How Does it Work? Insertion fees for Fixed Price and Auction style listings will be revised on eBay.ca. The reduced fees will be immediately reflected on the site. Listings created prior to the promotion and scheduled to start during the promotional period December 27, 2006 will be eligible for the promotional fee. This promotion is for all users on both eBay.com & eBay.ca.

There is a similar promotion occurring on eBay.com in Pacific Time.

What is included? All users who list in Auction Format & Fixed Price will be eligible for the promotion on eBay.ca & eBay Motors (Parts & Accessories only). Please note the exclusions below. Items re-listed that match the above eligibility will qualify for the promotion. Items listed in two categories will receive the promotional fee for each category.

What is excluded? Motors Vehicles, Real Estate, Business & Industrial Capital Equipment and Store Inventory listings will not be included in this promotion. The promotional rate also does not apply to listings created during the promotion on December 27, 2006, but scheduled to start after the promotion ends.

Click here to learn more.

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Canada Post has announced price and service changes that will come into effect January 15, 2007.

Effective January 15, 2007, there will be price increases to the following Canada Post Transaction Mail and Direct Marketing Services:

• Domestic Lettermail™

For more information on price and service changes for Transaction Mail and Direct Marketing Services, please click here.

Effective January 15, 2007, there will be price increases to the following Canada Post Parcel Services:

• Priority Courier™
• Purolator™† International- Canada, U.S.A., and International
• Xpresspost™ - Canada, U.S.A., and International
• Expedited Parcel™ - Canada and U.S.A.
• Regular Parcel™ - Canada
• USA and International Small Packets
• International Air and Surface Parcels

For more information on price and service changes for Parcel Services, please click here.

Effective January 15, 2007, please note the following service changes to Canada Post’s domestic Parcel Services:

• Delivery Confirmation will be included at no additional cost to the Regular Parcel Service;
• Coverage of $100 is not included and must be purchased separately for the Regular Parcel Service; however, if the Regular Parcel Service is purchased online, Delivery Confirmation and the first $100 coverage is included;
• Introduction of a new base weight step – “up to 750g” for all Domestic Parcel Services, replacing the “up to 500g” base weight for Xpresspost, Expedited Parcel and Regular Parcel; this means if you mail items weighing between 501-750g (previously rated at 1kg), you will see significant price reductions in almost all cases.

The Canada Post Web site also offers additional information on changes to their Parcel Services, such as the introduction of a flat-rate surcharge of $1.00 when shipping items in cylinder-shaped mailing tubes. Go to http://www.postescanada.ca/business/Default-f.asp and click on the red Service and price changes effective January 15, 2007 icon.

™ Trademarks of Canada Post Corporation ™† Trademark of Purolator Courier Ltd.

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Jordan Banks

What a year it has been! We’ve experienced the highest of highs with the launch of our French Canadian site as well as the lowest of lows with the passing of our terrific leader in San Jose, Bob Hebeler. The one thing that has remained constant through it all has been the tremendous support, candor and participation of our wonderful Canadian user community.

The one thing we know for sure in our office is that we are not always right (that might be the understatement of the year). However, each one of us tries our very best to listen to what the Canadian eBay community is saying and then we push hard to turn your thoughts/comments/suggestions into action. We all feel incredibly lucky to be working for such a passionate and loyal group of people.

From all of us here at eBay Canada, we wish you and your families a very healthy and happy holiday season and we look forward to working together to make 2007 an outstanding year to remember.

Sincerely,

Jordan Banks
Managing Director
eBay Canada

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Kathy Thrappas

Hi….I'm Kathy Thrappas with eBay's Marketing team, and I'm excited to kick off eBay & Rocky Balboa Sweepstakes running December 15 - December 22. eBay & Rocky Balboa Sweepstakes, timed to coincide with the release of the Rocky Balboa movie next week, will be open to members on eBay.com, eBay Motors, and eBay.ca. Enter and you could win one of 8 grand prizes ranging from a fabulous trip to Las Vegas, a hometown screening of Rocky Balboa, an Ultimate Rocky Balboa Fan Package, and more. We'll have one Grand Prize winner every day!

Qualifying is easy. First, register to participate. You'll then get an automatic entry into that day's prize drawing every day you win a listing or use Buy It Now. This includes all auction-style and Fixed Price listings, as well as Store Inventory items from eBay Stores.

For a free bonus entry, name the Rocky movie pictured on our Do You Know Rocky? page. Each day we'll feature a new picture from a Rocky movie - if you submit the correct film title, you'll earn a bonus entry into that day's drawing.

eBay & Rocky Balboa Sweepstakes starts Friday, December 15th, so get in the ring and you could win!

Sincerely,

Kathy Thrappas
eBay Marketing

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Hi ... this is Don Albert, from the Skype North America Team. Last month I dropped by to let you know about the additional categories now eligible for Skype buttons in listings.

I'm back today with more exciting news from Skype. For the first time, Skype is introducing a new subscription calling plan which will give users 12 months of unlimited SkypeOut calling to any phone within the U.S. and Canada. From now through January 31st, Skype users can sign up for this calling plan at an introductory rate of only US$14.95 – that's over 50% off the regular price of US$29.95. As an added bonus, anyone who subscribes before January 31st will get an additional free hour of International calling and US$50 in coupons for Skype related gear.

If you're not already using Skype, download it here for free. To learn more about adding Skype to your listings, click here. We also invite you to join our Skype discussion board.

Sincerely,

Don Albert
Vice President and GM, Skype North America

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How Does it Work? Insertion fees for Fixed Price listings will be revised on eBay.ca only. Please note the exclusions below. Listings created prior to the promotion and scheduled to start during the promotional period of December 11, 2006 will be eligible for the promotional fee. The reduced fees for this promotion will be immediately reflected on the site.

Who is included? All Canadian resident users who list their items in Fixed Price on eBay.ca only will be eligible for the promotion. Items re-listed that match the above eligibility will qualify for the promotion. Items listed in two categories will receive the promotional fee for each item.

What is excluded? Motors Vehicles, Auction Format, Buy It Now feature upgrade, Business and Industrial Capital Equipment, Store Inventory Format and Real Estate Ad Format listings will not be included in this promotion. The promotional rate does not apply to listings revised during the promotional period. The promotional rate also does not apply to listings created during the December 11, 2006 promotion, but scheduled to start after the promotion ends.

Click here to learn more.

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Faster Refresh. When an auction-style listing has 15 minutes or fewer left before it ends, buyers will see a new Refresh link near the Place Bid or Buy It Now buttons. Using this link will update just the top section of the page, which shows the current high bid, the time left, etc., instead of the full page. This will make it much faster when seconds count – especially for members using slower connections.

The full item page will still be refreshed in cases where the seller has updated the listing with new information.

Watch this item Button. We're turning the Watch this item link into a button. This appears in the center of the item page, and we think the button design will make it more noticeable for buyers.

To see how these changes will appear, please see this screenshot.

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Hi everyone...After over a year of development and testing with the Community, we officially unveiled the new Sell Your Item form in August.

Over the last couple of months, we have received important input that has led to a number of product changes. You have helped us identify issues with the new form, and we appreciate hearing from you. Based on your feedback, we've made the following enhancements:

• Ability to add your self-hosted Gallery URL easily. Sellers let us know that they need the ability to specify a separate self-hosted picture URL for their Gallery image. Recently, we added this capability to the new SYI form, so now sellers can use either eBay Picture Services images, or those hosted on a 3rd-party website, as their Gallery image.
• Quicker relist process. Members pointed out that it took longer and required more clicks to relist items with the new form. As a result, we've redesigned the relist function so that if you don't need to make any changes to your listing, you can relist it with one click right from the first page of the process.

In addition to these two major areas of improvement, we're working hard to respond to other issues reported by the Community. For example, we've found that some members are seeing errors when they try to copy certain HTML code they used in the old SYI form into the new form.

We do encourage you to try the new SYI form. It's faster and more flexible than the current form, and it contains some valuable features that are not available in the current SYI form. Simply click on the "Start selling with the new version of the Sell Your Item form" link at the beginning of the selling process.

If you've already started seeing the new SYI, and would prefer to use the current version, you can do that, too. Just click the "List using the original Sell Your Item form" link.

Thanks to everyone for your input and support, and on behalf of the entire Selling Tools team, we hope you have a very successful holiday season.

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Hi...I'm Raj Patel with eBay Stores. We’ve introduced some important improvements to the Email Marketing tool – a feature available only to eBay Stores sellers. Email Marketing helps you build strong customer relationships, turn Store browsers into buyers, and get buyers to purchase from you again and again.

Not only have we made the tool much easier to use, but we've added recommended content for your email campaigns, the ability to set up a recurring email, and increased your email limits. This will allow you to set up a professional, ongoing Email Marketing campaign with minimal effort and time.

Here’s a rundown of some of the improvements:

• Quick Creation Process: We've taken the work out of setting up email marketing campaigns with our new, easy 3-step process. Just select your template, create the email, and schedule when to send it.
• New Templates: We've added several new email templates you can use to showcase your items, as well as the option to create a custom template yourself. We've also included a free Welcome Email you can use to introduce a buyer to your Store when they first subscribe.
• Personalized Content Creation: Save time by using our standard greeting or personalize it in your own words.
• Schedule Recurring Mailings: Automate the delivery of emails by specifying a recurring schedule.
• Increased Email Limits: We've increased the email limits to 5,000 per month (up from as low as 100 per month) for each Store subscription level.

To learn more about Email Marketing, log in to Manage My Store, take a quick tutorial, or read our FAQs.

You can also review the online workshop hosted by the US Stores team back on October 30th. They reviewed these same Email Marketing improvements in more detail, and gave tips on how to increase buyer traffic this holiday season using Email Marketing.

Sincerely,

Raj Patel
eBay Stores

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How Does it Work? Insertion fees for Auction Format & Fixed Price listings will be revised on eBay.ca only. Please note the exclusions below. Listings created prior to the promotion and scheduled to start during the promotional period of December 4, 2006 will be eligible for the promotional fee. To create a Fixed Price listing you must have a feedback rating of 10 or more. If you accept PayPal as a payment method on the listing, your feedback rating needs to be 5 or more. Please note that items originally listed on eBay.com cannot be re-listed on eBay.ca.

Who is included? All Canadian resident users who list their items in Auction Format or Fixed Price on eBay.ca only will be eligible for the promotion. Items re-listed that match the above eligibility will qualify for the promotion. Items listed in two categories will receive the promotional fee for each item.

What is excluded? Motors Vehicles, Buy It Now feature upgrade, Business and Industrial Capital Equipment, Store Inventory Format and Real Estate Ad Format listings will not be included in this promotion. The promotional rate does not apply to listings revised during the promotional period. The promotional rate also does not apply to listings created during the December 4, 2006 promotion, but scheduled to start after the promotion ends.

Click here to read more.

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