Ep 295 || The 2024 eBay Recommerce Report: The Era of Reuse

[podcast_team]

Renee Morin, eBay’s Chief Sustainability Officer, joins us to talk all things Recommerce and the 2024 Recommerce Report. Griff and Kayomi answer your questions about finding an item’s SKU when an offer is received and how to list Specialty Services items correctly.

Episode Links:
Summer Seller Check In
The eBay 2024 Recommerce Report
The eBay Specialty Services Category
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: This week on the eBay for Business Podcast.

Renee: Recommerce is important to eBay, not just because it's how we were founded, but it makes up a large portion of our business. It's, right now we're at 40% of our GMV, so that's Gross Merchandise Volume for those who dunno that acronym. It's made up of pre loved and refurbished items. So a large part of our business.

Kayomi: I'm Kayomi Kayoshi

Griff: And I'm Griff. And this is the eBay for Business Podcast. Your weekly source for the information and inspiration and best practices to help you start, manage and grow your business on the world's most powerful marketplace. This is episode 295.

Kayomi: Five episodes away.

Griff: Oh, please don't.

Kayomi: I've been counting down. I know we haven't been mentioning it, but I've been counting down in my head.

Griff: Yeah, So that's five weeks. Five weeks. Who knows what happens in five weeks.

Kayomi: I guess. We'll see.

Griff: We'll see. Exactly.

Kayomi: I am happy to be here for this 300 episode milestone coming up.

Griff: Yeah. I'd love to see more milestones. You and me both. So what's your life like in community this past week?

Kayomi: This week was actually pretty busy. I'm sure you'll touch on this a little bit in this episode, but community blew up when we announced the Recommerce Day and they had a pretty spicy conversation around it.

Griff: Oh really?

Kayomi: If anyone's interested, see what your fellow sellers are saying about it. Get other input. Feel free to add your own input. And then also this topic, which was foreign to me because I was not here when this was the thing, but eBay Bucks was brought up.

Griff: Oh, I loved eBay Bucks. Oh, did I love them?

Kayomi: So did many other sellers and buyers I've seen. Yeah. In the thread. But yeah, the team had to explain to me the history behind it.

Griff: Have they completely gone away now? 'cause I know they rolled them back slowly. It used to be I could earn lots of bucks and then it was I could only earn them on in certain ways and I don't even think I have an eBay Bucks account anymore.

Kayomi: I think it was officially sunsetted this year.

Griff: I'm gonna go look. Nope. No eBay bucks. Oh, here it is. No, there says the eBay Bucks Rewards program was designed to reward members, blah blah blah. After careful consideration, it was discontinued on April 2nd, 2024.

Kayomi: Yeah. So April this year. Mm-Hmm. a month ago.

Griff: It says how to leave the eBay Bucks program. I guess you don't do anything . And you're left. Boy did I spend eBay Bucks for the longest time.

Kayomi: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure.

Griff: Oh dear.

Kayomi: Yeah, that was an interesting conversation, especially for me to read, fresh eyes coming into this.

Griff: Well, we won't speak about it, but we can speak about the other topic because it has something to do with this week.

Kayomi: Yes. Very exciting. Our guest this week is eBay Sustainability Officer Renee Morin with the just released 2024 Recommerce report.

Griff: And it's already come out. It came out last week and we're talking about it now. I gotta go read this thread because I know what the Recommerce report is. I can't imagine anyone having anything sort of critical to say about it.

Kayomi: I don't know if it was about the report. I think it was mainly about the day, like the Recommerce Day.

Griff: Really?

Kayomi: Yes. Apparently in the thread I saw that some people had trouble accessing the page for others that it worked with. It was amazing. But it seemed like there was a bit of technical difficulties for some people.

Griff: Well, I see. So. Well that's understandable. I mean, it's unfortunate that when that happens, hopefully everything's okay now. So any news?

Kayomi: Of course, as always, mark your calendars Thursday, June 6th at 12:00 PM Pacific time. That's the date and time for the Summer Seller Check-in. Connect with eBay leaders and sellers to stay up to date on company news, key topics and trends to help grow your eBay business. Go to the events page in community to sign up. It's free. You can also go to sellerevents.ebay.com and click the button for join us.

Griff: You have nothing to lose. Sign up. I bet you'll learn something. You'll be happy you did.

Kayomi: Probably See me and Griff there.

Griff: You'll see. Kayomi for sure.

Kayomi: Yeah. I'm actually leading a networking session this time around.

Griff: Fantastic. Well maybe I'll go and join your networking session.

Kayomi: I'll keep my eyes out.

Griff: It's the least I could do.

Kayomi: I know. Okay, I'll see you there then.

Griff: Now let's talk to Renee about the just released 2024 Recommerce Report.

Griff: Consumers are increasingly turning to Recommerce. That's the selling and buying of pre-owned goods in an effort to boost their income, save money, and most important to many sellers live sustainably. And with us this week, to tell us all about eBay's Recommerce initiative is Renee Morin and Renee Morin is eBay's Chief Sustainability Officer. Welcome Renee.

Renee: So glad to be here Griff. Thanks for having me.

Griff: What's involved in being eBay's chief Sustainability Officer?

Renee: Thanks for the question. I get asked that a lot. Sometimes people are like, wait, what is a Chief Sustainability officer?

Griff: I picture you with a badge stopping people and checking if they're sustaining or not .

Renee: Yeah. It's a little more complicated than that. And we like to embrace those who are on the journey of sustainability as a CSO for short at eBay in particular. A lot of other companies have chief sustainability officers as well. What we try to do is set ambitious goals to make sure that we are doing well and doing good for the environment and for both social issues, economic issues that are related to our business. The day-to-Day and me and my team really boils down to more the environmental side. So we're talking about the green stuff, carbon emissions, renewable energy, and most importantly, and I think relevant for today is commerce. And how can we measure that? How can we communicate the benefits of commerce to our buyers and our sellers?

Griff: eBay's whole DNA and whole mission when it started was basically commerce. Although that's not what we thought of at the time, but it's, our whole history is grounded in the concept of commerce.

Renee: Absolutely. I mean you must know the origination story considering how, how long you've been with eBay.

Griff: Heard it a few times. Yeah.

Renee: Should we repeat it one more time for nostalgia's sake?

Griff: Well, it was, uh, you know, where am I gonna get rid of these used Pez collections? So it, it was the idea that of people getting together the trade mostly used merchandise or pre-owned merchandise. And this was the idea Pierre Omidyar who created the site and then it extended out from there. But still a huge part of what makes eBay's marketplace so exciting and vibrant is that we have tons of sellers and buyers who are actively selling and buying the kind of merchandise that eBay provides for extending its life cycle so that it just doesn't end up in the trash or in a landfill.

Renee: Yeah, absolutely. And even more specifically, that first item sold on eBay was the broken laser pointer, which I don't even know if kids know what those are anymore today.

Griff: Well we used to have this thing ,

Renee: Right? This thing you could point onto the wall, your projector. Yeah. And so it was sold and it was given a second life. Somebody fixed it up and it avoided going to the landfill. So the origination of eBay really is truth and tried and tied to commerce from the get go.

Griff: We should mention that we did manage years later to track down the buyer of that laser pointer who has since donated it back to eBay and it now is in a special place in the, the physical archives of eBay's history on the campus in San Jose.

Renee: Yeah, full circle. Literally. Yeah.

Griff: So as we're talking about, we just launched this thing called the Recommerce Report, along with the first ever Recommerce Day to mark the occasion.

Renee: Recommerce is important to eBay, not just because it's, you know, how we were founded, but it makes up a large portion of our business. It's, right now we're at 40% of our GMV, so that's Gross Merchandise Volume for those who dunno that acronym, a lot of people don't. It's made up of pre loved and refurbished items. So a large part of our business, and I as a sustainability officer, near and dear to my heart, obviously, is the fact that we're really participating in the circular economy. We're giving these items a second life through our platform and that takes the participation of sellers and buyers, right? So we provide the platform, but we need the sellers out there selling the stuff that they maybe don't need anymore or they saw in their closet and now they can give it a second life and the buyers are on the other end getting to save some money. So Recommerce obviously very important and we've done Recommerce reports in the past, surveying our own consumers, eBay's buyers and sellers. This year we took it further. We wanted to understand what was happening over in a global sentiment. Like what were consumers more broadly thinking about in terms of buying pre loved. And I think what was really interesting is we found that our consumers, not just ours, consumers in general are at this inflection point. And so people are reevaluating, and this was found on our survey, so 65% of people are reevaluating what's important to them. And what's important is really going back to their hobbies, their passions, their family connections, their communities, and getting experiences. Again, going full circle, what commerce is able to unlock for people is number one, it makes 'em feel good. That was also something we found in our survey. Like you get a good feel from buying something that's been pre loved, giving it that second life or selling it even. We're able to save some money and then invest that money into things that people really care about. Buying stuff is also kind of fun. I mean, we all do it right? It can give you a little charge, but then if you're saving some dollars on this side and you wanna go on a trip, it makes that trip potentially more affordable. So that inflection point that we found about reevaluating what's important really slots in super nicely with commerce and benefits of it, both in terms of the economic benefit and of course something that I care about and a lot of people do, especially Millennials, Gen Z is caring for the planet too and keeping things out of landfill.

Griff: Yeah. This is not only good for them and, and for the buyers and sellers, it's good for the business as well because we want to be where the marketplace is. And as I said earlier, that's always been at the core of eBay's marketplace. So it's something that've been really proud of I think.

Renee: I think going back to eCommerce day, so we had the report, there's a lot of good stuff in there. Encourage folks to check it out. They wanna get more insights as to like what's driving Recommerce. But for Recommerce Day, which was May 21st, what we did was we, we took over the homepage, you may have seen it of ebay.com and just put Recommerce front and center for the first time ever, which is like super exciting. Have chills actually still just thinking about it. We also had a bunch of live events, so I don't know if you've seen any of 'em, Griff, but eBay Live has gotten really popular throughout the entire day. There were different pre loved items being shown. You can talk to the seller live, see in action, ask the questions, and then have that interaction with the seller. And specifically around pre loved goods. So some handbags, watches, um, some sneakers. So fun, things like that. Even some people won some items from being participating in the whole concept of commerce on eBay's Recommerce Day. And we also, I think this goes back to like what people are thinking. We collaborated with Alicia Silverstone. She's actually quite an environmentalist. She's very, very conscious about her purchasing decisions and she lives that Recommerce life authentically. So partnering with her on Recommerce Day was just really exciting for us. And then like bringing it live to Instagram to you know, to all the social outlets that really I think are gonna drive more and more attention to this issue, which is really important but can be fun at the same time.

Griff: Alicia Silverstone was the star of one of my favorite movies from the nineties called Clueless. So glad to hear that she's so involved in the entire concept of sustainability.

Renee: Yeah. So we're hoping for even bigger things next year. Watch out for us. Again, May coming to you next year, 2025.

Griff: Renee, we know how this fits into eBay's DNA when it comes to commerce, but let's talk a little bit about the economic benefits. What impact does commerce create?

Renee: It's interesting because if people think about Recommerce and maybe they think about the planet first. Most people don't. They think about saving money and that's totally fine. You're getting that extra value out of purchasing something that's a little less expensive than it might have been if it were brand new in many cases. Maybe you can't afford the next generation cell phone, but you can find it refurbished on eBay. So you get to save some dollars. The flip side of that is if you're a seller, you're selling on eBay, it's 40% again of our gross merchandise volume. Then there is value to be had there. Jamie, our CEO talks a lot about the accidental entrepreneur. The person who goes into their closet starts selling a couple things.

Griff: Oh yes, yeah.

Renee: Gets hooked on it, right? And all of a sudden they've got like a whole garage full of inventory and they end up being business people, right? They've created a whole business out of it. I think the flip side of that is that there's also accidental environmentalist. So even though you're buying and selling because of the dollars that economic impact, no matter what, if it's pre loved, you're also contributing to helping the planet. So accidentally doing good both ways.

Griff: I'm one of those buyers just by circumstance who ends up now being nostalgic about so many different things that I used to have and wanting to keep having them. Whether that's apparel or whether that's shoes or whether that's old cameras. I think as a buyer, I've done my part.

Renee: I probably have too.

Griff: Now how can sellers take advantage of the trends that we see in Recommerce?

Renee: I think, you know, honestly there are already a lot of sellers taking advantage of it, right? A lot of sellers are out there with their pre loved inventory. The type of inventory we typically see that from our survey especially were items, fashion. I think that when people think about that, you know, sneaker heads and luxury handbags, like I can't afford the brand new one, but I can afford ones lightly used. And more surprising, we found that books like actual books not just Kindle readers and, and e-readers and whatnot, is another big category. Shoes, home and garden and of course technology.

Griff: Technology, like electronics?

Renee: Electronics, yeah, for sure. Like the, those refurbished phones, laptops, even like small home appliances maybe I don't want my blender anymore. Selling it on eBay is viable. OYeah. I think there's a lot of ways that sellers can take advantage of this opportunity. We're also seeing that 70% of our consumers that were surveyed plan to spend on pre loved in this next year. That's a big audience. That is a really nice market. And the market trends, if you look more broadly are showing that too. Like this industry of pre loved is continuing to grow and it's not just fashion. I think fashion is more recognizable potentially. But I mean, look what I just listed there, a lot of different types of goods and even if it's not one that I listed and you're a seller selling something else, there's all these people on eBay looking for collectibles. Just like you were mentioning. Those, those nostalgic things that you want to find again, there's a lot of opportunity out there.

Griff: Sometimes things that have examples available, new today, their precursors, the older ones are often so better made and much more durable that it's what we're looking for. I know that's something that's top of my mind all the time is the reason why I'm not just looking for a bargain. But in my view, so much of what's available today, the originals, the older models are just better made and last longer. Last longer. They're the ones that, yeah, those are the ones I want.

Renee: Same with you with clothing, with handbags, et cetera. There is something to be said for the quality of, of an item. Yeah. Lasting longer. One of the things we, we also found that half a shopper's agree, everybody loves those. What's in, what's out in 2024, half a shopper's agree that pre loved is in for 2024 and that's great, you know, so the flip side is like, I don't want something that's maybe not durable and and more of a throwaway item. I want something that can last and give it a second life.

Griff: I think more than anything, the trend in Recommerce is amazing When you think of how, how things change. So when I was young, it wasn't that long ago, but when I was young, the concept of used was something that you almost didn't talk about because it meant that you were at a disadvantage, you were poor, you didn't have any money. So you kind of snuck in with a thing over your head if you went into Goodwill or another thrift store and just how different the world is today.

Renee: Yeah, I mean I can throw a stone. I live in Washington DC a handful of consignment stores within blocks of my house and you know, thrifting is becoming more popular, especially again with the younger demographic, younger generation, seeing that there is value in like finding these, these fashions that keep coming around like the eighties, they're back and where are you gonna find 'em?

Griff: I didn't know they left . I'm sorry, I must have blinked.

Renee: Yeah, basically. So if you wanna find those parachute pants, then you know you could find them on eBay probably.

Griff: Okay. As silly as the eighties were, they couldn't hold a candle to the silliness of the seventies. So yeah, I'd rather dress in eighties style than seventies. That was an ugly time and I don't want to think about it. Well Renee, I want to thank you so much. It's always a pleasure, interesting trends and we want to stay on top of them. If you happen to miss Recommerce Day on eBay this year, remember it'll be back in May. But the uh, whole concept of Recommerce is not annual, it's daily. It happens on eBay. You want to take advantage of it, not just as a buyer, but if you're a seller, think about Recommerce when you're searching for inventory. Renee, thanks so much.

Renee: Thank you Griff. It's always a pleasure to be here. Appreciate it.

Griff: Renee Morin is eBay's Chief Sustainability Officer. We've been talking about Recommerce and the Recommerce report and you can view the commerce report on the eBay Inc blog. Just go to eBay inc.com/impact. We'll put a link to that page in the summary for this episode, episode 295.

Kayomi: You've got questions?

Griff: We've got answers and this week we have two questions for you. The first is about selling your services on eBay and this is a subject Kayomi, I don't think I've ever covered on the podcast. So it's gonna be an interesting subject. I think there's some sellers who may not know this exists. Would you like to read this question?

Kayomi: I would love to do the honors. Hi Kayomi and Griff, I listen to your show every week and find it very informative. Thanks for everything on that end. Well thank you for listening. I offer an eight track music tape, mailin repair service that does very good business, over 400 orders this year. Customers send me their eight track tapes for repair and I return them to the customer fully restored. I've had buyers mistakenly place an order thinking I was selling eight track repair kit to mail to them, which I don't, and nowhere in the listing or repair kits mentioned when the orders were canceled. eBay processed the two orders into defects as out of stock. And I have contacted customer service several times to remove the defects and was told that they can't reverse them even after I explained the situation. I mean, how can I repair an eight track tape that was never sent to me by the buyer and was never in my inventory. My problem is that I am currently a top rated seller and these dings are affecting my performance and I do not want to drop down to standard due to someone else's error. Please help me if you can. Charlie also included a link to the listing. Thanks for any help that you can give me Charlie at Charlie's Vintage store. Well Charlie, I hope we can speak logically about this and give you some kind of advice.

Griff: Yeah, so first off, I'm sorry that you got those two defects for this and I would've assumed that customer support would've understood that you were selling in a category that does not offer goods, it offers services and I know in our correspondence I didn't address that, but if those defects are still on there, send me a note. I normally can't do this, but I'll inquire on your behalf why they're still there because I agree with you, it's completely unfair you aren't offering a product. So how could you ship a product if you don't offer a product? Anyway, I took a look at the listing that he sent and I immediately saw the problem. It was his first photo.

Kayomi: Ooh, tell us more.

Griff: So Charlie shows items that look to be an actual repair kit. It's just all the items he uses to repair. That's misleading in and of itself. And yes, I know if you're in the specialty category, we'll talk about that in a minute. And you find an item and you see objects that your first thought is, oh this is a kit that I order. Even if it's not a kit, it's a service. We've always said don't put anything in a photo that is not something you're going to include in the listing, like objects for example, if it's a service now, what do you put? That's a good question. So my suggestion was maybe you show a composite photo of one with a damaged tape and then one with the repaired tape. But even then after thinking about it, someone's gonna think, oh, I'm gonna get a tape. So it's hard to say what you should put in there. Now I've checked Charlie's listing and I'll tell you that he did find a solution. It kind of violates the image policy so I'm not gonna really point it out too much, but I understand exactly where he is coming from and he needed to do something that was going to prevent any further buyers thinking, oh, I'm going to get a kit. I haven't heard back from him. I'm hoping it hasn't happened again. But even my first impression when I saw that listing is, oh, this is how you get a set of tools to repair your own a track. So I advised that you change out the photo he did and then make it clear both in the title or the, in the description and apparently also in the image that he put up that this is not a kit, it's a service.

Kayomi: Yes.

Griff: And I would normally kind of say, well big deal, but when he, I read that he's got 400 sales doing this service, that's clearly a business. So we should be supporting that better.

Kayomi: Absolutely.

Griff: Charlie, if you're listening to this and I know you are, email me back if there's any issues 'cause I'd love to follow this through.

Kayomi: Those are great suggestions. Let us know how that works out for you. Charlie, hopefully turns out well, let us know if you have any success.

Griff: Now I mentioned that category and I don't know, Kayomi, did you know that there's such a thing called the Specialty Services category on eBay?

Kayomi: You know, Griff, I learned this through you actually.

Griff: You mean before the show started ?

Kayomi: Exactly.

Griff: Okay, well good. Yes, we do rehearse some of our stuff. We have to go through it so there's no surprises. Well a lot of you may not know about this and it might be a surprise because there is a category. It's been around since the very early days of eBay. It's called specialty services. And I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't know about it because what I discovered when I went and looked for it is it doesn't appear on any of the category lists on the site, which I find alarming. Now I've asked our product team about it. In the meantime, you can uncover the category. You've just search on eBay using two words, specialty services. It suddenly shows up in the left hand nav and you can search, there's a lot of listings. I think I, there were 18,000 listings in there and it's all sellers who are offering a service. So yeah, I would say it's not a minor category. I don't know how much income it generates for eBay, but it definitely generates a lot of listings. So I hope we'll be more supportive in the future. But Charlie, if you have any questions about this still please email me. Our next question is from a seller whose business name is Point Us The Way and he writes, hi Griff and Kayomi. Thanks for keeping us up to date and adding great content to our drives. Just a quick question. Is there a quick way to see the SKU of an item when either A, answering an eBay message or B, reviewing an offer from a buyer? Many times we like to verify three things when a buyer sends us a message or offer and these are not easily accessible from the offers or messages. The three things are, one, the SKU to verify it's there and to grab it for the question to answers. Two, shipping price, if it's a flat rate, how much it is and three, if it's calculated approximately or at least a zip code, city and state. So we can approximate it as we're either busy listing and or sourcing. The faster we can find these answers, the faster we can help the customer. Thanks again. And yes, we have an older eBay podcast mug, but we would love the new version. If you could send it Point Us The Way LLC we'll do that. We'll send you a mug.

Renee: Yeah, you can count on it. Well thanks Point Us The Way and unfortunately at this time, no there isn't a way to see the SKU for an item in an eBay message or in reviewing an offer. The only kind of fast way to do this is to use the custom label field. That field is available on the listing form. You can use it to enter any information you'd like, for example, the SKU for the item. It will then be accessible in the active listings view in seller hub. If the column for custom label doesn't appear, click the link for customizing the table and add it there.

Griff: Yeah, exactly. You can also enter in other information like Flat Rate shipping. I don't know how you would enter the calculated. It wouldn't be easy to do on the fly since you won't even know the location of the buyer making the offer. We also don't show the zip code of the buyer. I wanna say before we go on though, that's the current state. I know from our Seller Advocate Team that this is something that they've been pushing for and there is some progress where there'll be more information available to sellers about the buyer who's making an offer so that it'll help you stay more informed when you're considering a counter offer or accepting an offer. Anyway, I'm curious about why you would wanna know about shipping because uh, what I've always advised sellers is to keep the cost of shipping out of any negotiations when it comes to offer. So if you're charging a flat rate, then shipping wouldn't be a factor at all and the negotiated price, and that's the same with calculated. This is especially true if shipping is not free shipping. So the offer is meant only for the price of the item. It's not for negotiating shipping. In fact, there's no mechanism inside the offer process that allows for changing the shipping price. But, so I don't know why you would want to know that, but if you have a specific reason and I'm not catching it for needing those shipping costs before deciding to accept or counter offer, let us know. We're happy to learn about it.

Kayomi: Also, you touched on this, but I love getting these questions. I mean the suggestions we get him bringing up the skew situation. Great suggestion. And like Giff said, we've heard like little inklings here and there on the inner workings with that team. So you will have to keep your eye out.

Griff: Yeah, it's like a lot of things it, it doesn't happen overnight and unfortunately that's our questions for this week, Kayomi.

Kayomi: That is it. Okay, one episode closer to 300. Do you have a question about selling on eBay? Well, we'd love to answer it. Call in at (888) 723-4630 or email it to us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: And now it's time for your tip of the week. And this week's tip was sent in by seller Nancy McKinney who says, and I love this by the way, use a separate credit card for all your business expenses, inventory, supplies, et cetera. It's so much easier at the end of the year to figure out business expense totals and it's way easier than writing down or entering each expense. And make sure you pay that off monthly. You can also track your spending total easily throughout the year. What a great tip.y

Kayomi: That really is.

Griff: Yeah, thank you Nancy for sending those tips in. Hey Nancy, I gotta tell you something though. You didn't send us your street address and the minute you do we'll send you a mug. You got to provide that to us.

Kayomi: Nancy, you're gonna have to reach out to us again.

Griff: That's okay. I'm sure she doesn't mind.

Kayomi: Don't forget. Check the announcement board at ebay.com/announcements for up-to-Date seller news every day and always check the episode summary for links.

Griff: On our next episode, we're gonna talk to a very interesting seller. I really enjoyed this interview. His name is David Ing and he has some customer service best practices and he wants to talk about why they work. And I thought, oh, this is gonna be kind of a generic, boring interview and it turned out to be quite interesting. So you're gonna want to listen to this one.

Kayomi: And we'd like to again think our guest this week. eBay's Chief Sustainability Officer Renee Morin.

Griff: The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411. Have a great holiday weekend, Kayomi. We'll see you next week.

Kayomi: Thanks, you too Griff. See you then.