Spring has sprung and showed us that it can wear whatever it wants – even snow. But whilst most of us were building snowmen out of spring’s arrival, eBay was providing us with their 2018 Spring Sellers Update – of which there is a lot to update on. 

Gold Standard Retail Experience

Much like spring, eBay entered the room in style by announcing that they want your help (yes, yours) to create a “gold standard retail experience”. They want buyers to keep coming back for more so that you and your business keep growing. They aim to achieve this by staying one step ahead of buyer demand.  How will they do that? With the following spring changes.

Pricing & Subscriptions

They’re going up. eBay announced various price hikes this update, including changes to the final value fees for e-cigarettes, video games and multi-category items. They’re also slapping on a 4% additional fee for sellers whose level is Below Standard.

Other subscription-based changes were helpfully summarised in this table:

* Values relative to the subscription tier below, when you use all of your allowance. Featured Shop value relative to having no Shop. Anchor Shop values based on average listings.

** Selling allowances apply.

*** Find out more about international selling.

**** Effective from 1 June 2018.

***** eBay Concierge is a free enhanced level of service to select UK registered customers and is subject to availability and ongoing seller performance.

All pricing excluding VAT

Delivery Standards

eBay want to encourage sellers to uphold the highest delivery standards for buyers. Buyers qualifying for eBay’s Premium Service listings will now receive maximum visibility in the ‘best match’ search results, as well as a 10% discount on their final values.

How to qualify for eBay Premium Service? High delivery standards:

– Free domestic delivery within three working days

– A two working day express delivery option on items up to £10

– A tracked delivery option on items over £20

Returns

In 2017 eBay sellers who increased their returns window from 14 to 30 days, experienced an average 13% conversion rate increase. eBay liked this fact and decided that their returns policy needs to be accordingly updated.

They have removed the 7-day returns duration for new listings in: fashion, health & beauty, home & garden, media, vehicle parts & accessories, and sports, hobbies & leisure. This has been replaced with four return options:

1. 30-day buyer pays

2. 30-day free returns

3. 60-day buyer pays

4. 60-day free returns

Marketing Tools

eBay have listened to your feedback and are working on improving their seller marketing tools, specifically:

– Replacing codeless coupons with seller coupons

– Updating promote your listings with item recommendations and sales reports

– Adding sale event and markdown promotions to the Marketing API Support.

Seller Hub Insights

Offering you everything you need to sell and grow, the Seller Hub will be updated with even more tools in June 2018, offering you increased the visibility of information about your buyers’ after-sales requests.

Shop By Product

eBay is trialing a new product-grouping shopping experience, that will display similar items together allowing for easy comparison. This will mean a small number of products will require listing using the eBay catalogue, beginning May.

eBay Shopfronts

Shopfronts are being made:

– more secure;

– more mobile friendly;

– better optimised for search engines; and

– better laid-out for buyers.

Non-customised eBay Shopfronts will be automatically updated – customised Shopfronts will need to opt-in to the updates.

HTTPS Updates

Now the industry security standard, eBay is promoting the use of HTTPS content but changing the way that HTTP listings are displayed. From March 2018 HTTP content will require clicking a “see full item description” link. To display full descriptions automatically, your content will need to be HTTPS compliant.

A Busy Spring For eBay

We hope that eBay’s spring changes will lead to increased customers and sales for your eCommerce store. eBay is clearly investing hard to lure customers away from Amazon and over to eBay. Luckily, with multichannel management software such as Expandly, you don’t need to worry which marketplace your potential customers head to first. Expandly allows you to list on Amazon, eBay and Etsy, as well as your own website, simply.