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03-21-2023
05:00 AM
Steven Livingston discusses his role as eBay’s Director of Sneakers, what is happening with that category and what we might see in the future. Griff and Brian answer your email regarding keywords and apostrophes, the eBay Product catalog, extending Markdown Sales events, and free shipping.
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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, the inspiration to help you start managing, grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 234. Back in the studio again on a lovely Friday.
Brian: We are, and it is a lovely Friday.
Griff: Yeah. The rain stopped for awhile.
Brian: Yes. Here in California. A little bit of a respite from the rain. But we get some more next week and we still need it. So bring it on.
Griff: Are you kidding? We still need it?
Brian: Well, we're still like in parts of the state in drought areas and parts of the state abnormally dry. I think one more rainstorm and maybe we get out of abnormally dry. Here at Santa Clara County we are abnormally dry.
Griff: Really?
Brian: We're abnormally a bunch of stuff, but we're abnormally dry when it comes to the weather.
Griff: Oh, I would've thought the opposite. I wasn't paying attention. It's just been raining. Like I feel like I'm in the UK.
Brian: Uk. It does have that feeling. Sometimes I've like been at the kitchen cleaning dishes and stuff and I'm looking outside and it's just raining and I'm looking out in my backyard going, this is what people in England do all the time.
Griff: Well, when it is raining, it's a lot easier to sit down at your desk and finally get the job done. That needs to be done by, I believe it's April 18th this year. The deadline is for filing taxes.
Brian: Taxes are coming up. Besides taxes, who's our guest this week?
Griff: Ooh, I'm glad you asked. Our guest is an eBay colleague of ours. His name is Steven Livingston. He's on the Verticals Team, specifically the Sneakers Team. And Steven will share the strategy his team is employing with sneakers to bring more buyers of everything across all categories, not just sneakers to eBay. And apparently it's working. And of course we have questions, Brian, this week. In fact, we have questions and suggestions on topics like managing a markdown sales event, apostrophes and titles. It's just not gonna go away. And using the eBay catalog when it's not ideal.
Brian: I think we should get a college professor just to come talk about apostrophes in general.
Griff: I think we could do that ourselves actually. I think we're not allowed to give tax advice, but we can give English grammar advice. Sure. Anyway, before we start, what's the news this week, Brian?
Brian: No eBay news, but there is news from the IRS that will be of interest to some sellers in California, Georgia, and Alabama. This from the IRS webpage on the topic, taxpayers in most of California and parts of Alabama and Georgia now have until October 16th, 2023 to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments. Previously the deadline had been postponed to May 15th for these areas. And you can read more on the IRS website and if you are from any of the areas in California that were hit by weather disasters, you'll want to check that page out as well.
Griff: We'll put a link in the transcript to the summary overview. Oh, and by the way, I need to alert you, Brian, starting in April, going through May. Our usual news segment such as it is, will be on a little hiatus, a vacation of sorts.
Brian: Really? Why is that?
Griff: Well, I'm taking some time off at the end of April and the beginning of May.
Brian: Sabbatical.
Griff: No, not sabbatical. I don't have one of those for another couple years, but I'm moving and I'm gonna be really involved with that process. So we're getting, uh, as many podcast episodes recorded prior to that. And of course if we're recording something four weeks in advance, well, I'm not a soothsayer, I can't tell you what the news is for four weeks. But we'll remind everyone every week to always check the Announcement Board.
Brian: Yes. Or subscribe to it. And then you don't even have to check it. We'll send you the info.
Griff: You'll get the info in your...
Brian: Email and if you hop on the community, you'll see the little bell there and it'll be in the bell too.
Griff: Oh good.
Brian: The community has a lot of features. You can go in and set preferences. I set mine up to do a daily feed. So instead of getting a reminder email from any posts or something that someone's added to it just at the end of the day sends me everything. And then if I've missed something, I can go see it the next morning.
Griff: And this is also a good reason we're gonna mention this in the next few episodes. We want your questions now because we actually will be answering all these questions in the pre-recorded segments we're doing. So if you've got a question, yeah, you wanna send it in now we need those questions and you need those answers.
Brian: And I don't envy you moving. I've read articles that moving is one of the most stressful things that you can do.
Griff: Yeah. You know, I have too much stuff and it's not gonna fit into the van and I gotta get rid of it. So that's what I'm spending the next few weeks doing is getting rid of as much stuff. But I don't wanna, well, I wanna talk about what we do here on the podcast.
Brian: What do we do here on the podcast?
Griff: Well, we talk to guests and I think it's time to talk to this guest right now.
Griff: We've paid a little bit of attention to it on the podcast over the past couple months. I've mentioned it because, well, I've been selling a few and doing pretty good at it. We're talking about sneakers today on the podcast, specifically about that focused vertical. And who better to join us than eBay's Very own Director of Sneakers, Steven Livingston. Steven, welcome to the podcast.
Steven: Thank you Griff. Thank you for having me.
Griff: How long have you been at eBay?
Steven: A very long time. All of about three months or four months there about. Three to four months there.
Griff: What did you do before you worked at eBay?
Steven: Prior to coming here, I've been in a few industries and touched a few different areas across the world. Before this I was with Walmart e-commerce, where I led a few different verticals. I led businesses across Home, Sporting Goods, Sports License, Active Wear. And then before that I was with Colgate selling home products. And before that was with Diagio selling spirits. So I've touched a few different industries prior to getting to this joy of sneakers.
Griff: So Stephen, what made you want to join the sneakers vertical here at eBay?
Steven: It's truly special. When I saw this opportunity, I knew there was something very different about it. In my past roles, I've led turnarounds, I've had to get involved from a P & L perspective. In this yes, there's a lot of that in terms of managing the business, but what really stood out is the community, the fact that it's a business centered around people who have love and passion for a particular collectible area. And me being able to influence that and having a role in that and creating a space and an environment where small shops and stores and sellers can communicate and connect with each other and thrive on this environment. And that in itself was, you know, it's a, it's a dream job. I couldn't have asked for more.
Griff: We were talking before the recording started and I asked you about your history with sneakers and was surprised to learn that you are not a necessarily a sneaker head.
Griff: Well I wasn't coming in. I've always collected sneakers here and there, but having the budget to do so and getting the approval from the wife was a little bit trickier when it wasn't my day job. But coming in now, you know, I can say, Hey, hey honey, it's for research purposes. So these days I've been getting the passing grade to do so. That being said, the biggest thing for me was again, going back to just that whole idea of the community that's formed around this and how special it is and eBay, I'm gonna use the word here, I'll throw it out. We're the OG in the space. We've been here and we've been rocking with our sneaker heads and sneaker collectors for years. And the idea that I can come in and make that experience even better and connect with these consumers in an even more special way was huge. Since coming in, there's a lot that we've been doing to advance against that. We're working with partners, we're working with sellers, we're investing in products, we're investing in experiences. So it really is unfolding in the short time that I'm here in a very special way.
Griff: Roughly how many pairs of sneakers do you own by now?
Steven: In the past three months? I'm probably up to 15 already.
Griff: Oh, you're starting .
Steven: Ah, it's getting there. It's getting there Griff.
Griff: Yeah. Try stopping.
Steven: Oh my gosh. It sounds like you're a victim of this already?
Griff: I've been collecting all my life, but even sneakers, although I probably don't go after the same thing that a lot of other people do, I am known among our team here as the Imelda Marcos of the team cuz I have like hundreds of shoes now.
Steven: My gosh. Gosh. What's your most priced possession?
Griff: I buy for comfort and I have lots of older New Balance that I liked when they first came out and then they stopped making them. So I look for them new inbox and then I put them away. And when I need a pair, they're always there. But I have way too many given my expected lifespan, . So I've been selling most of them on eBay.
Steven: I love it. I love it. That's amazing.
Griff: What do you focus on?
Steven: I"m into the fashion ones. I would say. I think one that I love the most is a pair of Air Force One Jordan off-white, green, and black. And I think they're, they're super dope and I've been collecting like a lot of Jordan ones, Jordan threes. What I am also kind of seeing happen though is to your point, you know, there is this shift going on into comfort as well. You know, everyone's now looking at hey, what's comfortable not just looking fly. And that's another area that we're leading into on eBay, making sure that we have that full assortment. Not just the collectibles but right across the board. But yeah, I think I've been hit by the Jordan bug. They're few in the collection.
Griff: What's the oldest pair of sneakers in your collection of 15?
Steven: There you go. I'm busted. Like I've been collecting over the past few months. I just gotten a pass to be able to be shopping. So I would say probably like two or three years with the majority of them probably being within two or three months.
Griff: . I know occasionally a pair of Nikes or Jordan's from 20 years longer ago will show up on eBay and they'll bring a small fortune. Personally I find that interesting because it's, it's kind of like the antiques and collectibles market at that point.
Steven: Yeah. And you never know where you're gonna get. You don't know if you're gonna get a shoe where the sole is gonna start falling off all of a sudden.
Griff: If it's old enough it doesn't matter. I suppose. I think the point is if you're out looking at thrift stores or other places and you come across a pair, of ratty old athletic shoes or sneakers don't just immediately discount 'em. Right? You wanna do little research cuz they could actually be worth the money even in sort of shabby condition.
Steven: Hundred percent. Especially if it's something that was gifted by a parent or left behind. I don't know if you've seen some of twins out there in the world, they have their dad's collection that was left behind and it's worth millions of dollars. so there's a lot of that.
Griff: Thank you Daddy.
Steven: Yeah. Yep, yep. So there's a lot of that going on out there.
Griff: Yeah. I don't think my personal collection is worth that much money, but it could be. You never know. You just have to do the research itself. I know when people start working for a company like ours, you come in with certain expectations and then different things happen. What's been the most surprising thing that's happened to you or that you've seen since you started at eBay?
Steven: I think I mentioned coming from the Walmart e-com and the other big companies. There's this huge focus on driving profitability and the top line on the business. And yes, we do run a business. The incredible focus that we have on the customer here, it's astounding the focus on the community and making sure that we are responsible players in serving them in terms of how we participate with our sellers in terms of how we, you know, give them space to shine on the platform in terms of how we try to integrate and make sure that every experience is authentic and that the product is authentic. There's a huge focus on the customer, on the seller, on the platform. And yes we are a business as I mentioned, but it's refreshing to say the least. And it definitely exceeded my expectations in terms of, you know, what I was anticipating coming in. Very, very exciting. Very, very refreshing to be a part of that.
Griff: I think our entire audience knows, they're very familiar with the fact that eBay has put laser focus on specific categories and we keep talking about how that will benefit sellers overall, what's been your experience with the sneakers category and that kind of laser focus and what will it mean for other categories?
Steven: Yeah, the whole term focus category really just means that the business has seen a lot of potential, a lot of opportunity within this particular area. In other words, we see it as a high investment area and with that comes a lot of resources and attention as we try to make this experience as as good as it can. It's also like a testing ground where we're creating the playbooks, we're defining how we meet the customer, we're defining how we serve the customer. Authenticity guarantees a great example of that. We created this platform where product comes through, it gets authenticated, the customer knows they're getting the best item and then from there we're able to take these learnings and apply to other focus areas and then through that we're creating an amazing experience across eBay. That's another exciting thing for me, knowing that I am one of the leaders on this focus category that's going to be used to essentially be a testing ground for other areas as we build these things out.
Griff: I've used the Authenticity Program as a seller twice now. It's pretty easy experience.
Steven: It is.
Griff: And since my last sale through the program we have now instituted the, we'll send you the label. Yeah, that makes me wanna sell more shoes for over a hundred bucks.
Steven: . I love it. I love it, I love it. You should be using the platform to do so and we're making that experience even better! We're rolling out a, a new um, product where your listing process will be so much smoother. You literally take a picture of the shoe you get going and within a few minutes you'll have your product up and going descriptions filled out. It's gonna be a really, really smooth process. So look forward to that.
Griff: And this is just from taking a photo, you'll get all that fill in for data?
Steven: Taking a photo and hitting a few different buttons, but it's going to reduce the time that it takes to get a product to the state astronomically.
Griff: That's always a good thing because have you sold on eBay yet?
Steven: I have. Of course I have.
Griff: So you know that it can be, not necessarily daunting, but there's some work involved.
Steven: There is some work involved and that's why we're here investing to make sure that the experiences are improved and that we're continuing to ensure that you have the best process to get these products on.
Griff: In the last half year we announced and now in production for I believe just trading cards, The Vault. Would The Vault ever be a place where you could send a highly valuable pair of sneakers?
Steven: I don't wanna give too much away. But just know that we're always innovating and we're always thinking about the customer. We always want to make sure that the customer can get the products in the shortest time available. But there are some things that we have to keep close to the chest. All I will say is stay tuned more to come.
Griff: Okay. So you can't reveal all the secrets, but is there anything else you can talk about about what may be on the roadmap for sellers in particular but also buyers in the sneaker category?
Steven: We just launched Live Commerce and it's been a hit. Stay tuned for those releases as well. Make sure you're following social media and following our channels. But we, we just had the first one maybe about two or three weeks ago, we have some work coming. We've partnered with some great stores, offered some amazing assortment and and provided like coupons to go with it. But the whole interaction and the experience is like bar none it, it's amazing. So we have a lot more of those coming, the Live Commerce and then look for content coming from us too and community engagement. There's a lot that we're doing within that space. And then as far as experience goes, we're continuously working on one to seller platforms and the buyer experiences, again not giving out too much but a lot in the pipeline as far as those are concerned.
Griff: What about for sellers who are looking for product to sell on eBay? Are there any trends that they should keep in line when they're looking?
Steven: Absolutely. We provide a ton of tools on platform that you can leverage. So when you're on platform, you know you can sign up and kind of see the data behind what's trending, see the data behind how your product quality is like in terms of keeping your titles tight, making sure that your pictures are sharp, you wanna get good angles of the product, make sure that the description matches what the product really is and make sure that you're keeping strong focus on getting the products out in time. Also, if you can get good feedback from customers for your store, that's great as well because then what you're doing is building your store's brand over time. You show up in a credible way. So just the same way I was guiding customers to make sure you're looking for credible sellers, you become a credible seller for customers to look for.
Griff: And that is important on eBay as we know because even though eBay has your back and buyers know this, that the eBay has their back, it's still the best experience is the one where they don't have to rely on eBay to step in. Where if there's something that goes wrong, the seller takes care of it but there's hardly anything that goes wrong cuz the seller knows what they're doing and they do everything the best they can when they're listing the product and describing it and photographing it. I learned last year when photographing a pair of old Converse high tops that were made in the USA, that it's really important to take pictures of certain parts of the shoe that I would never do in particular like the toe where the piece of rubber meets the side and then goes and ends at the toe. That's apparently really important for collectors. And I wouldn't have known that if somebody in the community hadn't said, Hey you want to take a picture of this, It's important.
Steven: I love it. What I'm gonna put you on a spot a little bit Griff. In the hundreds of shoes you've sold, what's the one thing that stands out for you as like the holy grail outside of that one that you mentioned that works for you?
Griff: Well I mean back when I was more actively sourcing, cuz I haven't really sourced since the pandemic, I was always looking for the ratty old pair of shoes that were worth $10,000. Now I never found it but I never stopped looking and I would keep my phone with me and discreetly research when I found something that I thought might fit the bill. I came, I think, I think the most I made there was a pair of shoes I bought for $25 and you know, I can't remember exactly what they were, I think they were were Pumas but you know, I sold 'em for a couple hundred and that was a pretty good profit. And that's what I drives a lot of the people that listen to our podcast is that they're looking for those great deals that no one else finds. So just being able to have eBay as a research tool or the internet in general.
Steven: I'll tell you even, just the other day I was in the mall, I walked past Nike outlet and you know, I'm looking at a shoes and I'm on eBay just looking. Oh okay it sells for twice the price, There we go.
Griff: , You are hooked. Well and this is what a lot of sellers do is they'll go to a release like Nike or another maker is gonna drop and they announce it and they'll either go to the store or they'll go online and buy up as much as they can. Speculating knowing that this is a limited edition, I can hold onto it, sell some right off. It's kind of like ticket scalping, although no one really gets hurt. It's an interesting life and it is a rabbit hole that I think would be a lot of fun to fall into.
Steven: Yes. Hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Griff: Have you been to a Sneaker Con yet?
Steven: Absolutely. Those guys are great. They're leading a lot of great executions. Um, we had one in Seattle recently that was great. We also had one in Philadelphia recently and that was also great. But it's a great way for us to connect to the consumers and we're always looking to be in touch with them there. And again, we welcome the feedback, we welcome the thoughts from customers and sellers and everyone as we try to make it better and always improve on it.
Griff: Well Stephen, I wanna thank you so much for taking time and joining us to talk about that category. And I'd like to let our listeners know that if you have a question about the sneaker category in general, just send it to us at podcastatebay.com. And if I can't answer it, which I probably can't because I'm not the expert, I can always ask Steven for his take.
Steven: Yes, absolutely. And just to remind you, like we have a team filled with sneaker experts. We have a lot of people that grew up in the sneaker cons and selling at sneaker events that are known here on the eBay side of the world. So legit. We went out there and took the biggest sneaker heads and planted them inside eBay to make what it's today.
Griff: We have a sneaker head cadre on the team.
Steven: we sure do. Sold by us for us. For us by us.
Griff: Well Stephen, thanks again. It's been a pleasure.
Steven: Amazing. Thank you Griff. Appreciate the time.
Griff: Stephen Livingston is the Director Of Sneakers and that sneaker vertical category here at eBay. Again, if you have any questions that you'd like to ask Steven, just send them to podcast@ebay.com and we'll get them to them.
Brian: You got questions?
Griff: Of course you do. And we got answers. And our first question, Brian was sent in by seller John, he emailed it to podcast@ebay.com. Like a good listener and you wanna hold onto your saddle Brian, because it's really long and I think we're gonna have to take turns breaking it up and answering it cause it is literally an essay.
Brian: I am looking at it, it is long. I have no saddle but I'm holding onto my seat.
Griff: So anyway, I'll start the first one and we'll talk about it. And it's John and he says hi there. Hosts of the only podcast of which I listen to every word carefully.
Brian: I like that. Okay, we'll see. I guess
Griff: He says I have a couple of feedbacks and then he says feedback. What's the plural of that word on episode 230 in the discussion of eBay myths. First it's about punctuation and the title and the dreaded apostrophe. Okay, before we get to that, so John, let me answer that question because I am by nature pedantic and I have to be, I'm putting on my professor hat now. John, our English lesson of the day feedback is the plural of feedback. Feedbacks always sound wrong so don't use it. And the way around that wrong sounding use of feedbacks, if you wanna talk about a number of something, like a set number of actual feedback comments is too, well I just did it. Use the phrase feedback comments, let the actual noun comments indicate plural, plural, singular. I've heard sellers go, I've got you know, a hundred feedbacks. Normally I would just smile and say aren't you special because it's our podcast and we can do what we want. I can politely but firmly disabuse somebody at the notion. Yeah, there's no such thing as feedbacks, it's actually feedback.
Brian: I bet John is not the only listener who has that question.
Griff: So now that I've got a bit of that out of the way, why don't you read the next bit?
Brian: Actually says John, I thought of my first point while typing above and that is the pluralization of any word. Uh oh. I can't think of any marketing type word in which the plural has an apostrophe in it. The biggest villain in this being DVD, the plural of this term is DVDs no apostrophe and it is never DVD’s. I see that constantly. And it is like some folks cataracts about vintage.
Griff: . Are you trying to rile me up John? It won't work. I surrendered. I gave up that fight. You, I don't care how people use the word anymore. Go ahead.
Brian: John continues. While listening to your discussion on the apostrophe in Levi's and that was Levi's I thought to myself self, why not spell it both ways. I don't sell Levi apostrophe s myself but have other weirdly spelled brands like Lennox China. I would do the non punctuated version of Levi's in the title and then in my item description or even the condition description, spell it Levi apostrophe s. So there's some possibility that the listing would get indexed with both words. Correct me if I'm wrong about indexing the item description.
Griff: Well John, I have some bad news for you. You're wrong. Because we don't index the item description and we don't index the condition. The only points that matter are the title and item specifics. The important thing, especially when it comes to a brand name is not so much how you spell it in the title when it comes to apostrophe or not to apostrophe. I'm Shakespeare now to apostrophe or not to apostrophe there. That's the question. But it's important that you select the right brand from the item specifics. And for most apparel a brand name is actually a requirement. But your assumption about Levi's, I gotta tell you, when we did that episode, I ran several test searches of the word Levi's Brian using with apostrophe, which is how their logo is or without just saying Levi's without, and each one returned the same number of results. And I tried it several different ways with several different side filters to you know, use some search refinements and it still came up with the same results. And I think that's because our search team uses a logic which is applied in most cases to if there's two versions of how a buyer or seller might spell the word and in order to prevent some items not showing up, they just include everything. So if you use Levi's with the apostrophe, it includes listings that have Levi's without the apostrophe. And if you use Levi's without the apostrophe, it includes Levi's with the apostrophe. Does that make sense?
Brian: It does.
Griff: And I uh, read your email and so I ran a test using the two forms of DVD plural, the correct one. Without the apostrophe and the incorrect one with the apostrophe. And I couldn't find any difference in the number of results.
Brian: In both of those examples. Why not just use DVD or Levi without apostrophe S or S?
Griff: Well I think in the D V D you might be safe but Levi is not a complete word.
Brian: And actually you're right though. Levi by itself without the apostrophe S or S might return other items that are not like Levi's clothing items
Griff: And maybe not many Levi's. So I only ran the test for the, you know, the, the use of each word just with and without an apostrophe after the uh or before the S. So yeah, again, use what you think is right. No one says, I think today I'm gonna wear a pair of Levi. No one says that Brian. No one says that.
Brian: No one says it.
Griff: What's your favorite jeans? Oh, I like Levi. No one says that. So you can't really do that.
Brian: No, my Levi's just cringed when you said that and I'm wearing them now. . I could feel them stiffen up in anger. Should I continue?
Griff: Uh, yeah, continue with what John's wrote in his uh, six page essay here.
Brian: Wasn't really six pages, but John does continue. My second feedback is actually an on my knees request that some team there be put in charge of cleaning up the descriptions in the eBay catalog. TPTB.
Griff: Do you know what that means?
Brian: Toilet paper take back. I have no clue.
Griff: No, it's the powers that be.
Brian: Well the powers that be keep giving up white papers on best practices for the item title. However, if you look up something in the eBay catalog, I get this constantly with books and dads. Oops. A title that has all sorts of commas, dashes, and parentheses in it as well as incorrect order of keywords. Plus that title can be up to 120 plus words long. So it wastes listing time, fixing the pre-populated title listing and thus defeats the purpose of having common items showing up with the same title online. Yikes. The argument in favor of the catalog is that it saves some time with filling in item specifics, but it's lacking a high percentage of things that should be there and don't cause a great deal of research mostly around topic genre and sub-genre fixing that would save a lot of time.
Griff: Okay. And he goes on to say in addition the stock image that may or may not be available from the catalog does not meet the best practices criteria for image size. Yeah, I've seen that myself. John says I've never used those images because they're way too small even to the point of becoming pixelated when added to my listings. Please, please, please, I will send you a mug if you could get that fixed. Lol. So tongue in cheek. Yours in selling greatness. John Myers, AKA a STEDBooks. Well, okay, so John, when it comes to the catalog, we gotta tell you it's not an eBay created catalog. This is a catalog we purchased. If you're using a book as an example, the catalog that eBay purchased sometimes has long titles and sometimes has not so great pictures and sometimes doesn't have all of what you would call item specifics because that catalog wasn't built for eBay.
Brian: eBay actually purchased the catalog. However, you can always edit the title, the photos and the item specifics. It would be a seller's decision whether or not the extra work and making those edits is faster or slower than recreating the entire listing from scratch. And what the important bit of information for any of these items that are in a catalog is either the catalog product number, the ISBN, the UPC code. That's what's gonna make it show up in search regardless of what keywords are used. So as long as that bit of information is in your listing and that's what's usually in the catalog, your item's gonna show up. Yeah, in some cases, not all. In some cases you may want to edit some of this information. You gotta make that decision whether or not it's worth your time to do that or to just create the entire listing up yourself and you can kind of report at least erroneous product catalog entries right there on the page where you select one of the products suggested based on your keywords.
Griff: Up at the top of that page is a little circle with a question mark and if you click it, there are two options. Tell us what you think and report missing product. If you select tell us what you think you can fill in a text field with information you believe needs to be either corrected or edited. Now think about the catalog. There are literally hundreds of thousands of entries. We just don't have the resources for us to on our own go in and start willy-nilly cleaning things up. We can't, we just, there's no one, there's no way to do that. If there's something really grievous in the information, you can alert the team through the report missing product or tell us what you think. I think report missing product is a good one. If you search on a IBN or UPC code and it's not showing up, you can use that form to suggest the product be added. Yeah, I know it's not ideal but what's important about the catalog Brian and John is that one bit of information, that one code that's gonna make your listing show up no matter what the search is because this, the logic of the search engine knows, oh this ISPN code, right? So even if the keywords are not in the right order or there's missing keywords or even missing item specifics, when somebody searches for that book, they're gonna be presented with the catalog entry and they're gonna search on that and your item is gonna show up. So that's the important thing about that.
Brian: And also if we're providing a catalog and it's not an unreasonable request to say the catalog that we provide should be not just accurate but also optimized for the site and for our sellers as well. But I think to your point, I mean your point about the UPC or the ISBN number though is accurate.
Griff: Anyway, our next question, you wanna read this or should I read? It's up to you.
Brian: I'll read it gentlemen. My wife and I just started the eBay journey a few months back December, 2022. Well welcome. It has been a bumpy ride since I have no clue what I'm doing. Welcome to the club. I don't mean that , I don't mean that.
Griff: You are in good company.
Brian: Yes, not ashamed to admit it but the road has been made smoother by the information you guys are putting out there. My question is about promotions. I now have several items that are over 60 days old and I would like to get them moving for cash flow. What better way to do that than with a promotion? However, I noticed that the markdown sale I wanna run cannot be longer than 45 days. It would be fantastic if I could have a multiple discount level sale that lasted indefinitely so that way I could throw all my inventory that is older than 60 days into an increasing discount the longer I have had the item. Is there a way to make a sale last longer than 45 days or am I doomed to repeat this process every month and a half? Sincerely, Ozzy Castillo username 803 Collectors and store name is 803 Collectors. That's smart branding. PS I would not complain if some eBay for Business podcast goodies somehow managed to find my mailbox and he gave us his address. So I think we can accommodate that.
Griff: I'm sure we can. And think about it Brian. So this guy is just started in December and he's already deep into using promotion manager.
Brian: Which is wonderful.
Griff: I gotta tell you, Ozzy, I learned something from people like you, you every week. And the one thing I wasn't aware of was that markdown sales are actually limited to 45 days. Cause when I went recently I thought ah, I might do one, I noticed the calendar, let me pick any day all the way up to December and beyond. But then when I tried to follow through it says it could only be 45 days long. So he's seeing what's real only be 45 days. There is no way to extend an event beyond that 45 day limit for a markdown event. But I did discover there is a way to extend an event but it takes a little bit of work, not as much as just recreating everything from scratch. So what you do is you set up the first event, right? That's a markdown event. And one of the cool things that we added to the markdown event is you can set various discount levels. So you can have some merchandise that's 10% off some that's 20%. You can set these percentages, you can go through your entire inventory and you can select which items are gonna go. You create those tiers first and then you can select which one goes into each tier. And here's the cool thing. If you set this up the way you want it over time, you give it the 45 day duration that's you know the the maximum. Then you go into your whatever app that you use for alarms, your calendar and you set an alarm for the 44th day just to remind you. And on that day you go to your promotions manager list and uh, you'll see it in Seller Hub. Click get into Seller Hub, click Promotions. The first page shows you all your existing running and ended promotions and you'll see that promotion and has one day left. You find that one, that sales event which is about to end in a day. And on the left hand side there is something called the edit feature. And you select edit and then select copy from the dropdown menu. Now you have a copy with the same discount levels and actually the same selected items. At this stage though, you can set the day to start tomorrow and run it for 45 days. And in the meantime you can add items that may be new to your inventory that you want to start discounting. You can take older items and add 'em to a steeper discount.
Brian: And those wouldn't go 45 days. They would just get whatever remainder of that campaign was left, right? If you added new items into the campaign
Griff: In the new copied campaign, you can extend that new campaign for 45 days. It copies all of the listings over from the existing campaign and before you set the thing to go live because you're doing it a day ahead, right? That's the key is you want to do it the a day before your current 45 day sales event ends. That's why I said set the alarm on the 44th day and get all this work done. It's not a lot of work. Now you can deselect and change items and add some items to a higher discount, which is what he wants to do like, right? For those of you who grew up in the Boston area, you'll remember Filene's Basement.
Brian: Filene's Basement.
Griff: And every week they discounted merchandise by another 10% or so and then it sold.
Brian: I didn't even grow up in Boston. I know Filene's Basement.
Griff: You do. Really?
Brian: Yes. Yeah. I even went into Filene's Basement.
Griff: When?
Brian: With my aunt and it was in April and there was all these people looking at wedding dresses.
Griff: The wedding dress fiasco.
Brian: It wasn't the wedding dress actual day. You know where the whole thing is wedding dresses. But there just, there still were lots of wedding dresses down there and people, I ended up buying a sweatshirt before I went off.
Griff: You didn't buy a wedding dress?
Brian: No I did not.
Griff: . Anyway, Ozzy wants to do Filene's Basement with the discounts. Is this an elegant solution, Ozzy? No, I would, let's be upfront about it. It's absolutely not elegant, but it will reduce the amount of work you need to do by simply setting an alarm every 44 days so you can copy the latest sales event that's about to end, edit the copy event as needed. You add items, you delete items, you move them into a different discount tier and then schedule it to go live a day after the current sales event ends. Ozzy, I hope that that works out for you. I would love to hear from you. We would love to hear from you. Yeah. So that you could tell us how it worked. Thanks again Ozzy. Look in your mail. Eventually you'll get something.
Brian: And welcome to selling on eBay.
Griff: Yeah, you're doing well. You started in December and you're already at this level I'd say you were really flying and apparently we have something to do with it. So kudos to us! Let me read the next one. This is our third question of the day and it starts, HI. I just wanted to add my observations about using free shipping. So we talked about free shipping in recent episodes and this is from Margie. And Margie says, I offer free returns, seller pays return shipping. I do this because I get discounted fees and I think there's a trust factor in my listings. I hardly get any returns. However I notice the returns I do get are mostly on free shipping items. Reason is always doesn't fit. I sell mostly clothes so I don't end up getting like dinged for an item not as described. And as a small seller, I'm losing out on shipping both ways, which usually negates any profit I'll make after I get the item back and resell it again. Therefore, I basically have stopped using free shipping even if I still make a profit occasionally on free shipping items. Great podcast as always Margie user id Margor 85 78 and her store name is Shop All Day Cafe. Okay, I see nothing wrong with the strategy. I've actually stopped using free shipping for most of my items, but for a different reason. However, I tested my reason before I actually did it to make sure I wasn't going to impact my sales. And that's the important thing. I know that as small businesses or new businesses, a lot of sellers tend to focus on transaction to transaction and don't see the bigger picture. So everyone in business occasionally will lose on a transaction, but the real data would be over a period of time does a free shipping strategy for your merchandise in the end result in more profits in aggregate transactions? Not the single ones, right? Cause those, you focus on those, you're gonna make a decision that may impact. So your impression that this happens occasionally or often with items when you use free shipping. I would assume, Margie, that you were actually recording that so you could make that decision based on data that you've collected.
Brian: The other piece though that she mentioned earlier in the email where she said, I hardly get any return. So there's a part of me that I feel like then overall the strategy might have worked well the question I think is to the heart of what you just mentioned, which is if you're not getting very many returns with free shipping, when you remove free shipping, did your sales velocity go down? If your sales velocity went lower, then experiment with turning free shipping on for a percentage of your listings. And I think your points were well taken. Like don't feel like you have to do something for everything. Test your way in.
Griff: Test your way in. The results of my test, by the way, were that for many items that weigh less than a pound and I do the research for them to make sure I'm gonna stay competitive and make, you know, even if it's not a, even if it's a thin margin, I check to see what the other sellers are offering and where I'm going to be. And there are some types of items that I still offer free shipping, but it's now a smaller percentage. But I tested my way into that to make sure that I wasn't making a decision based on some assumptions as opposed to data that then showed me that hey, that was a bad decision.
Brian: Yeah. And one of the things that I always tell sellers, like when I see 'em in person is oftentimes like these things are, they're ultimately business decisions that the individual seller gets to make for their particular circumstances.
Griff: Like Margie.
Brian: Yeah, exactly. So she's actually really doing the right thing is she's kind of looking at it and saying, Hey, I was offering free, do I charge instead? That way I'm not paying. I think the one piece that she should look at is did she lose sales because of it?
Griff: Yeah. Like we said earlier. And the only way you're gonna know is to actually look at the data. So I hope that that gives you some insights about how to make these decisions. Margie, you're free to make them as you see fit Of course. And as long as you're happy with the current success of your business sales and number of transactions, knock yourself out.
Brian: Yes.
Griff: Well these were fun suggestions and credits and fun suggestions and questions.
Brian: Yes. And I'll give you some credit.
Griff: For what?
Brian: Well, you said credit, so you know we didn't get credits so.
Griff: We got tons of credit. Do you hear what people say?
Brian: Yeah, they do. They did. Actually we got a lot of credit this time around. Ozzy gave us credit, Margie gave us credit, everyone gave us credit.
Griff: And John gave us some credit too. It's hard to find cuz it's buried inside that 12 page essay, but it's there.
Brian: Poor John, I hope next time he sends us a, an actual 12 page essay. It clearly was not 12 pages because we read every word that John sent us.
Griff: That's true. We're just winding you up, John. We appreciate your level of engagement that you show and we want you to continue doing that.
Brian: Yes. And if you wanna get wound up , all you have to do is join the fun here on eBay for Business and you can call us on (888) 723-4630.
Griff: That's (888) 723-4630. You can call that hotline any time of the day, any day of the week, leave a question or a comment and we might just put it on the air, but actually we will put it on the air as long as it's appropriate and not account based. And we could really use some phone calls for that time I'm away. I'm gonna put out special request, call some of your questions in so we can actually have 'em on the air.
Brian: Maybe we can give uh, like special swag to phone callers.
Griff: What do we have, Brian?
Brian: Well I know that we, we got a list of a bunch of swag that we, you know, send off to sellers on occasion. So like I bet we could look at some of that and maybe I'll send you the list. You can say yeah, let's, let's send them the eBay community cheeseboard.
Griff: There is such a thing
Brian: I think. I think there's like a round cutting board and it says eBay community.
Griff: For like your charcuterie?
Brian: Exactly.
Griff: Okay, well we'll look into that. But that's for calling it in, right?
Brian: Correct. To get that level of swag, you need to give us your voice and if you don't want to get wound up on the phone, you can always email us podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com. And if we use your question on the upcoming episode and you provided us your street address, we'll ship you an eBay for business mug.
Griff: So what's that number again? Brian?
Brian: 888-723-4630.
Griff: All right. So, uh, it's time for your Three Point Podcast Checklist. Number one.
Brian: Check the Announcement Board at ebay.com/announcements for UpToDate seller news every day.
Griff: Yeah. Number two, it's now officially spring. It's time to start spring cleaning. Yes, I know it's work. Who wants to clean? But I tell you, you'll be so much happier working and making listings and packing and photographing in a clean and organized workplace. Don't put it off till the summer when it's too hot. Make a vow to yourself to get your space all tidy and neat by the end of April.
Brian: 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 define the links we referenced during the episode.
Griff: And on our next episode, episode 235, we're gonna meet eBay seller Phillip Jackson from Florida who has some seriously, and I mean seriously useful tips on selling big ticket merchandise on eBay.
Brian: We'd like to again, thank our guests this week from the sneakers team, Stephen Livingston.
Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411. And two wise guys sitting in a studio.
Steven Livingston discusses his role as eBay’s Director of Sneakers, what is happening with that category and what we might see in the future. Griff and Brian answer your email regarding keywords and apostrophes, the eBay Product catalog, extending Markdown Sales events, and free shipping.
You got questions? Call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.
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