The hood of an automobile hides the complexity going on underneath. Beneath that single smooth metal panel is a flurry of activity: belts whirring, pistons firing, fans turning and fluids churning.

At Auctiva, I am privileged to be a part of what goes on “under the hood” of our products. For Auctiva.com, here’s a quick recap of what we accomplished this year, and an inside look.

This year, we performed about 100 updates to the Auctiva.com website and services. Each release contained anywhere from a handful to hundreds of enhancements or bug fixes. These are carefully choreographed to minimize disruption. While there were hundreds of minor improvements, we introduced several key features. We added the ability for you to create shipping labels efficiently and economically, to send your buyers a customized newsletter and share your eBay listings on Facebook.

Making incremental enhancements and rapidly responding to sellers’ needs has been—and continues to be—a priority.

Improvements didn’t just include adding functionality. We also refined the features we already had. For example, we updated the Sales page and other areas of the website to make getting started, or handling your daily business, more efficient. If your native language is German (Guten Tag!) or Mandarin Chinese (Ni Hao!), you probably noticed our site-wide translation effort for our international sites.

In this year, we also broke the mark of providing more than 1,800 professionally designed listing templates for you to select.

In 2011 we also released our Auctiva iPhone mobile app. Now, from the convenience of your iPhone, you can snap photos, create listings using your Auctiva settings and then post those directly to eBay. And speaking of mobile, we also gave away an iPad 2 in one of our many contests this past year.

Of course, eBay made a few changes as well. To keep in step with its seller-policy changes, we modified third-party checkout, return policies, item specifics and external links. Our teams also kept all internal and production systems running at peak performance 24/7, yearlong, while also preparing our systems for growth into next year.

In fact, though more sellers joined Auctiva.com this year and our sellers had all-time record listing volumes to eBay, we didn’t see a correlating increase in the volume of customer support cases. I’d like to think this is due not only to our ongoing commitment to continual quality improvement but also our proactive approach to communicating with our sellers via FAQs, video tutorials and weekly webinars.

So, even though Auctiva’s “car hood” will remain closed in 2012, rest assured there’s a bustle of activity underneath. We’ve been planning the product roadmaps for next year, and our engine will definitely be humming!

I like dough. Not just plain bread dough but also sweet dough for cinnamon rolls or sugar cookies. I love kneading dough, rolling it and getting it ready to make delicious treats, especially during this time of year. But I like rolling in a different kind of dough a little better.

You know the kind I’m talking about: the kind that helps me add new inventory, access tools to make my eBay listings stand out, and buy the shipping and packing supplies I need to keep my shoppers coming back.

So what can help me, you and other eBay sellers bring in that kind of dough this holiday season? Good inventory and a few Auctiva tools to help you attract buyers, stay organized and create listings quickly.

Festive listing templates: Auctiva has more than 1,800 listing templates and tons of holiday-themed ones to catch shoppers’ eyes as they’re looking for the right gift this holiday season. Templates help you “snazz” up your listings by not only giving them a professional look, they also help break up your listing’s information into easy-to-read segments so buyers find all the information they need quickly. Templates also reassure buyers that you’re a serious seller since you’ve put in some extra effort to make your listings stand out.

Did someone say schedule? Another great Auctiva tools is our scheduling feature, which helps you stay organize—and ahead of the game. With it, you can create eBay listings in advance, save them in your Auctiva account, and launch listings on the day and time of your choice. This means you can knock out tons of listings this week in advance for the busy Cyber Monday, which is quickly approaching, and launch them just in time for that day. What’s nice is that if you have any of Auctiva’s paid plans, including the $2.95/month Basic plan, you can use this feature as many times as you want for no added charge.

Images, images, images: Quality photos are always important. They can help buyers see every detail of your items, and, as you know, buyers want to know exactly what they’re buying, especially during this time of year. Luckily with Auctiva, you can post up to 24 super-sized images at no extra charge to show shoppers your products in their truest nature. Just be sure to still provide quality photos that are sharp and uncluttered to really entice shoppers to buy from you.

Listing profiles and creating similar listings: Auctiva’s Listing Profiles make creating new listings a snap! With them, you can easily add the information you use most often like your payment and shipping information with just a few clicks. You can also create similar listings from your saved Auctiva listings. This is very helpful if you sell a lot of the same types of products, like books and DVD. That’s because by clicking the “Create Similar” link in the Listings tab of your Auctiva account, you create a duplicate listing of one you already have, then you can make a few changes, like the listing title, price or etc., to list the new item.

Integrated shipping: You can also ship quickly by using Auctiva’s new integrated shipping feature, which allows you to print postage right from your Auctiva Sales page, upload the tracking information automatically into eBay and give buyers the fastest service possible. You can even purchase Auctiva Shipping Insurance when you print your labels to protect your shipments.

These are just a few of the ways Auctiva tries to make your selling faster and easier. You can use these features year round, but during this week, you might find them especially helpful as you prepare for the selling season. Here’s to wishing you a very busy selling season—filled with lots of dough!

We’ve seen a tremendous response to our iPad 2 giveaway so far, and it’s not too late to try our new Integrated Shipping Labels to be automatically entered to win this fantastic prize!

The contest runs through the month of October. We’ll announce the winner in early November.

Don’t need or want a tricked out iPad 2? No problem! If you happen to be our lucky victor, you can always sell it online for a nice chunk of change. See contest rules.

Why are we having this contest? To encourage more sellers like you to try out our new Integrated Shipping Labels feature and tell us what they think.

As part of the fine tuning that always occurs when we release a new feature, we encourage our customers to let us know if they had any issues or suggestions to improve the feature. One comment that has been made many times about the Integrated Shipping Labels is: “Why do we have to have a positive balance on our Auctiva account before we can print a label?”

Simply put, with the exception of eBay and PayPal, most postage services operate this way, and require users to prepay for postage. The only difference is that we don’t charge you extra fees to print your postage.

Another commonly asked question is: “How can I print labels in bulk?”

I’m happy to report that we’re working on this right now and, after testing, we’ll release it to our users. You will also have the option of printing on 8.5-by-11-inch paper (two labels per sheet), or 4-by-6-inch thermal labels with a Zebra label printer.

So keep printing those labels, and keep the feedback and suggestions coming in by clicking the orange “Leave Feedback” icon on your Sales page! You could end up with a very nifty gadget.

“Better buyer experience!”—it’s a favorite expression in eBay’s offices these days. Providing good buyer experiences makes good business sense if you think about it.

If buyers have a better experience, they’ll likely buy more, and that means eBay sellers make more money (and so does eBay).

eBay’s most recent initiative to ensure customers have a good shopping experience is the company’s new links policy. eBay has evaluated buyer and seller behavior on its site and has decided that placing e-mail addresses  and shortened URLs (sometimes called tiny URLs ) in listings is not helpful to buyers, and is therefore a bad buyer experience. So eBay has outlawed these.

eBay has had a links policy for a long time, and had been enforcing limits on what links sellers and third party tool developers could place in eBay listings. However, beginning Oct. 1, new listings and relistings will be blocked if they include either of these. eBay is already warning sellers by returning error messages for listings that will violate the new policy.

If you post such a listing using Auctiva, eBay will return an error message that we will display in the Account Notifications area of your Auctiva account. The e-mail restriction affects both clickable and nonclickable addresses and shortened URLs.

“But wait!” you exclaim. “I’ve got e-mail addresses in a bunch of my saved listings! What can I do?”

You can update your saved listings using the Find and Replace button on your Saved Listings page. With this feature you can update most fields in a listing like Buy It Now price, description, quantity, sale type, start price, etc.

Now if you think you might have e-mail addresses or links in some of your profiles like your Seller Details, you should review these as well and update them if needed. Once you update these profiles and save your changes, the information will be adjusted in all the listings that contain these profiles.

You can also use Find & Replace by Auctiva to update hundreds of live eBay listings at once. You can find this app in eBay’s Apps Center, and it won’t cost you a dime. You can even use this app if you’re not an Auctiva customer.

Last month we introduced our newest feature to Auctiva.com: Integrated Shipping Labels! No fancy name or additional subscriptions needed to use this great feature. It’s just an easy-to-use tool that allows our customers to generate shipping labels and pay for postage right from their Auctiva accounts.

Why add this feature? The main reason is to add value for you, and make Auctiva more of a “one stop shop” for all your eBay selling needs. We’re always looking for ways to save sellers time, and this was an obvious solution. It took us some time to release this feature since we’ve been spending most of our time keeping up with recent eBay policy changes, which is always our first priority. But now our Integrated Shipping Labels feature is live and ready to use.

This feature is accessible on our redesigned Sales page in your Auctiva account. Keeping the feature as simple to use as possible was very important to us. We always strive for ease of use. In fact, when you click  the “Get shipping label” icon next to one of your transactions, the details to create the label will appear and, basically, all you have to do is enter the USPS service you want to use, specify the package type, size, weight and dimensions, and labels are ready to print.

Other options are available, too. For instance, you can buy a shipping label and add our Auctiva Shipping Insurance. You can also print labels for Certified Mail and get Signature Confirmation Service. Users can also print labels for USPS First Class International packages as well as Priority International and Express International. You can even print out a packing slip at the same time as your shipping label; you’ll just need to set that up in your Shipping Preferences before you print. To access these options, go to your My Account tab then click on “Settings” then click “Shipping Labels.”

You can print out the labels on plain 8.5-inch-by-11-inch paper, or use the self-adhesive label stock that has one or two labels per sheet. We hope to add support for thermal label printers that print 4-inch-by-6-inch labels in the near future.

Check out this great new feature and let us know what you think.

We’re very pleased to announce that our long-awaited Auctiva Facebook page launched this week! This page will be a place to share news, updates, videos, and some fun contests and activities. With so many Auctiva customers already having fun with Facebook, for both personal and business networking, we’re excited to join in the community.

Look us up, because not only will we have announcements related to Auctiva and eBay on this page, but we’ll also have a lot of fun with it. We’d recommend keeping an eye on our Facebook page after you’ve “liked” it so you can participate and not miss out on any of the useful information, or fun shenanigans.

Check out our page here and don’t forget to check back regularly.

In a couple of days several Auctivians—including myself, Product Analyst Rebecca Miller, CEO Jeff Schlicht, Vice President Kevin Kinell, Communications Manager Robert Green and others—will all journey to the home office of our new parent company Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, China.

While Jeff and Kevin visited Hangzhou during the acquisition process, the purpose of the rest of us visiting there now is twofold. First, this gives us a change to visit the headquarters operation, and meet our new colleagues who work there. In a nutshell, the trip is an orientation for us. But there is more to it than just orientation. We’re there to absorb everything we can about sourcing products so we can be of the most assistance to Auctiva’s sellers.

The second purpose for our trip is to represent Auctiva at Alibaba’s 11th annual AliFest, which is a truly global event.

Not only small business people from countries around the world attend, but also global thought leaders and luminaries. In past years, former President Bill Clinton, Los Anglese Laker’s star player Kobe Bryant and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz have made keynote speeches. At this year’s AliFest, U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (aka The Governator) and eBay CEO John Donahoe will be featured speakers at the annual “Netrepreneur Summit,” an event within AliFest. To say the least, this is no small affair.

I must confess this trip is more than a little daunting to me—and I’m a pretty experienced international traveler. Just to travel from Chico to Hangzshou takes more than 13 hours over water from San Francisco to Hong Kong and then there’s another two-hour-plus flight to our final destination of Hangzhou.

This is my first time visiting China, and I’m very excited about going. I’m sure being there will seem new and exotic. Hangzhou was founded some 2,200 years ago, so this city is ancient. From the pictures I’ve seen, Hangzhou is beautiful, and much of it today appears modern and high tech. Within a few blocks of the Alibaba Group headquarters are the offices of several major international companies, including Bosch Power Tools, Manitowoc Company, Samsung, Nokia and FedEx, to name just a few.

We expect to return equipped with new tools and information about sourcing and how it can help Auctiva users make more money selling on eBay. And I expect we will also return with some good stories and a few adventures to pass along to you via this blog.

After 31 days of listing, photographing, packing and shipping, Auctiva Communications Manager Robert Green won our In-House Summer Selling Challenge, in which he went head to head against our Product Analyst Rebecca Miller. Robert had 43 transactions in July and about $1,400 in total sales.

Rebecca, a seller of more than 10 years, kept the competition close, losing by just four transactions with 39 and total sales of about $900.

“It was a lot of fun competing, and getting a glimpse into the life of a serious online seller,” Robert says. “I had previously sold on eBay very sporadically—mostly when cleaning out the garage or replacing something that I thought still had some value. Approaching selling like a business brings a lot more responsibility, stress and work!”

One of the things that surprised him the most during the contest was how much time sellers need to set aside to stay organized, have good communication with their customers and to get packages en route to their destinations. Luckily he had his Auctiva account to help, but it was still a fair amount of work. He was also surprised at the fees (final values fees, shipping costs, insurance costs, packing supplies expenses, etc.) associated with selling regularly, adding that these can take a substantial percentage of a seller’s profits.

Nonetheless, he was happy to win, although he notes that Rebecca will likely will win the war, if not this battle.

“I peaked,” Robert says of his participation in the contest. “She’ll keep doing this all the year. I probably will not.”

While Robert led in total sales and items sold going into the final weekend of the competition, Rebecca had a secret weapon for a comeback: several three-day listings that would end on Saturday, the last day of the challenge. The listings helped her inch closer, but the duration of the items may have affected their visibility, she says.

“If they all would had sold, I would have won,” Rebecca notes.

Still, she admits that it was good seeing Robert do well, she says. “It’s nice to see I’m rubbing off on people,” she says.

But that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t change her strategy so she could win, if she could do the challenge all over again.

“I probably would have lined up more merchandise like Robert did, instead of relying on all the stuff I have laying around; just get a large quantity of one item, instead of the potpourri of the products that I have,” she says.

Would the two do another selling challenge?
“Yes,” Rebecca says. “Let’s shoot for Christmas once I find the hot toy, nobody can beat me.”

“Maybe,” Robert notes. “I’ve learned a lot. I think I’d be tougher competition next time.”

What did you think of the in-house selling challenge? Have you and a friend ever gone head to head in a friendly selling competition? Tell us about it.

Hopefully you’ve noticed some of the features we’ve added to Auctiva.com in the last six months or so. Do you know where we go for suggestions for the features we should develop? Well, many times, the answer is you, our customers.

Our Auctiva Feature Center [link requires login] makes it easier for us to see what you want, and for you to request new Auctiva features. We still scan our Community Forums for ideas about what our users would like to see us develop in the future, but our Feature Center is a more efficient way to hear from you. It’s a place where users make suggestions and vote on potential new features. You can also see what features we have “on deck” and which have already been completed.

Now, I should point out that some suggested features may not be doable, perhaps because of an eBay policy, for instance. [Our developers and designers are fantastic, but they're not miracle workers]. One of my tasks here at Auctiva is to read through your suggestions and comments in our Features Center, weed out the duplicates, and decide which ideas get posted so the rest of our customers can vote on which we should build.

There’s power in numbers—so if you see a feature that has been suggested that you would like to see us develop, vote for it! If an idea is getting little or no feedback from our customers, it’s easy for it to get pushed aside to make room for features that garner more attention and interest.

When we’re getting ready to plan our next batch of enhancements, I go straight to our Feature Center to tally up the votes. A few other considerations do go into deciding which features we’ll develop: the feature’s complexity, the number of resources a project would require, the likelihood that you would use it, how many users would benefit from a feature, etc., but you’re always at the top of my list. It’s all part of our commitment to help you to list faster, save money and sell more.

Sometimes planning and developing a new feature can take months, but in the end, it’s all worth it. We add a new feature, and it may be a feature you personally requested. Give our Feature Center a try if you haven’t already. And if you see an idea you like, vote for it!

I recently made a purchase on eBay from a seller in Hong Kong, who reminded me of the very first lesson I learned in my college marketing class.

On the first day of the semester (and before introducing himself, taking roll or passing out the course syllabus), the professor asked what was the single most important thing a marketer could do to get people to act.

“Offer an incentive,” someone said.

“Make a strong value proposition,” another shouted, once it became clear the professor was looking for another answer.

“How about, tell them what you want them to do?” the professor asked. “Or better yet, how about, ask them?” he continued as he began a slideshow of poorly designed advertisements that, he pointed out, forgot to inform the audience what to do.

It seems simple: Just ask buyers to do what you want them to do. But don’t let the simplicity of the idea fool you. Making a clear and overt request can yield significantly better results than leaving it up to your buyers’ intuition or relying on an implied call to action.

What to ask for

As online sellers, it’s easy for us to get hung up on just one thing we want people to do: buy! But once your auction has ended, or a buyer has committed to buy your fixed-price listing, there are still several things you’d like from the buyer. Here are a few things you’d like them to do:

• Leave you positive feedback
• Give you 5-star Detailed Seller Ratings
• Recommend you to their friends and family
• Subscribe to your e-mail newsletter
• Remember your brand
• Contact you with any concerns before leaving negative feedback
• Visit your eBay (or off-eBay) Store
• Browse your other products
• Buy from you again

How to ask

When I received the package from my seller in Hong Kong, my expectations weren’t very high. I had bought a couple of car chargers for my new Palm Pre smartphone. The reason for my cautious skepticism? The total purchase price was less than $3. Even though they were off-brand, it was hard to imagine that my $3 would even cover the seller’s shipping costs. Nevertheless, my package arrived in less than a week, with two perfectly functioning chargers, and something else…

Included in the package was a shipping slip that included purchase details, a courteous “thank you” message and a request in the form of a bulleted list asking me to:

• Leave positive feedback
• Leave 5-star DSRs
• Add the seller to my Favorite Sellers list

Here, by way of a $2.68 transcontinental purchase that I thought could hardly be worth the seller’s time, was a reminder of that lesson I learned so many years before—brought to me by an online seller some 7,000 miles away. Sure, the English was broken, but the message was clear and it provided me a little confidence and information about what kind of seller I was dealing with in the all too often anonymous world of online commerce.  All that from a brief message on a little 8.5-by-3-inch piece of paper that he probably printed up 1,000 at a time.

Crafting your message

What you ask your sellers to do, and in what form you do so, is up to you. Make it natural and befitting your own style. Make it concise, but polite; clear, but humble. Prioritize your list of requests and keep it short.

A simple packing slip is a great vehicle for your requests. Auctiva users have this functionality built into their accounts. Auctiva sellers can include transaction details and a custom message.

I also recently read a post on an eBay community board in which a seller used an offer from VistaPrint for 250 free business cards to ask for positive feedback, share her e-mail address and promote repeat business with a link to her Auctiva Commerce Store. Considering just the few dollars the seller had to pay for shipping on the cards, this investment will surely be well justified by its results.

The practice of including shipping slips with embedded calls to action has become popular enough that some companies offer these as stand-alone products for sale. I prefer the Auctiva feature for its ease of use and integration into the seller’s Auctiva account, which allows transaction details to be automatically included. That’s a time-saving solution for creating transaction-specific slips.

Alternatively, I like the use of the free business cards from VistaPrint for the added touch of professionalism and the increased likelihood that it might be passed along to another potential buyer.

Whatever your preference, just be sure to choose some solution. A few simple requests to your customers combined with a commitment to provide good products and good customer experiences in every transaction will be well worth your efforts. Remember, sometimes all you have to do is ask.