Open House Chat with Rathin Lahiri - Head of Marketing, eBay India

[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 buying and selling on eBay India.

Rathin will be available on this thread on Thursday, the 2nd of Februaury, 2006, from 4:00 PM to 5:00 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. For help on using the discussion boards, please click here - http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=300000542.

See you on the 2nd at 4:00 PM!

Thanks and Regards,
Rohit,
Community Development Team

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello karanmalik,

I hope I have answered your query in my earlier reply to emailswarup (Point 4). Thank you for joining this Open House. to summarise we are reviewing the situation and the pros and cons of buyer verification on a permanent basis are being considered
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello amitava123gems,

Thank you for your suggestion. I shall forward it to the relevant teams for their perusal. Have a good day!
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello indconcepts,

Thank you for joining this Open House, and for your constant efforts to interact with, and help educate our community. We need more community champions such as yourself.

You have an interesting suggestion. We are evaluating the possibility of having some kind of 'Top Buyer' program, where we can recognize our top buyers. We are right now begining a top buyer research to find out how we can serve the needs of the buyer better and based on the learnings we will evolve a top buyer program . Feedback will be one of the important parameters we will consider for this program. We will keep you updated on developments in this program.
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello ctdinna,

It is encouraging to see users like yourself trying to sell unique items on the site. I am truly sorry that you are not seeing any bidding on your items so far. I shall forward your feedback to the category team, for them to consider while making future category changes. At the same time, I am curious. I could not see any live listings offered by you, so wanted to know under which category you had listed them earlier. I would think that Toys, Games & Baby would be the right category for you to try. I would suggest you try listing it under the 'Everything Else' category. Many interesting items are listed under this category.

Mahen from our Category team has started a thread where members can provide their suggestions for category changes. You can post your comments directly to him at http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=600000252&start=0
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello touch_and_shine,

I am happy that your issue has been resolved. Thank you for joining the Open House.
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Dear cosycom,

Thank you for your feedback.

1. Addition of new categories - I shall forward your suggestion to the category team.
While adding new categories, the team evaluates based on the following:
How many listings of these items are presently being made across other categories, to get an understanding of the need for a separate category for these items.
The members writing in to us with their suggestions.
Trends across other shopping channels, online or offline.
We try to balance opening of many new categories with the likelihood that there will be a healthy number of listings, and subsequently transactions, within these categories. I am sure you will agree that it will not be a good experience for the buyers to see many categories with very few listings.

Mahen from our Category team has started a thread where members can provide their suggestions for category changes. You can post your comments directly to him at http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=600000252&start=0

2. Simplified process for International buyers to pay using PaisaPay - This is a suggestion we have heard in the past. I am happy to say that our international users now also have the option of scanning and sending across the required documents to a secure mail Id.

3. Prohibited Items - This list is based on the legal and regulatory environment, and hence some items that it might be possible to list on other eBay sites are not allowed to be listed on the India site. I understand that this might cause some confusion to our sellers, but unfortunately it is something that we do not have control on. Hence we request your co-operation and not list these items on the site.
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello astrolifecom,

Thank you for your feedback. Mahen from our Category team has started a thread where members can provide their suggestions for category changes. You can post your comments directly to him at http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=600000252&start=0
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Dear franklin2k5,

I apologize for the unpleasant experience you have had with us in the past. I believe you are in touch with our team on the issue of Buyer Protection Payment. The delay was unfortunate as it was due to factors beyond our control, but I understand that as a buyer, we were unable to meet your expectations. Let me assure you that you will receive the amount soon.

I have already forwarded your inputs on Customer Service to the team. Over the past few months, we have been focused on improving the Customer Service experience of our users. We have made some progress on this, but we still have a long way to go. Let me assure you that we are committed to making this happen. Feedback from users such as you have given will only help us improve our services, and we really appreciate it.
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello 1jdcard,

Yes, Unpaid Item is an area of concern for us. We have a team which is looking into this issue to understand it, and come up with solutions. We feel that we need to differentiate between 2 types of buyers - users who clearly have no intention to pay, and users who might have some genuine issues or concerns which is stopping them from paying. Our approach is to block the first type of users, while educating the second type to get them to pay up for the items they have won.

Secondly, as a seller, you can decide to block certain types of buyers from bidding on your items. This is called 'Buyer Requirements', and this can be accessed from the 'Preferences' link on the left hand side of your 'My eBay'. You can find more information about this, and other ways you can block bidders, here - http://pages.ebay.in/help/sell/manage_bidders_ov.html
warm regards

Rathin

[rathin@ebay.com]

Hello cameras_n_such,

Firstly, thank you for the your words of appreciation. It is really motivating for us to hear from our members when they like some of the things we do. If this promotion is successful for our sellers, we shall definitely look at doing more along similar lines and work towards a promotional calendar which are informed to sellers in advance so that they can plan supply in advance and we can promote it well. You are right, gifting is an important element of online shopping, and we have not been terribly good at it in the past.

To address the issues you have raised...

1. Buyer Verification - I am happy to announce that very soon, our sellers will have an additional option, within the Buyer Requirements section, to block bidders who are not SMS verified.

2. Listing Fees - I know that this has been discussed and debated at length by some of our sellers. Our primary concern with this has been that we are still a very nascent community, and our focus is on increasing the number of users who trade on the site, buy and sell. Not many people know that they can sell on the site, and as such, we have reservations about asking users to pay upfront for even just listing an item.

3. Thank you for your feedback on this one.
warm regards

Rathin