Internet Retailing Expo & UK Online Seller Meetup Birmingham this week
By DBL | March 18, 2013
I’ll be at the Internet Retailing Expo at the NEC this week (20 & 21 March) so if you spot me please come and say Hello, dressed in the usual black & corporate polo shirt or @eBayAnorak t shirt but gone are the black boots since I broke my ankle I can’t wear them so this obsessional eBay purchase item has been replaced by buying black bags with skulls on them.
I will be attending the iWoCa sponsored UK Birmingham Online Seller Meetup being held 10 mins from NEC on the Wednesday evening, this starts at 5pm.
If you’ve not attended a UK Online Seller Meetup before it is free to attend. On arrival some networking, drinks and nibbles, lots of conversation, experts on hand for free advice and chat.
This week presentations start at 6pm with a short 15 minute presentation on fulfilment from Ian Walker CEO of 3PL, Chris Dawson from TameBay will be then moderate the all star panel and open for your questions will be: Brightpearl (James Scott, Senior VP Customer Success & Alliances), Esellerpro (Mark Craig, Business Development Manager), Linnworks (Fedor Dzjuba, CEO and founder), Visualsoft (Rich Himsworth, Business Development Manager) this is planned to finish at 6-45 then more drinks, nibbles and networking until late.
I’ve attended all but one of the meetups, the guys from iWoCa always look after you well, there’s no hard sell from anyone, it’s purely a place to chat with like minded sellers sharing tips and tricks in a very relaxed atmosphere, lots of talk and lughter just what’s needed at the end of the first day of IRX.
eBay Anorak always enjoys chatting with people and answering eBay queries so don’t be shy, come say hello 🙂
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The Manchester Online Seller Meetup 5-2-13
By DBL | February 10, 2013
I had the very great pleasure to present at the iWoCa sponsored Online Seller Meetup in Manchester on Tuesday night alongside Chris Dawson from Tamebay and Ian from 3P Logistics, I have to say this was one of the best I’ve attended for many reasons.
Wanting to go first due to nerves was the best idea although I don’t remember a lot from the slides due to the adrenaline rush it seemed that my Understanding Best Match Search presentation had some great feedback from those in attendance, Tamebay article is here.
I usually use a white board, this mainly to my loathing of death by Powerpoint presentations but the slides seemed to do the job. Best Match Search is my most favourite Anorak subject and I’m now losing sleep time studying the future advancements of this subject (watch this space).
Chris Dawson followed with the insights of the changes coming to eBay & Amazon over the next twelve months, the new way eBay is combining visual search to update your feed in real time. Ian from 3PLogistics introduced us to the advantages of outsourced fulfilment, letting someone else take the strain of your despatch process.
The venue, The Red Lion was very relaxed, food and drink in abundance and iWoCa picked up the tab. In the absence of the eBay University in the UK the last being nearly six years ago, eBay and Online Sellers have been short of a networking group to share time served tips. tricks and real insider knowledge on how these platforms and the associated processes work. Christoph Rieche and the iWoCa team have revived what was once a great get together into a powerful meeting of some of the biggest sellers, solution providers and experts in the business to share their knowledge for free over drinks and food in a relaxed atmosphere.
So, who are iWoCa and what do they do? So, you get the chance of a great deal from a supplier or an on the spot Trade show deal too good to miss but you haven’t got the ready spondoolics to close the deal. iWoCa can basically give you finance in a matter of minutes. They help online sellers in the UK sell more by financing their growth based on annual sales and customer feedback scores, factors that a traditional lender won’t consider. And, I have to add, they genuinely are nice guys too.
If you are wondering whether to attend a Meetup I recommend you do, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. All info on the various venues in London, Birmingham & Manchester are on the Meetup Page here and if you sign up you’ll get to know when and where the next ones are as people are requesting more venues across the UK.
Looking forward to the London Meetup, sadly I’m not presenting but will be there for a chat just the same, if you come along please come over for a chat it would be good to meet you 😉
Topics: eBay | No Comments »
I’m out and about in January 2013 & guess what? I’m talking eBay!
By DBL | December 30, 2012
That’s right, I’m out and about talking eBay in January 2013, the first will be at the iWoCa sponsored Manchester Online Sellers Meetup on 23rd (Rescheduled due to snow so now 5th February) where I’ll be sharing some eBayAnorak musings on Best Match Search and will have the honour of presenting alongside Chris Dawson from Tamebay who will be giving an exciting insight to the new eBay and how the new changes will affect Sellers in 2013.
The UK eBay & Online Seller Meetups are monthly and held in Manchester, Birmingham and London and are a social gatherings with some interesting short presentations and valuable networking with some of the most knowledgeable people in the business, so much knowledge in one room with a relaxed atmosphere. Besides that, a place for Anorak to talk eBay for a few hours. If you sign up to the meetup page for free you’ll get a reminder of when & where all the Meetups for this group are held.
Next up, on 30th I’ll be presenting at an eBay session for a local Company Web-B2B in Burton on Trent on how to Advance your eBay Sales, these are especially for those already using eBay for business or have good selling experience and want to advance their sales further, some early bird places in this small, discussion type format are available before January 11th so be quick … definitely no ‘Death by PowerPoint’ presentation is assured.
I have neglected the blog again this year but hopefully a little more time and organisation may see this change to a more respectable level of meanderings.
I would like to wish all readers, friends and colleagues a Happy and Prosperous 2013 and hope it’s brings all you wish and work for, until 2013 …
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Calling All Burton, Staffs & South Derbyshire eBay Businesses
By DBL | September 18, 2012
Any Burton , Stafffs, South Derbyshire & surrounding area businesses who want to increase their eBay operations, you just found a way to increase your sales in time for Christmas and probably save you some money as well.
I am delivering a Powerpoint free 3 hour session on eBay for business for a local company in Burton on Trent, Staffordshire UK next Monday September 24th. This is for Burton & surrounding area businesses only to start with so if you are based nearby please do come along. If not, please contact the guys at WebB2B and I’m sure they will let you know what else is on offer.
This is a unique opportunity to learn the insides of eBay trading without the Death by Powerpoint’ presentation and to allow everyone to ask as many questions as they like within a small group rather than a large room full of people.
As an Education Specialist trained by eBay, eBay addicted geek and eBay Specialist Consultant with 10 years trading experience and many clients of different sizes and in different categories I have a lot of experience to share, an opportunity not to be missed.
I look forward to meeting some of you 🙂
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My own little corner on Tamebay :-)
By DBL | July 16, 2012
The eBayAnorak is rather chuffed to the point of ‘wellin’ up’ to have her own URL on Tamebay.com. Thanks to Chris and Dan for the honour and also a very big thank you and tribute to my friend Sue Bailey, my @Blogmum who got me blogging in the first place and who I miss dearly.
Welcome to the naughty corner of tamebay 😀 http://tamebay.com/author/jane and my opinionated rantings!
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eBay Syncs User Email Accounts with Its Own Messaging System
By DBL | June 26, 2012
Interesting reading this week on eCommerceBytes regarding the eBay.com announcement titled ‘We’re Making Communication with Fellow eBay Members Even Easier!‘ sounds fine but it get’s really scary when you read on to find that eBay is planning to sync your registered eBay email address with the ‘My Messages’ section.
‘Starting next week, your email account associated with your eBay user ID will be automatically synched with your eBay My Messages folder. This means if you prefer to reply to an email through your email account, there’s no need to navigate to My Messages to mark the item as ‘Read’—it will be done automatically. Those sent messages from your email address will also be routed automatically to your ‘Sent’ folder in My Messages.
We hope this enhancement makes communicating with other eBay members even easier.’
The idea is that you can reply via your own email account and instead of having to go to My Messages and mark it as read eBay will do this automatically for you. How nice of them? This smacks of something more sinister, call me suspicious but apart from the legality of it (and I’m not sure what US law says) it is pretty scary stuff.
I’ll leave you with that one … :-s
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The London eBay Meetup
By DBL | June 24, 2012
Anorak was on UK tour yet again last week. I decided to take a relaxing trip to the capital and attend the The (revived) London eBay Seller Meetup. Held in an upstairs room with open balcony doors with river views at the very picturesque Blue Anchor Pub on the bank of the Thames in Hammersmith. The sponsors IWOCA who will provide finance for your eBay business had everything very well organised with plenty of beer, wine and nibbles for the packed room.
After an introduction from Christoph Reich from IWOCA, Chris Dawson from Tamebay talked about true multi channel selling using a mix of eBay, Amazon, Play and website and his frustration in trying to buy a freezer online in an emergency and not being able to use local ‘click & collect’ type service, multi channel should also include the facility to collect as well as be delivered from the usual online platforms. He also spoke about the range of multi-channel tools to speed up the process and that there wasn’t a ‘one size fits all’ approach as different solutions were suitable for different businesses so research of a few different solutions is imperative beforehand.
Next up was Artem Verovenko from Linnworks also highlighting some of the problems with selling on multi eCommerce platforms and how Linnworks can help streamline the order management service and will also provide that all important training during the integration period to guide new users smoothly onto the platform. Linnworks was also recommended in the room by John Pemberton of GMDC Global who found the transfer over to the solution both painless and fast. The integration of any solution is important to factor into your choice. Some extra pictures from Linnworks blog here too.
Lots of networking followed and a hope that the eBay Seller Meetup will go national to other cities in the UK. Thank you to the IWOCA team for their hospitality and organisation and here’s to the next Meetup on September 5th 2012 when London reverts back to normality after the Olympic Games. So WATCH THIS SPACE for details.
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Father sells himself on eBay for £20,000 after being made redundant
By DBL | June 23, 2012
Reading this in the Mailonline about a guy auctioning himself off on eBay for £20k after being made redundant. It is against eBay policy to sell yourself (:-/) so the paper says he had to put the ad in ‘Goods Wanted’ section. No link to the listing is provided which is a shame as the extra publicity in the paper would’ve probably got him a job.
Kudos for the idea and the social networking, shows what he can do for a future employer. All the best to him, I hope he finds a job he loves as much as I love mine.
Cool story, worth a read 🙂
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I did it again … for Tamebay :-)
By DBL | May 30, 2012
I’m not blogging much these days but when I do it usually lands at Tamebay‘s door. This time I rant about the current state of the High Street, Britain being a nation of shop keepers once again and helping the current manufacturers and retailers stop saying ‘We’ve been hit hard by the internet’ and get them online.
Go look! Britain, a nation of shop keepers?
Topics: eBay, General Meanderings | No Comments »
New eBay TV ad … from Weird Al to Sunshine Superman
By DBL | February 29, 2012
For the first time since the Buy It! Sell It! Love It! ads of 2007, eBay will launch their new TV advertising campaign tomorrow. The new ads use the theme ‘eBay: your shopping universe’ showing how buyers can choose from more than 30 million items from more than 180,000 business sellers. That is one, big, shopping mall!
Using the music Sunshine Superman by Donovan, it’s a long way from the spoof video of Weird Al Yankovic (below) but the endearing description of eBay in that video still holds true.
When Anorak is out and about in the locality it’s surprising how many people don’t realise you can buy new stuff on eBay never mind the big brands and superb offers now on the site. It’s good to see eBay investing in bringing more buyers both new and old to the site, there are some great changes ahead this year for sellers and eBay as a shopping destination. Hopefully the amount of publicity will benefit us all as good sellers.
The TV adverts will launch with spots in Location, Location, Location on Channel 4, The Mentalist on 5*, and Criminal Minds on Sky Living tomorrow night. I’m sure there’ll be a YouTube video soon after for those who don’t see it.
Well, I’ll still be a Buy It! Sell It! Love It! kinda gal as eBay for me is just that. As for a shopping universe, yes it is, all from the comfort of your armchair, office desk and smartphone. On a serious note the better eBay sellers do the better the economy does, sales create jobs, jobs create money, money creates sales.
The future is bright as always for the optimistic Anorak. Now go shop IN THE UK on eBay!
And just for old times sake … weird Al from from way back when …
Topics: eBay, eBay on TV, Trainspotting media for eBay | No Comments »