eBay

carly@ebay.com · ‎03-08-2005

Please join us here on Friday, March 11, from 1:30-2:30 PM ET for a general discussion and question and answer session with Gary Briggs, eBay.ca Country Manager. Gary will be here on behalf of the eBay.ca team to answer any questions you have about eBay.

Regards,
Carly

garybriggs@ebay.com · ‎03-11-2005

Hi - Gary here. Look forward to your questions and hope to be of help over the next hour.

pierrelebel · ‎03-11-2005

Good afternoon Gary.

It is a pleasure to communicate directly with you.

My first question today concerns eBay.ca stores.

It appears that most Canadian sellers who made the decision to open an eBay store have done so on eBay.com instead of eBay.ca where one finds only 2,000 stores. In late 2004, a “pink” indicated in one of the thread that big changes were coming early 2005 for eBay.ca stores.

Could you please tell us a bit more about it?

My second question concerns the lack of category standardization among the many English speaking eBay sites, specifically the “stamps” category since I sell postage stamps to collectors and dealers.

Why can’t eBay offer the same, I mean exactly the same, categories on all English speaking sites so that sellers offering their wares to the international market have a better chance to compete? … and buyers a better chance to find what they are looking for?

For example, if someone were to list a Newfoundland stamp in the “Stamps -> Canada -> Newfoundland” category, a potential buyer browsing through eBay.com or eBay.uk would not find the listing since the category does not exist on those sites.

While the item would appear if a buyer were to make a specific search with the correct description, it does not appear to potential buyers browsing through categories.

Can we expect some changes? Or am I asking for the moon?

Thank you for taking the time.

Pierre

garybriggs@ebay.com · ‎03-11-2005

Pierre,

Not the moon. Not at all.

The first part of your question concerns the interaction between stores, namely ebay.ca and ebay.com. We are working on a project internally called "Global Stores" that would allow someone to search across country lines for store items. That is on the development roadmap and we will have more definitive timing next quarter. I can't commit to timing yet but we are building a set of features to meet your need here.

Regarding category structure, Canada is unique in that we fully map to the US site. That's due to all the cross border trade between the two countries, which I know you actively participate in today. We don't have the same relationship with the UK and that's driven by the fact that the UK (as one example) has far less trade with the States and Canada and establishes their category structure on their own. I don't expect that to change in the near term.

aaronheli · ‎03-11-2005

hey there,
just new to ebay and, just wondering what is the best way to sell property on ebay. is there advisors i can talk to. if so how do i get in contact with them. what are some selling tips and advice. Thanks for your time and answers.
sincerely
Aaron

pierrelebel · ‎03-11-2005

If I may, I would like to ask another question about eBay stores.

At this time, a user can only have one store. To open a second store, a user must set up a new user ID (starting with ZERO feedback).

Is eBay considering the possibility to let users open more than one store, if selecting different sites (for example: a store on .com and one on .ca) ?

pierrelebel · ‎03-11-2005

"Canada is unique in that we fully map to the US site."

That is not quite correct. If you check the example I used earlier, you will notice that "Stamps - Canada - Newfoundland" is not available when browsing through eBay.com

garybriggs@ebay.com · ‎03-11-2005

Aaronheli-

Welcome!!!! Always makes me smile to have someone new here.

First off, for general tips and advice, head to the "eBay Explained" section of the site. http://pages.ebay.ca/education/index.html. There you will find sections on buying and selling tips. Also, on the home page and other key pages of the site we have "Live Help" (look in the upper right-hand corner of the home page) and when you click on that you'll be connected with our great Customer Care team who can answer questions about transactions and the like. Specifically regarding property, we do not have a Real Estate board on the .ca chat boards but I believe there is one on ebay.com. You also could go there. Here's the link: http://forums.ebay.com/db1/forum.jspa?forumID=136

pierrelebel · ‎03-11-2005

One more question Gary - of interest to new users. This question comes up daily.

At this time, to sell on eBay.ca, one must supply eBay with a valid credit card information. No options are available to potential sellers who do not have a credit card or, for privacy reasons, do not wish to give the information to eBay.ca.

Is eBay.ca considering other options such as "ID Verify" used on eBay.com for a small fee? or allowing the use of a bank (debit) card?

garybriggs@ebay.com · ‎03-11-2005

Pierre-

You are right about the category mapping. If I have it right, Canada has all the US category mapping but the inverse is not the case (you've cornered the market on Pre-1949 Nfld Stamps"!)

Regarding your stores question, we are not building that at this time but let me try to get a more precise answer for you and I'll post on that later today.

garybriggs@ebay.com · ‎03-11-2005

Pierre,

We are looking at that and have been working on allowing sellers to sell without a credit card -- specifically through our efforts with PayPal. More to come on that later this year. We have certainly heard the Community on this need and are working on a solution that protects buyers and sellers alike.

pierrelebel · ‎03-11-2005

Thank you. Got to go. Lots of stuff needs to be listed. 😉

Pierre.

garybriggs@ebay.com · ‎03-11-2005

Pierre,

Well, then, that's good news! Happy listing!!

garybriggs@ebay.com · ‎03-11-2005

Pierre,

Getting back to you on your Stores question (regarding a store on separate sites sharing feedback) I spoke with our product manager here and he said there is nothing planned to solve that specifically right now. With the Global Stores project I mentioned in an earlier post you will be able to view products across geographies, so that should address a major issue which currently drives the desire for separate stores on separate eBay sites.

Thanks, as always, for your ideas. We're very happy with the functionality we've been building for Stores over the past year but certainly there's more to do.