Friday, October 24th, 2008

eBay Innovation Demo Expo

I attended my second eBay Innovation Demo Expo earlier this week. The event allows employees to share their innovative ideas for the future of eBay and commerce by building prototype applications and showing them off to their peers and eBay executives. This was the 4th semi-annual eBay Innovation Demo Expo and it was great to see so many different ideas and passionate people come together.

Innovations from past Demo Expos have inspired several core features on the site, as well as many patents and patent filings. The eBay Pulse update was a result of this year’s Spring Demo Expo event, as was the VUVOX acquisition.

For the Fall event, teams were asked to create projects around any one or more of the following themes, using eBay services and APIs:
• Trust
• Finding
• Selection

John Donahoe kicked off the event and there were 35 demos on display on Tuesday. I managed to attend 13 of them. Some of which are already in limited public release; others still at the conceptual stage before going into Beta. I plan on writing about individual projects as they get closer to reality and testing, but for now, here is one of the cooler demos I was able to attend:

ClickiT & Buy it on iPhone
One of the demos from the Spring Expo was eBay Mobile; something that I talked about here on Ink and that became available in Europe earlier last month. This Fall’s Demo Expo saw tools and solutions that built upon that technology and one nifty solution was the eBay ClickiT and Buy It on iPhone.

Essentially, it is a native iPhone application which would allow users to take a picture of a barcode of an item in a store, upload it and see the prices and deals for that same product on eBay. Basically, you could be in a shopping mall looking at a digital camera you’re interested in buying, take a picture of the barcode of that camera, and do a quick check to see if the camera is available cheaper on eBay all from your iPhone. I should add the caveat that I don’t actually own an iPhone but I thought that this would be a pretty cool feature to have on it. Definitely better than some of the fun but pretty much inconsequential apps I’ve seen on friend’s iPhones (the “Light Sabre” app and “Crazy Pumpkin” app to name but two).

Like I said, I plan on reviewing more products and tools that came out of this Fall’s Expo event over the coming weeks. Some of which I saw definite benefit and immediate appeal for both buyers and sellers alike. I’m looking forward to sharing that with everyone soon.

Cheers,
RBH

Tagged: demo, ebay, ecommerce, expo, innovation, iphone, john donahoe, Marketplace, online marketplace, technology innovation

(9) Comments

9 Responses on this post. Click to add yours.

DPOn October 24, 2008 at 4:47 pm Said:

Can you return to more “earthy” (you know, useful) conversations with respect to the current state of the eBay sales environment? I see you publishing a lot of stuff lately that is either a) ordinary news, b) technological jibberish, c) found on other blogs like AuctionBytes, or d) or no material interest at all to anyone who is trying to stay afloat in the current eBay environment.

Seriously, get grounded back in reality please. If you must, please return to the first several posts you wrote for eBay Ink and review why you’re here in the first place (hint: to engage in a meaningful dialogue so as to elict “transparency”). I just don’t see that happening anymore. Take today’s post for example. Its the end of the day. What should I take away from today’s post? Give me something I can use, or if this is the status quo of things to come, just tell me to dump your blog from the RSS reader.

(Nov. is my tenth year anniversary; I’ve heard it all, and I’ve seen it all, and I was hoping that your coming onboard was truly the sign of things changing for the better. I’m having regrets about my assessment of the relationship).

Richard Brewer-Hay On October 24, 2008 at 7:28 pm Said:

@ DP — Thanks for the feedback. Given the post and your comment it looks like we’ll both enter the weekend feeling short-changed.

I’ll keep reporting from HQ – good, bad and ugly – and you can (please!) keep telling me how you feel about it.

Don’t give up on me yet. The blog is only 6 months old. Still plenty of time for me to alienate you completely (or, better yet, turn it around).

Cheers,
RBH

implogOn October 25, 2008 at 7:50 pm Said:

In the spirit of getting back to basics I would like to ask once again the question below originally posted here on 4/2/2008.

It’s, like, super, super, really important now that it be answered because long time, good, honest sellers are being suspended due to this still unexplained disruptive destructive bizarro policy.

As Griff said on his radio program (and you asked in this blog), how can a buyer who does not pay leave negative feedback when “there was no transaction there”.

And again, Burke “addressed” this question in his eBayINK blog appearance some months ago but neither he nor President Norrington have ever ANSWERED it.

(Richard – PLEASE – Good sellers are losing income with devastating effects due to this Bizarro interpretation. It’s almost like, I know you won’t believe this, but it’s almost like eBay’s top execs don’t even use the site except on their resumes.)

Cheers!

~~~

Please re-round the circle squared by eBay President Lorrie Norrington on the eBay Announcement Board on March 20, 2008 titled “Update For Sellers”.

Norrington seems to be attempting to address the concerns of sellers who fear a neg from a non paying bidder. She attempts to mitigate the new “neg sellers” only policy by writing:

“What we have determined is that if the buyer does not specifically call out poor seller performance, item condition or transaction problems during the UPI process, eBay will remove the seller’s negative or neutral feedback — retroactively.”

This makes no sense. Sellers do not send items won in auctions before receiving payment. How can a buyer who leaves a neg be justified by claiming a problem with “item condition” for an item never sent, received nor seen? Again, sellers DO NOT send items without first receiving payment.

While Norrington’s “solution” may be boss pleasing “disruptive innovation”, it flat out makes no sense in the real world of selling on eBay.

Thank you for your help.

mindelecOn October 26, 2008 at 2:10 am Said:

“eBay ClickiT and Buy It on iPhone”

features which have been available for amazon for years now. when will ebay stop copying and start inovating?

and to chime in on blog topics… there is a rumor going around that ebay is not renewing it’s contract with liveworld and that come the beginning of the year there will be no more discussion boards or groups on ebay. this really strikes to the “soul” of ebay, is management really that clueless?

Ann1On October 26, 2008 at 9:14 am Said:

I kind of represent the art categories here. We are predominantly artists and not assemblyline workers or sellers of wholesale items in bulk. I’d like to know why a seller with a 10 year record of 100 percent positive feedbacks, never a negative, DSR’s of 5.0 across the board is downgraded in the listings simply because Ebay felt the seller did not have enough feedbacks within the last 30 days – though that seller has had almost 300 for the year! Why so short-sighted especially in a category that is not known for bulk listings? Why is such a category pounded into the same mold with ipods and T-shirts??? Still waiting for answer to that one….and, yes, I’ve asked it several times :-)

implogOn October 27, 2008 at 2:13 pm Said:

@Ann1

What sellers need to do is follow the lead of way awesome Diamond Seller “buy”.

They only disappoint nearly 300 buyers a month who leave them negative feedback for NON “excellent buying experiences” according to toolhaus.org.

Not a problem – eBay had a plan when they put this all together and it is working just as the gifted, well schooled, degreed and pedigreed eBay executives’ data predicted. I mean, take Meg Whitman for example. Please.

Well, sorta.

Suspend and kick the good long time sellers to the curb for a few possibly bogus feedbacks/DSR’s but reward and promote “buy” for angering roughly 300 buyers a month. That is roughly 300 buyers a month who may never return to eBay.

Got that Burke? That’s 300 buyers a month who may never come back to eBay because of a bad experience with “buy”. I’d wager that’s somewhere in the range of buyers you say left due to what you and your crack research team loosely labeled “retaliatory negative feedback”.

Job well done eBay! It’s clear you are being led by the best and the brightest!

How about an off site for all senior execs to celebrate their successiness and way awesome innovative disruption. You guys deserve someplace unique, someplace that will “delight” while at the same time “excite”.

How about the Marianas Trench?

Ann1On October 27, 2008 at 10:12 pm Said:

@implog – well, if the plan was to force me to stop selling there, then it worked. There’s no way I can keep listing and paying fees without getting exposure. If someone with a perfect record can’t get exposure in the listings then I’d have to say something is rotten somewhere (shrug)

For the first time in over 10 years I have nothing at all listed on Ebay. So be it.

LuigiOn October 29, 2008 at 1:43 pm Said:

Hi guys
After some weeks experience of the new version installed on ebay.it, now my response: a disaster.
The old version was much more easy and complete on one single screen! The new one is just for players! Have a look to the forum!
Please stop the project and make better use of the money
Thanks
Luigi