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Usability guru Jakob Nielsen has recently published evidence that demonstrates “that users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.” And the more writing there is, the less people read. You can read his article in full here. Amusingly he explains his findings with reams and reams of text, most of which I haven’t read, which just shows how right it is.

Of course, to the average eBay seller this is hardly a surprise. And if truth be told, my first reaction was “as much as that?” But it does reinforce the need to trim down the text and ensure that your eBay listings are as lean as possible. For some great tips on how you can ensure that less is more, check out Sue’s post on Tamebay.

Bullet points, pithy prose and intuitive formatting are the order of the day. But it does also reinforce our firmly held belief at vzaar, that the written word and still images are not always the right way for sellers to get their message across. Buyers, at best, consume a third of the text on a listing. Is video more efficient? We think so.

People absorb information in different ways and providing people with moving pictures and audio with a video might be the way to get more of your message across. Rather like when you’re in a pub and your eyes are drawn to the TV playing in the corner, a video can be a more alluring and addictive information source.

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One of the major gripes from the eBay sellers who are striking regards the removal of their right to leave negative feedback for buyers. If truth be told, very few sellers leave negative feedback for buyers and even fewer sellers use feedback as a way of assessing the suitability of their buyers. For most busy, professional sellers this change is not important (the changes to DSRs are, though) but a small, vocal group of (typically) small time sellers are up in arms at what they perceive to be an unfair change.

Until the last week or so, I haven’t really understood the rationale for removing the right for sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers. It didn’t seem like a fight worth having. That is until I encountered a seller who changed my mind. I bought three things from this seller in an order totalling about £25. It wasn’t a flawless transaction and although I left positive feedback, I was quite stingy with my DSRs and referred to the seller’s poor communication and unprofessional manner in the feedback comments.

The seller was furious. Not only did he retaliate with aggressive responses to my feedback, he sent several abusive emails. The experience wasn’t pleasant and I certainly won’t be going back to that seller again. But my experience was the tip of the iceberg. I noticed that the seller has nearly 200 mutually withdrawn feedback and responds to every neutral and negative feedback he receives with an automatic negative. Some of the comments he’s left are offensive and personal.

I contacted some of the buyers who had received negative feedback in the past month or so. They had left negative or neutral feedback for the seller and had all received negatives in return. The seller had also asked all of them to go through the mutual feedback withdrawal process to have the feedback nulled.

But most worrying of all, of the five people I communicated with, all say that their experiences have changed their view of eBay. Three say that they will never use eBay again. Two say that they will be wary of using eBay again but might. A quick trawl through the negative feedback that the seller has left shows that lot of people who received a negative feedback haven’t shopped on eBay again: he has personally alienated dozens of buyers.

Every eBay seller should be cross about the way this seller behaves: he is chasing away your future customers. And how many other sellers are there out there who practice the same principles? Not many, in the grand scheme of things, but enough to warrant action. Those who are striking need to decide whether the right to leave negative feedback for buyers is worth the inevitable misuse by some dubious sellers who are driving buyers away with their unprofessional behaviour.

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If you'd told me a few months ago that clocks would be one of the items we would see a using vzaar on eBay a lot, I'd have given you a ticking off. But in the past month or two we've seen loads of sellers chiming in with videos of beautiful and exotic timepieces and chronometers.

And it does make sense. Clocks have moving parts (hands and mechanisms) and they usually make a noise (bells, cuckoos and ticking) and when you consider that some of them reach handsome prices, it's a no brainer.

Don't take my word for it, check out these videos. Guaranteed to impress even the most hard-nosed horologist. (Tip: Play all the videos at the same time and it's like that bit on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, or the scene at the start of Back to the Future in Dr Brown's lab.)

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The vzaar team is back in the office after two days at ChannelAdvisor’s superb Catalyst event. Hundreds of online sellers, service providers and others gathered with ChannelAdvisor staff to talk about selling more and examine the trends that are fuelling the continued growth of ecommerce. It was great fun meeting and chatting with dozens of online sellers about video and how it can invigorate eBay sales.

What did we learn? Well, lots. There isn’t much cause for doom and gloom just yet. Ecommerce spending in Europe, America and Asia is still set to grow every year for the next 5 years, even if other aspects of the economy are shrinking or slowing down. That said, more and more traditional High Street retailers are beginning to fully understand how they can exploit ecommerce more effectively so there is likely to be greater competition.

eBay remains a critical online channel for many, if not most sellers, and much attention was given over to getting eBay to work really hard for you. The changes to feedback and fees were much discussed and sellers are still digesting the enormous raft of changes that eBay has announced. (Oh and eBay UK’s MD, Mark Lewis told attendees to expect more). Contrary to press coverage predicting a strike on May 1, the people I spoke to were pleased with the changes, said business was generally very good and they expected to expand their eBay operations this year.

But eBay isn’t the only kid on the block anymore. Google and Amazon are attracting buyers and sellers. Amazon, in particular, is enjoying phenomenal growth and it’s a vital channel for many merchants already. Scot Wingo, Channel Advisor’s CEO also primed sellers for big changes this side of the Atlantic from Google in and from Google Product Search in particular.

It’s obvious that sellers looking to increase their sales need a variety of channels. Be it eBay, their own website, Google, Amazon, comparison shopping sites or more specialised marketplaces such as play.com. And the choice available is greater than before. It is remarkable to note, especially in these times of economic uncertainty, that there was no doubt from attendees that if they put the time and effort in that they could grow their businesses and profitability.

And last, but not least, if you didn’t have time to stop by the vzaar stand at Catalyst: don’t worry! Drop us a line and we’ll get in touch: http://www.vzaar.com/contact

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Hello there,

I'm Jamie and one of the newer folk here at vzaar. Since joining from eBay I've been focusing on working with PowerSellers to better understand how we can build a product that meets the needs of the selling community and then how to best market that. As a result we've taken a hammer to the vzaar piggy bank and signed up for a place at Catalyst 2008. But what exactly is Catalyst I hear you cry?

Well, between April 21st and 22nd, Channel Advisor are hosting their annual ecommerce shin dig called Catalyst in London and it promises to be quite an occasion.

The two-day event brings together retailers from across the UK to discuss their success stories and learn about upcoming industry trends that will help boost their online businesses and naturally we wanted to be there to share our story and fly the vzaar flag nice and high for all to see. If you are serious about selling on eBay and thinking about expanding the number of channels through which you sell then this really is the type of event you should be attending. There are guest speakers from eBay, Google, Play.com and Red Letter Days to name just a few and my friends at Channel Advisor HQ tell me that there are still a few places left if you wish to register.

If you currently use Channel Advisor to manage your inventory but are new to vzaar then don't be shy, come and say hello. I promise not to throw my arms around you in front of all the other delegates but will be only too happy to explain to you how easy it is to incorporate our video player into your current listing templates. Alternatively if you are already a vzaar convert then great, the first drink is on me!

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Of all the changes that eBay have unveiled in the last few months (and make no mistake, we’ve seen the biggest slew of significant developments in the marketplace’s history) those that affect feedback and Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs) are the ones that impact sellers the most. Those little orange stars can now determine the prominence of your wares in search results and, critically for PowerSellers, they also influence whether or not you get final value fee discounts.

Like it or loathe it, every eBay seller needs to keep an eye on their DSRs and, where necessary, concentrate on improving them. There’s plenty of sage advice out there from Scot Wingo and Tamebay, to name but two. We reckon that video has a part to play. Here are some ideas about how you can use vzaar in your eBay listings to help keep your DSRs high.

Describing your Items
There are marks for describing your items accurately. So it’s more important than ever to be full, frank and honest. There’s no better way of giving buyers a complete idea of what you’re selling than with video. Explain the item, expose the flaws and elaborate the details with sound and vision.

Talk Shipping
Are you concerned that your buyers don’t understand your P&P terms? Consider including a video in all your listings to manage expectations. You can produce one video that’s good across all your listings so getting the message across needed take you much time.

Communication Counts
You want 5 star communications, so don’t forget that different folks like different strokes. Some people will happily read reams of text, others will barely read a word and rely on your images. Others will respond favourably to the immediacy of video. It may not immediately appeal to you. But think of the buyers who will love it and reward you for taking the trouble.

Not only, but also.
Video isn’t meant to replace anything you offer already. It’s about taking a ‘belts and braces’ approach to ensure you are giving yourself every change to get the best DSRs. Adding a video to your eBay listings can be part of your efforts to be a five star eBay seller.

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In vzaar HQ we've been enjoying lots of videos these past few weeks, here are some of our favourites...

Direct from Oklahoma, Bobby's your man for guitars:

Need a really, really big set of doors? Open sesame!

Loving the chimes...

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Have you seen vzaar being used in the new celeb auction on eBay? 20th Century Fox and eBay are collaborating over a charity auction for 27dresses – a new movie coming out at the end of the month.

They’ve got 27 lovely celebs to donate a dress of theirs for auction – all the proceeds of which go to charity – the Lavender Trust.

The auctions are going really well, with numerous dresses already having been sold – Kylie’s Geri’s and Amy’s to mention a few and more to come – Mariah’s, Beverly’s, Naomi’s and Loraine’s still to come.

Check out the trailer for the movie.

Looks like a cracker and just up my street.... but then again I'm the only female in the office!

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This post may come a little late but just for those who haven’t noticed, I’m pleased to announce vzaar’s new site launch!

As of yesterday afternoon, vzaar has had a bit of a face lift. When I say face lift, what I really mean to say is that it’s had a redesign, re-brand and significant structural overhaul. Our designer, Mauricio has done us proud, as has our architect Jonathan, both of whom have been working all hours to get this new site up and running, so we thank them very much and hope they take a good twenty minute tea break before getting started on our next plan...

Not only have we got a new site and a new video engine but we’ve also taken into account lots of your suggestions and developed some more functionality that should make selling with video on eBay even easier. If you are using videos more and more in your business, you might benefit from buying one of our premium packages. They allow you to:

• Search Find the listings you want to using the item number or the item name to search.


• More videos Increase the number of videos you can embed each month.


• Multiple embed tools Embed one video into multiple listings with one click.


• Upload Increase the Gb monthly limit.


• Length Upload longer videos. Up to 3 minutes.

Have a look see at our premium packages page. Jamie “6 takes” Parkins has made a video that explains it all.

We sincerely hope you like the new stuff. We love the site but we’ve been immersed in it for a couple of months and so are a bit biased and would love to know what you think.

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Seth Godin, the godfather of modern marketing, has written many books on what it takes to get your product or services noted in today’s market. Considering many markets today are saturated, some veering more toward flooded, his insights are extremely helpful.

What stands out from his very readable book, Purple Cow, is whether a new product is “remarkable” or not. And in this case “remarkable” can be taken to mean - is it worth remarking on? The Purple Cow reference come from his analogy that as we see cows all the time and due to their common place appearance we virtually ignore them. If one day we drove past a cow that was purple it would more likely grab our attention and prompt us to remark on it... or make us crash the car.

Here’s a video of the talk he gave at the prestigious TED talks - which gets big thinkers together to share their ideas.

My point in sharing this with you is because I’m building up to the question, “Are eBay listings for particular products like ordinary cows?” And if in some cases that is true, what can be done to make the listings more remarkable?

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