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Pixmania, Amazon and PayPal attending Insite

Pixmania, Amazon and PayPal have all been confirmed for the ChannelAdvisor Insite events taking place around the country this summer. All three companies will make a short presentation and then host a round table where interested sellers will have the opportunity to talk directly three of the biggest names in ecommerce.

Amazon sales are growing at a fast rate than any other marketplace and many sellers listing on Amazon are seeing better results than on eBay. PIXmania are due to announce news on their PIXplace marketplace. PIXmania boast 15 million customers a month visiting the site. PIXmania is a part of DSG (Dixons Stores Group) and looks likely to be a great new venue for many sellers in the run up to Christmas, I’ll be interested to hear their plans on opening up the site for business sellers.

If you want to talk to Amazon, PIXmania or PayPal the Insite conferences will be a great chance to talk direct to the management of each company. The first Insite takes place in London on the 21st August with further dates in Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester.

ChannelAdvisor announce Insite/Academy dates for 2008

ChannelAdvisor have released the dates for their 2008 Insite tour which takes in five cities across the UK. The Insite conference is a must for sellers considering or using multiple channels to market (and if you’re not already we’d strongly recommend that you do).

The full day conference looks at industry trends, best practices and advanced strategies for maximising profits across marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, along with shopping comparison engines and paid search.

If you’re missing eBay Universities which aren’t running in 2008 then attending one of the Insite days is a must. The dates are:

• London – 21st August, 2008;
• Newcastle – 16th September 2008;
• Birmingham – 2nd October 2008;
• Glasgow – 16th October 2008;
• Manchester - 23rd October 2008

Academy is for ChannelAdvisor clients only, but attending Insite is open to all online retailers. I’ve attended Insite for the last two years and highly recommend spending just one day out of the year for an overview of today’s market and a roadmap of changes expected in the next 12 months.

You can book online for Insite on the ChannelAdvisor website.

Free webinar on market research for selling vintage items

This Monday, eBay research specialists HammerTap are holding a free webinar on using market research tools to help sell vintage and one-of-a-kind items on eBay. Run by Steve Nye, HammerTap’s Research Education Director, and Amy Kendall, a HammerTap education specialist, the seminar will discuss how to research unique items and how to discover selling trends attracting high-paying collectors.

The 45 minute session will be followed by 30 minutes of Q&A. It’s on the telephone, so call in via Skype and it should be an almost-free call. You can sign up for the webinar via GoToMeeting’s site.

PayPal competition offers a year free of selling fees

After the stick, the carrot: PayPal are offering the chance to win your eBay and PayPal fees paid for a year. There’ll be one winner picked each month from August to January; each of the six lucky winners will have their fees from January 2008 credited back to their PayPal account. Knowing that you could spend the last four months of the year selling fee-free sounds a pretty nice way to cover the Christmas spendy season, no?

There’s a catch (you knew there’d be a catch). Only users who accept all payments with PayPal will be eligible to win the grand prize. That’s right: if you take cheques or postal orders or bank transfer or Nochex, you’re not going to win.

Personally, I’m rather torn on this one. In fact, all my eBay sales *are* paid for by PayPal, but I still do list a couple of other payment methods as acceptable. Is it worth editing all my listings to be in with a chance with this one? What do you think?

vzaar’s trip to eBay Live!

vzaar have just published a video of their trip to eBay Live! and it’s brought back some fond memories.

Not only is Chicago a beautiful city with an amazing array of statues and sculptures (and it has a beach!), but ebay Live! was a fantastic event. Sure there wasn’t the normal love affair with eBay that’s been seen in previous years, but the attendees were in the main serious businesses looking to further their eBay operations.

It’s great to see some highlights like Lorrie Norrington bouncing onto the stage (and in fact upstaging JD), and some shots of the city itself - it’s far too easy to go to a conference and not make time to explore.

I’m so jealous the vzaar guys got to go to a ball game though, but I bet they didn’t get to walk 10 miles along the beach of Lake Michigan

Friday night at the pub in Chicago

eBay Live! wouldn’t be the same without the parties, and this year vzaar, Frooition and ChannelAdvisor came together with TameBay to host the British drinks on the Friday night at the Elephant and Castle pub.

Some sixty people turned up, including customers and fellow bloggers (hi Scott and Julia). There were some familar faces from the UK and some new faces from the US..

Whilst I don’t know many British pubs in the UK with a picture of Margaret Thatcher on the wall it didn’t stop many a pint being sunk, let alone the shorts.

The guys from ChannelAdvisor were busy taking pictures (cheers guys!). So was Adrian from vzaar, although sadly rumour has it he left his camera in a taxi so some American is probably admiring pictures of us Brits raising a pint or three on a Friday night in Chicago.

All in all a great night and although I believe someone was busy signing up a new customer most people were there for the drinks.

If you’re wondering why we don’t have a single photo of the gang from Frooition it’s because they were busy hiding in the corner, talking techie code with Sue, and downing plenty of beer - I have a feeling they’re pretty well versed in what a Friday night at the pub is all about

One for WordPress bloggers

Excuse me while I’m a little bit off-topic, but I know a few people round here are running their own WordPress blogs. If you would like to join me for a beer and a curry learn more about the world’s best blogging system, you could do worse than attend WordCamp UK. It’s in Birmingham, Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th July, at The Studio. The content is shaping up to be rather interesting, and tickets are now on sale.

YouTube guy on Fruity’s radio show

You can also hear him in slightly calmer mode talking to Fruit Helmet Cat on Fruity and Friends blog talk radio show for 25th June (YouTube guy starts at around 12 minutes in).

Never mind, JD, you won’t have to do another one til 2010

Danna’s video of JD’s keynote speech, eBay Live Chicago 2008.

Small Business 2.0 unleashes the power of the web

If you missed eBay Live and you’re missing eBay Universities, which have been cancelled in the UK this year, here’s a great idea: Small Business 2.0 is designed to help small businesses exploit the power of the internet, whether that’s trading on eBay or their own website, using blogs, podcasts and Facebook to build community, or boosting the bottom line with safe electronic payments. If I have one problem with the programme, it’s that I want to go to all of it!

It’s being run by The Conference People who made eBay’s UK universities such a success. This really is a must-go-to for any eBay seller looking to expand their business beyond just eBay, or any offline small business owner looking to harness the power of the internet for their business. Small Business 2.0 takes place in London on 11th October: see you there!

Here are this year’s real eBay Heroes

Giving Works (the US equivalent of eBay for Charity) held their 5th annual awards at eBay Live! The winners represent some of the real eBay Heroes whose (often unnoticed) efforts raise so much for deserving causes.

Every time someone buys or sells on eBay using Giving Works money is raised for charity and over $150m has now been raised through the program. During the day we met Roman Garcia and Kristin Cunningham from the Giving Works team and with their infectious enthusiasm it’s no wonder the program is growing from strength to strength.

This year’s award winners were:

• 2008 Top Community Selling Fundraiser Award: Todd Denlinger of snowdealsnow
• 2008 Top Nonprofit Fundraiser Through Direct Selling Award: CarAngel Ministries
• 2008 Golden Ribbon Award, Community Seller: Danna Crawford
• 2008 Golden Ribbon Award, Nonprofit: Make Yourself Foundation, Incubus

eBay heroes collectables miss the mark

eBay missed the mark with their “eBay heroes” theme at eBay Live! this year. The usually highly collectable pins were not the hot commodities of previous years. In fact on more than one occasion pinks who would normally be mobbed by eager pin collectors were walking around trying to unload their unwanted badges on uninterested eBayers.

The comic book was even worse, users were supposed to visit the eBay stands in the exhibition hall to gathers stickers which would complete the story to help “remember your own adventure as one of the many Heroes of eBay Live!”. Each eBay stand I visited had piles of stickers left - it appears eBay businesses are largely unimpressed with sticker books and comics.

I think it was a missed opportunity, there were many eBay heroes who were highlighted at the conference - the Hall of Fame members, the Giving Works award winners, the three charities eBay donated a million dollars to, the Educational Specialists… the list is endless. Lorrie Norrington mentioned a seller and a buyer she had traded with who could have been her personal “eBay Heroes”.

Sadly eBay Heroes was limited to collectables that few appeared interested in collecting. It should have been more closely integrated with the awards and speeches rather than relegated to freebies. A nice idea that missed the mark could so easily have been turned into a “Here are this year’s real eBay Heroes“.

Live day three: Lorrie rocks

And then suddenly, it was all over. The jugglers juggled chainsaws dressed in purple velvet tights, Chris Isaak was really quite ridiculously sexy, thank you, and goodnight. They played Freebird as we left: I’m leaving here tomorrow, but Lord knows, things have changed.

Earlier in the day I went to the Q&A session with eBay’s executives for PowerSellers, effectively an extension of the Town Hall. This open access to eBay’s top management has always been one of the best aspects of Live, but something about it has changed. Finally, I believe eBay when they say they’re listening. This isn’t just about “we give you forums to complain about us and wheel out Pierre once a year to press the flesh” anymore. What I saw yesterday were eight people who, I believe, really want to make eBay a better place for all of us.

One of the questions asked by a PowerSeller and cheered by the room was this: why, when sellers tell eBay that they have things wrong, is the response inevitably ‘we know better’? Griff began the response with the eBay line that buyers were leaving the site in droves, and something had to be done to stop the exodus. While this is undoubtedly true, it’s something all sellers have heard before, and when it’s your own living on the line, it’s hard to accept. Someone needs to find a new response. And then they did.

With a passion and frankness that’s a million miles from the slick polish we’ve seen from old-school execs, Lorrie Norrington talked about how it feels to read blog posts every day that rip your company to shreds, a company where, as she put it, “people are working their backsides off to make you successful”. Indicating her fellow panel members, she went on, “there are a lot of new faces up here. We’re sorry for the mistakes of the past, come join us for the future”.

Then Stephanie joined in: we’re a new team, allow us to prove to you that things have changed. “We will prove to you that it’s a new day at eBay.” And that’s what’s different: let us prove it. Things have changed at eBay Towers. This is a brand new management team, and I believe they will make good on their promises.

I know that there will be people reading this post who don’t want to hear this message. That’s fine, but ask yourself why you continue to do business with a company you say you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t believe in? Why, in fact, put so much effort into writing blog entries and forum posts and emails expressing your hatred of eBay? Wouldn’t it be better to put that energy into making things work, on- or off-eBay?

I’ve talked a lot this week about how the fanaticism has gone. It makes for less exciting photographs, but I don’t miss it at all. It wasn’t real; you can’t build real businesses on pins and silly hats (pin and silly hat sellers excepted). Lorrie Norrington and Stephanie Tilenius and the rest of eBay’s management are making something new, something that has a future, something that I for one am intensely proud to be associated with.

As the guy in yesterday’s Town Hall put it, “by the way, Lorrie rocks”.

Live Town Hall: it’s all about the feedback

“I’m going to ask a question again that I asked yesterday,” said Larry Phillips from the IMA, which really set the tone for most of today’s Town Hall: there was really very little said that we haven’t heard before, though the feel of the meeting was positive and civilised, and the eBay execs responded enthusiastically to a number of suggestions from members.

Griff commented that of the seven Live events he’s attended, this is the one in which he’s learned the most: attendees are generally very well informed about eBay and full of constructive criticism on how eBay and their own businesses can move forward together. It was suggested that eBay find a way for bricks and mortar stores to offer the facility for their in-person customers to bid on their eBay listings without falling foul of the shill-bidding rules; this received a positive response, as did a request to give Giving Works greater prominance on the site.

There were two questions relating to the wording buyers see for feedback and DSRs: Larry’s first question asked why “4″ scores in DSRs are labelled “good” and “acceptable” when in reality, they’re fail. Brian Burke said that wording on the feedback overview page which states that neutral feedback doesn’t impact a seller’s feedback score should be added to, to reflect the fact that it does now affect the feedback percentage.

There is a definite plan to introduce more granularity into DSR results so that sellers can see exactly where they have been marked down. Brian Burke said that anonymous DSRs had been introduced to counter the possibility of retaliatory feedback, but now that retaliatory feedback is no longer possible, eBay will revisit the question.

A detailed question was asked about the new links policy: may sellers “promote” off-eBay stores without linking to them? Can links still be included in classified ads? And aren’t eBay’s own Yahoo ads contradictory of the new policy? Brian Burke stated that the policy had been announced prematurely, and details were still to be worked out. This is certainly true: I called by the Trust & Safety stand yesterday to ask whether linking to an eBay blog or cross-promoting your own IDs would be permitted. Three Pinks told me they didn’t know, and though the fourth told me that both were permitted, I got the distinct impression that was his personal opinion rather than actual policy.

Responding to the point about Yahoo ads, Stephanie Tilenius said that the long-term goal is that sellers would buy advertising on the site, but she admitted that the current advertising is taking sales off the site: this is a welcome change from previous statements from eBay which have bizarrely tried to claim that ads don’t cost sellers sales.

eBay do seem to be recognising that their sellers are business people and making changes accordingly: a possible future development is a facility to control administrative rights for businesses with multiple IDs. There’s also a hint that merchant credit card accounts could be integrated into eBay Checkout. And PayPal’s Monroe Labouisse stated definitively that PayPal-only will not be introduced in the US.

Ina liveblogged the event if you want more detail.

Keynote speech pictures

There were around 6,000 seats in the hall, far short of the 10,000 that eBay claim on their banner. Worse still, less than half of the seats were filled. People were leaving during Lorrie Norrington’s speech.

Click the pics to embiggen.

Live from the Live keynote

• Live tweets from the eBay Live! keynote. Reporter Dan Wilson is at the scene.
• Trying to count empty seats… there is a whole unoccupied block. Possibly thousands of bumless seats. But there are donuts and coffee.
• John Donohoe takes the stage. Bit starchy. eBay Live attendees sold $1.3bn last year. Collective feedback - 20 638 040. His feedback? 172..
• How touching that JD’s Parents are in the audience. And he’s showing us childhood snaps… more like a wedding than a keynote.
• JD has a strange selection of messianic hand gestures. Lots of out-stretched arms and hands clasped as in prayer.
• JD: eBay’s values haven’t changed. But buyers are more sophisticated and have so many choices. Change is difficult but essential.
• Anyone watch the West Wing? JD is very reminiscent of Arnie Vinnick in season 6 & 7. He’s offering ’sensible solutions’.
• JD: eBay works for the ‘collective good’ and will ‘do right by people who do the right thing’. 20 minutes in. No substantive announcements.
• JD is saying Thank You. He thinks we should all say Thank You more. (no John, thank you!) Run VT. Lorrie Norrington is on next.
• Whooooossssshhhh…. Lorrie Norrington bounds on to the stage. Lively. Girls do keynotes better.
• Saints preserve us. Norrington has just shown us a picture of her dog. Half an hour in. No substantive announcements.
• In the film of ebay Live, Alan Alda is playing JD and Jodie Foster is Lorrie Norrington. Hugh Grant is the non-paying bidder.
• Fast Facts: 2007 GMV was $60bn. 84m active buyers. Lorrie Norrington’s dog is called Lucy.
• Seller Protection to be available on all items paid by PayPal for US sellers. No cost. No limits. Available when buyer overseas.
• DSR visibility and discounts are working. Average rates are up. 33% have 4.8 or better, up from 15%.
• Powersellers with 4.9 on DSRs will get extra 20% FVF discount from July.
• Postal services discounts for PowerSellers. Coupons for buyers. Top buyer phone support. Fee changes coming up?
• Lorrie Norrington booed over the removal of the right of sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers.
• Mutual Feedback Withdrawl back on the table. Encouraging buyers to remove the negs and neuts they leave.
• Full buyer protection when you pay with PayPal…. on eBay.com. Lots of people leaving the hall… Norrington hasn’t finished.
• So many people have left the hall because they thought it was all over… it isn’t.
• Community Hall of Fame award winners. All very nice but Meg really did do this better. Lorrie, John: smile like you mean it.
• Keynote ends. Not a classic. Exit Music? Saturday Night’s Alright for Fightin…from Elton John. Prophetic?

Lorrie promises feedback withdrawal for the holidays

In this morning’s keynote speech from eBay Live, Lorrie Norrington promised that a new way for buyers to withdraw feedback left for sellers would be introduced by the end of this year. The announcement was exceedingly short on details of exactly how the new mechanism might work and the timing of its introduction: I rather got the feeling that eBay have decided that something will be done, but haven’t quite decided the details themselves yet.

Minutes earlier, the audience had booed Lorrie as she mentioned eBay’s most controversial change this year, the removal of sellers’ ability to leave non-positive feedback for buyers. Her reaction was upbeat - bring it on, we can take it - and her smile never faltered.

Lorrie revealed that the overall rate of combined negative and neutral feedback has not changed, though Brian Burke, Director of Global Feedback Policy, did say earlier in the week that the balance has changed: more buyers are now leaving negatives rather than neutrals. eBay cite this as proof that their categorisation of neutrals as ‘negatives lite’ is correct, in which case, that’s all the more argument for getting rid of neutral feedback altogether.

Live day one: almost alive

The doors have just closed on the first day of eBay Live Chicago, and I must say it’s been more subdued than I ever expected. The sellers attending this conference are, by and large, business people: they’re not eBay fans in crazy hats and clown make up. The atmosphere is quiet, and somewhat intense: eBay should be happy that most of these people are here just trying to make their business work. Though there is obvious dissatisfaction at recent changes, and particularly the fallout from feedback changes, mostly, there’s a quiet determination to just get on with making money.

And that means that seller demands from eBay’s content are much higher than I’ve ever seen at any eBay event. Sellers I’ve talked to today have been generally unhappy at the level that courses have been pitched at: “too basic” is a constant theme. There’s one stream just for beginner sellers, and another “Beyond the Basics”, as well as classes for PowerSellers and more on growing your business: all of these have been complained about as being too easy, and way below the level required. “I think I should be teaching them,” said one seller who had left *two* classes in the first session as being just too basic for his needs.

Also of concern are the sheer numbers. Despite a huge banner advertising 10,000 attendees, there are nothing like that many people here: I’d agree with Skip’s estimate and say more like half that. If I were an exhibitor, I’d be less than happy. And exhibitor numbers are down too: a map of the exhibition hall given to attendees shows many more stands than are actually there. It seems eBay were generally far too optimistic about the amount of interest this year’s Live would generate: no wonder they’ve cancelled it for next year.

Have you seen this man?

No, me neither.

Choice listings, anonymous email, but definitely not PayPal only on eBay.com

Adam Trachtenberg, eBay’s Director of Product Management for Platform & Services, gave an overview this morning of where eBay is going in the new few months. Though this was aimed primarily at developers, it provides some great news, and some not so great news, for sellers as to what we can expect for the rest of the year.

Project Echo : merchandising API

This will enable cross-merchandising, in the same way that many websites now highlight “people who bought x also bought y” items. Data based on geography, buying and search histories and user profile will be made available, as well as currently popular items.

Four new API calls have been released: most watched, deals, related category items and top selling products. More are on their way!

Improvements for large sellers

eBay aim to become more efficient and responsive to the needs of larger sellers, with a better API and business process support. Processing will be faster and there will be fewer timeouts with an asynchronous bulk interface: in effect, sellers will be able to manage their entire business away from My eBay, and will be able to organise inventory by their own SKU rather than by eBay item number.

Choice listings are coming

Sellers will be able to list variants of the same item: by colour, size, memory, material etc., compressing multiple listings into one single listing offering buyers a range of options. Interestingly, this was presented as enhancing the *buyer* experience by cutting down near-duplicate listings: I think eBay are missing a trick there, because many sellers have begged and pleaded for years to be allowed to offer real choice listings.

Changes to email communications

Sellers will be able to specify more than one email for message-forwarding: for example, customer service emails from buyers can go to one address, and eBay invoices to another.

Emails between sellers and buyers prior to a sale are being anonymised: buyer email addresses will no longer be visible on ASQs, though “reply” will still work as eBay will handle mapping between the anonymised email and the buyer’s actual email. Post-sale, both parties will be able to see each other’s email addresses. This should - say eBay - cut down on fraud: it will of course also limit off-site sales, and many sellers will complain that it will restrict communication between trading partners. They should also note that it will no longer be permitted to display an email address within the body of a listing.

Mandating essential information

eBay are forcing sellers to include information material to the transaction, some of which has previously been optional for inclusion within a listing. For example, on .com sellers must specify at least one domestic shipping service with pricing, as well as handling time, which will be used to display an estimated arrival time to buyers. A returns policy and who pays for the return of the item will also have to be specified, though on .com at least “no returns accepted” remains an acceptable policy (the same does not apply in most of Europe).

A consistant and safe checkout experience

Various approaches are being tested over different national sites: eBay Australia will (perhaps) be PayPal-only from mid-July, and UK sellers must offer PayPal though may offer other payment methods too. The US will “definitively” not be made PayPal-only, though eBay are “looking at data and talking to people” about the way forward on this issue.

New applications for third-party checkouts have now been closed: as a buyer, I can’t help but cheer here. I’ve been buying on eBay for nearly a decade and I still hate 3P checkouts, so how must new buyers feel?

A whitelist approach to HTML

Currently, eBay have adopted a blacklist approach to HTML, CSS and javascript, blocking known-bad code from use on the site. This will change to a whitelist approach, whereby known-good code will be permitted and everything else blocked. For the majority of sellers, this won’t make any difference whatsoever (Adam joked that there will be no block against ugly templates ) but anyone using javascript and Flash widgets within their templates may be impacted.

In an attempt to limit possible damage from bad code, descriptions will now be served from a seperate domain so that scraping of sign-in information within the eBay site should no longer be possible.

Verification of new sellers

New sellers will have to complete telephone verification and one of either PayPal or Live Chat verification once they have sold their first few listings, or when attempting to list a high dollar amount. This should keep the site a little more secure.

Adam wrapped up with what is definitely the theme of this DevCon: “we want your feedback”. eBay are certainly doing their best to appear to be listening to developers: they need to make buyers and sellers too feel that they’re being listened too. With big hints that “more change is coming”, the rest of this week is shaping up to be very interesting indeed.

Mozilla, Zappos talk at DevCon keynote

The keynote at the end of day two of DevCon had three industry leaders providing very different, if parallel, visions of the future. Mike Shaver, Mozilla’s chief evangelist, talked about love: how the web loves us, and we love it right back, illustrated with photographs of his exceptionally cute baby daughter. Mozilla’s own practice of setting the information free, and making it easy for users to change platforms, leave you and come back to you, is something that all developers should hear: the days of locking people into one platform forever are gone.

Tony Hsieh from shoe company Zappos talked about creating a culture where customer service is not what the company does, but what it is. Defining your culture from day one and hiring people who have not only the expertise, but the personalities to fit, should make for a happier workforce. And companies should be transparent: “be real, you have nothing to fear”. I hope eBay’s upper management were listening.

Finally, a very short speech from eBay CEO John Donahoe made three key points:

• “You are very important to our success”: developers have in the past increased user engagement and improved the user experience, and that will remain the case going forward.
• “We’re excited about Echo.” It should drive innovation.
• “We’ve only just begun.” eBay want developers’ thoughts, ideas and feedback: “it’s a kinder, gentler form of feedback than that eBay community can be sometimes”.

There may be trouble ahead…

It’s available on listen again if you want to hear it all for yourself.

vzaar are eBay stars

The eBay Developers’ Conference have announced their Star Developer Award Winners for 2008 and we’re happy to see two British companies represented. Joel “elzorro” Fox from BD Network won the award for services to the developer community, and our chums at vzaar were runners up in the best design category. Another friend of TameBay, AhTXT.com was runner-up in the most innovative category.

Adrian Sevitz, Chief Geek at vzaar, told us: “We’re totally thrilled to be recognized as an eBay Star Developer, especially in our first year of operation. The judges liked the way we weren’t just making video available to eBay sellers but how we’d designed the vzaar player to display seller details and help buyers choose them. We’re grateful for the support we’ve received from the eBay community and look forward to the next year and promise lots of exciting developments in the the pipeline.”

TameBay win at Dev Con

TameBay have beaten the developers at eBay’s Developers Conference, with a triumph in the lunch time pub quiz, held today.

Sue and I were ably assisted by Jen and Brian from HammerTap and pub quiz supremo Richard Brewer-Hay of eBayInk, to win beating some 60 entires winning a Nintendo Wii.

With an amazing score of 100%, the questions included “What was the alpha code name for Adobe AIR announced at Dev Con last year” (Apollo), as well as music and Chicago related trivia.

Stunned at winning we’re now each the proud owners of a Nintendo Wii. There is a happy Wii seller somewhere, eBay are sourcing the prizes on their own site!

Understanding more 2008 eBay changes

Scot Wingo is one of the people I always look to for thoughts and predictions on how ebay will be shaped in the future. He was the first to analyse the DSRs and put together a 10 point action plan for sellers to improve ratings from buyers.

Scot is now hosting a webinar on June 25th to cover:

1. International Seller Visibility listing upgrade
2. PayPal Extended Seller Protection
3. Payment method restrictions
4. eBay’s required shipping policy
5. Scot’s take on eBay for the second half of 2008

Doubtless the webinar will include the latest gleaned from ebay Live!, and it’s an event well worth putting in your diary. With Best Match listing algorithm, Detailed Seller Ratings, new PowerSeller requirements, new listing fees and the Seller Dashboard 2008 has already seen more changes than ever before.

Keeping current with eBay changes is no longer simply keeps you competitive, it’s key to long term survival on the site.

Have a beer with us in Chicago

In just two weeks now, we’ll be in the middle of eBay Live: we’ll have heard John Donahoe’s keynote, explaining his vision of eBay’s future, we’ll have been to a dozen classes or more, had our heads filled with knowledge, and undoubtedly shared some of our thoughts on eBay’s recent developments with the Pinks. It’ll be Friday night, and frankly for us Brits, that means going to the pub and we’d like to invite our American friends to join us.

Even though we’re in Chicago, we’ve managed to find an English pub, and together with our friends from ChannelAdvisor, Frooition and vzaar, we’ll be having British Drinks from 7.30pm. Just call at the ChannelAdvisor, Frooition or vzaar stand in the exhibition hall to pick up your free invite. See you there!

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