Owner: eBay, ecommerce, life URL:http://www.trevorginn.com Join Date: Fri, 06 Jul 2007 02:30:26 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: News, views and best practice on eBay and other leading online marketplaces Site statistics:Click here
Review of eBay Q&A by Robert Pugh 2007-09-15 03:42:32 I have just read eBay Q&A by Robert
Pugh, author of the eBay Business Handbook. Robert compiled this list of topics from questions which were posed through his blog and newsletter the eBay bulletin.
As opposed to most beginner level books on eBay, this book does not go through a step by step guide to how to use the eBay website (yawn!) but rather concentrates on interesting titbits on how to use eBay. For example
Does the timing of my bid make a difference?
What start price should I use?
What is a PayPal Chargeback?
The advice is clearly written and easy to digest. Perhaps good for a before bedtime snipped of eBay advice!
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links for 2007-09-15 2007-09-14 19:37:33
TED: Ideas worth spreading
(tags: ideas network)
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links for 2007-09-13 2007-09-12 19:42:48
Fixtureferrets.co.uk searching for the best grocery promotions
(tags: fixture ferrets supermarket deals)
ipoints.co.uk - Welcome Back
(tags: ipoints online rewards)
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ChannelAdvisor takes over Marketworks 2007-09-12 09:12:52
To my enormous surprise ChannelAdvisor has taken over Marketworks. I find this surprising as in my experience, people from Channeladvisor have had nothing good to say about marketworks. But then, that is probably true for all competitors.
As I understand it, the volume of GMV which was managed by the two companies is about the same. Channeladvisor’s strategy has been to go for the larger sellers, those of £20K or more a month, whilst marketworks has had a very much a self service model with a much cheaper monthly minimum.
Here is some speculation on the deal, in no particular order:
Poor Product
Marketworks’ product seemed to be rather undeveloped and badly optimised for local markets (e.g. UK users had to use US time), almost as if they weren’t investing in it any more. New entrant product such as eSellerPro and Kyozou which are much slicker and had a greater range of functionality have been gaining market share.
It seemed to me th
links for 2007-09-12 2007-09-11 19:35:15
Kiva.org - Loans that change lives
(tags: kiva microcredit)
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Review of How to have a Baby on eBay 2007-09-09 13:54:40 The nice people at Harriman house have given me a copy of How to have a Baby on eBay: Your One Stop Shopping Guide to Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond by Wiz Wharton.
This book is an interesting combination of shopping guide (the full range of baby stuff from monitors to pushchairs) and a guide to buying and selling on eBay. On the whole I think that it works. A lot of the time people need a reason to start using eBay, and this books gives concrete examples of how buying stuff on eBay can really cut of the cost of a new addition to the family.
Where I would criticise this books is that it limits itself to eBay. eBay is not always the cheapest place to buy items online, and I think that it would have been good to point that out. When I am searching for an item online, I check eBay first but also the shopping comparision engines and Amazon to try and get the best deal.
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15 Ways to Avoid Fraud on eBay 2007-10-01 04:02:12 Fraud is a growing problem on eBay. The golden rule here is to apply common sense. However, some of the tactics used can be pretty convencing, especially to the novice user.
REMEMBER: IF SOMETHING SEEMS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT PROBABLY IS!
1 Shill Bidding
Shill bidding is widespread on eBay and means bidding on items you are trying to sell in order to artificially inflate their price and desirability. Sometimes, sellers shill bid using second eBay identities, sometimes they get friends to do it on their behalf. Either way, shill bidding is illegal in Britain, and there are some tell-tale clues that indicate a buyer is a shill bidder:
Look at the eBay history of each bidder on the item you are interested in. Shill bidders may bid exclusively on items offered by one seller. If the same person has bid for a used handbag, a secondhand fridge, a fondue set and a man’s scarf from the same seller – and has shown no interest in any other seller on eBay – the Read more:Avoid
links for 2007-10-01 2007-09-30 19:30:15
AskBaby.com - Pregnancy Guide, Baby Advice, Baby Clothing, Baby Names, Maternity .
(tags: baby site askbaby)
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eBay and eCommerce Forum 2007-10-04 17:44:27 What fun you can have with computers. I have just launched a forum on this site which can be found here:
www.trevorginn.com/forum/
And also in the side navigation. I intend this to be a place of discussion about eBay and eCommerce stuff and also just general chit-chat.
Everyone is invited some come on down!
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eBay Research Software 2007-10-01 10:03:58 I have been doing a lot of research into product to sell on eBay of recent and here is a review of the products which I have been using.
eBay tools can be broadly divided into two sorts, those that go through the eBay API and those that scrape eBay results through the login. Software
which uses the API are fast, but constrained in the results which they can provide. For example they cannot give details on the size of sales within a particular category, as this might be used in predicting eBay’s financial results.
Software which scrapes eBay pages are slow but can give more information about a particular category, for example the size of the category and who is sellling within that category.
API Software
The product I have been making the most use of is terapeak. Terapeak provides data for UK, France, Germany, Australia, Canada and US eBay marketplaces making it the most comprehensive tool on the market. The product is charged at $24.95 for a Read more:Research
links for 2007-10-17 2007-10-16 19:40:52
EBay Makes a Bid To Lure Lapsed Buyers - WSJ.com
(tags: wall street journal eBay article)
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BlogRush is Useless 2007-10-14 13:32:48 Being a man who likes to experiment, I recently installed BlogRush on my blog. The idea of this widget is supplying readers with links to other relevant stories. If people click on these links then your blog will appear in the widget on other people’s blogs and you will gain traffic.
I have had Blog Rush on my blog for about 2 weeks now and the effect on traffic has been nil. I imagine that the only people that would install a widget like this would be blogs with relatively low traffic, and they won’t get enough clickthough to make any difference. I get on average 50 hits on my blog a day and if the conversion rate is 1% then that will mean that the BlogRush network gets on average a click every other day. If you only get out what you put into the network, the effect will be negligable.
I guess that blogRush would probably work for highly traffiked blogs, however I also guess that they would have no need for it. All in all I don’
links for 2007-10-13 2007-10-12 19:42:32
WRAP - Nappy finder
(tags: real nappies site)
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Detailed Seller Rating Revealed 2007-10-17 17:06:27 The other day eBay revealed detailed of the average rating being left on the eBay detailed seller ratings.
The detailed seller rating were supposed to enable sellers to give a fuller picture of the service that they received, and reward those that gave a truely excellent service. Here are the results:
Bottom 10% of sellers
Bottom 25% of sellers
Median seller
Top 25% of sellers
Top 10% of sellers.
Item As Described
4.6
4.7
4.8
4.9
4.9
Communication
4.5
4.6
4.8
4.9
4.9
Shipping Time
4.3
4.6
4.7
4.9
4.9
S & H Charge
4.3
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.8
Looking at these figures it seems to me that detailed seller rating have the same problem as ordinary feedback, i.e. people normally giving high ratings and hence the score does not really give much indication of the quality of the service.
The difference between the 90th and 10th percentile for item as described is 0.4 i.e. an 8% difference. News is that eBay is going to be using DSRs Read more:Seller
, Rating
links for 2007-10-25 2007-10-24 19:55:53
Welcome to ABC Nursery Supplies Ltd, the one stop shop for everything a baby needs.
(tags: abc nursery products)
The European Bookshop - European language and literature books and european language courses
(tags: eurobook shop)
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links for 2007-10-24 2007-10-23 19:44:24
Business Directory, Lead Generation, Find People, Business to Business, Business List, Sales Leads, Company Research, B2B, Professional Networking, Social Networking, Find Connections ? Spoke.com
(tags: spoke business network)
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eBay Neighbourhoods - a Missed Opportunity 2007-10-22 17:12:47 I have to say that I am rather dissappointed with eBay’s new neighborhood offering. It seems to simply be an amalgam of components which already exist within eBay, as opposed to a genuine development. An eBay Neighborhood consists of the following:
Discussion boards
Blogs
Reviews and guides
And of course associated items and members. What I think is missing is any really interesting functionality to allow members to interact i.e. to discuss and compare items they own and things which they have bought on eBay.
On the product site eBay Neighborhoods lacks any interesting fuctionality to either bind the community or connect demand with supply. At the root of this is eBay’s age old problem of not having an inventory for most sellers to fall back on. This impeads sellers from directly comparing items and easily cataloging their collection. It also prevent any kinds of recommendation engine of the sort seen on Amazon. In t Read more:Opportunity
GetitNext - good eBay searching site 2007-10-22 03:01:09
I have just been alerted to the launch of an new eBay searching
site - getitnext. This site has rather nice functionality, allowing users to refine their seaches using tag clouds and selecting categories from a graphical category tree.
The application also allows buyers to find hot items within a particular category i.e. items with the most bids, and deals i.e. items with no bids, a functionality with eBay also does not have.
So in summary, this is a search app which actually adds value to the user. My only worry for the people of getitnext is that eBay could so easily borrow their ideas.
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New eBay listing Tool - Auctomatic 2007-10-22 02:51:38
I have just been invited to the beta of Auctomatic, a new eBay listing tool. On the face of it I am not sure why its creators thought that there was a requirement in the marketplace for a sub-Seller Manager Pro offering. The product offers the same kind of inventory features as SMP, but without the more advanced features such as scheduling and automation.
That said it does look quite pretty. I was a bit dissapointed as I had high hopes that they might produce something interesting. People of auctomatic, if you are listening, here is what your product needs for starters:
Item scheduling
Auction template (i.e. where you can separate the template design and content)
Automatic emails
Auctomatic feedback
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links for 2007-10-30 2007-10-29 19:46:40
Online Books, Poems, Short Stories - Read Print
(tags: free online book directory)
Off-Grid - life unplugged: solar, wind, hydro, architecture, smallholdings, free stuff
(tags: off grid)
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I am presenting at Bstartup 2007-10-29 11:22:17
Try to control yourselves but I will be presenting at Business Startup 2007 on Friday at 2.45. The presentation is called "How to be an eBay Entrepreneur". See you there.
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links for 2007-10-28 2007-10-27 19:37:39
Sell text link ads. Direct. No commissions. Instant payment - WP Text Ads
(tags: WP text link ads)
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links for 2007-10-27 2007-10-26 19:37:41
Free SEO Tools, Internet Marketing Tools and Backlink Checkers.
(tags: SEO tools)
EffectiveUI
(tags: effectiveUI eBay san dimas)
FreePint - Helping you use the Web for your work
(tags: Free pint information resources)
Researcha — Company and company director information for the UK and Europe
(tags: company information resource)
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eBay.com vs eBay.co.uk Affiliate revenues 2007-10-26 18:37:35 Michelle from eSellerStreet recently pointed out to me that the affiliate payments differ widely between the US and the UK.
USA Revenue Share Tiers
Total Revenue ($)
% of Revenue
$0 - $99.99
50.00%
$100 - $4,999.99
55.00%
$5,000 - $199,999.99
60.00%
$200,000 - $699,999.99
65.00%
$700,000 - $2,999,999.99
70.00%
$3,000,000 +
75.00%
UK Revenue Share Tiers
Total Revenue (£)
% of Revenue
£0.01 - £99.99
25.0%
£100.00 - £999.99
27.5%
£1,000.00 - £9,999.99
30.0%
£10,000.00 - £99,999.99
35.0%
£100,000.00 - £249,999.00
45.0%
£250,000.00 - £499,99.99
47.5%
£500,000.00 + Read more:Affiliate
BStartup up show round up 2007-11-02 14:13:05 Thanks for everyone who came to see me speak at the Bstartup show. The seminar was surprisingly popular - see photo of the queue below
If you want the slides from the presentation click here
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links for 2007-11-02 2007-11-01 19:47:22
Auction Mercial - The Easiest Way to Add Pictures, Voice, Music, and Video to Your eBay Auction Listing
(tags: ebay video)
OnStream Auction Video
(tags: ebay video)
i2iAuction eBay Streaming Video
(tags: ebay video)
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Clear Offset - Offset your carbon footprint 2007-11-01 06:42:08
I would like to do a quick plug for my friend’s company clear-offset.com. Clear
is a one-stop shop to help you tackle climate change. Measure your carbon footprint, get advice on how to reduce it, and then find out how offsetting can create further reductions elsewhere.
Clear only uses Certified Emission Reduction certificates (CERs) authenticated by the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism. This is the method currently endorsed by the UK government and ensures that every tonne of emissions reduction is actually achieved.
Here is little image if you have having problems understanding all this:
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eBay Launches Community Courts 2007-11-01 04:42:02
eBay.co.uk is trialing a new innovation to deal with negative feedback disputes. Disputing parties will be able to submit their feedback to a jury of 100 ebayers, who will decided whether or not the feedback was fair. To get feedback overturned 70% or more of the jurers will have to vote in favour of overturning the feedback.
In principle I think that this is a good idea. Groups of people deciding independently on issues can be a very effective way to producing fair results (see The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki ). It will certainly be more effective than eBay employees deciding from on high.
However I have several reservations about this system and I fear that it will require significant changes before it can really work.
Lack of incentive for jury members. Who has the time to do this, and who cares? eBay is a commercial company and not a public service, why should I give my time to them for free.
Volume of disputes. Submi
links for 2007-11-01 2007-10-31 19:32:55
Projeto Ltd - Start a rEVOLution
(tags: cubecart designs)
W3Counter - Web Analytics, Live Web Stats and Hit Counter
(tags: web statistics)
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eBay Business startup checklist 2007-10-30 04:30:01 Preparation
To the uninitiated, eBay can seem a bit complex and in order to get the best out of the marketplace for your business it is important to understand how eBay works and gain some experience selling products. I have seen several businesses give up selling on eBay as they did not put the time into preparing for their eBay sales. Business
es should:
Research the eBay marketplace to understand where the opportunities lie for your business
Take time to understand how the eBay platform works
Ease yourself into the world of eBay by selling a few trial items.
eBay Account
In order to sell on eBay, it is of course necessary to have an eBay account. Although this is a fairly easy process, it still takes a few days as eBay sends a letter via snail mail to confirm your business address.
As buyers generally don’t like buying from an account with zero feedback, it is a good idea to build up some feedback before trading. This can be done by buying and selli
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