04/newsflash-ebay-moving-to-free-insertion-fees.html).

Meanwhile eBay is feeling the heat from Wall Street due to its lack of growth in listing numbers. A report from Jeetil Patel of Deutsche Bank Monday stated that listings were up 9 percent year-over-year in the third week of eBay's second quarter. (Reuters blamed a drop in eBay's stock price on the report, particularly the statement that eBay UK listings had declined 19 percent year-over year.) The report also pointed to a decline in US page views (down 17 percent year-over-year), comparing it to Amazon's 16 percent increase in page views.

And while Patel stated that listings promotions could help mask eBay's issues, the company announced a 10-cent listing day promotion on Monday scheduled for April 22, 2008, for its PowerSellers only

Posted by eBay Guru at 11:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

April 21, 2008 | 05:01PM PST/PT

Hi everyone…this is Edurne Jorda with eBay’s Seller Development team. We're offering a special 1-day listing promotion exclusively for PowerSellers. PowerSellers rank among the most successful eBay sellers in terms of sales volume and customer satisfaction, and I'm excited to recognize their contributions to the marketplace through this promotion.

Tomorrow, April 22nd, you'll pay an insertion fee of only 10 cents for auction-style and fixed price listings. As usual, some categories and types of items are excluded – for more details, check our information page.

Do you qualify for the PowerSeller program, but still haven't signed up? Learn more about the benefits of the program here.

We hope you enjoy this promotion!

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200804211701292.html
Sincerely,

Edurne Jorda
eBay Seller Development

Posted by eBay Guru at 10:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

April 21, 2008 | 02:19PM PST/PT

Andy Feierfeil
Hi everyone...I'm Andy Feierfeil with eBay Stores. Free Shipping is a great marketing tool to attract buyers, as many sellers know. To make the offer of Free Shipping even more effective in attracting buyers, we're making these two changes.
"Free Shipping Sale" with Markdown Manager
The ability to create a "Free Shipping" sale will be added to Markdown Manager in the next few days. Buyers love a sale, and having a limited time Free Shipping sale is a great way to create excitement and a sense of urgency. With Markdown Manager, you can add a Free Shipping sale to any of your listings individually or in bulk, making it now possible to extend a 'Sale' to auction-style listings. When an item is part of a Free Shipping sale, buyers will see a Free Shipping icon right on the item page.

If you haven't used Markdown Manager for eBay Stores, it lets you put your items on sale. In fact, it's the most highly-adopted Stores feature! To learn more about Markdown manager, please visit http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/markdownmanager.html.

A New "Free Shipping" Icon for all Sellers

Also, to make Free Shipping even more noticeable to buyers across the site, this new "Free Shipping" icon will appear whenever any seller has selected "standard free shipping" in their listing – regardless of whether they used Markdown Manager.

Check out our FAQs for more info on how to create a Free Shipping sale today.

Sincerely,

Andy Feierfeil
eBay Stores

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200804211419152.html

Posted by eBay Guru at 10:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com

eBay UK said beginning May 1, 2008, business sellers will have to accept returns for fixed price items that are returned within 14 days of receipt. eBay requires businesses to register as a business seller to comply with the UK's "Unfair Commercial Practices Directive," which according to eBay, "makes it an offence to falsely represent yourself as a consumer" (http://pages.ebay.co.uk/businesscentre/identification).

eBay UK said it will require business sellers to accept returns for a minimum period of 14 calendar days. They must also display the physical address of the business. There appeared to be some confusion over specific requirements from a few sellers discussing the new policy on the eBay UK discussion boards.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200804111012112.html

Posted by eBay Guru at 02:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

eBay sellers in Australia continue to express anger over the new ban on any payment method other than eBay's own PayPal payment service, covered in AuctionBytes last week (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m04/i10/s01). An online petition calling on eBay Australia to rethink its decision to remove direct deposit, money orders and checks as payment options has garnered over 2930 signatures as of Sunday evening (http://www.petitiononline.com/ebayau/petition.html), and discussion boards are lighting up with complaints over eBay limiting sellers - and buyers - payment options (http://forums.ebay.com.au/thread.jspa?threadID=500078838).

One member posed the question, "Any One EVER Had a problem with Direct Deposit????" Most replies were negative other than the problem of buyers occasionally entering incorrect account numbers.

However, it was pointed out that recently a seller who had allegedly ripped off eBay Australia buyers for over one million dollars used direct deposit to accept payments from his victims (http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/03/08/8591_gold-coast-top-story.html). eBay promised last month to pay back the victims for their losses (http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/03/10/8646_gold-coast-top-story.html).

Phil Leahy, president of a seller organization based in Australia, sent AuctionBytes a statement stating that the PayPal-only requirement will result in higher fees for sellers, and it called on eBay to reduce fees before the new policy takes effect.

The beneficiary of eBay Australia's new policy may be eBay rival OZtion, which is getting a lot of mention in the discussion boards. http://www.oztion.com.au/company/aboutoztion.aspx

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m04/i14/s03

Posted by eBay Guru at 02:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)