Ebay and other online auction powerselling tips and information

Hello from Las Vegas! Over 720 employees from eBay, PayPal and Skype are here with me along with more than 15,000 registered attendees – a new record! The energy is incredible, the interactions that are happening between staff and buyers and sellers are invaluable...and the $5 buffets are fantastic.

Last night, I delivered the keynote address with Meg, where we shared some reflections of the last year, plus some news we have about the eBay marketplace. For those who couldn't join us here in person, I invite you to listen to an audio file of the keynote speech.

Meg announced an important milestone for the eBay Community. Last Saturday, the 200 millionth member of the global eBay Community registered on the site. As Meg pointed out – if the eBay Community were a nation, we’d be the fifth largest in the world. Wow.

Meg also announced a Skype test on eBay.com. We'll provide more details on this separately – but eBay.com sellers in certain categories will be able to opt in to this test and add "Skype Me" buttons to their listings. This will be a great way to see how Skype can improve communications between buyers and sellers -- particularly in categories with complex transactions, or where people want to connect with others who share their interests and passions.

There will be follow-up announcements with more details in the next few days, but here are some of the highlights:

New Community Products – eBay Blogs and the eBay Wiki
The "social web" is a hot topic these days, but here at eBay, we've been pioneering online communities for over a decade. Every day, millions of people around the globe connect and share their expertise via eBay discussion boards, the Answer Center, eBay Groups, Reviews & Guides, and other forums. Now we’re pleased to introduce eBay Blogs and the eBay Wiki – they're on the site now. Rachel Makool, Senior Director of Community Development, will be sharing more details about how these technologies offer new ways to connect on eBay.

We also announced the introduction of MyCollectibles, a great new destination for eBay’s collectibles categories where members can organize their treasures and share them with the eBay Community.

Update on New Trust & Safety Policy Enforcement
A few months ago, Matt Halprin's global policy management team began revamping how we enforce our policies, so that we’re more effective and consistent in cleaning up the site and fairer to the vast majority of our sellers who want to comply. Sellers told us that the old system of warning after warning -- followed by a long suspension -- created confusion and fear. Matt’s team has made our policies clearer, created more education and improved communications, and developed guidelines that allow us to slow down and penalize repeat violators. Overall the number of actual suspensions has gone down, replaced by brief selling restrictions intended to be less disruptive.

We’re making good progress, although we realize it hasn’t always seemed like it. Our goal has been to minimize the unnecessary disruption to our sellers’ businesses and create a safer, fairer marketplace. But in some cases, we realize, we’ve actually caused our sellers more concern. I told our live audience last night that we realize that this has not been smooth for some sellers, and we are listening and working with the Community to fine-tune our processes. For example, a seller who runs thousands of listings a week may take a bit longer to revise all their listings to be in compliance. We will keep working on this until we get it right.

Excessive Shipping
As many of you who listen to my monthly audio Town Halls know, I have personally committed to making sure the problem of some sellers charging excessive shipping costs gets addressed. You’ve told us and we agree -- excessive shipping has become a serious issue that needs a solution. It sets up unfair competition through fee avoidance and search manipulation, and, most importantly, it is eroding buyer trust in the eBay marketplace. In fact, we completed research that found this is the number one reason that buyers leave eBay.

That said, this is an open marketplace, and we’ve been very reluctant about telling our sellers what they can charge for shipping and handling. Our sellers sell everything from pianos to t-shirts.

Over the last few months, the best talent in the company has been looking at solutions to this issue. We’ll continue to look at site changes and other solutions, but I’m pleased to announce that one major change we are instituting – starting Monday, June 19th - is new aggressive enforcement against Excessive Shipping & Handling.

Now, before sellers become unnecessarily concerned, let me make it clear – this policy is geared for those egregious cases that are clearly taking advantage of the system and our buyers. You all know the listings that I mean – the .01 BIN listings with $25.00 shipping & handling for an item that weighs less than a pound to ship.

We’re going to clean up the site and stop this type of listing -- which does a disservice to the whole Community. We are going to proactively search for the worst offenders -- those whose business model is predicated on a low Buy It Now cost offset by outrageous shipping charges. Last night I gave these sellers a clear message: stop this practice, or you’re no longer welcome on eBay.

Now please understand -- if you’re charging simply to cover your actual shipping, packaging and overhead costs, you have no reason to be concerned. If you’ll be charging for custom crating, or other services, just say so in your listings.

Cross-Border Trade – A Privilege, Not a Right
Last night, I also told eBay Live! attendees that later this year, we’re going to introduce more stringent requirements for sellers who wish to sell across borders on eBay. In the U.S., we’ll require non-U.S. sellers to be PayPal verified, or to have a credit card merchant account. Other eBay sites will similarly raise the bar for international sellers in their markets – but we’ve concluded that around the world, selling internationally on eBay should be a privilege, not a right. You’ll hear more about this initiative before any changes are made that affect you.

Grand Opening for eBay Express
And, finally, last night, I had the pleasure of announcing the Grand Opening of eBay Express! During the last several weeks that eBay Express has been available as a preview, our sellers and buyers have been using the site and giving us all kinds of good input and suggestions. The Express team has been hard at work fine-tuning and adding enhancements based on your needs, and we are delighted by the results so far. In fact, it’s living up to its name – so far, the record for filling a cart and checking out is 7 seconds! Stay tuned for a letter from Lara Bridges that will offer more details about new features.

I also gave a preview of the eBay Express marketing campaign, which will be hitting the airwaves soon. To properly launch eBay Express, we wanted to break the pattern and create some intrigue. We’ve developed an out-of-the-ordinary campaign that includes 30 different TV commercials, each with the same simple message: "Get It New, Buy It Now, on eBay Express." We’ll provide more details on the eBay Express marketing campaign soon.

That’s it for now. I encourage you to watch the General Announcement board for more news on these and other topics. I hope you’ll tune into my Town Hall that we’ll be audio streaming from eBay Live! this Thursday at 11:00 a.m. PT. And for daily updates on eBay Live! don’t forget to read our eBay Chatter blog at www.ebaychatter.com.

Sincerely,

Bill Cobb
President, eBay North America