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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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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Last week, Google announced a brand new version of their free website Analytics software, Google Analytics.

Jam-packed with many new features, the initial feedback from the online community has been very positive. But, what are the most important changes and how can you, as an online retailer, really make the most of the new functionality?

To help answer that question, ChannelAdvisor will be co-hosting a free web seminar (webinar) with Phil Walford from the Google Analytics team. During this 45 minute webinar, Phil will guide you through some of the most exciting and useful new functionality and give you flavour for what is possible with this upgraded version. There will also be the chance to ask your own questions to Phil at the end of the webinar.

Please join us at 2pm GMT / 9am EST on Friday 25th May by registering here and be among the first in the UK to harness the power of Google Analytics v2.

p.s. if you use ChannelAdvisor Stores website solution then the new version of Analytics is already integrated and ready to go……!

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The IMRG’s annual statement says online retail is growing faster than ever before, and predicts online sales in the UK will reach £78bn a year by 2010.

In line with early predictions, UK internet shoppers are expected to spend £42bn in 2007, up from £30.2bn last year. Incredibly this figure represents nearly 20% of all online sales worldwide (£250bn) - another striking example of the level of confidence in shopping online among UK consumers.

Here are some more interesting numbers, for those who are interested or just plain data-junkies like we are:

• 860m parcels will be shipped to the UK’s 26m internet shoppers; 33 each on average.

• The average UK online shopper will spend £1,600.

• 38% of online shopping takes place outside normal shop hours, either before 9am or after 6pm, peaking between 7pm and 9pm.

• UK e-commerce grew 3,500% between April 2000 and December 2006.

• Internet shoppers will spend £78bn a year online by 2010 – doubling online’s share of retail sales to 20%.

• The £42bn figure for UK online sales is equivalent to the annual turnover of the nation’s biggest retailer Tesco.

The question is, are you doing everything you can to ensure these shoppers find your products when they shop online?

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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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