Looking ahead to 2022 with Murray Lambell, eBay UK GM

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At the end of last year we spoke to Murray Lambell, eBay UK GM, about eBay’s 2021 journey. We discussed the support that eBay has given the UK merchants who have been working tirelessly throughout the pandemic, and the programmes that eBay launched last year, such as the eBay Authenticity Guarantee and Certified Refurbished experience, to build customer confidence and bring new buyers to the platform.

Murray was enthusiastic about how they have supported small businesses through eBay’s Small Business Power marketing campaign. He also highlighted the new seller education programmes – eBay ProTrader, eBay ‘Start Up Scale Up’ and eBay Academy – which have helped provide sellers with the resources they need to grow and reach their potential.

Today we are back with Murray who is looking forward to 2022 with increased optimism. On the buyer side, eBay is focused on attracting higher value buyers, who spend regularly and across categories – increasing value for sellers and improving the health of eBay’s ecosystem in the long term. eBay is continuing to expand its marketing to make sure it’s showing up ever more where potential customers are searching and considering what and where to buy.

eBay will also continue to enhance buyers’ experience across multiple categories, ensuring it is staying relevant to the needs of those shopping for specific types of inventories. For example, recognising that buyers in garden and home categories often need something different from those buying vehicle parts or collectibles.

For sellers, as well as eBay Academy (which you can sign up here to access today), in 2022 you can expect to see expanded offerings in eBay shops, advertising, fulfilment and support for cross border trade.

Of course, it’s not all plain sailing. Murray is clear that many of last year’s challenges are set to continue, with economic uncertainty, supply chain issues and inflation at the top of many shoppers’ and sellers’ minds.

However, eBay wants to demonstrate to potential buyers that they can turn to eBay to shop with peace of mind. The beauty of eBay’s marketplace is that the diversity of its selling community provides protection from some of the disruption impacting the retail industry at large, and Murray was keen to stress that this is possible thanks to all of you. The volume and variety of businesses and sellers on the platform, each with unique supply chains and price points, means eBay can offer items and services others can’t. Of course, many eBay sellers are also battling these issues now, but Murray assured me that eBay will continue to support its sellers through these challenges, as it has over recent years.

Thanks to your work as a selling community, eBay has continued to attract more buyers throughout 2021, and Murray believes that the combination of tighter consumer budgets and desire to shop more sustainably will continue to give eBay and its seller community an advantage in the market.

Particularly during lockdowns, shoppers have leaned into pre-loved and non-new categories – habits which eBay believes will be enhanced by the Authenticity Guarantee, as it increases confidence among shoppers who are new to the resale market. Similarly the Certified Refurbished programme will help sellers and buyer to make the sales and value realisation of Certified Refurb inventory better, for example through improved inventory classification and promotion.

2022 will be a year for sellers to accelerate and grow their businesses as we emerge from the pandemic and there’s a lot more to come, but more than anything Murray says he’s looking forward to getting back out there to meet many of you when in-person events return. Murray is always approachable, so if you do see him make sure you say hello. He’s always happy to hear how your business is doing and what more eBay can do to help you grow and scale.

8 Responses

  1. hmmm let me see….. well you could start by dealing with the huge amount of ‘private’ sellers who blatantly should be business registered, or maybe the vast swathes of listings that are fake, misleading or just shouldn’t be on ebay.
    Of course, we need to remember that ebay doesn’t care about these, after all…just try reportinga listing now days. Most of the opptions are goen or completely irrelevent.
    Not forgetting that nothing ever happened anyway. I used to report the same dozen or so listings froma seller every month. All blatantly breaking several ebay rules… Yet after 6 months I gave up. They were still there. Strangely, the minute one of my listings had even the slightest edge towards breaking a rule… it was deleted and i was hauled over hot coals.
    Guess if you are a business you get punished, but if you are a business, pretending to be a private seller…. you can list what you want how you want. Ebay doesn’t give two hoots.
    Anyway, Ebay continues to bleat about all the wonderful things it does… yet the facts say otherwise. 12 years of ebay trading, with around £250k a year trading for me came to an end at the later part of 2021…. I gave up with the constant battle against scammers, fairy tale delivery times, buyers that couldn’t even read the title… yet always got refunds, ever increasing fees, ever increasing ebay demands, a still broken search engine, the onslaught of Chinese sellers STILL pretending to be in UK….. I could go on, but we all know the list.
    What i can tell you is that free from Ebay, i have beena ble to see just how few issues i really get from every where else… It is more than an eye opener, it has been shocking.
    Good luck Mr Lambell, when you start looking at businesses other than those which seem to be immune to all those issues, you will maybe see the huge mountain that you still have to climb.

  2. How about starting to treat sellers equally?

    We receive around 20-25K orders per month from eBay, moved onto managed payments in June. Our fees went from 16% (including paypal) to 21%. We enquired about micropayments and have repeatedly been told since June we are on the ‘list’ to receive an invitation. How is it fair that some sellers enrolled straight onto this and we are stuck with an extortionate fee rate?

    We sell half as much on our own website and make double the amount of profit. If eBay are serious about retaining credible businesses they need to make it much more appealing to sell, otherwise it will turn into a marketplace of chinese and bedroom traders.

    I havn’t even gone into all the other issues like delivery estimates, returns abuse, reporting listings etc. But I am sure other sellers will mention these.

    We will be scaling eBay back this year and focusing on our website. eBay need to do a much better job looking after businesses instead of prioritising customers at all costs.

  3. Support small business better by doing away with all the metrics that are a constant worry and stress a small business does not want or need.
    My own website, I live and die by my reputation for delivery and how I handle things when they go wrong. Amazon if something goes wrong like I cancel a order or late delivery/dispatch I am punished for 30 days. ebay they are on my account for a year as I am not a high volume seller.
    Currently have over 50 strikes over the last 12 months for late delivery which some have been removed although nearly all have been dispatched on time. Yet due to the company I use they are not scanned till they are processed at the hub. If it is such a major issue like ebay claim it is for customers my feedback should reflect this with lots of negatives or naturals. But only the one negative and natural, so it seems to be more or a ebay problem that they have created that what customers are telling me.

    Like others have mentioned on here and one of my biggest bugbears is the amount of private sellers who clearly run a business yet avoid distance selling regulations. I have competitors who have more listings than me yet are registered as private accounts. One of them has a account on Amazon and own website where they are VAT registered as a business yet not on ebay.

  4. over the last few months i have never known so many scammers claiming items not receaved using the pandemic as a excuse and use it royal mail are not scanning the parcels not even the tracked and signed ebay are doing nothink about them i have lost hundreds of pounds over the last 6 months to be told just refund them and block them that does not make it go away

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