A lot has happened since the last AuctionBytes-Update newsletter on June 25. Jeff Jordan announced he was stepping down from PayPal to spend more time with his family, Google launched a payment service, and eBay announced it would not allow sellers to use Google's new payment service on eBay.com.
eBay shocked many when it announced Jeff Jordan was stepping down as President of PayPal to spend more time with his family, and shareholders did not react positively to the news. The Wall Street Journal called the departure of some key eBay execs a "brain drain" (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m07/i07/s01).
Rajiv Dutta, formerly eBay's Chief Financial Officer, will leave his new role as President of Skype to become President of PayPal. Other executives were shifted as part of the accompanying management shakeup (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m07/i06/s01).
eBay gave Google's new service a great deal of publicity when it announced it was prohibiting sellers from accepting Google Checkout on eBay transactions (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m07/i06/s02). Long time eBay sellers were not surprised, particularly those who remember eBay's resistance to PayPal, which it was forced into acquiring in 2002 after first trying to crush it. When CEO Whitman finally bowed to eBay users' clear desire for eBay to work with PayPal, she told analysts that PayPal would increase the velocity of trading on eBay. It's my opinion Google Checkout could do the same for eBay by making transactions easier and safer for buyers.
However, I'm not sure how Google Checkout will protect sellers from buyer fraud and chargebacks. Terms of Service are found here (https://checkout.google.com/termsOfService?type=Seller), and like most credit-card based transactions, it says in part, "If Seller's refund policy prohibits returns under certain circumstances, Seller may still receive a chargeback relating to such sales pursuant to the Association rules." I'll be delving more into these issues and will report back.
You can keep up with all the industry news via the AuctionBytes Newsflash newsletter. Headlines are posted to the homepage every day, and an email version is sent three times a week.
You can also subscribe to AuctionBytes Newsflash via RSS feeds using a reader such as Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com). I wrote about RSS feeds in this 2004 article (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y204/m08/abu0124/s04). Today, Greg Holden discusses RSS feeds for eBay Store owners as well as eBay Store newsletters. These are great ways to help publicize your eBay listings - at your buyers' convenience.
Also in today's newsletter, I write about a service that promises to cut down on deadbeat bidders; Izzy Goodman reviews online postage services; Michele Alice looks into collectible toasters; along with our regular features.
Finally, if you find a story on AuctionBytes interesting, you can now Digg it! Digg.com is a community-driven content site where users share stories and vote on their relevance. At the bottom of all our articles on AuctionBytes.com, you will now find a "Digg It" link. By clicking on the link (and being logged into Digg.com) you can easily share the article with millions of Digg visitors.
We know firsthand the power of Digg.com. Someone "Digged" Thursday's article about eBay banning Google Checkout (http://digg.com/view/technology/popular/thismonth). Digg users liked the article and indicated so by "digging" it, which drove the article onto the front page of Digg.com, which in turn drove traffic to our site. Alexa rankings are one (very) rough way to measure website statistics, and you can see the effect of being Digged as illustrated by the spike on Thursday to our Alexa ranking (note: the lower the number, the better): http://digbig.com/4kwgp
Thanks to Julia Wilkinson and Brian Cohen who first brought our attention to Digg.com and got us to dip our toes into the Web 2.0 pond.
Thanks for reading.
About the author:
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.
