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Tagged: EbayOpen2018, inkfrog, Sixbit
- This topic has 91 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 1 month ago by
Nancy.
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07/17/2018 at 12:34 pm #45643
Veronica and I will be at eBay Open this year and would love to meet more Trash Elves from Scavenger Life. We are doubling up the trip as some vacation time as well before and after the conference, so we arrive on Sunday and leave the following Sunday.
We have our traditional dinner at Casa Di Amore on Monday (great food, we love the singer George Bugatti, and Monday is 50% off Wine), but other nights are free. In true scavenger fashion, we should meet during the free cocktail time!
Let us know if any others are going and we want to meet up!
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07/18/2018 at 12:51 pm #45729
Hello T-Satt!
I’m going to eBay Open next week. I arrive on Monday night and I’m leaving on Friday morning. I’d love to meet up with you & Veronica – after all we are neighbors in beautiful Colorado. I’m guessing we probably live less than 30 minutes away from each other. If you have any ideas about how we will find each other in the crowd, let me know!
I’ve never been to eBay Open before and any advice you could give on navigating it would be most helpful…
Looking forward to meeting you both!
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07/18/2018 at 1:10 pm #45734
Sounds great!
Dress to be warm (conferences are cold), and dress in comfortable walking shoes (will probably be a loooong walk around everything.
Make a list of what you want to get out of the conference and keep referring to it.
Talk to a lot of sellers, asking what they sell, how they sell, how they list, how they ship, etc. Very interesting!
Lots of food and drink is planned for Tues – Thurs. You won’t need to pay for anything.
Get coffee at the conference! No coffee makers in the rooms, so only Starbucks (everywhere) so you have to pay. We are going early and staying late…and I’m bringing my Keurig for the room…as well as the NutriNinja for Margaritas in the room… 🙂
Look for them to have an app for your phone so that you can see all the times, breakout groups, etc. and where everything is. I used ours a lot.
Brooklyn Bowl on Thursday Night is a blast! Get there early…
As for meeting up, shoot me an email at TSATTERF@YAHOO.COM. Then we can swap messages and phone numbers for when to meet and how to recognize each other.
I look forward to meeting you!
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07/18/2018 at 1:21 pm #45735
PS – Get to registration EARLY! Last year was a bit of a clusterxxxx, so I’m hoping that they have it worked out.
But hope isn’t a strategy…
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07/18/2018 at 1:58 pm #45743
FYI, you can download the eBay Open 2018 app from the iTunes store now. Make sure to download the 2018 version.
Has the agenda, workshops, and even the Map on it…
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07/18/2018 at 5:38 pm #45782
Thanks T-Satt! I’ll shoot you an email.
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07/19/2018 at 5:55 pm #45829
I’ll be going to the Open for the first time this year and would love to meet up with some fellow Trash Elves! Sending an email later.
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07/20/2018 at 6:56 am #45843
Sharpp: Looking forward to it!
Since you are in Henderson, I’ll have to pick your brain for good sourcing areas in Vegas. We go there every so often. We were there on a 50% off at Savers last time, and didn’t do too bad, but boy are the prices up on clothing!
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07/25/2018 at 7:44 pm #46139
Ralli Roots is doing Ebay Open Videos. Interesting info. Thought everyone would appreciate these updates. Ralli Roots said they will post daily.
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07/25/2018 at 10:35 pm #46148
I walked in with them yesterday. Very great couple. Super nice.
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07/27/2018 at 6:40 am #46228
This is a video from a seller at ebay open. Good info about titles and photos https://youtu.be/yFTMJchquLs
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07/27/2018 at 12:22 pm #46257
Yep, Veronica was at the session that she talked about, so we can confirm it. The eBay folks on search confirmed their side as well on special characters. So, you will get dropped in search for using any special characters except for a hyphen-.
So no slash, ampersand or even apostrophes in your title is best.
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07/27/2018 at 9:42 am #46232
I have heard some complaints that they felt this years ebay Open was very much geared toward Seller 101 and less inside track/ depth/ access?
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07/27/2018 at 10:50 am #46241
I think a lot of the breakout sessions are still more for new sellers. We only went to a few of them, and spent most of our time in the Expo Hall with eBay people getting specific one-on-on questions answered (including ones from you guys!), with Vendors, and getting new contacts to open new sourcing options.
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07/27/2018 at 11:18 am #46242
So, first off I want to say that one of the best parts of eBay Open was getting to meet some other fellow Trash Elves at the Open! And we are hoping to start a regular meeting with those that live close, and maybe a business relationship with those that live in Vegas!
Ok, I’m going to download some of the information that we learned that will help everyone, and that will answer some questions. I’ll do this in blocks so that I don’t create the Great Wall of Text…
First for Jay and Ryanne: eBay is looking to have multi-user access to eBay, with restrictions in place so that employees don’t have full access. This is in the works, and Mohan (great guy at eBay) is taking this on in the first part of 2019.
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07/27/2018 at 12:44 pm #46259
thanks for all the updates, i feel like i was there with you!!
so glad to hear about multi-user access, that will be an awesome improvement for those of us with helpers (or those of us who want helpers in the future but don’t want to pay for 3rd party services etc etc).
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07/27/2018 at 1:14 pm #46262
Yeah, I figured you guys would like that option!
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07/27/2018 at 11:34 am #46244
INADS: So first, yes, later this year there will be some penalties if your INAD percentage is significantly higher than other sellers in that same category. Starting in early August (I believe after August 6), there will be a new section on the Growth Tab that will show your INAD percentage and show you how you are doing against other sellers in those categories.
We talked with some folks about INAD and what I started calling FINAD (False INAD), where the buyer is trying to use INAD just to get Free Return Shipping. They were open to looking at a backend process where sellers can dispute the INAD process direct with eBay so that FINADs can be removed and not hurt towards your metrics (similar to where incorrect Late Shipments could be disputed and not affect your shipping metrics.
This whole topic is also related to Returns. We discussed with the Returns team that if we are doing Free Returns, then we want a buyer that starts the return process to see a different screen and path. Something that says “Your Seller offered Free Returns on this transactions, here is your label, thanks!” This will deemphasize the ability to use INAD, since the Seller was doing Free Returns anyway. They liked this idea and are taking this back with them. Fingers crossed.
The Returns team (and even Bob Kupbens) stated that they want to start putting barriers on buyers that are abusing INAD. By monitoring their accounts and if buyers are incorrectly using INAD, then they will require the buyer to provide photo proof of the issue before they can claim INAD, or they have to contact eBay directly before they buyer can claim INAD. This will help monitor buyers and as Bob said, start removing the bad buyers from the eBay platform (or at least make them play fair).
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07/27/2018 at 1:54 pm #46265
This is great news. I like the idea that if a buyer wants to open a return, they’d have to jump through hoops to do an INAD. Offering Free Returns should be a simple process. If too many sellers feel that returns are being abused, sellers will just turn them off…which short circuits eBay’s intention.
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07/30/2018 at 11:00 am #46408
IMHO they should already have the FINAD barrier in place.
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07/27/2018 at 11:41 am #46245
BrianB: First, great meeting you at the Open! Your question was:
I would like eBay to provide a page or some mechanism that will tell me when my listings violate the “No duplicate listings” rule. To clarify, some time ago eBay implemented a rule that, when violated slows down your sales because you have duplicate listings. This was implemented to prevent sellers from listing the same item many times in an effort to have better search results. That is a good desire. However, for instance I had multiple HP laptop bags that look different, but have the same dimensions, color etc. Since they all have roughly the same attributes my listings could be violating the “no duplicate listings” policy and I would not know it. If they had a page where I could go and see whether any of my listings violate this policy I would be good. I just don’t want to be in the dark and I don’t want to violate the rule.
The Search team did confirm that they will look for items that seem to be duplicate listings. Listings from the same seller that appear to be basically identical and they will lower them in search. They are trying to keep the abusers (we know who) from creating walls of offers that are just duplicates of their own listings and similar price points. His suggestion was to make sure to use multi-variation listing when possible to avoid being lowered in search by these types of listings. He also stated that they are looking at putting a screen that would show you these types of listings. So similar to the “pricing” guidance screen, they would show you listings that they see as potential issues that you can look to revise to avoid being punished in search.
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07/27/2018 at 1:59 pm #46266
We also will have the exact same item, but of course there are little differences. We just make sure to use a couple different words in the title to differentiate. We assume this is all eBay wants.
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07/27/2018 at 2:03 pm #46268
Possibly. It is making Veronica and I re-examine some of our listings to see if we should really make them multi quantity.
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07/27/2018 at 11:43 am #46246
Sonia asked: When I send a potential buyer an offer in response to a message they sent me, they only have two options: accept the offer or ignore it. Unlike offers sent via the “best offer” option, they have no way to reject or counter. Please add these two options.
I talked with the eBay team and they wrote this down as an improvement. They saw the benefit of it and are going to talk with the techies to see if they can add this.
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07/27/2018 at 11:44 am #46247
Jay asked: When listing on the mobile phone, there is no way to add a sku entry to help know where the item is stored. Not including this forces sellers who use a sku system to complete the listing on the computer.
Funny on this, I thought I heard some people say that this was recently added, but I tried on my phone this week and it wasn’t there. I let the eBay folks know about this and they said they would look at that.
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07/28/2018 at 12:14 am #46316
I was one person that mentioned getting SKU’s showing up on the mobile app. It popped up for my gf on her store and I couldn’t believe what I was looking at! It’s the most obvious thing in the world that it should have been there from the beginning. I checked mine and I have it too (we are both on android fyi). Interestingly I started getting the new label printing page a week and a half ago but my gf has not, so that’s not it. Some time after I started getting the new label experience, the sku started auto populating there as well so I didn’t have to copy and paste all the time when printing a label (it definitely wasn’t there when I first started getting the new label page). Then randomly one day it stopped auto populating the sku, and then the next day I went back to the old label page, then the next order I had went back to the new label page, with sku again. It’s still VERY beta.
You guys talk about releasing buggy software, and I get corporate pressure and aggressive deadlines. But what kind of corporate culture do you have when you put so much pressure on the web guys that they don’t care if it’s ultra buggy? They need to have a heart to heart amongst themselves and be honest about what’s going on behind the scenes, to each other if not to us. Somebody needs to be in a position to say “Hey, it’s just not ready yet.”
That talk about problems with the new payment system has me worried. We went almost a month without the ability to see our listing views consistently and they lost pictures and can’t recover them. Do you trust them with your money? I don’t. I won’t switch over until they force me to.
I’m trying not to poop on eBay which has been good to me, but I’m diversifying to Poshmark as of this past week.
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07/28/2018 at 11:43 am #46334
Marshall_G: I hear you. I have seen throughout the implementations that I have done that you have the pressure of Executives that need to get the project done vs the Team that never feels like it is ready. I’ve been on both sides and every place in the middle.
I don’t have an issue with the Managed Payments program at all. It will work out fine. There is too much risk for them to not have it work fine. For us though, we can’t take the risks for our business with it in the stage that it is now. If we could keep SixBit, ShipRush, and GSP, I would be moving forward right now. But losing those tools, right before Q4, when we are full time…too much risk.
I think there are a good number of people that are part time, or that don’t use the 3rd party tools that will be great to sign up and get going. The risk is lower for them. But it just isn’t a match for us right now. That is why I sent the message to Bob explaining our reasons for declining and that when those hurdles are crossed, that we want to be part of the next phase.
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07/27/2018 at 11:46 am #46248
Buytikiselltiki asked: And despite having business policies turned on and managed, they just don’t tie with the the app – the app should have pull downs for the three business policy categories ( payment, return, ship ).
This was in the same conversation with the SKU. The interesting part was that the eBay team thought that people that listed from their phone didn’t use policies. They thought that phone listers were only very small sellers that wouldn’t need this. I let them know that many larger sellers use the phone as a listing tool and that they want (and use) the policies. They took this down and will take it back to the eBay teams.
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07/27/2018 at 12:08 pm #46250
T-Satt is KING!!!!! Thank you!
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07/27/2018 at 12:20 pm #46256
Siglini: 🙂
Thanks! I’m laughing so hard right now. That was awesome!
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07/27/2018 at 12:09 pm #46251
Managed Payments: Ok, so this was a big one for us since we were asked to opt in. This was not well received by a lot of the larger sellers (us included), and there was a lot of pushback on where they are. I will be surprised if many larger sellers opt in in September. Here are the main stumbling blocks:
1) ALL third party apps cannot be used. This means listing apps (SixBit, WonderLister, etc), no shipping apps (ShipRush, Stamps.com), and no accounting apps (GoDaddy). This is a large issue right now. For many of the early invitees, this is a hard stop.
2) PayPal will not be added back as a payment option until Summer of 2019. I asked if we could know how many people paid us with PayPal cash vs PayPal Credit (so I can see the amount of buyer we will lose at that point. Since that is PayPal info, eBay couldn’t tell us. This is another stumbling block, because we don’t now how much smaller our audience of buyers will be.
3) Global Shipping Program is not allowed in Managed Payments at the start. The International Payment side with Pitney Bowes I guess is still a mess, so if we opt in to Managed Payments, then we can’t ship GSP. We can ship International directly. This is another risk to deal with at the start, losing GSP protections.
4) Reporting. How we will be able to split out our revenue received (Product Revenue, Shipping Revenue, Sales Tax Collected, and Fees) will not be resolved until early 2019. One change will be that the transaction fee will not be on the transaction level, it will be paid as part of our monthly eBay fees. But not having the breakout will add accounting time to us if we start.
5) Shipping costs still have to go through PayPal. So even though we will be setting up a bank account for our daily cash deposits, we still have to use PayPal to pay for shipping labels. This is kindof wonky at this point, asking sellers to have to transfer cash from their bank account to PayPal to pay for labels. We are planning to use a credit card for these costs going forward, but just painful to ask sellers to do this to start.
6) Holds for Returns. Right now, on INAD and INR cases, PayPal puts a hold on funds. How will this be managed in the future? They don’t know.
So, will all of this on the table right now, and the fact that we would have to deal with this going into Q4, we are not planning to go this route. I would be fine to wait until a lot of this is resolved, definitely with the 3rd Party tools (SixBit and ShipRush) before we make the change.
This really will be a good thing for everyone when it is done. Easier for buyers to just use eBay like every other site (rather than have to have a PayPal account), buyers don’t have to log in to PayPal to pay for sales, Sellers don’t have to worry about buyers opening up PayPal cases against us, Apple Pay is going to be an option soon, etc.
Also, for those that worry about losing PayPal Loans, eBay has partnered with Square Capital to offer another option.
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07/27/2018 at 2:03 pm #46267
Why do you think eBay rolls out programs that are half baked? Why not just get it all working, and then roll it out.
Instead of asking sellers to opt into a screwy messy program, just do closed testing.
Do you have a sense of why eBay causes themselves so much heartbreak?
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07/27/2018 at 2:11 pm #46270
It isn’t just EBay, it’s all big corporations. I got the feeling that the people at the very top are pushing to get this going as soon as possible. In my prior work with major corporations, they sometimes set aggressive time tables just to get the ball moving. Most of the folks there were confirming this is why they’re moving ahead before having all the tools in place.
I sent a long response direct to Bob Kupbens explaining our thoughts and why we are passing at this time. Hopefully he will see that now is a bad time for sellers like us to have that many hurdles to opt in.
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07/27/2018 at 2:13 pm #46272
Changing a payment system before the Holiday Season is madness. Especially if its in a super Alpha wonky state. We’ll just wait till everyone else tests it for us!
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07/27/2018 at 6:28 pm #46299
With the disaster this current system sounds like, sellers would have to be getting major incentives to be beta testers for it. Like, free anchor store subscriptions for 3-6 month level incentives.
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07/27/2018 at 6:31 pm #46301
I was hearing rumors of significantly discounted fees, but even at the figures they were talking, it wasn’t worth the bloody nose.
For what it is worth, the eBay Employees are already on the new Managed Payments. At least they are truly the first ones through the door…
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07/27/2018 at 6:17 pm #46295
Thank you for posting updates on managed payments. Can you please clarify what they mean by third party apps? Does that mean that we can’t use other shipping programs to upload our tracking numbers from? All shipping must be purchased directly from Ebay shipping with managed payments?
I can’t tell if I’ve read this wrong. Thanks
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07/27/2018 at 6:26 pm #46298
Almasty: That was our understanding. For those that are opting in as of September, all Third Party Apps will not be supported.
So, I can’t use SixBit to list, I would have to list through eBay. All labels would have to be printed through eBay, I couldn’t use ShipRush. All accounting interfaces with GoDaddy would not be supported.
This is only temporary. For the first wave folks, they can’t use these tools until they know that it is working properly before they start adding the functionality back.
They didn’t have a timeframe, but it sounds like probably sometime in early 2019 that these will be added back. I told them and Bob that I’m more than willing to go on after the 3rd Party apps and the GSP is back working. But they are too important right now, especially before Q4.
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07/27/2018 at 6:36 pm #46302
The line of reasoning behind this is pretty scary. Can’t use third party apps until they make sure it works well together. I’m almost afraid that there will be cascading glitches throughout all of Ebay for the next year as they try to piece it all back together again.
I just purchased the annual license for my listing software today. Yikes. This is such a no go for me.
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07/27/2018 at 7:51 pm #46307
T-Satt I am with you on not jumping into this because losing WonderLister is not an option going into 4th quarter as you said and also that SB and WL both cross list for us on other Platforms. WL is doing Shopify right now and Etsy is very close to being beta released shortly [weeks]. If I can cross list a thousand items on 3 stores [platforms] from one control panel, I will just have to do without some of the Ebay benefits. I would only use Ebay listing if I could also click on the form when i finished filling in and hit the “send to Shopify” and send to “Etsy” options. Without that Ebay is just another selling platform for an income stream just like J&R 2 and soon to be 3rd rental income stream.
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07/27/2018 at 12:14 pm #46252
Sales Tax: This is both good and bad. Keep an eye on how things are going in different states, and what may happen at the federal level. It was interesting that even FBA sellers have to pay tax based on the states that their inventory is stored. There was a Sales Tax breakout that I attended, so when they offer this for everyone to stream later, I recommend that everyone watch.
The optimistic side was that Devin Wenig said that he plans to have eBay take this on and collect and pay for us. This still has to happen and go forward, but that is what he wants to do for us. He doesn’t want us to have to deal with this. Call me Pollyanna, but I’m going to take his word that he will commit to help us as sellers to deal with this as it progresses.
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07/27/2018 at 2:06 pm #46269
This would be ideal. We just list and sell like normal. eBay automatically charges and collects the taxes based on the buyer’s location. eBay sends it to the city, county, state that requires it.
Our process and bookkeeping shouldnt have to change.
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07/27/2018 at 3:24 pm #46279
Got an Email on Etsy today that said they are adding a third state to their sales tax collection and we would not have to do anything. They will handle it just like they do for the first two states they added. So hopefully Ebay will just do the same.
Maybe that is one of the things the new payment vendor and payment system may be gearing up for that PayPal can’t or won’t handle.
mike at MDCG
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07/27/2018 at 5:53 pm #46290
Agree. Not there yet, but I’m going to take Devin at his word that he would put some tools in place to handle this. If he sees Etsy do it, I would think he would say eBay should be able to do it as well.
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07/27/2018 at 12:18 pm #46255
Stale/Stagnant Listings: We had our Biz Boost session on our store, where they look at your numbers and see where we can improve. They didn’t have any issues on our side, but they did show our Stale/Stagnant listings (none), so I asked.
They confirmed that Stale listings (over 60 days) get dropped in search, and that Stagnant Listings (over 90 days) get dropped even more. I asked if we could start getting a report or a drill down on the site to see these directly, so that sellers could manage these listings (change pricing, update title, etc) to refresh these listings. They took this information down and said that they liked the idea. We will see.
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07/27/2018 at 2:12 pm #46271
Two important questions:
–What’s the point of GTC listings if they push you down in search if you dont sell an item in 60 days?
–Did they confirm that simply re-listing an item every 30 days tricks eBay into thinking its a fresh listing?
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07/27/2018 at 2:16 pm #46274
If a listing is selling, it stays high in search. So GTC that have sales AREN’T stale. Stale is for 60 days without a sale.
Yes, 30 Day listings are not considered stale. When we looked at our numbers with the tech group, we had very little that was stale or stagnant. Only our GTC without sales were there.
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07/27/2018 at 3:39 pm #46280
Im confused why eBay doesn’t say that GTC listings should be for multiple listings only. I’d say a small percentage of single items sell within 60 days.
When you do 30-day listings, do you just refresh? Or do sell similar?
If you’re just manually re-upping an item every 30 days, Im confused what the difference is between 30-day and letting items go GTC according to the eBay search algorithm?
One is just a little more work, but no difference in the listing itself. Assume the title, price, item details can ll be the same.
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07/27/2018 at 5:58 pm #46292
We are 30-Day, and with SixBit, it resends the listing.
Technically, I think that SixBit is “relisting” for us if we use the Auto Relist feature.
I spent time with the SixBit group and got more information. When you relist an item on eBay, there is a history on that item that has it’s previous listing history associated with it. So listing #789 is created, and eBay knows that it was previously listing #456, and previously #123 before that. And the sales history follows that (this is the “Relist” vs “Sell Similar” discussion, as Sell Similar is a fresh listing, no history).
So when we have SixBit Auto Relist, we are essentially “relisting” our items. However, if we want, we can let our items end, and when we resubmit them from SixBit, we can click the box for “Relist as New”. This will blow away the previous history and send the items to eBay as completely new listings.
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07/27/2018 at 6:21 pm #46296
So currently your way of auto re-listing is no better than GTC since everything is the exact same?
Seems kind of dumb that all you have to do is relist as “sell similar” to trick the system. Why do they even make you bother?
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07/27/2018 at 6:29 pm #46300
I think because all eBay is trying to to is convert listings to sales. They are trying to use as much data as possible to make that happen. If they see a listing that is converting a lot of sales, they figure more buyers will like that listing. If they see a listing that is old and hasn’t converted any sales, then they figure buyers will be less interested in the listing.
Again, this is only one part of the equation. Just like having the lowest price isn’t the only factor in converting to a sale. You guys routinely make sales with higher priced items, and with “Stale” and “Stagnant” listings. So since you are making sales even if Stale or Stagnant, it isn’t everything.
Just one part of the soup.
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07/27/2018 at 3:19 pm #46278
Jay wrote: Two important questions:
–What’s the point of GTC listings if they push you down in search if you dont sell an item in 60 days?
>>>> MDC Reply.. Well as u have said many times before if you are the only one or one of only a few items of like kind then who cares about search placement. You will be one of the only 3 on a results page. And when the others sell, if no more come on line, then at some point you will be the only one. And at this point you can be stale and be 8 years old, if someone types in the keywords that u have in your title they will find you regardless of what Ebay thinks about your numbers, sell through rates, hot-cold items, etc., You are king by the fact you are the only one in the game regardless of what Cassini or Ebay thinks of you or how you run your business. They surely arent going to not show you if the buyer searches and your key words pop your item up. Think you have stated this in different words before.–Did they confirm that simply re-listing an item every 30 days tricks eBay into thinking its a fresh listing?
>>> MDC Replies.. See my question to T-satt I just osted. If he can differentiate for us what criteria Ebay will use to define stale vs non-stale then we may have the answer. If only doing a small alteration to a title, description, price, etc. will suffice to have Ebay give us the status as “non-stale”. Then something as simple as [in our 3rd party apps] set a rule to bulk increase all listings by 1 or 2%. Then the next month lower the prices back down by 1 or 2%. The big question is what is the answer. Will Ebay see this as being active on your listing even though no slae of the item. Especially when we only have a quntitiy of “ONE”,? This means Ebay can’t use Sales quantity as a benchmark of deciding if you have a stale listing or not. The only one you sell is the only one you got then there won’t be another sale. So in order for your listing of that item to stay “NON-STALE / STAGNANT” then is all ebay asking is you visit all your listings once a month and do some small thing to change it, even by just addoing one character to the end of a title or desciption and is that enough to make our listings stay “FRESH”?This are the essence of what we have all been talking about for several years, ever since that enginner who worked on Cassini mentioned this at that Australian Open a few years back.
So let’s see what T-Satt comes up with as far as a definition or requirement other than a Sale or a complete end and relist to stay “FRESH”!
Mike at MDC Galleries
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07/27/2018 at 3:42 pm #46281
From what I understand, most sellers who relist every 30 days DONT change the listing at all. It’s just an automatic relist.
Tsatt needs to clarify if he knows.
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07/27/2018 at 4:58 pm #46282
Yep that is what we were doing. End the complete listing totally. Then relist the same listing automatically using a RULE on WL and relist it as a brand new listing and get a brand new ID number and use the same listing as in the previous month without any changes at all. We did not have to do anything or even watch it. It worked just as automatically as GTC only it was totally killed and brand new relisted with a new number on Auto-Pilot within WL.But when we heard about the new change were newly listed items would not be allowed to be included in a Sale, then last week we went and changed everything back to all GTC.
But we do have a higher margin built in for those “perma-sales. We ran a Sale that started every Tues. morning and ended the same up coming Sunday night. 5 days on Sale and 2 days off. But with the new change whereby every new listing would have to wait 2 weeks before it could go on Sale, we ended the whole process and bulk edited everything back to GTC, and not with any problems. It took about a week of working out glitches within WonderLister to get everything back to GTC and in synch with all of the account numbers and financial reports.
So now that we are NOT trying to stay FRESH by ending and relisting and that process is out the window. Then what can we do, as sellers of single items to stay FRESH in Ebay eyes and not get dropped from any boosts and includes Ebay has to offer.
So, like you said, if T-Satt can get Ebay to give us the answer. Will doing just one small change to a lising, even just one character, keep us FRESH and included in Ebay benefits and search results or anything else you can benefit from by having a new listing that sells in 30-60-90 days????
i sure hope he comes back and says that Ebay will see a minor, one character change as something they will see as a change worthy of their good gracies and reward us. If not then GTC is the bad child and will be punished if not a multi quantity item and a sale of one of the multiples is not made within a short time.
T-Satt had the Ebay tech team look over his listings. well I knew he would be good as gold because he is automatically ending his listings and relisting every 30 days and is also willing to not worry about any one the ones that are new being able to be included in the first weeks into a Sales events.
I also wonder about single quantity items that are over 90 days, about using “Promoted Listing Promotions”. What is the use of selecting Promoted Listings and paying an extra 4,5,6% to Ebay for extra exposure if they see you as a stale seller with all of your listings over 90 days as 100% stale and ignore you in special offerings, promotions, search results, etc. What is my extra 6% buying me. Or are they saying, if you will give us an extra 6% [other words bribe us], we will over look your 3 year old GTC listing and give you an extra boost. Seems more like extortion [pardon the reference to the you know what forums] to me than extra Promotion juice???
So many things to ponder with these guys, these days.
Since we all really love what we do, I need to ask a favor, will somebody plaese email me and let me know when we are having fun???? I don’t want to miss it!! LOL-Ha 🙂 🙂
mike at MDC Galleries
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This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
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07/27/2018 at 5:13 pm #46284
Yeah, it just seems super dumb and arbitrary that eBay expects people to simple auto-relist every 30 days to be “fresh”.
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07/27/2018 at 6:21 pm #46297
Mike: Yeah, I’m really kicking myself for not asking if tweaking a listing moves it out of “Stale” status. In my mind, I want to say no, as I don’t think that was the intent.
But to be honest, I just don’t know for sure.
I have a message out to the eBay contact I have in this area to see what I can find out. No promises though…
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07/27/2018 at 6:12 pm #46293
Jay: So the Stale/Stagnant listing is part of the overall soup that Cassini uses for best match for buyers. How old the item is (if it is Stale/Stagnant) is only part of that mixture. So it is only one of many items that is used by Cassini.
How much? They won’t say. They can’t tell everyone everything or everyone would game the system the same way. But does the listing being Stale/Stagnant hurt? Yes.
We don’t know how much, but we know it was enough for them to include it on our one page report that they sent to us on our store. So like many other factors we discuss, it is just one metric to be aware of. It isn’t a “gamechanger”, no one item is. But getting as many items as right as possible will get as many sales as possible.
Not all ingredients help convert to a sale (which is what Cassini is looking for, listings that convert), but the better the ingredients, the better the soup that people will buy.
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07/27/2018 at 5:51 pm #46289
Mike and Jay: On the first point, I agree with both of you. Jay and Ryanne have proven that you don’t HAVE to be best in search to be successful (though that comes with different risks and rewards to your business. All hashed out many times.)
On the second, I’m ticked at myself for not digging in further on this issue. We were long in our session (our 15 minutes I stretched past 20), and since we don’t do GTC much, it didn’t occur to me to drive into this more.
But I will see what I can do to find out more about this.
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07/27/2018 at 3:05 pm #46277
T-Satt.. This is great reorting. Feel like we have our own roving reporter.
Question On the Stale-Stagnant topic.. for clarification. Are you saying that a listing that just gets a tweak in title, description price etc. will NOT BE seen as stagnant. Just those without anything OR does a listing have to go through the whole process of being ended and then totally relisted? That has been sort of the big back and forth on here. Yes being seen as stgnanet or not is part of the question but the prevention of that is the hard battled question between J&R and the GTC members vs. the totally end and relist to get a new ID no. each month.
If a simple matter of altering the rpices once a month, then using SixBit or WonderLister can use an auto rule to lower all prices 2% on the 26th of every even numbered months and then on every odd numbered months raise the prices back up 2%. That would indeed meet the criteria of just “CHANGING” a listing every 30 days but not having to completely end the listing and then totally relist.
On the same note would not appending the title with “one character” do the same or have a blank field Item specific whereby every 30 days, a new letter A, B, C, D, etc., etc. also do the same thing? And agagin a auto rule created in any of the 3rd party apps can do this and do it in bulk or as each item naturaly ends and then rolls over in the GTC duration status.
If just a tweak to alter the listing will suffice that will be great for the 3rd party app guys.
But ending and re-listing… PLEASE SHOOT ME, I just got through taking all of our listings OFF OF the 30 day auto end and relist, deleted the rule in WL and bulk changed everything back to GTC.
Mike at MDC Galleries
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07/27/2018 at 5:48 pm #46288
Mike: Great question, and I feel dumb for not asking it while I had them. I will have to see what I can find out regarding that.
My guess would be that just updating the listing would not be enough to change it from stale/stagnant. My understanding was that what it is looking at are listings that convert to sales. If the listing hasn’t converted to a sale, it drops in search. If it has converted to a sale, it rises in search. This is why having multiple quantity listings as GTC make sense. If you are getting sales on that listing, it rises and gets more sales. But if it doesn’t convert, it should be ended and relisted.
I believe the long strategy session from a few years ago that we have discussed a few times was similar in it’s suggestion, and I know that I have read this from other places as well: Single quantity should be 30-Day, with multi-quantity as GTC PROVIDED that it is also converting to sales. If it doesn’t convert, then end it, tweak it, relist it.
PS – I wish Jay and Ryanne were here with us. We spent a lot of time with Tim Chapman, who advocates the lowest level inventory possible. “Blow it out!”
I would pay tickets to watch this conversation… 🙂
I love the different perspectives!!!
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07/27/2018 at 6:53 pm #46304
Thanks for all the updates, T-Satt. I had no idea the level of nitty gritty you could get into with the ebay higher-ups on these issues.
What frustrates me is that you have to go to ebay open to get this level of attention in the first place. There is no open line of communication for these type of talks through an online intermediary venue with these higher-ups, or even by phone. You have to pay to get access.
Even then, it sounds like being there for the most part is for the newbie to get excited by being in the presence of such ebay luminaries. To get hyped up like at a sports game for sellers who have had only a few hundred sales, if even that many. It is all show, not really substance for the bulk of people attending, as well as a convenient tax write-off.
I’m glad that you were able to get straight, real answers (not all positive) out of the mgmt. in the midst of all the production.
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07/28/2018 at 11:31 am #46330
Almasty: Yes, there is a good segment of the Open that is geared towards the newer seller, and that will probably have to always be there, as there are always new sellers. That was why this year, I only attended a few of the breakout groups. We hit all of the General Sessions, and then did some breakout groups on Day 2, but we spent most of Day 3 in the Expo Hall, getting in depth with vendors and with eBay Techs. It was great to have access to them one on one and really have a conversation on issues and ideas for improvement. I could really see the challenges they have maintaining a platform for everything from the small new seller to a large corporation, but the also really listened to the issues and ideas we had. There were a number of times that they were taking notes from us on ideas for improvement and thought we had great ideas to make things better.
PS – I will tell you that even the higher ups are willing to listen. I sent a long message to Bob Kupbens on why we were going to have to pass on the Managed Payments first wave, and Bob responded back later that day. If you have some items that you want to discuss with him, reach out at BOB@EBAY.COM. That really is his email, and he really does read and respond. And he put that out there for everyone at Open, so he invites feedback.
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07/27/2018 at 7:24 pm #46305
I would love a podcast interview with T-Satt and J&R re ebay open 2018. It is really helpful to read all this but a live interview would be amazing.
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07/27/2018 at 9:22 pm #46310
Hooray and thanks for putting this all in front of the people who can address it!
Thanks times a million!
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07/28/2018 at 11:33 am #46332
buytikiselltiki: No problem! Hope I helped get some info to eBay and some answers to you all!
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07/27/2018 at 10:18 pm #46312
Was there much discussion about recent glitches and issues with the site?
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07/27/2018 at 11:01 pm #46314
Hello, I just got home from eBay Open 2018; I met T-Satt’s group (and Sharpp) there and they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life! Sigilini you are 100% correct, T-Satt is King! Anyway, in answer to Sharyn’s question: EBay executives opened with apologies for the recent glitches and issues with the site. After that I didn’t personally hear a ton of sellers talking about it very much. I thought it would come up a lot more in the Q & A portions of the workshops and pop-ups, but not so much, at least not at the ones I attended.
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07/28/2018 at 9:42 am #46323
When these glitches happened last month, folks were saying that eBay Open was going to be inundated with questions and complaints. I guess enough time has gone by that it’s not as pressing. I was curious as to whether it was a big topic or not.
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07/28/2018 at 11:35 am #46333
Sharyn: I was a little surprised as well, but I think that with Devin saying “it is unacceptable”, and alluded to personnel changes taking place after that, people saw that he took it serious, made changes, and is moving forward.
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07/29/2018 at 9:39 am #46370
Vintage Treasures: Thanks a bunch! It was great meeting with you, and we are looking forward to seeing you again soon.
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07/28/2018 at 10:57 am #46328
T-Satt this is awesome! Thank you so much for taking the time to post all of this information. It’s the next best thing to being there! Or maybe even better because I didn’t have to pay bookoo (beaucoup?) bucks to get there.
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07/28/2018 at 11:47 am #46336
JulieB: No problem! That was basically my thinking, that since we are here, we can try to get the Trash Elf Nation’s questions answered. It really is a good conference, even if you don’t attend any breakout sessions. Even just spending a full day with the eBay Tech Team, getting questions answered, getting ideas in front them for them to improve, that is huge. And the I came away with some new friends, some new business contacts, and new plans for our next phase of the business. Well worth the time.
And a Tax Advantaged time in Vegas doesn’t hurt! Finding lots of local spots to hit, and hit one last night. The Bootlegger Bistro, and meet up with George Bugatti, a great singer and even nicer guy.
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07/28/2018 at 12:28 pm #46342
Wondering if anyone attending complained to ebay staffers about the lack of communication and the lack of help from customer service with all of the recent glitches? Any acknowledgement by ebay that they could communicate better?
TSatt are you saying you relist every 30 days not sell similar? And you are seeing the increase in sales in the early and latter part of the month that you mentioned in a previous thread. I guess I thought you were doing sell similar. Why is relisting better than sell similar? I thought it was the other way around.
Thank you for all of the information you’ve shared!
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07/28/2018 at 12:56 pm #46344
Nancy: I would think that from a purely metrics standpoint, that Sell Similar would be better than a Relist. This is because when you Sell Similar, you are creating a fresh listing that has 0 sales history. When you Relist, even though it is a new listing number, the sales history from it’s past listing numbers are attached to it.
For us though, we are technically Relisting based on how we use SixBit. We have our listings set to automatically relist when they end. John at SixBit confirmed that when that happens, the prior listing history is still attached to the new number (PS – Just because you get a new listing number doesn’t mean it is 100% new. If you Relist or Sell Similar, both get a new listing number, but the Relist has the prior sales history attached behind the scenes). So we are “Relisting” as that is how the Auto Relist feature works in SixBit.
The good news is that with SixBit, we can also choose to have our listings Sent as New. We can’t do that with the Auto Relist, but every few months, we have our items end rather than Auto Relist. At that time we can review older items to see if we need pricing adjustments, new titles, etc. Then when we send them back to eBay, we can check the box to Send as New. This blows away the prior listing history and is a true 100% fresh new listing. Because we are managing this through SixBit, we avoid having duplicate listings (something that happened when we tried Sell Similar direct on eBay).
End of the day, this helps your listings, but by how much is the question. Like a lot of the other issues we talked about, your placement in Best Match is really a mixed soup. Price, Title, Sales History, Promotions, Free Shipping, etc… these are all ingredients in the soup that add up to your placement in search. No one item is the GameChanger that will bring lots of sales. The best you can do is to have the best ingredients in as many of these categories as possible, and sales will follow.
As we talked about before, Jay and Ryanne do very well with lots of “Stale” and “Stagnant” listings. But with the types of items they are selling, that ingredient isn’t needed. They make a different flavor soup and they sell it well!
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07/28/2018 at 9:26 pm #46356
Thank you, TSatt.
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07/29/2018 at 12:36 am #46362
Thanks TSatt! I got to say Hello to TSatt, but , alas, that’s as far as we got…pretty tired right now, we got home today should have been home yesterday, but our flight was cancelled at the last minute (literally, we were on the runway, and they turned around LOL)
Anyway, just wanted to add one thing that I don’t think TSatt mentioned…I spoke with the Promotions Manager ebay team leader, and she told me they will be replacing the little used “codeless coupon” with a coded coupon for sellers….hopefully in time for Q4 use. I think that will be a big improvement!
Also, Bob Kupbens hinted in his speech that the Fall Seller Release will be out in a few days or weeks….so I’m thinking sometime in August.
We had a great time, but next year I think I’ll follow TSatt’s plan…spend more time with fellow sellers and ebay staff/vendors, less time at workshops.
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07/29/2018 at 9:30 am #46369
MyCottage: Sorry we didn’t have more time to get together!
I think many veteran sellers do that plan with eBay Open. After the first year, they spend more time in the Expo Hall talking with vendors, networking, and putting plans together to grow their businesses. The breakout sessions that were really useful this year were on sales tax, Google search, and $1M sellers. If you get a chance, watch those, especially the $1M sellers. One guy was very inspiring, doing $1M Gross, with a 20% net…by himself.
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07/29/2018 at 9:55 am #46371
T Satt, Yep, very sorry we didn’t get to spend some time together. This was my first rodeo, I’ll know better for next year. (If we go…better half has veto power LOL) I definitely found the Google search to be worthwhile, didn’t get to the other two you mentioned.
I will also be sure to have business cards for next year….
Having been there once, I can now see what everyone means when they say the real value is the time spent with other ebay sellers, ebay staff and vendors. And everyone I met was great.
Oh, one other thing I learned, may not mean much to those with handy Fed Ex access, but for those of us in the boonies: Fed Ex is partnering with WalMart, and eventually ALL WalMart stores will allow Fed Ex package drop offs.
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07/30/2018 at 3:22 pm #46446
I don’t have scientific evidence but I can say that in my opinion based on what I see coming up on my watched listings, I believe that relisting and/or selling similar does make a difference. Not in sales perhaps but after selling similar or relisting I can definitely see old items coming up on my watched items that were not watched before or that used to be watched and then dropped off and now again being watched.
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07/30/2018 at 8:41 pm #46478
Third party apps: I was just about to get InkFrog or SixBit is that still a good idea now?
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07/30/2018 at 9:21 pm #46485
Shortcut: I would say so, and I love SixBit. The issues are only in the first wave of Managed Payments. They will get those back in soon.
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07/31/2018 at 8:05 pm #46554
So Troy, who is the guy standing at the corner in Winslow Arizona?
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07/31/2018 at 10:03 pm #46570
Glenn Frye is from the Detroit area. He went to Dondero HS in Royal Oak and graduated in 1966.
In 2016 they unveiled a Glenn Frey Drive sign in Royal Oak in his honor.
Just some trivia from a Michiganian.
Mark
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08/01/2018 at 3:05 pm #46644
I have a question regarding punctuation / special characters in titles. I think you said that ebay is saying not to have any in your title. Ironically when ebay prefills your title from their product catalog for books, music and movies there is usually lots of punctuation. Would you recommend taking that out? Did they say anything about catalog product titles including punctuation. They often have ( ) and : and …
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08/01/2018 at 7:13 pm #46655
Yep. No special characters except hyphen. Remove everything else.
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08/11/2018 at 8:27 pm #47305
The workshop videos from ebay open 2018 are up. You have to enter your information to watch. Cyndi from Amazing Taste is on the panel of the Fashion Workshop. I haven’t watched any of them yet but saw on Instagram that they are now available
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