Today's newsletter is the 200th issue of AuctionBytes-Update. We initially intended to publish AuctionBytes as a print newsletter, but quickly became convinced that electronic publishing was a much better format for an industry that changes as quickly as this one. Combine that with over 1600 issues of AuctionBytes-NewsFlash, and it's no wonder David and I are busy.
You can find the full text of articles from every issue going back to November 1999 on this page (Scroll down to "AuctionBytes-Update Archives"): http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu
If you have a website or blog, please feel free to link to AuctionBytes. If you have a website, you can add AuctionBytes news headlines through our RSS newsfeed. Visit http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/link and scroll down to "AuctionBytes.com Goes RSS: Grab the Code Below to put Auction News Headlines on Your Web Site." First, select which of the three formats you'd like to add to your site by previewing the feed. Then simply copy and paste the code into one of the pages on your Web site.
AuctionBytes conducted the third installment of our biannual survey of eBay sellers last month, and we're publishing the results in today's issue. Interesting tidbits: 53% of respondents have their own website or storefront, and fees continue to top the list of concerns about selling on online-auction sites.
I always enjoy reading about the marketing techniques sellers employ. From the list of options given, the top two methods were: including a sig line in emails (37%), and publishing an email newsletter that customers can subscribe to (35%).
Full results and the links to previous survey results are in today's issue.
Speaking of interesting marketing techniques, some sellers have banded together to try and better market their eBay Stores. The Red Door Campaign (the eBay Stores logo is a red door, get it?) is a seller initiative to "educate Ebay buyers that Ebay stores officially exists on the Ebay site. Millions of store items are available for sale but buyers don't know we exist." (http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000445555 ). Sounds like a creative idea, I'll be reporting more on this in this week's Newsflash.
When eBay said recently it was rolling out a next-generation Checkout, I had flashbacks to the fourth quarter 2001. That's when eBay first introduced Checkout onto the site, and the implementation was a disaster. eBay ultimately apologized to users. It remains a cautionary tale of the perils of rolling out major changes on the eBay site, particularly during the last 3 months of the year (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y01/m11/i13/s01).
It's hard to believe 6 years have passed since then. Now, eBay is testing a new, improved Checkout system. It looks like it could make things easier for buyers to pay, which is good - and not surprisingly, its design seems likely to encourage use of eBay's PayPal payment service (see my write-up of eBay's next-generation Checkout here: http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m10/i03/s01). Regardless of the possible benefits to buyers and sellers, I think eBay should wait until next year before rolling it out. There have been enough recent glitches to deal with without introducing a major new feature onto the site.
People have made some interesting comments since last issue's editorial about Yahoo ads on eBay, you can read them on the AuctionBytes blog (http://tinyurl.com/2uvbhj). And since the last issue, we published another "Ecommerce Industry SoundBytes" podcast (September 19) with Steve Weber on the topic of feedback rating systems (http://tinyurl.com/349slt).
Thanks for supporting AuctionBytes as we head into our ninth year of publishing.
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.
