ChannelAdvisor are poised to announce a major coup on Monday, they’ve secured new eBay UK MD, Mark Lewis, as a keynote speaker for the Catalyst conference taking place in London this April. eBay joins Google, Frooition, Vzaar and Royal Mail as sponsors of the conference.
Mark Lewis took over as UK MD in January this year, having joined eBay in 2004. This will be the first opportunity eBay users will have to be able to meet him face to face.
It’s expected that after the keynote speech, Mark will stay for an open Q&A session as well as participating in workshops and panel discussions throughout the two day conference. These sessions are liable to be lively as the changes to feedback and search roll out across the site and sellers begin to discover how they’re affected.
The long awaited 30 day DSR console is due to be released at the end of March, just weeks before the conference takes place and Mark will be participating in a DSR workshop at the conference.
Look for more news on the Catalyst website after the weekend and make sure you’ve booked a place. With no eBay Universities this year it will be one of the few opportunities to meet eBay employees in 2008. If you’ve ever wanted to quiz to eBay’s top management this is the event to attend.
19 Responses
do you need an anorak
Nah – they’re provided on arrival 😛
But you might need a life vest for the river cruise in the evening 😀
Oh dear John, we call them “life jackets” in the UK 😛
Hey
Just found this website and its great, so well done whoever runs it!!
Im probably being really thick but what is this event all about? I have never heard of Channel Advisor?
Thanks
Stu
Hi Stuart,
Welcome to TameBay.
ChannelAdvisor are a company who make software to help sellers manage sales over multiple different “channels”, or sites. So for example, if you sell CDs, you might list them on eBay, Amazon, Play.com and your own website. CA will help you to not only control the stock (so you don’t sell the same thing twice), but look at which sites are doing better for your profits.
Catalyst will be full of great advice on how to build and expand your business; take a look at their website. You can see the sessions which are planned (the Google guy looks particularly interesting even if he is horribly early in the morning :-D). And normally at this kind of event, you get as much out of talking to other sellers as you do out of the official content.
Hope that helps!
Hi
Thanks for the info, I have 4 stores on ebay, 2 websites with a 3rd on the way, I have just left my full time job to get on with this full time.
Im thinking this could be good to go to then? Im not a massive business (yet) just me and 2 employee’s, do you think us small fry go to this sort of thing as well?
stu
If you’ve got two employees you’re three times as big as me. I’ve been to Catalyst before (even before I was involved with TameBay I attended other similar events such as ChannelAdvisor Insite). I can highly recommend it to you, it’ll open your eyes to a world of opportunities that you may never have thought of plus give you a great direction as to where ecommerce is going in 08-09
Stuart,
I’d say you’d be well advised to take a good look at what Channel Advisor and other like services have to offer. Time and money well-spent.
I third the vote you should go, Stuart. See you there – come and say hi 🙂
Cool I will be there, see you there and thanks for a very great site, really enjoy checking it everyday!
Great news this. eBay needs to be as visible and approachable as possible this year given the changes in both features and management.
Mark – is a BIG eBay fan, a user of some years so it be great to see him address the top sellers again. I just hope that attendees use the time constructively rather than as a forum for a whinge. No one wins that way.
Hey guys just thought I would tell you I have just booked my place!! Payed the highest price, should of seen it earlier, but never mind!
So see you all there, looking forward to it!
stu
Yay! See you there, Stu. I’m the short fat one with red hair 😀
Hi tamebay and all tamebayers,
Could tamebay please arrange to publish (in full not just selective highlights) Ebay MD Marks keynote speech and also the Q & A sessions transcripts for the workshops inwhich he participates.
This would be of great value/service to all of us that can’t be there.
Hopefully shedding more light on the reasoning behind so many contentious changes.
thanks,
j.t.
We’ll do our best, but me short hand ain’t that good 😯
Hi Chris…
Given the opportunity, please do ask if and when ebay will resolve the multitude of ‘grey areas” re fb issues.
Ebay currently acts as judge and jury to whether neg’ fb and dsr ratings are valid and remain published or not?
Now that the neg’ fb and dsr ratings are factored in calculating seller fee discount eligibility, surely the system must be…….
Transparent, consistent, well conceived, in concord with the law and of the same high customer standard that ebay desires of it’s own seller community.
For now, the situation reeks of ‘conflict of interest’, surely that’s not what ebay want !?!?
Why the ‘C of I’ ? Because ebay might profit from questionable fb and dsr ratings being inclusive in discount eligibility calculations.
As things stand, ebay might not fair well if they applied a dsr ratings to themselves, for their customers to score…..
Reminds one of the well worn school report adage….
”could do better” !
Thanks,
Justin Time.
Have to say it’s not eBay acting as judge and jury… it’s your customers themselves judging what feedback to leave you. 😉
Having said that eBay appear to be looking more closely at when feedback should be removed with a promise to beef up support on issues like feedback extortion.
I don’t think there’s really a conflict of interest – the odd poor feedback won’t impact most sellers feedback to any great extent. It’s if they’re routinely getting poor feedback or low DSR scores that sadly the seller won’t qualify for discounts (even if the odd questionable feedback was removed).
I do think there’s a strong arguement, once sellers are prevented from leaving a neg or neut for buyers, for DSRs to become more visible, i.e. for the seller to be able to view scores left on a buyer by buyer, sale by sale basis. That way sellers can identify transcations and probably causes as to why buyers ranked them highly or lowly… that visibility would be invaluable in guiding sellers to improve.
If you have some questions you’d like answered please do feel free to post them and we’ll do our best to get them asked. Questions need to be short and consise and to the point if they’re to get effective answers though (your request above is a bit too wooly to stand a chance of getting a pertinent answer). No promises though… it’ll be a busy session 🙂
hi chris –
wooly?
hmmnnn 😉
sheep shaved and….
eBay act as judge and jury… evaluating if neg’ fb will be withdrawn – not buyers.
system needs improvement especially re’ feedback extortion matters (in ebays own best interests too).
if in doubt?
latest announcement from lorrie @ ebay .com , confirms a problem exists.
conflict of interest – one neg’ fb left not withdrawn, can contribute to resul in ebay profit from own ‘judgement call’ , it’s conflict of interest – this isn’t opinion it’s logical/fact.
chris you wrote – ” I do think there’s a strong arguement, once sellers are prevented from leaving a neg or neut for buyers, for DSRs to become more visible, i.e. for the seller to be able to view scores left on a buyer by buyer, sale by sale basis. That way sellers can identify transcations and probably causes as to why buyers ranked them highly or lowly… that visibility would be invaluable in guiding sellers to improve. ”
agreed, shave the sheep you get …..
would benefit seller if individual buyer dsr ratings were published in detail.
more…
ebay, it’s fb’ & dsr systems, all related guidelines, should be clear, well defined and transparent –
best regards,
justin time.