Changes on eBay | Make Money Online

Is ProPay for you?

October 22, 2008 By whateverebay 3 Comments

This is the week ProPay will be made available as a payment option on eBay. You will be able to find them at www.ProPay.com/ebay

Surprisingly, they are not going to charge those high Annual Fees, instead it will be $24.00 for Silver – Platinum PowerSellers. Bronze and Non Power Sellers will have to pay the original fees. It will change to $24.00 in 2009.

DSR’s will affect you. If you have a low 4.3 DSR on any category they can prevent you from signing up or even accepting payments. It will be critical that you maintain your account in good standing.

The full article can be reviewed at Auction Bytes.

Filed Under: Changes on eBay, ProPay Tagged With: merchant accounts, online payments, ProPay

eBay Announces New Resolution Center

October 19, 2008 By whateverebay Leave a Comment

eBay Announces New Resolution Center. This is the upgrade from the Dispute Console currently used on eBay.

According to Ted Fong with eBay’s Buyer Experience team:

· Summary of Open / Closed cases

· Search ability

· Filter Case Types

· Cancellation of order

I do not see any options for Sellers to Report Buyers for Non Payment or for False claims. Many buyers are opening claims through Paypal for items “Not as Described” and demanding a full refund.

There are many situations where you may issues a partial credit or full refund on the sale. eBay should offer an option for the Seller to be credited for such claims. Issue partial credit; eBay should issue you partial Final Value Fee credit as well.

Here is the link to eBay’s Announcement

In other eBay announcements…..

Relist Credits Ending for Fixed Price Listings October 22

Beginning October 22, they will no longer offer credit for insertion Fees when Fixed Price items are relisted. Credits will continue to be issued for unpaid items and are now being extended to single quantity Store Inventory Format listings if there is an unpaid item. They are continuing relist credits for Auction-style listings will continue.

Best Match for Store Inventory Format Listings in Search Expansion Box

Increased from 30 to 50 store listings to appear in search. Best match is now used as the sort order for these store items. How they will sort them will be by the following factors:

· Fixed Price Listings

· Recent sales

· Competitive Pricing

· Shipping

· Seller track record

eBay does provide you with a helpful outline of Best Match Tips

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: eBay, ebay changes, ebay fees, selling on ebay

Update on Mandatory eBay Return Policy

October 8, 2008 By whateverebay Leave a Comment

eBay has extended the deadline for the Mandatory Return Policy to the beginning of 2009. That makes sense; as many sellers can have anywhere from 100-10,000 listings. Imagine manually changing each one. If you sell on eBay 100 items or more consider using an auction tool to upload your listings. Most tools allow you to make changes to your Policies at once.

Finally eBay has cleared something up. Return Policy is MANDATORY.

This means all they want you to do is State where you stand.

Example:

Return Policy: We accept returns in Brand New and in original packaging within 3 days from delivery. You must contact us for an RMA. Returns without an RMA will not be accepted…….

Return Policy: We do not Accept Returns. All are sales are final.

Don’t get the boot from eBay for not following a simple request. All business should be clear on their Policy. On or off eBay. The policy should be stated on your listing, website and store. Buyers are more likely to shop at your site if your Sate a Return Policy. Offer them the option to change their mind.

Our Return Policy varies from each online store. However, exceptions are always made for those loyal buyers. J

Source: Nate Etter Update on Mandatory Return Policy and Handling Time

Filed Under: Changes on eBay, Selling online Tagged With: ebay changes, how to sell online, merchant services, online auctions, policy, Selling online, terms & conditions

eBay Acquires Bill Me Later

October 8, 2008 By whateverebay 2 Comments

If you are not familiar with Bill Me Later; then let me tell you. Bill Me Later is an Online payment option. You can simply input your Last 4 Digits of your Social Security Number and date of Birth. In seconds you will have a response. Usually a positive one J

Recently Amazon announced their partnership with Bill Me Later. Very simple, they incorporated Bill Me Later into the Checkout page. Presto, now you have several more options to pay and perhaps shop for more.

I have used Bill Me Later at KB Toys; its simple and amazed me how they approve without your Social Security Number. Nope, did not ever apply it to my e-Commerce stores.

Now, eBay acquires Bill Me Later. Is Amazon next? Auction Bytes interviewed the VP at Bill Me Later and offers you a lot more details.

I will be also talking to you about CIT Bank. CIT is the leading Commercial lender. If you are looking to getting terms with the Leading Manufacturers / Suppliers chances are they use CIT for all their credit terms. GE is another leading company. A lot more fun stuff to talk about coming soon. J

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: amazon, auction bytes, bill me later, CIT Bank, credit terms, merchant credit

Changes on ebay where is the old ebay

September 24, 2008 By whateverebay 1 Comment

CrazeeNYdriver wants the old eBay back. Here in this video references the changes we talked about payments. Effective 10/15/2008 eBay will NOT allow you to accept Check or Money Orders. Which is fine, selling online is all about fast prompt payment. However, for those sellers that do not have a merchant account they are stuck accepting Paypal.

With all the recent changes eBay and Paypal will be the only ones to benefit from the interest they will earn on placing a hold on your funds.

Paypal has the new 21 Day Rule if you recall. They are really putting this into good use. To answer CrazeeNYdriver’s questions about “Where to sell” with eBay’s potential. No other site really. What you need to do, is have your own website and brand yourself. Get yourself out there to other selling venues. I will be providing to you a list of all your alternatives and how to use eBay to gain traffic to your website and other site.

Now watch CrazzeNYdriver

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: Changes on eBay, ecommerce, old ebay, Selling online

eBay seller standards set Minimum at 4.3 on all DSRs

September 16, 2008 By whateverebay Leave a Comment

eBay seller standards set Minimum at 4.3 on all DSRs. More news on changes taking place on eBay. All these were announced last month. Now, that we are approaching their timelines its good to recap.

These means that you will have to brush up on your people skills. You goal will and should always be Customer Satisfaction. Now eBay is setting a similar scale as Amazon has in place for sellers.

Its all about taking care of business…. J

Here of course if the link directly to eBay regarding the Minimum Standards set

http://pages.ebay.com/sell/August2008Update/ConfidentBuyers/index.html#1

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: auctions, Changes on eBay, ecommerce, Merchant Account, selling on ebay, SEO

eBay Terminates “Bid Assistant”

September 12, 2008 By whateverebay Leave a Comment

eBay Terminates “Bid Assistant” making it evident their focus will not be auctions.

If you are a current seller on eBay start making note of these changes. Starting 9/15/08 eBay will start removing links to Bid Assistant found in item pages and from My eBay page.

You should take a look at their General Announcements page for details at http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200809051050532.html

This should be interesting. From my experience every time eBay makes changes, listings are lost, sales are not recorded, buyers and sellers information is not provided, information sent to Paypal for payment on invoices is not credited properly.

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: ebay auctions, make a living blogging, make a living online, no auctions, selling on ebay, Selling online

eBay drops hundreds of affiliates EPN

September 2, 2008 By whateverebay Leave a Comment

Ebay is great at upsetting Groups of People! Really! Why would they bother upsetting individuals. Not worth it…

Like a thief in the night; On 8/20/2008 hundreds of EPN Affiliate (eBay) received a letter from eBay indicating they had severed their relationship.

Too bad….you get the boot…Basically.

Well, its not funny! People work very hard and working online for yourself is no piece of cake. You must invest ton of time, educating yourself, research and keeping up to date with the latest online trends.

(For those of you that are not familiar with EPN – EPN is eBay Partner Network affiliate program they in-housed after ending their relationship with CJ. Webmasters (publishers) were paid a commission based on a percentage of an eBay seller’s fee for products.)

If you are really good at driving traffic to your Affiliate you stand a Good Chance on making 100k plus a year. The beauty of working online; is that you will make as much as you put into it.

The Affiliates banned from eBay have right to feel Insulted. All their hard work has been flushed away. And now they must work harder to:

1) Remove all links and Text from their sites

2) Start all over with another affiliate

Let’s always keep in mind

“Do Not Put All Your Eggs in One Basket”

Working online now offers you so many options. If do not have other affiliate accounts this ban will of course hurt you. My next posting will cover your options and how to get started with your own affiliate accounts.

If you recently were banned from EPN let us know your story. What advice do you have to offer others interested in Affiliates? What will you do know? What companies will you now support? We want to know your story!!!

So let’s turn this experience into a Positive one. Perhaps uniting you will start the New and improved eBAY. eCrater was formed from sellers uniting and working together to offer a fair market place. www.eCrater.com offers you Free listings and allows you to accept Google Checkout; yes, you can accept www.Paypal.com

another ….WHATEVEReBay … : )

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: ebay bans Affiliates, EPN upset over ban, how to make money using Affiliates, selling on ebay

Paypal & eBay’s 21 day Rule – lol =)

September 2, 2008 By whateverebay 5 Comments

How safe is it really making it? Who are they kidding???? NOT US….

With the new 21 day Rule – Paypal places a hold on your money. They will not release your money unless you can:

1) Provide Tracking numbers of DELIVERY

2) Buyers leaves you FEEDBACK or

3) During the 21 days of receipt the buyer has not filed a claim

1) Tracking – If you are using the Post Office Service you know that this will make a difference in the cost of shipping.

>I spoke to a CSR at Paypal; she informed me that Post Office Tracking Numbers are not valid. I asked: How about DHL. Her response was “Sorry” you must use FEDEX or UPS…. WHAT!

When selling on auction you want to provide the best price possible to your buyers. However; Paypal now dictates the carrier who can give business too.

I was not satisfied with her response I called again! ( I waited for 28 minutes!!!) Okay, Spoke to another CSR; he claims she misunderstood Paypal’s Policy and indeed you can use DHL. However, he did not recommend to use USPS.

>>So, if you have the tracking information with a signature of accepted delivery; this can be useless. All depends on the CSR at Paypal. One more thing about the tracking, Paypal will NOT automatically remove the hold they place on your account. The MUST verify. —Say it with me WHATEVER!

2) Feedback – I have done this as I am sure some of you have. We all lead very busy lives. Therefore, unless we feel that wrong was done to us, we usually do not Log On to leave a Great Review. This is now having a large impact on New and existing (small) sellers. If your money was frozen, then you have to put money from your pocket to pay for the shipping.

>>>Emailing the buyer for follow-up and encouraging them to leave feedback is great once. How many of you will leave great feedback; if the seller is emailing you daily? Hmmm……. Not likely

3) 21 days are up. Okay, so Paypal claims to remove the hold. WRONG! They will (of course if you call in helps) now contact the buyer and make sure all is alright. Submit your request to “The Powers Above” and can take an additional 7 days for the review, according to PayPal. Hmmm……

So, what are they doing with OUR Money. They are earning interest! Are they sharing that interest with us? NO!

Can the money be considered to be in an Escrow Account? My legal friends; your response would be greatly appreciated.

~~~Many buyers and sellers out there are Hardworking and Honest people. If you take the time to explain to them the Importance of feedback; they are likely to respond in a positive manner. ~~~~

Your transaction had no bumps and Paypal releases the money to you. Great! J We are now loving the “Precautions” Paypal is taking. Right………..?

Here is what can go wrong. I have experienced this recently.

I had a buyer recently purchase a set of outdoor fountains. All information was confirmed and I shipped to her via UPS. Three days later I get a call from a UPS Agent. The buyer is not responding to notice for delivery. They wanted to know if I authorized for them to return the item to us. I instructed them to allow me one day to get a hold of her. I then proceeded to Ring her, email her and fax to her (just happen to have the number). No response on that day. Finally, I am forward a voice mail she left indicating to have changed her mind and will not be accepting the order.

No problem….I had my assistant email her and acknowledge the request to cancel; along with our Policies.

Had this transaction taken place with Paypal…. I would have lost even more money. The shipping to and from, labor and packaging. I sell a large volume items; if this were to occur 3 or more times a week it can really start to eat up profit.

Paypal would not offer you any financial relief. I had a voice mail from the customer. Of course had our Merchant Account needed proof for the dispute I would not had a problem submitting it.

In the past dealing with Paypal has been a huge financial loss. I can potentially deal with buyers remorse, damages, buyers not understanding what is in the description, buyers trying to ship back to me items already in use for months…etc…. This all adds up. With Paypal you as the Seller are eating up all the loss. Yes, even when you have your policies on your Auction Site or Website.

Paypal is only watching their pocket NOT the Sellers or Buyers.

The merchant account depending on who you bank with usually stands behind the Seller. They place a value on you as well. Go to West Elm after 6 months and try to get a refund.

PayPal also points out Amazon and Merchant Banks have certain restrictions. Yes, they do. Amazon will restrict your account and they will walk you through the steps and it is not the entire funds. They will only Release funds upon receiving the tracking information. This is reasonable. Amazon is protecting you and the buyer. For whatever reason you cannot fill the order; they buyers card will not be charged.

Merchant Accounts can place certain restrictions on you. However, they will not tied up 100% of the sale for 21 days. They are known to hold 5-20% of a sale for certain amount of Months while you build your credit or history. Some banks may offer you an interest payment for the monies held.

Paypal’s 21 HOLD is self serving and useless.

PayPal will not hold payments for eBay items if sellers:

-Have been an eBay member for more than 6 months, and

-Have a total Feedback score greater than 100, and

-Have a buyer satisfaction percentage of 95% or better.

or:

-Have an average Detailed Seller Rating greater than 4.5, and

-Have received more than 20 Detailed Seller Ratings in the last 12 months.

-And for sellers who are new to eBay, all you have to do to minimize your chances of being impacted by eBay item holds is follow good selling practices like shipping quickly, using tracking, communicating openly with your customers and providing a good buying experience.

Whatever! Sellers can comply and Paypal will find another Issue to hold your funds.

If you are selling on eBay; be prepared to incur all the cost of selling and shipping.

eBay claims to accept www.Propay.com and Merchant Accounts (verified)

I have more on eBay!

Filed Under: Changes on eBay, Selling online Tagged With: accepting payment online, ebay changes, Merchant Account, Paypal, paypal 21 day rule, selling on ebay

eBay funnies :)

August 22, 2008 By whateverebay 2 Comments

Busy week for eBay. They announced the following and I am providing to you only the highlights for your entertainment:

· eBay changes fixed price for media related listings

· BIN’s price increase and now will run 30 days

· Bans Check and Money Orders

· FVF may increase up to 12% (Amazon charges you 15% and no listing Fees)

· eBay/Paypal still in battle in Australia for not allowing other forms of payment

· Troubles with consumers - “Ripped-off consumers furious at PayPal”

o eBay’s decision to only extend refunds to customers of a failed eBay seller as a “courtesy” demonstrates that the ‘PayPal guarantee’ is far from rock solid. Details at http://apcmag.com/Content.aspx?id=2827

You may want to listen in today to their live Town-Hall Meeting.

Friday, August 22nd, 2008 from 1:30 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Pacific time - For details visit www.ebay.com/townhall to join the event or for more information

Note: With all the changes eBay is making to catch up to Amazon; really…why don’t they just sell eBay all together. If the current sellers wanted or liked the Amazon platform; they would be there already. Amazon runs a tight ship and they are known for this. They offer you as a seller better customer service and a knowledgeable staff. If you want to sell on their site; be prepared to accept all their Terms & Conditions. Due to Amazon running such a tight ship, I enjoy selling on Amazon. Amazon will again, place restrictions on certain categories for safety. They do this every year to help reduce any possible Holiday Fraud.

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: ebay changes, ebay fees, sell outside ebay, selling on ebay, Selling online

So here we go again! eBay announced changes that will HURT your listings!

August 4, 2008 By whateverebay 1 Comment

Before I provide my top 5 strategies to a great Description and Headline; we will have to discus the changes eBay has made.

It is about time sellers can offer (as you can offer in your own webstore) color and size option under one listing. Previously, eBay would force you to list the same item 5 times for each size and color. Forcing you to pay them additional listing fees. So that has now changed.

Do NOT SPAM on keywords. The common ones sellers spam on are Celebrity Names, Name Brands and TV Shows. No more. So if you list something such as “POTTERY Brown Finish Ottoman”….guess what… eBay will take it down. Clever but not allowed and not fair to Pottery Barn.

Careful with those links. I am waiting on eBay to clarify on the link factor. Before you could create an about me page and drive traffic to your website. Its was not allowed on the listing but it was on your About Me Page. You were allowed to list links to your favorite places and offer them the option to visit our site for variety or details on the items. So for now; do not do it.

For details on the eBay Policy Updates you can visit them at http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200805191328272.html

So it does get better. See, now ebay has made changes to “Identical Items and Finding Updates”

Search & Browse Manipulation Policy…..wait….. I gotta lol J

Okay, so what’s so funny? Well, eBay announces they will no longer require you to list separate listings for the SAME SHIRT (example). You can now offer the buyer color and size options in one listing.

The twist is… that eBay is now limiting the number of listings per Seller that will appear on the first page. Of course this matters a great deal. If you have several items on auction (Buy It Now Items a whole other story) that are the “same” ; eBay will only list 10 unique listings per seller.

This is good as you it can offer the buyers more variety on the first page and offer New Sellers a chance to get on that first page.

However, if you are selling Children’s Clothing and have about 25 pieces from the SAME brand, color, gender etc…. you might use up all your 55 characters. Of course, the pieces are not the same item, they can be for a Newborn, Toddler, color or offer accessories etc…

Therefore, you are now going to juggle making your Headline (title) unique or risk not being listed on the front page (first page that comes up when buyers perform a search….Not eBay’s Homepage).

When it comes to your keywords, it really can hurt your sales. The holidays are coming up; how is eBay to determine identical listings; if they are not going to view each one to make that determination.

eBay will now compensate “Top Performing Sellers” any seller with a 4.7 DSR will be rewarded with additional boost in the search standings. I have to stay this is good and well deserved. This should keep sellers motivated in order to make the first page and be known for offering Great Customer Service.

Here are the additional links.

You should read this. As sellers are having a fit over “Search & Browse Manipulation Policy” . Its really the “Search” part they are having a hard time with.

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=2000611551&tstart=0

Search and Browse Manipulation

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/search-manipulation.html

Announcement form John McDonald,Sr. Director of US Trust & Safety. Handsome guy too….

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200805191328272.html

So, with all the changes that have just recently come in effect. I have to go back to eBay for some clarifications and search to provide you the best ways to get the most exposure for your items. Can’t emphasize enough; if you want to sell on eBay or are already selling on eBay start your plan of action NOW! J You will benefit so much… The holiday season is here and eBay as any other market place is working to making everyone’s shopping experience a pleasant one. You also want to benefit from all the money eBay will be placing into advertising.

J Whatever……………… J

Filed Under: Changes on eBay Tagged With: eBay, ebay policy changes, Selling online, webstore, whateverebay