EBay Alternatives Gear Up for Growth

This week in eBay alternative news Etsy gets new hardware and Bonanzle offers optional membership plans. Meanwhile, on eBay, the new policy prohibiting paper payments takes effect.

“In a recent blog post, Harding told Bonanzle members, ‘We are quite confident that offering the benefits of exposure, Google Analytics, and an icon do nothing to affect the fairness of the marketplace as a whole. There is no question that, with the support of both our paying and non-paying members, Bonanzle is going to continue to move forward as the best marketplace to find friendly people and enjoy each other’s company as you buy and sell everything but the ordinary.’”

EBay Alternatives Gear Up for Growth
By Vangie Beal, October 22, 2008

Add Live Chat To Your Blog or Web Page With Firefly

With a little cut-and-paste code, firefly makes it easy to chat with visitors to your site or blog.

“Firefly has a very innovative design, however we did not find the interface all that intuitive for site visitors who had never used or heard of firefly before. In setting firefly up on a personal Web site, the first two users we invited to try the chat didn’t quite understand how to get started. Some site administrators and bloggers may want to add a text description about firefly on their page to help users better understand what the live chat service does and how to use it; that is until firefly becomes more commonly used online and people are familiar with how it works.”

Add Live Chat To Your Blog or Web Page With Firefly
By Vangie Beal, October 21, 2008

eBay Watch: Where Have All the Google Results Gone?

This week bloggers speculate about the apparent lack of Google search results and Canadian sellers clash with eBay over the new media shipping policy. Plus, new Web shop and auction alternative offerings.

eBay Asks Canadian Sellers to Inflate Media Item Prices
“Ok, directly, eBay didn’t say that, I did. What eBay did say is that Canadian sellers shipping media into the US (or listing on ebay.com) should be prepared to follow the US media shipping limits. These media limits are not mandatory on eBay.ca, but if you don’t follow them anyway, it will impact your listings on the US site. The problem is that shipping from Canada, using Canada Post, is substantially higher than shipping domestically within the US. Since eBay’s shipping limits chart was designed for domestic US shipping, the maximums are no where near the price Canadians will pay when they ship items in the Media category.”

eBay Watch: Where Have All the Google Results Gone?
By Vangie Beal, October 1, 2008