Episode 138 || Coded Coupons; Preparing for the Summer Retail Moments

[podcast_team]

This week, eBay Product Manager Berengere Chaintreau-Fuchs gives us a deep dive into the new coded coupon feature; Kirsty Dunn brings us the best submissions of tips from sellers from our recent Sweepstakes; Griff unearths an interview from the eBay Open 2019 archives about one of his favorite topics; and Rebecca joins this week to help answer three eBay seller questions about parcel sizes, feedback and retrieving old eBay data.

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Show Links:
eBay Help Page on the EU Rules Regarding Products Marked with CE
REGULATION (EU) 2019/1020 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
Guidelines for economic operators and market surveillance authorities on the practical implementatio...
Recent eBay Sweepstakes Post on the eBay For Business Facebook page
Promotions Manager (coded coupons)
Daniel Gallhager’s eBay Store Refurb-World-LLC

Rebecca: This week on the eBay For Business Podcast:

Bérengère: “Well, one of the things that eBay sellers have told us over the years is that they like codeless coupons, but they were not using it a lot because of the fact that it was not capped, the budget could have gone up to the roof. So one of the main things that we are introducing with coded coupons is that you can set up a budget until which the code will work and then you can choose either to top out or the coupon code will start to work.”

Rebecca: I'm Rebecca.

Griff: I'm Griffin and this is the eBay For Business Podcast, your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start, run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 138. Welcome back, Rebecca.

Rebecca: I'm so glad to be here Griff. How are you? How's your week been?

Griff: The week has been great, very busy, but of course we talk about this every week. I don't think they'll ever be a week where we say, well, you know, this week, I didn't have much to do.

Rebecca: Better busy than bored, I suppose.

Griff: Absolutely.

Rebecca: This week I've been thinking about dogs.

Griff: Dogs?

Rebecca: Yeah. you know, I love dogs and I've been thinking about getting one. I'm not sure that I'm ready for a 15 year commitment though, but I have been thinking, is it time to get a dog? I know a lot of people out there have COVID puppies or they did. And I don't know. I think it might be my turn.

Griff: It's never not time to get a dog.

Rebecca: What is it that they say? The best time to get a dog was 10 years ago. The second best time is today. No, I think that is trees.

Griff: Think of it this way. There are so many dogs waiting to be adopted. You'll be doing your part in keeping them from being sent off to the glue factory.

Rebecca: It is true. I just, you know, I need to check in with my cat to see how she feels about it.

Griff: You've got to check in with a cat. You know how the cat feels about it.

Rebecca: We know who runs this house. It's the cat.

Griff: I suggest getting a puppy if you have a cat.

Rebecca: A puppy is a commitment. It is. But cats relate much better to a puppy than they will to an adult dog.

Rebecca: This is true. So who's on the podcast this week.

Griff: Well, first up, we'll talk with Kirsty Dunn. She's back to share some of the tips that she collected from sellers who submitted posts for our latest sweepstakes on Facebook. And then we're going to dive into the new coded coupons feature with eBay's Product Manager, Bérengère Chaintreau Fuchs. And finally, we'll take a trip and the way back machine to eBay Open 2019, where we interviewed eBay seller, Daniel Gallagher, who sells wait for it...

Rebecca: Could it be thermal printers?

Griff: Bingo. You know I'm never going to let this rest. But first the news for the week of April 26th, 2021.

Rebecca: First in the news, we have great news, which is that you no longer need a store subscription to access Terapeak product research. It's now totally free. eBay announced that we are expanding our suite of research tools to help you grow your business and stay competitive. First of all, you no longer need a store subscription to access Terapeak. This is a research tool. Terapeak is where you can dig into eBay marketplace data to get insights into what's selling where it's selling, how much things are selling for. You can use Terapeak product research to optimize your listing titles, your item specifics, your pricing, lots more.

Griff: And then Rebecca, we have an addendum for something we announced last week in last week's episode news. So for the news of the previous episode 137, we mentioned the recent announcement regarding the sale of products with a CE symbol into the European union. And since that announcement, we've heard from not a few sellers requesting more details or clarifications about the EU guidelines. Now, as we mentioned in the news last week, we would love to provide those details. But the truth is we simply don't have any more information to provide beyond what is stated in the announcement post and the help pages regarding this issue.

Rebecca: Griff, the headline here is that this is not an eBay policy and eBay doesn't have any plans to enforce the EU rule, but sellers, if you sell products into the EU with that CE label, you will definitely want to be sure that your parcels are in compliance with those rules. There are links in the help page to the EU pages that spell out all of the requirements and the guidelines.

Griff: And again, I want to reiterate this again, this is an EU rule. It's not an eBay rule, and we really don't have more details to provide beyond what's in the announcement, our own help pages and on the EU web pages for this particular law. And we'll put all of those links in the transcript for episode 138.

Rebecca: And more news item, which is that remember next week is small business week. So be sure to tune in to our next episode, when we'll have lots more information to talk about, and I'll be back to help answer questions in a little while, but in the meantime it's sweepstakes time.

Griff: One thing you can always count on with eBay sellers is that nearly every seller has their own way of doing business, which presents a virtual goldmine of seller tips and advice as evidenced by the copious submissions to the recent eBay Seller Sweepstakes. And here with me now to go over the questions that were asked and some of the best of the best answers posted is eBay Senior Manager of seller engagement and our good friend of the podcast, Kirsty Dunn. Welcome back Kirsty.

Kirsty: Thank you Griff.

Griff: So what do you have for us this time? I'm curious.

Kirsty: Yeah. So I think you covered it pretty well. We've got some of our seller tips and some of the top tips that were entered as part of the recent sweepstakes. So obviously we are in spring now summer is hopefully around the corner. So we're going to talk about some seasonality tips and tricks and what sellers do to get ready and also talk about some of their biggest retail moments.

Griff: Every time you run one of these sweepstakes, the way you start it off is you have a question that you ask, you put at the top of a Facebook post and then any seller can then post their responses. What are the questions that you asked this time,

Kirsty: This time with the kind of theme of seasonality we asked other than the holiday season? What's the biggest retail moment for what you sell. And then we also asked, how are you preparing your business for the Memorial day weekend retail moment? So we wanted to find out what sellers were doing right now to get ready for Memorial day.

Griff: We have the answers here with us in a list and just like last time, why don't you and I take turns reading from this list of submitted tips?

Kirsty: So the first one we have is Erica Broderick. She's talking about how she gets ready for Memorial day. And she says that she gets all of the shorts and the swimsuits listed. So that makes perfect sense to me.

Griff: Yeah. Better to do it now than in September. Elisa Padea or Padilla. She posted, we normally change out our featured items on our store. Hmm. That's a good suggestion. And do some social posting of unique holiday items people can purchase from our store. We also make sure that our holiday listings have essential holiday keywords in the description. Kirsty what would be keywords for Memorial day, besides Memorial day?

Kirsty: Like summer swimsuit or something like that, or Memorial day, summer beach, sun, everything that connotation of, of summer and all that goodness that happens after the Memorial day weekend.

Griff: We've had over a year now of people being walked up. And I think there's a lot of buyers champing at the bit to get out. So yeah, those are good keywords. What's the next one?

Kirsty: Zila Fluerdeli, She actually gives some awesome tips on our sweepstakes. I recognize this name. She said by listing more, sending more offers, I just ordered more packing supplies as well, organizing my inventory. The more I list, I need to keep track of my items to not get them lost.

Griff: That's so true.

Kirsty: All about preparation. Preparation is key.

Griff: Yeah. Our next one's from an old friend of the podcast. In fact, she was just on recently. I'd love to be selling, Kathy Terrill. And she says, making sure all my red, white and blue items are listed. It is that time of a year from Memorial day to July 4th, when all things American are on a lot of buyers minds. So she's smart there.

Kirsty: Yeah. And that's actually a perfect segue into the next tip from Tana Taylor. She says she's never actually felt like Memorial day was a big selling time for her, but she does do well with Americana. She does get sales from that and she just says, her next focus is flag day in June and 4th of July. She's already thinking even further ahead.

Griff: Yeah. That's pretty smart. I hadn't, I hadn't considered flag day, but that's, that's a big holiday for lots of people across the country. Our next one's from Melanie McClanahan. And she says running a sale on my summer items, boat, camper, and RV products really sell well during Memorial day. Good tip.

Kirsty: Yeah. Getting ready to head out for the summer. And like you said, I think even more so this year, I think everyone is just chomping at the bit to get out there and get across the country, see some loved ones, hopefully or some friends and family, or just get out of the same four walls.

Griff: I think a lot of people may be looking to get away from the people they've been locked up with for the last year. Perhaps that as well. What's our next tip?

Kirsty: Holly Goodwin says list as much as possible and consider the idea of running a sale.

Griff: Oh yeah. Sales, like Melanie said before, sales are always big grabbers for customer eyeballs and eBay provides all the tools to do it. You can use any of the Promotions Manager Tools to help build that sale and really promote it.

Kirsty: And even then you coded coupons are perfect.

Griff: We're going to talk about that on our next segment with Bérengère and so stay tuned for that. Beth Flood says, I sell lots of kids chapter books year round, but sales increased big time in the early summer months when kids no longer get books from the school library, which is heartening to know that there are still kids, reading books.

Kirsty: I love it. Yeah. I personally can't. I never got into Kindle or anything like that. It has to be a physical book for me turning the pages. I just ordered three more.

Griff: Creature of habit.

Kirsty: Yeah, exactly. So Kimberly Dermitt says spring is always a great time for more sales people roll out of their winter slump, looking for fresh clothing, bright deco, treasured collectibles, hello tax refunds, and warm weather toys. She's saying we're out of hibernation. We've got some money to spend from our tax refund and we want to freshen things up and get ready for summer.

Griff: Keep in mind if you're a seller that this year, the tax deadline has been extended to May 15th. So people may not be getting any refunds until May or the last few weeks of May or first few weeks of June, that's fresh money burning to get out of a buyer's hand. So you want to be positioned so that you can pick up on that.

Kirsty: Exactly. Yeah. There's still a good few weeks of that. So take advantage.

Griff: Pam McAllister says summer with an explanation point. Not only is it a beautiful time of year, but I sell lots of fun summer items for the whole family to enjoy. The biggest moments for my business, Pam says was when we all got together for eBay Open and then eBay upFront meetings. She says, I miss seeing my eBay peeps in person.

Kirsty: Yeah, hopefully next year in person. But we still got plenty of virtual events, which I hope Pam is joining so monthly events and we have Open coming up in August. So I hope she's coming to those meetings.

Griff: Yes. And some of our sellers they'll post many different answers. And this is a good example of someone we're going to use twice because she always has something good to say.

Kirsty: We have Alyssa who you just said before. She says, we carry all sorts of items in our store, but we've noticed that our seasonal items sell well when the season gets close. So we have to stay on top of things and make sure we have inventory for that particular season.

Griff: Doug Woodall says every sale is big for me. I especially enjoy communicating with the buyer as I sell vintage toys and it's fun to compare stories about what we had as kids. Well, that's the old eBay for you right there.

Kirsty: I just love that. It is all about the connections and the stories and yeah, that's incredible. Justin Hancock says with warm weather comes yard sales. There I can find more interesting items to sell. So he's obviously doing that to find his inventory going around the houses and finding out what people are selling and reselling and listing. So yeah.

Griff: Very smart move. This is the time of the year people are dying to get out, not just to enjoy the summer. There are lots of people who need to get out and sell things. So there's a lots of yard sales happening in my neighborhood.

Kirsty: Well, spring cleaning is in full force.

Griff: The next three are all related to the next big holiday retail moment, Mother's Day. Rose wrote, I mostly sell vintage brooches sales seem to go up at each holiday plus mother's Day, well jewelry. It's always hot at Mother's Day.

Kirsty: Yeah, exactly. And then Sandy Thompson says Mother's Day tends to be big for me. I wonder what she sells.

Griff: And Jason Smith said the same Mother's Day is huge. There you go. Three for the Mother's Day.

Kirsty: And then Nicole DeSanto, who I also recognize she enters these sweepstakes a lot and give some awesome tips. She says, a lot of what I sell are sports jerseys and vintage clothing. So the start of each major sports season right now is baseball. And I listed a few dozen vintage baseball hats last week.

Griff: Especially since stadiums are reopening and people want to have their best baseball garb on when they go in.

Kirsty: Yeah. They want the new gear. So it makes sense.

Griff: Kirsty, are the sweepstake entries closed now? Or can sellers still submit tips for consideration?

Kirsty: They are now closed, so you can't win the hundred dollar prize, but if you find the posts you can set and they still comment on them, I've noticed actually quite a lot of new comments since it closed, but watch this space. It certainly won't be the last time that you can either give you a tips or win some gift cards. So watch this space. I'd just like to thank everyone who entered and everyone who submitted these awesome tips. And we'll continue to share these on the podcast as well.

Griff: Well, thanks again, Kirsty. It's always a pleasure and we look forward to the next sweepstakes.

Kirsty: Thank you so much, Griff.

Griff: Kirsty Dunn is eBay Senior Manager Of Seller Engagement, and we've been going over some of the many seller tips that were submitted on the eBay For Business Facebook thread. And I'll put some links up so you can find them straight away.

Griff: With a recent Seller Update eBay announced a change for seller coupons from what we all know and we've known for years as codeless coupons to the new coded coupons. Here to illuminate exactly what coded coupons are, is Head Of Product Marketing Bérengère Chaintreau-Fuchs. Welcome Bérengère.

Bérengère: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Griff: What exactly are coded coupons?

Bérengère: coded coupon is a new way for eBay sellers to reach out to buyers and offer discounts. So they are a way to offer a specific discount to eBay buyer and to share a code with them publicly on eBay or privately through their own channels.

Griff: And when we say code, this is an actual like set of letters or numbers or characters that a seller creates, correct?

Bérengère: Totally. Yes. They will be able to actually customize their codes and choose the one that they wanted to use.

Griff: The biggest difference between what we've all come to know over the years as codeless coupons, which is basically a URL. How do oded coupons themselves differ in other ways from the old codeless coupon product?

Bérengère: Well, one of the things that eBay sellers have told us over the years is that they like codeless coupons, but they were not using it a lot because of the fact that it was not capped, the budget could have gone up to the roof. So one of the main things that we are introducing with coded coupons is that you can set up a budget until which the code will work and then you can choose either to top out or the coupon code will start to work.

Griff: So I can say I'm setting up, we call it a campaign by the way.

Bérengère: And yes, it is a campaign.

Griff: And the name of the campaign is the same as the coded coupon characters. So when I'm setting that up, I can say, look, I want to give this discount out on this particular coded coupon, but I don't want to have to give out more than a hundred dollars say in discounts, I can set that as my budget. And then what happens once I've actually given out that amount of discounts?

Bérengère: Well, if it is a public coupon, then it will be stopped to be shown on your listing. If it is a private coupon, it will just not work anymore at checkout. I think we would just encourage sellers to be careful with this in the way that you don't want to disappoint your buyers. So, you know, be clear about the categories and the way that you will use this and choose the budget that you think will work for the campaigns and the coupons that you're using.

Griff: I see. So for example, someone like me, I actually have a codeless coupon. Pretty soon it won't exist that I give to anyone who has a return and it's a 25% off on their next purchase. I'll be able to do that with a coded coupon, but I don't really care about the budget. Part of that. How do I set a budget that's just infinite?

Bérengère: The budget is completely optional. So you don't have to set up a budget, which is in this case would be good. And actually, I have to say the use case that you just mentioned is actually the one that we wanted to be able to offer. To be able to drive buyers back to your listings or to your store, through the use of a coded coupon. And to do that, we have two ways to do it. Either you share this coupon code yourself, or even writing it down in the parcel but we will also be offering soon the ability to print a coupon from Seller Hub order tabs for each order that you are completing.

Griff: Is there a limit to how many different coded coupons I can have active at any given time?

Bérengère: Not really, not really. There will probably be a limit, but no, you can even set up a coupon for each listings that you have if you want to. Now, you may have very long code names that might not work for the buyers.

Griff: Yeah. It's nice to keep it short and simple that they can actually remember. Right? You don't want to have to actually have them go hunting for it, it's a 20 character name. Is there a limit to the number of characters in a coded coupons name?

Bérengère: Yeah. There is one and you will be guided into the screen to choose a coupon code. Of course you can also not use a coupon code that someone else has already set up. That might be also something that you encounter. If you type something that is active at the moment with someone else, then you will not be able to use it.

Griff: Oh, okay. So you're going to have to get pretty inventive right off.

Bérengère: I think so but that could be, then you can use your brand name.

Griff: Exactly that is what I was going to ask next. I can actually have my brand name in the Coded Coupon itself. Where else can a seller use a coded coupon, both on and off eBay?

Bérengère: So on eBay as a public coupon then the coupon code will be shown in search results and in UI temps or the page where your listing is shown. And so that's the main way to actually share the coupon. On the private coupon another way that you can use it, you can include it into an M2M message if you are into a conversation with a customer. We talked about adding it into the parcel. Another use case is actually also to use social media. If you have a social media presence, you can also use this code to drive buyers to your listings. And there will be also a few things coming up very soon about this from Seller Hub.

Griff: Can a seller use a coded coupon in conjunction with another promotion from Promotion Manager, say a volume discount or a shipping discount?

Bérengère: Yeah. They could be overlapped with promotions. It is the same way that it is used today, which means that actually when there is different level of discounts in the same items, it is the one that is the most favorable to the buyer that is picked up at checkout. Which actually we think is the right thing to do for the buyers and have also the sellers to have a peace of mind that it will not be any problem if someone has seen something and then something else is shown at checkout.

Griff: I see this when I'm buying on other retail sites, if they have a coupon, usually they only allow, they'll say you can use one of the coupon codes, right. But you can't use a series of them together.

Bérengère: Yeah. And that's where I want to make clear of what I just said. It is when you have overlapping of different types of promotions or different order discounts, different volume pricing. If you have different coupons is the one that the buyer will use that will be applied because it's the one that helped get on. But now, if there is a public coupon that is on at the same time that there is a private coupon, that is more interesting, this is the one that will be picked up.

Griff: One of the cool things about Promoted Listing changes was the fact that the new campaigns can be automated. Is that also a possibility with coded coupons?

Bérengère: This is an interesting question because these automated from scratch in a way that you can actually make a rule in Promotions Manager and Seller Hub marketing tab where you say that every item of a specific category of a specific condition or even item price could be automatically added to a campaign. And so you can have a running promotions campaign, you know, the 25% off for returning buyers, for example, that you were talking about. When you said, well, every time I'm adding a listing to this category, this become relatable to it. It's using the tools that are existing already, but there is not like the same thing as an Offer To Buyers where, you know, you set up the listing, you click on the check box and then it's automated.

Griff: You can set up a series of rules or you can choose not to. The seller customizes this. And one of the customizations can be like, this coupon expires on this date.

Bérengère: Totally. So you have a start date and an end date. And it is important to actually when you share this coupon code with your buyers, that if you an end date, then you actually make it clear from the onsite. On the order shipping notice, for example, you need to be clear if there is an end date, even if it is in a year, for example, that would be better for the buyer to know.

Griff: Because if they're going to hold onto it, they want to know, look, I got to use it before a certain date. It can actually for sellers be an incentive to get people to buy saying, this is a special coupon. It's good for 24 hours, use it or lose it. I love those kinds of coupons as a buyer. Which sellers will have access to coded coupons. Is it all sellers or is it just sellers, for example, with stores or how does that work?

Bérengère: Very good question. So like order discounts and markdowns, it is actually included into your store subscriptions. So it's only sellers that have a store, even basics, you know, all stores tiers are covered, but we'll have access to Coded Coupons.

Griff: What about Starter Stores?

Bérengère: Starter Stores are included, sorry I missed it because it's not in the UK.

Griff: Are there plans to update or add any other features to coded coupons that you can sort of tease at this point?

Bérengère: So I can't say too much because my colleagues will actually hate me. So what I just want to say is that really coded coupons is something that you want to advance on. And I think that the general idea of coupon or being able to actually offer targeted discounts to sellers, we are looking at different options of how to do that. How to drive traffic back to, you know, seller stores. Definitely this is something we want to look at and see how we can take this to the next level in term of social sharing, in term of driving traffic to your eBay listings from outside of eBay.

Griff: Well Bérengère I want to thank you so much for stopping by and telling us about coded coupons. We all look forward to seeing how that product is going to evolve over the coming months and year.

Bérengère: No problem. And I'm also very excited to see this coming to life. I will also encourage everybody to use the feedback link on Seller Hub Marketing tab to let us know about how to go with this. I'm actually receiving those emails.

Griff: Product Teams, by the way, really depend on sellers who are using these products to let them know what they like, what they don't like, what they'd like to see added. These are really important ideas that come up through feedback so do use those. Bérengère, I want to thank you again. Thanks for stopping by.

Bérengère: No problem. Thank you very much.

Griff: Bérengère Chaintreau-Fuchs works as the Head Of Product in a global sense for eBay and she has been talking to us about the new coded coupon.

Griff: Way back in the long ago, before times during our last eBay Live event in Las Vegas, back in 2019, we recorded a lot of interviews with attendees who were onsite and we did manage to air many of them. During the first few months of our podcast, I was rummaging around in the podcast vault of treasured archives. When I discovered one interview with an eBay seller named Daniel Gallagher, that we somehow did not manage to air at the time. And given the topic, I thought well, better late than never. Let's listen in... (harp music playing)

Griff: It's five o'clock and we're going to do one more interview today. And today we're going to talk with Daniel Gallagher who approached us earlier, and he has a t-shirt on that says, Ask Me About Thermal Printers. Welcome Daniel.

Daniel : Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Griff: What's the issue with eBay sellers and printers that you see as is really holding them back?

Daniel : Well, the people on eBay generally think the cost of these printers are really high. So a lot of times they don't want to look into purchasing them and stuff. The other thing is too that we get a lot of setup issues, so they're not the easiest to configure, but they are amazing tools to use. I don't know why anyone would want to not have one of these printers to go ahead and print their things on. Generally, without even mentioning any companies, they generally run anywhere for about $100 to $150 for a refurbished one. And they work really well.

Griff: And explain what a thermal printer is as opposed to an ink general laser printer.

Daniel : Well, the thermal printer basically heats a label and it produces an image on the label. And it's very nice because it doesn't smear. They're cheaper in the long run because you don't have to pay for ink for the printers, they are awesome. I mean, you get a flawless image, crisp and clear print quality, and the Post Office can scan them and you just peel the sticker and you put it on the box. UPS And FedEx will sometimes give you the labels for free. So it's a good fit.

Griff: You don't have to cut paper. You don't have to tape it to the package. What sparked the question on the last show was a seller who was using our new print flow and they want to be able to print one label on a half of an eight by 10 sheet and they're going to cut it. And it was just really complicated. And we said, you know, why are you doing this? Get a thermal printer.

Daniel : It's just night and day difference on how much easier it is. Why would you spend your time cutting and pasting and spending money on ink when you could be spending your time doing things that are more productive for your business?

Griff: And with a thermal printer, they'll print out. I think the standard that most people use is the 6x4.

Daniel : Yeah. It's a 4x6, it's a direct thermal label. And pretty much these printers are good with just about any application.

Griff: You have a company that sells thermal printers. Most of them are refurbished, but not all of them.

Daniel : Yes, mostly.

Griff: But you do something that some companies don't do, which has helped with the setup, explain.

Daniel : Each one of our direct thermal printers, they come with a USB flash drive. And when you open up the flash drive and they have links for different things. One link is, you know, like the drivers, the manuals. We have another link for a team viewer, which is a support where we can remotely log in and set these units up for you. Cause we know sometimes it can be challenging. Then we also have like set up video links on there too. So it'll, it'll link you to YouTube. And if we have a video that's prepared, it'll generally walk you through the setup process, to where it becomes an easier process. And if you really get frustrated, you just pick up the phone and call us. We have live US-based support and we're very easy to get ahold of. And we also stand behind what we sell. So if there's issues with the printers, we generally take care of whatever. Nothing's perfect, but we do our best.

Griff: So Daniel, what's the name of the company,

Daniel : Refurb World, LLC. We're out of Cleveland, Ohio. If you look us up on eBay, we're generally the top listing on there. We have very high feedback. We're Top Rated. We offer free returns. It's refurb-world-LLC is our username on eBay. And we just try to give the best experience with these printers. And we feel that once you get one of these over time, you'll never go back.

Griff: I'm sold. I have three of these and I wouldn't live without them. And I don't understand why any seller would not have a thermal printer. What are some of the brands that you like to talk about?

Daniel : The two major brands that I actually, I just love. One is like a Dymo and the other one's a Zebra. Zebra to me has been the absolute best printer. I'm not even going to mention any models or like, it doesn't matter which model you have as long as it's compatible with what they're doing. But they're absolutely awesome. They're workhorses. You can literally have them plugged in for like 5 years, 10 years. The only thing you'll end up changing is a print head. As long as you maintain them and stuff, they're absolutely amazing.

Griff: And the labels, you can get them in big bulks and they're generic. They don't have to be of a particular brand and they're not expensive.

Daniel : Yeah, there, they end up if he, if he averaged the cost of your ink versus the paper and the time that you're doing this, there's no comparison because there's no ink involved in these. And like I said, I mean, you can get stacks of fan folds for cheap and just print out as many. I don't care if you're doing five labels a day, or if you're doing 500 a day, these printers will just keep working nonstop and over and over.

Griff: So to learn more, you want to visit Daniel's page on eBay, Daniel Gallagher. I'm so glad I met you because this is one of my missions. And I found an ally who can help. Sellers you have got to start using thermal printers for your labels. There's no argument. There's no excuse. Daddy Griff has told you, you must obey. And I've got the backing of a great vendor who knows exactly why. Daniel Gallagher thank you so much.

Daniel : Awesome. Thank you very much for your time.

Griff: We'll put the links to Daniel's eBay store, refurb dash world dash LLC. In the transcript for episode 138. It's never too late to air a great interview, and it's never too late to add a thermal printer to your arsenal of eBay tools of maximum efficiency.

Rebecca: It's time for you got questions.

Griff: We got answers.

Rebecca: And our first question this week comes from Nate who writes, hello, eBay For Business Podcast. I have a quick question. I do the majority of my listings on the mobile app and I weigh and measure all of my packages at the time of listing. Once the item sells, I use my mobile app to ship the item. And every time I click print shipping label, the package dimensions that I've entered in advance have flipped. For example, the height is now listed in the length box and length is in the height box. I know this probably doesn't affect the final shipping costs, but it seems like it should be a really easy fix and it would relieve some frustration if this bug was fixed. Thank you. I enjoy the podcast, Nate, northernsourcer.

Griff: Very interesting requests. Thank you Nate, for sending it in. Nate, you're partially correct. The flipping of the measurements won't make a difference for, I think safely say 90% of the shipments you send out, but it could possibly be an issue if the package is a really large and long one since U S P S uses a measurement called girth to determine the cost of shipping. Now, girth is the length of the box plus the width of the box times two and the height of the box times two. You could see that if it was just a square box or a rectangle, it's not going to make much of a difference, but if it's a really long box, mixing up those sizes could possibly give two different totals and that could result in you're not paying enough or you're paying too much. So yeah, it's important to get those right.

Rebecca: Unless your package is a large one with a girth plus length of 108 inches or more, or 130 inches or more for the USPS Retail Ground Shipping. The switching won't make a difference and Nate doesn't need to be concerned. But that said, we will make sure that the Mobile Team receives your report, Nate, so that they can investigate and fix the issue.

Griff: Yes. And I'll send that right away. Our next question was sent to podcast@ebay.com by eBay seller, Richard who wrote hi Griff and Rebecca and Brian. Don't you see how he got all three of us in there. I'm a new seller and I've been enjoying the podcast. Thank you. In episode 137, I heard about leaving positive feedback for buyers first, which in turn may encourage buyers to leave positive feedback for sellers. I leave positive feedback for buyers after they've received their items and the return period has passed. Otherwise. I think the only basis for leaving feedback for a buyer first is because the buyer has paid for the item. Are there other advantages to leaving positive feedback for buyers first? Thanks again, PS: Griff, My goal is to grow my business and get a thermal printer. Good job. Thank you. I enjoy the podcast, Richard. Well, thanks Richard. And I, I think I see a thermal printer in your future.

Rebecca: So Griff let's talk this room. Why would Richard wait to leave his feedback for his buyers? Wouldn't it be best to just leave it once a buyer has paid? I mean, payment is basically the only responsibility on the part of the buyer.

Griff: Yes, you're correct. But I believe that some sellers actually hold out from leaving buyers feedback until they are sure the transaction has been completed with no issues.

Rebecca: Okay. But why would a seller do that?

Griff: Well, I've investigated and some sellers have expressed that they will only leave feedback for a buyer If that buyer doesn't indicate any dissatisfaction. So they wait until the buyer has received the item and either says nothing in the way of feedback or leaves the seller positive feedback. And doesn't ask to return the item. Then they leave the buyer feedback at that point. I think it's kind of a subtle way for sellers to, I think they're protecting themselves and maybe punishing a buyer by withholding feedback for that buyer.

Kirsty: Is that the right strategy?

Griff: Well right or wrong. I guess it's a choice. It isn't a violation of eBay policy, but in my view, it's wrong-headed as a business move first, you know, buyers aren't stupid. They know, and they believe that they should get feedback for the act of purchasing an item. They bought it, they paid for it. If a seller doesn't leave feedback first buyers are more likely than not to say, I'm not going to bother leaving feedback for that seller. So when I've checked, you know, I occasionally get complaints about this. Sellers will say I got a low rate of feedback. And then I go look at their left feedback and they don't tend to leave buyer's feedback first. And our own research shows that buyers tend to leave feedback more eagerly and they leave more as a rate of left feedback for sellers who actually leave feedback for them first.

Rebecca: And selling a lot longer than I have, but I've shopped on eBay also for many years. And you know, when a seller leaves me feedback, that kind of creates a social contract where I feel more obligated to go and give my own feedback as a buyer to that seller.

Griff: You're not alone. A lot of buyers have told us this when we do our buyer research.

Rebecca: interesting. Richard if you want to get more feedback, win more customers and grow your business, you should consider leaving feedback for buyers the minute they pay. Or you could even, I mean, run your own little informal AB test. As we like to call it here. Pick a set of items that you do leave feedback for and a set of that you don't and see if you get more buyer feedback out of those and you know, you can test and learn on your stores, just like we do here at eBay with the products that we build.

Griff: Yeah. Great suggestion. AB test. We love it.

Rebecca: Off to our next question. This was sent to you as a Facebook message. Right Griff?

Griff: Yes, it was. And I asked the sender after I read it, if I could use her message on the podcast because, well, she has a question and a lament that is probably very familiar to many sellers. And I promised to keep her anonymous. She wrote Griff, I've dug myself into a hole. I had all my info from eBay and PayPal from past years on a computer that one of the disks fried and I was able to salvage some, but I have no idea how much I made or was paid by eBay in 2018. Last year of back taxes. I don't owe, I'm just lazy. Anyway, to get that information I have downloaded all my 2020 invoices and the same with PayPal since I use that. And I think I can see Managed Payments. Is there any way as our family says, is there a rats chance in hell of getting my 2018 data back? It has to be somewhere and yes, yes. I bought a bazillion gigabyte, portable backup, signed anonymous.

Rebecca: Who hasn't lost data because of hard drive issues. We actually lost the first three months of photos of my son when he was a baby for something very similar. It was really sad. How about you? Have you ever had to deal with this Griff?

Griff: Yes. In fact, I know if I want to fess up to this, uh, you know, I wrote this book called The Official eBay Bible and it went into three printings. There were three editions. And for the second edition, I lost the entire finished manuscript of that edition. And it was like three weeks before it was due at the publishers. I lost it because I didn't make a backup copy and my laptop was stolen out of the back of my car while we were eating at a restaurant in San Jose. And the next day we were leaving for Hawaii. So I had to find a new laptop and I had to take it with me to a Hawaiian and all during the vacation, I sat on the Lanai and had to rewrite this book from scratch. So I'm sorry, anonymous seller, who I happened to know, but whose name I'm not using, but sales data from 2018 is long gone. Perhaps in the future as areas sort of teased, we'll keep data for longer, but for now listings disappear after 90 days and your sales and invoices only go back two years. And that's with Managed Payment. For stuff before Managed Payment it's not there.

Rebecca: Wow. That's tough. So is there any solution for this?

Griff: No, there's no solution for actual current dilemma that is finding the sales data for 2018, but I have two suggestions to help prevent this in the future. Each presumes, a regular download of your eBy sales data on a monthly or quarterly basis. The first suggestion is to start using a cloud service like Google drive or Dropbox, or if you're a Mac user iCloud and then store copies of all your important documents there. I just started using iCloud Rebecca with my iMac and my iPhone. I really like it. Do you use cloud service yourself?

Rebecca: Griff, at this point I'm paranoid and I tend to save things in two different places. So I use both Google drive and iCloud for many of my most important document.

Griff: Smart, very, very smart. And my second suggestion involves a little money and that's to avoid mechanical, hard drives. I know, I know. Mechanical, hard drives are really inexpensive right now and their low price per gigabyte makes them a tempting purchase. But I have to tell you, after one too many hard drive failures, one last week where I actually turned the wrong way and knocked it on the ground. I lost five terabytes of data, which I had already backed up. So no problem, but I would have liked to have kept the drive. I now move everything I store on my end. For example, my Mac backup to time machine photos, important documents. I do this all on solid state drives, which as the name implies has no moving parts like spinning disks and moving little beater arms, which are the main parts that tend to fail in a hard drive.

Rebecca: Solid state drives are more expensive, but are they really fail safe?

Griff: No storage medium is absolutely a hundred percent fail safe, but solid state drives have no moving parts, which as I said, it's the main reason that other hard drives, the traditional hard drives fail.

Rebecca: So the up shot here is to use at least one cloud storage option like iCloud, Google drive, Dropbox, something like that. And then trade out traditional hard drive storage for solid state hard drives. That's the best advice for sellers?

Griff: yes. That's it in a nutshell.

Rebecca: Well anonymous. I know this, isn't the answer you were looking for and not an actual solution, your 2018 data, but we hope that you'll start using a safer storage option. And for everyone else out there, if you have a question you'd like to air on the podcast, call us at (888) 723-4630.

Griff: That's (888) 723-4630. You can call that number anytime at your convenience. Leave a question or a comment, and if it's appropriate, they'll put it on the air.

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

Griff: And a little mention here I want to make is that for every question that's sent to podcast@ebay.com or phoned in to our number at (888) 723-4630, we are now sending out a exclusive, official, beautiful eBay For Business Podcast mug suitable for the beverage of your choice. `So if you want the mug, you have to send in the question. Don't forget your daily podcast to do list.

Rebecca: Number one, check the announcement board for up-to-date Seller News.

Griff: And number two has nothing to do with thermal printers. I really want people to start knowing their market niches better. And you can do this by subscribing to publications or online sites that provide trending data. For example, if you sell apparel, start visiting retail apparel sites online or subscribing to their mail order catalogs to see what they're selling for the next season. They do all the research for millions and millions of dollars. Why not take advantage of it?

Rebecca: This makes sense, Right? Retailers, they spend a fortune on market research so they can know what's in demand for the next retail season and what's upcoming. Sellers should be looking at those latest offerings and then you can coat tail off that research to make sure that sellers sourcing follows those predicted trends. And I thought, for sure you were going to harp on again about thermal printers Griff.

Griff: Yeah. And buy a thermal printer stat. (laughter)

Rebecca: You just can't help yourself. I gave you an opening there.

Griff: You know, I'm going to steal something from you.

Rebecca: What's that?

Griff: Coat tail research. I love that.

Rebecca: We coined a phrase here.

Griff: Well, I'm going to give you credit for that.

Rebecca: And finally, always check out the transcript for this and all episodes to follow up on what you've heard and to see the links that we referenced during the episode.

Griff: On our next episode, episode 139 we'll talk tax time and tax preparation with enrolled agent Adam Beasley, and we'll meet another of our recent Up And Running Grant Seller Winners.

Rebecca: Thanks again to our guests this week, Bérengère Chaintreau-Fuchs and Kirsty Dunn.

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

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