Ecommerce 2013: What’s your question?
January is a good time to reflect. So all this month, I want to ask some questions and write about how ecommerce SMEs can make the most out of what promises to be an exciting year.
Of course, all is not well with the global economy but it seems that online retail will buck the trends as it has for the past 5 years or so. There are lots of interesting things happening and developmenta will come thick and fast.
I have a few questions in mind that I want to ask and I’ll probably focus around some key ideas:
- What are the key developments we can expect to see in 2013? What are the trends and innovations we’ll experience?
- How can ecommerce SMEs make more more, be more efficient and better enjoy the fruits of success?
And I want to know what questions you’d like answered too. We know a lot of people here at Tamebay and we’re willing to ask questions on your behalf. Needless to say, we can’t guarantee an answer you’ll like or indeed an answer at all, but we’ll have a go. Some of these big players in ecommerce can be slippery evasive in my experience, if they don’t want to talk.
And I look forward to your answers too.
So, Happy New Year everyone. :O) What are your questions?
puddleglums rest says
7:28 am on 03/01/2013
are ebay uk going to waive picture fees. or if not do they intend to show self hosted images above the fold? as they beat the drum about mobile being the way forward ,yet treat self hosted listings as second class and present them mobile unfriendly
puddleglums rest says
9:29 am on January 3rd, 2013
and another thought on this is as all photos are free in the US ebay self hosted UK listings are going to be more and more out of sync to USA/International mobile phone users
Dan Wilson says
3:24 pm on January 8th, 2013
Good one. It’s a very stupid position to be in esp when mobile so big and other countries have freebies.
dw
Gary says
11:50 am on 03/01/2013
There is a general concensus that social networking is bigger even than mobile. It is social networking, not ecommerce, that is the major catalyst driving mobile forward in 2013.
Do ebay have any plans at all to allow its sellers to incorporate their own Facebook, Twitter and social networking links and feeds into listings?
At the moment it seems that ebay is a little unsure how to bring social networking to its platform and of the benefits this may bring.
Stuart says
1:42 pm on January 3rd, 2013
I think this would be far to difficult for ebay to control off ebay sales!
Gary says
6:00 pm on January 3rd, 2013
I am struggling to find an online retailer who does not have a presence and cannot be followed on facebook or twitter or youtube etc. There is a growing expectation among mobile consumers that they should be able to do this.
The moment these mobile consumers hit ebay the joy of consumer social networking hits a brick wall.
ebay are falling behind the times with this. Social networking is the future of consumerism. If ebay fail to allow sellers to employ social networking models then ebay sellers will be disadvantaged in the mobile world going forward.
One thing ebay could do is to make it simple for me to place my listings onto my Facebook wall. That would be a start.
puddleglums rest says
6:18 pm on January 3rd, 2013
struggle no longer we dont twitter tweet facebook or social anything, we sell, the only thing we want to get social with is your dosh, the time piddleing about on social networks is time lost selling
puddleglums rest says
6:28 pm on January 3rd, 2013
were nearly sure there is a thread on tamebay somewhere or other with a graph pointing out social networking is not that good for selling
Gary says
1:16 pm on January 4th, 2013
“2013 will be about channelisation,” said Suzanne. “About selling products in lots of places, like iTunes, Amazon, YouTube and Facebook.”
Quote from another story on Tamebay. As long as ebay get their cut what is the issue with plonking ebay listings on Facebook, Youtube, etc. ebay don’t even permit video in listings so clearly way behind the curve here.
Its about reach and their are millions of folk out there who simply won’t touch ebay with a bargepole (for whatever reason) but may buy or bid if they see an ebay listing on Facebook.
Gary says
8:02 pm on January 7th, 2013
I now have my ebay listings on Facebook. Linked this all up with my Twitter and Youtube account.
Now it just needs ebay to allow me to link up Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to my ebay listings and I’ll be in social networking, traffic and ecommerce heaven!
Forget the “wish” thing ebay. Waste of time. Go the wholehog and have Facebook likes, youtube video and twitter tweets in listings. Allow selling on ebay to enter the world of social networking.
puddleglums rest says
11:57 am on 03/01/2013
and hows about asking papal what their upto
our last 2 withdrawals have an upto 72 hour process time, the buggers are going backwards
Chris Max says
2:30 pm on 03/01/2013
What I would like to know is ‘ what is the reasoning behind eBay’s decision to give zero insertion fees for business sellers on eBay.co.uk (for the third time) only and not eBay.ie, I feel this is an unfair trading advantage to say the least.
eBay Ireland seems to have been forgotten We are not given any promotions of this sort for business sellers.
Liz says
11:32 am on 07/01/2013
My question would be ‘How can small/medium online business best engage with emerging economies like Brazil and China in 2013?’
Rather sensible I know but I can imagine we all know the money is getting tighter on home soil and the most successful online business saw international growth completely outstrip domestic growth in 2012.
We are now not just talking about selling in Europe or the US. One of my clients best markets in 2012 were Russia and Brazil, as apposed to UK and Germany back in 2011.
Gary says
7:34 pm on 07/01/2013
Just checked stats for my website and 15% of traffic is from a mobile device of which 25% (or 4% of the total) is tablet and the rest being phone. The mobile traffic is extremely low quality though with nobody buying, a high bounce rate, and a short visit. I will admit that whilst the site is not mobile friendly the stats do nothing to convince me that mobile is the future of online retail.
I’m perfectly happy with the 85% that is higher quality PC traffic for the moment. Serving 2 platforms at this time appears to add to the workload and cost and for what?
Will ebay be providing stats to sellers for mobile traffic and guidence relating to the quality of this mobile traffic?
Or is mobile ecommerce all hype to provide work and revenue for IT departments and companies in the way that Y2K was hype?