Author: Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.

Amazon Turns to Merchants for More Warehouse Space

January 28, 2018 Ina Steiner

Amazon is working on a way to increase its warehouse capacity with zero capital expenditure. How is that possible? Turn its sellers’ warehouses into FBA fulfillment centers. It has already invited a small percentage of sellers into the program, called Read more

Amazon Reduces Inefficiencies in FBA with Supply Chain Connect

January 27, 2018January 27, 2018 Ina Steiner

Amazon launched a new program for FBA merchants called Supply Chain Connect designed to increase efficiency and boost its control of inbound shipping to its warehouses. Sellers currently have two ways to get inventory from suppliers to Amazon fulfillment centers. Read more

eBay Rolls Out Program to Combat Ad Fraud

January 27, 2018 Ina Steiner

eBay Advertising announced a new program to help it combat ad fraud called Ads.txt, which stands for Authorized Digital Sellers. Ads.txt is a simple text file that sits in the page source code of the eBay domain. eBay uses Ads.txt Read more

Walmart Announces Strategic Alliance with Rakuten

January 26, 2018 Ina Steiner

The saying, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” applies to a new ecommerce alliance announced today between Rakuten and Walmart as they feel the heat from Amazon’s continuing growth. Rakuten went up against Amazon and eBay after it Read more

eBay UK Names Business Award Winners

January 26, 2018 Ina Steiner

eBay announced the winners of its first UK eBay for Business Awards. The two grand prize winners, Joe Waggot of Metal Polishing Supplies and Henry Bishop and James Grear of The Coin Supplier will each receive a cash prize along Read more

Etsy Adds Feature to Help Attract International Sales

January 25, 2018 Ina Steiner

Etsy has added a tool to help sellers grow international sales. While marketplaces may offer automatic (“machine”) translations, Etsy is making it easier for multilingual sellers to add their own translations to their listings. “Translations you add yourself tend to Read more

Amazon Runs One-Day Sale for UK Shoppers

January 25, 2018 Ina Steiner

Amazon is running a one-day sale on its UK marketplace as a “thank you” for ranking it number one in the 2018 UK Customer Satisfaction Index. However, items for sale by third-party sellers are excluded from the promotion. Shoppers must Read more

Stripe Payments Ends Support for Bitcoin

January 25, 2018 Ina Steiner

Stripe announced it is ending support for Bitcoin payments. In a blog post this week, Product Manager Tom Karlo said Bitcoin’s evolution has made it less useful for payments and better suited to being an asset rather than a means Read more

Over 4.4 Million Searches for Legos on eBay UK Last Year

January 24, 2018 Ina Steiner

eBay UK issued a press release on Wednesday to celebrate the Lego toy brand, saying it was the third most searched for item on eBay UK last year (over 4.4 million total searches), coming in behind behind iPhones and Fidget Read more

ToysRUs to Close 180 Stores in US

January 24, 2018January 24, 2018 Ina Steiner

ToysRUs launched a financial restructuring last fall, and this week announced it would be closing about 180 stores in the US. The bad news may offer a silver lining for online sellers looking for discounted inventory – store-closing sales will Read more