PeSAsh.IT News: PeSA Summit 2006 September 20-22 2006 San Francisco CA

[mandy]

PeSA Summit 2006
September 20-22 2006
San Francisco, CA
Renaissance Stanfor Court Hotel

additional details on their web site at gopesa org /events/summit2006/reg.cfm -oops the link is broken. 

:pesasht:

[mandy]

press release:

Professional eBay Sellers Alliance Hosts eBay, PayPal,
Amazon and Google at San Francisco Summit


Online merchants from around the nation will convene in San Francisco in late September for the Professional eBay's Seller Alliance (PeSA) Fall 2006 Summit. PeSA represents hundreds of the top high-volume eBay sellers, known as PowerSellers, who meet periodically to discuss best practices for eBay merchants.

"This Summit is truly a can't-miss event for any online business," notes Joe Cortese Founder and Chairman of PeSA and CEO of PeSA member company NobleSpirit. "Peak online shopping months are just ahead of us and a number of the industry leaders will be personally addressing attendees. The timing couldn't be better."

In addition to Yahoo!, a number of high-profile internet focused companies are participating group and one-on-one meetings at the event, including executive teams from Amazon and Google, in addition to Andale, BidPay, ChannelAdvisor, eBay, E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association, Infopia, Monsoon, PayPal, Property Room, Prosper, Overstock and uBid, as well as many other e-commerce solution providers.

"We're taking an inclusive look at e-commerce for this Summit" states Jonathan Garriss, Executive Director of PESA, and CEO of PeSA member company Gotham City Online. "PeSA believes a multi-channel approach to selling online is ideal and attendees in San Francisco will learn from some of the brightest minds in e-commerce."

"I firmly believe we will look back on 2006 as the golden-age for online merchants. With the explosion of marketplaces, comparison shopping engines, checkout systems, payments systems and search engines, online merchants are able to expand their business and diversify their revenue streams unlike any time in history," comments Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor. "The Fall PESA Summit represents one of the best opportunities for eBay sellers to take advantage of these new opportunities and we're proud to be supporters, sponsors and attendees of the event."

[maggie777]

San Francisco Summit

So close.  It's a pity my schedule is full that day.  ;D

[regic]

PESA Executive Director Jonathan Garriss said while past summit meetings have focused on eBay, the Fall 2006 Summit will be focused on the businesses of its members. Executives from Amazon, Google, eBay, Property Room, Overstock and uBid will also be in attendance along with third-party solution providers.

Two-and-a half-years ago, 10 percent of PESA members had their own websites, and almost no one was using paid-search marketing, Garriss said. In a survey of members conducted in the Fall, over 50 percent of members had their own website and almost 33 percent were using paid-search marketing. Another survey will be taken during the Fall summit.

full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m09/i11/s01

[mandy]

[Anita]

PeSA represents hundreds of the top high-volume eBay sellers, known as PowerSellers, who meet periodically to discuss best practices for eBay merchants.

The "best practice" for eBay merchants is... RUN!!!!!!!!!!!

[mandy]

PeSA Summit 2006 recap from Channel Advisor Scott Wingo's blog.

The E-commerce Merchants Trade Association makes its debut ( http://www.ecmta.org/ecmindex.cfm ).

The headlines:

    * Google announced that Google Base listings will show as a refined product search, kind of like how Google has integrated base house listings, job listings, etc.  Steady readers will remember I've been BIG on Google base for a long time and think its going to be disruptive to the organic search results to have this hear.  Instead of worrying about SEO, focus on google base for Q4.
    * Amazon had a huge crowd of Amazonians there to get eBay sellers over to their various platforms for SMBs.
    * Google was represented by the AdWords team, checkout team and analytics team.  Google clearly sees the mid-tier online retailer as a priority and is investing there with products as well as PR/marketing.
    * eBay - While eBay had a couple of attendees, the vibe was that eBay and even eBay topics were absent from the agenda.  This is a stark contrast to the last summit which was headlined by Bill Cobb, and had largely an eBay selling focus with some side topics on other channels.
    * ECMTA - There's some confusion/drama around a new group evidently coming out of PESA (purportedly a splinter group) called the ECMTA.  That stands for Ecommerce Merchants Trade Assocation...

full article: http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_str...rom_p.html

[rejoicemusic]

There was an interesting thread on the PS board about this, and a few people noted that eBay was noticeably absent from the podium.  The Google and Amazon high "mucky-mucks" spoke, but eBay did not.  And the first thing on the agenda was the analyst from Bear-Stearns who said that eBay is headed for a big downtown in early 2008. 

[stardust]

2008 ??

[amy]

Two-and-a half-years ago, 10 percent of PESA members had their own websites, and almost no one was using paid-search marketing, Garriss said. In a survey of members conducted in the Fall, over 50 percent of members had their own website

The over 50% figure was Fall 2005.  This year will be much higher.  Only a fool wouldn't be trying to lower costs by moving some of their business to websites (I should have said only a fool or someone so vain that they can't bring themselves to change the part of their about us page that says they have the highest feedback on eBay...hi, Jay  )

eBay is headed for a big downtown in early 2008.

The volume sellers will try to stick it out through the holidays (unless they go under) but I think after the holidays they'll be moving a lot more business off eBay to websites, Amazon, Overstock, and uBid.  eBay needs to drastically lower its insertion fees (or move to subscription models like Overstock and Amazon) if it wants to keep sellers.