Recent Changes - Helpful Links

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hello folks,

Here are some links for information on the changes that were announced on 1/29.

Bill Cobb's announcement:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/ca/200801.shtml#2008-01-29085842

Jim Ambach's announcement:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/ca/200801.shtml#2008-01-29092134

Overview of Changes:
http://pages.ebay.ca/sell/update08/overview/index.html

Fees Changes:
http://pages.ebay.ca/sell/update08/basic/index.html

Fees FAQs:
http://pages.ebay.ca/sell/update08/feefaq/index.html

Rewards & Standards:
http://pages.ebay.ca/sell/update08/rewards/index.html

Rewards & Standards FAQs:
http://pages.ebay.ca/sell/update08/rewardsfaq/index.html

eBay eCommerce Forum Keynote Archive:
http://www.iian.ibeam.com/events/pmtv001/25201/

eBay eCommerce Forum Q&A Session Archive:
http://www.iian.ibeam.com/events/pmtv001/25431/

eBay Seller Webinar Archive:
https://www110.livemeeting.com/cc/vcc-ic03/view?id=ic03-rewards1&role=attend&pw=view

PowerSeller Changes:
http://pages.ebay.ca/services/buyandsell/powersellers.html

PowerSeller Fee Discounts:
http://pages.ebay.ca/services/buyandsell/powerseller/benefits/discounts.html

PowerSeller Fee Discounts FAQ:
http://pages.ebay.ca/services/buyandsell/powerseller/benefits/discounts_faq.html

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Miriam

[ciderantiques]

re: speculation about neg-happy buyers. The only negs I have received are from buyers with less than 10 feedback. This is true for a lot of sellers ~ not speculation.

It is like a right-of-passage for newbies to post their first negative. Especially when they are impatient and lack communication skills. Experienced ebayers realize the mail can actually take a while! The only thing holding back newbies was the fact they would get negative feedback in return.

I never leave feedback first for a newbie. With the new rules it won't matter. My 99.9% rating is going to slide quickly. I am quite sure of that. Can we block newbies? : )

[ciderantiques]

Case in Point: small packet to Florida is now 10 days on route and still not delivered (common ~ we all know the drill). Buyer is experienced (500 feedback), but admits she has had little experience with Canadian sellers. She said "I trust you based on your feedback" but admits she is worried. I assure her that the small packet has $100 insurance and very few items are lost in the mail. All is calm so far.

However! I know that negative creates negative. When a bunch of negatives start to appear there will be a snowball effect. I call it the "Me Too Effect". A negative posting casts doubt and creates more doubt all at the same time. The more you have, the more you will get. I have seen it happen to good sellers. I don't think ebay has any clue about the ramifications of the new feedback rules.

[katiusciav]

ebay will never allow you to block newbies...

[coxengines]

Miriam,

Thanks for a comprehensive and level-headed reply (post #19).

I am still polishing the apple;-), well OK, tweaking my questions.

In the meantime, HAPPY VALENTINE to each and all of you!!!

:-x

Xena

[ciderantiques]

Hi Kat, I know, I can be a smart a@s once in a while. Karen. I could always cancel their bids : )

[westernstargifts]

Now sellers with high shipping, lousy customer service and crappy feedback are going to have to change their ways to succeed or find somewhere else to do business. We are cheerfully waving goodbye to this revenue.

Welcome Miriam and thank you for being so willing to answer questions.

In spite of what you say above I still see the same "big" sellers on eBay doing the same thing as before. The top four sellers of jewellery on eBay are still charging outrageous S/H charges. Three of these sellers are actually the same company with different user id's. They even go so far as to tell customers that eBay only allows them to answer 10 questions per day through the Contact Seller messaging. They ask buyers to email them directly. This does not protect the potential buyers' privacy and it keeps the messages off the eBay site. The seller then has access to all of these email addresses even if the people have never purchased anything from them.

The high S/H does get them negatives and, reading their feedback, I would guess that they have someone working full time on mutual feedback withdrawal. I am correct in assuming that mutual feedback withdrawal will be a thing of the past and they will have to live with their negatives for a year?

Do you think that the new system will make them change their ways? I just don't see it happening but I hope it does work to make eBay a more even playing field.

Thanks for listening and I would appreciate any insight that you might have on these issues.

Judy

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi westernstargifts,

Although I don't know the selling practices of the particular sellers you have in mind, what you've described above certainly sounds like a bad buyer experience to me. To answer your questions:

Mutual Feedback Withdrawal is scheduled to be phased out in the second half of 2008. This means a negative will remain for 12 months, unless the user who left it is suspended.

The new system is designed to better differentiate good sellers from average, and average from poor. Yes, it's our intent to see sellers who treat their buyers badly find themselves disadvantaged on the site - and eventually choose to either clean up their act or leave the site altogether.

Will it work perfectly from the start? No, I imagine we'll have to make changes along the way to get it right. Some sellers will find ways to outfox the system, and we'll have to find ways to adapt to new practices.

Hope this helps,

Miriam

[westernstargifts]

Thanks Miriam,

Buyers contribute to the problem themselves. We all like to get a bargain and some don't mind paying excessive shipping fees when they can buy the product cheap. They notice the excessive charges more when they buy multiple items at one time from the same seller. The gap between actual shipping cost and S/H charged greatly increases when they do this and the buyer is then more likely to leave a negative than when they purchase single items. eBay loses out on listing and final value fees. Sellers who don't subscribe to this practice lose sales and it costs more money because more things go unsold because those that start listings low tend to flood the marketplace with products obscuring those of other sellers who pay more to eBay (per listing...not total).

I hope the new system will help this problem. Thanks for your quick reply.

Judy

[ciderantiques]

Hello Miriam, Does ebay keep stats on who posts negative feedback? Specifically, who posts the negative first and how new is that user to ebay?

Perhaps you can examine my concern ~ newbies have a propensity to quickly post a negative. The new feedback rules will likely make it happen even more ~ too easy for a newbie to "give up", not communicate and post a negative.

If ebay doesn't have that info . . . perhaps they should. Karen

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi ciderantiques,

I know that eBay has stats on who posts the negative first (this is how we determined that retaliatory feedback by sellers was increasing in frequency). I do not know if we track the tenure of users who leave this feedback.

However, at this point, eBay has identified retaliatory feedback from sellers as being the major issue in buyer churn. Your hypothesis may be correct - but up to this point, newbies leaving feedback too quickly hasn't been shown to have anywhere near the same negative effect.

Hope this clarifies.

Miriam

[futuretech_liquidations]

Miriam - Firt of, ok I was wrong about you - looks like from your replies that you are not afraid to actually respond to questions honestly, clearly and actually offer some meaningful information.

Secondly, as we all know, we Canadian sellers are at a real big disadvantages when it comes to shipping time and shipping costs. Those of us using CanadaPOST cannot compete with USPS rates and delivery times. USA buyers expectations for the most part are that they want their parcels within 5 days max. some buyers are more patient but most are NOT. How do you suggest we overcome this major obstacle - we recently started to offer XPRESSPOST ONLY shipping on the more pricey items we sell just to see if it would have any effect on our DSR Ratings for shipping Time and Costs - after we called about 50 clients to inquiry further - 90% said that they were happy with the speed but the costs was what caused them to score us low on Shipping & Handling.

So as you can see, based on the small group we contacted 90% of them liked the fast delivery time but felt the cost was too high -- oh ya, about 75% of them used USPS rates as a comparision against CanadaPOST rates. This whole shiping time and costs is a useless battle and it will never be won by a Canadian Seller as USA citizens have no CLUE WHATSOEVER (for the most part) of how long and what it takes to get a parcel into the USA.

Interestingly, about 35% of the 50 or so customers we contacted DID NOT KNOW that their parcel has to be CLEARED BY US CUSTOMS for entry into the USA. They just thought the mail gets delivered without interruptions.

More interesting figures, about 10 percent thought that we (in Canada) could ship their items via USPS!!!

Also, the other big issue we once again came across has do to with EXPEDITED PARCEL - USA which CanadaPOST cleverly calls their GROUND LEVEL service. This name is a big misleader since the word EXPEDITED by definition lead US buyers to think that item will get there within 5days max when in fact it takes 6-12 working days at least and in most cases much longer.

If eBaY Canada can do anything for us Canadian Sellers it would be to change the name of the service and also it would be great it eBaY would consider forcing CanadaPOST to actually have a working tracking system with 48hr updates at minimium - or how about the FLAT RATE BOX thing that was mentioned and like always never acted on - whatever happened to that!!!

Thanks

Tim @ FTL

[futuretech_liquidations]

We send out an automated email message to all winning bidders advising them of the delivery timeframes by USA regions and also advise them that US Customs Clearance Delays are beyond our control and can added anywhere from a DAY or more (Depending on volume and hightened security levels).

Despite this notice, we still get "it has been 10 days and I still have not received my item" from buyers in the WEST COAST which CanadaPOST Expedite Parcel - USA service takes on average 2wks if not more.

[recped]

Tip of my hat to Miriam!

I hope this is a sign of the times, I'm sensing a real change in attitude at eBay I sure hope it continues.

I also hope that other users see this as well leading to constructive discussion rather than thoughtless ranting.

I sure hope this doesn't turn into another "Canadian Seller Profitability" fiasco.

[ciderantiques]

Good Morning Miriam . . .I would like to propose a solution to solve my own concern (impatient US buyers leaving a quick and undeserved negative because of common +10 day delivery times from Canada). Buyers should not be able to leave negative feedback for a seller until 21 days after the item has been paid for. This will at least force them to wait and give my Canada Post Small Packet and Expedited Parcels a hope of reaching them. Karen.

[katiusciav]

karen-that's a great idea...i don't see the harm toward the *delicate* little buyer on that one, and it would definitely give the seller enough time to fix any problems or follow up with the buyer...

[miriam@ebay.com]

Morning all ... happy Friday and (for those of us in Ontario who actually get Family Day) happy long weekend ahead.

I'm a bit tied up this a.m. in meetings but will be back this afternoon to answer some of the questions here.

Cheers,

Miriam

[palms_and_pdas]

Hi Miriam

Thanks for the reply to the questions that I have posted.

I will have to go through the information and spend a bit of time to reply to your comments.

Is there any way that we as Canadian Power Sellers can get a meeting or round table discussion with Ebay.ca as the US Power Sellers have had reciently ????

I think that this would provide more information than the boards and help us to understand how the new changes will affect Canadian Power Sellers better.

I know this a a big undertaking but needs to be done.

This has never been done for Canadian Power Sellers and I think myself personally the time has come.

We have only interacted through the boards and it seems like Canadian Power Sellers are missing the boat on this one compared to our US counterparts.

This needs to be done now not in 3 months.

Other words if you build it they will come.

If you can setup a date I will be there and take time from my business be there even on a days notice.

Al
Fitzheuen

[palms_and_pdas]

If you can setup a date I will be there and take time from my business to be there even on a days notice.

[miriam@ebay.com]

Hi futuretech_liquidations,

So where's my apple? 😉 Sorry, I couldn't resist. In all seriousness, I'm glad I can be of help and I can understand that you might be skeptical at first. I'll do my best to be useful on the boards.

First, I agree with you that Canadians have an extra hurdle to overcome when it comes to Shipping DSRs, both cost and time, especially when shipping to Americans. I believe it is possible for Canadians to win out, but the winning formula may be different for every seller, it may take time to crack it and it's going to require eBay Canada and sellers to work together on it.

The reason I believe it's do-able is two-fold:

1. As of September 07 (I'd love to get more current stats), the top 10% of Canadian and US sellers (meaning, the 10 percent with the highest DSRs) have identical DSRs in Shipping Time (4.9) and Shipping & Handling Charges (4.8). Despite the challenges, the top 10% of Canadian sellers have figured out how to stay competitive with their US counterparts on shipping.

2. US sellers with the highest Shipping & Handling Charges DSRs do not necessarily offer free shipping. This was something I heard on the Executive Q&A webcast, and it really caught my attention. How do they do it?

futuretech_liquidations, you're already doing a lot of things I'd recommend sellers start doing - surveying users, experimenting with different shipping methods and calling buyers to get further feedback. The email you send with shipping service times is also a great education opportunity. The more Canadian sellers that do this, the better.

eBay needs to educate all users about Canada Post services and products too ... we're looking at beefing up education on the site to better explain shipping services and costs in Canada.

Tossing out another idea ... someone in the office here got a call from their car salesman after they bought a new car. The salesman gave my colleague the heads up that a survey would be coming his way - could he please give him 5 stars across the board if he was happy with the experience? I thought that was bold, but it also works in certain circumstances. Might be worth a try.

Another thought - I had a great transaction with a US seller the other day. She went the extra mile for me on a non-shipping related issue. I gave the seller all fives, even though it took her seven days to mail my package. Why? I loved her service focus and I wanted to thank her with the best possible rating. I believe that's part of the answer to my point 2 above - the guys who are charging to ship are winning over the free shipping guys because the overall experience is so good that their customers are delighted.

On Canada Post ... I hear you on the Expedited Shipping. We have asked them on many occasions to please change the name - no luck yet, but we aren't giving up.

On flat rate box ... we are working on it actively, but these things take a frightening amount of time to bring to market. My colleague Lilybean works full time on shipping, partnering with Canada Post and busting hump (can I say that on here?) to get the services and products you need to be more successful. Lilybean is on the job and he never gives up.

OK ... I'm off shortly for the weekend and have Monday off because of the Family Day holiday. I'll be back next week. Thanks to everyone for the participation in this thread - I appreciate the effort to keep it constructive.

Happy weekend,

Miriam

[dipmicro]

I have seen little or no marketing by ebay in the last two years.

Actually that's not entirely true. eBay bids on almost every keyword in eBay listing titles on Google Adwords and there was the IT campaign that cought my attention (whatever IT is find IT on eBay). Was it two years already ?