eBay has given the green light to a seller initiative called the Red Door Campaign. A user named Sandy who has been selling on eBay since 2003 began a discussion on a board on October 3rd lamenting the low visibility of eBay Stores. Within a day of that posting, there was agreement among sellers on an initiative to educate shoppers who visited their eBay listings about the existence of their eBay Stores. One day later, the campaign launched and sellers began inserting "Red Door Campaign" logos in their listings.

Anyone familiar with Internet discussion boards knows how difficult collaboration and consensus can be, and doubly so when it involves independent entrepreneurial eBay sellers. Sandy takes no credit for the idea, and said its success was the result of a group effort with many sellers putting their time and effort into the idea.

"We had a group of girls who spent most of one long day chained to their computers to get this off the ground."

The same day the campaign launched, an eBay moderator posted that the company was looking into whether or not the campaign would be allowed. While eBay Store owners were posting links to their stores in their listings, which eBay allows, the sellers were using eBay Stores branding. eBay ultimately gave the campaign its official approval and set out some guidelines (http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?messageID=2007886035??).

According to Sandy, the purpose of the campaign is to educate buyers that the eBay Stores exist.

"eBay has done nothing to promote stores and this is the first time in my memory that sellers have been able to unite and get some momentum going."

eBay spokesperson Catherine England said, "Our Stores team is very supportive of The Red Door campaign and has been in communications with the organizers. We're thrilled to support their initiative for the holidays. It's a great example of the Stores Community's commitment and creativity."