Radio Show Album 02-11-2018 - NEWS VERSION

For Your Eyes only 1 News Stories ~~~~~~ Ecommerce Enterprise Radio Show February 11, 2018

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The Hidden Risk of Selling on Facebook As more sellers turn to Facebook to sell items, there’s a risk that may not be obvious and is unique to social network- ing sites: suspension of their personal accounts in the event they run into policy violations while selling. That can be devastating for those who depend on Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family or for those who have grown addicted to the site. It can also hurt professionally beyond the loss of a selling venue, since many online sellers congregate in Facebook “groups” to discuss and seek advice on ecommerce issues. It may seem obvious to be just as careful selling on Facebook as you would on a site like eBay or Amazon. But selling on Facebook is often local, with deals done in person. It can feel like selling on a classifieds sites or at a flea market with people hawking everything from real estate, used cars, and weight-loss products. Whatever the reason, one experienced seller who asked not to be identified by name was lulled into a sense of com- placency. She makes frequent trips to a large flea market where she acquires certain types of items, and on one recent trip, an item featuring a well known brand that was obviously handmade caught her eye. Unthinkingly, she listed it on Facebook. It’s not surprising she received a takedown notice from Facebook - it was a “monumental” mistake, the seller told us. “I really WISH I knew what the heck was going through my mind when I listed it. I’ve NEVER made a mistake like that on eBay, and yet I sat right there and listed it on Facebook marketplace without it even DAWNING on me that it was a trademark problem.” Lesson learned, right? But it didn’t end there. As soon as she received the notice, she went to remove the listing and found - nothing. Facebook had suspended her personal account, so she was unable to log in to the site. She appealed through a link in the email notification and received back a message: “Thanks for contacting us. We re- moved or disabled access to your profile because content you posted on Facebook violated the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Our policies prohibit posting content that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or6

otherwise violates the law.”“Boy, I thought eBay could be tough,” she told us. “I’m still shell shocked by the whole thing. You never really knowhow much you rely on and use Facebook until you lose it altogether.”We immediately sought answers from Facebook about its policy - did it have a policy to close a seller’s personal ac-count after a single IP violation (“VeRO” in eBay parlance)? If so, we wanted to warn sellers right away.A spokesperson told us that Facebook takes prompt action against IP infringement and disables the accounts of re-peat infringers when appropriate. When it receives a valid notice, it works quickly to remove the reported content andnotifies both the reported party and the rights holder and explains the reason for the removal to the reported party. Facebook also provides reported parties with contact information for the rights holder in the event they want to disputethe infringement notice. The spokesperson also said that when people repeatedly infringe on others’ intellectual property rights, it is the com-pany’s policy to disable their account when appropriate and provided several links for clarification.According to Facebook’s Help Center: “If you repeatedly post content that infringes someone else’s intellectual prop-erty rights, your account may be disabled or your Page removed under Facebook’s repeat infringer policy.”It also states: “If we remove content you posted because of an intellectual property report through our online form,you’ll receive a notification from Facebook that includes the name and email of the rights owner who made the reportand/or the details of the report. If you believe the content shouldn’t have been removed, you can follow up with themdirectly to try to resolve the issue.”The seller had indicated this was her first violation, but she wondered if the drastic action was taken because she hadcross-posted the item to multiple selling groups when listing the item.“When you list something on Facebook it pops up a message asking if you’d like to cross post your ad to your sellinggroups - you simply click the box and it does it for you,” she told us. 7

Here’s Why Amazon Wants to Start Its Own Delivery Service FedEx CEO Says Amazon Is Not a Problem By CHRIS MORRIS Updated: February 9, 2018 10:54 AM ET Amazon looks to be gearing up for another fight. The Wall Street Journal reports the company is preparing a delivery service for businesses, which would compete directly with UPS, FedEx and (less directly) with the U.S. Postal Service. “Shipping with Amazon,” as the service is called, will pick up packages from businesses, ini- tially the company’s third party sellers, and deliver them to customers. Deliveries are report- edly set to begin in Los Angeles in the coming weeks and expand from there. News of the service sent shares of UPS (UPS, -2.64%) and FedEx (FDX, -1.76%) lower in early trading Friday. Amazon (AMZN, -0.79%) has a long-standing partnership with UPS, which handles much of its Amazon Prime deliveries. That relationship is not likely to disappear in the short term, but the longer-term view is a lot fuzzier. Amazon officials didn’t directly address the report when asked for comment by Fortune, but did say, “We’re always innovating and experimenting on behalf of customers and the busi- nesses that sell and grow on Amazon to create faster lower-cost delivery choices.” The new venture, though, is likely driven by a few factors: Expanded Amazon Prime membership and benefits Amazon has a pretty good handle on delivery times for items sent from its own warehouses,8

but when a customer orders from a third party, their Prime membership (which offers free two-day shipping on select items) is fairly useless. By handling deliveries themselves, Amazoncan theoretically speed up delivery times—and drive more people to buy Prime memberships.Worst case, it can track deliveries on its own and not be caught in the middle when customerssay they never received what they ordered.Increases self relianceAmazon is an ecosphere unto itself. Jeff Bezos and company like to have a hand in all as-pects of the sales process. Right now, one of the most crucial parts, logistics, is out of itscontrol. By bringing delivery in-house for third-party partners (and, presumably, for first-partygoods at some point), it doesn’t have to worry about partner service interruptions and howpackages are handled.You don’t need to look further than the recent holiday season, when Amazon faced delays, tosee why it would want to explore alternatives.Cost cutting and profit makingAmazon currently records big losses on shipping. Last year, the company spent as much as$20 billion ensuring its products made it to customers. By taking some (or all) of that in-house,Amazon could conceivably better control those costs, especially if drone delivery becomes aswidespread as the company hopes it will.Beyond that, though, there’s a lot of money to be made in the shipping industry. UPS, in itsmost recent quarter, reported revenues of $18.83 billion. If Amazon could get even a piece ofthat pie, it would be a big boost to its bottom line. 9

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