My advertising business serves automotive dealerships across the country, and I want to offer you a quick read offering insightful, actionable insight to help you or your clients market vehicles.
Here's the link to an article titled, "Who Do You Trust (When Buying a Car)?"
http://blogs.mediapost.com/research_brief/?p=1633
Best,
Jeff Martin, CEO
Sales Driven Marketing LLC
www.SalesDrivenMarketing.com
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Monday, February 04, 2008
Article on EBay's Needed Changes
eBay Makes a Bid to Lure Back Entrepreneurs
02/04/08 - 01:17 PM EST
Elizabeth Blackwell
When a company changes leadership, you hear a lot of talk about fresh ideas.
At eBay(EBAY - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), the transformation has started before the lame-duck CEO has even left the building.
CEO-in-waiting John Donahoe (who will take over from Meg Whitman in March) has previewed his plans to revamp the site's core business: the eBay Marketplace.
At the company's eCommerce Forum in Washington, D.C., he announced a series of changes to the buying and selling experience, ranging from a new fee structure to an enhanced feedback system.
The reasons for the changes are apparent to long-time eBay users. Sites such as Amazon(AMZN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Yahoo!(YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) have pounced on eBay's business by offering their own versions of online stores for small businesses. As customers have become more comfortable shopping online, many small retailers have also set up their own sites, cutting out the eBay middleman.
Now, eBay is trying to win those businesses back. That's the reason Donahoe is courting eBay's top-rated merchants, known as Power Sellers. While eBay used to pride itself on keeping sellers on a level playing field, Power Sellers now will be rewarded with better placement in search results, as well as discounts on fees.
"It's a huge break with the old establishment," says Jonathan Garriss, chief executive of the Web site Gotham City Online and executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, which has long advocated such a move. "Before, we often felt like we were banging our heads against the wall."
Professional-level sellers have complained that the site didn't distinguish them enough from the occasional eBay users auctioning off the contents of Grandma's garage in an online version of a yard sale. The proposed changes, Garriss says, are a step in the right direction. "It gives sellers a carrot to improve the buyer experience," he says. "I've got a vested interest in this. Bad sellers impact me, because they drive buyers away from eBay."
Other relatively simple changes are aimed at bringing eBay up to current online retail standards. Ten years ago, seeing a stark list of text-only search results didn't turn off buyers. These days, visuals count. Buyers expect to see photos of products as they're browsing, and eBay charged an extra fee for sellers to include them in search results.
Effective Feb. 20, eBay will provide these "gallery" images for free, so buyers can scan pictures quickly and efficiently. Saving these potential buyers time will hopefully translate to increased sales.
"Most sellers are cautiously optimistic," says Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which produces software used by several thousand eBay sellers, and author of eBay Strategies: 10 Proven Methods to Maximize Your eBay Business. "The company hasn't quite hit the bull's-eye yet, but they're a lot closer than they've been."
Wingo points out that the new fee structure will increase costs for some sellers. "The folks who sell at auction will be hit the hardest," he says, as eBay's take of each item's final sale price rises from 5.25 to 8.75 percent. Sellers who list their items at a fixed price -- as many of the most established eBay businesses do -- should actually benefit from the changes, thanks to a reduction in insertion fees (the cost to list an item, regardless of whether or not it sells).
The company is also courting its Power Sellers by working with PayPal to improve security for credit-card sales. Power Sellers will now be protected against unauthorized and nonreceipt claims for international transactions. "It should decrease fraud levels," notes Wingo. That might make businesses less likely to restrict their sales to the U.S., increasing their potential sales worldwide.
"We need to redo our playbook, we need to redo it fast and we need to take bold actions," Donahoe said at the conference. Now it's up to the sellers to take the ball and run with it.
"Sellers will have to re-engage," Garriss says. "They have to start advancing and looking at their practices. If they're willing to adapt, there are some very good opportunities for them here."
02/04/08 - 01:17 PM EST
Elizabeth Blackwell
When a company changes leadership, you hear a lot of talk about fresh ideas.
At eBay(EBAY - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr), the transformation has started before the lame-duck CEO has even left the building.
CEO-in-waiting John Donahoe (who will take over from Meg Whitman in March) has previewed his plans to revamp the site's core business: the eBay Marketplace.
At the company's eCommerce Forum in Washington, D.C., he announced a series of changes to the buying and selling experience, ranging from a new fee structure to an enhanced feedback system.
The reasons for the changes are apparent to long-time eBay users. Sites such as Amazon(AMZN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) and Yahoo!(YHOO - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) have pounced on eBay's business by offering their own versions of online stores for small businesses. As customers have become more comfortable shopping online, many small retailers have also set up their own sites, cutting out the eBay middleman.
Now, eBay is trying to win those businesses back. That's the reason Donahoe is courting eBay's top-rated merchants, known as Power Sellers. While eBay used to pride itself on keeping sellers on a level playing field, Power Sellers now will be rewarded with better placement in search results, as well as discounts on fees.
"It's a huge break with the old establishment," says Jonathan Garriss, chief executive of the Web site Gotham City Online and executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, which has long advocated such a move. "Before, we often felt like we were banging our heads against the wall."
Professional-level sellers have complained that the site didn't distinguish them enough from the occasional eBay users auctioning off the contents of Grandma's garage in an online version of a yard sale. The proposed changes, Garriss says, are a step in the right direction. "It gives sellers a carrot to improve the buyer experience," he says. "I've got a vested interest in this. Bad sellers impact me, because they drive buyers away from eBay."
Other relatively simple changes are aimed at bringing eBay up to current online retail standards. Ten years ago, seeing a stark list of text-only search results didn't turn off buyers. These days, visuals count. Buyers expect to see photos of products as they're browsing, and eBay charged an extra fee for sellers to include them in search results.
Effective Feb. 20, eBay will provide these "gallery" images for free, so buyers can scan pictures quickly and efficiently. Saving these potential buyers time will hopefully translate to increased sales.
"Most sellers are cautiously optimistic," says Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which produces software used by several thousand eBay sellers, and author of eBay Strategies: 10 Proven Methods to Maximize Your eBay Business. "The company hasn't quite hit the bull's-eye yet, but they're a lot closer than they've been."
Wingo points out that the new fee structure will increase costs for some sellers. "The folks who sell at auction will be hit the hardest," he says, as eBay's take of each item's final sale price rises from 5.25 to 8.75 percent. Sellers who list their items at a fixed price -- as many of the most established eBay businesses do -- should actually benefit from the changes, thanks to a reduction in insertion fees (the cost to list an item, regardless of whether or not it sells).
The company is also courting its Power Sellers by working with PayPal to improve security for credit-card sales. Power Sellers will now be protected against unauthorized and nonreceipt claims for international transactions. "It should decrease fraud levels," notes Wingo. That might make businesses less likely to restrict their sales to the U.S., increasing their potential sales worldwide.
"We need to redo our playbook, we need to redo it fast and we need to take bold actions," Donahoe said at the conference. Now it's up to the sellers to take the ball and run with it.
"Sellers will have to re-engage," Garriss says. "They have to start advancing and looking at their practices. If they're willing to adapt, there are some very good opportunities for them here."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)