PR scoop for eBay.com in management move

Nichola Sharpe, eBay UK Senior PR Manager, is to move to San Jose next month to give eBay.com PR a boost. Nichola previously at Freud Communications has been with eBay for two and a half years.

Nichola has worked tirelessly at her time with eBay in the UK and will be greatly missed. One of her latest projects has been overseeing eBay's involvement with the Get Safe Online campaign to educate Internet users how surf the net securely.

Following Meg Whitman's declaration that eBay "increasingly looks to its foreign offices for rising stars" and that they intend to "bring international talent to San Jose" it's no surprise that a key member of the UK team has been poached by the US. The UK's loss will be a huge gain to the team in San Jose!

Vanessa Canzini formerly Senior Media Relations Manager at BAA is expected to join eBay as Nichola's replacement.

Tax offices may strike on January 31st

UK taxpayers may want to plan to get their tax returns posted a little early this year, as the largest civil service union plans strike action for deadline day. The industrial action, which could also affect many other services from driving tests to passport applications, is over compulsory job losses, below-inflation pay offers and outsourcing.

All my Christmas for sale

The Daily Mail has a rather odd story about selling your entire Christmas - decorations, half-eaten choccies, unwanted CD - on eBay. It's an amusing idea, along the lines of All My Life for Sale, but I can't help thinking the sale itself would have raised so much more for the unnamed charitable beneficiary if the writer had known what she was doing.

A one day listing, beginning Boxing Day, for Christmas decorations is never going to be the most effective. Selling off your own old tat just when everyone else is selling the same thing will never get you the best price. If you want to make a real killing on Christmas decorations, sell them in August (believe me, I've seen it done).

Then we have

I spend ages trying to decide how much to charge for postage. There's an awful lot to mail out and the tree is quite heavy. I think it would cost about £10 to post, but am worried it will put people off bidding. I opt for £2.50 and hope I don't have to pay out much more than that.

Never, never, never guess at postage. By all means, subsidise it within the item cost if that's what you choose to do, but make it an informed decision to do so.

Still on the postage theme, we have this interesting ASQ a bit further down:

Q: is the posting a mistake at 2.50
A: No, the postage is not a mistake - it is £2.50. I have a job that means I can get things delivered cheaply. Thank you

You see, you can make the postage too cheap: buyers don't mind paying what postage *costs*, what they object to is sellers making a huge profit on it. And if you *are* using your post room at work to ship your eBay sales, it's probably best not to advertise it on a public forum.

Of course, if you can seriously write "an hour goes by without a bid I must admit I feel despondent", then you obviously haven't a clue what you're doing, and should probably stick to earning your living writing idiotic articles for tabloid newspapers.

eBay - The most energetic brand of 2006

For the second year in a row eBay is top dog of the RKCR/Y&R brand energy survey beating Google in 6th place and Microsoft in 10th.

Experts claim a company with a strong brand is more likely to command greater market share, higher sale prices or more customer loyalty than would be justified by a bald comparison between its products and those of rivals.

Media companies, specifically broadcasters won five out of the top ten places and the FT uses this to justify Virgin and BSkyB's decision to enter the convergence market (television, internet, telephony and Voice over IP). Virgin and BSkyB are winning market share over more traditional telco's.

It just remains to say that whilst confirming eBay's position as a dynamic engaging brand RKCR/Y&R have one of the most annoying websites I've ever seen, it's a study in "Overuse of Flash is bad" all in itself!

Beauty advice : don't flog your freebies

Molly Friedman, assistant editor of Allure, has been fired for selling beauty supplies meant for the magazine on eBay. Recently promoted, Friedman had apparently been contacting manufacturers requesting new products, which she then sold on the auction site rather than putting them in the magazine.

Via Greenslade.

$2 Pound tempts shoppers to eBay.com

The Guardian has a nice piece about how the weak dollar is making shopping on eBay.com more attractive for British shoppers this Christmas. Some good advice there: check the shipping fees *before* you bid, allow for VAT and import duties being charged, and allow plenty of postage time before Christmas. In fact, make life easy for yourself and shop on eBay UK instead :D

Deadly antiques for sale on eBay

In a bizarre segue, Forbes.com has noted that although no one knows where Alexander Litvinenko's murderers got the Polonium 210 that killed him, other poisons may be bought on eBay:

Last year, Lee Cantrell, a toxicology professor at the University of California-San Diego, published a study in the Journal of Toxicology documenting 121 eBay auctions of poisons over a ten-month period from 2003 to 2004. Of Cantrell’s documented auctions, 24 involved strychnine, arsenic trioxide and other poisons considered by scientists to be "super toxic," meaning a dose of 5 milligrams or less would likely kill a human if ingested. The other 97 auctions in Cantrell’s study were for less toxic, though still potentially lethal, products such as mercury, antimony and thallium.

A search of items available today quickly turned up an antique strychnine bottle with "not much trace of residue" inside. Selling deadly poison under the guise of flogging collectables: one has to ask, are these sellers greedy or just incredibly stupid?

In brief

An xray of a duck apparently showing an alien in its stomach has been sold on eBay for US$9600. To the Golden Palace Casino: who else?

Ever wondered what happens to all the scissors and knives confiscated at airports? They end up on eBay, of course.

The Ministry of Sound have enabled clubbers to buy tickets through their mobile phones with Paypal.

An American student has tried to auction 2% of his future earnings on eBay in return for his college fees being paid. Sadly eBay pulled his listing as being in violation of their charity guidelines.

eBay in the news

Crime of the week: The defendants established business lines of credit with more than thirty businesses based on false and fraudulent financial information, and then used the fraudulently obtained lines of credit to obtain assorted high-end merchandise, which they subsequently sold on eBay. During the course of the scheme, the defendants defrauded more than 30 businesses of more than US$1.8 million.

Meanwhile, troops returned from Iraq will not be able to spend their Christmas bonus on eBay: Top brass were worried it was too much of a distraction, so brought in the ban across the MoD’s internet network. It applies to all 180,000 men and women in uniform AND 100,000 civilian staff. ... A spokesman said: "As with many other employers, the MoD does not allow its networks to be used for private transactions on commercial auction sites."

Happy Christmas from the Royal Mail: Devon postal workers are to stage a one-day strike next Monday.

eBay-alikes we like

An eBay-style website to auction meals at top restaurants will extend its reach into Edinburgh next month. Priceyourmeal.com, which launched in Glasgow in March, now has more than 80 restaurants on board, taking in excess of 700 bookings a week. Registered users can use the site to bid for meals at top restaurants in auctions or haggle directly with the restaurants over meal prices.

Slivers of Time is an online marketplace matching up temporary workers with employers, allowing customers to sell not spare items, but spare *time*. Need people to cover your lunchtime rush *today*? Need very flexible working to fit around your other commitments? We think this is a brilliant idea.

Brown-Simpson lawyer advises short auctions for 'confession' book

An attorney for the family of Nicole Brown Simpson is accusing the online auction house eBay today of dragging its feet on pulling copies of O-J Simpson's canceled book. Lawyer Natasha Roit says that eBay's deadline-style auctions means some transactions could be completed before the company acts.

OJ Simpson's book available on eBay

OJ Simpson's book about the murder of his ex-wife is available to buy on eBay. Reports of the book's cancellation by its publisher claimed that eBay listings of rogue copies had been removed, but with bidding running into tens of thousands of dollars, it seems that one lucky winner might be able to read Mr Simpson's "confession" for themself.

News from Gordon Brown

More news from Gordon Brown today! He has announced “I am delighted to be hosting the inaugural meeting of Britain’s International Business Advisory Council and to be following this with a summit meeting with the leading figures in British business. We will be discussing how business and government can work together to make the case for globalisation and how to make globalisation work better.”

The Government is committed to working closely with and listening to business leaders and this includes Meg Whitman of eBay who he is with now

Meg Whitman meets with Gordon Brown

Back in March it was announced that the Chancellor was establishing the International Business Advisory Council for the UK comprising some of the world’s leading business people including Meg Whitman, President and CEO of eBay. The Council will advise the Chancellor and the Trade Secretary on global business to ensure that the UK continues to be one of the top locations for international commerce.

The outcome of this meeting will affect all UK eBayers in some shape or form, if in no other way than that Meg Whitman is influencing government policy. For eBay sellers it's good to know we're all being represented at the very highest level of government and whilst it may take some time for details of the meeting to become available we'll be watching with close interest and bring you the story as it happens.