I had known this was coming, but eBay sent out a notification to buyers today announcing that complete user IDs will no longer be displayed on any auction format listings.

Soon we will no longer display the complete user IDs of people bidding on any auction-style listing. Instead, we’ll use asterisks such as x***y to protect our members’ identities. Sellers will continue to see complete user IDs on their listings and the winning bidder’s ID will be visible to everyone after the auction ends.

We haven’t provided this information on listings of $200 or higher for some time and it’s been a very effective fraud deterrent for those items. For safety reasons, we’re now expanding this protection to all auction-style listings.
We know many of you like to see who you’re bidding against. But displaying this information makes it too easy for scammers to send out fake offers that include convincing details of your actual bidding activity on a specific listing, such as the item number, description and exact amount you bid.

In recent weeks fraudulent email offers targeting listings under $200 has surged unacceptably. To keep eBay a top shopping destination we must choose safety over visibility and nip this in the bud. We recognize for some of you this may be an unwelcome limitation but we hope you’ll support our putting more muscle into fraud prevention.

The prevalence of fake Second Chance offers has basically gutted that program. No one has any faith in it and almost all sellers I know have stopped using it (you routinely see auctions that announce that the seller does not use Second Chance offers). eBay certainly needed to do something about these scams.

While I know some change was needed, I do lament this as another loss to the community aspect of eBay though. I buy in the same categories over and over. I often find myself bidding against the same set of buyers (there are maybe 10 of us who commonly target one particular item). Even though I’ve never met any of these people, I feel I know them. I know what they bid on, whether they snipe or put in a big opening bid, and what their threshold for a particular item is. It makes bidding more fun and interesting for me.

Unless eBay changes this program, you can still figure out who is bidding. So far, the two letters used to identify a bidder are always the same (ex: user ID probidder would always be scrambled as something like d****r). So, many times I can still figure out who I’m bidding against if it is someone I see often. Who knows if that will remain though or if they will go over to a consistently random model.

There have also been concerns that this program makes it easier for dishonest sellers to use shill bidding on their own items (driving up the price). eBay has included some tools to allow people to see what percentage of a particular bidders activity is with one seller, but it’s not as handy of a tool as being able to review a bidders history over the last several weeks.

Put a fork in it, for it is done. Statistics are again from PowerSellers Unite. You can visit them to see the current volume versus the same time on the previous day at their site anytime.

Total listings increased 203,254 over the same time yesterday, or a 1.49 percent increase. No commentary today, I think the numbers in this series of posts have pretty much spoken for themselves.

Barring any shocking (or even interesting) news about this year’s eBay boycott, this should be the next to last post dealing with the numbers. As always, statistics are from PowerSellers Unite. You can visit them to see the current volume versus the same time on the previous day at their site anytime.

Total listings increased 39,472 over the same time yesterday, or a 0.29 percent increase. Listings have pretty much stabilized and are in line with how the month started. On some forums, I’ve seen calls to extend the boycott to really stick it to eBay, but being as how very little seems to have been stuck anywhere, well, you get the picture. Technically the boycott runs through the 25th, so I’ll check these one more time tomorrow.

Thanks for the charts PowerSellers Unite!

eBay listings increased again today, putting them equal to (or even slightly above) where they were earlier this month. Statistics are again from PowerSellers Unite. You can visit them to see the current volume versus the same time on the previous day at their site anytime.

Total listings increased 204,069 over the same time yesterday, or a 1.52 percent increase. In the chart at the bottom of this post, you can see the trend for the month of February up through today. There was a big spike on the 20 cent list day, followed by a plunge one week later, as one would expect. With only a day left, it seems unlikely that the boycott is having much of an effect.

Wired ran a piece on the boycott yesterday. I can’t help but suggest you read through some of the comments on the article to see the paranoia and vitriol eBay elicits.

Thanks for the charts PowerSellers Unite!

eBay listings increased today for the first time since the boycott started. As a commenter mentioned yesterday, the big drop was likely caused by the list fee sale from the previous day. Statistics are again from PowerSellers Unite. You can visit them to see the current volume versus the same time on the previous day at their site anytime.

Total listings increased 576,413 over the same time yesterday, or a 4.37 percent increase. Total listings are just over 13 million. Last year, eBay averaged about 15 million listings a day, according to a report in Barron’s. Having 12.6 million to 14.6 million daily listings this week seems to fit within that as a yearly average.

Thanks for the charts PowerSellers Unite!

As we enter the fourth day of the boycott, we saw the biggest drop yet in auction traffic on eBay. Statistics are again from PowerSellers Unite. You can visit them to see the current volume versus the same time on the previous day at their site anytime.

Also, PowerSellers Unite now has some handy graphs on the site traffic page to see how traffic changed throughout the day (just hit the above link to see them). Today’s graph is attached at the bottom of this post.

Total listings dropped 1,259,314, or a 10 percent decline from yesterday. eBay’s numbers naturally fluctuate, sometimes by large amounts, but I’m thinking there might actually be some effect from the boycott going on here. I had honestly expected to see numbers start to increase today. I was wrong.

Thanks for the charts PowerSellers Unite!

The February PowerSeller newsletter (Power Up) hit inboxes yesterday afternoon, glorifying the changes and providing “tips” on how to improve Detailed Seller Ratings.

Communication: Even on weekends. Today’s online shoppers expect 24-hour communication lines and prompt response. That doesn’t mean being tied to your email 24/7–consider automating emails at key steps and using Frequently Asked Questions.

I would say eBay expects shoppers to expect 24-hour communication lines. PayPal (an eBay company), doesn’t offer weekend hours for its customer service.

Shipping cost: Keep it real. Buyers leave lower DSRs for sellers who pad shipping costs so make sure yours reflect real costs. Better yet, offer discounted or free shipping–and combined shipping for multiple item orders. Itemize costs in the listing (handling, insurance, etc.) so there are no surprises.

eBay has really been pushing free shipping for awhile. Unfortunately for sellers, shipping costs keep increasing. UPS, FedEx and DHL all raised their rates about 4.9 percent at the start of this year. The post office just had a raise last year and will likely be raising prices again this May (a First Class increase has already been announced, new Priority and Express prices won’t be announced until March). Of course, eBay has a vested interest in trying to get sellers to include shipping charges into the item price. Sellers pay fees on the item price, but not on what is charged for shipping.

The fee changes officially went live today and auction traffic is down again from yesterday. Statistics are again from PowerSellers Unite. You can visit them to see the current volume versus the same time on the previous day at their site anytime.

Today saw an even larger drop, almost 650,000 listings, or a 4.59 percent decline from yesterday. Of course, a week ago, eBay had a 20 cent listing day. A chunk of that drop could be caused by a number of auctions ending today that people only listed because of the fee sale. I usually throw up a few odds and ends on cheap list fee days to see if they will sell. If they don’t sell, they usually won’t be relisted. Still, I’m not sure that would account for this big of a drop. Total listings are down by almost one million since Monday evening. Also, the stats haven’t updated for a couple of hours (normally updates every hour). I’ll check again later this evening and see if they have updated.

PowerSellers Unite tracks listings volume across a bunch of different sites. You can visit them to see the current volume versus the same time on the previous day. Normally that page is embedded in the site, but is currently a standalone page due to the high volume.

As of right now, it’s showing a decrease of 3.03 percent. Is that a big change going from Sunday to Monday? I don’t honestly know. The charts page isn’t currently working (just takes you back to the main page). I’ll check this every day during the boycott and update as appropriate.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the boycott. If you’re interested, you should definitely check out AtTheBat’s comment on it. I think he nailed the mentality behind some eBay sellers (not all, certainly, but some). I’ve got some more thoughts on this, and a reply to ATB that I’ll hopefully get typed up in the next day or two.

Also, I’d like to pass along some advice I’ve seen posted in multiple forums about the boycott. If you are participating and are a regular eBay seller, take the opportunity to explore your other options. Every seller can benefit from diversifying their sales channels.

Current listing design, click picture for full size image.

eBay periodically tests new designs and options throughout the site, sometimes in their sandbox and other times live. A user in the forums found a radically different listing design while surfing today. Above is a shrunk down image. You can see the full listing here. If the link is dead, I have a full size image here. You can see what the listing looks like with the current design here (or again, full size image here).

The price, pictures and seller are more prominent in the new design. Shipping info, payment options and buying tips have been put into a tabbed format along with the seller’s description (choose the tab to see the appropriate information). Previously, all this information is in a linear format going down the page.

The biggest change is just below the seller’s name. In red font, it says, “This seller has low ratings for Shipping Time.” There is no explanation behind this statement. The seller’s DSR for shipping time is 4.0 on a 5.0 scale.

If eBay is going to start pointing out possible problems with a seller, they should offer more information. Has the seller received multiple low marks in shipping time this month? Is a 4.0 considered a low score in shipping time? Without an explanation, any possible buyer is only left with an ambiguous, but dire, warning from eBay. If the point is to get buyers to make more informed decisions about their trading partners, give them more information.

Beyond that, I understand what eBay is trying to do with making certain elements pop out more (like the pictures). In this experimental design though, I find it all rather distracting. That could just be because I’m so used to the current design. There are several pieces of information missing, such as high bidder ID and item location. I would say those are two pieces of information that should stay visible.

There could be several new listing designs floating around right now, randomly being applied to a small number of listings to test them. I wouldn’t expect this to be the final version of any new format. If you want to give eBay feedback on the design, there is a link on the auction page to do just that.