We celebrated our 15th anniversary as a company last week and it really got me thinking about what an individual human being means to the success of any venture.

There is a long-standing ritual at eBay events in which all the attendees stand-up and remain standing until a number is announced that exceeds their eBay Feedback Score on eBay.com. It’s an exercise we’ve continued at the four eBay: On Location Events this year and, with a Feedback score of 86, admittedly I’m typically one of the first to sit down. We got to 391 last week before CEO, John Donahoe, had to take a seat on the stage…

Invariably the exercise takes about 20-30 minutes to complete because there is always a handful of sellers present (as there was last week) that have Feedback scores exceeding 100,000. Never ceases to amaze me.

“I Am Not A Number!”
There is a similar phenomenon happening over on Twitter where individuals are really trying to boost their number of followers, and talk about that number with pride; a conversation at a social event here in Silicon Valley inevitably gets to the “how many followers do you have on Twitter?” discussion sooner rather than later.

It’s something I’ve never really been too preoccupied with. Granted, given that I represent the leading global online marketplace, I have a relatively low follower count with @ebayinkblog but, as I’m about to cross the 5,000 follower mark, it got me thinking about stats and numbers and followers and Feedback score, etc.

I’ve noticed that when we start talking in stats and numbers, we have a tendency to briefly forget about the individual people that make up each follower or FB score or whatever it is people are tracking today. I confess that I’ve said the following things to myself on more than one occasion:

“I wonder if I’ll hit 10,000 followers on Twitter by the end of the year.”

“I’m only 14 away from hitting a 100 Feedback on eBay.”

This really hit home for me last week when we were doing the Feedback score ritual at eBayOL San Jose. Every single point that makes up Jack Sheng’s 2,000,000+ Feedback score is a human being making a single transaction with a specific business/seller. A connection has been made. When you think about it in those terms, no matter how insignificant the unique transaction may be, that’s hundreds of thousands of people’s lives that Jack Sheng has changed in some way by a single transaction on eBay.com. It is the true definition of the word “awesome.” And, when thought about in those terms, as a seller it doesn’t matter whether you’re Feedback score is 10 or 10,000 – that’s a number of people that you’ve made a difference in their life.

The same can be said for Twitter. Each follower is an individual; a human being (for the most part – I’m not counting Twitter users such as @commonsquirrel). One retweet, one response and that’s the equivalent of a transaction on eBay; a connection between one human and another that may have otherwise never met.

Know Where You Came From to Know Where You’re Going
I have been with eBay for almost 3 years now and in that time I’ve welcomed a lot of new colleagues and friends and I’ve had to say goodbye to some too. Every cube at eBay HQ has a name plate of the employee that sits there and, when they leave, (for those that know that I collect them), they give me their name plate as they move on to the next phase in their career/life. It’s not a morbid tradition that I’ve perpetuated over time, on the contrary, it is a reminder that without those people eBay wouldn’t be where it is today. Each name plate represents a human being that made a difference at our company.

Whenever I’m down or frustrated or daydreaming about being at the pub enjoying a nice cold beer rather than sitting in my cube here at work, I take a look at those name plates and I look at the folks that sit around me now; I look at the connections I’ve made on Twitter and I think about the number of transactions (read “connections”) that happen on eBay every day and I’m inspired to snap out of it and get back to working.

This blog post may only be read by a few hundred folks and, in the grand scheme of things, that may seem pretty insignificant. However, when I break it down out of stats and pageviews, I realize that each individual took time out of their day to read this sentence and that is a) pretty humbling and b) inspiring for me to write something worthwhile.

Take a look at your Feedback score, remember the individual transactions that are represented, and be inspired to continue to make a difference in individual’s lives – rather than simply hitting the next milestone or stat (as you already know, if you focus on the former, the latter will sort itself out).

And, with that in mind, I’m going to get back to it.

Cheers!
RBH

The NRF Foundation/American Express 2009 Customer Service survey was designed to gauge consumer attitudes toward retailers’ customer service and to provide a listing of the top customer service retailers. The survey, which polled 8,600 consumers, was conducted by consumer marketing intelligence firm BIGresearch in September 2009 The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.0 percent.

Consumers answered the open ended question, “Thinking of all the different retail formats (store, catalog, internet, or home shopping), which retailer delivers the best customer service?”

Like I said when I wrote about this last year, it is the individual sellers on the eBay marketplace that should be commended for achieving this high ranking. After all, they’re the ones providing the customer service to consumers on a daily basis.

Congratulations!

Cheers,
RBH

Cheers,
RBH

Jack Sheng talks about how his selling format has changed over the past 10 months, going from 99% auctions / 1% fixed-price format to 75% fixed-price format / 25% auction-format:

Jack Sheng talks about the emergence of mobile commerce, the transformation of eBay over the past 18 months and concludes by discussing his optimism heading into the pending holiday season:

Jack Sheng talks about what he’s hoping to see from eBay in the future and talks about areas in which he hopes to see eBay improve:

I sat down with Nate to talk about how the tests were doing and what new wrinkles were being added to the mix. Of course, no conversation with an eBay colleague would be complete without a “5 minutes with…” Q&A. You’ll find it below the videos.
Cheers!
RBH

What have you been testing over the past 4 months? Are you expanding the tests?

Screenshot of one of the 5 variations of the Feedback Test page:
(more images in the previous blog post)

Will more people be participating in the tests? What will they experience?

What are you hoping to accomplish with these tests? What are the goals?

How are these tests incorporated into the SR2 changes going into practice at the end of the month? Are they?

5 Minutes with… Nate Etter
Full Name: Nathan Etter
Nickname: Nate
Official Title: Director, Product Strategy
What You Really Do: My recent focus has primarily been leading projects related to Trust on eBay. My current efforts revolve around improving the eBay Feedback system for both sellers and buyers. I work with a cross-functional team that includes individuals from our user interface, engineering, QA, research, analytics, and marketing groups.
Your First Day at eBay: January 3, 2006
Education/Schooling: Stanford University
Interests: Triathlon, open water swimming, photography
Favorite Quote: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
Most memorable eBay experience: Attending my first eBay Live in Las Vegas!
Most recent eBay purchase/sale: A Bottecchia all-carbon road bike for my wife (it arrived this week and I’m green with envy!!)
Favorite Albums: There are so many!! A sampling: Live at Luther College (Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds), Sanctuary (Arvo Pärt), Our Endless Numbered Days (Iron & Wine), Haunted (Poe), Gossip in the Grain (Ray LaMontagne), Rodrigo y Gabriela (Rodrigo y Gabriela), To Venus and Back (Tori Amos)
Favorite Movies: Forrest Gump, Awakenings, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Fisher King, Lord of the Rings
What You Wanted to Be Growing Up: It was a toss up between being a doctor or a chef on a cruise ship.

Fill in the blanks:
I should have gone for a run yesterday.
I wish that I could fly in small planes without getting airsick.
The first thing I do when I get to work is check emails.

From the AB post:
The biggest change to the agreement supports the new on-eBay resolution process and accompanying policy. With this user agreement update, the policy and process will offer coverage for all buyers who purchase an item on eBay.com. The policy provides guidance for sellers on how to avoid adverse claim decisions. In the event of an eligible claim it also grants eBay permission to deduct amounts from the seller’s PayPal account to refund the buyer. eBay will ask for permission to charge an alternate payment method in certain situations. (Note, most of the process details are now located in the policy, referenced in the User Agreement).

For more information, please refer to:
** ebay.com/resolutions
** FAQ
** Best Practices

Cheers,
RBH

From Dinesh Lathi’s AB post earlier today:

Town Hall panelists include:

# Richard Hansen – Senior Director, Trust
# Olivier Dumon – Senior Director, Best Match
# Todd Lutwak – Senior Director, Seller Development
# Clayton Kunz – Product Manager, Resolutions
# Brian Burke, Director, Reputation
# Jarrod Jodoin, Product Manager, Shipping and Insurance

Ask your question LIVE on the air!
The best part of these events is the conversation we have with the Community. If you have a question for me or one of the other panelists on the above topics, call us at our toll-free number – 1-888-327-0061 – and ask us your question on the air. Or if you’d prefer, you can drop us an email with your question or comment about one of the topics in the Fall 2009 Announcement at townhall@ebay.com">townhall@ebay.com. We’ll take several of these written questions on the specific topics during the Town Hall as well.

Tune in via wsRadio
We’ll be broadcasting via Internet radio with the help of our friends at wsRadio (the same folks that produce Griff’s eBay Radio show). Members can listen to our live event via Windows Media Player or Real Player. So please visit http://www.ebay.com/townhall to join the event or for more information.

Finally, if you’d like to hear more about these topics after today’s Town Hall, take part in our upcoming webinar on Thursday, July 30th.

Also, although I’m sure I can think of a million things you’d rather do with your time, I will be joining Kat, Melinda and Beth on their show this afternoon at 5pm PT and I’ll also be joining Griff on his radio show tomorrow afternoon (Thursday) from 3-5pm PT.

Cheers,
RBH

Last Friday, the US Postal Service (USPS) announced that it was taking “aggressive steps to cut costs” and revealed the closing of six of its 80 district offices. The six offices closing were located in Lake Mary, FL; North Reading, MA; Manchester, NH; Edison, NJ; Erie, PA, and Spokane, WA.

I was wondering how this might directly affect eBay sellers. Currently there are four feedback categories in which a buyer can leave a rating on a scale of 1-5 and two of those four categories involve shipping the item itself:

1. How quickly did the seller ship the item?
2. How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?

The press release clearly stated that the offices to be closed “house only administrative functions and will not adversely affect customer service, mail delivery, Post Office operations or ZIP Codes.”

Having said that (and I realize I’m making a sweeping generalization here), online sellers are probably much more up to speed on news like this than the casual buyer. If the cost cutting efforts of package carriers, such as the USPS, do end up making for longer shipping times or higher priced services, it will be essential to set the expectations of the buyer in advance, because they’re used to a certain service for a certain price.

According to the press release, in the past year the Postal Service has taken very aggressive cost-cutting actions, including:

• Cutting 50 million workhours;
• Halting construction of new postal facilities;
• Negotiating an agreement with the National Association of Letter Carriers that adjusts letter carrier routes to reflect diminished volume;
• Freezing salaries of all Postal Service officers and executives;
• Instituting a nationwide hiring freeze;
• Reducing authorized staffing levels at postal headquarters and area offices by at least 15 percent;
• Selling unused and under-utilized postal facilities;
• Adjusting Post Office hours to better reflect customer use; and,
• Consolidating mail processing operations

I read through the discussion boards about packaging and shipping and, even though there are a lot of great tips and conversations happening over there, I couldn’t find a thread talking about Friday’s news. I did try and wade through a conversation thread started in 2001 “A Buyer’s Tutorial to Shipping and Handling…” but that was pretty intimidating too.

Then I spent some time on the USPS Shipping Zone on eBay.com. I had been there before of course but hadn’t really kicked the tires completely. It breaks everything down pretty succinctly: from “Listing Items” to “Buyer Support” if you’ve got a question about shipping expectations, as a buyer or a seller, you’re going to get a lot of information there. However, how many buyers are going to take the time to read through all of this information?

So, in addition to all of these tools and FAQs, if you’re a seller on eBay, how do you set expectations with a buyer to ensure – to the best of your ability at least – that the buyer will leave positive feedback in these two categories?

Cheers,
RBH

A common theme I’m seeing is “why change what we already had?” that seemed to be addressed in the AB post that went out ahead of the upgrade. In it, Garnor Morantes, eBay Seller Experience, previewed the changes as follows:

…[we’re] upgrading the discussion boards to offer several new features; along with a new look that is more “eBay.” Here are the highlights:

• More Personalization and Layout Options. In addition to showing My World profile images, we’re providing tools that will allow you to quickly access those discussion topics that are most important to you.
• Time-saving Features. Hover over a discussion thread title and catch a glimpse of the conversation that’s taking place before you decide to click into the thread. We’ll also rotate through some discussion board posts at the bottom of certain pages that let you see what people are currently talking about.
• Enhanced Control Over Your Experience. Sort from newest to oldest, change the number of threads appearing on a board hub page, or automatically “quote” an earlier post. The upgrade provides more ways you can tailor your experience, so that you get what you need fast.

Seems fairly straightforward to me. Bring me those new and improved enhancements. However, some people are less than enamored by the changes and I wanted to find out exactly what those folks would like to see differently. If you had the power to outline exactly how the discussion boards would be set up, how would you do it? What kind of of social media tools would you incorporate into it? Is there a place for Twitter in this? What do you like about them? Nothing is off limits: platform, communication channels, moderators, you name it. I want to hear it.

eBay has obviously invested time, manpower, money and effort into upgrading what was there so let’s get the most bang for the buck.

Cheers,
RBH

VP of Seller Experience, Dinesh Lathi, has provided a number of selling-related updates and reminders for folks over on the eBay AB.

Update to Feedback Removal Policy – Customs Fees
Many of our cross-border sellers have asked for help when they receive a negative/neutral Feedback rating because they wouldn’t mark an item as “gift” in order to sidestep customs fees. eBay will now remove Feedback if a) the listing meets the Customs Requirements below and b) the seller receives a negative or neutral Feedback comment which references customs delays or customs fees.

The following text, or very similar wording, must be included in the listing and be:
• In the format below
• In a font size no smaller than the majority of the other text in the item description
• Prominently displayed (in the upper half of the description, free-standing, etc.)

“International Buyers – Please Note:
• Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer’s responsibility.
• Please check with your country’s customs office to determine what these additional costs will be prior to bidding/buying.”

New Approved Payment Methods — Moneybookers and Paymate
In February, we’ll be adding two new electronic payment methods to the permitted payments list in the Accepted Payments Policy: Moneybookers and Paymate. These are established payment methods that increase the safe choices available to our buyers and sellers, which currently include PayPal, credit and debit card payment to a seller’s merchant account, Propay or Pay on Pick-up. To learn more about these new payment methods, visit http://www.moneybookers.com/partners/us/ebay and http://www.paymate.com/eBay. Please note, Propay also plans to open up its payment service to all levels of Powersellers starting January 22. For more information about Propay, go to http://www.Propay.com/eBay.

Better integration for Internet Merchant Accounts
For sellers who currently accept payments to an Internet merchant account, we‘re improving the checkout experience to make payments more convenient and secure for you and your buyers. Buyers will be able to pay sellers directly to their Internet merchant account by entering their credit card information in eBay’s secure checkout instead of sending information via phone or email. You will need to sign up for a Payflow Gateway account in March to connect your Internet merchant account to eBay.

Seller Checklist – Listing update reminders
Finally, be sure to review our Seller Checklist at http://www.ebay.com/checklists for details on these important updates you’ll want to make to your listings:

1) Book, Music, DVDs & Movies and Video Game listings with shipping charges over the maximums in the item descriptions should now be removed.

2) References to checks and/or money orders, or any other payment method not permitted on eBay.com, should be removed from item descriptions by January 15.

3) If you are shipping globally, add customs “disclaimer” text to your description to protect your Feedback.

4) A return policy and handling time must be specified in your listings by mid-March.

Again, the full AB post can be found HERE.

Granted, it’s a lot of info for folks and Dinesh has indicated that the team will use the above updates as the basis for discussion in the next Townhall meeting scheduled for Wednesday, January 14 (3 – 5pm PT).

Cheers,
RBH

Recalculating Feedback percentages without neutrals: Effective in late August, neutrals will no longer be counted as part of the Feedback percentage. This means we will be recalculating Feedback percentages retroactively for users worldwide. In the interim, no one will lose their PowerSeller status as a result of neutrals being included in their Feedback percentage.

Helping you resolve issues and satisfy buyers: By the end of October, we will roll out a new process to help you resolve issues with buyers, even after the buyer has left negative feedback. Everybody makes mistakes – buyers and sellers alike, and buyers should have a mechanism to change feedback if they make a mistake or if the seller rectifies an issue in a timely manner. Unlike with our previous Mutual Feedback Withdrawal system, our new process will enable buyers to change their feedback of the seller, not just withdraw the rating. We’ll provide more details of this new process in the fall.

The first change is pretty clear cut and great to see… neutrals are not negatives. (I got this wrong back in May… and was quickly corrected and rightfully so). This will be good news for folks in the same boat as Marcia and Harvey.

Additionally, it’s good to see that changes are going to be made to the current Mutual Feedback Withdrawal system, but it looks like the specifics to those changes are in more of a wait-and-see situation. Buyers will now be able to change their actual feedback rating rather than just withdraw feedback and it looks like we’ll have more info on this in the next couple of months.

Lorrie concludes her AB post with the following:
…since we debuted the new Feedback system in May, we have removed more than 60 percent of the negative/neutral feedback left by buyers in an unpaid item (UPI) process. Looking ahead, you will see us continue to take the steps needed to protect your reputation on eBay. In the meantime, you can also protect yourself by following some well-defined best practices in using Feedback. I encourage you to check them out.

Finally, we’re working to resolve other important issues that eBay sellers have raised over the past several months. I hope what I’ve shared with you today demonstrates our commitment to listening and responding quickly with solutions. We want to make eBay a great place for you to do business, but it’s going to take all of us — together — to get it right for the collective good. I want to thank you for your patience, your business and your continued commitment to eBay.

It’s very encouraging to see the company listening to its community and responding in a positive manner. Given Lorrie’s closing remarks, it’s clear that this definitely isn’t the end to changes and revisits to policies that have been rolled out over the past few months.

Based on input I’ve received in email and on Ink, I can think of a few other pain-points that it would be great to see us address: the current stringent rules to the Links Policy to name just one.

Finally, even though it’s good to hear that “we have removed more than 60 percent of the negative/neutral feedback left by buyers in an unpaid item (UPI) process”, I’d also like to find out why a buyer, who doesn’t pay for an item, is still able to leave feedback at all (positive, negative or otherwise).

UPDATE: I’ve received a few questions both in email and on the blog and, as I work on getting answers to a number of the questions, I do feel an immediate point of clarification is needed. Moving forward, neutral feedbacks will be neutral across the board. They will not count against people in their feedback percentage nor will they be counted against people in Seller Non-Performance (SNP) ratings.

Cheers,
RBH