TekGems Blog

I wanted to share some presentations from eBay Developer Conference 2007 that I thought were of note. They are not too technical related specifically to web merchants and those interested in marketing their site to search engines:

Data Mining: The Key to Affiliate Success
http://pages.ebay.com/devcon/AlexSchultz_DataMiningTheAPIFINAL.pdf

Alex Schultz
Speaker Alex Schultz put himself through college as an affiliate and run the eBay UK affiliate program. That’s why you should come listen to him speak about the key to affiliate success: data mining. Hear real life examples of how data mining gives affiliates an advantage, how to optimize where you send your clicks, how to be truly certain you have a significant result from your optimization efforts, and more. Learn my secrets and make lots of money for very little work.


Lessons from eBay Buyer Research
http://pages.ebay.com/devcon/Resnick_LessonsfromeBayBuyerResearchFINAL.pdf

Jeff Resnick
eBay's buyer research team conducts interviews and studies with regular eBay users, all over the country. For the first time, we are sharing some of the results of that research. Learn about the different kinds of buyers, and about what they really want. Affiliates will learn how to market applications to buyers, and sellers will learn how to create listings that appeal to buyers.


SEO
http://pages.ebay.com/devcon/Schoemaker_SearchEngineOptimizationFINAL.pdf

Jeremy "Shoe Money" Schoemaker
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your web site to gain maximum visibility from internet search engines. Given the importance of search engine traffic for all web businesses, it makes sense to invest in SEO to ensure that potential visitors or customers can find your site. Jeremy "Shoemoney" Schoemaker is a leading expert in search engine marketing, and in this talk he leads you though what SEO is, and gives you practical advice on how to better market your business through search engines.


Building Effective Online Storefronts
http://pages.ebay.com/devcon/AndersonDavey_Building_Effective_StorefrontFINAL.pdf

Eric Anderson, neoverve, Kurt Davey, neoverve
Want to get more work from your current client base? Want to broaden your possible client base through ECommerce? Eric Anderson from Neoverve discusses the basics of an online business (highlighting the similarities between online and offline business), finding shoppers not browsers, the basics of site usability, and increasing sales effectiveness using additional tools. This session is targeted at professionals wishing to build online stores for themself or for a small business, ECommerce consultants, web designers and developers, and marketing managers.

Other presentations are available for review here:
http://pages.ebay.com/devcon/tracks.html

business - Locating Steady Product Sources

Locating a wholesale distributor who supplies what you want to sell isn't always easy, but Sun W. Kim, 30, founder of TekGems Inc. (eBay User ID: tekgems), found a novel way to do it. The San Francisco electronics entrepreneur did Google searches for the model numbers of products he wanted--searches that often led right to distributors' websites. "Pretty soon, I knew who the distributors were and whom to talk to," Kim says.

Do you need an external floppy drive for your Mac running OS X?

This item is perfect for you. While it will do read Mac proprietary SuperDrive diskettes (remember the 800K and 1600KB diskettes?), it will read any drive formatted to the 720KB or 1.44MB standard. Starting from Mac OS X 10.2 and up, the drivers are built into the operating system so it is literally plug-n-play. The drive is powered through the USB port so no AC adapter is needed. How cool is that?

Official Google Checkout Blog: Update to our event on 6/14

Wonder if this had anything to do with eBay pulling their AdWords feed. In any event, eBay will not likely allow Google Checkout on eBay. While it is anti-competitive, just having Paypal on eBay makes the dispute resolution process more consistent. I think Google Checkout is better off fighting for marketshare off eBay. Many eBay sellers are complaining about lackluster performance on eBay (read: too much fees) and are looking to other channels to become more profitable. This is where Google Checkout can capture eBay sellers.

eBay's PayPal Service to Roll out 'Advanced Risk Predictors':

"In October, PayPal will test a Web Service that utilizes advanced risk predictors, giving merchants more information and control over whether to accept payments, while maintaining buyer privacy. The Web Service will fully rollout in 2008."

This is good news for eBay sellers. Many of us have asked a way to detect fraud and manage our financial risk in a better way. We don't want to lose money to fraudsters, but we also do not Paypal to stop transactions that could be flagged as risky, but we feel are legitimate transactions.

We all have stories where we could have lost a big sale if we just followed protocol, but did not look at the person's name or call them by phone to build some rapport.

eBay's Payment Policies Spark Two Antitrust Lawsuits: "Two antitrust lawsuits were filed against eBay in April 2007 and have been assigned to the same judge because they are related, according to court filings. The plaintiffs in both parties have complained of eBay's practices with regard to its online payment service PayPal. The same judge had presided over a PayPal-related class-action lawsuit that was filed in 2002."

I recently stated on last blog post that eBay would never allow Google Checkout on their platform. But it sounds like some lawsuits are in the works that could potentially force eBay to "level the playing field" by including Google Checkout. If eBay quickly implements support for other payment gateways like AuthorizeNet, VeriSign, LinkPoint -- they would have a legitimate argument that Google Checkout's technology has been around as long.

Barney Stone, owner of Stone Edge Order Manager had this to say about Google Checkout:

http://www.stoneedge.net/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4848

Google Checkout uses technology (multiple asynchronous data transfers per transaction with potentially long delays) that is not compatible with a desktop based application like the Order Manager. They asked us to support it, but we told them we could not until they switch to a reasonable technology like that used by all of the other gateways we support.

While the asynchronous argument is sound for a desktop based program, Google Checkout and eBay could talk nice to each since they are both web platforms. It takes eBay a while to receive paid notifications from Paypal. It wouldn't be so different with Google Checkout. If Google search results can appear in sub-seconds, why can't transaction be approved just as quick?

Is there something I am missing?

Let me know!

Who is the real Goliath? Is it Google Checkout or Paypal?

Paypal has a lot more registered users and are building a bigger off-eBay presence every day. Paypal is also partnered up with the likes of Yahoo! Stores that offer Paypal Express Checkout and Direct Payment. With Paypal Direct Payment, merchants receive a merchant account-like service for $20 per month. This gives merchant access to accepting all major credit card online via shopping cart and through a Virtual Terminal.

What merchant incentive can you provide long-term that would make merchants want to support Google Checkout? Google has another six months before their free fee special expires. But as merchants, I think we need a more complete set of offerings.

Although Google Checkout can steal marketshare, it seems like a lot of work! Google Checkout is essentially a third-party credit card agent (like 2Checkout) instead of Paypal's model of having a balance. Transferring Paypal funds between accounts is extremely profitable. Is Google thinking they can serve enough ads in Product Search and AdWords w/ the Checkout logo to make this a profitable business unit?

But I do wish Google Checkout well. Competition is always healthy and it encourage Paypal to improve their weaknesses. Google has the web traffic to properly promote their services. If our web store is any indication, we have been seeing a steady increase of Google Checkout as the preferred payment method. I hope Google will rally another Google sponsored coupon for additional member acquisition during the holiday season. When they do, we'll be ready to promote Google Checkout heavily. :)

A XBoxHacker BBS forum user posted about our VT6421L chipset RAID PCI card. It features RAID, SATA, eSATA, and IDE. For $16.49 (the current rice as of 2007 Jun 12), you will not find the same card for less, not even NewEgg. We checked around and similar cards are selling for over $20. We also ship international so this product is available to anyone in the world.

The first thing you need to determine is why you are counting. Specifically, what is it that you expect to achieve through your count program? If you are setting up a program just to fulfill a corporate requirement of counting inventory X times per year or to achieve some subjective accuracy number thrown at you, you will likely not end up with a highly effective count program. You should be counting to optimize your business operations and achieve high levels of customer service.

Of all warehouse processes, order picking tends to get the most attention. It’s just the nature of distribution and fulfillment that you generally have more outbound transactions than inbound transactions, and the labor associated with the outbound transactions is likely a big piece of the total warehouse labor budget. Another reason for the high level of importance placed on order picking operations is its direct connection to customer satisfaction. The ability to quickly and accurately process customer orders has become an essential part of doing business.