eBay Elsewhere : links for 23rd March 2008

by Sue Bailey

This post was written in March 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

The Financial Times has sellers complaining about feedback and fees and threatening to strike indefinitely… I’m sure I’ve heard that story somewhere before.

Don Reisinger says that the only thing saving eBay is lack of competition. I had some sympathy for his argument until he started having a go at Buy It Now; nearly half of eBay’s sales are BIN these days. Auction sites are old hat, and eBay needs to move forward, not back.

John Jansch from Duct Tape Marketing recommends PayPal as “a serious ecommerce tool”. As indeed it is; what a long way its come since people used to say that offering PayPal on your website made you look like an amateur.

GeekCast talks to Will Martin-Gill, senior manager of internet marketing for eBay, about changes to the affiliate program. In particular, will there ever be an affiliate program for signing up new affiliates?

Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s List, talks about eBay’s 25% stake, monetising online community, and US recession. [Warning: Sarah Lacy is possibly even more annoying here than she was talking to Mark Zuckerberg.]


Author: Sue Bailey
Posted at: Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Filed Under News
 

Comments

8 Responses to “eBay Elsewhere : links for 23rd March 2008”

  1. northumbrian on March 23rd, 2008 1:48 pm

    I have every sympathy for Dons argument

    buy it nows are totally detrimental to the prices acheived and buyer commitment, in the categories I list in

  2. Dave on March 23rd, 2008 3:45 pm

    I read John Janschs Blog the other day after seeing a comment on here referring to a posting from a year or so ago re putting up your prices.
    There is a reference in his blog to a book called working 4 hours per week, sounds an interesting concept and was a best seller in US last year. The part that attracted me was getting a personal virtual assistant, anybody used one of these, most are based in India

  3. Dan Wilson on March 24th, 2008 1:07 am

    The FT article is a bit pony. No mention of FVF discounts.

  4. northumbrian on March 24th, 2008 6:37 am

    I must use a different ebay
    its mostly journalistic invented tosh ,

  5. Eddie on March 24th, 2008 8:01 am

    “will there ever be an affiliate program for signing up new affiliates?”

    What about an affiliate program for introducing new sellers also !

  6. northumbrian on March 24th, 2008 5:54 pm

    In fact I double hate buy it now with an intensity ,

    sick of guerkins asking me for a buy it now on 99p start auctions
    thinking I am daft in the head enough to sell it cheap

  7. Sue Bailey on March 24th, 2008 6:08 pm

    North, doesn’t that suggest that your customers want BINs? When you have a 99p start auction, you must have a target price. So if you expect to get £50 for the auction, why not tell them the BIN price is £55? BIN does NOT equal cheap. In fact, on eBay now, I’d say auctions = cheap and BIN = realistic, and I know a lot of sellers who agree with me. The novelty of auctions has worn off, people don’t want to hang around upping their bid by a fiver a time, they want to know your price and decide if they’re going to pay it or not.

  8. northumbrian on March 24th, 2008 7:55 pm

    sue
    Antique and collectables just dont work to business school economics and retail rules, somethings worth what someone will pay especially the rare and unusual though your theory works well with such as doulton figures and similar mass produced collectables

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