Regards,
The eBay Team

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	***Original: Issues with Live Chat ***
	28 September, 2007 | 12:14 PM IST Due to certain technical issues, users are not able to access Live Chat to contact Customer Support. We are working on the issue. Until the issue is resolved, we will request you to use the following for contacting Customer Support: Contact Us link - http://pages.ebay.in/help/contact_us/_base/index.html PaisaPay Phone support for PaisaPay transactions – 6000 3229 / 1800 22 0288 We will keep you updated as soon as the issue is resolved. Thanks for your patience! Regards, The eBay Team
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The PowerSeller Program is a powerful way to recognize high performing sellers who provide good buyer experience by providing great products and exceptional service. Our Buyers also rely heavily on the PowerSeller logo while looking for a trusted seller. We will like to bring in some changes to the Power Seller program so as to provide greater value to our top performing sellers who not only do lot of business on eBay but also provide excellent service to their buyers. Following changes shall be applicable from 1st November ’07:
 1. New entry criteria for Bronze PowerSellers - Average Minimum Sales to Rs 20,000 per month for three consecutive months. The old criteria is of Rs 5,000.
 2. Exclusive offers for Power Sellers only:
  ▪Selling Manager Pro at flat 20% discount
  ▪Promotions to Buyers via Direct Mailers and Onsite banners.
  ▪Feature promotions (will be announced as per the schedule)

We will continue to send the PowerSeller branded packing material including packing bags, packing tape, shipping labels and letterheads.

All existing PowerSellers who meet the new criteria will continue to remain PowerSeller and are not required to take any action to retain the PowerSeller status.
All existing PowerSellers who do not meet the new criteria will receive an information mail in October, followed by a warning mail in November and in case they continue to not meet the new criteria, then the PowerSeller status will be removed in December. I will urge you to review your business practice and increase your sales to maintain the Power Seller status. If you need any help form us, please do not hesitate to call us at the toll free Power Seller Support number

To know more about the changes, please read our FAQs list. To know the complete set of new PowerSeller criteria, please click here. I hope the above changes will allow us to bring better value for our PowerSellers.

Regards,
DJ Basumatari
Category Team

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  ▪ Search Box in the header on the My Shopping Cart Page will make it easier for buyers to continue to search for more items from the shopping cart page itself.
  ▪Live help on pages like Shopping cart, Buy it Now flow to ensure that help is immediately at hand in case you get stuck in the process of buying.
  ▪Change the "continue" button to "proceed to pay" button to clarify that you have the option of [Gondekar, Sandeep] initiating checkout or add more items as per your wish.
  ▪Improve the options in the merchandizing widget at the bottom of the page: The new widget will give you the ability to choose more items from the same seller or items [Gondekar, Sandeep] related to the items you have added to the shopping cart under the “Other items you may like” tab
  ▪Display of seller name in the email for all non PaisaPay transaction emails to ensure that you know the name of your trading partner. We will be making the same change in the PaisaPay transaction mails also, however at a slightly later date.
To see the changes on the shopping cart page, please refer to the image below.

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When is it?
The promotion starts on Monday 24th September, 2007 at 00:00:01 IST (12:00 AM plus 1 second) and ends on Friday, 28th September 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.
▪Single quantity and Multiple quantity listings.

What do you need to do?
Choose Featured Plus or Gallery Featured while listing your product.

What is excluded?
▪ Shop format and Classified Ad Listings
▪ Listings created during the promotion period and going live after the promotion period
▪ Listings that go live before the promotion period and are revised during the promotion to include the feature will be excluded.

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We are glad to announce three more winners for the Business Badhah contest. We were not able to share the list earlier since we were awaiting data results. And, the winners are:
Group 1: synergetics_in1
Group 2: princessdiamondco
Group 3: mahavircomputers_in1

Once again a huge congratulations to the final 6 winners of Business Badshah contest.
Group 1: synergetics_in1 & gayagems
Group 2: tyagi007 & princessdiamondco
Group 3: mahavircomputers_in1 & anchanting_kolors

All of you shall receive an exclusive Lenovo Y500 laptop. You shall be informed of the date by when you shall receive the laptops. To read more FAQ’s click here

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	***Original: Announcing the Grand Prize winners for the Business Badshah Contest! ***
	05 September, 2007 | 04:25 PM IST Dear Sellers, Here is the time to announce the Grand Prize winners of the Business Badshah contest. First of all, a BIG thank you to all participating sellers. All eligible sellers would have received the appropriate credits in their accounts. Now the Big Prize: the closely contested and coveted grand prize goes to the following sellers for achieving highest growth in sales. And the winners are: Group 1: gayagems Group 2: tyagi007 Group 3: anchanting_kolors Each of these sellers will receive an exclusive Lenovo Y500 laptop. Sellers will be informed of the date by when they will receive the laptops. Our heartiest congratulations to all the winners of grand prize, weekly prizes and incentives for increased sales. To read more FAQ’s click here We feel that this contest benefited all our sellers and we would like to keep the contest going. We have learned from this contest and are working towards some changes to re-launch the contest with more fun, excitement and rewards. Stay tuned for more!. Regards, The eBay Team
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This small change should not only save you time, but should also improve your account security, since you'll no longer have to remember to sign out of both your main account and the Community area when you leave your computer.

Set your Sign In Preference in My eBay
Although most members appreciate a single Sign In, there may be some who prefer to sign in to the Community forums separately from the rest of the site. (For instance, if your business has multiple User IDs, and you use a specific one in the forums.) For this reason, once this change launches, you can set your preferences in My eBay to indicate you want a separate Sign In for the Community forums area.

The Community forums are a great place to get answers from other experienced members, attend an Online Workshop, and connect with others who share your interests. Check out our Community forums by visiting the Community tab at the top of almost any eBay page.

Sincerely,
Sapana Gupta
Community Development

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When is it?
The promotion starts on Monday 17th September, 2007 at 00:00:01 IST (12:00 AM plus 1 second) and ends on Friday, 21st September 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.
▪  Single quantity and Multiple quantity listings.

What do you need to do?
Choose Home Page Featured with your listing.

What is excluded?
▪ Shop format and Classified Ad Listings
▪ Listings created during the promotion period and going live after the promotion period
▪ Listings that go live before the promotion period and are revised during the promotion to include the feature will be excluded.

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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 from 15th September, 22:00 IST till 16th September 14:00 IST, due to HDFC site maintenance.

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Here are a few listing policy clarifications that we shall be implementing with immediate effect:

Apple iPhone Pre-Sales are prohibited. This highly-anticipated device will be in high demand after the release. Prior to the release of similar high-demand electronics, we saw a high number of well-intentioned sellers unable to meet their pre-sale obligations to buyers due to restricted supply, as well as an increase in fraudulent listings for these items. To prevent similar problems with the iPhone, eBay is prohibiting all pre-sales of this device.

Criteria for Apple iPhone Post-Launch Sales. In order to continue to ensure protection for our Community after these items are made available by the manufacturer, the following requirements have been put in place for the sale of the iPhone:

   ▪The listing must include a unique photograph of the item or items
   ▪Your User ID must be clearly displayed within the photograph (watermarks will not be accepted).
   ▪To ensure buyer protection, Paisapay must be the only accepted form of payment

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Now you can add Gallery Plus to your Shop Inventory listings, giving buyers the ability to view much larger versions of your pictures right in your Shop's search results! (For more information about how Gallery Plus works, check out our information page.)

DJ Basumatari
Category Team

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What is a catalogue?
A catalogue is a comprehensive database that contains all the relevant information about a certain product including image, description, attributes etc.

How does it benefit the seller:
As a seller, while creating your listing, all you need to do is specify the model number of the product and the listing details will get automatically populated. This not only saves you time while creating listing; it also ensures that all the relevant information is available for prospective buyers. However, to personalise the listing, a seller always has the option to edit the listings. This is a FREE feature & there are no charges for using catalogues on the IN site.

Catalogues are currently available for following two product lines. We will continue to add more catalogues in the future.
  • Digital Cameras &
  • MP3 Players.

Sellers all over the eBay world have been using catalogues to enhance their listings & increase their success rate. We encourage you to start using this feature, now available on the India site. Click here to learn how catalogues work. To get more information or clarificaiton on this product, please feel free to post on this thread.

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We have received strong feedback from our sellers on the need of providing EMI as a payment option to eBay India buyers. To understand buyer demand and popularity of this option, we will be conducting a pilot promotion. In this promotion, sellers who have existing EMI tie ups with banks will be able to offer products on EMI to their buyers.

How will this promotion work?
Step 1: Buyer will place the order on eBay
Step 2: The Seller contacts the bank for processing EMI for the buyer
Step 3: Bank verifies the buyer and approves EMI
Step 4: Post bank approval of EMI, the seller dispatches the product to the buyer
Step 5: The seller receives full payment of the the product from the bank and the buyer pays his required EMI to the bank.

Which seller can participate in the promotion?
 1) Sellers who have existing EMI tie ups with large banks and can service 6 metros of Mumbai (includes Thane, Navi Mumbai), Delhi (NCR region), Kolkata, Bangalore & Hyderabad.
 2) Seller feedback score reater than 10
 3) Seller should offer 6 Month EMI at 0% interest
 4) Seller should offer Free Shipping on EMI products

In case you meet the criteria and are interested in participating, please mail us at roadtosuccess@ebay.com and we will get back to you on next steps of participating in the promotion.

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When is it?
The promotion starts on Monday 10th September, 2007 at 00:00:01 IST (12:00 AM plus 1 second) and ends on Friday, 14th September 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 go live before the promotion period and are revised during the promotion to include the feature will be excluded.

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Updating the Seller Non Performance policy – We recently updated our seller non performance policy to ensure that the sellers who are causing bad buyer experience are warned at an early stage such that they can make relevant changes in their business processes. We also made the SNP calculation for last 90 days so that it will be easier for sellers to resolve such disputes.

Safeguarding Member ids – In January this year, we made some changes to the way member ids were displayed on the bid history page. This helped us protect bidders from fraud second chance offers and other unsolicited mails. We have made some more changes in the process to make it more transparent and fun for other bidders. To see more details , click here

SMS alert for disputes – We will be shortly introducing a cool new feature, Our buyers told us that they were not aware of the dispute process on eBay, and often missed out on buyer protection due to ignorance. Based on this feedback, we started calling out to buyers to explain the complete process. We will be shortly adding another feature in the dispute console. Now you will be able to subscribe for SMS based alerts whenever your trading partner in case of any update in your dispute console.

Shipping Filters – Abnormally high shipping charges are one of the top reasons for bad buyer experience on eBay. To control such instances, we proactively started taking action against listings, which seem to be obviously charging high shipping rates. As a result the number of listings with high shipping charge has reduced significantly, however, in the process; we have unintentionally pulled down some genuine listings as well. We are revaluating the process to ensure that genuine listings do not suffer.

Policy changes for MP3 players and Food – We also made some changes in a couple of policies to make them more user friendly. The MP3 policy was changed to ensure that listings contain only physical memory so that it results in a good experience for buyers. We also updated the food policy to enable sellers to list food related items on eBay.

Most of these changes have been brought along keeping I mind your feedback and better experience. I will be happy to discuss them further with you and listen to more of your suggestions. As I mentioned earlier, I will be present on the Community Boards for an Open House Session on 13th September 2007, 4 – 5 PM. I will encourage you to post your thoughts, comments and suggestion on this thread. I am looking forward towards this meeting and I hope to gather lot of useful feedback from you.

See you on 13th for Open house discussion !

Regards,
Sharat Digumarti
Senior Manager - Marketplace Health

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Due to some unintentional changes in the 'Sell your item' (SYI) form, sellers were not able to offer 7 day Return in their listings. They were also not able to re-list their items with 7 day Return. We are working to resolve the issue, and expect it to get resolved by Friday 12 PM.

Our apologies for the inconvenience caused to you!

Regards,

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Search Results Layout Update
We have updated the layout of our search results pages to give them a more consistent look-and-feel with the rest of the site, and put more emphasis on the most important part of these pages – your listings! For example, we have removed the alternating gray-and-white background that we used to show (which a lot of members found distracting) and replaced it with simple white space that makes each listing title stand out more. These are cosmetic changes that will not affect the way your search and browse experience works - your search results will stay exactly the same. We hope you find the new look less cluttered and more engaging.

Enhancing SMI -- adding transparency for items over Rs. 10000
Last January, we introduced an important Trust & Safety initiative called Safeguarding Member IDs (SMI). This project protects eBay's bidders on high-end items from fake Second Chance Offers and other malicious email. (Read Sharat’s announcement from January 29, 2007 for more details.)

While SMI has been very effective in protecting our marketplace from fraud, we also realize that it reduced transparency on the site, and, for some bidders, took away some of the magic of that makes eBay so unique. I'm pleased to let you know that this week, we have made the following adjustments to the User IDs displayed on bid history for items over Rs. 10,000:
    ▪ Actual Feedback Score is back – We will be bringing back the bidder’s actual feedback score next to each member's respective User ID.
    ▪ New User ID Masking - We are replacing the current aliases (Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3) with a masked ID that consists of two random characters from the member's User ID – for example a***b. For any given member, this masked ID will be consistent across all auctions over Rs. 10,000 for which they place bids. At the end of a listing, the winning bidder's User ID will be displayed on both the item and bid history page. Please note: Sellers will still be able to view the actual User IDs for bidders on their listings through the Bid History page.

Also, please understand that to protect our Community, we might make further changes in this masking algorithm in the future, but will only do so if absolutely necessary and with advance notice. We expect to add more enhancements in the future, although our intent is to move cautiously so we can ensure we’re preserving safety.

Regards,
Sandeep Gondekar
Product Management Team

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When is it?
The promotion starts on Monday 3rd September, 2007 at 00:00:01 IST (12:00 AM plus 1 second) and ends on Friday, 7th September 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 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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