New Fixed Price Policy Now in Effect
EBay's new pricing structure for fixed price listings went into effect at midnight on Sept. 15. This means that sellers can take advantage of multi-quantity items up to 30 days for a single 35-cent fixed price in most categories on eBay, except media, which is 15 cents. Unfortunately, going hand-in-hand with the lower insertion fee prices are many increased final value fees. The basic fee changes can be viewed here.

Also worth a mention is that eBay marked Oct. 5 as the date for sellers to make sure their media listings meet the new maximum shipping charges, and on Oct. 20 eBay will implement its paperless payments policy. By late October sellers will need to remove checks and money orders from the "Payment Details" section and also specify a return policy and handling time. Further down the road, in 2009, eBay will also require sellers to remove any e-mail addresses from their item descriptions.

eBay to Buy More Classified Sites
According to the FinancialWire, eBay plans to buy smaller classified ad listings businesses as part of its expansion in the area. While eBay spent hundreds of millions of dollars to buy 25 percent of Craigslist, the general manager of eBay's global classified business, Jacob Aqraou, says he expects the company will take over a fair number of small private companies within the next six months.

Hot Holiday Product Trends
Lisa Suttora, trend spotter and Founder/CEO of eBay Certified Provider WhatDoISell.com, recently held an online workshop in which she discussed this year's hot holiday trends. In her discussion, Suttora said that all industries have a hot trend, and no matter matter what you sell, you'll want to ready your product line for holiday shoppers.  If your category is not one that sells traditional consumer goods, Suttora suggests you look at related products to capitalize on your increased holiday traffic. For example, an eBay seller listing auto parts might want to consider picking up some N.A.S.C.A.R. collectibles to sell on eBay for the holiday season.  Three of seven items listed in of Suttora's Hot Holiday Trend List include the following:

• Trend 1: Dolls are the New It Girls: American Girl Dolls, natural dolls, dolls made from organic materials, lifelike dolls and dolls that incorporate technology
• Trend 2: Toys that Get Kids Moving: gaming and exercise, Swinxs, Dance Revolution and Dance With Me Teletubbie
• Trend 3: Do It Yourself Kits: indoor gardening kits, wine making lits, arts and crafts kits (for adults) and "build it" kits for the home.

You can check out the WhatDoISell.com workshop or their newly released video here.

eBay Pulse Gets an Update
Dennis Goedegebuure from eBay marketing, recently posted new information about eBay Pulse, a service many sellers use to find out what's hot on eBay. The highlights of the new Pulse include a redesign that makes it easier to navigate eBay Pulse, new modules that display the most popular searches in each of the main categories, as well as the biggest movers.

One of the new and more interesting additions to eBay pulse is a section called the "Internet Pulse," which shows a list of keywords based on what many popular blogs are writing about. You can use the Internet Pulse to search for new trends or products in your category. The Internet Pulse for Sept. 16, 2008 shows the top five search terms as being fashion week, iPhone, stamps, coin show and game.

The top five eBay searches, which track actual searches performed by eBay users, are for keywords as follows: iPod, iPhone, Wii, Apple iPod, and Wii Fit. Here is the eBay Pulse data for popular products and searches in Dolls & Bears on eBay, many of which match Lisa Suttora's Hot Trends for 2008 list:

• Most Popular Searches: Reborn, American Girl, Barbie, Fashion Royalty, and Madame Alexander.
• New Popular Searches: Dolls, Tyler, Dollfie, Blythe and Shirley Temple

McGrath on the Future of eBay
Veteran eBay seller and author Skip McGrath just released a free eBook called, "The Future of eBay." After attending a briefing on eBay's new fee and policy changes, McGrath wrote about what he expects will happen over the next year and what the impact will be for new, small and medium-sized eBay sellers.  In the eBook, McGrath provides insight on some big changes taking place at eBay, such as the new fixed price fee changes, search algorithms, shipping standards, seller standards, electronic payments and more. Here is what McGrath had to say about eBay's changing seller standards:

"One big change to the feedback system is that eBay stopped counting neutrals in your feedback score. So if you look at your feedback today, those of you who had a neutral in the past 12 months will see that your feedback percentage improved.'

"'The larger news is that eBay is determined to rid the platform of the very small percentage of bad sellers — in their parlance, 'those sellers who deliver a poor buyer experience.' So beginning Nov. 1, any seller with any of the four DSR scores below 4.3 will lose their ability to list new items on the platform until their score improves.'"

Skip McGrath's new eBook can be freely downloaded here, in PDF format.

PicNSell Offers Drop Ship Store Solution
PicNsell hosting recently announced version 10.16 of its e-commerce site development platform, which lets sellers create an online store and then stock it with thousands of drop ship products. In their latest release, PicNSell added support for Google AdSense, Google Checkout, PayPal PayNow, Google Sitemap and Google Analytics. Other features include more than 1,000 custom templates, according to the company, search engine optimization and image and text editors. Pricing starts at $795, with optional hosting services at $29.95 monthly. Other services offered by PicNSell include logo design, domain registration and merchant accounts.

Free Shipping Still Growing
Industry analysts cite rising fuel costs and a recession-minded shopping community as two of the many reasons more consumers will be staying home to shop online this year. Helping consumers to find those deals is FreeShipping.org, a one-stop destination for consumers who want to find online retailers that offer free shipping deals.

FreeShipping.org lists free shipping deals currently being offered by more than 800 online retailers. Though the site is heavily tilted toward big-name brands, the company says it welcomes small online businesses, too. E-tailers who are interested in listing at FreeShipping.org can contact co-founders Luke and Maisie Knowles directly from the Web site to have their own free shipping deals listed.