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!

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@dtexley3 wrote:

There have been a couple sellers reporting that they have received the warning messages about selling off eBay after receiving a request from a potential buyer for their contact info.  The seller has responded with a message that it's against eBay policy to supply that information.  They STILL receive the warning message and in that message it states that any further infractions may result in account limits.

You now have sellers afraid to answer questions from buyers because of this.  While I understand why you want to reduce any offsite sales, going after the seller that OBEYS the new rule and INFORMS the buyer it's inappropriate is just wrong.  You have TOO MANY bots that have absolutely NO discernment AT ALL threatening your sellers.  And yes, we do see emails that state our seller accounts will be limited as threats.

Not to sound confrontational, it's really getting hard to justify why anyone would want to sell here.

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@dtexley3 Thanks for sharing this and I have read similar accounts. If you have a specific seller who had the issue, please email it to me and I will send it to our Trust department. We shouldn't be warning sellers/buyers for off eBay sales when they do not have contact information included - it is not our intent. 

Specific use cases help since Trust can look at the case and educate an agent or, if it was an automated detection, look at adjusting the detection models.

Thanks for selling on eBay.

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
There has been a LOT of confusion surrounding the roll out of Sales Event + Markdown...Recently, an ebay seller created a short video showing the new process. THis was very helpful for me.
So, if a seller can do that, WHY can't ebay? When you guys roll out new tools like this, why on earth are we left in the dark? This is 2017 for crying out loud....you're a tech company...surely you have the resources to create a tutorial that launches at the same time as a new tool?
It's hard to believe that you guys STILL don't grasp how high the frustration level is among sellers who have to dig for answers that you could easily provide up front. Especially now, in Q4...we should be listing, shipping, running sales.....not wasting time trying to figure out stuff you should have explained up front.

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion. It's a very valid point and I will circle back with our Seller Marketing and Product teams - send me the video to bburke@ebay.com and I will forward it along. 

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@joesoucie22012 wrote:

Hi Brian. I was wondering about my hidden sales limits. About ten days ago i had an auction end with a sale of $175.00 which is high for me. I have had about 3 sales since then which is very bad for me. I think it might have to do with 2 ten day auctions i started. Dose the search engine AKA cassini look at it as possible high dollar sales, (no bids yet) and there for hids my ficed price listings as it could push me over my hidden monetry limit? Should i be mixing auctions with my fixed priced listings if this is the case? Or should i open a new account for auctions only? Do you know anything about this? Thank You.

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@joesoucie22012 - It is not in eBay's best interest to limit the visibility of items buyers want to buy. We use limits to manage risk, trust (none of you would want us to allow a new seller to list a bunch and sell it, take the money and run). If your item has been listed (by definition we haven't "limited" it), then the most important factor in visibility/sales is relevance to what buyers are looking for. Great service levels, e.g. free shipping, 30 day returns, great photos, structured data, etc help.

Mixing auction-style listings and Fp listings doesn't impact your search standing. And remember, whenever you think or someone tells you eBay is "limiting" you exposure ask yourself "why would eBay do that? and why would they do that to me?"

You will likely realize every time that eBay wouldn't do that - we get paid when you sell your items, and we dont' have the time to target individual sellers (except those that are violating rules). 

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@d-k_treasures wrote:

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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. 

I will commit to bringing your POV to the marketing team. 

THanks for selling eBay!

Brian 

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The problem is that they believe the wording, and not how it was (supposedly) intended to be meant.

If you aren't going to do anything about it, at least explain to new users that you do NOT ship your 1000.00 laptop without checking PP the transaction, and for an Ok to Ship and an Eligible for Seller Protection note on the transaction.

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@d-k_treasures I promised to give it the the Marketing team, and if this was a major issue from new sellers we would hear it. So, for now I understand the current language and I understand your POV. I'll wait for Marketing to weigh in.

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@bluefrogshoes1 wrote:

Hi, Brian!  This is Miriam at the eBay Life Blog.  One of the items I sell on a regular basis is produced by two companies.  They have worked together to create this product.  People search for this product by inserting both brand names.  All of a sudden, eBay is not letting me put both brand names in my titles.  This is a problem.  I'd like to contact an eBay employee in the clothing, shoes, acces. category about this problem.  Who should I contact?  Thanks for listening!

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@bluefrogshoes1 Hi Miriam! Send me the item to bburke@eBay.com and I'l forward it. It is likely the structured data team, but without the item I can't verify.

Thanks for selling on & blogging (I subscribe) about eBay!

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@jonathankirkland wrote:

Is ebay doing anything to better prepare new sellers who come here selling expensive electronics?

It feels as if though ebay seduces new sellers into joining ebay and listing their old cell phone or laptop which are at extremely high risk for scams, yet does VERY LITTLE to prepare these sellers for how to protect themselves and avoid being scammed.

I realize it is a sellers responsibility to learn all of the policies and be well informed, but it seems very decepetive to me the way ebay brings these new sellers in and sets them up for failure.

Would ebay ever consider putting more limits on new sellers and/or possibly making them pass some kind of exam or test proving that they are familiar with these policies? I think another great incentive would be to reward these new sellers with free listings only AFTER they have completed a series of tests to help them educate themselves so they can be much better prepared to start selling here.

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@jonathankirkland We do place limits on new sellers - the last thing we want is them to have a bad experience and discontinue selling. Every seller at some point was brand new. The requirements to sell today are much more stringent than the requirements to sell when I joined in 1999. 

Send me the specific example and I may be able to provide more information on what we do. 

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
Brian, I've had seller hub pretty much since day one. And I've been looking for this since it was first announced. "This Fall" is not a particularly helpful timeline, but really, I should have known better than to think I'd get anything more definite from ebay. My mistake for thinking you guys would actually make an effort to give a tool to someone who actually wants it. Lots of people who DON'T want it have it, just like Seller Hub, but I've been begging for this for weeks and...nothing.

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques I will forward your request to our Seller Hub team. I will not promise to get it to you sooner - but I want you  to have the feature as well. 

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@ebetsy wrote:

Just popping in to say hello  — sure wish this chat didn't overlap with the last hour of eBay Radio!

We're very happy as acquisator: Top Rated, doing 60-day free returns, delighted to be opted in to Guaranteed Delivery and Concierge; sales are steady, and returns continue to hover between 2%-3%. Acquisator sells jewelry, so our occasional returns are usually because a ring or bracelet doesn't fit despite the size and/or measurements being included in the listing (sometimes you just have to try it on). No SNAD returns, ever (knock wood).

As for monjott, now that my partner in that account (husband Jon) is well again, we plan to take our store off of Vacation hold after the first of the year. Looking forward to it!

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@ebetsy Glad to hear from you and glad to hear Jon is going to start selling again! We did overlap with Griffs Radio show, something we will change if needed.

Thanks for selling on eBay!

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@mallontown wrote:

On an item not received case why does ebay require sellers to input delivery confirmation info when ebay already has that info when the label is printed?

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@mallontown I do not believe you have to do this. Can you send me the information, screen shots of the page are best, where you are seeing this - send to bburke@ebay.com

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@plumbingspecials wrote:

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.

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@plumbingspecials 100% agree. The "-4" Feedback score is no longer relevant. I'll take it back to the Trust team.

One thing I would like to state is be very judicious on the use of rules for blocking or blocked bidder list - I would use them sparingly, especially if you use immediate payment. All of us have a bad day once in awhile, that shouldn't warrant block. We created those rules back when buyers used to send checks for payment - it is much easier to get paid now and placing buyers on a block list or limiting your buyer base will result in fewer sales. 

Thanks for selling on eBay.

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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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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@dtexley3 Sorry for any inconvenience this caused you. This was not a issue with software, I will spare you the details, we are aware and are working on resolving the issue. We set the impression counts to zero rather than provide inaccurate counts. This issue has been raised to our CTO and the appropriate people are working this issue - we take this seriously, we are not perfect, but will continue to strive for it. 

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[alan@ebay]

Thanks, brian_burke@ebay for continuing to get through the questions. 

Brian has to attend some meetings now so he will not be replying for the next while,  he will be back later to work through more answers. 

Thanks again everyone. 

[brian_burke@ebay]

@my-cottage-books-and-antiques - You should have access to this within a week. And thank you for you patience as we ramped this. 

If you do not have access by end of next week - Oct 27th - email me at bburke@ebay.com and I will follow-up.

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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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.

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@a_c_green You are referencing a use case that is not standard, I will not claim it never happens, but the common use case is the one I described. Seller lists, buyer purchases, seller ships, seller gets paid - we will agree to disagree on this one for now. 

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
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?

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques Based on your question, I suspect you have a specific ask about our current pyrex category. Please send it to me and I will send it to the structured data team. 

Regarding your question, there are a number of factors that go into category changes - including the number of items in a leaf category (e.g. too few items, we may combine it into a broader category, too many we may split it). We consult with our merchandising team, sellers, buyers and also look at product and industry trends.

If you have a specific suggestion, send it to me at bburke@ebay.com

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian