Another conversation at Internet Retail Expo with Tamebay readers reminded of a feature that the marketplace is lacking: eBay multi-user logins. It would greatly improve security and usability for merchants and it is surprising that it doesn’t yet exist. The omission is, basically, a hangover from when eBay was just for individuals and collectors and in no way a site for enterprises.
What would an eBay multi-user login look like? As it stands an eBay login is a single username and password. It’s an access all areas pass and not particularly honed to enterprise sellers. eBay multi-user logins would provide flexibility for multiple users to access different functions depending on their role.
From a practical perspective, ecommerce merchants will want multiple levels of access. A boss will want to see everything, your person doing the accounts should be able to see your invoices and fees and you might also just want some of your team to be able to access order details so they can fulfil orders. But as it stands anyone with a login can see it all.
This does also represent something of a security risk and problems are not unheard of. Some sellers have fallen foul of disgruntled staff or employees with nefarious aims who are able to misuse free access to eBay login details. That could be in terms of money or stock theft. And yet it is all avoidable.
Needless to say, PayPal offer an enterprise level solution if you have a business account. You can create multiple logins and access levels, and assign specific privileges so employees can complete tasks for you. This PayPal feature lets you give PayPal account access to up to 200 employees, each with a unique login ID and level of authority. It also means that as administrator you can track activity if something goes awry.
And some of the third party suppliers do offer a solution here. Through their portals eBay multi-user logins are possible but the service varies by provider via the API on some level. But surely eBay should provide such a service as standard to merchants? Do you agree?
2 Responses
Is it that big an issue?
What do Amazon have?
I am sure if a company gets that big they will not really be relying on logging into eBay but running some version of a central hub to connect into all markets they sell on.
This is long overdue and something we have been asking about for a while now. We are a medium sized office with around 8-10 people all logged into ebay dealing with different processes but I have to let everyone know my username and password. It seems inconceivable that any one of our staff while logged in could alter anything and even shut down our ebay shop at the click of a wrong button. It also causes us an issue if and when any of the staff need to speak to ebay customer support as ebay can only speak to the account holder, we end up with staff members just posing as the account holder (me) in order to talk to support, it defeats the object of any kind of security on the site. Paypal on the other hand seem to have got it right, multi users with different levels of account access.