Web Site Design Blog

We will be at eBay Live on June 12-15 in Vegas. Remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so don’t forget to mark the date and be there or be square.

Why do we recommend it? There are lots of other sellers, lots of networking opportunities, and generally speaking lots of folks willing to share information. For the cost of the ticket you will find that you’ll be informed and you’ll be knowledgeable about eBay selling and on the gala night you’ll be well fed. We strive to go meet our eBay clients every year at eBay live, so if you have a chance look us up. We will be at the PESA (Proffessional eBay Sellers Alliance) suite, and around.  Also, make sure to stop in at Marsha Collier’s Coolebaytools booth at the show. Marsha is one of our favorite clients and one of the top eBay players,  so make sure and say hello to her.

Due to our attendance at eBay Live! we will not be operating business that week, so please be patient if you are waiting for a quote or completion of projects.

We hope to see you there.

There are several tricks that we use to build templates for eBay. Eventhough it is said that you can not use script items in your listings this is not entirely true. In fact, most of our templates use both script items and formatting tricks that change html to respond differently than your normal run of the mill webpage. In addition using ascii code can allow you to code into an ebay listing which greater flexiblity to get over the eBay search maniupulation issue. You can find some conversion tools by googleling the words ‘ascii conversion’. Most of the auction management systems, such as ChannelAdvisor and Marketworks support these script items, but be careful as some of them only take the some of the tags in what I like to call reverse ascii code. This is simply that not only content areas but also inside html tags need to be coded in ascii type.

You can also change the entire eBay page using .css (cascading style sheets)rendering the eBay look quite different from what it actually is. Not all of these changes are that great, but the fact is that you can mess with the entire auction listing page. For starters we often use form css which makes the form submit button look different, changes the color of the button, etc.

We also use a font style that nearly ensures that no matter what is used by the person who is submitting the auction that the template will retain it’s integrity and the look that was originally crated. Other sites, like Overstock Auctions also allow for styles although their tags differ from those on the eBay templates. Instead of the ‘a name’ tag you can use a ‘div’ tag at Overstock. Overstock will otherwise strip out some html tags making it much more difficult to use standard html tags on the site. Quite a bit can be changed in your auction listing throught a listing template with style sheets and scripts creating a marketing template that will surely outshine your competition. Take a look at our services - we create eBay templates.

We’ve started a list of websites, on a page (click left navigation to get there) that inspired us this month.

Our favorite inspiration site, holds you from the minute you get there. Take a look at the Sundance Film Festival: http://festival.sundance.org/2006/

Some of the  eBay Power Sellers have noticed, and made a big deal about, the falling stock prices of eBay. It’s a surprising development, but are the stock prices at eBay really going to affect eBay sellers?

I had the pleasure of attending an analyst dinner with folks from Piper Jaffray and took away a few notes. The dinner was attended by some of the major shot callers for stock pricing for eBay. As I understand it the price will stay as a buy. Eventhough many are squaking about it, the fact is that eBay is diversifying their business to include their payment system (Paypal) and VOIP product (Skype). The auction business may have matured, but in fact there are many other avenues to make money on the internet, most noteably Pay per click, and why wouldn’t any public company enjoy those avenues.

Skype is a product used by millions of users and although it is still not fully developed by eBay - they are certainly looking for ways to improve their pocketbook with this product. Bringing to the table pay-per-click, ads on the Skype platform, and eBay visibility will play well for eBay. This might even bring more buyers to the eBay auction site, and eBay Express.

I wouldn’t discount eBay as the largest ecommerce platform out there, because in reality it is! Alexa ranks as the top 5 sites, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, MySpace and eBay, and while Yahoo certainly has ecommerce, it does not have the available buy it now mentality and the volumes of listings that eBay has. None of the others come close.

Take a look at all the ruckus about GBase. Here is something that is said to have the capability to rival eBay, yet in reality, it is nowhere close to the ecommerce portal that eBay is, and honestly, I don’t see much there when I look at other Google attempts to go, like Froogle. Froogle is a search for product entity that doesn’t contribute but a minor portion of any etailer profit. In fact I’m hard pressed to find any ecom site that has good results from Froogle and a good conversion.

What many may not realize, especially sellers on the eBay platform, is that eBay is more than just an auction site anymore. It now has interests in many markets and the most profitable is likely to be the Skype and Paypal areas, not the core auction business that it has been in the past.

While sellers are clamoring and disgruntled over this, the fact remains that eBay can only justify to their stockholders moving forward and reaping a fortune. If the core site has matured, they are smart for going out to other avenues. As a seller, that should be the key as well. Diversification is where sellers will continue to find new opportunities for growth while still maintaining their base. This is what eBay is doing and this is what eBay sellers should be doing too.