With the approaching holiday selling season in mind, eBay's 2010 Fall Seller Update will introduce a number of changes aimed at helping sellers operate more efficiently.
The third, and last, round of changes planned for this year is scheduled to roll out between Sept. 7 and 13. But, while new to eBay, some of the features contained in this release may seem quite familiar to users of Auctiva's eBay listing tools.
Most significant, eBay is getting into the shipping insurance business—albeit in a limited fashion—offering low-cost policies to sellers who use its integrated shipping-label printing. The new ShipCover offering applies only to services provided by the U.S. Postal Service, and it's not available with PayPal label printing.
Among several new tools will be an auto-relist option built into the Unpaid Item Assistant, to let sellers quickly get unpaid items back into the marketplace. Additionally, eBay is enhancing its bulk-edit tool to enable sellers to revise up to 500 listings at once and edit more fields than they previously could before relisting.
The latter feature is likely to be well received, given that similar capability has been a favorite of Auctiva users since the company introduced its Advanced Edit tool last fall.
Top-rated sellers who offer the best price on new items will be eligible for 'premier placement'
Holiday marketing
Starting Sept. 13, and lasting through Dec. 31, eBay will require sellers listing in iPod & MP3 Players, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and DVDs, HD DVDs & Blu-ray categories to list these items using eBay's catalog. According to eBay, this will "accelerate the buyer's path from search to purchase."
In exchange for a somewhat homogenized presentation, eBay is eliminating insertion and relist fees for catalog items during the holidays, whether auction or fixed-price. Top-rated sellers who offer the best price on new items will be eligible for "premier placement" on the product page, eBay notes.
Additionally, the new Listing Analytics tool will replace the existing Search Visibility Tool. The free tool is expected to give sellers better insight into how individual listings are performing in relation to similar listings. eBay will offer this tool starting in early September, to allow sellers time to optimize their ads leading up to the holidays.
More control
Other changes rolling out are designed to give sellers more control over how they'll ship to certain locations, how shipping cost is displayed in search and how they wish to communicate with buyers.
Learn more about eBay's Fall 2010 Seller Update.
Auctiva staff writers constantly monitor trends and best practices of those selling on eBay and elsewhere online. They attend relevant training seminars and trade shows and regularly discuss the market with PowerSellers and other market experts.
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