January 2009

Message from the Internet Marketing Center Team Switch to the new "My eBay"… or get switched! eBay befriends elephants, bans ivory Boost your "Best Match" ranking with free shipping… but only if it pays for itself! Bad feedback? Get a revision! January 15th deadline: An important reminder to ALL EBAYERS! $12 is the magic number for lower PayPal fees Get 50% off auction-style listing fees in January eBay experiments with PPC advertising. You shouldn’t Sellers safer with anonymous winning Bidder IDs Final thoughts

1. Message from the Internet Marketing Center Team
and the Internet Marketing Center Team
Looks like we all survived 2008. What a year of upheavals!

The numbers are in for the holiday shopping season — and we know that for most eBay sellers, that’s when the big money rolls in.

As everybody expected, online sales weren’t as robust as usual because of the uncertain economy. Market research firm ComScore reports that compared to last year, October through December online retail sales declined by 4%.

But eBay had the most visitors of any online market, with 85.4 million. That was actually a 4% drop from last year for that same period — more or less matching the overall drop in online buying. As they say, all boats drop with the tide.

But hey — 85.4 million visitors in three months!

Another interesting stat: according to a Retailer Daily survey, 80% of online shoppers say they come online to save money. And if there’s one thing buyers associate with eBay, it’s GREAT PRICES!

So this year presents us with a lot of opportunities!

If you’ve been following the strategies of our Advanced eBay Mentoring Team then we hope you’re seeing great results in:

• better placement in the listings pages
• better Detailed Seller Ratings
• a higher sell-through rate

You might even be enjoying less competition!

(You can find our team’s recommendations in our Bidding Frenzy back issues at http://www.auctiontips.com/archive/.)

In this issue, for the first quarter of 2009, we’ll show you where you can save money, how you can FINALLY get relief from unfair bad feedback, and when you should be wary of things that look good on the surface.

So let’s get on with it…

 

The Internet Marketing Center Team


2. Switch to the new "My eBay"… or get switched!
In August of 2007, eBay launched the beta of the new "My eBay" and called it "My eBay Preview."

My eBay Preview is an upgraded, customizable control panel that lets you track and manage your eBay selling, buying, messages, account information, preferences, and more — all from a single, secure location.

This updated My eBay came with a whole lot of new, useful features, including:

• Customized layouts: Choose the information you want displayed, how you want it arranged, and color-code it all. Put your Selling Totals and payments at the top of the page, and color-code your "Sold" box — whatever works for you!


• Spot unanswered questions immediately: Items that have unanswered questions are marked with a red all-caps UNANSWERED QUESTION.


• Item previews: Get information on an item you’re watching or bidding on — without going to the item view page.


• Re-bid from My eBay: Increase your maximum bid, right from the My eBay page.


• Check out the seller: Get a seller’s Detailed Seller Ratings, links to the seller’s eBay store, and other items sold by the seller.


• Add personal notes to items: For example, "Similar to my products, remember to compare shipping costs."


• Receive personalized item recommendations based on your eBay activities.

Even with all these great new features, about 10% of eBay’s users are still using the old My eBay. Well, it’s time for a change!

On January 20, 2009, everyone will be moved over to the new My eBay for good. If you’re one of the 10% on the old My eBay, you can switch early by clicking “Try the Beta” in the upper-right corner of the page. The default layout for the new My eBay is very similar to the old My eBay, which should help to ease the transition.

For a full explanation of all the new features and how to use them, visit the eBay Discussion Boards.


3. eBay befriends elephants, bans ivory
Ivory poachers slaughter an estimated 20,000 elephants each year, and according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), most of that ivory is sold online. So, from January 1st, 2009 onwards, ivory sales are BANNED on eBay!

It turns out that eBay’s old ivory policy, which prohibited cross-border sales, wasn’t accomplishing much.

When IFAW investigated the illegal trafficking of endangered animals, they found that over 70% of the illegally trafficked endangered animal products were elephant ivory and eBay was the marketplace of choice for 83% of it. Much of what actually sold was shipped internationally — against eBay’s policies — and the country most responsible for trade in endangered species was the US, with a rate ten times that of China and the UK combined (numbers 2 and 3 on the list, respectively).

In their report, Killing with Keystrokes, IFAW identified some of the challenges eBay — and elephants! — faced with the old ivory policy:

• Sellers didn’t have to prove that their ivory was legal ivory, they could just say so in listings to comply with site policy. Many sellers would claim to be complying with the rules of ivory trading, but failed to provide any documentation whatsoever (this was the largest group, at 57% of the listings IFAW investigated, compared with 34% that said nothing about documentation at all, and the 7% that actually had real documentation, and advertised it).


• eBay offers international access, immediacy, offline networking, and anonymity. These are all things that helped to make eBay great — but when you combine these factors, it makes it nearly impossible to monitor and enforce sales laws — by the time law enforcement finds out about it, the sale is long over.


• It just wasn’t clear which ivory was okay and which was not. The international rules of the ivory trade vary a lot from nation to nation, based on the age of the ivory, which country it’s from, which animal it’s from, etc. The rules are so complex it’s beyond eBay’s capability to police effectively — even with the help of its community.

The harsh reality of the situation is that the original partial ban of ivory was either exploited or ignored, and unscrupulous people were continuing to sell ivory online, ship it internationally, and, worst of all, acquire new stock. (It’s truly remarkable how much "antique" ivory was made in 2007!)

In light of this wildlife crisis, eBay chose to follow the recommendations laid out by IFAW, and institute a blanket ban on ivory. Before this year, the only eBay site with a total ivory ban was eBay Australia, and that site had the fewest illegal listings overall, demonstrating that a blanket ban is effective.

Banned ivory includes (but is not limited to):

• Prehistoric ivory
• Carved and uncarved ivory
• Antique ivory
• Jewelry
• Figurines
• Canes
• Statues

There’s one exception to the ban:

• If the item was created before 1900…
• AND less than 5% of the item is ivory…
• AND you include a picture of the item…
• AND you include a prominent disclaimer specifically stating the item was created prior to 1900…

…then you can still sell the item. Under these rules, an antique piano with ivory keys is allowed, or antique furniture with an ivory inlay.

For more information, visit www.IFAW.org, or check out their press release on eBay’s New Year resolution to protect endangered elephants.


4. Boost your "Best Match" ranking with free shipping… but only if it pays for itself!
eBay continues to push sellers to offer free shipping.

The Free Shipping Reward program was originally slated to end on December 31, 2008, but it’s been extended until March 31.

Sellers who offer free shipping on their eBay.com listings will get these benefits:

• All listings will get a boost in “Best Match”, so you can raise your rank in the default eBay search results, just by offering free shipping.


• All sellers get a free Subtitle upgrade on Auction-style and Fixed Price items listed.


• PowerSellers get double Final Value fee discounts on all Fixed Price and Auction-style items sold.

If you’re already participating in the free shipping reward program, now’s the time to make sure it’s worthwhile.

You can evaluate it by checking your numbers against numbers from the same time last year (so the November/December holiday rush doesn’t skew your results). For example, compared to the same time last year, how did offering free shipping affect your:

• visitor volume
• sell-through rate
• average selling price (for Auction-style items)
• net profit (with and without Final Value fee discounts)

Also, take a look at just how much your ranking in the search results improved as compared to the months before you started offering free shipping. Do the numbers add up in your favor?

eBay likes free shipping because it doesn’t make money on separate shipping and handling charges. Sellers who offer free shipping tend to build the cost into the final price — which means eBay does get a cut of the shipping fee.

Buyers like free shipping, but a couple of recent studies show that they are actually more prone to bid on auction items that have a separate shipping charge than on items that have the cost of shipping included. Even more surprising, this holds true even if the total cost of the item + shipping is higher than the “free shipping” item. (On non-auction online transactions, free shipping really does seem to sway buyers. Another reason to watch your stats.)

Offering free shipping often benefits the buyer and eBay more than it does sellers, so it’s worth taking a careful look to see if it’s helping your business, or just costing you money!

For more information, details, and FAQs about free shipping rewards, check out the Announcement Updates FAQs.

Links to the studies:
The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy study
The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice abstract only


5. Bad feedback? Get a revision!
eBay made a lot of changes to the Feedback system in 2008. The biggest change happened in May, when sellers could no longer leave buyer Feedback.

Sellers were understandably upset: How do we spot a bad buyer? What recourse do we have? How are we protected from malicious buyers?

One way that eBay has responded to sellers’ concerns is by offering a means to have negative or neutral feedback revised. For every 1,000 Feedback you earn in a calendar year, you can request 5 revisions. So if you earned 5,745 Feedback in 2008, you can request 25 revisions.

To get the revision process rolling:

1. Visit the Request Feedback Revision page. There, you’ll see a list of all your eligible Feedback. Feedback you’ve earned within the past 30 days is eligible for revision — after that, it’s too late!


2. Select the Feedback you want revised, and choose one of the buttons under "Give the buyer a reason for the request." Sometimes buyers just make mistakes with Feedback; however if the buyer had a problem with the transaction, you should resolve it before requesting a revision. You can add more information for the buyer by entering it into the text box.


3. The buyer has a 10-day window in which to revise their Feedback or give a reason for refusing. After 10 days your request will expire — whether or not you ever got a response.

Remember that you only get one Feedback revision request per transaction, so if you request a revision and the buyer doesn’t respond (or refuses your request), you can’t try again.

As always, Feedback left by suspended users is removed from your account. You won’t need to waste any revision requests on those.

Also, if a buyer demands goods or services from you in exchange for positive Feedback, contact eBay. That buyer is violating eBay policy, and can be suspended.


6. January 15th deadline: An important reminder to ALL EBAYERS!
In case you missed the announcements, eBay’s "Paperless Payment" policy was rolled out in late October 2008. Under this policy, the only payment options allowed are:

• Direct credit or debit payment via merchant credit card account
• PayPal
• ProPay
• Payment on pick-up

Paper payments like checks and money orders are no longer accepted on eBay.com, and eBay expects your listings to reflect this policy change.

(The exceptions to this rule are the vehicle categories in Motors, capital equipment categories in Business & Industrial, Mature Audiences, and Real Estate.)

eBay is well aware that the holiday season is busy for sellers, so you have
until January 15 to remove prohibited payment methods from your listings.

After the 15th, eBay will begin taking action against sellers soliciting other types of payment in a listing’s item description. You could have your listings canceled (and your fees forfeited), your account limited or suspended, or your PowerSeller status revoked.

If you have to cancel and relist your Good ‘Til Canceled listings in order to remove references to paper payments, you’ll get your insertion and feature fees credited to your seller account.

ProPay, your other major option, is a company that offers merchant accounts to small businesses, enabling them to take credit cards without having to go through PayPal (PayPal is owned by eBay). eBay began recommending ProPay as an alternative to PayPal after becoming the subject of antitrust scrutiny in Australia.


7. $12 is the magic number for lower PayPal fees
If you specialize in items that go for around $10 or less, you’ll want to get into PayPal micropayments.

Micropayment accounts offer different pricing from regular PayPal accounts. Micropayments cost 5 cents + 5% per transaction, as opposed to 30 cents + 2.9%.

If you crunch the numbers, you’ll find that the Micropayment pricing is lower than the regular pricing for items under $12, and higher for items over $12. Transactions of exactly $12 work out to the same fee cost whether you’re using a Micropayment account or a regular one.

PayPal accounts can’t use both pricing structures, so PayPal recommends that you create a separate account just for Micropayments. Then, all you have to do is pick which PayPal account you’ll use to process a transaction based on the final amount. Over $12 — use the regular PayPal account. Under $12 — Micropayment account.

To check our math, plug these formulas into your Google search bar:

0.05 + (12 * (5%))
0.30 + (12 * (2.9%))

(To check out the fee difference on other prices, just swap out the 12.)

By the way, did you know you can use Google as a calculator? Just copy-paste any equation into the search box and Google will do the math for you.

Google’s calculator is pretty handy for people who spend most of their computer time using a web browser (like those of us who make money on eBay!).


8. Get 50% off auction-style listing fees in January
For the month of January, you can get 50% off your Insertion Fees for every item you list in auction format on eBay.com and eBay.ca.

To qualify, your item must be listed as a 1- or 3-day auction, and you need Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) of 4.5 or better. You can find out your DSR scores under the “My Account” tab in My eBay.

New sellers who don’t have any DSRs yet are eligible for this promotion, too.


9. eBay experiments with PPC advertising. You shouldn’t
eBay is reviving its in-house pay-per-click advertising (PPC). The new program, called "AdCommerce", displays listing-style ads labeled "Sponsored Results" at the bottom of the regular search results.



AdCommerce is still being tweaked by eBay, but the current ads placement has a lot of sellers scratching their heads.

In the regular search engines like Google and Yahoo, PPC ads appear above and to the right of natural search results, like this:



The bottom is the opposite of an ideal placement — in fact, with the AdCommerce setup you could be paying for a spot at the bottom of the results, and appearing for free at the top!

Another friction point with sellers is that, so far, the ads can only link to eBay pages, nothing off eBay — like your website. However, companies like Yahoo aren’t restricted by this rule. Yahoo “Sponsored Links” at the bottom of the search pages can link off eBay.



Isn’t that a double standard?

The idea of PPC advertising is very tempting. You set the price you’re willing to pay to have your ad appear when users search for your keyword. And you only pay when someone actually clicks through to your listing or eBay store.

But to do PPC well takes practice and testing.

If you’re new to the whole idea of PPC advertising, we recommend that you wait and see where eBay is going with AdCommerce before you dive in. Mistakes can be expensive and frustrating, and with the ads’ low positioning on the page it’s unlikely that you’ll get your money’s worth — unless you’re an expert.

A better strategy is to concentrate on finding the right keywords for your listings, and write really good item descriptions. That, along with getting good Detailed Seller Ratings, will help your listings appear at the top of the list, where you want them.


10. Sellers safer with anonymous winning Bidder IDs
When eBay made bidder IDs on listings anonymous, fraudsters suddenly had a harder time spotting likely victims for their scams. As a result, there was a 90% drop in fraudulent emails (like fake Second Chance offers) sent to bidders.

However, the IDs of the winning bidders were still visible to everyone, and buyers and sellers alike were falling victim to scams. Bad guys would redirect winning bidders to send payments to them instead of to the legitimate sellers, taking money out of the sellers’ pockets and damaging their reputations.

Now, eBay is making winning bidder IDs anonymous, too. Of course, sellers will be able to view all bidder IDs on their own listings, but no one else will be able to see who won.

This doesn’t change access to information about a bidder’s bid history. You can still click the anonymized user ID to see details about which categories a bidder has bid on, their number of bids on an item, bid retractions, and their positive Feedback percentage.

Access to information on the Feedback page is the same, too — buyer and seller IDs and comments visible to all.

But thieves have been blocked from one quick shortcut to serious buyers.


11. Final thoughts
We’re moving the Bidding Frenzy report to a quarterly format now that things have calmed down a bit at eBay. You’ll hear from us every three months.

Each issue will be a roundup of what’s new, how it affects you, and what you need to do about it. But if anything earthshaking comes up, we’ll be in touch with an email bulletin.

Meanwhile, my Advanced eBay Mentoring Team stays on top of developments to keep you on top, too.

Next issue we’ll show you how easy it is to embed video in your eBay pages!

We love getting comments and questions from our readers, and we read every one! If you have any questions or comments about this issue, or want to suggest topics for future issues, please email us at:
ebaynewsletter@marketingtips.com

To your eBay success…


Derek Gehl
CEO Internet Marketing Center
www.auctiontips.com

If you’re looking to start an Internet business… WITHOUT a website WITHOUT a ton of start-up capital WITHOUT being a computer techie, and WITHOUT a ton of business experience! … eBay is the perfect place for you! PLUS — if you have an EXISTING Internet business — you’ll learn how to boost your sales by expanding into eBay’s giant online auctionplace of 2,000,000 shoppers a day, with over $1 Billion in purchases made in 2006! So if you’re keen to earn life-changing wealth in the world’s largest marketplace (I’m talking 241,000,000 registered users who are PSYCHED to spend money online), then check out my new Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay!