All the innocent buyers received was an empty box which was shipped with tracking numbers in an attempt to dupe the sellers to forwarding the cash. One seller has gone public having (luckily for them) not sent the money on to the con men, but still had it in their bank account. Typical for this scam sellers are recruited who have a good feedback record, some buyers appear to have been remarkably tolerant even leaving positive feedback once they had their refund.

Of course this hasn’t stopped the seller’s account being suspended, nor has it stopped eBay chasing for AUS$5250 in fees accrued by selling.

Lessons to be learnt are:

1. It’s now easier for crooks to get you to scam buyers on their behalf than it is for them to hack your account or set up their own.
2. Never ever ship anything you don’t have in stock, unless
3. You use a reputable drop shipper that you fully check out, and
4. If you’re offered brand new current range consumer electronics such as Sony Bravia TVs at anything up to 50% of the retail price then it’s a scam!

I know just how good he’s feeling, I felt the same last year when I got my hands on the first copy of the TameBay Tools and Services Guide so congratulations Nathan! I’ll be raising a glass of beer to you this evening.

If you’re in Australia then you can buy a personally signed copy direct from Nathan, or it’ll be available in all good Australian book stores by December.

UK Sellers items may also appear on eBay Australia, as do some listings from eBay.com. For the last few years cross border trade has become increasingly important to eBay and making items visible to buyers around the world makes a lot of sense – often one country site will have unique inventory which simply isn’t available in other countries, or which is in short supply.

If you want a didgeridoo or a boomerang you’ll now start to see goods on eBay UK from Australia along with more every day products available from sellers down under.

photo credit: *_*

In eBay’s latest Seller Update they’ve said that if you specify International postage to the US, Canada and Australia your listings may appear in the standard search results for that country. This will start from late August.

eBay have already let sellers know that they are testing greater visibility for UK and German sellers on eBay Italy. In May this year eBay Australia started to display listings from the UK and the US.

So is it worth paying for the International Site Visibility listing enhancement? It only costs 30p for a fixed price listing or between 5p and 15p for an auction, but those fees all add up over the course of a month.

The dilemma is you “may” appear in search results on overseas sites whereas the International Site Visibility upgrade ensures that you will. There is of course the possibility that your listing would have appeared on overseas sites even if you hadn’t paid for the listing enhancement.

It will be interesting to see how eBay handle this one and if sellers get tools to let them know when their listing appears in search results on overseas site removing the need to pay for visibility.

If you don’t currently ship to what is often considered one of the worst countries in Europe for lost parcels make sure you have Italy excluded in your postage options. However if you’re happy to ship to Italy (and many are) then so long as you specify the postage costs and are top rated you should see more sales coming from Italy.

eBay say that this is a test and depending on the feedback received, they may, in time, expand this feature to other markets. However it’s worth remembering that the UK and US already have greater visibility on eBay Australia.

If eBay continue to expand the number of sites that listings appear on in natural search results it may be time to reconsider your use of the International Site Visibility listing enhancement.

Australian Taxation Office have notified eBay that they intend to issue formal requests for information relating to sales by Australian eBay sellers. The data eBay will supply includes: Contact name; Address; Telephone number; Email and IP address; User ID; Date of birth; Date of registration on eBay; Monthly and annual sales volumes and value; Power seller status and eBay store status.

There will be no getting away from paying the correct tax in Australia so if you’re unsure if your affairs are in order then the best advice is to make sure they are before you get the call. eBay will hand the data over by the 1st of August.

It would be very interesting to see what would happen if the same occurred in the UK. Doubtless there are some smaller sellers who are unsure if they’re a business or a private individual, but would anyone selling more than £20,000 per year be in any doubt? eBay would probably already have insisted you register as a business seller, but that doesn’t ensure that you register with the tax man.

photo credit: *_*

From today eBay Australia are opening up number of listing categories on eBay.com.au to include relevant listings from eBay.com and eBay.co.uk in search results.

This is being done in selected (but unspecified) categories where eBay Australia has inventory gaps or where Australian buyers already have a high rate of purchasing from overseas-based sellers.

To help Australian buyers eBay will be incorporating additional messaging to help buyers identify when they are purchasing items which are of overseas origin and alert them to the potential downsides of importing some goods.

eBay have been quick to allay the fears of Australian sellers facing increased competition saying:

• According to Forrester research commissioned by PayPal, Australians prefer buying from Australian sellers
• Local sellers have a geographic advantage in offering faster and in many cases cheaper postage
• Local sellers have the ability to allow pick-up, and to process returns more quickly and cost effectively
• More sites are included by default in listing search results on other eBay sites (such as eBay.com or eBay.co.uk), so Australian sellers offering international purchase and postage can benefit from more buyers viewing their listings

For eBay UK and eBay.com sellers if you already offer postage to Australia then there’s nothing you need do, apart from hopefully sit back and see more orders flood in from the Antipodes. If you don’t offer either worldwide postage or at least postage to Australia then you should consider doing so in order for your eBay listings to appear on eBay Australia.

From March, Best Match on eBay Australia will change from recent sales to popularity (which is measured as “Sales divided by Search Impressions”). At the same time a new tool will be rolled out allowing analysis of your listing’s performance based on Best Match data, including impressions and sell through rate data.

99c auctions will become permanently free for all Australian sellers who don’t have an eBay store subscription. Up to fifteen 99c listings per month will be free, with free gallery and flat rate final value fees of 7.9% (capped at a maximum of $49.95).

All sellers on eBay Australia will have to include a handling time and specify a returns policy (even if your returns policy is “No Returns” you’ll need to say so). Both handling time and returns policies have been mandatory in the UK for over a year.

For eBay Australia store owners there will be new media fees for fixed price listings. A flat rate of 5c insertion fee, free gallery and flat rate 9.9% final value fee will apply to all Books, Music, Movies and Games.

The final change is the retirement of the old Bulk Edit and Re-list flow from 8th March 2011.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in this seller release for Australia. Most of the updates are already live on other eBay sites and the only people likely to complain are media sellers who will see final value fees rise. However higher final value fees coupled with low insertion fees should for most sellers result in overall fee savings.

Due to the ongoing cold weather Royal Mail are advising that there were some difficulty with operations yesterday and on their overnight network. In the affected areas deliveries and collections will only be attempted where it is safe for Royal Mail workers to perform them; however they are working hard to return service to normal in these areas as quickly as possible.

UK to US Deliveries

There are also delays in US post following an incident with an improvised explosive device on a US bound aircraft, all packages to the US will be subject to stricter screening by US authorities.

eBay advise that if you sell to the US, you should:

* Amend your listing description to point out that delivery may be delayed for the above reason
* When a sale is made, manage your customer’s expectations by reminding them about why delivery may be delayed
* Contact your delivery company (eg Royal Mail service) to obtain up-to-date information on delivery services to the US.

Royal Mail advise that some items will not be allowed on passenger flights and will be transferred onto cargo planes. Delays could be up to an additional 4 day transit time. It is definitely worth monitoring the situation especially as Monday 13th December (the last Royal Mail Airmail recommended last posting date for Christmas to the US) approaches.

Australia to US Deliveries

Similarly to the UK there will be delivery delays to the US. However due to additional security measures, Australia Post have advised that articles over 453g and all Express Courier International and Express Post International services will be subject to an additional $9 security surcharge and may face transit delays of up to 48 hours.

If you use the shipping calculator on your eBay.com.au listings then you need to be aware that the additional $9 charge will not be included in the calculation.

• voice search utilising Android’s unique capabilities; the eBay application comes enabled with speech-to-text voice search
• buyer alerts on auctions and watched items
• daily deals
• immediate checkout through PayPal
• member messages: receive and reply to messages and emails sent through My eBay. Ask a seller a question or reply to an inquiry or keep track of notifications directly through the app
• sharing functions so that buyers and seller can share items via Facebook, Twitter or email

This year, eBay expects to generate $1.5 billion in sales through mobile commerce: Steve Yankovich, vice president of mobile, eBay Inc. said “the popularity of eBay’s mobile shopping applications is quickly spreading across multiple geographies” – or “different countries” as we call them in Europe. eBay’s is currently the number one iPad app in the iTunes Store.

How’s mobile for you? Is it just for casual buyers? Do we need a “don’t drink and shop” filter for that Android voice search? Does the expansion of mobile eBay mean you can run your eBay business from anywhere – or just that you can’t escape from it? Leave us a comment.

Following highly publicised criticism and investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), eBay Australia’s Accepted Payment Policy will be revised as of July 14th 2010.

The long running dispute attracted over 350 submissions from interesting parties, most notable of which was a lengthy document which turned out to be from none other than Google, who at the time were hyping Google Checkout as a PayPal competitor.

eBay say that due to the changes the “ACCC has decided to discontinue its current inquiries into eBay’s payment policies. However, this does not restrict the ACCC from reviewing the effects of eBay or PayPal’s conduct in Australia if it raises competition concerns in the future”.

Moving forward in Australia many sellers will still be obliged to offer PayPal, but for those with either a Paymate account or who have their own merchant credit card facility the compulsion to offer PayPal will cease.

It does open the interesting question – do buyers *really* prefer PayPal? Will sellers continue to offer PayPal as an alternative payment method alongside Paymate or credit cards and if they don’t will it put off customers from purchasing from their listings?

20% is a big drop in revenue, but it may be that last year’s $2.1m bid for Warren Buffett’s annual luncheon auction was simply too big to match. Recession or no recession, the $1.68m raised for the Glide Foundation on eBay this year is still a sizable figure.

If you’re a Skype user it’s time to upgrade to the latest Skype 4.1 release which apparently fixes a few bugs in the previous versions.

China has delayed an introduction of web filtering at the last minute turning planned protests into a celebration. Software was due to be installed on all computers to prevent access to pornography.

If you’re a hand made guitar aficionado there’s a DVD on eBay you have to buy – Antony Dewar chopped down a dead cherry tree in his garden and spent three years filming it’s transformation into a pair of guitars. Running for 3 hours 26 minutes the DVD shows everything from felling the tree to the finished product.

The change is said to be because many eBay users prefer the transparency that the aliases provide, although to be frank identifying a user from the alias is almost impossible.

Currently eBay UK still use the “Bidder1, Bidder2″ format when displaying bidding activity but use randomised aliases for Best Offers.

Back in August we took a first look at the new My eBay Beta and found it good for buyers but lacking in functionality for sellers, but many of our complaints addressed with added functionality. There are a few differences worth calling out:

Best Offers

Items with outstanding Best Offers aren’t as visible as in the old version. Whereas they’d be highlighted at the top of the selling tab in the classic eBay, in the new version they only appear in “Selling Reminders” on the “All Selling” summary view. If you’re on the “Selling Tab” you don’t get selling reminders and so won’t see any prompts to accept, decline or make a counter offer.

Even in Selling Reminders Best Offers could be handled better, if you counter offer to a buyer it still displays as “1 item with offers from buyers”. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone to respond just to find out I’m waiting for the buyer to make a decision.

Unsold Items

Another major display change to be aware of is with unsold items. The quantity displayed will now be the starting quantity, regardless how many items have been sold on a listing. In the classic version of My eBay the unsold item view displayed the quantity remaining when the listing ended. It’s a minor change, but a frustrating one for those who rely on these numbers for stock control.

Sort Options

The old My eBay was highly configurable with sort options for almost every attribute displayed. The new My eBay is severely limited with sorting limited to just the Watchers, Bids, Price and Time left columns.

In the past I’ve used sorts such as for highest/lowest shipping charges, to look for listings with outstanding questions to answer, or even available quantity. That’s no longer possible which makes managing your eBay listings that little bit more difficult, and TurboLister that little bit more attractive.

The biggest change facing most buyer and sellers is that the focus of the new My eBay shifts to the listing title rather than the User ID. This is somewhat perturbing at first although in fairness I soon got used to it when using the Beta.

Currently those who use Selling Manager Pro will escape the worst of the changes, but we’ve managed to get a sneaky preview (shown left) of what the new SMP tabs will look like when they get a minor makeover in the near future.

If you’ve been using the new My eBay let us know what you think of it. If you’re still using My eBay classic today is the last day it’ll be available on many eBay sites.

eBay have had a rough ride in Australia with the Foxtel ads being pulled by Foxtel themselves in response to complaints from eBay users.

For eBay to continue with the adverts they must be successful which means that 1) eBay are making money and 2) Advertisers are making money. If users don’t click the adverts and sign up to the offers then there would be no value to advertising partners so we can take it as a given that they’re working.

The good news for sellers is that the adverts open in a new browser window so potential buyers may be diverted but they will still have your listing open in their browser to return to.

eBay say adverts will be “complementary” for example home and contents insurance offers in the home category. The big question is how long it be before the boundaries are marred and “complementary” becomes “competing”?

If adverts are expanded in Australia (and eBay’s advertising revenues are already up 127% on this time last year) it’s almost a certainty we’ll see adverts in more categories in the UK in the near future. It’s simply too much money for eBay to turn away.

Unfortunately for Australian sellers, the new feature will not be available via listing tools like Turbo Lister until next year. Anyone wanting to use it for the next few months will have to list through the Sell Your Item form, Seller Manager or Seller Manager Pro.

Best Offer will be available from early November, on Buy It Now and Classified Ad format listings only. There is no extra fee to use Best Offer. eBay Australia have more information in their Best Offer FAQs.

• Sellers will need to initiate the process by requesting buyers revise their feedback, within thirty days of feedback being left.
• Buyers then have ten days to respond to the request.
• There are limits to the number of revision requests which can be sent. All sellers will get a minimum of five requests per year, but higher volume sellers will get five requests per thousand feedbacks received.
• Requests which are ignored or declined by buyers will still count towards the total, so sellers need to ensure their buyers understand the process and are willing to change their feedback before they waste a request on those who want the original comments or score to stand.
• Feedback can only be revised upwards: positives cannot be changed to neutrals or negatives.
• Sellers cannot ask buyers to revise positive feedback.

There’s more information about exactly how the system will work on the FAQs page, though the inevitable question of how eBay will deal with multiple negatives from one combined transaction, apparently hasn’t yet been answered.

eBay Australia also say that the Dispute Console is, from 21st October, to be known as the Resolution Centre. It’s about time this was done: the change of name alone should make the process a little less antagonistic for all parties. eBay Australia promise a streamlined reporting process and simplified management of open cases too.

At first glance, it looks like this has been implemented the right way. By making the process seller-initiated, and by the “only way is up” rule that prevents positives being turned into negatives, the revision process cannot be used to blackmail sellers post-transaction.

On the sellers’ part, the limits on the number of requests that can be sent are low, but not excessively so (eBay Germany allows two requests per month, regardless of sales volume). Non-positive feedback left in error can be edited, and prematurely-left feedback can be corrected once the buyer’s problem has been resolved, but no seller is going to be able to use this process to cover up multiple, ongoing issues with their service, which was always a problem with mutual feedback withdrawal.

As eBay Australia is the testing ground du jour for eBay’s new ideas, I can only hope this is going to roll-out elsewhere by the end of October as promised.

eBay have now said that the trial of these ads will continue, though they will be positioned lower on the page and “will be clearly marked as a sponsored link”. Sellers in the Sports, Movies and Electronics categories can expect to see “sponsored links” appearing on their listings.

eBay Australia add “similar advertisements are already running in a number of markets, including Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, and the UK.” Well, that’s alright then. Let me tell you, if I need to: the Austrians, the Swiss, the French, the Italians and the British don’t like the ads either.

Foxtel’s online marketing manager left a comment on TameBay, expanding on the company’s position. He said:

being a reputable company we didn’t think they would place them in a way that would annoy their members. As soon as the complaint came in we looked at the placement in question and agreed it was intrusive to the sellers (who like us are online marketers)

Foxtel get it. Don’t annoy your users.

eBay, however, don’t get it. eBay see the ads as purely a revenue spinner, a source of extra cash. They need to look beyond this week’s balance sheet. The message of these ads, on the very page where sellers are trying to sell, is that eBay do not care about your sales. Even though you’ve paid eBay for that page, they still believe they have the right to siphon off your traffic for the sake of a few pence per click. And they do: it’s their site. But how much longer are sellers going to put up with a company that demonstrates its contempt for its paying customers quite so blatantly?

Sellers are already suffering from change fatigue after a year of constant policy, fee and listing strategy change on eBay. Telling us that our sales matter less than flogging their own advertising is really not what eBay should be doing right now.

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.

Once an item has been purchased, both parties will be able to see each others’ email addresses.

This change was announced at eBay Live as part of the “road map” for the second half of this year, so we can expect to see other sites following suit very soon. Sellers will need to make some changes in their ways of working to allow for this.

First, the good news: automated responses from your email client or server will now work. No more accidental replies to “use the yellow button” will make both automated and ordinary responses a lot more efficient. Buyers no longer have the option to hide email addresses, so all responses can be made via email if that’s your preference.

But there are a couple of potential pitfalls. The email address used to respond to messages must be one registered with eBay: given that emailing “use the yellow button” never produced an error message, it’s worth checking now to make sure email and eBay match. Subject headers are changing too, so your carefully set up mail rules will need to be changed: in typical eBay style, they’ve said that subjects are changing, but not what they’re changing to, so preparation is not possible.

Email addresses within the body of the message will be stripped out by eBay: for those trying to use ASQs as an off-eBay customer acquisition tool, saying “please email me at… ” isn’t going to work any more. I’m surprised there isn’t also a clause saying that web links will also be removed.

And despite recent flim-flamming on the links policy, Australia’s announcement still says that next year, email addresses are to be blocked from listings. That’s one to bear in mind if you’re redesigning templates in the next few months.

We’ve known this one was coming for a while now, and I’ve seen a lot of sellers complaining that it’s going to damage communications with their buyers and ruin their DSRs, but I don’t think so. If anything, it’s going to make communicating a lot easier when I don’t have to go through the hideously clunky My Messages system. But what it will do is make it a bit more difficult for sellers who use eBay primarily as a shop front for their off-eBay sales: gathering emails for your spamming list just got a bit more difficult. I’m not complaining about that either.

What do you think? Has this just made your life easier, or ruined your carefully thought-out marketing plan? Leave us a comment.

eBay will continue to allow all existing payment methods on eBay.com.au. We have decided to withdraw the notification to stop any further confusion and disruption among the eBay Community. … eBay requires all sellers to offer PayPal as a payment choice on eBay.com.au along with other permitted payment methods of their choosing.

eBay have strenuously denied any plans to make eBay.com PayPal-only; it remains to be seen whether compulsory PayPal will be tried in other markets than Australia and the UK.

They have delayed implementation of the PayPal only policy until 15th July, it was scheduled to go live on the 17th June. The increase in Buyer Protection raising the cover to AU$20,000 will still come into effect on the 17th June for Australian buyers who pay via PayPal.

Whether eBay will succeed is anyone’s guess, but it’s looking increasingly unlikely. The ACCC note that over 600 eBay users, half of them buyers, sent in submissions opposing PayPal only and they themselves have “serious competition concerns” if they allowed an exception.

eBay say they hope to “work with the ACCC and hopes to achieve a final outcome which has the safety and security of eBay’s members as its paramount objective” and that they believe “the consumer benefits of this initiative are worth fighting for”.

In a draft notice issued today the ACCC proposed revoking immunity for eBay’s PayPal only policy on the grounds that it will reduce competition and that they believe “consumers are in the best position to decide which payment method is most suitable for them”.

Noting the benefits that PayPal offer they say the advantages do not outweigh the anti-competitive effect.

Whilst this is a draft notice the ACCC notes eBay have already implemented the policy that PayPal has to be offered, but have asked them to delay making PayPal the only acceptable payment method until the final decision.

Now the draft proposal is published all interested parties can make further submissions so eBay will doubtless respond. It’ll be interesting to see if Google make further waves now that their role has been revealed.

It looks as if eBay Australia users can continue offering and using alternate payment methods, at least in the short term.

eBay must have been pretty certain that they would be granted immunity and allowed to implement the PayPal only policy. Regardless of the outcome it is likely to have an effect in other territories around the world and shape eBay / PayPal policy for some time to come.

Every purchase made on eBay.com.au gets the buyer automatic entry into a draw for 4 x $10,000 and 10 x $1,000 credited to the winners PayPal account.

The competition runs from today until the 21st June 2008, and also encourages buyers to open a PayPal account if they don’t already have one. Not a bad move on eBay’s part to make it attractive for buyers to use PayPal, and the publication of the winners in July should go further to making PayPal appear attractive. I’m not so sure some sellers already averse to offering PayPal will see it in quite the same light though.

The UA used to say “seperate eBay transactions”, so that combining shipping fees for multiple items at least looked like it was against PayPal’s rules. (I don’t know if any seller protection claims were ever refused on this basis? Maybe one of our Australian readers could leave us a comment.)

It’s an important reminder for all sellers though, that if you want to be covered by the Seller Protection Policy, seperate PayPal payments have to have seperate proofs of delivery: bung two orders into one box and you are not covered.