I actually do enjoy trying to look ahead to the possibilities available in eCommerce. I want to see my small seller friends and neighbors be ready as these opportunities bloom. If they can be fast and agile, they can take advantage and be gone on to the next thing before Big Business can smother them. But as much as I enjoy the challenge of peering into my crystal ball, my real love is helping folks learn and refine the skills that make commerce possible for them. Not only to get into the game, but to enjoy success at it.

Kabbage pretty much nailed what I’m all about in their blog. And hey, It’s always nice to see that others notice your passion and think kindly of you, right?

Read more about the Kabbage “Oscars” and the other funny awards over at the Kabbage Blog.

I’d like to thank the Kabbage Academy, my Mom, my wife, my cats Buddy and Bobo, my loud-mouthed cockatiels Shady and Squeaky, …

September 01, 2011
As I write this, it was exactly a year ago that an accident during an eBay On Location event literally left me flat on my back. It seems like a cosmic justice that I should mark my return to a more active role in the eBay universe with a trip to eBay On Location in Orlando, FL. After what has often felt like the longest, wasted year of my life, this feels like a Victory Lap!

Even though I’m still working to manage the pain now, I am far and away in better shape than I was just a few months back when EOL Las Vegas rolled around. I was so utterly disappointed that things didn’t work out for me to go. Add my wife’s long-standing wish to go out there, and I truly felt that I had failed. Failed her. Probably silly, sure, but when you’ve spent a year counting and re-counting the blades on your ceiling fan you’d be surprised what tricks the mind can play. Truth be told? I didn’t have any business going anyway.

I will be “testing the waters” with this trip. I feel like a pilot taking a test aircraft out for its first real flight trials: I’ll be a long way from home if I’ve over-reached and things go bad; I’ll be exhausted and a long way from home if things go right.

I have to do this. I will do this. With any luck, I’ll see you there! Come say “Hi!”: I’ll be the happiest guy in a wheelchair you’ve ever met.

When leaving feedback the Buyer is asked, “How reasonable were the shipping and handling charges?” If FREE SHIPPING was offered in the trade, the DSR stars are greyed out – locked – with a blue link next to the line, saying, “Why can’t I enter this rating?” It looks like this capture I made below.

Click to see larger graphic

Because this has not been formally announced, it may only be a test of this set-up. It would certainly be a welcome change with many Sellers who have complained bitterly that any rating lower than a “5″ for S&H was unfair when FREE SHIPPING had been offered.

Today’s “PowerUp” newsletter said, “Starting in October, when you offer free shipping you could automatically get 5-star DSRs for shipping costs when your buyer chooses free shipping.” This would seem to foreshadow this as a permanent change before the holidays. The eBay newsletter added, “Listing with free shipping can also get a boost in Best Match for Fixed Price (where applicable), and visibility in Free Shipping search filters.” An official announcement about all this could come at any time, though eBay may wait until next week’s “eBay On Location” event in San Jose, CA to discuss any change.

Problem is, it isn’t true.

The words in a search are all used (otherwise, what would be the point of the extra Title words? What if the Buyer’s search was more than three words?) Right now, I have an item listed with a Title that is several words long. The last three are printing 1991 LN. If this new urban legend were right, one simply wouldn’t find my item – the search would only look at the first three keywords and skip ahead. My item does get found, however, because all the keywords in a listing title are searchable.

This probably started off as an explanation about search optimization, since making the listing title “human readable” is smart – people do read these things! – but the computer doesn’t care. And because we’re English speakers, the best words first make more sense to us. (I taught this very thing this weekend.) Somewhere along the line this has been misunderstood and passed on that the search won’t find something – not a human shopper – unless the first few words are the best keywords.

This sort of thing will be a problem everywhere on the internet for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, a little fact-checking and critical thought is enough to debunk most of these things. There is mystery surrounding Best Match, and there is concern over unfair placement by eBay, plus the economy, competition from the Chinese, and so forth. People are looking for answers that help explain their situation.

This wasn’t it.

Experience would suggest that eBay already has something up its sleeve to replace the program’s ad sales – though perhaps not internally to eBay Sellers. If eBay returns to selling off-site advertising, or restricts sales to its favored mass-retail clients, I would anticipate some backlash from smaller sellers who are increasingly vocal about moves that affect their ability to compete in the marketplace.

UPDATE: eBay’s “Griff” said on this afternoon’s “eBay Radio” program that there were no plans to replace the program.

The AdCommerce program was eBay’s most recent “pay-per-click” effort to sell advertising on the marketplace site.  The email announcement, in part, read as follows below.

We know you’ve either registered for or purchased AdCommerce pay-per-click advertising placements recently to promote your eBay Store or listings. We wanted to let you know this advertising program will be discontinued for eBay.com and eBay.ca on August 4 to ensure the most relevant listings from sellers providing the best prices and service are highlighted in search results.

You do not need to do anything-these AdCommerce placements will no longer be available for eBay.com or eBay.ca and any ads you already purchased to appear on these sites will automatically expire on August 4. Your final billing will be sent out in early September.

eBay has been busy the last couple of years picking up the pennies where it could find them.  We’ll have to see what they decide to do next.

A recent PayPal announcement has surfaced of the payment services intention to make several changes in its fees.  This has been met with a lot of complaining and grandstanding, so you’re probably wondering, “What’s going on?”

There are three particularly important changes.  The first one, scheduled to begin in late August, makes the $0.30 USD fixed fee paid per transaction non-refundable.  This fee is the set amount charged when a payment is received, plus a percentage fee on the payment.  If a full refund were given to the customer, PayPal had allowed for all fees to refund to the customer.  No more, says PayPal: if a complete refund is given, that’s okay – but the 30 cent transaction fee will not be refunded.  This is typical of the payments industry, and is not a cause for alarm.  Not only is it just like everybody else in the business, but it doesn’t have anything to do with partial refunds for, say, overcharging a buck on shipping costs.  You give the buyer a buck back, and you aren’t charged anything for those partials.

The other fee that’s raising some hackles is the “Chargeback Fee” which PayPal assesses when an issuing bank or Card Service demands a payment be returned.  Again, this is an industry standard, and PayPal’s fee for a chargeback is going from $10 to $20 USD.  Important for Sellers is that chargebacks are not Buyer Protection cases found for the Buyer, or a seller’s decision to  refund any or all money.  Chargebacks are a special circumstance where PayPal is told “we want our money back” from the issuer.  This can be because of automated loss prevention systems, or the buyer saying the purchase was unauthorized or unknown on his statement, or several other reasons.  Chargebacks are often taken care of by a seller qualifying for PayPal Seller Protection.  Chargebacks can also be appealed in the same way that Buyer Protection complaints are handled: proof of shipment, delivery, and messages and feedback showing buyer receipt and satisfaction – they can’t argue they didn’t get something if a seller can show they did!  But if a chargeback sticks, and the seller isn’t covered by Seller Protection, the money goes back and a fee is levied on PayPal – which means on the Seller, and that charge will go from $10 to $20 USD. 

The third thing of note is a power move by American Express for those using PayPal’s Virtual Terminal or Website Pro-type external services for AMEX credit card payments.  AMEX is changing lanes with its own deal out there in cyberspace, so it wants sellers to make a special agreement with them that dictates their service.  It’s all meant to advantage AMEX and their own payment system as they bring it online.  This is also typical for American Express operation, and is just one of those Big Company things merchants have to deal with.

Bottom line for sellers is this is a fee increase of sorts on absolute refunds.  If a forced refund were to result because of a Buyer Protection claim filed against the seller, the seller would lose the refund.  The 30 cent charge for handling the money in the first place remains with PayPal.  If a bank or card company hits a seller with a chargeback that sticks, and the seller is not covered by Seller Protection, the $10 fee will go up to $20.  Lastly, unless a seller has historically processed a lot of AMEX payments, they may have just taken themselves out of the PayPal game – a dangerous gambit with PayPal’s market penetration.  All in all, this is not only just business as usual, but in line with the fees and how business has operated with payment processing for years.  It is part of the maturing of the internet as regular, experienced business gets integrated into operating on the net. 

I don’t care for rate hikes and changing fees and moving rules, but it’s not so bad when it’s something common to how businesses have worked in the past few years.. and it’s really more of what we should expect in the way that businesses operate today.
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The announced changes can be seen here at this PayPal link.

It reminded me fondly of an earlier time when eBay actively promoted an image that it was interested in the success of the individual, small seller. Achievements in gaining PowerSeller status or the different colored feedback (FB) stars were a part of eBay growth.

Our first eBay office was decorated with a rainbow arch of those colorful FB star certificates. Good fun, and a great confidence builder with students as they walked in. Of course this is all meaningless eBay marketing of their new TRS program… or at least, marketing. But meaningless? A little recognition can go a long way, and eBay’s created a contrary situation with their Seller relations that gives them a long way to go to setting things back on the tracks.

Those problems often stem from all the little things that got Sellers feeling slighted. Perhaps this will mark a change when some little things got started that made Sellers feel a little better about the Marketplace.  Worked for me!

As expected, eBay has the resources (or partnership power) to make most efforts like this pretty good out of the gate.  The announcement describes the function of the on-site label printing suite to include the sort of features I’d expect: automatic pre-fill of Buyer info and appropriate Customs forms; automatic capture of Delivery Confimation/Tracking numbers into the online transaction records; management of labels like reprints or voids; and the consolidation of work into a predictable user interface.

On the other hand, questions looming for me are -

• Is the “auto-pay for shipping labels” going to be driven by the “convenient pay-as-you-print option [that] charges the cost to your PayPal account,” or can I send the charge to a specified credit/debit card independent of PayPal?
• PayPal requires the shipping address used to be the one provided in their transaction record – the “confirmed address” – for certain protections.  PayPal’s reported Buyer address should br more likely correct because eBay doesn’t confirm Buyer identity and location with the same rigor.  How will this line up going forward?
• Is there still a conspicuous absence of the economical (but not tracked) First Class International rate in eBay’s offering (it isn’t available on PayPal)?
• A print one-at-a-time system is inefficient if several labels are needed.  Will this be tempered by accumulating the day’s production and creating a SCAN form for postal acceptance and/or a request for free next-day USPS pick-up?

As the answers to those questions develop, I’ll get back with you.  In the meantime, PayPal’s batch-processing “Multi-Order Shipping” system continues to be the best “free” label printing offering from eBay, complete with adherance to PayPal’s address rules, postage deduction from PayPal account, ease of dealing with partial postage refunds, SCAN form and pick-up scheduling.

[Disclosure: we often use or support PayPal's "Multi-Order Shipping" system for some accounts.  For our own use, we prefer Endicia.]

The move to an “in house” label printing suite continues the split of eBay-related, non-payment operations away from PayPal.  Moves of this type are likely to increase the independent value of the eBay website while making PayPal more independent of eBay.  Both companies are expected to be moving toward a time when the two could be split up as free-standing companies.

The launch was reported by Reuters.

The debut edition includes a nice interview with Laurie DeAgostino, one of the nicest people and best sellers eBay has to offer, here: Link

I’m not a Vogue or GQ reader, digital or otherwise. My midwestern sensibilities don’t afford over-hyped, over-priced “fashion” items any more than my contorted wallet does; 40% off of way too much is still too much where I live. But it’s well done, and it’s something that might bring some iPhone/Blackberry-toting spenders into the site, so I say, “woo-hoo!”

The media blitz is said to use print, interactive online ads, and TV spots to remind shoppers, “Come to think of it, eBay.” The tagline is meant to spark the idea that while searching for gifts shoppers should also remember to check eBay. Even the eBay logo has the lights going on in an “ah-ha!” moment of realization as the tagline appears in the commercial.

The first spot has a comedian recount his wife’s proud moment as she reveals a sexy designer dress and her big savings score: “It’s last season’s, so I got it for 40% off.” When he makes a naughty quip that breaks her mood, he’s quickly brought back in line. The spot’s humor is fun and equates happiness to finding high-quality goods at bargain rates. More commercials have not yet been publicly released, but have been suggested.

Other ads are said to also use a light, funny message to sell eBay as a destination for great deals on desirable new-but-dated merchandise. One online ad reportely promises that “Last year’s music player will still play this year’s music.” A fashion-oriented print piece featuring a cute handbag riffs that eBay shoppers can “Get the same new bag as celebrities, with money left over for a tiny dog.”

Also lending support to the campaign will be a travelling “pop up” store making appearances across the country. It will showcase a wide-ranging sample of the new-in-box merchandise being offered on eBay for ready purchase, according to reports.

Overall, the intent of the campaign is to “shift the buyer perception of what eBay is today,” according to Laurie Norrington, President of Marketplace Operations. She told the WSJ that the company felt it was “time to go out and re-engage consumers” with the message of a changed eBay. The reformulated eBay promises more new, instantly available Fixed Price inventory over the slower bid-priced used goods traditionally offered in its auctions.

Early criticisms question the tagline as being too soft and treating eBay as a shopping afterthought, too late to do any good. Other objections center on the campaign’s focus on the secondary market goods typically offered by its bevy of special-interest mass retailers. These “Diamond” resellers are popularly believed to receive special placement advantages and enormous discounts in all levels of fees – even free services altogether – in exchange for heaping millions of products on the site and funneling sales dollars through Paypal. Marketing that favors these select mega-retail outlets may do little to improve sales for smaller sellers that lack the inventory depth, preferential search and cost savings, some critics warn.

I’m reminded that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Anything that brings a bump in traffic to the site brings a bump in traffic to the site.  Of course it makes sense for small sellers to offer new and easily shipped merch during the holidays.  Remember too that gifts can also be an antique fishing reel… or the long-missing pieces of Mom’s china service you broke when you were a kid… or some great books… and you bet, some great tie dye from Uncle Joe. The influx of visitors arriving on the message of “Come to think of it, eBay” will be there when they come to think “I wonder if there’s any good deals here on xyz?”

The focus will be on Fixed Price-type offers. Gift buyers are not typically going to wait through an auction competing for a bargain they may lose in the end. Add peak holiday shipping delays, and a successful auction purchase could easily take three weeks from first bid to delivery. No savvy shopper will dare miss Christmas trying to make that work! Instead, look at using Fixed Price listings with “Best Offer” to allow hagglers to seek a deal and get that gift! Bring your auctions back on the 26th to capture the interest of bargain hunters looking to stretch their new money.

Overall, it looks and feels good to have eBay revving up the marketing engine. It has allowed its critics and competitors to asume ownership of its space in its absence. A good media blast will help cast eBay once again as a legitimate, serious player in online commerce. I’m excited to see the sleeping giant wake up and rejoin the party.

It’s about time, eBay.