Amazon Reaps Prime Rewards as eBay Floats Fulfillment Program

January 18, 2019 10:39 am

New research highlights Amazon’s Prime advantage even as eBay tests a new fulfillment system for sellers. In a report released on Thursday, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, LLC (CIRP) estimated that …
Read More

PayPal Hire Hints at New Global Marketing Campaign

January 18, 2019 12:32 am

PayPal hired a Chief Marketing Officer and added a new member to its board of directors. As Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Allison Johnson will lead strategic marketing …
Read More

Online Brands Are Going to the Mall

January 18, 2019 12:07 am

Shopping malls are transforming themselves to adapt to changing consumer behavior caused by mobile and online shopping, with some malls turning abandoned department store space over to grocery stores, but …
Read More

eBay Pulls Back on Seattle Expansion Plans

January 16, 2019 8:47 pm

eBay pulled back on plans to expand its presence in Bellevue, Washington in the Seattle area and is instead shrinking it, according to Business Journal. eBay’s Seattle team has taken …
Read More

eBay to Fill Top PR Role after Dan Tarman’s Departure

January 16, 2019 8:32 pm

Dan Tarman left eBay days before Christmas, and after the Holmes Report reported his replacement last week, eBay made the news official: it’s hiring Steve Wymer to replace him. That …
Read More

Auctions Up 20% on Invaluable as Collectors Embrace Online Bidding

January 16, 2019 1:08 pm

Invaluable said it sold half a million lots on its global marketplace in 2018, which is up 20% over the previous year and is up 130% over 5 years. The …
Read More

Etsy Adds to List of States for Which It Collects Sales Tax

January 15, 2019 11:31 pm

Etsy has added to the list of states for which it collects sales tax under Marketplace Facilitator laws. For Etsy-only sellers, such laws can simplify compliance issues, but for multi-channel …
Read More

Visa Helps Small Biz Owners with She’s Next Campaign

January 15, 2019 10:52 pm

Visa launched a campaign to support small-business owners with the She’s Next campaign, which will champion and empower women in their entrepreneurial efforts to grow their businesses, and it released …
Read More

How Pending Postage Hike Will Impact eBay Sellers

January 15, 2019 4:40 pm

eBay advised sellers about the USPS postage rate increase coming on January 27, 2019. “The eBay shipping calculator and eBay labels are updating as rate changes take effect. Make sure …
Read More

Alibaba Offers Financing for Sellers Buying Inventory

January 15, 2019 1:01 am

Alibaba debuted its Pay Later service for online sellers procuring inventory on its marketplace during the CES show last week. The service is powered by Kabbage, which kicked off the …
Read More

USPS Gains Market Share from Rivals

January 13, 2019 10:19 pm

The US Postal Service (USPS) continues to gain market share from its rivals, according to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), which adopted rules this month concerning the share of institutional …
Read More

Facebook and Instagram a Major Source of Holiday Traffic

January 13, 2019 10:01 pm

A newly released report from Salesforce found social media was the breakout channel for holiday shopping traffic in 2018, with use of mobile devices a contributing factor. Social traffic grew …
Read More

From the Editor – January 13, 2019

January 12, 2019 4:59 pm

After tallying your nominations, the voting is now open for the 2019 Sellers Choice Awards. My favorite part is the comments section where sellers provide an insider’s look and detail …
Read More

EcommerceBytes Online Selling Trends 2019: Back to Basics

January 12, 2019 4:58 pm

What can you expect for your ecommerce business in 2019? The responses from this year’s participants in EcommerceBytes “Online Selling Trends” feature indicate this will be a year for dealing …
Read More

Diversification and Expansion Beyond Marketplaces

January 12, 2019 4:57 pm

Abby Glassenberg is a designer, author, blogger at WhileSheNaps.com, and co-founder of the Craft Industry Alliance. She discusses diversification and expansion beyond marketplaces in Part 1 of EcommerceBytes Online Selling …
Read More

New Sales Tax Obligations

January 12, 2019 4:56 pm

Barbara Weltman is President of Big Ideas for Small Business, Inc., a source for tax, legal, and financial information specially developed for small businesses and independent entrepreneurs and is author …
Read More

An Increase in Returns Combined with High Demand for Used Goods

January 12, 2019 4:55 pm

Jen Wehrmaker is Vice President of Marketing at B-Stock Solutions and former marketing executive at some big ecommerce names, including PayPal, eBay, and GoDaddy. She discusses how merchants can expoit …
Read More

Major Changes in USPS Rate Structure, Adoption of Voice Technology

January 12, 2019 4:54 pm

Chris Vaughn is Vice President of Marketing at ShippingEasy, which provides a simple online shipping app for online sellers with optimized USPS postage rates and the ability to plug in …
Read More

Retail Convergence Accompanied by Tax Complexities

January 12, 2019 4:53 pm

Greg Chapman is Senior Vice President of Avalara, which offers multi-channel merchants solutions for automated tax calculations, easy returns preparation, and integrated document management; former Amazon executive. He discusses retail …
Read More

Increasing Cost and Complexity of Parcel Shipping

January 12, 2019 4:52 pm

Chris Jones is Executive Vice President of Marketing & Services at logistics firm Descartes whose offerings include diverse ecommerce solutions such as warehouse management, along with the ShipRush shipping solution …
Read More

Artificial Intelligence “Glass Box,” In-Store Personalization

January 12, 2019 4:51 pm

Nikki Baird is Vice President of Retail Innovation at Aptos, a retail enterprise solution provider, as well co-founder of Retail Systems Research and a former analyst at Forrester Research. She …
Read More

Continued Dominance of Ecommerce by Amazon

January 12, 2019 4:50 pm

Claudia Hoeffner is Vice President of Global Marketing at Feedvisor, an AI-driven advertising and brand optimization platform for brands, large sellers, retailers, and private labels on Amazon. She discusses the …
Read More

EcommerceBytes Soundoff: Letters to the Editor – January 13, 2019

January 12, 2019 4:49 pm

In every issue, readers soundoff about issues important to them. From shipping issues to payment processing, from fees to online marketplace policies, EcommerceBytes Soundoff gives you a chance to air …
Read More

Will Sellers Pay More for Supplies from China?

January 10, 2019 11:14 pm

EcommerceBytes readers have been saying for years that it’s unfair that Chinese sellers can ship some small packages to US buyers for less than it costs domestic sellers. But after …
Read More

Reminder: Save Your Flickr Photos Before February 5th

January 10, 2019 11:08 pm

If you host a lot of photos on Flickr, you need to save them by February 5, 2019 if you don’t have a Pro Flickr paid subscription. As we reported …
Read More

Big Money in Tax Pain: TaxJar Closes $60M Funding Round

January 9, 2019 10:57 am

There’s big money in offering solutions to painful problems, and one major pain for small online sellers is dealing with online sales tax compliance. TaxJar announced today it has closed …
Read More

What Happened to Comparison Shopping Engine NexTag?

January 7, 2019 4:39 pm

What happened to NexTag? We received a news tip from a reader today about the comparison shopping engine: “It looks like Nextag website is offline and has been since Dec …
Read More

PayPal CEO Warns of Changes Ahead, Embraces the Challenge

January 6, 2019 8:25 pm

In a letter to employees, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman revealed his priorities for the payments firm formerly owned by eBay. Not surprisingly, mobile was at the top of the list, …
Read More

Amazon Pay Tempts Merchants with Echo Device

January 6, 2019 10:58 am

Amazon is tempting merchants to sign up for its Amazon Pay payments solution by dangling an Amazon Echo device before their eyes. An email described the new promotion as follows: …
Read More

Etsy Adds to List of States for Which It Collects Sales Tax

eBay Starts Collecting Sales Tax with More States to Come

January 4, 2019 12:09 am

eBay announced in October it would begin collecting sales tax in 4 states in 2019 due to new laws that extend the tax collection obligation to marketplaces (known as Marketplace …
Read More