The news is out: eBay’s Brian Burke announced last night that after extensive successful testing in “lesser markets”, eBay will be launching Feedback 2.0 in the U.S. during the week of April 30th. Early seller reaction is surprise that eBay would roll this out right around the upcoming USPS shipping changes:

“They announce this change to start 2 weeks before the most complex postal rate increase in the history of this country. Is this to get sellers to not increase the S/H rates right now so that they are rated better? Everyone is worried about how this starts and no one wants to start in a hole from bad early ratings.”

“Thats my largest concern with ebay feedback 2.0 is the fact that most consumers are not educated on the shipping facts. Do all consumers know there is a drastic increase in shipping costs with USPS? Do all consumers know that this year UPS, FED EX and USPS went dimensional shipping which on our items was a drastic increase in cost?”

“… I have 112 comments on Feedback 2.0 and our ratings are outstanding. I was one of the ones who was extremely worried about 2.0 since we do so much international. In reality it has actually been very positive. But international buyer do seem to be more reasonable than US customers normally. So we will see if US is as positive an event.”

Results and reactions to the change have overall been positive, but maybe June would have been a better month with an introduction at eBay Live in Boston where you could highlight the benefits and powerful case studies from your test markets … hmmm.

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I have just returned from our annual Catalyst UK conference in London and similar to Catalyst U.S. in Pinehurst it was a marvelous event (we should all be saying marvelous more often). and a great opportunity to meet online retailers, partners and solution providers (photos will be available shortly).

First of all, kudos go out to the City of London, the spectacular weather, the Royal Horseguard hotel (the venue for the event) and of course our marketing team in the UK. If you want to work with kick-***, gung-ho, we-leave-no-stone-unturned people check out the five openings available in our Richmond office. Wait — there’s even a job right on the marketing team!

Scot posted some great impressions and key take-aways, but here are a few of my own thoughts:

– Google Checkout is going international and had its first public presentation of Google Checkout in the UK at the Catalyst conference, reviewing both the mechanics and business benefits of this third-party checkout solution (a lot of which was covered during our joint webinar with Google yesterday - a recording should be available shortly). Should you do it? Read Scot’s posts from June last year for some good insights (Google Checkout is Live!, Why Should Consumers Care?).

(more…)

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eBay has announced a listing promotion for tomorrow, April 24:

The 20¢ Insertion Fee Sale starts on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 00:00:01 Pacific time (12:00 a.m. plus one second) and ends that same day, Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 23:59:59 Pacific time (11:59 p.m. plus 59 seconds). Listings which were created prior to April 24, 2007 and scheduled to start during the promotional period will also be eligible for the special promotional rate.

This promotion will not apply to the following types of listings: all eBay Motors listings (including Parts & Accessories, Passenger Vehicles, Motorcycles, Power Sports, and Other Vehicles), as well as International, Live Auction, Professional Services, Real Estate, Ad Format, and Store Inventory listings. Some Business & Industrial categories will also be excluded – see our promotion page for full details.

You can find more details on the eBay promotion page.

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I’m suspecting that most people reading this will be aware of the big news from Google just over a week ago - Google Checkout is now available in the UK.

If you are an online retailer then we recommend you take a look at how Google Checkout could benefit your business. Check out my blog post from last week for the details - but the simple fact that payment processing is completely free for the rest of 2007 should a good enough reason to give it a go. Over the last week we’ve seen a significant portion of our clients’ customers opting to use Google Checkout to complete their online purchases (probably due to the £10 off £30 promo) which means these buyers now have Google Checkout accounts and will be looking for more places to shop with Google Checkout online. Make sure you’re one of the places they can shop by offering the Google Checkout payment option on your website as soon as possible.

For those of you who came along to our Catalyst conference in central London this past week, you will have witnessed the first live public demonstration of Google Checkout by Rob Swerling of Google. Rob has kindly agreed to join ChannelAdvisor on Monday at 2pm for a live online webinar, demonstrating the Google Checkout technology with a specific focus on the benefits for retailers.

Please feel free to join us for this informative webinar, by clicking on this link to register. We look forward to you joining us and Google on Monday.

p.s. if you can’t make 2pm, be sure to register anyway and we’ll send you a link to a recorded version of the webinar later this week.

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Excited about Overstock.com and want to learn more about how it works and how it could fit into your multi-channel portfolio (I better see lots of hands in the air)? Here’s your chance to hear straight from Overstock.com’s CEO Patrick Byrne (joined by Scot) how this marketplace can significantly accelerate your sales and how to get started.

Join us next week Wednesday, April 25 at 2 p.m. EDT for a webinar on the leading online closeout retailer for brand name merchandise to hear about:

• What is Overstock Shopping?
• How is it different from other online channels?
• How does it work for buyers and merchants?
• How to get started with your products?
• How does Overstock work through ChannelAdvisor?
• Q&A

Want to get started right away? Let us know about your interest and we’ll help you reach Overstock’s 9 million unique monthly visitors.

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