When I walk into the post office each morning to get the mail, I look up to see what time it is. But one day I noticed, no clock. I'm not sure when the clock disappeared, and in fact, I began to wonder if there ever had been a clock at all. Until today, that is. An article in the Star-Telegram cleared up the mystery.
Apparently, the USPS has been removing all clocks from all post offices in the country. The reason, according to an official quoted in the paper: "We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock" (http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/16804945.htm).
Now, if they could only remove calendars from buyers' homes and offices so they would not focus on the time it takes for packages to arrive, online sellers would be all set!
Delivery time is on sellers' minds now, more than ever, with the announcement of eBay Feedback 2.0. The new system allows buyers to rate sellers on four points, in addition to leaving a positive, negative or neutral feedback rating and comment (See Julia Wilkinson's article here: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m02/i20/s02. One of the criteria sellers will be judged on is shipping time (the others are item description, communication and shipping & handling charges).
We conducted a survey of AuctionBytes Newsflash readers to see what they think of the new system and will be publishing the results in an upcoming Newsflash newsletter. In the meantime, you can read what people had to say on the AuctionBytes blog - and you can leave your own comments too. Last time I checked, there were over 50 comments. Remember that AuctionBytes is targeted at sellers, so we're likely getting fewer comments from buyers' point of view. http://digbig.com/4rree
This week, we're running a survey of readers to take a pulse of the online-auction industry. There's not a lot of data out there for people to hang their hats on, so please take a few moments to fill out the survey. We will report the findings in an upcoming issue of AuctionBytes-Update so you can compare your own results with the majority of survey-takers. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=736883344174
One of the great things about this industry over the years has been the free tools and information resources available for the online seller. Medved, Toolhaus, OTWA - to name a few - have been tremendous assets to the online selling community. David and I felt that one way to ensure that these sites are around for years to come, was to help them easily monetize their services. With that in mind, we started EcomAdNet, an industry Ad Network.
If you go to one of the participating sites, listed at http://www.ecomadnet.com you'll see that they are displaying industry-related 468x60 banners. Each of these sites gets a share of the revenue generated by displaying that banner.
If you own an ecommerce-related tool or resource and would like to be included as a publisher in the network, you can find more information here: http://www.ecomadnet.com/publishers.html
If you're a service that is interested in getting your message out to a very targeted audience, you can find out more here: http://www.ecomadnet.com/advertisers.html
We feel that EcomAdnet is a win-win situation. Advertisers can reach a targeted audience of online buyers and sellers, while publishers can earn revenue by easily monetizing their sites.
eBay made a very significant change late last week to its affiliate program. eBay sellers could always participate, but could not earn affiliate revenue from pointing shoppers to their own listings. This is now changed. You still can't put affiliate links on eBay pages (for instance, you can't include the links in your About Me pages), but you may include links on your website or blog.
I wanted to share a comment from Michelle Waldorf, founder of eSeller Street (http://www.esellerstreet.com), about the significance of the change: "I think eBay is making a wonderfully positive gesture toward sellers. Sellers will be able to recoup 40% or more of their final value fees. It makes sense for eBay because now sellers will drive buyers to eBay listings rather than trying to lure buyers away to less expensive off-eBay channels. I'm happy because it should build a healthier eBay ecosystem." I will write more on this opportunity in the future. In the meantime, here is more information about the program:
http://affiliates.ebay.com
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.
