Attend the Selling Basics course if you’re just getting started and learn about:

• Basic selling techniques
• How to create listings
• How to accept online payments with PayPal, and more.

Attend Beyond the Basics of Selling to take your sales to the next level and learn:

• Advanced selling techniques
• How to market your eBay listings
• What selling tools will save you time and increase sales, and more.

Register online before 11:59pm PDT on June 3rd and bring a friend for free!

Event Details
June 4, 2005
Doubletree Tampa Westshore Airport
4500 W. Cypress Street
Tampa, FL 33609

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, May 31st, 2005 with your host Griff (Jim Griffith), Dean of eBay University, from 11:00 to 13:00 PDT.

Today's show is a Best of eBay Radio broadcast featuring several of our most popular segments from previous shows. No call-ins this week, but we will be back with live guests and your calls next week on June 7th.

If you can't catch the broadcast you can always select and listen to any past eBay Radio broadcast, listed by topic and date, in the eBay Radio archives. Visit www.wsradio.com/ebayradio for more information and to listen to eBay Radio on your computer.

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Putting Your Listing Together: An Overview
This workshop will be held on Tuesday, May 31st, from 10:00 PDT to 11:00 PDT. Do you know what it takes to make a great listing from start to finish? Please join member and Education Specialist eauctiongurus for this informative workshop to help make your listings even more successful. Topics of discussion will include how to write a good title and description, adding pictures, choosing the most successful category, and pricing information.

Enhancements to PayPal Seller Protection Policy
This workshop will be held on Tuesday, May 31st, from 15:00 PDT to 16:00 PDT. Sellers have long requested that the PayPal Seller Protection Policy (SPP) be extended to international transactions. We're pleased to announce that we will be expanding SPP in mid-June to cover US, UK and Canada sellers who ship to confirmed addresses in the US, UK and Canada. To help sellers understand their options related to managing risk, the PayPal Seller Protection team will answer your questions about this policy enhancement and PayPal’s other initiatives to protect sellers.

Publicizing Your Business Part II
This workshop will be held on Wednesday, June 1st, from 13:00 PDT to 14:00 PDT. Want to learn tips and tricks on publicizing your business to the media? Come join our second workshop led by Jennifer Caukin from the eBay PR department. PR is a very cost-effective and efficient way to promote your eBay business, but it is important to concisely pitch your story and explain why it is relevant to the media. This workshop will provide helpful advice on developing a PR strategy and will explore various PR options to publicize your business.

Trading Assistants: Generating Leads II – The Basics
This workshop will be held on Thursday, June 2nd, from 15:00 PDT to 16:00 PDT. Want to find new Trading Assistant clients? In this workshop, we will discuss more basic “must do” marketing tactics. In particular, we will focus on how to leverage PR and events to cost-effectively acquire new clients. We will also share tips and provide templates that you can use to get started quickly.

Handling Customer Service Issues
This workshop will be held on Friday, June 3rd, from 14:00 PDT to 15:00 PDT. How do you handle that irate customer? Don’t be afraid...everyone makes mistakes. But it's how we correct them that can make or break future sales. Please join member and Education Specialist northam124 to learn practical and action-oriented techniques for handling customer problems that will have customers returning instead of leaving negative feedback. Learn what OVFMRF stands for and how it can help you turn a problem into a happy ending.

Workshops are hosted in discussion threads on the Workshops Board. To get to the Workshops Board:

• Click on Community at the top of almost any eBay page
• Click on "Discussion Boards" in the "Connect" Section
• Click on "Workshops" underneath the category-specific boards on the right-hand side of the page
• This will bring you to the threaded Workshops Board.

To view archived workshops or to learn more about future workshop events, please check our Workshop Calendar.

Want timely reminders about workshops? Sign up for the Workshops Information Group! By joining this group, you will receive an email notification reminding you about upcoming eBay Workshops. Each notification will include the time and date, a brief description of the event, and a link to the discussion thread where the actual workshop will be held.

To sign up for the Workshops Information Group, please click here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Join us to learn about eBay's Trust & Safety initiatives, meet the team, and ask any general questions about Trust & Safety on eBay. (Due to privacy concerns, we won't be able to address specific account questions.) These sessions are dedicated entirely to addressing questions about eBay policies, issues around identity and account protection, and concerns about fraud.

See you on the Trust & Safety discussion board at 1.00 p.m. PDT on the 6th!

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Sellers have long requested that the PayPal Seller Protection Policy (SPP) be extended to international transactions. I'm pleased to announce that we will be expanding SPP in mid-June to cover US, UK and Canada sellers who ship to confirmed addresses in the US, UK and Canada.

To increase the number of items that qualify for SPP, PayPal will also be expanding the methods we use to confirm a buyer's address. Please note that online proof of delivery remains a requirement for coverage under our SPP. For more information on PayPal's Seller Protection Policy, please visit our Help page.

To help sellers understand their options related to managing risk, the PayPal seller protection team will host an online Community workshop on Tuesday, May 31st at 3pm PDT. During the workshop, we will answer your questions about this policy enhancement and PayPal's other initiatives to protect sellers. Hope to see you there.

Regards,

Dan
Senior Director, Consumer Protections

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For sellers, Item Specifics help make it easier to present a clean, well-organized description that clearly articulates important details that buyers want to see. Using Item Specifics is free and optional. For buyers, Item Specifics improves the ability to find the right item for a given application, and buyers will also be able to search for items using Item Specifics a few weeks later.

If you list items manually through an eBay seller tool (e.g. Sell Your Item form, Turbo Lister) or the eBay API, Item Specifics will be available in the next few weeks. If you utilize a 3rd party listing service (e.g., Andale, Auctionworks, etc.), please contact them to verify that they will offer the Item Specifics functionality in the above categories.

We have started two threads on the eBay Motors discussion board to provide more detail about the upcoming changes. To access the Boats thread please click here. To access the RVs and Campers thread click here. If you have any comments or feedback about Item Specifics, please email them to to motorcycles@ebay.com and they will be considered for future enhancements.

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, May 24th, 2005 with your host Griff (Jim Griffith), Dean of eBay University, live from 11:00 to 13:00 PDT. Featured this week:

• Katie Sween of eBay's Seller Developement Team to talk about a program at eBay called "The 7 steps to Scaleability."
• Chad Nowak, eBay Packing and Shipping contributing Editor with news and tips about shipping with the new USPS Flat Rate box.
• "All About eBay Live" with John Fernandes, Director of Marketing for eBay Live.

And of course we'll have "The News" with Lee Mirabal, as well as the most important feature on eBay Radio: Your calls! Got a question, comment, or concern? Call in during the show at 888-327-0061 (USA) or 001-858-623-0102 (Internationally) to talk with Griff and his guests or to ask a question and share your voice with the rest of the eBay Community. Remember, one lucky caller per week, selected at random, will receive an autographed copy of Griff's book, "The Official eBay Bible".

And if you can't catch the live show you can always select and listen to any past eBay Radio broadcast, listed by topic and date, in the eBay Radio archives. Visit www.wsradio.com/ebayradio for more information and to listen to eBay Radio on your computer.

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The Get 3 Free First Time Seller promotion will be available on these sites:

• U.S. (www.ebay.com)
• eBay Motors non-vehicles (www.eBaymotors.com)

During the Get 3 Free First Time Seller promotion:
New eBay sellers who create up to three auction-style or Fixed Price listings on eBay will receive credits for their insertion and Gallery upgrade fees. In order to qualify for the special offer, the eBay member must not have sold on eBay before, and must list their first three items during the promotional period (May 24-26, 2005).

To receive your insertion and Gallery fee credits:

• Register for the promotion by clicking here.
• Once you enter your User ID in the space provided you will be taken to the Sell Your Item process.

This offer is good for up to three free insertion and Gallery credits only.

Please note that the credits will not be immediately reflected on the site. You will see credits posted to your seller's account by late June 2005.

The promotional rate does not apply to listings with a start date prior to May 24, 2005, including those listings revised during the promotional period. The promotional rate also does not apply to listings created during the promotional period but scheduled to start after the promotion ends on May 26, 2005.

All other fees (including Final Value Fees and all other optional listing upgrade fees, such as Bold, Border, Buy It Now, Gallery Featured, Highlight, Featured Plus!, Listing Designer, Gift Services, Subtitle, Reserve, extended duration insertion fees, etc.) will still be charged.

Take advantage of this special offer and start selling on eBay!

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Please visit the Solutions Directory and provide a quick Rating or Review for the third party tool that you are using. To do that, just go to solutions.ebay.com, search for the software you're using, and click on “Rate This Solution” at the bottom of the listing page. Complete details on the guidelines of the review process are available here.

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For sellers, Item Specifics help make it easier to present a clean, well-organized description that clearly articulates important details that buyers want to see. Using Item Specifics is free and optional. For buyers, Item Specifics improves the ability to find the right item for a given application, and buyers will also be able to search for items using Item Specifics a few weeks later.

If you list items manually through an eBay seller tool (e.g. Sell Your Item form, Turbo Lister) or the eBay API, Item Specifics will be available in the next few weeks. If you utilize a third party listing service (e.g., Andale, Auctionworks, etc.), please contact them to verify that they will offer the Item Specifics functionality in the above categories.

We have started a thread on the Hobbies & Crafts discussion board to provide more detail about the upcoming changes. To access the thread please click here. If you have any comments or feedback about Item Specifics, please email them to crafts@ebay.com with the Subject Line: ITEM SPECIFICS and they will be considered for future enhancements.

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Stand Out & Sell More: How to Market Your eBay Business for Free
This workshop will be held on Monday, May 23rd from 12:00 PDT to 13:00 PDT. If you want to stand out from other sellers, generate repeat business, and make more sales, then you care about your branding and marketing. It's time to get marketing off the bottom of your eBay business priority list! Debbie Levitt of As Was, an eBay Certified Service Provider, will explain how to grow your eBay sales through free and inexpensive marketing concepts.

Payments with PayPal
This workshop will be held on Tuesday, May 24th from 11:00 PDT to 12:00 PDT. Please join member and eBay University instructor danse, as she takes you step by step through the process of signing up for PayPal. She will also provide you with information on what to expect when PayPal is added to your listings, and how to track and manage your PayPal account activity.

Store Referral Credit Program
This workshop will be held on Thursday, May 26th, from 11:00 PDT to 12:00 PDT. Please join the eBay Stores Team to learn more about the Store Referral Credit program and discuss the improvements that were recently made which support Stores email marketing and domain forwarding.

Reproduction Indian Artifacts
This workshop will be held on Friday, May 27th, from 16:00 PDT to 17:00 PDT. Please join member ancient_relic for a discussion about the effect of reproduction artifacts in the marketplace and how to collect safely in the fascinating world of ancient artifacts. Topics of discussion will include what types of reproductions are being sold within the hobby, how authenticators determine their authenticity, and how collectors can safely identify reproductions.

Workshops are hosted in discussion threads on the Workshops Board. To get to the Workshops Board:

• Click on Community at the top of almost any eBay page
• Click on "Discussion Boards" in the "Connect" Section
• Click on "Workshops" underneath the category-specific boards on the right-hand side of the page
• This will bring you to the threaded Workshops Board.

To view archived workshops or to learn more about future workshop events, please check our Workshop Calendar.

Want timely reminders about workshops? Sign up for the Workshops Information Group! By joining this group, you will receive an email notification reminding you about upcoming eBay Workshops. Each notification will include the time and date, a brief description of the event, and a link to the discussion thread where the actual workshop will be held.

To sign up for the Workshops Information Group, please click here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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We launched Picture Manager back in August of 2004 to be eBay's fully integrated online picture-hosting solution. While eBay's Picture Services allows sellers to put up photos for individual listings, Picture Manager lets you manage all your photos from one convenient area in My eBay and subscribers are able to include up to 12 pictures per listing with no per-picture fees.

I'm pleased that this week we're making some changes that will make Picture Manager even more convenient.

The enhancements to Picture Manager include:

• One-step upload and insert into the Sell Your Item form – Previously members needed to first upload a picture to Picture Manager and then insert it (as a separate step) into the listing they were creating. Now, when you add a picture to Picture Manager while you are listing your item in the Sell Your Item (SYI) , the picture is automatically added to that listing . You save a whole step!
• Ability to track pictures in active listings – Now you'll be able to identify which of your hosted pictures are being used in active listings.
• Faster display – We've optimized how we handle thumbnail pictures, so they'll display faster than before.
• Support for new Web browsers – We have updated support for many Web browsers including the increasingly popular Firefox.
• More user-friendly design – We've made uploading, editing, and renaming pictures in Picture Manager easier. We've also reduced the number of mouse clicks needed to accomplish these tasks.

You can access Picture Manager from within My eBay. To learn more about Picture Manager or to subscribe, please visit our Picture Manager pages.

John Bodine
Product Marketing Manager

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The eBay Stores team is pleased to announce the following winners for each category of the 2005 Best in Stores contest:

• Best Looking Store: Puffy Pillow Productions
• Best Shopping Experience: The Frenchy Bee
• Best Store Custom Pages: Period Paper

For more information on how the winners were selected, please see the official contest rules.

Congratulations to the winners from me and my team!

I also want to extend our thanks to the many members who entered their eBay Stores in this year's contest.

Regards,

Chris Tsakalakis
Senior Director, eBay Stores

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These changes apply to the following subscription products: Selling Manager, eBay Stores, Sales Reports, Picture Manager, and Blackthorne (formerly Seller's Assistant).

Here's a brief description of the changes:

Changes to the invoice
Discounts-related information, such as subscription credits, will be visible immediately below the Monthly and One-time Fees section that contains information on subscription fees. Both these sections will be at the end of the invoice, after the Transactions bucket that contains information on insertion, listing upgrade and final value fees.

Changes to View Account Status pages in My eBay
On these pages, sellers sorting transactions by Fee Type will now see subscription fees and credits grouped together. A subtotal will be provided for all subscription fees.

To preview these changes, please click here.

You will begin seeing these changes on the View Account Status pages in the next few days. You will see these changes appearing in your invoices for the next billing cycle (May 31st or June 15th, depending on your billing cycle).

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Attend the Selling Basics course if you’re just getting started and learn about:

• Basic selling techniques
• How to create listings
• How to accept online payments with PayPal, and more.

Attend Beyond the Basics of Selling to take your sales to the next level and learn:

• Advanced selling techniques
• How to market your eBay listings
• What selling tools will save you time and increase sales, and more.

Register today for just $59. And if you register online before 11:59pm PDT on May 20th, you can bring a friend for free!

Event Details
May 21, 2005
Salt Lake City Marriott
75 South West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101

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The promotion will start Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second) and end on Thursday, May 19, 2005 at 23:59:59 PT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds). Listings created prior to May 18, 2005 and scheduled to start during the promotional period (May 18 – May 19, 2005) will be eligible for the promotional rate. Take advantage of this promotion to add Subtitle to all your listings so you can tell buyers more about your items!

During the 1¢ Subtitle Promotion:

For Auction-style, Fixed Price, Real Estate, Ad Format (for those that will run for less than or equal to 30 days) listings, the fee for Subtitle will be 1¢. This promotion will not apply to the following types of listings: eBay Motors vehicles and non-vehicles, International, Live Auction, Professional Services, and Stores Inventory listings.

All other fees (including Insertion Fees, Final Value Fees and all other optional listing upgrade fees, such as Bold, Border, Buy It Now, Highlight, Gallery Featured, Featured Plus!, Listing Designer, Gift Services, Reserve, extended duration insertion fees, etc.) will still be charged. The promotional rate does not apply to listings which start prior to May 18, 2005 or those listings which are revised during the promotional period. The promotional rate also does not apply to listings created during the promotional period that are scheduled to start after the promotion ends on May 19, 2005.

We hope you enjoy the 1¢ Subtitle Promotion!

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• Pipe & Tubing Benders – within Construction > Light Equipment
• Pipe Threaders – within Construction > Light Equipment > Pipe Threaders & Dies > Pipe Threaders
• Floor Sanders – within Construction > Light Equipment

For sellers, Item Specifics help make it easier to present a clean, well-organized description that clearly articulates important details that buyers want to see. Using Item Specifics is free and optional. For buyers, Item Specifics improves the ability to find the right item for a given application, and buyers will also be able to search for items using Item Specifics a few weeks later.

If you list items manually through an eBay seller tool (e.g. Sell Your Item form, Turbo Lister) or the eBay API, Item Specifics will be available in the next few weeks. If you utilize a 3rd party listing service (e.g., Andale, Auctionworks, etc.), please contact them to verify that they will offer the Item Specifics functionality in the above categories.

We have started a thread on the Business & Industrial discussion board to provide more detail about the upcoming changes. To access the thread please click here. If you have any comments or feedback about Item Specifics, please email them to business@ebay.com and they will be considered for future enhancements.

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, May 17th, 2005 with your host Griff (Jim Griffith), Dean of eBay University, live from 11:00 to 13:00 PDT. Featured this week:

• The PayPal Hour with Jason Miner. Also joining Jason this week is David Nielsen of the PayPal Developer Network.

And of course we'll have "The News" with Lee Mirabal, as well as the most important feature on eBay Radio: Your calls! Got a question, comment, or concern? Call in during the show at 888-327-0061 (USA) or 001-858-623-0102 (Internationally) to talk with Griff and his guests or to ask a question and share your voice with the rest of the eBay Community. Remember, one lucky caller per week, selected at random, will receive an autographed copy of Griff's book, "The Official eBay Bible".

And if you can't catch the live show you can always select and listen to any past eBay Radio broadcast, listed by topic and date, in the eBay Radio archives. Visit www.wsradio.com/ebayradio for more information and to listen to eBay Radio on your computer.

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Last Thursday we held a 10-cent Fixed Price listing promotion…this week, to show our appreciation for eBay sellers, I'm happy to offer a one-day promotion on www.ebay.com and www.ebay.ca during which insertion fees for auction-style listings will be just 10 cents. I know this doesn't make up for the disruption the outage caused, but I wanted to thank you for your patience and support last week.

It starts at midnight tonight. For complete details, please click here for the US and here for Canada.

Since last week I've gotten several offers to buy emergency generators – thanks everyone, but we're all set.

Sincerely,

Bill Cobb
President
eBay North America

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Pre-filled Item Information for this category will be available from the Sell Your Item form, other eBay selling tools (Turbo Lister, Selling Manager, etc.), and many third-party tools. eBay selling tools may require a download in order to get this new functionality. If your third-party tool does not support Item Specifics or Pre-filled Item Information, please contact them to learn more about whether they plan to support them.

We also encourage your to check out our Pre-Filled Item Information page for more information and Seller Central for details on upcoming changes to Item Specifics.

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1. Introduction – This area of the page clearly describes the policy, as well as what is not permitted. This section also includes guidelines on potential consequences of violating the policy. These consequences can include listing cancellation, limits on account privileges, and account suspension.
2. Some Examples – Here you can review examples that illustrate how you can comply with the policy, as well as examples indicating potential violations.
3. Additional Information – This area of the page contains more useful information that helps make the policy easier to understand. This includes links to other sites and online resources, contact information for organizations relevant to the policy, etc.
4. Why does eBay have this policy? – This section outlines eBay's rationale for creating the policy, and explains how it helps provide members a consistent and safe trading experience on eBay.

In addition to improving the way information is organized, we've also made it easier to read Policy pages. Each section of the page (except the Introduction) has a "Show/Hide" link. By choosing to show or hide each section, you can read the page a section at a time or in its entirety.

To review the new Policy page design, please visit the eBay Policies Hub.

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• Automatically running a spell check if no results are found – If your original search words don't show any results, we will automatically run a spell check on your search words. If a spell check correction is available, we will display listings using the alternative search words. (Note: You will always have the option to undo the automatic spell check correction.)
• Displaying listing counts if you removed search keywords or search filters – Sometimes using too many keywords or search filters can constrain a search, producing zero or low search results. In these cases, we will now show you the number of listings you would see by removing one or more keywords or search filters from your original search terms. (Note: This feature already exists in categories with Item Specifics.)

These recommendations should help buyers make more informed choices in refining their searches. Sellers should also benefit from these changes, as they will enhance buyers' finding experience and drive more bids to sellers' items.

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Two changes that make the General Announcement Board easier to use include:

• Quickly Scan Posts by Title - To help make sure you see the news that is most important to you, soon you'll be able to quickly scan the board for titles that interest you. Click the titles of your choice to view the full text.
• Archives now available - To make it easy for you to refer back to past announcements, we'll also be archiving announcements. You can get to these archives from links in the left navigation bar.

Would you like to get your eBay news delivered to you? Click here to sign up for the eBay Announcements Group to get a daily digest of new announcements delivered to your registered eBay email address. Or if you prefer, you can use our RSS feed to get your eBay's news delivered to your RSS Reader on your desktop. Click here to learn more.

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For more information about eBay's Online Postage, please visit the USPS Shipping Zone on eBay.

To learn more about the details of this enhancement, please read the original announcement directly below.

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	***Original: Coming Soon: U.S. Postal Service® Priority Mail® Flat Rate Box Shipping Labels Supported By eBay's Online Postage***
	April 29, 2005 | 04:43PM PST/PT Leigh Goldstein Hi...I'm Leigh Goldstein, Senior Manager for eBay's Shipping Product Marketing. Bill Cobb has tasked me and my team with making shipping easier, faster and safer for both buyers and sellers. In response, we're working on a number of projects that we hope will benefit both buyers and sellers, such as making shipping costs more visible to buyers and integrating shipping features so that we can help sellers reduce the amount of time it takes them to fulfill their orders. Today, I'm pleased to be able to tell you about a new feature that is launching soon. One of the most frequent requests we've heard from sellers over the last few months is for eBay's Online Postage to support the new flat rate boxes from the U.S. Postal Service. Starting in the next few weeks, eBay will offer the option to purchase and print USPS® Priority Mail Flat Rate Box labels. The postage for these flat rate boxes is $7.70 for delivery to all U.S. addresses, including PO boxes. Here are some of the features included: Purchase and print Priority Mail Flat Rate Box labels directly through eBay or PayPal. Priority Mail delivery to buyers takes an average of 2-3 days to any U.S. destination. Saturday and residential delivery is available at no additional charge. Delivery Confirmation™ is available at no additional cost when printing a shipping label online. eBay Sellers can order FREE eBay-USPS co-branded Priority Mail Flat Rate shipping boxes beginning in mid-May from http://ebaysupplies.usps.com. (Please allow 8 to 10 days for shipping.) USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes are available in two convenient sizes, 11" x 8.5" x 5.5" and 13.625" x 11.875" x 3.375", and the maximum weight is 70 lbs. Printing shipping labels for Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes is fast, easy and free with eBay's Online Postage. Simply pay for the postage with your PayPal account and print the shipping labels on your standard or label printer. You can eliminate trips to the Post Office™ by printing USPS shipping labels and scheduling a pickup! (Also eBay's Online Postage will support more label printers soon, so keep an eye on the General Announcements Board for this update.) For more information about eBay's Online Postage, please visit the USPS Shipping Zone on eBay. Your input is important to us, and we invite you to leave us comments on the Packaging & Shipping discussion board. Again, eBay's shipping team is dedicated to making shipping a trusted and easy part of an eBay transaction for both buyers and sellers. Stay tuned for more shipping news in the coming weeks and months. Regards, Leigh Goldstein, eBay Shipping Team *Please note: This announcement is being reposted to correct the timing of the launch of this product.
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Pricing Your Item
This workshop will be held on Tuesday, May 17th, from 11:00 PDT to 12:00 PDT. If you are new to eBay or a buyer who wishes to sell on eBay, pricing your item correctly can be a problem. Please join member and eBay University instructor danse as she provides suggestions and ideas for how to price merchandise for best results. Topics of discussion will include how much your starting bid should be, whether you need a reserve and why, and how Buy It Now options can increase your sales.

Put Your Credit Score to Work for You
This workshop will be held on Wednesday, May 18th from 13:00 PDT to 14:00 PDT. What does your credit score impact? Credit scores are used by lenders to estimate if you'll pay off your loans and whether you'll pay on time. Because it's one of the most influential factors in deciding whether to grant you credit, knowing your score can be indispensable when you apply for a loan. Join the Equifax Workshop for more information about what a credit score is, how it is calculated, and tips on how to manage your credit score.

Keywords
This workshop will be held on Thursday, May 19th, from 13:00 PDT to 14:00 PDT. Please attend this important workshop as Chris Smith from Certified Provider terapeak sheds some light on the hot topic of eBay keywords. Using a combination of established research techniques and the latest technology, eBay sellers will learn how to build more effective listing titles while eBay affiliates will see how to discover the most profitable keyword combinations on eBay. Attend and be the first to try new research technology from terapeak that will help you find out what words are most popular on eBay.

Workshops are hosted in discussion threads on the Workshops Board. To get to the Workshops Board:

• Click on Community at the top of almost any eBay page
• Click on "Discussion Boards" in the "Connect" Section
• Click on "Workshops" underneath the category-specific boards on the right-hand side of the page
• This will bring you to the threaded Workshops Board.

To view archived workshops or to learn more about future workshop events, please check our Work shops Calendar.

Want timely reminders about workshops? Sign up for the Workshops Information Group! By joining this group, you will receive an email notification reminding you about upcoming eBay Workshops. Each notification will include the time and date, a brief description of the event, and a link to the discussion thread where the actual workshop will be held.

To sign up for the Workshops Information Group, please click here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Currently when we make category updates, your Favorite Searches in a category that has been updated or removed will no longer work. To make sure that all of your Favorite Searches will continue to work even if the category you are searching in has changed, we will now automatically redirect your Favorite Searches to display results from the updated (or the next most appropriate) categories. An “updated” message will appear next to any of your Favorite Searches that have been changed. This will also apply to Favorite Categories, and any of your bookmarked URLs will also be redirected.

We appreciate your input on how we can make categories better for everyone. You may submit categories suggestions here.

Thanks again to all our members who contribute to these trade-enhancing changes!

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	***Original: Coming Soon: Category Updates***
	April 25, 2005 | 02:23PM PST/PT The category structure will be updated in mid-May based on feedback received from the eBay Community and from experts in the affected fields. You may provide category structure feedback at any time by clicking here. A complete list of the new category structure can be found on Seller Central here. Updated categories: BUSINESS & INDUSTRIAL Look for changes under Agriculture & Forestry, Construction, Healthcare, Lab & Life Science, Industrial Supply, MRO, and Office, Printing & Shipping. CAMERAS & PHOTO Check out changes under Digital Camera Accessories, and Lenses & Filters. CLOTHING, SHOES & ACCESSORIES Look for changes under Men's Accessories, Uniforms, Wedding Apparel, and Women's Accessories, Handbags. COINS Check out changes under Coins: US. COLLECTIBLES Look for changes under Animation Art, Characters. COMPUTERS & NETWORKING Check out changes under Apple, Macintosh Computers, Networking, and Software. ENTERTAINMENT MEMORABILIA Look for a change under Music Memorabilia by Artist. HEALTH & BEAUTY Check out changes under Bath & Body, Fragrances, Hair Care, Makeup, Nail, and Skin Care. HOME & GARDEN Look for a change under Gardening & Plants. SPORTING GOODS Check out changes under Baseball & Softball, Camping, Hiking, Backpacking, Cycling, Equestrian, Hunting, Skateboarding, Skiing & Snowboarding, Wakeboarding, Waterskiing, Other Sports, and Wholesale Lots. SPORTS MEM, CARDS & FAN SHOP Look for changes under Cards. As always, you can move your item to another category by revising your listing here as long as it has not received a bid and there are more than 12 hours left in the listing. We appreciate your input on how we can make categories better for everyone. You may submit categories suggestions here. Thanks again to all our members who contributed to these changes!
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The promotion starts on Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second) and ends that same day, Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 23:59:59 PT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds). Listings which were created prior to May 12, 2005 and scheduled to start during the promotional period will also be eligible for the special promotional rate. For more information about this promotion on www.ebay.ca, please click here.

During the 10¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fee Sale:

For Fixed Price format listings, the insertion fee will be 10¢. For more information about this promotional pricing, please click here.

The 10¢ Fixed Price Sale will not apply to eBay Motors vehicles and non-vehicles, International, Live Auction, Professional Services, Real Estate, Ad Format, and Store Inventory listings. Also, the following Business & Industrial categories are excluded from this promotion: tractors & farm machinery (category #91952), heavy equipment (25249), concession trailers, carts (67145), imaging and aesthetics equipment (92035), forklifts and other lifts (97185), manufacturing equipment (92080), metalworking equipment (92082), and commercial printing presses (26247). Please click here for more details.

All other fees (including Final Value Fees and optional listing upgrade fees such as Border, Bold, Highlight, Gallery, Gallery Featured, Featured Plus!, Listing Designer, Subtitle, Reserve, Extended Duration insertion fees, etc.) will still be charged. The promotional rate does not apply to listings with a start date prior to May 12, 2005, including those listings revised during the promotional period. The promotional rate also does not apply to listings created during the promotional period (May 12, 2005) that are scheduled to start after the promotion ends.

We hope you enjoy the one-day 10¢ Fixed Price Insertion Fee Sale!

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To put it mildly, yesterday evening was not a pretty time on eBay…

Last night eBay’s global marketplace was affected by a power outage at our primary hosting provider’s facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. As if that wasn’t enough, in a completely unrelated incident, the PayPal site went down between 9:13 pm and 9:41 pm Pacific time. On behalf of everyone at eBay and PayPal, I want to apologize for both incidents and give an update on what happened as well as what we’re doing to minimize the impact of these events on our Community.

Regarding the eBay outage, our hosting facility’s power was disrupted for about an hour and a half, starting at 7:33 pm Pacific time. This power interruption caused the eBay outage. Immediately following the outage, eBay’s operations team focused on two priorities: working with our partner to restore power as quickly as possible, and activating our failover system. Before our failover system was operational, power returned to the primary system and we immediately began restoring listings and site functions.

eBay’s category structure is randomly distributed across 21 databases to manage eBay’s large amount of inventory. Depending on which database hosted your listing, it was impacted in one of two ways:

• Access to the first group of listings was restored at 9:15 pm – listings scheduled to close between 7:33 pm and 11:15 pm (the outage period plus a two-hour courtesy window) will be credited all fees.
• The second group was restored at 10:10 pm – the listings in this group that were scheduled to close from 7:33 pm to 12:10 am this morning (the outage period plus a two-hour courtesy window) have been extended for 24 hours, with all fees credited.

While the ability to view and bid on the first group of listings was interrupted by the outage, the listings themselves continued as scheduled and unfortunately, we’re unable to extend live listings without causing further disruption to those items. In keeping with eBay’s outage policy, we credited all fees.

The second group of listings was simply down during the outage period. We were able to extend these listings by 24 hours and credit fees in accordance with our outage policy.

The PayPal incident was caused by a hardware failure in our Denver data center. PayPal’s backup systems took over as they were designed to do, and the site was functioning normally after a brief disruption.

We understand that any site interruption impacts you and again, we sincerely apologize. While we believe eBay and PayPal have the best people and technology available, the fact is that sometimes events take place that are beyond our control. Rest assured we are reviewing both situations and working to continually improve our emergency processes.

We’re all working to come up with ways to make up for letting you down yesterday. Stay tuned.

As always, please feel free to email me at billcobb@ebay.com.

Sincerely,

Bill Cobb
President
eBay North America

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Compilation and informational media items, such as how-to guides and wholesale lists, may now only be listed in the Everything Else > Informational Products category on all eBay sites. Listings found outside this sub-category will be cancelled.

We are making this new requirement to improve the finding experience while ensuring there is a category where members can buy and sell informational items safely.

To review the Compilation and Informational Media policy, please click here. To view eBay’s other marketplace policies, please click here.

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We have made the logo available now so you can begin updating any of your printed materials, listings or other collateral pieces. Click here to go to the logo download page.

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• Product Sourcing Editor Chris Malta, who has our popular monthly product-sourcing segment. Chris is joined by Ronny Tey from eBay's Reseller Marketplace.
• An eBay Giving Works program with Kristin Cunningham, General Manager of eBay Giving Works, Laura Iverson, Independent Artist, PowerSeller and mom, and Sean Milliken from MissionFish (the nonprofit that powers the eBay Giving Works program). Kristin, Laura and Sean will share more on the eBay Giving Works program and how it can benefit your charity fundraising efforts.
• A PowerSeller Best Practices Segment with PowerSeller Richard Chemel, also of isoldit.com. Richard will share some of his best practices and tips.

And of course we'll have "The News" with Lee Mirabal, as well as the most important feature on eBay Radio: Your calls! Got a question, comment, or concern? Call in during the show at 888-327-0061 (USA) or 001-858-623-0102 (Internationally) to talk with Griff and his guests or to ask a question and share your voice with the rest of the eBay Community. Remember, one lucky caller per week, selected at random, will receive an autographed copy of Griff's book, "The Official eBay Bible".

And if you can't catch the live show you can always select and listen to any past eBay Radio broadcast, listed by topic and date, in the eBay Radio archives. Visit www.wsradio.com/ebayradio for more information and to listen to eBay Radio on your computer.

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eBay will be issuing credits and listing extensions, per our outage policy.

The listings on eBay’s sites around the world sit on 21 complex databases. Today’s outage affected the listings on those databases in two ways:

• One group of databases was unavailable from 19:33 PDT until 22:10 PDT. Since the items in these databases were unavailable for more than 2 hours, eBay will credit all fees associated with these listings. In addition, eBay has extended these listings by 24 hours and added an additional two hours to the credit and extension period.
• The second group of databases was unavailable for less than 2 hours, from 19:33 PDT until 21:15 PDT. Since these items were unavailable for less than 2 hours, eBay will credit all listing fees associated with these listings, but will not extend the listings. We will also add two hours to the credit period for these listings.

Credits for both groups will include the .40 fee for any 10-day auctions that were active at 19:33 PDT.

We thank you for your patience, and we apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. We will provide additional information on this situation later today.

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During the eBay Motors Parts and Accessories 50¢ Insertion Fee sale:

For regular auction-style and Fixed Price Parts and Accessories listings with a starting price above $9.99 on the U.S. Motors site (www.ebaymotors.com), the insertion fee will be capped at $0.50. All insertion fees less than $0.50 will still be charged at the normal rate. For more information about insertion fees during this promotion, please click here. Listings created prior to May 10, 2005 that are scheduled to start during the promotional period (May 10, 2005) will be eligible to receive the promotional rate. The promotional rate does not apply for eBay Motors vehicle listings.

All other fees (such as transaction services fees and all other optional listing upgrade fees) will still be charged. More information about upgrade fees can be found by clicking here. The promotional offer does not apply for listings with a start date prior to May 10, 2005, including those listings revised during the promotional period (May 10, 2005), or for listings created during the promotional period but scheduled to start after May 10, 2005.

We hope you enjoy the eBay Motors Parts & Accessories 50¢ Insertion Fee sale!

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Wendy will also be available to answer your questions on how eBay's Customer Support works. You can submit your questions starting one week in advance, on May 18. Visit www.ebay.com/townhall for more information.

Also, the transcript for the Trust & Safety Town Hall held on April 21, 2005, is now available. Check out Bill Cobb and Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President of Trust & Safety, as they discuss eBay marketplace topics like spoof emails, Buyer Protection and the Unpaid Items process. Please visit the Town Hall page to read this transcript or to listen to the audio archive.

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Setting Up an eBay Account
This workshop will be held on Tuesday, May 10th, from 13:00 PDT to 14:00 PDT. Please join member and Education Specialist danzamovin to learn how to open an account to buy and sell on eBay. Other topics of discussion will include the most common techniques for choosing an eBay ID, suggestions for selecting your password, and a review of ID Verify.

Workshops are hosted in discussion threads on the Workshops Board. To get to the Workshops Board:

• Click on Community at the top of almost any eBay page
• Click on "Discussion Boards" in the "Connect" Section
• Click on "Workshops" underneath the category-specific boards on the right-hand side of the page
• This will bring you to the threaded Workshops Board.

To view archived workshops or to learn more about future workshop events, please check our Workshops Calendar.

Want timely reminders about workshops? Sign up for the Workshops Information Group! By joining this group, you will receive an email notification reminding you about upcoming eBay Workshops. Each notification will include the time and date, a brief description of the event, and a link to the discussion thread where the actual workshop will be held.

To sign up for the Workshops Information Group, please click here.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Attend the Selling Basics course if you’re just getting started and learn about:

• Basic selling techniques
• How to create listings
• How to accept online payments with PayPal, and more.

Attend Beyond the Basics of Selling to take your sales to the next level and learn:

• Advanced selling techniques
• How to market your eBay listings
• What selling tools will save you time and increase sales, and more.

Register today for just $59. And if you register online before 11:59pm PDT on May 13th, you can bring a friend for free!

Event Details
May 14, 2005
Hyatt Regency
1300 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55403

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This month's edition features interesting and informative stories on a variety of topics, including:

• An interview with Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America
• A story celebrating Disneyland's 50th birthday
• A glimpse into the educational and fun activities planned for this year's eBay Live! event in San Jose, California.

Also, our regular columnists write about a range of topics, from the basics of an effective eBay listing to how to prevent your password from being stolen. You can find all this and much more in the May issue!

To get to The Chatter, follow these steps:

Click "Community" in the Navigation Bar at the top of most eBay pages. In the "News" box, click on the link for The Chatter.

You can also go directly to The Chatter by clicking here.

If you have a story suggestion for us, we encourage you to send us email at chatterstaff@ebay.com.

For other useful and interesting Community-related information, take a look at the Community Calendar.

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Selling Manager (a $4.99 per month value) is eBay's online sales management tool that enables you to track your sales and manage post-sales processes, like email and feedback, in bulk. If you already have a subscription to a Basic eBay Store or are going to open one soon, simply subscribe to Selling Manager on the same eBay country site where you opened your eBay Store by clicking here.

Basic eBay Store sellers who already have Selling Manager will begin seeing the free Selling Manager subscription on your next invoice automatically. You will not be charged for Selling Manager as long as you maintain your Basic eBay Store.

For more details about this offer, please see our Frequently Asked Questions.

Also, for the last few months, the eBay Stores team has been talking to Store sellers about our Store Referral Credit program. Based on your feedback, I am pleased to announce we have made two changes to this program.

1) Many of you have told us that using email to send buyers links to your eBay Store and Store Inventory items is an important way to promote your business. To make sure you can always get the credit when emailing links, we have expanded the Store Referral program to give sellers more flexibility. Now you can receive the credit regardless of which email client your buyers use (previously, only web-based email programs could qualify). Just remember to always use properly formatted email links, including the refid=stores tag, when emailing your buyers in order to qualify for the Store Referral Credit.

2) In addition, if you use a customized domain name (such as www.yourstorenamehere.com) to point buyers to your eBay Store, you will be able to consistently qualify for the Store Referral Credit when you use the refid=stores tag correctly.

To learn more about how to format your emailed links and forward your customized domain name to qualify for the Store Referral credit, please click here.

Thank you for having an eBay Store!

Regards,

Chris Tsakalakis
Senior Director, eBay Stores

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As the eBay Community continues to innovate, the volume and diversity of the types of items that are bought and sold on the site continues to expand. This is part of the magic of eBay! With this growth, however, it's our job to make sure that finding the items that you are looking for stays easy and efficient.

As you may know, in the last year we've done a number of things to improve finding on eBay – from ongoing refinements to the category structure, to adding item specifics in many categories, to enhancing our search and browse functions. While each of these initiatives has improved finding in many categories, we know there is still work to be done. The Community continues to tell us they need a simpler eBay, and we believe that starts with the finding experience.

Over the next week, we'll be launching an early alpha test version of a project that introduces a New Way to Shop on eBay. With this new approach to finding items, we hope to make keyword searches much more intuitive and efficient by leveraging existing elements of a listing on eBay today (such as item title, item specifics, and category). We'll also be providing better ways to narrow listings results according to size, color, type, brand, or even a combination of attributes.

If this alpha test of a New Way to Shop suggests that our buyers and sellers are more successful with this approach, we will do more expanded testing later in the year. Ultimately, we hope to take much of the guesswork out of shopping – both for buyers, who are looking for items, as well as sellers, who today may not be sure what terms and search methods their buyers will be using most often when they shop.

Community input in these early stages is important, and we're inviting sellers and buyers to take part in the alpha test and give us feedback. This initial alpha test will be restricted to the following categories – Art, Bedding, Event Tickets, Glass, Shoes and TVs – and will be limited for a 4-8 week period. Since this is an alpha test only, not all eBay functionality (such as Add to Favorites, See All Matching Stores, etc.) will be available.

For more information about the alpha test, read our New Way to Shop information page and Frequently Asked Questions. As always, we value and welcome your ongoing feedback. Please leave your comments on the Search discussion board. While we're not able to respond to all comments directly, we want to hear your suggestions and will factor them into future testing phases.

Regards,

Shripriya Mahesh
VP, Product Marketing

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Please note that this will not affect My eBay for registered members. Guests will have to register prior to bidding, listing, and accessing all other registration-required features. If they choose to register, their Watched items will be transferred to their regular My eBay automatically.

For more information about My eBay for Guests, please see our Help page and Frequently Asked Questions.

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• Legal aspects of a business on eBay
• Tax, accounting & staffing issues
• Operations and Inventory Management
• e-Commerce and Internet Marketing trends that will impact your sales on eBay
• Sourcing product
• Finding the right seller tools to scale your business
• Setting up an eBay Store
• Automating your business on eBay....and much more!

Learn More about Small eBusiness World by clicking here. It’s only $49.95 for the one-day eBay University course, and only $79.95 for the two-day course.

Event Details
Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
5555 N. River Road
Rosemont, IL 60018

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Sellers who use Pre-filled Item Information when relisting or revising items in these categories may receive the following message that their original Item Specifics and/or Pre-filled Item Information have changed: The Pre-Filled Item Information for this item has been updated with the latest information. Please review the changes. We encourage sellers who receive this message to double-check their listing for accuracy before completing the listing.

We have started thread a thread on the Movies & Memorabilia board to detail the DVD & Movies changes, and another thread on the Music & Musicians board to detail the Music changes.

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• Support for the new sales tax table.
• Ability to opt-out of Listing Designer downloads.
• Support for the full 24 pictures on eBay Motors.
• Ability to list items on the eBay India site from international versions of Turbo Lister.

This release also includes enhancements to improve the performance of features within Turbo Lister.

For a complete list of features in this release, view the release notes posted on the Turbo Lister discussion board.

To download Turbo Lister for the first time, or general information about Turbo Lister, please click here.

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• Scott Ingraham, General Manager of Rent.com, an eBay Company. Join Scott and Griff to learn what's in store for Rent.com now that they have joined the eBay team.
• Colin Rule, Dispute Resolution Specialist and our resident "Mr. Manners", who returns to talk about disputes over feedback. Colin will be answering your questions and listening to your comments and concerns about feedback disputes.
• eBetsy, who has “Around the world on eBay in 80 seconds". eBetsy will be visiting and "reporting" from each of our international sites from now until eBay Live. Learn more about the world wide eBay with eBetsy!

And of course we'll have "The News" with Lee Mirabal, as well as the most important feature on eBay Radio: Your calls! Got a question, comment, or concern? Call in during the show at 888-327-0061 (USA) or 001-858-623-0102 (Internationally) to talk with Griff and his guests or to ask a question and share your voice with the rest of the eBay Community. Remember, one lucky caller per week, selected at random, will receive an autographed copy of Griff's book, "The Official eBay Bible".

And if you can't catch the live show you can always select and listen to any past eBay Radio broadcast, listed by topic and date, in the eBay Radio archives. Visit www.wsradio.com/ebayradio for more information and to listen to eBay Radio on your computer.

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During the 2-day Border for a Quarter promotion, Border will be $0.25 for all listings on the following sites:

• U.S. (www.ebay.com)
• eBay Motors (www.ebaymotors.com)

The promotion will start on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 at 00:00:01 PDT (12:00 AM plus one second) and end on Wednesday, May 4, 2005 at 23:59:59 PDT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds). Listings created prior to May 3, 2005 that are scheduled to start during the promotional period (May 3-4, 2005) will be eligible for the promotional rate. Take advantage of this promotion to try Border with all your listings!

During the Border for a Quarter Promotion:

For auction-style, Fixed Price, Real Estate Ad Format (for those that will run for less than or equal to 30 days), and eBay Motors listings, the fee for Border will be $0.25. This promotion will not apply to the following types of listings: International, Live Auction, Professional Services, and Stores Inventory listings.

All other fees (including Insertion Fees, Final Value Fees and all other optional listing upgrade fees, such as Buy It Now, Highlight, Gallery, Gallery Featured, Featured Plus!, Listing Designer, Gift Services, Bold, Reserve, Subtitle, extended duration insertion fees, etc.) will still be charged at their normal rate. The promotional rate does not apply to listings which start prior to May 3, 2005 or those listings which are revised during the promotional period. The promotional rate also does not apply to listings created during the promotional period that are scheduled to start after the promotion ends on May 4, 2005.

We hope you enjoy the Border for a Quarter promotion!

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To get to the discussion boards, click "Community" at the top of any eBay page, then click "Discussion Boards."

We look forward to seeing you there!

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