Ep 199 || Summer Slowdown Promotion Tips

[podcast_team]

eBay Product Team manager Parin Jogani shares tips on using promotional tools for countering the annual summer retail slowdown. Brian and Griff answer questions about printing labels and packing slips, Store tiers, Shipping Policies and The Germany Packaging Act.

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Brian: I'm Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff and this is the eBay for Business Podcast, your source for the information and inspiration and everything else you need to help you get started and to help you manage and to help you grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 199. Welcome back, Brian.

Brian: Great to be here. Congratulations Griff.

Griff: Congratulations on what?

Brian: Over a million downloads. It's official.

Griff: Oh, that's fantastic. I want a t-shirt.

Brian: And you're the only one who gets full credit for all of it. Why? Because you've been on every one of the episodes where I've only been on a few. Alan was on some, Audrey, Rebecca.

Griff: That's not true though. I wasn't on all of them.

Brian: Okay. There was probably one or two.

Griff: There were one or two after Howie died, where I wasn't here.

Brian: Well you get the bulk of the credit.

Griff: I'll take it. I'll take the bulk. Okay. Kudos to me.

Brian: I wish we could figure out who was the millionth download.

Griff: Yeah. It's not possible. We can't get that information.

Brian: We don't that info.

Griff: But I think who we should be thanking are the people who actually do the downloads.

Brian: Exactly. Our listeners.

Griff: Even though, as unlistenable as this podcast may be sometimes they still download and listen to it. And for that, we should be ever grateful.

Brian: We get some kudos for good info.

Griff: Yeah. Like last week. You get some kudos. Brian went out on a limb.

Brian: I just was giving as somebody on in the eBay community stated, duh. It's just common sense. And so, you know, it was just out on the limb of, don't give us more money than you have to.

Griff: That's exactly it.

Brian: And it is common sense.

Griff: Never spend money, you don't have to spend.

Brian: Right. And if you have to spend it, you have to spend it. But there are lots of times you don't. So don't, don't do it.

Griff: And remember, although we're not qualified to give you tax advice that all business expenses are probably deductible including money you spend.

Brian: Yes. So if you wanna give us extra money, it's probably tax deductible

Griff: Yeah. But still don't do it if you can get away with it. Hey, there's some great news this week. A lot of sellers have been waiting for this news.

Brian: Yes. We had a vague announcement earlier this week, eBay Open2022 eBay's biggest seller event of the year returns on September 21st through the 23rd. This year's event will be a hybrid of online and live with three in person events across the country. The eBay Open agenda this year features three, half days of fundamental and advanced training sessions, seller led and category breakouts, executive keynotes, fireside chats, seller discussions, networking, and more. In addition this year, we are adding three eBay Open studio in person events. You can join other sellers and eBay staff live and in person on September 23rd in New York, Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, California, these eBay Open studio events will be three hours long hosted by eBay and will include watch parties for the closing keynote Q and A's with eBay leaders and a social hour with sellers from your area. Space at these events is limited. So register as early as possible if interested and I believe registration won't open up until later this month.

Griff: That's true. Hey, at these events, will there be nibbles and sips?

Brian: I don't know, that's an Allison question. I would assume. Yes, but I don't wanna go out on another limb this week.

Griff: Well, I asked Allison and she said, yes, nibbles and beverages will be provided. So that's good news too, especially for the nibbles and sips crowd.

Brian: So tickets to the eBay Open studio events will be $20.

Griff: $20. That's outrageous!

Brian: It is outrageous, but every attendee will receive a $20 eBay gift card, eBay, swag, or other ways known as eBay, branded merchandise, and a lot more tickets and registration will be available on Wednesday, July 20th. So keep an eye out for that on the eBay Announcement Board.

Griff: There you go.

Brian: I'm excited for the event and I'm sure there'll be additional information and announcements in the coming weeks and months before the event on details about it. All of that.

Griff: I like the online portion of it. And I guess if you're in the Austin, Los Angeles, New York City area, there'll be a registration to go there. But I think one of the things I mentioned when we were talking with Allison about this, Allison is our Events Team Leader. We are discouraging people from flying in to attend one of those events.

Brian: Correct? Yeah. And the other thing is, you know, there's, there are a number of seller meetings and seller meetups across the country. And I think this is gonna be an opportunity for them to, you know, do your own watch party. If you're in Detroit and you would like to have some in person stuff, it'll be a great opportunity to just connect with other sellers more on that to come.

Griff: Yeah, can't wait. And I have a correction this week. It's not really news, but it is a correction slash clarification about something I said last week regarding the country exclusion list, which is something Brian, you weren't here it was Rebecca, but we talked about it in regards to the new German Packaging Act. And here it is. If you're opted into business policies and 99% of sellers are, I believe now the country exclusion list is not global in scope. That is, each shipping policy has its own exclusion list. I said it was global, but it's not for business policy sellers. However, if you are not opted into business policies, then you're gonna have just that one exclusion list that we all had before business policies came around and that one is global in scope. So that means that you put a country or location on that exclusion list by checking a box, it'll cover all your listings and we'll have more in the way of questions and answers regarding the German packaging act today in our, you got question segment later on and well, I'm sure we're gonna have some more in the weeks ahead. I'm actually in correspondence with somebody at Lesson Zero, which is the licensing third party company to which you actually pay the fee. And I've learned a few things. I've learned a lot actually. And the person I'm in correspondence with wants to come on the podcast.

Brian: I think we should have them on.

Griff: Oh, we will. She's a delighter name is Ida or is it Ida ( ee-da)? In German It's pronounced ( ee-da) Ida. So we'll have Ida on.

Brian: Good.

Griff: But for now, July 4th is past Brian. Lots of people consider July 4th besides being a day that is nothing but noise and scary dogs all shaking in their beds. It's to be the real start of summer for many people, as opposed to the scientific Summer Solstice on June 21st. Summer brings sun, warmth, parties, flies, bugs. Those are the outdoor stuff. And as many seasoned sellers know a retail summer slump, but have no fear. There are ways to help beat that summer slow down.

Griff: All retail businesses see an expected dip during the summer months. And I'm sure eBay sellers can attest to this fact knowing what sells best during the dog days of summer is very important of course, but knowing how to best market your existing inventory during the summer season is also crucial to making sales and joining us to talk about the various seller tools that eBay provides when it comes to promotions and how to use them effectively is Parin Jogani, Senior Product Manager on the Selling Team. Welcome back Parin.

Parin: Hey Griff. Nice to see you again.

Griff: It's good to have you back. I know that this is a topic that's on a lot of seller's minds right now. So I wanted to talk today in conjunction with tomorrow's live Q and A at the eBay Monthly Chat with eBay staff, which you'll be hosting. How to use these tools effectively? Most sellers know what the toolbox has in it. But we don't really talk about how to use them effectively.

Parin: Yeah, absolutely. And with the inflation so high it's an app topic cuz we know that sellers margins are stretched, but we know these are great tools to get your buyers to shop with you. I think using them effectively would go a long way for our sellers.

Griff: Before we started taping, we were talking about how to bucket your buyers into where they live in the eBay shopping universe and how to understand each of those groups of buyers. And that way get a better picture of how to effectively market to them.

Parin: I would say there are three or four different places where eBay does get a lot of organic buyers who are coming and shopping on eBay regularly.

Griff: Yeah, that would be me. Every day.

Parin: Me too. I'm a big eBay shopper. So that's one, where they're coming and they're looking for things for their house, for their garage, their office. And then there are a lot of eBay users who don't come to eBay frequently. And there are tools that we provide our sellers to go to the buyers. And then a lot of our sellers also have amazing following on social media. And there are a lot of marketing tools out there. How to best leverage social media cuz buyers are spending a lot of time and we need to go where buyers are to kind of get them to discover your store and get them to shop from you.

Griff: And on a previous episode, I'll put the link to it. We did a three part series on how to best utilize social media for your own personal marketing as a seller, it'll be good to go back and revisit it's evergreen content. I think you might remember it If you're a listener of the podcast, it was with former employee and one of my favorite co-host Audrey Tracy. And she really did a good job, but that aside it's understanding that intent. Isn't it? So there are buyers on eBay who may not even be aware of you personally or your inventory, they're just shopping around. So you want to get those, but then there are buyers who have shown intent. They've watched an item, they have put it in their shopping cart. They may have asked questions. They may have viewed the item several times. So that being the only intent you as a seller may not know that this particular buyer has viewed the item many times, but we know it and we'll market to them. So if you do a SIO, that person can end up getting that offer.

Parin: Absolutely. And Griff SIO is like a eBay term. We use acronyms.

Griff: Sorry. I know. It's Seller Initiated Offers.

Parin: Or offers to buyers.

Griff: Or offers to buyers. Okay. Thank you for correcting me. Cause I'm usually the king of not using acronyms. So thank you very much Parin.

Parin: We used it in our chat right before?

Griff: I think we did.

Parin: But you're absolutely right. A lot of engagement we see from buyers is when buyers have shown some kind of interest, whether in that category or on your store, whether they've bought from you or they've shown interest in something that you're selling. And there are many different ways buyers show interest, they'll watch, as Griff said, they'll add to cart. And what we've noticed is the time matters. So if a buyer has shown an interest and if you can engage with them and really capture that interest soon is the best way to get them on the other side of the fence, the more you wait, it allows the buyer to hunt outside and then the universe is vague and they could go anywhere. So what we've seen is the time of the interest and how quickly you engage with them is very crucial on how to capture that buyer.

Griff: Let's talk about effective ways of using those tools. Cause I think a lot of sellers just kind of throw everything against the wall and it's good to have a marketing strategy.

Parin: Absolutely. Some of the ways that we have been kind of internally thinking about all these different tools and how do they fit together, Is it a volume play? Do you expect buyers to buy 4, 5, 6 or high volume versus is that something which is of a higher price? So a high value item. And need to figure out like what works best for you with your inventory. But at a macro level, what we see is for things that are super high volume, we have volume pricing or multi buy, where you kind of add a volume pricing discount. And if someone buys five of the same shirt or caps, that's the way of increasing the cart size. You don't end up paying for shipping. When you think there are items which have a higher volume play, you go with Volume Pricing. And then there's Order Discount, which is another way to increase the cart size.

Griff: And that's completely different.

Parin: It's completely different if you want your buyers to buy different things. And that's how you want them to increase the cart size. For example, if you're in fashion and you think your buyers end up buying different fashion accessories, all from you and order discount is a good way to go after those buyers.

Griff: And when you have an Order Discount promotion going on, if it's the only promotion you're offering, it shows up on top of each of the listings. If a buyer clicks that they see all the items that you've included in that promotion. So it's a great incentive to take them to a filtered view of all the items that they can get a discount if they purchase them in more than one.

Parin: Absolutely. And all of that happens when you're trying to create the promotion, you have an option to filter down and there are multiple ways to filter. You can filter by eBay categories, or if you have your own store category, say Summer Apparels, you can basically put all your summer apparels in for that promotion. And then as you said, Griff, it's our responsibility to show, to buyers that link which will take them to that entire promotion. And we try to put it at placements on view item on the Search page where buyers kind of see that and they see the rest of your inventory, which otherwise it's tough for a buyer to go and see your entire store and kind of find summer apparels. But if you have some promotions running and they come across any one of those items, it's a good funnel into a bigger inventory that you have, which otherwise you're purely relying on your items showing up on Search.

Griff: Which is not always that easy.

Parin: Yeah, correct.

Griff: And I know that that's a great way to get people, to make multiple purchases. Another thing that we haven't talked about for a long time on the podcast is the effectiveness of something called the Markdown Event.

Parin: Absolutely. So markdowns, we think kind of work well for mid to high price range. You can imagine seller selling gold coins and they don't have super high margins, but they could give a percent off or a phone where even a 5% markdown can go a long way. When you go into a little bit of mid to high price range markdowns kind of start becoming more effective because buyers are not going to buy huge volumes. Order Discount and Volume Pricing may not be as effective because buyers may not buy two different or three different items. Never say never. But, usually that's how we see buyers for a higher price range. At that point, you start giving discounts at an individual item level instead of like trying to grow your cart size bigger.

Griff: I've used markdowns in the past. And I think the other thing that helps drive buyers decision making in a markdown event is the fact that there's a time urgency because you can set a time where it's gonna end. And it's indicated that this seller sale ends in two days, do it now, or you miss out. And many sellers might think well, is that kind of promotion effective? It works.

Parin: Yeah, no, absolutely. Every promotion has a start and a end date, same with Order Discount and coupons.

Griff: One of the worst things that a seller can do when they're experiencing a summer slowdown, I wanna make this clear is nothing. And a lot of sellers do they just think, well, you know, poor me, my sales aren't happening. Like they were, there's nothing I can do, but whether you're a big retailer or a small seller, the realities of the marketplace are the same. Right? And you, sometimes you gotta incentivize those buyers to make the sale.

Parin: And even more true with all the rising costs today. Promotions are proven to get buyers to shop from you. It's proven that when inflation is so high, they're gonna value shop. Shoppers are gonna look for the best deal and you'll see what works best for your margins. And effectively use these tools.

Griff: We haven't talked about 'em in a long time and I thought it might be a good point to mention the Promoted Listings features as well. I see a lot of sellers not using them correctly. For example, promoting an item where the price is obviously much higher than the other items that show up on the page, thinking that that's gonna help me get the item sold. That's not a really good strategy. Is it?

Parin: A lot of data out there that shows that price is the number one factor and buyers are smart. They will do comparison not only across different sellers on eBay, but they'll also do price comparison of the product on other marketplaces.

Griff: Exactly.

Parin: And increasing the price, that may be one of the worst things we can do as any business is to increase the price, thinking that just because your item is visible, maybe results in a sale. So yeah, price increasing strategy is more often than not. They don't work cause buyers are smart.

Griff: Yes, they are smart. You mentioned margins. And this is a top line consideration for all sellers. I can't do this and not make a profit. And they all watch as they're doing their price reductions or their sales or their discounts as their margins get slimmer and slimmer and they start to panic. And I don't think panic is the right response. Sometimes you have to liquidate merchandise just to get out of it. So you can buy something that will be more attractive to buyers currently. And all of these promotions while we hope they help increase your sales and your margins, sometimes you have to liquidate merchandise and this can be a very quick and easy way to do it. Get that cash back and then invest in stuff like back to school or even fall season merchandise and hope for the best. There's no failure here. I think people take it oh, you know, I've failed. No, that's not how it works. Every single retailer out there has a liquidation strategy so that they can churn that inventory out, get that cash back that capital and then reinvest it in something that will make them better margins. But you can't do nothing.

Parin: Yeah. And that's why seasons come in, right? Like buyers interest change situation like different seasons mean they're gonna do different activities and with summer, but somewhere COVID going out, buyers are just doing very different things. If you think that what you have currently is not what buyers are looking for. Maybe that is a good strategy. And that's where tools like Terrapeak come in and you can start looking for what buyers are really interested in.

Griff: Yeah. I love Terrapeak because you can see over a period of time, a graph that shows you where, you know, when the sales were made great research tool, if you're considering other inventory and you want to know when it sells best or what inventory maybe to avoid.

Parin: And then just to plug buyer groups out here because that also allows you to go after buyers who bought from you a while back or maybe recently, and they may not come to eBay or they come to eBay and they're looking for something else and they don't remember you because the general way buyers shop is they search and they find any seller and buyer groups and SIO are good ways for you as a seller to be top of mind for your buyer. And that's a great strategy to get more traffic visibility into your inventory. As less buyers are coming on eBay, even lesser buyers may end up coming to your stores. You have to drive buyers into your storefront.

Griff: And I think it's also important to note here that if you're skeptical about any of these tools and you've avoided them, that the very least you should do for yourself and your business is give them a test. Everything is worthy of test and consideration. Test out seller initiated offers or offers for buyers. Test out all of the promotions that are available. Plan out, test and track a markdown event during the summer, see how effective it is or how effective it isn't and then make changes based on what the test shows you. It pays to have a strategy. You'll form one by testing and looking at the results. It's what we do at eBay. Everything we do is tested and we're pretty successful.

Parin: And Griff you said it well, a few minutes back is the worst thing you can do is do nothing. Yeah. Try it out. And if you have any questions, of course you have a Q and A tomorrow. At the same time, when you are on Seller Hub or on your mobile app, we have place where you can leave comments for the team to read. You will be surprised like the team here reads majority of the comments and we can get back to you if you have any other questions outside of today and tomorrow. Please, please make use of the comments and feedback feature on the site.

Griff: I will post links to all of the pages that have to do with any sense of promotion in the transcript for episode 199. And we'll have a link to the Community Chat section. So you can see it. If you happen to be listening to this the day it drops on July 12th, it'll be July 13th. Am I correct on that one?

Parin: Yeah.

Griff: Yeah. July 13th. And I believe it's at one o'clock Pacific. If you miss it, you can still go back and read it. Cuz we leave those open and read what questions were posted and the responses as well. And if you ever have any questions that you want us to address directly here on the podcast, when it comes to promotional tools, why not send them to podcast@ebay.com or you can call them in at (888)723-4630, our trustee number. And maybe you have some strategies and tips that you would like to share with other sellers in methods and ways that you've discovered can help you weather the summer slowdown that we're talking about this week. Parin, I want to thank you very much for coming by again.

Parin: Thank you for having me.

Griff: Parin Jogani is part of the Seller Tool Team. He's the Senior Product Manager on that team. You can ask Parin questions tomorrow, July 13th, during the Monthly Chat with eBay staff at 1:00 PM Pacific on the eBay Community Forums, you can find it right on the main community page. There's usually a link to that chat.

Brian: You got questions?

Griff: Yeah, we got answers all right. I do a lot of research to make sure these answers are correct. And still I end up having to issue clarifications. Our first question this week was sent into podcast@ebay.com by eBay seller, Rita. Brian, would you do the honors?

Brian: I would. Hello team. I have a follow up question to one you answered from Nat in episode 189, relating to packing slips printed from the print label page. A couple of years ago, I purchased a thermal printer because someone kept touting their virtues, the printers, not the speakers fault. When purchasing a label, there's an option to choose the paper size you wish to use. That choice is set up as a dropdown and is therefore kind of hidden. After printing a packing slip on eight and a half by 11, the paper size has to be changed to four by six in order for the information to fit on the thermal label. If you click purchase postage before changing the paper size designation to four by six, there seems to be no way to change the formatting to fit a label. The options then are to print the label on standard paper and tape it to the box or cancel the label, request a refund and reprint. Do you know of a workaround in this situation where one could still print the label via thermal printer? Thanks for the time and keep up the good work Rita user ID Blue Bonnet Bell.

Griff: Wow. This was confusing to me at first because I had to read it several times in order to figure out what it is she was asking. So Rita, if you want to print the short form packing slip that is available in the print label flow, you know, while you purchase postage, there's an option there to print a packing slip, but it's a half page and not very nice, actually. I think it's very old school. It has very little information on it. If you want to print that on a eight by 11 letter size piece of paper, but then you want to print labels on a thermal printer using six by four inch label in that same flow, you will have to make the change to the paper size every time you print. And I just think it's a really, not a good way to do this.

Brian: And as you've discovered Rita, this is not an ideal workflow.

Griff: Yeah.

Brian: But it's the reality.

Griff: But don't despair. There's a better way. So I recommend printing, packing slips from the orders page instead of the print label flow. Here's what I do. I have two printers by the way, I have a laser jet and I have a thermal printer that prints the six by four labels. Say I have one or more orders to process. On the orders page I check the box next to each order and then from the shipping button on the top of the list of orders, I select the menu option for print packing slips and more. I print these with my laser printer on those 11 by eight sheets of paper. Then I keep those order check boxes checked while those are printing. And I click the shipping button again and I select purchase shipping labels and print out the shipping labels on my thermal printer. And the reason why this is good, you can keep your postage labels at six by four. You don't have to keep changing that out.

Brian: No, that is a good idea. So it is possible. And I've seen some sellers actually do this. It is possible to print both your shipping labels and the short form packing slip on the thermal labels.

Griff: Yeah, I've seen that too, but I think it looks really tacky. I really do. I get some packages with that in it. I like the long form packing slip that's available on the Orders page because I can include a lot more information on it.

Brian: The item, photo, your logo, your store name, and QR code.

Griff: Exactly. And the long form packing slip is so much nicer than the short form plus, and this is a really important plus the short form doesn't have the checkout cost breakout for the item. That is the item price, the taxes and the shipping. And as a buyer, I need to save the long form packing slips for my own bookkeeping.

Brian: Yeah, well that's because you're a reseller, most buyers aren't though, right?

Griff: I wouldn't assume that bro, more and more buyers do resell things and they like to have a receipt to show what they paid and they save the paper receipt.

Brian: That makes sense.

Griff: I'm a really big believer in that long form. My advice Rita is to summarize. To make a long story even longer is to print out your packing slips from the orders page and to print your labels through the purchase flow. And don't use that short form.

Brian: I'm gonna try this next time I print.

Griff: Yeah, you should.

Brian: Cause I was like Rita. I was always just printing from the print labels.

Griff: Rita and Brian blind in the desert of printing until Griff showed them the way and said, arise my people and come this way to a more efficient and ideal way.

Brian: Yes I don't have, well, I do have two printers as well. Cause I bought the thermal printer as well.

Griff: What I was confused about when I read this the first time was that Rita, it sounded like she, I thought she must have gotten rid of her regular printer and now only has a thermal printer and that I don't recommend. So I need to all those months, all these years that I've been telling sellers, get a thermal printer, there's an addendum to that. An asterisk and it is don't give up your other printer. Right? It's in addition to.

Brian: The thermal printers are small.

Griff: Yeah, they have a small.

Brian: So they don't, they don't take up a whole lot of room.

Griff: Especially those Rollos which are the ones everyone's getting. They take up very little space. Our next question is from Jay West Driver who sent the following email to podcast@ebay.com. Hi, I haven't been trained properly on shipping policies and they seem way overly complicated to me. I mean, when you open up the page and see 11 pages of these policies, uh, it's a bit overwhelming. So anytime I'm on the Policies Page, I make sure to click the opt out button. I'd love to be directed to a resource on how to use them effectively and efficiently as I'm sure they could speed up listing time. So if I go to the shipping exclusion page and exclude Germany from that page, will that automatically update all the listings I have to exclude Germany? Or is there anything else I need to do when I try to exclude international destinations and listing itself, it only allows continent, selections, not individual countries. I don't sell to anyone in Germany hardly ever. And I just wanna make sure there's no off chance that it could accidentally happen since I'm not going to register with Lucid. I would have to cancel any orders that came from Germany. And that would not be good. Love the podcast, what you guys do, Jay West Driver, user ID Parts Of Life.

Brian: Well, thanks West. We covered Shipping Policies in episode 80. That was quite a while ago Griff.

Griff: Maybe we should do them again.

Brian: An answer to a question in episode 139, I strongly encourage all sellers to use them. They will make your listing work easier. I fully understand how daunting it can be to opt in and see all those pages of shipping policies though.

Griff: Yeah, but there's a reason. And there's a solution. If you have 11 pages of them currently, when you look at shipping policies, even though you haven't opted in yet, it's because the system had to create a shipping policy for each listing where your shipping is unique and it could be just one little thing. Everything is the same. But one little thing is, is off. It's more than likely that most of those policies showing on those 11 pages are actually either redundant duplicates, right? Or they're not even in use. And if you look to the right and you see listings under the listing column, most of them are gonna say zero or they should. There's a help page dedicated to shipping policies. And we'll put a link to it in the transcript for episode 199. But Jay West, you can find this page really quick on your own by clicking the Help and Contact link on the top of most any eBay page, and then just type in business policies into the Search box. The first link that comes up is what I'm talking about now, as for the German Packaging Act. If you're listed in your seller account as a business seller, then you will either have to exclude Germany from your listings or register with Lucid and Lessen Zero, you can see if you're listed as a business seller, by going to My eBay and then clicking the Account Tab and then looking under Business Info and under Business Info, if it says business, then you have to do this. And if you're listed as a business seller and you use the Global Shipping Program to ship internationally and you don't want to register on Lucid, then you'll need to add Germany to your excluded locations list, which you've done. And, and this is important. If you're gonna use the Global Shipping Program, you have to go to your shipping preferences page and uncheck the box for overriding your exclusions for GSP. And to get to that page, you go to My eBay again, the Account Tab, look down the left hand column for shipping preferences. And then when you're on the shipping preferences page, look for Exclude Shipping Locations and click Edit, and then make sure that box is unchecked. Again, not checked unchecked. If it's checked all your exclusions will be overridden for GSP. And as always, we'll put a direct link to that in any of these pages in the transcript for episode 199.

Brian: The reason West that it seems complicated is you can imagine all of the variations of stuff that gets sold on eBay and therefore all of the different permutations of shipping options that can be there, have to be supported through the system.

Griff: And there's some tools right on the top of the page, it'll help you do this. There's one for cleaning up your policy, which will look for duplicates, right? And then consolidate them. And there's also a consolidate policy button. And then it's worth taking the time to do it because once they're set up, listing is so much quicker.

Brian: You just select the policy you want. And it's so much easier than having to go back and think about, okay, what's the size of the box? How much does it weigh? What service is best?

Griff: I have a lot of policies I have about 20. I have policies set up for shipping anything and then policies for fragrance because fragrance, I don't ship internationally. So I have to set up all these different options. Some with GSP, some without GSP, and because I've registered on the Lucid database, I'm not worried about adding exclusions, but if I didn't want to, I'd have to go to every single policy that's in use and then exclude Germany from that policies exclusion list. Because the thing about shipping policies is if you're not opted in, as I said in the beginning of the episode, then you have one exclusion list. If you do opt in, now you have exclusion lists for every policy and they're not tied together, that's it!

Brian: Well, hopefully that helps West.

Griff: Either that, or he's so confused right now.

Brian: I hope he isn't like, I think about like when I first I remember when I first went in and to do my cleanup of my shipping policies, I was like, oh my gosh, what monstrosity have I? And what I actually did was I wiped them all out. I didn't even try and go back and save one, cuz it had been over such a long period.

Griff: But you had, you had nothing listed at the time.

Brian: I had like five items up at the time. So it was easy.

Griff: So my recommendation to somebody who has, even if you have thousands of pages of is to create new ones that do exactly what you want. And then you can use, there's a feature on the Shipping Policies Page where you can reassign listings to those policies on that page. And then once you've got all those other policies down to zero, just wipe 'em out.

Brian: And, and it's interesting. I think the reason I did that was probably episode 80 because you had talked about naming them in a specific way. So I really understood what they were and actually what I did was I created 'em named them and then I reassigned them to the five listings that I had. And then I got rid of the old ones.

Griff: Five listings. That was really tough. Wasn't it?

Brian: It was. I know. And I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get total crap from our listeners throughout. At that time I have more than five up now.

Griff: My response would be, five is better than zero. There's some employees here who have zero listings up at any given time. I only have 190 right now.

Brian: Only.

Griff: Yeah. I have some listing to do. I made a lot of sales and yeah, I've got some stuff to list.

Brian: Next weekend. I'll do it.

Griff: Oh good.

Brian: Our next question was emailed to podcast@ebay.com by sellers, Camilla and Kang. Hello Podcast Team. Do you know if eBay ever plans to offer a new tier of store subscription that would re be placed between basic and premium?

Griff: Why are you stopping?

Brian: I had to smile. Sorry. The jump to premium in is nearly triple the price. So it's a hard pill to swallow. We find ourselves wanting more space, but cannot justify the increase because we don't plan to have a 10,000 items insertions anytime soon. We know this topic has been thrown around in the past. Just wondering if it's a possibility, anytime soon, considering the current financial climate. Thanks so much so excited that you're near at 200 episodes, cheers to that and wishing you well for hundreds more to come Camilla and Kang The Fire Resellers.

Griff: What was that pause?

Brian: I almost started to chuckle because he's right. It's been bandied about and raised to the Store and Pricing Team multiple times. So part of it K is like they don't wanna create so many tiers that it just gets kinda unwieldy. And so then one of the things that they were evaluating at the time, and I'm not, I haven't heard anything new on it. So I know where they're at is maybe allowing people to purchase additional listings. The guidance though that I've been I've heard in the past is if you're getting close to about 40% towards that next tier, it's worth it. Mathematically,

Griff: Mathematically The economics workout.

Brian: Yeah. If you're just going over the 1000 mark, then you're probably stay at the same listing or the store tier level. If you're finding you got 4,000 items, you'd like to be listing, move up a tier.

Griff: Don't look at his, I have to hit the 10,000. Yeah, that makes sense. But I wanna make this clear though, because we're not privy to any secret information about what's going on. As far as we know, there's no plans to date for today to add a new tier, it's just, it's been discussed.

Brian: And in fact, the team is reticent to do so just because it, it just adds complexity. I think they're trying to find a way to provide flexibility to the sellers without having to add a tier. Because the reality is, okay, what's the tier gonna be 5,000 the day we introduce a tier that's at 5,000, we will get complaints from someone saying, I want someone between 1,005 and somebody else will be saying, I need something between 5,010.

Griff: So we're slicing and dicing. And eventually we end up with 5,000 tiers.

Brian: Right. And so, so I think the team is actually and rightfully so thinking, is there a better solution? Yeah. For our sellers and for eBay without creating tiers, but I have no information kind of on where they are with that beyond that I know that they're reticent to add tiers.

Griff: All right. Well, Camilla and Kang, I know it's probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but that's par for the course here on the podcast sometimes.

Brian: Sometimes. Sometimes we give them the information they like to hear.

Griff: Yeah. Like don't spend money. You don't have to spend good work. Brian, the accountants we're going, they were pulling out their hair. what's he saying? Oh lastly, Brian, this is a question posted to our Facebook group by eBay seller, Steve Franklin it's regarding what types of parcels are included and not included in the German Packaging Act. Listen to this. He posted very simply. What about those of us that sell lightweight paper items like stamps, postcards, photos, cards, et cetera. And we ship via First Class letter mail with postage stamps on it?

Brian: Well, surely First Class stamped envelopes aren't included in the German Packaging Act. Are they Griff?

Griff: Oh, contrary, don't call me Shirley. I thought the same thing.

Brian: Now you've dated yourself with that reference.

Griff: Have I? Who hasn't seen Airplane? I thought the same thing, Brian. So I asked my contact Ida at Lessen Zero for an answer. And here's what she said in her email response. The Packaging Act basically provides for an obligation to comply with the requirements for all distributors, no matter how much packaging there is, how heavy it is, what material it is or how big or small it is, the rule of thumb is therefore the obligations apply without exception from the first packaging put into circulation, commercially.

Brian: So a letter envelope has to comply.

Griff: Well, apparently it does. And it seems odd to me at least, because I'm thinking a letter envelope does not go through German customs, which is the mechanism for checking all incoming parcels to see if they're in compliance with the German Packaging Act. Right. Given what Ida says, I have to convey this information to see Steve. So it, yes, apparently even if you're selling things and shipping them in a First Class envelope with a stamp, and I'm assuming those at First Class International, right. Because It's more postage. I think it's not close to like, well, it just went up right. 1.30, 1.40? You have to declare that packaging. So I suppose it's covered by the packaging type paper. And if you sell enough Steve to Germany over the year that you don't wanna lose out on that. Yeah. I guess you still have to register. Doesn't make sense to me, but there it is.

Brian: What's the fine if you don't?

Griff: Uh, I dunno, but they can assess a fine.

Brian: Cause I can. I mean, I'm not gonna give advice to the law.

Griff: You're really a Renegade. Brian, imagine that!

Brian: It's Friday afternoon.

Griff: We don't need no stink of German Packaging Act. We're just gonna ship out our First Class letters and see what happens. Uh, yeah. You know, as well as I do that, we may think that, but as spokespeople for eBay on the podcast and we do have an obligation to make sure that we're not, encouraging anyone to break any rules anyway, but this is going to give us fodder for the next few months. And I don't wanna seem like I'm having schadenfreude over this using the German term, of course, but I'm kind of glad this German Packaging Act happened because we're gonna have lots of content for the podcast through this.

Brian: We are.

Griff: The German Packaging Act. Das bedeutet so viel Spas.

Brian: Yeah. So spa, what the heck does that mean?

Griff: It means such fun in German spas, spas means fun.

Brian: Ah, spa. Yeah. I hope you have spas this weekend.

Griff: Lots of spas. If you're saying it correctly is spas.

Brian: Yeah. I don't think fun is a word that most sellers would use for it, but , if you wanna join the spas here on eBay for Business, call us on (888) 723-4630.

Griff: That's 888-723-4630. But you know this number by now, call that hotline. You can do it anytime of the day, any day of the week at your convenience, just leave your question or comment and we just might put it on the air.

Brian: I think we should have a contest.

Griff: What?

Brian: Tell 10 friends the phone number for questions.

Griff: Oh, thanks.

Brian:

Griff: And we're gonna get questions that are totally unrelated to selling an eBay.

Brian: Maybe, but you know, a lot of stuff. You could talk about perfume. You could talk about dogs. You could talk about moving 27 times between San Jose, Salt Lake City, Vermont.

Griff: So what you're saying is we could turn what is a mildly informative podcast into one that is just totally self-indulgent. And you think people will listen?

Brian: No, they probably wouldn't. And if you're not a call on the phone person and don't wanna share that phone number with the 10 friends, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com, that's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: You know, for a Catholic boy you can really be sometimes and in, and now it's, time for your three point Podcast Checklist.

Brian: Check the Announcement Board at community.ebay.com for Up To Date Seller News every day.

Griff: Yeah. And if you haven't made your choices yet to opt or not to opt into the Lucid register, it's like a Shakespeare play. To opt or not to opt. That is the question spas or no spas. You have to do so now, so make up your mind if you're gonna, because the law went in to effect July 1st, don't put yourself into peril or possible legal jeopardy, either decide you're gonna register, or if you're not gonna register, make sure you're excluding Germany from your listings.

Brian: Well I say Maas Spas.

Griff: Mass?

Brian: Yeah. Like more in Spanish. Spas in German throwing all kinds of terms out there. Mass Spas. more fun.

Griff: The one thing I know about Germans is they don't like to see their language infiltrated by other languages.

Brian: Uh, I'm in trouble then, ah, if you need to review anything in this episode, 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. And on our next episode, we'll attempt to answer the question is the golden age of thrifting over?

Brian: What?

Griff: That's the question. And we're gonna try to answer it.

Brian: Who's asking that question? That's interesting.

Griff: Well, the New York times, but, I'm collecting comments on that. We'll review some of the best comments next week and we'll have some other stuff to talk about as well.

Brian: I think that New York times doesn't what they're doing.

Griff: I don't, you'd be alone.

Brian: We'd like to, again, thank our guests this week, Parin Jogani from the eBay Product Team and eBay sellers, Rita J West Driver, Camilla and Kang and Steven for their questions.

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