Ep 259 || Sustainable Commerce and Apparel on eBay

[podcast_team]

Champion of sustainable commerce Michelle Nguyen of Emmi’s Closet joins the podcast this week to share how she eliminates waste in her successful apparel business on eBay. And Griff and Brian answer questions about hiding the 90-day sales total in the mobile app, Parallel Imports and eBay International Shipping, and when to not use a brand name at the front of a listing title.

Episode Links:
Getting Ready for the Holiday Shopping Season
Using eBay International Shipping and Featured Listings
Michelle Nguyen’s eBay Store
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Brian: I am Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff, and this is the eBay For Business Podcast, your source for the information and the inspiration to help you start and manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. This is episode 259. Welcome back to the studio, Brian Burke.

Brian: It is great to be back in the studio Griff.

Griff: How's your week?

Brian: Good. A short one. I mean, basically, I'm sure our sellers felt the same way. You get five days worth of work done in four days. That's what three day weekends do.

Griff: Do we think that a lot of sellers take Labor Day off? I'm not so sure they do.

Brian: I don't. They probably do some work.

Griff: Yeah, I don't, I don't know many sellers who actually take that day off. I didn't. I actually worked as well.

Brian: I did take the day off.

Griff: Well good for you.

Brian: Well Griff.

Griff: Yes?

Brian: Who's our guest this week?

Griff: Our guest this week is Champion of Sustainable Online Commerce, Michelle Nguyen of Emmi's Closet, and she's joins the podcast, to share how she, well, how she's dedicated to eliminating waste in her successful apparel business on eBay. So we'll learn more about that.

Brian: Oh, that'll be a good one.

Griff: But first, let's check into what's really important this week. And that's any seller news.

Brian: So this week Griff, I wanna talk about two recent posts on the What's New community board. For those that don't know What's New is Undersell News just underneath announcements. It's kind of like our secondary page. I think sellers should definitely check these out though.

Griff: What's the first one?

Brian: First, the eBay community team recently posted a link to a video by Cherita Kalali Retail Analyst at Forrester who has some great advice and tips for making the most of the holiday shopping season. You can view the post and the link to the video on the What's New board and Seller News on community, and we'll post a link to it in the 259 summary. And I have to tell our sellers that this week, even though it's only been up for a little while, that was the most viewed what's new post as you could imagine. 'cause holiday selling is important.

Griff: Coming up, what's the second video?

Brian: And our second video explains how you can expand your global customer base with eBay International Shipping with a step-by-step guide to help you update existing listings to enjoy the benefits. In the video Pravesh Katyal and Amit Sharma from our Product Management Team will take you through the process of crafting irresistible inventory from high quality photos to competitive pricing in the Promoted Listings feature you'll be drawing in buyers in no time. Please do check out these two videos, which you can find on our What's New board under the Seller News in the eBay community.

Griff: And as always, you can find direct links to anything we mention in our news or during a segment in our episode transcripts. And we'll put those links in the episode transcript in case we can't find them otherwise. Before we meet Michelle, I thought I'd share an interesting selling experience I had last week. So I want to start right off by showing that this is an example of buyers not quite sure they can trust sellers. So I sold a watch and the buyer had asked a lot of questions and eventually he bought it and he got it and then he said he started a return. I'm disappointed if somebody wants to return something, but the way the return process goes is you don't know that the seller automatically takes returns, which is a good thing if you put it in your description, say, Hey, if you start a return, it's automatically accepted because they don't know this. And I think it's why sometimes buyers don't actually select the actual reason. Which for me is if you bought something for me like a watch, and then it doesn't work for you, I don't want you to keep, I don't want you to send it back, no skin off any of our teeth. So the buyer starts a return process and says, the watch is too small for me, it won't fit. And it's probably even a woman's watch. So that's what he said. I'm thinking, well that's bizarre. When I photograph the watch, it's brand new. It's new old stock and it's still for a big wrist. But you know, watch bands have, you can adjust them on a metal bracelet. There's a set of pins that you can adjust and if it's really that you need to go smaller or bigger, you can take links out of the ends of the bracelet. This one has all its original links that came with three on each side and the clasp, I made sure that the pin was set to the largest size. So this actually would easily fit an eight inch wrist, which is a pretty big wrist.

Brian: That's a pretty big wrist. Yes.

Griff: And I pictured it that way. So he sent the watch back, I opened it up and everything is intact except that the pens have been readjusted so that it's small. And I'm thinking, well that's bizarre. And I was talking to Rob about it and then it kind of hit me and I said, I think I know why this happened. I don't think the buyer thought that if they said, I just don't want the watch, that I would've accepted a return. Even though once he had issued the request, it says it's automatically approved and now the buyer will send you a label, the seller will send you a label, which I did. So I got it back and I thought, okay, I'm 100% sure that's why he readjusted this, so he could back his reason.

Brian: So it was like item not as described intentionally by the buyer.

Griff: Well, no I think he just wanted to...

Brian: He wanted to show that it was too small.

Griff: Exactly. I wrote back and I said, I've already wish you'd refund and you sent the item, but thank you very much. I said, you should know that if you don't like something, you can just send it back. You can say I don't like it. It's one of the reasons buyer remorse. That's fine. I mean you couldn't wear the watch or, or look at it on you until you bought it. So I'm happy to take it back. I did say, I said I noticed pins had been readjusted, re-listed it and I've put the pins back because you want it to be as large as possible so people don't think it's small. Well, I don't think he's a bad buyer. I think he was a scared buyer like he wasn't gonna be able to return a watch and I think..;

Brian: And get his refund.

Griff: Here's my suggestion to eBay or to sellers is if you take returns for any reason, make it clear in your description. And I wish eBay had a little thing that said, we'll take returns for any reason, including buyer remorse so that when the buyer goes to return it, if it's because they don't like it, they say, well, I just don't like it. Which is a perfectly good reason for returning something. But there's that little bit of mistrust built into this that oh no, if I'm honest and I say that I don't like it, maybe I can't return it and that I'm stuck with it, which is not the case with many sellers, including myself, I'll take it back. No one should be unhappy. So it's just an interesting experience.

Brian: I wonder if our listeners have any tips for that as well. You provided one which was make it very clear in the listing that you take returns, but I wonder if someone else is, whether it's in the packing material or other things that they've found have been successful as they sell on eBay.

Griff: You can also put it in the collateral. One of the things you can do that just immediately, immediately puts a buyer to rest, you can send a return label in the package like a lot of retailers will do, they just put the return label in the package. If you wanna return this, return it. And you can actually do that yourself, not directly through eBay, but you can, if you have like a stamps.com account or if you're dealing, if you're one step up and you're doing all your shipping directly through like UPS or FedEx, you can print return labels and you could put them in the box. That'd be one thing. But I don't think most of our audience can't do that. They're smaller sellers. I don't think that's possible for them. It would just be a large inconvenience. So the other thing is just to put something in the box that says, Hey, we take returns for any reason, just don't freak out. Happy to take it back. And one of the things you can say is don't throw the box out, keep the packing material be a lot easier if you want to return the item. All these things go a long way to reassuring a buyer who for whatever reason is not happy with their purchase as a seller. You shouldn't take it personally as a seller, you should say, well I'm not in business to make people unhappy ship that watch back. Somebody else will love it.

Brian: I wonder if some of our listeners will have some ideas or maybe they also do what you do.

Griff: Although someone will say, no, I would never do that. There are a lot of sellers who believe that if you make it easy for a buyer to return something, then you're gonna see an increase in returns. And you and I know that is not the case and sellers who do this know that that's not the case.

Brian: Yeah. The number of conversations I've had with sellers in person at events who say, I never wanted to do it, I never wanted to do it, and then I started to do it and I found my return rate didn't go up.

Griff: Anything it might go down. All the other things being equal.

Brian: Yep.

Griff: All right. Well that being said, you can send us your experience with returns. We love to hear your stories at (888) 723-4630 or at podcast@ebay.com. And let's meet Michelle.

Griff: Our guest this week is an entrepreneur, fashion designer and a champion for sustainable living. Michelle Nguyen is the Founder and CEO of Emmi's Closet, Inc. It's a contemporary, secondhand and regenerative fashioned commerce company based in Dallas Texas. Passion for reducing fashion waste led her to curate a boutique, offering quality and fashionable clothing while designing garments using only secondhand textiles. She strongly believes the fashion industry can be both conscientious and ethical. Michelle was a part of the USA WEC, that's USA Women's Entrepreneur Cooperative Cohort, class of 2022 and an eBay Up & Running Grant recipient. Welcome to the podcast, Michelle.

Michelle: Thank you.

Griff: Good to be here.

Brian: I'm fascinated by the idea of, well, the idea of sustainable living across all types of categories. But we know, we know that this is a real issue with used apparel or apparel in general because a lot of it just ends up in landfills.

Michelle: Yeah. It is like the second most polluting, so it's a big issue.

Griff: What inspired you to get into this?

Michelle: Pretty much, I was in a job in higher education that I didn't want to pursue anymore. And so I quit my job and I've always had a background in sewing and designing, self-taught. And so I decided I wanted to launch my own fashion brand because that was what I was doing on the side, my weekends anyways. And when I learned about fast fashion in 2017, I just knew that that was gonna be my mission because I consumed fashion the most. And so I was already as an individual polluting more than the average person because I was a shopaholic. I still am, but just in general, just realizing how much waste there is out there. And so when I started reselling, I noticed that there was a lot of really beautiful items still left unused. So instead of just tossing those or having those like just not get bought and end up in the landfill, like you said, I was like, I can make beautiful items out of these versus going to the fabric store and buying brand new fabric. There's just so much out there that is already available to use.

Griff: How big is your personal wardrobe?

Michelle: When I started reselling, I feel like I created my dream job because now I get to wear what's in my inventory. So my personal closet is my inventory. Anything that is my size.

Griff: Oh, I'm kind of the same way. All the fragrances I sell, if they're older and unsealed, we might sample them every now and then.

Michelle: That's what they're there for.

Griff: Exactly. I wanted to talk about strategies for selling, and I'll tell you why. I love the fact that you have this particular niche in the apparel category, but the apparel categories are really high competition. There's a lot of stuff being offered for sale in those categories. Does your focus on sustainability and the fact that you create your own inventory a lot of the times, whether that's repurposing or something new, is that what sets you apart? Does this work to your advantage?

Michelle: I would say yes because I am very curated with my inventory. I do handpick my items and I stay up with fashion trends and like just fashion styling. I'm always on Pinterest creating new boards for the year, what's coming out on the runway. I check magazines, I stay up to date with that just to see what people are drawn to this year. And so I am really curated in that sense that I'm up to date, but I have my own sense of style and I kind of shop for that. And that's pretty much what my business is. It's my closet, like my extended closet. And I feel, because I am very curated, people know what to look for, they know like these are the kind of items I'll have. I sell mainly dresses, I love dresses, I love to make dresses, I love to buy dresses so I can source those all day. But I think just the fact that I have an eye for a fashion and what's in, what people are wearing, understanding styling and things like that.

Griff: How big, if any, does social media play as a role in promoting and broadcasting about your business?

Michelle: I'm not really big on social media, like I'm on there, but I'm not really big on it just because I don't feel like I really have the know how to work social media into my business. I post and I interact, I use social media more to share about the impact of fast fashion and sustainability. So I follow a lot of sustainable nonprofit research companies and things like that. And so I'll learn through them and I'll share what I learn and you know, like I'll, I'll read articles and I'll highlight what's going on and then I'll post it on my story so people can see those too. So they're learning as I'm learning. So I use social media more for that kind of sharing the impact.

Griff: But that's an important consideration for younger people today. I know that they have a lot more concern about sustainability than say people from my generation did or even do right now

Michelle: Or even my generation. Oh yes, they're a lot more conscientious. They're a lot more aware compared to my generation when it comes to sustainability. I didn't even know about fast fashion until I was 30 years old.

Griff: Well, we can learn from young people because I now am very concerned about it myself and I'm, and my whole buying of clothing has changed over the last few years because of that.

Michelle: I love to hear that. I want more people to be like that

Griff: When we're selling on eBay there's a lot of conversation about how to market and promote yourself so that you can stand out among the competition. And like we said, the apparel categories are heavily competitive. Do you use Promoted Listings?

Michelle: I do. I use promoted listing standards very heavily. Um, when I first started I didn't really use it, I was just still kind of testing things out, but then when I did start I would do like maybe two, no more than 5% just to kind of see how it works. But then I realized like there's really no risk to it because you don't pay anything until you actually make the sale. I would say starting last year kind of doubled my effort in that and I now do an average of 10% on all of my listings just to try to get them in front of the buyers.

Griff: Is it working?

Michelle: 72% of my sales are sold through Promoted Listing standards. If I'm not promoting my items, like nobody is able to find them. I don't have a big presence on eBay without promoting my items.

Griff: How many items do you have listed at any given time?

Michelle: Right now I have like 1500. And that took a lot of effort to build up to that amount. I'm just listing more and so I'm just trying to get as much as I can with just being myself.

Griff: 1,501 of a kind items, right? These aren't necessarily SKU items?

Michelle: No, these are all just handpicked from the thrift store. I would say like 99% of them are secondhand.

Griff: That's a lot of work. 1500 single individual listings. Congratulations to you Michelle.

Michelle: Thank you.

Griff: We in the past have talked about what I call the Filene's Basement strategy, which is increasing percentage on your sales to get people incentivized to either purchase now or to wait and purchase when the percentage gets higher, you actually do the same sort of thing. Can you explain how this works? Your weekday and weekend sales in the last weekend of the month?

Michelle: When I started reselling, I just realized just based on my data that I saw for myself, and I'm pretty sure this is across retail, people are buying on the weekends, they're waiting, you know, for the, the time that on the weekend whether there's a sale on the weekend. I just kind of extended that effort and set micro sales throughout the whole week just to kind of keep my closet active, keep the store kind of like trying to, you know, get attention from buyers to know hey, you don't have to wait till the weekend. I have 10% off right now. That kind of keeps my store always having an event going on. Sometimes people filter by sales or filter by discounts and things like that. And so if I have a sale but somebody else isn't, then mine will show up.

Griff: That makes a big difference. What are some of the percentages and how do you use them in your tactics for this marketing strategy?

Michelle: Because I am promoting my items up to 10%, I consider that when I'm pricing my items, I price my items about 30, sometimes even up to 50% more than the selling price that I find that are comparable to the item that I'm selling. Because of that I can set sales and then I can mark down and then I can send offers. I am making profit, my profit margin is about 50% after everything after cost of goods after operations. And I read somewhere that if you're in retail and you have a profit of 20%, then you're good. I tried to keep mine at about 50%.

Griff: That is pretty good.

Michelle: With secondhand items.

Griff: You mentioned earlier that you curate the inventory you put up, you actually give a lot of thought to what you're gonna offer.

Michelle: Yes, I'm very picky with my inventory and I really appreciate the buyers that do make comments and send me messages. Hey you know like you have so many great items in your closet, there's so many things here like do you have this in this size or such and such like that. But I make an effort to make sure like what I am picking out is in really good condition so that less risk for the buyer to have to buy something they're not sure. And then also just making sure that the brand is a quality brand. I don't pick up certain brands because I know those brands are not quality. Even if somebody were to buy it secondhand and it's cheaper, like it's just not worth it.

Griff: Oh, so there are brands that you avoid?

Michelle: Yes, but I try not to do fast fashion brands. Something some fast fashion brands, they are just really trendy and so people are looking for them regardless. But I don't do certain fast fashion brands.

Griff: So I'm looking at your store right now because I think this is really important, how important the presentation is and your presentation of your items visually is really nice.

Michelle: Thank you.

Griff: I see you use a mannequin for a lot of them.

Michelle: That's really important to me actually. Because I sew, fit is really important to me and so I wanna make sure that I am presenting my items so that people can see like as close as possible like this is what it would look on if you were this size. So I have mannequins in like six different sizes. These are professional dress forms, so they were an investment, but it makes a difference and and buyers really appreciate seeing it on a form.

Griff: And some of them actually have models, is that true or is it, are they just marketing widgets here?

Michelle: For those I collaborate with a local photographer and he has a lot of models and that's more mainly for content, for social media content. But I use them in my listing to show buyers what it looks like on a person.

Griff: I would use your store as an example of ideal marketing because when you come to the store the first thing you see are the featured categories and that's really impressive. You hardly ever see anyone selling women's apparel that goes to this extent to really present it well. I think it makes you stand out.

Michelle: I appreciate that 'cause it that took effort.

Griff: You mentioned just a little bit about offers and another topic that sellers constantly have question about is how do you do Best Offers in a way that really is effective? What is your strategy with Best Offers?

Michelle: I made most of my sales through offers. If I don't send offers then I think only 15% of my sales are not through offers. The rest of them are either through offers that I send to buyers or offers that they send to me. So I'm very open to offers. I set my price because I want people to offer and sometimes I buy outright, which is great, but for the most part it is offer and I will send them a message, especially when I'm running a sale, I will send them a message, like hey, this item is an extra five or 10% off, grab it right now before it's gone. And I actually saw that on Instagram. Somebody had posted that and I really liked that idea. Instead of just sending them an offer and they see a price, you know, but this is like, it's an additional so much off and that kind of catches their attention. So most of my sales are made through offers and I use it really heavily and it's a way for me to interact with the buyer and negotiate. 'cause I know like especially with the clothing sector is really competitive, they're looking for a good deal and I wanna be able to offer that to them.

Griff: You have a lot of good tips, Michelle.

Michelle: Oh, thank you!

Griff: I think that's probably why you're successful. Any other sales tips you wanna share with us before we end?

Michelle: Because I have a background in sewing and design I understand fit really well. So I put measurements in all of my listings, but I also get questions about fit from people because you know, you're buying online so you do have to be careful. When they ask me questions about fit, I know exactly what to tell them. Like if this is gonna fit them or not, based on their measurements, based on the measurements of the item. And I'm very upfront with them. If I don't think it will fit them, then I'll tell them because I don't want them to have buyer's remorse and I don't want the return. And so just that kind of interaction with them allows them to make like a better buying decision. But I don't know if that's something that everybody is able to do just because I can look at a person and kind of guess what their size is because I can make my own clothing and I can make clothing. So that just comes with my experience.

Griff: That's a really good talent to have. Thank you. Do you take returns?

Michelle: I do. I think if you're gonna sell online, it's just something that you can't avoid. People are trusting you buying without seeing it and feeling it. I definitely allow returns. I have a 30 day return policy. I don't ask any questions because I appreciate it when I go to a retailer and they allow that for me. And so as long as the item comes back in the same condition, you know, I'll accept the return. I don't ask any questions and they really appreciate that, you know, they don't know you and they don't know your business so they want to sometimes they just wanna test it out and see, you know, see if it's something that they'll actually like.

Griff: Yeah, I was just reading an article, I think it was in The Atlantic and I posted a link to it in our Facebook group. I was surprised there was not a lot of reaction to it, but it was an article talking about the industry of returns.

Michelle: I think I saw that same one.

Griff: You saw it too?

Michelle: I think I saw that same one. Yeah, it's very recent.

Griff: It's very recent. Within the last month. It kind of threw me when I read the statistics about the retail business, especially for clothing and well in general the return rate for big retailers is enormous.

Michelle: It is. And I think I saw that article because it also commented on the waste that that creates.

Griff: Yes. It talks about waste. Yeah. Yeah. Talking about waste, is there a place where you can direct interested people to learn more about sustainable living and apparel?

Michelle: I have one on the top of my head called ReWork, R e W o r k. They are heavy on like environmental preservation and then also equal rights for garment workers. So they're heavy on that. And I personally am involved with EARTHx, which is based in Dallas. They're the largest sustainability conference, I think either in the US or in the world maybe. But I volunteered with them in April. And then I'm looking to join like their committee that they're revamping to try and make some impact locally, those two are the ones on the top of my head, but I can always give more after I scroll through my Instagram.

Griff: I'll find the links for those and we'll put those links into the episode transcript for 259 as well. Any other tips before we close out?

Michelle: I try to ship out within the same day. If a buyer pays by 4:00 PM that's just more convenient for me to be able to have time to package and go to my post office selling online it's such a gift for buyers to get an item way quicker than they expected. Most of my positive reviews are because of quick shipping time. I think if you're trying to get positive feedback to grow your eBay store, just ship out as quickly as you can. If you can't do it every day, then at least like try so for like the first few months just to get those positive feedback for your store. And plus I go to my workspace every day anyway, so I'm shipping out daily anyways, but if they want it the same day, I'll make it work for them if they pay by a certain time. And then I'll send them a message after they buy it if it's been a few hours and they haven't paid, I'll send them a message, Hey, thank you for your purchase. I can have this item shipped out to you the same day if you pay by 4:00 PM, no rush, you know, it's just for you to know.

Griff: It's great incentive, isn't it?

Michelle: Yeah. Yeah, Get it paid. Yes. And most of the times they're like, oh thanks. I forgot. Let me do it right now.

Griff: That's a good thing to know. I try to do the same thing. We know from research that one of the things buyers really are delighted by is quicker than what they expect shipping. So they buy an item and it arrives fast. I know that always just makes me so happy.

Michelle: Yes. It's such a gift for them and I think it's such an easy thing to do, especially if you're already there at your workspace. You can just send them a quick message if they want their item shipped out that day. Sometimes they don't and it's okay.

Griff: Some don't. I just got a request for a buyer that said, can you delay shipping for a week? It could be anything. Who knows what a what a buyer might need. Well Michelle, I want to thank you. It's been great talking to you and congratulations on your success with your business and we hope to hear more about you in the future.

Michelle: Thank you. That was a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Griff: Michelle Nguyen is an entrepreneur, fashion designer and a champion for sustainable living. You can catch her out on eBay with her store, Emmi's Closet, Inc. And I'll put the link to Emmy's Closet in the transcript for episode 259.

Brian: You got questions?

Griff: We've got answers. And this week Brian, we have three questions all mailed to podcast@ebay.com. And as we normally do, would you do the honors of reading? The first question?

Brian: Of course. Our first email question this week was sent to podcast@ebay.com by Seller Orlando who wrote, Hi y'all. A quick question. Is there a way to hide my 90 day total in the app? There are times when I am helping a friend relative with eBay related questions by demonstrating something on my phone. And I prefer to keep those totals private. Thanks for all you do. Lando G. eBay, user ID Deals and Deals.

Griff: He doesn't want anyone to see what is 90 day total is. If you go to your sold page on your mobile app, it shows you past 90 days and then it shows how much you've sold. Yes, there's a total of there. He wants to hide it because he doesn't want his relatives. I assumed come asking for money or Hey, you're making a fortune.

Brian: That's what I, that's what I'm thinking he he wants to do too, is it is just like demonstrate something without showing how much he sold.

Griff: At least on that page. It's not possible. So the only solution is your thumb. You're gonna have to use it to cover that part of the page.

Brian: The only other thing I was thinking about this, and I'm not a big proponent of this because it just adds complexity to your life, Lando and so I don't really recommend it. You could always have another account that you can open up the page open if you're not using it, the numbers will all be zero. But if you were just trying to demonstrate something from that area, you could with another account that you don't sell on. It's just probably not that informative.

Griff: The other thing you could do is you could go to the eBay classic site and your mobile phone's web browser and then navigate to the pages you need. You can adjust that page so it doesn't show a total. But yeah, when you're using the, what we call the native app now, I didn't know this, but we call it native. If you go to the soul page and you don't hide that figure with your thumb, you know, you could see, you could point off into the distance and say, oh look, Haley's comment and then you could cover it up as your thumb. It's gonna be there and your uh, totals are gonna be common knowledge to anyone who's observing your phone. So I wish I had better news for you, but we don't. We do not. Our second question was sent to us also podcast@ebay.com by seller Dawn who writes, I was just listening to the podcast from July 4th of this year. You guys mentioned if an item gets a VeRO Parallel Import Violation and has been sent through E I S, that eBay will handle it. Is that retroactive to G S P? I'd sure love to get a few of these off my account. I sell mostly cosmetics and there's no way for me to know what is okay or not okay for EIS. Also be great to get a warning and a chance to correct things before we get slammed with the VeRO. Thanks for your time, Dawn Holstrom. Dawn, we can't retroactively remove VeRO violations for any cases, even if they were through the old GSP program. And for anyone who's listening is one we're talking about, there's this pesky little thing that companies have and they're called parallel imports where they don't allow resellers to sell their products into certain countries. For better or worse. And I definitely have opinions about this, they've been using the VeRO program to report these and eBay will take them down. Now if you're shipping something international through the eBay International Shipping Program, you have nothing to worry about. eBay will handle this as long as you get the item to the center, to the hub, then you have no responsibilities for that item. It's going to get shipped and if there's an issue, eBay will deal with it. In most cases, eBay knows some of the parallel import restrictions and they're built in so that your international buyers never see the item.

Brian: That's the big advantage with the eBay International Shipping.

Griff: So you wouldn't Dawn through the International Shipping Program, you wouldn't need to worry about these anymore. But you also asked an interesting question, which I've heard in the past and that's why doesn't eBay warn sellers when there's a VeRo? And there's a really simple reason why VeRO is a way of facilitating something called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act from 1998. That law, besides many other things it says is that when content that rights owner believes infringes on their rights is posted and posted on a website and they request the takedown of that content, the website in this case, eBay doesn't get to negotiate with the whoever posted it doesn't get to issue a warning, doesn't say, well let us investigate. The law is clear. The website has to immediately take the item down so there's no room based on the federal law for eBay to start warning sellers this might violate rights. Or if you take it down now, there'll be no repercussions. eBay cannot do that.

Brian: She can also restrict by country which items that gets shipped to. And in that case, if she restricts by country, it's not even gonna show up at all to that country.

Griff: To her point, she's not going to know.

Brian: She doesn't know.

Griff: Just let eBay handle it. That's what I would say.

Brian: Yep. And it should be better than under the old Global Shipping Program.

Brian: eBay International Shipping is light years better than the old global shipping program. But for the only reason you never have to worry about a return under any circumstance.

Brian: And if she wants to run for Congress and change that rule, I'll donate.

Griff: Except I don't think you have to run, I think you could start if enough sellers started bothering their uh, representatives to say, Hey, this rule needs to be, this law needs to be updated. A lot of people would like to see this law updated, myself included. But the only way that happens is you gotta put a fire underneath your representatives.

Brian: Well, and finally our last question of the week is from Seller George. And it's a tricky one about search and brand names Griff, I recently looked at one of my listings that didn't have any sales in quite some time. I discovered it's not appearing in eBay Search. Can you take a look and maybe figure out what's going on? Listing title and I won't read the whole title out, but it was for thermal shipping labels. I've attached some screenshots of the search results. The first picture is a search on a four by six thermal labels sorted by best match. There are 4,500 results. My item is not on the first page. Not a problem. I understand that my listing may be far down in the best match search results. The second picture changes to sort by lowest price. There are 221 results and my listing is not among them. Why did the sort by lowest price eliminate over 4,200 listings? The third picture I added MF Label and that was the brand of his labels to the search. And my listing appears at the top. The fourth picture. I changed the sort back to best match. My listing appears 76 listings down. Again, no problem. Since I know best match factors in recent sales and mine has none. MF Label is a brand that people are not likely to search for. My question is, how do I get into the results for a search on a 4 by 6 thermal labels sorted by lowest price? Thanks George Kafta, eBay user id, George K8 0 9. This is complicated.

Griff: I'm going to give you what I've learned over the years talking to our Product Team about this. And I know we usually don't talk publicly 'cause it's really confusing, but there's a few simple rules here. If you have an item and there's only a handful of items similar to yours, this shouldn't happen. You don't have to adjust your title, but this is a title issue. The item will return in that case if there's only, you know, say there's 20 or 30 or even 40 items, it'll return in any keyword search where the keywords used are in your title. But if your item has hundreds, if not several hundreds, similar items, for example, if you search on thermal labels, then you're gonna see there's thousands of them. Then you have to keep in mind the following points. And this one's the most important unless your item's brand name is a recognized, well-known brand name, don't use it as the first word at the front of a title. In this case, MF Labels. It's an obscure brand. No one's gonna know it, no one's gonna search on it. An obscure brand names at the front of a title can result in your listing not showing up in some types of title search. And you've discovered this, you can put a little known brand name at the end of a title. But again, as it's extremely unlikely, anyone would use it in a keyword search, it's best to leave it out. Definitely don't put it in the front. 'cause if you do, what happens is that eBay doesn't want to overwhelm buyers with search results. So they'll filter out some items that the algorithm believes just won't be of interest to buyers. And it could be that it's based on brand and if your brand isn't a recognized brand, it could end up in that pile that don't show up in that particular sort. Now your item, I did find it in Best Match, but I had to search forever. So in those cases where you don't have a recognized brand, don't put it in the front of the title. Just say thermal labels for example. You could say thermal shipping labels 4 by 6, roll of 250, or you could put four by six thermal labels. Those will all show up in a search for lowest price. And if your labels do ever recognize brand like Brother or Zebra, you can safely type that brand name at the start of the title and see if it, if it shows up, it should. Brian, that's something I've learned over time and I see that he's actually changed the title that I only can find his item in searches.

Brian: Yeah, and I think your point about like the number of items that listed, I mean obviously with thermal labels there's a lot. If our system doesn't recognize something, especially when it's the first word, it's unlikely to to surface it high. The other thing that I was gonna say is sometimes like if you've got, especially if you're in a highly competitive area like labels or anything else, do some searches from a buyer perspective and see what the search results are and how the sellers who are selling frequently list their item and then mimic that. Now obviously if the number one item is the brand, you can't use a brand unless you're selling that brand. But my guess is in something like this, the more important thing to the buyer is, is the label four by six, or two by three, et cetera? Or is it a package of a hundred or a package of a thousand? And those things probably are more important to a buyer searching or the fact that it's just a thermal label is more important to the buyer than necessarily the brand.

Griff: Yeah, and this doesn't hold true, by the way, for items specific. So if a brand is required or there's the option for putting a brand, when you list these thermal labels, put it there. It will show up if somebody's searching for a specific brand. And what I was thinking of in particular is Brother, so Brother labels are different than other labels where labels like that are Zebra labels. For one thing each one is a separate label. Brother labels are a continuous adhesive label that will cut off within the printing process. So it's not like there's a four by six label followed by a four by six label. Somebody searching for their Brother label printer are gonna want brother labels. They're not gonna be able to use the other, even the generic ones. So they may search for that, but put the brand in the item specifics and it will show up. If somebody searches for Brother, it'll show up. But don't put obscure brands specifically like MF Label, which is a brand no one knows. And the beginning of the title 'cause it can mess up how it shows up in search.

Brian: Yeah, I'd never heard of MF Label until this episode.

Griff: Who knows? We may be making it famous.

Brian: Yes,

Griff: George. If that's the case, we're happy to make your brand a more well-known brand. And in fact, you pay us enough, we'll do a commercial. ....You need thermal labels, Brian, you gotta buy MF Label on eBay. Get them now. Get them today. (Singing)

Brian: I'm glad you're the one singing. No one wants to hear me singing.

Griff: No one wants to hear me sing, but I don't care.

Brian: Well, do you have a question about selling on eBay and you cannot find an answer? Why not ask us?

Griff: I mean, what do you have to lose?

Brian: Exactly. Call us on (888) 723-4630.

Griff: That's (888) 723-4630. And you can call at any time of the day of the week and you leave your question or comment or your tirade and we just might put it on the air, especially if it's entertaining.

Brian: Are you a shy person?

Griff: Who me?

Brian: Yes, you. There's always the email option. Send your question to us at podcast@ay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: And now it's time for your Three Point Podcast Checklist. Pens and paper out.

Brian: Pens and paper out. Check the announcement board at ebay.com/announcements for UpToDate Seller News every day.

Griff: Summer is just about over. It's time to start stocking up for the 2023 holiday shopping season. And not just for inventory. Make sure you have more than enough shipping and packing supplies to fulfill all of your holiday sales.

Brian: What was the website link you guys mentioned at the top of the episode?

Griff: I don't remember. Don't fret. Just check the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to find any links we referenced during the episode.

Brian: And speaking of episodes on our next one, we'll welcome back eBay seller Michael Swope, who will share his experiences growing a successful and thriving niche market on eBay.

Griff: We'd like to again thank our guests this week, Michele Nguyen.

Brian: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.