The ChannelAdvisor UK team has been having a lot of fun recently putting together a series of video newsletters – http://www.channeladvisor.co.uk/video

It’s amazing how normally confident and professional public speakers can be reduced to the level of giggling schoolgirls or timid rabbits caught in the glare of car’s headlights when a camera is turned on them – but after hours in makeup and even more time spent in the editing suite – we’re pretty “chuffed” with the results.

The latest installment from the Richmond office explores the opportunity available on Amazon.co.uk’s Merchants@ platform (sometimes referred to as Seller Central), introduces Metapack – a new member of CA’s Development Partner Program and announces the latest news from our Catalyst UK Conference to be held in central London on April 21st and 22nd.

Enjoy: http://www.channeladvisor.co.uk/video

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Whew - 2008! I hope everyone had a great trip into the new year and recovered from a wild holiday shopping season. 2007 was a big year for many of our customers that mastered (automated) existing online eCommerce channels and expanded into new ones (add’l CSEs, paid search campaigns, new marketplaces). It was also a good year for ChannelAdvisor with cool new products (big shout out to the kick-*** ShoppingAdvisor team) and joining forces with Marketworks.

We’ve anticipated your “Enough dwelling on the past already” and painstakingly created a list of New Year’s Resolutions that should be on your list if you’re ready to turn the dial on your business to 11 in 2008 (I’ll never get tired of Spinal Tap references). (more…)

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With everyone eagerly anticipating Green Monday, Amazon — undisputed Cyber Monday leader — has published a Holiday Season tips viewlet on the heels of their Holiday Season Tips.

Definitely worthwhile to take 15 mins and listen to Amazon best practices straight from the experts (we love this type of online presentation as webinar fans).

If you don’t have 15 minutes, then here’s a quick summary: focus on superior customer service from merchandising, fulfillment to buyer communication. That’s 75% of the Amazon secret success sauce.

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Even though I would consider ChannelAdvisor somewhat of a webinar expert, I am still surprised at times about how some topics can really strike a cord with online retailers (unfortunately my proposed series on tragic German literature figures of the 12th century has been postponed indefinitely).

Our July Amazon webinar (click here to download a recorded version) is a case in point. At the conclusion of the webinar as well as the next few days following it, Tim Mirick from Amazon, our in-house Amazon expert Jonathon Davis and I fielded many questions from merchants on the overall opportunity, the Amazon Webstore and Fulfillment By Amazon products, and strategies for really hitting it out of the park.

In response to the many inquiries I am going to start an Amazon De-Mystery Machine series of posts reviewing the most common seller questions (aligned somewhat with the sales life cycle). Note that while I will tragically skip my Holiday 2007 Amazon wishlist I will also not review if and when it makes sense to look at Amazon as part of a multi-channel portfolio - there are not many online retailers that can afford NOT to market their products to the 75+ million convenience shoppers that turn to Amazon for their online shopping needs.

Last, but not least, I need audience participation so please send me any and all Amazon-related questions that you have and I will try to reply directly or through a blog post. Without further a due, let’s kick this off: (more…)

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Well, we’ve just about (but not quite!) recovered from the first ChannelAdvisor Insite event of 2007 which took place yesterday in central London.

Over 30 UK online retailers joined ChannelAdvisor and Google (who were Platinum Sponsors) for an information-packed day of presentations, discussions and workshops about the current opportunities for online retailers in the UK.

The day started with a look at recent UK eCommerce Trends followed by an introduction to the fundamentals drivers of success on marketplaces (such as eBay and Amazon Merchants@), shopping comparison websites and paid search campaigns.

After lunch the group then split into two ’streams’ to dive into some more advanced strategies for optimising each of these channels in preparation for the rapidly-approaching Q4 busy season. Attendees also got the opportunity to hear first-hand from Aidan O’Curry and Richard Keelty from Google Europe about how Google Checkout and Google Product Search can drive more sales and reduce costs for online retailers.

A big thanks to our sponsors: Google (Platinum), PayPal (Gold), Cybersource (Gold) and FOEB (Silver) without whom the Insite series of events wouldn’t be able to happen. We look forward to the next events up in Manchester on the 5th September, and then on to Glasgow, Birmingham and finally Dublin.

If you were at the event yesterday - thanks for coming - we’d love to hear your comments!

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