​

Closing Dinner of eBay's 2022 Brussels Seller Advocacy Day in presence of all visiting sellers, eBay Government Relations team and eBay Vice-President Godert van Dedem

Listen to a summary of this post from our colleague Georgiana on the latest episode of the eBay Main Street Minute:

Last week, eBay's General Counsel, Marie Oh Huber, and Cathy Foster, Vice-President Global Government Relations, welcomed a delegation of the European Parliament's Internal Market Committee on a visit to California at eBay's Global Headquarters in San Jose.

The eBay Government Relations team hosted its first in-person event since the start of the pandemic. This was also our first meeting with new Members of the German Parliament since Federal elections were held in Germany in September of 2021.

The European Commission is running a public consultation on the Sustainable Consumption of Goods to promote the “right to repair” and reuse, which will be open until 5 April 2022. This consultation is meant to complement the ongoing work on the Sustainable Products Initiative led by the European Commission, and would feed into a proposal for new European legislation that would aim at facilitating repair.

The EUIPO offers several advantages to EU SMEs who protect their intellectual property rights. In particular, free personalised advice on intellectual property matters, up to 75 % reimbursement of the fees for trademarks and designs, 50 % reimbursement of national patent fees, and more.

eBay is committed to animal welfare and the protection of native, endangered, and threatened species, and we are proud to continue our cooperation with the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online. Since 2017, eBay has blocked or removed almost 750,000 listings for prohibited wildlife products, while all eBay enforcement staff have been trained through the Coalition’s online learning program and in-person training.

During the second half of November, eBay launched a petition with our European seller community regarding the Digital Services Act (DSA) to urge policymakers to protect sellers’ rights as entrepreneurs. The petition was signed by 9,857 eBay users, representing 8,230 European small businesses.

The “eBay Deine Stadt” initiative is a local platform that allows local sellers in Germany to trade on eBay. Conducted in partnership with the German Retail Association, this program enables small retailers who were hit hard by COVID-19 to quickly utilize another channel to reach consumers. Participating SMBs get an eBay premium shop for free for the first six months, don’t have to pay fees for the first three months and receive our premium customer support. This project truly enables our community and more than 20 cities are already participating in the program.