Happy Birthday!
eBay's ProStores — the auction giant's e-commerce hosting solution — is approaching its one-year anniversary, says Julian Green, director, ProStores, so the company decided to hold a celebration.
"If you sign up for a four-month subscription to the Business, Advanced or Enterprise tiers of ProStores before June 30, we'll not only give you one of those months free, we'll also knock 35 percent off the price of the remaining three months.
ProStores' pricing starts at $6.95 per month for the Express Tier and goes up to $249.95 per month for its Enterprise Tier.
Show Me the Money
Resolution disputes have always been a thorn in the side of eBay users. While the company has addressed the issue, its users still think eBay can and should do better. In January, the company began its online dispute resolution process for items not received. This week, PayPal is jumping on board, announced Colin Rule, director of Dispute Resolution for PayPal, Inc.
"I'm happy to announce that starting next week, PayPal will launch a similar Dispute Resolution process to help sellers and buyers communicate to resolve problems when the item was paid for with PayPal. For eBay members, this means that all Item Not Received disputes involving eBay items paid with PayPal will be directed to the new PayPal Dispute Resolution process, instead of being directed to the claim process, like they are today," he said.
"The new PayPal Dispute Resolution process offers a number of features to help buyers and sellers resolve their transaction problems. These include:
- Tracking all dispute and claim activity in one location — the PayPal Resolution Center
- A "Customer Service Message" box sellers can use to target buyers with important messages, such as your policies on shipping times, before buyers can escalate the situation to a claim.
- A 2,000-character area where buyers and sellers can both post messages
- Easy buyer access to updated tracking and delivery information
- Automatic e-mail notifications for sellers when new disputes are created."
"When a buyer opens a dispute in the PayPal Resolution Center, they can read customer service messages sellers may have posted beforehand about transaction issues such as shipping times. Buyers will have up to 45 days from the date of payment to open a dispute and up to 20 days after filing the dispute to escalate to a claim (disputes not escalated to a claim after 20 days will be automatically closed)," said Rule.
"Because PayPal Dispute Resolution is the first stage in the buyer complaint process, a temporary hold will be placed on the funds in the seller's account if the payment amount exceeds $100, just like the current PayPal claims process," he added.
So Maybe There Actually IS a Use for Skype...
Online Media Daily reported this week some further insight into how Skype fits into the eBay family. eBay purchased the Internet phone company last year for a whopping $2.6 billion, and most analysts are trying to figure out why.
"eBay intends to integrate Skype into its auction service to further facilitate communication between buyers and sellers on the site, CEO Meg Whitman said at its Analyst Day late last week. The company also plans to use Skype to launch a pay-per-lead ad system to increase revenue on the site," writes Shankar Gupta.
"Describing the integration of PayPal and Skype with eBay as 'the power of three,' Whitman said that integrating Skype would help buyers connect with sellers in a simple and trusting fashion, one of eBay's chief missions. 'PayPal created a simple yet incredibly powerful way to handle payments on the Web,' she said. 'Likewise, Skype found a whole new way to deploy voice technology to create the simplest online communications product in the world today'," he continued.
We're still not convinced yet, Meg. Sorry.
Down Under Teen Takes on Titan
The Sunshine Coast Daily of Australia reported this week that a teen "whiz kid" is the latest to take on eBay, launching an auction site of his own called Auction Australia.
Zane Samuels said he'd like his site to be Australia's biggest auction site.
"The 17-year-old came up with the Web site idea after using the world's biggest online auction site, eBay, and deciding he could create a 'fairer and cheaper' auction site for Australians," the site reported.
"After securing the site's address, Mr Samuels "took over" his parent's living room as Auction Australia central, spending a year researching online auctions, his target market and developing a format," it said.
We wish him luck!
Devin Comiskey is the managing editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.
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