eBay Executive Chat, Oct 17th @ 1pm PT - Brian Burke

[alan@ebay]

Hi Community! 

Next up in our series of Executive chats is Brian Burke, whom you may know from the boards already as brian_burke@ebay. 

Brian's current role is Seller Evangelist. Brian has held a variety of roles during his eighteen + years at eBay. He first joined eBay in June 1999 as the Community Development Manager, similar to the role I have today. 

As a Seller Evangelist, Brian is focused on engaging with our seller community through the Community and social platforms ensuring that the seller's voice is heard internally and supporting the multiple Meetup programs run by sellers across the country.

Over his eBay career, Brian has spent time in Trust & Safety as policy manager, including Feedback policy, Merchant Development and Seller Communications. Prior to eBay, he spent time at Apple Computer, Inc. and 3Com Corporation.

Please join this 'Ask Me Anything' hour-long chat session to get to know Brian, ask questions and share your insights about selling on eBay. 
 

Brian is looking forward to answering your questions!

[plumbingspecials]

When I am setting my buyer requirements, one of the automatic block settings is for users with a "negative feedback score". This does not seem to be relevant to anything on a buyer's profile, since they cannot receive negative scores. If a seller who uses his account to purchase something once in a while has less than 100%, it still is not a "negative" feedback score. I had a seller buy from me last week and his feedback score was 96%. The block did not work (obviously, he would have to have more negative than positive - in which he probably would have been suspended before that ever happens.)

Anyway, my point is that the feedback block is quite obsolete, unless there is something I am not understanding about negative feedback scores. It would be REALLY helpful if sellers could block buyers who leave too many negative feedbacks, those who are constantly abusing the system to get refunds, yet do not get suspended. I would love to be able to block someone who has left three or more negatives in a 12 month period. That would be more useful than this obsolete "negative feedback score" setting that seems to block nothing.

[dtexley3]

During the month of September there were "issues" with the "reporting" of impressions of promoted listings.  (Supposedly our visibiltiy was not affected, but I had a terrible month of sales so I take that statement with a grain of salt).  On the last weekend the message on the promoted listings impressions page changed to state it had been fixed and the data would be backfilled.

Now the data has been backfilled but starting last Friday it's reporting 0 impressions for everyone, everyday for every set of promoted listings.  Is this even being looked into?  The message on the page still claims the error has been fixed.

eBay needs to get a handle on their software release process, we are seeing a constant stream of broken and non-working code being released as production.  I work in a large company with major web and internal software, we would lose our jobs if we were producing this much broken code and pushing for it to be released as production.

[a_c_green]

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brian_burke@ebay wrote:

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@d-k_treasures wrote:

Are you EVER going to change the "List it, Ship it, Get paid" in all of the spam 'Sell your tech' emails?

It's NOT how it works ...................

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@d-k_treasures I understand your POV - there are a number of rules around when funds get releases to a new seller, so the content is going to remain as it is targeted to new sellers and those sellers may be impacted by funds holds. 

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While it's true that funds can be held for a while after the sale and after shipping, the ordering of "List it, Ship it, Get paid" is not only misleading (implying that the newbie seller is supposed to ship before he will see his payment from the buyer), but also plays directly into a popular scam message that is widely used, purporting to be from PayPal and claiming that the buyer has paid. It directs the newbie seller to ship his item first, then upload his tracking number, at which point he will supposedly see the funds deposited into his account.

Obviously no such funds deposit ever takes place, and yet new sellers frequently fall for the scam, in part because that  "List it, Ship it, Get paid" mantra has them conditioned to think that they're supposed to ship first. It would be helpful to seek out and destroy every occurrence of that misleading promotional blurb, and focus more on how sellers should verify that their payment has actually occurred.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

When creating product pages for things like vintage pyrex, does ebay consult with collector experts, or do you rely on your "Big Data" from ebay and elsewhere?

[theshoppingmom2]

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brian_burke@ebay wrote:

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@theshoppingmom2 wrote:

Hi Brian  glad to see you here! Hi everyone !!

Last Week Sarah was asked this question:

I would love to know if eBay has any plans to revive the On Location meetings they used to have and if not , do they have any plans to get more events to get the community  together?

Her reply below:

Hey @theshoppingmom2:  I'm not aware of plans to revive the regional OnLocation meetings....rather we are putting resources toward making eBay Open bigger / better for sellers. " Sarah

so my question for you today is , can you give us  a  sneak preview  on what eBay Open 2018 will be like... anything to look forward to?

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@theshoppingmom2 I wish I had more information, but we are early in the planning phase. I'm sure Jesse and the team will have more to say about eBay Open in early 2018. But for anyone who has attended in the past, they are well worth going. I'll throw the question back to you - what would you like to see as part of eBay Open and I will bring it back to the events team. 

Thanks for all you do for eBay!

Brian

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 Top of  my wish list would be :

More days! 3 days and they were not full days in my opinion is not enough 🙂

More Community engagement workshops

[odditiesandantiquities1]

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@dtexley3 wrote:

During the month of September there were "issues" with the "reporting" of impressions of promoted listings.  (Supposedly our visibiltiy was not affected, but I had a terrible month of sales so I take that statement with a grain of salt).  On the last weekend the message on the promoted listings impressions page changed to state it had been fixed and the data would be backfilled.

Now the data has been backfilled but starting last Friday it's reporting 0 impressions for everyone, everyday for every set of promoted listings.  Is this even being looked into?  The message on the page still claims the error has been fixed.

eBay needs to get a handle on their software release process, we are seeing a constant stream of broken and non-working code being released as production.  I work in a large company with major web and internal software, we would lose our jobs if we were producing this much broken code and pushing for it to be released as production.

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Not to piggy back on your post dtexley3, but I added 23 listings a few weeks ago and have been increasing my listings for the past 3 months. My sellers hub says that I was down 20% in active listings? (Almost the exact same amount I had added).  I hope you don't use any of that data because it's clearly wrong. 

[mallontown]

Why can't I use the same tracking number when a buyer makes 2 or more separate payments for items purchased same day (usually less than 5 minutes apart). Ebay will not let me input the same tracking number.

Ebay is forcing sellers to use require immediate payment and not educating buyers that they can combine items into 1 order.   99% of my items are free shipping and sometimes I get 3 or4 separate payment and combine all items in 1 package to keep cost low.

Ebay then says I did not ship the items and it affects my shipping metrics because ebay will not allow me to input the same tracking number.

If ebay truly cared they would fix this.

[labs118]

Hi Brian
With the roll out of the ebay catalog Q&A it appears to have caused a few issues
1st: The boards are filled with questions from buyers asking where ask question has gone
They are not aware it was moved & renamed Contact Seller , many buyers have said they moved on to another site because if they can't ask the seller a question they aren't going to purchase. 

Somehow there is a glitch and some browsers & devices aren't even showing the contact seller information, I believe Tyler & Trinton are aware of this on the Buying board.

2nd : The boards have questions asking what has happened to the post answer to item?
If it is a seller specific question can we no longer answer buyer & post it?

3rd: For items that are in the catalog it appears buyers are using the new catalog Q&A area thinking it is going directly to a specific seller about their item since it is in the same place that they are used to the old ask question being located.
Seller gets the question but has no idea who the buyer is so cannot reach out to the buyer & answer .
This cannot be a good exprience for the buyer & is making the sellers look bad.

New Way to Contact seller I am lucky enough to see it, many are not seeing it can we find out why?


Old ask question about item (now gone so how & can we post an answer to my items questions )







New Q&A about products that have buyers confused thinking they are asking a seller direct question

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@a_c_green wrote:

Hello brian_burke@ebay,

This is a topic that comes up on a regular basis in the discussion groups: why is eBay including the cost of postage when calculating Final Value Fees on a sale?

To be clear, we know why the FVFs are imposed on the sale total including Shipping, dating back to the old days of $1 iPods with $300 Shipping charges, for which eBay got no cut of the Shipping.

However, deducting the actual cost of postage before applying Final Value Fees to the remainder of the buyer's payment is the correct way to calculate it, since postage is a seller expense, not seller income, and once that's deducted, the FVF is fairly applied to all sales. As it stands right now, sellers of heavier objects pay more in Final Value Fees than sellers of light ones, which of course make no sense.

For example, a seller of a $100 bowling ball might need $25 to ship it, whereas the seller of a $100 watch might need only $3. Thus the bowling ball seller currently pays FVFs on $125 where the watch seller pays on $103. If, when each prints their shipping label, you were to deduct the postage costs from each, then both sellers are paying FVFs on $100, which was their actual income from their respective sales.

When the seller buys their postage through eBay's Shipping interface, it would be trivial to deduct the cost of postage from the sale price, thus applying the FVF to the seller's actual income from the sale, and leveling the playing field that way. Sellers who still want to gouge on Shipping charges will still be paying their share of FVFs for that, and sellers who currently buy their postage over the counter at the PO will have another incentive to come aboard eBay and print their postage there instead, thus lowering their FVFs at the same time.

So: can we have a correction to deduct the cost of our on-line postage from the Final Value Fees? It's the only seller expense for which we're paying a fee on top, it's unfair to sellers of heavier objects, and it just makes sense to fix it.

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@a_c_green  With any system there will be limitations. You raise a valid limitation of the current system. We can evaluate building out what you suggest, and I sit right by our Pricing team, so will take your suggestion back to them. However, I don't expect a change to how we charge FVFs anytime in the near future. Fees on total cost eliminated gaming, protected buyers during the claim process. I hear you that you perceive the current system as unfair, so will take it back for review. 

Thanks for selling on eBay and if Pricing wants to further discuss I may give you a call.

Brian

[dtexley3]

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@mallontown wrote:

Why can't I use the same tracking number when a buyer makes 2 or more separate payments for items purchased same day (usually less than 5 minutes apart). Ebay will not let me input the same tracking number.

Ebay is forcing sellers to use require immediate payment and not educating buyers that they can combine items into 1 order.   99% of my items are free shipping and sometimes I get 3 or4 separate payment and combine all items in 1 package to keep cost low.

Ebay then says I did not ship the items and it affects my shipping metrics because ebay will not allow me to input the same tracking number.

If ebay truly cared they would fix this.

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@mallontown are you using seller hub or the old MyEBay pages?  I've not had any issues putting the same tracking number on multiple shipments for the same buyer.

What gripes me is if I give the buyer a discount for the shipping on the 2nd item I have no way short of calling CS to request a refund on the FVF for that shippign discount.  Should be an automatic feature, if I refund money, eBay refunds that portion of the FVF.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

Brian, I realize ebay believes it needs to market the "new" side of ebay heavily, because many buyers still associate ebay with "used stuff" But Christmas is a nostalgic time for many people, and seems like a great opportunity to do some targeted marketing that would directly benefit sellers of older stuff, antiques, vintage etc.

Any chance we'll see something like that as part of ebay's Holiday Marketing, or will we be pushed aside, as usual?

[southern*sweet*tea]

Have you ever considered spending a few days a month just hanging out with your fellow "happy" Ebay buyers and sellers? Reading about their problems? Interacting with us and offering help and advice?

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/bd-p/selling-db

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Bidding-Buying/bd-p/bidding-buying-db

Come join us...it might open your eyes.

[dtexley3]

@labs118  That's a good point, why does that Contact Seller not appear on most listings?  I don't see it on my own when I open them either.  

[a_c_green]

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@plumbingspecials wrote:

It would be REALLY helpful if sellers could block buyers who leave too many negative feedbacks, those who are constantly abusing the system to get refunds, yet do not get suspended. I would love to be able to block someone who has left three or more negatives in a 12 month period.

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While we're on the topic of buyer requirements wish lists, I really wish we could screen buyers who have made more than "n" number of bid retractions in the past 6 or 12 months, where n could be a user-selectable number. It's frustrating to see that your lead bidder has a record of maybe dozens, hundreds or even thousands of retractions (in extreme but not unknown cases), and your choice is to either wait for what appears to be a likely retraction later on, or cancel the bidder pre-emptively and leave your other bidders to wonder what the heck is going on.

A bid retraction can cause an auction to collapse like a house of cards. Not only the initial retraction can harm it, but also other bidders may decide that there's some problem with the item that they're not aware of, and they'll retract as well. (Some years ago, there was a reporting option for Invalid Bid Retractions, but it was removed.) We have helpful tools to enable us to screen out those with too many non-payment slaps or policy violations, but we currently have no means of screening those bidders who don't seem to take their bidding commitment very seriously at all. 

[becksrelics]

I promised to behave 😁 Brian Google 62 coming out on October 24th supposedly ...will ebay pages be ready ,ie https so Google won't tag listing pages as non secure?