Hi, I am Vasundhara Bhonsle, Head - Customer Support, and I just wanted to remind you to join me for Open House Discussion on eBay Customer Support on Thursday, Aug 30 from 4 -5 PM. I shall be available on this thread to hear and understand your requirements such that we can bring further improvements in the Customer Support team. All compliments and complaints are welcome :)

Looking forward to meeting you here!

Thanks and Regards,
Vasundhara Bhonsle
Head – Customer Support

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	***Original: Open House Discussion with Vasundhara Bhonsle, Head - Customer Support, on August 30 from 4 -5 PM***
	20 August, 2007 | 01:21 PM IST Hi, I am Vasundhara Bhonsle, Head - Customer Support, and I invite you to join me for Open House Discussion on eBay Customer Support. Last time we met, you told me about many areas that required improvements in eBay’s Customer Support team. Since then, based on your feedback via CS satisfaction surveys, Discussion boards and Top User meets, we have introduced various changes to the Customer Support team to deliver improved service to you. Some of those key changes are: 1. PaisaPay Phone Support – few weeks back we launched ‘PaisaPay Phone Support’ to support any PaisaPay related query of our users. In the past 25 days, we have already serviced close to 500 users and are encouraged by the feedback received by members on the same. If you had had an opportunity to use the service, do let us know what you feel about the service. 2. New Chat tool – In the month of June we launched a new chat tool that allows us to deliver faster service to even users on dial up connection. The tool also helps in increasing the efficiency by which a CSR can respond to a user. 3. Faster access to Customer Support – We introduced the contact us link in the new eBay header. Now, you can access us from almost any page on the site. 4. Pro-active outreach to members with Disputes – As Sharat Digumarti had announced some time back, we started calling out buyers who had filed a dispute. In this call we explained to the users the process of managing disputes and buyer protection. This has helped us improve the buyer experience on the site, thereby ensuring that those buyers continue to enjoy their stay on eBay. 5. Investment in training of a Customer Support representative (CSR) – Another important investment for long term development is the higher than ever focus on training and improvement of our teams. While this is not directly visible to you, whenever you are satisfied by the interaction with Customer Service, it is curtsey the training that the CSR has received. Having said the above, I also believe that we still have a long way to go to deliver on the high expectations of our members. On Thursday, Aug 30 from 4 -5 PM, I shall be available on this thread to hear and understand your requirements such that we can bring further improvements in the Customer Support team. All compliments and complaints are welcome :) Looking forward to meeting you here! Thanks and Regards, Vasundhara Bhonsle Head – Customer Support
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We are thrilled to announce the re-launch of the phenomenally successful “Bid For A Buck” promotion, starting from Tuesday, 28th Aug 07 up to Friday, 14th Sept 07.

What is the promotion?
All Items starting at 1 Rupee with Free Shipping all over India

When is it?
Bid for A Buck starts on Tuesday, 28th August 2007 till Friday, 14th September 2007 (New items will be uploaded everyday till the 14th Sept)

What is the criteria for the Promotion?
▪ ALL categories
▪ Item Starting price of Rs. 1/-
▪ Sellers with 10+ Feedback score
▪ "ZERO" shipping charges (Free shipping all over India)
▪ All the items must have a Gallery image
▪ New (not used) items only
▪ No Reserve Price

Which are the focus categories?
Mobiles & Accessories; Jewellery; Consumer Electronics; Computers & Peripherals; Cameras & Optics; Apparel & Accessories; Watches; Home, Décor & Furnishings; Kitchen & Home Appliances Toys; Health & Fitness; Travel, Tickets & Vouchers.

What are the plans to promote the campaign?
This auction extravaganza will be promoted heavily on ▪ eBay Homepages
▪ eBay Search Pages
▪Direct mailers to registered eBay users (over 2 Million)
▪ Banners on Alliance sites such as MSN, Yahoo, Rediff (banners & mailers) & Indiatimes (banners & mailers) and many more.
▪ Maximum exposure to the promotion on search engines.

How to Participate?
▪ Create the relevant listing based on criteria for the promotion
▪ Send an email to roadtosuccess@ebay.com with live listings (Everyday starting from Monday 27th Aug 07 till Friday, 14th Sept 07)
▪ In case of non-receipt of mail, all relevant listings shall be included within 24 hours.
▪ All listings will be uploaded only on working days. In case of a weekend or public holiday, the relevant listings will be uploaded on the next working day.
▪ In case you have any questions on this promotion, please feel free to contact us at roadtosuccess@ebay.com

In past, this promotion has been very successful and has helped in increasing the business of our sellers. We will encourage you to participate in this promotion.

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When is it?
The promotion starts on Monday 20th August, 2007 at 00:00:01 IST (12:00 AM plus 1 second) and ends on Friday, 24th August 2007 at 23:59:59 IST (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

Who is eligible?
Sellers who list items on eBay.in during the offer period are eligible for the promotion.

The following are also included under the promotion:
▪The Online Auction and Fixed Price formats.
▪All categories.
▪Listing in 2 categories.
▪Listings created before the offer period and going live during the offer period.
▪Multiple quantity listings.

What do you need to do?
Choose Featured Plus with your listing and choose to ship your products worldwide

What is excluded?
▪ Shop format and Classified Ad Listings
▪ Listings created during the promotion period and going live after the promotion period
▪ Listings that are revised during the promotion period

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eBay takes recalled items very seriously, and we encourage users to be aware of the same:
For Sellers: Please check and verify your product serial numbers and refrain from listing any items that are part of this recall. Any currently listed items that are included in the recall should be ended.
For Buyers: If you believe an item you are interested in bidding on or purchasing may be part of this recall, we encourage you to use the Ask Seller a Question feature to verify the serial number.

To get more information on the same, please visit Nokia’s website.

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eBay takes recalled items very seriously and we will request our buyers and sellers to be aware of the same:
For Sellers: Please check your product serial numbers and refrain from listing any items that are part of this recall. Any currently listed items that are included in the recall should be ended.
For Buyers: If you believe an item you are interested in bidding on or purchasing may be part of this recall, we encourage you to use the Ask Seller a Question feature to verify the serial number.

For additional information, visit Mattel web site. We appreciate your understanding and support!

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Chocolates & Food items make great gifts during festivals & celebrations. To help our sellers list these products, we are glad to announce a new sub-category called Chocolates, Cakes, Food items (Category ID 153080) under category Everything Else. Sellers are requested to read and abide by the policy related to listing of food items.

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1. Mention only physical memory capacity in the title
2. Compressed capacity if applicable should be mentioned only in the listing description

Sellers wishing to list these items need to review the additional information section which is available here: http://pages.ebay.in/help/policies/misleading-titles.html. The MP3 & MP4 listings must adhere to the rules outlined. The policy shall come in effect from 1st September 2007 at 00:00:01 IST

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Hello everyone…over past few months we have been making various changes on the site to improve the buyer and seller experience to make eBay the most preferred online shopping destination for shoppers.

While improving functionality on the site is critical, a big part of the buyer experience is in our sellers’ hands. We recently launched Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) to give buyers more information about the kind of service they can expect from a seller and help differentiate sellers who deliver a great buyer experience from those who do not. While the vast majority of eBay sellers deliver consistently positive experiences to buyers, a very small minority -- just 1% -- of sellers currently cause fully 35% of bad buying experiences. This small minority not only damage their own reputations, but also indirectly damage all of the good sellers who benefit from a strong and vital eBay marketplace. To address this problem, we have begun enforcing our Seller Non-Performance policy in stricter ways than in the past by considering a seller’s buyer dissatisfaction rate.

What is the updated Seller Non-Performance Policy?
With the updated policy, all sellers who have more than 5% dissatisfied buyers over the past 90 days will be subject to reduced listing volume or temporary 14-day restrictions in the form of selling sanctions. Sellers with dissatisfaction rates that are 10% or greater will be subject to indefinite restrictions until they improve their buyer dissatisfaction rates to less than 5%.
The buyer dissatisfaction will be calculated based on the following:
1. Item not received (INR) disputes
2. Item significantly not as described (SNAD) disputes
3. Negative or neutral feedback.

Why neutral feedback?
Some of you have asked why neutral feedback ratings have become a part of measuring buyer dissatisfaction. Through our quantitative research as well as many conversations with community members, we have found that neutral feedback is most often an expression of deep buyer dissatisfaction. Therefore, leaving it out of the calculation would mask a significant part of the issue. Ultimately, only positive feedback is an indication of satisfied customers.

Will DSR’s (Detailed Seller Ratings) be included to calculate Bad dissatisfaction?
Detailed Seller Ratings are not used in our buyer dissatisfaction calculations currently, however, as we gain experience and data, DSRs look very promising. We expect them to eventually become an additional input in our calculation of buyer dissatisfaction. We will keep you updated on adding DSRs as part of our calculations, and how they will impact a dissatisfaction rate.

Helping sellers improve their satisfaction rates and become successful is goal #1
Please know that our goal in restricting or sanctioning sellers is always to drive sellers to resolve their business challenges, improve their satisfaction rates, and remain in the marketplace as successful sellers. Our communication to impacted sellers spells out specific actions they should take to improve their rates, such as settling any open buyer dispute issues, refunding buyers when appropriate, asking for mutual feedback withdrawal when disputes have been resolved, etc.

Please remember that this new enforcement impacts the bottom 1% of current sellers, who cause 35% of the negative buying experiences on the site. The vast majority our sellers provide great buyer experiences by following these and other best practices:
• They accurately represent the condition, size, and quality of the item directly in the listing.
• They accept payment for an item at the end of a successful sale.
• After payment is received, they promptly ship the item with proper packaging.
• They proactively and professionally communicate with the buyer throughout the transaction.

We believe that the initiative to crack down on bad buyer experience in this way will benefit the whole of eBay India, and especially the 99% of our good sellers. If you have a question around this policy, please feel free to post it here. I will try to revert back on them as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Sharat Digumarti
Senior Manager, Marketplace Health

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The US team is conducting some workshops which you might find interesting. You can participate in the workshop on below mentioned time or can read the discussion later. Please note: unlike India workshops, US workshops are open only during specified time.

Customer Relationships to Grow Your Business

This workshop will be held on Wednesday, August 15th from 1:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. IST.

In this workshop, Steve Yeich, CEO of Certified Solution Provider HostedSupport, will discuss why happy customers are your best sales force, and how customer support can help make them happy. Learn from real-world examples showing how word of mouth can increase sales.

Getting organized will give you more time to sell on eBay!

This workshop will be held on Thursday, August 16th from 12:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. IST.

You were suppose to call a supplier yesterday and forgot because you misplaced your paper reminder! You have a bill to pay but you have lost the invoice! You have lots of little receipts for your purchases at garage sales, but you have lost some of them! Getting your records organized will save your hours every week. Hours that you can spend doing the thing you like best – generating income from your eBay sales. Join Phyllis Wischer of Certified Provider KeepMore.net as she discusses methods and procedures to get your paper work (and your life) more organized and productive.

To attend the workshop, click on the links provided above, OR go to www.ebay.com >> Click on Community on top of the page >> Click on "Workshops" in the "Events" section >> This will bring you to the threaded Workshops Board.

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We wish to inform you that the PaisaPay payments to our sellers for the week ending 14th August 2007 will be delayed by a day due to bank holiday on 15th August 2007. The payment for the said week would be dispatched by the bank on 16th August 2007.

We regret the inconvenience caused to you due to this.

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Please be informed that buyers and sellers will not be able to make payments on eBay using HDFC net banking facility on 15th August, 7:00 IST – 21:00 IST, due to HDFC site maintenance.

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When is it?
The promotion starts on Monday 13th August, 2007 at 00:00:01 IST (12:00 AM plus 1 second) and ends on Friday 17th August 2007 at 23:59:59 IST (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

Who is eligible?
Sellers who list items on eBay.in during the offer period are eligible for the promotion.

The following are also included under the promotion:
▪The Online Auction and Fixed Price formats.
▪All categories.
▪Listing in 2 categories.
▪Listings created before the offer period and going live during the offer period.(Listings already live before the promotion period will not be included in the promotion)
▪Multiple quantity listings.

What do you need to do?
Choose Bold, Border, Subtitle and/or Highlight with your listings.

What is excluded?
▪ Shop format and Classified Ad format Listings
▪ Listings created during the promotion period and going live after the promotion period
▪ Listings that are revised during the promotion period

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When is it?
The promotion starts on Monday 6th August, 2007 at 00:00:01 IST (12:00 AM plus 1 second) and ends on Friday, 10th August 2007 at 23:59:59 IST (11:59 PM plus 59 seconds).

Who is eligible?
Sellers who list items on eBay.in during the offer period are eligible for the promotion.

The following are also included under the promotion:
▪The Online Auction and Fixed Price formats.
▪All categories.
▪Listing in 2 categories.
▪Listings created before the offer period and going live during the offer period.
▪Multiple quantity listings.

What do you need to do?
Choose Gallery Plus with your listing.

What is excluded?
▪ Shop format and Classified Ad format Listings
▪ Listings created during the promotion period and going live after the promotion period
▪ Listings that are revised during the promotion period

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o You can see bloggers' eBay MyWorld pictures next to their posts.
o A moving "film strip" shows you who are the newest members to eBay's blogging community.
o Twice as many blog entries on the hub page – twice as many people to connect with!

You can use your eBay Blog to talk about just about anything, from tips and tricks for other eBay members, to a rundown of your recent vacation, to your love of precious stones. If you're a seller, keeping a blog is a great way to interact with potential buyers and to talk about your products. Remember that what you write on your blog will be picked up by internet search engines, so blogging is a great way to attract buyers who use search engines to find products on the internet.

If you don't already have an eBay Blog, you can create one easily at blogs.ebay.in. After you create your eBay Blog, you can find it at blogs.ebay.com/YourUserID. For more information about eBay Blogs, please see our information page. Hope to read your latest blogs on blogs.ebay.in

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Feedback represents your reputation as an eBay member. It’s a valuable way of building your reputation on eBay, however there may be instances when you might have received an unjust feedback.

Don’t worry – there’s help at hand. eBay gives you three tools to deal with this problem:

1. Mutual Feedback Withdrawal: Did you know that if you and your trading partner agrees, you can mutually decide to withdraw the feedback?

2. Reporting unjust Feedback to eBay- Did you know that certain feedback can be removed by eBay? If the unjust feedback received by you meets these conditions, you can request eBay to remove the feedback.

3. ODR India- A 3rd Party Dispute Resolution provider, can mediate for the feedback received by you. Also, ODR India is offering a 50% discount offer exclusively for eBay users from August 1st to August 20, 2007. To know more about the offer, please click here

If you have any questions, please feel free to Contact Us.

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Based on the recent changes in certain regulations and to accommodate the need of our seller community to list food products on eBay, we are updating the food policy on eBay.

Seller wishing to list food products on eBay, may do so, subject to the seller procuring the necessary approvals and complying with local laws and regulations relating to prevention of food adulteration, packaging and ingredient disclosure requirements. The listing description for items listed under the category “Food” MUST clearly state:

1. Name & address of the manufacturer / Packer / seller (if the manufacturer or packer is not the seller).

2. Net quantity in terms of standard unit i.e. in metric system e.g. 500 grams, Litres etc.

3. Greater details about the commodity including e.g what is it, chemical composition (if any) i.e. its vitamins, minerals, dietary properties etc.

4. Warnings about the fact that product does not contain any artificial flavoring, coloring, chemical preservative &/ or product not suitable for children below 5 yrs etc

To know more about this policy, please Click Here.

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