Here is something embarrassing that happened to me that hopefully you can learn from.

A few months back my bank sent me a new ATM/Visa debit card (my current card was going to expire at the end of August of this year).

I activated the card and paused for a moment to think "is there any place online that I use my card for payments that I need to update?".  After a brief second I answered "No".  After all my eBay fees come right out of my PayPal account so I was good to go.

I was wrong! 

I forgot to update my credit card with PayPal. 

I use my banks Visa debit card for back up funding on my PayPal account.

The first of this month eBay billed my PayPal account for my eBay fees.  No big deal right?  well I was just a few dollars short of having the full amount in my PayPal account.  Normally when I am a few dollars short PayPal draws all my money from the PayPal balance and the amount that I am short is moved over from my bank account via my Visa debit card from my checking account.

Since my debit card had expired (and I had not updated my card on file) PayPal did a eCheck from my bank account for the full amount of my eBay fees. 

This happened during the labor day weekend and I was unaware of this was going on.

I just paid my bank an overdraft fee and I am a bit wiser )and my debit card is updated on PayPal).

Collecting sales tax on the Internet has been a hot button topic for many bueyrs and sellers.  Buyers have for years enjoyed purchasing items online (with a few exceptions) and not having to pay sales tax. 

Sellers fear that with the staggering number of different sales tax scenarios across the country collecting sales tax would be cumbersome and may put some small business out of business.

I have said in previous blog entries (Are You Ready For Sales Tax On The Internet?  April 2009) that I felt it was "going to be inevitable" and the recent news stories (States look to collect online taxes,Colorado to online shoppers: Pay your own sales tax andHouse 'Amazon bill' dies in committee) only support this theory.

In my blog entry from last year I predicted within 5 years and now it looks like I may have called this one right on the nose!

If there is a sales tax imposed on the Internet I would (and I am sure many of you would agree) this would have a negative effect on ecommerce.  I do not expect it to kill ecommerce (that is here to stay) but it may hurt it some.  How badly?  Hard to say at this time. 

Today's blog entry comes from an actual event that happened to me with a local radio station.  The politics should not be the focus of this lesson as much as how the station employee reacted to me on the stations fan page

I follow many news organizations on Facebook (I will admit it I am a news junkie - I get out of market stations on my satellite and stream out of market news and love to watch live raw feeds on the Internet).  One of the news sources I used to be a fan of is a local newstalk radio station. 

Kike most newstalk radio stations today this station carries a lot of big name satellite radio shows such as Rush and Glenn Beck.  A reporter (yes I did say reporter) posted that VP Biden was an idiot and a moron.  I took some offense to this name calling. 

I am 44 years old, I have some background in radio and even studied radio in college) and in my day a reporter NEVER called a sitting VP (or any elected official) an idiot or a moron.  (You never saw Walter Cronkite do that).  I, as politely as I could, informed him I took offense to the name calling (note this was at the top of the thread his name calling) and that I felt it was unprofessional of a reporter to do what he did.  A reporter (according to what I grew up learning and believing) reports the news with no bias whatsoever.  If a reporter wanted to share his or her views and opinions, it was to be an editorial and should be marked/stated as such.  His response to me included comments such as "pandering to elitists like you" and insinuating I was an idiot because my political views were different from his.

The point to this story is this is not the way to talk to a fan on a fan page.  What he probably does not realize tis that others may have been offended by how he spoke to me and those who are offended probably will never say a waord, but they may choose to express their displeasure by no longer being a fan of that page, or stop listening to the station. 

What I hope all my smart readers will take from this story is that when you are using social media to promote your business, ALWAYS have a professional tone.  Never insult a fan - remember the conversation is public and will reflect on you and your business.  Keep it positive and professional at all times.

During the past week I have started to move my inventory (a little each day) from store inventory format to fixed price format.  I am happy to report that I am seeing the items that have been moved are gaining watchers quicker than they ever did in the store and in some cases items that have not had sales for month are getting sales within 24 hours of the conversion.

The exposure of the items in the core search results have lead to a increase in sales so far and I only see this trend continue.

Several years ago when eBay allowed store inventory format items to appear in core search I saw my sales spike 0 in fact to a point I quit listing items in fixed priced or auction format.  I still wonder if because of the success store owners were having with the store inventory format being a part of the core search caused eBay to roll it back as with the lower insertion fees for store inventory format eBay was loosing money.

So I implore you if you have not started to convert your listings from store inventory format to fixed price you should.  You are missing out on sales and missing out on building a sale history that will help your items ranking in best match in April.

This promotion is designed to help store owners "test the waters" of moving their store inventory into a fixed price format where it will appear on the core (main) search results on eBay.

Starting March 30th eBay will be discontinuing store inventory format and all listings in the store inventory format will be converted to fixed price format. When this change happens a fixed price listing will run 20 cents for a basic store owner, 5 cents for a premium store owner and 3 cents for a anchor store owner.

With this shift in pricing eBay is encouraging (as do I) store owners to liquidate distressed (non selling) items.

The other possible advantage for sellers who move their items into the fixed priced format now is that your item may have an opportunity to gain impression points that will help it's ranking in best match.  This could be a real opportunity to get a jump on your competition.

I strongly suggest to sore owners to take advantage of this promotion - use this promotion to test the waters for some of your inventory and to start liquidating your inventory on the site.  This is a great wy to start getting your store inventory into the core search results.

Read the announcement and all the details of the eBay promotion here: announcements.ebay.com/2010/02/limited-time-offer-list-in-fixed-price-for-just-10%c2%a2/

The announcement can be broken down into three aspects:

Enhancements to Buyer Protection - eBay has expanded the Buyer Protection program to cover more approved electronic payment methods.  This change is designed to provide more confidence to buyers who purchase items on eBay.  This is a good move.  I know for myself as a seller I want to do things right where a buyer never wants a refund - and in the rare cases where the buyer wants one, I am willing to work with them.  However, I do feel the more eBay promotes the protection for buyers this will increase buyer confidence and will only benefit all of us sellers.

Easier, more profitable selling - This change has already started to roll out over the past few months.  I personally do not see how being able to add a watermark to my photos will increase my profits (possibly help cut down the number of people stealing other sellers photos for their own listings), but I do not see a watermark being a big sale increaser. List variations like color and size in one Fixed Price listing—extended to more categories - this will be great and will increase profit as sellers can now list all their inventory that are similar (maybe different in size and/or color) in one listing instead of several listings.  This will decrease the cost of insertion fees which means more profit for sellers. Category and Item Specifics changes now consolidated with the rest of updates - this is something eBay started doing about a year ago.  I am not sure hwy they are promoting this like it is a big change.  eBay has already stated they would not make any category structure change between updates expect in rate emergencies.

Fee update: Choose the option that's right for you - This is the part of the announcement that has brought the largest amount of chatter from the community.  The first thing that hit me is that for a basic store owner, who currently pays 3 cents for an item to be listed, will se about a 700% increase in insertion fees OUCH!  Even though eBay touts this portion as a  reduction in fees, be carful - read it thoroughly to find out if this change will save you money or cost you money if you continue to operate your business as you are today.

If you have been following this blog or a subscriber to my newsletter, you would know I have been making some major changes to my business which includes a change in the direction of inventory I want to sell on eBay.  I am moving away from sports memorabilia to products for the home office or cubicle worker - henche the store nzame change to My Cubicle Buddies.

My plan was to liquidate distressed inventory as well as inventory I no longer will carry to make room for new inventory that better goes along with the new direction of my business.  Now with this recent announcement from eBay I am going to ramp up the sales of these items by slashing prices to get rid of the distressed and unwanted inventory.  I have crunched the number and I want to get my store down to 50 items that do not sit on the virtual shelves for years. 

Prior to this announcement I would keep out of season items listed year round.  Unfortunately I will be discontinuing this policy and only have seasonal items up during the season (and slightly prior to) that they should sell during.  I will lso do this to items from professional sports.  For example you will not find NFL items in my store in April.  However, since anything and everything can make a great Christmas gift, I will put virtually everything into my store during the Christmas selling season.

This is a time all of us sellers need to take a look at what we have and clean house.

size="4">There are many articles in the news that break down the earnings call for investors.  This article takes a look at the earnings call from a eBay sellers point of view:

One point that Donahoue seemed to drive home is how eBay is becoming technology driven which be backed up by reporting that eBay's cell phone apps are becoming increasingly popular.

Towards the end of the earnings call a question was asked in regards to if eBay had any numbers that broke down the sales through mobile devices.  Donahoe responded with they did not have those numbers and that eBay did not care what the numbers breakdown was.  I was a bit troubled by this response.  I as a seller I would like to know the percentages of mobile access of the site.  I know it is growing but at what rate? 

Understandably eBay has been loosing ground to Amazon.  I would have liked some numbers as to mobile access, is this an area where eBay hopes the growth can lead them to pass Amazon?  If the mobile apps are to drive eBay, eBay along with sellers need to make sure the listings are accessible via the mobile web.  Unfortunaly there from what I understand, no standard for mobile web browsers.  As this technology evolves I see this being a market businesses online need to be aware of and have a presence on.

By no means should this post by me be interpreted as I have any inside knowledge of what be coming, this article basically shares my thoughts on the predictions the AuctionBytes article has made.

One issue that was brought up in the article was would eBay.com do to the stores as they have done on other international sites.  FYI: on other International sites eBay has done away with the store format listings but kept the store, where sellers inventory will be in a fixed priced format which does get higher ranking in eBay searches compared to store format.  Also, fixed priced format comes with a higher insertion fee in some cases significant compared the store insertion fee of less than 10 cents.  If this changes is implemented by eBay this would probably cause many sellers to either raise prices (unfortunately with a significant insertion increase the cost would have to be passed along to the buyer) or store owners would be more selective as to what they put into their store for inventory which could change the market including a shift in prices.  Remember when quantity is lower then demand the prices can increase.

Stores in core search results: eBay tried this several eyars ago and stopped a few months afterwards stating that the number of results that came up for a buyer was overwhelming to the buyer.  Personally I feel that sellers releaised that paying 3 cents insertion fee was the best price for an item and saw sales increase so they stopped listing in other formats - bottom line I think the cost to eBay was hurting the company.  I am not sure if they wil bring this back, however with the new search eBay has created the "overwhelming" number of results may no longer be a problem.

I also feel that if eBay does make this kind of a change I would hope that they would decrease the store subscription fee.

Feedback changes: It has been reported on various sites on the Internet eBay is beta testing a major overhaul of the Feedback system where feedback will include how likely a buyer would be to refer a seller to others.  This, as always, will be controversial, but I feel it is a move in the right direction.

Fee changes: I would be surprised if eBay did not change the fees.  When I started on eBay in 2001 fees were pretty straight forward, now it is more complicated where you feel you need to have a Ph.D to understand the fees before you list an item.  I would hope eBay would make insertion fees less complicated.

From the AuctionbBytes article  also speculates there will be some policy changes including limiting buyer and seller communication.  Since this is not official and I have no idea what if any limits would be placed, I will just say that as a seller (and as a buyer) I do not want any limits placed on how much I communicate.  As a seller you should communicate with the buyer as much as he or she wants and should do it personally - not with FAQ pages or auto responders.

AuctionBytes is saying there may three rounds of changes this year, this has not been confirmed as far as I know.  They also are predicting the first round will be announced in January and be implemented in march.  Again this has not been confirmed.  I would hazard a guess that if an announcement is coming ti will be after the Q4 earnings call (schedule for January 20th @ 4pm CT) and before the town Hall on January 27th.   Regardless of when changes are announced on eBay, I will be covering it right here.

Another year has come and gone.  I do hope that 2009 and was a successful year for you and that this year will even be more blessed for you both personally and professionally.

This Saturday, January 9th, will be my 9th anniversary on eBay.  If you have not read how I got started on eBay, you may want to read this blog entry I posted last year: My 8th Year Anniversary on eBay: A Look Back and A Look Forward

Today I want to take a look ahead and share with you a recap of last year and what I hope to see in the coming year for the PowerWheelerChris family of websites.

2009 Accomplishments:

AskPWC - I launched a new blog called AskPWC in August, a daily blog with tips and how to's for eBay sellers.

Kansas City eBay examiner - (launched at the end of August) Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I post an article of interest to the eBay community

We changed our eBay store name from Bases Covered Sports to My Cubicle Buddies.

What is coming in 2010!

Overall: We are taking our business in a new direction.  We are focusing all aspects of the PowerWheelerChris family of websites (aka C & K Business Services) to help eBay sellers or small business owners. 

A Domain Name 4 Me - I plan to launch this around the middle of 2010.  This aspect of the business will offer domain registration, web hosting, blogs, email marketing, everything you can think of to get your business on the Internet.

FSeBS (Four states eBuyers and Sellers) of Joplin MO - in 2009 we started the group but decided launching the group so close to the holidays was not a good start date.  We will be launching the group this spring.  We are planning on monthly in person meetings and online events.  The online events will be open to anyone regardless of their location.

My Cubicle Buddies - We will continue to offer sports memorabilia in our store but the type of products will change slightly to items that are more appropriate for workspaces such as home offices or cubicles.   Along with sports themed items we plan to add other items that would help a person express their personality at work.  We also plan to offer products and services that wll help a person to manager and/or grow their business.

PowerWheelerChris - The site that began it all: we plan to offer new ways for you to learn about eBay through a PWC Learning Center that we plan to offer online learning to eBay sellers.. 

PWC Bookstore - We are overhauling the PowerWheelerChris Bookstore and will be bringing it back new and improved this year.

Other things to watch out for in 2010:

PWC Podcasts: We are in the early phases of launching our own weekly podcast.  As of right now I do not have a firm date for when this might happen, but be watching for it.

Build Your eBusiness - we will be launching a new website/blog that will bring everything nicely together to make it easy for yo to grow your eBay business.

Of course you can count on the PowerWheelerChris' blog to continue to post weekly articles of interest to the eBay community including editorials. AskPWC to continue to provide tips and how to's every weekday for eBay members and the Kansas City eBay examiner to publish every Monday, Wednesday and Friday news of interest for eBayers.

Be sure to rely on PowerWheelerChris to keep you updated on the latest eBay related news in the news center section of the site.

You can also count on the PWC News to send you weekly updates via email of everything going on with the PowerWheelerChris family of websites including roundups of all blog entries, Kansas City eBay examiner articles, the top news stories and a calendar of eBay related events of interest and sales from My Cubicle Buddies, A Domain Name 4 Me and recommendations from the PWC Bookstore .

And finally you can keep up to the minute on everything by being a fan on Facebook  and following on twitter your area of interest: Follow PowerWheelerChris on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PwrWheelerChris, Follow Ask PWC on Twitter at twitter.com/AskPWC, Follow FSeBS on Twitter at http://twitter.com/FSeBS, Follow My Cubicle Buddies on Twitter: at:
twitter.com/MyCubicleBuddy, and follow ADomainName4Me on Twitter at twitter.com/ADomainName4Me

January 2009:

• eBay makes improvements to the discussion boards.  The dissuasion boards had a major makeover and now posts include avatars of members and a change in navigation.

February 2010

• Moneybookers and Paymate are now available as new approved payment methods - as eBay moves towards paperless payments site wide two new ePayment services were available to sellers on the site.

March 2009:

• Making It Easier to Recover Listings - now if a listing is pulled by eBay for a listing violation you can easily recover it from the eBay site and make the needed changes and get it live quickly (There are some situations where a listing will be pulled and not recoverable though)
• Digital Downloadable Goods in Classified Ads Format Only - a big change to how you can sell digital goods on eBay.
• eBay Motors Vehicle Purchase Protection Increased to $50,000 - designed to increase buyer confidence on the site.
• Beta launch of eBay Bucks rewards program =- a new rewards program from eBay - still in beta at the end of this year.
• Updates to Seller Dashboard throughout the year eBay has made changes to the seller dashboard proving sellers more detailed information about their DSR's and allowing sellers to create and save reports.

April 2009

• Seller Release 1 (SR1) announced
• eBay Stores upgrade; news about searching - cosmetic and search changes were made to eBay stores.

June 2009

• Start today! List 5 FREE every 30 days! - eBay now allows you five free listings a month if you use the SYI form.

July 2009

• eBay Announcements Board gets a fresh look with great new features - a fresh new look came to the eBay announcement board.
• eBay live ends and the birth of eBay on location events
• Seller Release 2 (SR2) announced

August 2009

• Top-rated seller badge - a new (and some say controversial) way to promote buyer confidence on the site.

September 2009

• Goodbye, eBay Blogs - after 3 plus year eBay closes the blogs.  Many have suspicions to the true reason or the clsoing.
• Bill Me Later on eBay!

November 2009

• Major site outage the weekend before Thanksgiving - eBay Update on Weekend Site Restoration – Lorrie Norrington, President, eBay

Also this year eBay giving works will let a seller donate as little as $1 to a charity via an auction and 1% of a sale in the eBay motors.

What will 2010 bring?  Keep following my blog and the news I post daily on my website www.powerwheelerchris.com for more.

Have a Merry Christmas and a happy and safe new year.  May God bless you and your family during this holiday season and your sales and your customers in the coming year!

See you January 7th!