Terapeak Announces New Market Research Tool - Value Track

Terapeak, an eBay Certified Provider providing eBay market research, has announced a beta launch for their new tool, Value Track.

Value Track will allow an eBay seller to save or "track" their eBay searches and then generates reports based on -

• track trends in a category over week-by-week
• track product movement
• track product pricing

Value Track automates your eBay research process. Information is updated automatically and displayed in a format similar to a stock ticker.

Terapeak provides robust market research tools through the eBay Market Data program.

The eBay Market Data program offers rich consumer insight data allowing eBay Developers the opportunity to innovate and build research solutions like cross-border research tools, shopper analysis, intelligent cross-merchandising & listing solutions, and more.  Click here to learn more about the eBay Market Data Program.

Click here for more information on Value Track and how to be part of the beta test.

New Certified Provider Hub on eBay Radio

Adam Hundt, Solutions Marketing Manager with eBay's Developer Program, and Laura Della Torre, Senior Manager with eBay Certified Provider's Program, recently talked about the new Certified Provider hub (http://certifiedprovider.ebay.com) and how those tools can help sellers save time and increase profits.

Listen to the archived show on eBay Radio. It's the 5th segment on the show.

eBay Radio: Interview with Certified Provider MyStoreRewards

Our very own Rob Cross will interview eBay Developer and Certified Provider MyStoreRewards on eBay Radio tomorrow, Nov 6th @ 11 am PT. MyStoreRewards manages a buyer loyalty program for eBay sellers.

Catch the show live on eBay Radio on Nov 6th @ 11:00 am PT, subscribe to the podcast, or check the eBay Radio website later for the archived show.

This interview is part of our monthly developer showcase of Certified Providers. Catch the whole series here.

AsWas shares how to market to the eBay Community

Debbie Levitt from As Was is one of our Call For Papers community speakers at DevCon this year. This morning right after the opening keynote, she shared some of her tips and fun personallity for marketing tools to eBay sellers at her session. She prefaced her talk noting that she talks to lots of developers who often claim to understand marketing concepts, but don't often implement well. Between being short-staffed and spending time on developing tool, marketing effectively to customers often gets neglected or treated as an afterthought by many eBay tool providers.

Naming your tool and making it findable was a well-covered topic, from what she describes as "Full Vessel" names, where you can tell what the company does immediately (e.g. EZ Lister and MyAuctions), versus Empty Vessel names, where you have no idea (e.g. As Was and Infopia), versus, Half-full (e.g. ChannelAdvisor and Marketworks).

A good rule of thumb she shared is that the harder it is to spell out your tool name or domain, the more difficult it is for customers to tell a friend, difficult to find your site. Unique branding is good, but not necessarily at the expense of findability.

After working with clients and recommending many different tool, she finds that eBay tools do not necessarily to enough to differentiate and position themselves to make themselves stand out, so it is difficult for many eBay sellers to tell the difference between their different tools. Targeting your audience and creating positioning statements are helpful exercises to avoid this trap. Do you want to target new sellers or experienced sellers? Just on eBay or multi-channel?

Many online users in general don't like to spend a lot of time reading, don't like to read corporate-sounding things. Friendly and professional is preferable to corporate-speak. Simple and intuitive UI and marketing are always better (Delyn's note: think Apple or Skype). In other words, don't leave your UI and customer service up in the hands of just your development team. If you want adoption of your tool or service, you are going to need to spend resources and attention on UI, marketing and customer service, and these areas often require different skill sets than developers building tools and services.

Debbie is the President of As Was, and she'll be blogging about eBay DevCon and eBay Live!

- Delyn

Last week's CP Fair in Salt Lake City

eBay held its second Certified Provider Fair at the eBay Customer Support center in Salt Lake City, UT, on Wednesday, March 14th. The purpose of these events is to expose Customer Support employees at eBay to developers and service providers who have qualified to become Certified Providers. eBay Certified Providers offer a variety of tools and services to the eBay Community.

Over 300 eBay employees attended, including Top Seller Account Managers, Seller Outreach and OnRamp Business Consultants, PowerSeller Stores Support, ProStores Pre-Sales, Motors, Half.com, Listing Tools and even our Trust and Safety teams. These teams are on the phone every day helping eBay sellers grow their businesses. Saving time and increasing profits is key to the success of every seller, so helping to pair the right solution with the right seller is vital.

Feedback from the eBay teams has been extremely positive.  “The CPs were especially helpful, and I have already sent some of my sellers their way,” said David Wallentine, Top Seller Account Manager.

They were amazed at the range of software and services available, including product sourcing, accounting and business management, listing strategy consulting, and research solutions. Brian Grow from eBay Seller Onramp had this to say, “I especially enjoyed meeting Certified Providers that I hadn’t previously heard of like JDT and Palo Alto.  Now that I know more about their products I’ll be better able to advise the growing eBay business owners I talk to every day.” 

Certified Providers just as thrilled to meet directly with these key influencers. “I'm sure both the vendors and the eBay attendees will all agree that the value created for everyone was immeasurable....” said Tobe Goldfinger from JDT Technologies, “including the trickle-down value for all those eBay sellers who will now be able get really useful information from their eBay contacts about what kind of solutions are available.”

“I was really pleased at the turn out and the response from the people who came into our little room.  I thought everyone was really receptive and excited about what our software could do for their clients, which is always fantastic to hear.” ‘Chelle Parmele, Palo Alto Software.

Fourteen Certified Providers were onsite to showcase their solutions, including:

• Marketworks
• As Was
• JDT Technologies
• Terapeak
• EzLister.net
• JustDeals
• Worldwide Brands
• HammerTap
• Infopia
• CanDo
• Palo Alto Software
• KeepMore.net
• Channel Velocity
• Kyozou

With feedback like this and over 25% of all listings on eBay.com coming through third party tools, there is more interest in events where eBay employees can learn about tools and services available to recommend to the eBay Community. To learn more about the benefits of becoming an eBay Certified Provider, visit http://developer.ebay.com/certifiedprovider.

Tapping into eBay Market Data with HammerTap

eBay Market Data is rich historical information about what is bought and sold on eBay.  The volume of trade conducted on eBay marketplaces results in market data with large amounts of valuable, dynamic commerce activity, supported by a database full of information about market trends. eBay Market Data has answers to key questions about sellling and shopping on eBay, such as what is the average selling price of items? When is the best day and time to list an item? Which listing upgrade features will help sell my item more quickly?

To help their sellers answer some of these questions, eBay Web Services API developer, Infopia, recently partnered with eBay Market Data provider, HammerTap, on a new online marketplace research solution, PowerWeb, that integrates into Infopia's Marketplace Manager selling tool.  (Click on the screenshot for a better look.)

Check out HammerTap's market research options to see what might add value for your customers to integrate with your eBay tool. You can also read about Infopia's experience with integrating eBay Market Data in their selling app, or get to know more about the developers behind Infopia and their recent Appy Award for mashing up Salesforce.com Apex and eBay APIs.

-Delyn

Mashing up with buySAFE APIs

eBay Certified Provider buySAFE has launched three APIs that allow developers of eBay applications to integrate trust signaling into search, comparison shopping applications and browser plug-ins.

The eBay developer community has been mashing up APIs for years, integrating eBay and PayPal APIs. Now, eBay Web Services API developers behind eBay buyer tools are getting into the act.

Nabit, for example, is using one of the new buySAFE APIs to identify bonded sellers and display a small logo next to the item or merchant in their eBay desktop application. (Click on screenshot for a better look.) This type of information can provide eBay shoppers with additional peace of mind, increasing the likelihood that they will click through to the listing and make a purchase from the seller. 

Check out all of the buySAFE APIs to see if one of them makes sense to integrate with your eBay tool. Or get to know more about the developers behind Nabit in their Cool Tool review.

- Delyn

Mpire Powers eBay Pop: hot items, trends, & culture

Mpire has launched eBay Pop, (www.ebay.com/ebaypop), a new, free service that captures the buying buzz and sales trends on eBay in a fun, informative way – with a twist of current events and pop culture.

eBay Certified Provider Mpire worked with eBay to develop eBay Pop, including its design, sales data and analysis, interactive games, editorial content and blog. The page uses eBay Market Data to drive updated content.

“eBay Pop is a smorgasbord of a page. Having all these different types of data on one page, coupled with the requirement that the page be fairly easy to update (with little or no actual code changes) makes for a semi-complex back-end for so seemly simple a page. We're not talking about cold fusion here, but a good deal of work nonetheless.”

- Andrew Murray, senior developer at Mpire

eBay buyers and sellers can now view a variety of sales trends on eBay, including top items sold on eBay, ranging from iPods™ and TMX Tickle Me Elmo™ to NASCAR™ collectibles and current-event memorabilia.  Sales figures related to various topics and search terms within eBay Pop are a reflection of the shopping habits of nearly 94 million Americans on eBay.com, which has become a barometer for U.S. popular culture.

Read what CNET, Washington Post and and others had to say about eBay Pop.

Certified Provider Fair recap

On Tuesday, October 17th, the eBay Customer Support center in Salt Lake City hosted the first ever eBay Certified Provider Fair. Fourteen Certified Providers spent the day talking to hundreds of eBay Customer Support employees, demoing their products, explaining their services and learning about the pain points of eBay sellers from the folks who talk to them daily. It was like a mini eBay Live for eBay employees - and was a huge success.

No one knows the value third-party tools and services offer eBay sellers quite like eBay Customer Support. Day in and day out our Seller Development teams are on the phones helping eBay sellers become more successful. With 25% of all eBay.com listings coming through third-party tools using eBay Web Services, their conversations turn more and more to discussions about the companies who offer these solutions.

eBay employees lauded the event, sending in feedback like, "LOVED IT! We need more, I can't wait to start learning and recommending these products/tools!" Certified Providers were thrilled to have the opportunity to meet directly with this highly influential group of eBay employees. A big thanks to the Certified Providers who made the trip to our Utah office such a great success. Given the overwhelming positive reaction to the first Certified Provider Fair, there will certainly be more to come! You can learn more about the benefits of becoming an eBay Certified Provider.

- Cindy

Infopia wins Appy Award

We had a great time at Salesforce.com's Dreamforce event the past few days. Alan, Adam and I learned more about the relaunched Apex API, heard from Maynard and Don Albert from Skype in the keynotes and hung with the ADN folks in their Developer Lounge. (I missed the swingin' party at the DNA Lounge afterwards due to being under the weather, but Adam and Alan reported back: good times).

One of the highlights was getting to see Infopia take home the Appy award for "Breakthrough Application of the Year" in the Tuesday afternoon ceremony. Read more about their "business mashup" utilizing Salesforce.com and eBay APIs.

Ralf from Infopia shared a little bit about the "Appy experience", including their photo with Marc Benioff and their trophy below: "As a matter of fact, this award is so coveted that the trophy, a dancing hula doll mounted on a trophy base, was stolen out of our booth at the end of the show today. We have an APB out to find her. :-)"

Congratulations, Infopia! Hope your trophy manages to hula her way back to Utah.

- Delyn