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 November 2006 |
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***Introducing 'Best Match' sort option in search results*** |
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29 November, 2006 | 04:21PM GMT
We’re pleased to announce the launch of ‘Best Match’ on eBay.co.uk. ‘Best Match’ is a new, optional method of sorting the listings that appear on search results pages.
Best Match allows you to sort the listings that you see based on their ‘relevance’. The ‘relevance’ of a particular listing is based on past buyer behaviour, as well as the information in the listing title and description.
This means that what buyers do on the site affects the order in which listings are displayed in the future. If buyers who perform certain searches end up viewing, watching, bidding on or buying particular types of listings more often, then this will be factored into our relevance calculations in future
For example, if buyers who search for ‘flamingo’ show over time that they prefer listings that also include the word ‘pink’ in the title, then over time those listings will be displayed higher up in search results for ‘flamingo’.
Best Match doesn’t affect which items are displayed in search results, just the order in which they’re displayed. The aim of Best Match is to help buyers to find what they’re looking for more quickly and efficiently.
You can find the Best Match sort option by clicking the drop-down menu next to ‘Sort by’ at the top of search results pages. If you want this to become your default method of sorting results, click the ‘customise display’ link next to the drop-down menu.
You can comment on or ask questions about Best Match on this discussion board thread here
Regards,
The eBay.co.uk team
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***Updates and Improvements to Email Marketing Tools for Shop Owners*** |
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29 November, 2006 | 01:05PM GMT
We wanted to let you know about recent updates and improvements to a number of the features for eBay Shop owners. You can get to these via the email marketing tool, which is available within the ‘Manage My Shop’ area of My eBay.
Here’s What’s New to Email Marketing:
• Easy 3-step process to create email marketing campaigns:
• Template Selection
• Creating the Email(s)
• Scheduling Email(s)
• Custom Templates: New templates, including Ending Soonest Email and Previous Purchase Email. We have also included a free Welcome Email that can be set up to introduce somebody to your Shop when they first subscribe.
• Content Creation: Create your Email and use our standard greeting, or personalise it.
• Schedule Recurring Mailings: You can automate the delivery of emails with a recurring schedule.
• Increase in Email limits: We have also increased the Email limits available to Shop owners, so now even basic level Shop owners are able to send up to 1,000 free emails every month.
Using Email Marketing will help you build strong relationships with your customers, as well as turn browsers into buyers and get buyers to shop with you again and again. Your subscribers want to hear from you!
To learn more about this feature go to Manage My Shop, take a quick tutorial, or read the FAQs.
Regards,
The eBay UK Shops Team
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***Trust & Safety: Introducing Safeguarding Member IDs*** |
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21 November, 2006 | 11:03AM GMT
We would like to let you know about an important Trust & Safety initiative that will be launching on eBay.co.uk within the next few days.
Since eBay began in 1995, it’s been our job to balance the need for openness and transparency in the marketplace, with the need to protect our Community of members from the threats that have appeared as the Internet has flourished. As the Community has grown, we’ve had to take measures to protect our members that also reduce transparency.
From the beginning, any member of the Community could request the contact details of any other member and the bidding process was very transparent. As we grew, we limited communication to members involved in transactions with each other. Then in 2003, we eliminated the public display of email addresses from the site, and therefore required thousands of people to set up new User IDs. Naturally, as we’ve stepped up education and other efforts to improve safety, potential fraudsters continued their efforts to try to exploit our members.
The User IDs of members -- plus their member information such as feedback and previous bidding and/or buying activity -- have always been freely available to anyone visiting the site. Members have been able to access this information from the item page, bid history page, and Advanced Search by Bidder feature. Unfortunately, while bid history and contact information about trading colleagues are helpful when evaluating a transaction, and provide a level of trust within the transaction. fraudsters can use this information for potentially harmful purposes.
One way they use this information is to send spam emails, spoof emails, and fake Second Chance Offer emails. While legitimate Second Chance Offer emails are a great tool on eBay that give sellers the ability to offer another buyer an additional item they may have available, fake Second Chance Offers and other types of solicitations sent by fraudsters generally lure the targeted member off the eBay website and collect payment through an unsafe payment method, such as wire transfer -- all while providing the false impression that eBay endorses the transaction.
As our Community knows, the problem of spam, spoof and fake Second Chance Offer emails has not gone away. In fact, despite industry-leading efforts to educate the Community about online safety (eBay Toolbar, tutorials and safety messaging), partnering with law enforcement and industry groups, and investments in technology that make the site safer, we’ve seen this problem grow. Increasingly, sellers and buyers have turned to us for a solution.
Introducing the Safeguarding Member IDs Project
The Safeguarding Member IDs project is a new approach to auction-style listings that offers more privacy for our members through changing how bidding information is displayed. Following intensive development and review, as well as Community input, we believe the Safeguarding Member IDs project provides the Community with enough information about the bidders involved in an auction-style listing for them to feel confident in placing a bid -- without revealing actual User IDs. We’re implementing this new system on listings with a high bid of £100 or greater, which is where we believe it can have the greatest positive impact. The bid information for listings where the bid is lower than £100 will display as it does today.
Here’s what will change for listings with a high bid of £100 or more:
- On the bid history page for each listing we’ll replace member User IDs with aliases (such as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3) in the order of their bids placed. For each bidder involved in a listing, we’ll display the number of bids in unique categories that they’ve placed, a range that their feedback score falls within (i.e. 10-49, for instance), their percentage of positive feedback, their length of time as an eBay member, and the number of bids they’ve placed on the item. At the end of a listing, the winning bidder’s User ID will be displayed on the item page. Please note: Sellers will still be able to access bidder information on their listings through the Bid History page and the My eBay selling table.
- In My eBay, members will no longer have access to the high-bidder column from bid and watch tables.
- On the item page, you’ll only be able to see the high-bidder ID if you are the signed-in seller of the item or the signed-in high bidder.
- Through the Advanced Search by Bidder link, we’ll only show completed listings within the last 30 days.
Future enhancements are being designed that will provide even more transaction data about the bidders and seller involved in a transaction. We’ll continue to update the community on these changes as these plans become finalised.
Safeguarding Member IDs - Launch plans
Even the smallest changes on the eBay marketplace may have unexpected effects, and we want to move forward carefully. While we are cautious of making changes to the site during the Christmas period, we feel strongly that this is the right thing to do for the Community.
We rolled out these changes on eBay Motors in the United States a couple of weeks ago and we have decided to adopt these changes for eBay.co.uk starting next week. If all goes well, we could implement the Safeguarding Bidder IDs project on eBay.com in early 2007.
To learn more, please read our Safeguarding Member ID Frequently Asked Questions.
Regards,
The eBay.co.uk Team
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******Problems with the Free Postage Listing Days promotion****** |
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20 November, 2006 | 01:24PM GMT
Some members have contacted us to tell us they have had problems with the Free Postage Listing Days promotion.
Sellers who are using TurboLister or older versions of the Sell Your Item form when listing their items are not automatically being charged the special promotional price of 5 pence, as well as no fee to use the Gallery Listing Upgrade feature, for each item they list. Sellers who are using the new version of the Sell Your Item form are unaffected. (Full terms and conditions of the promotion can be found here.)
Don’t know which version of the Sell Your Item form you used?
The new version of Sell Your Item can be found here.
To see the previous version of Sell Your Item, click here.
We wanted to reassure all members that we are working on fixing the problem as quickly as possible. However, in the meantime, we wanted to offer the following advice:
- 1) Click here to use the new Sell Your Item form and make sure you offer a free UK postage option with the items that you list during the promotion, to ensure your items qualify
- 2) We will refund the Insertion Fee at the promotional price of 5 pence, as well as the Gallery Listing Upgrade fee, to all sellers who have qualified for the Free Postage Listing Days promotion, but who didn’t automatically get charged the promotional prices
- 3) We will begin the refunds once the promotion has finished, and aim to refund all affected sellers within two weeks from the end of the promotional period
Please bear with us while we resolve this issue. We will notify you as soon as the promotion is working correctly with all listing methods.
Regards,
The eBay.co.uk Team
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***Faster Refresh on Item Pages Near the End of a Listing*** |
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20 November, 2006 | 10:01AM GMT
In the next week, we're going to make a couple of changes to the item page:
Faster Refresh. When an auction-style listing has 15 minutes or fewer left before it ends, buyers will see a new Refresh link near the Place Bid or Buy It Now buttons. Using this link will update just the top section of the page, which shows the current high bid, the time left, etc, instead of the full page. This will make it much faster when seconds count – especially for members using slower connections.
The full item page will still be refreshed in cases where the seller has updated the listing with new information.
Watch this item Button. We're turning the Watch this item link into a button. This appears in the centre of the item page, and we think the button design will make it more noticeable for buyers.
To see how these changes will appear, please see this screenshot
Regards,
The eBay.co.uk Team
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***Get your PayPal Credit Card faster. New online paper-free application.*** |
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20 November, 2006 | 09:05AM GMT
It’s now easier than ever to apply for the new PayPal Credit Card. Thanks to the introduction of an online paperless application and instant decision procedure; there are no forms to post, no delays, no fuss. This all means you can get your card quicker and complete your Christmas shopping with time to spare. Online, offline, anytime.
Apply now to benefit from:
• Typical 12.9% APR (variable)
• 0% p.a. on purchases for 6 months *
• 0% p.a. on balance transfers for 9 months (a 2.5% fee applies)**
Plus, for added peace of mind, protect your payments by choosing Balance Cancellation Cover when you apply. Learn more
For more information or to apply for the PayPal Credit Card, please visit: http://www.paypalcreditcard.co.uk
* At the end of this period, for any outstanding balance, your standard retail purchase rate will apply.
** This offer applies to balances transferred within 6 weeks of the date that you called to activate your PayPal Credit Card and is subject to available credit on the account. A transfer fee of 2.5% of the total amount transferred will be changed each time you make a transfer. This fee will be shown on your next monthly statement. Only UK storecard and credit card balances may be transferred and these are subject to our approval. At the end of this period, for any outstanding balance, your standard retail purchase rate will apply.
Credit is subject to status to UK residents aged 18 years or over. The PayPal Credit Card is issued by GE Capital Bank Ltd trading as GE Money. Registered in England 1456283. Registered Office: 6 Agar Street, London, WC2N 4HR.
The advertiser is PayPal (Europe) Ltd. Registered in England 4056498.
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***Your chance to win £25,000 when you use PayPal*** |
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17 November, 2006 | 01:23PM GMT
Every time you use PayPal on eBay or on any other website that accepts PayPal as a payment method between 15 November and 14 December 2006, you'll be able to enter a fantastic draw to win £
25,000. In the true spirit of Christmas, PayPal is also giving away loads of great runner-up prizes.
- First prize: £25,000
- Second prize: £10,000
- Third prize: £5,000
- Ten more winners will win £1,000 each
To help increase your chances of winning, you can even submit multiple entries to this competition.
Learn more about your chance to win up to £25,000
Terms and Conditions apply.
Regards,
The eBay.co.uk Team
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***Item Specifics Feature Now Available in the Art, Collectables, Home & Garden, Jewellery & Watches, Musical Instruments and Sporting Goods Categories*** |
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15 November, 2006 | 04:10PM GMT
eBay’s Item Specifics feature allows sellers to provide more details when they list an item. Buyers can then search against these item details, as well as using the standard Title Search and Description Search functions, so they can find items quickly and easily.
Where Item Specifics have been introduced, sellers see an increase in sales. Buyers can refine their searches quickly, and Item Descriptions are more detailed and clearly structured.
Sellers can choose whether to include Item Specifics in their listing, and buyers can choose whether or not to use them in search.
New Item Specifics are now available in the following categories:
Art > Canvas/ Giclee Prints
Art > Contemporary Paintings
Art > Drawings
Art > Folk Art
Art > Paintings
Art > Posters
Art > Prints
Art > Sculptures
Collectables > Militaria
Home & Garden > Living Room Furniture > Armchairs
Home & Garden > Living Room Furniture > Sofas
Home & Garden > Living Room Furniture > Suites
Jewellery & Watches > Fine Jewellery > Rings
Jewellery & Watches > Men’s Jewellery > Rings
Musical Instruments > Guitars
Sporting Goods > Cycling >Bike Parts
For more information about Item Specifics, please refer to our FAQs:
Item Specifics Overview
Item Specifics Product Finder
Regards,
The eBay.co.uk Team
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***eBay Browser Support Changes *** |
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13 November, 2006 | 04:31PM GMT
eBay is dedicated to providing the Community with the most efficient and reliable online marketplace possible. As technology advances and your needs get more complex, it’s our job to make sure we're delivering features and other site updates that are state-of-the-art in terms of safety, stability, and usability.
One key aspect for eBay is how Community members access our site. When eBay started, most people were using slow dial-up connections. Slower speeds required us to minimise the amount of data we transmitted, which had big implications for our members. Today, over 73% (and growing) of eBay members around the world use high-speed connections, which enables us to provide a much richer site experience.
We're also impacted by the browsers our members use. Fortunately, today over 95% of our members use up-to-date browsers to access the Internet, including the more current versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. However, the remaining 5% are still using out-of-date or uncommon browsers. Supporting this software costs eBay and the Community increasingly higher amounts, and these browsers can cause safety issues (e.g. when they’re not updated with the latest security technology).
Today, every update we launch must be developed to support the many old and uncommon browsers in use, in addition to current mainstream browsers. This means we spend a significant amount of development resources to support a very small fraction of our users. It also means that we’re limited in the types of features and enhancements we can deliver, which restricts the capabilities our Community members have on eBay.
In keeping with overall industry trends, we're going to adopt new web browser support guidelines for the new features that we develop. For the Community, this means that after November 1st, members using certain outdated versions of browsers, or browsers with very low adoption rates, may experience site issues or errors as we introduce new features or make other site changes. (Read our Web Browser Recommendations for Using eBay Help page to see a list of browsers and versions we recommend.)
Bringing these guidelines in will provide several benefits for members and eBay:
• Using up-to-date browsers means that you have the latest security features that help protect you and the whole Community against phishing and other types of internet fraud.
• You will receive the best possible site experience. Using old browsers can cause performance issues or other errors or problems on the site.
• Streamlining which browsers we support will enable eBay to respond more rapidly to deliver features that better meet the Community’s needs.
Upgrade Early for the Best Possible Experience
We want to make sure we offer members the support they need to upgrade their browsers before they encounter a site issue. In the next few days, we will start providing on-site help when members sign in with browsers that will not be supported in the future. For more information about browsers we support, please see our Web Browser Recommendations for Using eBay Help page. Please note this important point: There will be no immediate change for members using browsers that aren't on our recommended browser list. While our guidelines go into effect on November 7th, members may still use unsupported browsers. However, over time, if you're using a browser that isn’t on our recommended list, you could experience errors and other issues.
Regards,
The eBay.co.uk Team
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***Scheduled Maintenance: Friday 10th November 2006*** |
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09 November, 2006 | 03:11PM GMT
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