February monthly chat?

[valueaddedresource]

devon@ebay  kyle@ebay elizabeth@ebay  - I see no monthly chat topic has been posted for February.

Should we assume that means the winter update will be tomorrow or are y'all just running behind?

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I'm wondering the same thing. 

[dhbookds]

lol,lol,lol,lol,..........is that 10 characters?

[12345jamesstamps]

Maybe they got "let go" with that last lot of employees who lost jobs at eBay.

[wastingtime101]

I believe it's reasonable to assume there will be a seller update tomorrow.

The eBay team is highly unlikely to give us advance notice on a seller update. Not since the days when Alan was managing community did we get a heads up a week or a few days before. The reason Alan did that is because they used to lock the seller update discussion board after a day or two - and often times lock it after business hours - so any seller that had a day job was out of luck when it came to asking questions. That's why we started getting a heads up. But when Sheila came on board they stopped locking those discussion threads and left them open Wed-Fri. We also stopped getting a heads up to clear room in our schedules.

If the eBay team responds to your post at all, history tells us they say they don't have info to share at this time and to look for Announcements. I know you already know that, Liz.

I speculated 2 weeks ago on the Seller Calendar posted here (link) that we'd see a Winter Seller Update in February. History indicates the lack of a chat generally means there's a seller update or event on the horizon.

[wastingtime101]

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@12345jamesstamps wrote:

Maybe they got "let go" with that last lot of employees who lost jobs at eBay.

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Devon, Kyle and Elizabeth have all actively participated on these discussion boards since the layoffs.

[valueaddedresource]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

I believe it's reasonable to assume there will be a seller update tomorrow.

The eBay team is highly unlikely to give us advance notice on a seller update. Not since the days when Alan was managing community did we get a heads up a week or a few days before. The reason Alan did that is because they used to lock the seller update discussion board after a day or two - and often times lock it after business hours - so any seller that had a day job was out of luck when it came to asking questions. That's why we started getting a heads up. But when Sheila came on board they stopped locking those discussion threads and left them open Wed-Fri. We also stopped getting a heads up to clear room in our schedules.

If the eBay team responds to your post at all, history tells us they say they don't have info to share at this time and to look for Announcements. I know you already know that, Liz.

I speculated 2 weeks ago on the Seller Calendar posted here (link) that we'd see a Winter Seller Update in February. History indicates the lack of a chat generally means there's a seller update or event on the horizon.

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@wastingtime101 yeah, but you can't blame a girl for trying. 😉  Definitely agree - I've been expecting it this week any way due to historical trends and I suppose we'll find out soon either way.

[valueaddedresource]

All quiet on the western front and also in Australia, UK and Canada so....doesn't look like there is going to be an update today.

devon@ebay kyle@ebay elizabeth@ebay  - is there going to be a chat today? Even just an open topic session or "bon voyage" party for brian_burke@ebay ?

[dhbookds]

agree with you............there's a chat scheduled in the UK for today.........

[dhbookds]

weird, no answer? 

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Just tossing this into the mix: Seller Check In, apparently the first of three this year (remember when they were monthly?) is March 7th. No detailed agenda just yet, but it does say:

"We’re kicking off our seller event series with a focus on product updates that make your eBay business more efficient. 

Plus, the fashion team will be here to discuss trends and some exciting customer experience enhancements." 

So, presumably between now and March 7th, there might at least be some product updates and "customer enhancements", at least in the fashion category (perhaps the next Focus Category?). My guess is, any Winter Update will be sometime between now and the 7th. But who knows? 

As I've been saying for years, it would be much appreciated if ebay would give us some advance notice for the Updates, so we could set time aside to review it the day it comes out. 

[valueaddedresource]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:

Just tossing this into the mix: Seller Check In, apparently the first of three this year (remember when they were monthly?) is March 7th. No detailed agenda just yet, but it does say:

"We’re kicking off our seller event series with a focus on product updates that make your eBay business more efficient. 

Plus, the fashion team will be here to discuss trends and some exciting customer experience enhancements." 

So, presumably between now and March 7th, there might at least be some product updates and "customer enhancements", at least in the fashion category (perhaps the next Focus Category?). My guess is, any Winter Update will be sometime between now and the 7th. But who knows? 

As I've been saying for years, it would be much appreciated if ebay would give us some advance notice for the Updates, so we could set time aside to review it the day it comes out. 

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques I was thinking the same after reading the description of the check in. I'm with you that I can't really see any good reason for eBay to keep the update date a secret....and can see plenty of good reasons and benefits to giving advanced notice, like you mentioned allowing sellers to set aside time to review it and participate in discussions.

At the very least, it would be nice to get an answer about the chat today - that is something that is not normally "secret" and usually planned in advance with a consistent schedule (with the exception of last month.)

The blues have been active and responding to other threads in the community in the last 24 hours so it would seem unlikely there is some emergency or something that has caused all of them to be unable to either answer here or post an update in the chat section to advise whether or not there will be a chat today.

Even if they had originally been planning for an update today and it got postponed for some reason....no reason they can't just open the chat up to general discussion or post a notice saying there won't be one today.

As usual, the choices eBay makes about "seller engagement" continue to baffle me when there is so much low hanging fruit/little things they could do to improve the dialogue and seller trust.

[mr_lincoln]

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@dhbookds wrote:

agree with you............there's a chat scheduled in the UK for today.........

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@dhbookds 

Go join that one ... nothing stopping US members from logging in to the other domain boards ... It's been a while but I have posted on the UK board in the past ... nice folks over there too.

[mr_lincoln]

@valueaddedresource , @my-cottage-books-and-antiques , @dhbookds , @wastingtime101 , @12345jamesstamps 

I suspect that there might be some internal reorganizing and restructuring with regard to the eBay Support Team for The Community pursuant to the group that has been let go from the company.  

February may wind up being a wash for some things ... we're still waiting for confirmation on the February Mentors meeting.  It may wind up getting pushed to March, who knows.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

@valueaddedresource 

"Even if they had originally been planning for an update today and it got postponed for some reason....no reason they can't just open the chat up to general discussion or post a notice saying there won't be one today.

As usual, the choices eBay makes about "seller engagement" continue to baffle me when there is so much low hanging fruit/little things they could do to improve the dialogue and seller trust."

Yep, and if it was planned for today, but ahd to be postponed, well, that's a great opportunity to say : "We were going to release it today, but we had to postpone it until (fill in new date)"

As you say, there are all these little, easy things ebay could do to improve seller trust and enhance dialogue, but this company seems determined to do the opposite. Given the highly competitive environment existing today, you'd think the sensible approach would be to do everything they can to engage their sellers in a positive way.