Episode 136 || Automated Promoted Listings In Depth

[podcast_team]

This week, the podcast welcomes back Scott Kelliher from eBay’s seller product team to talk about the benefits of the new Automated Promoted Listings feature. Rebecca and Griff answer three seller questions.

You got questions? Call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.
Join the conversation
Take our podcast listener survey

Show Links:
New zero insertion fee allotments are now live
New zero insertion fee allotments
UPS announces rate adjustments effective April 11, 2021
More available shipping options are shown to buyers
Reconciling your eBay sales transactions for managed payments
Promoted Listings
Automated Promoted Listings
Seller Center Promoted Listings page
My eBay Promoted Listings landing page
Automated Campaigns video
New Tax Invoices

Rebecca: This week on the eBay For Business Podcast:

Guest Speaker: "Rules-based campaigns or automated campaigns, and these new rules based campaigns or automated campaigns will actually make it so that you can set up and go with a very large number of listings in three clicks.”

Rebecca: Hi, I'm Rebecca.

Griff: And 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. And this is episode 136. Welcome back, Rebecca.

Rebecca: I am very glad to be here Griff. How are you doing this week?

Griff: I am doing okay. I think we're both really busy for some reason.

Rebecca: Yeah. It's been a busy spring around here.

Griff: There's a lot going on.

Rebecca: There is. And you know what? That's a good thing. It feels, it feels good to have a lot to think about and a lot to do. And hopefully our sellers feel busy as well.

Griff: Yeah. I know. Even after doing this for a long time, I actually feel a little safer when I know there's a lot to do because I can get it done. And then I have a list of accomplishments. It's those little things in life that make a big difference.

Rebecca: Oh, I am such a checklist person Griff. Sometimes I'll write something on my list and check it off even if I've already done it just because it feels so good.

Griff: It does. It may sound corny or it may sound cliche, but it actually does make a difference. Every time I'm through with an episode editing it and it's uploaded. I just feel like, well, I've got another one done, 136 in the can.

Rebecca: Amazing. 136. It's a lot. We're closing in on 150.

Griff: Yeah, that'll be sometime I think this summer, but then there's 200 coming up after that. When I look back on all of our episodes, I've been going through them. It's just astounding. How many topics we've covered since the beginning of August, 2019.

Rebecca: You know, if anyone out there is just joining us for the first time, there's still great stuff in those earlier episodes that are relevant to sellers today, right Griff.

Griff: I was surprised how relevant it is. There's really nothing that is not relevant today. There are a few updates to Tools, which we didn't get to until this year, but a lot of the topics about business they're evergreen, they stay true forever. So if you've just started listening to the podcast at episode 135 or 136, take a moment and go back to the beginning. What's cool is how different the podcast was in format and sound back then. When we had different people on the podcast, I was new to putting together a script and it was all a little hammy.

Rebecca: I bet it was fun. And you've had different sidekicks over the years, but of course I am your favorite.

Griff: Oh, absolutely. There's no question about it. I would not admit to anything, but you are the favorite. And I say this to Brian every other week.

Rebecca: Well, let's talk about this week. I think speaking of tools that we have an interesting topic, all about a new tool.

Griff: I know we probably hammered this one home a lot, but the change is worth diving into, it's about promoted listings. And this week I'm going to talk to Scott Kelliher from eBay about the new automated promoted listings feature. And it's really, really something. Scott's well versed in all aspects of seller tools, by the way, and especially promoted listings. And so he's going to enlighten us about the different aspects of that feature, which I know sellers are going to find interesting. And we also have three seller questions in the queue after that.

Rebecca: So we're going to talk about some news and this one was not posted on our seller announcement board. So it may actually be news for our listeners, which is that Harry's team has built and launched a brand new packing slip feature for sold listings.

Griff: Oh finally.

Rebecca: This is what I hear, finally. So the team has not only revamped the old packing slip, but based on seller input has added to great new print options. The first is an order receipt for seller records. And then the second is a pick list for finding sold inventory to pack and ship. For the packing slip and the order receipt they've also added an array of customizable options. For example, you can display or hide from a packing slip, your from name and address, the item photo, your return policy, your feedback rating. And if you subscribe to an eBay store, you can display or hide your store logo, URL, even a QR code.

Griff: And that's just for the packing slip. You can also customize the order receipt as well.

Rebecca: It's such a great change. So to access and print the new packing slip, order receipt, pick list pages, all of that, just select the print shipping labels and more option from the down menu for one or more sold items in your orders page on Seller Hub. There's also a tell us what you think link in the feature. If you have suggestions for additions to the new packing slip pages, please let the team know.

Griff: Yeah, I put this up on our Facebook group for the podcast and they had a lot of suggestions and I said, don't send them to me, send them right to the team. There's that link. You know, Rebecca, I think too many sellers don't bother use the packing slip option in their partials because they think it's, it's just not important. And that is a mistake. Buyers appreciate having one. I know I do. I save each one. So I have a record of my purchases. I really appreciate having these.

Rebecca: Pretty standard to include a packing slip in most packages on most marketplaces. I think that it's important and you know, it's another opportunity to promote your business and inventory during the unboxing experience. When the buyer opens their parcel you're top of mind. Take that opportunity to get your logo there, right in front of the buyer once again.

Griff: In talking to sellers, some of them say, well, it's a waste of paper, but listen, if your goal is to grow your business, then you really should be putting a branded packing slip in every shipped parcel. It's just smart marketing. And it stamps you as a serious professional seller. Otherwise you just look like an amateur to your buyers and no one wants that.

Rebecca: Definitely not. Some sellers include a little personal note, something along those lines, which is wonderful. But I think the packing slip is the right place to start.

Griff: Even jaded old me who have been getting packages on eBay for 20, what 24 years now? I still love it when somebody sends a little handwritten note. I saved them, I have a box of them. I can't throw them away because I feel like, well, they're personal.

Rebecca: That is so sweet.

Griff: I'm not a total cynic. What else is in the news this week?

Rebecca: Well, in our Spring 2021 Seller Update, we announced that starting April 1st, 2021, most sellers would receive additional zero insertion fee allotments when eBay manages your payments. The new zero insertion fee allotments are now live and will help further reduce the upfront cost of listing on eBay. The new allotments represent the next step along our journey of lowering upfront listing costs. And everyone can visit this Spring Seller Page for more details.

Griff: Yeah, and I will put the link to that page in the episode transcript for episode 136.

Rebecca: And then one more bit of news that I'd love to share, which is effective April 11th. You may see UPS rates on eBay decrease as much as 3.5% for packages lighter in weight and moving shorter distances. Or you might see an increase up to 5% for heavier packages going a longer distance. To better plan your shipping costs UPS Next Day Air and UPS Second Day Air services will not incur residential or delivery area surcharges like the UPS Ground does.

Griff: Yeah, this is pretty good news. And I searched through their rates and they're pretty compelling. New rate discounts for UPS on eBay labels are now up to 50% from 48% off all UPS Ground Shipments, and up to 66% from 62% for UPS Second Day Air Service. And they're up 65 from 62% for you UPS Next Day Air Service. I've never really considered UPS when I'm shipping, but with these rates and some of the things I'm going to start selling from my own collection, it may make a lot more sense for me to put them in consideration because I can save myself some money when I'm doing free shipping.

Rebecca: You can take advantage of those discounted rates Griff by conveniently printing a ups label at home or in your office, or you can of course download a QR code and just take it into the UPS store. Did you know that they have 85,000 drop off locations including at the UPS store, Michael's, CVS, Advanced Auto Parts. Basically they're everywhere.

Griff: Yeah. It's amazing what they've done with this because everyone thinks, well, I have to take it directly to a UPS store, but there are many UPS stores in all of these businesses. I just did a search on Google for San Jose area and I was surprised how close UPS is to me. It's actually closer than my local post office.

Rebecca: Ooh. I am telling.

Griff: No, don't say anything. As the rate changes go into effect. It's a good time to evaluate your delivery service options. As I said, I know I will be, I just don't want to spend a lot of money when shipping, because I pay for that.

Rebecca: Absolutely. And you know, it is probably a good thing to do annually. Just look everything over, make sure you know, all the latest rates and updates and make sure that you have the best options that's right for your store and your customers.

Griff: It's very good news. Oh, by the way, I should tease this. Next week we'll have somebody from UPS, Jennifer, Boyd's going to be on, she's going to talk more about their service and we're going to get into some really gritty details right down to things like filing a claim on UPS. So you went away, stay tuned for next episode as well.

Rebecca: Great, nice teaser. Speaking of shipping, we have a topic in the, sometimes we get it wrong departments. I know. In 2019, apparently before I was here, so don't blame me. In 2019, we announced that available shipping options in a listing that were not the most cost effective for a given delivery speed would be hidden from buyers. We heard that the hidden shipping options created challenges for some sellers.Including buyers, not seeing the shipping service they wanted and concerns that buyers were not purchasing items because all of those options were not shown. We heard a lot about this and we listened to that feedback. And now we're again, showing all shipping services that you offer in your listings. Now buyers have the choice. They can select their preferred carriers, their shipping costs, estimated delivery dates and all of that from the options in your listings. We expect the expanded shipping options will create greater efficiencies for sellers and also improve the buyer experience.

Griff: That's a relief really, because this is one of the very few changes. I was at a loss to explain how it was a benefit to sellers. And I think I understand what we were trying to do, which is to show only the options that were the fastest, but that's not always a buyer consideration. It's not that they want the item, the fastest. If the seller is charging for shipping, sometimes they want the cheapest. So we're going to leave it up to sellers on this one and they know what they're doing and they know how to run their businesses usually better than we do. I think that's probably true. Well, I'm glad you're back this week. It's a busy week. We only have one guest, as I've mentioned it is Scott, he's coming right up, but you'll be back to answer questions. So you right now, and I don't want to give away the store. I just want to say to our listeners that Rebecca has a really, really full-time job right now. I think it's more on her plate than she expected when she started at eBay, but she's pulling it off and that you can take even an hour and a half to be on our podcast every other week is amazing. So thanks.

Rebecca: It's my pleasure. And with that, I will see you on the flip side.

Griff: Yep. We'll meet again to answer questions. But first....

Griff: In the recent Spring Seller Update, we announced among other things an enhancement to the existing promoted listing feature. eBay Head Of Ads And Brand Partnerships, Scott Kelliher returns to the podcast to share details about the new promoted listings feature. Hello Scott.

Scott: Griff, how are you?

Griff: Good. I'm glad you can join us. There's a lot of questions about this. I know it's a pretty robust update to the old Promotive Listings feature. And I wanted to talk about that. So what do we need to know about this new feature?

Scott: First and foremost, I have to tell you, this is one of the features that has been most requested from sellers of the Promoted Listings product. So we are super excited to be able to roll it out. It is out live now in a couple of countries. We're going to be rolling it worldwide. I can't remember exactly when the rest of the world is going to get to hear what you and I are talking about, but I'm pretty sure that this is going to go live either the day before or the day that we are rolling this podcast out. So I'm really excited. This is as timely as we can do. And like I said, this is one of the most requested features we get for Promoted Listings. So I'm really excited to be able to talk about it.

Griff: Okay. So let's talk about it then. What's the addition or the change to Promoted Listings that sellers have been asking that we are now granting.

Scott: Yeah so they're called Rules-Based Campaigns or Automated Campaigns. And just like a two-second refresher. If anybody forgets what Promoted Listings is, that's the ability to promote one of your listings, it will appear all over eBay in different areas, getting closer to the top of search and all kinds of other fun placements. And the basic tenants of it are you say, I will give a certain percentage of whatever you select of the selling price of one of your items to promote my product and you don't pay for the promotion unless the product sells. And it just really gives you good general promotion across all of eBay. Now, the only knock that's ever been on it is it's a little bit difficult to manage all of your campaigns. Particularly if you have a lot of listings. These new rules based campaigns or automated campaigns will actually make it so that you can set up and go with a very large number of listings in three clicks.

Griff: Three clicks.

Scott: Three clicks.

Griff: Assuming that the seller has to add something during the clicks, right, to set the parameters of the campaign, lead us through that.

Scott: When you go in now and you start to create a campaign, there's going to be a new screen. That's going to give you three choices. The first one is simple listing selection, and that's basically listing by listing item by item. You set your ad rate, which is the percentage that you offer for promoting the product for the item. Or you'll see something for bulk listing selection. And bulk is going to enable you to do what we did in the past, where you could choose some really simple things. You set a flat or whatever, and you just kind of manage that way. Or the new flow, which is called creating rules. And then when you get into the creating rules section, you're going to see three choices. The first one is you're going to get to organize your campaign. So you're going to go in under starting a new campaign. I probably should've said that in the first place. You get to choose the category that you want this rule to apply to. So the categories can be eBay categories for whatever your products or your own store categories. We know a lot of sellers have told us that our categories don't make a lot of sense for their business. So we let that refer. So you'll choose the categories that you want it to apply to. And of course, we start with all because we want to shoot for as broad a view as possible. And then you get the opportunity to select the price range of the items that this rule is going to apply to. And we recognize that's important because some sellers are going to have items that are relatively inexpensive. And so applying a flat percentage across those things is going to work fine. But if you have items that are across a large range and you might be selling a very high ASP item or very low, you want to be able to give yourself a little bit of flexibility within that. So you can set a rule that's based on the pricing. Then the second thing you're going to do is choose your ad strategy. So it's pretty simple. When you and I spoke last, we had rolled out an update to the way that we were suggesting an ad rate to a seller to make it much more granular and based on the individual listing. So you can then now go in and you can say, I want to automate my suggested ad rate, and you can click that one button and every listing you have will automatically be following the suggested ad rate. And the really important thing about this is the suggested ad rate is changed and updated every 24 hours, your ad rate will follow. So we keep this going, it stays dynamic and will do what you want it to do. You can then also change the rules within. You can say, I want to be 2% above the suggested, or I want to be this percentage above the suggested or below the suggested, but I want to cap it at a certain percentage. And those rules will flow throughout everything that you want to do. And that's what we're bringing live today. And what we're really excited about.

Griff: I love that idea of a cat because I'm thinking of my own mind as a seller, how I would utilize this. And I'm always afraid of a rush to the bottom. So I don't want to end up that's right. Or a rush to the top in this case. So I can set a cap either side.

Scott: That is exactly right. You'll never go above your ceiling. So whatever you say is your cap. Even if we suggest that it should be above, you're going to still stop right at where your ceiling is.

Griff: How many campaigns can I run?

Scott: Not a question of campaigns. You can run a virtually unlimited number of those, but each campaign can hold up to 50,000 listings. The thing to be aware of is if you have lots and lots of listings, you're going to need multiple campaigns. And the other thing you should note is items that are already in a campaign. If you have a whole bunch already going, you should stop those campaigns and start new ones with the automated ones. If you want to go down that path.

Griff: Right and also it's not possible to put a single listing into two campaigns.

Scott: So you beat me to it. So that was one of the things that I was going to say comes next. You can actually, within the rules, have an item that falls within two campaigns, but you're right. You can't have an item in two campaigns. So what we've done is built the system so that the most recent one that you installed is the one that trumps and rules the decisioning. The thought process on that is whichever rule you've put in most recently is the one that you would like it to do. So that's where it follows.

Griff: Have to go in and manually remove it from a campaign to put it in a new one.

Scott: Correct.

Griff: Oh, that's great. I don't even have to think about it.

Scott: If you also think about this, if you set up a campaign and then you bring a whole new group of listings to the platform, then you will potentially be increasing the number of items within a rule. And as you start to get closer to the cap, though, we will warn you and say, Hey, guess what? You're running toward the top of the, of the piece here. You know, you may need to start a new campaign.

Griff: This is for sellers that have 50,000 listings in one campaign.

Scott: And more. That's right.

Griff: I can guarantee you that most of our listeners don't even have 50,000 listings up on the site.

Scott: No, but you know, we do have some listeners who will, and we want to make sure that they don't get caught by surprise in any of these scenarios.

Griff: And each time you create a campaign, it's the same thing as now, you can give it a separate name.

Scott: Exactly. Right. The really important thing from our side is you can name it, what you want. You can put the different rules in place as you want. But I am of a certain age where I remember Ron Co-products. The way to think about this as the set it and forget it. Because you know, to your point before, like we were talking about, it was the rules there, it's going to move dynamically. It's never going to go above that threshold that you want it for. So you can literally set it and forget it.

Griff: We didn't plan to talk about this, but it just came into my mind. You've been working with this product now with Promoted Listings for a long time. Can you off the top of your head, give us an idea of a good strategy, how this would work. I know we talked about the features, but how would I employ them in a way that's going to help me be more successful?

Scott: The key to this is the rules. It's the idea that your suggested ad rate for a specific product is going to be dynamic. So letting the system do the work for you is the best approach that you can take. Really the idea behind this is to say, let us see what we can see about the marketplace. Let us share that information with you and then listen, but you can listen without having to do a ton of work on it, which is even better.

Griff: I was selling a product last summer. It was multiple quantity. They were bags. And I was in a very friendly competition with another seller who I didn't know, actually knew who I was. And after we were finished selling, he said touché Sir, that was a lot of fun. And it was fun but without an automated sense to the promoted listing end of this, we would have to go in and sort of undercut. We knew what we were doing, undercut each other on the ad rate and then raise it up. But with this, I won't have to worry about that manual labor.

Scott: That's correct. That's the idea. We want to make this faster and simpler. If you remember, when we started the conversation, it was, you can do this in three clicks, three clicks. So the idea is if we can keep it simple and you can put the heavy lifting on our end, where we can see the pricing and we can see the way that the marketplace is moving. You can take advantage of that really quickly.

Griff: Will the documentation on the site be updated? If it hasn't already been updated for sellers. So if we send them to Seller Hub and they're looking at the promoted listing documentation, I can send them there to see all this.

Scott: Absolutely. We've done our best to make this as clear as can. Again, the beautiful thing about this product is it is about simplicity and that it's something that our sellers have been asking for for quite a while. So this is that concept of all right, you guys, we've been developing the guidance for the ad rate. We're developing different tools around this. Now this really lets us set it and forget it and makes it a lot easier. So we're hoping that the materials we put up are going to be clear enough to make that point.

Griff: I'm going to put it a link in the transcript for the episode 136, that'll direct you. As I always do. It's in the transcript so you can get there quickly. When we talk about the rollout, when will this be available to all sellers? Is there a rollout schedule that you can share with us?

Scott: It's already live in Australia, which is really exciting. We're looking forward to seeing how that performs there. It's going to roll out in the United States on April 6th and then to the rest of the world on April 13th. And it's going to be available worldwide and to all sellers.

Griff: By the time you're listening to this, it should be available to you.

Scott: Yeah, it should be. And again, we're really excited about this. As I said, as one, I'm going to beat this drum to death. This is one we've been hearing a lot of. The Product Team who's been working on this has been really passionate about it because seller's been asking for this for so long. It's been a year in the making, and we're really excited for it to be here now.

Griff: And for those sellers who may not have ever used Promoted Listings, where do they go to find this?

Scott: Yeah, of course, go to Seller Hub. You can go to the Marketing tab. You can set up all of your PL campaigns there. Again, our new fork will be set up. So you'll have the three different choices. This one will be on the far right-hand side to set your rules. It'd be the simplest way to go about it. But of course all the other flows will still be there.

Griff: Scott, I want to thank you a lot for stopping by. I've been following on the email, this project as it's been going. And I know there's a lot of work that went into this and congratulations to you and your team in bringing this to Market for our sellers.

Scott: Awesome. Thanks Griff. I appreciate you having me.

Griff: Scott Kelliher is the Head Of Ads And Brand Partnership here at eBay as always we'll put any of the links mentioned in this segment in the transcript for episode 136.

Rebecca: You got questions?

Griff: We've got answers. And our first question this week, Rebecca is from seller John who writes, " I noticed that my March invoice doesn't have a section for insertion and final value fees like it always has. Where did these go? I need to have a record of these for my bookkeeping and taxes so I can accurately declare them as business expenses signed. John." Thanks for the email. John, those fee reports have indeed moved.

Rebecca: That's right, Griff starting last month, the monthly accounting for insertion, final value and international fees have been moved to its own downloadable report called Tax Invoice. You can find the March report in the Invoice Tab on Seller Hub, under Payments and Report. It'll be called March, 2021 Tax Invoice.

Griff: Yeah, I went and looked and mines there and it's got all five sales I made in March. That's all I did, but it was a slow month. You know, I really liked downloadable comma, separated value files. Here's what I do with them. I save the file for the first month of every year. And then I download each consecutive months file after that. And I copy and paste it into the first file as a new worksheet. That way I have a whole year's worth of data in one spreadsheet file.

Rebecca: We use the little tab function across the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Griff: And then when you start adding formulas, like sum, you want to sum the expenses. You can then sum across those across worksheets too. And at the end of the year, have you have your data. You couldn't do that with the invoices before, because it was just a PDF printout. You'd have to enter that somewhere where then you could sum it in. I personally really think it's a better change. I think maybe a lot of sellers will think, well, I don't like this. It's not how we used to do it. And of course, change is hard. So we acknowledge that, but I think it's a change for the better.

Rebecca: And then month to month, you can look back like you could go back and get your February one and your January one now too, is that right?

Griff: And my accountant, my tax, the person who does my taxes loves that. It's better than a shoe box full of receipts.

Rebecca: Speaking of taxes, I heard that that tax date is extended from April 15th to May 15th, Federally and possibly in many States as well. Is that something that we might talk about?

Griff: I mean, not this episode, but we can arrange to talk about it. I want to get somebody on who is a tax expert. So we're not putting ourselves in liability by giving an incorrect answer, but that's obvious. Yeah. IRS has delayed the filing date because of the pandemic for a month. So it's not until May 15th.

Rebecca: Okay. Well, John, I hope that answers your question. Our second question of the week was to podcast@ebay.com by a seller named Mel. Mel writes. "Hi guys. I love the show. Thank you so much for all your help over the years." Well, Mel, you are very welcome." My question is about the require immediate payment feature that I can use when creating a buy it now listing. I've been using this setting, but I question if it might affect my sales. Am I scaring off buyers with this, and if not, why is it an option still and not a mandatory setting? Thanks from Mel" who's eBay store is qualitykind.

Griff: That's a good question Mel because immediate payment is a default for most sellers and I recommend you continue using it as well. It does not reduce your sales, believe me, but it could reduce your rate of unpaid items when you don't have immediate payment. That means somebody can actually purchase an item it's marked sold. It's taken off the marketplace, but you don't yet have payment. I don't recommend that.

Rebecca: I can't see any good reason to not use it. You Griff?

Griff: I really can't. If we get into the history of it, there was a time way back early in eBay's before time. And this was before we had a checkout flow or a shopping cart. Sellers would not adopt immediate payments so their buyers could purchase items over time and pay for them all at once. And this was common back in those days, especially when the majority of sales were made using the auction format. Although the immediate pay function has not ever been for the auction format. It was a buyer habit when they came to eBay, even though it wasn't the way you shopped in any other marketplace that you would purchase items and then pay for them, you know, buy now, pay later.

Rebecca: And I know that people want that for auctions as well, the required immediate payment. But in any case, what you just described of the previous buyer behavior, that's not still true today, right?

Griff: No, it isn't. In fact, the vast majority of sales on eBay happened through fixed priced, even in traditional categories like antiques and collectibles. And now that eBay buyers have access to a shopping cart, they can put items from the same seller into the cart at their leisure. And when they're ready, they can opt for the option, pay this seller only and pay for all of their items with that seller all at once.

Rebecca: Sellers can provide volume and shipping discounts for those buyers as an incentive to add more to their carts.

Griff: Oh, absolutely. That's a really smart marketing to use those as incentive. So if you're selling primarily in the fixed price format, and by the way, I want to repeat this immediate payment is not available for listings with the auction format. At least not today, that could change.

Rebecca: Fingers crossed.

Griff: If you're selling in fixed price, really you should use immediate payment required as your default.

Rebecca: Some sellers still use the old way. We provide immediate payment as an option and not the only choice. All right, Mel, I hope that answers your question. Keep on using immediate payment. Our third and last question was emailed to us by eBay seller, Mary, and she asks "Hi Griff. Hello from Rutland Vermont. Didn't you up in Vermont?

Griff: I was there in my mid adulthood, I suppose that was growing up. I was there for 25 years.

Rebecca: Mary says, "I hate to beat a dead horse regarding item specifics, but I'm a little confused about the information I heard on this week's podcast. According to the Spring Seller Update "complete and accurate, both required and recommended are essential to improve your listings ranking in search". To me, this means that in order to rank higher in search, all fields must be completed based on the information from the podcast. However, if a field doesn't apply leaving it blank will not adversely impact your listing in Search. Can you please clarify? Thanks so much from Mary.”

Griff: Hi, Mary hope all is well back in Rutland. So Mary, the update was technically correct. It says complete and accurate item specifics, and that accurate is critical. Not all recommended item specifics will fit every single item that's listed in the category. It also says on the specific section of the page, when you list, add as many details as you can. It doesn't say you must fill everything in. Even if it's not accurate. Now I strongly dislike that blue wheel that we use as a gamification. And it's just for this reason in fact. Item specifics aren't a game where the winner who fills in every single item specific wins top search ranking. If a recommended item specific, doesn't relate to your item, then the advice is leave it blank. Filling it in for the sake of filling it in either with something unrelated to the item or not applicable, results in an inaccurate item specific. It will not help your item in Search. Here's an example. I have a lot of CDs listed and when I list a CD, there's a lots and lots of recommended specifics, but the majority of them never have anything to do with the CD I am listing. So I leave them blank. I fill in as many of them, of course, as possible that match my items, but I left the others blank. It's not a particular edition. For example, it has this one that I'm mentioning now has no special attributes and those have to stay blank. I don't want to make something up just so I fill them in. And when I checked the CD still shows up in relevant searches. So my advice still stands, Mary, you fill in those that match your item and you leave anything that doesn't blank.

Rebecca: Thanks for re-explaining that Griff. I agree that it's a little hard to understand, but I think it makes sense now.

Griff: I talked to Harry about this this week because I, I think the wording is too confusing. It needs to be less ambiguous. It needs to be fill those in that you can, those that you can't leave blank. And Harry said, yeah, we're changing it. It's already come up.

Rebecca: That's great. Another example of how seller feedback actually really drives us to make decisions and make things better on the site.

Griff: I've been here for 20 years plus, and I know I keep bringing this up. I have to say that of all of the product leaders that I've known in this time, none is more open to seller feedback than Harry Temkin and Harry and his team actually do take that feedback and will change a recently launched product or feature so that it better suits the sellers who are using it. We really are all as sellers and as a marketplace, well-served by Harry and his team.

Rebecca: Yeah. That's very true. If you out there have a vexing question that you'd like answered, call us please. At 888-723-4630. We'll do our best to answer you.

Griff: Yeah. I'll even do some research. That's 888-723-4630. Leave a question or a comment and if it's appropriate, we'll put it on the air.

Rebecca: And if you are not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: Oh, I forgot to mention, if you do send us a question, include your shipping address, because if we use your question, we'll send you a complimentary, fantastic eBay podcast mug into which you can pour your favorite beverage of the moment and drink while you listen to the podcast.

Rebecca: Shh. Don't tell them that we drank.

Griff: We're very pure at the podcast. Don't forget your daily podcast to do list.

Rebecca: First check the Announcement Board for your Up-To-Date Seller News

Griff: Second. So when I say get a thermal printer, that means a printer for shipping labels. Don't throw out or give away your inkjet or laser printer. You could and should use those for printing…

Rebecca: Packing slips!

Griff: Exactly. I've talked to someone who said, well, I took your advice and I got a thermal printer, but I can't print packing slips on it. That's not what it's for. It's just for printing the shipping labels.

Rebecca: All right, this is an important asterisk Griff. Third, check out the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to see the links that we referenced during the episode.

Griff: On our next episode, two long time eBay sellers, Bill and Maeda Webster. We're going to stop by to update us on the state of the collectibles business and how the pandemic provided a brand new way for them to source collectible inventory for eBay. And also, as I mentioned, Jennifer, Boyd of UPS will be with us to talk about the new UPS rate adjustments and so much more.

Rebecca: And we'd like to thank again, our guest this week, Scott Kelliher.

Griff: The eBay For Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

Recurring Links:

eBay for Business Podcast	eBay for Business Podcast Discussion Group
The eBay Community	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