• New Personalization and Design Options. You'll see more information about the Groups relevant to you on the Groups Hub page, and you can customize your own profile with avatars and signature files. In addition, you'll have more choices for the color (or "skin") of your Group, and you can even create your own individual Group icon.
  
• Easier Communication through E-mail and Skype. The ability to email individual members within your Group gets much easier — simply click on their avatar and choose the "mail" option from the drop-down menu. You can also create an address book of members you write to frequently so you can send a note to several of them at once. What's more, Skype will be integrated into Groups so you can contact others by phone, or through the instant messaging client.
  
• Enhanced Search. Each Group will be able to specify five "tags" - essentially keywords that describe what your Group is all about. Prospective members can search terms that match these tags to help them find relevant Groups more easily.
  
• New Features for Group Leaders. Group Leaders will be able to add multiple discussion boards to their Group, plus feature specific members, posts and photos on their Group's home page. You may also choose to open your Group as read-only to non-members to give them a feel for your community's personality (non-members will have to join to actually participate). Finally, you'll have the option of receiving an alert e-mail whenever a member leaves your Group.

As we reported in last week's eBay Watch, (see eBay Watch: Bigwigs Abound, No Rainbow Wigs Around) the company kicked off its summer "relief" program, which lowers Final Value Fees from 5.25 percent to 4.5 percent on the first $25 of a sale price. Fees incurred above the first $25 of a sale will remain unchanged.

The bummer is that while any fee reduction is welcome, this one generally means Final Value Fee on your first $25 drops from $1.31 to only $1.13. The promotion continues to Aug. 5, 2007. Full details and excluded items and category details can be found here.

In marketing news, eBay's new micro-site is up and running. It's centered around "windorphins," which the company says is, "the feeling you can only get on eBay — the excited rush you get when you win that item you really wanted at a great price. Or when you sell an item for more than you expected."

The site explains the phenomenon, enables you to create your own windorphin avatar, win $10,000, and of course, search eBay listings for whatever ignites your own windorphins.

Google (Checkout) Rains on eBay's Parade
This past week rumors ran rampant that eBay, one of Google's largest advertisers, pulled its keyword ads from Google's US site after learning that the Google Checkout online payment service had planned a party for around 9,000 of eBay's buyers and sellers during the eBay Live event. According to eBay, however, the move had nothing to do with the Google party, but was a "test." If data from HitWise tracking is correct, eBay has actually seen very little change in traffic since pulling the ads.

Following the ad yanking, this week Google and eBay head into round two with both companies offering merchants of their respective payment services, Google Checkout and PayPal, specials on shipping. For eBay sellers, the UPS will be offering a Special Pricing Program that lets them use the UPS Daily Pickup rate, with no minimum volumes and no commitments. This program offers a savings of up to 31 percent for eBay packages shipped using the PayPal label printing solution.

Google followed up by announcing a deal with FedEx that will give Google Checkout merchants a savings of up to 21 percent on FedEx Express U.S. shipments, and up to 12 percent on FedEx Ground shipments.

In another interesting Google-related story with an eBay twist, Alex E from MyStoreSpace.com posted at his blog about his adventures at eBay Live, which he says resulted in being thrown out of the conference by Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Gary Briggs and his security entourage. Attending eBay Live to promote MyStoreSpace.com, a next-generation Web store builder, the founders of the new start-up wound up explaining Google Checkout to many of the eBay sellers.

According to the blog post, Alex E and his partner were questioned repeatedly by Briggs and eBay Live security about who they were and if they were there to promote Google Checkout. After a bit of interrogation, Alex E says that they left the conference with "escorts." Y ou can read Alex E's blog post about his eBay Live adventures here.

Third-Party eBay Services and E-Commerce Tools Roundup
Net Geek Solutions updated its Quick Shopping Cart to offer QuickBooks financial software integration. The new feature enables you to better manage Web stores by synchronizing business data between the store and QuickBooks. You can also take advantage of a QuickBooks Merchant Services account to accept all major credit and debit cards and reconcile Quick Shopping Cart payment data directly in QuickBooks. In addition to interacting with QuickBooks, Quick Shopping Cart includes 75 free features including order tracking, inventory management, intuitive search features, a coupon manager, and of course, real-time payment processing.

Everest Software, Inc. recently introduced eAuction Pro offering eBay integration for Everest Advanced 4.0. The upgrade lets Web shop owners more effectively manage their eBay stores by integrating their online and offline distribution channels, according to the company. Key features include auction automation, order creation, fulfillment, auction status and reporting, management controls for up-sell opportunities, auction analysis and bulk processing.

Research Says…
According to eBay Pulse this week, and for the fourth week in a row, Webkinz still remains the most popular search on eBay.com, holding first place above both Wii and xBox 360. Here is a snapshot of several eBay categories and the corresponding top three searches in each on eBay.com for June 22:

• eBay Motors: Rat rod, Mustang and salvage.
• Real Estate: Florida, Texas and land.
• Collectibles: Vintage poster, baseball cards and Precious Moments.
• Crafts: Stampin up, scrapbooking and fabric.
• Gift Certificates: Wal-mart, Target and Home Depot.

MODASolutions, a provider of payment solutions, just released the results of its consumer e-commerce survey (commissioned by J.C. Williams Group) which investigates the relationship between online bill payers and online shoppers. According to the research, 80 percent of respondents indicated that the availability of "a safe and secure online payment option" was the most important factor when shopping online. The second most important factor was interest in alternative payment methods that allow consumers to pay for e-commerce purchases through their online bank accounts.

According to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the UK online shopping market is worth more than $21 billion with more than 20 million people making online purchases last year, showing that e-commerce in the UK is gaining in popularity. The report released by the OFT also called for more customer protection for Internet shoppers.

Only on eBay...
This week we take a look at one of the most well-known faces on TV, Bob Barker from "The Price is Right." Last week Barker's infamous microphone — the one seen daily on the popular game show since Sept. 4, 1972, was auctioned on eBay, along with a letter of authenticity hand-written and signed by Barker.

With 85 bids, the mic sold for an impressive $19,919.08. For those who missed this piece of "The Price is Right" history, there is more Barker memorabilia available on eBay, at lower prices. A signed script of the 5,000th show is going for around $40, with about 170 other "Bob Barker" items currently up for auction.

Have an interesting tip, auction or news item to submit for eBay Watch? Tell us about it!