This week in the Bloggosphere and beyond … take a break from wrapping Christmas presents and have a read of the the news round up.

Bloggosphere

ecommerce-guide.com has published its “Picks of the Year for eBay alternatives”.  Included is an attempt to “officialise” the term “eBay alternative”, and the lucky winners are Wigix, Bonanzle, and Etsy.  I’ve posted discussion threads in the BuildaSkill forums for each of those choices, with links to the ecommerce-guide article.  Please have a read and add your comments in our forums (login required).

I’ve just caught up with a post by Mike Butcher from TechCrunch that’s a few weeks old – seems eBay France is closing down completely from what he’s reported from the Le Web conference.  First I’ve heard of it, as he writes in a way that implies the site is closing as well as the offices, but he’s got a farewell video from the French staff – unfortunately I can only watch it and not hear it – my speakers have gone pffftt.  C’est la vie.

Another Mike, this time Mike Holden from Atomic Mall, has been interviewed by Greg Holden for AuctionBytes concerning his latest entrant to the online venue arena.  Interesting stuff.

Back to the topic of farewells, and Henrietta at RedInkDiary has written a damning obituary for the departing/departed Simon Smith, former head of eBay downunder, he of the “sellers are like heroin addicts” global fame, and the man named as dreaming up the PayPal-only policy.  She also dragged out of the shadows and made questionable, the promotion of Brian Burke from Director of Global Feedback Policy to Director of Global Marketplace Policy.  This is the guy who tried to redefine neutral to mean negative.  What’s next I wonder … ended listings with watchers being subject to FVFs because someone showed interest in them?

Blog quote of the week

Not sure what’s going on this week – the bloggosphere is a bit vacant.  Randy Smythe hasn’t posted since Tuesday, and BrewsNews since Wednesday. plus links to Brews are redirecting to a single-post blog on WordPress.com instead of their usual site.

Best I can find is Skip McGrath’s midweek post title – “Winter Storms Can Kill Your Feedback and DSR’s If You Don’t Protect Yourself” – I hope John Donahoe and Brian Burke read it.

Discussions & Forums

• eBay FR is committed to promoting the regime of self-contractor – which kind of contradict’s Tech Crunches article above.
• Winnie-the-Pooh sets new Auction Records
• Goldsmiths key to international cyberbullying research
• Removing hidden and non tariff barriers – helping European business
• UK – North East sustains export push
• eBay US Extended Seller Promotions Thru March 31, 2009 so does France

International

Late Friday, most of Asia was cut of from Europe on the Internet and by telephone.  The problem was caused by breaking of the undersea cables (all three of them – so much for redundancy protection) between Sicily and Egypt.  Gaz has assembled excellent info and written a couple of great articles on the Expat Eye blog.  It appears the first cable will not be fixed until Christmas Day, and full service not resumed until New Year’s Eve.

If you’re trading from Europe and the UK with partners in Asia, please be aware of the communication issues involved for the next week and a half (and spread the word to others that you know may be affected).

eBay France and some sort of quango have come together to promote the interests of the self-employed and micro-businesses working from home.  The quango’s website seems to imply it’s for French nationals only, though that would be against European law, therefore if you’re expatriate in France, it’s worth checking out in our forums, where we have the English translations and auto-translating links via Google to the website.

Money Matters

The New York Times online edition has reported that Twitter are trialling a new 3rd-party application for making payments.  TwitPay is billed by it’s founders as being designed as a payment tool to respond faster to major disasters as well as a way to collect money from social event bill-sharing.  Currently the only withdrawal method is via Amazon gift vouchers.

One third of a billion dollars is the estimated spend for a new eBay computer and data centre in Utah according to the Salt Lake Tribune.  Reading between the lines at the foot of the article, eBay seems worried about the risk of earthquakes in California, and maybe about rising sea levels too if their harping about “environmentally friendly” is anything to go by.  The report details they’re getting substantial tax benefits for the new centre, and will be situated next to the new Oracle global data centre (at least they’ll have decent programmers a minute’s walk away), but are going to pay 50% over the odds based on comparative salaries for the region.  Should that salary inflation be of concern to eBay’s paying customers and shareholders?

VentureBeat has reported that Daniel Levy has been appointed Director of Risk Management at Facebook.  Previously a senior with PayPal, Levy will be working with the Facebook operations team to helping the company manage risk, especially in terms of its finances.  Amongst other tasks, he’ll be analysing how to protect the company’s advertising revenue stream from their more than 10,000 advertisers.

I’m left wondering if this appointment and role is in any way related to a couple of reports received that Facebook are issuing payment failure notices to advertisers, after the payment has been taken from their bank accounts via debit cards?  More on that last topic, on BuildaSkill, once the affected advertisers have resolved the issue with Facebook.

Online Channels & Venues

Canada.com has reported an upcoming survey from the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, which states that buyers on eBay habitually pay more than they should for items purchased.  Well, “No sh1t Sherlock!” – by the time you add on around 20% to cover eBay fees for sold and unsold listing costs, and another 3% average for PayPal costs to item price and shipping, plus packaging materials costs, there’s a hefty portion of the item price that is “Cost of Sale” expenses – and on eBay those are far higher than any other channel, including bricks and mortar outlets.  The report reflects the truth of using the eBay channel, and will make other channels even more attractive to buyers in future selling seasons.

Gaz was up with the larks this morning (Sunday) – or rather “up with the monks” as they say in Thailand – in order to put in a “serious session” stocking up the ad server with new entries and clearing out redundant ones.  I got an early (too early for a Sunday) excited phone call from him to say that the eBid banners were appearing again, and that he’d been able to log into both the UK and Singapore servers.

He’d already had a good nosy around the forums and checked his shops and listings before calling me, and reports there was no mention he could find concerning the 2-month outage to the “rest of the world”, anywhere on the eBid sites.  He also reported that the Scandinavian countries have been added into their mix, with Portugal due too. Seems the angst he displayed in several eBid groups on Facebook, late in the week, may have done the trick and shamed the site into re-opening its doors.

As I asked a few weeks ago, was this blockage purely for the premium-selling pre-Christmas season and a bit of protectionism, or are the boys from Surrey-UK going to give an honest answer to the many people who want to know why they couldn’t access their listings for 2 months, and thus have been left with stock they couldn’t sell in case it also sold on eBid during the access blockage?

Suppliers & Services

Britain’s TimesOnline has published an expose of working conditions in one of Amazon UK’s distribution centres.  In the feature the conditions they describe are comparable to archetypal sweatshop conditions, though for better salaries.  The Times placed a reporter in the warehouse, for a week, as a seasonal casual worker via Amazon’s contract staff agency.  Commenters who have worked for Amazon have slammed the article in their posts (readable below the main article).  Although it’s not stated directly, from the range of inventory mentioned, it would appear the warehouse infiltrated was one of Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon holding and shipping centres.  Internet Retailer summarised Amazon’s response to the article, adding nothing new to the Amazon statements included with TimesOnline‘s feature.

Webifying

See International above – we’ll be focussing on East Asia, Asia Pacific, and the Americas for the next couple of weeks, because to be honest, access to the UK and western Europe is dreadful this weekend.  During the holidays, we’ll be bringing you lots of new topics and news of a basketful of companies we’ve never covered before on BuildaSkill.  A lot of reports have already been written and scheduled – you didn’t expect me to be working on Christmas Day did you?

World Affairs

Thailand’s got a new Prime Minister, and in my opinion the best man currently available for the job.  President-elect Obama is all over the news doing a better job of managing the economic stimulus than the current man in the job.  The EC has had another wave of announcements and communiques espousing open and free trade.  China’s economy is heading in the same direction as the rest of the world, and the Pound Sterling is heading into toilet tissue territory.  Oh, and it looks like much of the US is going to have a White Christmas … time to dust off that old Bing Crosby movie again?

Looking Ahead

Christmas this week, the hammock’s got tinsel on it, and a big sprig of plastic mistletoe is nailed to the palm tree, but the missus has been de-sharpening her rusty hacksaw and has made threatening gestures in the direction of my nether region.  Hohum – so much for Christmas spirit.

Ed