eBay On Location Around Corner
A quick reminder for those looking to join us in Denver May 24-25, 2012 for eBay OnLocation. Register now for your chance to find out what works best from eBay experts, business gurus and your fellow eBay sellers.

Further News
+ Will your Klout score get you hired?
+ Infographic showing five things we’ve learned about social sites, Pinterest and Facebook.
+ How to use social media for powerselling
+ Is the online shopping checkout harming or helping you?

Looking Back on eBay Ink
May 11, 2011: From The PayPal Blog: “PayPal leads, others follow”. You may have heard that Visa announced plans to launch a digital wallet in the US and Canada later this year. As the lines between online and offline commerce continue to blur, this is yet another sign that the payment industry’s model for success in our new digital world is looking more and more like PayPal’s.
While other companies are following PayPal’s business model, we’re already light years ahead. More than 98 million people around the world have already trusted us with their digital wallets. PayPal was built 12 years ago, because traditional payment methods weren’t designed for the digital world. We’ve offered mobile payments since 2006 and expect to do more than $2 billion in mobile this year. We’ve offered micropayments since 2005 and launched our solution for digital goods last year. We plan to be at retail point of sale by the end of this year. You can read the full blog post: PayPal leads, others follow.

eBay InkWeekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

Further News
+ Are men online shopping more than women?
+ 39 million Americans purchased over their mobile devices last year.
+ Mobile isn’t just changing how we shop, it’s changing who is shopping

Posts From the Week
+ eBay unveils all new iPad App 2.0; 5 minutes with eBay Mobile VP, Steve Yankovich
+ eBay Technology Center of Excellence Coming to the Big Apple #ebaynews

Looking Back on eBay Ink
May 2, 2011: eBay has acquired MissionFish – the innovative technology and team that powers the eBay Giving Works program – from the Points of Light Institute. Since 2003, MissionFish has provided eBay with the back-end tech to power the eBay Giving Works program in the US (they’ve powered eBay for Charity – the same program in the UK – since 2005). I’ve written about them many times here on Ink and in the more than 8 years they’ve been an eBay partner, they’ve helped raise nearly a quarter of a billion dollars for the nonprofit sector by connecting consumers with nonprofit causes.

eBay InkWeekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

Further News
+ Tips to closing the deal on abandoned online shopping carts.
+ Mobile commerce offers consumers significant convenience over e-commerce.
+ A study shows, the iPad is driving American mobile commerce.

Posts From the Week
+ The World’s Fastest Car Show has been Nominated for a 2012 Webby Award… Please vote!
+ Social Resources for eBay Sellers: Pinterest and Facebook Timeline
+ Planned PayPal Site Outage for April 19
+ eBay Inc. Reports Strong Q1 2012 Results; Increases full-year guidance for 2012
+ eBay Earnings Twitter Recap via Storify; John Donahoe on CNBC

Looking Back on eBay Ink
April 20, 2011: eBay launches “Every Mom’s a Hero!” campaign and social media contest. Now here’s a promotion I can get behind… In addition to featuring products for Mum and special Mother’s Day Daily Deals, eBay is launching an integrated social media contest for customers and employees today called “Every Mom’s a Hero.” Utilizing Twitter and Facebook, eBay will feature stories and sentiments about special mothers shared through those channels. Facebook contest winners will be announced on May 10th and participants will be asked to post a photo of their mom “hero” along with a short story on eBay’s Facebook page about why this mom is so special. Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mums (and Moms) out there and I wish all of them could win these cool prizes! Good luck!

eBay InkWeekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

Further News
+ Social sharing has become a mainstream activity, a new study says.
+ Mobile shoppers more often turn to a retailer’s actual website rather than a dedicated app.
+ Some have questioned the effectiveness of Facebook as a commerce platform, but can you dismiss an ad and marketing channel with 800+ million users?

Posts From the Week
+ AutoNation Direct launches special 50%-off promo on eBay Motors
+ David Marcus is the new President of PayPal
+ 5 Minutes with… David Marcus, President of PayPal

Looking Back on eBay Ink
March 31, 2012: Bringing local commerce one step closer to shoppers, eBay announced today that it will be offering consumers local inventory powered by Milo. Shoppers will now be able to use the new local shopping tab to check a product’s local, or in-store availability. Additionally, product pages for MP3 players and GPS devices now include a local shopping tab allowing shoppers to find they product they want, whether its online or offline at a local retailer. By bringing local inventory into the core search experience on eBay.com, shoppers who opt-in through the Garden will now see local shopping results on a new tab alongside the traditional search results on eBay.com
To connect small retailers and local shoppers, eBay is also introducing pluginfrom Milo that will help small to mid-size retailers easily integrate their offline merchandise onto Milo and eBay. Beginning with retailers who use QuickBooks, this software will allow independent retailers to upload their local inventory through a one-time, three-step installation and automatically share the real-time availability of their products with millions of shoppers nationwide, whether on eBay.com, eBay’s RedLaser mobile barcode-scanning application, or Milo’s affiliate partner sites. Retailers can sign up for the program here: http://www.milo.com/retailer-signup.

eBay InkWeekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

Further News
+ Apple’s voice recognition feature, Siri will eventually be used for online shopping according to it’s patent.
+ Will e-commerce be caught in the crosshairs of SOPA and PIPA?
+ According to a survey, mobile shoppers prefer browser-based commerce to apps.

Posts From the Week
+ NRF 2012 Mobile Payments Panel Recap; [VIDEO] 5 Minutes with PayPal’s Don Kingsborough
+ eBay Inc. Reports Strong Q4 and Full Year 2011 Results
+ PayPal mobile payments pilot at 51 Home Depot stores
+ [VIDEO INTERVIEW] eBay CEO, John Donahoe, on CNBC
+ Check out the all-new Green.eBay.com!
+ A full recap of eBay Inc. at NRF 2012

Looking Back on eBay Ink
January 19, 2010: eBay Improves on Top 20 NRF Ranking for Customer Service in 2009. According to the fifth annual NRF Foundation/American Express Customers’ Choice survey, eBay is ranked #12 overall for customer service in 2009 (up 2 from #14 in 2008).

Consumers answered the open ended question, “Thinking of all the different retail formats (store, catalog, internet, or home shopping), which retailer delivers the best customer service?”

Like I said when I wrote about this last year, it is the individual sellers on the eBay marketplace that should be commended for achieving this high ranking. After all, they’re the ones providing the customer service to consumers on a daily basis.

eBay Ink Weekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

Further News
+ Bodymetrics is a new 3D mapping system lets you try on clothes virtually.
+ Experts weigh in on the impact of mobile shopping on online sellers.
+ Women are more likely than men to purchase electronics.
+ Why is Monday e-Retailers’ favorite day of the week?

Posts From the Week
+ At a glance: eBay Inc. at NRF 2012
+ [VIDEO] 5 Minutes with eBay Inc. CEO, John Donahoe
+ eBay Inc. at NRF 2012 – The floor plan
+ John Donahoe: “eBay Mobile GMV will surpass $8 Billion in 2012”
+ eBay Inc. at CES 2012 – Day 1 recap
+ At a glance: eBay Inc. at CES 2012

Looking Back on eBay Ink
January 6, 2011: Notes from the Road: eBay Ink at #CES. The Lounge is set up for demos of our barcode scanning tools and the integration of RedLaser with eBay Mobile. It is great to see so much RedLaser activity happening at the show. Even the coffee cup sleeves from Starbucks have QR
Codes on them for use with the RedLaser technology…The RedLaser SCANenger Hunt

An interesting promotional activity to attract more attendees into the booth for demos and education is the RedLaser “SCANenger Hunt” that invites attendees to download the RedLaser app onto their mobile phone and then scan special QR codes located throughout the three main convention halls as they follow a QR Code scavenger hunt. Upon the successful completion of the hunt, attendees are then entered to win a free Apple MacBook Air. It took me approximately 60 minutes to complete the hunt (there are 5 clues along the way) but I think 30-40 minutes is a more realistic timeframe given that I kept stopping to say hi to folks along the way.

The PepCom Digital Experience Demos
Last night was the annual Pepcom Digital Experience. Held each January on the evening before CES opens, Digital Experience! showcases the latest innovations in consumer electronics and computers. eBay Mobile was on-hand to demonstrate a number of its apps including the RedLaser application. Here is some behind the scenes footage from the event…

eBay Ink Weekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

PayPal Offering Location-Based Deals
PayPal will be entering the daily deal marketing in early 2012. The product will focus on mobile deals with alerts sent to smartphones when in close proximity to stores hosting deals that day and will cater to the customer. Scott Thompson, PayPal President, promises, “We’ll only give you something that we think fits the category of unique and relevant. Everyone else is going to bombard you.” The company will partner with some of the country’s top merchants such as, BestBuy and Target, who already use PayPal for transactions. [via Bloomberg]

Further News
+ Free shipping has become a necessary evil for online retailers and could boost shipping companies.
+ Psychologists have identified six elements to social shop.
+ Holiday shoppers ride the rainbow with black Friday, green Monday and more.
+ What happens when smartphones and smart shoppers combine?

Posts From the Week

• StubHub Acquires Zvents
• eBay Launches its First UK Pop-Up Shop in London

Looking Back on eBay Ink
December 15, 2010: eBay acquires mobile app developer, Critical Path Software. Less than 2 weeks after the company announced the acquisition of Milo.com, eBay has announced it has acquired Critical Path Software, a leading mobile app developer that has worked with eBay for over 2 years on a wide array of mobile apps coming out of the company including the eBay for iPhone app, StubHub, eBay Classifieds and Shopping.com iPhone apps.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

I was fortunate enough to get Steve Romero, Critical Path president and founder, and Steve Yankovich, VP of eBay Mobile, together to chat about the acquisition and how the teams will be working together moving forward. Exciting stuff indeed…

eBay Ink Weekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

Online Shoppers Prefer PayPal
“The Converged Lifestyle”, a global report by financial advisory firm KPMG, found UK shoppers were more apt to use PayPal while purchasing online. Looking at online shopping habits of 10,000 adults from 31 countries, the study found that Paypal has surpassed credit cards as the preferred method of online payment. [via Finance Times]

Further News
+ Starbucks leads the mobile payment battle, with more than 26 million purchases have been made using Starbucks’ mobile apps.
+ Free shipping leads customers to break record online shopping numbers for three consecutive days.
+ How to use LinkedIn effectively for your e-commerce business.
+ Is “Free Shipping Day” more profitable than Black Friday?
+ Predictions for 2012 mobile commerce trends.

Posts From the Week

• Updates to RedLaser for Android; introducing RedLaser for Windows Phone 7; and Scan to Win with RedLaser Games

Looking Back on eBay Ink
December 8, 2010: Global Green USA recognizes the eBay Green Team with its 11th Annual Sustainable Design Awards. eBay CEO, John Donahoe, was on hand in New York on Monday at the Global Green USA 11th Annual Sustainable Design Awards to accept the Organizational Design Award on behalf of the eBay Green Team. The Organizational Design Award honors groups that take a leadership role in effecting positive environmental change.

The eBay Green Team started with 40 employees back in May of 2007 and grew to 2,400 employees in 23 countries by 2009 (I became an eBay Green Team member in 2008 and have enjoyed participating in a number of initiatives over the past couple of years). Since opening up to the public, the eBay Green Team has grown to nearly 300,000 volunteers. You can check out a full video overview of the eBay Green Team below.

eBay Ink Weekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

PayPal Launches App, Send Money
The PayPal Send Money app allows users to easily send money to Facebook friends. Facebook has more than 800 million active users, and a large percentage of them have active PayPal accounts. To make transactions, simply choose an ecard, a friend to send it to, and then select how much money to send. [via GigaOm]

Further News
+ Social shopping applications are going to change the way people shop online
+ What is the impact of social commerce on brands?
+ Are tablets and smartphones designed for couch potatoes?

Looking Back on eBay Ink
November 23, 2010: eBay Topaz Data Center Achieves LEED Gold. eBay opened its Topaz data center earlier this year. Topaz stands as a centerpiece of a multi-year plan to consolidate eBay’s data center footprint from a number of co-located facilities to fewer eBay-owned, operated, and managed centers. Our data centers make up more that 50% of our global power usage.

eBay Ink Weekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.

PayPal’s Android App Receives Update
PayPal has updated its Android app to give those with a Near Field Communication (NFC) device a reason to use the new features. PayPal’s NFC money transfer feature has been the most talked about since first introduced at Mobile Beat 2011. The new feature allows users to transfer funds by bumping smartphones. To use the feature, the user must add the new PayPal Request Money widget, which comes with the new app on their Android home screens. The user then enters amount of money to be transferred and taps the two phones together. The other user will instantly receive a notification about the transfer and by entering their PayPal password, the transaction is finalized. PayPal has also added other new features its Android app, including a refined interface and address book auto-completion when sending money. [via Venture Beat]

Further News
+ Studies shows early adopters of social media are showing signs of fatigue.
+ Incentives become crucial for mobile device purchases this holiday season.
+ Retailers capitalizing on holiday crazed fans, releasing deals before this Black Friday holiday.

A Week Ahead
I will be hosting the first ever #eBayChat on Twitter with @Vistaprint‘s social media team, @jeffespo and @jaykeith. Join us on Twitter using #eBayChat on Tuesday, November 15 at 12pm PST to discuss e-commerce, social commerce, social media and more.

Looking Back on eBay Ink
eBay launches holiday season campaigns all aimed at those of us who “Love to Give”. The campaign is centered around one thing – eBay and the Holidays. Specifically, the concept of “Love to Give” and this week, eBay has launched a number of ways in which people can shop, give and share their holiday experiences. For more information, visit eBay’s holiday homepage at http://gifts.ebay.com.

eBay Ink Weekend Roundup is a summary of news and updates around eBay, PayPal, Social Media, Technology and E-commerce. Let us know what interests you.