» 2009 » May

I did the initial story that had just the facts on the Auctiva fee change. But not lets get down to the REAL nitty gritty. What should you DO?

Well I say you should at least watch this video. This is about you business and your ability to remain profitable. This saga is just beginning and you want to make sure that you make a proper decision! Pass this one around to your eBay buddies cause we all NEED to think about the next move.

So ok I just recently wrote the The Social Networking Trinity article and gave my top 3 best social tools. Then comes Google Wave in a demo from Lars Rasmussen, Software Engineering Manager.

Google Wave is a product that helps users communicate and collaborate on the web. A "wave" is equal parts conversation and document, where users can almost instantly communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

Dude, my ENTIRE WORLD just changed today. Everything I though about being way in the future was suddenly in a 80 minute presentation. Yeah, it is a ‘geeky’ kinda love right now. But the beauty of this platform is that when it rolls out to the public, they will GET IT almost over night!

• The ability to speak to each other in real time, viewing as the person types give a one-up on instant messages and chats.
• The instant chatting gives a one-up on Twitter, Facebook, IM and the others.
• The file sharing with drag and drop from desktop to browser… OMG, I think I am in heaven.
• And so much more…

I have included the entire 80 min presentation, but it does get geek speak pretty quick. If you are like me, you will watch it all. But if that is not your bag, then check out the quick links below…

1. A really cool demo of the spell checker intelligence. The Bean Soup Demo
2. A Twitter extension demo… Click HERE
3. A seriously awesome demo of the translation ability… Click HERE

I was at an event yesterday and they asked me to stand up and give 1 tip or takeaway to be successful at business. I HATE when they do that to me! Why? Because I could give at least 20 GREAT tips, LMAO

But the limited me to only one and this is what I told them. Immediately after getting back I made this video, cause I do not think I have ever said this before on the website.

OK, so some were reading a story in the AuctionBytes web site and then my email and phone started to "blow up". So I am like…WTF is going on? Why is there so much commotion?

So then I get around to the email to see a press release from Auctiva.com and here is the ENTIRE communication for you guys. There is a call today that I will be on, and AFTER that call, I will make my "educated" comments… Dude, I am SURE you do not want to miss what I got to say about this one, LMAO

by Auctiva.com staff writer – May 28, 2009

Auctiva, the world’s largest independent eBay developer, began sending out e-mails to its users this week, letting them know the company will soon begin charging for some of its popular eBay-listing services.

"We did not come to this decision lightly," founder and CEO Jeff Schlicht writes in his address to customers. Referencing external business factors that led to this decision, Schlicht continues: "The e-Commerce landscape is constantly evolving. It has always been our promise to you to provide a complete e-Commerce solution that will meet your needs today, tomorrow and beyond."

"Beginning to charge for some of our services will help us continue to support our site and add improvements in our quest to become the Web-based solution for those wanting to do e-commerce," adds Spencer Smith, Auctiva’s director of marketing.

Schlicht and Smith say they are very pleased to have been able to design a flexible pricing structure that will fit all sellers’ budgets.

"When it comes to pricing, one size does not fit all," explains Smith. "While some of our competitors have chosen to specialize in a particular niche of eBay sellers, our user base has always been very eclectic, ranging from the full-time corporate PowerSeller to the occasional or new eBay seller. Our various plans allow you to choose the most economical option to fit your unique eBay business."

Once the new policy change is reflected on the site during the first week in June, customers will have to choose from one of Auctiva’s five new plans. Plans range from one with no monthly fees and three free listings per month for occasional eBay sellers to another for high-volume sellers that will cost $24.95 a month and includes a free Auctiva Commerce off-eBay store.

"It’s important to us to make the transition as seamless as possible for users," Smith explains. "We’re doing our best to give our customers all the information they need and enough time to evaluate it."

To provide customers both that information and time, the company began notifying its users before the changes were reflected on the site, or reported by the media. Auctiva has also set up a dedicated community forum discussion to aid communication with its users during the transition. Anticipated questions and answers are included in that forum thread as well.

Additionally, the company has planned a series of webinars to allow users to ask questions directly to management, including one on Monday, June 1, and another onTuesday, June 2. Auctiva plans to record these webinars and post highlights to its site soon after they are held.

Auctiva will also help guide users to the most affordable option for them. Once released early next week, the site’s Pricing Comparison page will recommend a plan, based on the user’s eBay listings and sales during the previous 90 days. Additionally, individual Pricing Plan pages will allow users to enter their own listing and sales data to estimate fees under the various plans.

Current customers will have until June 30 (about a month) to choose their pricing plan and place a credit card on file for auto-payment. (The company expects to also support PayPal autopay by the end of June). Similarly, new users will have an unrestricted 30-day trial period from the day they sign up to evaluate Auctiva’s tools and select the best plan for them.

Those who don’t specify a plan by the end of their 30-day trial period will be restricted from posting new listings to eBay, but will maintain access to Auctiva’s suite of free tools, including Auctiva’s Scrolling Gallery, a free Auctiva Store, up to 1 MB of free image hosting, auto marketing e-mails, data storage and access to Auctiva Education. These features come standard with all of Auctiva’s five listing plans.

All of the company’s plans are month-to-month, and users can elect to switch plans whenever they like, as many times as they wish.

"By adopting this business model, we’re closely aligning our revenue with the success of our sellers," Smith states confidently. "We’re committed to providing the tools to make it easier for our customers to sell online more efficiently and for greater profits, whether on or off eBay, or both."

While this announcement may come as a major surprise to many, Auctiva stresses its focus is on providing true value to its customers, a principle the company’s management says will only be strengthened by this new shift.

Other features of the June release include the company’s decision to offer free "live chat" customer support to all paying customers, more detailed invoicing, an ever-expanding library of video tutorials and help content and a newly designed account dashboard that allows users easy viewing and modification of important account settings.

Following @ColderICE on Twitter? Then these posts should look familiar; if you’re not, jump on the band wagon, and follow @ColderICE and get daily tweets!

1) "Make a Healthier Homemade Pizza" http://ow.ly/9toz Want a quick, healthy meal for you and the kids? Check out this recent post from lifehacker.com, which gives an easy, almost fail proof recipe that can be easily modified. A sure hit for kids and adults.

2) "Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose." Lyndon B. Johnson; @ColderICE has recently started sending out ‘ICEism’s and this quote by LBJ is definitely one to live by. Remember this when you start a new project, or even when you first wake up in the morning.

3) "10 Wordpress Plugins Guaranteed to Save You Time" http://ow.ly/9pxj Using Wordpress for your blog or website? These tips and plugins are a life saver, and a time saver. Even the most experienced Wordpress ‘magician’ should be able to benefit from them.

4) "’I bought my daughter Botox jabs for her 18th birthday’… says mother…" http://ow.ly/9pwS Everyone has a story about hearing someone buying their young daughter plastic surgery, whether it’s breast implants or a nose job. But for this mom and daughter, apparently aging starts as young as 18, and it was time to bestow the Botox. What’s next, a face-lift when she turns 21?

Check back tomorrow for more @ColderICE Twitter re-caps. You can get daily updates and tweets by following @ColderICE today!

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It’s time for the weekday Twitter re-caps for @ColderICE. You can get daily tweets by following @ColderICE, but you can always come back here if you miss any! Let’s get started with good news:

1) "No Charges For Mother of Teen With Cancer" http://ow.ly/9iGn The case of Daniel Hauser has had ongoing media coverage, and it looks like it finally has some sort of resolution. The 13-year old cancer patient recently fled the state with his mother, refusing to have the chemotherapy that had been court-ordered. Luckily, the boy and his mother returned earlier this week, with hopefully no lasting effects, including the warrant for Colleen Hauser’s arrest revoked.

2) "’Battleship’ may have a captain" http://ow.ly/9ncw Would you go to a movie based on the board game ‘Battleship’? How about ‘Monopoly’? These ideas may be coming to light due to a recent contractual agreement between Hasbro and Universal. The six year deal has several projects in the making, and writers and directors signed on board. Look out, you sunk my battleship!

3) "Shopping Study: Product Videos Should Last 90 Seconds" http://ow.ly/9iEB Looking to put product videos on your ecommerce website? Make sure they’re not longer than 90 seconds! Studies show that attention drops around after about 48% of the video’s length, so longer videos lose your audience. Researchers also go on to say that, “the “30 second rule” (DE/EN) from the online marketing world didn’t match one to one with video shopping.” Read more and follow the links to more articles.

4) "Four states adopt ‘no-smiles’ policy for driver’s licenses" http://ow.ly/9j0N Smiling on your driver’s license? Some states are saying this is a no-no, and that grins cause fraud detection programs to be less effective in discerning whether a license is real or not. Threes states say that small smiles are ok, but Virginia won’t even allow a smirk.

5) "Don’t Clean Dishes Before Putting them in the Dishwasher" http://ow.ly/9m0S Doing double-duty for your dishwasher? Experts say this is a bad idea, and that not only is it a waste of water and other resources, it makes the machine and the detergent not as efficient. What’s more, it could cause those microscopic scratches that leave your dishes, glasses, and stemware cloudy. For more tips, check out the rest of the article.

Remember, if you are following @ColderICE on your Twitter account, you can get daily tweets on everything from how-tos, news stories, quotes, and of course, eCommerce.

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Today is a very special episode that is dedicated to eBay and its change of focus. So here are the show notes for a can’t miss episode of B. S. Walks today at 1:14 pm.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/139360-ebay-where-did-all-the-fun-go

http://seekingalpha.com/article/139593-why-isn-t-paypal-more-successful

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329254255652425.html

It’s Tuesday, and the first day of the work week. Hope your transititon from the three day weekend went smoothly, and you caught the @ColderICE tweets from yesterday, 05.26.09. If you didn’t, you’re in the right location to get your @ColderICE re-caps from Twitter yesterday.

1) "What Would You Do with a $40 Computer?" http://ow.ly/95jH This is the question several computer companies are asking, in regards to their development of tiny home computers that can be designed to do anything from serve as a drive to operate home-based functions. None of them have screens, but each contains an USB port and operating drive, running a Linux-type based program.

2) “’Jigsaw Kid’ lives with jumbled up internal organs" http://ow.ly/95FQ This little girl is a medical miracle, suffering from Ivemark Syndrome, which causes many of her organs to be diseased and arranged ‘back to front’. Doctors are amazed at the progress of the girl, whose parents were warned at her birth that she had little chance of survival. That was six years ago. Among other complications, Bethany was born with 5 spleens, 2 left lungs, and several of her organs ‘back to front’, which has caused several cardiovascular complications.

3) "40 Free Twitter Graphics: Badges, Icons & Buttons" http://ow.ly/95Gz Yesterday was an article about creating your own Twitter backgrounds; today, you this article teaches you how to make icons, buttons and other cool Twitter-based graphics. Make your account stand out from others, and be memorable. Several tutorials are easy to follow, and create great looking products.

4) "Touchdown! Gisele Bundchen Pregnant!" http://ow.ly/95j0 Is the princess of football pregnant? New England quarterback Tom Brady may be expecting his second child, his first with new wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Earlier this year, Brady and Bundchen surprised their fans by secretly marrying, and although pregnancy rumors have been swirling for weeks, nothing was confirmed.

5) "Last WWI veteran, interviewed" http://ow.ly/95jm Memorial Day is a day that was originally dedicated to remembering heroes that have fought for our nation – not just grilling out. The last known surviving veteran from WWI granted World News an interview this past weekend, honoring those involved with the first Great War. Frank Buckles is 108 this year. Check out this moving interview.

Check back tomorrow, and the rest of the work week for more Twitter Re-Caps from @ColderICE. Remember, you can get real-time, up-to-date tweets by following @ColderICE on your Twitter account.

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Happy Memorial Day, and hopefully you spent to getting caught up to date on the awesome tweets from @ColderICE on Twitter. In case you didn’t, here’s all the @ColderICE Twitter re-caps from Memorial Day Weekend.

1) "HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds" http://ow.ly/8UIP Feeling like sprucing up your Twitter page, but don’t want to use a pre-made background? Want to show the public your love of cats or medieval England? Check out this how-to for how create custom backgrounds on Twitter and give your page a little extra personality. Great way to have a lasting first impression.

2) "Online House-Swapping for the Motivated Mover" http://ow.ly/8UqS What with the economy drama, the housing market is a little slow. This is very unfortunate if you are some of the lucky ones who have gotten a job, but need to move to do it. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to afford to keep their house on the market for a long time, so wouldn’t it be great to find someone in similar circumstances that you can swap homes with? What if you’re thinking about downgrading, and want to find someone who wants an upgrade? Check out this site for house-swapping ideas.

3) "Man Gets Flat Tire, State Threatens Foreclosure" http://ow.ly/8P6i Riding home, a man gets a flat tire from going over a loose reflector on the side of the road. Thinking that he had to pay to get his tire fixed, and not wanting the same thing to happen to someone else, he contacts the state, files a complaint, pays the fee for filing, and the state launches an investigation. What happens next is a situation where a guy might lose his house over $25.

4) "Dollar hits new multi-month low vs. euro, pound, yen" http://ow.ly/8UHg The dollar is now at its lowest point in several months, after falling from the euro, pound, yen and several other denominations. This is after the Obama administration announced a few months ago that the federal deficient will reach a high of $1.84 trillion this year. China and the Middle East fear a trigger in inflation.

5) "Top 10 Skills to Master Your Grill" http://ow.ly/8NDX Fearing that your grilling skills didn’t measure up for this year’s Memorial Day BBQ? Check out this tutorial, with tips that might even surprise the weathered chefs at the grill. It should have you in top shape by the time Labor Day rolls around. Just make sure to practice (but I’m sure if you invite the neighbors, they won’t mind so much!).

Remember, you can always get daily, real-time tweets by following @ColderICE on your Twitter page.

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