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,
“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,
Well,  eBay just got interesting again.Â
Last night, eBay allowed several media outlets to disclose all of the upcoming changes that eBay will be announcing today.
There’s a lot,  and I don’t want to rehash it all - my job will be to break it all down for you.
For some wierd reason,  eBay itself has not [...]

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,
A few hours ago,  eBay announced that they will no longer be counting Neutrals in a seller’s feedback percentage!  All sellers will be happy about this - it was one of the dumber policy changes that eBay has made in the past year.
Here are a few snippits from the announcement:
“Hello everyone - It’s been [...]

Hi gang,
So, since we all know now that the current war between eBay and their sellers centers around Feedback, I thought I’d throw this idea on the fire.
As a seller,  what really upsets me about Feedback, when you peel away all the emotional and logical layers of how it works,  it that my business can [...]

Hi gang,
Large eBay sellers are spending a lot of time these days developing other sales channels, and I am certainly no exception. Multichannel commerce is the way to go for an online seller.
Our latest effort, http://inflatablemadnessdvd.com has been very rewarding to create, and now the challenge is to get some bidness out of [...]

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 [...]