I'm back... awesome eBay webinar manana and some new stars to report

Update: eBay has a recording of the webinar here.

Good morning eBay Strategies readers!  Sorry for the little dry spell in posting. I always underestimate the amount of energy needed going into the holiday selling season and between some webinars we're doing, customer strategy meetings and ChannelAdvisor's big 11/8 release, (custom item specifics - hooray!). I got swamped which left little time for blogging.  I think we're through the worst of it so I'll try and catch up on some topics I owe you.  Specifically we've learned A LOT about fp30 at ChannelAdvisor and I want to share some cutting edge strategies we're seeing that give sellers a leg up on the competition which in this environment can be the difference between life and death.  That piece will be a good partner to the eBay webinar...

eBay Webinar tomorrow - 'MUST SEE' if you are serious about selling on eBay.

eBay's top seller team is hosting a webinar tomorrow (Thursday November 13th) at 1:30pm Pacific, 4:30pm Eastern.

The details are:

URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/intercall1/join?id=111308&role=attend&pw=attend

Meeting ID: 111308  - secret code for attendee entry: 'attend'

They have streaming audio, but personally I prefer to do the dialin as it's clearer.  The dial-in detals are: ( 866 ) 501 – 3202 / ( 706 ) 679 - 2073        Conference ID:  72758551

eBay gave us a dry run of the presentation yesterday and I have to admit this is by far the best webinar/information session that I've seen eBay do. Period.

Here's a sneak peek at the agenda:

• Refresher on policy changes
• BestMatch/Search (lots of good coverage on the new fp30 here too)
• Driving demand for the holiday season 
• Coming soon/2009 preview  (some DSR improvements - YEAH!!!!!!)

Having listened to several town halls and other presentations on these topics, I think eBay hasn't been great at communicating many of the nuances around BestMatch and FP30.  Thus most sellers are left with the impression that eBay is learning as they go along (or doesn't understand at all) and the system is unfair/random/stinks/etc.  This is the best explanation, rational and update on how it's working that I've seen thus far. 

This webinar for the first time laid out the facts on the format (there are tons of rumors and urban legend around these two topics in the eBay community) and did a good job of explaining a topic I hacked around here with fp30 on how the fixed-price and auction-style listings work together with BestMatch.  

Bottom line: If eBay still is a material part of your business,  this is a 'must see' webinar (and I'd tell you if it wasn't).  Feel free to post in the Q+A here before/after the webinar what questions you have and I'll make sure they are anonymously forwarded and after I'll do my best to find the information.

The new eBay 'eforcity' stars

New topic.  eBay has released a couple of new stars which I think really highlight the success of one specific seller on eBay - eforcity.  Here's a handy site, sellerdome that crawls eBay and lists the sellers by feedback (note - this is not the same as GMV).

eforcity is a ChannelAdvisor customer and we're really proud that our software played a roll in their achievement of getting over 1m feedback. Also in that lofty club is jayandmarie.  While not a customer, I've known Jay and Marie for a long time and they are a great part of the eBay community.    Jay and Jack (ceo@eforcity) are two of the smartest, scrappiest entrepreneurs I've ever met and they are a great asset to the eBay and ecommerce communities.  It's great to see eBay recognize their achievements in this way.

From sellerdome, you'll notice that the top four are accstation, eforcity, itrimming and everydaysource.  These are all sub-brands for eforcity so in reality this company effectively has well over 5m total feedback.  From personal experience, I can tell you they can make some servers hum over here at ChannelAdvisor!

Lots of sellers ask me about Jack's eBay success and I'll try and wrangle him into an interview here maybe after his holiday sales calm down.

The new stars are a shooting green and a shooting silver.  I have to admit the shooting silver looks like it's worked up a sweat so someone here started already calling it the sweaty silver star.  Sue over at Tamebay had the same reaction.   Maybe it's surprised and not sweaty?  Maybe it takes a ton of hard work and sweat to get to that level...

Enjoy the webinar and congrats to eforcity and jayandmarie on their snazzy new stars.

SeekingAlpha disclosure - I am long Google and Amazon

Comments

[TIME]

Thanks Scot for keeping us informed. I really appreciate what you do here and it has definitely helped our business.

[BMX]

Why not interview jay and marie and ask them how they feel about the new shipping caps?

8-P

[Big Bob]

Just saw the Grapevinehill had a new star...here is a shot out to GVH!

[ecenterL]

For the BEST ebay, search

"Ebay Stockholders and Sellers Calling For Immediate Termination of John Donohoe CEO Petition" (at petitiononline).

[Todd]

Is anyone concerned ebay's stock went below $13 today? ebay is losing traffic, marketshare and still making it hard for sellers to get ahead (not to mention profitable).