If each year has a flavor, 2003 was the year eBay went "corporate." eBay no longer exuded that warm, fuzzy "community" glow. Try to solve a problem or communicate with the folks at eBay in any way, and it felt like you were dealing with a large conglomerate. eBay's ideal seller seemed to be the multi-million dollar company rather than the mom-and-pop variety on which it built its business.

While it seemed corporate sellers overshadowed other sellers on eBay, some small merchants continued their practice of providing excellent customer service. Traditions of gift-wrapping items, including thank you notes in packages, and other homey touches continued in some corners of the auction world.

The challenges for sellers remained the same in 2003: non-paying bidders, retaliatory feedback, lower Average Sell Price and lower Sell-Through Rates. We saw a disturbing increase in buyers and sellers exploiting PayPal "protection" loopholes, adding to the challenges of online selling.

So what were the top stories of 2003? To test our own theories, we posed that question on our forums and sent out an email to some industry vendors. Here's what we've come up with.

1) Auction Drop-Off Stores - Will we see an eBay drop-off store on every corner? The concept got a lot of play in the press, including the New York Times. Read our coverage in today's issue as well as in the November 2nd issue: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m11/abu0106/s02.

2) eBay Glitches - Glitches are a part of life with computers and the Internet, but the end of 2003 saw an increase in user distress over major and minor technical issues on eBay: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m12/i03/s02.

3) Online Auction Fraud - 2003 saw some spectacular cases of online-auction fraud, and eBay hired Security Guru Howard Schmidt away from the White House to help it implement security measures. The Liquidation Universe case involved $1 million in fraud (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m06/i13/s01) and resulted in a lawsuit against eBay partner SquareTrade (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m07/i03/s01). The Dreksler fraud case demonstrated the vulnerabilities of eBay and the emerging trend of cybervigilism in which victims become more involved in efforts to stop perpetrators in their tracks: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m05/i27/s03. eBay merchants also faced issues of fraud: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m05/abu0094/s04.

4) Shopping Search Engines - Google's Froogle search engine for shopping grew over its first year of existence, and in December began making an appearance at the top of Google's search results. Froogle picked up small sites, storefronts (like Vendio) and antiques malls (like RubyLane, Tias and GoAntiques), a boon to small sellers who don't get picked up on larger comparison shopping engines like Shopping.com and Yahoo Shopping, which were popular during the 2003 holiday shopping season. eBay, one of Google's biggest advertisers, enabled its Stores to be picked up by Google searches; eBay also let their affiliates have free access to their API, causing a campaign of Google Keyword Spamming that has yet to stop: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m11/abu0106/s03 and http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m10/i24/s00

5) New Services - While we haven't seen much product development in the online payment arena (in fact, c2it closed its doors last year), for the most part new sites and services continued to spring up for online auction users. Among the significant service introductions in 2003 were:

Sellathon's analytics tool
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m11/i05/s01

MyStoreCredit's marketing tool
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m06/i26/s02

Andale's Research tool
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m06/abu0097/s03

BuySafe's fraud protection tool
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m12/abu0108/s03

Significant stories that didn't make it onto our Top 5 list:

• Merc Exchange's victory over eBay in its patent lawsuit (and news that eBay will face another patent lawsuit, this one from AT&T); http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m05/i28/s02
• The increasingly global nature of the online auction industry;
• eBay's attempts to monetize its property, including a push to integrate PayPal into its site and encourage its use. New features from eBay now come with a price tag attached (Subtitles: 50 cents, Scheduled listings: 10 cents, Listing designer: 10 cents,...); eBay introduced Selling Manager Pro for $14.99/month); eBay introduced a contextual advertising program similar to Google AdSense, called "Keywords on eBay"; and it began rolling out a Data Licensing Program for historic pricing data. http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m12/i19/s01
• One small seller's battles against large corporations over eBay's VeRO program, created to protect intellectual property holders. http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m08/i05/s02
• Booksellers' search for alternatives to Half.com, which eBay will completely phase out in 2004.
• Revolt in France. eBay sellers in France were up in arms about eBay's increasing fees while non-paying bidders and fraud continued unchecked, and promised a large strike on January 14, 2004. http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y03/m12/i23/s01

If you would like to comment on our top picks or have your own opinion about the Top Stories of 2003, join the discussion already in progress: http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=7711 Feel free to make predictions about 2004 as well.