A few things have changed over the past year in the world of online auctions, and we wanted to see if some of the "truisms" that we stated in early 2000 still hold water. For example, in one of our early voting booths we asked, "What is the best day to end an auction?" I won't give away which day won, because we've decided to ask that question again! If you go to http://www.auctionbytes.com, at the top right corner you'll find our voting booth. Let us know what your opinion is, and we'll announce the results in our next issue and compare them with the results from our first survey. Make sure you punch all the way through the ballot, because pregnant and dimpled Chads will not be counted!
Prices are going up all over. We discussed the shipping increases at the USPS, FedEx and UPS in the last issue. Over the last few weeks, auction site pricing has seen some changes; eBay raised its fees, Yahoo introduced listing fees, and Dutchbid introduced closing fees (final value fees). We've got stories in this issue to help you cope: I created a comparison chart of auction-site fees, and David discusses ways to slash shipping costs.
We've also got part two of John Kirsner's Collector's Corner story on pulp magazines, and Win Bent shares the joys of comic-book conventions. And we include some of the more interesting headlines from Newsflash, our daily email newsletter - subscribe by sending a blank email to: auctionflash-subscribe@topica.com
Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and AuctionBytes.com and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @auctionbytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.
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