Episode 46 || Terapeak--What it is, and how to use it

[doug@ebay]

This week we’ll talk about Terapeak--what it is, and how to use it. In the Main Story we talk with sellers Mike and Orlando from the PureHustle podcast about Terapeak and how they use it in their eBay businesses. On Inside eBay Chris Van Wagoner returns to go over Terapeak’s features. Of course, we’ve got The Buzz, we answer seller questions, and we’ve got a college edition of What’s Hot! To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.

eBay for Business- Episode 46 – Terapeak--What it is, and how to use it

This week we’ll talk about Terapeak--what it is, and how to use it. In the Main Story we talk with sellers Mike and Orlando from the PureHustle podcast about Terapeak and how they use it in their eBay businesses. On Inside eBay Chris Van Wagoner returns to go over Terapeak’s features. Of course, we’ve got The Buzz, we answer seller questions, and we’ve got a college edition of What’s Hot! To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.

Links

#ebaypodcast
ebay.com/podcast
ebay.com/sellingonebay
#makingithappen
ebay.com/meetups
ebay.com/community
ebay.com/sellercenter
ebay.com/payments
ebay.com/communitychat
trends.google.com
ebayopen.com/speakers
ebay.com/structureddata
explore.ebay.com
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pure-hustle-podcast/id1399376631
swiftmedia
landosloot

Hosts

Griff, Doug Smith, Dominque Hollins, Jennifer Deal

Guests

Orlando Duarte (eBay Seller), Mike Swift (eBay Seller), Chris Van Wagoner (eBay Staff)

Transcript

Data.

No, no. It's Doug.

Exactly Doug.

Doug Data? It's Doug Smith.

I know that but Data...

Are you trying to say something?

I am. It's, it's, it's, it's all about the data.

Data. I get it. Or more to the point, I know where to get it if I need it.

What?

Data.

Oh, of course. Right. I'm sorry. And if you sell on eBay, and if you're listening to this podcast, we assume you are, then you need access to data. Specifically data that can help you steer your selling on eBay, Hey, remember that one? To new heights.

Exactly. Sold item research for example.

Oh Yeah. Or our old favorite. explore.ebay.com.

Or even better Terapeak.

Ah, Terapeak. And that's the focus of our show this week. Terapeak. What it is and how to use it.

And now it's free to all eBay store subscribers.

Oh, it is indeed.

Yet another reason to subscribe to an eBay store if you aren't already. I'm Griff. And this is the eBay for Business Podcast. Your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. Hello, Doug.

Hello Griff.

Tell the folks at home what we have for them this week. Terapeak.

First stuff we visit with two sellers who are also podcasters. Mike in Orlando from PureHustle podcast. They use Terapeak, they liked Terapeak and they want to talk about...

Terapeak. I'm sensing a theme here.

And then from the eBay side to discuss Terapeak, our good friend in our Salt Lake City office, Chris Van Wagoner will call in to go over Terapeaks’ features in detail.

Terapeak, Terapeak, Terapeak. Its a tsunami of Terapeak, but that's not all we have, is it?

Of course not. We also have the regular stuff.

The podcast boiler plate, if you will.

Like your questions/our answers.

Is that what we're calling that segment now?

Yes, I like it.

Well, I do too.

And Jen Deal with What's Hot, the college edition.

So much content. So little time.

Let's turn the ignition on this thing.

Gladly. Maestro, it's time to smoothly segue into the news. A one and a two.

I'm Griff. But you already knew that and this is The Buzz. Besides the fact that Doug is back, this is a special Buzz and we'll talk about that in a moment. Welcome Doug.

Hi Griff.

How are you handling Alan being out still?

Fine. Fine, good. Thanks for asking. Time gives us space.

That's it. That's all you got? Last week you were pretty broken up. Remember I had to slap you to bring you around?

Thank you for for doing that by the way. You have a gentle hand like a sage Ike Turner. But I told myself I wouldn't cry this week Griff. Let's just proceed with The Buzz if we could please. I really don't want to talk about it. But in Ireland Related News, eBay Ireland. eBay Ireland Griff, where my eBay Alan is from has turned 15. On Monday May 10th, 2004 eBay officially launched in Dublin, Ireland. Since opening, the team has grown to over 1000 employees across two Dublin locations and pioneered the eBay at home customer service working model. Team Ireland planned a monumental week of events, insights and fun. Plus a car park party and lots of cake. I wonder if Alan was there?

Oh, I doubt it. It was his vacation. He's not going into the office. Do you know what else is special about the month of June besides it's busting out all over?

Well, it's pride month Griff and eBay is doing a ton to celebrate pride around the world as we do every year.

That's right, Doug. Every year our employees join pride celebrations in a number of cities. Starting this month, eBay will join the global community to increase visibility, enhance awareness and drive inclusion for all LGBTQ plus individuals. And the theme for this year's events is do something brave in honor of the 50th anniversary of the stonewall riots, a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States. I remember it well. Dominique Hollins our eBay Seller Diversity Ambassador stopped by recently to talk about some of the things we're doing both at eBay headquarters and in the local communities to support pride this year. Dominique is the Senior Manager of Marketplace Diversity. Dominique, welcome to the show. I hear you've got some things you want to talk about here on The Buzz.

I do. Hey. Hey Griff. Long time no see.

I know what marketplace diversity means, but I know that our audience is going to wonder what does that mean? Can you tell us what that means?

Marketplace diversity I think is newer and the discussion of diversity and inclusion. The tech industry doesn't get the best rep for diversity at our companies and they typically over index on the hiring process. Where are you recruiting and then the retention. How do you keep folks at the company? What many of our companies are missing within the industry is the marketplace. How does it drive the bottom line? There are inferences that it happens organically, but when it's intentional, it's deliberating. You can track it. So that's what my role is here at eBay. I focus on how do we reflect the voices across the 180 million customers in 190 markets? How do we make sure we have accurate representation? What products are we focused on, and then how do we market that throughout the year?

How do we do diversity at eBay?

We have a three pillar strategy for diversity at eBay. The first one is our workforce. Who and how we hire, where are we finding these folks? Where we were recruiting to make sure we have the best and the brightest regardless of your background? Part two is our workplace. Once we recruited them, we got them excited about being at eBay, but what does it feel like when they get here? Are we being inclusive of that experience. Are we making sure there's a sense of belonging so they can be most effective in the job that they were hired for? And then lastly, our marketplace. How are we reflecting our customers in the communities where we are present? Are we really reflecting our sellers in Oklahoma the way we are our sellers in New York City and in California and in Idaho, et cetera. So being very intentional about the holistic value diversity brings at eBay and how we are all engaged in that process, including bringing our sellers along with us.

How you think we're doing on these three points? I think there is initial movement in that we're starting the conversations. A lot of people don't want to talk about this because it's uncomfortable, but for the marginalized communities and the underrepresented communities, they don't have the choice to not talk about it. They are constantly fighting for equality and civil rights. And so as we do that, it helps our economy. Once we make sure we have equality, it helps to make sure we have a healthy ecosystem once everyone participates. So we're at the beginning phases.

And that's the key word for me. Everyone participates.

Everyone participates, but they have to know that they can. And eBay was bought, We were created by creating economic opportunity. But what Pierre Omidyar said that I will never forget is that we are all born equally capable, but we are not all born with equal opportunity. And once that opportunity is created, then sky is for me, sky is not the limits, sky is the beginning. And then you excel beyond that. So that's what it's like here. And I'm super excited that we're getting started. We have a lot more to do, but I love that our sellers and our employees and our executives are on board. So we get this right. So we're celebrating diversity at eBay, but we're also celebrating something else very soon. Do you want to talk a little bit about that with us?

Yes. What I want to do today is bring to our sellers an opportunity to join us. So here's what's going on. For those who do not know, it is national pride month in the United States. This is a community that struggled with civil rights for awhile and what eBay is doing in support of our united and pride community, on Sunday, June 30th for probably the sixth year in a row. Griff, you can correct me. We've been marching for awhile.

I think it's six. Yes.

This is six years in a row that eBay as a company will have marched in the San Francisco Pride parade.

A huge parade.

Huge parade. They're about a million people in San Francisco from all walks of life that come together on that day. And the one thing they care about is equality for this community. But what makes eBay so special is that for the past three years, our CEO has marched with us. Now there are many CEOs who have walked maybe one time, maybe two times, but Devin has walked to this now three times, which is a commitment from the leadership at the top.

And he's not on the float. He's actually walking.

He is on the ground. Not only is he tall, but he walks the entire route and he has as much energy as some of the younger folks that come with their family and friends. So what I want to do today is extend that invitation to our sellers. For the past several years, we have found ways to kind of reach out to you all in our small silos, but with the power of the podcast, with the engagement that you all have shown, we would like to share that with you today. So here's what I'm asking. On Sunday, June 30th the led by United and Pride, eBay's LGBTQ community and in partnership with our employees, our San Francisco and San Jose employees will be marching in the San Francisco Pride parade. For those who are in the area, we are not suggesting that you fly in. We're not suggesting you invest in travel unless you want to.

We are not going to stop you!

We won't stop you. But this is something that if you're in the area, we invite you to join us. And what that entails is we have a private breakfast with eBay that morning at a secret location only available to those who say, yes, I'm in and I'm coming. That includes breakfast, food, face painting, bubbles, just to get the excitement going. For those who are attending. There are family and friends who are going as well. You're invited to join us. And also there will be a shuttle from the eBay headquarters in San Jose to the parade in San Francisco and back.

So no parking or driving.

No parking. You can get excited on the way up and excited on the way back. If you have a family member, if you yourself are a member of this community, if you are an ally, someone who advocates for the equality of this community, whether you have friends, sisters, relatives. If you want to come and bring a plus one or maybe a plus two, we invite you to do that. I am allowing you to personally email me at dohollins. dohollins@ebay,com, This is not normal. I don't normally give that email out.

But you just did.

I did.

And I'm not editing it!

He's not and you know what? I don't want you to. Because for those who are here, here's what I ask you to do, if you do want to join, send me a message and in the subject, put I'm in, in big letters and put San Francisco pride. I will prioritize those emails and make sure that I get back to you. That will be my commitment to you for this journey and I will personally make sure all the sellers who sign up are treated well and that you all are accommodated when you get here. So it is also my mother's birthday. This will be the first time my mother has marched with me in the parade.

Oh, that's great!

So this is life changing for me, but it's also beautiful to do it with our colleagues and with our sellers and our customers. So we'll love if you all would join us.

Dominique, I want to thank you. It's been a pleasure.

You are most welcome.

We've been speaking with Dominique Hollins. There she goes.

So Doug, what'd you think?

That was great Griff. I'm always happy and proud to stand by my friends and my coworkers as a pride ally.

And we're glad you do. We've come a long way but there's always still a long way to go. All right, Doug, what else do you have?

More information will be coming soon, but we are continuing to migrate to Seller Hub. Seller Manager and Seller Manager Pro are going away and by the end of July, sellers should be using Seller Hub.

Now if you're not using Seller Hub, now's the time to start using the powerful analytics tool that we call seller hub. Seller Hub offers everything you need to build and grow your business on eBay. I couldn't live without it. Explore it now. It's a great product. It is much, much, much, much better than either Seller Manager or Seller Manager Pro.

That is true. Now to get to your Seller Hub, you can simply go to ebay.com/sellerhub while logged into eBay. And here's the plug.

I love a plug.

That's true. Seller Hub is a single destination to manage and improve your entire business on eBay. From Seller Hub, you can monitor as the overall status of your business. You can manage your listings and orders, you can monitor current performance of your business and you can access insights and guidance that can help you grow your business Griff.

And I know it sounds like PR, but I really feel this is true. It's a powerful tool. I couldn't live without it as a seller, and if you're not using, if you're part of that small minority that hasn't migrated prior to this, take my word for it. I know that change is tough, but this is the change that's really, really has nothing but benefits for you. You will not believe that you waited this long. So what do we have from the community this week, Doug?

Well, we had some search questions this week. Search questions come up regularly and we always try to provide guidance and send questions and feedback to the search team. Remember that algorithm learns as it goes, so follow the guidance we put out there and optimize those listings. For search tips, you can go to ebay.com Seller C enter and search for Search or SEO or Search Engine Optimization.

Now we had some recent internet sales tax updates as well and I know our sellers want to hear that.

Yes, Griff, more states started collecting Internet sales tax as of July 1st. We have updated our buyer and seller help pages. See the links in this episode's transcript. Basically the following states have started collecting Internet sales tax as of July 1st. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Vermont. Another group starts collecting October 1st so check the community seller news announcements and our help pages for all of the latest information.

There's an important thing I need to talk about here. When your state starts collecting sales tax, you may still need to report your taxable sales, but you don't need to send money to the states. You'll have to indicate that those taxes were paid and it's going to be different. So do that exculpatory work now. You're not going to have to submit money, but you may, depending on the state you're in, you may still have to report your taxable sales on a regular schedule. Some states it's yearly, some states it's twice a year. Here in California, I have to do it every quarter.

Well, thank you for that additional detail Griff.

Besides that, you are responsible for paying all fees and taxes associated with using eBay as an eBay seller. So for more information on eBay's tax policy and your obligations, you can see our tax policy and user agreement. Which again, we'll link to in the transcripts. Your tax related responsibilities may include paying sales tax on eBay, sales , paying income tax on eBay sales and informing oversea buyers about import charges.

Good till cancelled discussion remains a regular topic in community Griff. And community members are providing each other advice on how to stay organized and adapt to eBay changes and of course the community team continues to engage to clarify policy and provide resources.

Anything else in the news, Doug?

Well Griff, you'll be excited about this one as it sports-related. The inaugural class of the eBay baseball card hall of fame was unveiled. Comprised of ten, count them, ten all time greats whose cards rank among those that have been consistently maintained the highest value over the years and held significant influence in the collectible industry.

By the way, the holy grail of baseball cards. A 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, that is valued at more than, is this real? $10 million?

That's true. Geez. It's on display as part of the baseball memorabilia exhibit at the Colorado History Museum. Now just think if you had bought all those, you could when you were like six years old, you can put your, for your mom, you can put your parents that a good retirement home.

That's right. Or if your mom hadn't thrown them out with your comic books.

Oh, everything got thrown out. Everything. I had such valuable treasures and let's not go there.

It's quite a card. You'd think it would be the size of a building, but it's merely the size Griff of a baseball card.

Right. Which means you can put it in your, remember we used to use clothespins and you'd put them in your tires so that the spokes on your bicycle would make a sound?

That's true.

Destroying a $10 million card in the process. What did we know?

That's right. Wandering off in the woods looking for bodies or clowns or things like that.

I don't know what, where? Where is this going? Oh, sorry.

Stephen King references.

Well, okay.

Well Griff.

Yeah.

Back to our baseball theme here. Highlighting the group is former Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, the first player ever elected unanimously by the Baseball Writers Association of America earlier this year. They couldn't play it, so they had to write about it. Also included are Pete Rose.

Oh, he's, he got in.

Yeah, he made it in.

Finally. They were all betting against it. But who knew.

Babe Ruth, Cal Ripken Jr.

Oh, I remember him.

Yes. Ozzie Smith. Mickey Mantle. Ken Griffey Jr, Nolan Ryan, Ted Williams, and Stan Musial. I know you know the song Griff.

Yeah. What is it?

Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowds. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks... Guess what Griff?

What's that Douglas?

That's all the news that fits this week. Finally, this has been The Buzz. Coming up next, it's time for The Main Story.

Now it's time for the feature we call The Main Story and we're here with two sellers who are also podcasters, Orlando and Mike eBay sellers and host of the podcast called PureHustle podcast. Our theme today is Terapeak and how to use it. Welcome to the show guys.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah. Thank you so much. We are glad to be here. Well, it's my pleasure. So first, what are your seller ids and how long have you been selling on eBay?

My seller ID is swiftmedia and I'm actually a relatively new seller. I've only been selling for about a year.

That's long enough to figure some things out.

That's right.

No, Mike's figured out a lot. That's been good. And I'm Orlando and my store is landosloot and I've been selling off and on for the last two decades, but I didn't get really serious about eBay until probably about seven years ago.

So I think you have street cred.

Just a little bit.

Do you guys sell separately?

Yes, we each have our own store, so we sell separately, but we sell a little bit of everything. Like I have an eclectic store. We do most of our sourcing at garage sales and thrift stores. I've got everything from vintage electronics to women's shoes to duck decoys.

Well, it sounds like my closet!

Mike does like his duck decoys.

Orlando, do you sell the same sort of merchandise? I'm a little different. I would say I'm very big on clothing and it's kind of adapted. Harley and like Hawaiian shirts. Kind of like you Griff a little bit from back in the day. I learned a lot from you. I'll never forget, years ago you had on eBay for radio, Right. And this is a continuation of eBay for radio.

Sure. Yeah.

When you were with Lee, you had talked about getting Hawaiian shirts and getting a board and stretching it out with binder clips or something to that effect. I don't know if that's exactly what you said.

I tortured my shirts.

Okay. That's what it was. And I remember going, you know what, I can do this. And you know that's what we taught all of our listeners that are brand new. You don't need a lot to get started. I started with Hawaiian shirts and Harley and then I still sell a lot of Harley. Just, because it's whatever I land upon and it still sells well for me. I do a lot of shoes, but I do like Mike, I do sell a lot of electronics. I like collectible items. We've fallen into department 56 stuff sometimes. It's just whatever we end up finding and we like to treasure hunt.

Yeah. We, we consider ourselves professional treasure hunters.

That's what you call it.

So how did you guys meet and how did that lead to the PureHustle podcast?

It's actually kind of interesting. We're both educators and I was a high school English teacher and Orlando was my vice principal, so we kind of just started with that, like kind of a friendship.

I had to write him up a couple of times.

That's not true. But I remember he would always talk about reselling. He'd mentioned things to me and I would be like, wow, that's cool. And I would actually bring him my boxes. Like I'd get boxes from Amazon and stuff and I'd bring in my leftover boxes and, and one day I was kind of getting interested, especially as the summer was coming up and I was like, can I do this? Can I make a little bit of money?

Let's, let's rewind a little bit. Mike bringing me boxes would always cause me problems. Because I would have these serious meetings like disciplinary or you know, a kid that's struggling and I'd always have to move these boxes out of the way that Mike would drop off in front of my office every morning. So anyways.

Just trying to help out, you know. But summertime is coming up and as a teacher you don't have income over the summer always. So I was kind of interested in making it a little bit of extra money. Specifically I do video stuff, I'm a videographer on the side, but I wanted to get some more equipment. So I asked Orlando, I said, do you think I'd be able to make a few hundred dollars selling? And he's like, yeah, I could teach you easy. And I said, well, what if you teach me how to resell and we make a podcast about it. And we talk about from somebody who's a little bit more of a veteran reseller to somebody who's a complete noob. And that way our audience can get from both perspectives.

Oh , and now here you are, you're podcasters and sellers on eBay and you're flying high. Hey, you know we're here to talk about today. Is Tara Peak, do you use Terapeak?

Yes, we do. Obviously Mike and he'll explain a little bit. He's kind of new to Terapeak. I've used Terapeak for years. I definitely use it a lot more now that it's free with a store subscription, which is definitely a plus. It's a great tool and the data in there is invaluable when you're trying to make multiple decisions, whether it comes to sourcing, to pricing, to trends and so on.

Yeah. When we first started the podcast, Rolando had occasionally mentioned Terapeak and as a new reseller, it was one of those things. I was like, yeah, a paid subscription for something. Maybe as I grow I might move into that. But when he mentioned a little while ago that, hey, this is a free thing now. I started looking into it and learning and I tell you what, it's been a game changer as far as research and being able to find, am I pricing items correctly? Am I competitive in the market as far as shipping, all of these things. And as a podcast, like one of the number one things we talk about and we try to emphasize to our listeners is research is crucial. Like having knowledge, being able to understand the pricing and all of that is so important when you're sourcing and when you're listing. So it's been awesome to be able to use Terapeak for that specifically because Terapeak gives you that year long view as opposed to the 90 day view that eBay's native program gives you.

Yeah. So take us through this. I'm assuming that when you're, you're both outsourcing things, you take your phones with you and check Terapeak and if so, how do, how does that work? How do you use it?

Right now I think the apps are being reworked but when the apps are available or if you just go online, you can access Terapeak. And so I'll give you an example. You have those bread and butter items, right? And you're like, oh, I'll always pick these up. Right. They always sell for a good amount.

Hawaiian shirts.

Hawaiian shirts, right? . I'll give you an example of one. A UCLA Bruins Hawaiian shirt by Reyn Spooner. I used to be able to sell those for 80-100 bucks easy. And this was like maybe two or three years ago. It had been a few years since I'd seen one and I was at a thrift store and they're trying to sell it for about 15 to 20 cause the stores prices are going a little bit up. So I looked it up and on eBay and all the comps were low and I'm like, these buyers don't know what they're doing. So I'm like, you know, I'm going to check Terapeak and see what has it sold for at the Max in the last year. And sure enough the value had gone down. Right? Well the average selling price at Terapeak showed for the past year was about 50 to 60 bucks. But then I looked at some of the higher listings that sold and the pictures made a difference and the shipping and stuff like that. It allowed me to strategically go, okay, I can go with the average selling price, but I can also see what those a year back were selling this shirt for more and I adjusted things and I still was able to sell it for a decent price.

I think I sold it for more than $80 but I could have just gone with the recent solds on eBay and maybe left money on the table.

And sometimes we use it, but a lot of times with the type of reselling we're doing when we're sourcing, you're moving quickly. You're trying to get items in a store or at a garage sale and move on to the next one as fast as you can. So the 90 day eBay total does give you a lot of information that you can use on whether or not you should pick it up. The Terapeak then gives you additional information when you're listing, but even before you go out, like sometimes when you're, I know very little about Nike shoes or I know very little about different types of markets. So a little bit of research before sourcing on Terapeak has been extremely helpful to know what are the things I should be looking for? What are those higher end items that are selling more consistently and what is a good price to buy them at based off of the average selling price that we can see they're on Terapeak.

So you could, for instance, search the top five shoes. And then you know, like certain brands, you should be on the lookout, obviously Nike and Sketchers and so on. But then you could break it down even more. Like, which models of the shoe should I be looking out for? And even when you're thrifting and garage selling, you can find certain shoes and go, okay, Terapeak shows at these consistently sell. So when I'm out in the wild, the quote unquote, I can source these.

Thank heaven for shoes. Right?

Agreed.

One of the things I love about Terapeak is the statistics. Do you use the statistics in Terapeak for trends or to figure out what product lines maybe you should explore?

We definitely do. On my end, I use it for several purposes. One of them is to find out when it's time for me to let go of an item, right. It might take a long time. For example, like Padagonia Chinchillas. There's these snap fleeces by Patagonia. Pretty popular. They sell pretty well. But right now in June and July, probably not the best time to start trying to sell those. And this is an easy one, right? Cause it's a winter item. But sometimes you hear people say things sell year round. But you know, you look at the Terapeak trends, it doesn't necessarily show that. It shows that yes, the peak is still November and December and maybe you should list it for a little bit higher based on that trend. The other way, and Mike, I'll elaborate on this a little bit, is you could do a little bit of a retail arbitrage on there.

I've started using Terapeak for eBay arbitrage and it's been huge, especially because you think certain items are going to be seasonal. We like to sell Lululemon gear and so Lululemon has tank tops. And you think, Okay, that's going to be a summer item. You might be able to pick them up cheaper in the winter, but when you look at Terapeak, you see there's pretty consistent prices year round on those. Using that, you kind of know, okay, I'm not going to find a major deal on this. Whereas other items, for instance, I was looking up specific anime DVD stuff and it seemed like on this specific one that for the year there was a low part and a high part. And if that trend continues year after year, it allows you to in a certain timeframe, a few months to pick up items for 50% off or more and then hold onto them that are already packaged. Somebody send them to you in a box and you take three pictures, and ship them back out, right for the profit. When those prices spike.

And Terapeak can help lead you through that so that you're in the right direction using the right merchandise and prizes.

Correct. You just go to the bottom and just hit trends and then you can choose unit sold or pricing. And it will give you that information.

It's a love fest, but just like any, just like any love fest, there's an occasional people who use the product who don't work for evening. How would you improve Terapeak? What would be your suggestions? eBay's listening.

All right, well I appreciate the platform. I would say metrics and what I mean is more metrics. So for instance, it does give you the option of choosing between a US and an International buyer, but can we break it down to Global Shipping Program and International buyer? Or can we break down the shipping to not just free, but can we break it down to is it free Priority or is it free First class? Or if we can use a little bit more AI. And again, Mike probably could talk to this more than I can, but what about the pictures? Are the pictures with a white background as eBay suggests. Because they get higher in the algorithm or are they just run of the mill pictures and that's what's bringing the price down? Just different items to be able to break down the information cause research right? We always say research pays.

Absolutely. And then I would say probably one of the things that would be huge would be when you're looking at the sell through rate or when you're looking at, if you want to look at the unsold items, you need to have that 90 day. It needs to be set at 90 days. If you set it to the year, you lose a little bit of that data. So it'd be nice to see what's the sell through rate for a year. Can we look at the unsold items so that we could see like is it pictures? What is separating out? What would also be nice? It's kind of the integration into the eBays native APP as opposed to using two separate programs.

Oh, I would love that.

Oh, it would be incredible. One stop shop.

Well guess what? It's coming.

Awesome. I like to hear that.

Oh my heavens. Did I just opened the Kimono too much? Let me shut it.

Well, I want to thank you both for taking time out of your busy selling, sourcing and podcast days to come and talk to us here on eBay for Business and I hope you'll come back. You guys are great guests.

Oh, thank you so much. And look forward to meeting you at eBay Open hopefully.

Oh yes, I'll be there. I'll be sitting day and night at the podcast table. I'll be very difficult to miss.

Okay, well we'll definitely stop by and say hi.

Now before we go, can you give everyone your seller name's Orlando? What's your cell or user id? It is landosloot.

landosloot. I like it. You've just leave out the Or. And Mike, what's your seller id?

Mine is swiftmedia.

Perfect. Thank you so much you guys for coming on the show and I've got to give it a listen to PureHustle podcast and you can too.

Agreed we are on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify. Just find us and we're on Instagram as PureHustle podcast, so if you just find us on Instagram or on Facebook or on Twitter as PureHustle cast, you can find us on all of those platforms. So we're there.

So tune into PureHustle podcast. How's that for a commercial?

That sounds incredible. Thank you. Griff.

Okay. Send the check to ebay.com. (laughter)

I'll write it directly to you.

No, I'm kidding. Of course. Thanks again guys it has been great.

Take care.

Thank you Griff.

We've been speaking with Mike and Orlando. They're known together as the podcast host of a podcast called PureHustle podcast and we've been talking about Terapeak. Now stay tuned. First we're going to talk with Chris Van Wagoner, Senior Program Manager and eBay's selling platform about Terapeak in depth from the eBay side and so don't go away.

Welcome to Inside eBay. We're here with Chris Van Wagoner. He's the Senior Program Manager for eBay selling platform. And our theme today as we've said earlier, is Terapeak. What it is and how to use it. Welcome back to the show, Chris.

Great to be back. Griff.

We just got a phone call this week on our hotline and coincidentally it's a question I think you might be interested in. Let's take a listen.

Hi Griff. I want to ask a question about Terapeak. I don't know how to use it. I am like a beginner. A sample is I am searching for a Sara dress in general. Then how I can get all those history, how they sell, how are they moving, the market, somethings like that. Thank you so much.

So Chris, what do you have for this seller?

I love that question. I know that you use Terapeak cause you list inventory on the site and the great thing about Terapeak is actually a couple of months back, we extended Terapeak at no additional cost to sellers that subscribed to basic eBay stores and above. If you are a basic eBay store subscriber, a Premium eBay store subscriber, an Anchor store subscriber, you can go to Terapeak.com you can enter your eBay credentials and you immediately have access to the powerful research tool that is Terapeak. I think that one thing that sellers get caught up in is, sometimes they just put very basic keyword search terms as they are doing research.

Which is what this seller did?

Exactly, And I think one of the challenges there is that there are so many listings on the eBay platform. We're talking over a billion listings globally to try and dial down very prescriptive information, we recommend that sellers put themselves in the buyer's shoes and use very detailed titles that a buyer might use to find the product that's being listed. And this helps narrow down the information that's being provided. And with that information you can then begin to price the inventory that you have access to. You can begin to list with compelling shipping costs, use effective titles, all sorts of different things to increase the likelihood of sale.

So for this seller just using the word dress or I think she said Sara dress is probably not going to work very well. That's exactly right. Yeah. She'd have to expand that to be more detailed and use keywords that a buyer is likely to incorporate into that keyword search string.

Terapeak accesses a lot of data. Not just what's currently on the site, but it's historic as well.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. Millions of transactions Terapeak is sorting through to make sure that our sellers have access to the most pertinent information so that they can list their inventory effectively.

How far back does Terapeak data go?

Some of the queries go back 90 days. Similarly to how eBay is structured when you're using some of the search tools there, but also we keep data back as far as a year in some cases so that sellers have access to some seasonality information to guide their listing decisions.

More than a year doesn't seem to be practical because things change and you may find that a year ago the data that was pertinent for this listing or this particular item or category may have changed and it would be misleading.

Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, one of the things we're always looking into is, how do we present information in an intuitive way? And if that means we can find a way to to help sellers digest information that's older than a year, we'll definitely do it. The goal of Terapeak is to make sure that we're providing very powerful information that helps sellers more effectively list their inventory.

Now, what do you see as the top benefits for a seller who's using Terapeak? What does the program provide?

I think that at a very basic level, it helps you understand some of the market dynamics, things like supply and demand and what price points listings are actually selling at. But one thing that I think is often times overlooked is that the data that's available through Terapeak expands just beyond the millions of transactions that are there and actually shares international data. You can actually review information from 22 different international eBay markets. Markets like ebay.co.UK and some of the other sites that we manage that sellers might not necessarily consider right off the bat when they're listing their inventory.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Chris, you work with this product very closely. How would you improve it if you could?

The one thing that I'm very focused on is, how do we incorporate Terapeak into the listing flow? I think that there are a number of sellers out there that have just grown accustomed to using Terapeak as part of their listing process, but how do we streamline this process so sellers have access to that very valuable information right away. When they're creating their listing titles, when they're reviewing the listings that they have active on the site. And another thing that we're very focused on right now is what touch points along that listing flow or the transactional flow. Might we incorporate some of this data so that sellers have that information more readily available when they're making decisions?

Would one of the data points that you're considering be price?

Absolutely, and that's something that we're definitely focused on right now is how do we surface that information at the right place, at the right time , is definitely something that we're very focused on right now.

We need to make it more simplistic for sellers to identify what price points they should list their inventory at and I think that Terapeak is going to be able to provide that in the next little while.

One of the things I love about Terapeak that completed listings or even current listings doesn't provide is statistics. And Terapeak provides some really deep dive statistics. Tell us a little bit about them.

I love the statistics that Terapeak provides. As you're taking a look at selling a dress or an iPhone, Terapeak and using it search and research functionality helps you understand how many items have sold with those keywords, how many bids have been placed, what time of day, what day of the week these listings are typically created. And all these things I think that are elements of creating listings and managing your inventory are incredibly important. You can essentially become a professional at listing that particular item given the information that's at your fingertip.

What about market trends? Do the statistics help sellers determine what market trends are impacting their particular category or items?

They absolutely do. There are a number of different market trends, specifics around price. And just in terms of the look back that's available that helps sellers identify what's happening with that particular product or those search terms. What's interesting is as you grow as a seller, it becomes more and more difficult to manage the inventory that you have access to. Terapeak does a really nice thing in just how it presents the information graphically. So you can quickly take a look at the inventory that you have access to and see some of the trending that's happening in terms of price or sales or a host of other metrics that Terapeak uses as its serving up data to its sellers.

Who doesn't love a graph?

I know, right?

Exactly right.

Hey, before we close out, I wanted to ask you, as someone who's intimately familiar with the Terapeak product, what tips do you have for sellers to help them use the product more efficiently and fully?

We've talked a little bit about the international markets in which data represents inventory that's selling on eBay. But I think another area that is often overlooked is the category specific breakdowns. I'm big on diversification as you scale your business on eBay and I think that sometimes it's difficult as sellers look to expand their inventory into a different space to determine what space they need to expand into. With the category breakdowns, you get all the information that we talked about price, how many items have sold. You can start to understand what the competition might look like in these spaces, but just at a very high level, there's also a heat map that helps you understand how hot certain categories and subcategories are on eBay. And this makes it a lot easier to start to take inventory at the landscape and figure out what categories you might want to expand into to compliment the inventory you're already offering.

It's a great tip, so not just using Terapeak for your current inventory, but if you're currently exploring the idea of expanding it to new or different product lines, Terapeak can help guide you through that to find what's going to really work for you.

That's exactly right.

Chris, I want to thank you so much. It's always a pleasure. You're our go to guy now whenever it comes to anything product based.

Oh, I love it. It's great chatting with you.

We'll be having you back on the shows sooner than you think.

All right, perfect. We've been talking with Chris Van Wagoner. He's the Senior Program Manager here at eBay under the eBay Selling Platform team. We've been talking about Terapeak and how to use it and the best way to learn how to use anything is to get into it and start using it right now. I hope you'll do that.

Coming up next, we're going to talk about What's Hot! college edition.

Every month we check out What's Hot and lucky us in the studio today we have our What's Hot Correspondent Jen Deal and she's sharing with us What's Hot! college edition. Welcome Jen.

Thanks Griff. So I just moved my son out of his freshman dorm and I'm already thinking about what is needed in the fall. So today I'm going to share insights with sellers about what they might want to prepare to list and sell in the coming weeks.

We'll good talk about being a planner.

It's true. Benjamin Franklin himself said, by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

That's so true. I like that. Okay. Let's get into this segment. We usually think about only the freshmen moving into dorms when we refer to "college student shopping". How accurate is that?

Well last fall, about 20 million students attended American colleges and universities. So it'll be about the same again this year with some new flock of freshmen coming in and women account for the majority of that by a three to one ratio with over 60% attending a full time four year institution. Why do I throw the stats out?

Yeah. Why?

Okay. Because this translates to a significant opportunity to clothe and otherwise furnish a student's lifestyle. And by the way, college starts in August for most people.

Oh, how terrible for them.

Yeah. Well for them maybe for the parents, not so much. Okay.

I get it.

There are some schools that will take direct deliveries these days, by the way, for students up to 10 days before school starts, which is great for out of state shoppers. I mean, in fact, the last year I did a lot of my shopping online in the week before school started and ship directly to the dorm.

How convenient. Now I read somewhere that 30% of back to school shoppers are just waiting for one to two weeks before school starts to shop. Maybe there's a correlation. The purchase window has been shrinking in recent years, right?

Yeah. Actually it absolutely has.

Or maybe people having too much summer fun and then they run out of time. Like me. August is still summer to me, but I can see why we're talking about this now. So Jen, what are the top categories for the college edition?

Well, it should be no surprise, Griff, that they are electronics home and garden and fashion. But it's actually the items that matter in these categories. So today's college student is savvy and intends to make a statement of who they are and what they support through their purchases and their associated brands.

They're finding themselves, their true personalities.

They do believe they've actually found themselves. And this is how they're expressed themselves amongst their new found friends, or how they're going to reinvent themselves. Remember those days?

No, but how nice for them.

Yeah. So their trend is they want to be minimal and functional, yet expressive. And they tend to focus on the key investments that they deem important and leave other things to the dollar stores or big boxes like pencils and notebooks for items that are not quite as important to them.

I think those are very important items.

Well you would think. I think the teachers think they're important, but first of all it's a digital generation.

So notebooks are exotic?

No. Yeah, Pencil? What's that?

A pencil? Sounds dirty.

How do you, how do you, what happens when it runs out of lead or how do you get it to work?

Where's the button?

Let's talk about what types of things that kids are, sorry, young adults are purchasing for college. In electronics what the majority of items that are selling, and I'm talking about majority because I know we, you know, anyone can solve the latest Mac book, but here's what happens in what we see peak during the back to college season. PC laptops under 500 and under 300.

Those have to be like used, right?

Used, refurbished or super basic.

Super basic. Okay.

And then Mac books between $800 and $1,200. So again, similar boat. iPads under 750 and streaming devices like Hulus...

Now wait a minute! They don't have time for TV. They've gotta be studying.

Supposedly. But you know, they do live there for the year. So they will have weekends.

What's a weekend?

A Friday night. But you know what's interesting is when I went to college, people were moving TVs in. Nobody has a TV anymore.

No. They watch it on their laptop.

That's right. And that's why they need Hulu because then they don't also pay for cable.

Okay, I get it.

Yeah. So the other screen, cell phones, IRS or Androids with 16 gigs or more. There wasn't a price right there So I don't know, maybe there's no budget there Mom and Dad.

But they're expensive if they're new.

That's right. They are, but it's that size. Again, that matters it's 16 gigs or more. And then for anyone that's a Gamer and living in the dorms, monitors, monitor stands. I mean people that are typing papers also need these things. Extra video game controllers, over ear headphones as well as ear buds, Airpods and Apple keyboards specifically we're seeing increase in sales.

How about a book on time management? I think they're going to need it.

That's what the cell phone is for.

Well how do you connect all these things? I'm sure those are hot. Oh actually that's next on my list!

I wonder how I knew that?

Cables and cords are important. Extension cords, power surge protectors and preferably with USB ports and at least 600 joules or higher. If you don't know what a joule is, a physics class or electricians know, but basically the wattage, right? So 600 joules or higher 1080 joules or more work for multiple chargers set up.

That's to protect in case of a surge, they'll protect up to that power level.

That's right.

Yeah. Cause those dorms, they'll have power outages. And things like that. When you buy the inexpensive power or surge protector, you're not necessarily protecting the computer or the phone, the monitor and all those things plugged into the one outlet on their side of the room.

Yeah. I have the solution for this. What's that?

Notebooks and pencils. You don't need any protections. All right, what's the next category? Home and Garden. We automatically think of small appliances, but some dorms now come with fridge and microwave and don't allow coffee makers or such because they offer kitchens in the buildings, but there are many other decor items that students are lugging to school.

So no Keurigs. Right?

Well, Keurigs are Okay. Some people still do that, but single press or slim, small coffee and espresso machines are ranking high. Personal blenders, electric kettles, water filter jugs, water bottles, hydro flasks and commuter mugs. Also high on the list.

Personal blender? It's like a tiny little blender. Only for you, it's not for anyone else.

Yeah. Exactly. It's like a bullet or not for anyone else. No one sharing their Margarita mixes here.

You can go mash up your own stuff. This is for me.

This is mine. This is my statement.

Hey, that's my personal blender. Hands on.

My personal blender. There's no way I got the whole dorm drunk with a Margarita Mix because only I had the blender.

We were a more communal generation.

We were. We were.

Kids today!

There's little space in dorms still. That hasn't change. Yeah, and young adults now don't love the clutter of appliances. In fact, to me it looked like they wanted space for their snacks and their video games.

Priorities.

So in addition, in this particular category of Home and Garden, mattress toppers, bedding, and by the way, I recommend bringing two fitted sheets for those that don't wash all the time.

Are you going to do their laundry?

I am not. No. Pillows for both sleeping and for decorating are selling. Throw rugs, laundry bags or collapsible laundry baskets are popular. And speaking of laundry, pods and dryer sheets are preferred to liquid bottles that are heavy to carry.

Makes Sense.

Personal fans, lamps, hangers, storage bins, and shelves. Racks and bike rack mounts are popular.

Once again, that word personal. Hey, get out of the breeze. That's my personal fan breeze.

You know, you don't look at it as them being selfish. It's, this is who I am as an individual.

I look at them as being selfish, but go on. All right, Griff.

Everyone will need personal movers with all this stuff.

Yes. The unpaid parents are usually the hired interns for this.

I'm so lucky I never had kids.

Anything else to call out?

One last category. Fashion.

Oh my category! I love it.

Well, you probably have a plethora of knowledge here. It's hard to name all the back to school shopping brands in clothing and shoes. To you sellers, I will recommend just sticking to what works for you so you know continue to sell the brands that are working for you, but I do want to mention a few health and beauty must haves for students. Toothbrushes, number one.

Well of course.

Not just for hygiene, but they want the fancy ones. The electric toothbrushes from $7 oral B, which is the top selling brand to the Philips Sonicare diamond clean toothbrush. I didn't even price that one because I already know it is expensive. The shower wraps, robes, Kimonos, sandals and carriers.

Those are popular.

Kimonos.

Kimonos. Yes.

Kimono my dorm room.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, so facial care, face washes, acne treatments, teeth whiteners, wash cloths, makeup brushes and beauty blenders.

You still look like an adolescent, but go ahead.

Well, they try backpacks specifically. Herschel…

My favorite brand backpack.

It's great.

I love them.

Yeah, Fjallraven.

They are good.

Jan Sports, Kipling, Asos and Carhartts.

Carhartts. They're wonderful. Yeah. Now you're talking to me. That was great.

Right up your alley.

This next item just leaves me in the past.

Okay. Birkenstocks. They have been back.

I know.

And they're popular and they're still popular.

I just think of Smelly, hippie feet.

Vans. Adidas and Nike are all great footwear brands as well. And then these two were interesting to me. Chapstick and Bath and Body Works.

Get those lips kiss ready.

That's what I was thinking.

Snog Ready?

Yeah, so chapstick and Bath and Body Works.

Which makes sense to me. I love that company. I buy stuff from them.

Yeah, but no candles in the dorms.

Please.

Sorry. You've got the wallpaper, you know the plug ins.

yeah, no, that would be horrible.

Yeah, exactly.

It's fascinating to dig into this shopping list of college adults, Jen, but you know as Alexander Hamilton puts it, teach me how to say goodbye. For more details check out the sourcing Info in July's Seller Digest. You can find all this information and more. Jen, that's all the time we have today.

Well Griff, It's been fun. I will see you next month.

Next month. I can't wait.

We've been talking to Jen Deal about What's Hot for college students. That's What's Hot! The college edition and it's on their wish lists for this fall. Stay tuned. We've got questions coming up.

You got questions? We've got answers. It's time for that segment. What do you think?

Very exciting. I always look forward to this every week with you, Griff.

Well, before we start, if you have questions you want answered on our eBay for Business podcast, call us at 888-723-4630 and you can leave a message there. Or you can email us at podcast@ebay.com. Or you can go to ebay.com/podcast and submit your question via the feedback form. That's right there. The link's right there in that beautiful mustard yellow box.

Yes. Very exciting.

So first, let's go to the phones because a caller named Dan has a question about local pickup. Let's listen in first.

Danielle Moriarty. I have a question, A buyer wants to do a local pickup. How does eBay get paid for the commission on it? Thanks.

So Griff, how does want to accommodate a buyer requests for a local pickup?

Well, I'm really glad Dan asked this because local pickup is still confusing for so many sellers. First, it's really important when you list an item. If you're willing to have someone come by and pick up an item as opposed to shipping it, then you must offer that as a shipping option when you're listing the item. You can also add it as an option while the item is still live if it's a fixed price listing. So you can always go in and revise your shipping and add local pickup. Here's the problem. You can't add it after the listing closes. You have a listing where a buyer has purchased an item and local pickup was not the option, was not offered as an option. You didn't provide one. There's no way for that to be part of the record. Based on Dan's question, there are two possible things that Dan was talking about. One is that. That he didn't offer local pickup and now a buyer wants to pick it up. You can, I mean sure, it's your prerogative, but you will take a hit in your shipping metrics because we expect that the item is to be shipped. Since you did not offer local pickup. You can't call customer support and have that changed. Keep that in mind. The other option or the other scenario that Dan may be speaking about is that he hasn't even sold the item and someone says, Hey, I want to come and buy it from you and I'll pay you, because he said something telling. He said, how does eBay get its commission? Now you're talking something that's a little bit more risky. If a buyer contacts you, a buyer in quotes by the way, and says, Hey, I just want to come by and buy this from you. Can I do that? Well, you can. That's your prerogative. It's your judgment. It's your choice. You can sell anything to anyone and I guess in a scenario like this, you'd end the eBay listing and have this stranger come to your house. Here's the thing, once you do that, it is not an eBay sale. If something goes wrong, you are on your own. To me, I would never do this as a seller because to me it smells like the potential for fraud or worse. Remember this is a stranger coming to your place of business or your home. You don't know who they are. They're not known on eBay necessarily and if you conduct the transaction off eBay and something goes wrong, no matter what it is, you're on the hook. And you don't have eBay to back you up. So I would be careful about that. If you want to add local pickup, you can have up to three options, shipping options and one of them can be local pickup. You can have it as be the only option. If you have something that's very heavy that you're never going to ship, you can say no shipping, just local pickup only. And that's all from the dropdown menu or you can add it to your shipping options. And so that if a buyer sees this and says, Hey, I don't have to have it shipped, I can just come pick it up. Then that works. And if you have your payment options for local pickup, or select pay on pickup when you're listing and any other payment methods you'd like to accept, you'll need to offer buyers at least one of the approved electronic methods. And you cannot discourage buyers from using any payment method you specified in the listing. We don't recommend accepting payment methods that take time to clear such as checks. And by the way, if you have local pickup happen, get proof of collection. Like a signed receipt or invoice or an eBay message from the buyer which states that they've picked up the item. And this can protect you against item, not received cases. In your item description or checkout instructions, specify when and how the buyer can collect the item. Don't add your full address, just the area will do. You may need to get in touch with them after the listing ends to to confirm the details of the pickup. And one other point, a lot of local police stations offer safe places for buyers and sellers on internet transactions who meet in person to conduct the final part of the transaction. So check that out. You may not want a stranger coming to your home, but you're willing to have local pickup. In that case, see if there is a safe area provided by your law enforcement authorities in your town or county. We have a bunch of other questions that came in through different sites. Let's get these in the lightening round.

All right, here we go. Griff. First question. From our podcast feedback form bling rescue asks, can there be a new sales category for eBay? Marijuana?

No.

Yeah.

You're not allowed to list certain items in the site that are illegal in some states. It's still a federal crime to possess and to sell marijuana. No, there's not going to be one of those categories on the site. Probably not in our lifetime.

Planet Power sales are down since adding good till cancelled, Griff. Will we reverse the policy and what can they do?

We will not reverse the policy and you are making a coalition assumption as opposed to causation.

Your sales are not down because of good until canceled. There are always things you can do to combat slow sales, but you need to evolve as a seller and with the platform. Look at the trends. How are your listings? What's selling and what's not selling? I've got to tell you, a lot of sellers who have said to me, my sales are slow. I go and look at their inventory. They have 50 things listed. You cannot make any velocity out of 50 listings.

No.

You have to continually add listings. In my estimation, as a seller and as an observer of sellers for the last 20 years plus, you have to have at least 200 items on the site to get any sort of fly wheel. And you have to keep adding items. 50 items ain't gonna cut it. Next.

There we go. From the community feedback form Gillajan3s1pg6 asks why we don't offer email tech support?

You know, I'm not really sure. We used to a long time ago in the beginning of eBay and there was a decision made to focus on phone and that's what we do. There are options if you go to ebay.com/help/home. Yeah, but I don't have a specific answer, but you're right. We don't offer email tech support as a rule, but if you need to talk to somebody immediately and you want not to call eBay customer support, there's always the community, community.ebay.com. You can find a lot of people there can offer you answers to basic questions and even sometimes some thorny questions.

Similarly, Griff bigdoe77751 wants to know how they can contact eBay?

www.ebay.com/help/home. There's a help and contact link at the top of every page. This takes you to a help page where you can click on a recent order for help, review, help articles around frequently asked questions and see other contact options. Again, account related issues are best handled via phone with a customer service agent who can access your account.

All right. Changing gears a bit. Leansully0 wants to buy on eBay but not use PayPal.

Well, there are other payment options unless the seller just takes PayPal. That's currently at the moment, that's probably a majority of the listings on the site. There are other ways using credit cards and if the seller is in the Managed Payments program, you can use a whole range of payment options. And as Managed Payments rolls out over the next two years, you'll see more and more sellers. Their listings will have a wide variety of different payments you can use, but at the moment, yeah, that's just the reality on eBay.

Okay. All right, and we talked about this a little bit last week, but Phoebebird25 is frustrated that eBay and PayPal don't communicate more with each other.

Well that's because eBay and PayPal are two entirely different and separate companies. There's a lot of sellers who remember that PayPal and eBay used to be part of the same company and I think they expected that relationship would continue after the separation. But the way the company's run, that's not the case. So if you have a PayPal issue, PayPal has to deal with it. eBay can't. And that's been the rule for the last, what, three years now?

All right. Yeah. GR3746 is not sure of what shipping options to use when listing an item.

How do you know when to use a padded envelope or a box Griff?

What are you selling?

Ask yourself what you're selling. So for example, I'm selling cds' right now and I'm using padded envelopes. If I was selling a whole, like I was selling cds in lots of 10 or 20, I'd use a box.

There you go.

Now shipping suggestions are made when your listing. You can also go to Seller Center and search shipping to learn more. Depends again on the size and the weight of the item. A lot of sellers have packing options on hand and weigh and test packaging when listing. I do that, so if I know I'm going to sell something and it's like a, it's a big boxy item maybe by you know, 10 inches by eight inches by six inches. I look for a box that it's going to fit in than I weigh it. Make sure that I've got those dimensions for the box, not the item, the box and the weight and you enter that in when you list the item.

Ebk1227 wants to know why a gift card can't be used to purchase coins?

Well, there are limits on redeeming eBay gift cards and that includes time and spending threshold limits. Additionally, eBay gift cards cannot be used as this questioner has noticed to buy other eBay gift cards, third party gift cards, gift certificates, coupons, coins, paper money, and virtual currency or items generally considered to be bullion. For example, gold, silver, and other precious metals. A lot of this has to do with fluctuating value. A lot of these things fluctuate in value, which makes it potentially a system that a buyer can gain by buying and selling. So yeah, you can't use eBay gift cards to purchase coins.

And our final question, final round, final jeopardy. Dolciecat says, I used to get free shipping supplies coupons with my store subscription. What happened to that?

Well they're still there. Every quarter, So they come out every 90 days on the first day of the quarter, the calendar quarter. So the 1st of January, 1st of April, 1st of July, and the 1st of October. If you go to your store home page and you're signed in as the store owner, you will see a link up in the right hand top for managing my store, go to manage my store. And then once that page loads, look over to the left and you'll see something called subscriber discounts under store design. Click that. And then on the next page you'll see a bunch of different offers. While for Gusto, for Legal Zoom, for Quickbooks, Vista Print. But the first one is for eBay shipping supplies. Click on see details, and if you have a coupon that you haven't redeemed in this quarter, it'll show up in the box. Just copy it and paste it into the box provided on checkout. When you buy eBay shipping supplies. The coupon value will be applied to that invoice. Remember that as you probably know that the coupon can only be used once. So try to use it right to its limit. I always buy just a little bit more and end up paying a few dollars so that I use the whole coupon value in one checkout and that's it.

All right. Wow! We did it.

I can't believe it. So again, let me go through the ways you can send us questions in case you have a question you want us to mangle. Want us to answer? Have your question answered on eBay for Business, call us at (888) 723-4630 again, that number is (888) 723-4630 or you can email us at podcast@ebay.com that's podcast@ebay.com. Or you can go to ebay.com/podcast and submit your question via the feedback form, the link to which is contained in a beautiful mustard yellow box on that page.

Yes. So many options. And with that, those are our questions for this week. It's time for us to lower the curtain on this episode.

My, my, my would you look at the time?

Another hour, another show.

So Doug, are you familiar enough now with Terapeak?

I should say so. Well we've more than adequately covered that one. I think. What's up for next week, Griff?

On our next episode of the eBay for business podcast, we'll explore the topic of business betterment.

Business betterment. What does that mean, Griff?

What do you think Doug? Business as in well, business and betterment as in betterment.

I get it. Making your business better than.

Something like that. You'll have to tune in to learn more.

I will make a note of that.

See that you do. In the meantime, if you have questions about an eBay topic, you can always send them our way.

For our manglement.

What?

Like business betterment. Question and answer manglement.

Please. We're not that bad. I'll take your word on that one.

Anyway, like I said in the last segment, you can send us your questions via phone. (888) 723-4630, you can call that hotline anytime of the day, any day of the week. Leave a question or comment and we just might put it on the air or email, which is podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com or you can submit a question on the form provided in the mustard yellow box on the webpage at ebay.com/podcast.

Hey, are you sad because all your friends are gearing up for a summer vacation while you stay at home to tend to your business? Well then take it from me. Vacations are way overrated. In fact, did you know that 12.3 million Americans travel abroad for vacations every year? Now think about it. Do you really want to run into 12.3 million of your fellow US citizens while navigating through a foreign country? Of course not. You'd have to be out of your mind and you're not. So why not instead visit with a manageable number of likeminded eBay sellers at a local eBay seller meetup in your area? At seller meetups, sellers share tips, stories, insights, and even vacation photos. You can see meetups that are scheduled on our special eBay community page for meetups at www.ebay.com/meetups.

And don't forget to tune into our weekly live video stream on the eBay for Business Facebook page every Wednesday at 12:30 PM Pacific Time. Go to facebook.com/ebayforbusiness. Are we still doing community chats in Alan's absence?

Yes we are. So we should say that at one o'clock every Wednesday you can join our community chat and talk with either our expert community chat staffers or sometimes employees on specific topics depending on what team they're from. Just go to the community.ebay.com and look for the link for community chat.

And Griff, That's our show for this week.

Release the credits. The eBay podcast team, Head of Community, Brian Burke, Community Manager and Cohost in absentia. Alan Aisbitt. Come back Alan. Your bro Doug misses you. Marketing Strategists, Liz Austin, Podcast Editor in Chief and Wrangler of Cats. Griff, My Esteemed cohost in Alan's absence. Executive Segment Producer and Podcast Guest Booker Danno Smith, Aka Doug Smith, Aka Snoop Dougie.

I don't want to freak out my fans, but I've retired Snoop Dougie. I'm Dougalicious D now.

No You're not. You're DanO now like Chris in the Danno the booker, you know like book em' Danno.

I do. I don't think that's..

That wasn't a question. eBay for Business is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

Hey Book em' Dano.

All right.

There it is. I don't think it was that bad. It's just a lot of Terapeak, wasn't it?

A bit. Heavy on the Terapeak peaking.

Well people know more about Terapeak.

Peaking on the Terapeak.

Well we had questions and other things. So it was a well-rounded show overall. Now we have to work really hard. We have to work really hard because we got to get two shows in the can before I go on vacation.

That's true. When was the last time you took a vacation?

I think it was 1997.

Oh Wow.

Yeah, I'm kidding. Uh, it was, it was 1994. Anyway. Uh, I think, uh, we don't have time for a long ad Lib cause you gotta get to work.

All right. I do I have to post an SNA…

Yeah. Okay. We'll see you soon. Bye.

All right, thanks. Bye. You hang up.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

A suggestion for Terapeak improvement....I sell mostly one offs, and so very often title alone won't identify my item, I need to see a clear photo. And I'm old. so my eyes really would appreciate larger thumbnail photos on the Terapeak results page. I know I'm not the only one. (BTW, I was using Terapeak for years before it went to free....I've always found it useful.)

[dcintennessee]

doug@ebay  - Terapeak is stuck with June 16, 2019 being the most recent date for available sales data.

[doug@ebay]

Thanks @dcintennessee, we will look into this.

[nc-daydreamer]

doug@ebay 

Just as a reminder, TeraPeak is as of this moment STILL showing 8 days behind with the most recent date July 6 - today is the 14th. Any idea of an update or a fix?  Or is it supposed to be lagging? Thanks. 

[doug@ebay]

Hi @dcintennessee and @nc-daydreamer we've been told that the Tereapeak team is aware of the issue and that they are working on it. Sorry that we don't know more. We'll see if we can get an update.

[labmedia19]

I have not really dug deep into TeraPeake just yet but was wondering if any suggested tutorials on using it to the full max? Thanks for any suggestions or answers would be great!

labmedia19

[linguye_9165]

yes

[bygeorgebears]

How far back does Terapeak go? I heard they were only going to go back 90 days. Is that true?

[dcintennessee]

@bygeorgebears  Terapeak data goes back a full year. The issue I reported a few months ago was resolved. Currently, it may lag 2-3 days behind, but if you need info THAT recent, just check eBay solds. 

@labmedia19 Did you listen to the podcast? There is a some info here, mostly about subscriptions:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling-tools/terapeak-research-and-SEO?id=4853

I haven’t checked YouTube for tutorials, but numerous successful eBay sellers have AWESOME tutorials about all things eBay. 

My personal experience is that Terapeak is quite simple to use. Just jump in and play around. You can sort by clicking the column headers and can customize the date range for up to a year. Check out the advanced search options, as sometimes they are helpful. Just click & open that area, providing several additional lines of  search criteria. I find the slider to enable individual transactions most helpful, because if sellers have sold multiples of that item, by default you’ll be seeing the total value of those sales, rather than what each item or lot sold for. And finally, Terapeak looks slightly different between the computer & mobile versions, but both are easy & intuitive. I’m on iOS, BTW. 

The only notable void I find with Terapeak is that it doesn’t have the image/UPC search like the eBay app. Otherwise, it’s a GREAT tool. 

[bygeorgebears]

Thank you