In what can only be described as remarkable, the eBay community has surpassed the $200 million mark for cumulative funds raised with eBay Giving Works since 2003. This represents year-over-year double digit growth. How it works : eBay Giving Works enables eBay users to support their favorite causes whenever they buy and sell. Today the program offers five easy ways to make a difference: • Community Selling : Any seller can donate part of their... 

All, I was fortunate enough to sit down with eBay CEO, John Donahoe, at the eBay: On Location event in Dallas a couple of weeks ago. We managed to take 5 minutes between sessions to sit down and talk about the event(s). Rather than edit the video down I wanted to give you guys the conversation in its entirety. I apologize for the bad lighting; we had to conduct it in his hotel room to eliminate any background noise. I’ve done my best to fix... 

A week removed from eBay: On Location – Dallas and registration just opened this morning for the Chicago event in July. For those of you who follow Ink regularly, you know that I focused on interviewing sponsors/vendors when I attended eBay: On Location – Atlanta. (Check out my video interviews with Endicia, ProStores and eBay AdCommerce HERE , HERE and HERE . So when I got to Dallas, I wanted  Read More →

I’ve covered the Innovation Demo Expo here at eBay for a couple of years now and yesterday’s event was the best one yet. The internal event is designed to encourage eBay employees to come up with new and innovative ideas that would benefit eBay buyers and sellers. There have been a few apps and technologies that came out of this event – most notable being the eBay iPhone application. I was lucky enough to walk through the expo... 

As you know I was lucky enough to attend the Bloom Energy launch event yesterday at eBay Inc. in-person. In addition to covering the event on Twitter , I managed to capture some of the proceedings with my Flipcam. I’ll update this page with additional clips as I upload them to our YouTube channel. Cheers, RBH  Read More →

This morning, eBay hosted the unveiling of a new, state-of-the-art technology at its PayPal campus in San Jose. It’s called the Bloom Energy Server (or “Bloom Box”), and some are saying it will revolutionize the world. Developed by Bloom Energy Corporation , the Bloom Energy Server is an SUV-sized box that corporations install outside their buildings to generate their own electricity from almost any fuel source. Bloom Energy... 

Even though I am married to the true love of my life, I have to confess that I’ve actually been engaged twice in my lifetime. Obviously that fact has become irrelevant over time, however, it does mean that I had to learn and act upon the “four Cs” when buying a diamond ring, not once but twice! Believe it or not, I designed my wife’s ring myself (with obvious input from my much better half) and am still quite proud of the... 

You can see my initial coverage of the “Garden by eBay” by clicking HERE . Given the opportunity to spend some time with the entire team behind the eBay Garden project, I thought it would be great to capture some candid conversations about their time together, the project they’ve been working on, and what it means for them to be working at eBay. What I got was an incredibly refreshing, candid  Read More →

eBay has launched a new initiative to help “sow the seeds of innovation” with community input on new products and features before they go live on the site. The “Garden by eBay” is a new area on eBay.com that allows community members to try out new products and features and give the team working on the initiative feedback on suggested improvements and changes. The experimental space was designed to encourage eBay users to contribute to... 

The following video was recorded earlier today at eBay’s Customer Service HQ in Salt Lake City, Utah. Andrew Chase (aka @ebay_andy ) has joined me on past podcasts to help answer seller questions around previous announcements we’ve made in the marketplace. I find him an extremely knowledgeable and unsung hero for our community – similar to a number of Customer Service folks out in  Read More →

All, I was able to spend some time with Dinesh Lathi, VP of Buyer and Seller Experience at eBay, to discuss the news coming out of today’s Seller Release (eBaySR) in more detail. I did my best to anticipate some of the more challenging questions that may be on Ink reader’s minds and posed them to Dinesh (I realize you’ll have a ton more… and I’m happy to ask those too). What follows is a…  Read More →

According to the fifth annual NRF Foundation/American Express Customers’ Choice survey , eBay is ranked #12 overall for customer service in 2009 (up 2 from #14 in 2008). The NRF Foundation/American Express 2009 Customer Service survey was designed to gauge consumer attitudes toward retailers’ customer service and to provide a listing of the top customer service retailers. The survey, which polled 8,600 consumers, was conducted by consumer... 

eBay Inc . took first place in the Mobile Commerce Daily competition for the 2009 Mobile Retailer of the Year award. Mobile Commerce Daily indicated that “there were many worthy nominations, but after careful consideration, eBay did an outstanding job in its mobile efforts,” citing the high number of items bought via mobile on eBay this past holiday season (1.5 million) and the generation of more than a half a billion dollars of... 

eBay indicated in a press release earlier today that the number of items bought via eBay mobile apps were triple last year’s holiday volume and that eBay buyers and sellers are generating more than half a billion dollars of transactions via mobile in 2009. Nearly 6 million people have eBay on their iPhone and eBay receives three-quarters of a million unique visits a day via mobile apps. Here are some facts and figures out of the press... 

I wanted to share a couple of videos that ran today on CNBC . The first features eBay CEO, John Donahoe, discussing eBay’s take on Black Friday activity in the marketplace and PayPal ’s role in that. He also talks about m-commerce, and the early successes of the eBay Mobile application … The second features PayPal president, Scott Thompson, discussing the 20% growth  Read More →