Archive for December 2006
Could 2007 Be The Year To Start The Business Of Your Dreams?
Entrepreneur.com: With 88 ideas to choose from, you have NO excuse not to get started TODAY with your own business. 1. Mobile Pet Grooming 2. Collectibles Search 3. Diaper Delivery 4. Dry-Cleaning Pickup & Delivery 5. Mobile Locksmith 6. Graffiti Removal & Abatement 7. Golf-Club Cleaning 8. Self-Defense Instructor 9. Adventure Tours 10. Pet Sitting [...]
AuctionBytes: zeeDive.com, a site that attempts to create shopping excitement by listing items with falling prices, announced it is now possible for eBay Store owners to list their inventory on the site. The company said sellers benefit from additional exposure with no cost to list items – zeeDive charges sellers only when an item sells. [...]
Overstock.com Gets Into the Car Sales Business
AuctionBytes: Visitors to Overstock.com may now shop for cars and trucks in addition to bedding, books and electronics. Starting this month, car dealers are listing automobiles in a special section at http://cars.overstock.com, also accessible through the “car” tab on Overstock.com website pages. Overstock built the auto site in collaboration with car dealers located in its [...]
chron: EBay Inc. moved billions of dollars worth of merchandise in each quarter of 2006, but investors used to years of astronomical growth just couldn’t get excited about moderate forecasts or slowing expansion amid growing competition in the U.S. and abroad. EBay’s shares lost nearly 7 percent through mid-April but really began their descent on [...]
Domino’s Pizza Has eBay Scavenger Hunt
iMedia:“Domino’s has teamed up with eBay once again for their new, “Anything Goes!” campaign. The scavenger hunt contest on Ebay will accompany Domino’s new promotion which offers any pizza on their menu for $9.99. “As we continued thinking about value, we thought, why stop at pizza for just $9.99? Why not a DVD player or [...]
Inc.com: To help combat bogus eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) seller ratings, which can mislead customers by giving a stamp of approval to fraudulent vendors, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a technique to help validate the scores. EBay fraudsters have found ways to artificially elevate their seller ratings, by conducting transactions with friends or using alternate [...]
Alaska Jet Back on eBay After Not Selling
adn: As time ran out to bid online for Alaska’s state jet Thursday, the biggest spender was willing to pay only about $1.9 million for the used Westwind II. It wasn’t enough, and no one won the 22-year-old aircraft. That doesn’t mean the auction is over, said Meghan Stapleton, spokeswoman for Gov. Sarah Palin. The [...]
eBay Buy It Now Patent Lawsuit
MercExchange will have 3 months to put together a new brief in support of its motion for permanent injunction against eBay’s Buy It Now feature, which generates 34 percent of eBay’s Gross Merchandise Sales on the eBay platform. Likewise, eBay will have until March 16, 2007, to prepare a final brief for its motion for [...]
Daily Mail: But what of all those people we see in the sales snapping up discounted cards and wrapping paper for next year? Would any of them be prepared to buy the whole of next year’s Christmas a year in advance? I put my entire Christmas on eBay on Boxing Day to find out. The [...]
eBay Auction Listings Up Due to 15 Cent Listing Day
AuctionBytes: The number of eBay.com auction listings rose over 56 percent in 1 day this week due to a post-Christmas promotion for sellers. According to MedVed data, there were fewer than 9 million listings (derived by counting auction category totals on eBay.com) at the start of day December 27, 2006, and by the end of [...]
eBay Powerseller Offers Tips on StartupNation Radio
XTV World: Kevin Harmon joins StartupNation Radio to discuss how to start and grow a successful eBay business. Who: In 2002, Kevin Harmon started Inflatable Madness, http://inflatablemadness.com, selling media online such as DVD’s, CD’s, video games, and books. Kevin lists over 400,000 items on his eBay store every month and has the third largest store [...]
Virtual Debit Card Beta Puts PayPal One Step Ahead
The PayPal division of eBay, which operates the Web’s most respected online payment voucher system, is beginning beta trials of a next-generation online payment system, in cooperation with MasterCard. Using what’s described as a virtual debit card, a customer will be able to make a PayPal-authorized purchase using a one-time number good only for that [...]
Rarely would I allow for my first shot in a duel to come from user-managed Web reference Wikipeda, which has come under fire for poor sourcing. But I just can’t resist. Quoting from its entry on Minnesota’s legendary Mall of America: “Mall of America is … the most visited shopping mall in the world, with [...]
Busy Travelers Snap Up Ipods From Vending Machines
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Anita Leopold has a little surprise for anyone who thinks vending machines were created to dispense lightly salted snack food and sugar-laced temptations. The top treat in the sleek, high-tech machines operated by her company and ZoomSystems at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is a top-of-the-line Apple iPod that fetches $349 before tax. It comes [...]
New Invention Sends Velcro ‘Down the Drain’
PRNewswire: It’s the new way to open a slow-running drain – a velcro-tipped, disposable drain snake called FlexiSnake. “It’s one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that’ types of discoveries,” says local businessman turned inventor, Scott Turner. “It may just replace chemical drain cleaners for bathroom drain hair clogs.” Turner started his own company, [...]
Advertisers Hope To Cash In Big With Niche Marketing
AZcentral.com: Selling a message to a whole body of people isn’t nearly as effective as reaching just the part of the group that wants to hear your pitch. The concept is niche marketing, and is widely considered to be the hottest, smartest approach to advertising today. If you have a computer and an e-mail address, [...]
Web Site For Die-Hard Cheddar Fans
FoxNews.com: Some might call watching cheese mold a bit … dry … but for die-hard cheddar lovers, there’s now a Web site where you can do just that at any hour of the day or night. “Cheddarvision” is a new concept envisioned by the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group, reported Scotland’s Daily Record. The site [...]
End-of-the-Year Tasks to Handle Now
Ty Freyvogel at Entrepreneur.com: If you’re like most business owners, you’ve got a huge list of tasks that stay perpetually on the back burner. Now’s the time to tackle those tasks with a vengeance, because leaving your business problems behind in 2006 is the best way to start 2007 off with a clean slate. 1. [...]
Press Release: Skype launched skySpace, the only media-centric social networking software. skySpace will multiply the volume and quality of information shared among Skype’s 136 million users, creating a new market category. skySpace empowers Skype users to tell stories by sharing their photos, video, audio, and documents via their skySpace homepage—either privately or to the community [...]
Mpire Shopping Plug In for Firefox
Mpire.com: The smart online shopping companion has arrived and is ready to work for you! Download the Mpire plugin and look for the M icon on your favorite sites such as Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Newegg, Toys-R-Us, Walmart, Target, and many, many more. It will give you invaluable information about your favorite products, including price graphs, [...]
Sellers Upset with Overstock Auction Changes
AuctionBytes: The new head of Overstock.com Auctions is going “back to basics,” causing third-party sellers consternation at some of the changes going on at the auction marketplace. Despite apparent fears on the part of sellers that Overstock may be “deemphasizing” or phasing out auctions, Stormy Simon said her job is to create a healthy auction [...]
Google Checkout Sales Up 1200%
eBay Strategies:Bob Peck at Bear Stearns hosted a call with Gian Fulgoni, Chairman of Comscore. There was lots of great macro ecommerce info, but I thought what would be interesting to eBay Strategies readers is some of the content around Google Checkout. The take-aways for me were: Google Checkout is driving the AOV thanks to [...]
eBay Takes New Approach in China
eBay Strategies: As predicted in early November here at eBay Strategies, eBay has retreated to some degree in China according to reports from Fortune, WSJ and others. The plan is for eBay to partner with Tom Online to launch an entirely new auction site. eBay would own 49% of the JV and TOMO the other [...]
Former eBay COO to Lead Valley Startup – LiveOps
America’s Network: A former executive at online auctioneer eBay has come out of a short-lived retirement to take a job leading Silicon Valley startup LiveOps, which contracts with companies to handle customer service and sales calls, an Associated Press report said. The Associated Press report said Maynard Webb, 51, left his position as eBay’s COO [...]
Entrepreneur Sends Trinkets On Rocket Ride
The Hartford Courant: UP Aerospace, a privately held rocket company, is betting that your beloved is less likely to say no to a marriage proposal if you blast the engagement ring into outer space before popping the question. UP Aerospace promises to send your stamps, coins, rings and even your Aunt Gerty’s ashes on an [...]
The Patriot Ledger: Filtering cooking oil from fryers may not sound like the most glamorous job, but it can help restaurants save money and cut down on employee injuries. In September, Walter Fonseca became a franchisee with FiltaFry, a British company that specializes in the micro-filtration of cooking oil and the cleaning of deep fryers [...]
Golfer’s Love For Sport Creates Invention
The StarPhoenix: Jason Hoium’s idea during a golf game might well end up financing him through his University of Saskatchewan classes. The 19-year-old student and a couple of his golf playing buddies came up with the idea of creating a unique golf putter grip, one that included its own built-in magnetic ball marker. It turned [...]
Teen Entrepreneur Is Unicef Poster Girl
HindustanTimes.com: A single box of honey was all it took to transform Anita Kushwaha, a teenager from a nondescript village in Bihar, into a successful entrepreneur. Anita countered gender bias to become a role model for millions of girls in India. Four years ago, 17-year-old Anita boldly fought and convinced her parents not to marry [...]
Make Your Web Business More Local
Search Engine Guide: Local Search is poised for big growth, with a recent estimate from Borrell Associates hinting at a 32% growth in local online advertising in 2007. But local search is still in its infancy and is a “mess,” as Greg Sterling described it at the recent Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose. [...]
Longtime Sellers Having Trouble with New eBay Rules
AuctionBytes: Sellers are struggling to understand and comply with a new initiative from eBay that is preventing some from listing items during the critical month of December. eBay launched an anti-counterfeiting initiative during the last week in November. While eBay staff made phone calls to some of its sellers inform them of the changes, it’s [...]
Brokeback Cowboy Hat Sells for $10K on eBay
The cowboy hat worn by Jake Gyllenhall playing the role of Jack Twist in the popular movie “Brokeback Mountain” was recently auctioned on eBay, bringing in $10,100 with more than 40 bids. The auction was sponsored by Variety – The Children’s Charity’s Mission, so all proceeds from the auction do go to a good cause. [...]
ecommerce guide: The Google Base Store Connector, a service that enables eBay, Yahoo! and Amazon Web store owners to have their store indexed in Google, just got an update. Engineering Manager Patrick Williams says that newly added features include more support for eBay customized stores, single connection support for merchants who have multiple Yahoo! stores, [...]
eBay’s Bargain Listing Day Isn’t What It Used To Be.
If you’ve been waiting to unload some of those gifts you just don’t want, longtime eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) fans know that today offers an opportunity to post them at a discounted listing fee. All day today, $0.15 will serve as your insertion fee for fixed-price and more conventional auction-style items in most categories. Naturally, any [...]
Former eBay COO Moves on To LiveOps Start Up
A former executive at online auctioneer eBay Inc. has come out of a short-lived retirement to take a job leading Silicon Valley startup LiveOps, which contracts with companies to handle customer service and sales calls. Maynard Webb, 51, left his position as eBay’s chief operating officer in August after seven years with the company. He [...]
eBay & Domino’s Partner Up for Treasure Hunt Deals
Domino’s Pizza is teaming up with eBay to create an online treasure hunt for clues leading to $9.99 “Buy It Now” offers for Apple iPods, flat screen TVs, and other prizes. The “Anything Goes Deal” from Domino’s runs from January 1 to February 5. An offline component lets customers buy any pizza for $9.99. The [...]
Learn From eBayers Who Have Gone Before You
To succeed in the eBay business market a seller needs to master advanced strategies. It would be logical to conclude that the best people to learn these strategies from would be successful eBay sellers. But the problem is finding these successful eBay sellers. Once you do find them you can monitor their auctions and learn [...]
Government Seek More Buyers Through eBay
Government agencies of all sizes have surplus assets which they seek to dispose of. Prior to eBay, their methods for disposal of assets were pretty limited. Agencies could run auctions, contact liquidators, or simply dispose of the assets as waste. Auctions would often deliver the highest dollar return but faced the issue of lack of [...]
eBay Objects to Tiffany & Co. Lawsuit Evidence
AuctionBytes: When Tiffany & Co. sued eBay in 2004, it said 73% of items purchased on eBay in a study it conducted were counterfeit. eBay wants the testimony of Tiffany’s expert excluded due to the methodology in coming up with those statistics. On October 6, 2006, eBay filed a motion in limine (http://digbig.com/4qknn) to exclude [...]
eBay Survey Finds Returns and ReGifting Trending Upwards
Web Site Host Directory: According to the third annual Holiday Re-Gifting Survey commissioned by e-commerce company, eBay, a significant increase of Americans believe they will either return, or ”re-gift” holiday items received, this season. According to the report, 57 percent of the vast majority of Americans, will receive holiday presents they aren’t fond of. Sixty-nine [...]
Inventor Hopes Alarm Clock Becomes Runaway Hit
The Boston Globe: “Clocky” is finally up and running. It’s running away from drowsy owners reaching over to shut it off and go back to sleep. Clocky’s inventor, Gauri Nanda , a 27-year-old entrepreneur who graduated from MIT last year, said she hoped that her small launch last week — only “a couple of thousand” [...]
Entrepreneur’s Niche Is Good News For Brides
BellevilleNewsDemocrat.com: After discovering how expensive specialty wedding merchandise can be — products such as bridesmaids’ jewelry, garters, ring pillows and personalized cake servers — Howard Fox created a Web site devoted solely to the small items that make a wedding day unique for the bride and groom. “I was looking for another business and I [...]
Jessica Ek at Work.com: It’s time to take your hobby to the next level. Many eBay stores that have started out as modest side businesses have grown to become full-time jobs. And no matter what size the operation, an eBay store that is run like a business will be most successful when treated as such. [...]
Commute Turned Her Into Entrepreneur
NorthJersey.com: Camille Cerria refers to it simply as the “puppy sale.” In other words, one look at the puppy and the sale is in the bag. Cerria, of Oak Ridge, views her job in a similar light. As sole proprietor of Smooth Sailing Celebrations, Cerria matches people arranging parties with the operators of a handful [...]
Rare Velvet Underground Record Sells on eBay
KWTX: The rare Velvet Underground acetate has sold on eBay for far less than the first auction, but that was revealed to be a prank anyway. The rare version of “The Velvet Underground and Nico” sold on eBay Thursday for $25,200 to an unknown bidder. The original supposed winning bid was for more than $155,000 [...]
Geoff Kohl at Work.com: A webinar, or “web seminar�, allows you to hold a live presentation for a group of people without everyone in the same room, or even the same state. With a webinar, attendees watch a presentation (much like a PowerPoint slide show presentation) and simultaneously listen to the speaker(s). Attendees also can [...]
Man Sells Stolen Computers to Police on eBay
Record Eagle: A Lake Ann man was arrested for selling two stolen computers to police through the popular Internet auction site eBay. Michael Lee Johns, 24, faces two felony charges after police said he stole two computers from Interlochen Center for the Arts, where he was hired as an independent contractor to install dozens of [...]
Top 30 Celebrity eBay Auctions for 2006
It’s the end of the year, so what better time to take stock of Bayraider’s favourite celeb auctions from the past 12 months? Especially as it’ll give me time to nip down to Woolworths and finish my Christmas shopping. Anyway, I’ve spent 2006 ferreting out the most interesting eBay listings, some of which haven’t been [...]
Make Money with eBay’s Affiliate Program
affiliatetip.com: eBay Web Services for Affiliates, a presentation by Alan Lewis at Affiliate Summit 2006 East, is now available as a transcript. Alan Lewis is a technical evangelist with the eBay Developers Program and has been at eBay since 2004. He helps developers and affiliates use the eBay Web Services platform to develop applications that [...]
About eBay: Does your holiday shopping this year involve a lot of books, movies, and video games? Are you having trouble finding them all on eBay, but wary of paying retail price for them elsewhere? The eBay website and trading area Half.com may be just what you’re looking for. Half.com makes it easy for buyers [...]
eBay Checkout Program: AuctionBlox
Michael Gosford: One of the most difficult things when you decide to sell a product or item through an auction website, like eBay, is picking out a checkout program for your auctions. Well, if you are an Australian-based seller, one of the best choices for you might be AuctionBlox. Here, through this informative article, we [...]
