Welcome and thanks for joining us this afternoon!

We love workshops to be interactive, so please feel free to ask your questions that directly relate to this topic.


Cheers,

Deirdre
eBay Community Development

Looking forward to this!

Hi, Deirdre, I'm here to understand better what opportunities there are in becoming a trading assistant.

Blair

TA Directory enhancements

This week some enhancements to the TA Directory were rolled to the site to make it even easier for all clients, including non-consumer clients, to find a TA that will best meet their needs. Here’s an overview of the new features:

1) New front-page status – the redesigned front page (Link) replaces the category pull-down that used eBay category names with a new pull-down intended to use more “customer-friendly” terms. Included in the new list are Business Liquidation, Charity Events, and Government Surplus. These choices were previously only available in Advanced Search. Adding them to the front page gives them significantly more visibility.

2) Category selection – this has been moved from the front page to Advanced Search and is still available for consumers to use. The benefit of this option is that clients will only get TAs with actual recent selling experience in the category for their item. As mentioned above, we feel the new front page pull-down is more “customer-friendly.”

3) Increased placement – many TAs have commented that the program is difficult to find on the site. We’ve made it easier with some great contextual new placements, which should make it easier for clients to find the Directory initially. These placements include:

a. Sell hub for newbies – sign out and then go to Link to see this placement

b. Advanced Search – underneath Members in the left-hand column - Link

c. Feedback profile page – link on the right side of Feedback Profile that suggests finding a local Trading Assistant as a great way to get help selling your item (click on your feedback # to see an example – note that this will not be shown for members that are not TAs )

Hello everyone from sunny Northern California!

I will mainly be "listening." My son already runs an ebay-based business, but hasn't yet had enough spare time to evaluate his chances of extending into being a trading assistant. With what I learn here, I may be able to help him find his way forward.

(New Features - continued)

and (so big it deserves it's own post) ...

TAs now have a way to be shown only to non-consumer clients. We've talked to a lot of sellers who are interested in only hearing from certain types of clients, such as business clients. Until now, we've had no good way to allow them to be in the Directory and provide their contact info and profile page data to only certain client types. As of this week, that's no longer true. Now TAs can un-check "Consumers" in their profile page and only be included in search results by clients who are businesses. We think this will make it even easier for business clients and TAs to find each other. Let us know what you think - we're really excited about this new capability!

Of course if you want to remain visibile to all potential clients, continue to leave Consumer checked and you will be - it's your choice as a TA to make that decision now.