Episode 104 || Holiday Updates with Jordan Sweetnam and Stuart Reichenbach

[podcast_team]

This week, eBay Senior Vice President of Marketplaces, Jordan Sweetnam tells us what he sees for the upcoming holiday shopping season on eBay. Senior Director of Shipping Stuart Reichenbach provides an update on shipping and the ongoing delays with USPS delivery. eBay seller Donovan Mitchell, this week’s eBay 25 Seller Story selectee, talks with Griff about how he overcame a serious injury to build a successful business on eBay. And Brian and Griff answer your questions.

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Episode 104 Links
eBay Vice President, Marni Levine's Seller News Announcement on USPS Delays
Donovan Mitchell's eBay Store
eBay Shipping
Managed Payments Page

Recurring Links:
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Hosts:
Griff, Brian Burke

Guests:
Jordan Sweetnam (eBay Senior Vice President of Marketplaces), Stuart Richenbach (eBay Senior Director of Shipping), Donovan Mitchell (eBay Seller)

Transcript:

This week on the eBay For Business Podcast:

"Before all this started a little over 17% of US retail was done online. And that number had basically grown about a percent and a half per year. In the course of two weeks, we went from 17% of US retail being online, the 28% of US retail being online. In two weeks, we basically did the same amount of e-con growth as it had in the last 10 years."

" We're working with USPS and our carriers just about every day on these issues. And what's going on on the ground. What's happening in delivery spots around the country. What they're doing to rectify, taking those things into account as we put forth delivery estimates to our buyers, that they can count on."

" You know, if you want to be successful, success is never a light switch, I don't feel. You really do have to keep plugging at it and stair stepping your way to where you want to be. I've never been someone where it's just like "poof", and everything's great. As far as you know, what I want to be doing in life. With eBay, it's kind of been similar to my racing career. I just chipped away chipped away."

I'm Brian Burke.

And I'm Griff and this is the eBay For Business Podcast, your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start and run and grow a business on the world's most powerful marketplace.

And this is episode 104.

And we're still in the middle of our August theme, which is Preparing For The Holidays.

Yes, we are Brian. We're in that middle of that theme. Hey, how are you doing anyway?

I'm doing well and I am really glad we actually started talking about Holiday early this year.

Oh yes. It's never early enough. I thought we might be a little late given the situation this year.

Yeah. That's actually a good point. Covid kind of disrupted everything and maybe it gave the team a little bit of space to think about, "Hey, maybe we should talk about Holiday."

Yeah. I was going to ask you, have you talked to any sellers about things like supply chain, disruptions and operations?

Not any of the really big, big sellers about that, who, you know, the ones that are ordering from overseas. It's interesting to me though, the kind of the smaller supply chain disruptions have been those sellers who are CSA sellers who go to thrift stores or go to other places to get inventory, or like sales from their local store where they've got a rack sale. They've been unable to do those as frequently as they have in the past. So they've had to pivot a little bit.

I'm going to try to search out some of them, if you want to send me some names, I think that'd be interesting for those who'd be willing to come on the podcast and talk a little bit about how they're adapting, because for those who need their business in order to survive, they're not just going to be static about this. They're going to make some changes. So be curious to know what some of those adaptations and changes are.

I had a conversation with someone this week. I will send you her name.

Please. That would be fantastic. We're always looking for new sellers to come onto the show. In fact, one of the, you and I were just redoing the survey for the podcast to update it to how we operate it today, as opposed to last year. And one of the verbatims that you supplied to me, I think it might've been an older one though. Somebody saying, "well, you always have big sellers on but you never have small sellers." I would remind you that most of the sellers we have on would easily qualify as being small sellers.

Yeah, I think we get a good mix. We probably don't get the really big, big sellers on. It tends to be what I'll call the heart and soul of the seller. Yes. You know, those sellers that are doing anywhere from 5,000 a year to a million dollars a year. And that seems to be that heart and soul And that's, who's on our show, which I think is great.

Yeah. And for any of you thinking a million dollars a year is a huge seller. It's not really, when you think about the cost of running a business and if they're making 10% a year, that's a, well, that's a good living, a hundred thousand, but that's not, you're not getting super rich. It still takes a lot of work.

It's a lot of work and effort and knowing your product and knowing your supplier and knowing how to buy.

Yeah.

We should do a show on knowing how to buy.

Yeah. I'm an expert on that.

I've got a house full of stuff to prove it.

You have all those perfume bottles.

So I hear Jordan is with us this week Griff.

Yeah. Actually he contacted us and said he wanted to come onto the podcast to talk about, well, the upcoming holiday season. So he'll be with us. For anyone who doesn't know, that's eBays Senior Vice President of marketplace, North America. That's Jordan Sweetnam. And he's going to be here today to give us his take on upcoming Holiday shopping season modalities to keep in mind and how this season may differ from all previous seasons. Remember Jordan, he's got a lot of experience in retail. He took a little vacation from working for eBay for a year or two or three, and spent that time at Walmart with their online business. And he came back with a lot of institutional knowledge. So that's, that's very helpful.

And he's got a little bit of international experience even with eBay back in the early days. And then senior director of shipping Stuart Reichenbach is also on deck to talk about shipping and detail for this year's Holiday retail season.

Yeah. It is a really touchy subject with a lot of sellers right now and Stuart wants to give an update about what eBay's doing to help with these delays that we've seen with USPS so that sellers know we've got their back. And we're going to also speak with our latest eBay seller story selectee Donovan Mitchell. Donovan overcame a life altering challenge and went on to build a successful business on eBay. And he did so in the field, he has loved since he was a child.

And of course, we'll answer at least one seller question. Won't we Griff?

Yeah, We will. Brian. And I'll leave you on the edge of your seat for that one.

Oh, great. Unprepared again. So I can't wait, but first Jordan Sweetnam.

With us now is eBay Senior Vice President of Marketplaces, Jordan. Sweetnam.

Welcome back, Jordan.

Hey Griff, It's great to be here today. Thanks for having me back.

I'm glad you could make it. Cause what we want to talk about today is Holiday prep for the month of August. And we'd like to get your take on what we should be doing and thinking about when it comes to the expectations of buyer shopping behavior during this very unusual year.

Unusual year is probably the right way to phrase it. And about the only thing that I'm really confident in is this Holiday will probably be different than any of us have expected or seen before. So a lot to think about.

What are some of the trends that we are seeing already when it comes to what we can expect for the Holiday Season?

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, like, you know, we spent a lot of time throughout the year talking about how Covid impacted people working from home and buying puzzles for their kids. And then we went into Spring, we saw outdoor gardening and beekeeping and like seed sellers on eBay we’re doing crazy sales. And then into the Summer, I don't think I've ever seen us sell so many pools, you know, above ground pools. It is s amazing, but a lot of questions as we look towards holiday and for me, the first question is what will holiday season actually look like in terms of total sale? And I don't know, but I'm happy to share all the things that I'm sort of using to think about it myself. Number one is e-commerce has grown in a way that even if when things return to normal e-commerce will never go back down to where it was. Before all this started a little over 17% of US retail was done online and that number had basically grown about a percent and a half per year. In the course of two weeks, we went from 17% of US retail being online to 28% of US retail being online. In two weeks, we basically did the same amount of e-con growth as it had in the last 10 years. And it was just that fast and transformative. And I'm sure many of our listeners have probably bought things online that they never shopped before. I mean, I think probably 90% of what I purchased was already online and I still found myself when I was studying my garden going, Oh, I need like a, a hoe to like get in between the tomato plants. And I bought one on eBay and like, I didn't think it would really get shipped without getting damaged and it did. As things open up and we've seen this in other parts of the world, people will return to the store. People were return to Main Street, but a lot of people have fundamentally learnt new shopping behaviors that they're not going to give up as they've discovered different categories where they can shop online and experience the same convenience that maybe they didn't even know was available. If there's a miracle vaccine that comes out in the next two months which seems unlikely depending what the government does with stimulus checks, I don't know, but even under a scenario where somehow everything goes back to normal, I don't think e-com is ever gonna go back to normal. I think we will still end up with a baseline that is probably 30% bigger than where we were before all this started, which is kind of amazing. And then you can start to hypothesize around, okay, well, what kind of inventory and what's gonna happen at Holiday?

It's probably not the best news for brick and mortar, big retailers.

They're in a tough spot. And I think, you know, some of them have done an incredible job redefining themselves over the last three months. You know, I was at Walmart before eBay and they had a pretty amazing curbside pickup and delivery business. Many other physical retailers, fast food didn't have the notion of touchless payment, curbside pickup. And so many retailers had to reinvent themselves with curbside delivery since this all began, it's a pretty incredible convenience change, but there's still a number of players out there that won't be able to make that transition. The nature of how their inventory flows through their stores. They can't have deep understanding of like, is this in stock or out of stock and as much as it's amazing to place an order and have it delivered from the store, picked up at the store, you can never really know what's in a store on the shelf in the same way you can a SKU in a warehouse. And it's hard to have in stock and deliver the same great customer experiences. So I think the physical retailers will continue to face a lot of uncertainty on just their digital transformation over the rest of the year.

In the past several years. One of the other marketplaces, which will not be nameless, we'll just say at Amazon has realized big success with their Prime Day. And that's a rising tide that seems to impact all marketplaces. Is there any plans this year based on what we know, or maybe don't know about what they're going to do for Prime Day?

Yeah. I mean, look, Amazon's a great company. Prime Day has had its moments. It drives a lot of traffic. We see a lot of traffic actually go on Amazon and eBay on Prime Day, it just kind of brings people out in shopping. So I look at Prime Day as a shopper and I generally don't see a ton of things that like intrigued me, but as a stakeholder in eBay and for your listeners Prime Day is great because people are just online shopping. And so that's awesome. But Amazon is facing the same challenge that everybody's facing right now, which is they created a massive shopping day in the middle of the Summer when normally there isn't demand for supply chain capacity. And yet, you know, for eBay, if you look at our future results almost every day was Black Friday in terms of the volume of traffic and volume of shipments, but whether you're Amazon, Walmart, or even many of the sellers on your call right now, the number of packages coming into your home and a number of things going out of your home, into your warehouse and out of your warehouse, is that such a level that there isn't even really capacity to do more on top of that. We've seen Amazon, you know, move Prime Day a couple times and I think right now, it's tentatively believed to be in October. I don't know if they're going to be able to do that just from a, will there be enough capacity in the system, in their system and the carriers to move inventory through? And obviously once you get into October, you're almost into Holiday anyways. Prime Day is a big, big question mark. I think we're all just waiting to see what will happen.

What would you predict would be the important points that an eBay seller should keep in mind when they're trying to meet what demand there will be during the Holiday shopping season and meet at successfully?

It's a fantastic thought exercise. What's going to sell, what will be available? What will the demand look like? When will the demand be there? And so if you pull those things apart, maybe I'll start on the last one. I have all the data in the world for whatever eBay Holiday looked like since we started to have like a real data warehouse and you know, in the early two thousands. But I don't really know how helpful it's going to be to predict the shape of this year's Holiday curve. Things that are inputs into my thinking. One, we seen a number of brick and mortar retailers say that they're not going to be open on Thanksgiving day, which is obviously awesome for their employees. I'm happy that those people are going to be home with their families and not have to stock the aisles and the end caps and the big boxes, you know, midnight on Wednesday, midnight on Thursday. But more than that, that's a lot of people that would be out in stores that are now going to be home with their families. And as, as much as I love my family and having a rousing debate of whatever you want over Thanksgiving, we've seen people shop when they're bored and when they're home. And so I think we will, actually everybody will see Thanksgiving day, even stronger this year with online traffic, because there aren't the same retailers to go out to. But I also personally think there will be a lot more Holiday shopping happening earlier than Thanksgiving. And I know in the past, it's sort of the Wednesday, Thursday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday is kind of the kickoff to the big Holiday push. If you look at the last, what, six months since March, I think people have stopped taking for granted the notion that e-con can always get you what you want when you need it. If you wanted a desk to work from home, you either had to buy it in the first week of February or wait until June. If you're trying to buy puzzles and webcams. I mean, I kind of joke like the last company making webcams suddenly saw a huge spike in demand. And then like the entire, we saw what a 2000% increase in webcam sales? And it took three to four months for the supply chain manufacturing to catch back up. I think customers are going to be a little bit nervous about waiting for the traditional Holiday dates and maybe for their own personal gifts. Hey, this thing I've been saving up for me, let's see what happens. But I think as they look towards their family members, their kids, I don't know that they're gonna want to take a chance of waiting for the perfect sale coming deep into Holiday versus a certainty and be able to get that item sooner. And so I think we're going to see a lot of those trends come in sooner. What's going to sell? Should be a lot of the same. Toys, Legos, puzzles, but while we've sold a lot of those already this year, usually you see a lot of small kitchen appliances, KitchenAid mixers, blenders, toasters. Oh, wow! We've sold a lot of those too. TV's, same thing. And I know not everybody has however many TVs at home, but at some point I kind of wonder like, hasn't everybody already bought the TV they need? Cause there's been a lot of shopping happening this year. And there's some cool product releases coming out this holiday, right? Even new iPhone and video game systems. And the one thing that has been universally consistent is it isn't just the outbound supply chain that has been stretched for retailers like eBay, Walmart, Amazon, it's their inbound. It's the orders that were placed last February for things that weren't made in March that didn't make it on the shipping containers in May and June that aren't going to be showing up right now that can't be staged for this Holiday. I think we're going to see shortages in some of these really hot new products that just candidly haven't existed in a long time because of how efficient the global supply chain has gotten. I think Holiday will be earlier. I think we'll see different scarcity on things we haven't seen before. And then I'm sure many of your listeners feel it, Like there is just a lot of uncertainty. Will there be another round of stimulus checks? How does the economy hold up? Is the election a big distraction or not? Do we see more unrest or not? I think people might be a little more cautious with how they spend the dollars. I don't think we'll see a suspension of Christmas, but I think we'll see pre-owned inventory, refurbished inventory. I think we'll see those to perform incredibly strong as customers look to stretch their dollars further. And I know from some sellers I was exchanging with on Facebook earlier in the spring, after all the new puzzles sold out, people started putting used puzzles on eBay and those sold out. And I think people were surprised to see that something even like a puzzle that has that, you know, has tons of fingerprints on it would still be in such hot demand. And so I think we'll see the full breadth of eBay's inventory and the amazing diversity of our seller base actually shine and do really well through the Holiday Season.

When It comes to retail standards, especially on eBay, as we over the years have become more of a managed marketplace. And we're attempting to provide buyers with an experience that is consistent across all of commerce, whether that's on or offline. What does that mean for the eBay seller this season? What are some of the things that they should keep top of mind?

Non-negotiable, obviously like buyers need to get what they've purchased. And so not as described, there's never really any tolerance for that in the eBay system. Whether it's, you know, supply chain constraints, Covid or anything else, but I don't think that's what most people are worried about that I've talked to. There was a lot of uncertainty with shipping. There was uncertainty with shipping three months ago when COVID first hit and we started to see record e-commerce volume flowing through all the carriers and then suspending any kind of, you know, political commentary or conspiracy theory debating of which you could spend, you know, weeks and weeks on Reddit and Twitter and entertain yourself with all the rounds of consideration. Factually, USPS is struggling right now. And that puts a burden on all of the eBay sellers who are doing what they can do in their control, getting orders, packed up, meeting their handling time, getting it to the carrier on time.

And then just a whole lot of uncertainty on when is it going to get there? And it isn't even just that it's late. The scans and tracking coverage has gone way down. And so even when things are moving, there's the uncertainty. And I know Marnie put in an announcement recently around how we're going to extend seller protections for late shipping as long as sellers are sort of doing their part on handling. And in that announcement, we talked about how we're going to keep watching this. And obviously we're working with USPS and trying to figure out what the right way is to look after customers. But you know, my ask of all of your listeners is just keep bringing to eBay the things that customers will love and want. Please keep doing what you can control and package things and ship them on time. And then please keep giving us feedback on how we need to be refining the system. I probably get 5 to 10 emails a week on specific shipping examples where eBay's estimate was wrong. And someone sort of said, "Hey, like, did you guys know this?" I think half the emails, probably people are like, "Oh, I'm so angry. I'm gonna tell you about why they're wrong." And the answer is no. Please tell us more. And then the team actually investigates and they help us actually train the model for when you think of the thousands of zip code combinations, it helps us get better. Ship on time, let us worry about how to try to keep you protected and as a big picture. But if there's things where you see our estimates just don't make sense. Don't assume we know, please send that feedback and we'll keep getting better.

There's no way around the fact that this is just going to be one of those unusual years. I'm gonna avoid using the word, you know, which word I'm talking about. Unprecedented. It's going to be an unusual year. Any words of encouragement for sellers?

I would love to say have fun with it. That may sound a little bit trite. I tend to find the comic relief in the insanity that is a little bit of this year. What I would say is the magic of eBay is that we have such a well balanced marketplace that can respond to whatever is happening. There will be demand showing up on eBay under almost any conceivable scenario. And so I think the most important thing, whether it's balancing your own personal life or running a business on eBay is flexibility. How do you sort of look at, "Hey, this is selling and I thought it would sell well or, wow. I can't believe all of a sudden this is in demand. How do I get more of it?" And then recognizing that some things that may have done really well in past Holidays may not get cut through this year. And I think that notion of flexibility is going to be probably the most important one to carry all of our sellers and all of you through the next three to four months.

Very good advice, stay flexible. Jordan, I want to thank you so much for stopping by and talking to us. I know that our sellers appreciate it as well as I definitely appreciate it. I always learn something new as well. Thanks Jordan.

Griff, thank you so much. It's always great to catch up.

We've been speaking with Jordan Sweetnam, Senior Vice President of eBay Marketplaces on what you can expect or what you might hope for this Holiday Season. Coming up in this unusual year.

It's never too early to prepare for the Holidays when it comes to operations and shipping is an integral part of every seller's operations suite. This year, even more so with so many shoppers buying online for the Holiday. Some of them for the first time, Stuart Richenbach is the Senior Director of North America Shipping at eBay. And he rejoins us here on the podcast to talk about what we should have top of mind as sellers when it comes to shipping this Holiday Season. Welcome Stuart.

Hey Griff. Great to be back. How are you doing?

I'm fine. I hope everything's okay there. I noticed there's a few noises in the background. What's going on at your house?

Timing is everything, right? Working from home is fun and challenging for everyone. There's a little bit of construction out behind the house today, so hopefully we can get through this and everyone will still be able to hear us as we talk about today's content.

I think we'll be fine. It's nice to know that life goes on.

Indeed. It does. Indeed. It does.

Recently eBay Vice President of Seller Marketing and Operations, Marni Levine posted a Seller News Announcement about shipping specifically when it deals with the issues that sellers and everyone actually is having with USPS. Can we talk a little bit about that just to let sellers know where we are at the moment?

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that announcement from Marni came out earlier this week, maybe on Monday and, uh, yes, absolutely. The United States post office continues to be strained. We realize challenges that they're having are a burden. We realize that the challenges and the strain that the Post Office is suffering puts burden on all of us, particularly our sellers. To detail that a little bit, we are seeing challenges in both scanning delays as well as actual delivery delays. And it's an issue and throughout we've been making adjustments to our delivery estimates as appropriate. We continue to do that and I want to make sure everyone hears us on that. As I've mentioned a couple of months ago, when we were here together Griff, we're working with USPS and our carriers just about every day on these issues and what's going on on the ground, what's happening in delivery spots around the country, what they're doing to rectify, taking those things into account. As we put forth delivery estimates to our buyers that they can count on. And so beyond this though, I also want everyone to know we're also working and monitoring the negotiations and discussions that are taking place about the USPS more generally in Washington, D C. There's been a lot of news about this in the press with the current administration and their view on the Post Office and a new Postmaster General that came into place about eight weeks ago. We're close to all of this and trying to keep an eye on it. If I can just reiterate that a little bit more about what Marnie communicated earlier this week cause I think it's really important. We are going to continue to protect our sellers and ensure they're covered for any shipping defects that are beyond our sellers control. What does that mean? In this area of delivery estimates and handling time as I said, we're working daily to make adjustments to delivery estimates that the buyer sees so that we're on time. Everything we're doing, we know there's still challenges, but I want everyone to know we're working hard to minimize that impact. We recommend that sellers don't change your handle time. Let us take care of things with the delivery estimates. We should be given enough buffer that if you then add additional handling days, it's going to probably make your items look a lot slower than they need to be. So let us handle it on our end.

We should make a point here saying that, like you said, these talks with our carriers go on every day. We're actually dynamically looking at estimated delivery dates and we are adjusting as needed. Correct?

That's absolutely correct. We've been doing this since the onset of COVID. We continue to do it on a daily, weekly basis. And we know that it is having a positive impact. Absolutely.

How important will shipping be during this Holiday Season as opposed to, well that every Holiday Season before?

You're right. It's always important, right? The Holiday Season is an important one. Things change over holiday. This year, no different, probably more so even in fact. Let's talk about what's going on in the overall marketplace. There's uncertainty around brick and mortar retail. Who's going to be open when? How many hours, et cetera? That I think gets exaggerated as we go into Holiday. And so that feels like a continued opportunity for eBay and for our sellers. And with that opportunity does come some challenges. We expect that we'll see carriers continuing to have challenges and congestion in their network. That always happens on Holiday. We expect with the uncertainty of today's times that it's going to mean even more of that. The carriers are taking a different approach. We know our sellers have heard about capacity planning the carriers are doing and what they are doing around their guarantees, surcharges, et cetera, et cetera. Lots of planning on this taking place. So with the opportunity means we all need to plan more. I can tell you and our sellers, we are doing that already internally and with the carriers. What should we expect in Holiday? And how are we going to have to be different with our delivery estimates? How are sellers going to have to be ready with handling time, et cetera, et cetera. Already in the works we've got some time, but you're going to hear a lot more about the Holiday plan, cut off times, et cetera. As we get closer to that.

I think that this year there'll be very different than they have in past years.

I think that's probably the case. We're going to have to plan for that. We know there's going to be more opportunity for our sellers and there's going to be a challenge. So we'll probably gonna see cut off times to make Christmas as people talk about a little bit earlier in the month of December, this year.

I think most of the buyers who have been buying online in higher volumes since the start of the pandemic they're experiencing these delays themselves. I would assume that the smart shopper is taking that into account when they're looking for purchasing Holiday gifts. So that they're going to start purchasing earlier than later this year. Have we seen any indication of that?

Buyer's perception is different today. Like I think we all are getting a bit of a pass from buyers. They still are looking for quality products priced right with reasonable levels of on time. But I think all of us as buyers know that it's a little bit more inconsistent for the entire marketplace for everyone who's buying online. I mean, you go out and talk to your neighbors. You'll hear some people talk about how things are early for them. And a lot others will talk about how things are late. Buyers get it, but we still need to do what we do, which is handle on time. And eBay needs to be just absolutely tenacious about staying on top of what's going on in the networks and adjusting delivery estimates so that we're, as on time for buyers, as we can be during these times.

It sounds like you are being tenacious. And we all appreciate that. In the past we have had, uh, some guidance for sellers when it comes to how to prepare for the Holiday Season with our seasonal playbook. Are we going to have that this year?

We absolutely are. I think it's the end of this month. The seasonal playbook will be coming out in the shipping. There'll be a section on that. That contains everything I just talked about in terms of shipping. That'll be the initial playbook again, because things are so dynamic right now. As we move closer into holiday, we'll continue to update that as we talk about cutoff times and what to expect on delivery estimates, but you're going to hear quite a bit from us on shipping as part of the overall seasonal playbook this year.

As a seller, I think the message I'd be taking from your advice in this interview is that I should stay on top of this as well as a seller every single day, to see what eBay is saying and doing to help keep on top of this unusual shipping situation.

Absolutely. We knew our sellers do a great job of that. We're getting lots of feedback from sellers on the things that we're doing that are working, what you want us to do more of. Continue to give us that feedback, get ready for more opportunities as you head into the fourth quarter. Be ready to handle on time, rely on our delivery estimates, those types of things. And Griff, I just want to go back to, we started the conversation about the protections that are in place. We are protecting ourselves against all defects. Items not received, where you provide a valid tracking and the items have been shipped within your promise handle time, we're going to wait to evaluate the case until after those extended delivery estimate dates are in place. And so what that means is valid tracking, met your handle time, You're still going to qualify as Top Rated Seller. If the item shows up late because of a carrier delay, we'll remove that shipping defect. And if the item is delivered after the extended estimated delivery date, we're going to remove that shipping related negative feedback as well. So doing everything we can to protect, and we're continuing to make adjustments to these delivery estimates, and we'll come out with a really robust playbook as we head into Holiday.

Stuart, thank you. And I hope I speak for all sellers When I say we really appreciate the tremendous amount of work you guys are doing every day to keep our sellers successful and to alleviate any anxiety they might have about when it comes to their seller performance metrics and shipping and delayed shipping, especially delayed delivery.

Griff, I appreciate you recognizing that, but most important, the people that are doing the hard work are the sellers at the end of the day, they're making it happen. So thanks to all the sellers, stay with it. Continue to communicate with us and know that we're going to continue at this.

Thanks again, Stuart. We hope we can talk to you again before the Holiday Season is over.

Wonderful. Thanks Griff.

Stuart Richenbach is the Senior Director of North America shipping. He's joining us to talk about the current situation with shipping, how to prepare for the holidays. And if you listen carefully, he teased about the upcoming seasonal playbook. And I'm sure we'll have someone on to talk about that in a future episode of the podcast. Hopefully next week.

This week, we continue with our 25 Seller Stories for 25 Years of eBay mini series. And our next seller has an interesting story to tell. I'm not going to tell you about it though. He's going to tell it. I'm just going to ask him questions. Donovan Mitchell runs a successful eBay store with his fiancée. They sell motorbike parts and accessories on eBay under the user ID: bikenowmotorsports. That's bikenowmotorports. Donovan, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

You're a long time, lifetime. In fact, motocross enthusiasts. Can you tell us how you got involved in motocross?

Of course. My parents before I came into the world were both dirt bike racers, my mom and dad. When I came into the world early on, they got me a dirt bike about the age of four. And I started riding and racing. Quickly from there as early as six years old, I knew what I wanted to be in life was a professional motocross racer. So everything I did in life as a kid revolved around racing dirt bikes. And I was very fortunate. My parents saw that passion that I had and kept me involved in doing it as long as I showed the interest. Over the years of growing up, I rode and raced locally and throughout the years, I kind of kept progressing and getting better. You know, by the time I was a teenager, I was showing promise that I could be a professional motocross racer. That was my focus. And I had blinders on to, to achieve that dream.

When you were a teenager and you realized that you could start competing, how old were you? Do you remember?

I started racing when I was four years old. So I started with training wheels on a dirt bike in the backyard. And quickly by the time I was, you know, four or five years old, we were racing every weekend at local tracks straight into it. And it was definitely something that my whole world consisted of. Just reading the magazines and learning about the professionals and what it took. Working in the garage with my dad on the dirt bike throughout the week. So it was definitely a family affair and we traveled and did everything as a family throughout the years.

Did this interfere with your schooling at all?

Early years, No. So, you know, I went to normal school and every week, you know, I'd bring in my trophy on Monday from the weekend's race. And that was my show and tell, hopefully if I did good enough. And I did all my school reports about racing and wanting to become a professional racer, I truly did. In the early years, No, it didn't conflict with my schooling, but as I got better and in my teenage years, that's when it did start to conflict. Because I was traveling a lot cross country driving with my parents across country to races and these different amateur races that are some of the things that you need to do to kind of continually progress. It wasn't until my senior year of high school that I actually went on independent study just because I was traveling so much as a professional already at like 17 years old.

Yeah. That must've been a challenge though. I know that legally you have to complete schooling, but at the same time being on any professional sporting circuit, including motocross, that's a real time sink. I mean, that's a lot of time, not just the events and the competition, but the traveling as well.

Yeah. And the rule was from the very beginning, my parents always said, you will graduate high school. You will have a diploma for sure. There is no getting around that. So one way or another, you got to do it. But yeah, no, definitely. You know, you grow up quicker. You know, I matured quickly. By the time I was 17, I had moved out on my own to Southern California from my hometown of Northern California and was already, you know, traveling on my own, racing and kind of growing up quick to kind of obtain my dream. Which is kind of how that sport works. It's a young man's sport, you turn professional early. And if you want to make money and be successful, you kind of have to adapt and you don't get to live that normal kid lifestyle, going to school dances and doing some of that kind of stuff. You choose your dream and you get to put all yourself into it. Otherwise you will never make it in that sport. That's for sure.

What is the average retirement age of somebody in the motocross business?

Normally, Probably 28 years old.

Really? Oh my, that young?

So yeah, nowadays guys are extending their careers a little bit into their thirties. There's some exceptions, but it's such a tough sport. You know, it is deemed one of the toughest sports in the world, as far as physical activity, strength and everything that, you know, racers put into being these top level racers on a dirt bike. It takes everything from the peak endurance to technique. And it's definitely not an easy sport. And it's also not easy on the body. I'm a prime example of how tough this sport is injury wise. Yeah. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of time to do it at the highest level.

Well your career was expanding and you were, it looked like you were going to have a career in this and then something happened.

Yeah. So I did turn professional at 17 and I spent a couple years kind of doing it as a privateer which is where you're doing it on your own, but you have sponsors. I was kind of learning the ropes, you know, quote unquote as they call it and getting my feet wet. And luckily I kind of got to a level where I was doing pretty good on a national level. And I gained the attention of a factory team called Factory KTM, which is something that many, many kids dream of. Like almost like, you know, I want to be a professional baseball player, football player, and it's a very small percentage that ever gets to this point. I fortunately reached that level and was signed by the factory KTM Team for the 2000 Supercross motocross season. You know, this was a childhood dream at this point that was coming to fruition and I was extremely excited, hopeful. And you're realizing that everything you had worked for your entire childhood, it was like coming to reality. And it was exciting to say the least.

This was in the year 2000?

This was actually the end of the 1999 year. So this I was being signed for the 2000 season. Pre season racing always is a normal thing before the new year. I was at a preseason race and kind of shading down and getting used to the new bike and everything like you do. And unfortunately in the first lap of a race, another racer crashed in front of me. And I landed on his bike, which is not, you know, it's happened before, this is date racing and it's dangerous. Unfortunately, this time I flipped my head in the crash and instantaneously my life changed. I was laying there and I was paralyzed from the neck down. No movement, not really able to breathe on my own any longer. And I was now a high level seat for quadriplegic. You know, in a blink of an eye, my life has changed and quickly you realize it when you're in a hospital. And everyone's trying to sort out what is, what and what this injury consists of. And as a racer, you're not blind to injury like this, it's something, you know, that's possible. You see it, I've seen it before with other guys, but you accept it. And you kind of always, to be successful, you have to put it in the back of your brain. Otherwise you never can truly do the sport at the highest level. If you're thinking about it, you know, how you can get injured. So, you know, as a kid, I broke tons of bones, but you're always hurrying to get back on the bike. Cut the cast off, or figure out a way to keep racing. And you get a different pain tolerance than the average person, as far as what you can handle. With this injury, you know, I found out quickly though it's different. Um, it doesn't just heal like a broken bone. It's a little out of your control when you have a spinal cord injury, because the spinal cord is a special thing and it doesn't just heal on its own. And once you injure it, it's kind of the unknown of what movement and function you'll gain back in time.

Do you remember what was going through your mind those days and weeks immediately after the accident?

A lot of panic, disbelief, sadness, obviously. Some very dark times, you know, just thinking of how I just kind of basically had my career cut short and everything that I'd wanted and dreamed of was now gone, you know? And you realize like you're not getting that back quickly. And I was 19 years old. It's a lot to take in, adjust to and try and prioritize like, what is life now? You put your whole focus into one thing and you were getting there and you got there only to kind of have it cut short. It's definitely was a tough time for not only myself but my family. You have to adapt and you have to figure it out. Otherwise you don't want to be stuck forever. That's the only, you know, there's only one way to go.

What happened after that?

In my early years of injury, I did stay involved in the motorcycle racing side of it because obviously it's in my blood. I did try some schooling and college and different things to try and see, you know, what I wanted to do or what I could do. And at the same time though, I was doing a lot of therapy trying to see what movement I could get back because I had zero movement from the neck down. And I had a trach that had to be used to clear my lungs on a daily basis. And so there was a lot of unknown and trying to learn my body, what was possible, Thankfully over, you know, those first few years I started to gain a little movement back in my right arm, no use of my hand, but I was able to kind of zone in on that focus and use that determination that got me to that childhood dream of mine and put that into my injury. And I did regain some movement on my right arm. It is limited, but it did give me a sense and a source of independence . You can just be able to drive a wheelchair around, use an iPad or a computer and have that little bit of independence to do things. So with that said, I did stay in the motorcycle industry, working with race teams and different things over the years, writing for magazines and kind of just, people did open up opportunities. Luckily I had and was fortunate enough to know a lot of people that would give me the opportunity and knew me and respected me. And I had luckily kept a very respectable image and people liked that.That got me through the first several years of my injury but I was constantly always thinking like I was never content. I was always like, well, I didn't feel like what I had felt for becoming a motorcycle racer. . I was always looking like, well, what's the next thing that kind of gains my attention and keeps me busy and I have fun doing it as well?

There are a lot of years between 2000 and when you decided to become an entrepreneur. What was it that led you down that road and eventually to eBay?

First off, I mean, I am no businessman or have any background in business or anything like that. I actually had a friend, a dear friend that was in the motorcycle industry and he was actually just a mechanic for racers at the professional level. In his years doing that he was looking for a way to get off the road. He was getting older, had a family and didn't want to travel as much because it is an extensive sport of traveling. He was very successful throughout the early two thousands. And still, even to this day on eBay selling motorcycle parts and accessories. We just happened to be talking and he threw out the idea, "Hey, have you ever looked into like doing an eBay store or something like that, something that you can do, obviously you can use, you know, a device, an iPad or whatever, and get off and get running with it?" So I started researching it and just really easily kind of like a lot of people do. I started listing random stuff that I had, but, you know, just was motorcycle stuff around the house in the garage or whatever it may be. And that got the ball rolling. It quickly was something where, you know, you, you make a sale and your first sale and you get excited kind of like, okay, this is cool. And I just kind of dove into it and like put all my focus really into it, just to learn it and see what I could do to make this, something that was worthwhile and fun at the same time.

How many years ago was that?

That was about six years ago in 2014. Where I kind of got my start. And from there it was just little stuff and nothing major sales wise, but it was growing. In the first couple of years like it just kept multiplying kind of at the same time I met my now wife and she coincidentally worked at a motorcycle shop. We didn't know that when we first met, we met on online dating, so kind of random, but you know, within the first six months of us being in a relationship, she kinda mentioned like, Hey, the dealership I worked at has a massive amount of inventory that they would like to part ways with and get rid of. I sarcastically at first said, "Hey, I'd be interested in that. Like, what's it take?" Come to find out, you know, this is a known thing where dealers have a lot of inventory that they acquire over time and they need to get rid of it. So low and behold, we were able to kind of come to a deal for that inventory and took it all on. And it was a big undertaking to take on. But kinda got us started to the next level of selling where, you know, we were listing and you quickly find out on eBay, the more you have listed, the more you sell.

Yes!

And this was something where, you know, daily, I sat and looked at the boxes, stacked up high everywhere I could look. And go, "Oh man, I'm an idiot. What did I do?" But thankfully within the first six months, you know, we had already made our investment back, which I was blown away. With that said we still had tons of inventory and we still sell some of that stuff to this day.

So you're not actively sourcing inventory then. Is that the case or are you still sourcing inventory?

No, we still do. We kind of have a two step approach where we still do dealer buyouts. They call them kind of where dealers either going out of, or need to get rid of inventory. And we'll come in and do a purchase of a large amount of inventory. That's something that we have on hand where we're listing it individually daily and boxing it up every day and shipping it out as well. So with that, we have that side of it and then through the years of growing, we're able to kind of sign up with distributors as a dealer and having an online front that allows us to also like ship items from different warehouses and kind of opens up where we have a lot more inventory listed and it keeps everything more busy than the normal as well.

So this is a full time business now for you and your wife?

It is. After the first few years there, I would say around 2016, quickly we kind of realized, okay, like, I think this is something that could be actually worthwhile and like a business, as you said it. So we reached a point where I said, maybe you should leave your job and we should just focus on this. My wife had been at her job for like 11 years at that point. So that was a huge thing for her. And we were early in our relationship. The fact that she trusted me to go all in on this was you know, looking back, it was a risky thing, but it worked out and it's turned into ,it's more than full time nowadays you find out. You know, I find myself investing 12, 15 hours a day at the minimum, just to kind of keep up with the demand and questions and everything that comes along with selling on eBay.

Your wife has no regrets then quitting her job?

No, no, this is something that thankfully she can put up with me every day. And so now we do work well together and I mean, it's kind of opened up where we have a lifestyle. And as far as, you know, schedule that kind of works with my injury as well. My injury is something where things day to day, aren't always ideal as far as how you feel, what you're dealing with either of secondary complications of the injury. Having something that I'm able to do from wherever, depending on what I'm dealing with is a great source and a great option that kind of plays into what my, you know, my injury brings to life as well.

Can I ask you another question about your injury?

Go ahead.

Are you still undergoing a therapy of sorts? Is that ongoing and is it forever?

Of course. Yeah. My daily routine, I still do some therapy. Like I have a machine that stands me up and, um, some things like that that are, you know, very good for your bones and the strength of your body. With that said business gets busy. You know, there's only so much time in the day. So as much therapy as maybe I'd like to do, I'm not able to, but I do try to fit in something most of the week and keep the body active because that's the only thing that you can do. Hopefully it's one day, if there's a cure for spinal cord injury, you've got to have your body ready for it. I've always been an active person since my injury and try to keep myself in tune as best as possible.

Yeah. I assume then that you follow the progress, but at least the research and development that's going into the spinal cord repair and also the amazing things I see online about devices now to help people that are either para or quadriplegic actually regain a lot of individual mobility.

Yeah. Things are definitely escalating for the better, as far as the spinal cord injury and research, I'm actually involved with a former sponsor, which was Red Bull, has a foundation Wings For Life. That has me as an ambassador where I go do some public speaking at events and different things to kind of bring awareness to the injury and what can be done and what is out there. They are like the leader in the world, as far as spinal cord research, having the best doctors around the world, searching for that cure. It's definitely getting closer than farther away at this point. There's a lot of promising things. And I'm just glad that maybe someday that will be here.

Sometime after the accident, did you have regrets about your career choice?

So I've never really had regrets as far as racing a dirt bike and getting injured like I did. There's been a few things that have kind of carried me, I think after my injury. One, I'm a very strong, determined person mentally, just because of, I think motocross in general. So it did definitely set me up for being able to handle this injury. Maybe better than some if, if that's something? But, um, no, I've never had any real regrets because one, I did get to accomplish some things that most don't get to do at that level, in that, in that sport. And a lot of people dream of it, I was able to get to that point and experience it in some fashion. Maybe it wasn't as long as I liked to be there and doing it but at the end of the day I was there and I had a pretty promising career ahead of me and that is something to hold highly. So I've never really looked back. It's like, okay, this is the injury. And it's not always easy. There are days that obviously that just, your body doesn't do what you want it to do, or you want things to be simple and they're not simple. That's the name of the game with this injury. Nothing's really as simple as you want it to be, but, uh, you make do, and kind of just kind of keep progressing. I just use that you gotta be strong willed and it's not always easy, you know, you figure it out.

And do the hope for advances in the field of neural repair for spinal cord injuries and also the, as I mentioned before, I've seen these amazing devices that are now beyond development. I think they're actually an application where you have like an exoskeleton that you can control and move around. Do these give you hope that someday you'll be more mobile?

I do. I mean, from what I've seen, some of the technologies and treatments that are not only just like something, like you mentioned, the device that helps you walk around, but, um, actual treatments to the spinal cord injury that are, you know, making progress of growing that gap between the injury site to regain movement. There's some really, really, truly promising things that are close. And it's not a matter of if, it's when and like I said, Wings For Life is truly dedicated to fixing this injury within our lifetime. I'm excited. I mean, I don't dwell upon it necessarily just because that's not my personality. But I want to make sure one day when it is here that I'm ready. And even if it was not fully walking, if you just give me some use of my arms a little more. I would be all smiles.

Yeah. Yes. I can imagine. When you do public speaking for Wings For Life, what's the makeup of the audience?

Yeah. So, I mean, it's really truly a broad spectrum. It could be anywhere from a distribution center of employees to a group of athletes. It's a broad range, really. I mean, it's just people that have an interest or have had some sort of tie in and I get brought in and do a speech, kind of tell my story, something similar to this. And then tell the importance of being involved if they can. It's kind of, that's the nature of it really.

If you had a word of advice based on your life experience, as it is right now, for somebody who's, trying to succeed in business, what would that be?

If you want to be successful, success is never a light switch. I don't feel. You really do have to keep plugging at it and stair stepping your way to where you want to be. I've never been someone where it's just like" poof", and everything's great. As far as you know, what I want to be doing in life. With eBay, it's kind of been similar to my racing career. I just chipped away, chipped away. Every year that goes by it's like, Holy Cow! Success, or the numbers that you want to do, you get there and it's kind of like, you didn't see it coming, but all that time and effort you put into it, it really does matter. You do gotta like putting something in to get something out and just don't give up easily. It's just because it doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't mean it can't happen. Kind of can be a cliche saying, but if you want it bad enough overtime, it can be possible.

You just have to persevere, keep your eyes focused. As you kept your eyes focused on your career when you were young in motocross and now as an entrepreneur. I want to thank you so much Donovan for taking the time to speak to us, especially knowing that you are putting in 12 or 15 hours a day in your business. That's incredible! So thanks for that. And we really appreciate you sharing your story. Congratulations on being selected for one of the 25 slots. And I'd love for us to be able to check in on you in six months or so, and see how business is going.

Thank you. I do really appreciate you guys having me. I think I'm a good example of anything's really possible on eBay. You know, I don't have all the movement in the world or independence, but you can find a way and make it happen on eBay. That's for sure.

Donovan, thank you so much.

Thank you guys. Appreciate it.

We've been speaking with Donovan Mitchell. Donovan is a seller on eBay. He sells under the user ID bikenowmotorsport, that's bikenowmotorsport. That's one word or once character string. We'll put up a link, both to his eBay business and also to the Wings For Life foundation run by Red Bull. So you can learn more about what they do in support of spinal cord injury research.

You have questions, we might have answers.

Might have answers.Hedging your bets Griff?

Sometimes. I get stumped, you know, so my motto is under promise and over deliver.

Well for yourself. I'm absolutely positively certain we have answers to at least some of them.

Oh good. In that case, I'll read the first question and Brian, you can provide the answer.

Sounds like a deal.

Okay. So our first question was sent to the podcast@ebay.com by seller Greg who writes: "like many other sellers. I received notification earlier this year that I be transferred to Manage Payments in late July. The activation to Manage Payments still has not taken effect though. My Seller Hub simply says the following "we'll notify you before activating your account for Managed Payments. You've successfully registered for Managed Payments. Why is eBay not providing an updated timeline on my conversion? I enjoy the podcast. And thank you for taking my question. Greg seller ID onlinedepot." Well, it's all yours, Brian. What's the answer?

Well, I do know the answer to this one. So first off, Greg, thanks for being proactive in registering. And now it's just a matter of wait. As you can imagine, we're migrating a lot of sellers through and if you've registered and you've already received that first registration email from us to register, and you've completed that we'll get back to you. I would say that if you don't hear anything by the end of the month, reach out through our help department and they can get someone in touch with you, but know that we're, we're literally moving tens of thousands of sellers into Manage Payments regularly. And so it's just a lot of sellers, but I'm glad you did it. And one of the things to also remember is by registering, you will get the benefits of the additional free insertion listings. So you don't actually have to be fully registered to get that benefit. So you'll get that benefit going forward.

Right. You'll get it cause you're registered. Even if you haven't been converted.

Yes.

The time from when I got my email saying I should register until the time that I actually was converted into Managed Payments, which happened on Monday this past week, by the way was about seven weeks. Maybe that's the window to look forward to right now. So depending in July, when you were asked to register, it could be any day. You will get an email from eBay saying you're about to be converted.

Keep checking that inbox. And I have to tell you, so I've been in it for a week. All right. So I'm biased. Cause I worked for the company for 24 years, who cares? I'm always honest. I really like the way this works.

Well. And for me, I've been in for now a little over a year and I really like it now because when I look at the ability to pull a report down in the reporting structure, that's there now compared to what was there a year ago, it is so much more robust. And in fact, Rebecca Michaels and I were on a call last night with the Raleigh meetup group. And there were a couple sellers on that call who were talking very positively about Managed Payments and they've been in it over the last few months for those, if you're not in it, register and then look for those emails and then everyone else hopefully you'll have the same experience that I had. And you had, and the sellers who were on that call last night had.

So look forward to that. It's time for our next question though, Brian. And our next question was also sent to podcast@ebay.com and it was sent in by seller Kathy who writes: "with the holiday season coming up. I've had requests for COVID-19 related gifts. I make custom plaques and holiday ornaments. People want COVID-19 or quarantine survivor mask awards, social distancing, virtual teacher awards, et cetera. Are these allowed? What key words are a no, no? I'm sure many others would want to know. I know many are selling masks and signs and supplies for this pandemic. Some humor, a little humor helps. But these are all more humorous awards for a lighthearted look back at a very difficult time. I have sold them for hurricanes and other disasters. So what are the limitations? Is COVID-19 or Corona virus in the title going to lead to my listing being taken down? Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Kathy." Brian, what do you know about the current restrictions for keywords that we can tell Kathy?

So I know that we still do have some restrictions and filters in place. I don't know enough about the exact ones. This is a really interesting suggestion though, in one that I think we should take back to Gary and the team in Trust, and I'm sure they're evaluating it and opening up as much as possible, but we should take Kathy's suggestion back to Gary.

Yeah. And I think the two words that are definitely or were restricted, if not, if they still aren't now were COVID-19 and Coronavirus. I also think there was a restriction on the word pandemic, but I can't be absolutely sure. But things like quarantine, survivor mask, award, social distancing, and virtual teacher, those could all be allowed. I don't think it's a matter of getting your listing taken down. I think what happens is if you try to list with those words in the title, or maybe even the description, I'm not absolutely sure that they'll be blocked before you can list them. One of us or both of us will take the suggestion to the Trust Team. See what they have to say about how long the restrictions for these particular keywords will be in place. And maybe, maybe they're considering lifting them at some time, but it doesn't guarantee that the suggestion will be adopted that we are going to get rid of them. Cause you know, Brian and I are pretty powerless here at eBay.

What? Speak for yourself. No, I agree. But one thing that I want to say, and hopefully the other listeners on the show pick this up as well. In this question, the seller is actually being really proactive and thinking about her sales in the future and the holiday, I mean, virtual teacher awards, she is pivoting how she's thinking about selling on the platform, which is absolutely wonderful to read.

Yeah. Kathy is one smart ducky as we used to say on another broadcast.

Our last question, which is also more of a suggestion/request. It's from eBay seller, John who sent the following to podcast@ebay.com. "When I go to the app and someone has clicked to watch my item, I am then able to send them an offer. And under my items, there's a link titled Send Offer To Buyer. However, the only way I know is if I go into the app. Is there a way to send up a notification so that when the person clicks watch, I get a notification on my phone, similar to the new offer, item sold, payment received, et cetera, it would be awesome. And I believe it is effective to have the opportunity to interact with a potential customer immediately. Once again, great podcast. I absolutely love it! Thanks, John." And that's hisas on eBay.

Well, it seems to me there's kind of two parts to this. The first part I want to address is that you say you can only know the only way you know how to do this is in the app, but you can always send an offer to a Watcher by checking your active listings page in eBay, on a browser, on a desktop or a laptop. Any listing with at least one watcher will always have the option for you to send that Watcher an offer. These are for fixed price listings. So you don't have to really rely on the app for that. As to the second part. I'm pretty sure I went looking, Brian, maybe you could correct me if I'm wrong. There really isn't a notification option for alerting a seller when an item has a Watcher, right? Nothing inside preferences.

There's nothing in there. You know, and I suspect that given the number of Watchers that most sellers have for their listings, such an option might actually be really annoying to a seller. Think about how many notifications you'd start receiving. So for now, at least a seller can and always should check their active listings either on the mobile app or as I said, you can also check them on a desktop and determine which listings have Watchers. And then you select your choice at your discretion from that list. So you can determine which one of these listings you want to send offers to based on the fact that there's one or more Watchers.

And my assumption is given how many people watch items for a whole bunch of reasons, probably right. That we don't want to like, or haven't built that because sellers would just get notified too often. Yeah. So, Hey, I have a question.

Okay. What is it?

We had 10 winners of the hundredth episode contest. What's the status of their prizes?

Oh, I'm so glad you asked that. I bet those 10 winners are also glad you asked. So I have been to the campus and I picked up the last of the podcast outerwear hoodies and some t-shirts and you were very kind to deliver a box of podcast mugs that you had to break out of one of our drawers there. We'll be packing them up and sending them out via FedEx in one week.

They should get their prizes within two to three weeks?

Yeah. Cause I'll send them FedEx ground and FedEx doesn't have the same, In most cases it doesn't have the same delivery delays that USPS does. Yeah. You can look for these from the release of this podcast in probably two or three weeks, you'll get it. And also to those who sent in a submission, but were not part of the first 10. We really thank you for those submissions. And we hope you have better luck next time.

And you know, I'm, I'm really, really glad that you and Rebecca cooked that up. And I hope we do it again in the future, but in the meantime, sellers can always ask your question or send in your comment by calling us here at the podcast at (888) 723-4630.

And again, in case you missed it (888) 723-4630. We prefer voice messages because, well, we'd like to put your voice on the, on the show. And of course you can always call that hotline anytime of the day, any day of the week at your convenience, you leave a question or comment on the voice line and if it's appropriate, we just might put it on the air.And if you're not a call on the phone person, you can always email us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ebay.com.

Now don't forget your daily podcast to-do list.

Check the announcement board for Up to date Seller News.

Start sourcing products now for the Holiday shopping season.

Check out the transcript for this and all episodes for followup on what you've heard and to see the links we referenced during the episode.

Now on our next episode, we'll talk to our good friend Jen Deal, who will have news about the 2020 eBay Seasonal Playbook for sellers. And of course we'll meet another seller from the 25 Stories Mini Series.

We'd like to, again, thank our guests this week. eBay Senior Vice President Jordan Sweetnam. Senior Director of Shipping North America, Stuart Richenbach and eBay seller Donovan Mitchell.

The eBay for Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.