Episode 93 || Traffic Month - Week 1: How eBay Drives Traffic to Your Listings

[podcast_team]

This week we launch a month-long series about Traffic, buyer traffic specifically. On week 1, we talk with eBay Head of Marketing, Andrea Stairs. Andrea lays out the advertising and marketing strategies and tactics her team is leading to help drive even more buyer traffic to the site. Following up from last week’s segment on Managed Payments, Griff talks with eBay Seller Shari Smith who shares her experience as an early adopter of Managed Payments. And finally, eBay seller Lynn Dralle checks in with an update on how her businesses - her consignment shop in Ventura CA and her long time business on eBay - are doing.

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 93 Links
Managed Payments

Shari_Sells on eBay (Store Name “7daysale4u”)
Lynn Dralle’s “Lynn’s Consignment
Lynn Dralle’s Newsletter
The Queen Of Auctions on eBay

Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay for Business Facebook
The eBay Community
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay Local Seller Events
eBay Seller Center
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Help
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Hosts:
Griff, Brian Burke

Guests:
Andrea Stairs (eBay Staff), Shari Smith (eBay Seller Guest), Lynne Dralle (eBay Seller Guest)

Transcript:

This week on the eBay for Business Podcast:

"An example we have right now is that, you know, we're focused on some luxury watches. That's a pretty niche segment. So it's not a message that we want to put out there in a mass channel. And yet we know there are people even in this kind of challenging time that are still engaged in that market. So we've got a custom article on GQ website that talks about how to buy a watch on eBay."

"Excited about one final value fee that includes payment processing and the final value fee. And I think that's clean and easy to figure when you're like estimating he's ahead of time, like is it profitable for me to buy this and then resell it? It just makes everything a little bit easier."

"I've had one of my best months in years and I'm really getting back into my old eBay routine where I'm digging through stuff in the barn and listing stuff I should've listed. And I tell you that new tool that send offer that Jordan talked about on a call I was on that has completely changed my business."

I'm Brian Burke.

And I am Griff. 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 with the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 93 welcome back to the cohost chair Brian.

Thanks Griff.

It's good to be back. It's been a busy week.

Really. Have you been listing on eBay this week finally?

Well, I was listing on eBay a couple of weeks ago. I must admit I didn't list anything over the long weekend though.

Why not?

Well, I got this toy back that I was playing around with.

No, you didn't!

This old car and so it took up a lot of the weekend time.

When are you going to get over that Jaguar?

It's actually technically not even mine. It's my wife Nancy's.

Community property.

Well it's not actually when she inherited it from her father, it's in her name. She's smart.

And it's a 1954 Jaguar.

It is.

And you've had it restored?

No. All I've done is got it running.

Her father took impeccable care of it. So it has the original paint, the original engine. It needed some work around brakes and gas tanks and things like that. So we got all that stuff done. So it's drivable.

I can't wait till you sell it.

It'll be Nancy selling it. I might, I may get tired of it at some point.

I'm very happy you have a car that's as old as I am and hopefully it's in better shape.

Well, you know the one thing the paint job does have wrinkles, just like my face got wrinkles as I got older.

I'm going to stop you right there. Well no, all kidding aside. I think it's fantastic. You have a brand new little toy car that you can drive all around the Bay area. Hey, and you know, one of the few benefits of the pandemic is that for most Metro areas, Bay area is included. Traffic on the freeways has been really light in the last couple of months.

It has been really light.

Yeah, I know I've been on the roads once a week, but it's just the literal roadways where the traffic is light on. eBay traffic's been pretty heavy these past several weeks.

It has been and that's been a really good thing for our sellers.

Yes it is, but as the world starts to move back to something that at the least resembles normal and stores and shops, you know, they start opening up even if at first just for curbside delivery, it will be important to keep the buyer traffic on eBay humming and growing throughout the rest of the year and beyond.

That's true and that's why this month on the podcast it's officially traffic month for the month of June we'll feature a segment each week on an aspect of buyer traffic, something our sellers love. This week we start with what is eBay doing to keep buyer traffic healthy and growing when our first guest, Andrea Stairs from Marketing, joins us from her home to talk about how eBay drives buyer traffic to the site. And following up on last week's top line Managed Payments Q and A with Nidhi Guptah eBay seller, Shari Smith will talk about her experience as a seller using Managed Payments.

Yeah, that's going to be fun. Finally cause this is again another chock-a-block show. Seller Lynn Dralle, we all know Lynn, the Queen of Auctions calls in to update us on how her business is fairing as the closures in her area continue. You know, she's got a consignment business, which is a stop and shop, so I'm going to find out how she's adapting her business.

That'll be really interesting.

Lots to talk about.

There is lots to talk about so we better get started then.

The month of June at eBay is traffic month and that means all types of traffic and getting it in all types of ways. Right now we have the mastermind behind the traffic campaign with us. Welcome back to the podcast, Liz Austin.

Hi Griff. How are you?

I'm very well, thank you. I hope you're well at home.

I am. Happy it's Friday. Looking forward to a weekend of staying at home. I'm sure that outside your home you've noticed a drop in traffic during the pandemic, but here at eBay, as you know, we've seen a refreshing increase in buyer traffic. Tell us what we're focusing on for the month of June when it comes to talking to our sellers, both on the podcast and on other channels.

Well I think you make a good point. It's important to define the difference between car traffic, beep beep and buyer traffic on eBay, which is what we're going to talk about for the month of June. So buyer traffic is obviously all of those people, consumers who come to the site either looking for something, have an intent to purchase or coming to the site to browse and search for something that they might be interested in. And traffic month is all about explaining how eBay brings that traffic to the site. So what we do and then also what sellers can do to show up to that traffic but also help drive incremental traffic to their listings on eBay.

It's kind of a partnership then. I mean eBay does spend a lot of money in time driving traffic to the site, but sellers can play a part.

Absolutely. And you know, even though we have over 170 million buyers on the platform and we work every day to bring in new and return buyers, there are other ways off eBay that we can grab the interest of a potential buyer and get them to eBay. And that's what we're going to spend the month talking about. It's, it's a really interesting topic. We have a number of different strategies that we use and have evolved over time. It's certainly something I'm passionate about and we look forward to talking about all of the tactics that we use. So across the four weeks we're going to talk about all of those things that eBay does to drive traffic or buyers to the site. And then week two we're going to talk about eBay's investment in Google Shopping and how it pays off for sellers and also how sellers can optimize their listings to ensure they show up on Google Shopping. Week three we're going to talk about social media marketing, both what eBay does and what sellers can be doing themselves. And even lately social media marketing has taken an incredibly interesting turn as a result of the pandemic. And I'm excited to have our team talk about some examples of ways that sellers can tell their own story in really interesting and compelling ways to buyers to incentivize them and to inspire them to come to eBay and purchase their item. And then week four, we're going to give you this on the eBay partner network, which is affiliate marketing, which is another really great way to drive incremental traffic to your listings but also make money, extra money at the same time. So we're going to talk about that a bit more, how eBay sellers can partake and participate in affiliate marketing through the eBay Partner Network and also explain how that can make them extra money. And then week five we are going to be answering questions. So what we imagine is a lot of questions will come up as a result of traffic month and everything that we've talked about and we want to hear those questions and we want to answer them. So we're opening up a special board. I'm on community Griff, you can take questions into the podcast and let's spend, yeah, let's spend a week talking about it and helping us all understand traffic a bit more and each of our roles in driving traffic to your listings.

Before we go. Can we have a little update about the Seller Stories Program that we're doing the contest for 25 stories for 25 years. How is that going so far?

It has been amazing Griff and I know we were just talking before the recording. How am I ever going to read all of these stories? But I'm so excited and we're thousands upon thousands of stories sellers have submitted and we're going to read them all and, and get the detail from the sellers and if we think your story is awesome or you know, meets the criteria, all the stories are gonna be awesome. But, uh, we have 25 stories for 25 years and we can't wait to share those with you.

It doesn't sound like you're suffering a shortage of stories to choose from.

We are going to tell them from June until the end of the year, so be sure to keep an eye out for those. We'll be telling them on the podcast. We'll be telling them through YouTube, we'll be telling them on social. We'll be writing blogs about them and we can't wait to use different types of media to tell these stories as well.

Liz, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day and we'll talk to you again in the weeks ahead to find out how the stories are going and also how traffic month is going as well.

Thanks for having me Griff.

Liz Austin is the Senior Manager for Seller Marketing and Engagement.

This month of June is officially the traffic month at eBay and over the next four weeks we'll be hosting segments that help aluminate how eBay and sellers together drive buyer traffic to the site. And today for our first week I'm joined by our Head of Marketing America. Andrea Stairs. Welcome Andrea.

Hi Griff, nice to be here.

Could you give us an outline of your role as Head of Marketing as it relates to driving traffic on the site?

I have been with eBay for 14 and a half years and I've stepped into the marketing role recently, but it's definitely one that is critical obviously. And so we are focused on driving traffic to the site through paid channels. So whether that's search marketing, display, radio, and then we're also focused on converting that traffic when it comes to the site. So having a homepage that is relevant and engaging, sending out emails that drive traffic back to the site and convert and any number of other channels. So it's both paid and own channels.

Do we want all buyers or do we actually target certain buyers who we know will want what we offer on the site?

Yeah, so it's not all about just driving traffic, bulk traffic. It's definitely about driving buyers that we want or people that we think will convert into buyers. And so we think about buyers in different chunks or segments. We look at pre buyers. These are people who haven't activated on the site, but we think are very similar to folks that we know are active on eBay. They're engaged in the right verticals or they're interested in the right inventory. So we will have activities directed to them. Then we have our active buyers, people who are engaging consistently with eBay. And for them it's about extending their interest in eBay to new categories. It's about continuing to engage them. And then we also have folks who are engaging maybe a little less than we would like and sort of looking like they might kind of migrate away. And so for them it's about reengaging them, bringing them back, giving them a good offer that entices them to come back to eBay. So different segments get treated differently.

Relevancy, I'm not exactly sure what that means in terms of marketing. Can you define what we mean by that term? Relevancy.

Absolutely. So it's really about making a very close connection with the messages that we are putting out there from a marketing perspective and the needs of the buyer. So we want that to be really matched up so that there is relevant because we know that people's attention spans are super short and we need to catch them as soon as we see them or as soon as we put a message in front of them. And so making sure that that message is relevant to who they are, the place they're in, the moment they're in, where they are in a purchase cycle, where they are in terms of life stage, are they a parent, are they not? All of that information is super helpful at making sure that the marketing content that we're giving is the most relevant, the most connected to the of that particular buyer. An example we have right now is that, you know, we're focused on some luxury watches. That's a pretty niche segment. So it's not a message that we want to put out there in a mass channel. And yet we know there are people even in this kind of challenging time that are still engaged in that market. So we've got a custom article on GQs website that talks about how to buy a watch on eBay. That's a way of delivering a message that is relevant to a targeted group of buyers and not sort of spamming everybody with that content.

Right? So television ad about high end luxury watches, which would go to the entire TV viewing public probably doesn't make sense money-wise at least.

Right. It doesn't make sense. TV is a great option if you have a very broad message that you want to convey. You're launching a new product, you're building a brand, but if you're trying to say something really specific to a specific group of people, it's less useful. That's why at this moment we're much more focused on digital channels because we can target those better and so we can connect again the messaging and the marketing with the end buyers much more closely. And then the other good thing about digital in sort of contrast to TV is that we can measure, so we can create a loop of messages going out and data coming back in, which allows us to optimize or sort of change advertising in a way that traditional media like TV and radio are less able to do.

How do we know what's going to be relevant to a certain buyer?

It's a trick. But the great news about eBay is that we have a tremendous amount of data. And so we use our data that we have on site, what buyers are looking at, what items have velocity, what people are searching for. And we marry that with market level data. So for example, right now Forbes is telling us that eCommerce transactions are up more than a hundred percent year over year in Canada and the US. We know both from our, what we're seeing on the site and what market level data is telling us is that that we're seeing a rise in eCommerce. And so then that tells us, well we've got a bunch of new people coming to the site who are looking for goods that are relevant right now. So let's make sure that we're putting that in front of them. It's about targeting, it's about being relevant. So if you come to the home page right now, you'll see a banner that says home-based for home essentials. And that's really about surfacing the kind of inventory that people who are now working from home and who are sheltering in place and kind of not going out to traditional retail are looking for whether it's you know, home office, home gym, boredom busters, that kind of thing.

I have to say personally I do get a little irritated when I see ads on television that aren't relevant to me. For example, certain drugs that don't relate to my own health problems. Of course that list of health problems increases as you get older. So maybe relevancy is just on the horizon for me, but I am looking forward to the day when all television ads are relevant to me and I suppose that day is coming.

I think it is. And in the meantime, you know we are looking at still using video but using digital video because then again we can target it more and make sure again that we are being relevant, which then in turn means that the traffic that is coming to the site that we're driving understands why it's coming to has an an expectation that we can deliver against when it arrives. So maybe putting a bit of a pause on kind of broadcast like TV and really focusing on the digital channels gives us a bit more of an ability to enhance the conversion or make sure that that traffic yields something for our sellers.

We use that term a lot. Digital channels for example. Tell us a little bit more about what we mean by digital advertising strategies and what channels are available and how do we approach it when it comes to a digital advertising strategy.

Absolutely. And you know, the Griff, the world has changed, right? We've added on additional digital channels so it's a bigger and bigger every year set of channels. The biggest one that the sort of the granddaddy of them all is. Search Engine Marketing. So SEM. So that's buying keywords and putting products onto search engines like Google and Bing and others. That is a significant area of investment for us and drives a tremendous amount of traffic and it's really intentioned traffic. If you've searched for something on Google, you know what you're looking for. And then if we serve up an eBay ad that has a high propensity to convert. Other digital channels, digital banners, So the traditional banners we see, we've got great partnerships with Verizon and Yahoo and Apple and so we use them a lot. YouTube advertising. So this is again using keywords to rather than drive static content now to drive to video content. Radio, particularly digital radio is a new but really effective channel for us. And then social, paid social.whether that's Facebook or Instagram where we can either retarget, so you've been to eBay, we know that you were interested in something and then we'll show you that again when you're in Facebook or we can tell stories at kind of a more strategic level. The up and running campaign right now being a really great example.

I think if you're a seller and you're wondering what digital marketing looks like when it's specific to channels, if you've shown interest in a particular product and then you've gone on to Facebook or other sites, you'll find that those ads more and more every day are tailored to around what you just looked at. And that's an example of what eBay does.

Griff, we don't want to be creepy, but we also know that if you've indicated an interest in something, the odds that you're going to then want to follow through on that are much higher than us showing you a product that you've indicated no interest in. And so yes, it absolutely is about taking the data that you have given to us via a behavior or a buyer has given to us via behavior and then reusing that off of eBay to continue the conversation with that buyer.

Yeah, and as a buyer, I got to tell you, I don't mind it at all.

It can be really effective.

Oh, It's very effective. My wallet is proof. The more effective the campaign, the more I'm going to buy. And that works for the marketplace, for the retail seller or for sellers on eBay as well. We're talking about spend, can you give us an example of how much we invest in paid media on behalf of our sellers? And I know it's sometimes you can't give exact figures, but I think a ballpark figure would be pretty revealing to our seller audience.

Yeah. So from a ballpark perspective, we spend tens of millions of dollars on performance marketing every month. So I think that gives you the order of magnitude and the kind of investment intensity that we've spent on marketing. Yeah, it's significant.

And sellers know about Google and they're always asking us about that and what we pay for on there. And you briefly touched on it as a channel, but what do we do to ensure eBay shows up at the top of the search engines? I know in the past on the podcast, we've talked about how you show up in shopping, but what about Google in general?

Yeah. So when we think about Google, I think of three kind of areas. You've got the center of the search results page, the natural search or what we call SEO, that's free. But definitely we have teams devoted to ensuring that not withstanding it's free, we're still working to be at the top of that result set. And that's where, you know, sellers behavior and what sellers add to their listings can be really impactful. And I'm sure you've talked about that before on the podcast, Griff. I think the other two areas are the paid areas. At the top you'll genuinely see text ads and they usually have a little ad in a, in a green box and those are based on keywords. And so we have about 250 million active keywords. That means keywords that we're bidding on in the US which is not inconsequential. That's pretty significant. On the right hand side, you'll see PLA or product listing ads and that's where you see the actual product items. And there were managing a feed of about 700 million items that were feeding into Google that are part of that advertising. So a tremendous amount of investment happening on Google to ensure that we've got the right coverage on the page, whether it's the free or the paid areas, and certainly what sellers do can be really impactful. Having the right content for SEO, making sure that item specifics are there. Having images that Google can accept. All of that is really critical to our being able on behalf of sellers to invest in Google.

Andrea, what about channels that we own? I mean like email and on ebay.com these are huge channels. They get millions and millions of eyeballs. How do we leverage those in our marketing strategy? They're core to our marketing strategy, organic traffic, so that's traffic that we haven't paid for is a massive flow of traffic to the site. We need to make sure that when it lands on the site, we're engaging with that traffic, that we're again, connecting potential buyers with sellers inventory in the most efficient way possible. The homepage is is actively managed. Email is a tremendous channel for us. You'll maybe be shocked to know that we send six. I'm checking my notes to make sure I get this number right, on average 650 million emails a week. And that runs the gamut from emails that are talking about bigger ideas, a sales event, a retail moment like Memorial day or July 4th all the way down to really specific emails like purchase assistant, you've added something to a cart and you've left. We want to remind you that it's in the cart and again get you to try and convert. Huge amount of investment on our own channels and we've got new channels there too. We're adding SMS push notifications, so notifications on your mobile phone which drive a lot of engagement and as people's behaviors change, you know those own channels need to keep up and we need to develop new ones that continue to engage buyers.

And I should note here for those who may be concerned that a receiver of those emails, buyer or seller has some control over the type of emails they receive. If you are \getting emails that you don't believe are relevant to your particular activity on eBay. You can always change those configurations so you get, you get the emails that you like.

Yeah, and we pay attention. We, you know, we want to make sure that what we're sending is relevant and so if we are starting to see people not engage in something, we'll take a look at that and go back to the drawing boards. It really isn't about sending lots of emails. It's about sending the right emails with the right content to the right people.

Is marketing an art or a science? What do you think?

I mean I think that's probably an age old question. I'm going to cop out and say it's both. Clearly the way that we do it at eBay, it's very scientific. We use a lot of data, but I think when you're also trying to tell a story and create a narrative and create a, an emotional relationship with buyers out there, you need to have the art as well, so I'm going to be solidly on the fence and say it's both.

I think that's a good position to be in. Andrea, thanks so much. Next week we're going to be talking more about Google shopping and how sellers can leverage this opportunity. So stay tuned for that.

Last week we spoke with Nidhi Guptah a from the eBay Managed Payments Team and Nidhi answered top line questions about Managed Payments. Joining us now as eBay seller Shari Smith, she sells on eBay under the ID shari_sells, S. H. A. R. I underscore S. E. L. L. S. Welcome Shari.

Hi!

How is life and business been in your new location in Denver?

Actually business has been great. I mean I moved here two years ago from California and I sell on consignment so I left behind most of my consigners but I've been networking and making new relationships and things are going really well.

How long have you been selling on eBay?

Okay. I've been selling on eBay since February, 2006

And how long have you been inside the Managed Payments Program as a Managed Payment Seller?

I have been in it since the beginning, so I think it's been since October, 2018 or September?

Wow, that's a long time. So you've seen it since its very first days.

Yes.

Tell us the five things about Managed Payment that you like.

Okay, well I do love that buyers can just pay however they're used to paying. People all have their regular way they're used to so they can pay with Apple pay, Google pay, PayPal, credit card, debit card. So I like that because I did use to get buyers, especially when it was a buyer buying commercial restaurant equipment from me because I sell that sometimes, where they said " I don't want to have to set up a PayPal account". So it seemed like that was a little bit of a hurdle for some of the businesses or sometimes when it was a government purchase.

Yeah, they'd have to have an account in order to pay on eBay and now they don't have just use PayPal.

Yeah. And so I like that there's that flexibility. I feel like it brings in a lot more different kinds of buyers so there's not a hurdle there.

Okay, well that's your first thing you like.

Yes. Number two, my favorite thing is that I have opted into the default where I get a payout every day. If there's something to pay out and that actually consolidates a bunch of transactions. And where I noticed that is when I'm doing my QuickBooks and I do have to confess and reveal that sometimes I do almost a year of QuickBooks at the end of the year.

Me too.

Oh good. Okay.

You are not alone.

Okay. One year, a few years ago I was doing that. I was downloading from PayPal into QuickBooks and like somewhere around halfway through I reached my maximum amount of transactions that you can have in QuickBooks. It was a little bit of a disaster. I had to start a new company file and because it was a mess, it was like some of it went in, some of it didn't. So anyway, what I really like is when I did my QuickBooks after that first year of using Managed Payments, I swear it took me a week less to do a year's worth of accounting because you're doing one reconciling one transaction for maybe 22 purchases.

Right. Because every day, instead of doing every transaction, it was a consolidation by day based on the payout schedule.

Yes.

That's interesting. How does that work with reports? So, for example, eBay's new download reports in Seller Hub, do you use that at all or do you go directly to Quickbooks?

Actually I use some of the reports and I like that to have it as a duplicate and it also gives me a reality check. Yeah, QuickBooks that I made this and then eBay showing this. So it sounds like that's about what I'm making. So I use QuickBooks really mostly for my accountant and just have a feel for if I'm making any money or if I'm spinning my wheels.

It's nice to know if you're making a profit, isn't it?

I know what I need to be making. So it's, it's a little bit of a reality check. Like no wonder I'm scrounging around.

Yeah, that can happen if you're not paying attention. What's another thing or a third thing that you like about Managed Payments?

The number three thing is the Payments Tab. I like that. I'm in Seller Hub and what I really like about that is speaking of scrounging around, I'll know how much money I need to pay my consigners, pay my bills and I can look in my bank account and see what's there. Then I go to the Payments Tab and I see what was the last payment that shows on my bank account, what's pending and what's coming and then I know how much money I have so I know it sounds simplistic but it works.

Yeah, I can understand how that would be a very good thing. What else is displayed in the Payments Tab besides that information?

What's displayed is under payouts I can then see how many transactions that payout was for and I can click on the number of transactions and see the detail of all of that.

You can break down the single payout to all the transactions for that day?

Yes, so I do look at that kind of detail.

How do you pay for eBay shipping labels?

It's always been set up for me to use PayPal and then I saw the option that I could have it come out of my pending payments or pending funds. So I opted for that and I like that.

Do you have one day handling?

Yes, I do. Is there ever a time where you don't have the funds in Managed Payment pending to actually pay for a shipping label?

Yeah. And then I have to click. Okay. Take it from PayPal. So my question is, Oh, so when people have Managed Payments, do they still have to have a PayPal account or maybe they set up a credit card?

So that's an interesting question I'll take back to Nidhi. But you're saying when you have no funds pending and you need to print a label that it's taking you to PayPal to pay for the label?

Yep. I have to click take the funds from PayPal so it's like an extra little step.

Wow. Well that's interesting. I'll keep that in mind cause I'm going, like I said, I'm going to jump into this so we'll see how that works. I know a lot of sellers don't do daily payouts. They opt for weekly payouts.

Must be nice. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding.

Well, however you do it, it's nice to know that you can still pay for labels if there's no pending funds, so that's good to know. We stopped at number three. What's number four?

Okay, so here is the next two are things that I haven't experienced yet because this is what eBay is going to have for all the people as they start using it, but I love it and I'm excited about these. So one of the ones I'm super excited about is that eBay is going to deduct the final value fee at the time of the sale.

Oh, me too. Fee netting, I love that.

Oh my gosh. And we're not alone because I posted that somewhere and this gal on Facebook was like, Oh, thank God I won't have to have like a heart attack at the end of each month!. I'm like, Oh, it's not just me.

Well, no, and it's interesting because it's been the way of, eBay has done business since the day Pierre started the site and I think a lot of sellers had just become habituated to it, but it's actually alien to every other online marketplace or anywhere else where you might sell regardless where the website takes its share the minute that sales made. What we've always done is, well here's all your money, and then a month later said, now give us some money back. It just doesn't make sense. So yeah, that's the thing I like really one of my favorite things about it is it allows for fee netting. It's a big deal.

Yeah, I'm really excited about that.

What's the other thing that you're looking forward to?

I am excited about that it's going to have one final value fee that includes payment processing and the final value fee. And I think that's clean and easy to figure when you're like estimating fees ahead of time. Like is it profitable for me to buy this and then resell it? It's just makes everything a little bit easier.

I agree too. I love the idea of one fee. And in some of the examples on the website, it shows that the majority of sellers should be seeing lower fees over time rather than higher fees. There will be some outlier sellers who may see their fees increase incrementally a little bit, but for the majority of eBay sellers, they should actually see a savings with this system. So that's in comparison to PayPal, that's the benchmark. So those are your five things that you like. Now, is there anything about the Managed Payments program that you would like that team to know about where you might have some suggestions for improvements or things to be added or changed or edited?

I really like it a lot, so I, and I always want to make like have an answer for something, but when I racked my brain for something like they could improve, I would just say one thing I was gonna say was about the shipping labels, having to have a backup funding, but you kind of answered that, that I could have my payment payouts weekly and then I'll have funds in there.

Yeah, we talked a little bit about that last week with Nidhi, but I think the assurance was that you'll always have some way of paying for labels if there are no pending funds in your Managed Payment payout account so that you won't be stuck with no money to buy a label, which would be terrible really.

That's awesome. And my only other things to improve that I could scrounge up in my mind was, and I don't really know that there's a solution to this. I have figured out that it sometimes takes like a week, even though I have daily payouts from the time that something has sold to when the money's in my account. And sometimes it takes less time, maybe three or four days because there's just a time where eBay's processing it. And when I was using PayPal, there were times where I'm like, yep, got money, now I can buy this with my debit card. Sure. I had access to it like the minute it was in there and I needed it, the access to it. So just some way to have access to it sooner if it takes that long to get your bank account would be the only other thing.

That's a very good suggestion. I'll make sure the Managed Payment Team hears it. They probably already have heard it cause I know they listened to the podcast. But Shari, I want to thank you so much for stopping by and taking time to talk to us about your experience with Managed Payments.

Thank you so much for having me.

We've been speaking with Shari Smith, she's a seller on eBay, a long time seller and she's in the Managed Payment program. She has been since the beginning and if you can hear from her, there's nothing to fear about Managed Payments. So when you get your invitation, make sure you register as soon as possible. Every week we're checking in with sellers. This week we have an old friend of the podcast and eBay radio and if sellers across America, if not across the world, our good friend Lynn Dralle, the Queen of Auctions.

Hi Lynn.

Woo! Hi Griff!

I already know you sound like you're doing okay.

We're doing great.

I think we spoke about six weeks a month or six weeks ago about how you've had to adapt your business to a curbside pickup for the consignment store. How have things changed since we've last talked to you?

They haven't changed that much. We're still doing the online orders. We're delivering them or they can pick up. It's definitely hurt our business though. You know, this is the kind of store, you need to come in and walk around shop. We've been doing a few by appointments, but it's a lot of work. You run down there, meet somebody, they'll look around for an hour and they just really want to get out of the house and you know they're not serious shoppers. We've kind of cut back on that because my time is so much better spent on eBay right now because eBay is rocking and rolling.

Oh, that's good to hear. Oh Griff. I've had one of my best months in years. eBay's where it's at and I'm really getting back into my old eBay routine where I'm digging through stuff in the barn and listing stuff I should've listed. And I tell you that new tool that send offer that Jordan talked about on a call I was on, that has completely changed my business.

Yeah, you're not the only seller who said that. I know that a lot of sellers have really taken advantage of that as an option. I know as a buyer, I love it. I end up spending more money.

Yeah, it's been incredible. When I first looked at it, I had 2,800 items I could send offers on because I'd never used it. I started sending a hundred a day, 200 a day. Pretty soon we were shipping 20, 30 items every day cause it really works. And now I end every day with none to send because I check it. I check it like obsessively. Like this morning I had 50 to send. Usually it's about 50 every day and that's the first thing I do because boy does that drive your business.

So that's part of your strategy. Then you start your day off sending offers.

Absolutely. And then on days that I'm not going to ship like it's a Saturday, Sunday, I kind of wait until Sunday afternoon to send them and that way we get all our shipping on the same days, although a lot of people are shopping on Sunday. So it varies. But I do love that feature so much because not only does it get the people that are watching it to make offers, I get other buyers for some reason it must bring it up higher in the search because other buyers are making offers that are much higher than the ones I sent.

Wow.

Yeah, it's just such a great tool and I use that in addition to my promotions, which is Markdown Manager and I always run the 10% off anything over $50. So I've got all these different things going on that really creates the perfect storm and I'm selling stuff from 2014 , 2015 it's amazing.

That is very good news. Now I know we talked in the past that you are by format, you like auctions, you like fixed price. Has that strategy changed and if so, how? How does that work for you?

Nope. Still doing it. Always. Always, always at auction first cause you never know when you're going to have a bingo, a runner, you know what I mean? Something that's worth a lot of money. So always auction first and then definitely right into fixed price as fast as you can.

And that works?

Yes. And always add that best offer and it's been working for, Oh my God, I hate to say this like 21 years, 22 years. Oh my God!

Time does fly when you're having a good time on eBay.

That is crazy Griff. Oh my gosh. Wow.

Now, one of the hardest things for any business owner, including an eBay seller to do at this period of time is to plan ahead. And smart business always involves planning for the next season, for the next month, for the next year. Have you been able to plan your business out through and hopefully beyond our current pandemic?

Well yeah, I'm just going to keep it, you know what I'm doing, I'm listing. I think the key is always to list new, fresh, interesting things. And I love how Jordan and Jamie are so behind unique one of a kind sellers again and really want eBay to go back to what it was and not be Amazon. Just having them at the helm really pushing that, It's just so refreshing for me and it's really, really spurred me to put more of my energy into eBay and it's definitely paying off. I am getting so used to sitting at home and listing. I don't really even like to go anywhere anymore.

You and I both.

You know, and it's just, it's the eBay lifestyle is so cool and I've missed it because for two years I've had to go into a store every day and now to be able to step back and go back to my old lifestyle, which was getting a little stagnant and boring. I have to say after so many years, not having a store, but it's so nice. It really is.

Okay. When this thing lifts, does that mean you're not going back into the store?

I dunno. One of my employees said she'd be the store manager for me and I'm like, I might never come back.

Where's the owner? Oh, No one's seen her in years!

I am definitely gonna cut back my days in the store. Right now I've been going in about four days a week and I'm working from home the other three and I think I'm going to cut it back to three days. Two to three days. I don't need to be there all day.

I think as you get older you start valuing your time. Right. So there is that.

Yes. And, and you know I have both my kids home from college and my son's girlfriend is staying with us. So it's like this is a fun house.

And you keep them busy?

Oh they're busy. My son is still teaching school cause he's getting his master's at Notre Dame. So he is teaching high school to the kids in Oklahoma City. But it's all by Zoom and my daughter is just got out of Pepperdine spring semester and she's starting summer semester Monday. So they're busy. Super busy.

What about sourcing? You said you're having fun listing, but is it proving to be a bit difficult finding sources? Again, remember we never ask a seller exactly where they get their merchandise. That would be, that would be wrong. But how has sourcing changed for you since this?

I used to love to go to thrift stores and I was going to Palm Springs once a month. My favorite place to peg, and of course that has dried up. But Griff, you know, my grandma had an antique store for 52 years, so I still have probably 50 huge boxes in my barn behind my house of stuff from her store. We've been digging through them and my gal that does my shipping and writes stuff up for me, I give her a box. She writes it up. I'm listing such unique, unusual things and it's so fun for me. I found this really cool majolica vase. It had two handles so like a loving cup and the price tag was written $12.50 from my grandma's store in my like middle school writing. That's how long I have had this thing.

I won't bring up the number of years. That would be time, but that's a long time ago.

It is. But you know, it warms my heart that in the old day we couldn't look stuff up. I mean we had Schroeder's and Warman's and Covello's and all these, all those reference books, but today I just, I put in Google majolica, Japan loving cup and guess what? I found the maker and it's a very good rare maker. I got it listed. I'd love to share the listing number with you.

Yes, please. I'll look it up while you're talking and if you're listening to the podcast right now from more than 90 days ago, you might not find this, but yeah, let's look it up.

I've also been sourcing furniture on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace because then I can pull it in and I get some of my girls are coming in and painting stuff while we're closed, which has been another great thing.

Well, now this brings up a question. If you're sourcing from marketplaces like that that involves having to pick up or meet people, do you maintain a strict social distancing, wearing masks when you go to pick up this furniture or when it's delivered?

Yeah. The only way I'll buy it Griff is if, if they will deliver it. I am not about to go out and pick stuff up and they bring it. My back garage door. I'll open it up halfway. They drop it off. I've paid them by PayPal or whatever and we're good to go.

I just had this vision of you hanging out of a window, dropping cash saying just leave it there. Okay. Drive away. There's your cash.

No, I mean it's, it's been really fun to cause like the stuff that people buy, same thing man. You know, it's uh, we put it in a bag outside and they drive up. And the beautiful thing too about my store is it so big that, I mean we have 4,000 square feet. We really should be able to be open and social distance because I think that you could probably house, I don't know, 20 people in there safely. I'm just praying that they start letting us open up soon.

I think they will. Fingers crossed. And by the way, for those of you who are listening and you haven't heard our Lynn on our show before, her store is in Ventura, California, just outside of downtown, if I remember correctly?

Yeah, it's in Midtown on Main Street. Super cute town. God, venture is amazing. Love the people here. Love the town. Okay, so the auction just ended, but I'll give you the auction ID if you're ready. Okay.

402248370414.

We haven't done this since eBay radio. I know. It's so fun.

402248370414.

And when you're looking for items that have sold, you have to go over after you've typed it in and click on show only sold items.

Actually this didn't sell Griff, so this was an unsold ended listing.

Oh, okay. So it's completed.

It's completed.

Let's go and look at that then .

There. Ooh, look at, Oh my.

Isn't that beautiful?

Oh, you know, I know what this stuff is. I used to collect it before I knew it had a name. It's from Japan and yes, and I used to collect this stuff while back in Vermont when I could find little bits of it and bobs of it in little stores and antique shops. And the stuff I had was all single colored. But yeah, I love this stuff. Some of this is wild. That's an amazing piece.

Isn't it?

Oh, that should have sold. That's not fair. Oh, you idiots. Why don't you buy this, put it back up. I would I will for sure. But you know what? It's cracked at the top, but that's okay.

Well so am I!

This is, it's, it's a really cool piece. So, but isn't that amazing? This went from my grandma's antique store. God only knows where she got it. So back in the seventies she got this and it's gone from there to Palm Desert to Ventura. Oh my gosh. Who knows where it'll end up. But it's a really beautiful piece and I had so much fun researching it.

Yeah, majolica in fact, I never knew it had a name until recently because I still have a few pieces put in a box somewhere. I should take them out. But it was interesting stuff. Some of it's rather mundane, but then there's, you get this wild piece like you have with this, the double handles. It's just amazing.

It really is. And the, and the maker's Mark, it looks like a book or a scroll. So you guys, if you do look at the listing on the bottom, it'll say made in Japan and then there's this kind of thing that looks like a book or a scroll.

Oh yeah, I see that. Yeah.

You'll know what to look for. So yeah, I've had so much fun, Griff. I really have. We love it when you have fun Lynn.

Oh, and it's been, it's been such a nice, just a break I think for everybody. I know it's, it's not good and it's terrible for the economy and not good for all the people that are getting sick. But it's been such a good reset, I think for a lot of families and a lot of people.

I know a lot of sellers who are trying to source product right now are looking locally for individuals who need to de assess. A lot of folks right now are out of work. Whether that's going to be temporary or longterm people who suddenly find themselves unemployed are in a need to raise cash. And although we love that we would sell the items on eBay. A really convenient way to earn cash is to look for eBay sellers in your neighborhood who sell regularly on eBay and who'll give you good value if you want to sell them to them. Look up Lynn, if you're in the Ventura area and she's easy to find, she's the Queen of Auctions and if you've got something to sell, sell it to Lynn. And that goes for every single person within earshot. If you have something that you want to sell and you need to get rid of it before you put it up anywhere, consider looking for a local eBay seller who will buy it from you at a good price and then sell it themselves on eBay. Because selling on eBay is a bit of a some work and some folks may not want to do it.

Yeah, that's such great advice. It really is. And you know, you have to remember too that some of my items can take three, four, five years to sell. So it is a really great idea to go ahead and find those sellers and you know, they can do it right on eBay. They can search by sellers within their a hundred miles. So that's just a great, great tip.

Lynn, you got any advice for a seller who might be feeling down right now?

Yeah, you know, it's funny because with all of this, I've started, my Queens court calls back up and one of them said to me, she said, I was so discouraged until you started coming back in and you know, telling us what's going on with your business. And I think that the momentum for eBay's here, it's back. Jason and Jamie are helping to do that. The unique one of a kind. Amazon is, it's gone down the tubes because they're, you know what? And this is good. They can't ship. I mean, nothing's getting there in two days, it's six weeks out. And you know what, with eBay, I've taken almost all of my buying that I used to do on Amazon, even for like commodity things like hairspray, I'm buying on eBay because it's guaranteed in two to three days. So eBay is kicking butt in that sense because we can get the stuff out and I just think it's shown huge cracks in Amazon. And it's a huge, huge opportunity for all of us eBay sellers.

And I didn't pay you to say any of that.

No, no, no. `But I just, I have to say, I love seeing it happen.

So one of the things that is really interesting, all of us have assumed that centralized locations for fulfillment would be the King forever. But then something like this happens that disrupts that chain. And what you end up with is on the eBay end, hundreds and thousands of sellers across the world. That's a, that's a real number who can fulfill on their own without having to worry about disruption. They can get it to people very quickly. So that's been a big, as you say, it's been a big plus for buyers who need things quick.

A huge bonus for eBay and it just really shows that eBay is the place because we're making it work and I just think it's really exciting for eBay.

Lynn, thank you so much for taking time out of your day. We want to check in with you again in another month and see how things are going.

Okay, Griff. Sounds awesome.

Thanks again.

Thank you. Oh hey, can you tell him to go and sign up for my newsletter?

We should do that, of course, yes. Well, I'll let you do it.

Okay, so I'm starting to write a new newsletter. I started in January. They come out once a week. Super fun. eBay scores and tips and tricks. Also about my store in Ventura. It's Lynns Consignments. Both are plural. lynssconsignments.com and on that page you can sign up for our newsletter.

And that page is on?

It's right on the front of my website. When you go to, when you go to the website, lynnsconsignments.com, there'll be something that says newsletter.

So lynnsconsignments.com we'll put that link in the transcript of the podcast so that you can click from it right there. If you forget what it was. Pretty easy, but you know how we're dealing with a lot of stuff right now so, so I'll put the link in the transcript. Lynn, thanks again. It's been a pleasure.

Thanks Griff.

Lynn Dralle has a store in Ventura. She's been selling on eBay for what? Twenty One plus years plus now under the queen of auctions. Do check out her website.

Well, what a show Brian. There was a lot of content.

It was a lot of content, some really, really good stuff and it was interesting to hear someone like Lynn who's been a long time seller, experienced brick and mortar plus online, how she's been adapting.

If there's anything that I love about Lynn and there's lots of things to love about her, the one thing is she just not going to be knocked down by any silly pandemic. She's going to find a way to make it work and she's adapting her business so she can make it through and really thrive during this period.

You know, it's interesting. It seems like those kinds of attributes with sellers are the ones that are the sellers that have been successful over the decades. They just are tenacious in a way, not in a like an angry or negative way tenacious. Just tenacious from a business standpoint.

And of course it's always nice to talk to somebody like Shari Smith. We really miss Shari. She's was living in the Bay area and coming to our meetups almost every month and now she's been in Denver for the last two years. It was good to reconnect.

I'm a huge Spanish Shari. She's got such a great energy and really positive, especially given some of the stuff that she's gone through and I know that she's enjoying herself in the mountain country there in Colorado.

And she's loving Managed Payments. Hey, I got my invite this week.

You did?

So I got an invite.

I've actually been in since 2019, I think it was around August last year. I signed up.

I wasn't sure I was going to get an invite. So I planned to open up a online checking account where that all that money's going to go to that account. So for my sales, so I'm going to do that tomorrow and then I'm going to register right after that's done. So I'll be ready in July to move on over to the brand new way of getting paid.

Back in the day when I created my PayPal account, that was when I created a separate checking account and I had all of my business at that time run through. So for me it was a relatively easy transition because I already have all of that stuff pointing to a separate checking account and there's no need to create it. You don't have to create it. It's an, it's just an extra thing. If you want to, you can, right? I know lots and lots of sellers who have their PayPal account pointed to their regular account and all they're going to do is transition it over.

And in Managed Payment you'll need a checking account, a savings account won't do. So you have to have a checking account where you can push those phones into. And finally we don't want to miss acknowledging her first appearance on the show. Andrea Stairs the Head of Marketing at eBay and her extensive definition and explanation about what eBay is doing to drive traffic to the site. I think that was very illuminating.

Great first guest to talk about traffic.

Yeah, I think so.

I'm looking forward to the entire month and who comes on the shows in the coming month.

And you know, it was fun that you were able to take part in this. You know, Brian.

It was great taking part in this and our listeners, you too can take part on the eBay for Business Podcast. Maybe you have a question or a comment that you would like to share with your fellow sellers. Call us on (888) 723-4630.

Yes. Call us on the hot cricket line because that's all I hear when I pick it up! (888) 723-4630. And did you know that you could call that hotline anytime of the day, any day of the week? No. Really you can. You can leave a question or comment and if it's appropriate, we might just put it on the air and we're always looking for sellers who would like to be a guest on the show. So there's that too.

Yeah, so who knows? You could be a podcast star in the making. But if you're not a call on the phone person or a star in the making, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

It's time for your daily podcast TO DO list.

Check the announcement board for UpToDate Seller News. Go visit the eBay community pages every day. Check out the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to see the links we referenced during the episode.

On the next episode 94, we'll talk about traffic and Google and how it works on eBay. So don't miss it.

We'd like to, again, thank our guests this week. Head of Marketing, Andrea Stairs, Liz Austin and eBay seller. Shari Smith and Lynn Dralle. The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.