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!

[alan@ebay]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for joining us today.

Brian is here to talk about any topic you want to. He knows that over the last week there have been issues with Best Offer auto-applied to Auctions & also with the reporting of impressions for Promoted Listings.



Brian is happy to try to address any questions, if he is unable to answer, he will get your questions to the appropriate team here at eBay, and he will follow up with an answer as soon as the information is available.

The thread is now open for replies.

[jonathankirkland]

What is ebay doing to protect new sellers, and sellers in general, against Paypal e-check scams and against ebay falsely indicating the payment has been received and the seller should ship the item when sometimes that in fact is not the case?

[d-k_treasures]

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 ...................

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

How much longer am I going to be waiting to get the new Sales Event + Markdown? I want to run some sales, but the old way is so clunky...I would REALLY like to get the new one SOON.

[dhbookds]

Glad he knows........can he tell why this stuff keeps happening? 

[brian_burke@ebay]

Good afternoon everyone, I'm looking forward to our discussion this afternoon. 

And if I don't have an answer I'll take the issue back to other - and feel free to talk about the good stuff going on as well 🙂

Brian

[theshoppingmom2]

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?

[a_c_green]

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.

[odditiesandantiquities1]

Good Morning Alan and Brian. Nice to meet you Brian.

I just went through a terrible experience the past week. I'll try to make this as brief as possible. 

I was suspended for a week because I gave an old friend me email address. A woman I used to worth with at Ruby Lane. We used to be close, but she had illnesses like my own and went through a bad period and we lost touch. 

I was so excited to hear from her, I didn't think twice about giving her my email address. It was my fault I sent my email address. didnt even think.

I called the Manager who is handling these cases and he said that even though he could see that my message showed no intent to sell outside of eBay, there was nothing he could do. That was completely against what they say in their policy. It clearly says that it has to be in the "context of selling outside" where mine wasn't. 

Now, as per your policy, for reference. 

"Sellers are also liable for final value fees if they offer or reference their contact information, or ask for a buyer’s contact information, in the context of buying or selling outside of eBay, even if the item does not sell."

[brian_burke@ebay]

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@jonathankirkland wrote:

What is ebay doing to protect new sellers, and sellers in general, against Paypal e-check scams and against ebay falsely indicating the payment has been received and the seller should ship the item when sometimes that in fact is not the case?

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@jonathankirkland We are aware of this and if this occurred to you, please contact customer service and, once they confirm that was the issue, they will reimburse you. I'll circle with our Product team to find the timing of a fix for this issue. 

Thanks for selling on eBay

Brian

[buyselljack2016]

I keep seeing posts about the bots sending messages warning buyers, and sellers that they are being flagged for possible "off eBay" transactions.

I would like to know what the date is for sellers removing contact information from their listings such as:

Listings provide a phone # to place orders. (off eBay selling ?)
(XX6) XX3 -77XX to place an order over the phone - call us anytime. thank you ....

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

The Guaranteed Delivery Roll out....is it being rolled out by seller, or by category?

[odditiesandantiquities1]

You want to hear some good news. Generally I have a very comfortable life here on eBay. My customers are incredible and give me wonderful feedback. I know the drill most of the time and work within the structure.  I want to keep doing what I love without any vacations I don't choose to take myself. 

[brian_burke@ebay]

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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 ...................

---

@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