EEF: Bill Cobb keynote, post 3 (T+S)

Highlighted how important T+S is at eBay. Bad guys are getting smarter, Pierre's vision is still solid, but the BASICALLY part is getting tougher.

Over 2000 employees in T+S fighting the battle vs. the bad guys. Due to this they are going to more actively protect buyers from fraud/bad experiences.

Safeguarding seller IDs for example (this stops fraudulent SCOs). So far fake SCOs are down 80-90%, may need to take additional steps to protect bidder IDs

Another way reducing bad buyer experience is adjusting the seller standards. Repeated information on excessive shipping, late item, INR, bad customer service - causes majority of bad user experiences on eBay.

Historically have allowed practically anyone to sell on eBay with few restrictions, going forward going to significantly raise the bar on who they allow to sell on eBay.

Not fair to the large % of good sellers that small % of bad sellers are driving away buyers.

Example: cross border trade restrictions they started in Q4.

Beginning this week, any new seller who wants to list in US/CA, must offer a safe payment method - paypal/CC.

In October, eliminated private feedback - used to suspend 60%+ of sellers with private feedback. Now they are transparent again.

In 07 there will be more details on how great sellers are advantaged and bad sellers are further restricted.

Counterfeiters - Bill highlighted the changes that have already been instituted here. They are closely monitoring the results, may do more here.

Last week announced doubling of coverage from Paypal protection program. ($1k-$2k on SNAD and INR, other transactions $200 for unqualified items - no processing fee). Buyers love this and sellers should too - makes a statement in confidence of the marketplace.

Shipping and Handling
Covered why it's bad.

Made some progress in 06 with active enforcement - started in June. Cited cell phone category - S+H is down 25% in that category.

Need to be more proactive - developing some product based solutions - sort by total cost, (editorial note: ebay express does this and best match does too) going forward the approach is going to be to put the right incentives into the product and reduce reliance on manual enforcement. No silver bullet, short of regulating, but they are going to keep at it until contained.

eBay Strategies