eBay Scores Twofer on Doughnuts

Just when you think eBay has scored an own goal so many times that the game is over they pull the rabbit out of the hat and do it again.

This time eBay has managed to alienate two completely different groups of sellers, at one stroke. Way to go guys! Doughnuts all round from media and clothing sellers.

What is the cause of the kerfuffle and precisely who is in a state of discombobulation? Remember the listing insertion fee decreases in February with the concurrent adjustments to the Final Value Fee? This is the same play.

There are some differences. The changes are deeper, deeper is Bayspeak for 'more'. We have the decrease in insertion fees and extension of listing duration which could be beneficial if it were not tied to a 'rebalancing' of the Final Value Fee.

Back in February it was an adjustment, that didn't fly. Six months later we are calling it rebalancing and that will not fly either. Its an increase.

Once again it is take it or leave it time for sellers in the USA. eBay said earlier this year that the USA would never be PayPal only. When eBay moves to an all electronic payment marketplace later this year it will effectively be PayPal only because the only alternative offered is not a viable alternative. Propay carries an annual subscription and a higher rate. I covered this back in May.

Here is the official word from the 8/20 Announcements workshop discussion thread.

"eBay will offer several other electronic payment options in addition to PayPal, namely ProPay to start, with more electronic payment providers to be added in coming months. Google's and Amazon's products and services compete with eBay on a number of levels, so we are not going to allow them on eBay."

Take that Google Checkout!

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Bonanzle blog

Show Me A Way Away From San Jose

This is part one of a (hopefully three part) series on life beyond eBay originally written by Mark Dorsey and Bill Harding of Bonanzle.com and liberally 'adjusted' (BaySpeak for = definition changed almost beyond recognition) by myself.

eBay's motto could be

Ask Not What Your Online Marketplace Can Do for You; Ask What You Can do for Your Online Marketplace (and you will use PayPal while you are at it.)

eBay was not built in a day or even in a year. It grew. One of the reasons it grew was the enthusiasm of thousands of small sellers all of whom told their friends "you can find anything on eBay" and at the time it was true. This is a classic example of ‘organic site growth’.

Many of us who boycotted in May have tried a variety of alternative sites. Some have crashed and burned, one turned into a cult complete with Dear Leader. Many have no traffic and one or two work quite well. The market is fragmented, buyers do not know where to go to look for whatever IT is that they desire today. They can't find IT on eBay anymore because their sellers have vanished; either off the site or into the swirling wastes of Best Match. Going through a bunch of alternative sites is boring and laborious.

As sellers we have learned that choosing a venue is not all about what it costs. The saying ‘you get what you pay for’ does not necessarily hold true. It doesn’t matter how much you pay for exposure on a venue if that venue does no promotion, feed submission or SEO optimization. Conversely some of the low cost and free sites have excellent SEO policies.

Ideally a buyer would type their IT of the day into Google product search and find IT on which ever venue or website IT is. Before that can happen Google (or whichever search engine is used) has to be able to find IT. Helping the search engine find YOUR product is called Search Engine Optimization.

SEO is geekspeak for Show Me the Way Away From San Jose. Just kidding.

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What is SEO and How Does It Work

Search Engine Optimization is simply online marketing for your web pages. Search engines such as Google rank web pages depending on the content of your web pages. Sooner or later a search engine will inevitably notice almost any page you post to the web, but what we want to do is grab their hand and show them the quickest way to get to know us. We also want them to like us so they’ll come back often. The smarter the content, the better the chance you have at driving traffic (customers) to your web pages.

For example, let’s look at the page title of an item that Mark has listed at Bonanzle: “Heavy Duty Work Overalls.” At Bonanzle, we have a tool called Booth Stats that reveals the amount of traffic (number of page views) for any item. Booth Stats is a great tool to gauge how SEO-friendly a page is, since it allows you to measure the success of this one compared to others. Looking at Mark's overalls, the Booth Stats show that this item isn’t getting views, so let’s see what he can do with simple SEO to fix that.

If someone comes along and Googles “Heavy Duty Work Overalls Seattle” then we can be pretty sure Mark will have a sale. Bonanzle’s Oodle integration makes Mark's Bonanzle item amongst the top Google results for this query, but chances are slim that particular search is going to happen so he needs to make his listing more visible to search engines. Let’s optimize or improve the page title so it will be more visible. We’ll change it to “Carhartt Type Heavy Duty Work Overalls.”

Now, we’ll still have an equally good chance to get noticed if a user searches for the original query, but we’ll also grab traffic from anyone who searches for the more specific (and illustrious) “Carhartt” brand overalls.


Some points to ponder about search engines:

There are two methods of SEO. Organic search engine optimization provides free search engine positioning, instead of paid for results.

Search engines use automated software agents called spiders, crawlers, robots or bots to crawl text. They are very simple automated data retrieval programs. They can only gather what they can see.

It is all about words. Bots don't understand frames, Flash, images and JavaScript. They can't click buttons, so if there is no static link for them to follow, they will not follow it. They can't navigate drop down menus. They will not run a search on your website to find the content. They can't index a dynamically generated website.

Listings need pictures to sell but bots do not 'see' pictures. Use the 'alt' tag or title whenever possible on your pictures because that tells the bot what the picture is about, if you use the right words.

Google no longer indexes any Auction format pages. The reason for this is that the indexed page has a much longer life than the auction. Months or years later it will come up in search and the searcher is then disappointed because it is long gone (eBay redirects all such queries to the home page).

In part two of this series we are going to look more closely at the content we put into our web pages and make sure that we maximize our chances to be preferred by search engines.



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Yet Another Unannounced Policy on eBay

Just when you think that eBay management have plumbed the ultimate depths of lunacy something happens to prove you wrong. It appears there is more creative interpretation and BaySpeak yet to come from eBay on the subject of Buyer Dissatisfaction.

Back in March eBay initiated a new policy known as the Safer Payments Requirement. This is the policy which implemented the infamous 21 day hold among other changes. It states:

Your payments will not be held if you meet the following requirements:

* You have been an eBay member for 6 months or more, and
* Your total Feedback score is 100 or greater, and
* Your buyer dissatisfaction percentage is less than 5%.

One of the consequences of the Buyer Can Do No Wrong Policy is that there are no penalties to the buyer who bids on an item and either does not pay for it at all or ignores the sellers stated Terms of Service (TOS) and pays if and when convenient. This has resulted in a significant increase in Non Paying Bidder (NPB) reports and Unpaid Item (UPI) disputes being filed.

If the bidder does not pay the seller has two choices, neither is good.
1. Seller can file a UPI dispute and attempt to get their Final Value Fees credited back while risking not only negative feedback but Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) bombing from an irate NPB (eBay keeps the listing fees regardless) or,
2. as recently advised by ChannelAdvisor's Scott Wingo do not file UPI and eat the loss of FVF while hopefully avoiding retaliation from the NPB.

Meanwhile, especially if the item is unique, stock is tied up, essentially on free layaway for up to 30 days and the item may not be relisted or sold. This is no big thing for a commodities seller, he has many identical items. For the seller of unique items, not necessarily cheap, think high end estate jewelry, it can be a disaster.

Here is the kicker. If your buyer does not pay, there must be a reason. Obviously they are dissatisfied in some way either with the item or the seller. Never mind that they have not actually bought the item (there is no contract without consideration) or seen the item, or even had any contact with the seller, this is a dissatisfied buyer.

Sellers, your open UPI disputes count towards the 5% buyer dissatisfaction percentage.

Punish that bad seller. Require that they offer PayPal, restrict listing until the UPI disputes close and because they are bad sellers bury their items in unfinding. Never mind that eBay's own guidelines and policies dictate the UPI process and timeline; the seller always has the option to abandon the process and leave eBay with all the FVF. * Because eBay discussion threads are prone to glitches I saved this post.

To make it easier and more convenient for scamming and deadbeat bidders to keep track of their eBay activities, eBay's Ted Fong of Buyer Experience made an announcement last week. It is a Dispute Hub! Compare this to the famed Seller Reporting Hub.

A final irony to take with you, go to eBay's help pages and search for Seller Reporting Hub.



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Maybe Neutral is not Negative After All

The Moon is a symbol of
deception & danger
A major alteration to the Bayspeak dictionary is on the horizon, again. Lorrie Norrington announced two new changes yesterday. First, Neutral feedback, which became Negative retroactively this spring, will become Neutral again retroactively this fall, maybe. I have heard that it will be done by late August, no October, no late October, and, 'this is so complex it will not happen until early 2009.'

It seems strange that for eBay to change this one mistake could take so long. Sellers have made change after change to millions of listings this year, many with little to no lead time. Most of the eBay mandated changes had to be done manually one listing at a time because the 'tools' eBay provides for bulk editing do not bulk edit the changes eBay demands.

While sellers have been "pleased and delighted" by the first proposal, the second part may do more harm than good.

Helping you resolve issues and satisfy buyers: By the end of October, we will roll out a new process to help you resolve issues with buyers, even after the buyer has left negative feedback. Everybody makes mistakes – buyers and sellers alike, and buyers should have a mechanism to change feedback if they make a mistake or if the seller rectifies an issue in a timely manner. Unlike with our previous Mutual Feedback Withdrawal system, our new process will enable buyers to change their feedback of the seller, not just withdraw the rating. We'll provide more details of this new process in the fall.

At first glance this looks like an extortionists dream.

Here is how it works.
Buyer leaves positive feedback, emails seller, this is nice but I paid a bit more than I think it is worth. No demands, just a simple statement. If seller does not respond appropriately the feedback will change to negative. Alternately buyer leaves negative and tells seller "I could be persuaded to change my feedback to positive."

Amazon allows buyers to remove feedback, but not alter it, for precisely this reason.

One hesitates to offer advice to such keen business brains as the decision making executives at eBay because their brains operate on a totally different wavelength from the brains of sellers. Sellers are only simple retailers who understand the complexities of creating, growing and running a retail business.

For most retailers August through late December is the golden season.

This is the time we make most of our sales. "Back to School" through Christmas, Hanukkah. Kwanzaa, you know, all that. You want us to implement changes to our listings, collectively, every listing on eBay, (millions of listings,) while simultaneously providing customer service to our buyers at a level 20% higher than the leaders in the retail industry at the busiest time of the year.

Please reconsider asking sellers to implement changes in the fourth quarter. This together with the extortionists dream above could be the final straw that breaks the sellers' backs.





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BaySpeak on PayPal in the Land of OZ

I HOPE the ACCC is a lot smarter than eBay and Paypal's lawyers in Australia think they are! Reading their final submission on their application for a waiver to certain provisions of the Trade Practice Act 1974, produces as fine an example of BaySpeak, half truths, diversions and plain prevarication as I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot.

Half Truth:

excluding Google Checkout, which, contrary to BPAY's submission, does not operate in Australia

Actually, Google Checkout does operate in Australia. Google Checkout is available to buyers in Australia. Google says "We're working towards making Google Checkout more widely available in the near future. At this time, however, we cannot provide any details regarding when Google Checkout will be available in specific countries." Therefore eBay's statement is half true, the system is not available to Australian Sellers.

eBay loves it's sellers!

It is not possible for eBay to achieve the stated objective of significantly reducing "bad buyer experiences" for all eBay users without mandating the use of PayPal ... One likely contributing cause for this is that a number of negative incidents are caused by fraudulent or otherwise dishonest sellers. Such sellers are unlikely to accept PayPal payments because of the security and fraud protection measures available to PayPal users on eBay and, in particular, the ability of PayPal to reverse payments and freeze accounts. It follows that any increased usage of PayPal can be expected to reduce the total number of such incidents.

eBay considers that many of the submissions contain factual errors or distortions and the ACCC may be assisted by eBay clarifying those errors. Accordingly, eBay has identified a number of the most frequently asserted factual errors issues and addresses these issues below.

Just a few:

PayPal is not subject to the same level of regulation as banks.
While not subject to the same regime as banks, PayPal is subject to comprehensive regulatory oversight by government agencies. It is the holder of Australian Financial Services Licence No. 304962 and a banking license. It is subject to regulation by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority. PayPal is also subject to the Australian Anti-Money
Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing and various other Australian and foreign laws.
Translation: well no it is not, but we can cite a whole heap of regs we are subject to

As a result of the Project, PayPal will become a monopoly provider of payments services for eBay transactions.
This is factually incorrect. PayPal will not become the only provider on eBay - EFT and CC will continue in use, the only difference being the imposition of PP as the intermediary to process transactions. PayPal will continue to pay the credit card merchant fees that would otherwise be imposed on sellers
Translation: No no, not a monopoly, we will just be the only payment method and we are telling you how we pay all fees for something most sellers do not use, without mentioning that we will charge the sellers even higher fees for something they get very inexpensively if not free from their banks.

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Leave Feedback Immediately You Get Paid

I left a comment on AuctionInsights blog which had a typical response from someone who has been educated by eBay in the fine art of unsafe buying. I am going to respond here because it ties in with my reading of Lorrie Norrington's keynote address at the ECMTA-PeSA Spring 2008 eCommerce Summit in New Orleans last week.

I have read and re-read Ms Norrington's speech. It is a prime example of using a lot of words to say nothing new. There are examples of Bayspeak, deception by ommission and eBay New Math, for example on the subject of PowerSeller discounts

Well, I’m proud to say that we have Q1 results….all sellers
have improved their DSR scores over the last 10 weeks, and
as expected, 60% of PowerSellers – in fact 63% - did qualify
for at least a 5% discount on both their March and April
invoices. 30% of all PowerSellers, have qualified for the
15% discount

These figure do not connect with the figures stated by the PowerSellers themselves, who stated unequivocally that 40% of the five top sellers will loose PowerSeller status. Additionally they do not jibe with the number of sellers who are reporting they were told they do not qualify on even though their dashboards tell them they do qualify. Are Ms Norrington's figures referring to a percentage of the sellers who will retain PS status after the 'demotion' is implemented?

Ms Norrington's statement

Sellers with strong DSR scores are going to fare very, very
well on eBay. You will get better pricing, better visibility and
an unmatched opportunity to reach customers and turn
inventory to cash.

is a perfect example of Bayspeak, this is what I said, but not what I meant. I have strong DSR scores Ms Norrington, you said I will get better pricing. Of course that is not what you meant, I am not a PowerSeller, therefore no matter how high my levels of customer satisfaction I am unworthy of any consideration as a customer.

I note some phrases from the 'disgruntled noise' creeping into official pronouncements. Our leaders are using the phrase 'our customers', although there is still confusion as to exactly whom the buyers are buying from.

Today, everyone at eBay recognizes that we have to
fight hard each and every day to win your business because
you – along with our buyers – are our customers.

Given the percentage of Gross Sales Value eBay takes from Sellers there may well be grounds for that stance.

However, this quote

buyers were telling us that retaliatory negative feedback was one of the primary reasons why they reduced their shopping on eBay. This was clearly something we had to address … and quickly.
For sellers, we believe, this is much less of an issue,
because your primary concern is, and should be, whether
you are paid for your merchandise.

best illustrates the disconnect between the MBA talking about 'her' buyers and the seasoned and successful retailers she was talking down to.

This was echoed by Ken commenting on the AuctionInsight blog who said

I think the feedback change is a good thing. There are sellers selling useless wholesale lists and they have 100% feedback, isn’t suspicious to anyone?

The only thing a seller should care about is if he gets paid or not.

Ms Norrington you are wrong!

I say to both Ken and Ms Norrington, it is fairly obvious that you are NOT a seller. You both said "The only thing a seller should care about is if he gets paid or not."
and you are both wrong. From a buyer's viewpoint you are completely wrong. From a Seller's viewpoint; don't quit your day job, you are not going to make it.

Yes, it is important to a seller that they get paid. That is, after all, the point of the exercise and not even worth mentioning because "without consideration there is no contract" (if money does not change hands there is no deal).

THE most important thing to a seller is that the expectations of the buyer are met, that the buyer is happy with the deal.

This requires communication so that buyer expectations are knowledgeable and realistic. It requires a businesslike and methodical approach so that orders do not get overlooked, knowledge of packing techniques so the item arrives safely and is shipped rapidly by the method with the most efficient speed to cost ratio.

An unhappy buyer will broadcast his unhappiness far and wide. You Ken, are still broadcasting about your 'useless wholesale list' and how long ago was that? Your expectations were naive and unrealistic and the bad seller you bought from did not tell you commerce doesn't work that way, or you would not have bought.

A happy buyer will come back again and again. They will tell their friends and their satisfaction will grow your business. When I state in my listings "I will leave feedback when you tell me you are happy with your deal" I also state "if you are not happy it's not sold, send it back and I will refund you." All you have to do is email me and say 'it has arrived I love it' and I will give you feedback because it is now a done deal. If you do not like your purchase the deal is not done until I have the item back and you have your refund.

As a buyer would you rather have that kind of guarantee or instant feedback and no recourse?

I do not dispute that retaliatory feedback is a serious problem on eBay. Look at automated feedback programs. There can be no doubt that any program that responds with 'like for like feedback' is both retaliatory and meaningless, in the process devaluing the whole concept of feedback. Who uses these programs? What is the easiest and least disruptive way to put a stop to this practice? Prevent use of the programs.

I will end with a quote from eBay Help pages.

Leaving Feedback is voluntary; however, eBay encourages all members to leave Feedback after each transaction is complete.

Ms Norrington said in the brief question and answer session immediately following her speech

My advice is as soon as your buyers pay you, give them positive feedback.

This would indicate that Ms Norrington does not understand the concept of customer service and buyer satisfaction any better than she understands the point at which the deal is done. Looking at eBay, why am I not surprised?

Ms Norrington finished her speech with a quote

You ain't seen nothing yet

Ain't that the truth? We are still waiting to see something Ms Norrington, but meanwhile we are selling elsewhere.

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