Tag Archives: Scott Pooler

What to say about eBay? How about Goodbye…

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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…” »

What is Scott Pooler Doing Now? – Part 1 – Bonanzle and BonanzleStore

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This is the first in a series I would like to call "What is Scott Doing Now"?

It seems that I have "gone missing", people ask me where have I been, what am I doing?  Well, I have been busy and have not had the time required to keep this and many of my other blogs current.

I love my Trading Assistant Journal readers just as much as I hope they appreciate me, and in fact I want to thank the readers who have sent me notes of concern, wishing me well, and asking me to come back.  I am still here, I just have been so busy working for clients and on my own projects, that I have not had time to keep up with a lot of the stuff I used to comment on here in the Journal.

So without further adieu, Part 1 - "What is Scott Doing Now"?

BonanzleStore

BonanzleStore Opening Late Summer 2009

BonanzleStore Opening Late Summer 2009

In our vast eCommerce world Bonanzle.com has been one of the hottest topics of discussion for over a year now .

As a venue Bonanzle has many advantages for sellers.

Simplicity, Social interaction, seller camaraderie, ease of use, customer service from the founder himself... Bonanzle has a lot to like.

When a new merchant comes to Bonanzle from eBay or elsewhere, they are usually struck with the speed and ease of use of this well laid out platform.  From the very first day of operations, this site has been clean and quick both on the front end and on the back end where merchants spend most of their time.

The speed of listing product, either one at a time, or through a bulk upload and then a bulk editor (both included) is a major factor attracting merchants familiar with the multiple page listing processes of eBay. This simplicity and speed are major factors that can improve the bottom line of any seller.  The fact that there are no listing fees and only a small final value fee - if an item is sold, is another top pick on the feature list at Bonanzle.com.

Sellers are joining Bonanzle by the thousands, the growth curve of Bonanzle has been phenomenal - some say... even faster than the original eBay.

Yet with all of the great features of Bonanzle, and there are many, it struck me that the one thing that was missing from the merchant experience at Bonanzle was a home base or store. Come to think of it, at eBay the "eBayStores" product has never been a real home base or place to build a business for merchants. I say this, even though I was at one time an eBay stores promoter, designer and owner, because at eBay you had no way to bring your customer back to you.  The entire eBay Stores strategy was sold to promote the idea that a merchant could have that "home base" but in reality the home was just a temporary shelter - with high fees.

If you are starting or running an online business selling products, unless you are happy to be anonymous, it is best to build a "location" on the net. A Storefront or a business office so to speak.  A Place where your customers, new and old, can find you, and find out more about you and your business.  A place where, as a business owner, you can choose to educate the public (your customers) with more information than is included in a standard description of a product for sale.

Now I don't want to say that at Bonanzle there is no "Store". Bonanzle's "store" is called a booth. A Bonanzle Booth is a central location grouping all of your listed products together by category. The booth is great, but since it is dedicated to the Bonanzle tenants of simplicity and clean design (something I do not disagree with), a Bonanzle Booth does not lend itself to merchant branding or education of the public or much of anything more than presenting the merchants products, with 4 images and a very clean description to the outside world.  For many merchants, this may be all that they need.  For others, something a little more personal may be appropriate.

Late Summer 2009

Late Summer 2009

As a result, my company, iBusinessLogic has created a new way to optimize a Bonanzle merchants business and Internet marketing capabilities with what we call the BonanzleStore.

A "BonanzleStore" (launching late summer 2009) is an outside website, separated from Bonanzle and allowing the merchant to brand themselves with a completely customized eCommerce Web 2.0 Site.  This website (A BonanzleStore) will include many features never seen before in eCommerce. Continue reading “What is Scott Pooler Doing Now? – Part 1 – Bonanzle and BonanzleStore” »

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

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New plans are in the works for....

All Business Auctions

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

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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” »

Wednesday 1:14, Firehose of Traffic and Comment Followup

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Today is Tuesday (Happy Veterans Day to all who served)... many have wondered what the heck is Scott talking about with this silly slogan...

Wednesday 1:14

It's a great question!  To tell the truth, I wonder sometimes myself...

It is not a quote for the book of Genesis and it is not some sort of weird eBook pitch... "sighs of relief", all around.

Wednesday at 1:14 is the start of something new.  New for me, new for you and new for this space.

Many of my regular readers know I have been part of the meteroic rise to stardom of one very interesting fellow known to many as ColderICE. 

John Lawson is what I call him, but he can have a cool handle if he likes, it fits his personality and his message.  (Maybe I should have a moniker like that? Hmmm.... What would I be... WarmerFudge?)

John is a Platinum Powerseller on eBay and also has his own website at 3rd Power Outlet http://www.3rdPowerOutlet.com. He brought hip hop merchandise to eBay and has had great success with this very finely crafted niche market.  John is a pillar of the PESA community and he has brought a fresh new look to both eBay and eCommerce. 

 John Lawson is a straight shooter, a matter of fact kind of guy and he has little time for BS artists or scammers.  I wonder why I like him...

John gained a greater audience, or dare I say his very first national audience through my insistence that he guest post here on the Trading Assistant Journal.  You can review his guest post writings and other mentions on this site here.

John has since started his own eCommerce blog or videoblog and named it ColderICE.  

He seems to be more comfortable in front of the video camera than at a keyboard and I am less excited about doing video blogs than writing. 

To each his own. 

We have remained steady friends since the day we met thanks to Scot Wingo and his Channel Advisor Catalyst conference. Some may be surprised at John and I being friends if they had followed our political battle on Twitter over the last several months.  Yet, we never have let the politics cloud our respect for one another, even in the heat of battle. 

You can follow John on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/ColderICE

My Twitter account can be found here: http://twitter,com/Scott_Pooler

John and I are very different people, yet we have a great deal in common.  We each come from very different backgrounds and may have never met if it were not for a common interest.  That interest is making money on the Internet. 

Our friendship is based upon more than this one thing however. 

John Lawson and I are each very interested in, and good at, looking at the big picture when it come to the overall business of selling online. More importantly, we each, in our own way, have found ways to share what we think is important information with the world through blogs and videos.  We get a lot of fulfillment from helping people to understand what we wish we had understood when we each started. 

So, back to this Wednesday 1:14 question...

On Wednesday - This Wednesday November 11,2008 @ precisely 1:14 Eastern Standard Time a new Internet talk show and podcast will be born. 

  • No Nonsense

  • No Sugarcoating

  • No self promotion

The idea is simple, No BS eCommerce, eBay and eBusiness.  We won't be selling and DVD sets and we won't be pulling any punches when it comes to sharing our opinions about anything to do with the industry.  We know that as co-hosts we will not always agree on every subject but this is also what we think will make us unique. 

The show is scheduled to air on Talkshoe every Wednesday @ 1:14 in the afternoon.  Why 1:14?  I will let John tell you that... but it has it's own significance.

(Talkshoe link with appear on the Agents of Revenue site soon)

I am building a new website for the show, and it is not quite finished.  But the home page can be found at either http://agentsofrevenue.com or http://agents-of-revenue.com

The website will have a email form available for all of you to send us your questions, topic suggestions, or other interesting and useful information. The show will only be on for 1/2 hour per week so we will not get to everyone's questions, but be assured... if its a good one, we will discuss it live.

Why "Agents of Revenue" as a name? 

We just kinda landed there while discussing the concept of the show.  We want to impart information which will help people produce what really counts, and that's real honest cold hard cash - or positive revenue. 

We also want to enforce a no BS atmosphere and be matter of fact about what it takes to become revenue positive in eBusiness.  Part of the show may be dedicated to John and I duking it out in a point counter point style on some subjects but overall we just want to bring a fresh, no nonsense perspective to the space.

The fedora hats are a Blues Brothers or Elliott Ness reference, they signify our goal of being straight shooters and honest advisors. 

OK the Blues Brothers were neither, but they were very cool...  they wanted to help the Sister, and they were ultimately very good at what they did for a living.   

Elliot Ness just got the bad guys and he was Untouchable...

OK - along these lines comes a comment from one of the readers here on the Trading assistant Journal...

Continue reading “Wednesday 1:14, Firehose of Traffic and Comment Followup” »

Election Aftermath – Congratulations or Commiseration? Live Call Today

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John Lawson of 3rd Power Outlet and the Colder Ice blog has invited me as a guest on a special post election podcast/call in show today at 1:30 PM EST (That's in Atlanta - Ya-All)...

Click on the image below to log in....

Colder ICE & Scott Pooler After Election Call

Colder ICE & Scott Pooler After Election Call

John and I have been jabbing back and forth on Twitter - red and blue style, in the tradition of the political season for several weeks now.

I know, I know... I wrote a specific post about not bringing politics into eCommerce or business, but heck... It has been a very politically charged atmosphere and if John and I did not have strong opinions - none of you kind folks would follow either one of us or our blogs... Right?

Just for the record, John and I are still friends and will remain so, no matter how misguided he happens to be... LOL - Oh, and I am the Conservative - John is the Liberal - Who would have guessed that?

In all seriousness though, I must say that I am proud of America.

From my visit to the Polls bright and early at 7 AM this morning it was a sight to see. Both sides coming together in an orderly fashion to make their opinions count with a very simple vote.  As citizens, we all should be proud of the numbers of people who joined democracy this election.  In my youth it was not uncommon to hear more from people who had never voted, and would never vote, than to see people take the right to vote seriously.

I always took it seriously and wanted the opportunity before I was old enough to legally accomplish the task. Therefore, whether my side wins or loses this election, I am still proud to be an American.

The thought occurred to me, as I was standing in an orderly line this morning on a fine warm day in Indian Rocks beach, Florida...

...How lucky we are, as citizens of this country. 

I have traveled most of my life, working in Third World countries and sailing as a merchant mariner around the World. I have seen the unrest and downright dangerous nature in people when other places try to emulate what our American democracy has been doing for hundreds of years.  I have seen machine guns at the polls in these other countries, sights, fear and unrest some here in the USA would never imagine at the polls.

So take heart, all who may feel anger or frustration, simply because one side or the other did not win, it is all part of our great tradition, part of America.

Darker times have been seen by Americans - I like to think this is one of our brightest moments - no matter the outcome.

Twibler – Top 9 Reasons Why Twitter + eBay = Traffic Jam

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twibler

Question recently seen on Twitter from @stevekennedy:

Do you think using Twibler to post your eBay items here helps your conversion rate? Have you asked any buyers? I am just interested to see if anyone has ever made a sale because of Twibler. Thanks 4 input!

I will attempt to answer the question, (any comments from readers with different points of view are welcome in the comments section below) but...

First lets discuss what Twitter is for those who have not yet been initiated.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is first and foremost a social network

Scott Pooler on Twitter

Scott Pooler on Twitter

Twitter asks "What are you doing?" and provides users with a 142 character chance to inform the world about what it is they are up to?

Think of an early 1990's AOL chat room with dozens of updates per minute available to everyone in the world. Only, as a user of Twitter, one may pick and choose who's "updates" they want to follow. Conversely other users may choose to follow you, even if they do not know you. 

These features make Twitter unique, simply due the fact that users can craft the experience by selecting whom they follow.

Interested in Internet marketing and the Tech world? Simply follow icons in these industries and fellow Twitter users who also follow the thought leaders. The same goes for almost any interest or industry you can think of. Transparency is all part of Twitter, not only can you follow interesting people, but you can also see who they follow and do likewise.

Its the fastest and sometimes most accurate way to get the news and collect intelligence about anything or anyone with whom your interested in. Continue reading “Twibler – Top 9 Reasons Why Twitter + eBay = Traffic Jam” »

Friendly Face of eBay – Evolving into a New Look – eBay Live 2008

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Friendly Face of eBay - Evolving Into a New LookeBay Chairman John Donahoe and North American President Lorrie Norrington put on the friendly face at eBay Live 2008.

(Written from the mezzanine at McCormick Center, above the crowd of eBay Live attendees waiting to enter the closing gala)

This photo, taken during a meet & greet in the eBay chatterbox on the solutions floor is an analogy of the entire event.  Lorries expression is open and welcoming and John is just a bit worried (at least in his expression). 

Certainly the keynote speech yesterday was an attempt to put a very positive face on the changes at eBay and in many ways it succeeded. Unfortunately it was delivered with the old fashioned hokie eBay standard feel good vibe and was off point on several occasions. Continue reading “Friendly Face of eBay – Evolving into a New Look – eBay Live 2008” »