Scot Wingo - Seeking Alpha 'Scot Wingo' Tag RSS Syndication from SeekingAlpha.com SeekingAlpha.com http://seekingalpha.com/author/scot-wingo Amazon Leads the Pack in October Same Store Sales http://seekingalpha.com/article/172778-amazon-leads-the-pack-in-october-same-store-sales?source=feed 172778 The ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales October results are in and there were a couple of interesting trends that could indicate how the Q4 holiday season is going to shake out.

This figure shows the results for 2009 so far graphically: (click to enlarge)

]]> Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:04:11 -0500 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

The ChannelAdvisor Same Store Sales October results are in and there were a couple of interesting trends that could indicate how the Q4 holiday season is going to shake out.

This figure shows the results for 2009 so far graphically: (click to enlarge)


Complete Story »]]> AMZN EBAY Scot Wingo The eBay Ad Campaign Has Begun: Will It Help? http://seekingalpha.com/article/170922-the-ebay-ad-campaign-has-begun-will-it-help?source=feed 170922 Last week, eBay (EBAY) previewed one TV ad from its 'Come to think of it' campaign. Seller reaction was negative with an occasional positive of 'at least they are doing something this year' as you can see in the comments of that post.

Tuesday, eBay has a microsite up here, that shows off all of the new holiday ad campaigns. Here's the blurb used to introduce the campaign:

]]> Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:09:48 -0500 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Last week, eBay (EBAY) previewed one TV ad from its 'Come to think of it' campaign. Seller reaction was negative with an occasional positive of 'at least they are doing something this year' as you can see in the comments of that post.

Tuesday, eBay has a microsite up here, that shows off all of the new holiday ad campaigns. Here's the blurb used to introduce the campaign:


Complete Story »]]> EBAY Scot Wingo eBay Set to Launch New Ad Campaign http://seekingalpha.com/article/170410-ebay-set-to-launch-new-ad-campaign?source=feed 170410

Come_to_think_ebay eBay (EBAY) has revealed that they are going to launch a multi-media campaign (TV, print and certainly online). The over-arching theme is: "Come to think of it, eBay." This is not only news-worthy, but a big deal for eBay sellers so let's dig in by first reviewing the last 5+ years of eBay ad campaigns and then do some initial thinking about the new campaign.

A brief history of eBay TV campaigns

]]> Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:21:36 -0500 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Come_to_think_ebay eBay (EBAY) has revealed that they are going to launch a multi-media campaign (TV, print and certainly online). The over-arching theme is: "Come to think of it, eBay." This is not only news-worthy, but a big deal for eBay sellers so let's dig in by first reviewing the last 5+ years of eBay ad campaigns and then do some initial thinking about the new campaign.

A brief history of eBay TV campaigns


Complete Story »]]> EBAY Scot Wingo Amazon: What's Your PayPhrase? Feisty Mango? http://seekingalpha.com/article/169831-amazon-what-s-your-payphrase-feisty-mango?source=feed 169831

Topbutton
Thursday, Amazon (AMZN) announced an interesting development/feature with their payments offering (and of course it works on Amazon.com) called PayPhrase. You can read the details here.

Essentially an Amazon customer creates a PayPhrase which is a combination of a PIN and a > 2 word phrase to bypass the Amazon sign-in process (usually your email and password). For sites that take Amazon Payments (or Checkout By Amazon - CBA as we say in the biz), your PayPhrase/PIN can get you to an express checkout also without logging in.

]]> Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:33:21 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Topbutton
Thursday, Amazon (AMZN) announced an interesting development/feature with their payments offering (and of course it works on Amazon.com) called PayPhrase. You can read the details here.

Essentially an Amazon customer creates a PayPhrase which is a combination of a PIN and a > 2 word phrase to bypass the Amazon sign-in process (usually your email and password). For sites that take Amazon Payments (or Checkout By Amazon - CBA as we say in the biz), your PayPhrase/PIN can get you to an express checkout also without logging in.


Complete Story »]]> AMZN Scot Wingo Amazon Crushes Third Quarter http://seekingalpha.com/article/168472-amazon-crushes-third-quarter?source=feed 168472

Thursday Amazon (AMZN) announced Q3 results that exceeded expectations and then they put out Q4 guidance that was well above analyst consensus. Shares were up over 12% in after-hours trade. There were some really interesting tidbits in the results and the conference call that I wanted to highlight and also now that we have eBay/Amazon out we can do a comparison to see how the two giants of e-commerce compared in Q3.

Amazon metrics of note

]]> Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:52:54 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Thursday Amazon (AMZN) announced Q3 results that exceeded expectations and then they put out Q4 guidance that was well above analyst consensus. Shares were up over 12% in after-hours trade. There were some really interesting tidbits in the results and the conference call that I wanted to highlight and also now that we have eBay/Amazon out we can do a comparison to see how the two giants of e-commerce compared in Q3.

Amazon metrics of note


Complete Story »]]> AMZN Scot Wingo eBay Manages Expectations - Perhaps Too Well http://seekingalpha.com/article/168031-ebay-manages-expectations-perhaps-too-well?source=feed 168031 eBay's (EBAY) results are out and the stock is down 5% or so in after hours trade. Q3 looked like a good solid 'meet/beat' Q, so let's dig in and see what's up.

Q3 - the turnaround in marketplaces seems to be working.

]]> Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:25:24 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

eBay's (EBAY) results are out and the stock is down 5% or so in after hours trade. Q3 looked like a good solid 'meet/beat' Q, so let's dig in and see what's up.

Q3 - the turnaround in marketplaces seems to be working.


Complete Story »]]> EBAY Scot Wingo Amazon, Wal-Mart Battle Over Books http://seekingalpha.com/article/167172-amazon-wal-mart-battle-over-books?source=feed 167172

Walmart_book_promo Starting Thursday (10/15/09) there was some interesting back and forth between Wal-mart (WMT) and Amazon (AMZN) that I wanted to give Amazon Strategies readers a blow by blow of:

  • First blow: (10/14 - in the am) - Wal-mart announces they will offer 10 pre-release hard covers for $10. Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez is quoted as saying: "If there's going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web', it is going to be Walmart.com. Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site." in this WSJ piece.
  • Second blow: (10/14 pm) - Amazon counters Wal-mart with $10 on each books and of course free shipping for Prime/$25 super saver.
  • Third blow: (10/15 in the am) - Wal-mart lowers prices again to $9
  • Fourth blow: (10/15 hours later) - Amazon matches the $9 price target.

So far that's where we are, I'll keep you updated if anything else happens in this particular battle of the larger war between these behemoths.

]]> Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:19:27 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Walmart_book_promo Starting Thursday (10/15/09) there was some interesting back and forth between Wal-mart (WMT) and Amazon (AMZN) that I wanted to give Amazon Strategies readers a blow by blow of:

  • First blow: (10/14 - in the am) - Wal-mart announces they will offer 10 pre-release hard covers for $10. Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez is quoted as saying: "If there's going to be a 'Wal-Mart of the Web', it is going to be Walmart.com. Our goal is to be the biggest and most visited retail Web site." in this WSJ piece.
  • Second blow: (10/14 pm) - Amazon counters Wal-mart with $10 on each books and of course free shipping for Prime/$25 super saver.
  • Third blow: (10/15 in the am) - Wal-mart lowers prices again to $9
  • Fourth blow: (10/15 hours later) - Amazon matches the $9 price target.

So far that's where we are, I'll keep you updated if anything else happens in this particular battle of the larger war between these behemoths.


Complete Story »]]> AMZN WMT Scot Wingo Amazon Launches Same Day Delivery in 7 Metro Areas http://seekingalpha.com/article/166770-amazon-launches-same-day-delivery-in-7-metro-areas?source=feed 166770 Amazon (AMZN) Thursday announced a new delivery option called "Local Express Delivery" (ALED) in seven markets. This service gives buyers same day delivery (with a cut off that varies per city). The brilliant part of the program is that Amazon Prime users get the service for $5.99/item. Other customers pay based on a rate card per category that is in the $15-20 range.

Where is this available and how does it work?

]]> Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:40:19 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Amazon (AMZN) Thursday announced a new delivery option called "Local Express Delivery" (ALED) in seven markets. This service gives buyers same day delivery (with a cut off that varies per city). The brilliant part of the program is that Amazon Prime users get the service for $5.99/item. Other customers pay based on a rate card per category that is in the $15-20 range.

Where is this available and how does it work?


Complete Story »]]> AMZN Scot Wingo September Same Store Sales: eBay Continues Growth Trend http://seekingalpha.com/article/164917-september-same-store-sales-ebay-continues-growth-trend?source=feed 164917 We just completed collating our September same-store-sales (SSS) data for all of the channels we support at ChannelAdvisor (search, CSE, marketplaces, etc) and there are a couple of interesting data points to discuss as we exit Q3 and head into Q4.

Overall e-commerce
First, here's the chart that shows the SSS for eBay (EBAY), Amazon (AMZN) and overall e-commerce.
September_sss_chart I don't believe comscore has come out with with their data yet on September, so that part of the chart isn't filled in. For overall e-commerce (ChannelAdvisor SSS in the chart) , we saw that dip slightly from 8.7% in August to 7.3% in September. That's a small change and one that we don't think is worrisome.
Marketplaces (eBay and Amazon)
Amazon took a bit of a tick up, increasing from an already heady 53% growth rate to 55%. Historically when there are major new books (Twilight, Harry Potter,etc.) we see a lift on Amazon, so internally we're calling this the Dan Brown September blip.
eBay continued to do well and posted a 5.1% y/y SSS month for Sept on the heels of the surprising August 4.6% upswing. One yellow flag is that we're hearing from sellers that the new eTRS program and SR2 changes to search are very disruptive to their businesses. That went into effect 10/1 so we'll keep a close eye on the October SSS to see if those changes slow/negate many of the Aug/Sept gains. This feedback is anecdotal so far as the changes are < 5 days old and still taking a while to ripple through the ecosystem.
CSE
CSEs are holding steady - up 6.4% y/y for us and performing well. They usually really pop in Q4.
Search
Paid-search SSS were up 5.2% y/y with CPCs rebounding considerably from the year ago period. One interesting observation we've had as the Google/Bing wars have really warmed up and spilled into e-commerce. When you look at a pure SSS share world as we are in this post, Google's real 'enemy' or threat maybe a better word is Amazon. Amazon is on a clear path with their huge share gains to become the 'product search' of the internet. Product-related (retail) searches make up 40% of google's revenue and if Amazon were able to chip away at that, let's just say it wouldn't be good for Google.
Conclusion
September puts an end to Q3 where it appears we saw things rebound for e-commerce in general and definitely eBay specifically is showing another datapoint pointed at a recovery. Is the consumer's wallet freeing up? Are we benefiting from easier y/y comps than we've had in a long time? Yes! Does this mean we'll have a monster Q4? At ChannelAdvisor, we're counseling customers to look for a flat to up 5% Q4 this year and be pleasantly surprised should it end up coming in stronger than that.
We'd love to hear your Q3 thoughts and results with Q4 forecasts in comments.
Disclaimers
Disclaimer: I am long google and amazon. eBay is a minority shareholder in ChannelAdvisor where I am CEO.
This data represents the combination of results from > 3000 online retailers that together represent > $3b in e-commerce via ChannelAdvisor's software.
Our eBay data is not 100% of eBay, we have less international and a different category mix than eBay (e.g. we do not have any autos).
Our Amazon data is primarily what Amazon calls EGM - Electronics and General Merchandise, we have little to no exposure in the media (book/music/video) categories.
All data is ex-travel and groceries.
]]> Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:18:23 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

We just completed collating our September same-store-sales (SSS) data for all of the channels we support at ChannelAdvisor (search, CSE, marketplaces, etc) and there are a couple of interesting data points to discuss as we exit Q3 and head into Q4.

Overall e-commerce
First, here's the chart that shows the SSS for eBay (EBAY), Amazon (AMZN) and overall e-commerce.
September_sss_chart I don't believe comscore has come out with with their data yet on September, so that part of the chart isn't filled in. For overall e-commerce (ChannelAdvisor SSS in the chart) , we saw that dip slightly from 8.7% in August to 7.3% in September. That's a small change and one that we don't think is worrisome.
Marketplaces (eBay and Amazon)
Amazon took a bit of a tick up, increasing from an already heady 53% growth rate to 55%. Historically when there are major new books (Twilight, Harry Potter,etc.) we see a lift on Amazon, so internally we're calling this the Dan Brown September blip.
eBay continued to do well and posted a 5.1% y/y SSS month for Sept on the heels of the surprising August 4.6% upswing. One yellow flag is that we're hearing from sellers that the new eTRS program and SR2 changes to search are very disruptive to their businesses. That went into effect 10/1 so we'll keep a close eye on the October SSS to see if those changes slow/negate many of the Aug/Sept gains. This feedback is anecdotal so far as the changes are < 5 days old and still taking a while to ripple through the ecosystem.
CSE
CSEs are holding steady - up 6.4% y/y for us and performing well. They usually really pop in Q4.
Search
Paid-search SSS were up 5.2% y/y with CPCs rebounding considerably from the year ago period. One interesting observation we've had as the Google/Bing wars have really warmed up and spilled into e-commerce. When you look at a pure SSS share world as we are in this post, Google's real 'enemy' or threat maybe a better word is Amazon. Amazon is on a clear path with their huge share gains to become the 'product search' of the internet. Product-related (retail) searches make up 40% of google's revenue and if Amazon were able to chip away at that, let's just say it wouldn't be good for Google.
Conclusion
September puts an end to Q3 where it appears we saw things rebound for e-commerce in general and definitely eBay specifically is showing another datapoint pointed at a recovery. Is the consumer's wallet freeing up? Are we benefiting from easier y/y comps than we've had in a long time? Yes! Does this mean we'll have a monster Q4? At ChannelAdvisor, we're counseling customers to look for a flat to up 5% Q4 this year and be pleasantly surprised should it end up coming in stronger than that.
We'd love to hear your Q3 thoughts and results with Q4 forecasts in comments.
Disclaimers
Disclaimer: I am long google and amazon. eBay is a minority shareholder in ChannelAdvisor where I am CEO.
This data represents the combination of results from > 3000 online retailers that together represent > $3b in e-commerce via ChannelAdvisor's software.
Our eBay data is not 100% of eBay, we have less international and a different category mix than eBay (e.g. we do not have any autos).
Our Amazon data is primarily what Amazon calls EGM - Electronics and General Merchandise, we have little to no exposure in the media (book/music/video) categories.
All data is ex-travel and groceries.

Complete Story »]]> AMZN EBAY Scot Wingo eBay Rolls Out More of the 'Top Rated Sellers' Program in Search - Sellers Aren't Happy http://seekingalpha.com/article/164146-ebay-rolls-out-more-of-the-top-rated-sellers-program-in-search-sellers-aren-t-happy?source=feed 164146 I've had several inbound 'flame mails' about a change eBay (EBAY) made this week as part of their roll out of the SR2 release. I wanted to show everyone what's going on and get a pulse from readers on where you stand.

Background
Back in late July (seems like 2 years ago!), eBay announced what they internally call SR2 (Seller Release 2). We had detailed three-part coverage that begins here. A big chunk of the changes is what we call the ETRS program or eBay Top Rated Sellers program. This program goes through an interim period from Oct 09- April 10 and then is fully live in April. The way I explain it is that in this interim period, the search aspects go live (the front end or demand side) and then in April the fee aspects go live (or back-end/economics piece).
I've had lots of interviews with reporters about the program and generally think it is a good direction for eBay to be going in. I've always been concerned (as is usually the case with eBay) that something between the announcement and the implementation/go-live would be a big 'miss'. It's the eBay 'wait and see' factor. Some of these things sound great on paper and in AB posts, but when the go live, they just do something so wacky they can cancel out the positive aspects of a program (for example, I'm still excited that ETRS is domestic only).
Today eBay went live with some search functionality that I'm calling the eTRS button that looks to be the wacky feature of SR2 that has caught everyone (even me) by surprise.
The eTRS button
eBay quietly added this prominent checkbox yesterday (Sept 29) and sellers noticed it in about 2 milliseconds. On some browsers it has a big purple box and others it does not so it looks like eBay is still testing the appearance of the box. In this screen shot it appears in the bottom left. This is a browse session, in search sessions it is showing up much higher as there usually isn't a big category tree in SERPS.
click to enlarge

Ebay_etrs_sort

]]> Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:52:07 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

I've had several inbound 'flame mails' about a change eBay (EBAY) made this week as part of their roll out of the SR2 release. I wanted to show everyone what's going on and get a pulse from readers on where you stand.

Background
Back in late July (seems like 2 years ago!), eBay announced what they internally call SR2 (Seller Release 2). We had detailed three-part coverage that begins here. A big chunk of the changes is what we call the ETRS program or eBay Top Rated Sellers program. This program goes through an interim period from Oct 09- April 10 and then is fully live in April. The way I explain it is that in this interim period, the search aspects go live (the front end or demand side) and then in April the fee aspects go live (or back-end/economics piece).
I've had lots of interviews with reporters about the program and generally think it is a good direction for eBay to be going in. I've always been concerned (as is usually the case with eBay) that something between the announcement and the implementation/go-live would be a big 'miss'. It's the eBay 'wait and see' factor. Some of these things sound great on paper and in AB posts, but when the go live, they just do something so wacky they can cancel out the positive aspects of a program (for example, I'm still excited that ETRS is domestic only).
Today eBay went live with some search functionality that I'm calling the eTRS button that looks to be the wacky feature of SR2 that has caught everyone (even me) by surprise.
The eTRS button
eBay quietly added this prominent checkbox yesterday (Sept 29) and sellers noticed it in about 2 milliseconds. On some browsers it has a big purple box and others it does not so it looks like eBay is still testing the appearance of the box. In this screen shot it appears in the bottom left. This is a browse session, in search sessions it is showing up much higher as there usually isn't a big category tree in SERPS.
click to enlarge

Ebay_etrs_sort


Complete Story »]]> EBAY Scot Wingo eBay Takes a Step Backwards http://seekingalpha.com/article/162321-ebay-takes-a-step-backwards?source=feed 162321 A retailer we work with for Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE) recently emailed as they were really confused about a promotion they were sent by eBay (EBAY) pictured here:

Adcommerce_expansion
The retailer had lots of questions - should they stop their plans to sell direct on eBay, how does the system work, what's the ROI vs. other CPC channels like search/cse, etc.
Before we dig into what this means, let me backtrack for a second and explain the eBay AdCommerce system which is at the heart of this promotion.
About eBay AdCommerce
There are essentially 5 ways to advertise on eBay:
  1. Transactional- list a product for $x, pay $y in final value fee when it sells model.
  2. Yahoo! (YHOO) powered banner ads and sky scrapers on the homepage/SERPS.
  3. Yahoo (now Google) powered sponsored links on null search results.
  4. AdCommerce product links at the bottom of SERPS
  5. Your own custom deal (e.g. UPS, McAfee, USPS, etc.) where you pay eBay big $$$ to sponsor a part of the site or for an exclusive or something.
AdCommerce is eBay's third or forth attempt at a cpc on-ebay system and it seems to be sticking as they are clearly expanding it. The way it works (before this expansion) is eBay sellers sign up and pay a CPC for traffic to their eBay items or eBay store. Thus we typically say it is an 'in network' system as it doesn't shuffle traffic off eBay like the sponsored link, banner and custom deal programs do. In a transactional system, staying on-site is good. In a search engine system (e.g. Google), staying on-site is bad as you aren't finding what you are looking for.
We don't recommend AdCommerce to our customers because it lacks the basic closed-loop tracking that you MUST have for any CPC system to be measurable. For example, you can't go buy some traffic, send it to an eBay item and then know how much of that traffic converts into orders. This is because eBay doesn't give the advertiser the conversion data, they just give the number of clicks and impressions which is essentially useless. Plus this CPC is on top of the already generous take-rate (listing fee and fvf) charged by eBay.
We're also not fans of the program because:
  • We personaly find the ads are 90% of the time not relevent when I'm shopping on eBay.
  • We have data that suggests that when these ads live in front of the page navigation system it keeps buyers from going to page two of search results. I frequently tell users that this system has single handedly killed page 2 of eBay search results so everyone now has to focus on page 1.
Think I'm being too harsh? Here's a screen shot of some AdCommerce ads I was shown when looking for an apparel item:
Adcommerce_example
So here we have:
  • Pens - totally irrelevent
  • Cell phone case - also totally irrelevent
  • Work boots (at least in the category but I was looking for a sweater)
  • A slim shop ad with a blatent typo (expect nothing liss)
  • A hulk t-shirt (ok I guess the same category?)
These ads are bigger than the eBay results and push the page nav down. In other words, eBay would rather you click on this vs. going to page 2 from an economic standpoint. But is that what is best for the consumer?
AdCommerce goes 'out of network'
Circling back to the new promotion that was sent to an off-eBay retailer above, it looks like eBay is now looking to expand the program to allow 'off eBay' ads via shopping.com into AdCommerce.
The way I imagine this would work:
  1. Retailer specifies which of their shopping.com products they want to advertise
  2. Retailer specifies a CPC for the program or maybe even at the product level
  3. eBay shows off-eBay ads on search result pages.
As stated in the title, I think this is a big step BACKWARDS for eBay. We were excited to see them announce they were taking the banner page off of SERPs and some of the irrelevency caused by the featured program. But here we are a short time later seeing them seemingly talking out of both sides of their mouth and not only increasing a program that decreases the relevency of the search results, but now will also include taking buyers off eBay!
eBay needs to do some soul searching and decide what they want to be when they grow up - transactional or advertising (cpc/cpm) based? Do they want to truly show the most relevent products or do they want to focus on the pure short-term economics?

Stay tuned
We'll be on the lookout for more information about this program, specifically:
  1. Is there closed-loop tracking available?
  2. What is the ROI?
  3. Is this actually a cheaper way to sell on eBay than selling direct?

Disclosure: I am long Google and Amazon. I am CEO of ChannelAdvisor where eBay is an investor.
]]> Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:19:24 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

A retailer we work with for Comparison Shopping Engines (CSE) recently emailed as they were really confused about a promotion they were sent by eBay (EBAY) pictured here:

Adcommerce_expansion
The retailer had lots of questions - should they stop their plans to sell direct on eBay, how does the system work, what's the ROI vs. other CPC channels like search/cse, etc.
Before we dig into what this means, let me backtrack for a second and explain the eBay AdCommerce system which is at the heart of this promotion.
About eBay AdCommerce
There are essentially 5 ways to advertise on eBay:
  1. Transactional- list a product for $x, pay $y in final value fee when it sells model.
  2. Yahoo! (YHOO) powered banner ads and sky scrapers on the homepage/SERPS.
  3. Yahoo (now Google) powered sponsored links on null search results.
  4. AdCommerce product links at the bottom of SERPS
  5. Your own custom deal (e.g. UPS, McAfee, USPS, etc.) where you pay eBay big $$$ to sponsor a part of the site or for an exclusive or something.
AdCommerce is eBay's third or forth attempt at a cpc on-ebay system and it seems to be sticking as they are clearly expanding it. The way it works (before this expansion) is eBay sellers sign up and pay a CPC for traffic to their eBay items or eBay store. Thus we typically say it is an 'in network' system as it doesn't shuffle traffic off eBay like the sponsored link, banner and custom deal programs do. In a transactional system, staying on-site is good. In a search engine system (e.g. Google), staying on-site is bad as you aren't finding what you are looking for.
We don't recommend AdCommerce to our customers because it lacks the basic closed-loop tracking that you MUST have for any CPC system to be measurable. For example, you can't go buy some traffic, send it to an eBay item and then know how much of that traffic converts into orders. This is because eBay doesn't give the advertiser the conversion data, they just give the number of clicks and impressions which is essentially useless. Plus this CPC is on top of the already generous take-rate (listing fee and fvf) charged by eBay.
We're also not fans of the program because:
  • We personaly find the ads are 90% of the time not relevent when I'm shopping on eBay.
  • We have data that suggests that when these ads live in front of the page navigation system it keeps buyers from going to page two of search results. I frequently tell users that this system has single handedly killed page 2 of eBay search results so everyone now has to focus on page 1.
Think I'm being too harsh? Here's a screen shot of some AdCommerce ads I was shown when looking for an apparel item:
Adcommerce_example
So here we have:
  • Pens - totally irrelevent
  • Cell phone case - also totally irrelevent
  • Work boots (at least in the category but I was looking for a sweater)
  • A slim shop ad with a blatent typo (expect nothing liss)
  • A hulk t-shirt (ok I guess the same category?)
These ads are bigger than the eBay results and push the page nav down. In other words, eBay would rather you click on this vs. going to page 2 from an economic standpoint. But is that what is best for the consumer?
AdCommerce goes 'out of network'
Circling back to the new promotion that was sent to an off-eBay retailer above, it looks like eBay is now looking to expand the program to allow 'off eBay' ads via shopping.com into AdCommerce.
The way I imagine this would work:
  1. Retailer specifies which of their shopping.com products they want to advertise
  2. Retailer specifies a CPC for the program or maybe even at the product level
  3. eBay shows off-eBay ads on search result pages.
As stated in the title, I think this is a big step BACKWARDS for eBay. We were excited to see them announce they were taking the banner page off of SERPs and some of the irrelevency caused by the featured program. But here we are a short time later seeing them seemingly talking out of both sides of their mouth and not only increasing a program that decreases the relevency of the search results, but now will also include taking buyers off eBay!
eBay needs to do some soul searching and decide what they want to be when they grow up - transactional or advertising (cpc/cpm) based? Do they want to truly show the most relevent products or do they want to focus on the pure short-term economics?

Stay tuned
We'll be on the lookout for more information about this program, specifically:
  1. Is there closed-loop tracking available?
  2. What is the ROI?
  3. Is this actually a cheaper way to sell on eBay than selling direct?

Disclosure: I am long Google and Amazon. I am CEO of ChannelAdvisor where eBay is an investor.

Complete Story »]]> EBAY Scot Wingo Amazon Expands Private Label Offerings with AmazonBasics http://seekingalpha.com/article/162318-amazon-expands-private-label-offerings-with-amazonbasics?source=feed 162318

Amazonbasics_header

Amazon(AMZN) announced, and it was covered by the AP, that it is expanding it's private label business with the introduction of AmazonBasics. It appears there are 30 products being offered so far (something we'll track) and they fall into the Consumer Electronic 'accessories' category.
These look a little bit more branded than the private labels we've seen so far. For example, check out the logo on this cable: (click to enlarge)

Amazonbasics_cable

]]> Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:15:04 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Amazonbasics_header

Amazon(AMZN) announced, and it was covered by the AP, that it is expanding it's private label business with the introduction of AmazonBasics. It appears there are 30 products being offered so far (something we'll track) and they fall into the Consumer Electronic 'accessories' category.
These look a little bit more branded than the private labels we've seen so far. For example, check out the logo on this cable: (click to enlarge)

Amazonbasics_cable


Complete Story »]]> AMZN Scot Wingo Is eBay Switching Search Network Partners? http://seekingalpha.com/article/162163-is-ebay-switching-search-network-partners?source=feed 162163 At ChannelAdvisor we have a product, SearchAdvisor, that is used by some of the largest retailers to manage their paid-search campaigns. As part of the product, we take traffic from the big search providers (Google, Y!, Bing, etc.) and allow the retailers to look at the referrals (one click back) for that traffic.
This data is useful as you may see things such as Y! adding a new partner with very weak (or strong) traffic (usually measure by conversion rate) and then you can take an action such as decreasing bids for that traffic or elimintating or increasing bids. Not all engines allow this kind of behavior and some only allow it on their content networks.

Anyway we keep an eye on this data and look for other trends of interest and found one this week that is pretty interesting.
eBay sponsored link program
For certain search results (depends on your cookies and a variety of other factors such as the number of results, etc.). Here's an example for a digital camera typo search:
Digital_camera_ads
In the US these ads are provided by Yahoo! (YHOO) and in International markets, they are provided by Google (GOOG). This was all setup in 2006 when eBay (EBAY) introduced the program (which I'm not a fan of BTW, but I've ranted about that enough in the last 3yrs).
What we are seeing...
Our referral data is showing an interesting trend - that traffic going from eBay->Y!->retailer is decreasing rapidly and traffic flowing eBay->Google->retailer is increasing. This graph illustrates the trend. In short we have seen a 47% increase in traffic flowing through eBay to Google in the last two weeks:
Goog_ebay_increase
What's going on and what does it mean to me?
From the data it's clear that something material is going on. It's either a test or all out switch from Y! to Google providing the sponsored links in the USA.
What does this mean? Well, in general, eBay and Google haven't gotten along to well together. So maybe this signals a thawing out between the two companies? Of course, eBay is pretty tight with Bing these days (cashback) who is taking ovver the Y! search engine so it will be interesting to see if they get aggitated and send some cashback love elsewhere. Or heck, maybe this is a negotiating tactic to get Y!/Bing to up the ante on a combined cashback/sponsored link program.
Well if you're an eBay seller, there really isn't anything this means for you other than it's another way you can get your products on eBay.
If you are a Google advertiser, you should keep an eye on conversion rates as eBay traffic from this program tends to convert at the bottom of the search traffic bucket. Unfortunately Google doesn't allow you to exclude this kind of traffic from the search network, but if enough retailers share concerns with their account managers (hint hint), that could change.
Finally, this blog has a large investor/Wall St. readership. If (that's a big IF) eBay is switching, I'm sure there's an economic driver so this could result in an increase in advertising revenue. To my knowledge eBay doesn't break out the this program specifically, but they have announced they are getting rid of the banner ads on SERPs so perhaps the loss of that revenue is driving eBay to look at a different partner.
What do you think? Chime in on comments!
Disclosures: I am long google and Amazon
]]> Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:04:01 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

At ChannelAdvisor we have a product, SearchAdvisor, that is used by some of the largest retailers to manage their paid-search campaigns. As part of the product, we take traffic from the big search providers (Google, Y!, Bing, etc.) and allow the retailers to look at the referrals (one click back) for that traffic.
This data is useful as you may see things such as Y! adding a new partner with very weak (or strong) traffic (usually measure by conversion rate) and then you can take an action such as decreasing bids for that traffic or elimintating or increasing bids. Not all engines allow this kind of behavior and some only allow it on their content networks.

Anyway we keep an eye on this data and look for other trends of interest and found one this week that is pretty interesting.
eBay sponsored link program
For certain search results (depends on your cookies and a variety of other factors such as the number of results, etc.). Here's an example for a digital camera typo search:
Digital_camera_ads
In the US these ads are provided by Yahoo! (YHOO) and in International markets, they are provided by Google (GOOG). This was all setup in 2006 when eBay (EBAY) introduced the program (which I'm not a fan of BTW, but I've ranted about that enough in the last 3yrs).
What we are seeing...
Our referral data is showing an interesting trend - that traffic going from eBay->Y!->retailer is decreasing rapidly and traffic flowing eBay->Google->retailer is increasing. This graph illustrates the trend. In short we have seen a 47% increase in traffic flowing through eBay to Google in the last two weeks:
Goog_ebay_increase
What's going on and what does it mean to me?
From the data it's clear that something material is going on. It's either a test or all out switch from Y! to Google providing the sponsored links in the USA.
What does this mean? Well, in general, eBay and Google haven't gotten along to well together. So maybe this signals a thawing out between the two companies? Of course, eBay is pretty tight with Bing these days (cashback) who is taking ovver the Y! search engine so it will be interesting to see if they get aggitated and send some cashback love elsewhere. Or heck, maybe this is a negotiating tactic to get Y!/Bing to up the ante on a combined cashback/sponsored link program.
Well if you're an eBay seller, there really isn't anything this means for you other than it's another way you can get your products on eBay.
If you are a Google advertiser, you should keep an eye on conversion rates as eBay traffic from this program tends to convert at the bottom of the search traffic bucket. Unfortunately Google doesn't allow you to exclude this kind of traffic from the search network, but if enough retailers share concerns with their account managers (hint hint), that could change.
Finally, this blog has a large investor/Wall St. readership. If (that's a big IF) eBay is switching, I'm sure there's an economic driver so this could result in an increase in advertising revenue. To my knowledge eBay doesn't break out the this program specifically, but they have announced they are getting rid of the banner ads on SERPs so perhaps the loss of that revenue is driving eBay to look at a different partner.
What do you think? Chime in on comments!
Disclosures: I am long google and Amazon

Complete Story »]]> EBAY GOOG MSFT YHOO Scot Wingo Is Sears Set to Launch Its Own Third-Party Marketplace? http://seekingalpha.com/article/161825-is-sears-set-to-launch-its-own-third-party-marketplace?source=feed 161825 It's been less than a month since Wal-mart (WMT) launched their own third-party marketplace to much fan-fare. Wednesday, I was tipped off by a reader that noticed the text: "Are you a merchant? Sell your item on Sears." while shopping on sears.com.

The text+link is down now, but it is in Google cache and points to www.searsmarketplace.com which is live as of this writing. We were able to ascertain quite a bit about the forthcoming system from the help files and other documentation.
In this post we'll look at both the buyer-experience and the seller-experience. First, I wanted to put this in perspective. According to Internet Retailer's top 500 retailer list, Wal-mart is ranked number 14 with $1.7b in GMV. Sears Holding corp (SHLD) (sears/kmart/landsend/etc.) comes in quite a big higher at number 7 with $2.7b in GMV - a good 60% greater than Wal-mart. So while Sears doesn't have the offline cachet that wal-mart does, in the on-line world, sears holding is considerably larger than wal-mart. That was a long way of saying that this is actually a bigger deal than the Wal-mart announcement.
Buyer-experience
I poked around on the buyer-facing site and didn't find any live third-party merchants, but you can clearly see how this will work as it appears Kmart (part of the Sears Holding family of ecommerce sites) uses the 3P platform to 'sell' on sears.com.

Strawberry_shortcake
In this screenshot, I've added three red circles. The first on the left shows that for most search result pages there is a list of the stores selling for that term. Then for the first two products you can tell that the name of the merchant (sears and kmart in this example) are now denoted vs. everything being sold just by Sears (first party). Thus, this site appears to be pretty well developed and interesting because it not only will allow Sears to on-ramp third parties, but they can now on-ramp their multiple first-parties.
Seller-experience
Unlike Wal-mart, the Sears Marketplace (SMP) appears to be an open marketplace where anyone can sign up. There are two different ways a merchant can work with SMP:
  • CPC - Cost Per Click - I wasn't able to see examples of this program, but my assumption is this is like Amazon's ProductAds program.
  • FBM - Fulfillment by Merchant - Like Amazon's merchants@ program, FBM allows the merchant to upload products and then basically receive orders to fulfill.
Also unlike Walmart, Sears has published their rate card: (click to enlarge)
]]> Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:10:17 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

It's been less than a month since Wal-mart (WMT) launched their own third-party marketplace to much fan-fare. Wednesday, I was tipped off by a reader that noticed the text: "Are you a merchant? Sell your item on Sears." while shopping on sears.com.

The text+link is down now, but it is in Google cache and points to www.searsmarketplace.com which is live as of this writing. We were able to ascertain quite a bit about the forthcoming system from the help files and other documentation.
In this post we'll look at both the buyer-experience and the seller-experience. First, I wanted to put this in perspective. According to Internet Retailer's top 500 retailer list, Wal-mart is ranked number 14 with $1.7b in GMV. Sears Holding corp (SHLD) (sears/kmart/landsend/etc.) comes in quite a big higher at number 7 with $2.7b in GMV - a good 60% greater than Wal-mart. So while Sears doesn't have the offline cachet that wal-mart does, in the on-line world, sears holding is considerably larger than wal-mart. That was a long way of saying that this is actually a bigger deal than the Wal-mart announcement.
Buyer-experience
I poked around on the buyer-facing site and didn't find any live third-party merchants, but you can clearly see how this will work as it appears Kmart (part of the Sears Holding family of ecommerce sites) uses the 3P platform to 'sell' on sears.com.

Strawberry_shortcake
In this screenshot, I've added three red circles. The first on the left shows that for most search result pages there is a list of the stores selling for that term. Then for the first two products you can tell that the name of the merchant (sears and kmart in this example) are now denoted vs. everything being sold just by Sears (first party). Thus, this site appears to be pretty well developed and interesting because it not only will allow Sears to on-ramp third parties, but they can now on-ramp their multiple first-parties.
Seller-experience
Unlike Wal-mart, the Sears Marketplace (SMP) appears to be an open marketplace where anyone can sign up. There are two different ways a merchant can work with SMP:
  • CPC - Cost Per Click - I wasn't able to see examples of this program, but my assumption is this is like Amazon's ProductAds program.
  • FBM - Fulfillment by Merchant - Like Amazon's merchants@ program, FBM allows the merchant to upload products and then basically receive orders to fulfill.
Also unlike Walmart, Sears has published their rate card: (click to enlarge)

Complete Story »]]> SHLD Scot Wingo Has eBay Turned a Growth Corner? http://seekingalpha.com/article/160834-has-ebay-turned-a-growth-corner?source=feed 160834

We were recently evaluating our August results and saw an interesting data point that I wanted to share with readers. One of the measurements we follow closely is Same Store Sales - this basically compares the current year period (August 09 in this example) to the prior year (August 08) and strips out any customer adds/attritions so we get a clean apples to apples picture of what's going on.

For the first time (in a loooong time), eBay (EBAY) showed positive SSS GMV growth, coming in at 4.6%. In the first Q, eBay was in the negative 10% range, and then in Q2 came in around -5%, so it's interesting to see a pretty material swing here. Of course this begs the question - why? which we'll cover later. First I wanted to share our SSS data in graphical form through August 09:

August_09_sss

This chart has the following elements:
  • ChannelAdvisor SSS - CA's all in SSS trends - this counts ALL channels.
  • eBay SSS - we've covered this
  • Amazon SSS - Amazon SSS - this is primarily in the EGM (Electronics and General Merchandise) as we don't have a lot of exposure to the media/video games categories.
  • Comscore - Comscore regularly reports ecommerce trends and recently came out with a bearish dip for the August Back to School season showing - 3% y/y.

As you can tell from the chart, Amazon (AMZN) is on a pretty strong growth trend and shows no signs of letting up. Overall CA e-commerce is growing right around 10% y/y which is a slight improvement from the first part of the year and a material improvement from Q408.

]]> Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:51:32 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

We were recently evaluating our August results and saw an interesting data point that I wanted to share with readers. One of the measurements we follow closely is Same Store Sales - this basically compares the current year period (August 09 in this example) to the prior year (August 08) and strips out any customer adds/attritions so we get a clean apples to apples picture of what's going on.

For the first time (in a loooong time), eBay (EBAY) showed positive SSS GMV growth, coming in at 4.6%. In the first Q, eBay was in the negative 10% range, and then in Q2 came in around -5%, so it's interesting to see a pretty material swing here. Of course this begs the question - why? which we'll cover later. First I wanted to share our SSS data in graphical form through August 09:

August_09_sss

This chart has the following elements:
  • ChannelAdvisor SSS - CA's all in SSS trends - this counts ALL channels.
  • eBay SSS - we've covered this
  • Amazon SSS - Amazon SSS - this is primarily in the EGM (Electronics and General Merchandise) as we don't have a lot of exposure to the media/video games categories.
  • Comscore - Comscore regularly reports ecommerce trends and recently came out with a bearish dip for the August Back to School season showing - 3% y/y.

As you can tell from the chart, Amazon (AMZN) is on a pretty strong growth trend and shows no signs of letting up. Overall CA e-commerce is growing right around 10% y/y which is a slight improvement from the first part of the year and a material improvement from Q408.


Complete Story »]]> AMZN EBAY Scot Wingo Walmart Launches Walmart Marketplace http://seekingalpha.com/article/159231-walmart-launches-walmart-marketplace?source=feed 159231 Walmart.com gets in the marketplace game with Walmart Marketplace (WMMP).

Wmt_logo

In the world of retail, when you say the 'W' word, or even mention the city Bentonville, people stop what they are doing and listen (and sometimes tremble). So Monday's launch of WMMP is something to stop and dig into in detail which is the purpose of this blog post. First, we'll provide a brief background of why retailers are adding third-party marketplaces. Then we'll go on a deep dive into the new WMMP. Finally we're wrap with some thoughts around what this means specifically for Amazon and Ebay - the current reigning kings of the marketplaces world and the broader internet retailer/e-commerce industry in general.
Why Are Retailers Adding Third-Party Marketplaces?
Since late 2006 when Amazon (AMZN) started growing at 20% greater than e-commerce, other retailers have taken notice and worked on decoding what the secret sauce is. Around that same time is when Amazon launched both Prime and their 3P 'seller business'. Since 2007, we've been predicting that Amazon's formula would be decoded and as an offshoot of that we would see an explosion of marketplaces amongst the top 20 retailers. Since then we've seen folks like Overstock (OSTK), Buy.com, Pixmania (EU) and play.com (EU) add vibrant third-party marketplaces onto their 'first-party' retail business.
The strategy just makes complete sense:
  • You are spending large $ to build a brand and bring consumers to your site.
  • Consumers love selection
  • A 'bad' consumer experience is when they come to your site and don't find what you are looking for.
  • Even the mega players can only manage so much selection
  • Long-tail selection can be painful and expensive (eats into warehouse space)
  • You need to focus on your core (shoes or top 10 sellers or the value buyer, etc.)
The easiest way to do this and maintain a good consumer experience is with the addition of a third-party marketplace. Sure you can backfill null search results with some advertising and what-not, but asa consumer do you really want to go to retailerX and then be bounced to retailerY, retailerZ, etc.? Over time, you just go to retailerY which isn't really good for retailerX.

The solution - partner with top/mid/smb retailers that bring some unique product lines to your e-commerce site, but instead of links are integrated at the product level. Their products are on parity with yours, in search results, checkout, etc. The consumer never has to leave your site and in many cases the experience is so fluid they don't realize they are dealing with a third party.

]]> Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:59:26 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Walmart.com gets in the marketplace game with Walmart Marketplace (WMMP).

Wmt_logo

In the world of retail, when you say the 'W' word, or even mention the city Bentonville, people stop what they are doing and listen (and sometimes tremble). So Monday's launch of WMMP is something to stop and dig into in detail which is the purpose of this blog post. First, we'll provide a brief background of why retailers are adding third-party marketplaces. Then we'll go on a deep dive into the new WMMP. Finally we're wrap with some thoughts around what this means specifically for Amazon and Ebay - the current reigning kings of the marketplaces world and the broader internet retailer/e-commerce industry in general.
Why Are Retailers Adding Third-Party Marketplaces?
Since late 2006 when Amazon (AMZN) started growing at 20% greater than e-commerce, other retailers have taken notice and worked on decoding what the secret sauce is. Around that same time is when Amazon launched both Prime and their 3P 'seller business'. Since 2007, we've been predicting that Amazon's formula would be decoded and as an offshoot of that we would see an explosion of marketplaces amongst the top 20 retailers. Since then we've seen folks like Overstock (OSTK), Buy.com, Pixmania (EU) and play.com (EU) add vibrant third-party marketplaces onto their 'first-party' retail business.
The strategy just makes complete sense:
  • You are spending large $ to build a brand and bring consumers to your site.
  • Consumers love selection
  • A 'bad' consumer experience is when they come to your site and don't find what you are looking for.
  • Even the mega players can only manage so much selection
  • Long-tail selection can be painful and expensive (eats into warehouse space)
  • You need to focus on your core (shoes or top 10 sellers or the value buyer, etc.)
The easiest way to do this and maintain a good consumer experience is with the addition of a third-party marketplace. Sure you can backfill null search results with some advertising and what-not, but asa consumer do you really want to go to retailerX and then be bounced to retailerY, retailerZ, etc.? Over time, you just go to retailerY which isn't really good for retailerX.

The solution - partner with top/mid/smb retailers that bring some unique product lines to your e-commerce site, but instead of links are integrated at the product level. Their products are on parity with yours, in search results, checkout, etc. The consumer never has to leave your site and in many cases the experience is so fluid they don't realize they are dealing with a third party.


Complete Story »]]> AMZN EBAY WMT Scot Wingo White Paper: How Consumers Shop Online http://seekingalpha.com/article/154836-white-paper-how-consumers-shop-online?source=feed 154836

Based on feedback we received at our Catalyst conferences where we have an online consumer panel that retailers love, we started doing a bi-annual survey of consumer online buying behavior. The 2H09 version is out now. This information is something I think every online retailer, regardless of size should read and understand as you make your Q4 plans. You can download the white paper here.


Highlights

Whitepaper_cover

Here are some highlights of what consumers told us in the survey:

  1. Consumers are spending about the same amount of time online but are spending less money – scouring the Web for deals that yield higher savings and offer extra value above and beyond low prices.
  2. Shoppers don’t necessarily realize where they purchase and may not understand how Google Product Search and other comparison shopping engines function.
  3. Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) are top-of-mind retail brands, but Amazon commands twice the mindshare of eBay.
  4. Free shipping and peer ratings/reviews hold more influence over purchasing decisions than they did in 2008.
  5. 70 percent of consumers said they regularly purchase from eBay or Amazon.
  6. 81 percent of consumers begin their product searches with Google (GOOG) and 11 percent begin with Yahoo (YHOO) – which is an increase of five percentage points in favor of Google, and a six percent decrease in Yahoo usage.
  7. Bing is making a quick impact since it launched on May 28, accounting for two percent of searches and 13 percent of respondents already having used Bing Cashback – a share that will grow in light of the recent Yahoo/Microsoft search deal.
  8. Shoppers are diversifying the comparison shopping engines they use to research products, prices and deals. We discovered some useful trends by comparing consumer behavioral data to actual internal sales data from thousands of online retailers that make up the ChannelAdvisor customer base.
The white paper goes into tons of details on these items, and they are strategic tidbits to plan your Q4 marketing plan. Is Bing in your mix? Have you diversified your CSEs? Which search engines are you spending time on and does it match the consumer-side?

We hope this enables you to align your resources and plans to have a successful Q4!

Disclosure: I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor

]]> Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:03:06 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

Based on feedback we received at our Catalyst conferences where we have an online consumer panel that retailers love, we started doing a bi-annual survey of consumer online buying behavior. The 2H09 version is out now. This information is something I think every online retailer, regardless of size should read and understand as you make your Q4 plans. You can download the white paper here.


Highlights

Whitepaper_cover

Here are some highlights of what consumers told us in the survey:

  1. Consumers are spending about the same amount of time online but are spending less money – scouring the Web for deals that yield higher savings and offer extra value above and beyond low prices.
  2. Shoppers don’t necessarily realize where they purchase and may not understand how Google Product Search and other comparison shopping engines function.
  3. Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY) are top-of-mind retail brands, but Amazon commands twice the mindshare of eBay.
  4. Free shipping and peer ratings/reviews hold more influence over purchasing decisions than they did in 2008.
  5. 70 percent of consumers said they regularly purchase from eBay or Amazon.
  6. 81 percent of consumers begin their product searches with Google (GOOG) and 11 percent begin with Yahoo (YHOO) – which is an increase of five percentage points in favor of Google, and a six percent decrease in Yahoo usage.
  7. Bing is making a quick impact since it launched on May 28, accounting for two percent of searches and 13 percent of respondents already having used Bing Cashback – a share that will grow in light of the recent Yahoo/Microsoft search deal.
  8. Shoppers are diversifying the comparison shopping engines they use to research products, prices and deals. We discovered some useful trends by comparing consumer behavioral data to actual internal sales data from thousands of online retailers that make up the ChannelAdvisor customer base.
The white paper goes into tons of details on these items, and they are strategic tidbits to plan your Q4 marketing plan. Is Bing in your mix? Have you diversified your CSEs? Which search engines are you spending time on and does it match the consumer-side?

We hope this enables you to align your resources and plans to have a successful Q4!

Disclosure: I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor


Complete Story »]]> AMZN EBAY GOOG MSFT YHOO Scot Wingo Is Apple Going to Compete with PayPal? http://seekingalpha.com/article/153980-is-apple-going-to-compete-with-paypal?source=feed 153980 Two interesting tidbits Wednesday. First, I was doing some broad searches on eBay (EBAY) and in some cases was seeing this result set:
Search_results

What this treatment does is take a broad search (iPod in this example) and it injects a category filter below the first two results. This seems to be the kind of test you would run if you had found that people aren't using the left nav to do category filtering and you want to put it right up in their faces. A couple of thoughts:

  1. Whether you like the treatment or not - it's good to see eBay is starting to test some more dramatic changes to search than we've seen in the past.
  2. I've long thought that eBay's search engine is at its worst for these broad terms (ipod, nintendo wii, etc.) where there are so many listings that typically what you are looking for isn't in the first 20-50 results.
  3. I've been criticizing eBay for not changing search enough in SR1 with SR2 they are ramping up the changes and this is another datapoint that they are starting to (finally!!)really tackle their biggest weakness.
Apple to complete with Paypal?
This article in Silicon Alley today caused lots of speculation around Apple (AAPL) entering the payments space. You have to admit it is interesting to think about the potential for Apple to come in and compete with Paypal. I like the iPhone aspect as well - what if you could pay for goods on and offline with it? They do this kind of stuff in Japan all the time and it hasn't worked it's way to the US because we lack the infrastructure. So to put it in perspective we have these companies currently competing or looking to compet with Paypal:
  1. Google (GOOG) - Google Checkout is largely on hiatus right now, but could be an area Google revisits should it decide that e-commerce is important (Bing is going to force them there sooner rather than later.
  2. Amazon (AMZN) - CBA (Checkout By Amazon) is alive and kicking and slowly being added to
  3. Facebook - Is rumored to be expanding their 'virtual goods' payment system to other oline purchases. Boy wouldn't retailers love access to that user base?
    1. Within social, the social games are raking in the cash and they use a whole new class of payment system (good article here)
  4. Twitter - In their leaked documents to TechCrunch, I found it interesting that one of the areas they were looking at is payments. FYI - there's already tweetpay.
  5. Apple - Now we can put them on the list.
The only big internet name missing from this list is Microsoft/Yahoo!. With their new marriage and focus on ecommerce, a deeper partnership with Paypal or a competing system seems like an interesting option to pursue.
Disclosure - I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor
]]> Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:46:53 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:
Two interesting tidbits Wednesday. First, I was doing some broad searches on eBay (EBAY) and in some cases was seeing this result set:
Search_results

What this treatment does is take a broad search (iPod in this example) and it injects a category filter below the first two results. This seems to be the kind of test you would run if you had found that people aren't using the left nav to do category filtering and you want to put it right up in their faces. A couple of thoughts:

  1. Whether you like the treatment or not - it's good to see eBay is starting to test some more dramatic changes to search than we've seen in the past.
  2. I've long thought that eBay's search engine is at its worst for these broad terms (ipod, nintendo wii, etc.) where there are so many listings that typically what you are looking for isn't in the first 20-50 results.
  3. I've been criticizing eBay for not changing search enough in SR1 with SR2 they are ramping up the changes and this is another datapoint that they are starting to (finally!!)really tackle their biggest weakness.
Apple to complete with Paypal?
This article in Silicon Alley today caused lots of speculation around Apple (AAPL) entering the payments space. You have to admit it is interesting to think about the potential for Apple to come in and compete with Paypal. I like the iPhone aspect as well - what if you could pay for goods on and offline with it? They do this kind of stuff in Japan all the time and it hasn't worked it's way to the US because we lack the infrastructure. So to put it in perspective we have these companies currently competing or looking to compet with Paypal:
  1. Google (GOOG) - Google Checkout is largely on hiatus right now, but could be an area Google revisits should it decide that e-commerce is important (Bing is going to force them there sooner rather than later.
  2. Amazon (AMZN) - CBA (Checkout By Amazon) is alive and kicking and slowly being added to
  3. Facebook - Is rumored to be expanding their 'virtual goods' payment system to other oline purchases. Boy wouldn't retailers love access to that user base?
    1. Within social, the social games are raking in the cash and they use a whole new class of payment system (good article here)
  4. Twitter - In their leaked documents to TechCrunch, I found it interesting that one of the areas they were looking at is payments. FYI - there's already tweetpay.
  5. Apple - Now we can put them on the list.
The only big internet name missing from this list is Microsoft/Yahoo!. With their new marriage and focus on ecommerce, a deeper partnership with Paypal or a competing system seems like an interesting option to pursue.
Disclosure - I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor

Complete Story »]]> AMZN EBAY GOOG Scot Wingo Amazon vs. eBay: 2 Charts Say It All http://seekingalpha.com/article/153585-amazon-vs-ebay-2-charts-say-it-all?source=feed 153585 James Mitchell at a little firm called Goldman Sachs, put out an interesting report Monday that seemed to address concerns around pressure that video game console declining sales put on Amazon (AMZN) for Q2. In there he looks at some of the 'heartbeat' metrics of the business and compares them to eBay as a comp.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and I thought in this case I'd put two out there for a nice 2k word message. The bottom line is that while eBay (EBAY) definitely is stabilizing, they aren't out of the woods yet and let's not forget they face a competitor unlike any foe they have ever faced.
Figure 1: Amazon vs. eBay User growth since 2006

09q2_ebay_vs_amzn_pic1
Figure 2: Amazon vs. eBay Y/Y unit growth rates (unit = items sold via the respective site)

09q2_ebay_vs_amzn_pic2
Disclosure: I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor.
]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:17:30 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

James Mitchell at a little firm called Goldman Sachs, put out an interesting report Monday that seemed to address concerns around pressure that video game console declining sales put on Amazon (AMZN) for Q2. In there he looks at some of the 'heartbeat' metrics of the business and compares them to eBay as a comp.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and I thought in this case I'd put two out there for a nice 2k word message. The bottom line is that while eBay (EBAY) definitely is stabilizing, they aren't out of the woods yet and let's not forget they face a competitor unlike any foe they have ever faced.
Figure 1: Amazon vs. eBay User growth since 2006

09q2_ebay_vs_amzn_pic1
Figure 2: Amazon vs. eBay Y/Y unit growth rates (unit = items sold via the respective site)

09q2_ebay_vs_amzn_pic2
Disclosure: I am long Amazon and Google. eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor.

Complete Story »]]> AMZN EBAY Scot Wingo Major Changes Announced by eBay: Part II http://seekingalpha.com/article/151656-major-changes-announced-by-ebay-part-ii?source=feed 151656

This is part II of a III part 'eBay Strategies' series detailing and reacting to eBay's (EBAY) second round of 2009 changes announced today (aka the Summer release or what they call SR2 internally@eBay).

  • Part I covers the search and seller efficiency changes and is here.
  • Part II (you are here) covers the eTRS.
  • Part III looks at the Summer changes package and offers some thoughts/analysis.

ChannelAdvisor is also hosting a webinar on August 4th (next Tuesday) at 2pm ET where we will detail the changes and go through some tips on how to start preparing for the changes now. We'll also highlight some strategies on how to take advantage of the changes before the holidays.

]]> Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:26:13 -0400 Scot Wingo Scot Wingo submits:

This is part II of a III part 'eBay Strategies' series detailing and reacting to eBay's (EBAY) second round of 2009 changes announced today (aka the Summer release or what they call SR2 internally@eBay).

  • Part I covers the search and seller efficiency changes and is here.
  • Part II (you are here) covers the eTRS.
  • Part III looks at the Summer changes package and offers some thoughts/analysis.

ChannelAdvisor is also hosting a webinar on August 4th (next Tuesday) at 2pm ET where we will detail the changes and go through some tips on how to start preparing for the changes now. We'll also highlight some strategies on how to take advantage of the changes before the holidays.


Complete Story »]]> EBAY Scot Wingo