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, …

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.

Here is the announcement made by Dinesh Lathi, eBay’s Vice President of Seller and Buyer Experience:

“For two days only—July 27 and July 28—list Auction-style for just 10¢ Insertion Fees, any start price, when you have an eBay Stores subscription. This offer applies to listings on eBay, eBay Motors Parts & Accessories and eBay Canada. Most categories are included, but please check out the information page for full details.”

The announcement and its links can be read in its entirety in eBay’s Annoucement Board.

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.

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 quiet little message tag floats over the eBay Blogs, offering a link to the full closure announcement. Any content a blogger would like to save needs to be pulled off the site before the close date.