eBay have reported back on their steps to meet seller expectations with the eBay You Said, we did… mid year campaign and message from eBay UK General Manager Murray Lambell.
You should already be aware of most of the areas eBay have been working on, but we’ve listed them all below to make sure you haven’t missed a thing.
As we pass halfway through the year, I’d like to take this moment once again to thank you for choosing to run your online business on eBay. We’ve heard the significant impact that ongoing difficulties like the cost of living crisis and the lasting impacts of COVID-19 have had on businesses like yours. But rest assured your goals are still paramount to us and we want to ensure that your concerns are heard and we are supporting you in the areas you need it most.
Based on the feedback we received, we’ve identified the following as key areas you’d like us to focus on:
– How to sell more on eBay.
– Getting more support and education around how to be a more successful business on eBay.
– Ensuring the right protections and security are in place to give you more confidence in selling.
– Having greater flexibility in payouts to help with cash flow.
To kick things off, we launched our eBay Business Roadshow in April, alongside our Support and Grants scheme, as well as the highly anticipated eBay Business Awards. Read on to find out more about these initiatives, plus what else we’ve been working on.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.
– Murray Lambell – General Manager, eBay UK
eBay You Said, we did
Enhanced protections
Sellers told eBay that when they deliver on service that they wanted more protections from eBay.
eBay made more listings eligible for enhanced seller protections for Top Rated and Above Standard sellers for Faulty returns and False not as described return claims.
Enhanced security
Sellers told eBay that they want enhanced security for their business accounts.
eBay were kind of forced into this one through legislation, but have introduced multi-factor authentication as an added security measure to protect your sensitive data.
As a result, you may be subject to additional verification, including being asked to re-enter your login credentials or a one-time code sent to you via SMS, when you undertake certain activities on eBay which has caused a few initial problems.
Interactions with eBay
Sellers said that they wanted the chance to interact with eBay and meet in person.
On top of launching the eBay Academy , the eBay Business Roadshow is an investment programme designed to help sellers across the UK start, scale and network with other businesses.
eBay are half way through visiting 12 locations in the UK over a 12 months period and are landing in Leicester tomorrow (14th July) and then Reading on the 28th of July. Come along and meet the eBay team – I’ll be at Reading if you want to say hi!
Personalised and direct support
Sellers said that they needed additional, personalised and direct support to scale due to the current economic crisis.
eBay has invested over £1 million to ensure skills and funding can continue to be provided to help businesses thrive. All attendees of our eBay Business Roadshow will get the chance to apply for a business grant worth up to £5000 or a support package worth up to £1000.
More customers
Sellers wanted support in driving more customers to their business and grow their brand recognition.
eBay say that they are are continuing to upgrade Shops into a world-class digital tool, giving you more ways to reach out to buyers and drive traffic.
Greater visibility
eBay are expanding the placements of Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA ads on eBay
Currently, Promoted Listings AdvancedBETA ads are only eligible to appear in the top slot of search results, but soon this will expand to the top 4 slots.
Promoted Listings Standard ads can still appear in these first 4 slots, and will continue to appear in over one hundred placements across the eBay network. Organic listings will continue to be eligible to also appear in these top slots as well.
Prominence and recognition for eBay small businesses
eBay are boosting the recognition of the 300,000 small businesses on eBay with their current TV ad: ‘There’s a small business for that’.
The sixth annual eBay Business Awards are open for entries… The awards will see six lucky winners receive £10,000 to boost their business, along with a fantastic bundle of business growth and marketing support. Enter before 19 July by clicking here.
Cashflow Support
Sellers wanted greater flexibility on receiving payments.
On Demand Payouts mean you can now get access to your funds when you need them, regardless of whether you’ve opted to receive payouts weekly, fortnightly, or monthly.
11 Responses
we said lower fees ?
Where to start
Transparency with refunds and postage credits? If I deduct a part refund due to item receive back in different condition to how it was sent out, why keep the final value fee? Why not allow sellers to deduct full postage costs at source of refund?
New listing tool a load of rubbish that is designed for the app and not business users who uses it day in and day out on a desktop. When trying it took twice of long to create a listing clicking in and out of boxes or trying to find item specifics that are hidden away.
Stop punishing sellers with service metrics and defects for everything you can think of, as a small business I have better things to worry about that what defect I will be hit with or if I have to come begging to ebay to get it removed.
Clamp down on all the private sellers who avoid retail standards when clearly running a business, which ebay always mention is important to buyers if ever you got to a ebay event.
How about lower shop fees or a subscription that has a business package that is so amazing that you would be foolish to turn down. Instead of the ones on offer now where you get a better deal being a private seller with 1000 free listings a month.
A website that functions efficiently where I don’t have to keep signing in when I click to do something else or have to put a new verification code in multiple times a day.
If speed of postage is that important to buyers as sellers are told if something is delayed and punished with a defect if scanned late. Allow buyers to be able to search for next day delivery
Show a buyers purchase history, all I get is a repeat buyer alert, but no clue how long ago, what they bought. Shopify and Amazon track it easy enough.
Show buyers what they actually search for.
In the last two years I have gone from zero sales on Shopify to now my best sales channel. The support on there is great, chat support sends you screenshots to help. Follow up email after with the conversation and get back in touch if you still need help. ebay when you speak to them, if not a quick and easy fix. Never hear back then have to repeat issues all over again.
Completely missing the elephant in the room. If eBay want to grow they need to make it CHEAPER and more attractive to sellers. We have scaled eBay back 40% in the past year, yet we pay more fees now than a year ago. As a result we are looking to scale it back further and invest the fees we are paying into our website and Amazon, which is yielding greater returns than eBay. You can help with cashflow (which is an issue caused by managed payments by the way!), increase protection and security, put on a roadshow every week. But they don’t make the slightest bit of difference if eBay don’t help with the big issues sellers are facing.
How about not charging FVF’s on postage, nor on potential taxes a customer might pay, nor additional fees on international transactions. eBay have really squeezed just about everything they can, and still persistently seek for more. Eventually they’ll be trying to draw blood from a stone.
Make it easier. Make it cheaper. Make it work.
It’s still a complicated slog selling on eBay with constant changes and poorly implemented products, and sales velocity that underperforms.
Enhanced security? If you read the forums, it caused chaos, leaving a lot of sellers locked out of their accounts because the verification wasn’t working.
Enhanced visibility? Sure, eBay put up the minimum promotion fee to 2%.
It’s all smoke and mirrors. And glitches.
Blah blah blah….the site is just overpriced and people are not shopping on it anymore. People do not want promoted listing enhanced promoted listings or any other super duper promoted listings seriously it is all we have had for years now.
Customers are turning to places like Vinted where you can find a genuine bargain and not some bloated overpriced eBay listing.