In July, I warned eBay sellers to include at least one valid shipping service option in listings in preparation for eBay's new Price Plus Shipping sort. eBay has now rolled out the feature to the eBay.com site, replacing sort by price with sort by total price - price plus shipping. For sellers who don't specify a shipping rate, their items are pushed to the bottom of the sorted search results. I suspect many sellers remain unaware of the ramifications of the new sort.
The move is clearly part of the WalMart-ization of eBay taking place this year. In a Fast Company article just published, CTO Matt Carey (whom eBay hired away from Wal-Mart) says his challenge at improving the eBay marketplace is like one he faced at his former employer: "turning a standard store into a supercenter without disrupting day-to-day operations" (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/ebays-chaos-theory.html).
eBay's move toward a supercenter is in full force this year. The article talks about Best Match ("If you submit "John Deere" today, you'll see the John Deere products that most previous shoppers purchased") and about eBay's decision to give PowerSellers an advantage in search results.
To read more about eBay's Price Plus Shipping sort, visit the AuctionBytes Blog post where you can also leave a comment (and read comments from your colleagues): http://tinyurl.com/2qoukb
In July, John Lawson shared his story of how he expanded from selling exclusively on eBay to setting up his own website to supplement his auction sales. In today's issue, we catch up with John to see how his website is performing.
We also have an interview with a New York-based non-profit in which Brian Cohen learns how they are conducting local online auctions to raise funds for their mission. And Greg Holden's column examines a software program that promises to help clean up photos for ecommerce listings.
Online sellers Karen Dudnikov and Michael Meadors were mentioned in Friday's Washington Post newspaper in an article about copyright. "Standing Up To Takedown Notices: Web Users Turn the Tables on Copyright Holders" by Catherine Rampell takes a look at how individuals like Karen and Michael are increasingly fighting back against copyright holders whom they say are abusing the law and wrongfully taking down content. The article states that challenges to copyright claims appear to be increasing (http://tinyurl.com/2jwz9y).
This was an interesting week for those who follow Internet and ecommerce companies as many reported their third-quarter financial results, including eBay, Google, Yahoo and Overstock.com (Amazon.com reports its earnings this week). This AuctionBytes Newsflash article looks at eBay's increasing reliance on fixed-price trading - did you know it now makes up 41 percent of eBay's Gross Merchandise Sales? (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m10/i19/s01).
In the next issue, we'll cover email marketing as a way to keep in touch with your customers and increase repeat sales.
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.
