Entries from September 2008 ↓

John Donahoe was in Washington, D.C. to receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for Advancing Global Entrepreneurship. It must be a huge medal to have all that on it.

eBay is the first internet company to be awarded this honor. It is America's Highest Honor for Technological and Scientific Achievement. It appears eBay earned this medal for the work done up to 2007. I wonder what the medal will be called for the disruptive innovation John Donahoe has pursued since he took the helm as CEO?

"Our technology is at the core of our success," said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe, who accepted the medal on behalf of the company. "EBay and PayPal together have harnessed technology in the service of people; the result is that millions have transformed their lives for the better -- building businesses, taking care of their families and becoming global entrepreneurs at the same time. That's what true innovation is all about."

Mr. Donahoe accepted the medal on behalf of his company. Upon receiving the medal, he promptly offered to help President Bush with the current financial crisis. President Bush declined, citing Mr. Donahoe's low popularity. Rumor has it Mr. Donahoe then rushed to the U.S. Capitol to help on the bailout bill.

Okay I made that last part up. But it could have happened...

Read more about the medal here: http://tinyurl.com/49dofo

Popularity: 24% [?]

Would it be a serious problem if you lost your PayPal balance? What if it lost value as a result of the current financial climate?

(This information applies primarily to U.S. users. If you are outside the U.S., double-check to see if your funds are at risk.)

Since PayPal is not a bank, funds are not directly covered by FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). They are covered by what's called FDIC Pass-Through Insurance. But pay attention, if your funds are in PayPal's money market fund, they are not covered at all by FDIC and may lose value.

First, here's what's covered by FDIC Pass-Through Insurance, from the PayPal site:

You do not need to keep funds with PayPal in order to use our service. If you do hold a balance, you can do so in two ways: (1) PayPal, as your agent, will place your funds in a pooled account at an unaffiliated FDIC-insured bank or savings institution, which is eligible for pass-through FDIC insurance coverage; or (2) you can elect to earn a return on your funds by enrolling to invest all funds that you receive into the PayPal Money Market Fund. The PayPal Money Market Fund is not FDIC insured, not guaranteed by any bank and may lose value. PayPal keeps a record of the amount of your balances, which you can check by logging in to your account through the PayPal Web site at any time.

So the money market funds can lose value. If your funds are not in the money market, PayPal keeps your money in one of three banks. (Wells Fargo, Bank of America, or Comerica - California, U.S.A.). If one of those banks fail,

your balance placed at the bank would be subject to FDIC pass-through deposit insurance coverage, along with any other deposits you hold at that bank, up to a total of $100,000.00 USD. Pass-through deposit coverage is contingent upon PayPal maintaining accurate records and on determinations of the FDIC as receiver at the time of a future receivership of any bank at which we place your funds.

The only way your funds are protected by FDIC is if they are not in the PayPal Money Market Fund. If that makes you nervous, you can close your PayPal Money Market Fund, and have PayPal keep your funds in an FDIC insured bank by-

• logging into your PayPal account
• click "Profile"
• click "Money Market Fund"
• click "Close Money Market Fund"

It will take a little while to get this done, so plan ahead. The bottom line is your funds are covered by FDIC if they're not in the money market fund.

There is one other thing PayPal says:

FDIC pass-through deposit insurance protects you only against the failure of the bank at which PayPal places your funds, and does NOT protect you against PayPal's insolvency. Through the terms of our User Agreement, we believe that your funds will also be protected from any claims of PayPal's creditors and will be returned to you even in the unlikely event of a PayPal insolvency.

It seems like the most reasonable thing to do is scrape your PayPal account regularly, into your bank. At least there is one less layer between you and your money. Keep it simple.

Here is the direct link to the PayPal-FDIC page: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/travelers-outside

Popularity: 30% [?]

John Donahoe is less popular than President George W. Bush. The President took years to get to this point, Mr. Donahoe accomplished it in just one. Exactly one year ago this weekend, Mr. Donahoe was a guest speaker at the Legg Mason Capitol Management Thought Leader Forum. The topic was "Disruptive Innovation," and Mr. Donahoe spoke about his plans for eBay. Let's see how he's done. It get's better the farther you go, as I get more frustrated and sarcastic. This is a long post, get a donut. I'll wait. The following contains actual quotes from Mr. Donahoe's speech. At the bottom of this post, I've included the "concept cards" from his presentation that can be found on the Legg Mason Capital Management website. Oh and along with my sarcasm. Feel free to add your own.

The topic of disruptive innovation and the history of eBay have a lot in common. In many ways, eBay itself was a disruptive innovation. All three of the major businesses that are a part of eBay are disruptive innovations. I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about how eBay got to where it is and then talk about how we approach innovation going forward. Today we're dealing with phase two or phase three of disruptive innovation. We've had the disruption, now we must disrupt our own disruption. That's part of the challenge.

Okay, does he know which phase we're in? Because that seems like it would be important. And this sentence, "We've had the disruption, now we must disrupt our own disruption." reminds me of the guards in Monty Python and the search for the Holy Grail, see what you think:

We set out a year ago to think about how we could change before we are forced to change. We took a good look at ourselves in the mirror and didn't like everything that we saw. We saw a very successful business and a lot of momentum but we saw that our user experience and ability to satisfy our buyers and sellers wasn't what we wanted it to be. By using a real focus on the customer, we embarked on a series of fundamental changes that will ultimately span a three year period. We started by creating a future vision. This was critical because not everyone felt the impetus to change, given the amount of success we were experiencing. There's a real push to keep doing what you're doing because it's working. We dove deeply into an understanding of our customers, their needs, their unmet needs, and their alternatives. We had to confront some sacred cows. These are often some of the most difficult things to handle. They're perceived as values of the company. For example, we talk about the level playing field. We treat every seller the same. Now, the level playing field really means that the little player shouldn't get shut out. It was never intended to mean that we treat a bad seller the same as a good seller. Intermediation is another one. It doesn't mean that we can't intervene to make a better buying and selling experience. We also had to address some of the cultural and organizational dimensions.

One of the most fundamental activities is "finding", or what most people think of as "search", on eBay. Historically, the core part of our business model started with a search and the results came back with time ending soonest-the items that are ending soonest at the top of the list. That makes sense during auctions because at the last minute you want to bid and win. Today over 40 percent of the items on eBay are fixed price. We have such volume that many of our buyers said that there was too much abundance. They just want to buy a Nike watch and instead they get 12,000 results back. That's too many. They want to get to what they want, faster. We agreed. There's a lot of talk around the Internet about relevance engines for advertising. Nobody on the Internet has more close transaction data than eBay or PayPal. We have the opportunity to build the best finding experience there is. We weren't collecting the data in a way that we could use it, so we had to change that. Tinkering with the finding experience is also tinkering with one of the core jewels of eBay. But we recognized that eBay has more product searches than any other property on the net, including Google. We convert single digits from searches to bids or buys-a fairly small percentage of those searches-and all we have to do is move that by a fraction to have a profound impact on our company. Over the last eighteen months we have set out to make a series of incremental improvements in our finding functionality. We bought Shopping.com, which is a great destination site but also brought us great finding and search technology. We experimented with eBay Express and built a separate parallel site to experiment with relevance-based search. We went completely with relevance-based search in Korea. Finally, we began layering in something called "best match" into our core site. Those of you who use eBay, if you look in your search box, you can select best match as an option which will help you get to the items you want more quickly. Finding is a core area that we're going to launch a series of improvements in during the next few months.

He pretty much admits eBay Express was an experiment to tinker with the search technology. Then talks about relevant search. Relevant search is once again saying, "we know what you want better than you do." How would you like this? You go to Macy's and ask for the necktie section, and instead of the clerk letting you shop, she comes back with five neckties from which to choose. When you ask to see them all, she says "there's just too much abundance over there, these are the Best Match for you."

In this next quote, notice the philosophy being promoted. Would you like working at a place like eBay? Evidently, according to GlassDoor.com, only 28% like it right now... Oh, and see if you can find yourself anywhere in this equation:

Based on our experience, here's how innovation at the core worked. We had to create a mind shift at our company-we had to think bold and not just incremental. We had to create a vision of the future so people could let go of a very successful past. We had to understand that this wasn't going to just happen overnight. While we're doing this, we're running a successful business. We need to drive these principles of disruption at the same time that we're executing a very successful business. Second, we have to look at all parts of the business model-the whole end-to-end user experience. We're using our global portfolio to test and learn. We're testing ideas in Korea, France, Italy and elsewhere around the world. We're testing various pricing mechanisms. All of this requires new infrastructure, whether it's new data, testing or advertising capabilities. Finally, even I may have underestimated how important organization and culture are. Antonio [Perez] talked earlier this morning about needing to get rid of 70 percent of the people to change a culture. We don't have that luxury. We're growing at 30 percent a year. We need to build on the team we have and help shape the momentum in the right way. We had a bit of a restart with our vision. We set off on this and the senior team was all aligned. But we hadn't invested enough in the rest of the organization. So last year in the fourth quarter we took our entire organization through the process.

"Let go of a very successful past"? Wow. They're delivering on this one.

I also like the part he says about "executing a very successful business" - poor choice of words John.

And they have solved the "growing at 30% a year" problem. Now they can focus on getting rid of 70% of the people to change that pesky eBay culture. A year after this speech, is the senior team all still aligned? Well, now that some have departed, I don't think so. And besides that - aligned with whom? The other members of the senior team? or the community? employees?

Okay, here's another quote. This is the last one I'll share, because you can read the entire speech for yourself if you'd like. This one is cute. It tells how eBay is willing to churn out new products even before a business case has been made for that product. In other words, people dream stuff up, they put it on the site, and we either like it or not. Imagine what cars would look like if automakers did the same thing:

We're providing a forum to bubble-up ideas. We have a skunk works in-house. We're creating lightweight, cross-functional teams. We're giving the teams the freedom to focus on the right user experience and then worry about monetization. If we ask for too firm a business case up front, they'll never get out of the gate. We give them the space and energy to move aggressively and we use user adoption as the metrics in the early days. We talk and listen to customers, but for this kind of innovation, customers don't always know what they want. No one would have asked for a widget, but when they saw it they liked it. There's a real balance between being customer-driven and going with your intuitions. We also put the right people on the team - not everyone can do this kind of innovation. We are acting like internal venture capitalists with our resources. We give them just enough to get to the next round. We also know when to cut them off or keep them going. Finally, we involve people from the core business in these ideas, but not too early in the process. People in the core business typically want to kill these things when there's a tight quarter.

Really John? "Customers don't always know what they want?" How would you know for sure if they can't find it? So let me understand, the customers are saying what they want, not getting it, and leaving. Sellers are unhappy, buyers can't find things they are searching for, and eBay has people inventing new things that haven't been asked for yet? Brilliant! I feel so disrupted.

Does anyone know if John is speaking at the Thought Leadership Forum again this year?

UPDATE: Someone posted a link to this post on the eBay discussion boards early this weekend. Evidently, eBay has deleted the entire thread. If you'd like to see what they found so offensive, you can look at the cached version here: http://tinyurl.com/3lrgac

Here is a link to the entire speech: http://www.leggmason.com/thoughtleaderforum/2007/conference/donahoe.html

Here are the "Concept Cards" from the speech (click them to enlarge):

Popularity: 100% [?]

Tonight only, September 25, 2008 from 5PM to 8PM - Cold Stone Creamery is offering free ice cream in honor of their 7th Anniversary. You can find the location nearest you with their store finder here www.coldstonecreamery.com/store_locator

If you're too late for the free ice cream - check out these cool vintage ice cream items:

Vintage 23 Arnold Milkshake Mixer White Ice Cream Soda US $175.00

1980 Vintage Ice Cream Doll US $15.96

8 Vintage Knives With Wooden Handles Ice Cream Scoop US $10.00

Ice Cream Forks Vintage Grape Rogers 5 9 16 In US $65.00

Vintage 1950s Carnation Ice Cream Paper Dolls Nos US $3.99

Vintage Roy Rogers Plamondon Ice Cream Marriott Nickel US $12.99

Vintage Adams Strawberry Ice Cream Flavors Gum Stick US $18.99

Vintage Ice Cream Victorian Box Container Dairy US $5.99

Vintage Ice Cream Parlor Advertizing Fan 4 4 Free S H US $6.00

Add eBay Listings to Wordpress

Popularity: 29% [?]

After a great outcry from loyal eBay Pulse users - it appears eBay has rolled back the changes to make some adjustments. I posted twice about the changes on this site, and the eBay discussion boards have been lit up with complainers. Dennis G. (Dennis Goedegebuure, eBay Marketing?) posted this comment on my most recent post about eBay Pulse:

Based on community feedback, we have rolled back the old pulse for a limited time. Until the application is live, we will build in the needed functionality for drill down in categories for detailed information in the new pulse pages.

Until then, you can find the new pulse at http://new-pulse.ebay.com

Kind regards,

Dennis

The fresh look is nice. Even the Internet Pulse sounds nice, but most users are upset that the ability to see the top searches within sub-categories was removed. It appears eBay is working to fix that.

It sounds like Dennis listened and is working to make users happy. In light of many unwelcomed changes over the past year - this is really refreshing.

Cheers to you Dennis!!

See the New Pulse at http://new-pulse.ebay.com

Popularity: 36% [?]

Do you have a Goya Guitar? Want one?

Here are the quick facts:

• They were marketed in the United States beginning in the 1950's by Levin Instruments.

• They are named after the Spanish artist Francisco Goya because he featured guitars in his paintings and these look similar.

• It was felt "Goya" would be a more marketable name than "Levin" in the U.S.

• Goya guitars use nylon strings instead of steel strings. This made the guitars favorites of folk musicians.

• They were known for their high-quality, shiny finish.

Here are some current Goya Guitars on eBay:

Vintage Goya Electric Guitar Metal Flake Sparkle Red US $676.66

Vintage Goya Electric Guitar Metal Flake Sparkle Gold US $661.11

Vintage Goya T 14 Acoustic Guitar Sweden US $199.00

Goya Martin Takamine Ga 440 Solid 1978 Acoustic Guitar US $339.00

Goya Rangemaster Electric Guitar W Factory Hard Case US $99.99

1970s 80s 90s Goya Martin G4 Acoustic Guitar W Case Nr US $12.50

Goya Archtop 5 String Banjo With Hard Case US $102.50

Goya Rangemaster Guitar Vintage 1960s Italian US $1,500.00

Goya Ts 4 Levin Lts 4 Vintage 12 String Guitar US $350.00

Add eBay Listings to Wordpress

Popularity: 35% [?]

Refunds have been promised to sellers who were victims of eBay's latest glitch. This time, an unknown number of items did not appear in search results. It seems no one knows which items did not appear yet. So it's a pretty empty promise from eBay. This is just the latest crisis in a long string of fumbles when sellers are already miffed. How much will eBay sellers take?

How much will people take before they take drastic action? Think of a few examples.

1. We have a McDonald's in my town. I know, it's probably not good for me, but that's not why I hesitate to go there. The reason I hesitate is they get my order wrong over half of the time. My wife likes an occasional Sausage McMuffin w/ Egg - no cheese. Recently, I ordered one at the counter, the lady even went to the girl making the sandwich and specifically told her what I ordered. What I got was a Sausage McMuffin w/ Egg - no SAUSAGE! To top it off, when I took it back in, they remade it. The same way!
2. We have an A&W restaurant. (I know, more fast food.) I love their food. They only accept cash. I don't hardly ever carry cash in the 21st century. They have an ATM where I can get $20 cash - if I pay a $2.00 charge. Nevermind, I'll go somewhere else. I like the Coney Dogs, but it's the principle. Look A&W - I take credit and ATM cards, and I just sell stuff online. They need to get up to speed, and I'll gladly spend my money there.
3. The Circle-K has the lowest price for gas in town. They only have four pumps. About half of the time, the credit card processor on the pumps does not work. If it does, the pumps are excruciatingly slow. I've timed it. It takes a l-o-n-g time to fill up. My time is valuable (why else would I eat fast food all the time?) so I go somewhere else, even if it costs a little more for gas.

My question then is - how much inconvenience will eBay sellers take? There is an end to their patience. Many, many have already reached their limit. Others will follow soon. But what can they do when there are no practical choices?

Short term strategy for small sellers?

Small sellers will go back to yard sales and garage sales. The smart ones will play to their buyer's dream to strike it rich on eBay. Think about it, they know what sells on eBay. They know what buttons to push to pull in tons of yard salers on Saturday morning. You small sellers - you know which keywords work to draw eBay traffic - use them to hook and reel in the Craigslist crowd.

Lessons from the auto industry

Back in the 1960's and 1970's, the U.S. auto industry got fat, lazy, and they were arrogant. They made big, heavy, gas-guzzling cars. And they made them poorly. By the 1980's, people had finally had enough of the junk. They spent their money on the smaller, well-built Japanese and German cars. The U.S. companies acted like they never saw it coming.

When the imports began to trickle into the U.S. in the 1960's, they were a curiosity. Most were considered a joke. VW Beetles were cute, not serious. A Honda? A refrigerator on wheels! But in time, the trickle became a flood.

Think about the similarities. Many companies are trying to compete against the behemoth, eBay. At this point, most are a curiosity. A few devoted sellers claim they've found "the one" that will become their new home. But it's still too early to tell which of the small platforms will rise above the others.

It will happen though. eBay is producing junk. They are bloated, management is totally out of touch with the eBay community. Word on the street is they are disconnected within the company too. Employees feel management is jerking the company in every direction as it swerves all over the road. One of the most common themes is "no clear strategy."

More lessons from the auto industry...

Where will the "imports" come from? Think again about what happened with the auto industry. Going back to the post-WWII era in Japan. At that time, "Made in Japan" meant cheap junk. But the U.S. helped Japan rebuild. They taught them many of the secrets of industry. The Japanese took that knowledge, and combined it with their own cultural efficiency - and finally beat the U.S. automakers at their own game.

What can be learned from this? eBay has pulled literally millions of people into ecommerce. They've been taught the basic lessons of online retailing. Many of those sellers are better than eBay at selling things online. They have the agility, and the efficiency that eBay once had. They have a clear vision of where they want to go. Ultimately, one of the sellers eBay trained will beat them at their own game. We just have to be patient.

Oh and you'd better check your order carefully before leaving the parking lot...

Popularity: 39% [?]

"SO"

eBay is having a Town Hall broadcast today at 11:30 AM Pacific Time. They will no doubt be fielding questions on the Fixed-Price 30-Day listing format, the fact that Search is broken, eBay layoffs, and all the other stuff that has gone wrong lately.

There may not be any clear answers, and it will ultimately be frustrating to listen to. I have a little game I like to play during these Town Hall meetings. I keep a piece of paper handy, and I jot down each time an eBay staffer inappropriately starts a sentence or reply with the word "So."

Let me give you some examples from the August Town Hall transcript. It's stunning how the San Jose types fall into this mannerism. I've highlighted the obviously inappropriate and totally unnecessary occurrences, drop the "so" and see how much more clear their replies would be:

Let's start with the boss, Lorrie Norrington:

Lorrie: So let me cover two of the areas, which are Pricing and Finding. And then I’ll ask Steph to pickup on Shipping. So one of the items we’re most excited about is the changes we’re making to fees for fixed price listings. And we’re dramatically reducing the upfront cost for our sellers by lowering insertions fees. And then we’re adjusting or raising the success base final value fee on the back end for fixed price listings.

So what does this all mean? It means a thirty-five cent flat fee on all fixed price listings, regardless of item price, quantity listed, and it’s good for up to a thirty day duration. So this is a big change; one flat fee, thirty day duration. And you can list as many identical items as you want in a multi-quantity listing for the same low insertion fee. So we simplified insertion fees, we’ve lowered insertion fees, and we’ve extended duration and enabled multi-listing. So in addition to that, we have introduced a fifteen cent insertion fee for media items; which are books, movies, music and video games, and a five cent insertion fee starting on September 16^th. And through the end of the year, when you sell media items using the prefilled item information or the catalog. So some big changes there.

Stephanie Tilenius is one of the worst offenders:

Stephanie: So buyers have told us time and time again, that shipping costs on eBay are just too high. In fact, excess shipping is the number one reason buyers say they’ve had a bad experience on eBay. So this is causing buyers to move to other channels and make their purchases elsewhere, which of course, ends up hurting our sellers. So we have decided we need to work with sellers to create a marketplace with free and reasonable shipping. So today, or Wednesday, we actually announced we were setting maximum shipping caps based on historical data of what buyers told us is reasonable shipping. And this will keep more buyers satisfied and help sellers drive more sales.

So let me explain what that means. We’re introducing limits on shipping and handling charges in media categories. So we’re starting with media, where items are generally more consistent in size and weight and where we believe the buyer expectations are particularly heightened for free and reasonable shipping. And we’re gonna learn a lot in the media category and then work to rollout reasonable shipping in other categories as we see fit and as we hear from buyers.

Jamie Iannone, VP of Buyer Experience loves the "so" word a lot, but for no apparent grammatical reason:

Griff: Thank you, Keith. Let’s take a question that came in earlier. This one is about best match and duplicate items. “Since eBay implemented the new search criteria, starting July 31^st, limiting the display of duplicate items shown in search from the same seller, our sales have plummeted. Is eBay aware of what a drastic effect this has had on many sellers?” And Jamie, I think this one is for you.

Jamie: Sure. So let me backup and talk about why we did this and what we’re seeing. So the goal of this was about a month ago, we relaxed our 15 Item Rule, so sellers could actually list more on the site.

here's another:

Griff:Thank you. 877-474-3302. Let’s go back, this is a question I hear a lot too. You know, we talk about we want more buyers to come, and a lot of sellers are asking this very question, Jamie. “So your changes are well and good functionality wise but what exactly are you doing to bring buyers here? How will they know about this new buying experience?”

Jamie:Yeah, thanks Griff. So obviously, a key part is marketing to our buyers about a lot of the changes that are coming on the site today. So we have a pretty extensive product marketing plan to let buyers know about some of the exciting changes that they’ll see. Frankly, I think it’ll be pretty obvious to them when they come to the site hopefully, that there’s a lot more great inventory to shop through, etcetera. But over the course of you know, this month and the next few months, we’re continuing to put a lot of dollars to work out there on the web, buying traffic to bring buyers into the marketplace. And we’ll be doing a lot of product marketing around the new features that we have on the site. One of which that’s launching this week actually makes the product experience a lot easier when you’re buying a specific catalog item. So if you’re surfing the site today or probably starting tomorrow, you’ll actually see we have a new implementation of shipping via catalogs or products. That’s actually really great and much, much easier for buyers to use.

Here's Kristina Klausen, Dir. of Shipping

Griff: Um, actually, it does have it built in.

Kristina: So Frank, just to clarify. It’s Kristina, from the Shipping Team. Are you offering free shipping on, you want to offer it on all the items in your multiple item listing?

Caller: Yes, that’s what I’ve always been doing.

Kristina: Okay. So you can do that. Um, I’m just trying to understand what the problem is.

SO. Get the point? So while most people begin a sentence with "So" in response to a question, or to logically connect one thought to another, eBay people just use it instead of "ummm" to fill space.

Play the game! Make a mark every time the word is used inappropriately and let me know your counts! Listen to eBay's Town Hall meeting live today - or catch the archived version when you need some painful fun.

By the way, if you'd like to see the proper ways to use the word "so" in a sentence, check out the Merriam-Webster site at: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/so%5B1%5D

Popularity: 37% [?]

eBay's Fixed Price 30-Day listings are off and running. Now that Medved.net has refreshed, and some bulk listings tools have been updated - we're seeing results. The count is up over 1 million over last week. Time will tell if this will be the magic bullet for eBay's Q4.

There have been some initial bugs, but the real test will be whether the site gets flooded with absolute junk, or if the shoppers will be able to find what they've come for.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Do you make money with your blog? No matter what you write about, you can spruce up your posts, and earn a little along the way with phpBay Pro. phpBay Pro is a Wordpress plugin that pulls live items from eBay and displays them in your blog posts. It automatically adds your affiliate ID for the eBay Partner Network.

The plugin displays results based on information you supply in your post. The code that's inserted into your post looks like this:

[phpbay]keyword(s), num, "", ""[/phpbay]

You insert your keyword where it's specified, and the number of results you want to display. The third parameter is for the eBay category if you want to be specific, and the fourth is for exclusion keywords.

If you wanted to show kitten heel shoes, 9 of them, in Women's Shoes, but not green, your code would look like this:

[phpbay]kitten heel, 9, "63889", "green"[/phpbay]

And here are the results displayed:

Elegant Camel Kitten Heel Pumps Shoes All Sizes Nib Fs US $49.95

Bcbgirls Cree $90 Women Kitten Heel Pump 55 Charcoal US $44.94

Nib Celine Kitten Heel Shoe Choose Sz67758859 US $111.00

Chanel Gold Kitten Heel Cc Logo Thong Sexy Xlnt 36 US $99.99

Nib Donald Pliner Leopard Tomato Sand Kitten Heel 75 M US $89.00

Manolo Blahnik Black Suede Kitten Heel Pump Size 6 36 US $55.00

New J Crew $198 Short Rivington Kitten Heel Boot 55 US $97.99

Bcbgirls Cree $90 Women Kitten Heel Pump 65 Charcoal US $65.00

Bcbgirls Cree $90 Womens Kitten Heel Pump 6 Red Salsa US $65.00

Add eBay Listings to Wordpress

Normally, it searches for one keyword or search term. But what if you wanted to display results for two terms? Just add a vertical bar between the keywords and you can perform an "OR" search. The vertical bar is usually located on the key above the "enter" key, the same key as the backslash.

For an example, I wouldn't normally find John McCain items alongside Barack Obama items. What if I wanted to mingle them together? All in the spirit of unity of course. The phpBay code would like this:

[phpbay]john mccain | barack obama, 9, "", ""[/phpbay]

And here are the two candidates' items all mixed together:

Barack Obama Time People Newsweek Magazines Mint US $37.50

Barack Obama Victory John Mccain Concession Speech Dvd US $6.99

6 Presbarack Obama Buttons Button Pin Pinback Design US $4.20

Barack Obama 11 5 Lot Of 10 Chicago Tribune Newspaper US $149.00

Barack Obama Biden 44th President 2008 Novelty Penny US $2.99

Barack Obama 2008 5 Pcs Poker Chip Set Democrat Free US $14.95

The Audacity Of Hope By Barack Obama 2008 US $11.98

Barack Obama 44th President Novelty 2008 Penny A US $2.99

Obey Shepard Fairey Barack Obama Vote Small Poster US $21.50

Add eBay Listings to Wordpress

Popularity: 25% [?]

eBay Pulse was "improved" this week, much to the dismay of frequent users. This was a great tool, that allowed users to drill into sub-categories to see what search terms shoppers were using most. Unfortunately, the "improvements" eliminated popular search terms for all but the top categories. This new, gutted tool is pretty worthless to sellers. It's not a tool, it's a toy.

I'm sure some people worked hard on it. I'm sure they had mock-ups, and brainstormed, and used the white boards. There were meetings upon meetings. Probably (having worked at eBay) there were meetings about meetings.

There were also no doubt, considerations about how to display the information.

• "Could we charge for this information instead of giving it away?"
• "Should we filter the results so we don't hurt a weak category?"
• "Should we consider our paid sponsors when displaying results?"
• "How could we turn this into a revenue stream?"
• "How do sellers use this tool?" (This question likely prompted inquisitive looks at each other.)
• "Will it be pretty?"

So, anyway - it was released. Sellers are complaining. I can't imagine why though. Look at this screenshot I grabbed this morning of the Biggest Movers on eBay Pulse:

Now I understand people have a hard time making up their minds about products. But really? Everything is moving up and down at the same time?

Part of the problem with the new tool is the addition of the "Internet Pulse" showing top searches from "selected" blogs. How will I use that information when creating my titles? How can I use it to determine a niche market for my business? The current terms on internet pulse are:

• fashion week
• iphone
• stamps
• coin show
• game
• blog
• xbox 360
• money
• david foster wallace
• launch

How will those terms help me as a seller? They are so broad as to be useless. They will always be broad terms.

The top searches by category are equally as broad. They contain the top searches for the main category only. Under Collectibles, the top ten search terms cover a category with one and a half MILLION items.

I know new things have bugs, so to be fair I thought I'd take another look to see if eBay had fixed the problem shown above. Here is a screen shot from an hour later:

Popularity: 28% [?]

Amazon.com announced the newest addition to their family today - their Motorcycle & ATV Store. The store is a single spot for motorcycle & ATV parts, accessories and protective gear.

The store contains hundreds of thousands of parts and accessories for brands such as: Alpine Stars, Yamaha, Fox Racing, Harley Davidson, HJC, Joe Rocket, Kawasaki, Shoei, Suzuki and Tour Master.

With climbing fuel prices everywhere, motorcycle and scooter sales rose by over 20% last year. This is a smart move on Amazon's part. It's also another small foray into territory dominated by eBay Motors over the past few years.

Here is part of the announcement from Amazon:

We are excited to offer motorcycle and ATV customers a huge selection, great prices and the convenience of Amazon’s unique shopping experience,” said Steve Frazier, vice president of Automotive for Amazon.com. “No matter what style of motorcycle they ride, both new riders and enthusiasts can find the tools, parts and accessories they need to upgrade their bikes, prepare for winter riding, venture off-road or perform routine maintenance.

Visit Motorcycle & ATV Store here!

Popularity: 22% [?]

Speculation is building that eBay may be laying off up to 1500 workers soon. Barron's has reported it, and Reuters has repeated it. AuctionBytes, and Randy Smythe have mentioned it. And Scot Wingo at the eBay Strategies blog has asked what the impact on sellers might be. Will the layoffs really happen? Well, when there's this much smoke...

eBay Strategies primarily discusses where the cuts might be made. I think a lot of people may wonder what effect it will have on them personally as sellers and buyers.

Effects on the eBay Community

Laying off 10% of the employees may not have a direct effect on the average eBay user. However, it will continue the deterioration of the eBay business through perception. eBay may say they're "refocusing" or "reorganizing" or striving for "operational efficiency," but it won't pass the sniff test on Main Street. Layoffs are only considered good by Wall Street, most people think of layoffs as a sign of trouble.

First is the perception of the ex-employees. Laying off 1,500 people will sow the seeds of a thousand blogs. There will be people who have really worked hard to make eBay better. And they'll feel like they've been thrown under the bus for the sake of a misguided strategy. They'll be bitter. And they'll blog. They'll be sought out by newspapers. They will join other companies and work against eBay.

Second, the perception of the existing community. "Is eBay really doing that poorly?" "Can I trust eBay with my business?" Sellers will back off even more. Less sellers, less merchandise.

Third, consider how the general public will perceive it. Will eBay be able to persuade people to join and sell their stuff? No one wants to board a sinking ship. Perception is reality to many many people.

As a seller - things won't likely get better for you. The problem with eBay is not too many employees. The problem is that it's broken.

As a buyer - you won't feel as comfortable buying on eBay when news reports and blogs are speaking negatively about it. Also, with fewer sellers, there will be less selection. We only have so much time. So we'll go where we can shop, find what we want, buy it, and get out. It's what eBay wants to be, but they're not pulling it off.

Why the Layoffs?

eBay's stock price is about at record lows. Barron's reported that eBay's business is "deteriorating." In that situation, Wall Street likes layoffs. But it's a short-term fix. The stock may get a bump, but the problem remains. Management is on a course that seems to be running eBay in the ground. And there is no sign they'll change course.

Part of the situation reminds me of Yahoo's "Peanut Butter Manifesto" from 2006. The "leaked" memo talked about Yahoo's internal problems. One of the problems the author pointed out was:

Our inclination and proclivity to repeatedly hire leaders from outside the company results in disparate visions of what winning looks like - rather than a leadership team rallying around a single cohesive strategy.

Sounds like eBay. People who don't really sell on the site, making decisions that affect people who do. Those decisions are often based on business school theories, and executive experience gained at brick and mortar enterprises.

Will eBay get rid of the right people? Ask yourself - have they made the right decisions over the past 18 months? More from the Yahoo "peanut butter manifesto:"

We have lost our passion to win. Far too many employees are “phoning” it in, lacking the passion and commitment to be a part of the solution. We sit idly by while - at all levels - employees are enabled to “hang around”. Where is the accountability? Moreover, our compensation systems don’t align to our overall success. Weak performers that have been around for years are rewarded. And many of our top performers aren’t adequately recognized for their efforts.

As a result, the employees that we really need to stay (leaders, risk-takers, innovators, passionate) become discouraged and leave. Unfortunately many who opt to stay are not the ones who will lead us through the dramatic change that is needed.

The brain drain at eBay has been profound over the past year and a half. When I heard we wouldn't recognize eBay after the management got through with it, I thought they were predicting something better. Not this.

In any case, layoffs are for Wall Street - not Main Street. If layoffs occur, the cost will be greater than the gains in the arena of public perception.

Popularity: 51% [?]

Of all the items I've seen on eBay, paintings by a mysterious group of men known as the Highwaymen may be the most intriguing. Most artists seek to be recognized. They can be snooty, eccentric, arrogant - but not these guys. Most of them went to their graves without any formal recognition. Some pieces of their art now sell for thousands of dollars - but when the paint was newly dry, only brought the standard $35 each.

The Highwaymen artists are/were a collection of black artists from Fort Pierce, Florida who painted vivid landscapes and Florida scenes. They painted from the 1950's to the 1970's. With few exceptions, you could not purchase their paintings in galleries. Their works were sold mostly from the trunks of cars to passing motorists. They could also be found carrying their paintings door to door in business districts and even selling on busy street corners.

These artists were masters at capturing Florida sunrises and sunsets. Their paintings often feature the vivid colors of the royal poinciana tree and colorful skies and palm trees with the water of the Indian River in the background. They are truly some of the most beautiful paintings I've seen.

Highwaymen, by tradition, work fast and sometimes talk even faster. Some paint three or four pictures a day and have a smooth sales pitch. They seldom waste an ounce of paint or an extra brush stroke on a picture. Lacking canvas, they sometimes painted on the back of cheap boarding used in house overhangs. They built picture frames out of carpenter's door trim. They used house paints instead of the expensive art store colors.

For most, painting was, and continues to be, a way to escape minimum-wage jobs or welfare. It wasn't about the art as much as creating an income. Despite the incredible beauty of their work, few have struck it rich or become well-known.

While a few highwaymen still paint, they keep a low profile to avoid the scrutiny of state or town officials, or the IRS.

Where can you find their paintings? They still turn up at garage sales and estate sales. I've seen reports of people spending as little as $1 on these paintings at garage sales. Looking at how they sell on eBay shows it would be well worth knowing what to watch for...

24x30 W Daniels Highwaymen Painting Oil Art Florida US $999.00

Highwaymen Painting Alfred Hair 24x36 US $2,500.00

Highwayman Painting Willie Daniels River Sunset 12x24 US $300.00

Original Sam Newton Highwayman Painting Signed 1981 US $1,125.00

Florida Art Highwaymen Painting Al Black US $400.00

Highwaymen Painting Florida Art Sam Newton US $1,500.00

Highwaymen Painting W Daniels St Lucie River 24x30 US $1,200.00

Florida Art Highwaymen Painting Wdaniels 23x43 US $1,495.00

Florida Art Highwaymen Painting Snewton 24x48 Upson US $2,495.00

Florida Art Highwaymen Painting John Maynor 24x36 US $1,295.00

Add eBay Listings to Wordpress

Here is a list of known Highwaymen (in alphabetical order)

• Curtis Arnett
• Hezekiah Baker
• Al Baker
• George Buckner
• Ellis Buckner
• Robert Butler
• Mary Alice Carrol
• J. "Hook" Daniels
• Fox (first name unknown)
• James Gibson
• Alfred Hair, aka "A. Hare" and "A. Hir"
• Israel Knight
• Lewis McDaniel
• R.A. McClendon
• Harold Newton
• L. Newton
• Sam Newton
• Livingston Roberts, aka "Castro"
• Charles Walker

Popularity: 23% [?]