Archive for the ‘eBay Strategies’ Category
September 2nd, 2010
Every year we produce a survey of online consumer behaviors that provides huge insights into how average consumers shop online. If you sell online, regardless of channel (ebay, amazon, webstore, cse, search, all of the above), you should read this report as it gives you invaluable information on all parts of the consumer's buying cycle.
You can learn more at sister site CSE Strategies here.
Or download the report here: www.channeladvisor.com/consumersurvey.
Enjoy!
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August 31st, 2010
When eBay launched the DSR system, we were always concerned with the fact that sellers that offer free shipping generally received 4.8 on the shipping and handling cost DSR. It proved that the system sets up unrealistic expectations with consumers.
Last week, 8/24/10, eBay somewhat quietly (no AB post, just a tweet+post from their blogger?) rolled out a significant improvement to the system.
If a seller offers free shipping, and the buyer chooses that option, then the seller automatically gets a 5 star on the shipping and handling cost DSR.
You can see a screen shot below of how this will work:
Kudos to eBay to listening to sellers and patching a hole in the system.
SeekingAlpha disclosure- I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor.
August 26th, 2010
Over on sister-site, Amazon Strategies, we have a post about a new Amazon feature that surfaces the top products with lots of demand and little to no supply.
This is a little view into a very powerful strategic advantage that Amazon has over other players, eBay included, and illustrates why eBay is making a huge effort to 'Amazon-ify' the eBay experience. I thought our eBay folks would find the topic of interest.
August 25th, 2010
Today, eBay's Todd Lutwak (looking quite tan, I might add!), announced today that in about nine months eBay will sunset eBay's third party checkout system. ChannelAdvisor (and our customers) are the largest user of the Third party checkout (we use 3PXO as shorthand so I'll use that going forward to save time) system so I wanted to share a bit of background on the system as well as our plans in a world without 3PXO and what it means for buyers and sellers.
Background on 3PXO (or "Greetings loved ones, let's take a journey" – Snoop Dogg )
Prior to October, 2001, there was no checkout at all on eBay. You would click buy now or win an auction and it was up to the buyer and seller to work out how to complete the transaction. To fill that gap, innovative third party applications built checkouts that the seller could just email to the buyer and BAM the transaction was done.
In October, 2001, to much initial fanfare followed by massive outcrying of sellers, eBay rolled out a checkout system. Sellers that were using third party systems were very upset about the system and eBay shortly thereafter allowed sellers to turn off the eBay system and instead plug in one of the third party checkouts- thus 3PXO was born.
Sidebar – this is funny, in searching around, I found that eBay still has the help files up from the initial launch of checkout live here - it's like a trip in a time machine.
ChannelAdvisor and 3PXO, today and in the future
The initial reason that 3PXO was born and exists to this day is that eBay's checkout has significant gaps that in some cases can negatively impact the buyer and seller experience. The biggest items:
- Tax/VAT calculation – many larger retailers need enterprise-level tax calculations as part of their business.
- Promotions – Sellers frequently want to offer specials such as 'buy two get one free', or free shipping on orders over $X, etc.
- Shipping and Handling – eBay has very limited Shipping and Handling options. Also, eBay has a UPS exclusive that makes it impossible to use FedEx as a shipping carrier.
- Up-sells/recommendations – The eBay checkout does not have up-sells or recommendations or after-purchase bundle building/configuration.
- Payment option flexibility - By doing away with paper payment options, eBay has essentially gone Paypal exclusive – many sellers also have found that buyers like having the option to just pay with a credit card or for large B2B transactions, by invoice/PO.
We've been working with eBay to help them understand these feature gaps and they are committed to filling them before turning off the 3PXO functionality. You can read more details about their plans here.
Today we announced our plans around this phase-out of 3PXO. Today, sellers have two choices:
- Stay with the ChannelAdvisor checkout through the holiday period
- Move to eBay checkout with immediate payment today (if immediate payment is a huge issue for you, this is the best path if you don't have tax/fedex/promo/payment/other considerations)
In early 2011 as eBay rolls out their solutions to the gaps that exist, we'll be adding support for those and have more information on when we feel like they are solid and able to meet our customer's needs.
ChannelAdvisor will continue to provide advanced functionality around inventory management, channel optimization, etc. for customers.
Seller impact of the end of 3PXO
If eBay is able to bridge all of the gaps in functionality, there shouldn't be much of an impact to sellers. However, if, for example, eBay forces all sellers onto their UPS rate card, or does not implement improved shipping and handling features, or does not implement VAT/taxation features, the negatives for sellers could be:
- Maybe forced to leave the marketplace due to some showstopper (e.g. VAT tax capture and calc)
- Maybe forced to raise S+H fees if flexibility around promotions, FedEx/shipper, S+H rates, etc. are not allowed.
- Sellers already are not allowed to offer up-sells so that functionality is already gone
Buyer impact of the end of 3PXO
These changes will be largely positive for buyers as they will have one unified checkout experience by mid-2011 and then when the eBay Cart/Basket is ready (reviewed yesterday here), everything will be one happy common buyer experience.
There is a small probability that if eBay can't execute on the long list of checkout features they need to add, that there could be some buyer impact (e.g. the higher fees for S+H mentioned above), but we'll have to wait to see how that plays out.
Conclusion – More Search (and cowbell!!!!), less cart/checkout
There's a long time between now and June of 2011 and we'll keep you posted as eBay rolls out the various fixes to their checkout. Ultimately a common buying experience is the right path and we are very supportive of that path. My only concern is that all of the effort going into checkout and cart right now is taking away from search, which is where I continue to believe eBay is falling further and further behind. If you had to nail one of the two (search or checkout/cart), personally I'd pick search. Right now it looks like eBay is betting on and making the most movement on checkout/cart at the detriment of search.
More bluntly stated – Does it really move the needle if eBay has a perfect cart/checkout if buyers can't find the items they are looking for?
SeekingAlpha disclosure – I am long Google and Amazon. eBay is a strategic investor in ChannelAdvisor.
August 24th, 2010
After taking the summer mostly off from blogging, there's a lot going on in the land of eBay I wanted to update everyone about. In this installment I wanted to take a deep dive into the much anticipated eBay Checkout (Basket) that is in a test in the UK. I'm going to write this a little backwards with the summary first and then a detailed tour last.
Thoughts about the Basket
We've spent a lot of time with the early experience Basket in the UK and while it's a good start, we've found several problems that indicate that it's very raw and buggy. It's great to see eBay moving into the modern era with the checkout, but it lacks many of the benefits that normal carts offer:
- Since most likely items will be from different sellers, promotions around cart size to drive an increase in AOV
- Thus far there aren't any of the AOV expanding options you would expect from a modern cart such as up-sells and product recommendations
- The short-life of most eBay listings makes the occurrence of items in the cart going out of stock much more likely than any other site.
- eBay did an interesting implementation with auctions – it will be interesting to see how buyers react to it.
- The cart/basket is definitely more convenient than the single-path checkout, but my biggest question is eBay's priorities.
eBay seems to be spending a lot of engineering resources on the cart. My biggest concern with the cart is not the functionality itself, but the priority. In my opinion, the eBay search experience is so far behind the times and moving so slowly forward, eBay should take every available resource that is working on cart/basket and put it towards the search effort.
Until eBay gets search 'right', any other changes to the back-end of the process won't do much to accelerate GMV and help buyers. In other words, if you can't find the products you are looking for, then what good is a multi-item cart?
In a future post, I'll give a concrete example of eBay's search challenge, before then let's take a brief tour of the eBay cart so you can see it in action for yourself.
Basket tour
Note in this section, I've scaled the screen shots down to preserve space – click on them to see the larger version.
The first time you notice something different is when you see a little basket in the upper right corner of the eBay homepage.
The other indication this isn't your normal eBay is on an item page instead of the "Buy it Now' button, you have an 'Add to Basket' button.
When you add the item to your basket, it is shown there with the other items and you are able to see all of the items in your basket and check out if you'd like to.
If you add an item to a cart and come back, say a day or two later, and the underlying item has sold, you get the message you see below. At that point, you have to remove it from the basket to be able to continue. Most of the items on eBay still have quantity=1, so it will be interesting to see how frequently this happens and if it ends up really turning off users that are more used to a cart metaphor that is more persistent (Amazon).
Another interesting situation that is happening frequently with the UK cart is that the seller either doesn't allow shipping outside the UK, or the seller hasn't setup their S+H properly and either the item won't add to the cart at all, or it won't calculate the shipping and handling properly. In the following, you can see an example.
Auction items are automatically added to your cart and are ready to checkout as illustrated below (the first item was from an auction and the others are fixed-price 'add to basket' items), When you've successfully added items to the cart, you initiate the checkout process by checking off the boxes of the items you want to include in the purchase as illustrated below:
From there your items are totaled and you checkout in one single checkout vs. multiples. The exception is if the seller is using third party checkout, then you go through two checkouts.
One last thing, as you add items to your basket the little icon shows that it is full.
As mentioned, the basket has several bugs including:
- Frequently when items are added to the cart, they don't actually go into the cart.
- Over a period of 24-48 hours, items drop out of the cart
- The cart's shipping and handling calculations can sometimes get 'off' and create an endless loop.
I'm sure eBay will resolve these, but with the 'basics' of the cart still not there, I don't think we'll have a global site-wide solution for some time to come.
What do you think? Is eBay on the right path?
What are your thoughts on the eBay cart/basket? Silver bullet or putting the cart before the horse?
SeekingAlpha disclosure – I am long Google and Amazon. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor where I am CEO.
August 10th, 2010
Over on sister site, Amazon Strategies, we have a detailed post about some interesting datapoints surrounding Amazon's rapid international expansion and details on ChannelAdvisor's advanced support for Amazon.de and Amazon.fr.
Go to Source
August 7th, 2010
Today we are releasing July data for Marketplaces (eBay/Amazon), Search and Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE). One FAQ that I receive is about currency rates. These SSS percentages are all in native currency. July results July saw a bump up in SSS overall of ~5% compared to June. The results for each channel were as follows with some commentary:
- Amazon - Amazon came in at 62% down from June's 65%. We continue to annualize more customers on our Amazon 2.0 solution which is where the decrease is coming from as we saw in June. Our data indicates that this will settle down in the mid 50% range over time as we get a more true reading from the Amazon SSS that isn't influenced by a major release cycle at ChannelAdvisor. That being said, we have several features that are in beta that are dramatically accelerating sales for those merchants in the beta programs. Once those features hit, depending on adoption, it could cause an acceleration due to software features.
- eBay - We finally saw some stabilization on eBay this month, going back to flat y/y vs. the -5.2% we suffered in June. It's hard to ascertain what exactly is going on as customers still are reporting eTRS challenges and BestMatch.
- CSE - Comparison Shopping Engines came in at 3.13%. This is pretty common for the group to see sluggish growth in the summer months and then really outperform in Q1 and Q4 with some lift in Q3.
- Search - Search enjoyed a dramatic acceleration to 14.19% (up from last month's 10.5%). Google's raft of experiments (Product Extensions, Product Listing Ads, Google Product Search w/ Product Listing Ads, merchant ratings in Adwords, SiteLinks) are having a dual effect: 1) pushing Natural/Organic/SEO results down the page (which encourages more paid activity) and 2) increasing conversion rates. The result is a significant bump in SSS. This bodes well for Q4 as there are rumors that Google will un-beta many of these tests and make them permanent additions.
- Overall - Overall we see that e-commerce in July accelerated back to the mid-teens. Hopefully the consumer can remain optimistic as we head into Q4. There are only 113 days until Black Friday, so it's time to put the final plans together and brace for the Q4 holiday rush.
SSS Chart
The following chart details the SSS data for 2010 through July:
Here is the SSS release schedule for the rest of the year:
- September 7
- October 7
- November 9
- December 7
- Increased frequency for the holiday period TBA
SeekingAlpha disclosure: I am long Google and Amazon. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor where I am CEO.
August 5th, 2010
Sorry for the short notice, but I am hosting a 2010 Holiday 10 Strategies to boost your sales (that you can implement now and still get done in time) @ 2pm ET today – 8/5. We'll be covering a good cross-section of search, comparison shopping and eBay/Amazon. There will be a recording posted later today if you can't make it live.
Sign up and details are here: http://www.channeladvisor.com/webinars/index.php
July 7th, 2010
For more detail on ChannelAdvisor's SSS data, please see this post. Today we are releasing June data and in addition to the eBay and Amazon data, we are now breaking out search and CSE data as per customer requests. We have also had requests to release more details around CSE and search such as CPC, CTR, CR and engine mix (CSE specific). We'll be evaluating the addition of those metrics in the coming months. One FAQ that I receive is about currency rates. These SSS percentages are all in native currency. June results June saw a decline on all channels. There are several potential factors contributing to this such as seasonality, weather, recessionary headwinds and of course a dip in consumer confidence. The results for each channel were as follows with some commentary: SSS Chart The following chart details the SSS data for 2010 through June:
How as June for you? How as your June – I'm particularly interested in hearing about how eBay sellers are dealing with the challenges on that platform. We have some tips we've been giving folks, but there aren't any silver bullets unfortunately. We also hear anecdotally that sellers with the advanced stores with data tracking have seen google traffic to eBay listings/sellers/stores go to near-zero, indicating some big SEO/SEM challenges for eBay. If anyone has some quantitative data to share in comments that would be great.
Disclaimer
ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales (SSS) are reported as a benchmark data point for ChannelAdvisor's internet retailer customers. The SSS data is not a position or forecast of any e-commerce activity, but the real transactional data captured by ChannelAdvisor across over 3000 retailers and $3b of Gross Merchandise Value (GMV). There are many reasons this data is not a proxy for overall e-commerce activity including, but not limited to:
- Customer variance - ChannelAdvisor's customers may not be representative of the overall customer mix of any individual channel. For example, on eBay, our customers are skewed towards the largest eBay customer set, not the average.
- Category variance - ChannelAdvisor is over-indexed in some categories (electronics, sporting goods and auto parts) and under-indexed in others (collectibles, BMV/media, etc.) For example, on Amazon, ChannelAdvisor has very few media customers so we have no visibility into that large chunk of the business.
- Cross Border Trade variance - While ChannelAdvisor does have a fair amount of non-domestic GMV (>25%), our mix and currency exposure is vastly different than other e-commerce players.
- Software Impact - At the end of the day, we are a software company. Some of our features cause a short-term bump in sales that may skew results high a the beginning and then lower at the end of a one year SSS cycle.
- Channel impact - Certain changes at e-commerce channels may cause more good or harm to our customer base, category mix, international mix and software. While the data shows these changes, because we are not a material part of every channel, over 90% of that channel's business may not have the same impact (positive or negative).
SeekingAlpha Disclosure – I am long Google and Amazon, eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor.
July 1st, 2010