Ina's
Web Log
Ina Steiner, Editor of AuctionBytes.com, keeps a diary of her visit to eBay
Live in Orlando, Florida
Last Update: Saturday - 11:30pm
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Wednesday, June 25, 2003 - 5pm EST
Orlando, Florida is hot in late June! Here I am in the land of Mickey
Mouse, preparing to cover the eBay Live convention  for
AuctionBytes.com. My luggage did not arrive on the baggage carousel - would I have to log
on to eBay and do some quick Buy-It-Now shopping to tide me over? Nope, my luggage had
merely been singled out and stored in a special room for no known reason. But the other
poor victim of lost-luggage turned out to be Brandon from AuctionHelper (not Brandon
Marz), who was with Jeremy. Ah, my first "eBay connection" in Orlando!
But wait, just waiting for the shuttle to take me to my hotel netted me 4 eBay convention
goers. I met a couple from Atlanta and two ladies, also from Atlanta, who were here for
the eBay convention. Karen wanted to learn which auction management software she should
use; Sheryl was a new user wanting to learn the basics, and her friend was an experienced
seller (mostly books) who wants to take it to the next level.
The icing on the cake was meeting four real-live PayPal folks from Omaha, Nebraska! Three
were scheduled to give presentations, and one was going to help out at the booth. And
standing in line to check in at my hotel was a family from New York here to attend the
convention, not on vacation as I had assumed!
So with Orlando crawling with eBayers, I headed over to the Convention Center after I
checked
in to my hotel. And lo and behold, there was the Zoovy crew just going in to the exhibit
hall to set up their booth. (Zoovy is the main sponsor of our eBay Live coverage page). I
said hello to some familiar faces, and David Steel, Zoovy CEO, introduced me to the
team-members I hadn't met at last year's event.
The exhibit hall looked great, booths were still being put together. Another 24 hours til
the opening reception.
 
I walked over to the Peabody Hotel, and ran into Kashif  from
PA Depot and Uncle Griff (celebrity sighting!). Griff graciously posed for a picture
with me using my super-duper new mini-camera - it measures about 2.5 inches X 1 inch. (but
it doesn't take good pictures in the dark) Griff has been quite busy doing PR for his new
book (see the AuctionBytes Bookshelf), he said.
A quick trek back down International Drive to the hotel for a freshening up, and it was
off to meet Skip & Karen McGrath of Vision One Press, publishers of
Auction-Sellers-Resource.com. Skip has been a long term advertiser of AuctionBytes, and it
was nice to meet him in person. He and Karen are good people, we had a wonderful meal and
then it was back to the hotel for me - I have an early wakeup call tomorrow to attend
eBay's annual shareholders' meeting. All eyes will be on eBay with a stock price that's
not mickey-mouse!
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Thursday, June 26, 2003 - 2pm EST
I started off for eBay's annual shareholder meeting, which was being held at the Peabody
Hotel at 8 am. At 7:30 in the morning, it was already hot and humid in Orlando!
There were only about 100 people in attendance, and the room was hushed as business was
quickly wrapped up.
Another celebrity sighting: Pierre Omidyar was chatting with people outside the room after
the meeting and posted for a picture for some fans.
I was able to say a quick hello before he was whisked away.
I went to the convention center, which was already full. One attendee said she had nothing
to do until 1pm, and was disappointed that she would have to wait until 4:30 to go into
the Exhibit Hall.
People were raring to go!
As for me, I touched base with some of our awesome sponsors and advertisers, including
Karen and Skip McGrath of Auction-Sellers-Resource, Marla at BidPay, Steve Rafai at
Endicia, Ty, Patrick, Brian and Lydell of Zoovy. Then to lunch to gear up for a long
afternoon and evening.
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Friday, June 27, 2003 - 1am
When eBay University classes kicked off on Thursday afternoon, the rooms filled up with
eBay users eager to learn more about selling on eBay. I attended a class on merchandising,
designed to help people better market their products on eBay. The presenters were good and
left a huge amount of time for questions, and people asked some great questions.
Back to the Press Room to write up stories and send them back to AuctionBytes corporate
headquarters (in Massachusetts). We hope to have even more photos in the next two days as
Zoovy roams the halls of eBay Live snapping pictures of attendees, who don't seem to be
camera shy!
I arrived late for the next class, and couldn't get in. Online Power Buying was "sold
out"! The room had a capacity of 400, and there were people standing against the
wall; someone guessed there were over 500 people in the class.
Many sellers are looking for inexpensive, reliable sources of inventory where they aren't
competing with thousands of others selling the same items. Sellers are looking at
wholesalers and drop-ship companies, and there are horror stories of people not receiving
what they were promise and being left with unsellable inventory.
So it's not surprising that the first class on the topic of sourcing was popular with eBay
sellers. Asad Haroon of Liquidation.com gave the presentation. He will be giving two more
presentations on Saturday called "Finding Products," sponsored by Entrepreneur
Magazine.
The second roster of classes ended at 4:30, and people began lining up in front of the
entrance to the Exhibit Hall. By the time the doors opened, it was like the first day of
the Brimfield flea market when they open up the fields: people poured in (Some vendors
said they nearly feared for their lives when the throng of people entered into the hall.)
But this year there was more room in the Exhibit Hall, and people quickly spread out and
the games began! There were activities set up around the hall, and food - lots of food. (I
just want to know who thought it was a good idea to serve all manner of beans, good thing
it was the end of the day.)
I circled around the hall several times, and could see that for 3 straight hours, the
vendors were completely consumed with demonstrating their services and answering
questions. I had a chance to meet some vendors I hadn't met (and some new vendors).
It was 7:30 before I knew it, and I headed over to the Peabody Hotel where Zoovy had a
private reception. Some AuctionBytes readers showed up (hi, guys!).
Richard and Andrea (User ID Richard-1968) of Richard's Discount Books (http://www.richardsdiscountbooks.com) have
been reading AuctionBytes (and now The Bookologist) for a while. They are from Toronto
(and proud to be Canadian), the farthest away of anyone I had met so far. Ellen (User ID
nykafkaesque) and Stacey (User ID staceykaye) and their friend showed up as well.
Barbara Shaughnessy, an AuctionBytes writer, volunteered to contribute some articles to
the eBay Live coverage pages. She and her husband Tom came all the way from California to
attend eBay Live. Tom took digital pictures and sent them to David already (so
organized!). Barbara has a wonderful presence and looked like she should be up on stage
presenting eBay classes! She is a Trading Assistant and has a thriving eBay business. (http://www.stores.ebay.com/musicasart)
Grandpa Jim and Barbara Nelson of Grandpa's Trading Co came to the reception as well. They
sent me a really nice letter when I told readers I'd be attending eBay Live. They live not
far from Orlando and they let me interview them about their expectations of the show and
how they thought it was going. Grandpa (as he is known to all) and Barbara thought the
classes were great, the show was even better than expected.
They are a charming and sweet couple, and I am forever grateful to them for driving me
back to my hotel at 10:30 pm so I didn't have to wait for the trolley.
As I began typing up my notes back at the hotel, Julia Wilkinson called. Julia is Editor
of our newest newsletter, MyEZsale Ecommerce Guide. She arrived at the hotel and is raring
to go!
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Friday, June 27, 2003 - 4:30pm
Julia Wilkinson and I headed for the convention center at 8 am to be in plenty of
time to hear Meg Whitman's keynote address, scheduled for 9 am. The huge auditorium was
packed with thousands of attendees. Meg got a standing ovation when she appeared on the
stage. She asked everyone to stand up, then asked those with less than 100 feedback points
to sit down.
She went through in increments, until a dozen people were left sanding when she asked
everyone with fewer than 20,000 feedback points to sit down. The crowd went wild, amazed
that some sellers had completed the number of transactions to reach that high number.
Meg got applause when she told the crowd to give eBay staff suggestions and concerns,
"because this is what this is all about."
Meg went on to talk about some current eBay initiatives, which I'll talk more about in the
AuctionBytes newsletter in coming weeks. (See also the news story from today's issue of
AuctionBytes Newsflash newsletter for more information.)
After interviewing Pierre Omidyar, Meg wrapped up the session by bringing on
"Weird" Al Yankovic to sing his parody song about eBay. (The darn song keeps
running through my head now.)
Then it was on to the Exhibit Hall to talk to companies about their products and services.
I went to eDeposit, which announced the winner of their fraud contest (see eBay Live
coverage page for the winner announcement). The winner received a digital camera!
I had lunch with eDeposit CEO Jill Kerr and Marketing Director Suzanne Elbaum. They
commented on how many people stopped by the booth and talked about the problem of
non-paying bidders, and are strategizing on solutions to help combat this problem.
As I go around the show, I meet lots of AuctionBytes readers - I wish I had a list of
names, it was great to meet you!
One young man asked me whether Elfie was going to make an appearance. At last year's
conference, "Elfie," the magical elf who lives on the eBay discussion boards,
showed up with friends to hand out eBay socks. No one seemed to know if he was coming this
year.
Tonight, I have the great pleasure of meeting Craig Stark in person. AuctionBytes is
taking Julia and Craig to dinner to celebrate the launch of our two new newsletters they
are editing (Craig Stark is editor of The Bookologist
and Julia Wilkinson is editor of MyEZsale Ecommerce Guide.
I will let you know how it goes, but I plan to stuff myself full of Italian food, go back
to the hotel, and get some sleep!
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Saturday, June 28, 2003 - 11:30pm
Saturday, the final day of eBay Live 2003! Julia and I headed over to the convention
center in time for the Keynote event, which consisted of Uncle Griff reading questions
from attendees to a panel of eBay execs. Meg Whitman (Prez & CEO), Maynard Webb (COO)
and Jeff Jordon, Sr. VP of eBay.com fielded the pre-selected questions, and live questions from the
audience in the last 15 minutes. People asked some good questions - see the article on the
eBay Live News page. Griff was entertaining as always, and looked right at home on stage.
(He's got a new weekly program on Internet radio, btw.)
And if you've been reading the eBay Live news on our site, you know next year's eBay
convention will be held in New Orleans (someone said June 24, but I haven't confirmed the
date).
Barbara Shaughnessy, an eBay Trading Assistant who has contributed some terrific articles
to AuctionBytes, invited me to join her for a Trading Assistant luncheon (thank you, Brad,
for letting me attend!). Barbara and I were able to get to know each other a little better
over a lovely lunch, and I stayed for the first 15 minutes or so for the presentation.
Brad, who founded the Trading Assistant program for eBay, was full of excellent advice for
eBay TAs. He reviewed the TA toolkit on the eBay Web site, which contained
advice on marketing and tools for better decision-making and efficiency.
Doing consignment sales is one way to get your hands on inventory, but you better be
organized and efficient! There are two fairly new software services for consignment
sellers that I may review in future
issues.
I spent quite a bit of time in the Exhibit Hall on Saturday, bopping around and talking to
vendors to see what's new. I have some great new story ideas for future issues of
AuctionBytes-Update.
At 4pm, I went to a class on Trust & Safety, where Rob Chestnut and Dan (sorry, don't
know his last name) gave a run-down on some of the issues with fraud and hoax emails, and
answered questions from the audience. The class was lightly attended, but there were some
great questions.
At 6pm, hungry, tired conference-goers lined up for the Gala party. The theme was a good
old-fashioned BBQ with burgers and chili-dogs. (The set was great, kudos to the
designers.)
Meg Whitman announced the 2003 Community Awards at the party. The winners were: Anita
Leather (beachbadge); David Reffalt (danceswithcameras); Marion Williams (rosiefuture);
Denise DeMarco (livsnana); and Sheryl Schmidt (goodfynder). The five honorees are eBayers
who have made outstanding contributions to the eBay community. The eBay Foundation donated
$1,000 to the
recipient's charity of choice.
As usual, eBay Live was a great place to take classes, meet fellow eBayers & eBay
staff, talk to vendors (there are more and more companies developing tools to help
eBayers), ask questions and have fun.
People were very positive about the eBay experience, and were candid about the problems
they faced, hoping eBay would hear their concerns and "fix it." One of the
biggest complaints I heard during the show was the problem of non-paying bidders, and
Maynard Webb said it is one of the biggest issues they continue to have, and they are
working to address it. I also heard complaints surrounding the feedback system, if you've
been on eBay a while, you know what they are.
I met tons of AuctionBytes readers and our great advertisers. I'm sorry if I left you out
of the blog, it was unintentional. Thanks to everyone for saying hello, and to Julia
Wilkinson, Editor of MyEZsale Ecommerce Guide (MyEZsale.com) - it was so nice to
have company during the show.
I'll do a recap of the show in the next issue of AuctionBytes-Update. Stay tuned!
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