Episode 33 || Refine How You Work with Theresa Cox, Prince Patel, and Bassil Eid

[doug@ebay]

Our theme this week is Refine How You Work. In our Main Story eBay Sellers Theresa Cox and Prince Patel tell us how they manage and refine their eBay selling workspaces. On Inside eBay Bassil Eid discusses Webinterpret, eBay’s selling feature that provides U.S. sellers with access to eBay markets where English is not the primary language. As always, we’ve also got The Buzz! To have your questions answered on Selling on eBay, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at sellingonebay@ebay.com.

Selling On eBay - Episode 33 – Refine How You Work with Theresa Cox, Prince Patel, and Bassil Eid

Our theme this week is Refine How You Work. In our Main Story eBay Sellers Theresa Cox and Prince Patel tell us how they manage and refine their eBay selling workspaces. On Inside eBay Bassil Eid discusses Webinterpret, eBay’s selling feature that provides U.S. sellers with access to eBay markets where English is not the primary language. As always, we’ve also got The Buzz! To have your questions answered on Selling on eBay, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at sellingonebay@ebay.com.

Links
ebay.com/sellingonebay
ebay.com/meetups
ebay.com/community
pages.ebay.com/promo/2018/webinterpret.html

Hosts
Griff, Dominique Hollins, Alan Aisbitt, Doug Smith

Guests
Theresa Cox (eBay Seller), Prince Patel (eBay Seller), Bassil Eid (eBay Staff)

Transcript
Well Hello, I'm Dominique Hollins.

And hello, I'm Griff and this Is Selling On eBay. 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 I wanna welcome Dominique to our Podcast Team. Hi Dominique. Welcome to the team.

Well, Hello Griff and Team. I'm very excited to be a part of the podcast.

All of us here at Selling On eBay are delighted you're joining us. Now. I want to assure you that the Cohost job is not a difficult one per se, only that you're going to have to put up with me on a regular basis. But I'm certain you can rise to that challenge.

Putting up with you per se, that's every day, I think I've passed the test. But quite frankly, this is a family affair, no putting up to do.

Well, that's very sweet of you. So Dominique, what's on the roster for this week's episode?

In our Main Story, I'll speak with eBay seller Prince Patel and you'll talk with eBay seller, Theresa Cox on how they manage and refine their eBay selling workspaces.

And on inside eBay this week we'll be joined by Bassil Eid to shed a light on a new eBay selling feature that provides you as sellers with access to eBay markets where English is not the primary language.

Ah, yes. The partnership with Webinterpret.

Webinterpret. Exactly and of course Alan will be here with The Buzz to update us on what's buzzing in the eBay community.

The Buzz is like the eBay News?

Yes. Kind of like that but with an emphasis on community reaction to the news as well.

So exciting Griff. Shall we begin?

Absolutely. Wait, I think you should do the next introduction. What do you think?

Happy to oblige. Okay. Coming up next, it's Alan Aisbitt with The Buzz.

Hi everyone. And now The Buzz with Alan Aisbitt. Alan, what do you have for us this week?

Hi Doug. Let's start with some conversations happening over on our community boards. First thing up is Good Till Cancelled . And it's the announcement that was contained in our Early Seller Update that's sparking some discussions on our boards. Sellers helping share recommendations on how to adapt to Good till Canceled and have been waiting on the launch date which was March 18th. So some sellers are confused about how to use Good Till Cancelled listings as they're used to listing with shorter durations. Doug, I'm wondering if you have any insights on how Good Till Cancelled listings work?

I do Alan. So under the Good Till Cancelled format, your listing will be created for a duration of 30 days. It will be a fixed price listing and at the end of the 30 day period your listing will automatically get renewed and list again. This continues to happen after every 30 day period until such time that the seller cancels the listing. The main benefit of a Good Till Cancelled listing is that sellers who have high inventories of the same products can keep a listing going on until they have sold all of their stock.

And I suppose another important point is for search engine optimization. So for listings to be surfaced in Google, it's also important for them to remain on the site for a longer period of time. So helpful for that to get more traffic on to eBay for our sellers to make more sales. And yesterday we announced a new product test where buyers are able to specify timeframes for Best Offer expirations. So we're launching this task with a select group of buyers who will be able to select either 12, 24 and 48 hour time frames when sending Best Offers to sellers. Sellers will need to respond to the offer in the timeframe selected by the buyer for it to remain valid. And Doug, you may be asking yourself why we're doing this?

Yes, Alan, please educate me.

Happy to. Well, we believe this change will increase the use of Best Offer and create additional sales for sellers that use it. This will benefit buyers who have to make a decision on their purchases within a shorter timeframe and allowed them to consider listings they may otherwise have passed over.

I can see how that would work. As a buyer, sometimes you need something quickly so you don't want to be waiting around for two days for the seller to respond to your offer. Now you can speed things up and purchase more items in a shorter amount of time. I love it, Alan.

I also love it. Are we both in love with the same thing?

Yes. So, so awkward.

It's not the first time.

That's true.

Another regular topic last week was slow sales. So some sellers on our boards were experiencing slow sales. And the great thing about our community is that sellers who weren't experiencing slow sales engaged and shared tips on how they are being successful on eBay and how they're increasing their sales. And they shared tips on how to maximize sales, improve listings, and cope with decreased sales.

That's great. And it's what our seller community is therefore.

Definitely. And Doug, do you have any tips to help increase sales on eBay?

Well, as we always say, think of yourselves as a business on eBay. It's a competitive market. Always know your competitors, know what and what's not selling on eBay. Always keep the basics in mind. Good title, good description, good photos, sell in the right category. It's those same basic things that always come up.

Exactly. Good tips. Okay. Next topic is we're seeing reports of some intermittent issues when viewing the eBay homepage using Internet Explorer. So we report this to our technical team who are looking into it, but if you are having browser issues with this site, it does seem to be located just onto the homepage. All other pages work fine. We recommend a couple of different things. First off, you could try a different browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. Or you could try clearing your cache and cookies and seeing if that helps. It does appear that sometimes issues are intermittent and localized.

Thanks Alan. Any interesting Selling On eBay stuff in the news this week?

Yeah, definitely. I saw a couple of very nice selling on eBay stories this week. Doug, as you know, California had another terrible year of wildfires last year.

Yes. So bad and so many people literally lost everything.

Yeah, that's right. It was terrible. Amy Child Gray lost her home in a recent California wildfires two months before Christmas and that was close to her daughter's second birthday. Shortly after the fire Amy searched on eBay hoping to replace a mini muffin baking set she had bought before at a local consignment sale for her daughter's Christmas, which was lost in the fire.

That's terrible.

Yeah. Amy was excited to have found a replacement and included a note to the eBay seller and guess what? A couple of weeks later Amy got a lot more than the baking set. So the seller actually went out of their way and sent other items such as recipes and even some cash to help out the family and the seller followed up with a letter telling Amy and her family how sorry she was to hear about the fire, their losses and that she hoped the package would bring Amy's family some joy.

What a great selling on eBay story.

I know. We are blessed that we could work at a company where we hear stories like this quite frequently. So that's a good job, a great job by the sellers and that's customer service and going above and beyond for the buyer. And I have one more story for you, Doug.

Do tell.

Okay. I have a question for your first. Do you ever send or collect postcards?

Um, I'm sure I've done both. But why do you bring up postcards Alan?

A woman recently discovered a postcard sent to her grandparents in 1936 on eBay. Trudy Shalon was looking up some family history online when she searched her name and the town her family was born from on eBay. And guess what? She found a listing for vintage postcards that were sent to her late grandparents by a family friend all the way back in 1936.

Wow. So, but do we know what was on the postcards?

I think it was some social media handles like follow me on Instagram, like me on Facebook.

Scandalous.

I joke, I joke apparently mostly everyday conversations and well wishes for the grandparents' anniversary. You know how people used to communicate before the Internet.

I don't recall.

No. Me Too. Me Too.

Or how to use a rotary phone. I'm sure she was shocked to find these and probably thrilled to get them back in the family. Yeah, I can imagine. So how exciting would that be to find old historical family notes and things from people who have passed. It must be fantastic. Again, it's another story that we see a lot on eBay of people finding things from relatives and all the kind of historical artifacts on eBay.

So so true. She probably threw them in a box and put them back out in the garage and then a later generation will resell them on eBay. The cycle continues.

Exactly. Exactly. Well that's really all that I have for you Doug this week, so I will be back here same time next week to talk to you again.

Thanks Alan.

Thank you.

Coming up next we'll learn how one seller optimized her workspace to be as efficient as possible.

Welcome to The Main Story. Today we're talking about eBay workspaces and how to make them as efficient as possible and with us is Theresa Cox aka clubred97 on eBay. Tell us about your current workspace and how you've designed it to be efficient.

Yes. I've had several different inventory setups over the years. And three years ago I moved my business three times in eight months.

What? Three times?

It was planned.

Oh Man.

It wasn't that I didn't pay my bills and got evicted. But I think now I've found the best inventory system that I've had in 22 years.

Oh, tell us!

I have all my inventory listed and unlisted stored in boxes on rolling shelves in my two car garage. Rolling shelves. Rolling shelves is key because by myself I can empty out everything in my garage, all my inventory, do a leaf blower, clean it up, whatever, rearrange the shelving units. And if I ever want to move again, I'm just going to roll those shelves onto a U Haul truck and not have to worry about my inventory.

I have never thought of this. This is such a great idea. I'm so glad I do this podcast. So what have you learned over the years, both from doing these moves and organizing your inventory that you wish you had known earlier? Like rolling shelves as a given. So what else?

So what I tried to tell newbies is that having an inventory system is key. I mean for 15 years I sold on eBay and my store had 400 or 600 listings in it and that was pretty much it. And I listed myself, I didn't have an inventory system because I knew that that red thing was in that cupboard and I would just ship it. But as I grew to 4,000 listings and needed help and everything that inventory system is key. Or if you ever need somebody to pull an item for you, you need to be able to tell them how to find that item. So even if you only have 20 items listed that you need to set your inventory system up to list and track it as if you had 4,000.

Right. And you start off that way just in case you do end up growing, you have a system in place.

Yeah. So the system that over the years that I'm working with now that I absolutely love, I've been doing this for over a year now and I haven't found any changes that I need to do, is that in my garage there's about 15 boxes that'll fit on each rolling shelf. And I have listed and unlisted inventory in these boxes. And what that does, unlisted inventory, when I bring it in the house or buy something, it goes into a box without a label and it's in the garage so that I don't have to worry about company is coming over. I got to clean up the house because it's all in my eBay workspace. And then what happens is listed inventory gets a box number on it. So I have in one part of the garage in a box, one through 118 and the other part of the garage is boxes with no numbers on it.

And so theoretically I would take a box off the unlisted inventory shelf, photograph it, list it, put it back in the box, put a number on the box. Now it's box 125 and now put it in numerical order in the listed inventory. And what I like about this is I mix items up. I used to keep my inventory where all the Christmas stuff was together, all the Easter stuff was together and now I just put stuff in a box and it makes it so much easier to pull items when they sell. What I really liked most about this is when I get a return item. Before, if I got a return item and it was a Christmas item, I would put it back in my inventory and I had no idea. Is that in box 22 or is it actually my old system was shelves. Does that go on shelf J3 or is that an H2? And so I'd have to go look for it and then a lot of times I didn't get back to input it into the computer. Now when I get a return item, if box 97 is on the floor of my office and that's what I'm working on, it's box 97, it just goes in that and I never have an issue.

I've had so many issues with return shirts for example. And I'm sure I put them somewhere, but I relisted them and I don't know where I've put them. So you're strumming my pain with your fingers on this one. I can tell you.

It's, I mean it's, I think it happens to a lot of sellers and you know, it's taken me 22 years to figure this out.

So talk about how you have used unusual places before you started using your home garage for your inventory storage. What were some of the unusual places in your home where you stored inventory we're company could see it.

So one of the moves was I moved three hours north from my home to an investment property that my mom had, which was a big home that had unfinished spaces in it. So we finished it till we could sell it and we decided not to finish the master bathroom because we wanted whoever bought it to be able to customize it. The master bedroom was my work office in that house and I put shelves in the shower and that was where all my...

Wait a minute. You put shelves in the bathroom shower?

So the bathroom was only finished to studs.

Oh, so there wasn't plumbing in it?

There was no plumbing in it. Well, there was plumbing, but it wasn't hooked up. It was down to drywall. So in the shower I put shelves in and that was where all my shipping supplies were. I put a table where the sink was supposed to go and that was where my shipping station was. And I put a couple of shelves in there where the toilet was my over sized boxes. I loved that space.

You get wistful every time you look at a bathroom with no inventory in it?

Yeah. Well, the owners really did a great job on remodeling. But now in my current situation, I have a home where I have purchased it specifically. I needed office space and so I purchased a home because it was cheaper to pay mortgage than rent. And specifically I did a split floor plan so that the master suite is my Home Office and then the garage is my inventory. And then the laundry room, I have shelves in my laundry room for my shipping supplies. And there's a space right, a counter right outside the laundry room that I have a computer and a scale and all shipping supplies set up there so that that's my ship station.

But that's your laundry room.

That's my laundry room in this house.

Where do you do laundry?

Well there's enough room in there for the laundry, but it's an Airbnb.

So I rent out the other two bedrooms and a bath and then I have the eBay spaces locked when I have guests. And I can now just go through the garage, pull my inventory, go into laundry room and ship and never bother the guests. And so it was a great way for me to have office space that earned income.

Oh yes. That's very smart.

So yeah, so the laundry room, we put shelves in there. So I have some inventory in the house that I don't necessarily want to be in the garage in the heat in Phoenix in the laundry room and then shipping supplies and it's like wherever you have space. It wouldn't be ideal if I had kids and a family and tons of laundry, but you know I wash towels and sheets.

Because you're also running a hotel basically.

Exactly.

How successful is the Airbnb part of this business?

It's amazing. So I live in Phoenix. I've been doing this for about a year and what I learned in the first year is that I am booked from January until about the middle or end of May. I don't have a pool at this property and so from June until mid September, it's pretty dead. Just a little bit here and there and then picks back up in October or in the fall.

So when are you putting in the pool?

I'm not. I had a pool. I don't want the liability. I had a pool at my other house and I loved it. It's a lot of upkeep. I just don't want that liability.

Yeah, it makes sense. With the demands on next day delivery being more and more real, you know, buyers want things as fast as they can get them. How do you manage the process to meet your handling time? Do you have a specific business practice or shipping practice? You've got your inventory organized. Now it's time to fulfill it as quickly as possible. How do you do that as efficiently as possible?

This is what I love about this inventory system is that literally I can say, okay these are the three items, the six items, whatever it is that I need and I have box numbers and I literally just go pull a box, open it, take the item out, go into the thing, package it up and ship it in. It's like I can get shipping done pretty quickly and out the door. And so being organized, I can't say it enough how much important It is to have inventory organized and you shipping supplies and your shipping work station organized.

And keep it organized.

And keep it organized.

I find for myself that's the hardest thing. Cause I'll get everything neat and clean and within a week it's a mess.

Yes. Theresa help me!

So if you watch the new Netflix series Tidying Up…

With what's her name? Marie Kondo.

Yeah. If you've watched that then she shows you how to put things away and declutter things. And I think that's key is like we all tend to think we need 22 different sizes of everything. Maybe pair that down and if this box will fit and you don't need that size, you know, whatever works for you. But I definitely have that space very clean and organized and that helps.

So we always are always faced with the demands of time. Any other tips for making your eBay space or let me rephrase that. Any other tips for sellers to make their eBay spaces the best it can be?

I suggest just thinking about space, your specific space. We all have different space and think about what you do every day, several times a day and then go about setting up your space so that the work floor works for you. And think about having different stations for your tasks. So have a photography station and have a listing station and a shipping station and a staging area for your unlisted items. So my photography station is very clean and organized. My listings or my shipping station is very clean and organized. My staging area for my unlisted items is not. I've come to the realization that that's okay.

That's okay for you.

Yeah. If everything else is clean and organized than my, and I'm trying to keep my desk clean and organized, which is a bit of a challenge. But my work area where I have all my unlisted items, I'm just okay with it not being clean and tidy.

So it's a little chaotic.

It's a little chaotic.

But it's your decision. It's planned chaos.

Perfect. Planned chaos. I'm going to, I like that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a big sign on it. This isn't a mess. This is planned chaos.

Griff.

I'll give you credit.

Thanks and I'll give you credit because I learned something valuable today and it was as simple as the invention of the wheel. Rolling shelves. They are brilliant! I can't wait to do all my shelves over with wheels on the bottom.

So let me tell you when I realized this. I had a storage unit. When I had, I had a big house, six bedrooms, three baths. I lived by myself, but I didn't want to live in an eBay warehouse. So I took the step of renting a 10 by 20 storage unit for my listed inventory. What I did was I lined the perimeter of the storage unit with fixed shelves and that wasn't enough. So then I got shelves on wheels for down the center so that I could easily move and manipulate them. Kind of like the medical records in a doctor's office. That was kind of like where the idea came from.

So I want to thank you again, Theresa for all your advice. It's a good day when I've learned something, so I'm hoping that the eBay sellers have also learned something as well.

Well thank you. It was fun.

We've been speaking with eBay seller, Theresa Cox on how she optimizes her workspace to be very efficient. And again, she's known on eBay as clubred97. That's her user Id. Look her up.

Hey, this is Doug from the Seller Engagement Team and I'm happy to introduce and welcome my good friend Dominique Hollins, also a member of the Seller Engagement Team here at eBay.

Thank you for having me. Doug. Welcome to The Main Story. For those of you who've been joining us over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking about Q1 review in an effort to accelerate your business throughout 2019. This week our theme is Refine How You Work. We're here with eBay seller, Prince Patel. Welcome Prince. So when did you start selling on eBay and what was your business location?

So the first question, I work from my workspace. I have an office and a warehouse space so that's where I run my eBay business from.

And when you started, what did you start selling on eBay?

I started around eight years ago, and this is a time where marketplaces were a little bit different. I was more on Craigslist and eBay doing him a mix between both. And was selling anything between cameras, phones, chairs, couches, anything, you name it. I was selling it. I started off just selling everything I could find.

And what would you say your focus is today? Do you still follow that model or have you refined it along the way?

So I think I have a rather unique business model. I think I have a hybrid between a one off listing model, which is selling all used things and also the replenishables model, which is selling the same product over and over again. I think I have a hybrid of both. I sell used or replenishable or remanufactured or manufactured products. And so that's the business model that I continue to work on on with eBay.

You mentioned that you now focus on certain inventory and you started eight years ago with a wide variety. What made you decide to focus on the inventory and the area that you're focused on now?

So initially I started from my room at my house and I had limited space. My focus at that time was to work on small products that had high traffic and those are small action cameras. And so since then I've been working on smaller products so I could use my space as wisely as possible and now that I've got a larger space, I could start getting a different array of products in the warehouse. Initially I started because it was small products and I had less space.

How was your work place set up prior to the warehouse you have now?

Initially, like I said, I use my room. I used my closet space, my walking space, underneath my bed, my drawers, all of that with stocked with inventory and then I started up using other rooms in the house and it was getting to the point where my house was essentially just an eBay store and it was not meant for living anymore. It was more of a store and so it became to the point where I just needed to move out, get a dedicated space forward and flower here.

As you were describing it and I was like, well, where did he sleep during this transition? What advantages did you find to moving in the warehouse? Obviously you have more space, but what else did that create for you?

When you're a Solopreneur or someone who works from home or online mentally it's a little exhausting because you work, you live in the same area. And so having a dedicated workspace where I actually have to drive to my office, open up my warehouse and start my day. It helped with my consistency and sustainability in my business. And the second thing would be team building. I don't think I can necessarily hire employees and have them work from my house per se. But now that I have an office space and a warehouse, I could actually build out a team where I have people packaging and shipping orders, doing customer service and all sorts of different other things.

Let's talk about a typical work day. What does that look like for you and your team?

The first thing I do when I wake up and eat and everything, uh, the first thing I do is customer service. I think it's super important, especially in a day and time where people want answers really, really quickly. Things are moving really fast. It's all about convenience. So you want to answer messages from customers as soon as possible. So for me, that's the first thing in the morning every day. Second thing I do is, I do all the packaging and shipping and then I clean up. And the last thing I'll do in regards to my eBay business is revise some of my listings. Add listings. I'll continue to build relationships with my suppliers and I'll do more product research for future listings and products.

Is this a practice that you developed over time or did you pivot once you got to the warehouse? Was it, did you find that it was necessary to create this workday practice because of the warehouse or were you always this way?

I think that it's incrementally gotten better and better over time. I think when I started, everything was all haphazard all over the place and my time wasn't being managed well and properly. And I started to notice as I started to scale, was that in order to build something of magnitude, you need to have a system in place. Logistics set up in a way where it's as streamlined as possible. I think as I noticed more and more, the more you do that, the more you have it set up in a way where it's all clear and concise, the easier it is to grow.

Tell us more about your workstations in the warehouse. How do you have the different stations set up and how do you and your team work together to navigate that space?

My warehouse set up is like a rectangular shape, if you could imagine. And it will start from one corner and work its way around and where it starts off is where we have a computer and that's what we do, customer service and then we can also handle like packaging and returns over there. And then if we move on towards that rectangle, we have inventory and then a place to do packaging and shipping. And then right where we end is where the bay, I have a bay at my warehouse. So the bay opens up and that's where he finish packaging and shipping all the orders and that's where the post office truck comes by and they take all the packages from there.

Sounds like you have a built essentially an assembly line.

Yes, I and I would say I like a very small scale. Eventually I could improve on that still and continue it and make it towards more, even more automated and more self sufficient.

What are the challenges of moving to a warehouse and how did you combat those challenges?

I think most importantly the expenses was the biggest challenge. Because when you're growing a business and when you're starting to add on all of these different expenses, warehouse space, a car, commercial Internet, which is way more expensive than internet at your house. It's difficult to manage if you don't know your numbers properly and if I would say like anyone was getting a warehouse or office space or anything dedicated, you have to know your numbers and make sure that you're still profiting as a business at the end of the day. Secondly, as much as it was a benefit to have a dedicated workspace and come out here and drive here, that was also one negative thing I guess. Because then you actually have to come out here. I have to drive out 15 minutes so it's not that bad. But imagine if you had to drive out 30 minutes and you know you're paying for that workspace 30 minutes away, you have to go there every day. So that can be a challenge.

How does the warehouse help you optimize your selling?

At home, when I was working from home, I had a limited amount of space and I think that subconsciously limited my creative thinking because I didn't have much space. And now that I have more space and I can see the space and I can see how I'm going to utilize it day to day, I'll be able to optimize my business in itself.

At what point did you decide that the return of your efforts was worth more than the challenges that you saw ahead?

Well I think it was instantaneous for me because I always study my data and analytics because I think eBay provides a lot of information as far as what you're selling. Especially if you're a replenishable sellers. So someone who sells the same products over and over again. You have the data, you have the traffic, the reach. So you kind of have an idea of how much sales you're going to have depending on the products that you have and the suppliers that you have. And so I was fairly confident in my decision to move out here because I knew what the year is going to look like for me.

And then for those who are not comfortable with the numbers, where would you recommend they go? And there are obviously resources that are available through eBay, but also where did you go to have an expert look through the numbers with you?

I think the biggest thing for me as far as confidence with my eBay business was when I joined the Instagram and YouTube community of other resellers. I think listening to everybody else's businesses, it fortified my business because and my thoughts, because it made me think that I know what I'm doing is on the right path. And it continuously kept growing because I knew what I was doing was correct or moving forward. When you're working alone and you have nobody else, you start to question yourself and what's going on and what the potential is and so yeah, the biggest thing was the other resellers on Instagram and YouTube.

Thank you. The power of community. I can't stress that enough. Any final words for sellers who are listening to your story today?

My biggest piece of advice would be to stay consistent and stay on course because I've been doing this for about eight years now. Granted the first five to six years was more of a hobby or an activity. The last two to three years has been full time growth for me. I think the biggest variable and that was consistency. Whether that was directly correlated to my business or to my own self, it was for me growing and it was for me trying to fix up myself and being the optimal self, not related to business. Because I think inadvertently when you focus on yourself and growing yourself as a person, it all affects you in your business as well.

Well Prince, I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you so much for being with us and for sharing your expertise. We've been talking with eBay Seller, Prince Patel on how he's refined how he works by upgrading his workspace to a warehouse. Coming up next, Inside eBay.

Welcome to Inside eBay and this week we're going to talk with the Exports Manager, Bassil Eid. Bassil, welcome to the show.

Thanks Griff for having me.

So we're going to talk about a very specific product that involves something called Webinterpret. What's the program called, by the way?

The program is called the Cross Border Listing Program.

What is the Cross Border Listing Program?

So the Cross Border Listing Program is a program where we're offering sellers zero insertion fees. That's a listing fee to list on six international eBay sites. So previous you actually you had to pay between 50 cents and a dollar to list on international sites. And actually we've removed that fee for our sellers. We also became aware that listing on those sites, it's quite difficult for a seller do themselves. They'd have to list in a different language. They'd have to convert the currency. They'd also have to manage the inventory so that when they sell one on one site, they have to deduct that quantity across all the other sites.

Okay. That can be onerous.

Oh, totally. You have no idea. Because of the large painstaking process of doing that, we partner with a vendor called Webinterpret.

What do they do exactly?

Yes. So Webinterpret goes into a seller's account through our APIs. They sign a number of different agreements to access those APIs and kind of protect the user from any kind of data issues. They look at what the seller is currently selling into those markets. So if they're selling an iPhone into France, for example, they'll look at that iPhone and they'll say that iPhone is already selling in France on dot com. They'll just take that iPhone, they'll list it in the ebay.fr site, which is our French site. They'll translate it in French, listed in the local currency, which is euros. And then they'll also manage the inventory. So when he sells one in France, it'll deduct that one back in dot com.

What are the other five countries?

So we're talking to some of the bigger countries. We're looking at France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the UK and Australia.

But the UK speaks English though?

That's right. But there's different lingos and words in the UK compared to dot com. So I'll give you an example. Um, in the United States when someone buys a sweater, they call it a sweater. But actually in the UK they call it a jumper. Or if you're buying a pair of pants there, they call them trousers. So they actually take into consideration these little nuances in the language and include that in the listing so that the UK buyer feels a lot more ease and a lot more at home when he's looking at the listing. But if you're making those direct translations yourself, then sometimes the colloquialisms like trouser to pants and jumper to sweater don't get interpreted. And it can be confusing to a buyer.

Yep. They recognize that that's actually a conversion metric that improves the UK buyer experience and it helps that item convert. Because they feel like it's kind of speaking their language and they feel a lot more comfortable than with the seller and the seller understands kind of their demand.

All right, cause you sorta had me at free listing, but I have to ask you how many free listings do I get? You get 50% of your listing up to a certain cap depending on your store tier. So I know it's a little bit confusing. Let me kind of, let me kind of break that down.

Sure please.

So if you're an enterprise store seller, you'll get up to 10,000 free listings on every single site. So you'll get 50% up to 10,000. So let's say you're an enterprise seller and you have a total of 30,000 listings, right? We will list 10,000 listings. We can't list 50% cause that's 15,000 and it's above the cap. So you have a cap of 10,000. so we'll list 50% up to 10,000 so then we'll list your 10,000 listings on the six sites. So you'll get 60,000 free listings in total, 10,000 on every single site.

And if I go beyond the cap?

So if you go beyond the cap, you will incur insertion fees.

And are they complicated?

So actually the way we've done it is actually with our partnership with Web Interpret we've told them not to list above the cap.

It kind of cuts you off.

Exactly. They cut you right off. Unless you explicitly tell Web Interpret, Hey, I want to list more than Web Interpret will advise you that you will incur fees.

And they'll let me know what those fees are?

They'll let you know. Yeah, approximate figures. Right. They'll say 50 cents a listing depending how many listings. And they'll give you a read, but they won't list above those caps without your kind of consent or advice. And they'll actually advise you not to do so.

Yeah. Okay. So do I get to select which listings or is that something that's done by eBay?

At the beginning basically we allow sellers to almost look at which listings they wanted to to list internationally. But what we found is that the international market is a bit complicated. It Is different than the United States and sellers weren't picking the best listings. What we did basically is, Webinterpret will look at external research data. They'll see kind of what is selling into which markets, like the UK and France and what's hot. Then they'll go back into the seller's catalog and see what he's selling into those markets. He'll then map that WID, what's the sales history on the items that the seller has, and then just pick those specific items. So Webinterpret is literally selecting the top 50% of the seller's inventory to list on those sites.

It looks at the most productive listings based on those countries what's selling.

Exactly. Yeah, and actually not just kind of what's hot in the country, but it's also, you'll have some sales history, right? So they'll see kind of your catalog and they'll see like this item sold like 10 times in France. That item definitely has to get listed or you know, even if it doesn't have any sales into France, let's say they'll see that it's sold maybe like 15 times in the US and they'll be like, oh man, that could be hot in France. So they'll list it.

Is access to the Cross Border Listing Program available to all sellers?

It is not available to all sellers.

It's an exclusive club?

It's open and welcome, you just have to do a few things.

What do I have to do?

One is you have to be shipping internationally. That's kind of the number one main biggest thing, right?

Does the Global Shipping Program count?

Unfortunately it does not.

Ahh, so if you're using Global Shipping Program, these items won't qualify. Okay. So you have to have your own international shipping set up.

Unfortunately, the technology with Webinterpret and the Global Shipping room don't talk well with each other. And so because of that Webinterpret is not aware of what your shipping costs would be internationally.

Of course. Yeah.

So then they wouldn't be able to kind of list your item with the correct shipping costs that unfortunately excludes any sellers with the GSP program. But I want to add one point, you know, these are relatively safer markets to ship into. So these are like Australia, UK, Europe, like you're not going to have many shipping issues into those markets. It is kind of encouraged for sellers to ship directly into those markets specifically so that they can be eligible for the program, but they can also keep GSP the Global Shipping Program on for let's say, more riskier markets. They can have kind of the best of both worlds.

Right because you can set that up when you list an item. You can say Global Shipping Program, except for these countries, I want to ship them myself.

Exactly.

Alright So that's a way it can work with it.

Yeah, and you get the best of both worlds and you don't even really need your own shipping carrier. You can just even just use eBay labels if you want to ship into Australia, UK and Europe. I mean they work really great and they have good rates.

How will the money appear in my PayPal account? Is there something on the payments end I should be aware of yet?

Yeah, you definitely should be. You're going to receive the money in a different currency. Because here you're listing it in different currencies, you're not listening in US dollars anymore. You're listing it in pounds, euros in Aussie dollars. And so you're actually going to receive that exact currency in your PayPal account. So if you sell something for let's say $80 US, Webinterpret will convert that currency to list on a European market. They'll also make sure that like when you convert it back, that when you receive the money that you'll receive the $80 US, but you'll receive it in euros. So they'll list it and let's say 70 euros because that's the exchange rate approximately right now. They'll list it for 70 euros. That 70 euros will appear in your PayPal account and then when you go to convert it back, if you convert it back that exact moment, you should get $80 in US. But if you wait, of course a couple of days, the exchange rate may go up and down. So you are going to get a different currency in your PayPal account.

Does PayPal charge a fee for currency diversion?

So there is a fee for currency conversion. So it is two and a half percent so you can actually work with Webinterpret when they list your item. You can actually factor in a two and a half percent buffer in your price so that you mitigate any risks for any kind of currency changing and any PayPal fees that may occur.

Do I have to set that up when I list the item?

Not when you list the item. So you list the item in dot com and then when you join the program just contact Webinterpret and let them know, hey listen, I know that I'm going to have to convert this money from euros to US. Can we add a little buffer in there to make sure that I get whole on what my US prices is.

Say I'm in the program and I've sold something to one of these six countries through the Cross Border Listing Program. When I go into My eBay to look at my orders page, do they look differently if they were sold through the Cross Border Listing Program?

Yes. So your listings are going to appear in the My eBay page. So if you have 10 listings and you join the program and Webinterpret and us basically list those listings on six international eBay sites, you're now going to have 60 extra listings in the My eBay Hub. So you'll have your US item in there and then you'll have the translated Italian version of the item. You'll have the translated French version of the item, you'll have the translated German version of the item. For that same item, you're going to have five or six additional items in the My Hub.

And are they grouped in a way that makes sense?

You can filter them out so you don't see them anymore.

Oh, okay.

So you can kind of play around with My eBay to filter them out and kind of sort them the way you'd want.

Say I have listing limits. What if you hit them?

Yeah, so if you do hit them Webinterpret will work with you to get them increased. So the additional listings will count towards your listing limits. Right? And when you do hit that cap, Webinterpret will work with you to basically advise you on what to say to our eBay Customer Service Organization to have those limits increased. We've done a lot of work here internally amongst eBay to advise our Limits Team and our Underwriting Team to be aware that hey listen, this is a program that we've launched. This is not really an additional listing. This is almost like a ghost listing to help increase visibility for that same listing.

Yeah, it should only count as one listing, I would think.

Yes. So that's kind of the argument we've been going with it and we've kind of met in the middle. They're showing a lot of leniency for sellers who are on this program to have their limits increased.

Bassil, I have an item that somebody wants to return and It's sold through the Cross Border Listing Program. What do I do?

So the process, the exact same. So what Webinterpret will do is whatever your return policy is on your US listing, they'll then mimic that return policy on the international listing.

Oh. Okay, good.

So if you recall last year we actually separated domestic and International return policies. Yeah. So they'll just look at your international return policy and whatever that is, they'll just mimic that in Europe and the other different markets. Just something to keep in mind. I do want to kind of highlight one specific thing though. There is a regulation that was passed last year that requires sellers to take a return from Europe to offer them a 30 day window. So when you are shipping into Europe, you do have to offer a 30 day return window. You could always just let the buyer know that he will have to pay that return cost, but you do have to offer that return window.

So if you're a policy is no returns, you can't really join this program.

You can't join the program into Europe, you can join it into Australia, however, there's no regulation stuff in Australia.

Ahh. Right. So you'd be limited to just Australia.

Yeah, exactly.

Is there a special incentive for sellers to sign up for this program right now? Say like a promo?

I mean the promo is slated to end at the end of this year. Um, and so, uh, we're seeing some great results from it so far from the sellers that have joined. There's a good likelihood we will extend it. We're not just going to leave all sellers kind of hanging at the end of the year. The way it's going right now though, I want to be more on the optimistic side, the way it's going on right now we have a good chunk of sellers. They're seeing some good lists. We're seeing some great sales come out of that. We are looking to potentially extend this further past 19.

Well this was a good stairway pitch. Yeah. So we've gone up about 20 to 30 stories. I'm totally out of breath, but I'm now intrigued. So where do I go to sign up?

I wish I had one of those, a visual here on the podcast.

I bet it's a long URL.

Yeah, it is definitely one of the longer URLs.

So let's tell our audience, we'll give him a sec and go get your pencil and a piece of paper and now hopefully you have it in hand. If you don't pause the podcast and then start it again because Bassil is going to tell you where to go.

You have to type pages.ebay.com/promo/2018/webinterpret.html.

Good luck with that.

Thanks. Appreciate it.

If you can make it through that URL, you qualify for program!

Yup.

Bassill, I want to thank you very much for stopping by. This sounds like a really interesting program. We're going to follow it and track seller success and hopefully more sellers will take advantage of it.

Definitely. And we're honestly really open and welcoming feedback from sellers.

Is there a link for feedback on the landing page for the horrible URL we just gave?

So at the moment, no, but we actually do track the comments on Community. So if you guys go on Community and kind of want to start a thread and some questions and maybe even just like tag me, I'm on Community as well. I'm happy to kind of jump in and get into the discussion myself as well, but we're constantly looking for feedback. Good and bad. We want to improve this thing. This is a program for the sellers.

And in lieu of a email link on the landing page, you can always send your comments, feedback or suggestions, whatever to sellingonebay@ebay.com here at the podcast. I'll forward them on to you. Bassil, thank you so much.

Thanks Griff. Thanks for having me.

We've been speaking with Bassil Eid about this new program in conjunction with Webinterpret. It's called the Cross Border Listing Program. You can get your listings exposed in up to six countries. Coming up next, It's the end of the show.

And that's our show for this week. So Dominique, what do you think? Did we pass the audition? Will you join our team for the long term?

Well, I guess I have to ask you, did I pass the audition? You were great!

With flying colors! I had no doubt you were going to succeed in this job.

Well, I'm so happy to be here and it looks like I'm going to be sticking around.

Oh that's great. You can take the job req off the site! We filled the position. Who's up for our next episode Dom?

Well, next week we'll talk with eBay Vice President and COO of America's Jay Hansen about the importance of buyers.

Excellent. Oh, by the way, don't forget our number.

Of course, if you want to join the fun here on Selling On eBay, you can be a part of the show when you call us. (888) 723-4630.

That's right. Call us now at 888-723-4630 and you might get a new tote bag and a mug. No, that's the wrong. That's for fund raisers. So you can call that hotline anytime of the day or the day of the week. Leave a question or comment and we just might put it on the air.

And for those who might be a little more shy, if you want to write out your thoughts and be more thoughtful about what you deliver, you can also send us an email where you can send your questions if you prefer. It's sellingonebay@ebay.com again, that's sellingonebay@ebay.com.

And I'll skip the corny intro into the meetup segment this week and just get right to the point. No, I'm not going to do that. Hey, you eBay seller. What good is sitting alone on the shelf? (Singing) Come hear the music play. Life is an eBay meetup my friend. Attend an eBay seller meet up today. Come share some tips. Come meet your peers.

All Right. As much as I would love to continue to hear your singing, I think we all get the reference Griff. I was channeling my inner Liza. I knew you'd get that reference.

Absolutely.

Anyways, at seller meetups, sellers, share tips, stories, insights, and sometimes special guests attend like our very own. Brian Burke. You can see meetups that are scheduled on our special eBay community page. For meetups. Just go to www.ebay.com/meetups.

Don't forget to tune in to 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. Again, that is facebook.com/ebayforbusiness .

And Dom. I hate to say it, but that's our show for this week.

Oh no, but we'll be back next week. The eBay podcast correspondent and advisor Brian Burke. News and Special Assignment Correspondent Alan Aisbitt. Correspondent and Copy Editor Doug Smith. Marketing Strategist, Liz Austin. Editor and Chief and Host, Griff. And starting right now, Cohost and Correspondent Dominique Hollins.

Aw shucks. Wait a minute. Is this official? I am a Correspondent?

Yeah. Not only are you the Cohost you're also a Correspondent.

Well look at that.

We have quite a workload ready for you.

Well you know what? I'm ready for it. Let's go.

That's great because it'd be too late otherwise because you just signed the contract.

Selling On eBay is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

Well, how did I do?

I think you did really good.

Well I practiced all night, so I hope they really liked it.

Practiced all night?

I did. I was in the mirror even though no one will see me.

Oh Dominique, but you're a natural.

I appreciate it.

And get used to this cause this is about all the buttering up I'm going to do. Next week. It's really hard.

Oh, well, you know what? Bring it on.

You got it, girl.

I love it. Thanks Griff.