Member Questions From Ebay Live!

At this year's eBay Live! conference in Orlando, Florida, we held a question-and-answer session with eBay CEO Meg Whitman, COO Maynard Webb, and Vice President of U.S. business Jeff Jordan. Since every question couldn't be addressed at the live event, we collected the most common inquiries for them to answer afterwards. Their responses are below. Enjoy!

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1) The higher Reserve Price fees have changed how sellers use this feature. Now, sellers of expensive items use the opening bid price as the Reserve, thereby eliminating bidding psychology by making the opening bid too high a jumping-off point for most buyers. How are you going to fix this?

Answer: Reserve Price issues are complex. While we understand these concerns, we've heard time and time again from buyers that the Reserve Price feature is frustrating and lowers their interest in these listings. We instituted the new Reserve Price fee schedule to try to reach a middle-ground solution. By preserving the Reserve Price option at a higher fee, we encourage more non-reserve listings. This improves the buying experience for many and increases bidding activity. Sellers who feel they need to use Reserves can still do so, however.

2) I am brand new to eBay and am seriously interested in supplementing my retirement. What is the best way for people new to eBay to get started?

Answer: We're glad to hear that you're thinking of joining the eBay Community. We recommend checking out the New Users section on the eBay.com homepage. From there you can click on both Buying Tips and Selling Tips to get a good overview of how eBay works. Also, consider attending eBay University, online or in a city near you! You can find the calendar of eBay University events from the Learning Center from on almost every educational page on eBay.) The Learning Center is also a resource for links to tutorials, tools, and other helpful information.

If you have a specific question, be sure to stop by the Answer Center by clicking Community in the top Navigation bar, and then "Answer Center" in the Talk box. This is a member-to-member forum where some of our most dedicated, helpful members can assist with almost any question you have.

3) What do you see as the greatest internal or external threat to eBay?

Answer: Fortunately, a central ingredient to the success of the eBay marketplace is the vigilance of our growing Community. This means that as new challenges to the marketplace arise, our members help us address them head on.

As an example, our approach to preventing Spoof emails (fraudulent emails that appear to come from eBay or PayPal) is a case study of the vigilance of our Community. Over the past year, eBay members have received an increased number of these types of deceptive emails. Fraudsters hope that recipients will reply or click on links contained in these types of fraudulent emails and then provide their personal information. To combat this threat, vigilant members of our Community have been instrumental in highlighting bad actors in real time by forwarding the Spoof emails to Spoof@ebay.com. Continued innovation and education by eBay also play key roles in protecting the eBay marketplace from threats.(For more information, please see our Security Center.)

4) Are there any plans to reduce listing fees, especially for PowerSellers?

Answer: This is a difficult one, as we are very grateful for the business our PowerSellers do on eBay and would like to reward them. When fees are involved, however, eBay must act on behalf of the health of the marketplace. Preserving the level-playing field is key to the success of eBay and its members.

Enhancing the PowerSeller program is a priority, and we are continually adding new value-driven program benefits. Services such as priority customer support, toll-free phone support, discounted 3rd-party services, and access to healthcare solutions enable PowerSellers to grow their businesses and become even more successful. In addition, we're developing advanced education courses specially designed for our volume and high-end sellers.

5) When will you cancel dormant User IDs which have NO activity for over 2 years (or another length of time)? As a hardworking PowerSeller, I could really increase my business using an ID which has been blocked and never used!

Answer: That is a very good comment, and we are exploring different ways of opening up "inactive" User IDs.

6) When will Half.com sellers be able to be PowerSellers?

Answer: We heard this question expressed frequently at eBay Live! from many of our Half.com sellers. As part of the Half.com transition, we're developing a plan to allow those eligible sellers to join the PowerSeller program based on their Half.com sales. The Half.com marketing team will be communicating with eligible sellers once the work has been completed. (For more information on the Half.com transition, please see Half.com to eBay Transition Center page.)

7) Why can't a buyer or seller look at all negative feedback with one click (instead of scrolling)?

Answer: We see this question quite a bit, and it really has to do with the philosophy behind the Feedback Forum. Feedback is intended to reflect a member's entire trading history, not just certain transactions. Negatives should be evaluated in the overall context in which they were left. For instance, in real life it wouldn't be a fair assessment of your character if someone you just met could look at only the mistakes you have made. This would give the other person a one-sided viewpoint of you. It is the same for evaluating someone's trustworthiness as an eBay member from the comments left in the Feedback Forum.

As an example, a member might have two negatives for slow shipping, but these transactions may have happened over 2 years ago with several thousand positive comments in between. A prospective buyer (or seller) needs to be able to put the comments into context to make a fair assessment. When a prospective trading partner can see all the positive and negative comments for another member-- as they were left over time-- the picture is more balanced and fair.

8) Can you provide more details about the transition of Half.com into eBay next year?

Answer: Integrating the functions of the Half.com platform is currently scheduled to take place in the second half of 2004. At the present time, we're talking to many Half.com sellers and buyers to get a sense of what they'd like to see as a result of the transition, and we will be communicating more about specific plans as we get closer to making these changes. (For more information on the Half.com transition, please see Half.com to eBay Transition Center page.)

9) What is eBay doing to prevent people from taking over seller accounts to defraud others?

Answer: Trust and Safety issues are a top priority for eBay, and we continue to pursue this issue proactively and aggressively on a variety of fronts. The results of these efforts are in: The fraud rate has held steady over time, while the number of users and listings continue to grow at a dramatic rate.

eBay has invested heavily in the safety infrastructure, including:

• investing $10 million in our trust and safety infrastructure over the last 18 months
• hiring hundreds of employees with backgrounds in law enforcement, customer support, advanced computer engineering and analysis who are dedicated to making eBay one of the safest places in the world to trade.
• day-to-day cooperation with law enforcement around the world. Our most recent efforts have led to important arrests in the U.S. and countries throughout Europe and Asia.

Improving trust and safety on eBay also requires innovation. During the past year, we have made the following product changes:

• Upgraded eBay's fraud detection engines to help stop the bad actors before they cause problems
• Developed the Limit Email Lookup project to dramatically curtail the ability of spammers to systematically validate harvested email addresses through eBay and target eBay members for fraud and spam.
• Created easy-to-use reporting forums (such as Live Chat) for members who think they may have been victims of this type of activity, so that they can get immediate assistance from an eBay representative who specializes in this type of situation.

Just as in any community in the brick-and-mortar world, another key to keeping the marketplace safe is the efforts of our dedicated Community members. We thank the thousands of vigilant community members who voluntarily report and monitor the site for suspicious activity. eBay will continue to work on education and tools to support these efforts.

10) When you find a seller who has many items listed within one category, why can't you search just within that seller's items (not just in their Store)?

Answer: That's an excellent suggestion. This idea has been considered internally, and we are exploring it.

11) What are you doing to make the site friendlier to new users?

Answer: This is a great question that doesn't have an easy answer, but we're working on it! We agree that the site can be a little overwhelming for new members, and we are looking at several ways to make it easier to use. We are also redesigning many of our old pages and functions (most recently, the new Item Page, which we introduced in July) to make it more intuitive for them.

12) Why is eBay not in Japan any more? Are there any plans to return to Japan?

Answer: eBay had a site in Japan, which was closed in the early part of 2002 due to the fact that there is already a strong, established auction presence there and making inroads was difficult. We are always on the lookout for opportunities to get back into the Japanese market, however, and we will announce any developments as they happen.

13) I have had only 3 negative feedbacks, all by Non-Paying Bidders. I had to pay SquareTrade to help get rid of them all. Now when someone doesn't pay, I don't leave feedback, which makes the feedback system less useful. What plans do you have to address this?

Answer: We know this has been an area of concern, and we'll continue to work on this problem, as well as consult the Community on possible solutions. Feedback is perhaps the trickiest subject on the site, however, because of the effect of "unintended consequences". Each time a new solution is considered that we hope will improve the system, we need to make very sure it doesn't open up a whole new problem that we didn't anticipate.

That said, it's good to remember that eBay expects even the most conscientious buyers and sellers to receive an occasional, isolated negative feedback comment now and then. Just as in the brick-and-mortar world, it's impossible to please every one, all of the time. It is important to the integrity of the Feedback Forum to leave honest, factual negative comments when all recourses for working out the problem have been tried. This preserves the integrity of the Feedback Forum, which in turns helps keep the Community a safe, fun place to buy and sell.

14) I'm concerned about the issue of eBay sellers being faced with new potential regulations (such as requiring them to get a license to sell) as cash-strapped cities and states look for additional revenue. Can you effectively mount a defense against this type of activity?

Answer: eBay has a legal team, as well as a team in Washington, DC, that work with legislatures and are always on the lookout for regulations and/or other measures that could harm the eBay marketplace and its buyers and sellers. Please be assured that we are doing everything possible to protect the open trading environment we have today. In addition, we encourage eBay members to write or phone their local legislators and have a voice on these issues.

15) I sell many items to repeat customers. Although these are large transactions, if these buyers leave more than one feedback comment, the additional comments do not increase my feedback rating. eBay is not just for gaining new customers, but to please past customers as well. Is it possible to put a dollar limit, so that, for instance, a purchase over $50 would qualify for additional feedback?

Answer: Part of this answer goes back to the original purpose of Feedback ratings. The Feedback rating of an individual member (the score that appears in parentheses next to each member's User ID) was originally designed to be a gauge of trading relationships (not the individual transactions) that members have with others on eBay. This is why unique positives (and negatives) affect a rating, but multiple comments from the same member do not.

For instance, if a member buys five things from a seller and is happy (or unhappy) and leaves five feedback comments, the comments still only affect the actual rating by plus or minus 1, because there is one relationship.

The current system also prevents abuse. It would be easy for less-than-scrupulous members to build up their feedback ratings dishonestly by having friends leave many multiple comments for them, for instance. Our current system balances the need to reflect repeat business, while protecting the integrity of the Feedback system

That said, we completely understand that repeat business is one of the best ways to show that you are a trustworthy seller and that it should be highlighted. To help address this issue, we are currently re-designing our Feedback Profile page to make it easier to understand. One of the goals of the re-design is to emphasize repeat business by better highlighting the total number of positive comments received, which is something our Community has specifically asked us for.

16) Why don't you refund listing fees from Non-Paying Bidder auctions?

Answer: We have heard this concern from sellers and are currently evaluating what we might be able to do to help sellers with NPB listings. We will continue to look into this idea and will announce any developments as they happen.