Value Added Resource Week In Review 4-13-25
Welcome to the Value Added Resource ecommerce news week in review!
eBay News
As eBay cyberstalking case continues, execs seek to lift protective order blocking discovery of Senior Security Director Jim Baugh's alleged CIA past.
Liz Morton
A former eBay employee has raised concerns about corporate retaliation to Ireland's Workplace Relations Commission, claiming he was forced to quit his customer support job after being unfairly punished for previous workplace complaints.
Liz Morton
After an initial rollout in Germany last month, eBay is expanding Magical Listing AI tech to all private/personal accounts in the US and UK as well - after year and a half delay, does it live up to the hype?
Liz Morton
eBay is tinkering with the View Item listing page again, this time moving category navigation breadcrumbs to the bottom of the page and forcing users to scroll past hundreds of Promoted Listings ads to see critical item information.
Liz Morton
A new announcement in the eBay community forums seeks to add clarity to how automated Seller Initiated Offers work, addressing common points of confusion and promising more enhancements are coming soon.
Liz Morton
Jim "Griff" Griffith has confirmed he didn't retire after the eBay for Business Podcast was abruptly discontinued in September, revealing he has instead been serving as an in house advisor and consultant to the company in his new role of
Senior Manager Seller Engagement and Community.
Liz Morton
Other Ecommerce News
Etsy repurposes persona-based human and AI curated feeds for product discovery in bid to offer more personalized shopping experience with "algotorial" approach.
Liz Morton
Bonanza ups fees for sellers, brings in new protection policies & tweaks terms of referral program in major update.
Liz Morton
Q1 2025 earnings calls are just around the corner with tariffs and trade war fallout sure to take center stage. Track important ecommerce marketplace earnings dates with Value Added Resource!
Liz Morton
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I had a customer open THREE separate INAD cases back to back in Feb. She told a bunch of falsehoods in her comments on the case and refused to provide pictures to back up what she was saying, so I called her out on in it with proof that her statements were untrue.
Even though I knew she was trying to scam me, of course, I approved the returns [all 3] and provided a pre-paid shipping label.
She never sent anything back. I got 3 messages from eBay's system saying "We've closed your buyer's return because we have no record that they shipped the item back to you."
However, eBay's system counted all of them against me in my Service Metrics, causing my "Item not as described returns" rate to be: 0.98% even though the buyer was an obvious scammer and didn't return the items.
I didn't have to refund her since she never shipped anything back so there's not a problem there and eBay did remove her feedback, but eBay still counted the cases against me in my 'service metrics' percentage making me look bad in comparison to my peers.