There is some good news for existing sellers with a past track record – if you’re setting up a new selling ID you can link it to an existing eBay account and the PayPal holds won’t then apply to you. There’s no information currently on how to link them so I’d suggest PowerSeller support.

This step, although designed as a security step to ensure buyers don’t lose out (by which I guess I mean so that PayPal don’t lose out if a seller turns out to be unreliable), is going to be devastating for new sellers.

I remember when I started out on eBay and cash flow was essential – postage costs rack up at an alarming rate and the ability to access cash quickly enables these costs to be paid. With PayPal holds new sellers will be unable to withdraw funds for three weeks, or even to use payments to fund PayPal postage payments – the upfront investment in selling on eBay has just risen significantly for smaller sellers.

As with all PayPal holds funds may be released before the 21 days if the item delivery is confirmed or if positive feedback is received.

Business Sellers and PowerSellers are specifically excluded from the promotion, as are a couple of categories including parts of the motors, property and mobile phones categories.

If you need to have a clear out get your items ready to list, if you’re a business be prepared for a lot of private seller items to be on the site for the next 10 days.

Suchi Mukherjee, Gumtree’s MD said “Reaching ten years old is such a significant milestone for any online business. Ultimately, Gumtree is powered by the people who are posting their goods and services, and the demands of people looking for them”, and that’s pretty much my experience of the site.

I’ve sold my car on Gumtree, bought a beer fridge and listed stock originally destined for eBay but which is either too big for a standard courier or too awkward to pack safely. If you’ve not tried Gumtree for selling I’d recommend celebrating their 10th birthday by throwing up an advert or two.

A deaf woman is suing eBay, saying that the company’s telephone-based seller verification system breaches laws protecting disabled people from discrimination.

Melissa Earll from Nevada, Missouri says that eBay’s identification system breaches federal and California state laws. The system places automated calls to new sellers, requiring them to listen to a PIN given verbally on the telephone, and then enter that into the site, to prove that the phone number they’ve provided is correct. Ms Earll cannot hear the number, and so cannot complete the verification.

Ms Earll has repeatedly asked the company to provide her with another method of verifying her identity, but they have failed to do so. Her attorney says that “at one point, eBay even suggested that she just find someone who can hear normally to answer her phone for her.” She has now filed suit “on behalf of all deaf or hard of hearing persons who have been prevented from registering as sellers with eBay because of the company’s discriminatory telephone registration system”.

Via plaintiff’s press release.

So far, so meh. I question whether those of us who Twitter really need to be given easier ways to do it. There are currently dozens of ways to interact with Twitter: look at the bottom of any TameBay post, the top of any TameBay post, the front page sidebar, the app that’s running in my PC toolbar or the one that’s on my phone right now. Journalists link their accounts from bylines, and papers in turn run feeds of what their readers are tweeting about them. We’re not short of ways to interact with Twitter. Where @anywhere could make a difference isn’t down to how we use it, it’s in how the sites implement it in the first place.

I’m going to take “found this cool thing” and “bought this cool thing” functionality as a given. They are SO basic to the internet these days, those buttons to “tweet this”, that I sometimes wonder if eBay is the only site left without them. Certainly Amazon already has a lovely integration with their affiliate scheme, letting me tweet links in a single click and earn money from doing it. If only EPN had something like that.

Let’s assume that eBay can take this beyond the predictable. Imagine – if you will – that when buying something on eBay, you could read a Twitter feed from people who’d already bought that item. Not the calculated emotional blackmail that feedback so often turns into, but the unadulterated spewing of thought, positive and negative, that happens on Twitter. The joy of shopping. Wouldn’t that be a great thing?

I don’t know, and neither do you. Real integration with Twitter has the potential to take eBay and shopping and publicity and customer service somewhere it’s never been before. Some of that could be great: sellers who are currently complaining about eBay’s unreliable messaging system might welcome another way to ping a quick message to buyers (though they might prefer something more reliable than Twitter). But Twitter is even more real time than email, even more always on than “sleep? never heard of it” eBay sellers are used to. Do we want to raise buyer expectations of instant responses further? Do we want to do that in public?

Because as much as we make this about what we want as sellers – publicity, branding, conversation, connection – what it will be first of all is a point of contact for a customer who has a problem. It may be a problem of our making, or a problem that they’re angry or drunk or crazy. People who have problems want to be dealt with. Now. And if they’re on Twitter and you’re not dealing with them now, the situation has the potential to blow up in your face, in your pocket, in your bank account. Just ask Southwest Airlines, Vodaphone, Rentokil, Paperchase, companies with customer service departments and lawyers, a long way from one-person-band eBay traders, who still got burned on Twitter. Isn’t it better not to promise this instant communication, than to offer it and then not be able to deliver?

We’re a while off needing to worry about this. eBay Ink has a post about @anywhere with RBH singing its praises, but eBay – frankly – are hopeless at social media. They have bouts of enthusiasm and then someone realises that employees are talking to buyers and sellers without running everything past legal first and it all gets reined in again. Richard writes:

From what I can tell, the news out of Twitter today is very promising for buyers and sellers on the eBay Marketplace. It represents a growing trend we’ve been seeing over the past year that eBay is willing to knock down what had been until recently, indestructible barriers of entry … I still don’t have the details as to how this will be integrated into the marketplace or the extent to which Twitter applications are coming to eBay.com. Huge questions I realize. For now, I can only hope my excitement is justified.

Me too, Richard. Me too.

Sellers may (at the moment) opt out of this programme: if you opt out, you will neither have other sellers’ cross promos shown on your listings, nor have the opportunity to appear in cross promos yourself. This one is all or nothing.

The roll-out follows a test begun in January which added cross-promotions to the bottom of some live listings. The new announcement doesn’t specify where exactly on the listing the other items are to be displayed (if anyone sees it, please leave us a comment), but it does clarify that cross-promoted listings will be from the same category: previously, they were just “relevant”.

It’s a tough call: do you opt out and miss out on the extra promotion, or stay in and deal with the extra competition? It would be helpful to know exactly how eBay are choosing the listings that get cross-promoted: does everyone have an even chance? do sellers with more listings appear more often in cross-promotions? is it limited to TRS? We just don’t know. And eBay, of course, aren’t saying.

Speaking of Mark, Doug said “Under Mark’s leadership, the eBay business has performed strongly. The UK business has maintained its position as the number one e-commerce site, with the number of items bought on the site up by almost 20% year on year”. Doug went on to add “I am personally very sorry to see Mark leave the company he has led with such commitment, but I understand completely his reasons for seeking out a new challenge”.

Mark will be replaced by Clare Gilmartin who returns from maternity leave to become EU Marketplaces Vice President. Clare has been with eBay for six years and has previously held a role with similar responsibility across the UK and German eBay sites.

We wish Mark good luck in his next role and look forward to the future with Clare at the helm.

On March 16th, sellers listing auctions on eBay.com, eBay.ca and eBay Motors will save 50% on insertion fees regardless of start price. Sellers will need to have DSRs of 4.5 or higher to qualify. Other fees apply as normal. There are exclusions so please read the small print before you list.

However, the good people of Colombia are about to change my mind for once.Previously the Colombian registrar has sold .com.co, .net.co and the rather lovely nom.co. But this July, .co domains go on sale to the general public. With their similarity to the classic .com, these seem likely to be very popular with name squatters and competitors, so snapping up any that you’re really bothered about might be a good plan.

GoDaddy now has .co domains available for preorder: you can pay $299.99 for priority pre-registration, or the rather more palatable $29.99 for standard pre-registration.

As well as Facebook connect you can also share threads on Facebook, and the forum integrates Gumtree related Twitter tweets, YouTube video and blog posts. Importantly you can also now follow conversations on RSS for instant updates of topics you’re interested in.

There are some “under the bonnet” tweaks for SEO optimisation and to reduce spammers or abuse of the forums, as well as some moderation tools, but most users won’t notice these. At the same time they’ve fine tuned the layout to make the normal text heavy forum layout a little easier on the eye.

Finally as an introduction to Gumtree forums they have have a cutesy video with some forum guideline and “do’s” and “don’ts”.

Those of us who’ve been around eBay for a while probably remember the story: the bust of a “huge shilling ring” in eBay’s art categories, people who bumped worthless paintings up to hundreds of dollars, and almost-worthless paintings up to thousands of dollars. This is the story told by one of the men who did it.

In an irony that isn’t lost on him, Ken Walton was a bored lawyer when he discovered eBay. It wasn’t long before he’d quit his job to work full time at his new career as art dealer, buying thrift store paintings and reselling them on eBay. You might not think that would be such a lucrative move, but Walton had a few things on his side. Firstly, this was the early days of eBay. Auctions were exciting – people bid for the thrill and for the win, and they bid stupid amounts of money for – frankly – rubbish. But Walton packed the odds in his favour: he and a friend began bidding on each other’s auctions. This was initially permitted by eBay as a way of establishing a reserve price. When eBay banned shilling, he developed a list of new IDs, to bump up his sale prices and those of his colleagues.

It didn’t stop there. Walton developed what he called the “naive seller technique”, listing paintings that could have been (but probably weren’t) by known artists in such a way that art collectors would think they’d spotted something the seller hadn’t. That way, he gained collectors’ interest without ever directly misleading them. It’s one way to salve your conscience.

The genius of Walton’s book is that I end up wanting him to get away with it. I’ve heard any number of sellers make the same unconvincing excuses he makes, and say the same mea culpas when caught. I don’t buy it: if you set out to delude people, even indirectly, you’re a crook. But Walton is such an entertaining crook, I find myself forgiving him. Mea culpa indeed.

The new site will display fixed price listings from sellers who offer shipping to the new eBay countries. The big advantage is that the site will be translated into the local language with prices displayed in the buyer’s local currency. The only parts of the site that won’t be translated is the item title and description. There will also be localised customer support for buyers in their own language.

If you see an increase from buyers in these countries it’ll probably be because they have their own eBay site for the first time.

The two companies have long been rivals, but an alliance could now make sense. Insiders say that merchants, particularly in the US, are unhappy with using Alibaba’s own payment system Alipay, and are demanding the facility to use PayPal. For PayPal, Alibaba could offer the potential for huge expansion in the Chinese market.

Alibaba’s PR department has said that the company will decide whether to adopt other payment tools based on user demands. Merchants outside China are likely to favour PayPal over many alternatives: Alipay is unfamiliar, and bank transfers to China are expensive and the costs are borne by buyers. PayPal, on the other hand, offers the cashflow-speeding possibility of spending your earnings directly on new stock, something that newer and smaller traders value intensely.

If sellers opt in to Unpaid Item Assistant, they will be able to override it for individual transactions, so if a buyer has stated that they’re still shopping or will be sending a cheque next week, the reminder can be turned off. If you often have people paying by cheque, or buying multiple items over a number of days, a better idea might be to set a reasonably generous time before the Unpaid Item Assistant kicks in, otherwise overriding it will become as onerous as dealing with unpaid items is at the moment.

Over the next few weeks, eBay.com will make the Unpaid Item Assistant available to more sellers and eBay expect that it will be available to all sellers by the end of the month. If you’re a .com seller and want to see if it’s available for your account yet, go to My eBay or Selling Manager > Account tab > Site Preferences > Selling Preferences, and look for the opt-in.

Best Match on the Canadian site has for some time given a boost in search to domestic items, in the belief that buying from your own country is a better buying experience than a cross border transaction. This will be suspended if you’re in one of the test groups so that eBay can gauge how much the item location affects buyer behaviour.

For sure it’s often a simpler quicker buying experience to buy from a domestic seller but I’m constantly amazed when I buy from overseas just how quickly items are delivered – often faster than some UK sellers appear able to despatch.

We know that many TameBay readers are based overseas, but sell into the UK. Also many sellers based in the UK make a large proportion of their income through selling outside the UK. How important is cross border trade to your business? Would you prefer equal visibility for yourself and sellers from other EU countries, what about the Far East or sellers from the US where customs charges come into play?

As with previous promotions you’ll need to have 12 month Detailed Seller Rating of 4.5 or higher on all criteria, or be a new seller yet to have received the minimum 10 DSRs needed for the stars to display.

There are a few restricted categories including Motors and some business and industrial subcategories so check before you list.

The apps cover everything from merchandising (listing design, video, marketplace research) to accounting shipping and customer support. Many are free cut down versions of the full offering from the developer with some being paid for subscriptions to the full program.

Currently there are 40 applications available to choose from, but opening the services up to all sellers should make it more attractive to developers to invest the time in creating applications or porting them to the eBay platform. Opening the Apps to all sellers should mean that in the near future they’ll expand them internationally and we can take advantage of them in the UK.

What is Dev Con?
It’s eBay’s event for developers working with their platform (not for buyers and sellers… mostly).
eBay says: “You’ll spend three days learning, networking and getting inspired by some of the most respected visionaries in e-commerce. You’ll also get neck-deep in code, flex your development and entrepreneurial muscles, and take your game to the next level.”

I went to some of the Dev Con events in Chicago in 2008, and can heartily recommend them. The schedule was an interesting mix of technical and marketing, covering not only developments in the eBay API and what can be done with it, but how to sell your eBay app once you’ve developed it. Future changes on the selling platform were covered more frankly and less defensively than is often the case at seller-focused events.

Two years on from the launch of Project Echo, and with PayPal also running a Developer Network, I can only imagine things will be more interesting still.

As the trial’s been running for so long now, eBay will be running with some version or other of this: the trial now will be more about the minutiae of the wording than the general form. The sliding scale of 1-awful to 10-outstanding feels better than the current DSR labelling, where 4 is called “good” when in fact, it’s not. Of course, 1-10 is a big change from 1-5 or negative-neutral-positive, that could well encourage buyers to abandon the usual habit of “top marks across the board” which for so long has been the norm on eBay: it’s hard not to start imagining a storm of “I did everything right so why 9 and not 10″ threads on eBay forums, but what will really matter is how eBay use the new system as part of their range of carrots and sticks for sellers, and that – obviously – we don’t yet know.

I haven’t blurred the details of this transaction out of the image because the seller was superb. Go buy their stuff.

Closing dates for entry is the 17th March 2010 so head off over the the competition website and if you’re a winner be sure to let us know.

Disclosure: myHermes advertise with TameBay

If you’ve not been to a Catalyst event before it’s not as many think a chance for ChannelAdvisor to plug their services, but is an opportunity to take a serious look at the state of the ecommerce landscape.

Not to be missed on the first day is the live consumer panel – 10 real life people that buy online, but other than that aren’t involved in ecommerce. Without any inside industry knowledge they’ll tell what makes them buy, how they progress from a search and when and why they’ll make the final payment and exactly what you need to do to capture their business.

Places are limited this year to 250, so if you want to attend book early to avoid disappointment.

Disclosure: ChannelAdvisor advertise with TameBay

The announcement says “This agreement, if accepted by the members of the CWU, will secure the future of the business and allow the Royal Mail to become a profitable and successful enterprise. At the same time it will secure jobs in the long term and allow for employees to be properly rewarded”.

Hopefully this marks the end of disruption to Royal Mail services and the start of improved relations between them and the CWU. For those of us buying and selling online we can look forward to a future without the danger of disruption to the postal service and customers can order goods with the certainty that they’ll arrive in a timely fashion.

I know where they’re coming from – some of the computer products I sell are “New and boxed” but about 10 years old with any manufacturers warranty they once had expired. I don’t like describing the products as “Used” as they’re not, but calling them “New” might be misleading to a buyer.

They’re asking selected sellers to suggest additional alternative Item Condition values for certain categories as well as showing the most popular terms submitted by other sellers.

If you want to influence the Item Condition values for the categories you trade in and are a in the group of sellers chosen to vote you can log in to the Community Consultation and make your opinions heard.