Leading from my last post about using skype to run phones, it seems to me as if these days business infrastructure can be almost entirely run on open source or free products.  I am quite tempted to give these options a go, but I do use a lot of software and services which are only available to windows…..

Operating system

Ubuntu, is user friendly version of Linux, an open source operating system.  I reckon that using this would be fine as long as the user had limited software requirements (i.e. they did not need any software only available for windows)

Office

Open office (and for that matter Google Docs) provides functionality to cover about 99% of office functions such as spreadsheet and word processor. I think that using Open Office would be sufficient for the needs of any worker who only needed to communicate within the company, as outside the company their could be compatibility problems with MS office users.

Email and Calendar

Instead of using microsoft exchange, it would be possible to use Gmail and Google Calendar.  Google in fact has a service called apps for you domain which offers enterprise services at a fraction of the cost of building an infrastrure using MS products.

I think the Gmail is great as it allows POP mail to be received into the gmail client, giving a single online email store.

Phones

As mentioned in a previous post, Skype can be used to build a phone system of sorts.
 

Are there any businesses out there that have gone entirely open source?

 I was recently asked by a client whether they should sell thorough eDirectory.  eDirectory is a fixed price marketplace which sells across a range of different categories ranging from electronics to flowers.  The system is similar to amazon marketplace in that seller submits details of their products and the whole selling process takes place on the eDirectory site.

I don’t really know what to make of eDirectory.  On the plus side it has an Alexa rank of 21,000 which would seem to indicate that it gets around 10,000 unique visitors a day and is also a PR of 5.  What does slightly worry me about it is that it has such a low profile, I have never seen any offline or online advertising.  Apparently they charge £1000 to sign up for the marketplace which also concerns me as they as this is not a model used by the top marketplaces.  Perhaps they are good at selling their service but not delivering much value after that?  Commission is 8%.

Does anyone have any experiences to share?

I read an interesting article in the ecommerceguide.com about how offering alterative methods of payment such as cash and cheques can boost conversion.

Nearly 40 percent of offline purchases are made with checks or cash, and so it makes sense to still offer these at the checkout, either on eBay or your own website.  And the lack of such an option online can lead to lost sales.

For eCommerce sites, the alternative payment methods also include PayPal, which is pretty much the standard on eBay.  In the article Jim Hunt from PayPal noted that:

• Non credit card methods are quicker to use, too.  Many people shop online at work, and when the boss suddenly strolls into the neighborhood, plastic is painfully slow.
• Adding just one or two alternative payment options can increase conversion rates 63 percent, he said. Three or four payment methods can push conversion rates to 72 percent.
• By offering only credit cards as a route to checkout, 5 percent to 10 percent of potential U.S. buyers turn away

I have just discovered a new marketplace is launching called Aroxo.  I can’t tell you anything about this site as they are still in private Beta.  However, I think that they will be lucky to make any headway in a marketplace dominated by the likes of amazon and eBay. 

The bus for generalist marketplace has left and I think that anyone would be daft to launch a generalist marketplace, that is unless you have a massive advertising budget.  Yes, sites such as Tasbar and CQout have several hundred thousand listings, but these are mostly tat and do not compare to the tens of millions on eBay.

People of Aroxo, I wish you luck, you are going to need it.

On my travels around the internet I have come across several swapping websites.  A new one called youSwop has been launched recently.  Other sites are listed here.

Considering the development of money is one of the greatest events in the history of mankind, enabling goods and people to travel freely, I cannot help but think that this is a slightly backwards step!   I can imagine that most of the stuff on these website are things that people really don’t want i.e. rubbish, any good stuff will go on eBay for exchangable elecronic pounds which I find useful in satisifying my consumer needs.  In short, I don’t think that these sites will be challenging the eBay or the classified sites at any point soon.

It is also a bit of a mystery to me how these sites expect to make any money.  Advertising perhaps?

I find a good service for getting rid of stuff which is not worth selling is freecycle.

eSellerPro has become the first software provider to support Play.com’s playtrade platform.  Playtrade allows third party items to be sold alongside Play.com’s own products, in a very similar way to the amazon marketplace.

I have no data on how effective Playtrade is as a marketplace.  However with low commission rates (about 10% - no listing fee) it is certainly worth looking into. 

I think that Playtrade is an interesting platform and perhaps indicative of the future of online selling with high traffic websites (e.g. amazon, Playtrade) selling other products alongside their own, turning their site into a marketplace.  The website benefits by increasing choice without buying extra stock and getting commission from the sales monitizing their web traffic.  The seller benefits from the potential to reach a bigger the websites large customer base.

With products like Ztail allowing products to be listed on any website in future ecommerce to become more distributed and any website with traffic could become a fixed price marketplace.

Second Rotation has been launched recently as a way for consumers to sell on their electronic items for cash.  This is an interesting development in the drop-shop model which uses the fact that for some categories (mainly electronics) eBay is a liquid market with steady (ish) marketprices.  Based on a number of criteria (condition, accessories etc) the site will give a value which it is willing to pay for an item. Presumably the items are then sold on eBay for a spread over the offer price.

I think that this model is perhaps the future for customer focused eBay consignment sellers, as it provides a good customer experiences (cash today) and allows the consignment company to only deal with items they know will sell.

The idea is not new with The Drop Spot offering to buy up iPods and gaming systems from their site Beyond the Pod.  Similarly in the UK, services such as Mopay, envirofone and mazuma mobile  offer to pay cash for mobile phones

Following my review of Spacetime, a new 3D search tool for eBay and other marketplaces, I have interviewed the CEO, Eddie Bakhash, who has been kind enough to fill us in with some background and developments with his product.

Where do you see SpaceTime fitting into the browser market?

SpaceTime is a next generation media browser that features 3D Search and 3D Tabbed Browsing.  By allowing end users to search an array of content through one search box, SpaceTime eliminates the need for users to hunt for information.  In addition, by displaying information in 3D visual stacks, SpaceTime saves people time by eliminating the need to click back and forth between a list and the items you are looking for.  As PCs become more powerful and bandwidth increases, consumers’ appetite for content will also increase.  SpaceTime offers a solution to this.

How has the uptake been?

We have 200,000 downloads; 500,000 searches; and 5,000,000 impressions in just 37 days.

What is your revenue model since the service is free?

SpaceTime creates new advertising markets leveraging off the proven paid search model, ensuring easy monetization of traffic and creation of a revenue stream.

What do you see as the main advantages of SpaceTime over a normal browser?

1. Reduces clicks - end users used to have to work by clicking back and forth between an endless list of search results and what they are trying to find.
2. Eliminates hunt for information – users must no longer find or travel to new search destinations when information is hard to find.
   
3. More efficient display of information - the top web destinations are in an information bottleneck using interfaces that are a decade old and cram multimedia into HTML pages
   
4. Utilizes dormant computing time - anticipates what the user may seek next, utilizes dormant computing time, and puts the user in a reduced-click computing environment
   
5. Convergence - Allows web, video, music, and photos to converge into one 3D solution. 

It looks nice, but will people use it?

Yes.  Once we release SpaceTime out of Beta, we will have perfected all of its functionality and have a full offering of content for end users that our research shows they are awaiting.

What are your plans for the future? 

SpaceTime plans to broaden its content offering, making it a full media portal to include (a) more e-commerce merchants, (b) video, (c) music, (e) 3D eMail, (f) news and (g) more flavors of search.  In addition, we plan on adding community elements to SpaceTime to enable collaboration among its users.

I have recently noticed that more and more eBay sellers are using Squidoo to promote their items and so I have decided to reassess Squidoo as a way of driving traffic to eBay and other transactional websites.

Quite a few eBay sellers seem to be using Squidoo to promote their products.  These seem to be the smaller sellers with niche, funky products which people will like to read about.  Here are some examples:

http://www.squidoo.com/Suncatchercreations
http://www.squidoo.com/cactusandcoyote
http://www.squidoo.com/titaniumringsandweddingbands
http://www.squidoo.com/nickandnorapjs
http://www.squidoo.com/whattosellonebay
 

The team at Squidoo have also written an eBook encouraging eBay sellers to get on board.  You can download it here 

What do the top lenses to do get up the list 

Although it is not possible to get traffic details about the different lenses on Squidoo, it is possible to see their ranking.  From a quick analysis of some of the top lenses they seem to have the following in common

• The have a lot of content.  A lot of time and care has gone into these lenses.  Their modules are mainly text based with  only liberal use of the eBay and amazon modules.
• Multiple lenses have been linked together to give a greater variety of
• They have used images to brighten up their content.

With the rise of the social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, it is no surprise that there is a growing number of widgets to help sellers advertise.  Lets take a look at a few of them

Cooqy

Cooqy offers 3 different widgets, a seller showcase for smallers sellers (shown above), a seller shopfront for powersellers and a eBay buyer widget for integrating eBay search into your website.

Configuration and branding can be edited which is important, and the product supports multiple eBay sites.  The widgets are free to use on non-eBay sites, but there is a charge for posting on eBay.

Visit www.cooqy.com to see it in action

Ztail

ztail is a really rather neat product which allows you to easily create listings which can then be posted on eBay and on social networks.  A great user interface and and one of those few products which I think will make ebayers lives easier. 

eBay To Go

Not to be outdone, eBay has developed its own widget.  This is rather a neat tool, allowing you to select from a number of simple to configure eBay widgets showing multiple or single items from one or many sellers.  This is good if you want to advertise items from a particular seller (i.e. yourself), or  don’t care.

Visit http://togo.ebay.com to see the widget in action.

VFlyer

Not an eBay application, but a useful app nevertheless for creating adverts and then posting them on classified sites and on social networks.  More useful for listing unique items than inventory 

A word of warning

I am guessing that these products in part make their money from the eBay affiliate network, and I notice that they do not offer to share the revenue with publishers.  By publishing these widgets on your blog etc will be giving them and eBay free advertising which they should really pay for.

Unless you have a very high traffic website you will probably find that the traffic that is driven to your listings will be very low compared to that from the eBay search, so don’t get your hopes up!