I'm Sharat Digumarti, Head of Category Management, eBay India.
Since the begining of the year me and my team have been working to improve the success of sellers on eBay India through close collaboration. We have made progress in this direction and we continue doing so.
With our endeavour to make sellers business robust, the recent fee changes give tremendous opportunity for every seller to grow their sales on eBay by showcasing more variety, offering great deals which translates to a good buyer experience.
I would be here on the community boards on Tuesday, 15th July, 4 – 5 PM! discuss topics such as how can we work together and assist each of you to grow your business on eBay. I am looking forward for an active participation which would also help me to understand the priorities you all would like us to focus in the remaining part of the year
To post your message on this workshop please click on 'Post a reply' tab below this thread.
We constantly keep adding new categories and based on potential listings we create them. Will have this category evaluated for inclusion
Listing high priced items - please contact and inform customer service on the item and price you are trying to list, this would help us to investigate and fix as appropriate Regards
As explained in my earlier post the restrictions would not come not because of 1 negative rating, please look at your Detailed Seller Ratings, Open Disputes, Negative and Nuetral in the last 30 days
As you seem to be selling International, we have recently added message on Feedback Page alerting buyer for on international transactions to be keep in mind the additional timelines for deliver before rating the seller
This should help all sellers who are doing international transactions Regards
SNP has been revised recently and instead of looking purely at ‘item not received’ or ‘significantly not as described’ it checks the sellers from the kind of experience they provide to buyers. So under SNP it has also included ‘Communication with Buyer’, Shipping Cost, Shipping Time
With the amount of choices available to buyer, unless the overall experience is good he would not continue to shop on eBay and we are trying to ensure we have the sellers providing very good buyer experience
To ensure sellers as consistently providing great experience every month, the calculations are looked at past 30days.
Keeping the buyer in mind we should continue to make progress in this direction and we(category team) we work closely with sellers in ensuring that sellers are not being impacted due to buyers abusing the system Regards
Auctions have been an integral part of the eBay and importance of Auctions varies from category to category
I welcome your suggestion on introducing Best Offer as a feature in auctions and will evaluate the same with different teams to see the feasibility of the same being launched in this year Regards
Thanks for your post and your inputs and will try and answer
PayPal – Including PayPal as a payment options is involved with regulatory clearances hence cannot give timelines around this.
Increasing Timelines – Very soon we would be testing increased timelines for custom categories.
SNP – The new policies has both positives and negatives, the TnS team is closely watching and the Category Team is sharing all the feedback we are receiving
Seller Dashboard – Under seller dashboard one can see their satisfaction levels and in comparison with others. We will try and see on we can try and inform more information coming from Account Managers proactively
Feedback – Post the changes to feedback based on the various suggestions we are getting there have been some changes already been done and few are being worked.
Both SNP and Feedback are some challenges few sellers are facing and we are closely monitoring and taking inputs for further improvement Regards
While doing our analysis and projections at an overall level for Lifestyle Sellers with the fixed Listing Fee ( 1500/-), ILF Reduction and potential growth of business the sellers would gain.
As mentioned in my earlier post, we will closely monitor whether any seller is negatively impacted Regards
Would like to take this opportunity to give a perspective on the overall pricing changes.
During the last one year at various interactions many sellers have voiced concerns around our fee structure and that is
1. Complex 2. Not Competitive for Tech products to offer great prices 3. Difficult to show case inventory due to high listing fee as there is no maximum/monthly amount 4. International Listing Fee is high
With the recent pricing changes we tried to address all the above and with an intent to ensure every seller does get some benefit or the other
I am happy that we have been able to achieve this, however there seem to be some concerns raised for which we will monitor closely on specific transactions for Life style Sellers Regards
In the next one hour I will try to answer the questions which have already been posted and if there are questions on similar topics then would answer in one comprehensive response Regards
Hi Sharat ji, We are doing international business at ebay and if buyer have any problem we give 100% refund or Full replacement them which is a 100% Loss as we can not get these items back 99 times as buyers says to pay the reshipping charges also.
Still after doing this we got Negatives. And ebay just send restriction .Who is there to help us in these type of cases.Buyer have now Limitless power and the new policy have cut the hands of sellers. Plz check and help. Thanks Gauhar Rais gifts-mart
Dear Sharat ji, Following are the Superb suggessions of one of the ebay seller .And i would like to give then again for your concedration . They are best as in any of the work or business in the world both sides are important. Ebay new policies shows less regards for sellers. Plz check: I request Mr sharat to consider the following - Introduce Paypal as a payment option in Ebay.in -Increase delivery timeline for international deliveries in Paisa pay( Specially in Nov,Dec,Jan when deliveries take more that a month because of Christmas rush) -Changes in SNP Policy 1) 3 months history should be taken in to consideration rather that 1 month. so a seller has a chance to improve before getting restricted. 2) Sellers who's accounts get restricted should be reviewed every week rather than one month. 3) Account managers should be more efficient, they should warn sellers if the sellers account is about to be restricted or some thing else like this is coming.
Kindly think on the above sugessions and help the sellers to do better business at ebay. Thanks Gauhar Rais Gifts-mart
following is my recommendations : - 1) introduce paypal as payment option in ebay.in 2 ) decrease fvf 3 ) take care of snp and change it totally .not at all good way to treat sellers buyers are not at all leaving feedback when they are satisfied and when dissatisfied even a bit they leave neutral or negative . parcel lost by fedex I got one negative . Invoice a buyer did not see he left me other and I was blocked from listing for these rubbish issues beyond my control and fault 4) one buyer take both goods and money I am at total loss
HI Mate, We have seen ebay workshops at ebay.co.uk and ebay.com where these guys help the sellers. But as we inquire these kind of facilities are not avilable in India. Why this is so.And how we can get some councelling from ebay for improving our sales. Plz help. Thanks Gauhar RAis gifts-mart
hello , Listen to my sad story ...... I sold goods to buyer and the buyer on getting goods mailed me that He liked the goods but He is unable to appraise goods so He needs his money back as well as goods otherwise he will start dispute and leave negative feedback . With current SNP When he started dispute I thought its better to give im both goods and money and I paid him taking all loss on me !!!!
I hope more such events will take place .sellers beware !!!
Hello Mr Sharat, It seems like recent times have been Bad for us sellers, Still I would like to give My Views, - First of all,I would like to request all sellers to please stop asking for a special status for Indian sellers. We Indian sellers are no less that the world community, Let us not humiliate our self further, by asking for a special status for Indian Sellers. I Simply fail to understand that when reservations are introduced in our country in the field of Education/Govt jobs, we people hold rallies and demonstrations and want reservations removed so that only qualified and deserving candidates get a chance, Then why do we want reservations for our whole country at the world platform. Instead of asking Mr Sharat to get Indian sellers a special status , We must ask him to help us all out to become at par with the sellers of other countries.
I request Mr sharat to consider the following - Introduce Paypal as a payment option in Ebay.in -Increase delivery timeline for international deliveries in Paisa pay( Specially in Nov,Dec,Jan when deliveries take more that a month because of Christmas rush) -Changes in SNP Policy 1) 3 months history should be taken in to consideration rather that 1 month. so a seller has a chance to improve before getting restricted. 2) Sellers who's accounts get restricted should be reviewed every week rather than one month. 3) Account managers should be more efficient, they should warn sellers if the sellers account is about to be restricted or some thing else like this is coming. - I would also suggest TNS act in a professional manner, and behave as they are a part of ebay.in and not as if they are sitting in outer space, I mean , there job is not just to pull down listings, but at least if something is wrong in the listing they can ask seller for an explanation or give him at least 24 hours to rectify the mistake, This is actually in reference to item no 150246952073 - Soldier Of Fortune Payback New, Sealed Action PC Game ,which was pulled down saying adult material , and I failed to find any adult material in this , Can you please tell me what was wrong in my item( I mean what was the adult material) In Future if TNS pulls down a listing they should give a accurate reason for pulling it down rather that just giving links to ebay policies, -Ebay should start to educate buyers to leave feedbacks This can be done by telephoning/mailing buyers. -At the end ebay should focus more on increasing the turnover because it main aim should be to increase profits
Changes in New Feedback system I welcome the changes in new feedback system Now at least a change in feedback from the buyer is available, Neutrals will no longer be counted in percentage is also good but what about neutrals being counted in SNP???
Sellers should have a right to leave neutral/negative feedback for buyers
Finally Please remove the pop up window which appears just before the buyer is about to leave the feedback, It is doing more harm that good to all. The window still appears , I have just checked it before posting this post. It is not removed as claims made by ebay.in
Hello Sharat, I am really very disappointed with the revised FVF.
After reading Umang ji post,I realized that we seller will have to pay almost 71% more as FVF to eBay for selling high value item on eBay.
Previously we seller used to pay Rs.620 for selling a item of Rs.21,200/-
But with revised FVF,We sellers will have to pay Rs.1060 for selling a item of Rs.21,200/-(I can provide Proof for the same if needed)
The difference between Current FVF and Previous FVF is Rs.440,Which is almost hike of 71% as a FVF.
How a seller can afford to pay 71% more fee to eBay?
Sellers will have to increase the price of items to cover the increase in FVF and that may discourage buyers to buy from eBay sellers.
Buyers will tend to buy items from other online portals as they will get better price.
If the FVF for technology category is reduced to 1% flat then it is very good but why to increase the FVF for other categories???
Is this step taken to compensate for the loss against reduction in insertion fees,Home Page feature and ILF??
I was very excited with the reduction in Insertion Fee,ILF and Home Page feature fee,but after realizing the Trick behind this reduction,I am very disappointed!!!
For my Category(Jewlery) the FVC is hiked upto almost 71%,Which is a Huge Setback for all seller selling high value items on eBay(other then Technology Sellers).
This seems like a trick from eBay,But sooner or later all sellers will know the truth.
All sellers are requested to post their comments and views here.
I would like ebay to introduce Bargaining option (best offer) to the buyers because in our country buyers are accustomed to bargain whenever they go out to buy something in regular market...
Dear Saratbabu, 1.If you are watching posts in the community, the one most pathetic aspect of this day is SNP. 2.Reducing FVF for tech cat carries no meaning for me. I list mostly in shops in India and US.I am happy and I have a feeling that ebay likes me that way. The fees difference is not much because here also I list 1 gallery pic. I dont subscribe to your views that online sells more. I think,items with merrit sells more. Buyers are intelligent nowadays. Buyers dont buy for fun. They want quality item. Please do something for us: the non-techs. Thanx, Truly, Amitava
The community is literally crying due to the new policy. All the sellers big or small are targeted by the new SNP policy.
The sellers support team and the category team does a good job by calling us and encouraging us to increase the listings and reduce the price to boost sales. On the other hand the TnS team pulls us down. Previously you were in the TnS department so I think that you will be the right person to comment on this.
Here the buyers do not leave any positive feedback even if they are satisfied. And if a seller gets a neutral or negative then the past records where the seller has so many satisfied buyers is not considered and the ID is restricted.
What exactly is expected from a seller?
I want to continue writing but I am not getting words to express my feelings… even my ID is now restricted and i got a non performer award.
We are in the midst of the year and the situation is that with the recent changes rather than improving the business, the Community is literally crying for survival.
The recent Fee changes is beneficial only to Sellers who are from Tech Category.
If am not selling tech ..... then I can only say that the Fee change is ..... Iski Topi uske sar
Earlier selling a product worth Rs.15000, I used to pay a transaction Fees of Rs.465
Now selling a product worth Rs. 15,000 the transaction Fees works out to be Rs.750
That's a staggering hike of 61 %
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Now .... let's talk about the Flat Fee of Rs. 1500 for 1500 Listings.
One the morning of 9th July total listings were 1,22,000 ..... and Today, on 10th July the Total Listings are 1,27,000.
A mere jump of 5000 Listings .... hopefully the figure would shoot up in the coming days.
But who are the ones who will benefit out of it? Most of the Sellers don't have enough Items to take the advantage of this reduction ..... the only way out is multiple Listings .... which would reduce the conversion rate of the Seller.
Who knows .... that tomorrow .... the conversion rate may be the criteria of promoting a Seller.
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Priorities that I would like you to focus on for the remaining part of the year are :-
1. Give Indian Sellers some breathing space by re-working the SNP Policy as per Indian conditions.
2. Give some Fee benefit to the Non-Tech category Sellers also ..... so that they too can be Competitive.
3. Reduce PaisaPay charges for Online banking Transaction.
4. Promote BRANDS to get the mileage .... earlier there was BRAND STREET on the Home Page which is no more seen.
5. Introduce Sellers based Discount Coupons.
6. Last but the most important .... provide your own Logistics at a reasonable rate.
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Sharat, my Post may not be a favourable one but am sure you will do your best to bring in much more stability in the remaining part of the year ..... so that the Sellers may up their sleeves to do a roaring business in the next year. .
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hello , Listen to my sad story ...... 
This Mr. Sarat is same who is handling TNS India.
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