News and Announcements
The eBay Community Development team announced changes that will most likely please eBay members who are tired of multiple log-in screens as they move throughout the auction site. Soon they will be able to log in with their user ID and password and actually stay signed in as they use other areas of eBay, like the discussion boards, eBay Groups and Answer Center. After the change takes place, you should not need to log in to eBay a second time, unless you quit your browser. For those who do want a separate sign-in for the Community forums area, you can set this option in your preferences.
This week eBay also introduced an offline holiday promotion: you can give the gift of IT by purchasing and giving eBay Gift Cards. The new gift cards are expected to be widely available in stores by November. Currently, you can only purchase and send an eBay gift card online.
On the litigation front, the Detroit-based musician Prince is making news. Last week it was cosmetics company L'Oreal who claimed to be heading to court with eBay. This week, John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, has reportedly been hired by Prince to go after eBay for allowing the sale of unauthorized Prince products such as clocks, mouse pads, dolls and more. EBay hasn't made a comment on this particular lawsuit rumor.
eBay Tools Roundup: Auctiva To Get a Major Upgrade
Next week, the developer's of Auctiva plan to release several new upgrades as well as some new features for the auction management tool. When I recently reviewed Auctiva (see Fee Free: Three New eBay Management Packages), I found it to be one of the better auction management packages available, and some of the new features are definitely going to help eBay sellers list, manage and sell more efficiently, with more options to choose from.
Starting with International support, with this upcoming release Auctiva says they will include eBay Canada (www.ebay.ca) as a fully supported auction site. This makes it one of only a few services that supports Canadian commerce, with support for Canada Post shipping options. Auctiva already provides support for eBay United States, United Kingdom, Australia, eBay Motors (US) and eBay Motors Parts &; Accessories (US). Other new features and options to look for in the upcoming version, according to Auctiva, include:
Relisting — Scheduling and Editing: With the new version Auctiva says sellers can schedule relists in bulk with staggered launch times in the same way that you can bulk schedule first-time listings. As you relist you can individually edit details for some fields, such as starting price and duration.
Consignment: Sellers can enter their consignors and commission plans and then add the items to eBay based on these agreements. You can also track consigned items, sales and payouts. Auctiva will offer options for printing your commission plans along with the details of items sold and commissions received to send to your consignors upon payout.
Comma Separated Values (CSV) Reports: Auctiva will be offering CSV reports for sellers to track and organize their sales data. You can open and use these CSV reports in a number of applications, including Microsoft Excel.
Auctiva says that CSV Reports are currently in beta development and the company hopes to obtain user feedback for continued development of this feature.
Insurance Claims Process : As an eBay seller, part of the job is working with buyers during the shipping process. Sellers already had the option to buy Auctiva Shipping Insurance over USPS, but the new claims process will allow you to file a claim, if needed, in an easy step-by-step process online.
Thumbnail Gallery: The new Auctiva Thumbnail Gallery lets sellers display one photo at viewing size and the remaining images at thumbnail size. When shoppers mouse-over the thumbnails they will be displayed in a viewing pane. The new Thumbnail Gallery takes up less room on your listing template and provides a way for sellers to display up to an increased number of 24 images.
Lastly, Auctiva plans to integrate RSS feeds into its stores. Currently, sellers get a free Auctiva Store that features a custom scrolling gallery that can be easily added to all of your eBay auctions. In the upcoming release, Auctiva says it plans to include RSS (define) for Auctiva Stores. The RSS link is automatically displayed in your Auctiva Store with instructions provided to users on how to use the RSS feed to stay up-to-date on the items you have for sale. As an added bonus, the introduction of RSS feeds will also help sellers using the free Auctiva Store to continually improve their search engine rankings.
The Auctiva development team says eBay sellers can expect to see the new release on Sept. 26th. Auctiva is not only a Certified eBay Solutions Provider, but the auction management service is also completely free for sellers to use.
Research Says...
According to eBay pulse data, this week the top keywords searched for on eBay.com are for the Wii, followed by the Xbox 360, Webkinz and Apple iPod. Here is a snapshot of several eBay categories along with the corresponding top three searches in each for Sept. 20, 2007.
- Health & Beauty: Mary Kay, Mac and Philosophy.
- Home & Garden: Pottery Barn, Anthropologie and patio furniture.
- Video Games: PSP, Xbox 360 and Wii.
- Video Games > Vintage Games: Atari, Nintendo and arcade.
- Toys & Hobbies: Transformers, Star Wars and Little Tikes.
- Toys & Hobbies > Fast Food, Cereal Premiums: Shrek, McDonalds and Beanie Babies.
On the Canadian auction site users are searching for Lululemon, Xbox 360 and also the Wii. On the UK site the top three searches include Apple iPod, PSP and PS3.
Only on eBay...
With social networking growing in popularity, and more applications being released for them almost daily, it is really no surprise to see a Facebook application being offered up on the auction block. This week our favorite IT is Logbook, a fully functional Facebook application that lets Facebook members document movies, music, books and more.
Logbook uses Amazon's affiliate program in each product entry as a source of revenue, and can also be used with Google AdSense on specific product pages. The winning bidder of this auction will win the Logbook source code, logo and database data. In the auction details the seller also states that the winning bidder will receive complete ownership of the application and that no additional copies of Logbook will ever be sold.
Definitely an interesting way to make some affiliate revenues through Facebook, provided you can stir up some excitement on Facebook itself about the application to encourage more people to use the application. Currently the Facebook-enabled Logbook application has been bid up to just over $500 in 27 bids, with just five days remaining.
Vangie Beal is a seasoned eBay seller, frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com and also managing editor of Webopedia.com.
Have an interesting tip, auction or news item to submit for eBay Watch? Tell us about IT!
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
