Last Week's Town Hall
Posted by Ninad on January 31, 2007 at 12:12 PM in General | Permalink
The first Town Hall of 2007 convinced me that Bill Cobb and Griff, should the fancy grip them, can start an Abbott and Costello routine on eBay Radio. Griff is a radio pro, as everybody knows, but Bill and the other eBay leaders who usually participate in our Town Halls have also embraced the (still relatively new) radio format. In fact, Gary Briggs, our Chief Marketing Officer, was seen to do a little jig as the eBay Radio signature tune went on the air. (Ryan's pictures of the Town Hall capture the mood nicely - maybe next time we'll also try video).
Bill kicked off the Town Hall by talking about the previous week's eCommerce Forum, now an annual event where eBay invites about 250 sellers to discuss marketplace issues and eBay's strategies (read the main points from Bill's keynote address). Then Griff, with his usual aplomb, cut to the chase - or to the Core. "So Bill, re-igniting the Core. Where are we on that?" he asked. Reinvesting in the Core has been a big part of eBay's strategy all through 2006, and, going by Bill's keynote at the ECF, it will be the focus for 2007 as well. Bill's response was an "old Texan saying" - "Dance with the one that brung yew." In other words, stick to what you do best -- in eBay's case, core auctions. (I wish I could recapture Bill's attempt at a Texan twang, but you'll have to listen to the Town Hall audio archive on the Town Hall page for that.)
Bill re-emphasized what he'd already said in his keynote, that eBay is about more than just buying stuff. "It's about finding items you won't find anywhere else and buying them in a way that's fun and engaging." Bill explained how, as buyers get ever-increasing options online, eBay's unique differentiation will become even more important. He went on to say that one of our priorities this year was to make the site easier and simpler for buyers to use.
Griff's next question was about sellers and how eBay was now holding them to a higher standard than before, through initiatives such as requiring new sellers to accept PayPal or a merchant credit card, and Feedback 2.0. "Is this a shift in policy?" asked Griff. "In a way, yes," replied Bill, adding that the Internet had changed over the years, making it important for us to have measures like these in place. He explained that, while most sellers on eBay are excellent at what they do, "a few bad apples can spoil it for the rest." Bill explained that eBay's buyer research indicates that the vast majority of buyers' dissatisfactions with the eBay shopping experience can be attributed to aspects of the transaction that are controlled by the seller, such as item description, communication, shipping time, and shipping & handling charges. This was the underlying reason for holding sellers to higher minimum standards. "We don't want the few bad sellers to drive away the buyers from the site," explained Bill. He said that we had to move on from a nostalgic, more innocent picture of the internet. "Meg and I say we miss that small town feel [about eBay and the internet] where you can leave your doors unlocked."
Bill, aided by Matt Halprin, eBay's VP of Global Marketplace Policy Management, then reassured members about two recent issues which have caused controversy (and some consternation) in the Community. The first of these was Safeguarding Member IDs (SMI), in which eBay will replace bidders' User IDs with aliases, to prevent scammers to target those IDs via fake Second Chance Offers and other methods. Bill acknowledged the Community's concerns that this could result in increased shill bidding, but pointed out that eBay has advanced tools and capabilities to catch shill bidding. eBay has access to so much more data than members do, that it's almost impossible for shilling attempts to escape undetected. Matt Halprin emphasized that Rob Chesnut's (eBay's SVP of Trust and Safety) intense and personal dislike for shill bidding made sure that we were cracking down on shillers.
The second controversial change is Feedback 2.0. Matt explained that, although the feedback system was the cornerstone of trust on eBay, over the years buyers had become hesitant to leave negative or honest feedback for fear of retaliation from sellers. Feedback 2.0 adds a new dimension beyond the traditional positive, neutral, or negative feedback. Buyers can rate sellers on additional aspects of the transaction, such as item description, communication, shipping time, and shipping & handling charges. Matt explained that this was an opportunity for the really good sellers to stand out from the rest, as buyers would see the seller's aggregated performance on these dimensions. Rating a seller on the four dimensions will not affect their overall feedback percentage or score.
Like all Town Halls, the questions from members came in thick and fast. Members calling in on the phone gave the event a spontaneous and exciting quality - no one in the room knew what the next question would be. As always, the questions touched on a wide spectrum of members' concerns. "Will eBay be ready for the USPS rate change coming later this year?" asked a member. The answer was a strident Yes from Jim Ambach, from eBay's Product Development team. Hannah in San Francisco called in to ask how eBay can determine if a listed item is counterfeit or not. Matt Halprin explained several methods that eBay relies on, including the 17,000+ participants in eBay's Verified Rights Owners (VeRO) program, who give us a heads-up when they see counterfeit items on the site.
Another question was whether eBay had scaled back buying keywords on Yahoo! and Google. Gary Briggs clarified that our keyword investments and natural search initiatives to make sure our sellers' items received maximum visibility in search engines were very much a priority. A prickly question was from the member who asked why eBay didn't stop Second Chance Offers instead of masking User IDs. Matt Halprin said that if it were that easy, we'd have done it a long time ago! He went on to explain that the bad guys weren't entirely dependent on fake SCOs to harvest email IDs, so stopping the real Second Chance Offers wouldn't make much of a difference.
Linda in Pittsburgh called in to ask if we would eventually allow sellers to rate buyers under Feedback 2.0? Bill responded we'd look into this, but didn't make any promises. "We wanted to go where our research showed were the biggest issues," he said, explaining the rationale for letting buyers rate sellers. Matt Halprin added that such an important part of eBay as Feedback needs to change very slowly.
There were many other questions, but to get a better flavor of them, I urge you to watch out for the audio archives and the transcript, which should be available on the Town Hall page in the next few days. And, of course, don't forget to call in your questions to the next Town Hall, which is on February 22nd!
Comment on this post in the Discussion Board
