Special episode: The multichannelday special

We’re back with a special episode of our eBay podcast. The occasion is our appearance at the multichannelday e-commerce trade fair organized by Michael Atug at RheinEnergieSTADION Cologne. Here we’ve set up massage chairs for visitors, where you can escape the trade fair hustle and bustle for a short while. 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 multichannelday, but discovered our podcast through this episode: definitely stick around 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**

**Mentioned Podcast Episodes**

** Chapter markers **

00:00:00 to 00:03:19: Introduction to the eBay podcast
00:03:19 to 00:05:01: Audio sample: “May we introduce? Dr. Saskia Meier-Andrae - Managing Director eBay Germany”
00:05:01 to 00:06:55: Audio sample: “Safe and successful on eBay: Practical tips for sellers”
00:06:55 to 00:09:33: Audio sample: “From 0 to 100: Trading vehicle parts and accessories”
00:09:33 to 00:11:34: Audio sample: “EU-wide trading without tax stress? Here’s how!”
00:11:34 to 00:14:59: Closing meditation with Lisa

Lisa: Welcome to "All top! Gladly again!" - the podcast about commerce and e-commerce, and also a warm welcome to multichannelday. My name is Lisa Haak, and together with my colleague Vincent Rek I’m delighted to welcome you to a very special episode today. You can listen to this episode not only on your preferred audio platform, but also at multichannelday in RheinEnergieSTADION in Cologne.

Vincent: Exactly! And today our team is here on site as well. Why? multichannelday showcases all relevant sales channels in digital commerce. Because today, retailers shouldn’t rely on just one sales channel, but be broadly positioned across various online marketplaces. And of course eBay can’t be missing here. At our info booth, we’ll give you fresh impulses for your e-commerce strategy or advise you individually on expanding your eBay business. Be sure to stop by our eBay stage too! There are lots of talks here about selling on eBay. For example, on topics like customer expectations, our logistics programs, business and listing optimization, or the use of artificial intelligence at eBay.

Lisa: If you’re listening to this episode right now, you’re either relaxing in one of our comfy massage chairs at the podcast booth and enjoying a little break from the hustle and bustle, or you’re simply curious to learn more about our podcast, because Vincent and I are now going to introduce you to the most important info about our podcast.

Vincent: In our episodes, we show you how to sustainably improve your sales figures and stand out from the competition. And of course we also keep you up to date on the most important developments in online retail.

Lisa: To do that, we regularly invite external experts from the industry who share their expertise and experience with you. We also welcome eBay sellers who, through their many years of experience in online retail, provide exciting insights into their business practices. And of course we also have colleagues from Germany on board who share insider knowledge with you.

Vincent: That way you regularly get practical tips that, in the best case, you can apply directly in your day-to-day work to increase your revenue and optimize your processes - from accounting to shipping to the perfect shop presentation. We cover all the important topics. We place great value on presenting solutions and approaches that are relevant for companies of all sizes and industries. And best of all, our podcast guests explain even the most complex topics simply and clearly themselves.

Lisa: And we, your hosts, will guide you through the episodes. As mentioned, I’m Lisa and I’m responsible for the German communication channels and campaigns for commercial sellers and brands.

Vincent: And I deal daily with the legal requirements that apply to our marketplace.

Lisa: And the third in the group is our colleague Isabell Butterwegge. She normally sounds like this.

Isabell: 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: We’ve all been working at eBay in different areas for quite some time, so we know exactly which topics are really relevant for you.

Vincent: So you can get a better impression of what to expect from the podcast, we’ve brought along a few highlights from our recent episodes. In the first clip, we hear from our Managing Director Dr. Saskia Meier-Andrae why we at eBay are committed to the circular economy.

Lisa: We at eBay have seen ourselves as pioneers of the digital circular economy since the very beginning. As enthusiastically as you talked about it, is that also a promise for the future?

Dr. Saskia Meier-Andrae: Pre-loved items are a central part of eBay’s strategy and goals, and what began 25 years ago with the auctioning of used items from private hands is today a highly professional segment with its very own ecosystem of refurbishing specialists, private and commercial sellers, and service providers, and this professionalized ecosystem, all the B-grade goods, the refurbished goods, the used goods that are now being bought and sold: what would the alternative be? Well, that would be for these items to end up in some landfill, and that is an incredible economic and, above all, ecological value that we’re creating there. And one more figure, also on your point about the future: last year, 55 percent of Germans bought a used item. That’s great and proves how big this market is. But I would wish for the search for these products to become part of the shopping habits of even more people in the future, and I believe that will happen too. That’s why I also find it so exciting and smart to invest massively in this area.

Lisa: In the second example, Isabell and Vincent talk about what we do at eBay to be a safe and trustworthy marketplace for buyers and sellers, and also what sellers need to keep in mind when putting their items online there.

Vincent: Yes, you were already talking about product regulations and legal texts there, and of course those are among the most important points when we start with product regulations. You just mentioned energy efficiency classes and the labels for them. But we have to keep in mind that there will be more and more of this in the near future. So there is clearly a trend toward more and more information, i.e. essential product safety information, having to be displayed in online commerce as well. And what will also be coming soon is the so-called digital product passport. This will be a passport containing all essential information about products and which will have to be displayed in online retail and therefore, of course, also on eBay. This is a topic that sellers really should keep an eye on, because there will be more and more of it.

Isabell: I think what you as a seller have to keep in the back of your mind is this: on the one hand, of course, I’m at risk of receiving a cease-and-desist letter if I don’t comply with the relevant regulations. On the other hand, once such a regulation is established in the market, buyers also get used to it, and if something that obvious is then missing, like - I’ll take the example of the energy efficiency class labels again - then as a buyer I do start wondering why that is. So is the seller not reputable enough? Is the product not reputable, is it not a real product, and so on? I think you should keep that in mind too. So in the end it definitely has an impact on the customer base.

Vincent: Selling in our different categories also doesn’t get short shrift in our podcast. In this clip, it’s about the "Motors" area. Arthur Ostwald, founder and managing director of retromotion, talks about which mistake he would never make again at the start of his career.

Isabell: Arthur, every beginning is hard. You probably know that when you look back on the founding days of your business. What are the biggest mistakes you would want to spare our listeners from?

Arthur Oswald: Yes, dear Isabell, thank you very much first of all. Yes, there were some mistakes that we made at the beginning and probably still make today. And I think the most important thing is, first of all, to have the right mindset so as not to be discouraged by mistakes. When we talk about the early days, we had the opportunity back then to access a very large assortment. There were around 50,000 SKUs that we had access to and prepared for sales on various online channels. Among others, of course eBay as the most attractive channel, and that was where the crux of the matter already lay. With 50,000 SKUs, you’d have to look at attributes 50,000 times, look at descriptions, look at images, and that was then more of a hindrance than a help for getting started on eBay. Back then, we also set ourselves the wrong focus, looking more at tooling. Which tools can even be used to upload all these many SKUs? Etcetera. A lot of time was wasted there. Um, yes, in hindsight the recommendation is definitely to start very small, to approach a marketplace like eBay. Namely, look at one product: what data, what settings, what tooling does this one product need, and then take the learnings from that for maybe the second item, the third item, and then scale up from there. So definitely don’t start with 50,000 SKUs, but rather with exactly one SKU and make your learnings there.

Lisa: And we don’t shy away from even a topic like taxes, because Jonny Hofberger, Sales Director at Taxdoo, explains how tools can help with the bookkeeping of overseas sales. Have a listen!

Isabell: What do I need to pay attention to in accounting when I’m really taking off in e-commerce?

Johnny Hofberger: In accounting, it’s the case that for every transaction a seller makes, so for every invoice that’s issued, for every parcel I ship through eBay, I create an invoice and, so to speak, have a payment incoming for it. But now the thing is that I don’t get the money for that invoice back into my account one-to-one; instead, things like fees in the respective category, marketing costs, et cetera are deducted. And/or, if you use fulfillment, for example fulfillment costs. And I now have to book those against each individual parcel, and that has to be automated, because otherwise at some point the tax advisor says, with 5,000 transactions a month, who’s supposed to book all that manually? And then it’s not just those 5,000, that would be the invoice you’d tick off, but you’d also have to book another 5,000 fees against it and so on and so forth. And you can’t just print out a summary at the end of the month and say, we made so and so much revenue and the costs were so and so high, and I’ll just offset that, but it has to be booked plausibly. And this keyword plausibility is the highest law for every tax advisor, because that’s how you have to explain it to the tax authorities so that every auditor understands where the money actually went. And why does the online seller have less money in their account now than the invoices they actually wrote?

Vincent: As you can hear, our topics are as varied and multifaceted as eBay itself. If you’re now in the mood for more: Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Google Podcasts, RTL Plus and Deezer. And every other Wednesday, a new episode is released there.

Lisa: And if you don’t want to miss an episode, go ahead and subscribe to us directly. You can also listen to our episodes in the eBay Community at ebay.de/podcast. We look forward to your feedback and, above all, your topics. Suggestions both there in the community as well as on our Facebook page "eBay forBusiness Deutschland" or right here now at multichannelday.

Vincent: And before we send you back into the hustle and bustle of multichannelday or into your everyday life, take a moment to breathe and let yourself sink into a short meditation.

Lisa: Close your eyes, relax, and sink deeply into the chair or wherever you’re listening from right now. Let the music wash over you and enjoy complete relaxation. Imagine yourself standing on a warm summer afternoon on the banks of the Rhine in Cologne. The sun slowly disappears behind the spire of the cathedral and bathes the river in a golden, almost magical light. As you stroll barefoot along the water, you feel the soft grass beneath your feet and a gentle, refreshing breeze. You hear the quiet lapping of the water against the shore in a steady rhythm, and the distant laughter of people enjoying the day by the river. Let yourself be carried by the calm and the colors of this peaceful sunset. For a moment, we’ll leave you with the music now and then we’ll be back.

Vincent: You can now slowly open your eyes again. And with that, we say goodbye and wish you lots more fun at multichannelday or, if you’re not on site, a successful workday. We’d be delighted if we hear from you again soon on "All top, gladly again!"