Auction News and More!

[Lanascountry]

Cyber Monday Spending Hit $733 Million


Unhappy Yahoo merchants may be a little more bitter than they were earlier this week. ComScore reported a 21 percent increase in spending on the Monday after Thanksgiving, compared to the same day in 2006.

Non-travel retail spending reached $610 million for 2006's Cyber Monday. The 2007 edition blew past that without breaking a sweat, as people apparently returned to work or home after the holiday and set their browsers for "Spend Now!"

ComScore said 60 percent of the spending came from work computers for the day, with the remaining percentage spread between home and university connections. There was a significant change when comparing this year's Cyber Monday with last year's, according to the company:

The number of online buyers was up 38 percent compared to Cyber Monday 2006, while the average dollars spent per buyer was down 12 percent. The decline in dollars per buyer may be due to two factors -- deeper and broader price discounts offered by online merchants this year and the fact that “new Cyber Monday buyers” tended to spend less online than returning buyers.

Among the top ten online retail destinations, five saw traffic double their normal daily visitors, while MSN Shopping more than tripled its number. Yahoo Shopping saw an 85 percent increase in daily visitors, a gain that will certainly add to the frustration Yahoo merchants with out of service websites experienced.


http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/11/28/cyber-monday-spending-hit-733-million

[Lanascountry]

PayPal Gives $50 Cash Back to Consumers in Holiday Promotion

Just after Google announced its Google Checkout holiday promotion, PayPal announced its own offer for customers who use its payment service. Customers can receive 20 percent cash back on purchases made with participating merchants for a maximum of $50 cash back per PayPal account. (Payments at Overstock.com must each be for at least $100 to qualify.) The promotion runs through December 10, 2007 - the day many are expecting to be the busiest shopping day of the holiday season.

Google Checkout offers range from free shipping to discounts of up to $50 off select purchases on each participating merchant's website, and runs through December 17, 2007. In addition, consumers can earn up to 10,000 frequent flyer miles on qualifying Google Checkout purchases through December 31, 2007
(http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m11/i26/s02).

Both promotions are limited to US residents only.

https://www.paypal-promo.com/holiday/slider/index.html?s=cashback

[Lanascountry]

November 30th, 2007
It’s official: Google will bid in 700 Mhz wireless auction
Posted by Larry Dignan
Categories: General, Wired & Wireless, Mobile, Government, Google, Telecommunications

Tags: FCC, Google Inc., Auction, Wireless, Larry Dignan
2 TalkBacks Share Digg Del.ico.us Sphere Blog This Print Email Recommend Don't Recommend +02
Google said Friday it will bid in the Federal Communication Commission’s 700 megahertz wireless spectrum auction. The company also said it is bidding solo.

The auction, which gets underway Jan. 24, is an important one since it frees up spectrum occupied by television networks for wireless Internet services. Google had been expected to bid at the minimum reserve price of $4.6 billion, but it’s unclear whether the search giant is serious about winning the auction.

In a statement CEO Eric Schmidt said:

“We believe it’s important to put our money where our principles are. Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today’s wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet.”

So now what?

For starters, you won’t be hearing much from Google about the auction after today. FCC rules dictate that Google has to keep quiet ahead of the auction.

Chris Sacca, head of special initiatives at Google, outlined the FCC timeline in a blog post:

Monday, December 3, is the deadline for prospective bidders to apply with the FCC to participate in the auction. Though the auction itself won’t start until January 24, 2008, Monday also marks the starting point for the FCC’s anti-collusion rules, which prevent participants in the auction from discussing their bidding strategy with each other.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7196

[Lanascountry]

SAN FRANCISCO, — For years, eBay has defined itself simply as an online marketplace that links buyers and sellers.

The New York Times
Tiffany & Company has accused eBay of being a distribution network that enables the trading of counterfeit Tiffany items.
But in a weeklong bench trial in Federal District Court in Manhattan that ended last Tuesday, lawyers for Tiffany & Company argued that the online auction house was far more than that: it is a distribution network that enables the trading of counterfeit Tiffany items.

If Tiffany wins its case, not only could other lawsuits follow, but eBay’s business model could be threatened because it would be difficult and extremely expensive for the company, based in San Jose, Calif., to police a site that now has 248 million registered users worldwide and approximately 102 million items for sale at any one time.

Tiffany has requested injunctive relief that would require eBay to alter its procedures to eliminate counterfeit silver Tiffany merchandise from its auctions. Judge Richard Sullivan instructed both sides to file post-trial briefs by Dec. 7.

“I will hopefully turn this around quite quickly after that,” he told the lawyers.

Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman, said eBay was not responsible for determining whether each product sold on the site was fake.

“As a marketplace, we never take possession of any of the goods sold on the site, so it would be impossible for us to solely determine the authenticity of an item,” Mr. Durzy said. “And we go above and beyond what the law requires us to do to keep counterfeits off the site.”

But in his closing argument last Tuesday, James B. Swire, the lawyer for Tiffany, told Judge Sullivan that eBay directly advertised the sale of Tiffany jewelry on its home page, and “because eBay profits from the sales generated by these and other actions,” Tiffany considers its actions direct copyright infringement.

Mr. Swire added that “there’s certainly much in the record to show that eBay is liable for contributory infringement.”

Bruce Rich, eBay’s lawyer, told the court the company had fulfilled its obligation to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods. In his closing argument, he said the law places the primary policing responsibility on the trademark owner, Tiffany, because Tiffany has the necessary expertise to identify counterfeits of its products.

Of course, fakes are sold everywhere, as anyone trying to dodge the street vendors selling fake designer handbags in Times Square can attest. But the anonymity and reach of the Internet makes it perfect for selling knockoffs. And as the biggest online marketplace, eBay is the center of a new universe of counterfeit products.

“The fact that eBay has chosen to set up its business in a manner that makes it extremely difficult for it to monitor the merchandise that is sold at its auctions is not a defense,” said Geoffrey Potter, chairman of the anticounterfeiting practice at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, a New York law firm.

Mr. Potter said that if the judge found that eBay had the same duty as flea markets and traditional retail stores to not sell counterfeit products, “eBay will likely have to either stop auctioning famous luxury products or radically alter the way it does business so that it can precertify the authenticity of those products.”

“One way that eBay could do this would be to require proof that Tiffany had been paid for the items, before eBay permits an auction of multiple, identical alleged Tiffany products,” Mr. Potter said.

Mr. Potter said eBay did manage to keep other illegal items — human organs, firearms, and child pornography — off the site. “The truth of the matter is that if eBay wanted to keep counterfeit Tiffany goods off, it probably could,” he said.

When Tiffany filed its suit against eBay in 2004, it said that Tiffany employees had trolled eBay to find fake Tiffany silver jewelry and concluded that 73 percent of 186 pieces they purchased on eBay were counterfeit.

In its original complaint, Tiffany maintained that anyone selling five or more pieces of jewelry said to be Tiffany’s at a discount “is almost certainly selling counterfeit Tiffany goods.” Other makers of luxury goods have complained that sales of counterfeit items are hurting their businesses.

“Louis Vuitton believes that people avoid buying their signature bags because of all the fake ones out there,” Mr. Potter said.

In his opening statement last week, Mr. Swire, Tiffany’s lawyer, said that in 2003 Tiffany put eBay on notice about the counterfeit items and requested that the company investigate. Yet “eBay simply turned a blind eye,” Mr. Swire said.

Last Tuesday, Judge Sullivan questioned Michael J. Kowalski, Tiffany’s chairman and chief executive, about the measures Tiffany has taken to track down and prosecute the counterfeiters.

Mr. Kowalski said it had been difficult — and often fruitless — to pursue sellers who list counterfeits on eBay, as they frequently change identity.

“We simply felt that we were chasing ourselves,” he said, and “chasing phantom sites that would be taken down one day and pop up another day, and so we were in a vicious circle.”

In the end, Mr. Kowalski said, “The heart of the issue was the distribution network,” referring to eBay.

Mr. Durzy said that eBay had put in place additional anticounterfeiting measures since Tiffany filed its suit. These include closer monitoring of categories chosen most often by counterfeiters, like expensive jewelry and handbags, as well as PayPal verification requirements, selective restrictions on sales volume and limits on cross-border sales.

“We’re very pleased with the way the trial went,” Mr. Durzy said.

After each side presented closing arguments, the judge noted what he called “a fundamental disagreement with respect to what the law is here.”

Although Judge Sullivan gave little indication of how he might rule, he pointed to legal precedents that have found that if a manufacturer or distributor continues to supply a product knowing it is engaging in trademark infringement, that manufacturer or distributor is “contributorily responsible” for any harm done as a result of the deceit.

[Lanascountry]

Auction watchdog says eBay is illegal in France
5 Dec 2007
Broker? Auctioneer! What's the difference ...


A French Government watchdog is trying to shut down eBay in France. The Council of Sales regulates auction houses and has said that the site should be bound by strict French auction rules.

The French eBay site does not have one of the Council's permits to operate as an auctions service and so does not have to abide by regulations which were made law in 2000. This, said the Council, gives it an unfair advantage and should change.

“This is unfair competition, because other auctioneers have to make sure they are transparent and that they provide guarantees,” Council chairman Christian Giacomotto told The Times. "Our ambition is not to regulate the world, but we want groups such as eBay to accept their responsibility.”

The Council has filed a lawsuit against eBay in France and hopes that a court will rule that eBay is an auction house and must abide by French rules.

The company said that the regulations should not apply because it is not an auction house, just a facilitator. "EBay has invented a new way of buying and selling, which has been adopted by 10 million French people, and which is not at all the same as that of auction houses," said a company statement. It called the action "totally unjust".

The Council said that eBay's failure to abide by the rules governing auction houses leaves consumers open to exploitation by unscrupulous eBay users, and could make it easier for users to sell fakes or to evade tax.

It is not the first time that the Council has taken such action. Earlier this year it began similar proceedings against a car auction site.

The Council said that it had studied eBay for three years and had put together a list of complaints against the site, including cases of goods not being sent and fake art being sold to consumers.

The Council said that it did not accept eBay's assertion that it was simply a broker and not an actual auctioneer. "What is the difference?" Giacomotto said to The Times. "They charge a commission to the seller and a commission to the buyer. These people cannot say they are responsible for nothing at all. If you rent your house to someone who sets up an illegal casino in it, then you share part of the responsibility."

French regulation of internet businesses recently failed when the Government lost a case in which it tried to prevent an online gambling company from operating. A Maltese horserace betting site, Zeturf, had a ruling banning it from operating overturned in July by France's highest court, the Cour de Cassation.

That court said that France's state monopoly on gambling broke EU competition rules.

[Lanascountry]

EBay fee hike sparks seller rebellion
EBay's new fee structure has small stores fearful about their survival.
January 31 2008: 4:16 PM EST

(FORTUNE Small Business) -- If eBay's fee changes were meant to shore up market share at a time when sellers are increasingly migrating to competitors such as Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500), initial response suggests it may do the opposite: eBay's veteran sellers are furious, with some forecasting ruin for their businesses.

"Ouch!" said Laura Ricciotti, a seller from Windsor, Ontario, about Tuesday's announcement of a new fee structure for the online auction giant.

Ricciotti said the new fees, set to go into effect Feb. 20, will pinch her already tiny margins selling children's books through her eBay (EBAY, Fortune 500) store, Read With Me Books, which began in 2000 with posts for a few auctions for baby clothes and other finds.

"Sellers need to remain competitive in their pricing to do well in eBay's global marketplace, and it will be very difficult to continue to do so and still see a profit," she said, under the new scenario.

And that was one of the gentler reactions

New CEO, uncertain future for eBay
Sellers on eBay's normally rancorous message boards were apoplectic, using phrases like "extortion" to describe the news. On Wednesday several began calling for a general strike, under which sellers would withhold listings for a week.

Ebay's complex new rules affect sellers in almost every part of a transaction.

It reduces upfront costs such as listing fees, which will drop from a starting price of $0.20 to $0.15 for traditional auction listings, and makes gallery photos free. However, eBay is adding more costs to the back end for many sellers with higher final-value fees, the commission eBay takes after a sale. Top sellers will be rewarded with greater visibility and protections, but - in perhaps the most controversial aspect of the shake-up - sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback for buyers.

"I gotta confess I didn't see this particular way of handling it coming," said longtime eBayer and author Julia Wilkinson of the changes in treating feedback against buyers. "I had to read it twice."

LINK TO ARTICLE:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/31/smbusiness/ebay_fee_hike.fsb/index.htm

[elgato]

"PayPal Debit Card Glitch Blocks Transactions, Users Say"

Users are reporting that PayPal seems to be having technical difficulties with a debit card that allows users instant access to the money in their PayPal accounts.

Users report that they are unable to activate the cards or they are being denied transactions.

The problems seem to go back at least a month, based on message board postings on eBay, which owns PayPal. One user on March 5 reported debit card transactions being denied over the phone, online and in-person "for vague security reasons." Several other users have reported similar problems.

On March 20, a user whose PayPal card had been denied repeatedly wrote in a message board posting that a phone conversation with PayPal revealed that thousands of debit cards were de-activated and no longer work.

more.. link to news article

[unclejunk1]

OK paypal no more balance's left now in my name! No really I have not had trouble but it is good to know it could happen and be ready. I do normally carry a balance but that will now stop.

[mj-trading]

Between all of our stores we have 6 paypal dept cards and 4 paypal accounts! We use them daily in town or to pay our suppliers! We have had no problem what so ever with them!

[Lanascountry]

We haven't either, M&J.