Fees and Feedback star ratings were two of the most talked-about issues at the Town Hall meeting held on Saturday, June 16, the last day of the eBay Live conference in Boston, as eBay sellers lined up at the mics to get their chance to talk one-one with eBay's top executives.

The panel was moderated by Jim "Griff" Griffith, and consisted of President of eBay North American Marketplaces Bill Cobb; Auctions Group head Phillip Justus; Global Trust & Safety Sr. V.P. Rob Chesnut; Seller Experience head Jim Ambach; Buyer Experience head Jamie Iannone; PayPal's Colin Rule; Customer Support head Tim Paine; Chief Security Officer David Cullinane; and Marketing head Gary Briggs.

The first question was about the new star feedback rating system and came from Dan, who was a seller on eBay since 2003. "Is there any way to ameliorate or correct a star rating less than 5?" he asked.

"This is now a five point score," said Cobb. "I know we're conditioned for 100% feedback, but you're just not going to get that all the time. Some people think it's very good but only give 4. But what's important is your comparison to other sellers - anything above 4.5 as a cumulative rating is going to be a positive," he said.

Justus said since they created the more details set of ratings it's been "very helpful" for buyers and they "actually work very well in your (sellers') favor over time."

But the next questioner persisted on the topic. Chris, who sells plants and gifts, said the shipping star needs to be adjusted. "There's no such thing as "very" reasonable" shipping," he said - it's either reasonable or not reasonable. "To have a higher rating than "reasonable" is not itself reasonable."

Chesnut said that "people said we feel some sellers are charging very unreasonable prices for shipping. I don't expect people to be perfect. But what we're seeing is people are getting 4.7-5.0."

Cobb acknowledged the issue was with the word "very" - "that is something we should look at" and thanked the questioner.

Terry from Washington State said it was her fourth eBay Live and that it was "a lovely event - it's like you're a family." Then she got down to business and said "Having said that…" which brought laughter from the audience. She said she has about 4000 items in her eBay Store, and last year about a week after eBay Live 2006, she got a notice about fees going up. She said it "felt personal" because she had just been to the conference where she had decided to ramp up her store, and the "proper time to announce it would have been then."

She also said that although Cobb had promised no fee increases this July (2007), "what about until the end of the year?"

"I accept what you say about last year," said Cobb. He indicated it was difficult to say much more, but "I wouldn't worry about it." He did say the final value fee reduction of the summer promotion that kicks off on Tuesday would last through August 5th. "I understand the pressure on margins and selling costs," he added.

Another question about fees came from Corey Kossack, author of "eBay Millionaire or Bust," who said sellers are saying their sales are growing, but profits are not growing. He said he believes it's the risk of higher insertion fees. "The argument is to reduce the risk...lower fees on items over $25," he said.

"I understand," said Cobb. "We are looking into exactly what you say."

Jim from San Francisco asked if eBay could bring back the auction extender feature. He said it had been termed "fee avoidance," but pointed out that he paid an extra 40 cents when extending the auction from 7 days to 10 days.

Chesnut said a number of buyers found it to be a "bad buyer experience" because the auction didn't end when they thought it would.

"It's costing us sellers a lot of money," protested the questioner.

But Cobb countered that sellers were starting to use this to game the system by having their listings show up multiple times in the search results (which are sorted by items ending soonest in the default search).

About the counterfeit holding issue, a seller named Carolyn who sells clothing on eBay asked, "If we have a strong track record, would you consider a threshold of feedback where items won't be held to verify authenticity?"

Chesnut said the "reason we delay an entire category is counterfeiters can reverse-engineer our system"; they can relist and make adjustments. "The only way is to delay items six hours or so," but it was not as long as 48 hours, he said.

Jamie pointed out "you still get the exposure of a newly listed item"; your item is still rotated in with the newly listed items. Griff interjected and asked if a threshold could be created for just the good sellers. Chesnut said they'd explored it, and they may be able to do it, but there were issues with stolen hijacked accounts, and such a policy could give scammers a further incentive to hijack PowerSeller accounts.

A number of questions came from sellers with both offline and online stores. One seller who owns a retail and eBay store with 100% positive feedback and 28,000 ratings said manufacturers have made new policies barring eBay as a sales channel for their distributors because it has a "damaged brand image." It cost him $300,000/month in sales, he said.

Cobb acknowledged it's a "difficult problem" that involved people trying to shut down channels of business. "We work with trade association groups and make people understand this is another outlet," he said. "There are some manufacturers who want to have an inefficient distribution," he added.

"Now they understand their customers are coming to eBay," said Justus.

"We've had some success directing people to powersellers," said Cobb, and then took an informal poll, asking the powersellers in the audience to raise their hands if manufacturers had tried to restrict them. There were quite a few raised hands.

A powerseller named Nick asked for an option for listings to "push it to 12 days" - "I spend $40 with home page listings" and "you make money too that way," he said.

He also wanted to know if eBay would consider allowing the Auction Extender feature for Buy It Now (BIN) and Best Offer listings, since that was not a pure-auction format (and presumably less harmful to the buying experience).

Chesnut said "everybody wants their listings at the top," and people were "gaming the system" - they'd have their listings appear several times instead of just once. It was an issue of fairness and "everyone gets one shot at search."

Donna Klein from Detroit complained about the sponsored links, embedded text advertising on the eBay website. "At the bottom of the page," she said, "you see "buy it on Amazon and Yahoo." What's up with this?"

Cobb said that had to do with eBay's relationship with Yahoo. There was a mistake made where people were starting to go off eBay onto the Amazon Marketplace

"It has been shut down," he said. "But Yahoo search - this is a test." He said it was a question of if a buyer can't find something, do we just have them exit or give them an opportunity to find something? "The jury is still out," he added. But "the number one priority is to drive transactions on the eBay marketplace."

Editor's Note: AuctionBytes confirmed that it is only the Amazon Marketplace ads that have been banned from eBay, the Yahoo sponsored links are set to appear as part of the advertising test.

Then it was back to the star feedback system. Drew, who does a lot of selling on eBay Motors stores, said that with the new star feedback system "we're being graded on perception." "Some buyers could buy a bowling ball Friday night and expect it delivered Monday for fifty cents," he said, adding we need to educate buyers about what shipping should be.

Chesnut answered that sellers need to make it clear in their listing (what shipping policies are) - "buyers frequently aren't fair," he said. But he said that even if they're not fair, it's "valuable to know what they're thinking. I recommend you educate in your listing - how it's based only on how much it costs you," etc.

Here Griff interceded, "We're hearing this a lot, so we'll address it in some way."

Sue from Brittany, France, wanted to know, "When will we see eBay Live in London or Paris?"

Cobb replied he told Doug McCallum (Managing Director of eBay UK) that "he needs to have eBay Live in Europe."

"Also Hawaii, by the way," joked Griff.

Another question tackled international shipping, and then the new Feedback rating reared its head yet again in the last question, but not the star rating system. Susie, wearing her "buyer's hat," wanted to know why transparency had to be taken "so far" that "we have to have the title of everything we ever bought on our feedback page." Sometimes "people find out what they're getting for Christmas or their birthday," she said.

Chesnut said "We don't have to - but we did exhaustive surveys, and buyers want to see the title of item" in the feedback page, he said. "It may be there are unintended consequences, such as the ones you mention," he said.

Cobb acknowledged, "I think we should look at this." Earlier he had made the comment "We're probably the most exposed business," added Cobb, addressing the level of information eBay gives out.

Jamie wrapped up the session by saying "we hear a lot of things like this," and reminded the audience that all the product managers were down on the floor. "We come back in July with a whole list of ideas from attendees."
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Julia Wilkinson is the author of "The eBay Price Guide" (No Starch Press, 2006); "eBay Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks" (Wiley, 2004-6); "What $ells on eBay for What," (http://www.yardsalers.net/bookstore.asp); and Publisher, Yard Salers, (http://www.yardsalers.net). Her blog, "bidbits," is at http://juliawww.typepad.com/bidbits