Open House Discussion with Rathin Lahiri, Head of Marketing, 3rd Nov 5 PM

[rohit@ebay.com]

Dear Users,

We are pleased to announce the next session of our Open House Program where users get an opportunity to chat with the eBay India Team.

Join Rathin Lahiri, Head of Marketing for an online discussion on marketing initiatives of eBay India.

Rathin will discuss:
--Efforts to get new buyers for our sellers
--Other Marketing Initiatives and results
--How can our buyers and sellers help eBay's marketing efforts
--Your ideas and suggestions if any

Rathin will be available on this thread on Friday, the 3rd of November, 2006, from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM IST, for an interactive discussion with our community members.

You can submit your questions before or during the event by making a post on this thread. Click Here for help on using the discussion boards.

See you on the 3rd at 5:00 PM!

Thanks and Regards,
Rohit,
Community Development Team

[rajbarkatyuri]

HI RATHIN LAHIRI,
EBAY IS A GREAT SITE TO BUY & SELL ALMOST ANYTHING FROM PIN TO PEN, AS THE SAYING GOES.
MY CONCERN IS, THAT WHENEVER I LIST MY ITEMS TO SHIP TO
"WORLDWIDE",
A). THE ITEMS ARE ONLY LISTED ON THE USA WEBSITE & NOT THE ENTIRE WORLD EBAY WEBSITES.
B).THE FEES STRUCTURE IS VERY HIGH.THE INSERTION FEE SHOULD BE VERY NOMINAL, SO THAT EBAYERS IN INDIA CAN LIST THEIR ITEMS IN ABUNDUNCE.
I THINK IT SHOULD BE Re.3.00.AS THE SAYING GOES " TAKE LESS GET MORE".
PLEASE REVIEW MY REQUEST.
THANKING YOU
REGARDS.

[coolbrasco]

Dear eBay,

eBay should put advertisements in the Domestic Airport and International Airports, so that, upper middle class customers can be reached. Also Metro city bound Airconditioned trains can be targetted. What about printing eBay advertisements in the tickets of these passengers as well ? Sending SMS in Metro cities also a good way of reaching customers.


The slogon should be very attractice :

Are you looking for some special gifts ? - Check out www.eBay.in

Would you like to impress your loved one with gift ? - Check out www.eBay.in

NRI's are you missing India ? - Check out www.eBay.in

In the BPO, Software professional gathering can be targetted. There are so many entertainments provided by companies, eBay can reach there.

In Bangalore Tickets resturent complement coupons are given for free, eBay can print advertisement on it.


Thanks and regards,
CoolBrasCo.

[coolbrasco]

Another potential place to advertise is

FM Radio Channels.

In the morning traffic, they announce traffic status every 5 mins, just before that if eBay advertise something you can reach them. BPO and Software company carry staff buy car or bus to work and companies bring them back home. All of the forced to listen to FM traffic news and the jokes by FM radio jacks. In Bangalore traffic jams almost every day, i dont know in other cities. Definitely it would reach them easily.

Thanks and regards,
CoolBrasCo.

[cosycom]

Dear Mr. Rathin , I have a suggestion regarding feedback system on ebay . Most sellers eagerly wait for a positive feedback rating from thier customers which directly effect thier reputation and sales.Very often buyers do not care to leave feedback rating and efforts done by sellers towards the same go in vain .
I suggest eBay can provide a positive rating from its side on all such deals after a suitable period like 2 months after completion of deal. I am sure whole ebay community will be very happy from this step.
If required eBay can also generate some revenue by providing this service for a nominal fee .

I request support and suggestions from other eBay sellers also towards this important issue.

Narinder

cosycom , Dehradun , India

[coolbrasco]

Quality standards for new Sellers :

Another important suggestion is, always new sellers have creative ideas, it is because they want to sell a product competing with Powerful sellers(i mean the Power Selers 🙂 ). eBay dont recognize and encourge them. So buyers always land up with unprofessional new sellers and bring bad name for eBay and they blame every one. Becuase anyone can open a user id and sell something, and run away with money easily (most of the reported cases : Mobile phones).

Today i wrote to Mr. Biren about recogonizing and encourgining new sellers, this can improve buying experience and eBay quality and trust will increase.

I am copying whole thread here.

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=600001293&tstart=0&mod=1162525105437

Dear Biren,

Thanks for your time replying my concern.

As a growing seller it is encouraging words for me.

If you really like to help, upcomming sellers having feedback score below 100, kindly help us in following ways. It is most difficult time in the eBay life.

1. Non Power Sellers having good feedback can be listed in a separately in group called "Outstanding New sellers" like "Popular eBay shops". The condition should be.

Mini Power Sellers standard:

A. Should be eBay member atleast from 3 months.
B. Feedback score 10 and above (Less than 100, non-powersellers)
C. 98% positive feedback score and above.
D. 5 positive feedback scores in past month.
E. Rs.1000 sales per month
F. 5 active listing.

Buyer can identify good new sellers. Also new sellers will enjoy selling and they also maintain some standard to enter here same like Power Sellers. Later on when get 100 feedback score, they automatically become Power Sellers if they maintain standards.

With my experience most difficult part is getting feedback scores from 10-50, if you some how encourge them they will be potential power sellers for tomorrow.

In an over all result eBay standard will improve, and more and more buyer trust eBay and everyone enjoy shopping here.


Thanks and regards,
CoolBrasCo.

[coolbrasco]

Dear Rathin Lahiri,

I have some suggestions to build up quality buyers.

Some of the new buyers dont know buying procedures. Some blindly bid and end up with bad feedback and they will never come back. Or just to test the checkout they landup in unpaid case and lead to bitter experience. They will never come back.

Seller also should fairly treat, and allow them to cancel if they have purchased mistakenly (expecially 0 feedback cases). Also sellers should avoid negative feedbacks for unpaid cases having 0 feedbacks.

For 0 feedback cases, send them to remainders twice and if they dont pay, or if no responce seller should offer a cancel order first before making an unpaid strike, incase if they mistakenly purchased. First experience for a new buyer is very important. If seller build a good reputation buyers think twice about paying agian.

Demo purchase :

eBay should allow the new buyers(0 feedbacks) to have a demo purchase experience before they bid real item. eBay also can leave a good feedback just for 30 mins for the demo purchase, so that customer feel real buying and getting feedback points etc.

Thanks and regards,
CoolBrasCo.

[mumbaimobilkar]

Hi Rathin,



I am very disappointed with PayPaise Service, the Buyer was actually frustrated with the process, which he followed after buying the product, and PayPaise took a long time to process it, and after it was confirmed, it took still a week to reach me.

Other Example is, one buyer had purchased through Credit card on 25-Oct-06 and still his amount is under process, so how many days to wait for the Money, He is also got frustrated with the slow process of EBay.

Please do something with the Process, as I have decided not to use PayPaise from next Time.



Regards

Prakash Patel

mumbaimobilkar

[rohit@ebay.com]

Good evening, and welcome to our Open House Session. Today, we have Rathin Lahiri - Head of Marketing, with us, to interact with our members, and answer your queries.

Rathin will start off by replying to all the queries that have been posted in advance of the session. He will then move on to answering live questions.

You can post questions to Rathin by clicking on the "Post Reply" link at the top or bottom of the page. However, we request you to please restrict the questions to the topic of this Open House - how do we get new buyers to the platform?

Thanks and Regards,
Thanks and Regards,
Rohit,
Community Development Team

[rathin@ebay.com]

There are 3 broad thrust areas to improve the consumer pull for ebay

1.Get more visitors ( potential buyers ) to the site

a.In 2006 we have tied up with yahoo / msn as their shopping channel partners to drive traffic on to our site . We also run banner campaigns on almost all leading websites in India .

b.We buy over 50000 keywords and you type any product that you are looking to buy on ebay and you will find ebay showing up .

c.We have periodically started doing marketing promos like the style diva etc to drive traffic to our site .

As a result , we are in pure traffic terms among the top 12 websites in India today . Also ,Our traffic has doubled over the past one year .

2.Improve our visitor to buyer conversion ratio

a.We have just completed a major testing of our home page to optimise conversions and there are host of other initiatives to improve the buyer ratios .
In 2006 quarter on quarter our visitor to buyer ratios have increased every quarter .

3.Focus on building the image of ebay through consumer PR

a.We average over 3 press articles per day , most of them positive - ) and the ebay style diva was an example of creating our own event to drive traffic , transactions & pr .

The 2 big challenges for 2007 are :

1. Driving greater brand awareness & trials
Advertising & Couponing / Trial vouchers are important elements

2. Improving our repeat buying rates .
Having better quality inventory from sellers , handholding buyers if they have a problem and some gift coupons etc
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Dear Umangji ,


You are absolutely right in the first phase we have been focusing on getting new buyers but we are increasingly looking at repeat buyers too , which is why we have flash sales , diwali sales , cash back offer with ICICI bank etc .

Introducing gift coupons to stimulate both first time trial and repeat buying is an important element of our 2007 plans , and we hope to introduce it going forward .
warm regards

Rathin