Hello folks and welcome to our April edition of the ChannelGrabber Newsletter  :)

Well, it has been another supremely busy month for our entire team here at CG HQ, with loads of great stuff going on, so without further ado, here's the latest from our little corner of the world.
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Find out about the improvements and brand new features we have been working on for you, and about our future plans for development.

If you would like to view a short summary of all the great features we have released over the past 12 months, please do check out our Annual Features Roundup (April '18)

We are hugely excited to have started work on a new marketplace integration: Etsy.

We have had more requests for support for Etsy than any other marketplace or courier, so alongside our extensive work on our new listings feature, we've also begun developing a framework to support listings, stock, order and message management for Etsy.  Awesome right?

Initially we're focusing on getting the basics of stock management and order processing right, and once we've nailed those features, we'll expand our Etsy offering to creating listings and also responding to Etsy messages from within ChannelGrabber, much like we already offer for eBay.  It's a hefty project, so please bear with us, but we hope to have the first iteration available for customer beta-testing within a matter of weeks!

We'll email an announcement to all our users once we're ready to open the beta testing phase, but if you're raring to go then by all means, drop us a message on the Intercom chat system (or email help@channelgrabber.com) to let us know you're interested, and we'll be pleased to invite you to be involved when the time is right  ;)

Check out our blog post on the Etsy marketplace integration to find out more, and share the great news on social media  ;)
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For the last month or so, we have been beta-testing the initial release of our listings feature.  It's going well so far and we've received valuable feedback from the small cross-section of our kind users who are beta-tesing and bug-reporting for us.

The next stage of the listings development project is a big one - we're going to introduce the ability to create new products in ChannelGrabber, which can then be listed from our platform to eBay and webstores from scratch, without the need for a pre-existing listing from one of your channels, so that's what our development gurus are working on right now!

The "gold standard" that we will be aiming for, is for our users to be able to add the product data once, then simply tick which of their channels they want to list the item to, and ChannelGrabber will do the rest, making listing new products to all of your channels - and therefore increasing your sales potential - easier than ever before!
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The final stage of our "first pass" at listings functionality will be to support listing products to Amazon by utilising the ASIN code from Amazon's product catalogue.  This is by far the most complex of the marketplaces to list to, hence why we're saving it 'til last  ;)
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The listing suite is going to dominate our development schedule for a while due to the sheer scale of the project, but we have loads of other powerful new features and integrations on our development road map after that, so ChannelGrabber will just keep on getting bigger and better as time goes on!  :)
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If you have an idea for an improvement or new feature you would like to see us add to the system in the future, please do let us know, by emailing featurerequests@channelgrabber.com
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If you're asking for something that has already been requested, we will add your vote to the feature to give it higher priority, or if your idea is totally fresh, we will add a new request to our developers' board for votes and future consideration.

We almost always prioritise feature requests based on demand, so the more users that vote for a feature, the higher up the "to-do" list it will move  ;)

Can't wait to hear your thoughts!
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Here, we'll pass on any newsworthy events or changes that we've learned about the e-commerce industry that may affect our system or you, our customers.  
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If you are UK-based but sell into the EU and have a website URL or email address ending in .eu then you will need to prepare to migrate that URL to an alternative domain before Britain officially leaves the EU!

“As of the withdrawal date, undertakings and organisations that are established in the United Kingdom but not in the EU and natural persons who reside in the United Kingdom will no longer be eligible to register .eu domain names or, if they are .eu registrants, to renew .eu domain names registered before the withdrawal date.”
​– Digital Single Market, European Commission

Find out more in the article from our friends at Tamebay here.

Every seller needs to be aware that eBay are starting to chastise sellers whose accounts are below standard, by adding an additional 4% to the final value fees.

“For sellers whose level is Below Standard, there will be an additional 4 percentage points fee on the standard final value fees at the time the item sells. For example, a final value fee would increase from 8% to 12%.

In some cases we cap final value fees depending on the category and if a seller has a Shop subscription. However, this additional 4 percentage points fee is not subject to category caps and will be applied to the total item price, including postage.

Above Standard and eBay Top-rated Sellers will not be affected by this change.”
​– eBay

If your account is in good standing then you have nothing to fear, but if you're teetering on the edge or are well into "below standard" territory, then you need to have some plans in place to combat this, or your profit margins are going to take a hit, as well as potentially seeing a drop in sales volumes from your listings being ranked low in eBay search results.
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Fulfilment by Amazon fees across the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain will be adjusted to reflect the changing costs of fulfilment, storage, transportation and customer service, Amazon have announced recently.

Amazon say that the following changes are effective from April 26, 2018:

There will also be further changes later this year in September and October.  Check out the full details and cost breakdown in Amazon's announcement here.

Amazon have announced changes to their feedback removal policy. They will be reducing the time that Amazon sellers can have feedback from buyers removed within, from one year down to three months. The timescale may have changed but the terms and conditions for the grounds for removal have not:

Currently, seller feedback is eligible for removal up to 365 days after the buyer submits it. Effective May 17, 2018, after 90 days seller feedback will no longer be eligible for removal. This policy change will apply to all seller feedback, including feedback submitted prior to this announcement. Feedback removal requests must still meet all other eligibility criteria to be considered for removal. To learn more about managing your feedback, visit https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/761
​– Amazon announcement

We have included bulletins about Amazon Australia in our previous newsletters, and it seems that, while we reported that the initial consumer reaction to Amazon was subdued in Australia, things are staring to hot up for merchants now.  

Amazon Australia have doubled the size of their merchant base from 5,000 just a few months ago.  That averages to around 70 sellers a day signing up to sell on Amazon in Australia, and industry experts who have been tracking seller numbers expect around 50,000 third party merchants to be selling on Amazon in Australia by the end of 2018.

As we said previously, if you’re not already selling on Amazon Australia then it’s time to seriously consider doing so.  Getting in while it's still in the relatively early stages gives you the opportunity to test the water, discover which of your products sell well and get your best selling lines into FBA early, ready for the launch of Prime on Amazon AU.

Find out more in our blog:  Selling on Amazon Australia (AU): Everything You Need To Know
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We hope you have enjoyed the April edition of our newsletter and found some useful information to help you with your online business.  

Why not also check out the blog page on our website, to keep up to date with news from us as well as even more industry insights and input from guest authors too?

As always, if you would like to discuss anything relating to your ChannelGrabber account, please feel free to contact our team using the Intercom chat system (the chat icon can be found on the lower right corner of any ChannelGrabber page) or by emailing help@channelgrabber.com
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