Ep 176 || Understanding The Changes To Your 2022 1099-K Form

[podcast_team]

This week, Manish Belsare from eBay’s C2C Strategy Team joins us for a dive into the recent changes to the IRS thresholds for form 1099-K. And Brian and Griff answer questions about the missing Lifetime Sales figure, shipping from different addresses, changing your user id and Store name, and is it ok to put marketing in outgoing parcels for sold eBay items.

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Episode (Show) Links:
Authentication for Trading Cards
2022 changes to eBay and your 1099-K
My eBay Page For Adding and Editing Addresses
Changing Your Username or Store Name

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Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: I'm Griffin. This is the eBay For Business Podcast, your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start, run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 176.

Brian: Very cool. And if they forget those little intro lines, they can go to community.ebay.com and click on the podcast link and they can read it too.

Griff: You'll do anything to direct people.

Brian: I will.

Griff: Any opportunity you'll take.

Brian: It is a great little site we've got going there.

Griff: And I wonder who runs it?

Brian: Sheila Dokey. Well, but..

Griff: Well, but ? Who does Sheila report to, Brian?

Brian: Yes. Brian.

Griff: Brian Burke, Jesus. It's pulling teeth with you.

Brian: Yes. Sheila does report to me. We have a good partnership.

Griff: You have an excellent partnership and she is a pistol. That's a hard site to stay on top of. She does a good job.

Brian: She does a very good job. So I don't know how we got on that. I think me pushing people to community.ebay.com got us on that. So what's going on this week?

Griff: Well, that's my question to you because you read the news. So is there, oh, I don't think there's much, but there is this, this news item. And before we get to it, I have to make a point here and say that this was the last bit of information that Audrey, our dearly beloved employee who's off on a new journey now.

Brian: Excited for her, but sad to see her go.

Griff: Oh God, It was really tough for me. Anyway, she wanted to make sure we got this last bit of information in to this week's episode, it's already been out there, but I thought let's do it anyway. So if you wanna read the news.

Brian: It's also a great testament to the type of person that Audrey was. She didn't just walk out the door. She made sure things were handed over and done properly.

Griff: No loose ends.

Brian: Exactly

Griff: No burning bridges.

Brian: Exactly. So last week, eBay announced an expansion of our Authenticity Guarantee Program. That's eBay's authentication service for trading cards that covers individual ungraded sports trading cards (STC), collectible card games (CCG), and non-sport trading cards( NSTC) sold for $750 or more. Authentic Guarantee ensures you are selling with confidence, knowing that the professional Authentication Team at the certified collectibles group, which includes CGC trading cards and certified sports guarantee (CSG) will verify your card before sending it to the buyer, ensuring that you and your buyer are protected. You can learn more including how the authentication service works step by step ebay.com/announcements.

Griff: Yeah, and I think we need to point out for someone who's never used it before that the authentication service, it works both ways. So if the seller makes a sale in these categories for, in this case, 750 or more, it automatically switches to authentication. You send it to of the authentication address. They authenticate it. Then they ship it to the buyer. If the buyer wants to return it, they have to ship it back to the authentication services company who then verifies that they're shipping back the same card that they received. And then it's shipped back to the seller.

Brian: So the nice thing is there is both buyers and sellers are protected.

Griff: Yeah. It's a great service. And if you've been paying attention to it over the last year or two you, well, you might think to yourself, Hmm. Maybe eBay's expanding this category to category. I wouldn't say you were wrong.

Brian: Handbags, watches, trading cards, sneakers.

Griff: I had my first purchase of authenticated sneakers about a month ago. And as a buyer, it went off like it was great.

Brian: Did you keep the tag on?

Griff: I did. I, well, no, I didn't. I kept the tag, but I took it off. I'm not that ostentatious. walking around with my little eBay authenticate tag.

Brian: If they had a community.ebay.com tag, then I would keep it on.

Griff: Oh, geez. Yeah, I have no doubt. I have no doubt you would, that's true. Interesting week this week. Cause we're talking about a topic that well, it's of interest to many sellers. There's been a lot of confusion about it too. And that's the recent change to the IRS rule and 1099K forms. So we have a guest coming in in a few minutes who's gonna tell us exactly what that entails.

Brian: That's good. And uh, I just had a meeting with that guest earlier this morning, too, on this topic.

Griff: You did?

Brian: Yes.

Griff: Why?

Brian: Well, we were talking through communications to sellers on an edge case with, you know with this. There's a lot, there's lots of different types of sellers that we have in our marketplace. And so this impacts sellers differently. We don't have cookie cutter sellers.

Griff: I think that there's some sellers on the site that sell cookie cutters. I can guarantee you if I look it up, we will find them and they are gonna take great offense with that Brian. They will be sending an emails, telling us that we are ignoring the cookie cutter seller on eBay.

Brian: So I'll send out a challenge. The first one to send in a question, who's a cookie cutter seller and they have inventory on the site. I promise to buy a cookie cutter.

Griff: You do?

Brian: Yes.

Griff: Oh, okay. There it is. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Brian: Yes. First question in.

Griff: Oh and speaking of questions, we do have questions in the queue and there's, there's one that's so embarrassing, but I put it in just to show that I'm not above denigrating myself.

Brian: Well, at least it's you and not me.

Griff: No, it's not. You It's definitely me. It was a terrible faux paw that I made and I need to make it up. So I think there'll be a case of mugs going to one seller. Not a case, but a few, we'll send a few, but yeah, we have some interesting questions. One of them is a call in.

Brian: Hopefully some other sellers after they hear the questions this week they'll call in or write in with a question.

Griff: Yeah. We've had a few sellers that called in, I mean wrote in, and there are questions that really tricky to answer because they're potentially an issue with the technical issue with their account. I can't tell unless I've had someone review it very closely. And I'm actually one of these people I'm having an issue right now, but I believe it may be just limited to my account. You know, I don't want to blurt it out, but when you have something like that and you email it in, I'll need to collect more details and then I'll have to contact someone on the Product Team so they can take a look at it and that can take a week or two to get back. So those questions are in the queue for answering. Once I get some information cool. If you're listening in, you're a regular listener, you probably know who you are without naming.

Brian: At least then they know that, Hey, you haven't forgotten them.

Griff: Right. Which is why one of these questions is so embarrassing.

Brian: Did you not double verify with Product?

Griff: No. It's worse than that. It's worse. It's much worse than that. I feel so foolish, but I think it's important to self flagellate yourself in public on a podcast. So that's what I'll be doing.

Brian: Or provide accurate information to our listeners.

Griff: Oh no, no. It's not that the information wasn't accurate. Okay. It's just, there wasn't any information. So stay tuned for more.

Brian: I can't wait for questions now.

Griff: The thing is, she was so nice about it and that made me feel worse. At least if she had hollered at me, I would've felt, wait a minute.

Brian: Can we skip the guest part and get right to the question? Cause now I'm so intrigued. I really wanna know.

Griff: Well, the whole point of this drama is to keep people listening till the end. So no.

Brian: So stay tuned for questions after actually a very interesting conversation with Manish on the tax stuff.

Griff: Oh, you gave away his was supposed to be a surprise.

Brian: Oh, was it?

Griff: No, it's okay.

Brian: You can cut it.

Griff: It's already in the announcement all over the place who our guest is. So it's not like some big surprise, but all right, Brian, will you stick around for questions later?

Brian: I will. I'm intrigued.

Griff: Coming up. We're gonna talk 1099Ks.

Griff: The recent announcement of a change to an IRS rule regarding form called 1099K has been a real hot topic of discussion among eBay sellers in our community forums. Joining us now from eBay C2C Strategy Team to help us better understand what it is every seller should expect regarding this new rule regarding the IRS form. 1099K is Manish Belsare. Welcome Manish.

Manish: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Griff: What is it that you do at eBay?

Manish: So my job is all about making, selling on eBay, easier for individuals and casual sellers. And I'm part of a team that is currently focused on helping our sellers navigate this new law about the 1099K reporting.

Griff: And starting right off. I went through our community forums and looked for some examples. And I found one, there was a seller in our community who said.. "Confusing, confusing, confusing, anyone, understand the new 1099 tax filing information? I just can't wrap my head around it." We know lots of sellers feel this way. Manish, what's the headline here?

Manish: So here's the headline. Before January, 2022, some sellers may have received a form 1099K for selling more than $20,000 and 200 transactions or for selling less in states which have reduced thresholds. For all your sales on January one, this year, onwards, eBay and other marketplaces who process payments for their sellers are required by the IRS to issue a form 1099K to you if you receive $600 or more in sales. Note that some sellers have received or will be receiving shortly a 1099 in January this year, but that applies to your 2021 sales. The new tax reporting requirement will apply to your 2022 sales and the taxes you file next year in 2023.

Griff: Here's another seller question Manish. I don't sell for profit, just clearing out stuff I don't need. Who does this change impact? Is it for business sellers or hobbyists? What about individuals who are just like this person just selling a used item?

Manish: This law does not distinguish between businesses, hobbyists or a casual seller who's just cleaning out their garage. It impacts anyone who receives payouts of more $600 in a year. Note that this is not also an eBay specific regulation. It applies to all online marketplaces, that process payments.

Griff: Yeah. And a lot of sellers on the forums are asking about T I N,I T I N ,SSN, IEN all these acronyms. What's the difference between all of them? What are they?

Manish: Yeah, lot of different, three letter words flying around around this. So T I N simply stands for Taxpayer identification Number. And it is sometimes also called as ITIN. I stands for Individual. So an it would be individual taxpayer identification number for an individual, your social security number is your 10 and for a registered business, the employer identification number, or E I N is the 10. So really they're all different forms of calling out your tax ID number.

Griff: So for me, mine is my social security number. And that's probably not gonna change. Sellers are also saying I'm not running a business. And another seller I read said, I don't make as much money as the 1099 shows. I had to pay fees and refund buyers. What it seems to be top of mind for many sellers now is, will I have to pay income tax on everything I sell online?

Manish: The IRS generally only taxes you on your profits. So you won't owe any taxes on something you sell for less than what you paid for it. So, as an example, if you bought a bike for thousand dollars last year and then sold it on eBay today for $700, that's $700 you made would generally not be subject to income tax. While eBay is unable to give tax advice to our sellers, we do provide resources on ebay.com relating to this subject, and we'll continue adding more info there to help our sellers understand this change. Simply Google for eBay, 1099K FAQ. And you'll see a page with all of the seller questions that we have addressed there and some helpful links as well.

Griff: Yeah. And we'll put that link in our item transcript for episode 176. Now, as a seller Manish on eBay, are there any actions that I have to take with regards to a 1099K?

Manish: There are three things that you may have to do or keep in mind, rather if your sales on eBay meet the new $600 threshold for this year. One, if you haven't already given us your SSN or TIN, we'll ask you to provide it. Once you reach $600 in sales, eBay, as you know, requires this in order to be compliant with the new laws relating to 1099K if you don't provide your SSN, EIN or TIN, we will hold your pay outs and may even have to deduct backup withholding from future payout. Secondly, for everything you sell online in 2022 on eBay and or other marketplaces, it's generally helpful to keep a record of what your costs are. Simple things like the purchase price of the item. Any selling related expenses that you may have on shipping, et cetera. Thirdly, just keep this in mind that in January of next year, eBay will send you a fill in form 1099K for all of your 2022 sales on eBay. It'll include information on your eBay sales this year, and you can then use it to determine your income from online selling on eBay. Make a note that information will also be reported to the IRS as required by this law.v

Griff: I'd like to mention for sellers who may be multi-platform that you could end up getting more than one 1099K. So for example, if you sell in another marketplace, it'll be their job to send you a 1099K for sales made on that platform.

Manish: Absolutely. And if you have multiple accounts on one marketplace and put together your threshold is crossed, you will get multiple 1099K’s.

Griff: Yeah. And in the words of another seller who posted, I need more clarity on what is, and what is not covered on the 1099.

Manish: The $600 threshold is calculated on your total sales starting January 1, 2022. And without subtracting expenses, such as shipping costs, your eBay selling fees or any post transaction adjustments. Let's say if you offered a discount or refund to a buyer, any sales tax that is collected from the buyer by eBay will not be included in the 1099K reported amount.

Griff: Could you put that together more an example, you know, like a case study, for example?

Manish: Certainly let's say you sold a few items on eBay this year for a combined total of thousand dollars, just to take around number. For these items. You had maybe a hundred dollars in shipping costs and another hundred dollars in eBay fees. And then eBay also collected some applicable tax from the buyer.

Griff: Okay. That's easy to understand.

Manish: In this example, your total sales amount thousand dollars is higher than the new threshold of 600. So you will receive a form 1099 K. And as I said before, eBay will send it to you in January of 2023. Now this 1099K will show a thousand dollars in eBay sales, but your selling related expenses, the hundred bucks you spent on shipping related costs, the hundred dollars in eBay selling fee. In this example, they will not be subtracted from the reported amount.

Griff: So that's up to the, the seller taxpayer to deduct those as expenses as allowed when they're filing their taxes.

Manish: Yes, they will need to use this form to understand and calculate what is the income that they should report in their tax form.

Griff: What about the sales tax collected by eBay from the buyer?

Manish: That is simple, eBay will directly send it to the relevant state tax department. So you don't to worry about it as a seller, and it will not be included in the form 1099K. I'll add one final note on this subject of $600 threshold. It is calculated based on the date on which your it sold and not the date on which you received money in your account which may sometimes be different.

Griff: So it could be those end of the year sort of thing. That's important. Manish, can a seller just create like multiple accounts on eBay before any of them reach $600 to avoid getting a 1099K?

Manish: I wish it was that easy to avoid skirting when IRS comes calling on any reporting requirements. But the simple answer is no. If you have multiple accounts associated with the same SSN or TIN, and several sellers do for legitimate reasons, your threshold will be calculated by combining all transactions for the year across those accounts. So if your combined sales exceeds the $600 threshold, you will receive one form 1099K for each account, reporting the total sales on that account. Even if one or more of the individual accounts themselves do not exceed the IRS threshold.

Griff: So there's no way out of this?

Manish: When the government asks you for some information, usually that's the answer.

Griff: Doesn't it seem like the whole purpose of this, the changing of the rule was just to have an accountability for all of the, mostly the sales that are happening online, but not just online, they could be sales you make anywhere. It's a way of keeping the IRS informed about what your gross sales are based on what payment processes have to now inform the IRS about

Manish: You're right. And my personal opinion is they wanted to change the threshold, which was very different. $20,000 and 200 transactions is at that point, you are fairly committed to online selling and they moved it to even one transaction and 600. So they kind of went significantly on the other way with this threshold.

Griff: What is eBay doing about that?

Manish: Our goal is to help all sellers, casual sellers, as well as those selling as a business, to understand and navigate these new requirements. I want to remind our listeners that there is a lot of information on ebay.com relating to this regulation. And you can simply look up for it by searching for eBay 1099K FAQ and see everything that we have put there. As Griff you mentioned earlier, this link will also be included in the session transcript. You can also visit eBaymainstreet.com and learn how eBay is fighting burdensome legislation like this one on behalf of our sellers. You could voice your concern on that website and even send a letter to your member of Congress about it.

Griff: Better than sitting around complaining. You can actually do something. In the meantime, keep your eye out for that new 1099K, that you will get next January. And at the very least, as Manish said, and we say on the show all the time, it's never too late to track your business. Even if it's just a small amount of sales, you're making, keep your records clean and straight, and it'll make it much easier at tax time for you to report on and without anxiety, you know exactly how much that you made, how much you expensed and how much the Uncle Sam should be getting.

Manish: Absolutely. That's very sage advice Griff and happy selling sellers.

Griff: Thank you. Manish. Manish Belsare works for the C2C Strategy Team as a lead. He's talking to us today about 1099Ks. And we will put a link to eBays 1099K FAQ in the transcript for episode 176.

Manish: You got questions.

Griff: Guess what? We got answers. Lots of answers.

Brian: How many questions in the queue this week?

Griff: I took a look. We have three email questions and one, well, it's actually two call in questions and one call. Would you like to read the first question?

Brian: That's complicated. How many calls do we have?

Griff: well, actually I gotta be honest, but we have lots of calls, but I can't answer some of them. I need more information. So we're gonna put them off into another episode.

Brian: Well, that's the guidance. You've always given people. It's okay to, you know, say, I don't know. And come back once you know.

Griff: Well, in this case, there's no possible way I could know, because I don't have enough information.

Brian: Exactly. So this question's from eBay seller, Greg who emailed podcast@ebay.com with the following: For years, eBay had a data point in my Seller Hub under the performance seller level tab that showed my lifetime sales going back to when I opened my account in 2003. I noticed in 2021 that I could no longer find that figure. I'm thinking eBay no longer provides that data. Either that, or it was moved somewhere. I have not seen it regardless. I always thought it was fun and informative information to have. Do you know where I can find my lifetime sales on eBay? I enjoy the podcast. And thank you for taking my question. I would appreciate a mug if still available. Thank you, Greg Vlestra seller ID OnlineDepot.

Griff: Yes. I remember that sales figure. The question is easy to answer cuz he says, where can he find his lifetime sales on eBay? And my answer would be go back and collect all your tax returns. And then yeah, there you go. Because, uh he's right. It's not there anymore. I went and looked.

Brian: We did add a lifetime listing or sales number on the store profile page.

Griff: In dollars?

Brian: No item.s sold.

Griff: Yeah, Greg, I was confused too because I remember that figure and I went looking for it. Although mine was probably not as big as yours and size is not all that matters. I did notice it was gone. So I asked our Product Team and it turns out you're correct. It's gone. That lifetime sales total is no longer available anywhere. Our Product Team Greg told me the following: eBay no longer provides sellers with the lifetime sales figures to the seller's point though, the lifetime sales number was fun and informative as a piece of information. And as we look to develop an experience that provides sellers with actionable insights, we're always reviewing the performance sales page to determine what information enables sellers to make those types of decision. As a result within the Seller Hub Performance page, sellers can access up to 365 days of sales data over the last two years. I hope this helps. Thanks, Greg. And what I left out of that was that there are actual engineering and database issues, which is what drove the removal. It wasn't capricious or arbitrary was actually slowing down a lot of service on eBay. And so they had to make a decision and that figure went away.

Brian: Well, I think both our buyers and sellers probably prefer the speed of the site over a number that may not always be that valuable to the seller. Although fun and interesting to see.

Griff: You can only view it as a seller for Ooh. Ah, ah, I'm having a charlie horse!

Brian: Yeah. I hate that.

Griff: And it's in my, my ham string.

Brian: Oh, that's the worst.

Griff: Okay. All right. Just ease into it .

Brian: And drink more water. Yeah.

Griff: That's important water. I had tea. All right. It's gone away. It'll come back later.

Brian: It means you're alive.

Griff: I have to say that charlie horses’ are a thrill. They're like a reminder. Guess what? You're not dead.

Brian: let's see you get over this one.

Griff: I'm already over it. I just have to not sit in this chair a certain way anyway. So we got some eagle eye sellers out there who notice when something like that disappears.

Brian: So the lifetime GMV number's gone just like the charlie horse.

Griff: Just like the charlie horse. Hey, you never know. You're sitting here recording a podcast and your body place tricks on you. Our next email to podcast@ebay.com comes from eBay seller Jesse who writes, Hey, my name is Jesse. I don't have a story yet. I had a question before I start, I live in one zip code, but work in another city. I work first shift so I don't have time to get back to my zip code to mail my products. Yeah, because by the time it gets back is after five, would I be able to ship from a different zip code without getting dings? That word again.. Thank you, Jesse.

Brian: You know, since he wrote it in the only thing I was disappointed in reading the email was he didn't put dings in parentheses. It's dings.

Griff: It's just out there. Yeah.

Brian: Good question. You can definitely set up your shipping addresses so that you have a separate item, location, address, and zip code to indicate exactly from where the item's gonna ship. So go to My eBay> account >shipping addresses. From there, you can add a primary as well as other ship from addresses. When you list an item, you can indicate from which address the it will ship.

Griff: That's part of the listing process. You just change the zip code and it will change to that address. You can also, Jesse, while you're in there, you can indicate multiple return addresses from that page. So for example, if you're shipping from that same address and you would like to have returns shipped there, you can do that. Or you can have them shipped to your home address, whatever address you have on file. And you can have multiple addresses when you print a label through eBay, there's a editable field under the orders detailed, and it's called ship from slash return to when you click the edit link, you can select one of your multiple ship from, or, and return to addresses from that page.

Brian: And there's also a checkbox for that option that lets you select different shipped from and return to addresses as well.

Griff: I gotta admit, I didn't really ever look at that until I researched this question and that is so cool. And I would use it normally in normal times. Because I always have everything shipped while we're in the office working to the eBay office. But now that I'm at home working, cuz we do work at home now, I have everything shipped back to home and that's returns and things I buy on eBay. But if we come back to the office for, you know, mostly full time, I have to rethink that.

Brian: It's Interesting. I know some of our sellers who travel a lot, probably take advantage of these options as well.

Griff: Well, yeah, cuz you can edit this in any time. Say you're gonna go spend two weeks in Boston and you're gonna, you know, for whatever reason you're gonna be there, but you're gonna wanna maybe ship something or you wanna buy something and have it shipped there. You can add that address, change it as you're shipped to address or ship from, let's say you're gonna to Boston for six months. Makes more sense. Right? And then when you're back, you can just change it and delete the address if you're never going to use it again.

Brian: But I also know some sellers who take some of their inventory when they go on vacation. Cause they don't wanna lose the week of sales as they're on vacation. And so they pack it up and bring it with them.

Griff: I had a fantasy of getting a uh, after watching nomad land, uh, buying an RV, stacking it with colognes and then selling as I travel across the United States to support my lifestyle, it was just a fantasy. I'm not doing it. It's not gonna happen.

Brian: Still could do it.

Griff: How?

Brian: You just need a big enough RV to have like a little mini podcast studio in the back.

Griff: Oh that's true. Those Mercedes they make these huge Mercedes now. I could do that.

Brian: You're like a rock star.

Griff: The next question is Brian. And it's the one I addressed earlier. eBay seller Tess G email podcast@ebay.com with the following.

Brian: So this is the issue.

Griff: This is It. Hi Griffin and gang. I don't think this question is for the podcast. Oh, contrary Tess. but I just wanted to know what you do with questions that can't be used for the podcast, but still need answers. Do you email back an answer or just discard the question? Just wondering I ask because I sent a question before, but didn't get an answer, but I will soon ask another one. I will think of a good one first happy face. I always look forward to Tuesdays for the podcast. You have the perfect voice and personality for the job. Take care. Tess G

Brian: I would agree with Tess. You do have the perfect voice and personality for the job.

Griff: If I only had the memory.

Brian: I was gonna say what happened with the email? Well, because she did ask a very pertinent question. Do you email back to answer?

Griff: I do, but I didn't this time. I, I thought I don't remember this. So I went and I searched through our podcast@ebay.com mailbox and low and behold, I found this email dated from September 16th, 2021.

Brian: Oh my.

Griff: So it's never too late to answer a question. So Tess said this back so many, many, many months ago. My question is how long does late shipment rates stay on your dashboard? Well, about the same amount of time.>laugh

Brian: As late email response rates.

Griff: Exactly.

Brian: I think Griff just got a ding.

Griff: Yeah, I got the big ding. My second account G Tess 2012 two for that account. My late shipment rate has been there since the beginning of the year. And you know how crazy it was during Christmas 2020, I'd called eBay numerous times to get it removed, but they wouldn't do it for me. And t's still there now as of last September. So how long should I eight before that's taken off. And my second question is, are we allowed to include a thank you card with our contact information in it with each item we sell and ship? Thank you so much for your answer belated as it might be. I enjoy each podcast. This is where either Tess is really brilliant at passive aggressiveness or she's truly genuine. Cause for me, I read this and I'm feeling guilty with every sentence. I enjoy each podcast. I always look forward to Tuesdays when it comes out. I also advertise your podcast with friends and social media. I have listened to Griff and the other lady he worked with, I can't remember her name, on eBay Radio. Take care. Keep the podcast coming. Thank you. Tess G. Oh Tess.

Brian: You know my biggest fear with you answering her questions is we're gonna lose a listener. She's probably been list coming, you know, listening in for the answer and you've pushed her off for what? Four months now?

Griff: Well, no, she did send a question last week that said, just asking, what do you do with old questions you never answer? So first Tess G. I do sincerely apologize for missing this email the first time around. I don't know how it happened.

Brian: I know how it happened. You might be getting feeble.

Griff: I won't argue with that but to answer your second question first, since the answer is brief, yes, you can include whatever information you want to include inside the box. For every item you ship for everything you sell on eBay.

Brian: And eBay doesn't have any, you know, claim or control over what you put in your shipments. None. And in fact, a lot of our sellers include some sellers, especially for higher priced items will include handwritten notes and things.

Griff: Yeah. Some people put discounts, some people put cards that say, visit my website. What are we supposed to do about that?

Brian: They put their store name.

Griff: No, no. I've got cards that say, you know, and visit my website. And I think somebody, once it is this okay. And I said, do you actually think we're going to come to your house and like control what you put in the box? The only thing you have to put in the box is that we care about is what you sold, but anything else that's you.

Brian: And we would encourage you to send them back to your store as opposed to your website. But yeah.

Griff: I'm not encouraging them. Brian, I am acknowledging a reality. So promote away Tess. As to your first question, it sounds like you are on a running 12 month evaluation period, right? And I assume that by now those December, 2020 hits, or dings to your on time, shipping metric have rolled off the window, so to speak.

Brian: And if not, email us back and we'll have someone take a closer a look. But I, I agree, I think those things must be gone by now.

Griff: Yeah. They must be see, that's why I figured if I didn't answer until January, it's great news.. They're gone. You know what I need, you know what I need and I'm never gonna get it is I really need an admin assistant.

Brian: Don't we all.

Griff: Yes, we all do. But I always felt like, oh, I'm never are gonna get one and I can handle this. But I think maybe as, as old age creeps in, as it is one to do, I may need to get an admin assistant out of my own pocket, by the way. No, you can't do that at eBay. You know what I need? Prevagin or one of those other things that make your brain work. Ginko Biloba. I need a lot of that.

Brian: Ginko Biloba. I remember that.

Griff: Tess, I'm gonna send you lots of bugs. I don't know how many just say email me and tell me how you want, and we'll send you as many as you want.

Brian: She might have some friends that she meets up with that also sell on eBay and they might want one.

Griff: Yeah. She might wanna sell some on eBay. Oh, that's true. We're a good source for products. And finally, Brian, this week's call in to (888)723-4630 is from eBay seller. Curtis let's listen in:

Guest Caller: Hi, this is Curtis Ward. Hey,Griff I was just wondering about a question ,actually two. One is, can I change my name? I had just made something to sound somewhat similar, and I didn't really have any experience or put much thought into it. And I don't like the name of it. And I was hoping that I could change it. And two, this is my first month where I'm really making some sales that have sold over a thousand dollars worth of items and like 50 items. And, I'm doing the Seller School and I'm trying to figure out what I should focus on. Mainly as a new seller. I'm like, where would you go to on the eBay page to learn or some other resource to learn where I should sell most. Thank you, bye.

Brian: Well, Curtis, we by change your name, you mean your user ID or store name, and you can change your username in the personal information section of My eBay. You can only change your username once every 30 days. So it sounds like you've been thinking about it, but go, we'll include the, a link to where to go to change your username in the transcript.

Griff: It's again, one of those long URLs, but you can see it yourself. If you go to My eBay and then there is a link for account and then one for personal information and that's where you can change your username. Give it some thought. Think about what you want to do.

Brian: And, the other guidance is some people have a different username than their store.

Griff: I don't understand that.

Brian: Neither do I, I was gonna say it makes sense to make 'em both the same.

Griff: Right, you can change your store name on the Managed Store page, but while you can change the name of your store, we don't actually advise it here on the podcast because any of the marketing links or bookmarks created by your buyers to get right to your store will no longer work. And your store will also be ranked as a new site in some search engines. And that could actually put you at a search advantage for a while.

Brian: At least, you know, temporarily. And if you still wanna change the name of your eBay store, though, the new name can't be the username of another member on eBay. Or be misleadingly similar to the username of another eBay member or identical, or misleadingly similar to another company's name that's protected by trademark law.

Griff: Right. You can't see say like Sony Refurbished.

Brian: Yes. Or a name that contains the word eBay or a name, which is misleadingly similar to eBay.

Griff: Yeah. Like Flea Bay.

Brian: Yeah. We have seen those.

Griff: There were some sites in the first days of eBay. I won't go too deeply into it. Just think adult novelties that were using eBay in their title. But our legal team did something smart. They went through and bought up all the domain names that are every variation, the word eBay. So if you try to register like, weeeBay, you can't. So that's pretty cool.

Brian: That's smart. Just take care of the problem at the root source.

Griff: Yeah. Curtis did give me his shipping information. Obviously I did it out of the audio so Curtis will be sending you a mug.

Brian: He also had another question which was around resources. And it sounds like he's already taking advantage of one, which is Seller School, which is fantastic. So I heard you take advantage of Seller School and the resources that are part of Seller School, including the other sellers that are in it, you know, with you. You know, leverage each other and the eBay staff members that you can get. And then a couple other resources, Seller Center. So the bottom of any page, there's a link to Seller Center click on that. There are a host of resources there. And the one thing that I'll say is when you first land on Seller Center, there's a whole bunch of nice pictures and everything. I encourage everybody scroll down and you'll see a whole host of links in multiple columns, right? How to take photos, shipping guidance, things like that. And if you were on the platform for 10 years, some of that information might seem basic, but for someone who's just starting out, it's actually really valuable information.

Griff: I am always surprise how many emails or even calls that we get that are questions that are answered on Seller Center. I went back and looked. I have a log of all our past questions except for Tess G who got left off the list for several months. And a lot of the questions I end up with the answer is blah, blah, blah. You can learn more on Seller Center.

Brian: That's important. Definitely some good info. And then the other thing I will plug Community. community.ebay.com. And the reason I do that, I mean, we get a couple hundred thousand sellers a week coming through the eBay Community. Now, not everybody posts something, but there are experienced sellers out there who answer questions in mentor boards. There's you can ask any question you want on the selling there's shipping boards. There's also a lot of other information there. If you're like in Managed Payments on the right side of the Managed Payment discussion board, there are a bunch of links to common questions and information that you can access very quickly and easily. So definitely checkout community.ebay.com.

Griff: If push comes to shove, which it sometimes does. There's a always podcast@ebay.com or (888) 723-4630. Which you know, because you've already called it. So that's a good sign. And what fun that was!

Brian: Definitely. And if you wanna be part of the fun here at eBay for business, call us on (888) 723-4630.



Griff: We're getting a few more calls than regular. And I'm happy with that, Brian.



Brian: I know we have been listening to calls. It's nice.

Griff: And we'll be getting more and more. I hope. (888) 723-4630. Look, it's really easy to call that number. You can call it at any time of the day, any day of the week and you don't have to talk to me. You can just leave your comment on the recording and say what you like and if it's appropriate and doesn't contain too many profanities, we'll put it on the air.

Brian: I wonder if Tess would've called she would've got a response sooner?

Griff: She would've got a busy signal.

Brian: That's not nice.

Griff: I'm just being honest. I would've forgotten to look at it. I can't believe I did this to Tess. I feel so bad about this. If I could, if I could beat myself more about this on the phone, I would, but on the podcast, but...



Brian: And I will say Griff is pretty darn responsive to emails. So Tess, I don't, he must have just had a bad day and something happened and he just missed it.

Griff: Yeah, just I was distracted, but maybe Judge Judy was on at home and I was paying more attention to that.

Brian: Well, if you're not a call on the phone person, you can and always email us at podcast@ebay.com that's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: It is time for your weekly daily podcast to-do list.

Brian: And the first one's one of those things at the Community. Check out the Announcement Board for up to-date Seller News.

Griff: I fear too many sellers are unaware of Seller Center. So this is number two, visit Seller Center whenever you have a question about an eBay selling tool or feature. The link to Seller Center is so easy to find it's at the bottom of most eBay pages.

Brian: Finally 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.

Griff: On our next episode, Brian, it's gonna be so exciting. I don't know if you'll be here, maybe Rebecca?

Brian: So I might just be a fly on the wall. Business Policies are always interesting to me.

Griff: We're gonna talk about business policies, how to create them, how to manage them and how to use them in your listings.

Brian: I hope our listeners tune into that because they're not that complex, but it takes a little bit of get getting used to 'em. And so I think listening through how they get used, it would be helpful.

Griff: I think the, the biggest thing we're gonna talk about is the fact that a lot of people just create business policies over and over, and then you go and look, you have 20 pages of 'em.

Brian: That was me. And then I cleaned them up last summer and just like wiped 'em all out. Cuz, and especially shipping policies too, cuz you have different types of items. You know, if you don't sell the same exact item, you might end up with multiple weights and box sizes and stuff.

Griff: We may be talking about you, but have no fear, will show you how step by step you can create a list of business policies that are concise, complete for what you need and easy to navigate.

Brian: We'd again like to thank our guests this week, Manish Belsare from C2C strategy.

Griff: The eBay For Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.