Recently in eBay Experiences Category

Want to get your hands on Kylie Minogue’s heels, or have lunch with the much in demand Peter Andre? If so, then you’ll enjoy these celebrity auctions that are live on eBay as of tonight.

Our good friends at Positive Vibes, the charitable eBay marketing service, have teamed up with The News of The World and even our very own Prime Minister’s wife Sarah Brown to raise funds and awareness for the Wellbeing of Women charity who champion women’s causes for more than 40 years.

If you are a charity looking to gain exposure and grow your donor base then high profile auctions on eBay are certainly a fun and engaging way to promote yourself. Furthermore with video you can really bring to life your charity’s aims and goals. At vzaar we have a lot of experience in this field so if you are a charity and would like advice on how to run a campaign like this then please do get in touch with us.

From the minute we were given approval to build our application for the eBay SM Apps Programme, we turned to our good friends and Ruby specialists Applicake to help us turn our idea into something real. As a result its been a collaborative effort from day one and so we asked Lead Developer Matt from Applicake to pen us his thoughts on the build. Here is his take.

What are SM Apps?

My colleague Ela from Applicake has already written a few words about the launch of the vzaar Selling Manager App from a company perspective so I won’t spend too much time going into details. You can also read vzaar’s news of the release here.

In fact for me this project has always been known by its code name, Project Echo and I have to say it felt great to be involved with a super secret development in conjunction with a giant of the Internet like eBay!

What Have We Done & Why Are We So Proud?

In a nutshell my task was to integrate the vzaar application with the eBay API directly into the eBay Selling Manager platform. The end goal was to ensure that eBay sellers could then add video to their eBay listings, by using vzaar, directly at an eBay level. A Selling Manager user simply subscribes to the vzaar application and it will show up in their Applications tab in My eBay.

It’s a real distinction for us. Only a few applications have taken part in the initial launch so very few people have actually dealt with the eBay SM Apps API so far. eBay only launched the test API around six months ago and the test environment was only available something like two months ago. As you might imagine, the process was a bit of a challenge (almost no tutorials etc.) and the API itself was not perfect. Throughout the process we had to work closely with eBay technical support team to improve it and I have to say they were really supportive. The end result that we built the app on time and at Applicake we certainly take pride in being one of the first companies to work on the API.

eBay Development for Dummies

The great thing about eBay SM Apps API is that to integrate your application with eBay you can use your favorite programming language. I am a Ruby on Rails developer at Applicake which made the decision an easy one to make! To get stuff connected you only need to develop an interface that will allow eBay to subscribe and authenticate users to your app. eBay calls that Open eBay Participant Interface.

A short video introduction to the development process of our video application for eBay’s SM App storefront. Any developers that would like to learn more please do feel free to drop us a line

We today announce the release of our official eBay feature for the new Selling Manager Applications directory. From within My eBay, vzaar will now be available to hundreds of thousands of current subscribers to eBay’s Selling Manager tool.

The first approved Selling Manager application featuring video, the vzaar application allows eBay sellers to quickly and easily add video to their eBay listings for a more dynamic shopping experience. In a matter of seconds a seller subscribed to Selling Manager can now shoot a product video, upload that video to their vzaar application in My eBay and insert it into any live or scheduled eBay listing.

A year in the making, it is great to finally go live and to see our product integrated so tightly into eBay. As many of our current users know, eBay is in the company’s DNA - after all we built a service around the ability to add video to your listings - so to see our product live like this is truly exciting.

A large amount of the credit has to go our fabulous developers Applicake and in particular Matt. He has done a tremendous job in taking our vision for a seamless user experience and turning it into a fully functional application. Later this week, Matt will be joining us on the blog and sharing his own experiences on the release.

In the meantime, new users to the vzaar site who want to test the application can do so by logging into eBay.com and clicking on the Applications Tab in My eBay.

You can also review our new Help page for users of the SM Application.

You can also download our Press Release here:

vzaar were lucky enough to be invited onto the Savvy Seller’s Podcast Series and we thought you might like to listen in! If you are new to vzaar then you might find it a useful guide to how vzaar works but for the more experienced user, Marlene and I also cover:

• Video Types
• Benefits of Video to eBay Sellers
• Embedding Video on other websites
• vzaar versus YouTube
• vzaar Pricing
  
  click on the play button to listen

I have to say a big thanks to Marlene and point you in the direction of her fantastic blog on all things eBay, Intenert Marketing and Social Networking

The eBay community have always been a very giving set of people. During my time at the company I was constantly impressed at the lengths strangers would go to help one another with advice, pointers or just encouragement. Sadly ever since eBay UK put a halt to the eBay University programme there has been a pronounced gap in the social calendar for eBay sellers to actually meet face to face. Whilst events like ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst offer certain sellers the chance to meet, socialise and share in experiences, the ball now appears to be firmly in the court of sellers themselves.

Thankfully various social networking tools now make the idea of organising and rounding up a few sellers a little less onerous that it used to be. There are Facebook Groups, Twitter Feeds and various online forums around which people can meet on and offline. Adding to that list is the new London eBay Seller Meetup. Loosely based around a monthly gathering, the MeetUp website allows any person to set up there own social event.

Last month vzaar was invited to come along and meet some of the eBay sellers in attendance at one of the newly set up eBay meets in London. Never one to turn down a beer, I met with ex eBay staffer and MeetUp organiser, Nathan O’Hanlon, who has done his best to create an evening that is both relaxed and welcoming.

Held on the third Thursday of every month the eBay London Meet Up gather upstairs at the Walkabout pub in Putney and its well worth dropping in if you fancy networking with fellow users of the auction platform. Here’s Nathan with a personal invite!

Although its in its early days Nathan has some lofty aims and I can see how quickly such an event could quite easily grow into a more powerful and educational voice. As with any of these meets you tend to get back what you put in so why not pop along? The next meeting for the London group is on Thursday 19th February and to sign up you can click here

Everyone likes presents at Christmas…especially unexpected ones!

Last week the eBay Developer Team contacted us out, like the Secret Santas they are, to say that we had won a special eBay prize. Yeh!

To celebrate the 8th anniversary of the eBay API platform some Third Party Services have been recognised for their involvement in the rather cool initiative, Project Echo, which vzaar will be a part of in 2009. So over the weekend we excitedly wondered what might be winging its way across the Atlantic to vzaar HQ - I for one couldn’t sleep last night.

And here is it, our very own office Magic 8 ball. Have a look at the video to see what we asked of it…

Charities have for some years now been using eBay as a great venue for extending their brand profile and to also raise some much needed money along the way. It makes utter sense given the sheer number of buyers visiting eBay with money to spend.

For a while though I’ve had a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the quality of the attempts to sell on eBay by some of the bigger high street charity names. Many have taken eBay too lightly in my opinion and not paid due attention to the commercial opportunities that the site offers. Well, thanks to Good Cause Auctions we are starting to see some professionalism hitting our PC screens!

Run by eBay advocates Julie Dawson and Mark Buckingham, Good Cause Auctions offer services from consultancy and support, to a fully integrated service comprising PR, campaign planning, design, auction management and logistics. Aimed at increasing awareness of a cause and building an extended or new base of support they really are the go to people if you are a charity looking to sell on eBay but perhaps don’t have the full resource to support it or to bring the idea to life. What’s more the company are firm believers in the value of video, especially for charities that want to show bidders how monies are spent, so it was natural for vzaar to hook up with them!

As an example check out their Shelter Men Only Aloud Christmas auction on eBay for your chance to have the BBC award winning choir sing in your local community.

When it comes to eBay, change is the only constant. This year, so far,we've seen changes to fees, feedback, listing policies and now Shops,selling formats and fees (again) in what represents a huge shift in how the marketplace works. Of course, there's been plenty of good news, but from the conversations we've been having at vzaar HQ with sellers big and small. We know a lot of eBay sellers have struggled to keep up with the avalanche of announcements. eBay sellers are busy people.

So whether you're taking a well-earned break or already neck deep preparing for Christmas, here's the vzaar 5 minute guide to yesterday's announcements.

- From 24th September, Gallery is free. It's been a penny for most of the summer but before that it was 15p. Make sure you're getting your freebie.

- SIF is dead. If your listing strategy depends on driving traffic to your cheaper Shop (SIF) listings using auctions and Buy it Nows as signposts, then you'll need to rethink. BINs, regardless of value and multiples, will cost a flat 40p. What do you need to do to take advantage of this?

- Monthly Shops subscriptions are going up: basic Shop £6 to £14.95, featured Shop from £30 to £49.95 and anchor Shop from £300 to £349.95. But a new Shop perk will be reductions to the flat 40p: 20p for a basic Shop, 5p for a featured shop and 1p for an anchor Shop.

- BINs will not be visible internationally from 24th September. Do you depend on BIN buyers from abroad for some of your sales? Consider switching to internationally visible auctions as a way of attracting foreign buyers.

For a full digest of the changes, check out Tamebay.

This aeroplane made from fizzy drinks cans shows that recycling is really taking off.

I'm not sure why a car might need a siren that makes a horse noise. But just in case, we've got one.

On Thursday 7th August 2008, all eBay.co.uk Insertion Fees are half price for any listing using the Auction-style, Auction-with-Buy It Now or Buy It Now Only (Fixed Price) formats in eligible categories. As always, there are a whole host of Ts & Cs which you can check out here.

Lots of sellers worry that their items get lost in the cheap listings maelstrom. More sellers list more items. Conversion rates suffer and for some it can be a bane rather than a boon. Here are some tips for getting the most out of this Thursday's CLD:

- Try using 5, 3, and 1 day listings. Most people want to make the most out of the promotion and put their items up for 10 days, or 7. Items get the most visibility in their closing hours, so shorter durations can mean you have less competition.

- Have a clear out. Have you got stock that isn't moving? Put it on eBay at rock bottom prices using the lower fees and try and shift it. Storing and maintaining stock costs money and some times it can make real sense to just get rid. You'll need all that valuable space in anticipation of the christmas rush.

- Experiment. The insertion fee reduction is a good chance to experiement with less risk. Have you considered testing out some sales with Free P&P?

- Pray for rain. August is a quiet month on eBay for many sellers and if the sun's out, it can be even quieter. So when it comes to eBay sales, the rain is a good thing.

Check out some of these videos that are on vzaar right now.

This video of a delightful narrowboat just makes you want to chuck it all in and take to the rivers and canals of England.

A great example of why it pays not to be shy: this engaging peiece to camera really shows off the item for sale.

This charming water feature will be a hit in any garden. But, must dash, need to go to the toilet...