Archive for May, 2010
May 27th, 2010
“Ugly Betty” may be no more, but there’s still a chance to hold on to this chapter of television history. Top-rated eBay seller VipFanClubs, which has been bringing Hollywood to the masses since 2003, has exclusive rights to a months-long “Ugly Betty Last Chance” auction happening now on eBay with auction partner ABC Studios. Each week, the seller posts 20 to 30 wardrobe pieces and props from design team Patricia Field and Mark Agnes of the “Sex and the City” franchise. In total, several hundred costumes from main characters will be auctioned off, including designer goods ranging from Christian Louboutin shoes to a Jil Sander dress.
“Ugly Betty” may be no more, but there’s still a chance to hold on to this chapter in television history. Top-rated eBay seller VipFanClubs, which has been bringing Hollywood to the masses since 2003, has exclusive rights to a months-long “Ugly Betty Last Chance” auction happening now on eBay with auction partner ABC Studios. Each week, the seller posts 20 to 30 wardrobe pieces and props from design team Patricia Field and Mark Agnes (they of the “Sex and the City” franchise). In total, several hundred costumes from main characters will be auctioned off, including designer goods ranging from Christian Louboutin shoes to a Jil Sander dress. There are items worn by Wilhelmina (played by Vanessa Williams), Betty (America Ferrera), Daniel Meade (Eric Mabius), Amanda (Becki Newton) and others. The best part: you can bid on whole outfits, not just pieces, so in a matter of clicks, you can score Betty’s Jax dress, belt and yellow purse, or Wilhelmina’s Cavalli blouse, belt and Stewart Weitzman shoes.
On Tuesday, a pair of Betty’s signature red Hero glasses started out at $24.99, garnered 55 bids and ultimately went for $510. Not a bad price for an iconic small screen memento you can actually wear.
Next up from VipFanClubs: an auction of costumes and props from the Fox show “24.” We’re already counting down.
From left to right: Wilhelmina’s Jil Sander Dress (starting bid, $24.99); Betty’s Lela Rose Dress (starting bid, $24.99)
From left to right: Hilda’s Christian Louboutin Shoes (starting bid, $24.99) Claire’s Yves Saint Lauren Shoes (starting bid, $24.99)
Ivanka Adam is eBay’s Collectibles Manager.
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May 27th, 2010
Melinda Jackson of RRBradio interviewed me at eBay: On Location Dallas a few weeks ago and just posted the resulting footage up over on her blog… We talk about the eBayOL events, the history of eBay Ink and the possible future developments to the corporate blog… Here you go.
Cheers,
RBH
May 25th, 2010
In the World of the eBay ecosystem, we have our own lingo that is deeply ingrained and we forget sometimes that people have no idea what we are talking about.
Over at the eBay Ink Blog, RBH posted a picture of eBay's priorities from a sign in an eBay building:
It's titled "eBay Marketplace Goals 2010" and has these three called out goals and then 7 priorities. They are chock full of eBay lingo, so I thought it would be fun to a) decode them and then b) analyze them.
eBay Goals Translation
- Net Promoter Score (commonly called NPS) + 10 ppt – NPS is something I've been meaning to blog about for a while in detail as it has become core to eBay (as is clear from this goal) – it is a measurement of consumer sentiment and word of mouth. The goal here is to improve it 10ppt which translates to percentage points (not powerpoint slides, but that is kind of funny because eBay uses a LOT of PPTs).
- Bought Item Velocity + 6 ppt – This is interesting as eBay doesn't really have a metric publicly called 'bought item velocity'. Pure speculation, but they do have the 'sold item metric' as shown here in this graphic from their Q1 conference call. Perhaps this bought item velocity is a second order measure of sold items and they would like it to increase 6 percentage points y/y (from 31% to 37%).
- Market Share – Maintain – JD has stated numerous times that in 2010 as part of eBay's turn around they will grow 'with' e-commerce (vs. below -08/09 and above – 2011+), so I'm going to guess this is basically saying that eBay will grow with e-commerce. Sidebar – there's a growing disparity in e-commerce growth metrics. Comscore is coming in very bearish with single digit growth and the US dept of commerce is at 14.3% – comscore is the easier metric and if you use that, eBay is at their goal, if you look at the USDC, they are not there.
eBay Priorities Translation
The sign lists 7 priorities along with the three goals:
- "Retail-like" trust levels by reducing BBEs and protecting buyers- BBEs are Bad Buyer Experiences, kind of like the Amazon ODR (Order Defect Rate). Inside of here you have all kinds of things that can go wrong like (SNAD – Significantly Not As Described, INR – Item Not Received, etc.) all of which result in a claim or low NPS score, or the dreaded 1/2 stars of death.
- Enhance selection and value in CSA – CSA is the acronym for the Clothing Shoes and Accessories (now rebranded Fashion) category. More on this in the analysis section.
- Deliver value across the site – Great deals across the site.
- Scale B2C sellers and improve efficiency – B2C (business to consumer) sellers probably refers to the larger merchants that are coming into the system like buy.com, disney, etc. Scaling them means helping them grow much larger. Deal of the day is one lever for this, perhaps there are more to come.
- Defend C2C seller business – C2C are consumer to consumer sellers – a.k.a. 'small sellers' or 'casual sellers'.
- Improve the eBay buyer experience - Self explanatory
- Build our advertising business – ?! More on this in analysis.
eBay Goal and Priority Analysis
Let's start with the goals (NPS, Bought Item Velocity and market share) – these are all good and very much in line with what eBay has been telling Wall St. as well as sellers. It is a bit of a bummer to see that the "Market Share" goal is "Maintain". While realistic, that's a hard one to get the troops rallied and definitely not in the Meg Whitman realm of a BHAG that she seemed obsessed with. However, in context of losing market share for the last couple of years, it's definitely a step up.
The priorities are not what I would expect. First let's think about the order of these. (buyer satisfaction, CSA, value, big sellers, small sellers, buyer usability, ads). Personally, I worry that the buyer experience on eBay is so outdated that it will become increasingly hard for them to keep market share for the next 5 years if they don't make this a priority. I guess you could argue that CSA is where they are doing some pioneering, but the fact that buyer usability is goal number 6, right above ads, makes me nervous. Personally, I'd say they need to do this order (FIX SEARCH, buyer usability, buyer satisfaction, big sellers, small sellers, CSA) Yes I left ads off and added search in all caps 
.
(rant on)
Ads? It is disconcerting to me that eBay has ads on here. I hope I'm misguided, but I'm assuming this is something like AdCommerce and ads on the site and not eBay classifieds (not part of marketplaces). eBay should focus on GMV and not ads. Period.
Personally, I find the AdCommerce ads program to be terrible from all angles:
- Sellers - There is no way to measure closed loop ROI of the system. It's 2010, I can't imagine why anyone would pay for clicks and not know if they turn into conversions in this day and age. We do not recommend sellers use the program for this reason alone.
- Buyers - Google is able to show so many ads on the sight because of one reason – relevance. Google is religious about making sure ads are as relevant as possible. When they do that, it results in a BETTER experience than just organic results because the ads enhance the experience. From a buyer's perspective, the only good thing about the AdCommerce ads are that they are at the bottom of the page and hopefully consumers don't see them very often. I've found they are a HUGE step backwards in the buyer experience because 99% of the time they are not relevant. Here's a great example. I just did an iPad search and I am presented with these three ads: (click to enlarge)
Scanning the pictures, you may think I'm off-base, they seem decent. But dig a tad deeper. The first ad, while it has a picture of an iPad, is actually for a Arwen evenstar pendent (all my LOTR peeps) will appreciate this, but not your average IPAD SHOPPER?! Really!?!
The second ad seems decent – someone has an iPad on sale with free shipping – ok, very relevant – I click through and find that, well, that's not really the 'case', it is a case and not an iPad – a clear decision by this advertiser to mislead the buyer. This ad would last about .00000000000000000000000000000001 seconds on Google, yet here it is happily spamming up the search results for one of the top products.
The third ad is at least clearly an ipad case (at least the image says IPAD CASE). The ad says: "Best Deal Here and "reat (sic) Deals starting at $.99…..". Again, this ad would not last a second on Google, yet here's an ad with a typo.
So let's recap: Three ads: one is nothing like what we are searching for, second is misleading at best and the third has a typo: Useless Consumer Spam: 3, AdCommerce: 0. Spam wins!
Finally, eBay seems to let anyone advertise in this program. Featured listings got a LOT less spammy when they restricted the program to eTRS, they should at least do the same here and in fact, I don't get why you wouldn't just put a bullet in the whole program – it really is just that bad.
(rant off)
CSA? In the Q1 conference call, JD said this of CSA:
"So we are starting from a strong position as the number one clothing site based on sales and traffic and we begin to expect traction from these initiatives in Q2 and beyond. In fact, we expect to generate more than $5 billion in GMV from clothing, shoes and accessories."
So it seems like eBay has decided this category is an area they a) are top and b) want to stay top. This is great and it's good to see them getting aggressive, especially in light of Amazon+Zappos that is a counter force in e-commerce CSA. My only concern is that they neglect the other 10 billion dollar categories on eBay. They kind of capture this with the 'deliver value across the site' priority, but would it be prudent for eBay to win the CSA battle and lose autos, CE/CMP, sporting goods, home+garden, jewelry, toys, collectibles?
What do you think of eBay's goals and priorities? Sound off in comments.
SeekingAlpha Disclosure – I am long Google and Amazon, eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor where I am CEO.
P.S. Here's the AdCommerce Ad that I was just shown as part of a iPod search:
Aside from being totally irrelevant, can you find at least three things wrong with this ad?
May 25th, 2010
This week marks the official launch of Who’s Your Favorite?, a new initiative allowing eBay shoppers to indicate one or more favorite nonprofits that will be served up to them every time they checkout on eBay.com and want to donate a little something to their favorite causes. Lonnie Shekhtman, of WorldofGood.com by eBay, guest posts about this new program and about the many celebrity charity auctions coming to eBay this summer.
Everyone knows that eBay is the world’s number one destination for buying and selling practically anything. But not everyone realizes that the marketplace is also an ideal platform for raising money for charity. Well, Oprah knows this (she sold pieces from her personal wardrobe and raised more than $150K to benefit her Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa), as does Cher and Ellen DeGeneres and Leo DiCaprio. The list of celebrities goes on. Collectively, our favorite stars have raised millions for a plethora of worthy causes by sponsoring high-profile auctions and events through eBay Giving Works, a six-year-old program that offers eBay community members a convenient way to support their favorite nonprofits.
Celebrities are great, but the success of the eBay Giving Works program hinges on eBay’s uber generous sellers and buyers—all 90 million of them globally—who have raised about $191M total funds to date for charity. This week marks the official launch of Who’s Your Favorite?, a new initiative allowing eBay shoppers to indicate one or more favorite nonprofits that will be served up to them every time they checkout on eBay.com and want to donate a little something to their favorite causes.
Robert Duvall, Warren Buffett and Carlos Santana are just three of the notable figures auctioning off their time and goods on eBay in coming weeks, to benefit their favorite charities.
As far as celebrity auctions are concerned, June is a busy month on eBay. Robert Duvall, Warren Buffett, Carlos Santana, Pawn Stars and ESPN are hosting major auctions to raise money for their favorite causes. Check eBay Givings Works’ site often for details, posted shortly before each auction opens. And stay tuned for upcoming stories on The Inside Source profiling our celebrity friends and the social and environmental programs they care about and support.
** Images provided by eBay. **
May 25th, 2010
Ugly Betty
Currently up for auction are wardrobe pieces and props from all seasons of ABC’s Ugly Betty. The collection consists of several hundred main character costumes including full wardrobes from Vanessa Williams (Wilhelmina), America Ferrara (Betty), Eric Mabius (Daniel Meade), Becki Newton (Amanda), Ana Ortiz (Hilda), Judith Light (Claire Meade) and Michael Urie (Marc St. James). The costumes represent high end designer items from costume designer Mark Agnes (Sex In The City and Sex In The City 2). Also offered is a variety of high profile props and accessories from the show.
Top-rated seller VipFanClubs, which has exclusive rights to these items from the network, will be posting 20 to 30 new items a week for several weeks.
One of the most fun things about the auction is that you’re bidding on outfits, not just pieces. So, in a matter of a few mouse clicks, you can score Betty’s Jax dress, belt and yellow purse, or Wilhelmina’s Cavalli blouse, belt and Stewart Weitzman shoes!
From left to right: Ugly Betty America Ferrera Jax Dress & Purse (current bid, $31); Ugly Betty Wilhelmina Vanessa Williams Cavalli Blouse (current bid, $45)
Other items to watch for include [Mark – your input w/ pics is requested].
Follow @eBayCollectors on Twitter to stay up-to-date on the latest in the Entertainment Memorabilia category.
May 24th, 2010
The 2010 eBay Developers Conference is just around the corner (June 8 – 10) and it’s looking like a great lineup of speakers and presentations…
* Renee J. James, Sr. VP and GM, Software and Services Group, Intel Corporation
* Amitabh Srivastava, Sr. VP, Server and Cloud Division, Microsoft
* Martyn Mallick, Sr. Director, Strategic Alliance, Research in Motion
* Gene Alvarez, Research VP, Gartner
* John Donahoe, President and CEO, eBay Inc.For a full list of keynote presenters, CLICK HERE
To join in the conversation on Twitter, use the hashtag #ebaydc10 and follow @ebaydevcon for updates. Be sure to subscribe to the eBay Developers Program blog too!
eBay Dev Con 2010 Quick Links
For a full schedule CLICK HERE
For a full list of sessions CLICK HERE
For a full break down of registration deals, CLICK HERE
For hotel and travel information (including codes for discounted room rates), CLICK HERE
Who Should Attend?
* Savvy developers who want to create better, more profitable applications for eBay buyers and sellers
* Innovative entrepreneurs who want to learn how to use eBay to grow their businesses
* Anyone who’s interested in learning the future of eBay and e-commerce in general
Cheers!
RBH
May 24th, 2010
Last year I teamed up with Jim Cockrum to bring you the Proven eBay Course-I. It was a huge success for the approximately 100 readers who signed up.
The Proven eBay Course-I (PEC-I) was a complete eBay niche business from start to finish that anyone could set up and start making money their first week. Dozens of people who took advantage of it earned –and are still earning, thousands of dollars per month.
Jim is about to launch the Proven eBay Course-II. Like the first one, this is a complete eBay business that is already being done by others including some major PowerSellers, yet it is a business with an unlimited market and plenty of room for new sellers. With PEC-II, you get everything you need to start your business. You will learn what the product is, where to get it, how to buy it and how much to pay and how to sell it and how much to sell it for.
With margins being squeezed on eBay, you need a product to sell that still delivers high margins so you can cover fees and expenses –and this is a niche product that does that. It doesn’ t matter where you live –small town or big city –you can do this. It is not unusual for sellers to make margins as high as 65% or even more on this product. And the sell through rate is quite high –much higher than the average sell through rates on eBay today.
So watch this blog –or even better, sign up for my FREE Newsletter, The eBay and Online Sellers News and you will get first crack at signing up. If you want to do this it is important to jump in early, because as we did with PEC-1, we are limiting this to very few sellers as we don’t want to trash the market.
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May 22nd, 2010
I’ve been doing quite a lot of link building recently, what with building natural search traffic being a rather cost effective way of marketing. Here are some strategies I have used:
Flowers/Chocolate
I’ve found sending flowers or chocolate to target directories to be a very effective way of getting listed fast. Only really worth it for high authority sites!
Reviews
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Content Swap
Writing content for other people’s blog is sometimes a good tactic if you have something interesting and relevant to say. Don’t make it too salesey or in fact, salesey at all. Here is an post which combines my passions for entrepreneurship and baby products.
May 21st, 2010
I’m sorry that I’ve been a bit silent for a while. Part of the reason is that I have written a report for Econsultancy on the wonderful world of eCommerce.
The guide is about 100 pages long and is intended to be a summary of all the areas in which are required for selling online including:
- Setting objectives
- Project management
- Finding a supplier
- Skills and team
- Implementation skills
- Market research and product selection
- Branding and design
- Selecting an e-commerce platform
- Online marketplaces
- Accepting payments online
- Online marketing strategy
- Shopping comparison engines
- Search engine marketing
- Uploading data Web analytics
- Usability and conversion
- Fulfilment and customer service
- Regulations
- Customer retention
If you are interested in reviewing the guide (and thereby getting a free copy which usually goes for £150) please drop me a line.