Today I changed my brower homepage from the BBC to Google. I reckon that every time that I see the BBC site I have to read at least one story. 

Estimated time saving:  15 minutes per day x 20 working days = approx 0.5 days month

Anyone who reads my blog regularly might have noticed that it was briefly taken over by a turkish hacker.

Mr Hacker, Ha, Ha, very funny, please don’t do it again. 

Thanks to Sam from Arena Flowers for letting me know

I am just setting up a business (well two actually) and I have decided to manage the phones using skype, dispensing with landlines altogether.  I may live to regret this, but I thought I would share my reasons.

Alongside computer to computer calls, Skype also has a feature called a Skype-In number where users get a phone number which can be rung from any landline or mobile. I can therefore give out a number on my business website etc. which goes directly into skype.  Skype also provides voicemail and call forwarding at very reasonable rates.

Pros 

Cost Effective 

These numbers are pretty cheap (£35 per year + VAT, or £16 if you join Skype pro which is £1.50/month).  The other option I had was to get a landline at £15/month + calls.

Convenient:  Pick up calls from any computer

I use my computer at home and at work, and my skype calls are routed to the terminal which I have open at any time.  This means that calls are automatically directed to where I am.

Multiple phone numbers from the same location

It is possible to have more than one skype-in number running off the same skype account.  The only downside here is skype does not tell you which number has been rung.

Cons

Quality of skype calls can still be an issue

I have been given a sneek preview of the new launch of terapeak (thanks!).  Looks pretty nifty.  Here are my top picks of the new features. 

• Hot Searches.  This enables sellers to find the top searched keywords for particular categories and more importantly sub categories.  Great to writing titles
• Hot Sellers.  I think that this is a list of the top sellers on eBay (see previous post). 
• Top Category Sellers.  The new terapeak will give a list of the top sellers within a third level category (e.g Baby > Prams > bugaboo), pretty useful for scoping out the competition.  To my knowledge this info has not been available before.

Whilst particularly annoyed by Adwords the other day, I got thinking about things I would like to change about the major eCommerce platforms.

eBay

• User access levels.  eBay was never originally created with businesses in mind and so, unlike most business systems, there is no function to limit the access of some users to certain functions like listing items.  This fact means that an account’s password must be widely distributed, increasing the opportunities of ID theft
• Password entry.  Password entry would be more secure if eBay asked for select characters from the password and not the whole thing.
• Product attributes.  Currently on eBay, if you are selling a product which has multiple variations, you must make a listing for each variation.  According to eBay rules, shoes for example should have an individual listing for each size.  I would like to be able to choose attributes like colour and size at the checkout.
• Checkout upsell.  I would like to be able to upsell services in the checkout such as gift wrap

Google

• Moving Adgroups.  Unless I am missing something it is not possible to move adgroups between campaigns without deleting and then recreating the agroup, loosing all the quality data.
• Search query.  I would like to see actual query information alongside keywords in the adword interface.
• Google Maps.  I wish analytics would give figures of traffic which came from the Google Maps product.
• Extended Match.  Google’s extended match throws up all kinds of rubbish.  Google, we choose those keywords for a reason!

Anyone want to add to the list?

We understand that there are a relatively small number of faulty/not as described disputes opened on PayPal for items bought after 31st Jan 08. Customers should not return such goods to Clockworx premises as they are now closed and we will not be able to recover items sent to those premises after 28 February 2008. Instead, please send them to:

Archway / Less Than Trade
Unit 23
502 Hornsey Road
London N19 4EF

We can also confirm that the remaining 3 pallets of items sold post-administration (31st Jan 08 and onwards) will be dispatched by close of business on Friday 22 Feb 08. There will be no further dispatches after that date. We believe that all sales orders will then have been dispatched, subject to delays at the couriers’ own offices.
 

In the past there have been several occaisions when I have purchased collection only items on eBay and then had the pain of organising a collection.  I am please therefore find a company which offers a solution to this problem - lots2.   Lots2 enables sellers to offer a delivery option for large items by offering their service through their listings.

This is good for sellers, who will get higher prices due to a larger customer base, and good for buyers, who will be able to get previously difficult to deliver items.

Lots2 - I salute you.

My friend and fellow blogger Ian Crocrombe, has hit on an interesting idea with the concept of Personal Media Optimisation.  Social  Media Optimisation is a bit of a buzz word these days but what about people doing it on a personal level?

Optimising your online profile is the next logical step on from doing an ego search, i.e. trying to improve your ego search results.  I have to confess it is no accident that if you type Trevor Ginn into Google, all 10 results refer to me.  With the advent of social networks like Facebook and Myspace, a person’s online profile is becoming an important part of their identity.  The need to manage your online identity is also reflected in people search engines like Spock and social media aggregators like Multiply.

Here are my top tips for optimising your online profile:

• Avoid common names like Smith or Jones
• Create a blog using your name as the URL.  Blogs are a great way of raising your profile as it lets people know about your areas of expertise.
• Create profiles on the major social networks using your name as the ID.  Optimise the profiles on these networks for the topics in which you wish to be found e.g. your profession
• Submit your blog fees to other social networks
• Create a amazon wish list
• Write articles for newsletters and industry portals (in fact any highly ranked site will do)

In no particular order, here are some things which I think are going to going places in 2008

Etsy is a marketplace (fixed price items only) for handmade items. The site is aimed at sole traders and collectives making and selling their own items.  Resellers are not allowed (defined as anyone selling items they have not made)

The site has a simple, yet effective design and is dead easy to use. Like Facebook, Etsy gives users very limited options to customise their listings and shops (every user gets a page showing all their items i.e. a shop), giving a very consistant visual experience across the site.

The products seem on the whole to be of a high quality and unlike most new marketplaces, this one actually seems to have gained some traction.  At the time of writing there are over 100K sellers. 

  & other product recommendation sites

iliketotallyloveit is in many ways similar to digg with users submit and vote on their favourite items.  However on this site, users submit products instead of stories.  I think that products recommendations are going to play a big part in purchasing decisions in the future sites like this one having a digg like effect on products sales.  A UK with a similar idea is crowdstorm, however crowdstorm does not seem to have capitalised on their initial lead with this idea to produce a decent application.

Video on eCommerce sites

I think that 2008 will see many more eCommerce sites integrating video into their product descriptions to give users more information about their products.  Already leading retailers such as amazon are using video on their homepages and I think that soon, every product (or at least all the major sellers) will have a video description.  Properly tagged videos will also appear in the search listings increase traffic and the videos can also be submitted to site such as YouTube.  On eBay services such as Vzaar are anticipating demand by making it easy to integrate video into listings.

The Overhall of eBay’s core business will continue

According to the FT, John Donahoe, head of eBay’s marketplace division, is planning a major overhall of eBay’s marketplace, to amoungst other things, increase the revelvance of search results and allows buyers to stipulate a greater range of attibutes when they search for an item such as feedback scores.

I have just come across Auctionair - a sealed bid auction site which seems to deal in charity auctions and luxury products.

Auction air use two types of auctions:

• High bid auctions.  This is sealed bid auction where the highest bidder wins.  The sealed bid nature of the auction means that the individual bidders do not know what other bids have been made
• Low bid auctions.  In this case the lowest unique bid wins. Gambling basically.

According to the site the company originated from inflight auctions on British airways and they run auction though the website and also a catalogue.  In this way the site is more like a traditional auction house than eBay i.e. low volume, high value items and specialist auctions. I noticed that over the weekend they were running a promotion with the FT.

It seems that this site plays on the perception of eBay as a low value marketplace.  Brands that would not like to be associated with eBay can use Auction Air to sell their products, as they feel that it will not affect their brand. 

I think that this is all a bit daft.  I would suspect (but I have no evidence for this) that sealed bids result in lower sale prices.  Perhaps sealed bid originated because of the British reluctance to talk about anything as vulgar as money. My view is that luxury brands and charities should swallow their pride and sell on eBay.  The will almost certainly get more exposure and more money.

Like all of eBay competitors the volumes are tiny and strangely seller are by invitation only despite the fact that they are selling some pretty run of the mill products such as TVs.  Not much for eBay to worry about here.