ebay and Beyond : Basics to Business » Commentary

Online Sales Decline So eCommerce Marketplaces Buy

admin — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:36:11 +0000

It’s Summertime

While some online merchants are reporting declining sales (summertime is normally a slow season for some categories) it seems the ecommerce marketplaces are trying to provide their own economic stimulus. Earlier this year Japanese giant Rakuten purchased Buy.com for a reported $250M and according to Randy Smythe, Merchant Evangelist at Buy everyone at the company is excited about the deal.

Two days ago eBay announced it had purchased RedLaser.com the bar-code scanning app developer.

The latest announcement just yesterday is the eBay competitor Chinese giant Alibaba has purchased Vendio.com the inventory, sales, research and store management developer that is well integrated into eBay and Amazon.

As summer heats up so does the jockeying of the large ecommerce platforms to best position themselves for the upcoming fall and holiday shopping season. It will be interesting to see how all these moves will affect the marketplace as there seems to be more attention being focused on chipping away at eBay’s seller base.

Share this article

Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2010 From My Perspective

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:35:52 +0000

As I walked through the exhibit floor of the huge McCormick Place Convention Center I was very glad to see it full. Full of vendors and full of attendees. It was a stark contrast to the last time I was here, in June of 2008 for what we now know was the last eBayLive. In 2008 there were many open vendor booth spaces and the lowest attendance I had ever seen at an eBayLive event.

I know that the internet retail business has skyrocketed as more and more brick and mortar businesses create or expand their internet business so I don’t know why I was so surprised to note the very low numbers of vendors that would appeal or apply to small to medium sized businesses. Many of the vendors that I talked to were only interested in merchants with GAS (gross annual sales) of $1M or more. While talking with several attendees, I find them to be business development managers, IT specialists and business owners seeking CRM solutions.

What appeared to me to be one of the hotest items on the vendor floor was multi-dimensional photography for the apparel industry. I counted at least 10 booths featuring this technology and it is truly amazing. Another large group of vendors were promoting data collection. As one vendor told me their technology knows what the buying customer is interested in before the customer does. All based on the customer’s previous internet travels and purchases. This allows this specific company to suggest your items that fit the buyers previous internet buying history in nanoseconds! This all comes at a cost, of course, generally well beyond the means of the small to medium sized marketer.

A few of the vendors that I did see that might have applications or product that would fit with my target audience were Stamps.com(a sponsor of my podcasts), Shipwire.com, Yahoo.com, Channeladvisor.com, PayPal.com, and DOBA.com. I should say that notably missing was eBay.

Simply from what I saw, this event while probably great for the RETAIL marketplace, it may not fit the bill for the small to medium sized ecommerce businesses.

I will be editing the recorded interviews I conducted over the next few days and posting them on my podcast.

Share this article

Are You Satisfied With A Website That Ranks Itself 4 Out Of 10?

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:41:45 +0000

As I was reviewing Google Alerts for news this morning I ran across a post by Scot Wingo CEO of Channeladvisor and author of the ebaystrategiesregarding comments made by John Donahoe CEO of eBay during an interview at the D8 (Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital) conference.

During an interview with Walt Mossberg, Donahoe rated eBay’s webiste at a 4 out of 10. He also stated he felt this was up from a 2 out 10 rating 18 months ago. While this shows improvement, it makes me wonder why eBay seems to be placing blame of declining sales on “bad sellers” rather than it’s own website and it’s flaws. Don’t get me wrong, I admit there are some bad sellers on the eBay platform, just as there are some bad apples in a barrel. eBay needs to work on making the site safe for buyers and has made some good advances in that area.

I do however have an issue with those sellers using the eBay platform (I do not sell on eBay any longer) continuing to pay the high fees associated with a site that it’s own CEO rates at 40% of what it should be! If an eBay seller receives a a 40% rating they are GONE!

Now I totally understand that all business is a constant work in progress, but a 4 out of 10 for a company like eBay and all of it’s resources is simply not acceptable from a customer standpoint. I don’t care whether you are a buyer or a seller, if the CEO rates his own site like this, how do the actual users feel?

Share this article

So You Want To Have Your Own Website! WHY?

admin — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:28:52 +0000

Really,,,WHY?

You have made the management decision to come into the 21st century and have your own website. Again, I ask the question,,,,WHY?

Before you run off and start to build a website or have one built, you must know why you want it. What is it that you want your website to do? Do you want an ecommerce site? Why? Is the website to generate income? What are you going to sell? How are you going to sell? Auction or fixed price? Is this product new or used? Are you going to maintain this site by yourself? Do you have the time this requires? Are you going to hire someone to manage it for you? Do you have the funding to hire a webmaster?

Should you use a shopping venue platform such as Amazon, Bonanzle, Yahoo or eBay instead of your own site? This may be a better choice for the startup ecommerce marketer. These sites attract the traffic needed for exposure of your items. They have payment systems integrated to make shopping easier for your customers. Webstore design and templates are often integrated to make it easier for the novice to build a webstore.

Is your intention to provide information only on the site? Then you may be able to do it yourself much easier than a checkout enabled website. Blog sites are often much simpler but do require daily attention to feed the search engine spiders.

Knowing what it is you want the website for is the first step in creating your online presence. Remember that once you establish an online presence it will live somewhere forever! Make sure it is a happy life!

Share this article

Flea Market or Sell It Online? eCommerce May Be Revitalizing Old Fashioned Flea Markets and Yard Sales

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:12:25 +0000

John Donahoe:

A year ago, we had 14 per cent of global e-commerce, we’re the largest e-commerce provider, and our home page still looks like a flea market,” he says. “The world around us had changed. In particular our buyers’ experience hadn’t kept up. December 18, 2007 – Silicon Valley Insider

While eBay started out selling mainly used items initially, quickly new items, usually overstock, liquidation and returned product began to take foothold. Now, the vast majority of product offered is “New”.

In an effort to improve buyer satisfaction, eBay instituted policy changes that included Detailed Seller Ratings, known as DSR’s in the community.

eBay Buyers Rate Sellers

Buyers are encouarge to evaluate sellers on 4 different aspects of the sale. For those selling used items such as antiques and collectibles, clothing, electronics, auto parts and much more. the SUBJECTIVE evaluation as to condition is a major point of discrepency with their buyers. This situation is not exlcusive to eBay certainly, but is most easily demonstrated with their customer satisfaction rating system.

If buyers think that the sellers description was not accurate, they then can rate them lower on the DSR category for Item As Described. It has been reported that many sellers have seen their DSR averages drop mainly based on the lower Item As Described ratings. As a subjective evaluation, this can differ greatly between buyers and sellers.

As a result, some used item sellers are either changing their product line or moving their used items to other venues such as Craigslist. As this migration continues, maybe eBay has created an atmosphere where sellers would rather take these items to a flea market rather than sell them online. Flea markets are seeing more vendors buying tables, as are antique malls.

Is this ecommerce having a causal effect on tradional marketing in reverse?

Share this article

Fair And Balanced News? Use Several Sources To Gather Internet Marketing News!

admin — Sun, 09 May 2010 18:50:38 +0000

Today’s information highway is very very crowded! There are literally millions of sources online for ecommerce news. Most of us have websites or blogs that we follow regularly to learn of the latest breaking news we are interested in. The idea of having our (the website owners or bloggers) information concisely and relatively instantaneously available to our readers, listeners, followers or friends to be consumed at their convenience has created a vast number of “reporters” via websites and blogs.

It’s On The Internet

Is your news source keeping things from you?

So it must be true! Well, ok it may be true, or it may not be, but many times it is being delivered with the author’s slant or opinion. Certainly this author is no exception, but I can not think of one single newsworthy ecommerce event or news report that I have not brought to my readers because I don’t like the source.

Recently, I submitted a press release regarding the combined ECMTA Chicago Chapter/Chicagoland eBay Sellers Meetup dinner meeting coinciding with Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition to Auctionbytes.com free service for Press Releases. The event is open to all internet marketers, and will feature John ColderIce Lawson, CEO of 3Rd Power Outlet, Randy K. Smythe, Merchant Advocate for Buy.com, Richard Brewer-Hay editior of eBayInkBlog.com, and Scot Wingo, CEO of Channeladvisor and editor of ebaystratagies blog as guest panelists in a roundtable townhall discussion format. As an event for ecommerce marketers, I feel this dinner will offer a tremendous amount of information to the attendees. This is of course my personal opinion.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email from David Steiner President of Auctionbytes denying my submission. As there was no reason for the denial given I decided to seek an answer. I emailed David requesting a reason for the denial and this is the response I received:

It’s our policy not to accept PESA/ECMTA press releases.

Now I understand that Auctionbytes is a privately owned company. It is certainly within their perogative to accept or deny nearly anything. I also believe that the editors/owners of Auctionbytes seem to have issues with the corporate structure of ECMTA.org, but is that reason not to publish an event such as this that could possibly benefit ecommerce sellers?

Does not reporting on something make it not happen?

If a news source is selectively chosing what they publish and therefore what their readers see is Auctionbytes truly “the independent trade publication for online merchants”? Do you wonder as I do what else they chose not to tell their readers about?

Disclosure: I am a member of ECMTA.org and Chicago Chapter President as well as a member of the Chicagoland eBay Sellers Meetup Group.

Share this article

Selling Online,,,,Wait, I Don’t Want To Own A Business!

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:11:34 +0000

Much has been written and discussed about online marketplace eBay seemingly seperating itself from the small seller. I define the small seller as someone who sells a few items to maybe enjoy a night out or pay an extra bill or just because they like the challenge. They aren’t relying on their online sales to stay solvent. Truth is, many of these sellers who I have talked to say they just flat find it fun!

Now, many, including this author have decried the way that eBay has changed it’s policies seemingly to accomodate the plethura of huge, volume marketers that have found that eBay is not a “fad” and that this thing called the internet is real. I do still feel that eBay has made it very difficult for a small seller to start selling on the site and compete successfully.

There are many sellers on the site that found their hobby became their voaction, sometimes quite by accident. There are those small sellers who have left the site due to the policies set forth. This group of ecommerce marketers make up a very necessary part of the product chain, providing internet buyers with items that the “big box” etailers and retailers do not supply. One of a kind items, either new or used, collectibles and antiques are all included in this product line.

These small sellers are finding it difficult to meet the changing and challenging marketplace by selling with free shipping, at the lowest possible price, and with the flare and flavor of the “professional” seller.

What eBay needs to realize is that in their effort to become the leader in the secondary marketplace, is that not everyone wants to be in business!

Now, eBay is not the only online marketplace venue to cater to the volume sellers, but it does seem to be the most visible. Amazon certainly does not make it easy for the small seller to market on the site either. The biggest difference I see is that Amazon doesn’t make any pretense of trying to. These venues are not out to squash small sellers.They are doing what will make them money. They are afterall still in business to make money, just like you and me!

I still like the idea of an eBay Classic! But hey, call me old-fashioned!

Share this article

eBay’s Listing Numbers Soar! Not Really!

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:58:12 +0000

It’s All In The Numbers,,Or Is It??

eBay implemented their announced site modifications yesterday and immediately the world watched. Ok, so maybe not the world but a lot of sellers were watching. PowerSellersUnite.com is one of those watching and their site reported a 55% increase in listings yesterday. Taken on face value, that would be great, but why did the numbers jump?

The answer is simple. The numbers now include all those items in eBayStores! These were not included 2 days ago.

Don’t get too excited until we get the reports on sales from sellers. I hope that it includes good news, but there is no guarantee.

It was also a great move to implement this change the day before the end of Q1. Numbers will look great for the earnings report.

Share this article

eBayClassifieds, Bonanzle MeetUp and Store Items In Core Search

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:17:48 +0000

Full News Day

Wow it really has been a full news day! As announced by eBay, today eBay Stores items now appear in the normal “core search” for eBay buyers. Until this point there had been several different attempts to bring the items sellers listed in their eBay Stores in the main search engine on the site, or added to the bottom of a search page if there was room or lack of the searched for items in the normal eBay site. This however was not a truly viable way for store owners to get their items seen. This is one of the biggest changes of the most recently announced eBay ERS’s or eBay Seller Release. It is a was much needed and the store owners I have talked to are nearly 100% for this improvement. There are of course other changes and they can all be found in the eBay Announcements page.

Bonanzle MeetUp

Today Bonanzle.com announced that they will be conducting their second Bonanzle Meetup again in Seattle, WA the websites home base. The first MeetUp held last year drew a small but enthusiastic group of users. As the site continues to grow, I am sure this MeetUp will garner more attention and certainly more attendees. The supporters of the site welcomed the news with Tweets and Facebook posts all morning. Scheduled for May 15th, it is sure to grow a crowd!

Bye Bye Kijiji

In about March of 2005 eBay bought controlling interest in a group of classified sites they called Kijiji. Unfortunately Kijiji never gained much traction in the classified marketplace. Today eBay announced that Kijiji has been rebranded and overhauled to become eBayClassifieds. The new look and feel of the site impressed me and I think it might have a chance this time. The reasoning behind my thought is that it provides small non business sellers another venue under the eBay name.

There are several changes including improvements to eBay Motors and more! Check out the site to learn about them all.

Share this article

Ramping Up For eBay ESR Changes May Be Costing More Than You Think

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:52:58 +0000

The Announcement

Back on January 26th 2010 eBay released the latest round of ESR’s (eBay Seller Release) changes due to take effect on March 31st. While many of the changes seem to be geared toward improving the buyer and seller experience (OK, mostly buyer) there were some good things for sellers as well.

Getting Your Business Ready

While the ESR’s have been announced well in advance, sellers are not waiting to get their eBay Stores ready. Many of these sellers have hundreds if not thousands of items to change to the new Fixed Price format instead of the soon to be defunct Store Inventory Format listing. While doing this, some merchants are making the changes active now. Fromthe information I have received, this has caused these new items in Fixed Price format not to be found in Google search. This has caused what some merchants are calling a significant drop in sales.

While preparing your items for the format change on March 31st, it is recommended that sellers do NOT convert the listings to Fixed Price until the effective date of the change because their items will not appear in core search or be submitted to Google until that date.

If you have had experience with this situation, please comment!

Share this article