eBay Council Changes: Listening More While Turning Off Comments?

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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eBay closes off yet another avenue for seller engagement as eBay Council changes remove social hub and commenting, limit interactions to one way surveys.

eBay Council was first launched in the UK in 2022, then expanded to the US and was billed as a way for users to have a "two-way conversation" with the company to help "improve existing products and influence the development of new ones."

Hello and welcome to eBay Council, an online panel and community where you can share your thoughts and feedback directly with eBay. Being part of eBay Council gives you the ability to improve existing products and influence the development of new ones that haven’t been released yet - to ultimately help build a better eBay for all buyers and sellers.

What’s in it for you?

Take part in a two-way conversation between you and the eBay team - answering online surveys and joining group sessions. We want to give you the opportunity to be heard!

  • Learn about upcoming developments on eBay and be part of their creation
  • Have your say and take part in shaping the future of eBay
  • Get opportunities to meet and network with other eBay sellers

Your commitment is only a few minutes each month, providing feedback on the features and products you use. If we organize group sessions or interviews we will let you know first by email and there is no obligation to take part.

We’ll be incorporating your thoughts and feedback back into our eBay plans and development. Accessing the eBay Council Member Hub, you’ll get insights on new products and features, and updates on our activities.

But eBay informed eBay Council members today they're making significant changes to the program, stripping away many of the interactive and two-way aspects of the Member Hub, leaving only the opportunity to participate in individual surveys and research going forward.

Bizarrely, eBay's explanation of these changes tried to paint them as "listening even more" despite the fact that users will now have less opportunities for two-way engagement or to interact with other Council members in the comments of the social community of the Hub.

Thank you for being a part of our Council panel. Your feedback has been valuable in helping us improve eBay for you, our customer.

We are making some changes to allow us to focus our efforts on listening to you even more. You will still be able to share your perspective by taking part in our research, but there will be changes to the Member Hub and support email.

Member Hub

  • Our social community for posting updates, polls and inviting your comments will no longer be available as of December 31, 2024.
  • We invite you to continue interacting with other eBay customers by joining our broader global community at community.ebay.com, where you’ll be connected to a network of other buyers and sellers across eBay.
  • To stay up to date on activity from eBay, we encourage you to follow us on social media (see links at bottom) to view all our latest content.

Member Support Contact Email

  • Should you need to contact us about an issue with eBay Council or any of our research, our new support email address is panelsupport@ebay.com
  • If your query is about your eBay experience as a customer, you can visit our help page ebay.com/help

If you wish to continue to take part in eBay customer research, there is no need to take any action. You will remain on our Council panel and continue to receive invites to research that is relevant to you.

If you no longer wish to participate in research activities with eBay Council, you can unsubscribe using the link at the end of this email.

The suggestion for members to simply join the eBay community instead is laughable - the community experience has been going downhill for years with dwindling official participation, first moving a weekly general topic chat with staff to a monthly limited topic event, then discontinuing the monthly chat for sporadic and occasional "Ask Me About" sessions.

eBay Discontinues Monthly Community Chat, Cutting Off Critical Opportunity For Seller Engagement
eBay has discontinued monthly community chat, calling into question their commitment to seller engagement & discussion.

The Community team tries their best to address customer questions and concerns both during designated chat events and general daily forum posts, but they are often handcuffed by internal procedures and roadblocks, unable to do anything except "pass the information to the appropriate team" where they often get no follow up answers for weeks or months, if ever.

The most recent "Ask Me About eBay Ads" event was a perfect example of everything wrong with the current state of internal communications with many questions waiting a month for answers and some never receiving any response at all.

eBay Community Hosts “Ask Me About eBay Ads” Discussion
The eBay Community team is hosting next installment of “Ask Me About” discussion series, taking seller questions about new eBay Ads Experience.

The fate of eBay Council comes in a long line of other failed "seller engagement" experiments that always start off with the company claiming the best of intentions but eventually end up on the back burner, left to fade into irrelevance or abruptly ended with little to no notice.

Does eBay Really Care About Seller Engagement?
eBay says they value seller feedback & engagement - are they living up to their commitment or is it just lip service?

For example, eBay launched the eBay Voices program (again) in 2021, an iteration on previous seller engagement efforts from years past.

The pilot program started with the Collectibles category and was supposed to give eBay community members the opportunity to share category-specific ideas for improvement with the Category Manager, then received responses on a monthly basis - but things fell apart quickly with eBay participation promises unfulfilled and eventually the program was unceremoniously discontinued.

eBay Voices - Pilot Program For Seller Insights
eBay pilots new Voices program for sellers to provide actionable insights directly to eBay teams.

More recently, the eBay for Business Podcast hosted by longtime eBay guru Jim "Griff" Griffith was also abruptly discontinued.

eBay For Business Podcast Abruptly Discontinued - Is Host Jim “Griff” Griffith Retiring?
The eBay for Business Podcast has been discontinued, with host Jim “Griff” Griffith making the announcement on this week’s Fall Q&A roundup.

Rumors surfaced last month that Valeri Yee might be taking on a new Seller Advocacy and Community Engagement role at the company, but so far that speculation has yet to come to fruition.

eBay’s Valeri Yee Rumored To Take On Seller Advocacy & Community Engagement Role
eBay may have new Sr Mger Seller Advocacy & Community Engagement, with Valeri Yee rumored to be moving into role left by Brian Burke earlier this year.

Meanwhile, eBay VP Global Customer Experience Derek Allgood has been making the podcast rounds touting eBay's supposedly "phenomenal" customer experience.

eBay’s “Phenomenal” Customer Experience: Who Are They Trying To Convince?
eBay VP Derek Allgood interview spills secret to “phenomenal” customer experience, raising questions about AI, automation & employee morale.

What do you think of these upcoming changes to eBay Council and what suggestions would you have for eBay to improve engagement with users going forward? Let us know in the comments below!

eBayCustomer Service

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.

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Trazom
“Listening more.”

George Orwell would be be impressed, most assuredly.

Recent Comments
Avatar PlaceholderConcerned9 hours ago
It is Slowwwwwww and is more expensive to the buyer. In the past items I have ordered will sit at the hub for around 2 weeks. I avoid ebay unless I cannot get it elsewhere.
Avatar Placeholdermarks304713 hours ago
Hi, I have a friend who had an interesting experience recently that fell under this issue. They sold an item, packed and dispatched to the UK Ebay hub, this was midway through the period as the pause occurred. They then received a message from the buyer that they had checked tracking and discovered that the item had disappeared on ebay, no advice. It then turned out that the tracking had been fudged and the package was with them but not forwarded on to the USA. A few hours of to and fro to get the answer that it was due to the tariff dilemma. NO fault of the buyer(who had paid) or the seller ((who had been paid) and a strange response that the item could not be delivered. The buyer would be refunded in full, the seller would keep payment and the item would not be returned. Strange, Ebay must be hurting paying our both sides of the deal+
Avatar PlaceholdercwiYesterday
  1. Start building out the brand and promoting the heck out of Canadian sellers to our domestic market. Work with Federal/Provincial level governments in the push to build a strong presence here in Canada.

  2. Add other calculated shipping options than Canada Post UPS/FedEx for domestic shipping - partner with couriers nationwide, leverage agreements and software integrations with courier reseller platforms such as Stallion Express. Build out a crowd sourced network using national/regional retail locations as drop points for rural regions, leveraging transport networks to move packages to courier pickup points, akin to the UK courier model but adapted to the Canadian realities.

  3. Create a centralized international shipping clearing house to aide micro businesses with affordable shipping rates and customs clearance to avoid pitfalls and complexities (akin to US eIS).

  4. Bring features forward to the platform from other localizations, such as prepaid best offer acceptance, etc.