This started out as not so much a blog post, but as simply a memorandum to myself (and readers) to harass eBay staff for answers to the following points regarding yesterday’s “New-BIN” and fee change announcements.

This list is geared at primarily eBay UK users, and I’ll try to complete one for the US and other sites if time allows (remember I have a regular job as well as an on-eBay business too) – maybe some nice, kind US-based seller could do one for their site for me and post it to the blog? (Register as a blog user and write a post).

Having typed out all the questions obvious to me, I went looking through the various UK forums trying to find answers – those I found are copied and linked below. Apologies for any confusion by the variable structure for displaying the quotes, this was a rush job – I’ll try to tidy it up later.

WARNING – this got a lot longer than I’d planned.

New Shop Qualifying Criteria

If your DSRs drop to below the required 4.4 for a featured shop, do you get put back on basic shop rates for a 30-day billing period, even if they improve within days?

“Pink” James responded, “We will be checking DSR’s periodically and remove those below the threshold. It will work in a way similar to the PS Program in that you won’t be thrown out the very second your DSRs drop.”

This was prompted by part of Lorrie Norrington’s personal announcement for the US & Canada (why does Mark Lewis make almost no personal announcements when there are major changes for the UK?) -

As of November 1, 2008, sellers on eBay.com will need at least a 4.3 across all four DSR categories, over the prior 30 day or 12 month period depending on volume, in order to list on the site. Sellers will be evaluated on the past 30 days of DSRs. Sellers who’ve received less than ten DSRs in the past 30 days will be evaluated on their DSRs over the last 12 months. Sellers with no DSRs will still be allowed to list.

Are eBay bringing the 4.3 minimum DSR requirements (to be able to sell) to the UK site, too? If so, are these based on overall DSR or rolling 30 days? UK Head of Trust & Safety, Richard Ambrose, answered this on the Q&A thread,

“We have no plans to bring the minimum DSR requirement to sell to the UK. The US limits are based on 30-days DSRs, or 12-month DSRs for sellers who don’t have 30-day ones.”

“The US minimum DSR requirements to sell will apply to all sellers, PowerSeller or not. This myth that we protect PowerSellers has been around for years and is entirely groundless – PowerSellers themselves find it hilarious“.

International Visibility

Does the cancellation of the International Visibility Fee mean that it will now be provided naturally (i.e. New BIN listings will be seen internationally anyway), or does it mean that BIN listings will be seen only on the site on which they are listed? The announcements are not clear about this.

Several excuses answers have appeared for this on the various eBay UK Q&A threads -

“Pink” Emily stated -

“international visibility fee questions. The fee will still exist but will only be available for auctions. As with today, the fee applies to US and Canada. Outside of North America, UK fixed price items will have the same visibility they do today: they’ll appear in search results if they’re located in that country, or if the buyer chooses to search all of Europe or Worldwide.“

(Did you notice that even eBay staff are using the BuildaSkill-initiated, non-official, “IVF” phrasing now? )

In post #11 of the same thread, Emily expanded her explanation (foggily) by saying,

“International visibility is a complex topic and I have overgeneralised my earlier comment about visibility outside of North America. Let me elaborate. For sellers who do not have shops, you will have the same international visibility your *BIN items* have today. For sellers with shops, you will have the same visibility that your *SIF items* have today.“

She then contradicted the above when she posted a further clarification in post #16 -

I’m sorry for the confusion.
Today:
As a UK Shop owner you must choose whether your listing will be a normal Fixed Price (BIN) item or a Shop Inventory (SIF) item. If you pay the international visibility fee for a BIN item, it is available on North American sites. You cannot pay the international visibility fee for a SIF item.
On other overseas sites outside of North America, buyers can see your BIN items if they choose to search for Worldwide items, but they cannot see your SIF items unless they choose both Worldwide and Shop Inventory.
After the September changes:
As a UK Shop owner you will have one Fixed Price format rather than both SIF and BIN. The international visibility fee is not available for that format, so your listing will not appear on North American sites. You can, however, pay the international visibility fee for an auction.
On other overseas sites where the new version of Fixed Price does not exist, buyers cannot see your Fixed Price items unless they choose to search for both Worldwide and Shop Inventory.
I hope that’s clearer?

Yup, thanks Emily – clear as the sludge in the bottom of my eBay coffee mug. And thanks for the further follow up in post #24 -

In September, UK sellers will be able to pay the international visibility fee for Auctions only, while North American sellers can still pay the International Visibility Fee for either Fixed Price (BIN) or Auction items. There is a disconnect due to the fact that the US and Canada will still be using the old version of Fixed Price while UK sellers will be using the new one, and we won’t be able to remedy that disconnect by September. We’ll look to bring back ISV for UK Fixed Price in the future, but at this point I don’t know the timing on that.

Hmmm – according to the USA announcements, they will be using the new-BIN come September. Can you please categorically state that eBay will bring back an international visibility option for all fixed price listings to USA and Canada. Without this, what possible benefit is there to use fixed price listings if we also sell to USA and Canada?

Emily followed this up at post #39 -

“You can also list Auction or BIN directly on the US site to appear in US results, but you would lose visibility on the UK site. US buyers can find items from UK shop sellers by selecting both SIF and Worldwide. Auction-with-BIN follows the same rules as Auction, so yes, it will still be eligible for the international visibility fee.“

And at post #51 -

“Here’s more on the picture within Europe.
On the Ireland site, UK items in all formats will appear in normal search results even if the seller has a shop.
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy will also have the new Fixed Price format in place in September. On those sites, a UK item – regardless of format and regardless of whether the seller has a shop – will appear in normal search results if:
* it is located in that country, and/or
* the buyer chooses Europe (or Worldwide).
On those sites today, buyers would have to search for both Europe (or Worldwide) and SIF to see UK Shop Inventory, so for shop sellers, visibility becomes a bit less complex.“

Ah, finally, a post that sort of makes sense, but still leaves the bitter after-taste that it’s all part of a stitch-up to make UK sellers pay extra, extra fees – either directly for a “rushed” fix, or indirectly by forcing them to again list on multiple sites simultaneously.

Google Base & Froogle etc

Will sellers have to continue to do combat with the clunky and unreliable Google Base Stores Connector, or will eBay be handling this automatically for them? After all, there has to be some justification for the subscription fee increases. Plus, on the UK at least, the insertion fee costs (not just the FVFs) are most definitely an increase for the Basic Shop level.

No answer posted at time of publishing this post.

Sub £1.00 / $1.00 item prices

Currently on UK & USA, items below these start prices can only be listed in the current SIF format in multiple-item listings. Will this placement availability continue in New-BIN format, or will it be minimum £1.00 / $1.00 per item on eBay from now on?

Dozens of people asked this on dozens of threads and it remained ignored unanswered at the time of publishing this post.

Shop Holiday Settings

Previously, shop sellers had the option to hide all items in their shop when they went on holiday, or to close their shop, or to leave it all open for “business as usual” but with a warning to buyers that the shop owner was away and nothing would be shipped before XYZ date. Will these functions still be available after the September changes take effect.

Anshu replied on the Q&A board, “All BIN listings will be hidden when shop is in holiday mode just as Store inventory listings are hidden today“.

UK Legislation for Sale of Goods & Distance Selling

Previously, eBay UK has changed policy to state that sellers must offer buyers 14-days to change their mind and return goods for ANY reason whatsoever when buying from SIF and BIN formats, even though UK legislation gives the buyers only 7-days to do so. Given the movement of SIF inventory into core BIN format, sellers on the UK will be faced with a far greater likelihood of unnecessary returns, and in higher volumes. Will eBay UK be updating their returns policy to bring it back into line with UK legislation, or failing that, will they be offering sellers compensation for the expectable increased rate of “Change of Mind” returns?

Ignored on the boards – no-one asked the question.

Selling Manager Pro (SMP) subscriptions

Previously, UK Featured Shop subscribers were given Selling Manager Pro free with their shop subscription. No mention is made of this in the new fees table. Will this be continuing?

Question was asked, but not answered by close of play Wednesday.

Free Turbo Lister Listing Designer and scheduling for SMP/TL users

Previously, UK sellers with SMP were given free listing scheduling, and Turbo Lister users were given free Listing Designer usage – will this continue?

eBay UK Pink Marie has confirmed Listing Designer will continue to be free

Editable Listings AFTER sales have been made?

Posted in the UK PowerSeller Board by Terralis – this one is extremely critical

With the new shop BIN listings on 30 day or GTC, will sellers be allowed to edit their listing Text and/or price/ P&P rate and Quantity available without having to end the listing and re-listing ? This is an IMPORTANT issue as the placement & visibility of an item will be affected by “sales history”. So if a seller needs to adjust price/P&P rate, then the item will lose it’s sales history and search placement if the items will need to be modified ?

I think Terralis means, “the item will lose it’s sales history and search placement if the items will need to be ended to be modified“.

In a Q&A forum posting, “pink” Anshu stated, “eBay does not link different listings for the same item. If, however, you relist the same listing within 7 days the sales performance history will carry over.” This implies that if you get caught out by a buyer cleaning out your inventory in a listing, at least you have a chance to recover the visibility for that listing by relisting it and then editing the quantity to suit your replacement stock.

Existing Shop Listings

On this Community Q&A thread, eBay UK “pink” Marie has confirmed that 90-day shop listings will be allowed to expire naturally (though she dodged which FVF would be applied to them).

Update – Marie posted back that, “GTC listings listed before 24th September will be renewed at the new rate (based on your store tier)“.

On another Q&A thread, “pink” Anshu stated, “Existing SIF GTC listings will migrate over and become BIN GTC listings. They will continue to renew as well. Best offer will continue in the same form“. he later added (page 2), “If you sign up for a new shop, the existing listings will not be charged extra.” – confused me that one did – if you don’t already have a shop, how can you have existing SIF listings? He clarified the change of SIF to BIN GTC lisitngs by saying, “SIF GTC listings will automatically migrate to BIN GTC listings and will renew every 30 days” (post #79).

Other Tips & Thoughts

If you close your shop to avoid eBay’s doubling of the subscription, remember to cancel the “free” sales reports they gave you with it, or they’ll start charging you for that.

BIN durations will be 3, 5, 7, 10, 30 Days, GTC – this going to make for some very flexible & complex listing campaigns.

So what’s the plan forward from here?

Keep reading the BuildaSkill Blog and I’ll be posting suggestions between now and 23rd September.

Ed