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 ( [email protected] ), regarding this matter. As well as her past official public posts.
A short Nicole Birdsall biography follows these posts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"[email protected]". 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.
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.
"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."
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
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 ( [email protected] ), regarding this matter. As well as her past official public posts.
A short Nicole Birdsall biography follows these posts.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
"[email protected]". 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.
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.
"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."
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
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 ( [email protected] ), 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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Nicole Bartholomew Birdsallhttp://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&[email protected]
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200904141007452.html
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Ebay-Radio/Ebay-Radio-384/520198969
http://www.spoke.com/info/pYGC4LN/NicoleBirdsall
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nicole-birdsall/1/863/537
http://alumni.ggu.edu/Document.Doc?id=23
http://www.dmnews.com/ebay-wins-e-mail-bid/article/156273/
//*
"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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Posted at 19:01 in Commentary, eBay, eBay Customer Service, eBay Spotlight | Permalink
Tags: Communications, [email protected], Nicole Bartholomew Birdsall, Nicole Birdsall, Principle Product Manager
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