This is my journey as an E-commerce Consultant
eBay
Royal Mail don’t want us to export….or don’t want you to be competitive…
435 days
Of the recent price hikes with Royal Mail the worst offender is the rise to international mail. Airmail to Europe will rise roughly 81% and to the rest of the world roughly 59%.
Our government wants us to trade internationally but have allowed this kind of increase?
I get books through YesAsia with FREE SHIPPING as long as I spend over $35. The mooks I buy are about 450g each. I normally buy two/three at a time so each parcel nears 1kg.
If I wanted to get these posted from a UK seller (who is also twice as expensive) it would cost £7.82 if I lived in Europe, £14.08 if I lived in the US and £5.60 in reality as I live in the UK a the new prices. It doesn’t SEEM a lot and what the RM profess they need to charge to make a profit. But the real clincher here is that postal prices in other countries are MUCH cheaper for business and it’s cheaper for me to import than buy from my home country.
Sad really.
Also as we expand e-business in the UK to encompass world wide exporting, so companies can remain competitive they are squeezing their margins. Consumers won’t pay more so they Royal mail is probably going to cost a few people their jobs as companies shed excess costs.
This seems to be the big worry for etailers with new legislation coming in, disproportionate postal price hikes and everything seemingly to be detrimental to the wonderful and profitable world of ecommerce that WAS open to all big and small…
That’s why I am learning Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
I think I might need it.
WIDSHOP eBay design at Channeladvisor Catalyst 2012
070 days
Well…it’s that time of year again. Sandra (from the Berlin office) and I have been discussing hotels for Catalyst
This year though, we are introducing our Widshop eBay design service so we have a four strong team, 3 from Berlin and yours truly.
The reason we sponsor Catalyst and have done for 5 years is the very reason people GO to catalyst.
Relevancy.
The content reflects on the past success but mainly focuses on the future of e-commerce and what areas need investment for business expansion.
This year Catalyst will focus again on cross border trade as this is SUPER important and not just looking at Europe.
The east is where there is a massive amount of money and a love of UK goods. Check out http://import.buy.com – a site pushing American goods to the Japanese market.
And who owns Play.com – A Japanese company! Should you be selling to the East? Have you been watching the telly recently? Loads of programmes on the expansion of China and the east. Heck, we are asking China to bail out Europe!
I digress, where was I..oh CATALYST 
This year are some great speakers talking about social commerce, search, female representation in business (you can tell I have started to go to Girl Geek stuff and networking with my fellow business women) and all kinds of things relating to being a successful e-business.
One of the great things about Catalyst is meeting like minded people with the same goals, needs and problems as you. There are a lot of opportunities to network, party and you are ALWAYS well fed at this event.
This event is about information, relevant to your on-line business and where the sector is heading.
The other great thing about Catalyst is you can speak to various third party service providers (which I am one) and discuss potential future partnerships. Having everything in house is expensive and hard to run, third party companies are essential in e-businesses.
Well, I hope to see you at Catalyst and I (Createyourtemplate) will be there with chocolates and sweets as always.
Unpaid item case update…
0Well regardless of communication, the seller closed the unpaid cases and left two strikes against my account and this made me mad.
1. I could not leave feedback for my terrible transaction.
2. I had paid THEN been refunded and the seller was still able to leave a strike
eBay was almost letting this seller extort money out of me for a postal service that took me out of eBay’s buyer protection.
However, these were promptly removed on appeal by eBay so at least that process works like a charm.
Very upset with the seller naturally so I decided to report them for the policy breaches of trying to get people to pay outside the eBay platform and adding your email address to a mailing list to advertise their website. Things that they have been doing for about 2 years now and reported countless times by other members of the community.
I STILL can’t leave feedback which stops knee jerk vicious reactions but also means I can not mark down a seller who has just tried to extort money out of me outside the eBay platform and has been sending unsolicited email to me for the past 2 years.
So eBay is pissing off buyers with their ‘debt collection’ style emails, and bad resolution experience but also letting bad sellers who are repeat offenders trade happily on the marketplace.
WTF indeed.
It will always haunt you on the web…”I only worked there and left like a lifetime ago!”
91 days
The dark side of the interweb always creates an ever lasting record of your e-footprint.
Sometimes you work for companies that actually would harm your career to have been associated with them in the past. Regardless that you left way before they went catatonic.
I control my work history exclusively through linkedin so my association is clear (as it is always part of your CV whether you like it or not) but clear dates are shown so clients know how far removed I am from said company. Fortunately, unless you are specifically searching for my name and said company will any results show *phew*
However, disgruntled clients always like to name and shame on the web, something I don’t allow on this blog or in comments unless it is glowing and positive. This is hard to control, you would be surprised.
The reason I am talking about this is I have been doing competitor research as we have a new eBay design service. It’s been a while since I have personally taken a look at what our competitors are doing, normally the MD keeps up on this.
One company gets bad reviews and in one particular piece on a prominent review site a disgruntled client specifically named an employee of the company in full. Normally you get ‘bob from ABC foods is the best/worst guy ever’ but a full name is not fun.
The review consisted of claims that $1300 was lost, the customer service was bad (even though this named person works in an administrative role) and a whole host of other complaints. You would think that said person was solely responsible for the bad experience and not due to the failings of the company as a whole.
When you google said person with said company you get the correct facebook page and cyber stalking begins 
These kind of websites mostly have a naming and shaming policy so hopefully if the company notices, they can request the removal of the name.
I also love how WRONG hypernet information can be. I keep getting spam mail about getting a pension as 192.com lists my age guide as over 50! The electoral role got it wrong the once and obviously our council sells on its constituents information to mailing lists etc including age data so we can get junk through the post.
I am err…still 21 right?
eBays Unpaid Item Process and a Seller Dispute
I buy a lot from Japan on eBay. A lot.
However, one of my favourite eBay sellers ‘sold’ his eBay account to another and things have gone bad to worse.
The situation:
I bought two obi from said seller, each with a shipping of $24. As this seller inflates its shipping weights dramatically (previously I bought an item that cost them $4 in shipping but they charged me $17….that’s ANOTHER issue I won’t go into!) I went ahead and paid for both items adding on $24 for SAL shipping each item which takes around 2 weeks.
They refund me.
Huh?
Now they are asking for $49 ($1 more) for combined shipping via sea mail which takes 3 months. 3 months is WAY outside feedback or seller protection on eBay and with Paypal. If I want to pay $89 they will use a quicker shipping service….(er..so not worth it mate)
So, basically I am not paying. So they have opened and unpaid item case.
This is actually the first time I have been on the receiving end on an unpaid item case in about 14 year of eBaying…so when did eBay start speaking customers like this?
We have opened an unpaid item case for 6602# Japanese KIMONO SILK / VINTAGE WEDDING MARU OBI / WOVEN SEIGAIHA.
If payment isn’t received by 21-Feb-12, the seller may withdraw from the contract and you would no longer be entitled to receive this item. Additionally, an unpaid item may be recorded on your account, which could lead to your account being suspended.
It’s like a credit agency threatening to take you to court. They use the same language. Looking at http://www.cccs.co.uk/ a debt collection agency would typically say ‘We may take action if you fail to PAY THE FULL AMOUNT YOU OWE WITHIN SEVEN DAYS.’
I know sellers want to be tough on unpaid buyers but most would agree that this threatening language is a bit much if out of the sellers control (and the buyer will just neg you out of spite most of the time, I kinda felt like doing it too when I read it but I know the language is from eBay)
Most sellers I know would like to forget unpaid buyers and not get into nasty disputes as the negative feedback and bad DSR’s is crippling to an eBay business and eBay don’t ever do anything to control THAT part of the transaction.
I won’t pay of course, as I already did. The seller has lost a valuable buyer (used to spend up too $200 per month with said seller) and many other buyers in my circle who do the same.
