Ep 198 || The German Packaging Act and You

[podcast_team]

This week we dive into the details of the German Packaging Act, its impact on eBay sellers and two options you can choose based on your level of selling. And we answer your questions on editing shipping policies and stored addresses.

You got questions? Call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.
Join the conversation
Take our podcast listener survey

Episode Links:
USPS Rate Changes July 10 2022
Important updates on selling to German buyers on eBay
LUCID website
Lizenzero website
Lizenzero Packaging Volume Calculator
eBay Shipping Exclusions Page
IRS website for obtaining an EIN
Your eBay Addresses
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Discussion Group
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Brian: I'm back and I'm Brian!

Griff: And I'm glad you're back. And I'm Griff and this is the eBay for Business Podcast, your source for the information, the inspiration and everything else you need to help you start manage and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 198. Hi Brian. So Ireland, huh?

Brian: Ireland. Yes. Weddings, golf, cousins,

Griff: Guinness, Guinness, and more Guinness.

Brian: A little bit of whiskey.

Griff: Geez.

Brian: Saw some of our colleagues.

Griff: Oh, did you go to the office in Dublin?

Brian: No, I did not go into the office. Katie, Katie and Stephanie, who I have every week, a meeting with, there in our Dublin office. I told 'em, I'm gonna be in Dublin and we found a place. They're not in the office anywhere. They're all working from home.

Griff: So you went out for drinks.

Brian: We did.

Griff: Of course you did.

Brian: We went to a bar called Darky Kelly's.

Griff: Of course you did.

Brian: It was a great place near Temple Bar and close to where I was staying and had a great time. And it was great to see them in person. You know, it's kind of like our, um, our listeners when they come to an event and they meet someone that they've interacted with, whether it's on our community boards or Facebook or Instagram, and they get to meet 'em in person. It's great to see people in person. And, uh, same for us when we meet our colleagues that we've been Zooming with for two plus years and finally get to meet in person.

Griff: Well, I'm glad you're back. It's been an interesting week, but anyway, there's news this week.

Brian: We do have some news this week. First, we have a reminder about the USPS rate changes announced earlier this year and that go live on July 10th. Media mail rates will increase by an average of 9% and because some sellers still use it as a shipping service, though not recommended. First Class Mail that's one ounce letter rates will increase 2 cents from 58 cents to 60 cents and First Class Mail International one ounce letter rates will increase 10 cents from $1.30 cents to $1.40 cents. Not all the news is about increases though. Priority mail will now include $100 of insurance free of charge. Previously 50 of insurance was provided for free, but there will be rate increases for domestic and international outbound insurance.

Griff: Yeah. Over that amount, that hundred dollars.

Brian: But here's a tip. You can save up to 15% when you ship with eBay International Standard Delivery, which includes protection up to $100. And which offers better tracking visibility and includes late delivery protections for standards, service, metrics, and feedback.

Griff: Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a great business proposition right there.

Brian: It is. And I nearly forgot. Signature confirmation will increase 20 cents.

Griff: The nickels and the dimes.

Brian: The nickels and the dimes. And finally there are increases in some eBay delivery services, specifically eBay Standard Envelope, which is a negotiated service provided to eBay sellers by USPS, the cost for a one ounce eBay Standard Envelope will increase to 57 cents up from 53 cents. The cost of a two ounce standard envelope will be 81 cents up from 73 cents. And finally, the three eBay Standard Envelope rate will go from 93 cents to $1.05 cents. Another one of your nickels there.

Griff: Yeah. Well a nickel here, a nickel there pretty soon we're talking billions.

Brian: Yes. eBay Standard Envelope is still our recommended low cost solution for qualifying trading cards, coins and paper, money postcards and stamps. eBay standard envelope includes integrated tracking and shipping protections that USPS First Class letter does not.

Griff: Yeah. And I was just noticing, if you look back on the information here, it says that the First Class Mail for one ounce, the letter rate is increasing from 58 to 60, which now makes it more expensive than the one ounce eBay Standard Envelope, which goes from 57 from 53. So there's a 3 cent difference there.

Brian: So use eBay Standard Envelope whenever you can.

Griff: Yeah. If you're listing in those categories and as we said, those categories will expand in the future.

Brian: They will. Do you have some news on that?

Griff: No, there is no news there. There's news in other places that I can't tell you, but there's no news there.

Brian: Also in the news last week, eBay, Senior Vice president and General Manager of America's Marketplaces Jordan, Sweetnam posted his take on some of the summer buying trends based on the most recent shopping data. Some of the examples of what is currently and what looks to be continuing trends are things like audio devices, gaming, and board games. You can read the entire post on the Announcements Board at www.ebay.com/announcements. And up next, we dive back into the recently announced new regulations by the German government covering packages, shipped into Germany and your options as a seller,

Griff: Let's let the little music interlude happen, courtesy of our friends at Libsyn. And then we'll get into it.

Griff: Brian, last week while you were enjoying the links in sunny green Ireland, Rebecca and I had just barely touched on this topic. And I promised that when we returned for this episode, I provide a little bit more details on what I've learned going through the experience.

Brian: And do you have more details?

Griff: Yeah, I do. And what we're talking about by the way is the new 2019 Packing Act - VerpackG that Germany, has instituted and goes in effect as of last Friday. So I have some information to impart, but let's first. Why don't you and I review the regulation based on what eBay has posted in the announcement that we made on the seller news board about two weeks ago. Let's read through it and then we can discuss each paragraph as we do. If you have any questions you can ask, I'll start with the how it starts out. It starts out with the it's called the 2019 Packing Act or in German, it's known as VerpackG . It requires business sellers to license the packaging for their products and register with what's called the LUCID database when they sell items to customers in Germany. Rebecca and I emphasize this last week, we both, and I think you may agree. It's actually a great law. When you think about the intent. The reason for this is to handle the costs of the packaging that comes into Germany. That Germany ends up having to deal with whether it's recyclable or not.

Brian: It's all of the packaging.

Griff: It's the packaging material.

Brian: Okay. So you know what that got posted after I left.

Griff: So that's what we're talking about here. This is about the packing material. The reason why I think it's a good law is that yeah, I think government has to step in and handle what's becoming outta control, which is all this packing. Besides cardboard, you know, plastics and other materials that ends up in landfills and rivers and eventually some, most of it into the ocean. So kudos for Germany to coming up with a process to deal with it. No kudos for the details though, as we're gonna learn in a minute, because not simple to go through this process. So why don't you continue here?

Brian: From July 1st, 2022, we that's eBay, are legally obliged to ensure that our sellers are complying with these new regulations to be compliant. There are four steps you must complete.

Griff: And for the record I've been through all four and I made it out alive as frustrating as it was.

Brian: And I can attest he is alive. He's frustrated, but he's alive.

Griff: I thought I was gonna lose my mind. But anyway.

Brian: So number one, register online with LUCID and that's L U C I D database and obtain a unique identification number. The second step is to create an account with a dual system. We recommend our licensing partner License Zero, which offers a straightforward way to license your packaging digitally. The third step that everyone will need to take is ensure your packing materials are recyclable. And actually that's a really good one.

Griff: Yes, but this begs the question. What are considered non recyclable. I couldn't really tell that from the site and from reading the site, it seems that the fee sellers pay and there is a fee you pay a fee per year. I figured out the minimum because you can, I had to select a thousand kilograms for two types of packaging. I selected one that included cardboard and just one for plastic because of the bubble wrap. But there's nothing that is excluded. You just have to account for it. And from how I read this law, that fee goes to defraying the cost of either facilitating or removing this material from wherever it would normally end up.

Brian: And then fourth, add your lucid number to your business profile on my eBay.

Griff: Yeah. And that was pretty straightforward. You just go to my eBay account and then look for business info. And on that page at the bottom, there's a place now.

Brian: So we already updated it ?

Griff: Already done.

Brian: That's great.

Griff: Yep. Yeah. And next, this is, I wanna talk about this because the post asks, what information will I need to register with LUCID, to which we answer you need to provide your company name, address, and contact details, your tax ID, and a declaration that you're packaging is licensed with a dual system. When you register with License Zero, that registration covers this step. So you don't have to make the declaration.

Brian: Griff, you know, I'm a little bit confused. Now it could be the jet lag, but this seems really complicated.

Griff: Well, it is complicated, Brian. So if you are like Brian and you're confused at this point, don't feel bad. It is indeed an extremely confusing process. As I said, I did follow the links and I did make it through the process. But my overall impression is that it was definitely not set up with the small marketplace business, eBay seller, like you in mind. For example, there is no explicit option for providing a US tax ID, all their dropdown boxes. When you're registering, there are things for other countries, but it's like the US got left off.

Brian: Was it just EU countries or was it?

Griff: No, there were countries around the world, but we weren't included. So anyway, after some trial and error, I found that I had to select Other from all of the dropdown menus. And then I added my employee identification number and I had to indicate in a text box underneath what it was. And I just typed in US employee identification number and that worked. That worked fine.

Brian: And then the post goes on to say, and finally, once you have your LUCID registration number, you have to add it to your business profile in My eBay. I have to tell you every time I see LUCID, I think of that brand new electric car.

Griff: This is not as fun as electric car trust me. Here comes the good part.

Brian: What's that?

Griff: What happens if I don't register by the July 1st deadline?

Brian: What does happen?

Griff: The post says eBay has a legal obligation to ensure that all our B to C sellers are compliant. And that means sellers who have indicated in my eBay that in their business info, that they're a business seller. If you do not take the necessary steps by the deadline, eBay will be legally required to restrict your selling privileges for the German market. I wasn't quite sure what that meant. Although we don't actually say how it happens. I suppose, if you're registered on eBay as a business seller. And again, if you don't provide a LUCID number by July 1st, then we don't show your listings to buyers based in Germany, I guess.

Brian: So we don't know if that's the case?

Griff: I'm not sure. I don't know. Anyway, the post goes on, Hey, you know, I'm tired of talking already. Brian, why don't you read from here on it? I've got an awful lot to say in this segment.

Brian: Sure thing. It says also please note that even when using services such as eBay International Standard Delivery or the eBay Global Shipping Program, packages need to be compliant when they get to our domestic hub, we won't repackage any items. So what does it mean?

Griff: I'm still not absolutely sure what it means. I suppose, if you don't have a LUCID number and your package ends up at the GSP warehouse, there's a risk of it being in non-compliance. But I'm thinking that this whole point may be moot because I guess if you do have a lucid number, you wanna make sure that there are no non-compliant packing materials in the parcel. That is stuff that you haven't declared, right? So if you started shipping glass as packaging, not as the item, I think, And you didn't indicate that then perhaps that might get you flagged. And I know that they'll fine sellers for this. So anyway, I have some remedies here.

Brian: I like remedies.

Griff: You do? Cuz I like 'em too. And as a seller, the remedies come in the form of options and there are two of them for you as a seller. Option number one. If you're past and recent sales history indicates that you sell enough merchandise to buyers located in Germany and your business needs to keep making those sales. Then you have to register for the program as outlined earlier. It's gonna cost you a minimum of about $50 a year as I've discovered. And you will have to declare the type and amount of packaging, your business plans to send via packages in the coming year into Germany. When I registered, I chose the options that included cardboard and plastic, and I did the plastic for tape and bubble wrap, cuz those are considered packing materials. I use a lot of bubble wrap and the minimum amount to declare for each was a thousand kilograms, which is like 100 times what I would actually be sending based on past sales. Another important consideration for option one, your registration data. They mention this on the site, but it's not clear. And I need to make it clear for you. Your registration data will be available in a public database registry that anyone can find with a search. For this reason, you may want to have a separate business address and phone number and most important. Remember we can't give you tax advice so the standard disclaimer here. You may want to use in America what's called an Employee Identification Number in place of a social security number. Because if you use your social security number as your tax ID, it's gonna be available to anyone who wants to find it.

Brian: So when you say publicly, it's really public, I could go do a search and see the information.

Griff: You can get the link to the registry it's available publicly and you can put in any information. And if you put in San Jose, California, and that's it, it's gonna show you all of the people that are registered and you can go view all of their data, including their tax ID. And a lot of our business sellers have a business address and a business phone number. And a lot of 'em have an EIN so there's no issue there, but if you're in that gray area, like I am where I didn't have an EIN, I got one just for this purpose. It took me. I'm talking personally here, not speaking as a representative of eBay, I can't give you tax advice, but my experience, I got one in three minutes. You just go with IRS, you search for EIN you can get anyone get one in three minutes. If you have a social security number. Then an EIN can't be used to commit fraud against you. It's not usable in places where social security number could be.

Brian: So you said there were two options I believe.

Griff: Yeah. And again, I'm gonna urge you because we're employees of eBay and we can't give you tax advice. You should always consult with your tax attorney, your tax expert or whoever it is you hire to give you tax advice and tell them what you're planning to do. They can help you out. Now, option two is what I feel like a lot of our sellers may take. So you audit your past sales history and you determine that you don't sell enough to German buyers in a year to justify registering and paying the annual license fee. And you don't mind missing those sales. In that case, you have to exclude all of your listings from appearing to buyers located within Germany. And this is actually fairly easy to do.

Brian: Yeah. I remember when we used to only do regions and then we finally got smart and allowed countries.

Griff: Yeah. Step one is for sellers who use GSP exclusively when they ship internationally. And the first step is to go to your exclusion list and add Germany.

Brian: And where is that page? If someone's never added a country to their exclusion list?

Griff: Well, this proved very interesting because the only avenue to accessing your country exclusion list today is within a new or existing shipping policy at the bottom. Once you access the list to a shipping policy, the country exclusion list is global in reach and we'll cover all your shipping policies. So once you check the box for Germany, it'll impact your exclusion list for all. So that's the first step, you've got this done. And then what you have to do is go to buy eBay account shipping preferences and this is super important. And click the edit link for exclude shipping locations. This is a completely different view. And on that page, make sure that the second section there's a check box, make sure it's unchecked. It says Global Shipping Program Settings, that box, if checked will override all of your country exclusion list for any shipping policy that provides GSP for international shipping. So once you've done those two steps, make sure that Germany is checked in your exclusion list and then go to this page in shipping preferences and unchecked. If it's checked the second box for global shipping program settings, now all of your listings will be available to the rest of the world through GSP except Germany.

Brian: So what's the next step after that?

Griff: That's it. That's all you have to do for GSP.

Brian: What if you don't use GSP or The Global Shipping Program, what if I ship international purchases myself?

Griff: Well then you just have to edit your exclusion list to include a check for Germany. It's much easier, right? You don't have to do the Global Shipping part and that'll do it.

Brian: This particular episode might drive some questions from our listeners.

Griff: Oh, you think?

Brian: They may say, what the hell were you guys talking about? Please send us questions.

Griff: Yes. I'm just the questions. And I will put in the transcript links to every single page that we discussed so that you can get to Leasing Zero. You can get to the VerpackG site. You can find these shipping preference settings on eBay.

Brian: I think, you know, a lot of our sellers, aren't gonna be shipping a thousand kilograms of packing materials into Germany in the given year. And if the fee is more than what they sell on an average year into Germany, it's easier just to say, I'll wait till Germany comes up with a different policy.

Griff: I was discussing on our Facebook group for the podcast, with a guy who asked a question about this. I was giving him the same sort of information. And he was having a hard time registering. He eventually got registered and I said, you know, can I ask you, how much do you sell to Germany? Is it worth your while? And he said, oh yeah. He said, I make a lot of sales to Germany. Well, what do you sell? He said, I sell Hawaiian shirts and they're really hot right now in Germany. So he says, I can't afford to lose this business. It's really good.

Brian: But he knows the business. He knows how much he sells into the country. And so it's a cost benefit analysis quick and easy for him.

Griff: And when I was thinking about it, if you're selling shirts, that packaging is simple. It's just a plastic bag. I mean, it's nothing like lots of cardboard.

Brian: He also won't, even if he's selling lots hit a thousand kilograms.

Griff: Oh God, no, I don't think he will. I mean, he said he, he was making sales, but I think the indication was he was making a few a day or something. So you do the math and there's nowhere near that kind of weight. But there it is, it definitely was built. It was a program built for the big business seller.

Brian: Yeah. They forgot about they needed an exclusion for marketplaces.

Griff: Or a different path for marketplaces. You know, we'll see. In my correspondence, eBay is painfully aware of how this is just not the ideal situation and is looking for a way to resolve it. But in the meantime, this is what we got. So, and I have to take a moment. I want to thank all the folks on the International Shipping Team for providing all the information and help we needed to craft these two options for you. And look forward to better solutions to this type of international regulation coming in the near future.

Brian: Really?

Griff: Yeah. That's all I can say about that.

Brian: It's like, okay, that's gonna drive some questions.

Griff: As it is intended.

Brian: You got questions.

Griff: Guess what we got? Answers. Brian, could you read the first question?

Griff: eBay seller. Gary sent this to podcast@ebay.com. Hello, thank you for the extremely informative podcast that you produce. Two questions. I use Promoted Listings with great success and I view that as money well spent, one of the options on listing is to pay $6 for a subtitle. I primarily sell coffee mugs. So that high cost doesn't make sense for my average price point. But even for several more expensive items, I just can't see the value. Does eBay have any data to support the value of charging $6 for subtitles?

Griff: We got data that shows it's Ka-ching in our pockets.

Brian: Well, I have some advice for him on that one.

Griff: Yeah, I'm sure you do. I was just being snarky as I, you know, as I want to do.

Brian: Yes, but you're accurate. Has eBay ever offered tours of the corporate office? It would be interesting to learn some of the history of the company, see the eBay memorabilia and meet the people that make it all possible. Thank you for your time. And if you have a mug available, I would love one. And then PS here is hoping that eBay Open in Vegas comes back and not this year though. Gary. Think we're all hoping for that Griff. Do you use subtitles?

Griff: No, I don't.

Brian: So no ka-ching from Griff.

Griff: Look, I, I don't want to, you know, I can't besmirch an eBay feature. That's not, it wouldn't be fair, but..

Brian: It's valuable for some.

Griff: I think it depends on what your testing finds out. And that's what I would say. Obviously, not something that if you're selling a coffee mug for like six to $10, that extra six bucks is gonna be a loss leader, but that's the secret. If you can find a way of using a subtitle and use it effectively to drive people to your listing, that could be a loss leader. That's a marketing opportunity. But again..

Brian: You have to test, you have to measure.

Griff: You have to measure the effectiveness. So if I was a hypothetical seller, not myself and I was considering, you know, I wanna really promote my mugs. I've got all these great mugs that I know are really desirable. In my subtitle because subtitles, aren't searchable and a subtitle If I was gonna pay the six bucks says, and I've got so many more of these, check this one out to find the link to my other mugs, that might be an effective use of a subtitle. Right?

Brian: Right. It's $6 for the subtitle for the listing. And there are some folks out there that might have a thousand red coffee mugs and they're all $6. Well that's $6,000. And that listing's gonna be up for a period of time so in that scenario, it's not an individual listing it's deep SKU or, you know a multi quantity SKU. It might make sense there. But again, I would also look at what's your comp competition doing? Do you really need the visibility? Don't give and I don't know if I should say this?

Griff: Oh, go ahead. I know what you're gonna say. Go ahead.

Brian: I always tell sellers when I see 'em in person. So Gary, I'm gonna pretend you're in person. Don't give money to eBay that you don't have to give it to us. Um, if you can successfully sell your item without doing it. And that's why we encourage folks to test, because that will allow you to optimize the dollars you spend on eBay, which means you're gonna keep selling on eBay, which is good for eBay and good for you. And for some things like you sell really unique items, rarely do you need something like some of the features that we offer.

Griff: Oh yeah.

Brian: Like Promoted Listings or subtitles and things because your item is so unique. The types of people who are looking for that item are gonna find it anyway.

Griff: Now I'm glad he didn't ask about bold titles. I have definite feelings about that.

Brian: Featured First.

Griff: Remember? How many of our listeners remember Featured First and Featured Plus ?

Brian: I think if someone writes in and tells us what, if they remember what those two things were, you know, they should get a mug. No question needed.

Griff: He asked about tours of the office Brian. You wanna take that one?

Brian: Here's the upshot on that. Right now very few people can come on to the office.

Griff: It's still technically closed. Yeah.

Brian: But I personally have done, uh, tours of the office in the past. There's not a whole lot to see in the office. Just candidly. It's a lot of cubes. And since we all kind of went away from COVID, there's not a lot of personal stuff in cubes or anything as well. At this time though It's restricted.

Griff: Yeah. It's really hard to get anyone on campus. We have to make special requests and get permission when we just want to have someone record here.

Brian: Right. And there has to be a, a reason for it. A Business reason for it.

Griff: All right. So Gary, no tours yet. Come back to us after COVID is definitely over, which hopefully will be soon. And Gary eBay Open won't be as Brian mentioned in Vegas this year, it's way too early to even speculate about next year. But if you're jonesing for Vegas and for meeting up with other eBay sellers, there is the Boss Reseller Remix event in October, just search Google for Boss Reseller Remix. I think tickets are about to go on sale if they haven't already. And I'm gonna be there somewhat reluctantly, cuz I don't like traveling, but I'm sure I'll be fine. I don't know if I'll be fine. I might have a panic attack.

Brian: You'll be fine. It was so much fun. Last year. You will be fun.

Griff: I have to stop watching all those to videos of Karen's going crazy on planes. They scare me.

Brian: I just flew to Ireland and back and no one went crazy.

Griff: You were lucky. They were too drunk. Hey, we have two call in questions to answer. So let's listen to the first one.

Brian: Hi Griff and friends. My name is Kara. My store name is E Shopping For Deals. I've been on eBay for 20 years now and I love digesting the podcast on road trips as I'm doing right now. And I'm listening to episode 189 with seller Richard Cooley talking about the different rates between USPS and UPS, FedEx, especially with a lot of the USPS rate hikes.. So I'm wondering if there's a way to just change some of my business policies kind of in bulk listing format so that it can add my ups and FedEx options to a lot of my listings at once that I just have ready to go with USPS. what is the fastest way to add those other shipping options in? And it may at least give my customers the opportunity to pick those more economical shipping options on their own. Thank you.

Brian: Well, thanks Kara for that question and love the fact that you were on the road and called in.

Griff: And she's digesting the podcast. She puts it between two pieces of bread and she eats it while she's driving.

Brian: Griff. I don't think there's a way to edit business policies is there?

Griff: No, there really isn't but there's kind of a way around it. At least you can edit them, but you can't edit them in listing. Like you can edit listings in bulk, but Kara you can edit policies individually and any changes or edits or additional shipping services will show up for all listings using those policies. So the fastest way there is unfortunately to edit each one individually, but you could also create a new one that has all three services. You set everything correctly, give it an identifiable name. And then you can go into the Bulk Edit Feature.

Brian: And apply that new policy in Bulk to all your listings.

Griff: You can select whatever listings you want to apply it to and then you can apply this new policy to those in Bulk.

Brian: That's an efficient workaround.

Griff: It is kind of, you create one new policy that has the three services in it and you know, is it calculated? And you know, is there a handling charge? And what's the, you know, the handling time? You get that all set up and then you give it a name and then you can just in the Bulk Edit feature, select the listings you want to add it to, and then you can add it all in one to all of those listings, just, you can edit out the old policy and put this one in.

Brian: So if she has like a multiple different ones, like she's got a calculated, a free, you know, different ones.

Griff: But you can't do that.

Brian: Right. But she could create new ones for each and then go into the bulk, edit and select the one that she wants to apply to each one.

Griff: That's why it's really important to name them, give them a name and a description, but a name more importantly that really describes and defines what that policy does. So you don't get confused.

Brian: Yep. Makes sense. Yeah.

Griff: So I hope that helps Kara. Let's listen to the next one.

Guest Caller: Hey, Griff, big fan of the podcast. We've been eBays since 1999, but never really in a big way. Anyway, we have moved several times in the past few years and I'm just getting my mind around the fact that in order to change my address on my eBay system, I have to do that separately in about six or seven places believe it or not. And the last time we moved, I didn't realize I had to do all those places. And of course it cost us some time and inconvenience in order to get that all straight. I know that on GoDaddy, they have, a lot of different places. You can have an address and, but they have a global address change option. So I can say change my address to this everywhere. And that kind of works pretty good. Anyway. Just thought I would give you that one, looking always have been looking for an excuse to give you a call for a long time. I'm glad I did. Thanks. Bye.

Griff: I wish I had another answer, but it's a big, no for editing all your addresses globally. I just can't seem to satisfy anyone today.

Brian: But it's a great idea.

Griff: Yeah. Well, is it though? Think about it cuz although it isn't really that hard to edit them individually. It does take some time, but they are all located on one page in your, My eBay settings.

Brian: And Mike, the difference between eBay and a site like GoDaddy is that on eBay sellers often have different addresses for different purposes. Like for example, one address for buying the address to which they have have eBay sellers ship their items and maybe a different address for returns and even different addresses for different business locations across the United States.

Griff: Yeah. And I have a GoDaddy account Mike, and because their service doesn't involve actually shipping things to and from GoDaddy, they can have a global address edit feature and it works pretty well. If we had that, it could prove to be a real confusing hassle for sellers who need to keep different addresses for different purposes. So this is one where yeah, sure. We could create such a thing and we're gonna get sellers complaining because they changed an address and it changed it in the wrong place. So it's why we have those different addresses. I'm gonna be honest. It's not unlike Amazon where you cannot change those addresses. When it comes to commerce and shipping and receiving, we're not gonna provide a mechanism where sellers can unintentionally screw them up and no marketplace will do that. GoDaddy is not a marketplace. It's a bookkeeping service provider. If it's still around, I thought they were closing down. I kept reading everywhere. GoDaddy is gonna end their service at the end of this month. June. Maybe they have, I don't know. I'll find out.

Brian: Or maybe Mike's got information for us.

Griff: Yeah. I better check my account.

Brian: You've got an account you could find out.

Griff: I'll I'll check to tomorrow when it's July 1st, cuz we're recording here on June 30th. Mike, you didn't send us an address. I don't think Kara did as well. We would love to send you mugs. We have a lot here. They're all behind Brian right now in the other studio. We'd love to send a mug, but we need your shipping address. So send it to podcast@ebay.com and we'll put you on the list for the next ship out. Well, Brian, believe it or not. That's all the questions for this week. That was fun. Wasn't it?

Brian: I'll say. If you want to join the fun here on eBay for business, call us on (888)723-4630.

Griff: That's (888)723-4630.I f you have a question about selling on the eBay, and that it's not a specific account question. Remember we can't answer those. I'm still getting them on the call line. Why not call the hotline and leave it there. You can call anytime of day, any day of the week, leave a question or comment. And if it's not an account specific a question or asking why your account was suspended or your listings were taken down, we just might put it on the air.

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

Griff: And drum roll. Please it's time for your Three Point Podcast Checklist.

Brian: Number one is always check the Announcement Board on the eBay Community for up to date seller news every day.

Griff: Number two, determine which options work for you for selling into the German market. There's a lot to digest there. So get to it.

Brian: There's that digest word again. And so number three, need to review anything in this episode, like all the information about the new German shipping regulations. It's easy. Check the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to find the links we referenced during the episode.

Griff: Yeah, for those of you who continually get your podcast at a place like Apple podcast, you can find the transcripts at ebay.com/podcast. That'll take you right to the podcast library on the Community section of eBay, locate the episode, click on it. You'll see a link right there. You'll see into the bottom at the right under the player where you can listen to the podcast. There's a series of links. There's reoccurring links and the list of links that we mentioned in the episode. And if you click the transcript, you can go through and read everything we said in this episode or any episode in case you need to review it. That's what we mean by check the transcript for this in all other episodes. And our next episode we will address tactics and strategies and procedures and processes and processes and procedures to help fight the annual summer sales slumpy slow down that all sellers experience to some extent this time of year.

Brian: Will wee also talk about how to measure your year over year sales?

Griff: Why?

Brian: Because sometimes sellers will look back just one month and they think, oh, my sales are really declining and they forget to look, Hey, how were my sales in June of last year or July of last year?

Griff: Sorry. I blanked out there for a minute. That's very important information. And we will talk about that next week.

Brian: Well, that's a little lead in, I guess for next week.

Griff: That's a lead in, yeah.

Brian: We don't have any guests to thank this week. So let's take this opportunity to thank every seller who calls in or is a guest throughout the year or who just downloads the podcast every week. Without you we wouldn't exist. And I think next week we're gonna celebrate you even more.

Griff: Why? Oh yes we are! We are gonna celebrate you. What am I saying? Why? why are we doing more than we have to? Yes, of course I echo Brian's words entirely. As much as we love doing this, we know that doing it without you is, would be kind of just an exercise of futility. Two people sitting in a room talking about something and no one listening, which apparently is how most podcasts operate. Not this one though. We have to thank our thousands and thousands of people that download the show. And according to Brian, we're gonna hit that 1 million download mark. That says something.

Brian: That's huge.

Griff: I want a sash that says 1 million that I can wear around the office.

Brian: Okay. I'll see if I can find one.

Griff: In the meantime, the eBay for business podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.