Happy Birthday eBay Your City and welcome Berlin!
In today's podcast episode, together with Oliver Klinck, the Managing Director of eBay Germany, and the Mönchengladbach dealer Rolf Krichel from Kunsthaus Krichel, we look back on one year of “eBay Deine Stadt” and celebrate the newly added local marketplace in Berlin with the Berlin dealer Ariane Dykiert from La Fraise Rouge.
“eBay Deine Stadt” enables cities and municipalities to set up local online marketplaces where buyers can find offers from retailers in their city and support local retail online.
**Important links**
eBay Deine Stadt: https://www.ebay-deine-stadt.de
eBay Deine Stadt - Berlin: https://www.ebay-deine-stadt.de/berlin
Kunsthaus Krichel on eBay: https://www.ebay.de/str/kunsthauskrichel
La Fraise Rouge on eBay: https://www.ebay.de/usr/lafraiserouge
David: Hello dear listeners, and welcome to our podcast episode today for our sellers and of course everyone who wants to become one. My podcast colleague Tino and I are very happy that you’ve tuned in again.
Tino: Yes, hi David and hello to everyone here as well! A new week, a new podcast, and today we’re once again welcoming eBay Germany Managing Director Oliver Klink, with whom we’d like to look back on a successful first year of eBay Deine Stadt and talk about our new partner city Berlin. So hello to Oliver!
Oliver: Hello everyone and hello, dear listeners! I’m very happy to be here again today.
David: Great! Today we’re also welcoming two sellers in our studio. A few days ago we launched eBay Deine Stadt in Berlin as well, and we definitely want to hear more firsthand, so we invited Ariane Dykiert. Hello Ariane!
Ariane: Hello everyone!
David: And since we’re also celebrating the one-year anniversary of eBay Deine Stadt, Rolf Krichel is our guest, whose art business has been with us since the very beginning of our initiative and was already on board with the pilot project in 2015. Hello Rolf!
Rolf: Yes, hello everyone! I’m happy to be here.
Tino: At the beginning of our episode, though, we’d first like to talk about you. Please tell our listeners who you are and, in the case of our two guests, what kind of business you run.
David: Ariane, would you like to start?
Ariane: Yes, gladly. I’m Ariane Dykiert. My label is la fraise rouge. That means the red strawberry. And we make birth gifts. These are lots of personalized items. Cushions, scarves, warming pillows. And we also sell fabrics and music boxes for the DIY sector, as well as kindergarten bags.
David: Very nice! Rolf, what about you?
Rolf: Yes, my name is Rolf Krichel from Kunsthaus Krichel in Mönchengladbach. And I’m now running our business in the fourth generation. With our framing workshop, as I said, we’re based in Mönchengladbach and through the initiative we’ve now also started out in online retail, especially with eBay Deine Stadt, which of course is great for the local marketplace and the city.
David: Very nice, Oliver! For anyone who may not know you yet, can you briefly say a bit about yourself?
Oliver: Yes, gladly! Oliver Klink, Managing Director of eBay Germany, with eBay since 2018. And I’m always looking forward to appointments like this, where I get in touch with our customers, in this case our sellers, especially the local ones on site. Because that always shows us the diversity we actually have on our marketplace. So I’m really looking forward to our conversation today!
David: Then let’s get started right away! Oliver, for all those among our listeners who may not know anything about our eBay Deine Stadt project yet: could you briefly explain what exactly it is?
Oliver: Gladly, David! We launched eBay Deine Stadt a year ago. Initially with ten cities with which we entered into partnership there. Today there are 27. The latest city to join is Berlin, and of course that makes us very happy. Before Berlin, we already had 7,000 sellers we cooperate with in these cities. With Berlin alone, another 4,000 have been added. And it’s a very successful initiative, which makes me very happy because it gives local retail a face.
David: And who is eBay Deine Stadt intended for? So who does it make sense for to take part?
Oliver: There are actually two target groups. One was already mentioned: the local sellers. And the other are the cities and municipalities. Both are important to us because we want to bring the two together and give a face to the sellers based in these cities. It’s also important that we work with the municipalities and that they take an active role in this. And back to the sellers: for us, this includes both brick-and-mortar retailers, but also those who practically run purely online businesses and may not yet have a physical store, but are based in these cities. However, the majority of sellers, of course, who are based in the cities, come from a brick-and-mortar background. Today we also have two here, and of course we want to help them sell even more if they are already selling online, to get even more online sales, even more visibility. On the other hand, we also want to motivate sellers to go online, so to win new sellers who sell with us. Because it is precisely the brick-and-mortar sellers who list our very unique assortment. And that is of course very interesting for our customers.
Tino: And Rolf, we’re now looking back on one year of eBay Deine Stadt. But you already told us earlier that you’ve been involved much longer. So, basically, a seller from day one. And also already part of the pilot project in Mönchengladbach on eBay in 2015. From that came the eBay Deine Stadt initiative, and since then you’ve also been reachable online for your customers. What do you think of the whole eBay Deine Stadt initiative?
Rolf: As I’ve already mentioned, the initiative was basically worth its weight in gold for us, because with eBay’s support and help we had the opportunity to make our products available online, so that they were also seen and could be ordered by customers locally or throughout Germany, which was of course fantastic for us. And that gave us the chance to build an omnichannel presence, in addition to being present in-store and online.
David: Oliver, could you perhaps look back on the year of eBay Deine Stadt once more from your perspective? What are our biggest learnings?
Oliver: I think the biggest learning is that this initiative, for me too, gained much more momentum than we initially thought. We actually assumed we might win ten cities in the first year. We had ten cities right at the start, and now, as I said, we’re at 27, so it’s working very well. The learnings are that it takes much more than simply providing a platform. That’s why we also launched further initiatives, such as our eBay Accelerator Program, which is specifically designed to help sellers who are new to online sales to be successful there. Or eBay Instant Shipping, which is a logistics service where, especially for brick-and-mortar sellers who may not yet sell much online, we offer a service at the beginning where pickup can be ordered in the morning and the goods can then be collected directly from the store in the afternoon. We do this together with FIEGE. Not all cities are live yet, but we’re in steady rollout there, as the saying goes. And these are, for example, two good examples showing that it really takes a lot of service, but on the other hand it also brings a lot of success when, alongside the brick-and-mortar channel, you explore the online channel with us.
Tino: Rolf, your business is now in its fourth generation as a family-run company. Through eBay Deine Stadt, you also hoped that the connection between online and local would work even better. Has that worked out from your point of view?
Rolf: I would say that worked wonderfully, because customers can see whether the product is available in the city when I go out there. And we all know it ourselves. It’s terrible when you’re frustrated and then go out and the product isn’t there. Of course, I also have the option of getting in touch with the seller beforehand. The nice thing about eBay Deine Stadt, and this shouldn’t be forgotten, is that there are several sellers present on this platform. And another great thing is the exchange among each other. When you approach another seller and say, hey, how did it go for you, or can you help me with this? What’s your experience? Especially when you’re just starting out, I think being able to exchange ideas like this is a really great thing.
David: And one of your absolute focus topics is personalization, meaning that your customers really get goods tailored specifically to them. Especially picture frames and so on have to fit, of course. How well can this focus and this personalization be implemented with eBay Deine Stadt?
Rolf: To be honest, for me in the workshop it’s much, much easier. Yes, because I have direct contact with the customer and can discuss it with them using different samples. Of course, this doesn’t work quite as well online yet, because there are still a few tools missing that are provided to sellers to make that happen. But I think eBay is on a good path and something will happen, and we’re in contact about it!
David: Very nice, exactly! You’re meeting with colleagues in a moment and discussing exactly this topic too, right?
Rolf: That’s right, and I’m very much looking forward to it, thank you!
Tino: Oliver! And now we’ve also started in Berlin with eBay Deine Stadt. For us, as eBay’s home location, that naturally has enormous significance. Would you like to tell us a word or two about it?
Oliver: Yes, gladly! Most of our employees of course also live in Berlin. So we have very close proximity there, which we’ll also use to get in even more contact with our customers, in this case the sellers, on site and learn even more about what we can do better and what works well. And of course that makes us happy too, and it’s simply a very large city, also for us, because 4,000 sellers are based there alone, and there are also publications from other marketplaces where you can see what 4,000 sellers actually mean. So that’s a pretty high number, just in the city of Berlin, which eBay has already won there as customers and sellers. And of course that makes us very happy!
Tino: And Ariane, now with the topic of Berlin we’re finally coming directly to you and your great shop la fraise rouge. It was created from, well, actually a hobby of yours. Would you like to tell us a bit about that, give us a little retrospective on how your path was?
Ariane: Gladly! Well, actually you can’t really call it a hobby, because I completed a degree, I’m an industrial engineer, and then I worked in film. And then we had a child and I had to think of something else, and I thought I’d like to do something with my hands, I’d like to make something beautiful, actually create things, and I had one of my very, very best friends, who also has a knack for that, she experimented with lots of fabrics. Very colorful, retro, really Berlin. And I liked that. I soon realized that I’m more the harmonious type. So I couldn’t manage her color mixes. With me, everything is more like, ah yes, light. Yes, then I made little rattles and also the kindergarten bags we make. I started with that early on. And then I was in a shop once and had a nice chat with the owner and, on leaving, said: well, I do a little bit of this too. Then she immediately became very interested and said I should show it to her and bring it by sometime. And that’s how it started, that I sold things on commission and actually, through recommendations, more and more shops were added. So I didn’t really have to do that much. Then newspaper articles came, then customers from outside Berlin came too. Then, for example, from Tegernsee, which is a very big customer. That brought in larger orders and more money. Then it switched from commission sales to people buying it, because that’s actually much easier to handle. And then the owner of a large online shop, Bettina, found me and got in touch. We became a bit friends, and then she said: Ariane, you need your own online shop, this won’t do! And that was in 2006, still pretty early, and of course that was exciting. The first online shop, how does that work? You had to find someone who could do it. And by now we’ve had quite a few of our own online shops. But it was also great when the first order came in, out of nowhere, without any advertising at all. Yes, that’s how it came about.
David: Ariane, besides your online channels, you also run a brick-and-mortar shop in Berlin, and now eBay Deine Stadt is drawing attention to it as well. How do you personally evaluate the eBay Deine Stadt initiative?
Ariane: I think it’s a really great initiative because brick-and-mortar retail can really use the extra attention. And I also think it’s great when sellers are seen individually. Everyone is naturally happy about more attention, because I think many have great products, but nowadays you also have to be able to find them. And I think a lot has shifted toward online retail. But when you also see that there are real people behind it, with stories and families and real craftsmanship, then that’s beneficial for everyone. For me personally, it’s also fantastic, definitely, because the location where we are is not a high-foot-traffic area. We chose the place because we live very close by, and it’s very practical and the premises simply suit having a shop. And back then we calculated it a bit. Well, it may not be a busy area, but if every day someone buys something for 20 euros, that will be worth it. And that’s more or less how it is. Someone comes in every day and buys something, or often, but a pure shop-only business wouldn’t be worthwhile for us. But it’s nice to have the contact and also to get that personal feedback, because online is sometimes almost a bit sterile. You make the nice things, you send them out, some people get back to you and are totally happy and write emails. But in the shop you can already see the joy there, and we also have such sweet stories. Just now, someone got in touch who had once ordered cushions for her children. They now live in Canada. The cushions are totally worn out, and they said they absolutely need the same ones again. They also order everything twice again, because the children just love them so much. Or the other day someone was here who could hardly believe their luck; they needed it for the next day. Actually even better for the same day, because they then had to travel to Hamburg for a baptism. And I said: yes, no problem, I’ll get it ready for you! Then you may have to pick it up at my home in the evening, because otherwise it won’t work in time. They did that too and were incredibly happy. And of course that’s great when you have that kind of contact.
Tino: And Ariane, what role does eBay Deine Stadt, but also eBay in general, play for you in your mix of different channels? So omnichannel and also for your customers?
Ariane: eBay is of course a major pillar; it’s one of the biggest platforms there is. And we’ve been selling products there since 2016, not so many customized ones so far, because that isn’t necessarily the marketplace people would first look for that on. But a lot is about to change there, and we’re looking forward to that too. And yes, for us it would actually be unthinkable not to sell on eBay. We sell a lot of music boxes and fabrics there, or things people can do something with themselves, and ready-made products.
Tino: Now I have to ask quickly: In which neighborhood is your shop located?
Ariane: In Kreuzberg, of course! We’re right on Großbeerenstraße. That’s a bit funny because la fraise rouge is the strawberry, the little berry on Großbeerenstraße, and that’s the one that leads directly to Kreuzberg. So right in the center!
David: The question is, where is your shop, Rolf? Does that fit the name too, or what?
Rolf: It’s actually the case that there’s also a Krichelstraße nearby, but we ourselves are on the main shopping street, Hindenburgstraße, with our shop, yes.
David: Very nice! Rolf, this personal contact surely also plays a big role for you in your shop. You already mentioned making things a bit more personalized. How do you evaluate that and how well do you manage it online as well?
Rolf: Especially the personal contact, the individual design possibilities, which are essential in framing for me, are of course very important, yes. Because you get direct feedback, you lay out different options, you design things together, you develop something together. That can’t be replaced by anything, and it’s also very nice to see the result afterward when the customer gives their feedback, because it’s always difficult to choose something like that based on samples. And in the end you have the finished product and then say: hey, wow! That’s when the aha effect comes. We in production can of course judge that better. Online it’s a bit more difficult, I’m completely honest. Because you can get together via mailings or through a phone call. But there is still potential there. You need the right tools at hand so that the customer can also imagine it better, and then it actually works online too. But as things stand now, there’s still a bit of work to do!
David: Thank you for the exciting and interesting insights! We learned a lot. We learned that within one year of eBay Deine Stadt, many cities have been added, and with 11,000 sellers, quite a few merchants could be won over as well. Of course we still have a lot planned, we learned that there is still quite a bit to do. We’re naturally working on several topics, and some have already been implemented. The topic of personalization has now been mentioned several times. We’re working on that too. But I think it’s already been a very successful year, right? Oliver, how do you see it?
Oliver: Yes, definitely! And personalization has been mentioned. Here it’s all about eBay Deine Stadt. And to give some context again: on our core platform, as we call it, i.e. eBay.de, we’re also expanding the feature there to give sellers more visibility locally. That goes as far as already having features live where sellers can address their customers directly. So a small CRM system, as they say, is already built in there too. But these are only the first steps. You can also follow certain sellers with us. So buyers can say: ah, I find this seller interesting and I want to keep following them and learn more from them and buy more from them. So there are quite a few features that we are also adding on our core platform around the topic of localizing our offering. And I’m very much looking forward to that too!
David: Very nice! Before we get to our last question, one more note to all listeners: in the show notes you’ll find all the information about eBay Deine Stadt, but of course also the links to the shops of our two guests here. And now we come to the recurring question at the end of our podcast: Oliver, what was the last thing you bought on eBay?
Oliver: Those were two items. One came from a local seller, namely a case for my new phone or mobile phone, which I bought. And that comes from a local seller in Bonn. And the second one is, to be honest, from a seller in England, because I also always like to have and buy the newest electronic toys. And that wasn’t even available in Germany yet. And so I also took advantage of the fact that we are additionally a global platform and that you can also find things with us that you can’t yet find in Germany.
Tino: Very nice, Oliver! And the follow-up question: was your phone case personalized?
Oliver: No, it wasn’t. But we do already have personalized phone cases! In this case, it was more a matter of personal taste that I didn’t choose a personalized one. But it’s a very high-quality phone case, made locally from leather. Also with a few nice features that I won’t go into in detail here. But I’ve already bought my last phone case from that seller and remembered him. As I said, we have features where you can keep coming back to the same seller.
Tino: Very nice! And Ariane, I’d now like to know what you last sold on eBay.
Ariane: The last thing I sold was a cloud cushion with a name.
Tino: Oh, lovely! Nice and cozy, very good! And you, Rolf, what was the last thing you sold on eBay?
Rolf: Yes, from our religious assortment I think it was a children’s wall cross.
Tino: That also fits pretty well with confirmation and communion season right now.
Rolf: Yes, baptism always works!
David: Very nice! Yes, we’re very happy about your feedback on our podcast. Feel free to share your experiences with eBay Deine Stadt in the eBay Community. Also leave us your questions there, we’ll be happy to pass them on to our colleagues. And of course we’re always very happy when you leave us a subscription or a like wherever you’re listening to us, or maybe even a rating. But I’d like to thank our guests very, very warmly for their time and for the very interesting insights. Ariane, Rolf, thank you so, so much for being here!
Tino: Yes, and then a very warm thank-you to both of you first for being here. It’s always great when you talk to sellers personally. I always particularly like that. And David, to you as well again as co-host, always a pleasure, and a very big thank-you to Oliver! Thanks so much for your time and see you in the next episode!
Oliver: Thank you very much!
David: Bye!
Oliver: Bye!
Ariane: Thanks! Bye!
Rolf: Bye-bye! Bye.
By
6 comments
passionepassato
·4 years agoHi, thanks for the feedback, oh well, my old lady and I have been at it for years, know our way around everything, but we noticed in the community that many of the topics mentioned are basically new territory for a lot of people, otherwise so many wouldn’t be showing up there. From a buyer’s point of view alone, there’s nothing on the main page to show the topic of sustainability. I’m of the opinion that eBay in particular could shine much more with used goods than it has so far, as I said, that was the foundation of eBay once, and all the members who’ve been driven away could be brought back on board / into the fold with the right levers. Surely with more success than that plastic trash from Asia can. As the saying goes, let’s sweep in front of our own door first.... Of course many people always want things cheap, cheaper, and cheapest, but in the end they end up with a seller from China and, after receiving the goods, hit the hard reality very nicely and no less deservedly: "I should have paid a bit more and ordered in Germany." As far as I’ve gathered, eBay also makes more from us than from the Chinese; they probably have only a fraction of the fees that we have to pay. So it’s definitely worth highlighting us on both sides. You can’t invest enough in this topic and maybe even work on a series. In the end, it’s up to you. We ourselves wouldn’t even want to be considered for any feature. But some fellow sellers need a push in terms of publicity right now, when sales are gone, just to be able to keep going at all... A series of podcasts about secondhand sellers would definitely be a win for eBay and its sellers... Thanks in any case for your work, I always enjoy listening in when I post something. It’s a good thing topic-wise!!
Sunny greetings from the far east 🙂
Kaya
podcast@ebay
@passionepassato Thank you very much for the detailed feedback and topic suggestions. Some topics, such as sustainability and refurbished, we have already covered (https://community.ebay.de/t5/Podcast-%C3%9Cbersicht/Refurbished-B-Ware-und-Retouren-Nachhaltig-handeln-in-einem/ba-p/4517505), others are already in the planning.
We will definitely take your suggestions on board and see which topics we can fit into our schedule for an episode.
Best regards,
the eBay podcast team
passionepassato
·4 years agoHi, thanks for the suggestion to make suggestions.
I already have quite a few in mind; how about one or even a series about informative topics with specialists who can give helpful tips for buying/selling, this could be split up since it should be a very extensive conversation.
An immensely important topic that would certainly appeal to some others too would be, without giving actual legal advice, “When am I a private seller and when am I a commercial one?” or “Legal certainty in online trade, which points do I need to work through?!” Just to give you an idea of the direction. But also other topics like “Why the Chinese are so important for us / Ebay.de.”
The list of suggestions from me will never end; we could also do “Pitfalls in international trade, why so many merchants no longer sell internationally.” But even simple topics like payment processing would find plenty of interest with more in-depth explanation. There you could address points such as, for example, “Why does Ebay still offer books / merchandise shipments and letters as shipping options, if a tracking number is demanded when a case is opened? It’s no secret that many in trade feel pushed against the wall and leave the platform; penalty fees and opaque case decisions, as well as other little things that take the fun away from members here, would need explaining and could bring more light into the dark, and also add a certain depth to the world of podcasts.
I could think of many, many other topics that people here would find informative and interesting. Sure, there are help pages where you can read up on a lot of things, but a podcast can certainly convey it more easily and entertainingly with a specialist in conversation than by reading through endless texts, of which a large part hasn’t even been understood by half the readers after reading it.
Here are a few more ideas...
What are the advantages of offering your products on Ebay in 2022 ??
Why are defects no longer deleted despite verifiable timely shipping, does this have something to do with the logistics partner programs so that they are made more infamous, because deletion in the shipping area is advertised with these !!??
What does Ebay intend to do for the second-hand trade, which after all made the platform so big, is sustainability and the collector area so uninteresting ??
Why are unfair ratings deleted only for large sellers with big turnover or with the concierge service ?
Why have click rates been in the basement since the introduction of the ad format ?
Or how about a 12-hour podcast “Our mistakes of the last 20 years”
At the same time, “Our highlights of the last 20 years”.
What does Ebay intend to do to stop the decline in members ?
etc. etc.
Just bring a bit more depth into the conversations that also affect many members.
Guaranteed more appealing than presenting 2 merchants whose turnover could be surpassed by collecting deposit bottles. Which is not due to the merchants; turnover is currently collapsing for many. The two of them would have really made a killing with their ideas here from 1999 to 2019.
Last but not least, I want to say that we love this platform, it has always been the No. 1 for us in selling and also in online shopping.
Today, with all the changes, it’s just one platform among many, without any real advantages. The fun factor has dropped sharply.
Best regards
Kaya
mssportsandtoys
·4 years agoExciting report, very well done
podcast@ebay
@passionepassato Pity that you don't find the topic "eBay Deine Stadt" exciting. What topic would interest you? We're always grateful for feedback/suggestions!
Best regards,
the eBay podcast team
passionepassato
·4 years agoYawn !!