eBay Solutions Finder
This workshop will be held on Tuesday, October 4th, from 12:00 PDT to 13:00 PDT. The eBay Solutions Finder is now available to help you find the right tools and services to grow your eBay business. Whereas the eBay Solutions Directory has been a one-stop resource full of tools and services, the new Solutions Finder walks you through a quick diagnostic process to help you find solutions that meet your specific needs. eBay Market Development Manager Laura Della Torre will talk about the Finder and how you can use it to find the right tools and services to grow your eBay business.

Fundamentals of Financial & Business Management
This workshop will be held on Wednesday, October 5th, from 10:00 PDT to 11:00 PDT. In this workshop, Greg Harrison, Founder and CTO of Mpire, will discuss the fundamentals of financial and business management for your eBay business. You’ll learn how Mpire can help you to determine profit and loss, track inventory, effectively use a chart of accounts and cash register to track your business expenses, and set a commission plan structure and tracking for consignors.

New Features in Selling Manager & Selling Manager Pro
This workshop will be held on Thursday, October 6th, from 11:00 PDT to 12:00 PDT. Do you have questions about the recent enhancements to Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro? Please join the eBay's Seller Tools team to learn how to use the new features and to ask any general questions about Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro.

Feedback Manipulation
This workshop will be held on Friday, October 7th, from 11:00 PDT to 12:00 PDT. Feedback is the foundation of trust on eBay. Purchasing, selling or trading feedback undermines the integrity of the feedback system and decreases trust within the eBay marketplace. The new Feedback Manipulation policy, which replaces the Feedback Solicitation policy, enables us to take action against members when we identify a pattern of behavior consistent with feedback manipulation. Join Brian Burke, Senior Manager of eBay Marketplace Policy, to learn more about this policy change, how it will have a positive impact on the eBay marketplace, and to get answers to your questions about the policy.

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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Everyone can preview the new home page, and soon a small sample of buyers and sellers will start seeing it when they visit www.ebay.com. The enhanced home page will require that you have Flash 7 installed within your browser.

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As the Community continues to grow and diversify, we want to give you more ways to interact with other members who share your interests. So I am pleased to let you know that we have now added 17 new discussion boards to our Community discussion area so you can meet and talk with other members.

Visit any of our new boards by clicking on the links below.

For those of you needing help to build your eBay business we've added the following discussion boards:

• Part-time eBay Sellers
• Building An eBay Business
• Buyer Central: Buying on eBay for Resale
• Accounting Assistant & Record Keeping

To give collectors a place to discuss a wide variety of era-based collectibles, we've added discussion boards for:

• Vintage
• Mid-Century/Modern
• Victorian/Edwardian
• Country/Rural Style
• Dollhouses and Miniatures
• One of a Kind & Collectible Edition Dolls & Figurines

For those interested in scrapbooking we've created a new Scrapbooking Discussion Board. And if you're looking to keep the little ones in style or find the best products for your child, we've added Handmade/Custom Clothing for Kids.

For members who want to talk about our recently-introduced Reviews & Guides, we've created the Reviews & Guides Discussion Board.

And finally, we've added eBay Friends From All Over for all of you who've made friends with other eBay members.

We hope to see you on our new boards!

Sincerely,

Rachel Makool
Director, Community Development

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, September 27, 2005 with your host Griff (Jim Griffith), Dean of eBay University, live from 11:00 to 13:00 PT. Guests this week include:

• Ryan Spoon, Associate Manager of Marketing for eBay, with news about an exciting new eBay feature - Reviews and Guides.
• Greg Isaacs, from the eBay Developers Program. Starting today, Greg will be with us each month to highlight a specific member of the eBay Developers Program.

Plus we'll have "The News" with Lee Mirabal, as well as the most important feature on eBay Radio: your calls! 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".

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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"Stop. Think. Click." – these three words sum up OnguardOnline.gov, a new site to help you guard against Internet fraud, secure your computer and protect your personal information. Launched today by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), OnGuardOnline.gov features tools and education about protection from Viruses, Spyware, Phishing/Spoofing, Identity Theft and other threats to online safety. The site includes tips, articles, videos and quizzes to help you become computer savvy.

eBay and PayPal are proud to support the FTC's efforts in helping people stay safe online. We encourage all eBay and PayPal users to visit OnGuardOnline.gov and share the educational resources with family, friends and colleagues. As a reminder, we want to highlight the following 7 tips on online safety which you can find on the eBay Security & Resolution Center, the PayPal Identity Protection Resource Area, and OnGuardOnline.gov:

1. Protect your personal information. It's valuable. If you are shopping online, don't provide your personal or financial information through a company's Website until you have checked for indicators that the site is secure and feel comfortable with its privacy policy.
2. Protect yourself from phishing/spoofing emails and Web sites. If you are suspicious about an email that claims to be from eBay or PayPal, and requests payment or other account information, report it by forwarding the email to spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com.
3. Use anti-virus software and a firewall, and update both regularly.
4. Be sure to set up your operating system and Web browser software properly, and update them regularly.
5. Protect your passwords.
6. Back up important files.
7. Learn who to contact if something goes wrong online.

I have invited the staff members of the FTC to join me and other members of the Trust & Safety team to conduct an "On Guard, Online" workshop on Wednesday, October 19th at 11 a.m. PT. This workshop will provide eBay and PayPal members the opportunity to the security of online transactions, and to learn more about how you can stay safe online. I look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely,

Dave Steer
Senior Manager, Trust and Safety, PayPal

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• US (www.ebay.com)
• eBay Motors (www.ebaymotors.com)

The promotion will start Tuesday, September 27, 2005 at 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second) and end on Thursday, September 29, 2005 at 23:59:59 PT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

During the Picture Manager two-week free trial:

First-time Picture Manager subscribers who sign up between September 27-29, 2005 will receive the first 14 days of their Picture Manager subscription for free. For full details on this promotion, please visit the Picture Manager two-week free trial promotion page.

We hope you enjoy the Picture Manager two-week free trial!

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Item condition is an important piece of information for buyers, and we’ve found that listings with specified conditions are more likely to sell.

Soon we will extend the ability to list your item’s condition to more categories across the site. For details about how item condition will work in each category, please see our links below:

• Baby
• Clothing, Shoes & Accessories
• Home & Garden

Sellers using eBay listing tools (such as the Sell Your Item form or Turbo Lister) will be able to include this information in the next few weeks. If you utilize a 3rd party listing service (e.g., Andale, Marketworks, etc.), please contact them to verify that they will offer the item condition functionality in these categories.

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Reviews
Most of us have been in the situation where we want to buy something like a digital camera, but would like to see what other people recommended before making the purchase. Now with reviews, you'll be able to see what other people said about many products on eBay – or write about them yourself! At first you'll be able to review many products in the Books, Movies, Cell Phones, Music, Digital Cameras, Games, Golf Clubs, PDAs, and Video Games categories (basically those that you can list using Pre-Filled Item Information). And as time goes on, we'll keep adding more and more categories and products that you can review.

So thinking about buying a new digital camera? Read what other eBay members think about different models. Just watched Toy Story 2 on DVD? Write a review to let others know your impressions. The eBay Community not only will create these reviews – they'll vote on their helpfulness, and the most popular reviews will reach “Top Review” status.

Guides
While reviews rate a specific product, you can write a guide about almost anything you want to share with other members. You can even include extra information like pictures and links within eBay. Have advice on how to start a coin collection? Want others to know which ‘80s movies are the greatest of all time? Write a guide and share your insights and knowledge. If you're a seller, write about your area of expertise to attract new interest. Similar to reviews, readers can search for guides on a certain topic area, and vote on whether they found it helpful. Plus, guides that are written by eBay (many of which have been able on the site for some time) will also be included here, marked with the eBay logo.

You can access Reviews & Guides at reviews.ebay.com; we'll add more links there as time goes on. Members who write Reviews & Guides can find theirs in My eBay, and can edit them at any time.

For more information about Reviews & Guides, please see our information page. We also hope you'll join us for a workshop about Review & Guides tomorrow, September 27, at 2:00pm PDT. To attend, please see our workshop thread.

Sincerely,

Matt Ackley
Senior Director, Marketing

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New Feedback System Change
This workshop will be held on Monday, September 26th, from 14:00 PDT to 15:00 PDT. As we recently announced, eBay now will begin removing all feedback from users who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of their registration. Please join Brian Burke, Senior Marketplace Policy Manager, Amjad Hanif, Group Product Manager, Jon Logan, Product Manager, and other eBay staff to learn what this change to the Feedback system means, how it works, why we believe it's important for the Community, and what other changes are planned for the Feedback system. This session will be dedicated entirely to questions and feedback about this new Feedback system change.

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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Hurricane Rita is expected to reach land within a day or two, and many people are evacuating ahead of the storm. As with those affected by Hurricane Katrina, our thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the area. We also ask that you be patient and keep trying to communicate with any trading partners you may have in the Southeast United States.

For information on ways you can help those who need it, please see our eBay Giving Works page or visit our Natural Disaster & Relief Information discussion board.

Sincerely,

Rachel Makool
Director, Community Development

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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 online for either site before 11:59pm PDT on September 30th and bring a friend for free!

Event Details for Anaheim, CA
Anaheim Marriott
700 West Convention Way
Anaheim, CA 92802

Event Details for Memphis, TN
Holiday Inn Select Memphis Airport
2240 Democrat
Memphis, TN 38141

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We've added a number of features to eBay Toolbar based on Community input, including:

• Gallery photo included in desktop alerts -– Now you'll see item photos when you receive desktop alerts.
• Item won/not won alert -– You can track the items you've won, or not won, from your desktop. You'll be alerted shortly after items that you're bidding on or watching end.
• Item sold/not sold alert -– You can also keep track of your sold and unsold items from your desktop. You'll see alerts on your desktop when your listings end.
• Ask Seller a Question alert -– Sellers will now be alerted when a buyer has a question pending.
• Second Chance Offer received alert -– Buyers will now be instantly notified when a seller makes them a Second Chance Offer on an item.
• Best Offer received/accepted alert -– Sellers will be alerted when a buyer makes a Best Offer on an item they are selling, and buyers will be alerted if a seller chooses to accept their Best Offer.

For more information, please visit the eBay Toolbar page.

Please note: eBay Toolbar requires Internet Explorer for Windows. Users of previous versions of eBay Toolbar will be prompted to upgrade to the new version.

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Please visit our thread on the Photos & HTML board for more details and for information about the software installation process.

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Enhancements to both Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro include:

• HTML emails -- You now have the option of using HTML-formatted emails for your post-transactions communications. This allows you to include rich content in your emails, such as your eBay Stores logo with a custom header at the top, a Pay Now Button, your invoice details, and merchandising information.
• Additional custom email templates -- You can now create multiple email templates, instead of just one.
• Stored email preferences -- Both Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro will now conveniently "remember" your latest email preferences, such as whether or not to send a copy of each email to yourself.

Enhancements to Selling Manager Pro only include:

• Automated listing rules -- You can create automated listing rules that fit your listing strategies. For example, you will now be able to set a rule that automatically relists additional items when your items sell, or set a rule that relists your unsold items (you decide how often). If they don't sell after that, you can have them automatically move to your eBay Store. Additionally, you will also be able to automate your Second Chance Offers from Selling Manager Pro.

To learn more about these new features, please visit the threads we've created on the Selling Manager discussion board and the Selling Manager Pro discussion board.

If you would like to receive an email when new eBay Selling Manager enhancements are introduced, join the eBay Seller Tools Group.

For more information on how these selling tools can help make selling on eBay easier, please visit the Selling Manager and Selling Manager Pro pages.

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To display Feedback information once this feature is available:

• Click the "Customize Display" link above the listings on the right-hand side of any search results or listings page
• Check the "Display Feedback information" checkbox in the Display section
• Click on the Save button.

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I'm happy to say that the first phase of these changes -- removing all feedback from users who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of registration -- is now live. Our belief is that members who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of their registration were never truly members of the Community. Therefore, their feedback should not count.

These feedback changes are effective on all eBay sites.

To learn more about removing all feedback from users who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of registration, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions. Our Trust and Safety team will also be available to answer your questions during our workshop on feedback changes on 26th September from 14:00-15:00 PDT.

Sincerely,
Brian Burke
Senior Marketplace Policy Manager

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	***Original: Update on Feedback System Changes Announced at eBay Live!***
	September 06, 2005 | 04:21PM PST/PT Brian Burke Hi… I'm Brian Burke, Senior Marketplace Policy Manager for Feedback. Earlier this year, at eBay Live! 2005, we announced a number of changes to eBay's feedback system that would be launched later in 2005. The response from the Community has been very positive, and I'm back to give you an update on our progress. It was our hope and expectation to launch all of these changes later this year. The good news is that we expect to launch three of the four changes, as scheduled, later this year. However, one change will be delayed until 2006. Let me give you a rundown of how we anticipate the feedback system changes to occur: Below are the changes that we expect to launch later this year: Removing all feedback from users who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of registration. Later this month we will begin removing all feedback from members who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of their registration. As discussed in my June 23 letter, our belief is that members who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of their registration were never truly members of the Community. Therefore, their feedback should not count. Requiring new members to complete a tutorial before leaving neutral or negative feedback. In late November/early December we will begin requiring members who have 10 feedback or less to complete a brief tutorial before leaving their first neutral or negative feedback. In addition, we will be updating the current page all members see prior to leaving neutral or negative feedback. The updated page will emphasize the importance of communicating with your trading partner prior to leaving feedback. It will also urge members to make sure they have given their trading partner enough time to fulfill their obligations. Removing feedback ratings (not comments) left by buyers who don't participate in the Unpaid Item process for that item. In November we will begin automatically removing feedback ratings left by buyers who do not participate in the Unpaid Item process for that item. This means the rating (whether positive or negative) will not affect the recipient's feedback score. The feedback comment itself will remain and will include an administrative note from eBay indicating that the feedback rating was removed because the member did not participate in the Unpaid Item process. Removing feedback ratings (not comments) left by sellers who don't participate in the Item Not Received process. In order to remove feedback ratings left by sellers who do not participate in the Item Not Received processes we must first align the eBay and PayPal systems. Unfortunately, aligning the systems will take longer to complete than we had originally estimated. This component of the announced changes will be ready sometime in 2006. It was a difficult decision not to be able to launch the Item Not Received rating removal at the same time as the other changes. But we decided that the benefits of the other changes described above were too important to delay. I will keep you updated via our Announcement Board as we get closer to delivering each of these changes. Please also watch the Work shop Calendar for workshops on these Feedback changes. The first workshop, on removing all feedback from users who are indefinitely suspended within 90 days of registration, will be held on Monday, September 26th at 2.00 pm PDT on the Workshop board. During this workshop, we'll go into detail on this first phase of the feedback changes and answer your questions. We hope you can join us. Sincerely, Brian Burke Senior Marketplace Policy Manager
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At eBay Live! I announced some policy improvements and new enforcement consequences. As part of our effort to make it easier for members to understand and comply with our policies, I also announced that we would create four new policy tutorials.

I'm pleased to announce that this week we are launching four new tutorials. Together with the Intellectual Property Rules and VeRO tutorial that we launched earlier this year, these tutorials will help you understand some of our most important policies.

These four new tutorials will help you understand the following policies better:

• Shill Bidding
• Feedback
• Search and Browse Manipulation (also known as keyword spamming)
• Fee Circumvention

Each tutorial is organized into three parts:

• Policy overview and examples
• A few questions to test your understanding of the policy, with explanations indicating why your answers are correct or incorrect
• A summary of key lessons

You'll be able to access these tutorials from the Feedback Forum and the Help pages for shill bidding, feedback, search and browse manipulation (also known as keyword spamming), fee circumvention, and Intellectual Property Rules and VeRO.

Next month, we will launch these tutorials on all our sites globally. Furthermore, in a few months we will require that members who repeatedly violate these policies take these tutorials in order to continue trading on the site.

Sincerely,

Matt Halprin
VP, Global Marketplace Policy Management

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, September 20, 2005 with your host Griff (Jim Griffith), Dean of eBay University, live from 11:00 to 13:00 PT. Guests this week include:

• Greg Cole, President of Bright Builders. Bright Builders makes HammerTap, software designed to help you find out what’s hot on eBay.
• PowerSeller and Trading Assistant Christopher Spenser, with tips about opening an eBay brick-and-mortar storefront.
• Stacey Zuniga of Unwired Buyer, a new free service that allows eBay bidders to bid over their cell phones.

Plus we'll have "The News" with Lee Mirabal, as well as the most important feature on eBay Radio: your calls! 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".

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 promotion will start on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 at 00:00:01 PDT (12:00 AM plus one second) and end on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 at 23:59:59 PDT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds). Listings created prior to September 20, 2005 that are scheduled to start during the promotional period (September 20-21, 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, and Ad Format (for those that will run for less than or equal to 30 days) 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, Motors Vehicles and Non-vehicles, and Store Inventory listings. For full details about the promotion, please see our information page.

We hope you enjoy the Border for a Quarter promotion!

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