SE Asian PowerSellers get March promo for eBay USA

By Ed | March 13th, 2009 | Category: eBay MY, eBay PH, eBay SG, eBay US, eBay VN | No Comments »

The eBay Singapore team have emailed eBay PowerSellers residing in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, advising of a special promotion on the USA site valid until the end of March.

PowerSellers listing on eBay.com and using the Highlight and / or Subtitle (see ambiguity problem below) feature, will immediately enjoy a 50% fee discount, and it will show immediately in the fees list of their seller account.

This promotion appears to be an addition to current promotions running, rather than a replacement, although this has not been specified or clarified. eBay US have themselves recently extended the double-FVF-discounts promotion until the end of June. There has been no word as to whether SE Asian sellers can attain both discounts on the same sale.

Normally fees for the highlight and subtitle features on the US are -

Subtitle – US $0.50
Highlight – US $5.00

The promotion call does not make implicitly clear whether this is an either/or offer, or a “must take both” offer. The actual announcement page states -

Any listing that adopts highlight / subtitle feature during the period March 1, 2009 00:00:01 and March 31, 2009 23:59:59 ( SG time ) will immediately enjoy 50% discount on the Highlight & Subtitle Feature Fees.

Then states -

Start listing on eBay.com and use highlight and subtitle features for your listings between Mar 1, 2009 and Mar 31, 2009.
The 50% discount on the feature fees will be shown immediately when you use the features.

The first quote’s “highlight / subtitle” grammar implies it is “either / or”, yet the second quote’s “use highlight and subtitle features” implies you have to use both.

This type of ambiguity has been a consistent problem on all eBay sites for many years and has caused much belief that it is done to ensnare sellers into using the wrong options and failing to receive the discounted fees, thus increasing eBay revenue.

Hopefully a clarification will appears soon. eBay Singapore does not have a PowerSeller board where this can be discussed away from regular sellers’ eyes.

Indonesia and Vietnam do not, to my knowledge, have their own eBay sites, and Thailand’s “eBay” is embedded into Sanook.com (a non-English site). The inclusion of residents in two countries without their own sites may be a market-development strategy for adding them to the herd sooner rather than later.

If you’ve heard more, please post a comment.