Phaedra Stockstill Interviews Bill Harding on ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business Podcast

On Monday April 28th, 2010, Bill Harding CEO of Bonanzle.com posted on the website’s forum that $1M in funding had been secured. In the post he described what the immediate future will bring for the rapidly growing ecommerce marketplace. With just under one quarter of a million registered users in just 20 months since their launch, Bonanzle has attracted not only sellers who have moved away from industry leaders Amazon and eBay, but an increasing number of small to medium sized sellers who are expanding to multi-channel marketing. The friendly members of Bonanzle’s community seem to help each other and newbies alike.

I had a chance to talk with Harding at the recent eCommerce Summit 2010 in Las Vegas hosted by ECMTA/PeSA. Harding spoke about the strides that had been made to improve and enhance Bonanzle in the past 6 months and what he hoped to see implemented in the near future. He was passionate about the site and was highly sought out by many attendees of the Summit.

Exploding Forward

From left Phaedra Stockstill Bill Harding Judy Oglesby

Shortly after the eCommerce Summit, Phaedra Stockstill of Bonanzleboardroom.com contacted me with some exciting news for Bonanzle.com members. Phaedra told me that she and her Bonanzleboardroom podcast co-host Judy Oglesby had been working on a meetup for Bonanzle members and that news would be released soon. Well, as usual she did not disappoint me.

Yesterday I received the press release from Phaedra announcing the Exploding Forward Bonanzle Up 2010. Scheduled for August 7, 2010 in Kansas City MO, at the Fair Points Sheraton hotel. Early bird registration is $25. Watching the forums on Bonanzle it is clear that the vast majority of members embrace the centralized location chosen for the event. I will be reporting live from the event and look forward to meeting the diverisfied group of users to determine why they chose Bonanzle, how they found the site, what they like and what they wish could be changed.

Disclosure: Both Bonanzle and Bonanzleboardroom have purchased advertising on my weekly podcast.

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One of the most interesting startups I met at the eCommerce Summit 2010 sponsored by PESA/ECMTA is Addoway. A completely free site that incorporates a marketing platform with social media marketing. I sat down with Fredrick Nijmn Co-Founder of Addoway during one of my interviews to discuss the explosion of social networking in ecommerce.

Listen to the Addoway Interview

The concept is to link your followers, people that trust you, to the items you have for sale using Addoway’s platform. Here is what the About Us page says about the site:

Here at Addoway, we believe we are at the forefront of the next big trend in online shopping – referred to by many as “Social Commerce”. To put it simply, Social Commerce is the intersection of Social Media and eCommerce, where buyers connect with sellers they know and trust – rather than shopping from strangers with nothing more than a user ID or feedback score to back up their reputation.

With the explosion of Facebook, Twitter and social media in general, millions of people have now become comfortable with the idea of sharing their identity and details about who they are online. Successfully managing an online persona is becoming a critical way to build trust with those who interact with you. Yet while the social media revolution has continued to spur on the concept of openness and transparency online, the world of eCommerce has not fully embraced this growing trend.

Addoway aims to fill this gap. Our patent-pending process helps you discover new, trustworthy people to buy, sell, bargain and trade with – bringing you a deeper look at the person you are dealing with.

With the ability to import eBay listings to your free Addoway store, and then promote those items through social commerce, Addoway seems to be a front runner in the latest effort to combine social media and ecommerce.

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One week from today we (Nicole and I) will be leaving for ECMTA’s eCommerce Summit 2010 in Las Vegas which begins April 13th. We will spend a few days seeing the sites and then the work begins!

With the event promising to provide attendees with a fantastic opportunity to learn the latest information regarding all aspects of ecommerce, the presentations are sure to be filled! Along with the presentations, the networking will surely be in high gear! Many of the attending internet marketers have not yet met each other face to face and they will be meeting and greeting for the entire conference!

I will be broadcasting for at least 16 hours Wednesday and Thursday, and you might even get some early bird stuff on Tuesday night from the meet and greet. My intent is to bring not only my listeners the news from vendors, but also live interviews with those conducting workshops and of course we will be speaking with those attending the presentations to get their reactions! Of course as always, listeners can join us in the chat room and submit questions or call and ask them live on the air. Our podcasts can be found from this website or directly from Talkshoe.com. Just enter 30067 in the search box to find my show directly!

Broadcasts will begin at 8:30 AM PDT, 10:30 AM CDT. A large number of interviews with top executives of ecommerce platforms and a few surprises for sure! Remember that if you can’t listen live you can also review the archives at your leisure!

I would like to thank our sponsors for making these broadcasts possible and look forward to seeing you all in the chat room! Remember there is still time to register so if you can attend sign up now!

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So Many Choices

There are always so many choices when the confernece season starts.

eBay: eBay On Location: March 19-20, 2010 in Atlanta GA, Dallas TX May 7-8, 2010, Chicago IL July 9-10, 2010 and San Jose September 1-2, 2010

eBay: On Location will kick off in downtown Atlanta at the Omni Hotel on March 19-20, 2010, and continue on to Dallas and Chicago and wrap-up in San Jose to celebrate eBay’s 15th anniversary!

Each event is jam-packed with practical information to build and grow an eBay business. Learn new strategies in large and small classes, live demonstrations and a Top-rated seller panel discussion. Plus, you’ll have plenty of chances for one-on-one interaction with eBay experts, business gurus and other small business and part-time sellers like you!

Along with the eBay sponsored event in Atlanta, there are a couple of Pre & After events you should consider putting on your calendar!

Danna Crawford The PowerSellingMom is co-hosting a Pre-Event Lunch Friday the 19th.

John ColderIce Lawson will be hosting an AfterParty at 8:00 PM on Friday the 19th.

eCommerce Merchants: eCommerce Summit 2010 Las Vegas  April 13-15, 2010

This is one of the most targeted conferences for internet marketers regardless of the venue they sell on. See the agenda on the link above to see the star studded lineup of presenters.

Channeladvisor Catalyst Conference May 3-5, 2010

Internet Retailer Conference & Expo July 8-11, 2010 Chicago IL

Just One Question????

Why don’t they have these things in the winter so us nothern tier of states people can get out to the warmer parts of the country?

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Keynote – Paul Greenberg with Deals Direct

Today, Dealsdirect.com.au is the leading online retailer in Australia giving online retail giants like Amazon a run for their money. With a 430,000 square foot warehouse, over 1,000,000 unique visitors per month and over 900,000 customers Deals Direct is a success story you will not want to miss. Join us as Paul shares his amazing journey and reasons for their success highlighting important decisions they made to point Deals Direct the right direction.

eBay Seller Presentation and Town Hall

As always, we are pleased to announce eBay will once again be sending an army of executives from the various departments to the eCommerce Summit to spend quality face time with sellers about their issues, suggestions and concerns. There will also be an eBay Town Hall sessions with a panel of executives to answer seller questions if you are unable to catch them in the halls for quality one on one time.

Social Media for Business STINKS: Unless You Know These 7 Secrets

Every day, thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs miss out on millions of dollars in revenue simply because they don’t know how to utilize the Internet for marketing and selling. This is NOT your same old ABC stuff, these are actual eCommerce practices for Social Media that will yield bottom line results and amp up your business.

John Lawson – Founder, ColderICE.com

Panel Discussion – A World of Opportunities Selling Globally

We invited 3 very special guests to join us to discuss the opportunity for small to medium size online merchants to sell globally without the need to open a remote warehouse or have employees specialized in customs documentation or international shipping.

Kent Allen – Moderator – Principal, The Research Trust
Craig Reed – Vice President eCommerce Solutions, Pitney Bowes
Chris Boyle – President and CEO, Access Technology Solutions
Craig Turnbull – CEO, Bongo International

Customer Service Excellence – Focus on the Buyer Experience

Marsha Collier is well known in the eBay seller community as one of the foremost eBay experts and top selling eBay author with over 1 million copies of her books in print. Marsha will be helping merchant evaluate their customer service strategies to highlight the do’s and don’ts as well as the costs of not doing customer service right.

Marsha Collier – Author, eBay for Dummies and many other books

How to Succeed on Google Product Search, Bing Cashback, and Search

Brian Smith with SingleFeed always receives great feedback from attendees as one of the most valuable sessions at the event. We invited him back for more as he will focus primarily on Google Product Search and Bing Cashback search strategies for merchants.

Brian Smith – Founder, Single Feed

Website Makeovers – Going from Good to Great

Website makeovers are always a popular event for eCommerce Merchants Members so we are taking this one live to Vegas with us. Join us as we invite 3 website design experts to review and share advice with members on how to improve their website for SEO, user experience and increased sales.

Michael Ober – Sr Manager Merchant Development, Yahoo!
Scott Smigler – CEO, Exclusive Concepts
Greg Jameson – President, Webstores Ltd

Winning Website Coupon Strategies

At our eCommerce Summit in Atlanta there was a ton of buzz about the growing trend for buyers to include an online coupon discount into their buying decision. Merchants need to catch the coupon wave and we invited our very own coupon expert Charleen Larson to share coupon strategies that work. This workshop will provide you simple “take-home” coupon tips to get you going right away.

Charleen Larson – Owner, JCEarrings.com

The Secrets to Online News Releases & Optimization

Another session coming back due to popular demand from attendees. With the nature of a press release, search engines give them a high quality score for content and search rankings. This session will show you tips and strategies to build a press release strategy that offers a valuable ROI and increase your SEO results and buyer traffic.

Sophie Shiatis – Vice President, PRWeb

Managing Your Pay Per Click Campaigns for Success

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising can be a very effective way to drive brand awareness as well as customizing a targeted message to a targeted audience focused on buying the items you sell. PPC can also be a very complex marketing tool to manage. We have invited PPC experts to share tips on managing your PPC campaigns so you are on target with your profit goals.

Phil Leahy – Moderator – President, PeSA Australia
Bjorn Espenes – Founder, Finch
Alexis Van de Wyer – Director of Advertising, eBay

We have many more speakers and sessions coming and will announce them as the speaker bio’s come in.

See Ya in Vegas! – www.ecommerce-summit.com

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Brandon Dupsky announced Paul Greenberg the Co-Founder and Managing Director for one of the largest online retailers in Australia, Deals Direct will be the Keynote Speaker at the Summit. This should be a very exciting presentation and I truly look forward to covering it.

Congratulations to Tommy and all of those that submitted entries to our contest!

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With just under a month left to submit entries, the first of what we hope are many videos has been received.

Bobbi Miller of Seacoastbargains.com submitted her entry to compete for the BasicsToBusiness Pay My Way To Ecommerce Summit Las Vegas 2010 contest Grand Prize.

ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business weekly live podcasts for internet marketers is sponsoring the BasicsToBusiness Pay My  Way to eCommerce Summit Las Vegas 2010 as part of our 3rd anniversary celebration. The Grand Prize winner will receive round trip airfare, 3 days and 2 nights hotel accommodations and registration to the ECMTA eCommerce Summit 2010 in Las Vegas plus a one on one meeting with John “ColderIce” Lawson and more!

Friendly Competition

As part of the eCommerce Summit, there is a friendly competition amongst 3 of the new ECMTA Local Chapters, Chicago, hosted by yours truly, Dallas-FW, hosted by The Melinda Jackson, and the Atlanta Chapter hosted by none other than John ColderIce Lawson.

The competition is to see which local chapter can bring the most chapter members to the Las Vegas event. The attending members of the winning local chapter will receive $100 from ECMTA, according to Managing Director Brandon Dupsky.

To learn more about the ECMTA eCommerce Summit 2010 click here.

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eCommerce Merchants Trade Association (ECMTA) recently announced it has begun establishing local chapters of its international trade association of internet marketers. ECMTA brings it’s members information and education regarding all aspects and venues of internet marketing. 

The first local chapter was established in Atlanta with John “ColderIce” Lawson, CEO of 3RDPoweroutlet.com, as President. The local chapters are being organized on Meetup.com and the Atlanta Meetup can be found at http://www.meetup.com/eCommerce-Merchants-Atlanta-Chapter/. The initial meeting of the Atlanta group is scheduled for Janaury 12th, with SEO/SEM expert Charles Lumpkin as the featured speaker.

Brandon Dupsky Managing Director of ECMTA also announced the creation of local chapters in Chicago IL, Dallas TX, and San Francisco CA.

The Chicago Chapter is hosted by yours truly and our first Meetup is scheduled for January 19th and the the Meetup page can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/eCommerce-Merchants-Chicago-Chapter/. Our featured speaker will be David Simon of Weltman and Bernfield LLC, on the topic of structuring your ecommerce business and tax implications.

The Dallas chapter is hosted by Melinda Jackson and their Meetup page can be found here: http://www.meetup.com/eCommerce-Merchants-Dallas-Fort-Worth-Chapter/. Their first Meetup is scheduled for Janaury, 2010 with thedate, location and topic to be announced.

The San Francisco chapter has scheduled their first meeting for late January and their Meetup page is located here: http://www.meetup.com/eCommerce-Merchants-San-Francisco-Chapter/.

Dupsky also stated during an interview Wednesday evening on The River The Ranch and The Bay podcast that several more local chapters were in the planning stages in major cities around the US and Canada.

By establishing local chapters, ECMTA will be able to bring their educational resources to thousands more potential members. This will benefit internet marketers by allowing them access to information and education that normally would be reserved for bigger conferences, the cost and location of which sometimes restrict the ability of members to attend.

ECMTA is also sponsoring eCommerce Summit 2010 in Las Vegas, NV April 13-15 2010. Dupsky promises this year’s event will be the best ever, with noted experts in many aspects of internet marketing!

Personally speaking, I look forward to the opportunity to help inform, educate and most importantly learn from the members of our Chicago chapter!

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Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost 3 years. When I began ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business I had hoped it would last. Now I know it will!

Anyway, our third anniversary is coming up February 8, 2010 and to help celebrate this monumental event we will be offering one lucky listener a free trip to the Ecommerce Merchants Trade Association (ECMTA.org) Ecommerce Summit in Las Vegas April 13-15, 2010. All you have to do to enter is submit a video telling us why you or your business really really needs to attend this event! That’s it. Well OK, there are a few rules which you will find posted here, but hey gotta have a few rules.

So watch for updates here and get your thinking caps on! The contest begins today at 1 PM ET and ends February 1, 2010. You have plenty of time so lets get going!

3rd Anniversary Video Contest Rules

1. All entries must be titled: BasicstoBusiness.com PAY MY WAY to eCommerce Summit Las Vegas 2010

1a. Entries can be uploaded to YouTube.com but a link must be sent to dave@basicstobusiness.com.

2. All entrants MUST be 21 years of age or older on or before February 7, 2010.

3. All entries become the property of ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business and may be reproduced at the sole discretion of basicstobusiness.com.

4. Videos may not contain copywrited material, offensive language or material.

5. Videos may be a maximum of 2 minutes in length.

6. Contest winners will be awarded 1 round trip airfare (if needed), 3 nights accomodations at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino and registration to the Ecommerce Spring Summit conference April 13-15 2010. Meals, incidentals and any taxes are the sole responsibility of the winner. Transportation to and from the Las Vegas airport will be provided by basicstobusiness.com.

7. Entrants certify that they are able and willing to attend the event.

8. Entrants agree to the taking and use of publicity photos by basicstobusiness.com and ECMTA.org.

9. Videos must be submitted in Mp3 format.

10. Winner agrees to 30 minute live on air interview at the event to be determined by basicstobusiness.com

11. All entries must be received no later than 4 PM ET February 1, 2010.

12. Host and co-hosts of the show are ineligable.

13. Decision of the judges is final.

14. Winner will be announced and interviewed on air February 8, 2010.

15. Winner will be responsible for reimbursement of airfare if they become unable to attend after reservations have been made.

16. Basicstobusiness.com reserves the right to amend rules at anytime.

17. Basicstobusiness.com is not liable for any injury resulting from this event.

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Since 2007 eBayLive, the annual conference eBay held to bring their passionate and ardent supporters together has been in a death spiral. Early last year eBay announced that the 2009 event would be cancelled but assured anyone that would listen that the event would be revived and resurrected in Orlando FL in August of 2010.

After the 2008 eBayLive (many called this eBayDead)  in Chicago, I have been telling my listeners that no matter what eBay was saying, eBayLive was on life support and the prognosis was grave. With less than half of the 10,000 expected attendees and a very empty vendor convention hall, the 2008 eBayLive saw angry attendees and confrontations between users and staff. Many of the eBay staffers at the event (nearly 700 eBay employees reportedly attended) seemed truly concerned about the attitude of attendees.

Lorrie Norrington Makes The Death Announcement

Yesterday Lorrie Norrington posted on the eBay announcement board what a few of us already knew was coming. eBayLive had in fact expired. In it’s place a new format called eBay: On Location, a more local or regional event to be held in locations that would allow the most attendees to be no more than one days drive away.

Interestingly enough, just 6 weeks ago eBay corporate spokesperson  Usher Lieberman, while being interviewed on my radio program ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business live from the PESA/ECMTA Spring Summit in Atlanta, assured me and my listeners that eBayLive 2010 was still scheduled and would occur. How rapidly things change!

While the economy has hurt many ecommerce sellers and businesses, this demise of eBayLive is not a surprise to me. What is a surprise is that it took so long for others to see the handwritting on the wall.  

I had some great times at previous eBayLive’s and will miss it terribly. The people I met and the networking were phenominal.

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