Established in 1995, eBay is celebrating its 15-year anniversary. Originally an auction website, it has evolved into an international on-line commerce business site, offering both auction and fixed price items for sale.

No longer just a website for unloading unused items and collectibles, eBay has mastered the art of on-line selling. With 25 million active sellers globally and 90 million active users, eBay is doing BIG business by offering start-up businesses an opportunity to set up shop for a minimal cost.

Click the link below for the complete article!

eBay supports small business owners: Time to start your own on-line business?

Steadman made the purchase in November 2008. But when he saw the shipped goods didn’t match the advertisement, he expressed an opinion about the South Florida lawyer who offered the item on the Internet: “Bad seller; he has the ethics of a used car salesman.”

That comment about the clock, which Steadman returned to Elliot Miller of Miami Beach, prompted a $15,000 defamation lawsuit. He said the lawsuit has cost him $7,000 in legal bills and his attorney quit because he could no longer afford to pay him.

“I made the mistake of leaving my honest opinion online,” said the 49-year-old owner of Triton Welding & Machine Shop. “The comments are there to let other buyers know who they’re dealing with.”

But, he said, “it’s not safe to say anything online. You don’t have a freedom of speech. The laws don’t work for us. Because I don’t have the money to fight them, I’m losing. It’s not right. I’m speechless.”

The comments sections on online shopping sites are one of their strongest features, IMO, but if this starts to take hold, say goodbye to that. What’s Latin for “commenters beware”?

Source: Florida Today

While we’ve covered the fact that online retailers seem to be picking up some of the slack generated by physical stores’ slump in sales, people who sell items on sites like eBay and Craigslist aren’t enjoying a similar upswing. Much of this is due to scale:

The problem for small retailers trying to sell merchandise more cheaply than volume discounters—such as Target (TGT) or Wal-Mart (WMT)—is that they don’t have the economics of scale on their side, says David Zahn, president of StartUpBuilder.com. “It is harder [for small e-tailers] to turn a profit, because the pressure is on the e-commerce businesses to absorb shipping costs as many established sites are doing,” he says. “For Amazon.com, as well as traditional retailers that have e-commerce sites, such as Staples.com and others, the costs are often absorbed for both shipping to the customer and also from the customer if the item is to be returned. What remains to be seen is if the gas crunch will lead to more online purchasing,” he says.

Definitely check out the whole article. I’ve never had any luck trying to market my products on eBay, and apparently that’s not going to change anytime soon. It should be quite the buyers market going forward, though.

Source: BusinessWeek

Hardware
-Desktop PC, Notebook PC, Color Printer, Black & White Printer, Multifunction Device, Mobile Device, Desktop Storage, Network Storage, Server

Security
- Network Backup, Network Security, PC Backup, PC Security

Software/Services
-Accounting /Finance, Productivity, Customer/Sales Management, VolP, Collaboration

E-Commerce
-Affiliate, Best Innovation, Online Marketing, Site Search, Storefront, Web Hosting, Ebay Tool

The award for site search is new this year:

This year we added a Site Search category to reflect the trend of specialized search systems and products catering to e-commerce sites. Though relative newcomers such as SLI Systems, EasyAsk and Baynote’s Community Guided e-Commerce all made impressive inroads this year, Google’s offerings took both first and second place. Google Custom Search Business Edition won, with Google Mini following.

It’s tough to beat Google in the search game, especially when it is rolling out specialized versions that appealed to small e-tailers. Last summer, Custom Search Business Edition was announced. The hosted service is designed to offer a simple and inexpensive way for small businesses to add Google search to their Web sites. Custom Search Business Edition starts at $100 a year for searching up to 5,000 pages and at $500 for 50,000 pages.

In second place is the more-expensive Google Mini appliance. Early last year, of Google Mini upgrades included added features designed to improve search efficiency for a small business’s public Web site or e-commerce operation. For example, Google Mini searches are now be integrated with Google Analytics so you can track traffic and navigation patterns.

The rest of the winners can be found on the SmallBusinessComputing.com Website.