To kick start the new year and promote the vast array of eBay motor parts and accessories, eBay Motors Garage and Autoweek have come together to create a series of ‘how to’ videos demonstrating car maintenance jobs that consumers can carry out at home. It also highlights a new feature on eBay.com motors – Shop by Diagram.
In this episode of the Autoweek Garage presented by eBay Motors, Andrew Stoy and Wesley Wren guide you through a common starting spot for novice DIY-ers: a brake job. The team tackles a brake overhaul on a 1998 Jeep Wrangler, but the lessons learned here are useful for most vehicles with disc brakes. While many folks simply replace a vehicle’s brake pads, that’s not the best way to approach a brake service because it neglects essential parts of the system like the brake disk, caliper and hoses.
Knowing the right technical names for brake parts is crucial for getting the correct components the first time. That’s where eBay Motors’ Shop by Diagram comes in: The feature offers a technical, enlarged drawing of the system and shows you the right names for the respective parts.
The eBay Motors Shop by Diagram feature offers a technical, enlarged drawing of the system and shows you the right names for the respective parts. Shop by Diagram lets you click through the parts on the diagram directly to eBay Motors listings for that specific part. It’s a great way to reduce the intimidation factor for new home mechanics and cut down on those annoying mid-job parts store runs.
This is the first episode in a series to be published starting this Winter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHiZDmQW46Y
11 Responses
We sell car parts and let me tell you the last thing we need is eBay encouraging DIY’ers. For a start most customers can’t take the time to read a listing and follow instructions to ensure they are ordering the correct part for their car. Secondly I don’t want SNAD returns for some person who attempts and fails to do a qualified mechanics job because it is I the seller who will burden the cost of post out, return post and inevitable the scrapping of the part.
How about eBay tackles the real problems in the vehicles category such as ensuring customers supply reg details before ordering. Or even a warning at checkout simply asking them to double check if they are not 100% sure. Stop the misuse of returns to claim an item is not as described when in fact the buyer has bought the wrong part for their vehicle. Those would actually be of more benefit to sellers.
I will 100% echo the above comment.
We have been asking for – AND PROMISED BY EBAY – reg’ number input at checkout, they’ve been saying this is coming for at least 2 years.
A Reg’ number will literally slash returns and means more business for us, and fees for eBay.
Reg’ number input is already on the site for their completely useless ‘garage’ AKA fitment guide, why not make it a checkout feild.
SNAD is a huge problem in Car Parts, and it can be stopped very easily.
But I suppose, if we could ensure that everything we sold wasn’t returned then how else could eBay try and reduce our discount ?
This category needs a massive, massive reform. It really does.
I have been in the fortunate position to liaise with the people at the very top of eBays automotive parts cataloging team. I’ve spent years demonstrating exactly how the site should display parts data and the intrinsic problems with reliance on Tecdoc and sellers interpretation of the results.
Let’s just say they’re not interested, they don’t understand the real issue and nothing will ever change.
Ex aceparts owner, now working on something far more interesting that could solve eBays automotive parts issues.
I’ll add to my previous bit by saying that nobody at eBay understands the problem. With automotive parts there’s a greater than 50% chance that there’s more than one compatible type of part that may ‘fit’.
For example, there may be two radiators to choose from and the deciding factor may be does the vehicle have air conditioning?
eBay don’t take into account any addict criteria.
It’s not that eBay don’t understand- it’s the fact that eBay now make substantial profits out of returns.
The problem we have with SNAD cases is that ebay say that they DO understand BUT the SNAD service metric is based on the differential of you and your peers in your category.
ebay therefore think they are standing on firm ground when they say that they DO understand as it is not them who are setting the bar – it is your peers / competitors in your category.
We are in the shoe category and have a similar problem. Buyers open SNAD because a shoe doesnt fit and there is no way to control the frequency or quantity. We can get zero for weeks then 5 in one day. I can see why ebay would think that the peer to peer comparison works in theory but I strongly believe it doesn’t work in practice.
I can see that car parts would be even worse. I have a colleague who was selling car parts on ebay and stopped because of the quantity of returns – many of which he had to pay for when it was really “buyer remorse” returns. God knows what he would have thought of the new SNAD service metric. We wont know as he quit the platform.
Other than “amend” the service metrics I do not think there is much that ebay can do. It is a difficult situation for them as they need to be seen as being fair to both buyer and seller while complying with the law regarding returns.
Plus Rob you never get your listing fee refunded. It’s a win win for eBay- let’s say it’s an automotive part returned- the job still needs doing on the vehicle – so the buyer will inevitably buy another part on the platform. Therefore eBay profit from two listing fees, one final value fee, and further fees on return postage. Plus if the unlucky seller has a run of remorse purchases returned as snad then a windfall of another 4% for high returns rate.
I totally agree with all the above, especially the bit about ‘they don’t care’, I genuinely think they don’t, the category is ticking over and making them a pile of money so why invest more to only earn a bit ?
I really feel it’s a massively missed opportunity for them and us, and the problem is that ‘other sites’ are really getting their act together on this and will (in the long term) wipe out this platform as a place to sell car parts.
It is a proper big problem that they cannot get ‘reg number’ into the checkout process, I’m sure I could code it myself for them and it would stop all this so you can only conclude that they don’t want it to change.
What worries me most is that vehicle fitment is going to become mandatory later this year (so I have it on good authority) and this will only benefit sellers of aftermarket K-coded items, it could kill other areas off altogether.
Caught in the middle because they’re the selling platform I might add……