eBay Open UK Hybrid Day is now live, opened by Jamie Iannone who talked about how eBay are creating new tools to accelerate the eBay platform. 25 years ago eBay revolutionised ecommerce and Jamie says that is committed to a tech led reimagining of eBay, engineering eBay tools and services for today’s ecommerce sellers to power their business for the future.
Murray Lambell eBay Open UK Hybrid Day Keynote
Next up on eBay Open UK Hybrid Day is Murray Lambell, General Manager of eBay UK who is on stage in Manchester with a real audience for the first time in 18 months as well as being beamed live to those watching online.
After introductory comments, Murray got straight into what’s going on in the world noting that it’s been an extremely volatile trading period and it’s no longer a choice of online vs offline – the competition is sharper and better than ever before and it’s important eBay evolve the platform to keep eBay’s 29 million buyers coming back. Murray has heard loud and clear that Brexit and Supply Chains have been real challenges, especially exporting to the EU. 3 out of 5 sellers have not been able to easily access captial and not all of the support has been in place when seller have needed it. The pandemic has also shifted UK consumer’s perceptions with over half wanting to shop with businesses that give back in some way along with other concerns such as the environment. Lines are blurring between those that buy new and used with a larger cross over than ever before so eBay need to surface both.
What are eBay doing for sellers?
Murray’s aim is to be the number on destination for buyers looking great choice and selection and with so many new buyers to the site that’s a bigger challenge than ever before. eBay don’t compete with sellers so support you, for instance absorbing the digital services tax. They’ve also launched more services for sellers in the last year than the last five years to help grow seller’s businesses.
Sellers wanted to focus on sourcing and presenting products which is why eBay Fulfilment was introduced which now has over half a million products, this service is being expanded in time for peak. Over 100,000 use the Global Shipping Programme which is also being expanded to support sellers. To help with challenges accessing capital, eBay recognised different categories gave different needs so eBay replaced a previous programme with an expanded offering meaning loans could be more tailored to seller’s requirements. In late 2019, eBay launched their ProTrader programme which has assisted over 5,000 sellers and they are looking to expand this in 2022.
For buyers, eBay launched the Authenticity Guarantee in sneakers and then watches with more categories to come. The Certified Refurbished Hub serves consumers looking for more environmentally friendly options and eBay’s Brand Outlet has been expanded to target fashion buyers more easily. There’s a new beta for personalisation of items and with Payments 2.0 eBay launched a broader range of ways for buyers to pay.
Murray Lambell’s To Do list
Murray recognised that there is still work to do and enhancements to make and he set out immediate his todo list:
- Work to do on Managed Payments system – he realises it wasn’t perfect for everyone with a lot of work to move across and is looking at where to make reporting better and other enhancements that can be made. One recent change is the launch of faster payments in the UK to get money into your account quicker.
- Enhance Store Experience – there’s new store but Murray wants more ways to showcase your brand
- eBay will expand and develop dedicated experiences on the site.
Finally, some important information, the videos of eBay Open UK sessions will be available to watch for the next 30 days, so if you missed a key talk it is still available to watch on demand.
5 Responses
Here’s one for ebay & Murray to add to their to do list:
Knock it off with the multiple times per hour accept cookies requests. Every bloody page it seems, the large blue request box looms up from the bottom of the screen, obscuring what you were doing.
What’s the point in asking anyway, if ebay don’t remember your preferences? It’s only recently become an issue, so whatever “upgrade” triggered it, go back and fix it.
@Gav, I’ve brought this up on the forums and got told to clear my cache and cookies and (wait for it…) disable my pop-up blocker.
After nearly 2 weeks of interaction, got told eBay can’t replicate it so it’s a browser issue and an external issue so they won’t be responding further.
Basically got told to run along and play.
@ Joe B
It’s about what you expect from them. Problem? What problem?
I can get it to work OK on Edge, but not firefox or chrome. But on Edge, every time I manually add a tracking number, it takes me back to the wrong summary page, so it just replaces one problem with another.
To me, it’s clearly an ebay issue and definitely can be replicated. Only ebay constantly wants cookies acceptance, nobody else. I can use Amazon on any browser and it works. Maybe ebay could poach some technical staff from them.
@Gav – tip, instead of clicking accept, if you click on ‘other options’ and scroll all the way down to the bottom and click OK, it goes away.
@ JoeB
thanks for the tip, which worked. I can’t say the same for the page ebay took me to after doing all that, which was their usual: oops we can’t find that page!