TameBay » eBay.ie

Free 99p auction listings for private sellers to be limited

Sue Bailey — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:27:56 +0000

It’s the policy change that UK business sellers have been asking for, begging for, pleading for for months: eBay UK are introducing a limit on free 99p auction listings for private sellers: here’s the welcome announcement. There are two tranches to the roll-out of the new policy.

1. Beginning this week, there will be a limit of 100 live listings at any one time

for UK and Irish registered sellers with feedback lower than 25, and
for all overseas-registered private sellers listing on eBay.co.uk and eBay.ie.

Multiple items on a single listing will all count separately towards this total, so that’s not a sneaky way around the limit either.

Any private seller listing in quantity will be reviewed by Customer Support, and may be required to register as a business, or may be blocked from selling completely. We’ve seen a number of high-volume private sellers being required to register as businesses already.

Sellers registered on eBay.com are bound by the International Trading Policy, which now requires high volume sellers actively listing on European sites to be registered as business sellers. Penalties for breaching the ITP include demotion in search and being blocked from listing on European sites altogether.

2. From June 2010, free listings for all private sellers listing on eBay UK will be limited to 100 per month. Any listings placed in excess of this limit will be charged “an insertion fee”. There’s currently no published detail of whether this insertion fee will be the normal one quoted in eBay’s fee schedule, or whether this will be reconsidered between now and June.

For those who are are thinking this might just be too good to be true, the announcement went live at 2.36pm UK time, well after the 12 noon cut-off for April fools

Free auction listings for private sellers this Sunday

Sue Bailey — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:52:54 +0000

On Sunday 15th November, private sellers will pay no insertion fees for auction listings on eBay UK and eBay Ireland, irrespective of starting price. Auction-with-BIN is included, BIN proper is not. Other fees apply, read the small print before you list… you know the score

More info from eBay UK and eBay Ireland respectively.

eBay UK and IE hold half-price Motors’ listing weekend

Sue Bailey — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:02:10 +0000

eBays UK and Ireland Motors are holding a half-price listing weekend for the 6th and 7th June. Insertion fees for auction and BIN listings will be half the normal rate, so £4 or €4.50. Classified ads do not qualify for the promotion. All other fees apply as normal, and there is some other small print, so do read it before you list.

eBay Ireland aren’t assisting with VAT changes either

Sue Bailey — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:30:43 +0000

Lest UK sellers think they were alone in being given no help from eBay with changes to the VAT rate, eBay Ireland have put out an announcement regarding their own VAT changes which is almost a cut and paste copy of the UK one. Irish VAT increases from 21% to 21.5% on Monday 1st December, and as is the case for UK sellers, Irish eBayers will have to individually amend listings without sales, or end and relist items with sales/bids, in order to be able to edit the VAT rate quoted.

The announcement about changes in the VAT rate was made in October, so eBay Ireland have had even longer to come up with a more useful solution than the week that Alastair Darling gave eBay UK. Irish sellers will no doubt draw their own conclusions from the timing of this announcement, one working day before the VAT change goes live: could it have only been prompted by the change in the UK rate?

One small improvement on the Irish announcement: the patronising tag line

With strong competition and early discounting coming from the high street this Christmas season we know buyers are now, more than ever, being attracted to great value bargains.

which concluded the British one has been omitted.

Action plan for VAT changes to your eBay listings

Chris Dawson — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:00:43 +0000

Due to the large number of VAT registered sellers who will have to update their eBay listings manually this weekend I thought I’d share my work plan for updating VAT rates on live listings.

To do today

Use TurboLister to bulk edit all auctions without bids ending on or after 1st to amend to the new VAT rate. It will then be correct on the date the auction ends.
Bulk edit all templates in TurboLister (you’ll need to do this in two steps – all auction templates and then all fixed price templates)
Consider launching shorter duration auctions to cover any days when you didn’t list. 3, 5 and 7 day auctions can plug the gap and be listed today with the new VAT rate. (If you use 1 day auctions make sure that they are listed with the current VAT rate)
Schedule fixed price listings to start on 1st

To do on Sunday 30th November

End auctions with bids, consider selling to the current highest bidder if an acceptable price has been reached.
Use TurboLister to bulk edit any fixed price listings without sales or best offers, for any subsequent sales before midnight edit VAT back to the old rate on the SMP invoice.

This is potentially the most difficult step as whilst you can see start and current quantities to identify listings with sales (Right click TurboLister columns, click “Customise columns” and make “Qty” and “Available Quantity” visible), it’s not possible to see which listings have received best offers. Attempting a bulk edit which includes just one listing that’s received a best offer will block the VAT field from being revised.
End any fixed price listings with sales or best offers and relist with the revised VAT rate as soon as possible (or schedule them to restart on 1st December) and manually edit the VAT rate on the SMP invoice for any final sales from the 30th.

You should now have all your listings updated showing the correct rate of VAT and can enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Feedback revision rolls out for eBay UK, Ireland, .com

Sue Bailey — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:54:41 +0000

eBay UK have announced that feedback revision will be rolled out on 20th October. eBay Ireland and eBay.com will also launch feedback revision on the same day.

As already announced for eBay Australia, the new system will allow sellers to request that buyers edit feedback within 30 days of it being left. Buyers will only be able to revise feedback “upwards” – i.e. a positive cannot be changed to a negative or neutral – and sellers cannot request that buyers edit positive feedback. Buyers will be able to edit the rating, the DSR scores and the comment they left.

Sellers will be able to request 5 edits per 1,000 feedbacks received, though eBay have said that this limit may be reconsidered: when it was announced for the Australian site, many sellers wondered what would be the position for buyers who’d left multiple non-positive feedbacks for combined transactions, so it would be good to see this addressed in the near future.

There’s more detail on exactly how the system will work in the FAQs.

eBay UK will also launch the new Resolution Centre at the end of October: this replaces the current Dispute Console, and just the change of name alone should make trading on eBay a more pleasant experience. There’s not much detail in the announcement of exactly what will be changing, but one welcome addition should be “a separate flow for buyers and sellers to mutually agree to cancel a transaction”: seeing this process made simpler and less antagonistic should be good news for buyers *and* sellers.

Auction your car for free on eBay.ie Motors

Sue Bailey — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:30:56 +0000

For the entire month of October, eBay Ireland are offering free insertion fees for car auctions. The offer applies to the Cars subcategory of Cars, Parts & Vehicles, and to auction listings only. The basic auction insertion fee, normally €9, is being waived; all other fees apply as normal. BINs and classified ads are not eligible, though it’s not absolutely clear whether auction-with-BIN is excluded too, or whether those listings will just be charged the BIN upgrade fee.

eBay Ireland appoint new MD

Sue Bailey — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:16:47 +0000

Gareth Davis, MD of eBay.ie

eBay Ireland have announced the appointment of a new Managing Director. Gareth Davis joins eBay.ie from management consultants McKinsey & Co, New Jersey, where he worked as an Engagement Manager, leading a number of high profile business strategy and implementation projects for multi-billion dollar companies across consumer goods, healthcare, travel & logistics, food & beverage and private equity industries. He said, “Irish consumers are continuing to embrace the internet and it is an exciting time to join eBay.ie, which offers such great value and such a wide selection of products to Irish online shoppers.”

His predecessor in the role, John McElligott, moves to a global position within eBay, as Director of Strategy and M&A, eBay Global Classifieds, which looks like a timely move.

eBay.ie introduce Best Match and DSRs in search

Sue Bailey — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:04:47 +0000

eBay Ireland have announced some changes today which they say are designed to make the site an easier and safer place to shop. Most of these reflect changes made on other eBay sites earlier in the year.

DSRs under 4.3 disadvantaged in search

The most significant change for sellers is that DSRs will now impact placement in search. Sellers with any one of their DSR scores at 4.3 or below will be placed lower in search results. DSR scores for this purpose are calculated over 30 days, so anyone who slips below the threshold due to abnormal problems – perhaps a batch of mail lost, or one very disgruntled customer – should be able to rectify things. eBay’s tips on improving DSRs are always worth a read.

Watch more, checkout quicker

Watch list capacity will be increased to 200 items, and eBayers will be able to create customised lists from items already on their watch list. Buyers will now be able to pay by PayPal without actually leaving the eBay site.

New view item page

This is the same layout as introduced on eBay.co.uk, .fr, .com and elsewhere: you can see a mock-up of the Irish version here.

Changes to search behaviour

Best Match will become the default search sort, though items from Irish sellers will continue to be placed above overseas sellers in search results. Search will now take into account the category the item is listed in, and any item specifics, when presenting search results: make sure you have those item specifics filled out! These changes have been extremely controversial on other eBay sites, with sellers complaining they can’t find their own items, and many buyers also less than enthusiastic, so it’ll be interesting to see if Irish users are any happier about the implementation.

eBay Ireland are rather vague on the timescale for these changes. The new view item page is slated for “late this year or early next year”, though some users may be seeing it already. Increased watch list capacity should be available “in September”, and there is no mention of timing for any of the changes to search sorting.

10c listing weekend for Irish sellers

Chris Dawson — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:59:49 +0000

For Saturday and Sunday, 20th and 21st Sept 2008 Irish sellers can list auctions and Buy it Now listings for just 10 cents.

This promo is just days before the fee changes on the 25th, which will see multiple item Buy It Now listings available on the Irish site for as little as 2 cents for Anchor shops and 6 cents for featured shops. Perversely, given that eBay are about to encourage them, multiple item listings are excluded from the promotion.

Sellers will need to consider their strategy for using this promotion. Relisting items that have sold should retain the recent sales boost in search, but if sellers list multiple listings for the same product they’ll be disadvantaged in search just a few days after the promotion.

A similar cheap listing day for eBay UK was edited to include multiple item listings, to fit with eBay’s current best listing practices.

Another reminder for UK and Irish business sellers

Sue Bailey — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:04:10 +0000

There’s a reminder from eBay UK today that business sellers in the UK and Ireland need to register as such with eBay. The new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 came into force in the UK on 26th May, under which it is a criminal offence to make false or misleading statements relating to the status of your business. Irish sellers have the same obligation under the Consumer Protection Act 2007.

Of course, this has been something that eBay has been talking about since at least January: I’d hazard a guess that most of the sellers who are not registered as businesses when they should be, have made a deliberate decision to do so, perhaps hoping to avoid tax on their earnings, or their obligations under the Distance Selling Regulations.

Though eBay do make some efforts to limit non-registered businesses on the site, many sellers believe they don’t go nearly far enough, and complain that eBay do not act on reports of breaches of their own rules. A recent thread on the PowerSeller Board complained that eBay have told sellers to report unregistered businesses to Trading Standards, but that Trading Standards are not interested. If the information in that thread is correct, Trading Standards themselves seem to have a very limited understanding of the law in this area: the Distance Selling Regulations are not the only legislation with which online traders need to comply, and all sellers should protect both themselves and their customers by knowing about their legal obligations.

eBay UK, IE update user agreement

Sue Bailey — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 14:59:09 +0000

eBay UK and eBay Ireland have announced changes to the user agreement and privacy policy. These are effective 13th August for existing members.

User Agreement

The two main changes are that

if your eBay seller fees are more than 180 days overdue, eBay may take them from your PayPal account, and
sellers are explicitly made responsible for checking the accuracy of pre-filled item information, stock photography and other catalogue services supplied by eBay.

Privacy Policy

eBay can share your information within the eBay group, e.g. with PayPal or Skype, and
with law enforcement agencies in the case of suspected fraudulent and malicious activity.
A new “No Spam, Spyware or Spoofing” section explicitly forbids the adding of “other eBay users, even a user who has purchased an item from you, to your mailing list (email or physical mail) without their express consent”.
A new “Marketing” section gives users the ability to opt out of targetted marketing on the site. As eBay were running user tests last month which included looking at reactions to adverts and paid-for services, the more cynical among us might wonder if this heralds yet more third-party ads on the site.

If you’re happy with the new agreements, you need do nothing; if you’re not, you’re invited to close your account.

3 free listings for new Irish sellers

Chris Dawson — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 09:37:54 +0000

eBay Ireland are offering new sellers their first three listings for free between 27th June – 24th July. This includes both insertion fee and free gallery upgrade (which is free to all sellers on eBay UK and eBay.ie until 30th September this year. There are several exceptions, the promotion is intended to allow new sellers to list single items on auction or buy it now so check before listing if you are creating a new selling ID to take advantage.

Ireland Motors’ classified fees increased

Sue Bailey — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:58:53 +0000

eBay Ireland have just announced that the fee for Motors’ classified ads is to increase from â‚¬9 to â‚¬20. Classified ads last for 28 days. The new fees will be in effect from next Tuesday, 10th June, so we predict a busy weekend on the Irish Motors’ site.

eBay Jobs isn’t working

Sue Bailey — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:31:52 +0000

Fancy a job working for eBay? No, me neither but even if we did, we’d be out of luck: eBay appear to have forgotten to renew the domain name for their site advertising jobs in their Dublin offices.

Or perhaps it’s that eBay Jobs Ireland didn’t actually have any real jobs listed? A TameBay correspondent who applied for a CS job back in April received no contact whatsoever apart from this automated email:

Thank you, [his name], for expressing interest in our organization.
We have successfully received your submission to the following position(s):
Customer Support Representative DUMMY REQ 26165BR
Thank you.
*Please do not reply to this email.
emphasis mine

Faked advert that wasn’t offering a real position, or just part of the job description?

Is this the last eBay Live?

Sue Bailey — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:20:08 +0000

photo credit: pmo

Skip McGrath is obviously hearing the same rumours I am, that this year’s eBay Live in Chicago may be the last. I hope it’s not true, but I wouldn’t be surprised: collecting pins, the clapping tunnel and dancing to Weird Al Yankovic seem somehow to belong to an eBay that’s gone with Meg. eBay’s execs these days seem to prefer a more business-like forum: witness JD making the big announcements about eBay changes at the Ecommerce Forum, and now Lorrie Norrington giving the keynote at PeSA’s conference.

eBay Universities also seem to be on their way out. eBay will not be running any UK universites in 2008, though Ireland still have events planned.

Personally, I think this is a shame. I can understand that eBay want to talk to the big sellers, and putting on expensive events for newbies and hobby sellers and those of us who only sell beads is a poor return on investment. But the chance to meet other sellers, network, brainstorm, and just remind oneself that eBay can be fun as well as work, this I will miss. Who’s up for organising our own event?

Recyle for a cycle on eBay Ireland

Chris Dawson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:06:58 +0000

Kicking off on St Patricks Day, the greenest day in the Irish calendar, eBay Ireland are encouraging their users to go green and recyle with the chance to bag a bike (or just a bag).

With the message that most households have some Â£3000 (â‚¬4400) of unwanted possessions cluttering up their house eBay are running a competition between 10th March and 13th April with five bikes and hundreds of eBay.ie shopping bags as prizes.

Items must be listed on eBay.ie and sellers need to register to enter the promotion. It’s not quite clear how eBay will decide which items qualify but they have to be either an unwanted gift, an item no longer needed or an eco-friendly product. eBay retain discretion over which items qualify.

There’s also a fun “How green is your house” quiz, as well as some real life stories of sellers who keep their house clutter free by selling on eBay.

Irish students to get degree in eBay

Chris Dawson — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:56:11 +0000

Second year degree students in Irelands Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) are to study eBay as part of their bachelor degree. The “Selling on eBay.ie” module is now part of the “business entrepreneurship” and the “business in enterprise” degree courses.

The first 46 students to take the course will be involved in a virtual trading project that includes selling on eBay Ireland.

The IADT will run also five week evening courses on “entrepreneurship” which will also include the eBay module.

I’m just wondering how many Irish students will start making too much money on eBay to even bother finishing their degree courses

eBay.ie expand postage discount scheme

Sue Bailey — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:33:29 +0000

eBay.ie and An Post have just announced that the e-Parcel card scheme, which gives Irish sellers a discount on parcels up to 5kg has now been extended to cover packets up to 2kg as well.

When the e-Parcel card was first introduced last August, many sellers complained that they had never sent anything as large as a 5kg parcel, and that small packets, which comprise the vast majority of eBay dispatches, were excluded. Comparing the allegedly preferential postage rates with An Post’s standard rates, it seems that those who send the very smallest packets will still not benefit from the new scheme, but packets which would normally fall into the 1.5kg or 2kg bands would, with the card, be charged at the 1kg rate.

The scheme is available to Irish-resident eBay sellers with feedback of 90 or more, of which 98%+ must be positive. It offers preferential postage rates when sending both within Ireland and abroad.

eBay.ie education, ChannelAdvisor Catalyst 2008

Chris Dawson — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:43:22 +0000

As sellers start to wind down for a well deserved few days off at Christmas many will be putting plans into place for the next year. What better time to think about increasing your knowledge of eBay selling and ecommerce in general?

eBay.ie University/Academy

Today eBay Ireland have announced a series of training events kicking off in Dublin on January 21st with the first eBay University of the year. eBay Ireland hold their University events as an evening class running from 6.30pm – 9.00pm.

Running parallel to the eBay University is the Irish eBay Academy half-day workshops, focusing on using eBay as a selling tool. The eBay Academy will be visiting towns across Ireland right through to September, and even better the cost is subsidised by the Foras Ãiseanna Saothair (National Training and Employment Authority).

ChannelAdvisor Catalyst

Back in the UK ChannelAdvisor have announced the dates for the 2008 Catalyst Conference taking place on 21st – 22nd April in London. It’s a little early to give full details of the schedule of Catalyst but we hear Scot Wingo the CEO of ChannelAdvisor will be in the UK for the event.

In 2007 speakers from Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon and Google came together sharing their insight on the shape of ecommerce in the UK. Google gave the first public presentation on Google Checkout and Amazon is a powerhouse for ecommerce merchants and just keeps on growing.

Watch out this year for the newest Internet phenomenons to be presenting at Catalyst. I predict social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace will feature on the ecommerce landscape of tomorrow.

If you’re thinking of booking for Catalyst there is a special rate of just Â£79.00 up until December 31st (Online booking hasn’t opened yet so drop Andrea Ransom of ChannelAdvisor an email to UKCatalyst2008@channeladvisor.com).

In the US, Catalyst will be revisiting Pinehurst NC on April 1st – 3rd, 2008 and on July 3rd – 4th Catalyst visits Queensland in Australia.

eBay Ireland chief slams poor broadband availability

Sue Bailey — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:50:56 +0000

The managing director of eBay Ireland has warned that the country’s poor internet service is harming its ability to attract foreign companies to locate there. John McElligott said “I am embarrassed to tell my peers in other countries about Ireland’s connectivity problems.”

In correspondance delivered to Irish politicians over the last week, McElligott said that Ireland needs “a major leap in connectivity capabilities in terms of coverage, quality and speed” if it is to become the location of choice for companies expanding into Europe. At the moment, he said, “the UK is the destination of choice. I fear we will regret this.”

The statement will come as an embarrassment to Irish politicians, particularly Michael Martin, the minister for enterprise, trade and employment. Martin said last October that broadband availability was expanding, and that connectivity issues were not inhibiting Ireland’s attractiveness for foreign investors. The government is planning to spend €435m on communications’ improvements over the next five years, but McElligott has called for bigger and better improvements. He said, “I am comprehensively disappointed by what has been achieved to date, and highly concerned about the future.”

Display eBay in your own time zone

Chris Dawson — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 18:51:39 +0000

I’m easily confused and anything that makes my life easier is a good thing. That’s why I like the myTimeZone Firefox add-on that displays times from eBay sites around the world in local time that makes sense to me.

Normally if I visit eBay.com I’ve not got a clue what time auctions actually end. In truth I’m never quite sure whether PST is ahead or behind EST, although I’m pretty certain that CST is somewhere in the middle. It’s just all too much like hard work, I want to think in UK time as that’s what I wake up and go to bed by. Shopping on eBay.com or other eBay sites display times local to that site and sometimes even the date can be wrong (or at least wrong in the UK).

myTimeZone for eBay 1.4.0 is an add-on for the FireFox browser which turns foreign times into local times. It doesn’t even need me to tell it what “my time” is, it automatically recognises it from my computer clock.

Now if I view eBay auctions on sites other than eBay.co.uk it simply displays the time and it even corrects the date. That tells me if I need to be up early, go to bed late, might be at work, or could be up the pub, when an item I’m interested in will be ending. I don’t need to try and figure out if I’m likely to be at my computer to place a bid at some point in the future, in a random time zone. From now on I’m shopping on UK time all around the world!

myTimeZone for eBay supports eBay.co.uk, eBay.ie, eBay.com, eBay.ca and eBay.com.au. It is only available for the Firefox browser and can be downloaded from the myTimeZone website.

Disposable credit cards for ebay & PayPal

Chris Dawson — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:26:13 +0000

The Irish are making it easier to open eBay and PayPal accounts by accepting prepaid credit card style vouchers. 3V, the voucher issuer, say they will enable users to open PayPal accounts and buy and sell on eBay or indeed anywhere that accepts Visa payments. Vouchers can be purchased in local shops around Ireland, so they’re accessible to anyone over the age of 16.

I’m in two minds about this, firstly it’s good that eBay is open to users who don’t possess a credit card. The more people that can buy and sell on the site the better for everyone. However I don’t see a credit card styled voucher as giving the same verification as a proper credit card.

The 3V vouchers do offer a measure of protection to those wary of entering their credit card details online. Users are issued with a randomly generated Visa number and the CVV number is sent by text message to the users mobile. Even if the voucher is lost it can’t be used without the CVV number and essentially it’s a throwaway account once it’s used. The downside is the cost of purchasing the vouchers which in Ireland is a â‚¬5 surcharge.

3V have operated in the UK since November 2006 and on their UK site advertise their vouchers can be used on eBay.co.uk.

eBay Ireland Christmas Pressie Picker

Chris Dawson — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 11:23:38 +0000

Stuck for what to buy your loved one for Christmas? Not any more you’re not – just head over to eBay Ireland where the Christmas Pressie Picker is up and running!

Select the sex, age and relationship to the person you need to buy a gift for you and the Pressie Picker will pull up some ideas of suitable listings on eBay.

eBay university is coming to Ireland

Chris Dawson — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 15:37:37 +0000

Two eBay University dates have been announced for eBay Ireland in September. The venue is the National College of Ireland in Dublin and the courses run in the evening.

The Selling Basics course is to be held on the 4th September and is ideal for those with little or no experience selling on eBay. This course takes you through the steps from opening a seller account all the way to listing your first item on eBay.

The following week on the 13th September Beyond the Basics course is designed for those who have already sold some items on eBay and want to further their eBay business. The course will look at what makes a good listing and which tools are available to make selling on ebay troublefree.

Having attended eBay University in the UK I know that these courses are worthwhile. Often it’s not just the course content but the opportunity to network with other sellers that makes attending a must. Just one new idea can more than pay for the â‚¬40 registration cost.