Looking back: 2nd January 2007

It’s January 2nd and first day back at work for another year, and that reminds me of this time last year. I wrote about some of the things I’d like to see changed on eBay, and a couple of them have been 🙂

Block echeques for eBay payments

echeques are still a nuisance, 2008 really is the year PayPal need to sort out faster clearance times or scrap them altogether.

Multiple shops on one ID

I’m not so sure I really want this one any more – with DSRs and Seller Non-Performance policies maybe it’s not a good idea to have all your eBay eggs in one User Id basket

Account verification for buyers and sellers

What is it with verification for buyers and sellers that’s so hard? We still here of the odd user having their account closed and popping up on a new User Id. eBay need to get tougher on this and at the same time ensure Business/Private account designations are used appropriately.

Listing upgrades bundles

There’s bound to be a fee realignment later in January. Definitely it’s time eBay looked at bundled fee packages both to include gallery in the basic listing fee and encourage more use of listing upgrades with bundles.

Biddy’s button

Well done eBay! You gave us Biddy’s button (better known as the “continue shopping with this seller” button on the item checkout page).

PayPal & eBay to learn we’re in the UK

Credit where credit’s due, PayPal have managed to put the postcode on the last line of the address in a UK format. Well done guys.

Shop listings bundled with shops fee

Including a certain number of SIF listings with an eBay shop still makes great sense. Another possibility would be to offer discounts based on the number of SIF listings sold in a month. That would give an incentive for sellers to drive traffic to their eBay shops.

AutoFeedback

It’s high time TurboLister got a few more SMP type features such as the ability to leave feedback. File Exchange has shown this is possible and it wouldn’t take too much work to make eBay’s premier listing tool even better for post sales management.

Cheap listing days

You love em or hate em, but expect to see even more highly targeted cheap listing days to encourage specific types of behaviour such as the adoption of PayPal.

Best Offers

This wasn’t on my wish list last year, but I couldn’t not give Best Offer a mention. Upgrading Best Offer with the ability to automate accept/decline along with counter offers and a few other enhancements was the biggest improvement for the buyer experience and to make sellers lives easier.

2008

This is going to be an exciting year on eBay, major initiatives in the last year are starting to take effect to raise the standards sellers must achieve with more transparency than ever to buyers on which sellers are excelling and which aren’t.

Buyers are starting to realise there are other venues such as Amazon but eBay can build on the initiatives put in place in 2007 to make eBay an even better venue for buying and selling. If you want to guess what will change on eBay during 2008 there’s a thread in the TameBay forum for your wish lists and predictions.

Here’s to a fantastic 2008 trading on eBay