Some readers will remember GlacierBayDVD, the number-two-feedback eBay seller who went out of business in February. Now Randy Smythe is speaking out, and I interviewed Randy in a 3-part series that ran in AuctionBytes Newflash last week. For the first time, you can read this PowerSeller's own account of his strategy and financial information, and what led to his company's demise (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m09/i29/s01).
I also asked Randy what he thought were eBay sellers' biggest challenges, and why he viewed eBay as a "ship without a rudder." He said fees in combination with reduced visibility, and the problem sellers had in differentiating themselves, were two big challenges. He said feedback is not providing the right kind of information to buyers, and he advocated seller certification.
The issue of seller verification came up at eBay's annual shareholder meeting in June (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m06/i13/s06), and you can read what some other online auction sites are doing in terms of seller verification in an AuctionBytes Newsflash article from March
(http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m03/i08/s04). As I stated in that article, the fact that anyone can sell almost anything increases the risk of fraud, but it also makes eBay a diverse, fun, global marketplace. There are many methods and various degrees of verification, and it will be interesting to see whether eBay makes any moves in this direction.
Lissa McGrath wrote an article in AuctionBytes Newsflash recently about online classifieds, reporting that all of the top three classified sites for general merchandise saw a huge increase in Internet traffic over the same period last year (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m09/i15/s02). In today's issue, she takes a look at Microsoft's recently launched Windows Live Expo.
If the thought of listing on a myriad of online classifieds sites seems unappealing, you might be interested in a new service that lets you "create once, post everywhere," which you can read about in today's article "Web 2.0 and the eBay Online-Auction Seller."
I've been working on a news story on click-to-call features in ecommerce listings, such as eBay's Skype Me buttons. It's a challenge to find people who are using this feature, and the article has taken a back-burner to other more pressing news stories, but I haven't given up on it. If you are using Skype, ThinkingVoice, Ingenio or other click-to-call services in your ecommerce listings, please let me know. (I'm particularly interested in the use of such features in non-automotive categories.)
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.
