Gee, Do You Think This is Spam?

From the Gee, Do You Think This is Spam department:

- A "cristmus offer" from "Linen n Things" (note, not Linens n Things)

eBay and the Knot? Gossip and Tidbits

Some tidbits for Bidbits...I was talking to my friend Paul Rapa the other day; he's a commodities analyst  and follows eBay closely. He was at a sort of "mini eBay Live" they had in Manhattan a while back, where reps from PayPal and eBay were on hand to answer questions.

At the event, Paul had offered his opinion that eBay buy Drugstore.com and TheKnot. The latter, he notes, is profitable, growing, and can be had for 500 million. "Not bad for eBay and it is the #1 Wedding site."

Who is writing this mysterious blog?  www.onlyebay.blogspot.com. Paul also clued me into this. It's very good, just about daily posts on eBay and its business. Or businesses, multiple, I should say. Check it out. I'll be adding it to juliasauctionlinks.com under Blogs.

eBay stock..Paul feels the stock is undervalued and should be trading at $50, mentioning PayPal just signed a deal with Mastercard where you can pay anywhere anytime. If you own eBay stock, you can feel good about paying PayPal and eBay fees. Well, at least better about it.

One of the most annoying things I encounter vis a vis PayPal is all the ridiculous, numerous spoof emails. I know to mouse over the links and see the crazy urls that come up, but do other people? I've said before and I'll say again, I think PayPal needs to do a better job educating people as to using mouseovers to avoid clicking into spoof emails. Or maybe just an email education program to not click through PayPal links at all..only use emails as fyi's, and go to the site to login and do business. I haven't thought that one through though.

StumbleUpon is growing..closing in on 4 million users..Paul makes the point that it is rarely mentioned. We'll see if this changes. I must confess I haven't been good about stumbling, though I've wanted to.

Enough dishing for one day.

Holiday buying on eBay and Getitnext

We're knee-deep in the holiday buying season, and it's only a few days past Thanksgiving. I've noticed an uptick in many of my eBay auctions, which I think is a trickle-down effect from more buyers overall trolling the site, so if you have stuff you've been waiting to sell, get it up there.

Buyers...what to buy on eBay vs.  Stores? In my household one of the most sought-after items is the Xbox 360 console. Video games and systems are often on the top of the list. My advice is to thoroughly vet the seller, go for the highest feedback possible -- 100%, preferably, and if there is no return policy specified, use the Ask Seller a Question feature to see if they have one...it doesn't hurt to see how fast they get back to you..not to mention if they ever get back to you.

One site that aims to make eBay shopping simpler and to cut down on the clutter is Getitnext, at getitnext.com. Coincidentally, the Nintendo Wii was the featured hot item on the home page when I visited it this morning.

There are also tabs for Find a Deal - auctions with 0 bids and less than 4 hours remaining; and Bulk Deals, Lots, Multiples, and wholesale, as well as Buy It Now items.

I've just started playing with this but I think it can be a fun add-on to the whole eBay shopping experience.

Check out my free newsletter site, Yardsalers.net, for more holiday selling, shopping and shipping tips.

Happy and profitable holidays, all!

Opening My New Chumby: Some Chumpix

I received my cushy new chumby in the mail the other day.

What is a chumby? It's the most fun new gadget out there in the world of gadgetry..it's a little device with a screen that plays endless widgets -- such as YouTube, eBay, facebook, and other Internet-related smidgens. Some things are still in the works, it looks like -- but it's looking pretty cool.

Anyway, right now, I mainly just wanted to share my chumby photos with you. This is how the chumby looked in its packaging, and with its accessories, etc., when I took it out of the box.

  Chumby in its cute burlap sack. (Who said you can't look hot in a burlap sack?)

I love their cute octopus logo. Steve Adler of chumby Industries fame (who I met at the eBay Devcon, where he gave a chumbydemo) told me it was done by the same lady who did the apple logo. If I'm not mistaken.

Here is the chumby itself (it's the thing in the middle row on the bottom, with the tan/beige colored trim, and a little screen) surrounded by its accessories, cute lil' bags and adorable little manual.

Chumby with its ac adaptor plugged in, and the manual open.

Chumby in all its glory on my desk, playing the YouTube widget.

More pix coming as I play with the chumby some more.

Note to amazon: Can I Has buyer address in the "sold" email, pleez?

Hey, amazon.com, a note from your sellers everywhere...well, at least from me: Can you please go back to emailing us the durn buyer's name and address in the email message we get when we sell something?

Now you've gone to this irritating new system where we have to:

- 1. Go to your Seller Account by clicking "Your Account" at the top of any
Amazon.com page, then clicking "Your Seller Account" on the right side of the
page, under Marketplace.

- 2. Find Order ID "blah blah blah" in Manage
Orders. You can search by Order ID if necessary.

- 3. Click the Order ID
link to display the Order Details page. You will see the full order details
including shipping address and shipping speed.

Fun! Yeesh. I imagine there was some security reason for this or something, but PayPal sends buyer mailing addresses in their payment confirmation emails, so why can't you?

And by the way, I fronted you like three bucks on the shipping.

There, I got that off my chest. Thanks.

Facebook Flyers: Let Us Target Groups in Ads

I've been experimenting with Facebook flyers. Did I mention I love facebook? I'll go with the lower case. I'm not surprised it's growing rapidly and is being courted by Microsoft, Yahoo, and who knows what other Internet big boys.

When I heard about their "flyers" advertising program, I was excited. It sounded like a simple, low-cost way to get an ad out on the Internet to targeted groups of people. The only problem is, although facebook has these natural ready-made groups of people on the site, called, guess what -- groups -- you can't target them with flyers!

No, you can only target a college/university or a "network."  This doesn't work well for a lot of people selling products that would tie in really well with all the myriad facebook groups out there. For example, I sell ebooks about eBay. I don't want to buy a flyer for Washington, DC, or the University of Minnesota...I want to buy a flyer for the "Addicted to eBay" group, and maybe some other facebook eBay groups as well.

This seems like a no brainer to me. C'mon facebook folks, pleez give us groups in ads. Or as the cat on another certain site would say, I Can Has Group Targeting? OK, that didn't work out.

I did write the facebook people to verify that you could not in fact target groups. They thanked me for the idea, but verified that you cannot do it. So maybe they're considering it. Let's hope. Meantime I'll keep you posted as to how my flyers are doing. Not well, at the moment. At this rate, I doubt I'll keep using them, as the keyword/network system just doesn't seem to work well for me and I bet the groups idea would.

In sum: Groups. groups. groups. facebook. please. give. us. groups. in. flyers. mark. zuckerberg. just. for. good. measure.

PayPal donates dough to Ballou High School

I was sitting here watching Ellen, and gearing up to list some Russian art books on eBay, and they had the director of Washington DC's own Ballou High school on the show. He's apparently turned the band into a haven for the kids in the school, which is in a crime-ridden part of the city. All the seniors in the band last year went on to college.

Well in these situations Ellen usually presents the person on the show with money or gifts for their cause, underwritten by a company, and I thought it was interesting this time that the sponsor was PayPal.

They donated $25,000 to the band and $75K to the high school. Plus, Ballou-ies will be walking around with backpacks with PayPal logos on them stuffed with school supplies courtesy of the co.

You go, P-Pal. Now you just need a campaign to reduce all the PayPal-related email spam out there.