Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

“Social Media Veteran”…

… Stop laughing.

In February, I was introduced in Fortune Small Business as a “social media veteran”, which brought chuckles to pretty much everyone I know, myself included. Sure, I have spent the majority of my career at companies specializing in social media but I can think of maybe two people that could claim the title of “veteran” as it applies to social media and I’m not one of them (you have to be at least 40 to be a veteran of anything right?).

So, even though I have been involved in podcasting and blogging for a number of years now, I must confess that until Sunday, using Twitter was just a passing fancy in my life away from work. However, since I set up the Twitter feed for eBay Ink (http://twitter.com/ebayinkblog), I’ve been able to blog (or “tweet”) from every session, panel and keynote I have attended here at eBay DevCon08. I’ve been able to engage in real-time conversations with Ink readers and other bloggers as I sit in presentations. I’ve been able to ask questions at the end of presentations that were posed to me just moments before. I’ve even linked to the conference agenda and asked where readers wanted me to go next.

Although the Twitter feed is going to be used primarily when I’m on the road, when I get back to the office, I’m going to try and integrate into my daily work routine. A lot of readers have said they wonder what the heck I do when I’m not physically blogging at the office so I think I’ll use Twitter to give them an insight into what a typical day is like being the corporate blogger for eBay. Maybe I’ll put together a standalone post for Ink readers that covers that day but for those of you interested in the real-time, you’ll be able to follow on Twitter.

If you were wondering, I made 85 “tweets” during eBay DevCon08; let’s see how many come out of eBay Live! 08.

Cheers,
RBH

Tagged: ebaydevcon, ebaydevcon08, ebaylive, ebaylive08, twitter

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8 Responses on this post. Click to add yours.

HenriettaOn 06.18.2008 at 11:09 am Said:

Since you were there and ‘we’ were not, it would be nice to have some information on the snippet
“there is a business limitation in that only 1 answer can be given to an individual question” limiting communication between buyer and seller.

Richard Brewer-Hay On 06.18.2008 at 3:41 pm Said:

That was a conversation on Twitter that I was having with Scott Pooler and Benelli regarding open communication between buyers and sellers on eBay to ensure an excellent customer experience.

We were discussing ways in which eBay could introduce a solution that allows a seller and potential buyer to communicate freely (without the current stipulation that the buyer must initiate contact each time because a seller can respond only once to a question). The business limitation right now is the spam concern that a buyer could be contacted proactively by a seller, unsolicited.

Benelli pointed out that a question a buyer had on a sold item was: “Please let me know when you have more in stock, I would like 4 ASAP.” How do we complete this sale?

He went on to suggest that eBay allow multiple replies but catch “spammy sellers” with software and/or human review of messages before blocking a seller’s account.

It was an interesting back and forth and one that Adam T, who was presenting, was also going to look into further based on our conversation.

Cheers,
RBH

MechelleOn 06.18.2008 at 11:28 am Said:

Not only that Henrietta- I had a potential customer (which ended up not being a customer) we were communicating through the ebay messaging system and after 3 exchanges eBay stopped any further communication. I had apparently exceeded the amount of conversation you can have with another eBay member. So she never purchased.

Even going through private email does not always work because they don’t realize who the email is from or it lands in the junk box.

eBay has many controlling policies that make it difficult to provide an “excellent buying experience”, which seems entirely contrary to their objective and certainly hinders or ruins mine.

[Sentence edited: see comment policy]

MechelleOn 06.18.2008 at 4:45 pm Said:

@Richard

First - you took a picture of a coffee cup- was there something interesting about the cup of coffee?

Second- “The business limitation right now is the spam concern that a buyer could be contacted proactively by a seller, unsolicited.”

Is this a concern if they change the system? Or, is it supposed to be why at this time we can only reply once the buyer initiates?

If you mean the latter then that is BS- the reason they cap it now is an effort to prevent outside sales. There is no reason why what I experienced should have occurred, because the buyer was initiating the contact. I should have been able to respond as many times as she wrote- not be cut off after 3 exchanges.

Since you are taking questions

I use ecb bucks to encourage return customers. Every 10 dollar increment earns 1 ecb buck which of course is the equivalent to one dollar US- I have some customers that really love makeup so in one order they can earn quite a few ecbs. The record of ecbs redeemed by one customer was 32.

So, after launching this promotional strategy and the first repeat made her second purchase and had 8 ecbs top redeem I went to adjust her invoice and learned that I cannot discount the invoice more than the shipping cost. In other words - the shipping price is 4.60, but she had 8 ecbs, but eBay’s system doesn’t allow me to discount 8 only 4.60. So I had to explain this (which was mortifying) and ask if she was alright with my refunding her the difference after she paid. Now, this is entirely unacceptable and really peeves me every time I have to first explain it and second perform the refund.

I can’t help but think this is another example of eBay’s short run business strategy. It would make more sense and be more to their advantage if they would just get out of the transaction and let me do what I need to do to retain my customers. Given this concept of retention is supposed to be at the top of the agenda maybe this is something they should fix as well.

So the question
Can they see this is counterproductive and would they consider fixing this issue if for no other reason than it benefits them?

Patricia1On 06.18.2008 at 6:29 pm Said:

Pretty poor business model when you have to beg them to get the heck out of the way so you can make your customer happy enough to come back! It would be funny if it were so stupid and so sad Sorry, but that kind of meddling interference - for whatever excuse - riles me no end!

SandiOn 06.18.2008 at 6:46 pm Said:

I went to adjust her invoice and learned that I cannot discount the invoice more than the shipping cost. In other words - the shipping price is 4.60

And after ebay fixes it, Paypal also has to adjust. I a promotion on another site that if they bought 15, free shipping. Paypal refused to let the buyer pay because there was zero shipping.

It happened twice, I had to manually retype an invoice direct from Paypal for one buyer. The other buyer had google, so when Paypal refused to let her pay, she just went to google and paid.

I now list discount if they use google to pay, and explain Paypal does not have the option of putting discount on invoice.

SandiOn 06.18.2008 at 6:53 pm Said:

I should have been able to respond as many times as she wrote- not be cut off after 3 exchanges.

That is the one of the top dumb things ebay does. I use to have buyers email and say, I really like your designs, do you have one that would work for such and such. Since I had to go through alot of files to check, I would say, I will look and let you know tomorrow (so they would know I was responsive, you know providing good cutomer service). Then I would go back to say yes, I had it and it was listed, discover system would not let me reply twice to one email.

So then I would say, I will look, if you have not heard back from me by tomorrow by 5pm CT, email me back, ebay doesn’t let me answer twice sometimes so I will need a new email to answer.

How totally silly a seller (and buyer) have to work harder to buy/sell..

AmberOn 06.18.2008 at 8:44 pm Said:

That’s one known glitch among many for the ebay invoicing.

Another is the inability to send a combined invoice when a buyer purchases from more than one ebay site.

For example:

I list a book on ebay au. A buyer wins it at auction, then buys 3 more books listed on .com I cannot combine the invoices except by sending a Paypal invoice.