Hello All,
For those of you that missed eBay live! in Chicago this year - I've put together a small video of our trip to give you a taste of what you missed.
...Dan says it looks like a holiday video - but I promise I was working extremely hard and I thought it important to give a taste of Chicago too!
We’ve all dreamt of chucking it all in and building a whole new better life at some time or other (haven’t we?) and Ian User is doing just that. He’s selling his life on eBay: a sort of Reggie Perrin 2.0. You’ve probably seen it in the press (see the coverage on the BBC and in the Telegraph and Metro by clicking the links). When the sale concludes he’ll walk away with the money, the clothes he’s wearing and his passport. At the airport, he’ll get the first ticket to anywhere and head off in to the wild blue yonder.
The bidding has been frantic and it looks like Ian is well on his way to getting the price he wants for his ‘life’. Check out the lovely vzaar videos to get a real sense of what he’s flogging.
The sale includes his three-bedroom home in the Western Australian city of Perth and everything in it, including a car, motorcycle, jet ski and computer equipment. You can also win Ian’s job… although you’ll have to pass an initial trail. It all seems a bit crazy. But on this grey and rainy day, with doom and gloom on the news, escaping to the sunny beachlife of Perth seems rather attractive.
It’s day three and we’re back on the eBay Live Exhibition floor for more meeting and greeting and getting the word out about vzaar. Last night we had a lovely shindig at Chicago’s premier English theme pub, the Elephant and Castle.
With our friends from Frooition, Channel Advisor and Tamebay, we welcomed dozens of chums from all over the world to raise a pint and celebrate in the time-honoured British manner: by having a few drinks. And, it must be said, that a splendid time was had by all. Thanks for coming. How was your head this morning? I was still scratching mine and wondering why any English theme pub thinks it’s typical to have a huge picture of Mrs T. on the wall.
As the exhibition closes in less than an hour, we’re still signing up punters and selling vzaar. We’ve had a good day. There seem to be a lot of day delegates making the trip in for Saturday only and our stand has been brisk. Sometimes working a stand and talking to dozens of people a day can be a gruesome trial. You can be rebuffed by negativity or dispirited by a lack of interest. But that hasn’t been our experience at all in Chicago. There is an easy, American enthusiasm for experimentation and taking on new things that is great news for vzaar. Most people are sold on the notion of video and keen to give it a try.
eBay Live! draws to a close this evening with the Gala (apparently pronounced 'gay-la') and a star performance from Chris Isaak (does it get any cooler?). And, needless to say, Team vzaar will be tucked up in bed long before the witching hour. Adieu.
So here we are, team vzaar loaded on caffeine and colourful looking doughnuts, at the eBay keynote address, and its not even 9am!
This is the pivital moment for the eBay management. A golden opportunity to set the mood, not only for the remainder of the event, but the year ahead as they layout their roadmap for success. It's what the seller particularly will go away ringing in their ears and what will define in part how much inventory they commit to the site.
So with one eye on video and it's future adoption on eBay what did we learn?
- Feedback is still very much the currency of eBay. Sellers are driven by it and we need to ensure that video is seen as an emerging tactic that helps to improve a seller's feedback DSRs.
- $60bn worth of goods were traded in 2007, three times their nearest competitor. eBay remains the right marketplace to launch vzaar on. Phew!
- Trust remains at the heart of all eBay transactions. Seller Protection is now expanded to all US sellers (will inevitably roll out internationally). We're confident that video helps inspire trust in one another. It eliminates doubt.
- eBay wants more of your inventory. To that end we need to continue to work hard on ensuring that video integration is as seamless and easy as possible. In part, that is why we are here in Chicago, to meet with the 3rd parties that help sellers manage their inventory.
And so that was pretty much it. You can read a more thorough update here on the eBayink but it leaves me to tell you that the doughnuts have been eaten, I have sugar all over my laptop and now its time to get back to the vzaar stand for day two!
I write with my laptop perched on my knees on a bench as a small crowd starts to gather for PayPal’s pizza party at 5pm. I have chosen the worst ‘quiet spot’ in the whole building. But I’ll be first in line for a slice of nice.
The first day of eBay Live began with a flurry of activity at 9am on the dot, as the doors of the Solution Center were opened and thousands of eager eBayers flocked to the various exhibitors, stalls and attractions housed in one of the cavernous halls in McCormick Place.
As always, the scale of eBay Live is staggering. They choose venues on a grand scale and quite unlike anything in Britain. There is an eagerness to learn and a willingness to succeed and there are just so many people. Hundreds of eBay staff, hundreds of members and eBay sellers and buyers from all over.
Although Chicago lacks some of the dizzying excitement of eBay Live in previous years (are there really 10k people here?), and there certainly seem to be fewer exhibitors, the expo (that runs alongside the classes and speakers) was brisk and bustling.
It’s really valuable to meet sellers face to face and pitch them vzaar and, delightfully, it’s not much of a hard sell. Old hands and newbies alike were positive about video in general and vzaar in particular. We’ve already spoken to hundreds of people and look forward to meeting hundreds more. If you’re in the Windy City, look us up. Booth 224.
A proud day for all of us vzaarians today as we picked up an eBay Star Developer award for Best Design at eBay DevCon. Kyozou got the top prize and we're runners up: the first and only video company to do so out of the 14 permitted video providers for eBay even though we're the youngest. Which confirms, rather nicely, recent research we've done showing vzaar to be the largest bespoke video provider on eBay too.
What was most gratifying were the reasons we won the award. When we got the call, a few weeks back, eBay said that they really liked how we had designed our player and system around eBay. We know that video itself improves the buyer experience, but eBay liked how we were also improving the seller experience too and doing more than "just putting video into eBay". It was this "more" bit where they felt we really shone and made the difference.
I'm really proud of what the team has accomplished here. Everyone in the team has contributed to that little bit of "more" in vzaar, from pure design elements to customer insight (and related product improvements) to technical tweaks to get it right. Design as Steve Jobs keeps telling us isn't about how it looks, but about how it works. And Steve knows a thing or two about iconic design. (We like to set our goals high.)
My first thought, however after winning this award and looking down the list of great companies that also have picked up awards is, "Next time I want to pick up the winner's award". We're not resting on our laurels here at vzaar towers, and we have plans and ideas that are really truly exciting. Some things we want to bring to you, beyond making the platform quicker and easier and better all round are things like, HiDef videos, wides-screen players, multi-channel players for those of you who sell off eBay and custom skins to fit even better with your chosen templates.
Watch this space is what I am trying to say, as we have lots more coming. The office was already buzzing with the announcement of the eBay Echo platform. vzaar in Selling Manager...hell yes! We're already thinking of what great functionality we can bring to you right into your my eBay pages. I'm already tracking down the right eBay chaps to get into the alpha program.
What a great way to start off eBay Live, and the next few days are going to be fantastic fun. Stop by at booth 224 and say 'Hi' if you're in Chicago this week.
So eBay Live! is just around the corner (in case we haven't mentioned it much already...)
As many of us might be a long way from home and in much need of refreshment after the long and busy days in Chicago, vzaar has teamed up with Channel Advisor, Frooition and Tamebay to host some drinks on the Friday night.
We'll be at the Elephant and Castle Pub on Adams street and if you should find yourself thirsty in Chicago, please do pop by. We'll be there from 7.30pm and if you come and visit us at our stand at eBay live we might give you a little Moo card that will get you a free drink or two!
We hope you’ll be able to join us and we look forward to seeing you then!
vzaar's all about showing off eBay items at their best. In particular, if it moves or makes a noise, vzaar brings an item to life much more than a picture and text. Here's my pick of the pops.
Check out this muck spreader, doing what it does best!
Move on up with this glorious union flag Lambretta. Ideal for all you mods out there.
From Swinging London to Greendale. It's Postman Pat!
We're always so grateful to our customers for their feedback. At vzaar we know video and we know eBay but what we don't always know is how you run your business, what you need to be as efficient as possible and what you'd like to see from vzaar. We believe that a good company listens to what it's customers need. It's because of the time you've taken to let us know these things that we are able to give you what you need rather than what we think you need!
Here's a quick overview of some of the new features our developers have been building for you:
Automatic re-listing. This is the one that most of you have been after. Being a hugely complicated job meant it took a little longer than we first thought - "automatic re-listing" means the video player, with all of it's dynamic information about your auction, will update on it's own if it re- lists. There's now no need for you to let the system know. So if you use automation to relist your items - the vzaar videos will be present and correct in all your listings ad infinitum.
Copy and pasting embed code. You should now easily be able to find the code needed to manually embed your video - both on and off eBay. On eBay, this is very helpful if you have a smart template you want to place a video neatly in. And quoting from Tamebay, who reported on this a couple of weeks ago "It makes life very easy for sellers using a standard “About Me” video in all of their auctions as it can be inserted in their auction template and then the template used for all future listings." (This should help you with html code and embedding if it's not your strong point)
Buy Now button. Many of you found the Bid Now button unhelpful as it wasn't relevant to the listings that were of the "Buy Now" variety. Our player now has the added ability to recognise what type of auction it is sitting it and display the correct call to action.
The last 30 mins. While your listing is in it's last half hour the count down timer and Bid/Buy Now call to action turn red. The aim of which is to instill a sense of urgency on your buyers to encourage bids.
Seller Profiles. You will now be able to see a vzaar seller profile which will serve to better promote your other items on eBay.
So those are the next round of vzaar features we hope you'll like. Please continue to give us feedback - both good and bad (dare I say it) as it's all extremely helpful and much appreciated!
Here at vzaar HQ we couldn't agree more with the man. It's all about refining your product to suit the needs of your customers and so having developed an approved service that supports eBay sellers we are keen to improve on what we have built to date. Call it our evolutionary plan.
To that end we've created a very short and ever so simple online survey that we'd like your views on. It is a short and snappy little survey so if you have 30 seconds spare and a coffee to hand then we'd love to hear what you think of the service to date.
You can participate in the survey here.
Many thanks