Many new developments and features were announced at eBay Open 2023.
Missed eBay open? We’ve got you. Team Vendoo attended live in our virtual booth to chat with the community, plus we caught all of the sessions.
Here are the highlights of eBay Open 2023 with an explanation of what is changing at eBay, new features, and new ways to sell on eBay.
eBay open was jam-packed with resources. Below you’ll find summaries of the eBay Open 2023 keynotes and sessions.
eBay Open 2023 Opening Session “Reinventing the Future of Commerce” by eBay CEO Jamie Lannone.
In the opening session, “Reinventing the Future of Commerce,” eBay CEO Jamie Lannone gave a powerful presentation about the culture of eBay commerce and the developments and tools to come.
🔑 Key Points:
Lannone starts by acknowledging a common concern amongst sellers: the uncertain economy. He proceeds by explaining the resilience of eBay as a marketplace and the innovations and changes coming soon to improve the experience.
In the current economy and thinking of the future, eBay is releasing many new tools and features to enhance the buying and selling experience.
👀 Fun Fact: Return customers, “eBay enthusiasts,” present the most value to eBay, spending nine times more than the regular customer and shopping an average of nine categories.
eBay strives to not just meet the buyers’ expectations but to exceed them. New developments to facilitate relevant buyer experiences include:
👀 Fun Fact: eBay is massive with 190 markets to sell in 40 different currencies.
eBay has heard sellers’ feedback about unpaid items, and they are rolling out improvements to decrease unpaid sales, including:
💡 Tip: At the conference, eBay announced the publication of the 2023 eBay Small Business Report.
The second pillar, “scalable solutions,” focuses on implementations to enhance business growth grounded in trust.
eBay has heard feedback about how buyers are hesitant to purchase expensive items on eBay and sellers are nervous to sell them. As a result, eBay is focusing heavily on enhancing trust for both buyers and sellers across categories.
👀 Fun Fact: The first watch that arrived at eBay for authentication was a Rollex that arrived in a diaper!
eBay seeks to leverage scale and resources to create more seller opportunities by building a robust set of eBay teams and policies dedicated to trust and security. Here is how they’re doing it:
👀 Fun Fact: eBay has authenticated over 7 million items to date and they are continuing to scale to more brands, categories, and markets.
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In addition to the new ways to be sure buyers complete payments, eBay is improving the way sellers get paid. New methods to get paid faster and easier include:
The new eBay listing experience is one of may “magical innovations” coming to eBay. The magical listing experience uses innovative technology and generative AI to fill in the listing blanks. Essentially, the seller captures a picture of an item, and eBay will fill in most of the listing form, reducing the most time-consuming part of creating a listing.
Visual search will use AI on the eBay app to prepopulate:
eBay also spoke about promoting legislation that supports small businesses lobbying for positive changes locally and nationally. Namely, the 1099k threshold that might have a negative effect on eBay sellers.
eBay has numerous other community programs, including:
👀 Fun Fact: In the CEO’s introduction, he gave a shout-out to Vendoo user and eBay Up and Running eBay award recipient Liz O’Kane @Colaradoreworn.
In the session “Transforming our Marketplace,” SVP Jordan Sweetnam does a deep dive into eBay’s category-by-category approach being implemented.
🔑 Key Points:
In this session, Sweetnam explains the process of authentication for various categories and how enhancing trust and expertise will increase revenue.
It essentially all comes down to expertise and trust. The following category-specific initiatives are examples of what will be rolling out to more categories:
eBay is focused on transforming the seller experience with a focused category playbook to build a “fundamentally different eBay experience… [involving] trust and a relentless focus on customer satisfaction [to] Protect buyers against fraud and sellers against bad buyer behavior.”
Another session we found particularly beneficial was about leveraging social media to drive sales. In the session “Social Media: Why It’s Beneficial to Your Business” Pro Eller Jongo Longhurt shares some social media tips for driving sales to eBay.
He explains that social media provides an opportunity to “go viral,” with or without a high follower count. He explains that people spend so much time on their phones, that social media becomes free marketing.
In addition to promoting your products, social media allows for you to promote yourself as a small business. On social media, you can build “human relationships” with your buyers, which enhances trust and buyer loyalty. This will lead to the establishment of a community and the acceleration of your sales.
👀 Fun Fact: 71% of people who have a positive experience with a brand on social media will also buy from that business.
You can watch all of eBay open on YouTube here. What was your favorite part? Tell us below 👇🏽