Visit The eBay Shop at www.theebayshop.com.

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, January 31, with your host Jim "Griff" Griffith, Dean of eBay University, live from 11:00am to 1:00pm PT. Guests this week include:

• Scott Loper, Senior Product Marketing Manager, with news about the new eBay Toolbar.
• John Slocum, General Manager of Auction Assistant, who will talk about the latest version of the popular Blackthorne software (formerly known as Seller's Assistant).
• Jason Miner, with the “The PayPal Hour.” Cue up your PayPal questions for this segment.

And as always 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 001-858-678-8958 (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. And don't forget to tune in to our new "Ask Griff" edition of eBay Radio on Sunday from 4:00pm to 5:00pm PT.

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, January 31, 2006 at 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second) and end on Wednesday, February 1, 2006 at 23:59:59 PT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds). Listings created prior to January 31, 2006 that are scheduled to start during the promotional period (January 31–February 1, 2006) 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 (which 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 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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Tune in to eBay Radio today, January 29, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm PT for the "Ask Griff" eBay Radio Sunday Show with your host Jim "Griff" Griffith, Dean of eBay University.

This Sunday edition of eBay Radio is dedicated entirely to your calls! Call in during the show at 888-327-0061 (USA) or 001-858-678-8958 (Internationally) to talk with Griff, ask a question or just share your voice with the rest of the eBay Community.

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 Listing Templates
This workshop will be held on Monday, January 30th, from 10:00 PT to 11:00 PT. In this workshop, Debbie Levitt, President of eBay Certified Provider AsWas, will review some of the key elements eBay listing designs and templates should include (and avoid) to help you generate sales and repeat business. She'll then take questions, and look at listings from as many sellers as she can who would like to get feedback on their designs.

Branding and Merchandising
This workshop will be held on Wednesday, February 1st, from 13:00 PT to 14:00 PT. Marketworks, eBay’s Largest Certified Solution Provider, will share some of the key insights they have gained from working with some of the most successful sellers on eBay. Join Marketworks Senior Creative Director Bobby Kreiner for a discussion on a range of topics that will include how to build an eBay brand, provide a consistent buying experience, cross-merchandise effectively, integrate Shopping.com into your selling strategy, and make your eBay Store work as hard as you do.

Accounting Made Easy
This workshop will be held on Friday, February 3rd, from 10:00 PT to 11:00 PT. Accounting can be easy when you know what you're doing! Best-selling author and CPA Diane Kennedy will discuss basic bookkeeping techniques, why it is important to review and record your business transactions, and when certain bookkeeping tasks should be performed.

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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Let me jump straight into my team's five focus areas:

Making policies easy to understand
We now have over 150 policies designed to keep the eBay marketplace healthy and to maintain a safe place to buy and sell. We recognized that some of our policies were hard to understand, even for me. So last year, we spent several months rewriting our policy pages in straightforward language to make them easier to understand and follow. Now each page includes: a clear statement of the policy and why we have it; examples that illustrate what is and isn't allowed; and a list of the possible consequences of violating the policy. (To learn more, please visit our Policy Hub page.)

Educating members about policies
Understanding eBay's policies helps members have a more positive eBay experience. Last year we focused on creating educational materials on the site designed to help members understand and comply with our policies. We now have five online tutorials available for Intellectual Property & VeRO, Shill Bidding, Fee Circumvention, Feedback, and Search & Browse Manipulation.

These new tutorials only take a few minutes to complete. Each one steps members through the policy details they need to know in order to stay in compliance. In 2006, we will also be launching a new comprehensive Marketplace Policy tutorial that covers all our biggest policy areas, including Keyword Spamming, Fee Circumvention, Feedback, VeRO and more.

Enforcing policy violation consequences and mitigation
Last fall we changed our PowerSeller eligibility requirements to include new thresholds on policy compliance. As a result, we've removed some sellers who were repeat violators of eBay's policies from the program. We feel this has enhanced the reputation of the program overall. It's also made the marketplace more safe and fair for the vast majority of good sellers and PowerSellers who play by the rules.

We're also working on more consequences we can apply when sellers violate policies that will help change their problem listing behaviors in a positive way. Until recently, eBay could only warn or suspend accounts, so we've had to build more options that encourage education and rehabilitation. We'll be adding new consequences in 2006, which include:

• Restricting repeat policy violators' ability to list items for a period of time – Depending on how often a seller has violated our policies in a 90-day period, they may be required to complete a 15-minute tutorial, or they could be restricted from listing new items for up to 3 days. We think of these consequences as "speed bumps" that can slow accounts down just long enough for them to be educated on the policy. Then they can get back on track.
• Retaining eBay fees when cancelling a repeat violator's listings for List Practices violations – If a seller repeatedly violates policies in a 90-day period despite previously having taken a tutorial on those policies, we're going to keep their listing and feature fees on subsequent listing cancellations that violate policy. We feel it is important to instill a financial penalty to protect the level playing field when our other efforts to educate and change behavior have failed.

Making it easy to detect policy violations
One of the most important ways we learn about listings that violate our policies is through reports from other Community members. You've told us that the process for reporting suspicious activity has been too cumbersome. So to make it easier for members to send us these reports, in the spring of 2006, every item page will have a "Report this Item" link at the bottom of the page. This link will bypass the Contact Us flow and take you to a list of possible reasons why a listing needs to be brought to our attention. It will save you valuable time and help us review the listing quickly.

I want to add a note here to thank our members who report suspicious activity on the site to us. With more than 5 million active listings on any given day, we need – and truly appreciate – your help in keeping the marketplace safe.

These five key areas of focus address many of the concerns that we've heard from our Community over the years. Already these changes are having positive results. We've made good progress in the last 6 months, and we'll be taking this momentum with us into this year.

Sincerely,

Matt Halprin
VP, Global Marketplace Policy Management

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Typically we see this type of keyword spamming for accessory-type items that are intended to be compatible with specific brands or models. Sometimes the listing title includes names of specific brands or models with which compatibility is claimed, but it's not clear if the item was also made by the same company. This can lead to buyer confusion about who is the manufacturer of the accessory.

The update to the policy states:

Sellers who list accessory items that are intended to be compatible with specific brands or models may identify those brands or models in the listing title. However, sellers may not mislead buyers into believing they could be purchasing a product made by the same company that makes the brand or model with which compatibility is claimed.

To help avoid confusion among your buyers about the manufacturer of the accessory, we recommend that sellers include words such as "compatible" or "fits" preceding the brand/model names.

Here's an example that shows what is allowed and not allowed, as well as the reasoning:

What is allowed: "Headset fits Samsung i330 i500 i600 i700"
Reasoning: This listing states that the headset was manufactured to fit these specific Samsung models.

What is not allowed: "Headset Samsung i330 i500 i600 i700"
Reasoning: It's unclear if the headset was actually manufactured by Samsung.

You can find more examples on compatibility under "Some Examples" on the updated Keyword Spam policy page.

Sincerely,

Sarah Brubacher,
Senior Policy Manager, eBay Trust & Safety

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Improved Offer Management - We're making it easier for sellers to track new offers, and manage all offer activity on their Fixed Price listings.

Best Offer Button on Item Pages - We're making Best Offer a clearer option for buyers by changing it from a link on the item page to a more noticeable button.

Best Offer Icon in Search Results – You'll see a "Buy it Now or Best Offer" icon within your search results (just like how Buy It Now appears today) when the seller has the Best Offer feature available on that listing.

To learn more about Best Offer, please see our information page.

Sincerely,

Erik Rannala
Senior Manager, eBay Product Marketing

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The use of third-party seals on listings that claim to validate, verify, or guarantee the trustworthiness or reliability of the seller is no longer allowed. For example, using language such as "Trusted Seller" or "Reliable Seller" is not permitted.

Third-party seals that guarantee specific transactions or items are allowed. In these cases, the third-party companies offer insurance, transaction dispute options for buyers, or other services which are allowed. For example, sellers participating in a third-party buyer protection program may have seals with text like "Protected transaction guaranteed to $25,000" on their listings.

We will also continue to allow seals which represent membership in business or craft-related organizations, but do not otherwise violate this policy. For example, you can include language indicating you’re a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

To learn more about this new policy, and see more examples of what is and isn't allowed, please visit the Third-Party Endorsements of eBay Members policy page.

Sincerely,

Sarah Brubacher
Senior Policy Manager, eBay Trust & Safety

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, January 24, with your host Jim "Griff" Griffith, Dean of eBay University, live from 11:00am to 1:00pm PT. Guests this week include:

• Darlene Clementz, Senior Manager of eBay Stores Marketing, and Ryan Dieckmann, Manager of eBay Stores. Darlene and Ryan will talk about recent eBay Store enhancements.
• Debbie Gordon, President and CEO of Snappy Auctions.com, who will talk about the hot "Drop off your stuff and we’ll sell it for you on eBay" industry.
• Skip McGrath, Author of “How to start and run an eBay Consignment Business” with Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes Editor and author of "Turn eBay Data into Dollars."

Plus Griff and Lee Mirabal will select the grand prize winner of the Sharpics total photography package, including a digital camera, D'Flector and accessories. You can still enter at www.ClubwsRadio.com before the show today. And as always 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 001-858-678-8958 (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. And don't forget to tune in to our new "Ask Griff" edition of eBay Radio on Sunday from 4:00pm to 5:00pm PT.

Visit www.wsradio.com/ebayradio for more information and to listen to eBay Radio on your computer.

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The promotion starts on Tuesday, January 24, 2006 at 00:00:01 PT (12:00 AM plus one second) and ends Tuesday, February 7, 2006 at 23:59:59 PT (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds). Fixed Price Tickets listings which were created prior to January 24, 2006 and scheduled to start during the promotional period will also be eligible for the promotional rate.

For more information about this promotional pricing, please click here.

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We’d like to share more details about eBay Express and help answer many of your questions. We’re inviting everyone to a Brown Bag Lunch event on the Seller Central discussion board on Thursday, January 26th from Noon to 1pm PT. We hope to see you there.

Sincerely,

Chung Cheong and Adam Nash
eBay Express team

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This week we’re making a change to the top of the item page that only people visiting eBay from a search engine will see. This change adds a “welcome” message, a link to learn about eBay, and two links to additional items. We hope that giving new buyers the help and guidance they need when they first arrive to the site will turn them into successful members of the eBay community. To see an example of what this will look like to buyers arriving from a search engine, please click here.

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Visit The eBay Shop at www.theebayshop.com.

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Tune in to eBay Radio today, January 22, from 4:00pm to 5:00pm PT for the "Ask Griff" eBay Radio Sunday Show with your host Jim "Griff" Griffith, Dean of eBay University.

This new Sunday edition of eBay Radio is dedicated entirely to your calls! Call in during the show at 888-327-0061 (USA) or 001-858-678-8958 (Internationally) to talk with Griff, ask a question or just share your voice with the rest of the eBay Community.

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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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***
	January 04, 2006 | 09:08AM PST/PT The category structure will be updated in mid-January 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: BABY Look for changes under Diapering, Nursery Décor, Nursery Furniture, and Strollers. BUSINESS & INDUSTRIAL Check out changes under Construction, Food Service & Retail, Industrial Supply/MRO, and Office, Printing & Shipping. COMPUTERS & NETWORKING Look for Skype Devices under Networking. CAMERAS & PHOTO Check out changes under Accessories and Digital Cameras. CRAFTS Look for changes under Ceramics & Pottery, Fabric Embellishments, Handcrafted Items, Ribbon & Scrapbooking. HOME & GARDEN Check out changes under Electrical & Solar, Home Security, Pet Supplies, and Plumbing & Fixtures. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS Look for changes under Guitar. SPORTING GOODS Check out changes under Tennis. VIDEO GAMES Look for the addition of Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Game Boy Micro, and Sony PSP under Accessories. 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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Sell Smarter – Find Listing Features that Work for You
This workshop will be held on Monday, January 23rd, from 11:00 PT to 12:00 PT. Dave Popowich and Dave Frey, Brand Managers from eBay Certified Provider Terapeak, will explain how to analyze the effectiveness of different eBay listing features. Examples will be provided to illustrate how big an impact these features have on your listings.

Maximizing Textbook Sales Revenue
This workshop will be held on Tuesday, January 24th, from 11:00 PT to 12:00 PT. In this workshop, Xavier Helgesen, CEO of Certified Solution Provider Indaba Systems, will discuss how to sell textbooks on eBay (including within eBay Stores) and Half.com. You’ll learn how to time the textbook rush for maximum profit, price your textbooks accurately, scale your logistics, and deal effectively with the customer service needs of time-crunched students.

Buying and Selling Digital Items
This workshop will be held on Wednesday, January 25th, from 13:00 PT to 14:00 PT. Recently there has been increasing interest in buying and selling electronic files on eBay. These are items that you have created, such as recipes, sheet music, and instructional books, and can be delivered to the buyer electronically. Join eBay staff for this workshop to discuss the latest enhancements we've made to help you list and find digital items, and to review the legal requirements for selling them.

Protecting your eBay Account
This workshop will be held on Friday, January 27th, from 15:00 PT to 16:00 PT. Join eBay Trust & Safety staff as they discuss how to recognize, report and protect yourself from spoof/phishing emails. They will also review the benefits of downloading the eBay Toolbar with Account Guard and using My Messages to help protect your account information.

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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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 PT on February 3rd and bring a friend for free!

Event Details
February 4th, 2006
Sheraton Station Square
300 W. Station Square Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

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The success eBay enjoyed this quarter is a direct result of our Community of members. Your loyalty, passion and dedication have helped us build a dynamic marketplace that continues to grow quarter after quarter.

We look forward to working together for even greater success in the coming year and beyond.

Thank you,
Meg

To learn more about eBay's performance for the quarter, click here.

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I’d like to start the year by making some announcements and filling you in on exciting new developments at eBay. Thanks to the continuing input and innovations of our Community, the eBay marketplace keeps evolving -- creating new opportunities for buyers and sellers alike.

2006 Fee Adjustments
As you probably know, we periodically make changes to our fee structure. We’ll be making some adjustments to our fees, and I want to highlight the most important ones. The following changes will go into effect on February 22, 2006:

• For core insertion fees for auctions and Fixed Price listings on eBay.com, we’re again lowering the lowest tranche fee (i.e. for items with a starting price of $0.01 to $0.99) – from a quarter to twenty cents.

• For feature fees --
  • We’re making Picture Show and Sales Reports Plus free for everyone.

  • We’re reducing the fees for the second and third tiers of Picture Manager and increasing the storage you get at these higher levels.

  • And we’re trying something that has worked well for us on eBay Motors. For the first time, we’re offering two new bundles of optional listing features that can save you up to 39% per listing. (Read here for details.)

• For final value fees for auctions and Fixed Price listings on eBay.com, we are increasing one fee this year – the final value fee for the middle tranche, which will increase from 2.75 to 3%.

• There are no changes for eBay Stores fees.

I encourage you to take a moment to learn more about the upcoming fee adjustments here.

Investments in Advertising
We know that bringing high-quality buyers to your listings is a critical part of the value eBay provides. To make sure we keep delivering this traffic, we made significant investments in advertising in 2005 which will continue throughout this year. This past holiday season we debuted the "it" campaign, eBay’s largest advertising investment to date. Through a fully integrated marketing campaign including television, print ads, internet marketing, catalogs, onsite merchandising, publicity and more, "it" spotlights the depth and breadth of products available on eBay. And the campaign is working. "It" was one of the most-recalled ad campaigns of the holiday season, according to Advertising Age magazine.

Also in 2005, with internet advertising costs spiraling, we put considerable effort behind developing new ways to bring more buyers to your listings who use search engines like Google and Yahoo. Behind the scenes, we’ve been optimizing our site content for this unpaid or "natural" search. We’ve encouraged the Community to use About Me pages and a few months ago, we launched Reviews & Guides. The content members create through these features not only makes the site a richer experience -- these pages get picked up by search engines. This means buyers searching the internet for product information or other keywords are naturally driven to eBay.

Product Innovations
Another important part of our job is staying in touch with your changing business needs and developing innovative products that meet them. Last year, we delivered some important improvements like the Best Offer feature, better shipping integration with U.S. Postal Service® and UPS, cross-promotion enhancements to give sellers more visibility to your listings, and many new features you asked for in Want It Now.

This year, we’ll continue to stay focused on products and features to help you grow your business and improve your buying experience. For instance, for eBay Stores, you’ve told us that 19 categories and only one level is not enough. So this spring, we’ll be releasing a new structure that allows you to have up to 300 custom categories in three levels of categories and sub-categories.

I’m also pleased to tell you that we’re soon introducing something many of you have wanted for a long time: At the end of any eBay search, all matching Store inventory listings will be displayed. For sellers, this means much more exposure for your eBay Stores and Store items – for buyers, every search will return many more qualified listings. It’s a win/win for everyone.

You can read here for more details on the change to add Store Inventory items in Search which will launch in a few weeks.

Introducing eBay Express
Finally, I want to tell you about a new specialty site called eBay Express that will launch this spring. eBay Express will be an exciting new buying experience, offering items that are available for purchase right away. We think eBay Express will encourage more shopping among our existing buyers, who today may only buy on e