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

Well, as the dust settles now that we've completed the first round of developments for our new listings tool, we've taken some time to focus on the core features of ChannelGrabber and take stock of where we want to head next (with your input of course!). 

We're certainly not resting on our laurels though!  Read on to find out more about what the future holds for ChannelGrabber and our wonderful customers...

Find out about the improvements and brand new features we have been working on for you, and about our future plans for development.

We've been shouting with excitement about our new listings functionality for a few months now, and the final piece of the puzzle has clicked into place back in the first week of July - support for creating new listings on Amazon!  Now you can list new products to Amazon at the same time as eBay, Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce, all from within ChannelGrabber's simple, user-friendly interface!  Whip out the party hats and celebrate with us!  Hurrah!  :)
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We've also added extra functionality to the listing tool to incorporate eBay Business Policies, which eBay are encouraging all sellers to adopt if they haven't already.

Think of Business Policies as basically being templates for your shipping, payment and returns options.  You create business policies on your eBay account, and then you can simply apply these settings to your listings with one click in ChannelGrabber.

Not familiar with this feature on eBay?  Read this guide from eBay themselves to find out more about how to Manage Your Business Policies.

We're very excited to be at the stage where we are able to move forward with our Royal Mail integration!  We've been waiting for a long time to be given the go ahead for this, and we now know that this will be imminent, so we expect to be able to start work on this within the next couple of weeks, and should have our ChannelGrabber Royal Mail integration ready for beta testing within the month, all being well.

We will reach out via email to you all to announce when this exciting new core feature will be available to use, so watch this space...
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We have long desired to make updates and improvements to the main Products page in ChannelGrabber in order to make managing your inventory simpler, and now that the first phase of listings functionality has been added, we can start to focus back on some of the core software features.  

We have many plans to make the Products page interface more adaptable and user-friendly, not to mention adding some powerful new features to it too.  Our product strategy team are currently working up the specifications for the first round of updates, so we'll publish more details about this once the development plans are more set in stone.  In the meantime, if you have ideas and suggestions for ways you think we could improve the Products page in appearance and functionality, please do let us know by submitting a Feature Request (see below).
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We plan to add another update to the listings tool in ChannelGrabber to support eBay's new "Product Based Shopping Experience".

In a nutshell, this is eBay moving away from each seller having individual listings, towards a more unified approach where there is one product catalogue entry for an item and then all sellers are listed against it (very much like Amazon's ASIN structure), the idea being to make it simpler for the end customer to find the product they want and receive the best price/choose which seller they want to purchase from.
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Our plans are to offer a quick and easy way to create new listings in ChannelGrabber and then associate them with the eBay product catalogue where appropriate.

It's worth mentioning that eBay are only rolling this out on a small number of products to start with, to test the waters, then they plan to add more as time goes on, so we want to get in from the start and make it easier to list this way from ChannelGrabber.  Find out more about eBay's plans for this option in their Spring 2018 Release:  Shop By Product - A New Experience

 
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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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As mentioned above, eBay are rolling out their new Product Based Shopping Experience and need beta testers.   eBay are looking for sellers who trade on one or more of: ebay.co.uk, ebay.com, ebay.ca  and/or ebay.com.au, to get early access to create and edit product functionality in the eBay catalogue.

Cardio Equipment
Cell Phones & Smartphones
Computers/Tablets
Networking Tablets & eBook Readers
Humidifiers
Internet & Media Streamers
Major Appliances
Portable Fans
Programmable Thermostats
Small Kitchen Appliances
Space Heaters
TV, Video & Home Audio: Internet & Media Streamers
TVs
Voice-Enabled Smart Assistants

eBay have invited anyone who is eligible and would like to participate, to sign up for the eBay Product Based Shopping Experience Beta and if you are selected, they will contact you with further information.
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As of 24th July, websites should now be using TLS, the protocol which replaced Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).  To the layman, this simply means that your website must be hosted on a secure server.  If it's not, then potential customers browsing on Chrome will now see a warning that your site is "Not secure" which has every chance of meaning they will not buy from your website.

This is all part of the efforts by Google and other browsers to keep Internet users safe – which is why eBay have insisted for a while now that all third party content in listing descriptions be hosted on secure servers. 

If you're not sure if your website is up to standard, open your URL on Chrome and check the section to the left of your URL once it loads.  If it's green, you're good to go:

If you have a "Not secure" warning as above, then it's best to contact your web hosting provider and ask them to move you onto a more secure server using TLS.
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We hope you have enjoyed the July 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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