Hello everyone!  

Thanks for taking the time to browse our new newsletter format!

We intend to publish a newsletter on a regular basis, to keep you, our lovely customers, informed of the latest new faces, new features and general industry insights that we have gained over the last couple of months.  In this first edition, we'll go back in time a little further, just to bring you up to speed  ;)
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As a result of customer feedback and part of our continued efforts to improve our customers' experiences, we have been adding valuable new members to our Support Team!  Please allow me to introduce...
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Liam joined us in a first-line (customer facing) support role.  He provides the first point of contact whenever a customer contacts the support team for help and his aim is to to provide answers to general usage questions (eg. how-to guides and tips) and collect details and escalate any more technical issues to the second-line support team for investigation.  Liam acts as customer liaison, so whenever there is an update on a technical ticket, he relays this back to the customer to make sure the issue is resolved fully.  This frees up the members of the second-line support team to fully invest their time in resolving the technical matters that are escalated to them, meaning they can manage their time, and your tickets, more swiftly and efficiently.
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Joe has joined the company as a member of our technical support team.  He has quickly learned the ropes and progressed to the second-line support dept.  Joe's role is to investigate tickets relating to technical issues and provide answers as to what happened an why.  He also liaises with our Development Team if a problem needs to be escalated to a higher level for a fix, and with first-line support who then communicate updates back to our customers.  Joe also helps to test newly developed features, to make sure they are safe and ready to be released to our users, before they are rolled out onto the live system.
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Phil was a member of the ChannelGrabber Classic support team for several years previously, and took a sabbatical to go travelling and gain some amazing life experiences.  We were thrilled to welcome him back to the team, as a member of the second-line support team and developer liaison.  Phil has an impressive technical understanding of the Classic system from his previous years with us, and is already having a huge impact in helping to investigate technical issues and resolve them on both of our software systems, cutting down on the number of tickets that have to be escalated to the Developers.  This means the Developers have more time to focus on creating all-important new features to improve the core functionality of the software.  Phil also helps to test newly developed features, to make sure they are safe and ready to be released to our users, before they are rolled out onto the live system.
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A much-requested stock management feature - you asked and we delivered!

ChannelGrabber now offers the option to link the SKU of one product to the SKU of another, so that stock levels sync even when SKUs do not match.  There are two main applications for this feature: Bundles and SKU Mapping

Bundles:  Use Linked Products to create bundles, kits and multi-packs where one product is made up of multiple component products.  Once linked, when the bundle sells, the stock levels of all component products are reduced, and when a component product sells separately, the available quantity of the bundle reduces too.

SKU Mapping:  If you have the same product listed more than once with different SKUs, simply decide on one SKU to be the "master" item, then you can use Linked Products to link any other iterations of the same item back to the stock of the master item.  This means you only have to update stock on one master product, and all the products that link back to it will update too.  As with bundles, as soon as one of the linked products sell, all other SKUs linked to that item will update too.

Here's our guide to help you get started with Linked Products
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Following Amazon's launch of their newest platform, Amazon.com.au in December '17, ChannelGrabber was the first software of our kind to announce support for this marketplace on our system, meaning that Amazon AU can now be connected just like Amazon UK, EU and US - in a matter of seconds (see our guide on Connecting to Amazon)!  You can import and manage stock for any items you have listed on Amazon AU and of course, answer customer messages and manage your orders too.
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Here's what our Commercial Director, Dave Freel, has to say on the subject:

“Though Amazon AU is in its early stages, Australia has a rapidly growing e-commerce sector and it’s one we feel is going to become a major player over the next few years. There’s an increasing preference for online retail and now is a great time for anyone considering expanding overseas to do so.”
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Another simple feature to make your business life more efficient!  Previously ChannelGrabber would find any new items that were listed on your channels once every 24 hours, but you would then need to decide when you wanted to import them into the main Products page to be managed by our system.

We have now introduced another option: to auto-import as soon as we find new listings, meaning no more manual imports will be needed on your part.  Find out more in our guide on Automatically Importing Listings
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We are hugely excited to announce that our developers have now started work on a brand new core feature to introduce to the ChannelGrabber portfolio: LISTINGS!

We plan to release this new suite of tools in gradual stages, simple at first (such as importing Amazon listing content and being able to list it out to eBay and webstores) and then from there we will gradually add more and more functionality until we have the "gold standard" of listing tools, which will incorporate creating a new product in ChannelGrabber, then simply choosing which channels you want to list it to, and with one click, submitting to all selected channels.  Pretty awesome right?!  :)

As you can appreciate, this is a huge undertaking considering how many different marketplaces and webstores we already support (all of which have different ways of handling listing management), but we are committing all of our available developer resources to it until we, and you, are satisfied with the finished feature.

It's worth noting that, during the initial beta testing phase for each iteration of listings, it will be available for free to all of our customers, regardless of subscription level, however once the complete listings suite is ready for release, we will be offering it as a value-add / bolt-on option, for which there will be an additional fee (to be determined at a later date).  We will publicise all the relevant information before we release the paid-for module.

Once the listings suite is completed, we will start to work through more of your brilliant suggestions and feature requests, so keep the great ideas coming!
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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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In December '17 Amazon launched their newest platform, Amazon AU, to boost the online retail sector on this huge continent.  Until now, Australian residents mainly purchased via Amazon.com, so it may take a while to build new habits, and at the moment there is a distinct lack of products listed on Amazon AU, with Amazon Prime and FBA yet to be launched in Australia.  

However, what that does mean is that now is a key time to start listing on Amazon AU (providing you are happy to ship to Australia yourself of course) and get in as close to the ground floor as possible.  Getting ahead of your competition and listing on Amazon AU will provide you with more opportunities to sell your products with less competition in these early days of the new marketplace.
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Chris Dawson of Tamebay writes:"For sellers in the northern hemisphere and especially in the UK where there are no language barriers and a closely related culture, Amazon Australia offers an attractive first mover proposition. The site is still short of choice and selection. If you’re looking to expand your overseas sales with no product translation needed then Amazon Australia looks set to be a top opportunity. Get in before your competitors do."

See the original article here:  Why you should consider selling on Amazon Australia

eBay Community have announced a new, four-week online course, starting on Monday 5th March '18, which is aimed at helping sellers take their eBay business to the next level, and is delivered directly to sellers' inboxes.  

The lessons will be taught via video, blog posts, and Seller Center pages, and you’ll also be given assignments to really put the teachings into action.

It looks like this is mainly aimed towards new and smaller sellers to help you grow your business, but you never know, there might be some truly valuable tips and tricks to help even the most seasoned online seller to boost the business you get from eBay!

Find out more from eBay's blog post here:  Free Seller Boot Camp

We have found that Amazon recently released an option for buyers to "opt out" of receiving what they class as "unsolicited" messages from sellers.  The aim of this as we understand it, is to prevent sellers from "spamming" buyers with feedback requests, special offers etc.  This is unfortunate for sellers who rely on these tactics to encourage repeat business, but more seriously, can also mean that emails containing invoices are blocked from reaching the customer too.

There is a workaround, which is to include the tag "[Important]" in the subject of your message, and this does allow you to by-pass this "unsolicited" setting, however we encourage you to use this wisely, and only for genuinely important messages like invoice emails!  The last thing you want is to get in trouble with Amazon for abusing their communication rules!  The other option is to use the Buyer-Seller Messaging interface on Seller Central to message the customer directly.

Information Source (Amazon Email):

We recommend that you should contact Amazon's Customer Service Team if you need to know more about this new option.
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We hope you have enjoyed this first edition of our newsletter and found some useful information to help you with your online business.

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

Happy Channel-Grabbing!  :)