eBay Announces Fall 2011 Policy Changes

The Online Seller's News, July 21, 2011, Volume 11, No. 14

Tips, Tools, News and Resources for eBay, Amazon and independent Online Sellers ~ Published Twice Monthly since 1999
by: Skip McGrath

In This Issue:

Musings from eBay, Amazon, and beyond

1. eBay Announces Fall 2011 Policy Changes
2. Lessons Learned at The 2011 Amazon Sellers Conference
3. My Top-99 Wholesale Sources
4. How To Improve Your Search Results in eBay Best Match
5. Niche of The Month – Collectible Owls
6. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

"If you have integrity, nothing else matters.  If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters." ~ Sen. Alan Simpson

Musings from eBay, Amazon, and beyond

Later in this issue I will be talking a lot about Amazon and specifically FBA. The Proven Amazon Course that I teamed up with Jim Cockrum on has been a huge hit with our clients. It is the only course on the market that is focused on making money quickly with FBA. We have dozens of success stories and although we offer a money-back guarantee, this course has the lowest refund rate of any product I have been associated with.

The course includes videos, eBooks, audio interviews, discounts on several products and third-party services and most importantly a forum where clients can post questions and have them answered by experts.

Check out the Proven Amazon Course here.

In the second article below I give my impressions on SCOE 2011 – the Amazon Sellers Conference. If you want more information, here is a link to an article I wrote for eCommerceBytes (formerly AuctionBytes)

Our membership eCommerce training program, www.onlinesellingcoach.com continues to grow and attract members. We have dozens of training videos, eBooks, a forum, and discounts on tons of training and educational products including a 40% discount on all of my eBooks on this website.

One of the better peer-to-peer presentations at SCOE was from my friend, Joe Waynick. Joe is somewhat of a competitor in that we have both written a book about selling books online. My book is How To Sell Used Books on eBay, Amazon and The Internet.

Joe’s book is called Internet Bookselling Made Easy! How to Earn a Living Selling Used Books Online. My book is an eBook and Joe’s book is a paperback printed book. If you want to learn everything there is to know about selling books on eBay, Amazon and The Internet – get both!

I get a lot of email questions about using cell phones and bar code scanners to find products for resale. Which one is best, how much do they cost, where do you get them, etc.? I just finished a great paperback book by Steve Weber called Barcode Booty: How I found and sold $2 million of 'junk' on eBay and Amazon.. Steve answers all these questions and more. He gives examples and exact instructions that show how you can make as much as $2000 in a single weekend using a scanner. This is absolutely the best book I have read on this topic.

I am often asked questions about sales tax, what are the rates, rules and where do you sign up. I can answer questions about Washington State where I live, but each state is different. I was doing some research on sales tax issues last week when I came across TaxSites.com. This website has all the information you will ever need about sales tax in any state.

UK Sellers can now reach Amazon buyers all across Europe with just one Amazon Account – eCommerceBytes. Click here for story.

I am always amazed at the number of my readers who not only sell online; they also sell at flea markets. Whether you want to buy –or sell at a flea market, the site with the most comprehensive information on the flea market industry and flea markets around the US is FleamarketZone.com.

Lets get started with this month’s articles:

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1. eBay Announces Fall 2011 Policy Changes

eBay announced and gave a preview of their Fall 2011 updates last week.  Here is an overview of the announcement with my comments (My comments are in red). The updates will begin launching the week of August 22nd and this will be the last update of 2011.

Here is what they will cover:

• Get 25 EXTRA characters in your title to draw more buyers to your listings. Some products require more words than others to get in front of the right buyers. Starting the first week in September, the maximum number of characters increases from 55 to 80.

  This is a hugely positive change. When I first read the announcement it sounded like it would be an option with a fee, but apparently its free and applies to all listings including international ones. eBay will also be adding a UPC (Universal Product Code) field where you can type the UPC number in so people can also find you that way.

• Buyer Protection cases won’t be included in your count of opened cases unless the buyer contacts you first. eBay always encourages buyers to contact the seller before filing a case. Starting in late August, if the buyer doesn’t contact you before opening a Buyer Protection case and you act quickly to resolve it, the eBay will not include the case  in your performance rating.

  This is another great change. I cannot remember a case where the buyer contacted me that we were not able to resolve an issue. So this will really help sellers deal with newbies who just don’t understand how eBay works.

• Email addresses and links no longer allowed in listings. eBay says buyers should be able to find everything they need to know to complete a purchase right in the listing—and if necessary, contact a seller right from eBay.  Starting October 1, sellers will not be able to submit a new listing or re-listing if an email address or link that doesn’t help buyers transact safely and efficiently on eBay is included in the listing. In other words no email addresses in your listing.

  This one has been expected for a long time and now matches Amazon’s policy that the only way buyer and seller can communicate is through the platform. It further depersonalizes eBay, which has been the plan since John Donohoe took over.

• Stricter return policies required. When sellers accept returns, consumers expect a meaningful time frame and getting their money back as one refund option.  Starting in late August, you can specify “Money back or exchange” as a refund option. Next year, the 3- and 7-day returns options will no longer be available and a cash refund option will be required for all returns. Of course, you’ll still be able to specify “no returns” as your policy.

  I know a lot of sellers won’t like this change, but I have already been doing this for 9 years and it’s never been a problem –in fact I am positive it has helped our sales over the years. This will impact sellers of used and collectible merchandise the most.

• Category and Item Specifics updates: Look for updates in Coins, Computers & Networking, eBay Motors Parts & Accessories, Consumer Electronics, Tickets, Collectibles, and eBay Motors Vehicles. Find out if your listings are affected.

  Again – these were expected and happen all the time. Its always a chore if your category is affected, but over time the category selection and accuracy on eBay has improved.

• eBay also announced changes to the GPS device rules to put them in the eBay Catalog and new ways to buy and sell tickets.

Most of these announcements were expected.  It will be interesting to see if they have any impact on eBay’s faltering sales and market share.

For once there were no fee changes. I think it would be hard to raise fees in the current selling environment. Given how much success eBay sellers are having on Amazon, I think any fee increase would drive more of them away. I just returned from SCOE 2011 – the Amazon seller’s conference in Seattle. About ½ of the sellers I spoke with also sell on eBay, but that number used to be higher. Over the July 4^th weekend, I had about the same number of listings on eBay as I did on Amazon. Over the 4-day weekend period, I sold 1 item on eBay and 11 items on Amazon. Of course I am in the Amazon FBA program where my goods are stored in Amazon’s warehouse and eligible for Amazon Prime Free 2-day shipping, so that did give me an advantage. But there is no question that eBay is struggling and I don’t think they will have the pricing power to raise fees any time soon.

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2. Lessons Learned at The 2011 Amazon Sellers Conference

I just returned from the annual Amazon seller’s conference, SCOE 2011. With 450 Amazon sellers and 75 Amazon employees and executives, this year’s confab was larger than last year. Over 150 sellers on a waiting list were turned away. And there is no telling how many did not sign up for the wait list when they saw the event was full. Almost everyone there agreed the organizers needed a bigger facility. I suspect if they had the room, SCOE 2012 would have no problem attracting 1000 people.

No one will give out exact figures, but from my sources inside both eBay and Amazon, it is clear that Amazon now has more full-time sellers than eBay. What is interesting is that Amazon’s policies prevent sellers from doing many of the same things that eBay sellers also can’t do –but Amazon sellers don’t seem to mind. I think it’s because Amazon has always had these policies and are not making constant changes.

eBay sellers want eBay –not Amazon. They like the way buyers and sellers can interact. But when you go to Amazon you know that’s not the deal going in –so you just accept it. I think it would be different if all the changes in eBay resulted in us making more money, but they haven’t. My eBay sales are down year-on-year for the past 3 years in a row now. OK – some of that is the economy –but not all. During that same period, my Amazon sales have almost doubled and I sell essentially the same products on both platforms.

There were about 25 vendors at the show displaying inventory management and launching tools, shipping and postage services, wholesale sources and various book and product scouting tools. Of all the vendors at the show, the two who seemed to have the busiest booths were FBA Power and Kabbage.

• FBA Power – FBAPower is an Amazon FBA Submission service that includes FBA Scout, an Android and iPhone app to scout all products (not just books and media) and a new re-pricing tool to automatically reprice your Amazon listings to keep them in the buy box. FBA Power can help take your FBA business to the next level by providing direct listing and shipping to your Amazon account. No more converting listings and batch labeling! List an item, price it, describe it, label it, and put it in the box for UPS shipping, all in under 30 seconds!
  
  The FBA Power booth was easily the most popular with up to three lines three people deep waiting to see a demo.

• Kabbage – This was another very popular booth at the show and their vendor presentation was very highly attended. If you want to grow your business you need some green –as in Kabbage. Whether you need to buy more inventory, hire employees, buy a computer – whatever, you can get money from Kabbage if you have a track record of eBay and/or Amazon sales. Kabbage doesn’t look at just your credit score. They look at your eBay and/or Amazon seller history and rating and your transaction history to provide you cash (right into your PayPal account) in about ten minutes. If you have an Amazon or eBay track record and need cash, check out Kabbage.

Some of my other favorite vendors were at the show as well. Stamps.com is still offering my readers their sign–on deal of a free postage scale, free supplies and $40 in free postage if you use this link.

FBA Power covers all products on Amazon, but if you only work in Media and are looking for a good media scouting tool, one of the best is Media Scouter. This is a small company with very good customer service and training.

Another very interesting company was BookScouter. They offer an online solution whereby you type in the ISBN number of a book and it tells you what the various book buyback companies will pay for it, and it can also give you the sales price of that book on several book selling sites.

I know this won’t apply to most of you, but if you ship more than 50 packages at a time, DHL Global Mail has a service that can really save you money. They ship your products via DHL to the zip code and turn over to the post office for the last mile delivery. The cost to ship is far less than standard services like UPS.

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3. My Top-99 Wholesale Sources

For the past 5-years I have been selling a product called My Top-20 Wholesale Sources for the astounding sum of $2.99. Obviously this product was never intended to make money. Instead I saw it as a way to very cheaply introduce readers to my training books and materials. This year, I decided to expand and extend the product –and raise the price.

Introducing – My Top-99 Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers. The price is $4.99.

So this time I actually hope to make some money with the product. Even at the higher price this is a much better deal. If you divide 20 sources into $2.99 you were paying 14.9-cents per source. With my new product you are only paying 5-cents a source. And we are including three bonus wholesale search engines.

However, those of you who already purchased my top-20 sources are grandfathered in. If you log into your top-20 sources page, you will now see a link and the username and password for the Top-99 Sources.

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4. How To Improve Your Search Results in eBay Best Match

The Best Match search results function on the eBay search engine has been a real hair-puller for eBay sellers –not to mention confusing to buyers. Trying to figure out how to get better search position in Best Match has always been a challenge. When best match first came out I was searching for a special type of wood clamp for my son who is an amateur woodworker. I can’t remember exactly what term I typed in, but one of the results was for a pair of vibrating nipple clamps from the eBay adult area. I don’t think that can happen any more, but Best Match is still a challenge.

Last week I had my annual eBay seller outreach call, and the lady who called noticed that I wasn’t using Item Specifics to full advantage. It turns out that the Best Match search algorithm uses item specifics as one of the key places to look for terms.

She explained best match looks for three things:

• Keywords in the title

• Keywords in Item specifics

• Keywords in the first 200 characters (not words) of your description.

Those searches with the "best match" are favored in the results.

So how do you take advantage of this? Obviously you want to write titles that contain words people search for. (This will become easier when eBay expands titles to 80 characters this Fall).

Next use the same important keywords in your item specifics that you used in the title, but this is also a place to put secondary keywords that might not fit in the title.

When people email me and ask me to critique their auction listings, one of the things I often see is extraneous info like images or banners at the beginning of their listing. One of the most popular is the Auctiva or Vendio scrolling banner right a the top of a listing. When you do that, the eBay search engine sees only banner code in the first 200 characters of your listing instead of your key words. Those banners are a powerful cross-selling tool, but moving them to the bottom of your listing will get you some important keywords in the first 200 characters. That will get you far better results.

By the way – my sincere thanks to Diane B. at Seller Support who not only gave me this advice but showed me a couple other things I was not taking advantage of. Interestingly, she is one of my subscribers. If you want to make your own Seller Outreach appointment (I strongly suggest any seller do this), just click here to schedule your session online.

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5. Niche of The Month – Collectible Owls

This article is about owls, but people collect almost anything: owls, roosters, frogs, Labrador Retrievers and so on. They don’t collect the real owls and roosters (I hope), but millions of people collect ceramic figurines, plates and salt shakers or woodcarvings of various animals.

Collectible animal figurines are an excellent niche for the eBay seller. They are easy to source and easy to sell. You can find a large supply of new figurines from numerous wholesale sources and there are plenty of used items to be found at garage sales and thrift shops.

I am not going to claim any expertise in this niche. I have only sold owls on two occasions. A few years ago a lady gave me a collection of about 30 ceramic owls to sell on consignment for her. I did and they sold for over $600. Another time, I bought a really cute pair of owl salt and peppershakers at a garage sale for $5.00. I bought them on a whim but it was a good whim. I sold the pair for something over $75.00.

Some owls can get very expensive. A stoneware owl recently sold on eBay for over $400 (see below).

But the vast majority of the owls that sell are priced anywhere from $10 to $100. Take a look at the sell through rate of these owls in the $65 to $80 range.

Personally I would stick with used owls as they are far more profitable. All of the animal dealers use the same wholesale sources such as RJB Stone, or on DHGate. You can also find a good supply at any gift show or local wholesale merchandise mart. I like the used ones as I can often pick up an owl figurine or carving at a garage sale for a buck or less and get more than $10 to $20 on eBay.

And as I pointed out above –its not just owls; People collect all types of animals: birds, dogs, cats, frogs, turtles and so on. I looked and couldn’t find her, but there used to be a lady on eBay called The Owl Lady and when I last saw her store she had over 400 owls listed –almost all of them used. So I think there is a pretty good supply out there.

If any of my readers decide to do this and make a lot of money, write an eBook: How to Make Good Money Selling Owls on eBay. I will help you publish it.

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6. New Wholesale Sources for eBay & Amazon Sellers

Unless you are over 50, you may not remember the comic strip Dick Tracy. The Dick Tracy character was famous for a cell phone in a wrist watch. This was about 25 years before cell phones were invented. Well they are here: The Burg Company features a line of fashion watches with a built-in cell phone. They make them for both kids and adults.

The Entrada Collection manufacturers and sells Candles, Candle Holders and Photo Frames. They also carry ceramic flowerpots and vases and decorative figurines, incense sticks, burning oils, oil burners, silk flowers and baskets.

Aurora Gifts provides affordable, high quality plush toys for children and adults. The website is retail, use the contact form to get wholesale information.

GameDay Colors is a wholesale supplier of sports team sprit gear, gifts and apparel.

Techno King manufactures a line of watches and hip hop gear for the teen and youth market.

Buy4Less sells a wide range of brand name consumer electronics products that have been refurbished by the manufacturer.

Western Gourmet Foods is an importer and distributor of specialty foods. They carry over 25 imported brands.

Joolz offers 24 unique and trendy cell phone bag designs, all hand made in India from organic materials. All Joolz bags are hand cut, hand sewn and hand embroidered. For some reason their website has no information, but you can contact Rob Zakir at Joolz at (619) 208-2344. (Sorry to have to put your phone number in Rob, but you should get your website working)

Cell phone, iPad and iPhone fashion accessories are hot and Reiko has one of the nicest and most complete lines around.

Braggables sells a line of handbags and totes that you can customize with photos.

My Talking Toddler's website is a retail site, but you can use the contact form to get wholesale reseller information. They sell a set of DVDs to jump start a child's vocabulary and advance their learning through repeated vocalization and sign language. Plus they give children a first class introduction to sight reading.

The Entertainment Group is Canada’s largest wholesaler of DVDs and they also sell into the US.

The Gerson Company sells a large line of very nice home and garden decorative accessories.

That’s it for this month. The next issue will be out the first week or August.

Skip McGrath
The Online Seller's News

P.S. If you missed the last issue, click here to read it.

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