Dan Wilson

Ever since Rose Tyler left Doctor Who at the end of Series 2, Saturday night’s highlight show had lost a bit of its sheen. Freema was pretty good. Blink was superb. Paul Cornell’s episodes were a tour de force. But The Shakespeare Code was terrible, the Daleks in Manhatten disappointed and 42 was formulaic. Even RTD’s final trio of episodes, whilst having not a little hyperbole and a lot of fun (I LOVED John Simm), rather lacked substance.

So the prospect of Series 4, not least fearing the return of shouty cockney Donna Noble played by Catherine “what a fackin liberty” Tate, had me behind the sofa and quaking with fear before the theme tune even began. But thankfully Series 4 has so far not disappointed. Catherine Tate is, gasp, actually rather good and the character is a good counterweight to the Doctor: we were all getting a bit tired of the simpering companion thing, right?

The scale of the episodes has been huge. From thousands of cooing Adipose ascending to the spaceship, to the destruction of Pompeii and, forgetting the slightly rubbish Ood brain, it looks bigger and better than ever. God bless all those clever people who make it all look so exciting and real and god bless The Mill. UNITs back, the Sontarans were suitably bellicose, The Doctor’s Daughter was a belter and we’ve had fleeting glimpses of Rose and just what is on Donna’s back? I’m as giddy as a schoolboy about it.

For 45 minutes every week I’m transported far away from my adult life, back to the Eighties and the corner of my school playground (just by the canteen) that served as the Tardis. Friends would be Tegan, Nyssa, Peri (never Adric though, I wonder why) and I would be the Doctor (always Peter Davison, because he was MY doctor too) and we’d wage war against daleks and cybermen at playtime. It’s reassuring to think that the kids are still doing that today because Doctor Who is better than it’s ever been.

Here are some other places I’ve been contributing online, of late:

vzaar: Why negative feedback + bad sellers = unhappy buyers
On the vzaar blog, the case for abolishing the right for sellers to leave negative feedback on eBay. Based on a personal experience.

Auctionbytes: Why is QXL Closing in the UK?
A comment (scroll down a bit) on Auctionbytes about the closure of QXL in Britain.

Jenny How: Videos for your eBay Sales
Quite heavily edited piece on the benefits of using video on eBay.

Tamebay: Royal Mail Loses £200m
I’m just a frustrated reporter at heart.

In the hope of saving a bit of time the next time Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, opens his mouth to change feet, I have taken the liberty of preparing him a ready-made apology sheet.

“Comments I made on my recent visit to a mosque/temple/old peoples’ home/school for the blind/gay community group* have been widely reported in the media.

Obviously, my comments: have been taken out of context/are too highbrow for anyone without a classical education/were wilfully misunderstood by pesky left-wing pundits/are completely untrue and part of a conspiracy/were obviously a joke (viz pickaninnies and watermelon smiles).*

I apologise: unreservedly/although I can’t see the need/with my tongue firmly in my cheek/because David Cameron has told me to.*

This apology will be followed by: a conciliatory visit to the community in question, where I’ll clown about wearing a silly hat for the amusement of the Evening Standard/a vexed tousling of my hair/a bumbling press conference where I quote Pericles/an appearance on a quiz show.*

Floreat Londinium!

*Delete as appropriate.”

Man uses computer for the first time.

Scot Wingo’s annual keynote at Catalyst is always worth listening to because he is accountable to his customers and they want results. He doesn’t deal in theoretical coolness or geeky oneupmanship: he is interested in things that work (perhaps a reflection of his engineering training?), deliver sales and help CA merchants. This year was no different and he presented an engaging and illuminating overview of the global ecommerce landscape. Here are the notes I made.

Overview
- ChannelAdvisor sellers sold $2.1bn GMV in 2007 ($1.6bn in 2006): about $7m a day. Expect $3bn in 2008.

- European ecommerce has now equalled US ecommerce and will grow faster year-on-year to 2012. Asia is growing too.

- Search continues to grow as a critical online sales channel.

- A multi-channel selling strategy is a must: if you’re limiting youself to eBay you’re only addressing a quarter of the opportunity.

- A successful mix includes search, comparison shopping engines, direct sales from a website and marketplaces.

Comparison Shopping Engines
- CSEs are the ‘forgotten channel’. Some ChannelAdvisor customers generate 40% of their GMV from CSEs: what could it be doing for you?

- UK CSE usage by shoppers is greater than EU and US at 50%.

- Wingo explained CSE 2.0: there is a new wave of CSEs out there so if you have previously dismissed CSEs as a channel, it might be time to reassess that decision.

- Old CSEs (such as Shopping.com, kelkoo etc) were based on cost per click. New sites have emerged and business models centred on reviews, social networks, cost per action and vertical niches (such as apparel and DIY) now exist.

- ChannelAdvisor supports 98 CSEs and is adding more each week. Some examples: ciao, pronto, jellyfish, smarter, shoplocal, bobvila, thefind.com, buzzillions.

- Google Product Search (which is the #5 US CSE) has the chance to be very disruptive. Tweaked and enhanced Statside last year, expect the same changes in the UK soon. It’s free! Get to it!

Marketplaces
- eBay is growing slower than ecommerce. Amazon is growing at a magnificent pace for two reasons: Amazon Prime (essentially a subscription service that means you get unlimited next day delivery) and the Third Party Network.

- Third Party Network allows sellers to enhance Amazon’s own inventory, and genuinely provide Amazon with long tail niches. For Amazon, it can mean good revenue and low costs (because they aren’t storing or despatching the goods.)

- Amazon’s experiment has inspired other retailers to append a third party element to their own websites. Check out play.com and pixmania.

Emerging Trends
- No surprise that web usage and traffic has moved from portals to social networks and community sites in the last few years.

- Facebook has seen 305% YoY growth in membership. Adds 250k members daily. >50% of members use Facebook every day (!). And they’re gradually adding and exploring promotional and selling tools: watch out for Facebook ‘Beacon’.

Quip
- On Yahoo getting close to Google to see off Microsoft: “..like cutting off your left arm to save your leg.”

If we believe the press (articles in the Metro and The Times to name two), dark clouds are looming over eBay: the wronged masses of eBay sellers are grumbling and steeling themselves for a strike. Like David polishing his sling before the fight, they’re getting ready to slay Goliath.

At ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst event in London, hundreds of eBay sellers gathered with one thing on their mind: making eBay work hard for them, growing their profits, developing their businesses and better exploiting the ecommerce opportunity. For the most part attitudes were upbeat. Despite a ropey economic outlook most sellers were bullish. It was wasn’t a case of whether they could make more more online: the question was how much more.

A journalist called me on Monday (just before I got to Catalyst) and asked me to denounce eBay, support the strikers and explain why the strike would be the death of eBay. I patiently explained that, in my opinion, we’re looking at a miniscule number of traders boycotting the site on May 1. I also explained that it wasn’t the first time a strike had been called and held and, on those occasions, such strikes had not even been blips on eBay’s radar. I didn’t really have a comment.

“And anyway, what EXACTLY is the strike about?” I asked. It took a bit of time for the hack to rummage through her notes and tell me it was because sellers want the right to leave negative feedback for bad buyers. She then asked me to explain what that meant.

Meanwhile, at Catalyst (an event for eBay sellers), no-one mentioned the strike. Robust discussions were held about the new Feedback DSRs (Detailed Seller Ratings), eBay UK’s MD Mark Lewis was quizzed about all manner of topics. Not once did I hear mention of the fact that sellers will soon not be able to leave negative feedback for buyers.

This is the tale of two eBays. Professional eBay sellers (typically selling tens of thousands of goods a year) seem to be taking a ‘helicopter view’ and don’t much care if they can leave negative feedback for buyers. They are busy enough as it is and probably never do it anyway. Hobby or occasional sellers want the right to do it. It’s reassuring. But, again, I’d say it rarely ever happens.

So who’s right? eBay is right, I think. Feedback has long been used by a small, small number of bad sellers who threaten buyers with a negative feedback if they aren’t willing to put up with sloppy service (an experience I had, only this week). A buyer might receive a sub-standard item and request a refund or replacement or complain that delivery was expensive or too slow. Some bad sellers (and this is by no means representative of the legions of good sellers that populate eBay) would tell them to like it or lump a negative feedback.

Anyone who sells on eBay wants confident, happy buyers who are willing to bid up and come back again and again. Most professional sellers see that immediately, whilst many occasional sellers might not. The strike is a nonsense and niche activity being heralded by a tiny (microscopic) number of total sellers. It will have minimal impact on listings and not materially affect eBay. Or do you know better?

ChannelAdvisor’s Catalyst event in London this week was a great opportunity to examine the trends and developments in ecommerce in Britain and abroad. Lots of exciting presentations and people were present. And I have a (papery) notebook full of scribbles to blog in the next week or so. Keep ‘em peeled.

David J Smith of the IMRG provided a some interesting facts and figures about the state of UK ecommerce, here are some of the highlights. They provide a good snapshot of where we are and where we’re going. In short: all good news. “Ecommerce will buck retail trends,” he said, “and continue to grow. When the going gets tough, consumers go online.”

- IMRG Index shows that, between April 2000 and end of 2007 British ecommerce has grown 5213%. The total UK spend in 2007 was £46.6bn.

- 15p in the consumer pound is spent online. Despite economic worries, Q108 saw the biggest total spend online of any quarter since inception: £13bn (or £213 per head of population).

Demographics

-The gender breakdown of British online shoppers is (give or take less than 1%): 50/50 Male/Female.

- 21% of online spending comes from women 18-34. 50% of women over 25 buy clothing online.

- The fast growing group of online shoppers are the Over 55s. Over 55s will soon surpass the 35-44 year olds soon as the biggest group of online shoppers.

User Generated Content

UGC, such as customer reviews of goods and services, is becoming increasingly important.

- 71% of online shoppers read customer reviews.

- 70% find them useful

- 78% consider them the most credible form of advertising

- 97% of consumers are willing to trust customer reviews.

Random stats that might amuse…

- On Christmas day 2007, 4m British shoppers spent £84m.

- Marks and Spencer’s online sales enjoyed 78% YoY growth in 2007.

- In December 2007, 24 million parcels were not successfully delivered first time.

Here’s some stuff I’ve been looking at online recently.

Vanity first. I was interviewed by Ina Steiner of Auctionbytes about vzaar, eBay and the like. Tamebay reviewed the updated version of Make Serious Money on eBay UK which is now available in all good bookshops, and WH Smiths. I also featured in the Q&A section of .net magazine (can’t find a link, but maybe I’ll scan the article some time and post it).

Find my Twitter Tweets here, and on the right hand side of this ‘blog. Sorry Ivan. I know I said I never would. Fellow twitterers: follow me!

You can address kiwi fruit in Italian to assuage your air miles guilt or get angsty about owning a car before driving down to the West Country to see what you’re destroying at the Eden Project. But if you want to be eat fish and ‘don’t believe in cod’, stay up to date with fish stocks (as in stock levels) and what’s best to buy from an ethical and environmental viewpoint, here: www.fishonline.org. But there’s not much point if you’re still planning a budget airlines dirty weekend in Barcelona.

With credit audibly crunching all around, here’s how you can save cash (but probably not save the planet). See which of the major supermarkets is cheapest for your weekly online shop? Find out: www.mysupermarket.co.uk.

For my money, the man making most sense about eBay Feedback and the changes involving DSRs (Detailed Seller Ratings) is Scot Wingo of ChannelAdvisor on his eBay Strategies blog. Check out his articles here, here and here.

And just for fun. Dothetest.co.uk is a surprisingly effective use of the web for ‘public information’ purposes.

And really just for fun, I loved this:

*It’s a sentence. Admittedly a sentence with SEO in mind, but a sentence nonethless.

Inspire is a strong word, but Duffy’s song Warwick Avenue set me off down a train of thought. Quite literally: underground to a tube train of thought. What other songs are named after London Underground stations or, more precisely, have the names of tube stops in the title? Yes, you’re right; it’s exactly the sort of thing St Diamond Geezer would do with a great deal more panache than me.

So, I’ve limited myself to what’s on my iPod, discarded two songs by the Jam (Going Underground and Down in a Tube Station at Midnight) and anything by Whitney Euston and descended for a personal trip on the iTube. Mind the Gap.

My first stop, as you might expect, is VICTORIA (the Kinks) and seeing as I’m on the Victoria Line, I’ll rattle south and give you two more: From a VAUXHALL Velox by Billy Bragg and The Clash’s sublime Guns of BRIXTON.

Without losing momentum, it’s back up to Stockwell and to the Northern Line. I’ll head all the way down so I can tick off MORDEN by Good Shoes before bearing north for Abba’s 1976 Eurovision classic WATERLOO, the Donovan favourite Sunny GOODGE STREET, Suggs’ CAMDEN TOWN, a Blueroom in ARCHWAY from the Boo Radleys and FINCHLEY CENTRAL courtesy of the New Vaudeville Band before changing track southwards on the City branch of the Northern Line.

It’s Roxy Music’s ANGEL Eyes, then BANK Holiday from Blur; where I’m going to change on to the District Line and head off to the far eastern wilds of Essex. Pulp’s portrait of MILE END persuades me not to get out and rather head ever onwards to Ian Dury’s PLAISTOW Patricia and do an about turn at Dogs Were BARKING from Gogol Bordello.

It’s back into town (with a quick detour down the East London Line for Carter and the Only Living Boy in NEW CROSS) and all aboard the Jubilee line for David Bowie’s Maid of BOND STREET and (what took me so long?) BAKER STREET by Gerry Rafferty (without Bon Holness). Hold on, I’ve missed out RAYNERS LANE (the New Town Centres) and that’s way out west on the Piccadilly Line… perhaps for another day. Can’t be bothered.

Russell,

You have done, without doubt, the most amazing job at reinventing Doctor Who. You are, without argument, a superb writer and a visionary Executive Producer. Your place in heaven is assured. You have my unerring admiration for not just bringing Doctor Who back but for ensuring that it’s better than it’s ever been. Thanks.

A few minor points:

Sometimes Small Works.
The big budget, apocalyptic , end of the world thing is part of Doctor Who. But many of the great Who moments have been very small. Tom Baker’s “have I the right?” speech in Genesis of the Daleks springs to mind. Classics from the classic series are often marked by understatement. The Curse of Fenric is so subtle it’s almost oblique and the tragedy in the Tomb of the Cybermen is touchingly personal and the Caves of Androzani hangs on the Doctor saving Peri. The entire universe doesn’t need to be at stake to engage us.

Let Tennant Act More
These ‘small moments’ (like the end of the Parting of the Ways) need a good actor and David Tennant is superb. He could be the best Doctor ever, he might even be better than Tom Baker. So please, let’s have lots more of him. He’s good when he’s shouting or running. He’s great when he’s flying the Tardis. But he’s best when he playing the Doctor as vulnerable, lost and almost lonely.

Enough Jesus Already
We’ve had the resurrection (Last of the Time Lords) and the ascension (Voyage of the Damned) so there’s not much more Jesus to ape. But please, no more. Oh, and the kissing has to stop too.

You’d better be right about Catherine Tate.
Enough said.

Don’t Listen to the Fans
On no account take a scrap of notice of the old fans. Doctor Who is about thrilling and petrifying the average 9 year old, imbuing them with subversion and ensuring they know that good can win. What a 30-something bloke, who should have better things to worry about, thinks is entirely unimportant.

… been selling my book on eBay using video.

… Fallen in love with the writing of Edward St Aubyn: fiction as sensual pleasure and vice. It’s not often you read a paragraph, savour each word and go back and read it again. Not that it’s cosy or twee stuff, some of it’s kinda grim. But it is vay, vay good.

… jumped and gyrated to the anarchic music of the joyful Don Bradmans.

… been listening to the new Billy Bragg album and plumbed the back catalogues of Morrissey and Rufus Wainwright. I’ve come rather late to both but I’m now a happy/miserable fan. Also, getting slowly in to the Magnetic Fields (specifically 69 Love Songs), tried very hard with These New Puritans (bit brash for me) and bobbed merrily to MGMT (ticket to gig garnered!)

… got cross about maps without scales. It’s not a map if there isn’t a scale. It’s just a picture!

… acquired a record player and dusted off the vinyl.

… shaved my beard off. They don’t think I’m Phillip Seymour Hoffman any more. They think I’m Boris Johnson. Quelle horreur!

… been greeted by a builder, who was hanging from some scaffolding not far from Oxford Circus: “Oi Boris, you posh cunt.” That’s what he said. I waved back and urged him to vote Labour.