Ep 304 || eBay Seller, Race Car Driver, and eBay Employee - Sarah Burgess

[griff@ebay.com]

Sarah discovered eBay when she needed parts for her race car and realized the platform's potential for selling automotive products. She later joined eBay as an employee, initially in business development and then in events and partnerships. Griff and Kayomi answer your questions about sending a package with Japanese characters and items not showing up for European buyers.

Episode Links:
eBay International Shipping Restricted Categories
GPSR European Rules

Recurring Links:
eBay for Business Podcast
eBay for Business Podcast Listener Survey
eBay Seller News Announcements
eBay for Business Facebook
eBay Seller Center
eBay Help
eBay Local Seller Events
Seller Hub
eBay Events

Kayomi: This week on the eBay for Business podcast.

Sarah: That's cut hot pots from that era was everything that we were chasing, so we had ordered a ring and pinion for the rear end of the car. The car teams were spending two thousand five hundred to three thousand dollars on a particular part for the car for the truck car, and they would use it x amount of times. But it was still in excellent condition, and we would go and buy it for about three or four hundred dollars on eBay, and that actually helped us out when we were racing.

Kayomi: That was pretty good. I'm Kayomi Kayoshi.

Griff: And I'm Griff, and this is the eBay for Business podcast, your source for the information and inspiration and all that other stuff to help you start, manage, and grow business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode three zero four.

Kayomi: Why, yes, it is.

Griff: I know. Time marches on. And, yeah. So this is seller slump. I hate to give it a name, but it is that time of the retail season where things slow down.

Kayomi: I feel like you should call it summer seller slump.

Griff: Summer seller slump. There's a lot of yeah. A lot of sellers. Yeah. Not necessarily happening to every seller, but it happens to a lot of sellers. And I always say it's a great opportunity to look for new product lines, Or if you can use it as a time to, point inward on your business, check out your, you know, stuff like inventory. I think you may also want to check out your sell through rate and your impressions both with for your listings and then find out, you know, are there some products that just aren't moving and should I be focusing on what is moving based on what I can find on, you know, eBay product research, for example, which has a sourcing page now?

Kayomi: This topic popped up in the community. And I mean, we understand why it was such a big topic because a lot of sellers are experiencing this. But then there were also a good amount of sellers who were saying that they've never experienced, like, more sales in the summer than this year. They were all going back and forth and offering tips, which was nice. But, yeah, it was interesting to see that some sellers had seen an increase year over year in, like, their views and impressions and, you know, just, like, the amount that they're selling. And so that was really nice to see.

Griff: And it's not to say that people stop shopping during the summer. They don't. But they do tend to spend more time outside. This heat wave that the entire country has been feeling off and on for the last month might actually drive people inside, which could increase sales. Who knows? It could be as bad as the winter months when people spend a lot of time inside. But the thing is not to just be idle. If you have a situation where you notice your velocity is slowed down and you rely on that velocity, keep body and soul together, there are steps you can take right now to actually help increase the likelihood that you can make more sales. And some of that is product reconsideration. Sometimes it's a matter of heavy duty promotions, like deep discounts to get stuff moving so that you can collect that cash back and reinvest it in newer inventory. So these are things to keep in mind. Anyway

Kayomi: Well,

Griff:, enough of us chit chatting. Who's our guest this week?

Griff: Well this week our colleague, Georgea Mpampanis, will be here to host this segment. And she's going to share a conversation with eBay seller and employee, Sarah Burgess, for our newest seller spotlight segment. So Sarah's in the PA, and specialty events for PA. That's parts and accessories. Sarah's an interesting woman because she not only heads up that department in eBay Motors, but she's also a big seller. But she has a backstory that I think is going to resonate with a lot of our listeners. And I won't tell you what it is, except I'll drop a hint, and that's that she's into drift. Not just thrift, but she's she's into drift.

Kayomi: To drift. Okay.

Griff: And then after we're, finished with the interview, you and I will come back and we have two questions to answer this week. And then, that's it.

Kayomi: Okay. Sounds good. Well, now I'm curious. I'm gonna have to relisten to this and unless you wanna spill on her back story, which I don't think you will.

Griff: No. I'm I'm not gonna drop. That was a tease. You gotta listen to the whole thing. Of course. Okay. I'll see you in I'll see you in a little bit.

Kayomi: Yeah. Have fun.

Georgea: Every seller has a story. I'm Georgia M. Panis, and welcome to our newest episode of our seller spotlight segment, where once a month, we spotlight a seller with a story to share with us. Our guest this month is a celebrity on the automotive world. She's an eBay employee, eBay seller, and was an off road racer along with her daughter, Bridget, that has also raced in the NASCAR ARCA series. Welcome, Sarah Burgess.

Sarah: Hello. And thanks for having me.

Georgea: Before we get into eBay, tell us about yourself and how you began racing.

Sarah: Yeah. Interesting story. I've actually raced or competed in something my entire life. Life. Like since I was five. BMX and cycling and speed skating and speed skating on ice and representing Australia and, and then getting into cars and through my, my husband, that's his fault. I always blame him for the car story, but, moved to the US and that was actually when we got into racing. It was like, well, you know, we got tired of, of working on everybody else's cars and making them that fast for drag racing, we are like, oh, let's move it to the US and go racing. So I started drifting in twenty eleven. We had a Mazda RX-eight with a twenty six V4. So for any car mods out there, that's an unusual sort of, they'll, got into drifting competitively, and that's kind of where it all started. So adrenaline junkie, very competitive person, very, very competitive. So, yeah, but that's, that's where it all started and where I finished up.

Georgea: So you've moved to the US specifically for racing?

Sarah: Well, pretty much. Yes. It was, again, it was just one of those things where we'd been working seven days a week on customer cars and broke, like, you know, it's always, always feeds the habit. It's kind of one of those things. And I, we were actually also manufacturing throttle bodies and furrows. We ran a CNC machine in Australia. That's how I got started on eBay, to slide that in there, selling the parts that we're manufacturing back in Australia. Yeah. It was literally six suitcases and our daughter was six at the time. America is the land of opportunity and we're like, let's go, let's go do it.

Georgea: So you said you're an adrenaline junkie. Is there someone in your family that kind of inspired you as a kid? Like how'd that all start?

Sarah: No. Not really. Really, even more interesting story because a lot of people actually come from, like, this background of of like their parents or their grandparents and everything else. And my dad, like my dad was a bricklayer. My mom worked in a grocery store and the most exciting they did thing was why go from England to Australia. My dad played bass guitar in a band in the, in the UK. My brother, he got into BMX, you know, anything that he did, I did. And then I went my own path when I got into speed skating and just, yeah, really enjoyed it.

Georgea: And now your daughter's involved. When and how did she get involved?

Sarah: It's always been a family affair to everything that we've done. Adam, my husband, Bridget's dad, it's how we've operated since the day we've been together. It was always going to the track and Bridget would be there and she cleaned the truck or she'd help Adam change tires and things like that. She'd always be in the workshop playing around with tools or just, you know, just there, like in that environment. And, when we got into off road racing, she was like definitely responsible for cleaning the truck. We ran a Ford nine inch rear end in our off road trucks, and she was responsible for actually changing the gear set out or changing the gears out, rear end gears. So she'd be out of my truck and she's like fourteen, fifteen and undo everything and like up the oil. And the anything she had to do was get a dad to help lift it out because it'd be like sixty pounds. But after like showing that she really was interested, she's like, Hey mom, can I drive your truck? And we're like, okay, like, let's just see what happens. And we went testing and we're like, she's actually really good. So it was one of those things. And so she earned her way. She, she got her hands dirty and like she did homeschooling and she got involved with it. And that's where it really took off for her. And my role turned into running the team, being a race car driver. I handled all the contracts and the negotiations, sponsorship and everything else and ordering parts and finding where I could buy good parts and everything that we did was via sponsorship money. You know, we did everything on, on our own to try and make it. So it's been tough. It's not easy. There's definitely been some really, really tough days, but you know, it needs, we've had success with it as well.

Georgea: And while you both were racing, were you two partnered or was there like a little friendly competition between the two of you?

Sarah: It's kind of funny. It was, you know, the last thing we wanted was to have two trucks get wrecked and off road and highly because of the sheer cost of it. That was one aspect of it. I have more experience in off road racing and it was, you know, but she wasn't going to give up the spot. Like if I, like, I had an incident happen where I was at back and, and I passed her clearly and she didn't fight me for it, but I did come video from a race in Mexico. I had a camera on the back of my truck and I've got video of her actually hitting the back of my, bumping me through the core. So there's been a couple of times here and there. Bridget, how dare you? Exactly. So it was the number one question that, we were asked, when, when I did mark a race, with Bridget, but in off road, it was, it was pretty neat to have a mother daughter actually race each other. It's just, it was a very, a very cool experience.

Georgea: Now let's pivot a little bit to eBay. When did you first discover eBay? I'm curious.

Sarah: In Australia, I always, we bought the CNC machine. My husband did a trip to the US. He saw a CNC machine, like a company we were purchasing products from. We were importing turbos and fuel pumps from the US into Australia and selling them in the Australian market. And, he saw a CNC, came back and he's like, Sarah, we need to buy a CNC machine. And I'm like, why? And he goes, so you, you just press a button and it makes money. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm sold. Like, I'll, I'll figure it out. I learned how to do CADPM. And then I actually learned how to run the CNC machine and we made these beautiful billet throttle bodies and furrows to suit the Australian market. Everything that we did, we, we actually sold through eBay. And so that was the best place for us to actually list the items. And, we had success selling around the country in Australia. Doesn't already, even today, eBay is hugely popular in Australia and even to New Zealand as well. So that was my first experience with eBay and it was great. It was, we, we were able to reach customers in a way that was cost effective for what we were doing. And at the time this is like print advertising was still a thing. We did do print advertising, but the exposure that we had selling on eBay was great. That was my first experience with eBay, was actually selling stuff, not buying anything there.

Georgea: Did you ever buy anything, like, as a kid or did you knew about eBay before, right? Like, did someone introduce you to it when you were younger?

Sarah: I'll be honest like that. That's I'm trying to think, like, back, like back in Australia, it was everything we did was sell on eBay from that side of things. But it was when we moved to the US and where we started building the first race car, but like when we moved over here and that was when we were scouring eBay for particular things that we needed for the race car or We ran a Mazda RX-eight, which as a street car, that's that's a it's pretty placid. It doesn't do much. It doesn't break. It doesn't handle. We wanted to do a brake upgrade on it. So this is the ironic thing is, you know, so many NASCAR teams and they go through parts like crazy. Like they'll go do a race on one set of brake pads and then they put them up for sale. And so for us as this race team, didn't have much funding. We were sourcing all the parts for our race car actually on eBay and, really helped actually put a lot of our race cars together.

Georgea: EBay is big for P and A, the perfect place to go. Have you sourced any of your inventory from race car drivers directly or, like, any cars that want a NASCAR Cup?

Sarah: So it's kind of funny because in the last years of of racing where we actually moved into the Arc de Menard series and and Bridget raced the Arc de Menard, That was when we were like really getting into, we needed NASCAR equipment. So the car that Bridget raced in was, what they call a gen five car. And that was raced in the Cup Series back in like twenty fifteen or so. NASCAR Cup parts from that era was everything that we were chasing. So we'd order a ring and pinion for the rear end of the car and we get it. We like, it was definitely from like a NASCAR cup team. And then we'll be guessing like, well, you know, maybe this won this race. We never knew, but it was always one of those things where this could have been so and so's car or the parts burned this car and stuff like that. So there was always that thought and that hope and dream that like, maybe it came from a winning car. But again, it was one of those things where the cap teams were spending two thousand five hundred dollars to three thousand dollars on a particular part for the car, for the truck car. And they would use it X amount of times. It had like a life cycle, but it was still in excellent condition. And we would go and buy it for about three or four hundred dollars on eBay. And so we were using high quality parts that were uber expensive for our cut team and that actually helped us out when we were racing.

Georgea: So it was pretty good. So you're also an eBay employee. Can you tell us a little bit more about your role here at eBay?

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. So my role at eBay started in May of twenty twenty one. It was actually I was super excited. I saw her pop up on my feed as a business, there's a business development position available, and I applied for it. It was little bit of things where, oh my gosh, will they even be considered? Utilizing my twenty years of experience in the automotive industry, it was something that I felt that I could bring value to the company and, you know, went through the interviews. And so I, I started with eBay as a, business development and worked with an amazing team on, under, under BD. And one of the coolest things that was really fulfilling was actually onboarding companies to sell on eBay and yeah, utilizing that competitive nature in me, I was, there's the competitive side and then there's business growth opportunities. And it was something that I really appreciated, reaching out to sellers and connecting with different companies and actually telling the story of what eBay has to offer for a seller. And it was just almost every call was an educational call to let them know like, Hey, we've got managed payments because some folks still thought we had, we had to have a PayPal account. And so, you know, the simplified process for sellers to, to get on board and, you know, getting payments quicker and yeah, the global shipping program, like that was a game changer for a lot of sellers as well because they wanted to sell internationally, but there was so much risk involved. So you're educating them on that side of the business and all the other aspects of our bringing ads team and so on. And if you're at every step of the way, there's just all these great opportunities. The biggest success that I had was actually onboarding Ford Motor Company. So it was the first OEM to sell on eBay, which was great. And that was, that was such a, an accomplishment. It was our integration team. We had the ads team, the account management team, everybody's helped support to get Ford Motor Company to actually come on board. And that was the last group that I brought on to sell on eBay before I switched over to events and partnerships. And so then I moved over into a role of getting out there and educating the consumer, the buyers on the benefits of shopping on eBay. So that was a great experience. And the challenges with Solovet side of things is I come from an industry where it's all about car parts and the physical touch and seeing things and looking at them when you go to a trade show or, you know, things like that. There's trust in that side of it. So getting people to understand and develop that trust to shop on eBay is a big thing. So we had parts and accessories on display at a NASCAR race. We went to professional bull riding because not everyone's into motorsport. So a lot of the events we went to, we, we actually incorporated where the other side of the business is. And when you look at PBR and professional bull riding, and you've got a whole other community of trucks and trailers and UTVs and workhorses and things like that, that was a great opportunity as well to expose eBay Motors to a different industry, a different demographic, a different category. So, you know, that's, that's what I'm doing today. And I'm on my third year of doing the SEMA show.

Georgea: Oh yeah. That's coming

Sarah: up. Yes. Yeah. It's the largest automotive aftermarket accessory trade show in Las Vegas in November. So we've had some great successful years and yeah, that's right in the middle of getting that set up and for our sellers, our account management, our BD team. So continue to have success with talking to our sellers.

Georgea: So all your worlds have now intertwined and you can use those transferable skills. That's amazing. Sarah, where can we find you in your store online?

Sarah: Absolutely. You can find it at BMI Parts and More. Shigga, what I've got listed, a lot of our old race parts from off road racing, drifting, rallycross car that we built. So check it out and shoot me a message if you have any questions.

Georgea: Well, thank you so much for being here today. This was awesome.

Sarah: I appreciate it. I've had a lot of fun telling my story and appreciate the time.

Georgea: Sarah Burgess sells on eBay under the store name BNI Parts and More. Got a need for speed? Check it out for your motor needs. We hope you'll join us on our next segment where we'll shine the spotlight on another seller with an amazing story to share. Now back to Griff.

Kayomi: You've got questions.

Griff: We got answers. They're right here on the table next to me. And as always, Kami, we have two questions this week, and the first one is an unusual one, not unheard of. It's actually happened to many sellers, including myself. So I think it's worthy of addressing in case this should happen to you. Would you like to read it, Kayomi?

Kayomi: You know I would. This was a question recently posted by a seller. We got an order from eBay to export to Japan, but the writing, name only from what they show us, is in Japanese, not what we can read. Does this cause a problem for export? I've never seen this before in twenty three years of this. What do you think, Griff?

Griff: I'm going to assume that the seller is using eBay international shipping. So prior to eBay international shipping and and before that prior to even the old sunset at global shipping program, a name or worse address in Chinese or Japanese characters, it could be an issue. And, I remember a long time ago, I actually had to do some translating in order to get the post office to accept the package. But with eBay international shipping, you don't have to worry about this. So the actual information that the eBay international shipping team needs at the hub, in order to forward the package to the right destination. It's inside all that barcode information on the package itself. So all you need to do in a situation like that is print the label as shown, including with the name and Japanese kanji characters, and you just ship it to the address in the hub, and everything should be fine. There shouldn't be an issue, especially if the address is there. By the time it gets from the hub to its address, the postal system on that side in that country knows how to read the characters and make sure it gets to that person. So the only time it would be an issue again is if you're shipping on your own, you're not using eBay international shipping and the address isn't clear, then it could be a problem and you might have to do a little translating. Luckily, you got Google and Google translate works pretty well. So there you go.

Kayomi: Or funny story. I remember I popped into our Japan channel we have, and I saw someone like, the latest message was someone with the same issue. They were like, hey. I got this name in Japanese. Can anyone here help me? So, yeah, there are alternative methods. If you don't know anyone who speaks Japanese like some employee did on the team, at least you have Google.

Griff: So this was internal, like, on our Slack channel?

Kayomi: Internal. Yeah. They, like, went into the Japan hub where the office is and was like, hey. Can anyone help me with this? This is completely in Japanese and I cannot understand this at all.

Griff: And they translated it for him?

Kayomi: Yeah. I think so. I think there was a thread going on. Mhmm.

Griff: I think it's always better to have somebody who speaks the language because there may be some nuance in the syntax or, you know, use of a colloquialism that could throw off the meaning. So

Kayomi: As someone who's taken what, like four years of Japanese, yeah, Google, maybe a good resource, but if you know someone who can speak it, please go to them because there's so much nuance.

Griff: Well, you'll be putting your Japanese to good use as we speak. You should be there in Japan enjoying your vacation. I hope it's not too hot.

Kayomi: I hope so too.

Griff: I never make requests, but if you find a really cool printed fan, I love fans. So

Kayomi: Okay. Well noted.

Griff: Okay. Our second question this week was when I found on the eBay community boards. I was really intrigued by this one since the thread of responses is fairly large. So let me start it off. The OP wrote, that's the original poster, Hi, everyone. A few days ago, my store displays the following message. We are sold out, but here are some other stores you may be interested in. And the reason he knows this is he was informed that in some countries like the US, Canada, etcetera, my products are appearing normally. But countries like Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, etcetera, can't see anything. I want to note that I do ship to these block countries. Does anyone know how to help me? So this it's very interesting. As I said, it was posted on the eBay community boards back in March, so four months ago. And there's been a lot of responses over the past few months. Some of them really good. As you know, our sellers are pretty expert at helping out other sellers. But I noticed on closer read that I couldn't find any that addressed the actual reason for the seller's items not appearing in sites outside of ebay dot com. So seller, you see, the reason that your items were not displaying outside of the US is because you listed them with eBay international shipping as the shipping option for international. Now I took a look at your listings and suddenly it made sense because there is a list of items by category that are not eligible for shipping through eBay international shipping. You can find that list on the help page for eBay international shipping on eBay. Just click help and type in eBay international shipping, and look for the area on the help page that says restricted categories. And one of the categories that is restricted is coins, paper money, and stamps. Now since all of your listed e inventory on ebay dot com is in that category, your items won't appear on eBay sites outside of ebay dot com. However, if a buyer is in, say, Greece and they're perusing ebay dot com, they can find your listing. But when they attempt to purchase it, they will see a error message telling them that the item can't be shipped to them or is not available, etcetera. I don't know exact wording of the message. So that's what's happening to you.

Kayomi: Okay. Well, that makes sense. So this is due to an eBay international shipping category restriction.

Griff: Exactly. And I have that same experience intentionally with fragrance. So if I put as my international destiny, shipping method, eBay international shipping, fragrance is a restricted category. They don't show up. I have had requests from people that are located, say, in Europe, and they've seen my item, and they go, oh, I really want this. How much to ship here? And I just have to tell them, I'm sorry. I can't ship outside of the country. There's really no effective way for me to do this that's legal because of fragrance and, the restrictions for hazardous material.

Kayomi: Yes. And we are law abiding citizens. Yes. We try to be. Well, Grif, what if the seller listed his coins and paper money using a shipping option other than eBay international shipping? Would his items then appear on international eBay sites?

Griff: Yes. More than likely. So there are, however, other possible roadblocks that might block your listings if they are in certain categories that are regulated by, say, the new European Union regulations, like the general product safety regulations that go into effect in December. In that new rule, I don't see anything that has an impact on coins, paper money, or stamps. But there are country restrictions you have to worry about. And you so you can read up about the restrictions of the general product safety regulations for the European Union prior to their going live for eBay listings in December. You can do so on the GPSR's website, and I'll put a link to there, as we always do.

Kayomi: And like you said, this was posted on our community forum. And if you haven't visited our community, you definitely should. There are thousands of savvy, smart sellers who post excellent answers to seller questions on all sorts of topics. It's really a valuable resource that you might need someday, so make sure you check it out. Even if you don't have a question right now, you might have an answer. And I'm not just saying this because I'm biased.

Griff: For those who forget, Kaomi actually heads up the community. So Yeah. Well, that's excellent advice there, Kaomi. Thank you so much. That's community dot ebay dot com, or you can click the community link on the bottom footer of any eBay web page. Well, that's all the questions for this week, Kayomi.

Kayomi: We ended it on a good note. And if you have a question about selling on the world's most powerful platform, why not ask us? You can call in your questions at eight eight eight seven two three four six three zero. Or if you prefer, you can always email us at podcast at ebay dot com. That is podcast at ebay dot com.

Griff: It's time for this week's tip of the week, and this week's tip of the week comes from me.

Kayomi: Okay. Let's hear it.

Griff: Okay. So my tip is to consider using all compostable materials for packing. So for example, instead of using plastic sealing tape, I now use that paper tape that, you get the back end of it wet, it seals. It's for I use it for sealing packages, and I buy the one from the eBay shipping supply store that has the word eBay in black on cardboard colored tape. I bought one of those inexpensive paper tape holders that lets you wet and cut the paper tape. It was less than ten bucks. And I also started using that honeycomb paper instead of bubble wrap. This is like thick cardboard paper, and when you stretch it, it opens up and makes like a honeycomb. This works really well in most packing situations. For heavier items, I substituted a long time ago, cornstarch peanuts for Styrofoam peanuts. Those you can put in the sink and run water over them and they turn back into cornstarch like a slurry and they just go down the drain. They're perfectly safe for the environment or septic tanks. I hope these tips help other sellers who wanna go green with packing. It can be done.

Kayomi: Those are great tips. When When you were reading it, I was like kind of transfixed. I was like, these are great alternatives.

Griff: Yeah. And they work. The only thing that isn't recyclable, I use eBay tissue for as a adjunct to the honeycomb, and the only thing that isn't recyclable in all of that is the paper tape has reinforcing a type of poly thread that goes through it.

Sarah: Oh.

Griff: And I don't think that's recycled. But in the scheme of things, it's a very small amount. So

Kayomi: Oh, yeah. Especially compared to all the other changes you've made.

Griff: Yes. Yes.

Kayomi: Well, thanks for that, Griff.

Griff: I feel eco.

Kayomi: Yes. Keeping the planet alive for me. Thank you. And of course, your weekly reminder, check the transcript for links referenced in the episode and check the eBay announcement board every day to stay up to date on eBay news, launches, and changes.

Griff: Now on our next episode, we'll be talking about the two thousand twenty four eBay open event planned for September. And with us to help talk about the event and what's new this year is our very own head of seller events, Allison Engalls.

Kayomi: And, of course, we'd like to again thank our guest this week, eBay manager and P and A enthusiast events, Sarah Burgess.

Griff: Well, that's all for this week. Georgea Mpampanis is our monthly cohost and guest coordinator.

Kayomi: And I'm your weekly cohost, Kayomi Kayoshi.

Griff: And I think I'm editor in chief and host, Griff. The evening for business podcast is produced in house and distributed by Quill and co host. We'll see you next week, Kayomi.

Kayomi: See you.