eBay

kalvin@ebay.com · ‎09-18-2013

Hi everyone,

To accommodate an internal meeting, we're moving the session an hour later, but opening up the board a few hours early for as many questions as possible. See you at 2PM Eastern!

~Kalvin
eBay.ca Community Manager

kalvin@ebay.com

raphael@ebay.com · ‎09-18-2013

@mr.elmwood wrote:
Poco, I actually figured that. I do not want to give up my pictures in the listings as they are much larger with better detail.

Can a buyer see all the gallery pictures on their mobile device? Are they easily directed to those pictures?

As pocomocomputing said, adding pictures to the eBay gallery as well as in the description will allow mobile buyers a much better experience. The images you upload in the gallery are optimized for mobile and on the various apps they can zoom in and examine them much better than they can when looking at the description, assuming they even look there.

pocomocomputing · ‎09-18-2013

@pocomocomputing wrote:
@mr.elmwood wrote:
Kalvin, at the former eBay live, I was introduced to the concept of "best practices. That has evolved over the last five years I am sure. What are today's' best practices?

What constitutes a great listing that causes buyers to buy instead of moving on?
You use one eBay picture and have more in the description. Put all your pictures in eBay photos and no photos in the listings (or at least in both places). That is one of the current best practices. Supposedly better for eBay mobile because photos and description are separate tabs. A buyer may not look at the description and see the other photos there. They may only look at the eBay photos (one that you have).

Looking at your listings, you do not use eBay Item Specifics. Buyers may search by make and model by items specifics. Item specifics are on the left side when you search to refine a buyers search. If you do not have the manufacturer and model, any time a buyer clicks on that item specific on the left, then your item will be dropped from the search list the buyer made by title.

This was before with old search and new search also.

I had an item with quantity back when item specifics were first coming out a couple of years ago. I entered my own item specifics as to the size (60, 80 120 mm). eBay eventually created their own item specific with a different name for the item specific called diameter and not size. My sales stopped. I noticed the new item specifics one day and updated my listings to use the eBay item specific called diameter. Boom, sales started again and I sold out in 2 months much faster than before. I was one of the very few who noticed that eBay had added the item specific to that category so I had a large search advantage over other seller as to being found and almost exclusive for a while for any buyer using the diameter item specific to refine their search.

In your case, having no eBay item specific really hurts you in my opinion.

Both the item specifics and pictures are part of best practices and Seller Information Center.

bargainhunteram · ‎09-18-2013

If I list on .com, what would happen if a Canadian wants to purchase one of my items, in terms of shipping costs that are quoted to them?

I have some more questions, but I wanted to get this one on the board quickly.

pjcdn2005 · ‎09-18-2013

raphael@ebay.com wrote:
@pjcdn2005 wrote:
Hello Gentlemen,

Other than the fact that so many Canadians are upset about the GSP, there are still some site issues with it. Some of these issues directly affect Canadian buyers and some affect all GSP buyers.

-In some cases, if a buyer purchases an item on .ca rather than .com, they pay more in import fees even if the item is going to the same location.

-On both .com and .ca the shipping price shows one price on the search page and another shipping price when clicking on the listing

-There is no breakdown of the fees paid so the buyer does not know what they paid in taxes, duties and/or service charges. This also makes it difficult for registered GST sellers to claim the GST paid.

-I just noticed that on GSP listings there is no return policy stated for GSP countries even when the seller has a return policy for the U.S. Does this mean that there are no returns for GSP items?

As a seller, it really bothers me that these problems are taking so long to address as the more negativity about the GSP, the more likely that some buyers will stop shopping on ebay altogether.

As a buyer, the GSP rarely benefits Canadians which suggests that ebay does not have buyers best interests in mind and the fact that the current issues are still not fixed only adds fuel to the fire. I realize the purpose that ebay had in mind when implementing the GSP but if it is not working for some countries, why continue it? Or, at the very least, let sellers who are willing to ship with or without the GSP to give both options on their listings. Many other sites do have that option.
Hello pjcdn2005,

Most of the issues you mention have been reported to and acknowledged by the GSP team. I know first hand that the import charge discrepancies between eBay.ca and eBay.com, as well as those between the search results and view item pages are currently being worked on.

The import charges breakdown not being provided is an issue we are tackling with Pitney Bowes. I unfortunately don't have an update on this at this time.

The returns part is something that needs to be worked out between buyers and sellers for now, until the Managed Returns team based in the US implements cross-border solutions currently being worked out.

I appreciate the sense of urgency you are communicating with regards to these issues and I would like to stress that both the eBay Canada and the GSP teams are working closely to get these resolved as fast as possible.

Why wouldn't that have been worked out before GSP was implemented? Are managed returns and GSP going to be integrated in some way....one can't be used without the other? Or is one or the other going to be mandatory?

From the ebay.com help pages

Remember that with the Global Shipping Program, a seller who offers to refund your original shipping will only be returning the domestic shipping cost; you will not receive a refund for the international shipping cost and import charges that were paid to the US shipping center.

It sounds to me like ebay is throwing both seller and buyer under the bus in this situation. There's not much time left so I won't expand on that right now.

pocomocomputing · ‎09-18-2013

@mr.elmwood wrote:
Poco, I actually figured that. I do not want to give up my pictures in the listings as they are much larger with better detail.

Can a buyer see all the gallery pictures on their mobile device? Are they easily directed to those pictures?

If you upload the same high res picture that you have in the description to the eBay photos, they have zoom and enlarge so you will get the same or similar enlargement. Buyers are learning the new listings format and how to use the eBay photo gallery.

Older buyers may prefer having the photos in the description so have in both to maximize appeal to both buyers.

On mobile devices (I check on an iphone, your large photos in the description are resized to small. So no advantage there. An iphone user can expand the image there but the separate ebay photos are easier to enlarge.

You need to adapt to the mobile market to not lose sales. mobile is becoming a big way to shop.

If an ebay user is using an iPad mobile device, they see you listings fine with the Ipad browser. There is an ebay app for the iPad but i never tried it. So I do not know what it looks like and how it works.

raphael@ebay.com · ‎09-18-2013

@bargainhunteram wrote:
If I list on .com, what would happen if a Canadian wants to purchase one of my items, in terms of shipping costs that are quoted to them?

I have some more questions, but I wanted to get this one on the board quickly.

Since your items will be physically located in the US, your items would appear to Canadians the same way opther US items appear to them. You will have to specify shipping services and cost to Canadian buyers on top of the US domestic shipping catering to US buyers.

If you're planning to retain inventory within Canada for your domestic audience, you have 2 choices:

1) specify flat rate international shipping to Canada on your US listing, or

2) set your US listing to only be offered for shipping to the US and create another listing on eBay.ca only with shipping to Canada.

raphael@ebay.com · ‎09-18-2013

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

Why wouldn't that have been worked out before GSP was implemented? Are managed returns and GSP going to be integrated in some way....one can't be used without the other? Or is one or the other going to be mandatory?

From the ebay.com help pages

Remember that with the Global Shipping Program, a seller who offers to refund your original shipping will only be returning the domestic shipping cost; you will not receive a refund for the international shipping cost and import charges that were paid to the US shipping center.

It sounds to me like ebay is throwing both seller and buyer under the bus in this situation. There's not much time left so I won't expand on that right now.

The GSP program is in its first iteration rightn now, the team is working hard to bring the right enhancements to he program and I know for a fact that Canada is front of mind for them. IMplementing something like this is a very complex task and for sure there are going to be kinks to iron out no matter how muct attention was given to it prior to launch.

Regarding the integration of Managed Returns and GSP in the future, unfortunately I don't have enough knowledge of their collective plans to answer this right now.