eBay Open 2017 Kicked Off Last Night With Seller Reception
Reading Time: 4 minutes eBay Open is eBay’s annual 3-day seller conference organized by the company for its sellers. The event includes an Expo Hall, general speaking sessions, and how-to workshops.
This year eBay Open will be attended by 1500 sellers, and it is hosted at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Yesterday was mostly a registration day and the grand opening of the Expo Hall that allows sellers to interact with vendors and eBay divisions.
The Expo Hall also has spaces for sellers to meet up and talk with each other as well as promote and highlight new eBay initiatives like the Fill Your Cart with Color campaign.
eBay is trying to use the event to promote a community of sellers, with whom eBay is a partner. The company is working hard to show a collaboration face, instead of the past that seemed to appear one-way minded.
WHAT TO EXPECT OVER THE NEXT 3 DAYS
On Wednesday the event will open up with breakfast. Followed by a general session where sellers will hear from President and CEO Devin Wenig and SVP of eBay North America Hal Lawton.
Both are expected to talk about the future of commerce. Moreover, of course how eBay is embracing the future and will provide tools to sellers to take advantage of the opportunities.
After lunch, sellers will be able to attend workshops which include topics such as:
- Seller Hub: Inventory Growth, Guidance, and Insights, The Perfect Listing
- Know Your Audience, Maximizing Sales with eBay Marketing Tools, Take Better Photos
- eBay Policies that Support Your Business, Seller Q&A – Collector
- Efficient Selling Tool Box: Top Solutions to Streamline Selling, Smart Shipping, Know Your Numbers
- Building Your Brand Through social media, Going Global: Selling Beyond Our Borders
- Case Studies: Sellers Share Their Secrets, Top Seller Q&A – Hard Goods
- eBay Policies that Support Your Business, A Conversation about Entrepreneurship
This full day is followed by a network reception that includes food and drink.
THURSDAY’S AGENDA INCLUDES TALKS, WORKSHOPS AND AN EVENING PARTY
After the breakfast Bob Kupbens, VP, B2C Selling & Global Trust will start the day with a talk about selling smarter, easier and more profitable.
This talk session is followed by a number of the same workshop topics from Wednesday.
In the afternoon eBay Open will have another general session. The company plans to celebrate the vibrant selling community and highlight rising stars among its sellers.
In the evening, there is a seller party at the Brooklyn Bowl.
FRIDAY WILL BE A HALF DAY WITH ONLY WORKSHOPS
On Friday, after breakfast, eBay will hold more workshops in the morning, followed by a brief lunch. The conference will end at Noon.
EXPO-HALL BIG PART OF CONFERENCE
In contrast to developer conferences like Facebook’s F8 or Google I/O, eBay’s focus with the seller conference is education and community.
The Expo-Hall has about 30 technology vendors that show off their services as well as many meeting spaces and opportunities for sellers to engage with each other and eBay staff.
It is a mix of trade show, learning workshops and general talks about eBay and eCommerce. By keeping it confined to the MGM Grand, sellers are unlikely to wander far from the event. Even room room rates for the event were very reasonable for Las Vegas.
Unlike typical trade shows in Las Vegas that are held at the Las Vegas Convention Center or Sands Expo Center, everything is confined to one general area.
The conference combines learning, fun, and networking. That works best in one single location.
DO NOT EXPECT ANY BIG NEWS FROM THE EVENT
Normally, eBay does not use this event to announce big initiatives or news. Most of what eBay management will talk about are going to be generalities about eCommerce and the company’s future.
On Facebook, eBay setup a page with live streams from the general sessions and provide other updates from the event.
For those of you with limited time, we will provide a daily wrap up on eSellerCafe today and tomorrow on the general sessions and any other news from the conference.
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Richard Meldner
Richard is co-founder of eSeller365. He has over 17 years of experience on eBay which includes tens of thousands of sales to buyers in over 100 countries and even has experience with eBay’s VeRO program enforcing intellectual property rights for a former employer. And for about two years Richard sold products on Amazon using Amazon FBA in the US.
To “relax” from the daily business grind, for a few weekends a year, he also works for IMSA as a professional race official.