eBay Strategies

FP+auctions - eBay testing split screen system?

On some of the interviews around earnings, JD and Meg hinted about some secret sauce that would allow a buyer to see auctions and fixed price items in a 'special eBay kind of way that only eBay can provide.  There are only a couple of ways to do this that I've ever seen:

• Mixed - some kind of mixed listings with icons/etc designating the two types of listings
• Tabbed - currently on eBay you get mixed results and then you can segregate with the auction only or BIN tab.
• Split screen - you can split the screen horizontally or vertically for top/bottom or side/side viewing of two 'lists'.

At a roundtable at the e-commerce forum, an eBayer hinted about a split screen view that is roaming around the playground.

Today I noticed that the mystery person at onlyebay has snagged a screen shot and it's definitely a split view.

After studying this a while, I have mixed thoughts.  On one hand it's neat to see both together, but is this really the best buyer experience?  I could see how it would be very overwhelming to newer buyers, but perfect for power-buyers.

This is the kind of thing that you'd need to A/B test about 10,000 iterations of to make sure you nail it and also see how it performs against BestMatch/ending first.  No matter how snazzy it is, if it can't beat those 'views', then it shouldn't make it to production IMO.

eBay strategies readers - love it?  hate it?

Finding 2.0 suggestion for eBay

If Jeff and Jamie are out there, I think this is a great example (give it a second to load) of the kind of search advances we'd like to see as part of Finding 2.0.

eBay e-commerce forum live blogging - Breakout III Seller panel

There are four sellers moderated by Matt Ledwith (ML).  I know two - Jon@Grapevinehill (GVH) and Sarah@fashionphile (FP).  I'll call the other two guys seller1 and seller2.

Q: What do you think about today's announcements:
S1 - generally happy
GVH - feedback, not sure if negative or positive
S2 - feedback is very concerning.
FP - I got hit with fee increase and VERY concerned about the power the new feedback rules put in the hands of buyers.

Q: Moviegoods.com - I've cut store listings with 30k store items
A: GVH - we use store listings as an added chance at selling something.

Q: This is for GVH, you guys are 4.6/4.7 on DSRs, can you get your DSR up?
A: GVH - no, I don't think we'll get to 4.8, feels like free ship required.

Q: Is there a better time shoeA sells better than shoeB?
A: GVH: evenings are the best, some day time activity.

Q: (from MattL) Do you publish your shipping and handling policies?
A: Free shipping gets 4.8/4.9

****Ah, Seller1 is Michael@gainesville coins (GC) and Seller2 is Stephen@ Thrilling Audio (TA)

(audience getting kind of worked up over shipping+handling DSRs, lots of rumbling and agitating).

Sellers at mic:
Q: I have a 4.8 on shipping and have free insurance and shipping.
(nxt) Q: There's no way we should be accountable or have to explain what we charge for shipping!

Q: Debbie@snappy - we found when people leave feedback they don't remember, so the closer to feedback time you can touch them, the better. You can try to put something in the box that says - we take great care to package everything, etc.
A: TA - we do do that and send the fees with the feedback request email.

Q: how do you nudge people to your website. 
A: GC - websites are expensive
GVH -we prefer website sales.

Q: How do you drive sales to your website
A: How do you look at multi-channel.

GVH: Let customers know.
TA - we use google adwords and flyers
FP - we have tons of content on our website

Q: DSR Shipping question - some guy said in the last presentation said that his international feedback DSRs were lower - how'd he know?
A: ML - Bill told me that international is lower than US, we shared it with him.  We are looking into how we can get more info on feedback.

ML - think about these as starting points.

Q: VERO
A: FP answered, pointed to tabberone's site

Guide to today's live blogging

I'll update this as we go through the day so you can use this as a guide.

In chronological order:

• Day 1 preview and thoughts at Dinner
• Day 2, eBay's big changes detailed
• Day 2, Keynote I
• Day 2, Keynote II
• Day 2, Keynote III
• Day 2, Keynote IV
• Day 2, Initial seller reaction
• Day 2, Breakout I - finding
• Day 2, Breakout II - trust and safety
• Day 2, After lunch Q+A I
• Day 2, After lunch Q+A II
• Day 2, Breakout III - seller panel
• Day 2, Seller Panel (coming soon - was moved?)
• Day 3, more seller feedback

eBay ecommerce forum Q+A Notes... II

Q: Buyers know what they are paying, why are we allowing them to vote on the fee they agreed to pay?  We might as well let them vote on the price!
A: (was a little off, didn't address shipping cost Q), he re-asked. JD fielded.  This gets to the heart of our collective challenge - buyers don't feel they know about shipping.  Lots of great ideas coming out of the event, we want to look at them.

Q: In the new changes is there a $ limit for the paypal protection.
A: Scott (cool name, too many T's tho) - There is no ceiling to what's guaranteed through the ESP program.

Q: Andy@debrnoo - we have a 100% and that has been our identity for years.  Now I have to introduce myself as 100% as 4.9/4.8/4.8/4.6.  When I take a look at how people leave us DRSs they are happy overall, but the ratio of people that leave DSRs is lower than the feedback/transaction ratio.  If DSRs are a measure of satisfaction can we have it where if someone leaves  a positive, but no DSRs can we record a 5.0. 
A: LN: That's a good idea, we should look at it. Rajiv - the goal is to raise our collective bar and avoid anything that is complex and lowers the bar.  We are open and need to work towards the right collective goal (buyers spend more).

Q: Bill@dyscern: 1/3rd of our biz is intl and ranks .5 lower on DSRs for us.  Looking at top 500 sellers by feedback.  Right now in the bar, 7 would qualify, only 4 in the US, 75 would qualify for 5%.  the rest 425 would be below the bar.  People that sell a couple of things are advantaged vs. large volume sellers.
A: 80% have 4.5+ in all DSRs, 60% have 4.6% or above, 15% have 4.8%+  30-day rolling average.

Q: The shipping DSR is too specific, can we have a DSR that says 'how was your experience with the seller'?
A: Thanks for the idea

Q: michael@collectors warehouse - 100k, 99.6%  4.9/4.9/4.9/4.5 DSRs - we do EVERYTHING within reason, 10yrs of eBay, we don't qualify for any discounts (clearly upset continues).  I'm being punished for the 10yrs of investment I've made on eBay.
A: (no answer)

Q: nateswheels - your data showed that you lose money, but to get my shipping DSR up, I have to increase my core prices vs. S+H.  How much did you guys think of that as you did this (implication is that it's kind of a hidden fee increase).
A: JD: Our focus is on insuring good buyer experiences.  We've decreased our focus on

Q: steve@moviemagicusa - positive on changes.  Concern is around shipping DSR - 4.7 is his.  Retired USMC and this is a problem for him.  I would like to hear some philosophy - I'm hearing a lot around free S+H.  Is there a direction to free S+H?
A: Rajiv: Personally I agree, no such thing as free shipping.  Someone is paying the cost of the shipping. What we have to deal with is the customer expectation on the web today.

Q: jordan@quickship - does anyone use Paypal and multi-order shipping?  Lots of problems.  If you go into blackthorne, none come over, so we have to re-type. 
A: Long answer about how paypal has a hard time with shipping labels.

Q: Charlie@gsk - If you compare eBay, the service we give is better than websites.  If I do what amazon does with my clients, I'd be out of business.  The other point is that other sites get higher ASPs, trust is a problem on eBay
A: usual answera

Q: seth@shutter - What is TnS doing, our account that does big GMV has been broken into 4-5 times in the last weeks.  They get in through the livechat functionality. You'll lose buyers if they are being scammed.
A: MH: Trust is both feedback and pro fraud, which is what was just described.  There was a sitch where some things happened that we shouldn't let happen.  We're sorry it did happen, doing a bunch of stuff around account security.

Q: The s+H DSR has come up a lot, in your decision process, when you decided you wanted that to be the same did you think its possible you are giving the buyer too much credit in terms of ability to determine fair shipping?  What if Shipping DSR said "shipping cost as expected."?
A: LN: The dialog around DSRs is the dialog we want to have.  2/3rds qualify.  That was the intent, we want to have the dialog we're having.  We did the data analysis based on 8-mos of DSRs, we want to listen, take back and hit the intent.

Q: Matt@streetmoda - multichannel merchant - I shop on half/amazon - can we have a more amazon experience on eBay?
A: Product based search

Q: something about motors

Q: What's an example of how we'll be advantaged in search?
A: Hard to answer in 20secs, come to finding breakout.

Q: eBay Givingworks - JD you love it?
A: JD: Yes.

Breakout II: Trust and Safety

Special thanks to Haya@virtualexchange who took excellent notes in this panel, these are largely her notes augmented with what I heard from several sellers happened in the breakout.

Speaker: Matt Halprin (MH), VP Global TnS

Bad buyer experience becomes all of our problem.  Buyer top reasons for leaving:

1. Bad experience
2. Personal
3. Pricing

Focuses eBay is taking to improve buyer experience:

• Search
• payment
• Enforcement
• Pricing incentives

Matt gave some history of the original and updated feedback system.

The theme of the new system is "seller accountability".

As you heard, sellers can only leave positive FB and they re-itereated all of the other changes (90 to 60 days).

eBay says that shipping costs e-commerce are decreasing, the crowd is skeptical (I believe that MH is probably referencing programs like Amazon Prime).

Stricter measures worked around VERO issues.

The fraud changes they made caused a > 50% drop in fraud page views.

They are going to strengthen account security:

• Phishing prevention
• Require stronger passwords
• strengthen forget-my-pw
• Lock out dormant accounts

The yellow button issue is going to become a major issue again.  eBay will start to hide email address again.

Q: What do you do about feedback from a bidder who ends up not paying.
MH: eBay does not know when people don't pay (editorial: ummm, ok?  This is somewhat wrong, I'll get a clarification)

Q: Shipping - how does eBay validate excessive shipping?
MH: Buyers tell us what they think and they are usually right.

Q: Why aren't buyers accountable for FB?
MH: eBay wants to get accurate feedback from buyers instead of sellers if they have to choose.  Reputation is an opinion.

Q: Why is neutral now a negative?
MH: Neutral is not positive.

That's it, thanks again to Haya!!!

eBay ecommerce forum Q+A Notes... I

It's after lunch here and we're in a general session that is Q+A about the changes announced this am.  On stage we have JD (CEO), Cobb (retiring), Rajiv (new ebay leader) , Scott (new paypal leader) and Lorrie Norrington (fills in for Bill).

Q: With the FVF on the < $25 tier increasing to 8.25%, will lots of items leave the site?
A: The intent is to listen to you and decrease insertion fees so you have more back-end fees vs. front-end.

Q: What are you doing to bring more buyers.
A: Lorrie: we want to really retain buyers, how do we in get them to do more (mentioned couponing). 

Q: Raise your hands if you hit 4.8
A: About 10-20 hands went up.
Follow-up: You missed the number.
Q: 66% of PS'ers  have 4.6 or above 15% of PS'ers have 4.8 on all DSRs
F: We have members that offer free shipping, but have 4.7 DSR on S+H
A: Sellers that get 4.8 and above are being very clear in their listings, vs. offering free S+H

Q: If I have free shipping, why wouldn't ebay put in an auto 5.0 for me on S+H DSR?
A: (Stephanie T) We are listening and looking at that.

Q: (emovieposter) I'm a .99 no reserve seller, I have 100% feedback, I have 10x feedback repeat business.  I'm seeing a big increase in fees from these changes. The other .99 sellers, jayandmarie/hessfine are going up as well.
A: We like how you sell on eBay and want you on the site. (rajiv echoed)

Q: simon sunshine electronics - Thanks for the changes.  I understand that if we take care of the customer, you'll help us.  International customers are killing us on DSRs. Did you consider handicapping DSRs for intl sales?
A: LN - This goes back to expectation setting.  Those that are setting expectations clearly are able to move their DSRs up.  If we learn from data that we have an unfair penalty for cross-border-trade that would be great.

Q:Izzy 9000 positive fb.  As seller, where is the trust.  Person wins, does UPI, buyer responds 'who cares', leaves seller a negative.  Seller out FVF and gets a neg/dsr hit
A: LN - If you report a buyer, we'll take care of nuking the neg and comments

Breakout I: Finding breakout

There are three breakouts right now:  TnS, Finding and seller solutions.  The bulk of people are going to TnS as there are big questions/concerns around the feedback changes.  I wanted to hit Finding because my sense is that's going to be the biggest long-term change that eBayers face.

• BestMatch has three 'inputs'
• demand factors
  • title, cat, item specs, catalog
• listing factors
  • ending time
• seller performance factors
  • Largely DSR driven

• Increased exposure -
  
  • 4.6 or higher in last 30 days
• Decreased exposure -
  • 4.2 or lower DSR for S+H over the last 30 days
  • More than 5% buyer dissatisfaction in last 30 days

How do you take advantage of the Finding changes?

• Great item titles
• List in the right category
• Use item specifics
• Use catalog
• Provide a great buyer experience

These steps will get you increased exposure.

Q+A (this is the good stuff)

Q: What does featured do for BestMatch?
A: Featured still lives in a top section, but then BestMatch will apply

Q: How much increased exposure will sellers get?
A: It's hard to give a weight to it.  Depends on query and dynamics in your category.

Q: if i have a 4.9 DSR and my competitor 4.7, am I advantaged 'more'?
A: right now you are either in or out, once you are over the threshold, you are 'advantaged', so in the 4.9/4.7 situation the 4.9 would not be more advantaged.

I'll try and post what I hear happened at the other breakouts.

Initial seller reaction to eBay changes

Ok we were just on a 30 min break and the buzz was definitely very positive around the paypal seller protection improvements.  The elimination of limits, confirmed addresses and intl expansion are a big win for sellers.

The negative buzz is around the fee changes.  Many feel calling it a decrease isn't really the case. Let's dig into this.

In my first post, I talked about three general buckets of eBay sellers.  Here they are again for reference:

• The media seller - Typically sells in core+store, high conversion items with < $25 ASP in core, low conversions in stores.
• The auction traditionalist - These folks are 100% auction, with low starting prices and high conversions.  They have near 100% conversion rates and tend to have higher ASPs because they sell collectibles.  Exceptions would be jayandmarie who auction CDs
• The fixed-price seller - These sellers sit in-between the media (low ASP, low conversion) and auction traditionalist (high ASP, high conversion) and have average ASP and conversion ( $50+, 50% conversion rate). 

Media seller reaction:

• To most this feels like a fee increase.  Some have quantified it as a 10% and I've seen math that shows as high as 25%.
• The challenge media sellers have is they already tend to have low DSRs on S+H so they don't get the PS benefit.
• These sellers typically put that extra fee into S+H, or item cost, but now they feel boxed in by DSRs so aren't seeing a way to adjust to the fee change.
• It's important to note that most of these sellers don't factor gallery into their equations (you could argue if that's correct or not, but they would argue they don't by it now, so by having it free, it does not save them $).  The reason these sellers don't have gallery is they have found that gallery historically doesn't help increase conversions on these low ASP items.  Now that they get it free, if it does help conversions, it will help mitigate this fee increase.
• Editorial note: I did notice that in the UK eBay announced media category pricing, this maybe a way eBay could address this should it be a widespread problem.

Auction traditionalist

• The auction traditionalist seem to be falling into two buckets:
  • The people that love auction and want to stay with it are facing a fee increase no matter how you slice it.  The high-conversion (associated with a low starting price) kills you in a lower insertion, higher FVF world.
  • The people that are going to switch to fixed-price from auction because the fees are pushing them in that direction.   

Fixed price seller:

• The fixed price seller is going to get the bulk of the benefit in these changes.  The lower insertion fees help them with their lower (50%ish) conversion and they tend to pay for gallery so they are getting somewhat of a double whammy.  Many of these sellers also can pretty easily get their DSRs to the 5% discount level and maybe with some work get to 15%.
• The biggest concern here is around DSRs, especially international buyers.  There's a trend where large sellers with material 15%+ international buyers tend to take a .2-.5 DSR hit.  Those sellers are going to have to figure out how to balance the value of intl buyers ($$) vs. the downside (DSR hit and thus risk on the powerseller programs). We've actually seen sellers start to split their seller IDs into two IDs - one US only (high DSR) and one international only (low DSR).

The next topic of concern is definitely the changes to feedback. The doomsday scenario I've heard is that buyers will now have all the power on the site and hold sellers hostage for positive feedbacks/DSRs.  More on this later as eBay expands on the changes and it settles in.

eBay e-commerce forum live blogging Keynote IV

BestMatch

Rolling to the site in March.  Now linking search results with seller performance.  Algo includes time ending soonest, but also exposing the most trusted sellers more prominently will help make buyers have better buying experience.

Feedback

The final straw for many buyers is retaliatory negatives.  Sellers are leaving it 8x more frequently than buyers.

Sellers can only leave positive feedback for buyers. 

Crowd reaction is literally - WHAT?!!  Cobb has What?! slide.

Seller protections against inaccurate feedback:

• remove UPI negs (if buyer doesn't respond)
• suspensions removed

If sellers have a good record, will not allow a negative in first 3 days.

Feedback % will be based on most recent 12 months, negs roll off.  But the number will be lifetime.

Feedback credit for repeat customers - 1 per buyer per week

Encourages retention of buyers.

Cobb is encouraging sellers to think about the overall package. You may not like one change, but think about them all.

Cobbs top 10 reasons to be excited about eBay:

11. seller dashboard
10. rolling 12 mo feedback
9. repeat feedback credit
8. unlimited paypal protection for PS
7.no confirmed any more
6. all countries
5. reduced featured-plus
4. pricing discounts for PS'ers
3. increased listing exposure for all sellers
2. free gallery
1. reduced insertion fees in core+stores

Conclusion

Working on the partnership with sellers.  This is a lot of change and change is never easy. Great service will make the difference at eBay in 2008 and it WILL be rewarded.