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The Hype of Mobile Payments

The Hype of Mobile Payments
14 April 2012
EventHorizon1984

 

There is a growing trend of companies playing fast and loose with the "mobile" descriptor.  When these folks talk "mobile" payments, sales, etal., readers/listeners are guided to the assumption that any statistics given are solely for smart phone transactions.  Which is not true.

"There are a lot of people talking about mobile payments these days."
John Donahoe, 2012

"I do not think it means what you think it means."
Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987)

By example, eBay paid writer Richard Brewer-Hay stated, "eBay Inc. anticipates continued growth in mobile sales and payments in 2012 as shopping on smartphones and tablet devices."  Qualifying "mobile sales and payments" are not only smart phones.

So what is a "mobile" or "mobile payment"?

A standard definition of mobile payment:

"Any payment where a mobile device is used in order to initiate, activate and/or confirm this payment can be considered as a mobile payment.  This definition includes a wide palette of approaches, and points out the fact that mobile payments do not restrict themselves to payments via the mobile phone but virtually any mobile device such as a smartphone, PDA, tablet PC or even merchant-operated mobile terminals."
IEEE Symposium on Trends in Communications (SymptoTIC '04), 24-26 October 2004, Bratislava, Slovikia.

Or if you prefer United States based and short:

"Mobile Payment - Payment initiated from a mobile device."
Mobile Payments in the United States
Mapping Out the Road Ahead
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, BetterBuyDesign, March 25, 2011

Now a few are asking, 'smart phone, mobile, what's the big deal?'

It's a matter of choice to be completely factual, or choosing to be fast and loose with the details.

"we live in a mobile home.  That's a cave that goes places.  Only we never went anyplace." Alex Rogan
"A mobile cave that never went anywhere.  Fascinating."  Grig
The Last Starfighter (1984)

The Merriam-Webster definition of mobile is, "capable of moving or being moved".

By this definition, some companies are loosely telling the truth about "mobile".  While that definition of "mobile" is an excellent means of inflating numbers, it is misleading.

Again by example, selected at random a link to point-of-sale (POS) mobile terminals:

http://www.networksolutions.com/merchant-accounts/retail-pos.jsp

These are POS devices that use cell phones for connectivity.  As written for one device, "mobile payment processing through your 3G/3GS/4G iPhone".

Note they state "mobile payment processing", i.e. mobile payment.

By one standard definition, these are "merchant-operated mobile terminals".

Let's suppose you're small warehouse seller Acme Widgets.   With these mobile devices, in 2011 you processed $1 million in credit card transactions.  Acme Widgets could state factually, mobile payments in 2011 reached $1 million.  Or state they processed $1 million in transactions through smart phones.  Even though they processed zero customer initiated smart phone payments.

Anyone with similar portable, read mobile, POS systems can make the same claims.  It's truthful, but nevertheless inflating the mobile payments numbers.

By the way, next time you're shopping at a brick-and-mortar, check out the wireless POS devices.  Wireless systems are considered Merriam-Webster mobile.  Like your wireless mobile laser printer.

You might ask, 'why bother massaging numbers, mobile payments are huge.'

"eBay's global mobile GMV reached $5 billion in 2011"
Richard Brewer-Hay, 11 January 2012

$6.0 trillion - 2011 total volume of transactions
Visa Inc

While we believe in the future mobile payments will be huge, as a percentage of eCommerce and Commerce today, they are rather small.

The figures for eCommerce as a percentage of total Commerce:

• "E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 accounted for 5.5 percent of total sales."

This percentage tracks rather well with numbers from a handful of brick-and-mortar stores:

• "Online share of sales at big brick-and-mortal retailers
• 8.7% Sears
• 7.2% Macy's
• 2% Target
• 2% Walmart"

In the case of Walmart, "2011 online sales amounted to less than 2 percent of its $264 billion in U.S. revenue".

Let's shrink the pie further.

The figures for United States mobile payment/m-commerce:

• In the US, m-commerce revenues are expected to hit $6 billion by the end of 2011, growing to $31 billion by 2016, according to Forrester Research (June 2011).
• But m-commerce will only be 2 percent of e-commerce in 2011 and 7 percent of e-commerce in 2016.
• The average annual spend on mobile purchases was US$300.

Worldwide the numbers are:

• $86.1 billion in 2011

Yes that would be United States eCommerce is 5.5% of Commerce.  With m-commerce being 2% of that 5.5%.

What should you take away from this article?  The next time you see someone waving a smart phone and saying $Blahblah "mobile", look for the specific dollar amount breakdowns attributed to smart phones and other devices by region.

Bet you won't see any.

/*

"In 2011, PayPal's net total payment volume, or TPV, for transactions using mobile devices reached $4 billion"
eBay INC Form 10-K, 31 January 2012

http://www.frbatlanta.org/documents/rprf/rprf_pubs/110325_wp.pdf
"U.S. financial institutions have not offered mobile financial payments because of a perceived lack of a good business case, although the growth of mobile banking implementations and recent mobile payment trials signal this may be changing."
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 25 March 2011

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eBay INC 2012 4th Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2012 4th Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
18 January 2012
EventHorizon1984

 

eBay INC CEO John J. Donahoe said during the Fourth Quarter Earnings Call, "“We had a strong fourth quarter finish to an excellent year, increasing our confidence in our three-year outlook."  Meanwhile Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel said, "sell."  Fodder for thought if you live and die by eBay INC stock fluctuations.  Whereas small businesses on eBay are more concerned with, 'How did the Marketplaces section of eBay.com do?'.

Well.                                  

Numbers from eBay's 01/17/2012 SEC 8-K filing show a healthy net total Marketplaces quarter to quarter revenue growth of 7%.  Up from the previous quarter growth of "0%".  It is also a slight improvement over the fourth quarter 2010 growth of 6%.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 01/18/2012

Marketplace revenues are principally generated through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  The payees being the business who use eBay.com to sell products.

How many products were there during the fourth quarter?.

According to Medved.net eBay started the fouth quarter with approximately 154 million listings per day. 

Auction chart from Medved.net.

Auction chart from Medved.net.

The count peaked at 177 million.  The fourth quarter ended with approximately 162 million products.

If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 01/18/2012

The number of PayPal payments made increased a robust "19%", compared to the previous quarter's increase of "6%."  It is also a tiny improvement over the fourth quarter 2010 growth of 18%.

PayPal payment volume was up "14%", compared to third quarter's anemic "2%" increase.  However it is well below the fourth quarter growth of 20%.

According to eBay INC, the "Take rate" declined for the first time in 2011.  The fourth quarter "Take rate", that is the percentage of a PayPal transaction that Ebay INC keeps, stands at "3.71%."  Down from the previous quarter amount of "3.78%"

What about eBay INC's Bill Me Later payment method? 

eBay INC reports Bill Me Later losses increased and decreased and.  The Net charge-off rate, losses, increased slightly to "4.4" from the second quarter's "4.3%."  However the 90-day delinquency rate decreased to "2.4%", compared to the previous quarter's "2.6%."

Once again eBay's payment transaction losses remaining more or less stable.  It still remains to be seen why eBay INC continues to increase the amount of funds held from eBay's customers.  Going from 2010 fourth quarter's $2,550,731,000 to this quarter's $3,967,550,000.  Nearly four billion being held, versus the previous quarter's $3,295,115,000.

What about the merchandise selection on eBay.com? 

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 01/18/2012

eBay INC states Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV) represents the "Total value of all successfully closed items between users on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the quarrter, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transaction."

Four quarter being essentially the Christmas shopping season, GMV quarter to quarter growth increased a healthy "12%". A definite improvement from the the rest of the year's growth numbers of "0%", "1%", and "-4%".  But that "12%" is poor in comparison to the fourth quarter 2010 growth of "19%".

Remember last quarter John Donahoe touted a GMV increase of 16%?  Christmas shopping season is the biggest boost to commerce's bottom line.  Fourth quarter should have buried that "16%".  However fourth quarter pulled in a year to year increase of only "10%."  A significant decrease compared to the previous quarter's "16%" and "17%".

The GMV for vehicles was a dismal decrease of "-13%" quarter to quarter.  A significant fall from the "-4%" decrease of the second quarter.  Year to year Vehicle GMV growth was a decrease of "-3%".  eBay INC's vehicle market is dying.  Why eBay INC allows this degradation to continue is unknown.

"E-Commerce up > 23%!!"

John Donahoe became eBay INC CEO in March 2008, and will finish his fourth year of CEO stewardship in March 2012.  What is the stock trader's view?

At the start of John Donahoe's tenure, eBay INC's stock price was 29.84 (31 March 2008).  At the end of the trading day, eBay INC closed at 30.34. 

Trading today was frantic.  Total shares traded stood at 31,514,297, versus the average daily transaction volume of 10,863,900 shares.  Dropping eBay INC's stock price from 30.53 to 30.34.  The after hours price, that is transactions made after the Earnings Call, stands at 31.05.

eBay INC's official investor page, in the matter of eBay INC stock dividends declares:

Which means the average individual investor must 'buy low' and 'sell high' to materially profit from eBay INC stock.  Such an investor who bought on 31 March 2008 and sold today would have made fifty cents per share ($30.34 - $29.84).

Less transaction fees of course.

/*

" eBay Motors Parts and Accessories - This category saw very strong growth in December, coming in at a record-setting 57.6% y/y growth for ChannelAdvisor customers in the category."

Scot Wingo, CEO ChannelAdvisor

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eBay INC 2011 Third Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2011 3rd Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
20 October 2011
EventHorizon1984

 

eBay INC CEO John J. Donahoe lead eBay's Third Quarter Earnings Call with the bold statement, "Q3 was another strong quarter for our company.", while the mood on Wall Street, "EBAY left investors unimpressed," was less energetic.  Which leads to the routine question asked by small businesses on eBay, 'How did the Marketplaces section eBay.com do?'.

Well.                                  

Numbers from eBay's 10/19/2011 SEC 8-K filing show net total Marketplaces quarter to quarter revenue growth essentially dead.  Down from the previous quarter growth of "5%". 

Keep in mind that part of the second quarter growth of 5% can be attributed to eBay's 6 July 2011 additional fee on shipping costs.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

Marketplace revenues are principally generated through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  The payees being the business who use eBay.com to sell products.

What of the number of products that eBay's less than 1% revenue growth came from?.

According to Medved.net eBay started the third quarter with over 138 million listings per day. 

The third quarter ended with approximately 152 million products.

If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

The number of PayPal payments made was a health "6%", compared to the previous quarter's increase of "2%."  The PayPal payment volume however was down to "2%", compared to second quarter's "5%" increase.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

According the eBay.com numbers, the "Take rate" has remained stable for the past year.  The third quarter "Take rate", that is the percentage of a PayPal transaction that Ebay INC keeps, stands at "3.78%."

What about eBay INC's Bill Me Later payment method? 

eBay INC reports Bill Me Later losses decreased and increased.  The Net charge-off rate has improved slightly to "4.3" from the second quarter's "4.4%."  But the 90-day delinquency rate has risen to "2.6%", compared to the previous quarter's "2.2%."

With payment transaction losses remaining more or less stable, it remains to be seen why eBay INC continues to increase the amount of funds held from eBay's customers.  Going from 2010 fourth quarter's $2,550,731,000 to this quarter's $3,295,115,000.  Yes, that's 3.29 Billion dollars.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

What about the continuing buyer and seller claims that there is less merchandise on eBay.com.  How deep is eBay.com's product selection?  Let's look at the value of merchandise sold.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

According to eBay INC in their 8-K statement, Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV) represents the "Total value of all successfully closed items between users on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the quarrter, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transaction."

GMV quarter to quarter growth is essentially dead.  Third quarter shows less than one percent movement, compared to second quarters "1%."   And what of John Donahoe touting a GMV increase of 16%?  It's the year to year increase.  And this year's GMV, $14,666 million, is coasting downward off of eBay's record 2010 year end GMV of $15,039 million.

The GMV for vehicles decreased "-4%" quarter to quarter.  A significant fall from the "9%" increase of the second quarter.  Year to year Vehicle GMV growth is also essentially dead.

"EBay is still best known as a discount flea market retailer."

John Donahoe became eBay INC CEO in March 2008, and concluded his third year of CEO stewardship in March 2011.  Has there been progress for eBay.com under CEO John Donaohe?

It appears from the above metrics that eBay sellers in aggregate have had their say in the matter. 

Here's the non-seller stock market view. 

At the start of John Donahoe's tenure, eBay INC's stock price was 29.84 (31 March 2008).  Between then and now, the stock reached a top price of 35.35.  It is currently trading at 32.14. 

Trading was mildly frantic today with current volume at 25,643,763 versus the average daily transaction volume of 14,794,700 shares.

According to eBay INC's official investor page, in the matter of eBay INC stock dividends:

Which means for the average individual investor to materially benefit from eBay INC stock, they must sell and/or buy the stock.  In other words, 'buy low, sell high', short, long, et al.

Over the three plus years the eBay INC Pop & Mom investor made $5.51 per share, or posted a 19% return on investment.  Assuming they sold their shares when the stock peaked.

Then there's the competition.

Amazon closed at $71.30 on 31 March 2008.  Amazon stock is currently at $233.61.  Meaning the Amazon Mom & Pop investor would make $162.31 selling their stock now.  If we have our sums right, that's a 227% return on investment.

$5.51 versus $162.31.  Hmmm.  The difference between buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks or an iPod from Apple.  As a side note:

• Starbucks
• 31 March 2008  $17.50
• 20 October 2011  $40.99

• Apple
• 31 March 2008  $143.50
• 20 October 2011  $395.31

With the tepid response to eBay INC's stock price over the past three plus years, there is possible good news for CEO John Donahoe, regarding Amazon's Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Call scheduled for 25 October 2011.  It may never happen. 

Harold Camping is proclaiming, again, that the World will end tomorrow.

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Related articles:

Amazon eBay 2011 Earnings Call Pre-Game Tale of the Tape

eBay INC Stock Price During CEO John Donahoe's Tenure

/*

Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

“We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants. The only consultants I’ve ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway’s retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products."

"You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new."

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eBay INC Received $131 Million U.S. Tax Refund

eBay INC Received $131 Million U.S. Tax Refund
31 August 2011
EventHorizon1984

According to Reuters, eBay CEO John Donahoe was one of "Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax."

Specifically:

"eBay whose CEO John Donahoe made $12.4 million, but which reported a $131 million refund on its 2010 current U.S. taxes."

While many John Donahoe fans will "cheer" this article, we note the article and study are flawed.  In the case of eBay INC, what is left out are 2010 taxes paid.

Consider this; most of our U.S. readers received 2010 tax refunds.  But it's a refund of excess taxes paid.

People interested in eBay INCs 2010 finances can reference the following:

• eBay INC 10-K Annual Report, 28 January 2011
• eBay INC 8-K/A Results of Operations and Financial Condition, Financial Statements and Exhibits, 20 January 2011
• eBay INC 8-K Results of Operations and Financial Condition, Financial Statements and Exhibits, 19 January 2011

Not that eBay INC CEO John Donahoe deserves praise.

• eBay stock price (31 March 2008) when John Donahoe became eBay CEO - $29.87
• eBay stock price (31 August 2011) - $30.87

• Amazon stock price (31 March 2008) - $71.30
• Amazon stock price (31 August 2011) - $215.23

Unless you're an Amazon investor.

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"We’re very comfortable being misunderstood. We’ve had lots of practice."
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO

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Amazon eBay 2011 Earnings Call Pre-Game Tale of the Tape

Amazon eBay 2011 Earnings Call Pre-Game Tale of the Tape
12 July 2011
EventHorizon1984

You bought eBay or Amazon stock on the hype that they were excellent long-term growth investments.  But is it all hype?

With Amazon's 2011 Earnings Call scheduled for July 26th, and eBay's on July 20th, it's a good time to look at performance history.

As a consummate investor, you know both stocks do not pay dividends.  eBay INC states bluntly to investors:

No dividends means you live and die by share price.  The average investor must trade ('buy low, sell high') shares to materially benefit from eBay or Amazon stock.

How are both stocks performing?

eBay's current CEO John Donahoe, took control of the company on 31 March 2008.  Now in his fourth year, under his new new three year plan, here's the score:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance, 31 March 2008 - 11 July 2011.

$29.84 31 March 2008 - $32.91 12 July 2011

eBay is currently trading at 32.26.

During the same period, here's the score of competitor Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance, 31 March 2008 - 11 July 2011.

$71.30 31 March 2008 - $212.55 12 July 2011

Amazon is currently trading at 211.23.

In case you're wondering, here's what the two charts look like combined:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance, 31 March 2008 - 11 July 2011.  eBay in red, Amazon in blue.

You may ask what about return on investment, etal?

Here's the tale of the tape using Yahoo! Finance:

So how is Your  investment?

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"The whole put and call biz is about short term gambling on stock prices....the bets being made should rarely, if ever, be used by long term investors to determine the long term value of a stock."
Itspostingtime  

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18 July 2011

Corrected Amazon Earnings Call schedule.

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eBay INC 2011 First Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2011 First Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
27 April 2011
EventHorizon1984

eBay INC "is showing signs of progress", according to the Wall Street Journal.  Which brings up the quarterly question asked by many small businesses on eBay, 'How did the Marketplaces section eBay.com do?'.

Well.                                  

Numbers from eBay's 04/17/2011 SEC 8-K filing, show net total Marketplaces revenue growth up an anemic "2%" from the previous quarter.  Down from the previous quarter growth of "6%". 

Marketplaces revenue is up "10%", compared to the poorly performing first quarter of 2010.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 4/27/2011

Marketplace revenues are principally generated through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  That is the business who use eBay.com to sell products.

Here is another eBay Marketplaces revenue chart.

eBay shows an anemic "2%" current quarter versus prior quarter increase. 

There is a robust "12%" current quarter to prior year quarter increase.  Compared to the "13%" increase of a year ago, there appears to be some slow down in year to year revenue.

And what of the number of products that eBay's "2%" came from?.

According to Medved.net eBay started the first quarter with close to 123 million listings per day. 

The first quarter numbers peaked at close to 134 million listings.  The number of products are down from the fourth quarter peak of 142 million.

If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 4.27/2011

The number of PayPal payments made and the amount of those PayPal payments, were down compared to fourth quarter's "18%" and "20%."  A tepid increase of "1%" and "2%" respectively.

According the eBay.com numbers, "Transaction revenue rate" has remained stable for the past year.  The current quarter Marketplace loss rate, part of which includes fraud, stands at "3.45%".  Compared to VISA, who reported a fraud rate of "$5 per $10,000" in 2005.  Which is 0.05%.

What about eBay's growing Bill Me Later payment method? 

eBay reports Bill Me Later losses are decreasing.  The Net charge-off rate has slid to "4.86%", and the 90-day delinquency rate has dropped to "2.16%". 

The declining fraud rates are interesting given eBay has increased the amount of funds held from eBay's customers.  Going from fourth quarter's $2,550,731,000 to $2,746,079,000.

What about seller and buyer claims that there is less merchandise on eBay.com.  Have products moved off eBay.com?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 4/27/2011

There was a quarter to quarter Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV) decrease of "(4%), excluding vehicles.  But a year to year increase of "8%."

GMV represents "Total value of all successfully closed items between users on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the quarter, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transaction."

The GMV for vehicles increased "7%" quarter to quarter.  A significant improvement from the "(11%)" decline of the previous quarter. 

John Donahoe became eBay CEO in March 2008, and concluded his third year of CEO stewardship in March 2011.  Has there been progress for eBay.com under CEO John Donaohe?

While eBay sellers will continue to make that call, here's the non-seller stock market view. 

At the start of John Donahoe's tenure, eBay INC's stock price was 29.84 (31 March 2008).  Between then and now, the stock reached a top price of 35.35.  It is currently trading at 34.03.

According to eBay INC's official investor page, in the matter of eBay INC stock dividends:

Which means for the average investor to materially benefit from eBay INC stock, they must sell and/or buy the stock.  In other words, 'buy low, sell high', short, stock options, et al.

In three years the eBay Pop & Mom investor made $5.51 per share or 19% return on investment.  Had they sold when the stock peaked.

Then there's the competition.

Amazon closed at 71.30 on 31 March 2008, and in the same three year period peaked at 197.80.  Amazon closed today at 197.00.  Meaning the Amazon Mom & Pop investor made $126.50 per share or 177% return on investment.

Hmmm.  $5.51 versus $126.50.  Perhaps we're not understanding the Wall Street insider view.

/*

"Amazon's a very competitive company, and I think they are a very good competitor, and we take them very, very seriously. I think the proof will be in the pudding. You know, we are still looking for signs of momentum, and so far, they have not gotten traction."
Meg Whitman, eBay CEO, 31 May 1999

"Amazon can be successful, and eBay can be successful too."
John Donahoe, eBay CEO, June 2010

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eBay 2011 Spring Seller Update and Free Shipping

eBay 2011 Spring Seller Update and Free Shipping
15 March 2011 
Ides of March Edition
EventHorizon1984

eBay announced it's 2011 Spring Seller Update today.  The good, bad, and the ugly spring news has made it's way to eBay seller sites AuctionBytes and TameBay.  With the spin from eBay being presented in Bloomberg's EBay Cuts Fees to Attract Merchants, Boost Turnaround Effort article.

End Google Search Link Elevation.

Over the next few weeks there will be many articles describing in detail or fantasy what these updates will mean to sellers. Our recommendation to anyone who sells on eBay:  First go over the updates, make your own cost determinations, and ask questions that require hard number answers.

What we plan to do here is go over the mythology of free shipping, as it relates to the spring updates.

The bottom line cost of free shipping.

From a MBA bean counter point of view everything has a cost. Work at an office and freely use the Post-it® Notes, telephone, chair and desk, etc., the company paid something for them. Work for yourself and those were your 'out of pocket' expenses.

When a U.S. seller ships a product there are costs.  Those pesky Part II Expenses on Schedule C.

Let's suppose one U.S. seller sells reasonably sized 13 ounce widgets, and has only two shipping options.

$3.26  USPS 1st Class Mail
$5.95  USPS Priority Mail

From a very very simplistic cost point of view, each shipped product will have a line item expense of either $3.26 or $5.95.  Typically a customer sees advertised a $1 Widget, but ends up paying $4.26 ($1 Widget + $3.26 1st Class) or $6.95 ($1 Widget + $5.95 Priority).

From a very very simplistic sales point of view, a free shipping product will have the shipping cost bundled into the price.  Where a $1 Widget is sold to the customer at $4.26 or $6.95.

The less very simplistic method involves re-apportioning total shipping expenses amongst the total sold widgets.  That is charge less for some product, and more for others.  Or other legal creative bookkeeping.

A customer may receive free shipping, but regardless there is a line item expense to the business somewhere.

Free shipping as it relates to the eBay 2011 Spring Seller Update.

Let's take a look at eBay auctions.

Here is the current eBay auction fee structure:

Let's say the product sells for a tier ($10.00 - $24.99) amount.  Here are the fees:

This is the eBay auction fee structure for the first 50 listings beginning 19 April 2011:

Using the 13 ounce widget with either $3.26 or $5.95 shipping, here are the numbers.

Let's throw in free shipping, and compare before and after fees.

The numbers indicate eBay sellers who ship for free (but see "The bottom line cost of free shipping") will have a fee reduction (numbers in red).  While eBay sellers who charge shipping will have mixed results.

As you might suspect from the chart, the higher the shipping charge, the less fee reduction to the seller.  But at the higher $200+ range, sellers with shipping charges below $22.23 will not incur a fee increase.

We find it extremely curious that the numbers, at least for those running 50 auctions or less, points to an ACTUAL fee decrease.  Consider what happens to eBay's bottom line, when millions of sellers running billions of auctions with "reasonable" shipping charges pay less fees to eBay.

Well, like free shipping, eBay will make up the revenue somewhere.

As it turns out, assuming our sums are correct, here are the fees after 50 auctions:

The astute reader will notice that after the first 50 auctions there is a fee increase for sellers who charge shipping.

The 50 auctions a month or less sellers will profit greatly from the new fee structure.  Depending on the (selling price) tier, sellers running 51-300 auctions a month may also profit from the fee change.

If you run more auctions, expect to see a fee increase.

Of course an eBay seller could always run free shipping auctions.  There's no charge to a seller's bottom line, right?

/*

"it really seems like they are trying to force sellers into an all free shipping eBay. Forget for a moment that this would raise their bottom line since they will earn more end of auction fees"
The Whine Seller, 22 May 2008 

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A Tale of Four eBay Sellers

A Tale of Four eBay Sellers
14 February 2011 
Valentine's Day Edition
EventHorizon1984

While scanning the various blog sites, one of us came across this interesting note.

Where CohibaStore.com, a PowerSellersUnite regular member, states:

• "Due to some moron at PayPal, or better, the morons at PayPal, I am unable to withdraw funds or use the PP debit card for a few weeks."
• "I hung up the phone and promptly shut down my ebay stores, closed all the listings and took the rest of the day off."

A week later one of his eBay Stores remains empty.

You might be asking, "why the interest in this seller?".  He happens to be one of the sellers in our eNA (eBay Noise Aggregate) study.  Where we quantified the eBay 'store to core' impact on sellers.

Since we mentioned "Four eBay Sellers", "submitted for your approval" are four sellers of the hundred and nineteen sellers studied.

1. clact (5209), member since Feb-25-02
2. cleggandco (24352), member since Aug-20-02
3. oldspartantrader (7696), member since Feb-28-05
4. z50com (10482), member since Jun-25-00

These sellers are well known successful eBay PowerSellers with hundreds of listings.  And with hundreds/thousands of posts on various venues. 

Or at least that's the way it was in 2008/2009.

1.  "Are you trying to cheer me up?" 
Captain John Sheridan, Babylon 5

Clact, better known as Marty on the eBay Stores Discussion Board, and eBay Voices participant, currently has these two listings on eBay.

A set of two listings that has been essentially unchanged since 2010.  Although it's been presumed that he is off doing other eBay related things.

2.  "I'll be back." 
Terminator, The Terminator (1968)

Cleggandco, also known at CohibaStore on the PowerSellersUnite forums, had this to say in 2007.

• "My sales are currently 90% ebay, 5% my web store and 5% blujay."
• "Most importantly you need to build a reputation. You cannot do this overnight. You need that reputation to help spread your reputation via word of mouth. It's still the best form of advertising."

Today he has an Amazon outlet, higher total sales compared to 2010, and for the moment no products on eBay.  BUT that's temporary.  

• "Of the 300+ ebay listings we used to run, we have perhaps 50 that will get re-listed when they fix it. I will continue to suck money out of their system and ride out the decline until it's completely unproductive - as everyone should be doing."
• "Customer service continues to be dreadful. Even as Gold Top Rated Power seller, getting an answer, or even making contact requires herculean effort. I'll bet cash money it will be this continued failing that finally drives me off from selling on ebay, rather than fees, idiot buyers or moronic rules."

Will this $10K a month (on eBay) seller remain on eBay?  Shrug.

3. "That wizard is just a crazy old man." 
Uncle Owen, Star Wars (1977)

Oldspartantrader or Carl, has been a fixture on the eBay Stores Discussion Board for years.  

Currently he is NARU, having left eBay on his terms in 2010, opting for retirement.

4.  "You can count on my steel." 
Unknown warrior, Army of Darkness (1992).

z50com also known as John, is a noted aerospace tool seller.  He's a regular poster on the Yahoo! EBAY Message Board and AuctionBytes.  In 2007 he had this to say:

• "Ebay works great for me. Most weeks I sell 90-100% of my listings. Prices for my products have never been higher."
• "I hate hearing all the whining from unsuccessful sellers, adapt or go out of business. The strongest will survive, I have."

Depending on the source, his "90-100%" sell through was coupled with anywhere from $2K to $10K a week in gross sales.  Making him at the time the largest, or one of the largest, in this small group of four sellers.

His current selling status has changed dramatically from those prior years.

z50com still sells on eBay in a smaller capacity, but appears to supplement his income through a part or full time job.

"What is the moral?  Must be a moral." 
Comedy Tonight, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966)

If there is any moral to this "Tale of Four eBay Sellers," it might be the comment about eBay's treatment of Calvin Klein, where we rhetorically asked:

• "if eBay is willing to show such tepid support for a $6 billion dollars in sales a year corporation, how do you think eBay treats the much smaller sellers?"

Now we know.

/*

"He's dead. I'm crippled. You're lost."
Flight Officer David Campbell, The Longest Day (1962)

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eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA)

• The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) - Measuring The Impact Of Store To Core
• The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) Redux

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eBay Discussion Topic - "When did "gooder" become a word?"

eBay Discussion Topic - "When did "gooder" become a word?"
2 February 2011
EventHorizon1984

Trawling through eBay, one can find serious topics of discussion on eBay's Liveworld controlled forums.

But for the purposes of this article, sometimes not.

A major eBay shirt seller, honeville1, asked "When did "gooder" become a word?".

This brought out a few collective chuckles, and remembering the quote by Edmund Burke (1729-1797) "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." (1)

1. Winston Churchill (1874-1965), "Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it." (2)
2. George Santayana (1863-1952), "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Or as we included in a previous article on forgetting the past: 

Pablo Picasso, "If there is something to steal, I steal it."

But to partially Honeville's question.

The year was 1984, and a scene from a television mini-series left a memorable impression on millions of viewers.  The conversation from V: The Final Battle (1984) basically started with:

"How you doin' gooder?"  Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside)
"That's short for do-gooder.  It's a little nickname he's got for me." Mike Donavon (Marc Singer)

The word "gooder" has been around the science fiction community for almost 27 years.

Speaking of 1984, it was a fairly good year for science fiction, fantasy, and horror feature films.

(Not an all inclusive list.)

• 2010
• A Nightmare On Elm Street
• Children of the Corn
• Cloak & Dagger
• Conan The Destroyer
• Dreamscape
• Dune
• Electric Dreams
• Firestarter
• Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
• Ghostbusters
• Gremlins
• Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes
• Iceman
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
• Night of the Comet
• Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Oh, God! You Devil
• Repo Man  - watch the ending, ED.
• Romancing the Stone
• Runaway
• Sheena: Queen of the Jungle
• Splash
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
• Starman
• Supergirl
• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension
• The Brother from Another Planet
• The Ice Pirates
• The Last Starfighter
• The Muppets Take Manhattan
• The Neverending Story
• The Philadelphia Experiment
• The Terminator
• The Toxic Avenger

And for starting a company.

/*

"Return the money!?  Are you delirious?"
Centauri (Robert Preston), The Last Starfighter (1984)

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eBay INC 2010 Fourth Quarter Earnings Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2010 Fourth Quarter Earnings Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
20 January 2011
EventHorizon1984

eBay INC posted  mixed results for the fourth quarter of 2010 on the 19th.  And once more we look at this quarter attempting to answer the question that many small businesses on eBay ponder, 'How did the Marketplaces section eBay.com do?'.

Well.                                  

Numbers from eBay's 10/20/2010 SEC 8-K filing, show net total Marketplaces revenue growth up "8%" from the previous quarter.  An improvement from two consecutive quarters of "1%" growth. 

But Marketplaces revenue is only up "4%" from the fourth quarter of 2009.  Versus "15%" from fourth quarter 2008 to fourth quarter 2009.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 1/19/2011

Marketplace revenues are principally generated through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  Principally business who use eBay.com to sell products.  The more a seller lists, and/or the more a seller sells, the more Marketplaces revenue eBay.com generates.

Now look at just the Marketplaces revenue.  That is revenue derived from fees on sales.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 1/19/2011

During the busiest shopping quarter of the year, eBay shows a "6%" current quarter versus prior quarter increase.  Up from the "0%" change of the third quarter.

There is a "3%" current quarter to prior year quarter increase.  Compared to the "17%" of a year ago, that "3%" could use some improvement.

You can see eBay's "6%" in action by viewing the number of products that were available during the fourth quarter shopping season.

According to Medved.net eBay started the fourth quarter with a little over 140 million listings per day.  Like the third quarter, the fourth quarter number of listings peaked at 142 million.

By the end of December the counts dived to 122 million.

In other words, millions of products were placed on eBay.com and millions were sold, resulting in eBay's revenue increase.

If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 1/19/2011

The number of PayPal payments made and the amount of those PayPal payments, increased "18%" and "20%" respectively.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 1/19/2011

According the eBay.com numbers, the "Transaction revenue rate" has remained stable for the past year.  The current quarter Marketplace loss rate, part of which includes fraud, stands at 3.45%.  Compared to VISA, who reported a fraud rate of "$5 per $10,000" in 2005.  Which is 0.05%.

Should sellers be concerned about buyers using eBay's Bill Me Later payment method? 

According to eBay the Bill Me Later losses are decreasing.  The Net charge-off rate has gone from 11.14% to 6.07%, and the 90-day delinquency rate has dropped to 2.37% from 4.20%. 

Businesses in general pass costs on to their customers, and in the case of eBay to their sellers.  Sellers will have to make their own determination on whether the declining loss rates indicates eBay is containing costs, or passing them on to the businesses that use eBay.

What about seller and buyer claims that there is less merchandise on eBay.com.  That is, have products moved off eBay.com?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 1/19/2011

Businesses traditionally load inventory onto eBay during the fourth quarter shopping season.  There was a quarter to quarter Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV) increase of 19%, and a current quarter versus prior year quarter increase of 6%.  Excluding vehicles.

GMV represents "Total value of all successfully closed items between users on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the quarter, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transation."

Keep in the GMV represents the value of the items sold.  As stated earlier the actual number of items available on a daily basis during the fourth quarter ranged from 142 million to 122 million.  Comparable to counts during the third quarter.

The GMV for vehicles declined "-11%" quarter to quarter, and "-8%" quarter to prior year quarter.  The second straight quarter of declines, with declines in three of the four 2010 quarters.

Auction seller inventory now represents 38% of eBay.com's GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume).  A decrease from the 40% of the previous quarter.

Has there been progress for eBay under CEO John Donaohe?

John Donahoe became eBay CEO in March 2008.  He wraps up the third year of CEO stewardship and his second year of his newer "Three-Year Revival Plan" in March 2011.

The New York Times said about eBay's fourth quarter:

• "Revenue in the period rose 5 percent"
• "Revenue from eBay’s marketplace business, which is its largest unit and includes its namesake Web site, rose 4 percent"

Excluding vehicle related sales, the GMV (sales) current quarter versus prior year quarter increased 6%.

According to Martin Adamo, a well known eBay entrepreneur (clact) and eBay Voices member, the economy has something to do with eBay's numbers.

Then again the Wall Street Journal said of year to year online sales:

• "Online holiday sales in the 56 days through Dec. 26 rose 13%"

Perhaps businesses on eBay should ask why in aggregate they had to settle for John Donahoe's 6% increase in sales, when the rest of the internet was doing 13%.

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"The minute our community stops talking is the minute I worry.  Because their opinions, constructive criticism or praise, stem from passion."
John Donahoe, eBay CEO, 18 April 2008

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eBay INC 2010 Third Quarter Earnings Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2010 Third Quarter Earnings Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
21 October 2010
EventHorizon1984

eBay INC posted strong number for the third quarter of 2010.  But like last time, we look again this quarter into what many small businesses on eBay ponder, 'How did the Marketplaces section eBay.com do?'.

Well.

Numbers from eBay's 10/20/2010 SEC 8-K filing, show net total Marketplaces revenue growth is up an anemic "1%" from the previous quarter.  Two consecutive quarters of "1%" growth.

Revenue generated principally through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  The more a seller lists, the more a seller sells, the more Marketplaces revenue eBay.com generates.  Of course when sellers slow down, so does eBay.com.

According to Medved.net eBay started the third quarter with about 130,400,000 listings per day. 

The number of listings peaked at 142 million.  Up 8.9% from the beginning of the quarter.

Then settled back to 140,300,000 listings.  Up 7.6% from the beginning of the quarter.

There are strong increases in the number of products available for sale, yet total Marketplaces (principally eBay.com) revenue increased only "1%".

Now take a look at just the Marketplaces revenue.  That is revenue derived from fees on seller sales.

That's "0%" current quarter versus prior quarter.  Down from the "1%" increase of the second quarter.  Abet up from the -4% decrease of the first quarter.

That "0%" means in aggregate, sellers are experiencing virtually no increase (or decrease) in sales on eBay.com.

Perhaps this point is not missed by The Wall Street Journal.

• "on the back of a 0.5% increase in revenue"
• "Some industry insiders were quick to note eBay's marketplace performance continues to lag the overall U.S. e-commerce market, where retail sales are expected to rise almost 13% to $152 billion this year, according to research group eMarketer."                                 

And a point definitely not missed by eBay INC, as shortly before the the end of the third quarter President of eBay Marketplaces Lorrie Norrington was terminated.

If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

The number of PayPal payments made and the amount of those PayPal payments, increased 7% and 5% respectively.

With this increase in PayPal activity, some eBay.com sellers have reported increases in fraudulent transactions.

According the eBay.com's numbers, the "Transaction revenue rate" has remained stable for the past year.  The current quarter Marketplace loss rate, part of which includes fraud, stands at 3.57%.

Compared to VISA, who reported a fraud rate of "$5 per $10,000" in 2005.  Which is 0.05%.

eBay.com sellers considering Bill Me Later payments, should look closely at those numbers.

What about seller and buyer claims that there is less merchandise on eBay.com.  That is, have products moved off eBay.com?

The hemorrhaging of sellers inventory appears to have slowed to "0%", compared to last quarters -6% decrease.  However car sellers have "-1%" less inventory on eBay.com than the previous quarter.

Auction seller inventory now represents 40% of eBay.com's GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume).  A decrease of 1% from the previous quarter.

With the start of the Christmas shopping quarter, we're anticipating PayPal eBay INC to set new revenue records.  It remains to be seen if small business or eBay.com can exceed the pace of last season.

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"I'm still looking for evidence the turnaround is taking hold. I haven't seen that yet."
Scot Wing, CEO ChannelAdvisor INC

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Christmas Time Is Here

Christmas Time Is Here
24 December 2010
EventHorizon1984

MasterCard reported "During the period October 31 to December 24, U.S. consumers spent an estimated $36.4 billion, a 15.4% year-on-year increase over the 2009 holiday season" for eCommerce sales.  What portion of this increase can be attributed to small businesses operating online was not reported.  However in aggregate, this is excellent news for online sellers.

Not that there wasn't money to be made by small businesses selling one of a kind items on eBay.  Like many previous eBay monetary Christmas shopping seasons, something unique turned up for sale on the site.  The $79.90 Steve Jobs action figure made many sellers happy with it's eventual top price of $2,500.  Before Apple told eBay, 'No.'

While there is a practical aspect to conducting transactions for money, we would hope that the MBA greed need subsides tomorrow.

Taking a quiet respite with family and friends. 

Enjoying the feeling of harmony in the air.

"Priceless."

 

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"Have a Holly Jolly Christmas"
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

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Meg Whitman Governor Memorabilia For Sale On eBay November 3rd

Meg Whitman Governor Campaign Memorabilia For Sale On eBay November 3rd
31 October 2010 
Halloween Edition
EventHorizon1984

 

With the Meg Whitman for California Governor campaign spending over $160 million, most of it hers all from eBay seller fees, one might think the milk from the cash cow stops flowing when the voting concludes on November 2 2010.  Except for the extensive after campaign clean up spending, that would be the case for most elections.  But we are talking about the loved or despised ex-CEO of eBay Margaret Whitman.  With a small army of eBay sellers who know opportunity is knocking.

Think of it.  Tens of millions of dollars spent on signs, buttons, stickers, leaflets, notepads, pens, clothing, ballons, napkins, identification badges, tickets, photos, autographs, and other campaign trinkets.  Given away FREE by the Meg Whitman for Governor organization. Free memorabilia, sometimes carted away in bulk after campaign events by eBay sellers.  Free memorabilia that can be listed for free on eBay.

And did we forget to mention the potential millions in illegal sales of rips from Meg Whitman campaign television ads?

If you're an eBay seller, don't you miss this golden multi-million dollar sales opportunity.

November 3rd, eBay.  Be there, Aloha.

/*

"called me a whore, they've called me a liar, they've called me a Nazi"
Meg Whitman, 26 October 2010

"a monkey could drive this train"
Meg Whitman, as train driving eBay CEO, circa 1998-2008

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eBay Myth Conceptions About Alibaba and the Forty Thieves

eBay Myth Conceptions About Alibaba and the Forty Thieves
29 August 2010
EventHorizon1984

When eCommerce company Alibaba.com purchased Vendio Services (June 2010) and eBay third party provider Auctiva (August 2010), there was the usual buzz.  But it was less about Alibaba's CEO David Wei stating "The U.S. is the top priority in our investment list" and more about the "Alibaba and the Forty Thieves" meme.

This is a very pervasive meme.  For example:

• AuctionBytes - "Let's give them all to Alibaba and the forty million thieves and let them sell on Alibaba's new site."
• TameBay - "Alibaba and the Forty Thieves ?"
• eBay Forum - "Would that be the story of AliBaba and the Forty THIEVES ?.."

Users of the "Alibaba and the Forty Thieves" meme have the popular conception that it's Alibaba AND HIS Forty Thieves.  As it turns out it's a misconception*.

* Since we're dealing with myths, the popular phrase "Myth Conceptions" is a steal homage to the copyrighted work of the late Robert Asprin.  A book published in 1980 titled, "Myth Conceptions."

The meme of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" might be from the 1944 movie of the same name.  Which is described as "A boy prince, raised by forty thieves."  It might be the cartoon Arabian Knights (1968-1969).

Or simply it's a straight name association used by people who know the name of the story, but have never read the original work.

Speaking of which "The Story of 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" from "Stories from the Thousand and One Nights" (1909) is available at Bartleby.com.

We know in this tale:

• "'Ali Baba married a woman as poor as himself, and lived by cutting wood"
• "‘Ali Baba expected a dark, dismal cavern, but was surprised to see a well-lighted and spacious chamber, lighted from an opening at the top of the rock, and filled with all sorts of provisions, rich bales of silk, embroideries, and valuable tissues, piled upon one another, gold and silver ingots in great heaps, and money in bags. The sight of all these riches made him suppose that this cave must have been occupied for ages by robbers, who had succeeded one another."
• "‘Ali Baba went boldly into the cave, and collected as much of the gold coin"

We meet Marjaneh:

• "Marjaneh, a clever slave-girl, who was fruitful in inventions to meet the most difficult circumstances"
• said 'Ali Baba to Marjaneh, "I leave the matter to your wit and skilful devices."

Who gives The Bride a run for the body count.

The tale ends with:

• "Some years later he carried his son to the cave and taught him the secret, which he handed down to his posterity, who, using their good fortune with moderation, lived in great honour and splendour till they were visited by the terminator of delights and the separator of companions."

The story is not 'Ali Baba and his forty thieves, but 'Ali Baba and the encounter with forty thieves.

However from a 21st century legal perspective, 'Ali Baba taking property from thieves is theft.  Paradoxically such an act is considered justice.  More so considering the "Forty Thieves" were dealt with by 'Ali Baba's proxy (Marjaneh) in a way appropriate to the legal code of the time.

Still the 'Ali Baba meme is rather powerful.  Although as the title of the article Alibaba and the eBay Thieves demonstrates, it may not mean what you think it means.

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"Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get."
Parker, Leverage

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PayPal and the International Credit Card Wars

PayPal and the International Credit Card Wars
18 August 2010
EventHorizon1984

Considering the events that have happened during PayPal's 2010 international expansion, PayPal appears to be living in interesting times.

PayPal International's interesting times began on January 27th.  The date that the Reserve Bank of India asked PayPal "to immediately suspend PayPal payments to and from India as well as transfers to local banks in India."

• "I’m personally committed to working closely and tirelessly with the Reserve Bank of India to get a fast resolution to this issue" Farhad Irani, 14 February 2010

PayPal's India problems marched through February and March.

Then came a PayPal Japan revelation:

• "PayPal recently announced that as of March 31 customers in Japan are no longer able to make personal payments to individuals using the company's 'send money' service and that the facility would remain suspended until further notice."

Unfortunately PayPal's India problems have not gone away.

• 28 July 2010:  "This morning, an email was sent to Indian users, notifying them that they would (very) soon be removing the ability to withdraw funds from accounts electronically."
• 31 July 2010:  "We’ve received good news. You can continue to enjoy electronic withdrawals just as you did before."

And despite Farhad Irani's declaration, PayPal remains unlicensed in India.

• Certificates of Authorisation issued by the Reserve Bank of India under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 12 July 2010

But guess what notable United States companies are licensed in India?

Answer:

• American Express (licensed 2009)
• Diner's Club  (licensed 2010)
• MasterCard (licensed 2009)
• Visa  (licensed 2009)

• MoneyGram (licensed 2009)
• Western Union (licensed 2009)

When PayPal's intentions come across as "PayPal wants to replace credit cards in stores", how will the larger companies react?

Or more to the point, how are the larger companies reacting?

Consider these numbers.

• In 2009 according to "eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “PayPal significantly expanded its presence globally and, for the first time, processed more than $20 billion in total payment volume in a quarter.""
• Discover (established 1985), which owns Diner's Club (established 1950), reported sales volume of $23 billion in the second quarter of 2010.
• American Express (established 1850) reported a 2009 fourth quarter volume of $115 billion.
• Number two MasterCard (established 1966) reported a 2009 fourth quarter purchase volume of $510 billion.
• While number one Visa (established 1958) posts "$4.8 trillion total volume" for a twelve month period.  A rough average of $1,200 billion a quarter versus PayPal's $20 billion quarter.

If you were, say Visa, nothing to worry about right?

Yet Visa's international activities indicate they take PayPal's growing international presence seriously.  Or 'coincidentally' Visa, as well as MasterCard, etal, are aggressively expanding their international businesses in the same year as PayPal.

• February 11 2010
• Visa and Travelex Launch Visa Money Transfer for Remittances from Australia
• "Visa Inc. (NYSE: V), the world's largest retail payments network, and Travelex, the world's largest international foreign exchange and international payments specialist, today announced the launch of the first Visa Money Transfer service in Australia."

• May 11 2010
• MoneyGram and Visa Introduce Cash-to-Visa Card Money Transfer Program
• "launch of MoneyGram's first cash-to-Visa card program enabling consumers to transfer money from MoneyGram locations in the United States directly to the Visa accounts of recipients outside of the United States"

• May 25 2010
• Visa and Bancomer Transfer Services Launch Visa Money Transfer for remittances from the U.S.
• "launch of a money transfer service that will provide an additional alternative for consumers that send money from the United States to friends and family living abroad. "
• "initial deployment of the service will enable consumers to send funds from the United States to select countries such as El Salvador, Brazil, China and The Philippines, with plans to extend the program to allow remittances from BTS locations to any country within the Visa network."

Visa did not ignore India.

• May 26 2010
• Visa and Monitise to Launch Joint Venture in India
• "formation of a joint venture that will provide a technology platform for financial institutions and mobile network operators in India to offer a range of mobile financial services to consumers."

PayPal remained on the move, entering the South Africa market in March.

Not that Visa was far behind.  As they churned this out in a July press release:

• "As a first time sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, we're very happy with what this has done for our business. It has driven business growth - increasing transactions, building our brand and providing business development opportunities for our partners"

Definitely interesting things happening in 2010.

eBay's (PayPal is owned by eBay) CEO John Donahoe said in 2009, "PayPal is a business that will be bigger than eBay."  Along with the comment, "Donahoe said we are not that far off from the day where a restaurant beams a bill to your mobile device and you pay via PayPal."

A skirmish is defined as "a minor fight in war usually incidental to larger movements."  Did John Donahoe's 2009 PayPal chest thumping get the attention of the major credit card companies?  Touching off the 2010 prelude to international payment system skirmishes?

We'll see.

As the owner of PayPal, eBay INC is not immune from the major credit card companies.  Remember MasterCard's $510 billion purchase volume?  eBay's equivalent statistic, Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV), for the same period was $12.5 billion.

'Coincidentally' MasterCard started their MasterCard MarketPlace in March 2010.  The "MasterCard MarketPlace" is initially being trademarked for the United States, European Union, China, Australia, and Canada.

MasterCard's MarketPlace commercial has a certain 'as compared to eBay' feel to it.  Since eBay INC calls it's eBay.com site, the "eBay Marketplace," MasterCard must be making a point.

A very sharp one.

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Addendum
19 August 2010

The day after we published the above article, reuters reported:

• UPDATE 4-MasterCard to buy DataCash for $520 million
• "The deal will improve MasterCard's ability to process payments online, especially in Europe and emerging markets, the company said. Its new chief executive, Ajay Banga, is trying to boost the company's profits by developing its online and mobile payments processing business."
• "MasterCard and Visa are trying to compete with PayPal, which is synonymous with online shopping in the minds of many consumers."
• "MasterCard, which gets 55 percent of its revenue from outside the United States, is looking abroad to grow."

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See Also:

• American Express Tells PayPal, Revolution Money Don't Leave Home Without It
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Continues
• The PayPal India Suspended Transaction Services and Farhad Irani
• PayPal India Service Hold Explained: 'We Don't Need No Stinking License'
• PayPal India Farhad Irani Restores Business Bank Withdrawls But Hold On Personal Funds Remain
• PayPal India Personal Accounts Hold and the April 30th RBI Deadline

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"Donahoe said, noting that only 5 percent of sales are online as compared to stores."
PayPal will be bigger than eBay.com, CEO says, 23 July 2009

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve."
Isoroku Yamamoto, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

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eBay and Johnny Sain

eBay and Johnny Sain
12 August 2010
EventHorizon1984

Decided to pick up some words to relax before a weekend (group  Ed.) three day systems contract, and AuctionBytes won the coin toss over TameBay.  The site didn't disappoint.

The day's guest lecturer was one eBay Addict, a self professed eBay shopper.  He has skill of a professional writer, with the hardball delivery of a stereotypical east coast resident. 

eBay Addict is reminiscent of the fictional sports writer Oscar Madison. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.  Let's rewind a bit.

Despite eBay Addict saying, "I'm not trying to bait you," he managed to hook quite a few live ones. 

The lively taunt and rant session piqued my curiosity.  Curiosity and Google went no where, but the {cough} {cough} baseball addict seated nearby had this to say:

"[expletive deleted] Braves."

I went 'huh?', but apparently there are baseball fans that recognize where eBay Addict appropriated the "We really don't want to hear about the labor pains, we just wanna see the baby." catch phrase. 

Johnny Sain (1917-2006)
Boston Braves 1946-1951
"The world doesn't want to hear about labor pains; it just wants to see the baby."

Ah sports writer.

His comments are sprinkled with sporting allusions.  Reading like other sports articles, such as one from east coaster Mike Bovenzi, who like dozens of others wrote a similar "fans don't want to hear about labor pains. The fans just want to see the baby."  Sadly he too didn't attribute Johnny Sain.

Who is eBay Addict and is he a sport writer? 

"We don't care..."
eBay Addict

Hope you enjoyed today's sports trivia.

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"You and other sellers like you just don't get it. Buyers (and eBay) are sick of the excuses and the rants. We really don't want to hear about the labor pains, we just wanna see the baby. And in this instance, your baby can't be delivered on time! ROFTL!!"
eBay Addict

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Calvin Klein Slow Death on eBay or Best Match?

Calvin Klein Slow Death on eBay or Best Match?
10 August 2010
EventHorizon1984

With minor fanfare Calvin Klein opened an eBay store last week.  It's incredible that eBay (EBAY, share price $21.91) kept this news low key given the Calvin Klein brand.  Then again given the pedigree of the Calvin Klein (1978) brand versus eBay's (1995), it might not have been eBay's decision to make.

Calvin Klein is owned by the Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation (PVH, share price $53.27). 

As noted by the multi-brand Phillips-Van Heusen, "We closed 2009 approaching $6 billion in global retail sales under the Calvin Klein brands."  Compared to the eBay 'oranges' of $4.46 billion in Marketplaces Net Transaction Revenue; i.e. fees not sales.

And of course Calvin Klein has it's own web store.

One might expect a well known global brand, to do well almost anywhere.

Well...

Calvin Klein may have opened an eBay Store last week, but their eBay selling ID was created on 30 September 2009.

Seller ID calvinklein has a positive feedback rating of 15.  With DSR (Detailed Seller Rating) of 5.0 Item as described, 5.0 Communication, 4.9 Shipping Time, and a sub-par 4.7 Shipping and handling charges.

There are 10,207 listings for calvinklein.

And 26,826 closed listings.

According to figures from eBay supported TeraPeak, from July 9 to August 7, calvinklein had 47 successful listings for total sales of $1,614.  And a sell through rate of 0.8%.

Given the lack of exposure on eBay's Fashion Vault page that Calvin Klein gets,

and the lack of press hype, perhaps the lack of sales should be expected.

Which leads to the question, if eBay is willing to show such tepid support for a $6 billion dollars in sales a year corporation, how do you think eBay treats the much smaller sellers?

/*
"Well, that is your name, isn't it? Calvin Klein? It's written all over your underwear."
Lorraine Baines, Back to the Future, 3 July 1985

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eBay INC 2010 Second Quarter Earnings Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2010 Second Quarter Earnings Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
21 July 2010
EventHorizon1984

As expected eBay INC posted reasonably good numbers for the second quarter of 2010.  But for small businesses on eBay there is the nagging side question, 'How did eBay.com do?'.

Well.                                  
 

Net Revenue growth is up an anemic 1% from the previous quarter.

Revenue generated principally through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  That is the more a seller lists, the more a seller sells, the more Marketplace Revenue eBay.com generates.  Of course when sellers slow down, so does eBay.com.

                                  
 
If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

The number of PayPal payments made and the amount of those PayPal payments, showed little change from the prior quarter.  Essentially sellers using PayPal saw little or no sales growth.

What about those claims that there is less merchandise on eBay.com.  That is, have products moved off eBay.com?

Car sellers have 8% More inventory on eBay.com than the previous quarter.  Sellers of everything else have 6% Less inventory on eBay.com than the prior quarter.

Wonder where it went?

Auction seller inventory now represents 41% of eBay.com's GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume).  That's a decrease of 2% from the first quarter.

We'll leave readers with this fun fact:

"eBay also uses free cash flow. Free cash flow represents operating cash flows less new purchases of property and equipment. eBay considers free cash flow to be a liquidity measure that provides useful information to management and investors about the amount of cash generated by the business after the purchases of property, buildings, and equipment, which can then be used to, among other things, invest in eBay's business, make strategic acquisitions, and repurchase stock."

As a business, you wouldn't be worried about declining net cash and free cash flow.  Would you?

/*

"Our EBAY fundamentals call for Q2 is mixed - For Q2, we expect revenue growth deceleration"
Mark Mahaney, Citigroup

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eBay INC Stock Price During CEO John Donahoe's Tenure

eBay INC Stock Price During CEO John Donahoe's Tenure
30 June 2010
EventHorizon1984

While much is said about eBay INC's stock, there is one fact that's rarely talked about.  According to eBay INC's official investor page, in the matter of eBay INC stock dividends:

Which means for the average investor to materially benefit from eBay INC stock, they must sell and/or buy the stock.  In other words, 'buy low, sell high', short, et al.

Many analysts (who make money on fees You pay them) give the advice 'eBay stock is a long term investment.'  Is this stale and cliche advice a bad thing?

Depends on when you make the purchase, and your definition of 'long term.'

To show the short (no pun intended) version of eBay INC stock variation, presented below are eBay INC stock prices on days of note, during eBay CEO John Donahoe's watch.  Stock prices are taken at close of market (end of day).

Additionally you will find sets of five stock prices clustered around the dates of eBay INC's quarterly Earnings Call. The first two are the relative low or high value of eBay stock, prior to eBay's Earning Call. The third is the eBay stock price on the day of the Earnings Call. The the fourth and fifth are the relative low or high values of eBay stock after the Earnings Call.

Numbers and details relating to eBay INC provided through Yahoo! Finance and Seeking Alpha.

eBay INC Stock Price - 31 March 2008 to 30 June 2010.

29.84 - 31 March 2008, end of Q1 2008, John Donahoe becomes eBay CEO

32.94 - 4 April 2008, Highest stock price under John Donahoe

27.33 - 30 June 2008, end of Q2 2008

28.18 - 10 July 2008
26.89 - 15 July 2008
28.10 - 16 July 2008, eBay Q2 2008 Earnings Call
23.98 - 18 July 2008
25.38 - 23 July 2008

22.38 - 30 September 2008, end of Q3 2008

15.96 - 9 October 2008
18.10 - 13 October 2008
15.33 - 15 October 2008, eBay Q3 2008 Earnings Call
14.97 - 16 October 2008
15.47 - 20 October 2008

13.96 - 31 December 2008, end of Q4 2008

13.44 - 15 January 2009
12.55 - 20 January 2009
13.28 - 21 January 2009, eBay Q4 2008 Earnings Call
11.67 - 22 January 2009
12.00 - 23 January 2009

10.27 - 9 March 2009, Lowest stock price under John Donahoe

12.56 - 31 March 2009, end of Q1 2009

14.41 - 16 April 2009
14.06 - 20 April 2009
14.78 - 22 April 2009, eBay Q1 2009 Earnings Call
16.78 - 24 April 2008
16.20 - 28 April 2008

17.13 - 30 June 2009, end of Q2 2009

18.58 - 16 July 2009
18.55 - 17 July 2009
19.45 - 22 July 2009, eBay Q2 2009 Earnings Call
21.52 - 23 July 2009
21.24 - 24 July 2009

23.60 - 30 September 2009, end of Q3 2009

24.49 - 16 October 2009
25.15 - 19 October 2009
25.03 - 21 October 2009, eBay Q3 2009 Earnings Call
22.75 - 28 October 2009
23.01 - 29 October 2009

23.53 - 31 December 2009, end of Q4 2009
     Volume 5,990,600

23.26 - 19 January 2010
22.23 - 20 January 2010
24.13 - 21 January 2010, eBay Q4 2009 Earnings Call
23.58 - 22 January 2010
24.07 - 26 January 2010

26.97 - 31 March 2010, end of Q1 2010
     Volume 8,048,100

26.32 - 19 April 2010
26.40 - 20 April 2010
26.29 - 21 April 2010, eBay Q1 2010 Earnings Call
24.55 - 23 April 2010
24.56 - 26 April 2010

19.61 - 30 June 2010, end of Q2 2010

Finally an overview of eBay stock prices during eBay CEO John Donahoe's current reign.

31 March 2010 - 25 June 2010

To recap:

• 29.84 - 31 March 2008, end of Q1 2008, John Donahoe becomes eBay CEO
• 32.94 - 4 April 2008, Highest stock price under John Donahoe
• 10.27 - 9 March 2009, Lowest stock price under John Donahoe
• 19.61 - 30 June 2010

What if you heeded the call of your analyst to buy eBay stock on 31 March 2008 as a long term investment? 

As of 30 June 2010, you lost 34% of your investment.  And of course the fees you paid your analyst for such generous advice.

eBay INC's next Earnings Call is scheduled for 21 July 2010.

Where will eBay's stock price be then?

/*

"Longer-term, the pillars of the Internet, companies like eBay and Yahoo! will continue to outperform"
Youssef Squali, 5 March 2004

67.31 - 5 March 2004, eBay INC stock price not adjusted for stock split.
34.65 - 5 March 2004, eBay INC stock price adjusted for stock split.

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ChannelAdvisor INC Responds To Michael Jones Revenue Targets On AuctionBytes

ChannelAdvisor INC Responds To Michael Jones Revenue Targets On AuctionBytes
22 June 2010
EventHorizon1984

AuctionBytes posted an article titled "Update: Michael Jones Leaves ChannelAdvisor, Headed for eBay", where a comment was made regarding ChannelAdvisor's revenues.

"after consistently failing to reach revenue targets, rumor has it that the split was not a case of greener pastures but of a nudging-out-the-door-nature. What this will mean for CA is unknown."

ChannelAdvisor INC responded to that comment.

Update - More information from ChannelAdvisor and confirmation from eBay:
eBay confirms that Michael Jones will be joining the company as Vice President of North American Business Development for eBay Marketplaces. A ChannelAdvisor spokesperson said he has not yet left the company; he's actively working in the office until June 30th, and, she said:

"Your source indicated that MJ was "consistently failing to reach revenue targets," yet we've reported record growth for ChannelAdvisor and its customers in our past three quarters: link, link, link.

"In the interest of full disclosure, I think you owe it to your readers to let them know that that blog post was written by a former ChannelAdvisor employee who now works for a competitor, Mercent."

The ChannelAdvisor INC spokesperson may be the contact person listed in the Press Releases.

Contact:
Delisa Reavis
ChannelAdvisor
delisa.reavis@channeladvisor.com
919.636.0659

We did a little research, and posted a comment to ChannelAdvisor's response.

> ''yet we've reported record growth for ChannelAdvisor and its customers in our past three quarters: link, link, link.''


These are standard vacuous Press Releases.  Of course those Press Releases avoid answering the question of ''revenue targets.''


Press Release #1 talks about the growth of ChannelAdvisor INC customers during that quarter.  But there is not one mention of ChannelAdvisor INC revenue during that quarter.

Press Release #2 has ChannelAdvisor INC CEO Scot Wingo stating, ''For ChannelAdvisor, 2009 was a fantastic and transformative year as we achieved our profitability goal of becoming EBITDA positive''.  Of course there is no mention of any objective dollar amount.  And what of ''EBITDA''?

ChannelAdvisor INC Press Release #3 makes the same claim, ''for the 12 months ending September, 2009, ChannelAdvisor achieved for the first time in company history a full year of positive EBIDTA '', but there is more.  Here's the rest of the quote following the ''positive EBIDTA'': ''(earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortization.''  Incidentally EBIDTA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.

If earnings are ''positive'' BEFORE taking out expenses, one has to wonder if earnings would remain ''positive'' AFTER expenses.  The ChannelAdvisor INC Press Release is woefully silent.

Perhaps earnings AFTER expenses misses the ''revenue target''?  Or perhaps something else?

There are interesting pieces of data that ChannelAdvisor INC provides in it's Press Releases, that might explain whether ''revenue targets'' are being hit or missed.  At the bottom of each of these Press Releases:

Press Release #1 dated April 26, 2010:
''In 2009, ChannelAdvisor managed $2.6 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV)''

Press Release #2 dated January 20, 2010:
''In 2009, ChannelAdvisor managed $2.6 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV)''

Press Release #3 dated November 3, 2009:
''In 2008, ChannelAdvisor managed over $2.6 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV)''

If you look at ChannelAdvisor INC Press Release dated January 23, 2009 (
http://www.channeladvisor.com/news/2009/pr090123.html ), you will find:

*  ''for the full year, ChannelAdvisor recorded GMV of $2.6 billion.''

Fascinating.  ZERO GMV growth, as stated by ChannelAdvisor INC, between 2008 and 2009.  To state the obvious, ChannelAdvisor INC derives some revenue by assessing a fee on sales (percentage of GMV).

How much does ChannelAdvisor INC make on that ''$2.6 billion'' From It's Customers?  According to that Press Release, ''for the full year, ChannelAdvisor recorded revenue of over $35 million.''

Let's put that amount in perspective.

eBay seller Buy.com (bought by Rakuten), who is also a ChannelAdvisor INC customer, earlier this year had 30 day gross sales of $2.5 million.  Or using a very very rough calculation, that could be $30 million in sales for a year.

Here's what you'll find in another ChannelAdvisor INC Press Release dated September 04, 2008:

''ChannelAdvisor, the leading provider of e-commerce channel management solutions, today announced it has received an additional $20 million in funding to accelerate its growth.''

When you have ''$35 million'' ''recorded revenue''  (Net or Gross?), a $20 million cash infusion (with eBay as one of the investors) is a significant amount.

Maybe this cash infusion did not produce an appropriate increase in revenue, thereby missing ''revenue targets''?


Hmmm, maybe these press releases are not so vacuous after all.

/*

''but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target''
Admiral James T. Kirk, Star Trek The Wrath of Khan (1982)

It was rather sloppy of us to forget the link to the September 04, 2008 ChannelAdvisor INC Press Release.

That Press Release is titled "CHANNELADVISOR SECURES $20 MILLION IN FUNDING" and this is the link, http://www.channeladvisor.com/news/2008/pr080904.html to that Press Release.

And the tale of ChannelAdvisor INC competitor Mercent INC?  According to their February 2, 2010 Press Release:

• Attained record consolidated GAAP revenues for Q42009 and FY2009
  
  • 106% (2.06X) year-over-year GAAP revenue growth for Q42009
  • 87% (1.87X) year-over-year GAAP revenue growth for FY2009
  • Fourth consecutive year of more than 75% annualized GAAP revenue growth
  • Fourth consecutive year of increasing annualized GAAP revenue growth

Of course there are no dollar amounts attached to their percentages.

/*

"Michael Jones - Chief Revenue Officer
As the Chief Revenue Officer, Michael is responsible for all of ChannelAdvisor’s revenue, corporate development and acquisition strategies."
ChannelAdvisor INC, 22 June 2010

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The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) Redux

The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) Redux
6 June 2010
EventHorizon1984

For those who were part of the thousand or so hits on our previous eNA (eBay Noise Aggregate) article, on May 29th the 30 day eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) was 157712.  Down 9.2% from the prior eNA of 173608.

Or in sales terms:

• $157,712 - Total 30 day sales ending on or around 29 May 2010
• $173,608 - April 2010

eNA consists of one hundred nineteen (119) eBay "noise sellers" with an aggregate positive feedback of over one-half million (500,000).  "Noise" as coined by eBay CEO John "has a long moustache" Donahoe and eBay ex-CEO Meg Whitman. 

You can glean the short methodology from our previous "The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) - Measuring The Impact Of Store To Core" article.

"Ultimately the value eNA is measured in it's predictive ability. Or lack there of."

Let's compare the eNA downward trend to eBay's most protected Diamond seller bought by Rakuten INC Buy (Buy.com).  With Buy's huge variety of products (7,183,772 items offered over 30 days) it should be a good sample of eBay as a whole.

Buy

• $2,213,637 - Total 30 day sales ending on or around 29 May 2010
• $2,478,285 - April 2010

Down 10.7%.

Well eBay is having a rash of listing specials this month.

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"Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor."
The Longest Day (1962)

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eBay Did Skype and PayPal Is Next??

eBay Did Skype and PayPal Is Next??
5 June 2010
EventHorizon1984

June 4th was a busy day for eBay stock traders as 56,354,674 eBay INC shares traded hands.  With an average trading volume of "19,149,300" shares was something up? 

Well, yes.  It was the usual games that stock analysts play with other people's (investor's) money.

But let's play the conjecture game, and suppose that analysts managed to figure out that eBay CEO John Donahoe telegraphs his moves.  A year in advance.

Take this news piece from 17 April 2008.

• ""What we're testing this year are the synergies," Mr Donahoe told the Financial Times this week after Ebay reported its latest earnings. "If the synergies are strong, we'll keep it in our portfolio. If not, we'll reassess it." That could lead to the disposal of the business, he indicated."

About a year later, 14 April 2009, Henry Blodget wrote this:

• "eBay is finally dumping Skype... on the public market! Specifically, it's planning to spin the company out in an IPO next year."

Do you know what John Donahoe thoughts on PayPal were 24 September 2009?

• "EBay would consider that step if PayPal no longer had synergy with the parent company, Donahoe said at a conference in Las Vegas. He said he regularly asks himself whether eBay is hampering PayPal's development."

We'll take the long shot bet that around September 2010 eBay INC will make an exciting announcement about PayPal.  Such a move would be a short term win-win for eBay and PayPal.

Long term?  Well John Donahoe is all about synergy and never about the long term.

/*

"In the meantime, by announcing the deal now, it can get investors excited about the separation and try to goad potential acquirers into ponying up and buying Skype outright -- which is presumably part of the thinking here."
Henry Blodget

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Rakuten INC Does "Buy It Now" of eBay INC Diamond Seller Buy.com

Rakuten Inc Does "Buy It Now" of eBay Inc Diamond Seller Buy.com
20 May 2010
EventHorizon1984

A figurative shoe dropped as The Wall Street Journal announced "Japan's Rakuten to Acquire Buy.com" earlier today.  Buy.com's "But It Now" price was a manageable "$250 million."

Here are some things you can look for while you watch this news rapidly spreading around the eBay blog-sphere.

1)  How long it takes eBay to respond.

When eBay does a hot roll out, their press release hits the stands at the same time the news hits the wires.  When eBay is caught off guard, there is a time lag between the wire news and their response.  You can measure the level of surprise at the corporate level, by the amount of time it takes eBay Corporate to officially respond.

When Rakuten Inc, "the top e-commerce site in Japan" says:

• ""We feel it has a great strategic fit with our global expansion," said Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Tokyo-based Rakuten. "Our goal is to become the number one e-commerce company and Internet company in the world.""

There had better be a good response from eBay Inc.

Incidentally Rakuten Inc plans a joint venture with Baidu Inc.  The same China search engine that eBay is partnered with.

2)  How long it takes Amazon to respond.

When Rakuten Inc says:

• ""We believe that we have a very different business model from Amazon and eBay. We empower the merchants""
  

Expect an interesting response from Amazon.

3)  What will Randy Smythe say?

Well known business savvy eBay fixture Randy Smythe currently works as "Merchant Evangelist" of the "third-party merchant program" at Buy.com.  With Rakuten Inc stating "We empower the merchants" perhaps Mr. Smythe had a hand in the acquisition.

We doubt he was an innocent bystander in this deal.  Any comments he is allowed to make will be fascinating.

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"Just my 15%."
Randy Smythe

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The Consequences of Being Attached to eBay's Hip

The Consequences of Being Attached to eBay's Hip
17 May 2010
EventHorizon1984

Like many on line journals, for example (shameless SEO linking) TheBrewsNews, Red Ink Diary, GrannyGoodPaints Place, as a friend put it, we write 'for the halibut.'  Unlike other sites, there is no pressing need to gather an audience solely to hawk expensive services to eBay sellers. 

We bring this up because something we can neither confirm nor deny dropped on our virtual desk.  That tidbit brought up the question, 'what happens when the audience of a blog changes?'

The obvious answer:  the blog is read by fewer people.

If you write without regard to generating income, you'll continue to write something.  If you're dependent on the revenue generated through ads and hawking services based on an eBay centric audience, you have choices.

1.  Denial.  Nothing will change, continue as always.

"The old Ebay was sitting in people’s attics. The new Ebay is sitting in warehouses”
Lorrie Norrington, eBay INC

eBay will be around a long time.  But eBay's focus will move from small sellers to warehouse/volume sellers.  The focus of the newest eBay sellers is less toward folksy generic advice, and more toward receiving hard core business services.  Five years ago there was good revenue from giving general starter advice to people unfamiliar with the Internet.  Today people are more Internet aware, and through searches can get that expensive advice for free.

The fresh new unaware sellers will still be out there, but their numbers will continue to shrink.  Conversely the number of blogs providing advice and services will continue to mushroom.  To spell it out, more businesses for fewer customers.

2.  Expand your focus.  Multi-channel is good.

EBay Buys Skype for $2.6 Billion (2005)
Sold! eBay jettisons Skype in $2 billion deal (2009)

Multi-channel has benefits.  When executed properly it's a good move, like eBay centric (" eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor") Scot Wingo (ChannelAdvisor CEO) indirectly hawking  ChannelAdvisor Amazon services.  But as seen above there are risks involved.  For a revenue generating blog, perceived fallibility can translate to loss of face and loss of income. 

From a potential customer viewpoint, a business that makes mistakes of it's own choosing, might not be a good place to get advice or services.

3.  Do something else.  Change is good.

"You can't change people."
John Donahoe, eBay INC

Suppose one were a mystery writer, decided 'change is good', and kill off your most famous character.  It worked for Arthur Conan Doyle, right?

• "Public outcry, however, led Conan Doyle to bring the character back"

When a blog depends on advertising income, it's a very bad idea to alienate readers.  And in the process alienate the blog's revenue stream advertisers, who want to reach those readers.

In the aforementioned example said 'mystery writer' created a new character, but remained a mystery writer.  When you are essentially a 'business writer' and your revenue blog is eBay centric, what do you change to?

Join the parade of a million articles and books giving general business advice?

4.  Retire.

Most here are partial to number 4.

We expect to see many blog retirements over the next two years.

Disclosure:  Ad revenue affords one of us the occasional cup of coffee.  <sip>  Thank you.

/*

"It takes time, Doctor, but eventually you get there."
The Master, Doctor Who

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The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) - Measuring The Impact Of Store To Core

The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) - Measuring The Impact Of Store To Core
1 May 2010
EventHorizon1984

On February 27th the eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) was 196517.

{dramatic pause}

Like 42, without proper context both numbers are meaningless.  The context of the first number would be the question "What is the aggregate sales total for a representative set of "noise sellers" over 30 days (January 29 to February 27)?".  Answer: To the nearest dollar, $196,517.

You might be asking, why bother creating eNA?  That answer is, some here wanted to know how eBay sellers reacted as a group, when Store Inventory listings received "full exposure in eBay search results".  Without waiting for results from eBay's next Earnings Call.

One could ask for seller opinions, or build a sample set of sellers and use tools such as Terapeak to get precise numbers.  We took the second option and assembled a Nielsen-Dow Jones-style metric.

In boring terms, over two hundred "noise sellers" were initially selected ...

Let's digress a bit.

When the subject of "noise" and "eBay" are brought together, it invariably leads to this statement:

"And so we are going to continue pushing hard on all three dimensions and we will -- we are confident of the direction, we’re confident of our -- of the outlook. There may be some changes that will have some negative short-term impacts as we -- you know, Bob mentioned Australian safe payments, that as we go to all electronic payments and there’s cash and checks and things that come off the site, we may have some sellers that make some noise and/or pull some things, but we are absolutely confident in the direction we are going that we are going to improve the buyer and overall user experience on eBay and that that is going to lead to a healthier, more vibrant marketplace."
John Donahoe, 16 April 2008

Actually "noise" dates back to prior eBay CEO Margret "Meg" Whitman.  The "She" mentioned in this quote from August 2003 is Meg Whitman:

"She even monitors the "noise" on eBay's discussion boards, online forums where users discuss, among other things, their opinion of eBay's management. (Level 1 means "silent," and 10 means "hot" or, in Webb's words, "the community is ready to kill you." Normal for eBay is about 3.)"

If you want to be a real stickler for "noise", there is also this 2001 quote made during Meg Whitman's reign as eBay CEO:

"We start from the principle that if there's noise, you better listen."
eBay Chief Operating Officer Brian Swette, 3 December 2001

With ""noise" on eBay's discussion boards" as a reference, most "noise sellers" were selected from random Store and Seller Central discussion board threads.  Remember by Meg Whitman definition, posts made on discussion boards are "noise".  The rest were culled from other eBay forums and off-eBay boards. 

The "noise sellers" consist of eBay sellers posting positive or negative eBay comments. And those who posted advice, or made comments other than 'pro' or 'con'.  In short, if you post regularly on the aforementioned forums, you're probably on the list.

The over two hundred became one hundred nineteen (119) as one last qualification was added; must have sales during a measured ninety day window.  To be less obscure, about half the sellers we selected last year did not register any sales during the period January 29th to April 28th.  Or left eBay during that period.  Or something else happened.

Even after the triage, the survivors represent a variety of views, and have a variety of products available.

One more digression.  eBay can afford to ignore "noise".  Consider the sales of a previous front page featured fashion seller stylepremium.  They had sales of $169,065 over a 30 day period.  Versus 30 days "noise seller" sales of $196,517.

We digress too much.  Let's take eNA for a spin.

eNA  (504,067 Positive Feedback)
$196,517 - Total Sales, January 29 - February 27
$188,238 - Total Sales, February 28 - March 29
$173,608 - Total Sales, March 30 - April 28

Let's add in the percent difference between one 30 day period and the previous 30 day period.  Plus number of items sold.

eNA  (504,067 Positive Feedback)
$196,517 - Total Sales, January 29 - February 27
     13,315 - Items Sold, 1/29-2/27
     -4.2% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 2/28-3/29 and 1/29-2/27
$188,238 - Total Sales, February 28 - March 29
     13,379 - Items Sold, 2/28-3/29
     -7.8% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 3/30-4/28 and 2/28-3/29
$173,608 - Total Sales, March 30 - April 28
     12,679 - Items Sold, 3/30-4/28

Ultimately the value eNA is measured in it's predictive ability. Or lack there of. 

Let's see how these trends compare to those of eBay Institution (yes we're collectively in awe) JayandMarie.

JayandMarie (885,737 Positive Feedback)
$80,921 - Total Sales, January 29 - February 27
     28,125 - Items Sold, 1/29-2/27
     -1.5% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 2/28-3/29 and 1/29-2/27
$79,721 - Total Sales, February 28 - March 29
     27,945 - Items Sold, 2/28-3/29
     -10.9% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 3/30-4/28 and 2/28-3/29
$71,065 - Total Sales, March 30 - April 28
     27,384 - Items Sold, 3/30-4/28

Well eNA is in the ballpark, given JayandMarie specialize in DVDs and CDs. And eNA was meant to provide a group trend.

Let's compare eNA to one of eBay's most protected Diamond sellers, Buy (Buy.com).  With Buy's huge variety of products, it should be a good sample of eBay as a whole.

Buy (1,326,785 Positive Feedback)
$3,283,304 - Total Sales, January 29 - February 27
     93,227 - Items Sold, 1/29-2/27
     -4.30% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 2/28-3/29 and 1/29-2/27
$3,142,205 - Total Sales, February 28 - March 29
     91,097 - Items Sold, 2/28-3/29
     -21.1% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 3/30-4/28 and 2/28-3/29
$2,478,285 - Total Sales, March 30 - April 28
     77,864 - Items Sold, 3/30-4/28

hmmm.  That drop of -21.1% is rather large.  Why don't we look at the numbers of John Donahoe celebrated seller Eforcity?

Eforcity (1,784,423 Positive Feedback)
$967,621 - Total Sales, January 29 - February 27
     137,953 - Items Sold, 1/29-2/27
     -5.29% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 2/28-3/29 and 1/29-2/27
$916,473 - Total Sales, February 28 - March 29
     132,183 - Items Sold, 2/28-3/29
     -19.3% - Percent difference between Total Sales period 3/30-4/28 and 2/28-3/29
$740,000 - Total Sales, March 30 - April 28
     111,015 - Items Sold, 3/30-4/28

Hmmmmmm. 

Well eNA was created to show the group view from "noise sellers", not individual Diamond sellers.  Or perhaps eBay hasn't supplied all the sales figures to Terapeak yet.

"The other thing that happens as part of that is we no longer have the store inventory format and so the fixed price items are now all in sort of core search and what we have proven in Europe is our search engine can take that. These are things that were proven out in Europe and will take time to sort of work their way into initially our listings and into demand but we feel good about the impact it will have on the U.S. business over the remainder of the year."
John Donahoe, 21 April 2010

Or just maybe eBay sellers will see a rash of listing specials in May 2010.

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"remember, no matter where you go, there you are."
Buckaroo Banzai, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

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eBay Communications Nicole Birdsall Comments on Anonymous eMail Addresses

eBay Communications Nicole Birdsall Comments on Anonymous eMail Addresses
28 April 2010
EventHorizon1984

With another upcoming change to eBay's email system, we thought it would be prudent to post the official public writings of eBay Principle Product Manager Communications, Nicole Birdsall ( nbirdsall@ebay.com ), regarding this matter.  As well as her past official public posts.

A short Nicole Birdsall biography follows these posts.

One might wonder how important is email to ebay?  How about important enough to "generate $250 million of direct revenue"?

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/41409-Announcements-Discussion/Faqs-Item-Specifics/510089633&#msg522319068

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(2 of 13) Re: FAQs, Item Specifics and tracking information Apr 14, 2009 10:27 AM

Hello Powerwheelchris, I can assist with your Smart FAQ questions. Smart FAQ is the next generation of the existing eBay FAQ. We have identified the top 20 questions that buyers ask sellers and with the information already available in sellers’ listings eBay is able to pull that "live" information to answer those frequently asked questions. A seller only has to opt-in to the Smart FAQ feature while eBay will handle the rest. Of course if a seller would like to add additional questions and answers to their FAQ page, they can do this as well. Should a seller already have questions and answers posted to the existing FAQ…not to worry we will be merging those over to the new Smart FAQ page, so a seller will not lose any current information. As per the announcement, the new Smart FAQs will be available as part of the June 15th Seller Release. -Nbirdsall

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/41409-Announcements-Discussion/Faqs-Item-Specifics/510089633&#msg512043726

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(10 of 13) Re: FAQs, Item Specifics and tracking information Apr 15, 2009 9:37 AM

Larry, Just wanted to clarify, eBay has identified the 15 top buyer questions (payment method is one of those questions) and built an FAQ page that will populate the answers for these questions by pulling information from your listings in order to answer the buyer's question. So all you have to do is opted in to the Smart FAQ feature. -Nbirdsall

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(12 of 13) Re: FAQs, Item Specifics and tracking information Apr 15, 2009 10:20 AM

Buriedbybooks, The Smart FAQ is a feature to help sellers manage their high volume of questions from buyers and is completely optional to sellers. As a seller you will have 3 options: Option 1) Ask Seller A Question Email Only This is how the "ask seller a question" link works today. From the View Item Page, the buyer will be taken straight to the Ask Seller A Question form in order to communicate with the seller directly. Option 2) FAQ and Ask Seller A Question From the View Item Page, the buyer will be taken to an FAQ page in order to get their answers to their questions immediately. Should they not find an answer to their question, they can click "email the seller" from the FAQ page and go to the Ask Seller A Question form. Option 3) FAQ Only for Users Before They Buy Users browsing your item pages who have not purchased from you yet will be taken to the FAQ page without the option to email the seller directly. If the user browsing is a customer, they will have the ability to email the seller from the FAQ page. Should you opt-in to either Option #2 or Option #3, you will also have the ability to add your own FAQ questions and answers, so if you have additional information that may not be available in the listing you can add that additional information. -Nbirdsall

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(13 of 13) Re: FAQs, Item Specifics and tracking information Apr 15, 2009 10:54 AM

Powerwheelerchris, Regarding your Smart FAQ question, this feature will be available in the June Seller Release. Should you already have questions and answers in the existing FAQ feature, those questions and answers will be available in the new Smart FAQ feature. -Nbirdsall

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/41409-Announcements-Discussion/Several-Questions-For/510089905&#msg512044644

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(2 of 2) Re: Several Questions for Titanium Power Seller - brace yourself, it's lenghty Apr 15, 2009 1:01 PM

Monstercellular, Regarding your point #5, we understand that high volume of ask seller a question emails is a significant issue for sellers and will be addressing this issue with a few features this year designed to help sellers manage these emails. The first feature is the Smart FAQ which will be launched in the June Seller Release. This is a seller optional feature that is designed to automatically answer buyers' questions without sending an email to the seller or requiring a response from the seller. Here's how it works: We have identified the top 20 questions that buyers ask sellers (which under many circumstances accounts for a significant volume of questions) and with the information already available in sellers’ listings eBay is able to pull that "live" information to answer those frequently asked questions. A seller only has to opt-in to the Smart FAQ feature while eBay will handle the rest. Of course if a seller would like to add additional questions and answers to their FAQ page, they can do this as well. Should a seller already have questions and answers posted to the existing FAQ…not to worry we will be merging those over to the new Smart FAQ page, so a seller will not lose any current information. For more details about this feature, please review the information about the Smart FAQ on the 4/14/09 Announcement pages. Also, please stay tuned for additional features to assist sellers with these buyer questions in the near future. -Nbirdsall

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http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/72709-Announcements-Discussion/Clarification-Needed-Regarding/510119994&#msg512586917

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(6 of 36) Re: Clarification Needed regarding anonymous buyer identify Jul 27, 2009 10:14 AM

Reliques, Good morning! Actually, email addresses will be kept anonymous until a transaction takes place. However, the buyer id will be present in the Ask Seller a Question (ASQ) and Reply To a Question (RTQ) emails, so you know who you are communicating with. This provides two benefits for users: 1) Safely respond to ASQs by clicking the "reply" button in your email client: By using an anonymous email address, users can communicate back and forth through their regular email clients instead of clicking on the yellow button to log back into eBay while still posting their emails to their My Messages account. 2) Keep your personal email address safe: In order to protect user email addresses from being harvested for unsecure commerce off the eBay platform, personal email addresses will be kept private until you transact with another user.

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(17 of 36) Re: Clarification Needed regarding anonymous buyer identify Jul 27, 2009 11:32 AM

Kingst, Hello and good morning! Yes, you will be able to send attachments (.gif, .jpeg, .tif, and .bmp formats are all accepted). Regarding the ability to send more than one response...just as if you were to click on the yellow button, you can respond to an ASQ more than once. Thanks for your post. -Nicole

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(18 of 36) Re: Clarification Needed regarding anonymous buyer identify Jul 27, 2009 11:34 AM

Bidventure, Hello. Yes, you will be able to send attachments (.gif, .jpeg, .tif, and .bmp formats are all accepted). Thanks for your posting. -Nicole

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(27 of 36) Re: Clarification Needed regarding anonymous buyer identify Jul 27, 2009 11:53 AM

Aviation, Hello. We understand that some users (like yourself) prefer to response to ASQs through eBay by clicking the yellow button while others prefer to manage their emails in their personal Inboxes. Therefore, users will be able to respond to member to member emails by either: • Clicking “reply” directly from their personal Inbox • Clicking the “respond” yellow button in the email from their personal Inbox • Clicking the “reply” button in their eBay My Messages Inbox Regarding the My Messages system, we understand that the My Messages system has been slow in the past and we have just recently launched performance enhancements to increase the speed of the feature. In addition, we are looking into other enhancements to assist sellers with response speed for the near future. And last but not least, photos. This is definitely a question that buyers could ask and this release will provide a couple of options to help you respond: 1) If the item is fixed price, you will be able to edit your live listing with additional photos. 2) If you respond to the ASQ by clicking the "reply" button in your personal inbox, you will be able to include an attachment (.gif, .jpeg, .tif, and .bmp formats are all accepted) We are also looking into other features to assist with this question in the future. Thanks for your feedback and posting. We greatly appreciate it!

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(29 of 36) Re: Clarification Needed regarding anonymous buyer identify Jul 27, 2009 12:13 PM

cchakurda, Countries are already included in the ASQ from buyers. However, zip codes are not currently in the email...this is a great suggestion and we will look into adding this in the future. Thank you so very much. -nbirdsall

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(31 of 36) Re: Clarification Needed regarding anonymous buyer identify Jul 27, 2009 1:24 PM

Regarding only being able to respond once to a buyer's questions...yes, you are correct the current limit is 1 response per ASQ. However, you will not be restricted by this limit of 1 in the next seller release.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/72709-Announcements-Discussion/Bidders-On-Auctions/520139285&#msg512588613

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(9 of 9) Re: Bidders on auctions post September Jul 27, 2009 3:20 PM

Just to clarify, from the thread of postings, I believe you are asking if Buyer Ids will be removed from Ask Seller a Question emails. If so, the answer is no. The buyer id will be present in the Ask Seller a Question (ASQ) and Reply To a Question (RTQ) emails, so you know who you are communicating with. However, the email addresses will be kept anonymous until a transaction takes place. This provides two benefits for users: 1) Safely respond to ASQs by clicking the "reply" button in your email client: By using an anonymous email address, users can communicate back and forth through their regular email clients instead of clicking on the yellow button to log back into eBay while still posting their emails to their My Messages account. 2) Keep your personal email address safe: In order to protect user email addresses from being harvested for unsecure commerce off the eBay platform, personal email addresses will be kept private until you transact with another user.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/72709-Announcements-Discussion/Clarification-Needed-Regarding/510119994?start=30&#msg512588814

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(36 of 36) Re: Clarification Needed regarding anonymous buyer identify Jul 27, 2009 3:59 PM

SanDiegoJoe, Good afternoon! As you most likely know, all member to member emails are posted in My Messages today. In order to provide this functionality, messages are stored in My Messages so they can be displayed. The new functionality does not change this behavior, but does provide the added benefit to allow users to quickly and easily respond to a question without logging back in to eBay through the ‘reply’ button in their personal email inbox. Regarding the usage of this information, we do and will continue to adhere to the eBay privacy policy rules. Regarding your question on if we violate FCC rules, the answer is no, FCC rules do not extend to email. Thanks for your posting.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/72709-Announcements-Discussion/Unclear-On-The/520139655&#msg522769348

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(4 of 6) Re: Unclear on the new: Ask Seller Question messaging system Jul 28, 2009 2:40 PM

indiebiz, Thank you so much for your post. Hopefully I can clarify your questions: 1) Yes, your email will be routed through eBay to be posted to recipient's My Messages and then sent on to the recipient's personal inbox. 2) Yes, the email you sent will anonymize your email address and therefore be hidden from the recipient. 3) Email body content will not be stripped out and will be sent as you typed it. Please note though that you will not be allowed to send any javascript or code that may contain a virus. 4) Just like any other email in your personal inbox, you will simply click "reply" in your inbox, type in your response, and click "send". You do not go back to eBay and therefore no login is required. Hope this clears things up. -nbirdsall@ebay.com

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/Limit-On-Number/520198992&#msg523689490

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(1 of 2) Re: Limit on number of responses to emails? Apr 27, 2010 9:39 AM

lindaspostcardsandmore, Thank you for your post! We made this modification a while ago and you should be able to respond a maximum of 5 times to the same email. I have forwarded the details of your situation to our product team just to verify that there is not an issue.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/Will-Ebay-Be/510218965&#msg523689698

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(1 of 2) Re: Will eBay be policing anonymous email for off eBay offers? Apr 27, 2010 10:24 AM

Off-eBay communications is a violation of eBay policy as stated in the Member to Member Contact Policy (Link). The Anonymous Email Alias feature was built to ease the ability of responding to messages from other users by providing the ability to leverage the "reply" button in your own personal email client. This eliminates the need to click on the yellow button, login to eBay, and then fill out a response. All of these messages will be sent to the recipient's real email address and to their My Messages Inbox to avoid potential spoof concerns. In addition, sellers who have difficulties with getting emails into various email client inboxes due to ISP filters, whitelists, or blacklists can benefit from eBay's high inbox delivery rate. This feature does not "anonymize" the buyer from the seller...sellers can still get buyer contact information (including email address) post transaction in the body of the email, through various locations on the eBay site and PayPal, and through several post-transaction APIs.

xx

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/Anonymous-Buyer-Email/510218989&#msg523689806

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(1 of 3) Re: Anonymous buyer email Apr 27, 2010 10:46 AM

dtmedin, Thank you for your post! The Anonymous Email Alias feature is not eliminating the ability for sellers to retrieve buyer contact information post transaction...sellers can still get buyer contact information (including email address) post transaction in the body of the email, through various locations on the eBay site and PayPal, and through several post-transaction APIs. This feature is providing the benefit to all users to respond to messages from other users through their own personal email clients without being required to click on the yellow button, login to eBay, and then fill out a response. All of these messages will be sent to the recipient's real email address and to their My Messages Inbox to avoid potential spoof concerns. In addition, sellers who have difficulties with getting emails into various email client inboxes due to ISP filters, whitelists, or blacklists can benefit from eBay's high inbox delivery rate.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/Anonymous-Email-Address/510219004&#msg523690037

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(2 of 2) Re: Anonymous Email Address Is Wrong Headed Apr 27, 2010 11:37 AM

ricnok, Thank you for your post! The Email Intermediation feature is not removing the buyer's email address from the site and you will still be able to retrieve the buyer email address should you need it post transaction. This feature is only modifying the "reply to" field in member to member emails. The "reply to" field will be populated with an alias email address in order to provide the ability for users to easily respond to member to member emails by clicking "reply" in their email client. By replying through this new feature, your email responses will not only go to the recipient's real email address, but will also be posted to their My Messages Inbox. This eliminates the need to click on the yellow button to respond while maintaining compliance with the eBay Member to Member Contact Policy.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/Ebay-Messaging-Attachments/510219061&#msg523690275

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(1 of 1) Re: eBay messaging - attachments Apr 27, 2010 12:29 PM

jimstrns, Thank you for your posting! The feature allows image attachments such as .gif, .jpeg, or .bmp, but due to the significant virus risk and popularity of using .pdf files as a means to spread viruses a .pdf file attachment is not currently allowed.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/What-Form-Of/510219068&#msg523690375

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(1 of 1) Re: WHAT FORM of Buyer Contact WILL BE accepted? Apr 27, 2010 12:50 PM

dorymoments4me, I'm not entirely sure what you mean in your first sentence. My understanding is that you would like clarity around how you can contact another eBay member, how you can respond to another eBay member, where will that response go, and will this help when issues arise between buyers and sellers. Starting with how you can contact another eBay member...nothing is changing from the way you initiate conversations with other eBay members. Today, you have the ability to go to a listing, My eBay, My World, or other areas of the site to click on the "contact seller" or "contact buyer" link to send the user a message. Once the message is sent, how can you respond to another eBay member? You have a couple of ways to respond. The first, which is available today, is through the yellow button in the email. You can click on the yellow button, login to eBay, write your response and reply. With Email Intermediation, you will have the second option to click "reply" in your email client, write your response (just as you would when responding to any other email), and click send in your email client. So, where will that response go? Regardless of if you choose to respond through your email client or the yellow button, your response will go to the recipient's email address and their My Messages Inbox. And will this help when issues arise between buyers and sellers? Absolutely. Even though it is against eBay Member to Member Contact Policy (Link), some users take their email conversations off eBay and when there is an issue (such as inappropriate content) the complaining user has to provide proof of this behavior. With email communications in My Messages, eBay will be able to assist without the need for the complaining user to provide proof.

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nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 18

(3 of 5) Re: email addresses surveillance federal wire tap laws Apr 27, 2010 10:11 AM

Thank you for your post! The Anonymous Email Alias feature provides the benefit to all users to respond to messages from other users through their own personal email clients without being required to click on the yellow button, login to eBay, and then fill out a response. All of these messages will be sent to the recipient's real email address and to their My Messages Inbox to avoid potential spoof concerns. In addition, sellers who have difficulties with getting emails into various email client inboxes due to ISP filters, whitelists, or blacklists can benefit from eBay's high inbox delivery rate. This feature does not "anonymize" the buyer from the seller...sellers can still get buyer contact information (including email address) post transaction in the body of the email, through various locations on the eBay site and PayPal, and through several post-transaction APIs.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/Can-Members-Still/510219112&#msg523690617

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(1 of 2) Re: Can members still UNCHECK "Hide my email address" when sending a msg? Apr 27, 2010 1:46 PM

buyalot!, There is no need to have this feature after Email Intermediation is wired-on. The Hide Your Email Address feature replaced your real email address in the "reply to" field of the email to the seller with "UseTheYellowButton@ebay.com". When Email Intermediation is turned on the "reply to" field will always have your alias email address and will never have your real email address.

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http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/42710-Announcements-Discussion/Is-The-Messaging/510219125&#msg523690784

nbirdsall@ebay.com

Posts: 26

(1 of 1) Re: Is the Messaging system going to be revised? Apr 27, 2010 2:31 PM

kingst, The Email Intermediation System will allow for image attachments. When this feature is available, you will be able to click "reply" from your email client, attach an image file (.jpeg, .gif, etc.), and click send.

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Nicole Bartholomew Birdsall

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=nbirdsall@ebay.com

Member since: Mar-31-09 in United States

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200904141007452.html

Nicole Birdsall, Group Product Manager of Communications with End to End Experience

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Ebay-Radio/Ebay-Radio-384/520198969

Nicole Birdsall, Principal Product Manager, Communications at eBay discusses anonymous email.

http://www.spoke.com/info/pYGC4LN/NicoleBirdsall

Nicole Birdsall

Principle Product Manager, Communications at eBay Inc

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nicole-birdsall/1/863/537

 

http://alumni.ggu.edu/Document.Doc?id=23

"MBA 03"

"She started with eBay in San Jose in 2006, where she now has the massive undertaking of managing the 18 billion e-mails sent to consumers every year, which generate $250 million of direct revenue. This is all no small feat, considering eBay is the world's largest e-mail sender."

http://www.dmnews.com/ebay-wins-e-mail-bid/article/156273/

eBay wins e-mail bid
by Dianna Dilworth
October 27, 2009

"“We're very focused on e-mail deliverability primarily because, why send a message if it doesn't get into the inbox,” says Nicole Birdsall, group product manager, communications at eBay. “We want to make sure that we are a good citizen and sending relevant e-mails and getting important messages through to our customers who are expecting them.”"

"eBay sends about 25 billion e-mails per year and has a 98 to 99% deliverability rate. “We make sure that all of the expected information is put into the header and our SPF records are good,” says Birdsall. “We also make sure that our IP addresses are certified with white lists.”"

" Today, eBay works directly with the ISPs, as well as with e-mail deliverability firm Return Path, to monitor its sending. One of eBay's approaches is to separate transactional e-mails and marketing e-mails and then send them from different IP pools. “ISPs hold marketing e-mails under different rules and regulations than transactional e-mails, so we separate them,” says Birdsall."

"“Part of our strategy is to look at it before we actually put it into a production mode, by sending it to several different inboxes before sending it to the user,” says Birdsall. “We look at making sure that it got into the inbox versus the spam folder, how it renders and what it looks like to the user.”"

“We realize that users might not know how to unsubscribe because maybe they are not opening the e-mails. And we'd like to make it easier for them,” says Birdsall. Since the program launched Birdsall says complaint rates have dropped."

"“We realize that users might not know how to unsubscribe because maybe they are not opening the e-mails. And we'd like to make it easier for them,” says Birdsall. Since the program launched Birdsall says complaint rates have dropped."

//*

"Another way to make things here less human. I will give my email address to my customers as soon as they win.

Why would you remove the address but still give the access to their phone number? I see a big increase in contact info requests in the future."
oldklutz, Apr 27, 2010 3:22 PM

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The eBay PayPal Discussion Board and PayPal Damon Billian

The eBay PayPal Discussion Board and PayPal Damon Billian
26 April 2010
EventHorizon1984

It's probably due to an associate who's a retired newspaper editor that gives us the once over from time to time, {run-on sentence) reminding us to get at least two sources (we do), check grammer (not always), {run-on sentence to be irritating), because over the years various individuals have forwarded informational tips to us. 

> Sound of teeth grinding through enamel. <

One oldie but goodie tip mentioned "PayPal Damon" being Damon Billian.  That was non-public news then, but old news today as you can find Damon mentioned by name in the 2005 AuctionBytes article, PayPal Damon Resurfaces at Simply Hired Job-Search Engine.

At this point you're wondering what point are we trying to make?

> Sound of teeth grinding to roots. <

On eBay's discussion boards, eBay tends to "archive" threads that may put eBay and it's companies in a bad public relations light.  Or give away what eBay might consider too much detail on something considered sensitive. 

One example is the PayPal forum thread Spread Awareness.

The thread started on 3 January 2010 at 11:28 PST, and ran uneventfully for two days.  Then post 219 provided a link to the 2008 AuctionBytes article 'PayPal Damon' Weighs in on the New eBay.  That article starts, "In the early days of ecommerce, Damon Billian was known as "PayPal Damon."  The January 5th post 239 chimed in with Damon Billian's public LinkedIn entry.

As we noted earlier, this is (at least 2005) old news.  However as this takes place on an eBay discussion forum, the soap 'As the PayPal Turns' would continue.

There was indignation expressed; "What is your point with posting that link?"  But Sandra displayed her usual kompetenz in post 243 by stating the obvious in her last post on the thread, "Trying to find "the" PayPal Damon is quite simple enough though some appear to have difficulty with that search."

The Damon train continued for two days.  Until post 254 on 7 January 2010 12:51 PST.  After which eBay archived the thread; "This topic has been archived - replies are not allowed."

It appears eBay tolerated the first two days and about 218 posts.  But wouldn't tolerate the last 36 posts over two days.  That's either being over sensative or very protective about 5 Year Old Public News.

Well, at least it's an improvement over a thread being deleted and poster NARU'd.

> Sound of being gummed to death <

There were old facts, and buried new tips in the article.  However you're still wondering, exactly what was the point of this fluff piece?

Happy Birthday Chief!

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eBay v Amazon 1st Quarter 2010

eBay v Amazon 1st Quarter 2010
22 April 2010
EventHorizon1984

eBay

During Meg Whitman's term as eBay CEO, Jeetil Patel of Deutsche Bank AG posted an October 2007 "sell" rating on eBay.  A daring call given eBay's stock rose to 39.66 by 1 October 2007.

John Donahoe became eBay CEO on 31 March 2008.  At the close of that last day of the 1st Quarter, eBay stock stood at 29.84.   By 4 April 2010 eBay stock rose to 32.94. 

Move forward two years, and on 31 March 2010 eBay stock was priced at 26.97.  Down 18% from 31 March 2008.

A bit over two years later and a day after eBay's 1st Quarter 2010 Earnings Call, eBay stock stands at 24.78. With an average daily volume of 16.4 million shares, 55.6 million shares were traded.

The Zacks article eBay Grows, Sans Skype gives a detailed break down of eBay's 1st Quarter numbers.  They describe it as "a solid balance sheet", but end with "We have a Neutral rating on eBay shares."

eBay's "Gross revenue of $2.20 billion was down 7.4% sequentially and up 8.7% year over year."

Amazon

Interestingly the stock of eBay's competitor Amazon sat at 76.87 on 31 March 2008, and 135.77 on 31 March 2010.  Up 76% from 31 March 2008. 

On the day of Amazon's Earnings Call, Amazon stock stood at 150.09.  Average daily volume of 9.2 million shares with 13.6 million shares traded.

According to John Paczkowski's article "Amazon Profits Surge", Amazon's "Revenue grew 46 percent to $7.13 billion."

eBay v Amazon

At this point we're thinking the classic quote,

"I'm laughing at the superior intellect",

applies.

[Jeff Bezos photo from Digital Daily - Amazon Profits Surge]

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Why Are eBay Sellers Finding 100 Million Listings Amazing?

Why Are eBay Sellers Finding 100 Million Listings Amazing?
31 March 2010
EventHorizon1984

On March 30th eBay converted many product listings residing in seller stores to what are known as "Fixed Price listings."  Which garnered a few statistical observations.

An eBay Stores Discussion Board thread "March 30th is here, and now we know...." had itspostingtime start off with:

itspostingtime (Private)   View Listings  

Posts: 4,106

March 30th is here, and now we know....
Mar 30, 2010 8:12 AM

I obviously can't vouch for the accuracy of the count, but....

I just looked at the PSU chart. It indicates an increase between yesterday at this time and today of about 55%....a net gain between now and then of something like 55 million listings....for a total of about 101 million.

While on Power Sellers Unite, sammicat lead the thread "auction count off" with:

sammicat Red Star Total posts: 53

Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2010 8:02 pm Post subject:  auction count off? are the auction counts a little wonky? Does Ebay really have 101 million items listed now?

They are referring to eBay's "101 million" auction listing count on the PowerSellersUnite.com Auction site count chart.  That chart shows the number of eBay auctions at a specific point in time.  The posters are rightfully puzzled because auction listings are not "Fixed Price listings", i.e. the auction count should essentially be the same.

Well we won't talk about 'what's up?' with the statistics, but we will peer into how many listings can be found on eBay "on any given day"? 

In eBay CEO John Donahoe's first solo United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 10-K filing for "the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009", there is no mention of the number of listings on eBay.  As we tend to say, it's up the reader to figure out where this metric went.

Under the reign of eBay CEO Margaret Whitman, things were different in the SEC filings.  You will find in eBay's United States Securities and Exchange Commission 10-K filing for "the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006" the following statement:

"On any given day, there are more than a hundred million items available through auction-style and fixed-price trading."

Which essentially matches the "101 million" count.

Here's the thing.  What to know what's in the 10-K filing for "the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008"?  The year Margaret Whitman stepped down and John Donahoe took over.

"Our Marketplaces platforms include more than 140.0 million listings on any given day and make available to our users a wide variety and selection of goods"

Either 40 million listings vanished, presuming the unlikely event that there was no increase in the number of listings during 2009, or eBay hasn't finished converting store products to fixed price listings.

eBay's listing count should be interesting to watch during April.

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PayPal India Personal Accounts Hold and the April 30th RBI Deadline

PayPal India Personal Accounts Hold and the April 30th RBI Deadline
17 March 2010
EventHorizon1984

Happy Saint Patrick's Day.

Now back to our irregular program.

We had expected the PayPal India debacle to fade into the background as PayPal (an eBay company) India slowly got it's Reserve Bank of India 2007 Payment and Settlement Systems Act (effective 12 August 2008) paperwork in order.

After all Farhad Irani provided PayPal India business customers withdrawl instructions on 1 March 2010 as promised.

And PayPal India spokesman Anuj Najar happily chirped:

We've Resumed Local Bank Withdrawls in India

---

Hi blog readers, it’s Anuj from the comms team here. Following on from Farhad’s blog post on Monday, I’m pleased to let our customers in India know that we’ve resumed local bank withdrawals.

When you select the ‘Withdraw Funds’ option on your PayPal account, we will ask you to fill out a new field entitled ‘Purpose Code’.    This information is required under the laws of India in order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions. Simply select the one most appropriate for your business.  More details on purpose codes can be found here ( http://www.paypal.com/in/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/Marketing/popup/PurposeGroup_IN-outside )

If you have any questions, please contact PayPal customer support by logging into your PayPal account and clicking on ‘contact us’ at the bottom of the page.

I’d like to apologize again on behalf of PayPal for all the inconvenience this has caused our customers.

Anuj

Hi blog readers, it’s Anuj from the comms team here.

Following on from Farhad’s blog post on Monday, I’m pleased to let the thousands of  businesses who rely on PayPal to sell their goods and services around the world know that we’ve resumed local bank withdrawals in India.

When you select the ‘Withdraw Funds’ option on your PayPal account, we will ask you to fill out a new field entitled ‘Purpose Code’.    This information is required under the laws of India in order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions. Simply select the one most appropriate for your business.  More details on purpose codes can be found here

If you have any questions, please contact PayPal customer support by logging into your PayPal account and clicking on ‘contact us’ at the bottom of the page.

I’d like to apologize once again on behalf of PayPal for all the inconvenience this has caused our customers.

Anuj

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 7:45 am

Which is fine for the "thousands of Indian businesses who use PayPal". 

But whatever happened to those personal accounts whose funds PayPal put on hold January 2010?

Farhad Irani, Head of PayPal Asia Pacific, wrote on 1 March 2010:

Q. I run a charity, and I am based in India. I don’t see the purpose code for donations and charities
A. PayPal can currently be used only as a gateway for payments of goods and services into India. We cannot process payments for charitable donations at this time.

Q. I used to use PayPal for Personal Inward Remittance to India. Now, my balances are stuck in PayPal
A. We are no longer able to complete these withdrawals to your bank account in India.  You do have the option to complete your withdrawals by check.  If you have any questions, we urge you to contact PayPal customer support by logging into your PayPal account and clicking on ‘contact us’ at the bottom of the page.

Farhad Irani, Head of PayPal Asia Pacific, wrote on 26 February 2010:

"PayPal needs specific approvals to allow personal inward remittances to India, which we currently do not have. Until we get these approvals, personal payments into India will remain suspended."

Which brings up the question, PayPal says thousands of India business accounts but how many PayPal India personal accounts are there?

According to Anuj Nayar, PayPal Director of Global Communications, there are 1.6 million Indians signed up to PayPal.  With the caveat "not all of them are regular users".  We'll leave it to the reader to do some research as to how many regular PayPal personal account India users exist.

The India based IBNLive 16 March 2010 article "Has PayPal given you problems yet?" by Technology Correspondent Jaimon Joseph wrote:

"Within hours of reaching out to them, PayPal's PR team here patched me on a telephone call to Anuj Nayar, their Global Communications Head. He patiently explained the fracas to me, bit by bit, for the better part of an hour."

Which explained how he obtained that tantalizing 1.6 million fact.  And Mr. Joseph confirmed PayPal India's lack of paperwork being the reason for the transaction holds:

"I cross-checked my data with Alpana Killawala, at the Reserve Bank of India, I was in for a slight surprise. All money flowing across our borders is subject to two major laws. The Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the Payments and Settlements Act of 2007.

According to those laws, organizations like PayPal should have submitted themselves to scrutiny by the RBI. They hadn't, so they were pulled up. To prevent inconvenience to customers, the Reserve Bank has allowed PayPal to honour all transactions done upto January this year. But they're still on the watch list."

In other words 'pulled over for operating without a license'.  Solely the fault of the operator.

But Mr. Joseph also wrote something rather disquieting:

"If they don't satisfy all the bank's detailed questions by the thirtieth of April, their operations could be disrupted again!"

Now PayPal India payments were officially suspended on 27 January 2010, cause being operating with out a Payments and Settlements Act license.  The "thirtieth of April" is 90 days (give or take) after the suspension.  Ninety days being a sterotypical warning period. 

It appears PayPal was never in the clear to operate, but to "prevent inconvenience to customers" was given 90 days to comply with the law or face disruptions to PayPal's operations.

Interesting.

The clock is ticking PayPal India.  Get your act together.

/*

Apologies for the "transaction" typo in previous articles.

See Also

• PayPal India Farhad Irani Restores Business Bank Withdrawls But Hold On Personal Funds Remain
  
• PayPal India Service Hold Explained: 'We Don't Need No Stinking License'
• The PayPal India Suspended Transaction Services and Farhad Irani
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Continues
  
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup

//

"Delay or failure to receive such a license or regulatory approval could require PayPal to change its business practices or features in ways that would adversely affect PayPal’s international expansion plans, and could require PayPal to suspend providing products and services to customers in one or more countries."
John Donahoe, eBay CEO, 27 October 2009

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PayPal India Farhad Irani Restores Business Bank Withdrawls But Hold On Personal Funds Remain

PayPal India Farhad Irani Restores Business Bank Withdrawls But Hold On Personal Funds Remain
28 February 2010
EventHorizon1984

Continuing the trend of terse press releases, Farhad Irani "Head of PayPal Asia Pacific" stated February 26th on the PayPal Blog that "bank withdrawals for settlements for exports of goods and services" are anticipated to resume on March 3rd.

The small catch for India businesses is this new PayPal (an eBay company) requirement: "you will be required to fill out a new field entitled ‘Export Code’ when you request a withdrawal". 

Predictably PayPal provided no details on getting an "Export Code", but Farhad Irani promises that on March 1st he will "be back in touch with specific instructions on how you can move your money into your bank account"

An India business can wait and see what gems Farhad Irani releases from the PayPal vaults, or perhaps they could take the time to read the PluGGd.IN article PayPal Resumes Local Withdrawls to Indian Banks, Here is how to get Export Code, and find the section titled "How do I obtain IE Code or FIRC?".  Or see the Techie Buzz article Import Export Code (IEC) For PayPal India Payment Withdrawals and view the "Useful Links" section.

At this point one should wonder what PayPal has NOT said about this self-inflicted problem.

Consider the spin released by individuals with no stated relationship to PayPal that 'only personal accounts were affected' beginning 27 January 2010.  And quotes from terse PayPal Blog public relations releases.

• "I’m writing to let you know that personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in India have been suspended"  Anuj Nayar, PayPal spokesman, 6 February 2010.
• "Only personal payments should have been reversed."  Anuj Nayar, PayPal spokesman, 9 February 2010.
• "We were hoping that our merchant customers would be able to start withdrawing their funds at their local bank by today, but it looks like this will still take some more time."  Farhad Irani, Head of PayPal Asia Pacific, 14 February 2010
• "thousands of Indian businesses who use PayPal" Farhad Irani, Head of PayPal Asia Pacific, 26 February 2010

Interesting how according to PayPal, business affected went from essentially none to thousands.

Should be very interesting to see what gets extracted from PayPal in the months to come.

Meanwhile we'll leave you with these gems from enthusiastic India PayPal blogger Amit Sinha of Little About:

• "resumption of service of PayPal, acclaimed e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet and one of the greatest means of communications of Indians overseas."
• "millions of Indians have had a sigh of relief"

"Millions"??

/*

Apologies for the "transaction" typo in previous articles.

See Also

• PayPal India Service Hold Explained: 'We Don't Need No Stinking License'
• The PayPal India Suspended Transaction Services and Farhad Irani
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Continues
  
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup

//

"I never said it. Honest" ... "For a while, out of childish pique, I wouldn't utter the phrase, even when asked to.  But I've gotten over that.  So, for the record, here it goes: 'Billions and billions.'"
Carl Sagan

//

Resuming local bank withdrawals to India

---

Hi. It is Farhad Irani again with a progress update. We have been diligently working with the RBI and our business partners to resume Indian bank withdrawals for the thousands of Indian businesses who use PayPal to sell their goods or services in the global marketplace.

I’m pleased to tell you that the RBI has now allowed us to resume bank withdrawals for settlements for exports of goods and services. We are currently making changes to comply with Indian regulations for settlements for exports of goods and services, and we anticipate that as of Wednesday, March 3rd, we will be able to resume the bank withdrawal service. As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a new field entitled ‘Export Code’ when you request a withdrawal. This information is required under the current laws of India in order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions. On Monday, March 1st, we will be back in touch with specific instructions on how you can move your money into your bank account. I will be posting another blog then.

I’d like to thank the RBI for working with us to get this addressed. We know this is an inconvenience to you and we appreciate your patience.

Moving forward, the RBI has told us that PayPal needs specific approvals to allow personal inward remittances to India, which we currently do not have. Until we get these approvals, personal payments into India will remain suspended. However, if you are an exporter, you will continue to be able to use the PayPal service for payments of goods and services. In fact, with the changes we are making to our system, PayPal is now set to be a more powerful engine for exporters in India. With purpose codes for export transactions and FIRCs (Foreign Inward Remittance Certificates), you should now be able to get the export related benefits you seek.

We know the past few weeks have been difficult and I would like to assure you that we have been working tirelessly to resolve the situation and restore our service. PayPal’s highest priority is to always ensure we comply with all applicable regulations everywhere we do business around the world.

Going forward, you can expect the same reliability from PayPal that you have enjoyed for all these years. I would like to thank you all for sticking with us and assure you of our best services going forward.

Farhad

ShareThis

This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Stuff for Everybody. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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PayPal India Service Hold Explained: 'We Don't Need No Stinking License'

PayPal India Service Hold Explained: 'We Don't Need No Stinking License'
18 February 2010
EventHorizon1984

With apologies to our India business colleagues, this will be brief because some of us are momentarily doing something else.

This is an excerpt from eBay's United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K, that eBay CEO John Donahoe signed on 17 February 2010.

"The Reserve Bank of India has asserted that PayPal’s offering of payment services to customers outside of India to send personal, non-commercial payments to recipients in India requires a license from the Reserve Bank. The Reserve Bank has directed the Indian affiliate of PayPal’s processing bank to suspend all withdrawals to the Indian bank accounts of PayPal customers for both personal and business customers. PayPal has suspended personal non-commercial payments to Indian accounts, and intends to apply for a license from the Reserve Bank of India, but PayPal could be subject to fines from the Reserve Bank for the period of operation without a license, and PayPal’s prospects for future business in India, both cross-border and domestic, could be materially and adversely affected."

Take note of the following:

• "period of operation without a license"
• "intends to apply for a license from the Reserve Bank of India"

eBay has stated PayPal is operating without a license in India.  And PayPal has not started the license process yet.  Merriam-Webster defines "intend" as "to have in mind as a purpose or goal."  Which is not the same as saying 'applied for a license' or 'is waiting for license approval.'  In other words, 'the check is in the mail.'

Worse case is PayPal arguing with the Reserve Bank of India, that PayPal does not need a license.

• "suspend all withdrawls to the Indian bank accounts of PayPal customers for both personal and business customers"

Needless to say that PayPal's first off-the-cuff response of the India transaction service halt only affecting personal transactions, "Personal payments to and from India will be suspended for at least a few months" and "Only personal payments should have been reversed", were in error.

• "personal, non-commercial payments to recipients in India requires a license"

eBay has stated the Reserve Bank of India stipulated PayPal needed a license for "personal, non-commercial payments."  BUT PayPal suspended transactions for "personal and business customers" instead of just "personal" transactions.

If there is someone in charge at PayPal International who's actually awake and functioning, perhaps they should bother to read what eBay CEO John Donahoe puts a signature to quarter after quarter.

"Delay or failure to receive such a license or regulatory approval could require PayPal to change its business practices or features in ways that would adversely affect PayPal’s international expansion plans, and could require PayPal to suspend providing products and services to customers in one or more countries."

The eBay Inc. United States Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-Q, signed by eBay CEO John Donahoe, 27 October 2009.

He spoke, PayPal didn't listen.  PayPal dithered for almost a year and a half, and now "thousands of Indian businesses who use PayPal" are being adversely affected.

Interesting that it's three months to the day, 27 January 2010, where due to PayPal's ineptness in obtaining an India license, eBay's worse case scenario of "PayPal to suspend providing products and services to customers" occurred.

Enough already.  PayPal get your license and get on with business.

But don't fret.  The people in charge of PayPal India "intends to apply for a license from the Reserve Bank of India" REAL SOON NOW.

/*

Apologies for the "transaction" typo in previous articles.

See Also

• The PayPal India Suspended Transaction Services and Farhad Irani
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Continues
  
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup

//

“Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges.”
‘Gold Hat’ (Alfonso Bedoya), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaxURLFn6jU

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The PayPal India Suspended Transaction Services and Farhad Irani

The PayPal India Suspended Transaction Services and Farhad Irani
15 February 2010
EventHorizon1984

We anticipated PayPal would make a statement this week regarding suspension of personal transactions into India.  PayPal remained predictable.  On February 14th, "Day 19", Farhad Irani the lead for the PayPal business in Asia Pacific posted a letter on the PayPal Blog.  A copy of the letter is attached to this article.

The letter contained Farhad Irani's "sincere apologies for the inconvenience", and not much else.  The else being two paragraphs regarding taking money out of a credit card for a "five USD fee".  Presumably to make up for the cash PayPal is holding.

And two paragraphs providing tacit confirmation that PayPal business accounts were affected;

• "help the thousands of Indian businesses who use PayPal"
• "We were hoping that our merchant customers would be able to start withdrawing their funds at their local bank by today, but it looks like this will still take some more time.".

Otherwise, as India colleagues surmise, many PayPal India customers will have to wait, according to PayPal, "months" for their money.

Remember The New York Times article?

India's Central Bank Stops Some PayPal Services
The New York Times
Heather Timmons and Claire Cain Miller
February 10, 2010

"“Providers of cross-border money transfer service need prior authorization from the Reserve Bank under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act,” a spokeswoman for the Reserve Bank of India, Alpana Killawalla, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “PayPal does not have our authorization.”

Currently some people with no official capacity to speak for PayPal are spinning 'it's the fault of the India government.  As we noted previously, when a business fails to comply with the law, it is the fault of the business.

While Farhad Irani became Singapore based "leader of PayPal’s business in the region and as a fellow Indian" in April 2009, how could someone with "more than 25 years of experience in retail banking" Not know about the India Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007?  Considering the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) posted the following public press release.

Date : 01 Sep 2008
Payment and Settlement Systems Act, and Regulations come into effect

The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (51 of 2007) and the Payment and Settlement Systems Regulations, 2008 have been notified and have come into effect from August 12, 2008. The Payment and Settlement Systems Act stipulates that no person other than the Reserve Bank, shall commence or operate a payment system except under and in accordance with an authorisation issued by the Reserve Bank under the provisions of the Act.

All persons currently operating a payment system or desirous of setting up a payment system, as defined in Section 2(1)(i) of the Act should apply for authorisation to the Reserve Bank, unless specifically exempted in terms of the Act. Existing payment systems will cease to have the right to carry on their operations, unless they obtain an authorisation within six months from the commencement of the Act (i.e., 12th August 2008).

The Payment and Settlement Systems Regulations, 2008 detail the form and manner in which the application is to be made to the Reserve Bank for grant of authorisation. The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 and The Payment and Settlement Systems Regulations, 2008 are available on the website of Reserve Bank.

Ajit Prasad
Manager

Which means prior to January 27th, PayPal had six months plus almost a year to receive RBI authorization, and did not.

• "I’m personally committed to working closely and tirelessly with the Reserve Bank of India to get a fast resolution to this issue" Farhad Irani, 14 February 2010

One wonders what he was doing post April 2009?

With PayPal weeds also spinning authorization is time consuming and difficult for a United States company like PayPal to obtain, perhaps it would be helpful to see who is licensed.

It turns out there is an interesting document concerning companies certified by the RBI.

Date : 11 Feb 2010
Certificates of Authorisation issued by the Reserve Bank of India under the Payment and Settlement

Systems Act, 2007 for Setting up and Operating Payment System in India
The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 along with the Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems Regulations, 2008 and the Payment and Settlement Systems Regulations, 2008 have come into effect from 12th August, 2008.

The 'payment systems' operators authorised by the Reserve Bank of India to set up and operate in India under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 are as under:

Position as on January 31, 2010

Contained within is a list of compliant United States companies, and when they were certified.

• Cards Payment Network
• American Express Banking Corp, March 31 2009
• Master Cards International Incorporated, March 31 2009
• Visa International Services Association, USA, March 31 2009

• Cross border Money Transfer - in-bound only
• Buyindiaonline.com Inc, January 18 2010
• MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc., May 25 2009
• Royal Exchange (USA) Inc., May 25 2009
• Western Union Financial Services Incorporated, March 31 2009

Save for the new Buyindiaonline.com, it appears United States companies were able to be complaint, in 2009.

Perhaps as a friend noted, one or more of these PayPal competitors asked the RBI why in 2010 was PayPal operating in violation of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, while they were compliant with the Act in 2009?

Probably a coincidence PayPal's owner eBay bans MoneyGram and Western Union payments.

Or not.

/*

Apologies for the "transaction" typo in previous articles.

See Also

• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Continues
  
• The PayPal India Transaction Holdup

//

'It’s more concerning that a company such as Paypal could “overlook” such an important regulation.
I think this is really telling of the level of people at the top within Paypal, surely some heads have rolled for this…unforgivable, and we have to trust them with our money, I wonder what else is being “overlooked”.'
Bigpoppa

//

An Open Letter from Farhad Irani on the Situation in India

---

Hi. My name is Farhad Irani and I lead the PayPal business in Asia Pacific. As the leader of PayPal’s business in the region and as a fellow Indian, I want you to know that we are sparing no effort in ensuring that the present day inconvenience in not being able to process the bank withdrawal functionality in India for sellers is quickly and completely addressed. This is the single most important item for me and my management team. My sincere apologies for the inconvenience you must be facing.

I’d like to let everyone know that I’m personally committed to working closely and tirelessly with the Reserve Bank of India to get a fast resolution to this issue, so that we can continue to help the thousands of Indian businesses who use PayPal to sell their goods or services in the global marketplace. India is a very special market for me and your continued success is very precious to us.

We were hoping that our merchant customers would be able to start withdrawing their funds at their local bank by today, but it looks like this will still take some more time. I understand your frustration and want to let you know that we are doing everything we can to free your funds.

It has always been possible for sellers to request a check or withdraw funds to a credit card, and these options are still available from the Withdraw Money tab of your PayPal account. If you don’t have a credit card attached to your PayPal account now, you can add one under the Profile section of your PayPal account.  Before asking for a credit card withdrawal, please check with your card issuing bank to ensure that they can process it.

It usually takes five to seven working days for you to receive a check when you request a check withdrawal and PayPal normally charges a five USD fee. We are trying our best to help sellers during this difficult time and therefore will refund the check withdrawal fee back to your PayPal account within a week. I appreciate that this is not ideal, but please bear with us.

I’d like to let you know that I’m listening to your concerns. This is my direct PayPal email address: Farhad@paypal.com. Feel free to send me an email.

Farhad

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 14th, 2010 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Stuff for Everybody, Stuff for Merchants. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Continues

The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Continues
10 February 2010
EventHorizon1984

PayPal has not been forthcoming about specifically why PayPal "has currently suspended P2P (person-to-person) transfers to and from PayPal India accounts".  The statement from PayPal spokesman Anuj Nayar, "We temporarily suspended these services to respond to enquiries from the Indian regulators" never answered the question why was it necessary to suspend services to answer questions.

Today The New York Times published this statement.

India's Central Bank Stops Some PayPal Services
The New York Times
Heather Timmons and Claire Cain Miller
February 10, 2010

"The Reserve Bank of India said it asked the company on Jan. 27 to immediately suspend PayPal payments to and from India as well as transfers to local banks in India. PayPal said it complied with the request the next day."

Indicating the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) "asked" PayPal to suspend payments.  Which is 'all well and good' save for this part of the article.

India's Central Bank Stops Some PayPal Services
The New York Times
Heather Timmons and Claire Cain Miller
February 10, 2010

"“Providers of cross-border money transfer service need prior authorization from the Reserve Bank under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act,” a spokeswoman for the Reserve Bank of India, Alpana Killawalla, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “PayPal does not have our authorization.”

The act, adopted in August 2008, regulates payment and settlement methods in India."

When a business fails to comply with the law, it is the fault of the business. Not the regulation.

Apparently the answer to why the suspensions occurred is PayPal's papers are not in order.

Since "August 2008"??

/*

See Also The PayPal India Transaction Holdup

//

"Sometimes the only thing more dangerous than a question is an answer."
Rule of Acquisition #208

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The PayPal India Transaction Holdup

The PayPal India Transaction Holdup
10 February 2010 Amended
EventHorizon1984

There's been some spin generated abroad about PayPal holding cash from India.  Examples of disinformation being it's a rumor, or PayPal has nothing to do with the alleged rumor incident.

PayPal through Anuj Nayar stated for the record that (all) PayPal "personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in India have been suspended" and "We temporarily suspended these services".  There is nothing in writing by PayPal that they were forced to do so by another party.  Based on what PayPal has written, which we provide below, any conclusion at this point in time as to why PayPal is suspending all personal India transactions is speculative and borders on rumor mongering.

The actual ongoing PayPal event is the "suspension of certain transactions in India", which is not a traditional payment hold as PayPal defines it.

Specifically:

"PayPal has currently suspended P2P (person-to-person) transfers to and from PayPal India accounts, i.e. specifically those funds transfers that do not have an underlying exchange of goods or services."

sushant@ebay.com, eBay India Team

Nevertheless it's interesting to observe the actions of a United States corporation (PayPal is owned by eBay) affecting customers within a large populous nation, by having all personal "payments to and from India" "suspended for at least a few months".

While this International situation lingers for what PayPal says is "at least a few months", hopefully not, here's a chronology sampler of prior and current events plus comments.

Notations

• The reference (REF) date is when a situation occurred, or when an official statement was released.  The same document may have multiple "REF"s because the document mentions different dates within.
• The REF day is set to California time.  The clock in India is 13.5 hours (give or take) ahead of California.
• The date/time format for India posts is Day-Month-Year.
• SandyPruins posted the link to the PayPal India thread (http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967).
• Our comments in the chronology will appear in this form.

//

PayPay India Halt Chronology

REF January 20 2010

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=40

*deals  (1077 ) View Listings		07-02-10 00:50 IST	68 of 120
Dear Sushant, Thanks for the update but how long will it take?? If there are more delays - I foresee the following : We are receiving the payments and have received payment. My withdrawls are pemding from 20th Jan. Initially I thought its some temporary issue so I used up all my personal money. Nothing in hands now. Paypal money is pending. My orders are pending dispatch since one week. By next week, disputes will start coming. Paypal claims will start coming. I will have to refund (forcefully). If more disputes - less buyer satisfaction Low DSR. Low search standings - Low business. Why is this?? Ebay asks us for prompt service but who will be responsible for this delay? What about negative feedbacks if we get? With nothing in bank and nothing in paypal account if the claim is raised, paypal will deduct amount from CC. The CC defaulter cycle is a different story again. No fees will be paid and for non payment Ebay will suspend the account. Business closed... For you it could be easy to ask "Be Patient" Its already been 15 days when I initiated my first withdrawl. What do you think Sushant??

/*     

This sample post gives the indication that suspensions occurred before January 28, and not as Anuj Nayar of PayPal stated beginning "Jan. 28".

/*

REF January 26 2010

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=40

bollywood2hollywood  (700 ) View Listings		07-02-10 11:23 IST	70 of 120
Hi All, I am also facing the same problem. 4-5 of my withdrawals are pending with paypal since January 26th. I have not received any mail tll now from paypal. God knows what will happen to our hard earned money. Regards, Ram Kishan.

/*      

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=40

pc_gaming_store  (8892 ) View Listings		07-02-10 19:28 IST	73 of 120
Our payments are on hold too since January 26. The worst part is that it shows 'Complete' in the PayPal account but the funds have not reached our bank account. Our Account Manager was kind enough to give us notification of the same. We thank him for the same. However, PayPal never bothered to inform us. That is sad. This is a gigantic concern for Indian sellers. We hope eBay India actively follows up and not display the lethargic history of resolving problems that is so synonymous with them. By the way, PayPal customer support is completely unaware of this. If you call and ask PayPal, they will say it shows as 'Complete' and the problem is with our bank. Yeah right!

/*    

REF January 27 2010

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=40

vishalsunil  (24 ) View Listings		07-02-10 01:05 IST	69 of 120
hello friends i also withdrawn a sum of amount on 27th jan & 1st feb but till today haven't received them in bank.How long will it take for things to get normal. Regards Vishal

/*    

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=40

kothari.enterprises  (237 ) View Listings		08-02-10 00:50 IST	79 of 120
Dear All, Hello, This is very serious matter for all, who sells internationally and accept payments via PayPal. The bad news is that RBI has hold the money transfer facility from PayPal to Indian banks. No one has answer how long this matter is going to take to resolve and till that, there will be no deposits done by paypal. The PayPal and eBay saying that they have continued the commercial payments but I excused, I receive all my money via creating invoice. Not as gift or service, but still I do not got the funds into my bank account which I withdraw on 27 Jan, 30 Jan. 2010 to my current account. I am a premier business paypal account holder but still no money transfers were done to my bank account. It’s really horrible part of PayPal. Most of all sellers who withdraw fund after 26 Jan has not received the payment to bank accounts. Why not paisa pay started accepting funds globally? what’s the matter If we are doing an legal business through ebay, why they do not accept international payments on eBay.com sites? like PayPal? After all the invoice payments we pay monthly goes to eBay switzerland account. Than whats the problem for Paisa Pay to accept International funds? Like other gate ways - ICICI, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank all they accept international credit cards. If anyone has any updates please share here...... Again I request eBay team. Start accepting payments through paisa pay at eBay.com site for Indian sellers. We cannot depend any more on PayPal for our payments... Thank you. With Best Wishes. Kapil.K

/*    

REF January 28 2010

PayPal halts certain payment transactions in India
AP
Sat Feb 6, 9:25 pm ET

"Nayar said the suspensions began Jan. 28. He wrote in a blog post that PayPal, which is owned by eBay Inc., hopes "to resolve the situation as quickly as possible."    

/*

Appears transaction halts began as early as January 20th.

/*

REF February 4 2010

PayPal Reversing Transactions of Indian Accounts
Tech Ground
Thursday, February 4, 2010

/*

Advisory: PayPal Reverses Personal Payments To And From Indian Accounts
Binary Turf
4 February 2010 ??

"The following is the standard email notification that the receiving parties are getting:

Hello <user>,

Your payment of  <xxx> has been sent back to the sender of the payment.

We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.

If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows:  (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select "Goods," and (c) provide a shipping address.

If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India.

We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we're sorry for any inconvenience.

Thank you,

PayPal"

"PayPal_Anuj
February 4, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Personal payments to and from India have been suspended while we address some questions from our business partners. You can still make commercial payments. We’re trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience this may cause."

/*

Anuj Nayar's (PayPal's) response to the article is made through the ID "PayPal_Anuj".

/*

REF February 5 2010

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=40

sushant@ebay.com View Listings		06-02-10 12:57 IST	61 of 120
Dear All, PayPal is currently experiencing an issue in processing withdrawals to Indian bank accounts. As a result there may be some delays in withdrawals /random deposit for verification. During this time, PayPal customers can still make commercial payments to Indian sellers but the sellers cannot withdraw funds in Rupees to local Indian banks. PayPal is trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. PayPal is working actively on resolving the issue to be able to process your withdrawal as soon as possible; however, we do not have a specific time-frame to share at this time. We will be informing you all of any updates as and when we receive them from our PayPal team. Regards,

/*

Paypal India Outage - No Payments to or from India
manish
February 5, 2010

/*

PayPal's India Problems
Seeking Alpha
Tech Crunch
February 05, 2010

"This is the standard notification e-mail people are receiving in their inbox:

Hello XXXX,

Your payment of xx has been sent back to the sender of the payment.

We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.

If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select “Goods,” and (c) provide a shipping address.

If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India.

We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.

Thank you,
PayPal"

/*    

REF February 6 2010

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=40

sushant@ebay.com View Listings		06-02-10 16:26 IST	64 of 120
Dear stylish_india, We are sorry to hear that the payment by your buyer has been sent back to the buyer while you have shipped the product already. PayPal has currently suspended P2P (person-to-person) transfers to and from PayPal India accounts, i.e. specifically those funds transfers that do not have an underlying exchange of goods or services. In this specific instance, because the buyer did not choose to select the option of either goods/services or eBay items and chose to pay directly – the transaction may have been identified as a P2P transfer by PayPal and therefore reversed. PayPal suggests that you should contact your buyer immediately and ask them to pay again, selecting - Goods - as the reason for payment. Since the buyer would have received the refund, they will know that you have not received the money and that you are justified in asking the buyer to re-send the payment. Such instances of buyers choosing the P2P option to make payment for an item are very rare as most buyers choose the goods/services or eBay item options. A member of our Customer Support team will be reaching out to you to understand and address your concerns. In the future, to ensure all your transactions with international buyers go through without any hindrance, we strongly advise all our sellers to: a. Request for money from PayPal using the ‘Create and Invoice’ option and NOT the ‘Create a money request’ option b. Inform the buyer to use the options present in the invoice sent by you to make the payment – so the payment is clearly identified as an exchange of goods and services Regards The eBay India team

/*    

Personal Payments and local bank transfers in India
February 6th, 2010 at 2:13 pm

Hi, blog readers, it's Anuj from the communications team here.

I'm writing to let you know that personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in India have been suspended while we work with our business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service.

During this time, customers can still make commercial payments to India but merchants cannot withdraw funds in Rupees to local Indian banks.

We're trying to resolve the situaton as quickly as possible and we're really sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause our customers in India and around the world.

I'll update the blog as soon as we have more information to share.

Anuj

/*    

Note PayPal (above) mentions an interruption to an unknown number of business accounts, when Anuj Nayar states, "commercial payments to India but merchants".  The terms "commercial and "merchants" can refer to PayPal business accounts.

/*    

PayPal halts certain payment transactions in India
AP
Sat Feb 6, 9:25 pm ET

"A spokesman for the service said Saturday that "personal payments" to and from India are being blocked. Transfers to banks in India are being suspended as well."

/*

PayPal India Reversed Personal Payments
Island Crisis, Mauritius News
Kurt Avish
2010/02/06

"While reports originally had it that the halt was only on personal payment transactions, we also noticed that payments for services was also affected."

/*

REF February 7 2010

PayPal India stops withdrawls, reverse payments
TameBay
Sue Bailey
February 7th, 2010 at 1:14 pm  

/*

REF February 8 2010

PayPal suspends service in India
ZDNet Asia
Liau Yun Qing
February 08, 2010

"In Indian blog Pluggd.In which focuses on start-ups, writer "manish" posted last Friday about an e-mail from PayPal saying "funds requested through PayPal India are being reversed to their senders, and users have no access to them"."

"PayPal, owned by eBay, boosted the online marketplace's performance in the fourth quarter of last year.

India's retail e-payment market is growing fast with the market forecast to reach between US$150 billion and US$180 billion by this year, according to a report by research firm Celent."

/*

PayPal India Reversed Personal Payments
Island Crisis, Mauritius News
Kurt Avish
2010/02/06

"Update 1: It’s already 8th February and yet no answer from Paypal to explain clearly what is happening. A reader contacted Paypal via phone support and shared the phone call record. You can download a copy here."

/*

We downloaded the recording, and it points out the technical problems involved when recording a telephone conversation.

/*

sushant@ebay.com View Listings		08-02-10 20:48 IST	88 of 120
Dear All, There have been questions that sellers like you have asked us either here on these boards or of the account managers/customer service representatives. Find below answers to these: • What are exact timelines for issue to get resolved? While we are working closely with the PayPal team to resolve this as soon as possible, we unfortunately do not have any specific timelines to share at this point. • Is PaisaPay also impacted? We would like to make it very clear that PaisaPay continues to be absolutely safe and there are no issues with paying through PaisaPay. PaisaPay remittances shall continue as per schedule. Also, PaisaPay accepts International credit cards. • Can I bypass PayPal for receiving payments from my buyers? Some of our sellers accept Postal Orders/Cheques and other forms of payment. Neither eBay India nor PayPal will be able to guarantee performance of these services in any way. We strongly advise all our sellers to use the ‘Request Money -> Send Invoice’ option to accept payment from their buyers. • What about negative ratings due to delayed shipping? We advise all our sellers to continue to list their items and ship to international buyers as they as always have. We would advise our sellers to not delay their shipments. • Should we continue to ship & receive money to our PayPal account? We advise all our sellers to continue to list and sell their items to international buyers without any fear. We foresee this issue being resolved very soon and would advise you to not alter your selling strategy. • Buyers who transferred money choosing Personal payment got reversed but I have shipped items, what if buyers do not pay again? In cases where the buyer has transferred your payment via P2P (person-to-person) method and you have shipped the item already, we would like you to first request the buyer to transfer the money again choosing the ‘goods/services’ option in PayPal. Considering the buyer has already noticed that his payment has been credited to his account, you would be right in asking for a payment again. If you have anymore questions, please feel free to post them here or reach out to your account managers. Regards, The eBay India team

/*

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Paypal/Which-Country-Is/520184002&start=45

sandypurins (255)

View Listings

Posts: 38,736

Ignore

(46 of 64) Re: Which Country is next? Feb 8, 2010 12:02 PM

The following is posted on the eBay India forums... Last year in November, the Indian government had issued a notification (No No.13/2009/F.No.6/8/2009-ES dated 12 November 2009) for prevention of money laundering. Under this notification, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked all banks and financial institutions to maintain proper record of all transactions and verify identity and address of a non-account based customer or a walk-in customer. Payments to and from PayPal to its account users in India may also involve the foreign exchange maintenance act (FEMA) that has been under a cloud over the black money issue. On Friday, many renowned personalities had filed another petition in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Indian government to bring back unaccounted black money to the tune of around Rs65 lakh crore (Rs65 trillion) stashed away in banks abroad. Although PayPal provides money transfer service to and from India, neither the company nor its account holders pay any tax on the transaction. When Moneylife contacted the RBI to know about the PayPal issue, an official said,”We have no idea why this is happening. PayPal doesn’t come under RBI’s purview.” The question is then how can the country receive money, in foreign currencies, without any accountability and supervision? Some of the comments on techcrunch.com also say that many Indian account holders ask their payee to make the payment as a ‘gift’ rather than payment for services to avoid PayPal fees. One such comment said: “A lot of business must be transacted in India via PayPal—business done with personal transactions. So a money-hungry Indian government is aggravated at some perceived revenue loss (taxes, customs, etc.) and (has) put pressure on PayPal to stop the payments either directly or indirectly.” http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967

/*

Interesting point, abet the article uses a long stretch of logic to connect an event from 3 months earlier to PayPal's current situation.

Note the current official statement from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI); "We have no idea why this is happening. PayPal doesn’t come under RBI’s purview.”

The Reserve Bank of India functions in the same manner as the United States Federal Reserve.

Reserve Bank of India
http://www.rbi.org.in/commonman/English/scripts/home.aspx

/*    

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Paypal/Which-Country-Is/520184002&start=45

sandypurins  (255)

View Listings

Posts: 38,730

(47 of 64)
Re: Which Country is next?
Feb 8, 2010 12:10 PM

beachgal707 wrote: Did you notice there was no reference made to the disposition of monies already being held? This is interesting because I'm sure India was not immune to the 21 to 180 day holds. The restriction applies only to personal payments. The 21-day eBay Item Hold does not apply to personal payments.

/*    

Incorrect about "The restriction".

FACT:  PayPal stated, "customers can still make commercial payments to India but merchants cannot withdraw funds". 

I.E. PayPal business accounts, as noted by various eBay India businesses.  PayPal is affecting an unknown number of business accounts plus all personal India accounts involved in tranactions.

/*

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Paypal/Which-Country-Is/520184002&start=45    

sandypurins  (255)

View Listings

Posts: 38,736

(52 of 64)
Re: Which Country is next?
Feb 8, 2010 2:16 PM

It appears the Indian government has put pressure on PayPal to stop the payments either directly or indirectly.

/*  

Well has sandypurins started a rumor; placing the blame on the Indian goverment for the PayPal India hold?  Of course sandypurins could not possibly know about a future event.

FACT: PayPal stated on February 9th "We temporarily suspended these services to respond to enquiries".

PayPal places NO blame on the Indian government.  Nor does PayPal state the Indian government forced PayPal to hold accounts.  PayPal states clearly "We", not "They."

Placing direct blame on the government WHEN PAYPAL DOES NOT inflames the situation and does nothing to help.  Unless the point in doing so is to get the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian government angry, and delay fixing the situation?

/*    

http://forums.ebay.in/thread.jspa?threadID=500002967&start=0

sushant@ebay.com View Listings		09-02-10 01:18 IST	91 of 120
You are welcome Amitava! Go ahead and list without any apprehension. Regards

/*

Above from an eBay India employee.   

/*

REF February 9 2010

sushant@ebay.com View Listings		09-02-10 23:16 IST	120 of 120
Dear Community Members, We’re going to restore the amount of your recent attempted withdrawal back into your PayPal balance so that you can know your money is safe in your account. You should see the balance restored within 24 hours. Some of you may have already seen this restored amount reflecting in your PayPal accounts. In addition, you will see another reimbursement of any withdrawal fees charged. We will ensure that you are not adversely affected by currency fluctuations during the last week. This additional reimbursement(s) should cover the difference between the attempted withdrawal-amount and the amount-restored by PayPal into your accounts. Regards, The eBay India team On behalf of PayPal

/*

Update on PayPal situation in India
February 9, 2010 at 11:16 am

.

---

It’s Anuj from the comms team here again.

Following on from my blog post on Saturday, I’ve received a number of questions about the situation in India and I thought it’d be best to simply answer the questions in a blog post.

Here are answers to the top questions I’ve received:

1. Why did you suspend local bank transfers and personal payments to and from India?

We temporarily suspended these services to respond to enquiries from the Indian regulators, specifically questions on whether personal payments constitute remittances into India.

We’re working with the regulators and our bank processing partners in India to get this resolved as quickly as we can. We realize that this is causing considerable inconvenience to our customers and I want to reassure you that this is a top priority for the leadership at PayPal

2. When will personal payments be turned back on?

The regulators recently let PayPal know about revised licensing rules that we are now actively engaged in securing. Personal payments to and from India will be suspended for at least a few months until we fully resolve the questions from the Indian regulators.

3. When will local bank withdrawals be available?

Customers should be able to withdraw their funds to a local bank within the next few days. In the meantime, we’re going to restore the money into the PayPal accounts of any customers in India who have initiated a recent withdrawal, so they know that the money is safe in their accounts. Customers will also be reimbursed for any withdrawal fee charges.

4.The PayPal reversal has left me with a negative balance. What shall I do?

If you bought something or transferred money out of your PayPal account to your bank account before we reversed the payment then you may be left with a negative balance.

If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, you should contact the sender and have him or her resend the payment as follows:

(a) click the Send Money tab, and

(b) select “purchase.”

If this was a personal payment, then the sender will need to find another payment method until we restore the service.  We’re sorry about this.

If you can’t recover the funds from the sender, you can bring your PayPal balance current by logging in to the PayPal account and clicking the “Resolve Negative Balance” link on the Account Overview page.

5. My payment was reversed but it was not a personal payment. What happened?

Only personal payments should have been reversed. Customers who believe that their payments were reversed in error should request that the payment be sent again by following the steps above (click the Send Money tab and select “purchase.”)

If you are still having problems, please contact PayPal customer support

I hope that this helps clear up some of the confusion around the situation in India and I’d like to take the opportunity to personally apologize on behalf of PayPal for the inconvenience that this is causing our customers.

Anuj

/*

Note the "Only personal payments should have been reversed", emphasis on "should".  As stated in posts here and elsewhere, some business accounts were impacted.  PayPal states above that error will be corrected.

/*

REF February 9 2010

PayPal's India transaction block could last months
AP
Tue Feb 9, 3:27 pm ET

//

Addendum added to article.

See our followup The PayPal India Transaction Holdup Contnues.

//

"I’d like to take the opportunity to personally apologize on behalf of PayPal for the inconvenience that this is causing our customers."
Anuj Nayar, PayPal Spokesman

"Apology accepted"
Darth Vader, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

//

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EventHorizon1984 Blog Log

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Aloha Bonanzle ... PayPal Is Your Friend

Aloha Bonanzle ... PayPal Is Your Friend
25 January 2010 
Amended Edition ^[1]
EventHorizon1984

Blog articles originating here are a collective effort wired together by one editor (or an alternate).  When the editor is pre-occupied, uninspired, lazy, etal, there is no post.

When the "look into this" started piling up, the editor though 'they' could get away with posting a comment on a better read blog, Red Ink Diary, and get back to lazing on the computer.

'They' were wrong.

So ... A Looo Haaa Bonanzle Forum and the eBay Answer Forum.  The Collective has notice the surge in article hits, and the editor has been carpet bombed with figurative wadded up paper.

{sigh}

If you've been around eBay long enough, you're aware that somewhere in the bowels of lower peon management, hopefully it's that level and not higher, they engage in the philosophy of 'throw spagetti at the wall and see what sticks'.  That is test a bunch of ideas on the live production system, and gauge the customer reaction and/or the public reaction.

The applicable eBay buzz term is 'applied to a small number.'

Is the "$20,000.00" figure a test applied to a small number of sellers?  Is this a case of eBay disinformation, or 'loose lips' leaks, or one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, or just a really bad idea?  

Or a mistake?

 

Ultimately PayPal users will find out before the end of 2010 what was fact and what was fiction.

In the meantime since "Monroe Labouisse, director of PayPal's business on eBay in the US and Canada" stated on the record that PayPal holds occur on "less than 5% of transactions," that still leaves sellers with a 1 in 20 chance of winning the PayPal hold lottery. 

And should you notice PayPal doing something interesting, write a letter to Auctionbytes.  With AuctionBytes pulling in a half a million visitors a month, it's amazing what a little noise can do to reverse a policy.  Or a mistake.

But it begs the question, why should there be a new PayPal/eBay focus on holds and what changed?

Our previous article covered a bit.  Here we'll add a bit more, plus throw in a scenario.

Nora posted eBay's "Funds Payable" ("Funds payable and amounts due to customers'") numbers for the years 2003 to 2009, in the comment section of the AuctionBytes article "eBay Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2009 Results."  You can verify these numbers by viewing eBay's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 8-K filings.

After reading various eBay SEC filings some numbers stood out, and we left a comment on Red Ink Diary article "Through the Smoke, Flames".

Part of the comment reads:

"There’s a line item for “Net Total Payment Volume”, which is defined as “Total dollar volume of payments, net of payment reversals, successfully completed through our payments network or on Bill Me Later accounts during the quarter, excluding the payment gateway business.”

Here’s what happens when you put both numbers together.

            Funds Payable ($)    Net Total Payment Volume ($)    FP% of NTPV
2003      106,568,000         3,711,000,000        2.9%
2004      331,805,000         5,607,000,000        5.9%
2005      586,651,000         8,114,000,000        7.2%
2006    1,159,952,000        11,004,000,000       10.5%
2007    1,513,578,000        14,044,000,000       10.8%
2008    1,467,962,000        15,988,000,000        9.2%
2009    2,157,945,000        21,366,000,000       10.1%

The "Funds Payable" and "Net Total Payment Volume" (nTPV) are the totals for the year, that eBay reported to the SEC.  The nTPV represents PayPal transactions through eBay.

Well we mucked up the figures in that post.  Demonstrating don't be lazy and post numbers on the fly.  The nTPV posted was for the 4th quarter of the year, not the year total.  

While the correct numbers were being looked up, we decided to add in the amount represented by the line item "Transaction loss rate".  The "Transaction rates" line item has the notation "Transaction rates represent the ratio of Payments net transaction revenues (including the payment gateway business and Bill Me Later), Payments third-party processing expenses, and Payments fraud and protection program losses relative to net total payment volume."  The column "Transaction Losses" represents the total "Payments fraud and protection program losses" for the year.  Below are the correct amounts.

            Funds Payable     Net Total Payment Volume    FP% of nTPV    Transaction Losses
2003     $106,568,000     $12,226,000,000        0.87%         $36,234,000
2004     $331,805,000     $18,915,000,000        1.75%         $50,125,000
2005     $586,651,000     $27,485,000,000        2.13%         $73,771,000
2006   $1,159,952,000     $37.752,000,000        3.07%        $126,388,000
2007   $1,513,578,000     $47,470,000,000        3.19%        $139,067,000
2008   $1,467,962,000     $60,147,000,000        2.44%        $170,627,000
2009   $2,157,945,000     $71,616,000,000        3.01%        $181,467,000

Looking at this table, the why PayPal holds take place makes a horrid sense.  It may really be that the holds are less for the interest generated, and more to do with what PayPal (and eBay) is obligated to do under it's Merchant Account agreement.  As commented:

"Have to wonder if all or part of that “Funds Payable” represents the reserve eBay’s credit card processor (Wells Fargo) requires to make “the marketplace safer for buyers and sellers.”."

Amounts held can come from either the cash coffers of eBay ($3.999 billion), or from the businesses that accept PayPal transactions.  If you are eBay/PayPal, guess who's cash you don't want held?

And consider eBay CEO John Donahoe's push to get more eBay sellers to use PayPal.  This may be less about forcing PayPal upon every seller, and more about spreading the amount held among more sellers.  For example if eBay could double the number of PayPal users, the average amount and percentage held per seller would be smaller.  This is good Public Relations because fewer people would notice PayPal holds.

Then too consider the increase in PayPal seller holds beginning in the spring of 2009.  Notice the increase from 2.44% to 3.01%?  It's a small change, but we're dealing with large amounts.

Suppose the change from 2.44% to 3.01% represented PayPal's new required (Wells Fargo?) reserve.  For $71 billion that represented an additional $410 million (hope we got the sums right) that PayPal/eBay can't touch.  If you are eBay/PayPal, guess where you get that $410 million?

Finally we leave you with the probably improbable but you never know nightmare scenario for PayPal sellers. 

Some unlucky PayPal users were being assessed a 20% hold on funds in early 2009, versus "10% being the norm."  With PayPal/eBay's unchanging fraud rate and money being tight, what happens if PayPal/eBay is required to keep "the norm", as PayPal put it "10%"?  In 2009 terms that's $7.1 billion, versus $2.1 billion.  Where do you think the money is going to come from?

Then again this is unlikely to happen because a 10% reserve is high and PayPal is your friend.  Beer anyone?

See also

• PayPal Holds "It's All Heresay"
• The eBay PayPal 10% Hold Solution
• The eBay PayPal 5% Hold Solution
• The eBay PayPal 20% Hold Solution
• eBay Seller Forum: New PayPal 60-Day Payment Holding
• TameBay: PayPal reserves: here's what's really happening
• Red Ink Diary: PayPal Rolling Reserves - Straight Talk
• TheBrewsNews:  The Keys To Surviving The PayPal 21-Day Hold Policy

[1]  Never press 'publish' and walk away for the night, when you mean to press 'save draft'.

//

"The Visitors came here to suck us dry, and when they're finished with this planet, they're gonna take it like an empty beer can and toss it over their shoulder."
Ham Tyler, V: The Final Battle (1984)

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EventHorizon1984 Blog Log

//

PayPal Holds "It's All Just Heresay"

PayPal Holds "It's All Just Heresay"
14 January 2010
Updates Added January 17th and 25th
EventHorizon1984

Toward the end of 2009 PayPal, an eBay Corporation, apparently started placing more 'holds' and 'reserves' on seller accounts.

Those actions of PayPal were talked about on the eBay PayPal Discussion Board and other forums.  And the apparent increasing reach of PayPal did reach the notice of two large audience blogs.

TameBay
PayPal reserves, holds : policy changes explained
Sue Baily
21 December 2009

• "We’ve heard from a number of sellers recently that PayPal seem to be stepping up the number of rolling reserves and 21 day holds they’re putting on accounts at the moment."

AuctionBytes
eBay Confirms More 21-Day Holds from PayPal
Ina Steiner
31 December 2009

• "eBay confirmed that PayPal has rolled out transaction holds more widely in the last month or so, but said the criteria are the same."

Moving deftly to 2010, the news of PayPal's increasing reach did not died down.  And perhaps came notice that PayPal has added a new wrinkle to holding seller funds.

An AuctionBytes Letter to the Editor, New $20k PayPal 21-Day Hold Policy describes a "new policy where they hold payments for 21 days (or less) for all sellers who sell less that $20,000".

A PayPal email posted elsewhere reads:

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

My name is Jamie. I was speaking to you earlier regarding the review of your account.

According to my Supervisor the review is already in process however there is no guarantee that this hold will be totally removed from your account.

The reason behind this is because you have not received more than $20,000.00 USD for the past three months. Aside from the requirements given by eBay we also have this requirement for our account specialist to create a manual review in order for the account to be excluded on that specific eBay payment holds.

Even though you were not able to meet that particular criterion on PayPal we are still conducting the review. Also there was no timeframe given. In any event that you experience payment holds in your account just send us an email or call us so we can do a manual release.

I'll be glad to hear from you if you need clarification and we will do our best to give you immediate answers. Thank you for choosing PayPal for your online payment needs. We appreciate your business.

Sincerely,
Jamie
PayPal Consumer Support
PayPal, an eBay Company

Although the PayPal spin being spread now, is mirrored by a major eBay seller unaffected by PayPal's hold policy.  Incidentally the inspiration for the article title.

cobbie10 (14938) View Listings

Posts: 4,807

(152 of 245) Re: 21 Day Hold Jan 4, 2010 3:27 PM Just like all the threads that post here where people say PayPal are holding their money. There's no proof, so it's all just heresay.

Are PayPal holds "heresay"?  Sorry cobbie10 they are not.  Unless PayPal is lying in one of their explanation articles, All About Payment Holds And What They Mean To You.

Will all of these PayPal hold and reserve policies affect sellers using PayPal?  Maybe, maybe not.

According to "Monroe Labouisse, director of PayPal's business on eBay in the US and Canada" on 16 January 2009 in the official eBay Blog eBayINK.com:

• "In a very small percentage of cases, eBay asks PayPal to hold a payment in a seller’s PayPal account for up to 21 days.  eBay asks PayPal to do this"
• "We’re talking about single-digit percentages.  Usually less than 5% of transactions."

As we calculated in a previous article, 5% per quarter represents in 2008 terms per quarter:

• Active eBay users affected:  4,150,000
• Number of new listings affected:  27,780,000
• Active registered PayPal accounts affected:  2,740,000
• Net total payment volume, HELD:  $578,450,000

Not that this was the last word on how many are affected.  A PayPal analyst Bill Clark wrote on 9 June 2009 in the official PayPal blog www.thePayPalblog.com:

• "We’re requiring reserves for a very small percentage of our sellers – currently less than 1%."

Given a choice between the "5%" statement of a PayPal Director or the "1%" of a "risk team" analyst, we'll chose what a PayPal Director says over a minion.

Is this out of the ordinary?  No.

What PayPal and eBay do to compensate for fraud, and make money in the process is basic business.  Holding funds to cover the cost of fraud, interest on funds held, and the ability to use those funds is smart use of money. 

Of course this doesn't mean there is no affect on the consumer, i.e. seller.

Is there a reason for all the hold and reserve?

Let's go over the credit card fraud aspect.

Fraud Statistics

PayPal is very tight-fisted with it's fraud statistics, but you can find them if you look long enough.

A 2001 golden oldie article Digital cash payoff, which resides on the PayPal site, contains quite a few interesting statements.  You might want to grab the article before PayPal 'archives' it.

• "PayPal claims it has found a way to bring the online fraud rate down to less than .5 percent"
• "Visa reports an overall fraud rate of .07 percent"
• "Gartner study of Web merchants indicates the figure soars to 1.13 percent for online transactions"

Paypal CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) Michael Barrett stated in a 2007 article PayPal security measures help stamp out fraud, "our fraud rating is 41 basis points, or less than a half of 1%."

The short 2008 article Just how secure is eBay's pay system? reports:

• "eBay’s head of public affairs, Daniel Feiler, who admitted to a newsletter recently that PayPal's fraud rate was 0.3% of all transactions while APCA’s was 0.0167%."

If you're a numbers person the fraud rate PayPal provides is a rather consistent less than 0.5% over an eight year span.  While that sounds good, do remember that PayPal doesn't highlight the fraud rate of the competition, which we did.

Being a savy consumer means comparison shopping.

For instance which is the safer processor?  PayPal, where fraud occurs ".5 percent" of the time or Visa where fraud occurs ".07 percent" of the time?  PayPal, with a fraud rate of "0.3%" or the competition at "0.0167%"?

To be fair VISA is equally tight with disclosing it's fraud rate.  A slightly more recent 2005 statistic, reports "Visa said the technology might reduce its fraud rate to $3 per $10,000 of transactions from the current $5 per $10,000".

That's 0.03% and 0.05% respectively.  Versus PayPal's fraud rate of "0.3%".

Consider that PayPal applies holds on accounts PayPal or eBay deems risky.  What do you think the regulated banks and credit card companies do to a company that year after year shows a fraud rate 10 times the norm?  I.E. Risky.

Two words; hold, reserve.

In order for PayPal and eBay to remain profitable, what do they do?  Pass on their costs to the consumer.

How?  Two words; hold, reserve.

Denouement

Given the very tight current credit market, until and unless PayPal and eBay reduce their fraud rate, don't expect the trend of holds and reserves being applied to more and more sellers to cease.

If you have PayPal processing only, maybe it's time to consider shopping around?

Disclosure:  A few contributors to this article have PayPal accounts.  Most have Google Checkout accounts.  All have Merchant accounts.

See also

• The eBay PayPal 10% Hold Solution
• The eBay PayPal 5% Hold Solution
• The eBay PayPal 20% Hold Solution
• eBay Seller Forum: New PayPal 60-Day Payment Holding
• TameBay: PayPal reserves: here's what's really happening
• Red Ink Diary: PayPal Rolling Reserves - Straight Talk
• TheBrewsNews:  The Keys To Surviving The PayPal 21-Day Hold Policy

//

Article update 17 January 2010.

Apparently PayPal is sending out new variations of their hold email.

(1)

Thank you for contacting PayPal, my name is Michelle and I am glad to receive your email today.

First of all I apologize. With regards to your concern, the email message that you have received from PayPal is a heads-up/education informing you about the hold that might occur on your account.

This happens because PayPal is losing a lot money from the chargebacks that we need to attend too. If this concern/issue arises on your account, please do contact us at 1-888-221-1161 or 1-888-204-4481 and we will have our account specialist assist you immediately.

Sincerely,

Michelle
Consumer Support
PayPal, an eBay Company

(2)

Thanks for contacting PayPal's Customer Support, my name is Remz. I realize that this situation can be frustrating, and appreciate the opportunity to clarify the Account Level Hold (21-day hold policy).

For security reasons, PayPal may delay the release of a payment to the seller. We are focused in making the marketplace safer for buyers and sellers by helping to ensure successful transactions which, in turn, can mean more sales for you.

As indicated in the email notice, if we determine that a seller's overall account has a high level of risk, we may decide to hold all of the seller's incoming payments. Each payment will be held until we can be sure that the transaction was completed successfully and to the satisfaction of customers.

Individual holds will be released 3 days after we confirm delivery, or after 21 days. Account-level holds are typically evaluated each 30-90 days. So within this time frame if we determine that your account is in good standing there is a possibility that the payments received in the future may not be held.

When an account-level hold is placed, the seller receives an email notifying them of the hold. Rest-assured that our email system is designed to send 10,000 email notifications everyday to customers, in a per batch basis. Eventually, the account-level hold will be rolled out to all PayPal sellers.

Please understand that we aim to protect both sellers and buyers. Account-level hold gives the sellers the protection from chargebacks and other similar complaints. The requirements that we ask from sellers before the hold gets lifted are basic things that we can report back to card companies in case buyers claim the transaction is fraud or unauthorized. Moreover, the delivery confirmation is an added protection for sellers as it is a way to determine if the buyer indeed received the item or not. On the other hand, holds placed on the seller's account will have the seller send the item to buyers immediately, producing very satisfied buyers in return

In case you missed the pertinent part in the second email, we've extracted it below.  Emphasis ours.

"Eventually, the account-level hold will be rolled out to all PayPal sellers"

We noted in a 17 February 2009 article, "With PayPal required to report U.S. seller sales to the IRS in 2011, this is a golden opportunity for PayPal to withhold 10% of a U.S. seller's funds for tax purposes." 

If you have a PayPal selling account, welcome to the testing phase.

//

Article update 25 January 2010.

Looks like the 'testing phase' is 'over'.  PayPal held funds inadvertently boosting 2009 Quarter 4 numbers, and users noticed and complained.

On 22 January 2010, two days after eBay's Earnings Call, PayPal said 'sorry'.

Payment Hold error resolved

amanda@paypal.com

Jan 22, 2010 3:54 PM

Hi All,

PayPal uses payment holds to ensure that sellers have sufficient funds in their accounts if, for example, a buyer files a dispute. In deciding whether to apply payment holds, PayPal reviews many factors including transaction activity, business type, and customer disputes.

PayPal did experience a recent system issue where some sellers' funds were incorrectly held as part of this policy. PayPal has corrected the problem, so any sellers who should not have been affected by the policy have already been notified had their funds released.

The issue has been corrected and we apologize for any confusion.

Learn more about our funds availability policy

Amanda

If you were "some sellers'" who's "funds were incorrectly held", you may have gotten a letter like the one below.

Subject: error fixed - no payments on hold

Hello XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,

As part of our customer protection policies, we hold the funds for a small number of sellers’ payments for up to 21 days in case there’s a problem with the transaction. Once released, the full payment amount can be accessed in the seller’s PayPal account.

Unfortunately, due to a technical issue, we mistakenly held some of the funds for your payments, which showed up as a “Pending” balance in your account. Rest assured, you're not currently subject to this policy and the issue has been corrected. We know this may have been frustrating and apologize for any inconvenience.

We're committed to helping your business grow. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions at (888) 221-1161.

You might even have gotten your funds back.

Essentially PayPal took a month to 'fix' what they claim was a "recent system issue."

With the surge in PayPal holds being reported toward the end of December 2009, the only thing that was "recent" was the spotlight put on PayPal by the 13 January 2010 AuctionBytes letter to the editor.  With AuctionBytes pulling in a half a million visitors a month, it's amazing what a little noise can do to reverse a policy.

Although not necessarily permanently.

To Be Continued.

//

"I’d like to apologize in advance for the inconvenience these holds may cause, and for any inconvenience they may have already experienced because of a hold."
Monroe Labouisse

"we apologize for any confusion"
PayPal Amanda (amanda@paypal.com)

"Apology accepted"
Darth Vader, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

//

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2010 The Year Everything Changed

2010 The Year Everything Changed
28 December 2009
EventHorizon1984

Toward the end of the year 1984 there was a memorable scene in a movie that ended shortly after HAL 9000 forwarded the message to Dr. Heywood Floyd, "It is important that you believe me.  Look behind you.".  The changing facial expression and slow steady movement of Roy Scheider (Dr. Floyd) was as memorable and priceless as another scene which ended with "You're going to need a bigger boat."

An interesting portrayal of alarm, apprehension, surprise, and wonder.  All happening while moving forward in time, but looking back.

Here near the end of the year 2009, humans do a similar performance.  In the race toward the New Year we see the hopeful possibilities and the horrific ones, and at the same time look back over the year soon to be gone.

While this little parable is aimed at the 'small' sellers on Amazon, eBay, eCRATER, and other notable venues, this is applicable to anyone.

There was a dramatic pause in the 2010 and Jaws scenes, and a certain amount of fear involved with Roy Scheider's characters.  But he didn't freeze.  When the momentous occurred, he moved.  Perhaps slowly and methodically, and with much uncertainty, but he moved.

Too often we look over the recent past and possible futures, and freeze into inaction.  Past and future dread taking hold, and bringing forward progress to a stand still.

Don't let that happen. 

Easy to say and hard to do.  Of course.  But do you really want to be remembered as 2009 road kill?

Our take on this yearly event?  If you have any sense of grammar, you'll note the tense of the title.  It's written as though 2010 was a past event.

The year 2010 will be known as memorable.

//

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

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There was a bit of Peace and Quiet Online

There was a bit of Peace and Quiet Online
14 December 2009
EventHorizon1984

Unlike Christmas seasons past, this year we were expecting some major down time.  A bit of relaxation before the rush of post-Christmas and Tax return season selling.  Among other things.

< unabashed plugs follow >

Save for the Craigslist v. eBay trial, eBay INC has been unnaturally quiet.  To the point that our previous blog post was November 21st.  Where one of our favorite stops TheBrewsNews, has been equally dormant since November 23rd.

There was time enough at last to enjoy the Christmas posts at Grannygoodpaints Place and Red Ink Diary.

Up until last week.

< cue music >  "Write about us."

Let's say it got unnaturally busy online at Amazon, the web sites, and elsewhere.  And while it was expectedly dead on eBay (see first paragraph for why), John Donahoe's policies did do some unexpected good.  There were some people coming from eBay, looking for us and our niche associates.

But here it is a new week, and we're back to expecting a little peace and quiet. 

Like that will last.

If you're a small online business, hope this portends you're much busier than we are.

//

"Wouldn't it be nice if, once in a while, everyone would just shut up and stop pestering you?  Wouldn't it be great to have the time to finish a thought or spin a day dream?  To think out loud without being required to explain exactly what you meant?  If you had the power, would you dare to use it, even knowing that silence may have voices of its own ......

in the Twilight Zone?"
A Little Peace and Quiet (1955)

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Is eBay Search Burning?

Is eBay Search Burning?
21 November 2009
EventHorizon1984

By now you're probably seen, or perhaps we should say you haven't seen, eBay's search in action.  Perhaps not coincidentally this comes on the heels of a 11/19-11/20 "Scheduled Maintenance."

Readers can find the various takes on this incident at Google News.

According to an eBay System Announcement made at 02:59 PM PST, this is a minor problem.

"Due to errors in some of our backend systems, members may be seeing different errors in Search.  This could be that "We were unable to run the search results you entered.  Please try again in a few minutes", or simply the browser being unable to display the page."

And, "This is also affecting the ability to access eBay Stores through search directly, and sometimes from the store URL."

Unfortunately this highlights the historical response time of eBay's technical departments.

As you can see a warning went out at 05:02 AM PST, almost 10 hours before eBay decided to notify it's users.

Looking at the technical side you might ask, what gives?  eBay does say what is wrong, abet in an innocuous manner.  They mention errors in the "backend systems".

Picking a random easy to understand explanation at random, this is what Linktionary has to say.

Users interact with applications in front-end systems to make requests on back-end systems. The back-end systems then process the requests, searching and sorting data, serving up files, and providing other services. 

"Back-end systems" loosely refers to servers, superservers, clustered systems, midrange systems, and mainframes that provide data services to users. The location of these services is often called the server farm or data center.

In less complex lingo, i.e. normal human terms, eBay said there is a problem with the Search software and/or hardware.

Most of the bets from the professionals here cover eBay doing a barely tested software update snafu. eBay does has a history of implementing major changes over the weekend, with spectacular results.

The fix options here are patch buggy software or back out the changes.

The hardware aspect is best put by Pete Cashmore of Mashable:

If you’ve been on the web long enough, you’ll know that Twitter isn’t the first startup to have suffered scaling issues: the auction site had significant problems keeping the servers humming in its early days

Basically if you view eBay Search (software, hardware) as a car, Search redlined.  eBay managed to exceed the limits of the software and/or hardware.  For example, more items loaded into the database, than the system can handle.

The fix here is removal of items from the database and/or get more robust software and hardware.

eBay's last system announcement of 03:28 PM PST is almost four hours old, and the problem is coming up on lasting fifteen hours.  So we wonder if this is something as minor as eBay portrays, or something more worrisome?

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"When will you make an end?!"
Pope Julius II
"When I am finished."
Michelangelo, The Agony and the Ecstacy (1965)

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A Tale of Two Cross Promotions, Google and eBay

A Tale of Two Cross Promotions, Google and eBay
19 November 2009
EventHorizon1984

Apologies for the advertisements that were appearing on this blog.  They have been changed.

Don't know how other bloggers view their sites, but here it's rare taking a look at our own site.  Typically the self viewing in the mirror occurs when format changes are being made, or we're checking the links of specific articles.  Otherwise writers here work from the editing pages.

Yesterday viewing the blog, it came as a shock that we had been transformed into a mature audiences site.  The artificial intelligence of Google AdSense decided our 'racy' writing needed suitable 'racy' ads.

Fortunately this is easy to fix.

https://www.google.com/adsense/site-targeted-ad-review

Click categories not wanted and save.

While the Google AdSense promotions are relatively easy to change, the same can't be said of eBay's cross promotions.

When you go to the eBay page "Promote your items on other pages" the choices are simple.

Select "Yes" and "Your items will be shown on pages and emails that are seen by thousands of interested buyers" and "Similar items from other sellers will also be displayed with your other items on your pages".

Select "No" and "Items from other sellers will not be displayed on your listings and emails related to your items."

That should keep the items of other sellers off your own pages right?

Not really.

As noted in our previous article, eBay "Promises, Promises", that changed over the last few days to having no ability to keep out the listings of other sellers.

16 November 2009, 1:28 PM PST

"Starting tomorrow, November 17, you may begin to see merchandise on the bottom of item pages for active listings as well. While we usually refrain from making changes close to the holiday season, the test results showed a considerable increase in sold items, and  we wanted to offer this functionality to our selling community ASAP."

Contrary to what eBay corporate might think about the stealth of these changes, sellers noticed.

18 November 2009, 14:00:55

eBay Seller Unable to Opt-out of Cross Merchandising

"In spite of the fact that I have ALWAYS opted out of cross-promotions on my ebay listings, deceptive ebay still cross-promotes to my buyers (but hides from me) my competitor's similar items on the bottom of MY listings that I am paying for!"

One might think having no choice is all an eBay seller can expect.  Well, there is one other facet of having other seller items on a listing.  Remember our first tale of an awry cross promotion?  When we found out what was happening, we were able to chose what to show our viewers.

There is no similar option on eBay.

Whether an eBay seller opted-in or opted-out of cross promotions, eBay chooses what cross promotions appear on the seller's page.

On the eBay Store discussion forum thread "More proof ebay is INSANE!" Top-rated seller honeville1 presented the case of seller wgeclectics and listing 260499558152. 

The listing is for a "paperback" suitable for "Ages 4-8".  This product would be found by adults searching for children's items.

(Listing captured 18 November 2009 at 11:40 HST)

Anyone finding this listing would get a bonus supplied by eBay. 

(Listing captured 18 November 2009 at 11:40 HST)

For a limited time one could buy a children's paperback and "Complete '64 Collection Playboy".

eBay makes it clear who's responsible for the eBay inserted cross promoted items by including, "Seller assumes all responsibility for this listing."

With eBay making a "small" number of cross promotion insertions in a random fashion, as an eBay seller will you be the next winner of eBay roulette?

And is this what you want?

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"I'm going to give the audience what 'I' think they want."
Ben Richards, The Running Man (1987)

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American Express Tells PayPal, Revolution Money Don't Leave Home Without It

American Express Tells PayPal, Revolution Money Don't Leave Home Without It
18 November 2009
EventHorizon1984

According to eBay's Accepted Payments Policy, Revolution Money is not accepted on eBay.  eBay may be strong armed into altering that policy.

Do you know that American Express will buy Revolution Money for $300,000,000?

American Express To Acquire Revolution Money To Develop Next Generation Payment Products
18 November 2009

The Cliffs Notes or MBA bullet point version.

• "The company's online person-to-person payment accounts are FDIC insured and ideally suited for social and instant messaging networks."
• "“New payments products and platforms are evolving rapidly and it's important for us to keep identifying cutting edge technologies that can extend our leadership beyond the traditional payments arena,” said Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and chief executive officer of American Express"
• "“Revolution Money has a lot of room to grow as it competes head-to-head with other online and person-to-person payment providers. We are committed to using our global brand recognition, marketing reach and network expertise to help reach a critical mass of customers,” said Mr. Chenault."
• ""We have built a next-generation payments platform that will enable American Express to compete even more effectively, especially against online competitors,"" Ted Leonsis
• "The transaction, which is subject to regulatory review, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2010. The purchase price is expected to be approximately $300 million. Upon closing, Revolution Money would operate as a subsidiary of American Express"
• "expanding Revolution Money payment solutions internationally, extending product offerings to banks that issue cards on the American Express network"
• "Revolution Money is part of the family of companies within Revolution LLC, which was founded by AOL co-founder Steve Case"

More change coming to eBay in 2010?

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"Negative outcome.  Not good."
Control, Hard Time on Planet Earth (1989)

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eBay "Promises, Promises"

eBay "Promises, Promises"
17 November 2009
EventHorizon1984

It was 1968 and the broadway show Promises, Promises opened.  The feature song, a composition by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, was a piece that was initially considered unsingable by the cast.  Enter Dionne Warwick.

You may wonder, why bring this up?  Sometimes 'the play's the thing'.  Or the music.

"Promises, promises"

Fast forward to 14 April 2009 and read the words of Stephanie Tilenius.

"On behalf of eBay, let me open with two words: Thank you. We appreciate your business and the opportunity to strengthen our partnership with you. Together we can do what’s necessary to bring buyers to eBay and keep them coming back.

We also recognize the impact that major changes to eBay can have on your business. For that reason, we are grouping those changes into two or three major releases per year, with at least 60 days advance notice.

In 2009, there will be 2 significant releases. This post announces the first release, coming the week of June 15.  The second release will be announced this summer and will go live in the early fall.

Here’s an overview of the changes launching the week of June 15. This release focuses on driving more sales and improving seller efficiency. Note there are no fee changes in this release."

Stephanie Tilenius

Spring forward to 27 July 2009 and read more from Stephanie Tilenius.

"As announced in April, in the spirit of partnership, eBay is now consolidating changes that impact your business into two or three major releases a year, with two months advance notice. This post introduces the second and final major release of 2009. Most of these updates will launch between September 22 and October 1, 2009."

On 21 September 2009 Stephanie Tilenius was essentially fired.

"Stephanie Tilenius, head of global product and North America for eBay, has decided to transition out of her current role. She’ll become an advisor to John for the next few months and plans to leave the company in early 2010"

In real life the promises of a person are only good as the person, and last as long as they do.

However Stephanie Tilenius was speaking for eBay INC.  Wasn't she?

"I'm all through with promises, promises now"

Being a bit lazy, we'll skip forward to November 2009.

3 November 2009, 4:58 PM PST

"In late September, as part of the Fall Seller Update, we launched a number of changes to email communications between buyers and sellers on eBay."

"Oh promises, promises
This is where those promises, promises end"

5 November 2009, 4:50 PM PST

"starting November 9 we’re removing two graphic elements from the search results page"

Gene Cook

"I don't pretend that what was wrong can be right"

6-9 November 2009

eBay Discussion Boards - eBay Stores - See Today's Announcement

AuctionBytes.com - eBay News for Sellers - Removing Graphics for Faster Search

TameBay.com - eBay.com remove shop modules from search results

"Every night I sleep now, no more lies
Things that I promised myself fell apart"

16 November 2009, 1:28 PM PST

"Starting tomorrow, November 17, you may begin to see merchandise on the bottom of item pages for active listings as well. While we usually refrain from making changes close to the holiday season, the test results showed a considerable increase in sold items, and  we wanted to offer this functionality to our selling community ASAP."

16-17 November

AuctionBytes.com - eBay Displays Competitor's Ads on Live Listings

TheBrewsNews.com - EBay's New Approach To Marketing: Throw The Kitchen Sink At the Buyers

According to Merriam-Webster the word "promise" means, "a declaration that one will do or refrain doing something specified".

There appears to be on the part of eBay a lack of refraining from doing what they declared.

eBay's pubic relations folks are bandying about the weasel terms "minor changes" and "major changes."  That these are "minor changes" not "major changes."   That's PR feldercarb you're slinging.  Playing this type of word game destroys trust.

Which brings us to the word, "trust."  According to Merriam-Webster the word "trust" means "assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone of something." 

If there can be no reliance on what eBay promises, why should any eBay customer believe what eBay says.

"Oh, promises, their kind of promises can just destroy a life
Oh, promises, those kind of promises take all the joy from life"

Incidentally should eBay stay at this pace of "minor changes", the next eBay defined "minor change" that would have a major effect on sellers would be announced the afternoon of November 25th or 26th.  The 26th is Thanksgiving. 

The day before Black Friday.

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"Trust me.  I know what I'm doing."
Sledge Hammer, Sledge Hammer! (1986-1988)

"Trust me."
Apple Ad, Broken Promises

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"Come to think of it", eBay Lifted the Heineken Advertising Slogan

"Come to think of it", eBay Lifted the Heineken Advertising Slogan
2 November 2009
EventHorizon1984

It's been a long time since we've heard the phrase "Come to think of it".  Not the "new" eBay ads flooding the market with "Come to think of it, eBay."  But the Heineken slogan noted by Lucious Van Der Kreig on Auctionbytes."

"Come to think of it,
I'll have a Heineken."

Founded in 1864 by Gerard Adriaan Heineken, Heineken is "Europe's largest brewery."

Perhaps ironically you can find this 1986 color advertisement, "COME TO THINK OF IT ~ I'LL HAVE A HEINEKEN! 1986 AD" for sale by seller Woods_Elf on eBay.

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"If there is something to steal, I steal it."
Pablo Picasso

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Addendum
4 November 2009

A little extra digging turned up this gem.

ADVERTISING; SSC&B Campaign For Heineken to Begin
The New York Times
Philip H. Dougherty
May 26, 1981

"The first ad campaign for Heineken beer from SSC&B will begin to run in magazines next month. The ads will be big pictures of frosty, beaded bottles and glasses of the No. 1-selling import with the simple quote in smallish type, ''Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken,''.

The rest of the very very short article states the initial advertising budget was $12 million.  Adjusted for inflation that would be about $28 million now.

One wonders how much eBay spent to copy an existing successful advertisement.

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Addendum
6 November 2009

Yes, at this point we're merely having fun.  After all eBay and it's compensated representatives are now spinning "Come to think of it" is a common idiom and essentially free for the taking.

Anyone know the name Mal MacDougall?

Mal MacDougall On the Spot
Adweek
Deanna Zammit
October 6 2003

"Along the way he introduced Diet Coke with the tag, "Just for the taste of it," and coined Heineken's "Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken."

Here's to you Mr. Mal "Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken" MacDougall.

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"I'm never surprised when the gods of advertising remind me once again that there is nothing permanent in the business but change."
Mal MacDougall

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Backstabbing 101 - Buy.com and Amazon Halloween Slicing of eBay?

Backstabbing 101 - Buy.com and Amazon Halloween Slicing of eBay?
30 October 2009
EventHorizon1984

With Buy.com an eBay partner, one might believe there is absolute loyalty extruding from Buy.com toward eBay.  Total absolute support of eBay owned PayPal by Buy.com on it's site, being one show of a tight partnership.

On the other hand tomorrow is Halloween.  Cue slasher background music.

Buy.com teams with Amazon in taking online payments

Buy.com on Thursday began offering “Checkout by Amazon” and “Amazon PayPhrase” that allows its customers use their Amazon accounts to pay bills.

Looks like a case of hurting the one you love.

Or is that Money Conquers All?

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"You traitorous, disloyal, you stab me in the back the first chance you get?"
James T. Kirk, Star Trek

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Whatever Happened To ... 661henryglen and General Motors (yourgmdealer) eBay?

Whatever Happened To ... 661henryglen and General Motors (yourgmdealer) eBay?
3 September 2009
EventHorizon1984

By now you're seen the joint General Motors (GM) and eBay joint communique, "eBay Motors and General Motors Extend California 'Click and Buy' Promotion Through September', trumpeting their success.

As they put it:

• "Since the beginning of the program through August 30, shoppers visited dealers’ virtual showroom sites more than 1 million times and logged more than 1.4 million searches of GM inventory. In addition, nearly 4,000 new car buyers entered into negotiations online, over the phone and in person"

However if you're the type that examines the hype and have a few questions, you may have spotted these articles:

• EBay Issues A Press Release Update About Their Innovative Relationship With GM
• TheBrewsNews.com - "So, let me get this straight… eBay put out a press release saying that a 57.1% feedback seller who has less than a handful of items that sold on the platform in a month, out of tens of thousands of listings, is part of a “successful” eBay experiment because the seller was able to generate almost 4,000 leads to conduct business outside of eBay.   I guess the term “innovative relationship” is probably an accurate description for the eBay-GM partnership.  The innovative relationship with GM does seem to fit in quite nicely with eBay’s whole disruptive innovation theme they currently have going on.  And, as Rob Chesney says, it is what eBay does best."

• GM + eBay = Crash & Burn
• DiamondHaus.com - "Doing a search of GM’s completed listings currently yields over 39000 listings for the past two weeks.  Going over the first five pages of 200 listings each yields no sales.  In fact I’ve watched this seller for a few weeks and have yet to find a single sale after going through approximately 10 – 20 pages.  However, yourgmdealer has received 9 feedbacks (more on that later) so there have been some sales.  Based on eBay’s stated average of a 70% feedback participation rate that would mean yourgmdealer has made roughly 13 sales.  This would yield a 0.03 % sell-through rate.  That’s about 100 times worse than BUY’s sell-through rate."

• GM Extends Its eBay Partnership - But Why?
• SeekingAlpha.com Richard Read - "GM's vice president of U.S. sales, Mark LaNeve, says that "The numbers on eBay itself aren't significant, but we didn't think it would be." Unfortunately, that's the classic "Yeah, we meant to do that" explanation for poor performance that never convinces anyone."

• eBay Motors Extends Special Deal for GM
• AuctionBytes.com Ina Steiner -
• "AuctionBytes has received email letters from sellers pointing to the low feedback ratings consumers are leaving for the seller."
• "Another complaint is that eBay is condoning off-eBay sales through the agreement."

• General Motors brings its legacy of bad service to eBay
• WalletPop.com - "Exhibit A in the "Nothing has changed" file is this: the feedback rating for GM's eBay account."

• eBay Seller YOURGMDEALER Racking Up The Negs!
• eBayMotorsSucks.com - "Meanwhile 11,410 GM Vehicles are left to sell on eBay - At the rate they are selling, the 2011’s will be out!"

• General Motors' deal with eBay leads to few sales
• BloggingStocks.com - "In the program's first week, there were 2,400 offers that led to negotiations, but the companies declined to say how many of those actually culminated in sales -- which is never a good sign."

Yes, the above is blatant link gathering, abet we do make it easier for you to find these articles.

We do recommend reading the TheBrewsNews.com article, and subscribing to their site.

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"We know GM has the vehicles, if not they can build them. ~ LOL"
ebay_paid

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Below is the obligatory screen shot (click to enlarge) of the eBay feedback for General Motors (GM).

And a text copy of GM's feedback.

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=yourgmdealer

10 Feedback received

Revised Feedback: 0

	Feedback	From / Price	Date / Time
	Pleasant and easy to deal with	Buyer: strategicnetworksinc ( 0 )	Sep-02-09 10:08
	Chevrolet : Colorado (#390079847689)	US $28,427.00	View Item
	no car to buy	Buyer: 1spongekitty ( 1 )	Sep-01-09 08:08
	Chevrolet : HHR (#350241521084)	US $25,214.00	View Item
	BAIT AND SWITCH. POST BIN RAISED PRICE BY 950 FOR "TRUE COAT" ALA FARGO.	Buyer: shark1998 ( 961)	Aug-23-09 19:30
	Pontiac : Solstice (#320410583374)	US $30,002.00	View Item
	Dealer was very nic, item was as advertised and transaction was straightforward.	Buyer: rickrita535 ( 36)	Aug-21-09 11:05
	GMC : Canyon (#320410579385)	US $13,436.00	View Item
	IT HAS BEEN A VERY EASY PROCESS	Buyer: 661henryglen ( 0 )	Aug-21-09 10:48
	Chevrolet : Equinox (#320413548483)	US $21,710.00	View Item
	Great Deal for My Cobalt at Rotolo Chevrolet Superb Service by Shane Brown & All	Buyer: anoble ( 872)	Aug-21-09 09:41
	Chevrolet : Cobalt (#390079847630)	US $16,131.00	View Item
	Used "Buy It Now". Listed @ "wrong" price. Dealer refused to sell. GM no help !!	Buyer: setrigger ( 207)	Aug-20-09 17:47
	Chevrolet (#390080182961)	US $42,085.00	View Item
	THIS A VERY SIMPLE PROCESS	Buyer: 661henryglen ( 0 )	Aug-20-09 16:51
	Chevrolet : Cobalt (#350241502303)	US $14,580.00	View Item
	it was very easy	Buyer: 661henryglen ( 0 )	Aug-20-09 15:37
	Chevrolet : Equinox (#320412117336)	US $21,451.00	View Item
	The dealer was excellent, and we are happy with the purchase.	Buyer: pyates1_2007 ( 0 )	Aug-15-09 23:04
	Pontiac : Vibe (#350238284907)	US $16,630.00	View Item

In keeping with the article title, let's look into zero feedback buyers 661henryglen and pyates1_2007.  At the time of this article, neither has received any positive feedback from the sellers they made purchases from.

If you're wondering why zero feedback buyer strategicnetworksinc is not on our poke into list, we suspect they are Strategic Networks INC , a legitimate buyer.

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"Richard Kimble has been tried and convicted for the murder of his wife. But laws are made by men, carried out by men. And men are imperfect. Richard Kimble is innocent."
The Fugitive (1963)

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In the current rush to figure out what is going on with the GM and eBay deal, it's been posited that 661henryglen and pyates1_2007 are shill bidders. That they were sent in to boost feedback for GM.

This is wrong.

Consider for a moment that yourgmdealer (General Motors) was not the only seller that 661henryglen and pyates1_2007 and made purchases from.  You do know that these two made purchases from other sellers?  Ergo if you believe the shill bidder assumption, then 661henryglen and pyates1_2007 must be doing the same for the other sellers they made purchases from?

Really???

No.

This is not to say that there is no shill bidding or feedback manipulation occurring on eBay.  But considering the other sellers involved here, we don't see it.

Let's try the simpler explanation.  That perhaps we're dealing with what's commonly known as a "joy bidder".

• "These particular group of people would just bid and win your item and then refuse to respond to your emails or calls for payment."  paladin_star( 79)

Anyone take the time to ask these other sellers about these other closed transactions?  Take a guess as to what we did.

We believe it is wrong and unfair to tarnish the reputations of the other sellers involved.  If you feel the 'innocent unless proven guilty' is overly broad, honest sellers should consider that could have been you.

And with an abundance of joy bidders it can still be you.

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"The dealer was excellent, and we are happy with the purchase."
pyates1_2007 ( 0 )

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Buyer number one is pyates1_2007 and they've been an eBay member since November 27 2004.  According to eBay they reside in California (United States).

These are their last three purchases, and they've received no feedback.

Buyer pyates1_2007 bought a set of four tires.  For a very nice price. 

Nine days later pyates1_2007 purchased a 2010 Pontiac Vibe w/1SA "4 cylinder 1.8L Anti-Lock Brakes Bucket Seats" from GM San Diego, and the next day another 2010 Pontiac Vibe w/1SA (Hatchback 4 cylinder 1.8L Anti-Lock Brakes Power Brakes) from GM Paso Robles.  The only feedback they've given is for one of those cars.

• #350238284907 -- Paso Robles GM Dealer
• 2010 Pontiac Vibe w/1SA (Hatchback 4 cylinder 1.8L Anti-Lock Brakes Power Brakes)
• Purchased at:  Aug-13-2009 11:15:24 PST
• Feedback left at:  Aug-15-2009 23:04 PST

This looks like someone doing comparison shopping, then over the next two days taking what they consider the better deal.  The making multiple purchases but paying for only one, is a type of buyer/transaction common on eBay.

Our verdict:  Another satisfied GM customer.

Our condolences to the San Diego GM dealership.

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"it was very easy"
661henryglen ( 0 )

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We're sure it was easy.

Buyer number two is 661henryglen and they've been an eBay member since June 03 2009.  According to eBay they reside in California (United States).

They made multiple purchases over a two day (24 hour) period, and they've received no feedback.

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=661henryglen&ftab=FeedbackLeftForOthers

9 Feedback left

	Feedback	Left for	Date / Time
	THANK YOU	Seller: gigadirect ( 1280)	Aug-21-09 14:31
	-- (#390083797397)	--	View Item
	thank you	lmendezjr2003 ( 39)	Aug-21-09 14:26
	-- (#220466055499)	--	View Item
	thank you	miker397 ( 101)	Aug-21-09 14:22
	-- (#270444908199)	--	View Item
	THANK YOU	appliancedirect321 ( 230)	Aug-21-09 12:35
	-- (#180399022173)	--	View Item
	THANK YOU	buy ( 824671)	Aug-21-09 12:26
	-- (#400068379238)	--	View Item
	THIS WAS VERY SIMPLE	gmouse123 ( 2087)	Aug-21-09 12:24
	-- (#320414700852)	--	View Item
	IT HAS BEEN A VERY EASY PROCESS	yourgmdealer ( 2 )	Aug-21-09 10:48
	-- (#320413548483)	--	View Item
	THIS A VERY SIMPLE PROCESS	yourgmdealer ( 2 )	Aug-20-09 16:51
	-- (#350241502303)	--	View Item
	it was very easy	yourgmdealer ( 2 )	Aug-20-09 15:37
	-- (#320412117336)	--	View Item

Here's where it gets interesting.

The list below shows on line one the item number and seller.  Line two has the time the item was purchased and the time feedback was left and the time between the two events (Hours:Minutes:Seconds).  Line three shows the purchase price and the name of the item.

Pay careful attention to the times in each line two.

1. 390083797397 -- gigadirect ( 1280)
2. Aug-21-2009 14:31:00 -- Aug-21-2009 14:31 PST -- 00:00:00
3. $1,499.00    6 WWE - SummerSlam Tickets 8/23/09 (Los Angeles) VIP

1. 220466055499 -- lmendezjr2003 ( 39)
2. Aug-21-09 14:25:53 -- Aug-21-2009 14:26 PST -- 00:00.07
3. $160.00    WWE - SummerSlam Tickets 8/23/09 (Los Angeles)

1. 270444908199 -- miker397 ( 101)
2. Aug-21-09 14:20:24 -- Aug-21-2009 14:22 PST -- 00:01:36
3. $515.00    Walmart Gift Card $500.00 Balance - Free shipping

1. 180399022173 -- appliancedirect321 ( 230)
2. Aug-21-09 12:13:39 -- Aug-21-2009 12:35 PST -- 00:21:21
3. $1,615.00    Maytag Epic Series 27" Front Load Washer and Dryer New

1. 400068379238 -- buy ( 824671)
2. Aug-21-09 12:11:36 -- Aug-21-2009 12:26 PST -- 00:24:24
3. $90.71    NEW Haier 1.7 Cu. Ft. Compact Mini Refrigerator (Top...

1. 320414700852 -- gmouse123 ( 2087)
2. Aug-21-09 11:12:35 -- Aug-21-2009 12:24 PST -- 01:11:25
3. $539.97    NEW NINTENDO WII+WII FIT+WII SPORTS RESORT+MARIO KART

1. 320413548483 -- yourgmdealer ( 2 )
2. Aug-21-2009  07:23:47 -- Aug-21-2009 10:48 PST -- 03:24:13
3. $21,710.00    2009 Chevrolet Equinox LS

1. 350241502303 -- yourgmdealer ( 2 )
2. Aug-20-2009  16:48:01 -- Aug-20-2009 16:51 PST -- 00:02:59
3. $14,580.00    2009 Chevrolet Cobalt LS

1. 320412117336 -- yourgmdealer ( 2 )
2. Aug-20-2009  15:33:11 -- Aug-20-2009 15:37 PST -- 00:03:49
3. $21,451.00    2009 Chevrolet Equinox LS

A rather short time between purchase, delivery, and feedback wouldn't you say?  Not that there appears to be at the moment any money changing hands.  According to sellers 661henryglen never pays for their purchases, and unpaid item cases have been opened.

Our verdict:  Possible "Joy Bidder".  Consider putting this one in your Bidder Block List (BBL).

Because 661henryglen hit sellers that eBay has a vested interest in, buy (Buy.com) and yourgmdealer, we believe their buying spree days may be over.

But that does bring up an interesting conundrum.  Big IF 661henryglen committed unwelcome and malicious buying against eBay vested interest sellers, why is their account not a registered user (NARU)?

Two answers:

1. They're a legitimate buyer.
2. If their account is NARU'd, this leaves open the possibility that ALL feedback left would be removed.

If we're dealing with case number two, this would have virtually no affect on buy (Buy.com).  Buy (Buy.com) has 679,689 positive feedback over a 12 month period.  Removing one positive feedback would result in an insignificant change in their Feedback Profile.

The GM yourgmdealer account is a another matter though.  Over a 12 month period (or 1 month period),  yourgmdealer has seven positive feedback and three negative feedback, resulting in a 62.5% Feedback Percentage.

What kind of visual image does the casual view see with three less positives?  Does a Feedback Rating of four positives and three negatives look good?  Which is the near coin toss chance of getting a good deal from GM/eBay.

Are we having fun yet?

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"It's my gift. It's my curse."
Frank Black, Millennium (1996-1999)

"It's a blessing, and a curse."
Adrian Monk, Monk (2002-2009)

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Silencing the Lambs - eBay Cuts Voices Roster

Silencing the Lambs - eBay Cuts Voices Roster
26 August 2009
EventHorizon1984

It's that time of year when rosters get cut in professional Football. In that same vein eBay has taken to slashing it's eBay Voices lineup from 130 to 100.

According to an AuctionBytes article "Is eBay Phasing out 'Voices' Focus-Group Program?", the person "responsible for Voices, eBay Senior Manager of Seller Development "responsible for Voices" Garnor Morantes said:

• "This change is something we've been thinking about for a while and is meant to give others the chance to participate in the program. We're looking to bring in some new perspectives, some new buyers and sellers - all levels of selling."

Incidentally, detouring a bit.  If you're thinking "focus group??", here's something we pulled (sort of) at random:

Using Focus Groups For Evaluation
Mary Marczak & Meg Sewell

• "The technique was developed after World War II"
• "A focus group could be defined as a group of interacting individuals having some common interest or characteristics, brought together by a moderator, who uses the group and its interaction as a way to gain information about a specific or focused issue."
• "A focus group is typically 7-10 people who are unfamiliar with each other. These participants are selected because they have certain characteristics in common that relate to the topic of the focus group. The moderator or interviewer creates a permissive and nurturing environment that encourages different perceptions and points of view, without pressuring participants to vote, plan or reach consensus"

Unfortunately eBay doesn't quite get how not to use focus groups:

• "because focus groups are usually made up of a very small number of people who voluntarily participate, you cannot assume that their views and perceptions represent those of other groups that might have slightly different characteristics. They are not "random samples".

And someone is ignoring the disadvantages:

• "Small numbers and convenience sampling severely limit ability to generalize to larger populations"
• "Moderator may knowingly or unknowingly bias results by providing cues about what types of responses are desirable"
• "Results may be biased by presence of a very dominant or opinionated member"

"I do not think it means what you think it means."
Indigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987)

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This roster cut has produced some consternation from eBay Voices members.

For example eBay perennial favorite PowerSeller Marty (clact (5147)) made his usual flurry of correct and incorrect statements. Or as he described other people doing the same thing, "all the BULL$&*@ in these comments".  Such as:

• "No other major company has a program like Voices in place to keep them on track and there is no doubt in my mind that at some point this company will be moving in the right direction."

This individual should consider that they're wrong on two counts.  According to eBay CEO John Donahoe eBay is moving in the right direction.  And about that focus groups myth?  Check out this old interesting article.

Business Week
Shoot The Focus Group
14 November 2005

• "Exasperation with focus groups, while not universal, is growing as companies look for better ways to get inside consumers' heads"
• "Perhaps the most common complaint about focus groups is that consumers are not honest in front of other people."
• ""Consumers aren't dishonest, it's that most people don't listen the right way." On the other hand, maybe consumers can be heard more clearly when nobody is watching."

As you might expect, the reaction of eBay Voices members posting comments to the AuctionBytes article "eBay Silences Founding 'Voices' Members" varied. Some of the posts read:

• by: Randy
• Thu Aug 20 02:29:54 2009

Looks I was smart to leave when I did last year ....  Randy (Former) Voices 3 Member.

• by: What Me Worry
• Thu Aug 20 13:44:57 2009

Heck this was coming...I saw it when I was in the program.
When Voices was founded, it's members were actually helpful to the employees in forming programs.

The past several years, many members felt that they were nothing more than "lab rats" as ebay measured reactions to already made decisions.

When the administrator of the program, Garnor Morantes, has to remind members to be positive about their comments and admit that he's hesitant about opening up the comments for all employees to view...they do not want to hear what they need to know...they want to hear what they want to hear...

Signed...former Voices member

• by: Nancy Leckron
• Thu Aug 20 14:30:18 2009

I am one of the effected Voices member's that was retired.  I value the time I spent giving my opinion on a varity of topics.  Remember people, we are real live human beings.  I gave my time for the greater good of the entire eBay Community.  Yes, I am a Proud Former Voices Member!

• by: Still a Voice
• Thu Aug 20 15:38:06 2009

I am saddened by this decision, but feel the need to reply to a couple comments made here.  I remain in the program, but have always been a small buyer/seller, and in fact, am currently at my lowest level ever, having only listed less than 10 items in the last six months.  Also, I am definitely not an eBay cheerleader.  I am disappointed in the direction eBay seems to be going.  As long as I am Still a Voice, I will remain an advocate for the small seller!  I don't think the program has the influence it once did, but I DO think it continues to have merit.

Those who are being removed this week will be sorely missed.  Those who were involuntarily removed in the past (or resigned under obvious pressure to do so), not so much.

• by: former_Voice
• Thu Aug 20 15:45:59 2009

I enjoyed my time in Voices.  There was true give-and-take, and eBay really was interested in what we had to say. That doesn't mean that everyone got what they wanted, and any Voices member who thought the group had any real power is just kidding themselves.  However, I can say that there were several instances of ''done deals'' not happening or being altered, due, in part, to the responses of Voices members.

eBay is a business.  It is not evil. I don't believe that JD is evil. Somehow someone got the idea that eBay would care more about the community than its own financial health.  That will never happen.

Grow up.  If it works for you, fine; if not, then shut up and move on.  Be responsible for your own situation and stop blaming someone else.  

• by: brecklundin
• Fri Aug 21 03:18:41 2009

For those who feel voices members were sycophants and yes men sorts you are the exact reason some of us left eBay.  I was an active member of the user boards helping 1000s of members at the drop of a hat in order to make smaller sellers find their way through eBay.  I was a member of what might have been the most influential and effective Voices group.  I know that is saying a lot but we were note even close to "yes men/women" and at that time eBay truly listened to us.  

We each gave up years of our time and advice I personally would have charged clients tens of thousands of dollars for...all to HELP my fellow sellers.  But we were met with petty jealously from the more unbalanced eBay'ers who always knew better yet accomplished nothing.  

I finally left when there was too much of a difference of opinion between myself and one individual who was running the program.  

I will tell you I gave them the Health Insurance thing for Power Sellers and argued that they were asking sellers to commit themselves full time to selling and eBay had the resources to help organize a group insurance program.  eBay LOVED the idea...unfortunately the INSURANCE INDUSTRY refused to come up with a real health insurance program.  Still the options which came the ashes of a well intentioned program, which eBay genuinely put a LOT of man hours into trying to develop, but what rose was at least a very decent Rx discount program that saves me over $400/mo on medications and even more if I was willing to take some of the more dangerous meds to help slow down the progression of my primary health issue...Meg overstated the scope of the program at eBay Live 1 but at the time she was unaware of the final denial from the insurance carriers...still there is value in the program.  I take pride in knowing I was a motivating voice behind something to potentially help millions of people save even more millions on many aspects of their health care needs.

Another personal feature of the site that was exclusively mine and I gave it to the lead programmer free because I was never going to be able to develop feature on a site as my serious programming days were behind me and I had a parent who needed me as her caregiver.  And that feature is the Best Offer, I designed it, talked to Mark about it and eBay made a few changes but developed one of the most used features on the site...and no I never was paid or asked for compensation.  But eBay added it after my disagreement with the then coordinator of Voices...and it was over something very stupid on my part but I am a stubborn bastard when I am in the mood...and boy was I in the mood...hehehe...

We came up with the idea of annual convention type events moved around the country...this because eBay Live.  It would have worked had eBay held the community together with real mods rather than farming it all out...big error on their part...

You also have no idea who many ideas we stopped cold in their tracks during conference calls.  You should have been a fly one the wall when we gave a top to bottom dressing-down to UPS VP's when they were trying to gain exclusive access to eBay sellers of all other carriers.  Sellers in antiques and collectibles can tell you that UPS might be the single worst carrier in terms of delivery, obtaining signatures as paid for (drives can just drop boxes even if a sig is required when the area is designated as a drop and go area...this would destroy the needed signature for PP Seller Protection.)  We pointed out that there was no such thing as a one size fits all.

We were strongly influential in getting sellers to be required in revealing all fees in their listings.  Shipping, handling and insurance.  Our compromise was in lieu of limits which are impractical because a seller in NY has higher staff overhead than one on small town USA.  So, our suggestion was a compromise (eBay was against revealing or limiting...) but we pushed and argued very cogently for simple declaration of any fees.  before us there was no rule and sellers often raised fees if items sold under value.

We fought with PayPal when they tried to take away the 1.5% cash back for using the PP Debit card...they wanted to eliminate ALL cashback programs...I for one told PayPal directly that should they remove that program I would not use their service...I am no large seller, but I had an ace in the hole as did every member of our group, we had the ear of the community on the eBay Boards, each of us in a different board.  While we alone might not have saved the program, we planted the seed of doubt that cutting the program would potentially wreck eBay's recently acquired PayPal.  Again earning millions of funds for millions of sellers...but we were "yes men/women".

I am sure there will be those who know exactly who I am from my comments...and those people will also know I honest to a fault...and I take crap from nobody, and every member of our group was the same way, each in their own way.  Two of us were more vocal but the others were just as resolute unwilling to compromise beyond a certain point where sellers and/or buyers would be harmed.

I have the utmost respect for my fellow members in our Voices group...we worked hard for everyone of us, we did nothing in a self serving fashion...but there were those out there who felt because we were legally bound to not disclose these things we were 'assimilated'.  I personally put my eBay account at risk in standing up for what I though was right...yet I say cowards with posting ID's bitching like 8yr old school girls about us, eBay and the lack of decent tinfoil for their hats.

I guess you can say I stopped caring.  I stopped caring about eBay as a company as well as my fellow eBay'ers...now a decade later, I care only for my buyers and give them the best of the best in service and respect.  Something the whiners have not clue about...

I have a personal list of eBay execs who I have the utmost respect for...the believed in the small community the level playing field and all the things which eBay was...but unfortunately, they lost the battle.  

I will point out two....Maynard Webb and Bill Cobb.  Yeah, many of the whiners thing those two were just horrible people...having actually looked them in the eye, spent hours in person with them and one the phones, they are honest and decent people.  There are easily 50-100 people at eBay I still remember that had the best intentions.  Sadly, the decisions from the very top, did some serious damage.  I also know the people who believed in the community, they either gave up hope to feed their families or left eBay.

After our eBay group basically the program was changed and significantly watered down.  Still that does not mean the members were in it just for themselves and to say they were part of eBay...those sorts were actually weeded out pretty early.

No matter what the antagonists say, I know what I did personally and what my group did as a whole...and we did GOOD.

The single regret I had was we were unable to convince eBay to move eBay Live Listings out of the core or at least into their own sub area in each category.  but eventually we were proven right because many remained vocal and kept pointing out the ethically questionable aspects of Live Auction format and their mixing in with regular listings.

I know this was not well written but I needed to express that in our early groups there were a couple special teams (we really became a team and ours was as cohesive a team as I have ever worked with, and we never knew each other before Voices, well I knew one member of my group and she was one of the stellar members who was in it for us ALL not herself...

I also have bent, but likely not broken my NDA but after a decade since I signed it, I feel things have changed enough to live with someone "peeing in the cheerios" a bit in order to set a few things straight.

I know the anger will come back..it always does, but if you examine the eBay ID's of those people you will find proof of their lack of stability revealed in how they deal with customers.

Ina knows me and knows who I am...and I know w/o her watching eBay for us, we would be caught even more off guard...

Mostly anonymous posts are not truly satisfying, and at this juncture all three of you* may be wondering who are these eBay Voices.  While it's possible to piece together a list (as we choose to understand it), that's never happening here. Other than the basic privacy issues involved, that would be just plain rude.

* We jest. It's really four.

For brevity we will stick to speaking of a few members made openly public by eBay.  In April 2003.

eBay's "Voices" program...
by Daphne, eBay Staff Member
April 2003

According to The Chatter article since 1999, "Several times a year, eight to ten members are flown to eBay's corporate office in San Jose, California. They are chosen from all levels of eBay's buying and selling community -- from Shooting Stars and PowerSellers, to mom-and-pop sellers, and all levels of buyers."  Followed by, " regular conference calls and email discussions".

The writer goes on to say, "Participants sign non-disclosure agreements" and "This confidentiality makes Voices groups a powerful tool".  Then Daphne discloses three names.

It's definitely interesting about what became of these three eBay Voices members.

• eBay's "Voices" program...
• "drexelantiques, who attended Voices said this about his experience: "eBay had set up a wonderful program. Very informative. I hadn't expected eBay to really listen to the Voices participants, but they did. eBay staff was very concerned with users' opinions. Participants' questions were answered fully. The eBay staff were very frank in discussing issues. The staff at eBay that we had a chance to talk to were among the nicest group of folks I have met in a long time. We were treated very well. ….eBay staff also alleviated some of my concerns over the direction eBay was taking.""

Today seller DrexelAntiques (2175) (member since Nov-12-98) remains an active buyer on eBay, but their last eBay sale feedback was August 29 2003. They have a brick and mortar store.

• eBay's "Voices" program...
• "gatorpack wrote: "The most important thing I took away from the experience was the realization that everyone I met at eBay was genuinely sincere in their efforts to carry on as much of Pierre's founding philosophies as possible, yet pragmatically deal with all the twists, turns and complexities the beast was spinning off. In 1995, '96, '97 or '98, who could have possibly imagined what was to come. If anything, it reinforced, rather than changed, our perceptions and opinions of eBay. I know exactly what it's like to work in an environment where you are constantly making up things as you go along.""

Today seller Gatorpack (32761) (member since Jan-22-99) neither buys nor sells on this account. The account remains active with an impressive positive feedback of 32,761. Their last eBay sale feedback is dated October 12 2007.  They're currently selling online at Gatorpack.com.

• eBay's "Voices" program...
• "giraffer had this to say: "Really I expected to hear a sales pitch, or as we often give our customers where I work...the mission statement pitch. And never expected anyone would listen to us and really show that they cared about the community and our problems. I was impressed to have vice presidents sitting down and talking with us in such an informal manner. I was impressed with how friendly everyone was and how they made me feel important and glad to have me there. What did I take away? That everyone at eBay cares and will continue to do their best to make the site work for the community. That they are real people, not just this unknown entity. I'm so proud of this program and eBay for having it that I proudly display the Voices logo on my ME page and my business card.""

Today Giraffer (3020) (member since Jan-19-99) is a "Retired Member eBay's Voice of the Community 10".  By eBay Corporate standards they are a small seller. The account remains active in sales and purchases.  Giraffer is an active poster on the eBay Discussion Boards.  Giraffer is as exuberant about eBay now as she was in 2003.

"any Voices member who thought the group had any real power is just kidding themselves"
former_voice

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With this small sample showing two out of three eBay Voices sellers gone from eBay, we have to wonder how relevant is eBay Voices to the participants?  And do 100 eBay Voices have any relevance to the millions of eBay buyers and the 50+ million active sellers on eBay?

Or is eBay Voices all 'baaaaa' humbug.

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"You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won't you?"
Hannibal Lecter MD, Silence of the Lambs (1991)

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Senator Edward Kennedy v. eBay PowerSeller Oldspartantrader

Senator Edward Kennedy v. eBay PowerSeller Oldspartantrader
26 August 2009

EventHorizon1984

We're not a political blog, and rarely post the hot button politics of the moment.  But sometimes you 'gotta do what you gotta do'.

"Everybody's entitled to an opinion"
Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott, Star Trek

 

In the case of the death of Senator Edward Kennedy (D), there are two basic opinions.

1) Boston Globe - McCain: Kennedy 'always kept his word'

• "Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee"
• "Well, there's one thing that I think that has epitomized the Kennedy family, and that is service the country, and a country above one's own self-interest. Ted Kennedy, I think, epitomized that service to the country. He had a very heavy burden of an incredible tradition to carry on. He shouldered it, he became an institution within an institution. And all of us will not only miss him, but perhaps maybe try to carry on his legacy of reaching across the aisle and getting things done for the American people. We need this now more than ever before."

2) oldspartantrader eBay PowerSeller

• eBay Stores Discussion Board - A criminal passed last night
• Excerpts:
• "on the whole a despicable example of a citizen"
• "That sympathy does not extend to being mute in face of people calling him great"

At this point we would say that 'these are not our comments', and to 'post your comments on the appropriate thread'.  Only sometime after 2:14 PM PST eBay deleted the thread, and most likely issued a Pink Slap.  Typically eBay will cause a thread to vanish, because the post shows eBay in a bad light or is considered by eBay to be offensive.

Since like fellow PowerSellers Marty (clact) and itspostingtime, oldspartantrader is considered a leader on the eBay Stores Discussion Board, you might wonder what gives?

View (mouse click) the screen shots for the full uncensored posts and come to your own opinion.

 

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"If you wanna do anything about it, I'll be outside. I'm a lot drunker than you are - so it'll be a fair fight."
Lt. Barney Greenwald, The Caine Mutiny (1954)

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eBay Developer Important Security Update - Oh Please!

eBay Developer Important Security Update - Oh Please!
10 August 2009
EventHorizon1984

 

In the article "Passwords compromised for eBay developers," Chris Dawson of TameBay wrote:

• "eBay have identified a possible security flaw and are requiring all developers update their passwords."
• "The developer blog reports that eBay have recently identified a means by which someone could have" "gained access to eBay Developers Program account information."

We're not surprised this happened.  The surprise is eBay in public admitting a "security flaw".

The equivalent of code monkey felgercarb can be found in this security announcement from the eBay Developers Program blog, regarding the "possible security flaw":

Important Security Update: developer.ebay.com
Posted by Laurel Kline in Critical Notes from Tech Support, Business News & Developer Website
Monday, Aug.10.2009, 3:06 PM PT

This is Kumar Kandaswamy, and I manage the eBay Developers Program. I'd like you to read this important message about account safety.

The safety and security of the eBay Developers Program is a top priority. While we believe that people are basically good, we also must live with the reality that there are fraudsters out there who have made it their illicit "profession" to find ways to exploit others on the Internet.

Occasionally, fraudsters attempt to gain unauthorized access to the eBay Developers Program. eBay has recently identified a means by which someone could gain access to eBay Developers Program account information. This type of access DOES NOT allow the capture of financial or other sensitive information, such as credit card or bank account information or Social Security numbers.  Fortunately, we have not detected any unusual activity with any Developer account.

Out of an abundance of caution and to help ensure the security of the eBay Developers Program, we are requiring that all developers take the following steps:

• Take advantage of our new, stricter password standards and change your eBay Developers Program (developer.ebay.com) passwords. It is not necessary to change eBay (www.ebay.com) passwords.

If you believe you or your customers have been the victim of fraudulent activity, contact us immediately at developer-relations@ebay.com.

Sincerely,
Kumar Kandaswamy

There's much unintentional eBay humor with the statement from Kumar Kandaswamy that "safety and security of the eBay Developers Program is a top priority."  Because historically that has not been the case.

Follow us.

Once upon a time Sergiu Daniel Popa was brought to the attention of the public by Dan Browning of the Star Tribune.  As reported in his article "Suspect in 'phishing' scheme indicted":

• "A Romanian immigrant was indicted Tuesday in federal court in Minneapolis on charges that he operated a computerized "phishing" scheme for several years that raked in financial records and personal identification from thousands of individuals"
• "Sergiu Daniel Popa, 20, of Shelby Township, Mich., was indicted on three counts"

Days later there would be a post about the article on the eBay Stores Forum. This was followed quickly by eBay user ID spopa2006 stating, "Listen guys. I am Sergiu D. Popa. I am that horrible guy!" and "I will make your life a hell."  And much much more.

When this activity and background was reported to eBay, their reponse was to delete the spopa2006 posts.  He was able to keep his eBay account active.  If you look quickly, you can view his Feedback Profile as of 11 August 2009 01:07 GMT.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

This all would be rather uninteresting save for the fact that spopa2006 was a poster on the eBay Developer forums:

• "Hey there. I wrote a similar project in C++ by using pointers. However, the implemented network interface i used in C++ is no longer supported and I am not a C# guru as I am in c++. Tell me whether or not you got your solution. You can email me at gam30v3r2007@yahoo.com"

The activities of a registered eBay Developer.  You know the ones who work on the software that eBay buyers and sellers use.

Feeling that "safety and security" yet?

Oh, and did we forget to mention that this took place in 2007?  For those interested we kept the details in a June 2007 article, Sergiu D. Popa Response To Dan Browning Star Tribune Article.

Well there is innocent unless proven guilty.

BAMM!!  But wait, there's more.

In October 2008 Dan Goodin followed up with "Romanian national cops to $700,000 phishing trip":

• "Who's your underworld Popa?"
• "22-year-old Romanian national has admitted he participated in a US-based phishing operation that raked in some $700,000 over a three-year period."
• "Sergiu Daniel Popa, who for the past seven years has lived in New York and Michigan, pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis to two felonies related to the scheme. He faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison and a fine of $500,000."
• "FBI agents began their investigation of Popa in early 2005."

Kumar Kandaswamy is crowing about protection from "fraudsters attempt to gain unauthorized access to the eBay Developers Program", but described here is a convicted hacker who eBay gave Developer Program access?

With spopa2006's regular eBay account active, you have to wonder if his Developer Program access remains active.  And if he gave others access to his account, during his extended absence.

Kumar Kandaswamy said, "we have not detected any unusual activity with any Developer account".

Oh, Please!

How many times does a warning have to be given to eBay before someone listens?

And given the lax vetting process, one really has to wonder if there are other "Popa's" signed up to the Developer Program?

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"So, people hire you to break into their places... to make sure no one can break into their places?"
"It's a living."  Martin Bishop, Sneakers (1992)

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The eBay ideeli Diamond PowerSeller Feedback Affair

The eBay ideeli Diamond PowerSeller Feedback Affair
5 August 2009
EventHorizon1984

Being the curious* type we wondered what were the facts behind the comments on purported new eBay Diamond seller ideeli. 

Here's some of what we found.

On 7 May 2009 the ideeli eBay user ID quietly sprang into existence.

Here's how eBay seller ideeli describes themselves:

Ideeli offers privileged access to the most sought-after fashion, home and beauty products. Ideeli is a shopping community offering luxury brand-name products at 20%-80% off regular prices. All of our items are brand new, and authenticity is 100% guaranteed.

A month later came listings for fashion products, and ideeli's first positive feedback.

     

	Thrilled with my new bag! Extremely quick shipping! Thanks!	Buyer: emerald624523 ( 107)	Jun-25-09 17:19
	NEW Alexis Hudson Twinkle II (Ink) (#170346717957)	US $15.50	View Item

     

A new eBay seller had made their entrance.

Within a span of another month things got interesting.  This short article will cover the feedback portion of 'interesting'.

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"When you argue, I have this compulsive need to argue back."
Jack McCoy, Law & Order

...

The answer to the frequently asked question, 'was ideeli feedback removed?', is yes.  We did not find everything, but what was found does support the "yes" answer.

Why the feedback was removed is a question we'll leave to the readers.

This record covers the time period June 24 2009 20:08:30 through August 5 2009.

Except where attributed, screen shots were obtained from the Google cache.  The link to the cache is provided as reference material, but keep in mind a Google cache does not exist forever.  We anticipate that many of the links will be aged out by publication.

...

"I worry. I mean, little things bother me. I’m a worrier. I mean, little insignificant details – I lose my appetite. I can’t eat. My wife, she says to me, “you know, you can really be a pain.”‘"
LT Columbo, Columbo

...

The ideeli Feedback Chronology

June 24 2009  20:08:30 GMT

Feedback:  ideeli (0)

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:okuM6wdJnIMJ:feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewFeedback%26userid%3Dideeli%26ftab%3DFeedbackAsSeller%26ssPageName%3DVIP:feedback:3:us+feedback.ebay.com+userid%3Dideeli&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 5 2009  16:04:54 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (9)

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  10  10  10
• Neutral  0  0  0
• Negative  0  0  0

Revised Feedback:  0

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:gDeJ3FwuqmgJ:feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewFeedback%26userid%3Dideeli%26iid%3D170343935522%26ftab%3DFeedbackAsSeller%26ssPageName%3DVIP:feedback:2:us+feedback.ebay.com+userid%3Dideeli&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 7 2009  18:25:32 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (15)

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  20  20  20
• Neutral  0  0  0
• Negative  0  0  0

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:BtuoieVIGsUJ:feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewFeedback2%26userid%3Dideeli%26ftab%3DFeedbackAsBuyer+feedback.ebay.com+userid%3Dideeli&cd=11&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 7 2009  18:25:32 GMT - July 15 2009  22:02:45 GMT

A smaller version of original screenshot from instantvideogames:

Regarding the Negative Feedback.

Reported by coolbeans717:

eBay buyer chatychik4887 bought "NEW Alexis Hudson Twinkle I (Mocha)" #170351642263 on 3 July 2009 15:36:46 PDT (22:36:46 GMT) from ideeli, and left ideeli a Negative feedback.

The indication was the Negative feedback had "DO NOT BUY FROM THEM".

A similar report was made by craftscraftsandcrafts and nostalgicthreads.  The Negative feedback was something to the effect that the 'seller refused to ship to a different address and refunded her payment'.

 
Sometime between July 7 2009 18:25:32 GMT and July 15 2009 22:02:45 GMT, Negative feedback was received by ideeli and removed by eBay.

.

July 15 2009  22:02:45 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (30)

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  42  42  42
• Neutral  0  0  0
• Negative  0  0  0

Revised Feedback: 0

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Aw_i5jqWYy4J:feedback.ebay.in/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewFeedback%26userid%3Dideeli+feedback.ebay.com+userid%3Dideeli&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 16 2009  16:57:00 GMT

Neutral feedback received by ideeli.

	Why did it take 6 days to ship the order ?	Buyer: ggsecost98 ( 15)	Jul-16-09 09:57
	Cole Haan Air Dempsey Men's Penny (Black Calf 8.5M) (#170355611818)	US $94.00	View Item

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July 18 2009  03:01:12 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (58)

• 100% Positive

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:29sK_Ii33gcJ:cgi.ebay.ph/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D170355539015+feedback.ebay.com+ideeli&cd=47&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

.

July 18 2009  22:56:46 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (72)

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  86  86  86
• Neutral  1  1  1
• Negative  0  0  0

Revised Feedback:  0

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:cFQBvAFSWhIJ:feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewFeedback%26userid%3Dideeli%26ftab%3DFeedbackAsSeller+feedback.ebay.com+userid%3Dideeli&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 22 2009  20:15:17 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (192)

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  223  223  223
• Neutral  1  1  1
• Negative  0  0  0

Revised Feedback:  0

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Yv-FPFh_OYQJ:feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewFeedback%26userid%3Dideeli%26ssPageName%3DVIP:feedback+feedback.ebay.com+userid%3Dideeli&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 23 2009  18:58:00 GMT

Negative feedback received by ideeli.

	COUNTERFEIT SHOES!!! SHOES MADE IN INDIA. THIS IS AGAINST THE LAW!!	Buyer: topqualitycoins ( 789)	Jul-23-09 14:36
	Reply by ideeli (Jul-23-09 15:13): Buyer has not replied to e/v-mail to confirm authenticity we are happy to help.
	Cole Haan Air Sharon Women's Slide (Black 10B) (#170355539755)	US $79.00	View Item
	BEWARE, THESE ARE NOT ORIGINAL COLE HAAN, BUT MADE IN CHINA!! DO NOT BUY	Buyer: topqualitycoins ( 789)	Jul-23-09 11:58
	Reply by ideeli (Jul-23-09 15:12): ideeli is an authorized seller of this brand Buyers welcome to confirm with CH
	Cole Haan Air Geneva Men's Slip-On (T.Moro 9M) (#170355539097)	US $109.00	View Item

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July 23 2009  22:34:55 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (255)

• 99.6% Positive

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:CbY3D34DQcQJ:myworld.ebay.com/ideeli/+feedback.ebay.com+ideeli&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 24 2009  12:37:16 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (269)

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  313  313  313
• Neutral  1  1  1
• Negative  2  2  2

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:HQCTKvQfaisJ:ebay.chodientu.vn/feedback/ideeli/+feedback.ebay.com+ideeli&cd=85&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

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July 24 2009  12:37:16 GMT - July 25 2009  06:09:26 GMT

Sometime between July 24 2009 12:37:16 GMT and July 25 2009 06:09:26 GMT, two (2) Negative feedbacks were removed by eBay.

.

July 24 2009  12:37:16 GMT - July 31 2009  01:43:11 GMT

Sometime between July 24 2009 12:37:16 GMT and July 31 2009 01:43:11 GMT, the July 16 2009  16:57:00 GMT Neutral feedback was removed by eBay.

.

July 25 2009  06:09:26 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (295)

• 100% Positive

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:Y-Qw8yGbID0J:cgi.ebay.com.sg/ws/eBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D170355539718+feedback.ebay.com+ideeli&cd=18&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

.

July 25 2009  13:46:00 GMT

	seller took a long to ship item	Buyer: tmays1906 ( 15)	Jul-25-09 06:46
	Cole Haan Adrien Bit Men's Slip-on Shoe (Tan 13M) (#170355538904)	US $79.00	View Item

.

July 31 2009  01:43:11 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (451)

• 99.8% Positive

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  506  511  511
• Neutral  1  1  1
• Negative  1  1  1

Revised Feedback:  1

	Ordered shoes, They didn't fit and seller only gives an in store credit.	sherwood2sm7 ( 13)	Jul-30-09 11:36
	Cole Haan Air Barrett Men's Penny (Burgundy 9.5M) (#170355538980)	US $99.00	View Item

.

August 5 2009  04:41 GMT

Feedback: ideeli (543)

• 99.8% Positive

• Rating  1 month  6 months  12 months
• Positive  590  609  609
• Neutral  3  3  3
• Negative  1  1  1

Revised Feedback:  1

	slow shipment	Buyer: chimbambastuff ( 405)	Aug-04-09 22:41
	Cole Haan Air Ibiza Women's Strap (White/Orange 8B) (#170355539060)	US $49.00	View Item
	slow shipment	Buyer: chimbambastuff ( 405)	Aug-04-09 22:41
	Cole Haan Carma Air WS Women's Wedge (Ivory 8B) (#170355539864)	US $139.00	View Item

...

"I am the Energizer bunny of forensic science: I never sleep and I never give up."
Abby Sciuto, NCIS

...

* Old professional habits die hard.

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