Promote Your Competition | Another eBay test

I heard about the latest eBay test from www.tamebay.com, Sue Bailey has written about eBay's latest annouoncement. They're displaying "merchandising" within the layout of your listing; merchandising in this case may include "merchandise from other sellers on active view item"...

I know this seems like a a bit of a joke, but beleive me this is for real.

Cross promotion has been around for a while (My eBay | Marketing Tools | Promote Similar Items) on on ended or watched listings, but to have a direct link to another eBay merchant in the same industry sector is suicide surely?

As Sue points out cross promotion on ended items is bareable, especially as you could pick up some new custmers; but if you're a well placed seller in the searches, how will you feel knowing that all your hard work could be for nothing if a cheaper, similar item, from another seller appears as a link on your listings?

Okay, so they may go to said listing and the postage is high or they haven't got brilliant feedback, but in today's market will a lower price be enough to encourage buyers to take a risk?

Will we see a number of sellers that can't attain Top Rated Seller status, dropping their price on the basis that they may steal your business?

I spoke with a client about this yesterday and the opinion is that if eBay role this out they'll pull out of cross promotion, not wanting to loose any business to competitors.

Part of me does wonder whether this is what eBay wants. Is this another way of "encouraging" sellers to use Adcommerce?

1. Sellers worry that teir well place listings will help competitors
2. Sellers then cancel cross promotion
3. Seller worries that they may loose a certain amount of business
4. Seller invests in Adcommerce to secure the exposure they were previuosly getting for free

What do you think?

Twitter & Search Results

Recently, I've found myself using the the "Show Options" drop down when filtering Google's search results.

On the whole I use this if I want to see results based on "news" reports, but I'm increasing using the "latest" option when searching. I do this so that I can find the most recent web standard, new techniques or when reserching for a new blog entry.

What's interesting is how quickly out Tweets are making it into the search results. Take this search for "avalanche in North Wales" for instance:


Notice that the 4th result is a Retweet of a post made by the Daily Post newspaper. The post links to a news report on current avalanche risk in North Wales.

Now, that post was made 47 minutes before I made my search. The average blog or website will never achieve page one in a set of Google results in less than an hour. So if you're not using Twitter, perhaps you should be and if you are using Twitter, are you using it to it's full potential.

I write about web design; commenting on the software available, hosting and page layout, but I also contribute to conversations on current goings on in the world. Many of my recent posts have been about the little bit of snow we've had an how it's effected me and the Nation.

Don't be afraid to move away from your comfort zone, give your opinion on Global matters and generate interest in yourself has a person as well as a business. If you can relate you business/service directly with something that's being reported on in the news then great, but that's not always necessary.

Starting your own Business

My girlfriend's cousin quizzed me about freelancing yesterday and while I'm no expert I have been self employed for over 2 years now and thought that others may like to read what I have to say and more importantly add from your own experiences.

I'd never done any web design prior 2007, terms like html and css meant nothing. My parents own Denbigh Army Surplus.They add a brochure website that hadn't been touched in 3/4 years and wanted to update the site and convert to an ecommerce site, a site that takes orders.

I immersed myself in html, css and Actinic and before long realised I quite enjoyed it.

I guess having a job whilst setting up my own business gave me enough confidence and financial support to take the plunge. My first client was a local couple and a massively under charged them to secure the job, but wanted the experience of working for a client more than the money itself.

As I grew in confidence I accepted more work, both ecommerce and brochure sites, I even maintain a couple of eBay shops too.

I guess my advice is to start small and build from that. This allows you to do work on top of another job if necessary, which means you're not panicking about where the next pay check is coming from.

You will find that you no longer have a 9-5 day and that you are "aware" of your business almost 24 hours a day, but that doesn't really matter, because you should be doing something you truly love.

Your wages, initially, may not be great, but you can right an awful lot off against your business and you'll probably be paying less tax. Which is nice :-)

Have a think about what resources and equipment you will need and how much it will cost. I started my business without any loans or overdrafts, something that would not have been possible if I'd required business premises or expensive equipment early on.

My local tax office runs free courses for people starting out and www.direct.gov.uk has lots of info too.

Do your research, keep up to date with the latest trends and developments in your sector and give it ago.

I know that job security is a concern for a lot of people at the moment, but if you've spotted a gap in the market and it's something that you're passionate about, why not see how it goes.

What do you have to loose?

Chamonix and Me

I've just set up another blog focussing on te Chamonix Valley in the French Alps, but it will appeal to Boarders, skiiers, mountaineers and anyone who likes a good story....

Let me know what you think,

Rich

in reference to: Chamonix and Me (view on Google Sidewiki)

Optimising Images

Using images on a web page is a great way to create interest. A good photograph or graphic can give the visitor a lot of information about your product, service or brand.

Being able to take a good photograph is not where image optimisation ends however.

The invention of the digital camera has meant it's very easy for us to build up a portfolio of hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs and I'm still surprise at the number of my family, friends and clients that still use the default file name, DSC00....jpg.

How on Earth these people ever find a particular image amazes me, especially if they're all lumped together in their "My Pictures" folder.

So from purely a housekeeping point of view changing the file name to something relevant is a good idea.

Programs, like Adobe Photo Downloader, give you the option to create separate folders and rename files very simply. They can even be set up to open up automatically when a camera, flash drive or mobile phone are connected to your computer.



As well as making your life easier, renaming file name also makes it easy for search engines to find and display images in their search results. The introduction of a specific image search, from Google, allows users to specifically search the internet for relevant images, makes anything called DSC00321.jpg pretty useless.

It doesn't end there though; using an "alt" tag is another way of getting information of an image into text form on your web page.

img src="/product-title.jpg"

becomes

img src="/product-title.jpg" alt="Product Title"

Don't just take it from me, have a look at what Mike Cutts has to say on the subject:

Another trick, when using images or graphics as links to other areas on your site is to include a text link above or beneath.




The image is being used as a "call to action"; catching the eye of visitors to your "Special Offers" or "Delivery Information", but the text link beneath can be seen by both the human visitor (if the user have their images turned off in their browser for instance) and the spiders crawling your site for relevant content.

Inaudible Memory

What a great idea. A friend of mine has created a blog and is asking friends to email him with images that mean something to them.

A great oppertunity to relive some memories and get the travel juices flowing.

Thank you Chris

in reference to: Inaudible Memory (view on Google Sidewiki)

Sidewiki "Edit" Bug

Has anyone noticed that when you go back and "edit" an entry it keeps prompting you to populate the "name" fields? Depsite them being filled in?

in reference to: Google Sidewiki (view on Google Sidewiki)