I was first alerted of this issue on Monday morning when I received the email that eBay sent to millions of their customers or account holders. According to an article on the Wall Street Journal’s website, eBay has been asking users to send letters to Congress in an effort to change a bill that will allow all states to collect sales tax from online merchants, no matter whether they have in-state operations or not.
Basically, this bill would put a sales tax on some of the smaller businesses that people have on eBay, and it would be comparable to that of Amazon or larger retailers. “The legislation treats you and big multi-billion dollar online retailers–-such as Amazon—exactly the same,” said John Donahue, the CEO of eBay. He also personally believes that the company should have to meet certain requirements, such as size and annual sales, to have such a tax.
One of the things I thought was a good way to approach this and was done very well by eBay was the email they sent out to the millions of users, myself included. At first, I didn’t really read into it, or pay much attention. But then I saw all the tweets and articles regarding the matter, and saw what a large issue it could be to a company I use numerous times a year, and thought I’d look into it. The best part about their email that attracted me to their cause was the simplicity of the process. It was formatted in a letter style, and provided a link to send a letter to congressmen. I clicked the link, was given the two easy steps, and quickly filled in my information. After proceeding to the next step, they had used my information to format a lengthy but informational letter to send to congressmen. On top of that, they used my personal information to send the letter to some of my local congressman according to my zip code. There was a huge button to send the letter, and it was as simple as that.
Tying this to Internet Marketing, it shows how asking for your customers help in a situation brings out the loyalty in them for your company. eBay doesn’t want this bill passing, so sending an informational email with a link to help in a quick and easy way makes their company look very good in an effort for you to help them out. Personally, I looked at it like this: they help me with making some money and an easy-to-use website for good purchases, so I can help them out by taking two minutes out of my day by sending a letter with the click of a button. With eBay making an effort to contact their customers, it brings out a lot in the loyalty to their brand, ease and efficiency, and an overall well-thought design and process. It’s a form of marketing their customers, in a different type of way, but nonetheless effective.
Dan Callahan's Internet Marketing Blog 