Ten days until our Catalyst UK event in London at Vinopolis right on the doorstep of London’s Borough Food Market. Which I have never been to, so that’s a cool bonus.

Following our Catalyst US event last week our team in the UK has put together a great agenda:

• Mark Lewis, Managing Director, eBay UK on “eBay: Evolving Opportunities on the World’s Online Marketplace”
• Scot Wingo, CEO, ChannelAdvisor Corporation on “The Latest Multi-Channel Online Trends”
• Robert Swerling, Strategic Partner Development Manager of Google on “A View into Google’s Long Tail Strategy”
  Colleen Aubrey, Senior Manager, Business Development of Amazon.co.uk on “Amazon Opportunities for Retailers in 2008”
• Carl-Olav Scheible, Managing Director of PayPal UK on “How Account Based payments Drive Incremental Merchant Sales”
• David Smith, Director of Operations of IMRG on “UK Online Retail – What’s in Store for 2008”
• Bill Alexander, Managing Director of Red Letter Days Ltd. on “Experience The Brand Imperative”
• Luke Taylor, Senior Product Manager of Play.com on “How to Succeed on the UK’s Newest Marketplace: PlayTrade”

Of course you’ll also have a chance to talk to many of us working ChannelAdvisor about online retailing strategies, our products, our new support of Amazon Seller Central in the UK (me! me! me!), our Technical Services (Support, Implementation) or where on the cruise ship you’ll have the best view and most favorable access to the bar. Get real-time updates / news / logistics during the conference by following us on Twitter (www.twitter.com/channeladvisor).

And, no, it’s not too late to join. Head on over to www.channeladvisor.com/catalyst/UK and click “Register” to sign up. I can’t promise though that we won’t highlight you as a procrastinator during the conference.

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I am not one to panic easily, but if you have not yet registered for our conference in Pinehurst then it may just be your time to throw your arms in the air and in despair rush over to www.kayak.com to find a flight to Raleigh / Durham. Because you do not want to miss this event (or the great weather and golf in Pinehurst).

There will be many good speakers (yes, including Tank who you can see work hard in this latest episode of Tankworld), a set of expert roundtables to learn more about marketplaces, comparison shopping, search, website optimization and more. And of course insight into where ChannelAdvisor is heading in 2008 (meaning where our customers have told us we need to go).

I am particularly excited about 2 events: First, Sebastian Gunningham, head of Amazon’s third-party program, is going to talk about Amazon’s product portfolio for online retailers. And second, Ben Ling who spearheads Facebook’s foray into eCommerce will discuss eCommerce and advertising strategies for online retailers on this social networking wunderkind.

And if you’ve procrastinated so far, it’s time to register at www.channeladvisor.com/catalyst before it’s too late (I hear rooms at the famous Pinehurst Resort are almost gone).

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eBay has introduced a lot of changes at its recent PowerSeller eCommerce Forum in Washington, D.C. and one thing is clear: online retailers operating on eBay must adapt to Best Match, Finding 2.0, DSR (and more) to continue to be successful on this marketplace. Join us next Wednesday, February 13, at 2 p.m. for a webinar with ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo to get the inside story on the changes, including:

• CEO John Donahoe’s long-term strategy.
• Lower insertion fees and higher FVFs.
• How Finding 2.0, Custom Item Specifics and the new Best Match algorithm will drive eBay search results.
• How going multi-channel – now more than ever — could be your ticket to survival.

Click here to sign-up.

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No matter how good you are at any particular thing, such as marketing, sourcing, negotiating or creating an easy and fun shopping experience, there’s always room for improvement. The recent eBay changes are a great example of enhancing functionality (Finding 2.0, Best Match), getting customer feedback (from both buyers and sellers) and then tweaking the model. In fact, never being satisfied with the status quo is what drives innovation and success.

For us here at ChannelAdvisor that same spirit propels our product strategy and development methodology. Release a new feature, talk to customers (many of our customers are great at proactively reaching out and sharing what works and what could be improved upon via our Strategy & Support Center), make changes, release again. Rinse & repeat.

We are so committed to this incremental and flexible approach (called agile development by connoisseurs) that we’ve opened our very own Agile Development Center (ADC) here in North Carolina and are looking for engineers to join us with their arms swinging. If that’s you then here’s your chance to test-drive us: we are hosting an Open House next Tuesday, February 12th, at 6 p.m. and invite anyone to come by and possibly win a Nintendo Wii (I still don’t have one — and I love presents …).

And we promise loads of excitement, vision, accomplishments and above all fun to everyone joining us.

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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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