I bought a couple of items on eBay this morning, and despite having just cleared my inbox, I suddenly found it full again! I normally ignore most eBay emails, or at the most glance at them, but I thought I’d analise exactly why so many need to be sent.

The item I’m going to concentrate on was a ‘Buy it Now’ auction, so there was no need to get bid confirmation emails and such. I also paid for the item immediately using PayPal. Let’s look at the emails I received:

1. From: eBay, You won eBay item…
   Confirming I’d “won” the item, and asking me to “Pay Now” (including appropriate links)
2. From: Auctiva, You have won eBay Item…
   Essentially the same as the eBay email. Tells me I’ve “won”, and asking me to log in to eBay to pay. Also advertising the seller’s Auctiva store.
3. From: PayPal, Receipt for Your Payment to…
   Standard PayPal receipt for payment
4. From: eBay Member, Ebay item Purchased eBay item…
   Telling me I’ve “won” and asking me to pay. Essentially the same as (1), although gives me instructions for sending payment through the mail. I’ve already paid by this stage however.
5. From: eBay Member,Thank you for your payment. eBay item…
   “Thank you” email, including links to other items. No details on how it will be despatched or anything else!

All these emails were sent within 3 minutes! It strikes me as an excessive quantity of emails for one small transaction (around £5).

If this had been an auction format I would get even more, although arguably these would be justified.

Would it be very hard to put a small dellay into the process that sends emails 1,2 and 4 so that if payment is sent imediately, these are skipped (or at least changed). Can eBay not also put a field in their emails to allow the seller to send a message, rather than sending out a separate one (and so getting rid of email’s 4 and 5).

I understand that eBay and PayPal are officially separate organisations and so should send separate emails, but given how integrated they are these days they could quite easily share emails (although in my case my eBay and PayPal addresses are different).

Email 2 is just blatent advertising from Auctiva – no reason for it whatsoever!

So, to sumarise, in the case where a Buy it Now item is “won” and paid for within say 10 minutes, the number of emails could be kept down to two:

1. From eBay: You won item…
   Thank you for your payment etc. Including optional custom message from seller.
2. From PayPal: Receipt for your payment…
   Standard receipt. If the email addresses are the same, I don’t see a reason this can’t be integrated into the first email though. It would be good if the seller could add to this too, to let the buyer know when the item will be despatched etc.

Of course if payment is dellayed more emails may be required, although since eBay doesn’t send a payment confirmation email anyway, it could still be kept to just two, with the first one asking for payment.

Of course if further emails say something useful (such as “Your item has been despatched”) they are justified, but having so many almost identical emails makes information hard to organise and find – especially if you buy a lot.