Special episode: The //geh.digital special
We’re coming to you with a special episode in addition to the biweekly episodes of our eBay podcast. The reason is our appearance as main sponsor at the e-commerce trade fair //geh.digital organized by Michael Atug. Here we set up massage chairs for visitors, where you can escape the hustle and bustle of the fair for a short time. While you’re there, you’ll hear our introduction to the podcast – including audio samples from various podcast episodes and a guided meditation with Lisa.
And for everyone who isn’t at //geh.digital but discovered our podcast through this episode: definitely stick with us and let e-commerce and eBay specialists support you episode by episode in taking your business to the next level.
We hope you enjoy listening!
**Important Links**
- eBay Community
- eBay for Business on Facebook
- More info on the eBay podcast “All top. Gladly again!” and our podcast hosts
**Mentioned Podcast Episodes**
- Artificial intelligence at eBay: This is how we use it.
- Winning and retaining regular customers – here’s how!
- Boundless potential: Selling internationally on eBay
- Visibility & search engines: How do Germans search?
** Chapter markers **
- [00:00:47] to [00:02:57]: Introduction to the eBay podcast
- [00:02:57] to [00:05:27]: Audio sample: “Artificial intelligence at eBay: This is how we use it.”
- [00:05:27] to [00:07:06]: Audio sample: “Winning and retaining regular customers – here’s how!”
- [00:07:06] to [00:09:18]: Audio sample: “Boundless potential: Selling internationally on eBay.”
- [00:09:18] to [00:11:14]: Audio sample: “Visibility & search engines: How do Germans search?”
- [00:11:14] to [00:15:00]: Closing meditation with Lisa
Isabell: Hello and a warm welcome to "All top. Gladly again!", the eBay podcast about commerce and e-commerce, and also a warm welcome to geh.digital in Essen. My name is Isabell Butterwegge, and sitting with me is my dear colleague Lisa. Today we have a very special episode for you, one that you can listen to not only on the audio platform of your choice, but also right here at geh.digital.
Lisa: Exactly, because as the main sponsor of the trade fair, we’re here with our colleagues and have also set up a very special podcast booth. And if you’re listening to this episode, you’re either sitting in one of our massage chairs at the trade fair right now and trying to escape the hustle and bustle for a few minutes, or you simply want to learn more about our podcast.
Isabell: Because Lisa and I are now going to tell you the most important facts about our eBay podcast, and so you get a better feel for what exactly awaits you in the podcast, we’ve brought along a few highlights from our previous episodes.
Lisa: Then let’s start with the most important information. In our episodes, we deliver information about online retail directly to the ears of commercial sellers on eBay and anyone who wants to become one, right away. To do this, we regularly invite professionals from the industry who share their expertise with us and with you in the podcast studio. That. They are either eBay sellers who, thanks to years of experience in online retail, can give exciting insights into their business practices, or industry experts ranging from AI pros to conversion rate optimizers. We bring them all into our episodes for you.
Isabell: Yes - and the result is exciting episodes full of practical tips that you can use to make your day-to-day work easier and optimize processes. And with the help of our podcast guests, we explain a wide range of topics such as search engine optimization, tax laws, and international shipping in a very simple and understandable way.
Lisa: So our goal is clear. We want to help you optimize your business and support you as it grows. That’s why we make sure to present approaches and solutions that can be applied to businesses of all sizes and categories.
Isabell: Guiding you through the episodes are we, your hosts. As I said, I’m Isabell and among other things I’m responsible for improving the selling experience on our marketplace for commercial sellers. And I also take care of the business relationship between brands and eBay.
Lisa: And I, Lisa, take care of the German communication channels and campaigns for commercial sellers and brands.
Isabell: And the third member of the team is our colleague Vincent Rek. He usually sounds like this.
Vincent: Hello, I’m Vincent Rek, and I deal with the legal requirements for our marketplace at eBay every day.
Isabell: We’ve all been working at eBay for quite a while in very different areas, so we know exactly which topics are important to you.
Lisa: We’ve talked enough for now, so you can get a better picture—let’s listen to an example right away. In the first clip, our colleague and AI expert Christian Bornmann explains how artificial intelligence affects commerce.
Isabell: Okay, so AI improves the selling experience. What does that mean concretely for our sellers?
Christian: So first of all, for anyone who may be thinking, oh God, there’s this huge AI wave now and it’s going to knock me over and I’m missing all of it and so on. AI is fast and certainly also very, very, will certainly change many areas. But I would rather call it an evolution and not the big revolution, where you wake up tomorrow morning and realize, oh look, eBay has suddenly become something completely different. And that’s also how I would understand our approach here now. So, we keep looking continuously at what developments are out there, what technologies exist, what potential does each of them have? And then we try to build very concrete and initially quite small components from that, or AI building blocks, so to speak, which we then let flow into the product.
Isabell: And and what kind of building blocks are we actually building there right now? So is there already something that sellers are benefiting from today in this evolution?
Christian: So, uh, yes, of course! If you think about where can you integrate AI, integrate it and where can you use it best, you usually look at the areas that you find complicated, time-consuming, difficult, and check whether there’s something there where I can use AI to make this problem easier to solve with the possibilities we just talked about? And that’s how I would interpret our roadmap in this area as well. So, for example, one feature that, that is at least already available in Germany for all sellers, is the option to have an item description generated with AI. Anyone can try it right away. You can find it, for example, in the app; there you’ll find this icon with these typically AI-style little stars on it. If you click on it, it just generates something. And the response we get to that is extremely positive too, because it’s very simple, it saves time, it helps people, and in principle you can list many more items much faster and ultimately do more business on eBay.
Isabell: In clip number two, you’ll hear Lisa and multichannel rock star Michael Atug, who also organized geh.digital, talking about customer retention.
Micha: When I started at eBay in 2001, people were already celebrating me if a package even arrived at all. Yes, that’s just the honest truth. If the quality was great too, then they were absolutely thrilled. That has, of course, changed completely. Customers have become extremely demanding, and online retail is primarily to blame for that. Though to be honest, can we even talk about blame? Of course not, rather it brought us all to where we are now, and that’s a good thing too. Customers simply expect much more than they did back then. If you, let me put it this way, if you get everything right from start to finish, then then you’ve made it, then you have a satisfied customer. They expect that from you, sure, but in the end you’ve also made it happen, and that’s all there is to it. It’s not rocket science!
Lisa: Exactly, but I think from start to finish is important again. Customer retention is not one interaction; customer retention is probably something you have to integrate into your entire sales process, right?
Micha: Exactly, if you, I always say, if you really play it through properly from start to finish - I’m not talking about absolute perfectionism - but properly and solidly, then the customer is basically already satisfied. If you then add the cherry on top or put the icing on top, then it’s probably even a little better. But basically, yes.
Isabell: The topic of international trade also gave us plenty to talk about. eBay seller Sven Syré and our colleague Doreen Ewald from the shipping team gave good reasons why you should deal with international trade and shipping.
Sven: About 60 percent of my customers don’t come from Germany; in fact, half come from the EU and the other half from third countries, i.e. outside the EU. By offering worldwide selling, the customer base grows by seven times. So you should definitely take advantage of that if you want to sell.
Isabell: Yes, that is definitely a huge customer base that you can open up with that. Doreen, how can I find out whether my product is suitable for the international market? You just said that youth protection can play a role, among other things. How do I find out whether there is demand for my product in the market where I want to sell at all?
Doreen: Yes, I think demand is really the be-all and end-all here to clarify beforehand. Is there demand in the, in the markets, what I find really exciting: the name has already come up once, the topic of Terapeak. What exactly is that? Well, eBay Terapeak is ultimately the research tool on eBay that is available free of charge to commercial sellers via Seller Cockpit Pro, and there you simply have the opportunity to identify inventory gaps in the respective target country, but also to retrieve sales statistics and the listing formats that are used there. If you want to take a slightly broader approach, you can of course also use the usual search engine tools, so you can see where which retrievals are available, but rather unspecific, that’s a good place to start. My recommendation would actually be, if you want to enter the market with the aim of selling on eBay, then of course Terapeak, because it simply gives you the opportunity to analyze the market based on real data, i.e. sales and listing data.
Isabell: For all sellers, it is extremely important that their products are presented on eBay as visibly and as easy to find as possible. And Lisa talked about that with Felix Marum from the eBay Ads team. Have a listen!
Felix: The question I can then ask myself as a seller is whether I’m already pulling out all the stops to ensure maximum visibility for my inventory there?
Lisa: Visibility is such a buzzword, almost - also something we’ve already covered very, very often in the podcast episodes. What do you understand by visibility on eBay in the context of the study or in the eBay Ads team?
Lisa: Yes, good question. Basically, you can first say that visibility refers to the number of times my listings or sellers’ listings are displayed. So if a potential buyer or customer goes into search on eBay and looks for an item, and my results or my listings then basically appear on the search results page, that can be described as an impression or a display, and that then basically adds up to visibility. You can look at this very well in Seller Cockpit Pro, in the Performance/Traffic area, and there you can basically see all the key figures, including impressions, which measure visibility.
Isabell: And visibility with the hope of more sales too, of course.
Lisa: Exactly, so the expectation is of course that if I increase my visibility, my inventory is relevant in some form to consumers, then there will also be more clicks, i.e. interactions with my listings, and in the best case, of course, more sales as well.
Isabell: You can hear it, our topics are as diverse and colorful as eBay itself. Lisa - where can listeners find us then?
Lisa: Our podcast is available on all common podcast platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Deezer. On the platforms, you can find us by searching for "All top. Gladly again!" or simply by searching for "eBay". A new episode then appears every other Wednesday.
Isabell: And anyone who definitely doesn’t want to miss the next episode is very welcome to subscribe to us directly. You can also listen to our episodes directly in the eBay Community at ebay.de/podcast. There and on our Facebook page "eBay for Business Germany" we always welcome an exchange with you, whether you want to leave feedback or have direct topic requests.
Lisa: And before we send you back into the trade fair hustle and bustle of geh.digital or into your everyday life, take a moment to breathe. Close your eyes, relax, and let yourself sink deeply into the chair or wherever you’re listening from right now. Let the music wash over you and enjoy complete relaxation. For example, imagine walking across a small, quiet market square on La Palma on a sunny late summer day. The sun slowly sinks toward the horizon over the sea and bathes everything in a warm light. As you leisurely stroll past the stalls, a pleasant warm breeze brushes your feet. You smell the scent of fresh bread and ripe tomatoes, hear the soft murmur of the merchants and the chirping of birds in the palms. Let yourself be carried by the gentle sounds and colors of this summer day.
Isabell: Now you may slowly open your eyes again, and with that we say goodbye and wish you lots of fun at geh.digital or a particularly successful workday. We look forward to hearing from you again soon on "All top. Gladly again!".
Lisa: Exactly, because as the main sponsor of the trade fair, we’re here with our colleagues and have also set up a very special podcast booth. And if you’re listening to this episode, you’re either sitting in one of our massage chairs at the trade fair right now and trying to escape the hustle and bustle for a few minutes, or you simply want to learn more about our podcast.
Isabell: Because Lisa and I are now going to tell you the most important facts about our eBay podcast, and so you get a better feel for what exactly awaits you in the podcast, we’ve brought along a few highlights from our previous episodes.
Lisa: Then let’s start with the most important information. In our episodes, we deliver information about online retail directly to the ears of commercial sellers on eBay and anyone who wants to become one, right away. To do this, we regularly invite professionals from the industry who share their expertise with us and with you in the podcast studio. That. They are either eBay sellers who, thanks to years of experience in online retail, can give exciting insights into their business practices, or industry experts ranging from AI pros to conversion rate optimizers. We bring them all into our episodes for you.
Isabell: Yes - and the result is exciting episodes full of practical tips that you can use to make your day-to-day work easier and optimize processes. And with the help of our podcast guests, we explain a wide range of topics such as search engine optimization, tax laws, and international shipping in a very simple and understandable way.
Lisa: So our goal is clear. We want to help you optimize your business and support you as it grows. That’s why we make sure to present approaches and solutions that can be applied to businesses of all sizes and categories.
Isabell: Guiding you through the episodes are we, your hosts. As I said, I’m Isabell and among other things I’m responsible for improving the selling experience on our marketplace for commercial sellers. And I also take care of the business relationship between brands and eBay.
Lisa: And I, Lisa, take care of the German communication channels and campaigns for commercial sellers and brands.
Isabell: And the third member of the team is our colleague Vincent Rek. He usually sounds like this.
Vincent: Hello, I’m Vincent Rek, and I deal with the legal requirements for our marketplace at eBay every day.
Isabell: We’ve all been working at eBay for quite a while in very different areas, so we know exactly which topics are important to you.
Lisa: We’ve talked enough for now, so you can get a better picture—let’s listen to an example right away. In the first clip, our colleague and AI expert Christian Bornmann explains how artificial intelligence affects commerce.
Isabell: Okay, so AI improves the selling experience. What does that mean concretely for our sellers?
Christian: So first of all, for anyone who may be thinking, oh God, there’s this huge AI wave now and it’s going to knock me over and I’m missing all of it and so on. AI is fast and certainly also very, very, will certainly change many areas. But I would rather call it an evolution and not the big revolution, where you wake up tomorrow morning and realize, oh look, eBay has suddenly become something completely different. And that’s also how I would understand our approach here now. So, we keep looking continuously at what developments are out there, what technologies exist, what potential does each of them have? And then we try to build very concrete and initially quite small components from that, or AI building blocks, so to speak, which we then let flow into the product.
Isabell: And and what kind of building blocks are we actually building there right now? So is there already something that sellers are benefiting from today in this evolution?
Christian: So, uh, yes, of course! If you think about where can you integrate AI, integrate it and where can you use it best, you usually look at the areas that you find complicated, time-consuming, difficult, and check whether there’s something there where I can use AI to make this problem easier to solve with the possibilities we just talked about? And that’s how I would interpret our roadmap in this area as well. So, for example, one feature that, that is at least already available in Germany for all sellers, is the option to have an item description generated with AI. Anyone can try it right away. You can find it, for example, in the app; there you’ll find this icon with these typically AI-style little stars on it. If you click on it, it just generates something. And the response we get to that is extremely positive too, because it’s very simple, it saves time, it helps people, and in principle you can list many more items much faster and ultimately do more business on eBay.
Isabell: In clip number two, you’ll hear Lisa and multichannel rock star Michael Atug, who also organized geh.digital, talking about customer retention.
Micha: When I started at eBay in 2001, people were already celebrating me if a package even arrived at all. Yes, that’s just the honest truth. If the quality was great too, then they were absolutely thrilled. That has, of course, changed completely. Customers have become extremely demanding, and online retail is primarily to blame for that. Though to be honest, can we even talk about blame? Of course not, rather it brought us all to where we are now, and that’s a good thing too. Customers simply expect much more than they did back then. If you, let me put it this way, if you get everything right from start to finish, then then you’ve made it, then you have a satisfied customer. They expect that from you, sure, but in the end you’ve also made it happen, and that’s all there is to it. It’s not rocket science!
Lisa: Exactly, but I think from start to finish is important again. Customer retention is not one interaction; customer retention is probably something you have to integrate into your entire sales process, right?
Micha: Exactly, if you, I always say, if you really play it through properly from start to finish - I’m not talking about absolute perfectionism - but properly and solidly, then the customer is basically already satisfied. If you then add the cherry on top or put the icing on top, then it’s probably even a little better. But basically, yes.
Isabell: The topic of international trade also gave us plenty to talk about. eBay seller Sven Syré and our colleague Doreen Ewald from the shipping team gave good reasons why you should deal with international trade and shipping.
Sven: About 60 percent of my customers don’t come from Germany; in fact, half come from the EU and the other half from third countries, i.e. outside the EU. By offering worldwide selling, the customer base grows by seven times. So you should definitely take advantage of that if you want to sell.
Isabell: Yes, that is definitely a huge customer base that you can open up with that. Doreen, how can I find out whether my product is suitable for the international market? You just said that youth protection can play a role, among other things. How do I find out whether there is demand for my product in the market where I want to sell at all?
Doreen: Yes, I think demand is really the be-all and end-all here to clarify beforehand. Is there demand in the, in the markets, what I find really exciting: the name has already come up once, the topic of Terapeak. What exactly is that? Well, eBay Terapeak is ultimately the research tool on eBay that is available free of charge to commercial sellers via Seller Cockpit Pro, and there you simply have the opportunity to identify inventory gaps in the respective target country, but also to retrieve sales statistics and the listing formats that are used there. If you want to take a slightly broader approach, you can of course also use the usual search engine tools, so you can see where which retrievals are available, but rather unspecific, that’s a good place to start. My recommendation would actually be, if you want to enter the market with the aim of selling on eBay, then of course Terapeak, because it simply gives you the opportunity to analyze the market based on real data, i.e. sales and listing data.
Isabell: For all sellers, it is extremely important that their products are presented on eBay as visibly and as easy to find as possible. And Lisa talked about that with Felix Marum from the eBay Ads team. Have a listen!
Felix: The question I can then ask myself as a seller is whether I’m already pulling out all the stops to ensure maximum visibility for my inventory there?
Lisa: Visibility is such a buzzword, almost - also something we’ve already covered very, very often in the podcast episodes. What do you understand by visibility on eBay in the context of the study or in the eBay Ads team?
Lisa: Yes, good question. Basically, you can first say that visibility refers to the number of times my listings or sellers’ listings are displayed. So if a potential buyer or customer goes into search on eBay and looks for an item, and my results or my listings then basically appear on the search results page, that can be described as an impression or a display, and that then basically adds up to visibility. You can look at this very well in Seller Cockpit Pro, in the Performance/Traffic area, and there you can basically see all the key figures, including impressions, which measure visibility.
Isabell: And visibility with the hope of more sales too, of course.
Lisa: Exactly, so the expectation is of course that if I increase my visibility, my inventory is relevant in some form to consumers, then there will also be more clicks, i.e. interactions with my listings, and in the best case, of course, more sales as well.
Isabell: You can hear it, our topics are as diverse and colorful as eBay itself. Lisa - where can listeners find us then?
Lisa: Our podcast is available on all common podcast platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Deezer. On the platforms, you can find us by searching for "All top. Gladly again!" or simply by searching for "eBay". A new episode then appears every other Wednesday.
Isabell: And anyone who definitely doesn’t want to miss the next episode is very welcome to subscribe to us directly. You can also listen to our episodes directly in the eBay Community at ebay.de/podcast. There and on our Facebook page "eBay for Business Germany" we always welcome an exchange with you, whether you want to leave feedback or have direct topic requests.
Lisa: And before we send you back into the trade fair hustle and bustle of geh.digital or into your everyday life, take a moment to breathe. Close your eyes, relax, and let yourself sink deeply into the chair or wherever you’re listening from right now. Let the music wash over you and enjoy complete relaxation. For example, imagine walking across a small, quiet market square on La Palma on a sunny late summer day. The sun slowly sinks toward the horizon over the sea and bathes everything in a warm light. As you leisurely stroll past the stalls, a pleasant warm breeze brushes your feet. You smell the scent of fresh bread and ripe tomatoes, hear the soft murmur of the merchants and the chirping of birds in the palms. Let yourself be carried by the gentle sounds and colors of this summer day.
Isabell: Now you may slowly open your eyes again, and with that we say goodbye and wish you lots of fun at geh.digital or a particularly successful workday. We look forward to hearing from you again soon on "All top. Gladly again!".
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