eBay Apps Open to All Sellers

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Last year, Outright joined eBay’s Selling Manager Applications, making Outright’s free bookkeeping and other small business services available to eBay Selling Managers and Selling Manager Pros. The eBay Selling Manager Applications have proven to be so successful with eBay sellers that today, eBay has announced that their applications marketplace, newly rebranded the eBay Apps Center, is available to all eBay sellers.

There are now nearly 40 applications in the Apps Center, from bookkeeping and tax solutions (Outright), to listing and shipping tools to help eBay sellers save time in the most critical parts of eBay businesses. Every application in the directory is free, or has a free trial so you can try them out before you subscribe.

Problems with duplicate eBay fees and shipping charges

In mid-January, we fixed a problem where certain eBay transactions were showing up multiple times in orders, creating duplicate entries. However, that fix did not handle any transactions that were imported before that point.
 
We want to inform our users of this potential discrepancy with how eBay transactions are displayed in your Outright account and ensure that you have complete information about your account as you prepare your 2009 income taxes.  
 
Does this affect me?

This discrepancy only applies if:
- You have been automatically importing eBay transactions into your Outright account anytime from Jan 2010 or earlier.  
- You have imported eBay orders that contain multiple items that were sold together (e.g. combined shipping orders).  
 
What is the problem?
For any eBay order that contained more than one item, PayPal fees and shipping charges are being incorrectly duplicated for each item in the order.  Instead, these transactions should only appear once for the entire order.  The core problem was fixed in mid-January so this issue only affects transactions that occurred before then.

Any discrepancy is too significant for us but we’ve done a lot of homework and found that the average difference on shipping fees is only about $215 and the average difference on PayPal fee deductions is about $98.

How does this impact my 2009 taxes?
If you are seeing multiple shipping charges for a combined shipping order, your income will likely be overstated.  If you are seeing multiple PayPal fees for a multi-item order, your business deductions will likely be overstated.
 
What can I do about this?
We are actively working on ways to identify and fix these duplicates.  You will receive another email with instructions on how to ensure your 2009 records are corrected.
 
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.  Resolving this issue is absolutely our top priority.  

If you have additional questions or concerns, please contact us at support@outright.com.

New handling for eBay listing fees… your feedback appreciated

Howdy,

My name is Bill Watt and I’m running Product Management here at Outright. You’ll be seeing more posts from me as we introduce features and work with you to develop the product you need to run your business.

For my first post I bring to you a new display feature around eBay listing fees and the expense ledger. Previously every transaction from eBay showed up as a unique transaction on the ledger. Since most of our eBay users are sellers with multiple (and potentially hundreds) of listings this resulted in listing fees filling the ledger with every reslist. To try and make this more manageable we’ve made the following changes for listing fees only:

Weekly digest of listing fees:

Each week the first listing fee we import for your account creates an entry in the ledger and all subsequent listing fees for that week are added to the original entry. So every new listing fee in that week will update the total amount and the date. By the end of the week you’ll see one line for all the listings placed that week instead of all the individual entries you used to see.

Reporting maintains the details:

But we know you might want to see the individual transactions to check numbers and make sure everything is correct. All you need to do is go to the reports tab and click into the expenses on the P&L or go to the Expenses by Category report and select eBay to further refine the results. Here you will see all the individual transactions that we got from eBay.

Some questions you might have:

1. How can I find this “roll up entry” on the ledger?

This summary transaction looks like other transactions pulled back from eBay but it will have the description that says it is a listing or insertion fee but it won’t have a delete button. For now we’ve removed the delete option to prevent multiple transactions from being removed on accident.

2. I don’t like the way you categorize insertion fees, can I change the category used?

Yes, the one thing we left as an editable field was the category.

3. If you’re doing this weekly, how will my reports handle months that end in the middle of the week?

Because the individual transactions are still stored (no data is being lost) the reports use all the individual dates. This is simply to clean up the noise on the ledger?

How can you help?

Glad you asked! Have a look at your transactions starting with the import on 11/18 and look for insertion / listing fees without a delete option. Maybe let it sit for a couple days and see how the fees are rolled up and think about if this kind of summary transaction is useful, makes the ledger cleaner, and if the reports work for you with still having the full details there. After you’ve seen it work for a bit we’d appreciate it if you would click over to this survey and let us know what you think. If you like it please also include what other transactions would this kind of entry help you manage?

A couple things to know about the survey- none of the fields are required and you don’t have to tell us who you are but we’d appreciate as much info as you can provide. The survey is here if you want the link for later: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/206793/ebay-fee-enhancements

If you have any problems or follow-up questions about the fee handling or anything on Outright please shoot us an email (support@outright.com) or tweet at us using @Outright in the message and we’ll get back to you.

Thanks!

Bill

The Holiday Season Starts When?

I’ve always loved to shop but that never stops me from groaning and grumbling about commercialism each year when I see the first holiday décor hit the department store shelves on November 1st.  But guess what?  I just sent off hundreds of emails to all of my eBay customers and several Tweets off into the ethers, all of which offered great Early Bird specials from now until Thanksgiving. Have I become one of the bad guys?

I hope not. But as an eBay seller, and an eBay seller in a down economy, I admit that I see the world a little differently. These are leaner times and with customers who are more discerning and discriminating and have less disposable income, this can feel like a very competitive time of year. This is my third Holiday Season as an eBay seller and as I become a more seasoned (please, excuse the pun) seller, there are a few  things I have learned:

• Buy Holiday-specific inventory in mid to late summer or as soon as possible. Buying early means I am able to get the quantities I need and I am less apt to get the dreaded “Sold Out” from my distributors. It also means I have time to place reorders if needed;
• List Holiday-specific inventory well before Halloween. Or, as soon as possible. I want to get the best bang for my buck with this merchandise and I want my customers to know I am ready for the season. Many buyers start their Holiday shopping before Halloween;
• Create a Promotion Box featuring seasonal items and feature it prominently on your eBay store homepage;
• Create a festive homepage for your eBay storefront, by changing the theme or color scheme
  Seller, Manage Store > Store Design > Display Settings > Edit Current theme
• Create a specific Holiday category in your eBay store and direct customers there through a well-worded invitation e-mail;
• Rethink auction titles – at least temporarily. Can you update some of your titles to include Holiday keywords such as Stocking Stuffer, Chanukah, Christmas, Gift etc.?;
• Create a promotional flyer featuring your holiday items, gifts or stocking stuffers, etc. and include a copy in all of your shipments;

I could go on and on – there are countless ways to prepare your eBay store and your auctions for the Holiday Season. But don’t just take my word for it. In the spirit of the season, I am sending along what I think are some of the best ideas out there about how to make the most of the Holiday Season on eBay:

• Skip McGrath’s eBay Holiday Marketing Tips
• 10 Ways to Increase Your eBay Holiday Sales
• The 2009 Top 10 Holiday Selling Tips for Ecommerce Merchants
• 5 Costly Mistakes that Put the Scrooge in Your Online Holiday Sales

Are you ready for this Holiday Season? What’s your secret to successful Holiday sales?

When the Customer Isn’t Always Right

We all know that the customer is always right and it is important to take each eBay’s customer’s questions and requests seriously. After all, they are buying items, sight unseen, from you – a total stranger! Most of the questions we receive are reasonable and simple to answer. And 99% of the requests we get are doable. But there are certain questions and requests (and customers!) that belong in their own categories. You know who I am talking about:

• The customer who waits ten days to pay for an item and then complains when it arrives late for her child’s birthday party!
• The customer who tries to strong-arm you into lowering your shipping prices or to accept their “best offers” that are below 50% of the Buy It Now price. I especially like when they write: “It’s my best offer, take it or leave it.” I leave it.
• The customers who ask us to break up pre-packaged sets, leaving us with unbalanced, unsellable inventory.
• The customers who want to cancel their orders, claiming that their spouse, their kids – their dog! – placed the order in error.
• The customer who complains that you did not combine shipping – when the items they have won have Free Shipping!
• The requests from international customers to falsify federal customs documents so they can avoid sales tax. I may really want to make the sale, but I am not willing to serve time over it!
• The customers who are clearly looking for pen pals, rather than a specific item. They start by asking dozens of minute questions about your items, and then respond back to your answers with several paragraphs about themselves and their families – but then don’t buy anything!
• The customer who is shocked that he can not pick up his item to avoid shipping costs, even though we explicitly state that we do not offer pick-up service.
• The customers with impossible requests: Can I get this delivered – from Massachusetts to California – by today at 3:00?  Can you take all of the red M&M’s out of this candy assortment? I only need the right glove and not the left, is there a discount?

We also get some extremely unusual questions. Once we were asked if our inflatable farm animals were appropriate for a bachelor party (!?) And my personal favorite is the customer who asked if the balloons we sell were previously inflated. When we responded back that our balloons came in factory-sealed packaging, and had not been previously inflated, the customer was disappointed. Apparently, he collects them!

No matter what kind of questions you receive, remember that it is important to respond professionally and respectfully. And no matter how unreasonable they might seem, YOU always have to respond reasonably and politely. Once again, 99% of the interactions I have with customers are pleasant and positive – but the ones that aren’t can be very memorable!

Do you believe that “the customer is always right?” What’s the most unusual question you’ve ever gotten?