The Next presentation was the ‘eBay Townhall’. This was handled pretty well. They had microphones to run around the audience and allow folks to directly ask questions. My only frustration was similar to the one ColderIce expressed when he recorded his Wednesday 114 show with Dave White on the eBay and Beyond radio show live from the summit. The recording hasn’t been cleaned up and isn’t online yet but I do remember one line that I totally agreed with! “Who cares what you (the Seller) think about FREE SHIPPING - it isn’t about what YOU want – it’s about what your BUYERS want!” John, if I got that wrong – pop in and clear it up!

In my opinion all the questions about Free shipping just took away from the time we could have all been asking about other things to do with the Ebay portion of our business. I admit, several folks made good sense;  in particular I remember the one who talked about eBay revenues going up with beingn able to collect FVFs on the shipping

Image of eBay Motors CS

cost, and the one who sold very heavy items. However, eBay is folllowing the customers and all signs point to buyers demading this option. If you can, find a way to make it work for your business. If you can’t, sell somewhere else, or stop complaining about the benefits eBay is giving to Free shipping.  eBay offers lots of promotions – most of which dont aply to my items, but I take advantage of the ones that do and move on past the ones that don’t.

Image via CrunchBase

• mommytoaaj: RT @ebayinkblog Free shipping is dominating the eBay Q&A – 3 of the 5 questions so far have focused on it #ecom09
• ebayinkblog: Question came in asking why eBay Motors doesn’t have the same algorithms, etc. as the rest of marketplace #ecom09
• ebayinkblog: #ecom09 Brings me to a quick eBay Twitter tip: @askebaymotors and @ebaymotors are both on Twitter and are willing/able to help and inform
• mattledford: RT @philleahy: New functionality 2 reduce unpaid items 2 be released soon. eBay 2 issue the UPI process not the Seller #ecom09 gd thing!
• mattledford: @singlefeed #ecom09 : standing room only, “set it and forget it doesn’t work”
• mommytoaaj: RT @katskloset: #ecom09 question re: automatic UPIs – can sellers set preferences? answer – YES