StartupNation Blogs

Hi gang,
eBay’s had a tough week.
Not that it hasn’t been a tough week in general.  Lehman’s gone.  AIG is getting bailed out (I bet that makes Lehman happy - if they would have waited 3 days, maybe they could have received part of the $600 billion the gov is forking over to save the economy).   [...]

Hi gang,
Ok, that was funny right there - I don’t care who you are!
(sorry Larry the Cable Guy)
This past week has been an unbelievable one for fans of particle physics, black holes, the big bang, quantum physics, and eBay’s Best Match system.
You may have heard a faint rumbling recently, or possibly your coffee cup disappeared.  [...]

Hi gang,
Well, Google pulled off another surprise yesterday and announced that they have been working on a web browser, named Chrome.  They made the beta available for download to the general public and within 1 day, Google has 1% of the browser market!
There are a ton of possibilites here for Chrome to integrate into all [...]

Hi gang,
“Ohhhhhh,  the sun’s not so hot in the sky today.”
“And I can feel summertime slipping on away, yes I can.”
-September Grass,  James Taylor
Believe it or not,  the title of this post and my man James’ quote are actually related.  You see,  I hate summer.  For my business, and I suspect for many businesses,  my [...]

Hi gang,
So I’ve had a week to digest all the new changes that eBay rolled out.  Here’s my opinion of the main changes:
1.  On eliminating checks and money orders -  this will upset people, and eBay will lose a tiny fraction of buyers, but as a seller, I am happy about it.  They are a [...]

Hi gang,
So, I’ve been thinking about this idea for a while now.Â
Let’s say that you are eBay, and you recently realized that your core business idea, auctions, has a fad component to it.   By that, I mean that auctions were a very cool idea 10 years ago, but the novelty of them is now wearing [...]

Hi gang,
How do these phrases hit you?
“The best laid plans…”
“The road to hell is….”
“With great power comes…”
So,  over the weekend,  eBay’s German site announced that they will be dictating the maximum amount that a seller can charge for shipping in several categories.   For those of you familiar with how eBay operates,  they don’t roll changes [...]

Hi gang,Â
Late last week,  eBay rolled a new site promotion.   Here it is, taken from the Community Announcements board at eBay.com:

***Offer Free Shipping and Get 15% off your Final Value Fees from May 23-June 1***

Hi everyone. Offering free shipping is a great way to make your items stand out from your competition. Buyers love it, and it [...]