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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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Pop Quiz for the holidays! Put on your thinking caps all you smart entrepreneurs. Riddle me this, here is the layout, answer this puzzle….

The NEW Carrie Underwood album is selling right now for $7.99 with FREE shipping on eBay from Buy.com

One the Buy.com website, that same CD is selling for $11.19 with FREE shipping.

In comparison on Amazon.com the CD is $9.99 and the MP3 download is $8.99

While iTunes has Carrie’s CD download for $10.99

Yes, I do think I have my answers to why this is and what they might be doing…but I want your opinions before I start to pontificate, LMAO.

What I had to say could simply NOT be put into words. So I figure some moving pictures work better.

Please Rate My Video with 5-Stars DSR’s

It is that time again…yeah time to get back in the game of the interviews. You know it was put on the back burner as the summer season just made you want to run free. But now its over and our noses are too the grind for a successful Christmas shopping season.

So to kick start this whole interview series back off you want to go to the well that has some of the deepest water. And you all know that Randy Smythe of Buy.com is always full of good QUALITY content for ecommerce merchants.

You do NOT get "hand picked" by the big leagues unless you can swing that bat. Randy simply knock it out the ball park every time I am fortunate enough to get an interview with him.

What is the best parts of it is that his depth and breath of knowledge from running his own business, and historically one of the MOST successful eBay stores in history, is how this experience with Buy.com has added to his understanding.

Yes, we all miss his daily rants back when he was a blogger, but his new insight as the 3rd Party Marketplace man for Buy has really UP’d his game. The dude is just tight with the ecommerce wisdom.

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Well, eBay has made its changes and boy it is a lot of work AGAIN for eBay seller to deal with. I guess if you constantly change directions you will ultimately end up somewhere right? LMAO.

I am not sure what direction eBay wants to go in right now, but they seem to have a glimmer of hope. eBay hopes that making the changes which they should have made back in 2004-2005 will help. What would have been “major” advancements in ecommerce 5 years ago, now seem rather hoo-hum. These moves at eBay are sort of like throwing out the ugly shag carpeting in the guest room, FINALLY.

But I must admit, I hated that ugly carpet so I think the changes would help too. I am just not to sure it will help that much though, but they sure can’t do much worse than they did in 2008 now can they? Or can they? That still remains to be seen. Remember eBay normally falls flat on its face when they actually IMPLEMENT change, not when they make simply make announcements of change

So to help you along, our geek squad leader, Scot Wingo just made a new guide available for download. You can get it for FREE here. 

eBay Spring Changes white paper now available – HERE

Now being the “cool ass, bro ham” that I am, the “dudes” sent over a few angles they learned so I could share them with the ColderICE readers. See they know that you guys are cool as hell too!

• This is really eBay trying to Amazon-ify the secondary market.  They haven’t been able to win in primary / mainstream products, so they’re taking cues from Amazon and applying them to secondary market products. 
• Look at the Amazonian history: free shipping, fixed prices, trust improvements, and now catalog pages, better item pages, multi-SKU, the BUYING GUARANTEE…more proof of this in the eBay analyst day slide we included in the report
• Look at the New York Times story titled “Undoing Meg Whitman’s eBay” 
• Auctions are REALLY falling out of favor. Multi-SKU will probably become another death-blow as the number of listings really dries up (more consolidation, less focus on listing coverage). Look at the 12% fixed price growth, -20% auction growth
• Blackthorne and other eBay tools may not support multi-SKU until OCTOBER!  This is going to hurt a lot of sellers and really delay their transition to parent / child.
• eBay’s changes make it easier to go multi-channel — they’re finally adopting the parent / child structure that everyone else has (Amazon, Buy.com, Web Stores, etc.)

I got friends in HIGH places now. Yep, if Randy Smythe was not big enough before, he just upped the ante. Randy joined Buy.com just a few short weeks ago, among some “hoopla” for lack of a better term.

So today, I got the opportunity to get him on a call. The dude has been crazy busy and I wanted to check in with him. I must say that he has acclimated to the new roll over there VERY nicely.

Randy is responsible for the 3rd party platform marketplace. And what he says on the call was SHOCKING! Look out eBay and Amazon, it sounds like there is a new “playa” ready to sit down at the table. Should they be “dealing in” Buy.com as a marketplace heavyweight? Hmmmm, things could get interesting…LISTEN NOW!

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Wow, we got a new “intelligent” President, a Clinton back in power, an Indian movie sweeps the Oscars and Randy Smythe working for Buy.com?!? Now that is change! LMAO

So it has been a little over 4 weeks since Randy went venturing to the “other” side of things. I check in with my friend to see how things are over there. He is such a great guy to chat with ALL THE TIME, and this one is NO LESS exciting that all the other calls we have done (more Randy Smythe Interviews and stories).

The big topic on this call is the eBay’s TOP secret, Top Seller conference. Randy crashed the party, LMAO and now gives us his take on the state of things. All things eBay, Buy.com, and his new roll are addressed and YEAH, I was stunned again buy his openness and views on My Blog Utopia, eBay and ecommerce and where we are going in this tough economy.

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Look folks, I am doing this whole week of interviews, before my birthday on the 13th for many reasons. But a big reason is to highlight some of the mentors, movers and shakers in eCommerce and reflecting on how they made a difference for me and my business personally.  So I am so glad to have Randy spend a little time with us here on ColderICE.com for this interview.

–  John

Got your attention with that title didn’t I? Well that is really a valid question and our buddy Randy Smythe is the man who can give you an “educated guess” for the answer. And I DID ask him too.

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You know, when I was selling my used books off of the shelves of my house just to keep from going broke back in the beginning of 3rd Power Outlet, I used to see this buzz around the now defunct, Glacier Bay DVD on eBay. Back then, Glacier Bay was eBay’s top feedback seller with over 15 million in sales from 1999 – 2006. Which I must laugh about the fact that eBay STILL buys Google Adwords for his company name even today!

But I got off topic there… I remember back in the day I would say to myself, how could this company have so much volume, traffic, and most coveted of all (back when it meant something) positive feedback?

I remember just wishing I knew “that guy”! I remember interviews where Randy would spring thought and wisdom that blew me away. I would literally sit and take notes on the rare occasion that he would give an interview. I also remember the day I got Scot Wingo’s book (eBay Strategies) and how delighted I was to see Glacier Bay DVD in the case study. WOW, and now I got both Randy and Scot on my speed dial? OMG that is so cool!

Randy is by far one of the coolest and most giving ecommerce big dawgs out there. He is so much fun and so freaking smart at the same time. I have done a couple other interviews with Randy and I will tell you this; you have to be careful when you listen to him talk because his wisdom is spewed out in such a conversational way that you might miss a BIG NUGGET that could make or break your year. I am serious about this, the dude knows his sh*t, and if you don’t subscribe to his blog over at MyBlogUtopia.com, you are missing a whole lot of good stuff.

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You know him and you love him. He is the happy ol’ dude at the end of the block who you visit on your way to the store. But then you end up chatting with him till the store closes and you have to go home with nothing purchased. You look up and the day is long gone.

(press play button)

That is what it feels like when I get the opportunity to talk to my buddy Randy Smythe the blogger from My Blog Utopia.  He is full of so much experience, wisdom and plan old gruff that it is always thought provoking that entertaining.

This interview is a follow up from the eBay Top Seller conference call from the other week and boy this is some GOOD stuff. I was going to hold off on publishing this until I got the final edit, but this was just too timely. In light of the Dinesh responding to Randy’s post over at his blog, I had to post this one IMMEDIATELY.

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Because you loved this movie so much there is now a sequel….NOT. But there is a sequel to what I have dubbed the Buy.com Scarlet Letter saga, that now PeSA (Professional eBay Sellers Alliance) has step into the ring. Today they have released a response to this first letter from “unknown” that was sent to our friend Randy Smythe of My Blog Utopia last week on October 15th. He wrote the original article on his blog called “On eBay: The Little Guy Can’t Take it Anymore!” and gave me an exclusive interview that very morning after he got the letter right here!

Since then there has been not even a whisper from either eBay or Buy.com, so maybe someone will address PeSA on this? Can someone just say something? I doubt it, but following this drama is way better than renting that crappy ass video or buying it from Buy.com LOL.

Here is a full reprint of the OFFICIAL response from the PeSA website…

The Professional eBay Sellers Alliance was recently contacted about the efforts in the eBay community to “not shop from buy.com this holiday season” because of the damage the eBay seller community is feeling from the special pricing program eBay struck with buy.com. Since this issue underscores the greater issue about the future of the eBay marketplace, we felt is was important to comment publicly on the article, which we have also posted the article on our site

We agree that the deal eBay arranged for buy.com, as well as the new diamond tier pricing, hurts the eBay community overall because it provides free access to the marketplace without the same commitment to success that the current listing fee structure requires of the rest of eBay sellers. Zero upfront cost allows a merchant to oversupply and saturate a category with pricing that’s not matched to the interest of shoppers. The result is a dramatic drop in conversion category-wide. Meanwhile, the rest of the sellers in the category still must make the upfront investments to list but experience dramatically lower exposure.