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.

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.

This offer has been running since September 2008, so honestly we think it’s about time eBay made it a permanent price change instead of teasing sellers with the threat of taking it away every few months.

We were unable to run the search you entered. Please try again in a few minutes.

eBay.com’s announcement has a few more details together with a workaround:

if you use the Advanced Search option at the top of the page, and type in your search query and click the title and description box and then run the search, the results for the title and description search will be returned. Likewise, if you receive a 0 results page for title search and choose the title and description box and re-run the search, you’ll see the appropriate results.

There were also problems accessing eBay Shops for a short time this morning; it seems from an announcement on eBay.com that these may be ongoing too.

Update: According to this thread on the US PS board (you’ll need a PS sign-in), eBay “is admitting on its customer service line that it will need to give refunds to sellers” for invisibility due to this outage.

I’ll keep this updated as and when more info comes in.

Update Sunday 14.00
Post on eBay Ink, including statement from Lorrie Norrington:

Our immediate priority is to resolve this issue. Once that is achieved, rest assured that we will assess the economic impact of this issue and will be compensating sellers appropriately. In the meantime, we will be issuing full fee credits for affected listings.

As for the actual fix, everything seems okay here now lots of things are back but item specifics drill-down in search has disappeared over many categories. How about where you are?

Update Sunday night
eBay UK announcement says

we will assess the economic impact of the problem and will compensate sellers appropriately. The mechanism and process for issuing full fee credits for affected listings will be announced over the course of the next few days.

I have to hand it to eBay with this one: they’ve made it much easier than they normally do to ensure listings are compliant with their policies. A special website allows you to download a list of items you need to change, and changes to the rules for editing listings have been introduced before the policies were enforced, meaning that sellers can edit listings which have had sales.

But do check your listings: it’s all to easy to forget about GTC and assume everything’s running correctly (writes the woman who had a listing still running from 2005…). It’s worth giving your unsold items more of a glance over than you normally might.

Original AB post.

Several eBay staff, whilst not mentioning numbers, have intimated that eBay growth in the UK has remained buoyant, fueled especially by exchange rates leading to 30% growth in exports. eBay in the US hasn’t been so fortunate with stagnant sales so the latest increases may be a positive signal that changes implemented over the last year are starting to bear fruit.

Its been a long 18-24 months for ebayers as the site has gone through a painful transition. The increase in y/y sales indicates there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and most likely it isn’t a train).
 
That being said, eBay has definitely become feast or famine. Those sellers that have switched to fixed-price, worked the DSR system, etc. are on the feast side. However sellers that have not been able to adapt for whatever reason are on the famine side of the equation.
– Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor

At the end of the day sellers will always go where the sales are and in recent times for many that’s meant Amazon. If eBay’s sales engines start firing on all cylinders again it won’t be long before sellers (or at least those that can get to grips with changes and Top Rated Seller status) start to forget their gripes and get on with the business of selling.

Disclosure – ChannelAdvisor advertise with TameBay

The biggest changes relate to the new dispute resolution process. Sellers must now have a reimbursement method on file with eBay, and for transactions paid via PayPal, sellers must agree that eBay can remove funds from the seller’s PayPal account to reimburse their buyers. If the PP account has insufficient funds, eBay may require sellers to reimburse them via another method, and may suspend or restrict a seller’s trading on the site until this is done.

There’s also a new intellectual property policy, listed as a separate policy for the first time, which restricts – for example – celebrity material to that authorised by the celebrity themself: anyone printing up their own keyrings of this week’s favourite boy band needs to find some new designs pretty quickly. This covers a range of other areas: the sale of educational editions of software, bootleg recordings and 35mm and 70mm film prints, as well as items which can themselves be used to duplicate copy-protected material.

As ever, if you don’t like it, you’re always free to close your account.

You can see the full comparison of the old and new user agreements on TOSBack.

Firstly, there’s a reminder from eBay UK that sellers in the Music, Books, Video games and DVD, Film & TV categories can get 20% off their FVFs when they offer free domestic P&P. This offer runs from 20th August to 30th September. This is of course in preparation for all sellers in media categories having to offer a free postage option by 19th October.

eBay.com, Motors and eBay Canada are offering up to 12 eBay-hosted photographs for just 25c from today until September 18th, saving sellers 50c-75c per listing. (I feel compelled to say at this point, if you regularly pay a dollar for picture pack, please please get your own image hosting or at least sign up for a free Photobucket account.)

eBay.com has announced various changes to subcategories and item specifics which will roll out in the week commencing 22nd September. Lots of categories are affected, and a full list of changes can be found here.

eBay UK has announced that there will be changes in Books, Comics & Magazines, Home & Garden, Tickets & Travel and Property.

A definitive and detailed list of the category updates will be available by the end of August 2009.

It didn’t take long for the “two lots of announcements a year” promise to slip, did it?

Ticket sellers must list date as custom item specific

We do know already that sellers in the ticket category will have to list the date of their event as a custom item specific.

eBay Motors Parts and Accessories are included in the sale, but there are a bunch of category exclusions, most notably media listings (including Books, Music, Movies & DVDs and Video Games). Fixed price listings are not included.

There is a lot of detail in the announcement, and I would encourage all sellers to read it for themselves. Here are the highlights, and no doubt more information will be forthcoming over the next few weeks:

Multiple variant listings

Sellers will be able to offer variants of products – for example, shirts in different colours and sizes – within the same listing. It will be possible to vary the price (but not the shipping) for different items in the same listing. This is as announced by Mark Lewis for eBay UK at Catalyst last month.

Multi-variant listings will be available in Mens’ and Womens’ Shoes categories from the week commencing 15th June, and for the rest of Clothing, Shoes and Accessories plus Home and Garden from mid-July. Rollout across all categories is planned, but currently has no implementation date (the rumour I hear is 2010).

Amazonification of product pages

There will be an expansion of product pages: frequently used to group identical items in Music and Electronics (e.g. all the copies of one particular CD), expect to see these in Books, Movies & DVDs, Music, Video Games, Cell Phones, and Tickets, with more categories to follow. More sellers will be chasing the highlighted “value box” at the top right

The new view item page which eBay have been testing for the past year will roll out to “most” buyers by mid-June. “Photo zoom” is coming later this summer, together with an animated countdown timer for auction listings.

Dispute resolution moves from PayPal to eBay

eBay are touting this as a “new dispute resolution process”, but in fact, it looks very much like the old PayPal dispute resolution process, only hosted on eBay instead of PayPal; eBay themselves say that they will “retain substantially the same definitions and policies that PayPal uses to resolve item not received and item not as described disputes”.

Buyers will have the current 45 days to file a non-receipt or SNAD claim with eBay. Exactly how this will differ from filing a claim with PayPal isn’t immediately apparent, except that buyers will be able to file the dispute whatever payment method they have used. Once the claim is filed, buyers “may” be given the option to contact eBay by phone (we’ve heard from some people involved in the testing process that this has been done). The case is then reviewed by an eBay Customer Service rep, who will consider transaction details, buyer and seller track record, shipping information and item location; if the buyer’s claim warrants further investigation, the CS rep will contact the seller. eBay say:

We’ll be taking a more active role, and in certain cases when we determine the seller was not at fault we may refund the buyer at our own expense.

Optimistically, it’s possible that this new process might stop serial non-receipt claimants on eBay. Sellers, though, are going to see it as the loss of yet more control over the transaction, with eBay likely to be just as trigger-happy with refunds as PayPal are.

The new resolution process applies to eBay.com only; there’s no news when or if it might roll out in other countries. The transition process from PayPal disputes to eBay disputes begins Q2 2009 (i.e. now) and the change should be complete before the holiday selling season. I have no doubt that sellers will have a raft of questions about this, so leave us a comment and I’ll do my best to get more info as required.

Returns and handling time info required by 15th June

eBay have extended the time allowed for sellers to add returns and handling information to their core listings until 15th June. GTC listings must have this information by mid-September.

USPS & UPS tracking information can show in My eBay

For sellers who print shipping labels through eBay or PayPal, tracking information will automatically show in the buyer’s My eBay. Information can also be added manually, but this will only work for USPS and UPS tracking. (This really is very cool and I wish they’d do it for all carriers.)

Smart FAQs

An expansion of the current facility to add “frequently asked questions” to your listings, Smart FAQs will allow sellers a little more control over the pre-written responses buyers and potential buyers get to see. For those who get a large number of ASQs, it may save them some time.

(In view of a recent comments thread, we’ll be looking at ASQs in a bit more detail later in the week.)

Cleaning up Fine Jewelry

photo credit: stephend9

There are some major policy changes in the Jewellery and Watches category, which will be enforced from mid-July:

• Items may only be listed in Fine Jewelry if they are solid precious metal, and if the stones named in the piece have the optical, physical and chemical properties of the naturally mined stone.
• Manufactured stones are not permitted in Fine Jewelry.
• Manufactured stones may only be listed in Fashion Jewelry or Engagement & Wedding.
• Plated or filled metal items are not permitted in Fine Jewelry.
• The word “diamond” may only be used to describe stones with the “exact mineral composition of a diamond”. “Imitation diamonds” must be described as what they really are. This affects all jewelry categories.
• Fine jewelry should not be listed in the Fashion Jewelry category.

And that’s not all

Other changes include some alterations to categories and item specifics. Seller Manager will be free for all sellers beginning 15th June (it’s already free in the UK).

And the UK?

We already know a lot of this is coming in the UK too, as Mark Lewis announced it at Catalyst last month. There’ll be a separate announcement by eBay UK tomorrow: rumour has it that compulsory free shipping in some categories is on the cards, so don’t move that dial

eBay’s preamble to the announcement says:

Keeping eBay a thriving marketplace requires a close partnership between sellers and eBay to give buyers the experience they expect. We continue to invest in driving traffic and buyer loyalty, and we need your help to make buyers happy and keep them coming back. For our part, we’re also taking steps to make it easier and more profitable for you to sell.

With the exception of variant listings, I’m not seeing a vast amount for sellers in this. Most of it – tracking in My eBay, Smart FAQs, the expansion of product pages – is just tweaking changes eBay have already made.

The change that most sellers are going to focus on is that dispute process, with its unclear refund process. Sure, most of us get that happier buyers come back to eBay more often, they spend more money and so we sell more, but is eBay’s aggressive couponing strategy really achieving that? Is eBay telling buyers “don’t worry if you get ripped off, we’ll refund you” really going to make them feel safer? And given that sellers with appalling feedback and appalling terms and conditions are still selling on the site, is making buyers feel more secure going to make them do more shopping? I don’t think so.

Smart FAQs and zooming pictures are nice for sellers to have, but they don’t make up for years of being beaten down by eBay’s management, and they won’t bring the upturn in sales that lots of smaller sellers especially are demanding. For a twice-a-year-only “big announcement”, this feels curiously flat and empty.

eBays say that 90% of users are now using the new format, and that “response from the Community to the new finding has been great”. A thread on the US discussion board is less enthusiastic: one member writes “the biggest single enhancement the users have asked for is to keep the OPT OUT link working because we don’t like or even want the new search”.

The announcement’s been made only for eBay.com, so it’s not quite clear how this will affect other sites: eBay UK had said the old system would be retired in March, so it’s possible we’ll see the option to opt out disappear before .com users do.

Time to dust off that buying ID and list a few personal items for free if you’re an eBay.com user. Plus this year if you get a Valentines gift that’s really not suitable, at least you can unload it for free

There is also some clarification on how UK listings with ISV will appear on eBay.com if they offer paper payment methods which have now been banned for US eBayers. James, eBay UK’s community manager, wrote on the PowerSeller board:

As long as you are offering a safe payment method then your listings will show on the US Site. How this works is when you purchase ISV (because you need to offer PayPal as a requirement for ISV) if the listing also offers cheques/ money orders, then these payment methods will be removed & not appear as options on the US site.

We’re still waiting for clarification of what will happen to listings which offer paper payments within the body of the description. For now, if you’re paying for ISV, then avoiding mention of paper payment methods in your description is probably the safest route to take.

There are a few restrictions, sellers must have DSRs of 4.5 and above (or be new sellers yet to gain DSR ratings) and some categories (including Media, Motors, Real Estate and Business and Industrial categories) are excluded.

There have been many incentives to list long duration fixed price multiple quantity listings on eBay recently, so it’s interesting to see a promotion aimed at the exact opposite behaviour.

This promotion is likely to fill the site with items ending soonest (which will climb to the top of search results), doubtless many of which will be listed at prices close to the desired final sale price.

Auctions are a selling tactic well worth pursuing, if you sell on eBay.com and routinely list fixed price items only I’d recommend trying some auctions.

Free shipping

• All sellers who offer free shipping will get free subtitle listing enhancement.
• PowerSellers who offer free shipping will get double FVF discounts.
• Sellers are reminded that listings with free shipping get a boost in Best Match.

Media Categories

All sellers get 5c insertion fees and free subtitle when they list using pre-filled item information.

These offers apply only on eBay.com. Other eBay sites have different fee structures.

Some categories (vehicles, real estate, business) are excluded, as are BIN listings and 7 and 10 day auctions. This close to Christmas, sellers taking advantage of the promotion would be well advised to pay for the BIN upgrade and let nervous buyers get on with their shopping, rather than being forced to wait for the end of an auction, however short.

It’s no surprise to see eBay offer a discount, to boost listings, a week before what’s normally the busiest shopping weekend in the US of the holiday season. What’s not surprising is that again the listing promotion is aimed at auctions and not at fixed price listings.

But this doesn’t feel quite like the whole story to me. If the policy works, and sellers are changing their behaviour as desired because of it, why change the policy? The duplicate listings policy was – at least in part – intended to stop a few huge sellers dominating particular categories: might we assume that eBay are now happy to have one or two or their largest sellers dominant after all?

eBay.com will continue to show a maximum of ten listings per seller per search results page. Sellers should at least spread their listings out over time rather than listing in ‘clumps’ to try to avoid having them hidden under this policy.

eBay is on average 25% cheaper than the high street on like for like new items

“eBay is cheap” was very unpopular with sellers last year; will this credit crunch Christmas be any different?

Meanwhile, over the pond, Greg Fant from the Marketing and Buyer Experience team has details of what eBay.com will be doing. “Millions of eligible customers” are to receive coupons for money-off their eBay purchases; the coupons will appear throughout the site and in buyers’ My eBay accounts. Presumably there’s some targetting going on, as the actual percentage discounts offered will vary; several UK members I know have received vouchers for 10% off in specific categories. The coupons will be valid for both auctions and BINs, “for a very limited time” to get shoppers out spending as soon as possible.

from top rated sellers

The Daily Deal will also highlight a deep-discounted product again with free shipping; a different product, available in limited quantities, will be featured each day. So far, this promo appears to be entirely of buy.com.

Frankly, Mr Fant’s AB post is, at best, disingenuous. These promotions are not for all eBay sellers: they’re of specific, selected sellers, whose IDs are coded into the links from eBay’s home page. Presenting this to eBay sellers generally as “special deals to increase excitement, drive buzz, and keep buyers coming back to eBay for more” is missing the point entirely: what’s being driven is buyers straight from the home page to the listings of eBay’s favoured merchants.

0 results found for obama inauguration ticket

The tickets may be gone, but inauguration merchandise, from badges and periscopes to hotel rooms, is still all over eBay.

eBay has extended the grace period for .com sellers to amend their listings to remove references to paper payments to January 15th 2009. Sellers who have to cancel and relist Good Til Cancelled listings in order to remove references to prohibited payment methods, will have their insertion and feature fees credited to their seller account.

What’s still not clear is how this affects non-US sellers whose listings are available on eBay.com, whether using the ISV upgrade or on an international search. Both pinkie James on the UK PowerSeller Board and John McDonald, head of Trust and Safety in the US, talking to Scot Wingo, were unable to clarify the position. In Australia during the short period where PayPal was the only permitted payment method, sellers who offered other means of payment had their listings hidden from Australian buyers. Scot asked John whether sellers on .com would be permitted to offer paper payments to buyers from countries where this is still permitted: he, like thousands of sellers, is still waiting for an answer to this one. If the head of T&S doesn’t know, one has to wonder just who he’s gone to ask; as soon as we get an answer, I’ll update this post.

Updated to add the answer:

A little site experimentation finds that if you search for something you’re likely to find from German sellers and then choose one of the ones not offering PayPal, the View Item page is blocked:

This item is not available for purchase
This item is not available for purchase on eBay United States.
Learn more about our accepted payments policy.
View the original listing on eBay and buy this item on eBay Germany

More generously than we might expect, there is a link to the listing on the original site.

On items which offer PayPal plus paper payments on the original non-.com listing, when viewed on .com the paper payments are not shown.

both research and the input we’ve received from sellers indicate that buyers tend to purchase less often when they see a large quantity of items available. This is most likely because they feel a lack of urgency to purchase, or they perceive that the item isn’t selling well.

This certainly mirrors my experience, and that of other TameBayers: buyers buy faster when they think they might miss out.

Depending on the item, of course, a quantity of ten is still too high. Right now I have a few items listed that, with a quantity of 3 or 4 available for 10 days, I get a dozen watchers and no sales; if I list them singly, I can sell a couple every day. In many categories – largely, the ones selling pretty non-essentials – multiple item listings just don’t work so well. So if this change rolls on other eBay sites, it would be very useful to have the facility to set our own maximum visible quantity for each item.

A seller contacted me this morning and their items were invisible on eBay UK. Logging into their account they could see items for sale but a search of sellers other items stated they had nothing listed for sale. Even when searching for specific individual items by title they failed to appear in search results.

Some time later the items re-appeared on the site, but they had the newly listed icon next to them – including the item shown above which is a ten day listing with just over 24 hours left to run. A nine day old listing should not be designated as newly listed with the newly listed icon.

This evening things got progressively worse. First came the messages that eBay were unable to run the search entered, although eBay’s off site adverts seemed to function perfectly. Send buyers off eBay while it’s broken and they may never return.

Then the situation deteriated further with searches returning messages simply saying “Sorry, that’s not working right now”. Title and description searches are known to be broken with an estimate of about a week to fix. This evening not even title searches were working, sellers with listings finishing this evening may not have had great success. The problem appears to have affected both the eBay UK and eBay.com sites.