Energy Drink manufacturer Red Bull have forced UK auction site TazBar to ban all products bearing the logo or name of the company.
Not in the news for a while in the BuildaSkill blog, I found a recent post on TazBar’s news board that states -

The July newsletter from UK-managed auction & stores network eBid is in, and the achievements are impressive.

The site hit the critical-mass one million active auction listings during July and are correctly trumpeting it proudly – this moves them from the “small fry” into the “big fish” pond, and leaves self-proclaimed competitor TazBar flapping in the shallows. Of course, eBid still have a long way to go to catch up to eBay or even some of the middle tier US-only sites, but with a million listings in the search engine results, it’ll drive traffic, sales, and additional listings. That’s something the site are pushing hard for, with twice monthly uploads of the whole (eligible) inventory database to GoogleBase certainly helping, with a reported 25% increase in GMV, month-on-month, between May & June 2008.

QXL UK have given up the fight against eBay – unable to acquire sufficient traffic or members, they are closing down at the end of May 2008.

eBay UK’s crusade, to bring Business and PowerSellers inline with eBay’s vision of the future for the site, has left many gasping for breath and incredulous at the way in which eBay has tried to extend existing UK legislation – the seller address details on all listings, and the new 14-day returns policy for example. That 14-day returns policy has however, opened a few eyes to deeper details of existing UK consumer protection legislation, and in my case brought some old eBay announcements back to the forefront of current ruminations ….

This month sees the switch from being reliant on Commission Junction (CJ) for management of their Affiliate Marketing scheme, to taking it in-house with the eBay Partner Network. Last month’s announcement was full of hype and spin about improved benefits and flexibility for affiliates, but already long-standing CJ members are complaining of being refused admission to the new Partner Network.

Whilst the seller community still reels at the changes introduced by eBay this week, competitor sites have not been slow to react.  Many are directly marketing to eBay’s paying and non-paying customers in the hope of cashing in on the predictable upset and anxiety caused by some of the most radical policy shifts to ever [...]

TazBar.com – the “New Kid” on the online auction block - launched with much fanfare during the 2006 eBay Shops/Stores plus fee hikes debacle.  Although it had been planned sometime before eBay’s announcement, the owners had hoped to delay launch until the start of the peak Christmas season, but took full advantage of seller disatisfaction with [...]