I actually do enjoy trying to look ahead to the possibilities available in eCommerce. I want to see my small seller friends and neighbors be ready as these opportunities bloom. If they can be fast and agile, they can take advantage and be gone on to the next thing before Big Business can smother them. But as much as I enjoy the challenge of peering into my crystal ball, my real love is helping folks learn and refine the skills that make commerce possible for them. Not only to get into the game, but to enjoy success at it.

Kabbage pretty much nailed what I’m all about in their blog. And hey, It’s always nice to see that others notice your passion and think kindly of you, right?

Read more about the Kabbage “Oscars” and the other funny awards over at the Kabbage Blog.

I’d like to thank the Kabbage Academy, my Mom, my wife, my cats Buddy and Bobo, my loud-mouthed cockatiels Shady and Squeaky, …

September 01, 2011
As I write this, it was exactly a year ago that an accident during an eBay On Location event literally left me flat on my back. It seems like a cosmic justice that I should mark my return to a more active role in the eBay universe with a trip to eBay On Location in Orlando, FL. After what has often felt like the longest, wasted year of my life, this feels like a Victory Lap!

Even though I’m still working to manage the pain now, I am far and away in better shape than I was just a few months back when EOL Las Vegas rolled around. I was so utterly disappointed that things didn’t work out for me to go. Add my wife’s long-standing wish to go out there, and I truly felt that I had failed. Failed her. Probably silly, sure, but when you’ve spent a year counting and re-counting the blades on your ceiling fan you’d be surprised what tricks the mind can play. Truth be told? I didn’t have any business going anyway.

I will be “testing the waters” with this trip. I feel like a pilot taking a test aircraft out for its first real flight trials: I’ll be a long way from home if I’ve over-reached and things go bad; I’ll be exhausted and a long way from home if things go right.

I have to do this. I will do this. With any luck, I’ll see you there! Come say “Hi!”: I’ll be the happiest guy in a wheelchair you’ve ever met.

Dear Customer, I apologize for the problem you noticed with the shipping price eBay calculated for you. Thank you for letting me know about that. I’ve checked it, and the proper shipping price to you should have been $xx.xx. I can’t tell you why eBay made that mistake, but I can understand why you were surprised by it! I’ve reported the error to eBay. Meanwhile, if you’d care for me to ship this to you at the correct price of $xx.xx, I’ll be happy to send you a corrected invoice. If you’d prefer not to have these items, I’ll be happy to send you an order cancellation. I want you to be happy, and to have a fair deal. Thanks again! I look forward to hearing from you.     

  What’s going on:   

• Always open and close with appreciation for customer bringing problem forward. We bitch about it when they don’t write us and just burn our feedback/DSRs, so we need to step up.  Even if they’re full of it and trying to pull a fast one – we don’t know for sure - so we just need to be professional and handle it that way.
• Always apologize for the poor experience, whether it’s your fault, the platform’s fault, the full moon…. “I’m sorry” is often the most powerful way to extinguish a fire.
• Empathize with the customer – I wouldn’t like it if my shipping quote tripled once I’d placed an order. I can understand that, ma’am.
• Customer actually accused the Seller of fraud because the shipping price was one number, then was something else later at payment time. It is not a passing of blame to eBay, rather creating the understanding that the Seller is not personally calculating those costs in real time – it’s just a computer glitch, and eBay’s the one in charge of the computers at eBay! So we plant the seed that it’s an eBay thing, then water the idea by taking responsibility for notifying eBay of the glitch, finally harvesting a solution: here’s a corrected shipping amount.
• With the identified problem solved – the shipping has been corrected – let the customer decide what will make her happy: the correct price, or cancel the deal.
• Invest in making the customer happy, even if it’s to your apparent disadvantage of losing a sale. Since no money’s changed hands or product shipped, this is a no-brainer. Mutual Agreement to Cancel kills the trade and saves adverse feedback/DSRs. Completing the trade gets you paid. Win-win.
• Be upbeat when possible. This disarms the negativity. If we’re professional, upbeat, interested in a solution that satisfies the customer… what’s not to like?
• In this instance, I create a need for a customer response and invite her participation in solving her situation. This is a play to get her invested (if she stays with the deal, we don’t want her to hammer our DSRs anyway because we laid any demands on her). In other instances, a stronger call to action might be used, but I want a softer touch as a counterpoint to her harsh demeanor in the initial contact.

If her follow-on reponse states other demands or issues, the Buyer is just trying to angle for a discount.  Feedback will get mentioned along with a veiled threat. You refer that on to eBay for action. 

When leaving feedback the Buyer is asked, “How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?” If FREE SHIPPING was offered in the trade, the DSR stars are greyed out – locked – with a blue link next to the line, saying, “Why can’t I enter this rating?” It looks like this capture I made below.

Click to see larger graphic

Because this has not been formally announced, it may only be a test of this set-up. It would certainly be a welcome change with many Sellers who have complained bitterly that any rating lower than a “5″ for S&H was unfair when FREE SHIPPING had been offered.

Today’s “PowerUp” newsletter said, “Starting in October, when you offer free shipping you could automatically get 5-star DSRs for shipping costs when your buyer chooses free shipping.” This would seem to foreshadow this as a permanent change before the holidays. The eBay newsletter added, “Listing with free shipping can also get a boost in Best Match for Fixed Price (where applicable), and visibility in Free Shipping search filters.” An official announcement about all this could come at any time, though eBay may wait until next week’s “eBay On Location” event in San Jose, CA to discuss any change.

Problem is, it isn’t true.

The words in a search are all used (otherwise, what would be the point of the extra Title words? What if the Buyer’s search was more than three words?) Right now, I have an item listed with a Title that is several words long. The last three are printing 1991 LN. If this new urban legend were right, one simply wouldn’t find my item – the search would only look at the first three keywords and skip ahead. My item does get found, however, because all the keywords in a listing title are searchable.

This probably started off as an explanation about search optimization, since making the listing title “human readable” is smart – people do read these things! – but the computer doesn’t care. And because we’re English speakers, the best words first make more sense to us. (I taught this very thing this weekend.) Somewhere along the line this has been misunderstood and passed on that the search won’t find something – not a human shopper – unless the first few words are the best keywords.

This sort of thing will be a problem everywhere on the internet for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, a little fact-checking and critical thought is enough to debunk most of these things. There is mystery surrounding Best Match, and there is concern over unfair placement by eBay, plus the economy, competition from the Chinese, and so forth. People are looking for answers that help explain their situation.

This wasn’t it.

Here is the announcement made by Dinesh Lathi, eBay’s Vice President of Seller and Buyer Experience:

“For two days only—July 27 and July 28—list Auction-style for just 10¢ Insertion Fees, any start price, when you have an eBay Stores subscription. This offer applies to listings on eBay, eBay Motors Parts & Accessories and eBay Canada. Most categories are included, but please check out the information page for full details.”

The announcement and its links can be read in its entirety in eBay’s Annoucement Board.

Experience would suggest that eBay already has something up its sleeve to replace the program’s ad sales – though perhaps not internally to eBay Sellers. If eBay returns to selling off-site advertising, or restricts sales to its favored mass-retail clients, I would anticipate some backlash from smaller sellers who are increasingly vocal about moves that affect their ability to compete in the marketplace.

UPDATE: eBay’s “Griff” said on this afternoon’s “eBay Radio” program that there were no plans to replace the program.

The AdCommerce program was eBay’s most recent “pay-per-click” effort to sell advertising on the marketplace site.  The email announcement, in part, read as follows below.

We know you’ve either registered for or purchased AdCommerce pay-per-click advertising placements recently to promote your eBay Store or listings. We wanted to let you know this advertising program will be discontinued for eBay.com and eBay.ca on August 4 to ensure the most relevant listings from sellers providing the best prices and service are highlighted in search results.

You do not need to do anything-these AdCommerce placements will no longer be available for eBay.com or eBay.ca and any ads you already purchased to appear on these sites will automatically expire on August 4. Your final billing will be sent out in early September.

eBay has been busy the last couple of years picking up the pennies where it could find them.  We’ll have to see what they decide to do next.