Rafael Conde, a developer for Sketch and Hand Mirror, created an eBay account, made his first purchase, and promptly got suspended indefinitely.
eBay was once THE online destination for used, unique, and vintage items on the internet. In recent years, however, it has been eclipsed by a variety of other platforms. A recent Twitter thread by Conde illustrates an issue that could be a major factor in eBay’s decline.
According to Conde, he set up an eBay account to look for and buy vintage items that aren’t easily found elsewhere. After his first purchase, however, he was notified that his account had been suspended. Talking with an online customer support representative didn’t yield any resolution, with the customer service rep saying the decision was final and nothing could be done.
To matters even worse, the transaction for the item Conde bid on had already gone through. eBay’s solution was to tell him to contact his payment provider and dispute the charges.
What’s more, in an unfathomable admission, the eBay rep seemed to indicate that this was a common and normal way of verifying new users.
The Ask eBay Twitter account responded to Conde’s thread, reiterating that nothing could be done.
The entire exchange is displayed below and is definitely not a good look for a company that needs to attract users…not alienate them.
We have all been stressed far beyond capacity in the past year and a half since the onset of the COVID pandemic. We’ve been tested and tried and many of us have often felt that we might just fall apart and never recover. We’ve suffered huge, and deep losses in so many areas of our lives, from the loss of jobs, the loss of wages, the loss of normalcy, to the loss of friends and family.
These wounds run deep across our entire nation and, despite the amount of “normalcy” that has returned to some degree, we are still recovering from all that we’ve experienced since the beginning of 2020. Although many things have made us stronger and many things have caused us to improve and become better, the simple truth is that we will never be the same. Let’s learn about the role of women in business, and how eCommerce has been a game changer.
Women are Doing More Than Their Fair Share
One demographic who has felt all of us on a very large, and heavy scale, is women. In general, women have always worn many different hats, and have borne many kinds of responsibilities, from work to home life, and beyond. However, with the pandemic, women were hit particularly hard.
Not only do women find themselves being the fallback person for household responsibilities, like managing food preparation and cleanup, maintaining the cleanliness of the home, and making sure the children are taken care of, but with the pandemic, they have had these burdens increased. Many of us are working from home, so there is more food to be consumed and more cleanup needing to happen. Not to mention that kids were doing school via zoom much of last year, which brought it slew of new challenges to the home.
On top of all of this, women are also the group who are the most likely to work in industries hit the hardest by COVID quarantines and lockdowns, which induced loss of profits and subsequently, loss of jobs for employees. Women are more likely to work in hospitality, food services, and in-store retail, which means they were also hit hard with loss of hours, and total loss of income.
Women are always resourceful, and certainly no less so during all the hardships of a global pandemic. For this reason, many women turned to selling online on sites like eBay to bring in an income and still manage all that they needed to do at home. In fact, in the first 6 months of the pandemic, US based eBay businesses rose by 34%, and US based sales grew by 38%. Eighty-two percent of women who either began selling or increased their eBay presence. They did so due to hardships brought on by COVID.
eCommerce is Making a Difference
eBay has given women exactly what they need during this difficult time. Women who run an eBay business have the flexibility they need to manage everything in their lives. They also enjoy being their own boss, and they enjoy the ability to bring in an income for their household.
Selling on eBay has been a wonderful resource to help women to bear their additional burdens and to thrive during this uncertain time.
Since eBay began as a company in 1995, transactions between consumers (known as C2C transactions) have been a vital part of eBay’s business model. In particular, the sale of secondhand goods between parties is something eBay has grown famous for during the internet age. When someone sells a pre-owned good to another person, they engage in a process known as recommerce. To celebrate the impact recommerce has had on eBay, its users, and the planet as a whole, eBay launched its new Recommerce Report. The report’s highlights have been outlined below.
The first main point to come out of the report is the rise in recommerce’s popularity. More than 7 in 10 of the US eBay sellers surveyed say buying pre-owned products has grown more common in recent years. The numbers are even higher among Generation Z, of which 81% report that buying second hand has become more common in 2020. This may be due in part to the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. When people face financial woes, they are less likely to buy items new. Furthermore, the strains coronavirus placed on traditional stores did not affect eBay’s online platform, allowing business on eBay to continue as normal while yard sales and thrift stores may have suffered. Though possible the trend towards recommerce may reverse as the economy heals, there is also the chance that the current trend reduces the long term stigma of buying and using secondhand items. If that is the case, the power of recommerce is here to stay.
The Benefits of Recommerce
For sellers, the recommerce market boasts extremely low barriers to entry. The average American owns 36 household items that are worthy of sale on eBay. If the individual agrees to part with said items, they can earn over $3600 in supplemental income. While most sellers are likely to only engage in recommerce as a side hustle, more dedicated sellers can also search yard and estate sales for hidden treasures. On the side of the buyers, secondhand finds usually cost less than their new counterparts. Thanks to eBay’s auction style format, buyers and sellers can negotiate a mutually beneficial price on each transaction that takes place.
So far, recommerce has been shown to greatly benefit eBay, buyers, and sellers. There is still one more beneficiary worth discussing: planet Earth. As green living enthusiast Hannah Stringer put it, “recommerce is the most effective strategy as a consumer taking on a climate crisis.” In addition to being accessible to consumers with a wide variety of incomes, buying second hand preserves the environment in two important ways. Every item sold second hand is spared from a landfill and every consumer who demands a pre-owned good saves the water, energy, and resources that would have made a new good from being used. In the electronics and apparel markets alone, recommerce on eBay kept 720,000 metric tons of carbon emissions out of the air.
The end of an era has arrived as eBay is ending its support for PayPal for sellers.
eBay first bought PayPal in 2002 before splitting the company off in 2015. The two companies continued to work together, but that appears to be coming to an end, at least for eBay sellers.
According to The BBC, eBay has updated its terms to exclude sellers from receiving funds via their PayPal accounts. While buyers can use PayPal to purchase goods, sellers will need to link their account to an actual bank account.
In terms of fees, the move has pros and cons for users. On the one hand, sellers will not have to pay PayPal fees. On the other hand, eBay will increase its fees slightly. As a result, the fees will likely be a wash for most sellers.
One of the biggest tangible impacts will be the time it takes for payments to clear. Most payments will now take two business days to make their way into a bank account, as opposed to same day for PayPal. In addition, many sellers are not happy about being required to link their bank accounts with eBay.
It remains to be seen if there will be any major fallout from the decision, or if the uproar will blow over. In the meantime, some users will be required to make the change as of June 1, while others will be notified in the coming weeks and months.
Some of the most prominent internet companies have formed the Internet Works coalition to promote Section 230, a key internet law.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives companies immunity for content users upload or post on their sites. As a result, companies like Facebook, Twitter and others cannot be held legally liable for an offensive post, picture or the like.
In recent years Section 230 has come under fire, culminating in President Trump threatening to veto a defense spending bill unless Section 230 is revoked. While President-elect Biden has not weighed in on Section 230 directly, his former top tech advisor has said its time for changes to the law, throwing in question the law’s status even with a change of administration.
Internet Works, however, is working to help educate lawmakers about the role of the law. Automattic (maker of WordPress), Cloudflare, Dropbox, eBay, Etsy, Glassdoor, GoDaddy, Medium, Nextdoor, Patreon, Pinterest, Reddit, Snap Inc., Tripadvisor, Vimeo and the Wikimedia Foundation are all members of the coalition.
“These well-known internet companies and nonprofits launched Internet Works to elevate the voice of stakeholders across the digital economy and work with policymakers to preserve the benefits of Section 230, the foundational internet law that enables the United States to lead the world in innovation and robust job growth in the technology sector,” said Josh Ackil, Spokesperson for Internet Works. “Internet Works members rely on CDA 230 to make their platforms safe for users and support free expression. This coalition brings new voices and diverse perspectives to Washington’s current Section 230 debate, which too often focuses on the largest internet platforms.”
The wide range of companies making up the coalition illustrates the far-reaching impact of Section 230. While many think of social media platforms as the primary beneficiaries of the law, companies like Dropbox also benefit. As a cloud storage provider, should Dropbox be liable for whatever a customer chooses to use that storage for? If Dropbox should be liable, then what measures should they be expected to take to verify the content they host? What privacy protections will customers be able to expect, or not expect, as a result of those measures?
Whatever happens with Section 230, it’s clear there are significant challenges to addressing the problems of a modern internet.
eBay has streamlined its focus and reached a deal to sell its classifieds business for nearly $9 billion.
In addition to its traditional business, eBay has a Craigslist-style classifieds business in approximately 1,000 cities around the world. eBay has been looking to sell that portion of the business for some time.
According to Reuters, Norwegian firm Adevinta has won the auction for the classified business, which includes Gumtree and Kijiji, agreeing to pay almost $9 billion. eBay will still maintain a minority stake in the business. Adevinta already maintains online marketplaces in some 15 countries, and will double in size as a result of the deal.
Given how popular online shopping has become as a result of the pandemic, eBay could not have chosen a better time make this deal.
eBay has been considering selling its classified-ads business for some time, but it appears the company is finally taking steps in that direction.
The company’s classifieds business is estimated to be worth some $10 billion and mainly operates internationally, similar to Craigslist in the U.S. Selling the classifieds division would leave eBay with its core marketplace business.
According to The Wall Street Journal, “Private-equity firms including TPG and Blackstone Group Inc. and strategic bidders including Naspers Ltd. and German publishing company Axel Springer SE have recently expressed interest in the business.” eBay has also been approaching other companies to gauge interest.
Both Naspers and Axel Springer have existing online classifieds businesses, and the addition of eBay’s business would no doubt significantly increase their reach. The WSJ reports that indications of interest are due in March.
We will continue to monitor developments and report updates.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange “has made a takeover offer for eBay Inc.”
ICE has been interested in buying eBay before, and has now approached the e-commerce giant once again, although the WSJ says the talks are not formal. If eBay were interested, ICE would likely have to come up with more than $30 billion to make the deal happen, reflecting eBay’s current valuation of $28 billion, plus a considerable premium.
The WSJ’s sources said ICE is mainly interested in eBay’s marketing business, not the online classified division, which even eBay has considered selling.
We will continue to monitor the story and provide updates as it develops.
eBay has announced that viagogo has agreed to purchase StubHub for $4.05 billion in cash.
eBay purchased StubHub for $310 million in 2007. StubHub claims to be “the world’s most trusted ticket marketplace spanning 44 countries.” It’s business partners include “the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, WWE, NCAA, Matchroom Boxing, plus Paciolan, Tessitura and Roundabout Theatre Company. StubHub provides the total end-to-end event going experience throughout the world.”
Rival viagogo was founded by Eric Baker, the same individual who co-founded StubHub. Baker left the company before eBay purchased it in 2007. Nevertheless, he was upbeat about bringing together his two creations and combining their resources.
“It has long been my wish to unite the two companies. I am so proud of how StubHub has grown over the years and excited about the possibilities for our shared future,” Baker said. “Buyers will have a wider choice of tickets, and sellers will have a wider network of buyers. Bringing these two companies together creates a win-win for fans – more choice and better pricing.”
Together, the two companies “will sell hundreds of thousands of tickets daily across more than 70 countries.” Despite StubHub’s success, eBay ultimately is divesting itself of the company to streamline its focus.
“We believe this transaction is a great outcome and maximizes long-term value for eBay shareholders,” said Scott Schenkel, interim chief executive officer of eBay Inc. “Over the past several months, eBay’s leadership team and Board of Directors have been engaged in a thorough review of our current strategies and portfolio, and we concluded that this was the best path forward for both eBay and StubHub. We firmly believe in the StubHub business and we are excited about its future growth potential with viagogo as its owner.”
Provided the deal receives regulatory approval, eBay expects it to close by the end of Q1 2020.
A week ago we covered a Wall Street Journal article highlighting potential trouble for Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, as multiple backers were reconsidering their commitment to the project.
Fast-forward a week and things have only gone from bad to worse. As Bloomberg reports, PayPal was the first to announce they were leaving on October 6, with Visa, Mastercard, eBay, Stripe and Mercado Pago following suit. Each of these companies provided a brief statement, expressing their interest in monitoring Libra’s progress. Nonetheless, without these companies’ support, Libra is left without a single payment processor in the U.S.
The high-profile exits follow increased pressure from U.S. senators, who cautioned Mastercard, Visa and Stripe about backing the currency. Since Facebook first announced the Libra project, governments around the world have been critical of the endeavor, expressing concern about how the cryptocurrency will impact financial markets. In the days leading up to the companies pulling their support, senators cautioned them about how Libra could impact their broader payment business as well.
Critics are mixed about whether these high-profile defections spell doom for Libra or a new opportunity. Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg TV that he “didn’t think Facebook can do this by itself. Short of a big bank stepping in like JPMorgan, I don’t think this could ever happen.”
As SiliconANGLE highlights, however, several other companies emphasized their support, “including Kiva, Mercy Corps, Andreessen Horowitz, Anchorage and Xapo. Arguably, the change sees Libra look more like a startup now with the lack of mainstream company support.”
The news comes days before the Libra Association is scheduled to meet to sign a charter agreement. It’s probably a safe bet there will be far more to talk about in the wake of these defections.
“The most important thing that we look at is the underlying health of the marketplace,” says eBay CEO Devin Wenig. “For me, that really comes down to three things. It’s how many people are shopping with us? How many people are selling with us? And how much inventory is in the marketplace? What’s on the shelves if you will. All three of those have never been higher. We’ve seen active buyers consistently grow, we added two million last quarter.”
Devin Wenig, CEO of eBay, discusses their strong Q2 earnings announcement and growth going forward. Wenig also took the opportunity to slam the internet sales tax movement, saying the “internet sales tax is a regressive tax on small business,” in an interview on CNBC:
We’ve Seen Active Buyers Consistently Grow
The most important thing that we look at is the underlying health of the marketplace. For me, that really comes down to three things. It’s how many people are shopping with us? How many people are selling with us? And how much inventory is in the marketplace? What’s on the shelves if you will. All three of those have never been higher. We’ve seen active buyers consistently grow, we added two million last quarter. We continue to see growth in business sellers and inventory. If you look in our history every time those numbers grow GMV (gross merchandise value) grows.
What we’re facing right now is a couple of things and GMV can move up or down in the 90 day period. We are in the middle of a rollout of internet sales tax, which we know is making an impact, particularly on our US business. We’re also seeing the withdrawal of some of the marketing spend that we did last year, which was part of the plan. We said we would do that this year and we have a line of sight to it, and it’s explainable. So we’re not that concerned about GMV being soft in the short run. What we see is a healthy marketplace and we know when those metrics grow GMV follows, as it has in every year in our past 24 years.
We’ve raised guidance now twice in the last two quarters. We don’t give GMV guidance. We give revenue guidance and earnings guidance. We started the year saying this year was about growing the underlying marketplace metrics and let’s get the two real growth priorities, advertising, and payments, going. And half of the way in I’d say I’m pleased but not satisfied. I’d say we’ve made a lot of progress against those priorities, although we still have a long way to go. But it’s given us the confidence to raise our forecast in Q1 and we raised it again yesterday. So that’s a good start, a good first half.
Internet Sales Tax Is a Regressive Tax On Small Business
At the beginning of the year, there were no states that had enacted a marketplace collection of sales tax. Now we have nine and there are 30 that have declared and 30 will be in place by the end of this year. Obviously, when a state declares an internet sales tax we must collect on behalf of the sellers. So we have a forward view as to how many states will enact that tax and where it will be in place by the end of the year. It will be 30 and it will cover the majority of our sales in the US and the fourth quarter of this year will be the peak.
The impact of internet sales tax will make a bigger impact before it wanes. It’ll wane as we lap out of it next year. I’ll just take the opportunity to say I think it’s a bad policy. We’ve been advocating on behalf of small businesses for years that an internet sales tax is a regressive tax on small business and that is exactly what we’re seeing.
The Head of Americas for eBay, Scott Cutler, says that they will sell more online than Walmart, Macy’s and Best Buy combined. Ebay is the number two ecommerce player in the United States behind Amazon. Cutler noted that branded items are extremely hot on the platform with Adidas Yeezy Boost being eBay’s top searched item over the weekend.
Scott Cutler, Head of Americas for eBay, discussed the Black Friday sales weekend on CNBC:
Branded Items Are Hot on eBay
Yesterday was actually a surprising day, $3.5 billion dollars of online sales, most of that was happening on a mobile device. Everybody is searching for the best deals today and things like a Samsung TV, Apple-branded products, a Nintendo Switch, are things that people and consumers are searching to find and the best deal available is actually on eBay… guaranteed.
Branded items are hot. The top searched item on eBay was an Adidas Yeezy Boost. We’re selling a pair of shoes every couple of seconds. Monopoly for Millennials in the toy category has been very popular. Toys, in general, this holiday season is something that’s really exciting. For the first time, we launched our own toy book in Toytopia and we’re trying to highlight those things that are rare, that are retro, and that are right now. You can buy a Magic the Gathering card for $100,000 or an original 1987 Transformer set, but you can also find those things that today like a Funko Pop Doll that is really difficult to find.
We’ll Sell More Online Than Walmart, Macy’s and Best Buy Combined
We’re really just trying to show up for the consumers the best deals. It’s a highly competitive environment and we’re competing incredibly against all the retailers. You have to remember that eBay is the number two ecommerce player. We’ll sell more in online sales than Walmart, Macy’s, and Best Buy combined. It’s an extremely competitive environment and for the consumers, they want to come to a site and know that they’re getting the best deal. Getting it very quickly and free are the themes that we have to play through the holiday season.
We’ve got an amazing array of price points from the low ASP items to the high ASP items. Our differentiation against other retailers is to be able to find those things that you can’t find anywhere else that are uniquely eBay. Some of those things are very expensive but some are that must-have item at a low price point. Giving that selection of opportunity and choice for consumers is really the balance that we’re trying to strike.
Kynetic CEO Michael Rubin says that they owe all of their success to Amazon. “I owe all of our success to Amazon because we are such a big believer in what they were doing, a completely differentiative business model,” Rubin said. “What we’re doing is really all about vertical commerce.”
Michael Rubin, CEO of Kynetic which also owns Fanatics, Rue Gilt Groupe, and ShopRunner and is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, recently discussed how his companies have become so successful in an interview with Jim Cramer of Mad Money:
What I See is How Much Opportunity There is In China
What I see as an entrepreneur is how much opportunity there is in China. When I went there it’s one of those things you had to see to believe it. We had 45 million people watch our preseason basketball game. Think about that, 45 million people watching a preseason basketball game! That’s like half of a Super Bowl rating. That’s home rabid the basketball fans are in China.
So for me, I think we have nothing but growth opportunity in China. We’re just launching Fanatics there. It’s a massive opportunity and we think we could build a multi-billion dollar business there. I couldn’t be more bullish on the opportunity.
I Owe All of Our Success to Amazon
Fanatics is a really exciting business. I’ll break this down really simply for you. I had a core belief that Amazon and Alibaba we’re going to control ecommerce everywhere in the world. So if you have that belief, you’ve got two options, completely differentiate yourself or go out of business. I’m not a guy who wants to go out of business so you’ve got to completely differentiate yourself.
People say all the time, “How do you feel about Amazon?” I owe all of our success to Amazon because we are such a big believer in what they were doing, a completely differentiative business model. What we’re doing is really all about vertical commerce. We design, develop, and sell directly to the consumer most of the products that we have, so it’s a completely different business. Think about it like an H&M or a Zara, but in the sports license business and mostly online.
Kynetic is All About Verticality
We’re designing the jersey, well actually in the case of the jersey, Nike designs the jersey, but going forward we’re actually gonna manufacture the jersey and sell directly to the consumer. But I’ll tell you, just over the Super Bowl specifically, we sold two and a half million units of Eagles merchandise. Two and a half millions units of Eagles merchandise within a few weeks after the Super Bowl and we design those products, we manufacture those products, we ship them directly to the consumer.
Because of the verticality, the consumer gets a wider assortment of merchandise, they get anything they want, they get it more quickly, and the leagues and teams make more money. We are also using that data to better communicate with the fans, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
If you really think about the sports license business and if you think about the sports leagues, what a league wants and what a team wants is to have the best marketing brand in the world. Nike is this incredible brand, but they don’t wake up every day and go to bed every night thinking about how do I maximize every sale in the licensed sports business. So what the leagues did was smart, they said let’s split this from one set of rights to two sets of rights. Let’s work with Nike to be this incredible marketing partner and then really use it to drive the Nike brand and the NFL brand. At the same time let’s work with Fanatics to drive transactions. Now you’ve got two companies instead of one really growing the business as much as possible.
We Made the Businesses What They Are Today
For us, the truth be told and people ask this all the time, “Was eBay smart for selling the businesses? First, eBay was very focused, they didn’t want to be in the owned inventory business. Number two, these were teeny companies. When I bought Fanatics back from eBay it was a 250 million dollar company. It’s going to do $2.3 billion dollars this year. It has a completely different strategy. When we bought back Rue la la from eBay it was a $200 million business, then we bought Gilt and now it’s close to a billion-dollar business. ShopRunner didn’t have $100 million in transactions and next year it’s going to do three or four billion dollars in transactions.
We took these businesses, we’ve developed the strategies, we’ve evolved them, and we’ve made them into what they are today. And Here’s the most exciting thing, we’re just getting going.
My Loyalty is All About Who Makes Us the Most Money
Other than the Sixers my loyalty is all about who makes us the most money, so I’m very easy to swap teams. If I own the Panthers I would be rooting to destroy the Eagles. I mean I love Jeffrey, he’s my buddy, but business is business and sports is sports. You’re there for one reason which is to win. I actually always laugh when people come up to me before a game and say, “Hey good luck.” I wish I could tell them good luck, but I’m like for the next three hours I hope you die. I love you before the game and I love you after the game, but there’s no love during the game.
One of the most important topics for retailers is getting your listings to the top of eBay search results, or in other words, eBay SEO. For many businesses, learning how to do effective eBay SEO can literally mean the difference between making a few hundred bucks or thousands of dollars.
JR Business recently talked about how they have risen to the top of very popular eBay search results and offered their insider advice for you to do the same. In fact, on one recent listing, they have made over $70,000 in just two months. Below are some highlights from their recent talk on how to do eBay right:
Getting Started with eBay SEO
We’ve been using eBay for ten years now and are very successful on the platform. We have hundreds of listings that occupy very high SEO rankings on search results. For example, there’s a search result with 1.8 million results and we occupy two of the top three slots. eBay SEO is very tricky, they are constantly changing things, tweaking things, updating the platform, so you have to stay up-to-date and if you don’t make certain changes when they need to be made you’re gonna drop in SEO ranking. It’s very hard to stay relevant and at the top but we’ve managed to do it by following 3 important steps.
The 3 big things are the performance of your account, the listing set up, and your customer satisfaction. eBay SEO really falls into those 3 categories and those are what’s going to make up your ranking.
Becoming a Top Rated Seller
eBay is not going to put their number one listing as somebody who has 4 seller feedback points, 40 points or even 400 points. You need a lot of seller feedback points to get to the top of eBay search results.
Being a top rated seller or a power seller is going to help immensely. However, becoming a top-rated seller is really tricky to get. You have to accept refunds, you have to have a certain shipping time and can’t be delayed on shipments, and you have to have a high customer satisfaction. You have to meet all these standards and also have a certain number of transactions and also hit a certain dollar amount in sales. All these things have to be there to become a top rated seller. Once you are there, you get a discount on seller fees and again it helps with SEO.
Pay for Everything eBay Offers
It is important to pay for everything that they offer sellers on eBay. If your listing is going to do super successful long-term, you’re going to make a ton of money from it, then pay for the $2 subtitle, the $4 bull title, the secondary listing category, the enlarged images for a dollar… all that stuff! It is very little in the grand scheme of things. If you’re gonna be making a lot of money for that listing, like its a cash cow listing, then you need to throw the money at eBay.
My theory is that since you’re paying eBay more then they may help you out a little bit. More importantly, in the buyer’s eyes, when they see a bold title, an enlarged image, and they can find you in two categories, this will increase engagement with your listing.
Pack Your Titles Full of Keywords
I also can’t emphasize enough the packing of your listing title full of keywords that people are going to search for. Based on what industry and niche you’re in you should know what keywords are going to do the best. If you’re selling iPhone chargers, you better know to pack that title with “works with iPhone six, seven, eight and ten, etc.
When you’re done with the title there should be zero characters remaining. You need to pack that thing full. When somebody searches something on eBay it is referencing off the title unless they do a description search, but otherwise, it has to be in the title to show up.
The subtitle isn’t searchable but it’s still important. Once they find your listing, you want to make sure they stay on your listing and that they have enough information.
Create Extremely Long Descriptions
They need to know about the product, so not only are you packing in information into the title and the subtitle, but also the item specifics. Those are the pre-fill in little boxes that eBay gives you based on what category you selected. So fill in that information but also the description, it’s one of the most important parts of the listing.
Please do not have a four-sentence description! I see it all too often, but that’s just gonna kill your listing. If you not giving them all the information they need to know about the item and if you’re not keeping them on your listing, they’re gonna go somewhere else and find one that explains it better.
You should have a nice attractive title, maybe inlay a picture or something in the description, but also just have paragraph upon paragraph about the item. Then talk about your shipping methods and if you’re an experienced account say so. We always say that we’re a trusted eBay seller for the past ten years with thousands of feedback points. We tell them to look at our recent feedback, reassuring confidence in them.
Ship as Fast as Possible and for Free
It’s unbelievably important to have quick shipping times. There’s no reason not to be shipping within one to two days, and you shouldn’t ever need three-day handling time because it starts to hurt your sales. Anything above five days or more is really going to affect your performance.
If eBay sees that you’re a fast shipper and that’s what you described, at the top of the listing they’ll post fast and free shipping and estimated time delivery. People want to get their stuff quick!
You should also offer free shipping. Personally, just about every single one of my items is free shipping. That helps with the algorithm because eBay can tell the buyers free shipping and they see it as a better deal.
Improve Listing Performance with Deals
One other big tip for listing performance, I have found a lot of success with using sales promotions. It may not even be that much of a sale, but something about buyers seeing sale is going to Incline them to buy. Sales also plays into eBay SEO as well.
Experiment with Sponsored Listings
One other thing that you can experiment with is the sponsored listings with eBay. I promote some of my listings and have found good success because it helps them move up in search results quickly.
To get the ball rolling I throw some sponsored ad budget through eBay and they’ll often bump it up to the first page. Then people start to see it and then some solds will start to appear. Once you start selling some items and you have good buyer satisfaction on that listing and people are leaving good reviews and they’re not returning the items that will help immensely with your eBay search ranking.
Keep Your Customers Satisfied
If you have 6 five-star reviews on your listing people are gonna feel super safe buying. We all know we feel reassured when we see good reviews on an item. Alternatively, if you see only one-star reviews on an item that will hurt your customer satisfaction. That’s why having good communications with your customer, working out problems and just making sure everything is top-notch with the transaction is so important.
Good reviews and good feedback on your account is so big because once you get some products sold on the listing everything is gonna compound pretty quickly. You’ll start getting some reviews on your products, you’ll start to get some sold quantity.
I Made $70,000 With One Good eBay Listing
Two months ago I added what I thought would be a good listing, nothing crazy, but I knew it’d be a decent cash cow listing. I probably spent about six hours making a full thorough description. I went really really detailed on that and I paid $12 for extra eBay boosts as I described above.
So $12 and six hours of my time and within a couple weeks it was starting to sell. I sold 30 or 40 quantity on this listing and each item is over 50 bucks apiece, so I was making some money. I’m like okay that’s pretty good, and then that point of compounding came and things just started to hit and the listing took off. It went crazy with people loving the items, had great reviews and eBay could see that fast and free shipping with timely deliveries tracking.
It was a perfect listing and it really started to take off and now two months later that single listing has sold over $70,000 worth of product!
This is not a good week for eBay. The company’s stocks took a massive tumble a day after revealing that it was slashing about 300 jobs in the Bay Area.
eBay informed the Employment Development Department of California of its move to cut about 300 jobs in the area by Friday, July 20. The affected employees were reportedly notified last month that they were being laid off.
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) July 18, 2018
The retail giant later reported its second-quarter earnings to its investors. The company secured a net profit of 64 cents per share, which was above what analysts projected. However, its warning that the present quarter’s revenue would go down resulted in a selloff that saw eBay’s stocks fall by 10 percent, ending in $34.11 per share.
eBay also reported that its expected full-year profit will be around $10.75 billion to $10.85 billion, down from its previous estimate of about $10.9 billion to $11.1 billion. The company alsolowered its expectations regarding its third-quarter earnings per share to somewhere between $0.54 and $0.56.
eBay stock has worst day in nearly two years after weak growth, lowered revenue forecast https://t.co/ZbLHNkZngM
News of the layoffs and the drop in stock prices is typically something to be worried about. Conventional wisdom dictates that cutting jobs should lead to a boost in share prices. After all, reduced cost means better profits. eBay certainly looks at it that way, as the company stated that the savings it made the previous quarter will provide them with additional funds to spend on marketing.
eBay has been relatively quiet the past few years, particularly when compared to rival Amazon. But despite losing its luster, the company has been performing steadily. Its stock prices even reached a high $36 per share last January. This capped a 139 percent gain of the past five years. Unfortunately,shares have dropped 27 percent since then.
Some Wall Street analysts have said that this drop in shares is puzzling, as the company continues to make progress with its key initiatives. They noted that the company is still “losing market share at a time when eCommerce, in general, is thriving.” One analyst even said that this could be due to eBay customers not bringing in new buyers to the platform.
eBay has now made it easier for sellers to ship their items by using augmented reality to pick the right USPS box, the company announced in a Monday press release.
Using Google’s ARCore platform on Android, eBay leverages motion tracking and environmental recognition to help sellers superimpose virtual shipping boxes of various sizes over a physical product.
Aside from accurate sizing, the new AR feature will help sellers quickly compute for actual shipping costs, as well as save time from having to test boxes at the post office.
The new feature can be found in the “Selling” part of your eBay account. To try it, tap on “Will it Fit?” option on your smartphone. You’ll then have to place your item on a flat, non-reflective surface, say a wooden tabletop, for the AR to work.
Next, tap on your item to place the virtual box over it, then aim the smartphone camera around it to map the surrounding area. You can move around the box and look from all angles to see if the product sticks out while adding room for padding. Once you’ve picked the box, you’re now ready to ship out the item.
Sellers on eBay ship billions of items annually, so any innovation that simplifies the shipping process will likely be well-received.
“By coupling Google’s ARCore platform with premiere AR technology built at eBay, we are continuing to make the selling experience more seamless,” James Meeks, eBay mobile head, pointed out. “This technology is just one example of the types of innovation we’re working on to transform eBay. It demonstrates our continual innovation on behalf our sellers to help them save time and remove barriers.”
However, the AR feature of the updated eBay app is currently only available on a few Android ARCore-compatible devices in the US. There are plans to eventually extend the feature to iOS devices, but no timetable has been set yet.
eBay is on a quest to make shopping more interactive and enjoyable by incorporating augmented reality into the buying process. The company has even tapped the services of expert data scientist Jan Pedersen to ensure that they’re on the right track.
In a bid to provide their clients with a better shopping experience, eBay is reportedly developing an augmented reality kit that will help customers see the product better and make shopping more dynamic. For instance, the AR kit can help drivers check how a particular tire design will look on their vehicles. It could also assist women to look at a dress or an appliance with a more critical eye. Shoppers can also use the kit to check what size box they will need for their purchases.
eBay is currently on a roll, with a holiday quarter that saw a 10 percent increase in its merchandise volume of $24.4 billion. The season also saw around 170 million shoppers using the platform. The company wants to continue that success and is seeking to convince investors that they can also go up against a giant like Amazon. Jeff Bezos’ company is currently dominating the market with its same-day delivery system.
Amazon might be the king of logistics, but as eBay CEO Devin Wenig told investors at a recent technology conference, it’s not the only thing that’s important. According to Wenig, price and inventory are also critical.
eBay is known for offering one-of-a-kind products at affordable prices, but the company is also looking to improve its inventory. To that end, it is planning to add more clothing and home products to attract women and young consumers. At the moment, the retail giant’s base is geared towards older men.
Mohan Patt, the company’s vice president of buyer experiences, revealed that eBay is pushing to maintain its growth and is looking toenhance its artificial intelligence to further improve what customers will be offered. The company aims to expand its reach beyond shoppers who already know what they’re looking for to people who are browsing the different product categories, seeking inspiration.
This is where artificial intelligence and date will come in. According to Patt, this personalization will be the key to getting consumers to purchase items they didn’t know they wanted.
To ensure that the company’s vision for customization and a more engaging shopping experience goes off without a hitch, eBay hasengaged the services of Jan Pedersen. The renowned data scientist will be at the helm of the eCommerce leader’s AI endeavors.
Wenig describes Pedersen as “a true pioneer” and said he joins the company at a crucial time when AI is “capable of transforming personalized, immersive shopping experiences.”
Pedersen and his team will be responsible for developing eBay’s strategy and technology that will be used to better interact with customers.
Even in business, some partnerships are just not meant to last. Despite working closely together for more than a decade, eBay recently announced that it would be ditching long-time partner PayPal as its primary payments processor by 2020.
In a post on its company website, eBay announced on Wednesday that it hassigned an agreement with Adyen, to replace PayPal. Ayden is an Amsterdam-based global payment company and one of PayPal’s rivals.
eBay acquired PayPal in October of 2002 for $1.5 billion. At the time, the two services seemed to be well-paired with eBay controlling the lion share of the online auction market while PayPal was the top player in online payment processing. However, by July of 2015, the two returned to being standalone businesses.
While Adyen will eventually be easing out PayPal from its current role, eBay assures that PayPal will remain one of the payment options that buyers can choose upon checkout. eBay further revealed it has an “Operating Agreement with PayPal, which remains in place through mid-2020.”
According to the auction giant, the shift to Adyen will bring in multiple benefits to both sellers and buyers. The cited benefits to sellers include lower costs and a simplified pricing structure, easier tracking of transactions and payment information as well as greater sales conversion due to the expanded payment options.
Buyers, on the other hand, will now have more payment options upon checkout. eBay likewise promised a more streamlined checkout experience.
Working together with eBay is a big win for Adyen especially considering the company’s relatively small size. Adyen posted a net revenue of $178 million in 2016. In comparison, rival PayPal posted almost $11 billion in revenue for the same period.
Understandably, eBay’s announcement negatively affected PayPal shares with itsprice plummeting by as much as 10 percent on Wednesday’s trading. However, it is unclear how much the Adyen deal will affect its bottom line. At the moment, PayPal’s market value is around $102 billion, more than twice Ebay’s value of $42 billion. In addition, PayPal seems to be doing fine and has recently reported a59 percent rise in profit for the fourth quarter of 2017.
It looks like Facebook is testing out a new way to get its more than 2 billion users to spend money via its platform. Though not yet publicly announced, the tech giant has recently partnered with eBay bringing the online retailer’s Daily Deals to the FB Marketplace.
Currently in the testing phase, the new Daily Deals feature is only available to a small portion of FB users in the U.S. and displays 100 discounted products available on eBay, showing both the percentage discounted from its price as well as a countdown on how long the deal for a particular item is available. To see the actual price, however, you’ll have to click on the deal to be transported eBay’s site for check out.
Until now, Facebook Marketplace has always been about peer-to-peer transactions. Relaunched last fall, it aggregates postings from various “buy and sell” groups and, with its integration of Messenger, allows both buyers and sellers a means to communicate and seal their deals, reports Tech Crunch.
With FB Marketplace setting up an online space for buyers and sellers to meet, the feature was seen as a competitor for Craigslist and eBay, according to TheVerge. Thus, it is a bit surprising that Facebook has now teamed up with a third-party site for deals promotion and with eBay at that.
However, it looks like Facebook offering eBay’s Daily Deals is the social media giant’s tentative step in looking for new ways to monetize its more than 2 billion active user base. As stated by Akash Anand, Facebook Production Manager, “We’re conducting a test to determine if people are interested in shopping for discounted products when they visit Marketplace.” The bottom line is that Daily Deals is still in its testing phase; the feature may not even reach mainstream users as it could be dropped depending on user reception.
In a way, Facebook’s partnership with eBay could be the company’s response to Spark. Last month, Amazon entered the social media scene by creating its own platform – Spark – which is basically a network where consumers can compare notes on the various products being sold by Amazon.
In Facebook’s case, it will be the reverse of what Amazon did with Spark since the social media giant will now be venturing into eCommerce. Though Facebook is not asking for a share from eBay in the revenue from the Daily Deals feature at the moment, it is easy to see how such an arrangement could be worked out in the future.
But there is one reason why Facebook could be hesitant in going all out on eCommerce. Unlike Amazon whose revenue is mainly sourced from online sales, Facebook’s cash cow is advertising. The deal with eBay, however, might turn off some sellers/advertisers as they might see it as competition to their brand’s visibility unless their product is included in eBay’s Daily Deals of course.
It is interesting to note that Facebook’s deal with eBay is not exclusive. This opens up the possibility that the company could enter into an agreement with other third-party sellers in the future for them to post their own daily deals.
Just like Facebook, advertisers need to follow how FB’s deal with eBay pans out. Don’t worry, we’ll keep you posted on the latest developments.
eBay announced last week that in order to make their Google links more SEO friendly they have created “browse pages.” They said that in the past, a click from a search result to eBay would often be to an eBay search result itself.
Those of us in the SEO world know Google hates search results going to more search results. Google killed directories in their results and those kinds of results are similar.
With eBay’s new browse pages, they have organized the results to be more what a consumer would expect to see when clicking a search result. The pages include pictures of various similar items broken down by brand, type and price and include summary descriptions.
eBay Says This Move Was Prompted by Millennials
“We’ve noticed something lately,” said eBay in a blog post. “New online shopping patterns have emerged, especially with Millennial buyers. Instead of visiting specific online retailers for a single-purchase transaction, shoppers are using search engines to turn up results based on keywords.”
They say that this behavioral change is because buyers are looking for inspiration and guidance, and they’re more inclined to explore and discover to find what they want.
I could be wrong, but it sounds like it was more of an SEO play than a reaction to new Millennial behavior. But, whatever the reason, it’s definitely a better page for the Googler to land on than another set of search results.
Made Possible by Structured Data and RPIs
Earlier this year eBay announced to the consternation of some of their sellers that all products would be requiring Required Product Identifiers (RPIs). This structured data enabled eBay to make these new “browse pages” and helps them improve the shopping experience for buyers.
eBay told their sellers: “The most amazing part? All of these improvements were made possible by you. By adding Structured Data and Required Product Identifiers (RPIs) information to your listings, you allowed us to better organize site inventory and create a new, more relevant shopping experience for eBay buyers.”
Facebook announced today a formal buy and sell platform called Marketplace, which is likely perceived by Craigslist and eBay as a new hugely powerful competitor nudging into their space. There has always been some buying and selling via Facebook Groups, but this is the first time that Facebook has focused this activity into a single feature. At launch, the goods available to buy and sell will only be viewable to people in your local geographic area.
Although Marketplace is free (at least initially), it’s not hard to imagine that over time Facebook will add payment and shipping features that make it an eCommerce competitor to eBay. With Facebook’s tremendous reach and the massive amount of buying and selling already happening in Facebook Groups, it already is a competitor with Craigslist and classifieds. Facebook says that more than 450 million people visit buy and sell groups each month worldwide.
Marketplace will be part of the Facebook mobile app, easily accessible by tapping on the shop icon at the bottom of the screen.
How To Buy Stuff via Facebook Marketplace
Both selling and buying items on Facebook Marketplace is very easy. “Marketplace opens with photos of items that people near you have listed for sale,” notes Mary Ku, Director of Product Management, in a blog announcement. “To find something specific, search at the top and filter your results by location, category or price. You can also browse what’s available in a variety of categories such as Household, Electronics and Apparel. Use the built-in location tool to adjust the region you’re looking in, or switch to a different city altogether.”
Once you find something you want, you simply send the seller a direct message right from the Marketplace feature and make an offer. All further negotiation takes place via DM and you will have to work out payment logistics.
How To Sell Stuff via Facebook Marketplace
Facebook provided this list of how to sell::
Take a photo of your item, or add it from your camera roll
Enter a product name, description and price
Confirm your location and select a category
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Rolling Out to 4 Countries
Marketplace is launching in US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand on the Facebook app for iPhone and Android. “We will continue expanding to additional countries and make Marketplace available on the desktop version of Facebook in the coming months,” says Ku.