Online sellers were abuzz over eBay's announcement of its strategy revealed to Wall Street analysts on Wednesday: it's abandoning its recent "retailer" strategy in favor of going after "secondary markets." But while some reporters took this to mean eBay was returning to its roots, I believe eBay is going to continue aggressively pursuing overstock and liquidation items through Diamond PowerSellers such as Buy.com, TigerDirect and SmartBargains. And, in fact, Mercent's CEO indicated there was forthcoming news regarding eBay Large Merchant Services APIs and new FP seller stores.
In explaining its Secondary Markets strategy, President of eBay Marketplaces Lorrie Norrington said, "An analogy that is fairly simple is that the old eBay made a living in peoples' attics and garages. The new eBay is sitting in warehouses, liquidators and off-price retailers. And they're looking for cost-effective channel to be able to move high velocity."
In case you missed Analyst Day, I've got a recap in today's issue (with news of a multi-SKU format and a buyer protection program for top buyers). We also have an article about a new PayPal Loyalty Program eBay may be considering, and Greg Holden finds out why some online sellers are using print publications to advertise their products. We also have our regular lineup of columns including Collector's Corner, First Item Sold Online and Letters from Readers.
In other news, eBay told media sellers it was extending the 5-cent listing promotion for fixed-price listings through the end of the year. The bad news - those sellers will have to compete with free listings from Half.com sellers beginning in May.
On Friday, I found out about an auction-licensing bill in Kentucky that some fear might affect eBay and online sellers. It appears the senate passed House Bill 193 on Friday with some amendments, though it's not clear which ones, and the bill is on its way to the Governor (link). A local TV news station did a report last week, "More regulation: Kentuckians fear bill would limit online auctions," which you can watch here.
Online seller Mitzi of The Vintage List had a very interesting blog post recently about eBay traffic (where has it gone, and where is what's left of it coming from?). It's a good read, and a reminder to try and measure where your traffic and sales are coming from - whatever works, do more of it, on whatever channels you find yourself selling!
And speaking of driving traffic to your listings,...our online merchant directory EveryPlaceISell.com is running a new feature called Tweet Deals. Sellers who have a free listing in the EveryPlaceISell (EPIS) directory have a chance to be featured on the top banner ad on the site - see this blog post for details. (And yes, it really is free!)
Thanks for reading.
