Open House Discussion with Gautam Thakar on Aug 25th (5-6 PM)

[sapana@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 Gautam Thakar, Country Manager – Marketplace, for an online discussion on buying and selling on eBay India.

Gautam will be available on this thread on Thursday, the 25th of August, 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 clicking on Post a reply at top of the thread. For help on using the discussion boards, please click here - http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=300000542.

See you on the 25th at 5:00 PM!

Thanks and Regards,
Sapana,
Community Development Team

[rahuladvani]

hi
is email marketing available to new sellers? what is the procedure? i intend to sell on ebay?

[gautam@ebay.com]

Hi Devesh (cameras_n_such),

First of all , thank you for your prolific contribution. I know that at times you are disheartened by some of our policies but i encourage you to keep the faith that all of us are working towards the health of the community long term.
You have raised some interesting points, let me try and answer them. As always I will try to give direct answers but will be honest if I cant answer at this stage or if there is some issue where our position is different from your requirement.

Listing Fees – As I mentioned earlier, at eBay the challenge is to balance interest of various user groups. There are some seller segments that might not benefit from having listing fee on site. Having said that, point taken that such fees will improve inventory quality on site. We are considering this strongly as part of our plans in conjunction with some of the gallery fee comments that you and others have. Unfortunately I don’t have a date or firm plan at this point.

Immediate Payment required feature – As mentioned earlier in one of my posts, we are already working on this feature.

Buyer Verification – This is something that I am beginning to take a personal interest in. For starters we have given some control to the seller via SMS based verification. After the launch of Turbo Lister 2, sellers can now apply this and other buyer blocks on selected items, as opposed to all their items as was the case earlier. There is one more idea that Sharat is working on for verification and he should be making an announcement within a month (its telephone based but I don’t want to steal his thunder at this stage). This is certainly an initiative that helps sellers as well as the marketplace health so you will see more verification methods over time (including paisapay but that will be after the new idea I mentioned)


Part 2 to follow Regards
Gautam

[gautam@ebay.com]

PART 2 - cameras_n_such

Direct bank transfer of PaisaPay balance – As mentioned in my earlier post, we are working towards having this feature. However, it will be some time before we expect the feature to roll out. We will keep our community informed on any update on the project.

Third party rating review – I can understand that feedback ratings are an issue that is closest to heart of our community members. After the last round of changes in feedback system, we have noticed some encouraging trends, whereby positive ratings left on site had increased, where as negative ratings had simultaneously decreased. We are planning more changes that will help members have greater faith in feedback system. About your suggestion on third party, I am afraid, we currently do not have a third party service provider, that offers this service at such rates. May be this can be a business model that an existing seller can exploit 

I wanted your input on another idea – what if we had a team of experienced community members who are empowered to review user feedback? I am risking putting this out here since its unclear whether we will go ahead and I don’t want to disappoint you later – but I thought I shouldn’t let that stop me from at least checking the reaction to the idea.

Seller verification – similar to buyer verification, we are also taking certain steps to tighten seller verification. I appreciate your suggestion and will forward it to the concerned team for evaluation.

EL charges – I wish I could charge more for the home page. Just joking. I hear you loud and clear . This will be under review for our 2007 pricing.

Integrated check out – Absolutely agree. I am worked up myself that we don’t have a more intuitive checkout. This is the biggest investment in product that we will be making and a big priority for me. That’s the good news. The not so good news is that this is very complicated and will not be available for at least 6 months.

Possibility of accepting debit cards – Unfortunately, the current payment system in India does not allow PaisaPay to accept debit cards. Therefore this possibility will need to be kept on hold for now.

Hope this gave you some indication of our intent. Apologies if I couldn’t satisfy you fully especially on expectation on the faster timing of some of the product changes but that is the reality of product development cycles. I hope to see the continued constructive suggestions from you. Thanks you for being on eBay and helping us grow ecommerce in India Regards
Gautam

[gautam@ebay.com]

Hi Sanjiv (rajiv_rana),

I am sorry to hear about your experience on eBay. If you could please provide more details about your transactions, I can request the concerned team to look into the matter. You may contact eBay via http://pages.ebay.in/help/contact_us/_base/index.html form.

However, as you might be aware, eBay has a buyer protection program (http://pages.ebay.in/help/confidence/problems-fraud.html) in place for any transaction, where a buyer does not receive the product or product is significantly not as described. A buyer can file a dispute any time between 30 – 60 days of end of listing, and can further escalate it to claim within 90 days of end of listing.

I hope you will find the above information useful and once again please accept my personal apologies for the experience. We will work on tightening the seller processes and ensuring that such instances are minimized. Regards
Gautam

[nmv2005]

Hi Gautam,

Wnated to know what kind of action do you take against the fact that buyers using paisa pay - where funds are transferred to the sellers instantly, are then at the mercy of the sellers - this is with reference to the fact of dispatch through couriers - I have faced immense problems with the local courier offices where literally threats have to be made in order to get my delivery. The seller is merely sitting back as he has got his end of the transaction - please respond. I am sure this is a on going issue with other buyers as well.
In summary I am re-considering using ebay services as it adds to the normal pressure - by making phone calls to courier offices - where their numbers are never free during office hours.

[sapana@ebay.com]

Hi rahuladvani,

email marketing feature is avialbale to all sellers who have an eBay shop. However, to open a store, a seller needs to have minimum of 5 positive raitngs.

If you need clarity on the listing procedure and any other operational process, you can contact our Training Team on training.india@ebay.com


Warm regards,
Sapana

[gautam@ebay.com]

Hi Susmita (susmita9391),

I am sorry to hear about your experience. I have asked the concerned team to look into the matter. I will also request you to check if all the documents required have been submitted. You should hear from the team within a week with a resolution.
Thank you for being an eBay member and apologies again for this experience. Regards
Gautam

[gautam@ebay.com]

Dear easwaran2005,

To get a product shipped to your friend in Philippines, you will need to find a seller who is willing to ship to the country. You can communicate with the seller and mutually agree that all charges will be borne by you. Also, you might want to find out, if there are any custom duties that a buyer might need to pay while receiving a product.

Alternatively, you can buy directly from eBay Philippines (http://www.ebay.ph/home) and ask the seller to ship to your friend. Regards
Gautam

[gautam@ebay.com]

Hi emailswarup,

Good to see you again on discussion boards. I have often seen you help other members on discussion boards, and I really appreciate the same.

I have forwarded your suggestion to Biren from our categories team for consideration and appropriate action Regards
Gautam

[gautam@ebay.com]

Hi shivsai_in1,

The Religious & Healing Category lists many products which are sold. Astrology is a service. As services are highly customisable depending on client requirements, sellers find it difficult to have a standard price for services rendered. It requires buyers & sellers to meet, discuss requirements & then decide price. Real Estate is similar in nature as buyers would not buy real estate without having a look at the property which makes it necessary for buyers & sellers to meet. Since they are similar in nature, they have been clubbed together & eBay provides the classified format for putting up such listings. Also, I hope you are aware about Kijiji (www.kijiji.in), wherein you can list services such as yours.

Regarding your question on why Dutch auction is allowed in this category:
Dutch Items mean Multiple-Item Listings format (also known as Dutch Auction). Since classifieds are more suitable for services like Astrology Dutch Items are not allowed.

Regarding Restricted items:
There are certain items which are not allowed to be sold on eBay as per eBay Policies. You can find more details on “RESTRICTED ITEMS” on the following URL
http://pages.ebay.in/help/policies/items-ov.html

I hope the above information was useful and gave you greater clarity. Regards
Gautam