Want it now

With the first day back at work of the new year I’ve been thinking about what eBay could do to make my life easier. How could they iron out some of the little niggles that constantly pop up on a regular basis in my life as an eBay seller. It’s by no means a definitive list, but if eBay could work on it over the course of the next year I’d more than a little grateful!

Block echeques for eBay payments

eCheques are the worst type of payment for serious business sellers. First PayPal promise the buyer they’ll clear in three to four days! Complete poppycock, in the UK they take around ten days to clear. Secondly you’re reliant on an email from PayPal to inform you that they’ve cleared (well email was never the most reliable medium) and finally there is nothing so frustrating for both the buyer and the seller than having waited the requisite ten days just for the darn thing to bounce! Scrap em or give the ability to block them.

Multiple shops on one ID

Many sellers open more than one shop for a variety of reasons, different stock lines or to tailor products to different geographic marketplaces. Life would be so much easier if you could have multiple shops on one User ID.

Account verification for buyers and sellers

There is very little justification for either buyers or sellers not to have fully verified accounts. In the US there has been ID Verify for some time – why not in the UK?

Listing upgrades bundles

Some countries already have the option to buy multiple listing upgrades at a discounted price, if this was offered it would not only gain eBay more revenue but would encourage sellers to use and experiment with more features, e.g. why not offer Gallery, Bold and Highlight as a bundled price?

Biddy’s button

When a buyer has bought something from a Shop, eBay present them with two options: “pay now” to checkout, and “continue shopping with this seller”. We propose changing the latter from its current unclickable text, to a button that would take the shopper back to the Shop (or seller’s other listings), at one stroke making things easier for buyers to buy multiple items and therefore increasing eBay’s revenues.

Biddy first suggested this on the Power Seller message board over two years ago (and on some now-defunct US board even longer ago than that): it’s received support from numerous Pinks from Doug McCallum downwards, but promised action has failed to materialise thus far. It’s a tiny change in code, so why on earth has it not been implemented? Go on Doug…. Change it to

PayPal & eBay to learn we’re in the UK

What is so difficult about UK address formats? We do not have City_State_Zip on the last line of our addresses! We have City, County and Postcode on SEPARATE lines specifically with the postcode on the final line on it’s own. Seven years trading in the UK and they still haven’t worked it out! Bit pathetic really…..

Shop listings bundled with shops fee

To encourage Shop Inventory Format now that it’s rendered practically obsolete by excessive fees why not include a certain number free with the Basic, Featured or Anchor monthly shop fee?

SIF Fees to be per sale not per item

While we’re on the subject of shop fees the biggest gripe with the BIN and SIF final value fees isn’t the percentage per se. It’s the fact the percentage is applied per item. This means if you bulk sell quantities of low cost product each and every one is charged at the highest percentage rate. Why not apply the percentage to the total sale of that product line purchased in a single transaction, or even better apply it on a pro rata basis based on a months total turn over similar to PayPal merchant rates.

AutoFeedback

Yes we know it’s available in SMP, but quite frankly if any part of eBay is going to fall over it’s SM and SMP, just check the community boards to confirm this. Why not incorporate autofeedback into either TurboLister, or even better a standalone option in my eBay.

More cheap listing days

We love em, they save us fees

Scrap cheap listing days

Yeah I had to put these last two in to prove you can’t please all the people all of the time. Many sellers detest cheap listing days because they fill the site with junk, so if we’re going to have them just don’t make them Free Listing Days ever again 😉

Oh and finally…. just carry on as per normal! eBay is a fantastic platform to run a business on. Don’t make it too easy or everyone’ll be doing it!