By the time we got to around a score of 600 feedbacks (100% positive!), the relationship was stressful, competition was growing, and As Was biz had really picked up. So we ended up closing shop.

I still sell casually and randomly. In fact, I just sold a $2800 bicycle a few weeks ago. It’s really neat. It has an electric motor you can recharge, so it’s like part scooter, part bike. I was listing them on behalf of a store in Tucson, AZ that carries them. I since took them down, so if you want those bikes, you’ll have to call Bikes Electric in Tucson.

I started the design/consulting/marketing company in 1995. My first eBay client was in early 2001. A local camera store for whom I did their website asked if I knew anything about this eBay thing… could they do well selling new and used cameras online? Sure! I explained eBay wasn’t just a garage sale anymore. I designed their listings (they actually still use most of my original layout, ugh!), About Me, trained their staff, set them up with software, the whole thing.

You’d know them as cametaauctions [http://stores.ebay.com/Cameta-Camera], who now have over 300,000 feedbacks. In their first year, they went from never selling on eBay to selling over $1M per MONTH. So I figured I was on to something, and shifted my company focus to working with eBay sellers.

So that’s been my main thing and my constant. But I am a big eBay shopper, and nowadays, an occasional seller. Too busy with the As Was thing and some cool new side projects to sell more seriously online.

But thanks for asking! Apologies to Scott for the content and it being a bit off-topic, but I was asked by the Priestess herself!

I misread the date in your post, did not see 04 & assumed 08 which is why I was surprised.

I wondered if you were an active eBay seller yourself or if you limit yourself to consultancy and design?

As I said in an earlier comment here, I was made aware of the Site Interference rule in November 2004. We then made sure our Stores were compliant.

Some sellers would ask us to build more “Advanced” Stores that we felt were not compliant. We talked most of them out of it, even when selling them those would have meant more money for us. A couple insisted on it anyway, and not knowing if eBay were going to decide to allow “Advanced” Stores, we did a couple for sellers who insisted.

So yes, I know about it. I’ve blogged about it for years. Spoke about it at eBay Live for years. And even printed the Site Interference rule in the company brochures I had done in May 2008.

I tried to be a poster child for the rule. And I still am since I think removing Site Interference from listings could be on eBay’s road map at some point!

Are you an eBay seller?

But people should STILL check the Site Interference policy and look at their Stores. Here is a bizarre reason why.

Last year, when we didn’t know if eBay were going to formally embrace “advanced” Stores or outlaw them, we built three. We told those clients that it was against the rules, and if eBay cracks down, we’d have to charge to change it.

But the interesting thing is that if you preview those Stores in the new Stores experience, they don’t break. But they ARE advanced Stores, and they are not compliant with Site Interference! I think they all got changed yesterday, so we’re done.

I like to think that we wrote the code so well that they stand up to the preview. Some companies evidently reverse-engineered some code eBay had on the page, and then overwrote it. eBay is stripping that out. When we wrote our “advanced” coding, we looked at eBay’s CSS and made sure we overwrote nearly zero of it. So our code is barely being stripped out, and with most of it still in there, it looks like a good “advanced” Store.

You’re raising a great point. Just because your Store doesn’t look broken in the preview doesn’t mean it’s compliant.

“We no longer support any customizations that conflict with our Site Interference Policy. Some typical conflicts include taking over the eBay global header or changing the appearance of the in-store search items list. If your design attempts to manipulate those elements, your store might not function properly, and you will need to remove the problematic customizations.

To read more about our Site Interference Policy, see

Most customizations done within the bounds of our policy should not break. However, if you use CSS or JavaScript extensively, you may need to optimize your code for the new eBay Stores Experience.”

My store looks fine in preview…. Go Figure, I guess my design had none of these issues.

New eBay Stores are a combination of cracking down on old rules and bringing in new rules.

Site Interference is mentioned in eBay’s FAQ. New Stores more formally crack down on this. It was always against the rules, and eBay often looked the other way, so designers jumped on that. Without eBay cracking down on it more, it was a popular thing to do, and I think just about every major eBay design company out there did it! Hey, it was a red light everybody could get away with running.

In November 2004, we got a phone call from eBay. They said that all of our eBay Stores were breaking a rule called Site Interference, and even though it was the middle of the holiday season, they were thinking about taking ALL our client’s Stores down. I went into a total panic. I had never heard of the rule, but all I knew was that I didn’t want to be in that position ever again. eBay decided to hold off (it was the holiday selling season!). So we made the decision to not build Stores that broke that rule on the assumption that at some point, eBay would decide to crack down on those Stores. I see this as the conclusion of that!

Disallowing things like JavaScript is new, though not completely unforeseen. The Active Content Strategy, announced around eBay Live, was about disallowing certain types of coding from the eBay site, both in listings and in Stores. That hasn’t been rolled out yet, but I see the move in Stores as picking up a piece of that.

That means that if Active Content does roll out this year (no date yet), people will see more restrictions about what types of coding they can do in listings. Again, it’s hard to say where they might go with that, but if eBay at some point says no JavaScript in listings, I would call that a “new” rule that designers and developers would have been able to well foresee.

I’m assuming that Active Content will roll out at some point, and I’m erring on the side of caution. We’re making sure that our listings right now are as close to compliant as they can be, based on how the Active Content Strategy has been explained to me so far. Having to change Stores is annoying but not so bad. Leaving clients with hundreds or thousands of listings that’ll have to go poof is potentially very annoying! Plus, to take them down and put them back up will incur a lot of listing fees, and disrupt Recent Sales.

Including NEW Stores templates and enhancements (i.e. – NEW). No where in this statement is anything about compliance of previous rules mentioned. So where do we find the truth, if not from the eBay statement? Is eBay lying ? I don’t think so in this case. They seem to be just making a nice improvement.

This is the statement:

Hello…this is Nick Donelson from the Seller Experience Team. For years, eBay Stores have been a great tool for sellers looking to create their own brands on eBay. With this in mind, we’re excited to let you know about our launch of a new eBay Stores Experience. Improvements include new storefront templates and enhancements to Stores search results. These changes will improve the look of your Store, while enhancing your customers’ shopping experience.
New Store templates: Sharp, professional designs and merchandising features to help you attract and retain more buyers.

Enhanced search results:

* Searches within your Store will include titles, categories, item specifics, and even similar keywords for more relevant results.
* Shoppers will enjoy a more consistent, streamlined buying experience throughout the eBay site.

Any time between now and the end of March 2009, you can preview how your Store will look in the new eBay Stores Experience. If you like what you see, you can opt in to the new experience right away. After March, all Stores will be automatically upgraded.

Note to Store Sellers: We strongly encourage you to preview your eBay Store soon, especially if it is heavily customized. We’ve worked hard to ensure that most eBay Stores will upgrade seamlessly, with little or no modifications required by sellers. Some heavily-customized Stores may require more manual modifications, however. Through March, you can continue to use the current eBay Stores experience, while you optimize your Store to take full advantage of the new experience upgrade.

So don’t wait for the automatic upgrade! Preview your Store’s new look now. If you like what you see, you can start taking advantage of the new features right away. For more details, please see our frequently asked questions.

Best regards,
Nick Donelson,
Seller Experience

I am not a designer either just a businessman. The image I want for my business is a professional one and I dont think I would want to deal with that kind of vigilante attitude.

Poor marketing, not a good image.

So perhaps the “Fear” is… if they didn’t design it wihin eBay spec in the first place… how do I know it’s within spec now, and that it’s not just that eBay’s “checking” isn’t totally up to snuff (like that’s never happened!).

I’m not a designer – I can write just enough html to make my listings look decent and that’s about as far as I go. But I’d be concerned if I found out that my Store design has never really been ‘in compliance’. EVEN IF compliance was only a suggestion and not manditory when my Store was designed.

And I very much agree with Debbie — too many folks leave these kinds of things to the last minute (try an eBay search – title and description- for “cash” and see how many hits you get!) and then expect third parties to come rushing to their aid as if they had no other client in the world to support.

Perhaps a bit of fear, to get these slow-pokes to moving, is not such a bad thing after all.

Or maybe that’s just what I get for thinking too much.