Overview
In episode nine, Doug dishes on the myths, mysteries and conspiracies from his days at eBay, and more. We also have a Seller Shoutout, seller questions, a List Perfectly Tip and Seller News.
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the #1 resource for the seller community across all platforms and hub for information on growing your business with List Perfectly. Find out more at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast, leave a message or ask a question at https://anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com.
Links
thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast
thesellercommunitypodcast.com
Seller Community Podcast on Anchor
Listperfectly Facebook Group
coloradoreworn Instagram
snoop.dougie Instagram
listperfectly Instagram
Episode Nine Links
ebay.com
Amazon.com
Snapchat
Poshmark
Mercari
Gem
Fit Analytics
Pizza Hut
Transcript
Intro
Doug:
Liz are you into conspiracy theories?
Liz:
Uh, no, I am not. I want the truth and I went honesty.
Doug:
Oh, all right. That’s good to know. I will never lie to you, Liz. Obviously, Liz you’ve known me for a while, almost two years. And you know, I’m down with some Bigfoot action. I mean, technically not a conspiracy. That’s more of a like cryptozoological myth. I mean, there’s no conspiracy theories you’re into?
Liz:
No. However, there are some truths to some myths and there are some conspiracy theories I’ve heard about out there in the selling world. And I kind of want to grill you on some…
Doug:
So like espiracies , econspiracies, all those. I used to get a lot of questions and um, everybody knows for three, almost four years, I worked for eBay and I traveled a lot. And so I would get asked questions and when I’d be at events or whatever, I would always get the pull you aside and be like, is it true that, or can you confirm or deny that? Or can I ask you a question? It’s funny because there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there, but a lot of eBay conspiracy theories and there’s some Amazon ones, there are a lot more related to eBay and some of them do get pretty bizarre.
Liz:
So I’m going to pull you into the podcasting corner and ask you questions that we’re going to share with all of our tens of listeners.
Doug:
There’s only so much I can say Liz don’t don’t push me too hard. You don’t understand the kind of trouble I could get into. I mean, I don’t want 50 pizzas at four in the morning. I don’t want the eBafia coming after me!
Liz:
Before you say too much, before you say too much, let’s get this started. I’m Liz…
Doug:
And I’m Doug. This is episode number nine, number nine, number nine. You know what that is? Liz. That’s revolution number nine from the Beatles, a band filled with conspiracy theories. So pertinent to the episode, but The seller community podcast is produced weekly by List Perfectly for your enjoyment and my enjoyment and the listener’s enjoyment and listening pleasure and show notes are always found at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. Now let’s get into the show. What do we have this week, Liz?
Liz:
So this week we are talking about conspiracies myths. What ifs, is it true? That and conspiracies and more, I’m going to see what I can get out of Doug based on his time from eBay questions that he’s encountered from sellers across platforms. Yes, we will have a Seller Shoutout. You’ll get a weekly List Perfectly tip, we’ll answer some seller questions and we’ll have the news. Let’s get into some conspiracy!
Doug:
All right. Very excited.
Liz:
Liz, you sound very excited.
New Speaker:
I’m always this excited Liz.
Myths, Mysteries and Conspiracies: Truths From The Inside
Liz:
One of the most popular topics you’ll hear about out there are seller conspiracies. eBay seems to have the most, maybe because they’ve been around so long, 25 years and counting.
Doug:
Hello, Liz. Great to be here today. This is not Doug. It’s your secret source Deep Sell. I’m here to talk about conspiracies…
Liz:
Doug…you already introduced yourself!
Doug:
That’s true. I forgot. All right, I’m ready to talk about this. I, you know, I do have a tinfoil hat because, uh, Mr. And Mrs. amazingtaste a couple of years ago made me one because we had a conspiracies chat, so they made me a tinfoil hat. So I have that on.
Liz:
Right? Okay. So you’re wearing your tinfoil hat. I feel a little bit vulnerable here because it’s true. I don’t have one cause I don’t believe in conspiracies. I just want the truth. Okay. The truth. But seriously, Doug, you know, you used to get a lot of what if conspiracies. Um, so since you worked at eBay, let’s start with eBay.
Doug:
Some of it, there’s a little bit of truth to it. Um, and you know, we can talk about what you want to talk about. And obviously the number one that always comes up was rolling search blackouts.
Liz:
Rolling blackouts, rolling server blackouts. Because if you’re on the wrong server, your store’s not going to be able to be seen by anybody.
Doug:
The theory is that it was, you know, rolled around the world and they would pause listings here and pause listings there. I was asked that question many, many times and every time I would give an answer, I would get looked at sideways. Like they wouldn’t believe me. I never heard anything about rolling searches or blackouts or East Coast versus West Coast just in rap battles. The thing is, eBay wants you to sell your stuff because eBay makes money when you sell. So they don’t want people to not see your listings, but as we learned last week in our search episode, Liz, and you can hop in whenever you see fit. But some of it depends on your listing and you know what your listing is. It’s like, yeah, if people are looking for a certain thing and they have certain filters set, like if you are selling a Metallica t-shirt and they’re looking for black Metallica t-shirts and your Metallica t-shirt isn’t black. It might not show up, but they’re not necessarily, they’re not denigrating searches just for fun or punishment.
Liz:
So sellers and they don’t have a server for each state that they switch on because they only have enough bandwidth for like three states at once.
Doug:
There are multiple backups and there’s a giant, like some giant center somewhere. That’s got plenty of servers to cover everything. And then, you know, eBay’s all around the world and eBay’s not on Amazon web services though.
Liz:
Rolling server blackouts and turning off different States, uh, is not a thing. Doesn’t eBay like orbit the earth secretly with satellites?
Doug:
Well, that was that’s one of my favorites. A colleague of mine brought that up to me when we were talking about conspiracie, he said that that was the weirdest he’d ever heard. And somebody brought it up to him and was super serious about it and said, well, doesn’t eBay have, can you confirm or deny that eBay has satellites that orbit the earth and track sellers and the guy that answered it was, he’s not with eBay at the time, but the guy that answered it kind of answered it jokingly. He’s like “I cannot confirm or deny,” but I can deny equivocally that eBay does not have satellites that circle the earth. I think Amazon wants to go to the moon, but eBay has no plans to go to the moon or satellites. So there are no eBay satellites on sellers. So no, they’re not hidden under eBay headquarters. And there’s no big thing that opens up and shoots the satellites out. No satellites, no drones, nothing like that. No, no mind control that I know of.
Liz:
Yeah. That was a, that was a little bit out there. Um, what else? What was it, what was another popular thing that you had to field a lot when you worked at eBay, the crazy conspiracy questions that you got asked?
Doug:
Well, so another interesting one that came up a few times was isn’t it true that if I, uh, refuse an offer or if I do this, or if I report a seller, eBay punishes me and hides my listings. It’s like, no, eBay is not going to punish you for that. They’re not going to hide your listings. But that’s the thing is, you know, those common customer service things, eBay’s not going to punish you for it. There’s a reason you can refuse an offer. You don’t have to take an offer, but you’re not going to get punished. And what’s interesting to me is a lot of it does go back to the algorithm. So an algorithm takes what’s put into it. So, you know, obviously follow those best practices. The rule is, there are certain things you can’t sell on eBay, certain things you can’t sell on Amazon, things like that.
Doug:
So one of the theories I used to hear was, well, eBay keeps banned stuff up so they can make money off of it for a while. If it sells well, here’s what goes on with that. A good example is like CBD stuff. You can’t sell CBD stuff on eBay or Amazon, but you can find CBD stuff for sale on eBay or Amazon. So what goes on is those platforms that are 24 seven, and there are thousands of things being listed at a time. They can’t have human people by hand checking, all that stuff. So it’s all done by filters and the filters learn and the filters catch a lot. But what happens is, is people game the system and they find ways to work around the filters. So that’s why you’ll see like CBD stuff listed or you’ll see like controversial, like Nazi stuff listed or things like that, that aren’t supposed to be listed. It’s because people have found work workarounds and some stuff does get through the filter. And it’s always going to be that way. The filters learn and they adjust and they’re adjusted, but there will always be people that know how to workaround.
Liz:
It’s just a matter of time before the filters or someone at eBay, when an item is reported to get that item taken down. I hear it a lot. People are like, but other people are selling it. Yeah. Why did mine get taken down? I see 7,000, you know, 700 of them listed. Um, it’s just that the filters haven’t gotten to them yet. It’s not eBay leaving them up so that they can make a quick buck and then take them down.
Doug:
Exactly. And that’s the important thing is that if you see something report it and yeah, it may take a little bit for it to be pulled down. It’s not, that’s not an instantaneous thing because the reporting is looked at by somebody. So then it might take a while for that to be pulled down. So we used to see a lot of that in the community too. Well, “I saw this and reported it hasn’t been pulled down yet.” It, you know, it’s a, it’s a time thing. It’s a resource thing. It takes time to review those things, but the reporting helps. Uh, and then, you know, the other thing high level overall is we are talking about, or kind of focusing on eBay, but a lot of these issues are the same across all the platforms is they all are going to have stuff that people are, that are gaming the system, people that are listing banned items and stuff. That’s going to get through the filters. Cause people find ways to work around the filters. So the problem there too is, is, you know, when you game the system, it affects the system. So it’s going to affect the algorithm it’s going to, and it makes it difficult for other sellers. So same thing with like a new seller who’s learning the, and then maybe they don’t know the best practices, but that also it to some degree affects the algorithm and affects everybody. It’s like the poop colored pillow item, specifics, joke that we made.
Liz:
So what are the other ones? And actually I asked this question in a Facebook group, you know, the, some, uh, more seasoned sellers. I’m like, what’s the craziest thing. One of the things that came up and I’m like, wow, how did I forget about this? So I know on eBay, when you have a store, I don’t even know how this started. And I’ve never understood this, but it gets talked about a lot. Is when you go to your store, you have a door. Sometimes that door is red, your store door. Sometimes it’s red. Sometimes it’s blue, sometimes it’s green. And if your store door is red, that means eBay shut you off. What do the door colors mean? Doug?
Doug:
I have no idea. Yeah. As far as, I mean, I I’ve never heard that one. So that one, I don’t know. And I don’t think I even knew that I had a store door. I mean, I think maybe it’s a landing page, store landing page. I don’t know. That’s one we have to look at, what do you think of that one?
Liz:
I don’t…you know what people talk about it and I don’t think I’ve ever checked the color of my store door. It’s why it was like one of the most popular ones that people talked about.
Doug:
That ties into other stuff too. That’s like you know, honestly, eBay wants to work with you, all the platforms do. Well, most of them, we’ll talk about that too. They want you to succeed. They want you to get sales. So they’re not, you know, purposefully working against you. eBay doesn’t work sellers, unless, unless you’re violating a policy, things like that, eBay doesn’t work against you. They do want you to succeed.
Liz:
I get that. However, there are some times I feel like eBay will hide my listings on purpose. Like, let’s say fidget spinners. I had a hundred fidget spinners. They were like selling like hotcakes. And then eBay shut me off. Why would eBay shut me off? eBay’s gotta be doing something to me. It’s like, I’ve hit my selling limit.
Doug:
See, that’s the interesting example. So I would get that question a lot too. It’s like, well, I used to sell tons of blank and now I don’t, eBay must be doing something to me. What is eBay doing to me or the other spin on that is, well, I used to sell a ton of blank and this person sells a ton of hers. Now eBay must be doing something to me. And I also call that the rubber ducky theory, because I literally had a conversation with a seller about that. She’s like, I used to sell tons and tons of rubber duckies. And I’m the number one rubber ducky seller in the world. And now I, now they don’t sell as much as they used to, you know, 10 years in eBy must be doing something to me. What’s going on. So here’s the deal. The market changes, people’s tastes change. Maybe rubber duckies aren’t selling anymore.
Liz:
The flip side to that is the market gets saturated. My $20 fidget spinners are now a dollar because I dominated the market. Cause it was only five sellers in the game. Now there’s 500, same thing with the Tommy Bahama shirts. Same thing with other items that get put on the platform.
Doug:
Yeah. And you it’s, you know, it goes back to the basics is you have to adjust. It’s like stuff is going to sell puzzles and video games and board games have sold like crazy the last year or so, because we’ve been in lockdown. Now, when we move out of lockdown, you’re probably not going to sell as many puzzles as you used to be the, you know, the world’s opening back up, but you have to adjust and you have to think about too. There’s a lot of competition, like going back to the rubber duckies example, maybe there’s a new rubber ducky seller who optimizes their listings better.
Liz:
It goes right back to the optimization that we talked about. Did eBay change their categories? Because we know that they’re in the works of doing that. That was in the Spring Seller Update. Is your item in the correct category still? Are you optimizing your title? Are you using Terapeak to see what the market can sustain on that item now? So see truths, not conspiracies. This is what I want to get down to.
Doug:
Yeah. I mean, eBay, I don’t think eBay has anything specifically against rubber duckies.
Liz:
Here’s what I hear a lot too. Doug, how many times have sellers asked you to have eBay reset their store?
Doug:
Yeah, I’ve heard that one before and I have, I don’t think there’s a reset button. I think it’s just, you know, there’s no reset button, no big red button. I saw no giant buttons at eBay hidden in rooms.
Liz:
So there’s, there’s not a department with desks with reset buttons on it, but I imagine like you call customer service and they have a button on their desk and they just push it and it resets your store.
Doug:
Wasn’t a big, shiny red button that says, press this, or don’t press this. And I think basically your store is a web page that is on the site. That’s on a server, which is a computer. And I said they could reset the servers, but there are multiple, multiple, multiple servers that are running and backups and all that. I’ve been at eBay headquarters many times. And I’ve been in most of wandered around there late at night, early in the morning. I haven’t seen any big shiny red buttons or any giant switches.
Liz:
Well, thank you for clearing that up for us. I think that we hear about the resets. And then there’s a theory that some sellers say, “hey, you can reset your own store by editing all of your items.”
Doug:
Oh, you know, refresh your items, you know, go in and optimize. Yeah.
Liz:
It goes back to optimization to where you have to actually change the specifics and titles and pictures and prices on your item, right?
Doug:
I mean, you want to look at, you want to look at your stuff and update and do your research and, you know, go back in and adjust some stuff. And, uh, you know, the other day I was looking at my items, specifics in my categories because I think those, I think those are the most important things to think about. And those haven’t always been, but now they are by the based on the way eBay search works, things like that.
Liz:
So Doug, you talked about visiting almost every place on the eBay campus. Right? So one of the places that I heard that a lot of employees just hang out at is the eBay pub.
Doug:
Yes. There is an eBay pub. We all know I spent plenty of time there, but probably notlike some of you might think. There is an eBay pub. It’s not like a 24, seven party palace. I did get tied up in a little controversy there because we had some vendors out and we took them to the pub and they posted on Twitter and that got picked up and it turned into eBay employees spend all their time partying in the, on-site bar who has a bar on site. Maybe they shouldn’t be drinking. Maybe they should be fixing the issues. So there is a pub, it’s a nice, nice little place. Um, Devin Wenig started it. It was based on a pub that, um, it was called Walker’s West because there was a pub that he loved in New York city called Walker’s East.
Doug:
And so the deal is from like three 30 to three or three 30 to six 30, each employee can get two drinks a day. So it’s either a wine or a beer and so on. And so you would go there, like after work late in the day, some people would have meetings there or there would be like some team building things there. Um, there was a pool table in there, a nice little building. And the interesting thing about it is it’s in a historical building that is like some San Jose historical site that can’t be torn down. So they’re kind of repurposing it, um, being sustainable. Uh, but repurposing it as a pub. We weren’t there 24 seven. We weren’t drinking there all day. And, you know, doing our evil, uh, evil manipulation of the servers or the search algorithms, it would literally be like Monday to Friday, uh, three to six 30.
Doug:
You could come in, you could have two drinks. They used to do it based on tickets, but then you could scan your badge and it was automatically tracked. Couple of drinks, some peanuts, maybe some pretzels I used to do a little, uh, I used to call it the Snoop Dougie dime store, eBay tour. People would come on site and I’d bring them around to obviously Main Street, the big building there, where you check in. And it’s where eBay has all the big meetings. You’ve probably seen it online. The broken laser pointer is there. That was the first thing that ever sold on eBay. So we would show that and walk around. There’s a lot of cool little interactive screens in there. Then of course, there’s the pub. People like to see the cafeteria. So eBay employees get free breakfast and then we have to pay for lunch.
Doug:
I’m not open for dinner. Then we would go around to some of the buildings. And I used to really like to take people to, um, basically the floor where eBay started. So it’s like basically on this street, uh, Hamilton Avenue in San Jose that’s eBay headquarters. And they own all the buildings on this street now. And so they’re all the different departments, but basically, uh, when the company was started, it was on one floor, one suite and then expanded. And they literally started there with, you know, the card table thing and folding chairs. And then the stories of the, the big story is, um, you know, the, the hallway they’re on, uh, I think it’s building seven floor to, uh, when they had the first investors come in, they had all these bags like everywhere. And that was bad because eBay exploded. They exploded when they launched. And it was basically an experiment and they didn’t realize how big it would get, but that P people used to have to send checks. That’s how you used to have to pay. You’d send checks in the mail
Liz:
Sellers would have to pay their eBay fees via a check and send it to Hamilton.
Doug:
And so the, the story goes when the, um, first investors came through and they were getting a tour of the floor, there were all these bags stacked in the hallways and they said, what are these bags? And they said, Oh, those are the bags of checks we haven’t gotten to yet because E-bay exploded so quickly out of the gate. So that was always a fun story too. And then just, you know, just bring them around and show them different things. Um, there’s a lot of, a lot of eBay stuff displayed on desks and collectibles and things like that. So it’s a, it’s a cool, fun little experience.
Liz:
We talked about the pub, you said that, you know, it got out Twitter and it got picked up by a site online that published this…
Doug:
The blog that shall not be named…
Liz:
It was published online. And that became probably what is best known as eBay’s biggest scandal. Can you talk about that?
Doug:
I mean, I don’t know much more than what came out is just like, it was obvious that the blog that shall not be named was not a fan of eBay. And I had heard, I’ve heard theories about that as well. I had heard that the people that run the blog, the reason they don’t like eBay is because a way back Pierre, the founder of eBay, eBay was basically started as literally an online and offline community. So the very first seller community. So part of that seller community, it’s like, you know, very inclusive. So he had a plan and this is well-documented, he at one point wanted to give members of the community stock in the company, but it turned out and he talked about this because he was very open perhaps to open. And then, um, that didn’t work out because it’s not, I guess for some reason, I don’t know why it wasn’t legal at the time.
Doug:
So apparently one of the theories is that the blog that shall not be named the people that run that blog were promised eBay stock and they didn’t get it. And they thought that they should have. So they’re very, very bitter against eBay and the the interesting thing there is, you know, my thoughts about it are that site could be a very legitimate and useful news source, but they really editorialize everything, especially about eBay. So it’s obvious they have an issue about eBay. And then there are a lot of anti eBay people that go there. And so it’s very, very anti-eBay. So that’s where the pub thing got posted. And then it was just a lot of it’s, it’s a very negative site, and that’s the main reason. It wasn’t really liked at eBay. Obviously, if you know, you Google eBay scandal or whatever, it comes up, it got really bizarre stuff got out of hand and it was known, you know, it was basically known that the site was anti eBay. And again, this is all, this isn’t inside info. Devin Wenig did not like the site. And we all knew he didn’t like the site. And, um, some people took him not liking the site a little bit too far, obviously way too far. Um, kind of like a Jeff Gillooly, Tonya Harding type of thing.
Liz:
It was very bad.
Doug:
Yeah. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t cool. It wasn’t right. It was a bummer because I loved my time at eBay and I do still love eBay, but it was disappointing to see that come out. And that happened while I was there. I didn’t know it was happening at the time. And I didn’t realize the extent that it went to and the bizarre levels, because, you know, reading those articles, it was really, really crazy stuff. Just, no, they shouldn’t have happened to anybody, anybody…
Liz:
Downright illegal. Uh, and, and E-bay employees were jailed for this. It is true. Yeah. We won’t get too far into it, but you can Google it eBay scandal.
Doug:
I say I love eBay. I don’t want to get 40 pizzas.
Liz:
Right. Um, we’re not going to go into it. I won’t even push you that much because I value myself too. Right. Um, but it, I mean, that is eBay’s biggest scandal, uh, you know, dispelling some of those myths. So from the inside, I mean, like you said, did, a lot of people at eBay know about this and everybody just had to bite their tongue for six months.
Doug:
So a long building thing. Um, and just obviously some people took it too far.
Liz:
Doug. Yes.eBay did a round of layoffs soon after that. Fortunately for the seller community, you were part of that round of layoffs. Did that scandal have anything to do with your layoff?
Doug:
Oh, no, no, not at all. Um, you know, it was around the world, you know, at eBay headquarters, more than a hundred people were laid off and this is all again, well-documented, a few people from my team. I was not involved in the scandal. I knew nothing about it, but my layoff and those layoffs had nothing to do with the scandal. It was just kind of a consolidation. And I think frankly, part of it for me was, is, you know, I traveled a lot. I traveled a week or two a month and I technically I was remote. So that was probably part of it. And just, you know, I wasn’t onsite all the time, so I’m sure that factored into it a bit and you know, it was a bummer. I loved working for eBay. I loved my time. I got to do a lot of cool stuff. A lot of cool travel, meet a lot of cool people, but, closed doors, open new ones.
Liz:
Yeah. Yeah. And at the time I actually knew two remote workers that are actually that actually live here in Colorado that worked for eBay, that I met through meetup and they were part of that cut too. So a lot of those remote people were laid off. It wasn’t just when you left. No, it was not just you as a remote worker. So when you left, you know, I’m on Instagram, you helped me get my meetups started up. You helped with a lot of items, specific stuff. You did a lot of seller outreach. There was a campaign hashtag eBay bringing you back, Doug. Yeah. That an eBay seller started because you, and especially in the Bay area, because you were at the meetups, we talked to Maria, you know, um, sellers you’re known in the eBay community, you were immersed into that community that ruffled some feathers at eBay I hear.
Doug:
So here’s the deal with that. So obviously, you know, a lot of credit goes to my team for, you know, a lot of the seller outreach and, you know, into the marketing team as well. And part of it is eBay just kind of reopening and refocusing. And it was just that I would be at a lot of, I would be at a lot of the events with Brian, with Alan. I kind of tied it into social a bit. So I did a lot of stuff on, especially Instagram and just would cover eBay events and kind of became pretty known in the community. And then so after I was let go, it was very nice tons and tons of sellers reached out to me. And I posted on LinkedIn that I had left eBay and the post on LinkedIn got a lot of comments and a lot of shares. And I got a lot of job leads from that. Walmart reached out right away. Amazon reached out, obviously I didn’t wind up going to either of them, but, I got a lot of job leads from that. So that was nice. And just tons of people reached out everywhere because people always had my cell phone number. They can reach out to me on Instagram. They could email me. A seller reached out and he said, Hey, you know, do you think that they, you know, we miss you, do you think that you’re a good part of the community? Do you think they’d bring you back? And I said, I have no idea. And then he said, well, what do you think if I started a hashtag bring #ebaybringbackdoug campaign. And I was like, it’s up to you. I mean, if you want to start it, that’s fine.
Doug:
And so he started it up and some others picked it up. I wouldn’t say it went viral. It’d be like semi viral, maybe like a rash you have for a couple of days that goes away with some cortisone, maybe a week, maybe a week. So when you think of me think of a rash. A mistake I probably made is I shared it myself and it maybe got, you know, the rash maybe lasted another week because I shared it. And then apparently I was told that it ruffled some feathers at eBay and didn’t make some people happy there. So I don’t know who I didn’t make happy there, but I, you know, I was never, I kind of always did my own thing. So I would imagine I’d ruffled feathers while I was there as well, or some feathers and maybe those feathers that were ruffled aren’t there anymore, or maybe they still are, but I don’t know what feathers I ruffled and hopefully they’re back in line. However feathers go. I think I’m in a great spot now. I mean, I love being able to do this podcast and I love working with you. I love working with List Perfectly, and I just love, you know, the whole, it’s the bigger community now, the bigger seller community. So now I’m connecting with tons of Poshmark sellers, tons of sellers on all the other platforms. It’s not just eBay focused. And the good thing is, is like, I don’t really have the limits of what I can and can’t say so it’s like, you know, every, every company, every big company has got some stuff that, you know, you can’t say this or corporate or legalize or things like that, and no bad blood with eBay, but I think I’m in a better spot now. And you know, it’s amazing to do this podcast. And I love that. I’m able to be back in the seller community sellers have reached out and said, welcome back. It’s great to have you back. And it’s great to be able to, again, just appeal and work with the bigger seller community. And it helps me too, because I just launched my closet on Poshmark. I have no idea what the Hell I’m doing on that crazy social platform. That’s Poshmark. You know, I’m growing on Mercari, you know, Facebook Marketplace, I’m using List Perfectly. So I’ve learned a ton since I’ve come back.
Liz:
And this other community is glad to have you, because you do bring that wealth of knowledge. You’ve got that insider stuff, you were able to dispel some of these myths conspiracies scandals. So we kind of get that inside info, but I think what’s really cool is that we get your knowledge of community and you get to share that with us. And like you said, we can talk about all of the platforms, which is what I love. Right. I think we’ve covered a lot of eBay, but if anybody else has any questions that they want answered from Doug, that I can push him on, send us an email at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com. So eBay seems to have the most theories, myths, whatnot, but there are others out there. Doug tell us.
Doug:
So I Googled and like, there are like some of the theories across the board that could apply. Like we talked about and you know, eBay does have the most, but, but then there’s the, you know, there is the big boy in the room. Amazon, Amazon’s a tough one because Amazon’s a big, the big gorilla. And Amazon is this big corporation. And I interviewed for a role at Amazon and it was super bizarre. It was like a half day thing. And they decided that I wasn’t a good fit for Amazon, which I’m not surprised, but Amazon is this big, crazy monster. And Amazon dictates e-commerce. Now Amazon prime changed the way things are bought and sold online. And that’s just a fact. I mean, they had an issue where they were trying to poach eBay based sellers by getting into eBay messages. They compete with their own sellers. Everybody knows that they compete, they undercut prices. You know, they control their own market on there. Amazon has these warehouses, they have their, I don’t remember whether or not they want to go to space. Maybe they have satellites, that wouldn’t surprise me. And I think that they do have drones, but they have these warehouses across the country. And I talked to a guy that worked in one and he had said is like, yeah, you couldn’t go to the bathroom anytime you want it. I mean, he was like a line worker where you box and stuff up. And it’s like, you had to have special permission to go to the bathroom or something. Or if you need like a giant hall pass or a giant, you know, key with a hub cap on it. But there’s a lot in the news right now where a lot of the warehouses are trying to unionize and it’s, and Amazon’s making it difficult. There is a warehouse in, Alabama that is having some union challenges with Amazon. And someone was sure that they saw Jeff Bezos sneaking around in the warehouse. If Bezos is sneaking around, maybe it’s an episode of undercover boss, he’s got a disguise on and he’s so tell me, what’s it like boxing boxes all day.
Liz:
So, you know, maybe there’s a grain of truth here and there, but a lot of these are false are held over from days of the past or simply just rumors that were started online. But you’ve been able to dispel for us, you know, there’s no satellites hovering over your house to make sure that you’re touching eBay all day to keep your store going. You know, none of that…
Doug:
But from what I always saw is eBay, wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for sellers and buyers, but particularly sellers, eBay love sellers. eBay wants to work with sellers. eBay thinks they’re doing what’s best. And they, you know, they try to listen to seller feedback, but it’s a challenge because it’s a big company.
Liz:
Yeah. I actually, I still am in contact with a handful of employees that I’ve met over the last couple of years of Open. And, you know, I will never abuse the privilege of knowing someone that works at eBay, but it’s nice to know that that if they need something that they can reach out to me in confidence. Yeah. And that I can give them honest feedback.
Doug:
Yeah. And I think from what I’ve seen, and from what I know, it’s a challenge for all the other marketplaces because they don’t do the seller outreach and interaction that eBay does not even Amazon, they do a portion of it.
Liz:
I think Poshmark does a decent job at reaching out with their bigger sellers. Yeah. And I’m sure some of their smaller sellers and they rely heavily on their sellers for those Posh N Sips.
Doug:
Yeah. And all the platforms need to do more. Amazon does some outreach, but the last thing I saw, they started up some seller events a couple of years ago, but they charged you a lot of money and it’s like eBay charges for eBay Open too but cause there’s some costs associated, but I just think all the platforms, it behooves the people that work there to reach out to sellers. And obviously we all know that I’m Liz’s favorite eBay employee of all time. I do think she thinks I was much cooler when I worked at eBay. But you know, I’m a shadow now in Liz’s mind of my former self.
Liz:
Well, I’m just glad to see that you’re online selling and you can understand the language now. So, you know, when there was a problem, we’d be like, “hey Doug, this is happening.” And you’re like, slow down. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say and ask somebody. It’s been great. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I think that sellers like hearing this stuff, sellers hearing the inside scoop. I know that I do. I mean, so now we know eBay employees are only at the bar for three hours a day versus all day.
Doug:
It’s not like there’s a line out the door every day from three to six.
Liz:
So yes, Doug, thanks again for clearing up the conspiracies and just giving us solid truths.
Doug:
Happy to help. It was a fun chat. And like you said, it’s something that always comes up and people love to talk about it. I’ve talked about it before on other podcasts, but, it’s something that’ll always come up and I was interested too, is like, oh, is there something to this rolling blackout theory because it’s so prevalent and people still believe it. And it’s been, that’s one that’s been around forever. So I think they’ll always be around forever. And you know, there’s reasons these things come up. There’s a lot more that factors into it, I think, than people think about. Thanks Liz.
Liz:
Thanks Doug.
Doug:
Thanks Liz that was a lot for fun. I’m glad I could call in. I’ll send you a pizza.
Seller Questions
Doug:
All right, Liz, we’ve got a couple seller questions this week. Here’s one from the Facebook group. When marking listings as sold. Why does List Perfectly delete my listings from Poshmark? I want to keep my items as not available to help drive traffic to my store. What do you think Liz?
Liz:
Yeah, some people do not like the fact that List Perfectly deletes their items from Poshmark when it’s sold. List Perfectly addressed this a little bit ago, and they’ve made this setting customizable. You can still have your items in your Poshmark store as not available. Even when you mark it sold you click on your extension on the bottom right hand side, it says settings, and you can totally customize your extension. So for this feature, the third one down, you’re going to click set, not for sale on Poshmark when marking sold super easy.
Doug:
All right, let’s stick…here’s another Poshmark question from another Liz. Liz asks, would someone please restate where one assigns platform, specific language that one wants to come up in each platform listing? How do we do that, Liz?
Liz:
So what Liz was referring to in that post was your global footers. And I think we talked about this, a couple of podcasts back, but global footers allows pro plan users to put specific wordings on the last line of each listing per platform. So that was a mouthful. Okay. So to see what I’m talking about, you will go to List Perfectly click account my account settings, and then scroll to the bottom. And what this allows you to do is put a line for each platform. So at the bottom of eBay, you may want to put, “comes from a smoke-free home.” Okay but on Facebook marketplace, you may want to say “I ship next day” and that footer sticks with all of your listings that you push out from your List Perfectly catalog.
Doug:
All right, Liz, I’m going to ask you an eBay question now. Okay. So I saw in one of the Facebook groups that, and some others, there’s a lot of chatter right now about downgrading eBay stores, since that recent free insertion fee allotment took place. So here’s a good question about that. Has anyone merged two eBay stores during this allowed upgrade downgrade time? If so, have you had any problems in doing so? I have two premium stores and I am thinking of ending one and adding all the listings to the other store. What do you think Liz?
Liz:
So I think this person needs List Perfectly in their life. eBay has given sellers in managed payments that have a store free listing allotments. So I am on the premium store on March, you know, back in March, I had a thousand listings, a lot of, for free insertions. Okay. So when sellers have to eBay stores, they may want to merge them. Since now the allotment of free listings has increased, and this is going to save this person money on store subscriptions. So what this person would want to do, you need to remember lists perfectly is not tied to your account or to your platform account. So it’s not tied to eBay. So if I were this person, I would get the List Perfectly pro plan import all of your listings from one from you say, store B, there you go. Log out of store B, log into store a and you go back to List Perfectly and push all of those items back to the store that you’ve just upgraded to merge those two stores. This is one of many great reasons that List Perfectly is more than just a cross posting tool and more of an inventory management tool. I love, I do have two eBay stores and I love that it works with both of them. I am not tied to having just one store with my subscription. I can have as many eBay stores.
Doug:
The time saved will cover your list, perfectly cost alone, but that’s, uh, that is a great feature and a great case for using List Perfectly.
Liz:
Otherwise this person’s going to be copying pasting into new listings and if they were to pay somebody to do that, it’s going to cost a lot of money. So use List Perfectly get all of your information, cross it over, save yourself a lot of time and a lot of headache trying to figure that out.
Doug:
All right, thanks for those answers, Liz, and sellers, please keep sending in questions or posting them in the Facebook group. And we take a look each week and we grab a few and you know, you can email us, you can leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or of course, email us at podcast@thesellercommunitypodcast.com, post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group, use the #sellercommunitypodcast and mention Liz or Doug. And you know, if you’re not in there, don’t think you have to be a List Perfectly user to be in there. There’s a lot of talk about all the platforms. There are a lot of questions asked about all the platforms is a lot of people, a lot of sellers get support in the list, perfectly Facebook group that they don’t get in some of the other groups that are specific to platforms or support, they don’t get on the platform.
Liz:
Yea h. I love, uh, I knew that there was just a question about Shopify. I’m not a Shopify user, but we have people in the group that you Shopify. They can answer questions. I love that. it’s not, you know, just Poshmark or just Posh mark and Mercari or just eBay. It’s all I’ve learned so much from this group. Um,
Doug:
It’s a great seller resource across the board.
Seller Shoutout
Doug:
Our Seller Shoutout is interesting this week. It ties in well, because it is about some kind of search engine for sellers that can help you do research, right?
Liz:
Yeah. Doug, one of the users in the List Perfectly group shared this search engine app called G em. So shout out to Melinda, thank you so much for sharing this. So it is G,E,M, gem.app, and you can search all online. So this is specific for vintage clothing, but this is what’s super cool. So I can go to search online vintage clothing. So just for you, Doug, yes, I’m going to search just Morrissey. I’m going to type it in and it’s going to bring up vintage Morrissey items and it is just thumbnails with a price in the top right hand corner. And it searches all of the platforms. It’s searching eBay. It’s searching Mercari, it’s searching Grailed. So if I click on this picture, so for example, I know people can’t see it, but it’s just thumbnails on the site. With a price. I find the least expensive one. I can click it. And all it does is it brings up the pictures. It tells me the price and it tells me the website with a hyperlink. So the picture that I happened to click on it takes me right to Grailed. I can exit out of that and click on the next one. And it’s going to bring me to eBay. What I found this about with this too. So it’s great if you’re looking for vintage items, but what’s also really cool is if you’re sourcing vintage items, not everybody optimizes their listings, not everybody researches. Some people just want to go on and sell their stuff. So they might say, I’ve got all of these t-shirts sitting in my grandpa’s drawer. You know, I’m just going to put them all up for $20 a piece. Guess what gem.app is going to pick them up and you can source from that site too.
Doug:
Nice. So a litle Pinteresty…
Liz:
It is so, and this is how it reads it’s Gem finds products from marketplaces, such as eBay Etsy, Farfetch, Fashion File, Garmentology, Grailed. Heroine, Live Auctioneers, Ruby Lane, The Real Real, Vest Air Collective, and hundreds of independent online stores. So there is your tip of the day from List Perfectly user and List Perfectly group member Melinda, thank you so much for sharing that.
Doug:
And this, it reinforces, I should’ve never gotten rid of all of my old eighties t-shirts.
Liz:
But you probably got rid of them in the nineties and they weren’t vintage.
Doug:
Yeah. At the time. Yeah, actually, maybe before, even who knows…
List Perfectly Tip
Doug:
All right. This week’s List Perfectly tip is from our own Theresa Cox who posts a weekly List Perfectly tip in the List Perfectly Facebook group. The tip this week is about the new extension menu. That’s particularly exciting. I like it. I’ve used it. I used it right away. But tell us, tell us about it, Liz.
Liz:
Yeah. So during the recent update, List Perfectly updated their extension. So now you can click on the extension in the upper right-hand corner and it brings up a, I don’t know, I don’t know what List Perfectly calls it. I call it their mini menu. So before you would just click it and you could customize your extension, you can still do that by clicking settings. But now when I click on the extension, I can go directly to add a product straight from the extension. I don’t have to go to a bookmark page. I don’t have to log into the website. Um, I just click the extension and go to add product and I can immediately start my listings. I can also go to my products to go to my catalog. Um, my account, there’s a contact us button. So if I need help right away, I don’t have to dig for the website. I just click contact us. And there’s also, you can get the news or if you have any alias, perfectly, um, uh, questions and you need to see how to use a function. There’s a guide to List Perfectly is right there. You don’t have to search for any of this. It’s right there on your extension.
Doug:
And the guides. The guide has links for new videos, tips and more. So if you need some help, that’s where you go. I love that. Add a Product button because when I do my drafts, I, I do it via mobile. I take my pictures, create the draft, and then they go to desktop and it’s just so easy. You just click it, pop, blah, blah, do your picture. And you’re good to go. And it’s just, that’s the thing is cutting out a step or two, just save so much more time.
Liz:
So I know it sounds silly, but I absolutely love this because it’s everything right here in your extension.
Doug:
So you can add stuff, you can get to stuff and you can get help much quicker. And it’s just, you know, it’s the evolution of the platform and, you know, listening to that feedback too. So great new addition.
Liz:
Love it. Thank you so much for the tip Theresa. So definitely, um, we do List Perfectly tips every week on the podcast, but make sure that you join the Facebook group where Theresa does give List Perfectly tips.
Doug:
All right. Thanks Liz. That’s a, that’s a good one. I love the extension menu.
Seller News
Doug:
All right, Liz, there is some e-commerce news this week. Obviously there’s always e-commerce news and you know, my favorite kind of e-commerce news is social commerce news. So that’s a good one. I always ask you this at the very social. So are you on Snapchat, Liz? Okay. I am, no one chats with me on there anymore, so I don’t use it much or don’t go there much. I’ve always loved Snapchat for the potential and the interesting stuff and the interesting opportunities. And the main thing about Snapchat is, it’s a site that’s video oriented. You can send text messages on it and the kids love it because it’s like a seamless way to communicate. So I’ve talked to my kids about this. It’s like they don’t care that the stuff expires. What they like is it doesn’t have barriers. If they want to send a video.
Doug:
If they want to send an image, if they want to send texts, if they do it via even WhatsApp, you have to upload something or go two to three different steps and Snapchat, it’s all in there. And then they’ve got the Snapchat stories, which are videos that you can do. They were kind of the precursors to what a lot of the other sites are doing, but they are also leaning into so a lot of brands are on there and they have like little ads. They have little commercials and they have their Snapchat channels. And so brands are starting to get on there. But Snap is Snapchat. The company is called snap, but Snapchat is the app and they are moving into definitely moving into the social commerce and online selling space. The interesting thing that they did is they just bought a company called Fit Analytics and that’s a German company that does apparel sized recommendations. So they have an apparel size recommendation engine that helps online shoppers, virtually find the right clothing size. Their product is called Fit Finder. And right now it works with 18,000 retailers and brands. So I think the opportunity there is, you’ll see a lot of brands on there, like maybe Levi’s and things like that. But I think that’s really going to open a lot of opportunities to sellers as well.
Liz:
So how does, how does this work though? Like if I go onto Snapchat and they’re going to be able to search 18,000 retailers and growing, correct to tell me I can see what size do I wear? And Levi’s 501s. What size do I wear in an Ann Taylor sheath dress?
Doug:
They use an algorithm that combines, metrics like measurements, uh, fabric information fit for each item. And then they somehow are going to tie it into purchases and return. So it’s all takes place on the app, but I would imagine you go into Levi’s you select something and it’s going to like, kind of suggest stuff based on your fit and your measurements, like within the app. And then, I don’t know if you can maybe try it on with like an avatar or something. Cause it really ties into the Bitmoji things. I hope you have a Bitmoji. I do. It’s got amazing hair and big glasses, black t-shirt jeans and a leather jacket. You gotta have a Bitmoji, try your little Levi’s on your Bitmoji. You’re like, Oh, that’s, I’ll help you get set up for that.
Liz:
Yeah, Doug, I went online really quick Fit Analytics. It asks your shape. It asks for body measurements. It’s an intuitive size advisor basically and it helps buyers based on their body shape based on their measurements, based on what you’re looking for to help you find the correct sizes by brand. Really interesting. Go check it out, fitanalytics.com.
Doug:
Yeah. More info there. But it’s just another interesting application of social commerce, which I know you love Liz. All right. That’s all I have this week, but I’m sure I’ll have some more bizarre obscure TikTok selling tips or Snapchat selling tips or who knows next time…
Liz:
Soon. Katy Silverberg. If you’re listening, we’re coming for ya.
Doug:
Yeah, that’s true. I’m super interested to learn about those…like I’ve seen the live Instagram auctions, the eighties tee guy…I can be depressed about all the old t-shirts I had. I can tell those stories. All right. Cool. Thanks Liz.
Liz:
No, you delivered the news. Thanks Doug.
Doug:
You’re welcome Liz. That’s all the e-commerce social commerce news that fits this week.
Outro
Liz:
So thank you for joining us this week on the seller community podcast from List Perfectly.
Doug:
This week we can’t tell you what we talked about. We could, but we’d have to send you a bunch of pizzas at three in the morning…
Liz:
STOOOOP! This week we talked about conspiracy theories. No, one’s getting roaches. No, one’s getting pizza.
Doug:
Well, you could. I mean, I would take a pizza. I don’t know Liz. I hope hopefully I didn’t say too much.
Liz:
Hopefully you’re fine. Hopefully we don’t get in trouble for this.
Doug:
Yeah, you never know. We had Seller Shoutouts. We gave you a List Perfectly Tip. We answered some seller questions. We had the news.
Liz:
You can find us at thesellercommunitypodcast.com/podcast. Leave a message or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us@podcastatlizperfectly.com. You can also post a question in the List Perfectly Facebook group, use the #sellercommunitypodcast and mention myself or Doug. You can listen to us anywhere you listen to podcasts and be sure to subscribe and tell your friends.
Doug:
You can also follow us on Instagram @coloradoreworn. That’s Liz. @snoop.dougie. That’s me. And of course @listperfectly. See you next week!
Liz:
Next week.
Doug:
Oh geez. Wow. I gotta go. That’s gotta be my pizzas. Thanks Liz.
Liz:
Thanks, Doug. All right.
Doug:
I think it’ll be okay. I think it’s just going to turn out. Okay. There might be some stuff I’ll think about and be ohhh I better not leave that in…