The full paper can be read here.

It’s a pretty sweeping document that quite frankly doesn’t speak highly of the current state of the eBay Marketplace. Something I hear quite a bit of here on Ink. However, I’ve also started to receive emails from individuals that stand on the other side of the discussion, that are enthused and excited by the changes being made. When one has a community as large as this, inevitably these contrasting viewpoints are going to occur.

This paper is no different. Just a few hours after receiving the email from Joe Cortese, I was forwarded a response to the position paper from PeSA and VOICES member, Elizabeth Bennett. With her approval, I have included her response to the paper below:

Hello. I disagree with PESA’s position paper. The new eBay pricing is wonderful for my business; my ebay business is up more than 30%, and my ebay fees are lower. I project an INCREASING share of my buisiness will be on eBay over the next 12 months.

I believe that the “winds of change” at eBay also included a profound commitment to communication, and that eBay is doing everything within their power to communicate with sellers and to woo buyers.

I have been to a number of PESA events. I was among the first PESA members to pay my dues when you went from a free to a fee organization. I have been disappointed that PESA has positioned itself as an organization which promotes every venue OTHER THAN eBay, and where the “group culture” has been one of non-stop “eBay bashing.”

I was heartened by PESA’s having Lorrie Norrington as keynote at the last event, although I was unable to attend. I hoped that that decision, and several phone meetings for members with eBay executives, signalled a change in PESA’s approach to eBay.

PESA would be doing more of a service to their members if they were working to promote the EBAY venue. The only reason I am a member is that I am interesting in networking with other high volume sellers, to increase my eBay sales.

I am disappointed in the decision of PESA to release this “white paper.” It certainly does not represent my views, or promote my interests.

Best,
Elizabeth Bennett
President

As stated before, my goal on Ink is to report news and all things eBay… good and bad. I have been accused at times of being too corporate; just a mouthpiece (last week I was referred to as “a mole”; this week it’s “publicist with an inauthentic voice”). Other times I get emails of encouragement and sheer surprise that I actually allow certain comments to come through the spam filter or that I tackle certain subjects.

Bottom line, as long as I can show both sides of an argument or discussion, I feel its worth writing about. This one is a lightning rod, I realize that. Most things I write about these days are. But I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t post the PeSA positioning statement up here and invite comments and feedback. Just as Scott Pooler said in his post, “When the longest standing eBay trade organization comes out with a statement like this… Someone should take note.”

Cheers,
RBH

OVERVIEW:
Worldwide Brands are the What to Sell and Where to Get it Experts! Join us for this webinar to learn about how you can beat the recession with eCommerce using the best techniques in product sourcing and market research. Knowledge is power and Worldwide Brands will be sharing some of the research that they’ve been conducting on the recession and the impact to eCommerce.

Colette Marshall is one of Worldwide Brands™ most knowledgeable Product Sourcing experts. Colette knows the wholesale industry inside out, and understands what it takes to build a successful eCommerce business. She conducts numerous teleseminars, webinars, and product sourcing workshops throughout the year, on the importance of REAL Product Sourcing for home-based eBiz.

Questions/topics covered in the Webinar:
– What is product sourcing?
– Why is product sourcing so important?
– Using multiple sourcing techniques. Why is that so important to an Online Seller? What does that do for their E-Biz?
– Is eCommerce being impacted by the recession?
– Tips learned from suppliers and merchants
– Where to go to further your Education to be a step ahead of your competition

More information is available at: http://blog.worldwidebrands.com/?kbid=20807

Title: PESA / ECMTA Community Roundtable – Product Sourcing in Difficult Times
Date: Thursday, June 12, 2008
Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM EDT
System Requirements – PC-based attendees:
Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista
System Requirements – Macintosh®-based attendees:
Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer

Cheers,
RBH

He offered to share his presentation with eBay Ink readers, so here it is.

For those folks that have yet to pursue the possibilities of applying eBay affiliate marketing to your business, there are a number of user resources and educational tools out there: eBay Partner Network, PeSA Rewards Program, and on Squidoo, for example. There was also a PeSA/ECMTA eBay Affiliate Marketing best practices call back on April 3 but I was unable to attend. Does anyone have notes from that call?

Cheers,
RBH

At 7:30am last Friday, the approximately 50 remaining attendees from the eCommerce Summit descended on Harvey, a New Orleans suburb in the Jefferson Parish on the West Bank, to take part in a volunteer day for Habitat for Humanity. After the check presentations were made and a quick tutorial on safety guidelines was given by Zach (who could double as a stand-up comedian to complement his day gig), we enjoyed a moving rendition of Amazing Grace on the bagpipes. We were then split into groups and sent to our respective homes for the day. Sheila, Usher and I joined 12 other Summit attendees to venture three blocks west to 2315 Jefferson Street.

The home we were tasked with working on was already built but seemingly far from being ready for its new owner, Lorena Johnson. I was very surprised to hear that the plan was to hand over the keys to her new home this coming Wednesday, April 30. Everyone set to work immediately. Usher (who I later learned was a professional painter in a previous life), joined 6 others inside the home to work on caulking and painting the interior. Sheila and I took dirt duty in the yard, as the remaining 8 of us worked on distributing a large mound of dirt around the entire home – sloping said dirt at an angle away from the home. We were armed with 4 shovels, 3 rakes and 2 wheelbarrows that had definitely seen better days.

After spending the better part of the morning lifting mounds of soil, it was agreed that it was time to take a break from the sun and get to work inside the house, joining others on painting and shelving. At Noon we broke for lunch and rejoined the rest of our fellow volunteers back at the house they were working on, 2327 Mathis, where we all signed a piece of wall-siding that was going to become a part of that home.

We only worked for a total of 5 hours before we had to depart for the airport but I must confess I was feeling pretty inspired as I waited for my flight later that day. To think that folks take full use of their vacation time to travel down there and volunteer for weeks at a time was extremely humbling (there were 10 such individuals working at 2315 Jefferson Street) and I am personally committed to finding similar projects here in the Bay Area to become a regular part of.

In the 40+ years that Habitat for Humanity had been building homes in the New Orleans area, they had built a total of approximately 100 homes before Hurricane Katrina hit back in 2005. Since that time, they have constructed approximately 100 homes a year. Truly remarkable. If you’re interested in getting involved with a Habitat for Humanity organization in your area, click here for more information.

One side note, I felt a little sorry for the people sitting near me on the plane Friday night. I was covered in paint and dust and probably getting a little ripe given the earlier activities. The lady at the gate, when I connected in LAX, certainly questioned my appearance given the look on her face. I dropped my bags as soon as I walked in the front door at home and made a beeline for the shower. I smiled to myself as I got into bed thinking that Lorena Johnson will be thankful for a great many things on Wednesday and she should be truly thankful that they didn’t let me near the plumbing of her bathroom fixtures.

Cheers,
RBH

The 2008 Spring eCommerce Summit officially kicked off this morning with an introduction by PeSA Executive Director, Jonathan Garriss, welcoming all attendees to New Orleans.

eBay President of Marketplace Operations, Lorrie Norrington, was the keynote speaker of the day and her presentation focused on giving a Marketplace progress report for the past few months and re-emphasizing the focus of the company moving forward.

Highlights of the presentation included:

1. Back in January, eBay said that the goal was to have 60% of PowerSellers qualify for at least a 5% discount and in Q1, 63% did qualify for at least the 5%.

2. It was estimated that 15% of all PowerSellers would qualify for the higher, 15% discount. In Q1, PowerSellers actually doubled that. 30% of all PowerSellers qualified for the 15% discount.

3. We’ve already talked about this on Ink, but Lorrie confirmed that PowerSellers’ shipping cost DSRs for cross-border trades are only .02 points lower than domestic.

4. Two new buyer requirements were introduced today to further promote seller protection. First, sellers can block buyers who have had more than one Unpaid Item strike in the past 12 months (previously it was restricted to more than one UPI strike in the last 30 days). Second, beginning in May, sellers will be able to block buyers who have been reported by other sellers for policy violations like Feedback extortion or Feedback abuse.

5. Two new changes announced regarding negative or neutral feedback for sellers. The first is that negative and neutral feedback left for sellers will be removed – retroactively – when a buyer is unresponsive to an unpaid item claim or if they respond to the claim without expressing dissatisfaction with the item or your performance (this is aimed at resolving the situation where a buyer responds to the UPI claim but the response is nonsense). Secondly, negative or neutral feedback left by buyers who have been suspended from our marketplace for Feedback Extortion or other policy violations, will also be removed.

There was a Q&A of approximately 20 minutes that proceeded the presentation (that involved contributions from a panel of eBay representatives) and an additional one-hour break-out session with eBay panelists immediately following the keynote. I will be posting the questions and answers from both of those sessions – including the answers I got from Ink reader’s questions – in a follow-up post shortly. For now, I’m going to jump back into the sessions so I can see the eBay Affiliate Program presentation.

In the meantime, Lorrie provided me with the complete transcript of her keynote speech for your reference.

Cheers,
RBH

For those of you unable to attend, please don’t forget to ebayink@ebay.com">email me any questions you may want asking while I’m down there. I’ll do my best to capture as much sentiment as possible.

Cheers,
RBH

I realize I run the risk of turning this blog into a Marketplaces-only forum rather than an all-encompassing discussion hub for all things “Inc”, but I am joining Lorrie Norrington and the team down at the 2008 Spring eCommerce Summit in New Orleans later this month so I thought it would be a good idea for me to sit in on the PeSA / ECMTA Best Practices conference call yesterday afternoon. The topic of discussion was “Improving Your eBay DSR” and the call was hosted by Brandon Dupsky, managing director of eCommerce Markets for the E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association (ECMTA).

The call was interesting in that it didn’t focus on the perceived benefits or drawbacks to the Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) system, rather it focused on the challenges sellers face with DSRs and how to implement some best practices around that. It seemed to go beyond DSR 101 (one participant at the end of the call indicated that she found it one of the more worthwhile roundtable calls she had attended).

After Brandon provided a brief overview of what DSRs are and why they’re important he jumped into the meat of the presentation. He cited three key challenges that sellers face with DSRs:

1. Mixed messages from eBay. There is a message to buyers that states that 4.0 should be applied to an experience in which there was an “accurate” description; they were “satisfied” with communication; shipping was “quick” and S&H was “reasonable”. However, the message to the seller is that 4.0 means you can’t qualify for PowerSeller status; you don’t get good seller status; you could drop down into the bottom 1% in your category and receive seller restrictions.

2. A mixed usage of whole numbers and fractions with regard to scores. In other words, a buyer can only leave a 1, 2,3 4, or 5 feedback score and as a result, sellers are “being punished” with fractional scores of 4.0, 4.4, 4.6, 4.8.

3. Good DSR scores have less of an impact on sellers than bad DSR scores. A single 5-star DSR will not help the overall average as much as a single 1-star DSR will hurt the overall average.

The proceeding ways in which it was suggested sellers could ensure that they get the best DSRs possible all had an underlying theme. Educating the buyer with impeccable messaging and setting their expectations from the beginning seemed to be the biggest call to action to sellers (which echoed a Chatter Blog post back in February). Based on presentations and discussions I’ve seen and heard internally, that seems to be the call to action for the Marketplaces team too. Yes, the changes we’ve seen come out over the past few months are focused on providing the best overall experience for the buyer on eBay but it is the education and the ability to meet and beat the expectations of the buyer that will result in optimal DSRs.

There were a number of simple tricks and tools discussed on the call. For example, emphasizing 5-Star service in every step of communication to the buyer or potential buyer. Another was setting expectations and then beating them (whether it be regarding shipping cost, time or description of item).

The number one question that seemed to be asked throughout the presentation was “What are you doing to keep your customer happy?”

For those of you still on the fence about attending the conference later this month, the ECMTA has put together this handy-dandy Top 10 Reasons to attend. If you are heading down there, feel free to email me because I’d love to take the opportunity to meet as many people as I can in person.

Cheers,
RBH