eCommerce and

At Gordian Project we use Google tools extensively.  Adwords, Analytics, Apps, Chrome, Website Optimizer, Webmaster tools, Checkout, YouTube, we use them all.  We’ve even got some nice press about our development of Google Checkout pixel tracking for affiliates and our utilization of Google Checkout combined with other Google products to improve overall marketing efforts.  We’ve had a good relationship with Google, have enjoyed several dinners with our Googlers, and have enjoyed the annual Christmas gift we receive from the Adwords team.  Unfortunately, that positive momentum has taken a severe blow.

A couple weeks ago Google Checkout’s finance team performed a review of our account and decided that a reserve would be required to “offset any refunds, chargebacks, or other claims against [our] balance.”  The notion in general was quite surprising since no other payment processor has ever set a reserve requirement on any of our accounts.  More surprising, though, are the amount of the reserve relative to our account activity, the lack of details as to how it was determined and what could be done to reduce/remove it.  This led to a fairly passionate phone conversation with a Google Checkout team member followed by a discussion with my management team as to how to proceed with Google Checkout on PlumberSurplus.com and OutdoorPros.com.

First, let’s tackle the sheer amount of the reserve.  Before sharing some numbers, for those unfamiliar, “Other Activity” is the bucket Google Checkout uses for refunds, chargebacks, claims, etc.  Each day a merchant has a starting balance, purchases, other activity, a payout, and an ending balance.  Starting Balance + Purchases – Other Activity – Payout = Ending Balance

For the Google Checkout account in question…

• When looking at “Other Activity” the reserve requirement represents:
  • 786% of our highest “Other Activity” on a given day in 2009
  • 4,561% of our average daily “Other Activity” over the last 12 months
• The reserve represents 670% of our average daily “Purchases” in 2009
• At our Q3 2009 average weekday payout, and the fill rate from Google, it would take over 5 months to fill the reserve.  This would be even longer if we reduce our promotion of Google Checkout as a payment option.
• When combined with our average “Ending Balance” Google will be holding over nine times our average daily “Purchases”.

All of you merchants out there know nine days of cash is unprecedented and ridiculous.  Particularly for an account that has been with Google Checkout since inception, without a single issue with respect to meeting our refund, chargeback, and claim obligations.  We currently offer Visa, MasterCard, Discover, AMEX, PayPal, and PayPal Pay Later along side Google Checkout.  None of these other payment methods, through which we transact significantly higher gross dollars, have required a reserve, most make funds available in a day or two, and at competitive rates.  Google Checkout stands alone in this reserve requirement.

When we challenged Google Checkout on these points they responded with:

Once the reserve is filled, no more funds will be withheld from your future disbursements. Furthermore, your ending balance is not included in the reserve. It is highlighted on the Merchant Help Center that Google initiates payouts within two business days of charging an order; therefore, Google is not effectively holding money back from you and these funds are not included in the reserve.

They’re obviously missing the point, the fact that after the reserve is filled the money that is earned is paid out in two business days is irrelevant to a merchant.  You are still holding the pool of cash.  By their logic we wouldn't care if the reserve was $1.00 or $5M as long as after it was full we received new money in two days.  Heck, make it $10M.  Yes, every dollar that goes in is paid out in two days on a last-in-first-out basis but we in essence must give tens of thousands of dollars to do business with Google Checkout.  The only way we can compare this with their competitors is to compare how many days of cash each holds at any given time, for whatever reason.  Many hold less than one, a couple hold one to two, and Google Checkout now wants to hold nine.  Additionally, our merchant accounts allow us to keep transaction fees through the month for debit at the end, which is another cash flow plus over Google Checkout.

So Google is in left field in terms of understanding the language of the merchant, and the amount of our reserve is extremely high compared to our volume of business.  So, to the second point, how did they come up with it?  Maybe that will also shed some light on how we can work to have it reduced or eliminated.  After some prodding, our Google Checkout contact responded, “For clarification purposes, the way we determine whether an account should be placed on a reserve is based on a proprietary set of rules…  However, the way we calculate the reserve placed on your account is an industry standard formula that other processors use.”  So the obvious… how, for a given account, can an industry standard formula result in a reserve requirement for Google Checkout but not for any other major payment processor in the industry?

Our subsequent request for the “industry standard formula” returned the high level variables included, without their values or the formula.  The variables included are, “your chargeback exposure, your refund exposure, and your delivery exposure.”  Given the numbers above I’m pretty confident chargebacks and refunds aren’t the culprit, which leaves delivery.  Google wants to cover the dollars that have been ordered but not shipped.  In essence, by setting a reserve that covers dollars in open orders Google is deciding we can’t have our money until the point of shipment, rather than at the point of order.  On average, Google keeps the cash for our work in process.  The point at which to charge a customer should be a decision made by the merchant, not the payment processor.  Some merchants offer only fast moving products that are always in stock and opt to charge at the point of shipment while other merchants may offer special order or hard to find products with lead times and opt to charge at the point of order, possibly to procure the special order items.  For the latter group, Google holding a reserve to cover the open dollars is a de facto trump of the business decision to collect up front.  Whether the former or latter group, it’s a business decision and shouldn’t be under the purview of the payment processor.  Most payment processors don’t even have shipment data.  They don’t need it; they simply process transactions, which yields no exposure.  Even still, lumping our total open dollars on top of our average “Other Activity” I couldn’t get anywhere near the reserve requirement Google calculated.

Ultimately, in fact, no specific changes or improvements have been recommended and the rep in our call finally agreed that our best bet is to hold our breath, cross our fingers and hope that the magic Google machine makes a better decision next time.

At the least this issue highlights Google Checkout’s lack of maturity relative to the payment processing space they have entered.  At its worst, this issue represents a seemingly arbitrary, punitive move to support Google’s interest income goals.

This has led us to strongly reconsider our approach to promoting Google Checkout as a payment option.  This year, across our sites, Google Checkout was presented as the first option in our checkout flow.  In light of these events, we have moved Google Checkout to be the last option in our checkout flow and in the first couple days noticed a drastic drop in Google’s share of our payment processor pie, to about 1/3 the previous level.  Interestingly, overall daily sales have increased noticeably.

Just prior to completion of this post, Google Checkout reduced our reserve by about 29%, without sharing the new calculation.  At our new, lower sales volume through Google Checkout, this reserve, without including our average Ending Balance, is over 20 days of “Purchases” and will take over a year to fill.  Although I appreciate the reduced reserve, I’m not sure we’re making progress, or making sense.

If as the shimmer of “Google” begins to fade, and it inevitably will, this is how they begin treating customers, I’m betting on PayPal.

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

As I looked at our warehouse, I felt overwhelmed at the number of items we have in stock, and began to wonder how long these products have just been sitting here.  This made me contemplate, “Does it really matter that we have so much stock? We’re going to sell it one day, and if an order is placed, then at least we know we have it in stock and ready to ship.”  The question that I should be asking is: “Does it really matter that we have so much inventory obsolescence?” The answer to that issue is yes.  There are large costs that are incurred by carrying inventory that will become or has already become obsolete.

Inventory obsolescence happens when inventory is no longer salable; this tends to happen when we have too much inventory on hand, when products are out of season, or when demand is decreasing.

Warehouse and Supply Chain Managers need to be aware of the costs associated with inventory obsolescence so that they can properly manage their departments and budget accordingly.  I’ve put together a basic list of costs associated with stocking unsalable inventory.

Below are some of the costs that are associated with stocking inventory that is no longer salable:

Labor Costs- Labor spent on obsolete inventory is wasted labor. Employees have to spend time stocking products, picking, relocating, and taking inventory. The more inventory on hand, the more time is spent on performing these activities, thus the higher the costs.

Equipment Expenses- When inventory begins to grow, the need for racks, shelves, pallets, and maybe even a larger warehouse also grows. Not only are these costs fairly high, but these tools can also become damaged and worn.  When this happens these tools will need to be replaced. Equipment expenses are ongoing operating costs. 

Opportunity Costs- This affects us more than the others. When obsolete items are stored, the opportunity to stock more of the products that are in a higher demand is out of the question. Not only are customers not provided with the newest trends or “in” products, but the sales that could be acquired are essentially lost.

There are other types of costs that should be taken into consideration. Charles Atkinson’s article on When to Get Rid of Stock explains that when a company realizes that it is not profitable to keep such inventory, their best choice is to get rid of the stock they do have. Whatever the outcome maybe, the key is to develop some type of inventory obsolescence program that will save the company money in the long run.

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PayPal a Force to be Reckoned With

With the rapid growth of online sales, there has also been a rapid growth in the number of people using PayPal. In fact Monday’s outage was a huge testament to the role that PayPal now plays in eCommerce.  Considering that sources like CNet revealed “The outage could be costly for those who rely on PayPal to handle e-commerce transactions. PayPal says about $2,000 in payments per second flows through the system, meaning that a one-hour outage would cut out about $7.2 million in commerce.” PayPal provides customers a safe and secure way to check out online.  PayPal allows customers to not only pay for items they purchase, but it allows users to transfer money between other PayPal users. PayPal accounts can be funded with an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card.

To access a PayPal account you need to have the username and password of the account. The username of a PayPal account is the main email address (primary email address) used to register the account. The owner of the account would also set up a password to be used along with the username to access the account. The security system is quite secure as long as the username and password of the PayPal account are known only to the actual owner of the account. If these details are available to anyone else it would mean that the security of that PayPal account could be compromised. Anyone acquiring the username and password of any PayPal account can access and perform all functions that the actual owner of the account could do. Although PayPal has a security key, PayPal identity scams have become more frequent. 

Account Exposed

I personally had an experience in which I had an eBay account and a PayPal account which was compromised. Someone sold fraudulent items under my eBay account (items they never intended to ship), linking my PayPal account to the sales.  They then collected the funds by transferring them from my account to theirs. When the eBay buyer realized their money was taken and no product was delivered, they started a claim with PayPal and in return the money was deducted out of my account!  I ended up not being liable after we fought the claims and PayPal did an investigation, but the accounts had to be closed and were no longer usable and it was a big hassle and I didn’t even realize that this was all going on until I saw debits coming out of our checking account.

There are a few ways that your PayPal account can be compromised. Being careless with your information is an obvious way for your account to be compromised. Writing down your information on paper or choosing a simple password, is another way. A common way the fraudster can get your PayPal information is by sending an email to the account owner notifying them of certain activity in their PayPal account. For these PayPal email scams to work, the receiver of the email is instructed to login to his or her PayPal account by clicking a link in the email. Once the user clicks the link in the email, he is taken to a web page that closely resembles a regular PayPal login page. This page is in fact a fake and is hosted by the fraudster (not PayPal) with the sole purpose of collecting confidential login details from the actual owner of the PayPal account.  These are referred to as fishing scams.

Account Protection

To avoid these types of PayPal fraud scams there are a few things you can do. One is to never use a simple password such as your first or last name, strong passwords should consist of a capital letter, a lowercase letter a number and a symbol if the service will allow all of the characters mentioned above to be used in the password. Two, never click links on emails to access your PayPal account. Also, type in the complete name of the PayPal website to the requested login, what you will see is that the URL is often a letter or two off or a play on words, for example www.playplal.com. Three, login to your account periodically and look for any strange or unexpected transactions.

The suggestions above will help you keep your PayPal account safe, while lowering the risk of your account being compromised.

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I’ve been thinking about something lately and I need your help. Can someone please tell me why every article, blog post, news report, or ANY informational piece in our space has had recession tunnel vision?  Entrepreneurs in eCommerce have quickly shifted focus from the latest fads and trends in user interfaces and vendor partnerships to best practices in hiring, strategic cash plans, etc. and all as a result of the recession.

It seems that the recession is the driving factor behind the influx of attention made on best business practices.  This just cracks me up – as if these things should not be a major focus in BOOM times.  We should be doing this (concentrating on efficiencies, market share, employee retention rates, etc.) all the time!!  I have to admit, I am guilty of writing posts like this myself.  Just imagine if all of the business owners, politicians, whoever should be named, crunched these same numbers when the economy wasn’t forcing everyone to pay attention and do so?  What if we were motivated and “entrepreneurial” enough to make these meticulous calculations when things were going well?  If we all acted as if “economic Armageddon” (as we all like to call it around here) was just around the corner, just think about how much leaner and meaner our businesses, industries and economy would be as a result.  Those that are successful, those that survive and move through these difficult times are those that are proactive, those that are prepared and ready for what’s next, they create their own competitive advantage in doing so.  Don’t get me wrong, I understand that different times call for different strategies, but it just seems like strategies such as particular hiring, sensible cash plans and market share maneuvers are important regardless of what the economy is doing.  How about from now on, don’t just ride the market cycles, drive them.

Kohler is arguably one of the most innovative brands in the home improvement industry. The new Karbon faucet has completely transformed the kitchen and more specifically revolutionized the kitchen faucet. Meanwhile Kohler seems to effortlessly create bathroom fixtures that are not only sleek but save water, like the Escale toilet.

Recently, Elastic Path presented a great webinar on the topic of Buy, Build, or Leverage? It was a really great webinar which presented some great information and posed some interesting questions. Now of course Elastic Path is an eCommerce vendor and therefore certainly have some reasons to push their own product, however, overall I thought it was very interesting and that they did a good job of presenting the points and issues from all sides.

Since the Gordian Project uses a custom platform there are many instances where our problems and solutions can get technical in nature and be solved by an array of solutions. While our platform is mostly custom we have certainly assimilated solutions which we would rather buy or leverage than build such as LivePerson, PowerReviews, Google Analytics, Mcafee Secure, etc. All of these solutions we decided not to build, find a partner and then integrate their solution into our platform, each provides value for us in its own unique way. Most of these solutions were relatively easy to come to an agreement on, integrate and begin using. The webinar does a great job addressing this and I applaud them on their great presentation.

This webinar got me thinking about possible issues though and what we have faced in the past. What happens when things do not work out the way you intend or a solution is no longer providing the value you are looking for? Our saga in this regard has been the site search and merchandising elements of our website. When our website was first created it had custom site search functionality which worked well enough, nothing spectacular, no killer bells and whistles. After several years with this solution we decided that something more robust was needed, preferably with better search, marketing and merchandising capabilities. After looking at all of the options we decided to take on a 3rd party vendor who was considered best of breed in this field. After all negotiations were finished, and documents were inked, we were able to begin the task of integrating the solution, which was no small task. 

The solution worked especially well for most of our commitment with our partner, but issues with scalability arose when taking into account multiple websites.  Product upgrades on their part, required further development on our part became frequent and with less and less accurate notice.  Website changes on our part required cooperation on their part.  While there were few there were enough reliability issues and while any downtime is inopportune, two weeks before Christmas can really hurt an internet retailer.  Finally, there was a hefty price tag associated with the service.  In looking at all of these pieces together, the perceived value of the service began to dwindle. 

With all of that in mind, late last year we decided to forgo renewing our contract and instead decided to build something in-house.  While our solution would have fewer bells and whistles the resolution would be more than sufficient for our current needs, and far better than what we had initially. After some intense planning and development, using what we had learned, taking notes from what industry leaders were doing, and utilizing the research available to us, we created, what is in my opinion a pretty great solution.  It’s our own, and we have full control. While we continue to make tweaks it has been a very positive experience, and it turned out to be a financially smart decision as well.

PlumberSurplus.com offers its customers tens of thousands of plumbing, home improvement, and building products in a range of categories including Kitchen and Bathroom, Water Heaters, Lighting, Pumps, Tools, Access Doors, Valves, Commercial and more. Individuals and businesses can shop quickly and easily at PlumberSurplus.com 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

No doubt retailers that offer Google Checkout as a payment option are now aware Google is changing their transaction processing fees to a new tiered structure and removing the Adwords processing credits. This is a pretty large change they plan on implementing, and one that will likely be adding much higher processing fees for Google Checkout Merchants.

Old Fee structure V. New Fee Structure

Under the old model if you processed $100,000 in one month through Google Checkout which represented 1,000 orders you would be charged $2400 in processing fees, which include the per transaction fee of $0.20.  Seems legit right? But let’s say you also spent $10,000 on Google Adwords the previous month, you would get that $100,000 processed for free because they will process 10 times whatever your Adwords spend is for free and everything else at the normal rates.  Nice kicker huh, for taking on Google checkout and also using multiple Google services?

Under the new model if you processed $100,000 in one month through Google Checkout which represented 1,000 orders (this pushes merchants into the lowest tier of processing fees at 1.9%) you would be charged $2200 is processing fees, which includes the per transaction fee of $0.30.  The fees are slightly lower than the previous model, that's great right?  Maybe not, let’s say you still spent that same $10,000 on Adwords the previous month, under the new model you now owe the full $2,200 in processing fees! They are removing the Adwords processing credits.  Wha wha wha!

Our wonderful checkout representative plans on calling me this week to review the changes and let us know what they plan on accomplishing with the fee changes, but still that's a pretty steep increase in fees. The fees are especially high when you take into consideration, that we made the upfront investment to take on Google checkout, pay for the development and fully integrate Google checkout. Granted, they have tossed on some awesome promotions since we implemented the feature and have successfully heavily engaged users.  It’s still a hard chunk of change to write a check for (or never see as the case may be). On top of the hard economic times, I hope that this does not affect too many merchants in an extremely negative fashion.  I could see merchants with large Adwords budgets who process a lot of dollars through Google Checkout possibly getting thrown under the bus on this one.

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We’re months into this economic slowdown which is more accurately now being referred to as a recession. We all knew it was a recession well before any economist was willing to utter the word. Hope for a turnaround before finding ourselves in the midst of a depression has lead to several conversations over the past few weeks that start something like this, “What are you doing in 2009?”

There seems to be three primary interests in asking this question. The first is an attempt to identify the current health of your business. It doesn’t even matter if the individual you’re chatting with is in a remotely similar industry; people are simply looking for any positive sign. The second is to gleam some brilliant idea that they might take back to their company planning meeting. I know I’d love to put the zinger on the table that saves the day.  Finally, to identify a sympathetic ear willing to listen to their ideas for insuring livelihood through 2009, in other words, someone to bounce ideas off of.  No one wants to put the “zinger” on the table that once stated out load is the obvious flop.

So I’ll go first, here are Gordian Project’s 2009 Pillars:

• Make the customer possible - Making a customer possible involves adding new product to our catalog via new or existing vendors and websites. Additionally, we make a customer possible by more deeply penetrating existing markets. Market penetration begins with our ability to fulfill orders for a given product within our catalog.
• Capture the customer - Capturing a customer involves connecting a shopper with Gordian Project via all candidate channels, including paid and organic, using all available tools including price, promotions, navigation, etc.
• Make the customer happy - Making customers happy involves building an efficient, intuitive, engaging, comfortable shopping, purchasing, and post order experience.
• Make it worth it - Financial performance involves making our efforts in business worth it by creating goals and guidelines that promote growth, discipline, and efficiency. Ultimately “worth it” includes not settling for “viable” or even “on par” but rather outperforming alternative options.
• Make it a lifestyle - Making Gordian Project a lifestyle involves supporting our more social and interpersonal needs. We strive for an exciting, challenging, innovative workplace that fosters motivated, engaged employees.

Peel off all the layers that develop over time and these 5 pillars define “who we are.” Over 120 potential initiatives were then prioritized in light of these pillars as initiatives to be addressed now, next, and later.

Rich Schmitt in his article “We can survive this economic turmoil” identifies the following focuses for 2009 (The Wholesaler January 2009 Vol.64, NO.1).

• Right-size your organization
• Watch the cash
• Keep selling
• Keep getting better at what you do
• Spend more time on pricing

The following blogs also touch on this subject and have provided valuable insights:

• 10 Focus Areas for Small Business in Slow Economy - Tips for New Internet Business Owners
• Refine Your Focus: It’s Essential for Success
• A Profitable 2009? Focus on Building your INCOME not Business Fundamentals

So in my effort to find hope in the midst of the pending “economic doom” I would like to know how your business doing, what great ideas do you have, and what do you think of the above?

This week in eCommerce:

• Matt McGee’s SEO Success Pyramid was published about a year ago.  The top of the pyramid and the primary goal is trust.  To follow up on this idea and review its relevancy today he asked his peers to contribute to his idea that trust matters.  Not only does this article include insights from some of our favorite people in the industry but I believe it provides valuable insight for online retailers that may be quick to forget that what others think does matter.
• WOMMA provides us with great statistics this week, “Let's get down to the bare bones of it. If your boss is asking you why you should have a blog, reviews section, or other transparency component for your company, here's why:
  • "82% of the respondents preferred customer reviews over the hotel's description"
  • "70% of the respondents preferred customer reviews over those of "professional reviewers"
• Steve Jobs is arguably the most influential CEO in recent history.  The impact he has on Apple Inc., their stakeholders, and Apple shares is like that of none other.  The closest comparison that I can think of is Bill Gates and Microsoft, but Gates planned his retirement and eased investors by making a slow and calculated exit.  Jobs’ announcement that he is taking an extended leave of absence came as quite a shock and Apple shares subsequently fell 10 percent.  The laws surrounding how much a company has to disclose about the health of their CEO’s are gray which has sparked rumors of investor lawsuits.
• No one is recession proof, not even Google.  While some view their recent layoffs and consolidation of engineering centers as a bad sign, others, like Larry Dignan of ZDNet believe that these are good signs that Google is maturing.  He states “Now we get to see what Google is really made of. You don’t earn your corporate chops in a boom. Let’s face it. When the profits are flowing Google could burp and people would fawn over it. A stock price north of $700 makes everyone look like a genius and you can go on engineering benders.”
• Seagate’s Bill Watkins goes from headliner at the Consumer Electronics Show to an immediate departure from the company.  This left some asking if it was his lack of political correctness that got him in trouble and not the companies declining numbers.

Enjoy!

• Firefox held a 20% browser market share in November of 2008 for the first time.
• They call him Dr. Doom, the economist who five years ago, predicted the economic recession that we now face.  His thoughts may help your company plan ahead for 2009.
• If Google Checkout is an option on your website you will probably be interested in the following two stories:
  • Google Claims That Google Checkout Increases Conversion By 40% & Clicks By 10%
  • Checkout Icon Makes Ads 10% More Clickable, Google Says
• TechCrunch is fighting back against unscrupulous PR firms.  Their plan is simple “Today we are taking a radical step towards fighting the chaos. From this point on we will break every embargo we agree to.”
• Curious about what other retailers are doing to stay afloat in a down economy?  MarketingProfs.com interviewed Best Buy and Wipro CMO’s to get their ideas.

Happy New Year all!  I am out for the rest of the week so the variety is early.  There are some new posts that I wanted to share, but in addition to that let’s take a look at some of our favorite posts, top stories, and some of the biggest developments in the industry from 2008.

• Google Product Search up 786% in the category of shopping search.
• The Silicon Alley Insider reports on Digg’s revenue losses and why ad targeting, or the lack there of, could be a major factor in these losses.
• Have your 2009 wish list ready for Google?  I know Zach does and Matt Cutts’ parents do, but submissions are coming in fast so add yours soon.
• Jennifer Laycock released her second installment of “Six Lessons from a Wooden Boy”, but I recommend starting from her first post on the subject.
• A legend about the inventor of chess may provide insight into internet retail growth.

2008 In Review

• Election news spreads and bloggers highlighted Super Tuesday.
• eBay jolts sellers by changing fees.
• eCommerce celebrates its 25th birthday.
• OutdoorPros.com launches!
• Mercado rebrands one month and then sells to Omniture a few months later.
• April Fools jokes get better and better every year so it would seem.
• eBay adds a merchant dashboard so sellers can track best match search placement.
• Amazon goes down!
• PCI updates Data Security Standards, again.
  
• The iPhone is released.
• Google adds shopping list to Product Search.
  
• The Top 100 Web Celebrities is announced.
• Yahoo and Google team up.
• Brian gives a lesson on forecasting.
  
• Amazon is finally able to ship Kindle.
• Big companies continue to try and squash the little guy.
• Vanessa, yeah that’s me talking in the 3rd person, goes on a rant about employee responsibility.
• The Olympics!
• Google News causes a 75% drop in United Airlines stock.
• Bill Gates retires from daily role at Microsoft.  Little did we know the extra free time would be spent with Jerry Seinfeld.
• Spore, the most copyright protected game, also becomes the most pirated game.
• Barack Obama becomes the first “Internet President”.
• Macy’s requires online shoppers to “wait in line”.
• Reputation management becomes increasingly important as social networking becomes more popular.
• Internet retailers have to respond to declining economic conditions.

• The Internet star rises in a down economy
• E-commerce on the move
• How the Supreme Court Fractured Online Pricing
• Retail Explorer
• We-commerce
• The Power of Customer Reviews
• Advantage: Amazon
• Merchandise sold on eBay falls 1%, the first decline in company history
• Exit Strategy
• Target.com supports site design for blind people under legal settlement

I know this couldn't possibly be everything, which events in 2008 were most memorable to you?