eBay have updated their User Agreement and banned sellers from spamming their buyers. The update includes two points, one around returns and the other concerning marketing.
The changes are effective immediately for anyone that signs up to eBay today and from the 20th of October for existing users. As always eBay say that “If you choose not to accept the new terms, visit this for further information“.
Returns
eBay have added . The terms explain that sellers will be able to automate returns and refunds in certain circumstances. It covers the automatic generation of an eBay return label which in some cases the seller will pay the cost of and authorises eBay to include return postage charges and auto-refunds on your seller invoice as a fee.
Whether this will apply to you will largely depend on what automation rules you set up – if the buyer selects a non-fault return then of course they’ll pay the return postage costs instead of the seller.
Spam aka “Marketing”
Regular Tamebay readers will know how much I abhor spam and whilst the eBay user agreement has always prohibited the use of users contact information eBay have decided to drill the point home. Previously the user agreement stated “distribute or post spam, unsolicited or bulk electronic communications, chain letters, or pyramid schemes” and “harvest or otherwise collect information about users, such as email addresses, without their consent”
The specifically states that you may not “use the contact information of other users for any purpose other than in relation to a specific eBay transaction (which includes using this information to send marketing materials directly to eBay users unless the user has given explicit consent to receiving these materials)“.
In other words don’t grab my email address (from eBay or PayPal) and don’t send me any communications that aren’t directly connected to my purchase. Just because I bought something from you doesn’t mean you can add me to your mailing list and certainly doesn’t indicate any interest in whatever other products you may have for sale (on or off eBay).
Of course you’re probably a reputable eBayer and would never spam people and you probably encourage me to sign up to your eBay shop marketing, add a flyer into shipments offering me a discount from your website and alongside tracking links include an offer on your despatch emails to entice me back. These are all great ways to build your website traffic and email marketing lists and allowed under the rules in the eBay User Agreement.
14 Responses
Do not like Spam Tamebay, so why are we getting spam from Royal Mail entitled “Christmas is coming, are you ready?” using email [email protected] on the specific email address setup for Tamebay’sDaily News??
Any comment to Toby’s post then, Tamebay.
HaHa i thought double standards were ebay’s domain. So relevant spam is ok then. “Just because I bought something from you doesn’t mean you can add me to your mailing list and certainly doesn’t indicate any interest in whatever other products you may have for sale (on or off eBay)” theregoes why if someone signs up for Daily News they get “other products”. Come on Chris, you should know better.
I don’t mind updates from Tamebay, but I do object to the emails you send that have a link to YouTube that try to auto-play but is prevented from doing so by my email client. I really don’t want emails to play videos as soon as I look at them.
I noticed the ‘spam’ from Tamebay went worse when you joined up with that other company a while back.
I probably will unsubscribe actually because I’m finding of late that there’s very little here that is worth reading. Neither of you seem to be serious sellers on eBay or Amazon and much of the advice is quite dated or just plain wrong IMHO.
Oh dear a can of worms opened right there. I have two point on this…
Firstly, come on guys – Tamebay is free – don’t complain as it is a great source of information that you have the option not to take part in. Of course they are going to use your data to sell advertising – how else can they get paid.
Secondly, don’t hate relevant marketing. As long as the company use something like Mail Chimp and you can click unsubscribe quickly and easily then is it really that bad to target potential customers. Spam in my opinion is the Chinese emails or the emails trying to get you to open a file.
Just calm down and chill out – we are all here to try and make a living.
So how does eBay expect us to use their own Promotional spamming feature in promotions manager if they are banning spam? …Just last week I was told by an eBay agent how to create a targeted sale for selected customers. The only way to invite them is to email them the following url stating… To use this offer copy this URL into your browser https://ebay.us/wFML9z
Nobody would find this sale without the URL.
PS: I’m not spamming you!
The worse thing about spam is once some companies have your email it seems to end up on every spammers email list and the spam just keeps coming in until you change email address and start again.