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Your eCommerce Customers Are Your’s,,,Or Are They?
While thinking this morning about building a new database of listeners to our radio program I hit upon another thought in internet marketing that is changing rapidly.
When you sell your product on one of the many big named venues such as Amazon or eBay, is the buying customer yours or the sites? Many might be surprised at the answer.
eBay recently announced that it was changing the policy for the About Me page, removing the ability for sellers to link to their own website or any other site not owned by eBay. They also have announced that email links in the listing will no longer be allowed starting in September. (See eBay’s Announcement). Also in September eBay will ”anonymize” all communication between buyer and seller except the notifications after the sale of the item. What this means is that the seller will only see the actual email address of the winning buyer. Any other comminication from potential buyers during the run of the item will be anonymized.
Amazon provides sellers with a list of sales including buyers emails, however they stress the seller may only contact the buyer regarding specific purchase issues. In other words sellers can not email market to these buyers.
The truth is that sellers using sites such as Amazon and eBay as a venue really can not build a database of their buying customers and then email market to them.
So the answer is the buyer is really the customer of the site and not the actual seller. The long thought marketing idea of selling on these sites to build your customer database is simply not effective because if you are caught sending emails to these buyers for anything other than specific purchase related purposes is against their policies and could cost you in the form of suspensions, restrictions or actually being kicked off of the site altogether.
Internet marketing strategies are changing rapidly! To make sure you have the very latest information, be sure to tune in every Saturday morning, 10 AM to Noon ET to ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business steaming live on the internet!
June 28th 2008 ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business
June 28th, 2008 ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business
This weeks show features news from eBay Live, interviews with Ted Murphy CEO of IZEA.com, Jay Berkowitz author of The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing and Scott Pooler from iBusinesslogic.com
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Going Green In The eCommerce Marketing World
We all share this huge rock we call earth. Billions of people inhabit it, and many of those are interested in working to keep it thriving. Going Green is one way that we all can help. Besides selling Green type products, those that create less of a carbon footprint is one way, but there are others.
The marketing of good serviceable used products, clothing, electronics, appliances, etc is a very good way to go Green. The marketing of these items reduces the amount of raw materials and energy to create them, but more than that it also reduces the transportation energy and warehousing needed to store the items.
Whether you sell these in an auction format, fixed price from one of the multiple venues or your own website, be sure to emphasize the importance of going Green and how purchasing your product can assist in saving global natural resources. You might even consider donating part of your selling price to one of the many legitimate charities working to improve the environment. Cause marketing is a very enticing draw to a significant segment of buyers. Sell your items and help the environment at the same time. It’s a win win situation!
eBay Will Survive,,,,Will Your Business???
Sometimes families fight. That is just a fact of life.
Since it’s beginning, eBay has called the users of the site members, actually community members is the correct term. Thousands of members of the eBay community have been using the site for over 10 years. They have come to know the employees of eBay. The members think of some of the employees like part of their family, and eBay employees consider many of the community members as part of their family.
With this in mind, I remember hearing somewhere that one should never mix business with pleasure, and I also remember hearing somewhere that working with family is very difficult.
eBay has had to make changes in their business model in order to survive in the changing ecommerce marketplace. This has caused a rift among many community members who take the changes eBay has made personally. Community members whose businesses have been adversely effected by the changes eBay has made have been passionate and vocal in their discontent, much like a family squabble.
The truth is simply this. Your business is your business. eBay is not a non-profit organization, eBay is in business to make money for their stockholders. In retrospect, though I and thousands of other members enjoyed the family like atmosphere of the early days of the site, it probably was a mistake on eBay’s part to create and encourage this relationship. Business decisions must be made, and when family is involved, it causes problems.
As a business owner selling on eBay, you probably don’t ask eBay before you make changes to your business model, and eBay though they may ask community members about changes, they ultimately make their final decisions predicated on the marketplace.
It is up to you to make sure your business survives. eBay will certainly do anything it can to make sure it survives.
Jay Berkowitz On ebay & Beyond Radio June 28
Fresh from eBay Live 2008 in Chicago, where his presentation was very well received in a packed room of ecommerce sellers Jay Berkowitz author of The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing will be our guest this Saturday. Listen in as Sparky and I interview Jay about his new book, his experience at eBay Live and the trends in ecommerce marketing.
Be sure and register to win an autographed copy of Jay’s new book by going to www.basicstobusiness.com and click on the Contest Page tab!
Jay Berkowitz, CEO Ten Golden Rules
Jay Berkowitz is a small business internet consultant with more than 20 years of marketing experience. He has been behind the marketing for Fortune 500 brands: McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, developed online and offline strategies for AT&T, Sprint, and managed the marketing department for leading health and fitness website eDiets.com.Mr. Berkowitz is the CEO of Ten Golden Rules, a B2B internet marketing agency based in Boca Raton, Florida, specializing in internet advertising and marketing consulting services.
Mr. Berkowitz is the Past President of the American Marketing Association South Florida Chapter, a Founding Board Member of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association, and was a member of the Toronto International Film Festival Board of Directors.
He is a popular presenter at conferences and events such as: The Association of Internet Marketing and Sales, The Direct Marketing Association, The American Marketing Association, The Affiliate Summit, Ad-Tech, The CEO Roundtable, The Washington Weight Loss Marketing and Obesity Conference, and The Global Benchmarking Council.
Live Stream of PESA/ECMTA Webinar Global 3rd Party Storage & Shipping Solutions
eBay Live is over and it’s time to get back into the swing of things. So once again, ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business in association with PESA/ECMTA will broadcast the upcoming June 25th webinar entitled: Global 3rd Party Storage & Shipping Solutions at 4:00 PM EDT from www.basicstobusiness.com .
The webinar is being presented by PESA/ECMTA and ShipWire.com
Registration which is required to view the slide presentation so go to https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/789582555 to register and then sit back and relax while you listen to the audio on your computer!
Saying Good-Bye To An Old Friend-eBayLive 2008
It was a very long drive back home to Western New York. With over 8 hours on the road, I have had a chance to reflect on the friends with which I reconnected, the new friends I met, and the one friend I fear is gone forever, eBayLive. I have had the pleasure of attending 6 of the 7 previous eBayLive events, and since it has already been announced that there will be no such event in 2009, I fear that the announced 2010 eBayLive in Orlando will not happen, or if it does, it certainly will not be the event as I knew it, much like eBayLive 2008 was certainly not anything like the 6 previous conferences.It was defintely sad to see the dramatic change in the atmosphere in this year’s event. One eBay employee that I spoke with said that there were 7000 registrations prior to the start of the event, yet I and many of the vendors and attendees that I spoke with felt the number of actual attendees was significantly lower. One indication of this I saw was at the Gala on Saturday evening when over 25 large boxes of eBayLive 2008 shoulder bags, the bags given out when attendees picked up their badges, were placed out on the Gala floor for the taking. In addition, we noticed that all of the tables at the Gala had several extra bags on the chairs.
Another sign that all was not good at the event was the very noticeable presence of a large security force. Now there has always been security, but not in the numbers and not as visible as at this years event.
The most obvious indication of the concern of eBay members was the mood. From the opening of the exhibit floor on Thursday, the mood of the attendees was in my humble opinion, depressed. The large number of eBay booths on the exhibit floor with large numbers of eBay employees staffing them, were often nearly empty. I witnessed the employees huddled together talking because there were no customers crowding around their booths as in years past. The attendees were subdued, and the exhibit floor was quiet.
Also notable was the obvious decrease in vendors and exhibitors. The exhibit floor was occupied by a large number of eBay booths, but it was very obvious that there were probably 30-40% fewer exhibitors over previous years.
When talking with vendors and exhibitors, they all mentioned the change in the demographics of the attendees. In previous years, there was a healthy mix of new users and experienced PowerSellers. This year there appeared to be far fewer newer users and the general feeling is that the vast majority of attendees were more experienced users looking for information on multi-channel marketing. This indicates to me that sellers are looking to move away from eBay to other venues.
The one thing that really glares to many experienced eBayLive attendees is that eBay usually makes at least one major announcement during the event. This year, with the exception of the PayPal changes, and the opening of the eBay API to third party developers, there was no BIG announcement. Many attendees are worried that the usual major announcements will be made in the days or weeks to come via the eBay Announcements Board and email because eBay did not want to risk a major confrontation with the users at the event.
Well, that is just a brief synopsis of my reflections of the event. I certainly will post more as I digest and review my notes and the 10+ hours of podcasts that we recorded and will be available later today on our website www.basicstobusiness.com. Just click on the Archived Programs tab on the navigation bar. Be sure to listen in on Saturday from 10 AM to Noon ET to our weekly live internet streaming radio show ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business as we recap the eBayLive 2008 event and remember to register for our contest and win an autographed copy of Jay Berkowitz’s new book The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing!
June 21, 2008 ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business from eBayLive
Live from the exhibit floor at eBayLive 2008 in Chicago.
Our guests during this segment include:
David Hardin from PESA/ECMTA, John Gilmore from MyAuctionSource, Chris Dawson from Tamebay, Vendio, AGenius.com, Infopia, winner of the ebay & Beyond: Basics To Business eBay Live regsitration contest Jennifer Aseltine, eBabes and eMales founder Stephanie Inge, Jay Berkowitz author of The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing, eBay PowerSeller Peggi Justesen, eBay UK PowerSeller Simon Balch and finally IMN.com
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eBayLive 2008 Keynote Address Starting Soon!
I am going to try and keep up with this while the keynote is being conducted so stay tuned!
As we begin this event one thing I have noticed is that there seems to be a dramatic decline in attendance at eBayLive 2008.
There are certainly fewer vendors on the exhibit floor.
John Donahoe is opening the event with a time honored tradition of checking the feedback totals with over 20,000,000 feedbacks.
John is now introducing his family as he is originally from the Chicago area.
No major announcements from John Donahoe, as he gets ready to let Lorrie Norrington take the stage.
June 14th 2008 ebay & Beyond: Basics to Business
Guests This Week:
Chris Fain CEO of Onlineauction.com
Scott Pooler CEO of iBusinessLogic.com
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