The Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) is holding its next summit on September 20-22 that will feature a keynote from Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig. PESA represents hundreds of high-volume eBay sellers who meet periodically to discuss best practices. PESA says its membership continues to diversify and expand beyond eBay, and it has formed a new organization to help meet members' needs.

PESA Executive Director Jonathan Garriss said while past summit meetings have focused on eBay, the Fall 2006 Summit will be focused on the businesses of its members. Executives from Amazon, Google, eBay, Property Room, Overstock and uBid will also be in attendance along with third-party solution providers.

Two-and-a half-years ago, 10 percent of PESA members had their own websites, and almost no one was using paid-search marketing, Garriss said. In a survey of members conducted in the Fall, over 50 percent of members had their own website and almost 33 percent were using paid-search marketing. Another survey will be taken during the Fall summit.

Garriss said PESA was running informal tests of co-op marketing among members with complementary inventory. Three merchants selling shoes, handbags and jewelry, respectively, may pool resources, for example. They are also considering commissions when one member drives traffic to another member's site. Depending on the results and feedback, they hope to roll out a more formal cooperative marketing program, Garriss said.

PESA tries to educate members on why diversity is important and what questions to ask when dealing with vendors, Garrisss said, but does not recommend individual solution providers. "The needs of our members are so varied," ranging from merchants selling DVDs to restaurant equipment, he explained.

In fact, as members continue to expand beyond eBay, PESA leadership has formed a new organization called E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association (ECMTA). Garriss said the new organization will focus on ecommerce initiatives and lay the groundwork to extend the reach of PESA.

PESA will stay focused on the eBay marketplace to give feedback to eBay on issues and things that need to be improved, but ECMTA will cast a much wider net. A board has not yet been named. According to the ECMTA website, "By combining the resources of many small businesses, ECMTA can enjoy the premium service and price discounting from vendors that is otherwise only available to large businesses."

Garriss said PESA membership will have access to the benefits of ECMTA.

http://www.ecmta.org

http://www.gopesa.org/events/summit2006/reg.cfm