eBay--2012 Fall Seller Update
TonyC
Posts: 1,399 ✭✭✭
For anyone interested, eBay sent this letter out today announcing new changes to selling on eBay:
Fall Seller Update
Dear sporhero:
Over the past few years, you've gone above and beyond to provide the products and services buyers expect—and your efforts are paying off. With this, the second update of 2012, the focus is squarely on you. These updates will help you reach more of the fast-growing legions of ecommerce buyers drawn to eBay—this holiday season and beyond—and make your selling easier and more profitable.
New protections and rewards
New safeguards to keep a fair marketplace for sellers. Updates coming to eBay protection programs will benefit and protect you.
Buyers must contact you first through My Messages in My eBay before opening a Buyer Protection case starting in February to make sure you have the opportunity to resolve issues before eBay gets involved. Buyers will be required to wait three business days for you to respond and resolve the issue before they have the option of opening a case.
Open cases will no longer count. Also starting in February, having a case opened by a buyer will not be counted toward your performance rating—only those cases that are not found in your favor will be counted.
Reporting buyers who misuse the system is now faster and easier. Starting in October, a more accessible and enhanced reporting hub will make it easy for you to contact eBay directly to report buyers who violate eBay policies.
New Top Rated Plus seal highlights top services. The percentage of all eBay purchases that are from Top Rated sellers with tracking uploaded on at least 90% of their US transactions—and include 1-day handling and a 14-day or longer money-back return policy—is growing rapidly.
To help these listings stand out even more, starting in September, they will be highlighted with a new Top Rated Plus seal.
The current Top Rated seller badge will be retired.
New ways to showcase your items, boost sales
Maximize the power of eBay Fast 'N Free. When the eBay Fast 'N Free logo shows up for a buyer on listings, it delivers a solid boost in sales. For the logo to appear, you have to offer free shipping and the item must be estimated to arrive within 4 business days based on your item location, your buyer's location, your track record, and your carrier's track record for those locations. Starting the week of September 24, you'll be able to check your seller dashboard to see how many of your listings are qualifying for the eBay Fast 'N Free logo and how it's helping your sales.
More selling power for your listings
Sell more with more pictures! As of October 31, all listings will be required to include a picture. Other picture quality requirements originally announced in February will take effect in 2013 to give you more time to adopt: minimum 500 pixels on the longest side, no added text or borders, and no stock photos as the main image for used items.
Item condition notes set the right expectations. Starting the week of October 22, you'll have an optional new field to put details about the condition of your used items and have them displayed near the top of the item page where buyers are more likely to read them. This will help reduce both buyer questions and issues with buyer claims that an item is not as described.
Show your item location. Seeing a valid location in a listing inspires buyer confidence. Also starting the week of October 22, when you enter your valid zip code, your city and state will be automatically added to your listing.
Ending Auction-style listings early. Ending an Auction-style listing once it has a bid leads to disappointed shoppers who may be less inclined to bid on auctions the next time around. Starting October 1, a fee will be charged for ending an Auction-style listing early.
Boost sales with multi-variation listings. Selling different variations of an item in one multi-variation Fixed Price listing saves you money on fees, makes listing faster and easier, and encourages buyers to buy more.
Starting in October, you'll have more listing options—for example, easily add pictures for different variations and add a new variation to active listings, even those with sales.
Later this year, you'll have a new feature to identify your existing single variation listings and convert them to one multi-variation listing.
More communication power in My eBay Messages. Now you can attach up to five pictures through My Messages to help close the sale.
Category, item specifics, and catalog updates are now consolidated with other updates that may affect your selling. For many sellers these changes will mean reduced fees. Some categories are also being eliminated.
More information
Get details on the 2012 Fall Seller Update.
Use the Seller Checklist to stay on top of important dates.
Find out how you can update your listings quickly and efficiently with bulk editing tools.
For additional insight, you're also invited on July 24 to talk with members of my staff via a special discussion board we've set up for this purpose. Griff will also be discussing this announcement on eBay Radio on July 24, 11:00AM to 2:00PM PT. Join me and other leaders from eBay in a Town Hall meeting on July 25, 3:30PM to 5:00PM PT.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.
Sincerely,
Michael Jones
Vice President
Merchant Development
I didn't think this was nearly as shock-and-awe as the Spring 2012 Update, which announced that you needed to offer 1-day handling and a 14-day return policy in order to keep getting a 20% FVF discount...
There are actually some common-sense changes here, including:
1. Requiring buyers to contact the seller and give him 3 business days to resolve a problem before opening a case
2. Creating a new system for sellers to report problem buyers (this may or may not be a good change, depending on what this system actually turns out to be)
3. Requiring pictures for ALL items
4. Allowing you to attach pictures to an eBay message
I thought the institution of a fee on ending an auction-style listing is interesting... that move will have proponents and detractors...
Also note that eBay is basically making the enforcement of the 1-day handling and 14-day return policy necessary to be a "top-rated seller." In the last update, everyone could be a top-rated seller even if they did not do the handling and returns, but only those people who complied with the handling and returns would get the 20% FVF discount. Now, this 2012 Fall Update is phasing out the "top-rated seller" program and moving to a "top-rated seller plus" program ONLY, so that only people who do the handling and returns will get the TSR distinction.
Fall Seller Update
Dear sporhero:
Over the past few years, you've gone above and beyond to provide the products and services buyers expect—and your efforts are paying off. With this, the second update of 2012, the focus is squarely on you. These updates will help you reach more of the fast-growing legions of ecommerce buyers drawn to eBay—this holiday season and beyond—and make your selling easier and more profitable.
New protections and rewards
New safeguards to keep a fair marketplace for sellers. Updates coming to eBay protection programs will benefit and protect you.
Buyers must contact you first through My Messages in My eBay before opening a Buyer Protection case starting in February to make sure you have the opportunity to resolve issues before eBay gets involved. Buyers will be required to wait three business days for you to respond and resolve the issue before they have the option of opening a case.
Open cases will no longer count. Also starting in February, having a case opened by a buyer will not be counted toward your performance rating—only those cases that are not found in your favor will be counted.
Reporting buyers who misuse the system is now faster and easier. Starting in October, a more accessible and enhanced reporting hub will make it easy for you to contact eBay directly to report buyers who violate eBay policies.
New Top Rated Plus seal highlights top services. The percentage of all eBay purchases that are from Top Rated sellers with tracking uploaded on at least 90% of their US transactions—and include 1-day handling and a 14-day or longer money-back return policy—is growing rapidly.
To help these listings stand out even more, starting in September, they will be highlighted with a new Top Rated Plus seal.
The current Top Rated seller badge will be retired.
New ways to showcase your items, boost sales
Maximize the power of eBay Fast 'N Free. When the eBay Fast 'N Free logo shows up for a buyer on listings, it delivers a solid boost in sales. For the logo to appear, you have to offer free shipping and the item must be estimated to arrive within 4 business days based on your item location, your buyer's location, your track record, and your carrier's track record for those locations. Starting the week of September 24, you'll be able to check your seller dashboard to see how many of your listings are qualifying for the eBay Fast 'N Free logo and how it's helping your sales.
More selling power for your listings
Sell more with more pictures! As of October 31, all listings will be required to include a picture. Other picture quality requirements originally announced in February will take effect in 2013 to give you more time to adopt: minimum 500 pixels on the longest side, no added text or borders, and no stock photos as the main image for used items.
Item condition notes set the right expectations. Starting the week of October 22, you'll have an optional new field to put details about the condition of your used items and have them displayed near the top of the item page where buyers are more likely to read them. This will help reduce both buyer questions and issues with buyer claims that an item is not as described.
Show your item location. Seeing a valid location in a listing inspires buyer confidence. Also starting the week of October 22, when you enter your valid zip code, your city and state will be automatically added to your listing.
Ending Auction-style listings early. Ending an Auction-style listing once it has a bid leads to disappointed shoppers who may be less inclined to bid on auctions the next time around. Starting October 1, a fee will be charged for ending an Auction-style listing early.
Boost sales with multi-variation listings. Selling different variations of an item in one multi-variation Fixed Price listing saves you money on fees, makes listing faster and easier, and encourages buyers to buy more.
Starting in October, you'll have more listing options—for example, easily add pictures for different variations and add a new variation to active listings, even those with sales.
Later this year, you'll have a new feature to identify your existing single variation listings and convert them to one multi-variation listing.
More communication power in My eBay Messages. Now you can attach up to five pictures through My Messages to help close the sale.
Category, item specifics, and catalog updates are now consolidated with other updates that may affect your selling. For many sellers these changes will mean reduced fees. Some categories are also being eliminated.
More information
Get details on the 2012 Fall Seller Update.
Use the Seller Checklist to stay on top of important dates.
Find out how you can update your listings quickly and efficiently with bulk editing tools.
For additional insight, you're also invited on July 24 to talk with members of my staff via a special discussion board we've set up for this purpose. Griff will also be discussing this announcement on eBay Radio on July 24, 11:00AM to 2:00PM PT. Join me and other leaders from eBay in a Town Hall meeting on July 25, 3:30PM to 5:00PM PT.
As always, thank you for selling on eBay.
Sincerely,
Michael Jones
Vice President
Merchant Development
I didn't think this was nearly as shock-and-awe as the Spring 2012 Update, which announced that you needed to offer 1-day handling and a 14-day return policy in order to keep getting a 20% FVF discount...
There are actually some common-sense changes here, including:
1. Requiring buyers to contact the seller and give him 3 business days to resolve a problem before opening a case
2. Creating a new system for sellers to report problem buyers (this may or may not be a good change, depending on what this system actually turns out to be)
3. Requiring pictures for ALL items
4. Allowing you to attach pictures to an eBay message
I thought the institution of a fee on ending an auction-style listing is interesting... that move will have proponents and detractors...
Also note that eBay is basically making the enforcement of the 1-day handling and 14-day return policy necessary to be a "top-rated seller." In the last update, everyone could be a top-rated seller even if they did not do the handling and returns, but only those people who complied with the handling and returns would get the 20% FVF discount. Now, this 2012 Fall Update is phasing out the "top-rated seller" program and moving to a "top-rated seller plus" program ONLY, so that only people who do the handling and returns will get the TSR distinction.
Collecting Tony Conigliaro
0
Comments
WRONG, what theyre understanding is that lots of people end auctions early if they get a fair offer and avoid ebay fees.
In the end, its more smoke and mirrors. More pork barrel rules, which basically do nothing, but can be BSed into sounding good.
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