eBay Italy have thrown a surprise Free Listing Day (FLD) today July 16th, announcing it at only 4pm yesterday.

The announcement states -

From 00:00:01 to 23:59:59 on Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Rates of the listing are free for items sold in auction-style format with a starting price of less than 1 € in all categories except the categories Cars, Motorcycles and boats.

They can participate all users who will put on sale in auction-style format with a starting price of less than 1 € and have a seller’s account.

… according to Yahoo online translation.

Once thought to have disappeared forever, and to have been replaced by Cheap Listing Days (CLDs), various eBay sites around the world have been returning to the FLD format with increasing frequency this year.  Both eBay UK and eBay Belgium had Free Listing Weekends in March, and other sites have thrown either CLDs or very extended Cheap Listing periods (weeks, months, even whole calendar quarters).  Many long term eBay users see this as evidence that this years policies are having a heavy toll on seller retention on the site.

Ed

Several eBay sites have this week posted announcements about the new “authentication and authorisation” system for use with Turbo Lister v6.5 and above.

Generally speaking, this looks like a good idea, in that it will prevent unauthorised use of your copy of Turbo Lister by malicious burglars breaking into your home just so they can upload a few scamming listings up onto eBay.    (Yes, I’m in that frame of mind today).

In all seriousness, the cynicism above aside, this might save a small number of sellers from worrying about unauthorised use of Turbo Lister on machines stolen from their home or workplace, especially if like me, you’ve told TL to remember your username and password. 

We’ll have to wait and see how it works and whether or not it does in fact work - afterall, the International Visibility Fee appears not to, and the edit multiple items Returns Policy edit never has, nor has the multiple item edit item specifics worked since TL2.x was released.

The worrying bit in the announcements is -

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Acting in the opposite direction to recently announced policy from the US and Canada, Italy has tightened duplicate listings policy rather than eased it.

In an announcement they have clamped down on duplicate identical listings - the maximum is now 10 - and added that if a seller has duplicate listings that would show up in a search or browse page, only ONE of the identical listings will be shown unless the browser elects to see all results.

They have defined identical duplicate listings as being in the same selling format, with an identical title () or in the case or auctions, as above plus having the same price and quantity.  Even the most newbie seller will immediately see how to get around those criteria, which makes the policy effectively worthless. 

Given the ease of bypassing it, I can only see this as being a preparation for sites being flooded by the likes of Buy.com and other mega-listers that eBay are courting.  In which case, great stuff - anything that keeps the giants in check has to be a good move.

Ed

The first of the final implementation announcements for Feedback 3.0 rolled in yesterday with yet more bad news for PowerSellers - the “Pillars of the eBay Community”.

eBay Italy is rolling Feedback 3.0 on 20th May as widely expected on all eBay sites worldwide, but with the date announced and confirmed on only a few, with the UK & US notable in their reticence to confirm the start.

The Italian announcement includes some new information not previously released about Feedback 3.0 (should that make it 3.1?) and it’s potentially not good news for PowerSellers.

From May 20th, PowerSeller eligibility will be based on only the feedback of the last rolling 12 months, not lifetime sales as at present.

Where this is going to hurt PowerSellers is in the ranks of those who suffered excessive neutral feedback ratings during the last six months (the winter of buyer discontent) and there are plenty of those about. 

Neutral feedback will now also count as negative when assessing PowerSeller eligibility under the 98% positive feedback criteria. 

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eBay’s paranoid rampage against digital goods accelerated today with the Indian and Italian sites both announcing bans of the products - with twists.

India’s ban announcement says it comes into force on 18 April, but excludes website domain names and tickets (presumably all types) that can be transferred electronically - some good news for the holiday & travel markets, especially the airline ticket bucket shops?

India also announced today, that they are rolling the same “Punishing Sellers’ Accounts with Dumb Idea of the Year” policy that I blogged eBay US and Oz announced earlier in the week.

The Italian ban on digital items is effective immediately, and both the announcement and the linked policy page are prominently displaying the Centurion’s whip.  However, the policy page is interesting.  It states (emphasis added by me) -

Examples of items that can not be put up for sale on eBay:

• MP3 files copied from a CD purchased or obtained from a recording made during a concert at which the seller was involved;
• EBook if the seller does not own the copyright or is not an authorized dealer;
• Music purchased through iTunes;
• Films copied from a DVD purchased;
• Video games copied from the original CD ROM;
• PDF files of a handbook on a product if the seller is not the copyright owner or an authorized reseller;
• Data and information related to online games such as characters, accounts, currencies and objects.

Examples of items that may be put up for sale on eBay:

• MP3 files of songs written and recorded by the seller (in which the seller owns the rights);
• EBook of recipes written by the vendor;
• Films made by the seller and the seller owns the rights;
• Software developed by the seller and the seller owns the rights;
• Software put on sale by an authorized reseller of software that has the rights for online delivery;
• A digital photo of the Golden Gate taken by the seller;
• A t-shirt imprinted with a photo of a protagonist of a game online.

The Italian announcement and policy page makes no reference to the need to provide the digital goods in a physical format such as on CD or DVD, which is the workaround recommended by eBay US, Canada & Oz.

So far, eBay US & Canada are the only other sites (that have made announcements) that have given sellers a legal workaround for selling digital goods in downloadable format - list them in the classifieds section - apart from Italy specifying certain goods that will continue to be permitted.  Italy’s policy is by far the most lenient and seller-friendly.  The UK, Singapore, Spain, India, and OZ have all implemented complete bans.  Italy is the only EU site that appears to be trying to apply common sense to market preservation.

I haven’t yet seen announcements from any of the other eBay national sites, but expect them to roll in before month end.  The lobbyists for the physically disabled homeworkers, who were so vocal immediately after the first US announcement have gone very quiet on the eBay forums, and it can only be assumed they have taken their wares to other sites, which as eBay continually fail to see, reduces the pool of buyers for the remaining die-hard sellers.

Ed.

eBay Italy announced yesterday that business sellers have until 1st April to comply with EC regulations and change their eBay account status. 

Unlike the UK announcement last month, the Italian announcement does not use the whipping point of losing the ability to sell, and does not make a big play regarding loss of DSR-based FVF discounts if registration is not done, but does state that sellers’ names and addresses will appear in all listings - exactly the issue that sparked a firestorm in the UK seller community, forcing eBay UK to back down from the over-stretching of the actual law.

The announcement from Italy states -

“To support vendors and facilitate transparency in transactions, starting from 1 April 2008 some data on companies operating on the Internet will be automatically shown in Listings:
Name of the company, if it exists;
Name and surname of the legal representative of the company;
Address of the company.
As from 1 April 2008, the listings offered by professional sellers will include the automatic right of withdrawal, as governed by Italian law for business conducted at a distance.
Finally, the terms and conditions for payment that each business seller sets for its sales, can use discretion for showing within each listing or simply placing them in My eBay during the sale.”

(I’ve had to re-grammatise the announcement as the Yahoo online translation is a little shaky, so, my apologies if doing so has changed any meaning).

So far, I’ve only seen announcements from eBay UK and Italy, but if this is an EU law being enforced, surely all EU sites should have announced this by now?  Or is this Marxist capitalism where all sites are equal, but some are more equal than others?

Let us know if you’ve seen announcements on the other EU sites and we’ve managed to miss them.

Ed

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