ChannelAdvisor

Google Checkout is Live!!! (and so is ChannelAdvisor)

Finally – Google Checkout (aka GBuy) is public!

Phew, it’s been very hard not talking about this one as I think it will have a revolutionary effect on ecommerce and paid-search. Today, Google announced Google Checkout (known in the Blogosphere as gbuy)

We’ve been working closely with Google on the development of Google Checkout and it’s been very interesting to watch how the product has matured rapidly. In fact simultaneously with the Google announcement, ChannelAdvisor is announcing support .  And we're featured on the Google Checkout partner page here.

Here are some of the stores that are part of launch.

We've worked with all the big internet players and I have to say the Google Checkout team has been incredible to work with.  They were hyper-responsive to all of our needs and implemented features we needed super-fast.  Congrats on the big launch, we've enjoyed working with you - you guys ROCK!

One of our younger developers was so excited he broke out some special Google gear!

Apologies to Ro....

Evidently my last post got an eBay friend  somewhat in hot water with their PR group.  I thought it was a thought provoking post and interesting/valid point of view re: paypal vs. new payment systems.  I sincerely didn't want to get an old friend in trouble.  Heck JJ is out there calling Eric Schmidt a liar so Ro's piece is somewhat tame by comparison. I guess this answers my original question of if this was corporate approved or not. :-(

Also, I haven't heard from Ro today, but several other friends in eBay let me know that he got in big trouble so eBay corporate communication folks he's not behind this post.  (Remember you guys are a Web 2.0 company now and even have your own blog technology so it's time to embrace blogs!)

Ro if you're out there buddy, let's sell some auto parts!!! We have like 20-50 of the top parts sellers on board in that hot category and we have mucho ideas on how to do even more.

eBay Live update.

Must fight Vegas and blog....

keynote... not too earthshattering....

Cobb booed?! during keynote.

Skype coming soon in test to US.

Shipping changes not so dramatic

No fee increases/changes (phew)

Some good paypal policy changes.

more later.  General tone of the entire event: this is an event for sellers, we care about you and are listing - dramatic (and very positive IMO) change this year.

eBay Live Speculation

Well we're T-minus 12 days and counting until eBay Live.  Every year eBay uses the opportunity to announce some new things.  Here are my top 5 predictions:

1. eBay Express - ok so this is a gimme - Meg said at the Goldman event this is the official launch of EE.
2. The community speculation on some kind of shipping announcement is up to a big roar right now.  Bill Cobb promised to fix this by this eBay Live at the last eBay Live.
3. Blogs and Wiki - there are two classes on the agenda about "ebay Blogs" and "eBay community Wiki".  Also AuctionBytes wrote a story without details recently. (good scoop Ira!!)
4. There'll probably be some discussion of the Yahoo! deal - more traffic for you eBay sellers ---> WOOO!

If you're attending eBay Live:

• I'd love to meet you! Stop by the booth or I'm speaking in one of the classes (Wednesday at 4:30 - code 210 in Mandalay Bay Ballroom F - "Top Strategies for Building a Great Business on eBay").
• I'll bring some freebies to the class and if you say you're an eBay Strategies blog reader I'll make sure you get something good.
• Details on all of this:  http://www.channeladvisor.com/ebaylive
• Lots of our top seller customers will be presenting - see the list here.

See you in Vegas!  What do you think eBay will announce - feel free to submit in comments and in my wrap-up we'll see who got closest and who had the worst guess ;-)

Meg @ goldman - Q+A

Q: why did you pay so much for skype

A: With skype we bought the user base, it's a verb and the technology (voice compression was given as example).  Second, remarkable product roadmap.  If you look at their full suite of products, they are leaps and bounds ahead of competitors.  Brand, technology, roadmap - fourth ecosystem.

Q: Kijiji - what' up? (I love to type Kijiji)

A: We own 25% of craigslist, we've bought tons of things and put them into Kijiji - together we are in 20 countries and 400 cities where we are number 1 or 2.  In 12 months we've built 1/2 position in classifieds.

Models are different - some listing fees - maybe by category, maybe by ASP.

Craigslist monetization is housing/jobs in SFO/NY.  Kijiji is more monetized.

06 - scale

07 - monetization

We admire craigslist. That was the inspiration for going global.

Q: (Justin Bauldorf) In one of the small meetings they thought you were going to lower the eBay store fees - is that true?

A: Meg - I didn't say that, we're looking at things.

Meg @ goldman - part X

Noto: yhoo has 500k advertisers you have 500k stores, what's overlap?

Meg: Don't know, largest is the US, this is certainly something we want to look into.

Noto: Could you disintermediate the entire ecommerce search stream?

Meg: interesting, we think about it, could we have search not be the starting point? that's an overstatement.  That being said we have lots of assets to bring to bear - power of three.  Wallet/reputation and presence with skype.

If we decouple in ways that enable us to have building blocks that travel across the web, that's something we should think about.  Reputation for example.

Quick eBay Express update.

Two quick E^2 news items to share:

1. AuctionBytes is reporting an April launch for eBay Express - previously the date was "Spring" so this narrows it down to a new window. Best case we are 17 days away from launch (posting this on the 14th) or worst case 47.  I really hope it's not April 1, that would not bode well for the product long-term

2. eBay is hosting an eBay Express workshop on Friday.  I haven't seen the presentation, but I imagine they will release some new screen shots and other materials to the community on Friday so tune in!

EBay spends bigger on advertising

Link: Forbes.com: EBay spends bigger on advertising

Good article on eBay's ad spend for 2004 - put me in the "not effective and not popular" bucket.

The ads did not prove very popular but were considered ''very effective.'' Of those familiar with the ads, 15%, compared with the Ad Track average of 21%, like the ads ''a lot.''

New eBay Homepage Preview...

Check out the New eBay Homepage Preview

Love it? Hate it? Can't decide?

I think it will be pretty good - not sure about using all that space for My eBay though...

Must read ebay redesign article

Very interesting article about eBay and how they think about things and how they plan to redesign much of ebay.

A must read for a hard-core ebay-er!