» Interviews

Alibaba.com, the world’s leading e-commerce company for small business, has entered into an agreement to acquire Vendio Services, Inc., a multi-channel e-commerce company providing a one-stop solution for small businesses that are selling online across multiple channels . The company is 40 percent invested by Yahoo!, 30 percent invested by Softbank, and the Alibaba management own the rest of the shares. Back in 1999 Alibaba was a  small business with only $50,000 U.S. capital to start with, and 18 people working with Jack Ma. Now, it has 18,000 people working globally. Alibaba.com became a public company in 2007 and its market cap is over $13 billion today.

Vendio supports over 80,000 small and medium online retailers in the States, and the U.S. from day one has been a very important market to Alibaba.com. Those 80,000 retailers are generating over $2 billion U.S. worth of GMB every year.

There is SO MUCH going on with M&A (mergers and acquisitions) this summer, my head is spinning to keep up. We will cover alot of this stuff on Late Night BETA but listen to this interview with the future CEO of the newly acquired Vendio Mike Effle.

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Also check out this BONUS interview with the CEO of Alibaba, David Wei from Practicle eCommerce

 
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A very insightful discussion with the CEO of shopping search engine TheFind.com, Siva Kumar. While at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst Conference I was able to grab Siva and get this interview. Of particular note, pay attention to his outlook on eCommerce for 2010. It really is an eye-opening analogy

TheFind is the vertical search engine for shopping that puts every product, every store, every sale, coupon and discount, right at your fingertips. No matter what it is you.re looking for, you can quickly find the lowest price, the best deal, the perfect gift, or that hard-to-find item. TheFind crawls the entire Web and with it’s patented search technology helps shoppers discover everything possible.

With TheFind, shoppers can quickly and easily discover:

• The complete selection of soft goods (clothing, shoes, furniture) and hard goods (electronics, appliances, toys) for sale online;
• The lowest price for a product, determined from all the merchants carrying that item;
• Sales, coupons and discounts being offered by retailers, right while one is shopping;
• Local stores offering the type of merchandise or the exact product one is looking for;
• Green stores, organic products, and fair trade brands;
• Those hard-to-find items, or that unique and rare find.

 

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As the title sponsor for the eCommerce Aftermath Event in Atlanta, I was fortunate enough to get an interview with the leadership at ProStores.com. ProStores is an eBay Company, they enable small- and medium-sized businesses to sell products and services online.

Prostores provides merchants everything they need to set up, design, and manage a customizable ecommerce storefront at their own Internet domain.

The ProStores product is based on StoreSense, an award-winning e-commerce software originally created by Kurant in 1998. eBay acquired Kurant and StoreSense, and in June 2005, they were re-launched as ProStores.

For multi channel sellers there are many advantages to choosing ProStores for your ecommerce solution – including tighter integration with the eBay marketplace and making it as easy as possible for all merchants to build their online businesses. If you are an online retailer and want to accelerate growth and profitability, ProStores is a complete ecommerce solution that helps merchants reach new customers and extend their brand online.

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For eBay Sellers who are thinking about growing their business through an additional online sales channel, ProStores provides a complete ecommerce solution that allows sellers to manage both their eBay business and off-eBay sales from one central location.

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Some times it is the story of the business man that is truly the most intriguing to me. Sure I like seeing your site, or oh how pretty your widget is, but ultimately it is the story behind the product that makes me so excited. I love nothing more than sitting and listening to the stories of successful entrepreneurs and what drives them.

I guess there is something that gets me giddy about ecommerce talk with those who are successful. I remember when we first started our business and all the "fun" we had. Its that shiny new smell I think I like. But that wears off, so how do I get my rejuvenation? I listen and talk to others about what they do and how they did it. That can energize you, that makes you believe in the American Dream and dammit, I want to live that dream and I know you do too.

So listen up as I sit down with a shoe king, his name is George Trantas and he is a true ROCK STAR of eCommerce! George Trantas who is the CEO of DesignerAthletic.com. He tells the story of the beginnings of his multi-million dollar business that he started on eBay. This is fascinating, inspiring and informative stuff.

George is now on of the LARGEST sellers on the eBay platform and he details how his business has grown from just one channel to a multi channel empire. Dude you GOTZ to check this one out!

Who’s that guy with the reflective shades? Is he a cop? Nope, but he will give you a ticket if you move too slow with your delivery times, LOL. This guy is Randy Smythe and I need to introduce him to some in our audience and reacquaint him to others.

Since I got started in eCommerce I had always wondered who the big kahuna was behind some of the big sellers on eBay. Randy was one of those big name. Back in 2005 I bought this book by Scot Wingo called eBay Strategies. I was enamored with what Randy was doing with his business of Glacier Bay Video. Boy that was ages ago. But it was not until I began blogging and hosting my Podcast that I was fortunate enough to score an interview with him. Since then I have watch Randy go from eBay biz owner to Buy.com 3rd Party Marketplace Big Wig!

It is an amazing transition and what he now knows and has experienced is a complete transformation of greater experience and insight for eCommerce. Randy is mad cool and he "plays well with others" LMAO. But in all seriousness, you would be hard pressed to find another person in corporate ecommerce that has the experience, knowledge and understand as Randy does. For years now he has been keeping in tune with the pulse of the landscape and I am now fortunate enough to have his number in the rolodex … well my cell phone

Here is a FANTASTIC interview he did for our listeners. Also you should go back and listen to some of Randy’s other interviews you will learn much as I always do.

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“Can paperless billing get me paid faster?”That one line is burned in my brain probably for eternity. I had to say it at least 100 times in one day. That is my line on the now nationally televised  American Express commercial that I was asked to appear in for American Express Open Forum

It’s lights, camera, action and time to make it happen. I finally got the edit done for part 2 of the Hollywood adventure. If you missed part 1 check it out HERE. This is day 2 in LA and I got a very early day starting at 4:00 am! This will take you behind the scenes as we set everything up for shooting. What is amazing is how many people and how much effort goes into a single shot of a commercial and then you will see how much of it actually makes it into the final cut!

I had a blast doing this for Amex and if I had 1 wish? It would be to do it again…and again…and again. I got the bug now LOL.

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Related Links:

American Express Commercial … HERE
The Amex Press Release … HERE
My Open Forum Company Profile … HERE

Brent Leary and myself got into a great discussion about how some pretend to have influence simply because they have a few followers.

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Show Notes:

1:20 Outlook for 2010 in Business is optimistic
2:10 National Retail eCommerce numbers beat expectations
3:52 Amazon Kindle e-book sales crush it
5:20 The Apple iPad reviews
8:27 Lessons from Conan O’Brian from Tonight Show
12:00 The Appearance of influence with social media
15:03 The @Wiseman23 Twitter threat 
17:23 Tit-for-Tatter-Twitterers
18:00 Measuring Influence
18:00 Brian Clark (Copybloger.com)
18:39 Guy Kawasaki on Twitter
18:50 Oprah Winfrey on Twitter
19:07 Bill Gates on Twitter
19:30 Chris Brogan/Liz Strauss/Gary Vaynerchuk
23:30 Man vs. Wild
25:10 Levar Burton

Brent recently blogged on this topic with a post called Please Stop Automatically Equating Number of Twitter Followers With Real Influence

So can Twitter make you appear to look influential in a short amount of time? Apparently so, because people will give you the time of day if you have thousands of followers. Can you automate the process of appearing influential on Twitter? Absolutely – I’ve seen people’s followership rise quickly.. people I’ve never heard of before (regular non celeb types), even when they weren’t tweeting all that much…mostly through using some kind of service.

— Brent Leary

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Are you building a business or do you just have a job as you grow old? Are you creating an enterprise or just going through the motions? Can you make it through the challenges, should you just QUIT or be exceptional?

Seth says average is for LOSERS…wow! Seth joined AuctionBytes to talk about his book, "The Dip: A little book that teaches you when to quit (and when to stick)." Seth gives some examples of eBay sellers who go beyond selling commodity products at commodity prices and get through the dip to become "exceptional."

—Ina Steiner (AuctionBytes writer)   

You really should listen or re-listen to this AuctionBytes interview from May 2007 today. You should absolutely listen, take notes and take action. One of the best interviews Ina ever did and this one alone changed my business!

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I am sitting at home minding my own bees wax and hanging out on Twitter. Suddenly a tweet pops up from a friend and says:

Then a few minutes later here comes another reTweet from my buddy Cliff, who by the way, has been a guest blogger her on ColderICE.com chimed in:

So what the hell? Are you serious? So I had to go over there and look!

 

WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, Wow right? That is so freakin sweeeet!!! eBay’s web voice is put forth by a good English gentleman named Richard Brewer Hay better know as RBH to some "in the know". RBH is the editor of eBay Ink Blog and he is the Web 2.0 voice of eBay.

eBay Ink is the official source for information, opinion and perspective on eBay Inc. It’s also one employee’s exploration and chronicles of the conversations happening inside eBay and outside of it too.

In his review he writes:  "Never one to pull any punches, John provides experienced insight into the world of eCommerce and all things Web 2.0. His unique and passionate delivery makes the show incredibly entertaining as well as informative."    

-RBH eBay Ink Blogger

Last year at the Ecommerce Summit I had the please of meeting and even sitting down and speaking with Richard. He was simply cool, personable and a complete and total nut (kinda like me) LMAO!

Check out this interview he did with me

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I was asked to guest on the eCom Experts show which is hosted by a great woman named Shawna Fennell. Keep up with som of  the best ecommerce tips and tricks?  The Ecom Experts will show you what you need to know to be a successful selling online.

Shawna writes about this in her newsletter…

I had the pleasure of interviewing John Lawson, AKA ColderICE, on our new radio show Ecom Experts. He shared many pearls of wisdom including this wonderful phrase, "My short term investments pay for my long term investments and my long term investments pay me." LOVED IT!!

The interview all started because I saw John on a national commercial for American Express. I got all excited and wanted to know, how the heck he did that!
Our conversation led into how he became successful online. I love when people share REAL stories of their success. I get so upset when I see scam artists telling people how they made $30,000 their first month by opening an online store and YOU CAN TOO!

Wrong.

They are just there to take your money.
The majority of people starting online may not see sales right away. When I first started out, I only had 1 sale my first month. Then I learned about pay per click marketing and search engine optimization. Slowly those sales picked up and eventually I was selling over $100,000 a month.

But it did not happen overnight. As John Lawson said during our interview, "We live in a microwave society and we think that things should pop up overnight. That never happens. It’s a fantasy they sell in hotel ballrooms."

I was so PUMPED to have been asked on as a guest. Thanks so much for a great interview…….

eCommerce and Social Media Tips
Air Date: January 4, 2010

If you havent heard of John Lawson, you have probably seen him on TV.
He was asked by American Express to be in a commercial! Find out how he got picked for the interview, what it was like to shoot a commercial for American Express, and tips John has for all ecommerce owners for 2010,

Plus since he won 1st place in Startup Nation’s Savviest in Social Media, we will ask him about networking via social networks as well.

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