Ep 248 || The Importance of Customer Feedback

[podcast_team]

eBay seller Sean Mohebbi of Texas Shoe Shop joins us to share his take on the importance of customer feedback. Griff and Brian answer your email about thermal printers, and charges for return labels.

Episode Links:
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Brian: I am Brian.

Griff: I'm Griff, and this is the eBay For Business Podcast. Your source for the information and inspiration to help you start, manage and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. This is episode 248 and joining us from the sunny breezy palm tree laden shores of Maui, Hawaii is our cohost. Brian. Hi

Brian: Hey Griff. How are you? This is the first time we've done this show where both of us are not in the studio.

Griff: That's true.

Brian: It's groundbreaking.

Griff: I dunno if I'd go that far, but, okay. So how has your golfing vacation been so far?

Brian: Well, golfing's been good, which has kept me out in the sun more, you know, instead of just lying on a lounge chair getting burnt. It was nice. I played three rounds with a good friend of mine and the last few days it's just been Nancy and me enjoying the beach and snorkeling and doing all those kinds of fun things.

Griff: Are you staying right on the beach?

Brian: Yeah, in an area called Ka anapali, which is just outside of Lahaina. It steps to the beach.

Griff: Steps to the beach. That's what I like steps to. Are you looking forward to coming home? What do you wish you could stay a little longer?

Brian: I've always said I could never live on the islands cuz like, you know, I'd, I'd get like island fever, but this trip I could stay another few days, but we're leaving tomorrow. I

Griff: Feel the same way. Every time I've been to Hawaii, I'm thinking, why am I going back? Why am I going back? Well for one thing it's expensive as hell.

Brian: But it's kinda like California rates on everything. Yeah, housing and then in fact, food's probably more expensive.

Griff: Oh, it is? I've never stayed on Maui, but I suspect where you are, it's probably more expensive than the slumming it in Oahu.

Brian: Yeah, it can be expensive, but I did go to a nice restaurant.

Griff: Oh good.

Brian: A musician has a restaurant here from our genre of music.

Griff: Who is it?

Brian: Fleetwood

Griff: From Fleetwood Mac.

Brian: Yeah. So there's a restaurant in Lahanina called Fleetwood, and my friend Andrew and his wife Lisa, made reservations and that's where we ate a few nights ago and it was really good.

Griff: Was Fleetwood there serving food, greeting you at the door?

Brian: He was not. I was a little disappointed in that, but on the way out, which I didn't notice on the way in as I was walking down the steps is this massive picture of him in front of some drums and some other things in a nice Hawaiian shirt saying basically thank you for dining with him.

Griff: And no Stevie Nicks.

Brian: Obviously there were photos, but no Stevie Nicks in person. Yeah, there were some images of all of the, the cast members around the restaurant.

Griff: Well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. I can't wait for you to be back in the studio.

Brian: Hey, who is our guest this week?

Griff: Our guest this week is Sean Mohebbi, he's a seller on eBay. He approached us and he wanted to talk about how important customer feedback has been in keeping his business striving and growing. We haven't really touched on customer feedback in a while, so we're gonna talk about customer feedback and it's not just feedback left on eBay, the emails and the suggestions and the comments you get from your customers, they're important. So we're gonna talk about that. But first I happen to know that there was some news that sellers are gonna find very interesting.

Brian: Never go to Maui again. When I go to Maui there's big news. So big news this week is that USPS has announced updated 2023 rates. For Media Mail the new rates will result in an average increase of 7.5%. for Parcel Select Ground packages up to 20 pounds the rates will increase or decrease depending on weight and zone. And lastly, there are no changes to rates for Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express and First Class Package. And there will be a domestic shipping insurance increase of an average of 4.7% and signature confirmation will increase 15 cents to $3.40.

Griff: Yikes.

Brian: Wow. Also effective July 9th, 2023. eBay Standard Envelope rates will update with the following increases. The price for a one ounce envelope will be 63 cents. The price for a two ounce weight will be 87 cents and the price for a three ounce weight will be $1 and 11 cents.

Griff: I wonder if that's being driven by USPS. I suspect it is.

Brian: I think it is. They're the ones that'll drive those. And lastly, U S P S has announced a new service called USPS Ground Advantage, which will also be available July 9th, 2023. Ground Advantage will combine three existing USPS services, First Class Package, Parcel Select Ground and retail ground into one service. We will put links to all the relevant webpages at USPS and we urge you to visit them to learn the details about these updates to USPS rates and services.

Griff: I'm curious about this new service USPS Ground Advantage, which I can see what they're trying to do and it sounds like it makes sense, but I'm wondering if this means that sellers are gonna have to change all our shipping policies if you have one for First Class Package and a different one for Ground Select. But they're all the same thing. So I'm gonna send out an email this week and find out if someone from the Shipping Team can clear that up, cuz I know I can almost hear it. As we're saying the words a legion of sellers out there saying, wait, what does this mean for business policies?

Brian: Yeah, agreed. The other one that's interesting is, boy, that's a steep increase on signature confirmation.

Griff: It's big and there's a link to a page that shows more details on the USP S site. There's a PDF of all the pricing that's supposed to go in effect and we'll link to that PDF so you can see it. But yeah, increases of 15 cents to $3 and 40 cents. That's quite a lot.

Brian: It is.

Griff: Well it's not surprising when you think about inflation for the last two years and uh, USPS is a business.

Brian: And with that many more items going through shipping and stuff, I'm sure they're looking at packages lost and stolen and stuff and they're all trying to cover their costs as well.

Griff: Exactly, exactly. Well Brian, you and I have been involved in the customer feedback part of the business for years and we know how important it is. In fact, customer feedback is the most important data a business can collect. I mean, if you're not servicing your customers correctly, why be in business? Our next guest will walk us through our customer feedback to help improve your business.

Griff: There's virtually no business online or offline that does not survive without some feedback from customers. Whether that's customer feedback on eBay, using the feedback system, whether it's messages, whether it's surveys, and it doesn't really matter how big or small a business you are, you need to know what your customers think about you and the service you provide in order for you to be able to adapt and change that service over time to make it better. Customer needs and buyer expectations change over time. I can tell you that in the early days of eBay as a seller you could get away with murder because it was a frontier. It's not that way. 26, 27 years later and customer feedback today is as important as ever. Joining me today is Sean Mohebbi. He has a store on eBay called Texas Shoe Shop. He's been on eBay for how long, Sean?

Sean: I've been on eBay since 2012. Full-time since December 13th, 2013.

Griff: Well that's a long time. That's at least 10 years plus. So you've been doing this for a while. Welcome to the podcast, Sean. Thank you sir. How important is customer feedback to your business?

Sean: I check my customer feedback every day. I think it's very important. I pride myself on taking care of my customers and I came from an industry where customer service was very important. Repeat business is important and so is just keeping our customers happy.

Griff: What mechanisms or features do you use to collect customer feedback?

Sean: Well of course there's the eBay feedback system that customers leave, positive, neutral or negative feedback. And of course I check that daily. I check orders first every morning and then feedback and then messages almost in that order. I proactively will communicate if there is anything that needs to be changed with an order to let the customer not worry about something that they not, not to get something they didn't expect. What's that saying? Under promise, over deliver.

Griff: Always a safe strategy. I think you don't want to under promise to the extent that you your initial presentation is, I don't make any promises. You might get this, I don't know. That's right. I mean you have to set some level up front, right? A lot of sellers who sell on eBay and they've been doing it for a long time, kind of resent feedback in a sense. They love it when they get positive feedback, but if they get a neutral or a negative feedback on eBay or if they get a customer in general who's not happy, not all, but many sellers immediately go to the, I'm gonna block you from ever buying me again feature on eBay, which I have mixed feelings about that. What do you feel about that? Are they making a mistake or is it just as well to be safe and say, oh you're gonna be a problem customer, I'm never dealing with you.

Sean: That was a couple of questions together, but I think that the first part of it, Griff, I think taking the emotion out of it is so important. I cannot tell you how many times I've written what I would consider a nastygram and only to delete it and realize this is ego talking and not a smart business person that's written this letter. And to take the the words back. And I always disarm the customer, so to speak by apologizing first. Doesn't matter how bad, they may have done something to upset me, I'm sorry this happened. And I have about 60 plus form letters that I have saved to a shared note program. Whether I'm on my phone, on my tablet, on my pc, on my, my shipping station, doesn't matter where I'm at. I use Simple Note a free program because it's simple text copy paste changed few words that way it saves me the time. Cuz a lot of the same things happen when you're in the same business for a long time. I'll give a quick example. Customer receives a package, it says delivered, they said, never got my pack. Well I have a letter for that. What does it say? That letter? I mean, you know, in brief, you don't have to pull it up. It says, sorry, you are right. It does say delivered on fill in the blank date. It says delivered to porch yesterday. My experience is that often times the post office may deliver it within the next day or a neighbor may have received it by mistake. Please allow one more day. And if you haven't received it, the post office has the ability to track their packages even by GPS based on their scan location at that precise moment in time. Nine times out of 10. That letter has served me well and the package has been recovered even internationally. I had a lady in Iceland the other day say, oh yeah, my neighbor, way down the street got it and it was posted to our community board that a package was delivered. I don't know why they didn't just read the address and take it to them, but that letter served me quite a bit over the years.

Griff: Do you find that just hearing from you helps put a lot of buyers at ease when they're in a situation that they may be a little concerned?

Sean: Yes. I'll give you another quick example. There's times when the substitute mail people every, I have what's called RJs Calendar. It's an app that tells you what day your mailman won't be there and a sub will be there. It's a rotating schedule, it's a free app. So I have it marked on my calendar above this computer. What days I'm gonna have substitute mail person. But the substitute mail people every sixth day approximately will sometimes scan packages the wrong way. They'll scan 'em as delivered. And I have a substitute mail person scanned as delivered form letter, let's say 60 packages were picked up that day. If I don't get proactive and get in front of it, I'll start getting messages within an hour from a half a dozen or more of my customers that say, Hey, my stuff got delivered to Texas. I'm in Maine. I'm in Oregon. Why is it delivered to Texas? I want a refund. They get all upset. So I have that letter. I literally copy and paste it every single. There's times when I've had to copy and paste into 60 messages and 60 packages and that still happens two to three times a year. But nobody's perfect. We're all human. And I don't get mad at my postal workers. It's all relationship based, whether it's in person or through the internet.

Griff: I have discovered that just hearing from a seller oftentimes makes a buyer relax and say, well, at least you're aware of it. Because a lot of times if a buyer has one bad experience anywhere online, they're gonna carry that with them. That suspicion wherever they go. The other topic, and I don't want to avoid it cuz it comes up all the time and that's negative feedback. And you know, there's sellers that just feel like they never deserve it. And when they get it, they feel very persecuted. They can't go through their day, they just want to quit. They give up. What is your advice?

Sean: In the beginning, my business, a negative feedback or even a neutral would blemish my, oh, so perfect 100% positive feedback rating and God forbid that I would get even a neutral, it would ruin my day. I remember there's a Saturday, my daughter had a soccer game and boy I got a negative and I spent the next 30 minutes getting ahold of the customer messaging, the customer apologizing please. I didn't mean it. It was a, you know, human error and could ruin the day or my weekend because they wouldn't respond and they finally would respond in anger. But over the years, eBay has really helped us. For one, I've been a Top Rated Seller for quite some time and I offer free returns on almost all of my listings lately that's changed a little bit on my really low dollar listings cuz just the cost of shipping back and forth is so much and there is that protection. So if you offer free returns, free 30 day returns and something does go wrong, of course I still apologize. I'm not looking at eBay just always wiping away my feedback if it's negative. But man has that made a huge impact on my life and my quality of life because I do care so much about my customers and whether you can tell or not, I love communicating voice to voice. I love communicating like this. That's one barrier through the internet that you don't, they don't get to hear a voice a lot of the time and hear that you're a good person and it was a mistake and they just, some people are just upset, you know, they're going through life, life has thrown them a curve ball, especially during the pandemic and they wanna take it out on someone. And that seller on eBay, you know, I owe him one so, you know what I mean?

Griff: I do. Yeah, Sometimes as sellers we do have, you know, we're kind of punching bags. I always stop and think, and I've always recommended this to sellers as well, is to stop and think, what did this buyer go through that brought them to this stage and what can you do to make it better?

Sean: I actually do eBay 40 hours a week and I recently, a year and a half ago became involved in a ministry through a church, a recovery ministry. I spent 30 hours a week, it's not paid. And I spend time working with people that have hurts, habits and hangups of any kind. That's my passion, you know, of course eBay is my other one. But my second passion is working and helping people where I don't get to communicate with people as much face-to-face through this business. I get to do it in that and I'm constantly aware that people are going through stuff, whatever that stuff might be. I don't know if this is even encouraged or discouraged, but when I can, I'll pick up the phone and call the customer if there's a problem and get them on the phone. Now I know other marketplaces really frown upon that. I don't know what eBay stance is. Other marketplaces will ban you if you call a customer. But there's times when customer has an issue and I will call them, I'll give you a quick example. There's these sandals I have called Chacos. Chacos are fully adjustable sandals and you can adjust them. And in the last week I've had two customers that bought the toddler version of these, both of them said the exact same thing, opened a return and said, these are two narrow, I haven't spoken with a second customer, but the first customer, I spoke with her and I said, did you know, and you may have known this already, but those sandals are fully adjustable to your toddler's foot. They can conform to any width. And oh, I didn't know that. I said, oh, okay, well yeah, she says, oh, thank you so much for calling. Not to say she would've left me a negative feedback, but to just say that she would've returned it. And, and that was just, I think some people like that. Now there's those people that are like, how did you get my number? Or why are you calling me?

Griff: Have you had one of those?

Sean: Oh, sure, sure. Yeah. People that don't want you to call them at all. And my number isn't published and I'm like, well it's actually, uh, there is along with your order on eBay. And certainly you can it remove that if that's a concern for you. But yeah, I don't know what is eBay's stance on that. If I, if I might ask you a quick question?

Griff: Post-transaction, it's okay for a seller or buyer to contact each other by phone, especially for situations where you're trying to resolve an issue or a problem. Yeah, it's okay. We actually, and some of this comes from different regulations, like in the eu business sellers have to provide a phone number so at least buyers can contact them.

Sean: Yes. But they don't, buyers don't call us. It's so rare. Once or twice a year I might get a call.

Griff: Wow. That is rare.

Sean: Yeah. Yeah. But I do call two to three times a week I might reach out to a customer on something. I had a customer purchase three, I sell mostly shoes, but three bottles of facial eczema cream, like a beauty cream. And two of them were perfectly fine. It's so hot here in Texas right now, 105 degrees. One of the bottles had heated and the aluminum seal had broken. I called the customer just an hour ago. I very understand. He called me back and said, oh sure, just send me two out of the three. And I don't mind that partial refund. Thanks for calling. You're absolutely welcome, sir. It was one of those things you get to tie it up with a pretty bow.

Griff: A part of me that says it's the right thing to do and that, and it is. But there's also that less than altruistic reason is that you want the person to come back and buy from you again. And do you find this works when you provide that level of customer service? Is this buyer, I mean, based on your own history of transactions, more than likely to come back to you to find the same product again?

Sean: Yes. I, I think so. Now, if you were to ask me what is your return buyer rate and there may be a metric and a way to, to determine that I am not the best when it comes to following that. So I couldn't tell you, oh yeah, Griff one in seven buyers return for a second purchase. I know that Dana's probably available to me if I either use eBays applications or a third party. But I haven't, I do know that I, you know, have two and a half thousand followers through my store, but that doesn't necessarily tell me, oh, these two and a half thousand followers have all repurchased. I don't know that answer.

Griff: That's a lot of followers. ,

Sean: Is it? I dunno, I don't have that comparison to know.

Griff: So that's a lot of buyers who decided, yeah, I'm gonna put you on my favorite seller list. That's an intent. It's not a passive thing, it's an active thing that a buyer has to do. And they have to have a reason. So that's a really good indication of a level of success with existing customers.

Sean: Thanks. And I know I've sold over 60,000 items over the past decade, but I don't know if that percentage wise, you know, 2,500 outta 60,000, what is that? Less than 5%. I guess that might be a good metric. I'm not sure.

Griff: I remember a couple years ago talking to a shoe seller who sold mostly footwear. And there are aspects of customer service when it comes to selling footwear that repeat themselves over and over fit being a big one. Of course, sometimes it's color, sometimes it's other things. You do tend to get the same sort of complaints about something like as specific as as shoes through time. And if that's the case, does that alter the way you then present the items or describe them?

Sean: Because I have such a wide variety of brands. So right now I have over 2,500 items listed of say 2100 of them are shoes. Of those 2100 items, if I had to take a guess, I could tell you there's probably 400 brands within there. And then of those brands, there's x number of models. And of those models there's so many sizes and within those sizes, so many widths. And of course the color won't matter on the fit, but all those other things I just mentioned to you, within the same brand, some shoes fit better than others. Have you ever heard of Vebrim FiveFinger shoes?

Griff: Yes, I have.

Sean: They're the ones that look like, you know, web feet. Now, Vebrim, I just did a deal with their company to purchase 2,500 pairs. They all arrived two weeks ago. It'll be, it's my biggest purchase since the pandemic. And they are the hardest shoes to fit because your toes have to go into every single slot just right and the return rates are higher. But even then they're not terrible. I try to explain in the title right then and there what the size range is, but I also have form letters that say, people will ask me, does this shoe fit true to size? So I have true to size form letters that usually direct people to go to their closet and look for the European equivalent. Because in Europe, if you're a size 38, you're a size 38. But in the US if you're a size 38, sometimes let's just use a men's number, A 45 men's, a European 45 in some brands it equals an 11. And some brands it's at 11 and a half in some brands it's 10.

Griff: I have discovered that myself.

Sean: Yes. So in Europe, you're a 45, you go to the store. Yes, I'm a 45. And they say, okay, here's our 45 section. You're pretty much gonna fit most. But here, the US it's so hard. So yeah. But all that being said, Griff, my return rate is still about one in 15 or one in 20. On eBay it is miraculous because on our other marketplace it's one in three, I don't know why eBay's return rate, I now offer free returns. I think people are just more lenient on eBay and more willing to accept on the other marketplaces. They've made returns so darn easy. People just duct tape, even the the label right on the shoebox and send it back to you, not on eBay. And eBay buyer knows not to do that. But they've trained them in other marketplaces to just bring the label, slap it right on the box and it ruins the shoebox. And you're like, oh, we have techniques. We use hair dryers and heat guns to slowly peel away the tape and uh, it creates for a mess. But that's a whole other topic.

Griff: Wow, I'd never thought of that before. Cuz I've sold, I'm nowhere near the volume you are, but I love to sell shoes and I, I'll buy them and hold onto them for a few years and then list them again. I had never had one returned with the label slapped on the box.

Sean: It's not an eBay thing. The other marketplace, if you buy directly through their fulfillment centers, the other main marketplace that shall remain unnamed, they will let people just bring the package as is to the store with a QR code. And that has trained people to just, well it's going back to some, it's going to a dumpster, it's going to a recycling center. They're not gonna resell this. It's just trained them to just, well it's so easy, let me just put the label on there. It's going back to that marketplace anyway. They don't realize it's coming back to a seller like me. They think you're just going to some massive warehouse or they're just gonna dispose of the box or donate it. I don't think they realize. And there's no easy way around that one.

Griff: How massive is your operations? How big is your warehouse or storage?

Sean: Well it used to be 2,500 square feet. It's not that big Before the warehouse, you'd be amazed how many shoes you can get into that space. Not knowing the pandemic was coming my wife and I, we finally bought a property that had a warehouse behind it and that was Valentine's Day of 2020. Not knowing two weeks later the world would change, but moved my business Valentine's weekend basically. And then got it all here and started "working" from home. So I walk behind the house to the warehouse where I have an office, but this warehouse is 1500 square feet. It's a thousand less than I used to have, but it has space above the office. But my wife has graciously, at least for now, allowed me to use some of the space in the house for overflow, especially in the heat of summer as I now sell beauty products too. And those will just melt in the Texas heat.

Griff: Absolutely.

Sean: So we're using that, you know, that spare space for that. I used to have many employees in person during the pandemic that changed. And then my deal kind of with my family was if I'm going to have a business here behind the house was to not bring any people. I have two teenage daughters is to not have any people here. So I have a virtual assistant in the Philippines that helps me with listing.

Griff: Well that's good to hear. And I think if you're listening and you're considering a VA, I think we talked a little bit about this last week when we had Lori on to talk about hiring your first help. Here's an example of somebody who's been selling on eBay for over 10 years, who's had great success hiring a VA, anything that can make your life easier, including a VA who may be able to help you with your customer responses. Does your VA do that or do you have to?

Sean: No, no, actually not. Because I've gotten it down to, it's such an efficient fashion. There's a point in time where I used to spend a lot more time making messages from scratch. But with all my form letters and having access to 'em wherever I'm at, my mentor gets 200 messages a day, I might get five to 10. It's not an overwhelming number. Over time you learn how to list to avoid some of the pitfalls that you fall into. Details are important. I take a ton of pictures of my shoes from every angle possible. Now that we can add up to 24. I've even gone beyond the 12 photo mark and that might seem silly to some, have you ever seen cars on Carvana, how they rotate them on their website? I do that with shoes. I'll take 'em from the side, the front, the 45 degree angle. The inside edge the bottoms of course the insides of the shoes and the shoe tag all reducing the questions you get like are these a size a wide or are these a size eight women's or are these gonna fit me? I'm a man. Those kinds of questions a lot of time get answered with some details on the box of the tag. And then you get those silly questions like, are these red? Yes, they're red. You do get those questions too.

Griff: Do these go on the feet or do they go on the knees?

Sean: There's some strange ones you get sometimes.

Griff: It takes all kinds of people, right? So you get the strange ones occasionally. What's your advice to someone who's discouraged by experiences they've had with customers?

Sean: Number one, stay off of the forums. Forums are filled with negative people and that's in any industry. I'm just joking about stay off completely, but sometimes when you're down in the dumps, I've done it before. I'll hop on to say angry at eBay. No, I'm just kidding. I didn't say angry at eBay. But like, you know, frustrated at such and such and you'll find Oh yeah, all kinds of forums.

Griff: I've said angry at eBay. Yeah. And I've work there.

Sean: So yeah, we're, we all have mixed emotions and sometimes we all get down. I've been through my funks. No matter what industry you're in, whether you're self-employed or working for someone, you're gonna have times where you're down and you, if you go searching on that worldwide web, you're gonna find people that are in the same anger level or frustrated level as you. And you're gonna feed into that. Before you know it, you're gonna find that I'm gonna quit eBay. This business isn't for me! I'm gonna go find a job where they respect me. . Yeah. And you know what?

Griff: You're gonna miss me when I am gone.

Sean: Yeah, you're gonna miss me. And so you get what you search for my mentor every time I'm frustrated or thinking about, you know, I've been doing this 10 years, I maybe I should do something else. Well why are you saying that Sean? Well I'm saying that because you know, lately my business is down and I'll give him a bunch of raises and he'll say, look at you. You have the independence you always wanted. You have the balance you've always sought, you're there for every activity your daughters want to be participating in. You have the exactly, you have the life you set out to have when you set out to quit corporate and join this. Just cuz your business is down a little focus more on other sources, focus more on. And he that, that happened to me earlier this year and now my business is back at pre pandemic levels cuz I turned the focus right back on eBay. And I'm glad I listened to him because he always pulls me out. So find some good friends, find some mentors and if someone is pulling you down, maybe stay away from them or don't call them just to vent. Look for a solution, don't stay in the problem.

Griff: That is excellent advice. Excellent, excellent advice. Well Sean, it's been a pleasure, continued success. It sounds like you're doing well.

Sean: Thank you. Always a pleasure seeing your face and I'm so glad we got to connect. I appreciate your time.

Griff: Sean Mohebbi sells on eBay under the user ID Texas Shoe Shop. Check it out. We'll put a link to his store as we do for every seller who's a guest on the podcast and our summary overview for episode 248. Make sure you check out his store.

Brian: You got questions.

Griff: We've got answers, tons and tons of answers. And we'll select the ones that we think are right this week. This week Brian, we've got three questions to answer, starting with an interesting request about whether a certain type of printer is a good option for all small volume sellers. Why don't you do the honors and read this email first?

Brian: Sure will. And you know Griff, I'd just like to say this segment, it's starting off really well.

Griff: Why do you mean?

Brian: You know why we actually didn't have to make a correction this week.

Griff: Don't jinx us. or we'll have a regular segment called, Up Next Our Corrections!

Brian: Well this was set in by seller Steve who writes, Hey y'all, can you do a little research and see if thermal is really the better choice for smaller sellers? We are only shipping an average of 400 orders per month through our two eBay stores. Actually four hundred is a decent clip. Tried a thermal and have to agree they are awesome for fast printing and by far the best option for high volume label printing. Have gone strictly to an eco tank printer. One purchase price is considerably less. Two ink is cheap if you buy it on eBay and the bottles are fully recyclable. Three, it saves space by only having one printer. For us, this is the biggest difference. Sticker paper cannot be recycled. We use the two per sheet shipping labels that we buy on eBay after using the label stickers we then flip the sheet and print on the back and use them for paperwork. We need to keep, we have zero label waste going into the landfill. Please mention to sellers using the corn starch peanuts to seal them so the peanuts do not touch it. Buyers are not happy when high humidity causes them to sweat and then stick to an item and or leave a residue on it. Great tip from Steve. Try them with peanut butter instead of salsa. A great snack while packing up shipments.

Griff: Oh geez, what have I started?

Brian: Would love some new swag to add to my collection regards Steve and he's Broken Spoke-27. Well thank you Steve.

Griff: Yes. Well, so listen, I gotta do a disclaimer here because we've made a joke about eating those corn starch peanuts and of course technically you can. But I think you have to understand, and I need to say that my recommendation for them using them as snacks is tongue in cheek. I don't actually want to go on the record as seriously saying. And when you get a little peckish you can just break out the corn starch peanuts and your favorite dipping sauce. The point is that you know, they are made out of a compostable product, which is corn starch.

Brian: What I thought his uh, his, his tip on in high humidity areas, it could stick to the item.

Griff: Yeah, so put the item in like plastic or something.

Brian: Exactly.

Griff: Great tip Steve and I didn't even think of that.

Brian: It could melt.

Griff: It could melt. Exactly. , what a mess. And you know what, someone will write it and say it happened to me and it's all your fault. It's all your fault Griff. You told us to use these. Well Steve, about your question when it comes to the thermal printer. So we're gonna preface this by saying you're actually doing the right thing cuz you're using labels, they're a little bit bigger, you know they're the half of a eight by 11 sheet, but they still look professional. You're not having to cut paper and tape it to the box, which to me is the most agreed, unprofessional. So if that system works for you, continue using it. The reason why I like thermal printers is because they don't use any ink at all. They print with heat on the labels themselves and the thermal label rolls themselves are a lot less expensive than 8 by 10 sheets of two adhesive labels. And when you put them in, a lot of people have to take them out after they've used once and then reverse them to use the other label. And you don't have to do that with thermal labels. And the adhesive backing is less per label than with an 8 by 10 adhesive label sheet. Although you mentioned that you're actually using it and I know the kind he's talking about, it actually has on the reverse side, it's not shiny paper, it's actually matte paper and you can print on it, which is what he's doing. It's up to you. I love thermal label printers. In your case you like this and if it works, fabulous. I just don't know about the numbers because you'd have to run those yourself. I don't know how many labels you print.

Brian: If he just recently bought the printer, it may not make sense to reinvest in another printer and just let the other one collect dust. Although he could sell it on eBay probably. But I agree Griff. This is a classic example of a business decision. Each seller runs their business a a little bit differently and the things that work well for them may not work for someone else. It's a simple preference and he's got some good justification for using the printer that he uses.

Griff: Yeah, that's true. I can't tell you how to research, I don't have access to your data, but if you know how much the ink is costing you and how much you're using per period of time and then you compare that with a thermal printer where you're not using the ink and if you've compared how many labels you're using and how much they cost compared to the same number of thermal labels, this will give you a good idea of cost. You do have one leg up on that recycling bit except that I would say that even when you print out the back of those sheets, almost everything that's printed eventually ends up being discarded. You may be delaying sending to the landfill or to the shredder, but unless you're creating an archive presidential library of all your sales and information, eventually that gets discarded. Anyway. So now our next email was sent to podcast@ebay.com by seller John who writes: Hello to my favorite podcasters from your most loyal listener. Oh, okay. A little bit of a kiss up there, but I love it. Thank you for pointing out on a previous question that I am an author because that is indeed true. I was an author back in my salad days. Not much time for it at the moment. Thank you however for the very solitude of coining such an exact meier. Okay, I have one follow up question about the oops. In May with the rollout of the new international shipping causing an increase in items for sales for some sellers on some SKUs. And this was the multi quantity listing where some of the quantities were increased.

Brian: Yes.

Griff: You mentioned that any order strikes for stockout that happened during the cancellations would be forgiven and they were for the people where the sellers that were affected. My question is says John, what do sellers do if an item was shifted from one to two on hand, the real one sells and then a couple of years later the fictitious ghost one sell and the seller has to cancel because it's not there? How will protections be offered for that situation? I have a thousand plus listings can't easily stop and do an unscheduled physical inventory to make sure my inventory counts are okay. Any advice you can offer is it much appreciated. I don't want to flub the dub on this service issue with those who make my custom. Your pal John M, the author apparently also known as STE Books.

Brian: Well John, we can assure you that every listing that was impacted by the glitch I never liked using that word, was reset to its original quantity configuration. So there's no chance of any of the listing showing up again years later. And I'll also point out that if you subscribe to the announcement board, the Seller news and you can go there and subscribe, we'll push the seller announcements that we make there and you can read that announcement and in there it says we've reset the quantity.

Griff: There's no need to take an unscheduled inventory to address this particular issue. But John, you know, and I know part of running any sales-based business where you hold the inventory for sale, will always involve scheduling regular inventory checking anyway. So I assume that you have to at some point check your inventory and you can make sure that what we're telling you is the truth. It is and if it's not, we will have to issue a correction. No, it's, that's the truth and you don't have to worry about it.

Brian: And if you're not, I encourage you to schedule in some time to do inventory check.

Griff: It sounds like John knows that he's gonna do, he does these, he schedules them cuz they're a lot of work. But every seller who sells on eBay regardless of how many listings you have up, you really need to schedule regular inventory check-ins if it's once a year, twice a year, once a quarter to make sure that the inventory that you have up on eBay is available so that you can ship it if it sells.

Brian: Agreed.

Griff: I'm not a high volume seller but in the last year I've had two or three in this instance they were shirts that I know that I had checked and then they disappeared from the garage. And unless there was like a Wiley raccoon getting into my shirts and saying like this one and disappearing with it, I had no explanation where they went. But boy, it was embarrassing having to cancel those sales.

Brian: Were they Hawaiian shirts? Maybe it was someone on their way to Hawaii.

Griff: Brian was it you?

Brian: It was not me.

Griff: I didn't think it was. Anyway, our last question this week Brian was called into our voice line. Let me play the question.

Guest Caller: This is Sheila and my store name is the style writer and my husband's store name is the Lake Shore Valet. Our question is, when an item is returned to us, I had always assumed that eBay sent them the same label that we had printed. And recently I shipped out a very heavy box by UPS that if I had used the postal service would've cost 60 or $70. When it was returned to me, it was returned through the postal service. And I'm trying to find somewhere, I'm looking through payments and I'm trying to find out how much did I pay for that label for that item to be shipped back to me and I can't find it. Thanks, bye.

Brian: Well, Sheila, thanks for calling in on that. If the label was purchased on eBay, we know the cost of the original shipment and we capped the seller paid. So that would be your pay amount that you would pay returns charges at the original label cost, even if a more expensive service was used for the return shipping. We only charged the seller the amount of the label the originally purchased to send the item.

Griff: Yeah. And Sheila, you were looking in the right place. We had someone on the Shipping Team check the label in question for this transaction for the return. And they were able to determine that you were charged $25.16 cents, which matched the cost. You paid for the UPS label for the original shipment. So you only were charged that amount.

Brian: And as for where to find the charges for return labels, those charges are shown in the payments details tab in Seller Hub.

Griff: Right. So if you go to payments, there's a details or you can go through and you can find in either in a report or in the transactions that particular transaction and it should show you how much you paid for that label. But you'll never be charged more than the amount you paid for the original shipment. And Brian had an interesting scenario, which is what if it's even less?

Brian: Yeah. What if the buyer shipped it back and actually it only costs them $20? How much does the seller pay?

Griff: 20 bucks.

Brian: Exactly.

Griff: Right. And that could happen if you think about it. So say you shipped it out priority and they return it in parcel ground and it's less money, you'll only pay that amount if they bought a label and it was less than the original cost for you to ship it, you're only gonna pay what the label cost at the point where the cost exceeds what you originally paid for your shipping label. You're only gonna pay as much as you paid for that label when you shipped it. I think that makes sense.

Brian: It does. Griffin, I know some like big sellers will sometimes include a return label. Maybe that's a show in the future.

Griff: It is. I think we should talk more about this. You can do it with USPS, although I find it's difficult. And the downside is that you pay for that when you print it. But with FedEx or UPS and I'm almost exclusively UPS now you can actually print a return label and include it in the parcel and you only pay for that label if the buyer decides to return it and uses that label on the box. And that's a great way to, maintain that cost. Plus, I don't know about you, but when I buy something and the seller has included a return label, I'm less likely to ever think about returning it unless there's something major.

Brian: Yeah. Like something's broken.

Griff: Yeah, but it could break in transit. I just had a situation where I bought a bottle of fragrance as one does from a seller in the UK a business and they shipped me the wrong one. Getting it returned, they're being helpful in a way, but it's really difficult. What they're gonna do is I guess they're gonna create a label and send it to me in a message, but there was no mechanism on eBay for these international sales made to a US buyer for the US buyer to return that particular parcel. That's an issue. But they're a big enough business and they're using FedEx. They could have included that return label in the package even for an international shipment, if you're a high volume seller and by high volume, I don't know what would we call high volume?

Brian: Probably enough to be able to include the printing of the label without dramatically increasing your prices.

Griff: Yeah, exactly. So if you're doing a thousand items a month, it may actually benefit your business and your buyers. If you are using a service like FedEx or USPS to include a return label in the package, if it ever gets used, you never pay for it and they can only use it to ship to you because they can't alter that label for a parcel that's coming to you. And it should be roughly the same weight and the same box. So sometimes you'll see sellers that'll say this, if you want to return it, here's a label, please keep this the box and the packing material so it's easier for you to to ship the item back to me.

Brian: Well those were three good questions.

Griff: Yeah. And I think we've got some subjects for future episodes even.

Brian: Agreed. Well if you have a question you would like eBay to answer and that means me or Griff, then why not do what Sheila did and call it into us on (888) 723-4630.

Griff: That's (888) 723-4630. You can call that number at your convenience. Any time you like leave your question or comment, we might put it on the air and in some cases we might contact you and ask you if you'd like to come on live with us during a taping.

Brian: And if you're not a calling the phone person, you can email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@eBay.com.

Griff: And now as we do at the end of every episode, it's time for your three-point podcast checklist.

Brian: Check the announcement board at ebay.com/announcements for UpToDate Seller News every day.

Griff: Look, when it comes to label printing, it's ultimately up to you which option you want to use. Inkjet, laser, thermal, It's your choice. It's your choice. You are the great decider. Now relax. Listen to my voice. You're getting sleepy. Very sleepy. Now close your eyes. Repeat after me. I wanna buy a thermal printer. I wanna buy a thermal printer.

Brian: I wanna buy a thermal printer. Oh wait, I'm not, I'm supposed to be awake.

Griff: Yeah, that wasn't supposed to be for you, Brian. Wake up, snap outta it.

Brian: I'm relaxed already in Maui and now you just put me right into a trance.

Griff: And you're gonna pay a lot more for a thermal label printer in Maui than you are back here in the Bay Area.

Brian: Well stop manipulating the audience Griff or me.

Griff: Who me?

Brian: Do 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: On our next episode, we'll talk to eBay's Evan Swanson on how to take advantage of summer promotions.

Brian: We'd like to again thank our guest this week, Sean Mohebbi.

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