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February 28, 2005
Business Success Is A Science!
So many people want business success, especially on the Internet. They grope around, trying a little of this and a little of that, hoping and praying that against all odds they will – somehow, magically – strike it rich. Perhaps that does happen every once in a while, but the odds are about those of winning a multi-state lottery. The truth is that business success is a science, and it's no accident at all that some people win, while most lose. The winners understand that it's a science and treat their businesses accordingly.
There are two charming books called The Tao Of Pooh and The Te Of Piglet. Written by philosopher Benjamin Hoff, they use characters from the classic Winnie The Pooh stories to illuminate principles from Taoism, an Asian philosophy. In his Piglet book, Hoff talks about Reality Appreciation.
How many times have you deceived yourself? I know I've done it a lot.
I've convinced myself that a business venture or relationship would work out – just because I wanted it to.
I've believed people – in spite of evidence to the contrary.
I've involved myself in projects – in spite of an inner voice objecting the entire time.
After being hit in the head with a (figurative) brick many times, I've finally wised up and developed a genuine reverence for Reality. Without it our efforts on eBay – or elsewhere on the Net – are doomed.
Last weekend, I spoke at a conference in San Diego, CA, and met a lovely woman who had invested thousands of dollars into her own online store. She has owned this store since May of 2004 and when I asked her how much money she had made from it, her eyes teared, and she admitted that she hadn't made one single cent. She had come to the conference to buy another program that she was sure would help her with her store – but the program she mentioned had nothing whatsoever to do with her goals. It was like buying a program on 'How To Succeed In Real Estate” to promote your MLM nutritional business.
After I spoke, she came happily up to me and said, “YOU are the person who is going to make my store profitable.” Bless her heart, she didn't understand even the most basic rule of business – that is, that people deal with others based on their own interests. It never occurred to her to ask if I was willing to put in that kind of time and why I should do so.
Another attendee has a similar online store and it isn't making any money either. I asked him why I, as a potential customer, would choose his store over the hundreds of other sites on the net selling the same products? He thought for a few seconds, then asked, “What if I put my picture on my site?”
I carefully explained to him that a customer needs a REASON to buy. If there is no reason, there will be no sale. A stranger will not care in the least about the seller – or his picture.
These two anecdotes illustrate so well the necessity for a Reality check. Before you get involved in any business opportunity – or anything else for that matter – ask yourself some hard questions. For instance, if I were considering a web store, here are questions I would ask:
* Exactly what am I selling?
* Is my price competitive enough to be successful?
* Is my supply assured?
* Is there enough demand for the items?
* How, exactly, am I going to sell this?
* What skills do I need?
* Do I have those skills?
* If not, where can I get them?
* How much money can I reasonably expect to make?
* How much time will it take?
* Is this project worth my time?
Everywhere I go I carry sketch pads, simply because I think better if I draw ideas out. Every project I undertake is carefully and thoroughly calculated before I start anything. I don't jump into things without considering them from every possible angle.
A great question is: how do I know what to expect when I am new to something and don't have any experience?
The answer is, you don't. You can only plan to the best of your ability, take action and let your results guide you. Which is why I always advise my Auction Genius Course students to begin their auctions with inexpensive items, until they gain some experience. As you grow in skill and ability, you can expand your business.
I believe that the Universe whispers to us, and if we ignore these promptings, eventually we will get clobbered with a two by four!
Ask me how I know this. It's because my head is lumpy with all the whacks I've received! :-)
Ignore Reality at your peril.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 4:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 27, 2005
The Success Factor: Time, Time & More Time
Sometimes I feel absolutely stupefied by some of the comments I read on the Internet. Recently I saw one of those ebay-doesn't-work emails and the proof was that the author's son tried to sell on eBay for – three weeks!!! - and was unsuccessful! Egad. Unbelievable!
The truth is that success in ANYTHING requires time and patience. For those who don't like this law of the universe – tough. Do something else. My co-author Chris Malta has written an outstanding article on this subject and it definitely deserves any publicity I can give it. Take it away, Chris ...
“You'd think the 'Hottest Selling' products on the Internet would be a good place to make money, right? Not necessarily!
There are many places that publish lists of 'The Hottest Selling Products on the Internet'. They range from the big Internet Marketplaces like Yahoo and eBay, to smaller companies that sell software and ECommerce tools related to online selling.
A 'Hottest Selling Products' list is a strange thing. It can be a good thing if used properly, but it can also be a bad thing if you're not very careful.
You should approach these lists like you would approach a large, dangerous looking dog that you've never seen before. Do the right thing, and the dog just might sniff your hand and lie down at your feet. Make the wrong move, and you might end up missing a hand or a foot!
The good thing about a 'Hottest Selling Products' list, when it comes from a reliable source like eBay, for example, is that it gives you a good picture of what really is selling well on eBay over a reasonable period of time. That's important information to have when you're selling online, whether you use eBay or not.
There are two potentially bad things about it.
The first potentially bad thing is that these lists are generated from very simple statistics. If a large number of a certain type of product is being advertised and/or sold in a certain marketplace, then that product gets on that marketplace's 'Hottest Selling Products' list. The problem is that the 'Hottest Selling Product' list does not take profit margins into account!
A very good example of this situation is the Electronics market. Computers, DVD Players, Stereo equipment, etc. Electronics is, in my opinion, the absolute lousiest market to make money in on the Internet. For some reason that nobody really understands, almost everybody who first starts out in Internet Business wants to jump right in and start selling electronics! I'm not saying it can't be done, but it is very difficult. That market became flooded with competition years ago, which caused everyone to undercut everyone else's prices over and over again to stay in business, which left a very slim profit margin in Electronics that still prevails today. You have to really sell a lot of Electronics to make any real money, because the individual sale profits are so small.
Yet, Electronics are almost always at the TOP of all the 'Hottest Selling Products' lists! Why? Simply because so many people starting out in ECommerce are advertising them and trying to sell them!
The second potentially bad thing is that when these lists are published by a large Internet Marketplace like Yahoo Store or eBay, everybody sees them! That can be a bad thing, even if the product in question is a NEW product that just made the top of the list!
Let's say, for example, that a new blockbuster adventure movie comes out in the theaters. The super-spy star of the movie, Dash Rimrock, constantly uses a brand new kind of palm-sized computer/video phone throughout the movie to save himself and many beautiful women from all kinds of dastardly and dangerous bad guys. The product is called the ViddyPuter, made by a company called VidTechie, and it looks really cool. Now, this is a real product, and most people don't realize that the manufacturer, VidTechie, paid the movie studio millions of dollars to feature that product in the movie constantly. It's a promotional tool that offsets production costs for the movie studio, and works very well for manufacturer. That's why you see all kinds of brand-name products prominently featured in movies; it's a very expensive form of product commercial.
Suddenly this product becomes a market trend and everybody wants one, because everybody wants to be as cool as Dash Rimrock. That is exactly the result that VidTechie was hoping for when they paid the studio to feature the product in the movie. Pretty soon, the quickest of the market-savvy ECommerce Sellers are starting to sell the ViddyPuter on eBay. Before you know it, so many of them are out there that the ViddyPuter makes it to eBay's 'Hottest Selling Products' list.
So, when you see the ViddyPuter suddenly appear on the 'Hottest Selling Products' list, should you immediately jump in, find a supplier for that product and try to sell it on eBay as well?
Probably not.
Why not? Because when the ViddyPuter hits that list, millions of people are going to see that at the same time you see it! Chances are that ViddyPuter market is very quickly going to become flooded with new Sellers, and then the price-slashing frenzy begins. Too much competition equals everybody trying to undercut everyone else's prices, which equals the ViddyPuter's profit margins bottoming out in a very short time after it hits the 'Hot List'.
So, from a straightforward 'What Should I Sell' perspective, 'Hottest Selling Products" lists are not a good place to draw your inspiration from.
However, there IS a way that you CAN make a 'Hottest Selling Products' list work for you, and the most successful sellers out there know what that is.
The way to make that list work for you, and make money on the ViddyPuter frenzy, is to attack the product's Vertical Market. A Vertical Market is simply a group of products that are similar to, or closely associated with that product.
For example, instead of trying to sell just the ViddyPuter all by itself, like so many others will try to do, put together and sell a 'Dash Rimrock Super Spy' kit. Include the ViddyPuter, because that product is what will get your listings noticed on eBay or in the Search Engines. However, you sell the ViddyPuter at just about cost, and don't expect to make money on it. The other products that you bundle into your Dash Rimrock Super Spy Kit are the ones you take your profit margin on. Your Kit could include a cool pair of compact Spy Binoculars, a Spy Pen that contains a portable computer hard drive (yes, they exist!), and a pair of Spy Sunglasses that have backward-looking mirrors built into the frame, so that the wearer can see behind them! The additional products in your Dash Rimrock Super Spy Kit are the ones you make money on, because when you add several products into a very unique bundled mix, no one can really compare your prices against other sellers' prices. You can build decent profit margins into the other products. What you're selling is completely unique, allows no opportunity for price-shopping, and is part of the Vertical Market of a very hot-selling product.
Instead of being just another one of the tens of thousands of people that are trying to eek out a small profit in the super-competitive ViddyPuter frenzy created by the 'Hottest Selling Products' list, you become someone who really does make a good profit selling a unique 'bundled' set of products in a very hot vertical market.
Sales, whether on the Internet or in a store in your local mall, is a creative art, folks. It's not just a case of 'Here it is, buy it!' You can apply the method above to just about any kind of product; you just have to avoid the herd mentality, and think about it a little first. :o)”
Written by Chris Malta of Worldwide Brands, Inc
Light Bulk Wholesale Directory
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 4:16 PM | TrackBack
February 21, 2005
eBay Selling Tricks – Compliments of eBay
You've gotta hand it to eBay – they don't miss much when it comes to making money with their site. Their latest eBay selling trick is the eBay Treasure Hunt. It got me thinking about how I could use the same tactic ...
The deal is that they are giving away 25 $1,000 prizes every day to people who find the clues hidden inside various auctions. The catch, of course, is that you don't know which auction has the magical clue. So, you'd have to read tons of auctions, with no guarantee that you will ever find the hidden term. Of course, the smart folks at eBay hope that you might pull our ye olde PayPal number along the way.
The good news: today only, they're giving away $2,000 prizes!
And if you're wondering, today's clue is “father of the constitution”. Go forth and seek!
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 2:06 PM | TrackBack
February 17, 2005
Business For Sale? Try eBay!
Do you have unusually pointy ears, are your feet larger than average and slightly hairy, do you wander around caves, muttering to your self about nasty little hobbitses? If so, then you might have been one of the bidders for Planet-Tolkien.com which recently sold for £6,600 on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3873042469
According to the former owner, the site gets an average of 60,000 visitors a day and the income from advertising alone is worth more than the £3,000 minimum bid.
The owner of Beautyofasite.com received $285,100 for her business:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3871200896&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT
The owner decided to sell her site in order to spend more time with her young daughter. We can only applaud her reasons.
Today we see a wide collection of businesses for sale ...
* Pet supplies
* Limousine service
* Zippo lighters
* Family name software
* Tanning salons
* Pressure wash business
* Pizza
... and the contents of a general store. So if you're interested in selling – or buying – eBay might be worth a look.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:53 PM | TrackBack
February 15, 2005
EBay Battles Google For Control of the Net
One of the most important articles I've read recently was from Investors.com, EBay battles Google for control of the Net. Anyone selling on the Net (and if you're reading this, you're one of us) needs to carefully read this story. With all the recent rage over eBay's fee increase (the 4th increase in four years) and threats of boycott, abandonment and all the rest, we might have to wonder what alternatives we might have? Quite honestly, I've mostly thought in terms of alternative auction sites but Investors.com discusses a large abandonment of eBay in favor of AdWords and other such PPC sources:
http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=25807325&brk=1
The most intriguing part of the story is this one sentence:
“Notwithstanding that eBay attracts mostly buyers and not a whole host of other people looking for knowledge or to be entertained, Google and Yahoo attract a larger audience than eBay.”
In eBay's favor: eBay loyalists have a different mindset from search engine users. The Internet was originally created to inform and that is what's on the mind of the majority of SE users. However, when Jane Smith goes to eBay, she knows very well that she isn't going to find information.
In addition, Jane 'targets' herself. Targeting is a marketing term for making the message fit the customer. On eBay, Jane isn't going to be looking in the jewelry categories if she isn't interested in jewelry. So, for eBay sellers, their buyers obligingly target themselves.
Against eBay: as the article states, Google and Yahoo have more customers to offer. A lot more. And one other very important consideration is that sellers can charge more money off eBay than they can on the auction site. The mindset of visitors is that of bargain hunters. They aren't going to pay retail prices on eBay for consumer items that are available elsewhere.
The easy growth days of eBay are most likely over, and we now have an interesting Clash Of The Titans shaping up. Most likely sellers will profit from this. I'll drink to that!
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 12:13 PM | TrackBack
February 11, 2005
eBay Complaints Answered By Bid4Assets
No matter how you feel about eBay, it's not good for anyone (except eBay!) that it's a monopoly. Technically it isn't, of course, but the reality is that the money is better on eBay than anywhere else. There are constant complaints and frequent rebellions, like the upcoming planned boycott against the eBay fee increase. Yes, there are some thriving niche auction sites and hurray! for that. But the reality is that if Yahoo & Amazon couldn't compete with eBay as a “general” auction site, how can anyone else?
I have to admire the brave folks who try, though and Bid4Assets is giving it a shot. Currently, on their front page they address three of the most-voiced gripes about eBay:
- - -
Your Complaint:
"It's too easy to become a buyer on online auction sites. That’s why there are so many scammers and deadbeat bidders."
Our Solution:
To place a bid on Bid4Assets, buyers must have a credit card on file. This keeps the scammers and non-performers to a bare minimum.
- - -
Your Complaint:
"Bid sniping is really hurting my auctions. Can't something be done about this?"
Our Solution:
OVERTIME PERIOD. If a bid is placed in the last few minutes of the auction, the auction is extended. The auction will remain open until an entire overtime increment has passed without any bidding.
- - -
Your Complaint:
"I've had it with eBay's customer service. The automated forms are never helpful and you're lucky if you get a live response within a week!"
Our Solution:
Bid4Assets has no automated forms, but provides live customer service over 40 hours a week. Most issues will be dealt with personally the same day that you contact us!
- - -
According to eBay's president, they are going to address the customer service issue. And it's about time: if small outfits can provide live support so can eBay with all its profits.
The sniping issue seems like a non-issue to me but if it bothers the majority of sellers, then this seems like a reasonable solution.
However, #1 is an ingenious way to cut down on the scumbags who bid with no intention of ever following through. Why doesn't eBay do this? A multitude of possibilities comes to mind, but the most likely and obvious is that this would reduce the buyers' pool and eBay definitely does not want that. Too bad for sellers.
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 11:44 AM | TrackBack
February 9, 2005
Stomp The Search Engines Expert Offers Sound Advice To Net Sellers
My friend Brad Fallon, co-creator of Stomp The Search Engines has a way of simplifying the sometimes overwhelming mystery of high search engine placement. This article is several months old, but when re-reading it recently, I was struck by how sound his advice is. (As proof that Brad knows whereof he speaks, he made $1.2 million in the first 11 months of his Yahoo store. Whew, that's enough to make the most jaded marketer take notice!). Take it away Brad ...
"Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, writes about "simplicity on the far side of complexity." By this, he means that after you work through a complex problem or set of circumstances, the answer is often quite simple. Indeed, the simple, direct, clear solutions or ideas are usually the best. Albert Einstein, the genius at figuring out and explaining the most complex problems
imaginable, said that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
In thinking about Google this week, it dawned on me that the process of trying to get your web site to rank highly on Google is a good example of Stephen Covey’s idea. I think many people get bogged down in the myriad things that you can do to a web site and miss the importance of the fundamentals. But once you come out the other side, you can see that Google rankings are not a complicated matter. If Einstein can state the theory of relativity with three letters, one ought to be able to explain how to rank on Google as simply. And in my opinion, you can.
Unfortunately, there's no great mystery - the answer is in the fundamentals.
As an SEO Coach, I like to think of Vince Lombardi holding up the football at the start of every football season and saying, "Gentleman, this is a football."
Like football, in Search Engine Optimization, it is the fancy stuff that gets all the attention. But it is the fundamentals that make all the difference. I wish I had a nickel for every person that asked me whether it's better to use hyphens or underscores in your page names. But on the actual battlefield, such details don't matter a bit. It's just plain old blocking and tackling.
For the Theory of Relativity, it's E=MC^2. For Google, it boils down to these three things: Page Titles, PageRank and Page Reputation. Sure, there may be over one hundred factors in Google's algorithm. But you don't need to worry about that -- just focus on these three things. Of course, as long as you understand this, you can always try some fancy double reverses, but it's these basics that will win the game every time.
Page Titles
Pay a lot of attention to the titles of the pages you are trying to get ranked. Don't target more than two or three keyword phrases. Worry about the proximity and prominence of the main keywords. By that, I mean put your more important words closer to the beginning of the title, in the right order, next to each other and make sure the target keywords are a high percentage (but not 100%) of all the words in the title.
As an example, I recently moved from #2 to #1 on Google for "wedding favors" for one of my web sites, and the only change I made was to my title tag. I was sitting there one day staring at all the titles of the Top 10 sites on Google. (I do this a lot. Some guys like to watch football - I like to watch Google. :-)
Anyway, I was thinking about the proximity of the major keywords, and I decided to make a move. The change I made was to swap the second and third phrase in the title so more of the words "wedding favors" were closer to the start of the title. Sure enough, about 48 hours later, I was #1. The next day, it was back to #2, but then a few days later it settled into #1 and has been there ever since.
PageRank
PageRank has always been a core part of the Google algorithm. And despite the rumors that you often hear to the contrary, it still is. Indeed, it's one of their real differentiators - it's patented and no one else can use it. On other search engines, pure link popularity can carry the day. But on Google, to rank for competitive search terms, you need higher PageRank.
PageRank, as we discussed in Stomping The Search Engines, is calculated and stored offline and applied as part of the algorithm when searches are run. It used to be that the PageRank of each page was updated about monthly, but now I believe Google is moving towards more constant, less global updates.
Of course, the Google Toolbar can drive you nuts, particularly when it's not updated in a long time. But before the forum theorists can convince me that it's wrong or even deliberately misleading, someone would have to convince me why Google would want to store an additional 8 billion pieces of information just to confuse us.
I think not. But regardless, it doesn't matter. The fact is, you need higher PageRank, and the more the better. So don't sweat the details as you work to develop quality links from high PR sites.
Page Reputation
As all Stompers know, Page Reputation refers to the keywords contained in the incoming anchor text of the text links pointing at your page. That is, Page Reputation is what the other web pages say your web page is about. If you want your site to rank for certain keywords, those words need to be in the blue underlined part (the anchor text) of your incoming text links.
That's all well and good, and fairly well known by now. But here's something else you should know. In analyzing the reputation of a page, Google considers what percentage of all incoming text links contain those keywords. And the key is how many of the links contain those keywords, not the density of those keywords compared to all the other words that are also in the links.
In other words, if a high percentage of all the incoming links contain those keywords, that is good. And if there are many other words contained in the links besides just those keywords, that is not bad. You see, to Google, the percentage of keywords in the backlinks is a ratio. The numerator is the number of times the keywords appear, and the denominator is not all the keywords that appear in backlinks. The denominator is the number of backlinks.
That said, you want as many of your backlinks as possible to contain your main targeted keywords. But it’s ok to go after your other keywords at the same time. In other words, you won’t “dilute” your Page Reputation if you include other words besides your keywords in the anchor text.
Important Final Thoughts
One of the commonly misunderstood concepts in the relationship between PageRank and Page Reputation, is that there is none. By that, I mean two things. First, the links that provide PageRank and the backlinks that provide Page Repuation do not have to be the same links. And second, to rank highly for competitive search terms, you do not have to have a lot of links. You merely have to have PageRank and Page Reputation (and of course, the third factor - good page titles).
But you don’t have to have a lot of links to have high either PR (or a good Page Reputation). For example, to get high PR, you could have a link from a high PR page. Or in a more common example, it could be a page on a high PR site.
Here is an example of this. On Google, search (without quotes) “florida dui lawyer”. Notice that the #1 listing is badjocks.com. There are many other lawyer sites (and legal directories) that have more links to their home pages. But the DUI lawyer section of badjocks.com is a relatively high PR site (PR 7), so that site section, linked off the home page is going to be high PR as well.
If you look up the backlinks on Yahoo (Google does not display backlinks very accurately anymore), you see that the #2 site, richardessen.com, has 623 backlinks, but that the #1 site, badjocks, has only 7 incoming links, and they are all from the same site. But the #2 site is a PR 5 to the badjock page with an expected PageRank of at least 6, given that it is linked off the home page of a PR 7 site.
So there you have it. Of course, to finish the analysis, it’s worth noting that the other two main factors (title and reputation) both support this result as well. The title of the relevant badjocks page begins with Florida DUI Lawyers, and according to an Optilink (www.bradfallon.com/opti) analysis, the Page Reputation of that badjocks page is 100% “florida dui lawyers” Again, that means that 100% of the incoming links contain the words “florida dui lawyers”.
As a result, badjocks is probably raking in AdSense revenue for a competitive search phrase, with few other incoming links, and beats out an actual Florida DUI lawyer with over 600 backlinks.
By the way, you may have noticed that are three other high PR sites that merely have a DUI lawyer section in the Google Top 10: phpnuke.org, realstupidnews.com and caldiatech.com. Of course, none of these sites are “relevant” for DUI lawyers, but these sections on otherwise high PR sites are dominating.
Notice also that on Yahoo, richardessen.com, with its much higher link popularity, ranks higher than all four of these other non-lawyer sites. No surprise there.
Conclusion
When you hear all the advice to not get hung up on PageRank, I agree. Don't get hung up on anything. But if you want to rank higher on Google, forget the fine points and go back the fundamentals. As they say, keep it simple."
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 2:37 PM | TrackBack
February 7, 2005
ebay USA President Responds To Angry eBay Sellers
Apparently eBay must really be feeling the heat for its price increases that will go into effect on February 18. Many sellers are wildly angry and vowing boycotts and permanent moves to other auction venues. Whether this will really affect eBay remains to be seen. But at least eBay is responding to customer outrage.
A letter from Bill Cobb, eBay's current president, went out to all sellers this weekend (see full text below):
* Within 90 days, eBay is shutting off it's automated customer service emails, and users will hear from a real live person (imagine that!). This is a biggie and we can only applaud eBay for this decision.
* Phone support will soon be available for store owners, as well as Power Sellers.
* Store owners will receive a free month in May, if they have a store in April. Presumably, this is a carrot to prevent store owners from a mass exodus.
* Some insertion feeds will be reduced from 30 to 25 cents.
If you want to talk to the President of eBay about your gripes – here is your chance. (Whew, I wouldn't want to be receiving the gigantic volume of email that will soon be coming his way!)
Will there be a mass exodus from eBay? I don't think so. For all the problems, it's still the best game in town.
(See Mr. Cobb's message below.)
- - -
Since becoming the President of eBay North America in December, I've spent a lot of time listening to you, our Community. There's a lot on your minds right now. I've been taking it all in and thinking hard about how we can make sure eBay remains a fun, safe place to trade, and a prosperous home for our many dedicated sellers.
One of the issues I've heard a lot about is our recent fee increases, particularly the increase in Store Inventory Format final value fees. I've also heard concerns about customer support, the amount of change we make to the site on a regular basis, and trust and safety. We're listening to everything you have to say.
eBay has become a hugely successful marketplace as a result of the innovation, enthusiasm and hard work of our Community. The site has also become more complex as it has grown to meet many of your needs. So our challenge is to keep pace with the Community's changing requirements, while preserving the things that make eBay so special. With that in mind, I'd like to give you a preview of some upcoming changes for the United States and Canada.
eBay has a fantastic Customer Support team, but Meg and I agree we haven't invested enough in giving our CS reps the flexibility and tools they need to really take care of you. So, to start, within the next 90 days, we'll shut down most of our automated email responses. Our users will get a "real" e-mail response to their questions - you'll hear from a human being who will try to help you with your problem or question right off the bat. We will only use auto responses to acknowledge receipt of spam or policy violation reports.
We also think the time has come to expand phone support. Currently phone support is available only to Silver, Gold, Platinum and Titanium PowerSellers. Starting April 1, all eBay Stores owners also will have access to phone support. We'll provide details on the benefits of phone support to Stores owners soon.
We know pricing is a critical issue for our sellers. While we stand behind our decision to increase final value fees on Store Inventory Format listings - because they make sense for items that list with insertion fees of two cents - I know this increase has been difficult for some of our sellers. To reward our eBay Stores sellers, we'll be crediting $15.95 - a month's Basic Stores subscription - in May to all sellers who operated an eBay Store for the month of April. Stores owners will receive more details on this soon.
We also want to do something for the rest of our sellers. I'm happy to announce that effective at midnight tonight, eBay.com and eBay.ca will reduce minimum insertion fees for Auction-Style listings, Fixed Price, Motors Non-Vehicle and B&I non-Capital Equipment Categories from 30 cents to 25 cents (CA$0.35 to CA$0.30). eBay Germany has always used this pricing, and users there have benefited from higher conversion rates on items with lower starting bids.
One of the great things about eBay is the candor and passion of our Community. Your input keeps this company focused on what's right and important. Later this month, I'll be hosting an online meeting to hear more from you. You'll see more details on the Announcement Board soon. And I'll periodically post notes like this one to talk about issues of importance to all of us.
eBay has never stopped listening to our users and we never will. I know many of you already have Meg's e-mail address and frequently send her messages about things you care about. I hope you will do the same with me. My e-mail address is billcobb@ebay.com. I promise I'll read every e-mail. And most of all, I'll listen.
Sincerely,
Bill Cobb
President
eBay North America
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 1:09 PM | TrackBack
February 4, 2005
Brilliant Baby Boomers Marketing Tip
Craig Gerber has written a brilliant article on marketing to baby boomers:
http://www.kingofcopy.com/tips/howardsternboomers.htm
I'm not the world's greatest copy writer (what a laughable understatement!) but I can usually recognize wonderful copy when I see it.
* Craig starts off by mentioning some really prominent names: Howard Stern, Oprah and Paul McCartney. With the American fascination for celebrities, he's bound to grab our attention right from the get go.
* His audience is the Internet marketing crowd, and by mentioning choice statistics like, “ they control 70% of the entire net worth of the United States!” he's bound to make even the most jaded marketer sit up and take notice.
* He grabs us with a fact I had never thought of ... eyesight problems. This is a problem and he has the answer ... the Courier 10 BT font.
* IMHO the most brilliant part of the copy is offering a download of this font. I certainly didn't have it on my computer. If I do any baby boomer marketing in the future, I will think of him whenever I use the font.
* I'm obliged to him for this information. I didn't know it and would never have thought of it.
* The copy is sprinkled with comments that certainly give me a warm fuzzy:
“... it's more like the old-style fonts you used to have on your typewriters (Remember those?)
“it looks like they'll be living to 79.5 years of age. Which is... Not Long Enough, If You Ask Me!”
The only thing I didn't like is that I'm one of those baby boomers and don't like being reminded of physical problems. I see just fine, thank you! 
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 2:03 PM | TrackBack
February 3, 2005
Identity Theft Prevention Advice From eBay
Identity theft prevention is on the minds of most of us these days. Being smart can pay enormous dividends. Dave Steer, eBay's Senior Manager of Trust & Safety Marketing, recounts the following frightening story:
“Last year, I received an ominous voicemail from a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department. When I returned his call, he told me that the police had just apprehended a con man who was suspected of stealing people's credit card numbers. They had caught the fraudster attempting to reserve a hotel room with my credit card! The criminal had already put more than $1,000 on my credit card in less than 24 hours.
While it was scary that someone had assumed my identity and had already caused damage, this story has a happy ending. I simply called my credit card company, explained the situation, and had my charges reversed. In all, it took me only a few hours to resolve this episode.
While my story didn't happen on eBay, it could have.”
Mr. Speer offers sound advice to protect yourself from becoming a sad statistic:
http://pages.ebay.com/community/chatter/2005February/marketplacesafety.html
Posted by SydneyJohnston at 3:41 PM | TrackBack
February 2, 2005
Wholesale Imports Growing In Online Popularity
Wholesale imports – especially from China – are growing in the awareness of online sellers. With their incredibly low (by US standards) wages, Asian imports are an mouth watering bargain for Internet sellers.
Plus, importing is 'fraught with peril'. China, for instance, doesn't have the kinds of protective laws that western resellers are used to, meaning that once you've paid for your merchandise, you're stuck. If it's not what you ordered or wanted ... tough.
Fortunately, demand for imported goods is so strong – and Asian countries are so delighted to have our business – that there are more and more opportunities to safely acquire wholesale Asian imports. Worldwide Brands partner Robin Cowie is soon embarking for China and their company will begin importing large quantities of goodies for resale for their customers. Clearly, this is a business that is coming of age and is only going to grow.
http://www.auction-genius-course.com/auction/wholesale-imports.shtml
