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TAGnotes Wed 24 Jan 2001 Vol 3 Number 12 Issue 273

The Auction Guild Notes for Wed 24 Jan 2001
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ebaY is going to start placing ebaY Premier items in categories
within the main ebaY site. ebaY will identify the cross-
merchandised items with a small "P" logo as part of the listing.
When a buyer clicks on a cross-merchandised item, they will be
taken off ebaY to an item page on the Premier site where different
services and rules apply. For more info on buying and selling on
ebaY Premier go to http://pages.gc.ebay.com/help/index.html

ebaY is changing their search results interface including a new
control bar on the search result’s page just below the search titles
and descriptions box. This new bar will contain sort options for Items
ending first, Newly-listed first, Lowest prices first, Highest prices
first.   A Search by Price Range link will appear on search results page
just below the ebaY official time link. A triangle with
searching tips will appear beneath the control bar if fewer than 20
items or more than 200 items show in your search results. Fewer
than 20 items, ebaY recommends search by title and descriptions.
More than 200 items, ebaY recommends including more words in
your search.   ebaY is also making changes to search on the
international sites within the next several weeks.
For a preview of the changes go to
http://pics.ebay.com/aw/pics/preview/searchUI_580x786.gif

ebaY sent out an unknown number of email warning letters to power
sellers saying, " We have noticed that your gross monthly sales are
declining. They have been below $XXXX for the last five months.
We want to keep you as a Power Seller, so we are allowing you time
to improve your sales over the next 30 days. We will then review your
sales and allow you to continue in the program if you are within the
Power Seller standards." ebaY also says in the email, " We realize
that these are high standards, but that's what has given the Power
Sellers the reputation they have. And hopefully, you've enjoyed the
benefits we offer to those who keep these standards." Since in TAG's
opinion ebaY never did give these sellers any tangible benefits with
this program, it becomes hard for us to fathom exactly what a seller
will lose by this move. TAG also surmises that due to the timing of
these emails, this is ebaYs way to attempt to short circuit Power
Seller participation in either a boycott or slowdown of listing on
ebaY during the first month of the new fees.

ebaY Contact Information
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=17

Title search is currently running approx 4 hours behind, title and
description search is running approx 10 hours behind. To see a pattern
of lag times, demonstrating the time it takes from listing, to the item
showing up in search, go to
http://www.geocities.com/codclass/content/lag.html
Completed search is now available with a 20 day history, though
there were intermittent reports all day of completed search not
working.

Approx 5.34 mil auctions inflated by a 6 percent due to double
category listings yielding approx 5.02 mil actual listings
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Yahoo Auction
TAG recommends you check your Yahoo account
If you have questions about receiving outage credits you can call
Yahoo at (408) 530-5151 between 8am and 6pm Mon-Fri PT.

For those who use Yahoo's bulk uploader, you can still list auctions
for 14 days when using this utility, giving you 4 more days for
your listing fee that you don't get listing items individually.

Yahoo site map.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/promo/sitemap.html
http://auctions.yahoo.com/

Yahoo Contact Information
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html?pid=38

Current Auctions approx 1.38 mil calculated formula total
a drop of 904,000 auctions since the fee announcement on
2 January. 24 Jan count approx 1.32 mil by
http://www.dtmagazine.com/auctioncounts.html
http://list.auctions.yahoo.com/
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Amazon Auction Article
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-4590778.html?tag=unkn
Register for Amazon.Com Payments go to
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/easypay-login/
It appears that since Amazon payments are restricted to the US only
a seller must have a US based bank account in order to sell on Amazon.
http://auctions.amazon.com
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321 Gone The site is back online but the categories are badly
scrambled, and there are other bugs that they acknowledge need
fixing before they officially reopen. They are currently accepting
applications for their SuperSeller program, where high volume
sellers will be exempt from insertion fees. They will send out
acceptances along with their bulk uploader before 1 Feb. They plan
a marketing campaign in mid-Feb. There is a 5 cent listing fee and
FVFs are $.01 - $25 - 3%, $25.01 - $1,000. 75 cents plus 2%,
$1,000.01 and up 20.25, plus 1% of balance. Seller credit card
verification is now required, even for previously registered members.
http://www.321gone.com/home/
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ePier reported that they have added 4 additional dual Xeon servers
and increased their bandwidth to handle a 10 fold increase in traffic.
They also say they are making large investments in programming and
backend software to handle transactions. Users have reported some
problems with search, home page not loading - possibly due to
java/ActiveX - site map appears incomplete, broken links on
pages,pictures not showing up, and slow page loads.

As an answer to ebaYs restriction in seller to bidder communication,
ePier has posted what they call their no big brother policy
http://www.epier.com/nobigbrother.asp
The user agreement is currently being revised, and no user agreement
is available for review.

ePier offers free image hosting, and free auctions, no listing or
final value fee. http://www.epier.com
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StrongNumbers an online price guide. Has a limited number of
categories in the antiques and collectible field, but still a very
useful tool for price hunting and as a price guide. Uses auction
prices and is working on a retail price guide. Free and no
registration is required. http://www.strongnumbers.com/index.shtml
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***PLEASE NOTE: Many long links we post in TAGnotes must be
copy/pasted into your browsers URL/Address box in pieces, with no
extra spaces, to get them to work due to HTML limitations****
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If you would like an Auction House or Service Provider added to
this list, please email us at ta-@theauctionguild.com
Have any information for us? email us at ta-@theauctionguild.com
TAG Subscribers have often contributed to information reported on in
TAGnotes. Visit their auctions.
         TAGassist Contributors -
http://user.auctions.yahoo.com/user/bllamb
http://user.auctions.yahoo.com/user/ZZyzx000
http://user.auctions.yahoo.com/user/Zzyzxooo
http://auctions.yahoo.com/booth/fearlessrick_53
http://www.valeriet.com
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