eBay Announces its Association with the International Gemological Institution for its Seller Community

With an objective to drive precedence in one of the most significant categories in Indian exports, eBay in India announced its association with the International Gemological Institute (IGI).The largest organization of its kind, IGI is a highly trusted name in certifying the widest variety of gemstones and jewelry in the world.

The Gems and Jewelry Certification program (GJCP) introduced by eBay for Indian sellers primarily aims to support the country’s jewelry industry in the global market and establishing eBay as an ultimate destination for fine jewelry products.  The sellers can now get their products certified from IGI at the most competitive pricing available exclusively to the Indian domiciled eBay seller community.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Vidmay Naini, India Country Manager at eBay said, “At eBay our aim is to provide our sellers avenues to win more customers across the world and to get global customers the best quality of products. Our association with IGI is a step in that direction. Transparency and authenticity are the topmost considerations while making a purchase for fine jewelry. In the current scenario, with most of the purchases happening on the e-commerce platforms, it is only fair to say that consumers expect authenticity in what they purchase. The certification of Diamond Jewelry and loose stones will foster that confidence in the buyers and sellers alike on eBay.”

He further added, “Loose Diamonds & Gemstones category has witnessed a healthy push in the previous quarter with the introduction of GJEPC certification program. Meeting the demand for higher priced gemstones along with building trust amongst the buyers globally through certification has been the strategic approach at eBay INCBT, and we will continue to build upon the same in 2020 and onwards.”

Mr. Tehmasp Printer, Managing Director at IGI said,” We at IGI, consider the association with eBay as the beginning of a revolutionary consumer experience. With IGI certification, customers can now purchase their jewelry online, validated as per internationally acclaimed grading standards and practices. We look forward to empowering buyers on eBay with our services.

eBay Sellers domiciled in India can avail Gems and Jewelry Certificate Program benefits in three simple steps:

1.      Sell the Gemstone and Fine Jewelry Items on eBay marketplace

2.      Apply and obtain IGI certification for such Fine Jewelry items

3.      Ship the certified Fine Jewelry items with the IGI certificate to buyers

For more details, check https://bit.ly/GemsAndJewelryCertification

The Indian jewelry industry holds prominence on the platform and has shown a steady growth in recent years, providing a shining example of achieving international competitiveness. With real-time insights into the global market demands, eBay- INCBT has enabled some of India’s top diamond jewelry manufacturers and exporters who offer latest designs best quality diamonds and free customization at aggressive price points to the world.

eBay is committed towards understanding the concerns of both the buyers and sellers alike. The IGI certification provides a global standard of excellence to the diamonds and loose stones exported from India and gives much needed impetus to this commitment.

About eBay:

eBay Inc. is a global commerce leader that connects millions of buyers and sellers across 190 countries around the world. eBay has over 1.4 Billion live listings. eBay marketplace boasts of $90.2 Billion GMV (FY2019), $10.7 Billion revenue (FY2019)

eBay in India is focused on driving cross border trade and providing Indian MSMEs and artisans a platform to expand their reach to global customers. The cross-border trade business has more than 1,00,000 sellers registered on the website with over 16.8 million product listings. eBay is working towards building a robust ecosystem for Indian sellers and facilitating with the requisite skills and knowledge to undertake retail exports and provide them with an opportunity to expand their reach out to millions of buyers across the globe.

Co-founder of Netscape, Andreessen now joins HP board

Two years after selling his software company to Hewlett-Packard, Marc Andreessen has joined the PC giant's board of directors.

HP announced the appointment, effective immediately, on Thursday. In a statement, HP's chairman and CEO Mark Hurd described Andreessen as "a software pioneer whose leadership has helped shape the Internet...Marc's entrepreneurial background and industry expertise will be a welcome addition to the HP board of directors."

Andreessen and HP's relationship goes back several years, culminating with HP's purchase of Opsware for $1.6 billion in 2007. Since then, Andreessen, best known as the co-founder of Netscape, has helmed social network creation service Ning, and a new venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz. He also sits on the boards of eBay and Facebook.

Agencies

Did Google's Gmail really goof-up?

It's too bad the National Transportation Safety Board can't investigate Google to find out just why Gmail crashed Tuesday as Google's explanations for its outages (via its dashboard) are short and kindergarten-like.

The NTSB would seek out the root cause of the outage, hold hearings and issue a report with recommendations for fixing the problem. But Google follows the standard operating practice of cloud and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) providers, and that is to tell customers as little as possible about an outage. They treat their customers like dumb bunnies.

A Gmail outage isn't on the scale of a contaminated food supply incident, the discovery of lead paint on children's toys, or a plane crash—all events that trigger a federal investigation and detailed reports that flesh out causes and remedies.

But what happens if Google wins contracts to provide applications and mail services for Los Angeles and other government entities?

Cloud and SaaS providers increasingly want to manage critical services for government. And in time, outages that are now annoyances may have critical implications to them. Los Angeles' IT department is recommending the city move to Google Apps and says the company's services "often exceed the current city level."

That's a plus for Google but if something goes wrong with LA's IT systems, at least there is still a clear line of accountability to the managers responsible and an opportunity to probe.

But along with telling customers as little as possible, hosting, cloud and SaaS providers indemnify themselves as much as possible from any business losses resulting from an outage.

In theory, the accountability is provided by the market: a customer can move to new service provider. But a migration to the cloud may be a path of no return. LA, in its assessment of cloud services, said that if it ditches its current infrastructure, "it may be cost-prohibitive to return to the city-owned and operated structure."

Today, the harm is mostly economic. When eBay Inc.'s PayPal service crashed last month, it was just something customers had to deal with it.

PayPal blamed the failure on a "back-end router" and some redundancy issues, and left it at that. That meant the companies like Sailrite Enterprises Inc., a sailing supply company, which relied exclusively on PayPal, were unlikely to learn what happened and had to suffer the loss.

But if cloud and SaaS providers manage government services then it's unlikely that an informed public will settle for incomplete explanations about outages.

If the service is critical, they will want to know what went wrong. Was the equipment upgraded, patched? Was staffing at proper levels? When was the last time someone tested the emergency generators? And so on.

Answers to fair and legitimate questions will be sought and little "dashboards" aren't going to cut it.

Agencies

Will EBay sell off 65% in Skype for $2b?

EBay Inc agreed to sell 65% of its Skype Internet-calling unit to an investor group led by Silver Lake for about $2 billion to focus on reviving sales at its main e-commerce site. The buyers will pay $1.9 billion in cash and will also give EBay a $125 million note, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Ebay, which had planned an initial public offering for Skype, will retain 35% of the business.

The sale lessens CEO John Donahoe’s dependence on a unit that he has said doesn’t fit with the rest of EBay’s operations. The company is improving its Internet-retail operations to stem customer defections to Amazon.com Inc. Donahoe’s predecessor bought Skype for about $2.6 billion in 2005 and wrote down its value the following year.

The buyers also include Andreessen Horowitz, a venture-capital firm headed by Internet pioneer Marc Andreessen, and Index Ventures, a firm that invested in Skype before EBay acquired it.

Skype, started in 2002, lets people make calls from their computers to land lines and mobile phones, as well as other computers. It makes money when users call regular phones, set up voice mail and use text-messaging services.

Donahoe said in May that Skype’s value in an IPO could be over $2 billion.

Agencies

GM, eBay to test online market to sell new cars

General Motors Co and eBay Inc are launching a test program in California that will allow consumers to negotiate with dealers and buy
new vehicles online, the companies said on Monday.

The car shopping website, gm.ebay.com, marks a departure from the way new vehicles have traditionally been sold in the United States and is aimed at helping GM recapture lost market share a month after it emerged from bankruptcy.

The online marketplace provides the No 1 US automaker with a new venue to sell new vehicles as it cuts the number of US dealerships by more than 40 percent to 3,600 by the end of 2010 as part of its efforts to return to profitability.

It also expands an existing partnership covering GM's certified used vehicles sold through eBay. Most of the vehicles sold on eBay Motors, a site that sells various types of vehicles and auto parts, have been used.

More than 225 GM dealers in California are participating in the program, which will run from Aug. 11 through Sept 8. GM said it intends to expand the program nationwide if the pilot helps it reach new customers and gain market share.

The website allows consumers to compare pricing across models and participating dealerships, negotiate prices, and arrange financing and payment. Consumers can agree to pay the advertised price or indicate the price they are willing to pay and can negotiate online with the dealer for the vehicle.

More than 20,000 new Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Pontiac vehicles will be listed initially on the site.

California, which has been dominated by import brands over the past several years, is the most populous US state and the single largest market for new vehicles. Car sales have been hit harder in California than in other states over the past quarter because of the severity of the housing market slump there.

"It's a critical market for us and critical time for the company. Anything we can do to provide exposure to the products where we are underserved is clearly good news," GM US sales chief Mark LaNeve said on a conference call. "It's been incredibly hit by the recession. We think it really needs a shot in the arm," he said.

GM's market share in California is hovering in the 13 percent to 13.5 percent range, trailing its national average of 19.5 percent. GM, which lost $82 billion over the past four years, is trying to revamp its image and win back consumer trust after completing a bankruptcy restructuring steered by the Obama administration.

GM has lost market share for years to import brands led by Toyota Motor Corp, now No 2 in the US market with a 17 percent share. A recent J.D. Power & Associates study said more than 75 percent of new vehicle buyers in 2008 used the Internet during their shopping and research process, compared with 70 percent in 2007.

The decline in US auto sales to their lowest level in nearly three decades this year has hurt automakers, parts suppliers, dealers and virtually every company in the automotive sector, including eBay.

The online auction company's gross merchandise volume, a data point closely watched by analysts that measures the total value of goods sold on eBay, has been hit in recent years as the downturn in auto sales continued.

Agencies

Google emerges as the world's first 100 billion dollar brand

They changed the lexicon for the word, search. Now the phrase "I'll just Google it" has helped make the internet search giant become world's first $100 billion brand beating other household names like Microsoft, and Coca Cola to McDonald's.

The analysts of the Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands by consultants Millward Brown found that the company's value of $101.4 billion puts it 25 percent more valuable than computer software king Microsoft at $77.3 billion, reported Daily Mail Thursday.

Coca Cola ($68.5 billion) managed the third place in the list.

Technology companies make up the bulk of the top 10 with IBM (fourth at $67.5 billion), Apple (sixth at $63.9 billion) and China Mobile (seventh at $62.2 billion), along with consumables like cigarette brand Marlboro (10th at 50.1 billion) and burger chain McDonald's (fifth at $67.3 billion).

Energy major GE (eight at $59.9 billion) and telecom giant Vodafone (ninth at $50.2 billion) complete the top 10 valuable brands in the world.

Google, formed at Stanford University by students Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997, went up 16 percent in brand value in the past year to just break the $100 billion mark.

Google marketing manager Lorraine Twohill said: "We know that without consumers you have nothing and there is a great element of trust in us.

"We think about the consumer first and expect everything else to fall into place after that. We don't feel big. We still work in little crappy teams and we feel very small."

Among industries to see their value grow over the past year, most are 'stay at home' brands, said the Millward Brown research. Coffee companies like Nescafe benefitted from cutbacks on drinking expensive lattes in Starbucks and other coffee shops, for instance.

Soft drinks, fast food and beer brands also grew as more people stayed at home to eat and drink while online sites like eBay and Amazon also grew.

Car companies, insurers, clothing brands and, not surprisingly, financial institutions were the ones to suffer the most, the research found.

Millward Brown chief executive Joanna Seddon said: "In the current environment, brand has become even more important because it can help to sustain companies in tough times.

"Those who continue to invest in their brand will be better positioned for business growth as the economic situation starts to improve than those who have cut spend. The recession does not always harm individual brands as much as it does faceless corporations," she added.

Agencies