What to say about eBay? How about Goodbye…

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Posted on March 4, 2010 by Scott Pooler

Obviously I have been at a loss for words about eBay for some time. My passion for the platform has waned, I no longer follow what happens or what rules have changed or why the fee structure has gone here or there, on a day to day basis. It is just too time consuming and really the return for me is not equitable.

I ended my eBay oriented services about 6 months ago and I have turned away clients who only want help to start selling on eBay as a business.

I do this simply because it does not help me or my reputation to be associated with the name eBay. I know that is a strong statement, and that a lot of fine people make a good living by providing training and advise and third party tools to the eBay selling marketplace... I commend all of you who keep up the fight. Continue reading “What to say about eBay? How about Goodbye…” »

Ut’ Oh eBay… Google enters eCommerce – Best Match or Best Darn Search – You decide

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Scott Pooler

It had to happen sooner or later... Google brings the power of Search to eCommerce!

Why oh Why eBay, did you not think of That!

Hmmmm - maybe eBay can sign up for Google Commerce Search and scrap this whole "finding" experiment... Maybe with Google Search installed on eBay.com, the term Best Match might actually mean that the best product matching the search terms entered will be presented.

Oh - what a novel idea - Actually allowing the person doing the search to determine what it is they are searching for...

But I Digress - eBay and Google burned bridges long ago and ever since that time, Google has grown stronger while eBay - well we all know where eBay's numbers are - in the hands of PayPal!

So... what is Google Commerce Search anyway? (Get most of the scoop at this link Google Support)

Evidently Google has a few tricks up their collective sleeves...

Continue reading “Ut’ Oh eBay… Google enters eCommerce – Best Match or Best Darn Search – You decide” »

Thanks to LinkedIn, I learned what an Ass Hat Award is… from the Daily Blonde

Posted on July 6, 2009 by Scott Pooler

Ok, Ok, so this is not my normal kind of post but I am feeling a bit off topic today after the long 4th of July weekend...

How did this lead to an Ass Hat?

This morning, I opened my email and was of course caught in the avalanche of electronic stress messages. (Why don't I listen to Tim Ferris of the 4 Hour Work Week?).

One of, well, several of these emails - 12 to be exact, was from LinkedIn. LinkedIn was informing me that I had 12 people who "had asked to be part of my network" - ahhh this is nice, lets do that for some easy mindless wakeup data processing...

As I worked through the invitations and replies (mostly from colleagues at the Examiner.com), I came across one particular invite that caught my eye.

And no... not just because this person is an attractive blonde...

First thing that caught my eye was the tag line...

"Creator and Owner of the Daily Blonde blog".

In today's world you must be unique and you must say something in a short flash of time to catch peoples ever crowded trains of thought. Cheryl Phillips says to the world that she is a blonde on a daily basis - not that there is anything wrong with that... (Paraphrasing Seinfeld).

To me this says Cheryl has a sense of humor and... the moxie to make something of it. I dug deeper, which in today's world is not a huge demand on journalistic resources... What I did was follow the link, on LinkedIn (get it) to the Daily Blonde Blog.

The first story on The Daily Blonde was a bit of a trend follower, a cynical view of the recent Sara Palin story (Sara Palin Leaves Office Early), but something else on the homepage caught my eye. What I saw was another story of interest, which of course lead me to click another link.

AssHat of the Week.

From the Daily Blonde

The Asshat of the week story leads in with:

...I realized that it was time to pay tribute to the irresponsible parents that seem to think I run a home daycare and restaurant for their children. So, this week’s AssHat award covers quite a few heads. It’s a big hat so there’s no problem making sure everyone fits under it.

The story goes on to describe -in letter form - to the irresponsible parents in this single mothers neighborhood, not only that she is not the summer day care provider, but more so, that these other parents should be responsible for their own kids. Parents should feed, bathe, and make sure that their own children are safe, not pawn them off on another parent for 10-12 hours without a care. It is an article that any responsible parent in any neighborhood in America can relate to these days.

Why am I writing about this Asshat Award thing?

It is a unique article with humor and touches on a subject many of us parents have wanted to say out loud, but never had the moxie to do ourselves.
The entire idea of the blog has originality and style, coupled with humor and caring. It is a recipe people obviously like.
I only found this blog through Social Networking and LinkedIn, now I am writing about it - This is how the Internet of Today works!

The last point is what I wish to stress in this article.

People are searching the world we call the Internet for information.

No matter what business you are in, no matter what you sell, no matter who you work for or if you are an attorney or a broker or a architect or a ditch digger - there are people out there that want to know what you know and they will find the information you publish - if you leave enough "clues" to follow.

Clues in the form on links, links in the form of: LinkedIn profiles, Twitter accounts (with active tweets), Facebook profiles, forum posts and more...

People will follow these clues, bread crumbs, links, Tweets, opinions... all back to you.

These are the people you are looking for as an audience, they will find you and see you as a leader if you publish the information they are searching for. Without an audience, there are no leaders, without leaders the audience continues to search... Find your audience and help them to make you a leader, let them stop searching for your information, give them what they want no matter what that is.

Just Do IT!

Get out in the world and write something, post a video or take a picture - people will find and admire what you have to say or share, if you make an effort to share good things and if you spend some time contributing to other peoples lives by sharing and recognizing others that share as I am doing today.

I had never even heard of Cheryl Phillips and the Daily Blonde before, even though she is a blogger of note and one who should be followed:

With an Alexa rating of approximately 150,000, over 1600 email subscribers and an average “stay” on The Daily Blonde by readers of over 3 minutes. She also spreads the word about her blog to over 16,000+ Twitter followers every day. Cheryl is currently ranked in the top 50 Twitter users and was written up as one of the Top 10 Women on Twitter in the world.

Cheryl is a stay at home mom with more kids than she should be able to deal with and she is cranking out quality blog article posts that bring her an every increasing audience - is there really any reason why you can not do this for yourself or your business? Cheryl Phillips and the Daily Blonde are not just one isolated story of the power of Internet self publishing, she is but one of millions of people who have found notoriety and possible success with social media and blogging.

With the tools available to everyone in today's world of CMS publishing on the net, using platforms like WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal to name a few, there is no reason why any business or professional person should not have the ability to share and inform on a daily basis, just as the Daily Blonde does.

Pick your topic, fulfill your niche, find your audience and you will create a market that never existed before for your business.

Pitchmen – Can eCommerce Merchants learn from BILLY MAYS and Anthony Sullivan ?

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Scott Pooler

Billy Mays Here....

Anthony Sullivan for....

Click to learn more

Pitchmen - is the new Discovery channel TV series about the art of the "pitch" and for many reasons, I find it fascinating.

This TV series is an inside look into the 2 minute infomercial concept "As Seen on TV" and two of the top personalities that make the all important and insidious television "pitch" on a daily basis to America.

Both of the primary characters of the series, Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan, have become multi-millionaires without so much as a college degree between them. They each own production companies, work for multi-million dollar corporations and, if you are lucky, and if they choose to bring your invention to the television airwaves, these men may possibly be making a millionaire out of you to.

Salesmanship still rules! Continue reading “Pitchmen – Can eCommerce Merchants learn from BILLY MAYS and Anthony Sullivan ?” »

Auctiva Auctiva – Why all the drama? It’s a Mad Mad Mad eBay World!

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Scott Pooler

Warning....

If you are an Auctiva fan - You may not like this article....
If you are an Auctiva basher - you also may not like this article....
Read on, if you dare - or care either way!

Ok, the drama started June 1st when Auctiva sent out an email to anyone and everyone who had ever done business with them. I know this because I received one of those emails and I have not done business with them in like - oh I dunno - 4 years maybe? In any case, it was a sweet hello and by the way, we now have to charge for the services that we have been providing for "free" all these years.

Why? you ask? Well, simply because the eBay Partner Network is so screwed up that we no longer generate enough revenue from our affiliate plan to support giving away the software for free. Oh, and we have been cut off, because - well we don't really understand why, with 20% of the eBay sellers using our tools, but our revenue stream just dried all the way up with 30 days notice! (I am paraphrasing).

OK - from my point of view - no surprises here... I had always known that Auctiva was simply a huge eBay affiliate and I also knew that the eBay Partner Network has been cutting affiliates to the bone since it was created. This is, in my opinion, one of the many reasons why eBay has less traffic now than they did when Commission Junction was running the affiliate program, a point I have made in the past.

So whats the big surprise? Auctiva must make money, they are a business and can not be expected to give away services without compensation, if that compensation does not come from affiliate revenue, it can only come from the user. - No story here - right?

Not So Fast...

It seems that while I did not immediately follow the reaction which developed from this revelation from Auctiva's announcement it seems that the world went mad... The eBay world that is...

Big News - Auctiva - No Longer Free - Aren't all good things in life - FREE?

In a Word - NO!

That's it in a nutshell, all good things in life are not free and to expect them to be free, especially in regards to a tool or service used for the advancement and management of an online business... is a myopic and naive point of view. I am so sorry eBay sellers, but to gain access to the very complicated software required to transmit secure information back and forth between your computer and the eBay API you can not expect to not pay one red cent. I know, I had my own eBay management software brand, this is not childsplay - it is labor intensive hard work to keep up with the eBay API.

eBay charges you for almost everything that they can get away with and you gladly come back to the trough time and again to contribute, but when a third party software company expects to be paid for making your life easier - Wo Nellie! We are off the Tracks!

What is that?

I understand all of you Auctiva users became spoiled by the free bandwagon all of these years and in exchange for the free nature of the product you put up with some of the major drawbacks of using the Auctiva tools, it was a tradeoff... Free listing tools and management for almost no support and a very clunky program, but hey - you loved the free part.

Now you find out that - oh my gawd - Auctiva was making money after all... and even worse than that, they made this money through what? oh please don't tell me, AFFILIATE commissions off of the sale of my products listed on eBay? Oh the horror - How dare they?

Get a Grip People! - There is nothing wrong with being an affiliate - without the affiliate program developed under Commission Junction for eBay, the place would never have had as much traffic as all of you so love to quote that it has (or had before CJ got the boot).

Auctiva - Free - on the surface - in the past

My experience with using Auctiva has been limited, I checked out the listing tool in the past, did not like it, and moved on.

I knew enough back then to realize my business needed a paid solution which had reliable support and which worked more smoothly.

(I went with AuctionSound by the way, a software I highly recommend but no longer use).

The time saved by using a reliable and well thought out program to automate my selling on eBay, more than paid for the software expense. I will never agree that a free offering could be as efficient as a paid solution. Especially when dealing with eBay listing software.

Of course Auctiva has updated the program since my early trial so I can not say how it works now but for my MONEY, trusting my business operations to a FREE software package did not make sense.

Thousands of eBay sellers disagreed with my assessment however and happily dipped in the trough at the Auctiva soup kitchen to operate small eBay businesses or hobby selling activities for free (plus eBay fees - always remember the eBay fees).

Great, no argument from me, but for those same people to now act as though this "Free" status was somehow an entitlement that would last forever just tends to offend the business person inside of me.

I have no trouble with paying money to help me make money - this is hurdle many eBay sellers need to overcome!

The Dogs of War...

This last week has been a maelstrom of attacks upon the management team and CEO of Auctiva. From bloggers and journalists to customers and competitors - it seems everyone felt that Auctiva had somehow ripped them off or personally attacked the eBay world by actually proposing to charge for services.

Sure - the fee structure could end up costing a pretty penny but it was not unlike several other paid software plans.

Many good quality eBay listing platforms such as InkFrog, Vendio, and MerchantRun-Globallink charge for their services and does anyone in the room think that Channel Advisor or Infopia will offer a free software or eBay listing services any time soon?

It is up to the merchant to evaluate the features, service, and workflow of each software package or vendor program, then select the one that fits within their business plan, their user/operator needs and capabilities and the businesses budget. Free should not be the deciding factor!

uncle The attacks have been merciless and after a week of soundly being beaten up from all corners of the eBay universe, Auctiva has cried UNCLE!

Today, I received, along with millions of other former Auctiva users, another nice little note from Auctiva and it's CEO Jeff Schlicht.... It said... Basically...

Pardon the Paraphrase here Jeff....

UNCLE - WE REPENT!

Auctiva will NOT charge high fees for the software used by thousands to list stuff on eBay, we will however charge $9.99 a month just as InkFrog does! We are sooo sorry, we dared to try and remove your eBay entitlement to free software, but seriously - this whole eBay Partner Network thing is not working out for us... We gotta charge something... like please let us charge something, won't you?....

Quoting from the email:

Since we first announced our new pricing structure, I've been listening to the community's concerns. Considering the frank feedback you've provided, through email, surveys, customer support cases, our community messages boards and other forums, a few facts are abundantly clear:

You'd prefer a simple, no-surprises flat-rate pricing structure.

You don't want to pay any additional FVFs.

You want image hosting included.

Your margins are tight.

If you are asking yourself, "Why didn't they just use this pricing in the beginning?" the answer is that I thought our customers would like to have the choice of picking a tailored plan based on usage. Clearly, I was wrong.

I don't know if it was actually wrong Jeff, but it did create quite a hubbub!

At least you got Auctiva's name mentioned on the Internet about a bajillion more times than this time last year with your "free" program. (Always looking for the silver lining). More people know about Auctiva today than when the product was free, so seriously ... was this some sort of master PR stunt or marketing plan? I mean, eBay has not upset the masses lately and they have stayed out of the daily news cycle for several months, pretty much licking old wounds, could it be that you learned from the eBay induced turmoil of last year and decided to get a little negative attention flowing your way? Just for Grins and Giggles? Maybe?

Naw, I doubt that....

I think Auctiva sincerely is trying to survive in an ever tightening eBay solutions marketplace and I think the eBay community should cut them some slack. They may have not been one of my favorite software packages in the past, but there is no reason to beat them into submission when times are tough. (Hmmm, I guess this article to too little too late - job done).

A lot of people are familiar with the Auctiva system and is it really too much to ask to give them a break?

I mean $9.99 a month is a small price to pay, unless you can get it for free.

Hmmm Vendio, did you say something? (Vendio is offering a free solution throughout 2009)

Trading Assistant Journal – Settled In To New Home – Hosted WordPress – Woo Hoo

Posted on June 7, 2009 by Scott Pooler

This article was first published on our old location to re-direct our readers to this URL. It explains why the move was necessary and offers thanks for the experience at WordPress.com. Please excuse the re-publication but with the 301 re-directs and many readers having a new feedburner feed re-directed to this address, I thought it would be best to add the explanation here, now that we are all settled in to our new home.

Beach Host - Affordable Hosting

Hosting courtesy Beach Host

Go To: http://tradingassistantjournal.com

The TRADING ASSISTANT JOURNAL is Now Located at http://tradingassistantjournal.com

The Trading Assistant Journal has enjoyed a long and beneficial relationship with the fine people at Automatic and WordPress.com for many years. On our end, we would happily stay here and provide great content for the WordPress.com community and our over 80,000 readers but it seems that our inability to refuse advertisements on this publication has placed us outside of the WordPress.com terms of service.

This was not really a surprise!

I have been well aware of the advertising policy at WordPress.com and I understand the reasoning behind such a policy. It has been a delicate situation between this particular blog and its host for some time. We have communicated back and forth about it and in the past WordPress.com has been kind enough to allow us to continue to offer our readers and advertisers a mix of good content and quality product offerings.

Recently this blog was suspended for a violation or violations of the WordPress.com advertising policy.

WordPress.com

Guilty as charged - your Honor!

We did it, we accepted advertising - oh the ghastly truth!

Will my Mom survive the embarrassment?

Guilty of Advertising

Seriously, It seems that Automatic and WordPress.com may be very close to changing their position regarding advertising and I sincerely hope that they do. Advertising and monetization is the next step for any developed blog property. Blogger is the nearest competition to WordPress.com (although I consider it an inferior platform) and yet that platform is well monetized (Go figure - Google and advertising, what do they know?).

Automatic, charge me a fee, make me promise to be a good advertising publisher but let me sell my work!

Maybe someday...

Too Late For the TAJ!

In any case, it seems the decision has not come soon enough for our stay at WordPress.com. We have removed all advertising from this installation at http://allbusinessauctions.wordpress.com after Automatic was kind enough to remove our suspension and allow us to do so. Thank you for this time we needed to make the transition!

Just a note, I did not go off the handle when this blog was suspended by WordPress.com. I simply followed the instructions, backed up my data, transferred that data to a new self hosted installation, restored the data, installed the theme and set the 301 permanent redirect. I then wrote a very calm email to WordPress.com requesting the suspension be lifted so that I could:

Remove the offending advertisements
Extract the rest of my data from the sidebars (blocked when suspended and not exported in a database dump)
Leave this permanent sticky post - re-directing readers to the new location at http://tradingassistantjournal.com

I did not fly off the handle, I did not call anyone names, I did not see this as a conspiracy. It is what it is, I knew the rules, I knew the consequences, I pushed the envelope and now I am paying the price. Time to man up and say thank you so much for the opportunity and have a nice day!

No reason at all to be angry or upset with Automatic or WordPress.com - This is the best light Content Management System in the World! I will always be a huge fan!

This little WordPress.com blog called the Trading Assistant Journal and hosted by Automatic for free all this time, gave me the opportunity to learn about online publishing in a way I would never have been so passionate about without the experience gained with this blog. I would not now know what I do about social web development and content management without this blog.

I would not be as well known, as well respected, as confident in my abilities, without the experience gained while publishing this free WordPress.com blog, So....

THANK YOU! AUTOMATIC and WordPress.com!

You gave me an opportunity which in almost all respects, changed my life. Thank you very much, I will always have fond memories of this experience.

Remember - The TRADING ASSISTANT JOURNAL is Now Located at http://tradingassistantjournal.com

The blog will live on at the new location, and the old pages will remain here for awhile to allow our readers to find us once again!

At our new location, everything looks very familiar, no dramatic changes to the format or theme of the blog, except we do have more advertising opportunities and more features available due to the expansion through extensions and plugins in the self hosted version of WordPress.

New features will be coming, and yes, we may change the look, but this is not really in the plans just yet... Mostly you will notice better image galleries, and other plugins. There really is no limit to the features that can be added to a self hosted WordPress Content Management System. You watch!

You can help us by changing all of your:

Bookmarks
Links
References

to:

HTTP://TRADINGASSISTANTJOURNAL.COM

THANKS To All of Our Readers and Fans!

Scott Pooler

Publisher - Trading Assistant Journal

Hello world! The Trading Assistant Journal has Moved

Posted on June 6, 2009 by Scott Pooler

The Trading Assistant Journal has moved - we are no longer hosted on WordPress.com under the domain name allbusinessauctions.wordpress.com. Please change your existing links to: http://tradingassistantjournal.com . Thanks!

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have moved the Trading Assistant Journal from WordPress.com to a self hosted WordPress installation.

Our old domain: http://allbusinessauctions.wordpress.com has been updated to:

http://tradingassistantjournal.com

Work will continue to get the blog back to its former status with all of the features and sidebar widgets (plus new features). For now we have all of the articles imported and will work on mapping the old domain with a little luck.

Scott Pooler
Publisher

Thanks to all of our sponsors including:

Robert Scoble Ventures into eCommerce with a Vendio Platform Interview

Posted on May 28, 2009 by Scott Pooler

Vendio Platform Previewed by Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble is a fairly famous blogger, videographer, photographer and all around tech critic/guru. he has worked with all of the big tech conglomerates including Microsoft, Fast Money, and now RackSpace (More details about Scoble available via the link attached to his name).

While his interview of the powers that be at Vendio was not exactly from the perspective of a well informed ecommerce specialist or writer, (He refers or defers to his ex-wife's experiences with eBay) this video does offer some insight into how the platform Vendio has assembled works. Scoble does not venture into our world of eCommerce often so I find it interesting that this interview even occurred. Good job Vendio!

For more information about the Vendio Platform, read my review on the All Business Auctions Blog

New Direction, Future for All Business Auctions – Reviews Anyone?

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Scott Pooler

New plans are in the works for....

All Business Auctions

All Business Auctions and

All Business Auctions Blog

... these are two of my original websites.

All Business Auctions: Was the home base of my consignment business and then it became a provider of eBay related third party software and eBay stores design services.

All Business Auctions website gave me the impetus to learn how to create websites in house.

This became a priority at the time, simply because outsourcing the creation of our website was a nightmare. I went through so many local developers to get the job done, after two years of frustration and lost money I worked with my partner to develop the site in house. We learned a lot during the process of building AllBusinessAuctions.com on Joomla! This experience gave me a real passion for Content Management Systems and brought a whole new direction and focus to my business. The blog was started as a project to see how well WordPress could perform (I had a blogspot blog at the time)and to learn how the addition of a blog to an existing domain will bring additional organic traffic to the main website. The one two punch worked and would have been an incredible combination if it had been implemented two years prior when I originally commissioned the project with outside developers.

Since the main site was finalized much has changed in our business. The consignment operations on eBay have ceased, we are no longer a Trading Post or a Trading Assistant registered with eBay. Changes in the landscape of third party eBay management software providers have impacted our ability to provide the AuctionLogic software and still make a reasonable profit, therefore we have ceased those operations as well.

With the changes over the last two years at eBay (much documented here and in many other online publications), running an eBay centric service company became a tenuous and formidable challenge. One that really tested my loyalty to all that I believed about the opportunity that eBay had presented to both myself, and my clients. It was and is difficult to think of the effort and time dedicated to an eBay only business plan. Looking back now it seems obvious that it was pure folly to base an entire business plan upon the whims of another company. In actuality I did not see it that way at the time because I had built All Business Auctions on the vision that we would represent several different third party eBay providers. The idea was sound when eBay had a positive growth curve, but after the eBay marketplace changed, so the interest from small businesses.

We moved on to form iBusinessLogic another service company more broadly based Internet and Web development company offering web site hosting, Content Management System web development, WordPress development, implementation and training in addition to representing many of the same third party brands in the eBay space as did All Business Auctions in the past. iBusinessLogic is not dependent upon eBay for its revenue stream but we still have clients from the All Business Auctions period who depend upon us to help them to understand the changing landscape of eBay and in many cases to help them focus on creating a company centric branded presence on the Internet.

These changes have left me with a quandary about what to do with the All Business Auctions name and the two sites associated with it. The blog has experienced good traffic from the start and has been linked to from sites around the Internet. As anyone who has studied how WordPress blogs bring in organic traffic knows, the regular addition of content is key to maintaining a healthy blog. What to write about when eBay is no longer the focus for the brand All Business Auctions? It has been a quandary only accentuated by the expansion of iBusinessLogic and the client work we have been blessed with since changing our focus.

What's the answer? Continue reading “New Direction, Future for All Business Auctions – Reviews Anyone?” »

Meetup.com – Getting Together – Business and Social Networking – Locally

Posted on May 3, 2009 by Scott Pooler

Find a Meetup Near You

[This article is re-published here from the Examiner.com]

No one would argue that as a civilization we as humans have evolved. From pre-historic times when humans huddled together in small groups to survive the rigors of the natural elements they lived within, to the days of vast nation states that massed the will of their people into one awe inspiring force.

Social networks of all kinds have been at the core of the human experience.

In the world of today we all seem to have grown more insular. Many times we look out at the world from behind a computer screen and from within the walls of small cubicles. Email, chat, discussion forums, twitter friends and online dating all tend to keep us from make the most basic of all human connections - the face to face handshake.

As a person who is wrapped up in the Internet and all of the possibilities it affords and opportunity it offers I have seen and experienced the effects of being immersed in a world where friendships and connections are made from behind a keyboard. The people you chat with online are mostly all real, but the Internet social experience can never match the tried and true old fashioned world of face to face networking.

This is why groups have sprung up around the world in an effort to climb out from the cubicle lives we have all been leading and actually schedule times to meet one another face to face.

One of these organizations is called Meetup. The concept is simple at Meetup.com, they provide the tools needed to organize a meetup event and the home base website which allows local meetup organizers to offer a social networking group in thier area based on any interest or dicipline the group organizer wants to bring together. Continue reading “Meetup.com – Getting Together – Business and Social Networking – Locally” »