Archive for the ‘Ecommerce’ Category

News.com reports that Yahoo! is retiring Yahoo! Auctions effective June 16th. Launched in September 1998, Yahoo! Auctions quickly expanded into other countries but soon stalled in the U.S. when it started charging fees (and eBay was gaining significant momentum). Even the “Look! No Fees!” hail mary did not halt its decline into no-auctions-land.

With demand and sales declining we ceased support for Yahoo! Auctions last summer. But until recently Yahoo! Auctions consistently maintained its number two spot behind eBay for product listings (particularly popular for collectibles).

The end of Yahoo auction has marked an important landmark in the marketplace industry because now the only 2 auction sites left of significance is eBay and Bidville. This is a dark day for eBay sellers (or other marketplace sellers) who look for other venues for multi-marketplace selling strategy. Does this mean eBay now have more monopoly power in the industry and can continue to increase its fee? Yes, it does. It is therefore more important than ever for you as ecommerce seller to have your website, promote it aggressively, and gain a repeat customer base. We’ll see how this pans out in the next several months.

Technorati Tags: Yahoo, Yahoo auction, eBay, Outsource internet marketing, Internet marketing consultant

EBay have announced 2 days ago that they will be implemented Feedback 2.0 to their system. This is to no surprise to anyone because they’ve been testing it on eBay UK for a while now., here’s eBay’s message and kind of tell you what its all about:

“As you know, eBay’s Feedback system is a big part of what makes eBay fun and rewarding for buyers and sellers. We’re writing to let you know about some exciting new features coming during the week of April 30–features designed to make Feedback more valuable for buyers and a stronger showcase for your great service record.

Also, the item title and price will appear next to each Feedback comment. This will add helpful information for shoppers and encouragement to those in the market for what you sell.”

As a powerseller, my reaction is 2 folded. While it is great to have a vehicle to further differentiate my business from amateur sellers, it also places more pressure on sellers to enhance our service and be really cautious about what we do and say to customers. Btw, one unique thing about this feedback system is that you won’t know which buyer gave you the points - thus eliminating the possibility of feedback retaliation (very popular in the old system).

What do you think about this change and how would it impact your business? Let us know in the comment section!

Technorati Tags: eBay, , feedback 2.0, Outsource internet marketing

From what I hear, seems like a lot of people are having trouble with PPC and not getting the results they wanted or even losing a ton of money on it.

The fact is PPC works - if you know how to do it.

I’ll share my PPC experience with you as a Google certified adwords professional and PPC consultant. It had worked very well with my stores and my other online sites.

Here’re my REALLY SIMPLE SYSTEM to make it work for you.

Find out 5 products in your store which 1)have a high selling rate 2)have decent profit margin

Lets say one of this product is Golfpro(brandname) Golfer Max(model name) Golf Club (what it is)

Now set up a CAMPAIGN called “Brand + Product”, setup an adgroup called “Golferpro Golfer Max Golf Club”

Then make a list of those keywords CLOSELY related to the product, i.e. Golferpro Golfer Max, Golferpro GolferMax Golf Club….

And then use this program called Adwords Wrapper (its free) to wrap that list of keywords to include exact match, broad match, and phrase match.

Bid on these keywords in your adgroup AND stop the content network display of your ad. (there can be exception to this IF your profit margin and sell through is super high)

Bid the amount which allows your ad to show up as postion 3-5 (again exception if your profit margin and sell through is super high - in that case you will want to be in position 1-2)

Ok, at this point, your PPC campaign should do very well.

BUT to gain an extra edge, here’s what you do!

Find out the ONE keyword that has a decent conversion and HIGH search volume. Lets say in this case is Golferpro Golfer Max. Ok now REGISTER this domain and do a 301 redirect of this domain to your website’s page of that product. And use this domain instead for your URL! This will boost your CTR and conversion to you’ve never seen before.

Once this worked for you and making the kind of margin you like, now do it again and extend it to more products!

Hope this helps.

Google Adwords, PPC, Pay per click

eBay just got a new look today. I personally like it a lot more than the old one but its no where near it needs to be (yea eBay’s design is pretty ugly in my opinion). So go check it out at eBay.com and let me know what you think.