Episode 36 || Know Your Buyers Part III with John Davis and Sam Bright

[doug@ebay]

This week we continue our Know Your Buyers series. In our Main Story eBay seller John Davis gives his take on buyers and how he keeps them happy and coming back. On Inside eBay VP Sam Bright tells us how his team keeps a step ahead of what buyers want from a marketplace like eBay. 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 36 – Know Your Buyers Part III with John Davis and Sam Bright

This week we continue our Know Your Buyers series. In our Main Story eBay seller John Davis gives his take on buyers and how he keeps them happy and coming back. On Inside eBay VP Sam Bright tells us how his team keeps a step ahead of what buyers want from a marketplace like eBay. 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
ebay.com/sellercenter
ebay.com/payments
ebay.com/communitychat

Hosts

Griff, Alan Aisbitt

Guests

John Davis (eBay Seller), Sam Bright (eBay Staff)

Transcript

Hi, I'm Alan Aisbitt.

And 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.

Hey, welcome back to the cohost chair Alan.

Thank you Sir. I'm very happy to be back.

So what's on the docket for this week?

This week we continue with our theme, Know Your Buyers. On the Main Story we'll meet eBay seller, John Davis. Known on eBay, as Sarge and Reds. John gives his take on buyers on how he keeps them happy and coming back.

And on the Inside eBay segment, I'll talk with one of my favorite people here at eBay, Sam Bright. He oversees the entire Soft Goods Team. Sam will shed some light on how his team keeps a step ahead of what buyers want from a marketplace like eBay. And Alan, I assume you'll be bringing The Buzz?

Oh yes indeed. But sadly, this week Doug is on the road on assignment with Bryan Burke visiting three seller meetups in the New York and New England area. So I guess that just leaves you Griff to help out.

Sounds like a regret, but no worries or no wackers as Liz says. I can rise to the challenge.

I have no doubt about that. You are a pro. Shall we go and start the show?

Oh Indeed! Up next, it's Alan with The Buzz.

Welcome to this week's The Buzz segment. Alan, what's been happening out there in eBay land this week?

Well there are always certain topics that come up regularly on the community and one of those topics that I'd like to touch on now is returns. So we've seen a number of conversations over the last week or so and sellers have been discussing their experiences with returns and asking for policy clarification from eBay staff and from each other.

By the way Griff, what's your returns policy and what do you recommend?

Everything I sell is 60 day free returns, no questions asked.

Nice.

I just figure if you're going to be in commerce and it's online demanding that your buyer be happy or they're stuck with the consequences, it doesn't work. I wouldn’t expect it as a buyer and I don't expect my buyers to expect it.

Yeah, I know when I'm purchasing anywhere online I always check the returns policy and if something is the same price or at around the same price and a seller has a more generous returns policy then the other one, that's probably going to land a sale for that seller.

You want to be successful online? Take returns.

I do want to call out Seller Center at ebay.com/sellercenter has a ton of information on returns. Just go there and enter returns into search box.

A lot of sellers like myself, we work the potential cost of returns into the sale price. The returns page in seller center has a handy little returns calculator to help you with that calculation. So you can use this calculator on that page to estimate how much you might add to each item you sell to compensate for the cost of returns. And so you can mitigate those costs.

So I don't even have to do to math myself. You're telling me there's a tool out there. I just go to ebay.com/sellercenter. Go there, type in a couple of numbers and it will spit out what I need to add. Next up, I want to share an update regarding Manage Payments. On April 8th Alyssa Cartwright, who is our VP of Global Payments, Billing and Risk announced that Google Pay is now live and not the PayPal integration is complete. Griff, you may be asking why we are introducing new payment methods to Manage Payments.

Hey Alan, why are we introducing new payment methods to Manage Payments?

I'm glad you asked. We're adding new payment options because they offer buyers flexibility and choice. So right now Google pay on PayPal, join Apple Pay, credit cards, debit cards and gift cards in our suite of Managed Payment options. As we continue to build out the experience and the geographies we cover, we will expand the number of sellers participating in Managed Payments and give buyers the choices they expect while shopping. Sellers If you want the latest information on Managed Payments, stay tuned to ebay.com/payments. Griff, we're on the same team, right?

You're not talking about sports team?

No. I'm talking about eBay teams.

Ahh, Okay. I like those.

And we're always engaging with sellers across multiple different channels and areas. So we do community, we do events, seller meetups, conventions, eBay Open, Retail Revival, and more and more. And this week, Brian and Doug were out on the East Coast attending meetups in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York City. And we're all very excited for the main celebration of the year coming up in July, eBay Open.

eBay Open 2019 is just around the corner. You can get your tickets for eBay Open at ebayopen.com.

Yes and anyone who buys a ticket has a special...... ( News flash music in background) Hold on. I just found out some news. Breaking news. I've just been informed some news about eBay Open.

What is it?

It's sold out.

What?

Yes. In record time.

Four weeks I bet.

That's all, four weeks. Usually takes a couple of months, but four weeks.

All right. You heard it here first or second or third. eBay Open is officially sold out.

It's officially sold out.

Is there any hope for the procrastinators?

Sellers can join a waiting list and if tickets become available, we will contact them.

Oh, the tears are gonna fall.

I know. I hope all my friends got tickets.

I don't know if they did. So how do I get on the waiting list If I'm a procrastinator?

Well you go through the website, the website is ebayopen.com. You go to register and you'll see the email address there. We ask for some bits of information for sellers to send in, so they need to send us their ID and things like that. But yeah, I would encourage sellers who haven't yet got a ticket to go and put their names on the waiting list. Then if tickets become available, you'll be first to hear about it.

All right. When we tell you you got to register early, we mean it.

We really meant it this year.

Alright, wow. So much for breaking news.

Sorry. We have a new program we've just launched. It's called eBay Upfront. With eBay Upfront we are connecting with sellers in their own locales. Last month we were in Miami and this month we're meeting sellers in Dallas. Check out ebay.com/meetups for event details and registration.

eBay Upfront not only gives you sellers who are new to the platform the chance to get up to date insights from eBay Execs and employees like Brian Burke.

And guess what? I'll be heading to Dallas and Los Angeles in a couple of weeks so for all the lucky attendees, they'll get to meet me.

Oh, you know I used to go to all these. I miss them, but in the meantime you'll be one of our eBoys out there. What's an eBoy?

Sounds really cool.

Yeah, I haven't been called a boy in many years. Our eBoy on the street. Doug Smith actually attended the Miami Upfront recently.

He told me he was going for Spring Break.

Maybe that's why he was so eager to go.

I think we'll have to check his Instagram.

Oh, I don't recommend that.

That's true. There's no telling what you might see.

Doug couldn't be here as he's on assignment, but he told me that Miami Upfront was a great event. Sellers connected and networked over oars-dev-rah drinks and root beer floats.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Hors d'oeuvres.

(laughter)

Read that again.

I'll try again. Sellers connected and networked over hors d'oeuvres, drinks and root beer floats. Two VPs Jay Hanson and Harry Temkin attended, spoke and took seller questions. Some sellers took to the stage as well and eBay employees were there to network with sellers.

Doug actually took one of our recorders and sat down with some sellers. First here's eBay VP Jay Hanson talking about the event and takeaways for sellers.

This was awesome. I mean, what an opportunity for us to come out and be in our sellers turf here in Miami, uh, where they run their businesses. We've got a chance to share with them a lot of things happening at eBay and right now we're getting a chance to hear a lot of their feedback and ideas for how we can make eBay even better for them.

And eBay Seller Carlos Alvarez tells us what he thought of Miami Upfront, Selling On eBay and the eBay Community of sellers.

eBay Upfront was amazing. It was great seeing the WHO's who of eBay here and a really close friend of mine, Louis up there actually speaking. I love it. I love seeing all the changes eBay's making for sellers and just overall in general. Awesome for eBay. My biggest takeaway from the event tonight was just a sense of community. Everybody just banding together helping each other out. Again, the WHO's who of eBay, just showing us things and just how to grow as people, as businesses.

What a great event. I'm looking forward to Dallas Upfront. Well Griff, unfortunately that's all that fits this week, guess I'll see you next time.

Coming up next. The Main Story.

Welcome to The Main Story. We're talking about Knowing Your Buyers and with us now is eBay seller, John Davis. On eBay he's known as Sarge and Reds ( https://www.ebay.com/usr/sarge_and_reds ) , they are toy and collectible sellers on eBay. John's going to tell us about what he knows about his buyers. Welcome John.

Hey Griff, how are you doing?

I'm okay. Thanks for joining us today.

Sure, no problem.

John is joining us by Skype. The audio quality's pretty good, John.

All right. I try. I aim to please, you know, customer service and whatnot. See what I did there?

I think I'm going to like where this is going. How did you get started on eBay?

My wife and I were trying to raise money for an adoption and my parents threw us a fundraiser to try to raise funds. It was a bowling fundraiser and you know, friends and family would come and I don't know how the back ends of it worked but as long as short of it is a couple of my friends from high school, they didn't have any money so they gave me a bunch of Magic, the gathering cards and said hey, you can sell these. We went from there. I kind of looked at the cards and I was like, I remember this game. It was like, okay, thanks guys, appreciate it. And I started looking at values and seeing what individual cards are worth, you know, a lot of money, some of them. So we just kind of got started from there and that's how we got started selling on eBay. And we've kind of expanded it from there to collectibles, toys, things like that.

How was that market doing by the way?

I know that Magic, the gathering was a huge phenomena for awhile.

It still is. I mean there's a new set getting ready to come out early next month, I believe it is. So they still run strong, it's been 25 years plus now. I guess we're in the 26th year that the game has been around, but it's probably my biggest seller.

This is how you started out. You sell other collectibles now. Can you give us an idea of how expansive your current inventory is?

With Magic cards, I probably have over a million cards.

What?

Yeah, I have a ton of them. I don't know if you can see behind me. I have one card catalog behind me. We're actually in the process of moving, so I've already moved two of them out, but those are filled with magic cards. And then I have the boxes of cards.

It's probably about a million at least.

Oh. We're actually talking by Skype so I can see, and I assume you can see me. Is my camera on?

No, I just see your smiling face up in the corner.

Oh, okay. Good. That's enough. I don't think you would need to. But I can see behind you. There's an interesting, it looks like a huge library file cabinet.

Yeah, that's what that is. It's actually from an old library and I have everything sorted by set and they're alphabetized inside of there. And I have three of those. Like I said, we just moved one out. This was the only one that's left. The store is shut down right now while we're in the process of moving everything obviously, but we will be opening it back up in probably about a week, two weeks.

Now you can see me.

Oh now I can see you. We're done! This interview's over.

Oh, I'm sorry. Is it that shocking? We're talking about buyers and the importance of buyers and every seller has a philosophy, a strategy a perspective on buyers. There are some sellers who actually think of buyers as a sort of necessary inconvenience. I don't want to use the word evil, but you know, oh, I got to deal with buyers. How do you view your buyers?

Well, the way I look at it is, we would not be here without our buyers. Who am I going to sell to if there's no buyers? I don't look at them as a necessary evil or unnecessary anything other than they're part of process of commerce. You can't have a seller without a buyer. So I disagree with people who think that, and I think you know, it goes back to the old adage of I don't think the customer is always right because I've had some people that obviously are difficult, but you want to treat people the way you want to be treated. You want that repeat business. The way I work is I have the customers who are basically the buyers on eBay and we also have another customer who is the customer I'm buying from, who I'm sourcing from. So I think you have to treat everybody fair and equal and Karma goes around, comes around type thing and you treat people the way you want to be treated. I've had a lot of repeat customers on both ends. People who I've bought items from to resell that they know, I give them a fair price. So they'll either give me other people that they are friends with and send them my way or they'll find other stuff and they'll come to me. And the same thing goes with selling. If you have a fair price and you market everything correctly and you show good pictures and don't try to hide flaws, the customer, they're gonna be happy with what you're selling them.

What buyers want changes so fast. And I'm curious to know how you stay on top of that in your categories.

Particular with the Magic cards, the market is always fluctuating so prices can shoot up one day, dropped down the next day. If a card is doing really well in a deck or if it gets reprinted, the market just shifts as far as the price goes. So I kind of have to stay on top of what's popular as far as the cards go. Cause these things, like I said, they go back 25 years and while I'd like to have every single one I have listed, that's probably not possible. So I really have to kind of look at the game and see what cards are spiking in price. And those are the ones that I want to go find and pull out because there's obviously a demand for them. So the demand changes based on the meta of the game and, and new cards that come out that make an old card more valuable to players. So a lot of that, there's actually pages that have like, it's almost like a stock market ticker where you can see the prices go up and down and it's kind of intense.

It's like trading stocks only it's trading cards.

It is.

Do you still play the game by the way?

Not much. I mean I know how to play. I'm not very good, but trying to find the time to do it, you know, with work and then the business and, and all that. And I'm actually getting ready to go full time and I'll be retiring from my full time job and we'll be doing this full time.

Whoa. Wait, I, so you're juggling two jobs right now. Your self employed business and what else do you do besides this?

I worked for our local Sheriff's department. That must be fun.

Yeah, it's fun. I have one day left.

One day! We caught you on your last day. We should break out the champagne.

Yeah, right. Friday's my last day and then we're moving. Like I said, we're moving up to Michigan from West Virginia.

On your website it says you pride yourself on your customer service and that's great. You know that most businesses will say that, but of course the proof is when the situation arises. Then you really have to sort of go the extra mile. Do you remember a difficult buyer situation that you were able to turn around?

I don't know if it was necessarily a difficult buyer, but it was an interesting situation. The Card Catalogs you see behind me when I purchased them were more full of the catalog cards from the library, like the Dewey decimal system cards.

Sure.

Well, I sell those and they're actually a really good seller. I sell them in lots of a hundred to a thousand and people buy these to, to do crafts or whatnot. So I sold a set of, I want to say it was 200 to a woman and it says in the listing that, you know, I can't sort by certain authors, I can't sort by titles because they're really just inboxes. So I just kind of grab them and do it by weight and I sent her the cards and she gets them and she sends me back a message. She's like, well, I'm kind of disappointed in this because all of the cards were, um, I think it was like political science and something else. I was just like, something nobody wants to deal with. And she's like, can you replace these? And I was like, well ma'am, you know, it says I can't really look at the titles and look them up, that would be impossible. I said, I tell you what, if you want to buy some more, if you buy another, whatever, I'll throw in an extra x, Y, Z, and you can toss those ones. So I think I turned that around where I actually got some more sales because she ended up buying multiple times from me. But you know what's a hundred card catalog cards at the end of the day, they were actually with this. I didn't pay for them. It's just extra money. I was going to throw them away and then I started looking on eBay and I was like, holy moly, people are buying these things.

Yeah. I would've never thought that Dewey decimal place...

Oh Yeah. People buy them left and right.

I guess I missed the boat on that one. We always do this thing. It's a new thing I like to do. I didn't come up with this. You probably heard it before, but I like to do the elevator pitch and we're in a very tall building at the bottom floor and I get in and I see you're wearing a little eBay pen and I...

I get off on the first floor If I see you get in. (laughter).

Well, so much for the elevator pitch. All right. I'm going to coerce you without a weapon to stay in the elevator until we get to the hundredth floor. It's going to take about a minute. Hey. Hi. I'd like to sell on eBay John, can you tell me three things I should think about before I start selling on eBay?

I think the three things that you're going to have to think about is time, because you need time to do it. Space. Because depending on what you have, you're gonna have a lot of space that's going to be taken up by stock. And then patience. Not the doctor kind, but the kind where you'd have to wait. Because when you first get started, you're a new seller. You might expect a lot of stuff to get sold really fast, or you expect things to just kind of fall in your lap and you're going to roll. Cause you see that people are doing a good job, but it takes time. You have to build up that customer service. You have to build up your brand name, you have to build up your feedback. So you do need to be patient. You're not going to get a million sales right off the bat. So I think those would be the three things, you know, space, time and patience that that you need to do this. A lot of people I work with now, they're like, oh, you have that easy eBay money. And I looked at them and I was like, you're crazy. There's nothing easy about this at all.

I mean, just look behind you. You've got to sort through that catalog!

Exactly. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. No one would sell me products to sell because they would just do it themselves. So it's, it's not as easy as people think. eBay does make it easy. It gives you the worldwide audience and the customer base, but you know, you still didn't work. It's not an easy job.

Of course. Ding! Oh, there's my floor. We're at the hundredth floor. John, I want to thank you so much for those three points. I'm going to get out of here. I don't know where you're going and there's no other floor to go but I guess you can go back down to the lobby.

I was just gonna follow you around for the rest of the day.

Oh no!

You started it, you're going to hear more.

Well, it's exciting to hear that you're going into this full time. Is it with some trepidation or are you pretty confident that you're going to be able to continue growing this business?

I think it be able to continue growing it. The one thing that I am a little, I guess, how do I say, nervous, but then I think about a lot is where I'm at now. I'm in the Washington DC, Baltimore region, so I have a ton of people to source from. I mean, I go to Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, all these places to buy items. Where I'm moving to, i'm kind of in Michigan. It's a great state. I love it up there, but I'm surrounded on three sides by water. So if I'm going to be driving, I only have a certain amount of people there, so I think it would be traveling more to actually source merchandise.

Well, if I find any Magic, the gathering cards, I'll send them to you.

Well, I buy old toys too. Old action figures, you know things from like the eighties and earlier.

I'm afraid the only action figure I ever collected was a, there's a set of rocky horror show figures with the Riff Raff Frankfurter and Columbia. I don't know if that's part of your wheelhouse, but..

Hey, if I could sell them, that's part of my wheel house.

John, you're the kind of seller I love to talk to. It's been great. John, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to talk to us about your buyers and your business.

Sure thing.

We've been speaking with John Davis of Sarge and Reds. He's been talking about Knowing Your Buyers and how to get started on business on eBay. Coming up next, stay tuned.

It's time for another edition of Inside eBay. We're talking about Know Your Buyers. We're speaking with both sellers in our main stories and we're speaking with eBay employees, specifically team leaders and executives on their take of buyers. How important they are and what we're doing to capture them for our sellers. And joining us right now is VP and General Manager of Soft Goods. Sam Bright. Sam, welcome to the show again.

Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. Always good to spend time with our sellers.

Remind our sellers who you are, what your role entails and how long you've been at eBay.

I've been at eBay, it'll be seven years in July. My role is to lead the Soft Goods team and set of categories and Soft Goods encompasses several of our verticals. Some of our longest standing verticals, art and collectibles, media toys and lifestyle, sporting goods, and then pet supplies, food and crafts.

Now can you talk us through a Soft good buyer's mindset when they're shopping and buying on a site like eBay? Who are they? Why do they choose the eBay?

I think it varies quite a bit by category and also by the life stage segment that folks are in. Like I'm a seller on eBay. I'm selling a Funko Pop Chewbacca right now and I'm imagining that the buyer on the other end may be a Star Wars enthusiasts or it might be someone who is a Pop collector across the board. Or it might be someone who is purchasing it as a gift for a family member who they know is really into that inventory. Part of it is really trying to get into the mindset of your buyer and what are they looking for. And a lot of that ties to the category. So for example, for the Pop that I'm selling, I'm selling it as an auction and I'm thinking about I'm using promoted listings because I want to get as much visibility for it as I possibly can as a C to C seller. And I'm also thinking about, okay, how do I make sure that the inventory is photographed the right way, that it doesn't put off the buyer for any reason. I'm not the greatest photographer in the world, but I've spent a little bit of time trying to make sure it shows up the right way when someone's scrolling through a set of items and listings. Also thinking about how the listing is referred to with the Funko Pop because it has a bar code, I use the eBay mobile app and I can just scan the barcode and it'll pre-populate a lot of the listing title for me. And then I pull in additional item description details. But if I didn't have that as an option, I'd be very thoughtful about like what are the keywords when someone's searching for an item as a buyer? It'll pop up both in terms of Google search and also in terms of eBay search. There's a lot of that. Going back to the beginning of the question, the reason why I say it matters who your buyer is and putting yourself in the mind of the buyer and how that varies by category is that I also have a feral cat. That when I bought my house came by every day and has been part of the journey of being a homeowner.

Have you given it a name?

I have, it's called Tux. It's a little Tuxedo cat, black and white. And He, uh, he's never let me pet him, but he always expects his food as he did from the prior owner.

Cats!

Cats. I know they're very demanding. I buy my pet food on eBay and as I'm buying my pet food, I have a very different perspective on what I'm expecting from a seller on the other end. Then I do, when I go and buy an exclusive piece of art or a Funko Pop. There, I'm really looking for free shipping and I'm really looking for how quickly can that food get to me because my cat isn't super patient in terms of waiting for the food to arrive.

Does it sit outside your door and scream?

It sits outside my door and stares at me like human, what's going on? And I'm thinking about is it a brand that I know and that I feel comfortable with this being the good cat food for tux. That's my mindset as a buyer. And a seller on the other end, if they are listing pet food in the pet supplies category needs to call out the things that are going to be most important to me as a pet food buyer. And if I'm a Funko Pop seller thinking about a Funko buyer. Same thing with dolls and bears or with militaria or with any of the other more traditional collectible categories. There are certain things that are really important to buyers and really understanding them and putting yourself in their mindset is what drives greater conversion, which makes all of us happy.

We've talked a lot about this, that you have an interest in the antiques and collectibles market.

That's right. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it while I've been here at eBay and then also when I first came into the role leading the art and collectibles business, which was my prior role before this role. I picked up my coin collecting hobby, which I hadn't really indulged that much since when I was a kid. But now I started getting into, you know, Morgan silver dollars and other things my parents wouldn't have purchased for me way back when. And thinking through, you know, graded versus ungraded inventory and really looking for good deals as I was going through the auctions ending soon search results around that. So I used a lot of our browse filters to help me get to the type of coins that were really intriguing. I was looking at key dates and what I was missing and trying to fill that in. And then also thinking about the right price points and trying to cross reference based on what I knew about the market. And in that case as a buyer, I was looking for graded inventory. So if someone didn't really have the right key words or the right attributes adopted that would enable me when I was searching to find an NGC or a PCGs graded Morgan silver dollar that's tied to a particular key date that I was missing, I wouldn't see that item and I wouldn't be able to purchase it. Right?

You miss out and the seller misses out.

And then the seller would miss out. Everybody is really busy running a business and especially as a small and medium sized business, you always have more on your plate at all given times. But a lot of the reasons why we give suggestions to sellers around like, hey, you want to make sure that you have aspects filled out so that people can find you when they filter on the left hand Nav. And when browse nodes are out there trying to make it easier for buyers to sort through the wide variety of items that are available on the platform. It's just really important to keep that in mind in terms of like what is going to help bring buyers into your store and help your item stand out so you can make money.

When we're talking about buyers of Hard Goods or in different categories that are more commodity related, certain service level of requirements to compete in commodity type items. Are not as important or they're different when it comes to soft goods and antiques, collectibles, art, things like free shipping? Is it always good? But it doesn't seem to be as big a component in buyer's minds. Is that the case that you've discovered over time?

Yeah, I think it totally varies by the price point, by item and by the category. And so for example, when I think about the seller messages or the MTMs that are going back and forth, when I'm selling a collectible coin or I'm selling a Funko Pop or I'm selling an art piece or I have some stamps that I sell periodically when I'm selling those things, the questions that I'm usually getting from buyers are all around item condition. What condition is this in? Can I see a few additional photos in some cases? What is the narrative or the story of like how this came into your, into your possession?

The provenance.

The provenance. That was the word I was looking for. Like wanting to understand that as part of being able to assess the value in their minds as the buyer of purchasing from me. And then also the likely appreciation of that item over time because it's really interesting given the different types of categories that I have the privilege of looking after. There are some that are consumables, food and beverages and pet supplies some cases where they're less likely to appreciate in price. They're more to fit, fit a specific need. And there are other items even looking outside of core collectibles, things that have appreciating value like rare vinyl and like we're starting to see some interesting news articles pop up about even tape cassettes and VHS tapes that have scarcity and therefore price appreciation if there's enough cultural significance tied to them. So as a result, you need to really calibrate your listing and really calibrate sort of what you're adopting tied to what the buyers expectations are. And sure shipping is important across the board. Like nobody wants to wait three months for an item, no matter how collectible it is. But in some cases you're going to need to invest further in optimizing the attributes so that it can be discovered in search. And in other cases you're going to need to invest even further in like how can I get even faster on the shipping front or on the returns front. That's really where our teams try to partner with the sellers. We're constantly running studies at our end to see, hey, what do buyers say across various categories and across the site in terms of what causes them to purchase and then that's the guidance that we tried to transmit through our Seller Updates and through the various community boards. Because we have a shared incentive, we both want your items to sell, you want your items to sell and so when we partner together, hopefully it leads to a great outcome.

What about the sellers that you talked to in these different categories? Are there concerns matched category to category or do you hear different things from these sellers about their buyers and their inventory that illuminates on your end what your team needs to do to help provide better support and better success to these sellers?

Yeah, for sure. Let's pick on the Bullion category for a second. Like the sellers there need to be able to run anti money laundering checks. That's high enough dollar volume purchases and they need to be able to understand the identity of the buyer because of federal regulation. That's very different than when you're selling catnip or you're selling you know, wine. So being really close to the seller's helps us to understand the buyers and vice versa. That's why we spend a decent amount of time going to trade shows and showing up in publications that we know are relevant to the community because these things are ever evolving. And as these hobbies, these interests, these passion areas ever evolve. And then you know, you have some really interesting categories like toys that are comprised of both collectible items. Like you see that with a lot of certain areas of dolls in certain areas of bears and certain areas of RC parts and things along those lines. But also have a lot of the new and in season items that you'll see with like the fidget spinners or the Hatchimals or the latest collectible card game that comes out. Really spending time with the community and in the industry is critical for us to hear the differences in needs that emerge. Because the nature of many of these categories and the passion and hobby behind them is that their strength comes from their difference. So how do we as a team recognize, acknowledge that and to the extent that we're capable, be able to support it.

Is there something that you can recall in the last year that you learned about buyers within a particular category, something that surfaced that was different from the year before that caused your team to approach these buyers differently? Even to the point of maybe changing the product on the site?

One of the things that we did in Q4 was we spent a good amount of time thinking about what are the top searched items specifics. Which you'll notice as you go through like listing flow and often that'll surface in the left hand Nav. And then thought about how do we enrich the value's there and then start to encourage sellers to include that as they're filling items out so that then when people are searching for items, they'll actually build more history. From a ranking perspective, it will surface in more of the front end product experiences that we have, et cetera. You think about things like year for a sports card. That's a an aspect that we would encourage our sellers to fill out as much as possible because of the fact that if I'm going and I'm searching for a 1973 X, Y or Z, being able to actually have my inventory show up in that filter is really important. So certainly there's the learnings on the, on the product experience and how we keep on trying to partner both with our sellers and with the product team in terms of where we focus our time. But then when I think about specific categories, there's a couple of things that come to mind. One is really understanding some of the rise of colored vinyl. Which is a newer trend or at least a newer trend to me and thinking about, okay, how do we speak to that buyer need.

These are vinyl LPs or 45 records.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. And there's been more of an interest in colored vinyl as opposed to the traditional vinyl. So that's something that's been interesting for us to think about. There are always the individual cultural moments that emerge and understanding what buyers are reacting to and also understanding what they're reacting to last. Right? Like Black Panther and Wonder Woman were very significant cultural moments that ended up reflecting themselves and people self expressing through purchases. And in some cases those add a lot of enduring interest that actually reawakened things that had been on the site for a long period of time because buyers were suddenly discovering these stories a new and saying, Hey, what is out there? And then going in searching on them. And so those were super interesting to learn that. There's also the spate of ion auctions that we've been doing recently in terms of sports cards that have broken various records. And so those in and of themselves bring up all sorts of different issues. I think there are a couple of interesting trends that have emerged over the past couple of years that speak to just how buyers are gamifying the collectible experience, especially the new generation of buyers. For example, we pushed pretty hard to reverse the policy that we had had for a long time against case breaks. And the reason why we did that is because we saw that a lot of our younger collectors within sports trading cards really liked being able to take a stake in a box set and then be able to kind of have a little bit of the excitement of figuring out what kind of card would actually be seen once it was opened and then if it was a very valuable card, being able to benefit in the upside. There are whole YouTube channels right now dedicated to folks who are breaking these boxes as they, as they come out and it's become an interesting business.

Did we not allow that in the past?

No, we, we hadn't allowed it in the past. And so that was an area where the verticals and my team saw that and heard that feedback from sellers and buyers a couple of years ago and said, hey, you know, I'm sure we had good reasons a years ago when we put these policy prevention's in place, but let's refresh the policy. And so that opened that up. Similarly, mystery boxes aren't new, but if you look at a lot of the social activity around eBay, there's influencers who love getting mystery boxes off of eBay and then actually videotaping themselves showcasing what they get. It's a really interesting engaging way to approach a mystery box and it's just sort of people liking the gamification of what they might get from someone else. Again, these categories are constantly evolving because there a reflection of the culture. Our job is to try to stay on top of that and to listen to our sellers and listen to our buyers and understand like how that is evolving and how eBay can be a support and multiplier of that.

I've learned a lot just sitting and listening to you, Sam, as I always do. Thanks again for coming in.

Well, thank you for having me. Always enjoy these conversations.

Same here.

We've been speaking with Sam Bright Sam is the Vice President and General Manager of Soft Goods here at eBay. Stay tuned. We have more coming up in just a moment.

And that's our show for this week.

Oh, it went by so fast.

I know Alan, that happens when you have great guests and great topics.

And don't forget great Hosts!

Aw shucks. We try Alan. Do we know if Doug we'll be back with us soon?

Yeah, Doug is back from his road trip next week. So stay tuned. I believe he's captured a lots of soundbites from attendees at the meetups that he and Brian visited, so we might have some good ones to share during next week's Buzz.

Sellers always have a lot to say to eBay employees. There should be some interesting comments.

To say the least. Tell them what's on for next week Griff.

Certainly next week is the last show on our theme of Know Your Buyers. It will be time to talk Fashion. A subject near and dear to my heart. And to that end we'll meet eBay fashion seller Mary Zaragoza who will talk about how she approaches her fashion buyers.

I bet buyers of fashion have very specific needs.

They do. Like measurements for a start.

Yes measurements. Size XL and size six mean nothing these days.

Oh, tell me about it. Or better yet, tell my closet about it. Standardization is dead. Alan, those old labels mean nothing today.

I see. So you're telling me measurements are an absolute must on eBay.

I am telling you exactly that. If your goal is to maximize buyer happiness and minimize returns on fashion, you really have to include measurements when listing that apparel.

I learn something new every day. I'll make note of that. Thank you. So what's on Inside eBay next week?

Next time on Inside of eBay will talk to the head of the Fashion category. Her name is Renee Paradise and if you sell Apparel, Aka fashion, you're not going to want to miss it. Renee also sells on eBay. So she has some serious skin in the fashion selling game. And if you have something to say, you can always give us a call. You haven't forgotten that hotline number have you?

I sure hope not, but in case you did and in case you want to join in the fun here on the Selling On eBay show by sharing your say with us, give us a call on 888-723-4630.

That's right. Call us on (888) 723-4630. We say on right now because that's very European.

Okay.

Yeah, you can call that hotline anytime of day Alan, Any day of the week you can leave a question or comment and we just might put it on the air.

We have our very own email address where you can send your questions if you prefer. It's sellingonebay@ebay.com. One more time. It's sellingonebay@ebay.com.

Yeah, we look forward to getting your mail. So please send us an email or give us a call. (888) 723-4630 and you know, I know, I know Spring should have sprung by now and for many of you across the country, sadistic, old winter hasn't relaxed it's icy grip. But don't lose hope. Winter can't last forever. Can it?

At least for now it can't.

Yeah, talk about climate change. Spring is coming, so put on those Mukluks and you're wooly toque and your puffy down Parka and sashay down to a local eBay seller meetups in your area. At seller meetups, sellers share lots of stuff like tips and stories, insights and even complaints. And you can see meetups that are scheduled on our special eBay community page for meetups at www.ebay.com/meetups.

And don't forget to tune into our weekly live video stream on the eBay for Business Facebook page every Wednesday at 12:30 pacific go to facebook.com/ebayforbusiness. And also on Wednesdays on our community platform, we have a one hour ask me anything style chat where you can ask eBay employees you're burning questions. You can get to the chat at ebay.com/communitychat. And that is every Wednesday from one to two.

Yeah. Remember if you're jonesing for Audrey, you can always catch her on the Facebook live.

Exactly. Get to see what she's up to these days.

And her fashion sense. She always wears something new.

It's the highlight of my week.

It's the highlight of my week! We miss her so much here and I'm never going to stop saying that Audrey until you come back.

And sadly that's our show for this week. Now break out your handkerchief. It's time to crank the rickety old eBay Podcast credit reel. Director of Community, Brian Burke, Community Manager and Technology and News Editor, Doug Smith, Marketing Strategists, Liz Austin, Editor and Chief and Host Griff. And last but not least, our back by popular demand Cohost you, Alan.

Thank you. Griff. Always good to be here.

Selling On eBay has produced a distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

Hey Griff. You mentioned a toque. What's a toque? And what are Mukluks?

Toque. You don't know what a toque is?

No.

You've never been to Canada?

No I haven't.

It's those wool hats they wear.

Oh Wow.

Yeah. Mukluks are the stuff you wear on your feet when you walk into the snow.

Are They Canadian too?

Actually, they may be Eskimo. I don't know.

Toques and Mukluks. Fun to say.

You do know what a downy Parka is?

I can guess what it is.

You put it on, you go out in the cold. Don't you have cold in Ireland?

We have lots of cold. We have more cold than we have in San Jose, but we would call that a puffer jacket.

A puffer jacket Oh.

Yeah, that's the term we would use.

What would you call something on your head? A Tam o'shanter?

Hair. If you have any.

Yeah, I don't think so. All right, that's the last week you're on the show. We'll see you sometime in the future.

See you later.