Security: main priority for eBay in 2007

Auction website eBay is focusing in on security this year as executives outline plans for the company to tightening up procedures. This follows an internal survey that showed scammers and fraudsters were affecting the reputation of the company.

Among the changes that will affect traders operating on the site are higher standards which eBay will hold them to account. Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America said that the majority of bad buyer experiences result from circumstances controlled by sellers.

"Buyers are less likely to return to the site after having a frustrating experience - like finding the shipping and handling charges are excessive, receiving an item that is not as described, or experiencing poor customer service," he said in a message on the company's website.

One area in which eBay has made significant progress is in cleaning up categories where excessive shipping and handling charges are most prevalent.

"For instance, in our Cell Phones category, the average shipping cost on cell phones has come down by around 25 per cent, and the buyer experience has improved. The competition between these sellers is fairer now, too," said Cobb.

He said the company had been busy behind the scenes and has cooperated with copyright and trademark owners for years to stop listings that trademark owners were not happy about.

"For some items known to be favoured by counterfeiters, we've started requiring additional seller verification, we've eliminated the ability to list these items with one- or three-day auction durations, and we've put in additional restrictions for people selling these items cross-border," said Cobb.

Analysts welcomed the news and said it is easy for eBay to have it reputation trashed and its new efforts should improve the experience for sellers and buyers alike.

"It's easy for whole brand to get tarnished," said Clive Longbottom, service director of analysts Quocirca. "Sellers don't want to get tarred with the same brush as the scammers that prey on the site."

He said that sellers would appreciate the efforts eBay are making to stamp out illegal activities on the website.

However, some sellers were sceptical over the moves.

"Personally, they always say they are doing something, but there is so much bogus stuff on the site still. I'm not sure what they are doing to stop these scammers," said Jeremy Olsen, owner of Sell it the Easy Way, a company that sells items on eBay on behalf of others.

"I've put real Gucci bags on the site but because I've forgot to include an identity number for the item, the auction has been pulled," he said." If you go on eBay now you find a lot of fake goods there that haven't been pulled off the site."

He said he didn't know if eBay monitors auctions on its own site and speculated that it was up to companies such as Gucci and other designer companies to monitor the site instead.

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