I'm headed to Orlando, Florida this week, to cover eBay Live, eBay's second annual convention for its members. It's a chance to take classes given by eBay University, meet other buyers and sellers, and tell eBay what's on your mind. Last year's show was held in Anaheim, California, and a good time was had by all.
Many vendors are exhibiting at the show, demonstrating their services; giving away goodies; and making product announcements. We'll be covering all the news on our eBay Live coverage pages. Be sure and bookmark the URL to get all the latest news, photos and gossip! The updating of these pages will be fast and furious throughout the convention!
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/ebaylive2003
For those of you going to eBay Live, we've cooked up a way to send a "picture postcard" back to your friends and family from the event! If you go to the Endicia booth (#501), you can have your picture taken and posted on our site. Endicia will be providing "white boards" so that you can even write a message like, "Wish you were here!" or "Send Money!" All postcard pictures can be viewed at: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/ebaylive2003/ebaylivecards
Thanks to Zoovy, our primary sponsor at the event, who will be providing pictures of all the action at eBay Live. Zoovy will be exhibiting, so be sure and stop by and tell them AuctionBytes sent you! A big "Thank you" to our other sponsors as well: AuctionHawk, BidPay, CheckFree, Endicia, along with MyStoreCredit and Fast-Pack.
AuctionBytes is advertising-supported, which keeps these newsletters free, so we appreciate all of our advertisers, especially Craters & Freighters and Auction-Sellers-Resource, for being long-time sponsors of our efforts. A list of current advertisers can be found at the end of the newsletter.
eBay invites vendors to its conference, but not competitors. Some of you probably know about the resources listed under "Cool Tools" on our home page. One is a chart of some popular auction sites:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/sitepricing
You can find other valuable resources on the AuctionBytes Web site, including Discussion Forums (full of friendly people helping each other); David's popular "Interactive Auction Calendar"; classified ads (called Buyers Market); and many other resources for online sellers and buyers.
Sellers who start out on eBay frequently want to learn more about setting up a Web site and how to make the most of their ecommerce efforts. In May, we launched MyEZsale Ecommerce Guide, a twice-monthly newsletter for Internet retailers. If you sell online or you're thinking about starting your own ecommerce site, you should sign up to this free newsletter at http://www.myezsale.com.
One way retailers and auction sellers may try to grow is through drop-shipping. The Wall Street Journal ran a special report on drop-shipping for ecommerce sites on April 28, 2003 ("Looking Big"). eBags.com sells nearly 8,000 different products on its Web site and uses drop-shipping rather than maintaining inventory on their own. But as the report explains, drop-shipping is not for everybody: "Small, specialty online retailers that carry fewer than a couple hundred products may find it less costly to manage inventory and ship goods themselves." In this issue, eBay PowerSeller Nick Sevino talks about drop-shipping in his "Ask Nick" column and explains things eBay sellers should watch out for.
Wish me well in Orlando, and send thoughts and prayers for nice weather. I'm prepared for heat, humidity and meeting lots of our readers! I'll keep you posted on my "eBay Live" Web log!
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/ebaylive2003/ebaylivelog
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
