ChannelAdvisor said eBay's system for enabling sellers to respond to buyer questions is causing major headaches for sellers on the site. The company is holding a webinar to discuss eBay's "Ask Seller a Question" system on January 5.

ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo

ChannelAdvisor provides auction-management services to eBay sellers and online merchants including some of eBay's largest sellers. The company said eBay changed the buyer-seller communication system in the second half of 2005, resulting in customer service problems, account-hijacking exposure, lost sales and angry customers.

eBay allows visitors to an auction to ask sellers questions using an eBay internal email system. In 2005, eBay added an option for potential buyers to hide their email address from the seller; when checked, this option sends an email to the seller and places a message in their My Messages folder. When sellers receive the question via email, it comes from an eBay email address "UseTheYellowButton@ebay.com." Inside the email, there is a hyperlinked yellow button for sellers to click, bringing them to the eBay sign-in page so they can respond to the question online.

ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo said that sellers don't realize that if they hit reply to these emails, the buyer will never receive the answer. eBay does not forward emails sent to "UseTheYellowButton@ebay.com" address to the potential buyer.

Wingo said sellers are also concerned about the fact that Ask Seller A Question emails contain hyperlinks leading to sign-in pages. eBay and experts advise never to click on links in emails that lead to sign-in pages due to phishing emails and spoof sites. On eBay's Spoof tutorial pages, it advises members to check their "My Messages" area in order to verify eBay emails (http://pages.ebay.com/education/spooftutorial/spoof_2.html). However, high-volume sellers who receive hundreds of emails a day have told Wingo this additional step adds an unmanageable burden.

Exacerbating the problem, said Wingo, is the fact that eBay limits some users to 10 emails a day through eBay's internal email system, and periodically places spider-defeating devices that require sellers to enter the text from a gif image into a form before they can use the internal email system.

ChannelAdvisor's webinar on this topic takes place on January 5, 2006 at 2 pm EST. Sellers can register online ahead of time at no charge.

http://www.channeladvisor.com/webinars