Seller Club Podcast
Seller Club Podcast
Episode 89: eBay the Business
The days are getting shorter, the end of summer is in sight, and it’s time for some business updates. First, we share a little bit of what’s going on in our businesses this time of year. We noticed eBay making some big waves in their recent earnings report and it got us talking about the business side of eBay itself. In this episode, we take you through some of the highlights and what they mean, how they impact sellers, and why we actually care to keep tabs on how eBay’s business is doing.
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Yo, what is up everybody? Episode 89. Let's drop that beat. Yo, yo, yo. Back to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Episode 89 of what, Ken?
SPEAKER_02:Seller Club Podcast, baby. All the kids are going back to school and everybody's shopping on eBay.
SPEAKER_00:Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Get back to work. Get back to school.
SPEAKER_00:Get back to school.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No more. No more, like, oh, I have my kids all day. You know?
SPEAKER_01:Go on what not an eBay when you're at work all day.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's what Glenn wants.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I want you to do. Find some products on there that you want to purchase. Start Christmas shopping a little early.
SPEAKER_02:So no more, no more excuse saying, like, oh, my kid accidentally swiped that. And did it. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01:The kids are.
SPEAKER_02:You don't have kids now at home. They're in school.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Huh.
SPEAKER_01:That's interesting. This is the best time of the year. Um for everything, because now the fall's gonna come around. It's gonna go up from here. This is what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02:We've hit rock bottom.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've seen rock bottom. We can't go any worse than this.
SPEAKER_00:Listen, I just had the best July of my entire online selling career. So I really can't agree with you there. I mean, I would love it if that was rock bottom. That's I'm we're telling you that still the bottom.
SPEAKER_02:10K in one month is the rock bottom. I'll take it. It's gonna go up from here. So you can't it's it 10K is the stepping stone going up now.
SPEAKER_00:I know. I mean, I've had a 10K month before, but not in July. Exactly. Never in July. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So um It is great though. It's gonna be up from now. Um, if July is like this, we're holding you to this standard to never settle anything after July. It's gotta be more than this.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Oh, yeah. No pressure, no summer slowdown.
SPEAKER_02:So let me ask you guys this. Did your city or state do a tax-free weekend, something like that? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01:Not yet. They usually do, but mine's gonna be this weekend. Maybe ours is this weekend too. But tax-free weekend is kind of funny to me because you know you're not saving a whole lot, but people just want to pack everything.
SPEAKER_02:Put it this way. You spend a hundred bucks and you save eight bucks in tax.
SPEAKER_00:Because people do that for back to school, right? Isn't it usually like in the fall? Yeah. What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02:This is this is back to school now.
SPEAKER_00:According to NBC Chicago, Illinois has not had a sales tax holiday for back to school since the 2022 school year and will not be having one this year.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, that's true, because you guys just sales tax is 10% anyway, so that's too big of a Illinois.
SPEAKER_00:I'm sorry, but you are a mess. And I feel confident saying that as someone who lives in the corn and gets the wonderful trickle-down effects of every all the decisions in Chicago all the time.
SPEAKER_01:It's I think we gotta go to Oregon, no sales tax.
SPEAKER_00:Right?
SPEAKER_02:Washington State, right?
SPEAKER_00:No sales tax. And then does anybody else not have sales tax? Yeah, Delaware. Delaware, that's right. Uh Philly, uh shout out to our friend Joy.
SPEAKER_02:I wonder if it's Philly or Pennsylvania. They don't have sales tax on clothing, on apparel.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting.
SPEAKER_02:Hence the uh retail arbitrage people there have a 10% profit margin.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, kind of, but like you can also be exempt anywhere, right? If you apply for it.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, that is true, that is true. You can always use taxelling. But certain but certain states are harder to get tax exempt. Know that. Yeah. Not everybody's uh that wasn't too hard in Illinois, fortunately. Ohio to just print something out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, jump through a couple hoops, but it's just like paperwork hoops.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, tax free weekend is coming up uh next week for the great state of Texas.
SPEAKER_00:So when you buy the that truckload of iPads, you should buy that on tax free weekend.
SPEAKER_02:That's a lot of tax. Well though, I I don't think electronics is included.
SPEAKER_00:Is it not?
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_00:That's stationary.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I think because mostly I've seen it in like you know, like footlocker finish lines, um yeah, more like clothing wear and that is interesting though from a back to school standpoint, because like increasingly we're using technology like that. That is true, they do, they do. But also to I know Apple has like a student discount, you know what I'm saying? So like it's kind of like it kind of just offsets the tax. Your discount is just offsetting the tax. It's like, do you want to use Stacks exempt or you want to use right?
SPEAKER_00:I wonder if you can stack it.
SPEAKER_02:I'm a I'm a reseller and I'm a student. How does that work?
SPEAKER_00:You know what? That's like how I got started reselling, really. Reselling my textbooks in college.
SPEAKER_02:Now you can't because it's all ebooks. It's all uh it's all like you know, like you get permission to use it, right? Like like a little code.
SPEAKER_00:I hate that. Also, like nobody when I I mean I mean I'm among I'm the second youngest person hosting this podcast, so I can't I can say when I was by like a couple months, but when I was, you know, in high school even, like nobody had a laptop. That was like for college only, you know? Like now it's like people have laptops and tablets and netbooks and like all kinds of stuff for like elementary school. It's just crazy.
SPEAKER_02:Man, I remember I had some some like classes in a university and we weren't allowed to have electronics. Well, well, it wasn't like they didn't make a rule yet. And it was like teacher, like certain, you know, professor would allow it, certain professor would not. And then um I uh I guess he was a little old school and really didn't catch up with technology. Yeah, you know, probably he probably had a flip phone or like uh you know like a black and white cell phone. Yeah, and this was the first time that um iPad had well not 5G, I guess it was a 3G that you have, you know, yeah internet, right? It's like no cell phones, you know. And I said, Is my iPad allowed? And it's like yeah. And you're like, oh my god, so much trouble. Yeah. I Google every like I aced it.
SPEAKER_00:It wasn't called cheating.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, no, never. Never.
SPEAKER_00:How is that not cheating? Are you talking about a test?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Like with iPads. People had notepads. People had notepads because they said you can bring up your notes, you can re- refer to your notes. It's your own notes, not Google.
SPEAKER_00:They're on Google. I'm just saying, I was a college professor for many years, and I would have counted that as cheating. I also would have been like paying attention to what you're doing on your iPad in class.
SPEAKER_02:I'm referring to my notes. I'm looking at reference from other name of my note application. Yeah, from other scholars that have previously lived upon me. Right. I am great because I stand on the shoulder of the giants of people that wrote stuff on Google.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So that was fun. Now chat we now with chat GPT, though, imagine just putting the problem there, it'll just answer for yourself. What do you think?
SPEAKER_00:It's so next level, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's why it's gonna be a totally different ballgame in five, ten years. We'll see what that even looks like. School is just gonna be totally different.
SPEAKER_02:Let me let me ask you this. Are you gonna having a kid? Are you gonna um encourage slash teacher kid on how to use the internet to her advantage? 100%.
SPEAKER_00:That's what Uncle Ken is for.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, if you don't, that's why he's like, here's this iPad.
SPEAKER_00:You just go to this app with the big colorful G on it.
SPEAKER_02:He's got 5G now. Imagine she's probably gonna have 6G. It's gonna be super fast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, whatever that looks like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like, I don't like that is one thing that constantly I ask every day. How can I use a technology that we have that could streamline things that um we have moving forward?
SPEAKER_00:I don't ask myself that every day, but periodically, sure.
SPEAKER_02:No, I'm at the point where it's multiple times a day.
SPEAKER_00:I literally just look at JC and said, Babe, like how can technology do this for us?
SPEAKER_02:I said, Babe, you we have to be really good at this. We have to start. And then now, like, instead of Googling it, yeah, I I mean Glenn can probably tell me tell this that it's like Google it, Google it. I'm like, I'm that. Now it's just like chat GPT, chat GPT. Ask chat, ask chat.
SPEAKER_00:Ask chat. It's um that's called gaitanoing it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, winging it, yeah, right. Um, it's not winging it now, it's ref ref referencing it with multiple sources.
SPEAKER_00:It may or may not be credible.
SPEAKER_01:Well, AI is trying to build up our listings, so it'll get there very, very soon, but it's still making quite a bit of errors.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Some other random for uh speaking of eBay stuff, what's been going on in now that July is coming to an end, there's some random stuff that happened in my store. Number one, I did go um below standard at one point. And then I hold on. If I if I got evaluated today, it would have been or yesterday, it would have been.
SPEAKER_00:We don't discriminate against those who are below standard.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we don't, we don't, we don't. We just ask about it.
SPEAKER_00:But what happened?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, there's a couple of things that happened in this month. Number one, I did get another negative feedback, which that also happens. Garbage. Um, I know.
SPEAKER_02:Which doesn't count though, right?
SPEAKER_01:No, but I just hate seeing it. I mean well, the guy put it there was a huge crease on the jersey. Um, so yeah, that got a negative feedback. I haven't haven't countered yet. Um, the other thing happened was I got uh like a return request for this uh pre-owned jersey, and the guy opened it and he said that there was a tiny, tiny pinhole that should have been described.
SPEAKER_00:Were you like it's a mesh jersey? There's holes. There's tiny holes all over it.
SPEAKER_01:And it was a pre it was pre-owned, so I'm gonna see. I actually hadn't looked through the photos to see if it was actually on the photos or not. I mean, I did put everything about it, but I don't even know if they put it on it was so it was so tiny that like you could barely even even see it on the photo that they put to open a return. And so um I think what happened was since I have auto returns on this one. Well, this one ended up being like um not described return instead of the other kind of return. So in my own head, I thought, well, they're already automatically accepted, so this one should get sent back very soon.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And instead I got an email, you didn't respond to this return, so now that would put me below that you didn't respond to a customer's request, something like that, right?
SPEAKER_02:But see, that's the thing. That's when that system is kind of like flawed, if that would be a term, because that is the reason why we don't have automatic access. Because you know how they send a proof, right? Like, hey, here's the fault, and then you can respond. Because I think correct me if I'm wrong, and uh, you know if you have experience with this, if you don't respond to that, even if the request is already processed, the the buyer could say, like, you didn't respond to my request, even though they have access to printing the return label, right? So that was that is kind of like you might have to turn that off, bro. You don't you don't get a lot of uh return, so might as well deal with it.
SPEAKER_01:I have the high I have the highest percentage of all three of us. What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00:Oh no. I had um I had a return thing, uh a request that was opened, and the person wrote in like you know how they write a message and they think, oh, this is going to someone other than the seller. They were totally throwing me under the bus. Like, this seller will not respond to any of my messages, blah, blah, blah. And I wrote them back immediately, like within the return case. And I said, This is the first communication I've gotten from you. So sorry that I didn't read your non-existent messages, but like also look at the tracking number. Like also in this return case. Like, that is mine.
SPEAKER_02:The the buyer still wants the item, right? It says they open, like not received. The buyer still wants the item, and then this this item literally went, you know, tour across the US. Like here to Kansas to Nebraska to like it was at it was just like bounce around. I'm like, how? Like, what kind of label did this guy have? Let me use this label to get shipped across the country.
SPEAKER_00:They might have put it on a box that had other labels on it. No, I mean, and then they ignored it. Oh, it was years.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they didn't exist.
SPEAKER_00:I've had that happen before.
SPEAKER_02:They didn't get there yet, right? Yeah. And then I got like a negative feedback because I didn't respond to their request. I'm like, you still want it. I don't have I don't have time to check it every day to tell you it's in Kansas now. Oh, it's in Denver. Like, it doesn't even I I don't control that. But I um I believe it got delivered eventually, so I got the negative feedback from shit.
SPEAKER_00:So Glenn, were those all of the things that put you below standard, or was there more?
SPEAKER_01:Um so that was the main one, but then another experience was I sold three jerseys to one guy, and he had like just all buy it now. And I'm like, okay, got the price. Yeah, I know. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Too good to be true. Too good to be true.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, nothing. Just bought all three, you know, pay the full amount. You know, it was almost like it was like 350 bucks or something. All right, cool. Take them all. Great, and then of course, um, I get return requests for two of them. Oh and the third one, I guess, is being kept.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, this was a try-on service. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see.
SPEAKER_01:Oh and so I'm like, okay, let's see what I receive back. So I go and click in the profile, and the guy is also an eBay seller. Um selling jerseys, some are autographed, things like that. But has very bad feedback. Oh crap. Um, I never received these, um, never received these on another one, uh, sent damaged, and I'm like, oh man, something's gonna happen here. So I get the two jerseys back, and there's a tiny pinhole. I wish. I wish one of them was a huge um like sharpie mark on the back.
SPEAKER_00:No, I'm just gonna be a big thing.
SPEAKER_01:Just like a big line just like right in the back.
SPEAKER_02:Switcheroo.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and then the other one just hated you as this competition.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe. Well, I don't even he's not even really selling this type of stuff. And then the first one was just all dirty on the numbers.
SPEAKER_02:Like just I don't know what you like it like can you tell it was yours or not?
SPEAKER_01:That's the thing. I think they're yeah, both of them were definitely mine. I think they they both look good, but they were obviously used or marked up or something. Oh my gosh, that's styled.
SPEAKER_02:I wonder that's that was their reason why you know, like, okay, let me mark this up and say, like, hey, this is item not a subscribe. You know what I'm saying? Like, I wonder if that's their way of trying to pass an item that that not used.
SPEAKER_00:Shady jersey seller, if you're listening, let us know why you did this. We'd love to know.
SPEAKER_01:So I did the 50%, you know, taking that money on the return, um, but it hasn't gotten through yet. And it's already been like almost a week, so I don't know what's happening.
SPEAKER_02:See, this is where AI would come in clutch because one is they would take into an account of okay, Glenn's been a good seller, and then this buyer is also a seller but has a shady review. Yeah, right, like that should hold weight. If we're gonna have ratings anyway, why would it only affect one or the you know, a seller, not a buyer? Especially a buyer that's also a seller. You know, like well, are we calling an enthusiast, right? An enthusiast that's a buyer and a seller, we gotta have some street credit or some eBay credit or something like that. Um so that that and then if if we start a return, just take a photo and then now good. I think should we should we put black light marking or stamps on our stuff just in case if it's a switcheroo? Because you never know. I I I know but how often do you have a switcheroo? Yeah, you never do. But but it only not a lot of times, but when it does, it stinks.
SPEAKER_01:So it stings like a bee.
SPEAKER_02:Ouchy. It's like all honey, and then you get stung once, you just smack that thing out, and you just the stinger. You're like, that's the end of you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, speaking of a bee. Well, real quick, the bee jumped into my uh whatnot live shows, and these guys are defensive now. Like, this is they're like, What? Who is this? Why because Ken they haven't seen Ken in a long time?
SPEAKER_02:I have a mod, I have a mod account, I have a mod button, and then I think one of your mod is like, who is this guy? Yeah. Oh my god! Or somebody said, Who does you think he is? Like you've been jumping in.
SPEAKER_01:Kenny's been jumping in and I'm just gonna start being rude.
unknown:Rude.
SPEAKER_02:They're probably uh they can't ban me because I'm a mod.
SPEAKER_00:I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Kenny's a mod, so nothing they can do about it.
SPEAKER_00:But that's hilarious.
SPEAKER_01:It's kind of weird on how um like this hat community has kind of transformed. Like it wasn't even really like this, and then now they're very like on certain things, and like I don't know what is what is going on there, especially if you man, if you have a missed payment now on my show, these guys are just like tearing me up. They're like, we don't accept EBT here, and like pests get up. Some other guy was just like yeah, some of the guy was like, food stamps don't work here, and like I know, these guys are just going up, and I'm looking at it. I know, what did this turn into?
SPEAKER_02:You taught these people nothing about yeah, being nice, yeah. I forgot I think one night I walked, uh I got in there and I said, Wear them A-frame hats, and then Glenn was running fitted. He said, Read title, bro. Read the title.
SPEAKER_01:Kind of like, what is happening here?
SPEAKER_00:No respect. No respect. We don't know who you are. Not anymore.
SPEAKER_02:Certainly, people like me, like are when are you coming back? And it's polarizing. It's people that numb in and people that just keep funny off the room.
SPEAKER_01:I know.
SPEAKER_00:They're probably are we gonna meet anybody who has been frequenting Glenn's live shows when we're at eBay Open?
SPEAKER_01:Is someone anyone gonna come up in person to us and I think maybe some YouTube, some older ones that we've met and are like conferences, our outhustled stuff. I think my friend too, so they'll definitely be there.
SPEAKER_00:So we love you, Yinka. We can't wait to see you.
SPEAKER_01:Uh 100%.
SPEAKER_00:I think yeah, and we should rename this to like the Inca fan club instead of seller club.
SPEAKER_02:And we have to uh also we're gonna we're gonna now Glenn's the whatnot seller. You know? Yeah, this guy's a whatnot seller, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Except you're gonna have to say it like out of the corner of your mouth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm a whatnot seller. Where are we right now? Um no, I think I think that would be cool. Um hopefully they'll have a booth or uh place where uh we can um send Glenn to.
SPEAKER_00:Like eBay Live.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, send me the eBay live. I can show how much feedback I have. Right, what I've been doing and whatnot. Let me check.
SPEAKER_00:It'll be like I see you were below standard.
SPEAKER_01:Can we track you on this live?
SPEAKER_02:Oh no.
SPEAKER_01:Like, yeah, going back to that though, I am I am above where am I right now? Um yeah, I am on top rated.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you got it back.
SPEAKER_00:Make sure you're top rated in a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm top rated, and uh my pinhole jersey is the only one that held me back. So that is it. I am um back at it.
SPEAKER_00:I'm so glad to hear that.
SPEAKER_01:Full recovery in record time.
SPEAKER_00:I had a a weird return situation, I can share really quick, but basically there was some return that um didn't arrive back to me like within the time frame that I was supposed to respond to the case. Well, I contacted um eBay about it, and I was like, hey, what do I do about this? Because I don't want to refund them without seeing the item first, but it's like the tracking is showing that it's like delayed. And they were like, oh, no problem. Like we'll just put a hold on the case and then let you know, that'll pause it basically and give it more time to get back to you, and then you can proceed as usual. Well, all of a sudden the case was closed. It did get back to me, but the case was like gone. Like I couldn't do anything because there's a hold on it. So I get an email from eBay that says, um, we understand that your shipment was returned, it arrived, and you no longer had the option to issue a refund because of the hold. So we've issued a refund on your behalf, and rest assured, we've removed the defect on your account. So, and like basically saying, don't freak out if you see a defect on your seller dashboard for a minute, we've already removed it. But I was like, that's interesting. Was it a defect because I quote unquote didn't respond to the return case or didn't issue the refund? They did it on my behalf. But I thought that was interesting. Like a person at eBay had to manually get involved in that process and issue the refund because of the hold on the case. But I mean, it did save me from having to like not get the item back in time, you know, like it was a weird workaround. But I I just like was like, oh yeah, whatever happened to that, and then all of a sudden I got an email about it that said everything had been done on my behalf, so that was kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like I didn't do anything, but sure. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:I was like, well, all right, fine.
SPEAKER_01:But they're refunded from eBay's money, not your money. Um should be.
SPEAKER_00:No, I think it refunded from my money. Oh yeah. Because it was still it was like as though they wanted to make it as though I had gone in in on time and s and sent the refund I was supposed to send. But I'm also not sure about this because like I didn't really have a chance to say, like, what if the item uh the item was fine, but what if it wasn't?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00:I guess it would have had to recontact them and say, hey, actually, this was not in the original condition or whatever, but I mean, usually it is, unless you're glutton.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_01:You're like hey, this item is not.
SPEAKER_00:Unless someone's, you know, tying their um tying your jersey to their like truck hitch and like driving it all over the place and returning it. Yeah, yeah, then returning it. Super lame.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh lame. Very interesting story. So I guess we all had some little uh stories from July on returns or random issues.
SPEAKER_00:Um getting harassed on your shows.
SPEAKER_02:It's over. Overall good. Overall good, I would say overall good. Um like we well, like we mentioned, um this July for me, and now that we know Anna's is better than last year's July.
SPEAKER_00:Way better.
SPEAKER_02:And and definitely glance, because last year you didn't do much, right? With eBay?
SPEAKER_01:No, I did, but I'm down from last compared?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. It's a returns, man. It's a returns it is.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's the uh the in blocks of hats.
SPEAKER_01:It's probably what it is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um I didn't even get to show you guys which people that are listening aren't gonna be able to see this, but I'm trying to reorganize this whole storage thing. I ended up getting some other shelves from a store that was closing down.
SPEAKER_03:Nice.
SPEAKER_01:Um, so now I gotta fill in. Well, actually, this shelving is gonna be glass, so that's gonna be interesting as well because it was from a store, it was fancy. Now I gotta be very careful what I do.
SPEAKER_00:So you don't like bash your head on a glass shelf or what?
SPEAKER_02:Now you can see the the dust. The dust. Exactly. That's true.
SPEAKER_00:Now you have so much more to dust.
SPEAKER_02:Let's see, let's see.
SPEAKER_01:So I gotta fill in this back part.
SPEAKER_00:Nice.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and then these bottom racks down here um are gonna be like four or five, I guess like shelves. Yeah. So everything's gotta get organized for eBay. I just need to do something to where these items sell when I'm not live. And then I need as many talking to Sneakers Envy, who we we talked uh a couple of days ago. If people want to look up Sneakers Envy on eBay, you can go ahead and do that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, well, now I'm jealous. Only one not talking to Sneakers Envy over here. You'll talk to Sneaker. We're gonna be best friends after eBay open, it's fine.
SPEAKER_01:You know, exactly. You're just saying that I gotta do a lot of, I guess, variation and adding as many products as possible, but I see I mean, is that really the eBay way? Is that for every store to grow, we just need as many products as possible?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, well, does it just mean like diversity of products or like yeah, yeah, not going too much versus going too deep? Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So a good like five quantity, five of every hat or something, or two or that way you're giving it's like it I would say it's called it's called like the shotgun effect, right?
SPEAKER_02:Like just yeah, spraying as many listings as you can, um and one of them will grow if you know you're looking at planting seeds. Um but also we're not talking iPads under retail here. You know, so like we're talking about products that are brand new that might not be available, easily available to the customers um that have to find it. So are we the question is the question is are we attracting a lower or like a more specific buyer with the products that especially what you're doing, right? Like you have different sizes, and then for example, like me, uh live in Cincinnati, so am I a fan of that team or their big market and small market theme? I wonder if the question is maybe because there's so much variation under the product that you're trying to list, then it just becomes way more option. Instead of like a red hat, I'm selling to a hundred people that likes red hat, now you're doing red and blue and black at a certain size, seven, seven and a half. So it like it breaks it down lower. So maybe in your perspective, it seems like you need way more. But to that buyer, I'm only looking at I'm only interested. Let's say you have a thousand listing stores, and I'm a Cincinnati guy, and I don't like other colors besides red and black and white. So maybe I'm only looking at your stores like oh, I like this store. He has five listings of what I like. And that's all I appreciate in your store. So now you'd have to have five other listings that you can bring Anna to your store. Good luck.
SPEAKER_01:Good luck. Good luck with that. It has to do with um sports.
SPEAKER_00:And it has to have a tiny pinhole in it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. That's a sneaker. I'll return it if it doesn't have a tiny pinhole in it. Oh no.
SPEAKER_00:I was promising too much.
SPEAKER_01:With a huge sharpie mark in the back.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Sneakers and we said I love that pre-lov stuff, you know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. That's what I gotta ask for eBay Open. Is what about the algorithm? Does it like you know multi-quantity? You pick your size, one listing, and we also get to show, hey, three hips sold, and it's huge right there on the listing. Bring some credibility. Or do we like let's say you're a clothing clothing seller, you have the same shirt, small, medium, large, extra large, 2x, all have a each their own listing, and you accept you have a best offer option for each. Is that a better way to do it?
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Because if I have a single listing, you can pick your size, I cannot have a best offer.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Unless they change that something.
SPEAKER_00:Kim, haven't you like A-B tested that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've done it. So I've done one that's variation and then one that's um has single listing only, right? Single, I uh single color. Um I I'm running both, but the the single listing doesn't have best offer, right? I mean the variation doesn't have best offer. It's kind of hard to run to change anything there unless you have to edit each price category. Because because it allows you to okay, let's say small is 25 bucks, medium is 30 bucks. But for me, I'm thinking like, no, they're all the same product. I just want to repr if I just want to reprice all of them at 20 bucks, you can't do that quickly. You gotta go in and edit everything. So it is still like a single listing on the on the point on the point of view of when you're listing it or when you're repricing things. But for the buyer, are you just because like one strategy that I've used is like okay, um all my variation, since I don't have best offer, I can just put like let's say a$30 item that I'm I'm selling. Let me just put this at 35 and then put like a 10% um what do you call that? Um promoted listing fee. So then I see it on top all the time, but then again, like am I, you know, I'm gonna attract the buyer that when I see it, I buy it, or my other listings can attract the the you know, the person that that sorts. So I think it's good if you have over three of the same quantity. You're not double listing it, right? Like, okay, I'm putting three here and I'm putting three, so I have six total. So that might be what you need to do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:This is a a little bit of a sidebar, but I feel like I have in July seen a lot more, and like by a lot more I mean like a handful instead of zero, but a lot more people who are like kind of like bundling stuff in a way, where they're making offers on like here's three different pairs of shorts, and they're all the same size. So, like presumably they're like, Oh, I want all three of these for myself, right? Like it's kind of interesting, or tank tops. Well, shorts and tank tops, I've seen it a bunch, and I'm like, this is why we need to be able to bundle things.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, you mean on the listing they have they're selling both?
SPEAKER_00:No, no, like people buying stuff from me. Like, I've had more like multiple, not even multiple quantity, but like multiple items that are like almost the same item, but like in different colors or whatever.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had this person buy three pairs of shorts, and I was nervous about that because you know, like kind of like the glance situation, but no, they they liked it, they just paid full price.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, rock and roll.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's what we want the most. Pay full price.
SPEAKER_00:Full price.
SPEAKER_01:And just a happy customer and a happy seller. All right, yeah, I know you want to talk about some eBay news as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so we have some cool stuff to talk about with regard to eBay releasing their Q2 earnings report. We are like freshly into Q3, so this would just came out a little while ago, and it's kind of interesting numbers. I don't know about you guys, um, but this is not like the same type of stuff that you necessarily hear in like seller communications and the stuff that's really like geared towards sellers that eBay gives us a lot of information updates on a regular basis, but this is more like the you know, the business at large and kind of like for like shareholders and like stockholders, right? To like to the owners of eBay. Yeah, to evaluate like how is eBay the business doing. And so that's not something that everybody who I know that sells on eBay pays attention to, but I think it's pretty interesting because even if you don't like own their stock or something, like this is a platform where your business lives. So I love to get these little checkups on how is eBay the business doing. So there were some pretty striking things in this this one. So we thought we'd you know talk about some of the highlights.
SPEAKER_02:I like that. Um, I think one of the highlights is um the quarterly growth. Obviously, it's measured by percentage, and this has been their biggest quarterly growth as far as I did the research since 2023. Oh, 2022 to 2023 growth. Um this is the biggest.
SPEAKER_00:Uh so that like that like got our attention.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think that's pretty cool, right? So the percentage of change uh from Q2 um is plus six percent. I think that's pretty big compared to what's always been, it's always been around plus one percent. I think that's pretty cool. Um, so revenue rose from 2.57 billion in Q224 compared to now, it's 2.73 billion.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's like a big chunk.
SPEAKER_02:That's a big chunk. When you're talking small percentage at a billion dollar rate, right, 0.6% of billions of dollars is a lot of money.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that's the revenue, and the GMV is also up like a similar percentage.
SPEAKER_02:So so when I kind of like are when I'm kind of trying to read this, that means they sold way more, basically. So eBay sellers are selling have sold way more in Q2 this year than last year. So seller slow a summer slowdown, what? Not me. Besides me and Glenn's Thor.
SPEAKER_00:I just advanced it.
SPEAKER_02:Me and Glenn Store, the rest of the eBay sellers have sold way more.
SPEAKER_00:Some kind of cosmic uh punishment for acting like the summer slowdown didn't exist.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So so eBay backed it up and said, it doesn't exist, Anna.
SPEAKER_00:Except for for you.
SPEAKER_02:Except for the two ghosts that said it doesn't.
SPEAKER_00:It's like really hilarious and topsy turvy of them.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So uh so basically we're just gonna run through the different stuff that we've that caught our eye that cost the growth.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because this earnings report has all kinds of like great data, but they also do attempt to kind of like explain or at least sort of illuminate like what's been going on in the business that would relate to this. Like, I don't know that they can draw like a super straight line to any amount, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like in the report who cost it, right?
SPEAKER_00:Like, yeah, but it's like it's the totality of circumstances.
SPEAKER_02:It's that hat sellers now selling iPads all of a sudden.
SPEAKER_00:It was definitely him, he was the whole reason for all that rather than GMV.
SPEAKER_02:So first one I want to point out is um eBay Live. Uh so if you guys don't know, eBay is also now a live selling platform and have been for a while, but now it's been coming, it's been coming up on my feed, it's becoming a little bit more mainstream.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've been seeing it more prominently on eBay too.
SPEAKER_02:So it's definitely in front of our face more now, but also one of the things that helped help cause the growth, also because eBay is global, that eBay Live has expanded to UK. So during Comic Con in London, they have officially launched the eBay Live in UK, so that was a big launch for them globally. And also they're doing live on tour. So there is this airstream that's stacked out with eBay Live um kind of like colorway or design that's traveling across the country and doing eBay live across the country.
SPEAKER_03:That's so cool.
SPEAKER_01:So I think with eBay Live, though, I checked it out this morning and I was like, hmm, I'm gonna see what's kind of going on here. And then it's kind of funny because like I clicked on the first show I could see, and it says, You have logged out on the live.
SPEAKER_00:Ouchie! Not a good user experience.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's like um top-rated seller only.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's what it was to win.
SPEAKER_00:I really want to see you on eBay live though, then.
SPEAKER_01:I do want to try it. I'm oh definitely.
SPEAKER_02:We're gonna put them there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I want to see everything I can do to get an eBay live.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe we can like bring some hats with you to Vegas, and maybe we can get with the live team while we're there and be like, hey, let's do one from our booth.
SPEAKER_01:Just start raining hats. Like, hey, here we go. This is what I can sell. Come on, just give me in this app. Let me see what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00:Just give me in here. Give me in.
SPEAKER_01:Just give me a shot. Selling it for a dollar.
SPEAKER_00:Just give me a shot.
SPEAKER_01:I'm willing to come off the bench.
SPEAKER_02:So, so also too, um, and anything you want to point out? Uh, next thing that fueled the growth?
SPEAKER_00:Um, another one that of course I always pay attention to because I was a up and running grant recipient years ago, um, is that they're still doing a lot of small business initiatives. Um, obviously they did the up and running grant program again. Applications for that close in like June, but they we haven't heard who the winners are yet. So I'm excited for that. But I like that they mentioned that in this earnings report because, you know, it's like on the surface that looks like, okay, well, that's a$500,000 expense to award all these grants. But the whole point is that that is a direct investment in their sellers, and that is helping sellers, especially the ones who win the grant. But, you know, the coaching resources, the grant money that can get put back into the businesses really does help new sellers or like sellers that are already up and running, right? And it helps um, I know a lot of winners, it helps them to like really scale up or increase um their business faster. So I think, you know, while I don't know how 50 recipients factors into this whole picture of growth, in general, like eBay keeps doing this year over year, these different programs and and the up and running grant is just one of them. But you know, these these entrepreneurial kind of programs that actually make businesses grow faster. So I think that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02:All right. And then one of the things that I want to touch up as well, I think eBay's on a breaking records kind of mode here, is the authenticity guarantee. They've scaled it up, and for the first time, they have authenticated over one million items in one quarter.
SPEAKER_00:That is so many.
SPEAKER_02:Wild.
SPEAKER_01:Now items, which means not just sneakers.
SPEAKER_02:Right, yes. It's items. Um that uh luxury handbags, uh luxury watches, even now streetwear, uh sneakers and jewelry. That's like watches, um, and like gold jewelry and stuff like that. Um, more than just watches? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um actually Miss Melina has experience with it. Oh, that's awesome. Um with Melina's boutique. And um that was interesting, right? Like, I guess that requires uh an authenticity guarantee. Imagine buying a gold chain that's listed for 18 carat, and then you get uh 12 carat or a lower carat gold, right? I guess that's important, right? So I'm sure that would boost, you know, like or like some diamonds or something like that. Um that would be interesting to sell there. Um, and also uh speaking of collectibles, Glenn, what do you think about golden collectibles?
SPEAKER_01:Well, especially right now with like collectibles and the where where they're at, it's just like we have like the national with all the cards and all that's going on like during this week right now, too. From Pokemon to autograph with sports stuff and autograph stuff's going on, yeah. It's just like and then also it's kind of unfortunate too is like the celebrity stuff that's been going on. I've been seeing people flip crazy, like as the hack autograph, like Hulk Hogan stuff, all of that. Um but a lot of people just want like a piece of the action of everything wrestling, huge too with um game worn stuff when I don't know, it's just crazy with the the entertainment side. And people are paying big money, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00:So do you think people this is a really nefarious idea? Hopefully, no one's doing it. But I was just thinking, okay, Glenn, how do you recoup your Sharpie slash jersey and sell it for more? You could AI generate an image of a celebrity wearing it and then sell it as warm. Warm by I'm not saying do it.
SPEAKER_02:I'm saying by showing the Tani with a straight Sharpie mark on the back. Do it. Be like, chat GPD, create a story of why this Sharpie um because his teammate was gonna sign it and he fell and accidentally scored a home run.
SPEAKER_00:Like, wow, now this is so valuable. You know?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't think I can do anything with uh mark like that, but I mean I can resell it as pretty owned, but that's about it.
SPEAKER_00:You gotta think creatively, okay.
SPEAKER_01:All right, let me know.
SPEAKER_00:But don't do anything uh illegal. Okay, nothing illegal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've gotta keep this uh top rated.
SPEAKER_00:It's gotta be ethical and legal.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, I think those are kind of like a few things that fueled the growth. Um one of the things, you know, to kind of just I guess sum it up, like maybe we can give our takes what you guys think about this growth. But for me, I think that just kind of shows that there are products being sold on eBay, the buyers are there, and if the stars aligned, they get to click buy it now on your listings. So that's my short take.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think also like I don't even know if this was mentioned specifically, but I've been really happy with eBay doing more of like a broad marketing for eBay, the Things People Love campaign.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_00:That's been going on for a while now. But like honestly, there were so many people over the years that I've been selling on eBay that I've randomly encountered that are like, oh, eBay's still a thing, which is like unfathomable to me because I like live in eBay every day. But like there's people who just thought, and and you know, also internet trolls and stuff saying, like, oh, eBay's dead and whatever. And it's like, it's literally not, it's doing really well and it's growing.
SPEAKER_02:But even doing billions quarterly.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, dude, like billions with a B. But anyway, it's just interesting, you know, that perception is can be so different, like it can be so all across the board. And I I really like to see what's what's backing up the success too. Like, I like to have some clues in into that and also to see, I mean, now being in in an eBay seller for such a long time, relatively, and paying attention to like things that you know, eBay tells us as sellers, hey, we're working on this, we're aiming to like do X, Y, and Z. And then seeing like some of that stuff actually come to fruition over the years, you know, like having a little bit of a longer view of things now. Like, I think it's really cool. And and I guess the older I get, the more I pay attention to to these kind of reports because it shows that big picture um growth and follow-through. And I just think it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:And then with eBay Open coming up, let's see what kind of announcements or what kind of new stuff they're gonna do. I know to keep growing the platforms, so right.
SPEAKER_00:And like all these announcements were just general business updates, but I'm really excited to hear whatever they're going to have waiting for the sellers because you know they're gonna want to thrill us, right? Yeah, like they are, and I am totally willing to be thrilled, so please thrill me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:What about you guys? What's your take on this?
SPEAKER_01:Um well that's that pretty much is my take that I think that they're gonna even you know add more on this event, and I think that uh eBay is real uh definitely getting there to shake some things up and catching up with some of the things that are popular. Yeah. Like we already know what now is doing doing good, but they don't have the the user base that eBay does. Right, right. So I think that eBay is trying new things to get to that point. I think that a lot of the smaller platforms have kind of just dwindled down to not I'm gonna not gonna say nothing, but uh they're they're very, very low now compared to maybe they thought they were getting momentum to somewhat catch up to eBay, and I don't think that's gonna happen um anytime soon. So I don't know. I'm ready to see what what eBay does, and I'm excited for for their future and see what what they're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and honestly, this is one of our last chances to encourage everybody to go to eBay open. So I think that's a perfect segue because the in-person tickets are sold out. However, we are gonna be doing the most fun things in our booth. So if you're if you happen to be one of the lucky ones who got a ticket in time and are going, please come see us. Come talk to us, harass us if you want. We're gonna have literally so much fun stuff in our booth. So come see us. Um, but even if you are not there in person, I mean, we're gonna have fun for sure. But so much of the value is gonna be available in person and um virtually for free. And it's just like worth the investment in your business, if nothing else, to go and get everything you can out of an event like this. I mean, I really think, especially with the 30-year anniversary, it's gonna be top-notch. So if you haven't registered yet, you still can for the virtual free version of eBay open. Um, and I really I know that they are like working hard to try to make it a very valuable and special experience for virtual attendees. So go check it out. We have obviously obviously a link to that. Um, it's in our bio, it's in our show notes, it's everywhere you can find us. So make sure that you get registered and just take advantage of it. Like it's a free resource and it is gonna have a lot of value.
SPEAKER_02:For sure. So, you know, a huge shout out to our sponsors. Um, eBay, thank you. Um, make sure you follow them at eBay for sellers. Um, I know they're gonna be um showing a lot of highlights there. Make sure you follow me on Instagram and also seller ledger, they're also a sponsor of eBay Open. Make sure you follow them at Seller Ledger on Instagram, and we'll have a special offer from Seller Ledger and Seller Club if you want to know a little bit more and if you haven't signed up yet, if you're a new user, hit us in the DMs and say, I want that deal. And we will see you in the next episode. Peace. See ya.
SPEAKER_00:Goodbye.