Category Archives: eBay information

eBay – Losing Talent High and Low – Where is the CTO?

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Our friend and co-blogger Randy Smythe wrote an article entitled Will eBay Take Their Medicine in the 3rd Quarter? .

In this article Randy alludes to the numerous eBay employee resumes which are making the rounds around Silicon Valley. And an apparent hiring freeze at eBay.

Specifically Randy mentions the fact that eBay Stores General Manager Eric Shoup has left the company.

Quote from My Blog Utopia:

Eric Shoup, Director and General Manager of eBay Stores and ProStores has left the company to take a new position as Vice President of Product at The Generations Network, a Provo, Utah based Genealogy web site. Eric worked at eBay for the past 5 years and was just recently put in charge of the eBay Stores business in addition to ProStores. There is no word yet on a replacement or what eBay's plans are for ProStores and eBay Stores.

Many of my readers are aware of my connection with and advocacy of eBay Stores.  This somewhat surreptitious departure of Eric Shoup calls to question the longevity of the eBay Stores platform. 

Will eBay Stores remain a part of eBay after the fixed price 30 days listing option will go into effect on September 16th? Or will they just fade away like eBay express?  ebay has not made any announcements in this regard on either side of the Atlantic and our Friends at Tamebay have been asking the question for over a week.

Other rumblings of possible layoffs at eBay corporate have been making the rounds. As Randy Smythe mentions, this could become a reality prior to the start of the 4th quarter as a cost cutting move to show better numbers to Wall Street. 

  • Will these layoffs be enough?
  • Will removing the human factor from eBay be something Wall Street rewards them for? 
  • Isn't the strength of any company in its people?
  • In other News: eBay Scores 100% in Corporate Equality Index 

But Why the Home Depot logo? and Where is the CTO? Continue reading “eBay – Losing Talent High and Low – Where is the CTO?” »

eBay Discussion Forums – A Dangerous Place to Dwell

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eBay discussion gone awry...

Most everyone is aware eBay provides its users with a discussion forum found under the "community" tab on every eBay page.

As in most discussion forums, the goal is to provide user generated content in the form of help, advise and guidance for new and seasoned users alike. Community discussion, tips & tricks and overall general best practices discussions are available on these forums. 

The social aspect has always been strong on the eBay forums and this is why eBay is generally accepted as being the very first social network every introduced on the Internet.

Comradeship built among the eBay members within the forums increased the user loyalty for eBay, a loyalty many brands would dearly love to re-create. 

So What's the Problem? Continue reading “eBay Discussion Forums – A Dangerous Place to Dwell” »

Auction Format Dead on eBay – Long Live The Auction

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Today a landmark change in listing fees for fixed price format "Buy it Now" items on the original auction Internet site eBay was announced. 

Starting September 17th eBay will charge 35 cents to list any number of the same types of fixed-price items each fixed price item listing will now run for 30 days just as store listings and continue to be included in core search. 

UPDATE: eBay special web page explaining changes here: eBay

Is this move an indicator of the death of auctions on eBay?

Lorrie Norrington, eBay's president of global marketplaces says no, but .... Continue reading “Auction Format Dead on eBay – Long Live The Auction” »

eBay Wins in Court – Happy Day San Jose, Sorry Tiffany & Co.

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EBAY Wins a Case!

Wow, eBay Wins in court, must be a happy day in San Jose!  Today, eBay won a critical ruling in the case of Tiffany & Co. vs eBay Inc. The Court ruled eBay was not responsible for the sale of fake Tiffany on the site.

I tend to agree, eBay is thousands of sellers and each seller is responsible for the items they offer. While eBay should do more to prevent the fraudulent sale of counterfeit goods and knock offs, it can not be ultimately responsible.  The real responsibility falls upon the seller who offered the merchandise on the site should bear the legal responsibility for same.

Congrats - eBay! Continue reading “eBay Wins in Court – Happy Day San Jose, Sorry Tiffany & Co.” »

Announcements at eBay Fast and Furious – Search & Links Policy Altered

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Apparently eBay is listening, or possibly they can't hear themselves think?

The din of complaints about the new, yet vague and undefined linking policy seems to have caused eBay to re-adjust the timetable on implementation and enforcement of the no links edict.

Of course I do not agree with limiting the links from the me pages on eBay. Even though I do not agree, I have removed same from my me page and listings, just to be safe.

Now eBay has decided we need more time to accomplish the task of stripping any traffic generation capabilities from our eBay investment.

And what's up with removing email addresses? Does eBay really think the eBay "my messages" system is adequate or even passable as a sales or customer service communications interface?  Are they really losing that much money to sellers selling off site to justify these restrictions? Or is eBay just blaming the stagnant growth numbers and flat stock price on this mythical problem, in an attempt to convince wall street they are doing something about these sellers stealing fees by talking to buyers outside of eBay? 

Personally, I will not buy anything on the Internet from a company I can not communicate with - oops, I pay eBay every month, better revise that statement.

For more of my thoughts on these policies read this

I wonder what the car dealers think of these new policies?  Is there really any reason to be on eBay motors if you can not develop leads from the calls dealers get on eBay listings? Continue reading “Announcements at eBay Fast and Furious – Search & Links Policy Altered” »

PayPal Buyer Disputes Now Appearing in "My eBay" Console

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July 09, 2008 | 04:32PM PST/PT

Ted Fong

Hi everyone...I'm Ted Fong with eBay's Buyer Experience team. In the next few days, eBay's Dispute Console will contain any claims you've made through PayPal, as well as PayPal claims filed by your trading partner. You'll also see the status of the claim or dispute, as well as a notification if you need to take action.

To get to the Dispute Console, go to My eBay and click the link in the left column.

Sincerely,

Ted Fong
Buyer Experience

This seems like a good move...

Anything to allow the seller a chance to respond quickly to any dispute within PayPal or eBay is a good idea in my book.

We recently experienced a PayPal buyer dispute from our allbusinessauctions eBay account sales.  The item sold was a used commercial appliance or furniture hand cart which cost more to ship than the buyer bid on the item.  The hand cart never arrived at the destination even though we carefully wrapped it and shipped DHL.

DHL has been slow to provide details on our claim yet our buyer has been very patient and has stated that he understands this was not our fault. 

Of course it is not our fault but we have also taken the time to stay in contact with the buyer through the PayPal dispute procedure providing regular emails, letting him know what we are doing to try and resolve the situation, either by tracking his item or by processing an insurance claim.

Communication is key to resolving any issue, be it with a buyer, a seller or a supplier. 

If you simply expect the other party to know what you know, without telling them directly, the other side will eventually become suspicious or feel slighted, even if the situation works out to their advantage in the end.  Keeping in contact shows your professionalism and your attention to detail and this in turn will increase the buyers opinion of you and your business, even if things go wrong.

I have proved this theory to myself on numerous occasions, why not try it yourself...

Now if we could just get eBay to read this article and post it on the Trust & Safety office wall!

Google Base Store Connector – Broken? – eBay Stores Owners Try This

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Google Base is a wonderful thing, when it works... With Google Base and the store connector (works with more than eBay) a feed of product can be uploaded to Google shopping (the old Froogle) for free!

The idea is to create a data feed from your eBay or Yahoo store, directly to Google shopping.  All of the information to populate a listing in Google is scraped from your eBay store or yahoo stores listings - automatically.

The only problem being that the Google Base Store connector mysteriously stopped working.  I can't speculate on the cause of this mysterious failure (possible re-kindling of the eBay/Google feud?) but in any case this connection is a vital part of eBay stores marketing and I have been searching for a way to get it up and running.

It seems the only way to use Google Base at this time is manually and I have had trouble with that at times.  It may be a bit of a bother, but if you put it in your schedule once a week or so, it should help you to put your eBay stores products in front of more shoppers.  (This is a feature which should be built in to eBay Stores accounts with an automatic feed, but....)

So, I found this great step by step instruction guideline posted by a Google Base help board user "Collectorgirl".   Thanks Collectorgirl, I hope your time and effort in creating these well written instructions helps many eBay & Yahoo stores owners!

-------------------------
By collectorgirl:
JUST UPDATED THESE INSTRUCTIONS....JUNE 18, 2008 - 1:38pm
I don't work for Google, but I have an eBay store on eBay. My seller
name on eBay is snifflesmouse.

I am sharing how I successfully scheduled eBay store items for upload
to Google Base because I want to help other people like me, but any
use of this information is your responsibility. Only store items will
be uploaded, not fixed price or auction items.

How to Schedule your eBay Store Items for automatic upload to Google
Base:
1. Go to eBay and click "My eBay"
2. Click "Manage My Store" on the left side of the page
3. Click on "Listing Distribution" under promotional tools
4. Click "Activate your Store listings via RSS. (not sure if this
is needed for Google)
5. Click "Make a file of your Store Inventory listings available"
6. May need to wait at least 12 hours before you continue with
these instructions
7. When eBay provides you with a URL of your Google Base-specific
file, COPY THE URL - looks something like: http://esssl.ebay.com/GetListings/yourstorename?fmt=g
8. Login to Google Base
9. Click the "Settings" tab
10. Change your Website URL to match the Google Base URL provided by
eBay - again, looks something like: http://esssl.ebay.com/GetListings/yourstorename?fmt=g
11. Click the "My Items" tab
12. Click on the "Data Feeds" link
13. Click the "New Data Feed" button
14. Type a file name with the .xml extention - should be the name of
your store with no spaces - for example, "mystorename.xml"
15. Change the item type in the drop down menu to "Products"
16. Click the button that says: "Register data feed and continue to
formatting instructions"
17. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the button that
says: "I'm done formatting my file. Continue to upload"
18. If you need to, click the "My Items" tab, then click on the "Data
Feeds" link (or continue to step 19 below)
19. Click the "create" link next to Schedule
20. Choose when and how often you would like Google to upload your
file
21. Type the URL of the file - should match the URL provided by eBay
- the same one used in step 10 above
22. CLICK THE SCHEDULE BUTTON
23. Come back and check to see if your products have been uploaded as
scheduled - login to Google Base, click the "my items" tab, click the
"active items" link. You should see all of your store items listed
(they will not upload auction or fixed price listings)
HOPE THIS HELPS!!

Readers - Let us know if you have found a quicker, easier, or automatic solution which works....

Utilizing Press Releases in Today's Internet Marketing World – Yahoo News Just a Click Away

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What is an Internet Press Release and how will it help my business?

(Click the link above to see one of my most recent press releases on PRWeb)

Press Release

Image above links to story about a yahoo news article on iBusinessLogic blog

See the resulting Yahoo News Article Below

PRWeb - eCommWire - WebWire - Internet News Bureau - prlog - prnewswire

All of these names are essentially the same type of service offered with different features and exposure levels, but there is a difference in what you may think a press release is and what it is today.

In the past a press release was a very labor-intensive and expensive project. Writing a press release was only the first step along a very long road towards the media. First a company would produce an internal memo or pre-press release. This document would then be adjusted and massaged by various departments within a company, including legal, and then be ready for distribution. Distribution to a PR firm that is...

Once the PR firm had a press release from a company it would then try to reintroduce the pizazz that the internal departments from the prior round of edits had taken out of it. After that the PR firm would distribute the release to its contacts in media.  Not all PR firms had the same contacts and not all press releases were paid attention to from some PR firms. For a company, it was a hit or miss affair.

Before the advent of online newswires, journalists served as the gatekeepers between organizations and the public. The only way for organizations to get publicity was to send their press releases to journalists, spend hours with follow-up calls, and hope that the information would be published eventually.

Those days are over. Today, your press releases can reach the masses without being filtered through the media. With Internet-based press releases, you can easily get each of your information releases viewed by 25,000 to 100,000+ Internet readers. The included links and information lives on forever on the web.

In today's Internet world, press releases are a self-service commodity - simply paste in your information, pay your bill and let it rip... but is it that simple? Continue reading “Utilizing Press Releases in Today's Internet Marketing World – Yahoo News Just a Click Away” »