Archive for June 2006
Big Companies Use eBay as a Marketing Tool
 PR Web Ebay sellers now include big businesses that are seeing the auction giant as a means to marketing expensive products. The latest high ticket Ebay product is the $100,000 CEO Poker television sponsorship package that includes: television mentions, logo on the poker table, signage at the event, access to the CEO players, and more [...]
 Reuters UK Local officials in the rural Alaskan town of King Cove have put an old school up for sale on eBay, saying they hope to raise $1.8 million (985,000 pounds). The Aleutians East Borough has put the school in the southwestern Alaska coastal village of 725 people up for sale on the online auction [...]
 Post Gazette A Gucci wallet for $120. A Burberry scarf for $32. A pair of Tiffany earrings for $35. If prices like that for some of the hottest luxury brands seem unreal, it very well may be because the goods themselves aren’t real. The estimated multibillion-dollar counterfeit market has become a major headache for the [...]
Interview with the Founder of The Knot
CollegeJournal.com recently interviewed Carley Roney, co-founder of The Knot: CJ: For students interested in the publishing industry or companies like the Knot, what positions are most valuable in starting out? You have to get into any kind of opening and be patient. There is no other way to gain experience. You may come in as [...]
Legal, Forms, Free , Documents, Contracts, Law, online, leases, wills, estate planning, corporations, living, trusts, living (tags: blogs business entrepreneurship finance free howto law management news online planning reference sources startup usa web bizopblog) SmallBusiness.com (tags: business copyright entrepreneurship marketing smallbusiness wikipedia bizopblog) New Media & Tradeshow Startup » Blog Archive » The Changing Tradeshow [...]
Don’t Present A False Front to Investors
Rob May, the Business Pundit: Finding investors is like getting married. If your goal is to con your significant other and hide your flaws, you may get hitched in the short term but eventually you will be exposed and your relationship will become unraveled. You are much better off to find a partner who accepts [...]
How to Make Money With Google Checkout
Today Google released their much anticipated PayPal competitor, Google Checkout. According to the NY Times: Google is charging merchants 20 cents plus 2 percent of the purchase price to process card transactions, less than most businesses pay for credit card processing. Banking industry executives say that credit card processors typically pay MasterCard and Visa a [...]
eBay Stays Competative at all Levels
 Website Services Magazine In what could be a serious blow to every retailer and online advertising network on the Web (heads-up Google and Yahoo), eBay has announced they will begin selling contextual advertising to eBay sellers, to be placed on affiliate websites. For a cut of the profits, eBay will provide direct links to a seller’s items on various [...]
 My Hobby Q: I made extra money selling things on eBay last year. These were items I picked up at yardsales mostly. My husband says I am responsible for paying income tax on the money I made, but I disagree. This is just my hobby, not a business. What do you think? – Gladys A. [...]
Search Engine Roundtable The rumored Gbuy (click to see historical tracking of coverage) has been launched under “Google Checkout” at http://checkout.google.com. It basically has the same exact interface from the sellers or buyer accounts perspective as when I first tested it in As Chris Sherman wrote; Checkout isn’t a person-to-person, stored-value system like PayPal. But [...]
Entrepreneur vs. Small Business Owner
Karri Flatla writing on Small Business Trends: When business people converse, the terms “small business owner� and “entrepreneur� are used interchangeably as if they mean the same thing. Yet I discern two very different connotations. Is this a matter of semantics? Or is there an important distinction to be made? According to government statistics, “small [...]
Family Businesses Outperform Non-Family Firms
Inc.: Family businesses are more profitable and create more jobs than non-family firms, according to a new study. The study, which compared S&P 500 and Fortune 500 companies based on net profit margin, employment, revenue, and gross income growth between 1992 and 2002, concluded that those started by families are more successful than their non-family [...]
Should I Start a Summer Business?
NFIB: Instead of going to work for someone else next summer, learn how to strike out on your own. If any of the following criteria applies to you, you might want to consider putting the books away for the summer and becoming a business owner: Your school credits are caught up. You’re unsure if you [...]
Google Checkout An Extension of Technology
 Search Engine Watch Google has launched Google Checkout, a payment system for online retailers that’s tightly integrated with Google AdWords. Checkout isn’t the rumored PayPal killer, but it does offer some compelling features for both merchants and online shoppers alike. Rumors have been flying for more than a year about a payment system under development [...]
Read/write Web eBay, in collaboration with JotSpot, has just released a new community wiki – making it almost certainly the world’s largest wiki platform for a commercial website (Wikipedia is bigger, but it’s non-commercial). eBay Wiki is described as “a collection of fact-based articles written and maintained by eBay Community members” and is powered by [...]
This week’s Brain Brew Radio episode is online: This week, on Opportunity Knocks, Doug and Dave discuss the great potential and advantages of the CD and DVD market… TNT from Digital Dynamite in Cincinnati, Ohio, seeks help from Doug and Dave on how he can take his business to the next level… Marge from Greenbush [...]
Jennifer Tribe: Quite simply, an information product is any chunk of knowledge that has been recorded in some fashion – whether that be in a print format, an audio format, or a video format – so that it can now be passed on to others. There are dozens of ways to package and sell information. [...]
Forbes Unconfirmed reports that Google will soon launch a payment service to rival eBay‘s PayPal dealt a blow to the online auction company’s shares on Tuesday. But eBay (nasdaq: EBAY – news – people ) could conceivably weather the competition thanks to its significant brand-name advantage, according to a new report from Standard & Poor’s [...]
eBay May Need More Training Before Skype Is Adopted
TMC Net Internet fax and on-demand communications solutions provider RingCentral announced this week the results of its recent online commerce survey, conducted during the eBay Live 2006 conference. The survey asked more than 85 eBay merchants categorized as “Power Sellersâ€? to share their thoughts about which communications solutions work best to enhance online selling. RingCentral’s [...]
ChannelAdvisor Buts Heads with Marketworks
 AuctionBytes ChannelAdvisor issued a press release on Tuesday announcing competitor Marketworks filed a complaint against it in Fulton County Superior Court in Atlanta. “ChannelAdvisor understands that the complaint primarily centers around the hiring of a former Marketworks employee who was allegedly bound by a non-competition agreement forbidding employment with AuctionRover.com” (http://www.channeladvisor.com/company/press_releases/pr060627.asp). ChannelAdvisor and Marketworks provide [...]
GBuy Take a Bite Out of eBay Stock
 Reuters Google Inc. is expected to unveil on Wednesday an online payment system called GBuy, which analysts say will allow merchants to accept payment for services and could become a broad-based alternative to eBay’s PayPal, the dominant system. Analyst Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, said he expected Google to make the announcement on Wednesday and [...]
Jellyfish to Challenge Google CPC Ad Model
Information Week: On Monday, shopping search engine Jellyfish.com will begin to woo advertisers with what it claims is a better mousetrap: It will offer an alternative to cost-per-click (CPC) advertising by opening an online marketplace for advertisers to bid directly to customers for their attention and patronage. The company, which closed initial seed funding from [...]
Entrepreneur: When you want to hold your ad dollars accountable, there are basically three ad-tracking strategies to choose from: Strategy #1: under-price a well-known product Strategy #2: feature an item with a powerful story Strategy #3: plant a word-flag in the ad
Fast Company: Before you pitch your next big idea, remember the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. In the late 1970s, someone in the Army had a notion to build something that could transport 11-soldier squads into battle. Then the suggestions–and the chaos–started. Let’s add a roof! And a missile launcher! More armor! The result was a $13 [...]
Do-It-Yourself Strategic Planning
Gladys Edmunds in USA Today: A simple thought to keep in mind when developing your strategic plan is to remember that no matter how successful you feel your business is, you are only serving a very small piece of your market. Therefore the objective of a strategic plan is to figure out ways for you [...]
Startup Journal: There is an increasing array of low-cost options. For instance, virtual prototypes, or “computer-aided designs,” generally cost less than $1,500 and are fine for inventors with prohibitively expensive or large-scale inventions, or those looking for an affordable prototype, says Duke Kramer, president and chief executive of DTI Prototype & Design in Lompoc, Calif. [...]
Entrepreneur: It doesn’t matter what you sell; people truly buy only two things from you: security and confidence. If you can’t provide those two things through your customer service, your buyers will simply move on to your competitors…and on eBay, they have many to choose from. If you treat eBay like a garage sale, you [...]
PayPal’s Dan Levy Talks Safety & Trust
Auction Bytes PayPal’s Senior Director of Trust and Safety Dan Levy discussed trust and safety issues in using eBay and PayPal in an interview with AuctionBytes.TV. Sellers have been concerned about the risk of sending items to unconfirmed addresses, which is a requirement of eBay’s new Express marketplace. Levy said sellers can make their own [...]
Mpire Adds New eBay Consignment Features
 Auction Bytes Mpire introduced new consignment features to its eBay auction-management program and is running a summer seller promotion. New features in Mpire Builder include a consignment central page, a consignment supplier page, a consignment-items listing page and a streamlined method for entering items quickly.
ebay Express Making it Easier for Shoppers
MSN NBC I’ve been hearing from lots of eBay sellers: What’s this eBay Express site all about? Will it really bring me more business? Why aren’t my items listed on the site? How do I know if someone buys my items? That’s a lot of questions, but eBay sellers like to feel they’re in the [...]
Google & eBay Join Together to bring Free Wi Fi
 Seattle PI FON, a company funded by Google Inc. and eBay Inc. to promote free wireless Internet access, will start selling routers for $5 to encourage consumers to share their Web connections with others. Consumers buying the routers, which usually cost about $60, will need to let others use their Internet connections and in return [...]
It’s time for some speedlinking so I can close some long neglected Firefox tabs: Working From Home In A Recreational Vehicle Revenge of the Home Business Entrepreneur – Throw The Tomato! Web Auctions: New Jackpot For Middle Americans How Many Ebay Sellers Do It Full Time? Five Things Every Micro-ISV Should Know About Intellectual Property [...]
How Many Ebay Sellers Do It Full Time?
Got Ads: According to Meg Whitman’s keynote (she’s the CEO of eBay), at the eBay Developer Conference: 1.3M people make their living selling full-time on eBay
Paul Graham: Now a startup operating out of a garage in Silicon Valley would feel part of an exalted tradition, like the poet in his garret, or the painter who can’t afford to heat his studio and thus has to wear a beret indoors. But in 1976 it didn’t seem so cool. The world hadn’t [...]
This week’s Festival of Frugality is up at Free Money Finance.
Fat America: A Big Opportunity
Business 2.0: There is no polite way to say this: Americans are fat, and they’re getting fatter. More than 60 million Americans are obese, up from 23 million in 1980. Another 28 million are expected to join their ranks by 2013. … Heretofore, the main business response to this overwhelming demographic trend has been the [...]
Enterprising Soldiers Start Their Own ISPs in Iraq
Localist Magazine: Since the military provides just 6 to 12 computers for every 1,000 or so troops, time limits of 10 to 15 minutes per day are often enforced at Morale Welfare Recreation Cafés (the complicated name for military internet cafés). Anyone who sorts through spam, reads forwarded articles and jokes, then tries to respond [...]
Fortune Small Business: The company planned to call its patented product MOLLI (medicine-opening lid-lifting instrument) until a product specialist they met at the University of Michigan persuaded Robert to change the shape and name of the opener – and base those on a cat, a beloved pet symbolizing independence. “We did a complete overhaul a [...]
Big Firms Can Lead to Big Frustration
Startup Journal: Michele Bolgla had just settled in at her desk with a morning cup of coffee and some industry publications when a headline caught her eye. She and her husband Mitchell had been selling men’s T-shirts to a large retail chain, which had just announced that it was shutting down its men’s section. The [...]
Imagine LLC: Just because you have a technology does not mean you should use it. Salespeople seem to be addicted to e-mail. I guess it’s easier to send an e-mail and hope that you made a point then it is to pick up the phone and find out for sure. Don’t get me wrong. I [...]
Today on LifeHacker, Keith Robinson describes his perfect home office: Mixing your work with your home life can be tricky, but I’m giving it a good shot. I recently moved into a new home and as I regularly work from home, I claimed one of our three bedrooms as my office – or what I [...]
This week’s Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Mighty Bargain Hunter.
 Ezine Articles Have you seen any sellers on eBay which shows a “starâ€? and the word “PowerSellerâ€? by the side of their names? PowerSellers are eBay’s top sellers who have sustained a consistent high volume of monthly sales, a high level of total 98% positive feedback or better, and have met a threshold of compliance [...]
Wholesale Buying Tips For eBay
 Ezine Articles Wholesale buying by eBay sellers represents a growing percentage of the wholesale market. With eBay expected to surpass 200 million registered users in the near future, there will be plenty of more opportunities for eBay sellers to sell merchandise. The best source for the merchandise that eBay sellers need will come from the [...]
Be Flexible When Selling On eBay
 http://www.ezinearticles.com/?The-Elusive-eBay-Product-Niche&id=224441 There’s nothing more disappointing than doing the research, getting the product, and then finding that no one wants to buy it. It can also be quite a shock. It’s not unusual to research the item, see it listed in eBay’s hot list, hear everyone talking about it…and still no one buys. This is one [...]
 The Galveston County News Want a bit of Elvis? EBay offers almost 16,000 items bearing some relation to the King of Rock ’N’ Roll. That’s twice as many as a search for “Jesusâ€? brings up. But find a saint’s image on a soda cracker, or a Madonna’s on a muffin and you have premiere fodder [...]
Photography Still A Center Stage for eBay
 AuctionBytes eBay sales frequently depend upon eye-grabbing descriptions, but without a picture, the ultimate auction value can suffer. At this year’s eBay Live conference in June, eBay expanded their photography education from previous years. eBay offered both an educational seminar (Basic Digital Photography to Make You an eBay PowerSeller – 1.5 hours) and a computer [...]
eBay Live Shares Global Effect
 AuctionBytes Attendees at eBay’s fifth annual user conference in Las Vegas this month had plenty of news thrown their way. eBay turned “Web 2.0″ by adding blogs and wiki to the site. Skype was hyped. And eBay vowed to begin enforcing its policy against excessive shipping charges. You can read about these announcements in this [...]
eBay’s Sales Records Help Develope the Market
 Nashua Telegraph Forget miracle medicines, advanced aeronautics or genetically modified crops. When it comes to business research, the biggest laboratory in the world isn’t at Pfizer, General Electric or Monsanto. It’s online, at eBay.com, where everyone from university scholars to conventional retailers are carefully studying the auctions of baby pajamas, home board games and other [...]
 AuctionBytes Nearly every eBay seller has had this experience: You list an item, perhaps a rare-ish collectible, and after a day or two you notice a 5 in that item’s Number of Watchers column indicating 5 people are watching your item. “Great!” you say to yourself. “There are sure to be some bids now.” But [...]
