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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I started to write this post last week when I was deep in depression about the miserable summer we were having here in England at the moment. But the gorgeous sunshine this weekend has changed all that and I’m feeling a lot better - but I still think this post is interesting so here goes….

Reports from the IMRG in the last few days have confirmed a massive spike in online sales in July, up 80% on last year. For the first time, UK e-retail sales exceeded £4 billion in a month (£4.2bn) - that’s a massive £1.86 billion higher than in July 2006.

The highest sales growth in July was seen by electricals retailers as people bought items online for their summer holidays. Clothing sales were also strong online - the IMRG Clothing / Footwear / Accessories Index was 56% higher than a year earlier.

Several factors contributed to July’s very strong growth, including the very wet weather which discouraged people from travelling and encouraged them to shop online (unfortunately in many cases to replace water-damaged goods).

Many retailers also reported rising numbers of new customers as a result of the still strong uptake of domestic broadband, and because existing internet shoppers are expanding their online buying activity as they become more confident in using the channel.

“IMRG was surprised by the strength of July’s growth, so checked and rechecked the figures …then checked them again,” advises Jo Evans, IMRG’s managing director. “This data is sound. It reveals the extent to which the retail sector is being transformed by frictionless e-commerce. Major brands are bringing on-stream the next generation of slick new internet retailing services, and consumers are flocking to use them. It’s big players’ success that is now driving e-retail growth and boosting the Index.”

I’ll be interested to see how August and September turn out. Traditionally these two months have also suffered from the ’summer holidays’ effect and taken a downturn as shoppers abandon computers and head off (abroad usually) in search of the sun. Watch this space!

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Although hard to believe, some ChannelAdvisor customers outpace even our relentless push for a comprehensive multi-channel portfolio, constantly exploring and applying new strategies across marketplaces, comparison shopping sites, search engines and eCommerce. Dyscern is one such online retailer and their pursuit (and success) is now being recognized with a 167 rank on the Inc 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in the United States.

Dyscern’s ecommerce site (www.dyscern.com) is also a good case study for implementing a social marketing strategy on top of a ChannelAdvisor Store with on-staff blogger and consumer electronics expert Samuel Centralia and a guide to the most popular gadgets.

And while we’re more excited about seeing our customers get recognition for their hard word, ChannelAdvisor made the list at 835.

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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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Amazon has pulled the curtains on its Flexible Payment Service (FPS) and launched it in limited beta. And it’s a beauty.

FPS is not so much a consumer payment solution with heavy marketing but more a payment platform that can be used by developers to build payment solutions in the spirit of Amazon’s S3 storage product (eCommerce enabler). Here’s what it offers:

1. Send and receive money using credit card, bank account or Amazon Payments balance transfer as payment methods.
2. Create “Payment Instructions” to define conditions and constraints desired for a given transaction, and programmatically obtain payment authorizations or “tokens” that represent these Payment Instructions from customers.
3. Execute one-time, multiple, or recurring payments on behalf of customers.
   Aggregate micro-transactions into a single larger transaction using Prepaid and Postpaid capabilities.
4. Build payment applications where you are neither the sender nor the recipient of funds. You can build marketplace applications that enable the movement of money between two third parties.
5. View account balances, transaction histories, and transaction details on the Amazon Payments web site.

(more…)

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