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TAGnotes 25 Mar 2008 Vol 9 Number 3 Issue 494


The Auction Guild Notes Tue 25 Mar 2008
 


THIS ISSUE -
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EBAY US RESTRICTED 1 CENT LISTING DAYS 25 - 31 MAR 2008
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EBAY CA RESTRICTED 1 CENT LISTING DAYS 25 - 31 MAR 2008
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EBAY UK DETAILED SELLER RATING BONUS DISCOUNT
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THE EMASCULATION OF THE EBAY FEEDBACK SYSTEM
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EBAY TO REQUIRE SELLERS TO LIST WITH EBAY'S SHIPPING
DETAIL TOOL TO SPECIFY SHIPPING IN ALL LISTINGS
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EBAY STOPS DIGITAL DOWNLOAD MERCHANDISE SALES
ON EBAY US
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PAYPAL REQUIREMENT TO LIST ON EBAY US
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PAYPAL REQUIREMENT TO LIST ON EBAY UK
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GET OVER EBAY'S MERCHANT ACCOUNT REQUIREMENT
AND OFFER GOOGLE CHECKOUT
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What Sells on eBay - Prices and data for every category
ALL NEW Save Time AND Money on Research
Yardsalers.Net
************************************************************

The most successful Online Sellers have their own website
For professional, affordable web site design, development,
& low cost web hosting:TJBailey.Com
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This issue brought to you by the preceding ads, supporting TAG
through their advertising dollars. Please support them, by
clicking on or copy/pasting their links and buying their products.
TAG's advertising rates are at -
http://auctionguild.net/service/adrates.htm

The Auction Guild has a NEW website!
You can visit the new site until 28 March at
http://www.auctionguild.net
with a mirror site at
http://www.theauctionguild.com

After 28 March the site will be back at
http://www.auctionguild.com
with a mirror site at
http://www.theauctionguild.com

Visit The Auction Guild Web Log at -
http://auctionguild.blogspot.com/

A link to the complete TAGnotes archive can be found at -
http://auctionguild.net/tagnotes.htm

Don't forget to visit our chat site at TAGchat-OAI.
We post ebaY promotions on the chat site, particularly those promos that
don't warrant sending out an issue of TAGnotes
http://tagchat-oai.com

TAG does not endorse the companies or products advertised
13000 subscribers

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EBAY US RESTRICTED 1 CENT LISTING DAYS 25 - 31 MAR 2008
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ebaY US is holding a 1 cent listing promotion for auction listings with a starting price of 99
cents or less, and have specified shipping designated. In addition, for a seller to be
eligible for this promotion, sellers must have either no detailed star ratings, or detailed star
ratings above 4.5 on all criteria. Established sellers who have not sold in the last 12
months, or since the DSR's came into being, appear to be eligible, as do new sellers with
no ratings. This promotion starts at midnight Pacific Time on Tuesday, March 25, 2008
at 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second on Tuesday, March 25, 2008) and ends on
Tuesday, March 31 at 23:59:59 PT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

Sellers are not eligible for the promotional rate if their DSR rating is 4.4 or lower. Excluded
are fixed price listings, auction listings with a start price over 99 cents, auction listings
that do not have shipping charges specified, ebaY motors listings, motors local market,
international, live auction, professional services, real estate, classified ads (ad format) and
store Inventory listings. In addition business and industrial categories are excluded from
the promotion: tractors & farm machinery (91952), heavy equipment (25249), concession
trailers, carts (67145), imaging and aesthetics equipment (92035), forklifts and other lifts
(97185), manufacturing equipment (92080), metalworking equipment (92082) and
commercial printing presses (26247)

Some sellers having less than100 feedback, and not offering a Merchant Account or PayPal,
were still able to list on ebaY US and receive the 9 to 14 cent savings. Sellers using SYI
3.0 will see the promotional price during the listing process, sellers using any other tool
will see the promotion fee in the View Account Status section in My ebaY and in the next
invoice.

http://pages.ebay.com/promo/startlow08

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EBAY CA RESTRICTED 1 CENT LISTING DAYS 25 - 31 MAR 2008
************************************************************
ebaY US is holding a 1 cent listing promotion for auction listings with a starting price of 99
cents or less, and have specified shipping designated. In addition, for a seller to be
eligible for this promotion, sellers must have either no detailed star ratings, or detailed star
ratings above 4.5 on all criteria. Established sellers who have not sold in the last 12
months, or since the DSR's came into being, appear to be eligible, as do new sellers with
no ratings. This promotion starts at midnight Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 00:00:01 ET
(12:00 AM plus one second on Tuesday, March 25, 2008) and ends on Tuesday, March
31 at 23:59:59 ET (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

Sellers are not eligible for the promotional rate if their DSR rating is 4.4 or lower. Excluded are
fixed price listings, auction listings with a start price over 99 cents, auction listings that do
not have shipping charges specified, ebaY motors listings, motors local market,
international, live auction, professional services, real estate, classified ads (ad format) and
store Inventory listings. In addition business and industrial categories are excluded from
the promotion: tractors & farm machinery (91952), heavy equipment (25249), concession
trailers, carts (67145), imaging and aesthetics equipment (92035), forklifts and other lifts
(97185), manufacturing equipment (92080), metalworking equipment (92082) and
commercial printing presses (26247)

Some sellers having less than100 feedback, and not offering a Merchant Account or PayPal,
were still able to list on ebaY US and receive the 9 to 14 cent savings. Sellers using SYI
3.0 will see the promotional price during the listing process, sellers using any other tool
will see the promotion fee in the View Account Status section in My ebaY and in the next
invoice.

http://pages.ebay.ca/promo/1CPROMO

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EBAY UK DETAILED SELLER RATING BONUS DISCOUNT
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Sellers on ebaY UK are being offered from 40% to 80% off their Final Value fees if their 30
day detailed star rating score is higher than 4.6 across all four DSRs at the end of March,

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200803201712572.html

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THE EMASCULATION OF THE EBAY FEEDBACK SYSTEM
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ebaY is now on a path to completely eliminate mutual feedback, and do away with
transparency in the feedback system. Starting 1 May 08, buyers will no longer receive
negative feedback, sellers will only be allowed to leave positive feedback, and sellers will
get anonymous detailed star ratings (DSR) from buyers, which will determine if the
sellers items show up in search.

It also appears that ebaY will use these anonymous ratings to justify posting negative
comments about the seller in red on the seller's own item listing page. How ebaY will
justify their venue only stance with such a plan is beyond TAG's understanding. EbaY is
also using these DSR's to determine if sellers may participate in promotions, and receive
discounts on final value fees.

This plan assumes all sellers are thieves and liars, and all buyers are virtuous and honest,
which totally flushes away even the myth ebaY has maintained of the all people are good
philosophy that the ebaY site was built on.

There is much discussion about these changes across the online auction and trading industry
chat boards, with many sellers and buyers organizing for a boycott against ebaY starting 1 May.

As part of these changes, which are a virtual free ticket to allow buyers to use feedback
extortion to manipulate ebaY sellers, ebaY is claiming it will protect the sellers from
extortionists. Anyone who has ever tried to contact ebaY to get ANY problem resolved,
knows that ebaY's claims are a complete lie, since ebaY provides no customer service to
anyone, buyers or sellers, and such protection would require real time customer service.
ebaY is saying sellers should use this link and the contact form accessible from the
additional information section -

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/feedback-extortion.html

to get action against someone using feedback for extortion.

There has been talk that ebaY will not accept an email as proof of feedback extortion unless
that email comes through the ebaY system. There is also no mention if ebaY will remove
he DSR rating of an extortionist or only the feedback rating.

************************************************************
EBAY TO REQUIRE SELLERS TO LIST WITH EBAY'S SHIPPING
DETAIL TOOL TO SPECIFY SHIPPING IN ALL LISTINGS
************************************************************
ebaY is going to require that all sellers specify shipping costs for all items they sell, in the
shipping details section of ebaY's listings. This will be required now for all new sellers,
and will be phased in over an unspecified time period of several months, for all other
sellers. Given that shipping cost depends on where the buyer lives, and how the buyer
wants an item shipped, and if the buyer purchases multiple items, this is a ridiculous
requirement. Ad to that the frequency with which ebaY's shipping tools break, and return
inaccurate shipping fees.

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EBAY STOPS DIGITAL DOWNLOAD MERCHANDISE SALES
ON EBAY US
************************************************************

Effective 31 March 08 ebaY is no longer going to allow sellers to list items digitally
downloaded or transferred electronically on ebaY. Sellers will only be allowed to use the
ebaY classified ads format, to list such items.

It is interesting that ebaY no longer seems to feel as if they have to follow their own user
agreement restrictions giving sufficient notice to a rules change.

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PAYPAL REQUIREMENT TO LIST ON EBAY US
************************************************************
Many more sellers will now be required to offer PayPal as a payment option. Such criteria
will be based on ebaY's "judgment" of seller performance, or because a seller has less
than 100 feedback, or because a seller lists in certain categories ebaY has judged to be
high risk. PayPal criteria have changed, and PayPal will now reserves the right to not
send payment to sellers until a buyer has left positive feedback or 21 days later whichever
comes first. This will allow PayPal to float as much seller money as they desire
whenever they desire with no seller recourse.

As of 17 March ebaY requires a seller to offer PayPal or a Merchant Account as a payment
option if the seller has higher than a 5% buyer dissatisfaction rate, or the seller has less
than 100 feedback, or the seller is listing items in categories with higher rates of buyer
complaints, including: Gift Certificates, Video Games, Cell Phones, Computers and
Consumer Electronics.

In actuality this policy does not appear to be fully implemented as established sellers with less
than 100 feedback have been able to list without offering PayPal or a Merchant Account.

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PAYPAL REQUIREMENT TO LIST ON EBAY UK
************************************************************
Sometime in the next week, ebaY UK sellers who have less than 100 feedback or list in Health
& Beauty, Video Games, Mobile & Home Phones, Computers, Consumer Electronic, or
Jewelry & Watches will be required to offer PayPal. Eventually all ebaY UK sellers will
be required to offer PayPal. Currently ONLY PayPal is allowed to accept payment in
Video Games: Consoles category. ebaY has also now given itself permission to withhold
PayPal payments to a seller for up to 21 days, for any reason and at any time. By selling
on ebaY and using PayPal you are agreeing to allow ebaY to do this. Only a successful
lawsuit will limit these unrestricted powers of ebaY to run their non regulated bank in
whatever way ebaY sees fit.

US sellers should remember that ebaY uses ebaY UK as a test for programs they plan on i
nflicting on the US and other ebaY sites. TAG wonders if the only thing holding ebaY
back in the US, is the agreement ebaY has with the Dept of Justice and Federal Trade
Commission that allowed ebaY to purchase PayPal.

ebaY has wanted to force their own payment system on sellers since they bought Billpoint. As
ebaY tries to remake itself into Amazon.Com, they would love to be able to have all
payments come through PayPal as Amazon does through their payment system. Of
course what ebaY fails to see is that Amazon does not charge extra for their payment
system, something that would not suit ebaY at all, since so much of their income derives
from PayPal.

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GET OVER EBAY'S MERCHANT ACCOUNT REQUIREMENT
AND OFFER GOOGLE CHECKOUT
************************************************************
It appears possible that a seller can opt to offer to accept charge cards on their ebaY listings, as
if they have a Merchant Account, include the fact that they will invoice the buyer at
auctions end via email and when they send their invoice, make the charge card processor
they offer Google Checkout. This is honest, as Google Checkout does use charge cards
that give the buyer the same protection as any other charge card transaction yet Google
also offers some protection to the seller. Since ebaY requires a seller to either offer
PayPal or a Merchant Account, this seems like a good solution for sellers and buyers,
whilst using a better system than PayPal.

http://snipurl.com/22jr1
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THE AUCTION GUILD
and eTRADERS GUILD
www.auctionguild.com
Not just a venue
http://www.auctionguild.com
email us - tag@theauctionguild.com

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All trademarks are the property of their respective owners
Copyright 1999 - 2008 The Auction Guild Inc All rights reserved
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