Value Added Resource Week In Review 6-25-23
Welcome to the Value Added Resource ecommerce news week in review!
eBay News
eBay Motors Parts & Accessories focus strategy continues, expanding partnerships with local installers and offering free tire installation promotion through July 2nd.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Building on their enthusiast buyer strategy, eBay is hosting sports card collectors training camp events to coincide with major sporting events like the NBA Draft and MLB All-Star Game.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
eBay is pushing for sales in key vertical focus categories, subsidizing 10-20% off for jewelry, handbags & car parts.
Are these discounts good long term strategy or just short-sighted end of quarter revenue bumping shenanigans?
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Some shipping rates will be changing in July as new USPS pricing goes into effect - don't miss increase for eBay Standard Envelope service and USPS Ground Advantage replacing First-Class Package, Parcel Select Ground and Retail Ground.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
eBay seller HK Resale had a strange interaction with support, raising the question should sellers seek legal advice before canceling orders to Germany?
Liz Morton ~ Founder
As eBay ramps up their new international shipping program with hubs in Illinois and California, troubling reports of delays and missorting continue to stack up.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Bargain hunting eBay buyers are perplexed as design changes bury "Accepts Offer" search filter option - are sellers losing opportunities to make a deal?
Liz Morton ~ Founder
eBay has also killed functionality that allowed adding a message to buyers in shipping confirmation emails, removing a critical opportunity for sellers to provide a more personal touch and promote their own brands.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
Other Ecommerce News
It's official - Amazon Prime Day kicks off at 3 AM EDT on July 11 and runs through the 12th with invite-only deals and savings extending to participating third-party sites in the Buy with Prime program.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
The FTC has filed a lawsuit against Amazon alleging the company duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Prime using dark pattern design, automatically-renewing subscriptions, and complicated cancellation processes.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
The INFORM Consumers Act goes into effect June 27th and the FTC is warning marketplaces to make sure they are ready to comply or face fines of up to $50,120 per violation!
Liz Morton ~ Founder
The Etsy testing and tweaking continues as some users report seeing reviews moved above seller-provided descriptions in the mobile app.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
The Etsy community is once again being flooded with complaints about AI bot takedowns run amok - this time innocent words such as "clip" are being flagged as drug paraphernalia causing legitimate sellers' listings to be removed while plenty of real violations are allowed to remain.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
And finally, Poshmark is rolling out Posh Lens visual image search in limited beta testing in the Poshmark app.
Liz Morton ~ Founder
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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.