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eBay Tips 2008: That’s all folks.

Thanks very much for giving me the chance to spout off every day for a month about eBay and ecommerce and the like. Thanks, especially, for the comments and conversations that have taken place. It has been fascinating to read the views expressed.

So I thought I’d finish with a sort of summary and pull together some themes that we’ve talked about.

eBay’s on the cusp: It’s all change out there with an uncertain economic future, the leadership shuffle at eBay, Feedback developments and the fee adjustments. It seems that when we look back in a year’s time that we’ll survey a different scene. I think that’s rather exciting.

A little effort goes a long away: Time is a seller’s most precious commodity. There’s a whole raft of things a seller can do to be more efficient and the time saved can be ploughed back into the business. It could be about examining the numbers, upping the marketing or sourcing new lines.  But whatever it is, it’s about being competitive. Tiny tweaks and minor efforts can inch you ahead of the competition.

There’s a whole internet out there: Complementing your eBay activities with off-eBay selling and marketing can give you the edge. It could be about driving traffic to your eBay sales or branching out and developing a website. But again, it’s about being ultra-competitive. Follow the traffic and don’t expect eBay to do all the running.

eBay ain’t Dead: The sheen might have worn a little thin and the gilt might be flaking off the gingerbread, but I still look at eBay with a sense of awe. It’s huge (I mean gargantuan), still growing and delivering remarkable results. It’s been quite fashionable of late to write eBay off or predict its demise. I’m not in that camp: there’s life in the old dog yet. The changes announced this past week show that the fightback starts here.

Thank you. And good night.

My new shop design : an update

Yesterday I received an email from Frooition regarding my new shop design.

Frooition are busy, which is good, but that means that customers have to wait, which is bad. They seem to be pretty good at managing this process, both giving me a realistic assessment of lead time upfront, and now this little reassurance that they haven’t forgotten me!

I particularly liked them emphasising that if there was anything I’d forgotten to mention, I could still get in touch and let them know. I feel absolutely confident that this design won’t be finished until I’m 100% happy, and that’s really good to know. And of course, now I’m excited to see it all over again!

Tazbar seize the day

I’ve just received an email from Tazbar: they’re obviously keen to grab the business of any disaffected eBay sellers while they can:

Search results are not affected by any form of hierarchy based on seller feedback. … Every seller can benefit from whatever level of membership they choose, thus giving the smaller seller the same opportunity and rate card as the larger seller. … It is by helping the small to medium size seller that we feel we will get this diverse product range. This isn’t to say we don’t welcome large volume sellers. … It is as level a playing field as we can create.

Whoever you are, we love you.

However, what really tickled me was this paragraph:

Tazbar operates a time served traditional Feeback system with a simple Positive, Neutral or Negative option. This is applicable for both buyers and sellers.

We’ve said time and time again that Tazbar and eBay’s other competitors need to work on attracting buyers. In that context, what a great message: “come and buy on Tazbar, where you can still get negged”.

MarkDown Manager error identified

Back in December we wrote about an apparent bug in MarkDown Manager that was double discounting items on sale. Today a cause has been identified which appears to be the likely culprit for many if not all instances of the discounted pricing.

If an item is placed on a MarkDown Manager sale and the item ends before the end of the sale period the price will remain at the discounted price. If that item is then relisted either through eBay’s bulk relist tool, or through Turbolister then the discounted sale price will be the new price for that item. If the item is then placed on another MarkDown Manager sale it will be further discounted a second time.

In theory if you constantly replenish stock on a SIF item and it’s relisted each time it ends the price could continue to be discounted right down to £0.00

If you have shop inventory format items that have been part of a MarkDown Manager sale you’ll need to verify the price when you relist them, if they ended whilst a sale was still current. Although not ideal, knowing where the problem lies should now give sellers the ability to spot incorrectly priced relisted items and correct them.

HMRC self assessment website down

On the last day for submitting and paying tax returns for the 2006-2007 financial year the HMRC self assessment website has crashed! It simply displays a message “The Self Assessment on line system is temporarily unavailable to some customers. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and are working to restore the service as soon as possible”

If you’ve not submitted your tax return online but were planning to do so today it may be worth contacting HMRC direct, although I suspect their phone lines are exceptionally busy.

HMRC have not indicated if there will be an extension for submitting tax returns or if late submission fines will be waived.

(Many thanks to John from ChannelAdvisor for the info)

Television ChannelAdvisor

There are outbreaks of video happening all over the place, and now ChannelAdvisor UK have released their first video newsletter. Enjoy…

More on PayPal expanded Seller Protection

Firstly the best news of all - PayPal expanded Seller Protection will be FREE.

Yes, cynical as I am when I first posted PayPal had stated that they’d “offer” expanded Seller Protection to PowerSellers in the UK, US, Canada Hong Kong first, by “offer” I wondered about what it might cost. It costs nothing though so as soon as it’s available to you sign up. Not often PayPal give something for free so I’m wildly in favour of these changes, especially as the benefits are fantastic.

Benefits

• No more confirmed addresses - all addresses will be eligible for Seller Protection, simply ship to the address on the transaction details page. Every address in the PayPal system will be considered a confirmed address including customers work address, neighbours address and gift addresses - if it’s on the transaction details page it’s valid.
• Proof of posting will be sufficient for unauthorised funds claims. For lost in post you’ll still need proof of delivery.
• No limit on claims in any one year (currently £3250 pa).
• Coverage extended to all 190 territories PayPal operate in, any currency, any country.
• There’s nothing for you to do - no integration, no changes to the way you work, just sign up and say “yes” when you’re invited.

These changes were promised at eBay Live! 2007 in Boston by Rajiv Dutta. It’s fantastic to see that they’re just a few days away from becoming a reality for PowerSellers and soon to more eBay users across the world.

eBay Tips 2008: Marketing Off-eBay

Whether or not you take any trading off-eBay, there is a potentially huge opportunity for you in taking some of your marketing away from eBay. 10% of the UK’s internet traffic settles on eBay. But 90% of it is buzzing elsewhere. You might be simply promoting your eBay Shop or pimping your own website, it doesn’t matter. There’s plenty you can do for free and only invest a few moments.

Build Profiles

There are dozens of sites out there that allow you to build a profile or page on, dedicated to you. The sites have their own communities and allow you to link you to your own site. It’s an opportunity to get a bit of ‘trickledown traffic’ and get an SEO boost. Here are a few sites for you to consider:

LinkedIN
Ziki
Squidoo
Last.fm
BT Tradespace

Plug into the Social Networks

Facebook is enjoying an irresistible rise. Myspace isn’t going away. Bebo is still popular. And we’ll see more such sites rise in the years to come.

It’s about following the traffic, getting involved, participating and measuring the results. I’ve heard some good stories from sellers who tell me that they’re getting good results. So take the plunge and see if you get any good results. Just remember that there is a fine line between ‘networking’ and ‘not working’.

Comment on Blogs

Blogs have become ubiquitous in the past few years and commenting on blogs has it’s own marketing benefits. Identify 3 to 5 busy blogs and make valid contributions. Make sure you link to your eBay Shop or website to get the benefits. Relevance is everything and be sure to measure the results.

VAT-reg sellers must include tax in listing prices

File this under “about time too”. Until now, VAT-registered sellers have been able to choose whether they included VAT in their prices, or added it on afterwards. No more.

If you’re VAT registered, and therefore must charge VAT on the items you sell, the prices visible to buyers in your listings must be inclusive of VAT.

I’m almost entirely in favour of this. For the vast majority of eBay sales, which are retail transactions, it’s a given that VAT should be included. Not doing so is exceedingly misleading to buyers, and Trading Standards have quite rightly said that eBay retail prices ought to be VAT-inclusive.

My slight misgiving is in obvious business-to-business transactions: it should be possible to show those prices without VAT, so long as they are clearly flagged as such: that is, after all, the norm with B2B sales. The same goes for sellers who sell outside the EU, where they don’t need to charge VAT. Would it really have been too much to ask for eBay’s programmers to add an extra field to listings, so that prices could be shown, where appropriate, both with and without VAT?

eBay Netherlands cut Store FVFs

Having waded my way through the UK and US multi-page fee change notices yesterday, I have a certain amount of affection for the brevity of the Dutch today. In essence:

eBay Netherlands has been and remains cheap in comparison with other eBay sites, and for this reason we are not changing our insertion or final value fees. However, it has been decided to reduce the final value fees for eBay Stores. From 20th February, you will pay 6% of the sale price up to a maximum of €10.

eBay Switzerland levels auction insertion fees

Because it’s not just about the UK and the US…

eBay Switzerland yesterday announced changes to their pricing structure. From 20th February, insertion fees for all auctions, no matter what the start price, will be CHF0,10. For start prices of CHF15 and above, this is a cut in price; the higher your start price, the more you’re now going to save in listing fees. Gallery is also halved in price from CHF0,20 to CHF0,10. Insertion fees for fixed price listings have not changed; these remain tiered according to BIN price.

The Motors section of the site, which has its own price structure, will abolish insertion fees altogether.

eBay Switzerland therefore becomes (AFAIK) the only national site which has two different price structures for auctions, and for fixed price listings. eBay in general last year put a lot of effort into encouraging and promoting auction listings, which they called the core of their brand; more recently, however, JD has talked of the importance of buy it now, which represents nearly half of all eBay purchases. So it’s interesting to see Switzerland promoting auctions like this.

A French, Swiss-resident friend of mine commented to me recently, “eBay are wasting their time in Switzerland. We don’t need to sell our old stuff, we’re all too rich”, and there may be something in that. Perhaps pushing for auctions on higher-priced items will create a market for bargain-priced luxuries on eBay.ch?

What also probably isn’t helping eBay in Switzerland is that they insist on running the site in German: more than 27% of the Swiss population doesn’t have German for a first language, and non-German speakers would often prefer English if they can’t have their own language. eBay have managed dual-language sites in Belgium and Canada, so why they can’t do the same in Switzerland, I really don’t understand.

CHF1 is approximately £0.46 or €0,61.

Is JD worth $25million?

While eBay sellers spend the morning counting pennies to see if we’re better off or worse, Valleywag asks the question that really matters. Some quick numbers:

• $900,000 annual salary
• $1,125,000 “target annual incentive bonus”
• $23 million in stock options and restricted stock units

Nice.

Meanwhile, Meg’s reluctance to check out of the Hotel California will cost the company $600,000 in salary and the same again in bonus, plus additional payments from the incentive plan, office space and secretarial services. Never has quitting looked quite so lucrative.

All the details, for those who want them.

PayPal to offer better seller protection

PayPal have stated in the near future sellers will be able to ship to any address confirmed or otherwise and qualify for seller protection. Unconfirmed addresses which in the past made seller protection invalid, would no longer exclude sellers from protection for unauthorized funds, non-receipt claims and chargebacks.

This program known as Expanded Seller Protection will initially be made available to PowerSellers based in the UK, US, Canada and Hong Kong. In addition to all addresses being considered confirmed, coverage to all 190 countries served by PayPal will be included with no coverage limit on claims.

The vital missing information from todays announcements regarding PayPal Expanded Seller Protection is what it will/may cost. That fee could range from free, to a per transaction basis, to a set monthly fee, or a percentage of total transactions processed.

The dream of being able to ship to every customers to any address may be one step closer, it remains to be seen if it’s affordable.

eBay Tips 2008: Classifieds and Comparison Shopping

As I’ve written before in this series, there was a time when there was just eBay when it came to individuals selling online. But now the scene is more fragmented. Buyers are changing their habits and willing to buy using different formats and services. If you haven’t thought about Classified sites or Comparison Engines before (or have and found them lacking) then as we survey the online selling environment it’s a good opportunity to take a look and consider whether they might offer you something as you face 2008.

Classified Sites

eBay has made some forays into the classified ads space and enjoyed some good success. In the UK, you’ll see gumtree.com, worldwide take a look at kijiji.com and (for an example of an eBay owned classified site that is beating the traditional eBay site) in Holland take a look at marktplaats.nl. Take a look too at craigslist.com, of which eBay owns, 25%.

I think one of the principles of successful online marketing is to ‘follow the traffic’. And these online communities and sites provide new environments with which to interact with buyers. Search the sites and see if you might be able to advertise your sales, website, or individual items there. I think most sellers on eBay can find something to do there. Don’t forget that these sites index really well in search engines.

Comparison Shopping

Sites such as Kelkoo, Shopping.com and other major Comparison shopping sites have often proved a difficult environment for eBay sellers to penetrate. Not only are small businesses competing with big businesses who are typically getting better rates, but the it can be technologically challenging to plug-in and publish your inventory. The pricing model, pay per click rather than pay per sale, is also risky for smaller businesses with tight margins and a need for certainty.

But do take a look. They’re definitely not suited to all sellers, or indeed many, but there could be something that intrigues.

eBay Express UK to close

Easy to miss amongst other higher-profile announcements today, and because it’s not actually linked from the main annoucements page, is the sad news of the demise of eBay Express.

The writing on the wall for Express appeared during last week’s earnings call, when JD said “eBay Express has been a fantastic learning laboratory and we’re going to take those learnings and pull them into core eBay’s fixed price experience.” Damned with faint praise if ever anything was. I’m assuming this means that .com’s Express site is also closing, though right at this moment, I’m not finding an announcement for that.

Any Express-only listings still live after Express UK closes will be ended. Oddly, the announcement seems to have no actual date of intended closure on it. It all seems rather lacklustre, as though they thought that buyers and sellers alike wouldn’t really be very interested. Funny, that.

Feedback changes in 2008

There are five key areas that feedback will be changing in the next few months

Repeat feedback

From February when a customer demonstrates they’re happy with your service by returning to purchase again from you it’ll be reflected in your feedback score. In mid February eBay will start counting repeat feedback from customers (one per customer per week) towards your total feedback score. Later in the year your entire lifetime feedback score will be recalculated which will inevitably increase many sellers feedback by a large amount overnight.

No negatives for buyers

When buyers receive what they regard to be an unfair negative they often reduce their buying activity on eBay or leave the site entirely. Buyers are just as precious about their feedback as sellers and often refrain from leaving poor feedback for fear of retaliatory feedback.

An important point is that leaving a negative or neutral feedback for a buyer makes no difference to their buying ability. Sellers don’t routinely screen buyers for poor feedback on auctions, and it’s impossible on fixed price listings. Losing buyers hurts all sellers more than is gained by leaving negative feedback.

The impact of not being able to leave negative or neutral feedback is lessened by some further steps eBay have taken such as….

Removal of negative and neutral Feedback

If a buyer is suspended or fails to respond to the Unpaid Item Process all negative and neutral feedback they have left will be removed from the site (not just de-scored as currently happens). Sellers should always open unpaid item disputes for buyers who fail to pay for items as this is the surest way of indicating to eBay that there has been a problem. Buyers who fail to pay will be given a strike and repeated strikes will result in suspension and all negative/neutral feedback they have previously left erased. Great news for sellers with neutrals or negatives from buyers already suspended - these will be erased in May or June this year. Following on the Mutual Feedback Withdrawal system will be ended.

Positive Feedback percentage

The feedback percentage will be based on the previous 12 months Feedback instead of lifetime. This is to give buyers a more realistic and recent appreciation of how a seller is performing today, rather than how good they were ten years ago. Total feedback will still be displayed, but old negatives (from more than 12 months ago) will no longer be counted when calculating feedback percentages.

Restrictions on when Feedback can be left

Buyers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for three days following a transaction. Also Feedback can be left for 60 days instead of the current 90 days.

This is great news for sellers who may have been affected by auction wrecking in the past, eBay will have more time to spot suspicious buying patterns, erase transactions and suspend offenders before sellers feedback can be affected.

Thoughts

I can’t help but think eBay are making the right changes here. If buyers buy less, or leave eBay entirely, just for receiving a single negative it can’t be good for anyone, not the buyer, not sellers and not eBay.

Sellers should remember to use the tools provided such as Buyer Requirements to control which buyers can purchase, and the Unpaid Item Dispute process to issue strikes to non-paying bidders. eBay have also in the announcement reinforced the message that feedback extortion will not be tolerated.

In the long term I’d expect feedback to more accurately reflect transactions, and inevitably this will mean a widening in the range of feedback left. Currently most sellers have near 100% feedback records, but in future a few sellers may find their percentage slipping. The good news is that with old feedback discounted from calculations some sellers, who have improved in recent times, will see their feedback percentage rise.

eBay announce UK fee changes

Here you go, people - the UK details we’ve been waiting for.

Business registration required for PowerSellers

Firstly, the simple bit: as we expected, PowerSellers will be required to upgrade their accounts to business registration. It is a requirement under EU and UK law that anyone who is trading as a business must clearly indicate this to consumers. Expect to see more work from eBay over the coming months to ensure that buyers’ legal rights are respected.

Fee changes

The model here is to “reduce risk” for sellers by switching more of the fee to FVFs, so that fees are more in line with sales success. The changes will take effect from 20th February.

The new insertion fees range from 10p (down from 15p) for items starting at 99p or less, to £1.30 (down from £2.00) for items starting at £100 or more. The average is a 33% reduction in insertion fees.

Final value fees increase thusly:

• Up to £29.99: 7.5% (increased from 5.25%)
• £30 - £599.99: 4.5% (increased from 3.25%)
• £600+ : 1.9% (increased from 1.75%)

Fees for Shop Inventory Format listings are not changing. Gallery fees are going to be free in the US but are apparently not changing in the UK.

Media, Technology and Vehicles categories have their own fee structures.

FVF reductions for good sellers

Here’s where it gets complicated

High-volume business-registered sellers with a score of 4.6 or more on all DSRs over the last 30 days, will be entitled to a discount of 20% off their FVFs. Members of the PowerSeller program will receive higher rates of discount depending on PS level:

• Bronze: 20% (sorry, Bronzies: no extra for you )
• Silver: 25%
• Gold: 30%
• Platinum: 35%
• Titanium: 40%

In other words, Powerseller level now really is worth something. This is a change unique (as far as I know!) to the UK, and is not happening in the US.

And the question we all really care about: is it going to save us any money? The answer, apparently, is yes. eBay’s figures for an ordinary seller show savings across the board ranging from 21% to 4% on BIN items; they’re slightly less hot (6% - 1%) on auctions. And with the additional PowerSeller discounts, the figures start to be even better.

Thoughts

Me and my business are happy. I’m glad the insertion fees have stayed, because they *are* an incentive not to list rubbish, and should help to disincentivise flooding of categories by sellers with huge amounts of inventory to shift.

More than that, eBay have linked my success with theirs, not only with the tilt in fees towards final values, but with discounting based on PS level too. Finally, the PS scheme is no longer a marketing exercise: it’s taken the first crucial step towards upholding buyers’ legal rights, and at the same time, sellers have been given a real incentive to stay within the program, clean up their acts, and get a financial reward for doing so. 4.6 across the board is a reasonably high DSR requirement to have (compared e.g. with the 3.9 figure to be disadvantaged in search) so this really should promote excellence amongst sellers.

No doubt more details, thoughts and questions will emerge in the days to come, so please leave us a comment with your opinions. I’d be especially interested to know how the changes make you view your future with eBay: are you more or less likely to keep selling on the site than you were yesterday?

Why eBay are making changes

eBay have today announced a raft of changes, which will affect every buyer and seller on the site. From fees to feedback to search, in a few months time the way we trade on eBay will feel very different from today.

eBay have for ten years been the premier shopping destination for millions of buyers. At the same time millions of sellers have built successful businesses on eBay, some of which have diversified to other venues and their own websites.

The ecommerce landscape has both broardened and matured in those ten years and buyers are more demanding and more sophisticated then ever before. To remain the market leader eBay needs to change to accomodate those buyers needs and in doing so it is the best way they can serve the sellers who make their living using the site.

Buyers want three things: great deals, from a great selection, with great service. The changes eBay are making today aim to deliver those three criteria to the customers that trade with you.

The changes will ensure over time that the best prices from the best sellers float to the top of search results. For the best sellers on eBay very little will change, apart from the fact that their products will appear at the top of search results more often resulting in more sales. Many thousands of sellers on eBay give superb service, often way better than from commercial websites, and those sellers will benefit from the increased visibility for their products.

eBay aim to incentivise this behaviour with a raft of fee benefits, lower insertion fees should encourage a greater selection of products. Search changes will ensure the best deals from the best sellers are presented to the buyers. Finally sellers will be rewarded for giving great service with discounts on final value fees. This achieves two things eBay have never done before - incentivising great service and offering discounts for volume sellers.

Importantly discounts and feedback will be based on shorter periods giving better, more relevant, more recent, information to buyers and enabling sellers to improve in just thirty days to qualify for discounts. All sellers will effectively be able to ignore their feedback history and concentrate on offering great deals with superb service to their buyers and reap the rewards just one month later.

Finally todays announcment shows just how much eBay respect and value their sellers. For the first time eBay have revealed their roadmap for the year to site users enabling them to plan for the year ahead. Too often on eBay, complaints have been that changes occur too quickly and sellers have to constantly revise the way they work.

eBay have given advance notice of their plans, to enable all sellers to streamline their businesses, for what should be a fantastic years trading in 2008.

eBay UK introduce total price searching

eBay UK have just announced the introduction of two new search sort criteria: “Price + P&P: Lowest First” and “Price + P&P: Highest First”. These, as you might guess, sort listings by total price including postage. The intention is to disadvantage sellers who list very low prices with very high postage, avoiding eBay fees and frequently misleading buyers into thinking they’re getting a great deal.

Sellers are advised to include at least one postage option in the P&P fields of their listing (not just specified within the listing description) because those who don’t list postage prices at all will be displayed lower in these search results.

Buyers and sellers alike have been asking for this feature for years, so I’m very happy to see it finally happen.

Feedback: some more thoughts

On the internet, reputation is everything. Buyers want to know that merchants are trustworthy, and merchants want to demonstrate their trustworthiness. If someone’s had bad service, it’s easy for them to disseminate their bad opinion to anyone who cares to Google it. So it’s not surprising that online retailers who’ve begun their career on eBay often ask how they can port their reputation between venues: most frequently, they want to show their eBay feedback on their website.

A while back, we covered a widget that did just that: Auctionfb’s eBay feedback display shows your total and your percentage, and displays it’s daily ‘last checked’ date. Great idea, don’t you think? Not quite. While visiting another auction site recently, I spotted a seller using just this widget, so I clicked it. eBay say he’s NARU. But the widget gives no indication of that: just the total, 100%, and today’s date. Is this intentional, or a glitch? I asked Auctionfb for comment, but they haven’t come back to me. I just hope no one’s relying on this tool as a real indicator of seller reliability.

The user agreement currently says:

you agree that you shall not market or export your eBay feedback rating in any venue other than an eBay website. We do not allow you to import feedback from other websites to eBay because such feedback does not reflect your reputation within the eBay community.

which would make me question the legality of Auctionfb’s widget anyway.

But this “feedback is only for eBay” attitude also makes me think eBay are missing a big trick. “Feedback” is, after all, practically synonymous with “eBay”. It would be easy for them to become the de facto supplier of reputation across the entire internet: all they would need to do would be to allow sellers to allow their buyers to leave feedback for non-eBay transactions. It’d be a pretty easy job to add “leave me feedback on eBay” to my websites - and I’d do it like a shot. Leaving it on eBay, after all, assures other buyers that I’m not just deleting any bad comments: it preserves the integrity of the system. And really, with their current emphasis on social networks and Web 2.0 and off-site eBaying, you’d have thought this was something they’d have already done.

In fact, there’s a hint that they’re thinking about it, not for eBay, but for PayPal. Scot Wingo notes that Meg hinted at a reputation system for PayPal, and he’s right that this would be a great move for them, to tie merchants to the PayPal system more strongly.

I’m not convinced that PayPal’s quite the right place for this. It is, after all, a *payment* system, and I think that most buyers would view that as the end of the transaction; they want to know about reputation at the beginning. Tying that in with eBay itself would only help to make the eBay brand more prevalent across the net, and of course would give sellers an incentive to stick with them, if only for the sake of their reputation.

What do you think? Is this something you’d like to see eBay do? Or would you prefer to keep all your trading venues seperate?

eBay webcast details for tomorrow

Auctionbytes have details of the ecommerce forum webcast tomorrow, at which eBay are widely expected to be making some big announcements. (9am Eastern is 2pm GMT.)

Many thanks to Ina for the heads-up.

eBay Tips 2008: Other Marketplaces and Channels

It’s totally right and natural for any eBay seller to want to find profits and growth in other marketplaces. However, it’s at that point that many draw a blank. There has been a tendency for new sites to seek to become the ‘eBay killer’ with a strategy fuelled by antipathy or anger resulting from site changes or fee increases. That’s never going to be a recipe for success. You just can’t out-eBay eBay. Those that are trying aren’t getting cut-through or delivering results for sellers, as far as I can see.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t other places online to do business. Moreover, I think in 2008 we’ll start seeing very credible challenges to eBay’s hegemony. Google will doubtless become more important in the future as an ecommerce driver but whilst some sellers do report good sales from feeding their inventory in, it’s not moving the dial for many. Yet.

The surprise success and challenge is coming from Amazon. In recent months I’ve heard some very positive stories from sellers , especially stateside, who have had a stellar Christmas thanks to Amazon. There are grumbles too, of course: fixed, dictate postage costs and it seems to be a very price sensitive market. But all that said, if you sell relevant goods, think Amazon if you want an additional outlet.

But for my money, looking ahead and Google aside (and I’m still sceptical they equal to the task), the bigger opportunity for eBay sellers will be with small niche marketplaces. It’s always seemed to me that eBay’s ‘one size fits all’ doesn’t give anyone a snug fit. Tailored, specific channels honed for specialisms and built by experts could see strong growth in 2008 and beyond. As an example, check out etsy.com. It’s a really interesting, innovative market for crafts. It’s easy to imagine a site like this (and a thousand others)finding traction, attracting a dedicated following and delivering sales.

eBay bidding “saves buyers billions”

A new study has shown that eBay buyers save billions buying on the site. The independent research by two statisticians from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business measures the difference between highest bids and actual prices paid on eBay. Using data from bid sniping software Cniper and generalising that across all eBay sales, the researchers estimated that in 2003 (the year to which their data related), buyers would have saved $7 billion; a linear projection of the same figures would give $19 billion saved during 2007.

The study is useful in measuring “consumer surplus”, that is, the difference between what buyers would have been willing to pay, and what they did in fact pay. Normally this is very hard to quantify: Tesco checkout assistants can’t ask their customers how much more they would have paid for their shopping basket, or if they did, they’d get very few meaningful answers. But the eBay proxy bidding system, where the high bidder only has to pay one “bid increment” above their nearest rival, can provide much more accurate data on what buyers’ top prices would be. The less cheerful take on the same data, of course, says that last year eBay sellers lost $19 billion their buyers would have been willing to pay.

PayPal acquire FraudSciences

PayPal has acquired FraudSciences for just under $170,000,000 in cash, FraudSciences are a privately held Israeli company with expertise in online risk tools. Their technology differentiates between real and fraudulent transactions with supposed unprecedented accuracy and so is a great fit for PayPal’s business.

Scott Thompson, the new President of PayPal said “Integrating FraudSciences’ risk tools with PayPal’s sophisticated fraud management system should allow us to be even more effective in protecting eBay and PayPal’s hundreds of millions of customers around the world.”

UK based schuhstore top 100,000 feedback

Schuh, the well known high street brand for fashion footwear have just topped 100,000 feedback on eBay. From 1st February 2005, just under three years ago, when they opened their eBay ID, schuhstore have received over 194,000 unique feedbacks and hit the magical 100,000 unique feedback to become one of only a handful of sellers with the red shooting star.

Schuh also won the title “Auction Seller of the Year” at the eBay BackStage party, held last October, in recognition of their achievements on the site.

Douglas Male, Schuh’s eBay Manager, said: “When I sold that very first pair of Red or Dead high heels for £33 back in Feb 05, I personally never thought eBay would be this big for Schuh. Just shows how wrong you can be about things!”

Recently we looked at some of the top UK sellers and the tools they used to be successful. Schuh are amongst the highest top sellers for feedback DSRs, have a customised eBay Shop and listing template and use ChannelAdvisor to manage their eBay listings. One strategy that stands out from Schuh’s listings is that they’ll ship up to ten pairs of shoes within the UK for just £4.99 post and packaging, a great way to encourage mulitple purchases.

It’s great to see a traditional offline business making the transition online, and of course using the eBay platform to do so.

Congratulations to Schuhstore on their 100k Shooting star

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