Ep 284 || eBay Product Research For The eBay Mobile App

[podcast_team]

Shelley Ball, eBay Product Manager for the Seller Experience Team, brings news of the coming release of the mobile app version of eBay Product Research (aka, Terapeak) and how ePR can help you source and price smart. Kayomi and Griff answer your questions about a Reserve For Buyer format, Authenticity Guarantee rejection, and how to find accounting for eBay for Charity sales.
Episode Links:

New Feature: Send Automated Offers To Buyers!
eBay Research Tools (Terapeak)
eBay Authenticity Guarantee Program
eBay for Charity
eBay for Charity Dashboard
Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay Seller Spotlight Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
Community Chat with eBay Staff
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Kayomi: I'm Kayomi Kayoshi.

Griff: And I'm Griff. Just Griff. And this is the eBay For Business Podcast, your source for the information and inspiration of you start, manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 284, and please join me in welcoming Kayomi Kayoshi to the first episode where she is our new co-host. Hi Kayomi.

Kayomi: Hello. Thank you for having me. I feel very official having first and last name, but my parents I guess, put a lot of effort into it, so why not include it?

Griff: Well, It rolls off the tongue. I mean, you could be famous. Kayomi Kayoshi sounds like a designer.

Kayomi: Yeah, That's what I've been told as a kid. It was really difficult and I used to misspell my name a bunch and I would write Kayomi Kayomi when I was learning how to write my name. I dunno if that was like an ego thing and I was just trying to assert my dominance. But yeah, used to be Kayomi Kayomi as a kid. And now I've learned Kayomi Kayoshi.

Griff: I can see somebody on the red carpet outside the Met Gala saying, ow, ow. Who are you wearing? Who are you wearing? That's Kayomi Kayoshi.

Kayomi: Right? Or maybe listed.

Griff: Before you get onto that career, you've got a co-host career. So we're gonna get to that in the future perhaps.

Kayomi: Yeah, it will be a steady progression.

Griff: I'll have to find another co-host. Oh no!

Kayomi: And I'll have to learn how to sew.

Griff: You can buy a sewing machine on eBay. So there's where you get your start.

Kayomi: There we go. So Griff, who's on deck this week?

Griff: Oh, I'm glad you asked. This week I'm gonna meet up with Shelly Ball. She's a product manager with the Seller Product team. And we're gonna talk about a few product changes, including some big enhancements to Terapeak. So if you're a Terapeak user and you're a mobile user, you are gonna want to listen.

Kayomi: Very interesting. And do we have any questions to answer?

Griff: We do, in fact. So sellers have submitted questions asking about one, a listing format that would reserve an item for a specific buyer. And two, where to find your numbers for your funds for charity sales on eBay. eBay for Charity. And the last one is about how does Authenticity Guarantee rejection impact a seller status? So you send something to a buyer that was sold through authentication and authentication returns it to you as not authentic. Oh dear.

Kayomi: Oh, gasp.

Griff: But before we do all this, and before we get to Shelly, this is the section I think you're familiar with it, where we find out if there's any news. So Kayomi officially, is there any news this week?

Kayomi: You know it.

Griff: Oh good.

Kayomi: First up this week is the announcement of a new product feature. You know, Griff Offers to Buyers is a very powerful tool to boost sales as thousands of sellers I'm sure can attest to.

Griff: Boy, I know sellers have been telling me this for years now. They tell me how Send Offers has increased their sales. And as a buyer myself, I know the power of Ascend offer because it's really helpful in opening my wallet and watching the dollar bills fly away. So, yeah.

Kayomi: That's what we love to hear. It's really a great tool, but we know that manually initiating offers can be a hassle, especially for sellers with large inventories. Sellers have told us for a while now that the downside to sending offers is having to do so manually one at a time for each listing.

Griff: Yeah. Having to manually set up any sort of campaign or offer is time consuming. And time is money.

Kayomi: Time is money. And thankfully we have a solution now. eBay store subscribers can now fully automate sending offers to buyers across the inventory of their choice.

Griff: Really? That's amazing. So do you have any information on how this new feature works?

Kayomi: I'm actually the one who did post this announcement on our announcement board. So yes, I do have the information for you.

Griff: How convenient. Exactly

Kayomi: What this new feature does is instead of manually initiating offers, you as the seller can now select the criteria for what listings you want to include in an offer. Then eBay will automatically send your offer to eligible buyers who watch or click on your listings or put it in their shopping carts. And if that listing fits your criteria, the feature will send the potential buyer your offer. Best of all, this includes any new listings you create.

Griff: So it's truly automated then?

Kayomi: You heard it here first. Amazing, right?

Griff: Yes.

Kayomi: But wait, there's more Griff! Not only can you automate your offers now, but you can also set how long your automatic offers will run up to a maximum of 150 days.

Griff: Wow. So almost a half a year. Okay, I'm sold. So how do I set up an automated offer?

Kayomi: It's really easy. First, you're going to go to your buyer groups page on the Seller Hub Marketing Tab, then select Set Up Automated Offers. Finally choose the inventory to include, set your price range and name your buyer group. Three steps.

Griff: Wow. Is there a limit to how many automated offers I can set up? I hate being limited by a quota.

Kayomi: Don't we all? You're gonna love hearing this Griff and I'm sure we all will. You can create as many automatic offers as you want, giving you greater flexibility and control.

Griff: As many as I want! It's like a gift from heaven.

Kayomi: Yep. You know it Griff.

Griff: This really is brilliant. This is a time saver.

Kayomi: I know. I think in terms of saving sellers time, the new automated offers feature will eliminate the need to manually create new offers for each item in your live inventory. The feature is live now, so head over to your Seller Hub Marketing Tab to try it out.

Griff: Oh, I'm gonna, you can be sure. So that's great news. Is there anything else this week?

Kayomi: This was a busy week, so yes, we have one more item on the agenda. As many of you know, we recently had some changes in the organization here at eBay and one of those changes is that we now have a new general manager for the US market. Her name is Dawn Block. Dawn has been with the eBay organization since 2021. If you would like to get to know Dawn a little better and what she sees for sellers in the coming year and beyond, go read her message on the Announcement Board at ebay.com/announcements.

Griff: Dawn's also a seller on eBay so she has some exposure to what it's like to sell. So, yeah, go read the message. Alright, Kayomi that's it for our news. And I think it's time now to talk to Shelley.

Kayomi: Alright. I'm sure it'll be a blast.

Griff: I'll see you at the question time.

Kayomi: See you there.

Griff: There's a lot happening at eBay right now. On the product side, there's a whole team, as you know, dedicated to helping improve and enhance and release new features that help sellers with selling, making, selling a lot easier and more efficient. And we've been talking about a few of them. Two weeks ago we talked about new features that are coming to eBay Mobile when it comes to selling. And today we're gonna talk about a tool that a lot of sellers use, but it's not easy to use it in its entirety on mobile. But that's about to change. Please welcome senior product manager for the Seller Experience Team. Shelley Ball. Hi Shelley.

Shelley: Hi Griff. Thank you for having me.

Griff: It's our pleasure and we're glad to talk about anything related to selling, but specifically we're gonna talk today about...

Shelley: Terapeak Product Research. And in the future it's going to be called Product Research. But for all intents and purposes, many sellers know it as Terapeak.

Griff: And even after we drop the name Terapeak, they will continue to call it Terapeak for years.

Shelley: That is true.

Griff: Old habits are hard to break and old brands never die quickly. They they last forever. What's the strategy behind dropping the name Terapeak?

Shelley: Terapeak, as may know, is a company that eBay bought back in, I think it was 2017. It was a bit of a different product at the time. It did a few more things than it does today, but today it's all eBay's technology. And so just this legacy name has stuck with it because it's like Kleenex, right? It's the brand you know, but it's really all of eBay's technology at this point and there really is no Terapeak anymore other than this name that's hung around.

Griff: It's a very popular feature. I use it many sellers, in fact, most of the sellers I know will rely on it. If it's okay, I'd love to go through some of the enhancements or changes that your team has planned for the coming weeks and months.

Shelley: Primarily the biggest thing and we had mentioned it at eBay Open is we are going to be bringing the Product Research Tool to the application to the the eBay mobile app. And that came about because this was constant feedback from sellers that, I need this in the app, I need this when I'm on the go. So that is primarily what we listen to feedback is my point. And a number of enhancements we've made over the last year as well came from user feedback. But I would say by far, by far for sure it was a need to have it in the app was the greatest ask here.

Griff: And when it's in the app, what will it look like? Will it be exactly like what we see on desktop?

Shelley: It'll be similar because of course you can't, I mean if we could just recreate desktop, that's what people have access to today and it's very difficult to navigate. The user interface will be such that it's optimized for the mobile experience. You'll be able to perform a search, you'll be able to drill down by category or sales format and you're gonna have most of the features in the initial launch. There are a couple things that will be coming in phase two, but the key features, which is the ability to see up to the last three years of eBay sales and to filter to make sure that you're getting your best apples to apples comparison. Those features will be available in the initial launch.

Griff: Now I mentioned earlier that a lot of sellers use the tool just to research maybe for a similar price within the last three years, but Terapeak also helps you figure out demand at least to give you a picture of demand. And I use that when I'm using Terapeak. Is this something I'll be able to do on the mobile app right away?

Shelley: Yeah, you'll, you'll be able to, we're not gonna launch with all of the same chart and the seasonality and the trends that you can see at the initial outset, but you still will be able to filter your data. You can search by up to the last three years. You can filter out whatever you want, just like you can on your desktop today. My personal use case is I use it as a sourcing tool in a lot of ways because personally I'm a thrifter and so I sell a little bit of everything and I was a heavy duty user of this tool long before I was ever the product manager for it. I took it over last year towards the beginning of the year and was super thrilled because then it gave me the opportunity to fill in some of the gaps that I personally felt with the product. And like I said, when going back to me using it as a sourcing tool, and I gave this example at eBay Open, I love old things and I don't know the value of everything, right? And so I kind of want to know what I should go try and buy and once you learn and you have a big sale in it, you're like, oh, this is something I'm gonna look out for in the future. But what I often do is I'll do a bit of a generic search and then I will do a sort on highest to lowest price. So one of the things I learned quickly on, I don't know what it is about them, but I love Vintage Cross-Stitch Kits. Vintage Christmas and Vintage Cross-Stitch kits are some of my favorite things to sell. And I didn't know which ones were valuable and which ones weren't. Like in the case of vintage cross-Stitch Kits. So I just kind of did a, a generic search and I did a reverse sort and I found out that Thomas Kincaid, Disney Cross Stitch Kits can bring a thousand dollars. I mean, who would have thought yes. Yeah, and I wanna be really clear as I know that previously you could have seen some really crazy prices in Terapeak in our product research, but we have recently gotten rid of that. We did some enhancement around late last year where all of those outliers, like where you'd see $18,000 for a Disney Black Diamond video, because those aren't real sales, we all know those aren't real sales. So we've actually stripped that data out. And so I know with confidence that when I see that this Thomas Kincaid cross stitch kit sold for a thousand dollars, it's real, it's a real sale. We only count real sales in product research. We strip out the unpaid items. So that what you see really did happen on eBay.

Griff: That's important. In the traditional auction world, they call it a positive price. So Terapeak now only shows positive prices.

Shelley: Exactly. And that's one of the differences between product research or Terapeak and Search is that Search doesn't always show you the actual price that it's sold for, where if you're using Product Research, we show you the actual price. So if an offer was accepted, buyer side or or seller side, if it was originally a thousand dollars but the buyer offered 750 and that's what the seller took, it will show you 750. So you can be assured that we're not inflating prices there. It's, it's exactly what it's sold for.

Griff: When we're using Product Research, how quickly do sold items show up in the research? Is there a lag, like I just sold an item, let's say, how long will it take for that item to show up in Product Research?

Shelley: It shouldn't be any more than a day. I would have to get the exact hours. Apologies. I don't know that answer offhand.

Griff: I think my suspicion was maybe it takes a few days or a week or so for that item to show up.

Shelley: No, it shouldn't take that long. It shouldn't take more than a day or so for it to show up and, and be considered in the result. I should test that myself actually and see on one of my own sales.

Griff: Do you converse with eBay sellers on a regular basis to get ideas and suggestions for what they would like to see in a tool like eBay Product Research?

Shelley: I do. I, I attend a lot of seller events and I will say that my favorite part of my job is would I actually get to talk to sellers? If that's all I could do in my whole life, that would be the greatest thing ever. But obviously there's work to do on the side to make sure these features get implemented. One of the ways that's very valuable for us is when you're using the tool, there's an opportunity to leave us feedback. I would say that I go to look at those feedbacks a few times a week. When I first started I would look at it a few times a day just to dig through all of what sellers are telling us. Because you know, we can build something, but if it's not something you want or need, what's the point? So it's really important for me as the product owner of this, to take to heart what people say. And of course one of those things happened to be for the longest time, we only showed you the last year and then we got to the point that we had enough of the data that we could show you up to two years. And then it was, I think August of last year we extended our look back to three years. And as the data accumulates, we will keep expanding that because we know that for long tail items or very rare items, they don't just sell every 90 days so you're not gonna see that when you're using buyer side search and just filtering on sold.

Griff: Yeah, that's important, especially for one of a kind items which don't show up that regularly. Not one of the kind of rare, we'll say not common.

Shelley: I mean, and there's certain things like, I can give you a use case where Terapeak really helped me. I don't know if you want examples, but I would call it a bolo. You know, in the reseller world there's these things called Cutco Knives. I don't know if you've ever heard of them, they're very high end knives and Terapeak made me money as a result of using it because I found this set of knives at the Goodwill. I paid $22 for them and I knew walking in when I saw them, it was like the angels saying because I saw these pearl handles and I knew exactly what they were and I knew they were worth hundreds of dollars. I paid for them and got them out of the store as fast as I could because I knew I was getting a really good deal. Got home, looked on, solds of course nothing had sold in the last 90 days. I had to look back an entire year to see that this same exact set of knives, there were two sets they sold for $1,500 each. And these were full sets. Mine were missing a couple knives. But had I not had Terapeak, I probably would've priced them at $900, $600. You know, I probably would've priced them that, but because I knew I had this resource, so I looked back, two sets had sold a year prior for $1,500. Do you know Theresa Cox?

Griff: Yeah, Theresa's a friend of the podcast. A lot of sellers know Theresa. Yes.

Shelley: Yeah. So I had Theresa in the back of my head saying, list high, list high. So I thought, okay, I bought 'em on a Friday. I cleaned them all, made 'em all pretty on Saturday, took photos, listed them that night and I decided to list them at $1,900. I thought, you know what, I'll list them at 19. I'll take the first offer of 15. Went to bed, I woke up at 7:30 in the morning to a full price sale of $1,900.

Griff: Yikes.

Shelley: Yes. That was the only set on eBay. So again, rarity matters, right? That set new is $3,000. I love to tell Terapeak success stories and that's one of them that I might've left money on the table had I not had that tool to give me the real world price.

Griff: And sometimes leaving a little money on the table is not a bad idea. If you know that you're doing that with a purpose or a reason saying, I know what the value is, I think I wanna sell them quickly, maybe I don't want to ask what seems to be full price. So Terapeak can help you do that. It keeps you informed as opposed to guessing.

Shelley: Yes, absolutely. And what you were saying is you can understand how fast or slow something might sell. What we are really referring to is the sell through rate. So if you're doing a search for anything under 90 days on the desktop, you'll be able to see the sell-through rate. That is one of the features that's gonna come in a secondary launch for us because the technology behind that was gonna be pretty heavy in order to put that in the application, rather than wait to have all of the bells and whistles, we thought let's just get the most valuable pieces out soon, which is quicker rather than later. So that you had that access to up to the three years of sold data. And so the decision was made that for instance if you, if you need sell-through rate, if that's super important, you're still gonna be able to get that on desktop until we have our next release, which will include some, some more features

Griff: When people are outsourcing at outlets like thrift stores or estate sales. You'll see them with their phone relying on research for on eBay or anywhere else to get an idea of price or demand. And now you'll be able to easily access at least the first tier of that data when you're out in the field sourcing using eBay Product Research previously known as Terapeak. It's still branded that on the site. I assume we'll see that brand go away soon.

Shelley: Yeah, over time. Yes. Because if you look at all over eBay, there's just so many places where the words Terapeak appear, we know it's gonna take time and it's a learning curve for sure. But yeah, like what you were saying, today when I'm out in the field, the only thing I have access to is last 90 days of sales. And then if it is a rare item, it's really difficult to know and you've gotta make an on the spot decision. If it is a couple dollars, sure, why not? That's low risk. But if there's something on the shelf that is $50 and you're not sure am I gonna be able to sell that for a hundred or am I really only gonna get $50 for it? So it's not worth it. But if there weren't any sales on it in the last 90 days, by just simply using the sold filter in Search, you're not gonna be able to see that. But now it's really gonna be at your fingertips. You're not gonna have to go to Terapeak and try and open up your screen and stretch it out so that you can do a search of that tiny little interface so it'll be so much easier and quicker. Because when you're outsourcing and you're needing to look up a price, you don't wanna be really obvious about it. At least I don't, quite frankly, or especially if you're at a yard sale. The last thing I want people to figure out is that I'm trying to look up something to see if I'm gonna buy their item for a dollar. And I've got a big treasure here that I'm gonna sell for a hundred. I don't want to raise any red flags and they might raise the price on me.

Griff: Yes, exactly. I love it when I would go to thrift stores and watch all these thrifters kind of surreptitiously with their phone under their shirt. Like, you know, don't watch me. I'm just checking my messages.

Shelley: Yeah, I give a little acting game. It's kind of funny. I'll have my phone in my hand and I'll act like I'm texting, I'll like laugh a little and like I'm having a conversation with somebody. You know, most of the people in the thrift stores probably just don't care, but I don't want to be obvious. But you know what, it's really fun. You know, it's like the, the easiest part is like, I know I source some things from online auctions, so if I can do that, I have time to use my desktop and I don't have to be as sly about it. So that's kind of nice. If I spy something in this big lot of things that I want, I'm able to take my time and research and I don't have to be as sneaky about it.

Griff: I dunno if it's sneaky. I think it's just, you know, discreet would be the word.

Shelley: I think discreet. Yes. You know what, sneaky is bad No, that's right. Discreet, good word.

Griff: Because it's part of the fun, right? It's part of the fun of the chase.

Shelley: Absolutely. Super fun.

Griff: So Shelly, you've got me all excited about this new Product Research on mobile. When can we start seeing this appear?

Shelley: Well we do expect it to be in the next few weeks if all goes as planned. And as you probably noticed that eBay will launch things a little bit slowly just to make sure it's working and and taking the feedback that we're getting from our initial set of users that are using it and making some improvements if needed. But yeah, within the next few weeks it's coming for real this time.

Griff: So check your app. You may be in the initial rollout. I know from experience that rollouts on eBay can take anywhere from four to six weeks or a little bit longer if they run into an issue. But just keep looking and you'll see it when you're in the rollout and you'll know that you have this feature available on the app for your account.

Shelley: Yeah, you'll be able to see it. Just to give our viewers an idea. So it'll be on the selling landing page when you click on sell and you just have to scroll down a little bit on the page. But then you'll see Product Research and you can click in there and then it will take you right into the ability to start your first search.

Griff: Excellent. Well it's my opportunity to remind everyone as I'm going to do for the next few months is to always check the Seller Events Page. We just had our March 7th Seller Check-In. We will announce on the podcast when the next one is coming. So listen here or watch your email or visit the Seller Events Page on a regular basis and that's sellerevents.ebay.com and you can find out what's happening both as eBay events and of course we encourage you to look for seller led events in your geographical area so that you can spend some time with sellers like you. Ask questions, answer questions and have a good time. Shelley, I want to thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Shelley: Thank you.

Griff: Shelly Ball is the Senior Product Manager of the Seller Experience team. We've been talking about the change in the brand from Terapeak to eBay Product Research and that this functionality is finally coming to the eBay app. Stay tuned, it'll be on yours within the near future, maybe a couple weeks for some of us.

Kayomi: Do you have questions about selling on eBay?

Griff: Well have no fear because we have the answers. And our first question is from eBay seller Jean. Now keeping with the tradition that we used to have with Brian, would you read this one Kayomi?

Kayomi: I'd be delighted to. Jean sent this to podcast@ebay.com. I have been told by the eBay Help Center that eBay does not have a function for listing an item and reserving it for a certain buyer and only that buyer. Was that accurate? If so, why doesn't eBay have that function? I have been asked by customers to reserve items under their name because they just assume that it is available since it's on other platforms. Alright, so Jean, it is true. eBay does not have a private reserved for feature that limits a purchase to a specific buyer and there are no plans to implement one. A reserve for listing is essentially a private listing and eBay has always been and will always be a public marketplace. What a seller can do is list the item and send the item number to the specific buyer in a note that they should act fast before someone else could buy it.

Griff: Yeah, that's right. I mean I don't want to step on anyone's hope that we would ever implement something like this, but I know we're not going to, and I don't know if you're familiar with 'em Kayomi, but I pretty familiar with the "other platform" or platforms, but I've mostly just won that seems to allow this type of sale and I gotta tell you, it puts me off. And in fact there's nothing worse than seeing these listings where it says reserved for a specific buyer and it's something that you would like and this seller is not gonna sell it to you. This is definitely not the message that we want to send to buyers. Also, I think it doesn't breed trust among new buyers or buyers in general 'cause they're gonna want to know, well what's going on behind the scenes? Why am I not part of this? So yeah, it's not an eBay DNA feature and I just don't think it's ever gonna work. This particular platform, by the way, I've stopped buying so much. My buying has really decreased for many reasons. But I think one of those big reasons is the fact that I'm starting to distrust this marketplace because of the things that happen. And one of the things that happens is I get a lot of cancellations from sellers a lot more than I would ever get at eBay. I haven't had an eBay sale canceled in quite some time. eBay sellers are pretty diligent about making sure the items are there, they're safe, and when somebody buys it, they know it's a commitment. I know from word of mouth that what happens on other platforms because you can view these sold items in line with other items that are for sale, is that some buyers will contact a seller and say, you sold this for X dollars, I would be willing to pay twice that? And they take it privately, the seller then cancels the first buyer's sale. There's no reason given. You get a note from this marketplace saying you've been refunded, the seller's canceled. You don't know why. I actually messaged a seller once, several times, never got a response. But one time I did get a response saying somebody made me an offer for more money. And I thought, right, this is not a marketplace I'm gonna be using. I was using it to source products. So not so much anymore. Anyway, I hope that answers your question, Jean.

Kayomi: Yeah, knock on wood. But I've never in my history of buying on eBay had an order canceled on me. I don't know, maybe it's my famous sounding name. Maybe they think I'm someone more important than I actually am. But knock on wood that hasn't happened yet.

Griff: The only time it's happened to me and this happens, somebody will say, I've had this happen. I sold a shirt and I couldn't find it in the inventory. So it's called a stockout and you have to cancel. And there's ramifications for sellers as you take a hit against that metric for stock outs, for cancellations. And if you do enough of them within a period of your evaluation time, it can have an impact on your status. So most sellers, well not even most, I would say the lion's share of sellers would never do that on eBay. You They're honest and they play by the rules and I think that's what makes our marketplace more attractive to buyers.

Kayomi: Yeah. And I think keeping it inclusive For everyone with these deals.

Griff: There's none of these private sales. It's not Facebook marketplace, it's eBay.

Kayomi: I know it's not a club we have to get into or anything.

Griff: No, it's one of the things we would never want to adopt. This next question is from eBay seller Kim and she sent this to podcast@ebay.com. She says, greetings Brian and Griff. Now let me explain why she said that. She actually sent this message quite some time ago and I've been waiting for a response. So sorry Kim, it is been a delay. I'm sure you know as everyone else does it. Brian has since retired. Say hello to Kayomi.

Kayomi: Yeah, I'll let this fly for now.

Griff: So if you've already answered this question says Kim, maybe you can just direct me to that podcast. We are a 501 C3 which sells donated merchandise on eBay. And because we never know the history of the item, we do the best to authenticate the item before we list it. However, we have had a pair of shoes return from the authentication team because it was deemed she says fake when we thought it was real. Hmm. Again, we don't do this intentionally. Of course not. I mean who would? How many rejects asks Kim, are we allowed before we get in "trouble". I'm a little gun shy on listing shoes. Thank you. Kim Cox at the Porch. Username, The Porch Marketplace. Sorry Kim, it took us a while to get an answer on this one, but Kayomi I think you have it.

Kayomi: We do have an answer for you. Thanks for the message Kim. And actually, before I even worked at eBay years and years ago, I worked at essentially a thrift store or a secondhand shop where we would take in items and we had to determine and kind of authenticate things ourselves. And I am not an expert, which is why I'm glad that we have Authenticity Guarantee where we have experts in this. But Kim, I totally get where you're coming from. I know sometimes it comes down to the amount of stitches to determine what's authentic and not. So I get it. I think you'll be pleased to know eBay actively works, identify and prevent the sale of counterfeits on eBay. This is the whole purpose behind the AG program. And without giving away certain specifics, what we can say is that sellers that show a pattern of multiple item returns from eBay Authenticity Guarantee team could have their account restricted in some way.

Griff: Yeah, that's true. But Kim, rest easy 'cause this is not something that most sellers would ever need to worry about, including you my dear. You're so honest. If eBay AG notices a concerning pattern of a seller listing sneakers that show up at their hub and they find out they're not genuine before they do anything, they're gonna alert you way in advance before eBay takes any actions. And that way you would have ample time to address and fix any authenticity issues. And it could be that maybe it's where you're sourcing them because not all of us, Kim included and myself too. I can't tell a fake from a real one when it comes to luxury goods. I have to rely on somebody as well. So it could be just where you're sourcing them. And I do know in the fragrance department, I've seen a lot of fake fragrances at thrift stores and I stay away from that. But I know, I'm pretty familiar not a total expert. I know that category. So yeah. Kayomi, I learned so much about you. You used to work at a thrift store. This is crazy.

Kayomi: I know, I did. That I did.

Griff: Did you start collecting stuff then? Speaker 1: I was collecting things from a very early age to the dissatisfaction of my parents.

Griff: Why?

Kayomi: You know, collecting, hoarding, kinda, you know, fine line.

Griff: Yeah, there is a fine line sometimes I've been, I've, I've crossed that line a few times in my life, so yeah. Well we're glad you have that experience. Maybe if thrift store questions come up we can tap that knowledge as well. Please do.

Kayomi: Okay. I'd love to talk about it.

Griff: And Kayomi, our last question is about a topic that we actually, speaking of touching, we haven't touched this one in quite some time. I think it's been at least a few years. eBay Seller Barber sent it to podcast@ebay.com and she says, greetings Griff and Kayomi.

Kayomi: Oh, I love it already.

Griff: Okay, I have a question about where in the monthly financial statement the accounting is for the items I've sold and donated via the eBay for Charity Program. I can see them accounted for individually in the Seller Hub under the payments all transaction tally, but I don't see the accounting for them in the monthly summary. I look forward to your podcast each week and appreciate the humor, style and valuable info you provide the eBay community, Barbara in Ohio.

Kayomi: Thanks Barbara. You hear that Griff, we have humor style and give valuable info.

Griff: We are just the perfect team.

Kayomi: I think so. Well Barbara, just so you know, you can always view your charity account and invoices in the charity dashboard. That's at donation.ebay.com And this page is easily accessible from my eBay. You go to my eBay account under the donation section of that page. Just click on my eBay at the top of any eBay webpage, then select the tab for account. You will see the section marked donation preferences in the middle column.

Griff: And I'll put the links to those in the transcript for this episode, 284. You know Kay. Anyway, to Barbara's point, I suppose having some sort of accounting column in the transaction report for each transaction for charity donations might be helpful and who knows, it could even be a possible addition to that report in the future. But since eBay for charity works in conjunction with PayPal still, that actually might be a challenge. So for now at least sellers who sell through eBay for charity should and can always easily and quickly view and download invoices from their donations dashboard that are limited just to those listings where they donated some or all of the proceeds to a charity.

Kayomi: And this might also be a good place to remind sellers that eBay has a charity component. If you have a favorite 501 3C and you would like to donate a part or all of your sales proceeds for selected items to that charity, read up on how you can support any official charity through the eBay Charity Program at charity.ebay.com.

Griff: Yes. Do so right away there are some sellers and we, we have one seller, Elizabeth Bennett of Africa Direct has been using eBay as a platform for her business but also for her charities. She has several of them. The last time we talked her business has donated. And this was a couple years ago I think that we got this update over $75,000 to charity. Wow. And so if this is a passion for you, eBay has a channel set up that you can use to actually effectively do this and you get tax reporting and all that other stuff. So check it out at charity.ebay.com And again, we'll put all those links in the summary for this episode, episode 284. Well Kayomi that's all the questions for this week.

Kayomi: If you have any questions you want us to answer, why not call us at (888) 723-4630.

Griff: Yeah. That hardly used a hotline . It's (888) 723-4630. And the nice thing is you can call it at your convenience, you can leave your question and comment and if we use it, we'll put it on the air.

Kayomi: And if you don't like using the telephone, you can always email your questions to us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com. And if we use your question on an upcoming episode, we will send you one of our eBay podcast mugs with the built-in USB speaker. I think this might be a controversial take, but it may be more valuable than those outrageous pink Stanley mugs.

Griff: Worth a hundred thousand dollars. What? I think the world's gone crazy. So yeah, you have to include your shipping address, make sure it's a street address, not a PO box. Because our shipper uses FedEx. And also, I know we haven't done this in the past, but I've gotta do this because I appreciate people who send in question after question. We love your questions, but in the interest of fairness and the dwindling supply of these mugs, and I don't know if we're gonna get budget to buy more, we have to mention that mug eligibility is now limited to once every six months. Just a little fine print there. A little disclosure. I hope it doesn't make anyone unhappy.

Kayomi: I know we'd love to hear from you all multiple times, but we have to limit these.

Griff: Some people may be collecting a set, who knows?

Kayomi: I mean, I wouldn't blame 'em. They're pretty cool.

Griff: Well, they may be as valuable as those certain pink mugs. You got in a limited edition at Starbucks. Let's not talk about it. Depresses me. And now you're three point podcast. I didn't get one! Your three point podcast checklist.

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

Griff: Yeah. And you can subscribe to it too. And if you are using eBay research, AKA Terapeak, as we talked about with Shelley, that brand is changing. Start doing so today because an informed seller is a potentially more successful seller.

Kayomi: Were you not paying attention in this episode? Do you need to review anything you heard? Check the transcript for this and all pass episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to find the links we referenced during the episode.

Griff: You never know someone might've got up to use the facilities or make a cup of coffee. It happens. I hate to think that anyone's leaving the theater while we're performing. But on our next episode we'll talk with eBay seller, Andrew Kasemeyer of Crypto Design Company. Now Andrew, also known as Drew, uses a service called Printify, which I wasn't familiar with at first. It's a print on demand service for creating custom SKU items that you can list directly on eBay. It's fascinating. I actually think a lot of sellers could use this as a add-on, especially if you've got a brand that you want to promote. So, you're gonna want to tune in. This is gonna be an interesting episode.

Kayomi: Sounds like a great service. I hope people are tuning in next week. We'd like to again, thank our guest this week. eBay Product Manager for the Selling Team, Shelley Ball.

Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by our good friends at Libsyn and podCast411. See you next week Kayomi.

Kayomi: See you then Griff.