eBay

velvet@ebay · ‎07-06-2022

Hi Everyone! This month's chat you’ll have an opportunity to talk to specialists from our Seller Tools team and is themed around “How to reach your customers”. Let them know your questions here, so they can have a chance to review them before the Monthly Chat on July 13th at 1:00 pm PT.

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Edit: Thanks for joining us for the Monthly Chat with eBay Staff and the Seller Tools Team.

The chat thread will remain open until 2 PM PT at which point we'll close it from additional responses. After that time, we'll continue to work on responding to any queries that might still be unanswered.

To post your question, click Reply in the lower right corner of this post, type your question, and hit submit between 1-2 PM Pacific Time. The format of our chat mirrors the format of our Community Discussion Boards, where each post will appear in the thread chronologically. The (specialist name) and Community Team will review each question as it comes in, and will quote the original question in our reply. This quote and the reply will appear later in the thread, so just keep scrolling down to see our answers.

As a reminder, we want (specialist name) to be able to get to as many members as possible during the allotted hour, so we have a few things to ask of you:

Keep on topic
Scroll through the list of questions to see what has already been asked to decrease chances of redundancy
Keep the message/question simple and no more than one to two items. If you include multiple questions in a post, please be aware that they may not be addressed during the chat and (specialist name) will do their best to follow-up with it after the chat has closed

Missed the chat? Send your questions to the podcast by calling 888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com and maybe your questions will make it on the air! Or listen to past episodes while you wait for next month!”

Velvet,

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎07-13-2022

Social Sharing:

1.Ebay recently announced an integration with SnapChat. Will Snapchat be added to the "Share" dropdown menu on listings and store home pages? Also, can we expect that ebay will add Instagram, which is very popular with ebay sellers and buyers?

2.The SnapChat integration seems pretty neat, but I'm not really familiar with the platform. It would be helpful if ebay provided a useful tutorial for those who might want to try it. Is that something you could do?

3.And, I'll ask again, while I don't expect a definite timeline, can you at least tell us if it is POSSIBLE that we will see a social referral FVF discount (similar to the one being tested in Australia) by Q4 of this year? Or are we definitely not going to see this made available here until 2023 at the earliest? Surely you guys have some idea about that....

4.ebay encourage us to use Social Media to send traffic to our ebay listings. This encouragement rings a little hollow given that ebay provides no detailed tracking information so that we can measure the success of our efforts. Is there any chance that ebay will finally listen to those of us who have been begging for this functionality? And, if so, any chance that we will have it in time for the increasingly important Q4?

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎07-13-2022

Coded Coupons:

After they first came out, I immediately began adding coded coupons to all my packing slips. Result: No additional sales. This could be for a number of reasons, including that I don't sell in a niche, or maybe my discount was not attractive enough (I experimented with different levels).

1. Could you mine your data and give us best practices for coded coupons?

Also, I feel that the existing coded coupon does not stand out very well on the Packing Slip. I know ebay has a partnership with VistaCreate for Store billboards, etc.

2.How about giving us a template we could use to spruce up our packing slip coupons (including some best viewed in black and white, since many of us prefer to send B&W packing slips, to save on printer ink costs.) There are a lot of creative ebayers who design coupons that would get noticed.

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Edit: A response to your question(s) can be found here.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎07-13-2022

When ebay added video capability to Stores, we were told it was to help us tell our story and reach our buyers. Creating a really good video can take time and effort, and yet.....ebay provides no way for us to see whether anyone has even viewed our store video. How about adding this as a feature to Tracking? And, since we are also being asked to optimize our Store Home Pages, how about the same thing here?

If you want me to "optimize" my store, seeing increased traffic to my store home page or to my video will provide a far greater incentive than ebay's Seller Hub reminder that I need to take more steps to optimize my store. Is there some reason ebay , a data driven tech company, insists on withholding this data from us?

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Edit: A response to your question(s) can be found here.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎07-13-2022

Seller Initiated Offers:

Does ebay's data indicate there is a best time of day to send offers to buyers?

Also, ebay has noted that a Best Practice is to send the offer soon after the buyer adds it to his watch list or cart. However, a watch list and a cart are very different. someone with the item in cart seems more likely to buy the item at full price. Some of us believe we should not discount when it isn't really necessary to make the sale.

Wouldn't it be helpful if ebay indicated how many of our "watchers" actually had the item in their cart, and maybe give us a way to exclude them?

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Edit: A response to your question(s) can be found here.

elizabeth@ebay · ‎07-13-2022

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

devon@ebay I see from the response you received that "the timeline is still being determined" for the social referral program. I realize we aren't going to get an exact timeline, but do want to note that many of us were hoping this would be available by Q4 of 2021, and now, with a challenging economy, it would be even more important to have this available by Q4 of this year.

So, while the team can't give us an exact date, can they at least tell us whether that is a possibility, or should we assume it will NOT be available for Q4?

Hi, @my-cottage-books-and-antiques ! The Seller Tools Team said:

We understand that there are members wanting to have a date for this roll out. At this time we are still doing research into this and will share more details on it when we can.

Elizabeth,

devon@ebay · ‎07-13-2022

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

When PLA was first announced, PLA placement was confined to the top slot in search results. Without any announcement that I have seen, ebay has now made the TOP FOUR SLOTS eligible for PLA placement. A couple questions:

Sellers who do not use PLA are still in competition with PLA sellers. In other words, this change effects ALL sellers.

1. Why was there no announcement?

I use PLS. I do not use PLA.

2. How will ebay determine whether a PLS can make it into a top 4 slot? Or will they always be reserved for PLA, and a PLS or Organic listing will ONLY be eligible for a top 4 slot if there are NO competing PLA listings?

Hey @my-cottage-books-and-antiques! For these questions that you have in regards to Promoted Listings, I will reach out to that team and share this information with them. Once I get a response back I will let you know.

Devon,

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎07-13-2022

Thanks, devon@ebay

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎07-13-2022

Thanks elizabeth@ebay I was hoping for something a little more informative, but it is what it is....

elizabeth@ebay · ‎07-13-2022

@biggymoe wrote:

I'd like to reach my customers by being able to have them "Request Total From Seller", when they buy multiple items, using a mobile app!!

Your own statistics show that there is an ever increasing number of users, using a mobile app. This should have been taken care of years ago, but it is not too late to bring this option into today's world.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!

Hey, @biggymoe! The 'Request Total' feature is managed by our Payments team, so our Seller Tools team is unable to answer that. Let me reach out to that team for the answer and get back with you.

Update: This is definitely a desired feature, especially with the app taking off. I've forwarded this over to our apps/payments team for consideration so we can look into implementing this feature in the future.

Elizabeth,

devon@ebay · ‎07-13-2022

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

When ebay added video capability to Stores, we were told it was to help us tell our story and reach our buyers. Creating a really good video can take time and effort, and yet.....ebay provides no way for us to see whether anyone has even viewed our store video. How about adding this as a feature to Tracking? And, since we are also being asked to optimize our Store Home Pages, how about the same thing here?

If you want me to "optimize" my store, seeing increased traffic to my store home page or to my video will provide a far greater incentive than ebay's Seller Hub reminder that I need to take more steps to optimize my store. Is there some reason ebay , a data driven tech company, insists on withholding this data from us?

Hey @my-cottage-books-and-antiques the Seller Tools Team said:

Thank you for the feedback, we will pass it along to the Stores team to consider as a future enhancement.

Devon,

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎07-13-2022

Thanks again devon@ebay Hopefully they will finally do this. The request has been passed on to them numerous times, but maybe this time is the winner!

valueaddedresource · ‎07-13-2022

elizabeth@ebay wrote:

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

devon@ebay I see from the response you received that "the timeline is still being determined" for the social referral program. I realize we aren't going to get an exact timeline, but do want to note that many of us were hoping this would be available by Q4 of 2021, and now, with a challenging economy, it would be even more important to have this available by Q4 of this year.

So, while the team can't give us an exact date, can they at least tell us whether that is a possibility, or should we assume it will NOT be available for Q4?

Hi, @my-cottage-books-and-antiques ! The Seller Tools Team said:

We understand that there are members wanting to have a date for this roll out. At this time we are still doing research into this and will share more details on it when we can.

elizabeth@ebay respectfully, this was presented at eBay Open in August 2021 as a done deal actual feature with pictures of it shown during the stores presentation and everything - not a "to be determined" research project.

I find it hard to believe it would have made it that far if the technical capability had not already advanced significantly far enough in the pipeline to be at least close to a viable product.

So what exactly is it that needs more research almost a year later? Is the hang up just that eBay isn't sure they want to open up that much of a fee discount to a wider swath of sellers?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

elizabeth@ebay · ‎07-13-2022

@valueaddedresource wrote:

elizabeth@ebay wrote:

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

devon@ebay I see from the response you received that "the timeline is still being determined" for the social referral program. I realize we aren't going to get an exact timeline, but do want to note that many of us were hoping this would be available by Q4 of 2021, and now, with a challenging economy, it would be even more important to have this available by Q4 of this year.

So, while the team can't give us an exact date, can they at least tell us whether that is a possibility, or should we assume it will NOT be available for Q4?

Hi, @my-cottage-books-and-antiques ! The Seller Tools Team said:

We understand that there are members wanting to have a date for this roll out. At this time we are still doing research into this and will share more details on it when we can.

elizabeth@ebay respectfully, this was presented at eBay Open in August 2021 as a done deal actual feature with pictures of it shown during the stores presentation and everything - not a "to be determined" research project.

I find it hard to believe it would have made it that far if the technical capability had not already advanced significantly far enough in the pipeline to be at least close to a viable product.

So what exactly is it that needs more research almost a year later? Is the hang up just that eBay isn't sure they want to open up that much of a fee discount to a wider swath of sellers?

Hi, @valueaddedresource.

At this time, we don’t have additional details to give, but when we do receive further information, we’ll definitely be happy to share those further details.

Elizabeth,

a_c_green · ‎07-13-2022

@backpacktreasures wrote:
I would like to reach my customers in 2 ways.

1. After a sale, I would like to reach out to them to see if they may be interested in other similar products that I may acquire in the future or that I may be on the lookout for specifically for them. How would I be able to do this as we do not have their email and the sales history disappears after 3 months and there is no other way to contact them. How can I build up potential repeat buyers?

On your Sold items page, the View Order Details action for your item will give you the buyer's encrypted email address and his phone number. The encrypted email address will disappear after two weeks, but is worth copying-and-pasting regardless as it will remain functional for one year after its last use in a buyer transaction. The phone number will remain available for as long as the Sold item remains in the history.

The View Order Details is near the bottom of the little pulldown menu in the Actions column of your Sold items page. Don't confuse it with the View Payment Details, which is higher up in the same menu.

Alternatively (and perhaps less intrusively), you can put your information on a business card and drop it in the package. Buyers don't all want sellers following them around after the purchase with unsolicited email or phone calls. Put your information on a business card and invite them to come to you.

@backpacktreasures wrote:
2. After a sale, there are certain of my items that do not have the original instructions. Am I allowed to contact the buyer and send them a URL link to the instructions? I would like to send them a PDF, but it does not seem possible to do so.

As above, if there's relevant detail that your buyer will find useful and is relevant to the purchase, definitely give them a URL address for the instructions if you don't have a copy already. Drop a note in the package with the necessary details. (My preference, if I know where the instructions can be found, is to print them myself and include a copy with the product, if it's not going to consume too much paper or add too much weight to the package.)

mam98031 · ‎07-13-2022

elizabeth@ebay

Is this also the thread you are using for the Chat? Have we adopted a new format? I thought this thread was just for advance questions not that you actually started the Chat a week ago?

Where are the specialists on the subject?

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Edit: A reply to your question can be found here.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999