eBay Open Online - Day 1
I'll be recapping the highlights from eBay Open through the event - stay tuned!
Keynote from CEO Jamie Iannone
One seller started a topic in the eBay community with a great run down of the opening keynote segment.
Opening Keynote with CEO Jamie Iannone
eBay will be rolling out an option for sellers to receive immediate payment on offers. They're developing what we've been suggesting for years on this forum- a way that prompts buyers to submit payment details at the time they make or accept an offer.
eBay intends to add this immediate payment option to auctions next year in 2022- presumably, payment details will be entered at the time buyers place a bid. If they are the winning bidder then their payment source will be instantly charged.
eBay will be adding a level of seller protection on negative feedback- when a buyer's remorse return is filed outside of the seller's set return policy timeframe, any negative feedback resulting from the return being declined will be removed.
eBay will be rolling out more payout schedule options with Managed Payments.
eBay will be providing more ways to spend your balance on eBay- making purchases and something to do with shipping labels that wasn't explained in any detail just yet.
eBay is looking to add a flag on incoming offers to let you know if it's a repeat customer. This is both good and bad- the good is obvious. The bad is that it sounds like it will be exclusive to offers. We have been asking through this forum for years for eBay to flag repeat customers through Seller Hub. It would be nice if eBay could add that option at the same time they add it to incoming offers.
There was some disappointment among sellers about the breakout session for the collectibles category. The focus was almost exclusively on trading cards, leaving some sellers wishing they had chosen a different session to attend.
I attended the so called Collectibles break out session. They talked a whole 48 minutes on trading cards and nothing on collectibles, as many of us were anticipating. Very disappointed. Hope tomorrow discussions are better.
Yes, Sports Trading Cards are Collectibles. So are Bradford Exchange plates and authentic Hummel figurines. The session should have been publicized as a discussion on trading cards.
Got into the break out session on collectibles. It was nothing but trading cards - I honestly thought I either clicked on the wrong thing or accidentally signed up wrong. We do not sell trading cards, so did not work well for us.
The Collectibles breakout session was misnamed...it was pretty much all trading cards. Great if you sell trading cards, hugely disappointing if you sell any other type of collectible. I expected a lot of emphasis on trading cards, but was hoping they'd provide at least some insight into what other collectible categories are going to get a similar treatment in the near future. I'm thinking comics might be next (another category I really don't focus on). If I had known it was going to be exclusively trading cards, I would have opted for a different breakout.
The original poster added that many of these sellers likely would have gotten more from the session for Home & Garden.
tyler@ebay- Several posters are saying this. I think it was a missed opportunity by eBay to better clarify exactly which breakout session was relevant to their category.
At least some of these sellers likely belonged in the Home & Garden breakout which was explained as- Home & Garden, Collectibles, and all Hardline product. It was also described as "everything that doesn't plug in except for lamps since they're a decor item." The H&G session spent a lot of time discussing large items like furniture, preowned items including collectibles, and that this is a growth category eBay will be emphasizing. They're going to take a room-based approach to growing out these categories. First living room. Second kitchen & dining. The pie chart went by too fast for me to see the rest of the order.
So collectible toys, comics and such would have fallen under the Collectibles breakout and apparently learned about nothing other than trading cards. Those selling things like collectible decor (someone upthread mentioned figurines and plates) would have fallen under the H&G breakout.
eBay ran all of the breakout sessions at the same time, so sellers were limited to attending only one session. I haven't seen any comments yet about the other sessions, but hopefully they were more clearly defined and focused to be applicable to their target audiences.
CEO Jamie Iannone made a point of expressing how much eBay depends on tight feedback loops with sellers in his keynote speech.
To accomplish our vision we need...tighter feedback...we also want to hear where we need to improve, and to better understand and focus on what you need.
I hope the feedback being given about these sessions will be taken into consideration for the rest of this event and future ones as well!
Spirits were also dampened a bit by reports of technical issues with some sellers unable to log in and buffering/video loading problems.
We’re experiencing some technical difficulties. Stay tuned! We’ll be back with more eBay Open Online as soon as possible. ~Lori
— Ask eBay (@AskeBay) August 4, 2021
eBay has chosen to use Bevy to host this event. At one point they were showing over 4,000 users logged in, which may have been more than they were prepared for.
Hopefully they can get the kinks ironed out to handle the demand for the next two days.
Full video playlist available on the eBay For Business YouTube Channel
