What Sellers Should Know about EBay's Latest Shipping Announcement

Ebay's Kristina Klausen recently posted a "Shipping Update" that implys some heavy hitting changes.

Beginning in the next "few months," all sellers will be required to use eBay's shipping calculator instead of other 3rd party tools. Let's touch on the pros and cons...

The Good:
Ebay has been focusing on improving and standardizing the buyer experience. This is definitely a step in the right direction.

The Bad:
Ebay's calculator is very limiting in both shipping carriers (only supports USPS and UPS) and concurrent service level offerings. Is eBay expecting all sellers to ditch DHL and Fedex?

The reality is that many people still distrust buying on eBay. With all the heavy changes lately, eBay has obviously decided that it will no longer be entrusting the important aspects of the buyer experience to its sellers. And, while it's causing a lot of drastic changes for sellers, remember that eBay's end goal is increased traffic, ASPs (Average Sale Prices), and STR (Sell Through Rate).

As a side note, Amazon doesn't even let sellers specify their own shipping rates on most products.

Here's a quick summary of the points in the announcement:
1. Reiteration of shipping costs factored into best match
2. New policies to require specified shipping through eBay instead of description
3. USPS Large Flat Rate Box integrated into calculator

Extra Note to Laris Customers: We're opening up the eBay shipping calculator beta integration to current customers to help get ready for the change. Read More...

Amazon.com, a Seller's Nightmare Video

Shortly after I posted Selling on Amazon.com, a Seller's Nightmare, I decided to sign up with Amazon again to see if they had improved. The answer, of course, is no. Here are the results...

Read More...

Selling on Amazon.com - A Seller's Nightmare?

In discussions over the past few months, our clients all seem to say the same thing about Amazon; Sales are good if you have lots of SKUs, but it's definitely a difficult process.

Here are the major qualms we've heard:
1. Sellers do not understand the basic differences between the Amazon selling programs (Pro Merchant, Seller Central, Merchants@) and which one is right for them.
2. The customer service staff is hard to reach and generally doesn't know anything.
3. Amazon is policed by the "Amazon Alliance". Expect to be banned from selling for life at some point with no one to talk to and know reinstatement process at all.

Auctionbytes added a tiny bit of clarity to the situation in their interviews with Amazon's Matt Williams. Check out the two articles here:

Amazon: We Want Sellers. An Interview with Matt Williams-
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y208/m02/abu0209/s02

Strategies for Getting onto Amazon.com Selling Programs-
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m03/i05/s02

Now, I still think Matt did a terrible job providing clarification for sellers without any Amazon experience, but this is the best job I've seen thus far. Read More...

EBay Cooking the Numbers Again to Boost Best Match and Q1 Changes?

I've read a lot of commentaries and data intepretation praising eBay's Q1 changes and their drastic positive effect on conversion rates. Most reference eBay's pricing structure change, eBay gallery becoming free, and eBay's switch to "Best Match" in search. One such blogger is Scott Wingo, CEO of Channel Advisor, is his article "Q1 data is telling us that the eBay changes are...."

What's most interesting to me, however, is that I can't find any in depth analysis on the topic. Take a look at the comments to Wingo's blog post here.

"...the medved graph for the last fortnight implies that the UK's Free
Listing Day (6 Mar) listings were displayed on the US - the jump is just too
steep to be otherwise. Additionally, considering those listings are not
supposed to be seen on the US according to UK policy, it seems strange that the
vast majority of our buyers for those listings are US residents.

I'm suspicious there is some more eBay numbers-cooking similar to the
shopping.com listings in core fiasco - right now I believe eBay management will
do anything they can to persuade the members that their policies are
correct"

Another commentor writes the following:

"...just taking a quick look at Medveds sell thro rate says it all…worst downward spikes ever this year (below 25%) and still on average hovering around 30-40%..so where are the fantastic numbers ???????"

Of course, with conversion data, it's very hard to tell where the influences lie, especially since e-commerce comes with such a diverse set of variables and influencers. The question, then, is eBay deliberately trying to tip the scales to fulfil their own proficy?

Drop me a comment with your opinion! Read More...

EBay Desktop is EBay Done Right

I just noticed that the eBay desktop beta recently launched on February 24th. The desktop program features a drastically improved interface for both surfing and purchasing.

I especially like two features. Search results stay to the left after clicking on a product to allow faster navigation. Also, the Bid/Buy page allows updating your bids all on one screen. It's definnitely worth checking out.

What's most interesting to me is that the entire interface could be replicated using web 2.0 technologies like AJAX. For a great example of a real website that fuctions this smoothly already, check out my favorite website, mint.com. It's a personal finance manager that fully leverages cutting edge web capabilities to create a stellar user interface.

I can only imagine the benefits to eBay sellers if the main eBay site was this easy to navigate. I'm hoping that this is truely the future of eBay. Read More...