Hello all and welcome to the August edition of the ChannelGrabber Newsletter!

I hope you have all been able to make the most of the summer holidays (despite the distinct lack of sunshine across the UK!) and I'm sure at this stage any parents amongst you are now counting down to the school term beginning again in September!  

But life and work go on, so please read on to find out what we've been hard at work on during the last month...
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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.

As useful as our linked orders feature has proved for the majority of CG customers, by automatically linking multiple orders from the same customer to allow you to save on paper and shipping costs (by printing one invoice and one shipping label for multiple orders), we have listened to feedback from some customers who have found exceptions when it's necessary to un-link orders, so we have released a new Unlink option onto the Order page, so that you're in full control of whether orders remain linked or need to be processed separately. 

As more and more CG users are managing Amazon merchant and Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) orders through ChannelGrabber, we needed a way to more easily tell the difference between these two order types, as well as just providing the shipping method that Amazon send on the order (eg. "UK Second").  

Now, with this new update, when an order comes into CG from Amazon that requires Seller Fulfilled Prime shipping, CG will add the prefix "SFP" to the order shipping method (eg. "SFP UK Second"), so it will be easier to setup shipping aliases for Prime orders and manage them separately to normal merchant orders from Amazon.

We have added an improvement to the Search function on the Orders page to allow you to more accurately target specific order fields to search by.  Previously anything you enter in the Search bar would then be searched for in every order field, meaning you could not isolate the specific order field you wanted, and this also meant that the search could take longer to return results as it had more work to do.

You can now enter your search term and then choose which order fields you want to target with that search, ie. if you search for SKU "123" in the search bar, and target the SKU field using the Search Fields drop-down, then you won't accidentally also see orders with "123" in the Order ID for example:

The Order Fields that you can target using this new feature are:

We hope this makes searching for your orders more efficient  :)  
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We have added several new filters to the Orders page advanced filter section (the "More" drop-down menu).  These new filters will make it easier to break orders into smaller and more targeted groups based on an even wider range of criteria than before:

 
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We have now introduced new columns to the Products page to display the Barcode (EAN, UPC, MPN, ISBN or "Does not apply") of each product per SKU to make it even easier to add and identify your products by the barcode.  You will find the barcodes in the Details tab of the Products page:

We have had the option to upload new products by CSV for a while now, but the initial feature only allowed for single products to be created (ie. a SKU, Title and Stock Quantity for each individual item).  We have now updated this option and provided a new upload template to facilitate the creation of single AND variation type products via CSV, to make it more efficient to create large batches of new products in CG in bulk.

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It has always been possible to set a default Fulfilment Latency (handling time prior to dispatching the order) per Amazon account in ChannelGrabber, as we have to provide this to Amazon when sending stock updates (their rule, not ours).  We have now released an update in ChannelGrabber to allow more flexibility on this by making it possible to set an overall default Fulfilment Latency per Amazon account, but also the option to change this per SKU, meaning you can have some product ranges with a handling time of 1 day and some with a handling time of 3 days etc, to account for potential differences in supplier delivery times etc.  You are also now able to set different fulfilment latencies per SKU and per account, so the same SKU could have a different handling time for Amazon UK than it has for Amazon US for example.

 
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For some sales channels and webstores, the buyer's telephone and email details are only provided in the Billing Details data that we receive from them, meaning that it had to be manually copied over to the Shipping Details section in order to be incorporated into courier labels, invoices etc.  We have now released an update so that if these fields in the Shipping Details section are missing, CG will automatically populate them based on the corresponding fields from the Billing Details section, thereby ensuring that the invoice and/or courier has the relevant contact details for the buyer without manual intervention needed from you.  We hope this will improve efficiency and accuracy for you when processing orders and courier labels in CG!  :)
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We are going to make improvements to the current Invoice Designer tool, to make it more flexible, and to allow multiple formats of PDF to be designed in ChannelGrabber.  Then on the Orders page, you can choose whether to print a standard invoice for the orders, or you can choose from any other PDF format that you have designed.  

This will allow you to design things like packing slips, to incorporate key order details without the need to print a full invoice page for every order, or customised shipping labels for if you want to print address labels in your own format rather than using a connected courier's labels for example.  The possibilities will be limited only by your imagination!  :)
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With so many customers now benefiting from ChannelGrabber's listing tool, we recognise that one of the most highly requested additions to this is the option to add a HTML description template to the listing for eBay.  This will allow you to save a HTML template in ChannelGrabber that can then be applied to the listing when it is submitted to eBay by ChannelGrabber.

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  ;)

Don't forget, you can also check out our public development roadmap as well, which will give you an idea of what we're working on and what's next in line/further down our developers' queue at any time:  ChannelGrabber Transparent Product Roadmap

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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Item specifics are descriptive terms that tell a buyer about your item on eBay. They include fields like brand, size, type, colour or style and many more, and vary depending on what you’re selling.  They have important benefits and make a difference to your visibility in search results.

eBay have announced changes to their Item Specifics options that affects multiple categories including:

This has already begun, with eBay having already added additional item specifics that new products cannot be listed without in some of the above categories earlier this year, and with more changes coming in October this year.

In an effort to assist sellers in making sure their listings remain compliant with the new standard, eBay have partnered with a tool called Optiseller to offer eBay sellers the opportunity to quickly identify which of your existing listings are missing item specifics. The tool will identify gaps, find missing values that could be elsewhere in your listing data, and help you update your listings.  You can use the Optiseller Aspect Finder Tool free of charge until 31 December 2019.

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We hope you have enjoyed the August 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?
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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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