Episode 5 || Optimize Your Listings for Holiday, Drop Culture and Weekly eBay News

[doug@ebay]

Welcome to Selling on eBay, your weekly source for the information you need to start, run and grow a business on the world's best marketplace! This week we talk about free returns for the holiday season and beyond with Cindy Aknin from eBay's Trust and Returns team, learn about drop culture with Liz Austin, and of course take some calls! To have your selling questions answered by our Selling on eBay staff during the next broadcast, call us at 888 723-4630. Use #ebaypodcast on social media, and you can also email us at sellingonebay@ebay.com.

What is this? Is this the script? You want me to read this? It's like 19 pages!

No it's not. I worked really hard on this baby.

I'm sorry. You did work really hard on this.

I’m trying to get your tone of voice and everything. Okay.

Okay. All right. Let's just. Let's just give her a try. Let's see how it goes.

I'm Griff

And I'm Andre Tracy and this is Selling on eBay. Your weekly source for information and inspiration you need to start, run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace.

Audrey, what number episode is is?

Five. Griff five.

Really?

Yeah, episode number five. And please, please, please don't tell me you have an episode five anniversary surprise, hidden under your desk. I still can't unsee the vanilla frosting all over your face from the last episode. Our so called one month anniversary. Oh, but that was fun. Wasn't it? Good Times. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, sure. Tell you what, let's hold off on any future celebrating of selling on eBay anniversaries until we have a real milestone like our 100th episode or maybe your retirement. Deal?

Well Ok deal. If we ever reached that number and like I'm ever going to retire.

Never.

So all cake aside, what do you have for us for today's show?

Well, our main story this week is all about free returns for the holiday season and beyond. We'll talk to Cindy Aknin from eBay trust and returns team. We'll also hear from two sellers who have adopted free returns and learn how the practice has impacted their business. What do you have for us this week Griff?

Well do you know what drop culture is?

No, What's drop culture?

We'll stay tuned. We're gonna learn about drop culture from Liz Austin when she comes back with a fresh new update of What's Trending on eBay, and of course we have our seller calls.

Oh, by the way, people are starting to call our hotline at 888-723-4630. I love it. That's great news. I was worried. No one cared. Griff you didn't promise them selling on eBay swag like tote bags or coffee if they called in, did ya?

Me? I did not. At least not yet.

Good. And remember, we're on a budget by the way. I need a new microphone. This one smells like your old Cologne.

I beg your pardon? That old Cologne is called Sex Panther and it's made of bits of real panther, so you know it's good. In fact, 60 percent of the time...

I know. I know. It's effective one hundred percent of the time. Another one of your movie references. Next you'll be calling me Veronica Corningstone.

You stay classy. Veronica Tracy Corningstone. Just don't call me Ron Burgundy.

You're more of a brick than a Ron Burgundy.

Nevermind. Let's go onto the news please.

Yes, let's. Lamp. I love lamp.

Oh, stop it!

On August 30th, 2018, California when we require certain sellers to display a Proposition 65 warning on online retail sites. If products contain chemicals and / or substances that may impact the health of California buyers . To enable sellers to show this flag, eBay is adding a new item specific to listing flows. You'll be able to add the newly created Prop 65 warning to your listing available in most categories via your desktop. Sellers can also provide additional details related to your products as part of the item description. To see if this applies to your business and learn more about Proposition 65, visit www.p65warnings.ca.gov. Again, that's www.p65warnings.ca.gov.

I wonder what they consider hazardous?

I think your perfume might be considered hazardous, Sex Panther.

Excuse me! US holiday ecommerce sales will be expand at a 15.3 percent clip this year according to marketers, new forecast. Now, as strong as that projected growth is, it's actually short of 2017 levels. When retail ecommerce sales soared to 17.8 percent in November and December. Overall, eMarketer expects total retail sales in the US to rise 3.8 percent during this year's holiday season. That's a slower pace than last years 5.5 percent gain. Consumer confidence in the US is high said eMarketer Yuri Windsor with low unemployment and rising wages, the immediate outlook for consumer spending remain solid. The picture is not uniformly brightly worn, noting that foot traffic continues to slump. For instance, retail next reported that foot traffic in US retail stores slipped by 7.7 percent in November and by 7.5 percent in December. The fact that total retail sales still grew at a healthy rate indicates that an increasing number of retailers are successfully managing the transition from primarily brick and mortar to omni channel.

This is what Windsor said, Omni channel, I guess that means like brick and mortar online, your phone, your head.

Wherever you can sell.

This is just a prediction. It could get proven wrong. I mean,

yeah, but you know, we've seen so many store closures in 2017 and 18.

That’s right, there's like 75 or 7,600.

Some of our favorite brands or stores are going out of business, which is sad, but I think what's happening is folks are headed to online, so that's great for eBay sellers.

Moving on, it's time to read the calendar of upcoming events. We call these in person events. These includes seller organized events like Meetups as well as events that eBay hosts like eBay Open and that eBy attends like trade shows. Now here's some of the upcoming eBay in person events that may be in an area near you.

On September 5th, the Oregon ecommerce sellers group in Portland, Oregon will meet from 6:30 to 9:00 PM.

To learn more like the location details, you have to join their Meetup. Search meetup.com on the words Oregon ecommerce sellers group. Again, that's Oregon ecommerce sellers group.

And on September 9th, the Ecommerce, Etsy, eBay, Amazon, and online seller mastermind in Detroit, Michigan. Notice how he glided over that. We'll meet from 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM and this meetup takes place at the Yankee Air Museum at 47884 D Street in Bellville, Michigan. The Zip code is 48111. I guess the zip codes there, if you want to send a mail.

Or holiday card.

Or a holiday card.

I want to go to the Yankee Air museum just to check that out

I'm sure there's planes.

I like plane.

Plane, I love plane.

I love plane. On September 11th, the Salt Lake City E-bay-a- holics Meetup group will convene at the eBay campus in Salt Lake City, specifically at 583 eBay Way Draper, Utah. 06:19 The meetup will take place from 7:00 to 9:00 PM . eBay employees will be in attendance to answer questions and present as well.

And on September 13th, the Greater New York City area eBay ecommerce Sellers Meetup group will meet between 5:00 and 8:00 PM at the New York Public Library, the Columbus branch in New York City, New York.

And I nearly forgot. If you're in the Seattle, Washington area on August 31st be sure to visit the eBay booth at the Pax West Show at the Washington Convention Center. The event takes place on August 31 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. You can learn more about the event at their website, West.Paxsite.com. That's West.Paxsite.com and you can search out our own Doug Smith. He's on our team here at Selling on eBay and he'll be interviewing attendees for a segment on a future show.

That's right. He'll be walking around with one of those recorders and I think you have one more news story for us.

I do. I just wanted to quickly mention a bit of news on how eBay continues to advocate on behalf of sellers. eBay Main Street, which is our government relations team, has sent a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury asking him to consider the needs of small businesses and specifically small businesses in small towns and rural areas. As government leaders talk about revamping the US Postal Service. I don't know if you've seen this in the news Griff, but there's a little bit of chatter about revamping, rethinking the US Postal Service.

Yeah, it's concerning.

Yes. It's concerning to eBay. USPS is a vital partner to both eBay and it's sellers and we want the Secretary to be fully aware of how changes may impact us.

Yeah, I know there's been talk about privatizing USPS which I think is a mistake.

I agree and I, I'm guessing that eBay agrees and that's why they sent the letter.

Did you know a little bit of Trivia about USPS? The distinction it bears?

It's the best and largest postal system in the world? Question Mark?

Okay. But there's also another distinction.

I. Okay. I don't know.

It's the longest running corporation in America. It's the longest running continually running institution. It was started by Ben Franklin.

That makes sense.

Like in the 1780’s.

Ben did a lot of great stuff.

Ah, he was a busy guy. He used to walk around his house naked. There's another little fact for ya.

Oh, okay. Well, TMI on that one. That's the news for this week. We'll have more news next week. And up next, What's Trending on eBay?

Well, okay, now it's time for that segment you love. It's Liz Austin and What's Trending on eBay. Welcome back, Liz.

Hello Griff.

So we've learned in the past episodes that I'm a Hype Beast and we learned about Supreme and Kith and tons of stuff. What do you have for us this week?

I was gonna give you some more words.

Oh no!

Yep but let's come to that. Okay. This week we're going to talk about health and beauty, something very dear to your heart.

Yeah it is because I'm a fragrance aficionado and I know that folds up to those categories.

Awesome. Well, we're going to talk about that in a little bit, but this trend is all coming about because it's the day of the selfies and social media and instagram. And now everyone is just spending so much time taking photos of themselves that they really care more about what they look like.

Oh, I see where this is going.

So people are spending more and more money on skincare and makeup for that very reason.

More and more people buy makeup then?

Yeah. Well that's, that's where we believe this trend is coming from because people are putting that's all about personal brands and really caring about what you look like in front of the camera. So as a result of that, kids starting to be interested in this from a super young age now and as we go closer, closer to Fall, those autumnal colors that we talked about last week..

Which I kinda don't have em today, Neutral blue and gray colors.

Not autumnal.

No. Well not every day.

Well red and brown really is probably what you should be dressing at the moment. Iridescence.

Iridescence, Russet, those colors, those colors.

So when you think about those colors, you think about putting them on your eyelids and on your cheeks. So they're obviously those colors are trending for Fall, get onto those and then Mascara. So again, back to the selfies. It's really like theater makeup now because everyone's in front of the camera and wanting to put their best foot first or their best face first.

And it's not just women,

it's not just women, it's men too. Absolutely.

Everyone's in on the game and Korean beauty products are up 35 percent as well, which is really interesting.

Korean?

Korean.

What's the differentiator here?

I'm not exactly sure, but that's data that we're sending on seeing on the site.

Korean beauty. Um, and I think globally as well. So there must be an interesting career for more makeup these days and perhaps they're particularly into selfies as far. I don't know.

What else do you have for us?

So back to iridescence. Glitter search is up 77 percent year on year. So it's all about glitter makeup. So at the moment, trending on my favorite site, explore.ebay.com Is this collaboration that Mac did to celebrate 17 years after Aaliyah tragically died, so Aaliyah being the R and B singer and cultural icon. Mac’s put out this collection of iron face products inspired by her looks. How amazing is that? Well her look lives on even after all this, because it was like 2000 or 2011.

Get your hands on those. They're trending, as I said, on explore.ebay.com . You wanna know a bit more about hair? So pastels and colors are still popular, it comes back and the caramels and the reds are trending and we're expecting them to trend even more.

And these are the dyes of the coloring that are,

they stand right out. So people are using them. yeah, I see it all the time with those youngsters.

Braids.

Braids.

Have you thought about putting a braid in your hair?

I have. And then I come to my senses. I'd love some Helga Braids. You know we could do Brunhilda, Hilda from the Valkyries.

That would be in this day called a Frozen Anna Braid.

Let it go, let it go.

That's the cultural icon for the moment.

It's why all the kids want braids. Why do men want those buns? Those little buns in the back of their head? I think the French say Chignon?

Are you talking another language?

Yeah, it's French.

It means that little bun that you know in the back of a woman's head now, men where them. They call them man buns and then you can buy detachable ones on eBay if you don't have enough hair to make your own bun.

Really? Have you got one?

On my person?

On your person, can you please bring that tomorrow i'd love to see it. With a top knot in your hair?

No, please. No, I don't have. There's nothing up there. How can I put a knot up there? Maybe a lump of skin. So all these things we should be looking at to source on eBay because there hot right now.

Absolutely, so were telling you what the buyer's looking for and what we imagine the buyers are looking for. So when you have these insights you can actually go and source what is going to trend. And then obviously as I said, you know, put a premium on it because that's what the buyer's looking for.

And that's what this site does that we created called explore.eBay.com

Well, this is where the collaboration that I was talking about, Aaliyah and Mac that's there, but we know from our merchandise teams that these trends and inventory that's going to be in demand by our buyers for Fall. So I'm getting these insights straight from our merchandise team and then I'm giving them straight to you.

So when we're looking at this page and it says something like, for example, look at some LeBron 15, these are, you know, tennis’s. If I can't find the exact model, does this mean that I might do okay with something that looks like this?

Maybe not that brand, but that style, is it a matter of being so focused on the brand or can we take this as a style guideline?

I think it depends on both. I mean the LeBron is obviously driven the price there because if his brand, but if it is a, some sort of fashion that's trending at the moment, so whether they're baggy pants or some sort of tee or a new star that's, you know, has been at the latest fashion week, then yeah, sure. That would potentially bring in some revenue that way, but it is these collaborations and the brands that probably mostly appear on explore.eBay.com because that's what drives this scarcity notion.

What else do you have?

I wanted to ask you about fragrance because I know that that's something that you sell and have quite a lot of success in selling.

I've been a collector for years, so I have a huge collection of fragrance at home.

And has that changed over the years? Because I know that there was, I was reading an article about Elizabeth Arden saying that celebrity endorsements of perfumes are no longer as popular as they were. And this is because of the next generations wanting things that are more personalized so they’re, they're layering scents now, so they'll put on, you know, three or four different scents so that they can create their own scent and this is called, and here's a new word for you sensploration.

Sensploration? Yeah. I like it. Do you know it? No, I've never heard it. It makes sense as an Aficionado I can take, that can be risky.

Why?

Because you can put the wrong sense together and end up with something that's not so good smelling.

Pungent, like a pungent patchoulli?

Exactly.

So how do you know what fragrances that are going to sell well, on eBay?

There's different niches in different markets. There is obviously the new releases and the new releases have a market. It's hard to make a market in those because those come out and there's a specific price and if there's a wholesale price, the big wholesalers are, they own that market.

Sure. So like Flowerbomb. I wear Flowerbomb.

I love that Viktor and Rolf.

But there's probably not much prosperity in that is there?

Not yet, but here's what a fragrance seller will do. We look for things that we think are going to be discontinued and then we start buying up stock. I've done that several times over the last 10 years. I get wind that something's going to be discontinued.

I buy up a lot of it, hold it for a few months. It becomes very, uh, people want it.

t's like this urgency. I've got to get it, got to get it before there's no more to get.

You know, it's sold out or it's out of stock or we no longer produce it. Where are they sent all these signals that you're getting. I used to participate more actively on different fragrance boards. There's a popular one called bass notes, uh, run by a guy named Grant Osborne and there's a lot of folks who chat on the chat boards. They get an in with a fragrance manufacturer and that manufacturer will let them know, you know, we're thinking of discontinuing this. And then when that word kind of leaks out among us, I'm paying attention and I've made some money doing that.

And you know, this is exactly the same theory as scarcity.

Exactly.

So people are getting these tips, you know, Nike is going to make a drop, Off White it's going to make a drop. And then they go and they line up and then they get them. They flip them, make a lot of money out of it, is exactly what you're doing, except that they're going to be scare because they're not making them anymore.

And a lot of the releases, celebrity releases are limited run either because it was planned that way or because they're not initially very successful.

Ohhh. So some of those initial runs, you got to watch them, but if you're looking for a potential market, I think this one's a lot of fun and it's easy to stay on trend on explore.eBay.com of course, but if you enjoy the smells, the smellies as we call them.

Or sensploration.

Or sensploration. Like any market, if you want to know what's hot and you want to make a market or you want to establish a presence in that market,

knowing the trends is really important. It's the same for everything. And fragrance has its own little particular points to watch out for.

And I think that's where as you say, Do your research, find out what's trending through articles.

When we talk about explore.eBay.com . This is a great tool for finding out what buyers want. There are so many tools out there that sellers can rely on too.

Don't forget the Seller Center, which is our educations or facilities. There in the holiday playbook. We've got locations for what to sell and how much to price it for. We send emails to our sellers that talk about what's trending from an inventory perspective and then what, how you can price them as well. So we're a platform built on a huge amount of data and what's the point in having all of these data if we're not sharing it to our sellers and informing them so that they can drive the most profitable growth on the platform.

So again, explore.eBay.com we'll always refer to that site. This is a fun place to learn what's trending based on, not eBay's opinion, but what buyers are telling us through their searches. And of course you should always check out categories, find out what's selling, just look at, go to a category and filter it for sold items. And then maybe highest price first and get some ideas there. What's actually, um, maybe we're not seeing it here necessarily on explore dot com but these could be specific things in different categories that you can keep an eye out for and then get on top of that trend so you can make a market in it. And when we think about holiday, these are incredible gifting items.

I'm not going to drop hints, but you know, a little green iridescent Mascara would go over well with me I think.

With you? Oh yeah, it would bring out my eyes.

Yeah, a bit of glitter, nice.

I would wear it.

With your top knot?

With my top knot and,...

And you're braid and your beard.

No one will even recognize me, Liz. It's always a pleasure. Thank you for stopping by.

My pleasure. See you next week.

See you next week. We've been talking to Liz Austin on our regular segment called Trending on eBay and we'll have more Trending on eBay next week.

With us now is now is Cindy Aknin from the eBay Trust and Returns team. Welcome Cindy.

Thank you for having me. So to start off, could we go over exactly how returns work on eBay?

Yeah, of course. Absolutely. So it's pretty straightforward. A buyer can request or initiate a return on the site, then it will get accepted on the seller side, so all the buyer has to do is print a label and that's a free label if the seller pays. And then once the seller receives it and inspects it and checks that everything's all good, they'll offer a refund.

And before we go any further, we should make it clear that accepting or not accepting returns on eBay is sellers choice.

Absolutely, but of course we highly recommend that all sellers on eBay consider at the very least testing a buyer focus returns policy.

And why is that?

It just makes good business sense. I mean, based on marketplace data. For example, when it comes to shopping online, did you know that 80 percent of shoppers expect free returns? Almost 60 percent of shoppers expect at least a 30 day return window and 89 percent of repeat customers who had a good return experience are more than likely to buy again. And repeat customers are just critical to the growth of any business on or off eBay.

That's compelling data, but what about on the eBay side? Do we have any data that shows any positive impact on sales for sellers who accept free returns?

Yeah, Yep. We do. Our own sales data on eBay shows that a seller can see an increase in conversion of up to 25 percent with free returns. In addition, any listing that has a free returns are discoverable in search filters, on item pages and in our marketing. And of course any listing that has free returns, get the trp or top rated plus benefits like 10 percent discounts on final value fees.

Hard to argue with that. And many eBay sellers have already figured this out on their own, but what about those sellers that are fearful that a more buyer focused return policy like 30 day free returns will have a negative impact on their sales. For example, some sellers have told us that they wouldn't even consider offering free returns for a number of reasons. Let's go over those reasons and then you can address them. How's that sound?

Yeah, that sounds good. Fire away.

Okay. Here's a popular one. If I offer free returns, I will see a big increase in return requests. Is this fear unfounded?

Yes, it is. First, let me say that it's always possible that a seller could see a small increase in return request once they start offering a 30 day free returns, but in fact most sellers who start offering free returns either as a limited test using a selected percentage of listings or full out on all their listings, see no significant increase in requests and some see no increase at all, but we should say here that there is no cut and dry and there's no absolute guarantee of results when it comes to adopting any new business practice.

I mean all sellers as a matter of smart business should test a new practice like 30 day free returns and then track the results to see how that impacts your sales. Any new tests continued for longer than just a week or a month and a good test of a new practice should be at least three months long.

So for sellers leery about how it might impact their sales, testing a new business practice like 30 day free returns is recommended.

Absolutely.

Another concern we hear from sellers who don't offer 30 day free returns is that doing so will result in significant cost, meaning the seller pays for the buyers return shipping label and that will hurt their bottom line.

Yes and no. A seller who offers free returns, we'll see an increase in their shipping costs overall, even if their return rate stays the same. Someone is paying for that return shipping and with free returns, it's the seller, but like any other business, the solution is for the seller to pass those costs back onto the buyer.

So how? If the cost of the return shipping is put into the item price, won't that make the item uncompetitive?

Yes, but the key is not to pad the cost of the item with the entire amount of the possible return shipping for that item, but instead spread out the cost across all your items.

So how does a seller do that?

It's pretty simple. The seller can use previous return and sales data to calculate an incremental amount to add to the margin of all of his or her current items for sale.

Can you explain that in a little more detail?

Sure. So first, keep in mind that no business should ever be run sale to sale. That is single transactions are not how one measures the success of the business. It's the aggregate transactions over a period of time, usually annually, but it could also be quarter to quarter.

So you may lose money on a few transactions. All businesses do, but the success of your business is determined by the overall sales over a quarter or a year.

That makes sense. So how does this business reality work with the cost of free returns?

Just like you spread the other costs of doing business across all your inventory by how you determine your margin. That is the amount over your item cost, which generates your net income or profit. You use your previous year sales and return data to spread the cost of return shipping that same way. So first, you need to determine the following three data points for a period of time, like annually or the past year. One, the number of sold items for that period. Two, the number of returns for that same period. And three, the cost of shipping those returns. So assuming that your sales and returning goals will remain about the same for the current period, you should use the following formula. The cost of shipping returns, divided by the number of sold items. That will give you an amount which you can then add to the margin of all your current listed inventory. And that incremental amount is a type of self insurance to help cover the costs of return shipping. And you should actually record this data as a separate expense account on your bookkeeping for your business.

Insert a new spreadsheet column and call it something like "return shipping".

Our Buddy Griff did that exercise and he found that he had to add ten cents to the price of each one of his items. Ten cents is nothing. You're spreading this across all of your sold items that I really encourage sellers to do this exercise because you'd be shocked at how little this number is. Now, that sounds easy if you have your previous year's data, but what if you don't have?

If you don't have enough past data to make those calculations, you can use our returns calculator to determine the incremental amount to add to your margins based on current data, so you just go to www.ebay.com/returns. Click the learn more link for I sell on eBay and there you'll find the returns calculator as well as other helpful information on returns.

Okay. You're totally convincing me on this, although I was honestly already convinced, so it seems to me that when we're considering the benefits versus the costs, the seller needs to test and calculate their numbers to determine what works best for their business.

For example, the costs of offering free returns versus the benefits of a 10 percent final value fee discount. Some sellers may discover that given their type of inventory, free returns doesn't always work for them. Possibly, but again, a seller should never just make that assumption. No smart business ever does that run by assumption. You have to test and calculate the cost and benefits and then make a decision.

Cost benefit analysis is what I think they call business one o one.

You hit the nail on the head. Okay. Another fear of offering free returns. What about a situation where a buyer returns an item that is not in the condition I sent it? Do I have any recourse as a seller?

Yes you do. So if you offer 30 day free returns and a buyer returns an item in a condition different from what you sent, for example, maybe it's missing some of the original packaging or the new item has signs of use or there was damaged by the buyer, the seller can opt to withhold up to 50 percent of the return refund and eBay will stand behind the seller.

Let me make sure I can understand this. If I've determined that the buyer has returned the item in a condition different from the condition it was sent in, I can take up to 50 percent off the refund and there aren't any consequences? eBay won't rule against me?

Correct. If a buyer ask for something else, the rest of the refund, for example, will step in and protect you.

And that protection is only available for an item where the seller is offering a 30 day free returns. Is that correct?

That's right.

This is fantastic information. Thank you. It should help to clear up some of the questions and misconceptions that sellers have about free returns. Given all this, what are eBay's recommended best practices for returns, especially as we head into the holiday season.

We have a few best practices that we highly recommend, especially for the holiday season. First offer free, 30 or 60 day returns, and also don't forget to check you're good till cancelled listings to.

These are the listings that you've set up to auto renew. Make sure those return policies are up to date as well. Then you can offer replacements and exchanges that's perfect for gift giving and finally respond to requests within 24 to 48 hours.

And what would you say to those sellers who are still on the fence about 30 day free returns?

Sellers who are not currently offering a 30 day free returns should at least consider testing these suggested best practices on some of their listings and tracking the results. But they should start testing now. The holiday season for retailers has already started. You just don't see it in marketing yet and we'll probably see that in another month or so.

Thank you, Cindy. This was a great session. I appreciate it. We've been speaking with Cindy Aknin of eBay's Trust and Returns team. If you want to learn more about returns on eBay and 30 day free returns in particular, visit eBay.com/returns and follow the link for I sell on eBay. Up next we talked to two sellers who share their experience offering free returns to their buyers and how it's impacting their sales on eBay. Stay tuned.

So tell us, Danny, what do you sell?

I sell new t shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts. These are all printed on demand made to order and mugs and hats.

And so now that eBay is recommending 30 day returns for sellers, what's your opinion?

Well actually I'm a little ahead of the curve on that because I've been doing free return since January first 2014. So I've been very excited about returns since then and I'm glad to see eBay taking a more active role in that as well. There has been nothing else that has ever changed my business more than embracing the free return model. 2012 was a really rough year for me. That was the year I really kind of hit the wall. Six, seven years of just trying to overcome this. I finally came to the conclusion where I'm like, I saw no way to overcome this and I just really was disillusioned and frustrated and I really, I just threw up my hands and I went over nine months without doing anything on eBay except for packing and shipping. And in the Spring of that year, eBay announced manage returns and I was Kinda like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway. Where he wakes up with a sound of tin banging up against the shore going, oh, I think this could work.

And that's kind of where I was. I'm like, Ooh, this might be exactly what's needed. And so I was one of the first to opt into that and I kind of just sat back through 2013 and watched and I noticed a lot of differences. I hit the calculator, um, after the Christmas rush and I spent two weeks thinking and on January first of 2014 with nothing to lose, I went ahead and jumped back in. And I changed all of my listings to do seller pays return shipping. And I adjusted the price by about three percent and I've never looked back since. One of the first returns I got, I remember it. It was a lady bought two mediums and wanted them in size small and I accepted the return and I kind of grumbled. You know, one of my first ones. I'm like, yeah, this isn’t gonna work. The way I thought was gonna work. And what surprised me about this is three days later after she got the smalls, she wrote back and says "I'm telling my family about you, blah, blah, blah... All my friends", I mean practically promising to name her first born child after me. Just super excited and then she went on to become a loyal customer and that was the first thing that really shocked me that I didn't see coming. You can successfully engage in a return, thru their satisfaction, they become far more loyal and I've seen that a lot in the last four years.

Returns are an opportunity to do great customer service and get that loyal customer back. How has offering free returns impacted your sales?

I think the first thing is I saw more buyer loyalty. That was always a big thing. But what I saw was , 2015 went down as my best year ever in ecommerce and then 2016 beat that out. Overall, it has really had a really good effect on my sales. Now I sell in an extremely crowded category.

Yes, you do.

That is loaded. I think there's like $60 million returns. If you type in the word tee shirt. Like I said, it's pretty competitive out there, but I can tell you this returns definitely didn't hurt it at all.

Yeah, I believe it. I bet out of those $60 million search results, I bet some buyers are filtering by free returns. And to us that's a real signal of trust. If a buyer knows that they can do a free return, they know that they're going to have a hassle free buying experience.

Exactly. And that's what I was trying to go for. And one of the first things I did was, um, I'm like, if I'm going to do this in 2014, I'm going to brag about it in my listing. I'm going to make it a selling point. And the reason was, is I'm wanting to overcome that one last obstacle, especially when you're buying clothing. Because the problem that we're having is what the industry calls a touch and feel weakness. And that is we don't offer the buyer dressing room. We don't offer the buyer the ability to hold the garment in the hands and then look at it before making their purchase decisions. And oftentimes all the pictures in the world and all the words in the world cannot overcome that touch and feel weakness. And what I found is for me in my category, returns definitely overcame that weakness.

Have you changed your operations or pricing since offering free returns?

I did. Like I said, I mentioned earlier, the very first thing I did is I increased my pricing in 2014. I went back to all of my listings and I began to revise them all and I've put into them the selling point that I offer free returns. And the reason for that is, I mean, I, I say I'm running a seller pays return shipping, but we're businesses. We all are. And ultimately the buyers are gonna pay for everything. I mean, buyers pay for my lunch. It doesn't matter what I do in life. I mean all my money comes from eBay. If I go out to eat, my buyers are paying for that and it is the thing with returns. And what I found though was it was manageable. It was a small amount. And the really strange thing that happened that I didn't think about was, I was just so sure my returns would go through the roof. So I was watching every month. I downloaded a paypal invoice, I'm looking at my returns and i'm charting it all out. At the end of 2014, I only had three more returns than I had in 2013 and i'm still seeing that today. I am in the two to three percent range. I will dip down in the one, one point five sometimes, but never over three.

How did you arrive at the three percent? You added three percent to your price? 33:05 I'm a. I'm a businessman. I look at numbers. So I went back to 2012, 2013 and even got into 2011. By that I mean I went to paypal and every month I print out the paypal invoices. And it would tell me on there what my returns were. And so I calculated that all up and came up with that percentage, that in the two to three percent range would be what I would need to fund. What I'm trying to do is, I'm just trying to fund so that those two or three percent buyers that are having issues, whatever those issues are, I can offer them a free return.

So you've never had to adjust to your three percent?

Uh, no I have not.

And is that kind of a yearly exercise? Do you look at that every year and we'll figure that out.?

Oh monthly!

Monthly? Smart.

My first year, 2014 and 2015, I was keeping monthly records religiously on it. But now I'm comfortable in it and I don't do quite as high. But the reason why was I was just so sure my returns were going to go through the roof. Everything in my brain as I'm looking at this was that you offer free returns and everybody's going to want a free return. And that wasn't the case. At all. In fact, the first year, like I said, I only had three more returns.

Out of how many sales, if you don't mind me asking?

I sell about $4,500 a year and my returns are running, I think they're not bad. They're around two percent.

So what advice would you give a seller considering offering free returns? Try it!

Absolutely try it. I didn't try it until I was literally at my ropes end. Just because I wasn't really sure that it's going to work the way it worked out. Everyone's on eBay, we're businesses. We're all here for one reason. That's profit. If you could figure out the business end of it instead of the emotional end of it. And that was part of my problem was I'm looking at the emotional end of it. And once I turned it into a math equation and then I found that I could solve it that way a whole lot better by turning it into a math problem. So look at your history, find out how many returns did you have in 2017, 16 and 15. Find out what really is the scope of the problem and then figure out how can you divide that out among your entire business. What is your percentage or what is the final cost per transaction for return? And then see if you can't adjust your pricing accordingly.

Well, thank you so much. Such great advice. I think the big takeaway is do the math to figure out how you can afford returns. Make a decision based on logic and math rather than emotion. And that free returns instills buyer loyalty and buyer trust. Thank you so much. Danny for your time. Great to meet you. Ok Thanks.

Joining us now is Mark Ducey. So Hi Mark. So when you first heard about eBay offering free returns, what did you think?

I was a bit unsure. I somewhat liken it to years ago when free shipping came around. I certainly understood the notion behind it, but I was unsure how it would roll out. What the impact to the sellers would be? So I had some reservations about it frankly.

And what kind of items do you sell?

We sell primarily new golf equipment and we also sell a wide variety of accessories, associated apparel, footwear. So it really runs the gamut of what types of shipping in boxes we send.

So I hear that you don't offer free returns across all of your inventory. So how did you decide what merchandise gets free returns and what doesn't?

Yeah, we do not. We've been strategic in our approach on this. First off, we ship internationally as well, so we first couldn't offer returns or free returns on international shipments. So we immediately excluded the international ones and we've really looked at it from a strategic perspective. Where certain items we ship will be large oversized items and they're expensive to ship. So if we had to absorb free returns on oversized items, it would be very, very costly. Just looking at a few by excusing we can't offer free returns on this item because the shipping profile doesn't fit it.

Can I assume that you do free returns on kind of smaller lightweight items that are easier to ship and then buyer paid returns on those larger items?

Yeah, largely. I mean, so golf clubs, apparel, most of those things we would offer free returns on. When I get to like golf bags or complete golf sets that ship at like 30 pounds. Then we would say we can't offer free returns on those.

So how do you think offering free returns has impacted your sales?

I don't know if we've made a correlation between the impact of the sales. One of the things we were worried about is if we didn't offer it, how it would impact sales. So we adopted it very early on. Our inventory changes fairly quickly. So it's oftentimes difficult for us to say from this month and next month, sales are different because of a specific reason. Sometimes frankly, it's inventory base. So I don't know if I drill down to a direct correlation between offering free returns and sales, but I think if you don't offer it, there could be some opportunity lost.

Because the next guy is going to offer it and you're going to lose the sale. When offering free returns, have you seen any impact on your return rate?

I was particularly worried about that. So we adopted free returns right around June 1st. We're an early adopter of the free return policy and actually eBay produced a report for me, before and after free returns. So I looked at about 60 days before returns and 60 days after free returns and remarkably, our return rate did not change significantly. There was somewhat of a change, but it was certainly not significant enough where it was, we felt it was impactful.

Have you changed your operations or pricing since offering free returns?

We have not done any of that. In fact, no. The impact hasn't been that significant where we need to and in fact if we had to change our operation or had to change our pricing, then we would probably rethink the notion of offering free returns. But we have not had to do any of that.

So some sellers that offer free returns kind of build the cost of returns into each item. Right. They do the math to figure out roughly, I have this many returns per year and therefore I'm going to spread that cost across my pricing. Did you already have that factored in?

Yeah, I mean we, we knew what our margin needed to be to support it. So it was largely factored in there, but again, it ticked up slightly but really ever so slightly. It's been negligible. So it's really not been an issue at all. Been a real pleasant surprise frankly. I was particularly worried about that because, you know, we sell shoes, we sell apparel. So you order two different sizes, knowing one of them is going back. I envisioned some of that and we have experienced very little of that. There's been no noticeable change. We've looked at why were we going to adopt free returns and I think there were a couple reasons. First , there was a discount we're receiving, right? If we offered free returns we were going to continue to receive the 10 percent discount. And we wanted to receive that 10 percent discount and then there was the opportunity lost.

What were we going to lose if we didn't offer free returns? But really it was almost all, how do we preserve the discount? And if the cost of the returns was greater than the credit or the discount, we probably wouldn't offer free returns. But we haven't seen that at all. Ecommerce is evolved for a lot of years and like I said, I, I kinda liked it to free shipping. Where early on, there was a lot of friction around free shipping. I mean people didn't want to do it and now it's widely adopted. And I can see free returns being similar in many categories. Maybe not all categories, but many categories.

What advice would you give a seller

considering or who refuses to consider offering free returns?

I think you have to do what's in the best interest of your operation in your business. I mean, we look at this fairly analytical. For us that's the best data we can have. I mean we look at the data and then we think that makes sense. It makes sense. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And we really try to be mindful and to embrace some of these new ideas because i think you have to evolve over time and I think ecommerce is evolving. And I think free returns might have some teeth to it. If you don't like change then you shouldn't be in ecommerce because that industry evolves quickly. Again, we do it very analytical. I mean there's certain items we're not going to offer it and certainly not international.

Thank you Mark. This has been lovely. I really appreciate your time. We want to thank Danny Hone and Mark Ducey for taking the time out of their busy eBay selling schedules to speak with us about free returns? A topic that's on the minds of lots of eBay sellers.

Up next on selling on eBay, drop culture. Stay tuned.

Joining us now is Jeff Chan. Jeff's the senior category manager over all of shoes. Jeff, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. A pleasure to be here.

Overall of shoes. What does that mean exactly?

It just over the categories of men's and women's shoes on eBay platform.

A category near and dear to my heart.

Yes.

Now when I was asking for someone to come on the show about this, somebody recommended you from your team and then said something about sneaker month. What was sneaker month?

Yeah, so it was a, It was a fantastic event we did in back in June. And what we wanted to do is get in touch more with the sneaker enthusiast. We realize that they are a key demographic for us. That we need to get more in touch with. There's obviously a core buyer group, but also there's a, some of those fringe buyers that may or may not know about eBay too much.

Well, so we figure we need to do some way to get in touch with them, so we did kind of a two pronged approach during that month where we offered some kind of discount or some some waiver of fees to get some listings up there. So people can list some of the scarcity sneakers that are out there. And then we finished the month off with a charity event with a partnership with Stadium Goods. Stadium Goods has been a fantastic partner with us over the last couple years since they've come on board. And for those of you who don't know about Stadium Goods, they are a resale market store out there based in New York. They sell all scarcity product from sneakers all the way across from Nike, Jordans all way up to a scarcity products in Supreme for streetwear. So they have the inventory and the connections that are near and dear to us.

They're our go to partner for anything we need to do. So we did a sneaker charity drop at their actual in store. Where we invited sneaker collaborators, influencers, the press, and we did a collaboration with a sneaker artist. I would say a more of a general artist, his name was Joshua Vides, where he did five personal sneakers within store and auctioned them off for charity, five pairs. And it did phenomenally well. It was received well across the board.

What's phenomenally well?

I don't know the exact details behind exactly how they all sold, but they received very well in terms of the press, a social engagement and in terms of how much people were engaging with the listenings itself.

And we're talking scare sneakers. Some of these can sell for several hundred dollars or more.

That is correct. You're very, very right. So I would say the scarcity sneakers that you see coming from Nike, Adidas, or Jordan sell retail price anywhere between $160 up to $250 and the resale value can go up anywhere up to a $1,000- $1,200, even up to $2,000.

It really depends on the demand and scarcity and how much really the culture really wants that shoe.

So if you're out there looking for product and you've got some savvy about what sneakers are and which ones are scarce, this is something we keep an eye on.

t definitely is. For everybody to know out there, the resale market and not just the actual retail market of sneakers, but the resale market of these scarcity sneakers is over a billion dollars now and it continues to grow each and every year. Especially this year with what Nike has been doing. They have really done a great job and making product scarce as well as partnering with the right artists or music musician or anybody out there to make the shoe really desirable for everybody who wants it. And so.

So you mentioned a bunch of brands and one of them was Supreme. When it comes to streetwear and we've talked with Liz Austin on the show about this phenomena about the brand name Supreme, but this is all part of a larger phenomenon called drop culture.

What is drop culture?

I would say to kind of put it in a nutshell is drop culture is really everything regarding scarcity product. It could be anywhere from a hoodie to a tee shirt to a pair of shoes. And it really depends on the brand that's marketing. So Supreme has done phenomenally well with this aspect of drop culture, you know, they release very scarce product. Only at their stores and their online platform and they really, really do things that really grab your attention. So for instance, today, Today was a release for them. They release every Thursday at 8:00 AM Pacific Time and today the one of the scarce items out there, which you wouldn't think of, was a ladder.

A Supreme ladder? It's just a ladder with the word Supreme on it?

It's a red ladder with the writing Supreme down the side of it. They do a phenomenal job by picking the right brand to partner with and so it's not a cheap metal ladder.

They really do the research and they partnered with some high end products and companies and then they partnered together and then that's how they come up with the items. But they do things that are so outside of the box where people in this job culture of like, wow, that is so phenomenal that I actually need that item because it's just so you've never seen anything like that before. And that's what Supreme does. They stay way far ahead of the game in terms of things. They'd done everything from a suitcase to a ladder to a rubber bouncy ball.

An axe.

Exactly. So you think of it, they did a brick like two years ago.

Just a red brick?

A red brick and they slap Supreme on it. So you can see, It's like they are ahead of the game. They did a great job seeing doing things.

You're like, I don't need that, but when you see it your like, I actually do need that.

And they're rare, which means if it's a limited edition, it's not gonna. It's not a run that's going to continue forever. So that's what. That's the urgency.

Yeah. I think that's the big catch with the drop culture. Everything is in scarce, very, very, very small quantities being produced and it's very, very rare that you'll see it ever be restocked or being resold or they're doing another production run of anything like that.

And so it only makes sense. This stuff ends up on eBay eventually because a lot of people buy it for themselves but we know that they're going to show up on Thursdays. Right.? It's Thursday?

Correct. Looking for this stuff so they can resell it because they know it's rare. That's correct. eBay is the top spot to pick up Supreme products or anything from this drop culture and everybody who wants that product, they only know theres only a few sources and we're definitely one of the top ones out there.

So when Supreme drops on a Thursday, it's at a location?

It’s at their locations worldwide. So they have a couple locations in the New York, greater area. They have one in La. They have one in Japan. One over in Europe. All of them drop it on the same day according to local time and then the online drop is 8:00 AM Pacific Time. Oh, so they do have an online. Yeah.

They do have online presence. So does that sell out? Pretty much?

Yes. And Supreme has done a phenomenal job of marketing. They do very minimal marketing, but they do enough to grab people's attention and they get a lot of buzz on social media. So every Monday is when they kind of leak what's coming out on Thursday and then all the buzz starts building up anticipation for Thursday.

If I'm an eBay seller, I want to pay attention to this and what we've just been talking about one brand, there are several others.

I know some of the big brands do this, but we talked about a brand besides Supreme called Kith.

Yes.

And their recent partnering with Coca Cola making shoes.

Yes.

So knowing where these are going to happen or they're going to be released and then being prepared. Uh, and what do you have to do to prepare for this?

My advice, to sellers and buyers out there in general is really pay attention to social media. I would say over the last year and a half, social media is a great way to kind of figure out what is going to be in high demand. For instance, with the Coca Cola collaboration with Kith, which was their third release in the last three years. You can see right away when they, uh, when Kith stared dropping pictures and what's going to be showcased. You can see what's getting a lot of buzz. You know, you just follow their instagram handle.

You can see what's getting a lot of likes, what's going, a lot of comments and whatnot and that could really dictate to you. This is something that if i'm a seller, I need to figure out a way how to get as inventory. Either I go source it directly from the store or the online. I would say the biggest challenge for this drop culture on this product is that it's hard to get this inventory. Because you're competing against thousands of thousands of kids out there and there was only maybe a few hundred dollars that's been produced.

I don't want to stand in line all night, but some people might have that stamina. Yeah, it's not that much work. You're just sitting at a computer, right?

Yeah. A lot of people think it's not a lot of work, but when it comes to time, when it drops, like at 8:00 today, you're, you're just like. So with the Kith drop the, their website crashed for five hours. And so so they came out and said that was the most traffic they've ever seen in their entire history. And I've never seen a website crash for that long before and so you could tell like when something is a high demand, like yes, waiting line is longer, but also online you can deal with, You're dealing with a lot more competition. The other thing about some of these scarcity products, they will sell out in seconds.

Is there a danger for these brands that they suddenly go out of fashion? I mean even with the rarity, I'm thinking back 23, 25 years ago to beanie babies. That was one of the first, at least online, that first drop culture phenomenon. It went out of fashion after a few years and then value sort of dropped. Is that a risk at the moment for these companies?

Yeah, it definitely is. There is a huge moment right now and a movement right now for the street wear and the scarcity shoes and they're riding a phenomenal wave. But at the same time, people thought this bubble would burst two years ago and look where they are today. It hasn't. It hasn't burst. I think they found the right niche right now. Yes, as long as they keep it scarce and the marketing job they are doing right now. They're taking really advantage of the social media, like I cannot stress that enough. Like the social media platforms, instagram, twitter, snapchat. It's really changed the way people perceive a product. l love the way you didn't say facebook. So young people are not using facebook at the same rate or the same frequency they're using these other sites. Yeah, I would say facebook is definitely not a source to find out about this product. It's definitely Instagram. Instagram, snapchat is the way to go, and twitter is the best way to find out when it's about to drop or when it has dropped. 49:27 Well, this has been great. I've learned something and I hope our audience has learned something too. Drop culture. This is a phenomena that could help you in your business. Pay attention to it, look out for it, be a part of it. If you can. Well, Jeff, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy day being the King of all shoes or does that go to another person?

I would reserve that for Scott Cutler. He's definitely the King of all shoes, at least within the eBay realm of the world.

He's our vice president of eBay North America.

That is correct. So if you want to find about sneaker culture and whatnot, I would definitely talk to him because he has some stuff on his feet. You're like, wow. How did he get his hands on those?

Well, he's passionate. As are you Jeff. Thank you so much. We've been speaking to Jeff Chan. He is the senior category manager at men and women's footwear on eBay. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks Griff.

Coming up next. Griff takes your calls. 888-723-4630. Stay tuned.

Ok all right, let's go to our caller here. Uh, please state your name and your user ID and your question.

Hi, my name is Joelene Pritchitt my user ID is floppyJoel. I had some questions regarding the new return policy and the changes that come with it.

Sure and what's your question?

I've been selling on eBay for a really long time and I've been through all the changes. But this is the first time that I've ever really been affected by a change.

How have you been affected?

My return rate has gone up two percent.

Is that year over year? Is that two percent higher than a year ago?

Well, you know, I'm not sure about a year ago. I could be wrong about that, but I know it's gone up two percent since June. And most of my returns have been faulty. I've never dealt with returns like this before. Like I've had a new with tags dress returned with food stains on it and deodorant kicked into it. I had a wrong item sent back. I had, you know, just noticeably more returns and more customer service, which I know comes with the territory.

Yeah.

How many items do you typically sell a day?

Probably four to five. I'm at a one percent sell through rate per day basically.

And you sell in which category primarily?

Primarily clothing and shoes.

Mostly pre owned?

A mixture of both.

Do you know what your percentage rate in the clothing category is, for example?

It is three percent.

Three percent. So you're way under the average for Pre owned clothing. I sell preowned clothing and my return rate average is five to six percent. I would not draw a direct causation with your adopting free returns and this recent increase in return rate. The reason why I asked year over year is, it's really important to actually have a broader time period to measure any impact that anything you do as a business practice, including adopting free returns is going to have on your business. Looking back a month or two, that's more of an aberration than anything. But we talked a little bit before the call and you expressed some concerns about, for example, you said you had two of these items come back and they were not in the condition you sent them.

Correct. I've never had that happen.

Yeah. I don't think it's because you're offering free returns, but I do want to remind you that any seller who offers free returns, if you get an item back and it's not in the condition that you sent, you can withhold up to 50 percent of the refund and eBay backs you up. So there's no argument on the buyer side. The buyer can come back and complain to eBay and say, I want my full refund. We stand completely behind you in that situation. So for the one where the dress came back with stains and everything, you could withhold 50 percent of the refund.

I know that. I just really feel like lately, and it could be a lot to do with it had slowed down. It's just buyers are taking advantage of the return policy.

It's not nice for a buyer to buy an item and then send it back saying they want to return it and it's got stains and everything on it. That's why if a seller offers 30 day free returns, when it's time to get the item back, they can say, I'm only giving you up to 50 percent of the refund back and it's not negotiable. The buyer can't negotiate or complain or eBay is not going to step in and say, yeah, you have to give the full refund. eBay will stand behind you so that can help mitigate those costs.

What if it is completely wrong item?

So that's one where you contact eBay and say, I got the wrong item sent back. So you can withhold the refund and open a case with eBay. You'll be requested to send photos and you can open that as a case. People are basically good, but there, there are bad actors out there and we need to know about it, so we need the sellers to report that to us. If I were you, I would open a case in second and say, no I'm not getting the refund. I'd escalate it to eBay and say this buyer sent back....

I did, i opened a case.

How was it resolved?

It hasn't been resolved yet.

Oh, okay. Well if you, If you run into an issue, email me at Griff@ebay.com and I'll see what happens, but have you checked out the returns calculator on the returns page on eBay?

I figured out that, I still, even at my return rate, the top rated seller discount pays for itself with the returns. If that’s what you mean.

Oh, see? Well that's good. That's a good calculation to make on your own too because it is a balance. There are some sellers who are in categories where they get more returns. It is just the nature of the beast and in those cases that seller has to make a calculation and say is the 10 percent, because you don't lose top rated seller status, you just don't get top. Just the plus. So you stay at top rated seller. And in fact we just talked to a seller who's on the show today who says, you know, I love 30 day free returns, but I have specific items where it's not going to work. And I'm okay with that. I don't mind not getting the discount because I've run the numbers and I know that I'm actually saving more money by not offering free returns for those items. So it is a decision every seller has to make. Jolene it sounds like actually you're doing pretty good.

Well, thank you.

Jolene, thank you so much for calling and thank you for listening to the podcast. And, uh, I hope to talk to you again.

Yes, definitely. Thank you. It's a pleasure.

And that's our show for this week.

It was chockablock with great information for sellers.

Yes. Chockablock. It was definitely chockablock with information. That's the whole point of the podcast.

I know! That and your calls. 888-723-4630, you can call that hotline anytime of the day, any day of the week.

And we now have our very own email address where you can send your questions. If you're too shy to call our hotline, it's sellingoneBay@eBay.com. That's sellingoneBay@eBay.com

And to my point, that's a bit long. Shouldn't have been something shorter?

Shouldn't you have been in the meeting when we decided that? Was that the meeting you scheduled during my regular lunch break.

Two words, Griff... to go.

You know, I only eat lunch in sit.

In situ? Where's that? Ancient Rome. It's Latin for I don't want to carry my lunch back to the meeting.

I don't think that's quite right. Yeah, I think it is. Okay, nevermind. Shall we roll them?

Roll what?

The credits Sherlock.

Oh yeah. The credits. Give the team a shout out, that sort of thing. Our host and editor in chief is Griff.

Our other hosts and Chief Nag and sometimes script writer and creative consultant Is Audrey Tracy.

Nag. I preferred grump. Chief Grump.

You've got it grump. Our guiding light, Diy Plumber and director of community is Brian Burke. And that quiet guy standing over there in the corner, you know, the tall one holding a Guinness and ready to fix any really bad mistakes the rest of us make during the show is community manager Alan Aisbitt.

And if you squint really hard, you can just make out our tech guy and content brainstormer Doug Smith, Aka Snoop Douggie on Instagram.

Snoop Douggie, great name. And of course she comes from the land down under our entire marketing team and our own other creative consultant is Liz. Austin.

We'll be back next week with a fresh episode of selling on eBay. We'll see you then.

We'll not actually see you. Hear you may be or you hear us.

Wise Guy. Selling on eBay is produced and distributed by Libsyn and Podcast 411.com

You didn't like the script? Meh, a little long full of typos. Kinda not funny in places.

God, you're a harsh critic.

Chief Nag!

Yeah, I forgot it. Okay, well where's the Knob? I got to shut this thing off and...

[stormerhobbies]

I'd like to talk about free returns... Like how we offer them with seller pays (on every item)  and only 7% of our listings show up with it.  When you filter a search result with the condition "free returns" our listings disappear even though we offer them and seller pays.

Been going on for months.  😞

[ohyesidid]

I activated the "sell $30.00 by 10/31/19"  offer.  I have sold that much already but I cannot find the offer now. Did anyone else get this offer?

[noshre]

The description of the pants says another size and another size on the top, how do I do that?I have been writing for three days and he does not answer.