Welcome news for online retailers looking to grow their multichannel portfolio: Amazon now allows merchants to sign-up and launch in qualified categories online without any queue, review or qualification (woohoo!). The team in Seattle is working hard on making it easy for any merchant to sell products on the site and I think this is only the first of many steps to come towards improving the selling experience (watch out eBay).

To get started simply go to www.amazonservices.com/promerchant, click on “Start Selling on Amazon”, verify that your category allows instant sign-up and follow the step-by-step instructions.

The Apparel & Accessories, Beauty, Industrial and Scientific, Jewelry and Watches, Personal Computer or Gourmet Food categories continue to be gated with review and approval by an Amazon category manager. If you’d like to sell in a gated or closed category let us know — there’s no secret sauce but we’ve developed a set of tips and best practices that have helped our merchants make a strong business case for successful admission (and no, that does not include writing anything in German).

I am a little surprised that the Books / Music / Video category sign-up still points to the Marketplaces platform. Amazon has begun the migration of this grand daddy of categories to its new Seller Central platform in Q1 2007 and plans to cease the legacy Marketplaces tool in the U.S. by the end of the year. My money is more on early to mid-2008 since I doubt that Amazon would force a migration during the busiest shopping season of the year.

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We’re delighted to be back at the lectern for the upcoming eBay University event in London.

This coming Saturday, ChannelAdvisor will be presenting a 45 minute session titled ‘Advanced eBay Strategies‘ to an audience of over 300 professional eBay sellers in central London.

Here’s the official synopsis from the eBay website:

“The team from ChannelAdvisor will share some advanced strategies and best practices, as used by some of the most successful Platinum and Titanium PowerSellers, that will help you overtake and then stay ahead of the pack. Based on over six years of experience helping some of the world’s most successful eBay businesses, the information and tools ChannelAdvisor will introduce you to will help you maximise the profitability of your eBay business and avoid some of the common mistakes. The lunchtime session is always entertaining and informative – bring your lunch along and learn while you eat!”

The event, hosted by eBay, runs from 10am to 6pm and covers a host of interesting topics - there’s something for eBay sellers of all experience levels, from basic through to advanced PowerSellers. You can see the full timetable here.

For those of you who haven’t been to one of our presentations before, it’s worth mentioning that we love the opportunity to meet eBayers in person, hear about their plans and the challenges they face, and share some of our experiences in helping online businesses succeed.

In fact, we love it so much we usually go a little crazy and give out a ton of free stuff! To prove it, here’s a lucky guy called Simon Janssen who won our Xbox360 free prize draw at eBay’s last University event in Coventry. Simon told me afterwards that he’d never won anything before. Well, Simon - I’m glad that unlucky streak is now over..!

The good news is, this weekend in London will be no exception…! We have a new PS3 to give away this time around, together with lots of smaller prizes. So, if you’re planning on coming along, grab your lunch and learn while you eat! See you there!

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I love the old AT&T “You Will” commercials in the mid 90’s that painted an inspiring vision of a technological future (I don’t think anybody wants to talk into a watch now that we have bluetooth headsets but how can you say no to a gadget??).

If you were to make a similar series today you would have to include virtual worlds and eCommerce, represented (I may as well write the script while I am at it) by a consumer navigating easily through an online shopping experience with easy category navigation (looking for apparel? head this way), interacting with trusted friends and family about recommendations and specials, taking advantage of tailored ad-hoc promotions and one-click checkouts.

Virtual world leader Second Life may not become that home run but thanks to the Amazon AWS team it’s making interesting strides in that direction. That team has just launched a virtual marketplace in Second Life and is looking for exhibitors. A two-week experiment, it’s first come, first serve and you’re limited to a 15 x 6 ft space. But it’s free (haven’t you all been clamoring for a no-fee Amazon?).

Why should you care? Even if you’re hopefully too busy growing your online business using ChannelAdvisor Complete, more and more affluent consumers are spending their leisure time and real dollars in these virtual worlds with virtual friends. Retailers and manufacturers are quickly discovering this space — important to keep an eye on this budding channel.

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A few months ago, items listed to eBay.co.uk (largely) stopped being displayed in the search results for buyers shopping on eBay.com. Many of our sellers involved in the tail-end of the long-tail (media sellers, niche products) have seen sales hit hard with this change to visibility. It’s heartening to know that eBay is investigating how to address, without over-correcting their earlier change.

Minds at eBay.co.uk have announced a test, running from June 19th and visible to roughly 1% of shoppers on eBay.com. Listings from eBay.co.uk will be displayed according to four different sets of criteria. They’re, of course, looking at what the best way forward would be to allow listings to display for .com shoppers, without impeding domestic trade. Here’s the full announcement:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/200705.shtml#2007-05-29135444

It’s not as positive, though not surprising, that while they give, they also taketh away. The latter end of the announcement mentions adding .com listings into .co.uk search results. It’s mitigated by the requirements that the seller specify postage to the UK and has 98% positive feedback, though. On behalf of the sellers I represent, I want to grumble, but as a buyer I’m happy to see eBay in ANY geography try to address the shrinking product availability as they mature.

Just another response to flattening growth in the US and loss of market share, but one that isn’t all that bad.

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If you’re looking planning on attending the e-Consultancy ‘eCommerce Solutions Supplier Showcase‘ in central London this week, we look forward to seeing you there!

e-Consultancy has kindly invited us to present our Marketplaces, Paid Search and Comparison Shopping technology solutions to the audience and we will also be touching on the new Google Checkout payment solution for online retailers.

The event kicks off at 1:30pm on Thursday 10th May at 76 Portland Place, London. ChannelAdvisor’s slot is at 4:30 - 5:00pm, followed by drinks and networking. If you’d like to come along and meet some of the CA team, register here for your place.

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