The Normal Person’s Guide to Installing WordPress
August 31, 2008
because there are no dummies or complete idiots around here. 
This post is for Lynne, and a lot of other people recently who’ve asked me how to install WordPress. I’ve assumed some basic knowledge of t’internet and web hosting here, including how zip files and FTP work. If anything needs more clarification, leave me a comment.
Why WordPress?
There are lots of blog management systems, and not all of them take effort to install like WordPress does. If you use BlogSpot, for example, you can be up and running in a minute or two. But WordPress more than pays off a little effort to get started:
- the content stays on your own server and can be backed up, by you, so you know it’s always going to be there,
- the sheer range of stuff you can do with WordPress is unmatched by any other BMS I’ve seen,
- the community around WP is a great place to be,
- and it’s free.
So lets get started.
The least you need to know
- Download the latest version of WordPress from wordpress.org.
- Edit wp-config-sample.php with your own database details, and save as wp-config.php
- Upload to your hosting
- Open /wp-admin/install.php in your browser, and follow the instructions from there.
Sounds easy, yes? Lets look at each stage in detail.
Hosting
You will need some web hosting to run WordPress. The up-to-date minimum requirements are available via WP’s site: they’re pretty basic, and most web hosting accounts will be adequate. If, for example, you’re already running your own ecommerce site, you can almost certainly run a WP blog on the same hosting. If you’re not sure, WP provide a handy email to copy to your hosts to check.
If you don’t have hosting yet, WP have a number of recommended hosts: they’re all in the US, but that largely doesn’t matter, and several of them offer one-click WP install. This can be an advantage getting started, but do check that the version you’re being offered is the most recent one, and remember you’ll have to keep it updated yourself when new releases come out.
Get the software
You can always find the latest release of WordPress via wordpress.org. If you downloaded it a while back but haven’t installed it yet, check that there isn’t a newer release before you go any further: new releases add security features as well as functionality, so it’s important to keep your WP install up to date.
Once downloaded to your computer, you’ll need to unzip the software. If this doesn’t happen automatically (and it should), there are any number of free utilities to do this for you. Save everything on your PC somewhere where you can find it again easily.
Edit wp-config-sample.php
This is the file that gives WordPress the specific information about your own database installation. You’ll need to edit the bits in red (be careful you don’t delete any inverted commas by mistake):
define('DB_NAME', 'putyourdbnamehere'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'usernamehere'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'yourpasswordhere'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
The bits after // on each line are comments to help you.
Where do you find this info?
- Your hosting package may come with a database already set up. Check your control panel or the welcome email you received when you opened your account.
- You may need to manually set up a database yourself; look on your control panel for something like database or MySQL management.
- If in doubt, your hosts will be able to give you the information.
In the same file, you’ll see three “secret key” phrases: change these to something long and nonsensical.
Use Notepad or another plain text editor, *not* Word, to edit PHP files. Save the edited file as wp-config.php (.php is the file extension: if your text editor tries to call it wp-config.php.txt or similar, override that).
Upload WordPress
You now have a folder on your PC called Wordpress, with all the WP files in it: you need to upload the *contents* of that folder to the directory on your server where you want the blog to appear.
So now you need to decide what you want the URL of your blog to look like.
- If your blog is part of a larger site, you might want it in its own directory, for example www.domain.com/blog: upload the WP package to that directory.
- If the entire domain *is* your blog, then upload to the root public HTML directory (which might even be called public_html, depending on your hosts).
Don’t upload the WordPress folder itself, only its contents, or you’ll end up with URLs that look like www.domain.com/blog/wordpress.
Once the upload is complete, open [your blog directory]/wp-admin/install.php in your browser, and follow the on-screen instructions. You’ll need to tell WordPress the title of your blog and your email address, and then it will install everything for you. At the end of the installation, you’ll be given an admin password. This should also be emailed to you, but make a note of it now – WP generates some fantastically random passwords, so I’d make the next thing you do…
Set up your admin user account and password
Click the “users” link from the top right, and then the “admin” user name. You can fill out some important details here including how you want your name to display on your posts (unless you want to be called “admin” forever), and also change your password to something you can remember.
Now would also be a good time to bookmark your admin dashboard: it lives at /wp-admin/ if you forget.
And we’re done!
You should now have a plain-vanilla install of WordPress, that looks something like the screen shot to the left. This is now functional, and you can start writing: click “Write” from the top of your admin dashboard to write a post. WordPress comes with one post and one comment “pre-installed”; you probably want to delete these, so go into “Manage” to remove them.
It’s worth taking a bit of time to look around the WordPress dashboard at this point: generally, things you might want to use often (Write, Manage, Comments) are the big links on the left, and things you’ll use less often are the smaller links on the right. It can look a little daunting at first, but once you get used to what lives where, it’s really pretty straightforward.
Next weekend, we’ll be looking at making things pretty with WordPress themes.
Which eBay shop is best for you?
August 30, 2008
I’ve always believed that an eBay shop was worth more than the ability to use SIF listings, so the announcement that SIFs are to be retired in September is not going to convince me to close my shop.
In view of the fee changes and possible discounts which level eBay shop should you subscribe to? eBay have a microsite which goes into the changes in depth including a cute (and useful) shop fee illustrator.
What this site doesn’t cover is the added benefits of shops over and above pure fee discounts, however as a start point it’s worth looking at when BINs justify a shop on their own merits. The following table shows the level eBay shop you should choose based on the number of fixed price listings you have on the site.
| Shop/Cost | No Shop | Basic Shop | Featured Shop | Anchor Shop |
| Shop Cost | £0.00 | £14.99 | £49.99 | £349.99 |
| BIN Insertion Fee | 40p | 20p | 5p | 1p |
| Number of BIN listings | 0-74 | 75-226 | 227-7499 | 7500+ |
An anchor shop had no real advantage over a featured shop in the past, so it’s good to see real anchor shop benefits introduced. Anchor shops are still not suitable for most sellers, only those with over 7500 product lines (not listings!) will be able to justify the cost.
| Feature | Basic Shop | Featured Shop | Anchor Shop |
| Cross Promotions |  |
|
|
| Shop Categories | |
|
|
| Listing Frame | |
|
|
| Markdown Manager | |
|
|
| Holiday Settings | |
|
|
| Minimal Page Header | - | |
|
| Telephone Support | - | |
|
| Sales Reports Plus | £3.00 | |
|
| SMP | £4.99 | |
|
| Scheduling* | 6p/listing | |
|
| Email Marketing | 1000 free | 2500 free | 5000 free |
| Custom Shop Pages | 5 | 10 | 15 |
| Traffic Reports | Basic | Extended | Extended |
| Shop Promotion | Basic | Priority | Priority |
* Free scheduling requires SMP subscription
If you already use SMP and/or wish to make use of scheduling then the benefits of a featured shop really start to stack up. Sellers with a basic shop but subscribed to SMP should upgrade to a featured shop if they have more than 160 BIN listings live on the site at any one time.
Anchor and Featured Shop subscriptions will come with telephone support, a great bonus for non-PowerSellers who would otherwise be reliant on email support.
Which ever level eBay shop you consider remember that your listing strategy is likely to change.
eBay are encouraging sellers to list just one fixed price listing for each product line. In the past you may have listed the same item on a daily or even hourly basis. When choosing your shop subscription from 24th September you should factor in a reduction in your total number of fixed price listings.
It’s worth considering auctions, even if you don’t currently have them in your listing mix. Fixed price listings will no longer be sorted with “Ending Soonest”, but auctions will. The one way to ensure visibility of your items on the first page of search results is to run auction listings.
The mix of auctions and fixed price listings on the first page of search results will vary by category. In collectible categories I’d expect to see more auctions and in commodity categories it’s likely a higher percentage of fixed price listings will be displayed. It will be worth experimenting to see if auctions attract more buyers both to bid and to drive traffic to your fixed price listings.
We are aware that the changes to shops are making it unprofitable for sellers of low cost, low sell through rate, unique items to list their inventory on eBay. Currently there is no easy solution and it’s hoped eBay will address this situation prior to the changes going live on 24th September or hundreds of thousands of products will disappear from the site.
For sellers of higher priced items the reduction in listing fees and change of listing strategy should make it economically viable to list more product lines in greater quantities.
Finally there are still some notable holes in the fee structure to take advantage of:
- Technology and Media products have lower final value fees
- Multiple quantity fixed price listings will now have lower insertion fees than Dutch Auctions
- Listing enhancements will cost up to 3 times as much for 30 day listings – consider shorter fixed price listings if you have limited stock.
Best offers not showing in My eBay
August 30, 2008
If you have best offers on your eBay listings currently they’re not showing in My eBay. Although you may be seeing “With Offers (0)” it’s possible you have outstanding offers waiting to be actioned.
The only way to see best offers at the moment is from the individual listing or by checking your email / My Messages for notifications. This glitch shouldn’t affect you if you have auto accept/reject levels set on all your listings which offer best offer.
Confusion available on new View Item page
August 29, 2008
A heads-up for eBay UK sellers about the new View Item page, which can now be viewed by clicking the link to “switch to the new version of this page” at the top of any of your own listings. There’s been a very small but significant change to the “quantity” section for multiple item listings. Here’s how it used to look:
However, on the new view, the crucial word “available” is missing:
Anyone who’s traded on eBay for a while will probably recognise the danger here: if buyers can interpret an ambiguity in their favour, they generally do, and this looks like “it said quantity four, I thought I was getting four” waiting to happen. So for those selling in multiple quantities, as eBay want us to do, it might be worth adding a note to your listings that the price is per single item.
It would be lovely if eBay could get this wording put back as it was, for the sake of the buyer experience.
Two eBay sellers achieve one million feedback
August 29, 2008
It’s time eBay invented a new colour shooting star, because this month two sellers have reached one million positive feedback on eBay.
On the 26th August everydaysource gained their millionth feedback, and hot on their heels on the 27th accstation followed them through the one million barrier.
The top feedback star currently awarded is at 100,000 feedback, which just 400 sellers worldwide have achieved. The highest feedback for a UK seller is gowingstore with 486,639, which places them 9th in the worldwide rankings.
For the two companies who have one million feedback it’s an epic achievement and one worthy of recognition. Congratulations to both of them.
Extra verification for knife buyers on eBay UK
August 28, 2008
eBay are to introduce additional verification for buyers wishing to purchase knives on the site. From September buyers will have to place a credit card on file or enter their card details at the point of purchase. The card won’t be used for payment, purely for authentication.
The announcement points out that it’s an offense to sell a knife to people under 18 years of age – although every eBay account holder should be over 18 it’s not always the case and regardless minors often use parents accounts without their knowledge. Sellers have little or no means of verifying the age of their buyers so it’s good to see eBay taking steps to toughen up on buyer checks.
eBay emphasize that the knives policy hasn’t changed pointing out that items such as switchblades and throwing knives are already banned.
Vice President Meg Whitman?
August 28, 2008
Meg Whitman, former CEO and President of eBay Inc, is being tipped as a possible Vice Presidential running mate for Republican nominee John McCain. If chosen, she would be only the second woman to run on the ticket of either major party since Democrat Geraldine Ferraro was chosen by Walter Mondale in 1984.
It all seems rather unlikely, but the rumour isn’t going away. From a British perspective it is extraordinary that someone could go from CEO to ‘a heartbeat away from the presidency’ in less than a year. She has never, after all, been elected to any political post. Ever.
The job of Vice President was famously described by one incumbent as being “not worth a bucket of warm piss” and has no executive power, many ceremonial duties and comes with the right to preside over the Senate. So in some ways it might be rather less thrilling than being CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation. But it does come with a plane (call sign Air Force Two): a perk shared with the CEO of eBay.
Dan Wilson is a writer and consultant and the bestselling author of ‘Make Serious Money on eBay UK’.
No more under-99p BINs on eBay UK
August 27, 2008
eBay UK have stated that after 24th September, it will no longer be possible to sell buy it now items for less than 99p on the site. In a post on the PowerSeller Board, Community Manager James stated that:
Concerns around feedback manipulation have prompted us to review this area and after 24th September, the minimum BIN price will be 99p, for single and multiple quantity listings. The minimum BIN price for an auction + BIN option listing will also be 99p. Sellers with lower value items will still be able to list in auction with starting prices lower than 99p.
There was no mention of this in the official announcement of changes last week, which seemed to imply that BINs from 1p would be permissable. And there has still been no official announcement on a forum with universal access. Yet again, eBay communicate essential change by accident, by rumour and behind closed doors.
Sellers in many categories have been used to Shops’ listings which allowed buy it now prices for multiple items as low as a penny each. In my own Crafts’ categories – as, I’m sure, all across eBay – this allowed buyers to choose a selection of items, matching exactly what they wanted, combine postage and not spend a penny more than they needed to. With the new 30 day BIN format, that can’t happen: sellers will have to list larger quantities of very cheap items so that they total 99p or more, or stop selling them on eBay altogether.
This is not, I hasten to add, just about Crafts. Right now, there are more than 400,000 items on eBay UK with buy it now prices below 99p. There are 75,000 books under 99p, for example: where do eBay think those buyers and sellers are going to go? That’s a vast amount of inventory to sacrifice. Of course, some categories are going to be more heavily impacted than others: in Collectables, it’s 16% of the category; in Crafts, 11%, and in Stamps, it’s just under 10%. If anyone’s thinking of setting up a niche marketplace in one of these areas, now would be the time to do it.
But the real tragedy is that killing sub-99p BINs will harm hundreds of sellers and annoy thousands of buyers, but it won’t achieve what eBay have allegedly set out to do and stop feedback manipulation. Accounts which need a quick feedback boost – whether for legitimate or more nefarious reasons – will be just as happy to pay a couple of quid per feedback as they used to be to pay 10p per feedback: any seller of low-priced items could have told them this.
So, my Crafty and other chums, what will you do now? Leave us a comment; be part of our poll.
Updated to add: Lest I be accused of unfairness to James, there is now a post on Q&A too. However, as Pinks are fond of reminding us, only a tiny percentage of eBayers frequent the boards. Therefore, the question of where the official announcement is on this issue remains valid.
Protogolf: An eBay business grows off eBay
August 26, 2008
Protogolf are one of the first to implement the new ChannelAdvisor StoreAdvisor Premium (SAP) website solution which launches today.
Protogolf was founded in 2004 by Hunter Goodson when he was just 16 years old and launched on eBay. Since then they have expanded to selling on Amazon, comparison shopping sites and of course their own website.
“I wanted to capture a bigger market share of customers from all over the Internet, including the search engines, and offer them an easy, yet feature-rich buying experience” said Hunter. Just as important were the tools to manage inventory, shipping and attract a bigger market share of customers from all over the Internet including search engines.
Diztinct.com were chosen by Protogolf to design the site as StoreAdvisor Premium offers design services or contracting a third party to develop the creatives.
The new site is obviously working, in the three weeks since launching his new store Protogolf has seen a 30% increase in site traffic, handled fewer customer service problems and achieved an overall 300% rise in sales.
I’ve met Hunter a couple of times and he’s always been full of enthusiasm for his business. It’s great to see a successful eBay business grow into a multichannel successful enterprise, to read more on his success you can download a case study on Protogolf from the ChannelAdvisor website.
Court case against eBay India halted
August 26, 2008
Way back when eBay India was Baazee.com a film was sold which is said to have been an obscene video of two students from Delhi. The case is still dogging Avinash Bajaj who sold Baazee.com to eBay in 2004 and is now the eBay.in CEO.
The court has halted the trial while the police respond to two points raised in Bajaj’s defence, that listing a video for sale on the site is not the same as publishing the video and that the law failed to define obscene so that even if it is obscene there can be no liability over the film in question.
I don’t think there’s any question that some content may not be suitable for eBay, but should eBay staff be directly liable when sellers list those products for sale?
1 million bank records sold for £35 on eBay
August 26, 2008
A computer containing the bank records of a million people has been sold on eBay. It’s not clear how the computer came to be listed on the site, but the buyer from Oxford was astounded to find “names, addresses, mobile phone numbers, bank account numbers, sort codes, credit card numbers, mothers’ maiden names and even signatures” stored on the hard drive.
The data from Amex, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland was on the computer removed from a secure area along with a second computer which is still missing. It’s expected that the buyer will return the computer, although if it were me I’d be asking for a lot more than the £35 I’d paid for its safe return.
eBay France announces new fee tariff
August 26, 2008
eBay France is the latest site to announce a new fee schedule designed to “make selling on eBay less risky”. They follow the general pattern seen last week in the UK, US and Germany, moving more of the emphasis from insertion fees to final value fees, offering seperate schedules for auctions and BIN, and changing the way search works to advantage popular listings.
Auction insertion fees capped at €1
These have been simplified massively, and will be lower for almost everyone:
| Opening bid | Old IF | New IF | Saving |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0,01 EUR – 1,00 EUR | 0,20 EUR | 0,15 EUR | 25% |
| 1,01 EUR – 9,99 EUR | 0,35 EUR | 0,35 EUR | |
| 10 EUR – 24,99 EUR | 0,60 EUR | 0,55 EUR | 8.33% |
| 25 EUR – 49,99 EUR | 1,15 EUR | 1 EUR | 13% – 74% |
| 50 EUR – 99,99 EUR | 1,80 EUR | ||
| 100 EUR – 249,99 EUR | 2,85 EUR | ||
| 250 EUR and above | 3,90 EUR |
10 day auctions will have a 5c surcharge.
Buy It Now insertion fees 50c
BIN insertion fees will be 50c across the board, regardless of quantity or price. So long as your BINs were priced at €10 or more, this will be a saving for you. As with other eBay sites, for lower priced items this is a fee hike… but see below regarding multiple item sales, it’s not quite as bad as it looks.
Media categories keep their 5c IFs.
Gallery fees have been included in French insertion fees since August 2007, and this remains the case.
Final Value Fees increased
Auctions and BINs will now have different FVF schedules, and they will all be higher than they used to be:
| Sale price | Old FVF | New FVF | Auction & BIN | Auctions | BIN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 EUR – 50 EUR | 5,25% | 6,5% | 9% |
| 50 EUR – 500 EUR | 3,50% | 4,5% | 6% |
| 500 EUR – 1000 EUR | 3,50% | 2,5% | 3% |
| 1000 EUR and above | 1,50% | 2,5% | 3% |
Media items keep their 9% FVFs for sub-€50 sales. The one little glimmer of light is for media sales above €50, which will see their FVFs drop to 6% for €50-500, and 3% above that: this will obviously affect a very small percentage of the category, but I guess it’s better than nothing.
Popularity in search result sorting
Items which have sold in the preceeding seven days will be advantaged in search results. It should probably be noted here that ten days remains the longest available core BIN period on eBay France: there is no equivalent to eBay UK’s or eBay Italy’s 30 core BIN.
But this may be some glimmer of hope for sellers of lower-priced BINs who, like me, just saw all their fees jump. Listing multiple items in one listing instead of single items could be a way to keep fees down, though in my experience, multiple item listings on eBay France have a much lower sell-through rate than the same items listed singly, so this will need some more experimentation.
Compulsory business registration
eBay France already announced that business sellers would be forced to prove their registered status. Now private sellers turning over €2k or more in three consecutive months will have to register as business sellers, or have their seller accounts suspended.
A seller’s status as business or private is now displayed in eBay.fr search results.
Business seller fee promotion 1st – 31st October
The new fees come into effect on 25th September, but if you’re a business seller, don’t get too used to them, because on the 1st October, a month long promotion begins. This offers 15c insertion fees for BIN listings and 10% off FVFs for sellers with all four DSRs at 4.5 or more.
This promotion is obviously welcome, but frankly, it muddies the waters. At the busiest time of year, to have to deal with two fee changes in a month, is a joke. If it’s trying to distract sellers of lower-priced items with decent STRs from the fee hike that just happened, I can promise them it isn’t working. 
And if it’s some kind of experiement to discover whether professional sellers will list more with a lower fee schedule, well then why change things twice? Especially in the next four months, I’d be so happy if eBay would stop tinkering and just let me get on with selling.
eBay Motors CLD: list parts and accessories for 25c
August 26, 2008
eBay.com Motors are offering insertion fees capped at 25c on parts’ and accessories’ listings from 26th to 30th August. Auction and BIN listings in the various parts’ categories and Apparel and Merchandise will qualify: actual vehicle listings will not. All other normal fees apply.
Bulk Reviser adds support for multiple eBay IDs
August 25, 2008
Comsulting have released a new version of their Bulk Reviser software to enable editing auctions across multiple eBay user IDs.
Bulk Reviser has already saved me hours of work on a couple of occasions and is one of the best tools for bulk editing eBay listings that I’ve come across. It enables mass editing of Best Offer, Auction and Buy It Now Price, Domestic Handling/Dispatch Time, Postage, Insurance, Get It Fast, Hit/Visitor Counter, International Site Visibility, Item Location, Payment Instructions, Payment Methods, PayPal Email Address, Private Listing, Quantity, Require Immediate Payment, Reserve Price, Return Policy, Title, Sub Title, and Vat Rate.
There are two offers for TameBay readers – get Bulk Reviser for multiple seller IDs for £39.95, the price of the single user edition (Normally £49.95 – Use the promo code “TamebayMulti” when ordering), or buy the single user edition with 10% off (Normally £39.95 – Use the promo code “TameBay” when ordering).
Third party ads on eBay UK item pages
August 24, 2008
eBay are now putting adverts for third parties on “view item” pages:
Adverts for Sky TV seem to have appeared on all listings on eBay UK in the Consumer Electronics category. I haven’t yet been able to find any others, though it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ll be on their way; a rash of Googlers finding their way to TameBay from searches like “adverts on eBay” this weekend suggests that there are a few people spotting ads in new places.
One could of course take the sanguine approach: Sky TV aren’t competing with the battery charger or headphones you’re selling, so they shouldn’t distract your buyers. Indeed, if a buyer’s looking at battery chargers, they’re not looking for Sky TV so they’re never going to click the ad. Sky and eBay are wasting their time, right?
I’d love to be so calm about it, but I’m not. That £20 cashback offer is going to distract some buyers, for a start: the advertising isn’t necessarily well-targetted, but the offer is. And we’ve seen before how it goes with advertising on eBay: it starts with the likes of Sky and insurance firms, big companies who aren’t necessarily competing with eBay sellers, but it ends up with direct competition. I know I’m not the only person who’s seen my suppliers crop up in those search results’ ads. So how about if you could advertise your website on the eBay listings of all your competitors? How about if your competitors could advertise on yours?
It was just about plausible for eBay to claim that third party ads at the bottom of no-result searches were useful for buyers: if there’s nothing for them on eBay, giving them something else to look at isn’t unreasonable. But getting buyers through the process of “finding”, onto a page for something they might buy, only to send them off to buy Sky TV or home insurance, or a cheaper off-site version of what they were just looking at – I’m really not buying this as a process that’s good for anyone, including eBay.
Let’s not forget that eBay buyers are very, very loyal to the site. They come to eBay because they want to shop on eBay: they like getting feedback or they’ve bought into the security aspects or they like having many sellers’ goods aggregated in one place. Whatever the reason is, they’ve chosen to come to eBay rather than look at a search engine or a comparison shopping engine. As third-party ads proliferate on every page of the site, eBay undermine that. Buyers come to trust shopping on eBay, but when they can no longer tell the difference between an onsite and an offsite link, what happens to that trust? eBay becomes nothing more than an ugly cross between Shopping.com and Google, with nothing unique to offer. Is that a place any of us want to sell? More importantly, is it a place any of us will be bothered to try and buy?
What do you think? How will you feel when adverts crop up on your own listings? Leave us a comment.
eBay Italy half-price listings 25th to 27th August
August 24, 2008
eBay Italy are holding a half-price listing promotion from 25th to 27th August. Insertion fees for BINs and auctions are approximately 50% off the normal price: fees for the €0,99 and €9,99 tranches, which would have been 7½c and 12½c respectively, have been rounded up (really, how stingy does that look?). All other fees still apply and there are, as ever, some exclusions; read the small print before you list.
eBay seller Luzern gets €2.5m investment
August 23, 2008
There’s money to be made in returned consumer electronics – Luzern, an eBay and Amazon seller based in Ireland has just received a €2.5 million investment from an Irish technology venture capital firm.
The investment from Delta Partners will be used to accelerate growth of Luzern’s international operations. They already have a presence in the UK, Spain, Germany and Netherlands as well as their base in Ireland.
Managing the disposal of returned products from companies such as Archos, Brother, Creative, Palm, Philips, Sanyo they have recently signed their first deal in the US. Luzern use their own proprietary web based application “Channel Optimiser” to manage the flow of products onto site such as Amazon, eBay, PriceMinister and their own website www.luzerntech.com.
Channel Optimiser (.pdf doc) gives Luzern the ability to switch products into different marketplaces or country sites in order to achieve the best return as well as managing the entire sales process from inventory management to shipping.
It’s always good to hear of success stories and it’s great to hear a company like Luzern is prospering. We wish them good luck for the future and look forward to hearing more from them in the future.
eBay Germany re-introduces mutual feedback withdrawal
August 22, 2008
eBay Germany have re-introduced mutual feedback withdrawal in limited circumstances. Sellers can request buyers retract neutral or negative feedback within 30 days of the feedback being left.
There are limits of two requests per month, and sellers can only make one request per transaction. Once a request has been made a buyer has 7 days to respond, if they refuse, fail to respond within 7 days, or simply ignore the request then the feedback will remain on the sellers profile.
This is currently available only on eBay Germany and is running as a pilot so details may be tweaked in the future. Mutual feedback withdrawal should however roll out across all eBay sites in a similar format by October. It’s a great move as it gives a seller a real incentive to look after their customers and resolve any issues even if a buyer leaves feedback in haste.
Amazon requirements for toy selling at Christmas
August 22, 2008
Sellers who wish to sell in the Toys & Games category on Amazon over the Christmas period will need to meet the seller standards laid down in their Christmas Selling Guidelines.
Amazon will stop accepting new sellers in the Toys & Games category from September 12th, and from November 17th exisiting sellers that don’t meet the following criteria will be unable to sell toys again until the 5th January 2009.
- Seller’s first sale on Amazon.co.uk must be prior to 19/09/2008 (sale does not need to be Toy-specific)
- Seller must have processed and shipped at least 25 orders by 18/10/2008 (orders do not need to be Toy-specific)
- Seller has no greater than 1% defect rate. Order defects will be evaluated for orders placed between 06/07/08 and 04/10/08.
Amazon say “Customers have high expectations for purchases during the festive season. We want to ensure that our sellers in Toys & Games provide high-quality customer experience and that all orders are fulfilled and delivered in a manner that meets or exceeds our customers’ expectations.”
Amazon is performing exceptionally well and is a marketplace eBay sellers should strongly consider, if they’re not already listing on the site. It’s good to see Amazon will be ensuring seller standards remain impeccable during the holiday selling season. If you will be offering toys for sale it’s time to make sure your account is set up and ready to take full advantage of the Christmas selling season.
The sales pitch that never happened
August 21, 2008
I spent today with the lovely people (and I mean it – they *are* lovely) people from ChannelAdvisor at their Insite conference in London. I don’t mind admitting that I was expecting this to be a rather dry pitch for CA’s services: in fact, it was a usefully informative day that would benefit any seller wanting to move their online activities beyond just eBay, with ne’er a mention of signing up with CA, even when one or two might have been justified.
The real point of Insite, though, is to show online retailers the breadth of selling channels available to them: if you’re used to selling solely via eBay and/or your own website, there are lots more places to sell, and lots of interesting strategies you can utilise in doing so. Comparison Shopping Engines and Marketplaces (eBay, Amazon, Play.com, PixPlace) were covered in two sessions each – intermediate and advanced – with lots of emphasis on practicality. ChannelAdvisor have no vested interest in any of these companies and so can talk about their respective merits and problems with impartiality: all CSEs, for example, are not created equal, and which ones you should list on depends on what you sell.
Highlight of the day for me, though was the two talks on paid search. ChannelAdvisors Russell and Fred do not talk like people giving PowerPoint presentations: they talk like people who’ve just discovered a truly exciting new secret. This wasn’t boring stuff about keywords and ROI and metrics: they sounded like people who’d just had a religious experience. And more importantly, they made me want to go home and sort my rather jaded business out.
It wasn’t all CA. eBay themselves were there, of course: the timing of today’s event, the day after eBay’s major announcements, couldn’t have been better, and eBay staff were around to answer questions. As well as their presentations, eBay, Amazon, PayPal and PriceRunner were available in the “round table room” all day: if you have account issues you need to resolve, it’s probably worth attending just for this.
It’s often said of eBay University and similar events that the real point of going is the networking: this is certainly true of Insite. There’s both scheduled “networking” time, around coffee, lunch and the bar afterwards, plus plenty of opportunity to sneak out of the more formal sessions for chats with potential business partners.
There are more Insites in Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester later on in the year, so if you can make it to one, I’d heartily recommend it. But don’t go expecting a sales pitch
Dulux are now accepting PayPal
August 21, 2008
PayPal have won another mainstream account – Dulux now accept PayPal for payments through their website.
Anyone ordering paint samples can either spend the time entering their contact and payment details or simply click the PayPal button and the transaction is completed with a simple PayPal log in.
It’s impressive to see PayPal expanding with mainstream businesses, and Dulux is a great win for them.
More details from eBay UK on site changes
August 21, 2008
After yesterday’s eBay announcements, there are naturally a lot of questions to be asked by sellers, mainly concerning the actual implementation of eBay’s new plans. At Insite today, some eBay employees were around to answer our questions (great timing from ChannelAdvisor!); here’s what we found out:
- Markdown Manager will still be available for 30 day BIN listings. UK law requires that the item has been on sale for 28 days at the higher price, so GTC BINs will still qualify for this.
- The new view item page will include a list of shop categories, similar if not identical to the current listing frame.
- The price of featured first may change: variable pricing by category may be considered.
- Telephone support will be available for anchor and featured shop owners, even if they are not PowerSellers.
- Listings will be more editable than they are now. Price and item description will both be editable, though title, item condition and category will not. P&P fees are probably editable, though that’s not certain yet.
This gives sellers the useful possibility that they can list multiple items at a lower price, gain sales and thus a boost in search results, before adjusting prices upwards. It won’t work as a long-term way to overprice: if you’re too expensive, that will work against you in search, and buyers will stop buying, which will also damage your search positioning. But it might be preferable to knock a couple of quid off your sale price rather than pay £145 “featured first” fee if you have a listing you want to kick-start.
If you have more questions, please leave them in a comment: we’ll do our best to get them answered.
eBay Germany : returning stores to search
August 21, 2008
eBay Germany have announced fee changes for business sellers today, creating perhaps the most complicated fee schedule ever seen on any eBay site.
The most important change is that Shop items will be converted into a new fixed price format, which will be fully visible in search results. The listing fee for these will be between 1c and 10c which will include free Gallery pictures. There are now five different schedules of insertion and final value fees, depending on which category you’re listing in. I think this means that 30 BINs will now be available on eBay.de as they will be on .com and .co.uk, but the release just says “long running times” with no further detail.
For €299 per month, sellers can upgrade to a Premium Shop, which from 25th September to 31st December, will offer unlimited good-til-cancelled BINs, with no insertion fees.
Sellers will have to offer PayPal for the new BIN listings: eBay reveal the quite astonishing datum that only 70% of German sellers offer PayPal. And there is also a hint that PayPal fees are changing, to be “simplified … throughout the Euro area”, though this is sadly lacking any further detail.
Multiple item listings which have had sales will be advantaged in search results, so it makes sense for sellers to use this route to visibility rather than sticking with multiple single item listings to keep themselves at the top of “ending soonest” sorting. Auctions, however, will still be displayed ordered by “ending soonest” as a default.
As with eBay.com and eBay UK, these changes see eBay Germany moving strongly towards a fixed price format. The emphasis is on favourable conditions for business sellers, who are specifically encouraged to “list their entire inventory” on eBay.de.
PayPal improve echeque notifications
August 20, 2008
If you’ve been paid by PayPal echeque in the last couple of days, you’ve probably received a nice email from PayPal explaining that it’s going to take nine days to clear, and that you need to communicate with your buyer and let them know you won’t be shipping for a while: “teaching your grandmother to suck eggs,” as one shooting star PowerSeller commented to me this morning.
click to embiggen
But the good news is the email that your buyer is getting. Finally, buyers are being given accurate information about how long UK echeques take to clear: “around nine working days”. Better still, they’re being told why their payment has gone through as an echeque: either their card has expired, or they never added a card in the first place. And best of all, buyers are being encouraged to fix it, with a great big link to add or amend their card details.
Sellers will still need to ensure they keep their buyers up to speed on when their item will be shipped, but this is a very welcome, if rather overdue, change from PayPal.
eBay.com changes : we’re no longer only a venue
August 20, 2008
Rather late in the day on this side of the Atlantic, the US fee and other changes have been posted.
eBay.com fee changes
There is no change to auctions or SIF listings: unlike the UK, SIF remains. Insertion fees for BIN listings are 35c across the board. 30 BIN listings, with the option to automatically renew, are now available.
Final Value Fees have changed quite drastically on a per-category basis: I’ll spare you the breakdown here, as eBay have already posted it.
Free shipping incentives
From October to December, sellers who offer free shipping will get free subtitle on their listings, and double PowerSeller discount if they’re eligible for this.
Special deals for Media categories
Until the end of the year, IFs for listings in Media categories which utilise pre-filled information are just 5c. This should help off-set the pain of a 15% FVF for the under-$50 sale price tranche.
Likely to cause more anger amongst Media sellers, however, is the introduction of maximum shipping prices. Perhaps some US Media sellers would like to comment on this, but the prices set seem very low to me: $4 for an antiquarian book looks like an impossibility. Sellers will be required to offer at least one shipping option within the maximum permitted range: they will also be allowed to offer other more expensive options for expedited or international shipping.
Expect to see this in more categories soon: Germany has this in categories as diverse as jewellery and mobile phones, so sellers not affected yet should not assume this change isn’t coming to them too.
No more paper payments
Checks and money orders will no longer be permitted as a payment method. Sellers with merchant credit card accounts will be able to accept payments via eBay Checkout.
Minimum DSRs for sellers
Sellers will be required to maintain minimum DSRs of 4.3 across the board, as in the UK. eBay suggest that around 96% of sellers already achieve this: those who do not are advised to spend the next two months improving their service (or realistically, opening new seller accounts).
eBay.com have stopped short of the radical format changes we’ve seen today on eBay UK. SIF remains, Store subscription fees remain the same. What’s significant about the .com changes is not the new fees, it’s everything else. On eBay’s biggest marketplace, they’re asserting more control than ever over the way that sellers list and the way that buyers buy: limiting payments to electronic transfers only, and the carrot-and-stick approach over postage rates, says very strongly that eBay is no longer “only a venue”. eBay will be accused of Amazon-izing their site: I think frankly that this is irrelevent. The changes are about offering buyers a predictable, safe experience, so that they can arrive at eBay and know exactly what they’re going to get.
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