This Twitter session contains forward-looking statements relating to our future performance that are based on our current expectations, forecasts and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties.  These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expected financial results for the third quarter and full year 2012 and the future growth in the Payments, Marketplaces and GSI businesses.

Our actual results may differ materially from those included in this presentation for a variety of reasons, including, but not limited to; changes in political, business, and economic conditions; foreign exchange rate fluctuations; changes to capital allocation, including increasing liquidity above current levels; the impact and integration of recent and future acquisitions; our need to successfully react to the increasing importance of mobile payments and mobile commerce and the social aspect of commerce; an increasingly competitive environment for our businesses; the complexity of managing an increasingly large enterprise, with a broad range of businesses; our need to manage regulatory, tax and litigation risks (including risks specific to PayPal and Bill Me Later); and our need to to timely upgrade and develop our systems, infrastructure, and customer service capabilities at reasonable cost while maintaining site stability and performance and adding new products and features.

You can find more information about factors that could affect our operating results in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q (available at http://investor.ebayinc.com). You should not rely on any forward-looking statements, and we assume no obligation to update them. All information in this presentation is as of July 18, 2012, and we do not intend, and undertake no duty, to update this presentation.

Here is the schedule of events – all times PST:
· 9-10AM: eBay Toys
· 10-11AM: eBay Fashion
· 11-12PM: eBay Motors & eBay Collectibles
· 12-1PM: eBay Electronics
· 1-2PM: Daily Deals
· 2-3PM: Holiday Fun: Holiday Wish List, Group Gifts & eBay Dude
· 3-4PM: Charity: Toys For Tots, Giving Tree

BONUS: Follow @eBay on Twitter + attend the Holiday Twitter Party (use hashtag #eBayHoliday during the chat) and get entered for a chance to win a $100 eBay Gift Card. Prizes awarded hourly on 11/21/11.

I look forward to joining in the fun and chatting with folks on Monday.

Cheers!
RBH

I’ve been following along with the GSI Commerce Blog to see what interesting discussions they’re having over there around eCommerce and this week they posted info about a Twitter chat they’re hosting with Forrester tomorrow that I thought would be of interest for Ink readers:

Join us on Twitter for a live chat with Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru on Friday, May 6, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time. You can follow #GSIchat to join the live chat. The event will be moderated by John Sheldon, senior vice president @TrueAction and include other GSI Global Marketing Services companies @FetchBack, @ClearSaleing and @eDialog.

They plan on publicly discussing the findings and implications of the joint study GSI Commerce recently completed with Forrester: The Purchase Path of the Online Buyer. To download the report and find out more information check out the GSI Commerce blog post.

Cheers,
RBH

Search the hashtag #eBayQ310 for all eBay earnings’ related information tomorrow.

Related Reads
Webcast of eBay Q3FY10 analyst relations call (2pm PT, 10/20/10)
Investor Relations FAQ
eBay earnings legal information

Cheers,
RBH

We celebrated our 15th anniversary as a company last week and it really got me thinking about what an individual human being means to the success of any venture.

There is a long-standing ritual at eBay events in which all the attendees stand-up and remain standing until a number is announced that exceeds their eBay Feedback Score on eBay.com. It’s an exercise we’ve continued at the four eBay: On Location Events this year and, with a Feedback score of 86, admittedly I’m typically one of the first to sit down. We got to 391 last week before CEO, John Donahoe, had to take a seat on the stage…

Invariably the exercise takes about 20-30 minutes to complete because there is always a handful of sellers present (as there was last week) that have Feedback scores exceeding 100,000. Never ceases to amaze me.

“I Am Not A Number!”
There is a similar phenomenon happening over on Twitter where individuals are really trying to boost their number of followers, and talk about that number with pride; a conversation at a social event here in Silicon Valley inevitably gets to the “how many followers do you have on Twitter?” discussion sooner rather than later.

It’s something I’ve never really been too preoccupied with. Granted, given that I represent the leading global online marketplace, I have a relatively low follower count with @ebayinkblog but, as I’m about to cross the 5,000 follower mark, it got me thinking about stats and numbers and followers and Feedback score, etc.

I’ve noticed that when we start talking in stats and numbers, we have a tendency to briefly forget about the individual people that make up each follower or FB score or whatever it is people are tracking today. I confess that I’ve said the following things to myself on more than one occasion:

“I wonder if I’ll hit 10,000 followers on Twitter by the end of the year.”

“I’m only 14 away from hitting a 100 Feedback on eBay.”

This really hit home for me last week when we were doing the Feedback score ritual at eBayOL San Jose. Every single point that makes up Jack Sheng’s 2,000,000+ Feedback score is a human being making a single transaction with a specific business/seller. A connection has been made. When you think about it in those terms, no matter how insignificant the unique transaction may be, that’s hundreds of thousands of people’s lives that Jack Sheng has changed in some way by a single transaction on eBay.com. It is the true definition of the word “awesome.” And, when thought about in those terms, as a seller it doesn’t matter whether you’re Feedback score is 10 or 10,000 – that’s a number of people that you’ve made a difference in their life.

The same can be said for Twitter. Each follower is an individual; a human being (for the most part – I’m not counting Twitter users such as @commonsquirrel). One retweet, one response and that’s the equivalent of a transaction on eBay; a connection between one human and another that may have otherwise never met.

Know Where You Came From to Know Where You’re Going
I have been with eBay for almost 3 years now and in that time I’ve welcomed a lot of new colleagues and friends and I’ve had to say goodbye to some too. Every cube at eBay HQ has a name plate of the employee that sits there and, when they leave, (for those that know that I collect them), they give me their name plate as they move on to the next phase in their career/life. It’s not a morbid tradition that I’ve perpetuated over time, on the contrary, it is a reminder that without those people eBay wouldn’t be where it is today. Each name plate represents a human being that made a difference at our company.

Whenever I’m down or frustrated or daydreaming about being at the pub enjoying a nice cold beer rather than sitting in my cube here at work, I take a look at those name plates and I look at the folks that sit around me now; I look at the connections I’ve made on Twitter and I think about the number of transactions (read “connections”) that happen on eBay every day and I’m inspired to snap out of it and get back to working.

This blog post may only be read by a few hundred folks and, in the grand scheme of things, that may seem pretty insignificant. However, when I break it down out of stats and pageviews, I realize that each individual took time out of their day to read this sentence and that is a) pretty humbling and b) inspiring for me to write something worthwhile.

Take a look at your Feedback score, remember the individual transactions that are represented, and be inspired to continue to make a difference in individual’s lives – rather than simply hitting the next milestone or stat (as you already know, if you focus on the former, the latter will sort itself out).

And, with that in mind, I’m going to get back to it.

Cheers!
RBH

As usual, there will be prizes given away during the chat. Tonight they’ll be giving away three Money Mama piggy banks – aimed at helping folks get started on teaching kids about finances.

Lori will be tweeting from her own account, @LoriMackey, along with @eBayClassifieds. You can join in the conversation too by using the hashtag #eBCchat. You can also visit the eBay Classifieds Twitter Chat site to find out more information.

Cheers!
RBH

I took a quick video of our Comms Room here in San Jose HQ to give folks a behind-the-scenes look at how we’re working together to communicate information in real-time. The desks are set up in a horseshoe so we can easily ask questions to anyone in the room (representatives from the Buyer & Seller team, Corp Comms, Social Media, Engineering, eBay Annnouncements, etc. are all in here) for quick response…

Out in Salt Lake City, in addition to the Customer Service center, we have another comms room devoted to social media outreach and response. What follows is a sequence of photos taken out of that room where you can see folks on Twitter, Facebook, etc…

Personally, it has been great to see so many people involved in proactively communicating information – regardless of channel or platform. As a global organization, I am hoping we can build on this for the future.

Back to it…

Cheers,
RBH

Here, he talks about the first few hours of reaction to the eBay Seller Release of earlier today…

Cheers,
RBH

Here’s a look at what’s new for sellers and buyers:

New standard rates
…
For sellers who list items occasionally, new “eBay Everyday” rates are available. Auction-style listings with a start price of 99 cents or less will be free (with no insertion fees for up to 100 listings per month). When an item sells, the seller will pay a flat final value fee of 9% of the sale price — and never more than $50. If an item doesn’t sell, the seller pays nothing.

New Stores subscription packages…
For sellers who list often, new “eBay Stores” subscription rates offer insertion fees as low as 3 cents per listing for 30 days — a 90% reduction over current rates. Larger volume sellers with this “3-cent store” premium rate can move thousands of items at high velocity with full search exposure.

Subscription rates offer basic, anchor and premium store pricing options, depending on the size of a seller’s business. With the new pricing a seller with 250 listings per month would save $80 or $960 a year in insertion fees. With these changes eBay’s current store inventory format will no longer have separate search functionality from core fixed-price listings.

With the new eBay Stores rate package, all fixed priced inventory on eBay will have exposure through eBay’s core search functionality, increasing visibility for sellers and improving the search experience for buyers.

“Moving to one Fixed-Price listing format is another benefit sellers will soon experience,” said Dinesh Lathi, vice president, Seller and Buyer Experience. “Store Inventory Format listings automatically will become regular Fixed-Price listings, with the same duration. They’ll also renew at the new rates, and appear in ‘Search results’ with all other listings.”

Sellers who want to determine which pricing option will work best for their listings when the changes take place in March can use eBay’s Fee Illustrator: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/FeeIllustrator2010.html.

Buyer Protection Program…

“We’re also making a big move to bring buyers and keep them with us through our new eBay Buyer Protection Program,” Lathi explains. “All over eBay, the message to buyers will be loud and clear: buy on eBay with the confidence, satisfaction, and quick response you expect from a trusted retailer.”

Boosting seller efficiency…

*** Sellers in eBay Motors Parts & Accessories will be able to create one listing with a complete list of compatible vehicles.

*** The ability to list multiple variations of a product in one Fixed Price listing in many more categories.

*** Return policy and handling time will be required for new listings and re-listings in eBay Motors Parts & Accessories in June — editing tools make updating listings easy.

***Category and Item Specifics changes are also coming with the rest of these updates.

Additional Resources…

*** A dedicated website regarding the Seller Release.
*** Take part in the upcoming webinar on Thursday, Jan. 28.
*** Join Dinesh and other leaders from eBay and PayPal in a Town Hall meeting on Thursday, Jan. 29. Check the Announcement Board for more details.
***Talk with eBay staff members during the next two days on a special discussion board set up for this purpose.

Twitter…

For those of you on Twitter, follow the #eBaySR (eBay Seller Release) hashtag for all discussion around today’s news.

I’ll be updating this post and providing video interviews with additional background information in the near future.

Cheers,
RBH