Has it become easier or harder to make money on eBay now it has become so popular?
eBay has killed auctions. Businesses that want to get started on eBay need to concentrate on fixed price (Buy it Now) sales from day one. eBay is also increasingly favouring big businesses and even high street names: originally the home of small businesses online, eBay is making it harder for SMEs to find an ecommerce toehold as it pursues profits. The way that eBay is charging business sellers favours those with higher turnovers and the new way items are displayed in search results benefits sellers with a longer track record. It can take months for new eBay sellers to compete effectively these days on what was once a level-playing field.

Budding eBay sellers should also know that eBay is losing its share of ecommerce. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Yes, eBay continues to deliver sales and customers but also think about Amazon which is growing more quickly.

What are the golden rules for people looking to set up an online business?
Measure everything. Understand what’s working and what’s not. Examine your sales and web traffic so you appreciate where to direct your efforts. What’s selling best with the best margins? Too many newbies waste time on unprofitable lines.

Be organised. Keep records, track stock efficiently, despatch quickly. Chaos is time consuming and time is money. So try and be ruthlessly ordered in everything you do.

Be professional. Your business might be online and operating from home But don’t let the fact you’re in working from the spare room in your pyjamas dent your professionalism. Your customers deserve the best regardless.

What are the most common mistakes they make?
Lot’s of fledgling sellers forget costs, margins and profits and concentrate on turnover. It’s easy to look at your sales total and be satisfied but once costs are taken into account (and that includes tax) the profits can be small or even non-existant. Also, factor your own time into your costs. It’s the most valuable commodity you have.

Any trends/other comments that might be relevant?
Plan long term from the start. eBay is just one opportunity but selling online is best done using multiple channels. Opening a webshop of your own, using Amazon and other outlets, as well as Google to advertise, are all well trodden paths to ecommerce success. Even in the recession, online retailing continues to grow so there is a huge opportunity for anyone who wants to have a go.

One of the most attractive aspects of starting a home ecommerce business is that you don’t need massive funds to get started. At a time where banks are reluctant to lend, you only need a few hundred pounds to get started.

When Meg joined eBay, she confessed she had no online experience. Her past experience at the likes of P&G, Bain, Stride Rite and Disney focussed on marketing and branding. Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll, the founders of eBay, were unperturbed about this believing that the tech could be taught. Her personality and values were much more important. She was 'very eBay': humble, clever, uninterested by the trappings of business power. She was also passionate about the transformational nature of the net and the potential for disruption.

And that's why Meg deserves to be among the Ada Lovelace Day pantheon. Not because she had power, is a billionaire, a former-CEO, a leader or politician. But because she understood, innately, that technology could be a means to an end and a way of promoting opportunity. In the numerous times over the years that I saw Meg in action at close quarters, she was constantly excited and evangelical about what eBay could do for people. Whether it was harnessing online trading to breathe new life into an old business or a channel for entrepreneurship, Meg's mantra was that technology could change lives and even change the world. And I think that her optimism and enthusiasm permeated eBay's culture and encouraged a lot of people to 'have a go' when otherwise they might not have been brave enough.

As a figurehead for eBay, her workaday approach was striking. In low key shirt and 'khaki pants' she was surprisingly informal and whilst she certainly wasn't consensual, she was unabashedly consultative. She was always impressive at eBay Live! (eBay's annual conference for members). Whilst I suspect that by nature she is slightly more cold, reserved, aristocratic than her performance betrayed but she had an instinctive understanding that eBay's community wouldn't be impressed by a queen. They responded to her because she seemed like them and they respected her approachability

I often think that one of the great failings of technology folk is a mistrust of the mass market and a general distaste for things that get big and popular. There is a knee-jerk reaction that when the grockles outnumber the geeks that a service or site is somehow sullied.

Meg the marketer understood the mass market and could plug eBay into it. eBay was a catalyst that spurred countless millions to become more proficient and advanced computer users. By selling the economic benefits she gave people a reason to embrace technology. I've personally met hundreds of people who profess that eBay was a real incentive to take on the net. I'll never forget 83 year old Joan who went out and bought a computer, learnt how to use it from scratch and went on to make thousands of pounds selling collectables. By her own admission, it gave her a new lease of life.

It is also interesting to me that Meg being a woman was almost entirely irrelevant to her role as eBay CEO. It seemed to be only of note to the press, who made a big deal of it. More certainly, than Meg ever made of it, I'd venture. And that's one of the more bewildering aspects of Meg's political campaign. She's being feminised, softened... and I can't see that it's necessary. But then politics, isn't business or technology.

What can we learn about how Meg will govern California (if she wins) from her tenure at eBay? Here are some pointers and predictions:

The Campaign Slogan?
Meg's a marketer. So why not reuse some of eBay's successful marketing campaigns in the race for Governor? Get those Whitdorphins! Vote Victoriously! Whitman for California: The Power of all of Us!

CalifornIPO
Why listen to pundits and those pesky voters when the market can decide? Meg will go public and float California on the Nasdaq as soon as she can after election. She'll get 6.6% of the state. It's only fair. That's what she got at eBay. Keeping California's stock high will mean quarterly targets and reporting to Wall Street. Making sure every quarter is a success will mean that long-term investment and infrastructure plans and schemes certainly won't be forgotten. If things don't work out, expect speculation that California will be bought by Microsoft or possibly even merge with YAHOO!.

A 'Growth through Acquisition' strategy
Meg's eBay loved writing cheques and buying companies: PayPal, Skype, Alando.de, Rent.com, Shopping.com, StumbleUpon. Can she make this work as Governor? Acquiring Nevada is clearly a 'no brainer'. And when Oregon is bought up in a cash and stock deal as an 'obvious strategic and cultural fit', California Inc. will enjoy the Power of Three. The acquisition of New Hampshire will be judged a mistake when analysts claim California overpaid for a state that cannot be integrated with the core platform and doesn't enjoy 'obvious synergies' with other properties in the portfolio. New Hampshire will then be sold to Google at a loss.

Guns, alcohol, tobacco: banned.
The sale of all guns, tobacco and alcohol (unless sold in collectable bottles) will be banned. PR risk.

All State Employees will be Paid with PayPal
PayPal is the fast, safe and easy way to pay. So all state officials and staff will be paid via PayPal minus fees of 2.9% and $0.30.

Bring on the MBAs
Meg loves MBAs and MBAs love Meg. She isn't sentimental about loyal staff with distinguished service. Why get someone with genuine expertise and experience to do a job, when you can hire a Stanford or Harvard MBA in khaki pants and a buttoned-down blue shirt from the GAP to review and strategise about the very same job for three times the salary? Welcome to SacraMBAnto.

Taxes. Up. Thirty days notice.
Like fee changes on eBay, tax rises are good for you and they're good for California. When Taxes are raised, it means a more vibrant state for everyone. New tax announcements will be made on town noticeboards in the dead of night. Interminable, impenetrable prose will be favoured. Meg also promises more nickel and diming.

Introducing the PowerCitizen Scheme
Californian citizens who pay the highest taxes will be invited to join the PowerCitizens scheme. PowerCitizens are entitled to wear a badge showing their PowerCitizen status and- erm- that's it. Diamond PowerCitizens paying more than $2 million a year will have the opportunity to negotiate lower taxes. In a spirit of openness and transparency, the state government will pretend it doesn't happen.

Death Penalty?
We believe people are basically good 'til cancelled.

Contact Governor Whitman
All communication with Governor Whitman will be conducted via email and outsourced to a dedicated team in Salt Lake City, Utah. For your convenience, automated replies with absolutely no reference to your original query will be used.

eBay should be able to prosper and flourish in the bad times. But I'm not certain it will. The new interventionist streak exposed by the executives in 2008 (DSRs, compulsory Free P&P in some categories, Best Match) means that sellers have less flexibility to make eBay work for them. Nanny doesn't necessarily know best and I generally have more confidence in the collective wisdom of eBay sellers over that of staff at eBay central.

A new year is a time to take stock and plan for the future. We now know that the US economy has been in recession for a year and the British economy is heading that way too. Retail has been hit hard and eBay is, by any stretch of the imagination, a retailer. So I'd guess there will be people at eBay HQ thinking about how they should react to the economic environment. After all, simply sticking to the course laid in, shouting full steam ahead and sending an order to the steward to rearrange the deckchairs immediately regardless of the iceberg on the horizon, simply isn't an option. Is it?

So, imagining that this is some sort of 2009 brainstorm*, here are some of the ideas I'd rattle out.

Concentrate on generating demand.
eBay's sellers need buyers. eBay needs to concentrate on generating demand so that means marketing. Two thoughts. Is the huge sum spent on Google adwords, working hard enough? Might it be better spent elsewhere? Email marketing. Does eBay do enough? I've noticed that Amazon (as well as other online retailers) is much, much more 'in your inbox' than eBay. There must be opportunity to do more there. Email marketing is attractive because it's inexpensive.

Reward loyal buyers
Some efforts have been made to encourage buyer loyalty and reward valuable returning buyers to eBay. But there must be more that can be done. Look at the supermarkets. I'm constantly offered discounts and incentives by them if I've been away for a while (via email and in the post). Is a coherent buyer loyalty scheme feasible and profitable?

Incentivise sellers to send traffic and buyers to eBay
The 'walled garden' approach that prohibits links from eBay to sellers' sites and Shops is the flipside of a culture that means sellers have no incentive to send buyers to eBay. If eBay liberalised the rules for linking out, more people will link in (probably). Another example.eBay charges sellers to send Shop marketing emails over a basic minimum. This is crazy. If a seller brings a buyer back to eBay they should be rewarded, not penalised.

Buyer marketing: eBay is the smart place to buy.
Cheap. Reliable. Safe. Convenient. It's a jungle out there. Make sure everyone knows that eBay is the only sensible choice when it comes to buying online.

eBay Fees + PayPal Fees = a lot of fees.
When a seller tots it all up, eBay and PayPal fees are a huge line item on the balance sheet that's comparable to what the taxman takes from biz sellers. There is surely latitude for some cuts. In any case: there is no room for increases. Can't make cuts? Make a promise: no increases in 2009. Give sellers decreases or certainty that there will be no increases.

Time is Money
If there is no possibility of fee reductions, invest in serious time savings for sellers. Improve the management tools. Turbo Lister is a disgrace. Selling Manager Pro should be free. Decent services for Macs: it's time. Just make it easy to manage a huge inventory on eBay. Or even a medium sized one. Even managing 100 items should be much easier. And free. Taxation through fees isn't the only way of stimulating supply.

Collective Bargaining
The MD of eBay in the UK can pick up the phone and talk to whomever they like, right? And estimated £4bn in eBay sales in 2008 makes that easy. What can eBay do on behalf of the mass of sellers and buyers to help them through the downturn in 2009? Genuinely beneficial deals could be done with Royal Mail, a major bank (for biz loans?), insurance companies, Jiffy, Tesco for cheaper petrol or anyone you can imagine. How about the tax man? Fancy an HMRC contact who gets eBay? They could actually ask. eBay could stop being coy and start flexing a bit of muscle. Stateside the Postmaster-General is a regular attendee at eBay Live!. Over here? Lord Mandelson is sure to have some bright ideas. :O)

Bail Out Hotline
If an eBay business is about to go down the tubes, what can eBay do to help? Maybe not a lot. But a phoneline eBay sellers could call in the event of terrible problems (with handy advice etc) would be nothing more than common courtesy to loyal sellers.

*What would you suggest? This is a brainstorm. No stupid ideas. Quickfire. Be creative Call for more information. Challenge assumptions. Ask a question. Essays not required. Lots of hats to choose from: not just a black one. Suggest something new.

Looking ahead to 2009, there are predictions galore. Ina Steiner of Auctionbytes makes some sober forecasts. Randy is more jaunty and salacious: predicting eBay CEOs John Donohoe's departure and possibly the splitting of the business. Not sure about farewell JD but I'd say a Skype sell-off has great merits and would be organisationally quite easy. Sue at Tamebay manages to quote Heraclitus but makes the right point regarding the economy being critical to eBay's fortunes in 2009, specifically in Europe. All worth a read.

eBay is a corporation. It exists to make money. It's still doing that and it isn't suicidal: if it makes changes the aim is making more money.

To disgruntled, disaffected eBay sellers everywhere here's what I say to you:

eBay has never loved you
The community thing was real but eBay has never ever shed a single tear over a seller who left. It can't. It's a corporation. If you're staying out of some sense of misplaced loyalty, switch that chip off now. Stay 'cos it works, makes you money: don't base a business decision on an emotional attachment to eBay. Your love will always be unrequited.

Feedback is still just Feedback
eBay changed feedback. It's gonna stay changed. If you harbour a grudge because you feel buyers have too much power, get over it or get out. It's a change that isn't going to be undone. If you think you are being hounded by hordes of malicious buyers who want to make your life a misery using Feedback, you're wrong. Sellers care much more about Feedback than buyers: it has always been thus. Are there nutters out there? Sure. It's not a problem restricted to eBay, it's a problem with humans.

Are you really as good as you reckon?
So you've had some negative Feedback: it's obviously unfair. You're not getting top billing in Search because of some bad Feedback from some crazy buyers who were simply so stupid that they didn't give you the 5* DSR you obviously deserve. How can eBay allow it? But, and search your soul a little, are you really as staggeringly brilliant as you believe yourself to be? Might it possibly be, imagine, that the buyers are right? Are you really as good as your best customers deserve you to be?

Big retailers are getting preferential treatment
They do. They get better fees. It's been like that for a while. It's crap (and I'm against it) but as a small seller you can be the better seller because you care more, are more nimble and are responsive. Get out there and excel.

Are you just whinging, or changing too?
Complain. It's fun. But it's not a business strategy. How else can you make money? There are loads of options: explore them. If you're a professional eBay seller and don't have a website, you're crazy.

It's your business, stupid.
The strikes, petitions, combative chatboard threads, the complaints, the rants: they don't work. eBay doesn't notice them. Stop worrying about eBay's business and how it's gone awry and will fail if it doesn't look after businesses like you. Focus your energies on the business that keeps a roof over your head. I have never met a seller who regretted branching out.