Matt's Online Auction Selling and Ecommerce Tips

Reaching Global Buyers via Ecommerce

Matt Kirtok — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 19:35:00 GMT

I have read the article below at Startup Journal by By KELLY K. SPORS, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal. It has some good points, but it doesn't mention any negative sides of selling international on eBay or on any auction / ecommerce sites such as increasing fraud credit card purchases, charge backs after receiving the shipments, and lost packages.

Even though selling international has some risks, it may be worth while for some ecommerce businesses. So, here's the article:

Companies often take advantage of the weak dollar by selling items outside the U.S. for more money than they could at home.

You can too. Internet auction sites such as eBay make it easy for sellers in the U.S. to reach global buyers, who may pay a higher price because the currency-exchange rate works in their favor. The euro, for instance, has gained about 25% against the dollar in recent years, making U.S. purchases much cheaper for Europeans.

While eBay operates separate auction sites in other countries, U.S. sellers are often better off just listing on the domestic site -- eBay.com -- since that eliminates the need to translate the listing. The key: Make sure to offer world-wide shipping so that you don't turn away international customers.

EBay says that more than half of all its 147 million registered users are now outside the U.S., and that its U.S. site is drawing more and more buyers from around the world.

Some items, especially those hard to find in other countries, can fetch a high price abroad, says Jim Cockrum, who makes a living by offering advice on online auctions. Mr. Cockrum, who lives in Indianapolis, says he once sold a pair of used Nike Air Jordan sneakers to a collector in China for about $700.

International shipping, however, can be tricky. Each country carries its own shipping rules, including weight and size restrictions, and some ban the import of items like perfume. So check with your shipper to see whether your product is allowed to be sent internationally.

Also, it's usually bettter to specify in your listing that the buyer pays for shipping and then figure out the shipping charge with the winning bidder. A calculator on eBay can help buyers estimate this amount.

What is E-Business

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 02 May 2005 19:18:00 GMT

What is E-Business ?

Many confuse the difference between e-commerce and e-business. Electronic commerce, B2C, or E-commerce refers to online sales. On the other hand, Electronic Business or E-Business refers to more than just selling online.

E-Business is about utilizing internet technologies, such as simple email, online banking solutions, websites and more sophisticated applications such as web based CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Solutions, web based inventory management.

Major goal of E-Business is to increase sales, business eficiency, productivity, streamline business processes and decrease costs.

Here's a definiton of E-Business at darwinmag.com :

What does e-business really mean?

The most basic definition of e-business is simply this: using the internet to connect with customers, partners, and suppliers. But the term also implies the transformation of existing business processes to make them more efficient. To engage in e-business, companies need to be able to unlock data in their back-end computer systems, so they can share information and conduct electronic transactions with customers, partners, and suppliers via the internet. And for some companies, engaging in e-business means adopting new web-enabled business models—auctioning off surplus goods, selling products directly to consumers, or joining in online purchasing cooperatives with their competitors. Without a doubt, embarking on an e-business effort requires as much thinking about business strategy as it does about technology.

The Benefits of E-Business

The Internet and related technologies can change the way you develop and conduct your business processes, making them more time and cost efficient. They can diversify your marketing channels and, ultimately, help you increase your business revenue.

The Internet levels the playing field for small businesses. That is, it allows small business operators to compete on equal footing with larger businesses in the same industry.

Through the Internet, your small business can distribute information online to a global audience, immediately, with little out of pocket expense. This means you’ll reach more clients or customers in a shorter period of time. It gives you the ability to interact with your clients and customers in new ways, putting power in the hands of the buyer, giving your clients or customers more choice than they’ve ever had before.

And finally, the Internet gives you, the seller, the ability to readily assess your online business practices and modify them on the fly to ensure they meet the needs of your clients/customers.

In short, you can use the Internet to:

• Collect vital business information related to your customers and competitors. The Internet is a valuable research tool and, as a readily accessible information medium, its ability to allow you to remain competitive in your industry should not be underestimated.

• Increase awareness about your company. Even if you are not considering selling online, having a website that promotes your business, provides contact information, and outlines your unique value proposition – that is, the unique collection of benefits attributed to your product or service that creates value for your customers or clients – will simply increase your reach and value in the marketplace, and make it easier for your potential clients/customers to find you.

• Streamline communications and improve customer service. Email communications, website FAQs and auto-responders are examples of simple and cost effective electronic techniques that can help improve communications between you and your clients/customers.

• Improve productivity and reduce costs. Simply by streamlining communications using Internet technologies, you can improve your business productivity. And, out-of-pocket costs can be reduced further by implementing a readily updatable website, instead of printed materials that have a short shelf-life, to relay pertinent information to your customer base.

• Sell your products online. For those considering making the leap to ecommerce, selling online can lower your upfront set-up costs and operational costs, increase your reach to a global marketplace, and allow you to be “open” 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Further, it can allow you to automate your order processing and order tracking capabilities, develop cheaper online catalogues, and update your product lists on the fly.

Ebay Feedback

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 19:52:00 GMT

Ebay Feedback

Every eBay member has a profile in the Feedback Forum. A profile has basic information about the member and a list of feedback left by their trading partners from previous transactions. Learning to trust a member of the community has a lot to do with what their past customers or sellers have to say!

For each transaction, only the buyer and seller can rate each other by leaving feedback. Each feedback left consists of a positive, negative, or neutral rating, and a short comment. Leaving honest comments about a particular eBay member gives other Community members a good idea of what to expect when dealing with that member. Once it is left, the feedback becomes a permanent part of the member's profile.

Ebay Feedback Stars

Ebay Feedback Disputes

“To maintain the integrity of the feedback system, feedback left for a member becomes a permanent part of that member's record. The comments cannot be edited at a later date. “ eBay says. But how about the feedbacks you have received which believe you didn't deserve. Is there any way to get your feedback removed?

There are five different actions you can take for an unpleasant feedback received.

1. Reply to eBay feedback received:
Share your side of the story by responding to any comment that has been left for you. Your response will be shown directly below the comment left by the other eBay member. Reply to feedback you have received.

2. Follow up to eBay feedback you have left:
You can leave one follow-up comment to a comment that you have already left, to add information or clarify your earlier comment. This will appear below your original comment. Follow up to feedback you have left.

3. Mutual eBay Feedback Withdrawal:
If both you and your trading partner are able to resolve a problem after feedback has been left, you can mutually agree to withdraw the feedback. Mutually withdrawn feedback still appears in the member profile, but is no longer counted in the feedback score. Both members must agree, and feedback left by both parties will be withdrawn at the same time. Start mutual feedback withdrawal for a transaction now.

4. Mediation through SquareTrade:
eBay's preferred dispute resolution provider, SquareTrade, offers services to help users solve problems related to their eBay transactions. SquareTrade offers a service to mediate disputes over feedback. Start the process to resolve a dispute via SquareTrade.

5. Feedback Removal:
eBay will remove individual feedback comments only in very exceptional circumstances, if they violate specific policies. Some special situations where eBay will remove feedback include: getting a valid court order to do so, the feedback contains vulgar language, or contains personal contact information. See a list of situations where eBay will consider removing feedback, and how you can file for removal.

For more information about eBay Feedback, visit Feedback FAQ Page at eBay.

You may also visit Leaving Feedback on eBay post.

Free Shopping Cart Mal's Ecommerce

Matt Kirtok — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 17:44:00 GMT

Free Shopping Cart Mal's Ecommerce Review

I have been reviewing some shopping carts to help internet business owners. Mal's Ecommerce is a free shopping cart which you can implement to your ecommerce site easily. I'd highly recommend Mal's Ecommerce free shopping cart service for small ecommerce sites, usually with less than 100 products.

Mal's Ecommerce also offers a paid service for $6/month lets you integrate your site with your choice of payment processor. Remember free version does not process credit cards for you, it basically stores the credit card and order details of the customers for you. But you can easily integrate the free version with PayPal, Nochex or Paymate and start processing credit cards. So if you have a PayPal account, and if you integrate Mal's Free Shopping Cart to your site with PayPal you can accept credit cards through your PayPal account from non PayPal members. This is a great way not to lose your prospective customers by only accepting payment from paypal members.

They also offer a free and paid versions of mOrders software which help you to track your orders offline.

Here's some features of mOrders:

Download new orders with a single click
Multiple accounts/usernames are stored in a single database
Group by, sort and search yours orders to make them easy to find
Powerful report generator built in. Customize your reports, print invoices.
Export your orders to other applications; Excel, MS Access, etc.

There's a discussion about Mal's Shopping Cart at FreeAuctionScripts which you can visit here: Mals-e Cart - Comments and Suggestions

Visit the What is E-Business Article for more information about E-Business and E-Commerce.

Auction Tools Directory

Matt Kirtok — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 16:21:00 GMT

Are you an auction seller? Or do you have a resource website for auction sellers? If your answer is yes, you will have to visit Auction Tools Directory .

On Auction Tools site, you can find eBooks for auction industry, Auction Blogs, Image Hosting Services for auction sellers, auction management systems and many more sub categories specifically for auction industry.

There are already almost 300 resource websites listed for auction industry. You can suggest your site or your favorite auction resource sites and listings are free of charge.

I had a chance to speak to the owner of the site Brad, to ask him some questions before writing this post. He sounded very enthuastic about Auction Tools Directory and told about future plans.

He is in a process of moving the database from Access to MSSQL, and he is working on improving the site.

You can rate and write reviews for your favorite auction related sites. You can also join the Mailing List for updates and news about auction industry.

Free Website Advertising with Coop Advertising Network

Matt Kirtok — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 15:45:00 GMT

I've decided to register for Coop Advertising Network couple of months ago. It's a free service offered by Digitalpoint . Since joining the Coop Advertising Network , I've seen dramatic increases with my search engine results. I'd highly recommend using Coop Advertising Network to any website owners. Below is an FAQ from Digitalpoint website.

Coop Advertising Network FAQ

What is this?

The ad network is a network of site owners that offer ad space to the network. In return, the ads they define are displayed across the entire network. You can learn more about the goals and history over here.
How much does this cost?
100% free.
Why did you make this?
Because there is a ton of unused advertising space out there on the Internet, and I have not seen anyone else doing anything like this. It's easy to put 50,000 of your own ads on your own site, but there is much more value if you put your ad 50 times on 1,000 sites.
What types of sites do you currently support?
vBulletin 2.x and vBulletin 3.x forums, phpBB 2.x forums, Movable Type blogs, Blogger based blogs and any site that supports PHP (there are how-to instructions for each).
Blogger Note: Blogger blogs have some special requirements at this point. They must be published via FTP/SFTP (rather than xxxx.blogspot.com) and must be running on an Apache web server that allows mod_rewrite with PHP installed.
I can't seem to get the ads to work on my site, can you help me?
Please visit the forum for assistance.
What types of ads can be served?
Currently the system can serve 468x60 graphic banners, 468x60 text based banners or a simple text based ad. For the text banners, you can control the background color of the banner.
Are there any unacceptable ads?
Gambling, adult, political and pharmaceutical related ads will not be accepted for the ad network. All ads are reviewed before they become live on the network. There are also detailed ad guidelines.
What Character Set Is Used For Ads?
Ads are served as Unicode (UTF-8), so ads in any languages are supported. If your site's charset is not UTF-8, you may want to consider changing it so unicode ads show properly.

9. How exactly does it work?

Ads are served in realtime on the backend from a dedicated ad server.
First an active coop ad user is selected randomly based on weight (the more value/ad space you bring to the network, the more impressions/weight you will get across the network).
Once the user has been selected, it pulls a random ad that they created to display.
The ad server serves that advertisement for that ad request.
You can see a sample of a raw text link integration by clicking here (text links in the footer).
How do you prevent sites from joining the network and then removing the ads from their site?

Site are automatically revalidated daily, and accounts will be deactivated automatically if the ad network ads are missing from their site.

If I offer more ad space to the network do I get my ads displayed more on the network?

Yes, users are assigned a weight factor that determines the chances one of their ads will be served. The weighting system is a formula based on a variety of things, including popularity of the site, how many pages you offer to the ad network for space, how many other ads you run on your pages, etc.

Is there any incentive to refer people to the ad network?

Yes, there is a referral system where you receive a 10% weight bonus when you refer someone (the weight being based on the new user). In simple terms, the more people you refer, the more your ads are displayed across the network.

Can I buy my way into the network if I don't have any ad space to offer?

Sorry, no (this is not a money making venture on our end).

Why is there no cost if you run a dedicated server to serve ads? Doesn't it take server resources and bandwidth?

Yes it does, but at this point it's not much. If the ad network grows very large, there may be real costs incurred on our end to run it. If that ever becomes the case, we may sell a very small portion of the ad space to companies outside the ad network. There are no plans to do it at this point, and only enough ad space would be sold to break even on the bandwidth costs. But again, at this point there are no plans to do so, but it is left as an option to make it viable if it grows large.

Become a Coop Advertising Network member for free.

Search Engine Optimization for eBay Stores

Matt Kirtok — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:07:00 GMT

eBay has been improving customization for eBay Stores. eBay store owners do not have the flexibility of an independent ecommerce store, but they can still customize their eBay stores for good search engine traffic.

Remember on page optimization is only a part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and another very important part is off page optimization. You can read more about this at Daily SEO Blog On Page and Off Page Optimization article.

eBay Discussion Board has a very informative topic for eBay Stores Search Engine Optimization . Many experienced eBay store owners share their experiences about optimizing their ebay stores. Also one of the authority forums in auction industry FreeAuctionScripts has an SEO section for auction sellers and ecommerce sites called SEO Tutorials, Articles, Tips and Tools . You can ask your questions about optimizing your eBay Stores.

If you had a chance to read the “On Page and Off Page Optimization” article at Daily SEO, you will understand the importance of getting backlinks to your eBay store. Every backlink with the right anchor text will increase your rankings in search engine result pages.

e.g.
Anchor Text: eBay Store Name
URL : http://stores.ebay.com/eBayStoreName/

Try to submit your ebay store URL to as many directories as possible with using your keywords in your “Anchor Text”.

Here's a list of directories where you can submit your eBay Store. It's categorized and for free directories category, you don't need to provide a reciprocal link.

With the increasing power of search engines, SEO is a must for an ecommerce business. Good luck with your search engine optimization practices.

Sponsor of This Article: Text Link Advertising : Text Links for people new to Search Engine Optimization. Target up to 100 of your inner product pages with 190,000 links across five IPs on PR4-5 pages for just $99/month.

Yahoo Blog Invitation

Matt Kirtok — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:42:00 GMT

After posting the Yahoo Blogs news, I have received some emails asking if I have a Yahoo Blog Invitation . Here's what you should do to get a Yahoo Blog Invitation .

Go to Yahoo Blog Invitation Page and enter your email address. Your email will be entered to the beta list and you will be receiving a Yahoo Blog Invitation soon.

If Yahoo starts sending invitations like Gmail, I will be offering them here for our visitors, but for now I haven't received an invitation yet :)

Sponsor of This Article: Looking for something second hand? Need something quick and something cheap? Want the latest discounted hot deals? Check out these bargain pages, especially for the bargain crazy of you.

Leaving Feedback on eBay

Matt Kirtok — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 04:11:00 GMT

Feedback on eBay is the reputation of buyers and sellers. It's more important for sellers to have a high feedback rating. In order to become a powerseller on eBay, you have to have at least 98% positive feedback rating. But some surveys show that many buyers prefer to buy from sellers with 99% or more feedback rating.

Let's start with basics. If you are new to eBay, you should start with reading another post I made about eBay Feedback to learn the basics of eBay Feedback System.

How to leave feedback on eBay?

Click on the My eBay button at the top of any eBay page.
Click on the "Feedback" link under "My Account" on the left-hand side of the page.
Click on the Leave Feedback button.

From this page, you will be able to leave feedback for other members you've had a transaction with during the past 90 days, as well as visit your Member Profile page where you can review and respond to feedback left about you.

If you need to leave eBay feedback for a transaction that is more than 90 days old, you may do so using the "single transaction form" link located on the Leave Feedback page. Remember, eBay only commits to items being available for 90 days, so if it is greater than 90 days you may not be able to leave feedback.

Why Leaving Feedback on eBay is so important?

Every sellers has its own way of leaving feedback on eBay. Some leave a positive feedback after receiving the payment, and some wait till the buyer leaves one.

As a buyer, maybe you don't care about leaving or receiving a feedback. But remember every feedback is important for sellers.

Contact the seller before leaving a negative or neutral feedback

It is very important to understand that a negative or neutral feedback can hurt the seller's business for good. Almost all sellers are willing to work with you and help with the problems occured during the transaction. Remember everybody can make mistakes, and there are some mistakes and problems which sellers are not responsible. But if you are not happy with the whole transaction, first contact the seller, wait for an answer, then decide leaving a neutral or negative feedback. This is a common problem especially with new buyers to eBay.

You may also be interested in eBay Search Engine Optimization article, or eBay Feedback Information Page.

Free XML Tutorials

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 16:09:00 GMT

While I was doing a research for my new XML project, I have come up with a list of Free XML Tutorials. I will make a list of the Free XML Tutorials, so if somebody needs those, it would be a clean list of valuable XML Tutorials sites.

FREE XML TUTORIALS :

I will add more Free XML Tutorials, and also I will create a list of Free XSL Tutorials. Please send me your Free XML XSL Tutorials to be added on this list.

What is XML ?:

XML is the Extensible Markup Language. It is designed to improve the functionality of the Web by providing more flexible and adaptable information identification.

It is called extensible because it is not a fixed format like HTML (a single, predefined markup language). Instead, XML is actually a `metalanguage' —a language for describing other languages—which lets you design your own customized markup languages for limitless different types of documents. XML can do this because it's written in SGML, the international standard metalanguage for text markup systems (ISO 8879).

What is XML for ?:

XML is intended `to make it easy and straightforward to use SGML on the Web: easy to define document types, easy to author and manage SGML-defined documents, and easy to transmit and share them across the Web.'

It defines `an extremely simple dialect of SGML which is completely described in the XML Specification. The goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML.'

`For this reason, XML has been designed for ease of implementation, and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML'

XML is not just for Web pages: it can be used to store any kind of structured information, and to enclose or encapsulate information in order to pass it between different computing systems which would otherwise be unable to communicate.

Why is XML such an important development ?:

It removes two constraints which were holding back Web developments:

dependence on a single, inflexible document type (HTML) which was being much abused for tasks it was never designed for;
the complexity of full SGML, whose syntax allows many powerful but hard-to-program options.

XML allows the flexible development of user-defined document types. It provides a robust, non-proprietary, persistent, and verifiable file format for the storage and transmission of text and data both on and off the Web; and it removes the more complex options of SGML, making it easier to program for.

Reference: http://www.ucc.ie/xml/

UK psychologists think Bloggers are the Unhealthiest People

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 16:37:00 GMT

UK psychologists think Bloggers are the Unhealthiest People according to an article at NewScientist.com

This is a sentence from the article:
-----
"We expected diary keepers to have some benefit, or be the same, but they were the worst off," says Elaine Duncan of the Glasgow Caledonian University. "In fact, you're probably much better off if you don't write anything at all," she adds.
-----

Click to read the rest of the article at NewScientist.com

I guess that's why I feel sick today :)

Stanley Kubrick

Matt Kirtok — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 18:13:00 GMT

Stanley Kubrick is my favorite director. I have watched all of the Kubrick movies several times and I wanted to share some information about Kubrick, here on my blog.

STANLEY KUBRICK : LIFE IN PICTURES

Few filmmakers’ work is so instantly recognizable as that of Stanley Kubrick. Beautiful, precise composition. Elaborate tracking shots. Powerful acting. Deep, thought-provoking themes. Kubrick put his unique stamp and vision on every film he made.

Despite his relatively small output, probably no other director made great films in so many different genres, from science fiction (2001: A Space Odyssey) to war films (Full Metal Jacket), historical drama (Barry Lyndon) to comedy (Dr. Strangelove), horror (The Shining) to psychosexual drama (Eyes Wide Shut).

Kubrick’s influence on the art of filmmaking is matched by only a precious few fellow giants, and his body of work will certainly continue to thrill and intrigue audiences, critics and future filmmakers for years to come.
Read more on Kubrick and the Documentary, Stanley Kubrick: Life in Pictures

STANLEY KUBRICK BIOGRAPHY:

The son of a physician, Kubrick was born in New York City on July 26, 1928.

When he was just 16 and in high school, Kubrick shot a photograph of a news vendor the day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and submitted it to Look magazine. Look printed the photo and soon hired him as a freelance photographer.

After creating a photo essay on boxing for Look, Kubrick used his savings to make a 16-minute documentary film, Day of the Fight, in 1950.

Later, and after making two further documentaries, Flying Padre and The Seafarers, Kubrick persuaded family members to invest money in a short feature film about a fictitious war called Fear and Desire. He managed to get the film shown in a few art-house theaters in New York, and quickly began making a name for himself.

Probably one of the first true independent filmmakers, Kubrick followed up with two low-budget crime thrillers, Killer’s Kiss and The Killing, then made his first major studio film, the powerful antiwar movie Paths of Glory, starring Kirk Douglas, in 1957.

He went on to receive Best Director Academy Award^® nominations for Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. Each of those films also earned Kubrick Best Screenplay nominations, as did Full Metal Jacket.

In addition, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon received Best Picture nominations.

Kubrick’s only Oscar^® came for the special effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In 1997, he received the D.W. Griffith Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Directors Guild of America.

That same year Kubrick began shooting Eyes Wide Shut, returning to filmmaking after a ten-year absence. He died in his sleep on March 7, 1999, soon after turning in his final cut of the film.

Released in July 1999, Eyes Wide Shut was the first Kubrick film to open at number one at the box office and became one of his biggest hits, earning acclaim for stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.

Reference: http://kubrickfilms.warnerbros.com/

Stanley Kubrick Official & Fan Sites:

I would love to hear your thoughts about Kubrick and Kubrick movies.

Free Auction Scripts, Internet Business Owners Community Portal

Matt Kirtok — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 21:36:00 GMT

Free Auction Scripts, Internet Business Owners Community Portal

FreeAuctionScripts.com is my current project. While we were hanging out on different discussion boards with different eBay sellers, we came up with an idea of starting our own portal where internet business owners can discuss their problems, ask their questions and share their experiences. Let me tell you little bit more about Free Auction Scripts and what we have on the site:

Free Auction Scripts eBay Cross Promotion Tool

With eBay Cross Promotion Tool, eBay sellers enter up to twenty auction and/or eBay store item numbers and create thumbnails of those items and copy paste the generated html code to their auctions, then prospective eBay customers will be able to visit same seller's different eBay items. eBay Cross Promotion Tool was written with PHP by me and has a variety of display options, and a help menu. Users also can ask their questions about our cross promotion tool at our internet business owners community forum.

Free Auction Scripts eBay Stores Directory

Ecommerce Auction Sites Directory

Community Forum Site Map

eBay store owners and internet business owners can submit their online stores to the free eBay Stores Directory. There are already hundreds of eBay stores and E-Commerce sites submitted to the eBay Stores Directory. By submitting your online store to our free eBay Stores Directory, you will increase your site's back links and also will have a chance to find prospective customers.

eBay Success Stories

"Luvn Dogz " Ebay Store Success Story by Marge Holdorf

"My Silver Toe" Ebay Store Success Story by Wanda Silva

"eLegall Books" Ebay Store Success Story by Jodi Legall

"AB Restaurant Supply" Ebay Store Success Story by Allen Brigham

Please send us your “eBay Store Success Story”, and we will publish it on our “eBay Store Success Stories” Page”.

Free Auction Scripts

We have WYSIWYG HTML Editor, eBay Stores Search Tool, Avoid Spam Email Tool and several upcoming projects such as “Thumbnail Creator“, “Advanced Auction Template Creator“.

I will keep posting about the updates about Free Auction Scripts. If you have an internet business, you have to meet others at our Internet Business Owners Community Forum and share your experiences with others or ask your questions and learn from others' experiences. Everybody thinks this is the friendliest internet community, so please check it out.

Automated Froogle Feed Submission Service for Yahoo! Stores Launched by Somacon

Matt Kirtok — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 21:16:00 GMT

This is great news for Yahoo Store Owners who would like to automate their Froogle submissions.

Somacon has launched a Yahoo! Store product feed submission service to Froogle. The service is web-based and fully-automated, as compared to existing submission products that are stand-alone software packages or custom services. Listing products in Froogle, Google's product search engine, is one method of search engine optimization for online merchants.

(PRWEB) September 7, 2004 -- Somacon is now offering a web-based service that allows Yahoo! Store owners to submit their products to Froogle. Somacon's Data Feed Service, located at http://froogle.somacon.com/, completely automates the submission process, and store owners simply must sign up for an account and complete some online forms. The service works for any of the thousands of merchants who use the Yahoo! Store platform for their online presence.

Froogle is Google's product search engine, and any online merchant can submit their products to the engine for free. Once accepted into Froogle's merchant program, the submission process requires technical knowledge for correct submission of product data, including description, price, and image URL. Product information may be submitted to Froogle's servers on a daily basis, and must be submitted at least once per month.

Previously, Yahoo! Store owners had to learn the technical specifications, use a software package to perform the submissions, or hire a developer. Software such as mySpotter FrooHoo and Don's Yahoo! Store Tool can translate the Yahoo! Store data and submit the product data feed. These products cost in the range of US$50.00 and require manually installing and running the software. Other custom services are provided by Yahoo! Store developers. By contrast, Somacon's new service is entirely web-based, and uses a pay-per-use pricing model.

The service currently charges US$0.20 per submission of unlimited products from one Yahoo! Store. Since a Yahoo! Store might require at most daily submission, the cost is at most US$6.20 per month during a thirty-one day month. The service automatically detects when product data has changed in the Yahoo! Store, and only submits on days when the data changes, thereby avoiding unnecessary charges. The service also includes features such as duplicate detection, product filtering, and flexible scheduling. The service has completed a live testing period, and dozens Yahoo! Store owners are successfully using the service to list their products in Froogle. As one happy customer remarked, "I checked Froogle today and the feeds are being accepted and the products are on Froogle. There are no errors with the feeds."

Automated Froogle Feedback Submission by Somacon
Reference: PRWeb.com

eBay will keep Half.com subsidiary open

Matt Kirtok — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 21:26:00 GMT

eBay decided to keep Half.com open. So what was all that hassle for? Thousands of sellers spent days to figure out how to transfer their inventory and listings to other sites including eBay. Then they dedice to keep Half.com open, this is a very immature move by eBay management. Here's an article about Half.com;

eBay will keep Half.com subsidiary open

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- EBay Inc. announced Thursday that it will keep its Half.com subsidiary open indefinitely, scrapping previous plans to shutter the E-Commerce site in mid-October.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said executives decided to keep Half.com open because it still generates revenue and brings customers to eBay. EBay does not break out traffic or revenue data specific to Half.com, but Durzy said that nearly half of all eBay listings for books, music, video and games come from Half.com sellers.

"Half.com has continued to grow more than we anticipated," Durzy said. "Our first priority being to the marketplace, we recognized that frankly the best thing to do was to keep both platforms open."

The San Jose-based online auction company purchased Half.com in a June 2000 stock swap. Some of Half.com's 65 employees in suburban Philadelphia may relocate to eBay's San Jose headquarters by the end of the year, or they will be eligible for severance packages.

Founded in October 1999, Half.com sells previously owned products such as books, DVDs and board games for at least half the retail price. The Plymouth Meeting, Penn.-based subsidiary is best known for a wacky marketing ploy launched near the peak of the dot-com bubble in May 2000, when the company said it would donate funds to a city that named itself in its honor.

Halfway, a small town in Oregon, changed its name to Half.com to promote that online retailer of books, CDs and movies in exchange for 20 computers for its elementary school and money to spur economic development. Despite complaints from many residents who thought it to be a silly marketing gimmick, the city erected a sign that said, "Welcome to Half.com Oregon, America's first dot-com city."

Half.com is also the subject of a festering lawsuit.

Earlier this year, jurors ruled that the eBay division violated patents filed by Thomas G. Woolston, an entrepreneur who founded an E-Commerce company called MercExchange in Great Falls, Va. In May, a federal jury awarded Woolston $35 million, and patent experts said the ruling could force eBay to close Half.com. EBay appealed, and the case is still in the courts.

Article By RACHEL KONRAD
AP TECHNOLOGY WRITER

An eBay PowerSeller's Post about eBay Customer Service

Matt Kirtok — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 04:26:00 GMT

I was reading through the discussion forums, and on FreeAuctionScripts Discussion Forum, I have seen a post by a respected, and well known internet business owner bargainbloodhound . The post is about a comment made by eBay Stores Team management. eBay's customer service problems are becoming a very serious problem and many big sellers are leaving to different venues. Also couple months ago, eBay launched a survey which had several questions about “paying for customer service“. I have never heard a paid customer service in corporate area. And just a reminder; all the big companies with poor customer service will be out of the game in the long run.

Here's the comment from eBay's stores team;

"and made sure the appropriate teams are aware of your concerns. "

And here's the reply from bargainbloodhound ;

So far I have not heard the CEO of your new competitor use this term--and yes unlike Meg Whitman and eBay who play lip service to the words 'community' and 'community values' but do not practice what they preach, he actually interacts with his new community which includes many eBay PowerSellers who are sick and tired of paying for service that is not delivered or is delivered with so many software bugs that it costs OUR businesses money, a complete lack of customer service (canned replies and Web Forms just don't cut it), billing problems that have continued for 7 months and which have resulted in a class action lawsuit being filed on behalf of sellers, and the list goes on. I also have not heard the customer service reps on the competition's toll free customer service number use the term "appropriate teams" or refer customers to a useless web form system when the customer is complaining about year long glitches that have yet to be fixed.

I am also very offended by eBay's belief that its customers should basically perform free customer service duties for ebay, and the attitude of ebay employees during the brown bag lunch which also mirrored this misguided belief.

Yes, there is an eBay community, but it exists independently of eBay the corporation, and as many recent event have shown that community does not require this venue to remain a community.

eBay seriously needs to take a look in the mirror at what it has become and how far it has strayed from its 'community values'. It needs to stop making every decision based on meeting the next quarter's expectations, and instead think of what it must do to retain its customers for the long term.

More times than not, when a company with a dominant position in its field has lost site of meeting the needs of its customers, its dominance soon fades. In a fast changing field like the Internet this ability to meet customer needs is even more vital.

Perhaps eBay should remember how fast things can change, and make some immediate efforts to correct what it has become--after all it was only a decade ago that the mere mention of commercial activity on the then new world wide web brought a barrage of flames to the speaker--now it is a given and no one would think to question the right of ecommerce companies to trade on the WWW. What will the landscape 10 years from now show and what will eBay's place in that landscape be if it continues to treat paying customers as just another commodity?

Microsoft, Amazon to combine forces

Matt Kirtok — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 13:27:00 GMT

Individually they’ve been unstoppable in their respective industries. They’re both legends that have survived the dot com burst and came out winners. Now they’re using both their muscle to combat a Canadian spammer who has been using spam to perform "phishing" fraud.

First, an introduction to Phishing:

"Phishing", for the uninitiated, is a form of fraud which uses fake, but official looking e-mails to solicit information from consumers such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, or even just login information to specific sites, such as Amazon.com. Yours truly has received at least 10 phishing e-mails over the last few months, and that’s just the 1% that gets through my double spam filters. The last e-mail I received looked like it came from Citibank Smith Barney investment group. The “From”, looked legit. The e-mail itself used an official logo, and looked legit. The “click here to give us your confidential information” link looked legit. The only way you could tell its not legit was to hover your mouse cursor over the link and see where it actually leads to, which was to a site in Russia.

I obviously didn’t fall for it, but if you combine a phishing e-mail with the mass distribution of a spammer, an e-mail like this can be delivered to millions of addresses, and if even .01% of people fall for it, it was worth it. It’s the same economic formula as spam for selling commercial products, except the prize is much bigger.

Now Microsoft and Amazon are taking action, together. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of both powerhouses against "Gold Disk Canada", claiming its owner Matthew Head used Microsoft’s Hotmail free web based e-mail service to send fake e-mails deceptively showing as if they were sent from Amazon.com.

Microsoft also recently introduced the new Sender ID specification, which implements a Caller ID type system for e-mail, in an attempt to curtail the tidal waves of spam experienced by anyone with a dial up connection and an e-mail account. The idea was noble but analysts have recently announced that spammers have actually been better at conforming to the new Sender ID specification than legitimate e-mailers, and thus the whole effort has been in vain.

Written by Gal Ori Steinitz
Reference: G4techTV

Coffee & Cigarettes , Worst Movie of All Time

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 20:48:00 GMT

As usual, we have rented some movies last weekend. Since I am from Europe and grew up watching European independant movies, I am always looking for different movies at Hastings. I like the big budget Hollywood movies, but you have to keep up with what's going on with low budget movies. Here we are in Hastings, looking for some movies to rent, and my wife rents the movie called “Coffee & Cigarettes”. We check it out, big big names, such as Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, Jarmusch etc.

What's the movie about? Short stories from Jim Jarmusch that all have coffee and cigarettes in common. It is not about how many short stories there are in the movie, it is about how many of them you can stand to watch. This movie was horrible. Black and white, very amateur acting, and pretty bad lightning and scenes. One simple word, horrible. So if you like to spend your money by renting Coffee & Cigarettes, think again.

Here's the IMDB page for Coffee & Cigarettes . Enjoy.

Overstock.com Gives eBay Some Competition

Matt Kirtok — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:54:00 GMT

Overstock.com is trying to give Internet giant eBay a run for its money. The company, which sells other retailers' excess inventories at discounted prices online, is starting its own auction service.

Overstock officials said yesterday they want to offer customers lower fees and a more simple site to use. The company says 15,000 people have already signed up for the service, which was launched almost a week ago. They say that's not a bad start, but admit they're still lag well behind eBay's 114 million user empire.

I have reviewed Overstock Auctions, and seems like customer service will be a significantly important part of their business. They seem promising and willing to invest in auction business. Also Overstock's traffic numbers are pretty good and overstock.com is within 50 top visited sites on the net. So we will wait and see if they can generate an auction site which will be able to compete with eBay.

Good luck Overstock Auctions and welcome to the market.

Another social weekend passed by

Matt Kirtok — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 20:56:00 GMT

I am pretty busy nowadays, and I didn't have a chance to post to my blog. Here's what's going on with my life. Last friday we had a barbeque party at my place, and our friends came over. It was pretty fun. Sunday we went to the musical “Les Miserables” which was on a national tour. I missed my old days, visiting Broadway shows in NY, but this is cool, too to have a Broadway show in Lubbock, TX. You can find more info about Les Miserables Musical on this link. Work is pretty good, I got used to my new job, and people are great here. I am also working on completing my graduate school next semester, and I will have more time to focus on work and social life.

I will keep updating about what's going on in my life as I promised when I started this blog. This will be more a personal blog than an IT blog.

You all take care, and leave a comment if you have a chance about the things going on...

Matt

Second Life Future of Online Gaming

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 16:16:00 GMT

There's an online community game called Second Life, you can visit the website here: http://www.secondlife.com . I've registered and become a member, and it's addictive. This is not a regular game, check it out when you have time. There are some websites where you can buy and sell second life currency (which you earn/lose by playing the game). So this has become a new industry for some companies. You can start your own REAL company in this game, it's just hilarious. Also can you recommend me a video card 64mb or 128mb? reasonable price, and quality. I need to get a new video card.

Have fun and let me know if you like the game.

Over 10 hours a day on the computer

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:25:00 GMT

I have been spending over 10 hours a day on my computer. It is usually 11-12 hours during the week time. It sounds like crazy but sometimes it's not enough to finish the day's tasks. Am I going to die early? Statistically there's not satisfactory data which will prove that I will die early. Maybe next generations will have pretty good data.

I think I should relax a little, and write more on my blog. BTW, probably most of you have already seen this blog, but I saw an article about it on some website, and checked it out, it's story of a flight attendant who got fired after posting her photos to her blog (probably comments she made on the blog about her company has also affected the decision). Here's the link to her blog, check it out: http://queenofsky.journalspace.com/

eBay Sellers Complaints About Slow Sales

Matt Kirtok — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 21:37:00 GMT

With the holiday seasons, retail industry is having a peak time. How about online sales? Several big websites announce their fancy quarter numbers, and look very happy about them. How about eBay? eBay's quarter numbers looked pretty good and also promising. But if you speak to eBay sellers, they will say this is the slowest season. Since eBay sales are increasing, more buyers are visiting the website, and also eBay has launched a new advertisement campaign, so what is the real problem? eBay seller numbers are growing faster than eBay buyer number. So every day more people are getting interested in selling on eBay, and hits per auction is decreasing. A lot of people get excited and try selling on eBay and lose money. Market is very competitive and you have to be very careful before deciding to sell on eBay, also you have to have a decent business plan, otherwise your business won't stay open long. Here's an eBay Auction Community Forum where sellers talk about the slow sales this year. Good luck to all eBay sellers with the sales during the holiday season.