Open House Discussion with Gautam Thakar, Director – Categories & Marketing

[rohit@ebay.com]

Dear Users,

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new initiative for users to interact with eBay India Management – the eBay India Open House.

Staff from the eBay India Management Team will be available on the Discussion Boards at pre – defined times, to answer any questions you might have regarding buying and selling on eBay India.

The first session is with Gautam Thakar, Director – Categories & Marketing. We invite you to join Gautam for an online chat on Thursday, the 2nd of June, 2005, from 5:00 PM to 6:00 PM IST.

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 5:00 PM!

Regards,
Rohit,
Community Development Team

[nucleustech]

Hi Gautam,

the 5% of flat transaction fees is not feasible for vendors like us who are into selling handheld electronics like mobile phones, pdas where margins have to be kept wafer thin to stay competitive in the marketplace

are there any plans to revert to baazee's category wise margin structure?

Rgds

[gautam@ebay.com]

Dear hotdealsfrompearl,

Thank you for being on the boards to raise your concerns. Also thank you very much for being part of baazee and ebay and helping us grow in India. You raised some important questions
1)reduced buyers
2)invoice related concerns
3)CS processes/responses.

I will answer 2 and 3 separately as they have been raised by other users as well. On the issue of buyers, let me assure you that we are fully focused on growing the business for our sellers by getting new users. Without your success we cant grow. We did not do as much marketing in the last 2 months as we wanted to allow teh new platform to stabilise. You will see a lot of marketing spend in the coming months to help you grow your business (in June my team's budget to attract new users is over 3 times that of the previous 3 months put together). We are committed to helping you grow your business.

I also appreciate that some of the new processes are taking time to set in as well as get used to both at our and your end. This is one of the reasons that I (and other eBay staff) are coming on to the boards to hear your concerns and take as much action as we can to help.

Please stay tuned for more - and once again I thank you for your being with us through these years and helping us grow. Regards
Gautam

[invogue-inc]

My basic request is, as India and Indians cannot be turned into the US and the Americans PLEASE DONOT TRY AND QUIT TRYING TO MAKE EBAY.IN AN EXACT COPY EBAY.COM. What works around the world will not work in India, and I think eBay has got a nice lesson on this by now, as their 'american' way of working is not working in India. Indians cannot wait for 2-3 days to receive a reply by email when they can just call can finish their job in 5 minutes.

And they surely cannot do it if Baazee offered the sellers telephonic support, and some suddenly some americans stop it, just because it does not happen in their country!!! Just Ridiculous!!! Even the guys on the live chat help refuse to answer, they just know to give the link for emailing the "concerned team". Cant they just check with them for us, are we so unwanted??!

As I read somewhere on the community boards itself, - "When the world's no.1 soft drink COCA-COLA is not even in the top 5 drinks in India, what is the use of doing thing the things in the 'american' or 'international' way, as Indians are just different in their nature" Coca-Cola is still in India due to "Indian" brands like Thums-up and Limca, or it would have had to packup and go back long ago. So learn from this eBay!!!

[gautam@ebay.com]

Trust & Safety Post 3

Feedback Extortion – Feedback is one of the core features of the eBay platform globally. This is a very important tool that helps build trust in an online community and has been critical across countries. Feedback helps users build up their reputation online. Demanding action from an user under the threat of leaving negative feedback is an offence. I request you to please report such issues to us using the Contact Us Link in the following page - http://pages.ebay.in/help/policies/feedback-extortion.html

For more details of feedback abuse, click here - http://pages.ebay.in/help/policies/fdbk-feedback-abuse.html

We need your help in this - as with most items to truly partner and help us all build a more serious and good community Regards
Gautam

[ppjewellers]

Hello everybody, you expect your issues to be resolved by posting them, do you think they listen??? I doubt, if you check the forums, users have been posting there issues since the day ebay.in started but did anyone got his issue resolved ?? hoping ebay wakes up before its toooooooo late.

[silconvalley]

dear gautam
it is know that you are concerned by the sellers and buyers problems
first of all stop the copy paste replies that we receive from ebay.in staff , this is stopping us from sending our queries as we know the answers what we will get will not be in connection to the questions

secondly let the powersellers have telephonic support it take only 3 mins to resolve a issue or get the answer for a question .and it will take a week time in communicating via mail and ultimately the copy paste replies will not be understandable is it will be out of the subject of the questions

please also resolve the billing issues
sellers have been billed for free listing promo on 5th and 26th april and then on 15th may for international listings
this has increased the billing amount and miscalculation
when you are offering some thing free then why are you billing it on the first hand

pls also consider rating issues as we know that indian mentality is limited to its lesser knowledge of the cyber world people do not credit the seller for his honestly but for the delay oin paisapay clearance and courier mismangement

my billing is my prime consern i ahve been billed 3lac for april and may and the atual amount to be paid comes to 45k

after a upi is filed the seller should get the fee credit immediately
we have not received the fee credit for april and may upi filed and when contacted custumer support via mail all copy paste replied which were out of the subject
now we have made a part payment based on all the shipment done by us

but every month we cannot sit and calculate what business we have done and pay only for all fulfilled orders
AND ALSO ONE OF MY ID IS USA BASED WHICH I WHAT IT TO BE BILLED IN INDIAN CURRENTY BUT IT ALWAYS SHOWS ALL CALCULATIONS IN $$$ SIGN PLS HELP with best regards
SILIKONINDIA

[gautam@ebay.com]

Dear nucleustech,

We are forever balancing the needs of our sellers in terms of pricing and the needs of our business. As you will know we reduced our fees across the site from 10%, 8% and 6% in different categories to a uniform 5% upto 4000 Rs and 2.5% above that. We reduced this to ensure that seller margins could improve as well as have a more consistent and uniform policy and avoid listings in wrong categories.

At this stage there are no immediate planbs for further reductions but we will continue to look for feedback and monitor the mobiles category as we plan for the future Regards
Gautam

[gautam@ebay.com]

Trust & Safety Post 4

Listing Polices – A few sellers have pointed out to us issues regarding certain eBay listing policies. eBay has a large number of listing polices that sellers have to adhere to. Repeated failures to do so can result in suspension of the account. I request all sellers to please take time out to be familiar with these various listing policies to ensure that you do not inadvertently violate any of them. You can do so by clicking on this link - http://pages.ebay.in/help/sell/policies.html

We understand that the new processes are taking some time to get used to for both you and us but i request your support and patience and we will work very hard to simplify as we go forward. Regards
Gautam

[celebratinglove]

Dear Gautam,

The Change from Baazee to Ebay has big Positives.
1) Great response from international customers.
2) Bigger Advertising Spend

However, I must have to say that the NEGATIVES have started to show their faces more now.

1) Loss of Human Touch in Ebay India Team towards both Buyers and Sellers.

## They are not concerned with whatever happens to the SELLERS as now they think that we are someone from Lower Strata of the Society who are Just Dependant upon Ebay the GREAT, they have started using their New Powers to Suspend Anyone without any Reason...

OUR ID CELEBRATINGLOVE WAS SUSPENDED DUE TO STILL NOT EXPLAINED REASON TO US. THIS CAUSED US GREAT HARM IN GOODWILL AND SALES. SAME GOES FOR OUR OTHER ID iGEMS, It was also SUSPENDED and all LISTING TAKEN AWAY.

THE Surprising thing is that YOU PEOPLE NOW DONOT EVEN CARE TO CONTACT THE SELLER BY EMAIL OR PHONE BEFORE TAKING ANY REASON.

AND why should you...YOU GUYS DONOT CARE A DAMN ABOUT THE SELLERS OR THE IMPLICATIONS of YOUR Actions on the EBAY Community.

WE LOST OUT BUSINESS WORTH 15 LAKHS PLUS DUE TO THE HIGH HANDEDNESS of your TEAM.

ISSUES LIKE SELLER SUSPENSIONS SHOULD FIRST OF ALL NOT BE UNDERTAKEN WITHOUT GIVING A CHANCE OR INFORMING THE SELLER.

Nobody cared a Damn when we tried to contact online or offline to Sort the Issues out.

WE are yet to know why Our ID CELEBRATINGLOVE was suspended even after asking your "CUT and PASTE":^O Customer Support Team more than 10 times for a week.

WE Finally Gave up..

At one Point we even thought of Not Continuing with EBAY anymore as this is a HELL now..

If this continues like this then VERY SOON all the GOOD SELLERS would LEAVE EBAY.

AND what would be LEFT would only be the FRAUD SELLERS who use Ebay to DUPE customers like those mentioned in the TIMES OF INDIA today..

PLEASE REPLY...

I HOPE THAT THE "CUT AND PASTE SPEACILIST TEAM" is not answering on this Board also.

WE can't Keep on Selling on EBAY for such 10 percent margins we sell at combined with these Tensions.

I HOPE SOMEONE FROM OLD BAAZEE.COM GETS OUT OF THIS EBAY HONEYMOON AND BE PRACTICAL AND REALLY THINK ABOUT THE SELLERS AND BUYERS.:)


For, However Beautiful your Car(EBAY INDIA) may be....It would not run much longer if All the FUEL(GENUINE SELLERS AND BUYERS) is Gone...

Regards,
Rajan
Director and Chief Client Relationship Manager
iGems
CelebratingLove
** BEST PLACE FOR DIAMOND JEWELLERY ON EARTH **

iGems
http://stores.ebay.in/iGemsIndia

CelebratingLove
http://stores.ebay.in/CelebratingLove

[nucleustech]

Dear Guatam,

Thanks for the reply. But Mobile Phones is one of the hottest selling category online & even in offline market, retailers operate with Rs. 50 - Rs. 200/- margin. On a 5K mobile phone, its not even 1% - 4%. The 5% fixed margin & also the paisapay charges will make the ebay marketplace unviable for us to list our mobile phones. we cant even mark up the prices since the market selling price for mobile phones has more or less become common sense to all buyers.

therefore, immediate action is required to reduce the transaction margin on mobile phones to 2% or to fixed fees of Rs. 100/- ASAP

Rgds