cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

This week, Griff asks Nidhi Gupta from the managed payments team the top questions that sellers have about the new payment system. Liz Austin returns with five tips for crafting the best Seller Story for the recently announced contest, 25 Seller Stories for 25 Years of eBay. eBay Seller Maria the StyleLister updates us on the status of her business and how she is meeting the challenges sourcing for a changed online fashion market. And we meet the new Director of eBay Community, Rebecca Michals.

To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com. To give us feedback, please take our podcast listener survey at https://connect.ebay.com/srv/survey/a/sellerops.podcast
Episode 92 Links
Managed Payments
Submit Your Seller Story (contest)

Transcript:

This week on the eBay for Business Podcast:

"Running your business on eBay is simpler when eBay managed payments. It's simpler to sell. Sellers don't need to set up a PayPal account or manage a separate relationship with eBay and PayPal. It's simpler to get paid. The funds are directly deposited to your checking account at a frequency of daily or weekly as you choose. It's simpler to manage. You can access everything you need to sell and get paid in one place on eBay."

"If you are in a market where it is hard for you to source, this might be a smart time for you to be really mindful about what you're purchasing and how you're purchasing and the longevity of it."

" So we really want to uncover those types of stories. Like what have you found or what have you saw? What have you listed on eBay that truly mesh the buyer with what they were looking for, their version of perfect. And how did you make their day? One of the things that I'm doing right now is doing a lot of listening. I want to hear from sellers, you know, they can find me on the community boards and give me feedback and their ideas about what the community should be like".

I'm Brian Burke.

And I'm Griff and this is the eBay for Business Podcast. Your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start and run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 92. Welcome Brian. How was your week?

It was a busy week today, Griff, or today? It was a, it was a busy, it was a busy week. And how was yours?

Well, it was a busy Thursday. That's the day we record and it was a busy week all around. I think all of us are now getting into the swing of things working from home. And that really means more work than hanging out and watching YouTube videos.

It does. Can't just like watch old movies and catch up on binge watching shows that I had not seen in the years past and then binge watched. It does feel like everything's kind of getting into a good normal flow.

Yeah, just when we're ready everyone will be back in the office.

Well it'll be interesting cause it was a few weeks back. They told us not until the end of June and you know, we'll see how things go.

We'll see. Social distancing is here for now. Things are starting to open up. Sellers are finding businesses are starting slowly to open at different rates in different States. So we'll see how that plays out. Well but enough small talk.

Well there's no such thing as small talk Griff. Just small talkers.

Yeah right. Enough from a small talkers then we should tell them who's waiting in the wings for this week. Well first up we have Nidhi Gupta from the managed payments Team and Nidhi will be answering some of the top line questions about managed payments.

And we'll introduce Rebecca Michals, the new Director of Community here at eBay.

And we have an interview with Maria, the StyleLister who talks about some of the challenges she's facing sourcing for her business on eBay, where she sells high end fashion and accessories.

And our good friend Liz Austin returns with five tips for writing the good seller story for the new 25 stories for 25 Years project and contest here at eBay.

That's four guests this week. Griff, that's a lot of guests.

It's a whole lot of show!

You should get started then.

I will.

When?

Right now.

Except for a brief period of time in the first few years of eBay's history, some of you old timers may remember Bill Pointe, eBay has never provided buyers and sellers an in house payment system. That's all changing now. As announced nearly four years ago when eBay spun off PayPal payments on eBay will eventually be handled entirely by eBay's new payment system, managed payments. And the transition from PayPal to manage payments has been deliberately gradual over the last few years, but now in mid 2020 we're starting to head into the home stretch with the goal of managed payments being the default payment system on eBay by the end of 2021. With us now to answer some of the more popular seller questions about managed payments is Nidhi Guptah Director of Global Go to Market and Product Marketing. Welcome Nidhi.

Thank you so much Griff.

It's a pleasure to have you on. We have lots of questions and I thought we should just start right off for those who may be wondering, what are the benefits of eBay managing payments?

I would say in a nutshell, Griff, that running your business on eBay is simpler when eBay managers payments. It's simpler to sell. Sellers don't need to set up a PayPal account or manage a separate relationship with eBay and PayPal. It's simpler to get paid. The funds are directly deposited to your checking account at a frequency of daily or weekly as you choose. It's simpler to manage. You can access everything you need to sell and get paid in one place on eBay from your fees, your reports, protections, refunds, tax documentation, customer support, you name it. Really it is the new way to do business on eBay. The simpler way to do business on eBay and as you said, Griff, we're in the home stretch here and eBay will manage payments for most sellers by the end of 2020.

I think a lot of sellers are really used to having two separate accounts on eBay and on PayPal and have just gotten used to that. But actually the idea of having it all in one place just makes so much sense to me. But there are questions that sellers have that we should go through and one of them is the first question I had when managed payments came up, because I am one of the Global Shipping Program sellers, is the Global Shipping Program currently supported in Managed Payments?

It absolutely is. managed payments is now fully compatible with our Global Shipping Program, so sellers can easily ship to international buyers, so we're happy to share that.

We have a lot of sellers who use eBay charity. Is eBay for Charity going to be supported by managed payments?

Well that's another easy answer. Yes. I love when the answers to all the questions are yes! Indeed. Charity and donations will be supported when eBay manages payments starting end of July.

That's a good one. This question comes in a lot to us. Can buyers still use PayPal once they're in Managed Payment?

Of course. So one the benefits of Managed Payments is that we want to offer locally relevant payment options to buyers. So absolutely. PayPal is definitely one of the payment methods and with eBay managing payments, buyers can pay with credit card, debit card, gift card as well as Apple pay, Google pay, PayPal credit. So very much so.

And so for a seller they don't have to worry about having accounts with any of those payment services.

They do not. It is all managed seamlessly by eBay.

How are payouts handled when eBay manages payments?

Payouts are lot simpler. They're sent directly to the bank account that you link when you register for Managed Payments, which eliminates the need to have to transfer funds from one account to the other. So from your payments providers account to your bank account and the payments are initiated within two days of the order confirmation. This is regardless of how the buyer paid, so regardless of whether they chose to pay with PayPal or they paid with Apple pay, regardless of that, the payouts are initiated within two days. What's even better is that our sellers have the flexibility to choose the payout schedule so they can have them deposited daily as the funds are available or weekly if they prefer it that way for just simpler reconciliation.

You mentioned bank account. Do I have to open a new bank account in order to use it?

Not at all. Not at all. You do not need to open a separate bank account. It can be any checking account and funds are deposited directly to that account regardless of how the buyer chose to pay.

Okay. Now, another question that's come into the Podcast, which I didn't have an answer for myself, is about immediate payment. The majority of sellers on eBay use immediate payment, which is that the item is sold when the buyer submits payment. There are some sellers, for example in customer craft categories or in the business and industrial categories who may need to do a little bit of back and forth before maybe it's sending an invoice, maybe it's getting some customization information so they can customize the item. How will Immediate Payment work with managed payments?

Yeah, so whether you're sending an invoice or if you were using Immediate Payments earlier, it works the same way with managed payments. There's no change in the process there and you know, once the immediate payment is enabled, the preferences set, payments that are managed by eBay will be instant as well.

Okay, good. So if you're not using Immediate Payment at the moment, you can continue not using Immediate Payment once you're using managed payments. Okay. Another question that comes in, and again, this one flummoxed me are how will things like claims and refunds and returns work? I get a lot of returns, well not a lot, but I have a, you know, a healthy return rate in my categories. How is this going to work for me once I'm in managed payment?

Well, hopefully you will find that they work better because you only need to work with one single company, which is eBay. Once you're on managed payments for your refunds, returns you can issue refunds for full amounts or partial amounts by item or on the full order. eBay does continue to offer buyers the option to submit disputes and claims thru the resolution center, but the difference now is that the resolution is centralized. So you have end to end visibility into the claims and disputes process and they're all being managed essentially and effectively by eBay.

Ah, so that there's not that double jeopardy situation of having a case filed on PayPal and eBay. Oh, I'm dealing with one of those for a seller right now. With the current system, I have a handling time of one business day, so I ship my orders right out. Is that going to change? When would I ship my orders? When I'm in managed payments?

Yeah. So you look for the queue of the order appearing as a waiting shipment. So that basically means that the buyer has provided their payment information to eBay and that would be the time to ship the order. Do not please wait for the funds to hit your checking account. But don't worry, eBay will not ask you to ship an order until the buyer has completed their payments. So we are assured of that. But as soon as you see that awaiting shipment queue, that's when you should ship the order.

Well then that brings up the next question because when I ship I want to buy a shipping label thru eBay's label system. How will I pay for the shipping label with managed payments?

Yeah, there is good news there as we are constantly working on our roadmap, which is basically our stack of features, functionalities and tools. We have recently added the ability to pay for shipping labels through your pending payouts and that would be in addition to using a PayPal account. So hopefully that adds a bit of convenience for our sellers and in paying with PayPal. So they can select the default funding method.

Oh, that's good news. So if I, I'm going to add a new checking account, opening a new checking account myself. I don't have to, I have several, but I'm going to have a separate checking account for this once managed payments starts and I can make that the default payment method so that all my shipping costs come through PayPal to eBay if I, I'm not using the pending method.

That's right.

Oh this is great news! This keeps it all in one place. I love that. And as you mentioned before, I just want to reiterate for sellers who do this, a seller can still in managed payments, send a buyer an invoice through eBay.

That's right.

Once I have the checking account information, if it's an existing account or a new one, like I'm going to open, where will I go to add this once I'm in managed payments?

For sellers that are registering now they can add the checking account information during the registration process. Otherwise they can go to the Payments tab within Seller Hub and provide that information.

Oh, so I just, it's right there. I just put it in there.

Yes.

Well, I want to thank you, Nidhi for joining us on the Podcast to help answer some of the more popular questions about managed payment. Nidhi Guptah is Director of Global Go To and Product Marketing. Now, if you want to learn more about managed payments, please visit the manage payments splash page on Seller Center. I'll post a link to the page in this episode's transcript, which is always available at www.ebay.com/podcast look for the episode 92 and then click on the link for transcript and you'll see a whole selection of any of the links that we mentioned in this week's episode.

Two weeks ago on the podcast we announced a brand new contest that celebrates our 25 years of existence here at eBay. It's 25 seller stories for 25 years and Liz Austin, the Senior Manager of Seller Marketing and Engagement was with us to announce the contest and now she's back with us today to talk about tips for writing the best seller stories. Welcome back, Liz!

Hi Griff. Thanks for having me.

Do I hear the pitter patter of little feet behind there somewhere?

Yes. Yep, yep. Yep. So don't be surprised if you see a little head pop up in the screen. It's, it's afternoon tea time. So they're definitely up and around. Ready to see what's going on?

Well, that's the reality of working for home. So we're okay. We're also, we're not only just for the podcast, we're actually taping this for video so we can use it on Facebook and YouTube. Let's get started. I'm a seller. I want to submit, well, hypothetically I as an employee, I can't do that. But say I want to submit the best story possible. I want the best chance of getting noticed and perhaps picked by eBay for those 25 slots. What's your first tip for me to write the ideal submission when it comes to a seller story?

All right, well I think it's really important first to understand the ask. So why is this person asking for your story? What kind of insights are they're looking for and where is this story going to kind of land or come to life? So just a reminder exactly what we are saying, we want to tell our 25th story, but that's made up of millions of stories of how sellers and buyers have connected in meaningful ways. In understanding that and that's what we're looking for. You know, have a think about whether you have a story that could answer the brief. You know, have you had an interaction with a buyer or provided their version of perfect? And I remember having this awesome conversation with you Griff that you and other sellers, like the biggest kick out of selling on eBay is knowing that you have sourced and listed and sold something to a buyer that they were looking for.

Yeah, that is true. Truly one of the most fulfilling things you can do as a seller on email.

So we really want to uncover those types of stories. Like what have you found or what have you sourced or what have you listed on eBay that truly mesh the buyer with what they were looking for, their version of perfect. And how did you make their day? Was their search long? Was it short? You know, why were they looking for it? Where did they go? And then did you source it? How did you come across the item and why was it special to you? So all of those kinds of insights are going to be really helpful in answering the brief. And again, the brief is eBay is looking for 25 stories to tell our 25th story. And that's about how buyers and sellers have connected in meaningful ways.

What's your second tip?

So the second tip is what's the hook? What is it about your story? Once you've determined that, Hey, yeah, I've definitely got a story that's right for the brief, what is the hook? What makes it truly different to any other story? And you know, think of yourself when you go to a friend's barbecue and you start telling a story, why is it that you've chosen that story to talk about, you know, those water cooler moments? What is it that's so unique about that story that makes it stand out and really, really focusing on the hook.

So Liz, what's the third tip?

This is a good segue to the third tip, which is to keep it concise.

That's hard for someone like me. I like to go on and on and on.

We're not expecting you to write pages and pages of your story. Just give us the tips, you know, give us kind of the cliff notes or the key takeaways that give us a good idea of what your story is about, keep it concise and then if we think that your story is going to be really suitable, then we'll get in contact with you so that we can really squeeze those juices out of the story and get all the details that we need to come up with the best story and help tell that story with you. And the stories will come out through video, It'll come out through a blog, it'll come out through a podcast interview. There's many, many multimedia ways that we'll be telling these stories and we will interview you further to really get those awesome bits that make up that story.

So you don't have to give away everything in the story. You can leave some hints about what else you might have to add to the story, but if you're selected, we'll actually expand and go into more detail into the story as we're formatting it for use across different media.

Exactly. Don't leave any of the important juicy parts out. Because we are going to read through thousands of these stories. Obviously with hundreds and thousands of sellers on the platform. Everyone's got awesome stories, so we're going to be reading each one of them. So I really urge you to don't leave any of those important hooks or details out because we don't want to overlook them and make sure that you really convey your true story in those little forms. That is part of the survey.

Okay, so we got the third tip was be concise. What do you have for your fourth tip?

Is highlight any emotional elements. So it's always really good to tug at the heart strings.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I love a good tug.

So by including details that might move the reader to want to know more. Was there a really long search for an item or did you truly make a buyer's day or did the buyer respond with a really beautiful heartfelt note or see the item come from one side of the country to the other in record time just to make a moment come true? Like what are those really heartfelt emotional elements that make up your story?

Did your sale actually save a life? That'd be cool.

That'd be, I bet those stories are out there and we want to hear them. I bet there are actually, what is your fifth tip?

The fifth and final, I mean there's plenty, plenty of tips that I think in reference to, again, the brief, which is 25 stories for our 25th year. You know, try and poke a little fun at yourself, but not anyone else. Only poke fun at yourself and I worked with comedians for many, many years in Ireland and they actually taught me the art of storytelling. And poking fun at yourself always gives the listener or the viewer a giggle. And that helps bring home the story and makes it memorable. So that's why I kept it as my final tip because it's that little moment at the end that really brings home the story. So poke fun at yourself but not anyone else.

That's always a wise thing to do in any situation. It also is a great way to relax a crowd or a group of readers.

Exactly right. So that's my five tips. Number one, understand the ask. Number two, what's your hook? Number three, keep it concise. Number four, highlight emotional elements and number five, poke fun at yourself and not anyone else.

I'm really good at number five by the way.

Are you?

Oh I love poking fun of myself cause I think I'm the best source of material.

And you never ever poke fun at anyone else. You're right, you are very good at it.

Not in public. Behind closed doors I may go at someone but you'll never hear or see it. (laughter).

Now I am worried!

Liz no. You have no reason to worry at all. I have great respect for you. So that's cool. We should learn a few things about the contest, which is it's open now and where do people go to submit their stories?

So they go to ebay.com/yourstory.

And how long is the submission window going to be open for?

We're taking stories until the end of the month because we need enough time to obviously create these stories and we want them to surround the day or the moment that we actually turn 25. So we're going to start telling these. stories come June, so we need to close out the survey at the end of this month.

Here's a question. How long is it going to take to read all these stories and decide who's going to be one of the 25 slots?

It doesn't matter. This is like the favorite, my most favorite part of my job.

Well, wait, wait. Are you going to read all these thousands of stories yourself?

Yeah, me and my team and there's another team. Everyone is so excited about reading these stories.

You're going to divvy up the effort. I mean a thousand stories. That's a lot to read.

Well gee, I actually don't have a very good book at the moment.

And you do have time, well not a lot of it, but I definitely need to switch off at the end of the night. So I'll be reading these stories.

Well, I'd offer my own services, but as the host of the Podcast, I think that would be incorrect. So I think I'll have to pass on offering my services to read the stories. But I'll be dying to know who the 25 winners are.

But we're actually going to have them on the Podcast. But yeah, we'll be telling those stories through the Podcast because Podcasts are one of the best ways to tell stories.

And you know, it's lots of content and I love content! So this is terrific. I'm glad to hear this.

Now, speaking of content, I have a story that I would like to share that we have heard about and maybe it could provide some inspiration for what we've been talking about today.

Absolutely. Read the story. We're dying to hear it.

So it's actually a letter from a buyer to a seller. Sellers, if you have any cool letters that you've received of thanks from buyers, you know, include that as part of your story. This is from 2019 so last year. It says "hi "and then it's blanked out. "I found many old VHS tapes recently. I wanted to see what is on them and I realized I had no player, so I went to eBay for the first time and discovered your offer. I bought your VHS and you shipped it in within a few days, VHS looks new and unused, amazing. I had some issues getting it going, which were mine and not the player. I am 86 and perhaps not up to my game, but I do get there eventually and I did and I discovered that the VHS works perfectly. Thank you so much for your care, your efforts and your promptness. I watched tapes of my retirement party from 25 years ago, which I had never seen before and Geez, were we young. And a tape of my wedding with all the families and friends, many of which are no longer around. And then skiing trips, kids growing up, travels and most importantly the gentle maturing of my family. Each one more fun than the last. All thanks to your generous selling of the VHS player. I thought you would appreciate how much someone has enjoyed your offer." I thought that was a really, really great story to share.

That was a great story. Yeah, perfect way to end it Griff.

Well Liz, Thank you for coming back on. We'll check in as the contest moves along and I can't wait to find out who the 25 winners are. So again, if you're interested in submitting your story for consideration, you have to go to Liz...

eBay.com/yourstory.

Do it today and start scribbling down the drafts of your story so that you can submit it. Liz, thanks again for coming back on to give us those tips.

Thanks so much for having me and I cannot wait to hear and read everyone's stories and Liz Austin is the Senior Manager for Seller Marketing and Seller Engagement and we'll hear more about the seller story project as the months go on through the summer.

There's a lot of challenges for sellers who are trying to maintain their business when what they sell may not be essential items. Joining us now as a seller who's always up, always optimistic and is going to report on how her business is doing when it comes to high end fashion. It's our very own friend Maria, the StyleLister. Maria, how are you doing?

Good, Griff, how are you doing today?

I'm okay. It's been an interesting few weeks or few months. I'm sure that you found the same. How are you managing, how's your business doing?

It's been wild times. I'll tell you right now as a fashion seller, a lot of my items, I would say about 90% maybe 95% of my items are made for events. They're made to wear to weddings, cocktail parties, baptisms, events that you are guests to or do you have like an ex boyfriend or something like that and he's going to be there and you want to remind him about what he's losing out on. It's like you come and buy from me. So it's been really hard because of course clearly there are no events, there are no weddings, there are no baptisms, there's nothing going on right now, of course, as we all are quarantined. A lot of people they do purchase, they'll buy a dress for their cousin's wedding for example, that's happening in six months because they want to budget it out and they say, Hey, I'm supposed to wear a coral dress and they'll buy the coral dress since the last thing on their mind. Right now we don't know about these events, so I'm in the middle of that. My business has completely, I don't want to say completely dried up because I have had a little bit of business, but it is completely different than what I was expecting coming into the summer with such an economy that we had 60 days ago.

Given that, and it's important for even businesses that slow down, they want to keep moving in some way, shape or form. What adaptations are you making to your existing business during this challenging time?

Right now I'm making a lot of adjustments and any company that survives, any company you look at, for example, you know, you see all these big companies, all the, all these huge, huge retail companies that are going out of business. A lot of them, like Sears for example, they went out of business because they didn't change. They didn't evolve. I need to look at and anybody else that's here that's listening, especially if you're selling fashion, especially event fashion or any kind of clothing or anything that has to not do with essential items or basically staying home. It's hard where I have taken a step back then. The first step I've taken is basically I've stopped purchasing inventory. Now I purchase out of season. This is what I generally do. The fashion that I'm selling right now, going into summer, I purchased six months ago. That's what I did. So the items that I'm listing right now, they're items that I, I know it sounds a little wild, but I'll purchase right now. I would be purchasing for coats, I'd be purchasing jackets, I'd be purchasing my winter wear. That's how I source. It's how I've sourced for years and I follow the trends that way. So I know about six months in advance, I know that this kind of coat is going to be on trend because I do follow styles. I am following what's going on in fashion. So when I look at that and say, okay, I know I need to be on the lookout for this and that, and that's how I source. Right now I've taken a pause and right now I've readjusted, I'm not purchasing any dresses, I'm not purchasing any gowns, I'm not purchasing any event items because I am going under the worst case scenario that we most likely we'll have another quarantine type of situation come fall, winter. So right now I do know that people need to wear jackets. Even if you're going out to go and to go purchase items to go purchase these things or you need to go to work or you're an essential worker, people do need coats and jackets. So right now I'm looking at if I do purchase anything, it's going to be outerwear. That's, that would probably be my, my one piece of advice and shoes. These are two things that people cannot live without and definitely do need. So that's what I'm looking at right now.

What about stylish homeware like you know, robes and pajamas?

Lounge wear is actually really big. You know, you also have to look at the fact that you know a lot of people are staying home. Maybe they have someone that they have a partner or someone that they're with so maybe they want to make it a little bit more interesting that they have time with them. A lot of it right now is about comfort. When we talk about summer backyard suits, my swimsuits never sold on eBay. I never sold swimsuits. I, I had them, I listed them and they never sold and I was like well I'm never buying these again and they actually sold. So I have a feeling that right now people are looking at, well I have a backyard pool or I can tan in the backyard. So this is something that they need.

So a lot of States are now as we speak this week and next week are starting to loosen their restrictions. People are going to start going out. I'll be it. They'll still be social distancing, but they'll, I think social areas are going to start to open up like restaurants and streets that have, you know, restaurants on the outside. People are going to start going out. Are you a little bit hopeful that maybe people are going to want, you know, I can look nice?

I am extremely hopeful. About a week and a half ago, two weeks ago once people started talking about the lifts on the quarantine and everything like that. I actually got a few sales. It was, it was almost like a light switch, which was really awesome. I think a lot of people were holding on. They weren't sure about number one, their job would they be coming back to a job? And number two, I think the other thing they, they didn't know when. I want this bag. I want, I want this pair of pants, but I don't know when I'm going to wear them. Why should I buy them right now? If I'm not going to wear them for another 30 days and it's, it costs me X amount of dollars. If I don't have to wear these pants, I may need this for food. But that's the reality of it for some people. Do my items, you know they are different. They are one offs. When I look at something right now for me it's, it's a really interesting period. It's an evaluation period and that's for the next six months. I just am going to see what the summer holds. So then I'll know for next Summer and I'm going to see what the Fall holds. Right now I'm just trying to be smart about how I'm investing and what I'm investing in and then just doing that.

I've started going out a little bit more and I've started being outside a little bit more and I've bought a few shirts and a few other articles of clothing on eBay in the last few weeks. So if I'm any indication, I think the appeal of the warmer weather will bring people out, albeit we hope safely into a more outdoor setting where they'll want some new wardrobe. Cause we all like to buy clothes.

And the other part of it is the psychology of the purchase. And of course we all know, and if you haven't heard this, when you purchase something online, it's actually you get the double dopamine effect.

Oh i know it well.

You get, you get the high when you buy the item and then you get the high when it arrives at your door. So, and people do want to shop, but they're not willing to go to the mall right now maybe. Or they're not willing to go into these retail stores. They can still buy on eBay and on top of it, even if their budget has changed slightly, maybe they have a spouse who has now reduced hours or maybe they have a family member that is no longer working or maybe they're just being smart and they're saving a little bit more versus what was happening 60 days ago, which is totally understandable.

They're probably more likely to go on eBay to look to purchase something pre-owned or to purchase something that's, you know, that's reduced more. And I think that's how sellers really need to look at it is right now, this actually is a really good time for the pre-owned market and it's a really good time for people to be opening avenues. I'm sure eBay, I would say I would do about 80% of my shopping online, maybe 90. I'm not kidding you. And right now I'm at a hundred percent. If I can't get it online, I'm not buying it.

I feel the same way.

I think it's going to stay that way for quite some time. I honestly, that's how I personally feel.

Yeah, except for our local foray out once a week to pick up vittles and provisions from the grocery store. Everything we buy right now is online. So one of the things I wanted to talk about was during the summer, one of our themes that we're looking at is cost cutting. For somebody who's running a pretty even keeled business right now on eBay. That's always you know, I want to save costs, but I would think, I would imagine, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're seeing a dip in your business as you have in the clothing, shoes and accessories, high end area, that you're really wanting to cut costs because you don't want to overspend on operations and inventory. Are you taking some steps for cost cutting during this time for you?

Absolutely. I absolutely have. A couple of things. One, when you're looking at cutting costs for your business, it's not just about your business. You also need to look at your personal life. This is going to sound cheesy. I cut my audible subscription, so I was like, I had about four or five credits left, so I kept hanging onto them and I went through and picked out a few, picked out a few audio books. I said, these are the ones I'm going to listen to and that's going to be it for awhile. It's $14 a month, which sounds, it sounds like nothing, but it does add up. I looked at other costs. What I do a lot of times, because I'm a little bit on the busy side. This isn't my only business. What I do is I'll take a bunch of pictures and I had somebody edit the backgrounds off of my pictures. The second eBay updated the app and were able to get rid of the background. It really did change the game. But with that now I'm no longer outsourcing that. That is going to now be something that's in house. That is a cost I cut. So I did this I went through and I looked at every single thing that I'm using. My website and my domain I kept because that's a necessary cost. My email, I kept these things that are essential to my business I kept. And the things that I could go back to and use as a luxury, you know, these are the luxury things, these are the items that I cut that you know, you just, you reduce your overhead. And that's what I did. Simply put.

I am curious about something you said though. You seem like you're planning on um, not having the same sort of outerwear ready for the Fall or in the Winter. Did I hear that correctly?

I have a lot of my winter wear. A lot of my stuff is purchased. So as of right now, whatever I have basically is what I have and I'm going to see from there. And we also have to look at, if you are in a market where it is hard for you to source, this might be a smart time for you to be really mindful about what you're purchasing and how you're purchasing and the longevity of it. And right now for fashion, I mean honestly, even if the retail stores do open, I don't feel comfortable going out there. I personally do not. That's me. I'm not saying it for anybody else. Everybody's different.

Same here. I feel the same way. Yeah.I absolutely do.

So right now I think to myself, I do have a lot of unlisted inventory right now actually in my community. I'm going to, I'm going to do a listing challenge to try and get a lot of my unlisted inventory up and going.

That's the spirit!

Because that's all I can do right now. And that's it. And I'm going to actually get out stuff that I haven’t listed and I've just kinda been, you know, I'll be honest, lazy. I know. I jokingly tell you I'm inherently lazy. I really am. I'm just like, I'll do it. I'll do it.

I find that hard to believe. I know that you're a very busy person. I just don't see laziness as one of your attributes. I think you're being a little hard on yourself.

I come from like a culture of like, you know a hundred percent. You could do 105% it's like, that's not a possible number. It's like, yes it is. It's like, no, it's not! So that's what I'm looking at right now is looking around in my own house and looking at, if fashion, if this isn't going to work out for me in six months, what else can I do? And that's a real question for me. You know, maybe it might be like this for the next two years and then in two years I can go back to this. That's the kind of the reality that I'm looking at right now as a fashion seller. It's my reality or I have to look at what I am selling and maybe I need to be selling something else. It's just something that you have to be flexible.

Well, Maria, I want to thank you again. Stay safe, stay secure, say happy and we'll get through this all together. Maria, the StyleLister is one of our, I want to say semi-regular sellers who comes on to give us an update on her business. Again, Maria, thanks so much.

Thank you, Griff.

Here at eBay, we see people come and go all the time, but we love it when new folks come onto the team and we have a new Director of Community, she's well, I'm going to let her talk about herself. I thought it'd be great if we could introduce her to our audience. Without further ado, here's the Director of Community, Rebecca Michals. Rebecca, thanks for coming onto the show and agreeing. Introduce yourself so to speak.

Thanks, Griff. I'm really excited to be here and I'm very excited to be here at eBay. To introduce myself a little bit, I worked for 20 years at Johnson and Johnson at one of their subsidiaries. It was a company that provided digital content for new and expectant parents. If you had a baby in the US in the last 20 years, it's possible that you use their content or app. It was called BabyCenter. And there I led the Community Team, Social Media, Customer Support, PR. I wore a lot of hats. Here at eBay, I'm really excited to be leading the community team because the eBay community is so well known for being an absolute leader in the level of engagement, how excited the members of the community are to participate, the amount of information they come to the community to learn, and I'm just really excited to meet all of you who participate in the eBay community and see how I can help you get even more out of your business and out of what eBay can do for you.

Those of us internally who are on the Community Team, and I'm one of those folks, so I'm part of Rebecca's Team as well, have never had the opportunity or the pleasure of actually meeting face to face in a room because you came onto the company just as the pandemic started and we were off campus. For me that would be the most unusual situation in the world is to start working with a group of people who you've only known, hi, we're talking through Zoom. Right? What's that been like for you, Rebecca?

At least it's a level playing field and everyone that I'm meeting is all together on Zoom at the same time and we're all adjusting to this new normal. It's definitely has been a unique experience meeting everyone over Zoom, but what I can tell already, even through the medium of the screen or phones is how friendly and kind everyone at eBay is. How passionate we all are about the work that we're doing and supporting sellers. How busy we all are all day, every day, going from meeting to meeting all day long and it's really all about what we can do as a company to help everyone out there who uses eBay as a platform to support their business, to support the work that we're all trying to do in this new strange time.

What is your hope for vision or at least what to accomplish in the next year? Given the difficulty of the pandemic?

What I am really interested in is figuring out how the eBay community can really support the work that sellers do and create those connections. And It is a harder to do now that being face to face really isn't in the cards and finding ways that sense of togetherness and information sharing is possible through virtual mediums instead of in person. What that exactly is going to look like. I think is still a little bit to be explored and you know, one of the things that I'm doing right now is doing a lot of listening. I want to hear from sellers, you know, they can find me on the community boards and give me feedback and their ideas about what the communities should be like. I'm trying to learn as much as possible. Looking forward to the future, I certainly want to honor the rich history and the incredible engagement that the community has today, both in terms of the boards here on the podcast. Also those in person events that we can't do anymore and are turning virtual. We also have to make sure that we're building towards the future and making an experience that new sellers who are just coming aboard, maybe because of the change in their circumstances with their brick and mortar, maybe because they're home and just feel like cleaning out a closet. We want to make sure that we're appealing to people who have been around and have been using the eBay community for a long time. And for people who are brand new and just starting to explore what this means for them. So that's really what I'm looking for is to be able to create some balance and some energy and some excitement. And ultimately, again, that word I keep coming back to, which is supporting sellers. Yeah.

Rebecca, do you have a good story about why you came be eBay?

I do actually. So I've worked in the community space for 20 years or more and long ago in the early two thousands maybe 2004 I went to a conference which was all about working in community. And I remember that one of the keynote speakers at that conference was the then Community Manager of eBay. Griff, you were probably around then so would know who it was better than me. What I do remember is how excited and how energized the crowd was listening to this community Manager of eBay, talking about the ways in which they were building experiences in the eBay community to support sellers. The in person groups, the specialist groups with people who really engaged sellers. It was just amazing and inspirational and made me want to be a better Community Manager for the community that I was running then. I've always looked to the eBay community as a North star as an example of how amazing online community can be for people. When I heard about this job, I was like, I have got to do that. I have to work for that flagship community that I've always been impressed by and now I'm here and what? How amazing is that?

It is amazing. We're glad you're here. I'm curious. I wonder who that person was. Was it a woman or a man? It was definitely a man. Was there someone named Jeff?

Yeah, Jeff Terrell?

Yes. It must've been Jeff.

Jeff's great. You know, Jeff was our manager for a few years, but he really enjoyed the job and I remember he did do a few conferences. Jeff is now running community at GoPro, the camera company and having a ball doing it. So I will pass that word on to him. That's really great. Yeah, Jeff's a great guy. Well Rebecca, I'm so glad that you took the time. I know that everyone thinks you're working from home. You don't have much to do, but it's really busy working from home cause you're balancing your personal life while your work's going on. So I really appreciate you took the time out to talk to us and we hope you'll come back.

Oh, thanks for having me, Griff. I'll come back anytime you want.

Rebecca Michals is the new Director of Community at eBay. You can catch her on the Community Board. She's there talking and reading and lurking and you can always reach out to her if you have a question.

No questions this week?

No questionsBrian. Sellers are too busy selling task questions.

I don't think that's true. Do you?

What else can I believe, Brian? That no one wants to ask us any questions that's inconceivable.

That sounds familiar.

Or perhaps the questions are delayed in the mail stream waiting for a scan.

I don't think that's true. Do you?

I'll settle for whatever magical thinking excuse fits.

Griff. You have to be realistic. Have a little realism.

Sound bite played: " I don't want realism, I want magic. Yes, Yes, magic!"

Well, I think we're being a little over dramatic there. If you have a question and I just know you do, call us on (888) 723-4630 and leave your question or comment so we can address it here on the show.

And save me from insanity New Orleans style. The number is (888) 723-4630. The best part is as I say every week, and I never get tired of saying it, this is that kind of a line that you can call it any time, any day of the week and leave a question or comment and we just might put it on the air if it's appropriate.

And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

And now it's time for the daily podcast to do list.

Number one, check the Announcement Board for up to date, Seller News.

B. Go visit the eBay Community pages.

And number three, check out the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to see the links we're referencing during the episode.

On our next episode, we'll revisit one of our favorite sellers, Lynn Drolly, to check in and see how her business is surviving in the new normal. And we'll also talk with an eBay seller who's already in Managed Payments.

We'd like to, again, thank our guests this week, Nidhi Guptah from the Managed Payments Team, Liz Austin from Seller Marketing and Engagement, Rebecca Michals from community and eBay seller Maria, the StyleLister.

The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

1 Comment

Got a question?

Get it answered on the "You got questions?" segment of the podcast:

Call us at 888-723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com



And take our podcast listener survey

  • Listen on Apple Podcasts
  • Listen on Spotify
  • Listen on iHeart
  • Listen on Google Podcasts
  • Add RSS Feed

The eBay for Business podcast is published every Tuesday morning and is presented by eBay, Libsyn and Podcast411.