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The Count: Small Businesses Hunker Down to Survive

2009-11-08T05:06:42Z

Small businesses have cut overhead, payroll and advertising to achieve rising profits in spite of the downturn.

Deja vu: Wal-Mart, Amazon, Target in DVD price war (AP)

2009-11-06T15:55:54Z

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is upping the ante heading into the holiday season, trimming the online preorder prices of some upcoming DVDs following last month's price cut on books.

Wal-Mart (WMT) Drives Price Wars To DVDs

2009-11-06T10:11:43Z

Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) is not satisfied challenging rivals like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Target (NYSE:TGT) in the e-book and toy businesses. Its program to take the lion’s share of the modest number of consumers likely to come out during the end-of-recession shopping season has been extended to DVDs. Walmart.com has started to offer DVDs which are likely to [...]

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Buy.com Is Alibris Latest Integration Partner - Auctionbytes

2009-11-06T11:56:32Z

Buy.com Is Alibris Latest Integration Partner
Auctionbytes
Alibris, a marketplace for new and second-hand books, announced the upcoming launch of a new partnership with Buy.com. Beginning in November ...

New PayPal buyer protection for off-eBay purchases

2009-11-06T12:23:37Z

PayPal has offered buyer protection for many years, but it’s been restricted mainly to eBay transactions. That’s all changed as of the 1st November, PayPal now cover claims for non-receipt of goods for transactions from any website.

In the past if you claimed for non-receipt of goods from a website transaction you would only have got a refund if the seller had sufficient funds to cover it in their PayPal account. If PayPal couldn’t recover the funds then you lost out. PayPal have removed that requirement for transactions taking place after the 1st November 2009 and buyers who win their claim for items not received will get their money back for the full value of the item, in the same way they already do when they use PayPal to pay for eBay purchases.

A huge number of websites now accept PayPal, including many of Britain’s biggest brands. This improvement to our buyer protection will give extra reassurance to over 20 million PayPal customers in Britain when they shop online at these sites. We regularly review and improve the protection we offer customers, as we recognise that it’s an important extra benefit of using PayPal.
– Carl Scheible, Managing Director of PayPal UK

There are still some notable exceptions, intangibles, services, custom made items, airline flight tickets, items prohibited under PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy and digital content, cars are also excluded. To qualify for off-eBay buyer protection the buyer must pay the full amount of the eligible item on one payment and disputes need to be opened within 45 days of making the payment. Claims for items that are “Significantly not as described” are not covered when the items were not purchased on eBay.

This is a great move and can only increase consumer confidence when buying online and paying with PayPal. Consumers can now purchase from your own website with the same guarantee that they’ll receive their goods as they can when buying from eBay.

Google Launches Commerce Search Tool for Online Retailers

2009-11-06T05:41:24Z

Google announced a new hosted search product, Google Commerce Search, to power online retail stores and ecommerce websites.

On Marketplaces, Whose Customer Is It, Anyway?

2009-11-06T02:28:38Z

When a shopper walks into a store at the mall and buys an item, the storeowner frequently asks the buyer to sign up for their mailing list. The landlord has no restrictions on how the storeowner ...

Buy.com Is Alibris Latest Integration Partner

2009-11-06T05:41:15Z

Alibris, a marketplace for new and second-hand books, announced the upcoming launch of a new partnership with Buy.com.

E-Commerce Health is in the Eye of the Beholder - Wall Street Journal

2009-11-06T01:33:46Z

E-Commerce Health is in the Eye of the Beholder
Wall Street Journal
Chief among them is the recent record earnings report from the largest online retailer Amazon.com, which offered a rosy outlook for the 4th quarter, ...

and more »

Online Price War Moves to DVDs As Discounters Compete for Sales (at The Wall Street Journal Online)

2009-11-06T02:57:25Z

E-Commerce Sales Are Down For The Second Straight Quarter

2009-11-05T19:53:00Z

Retail E-Commerce totaled $29.6 billion in the third quarter, a 2% drop compared to a year ago, says comScore.

This is the second straight quarter E-Commerce has been down, which has never happened before.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

eBay Is a Model Idiot (at Motley Fool)

2009-11-05T19:18:56Z

Skype Cofounders Will Be Part Of Buyout Group; Index Ventures Is Out (paidContent.org)

2009-11-05T20:10:09Z

Retailers Report Sales Increases

2009-11-06T06:37:40Z

The nation’s stores posted a second consecutive month of sales increases, their best performance in over a year.

Google seeks revenue from online retailers (at Reuters)

2009-11-05T05:01:27Z

Psst! Private-Sale Shopping Sites Are Hot (at BusinessWeek)

2009-11-05T20:52:26Z

eBay Daily Deal expands to add Weekly Deals

2009-11-05T09:31:13Z

The fastest ever selling Daily Deal returns today, the Polaroid POGO Mobile Colour Printer and it’s £1.00 cheaper at just £18.99. If you missed out this time I can highly recommend snagging a couple before they sell out.

The POGO’s return marks an auspicious occasion for the Daily Deal as it expands to include “Weekly Deals“. Offering four products at great prices in Technology, For Him, For Her, For the Kids it’s accessed by clicking the Daily Deal button on the home page.

I’m expecting eBay to start driving traffic to this page and publicise the fact that there are now weekly as well as daily deals. Watching the sales rack up on these deals indicates that buyers really are logging on daily just after 8am to check out what’s on offer today. It’s the right time of year to expand the Deals program too with Christmas just around the corner.

Bringing buyers back to eBay on a regular basis is what it’s all about, oh and snagging the odd bargain for myself so if anyone wants to buy me the Netbook from the first Technology Weekly Deal selection please do go right ahead.

US Postal Service Announces 2010 Rates, Priority Mail Affected

2009-11-05T15:25:22Z

Changes are coming to USPS postal rates in January - first class remains the same, but there are changes to Priority Mail rates.

Q with Tom Critchlow, Part 2: Google, Checkout, and eBay Item Condition

2009-11-05T15:25:05Z

Does accepting Google Checkout get product listings ranked higher in Google search results? What can sellers who list on marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon.com, Etsy, do in order to optimize their product listings for Google? Distilled's Head of Search Marketing Tom Critchlow tackles these questions and more in Part 2 of our Qamp;A series on Google search optimization.

Sky News: UK Postal Disruptions May Soon End

2009-11-05T15:25:01Z

Sky News is reporting that the UK postal union workers and Royal Mail have agreed on a draft deal that could end the long-running strikes.

Yahoo!, eBay and Amazon The three survivors [del.icio.us]

2008-06-30T20:35:13-07:00

Becoming a Negative Blogger - How to Let Your Blog Go [del.icio.us]

2008-06-24T11:29:19-07:00

The Last Days of eBay by Thomas Jones [del.icio.us]

2008-06-17T16:46:41-07:00

Interesting reading

Buy.com CEO Neel Grover's Keynote Speech at Internet Retailer. [del.icio.us]

2008-06-12T07:25:29-07:00

eBay mulls PayPal only paymentsdelicious [del.icio.us]

2008-05-09T07:01:46-07:00

More info on eBay's march to 100% PayPal on its marketplaces

Pierre Omidyar in 2001 [del.icio.us]

2008-05-02T08:02:36-07:00

Interesting contrast between what he thought then and what he is saying now.

John Donahoe Speaks About Disruptive Innovation [del.icio.us]

2008-05-01T21:52:33-07:00

eBay is currently in athe 2nd year of a 3-year plan. Much more to come.

Craigslist Shocked -- Shocked! -- by eBay's Capitalist Motives [del.icio.us]

2008-05-01T14:04:46-07:00

Check out the video clip. Very interesting stuff.

Creating Customer Evangelists [del.icio.us]

2008-04-30T11:11:41-07:00

Customers who make recommendations for such things to their circle of friends and colleagues are considered evangelists -- customers with a true loyalty to your brand. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of customers might be evangelists.

E-Commerce Report: Users Demand Expertise at How-To Web Sites [del.icio.us]

2008-04-30T10:25:02-07:00

Americans unload prized belongings to make ends meet [del.icio.us]

2008-04-30T06:23:42-07:00

Amazon.com: One Item, Many Prices [del.icio.us]

2008-04-07T11:13:30-07:00

How to win the Buy Box

The world's worst toaster [del.icio.us]

2008-03-24T08:24:32-07:00

The trials and tribulations of paying your eBay bill, by Seth Godin.

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business [del.icio.us]

2008-03-21T12:17:26-07:00

Great article from Chris Anderson the author of "The Long Tail"