Episode 134 || eCommerce Trends for 2021

[podcast_team]

This week, Griff and Rebecca talk to VP and Research Analyst at Forrester, Sucharita Kodali, about buying trends for 2021.Kirsty Dunn returns with news of the latest eBay For Business Facebook Sweepstakes, and Griff and Rebecca answer two seller questions; Moving Listings from one account to another, and Best Offer text box auto-fill.

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Rebecca: This week on the eBay For Business Podcast:

Sucharita: "Marketplaces have done incredibly well through the pandemic and they will continue to do well even after the pandemic, because A, Consumers tell us, but B We know the customer acquisition that many of these top marketplaces gained in the last year will continue to carry through.”

Rebecca: I'm Rebecca.

Griff: And I'm Griff and this is the eBay For Business Podcast, your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start running, grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace. And this is episode 134. Welcome back, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Thanks, Griff. I'm glad to be here.

Griff: What's up in your week?

Rebecca: I've had a pretty good week. Thanks, Griff. How about you?

Griff: Boy am I used to working for eBay at home at this point? How about you?

Rebecca: I sure am. And yeah, I think it was this week. Maybe last that we lapped ourselves from working at home and it's been a year.

Griff: It has been a year since the full effect of the pandemic has been enforced for all of us. Whether you work at eBay or not. And it's been a year since we've been in the office working. I can barely remember what it looks like.

Rebecca: I for one will be glad to get back in the studio that we have there, right on the eBay campus for this podcast.

Griff: Have you even seen it?

Rebecca: I saw it once. I saw it once. Yeah.

Griff: Well good. We'll assume we'll be back there soon. I hope.

Rebecca: I hope so.

Griff: Well, it's been a year who knows, but things are looking better. The new normal is approaching us. We're going to talk a lot about that today, but first is there any news Rebecca? I searched on eBay and I couldn't find any breaking eBay news.

Rebecca: Well, it's not eBay news specifically, but there is some global news that I think our sellers might be thinking about. And I don't know if you've heard Griff, but apparently there is a ship currently stuck in the Suez canal.

Griff: Yes, I did. It's terrible.

Rebecca: And I was reading an article this morning that said the number of vessels waiting is growing exponentially and I shouldn't be laughing. It's, it's actually quite serious and it's going to affect shipping schedules around the world. You know, after I read the article, I shot an email off to members of our Shipping Team here at eBay and asked the question, you know, is this something that our sellers need to worry about? I'm still waiting for that answer, but certainly we'll share the news if we think that there's going to be any impact to shipping for sellers, but more importantly, there might be some impact on sourcing.

Griff: It's all freight. Most of it. So there could be goods that are heading to suppliers then heading to eBay sellers that could be held up. Absolutely. And you know, I think it's fair to say that the whole world is watching with bated breath to see if that teeny tiny little excavator?

Griff: Yeah, I thought maybe what was needed is you have to put a whole bunch of laxative into the Suez canal, and that would get things moving.

Rebecca: Griff with you It's always the Elementary canal.

Griff: It is. Well, fingers crossed perhaps when this episode is released, the news will be good. And the canal will be functioning again and ships will be going full speed ahead to their destinations anyway.

Rebecca: Well, hopefully they are able to get that canal un corked.

Griff: They need team to eat more fiber. That will do it. sorry.

Rebecca: (laugher) I hope you edit this out. Okay. Joking aside. It actually is something that we'll be keeping our eye on. Griff, let's get serious. This week you and I are going to talk to VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester Sucharita Kodali about online shopping and buying trends that she sees for the rest of this year and possibly beyond. She's a friend of the podcast and we're glad to welcome her back. We also have two questions to answer that were sent into podcast@ebay.com.

Griff: Oh yes. They're great questions. One of them is really thorny and complex, but I think we can answer it. I can't wait to expose this question. It's something that a lot of sellers have thought about, but I think they'll reconsider after they hear my answer. But first let's visit with a friend of ours because a familiar voice is here with some news.

Rebecca: Our good friend, eBay, Senior Manager of Seller Engagement, Kirsty Dunn is back with us here in her studio fort welcome Kirsty.

Kirsty: Thanks for having me, Griff. Lovely to be back.

Griff: I'll explain later what I mean by our fort. But in the meantime, I hear you have some news to share?

Kirsty: I do indeed some exciting news for sellers. We've actually just launched another sweepstakes on our eBay for business Facebook page. You might remember that at the end of last year, we had the Holiday Hustle Sweepstakes, which were great. We had obviously a lot of different answers and amazing tips and tricks came through from sellers. So we've decided we want to do that again and get some participation and more amazing hints and tips. So yes, we just launched that last week and it runs through to the end of this week actually until next Monday, the 5th of April. So yeah, that's just launched on the eBay For Business Facebook page.

Griff: What do we have to do to join? And what can we win?

Kirsty: So the prizes for each post, there will be one entrance from each post will win a hundred dollar eBay gift card. Limit of one price per person. But what we're basically doing is asking six specific questions over the term of the sweepstakes to canvas tips and tricks from sellers. They can comment, they can share pictures for their chance to win. We've already asked a couple of questions already. So around what are your best practices for listing? How do you promote your eBay store on social media? And there's a couple of more exciting questions coming up this week. And as you can imagine, we've already had some amazing tips and tricks come through and some great comments, which I'm sure we'll be revisiting on the podcast in a future episode.

Griff: Yes, we did that last time. It was really great. We went over some of the best ones.

Kirsty: Yeah. Some of the packing tips. I still just remember. I learned so much from that. So hopefully we'll have some similar, awesome podcast segments coming up. Keep an eye out on the eBay for business Facebook page. You can actually go back to all of the previous ones and enter. So it's not, you just enter the future ones. You have six opportunities to enter, so six different posts. So go in and have a look and comment or share a picture and you could win a hundred dollars eBay gift card. But then I think one of the other things is you could obviously feature your tip, could feature on a future podcast, or it could feature on the Facebook page as well. You might know that we put an inspirational quote up every Sunday and that's actually from an eBay seller. This is kind of how we collect some of that. You could feature on the Facebook page as well.

Griff: Maybe you can feature on the podcast. We're always looking for sellers to come on and talk about how they do business too, and share that with other sellers.

Kirsty: Exactly. Yeah. I think sellers just have so many great tips from their own business. And I think learning from each other, and as I said, we learned something new as well. Get in there, enter the competition, share your tips, share your comments, share your photographs for a chance to win. And you could feature on the podcast or on the Facebook page.

Griff: You know, it's true. There's that old saying sharing is caring. You know, we say with children, but on eBay sharing is actually the lifeblood of a lot of businesses. A lot of sellers really depend on learning how other sellers have found ways to make business more efficient, whether it's in operations or in listing or in taking photos or in promotions on eBay and sharing these kinds of tips. It's great for the business, but it's great for eBay sellers.

Kirsty: Yeah. There's always something new to learn. And even just sharing which YouTube videos or YouTube stars you follow, or how you learn about new products or how you learn about sourcing inventory or how you market your business. Obviously there's so many different sellers and so many different business models, but you might find something that you haven't tried before. And I'm a huge fan of test and learn. It's always good to see what other sellers are doing and give it a go and see if it works for you and your business.

Griff: Absolutely. So let's give them the location again, what's that URL for the eBay For Business Facebook page

Rebecca: facebook.com/ebayforbusiness, and you will be able to go back to the posts which started on the 22nd of March. So there'll be six total posts between then and the 5th of April for you to enter, to win a hundred dollar eBay gift card.

Griff: You can enter as many times as you want, but you're only eligible for one gift card.

Rebecca: That's correct. Yes.

Griff: You can answer all six posts.

Rebecca: Absolutely. Get in their comments on all of them. You only have one chance to win, but six chances to share your tips and tricks and six chances for you to also learn from other sellers.

Griff: Do we say how many winners there'll be?

Kirsty: Six total winners.

Griff: Six total winners. Okay, great. Can you give us a hint of the future questions or are those going to be a surprise?

Rebecca: Well, I can give you a hint. We've actually already had four questions. And so the next two are more about seasonality & retail moments in particular looking ahead to the summer retail months seasonality and just trying to find out what sellers do to be prepared for those moments and which ones are biggest for their businesses. Lots of different questions. As I said, listing best practices, how you promote your store on social media. There's going to be a lot of goodness comes out from all of them. And I'd encourage you to go through and read the responses from the other sellers as well on the posts. And there might be something new for you to apply to your business. Seasonality is going to be a huge one this year. Now that the pandemic is winding down, people are talking about this summer being a summer, that's somewhat of a return to normal, whatever that's going to mean, but that means lots more people going out enjoying the summer. And if you're a seller whose inventory has anything to do with any of that seasonality, this is a time to really be on your toes.

Kirsty: Absolutely. And yeah, actually one of the questions was asking what sellers are looking forward to most this summer. What activity they are looking forward to doing. Not all business we're keen to see and others are excited to get out and about a little bit more, hopefully this summer. And I'm sure our sellers are too.

Griff: Not everyone likes to stay cooped up for a year.

Kirsty: This is true.

Griff: So a new normal is coming. That's good news. And if you sell on eBay, you want to be able to service that new normal when it comes to seasonality by offering things that people are going to be looking for. I think back to school, is going to be a huge season this year.

Kirsty: Yeah, absolutely. There's certainly some kind of return to normal, but there's definitely going to be some pandemic trends that continue and that do kind of really change the landscape.

Griff: You know what my favorite pandemic trend that I hope never goes away.

Kirsty: What is it?

Griff: We have millions of new buyers. Let's keep them.

Kirsty: Oh, absolutely. That is the plan.

Griff: Kirsty. It's always a pleasure. Thanks so much for taking the time to tell us about the sweepstakes. And I look forward to some of the content that we get from sellers when they share those tips and tricks with you.

Kirsty: Thank you so much for having me graph a pleasure as always.

Griff: Same here. Kirsty Dunn is the senior manager for Seller Engagement. She stops by on a regular basis to tell us news about what's happening on the eBay For Business Facebook page, please go visit it. You want to enter the contest. It doesn't take any effort whatsoever. You just have to type. And who knows? You could win a hundred dollar gift card.

Rebecca: Sucharita Kodali is VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research. She's an expert on e-commerce, Omni channel retail, consumer behavior, and trends in the online shopping space. Thank you for being here.

Rebecca: Yeah, welcome Sucharita.

Sucharita: Thank you guys so much for having me.

Rebecca: Shopping entered a new era under COVID. How has retail and buyer behavior changed through the pandemic? And are there any retailer examples that you can think of who have adapted the best?

Sucharita: Rebecca there are so many changes that happened in the last year. I mean, certainly we saw a huge acceleration of e-commerce adoption. E-commerce of course had been a rocket ship, even leading up to the pandemic and then with all of the store closures, with the changes in where consumers could purchase, even if you could go to a store, there were often out of stock. The internet became the savior for many, many consumers, whether it was an essential purchase and people were looking for toilet paper or paper towels, or whether they were looking for discretionary purchases, which in many cases absolutely were happening online because a lot of those stores were closed and it was everything from exercise equipment to leggings, to home office equipment like webcams and headsets that consumers needed to get themselves through this first few quarters. So there were definitely major, major changes. We saw a 30 plus percent year over year growth in e-commerce collectively in 2020, over 2019, which was more than twice the number of 2019 over 2018. So big acceleration. And then of course the big winners. That was the other takeaway was that the marketplaces all marketplaces did particularly well because they were able to aggregate so much supply from different sellers and those sellers were able to respond really rapidly to shopper demands.

Griff: You just described my life as a shopper in the last year. I bought exercise equipment. I bought office equipment. I now buy my groceries online. So I've seen a big change as well. I've been thinking to myself though Sucharita,, what's this going to mean for 2021 and beyond? How will COVID trends in your opinion continue to impact seasonality? And are there any anticipated changes to the types of items that were typically successful through the summer months in the past?

Sucharita: Yeah. And the good news about 2021 is that it looks like we are headed toward the light at the end of the tunnel with respect to the pandemic. It does look like consumers will likely return to "normal", whatever that means. But yeah, what that likely will result in is a lot of resumption in purchasing some of those discretionary goods that may have been a little bit softer in 2020. Things like say jewelry or dresses or work outfits that people didn't really buy too much of in 2020 will likely pick up again in 2021. There's no question about that. You know, I think for summer last year, it was probably a lot of outdoor equipment. I think this year there's probably a lot of kinds of outfits for weddings, you know? So I think that there, those are some of the big differences that we no doubt expect to see. Those are some of the things that, uh, that we absolutely can anticipate. Oh, one of the things I will mention is that one of the big questions we get is how is 2021 going to be fair overall versus 2020? Are we going to hold onto these gains? You know, are people gonna keep going? Are they going to just, you know, go back to the offline shopping habits? What I will say is that e-commerce for the most part will hold on to its gains, not every category like, you know, for instance, things like restaurant delivery. A lot of that's probably going to go back to the physical restaurant, but as far as packaged delivery is concerned for most of those goods, we do expect that a lot of the consumers that purchased in 2020 are going to keep purchasing online in 2021. We actually expect that it's going to be a low teens, about a 13% year over year growth for e-commerce in 2021, over 2020 on top of the 30% growth that we saw last year.

Rebecca: I know that some of my habits have changed as well over this year. And looking forward, it's interesting to think about the ways that we'll correct back into whatever the before times used to be.

Griff: The new normal. Rebecca: Exactly. Or the new abnormal, as I've heard people talk about it, but you know, we're still in spring now. We've, we've talked about, uh, what's up ahead, you know, looking into the summer and beyond, but right now, just recently, the biggest news has been about this recent round of stimulus that happened just over the last few weeks. It's really just still hitting bank accounts today. How do you see that impacting retail into 2021?

Sucharita: Huge, huge. I mean, this is the third stimulus check that has been mailed to Americans and it's the biggest one. So the first one was last April, that was $1,200. There was a second one in December that was $600. This is $1,400. Every stimulus check within days, you would hear anecdotally retailers saying we saw it in our sales. And what's really interesting is that that's not, you know, shopping isn't even the first place that consumers are spending their stimulus check. They're spending it on a lot of basics like rent or utilities or whatever, maybe the bills that they need to pay. A lot of them are paying down debt. In many cases, they're saving money and further down on the list, depending on which survey you look at, I mean, it's anywhere from like number five to number eight on the list of what do people do with their stimulus money is buying discretionary goods, but yet retailers will tell us that they absolutely saw bursts in demand that were very tied to this money landing in the consumer bank accounts. I expect big benefits to retailers across all categories. The essential retailers actually will benefit more because that's actually what people tend to buy. Even in greater frequency, especially the consumer, that's getting a stimulus check. But you have a non-trivial percent of people like usually high single digit percent that say that that's, you know, it's the birthday gift that they'd put off for many months for, you know, somebody in their family or, you know, it's something they may have had their eye on that they're finally now able to afford. The other thing that I think also helps consumer spending now is that the unemployment rate is substantially lower now than it was in April. Last year. Back in April, that unemployment rate was like 14% in the U S the consumer was more likely to need that stimulus check for basic expenses. They didn't have any other money coming in other than maybe some government unemployment insurance. Whereas now the unemployment rate is down substantially from where it was last October. It's like down to 6%. Now you do have a lot of consumers who are still receiving stimulus checks, but also are employed. This truly is a bonus to the economy because this is money that they can either choose to save or to spend.

Rebecca: When you think about the goodness that comes out of the stimulus checks, are you saying that that's a real spike or is there a long tail that will create momentum into the coming quarters?

Sucharita: That's a good question. And typically anytime there's a one-time drop like a check like this, or you see a tax holiday or, you know, kind of, you see like a shopping festival. Those do tend to be one-time bursts because they're not sustained over time. But Rebecca, the question that is in your question is what's the future hold and are things in a better place now for the future. And I would argue that they are in a better place for the future because we have more vaccines being distributed in more places. We have more people working. We have more people resuming, they're all old lives. We have more States enabling businesses to return to larger and larger capacities. All of those things are in addition, like the stimulus is one thing which was like a burst of demand in spring. You have all of those other things that should help in Q2 through the summer and the rest of 2021.

Griff: New buying habits like mine are probably here to stay in some respect. You mentioned this hold over into what we're entering now, the great unknown new normal, but it's definitely changed the way we buy. If I'm thinking from the eBay seller retail business, end of this, what would be your advice about how a seller or a merchant needs to evolve in the next coming months and year in order to keep those buyers coming back who have adopted these new trends? Like we've had so many new buyers come to eBay and I think sellers are worrying about this. Okay, they're here. What do I have to do to keep them coming to buy from me? What do I have to evolve?

Sucharita: Some of it is I think the answer lies in merchandising and making sure that the sellers are on trend, that they have the products that consumers are interested in. And that's the constant challenge of just understanding what people want. Sourcing those products wherever they're available. Trying to find the unique niches that you're able to find. I mean, the good is that as e-commerce grows, that means that there is going to be a longer tail of things that people want. And what I've seen from sellers and you guys probably have a better sense of it even than I do. Some of the best sellers are those that have probably evolved over the years from a product assortment standpoint. So they've leaned into new categories or new offerings. They've forged new partnerships as they grow. They figure out how to source things differently, or they go straight to manufacturers In some cases. That's likely a huge part of the ability to kind of adapt and pivot if there are new trends that you're seeing that others are not in. And I think that that's really where the opportunities are. It's not going to be selling the same thing that 85,000 other e-commerce sites have; it's in trying to find those niches that haven't yet been exploited. The other aspect is to ensure that sellers are reaching consumers where they are. And two things that we have observed in recent years really is, is just the continued growth of mobile shopping and making sure that all of the content that you're providing as a seller, whether it is imagery or video or whatever the assets are that provide the information that shoppers need to complete transactions, that all of that is works agnostic to the device where a consumer may be accessing that content from. And a lot of how you think about content needs to exist with the knowledge that the consumer is going to be looking at that from a smaller screen. They may not, you know, kind of fully go to the bottom of the page. You know? So there's that challenge of how much can you put that is the adequate amount of information on that smaller screen that helps that shopper make that decision. And then the other piece is how fragmented the shopper is in how they're discovering things. And, you know, we've seen so much from the growth of social commerce and these new social platforms. I mean, everything from well Reddit it's not new, but you know, it seems to have got a second life over the last, last few years. You know, or whether it's Snapchat or Clubhouse or discord or whatever the case may be. In addition to some of the big behemoths in social media like Instagram, these are all opportunities for sellers to build their audiences and reach customers and experiment with new messages and how they can reach shoppers and communities. You know in addition to the core eBay community. Being able to leverage all of that, the willingness to experiment with new formats, whether it's live shopping or whatever the case may be. I think all of those are opportunities.

Griff: I love the concept of finding those niches, that other retailers or merchants aren't filling right now. That's always been a good leverage on eBay for sellers, but more so now than ever because the competition just gets so fierce.

Sucharita: Right. And the hardest part about that is you don't always know what you don't know, right. But that's where some of the most innovative entrepreneurs are, is that they've found ways to source ideas. And some of the most interesting entrepreneurs are just taking what they know from a category level, maybe selling. And they're looking at attributes that may be gaps in, like a price point that is missing or a color that could be new to a product that could attract an audience.

Griff: I'm thinking of a category that got saturated very quickly in the last 12 months. And I would never recommend a seller get into it unless they have something that's definitely different than everything that's being offered. And those are masks.

Griff: Yes. I think that the demand for masks and or the availability was very different in March last year versus this year for sure.

Sucharita: I'm bombarded with offers for buying a mask now, whatever marketplace or social media platform I'm on.

Rebecca: Can you share your top advice or key takeaways for our listeners?

Sucharita: It is good to keep in mind that marketplaces have done incredibly well through the pandemic and they will continue to do well even after the pandemic, because A consumers tell us, but B we know the customer acquisition that many of these top marketplaces gained in the last year will continue to carry through. These are shoppers that have found value either through new products that they wouldn't have found otherwise, or it could be value for money. It could be an assortment that was really unique. So from that standpoint, I think that is just an important piece to keep in mind, you know, kind of one of the big things. I mean, certainly from a traditional retail standpoint, we know that things like digital payments and curbside pickup have been very popular, but from an e-commerce standpoint, it really is about the marketplaces. The second thing that I would say is that we do expect growth to continue to be positive in 2021. There will be no drop off in e-commerce sales. E-commerce will continue to gain share. And probably in the next few years, we expect that a quarter of all retail sales will happen online, which is huge because when I started in this industry, it was like less than 5%. So that's a pretty substantial shift. The last things that I would say is to just be aware of, and to embrace the channels as they evolve. And that could be devices that consumers are accessing content like mobile devices could be connected TV or other ways that people are consuming content in the future, but also the new platforms, which are also how people are often discovering products and where they learn a lot of what they learn about. So to be mindful of those opportunities as customer acquisition vehicles, as places to hone your pitch and to really even potentially to learn about maybe gaps in the market that you didn't know existed before.

Griff: And I love that you're positive after a year of such doom and gloom and tragedy for so many people to think that, you know, we are finally coming out of this in a way that looks to be really positive for our sellers, especially is really good news.

Sucharita: Yeah, it is. I think that the pandemic was great for a lot of e-commerce companies and eBay included, and there is reason to believe that that energy and that level of adoption will, will still be there.

Griff: Well, thank you so much. We really appreciate it Sucharita.

Sucharita: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Rebecca: Sucharita Kodali is VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester research. Find them online at go.forrester.com.

Rebecca: You got questions.

Griff: We got Answers. We even got answers to questions you haven't even asked.

Rebecca: Are we psychic?

Griff: Yeah, that's it.

Rebecca: Good to know .What's our first question.

Griff: It is from eBay seller Christina, who emailed podcast@ebay.com and she writes, "hello, Griff, Rebecca and Brian. See how she got all three of us in there. I have a question for you. I have two eBay seller accounts, and I want to transfer the listings from one account to the other. Is there an easy way to do it? Thanks and advanced Christina."

Rebecca: Thanks, Christina. So Griff, is there an easy way to transfer listings from one account to a second account?

Griff: No.

Rebecca: No?

Griff: Yes.

Rebecca: Yes, no. Sadly there isn't an easy way to transfer listings from one account to a second account. Think about it. If there was an easy way to do this, if somebody whose account was taken over, they can end up quote, unquote, stealing those listings. So, no, there's, there's deliberately no easy way to do this. However, there is a not so easy way to transfer listings between two accounts, but before we even start to talk about how that works, I have to say everything depends on two critical factors. First is the age of your second account. And if it's been used recently and continuously for selling. Those two factors will determine the current selling limitations of your second account. For example, if your second account is one that is established with a previous sales history, then moving your existing listings from your first to your second account should be doable. Although it's going to be a lot of work. However, if the second account is new, then it will have fairly restricted limitations on the number of listings you're allowed to list.

Rebecca: It sounds like this is actually pretty wise so that you can't just hop from account to account if you're a nefarious seller.

Griff: Yeah. And it's not even nefarious, what it is is that we always make the assumption without any other knowledge, that if you're a new account, without some restrictions about how much you can list, we found in the past that sellers can get over their head real quick. They find a hundred items for example, and then find that they're not set up to fulfill them. And this results in a lot of bad buyer experiences, a number of years ago, I believe it was more than it's more than 10 it's at least 15 years ago. We started putting listing restrictions on brand new accounts, which lift over time as you continue to list. If your second account is new or is an old account for which there's been no recent sales activity, you're going to have to manually contact eBay Customer Support and request a limitation raise for the second. That is the new account before attempting to move any listings to it. Now, Customer Support may require you to supply certain documents before they would even consider raising the account limits for a new account. I think you can see this is starting to get a little complex.

Rebecca: I never realized before today that those initial listing limits were at least partially to protect a brand new seller from him or herself.

Griff: And also if you're a new seller with mischief on your mind, it'll prevent you from wreaking a lot of havoc, but it's mostly to protect sellers against the possibility of being overwhelmed. And if a raise in restrictions isn't provided by customer support, you'd have to add one listing at a time manually from your old account to your new account. And only at the rate allowed by the listing limits, which for brand new accounts, I think are still 10 listings.

Rebecca: It's a pretty manual process. If, it's a new account with restrictions in place.

Griff: Yeah. Now the other scenario is if your second account, Christine is an established account with a recent sales history, or if the owner that's, you have that second account has received approval for an increase in the allowable number of listings from customer support, the fastest way to move listings from an old account to a new account is to utilize a feature that eBay's had for years called file exchange. And we'll put the link to file exchange and the transcript with file exchange, you would download your existing listings into what is called a comma separated value files, CSV file. You can view that file in any spreadsheet program, if you need to, but then you would upload that same file to your new account using file exchanges upload feature.

Rebecca: It's essentially a download and then re-uploaded into the newer account. Does it, will that get all of the information from all of the listings?

Griff: Yeah, no, there's a catch because file exchange will not download and then upload any photos from your existing active listings. So you'd still have to add those photos from your computer to your new listings. Still, even with this one, going to be some manual labor involved.

Rebecca: It sounds like this really is a hands-on process.

Griff: In fact, it's not only hands-on, it's feet on and your friend's hands on and everything because the labor doesn't end there. If you happen to have copies of all the photos currently displayed in your listings, then you would just upload them to your new listings by revising each of the listings and adding the photos. But if you don't have copies of those photos. You would first have to download them from listings one by one, you know, by finding each one then right, clicking on it and clicking save image as, and then you'd save each as a copy on your computer. If you have a hundred listings with five photos and each on average, that's about 500 photos to download.

Rebecca: So you really have to be committed to making this change.

Griff: It's not easy. There is a post. I did some research and there's a post on our community forums from last year that has a step-by-step solution for adding photos to listings using file exchange. It may or may not work for Christina, but anyway, I'll put a direct link to that solution in the transcript for episode 134. And there's another tool you could explore that kind of does the same thing as file exchange. It's called the eBay Merchant Integration Platform. And I'll put that link as well in the episode transcript for 134 and MIP, as it's known Merchant Integration Platform, we've talked about it on the podcast before it's kept more up-to-date than file exchange. First thing you'll notice with file exchanges. It looks really old. It is. But with MIP, it's kept up to date with eBay changes to the listing process, and it's also more complex and takes more time to understand and configure the file exchange because it's meant for huge merchants that are moving merchandise onto eBay, and they probably have someone who's dedicated to that task in any event, no matter how you do it, you're still going to have to upload your photos as listing revisions. Just having said all that I realized, I think I'll just keep my listings in the same account.

Rebecca: No kidding. Well, if someone really wants to make this change, Like Christina. I hope that all of this helps. Let me just make sure I understand Griff. Depending on how many listings Christina has currently, she might be best off just relisting them one by one, is kind of what I heard. If she has hundreds of listings and the best option would be downloading all of her existing listings through, um, you called it file exchange and then downloading the photos one by one. If she doesn't have them already saved on her computer and then just uploading everything again through file exchange, and then the photos back in as well.

Griff: As a separate revision, that's it either way, Christina, there's a lot of work involved. Can I convince you to just keep the same account? It would be a lot easier. But if you have to do it, it's just a matter of how much work you are willing to take on. And you can eliminate with file exchange and that'll depend on the number of listings.

Rebecca: And again, all those links will be in the transcript, Christina. So our second question was emailed to us at podcast@ebay.com by eBay seller, Suzanne of 1852house. And she writes," I think most of us agree that sending best offers is a great eBay feature. My question is in regard to storing a message in the best offer message field that can be used more than once. I find myself typing in the same thing over and over. As we can store comments when leaving feedback a great feature and time-saver is there a way to do the same for best offers? Thank you. Always learning from Suzanne at 1852house PS. I don't have a thermal printer yet, but feel free to send me one. "Someone's listening about the printer Griff.

Griff: It's like manna from heaven, but Suzanne, if I send you a thermal printer, I'm going to have to send every listener, a thermal printer. Pretty soon I'll be in bankruptcy court. Hey, but don't let that stop you from buying one for yourself. I really encourage you to do so. If you haven't noticed.

Rebecca: Do you know what Griff. We should give one away?

Griff: Great idea. We could have a thermal printer giveaway contest. I'll make a note of that. Hold on. I'm going to write it right here in my little book there. Okay. But in the meantime, Suzanne, the autofill for best offer, isn't a feature currently available

Rebecca: But we can forward your request to Harry's team for their consideration.

Griff: Yeah, we can. It will. And we will we'll forward it to his team. But in the meantime, maybe you can create a text document with a list of all your common responses and keep it open. And then when you're answering you just copy and paste the proper response.

Rebecca: And I think some browsers have an autofill feature. Maybe that could help.

Griff: Yeah, I thought about that, but I'm not sure, perhaps Susan, if you're using Chrome, I know you can check to see that your browser's autofill feature is set to on. I think that just works for addresses, but it may work for other things. And that might help you filling any recurring texts that you type again, I'm not sure if that feature works on the best offer text box and I didn't have a way to test it before the podcast.

Rebecca: If any listener out there has a way to solve for this or a clever solution, please let us know at podcast@ebay.com. And in the meantime, I think we'll just say that we'll forward the suggestion to Harry's team for their consideration. Let's say that. Suzanne, thank you. That was a really good question. And if anyone else has a question like Suzanne or like Christina, let us know. You have two options. You can call it in at 888-723-4630.

Griff: That is 888-723-4630.

Rebecca: Or if you're not a call on the phone kind of person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast at eBay.com.

Griff: No, don't forget. It's time for your daily podcast to do list.

Rebecca: Ooh, I know this one. Yes. Number one. Check the announcement board for up-to-date Seller News.

Griff: Best tip ever. Second best is number two. Keep printing out big labels on your inkjet or laser printer using reams of letter sized paper rainforest, be damned and keep using roll after roll of environmentally unfriendly plastic tape to attach them to your parcels. That's definitely the professional way to make labels on your boxes.

Rebecca: Little reverse psychology Griff perhaps.

Rebecca: It'll never work will it you're right. It will never work. Our listeners weren't born yesterday and they already know how you feel about thermal printers. We've had proof today.

Griff: You can see right through me. I'm so transparent.

Rebecca: No comment. All right. Number three on your list. Check out the transcript for this and all episodes for follow up on what you've heard and to see the links we referenced during the episode.

Griff: We'd like to thank our guests again this week, eBay Senior Manager of Seller Engagement, Kirsty Dunn, and Vice President and Research Analyst from Forrester Sucharita Kodali.

Rebecca: The eBay For Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

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