Ebay Discount Listing Promotion May 24

Ebay U.S will be charging 20 cent insertion fees for auction style listings only on Thursday, May 24. This is a one day promotion starting at 12 am (pacific time) and ending at 11:59 PM. All other fees including listing upgrades will apply.

Excluded are: Fixed Price listings, All eBay Motors listings (including Parts & Accessories, Passenger Vehicles, Motorcycles, Power Sports, Other Vehicles), Live Auction, Professional Services, Real Estate, Ad Format, Store Inventory, and certain business and industrial categories.

eBay Tests New Search-Results Interface

By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com

eBay is tweaking the way it displays search results in what is likely part of a test to help it improve the buying experience on its US marketplace.

Wall Street analyst Bob Peck of Bear Stearns described the new interface in a research report published Monday. He noted that a search for "kingdom hearts ps2" brings back descriptive choices of products the eBay system thinks are best matches - in this case Kingdom Hearts (Playstation 2) and Kingdom Hearts II (Playstation 2). Once a consumer makes a choice by clicking on either game title, a page comes up with a description of the product and five listings that are ending soon, and - as Peck points out - not necessarily ending soonest, as is the default sort on search results.

complete article here

Ebay to Allow Embedded Video in Listings

Several weeks ago Ebay announced that sellers would be allowed to link to videos to describe their listings. On May 11th, Jim Ambach from Ebay announced that they would also be allowing embedded video in listings. In short:

- Videos must conform to all Ebay policies, including their linking policy.

- The seller must be the owner of the underlying rights, including intellectual property rights, or authorized to distribute it by the owners of such rights.

- The video may not solicit unsafe payment methods.

- Videos may not contain viruses or spyware, be used for malicious or unauthorized purposes, or violates the buyer’s privacy.

- To attempt to safeguard eBay members, sellers may only link to videos uploaded to YouTube, MySpace, Google, AOL and Microsoft.

Can't help but wonder how Google, MySpace, etc. feel about having their bandwidth used for commercial Ebay sales.......

Ebay Taking Control of Seller Cross Promotions

Ebay has announced that they are retiring several cross promotion tools that have been available to sellers. Their explanation is that the options simply haven't been as effective as eBay's default logic in driving bids and purchases.

Item level cross promotion will be removed within the next couple weeks. With this tool sellers have been able to create rules as to what types of their own items should appear in the cross-promotion display area on Bid/Buy It Now Confirmation pages, and at the bottom of Stores sellers' item pages.

In June they will be removing the Cross-Promotion Connections feature which allowed sellers to promote other selected sellers' listings on their item pages, as well as the Personalized Picks page in My eBay that makes recommendations for future purchases based on your buying history.

in Ebays words.....Both sellers and buyers should experience better results by letting eBay's logic do the work. There are likely quite a few Ebay sellers who consider "Ebay logic" an oxymoron that rates right up with military intelligence, etc. For those that have been using these tools only time and careful tracking will tell if this is a beneficial move.

ebay page here

IRS Proposal Could Impact Millions of Internet Users

The U.S. Treasury Department -- in an effort to track down unreported small business income -- is seeking legislation requiring brokers of personal property, such as auction houses and consignment stores, to collect personal data on their customers and share it with the Internal Revenue Service. It appears that the real targets of the proposal are Internet-based businesses, including eBay and Amazon. It seems the IRS believes Internet companies should be enlisted in tax collection due to the apparent ease of collecting and transmitting information over the Internet.

The IRS proposal is disturbing on many levels -- not least in that it calls for the collection, storage and transmission of large amounts of sensitive personal information at a time when Internet users are increasingly concerned about identity theft; and when public- and private-sector data breaches have become routine. It would also potentially burden many smaller businesses that lack the technology or security infrastructure to safely collect sensitive personal information.

The IRS proposal calls for "brokers" of transactions involving tangible personal property to file income statements about all sellers who conduct 100 or more separate transactions that generate $5,000 or more in gross income. The IRS form required under the proposal would include the name, address and Social Security number (SSN) or Taxpayer ID Number (TIN) of each seller. In order to comply, brokers would likely need to keep track of ID numbers and other information on all sellers, even those that do not meet the sales threshold (since they won't know until the end of the year who meets the threshold). For small sellers this will almost always be an SSN. The proposal is in the President's budget and, while no lawmaker has yet come out in support of it, the measure could easily find its way into a larger legislative package.

Source Article

NY Public Library Adds "Ebay Price Guide" to Best of Reference 2007

The New York Public Library has added The eBay Price Guide by Julia Wilkinson to its Best of Reference 2007 list. The 552 page price guide is filled with an exhaustive lists of selling prices for items ranging from rare books and sports memorabilia to computer parts and video games. Coverage includes nearly every eBay niche and the most popular subcategories. While there are many guides to pricing for specific collectibles, this is the first reference to help you determine how much to bid or pay on eBay for a truly vast array of items.

The companion CD (included) contains a demo version of HammerTap's DeepAnalysis auction research software, an eBooklet describing how to get started on Ebay, as well as a selling guide and reference materials.

http://www.nypl.org/branch/books/index2.cfm?ListID=338

Profitability Elusive for eBay Drop-off Stores

By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com

Call it the paradox of eBay drop-off stores. A recent AuctionBytes survey shows that while 63 percent of storeowners say the business has not met their original expectations, the majority expects growth in the area of online consignment services. Thirty-one percent forecast high growth opportunities in online consignment services over the next 12 months, while another 43 percent forecast some growth. And with all the challenges of running a drop-off store, 69 percent of respondents said "educating the public" is one of their biggest challenges, and 42 percent said it is the biggest challenge.

AuctionBytes sent an invitation to 602 eBay drop-off stores in April 2007 and got a 17 percent response rate (101 participated). The survey asked stores about marketing, operations, sales and their overall satisfaction.


Complete Article is Here

Yahoo Auctions in U.S. and Canada to Close

For Ebay sellers who also list on Yahoo, the option will soon be coming to an end. Yahoo has announced that they are closing down their U.S and Canada auction sites effective June 16, 2007. The last day to list items is June 3. Auction sites in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan will remain open.

read more here

Ebay CEO's pay package worth $11.1 million in 2006

Associated Press

EBay President and Chief Executive Meg Whitman, one of Silicon Valley's most powerful women, received compensation in 2006 that the company valued at about $11.1 million, according to an analysis of a regulatory filing Monday.

The biggest piece of Whitman's 2006 package was stock option awards that had an estimated value of $7.95 million on the day they were granted. EBay also paid Whitman, 50, a $995,016 salary, a bonus of $221,008, and $911,684 in non-equity incentives.

Whitman received other compensation valued at just over $1 million, including $773,467 for personal use of the company jet.

Read article here

Perhaps a bit more information than Ebay sellers scrambling to make a living need to know.....