I have had a very busy e-commerce 2011. The economy has taken a bashing but online things are still hotting up! The world is our oyster online with the expansion of social commerce and like many sellers looking out to Europe and beyond is the key to success.

This year as been the year for international expansion for my sellers and myself. Most of my eBay clients are moving into France, Germany and the USA as a minimum. Most are going much further.

To stay ahead of the game as always, I am looking into the Asian markets. Strong currency in these countries suddenly makes buying stuff from Europe side cheap and boy is it TRENDY!

While I was in Japan (business and volunteering) I saw that the union jack was EVERYWHERE on clothing, accessories in shops and on the people walking past. It was very surreal.

Language is no longer a barrier. Improvements in translation engines have made things easier.

For a year or two I have bought from Rakuten and Yahoo Auctions Japan (though a shopping service) and each time it gets a bit easier. For instance Japanese sellers are more interested in international trade, probably due to economic conditions in their own countries and better support networks.

So as my clients are expanding in to Europe, Australia and America in the next few years, I will get ready for the expansion east by building relationships, language skills, cultural/business skills and finding sensible solutions.

Oh yeah, and prepare for Widshops…oh yes….eBay design mark deux….

and a picture from my volunteering in Ishinomaki!

Fixing a shrine gate in Onasaki

Onasaki – Rebuilding houses, reflooring, clearing out garbage and putting a shrine gate back up.

Place was completely flooded – government is not restoring electricity and water.

On the way in we passed the shrine at Okawa Elementary School, the team had worked on the clearance of the area so stopped to pay resepect and see the progress – it was completely destroyed, killing 75 of 108 students and 10 of 13 teachers and staff. The teachers and students were evacuating from the school and were swept away by the tsunami while crossing a nearby river bridge.

You could see the part of the bridge ripped out by the tsunami still in the river.

Our feature boxes can be a static graphic or more snazzy with attribute drop downs or ‘pop ups’.

Lets take a look at BRANDS OUTLET:

A quick find feature box to guide buyers based on what gender they are shopping for.

Roll over popup functionality can also be added to feature boxes, UKSPORTSWAREHOUSE has a huge product matrix on the front of the eBay store with this nifty feature.

This kind of technology can be added on any feature box from static feature boxes to more dynamic up-selling sections.

Feature boxes can also be added to eBay templates to generate a ‘call to action’ so that your buyers are persuaded to browse and keep shopping with you!

TACKLEDISCOUNTS has some of these feature boxes at the base of their eBay template to keeps their buyers clicking around their shop.

This feature about carp fishing has links to the most popular categories. Dynamic searches or links to specific items can be built in here.

Along side this is a more general feature box for the all important (and eBay favourite)….clearance offers and deals!

Making sure you utilise your retail space on your store and template wisely is the right way to make the most of your eBay traffic.

Keep your customers browsing with your memorable branding on show and making sure they know exactly the range of products you offer in store.

Knowing your category personalities and purchase habits of your buyers is essential for knowing where to place these boxes.

So, at CYT we make sure we understand your business, your traffic and your customers to make sure we make the most of your design.

Each of our eBay design projects is just that, a PROJECT – carefully thought out graphical and structural design with marketing and conversion in mind. All designs are unique and we constantly develop new features to meet our client needs.

Come to Createyourtemplate for your eBay design, we make you beautiful – and we don’t mind if you pile on the pounds at Christmas, as well…that’s the idea!

We are an odd looking bunch so I doubt we would get on beautifulpeople.com even if we went on a bikini diet!

Disclaimer: Since I have worked for CYT I have lost 5lbs on purpose.

Buy For Less Online are an online retailer of toys based in the Midlands near Birmingham. Managing Director, Dan Aston, considers ChannelAdvisor to be one of his most reliable employees, stating the system easily does the work of three or four people. During peak times such as Christmas, Buy For Less Online process around 3,000 orders per day and state they would not be able to do this without ChannelAdvisor.

Buy For Less Online are an online retailer of toys based in the Midlands near Birmingham. Managing Director, Dan Aston, considers ChannelAdvisor to be one of his most reliable employees, stating the system easily does the work of three or four people. During peak times such as Christmas, Buy For Less Online process around 3,000 orders per day and state they would not be able to do this without ChannelAdvisor.

Createyourtemplate design the background, eBay shop/template and basic CA store.

March’s case study is already up!

eBay is still one of the greatest marketplaces going, for me a self confessed ebay addict – it is still part of my daily shopping routine. If I need something, I eBay for it.

I am not alone, by any means.

Where else would I be able to fuel my passion for vintage kimonos? Or find genuine geisha shiro-nuri (cosmetics) direct from Kyoto?

Being of the alternative persuasion, I get opportunities to dress up and eBay makes sure I have the right accessories and can find anything I can actually imagine.

But is my love misguided? eBay is just a vessel. Should I not love the sellers with the vision to supply me with such treats, that fight tooth and nail to make sure I can see them and buy from them wherever they might be based?

These are my favourite sellers:

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Hannari-Ya - Japanese love straight from Kyoto!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/viperlondon – All kinds of gothic/emo/alternative attire.

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/The-Hair-and-Beauty-People – where I get my Redken from!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Fatal-Impact – Manic panic at reasonable prices!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/Schuh-Branded-Shoes-Online – An outlet I should really try to avoid – check out their shop display bargains!

http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/kimono-wholesale – Great to bid on vintage Obi.

So, love out to these sellers who help me spend my money in wonderful ways, and battle though eBay’s ever changing mind.

I would be richer without you, but would I be happier?

“My name is Liz, and I am an eBay addict – it has been over 10 years now…..”

Tell me about YOUR favourite eBay sellers! *Open for Comments*

http://www.kookiweb.co.uk/ – a few basic eBay design examples.

http://www.meanpixel.com/ebay-store-listing-design.htm – more ‘advanced’ look.

http://www.agenius-marketing.com/ebay-store-design.html for basic store/listing design.

eBay design seems to be the new thing to do…

eBay Shop frame

eBay Listing Template Design

The actual coding part will come, I am slicing it up and coding it as we speak so hopefully I will get the time to play with the new stores experience before catalyst. As you can see I am not the ‘best designer’ in the world, but I will do for my small projects and illustrations.

Edited to add: Apparently my early work in eBay design css inspired these guys and they are now fully compliant with NSE. I will review at a later date. http://smartzstores.co.uk/

http://kidsontalks.com/2008/06/29/ebay-design-the-copycats-rise-and-how-to-decide/

This post is open for fresh comments. I am getting emails asking for your contact details, post your contact number here and face the music.

http://www.createmystore.co.uk (so you analytics software will tell you of the new link…)

Frooition has suffered with redundancies in the last 18 months loosing approximately 7 of its members with Gren making 8.

If Frooition does go under then my 3 clients who use their design will loose it, just as they are about to pay up for the shops upgrade. I already have concerns over the stores working with the European eBay sites.

Worrying times. Looks like I am going to have to focus on creating a compliant store design (which will all be open source) that fits in the new eBay experience and re-work. Templates too.

I do wonder where I am going to get this time from. I suppose I have always known the danger of renting design, it just comes at a busy period when I am clocking up 13 hour days.

The section is currently:
/* -------- Control Border on Gallery List -------- */
td.gallery
{
border:1px #FF00FF solid;
}
/* -------- End -------- */
/* -------- Control Background on Gallery List -------- */
td.gallery table td
{
background:#FFCCFF;
}
/* -------- End -------- */

Now we are going to replace it with:

td.gallery
{
width:360px;
height:130px;
background:url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybg.jpg) no-repeat !important;
}
/* making certain backgrounds transparent */
span.ebay table,
.pagecontainer table table table,
.pagecontainer table table tr,
.pagecontainer table td
{
background:transparent;
}

Notice that adding this section of code, the background to the promotion boxes/search box and the categories disappear (we shall deal with the promo boxes and search box in a later post) so to make sure you category background image stays in place replace:

td.category {
height:35px;
width:180px;
border-top:1px solid #FFCCFF;
background: url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybutton.jpg) no-repeat;
margin:5px;
}

with:

td.category {
height:35px;
width:180px;
border-top:1px solid #FFCCFF;
background: url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybutton.jpg) no-repeat !important;
margin:5px;
}

the !important tag tell eBay that your CSS change is WAY more important and should be obeyed at all costs.

I also added this nugget to add a nice border around my gallery:

table.ebItemlist
{
width:770px !important;
border-left:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-right:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-bottom:1px #FFCCFF solid;
}

Please as always read the disclaimer

Just to complete, the section now looks like:

/* -------- Control Gallery List -------- */
td.gallery
{
width:360px;
height:130px;
background:url(http://www.kidsontalks.com/ebaybg.jpg) no-repeat !important;
}
/* making certain backgrounds transparent */
span.ebay table,
.pagecontainer table table table,
.pagecontainer table table tr,
.pagecontainer table td
{
background:transparent;
}
/*Nice border around gallery*/
table.ebItemlist
{
width:770px !important;
border-left:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-right:1px #FFCCFF solid;
border-bottom:1px #FFCCFF solid;
}
/* -------- End -------- */

You can see the full css file here: eBay Store Design with CSS and to see the changes to my eBay store as we go along visit : http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Hairfreax