The eBay turnaround may be just coming into sight, according to analysts at Jeffries & Co. and Collins Stewart, reflecting this week on eBay's recent positive stock performance and changes to eBay's core marketplace business that appear to have slowed march away from eBay and toward competitors like Amazon.com. Though it doesn't sound as though they're ready to proclaim that eBay is back in all its glory, clear optimism about eBay's future isn't something we've seen for some time. More details at:

     • The Motley Fool
     • The Wall Street Journal
     • Barron's

Sometimes you know exactly what you want to pay for something. On eBay, however, much of the time prices are set by forces beyond your control—by other bidders that are competing to win the same item or by sellers whose prices may seem high to you.

Don't fret. Many eBay sellers are willing to entertain offers from eBay shoppers using a simple, convenient eBay tool, and naming your own price for an item can turn an "I think I'll pass" moment into a great deal. Read on to learn how to find haggle-friendly items and offer sellers a price that's reasonable to you.

See Also

     •  Find Hidden Deals
     •  Avoid Bidding Wars
     •  Post a Wanted Item Listing

eBay listings selling Michael Jackson memorabilia have surged in the days following the pop icon's death, with clearly authentic items being far outnumbered by items whose relation to Jackson is tenuous at best or whose authenticity can't easily be verified.

In hard numbers, listings mentioning Jackson were up from just a few hundred weekly to a few hundred thousand immediately after his passing, settling down to the better part of a hundred thousand over the last day or two.

Experts are warning buyers to be wary about listings that imply or make claims about direct links to the entertainer himself. More details at:

     • L.A. Weekly
     • The Los Angeles Times
     • The Vancouver Sun
     • The Baltimore Business Journal

With American Independence Day approaching, it's time for another round of weird auction fun. If you're a reader hailing from outside the states, please indulge us here as we break the good taste barrier.

Preparation

Start the holiday right on the 4th by donning your American flag tie, your flag hat, your flag boxers and/or flag bikini top. Of course, there's more to be decorated than just yourself—there's also the yard! So hang your flag windsock and cover your mailbox with your flag mailbox cover. Then, outline your windows and doors with red, white, and blue string lights. An inflatable Uncle Sam provides the finishing touch.

Festivities

With the mood set, you're ready for the evening's revelry to begin. Pick up your 3-D fireworks glasses and don't forget to begin twirling the requisite glow sticks. Pour yourself and your guests drinks in your flag tumblers and start barbecuing wearing your flag apron. Fill everyone's flag paper plates with food as the patriotic favorites music CD plays in the background.

Late Night

As the night settles down play war of independence chess or play card games using patriotic playing cards. Enjoy some Trivial Pursuit, All American Edition. When it's time to call it a night, make your announcement the American way, by playing Taps on your vintage bugle as the sun comes up behind your 25-foot flagpole and giant American flag.

Auction sniping is one of those time-tested controversies that affects people less than they think it does. Though there are countless auction sniping services around the web, most veteran eBayers either don't bother to use sniping services or use them only when they know who their bidding competition for an auction listing will be.

Just how is auction sniping supposed to work and why doesn't everyone on eBay do it all the time? Read on to learn more about the good, the bad, and the ugly of eBay auction sniping.

See Also

     •  Understanding eBay's Proxy Bidding
     •  What is Proxy Bidding?
     •  How are eBay auctions different?

With the absence of eBay Live! this year (it'll return in Orlando in 2010), eBay Developers Conference 2009 was held at the San Jose headquarters last week. Highlights from the conference include additional details about the selling manager applications platform, the new "Finding API" which replaces the old search API for developers, upcoming website tweaks, and enhancements to Large Merchant Services like Best Match transparency and auction format support.

Meanwhile, at the Internet Retailer 2009 Conference & Exhibition, Stephanie Tilenius, senior vice president and general manager of eBay North America, gave the Boston crowd a concise picture of eBay's strategy and sense of the market for the next year or two: in short, once again, a shift in emphasis toward large sellers and along with major coming changes to the eBay website and selling tools. More details at:

     • AuctionBytes DevCon Summary
     • Developers Conference Blog
     • InternetRetailer.com

With the whirlwind of changes at eBay over the last several years, it's been no secret that many smaller, independent, and auction sellers have been looking for—and in some cases even starting their own—eBay alternatives. But what alternatives exist today, and which of these has risen to the top of the heap? Are there real alternatives to auction selling on eBay? Read on to find out.

See Also

     •  Open New Channels with Auction Managers
     •  Drive Offline Sales
     •  Promote Better

Seeking to revitalize its selling community and generate excitement about the evolutionary steps that eBay has taken over the last year or two, eBay has announced a $25,000 "Sellers Challenge" entrepreneurship contest. The contest will award $25,000 to each of four winners who present a business plan and video detailing how they will use $25,000 and eBay's tools to either start a new business or grow an existing business on eBay.

The contest begins now and runs through August. Adult residents of the United States are eligible. Entries will be judged by a closed panel in July that will select contest finalists. These business plans and matching videos will then appear on eBay.com in late July and early August where eBay members will vote to select the winners. Only one entry is allowed per eBay member. Think you have a winning eBay business idea? More details can be found at:

     • Business Wire via SYS-CON UK
     • Ecommerce Guide
     • Sellers Challenge Contest Home Page

Meanwhile, the set of feature and policy changes announced by eBay in April are scheduled to take effect in the coming week, including more broad rollouts of new item and product pages (including variations pages that allow for one listing to cover multiple item variations), required return policy and handling time details, and the new dispute resolution procedure handled by eBay rather than by PayPal. More details at:

     • April 2009 Seller Update Announcement

There's no doubt that the U.S. eBay site is the heart of eBay's trading world. There are more goods and more sellers on eBay U.S. than on any of the international eBay sites, and prices on eBay U.S. are often better, too. If you're an international shopper, however, it can be both tantalizing and frustrating to see such bounty on the one hand, and to have trouble getting anyone on eBay U.S. to sell or ship to you on the other.

Though you can't always convince sellers to change their minds, there are ways to entice U.S. sellers to sell and ship to international customers like you. Here are some tips that can help international buyers to make successful purchases on eBay's U.S. site.

See Also

     •  Sell Internationally on eBay
     •  Shop the World with eBay
     •  Tips for Trade Across Borders

As eBay turns toward social networking features via the OpenSocial platform and an increasing accumulation of community-oriented features, Facebook may be making a matching turn toward ecommerce. Social networking sites have long struggled to monetize their core businesses, but the latest plan at Facebook is to implement a payments system similar in many ways to eBay's relationship with PayPal. In the short term, this will enable Facebook members to buy from and sell virtual items to another on-site, but in the long term, given Facebook's structure and user interface, there's no reason why it couldn't become a classified ads or trading platform similar to eBay or to Craigslist, with a ready-made userbase in the hundreds of millions.

Does 2009 mark the beginning of a convergence trend between social networking and ecommerce, especially in the user-to-user space? If so, eBay's new direction—away from user-to-user emphases—may make a kind of sense, given the much more exciting and loyalty-inspiring platforms that social networking sites offer. More at:

     • Newser
     • Equimedia
     • NBC Dallas-Forth Worth
     • Brand Republic