Hello all and welcome to the November & December edition of the ChannelGrabber Newsletter!

Perhaps the biggest news from our perspective this month is the exciting merger of ChannelGrabber with our new sister company Cloud Commerce Pro!  

Cloud Commerce Pro and ChannelGrabber represent the two most trusted multi-channel eCommerce software solutions, according to customer reviews on both Trustpilot and Google Reviews. As well as holding a 5* ranking on webretailer.com in the same field.

Clients of both systems will be able to stay on their current plan, or move to one that better suits their budget, goals, and current circumstances. This merger allows us to offer a much broader range of features and pricing options for customers new and old, as well as benefiting from a shared technical experience pool, headed by a combined leadership team.  

We believe our systems complement one another, and that by housing both solutions under one roof, we can make it easier than ever for eCommerce merchants who want to empower their businesses to thrive and grow.

“Online retail is a very competitive, dynamic market,” said Mark Hallam, Director of Cloud Commerce Pro. “ChannelGrabber have been working hard to service small-to-mid-size retailers, while Cloud Commerce Pro has developed a solution that better suits mid-to-large retailers. Combining our services into one provider was a customer-driven decision. We now represent the most comprehensive solution in global retail.”

 If you would like to discuss the merger or have any questions about how this could benefit your business, we welcome you to speak with our Sales Team on +44 (0)161 711 0248 or sales@channelgrabber.com
​ 

Now, on with the rest of the show...!  :)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

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

We have now added a new field to our database to allow a "Supplier" to be saved per SKU.  Initially this will not be visible in the interface, but we can upload a list of SKUs and Suppliers to our database for you via CSV/spreadsheet if you wish, to make early use of this feature prior to the UI work being completed.  If you would like to upload your Supplier data, please send a spreadsheet containing SKUs and Suppliers to help@channelgrabber.com and our Support Team will be happy to assist.

We have also introduced an order filter for this Supplier field, meaning you can filter orders based on the supplier that you obtain them from.
​
This will make it easier and more efficient for ChannelGrabber users who want their orders to be filtered based on the supplier(s) or drop-shipper(s) of the products that are ordered.

Our longest standing webstore partner EKM have recently released a new API so we will be re-developing our EKM integration to use the new API.  The old EKM API will be retired at the end of January 2020.
​

The initial release of our listing tool introduced the option to create new products in ChannelGrabber as well as the ability to then push out new listings to our supported sales channels.  There has been a huge amount of constructive feedback from our users on the value of this tool and also on additions and improvements that you want to see us make, so we've taken time over the last few months to collate all these requests and are now in a position to begin overhauling the listing tool to provide bug fixes and new functionality such as the ability to edit existing listings to update things like prices, titles, descriptions, images etc.  This will be a big project as we want to take our time and really do it right, but we're excited about the additional value that these updates will provide to our customers!  Watch this space for more detailed updates once this project gets underway!
​ 

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
​ 
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 Product Roadmap

Can't wait to hear your thoughts!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

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.       

 
​

This peak season, eBay are offering sellers 50% off Final value fees on sales with new Multi-buy, Order discount or Sale Event + Markdown campaigns, or when sellers use the Send Offers to Buyers feature until 27th December 2019.

To opt into the offer:

1. Activate the promotion to opt in any time until 27 December before your team or sellers create campaigns to be eligible.

2.  After activation, create new campaigns using Multi-buy, Order Discount or Sale Event + Markdown in the Marketing tab or use Send Offers to Buyers in the Active Listings tab until 27 December.
​ 
3.  Sellers start saving when items using these tools sell.
​ 
4.  Sellers will see their savings credited within 60 days from the end of the promotional period.
​ 

Never heard of the Send Offer to Buyers feature?
The “Send Offer to Buyers" feature in Seller Hub will let sellers send offers to potential buyers for some of their listings. Being able to target buyers who are already interested in their items could help you and your sellers increase sales and keep buyers coming back. 

*Excludes Health & Beauty and others. eBay Terms and conditions apply.

Available for fixed price listings, including listings with variations. The discount is capped at £500 (500 EUR) exclusive of VAT and will apply to new campaigns and new offers sent to buyers only. Listings with active promotions on 11 November will not be eligible for this discount. Discount for Multi-buy applied when 2 or more items are sold and for sales in which the Order Discount promotion was used.
​ 
​ 

Royal Mail have announced increases to prices for business customers which will come into effect on the first day back in the New Year – 2nd January.  The exact prices you pay will be dependant on your contract and volumes, but you can find more information on the 2020 price increases for Royal Mail business customers on the Royal Mail website here: 

Royal Mail say "these changes will help us continue to deliver the high level of service that is expected by you."

There will also be new Royal Mail Fines introduced from the 2nd January. These Royal Mail fines, called ‘rework fees’ by the company, will imposed when you present your mail incorrectly.  

Royal Mail say "we want to make sure we can process your parcels as quickly and as efficiently as possible. If there are errors in the way parcels are presented to us, it costs us more to handle and we need to either correct your Sales Order or raise an adjustment charge."

You can find more information on Royal Mail's website here:  

We recommend that you make sure that you stock up on bags, ties, labels, yorks, trays etc. before you shut down for the Christmas Break, to reduce any risk of incurring fines due to running out of the right supplies.

Here we publish in full an update, sent to ChannelGrabber as an eBay Partner, from eBay with regards to the technical issues resulting from their roll out of changes to Item Specifics and Categories last month:
​ 

Item specifics changes: Details and progress update

Recognising the impact the recent item specifics update had on sellers in some categories, we wanted to provide you with a thorough overview of the incident. Most importantly, we apologise for the frustration and disruption caused to sellers. From the first moment your experience was disrupted, we've listened to your feedback and we're still working hard to address the issues. We appreciate your understanding and patience.We can assure you we don't take these interruptions lightly and we're committed to working harder for you and your business. We learnt a lot from this and we won't release category changes and item specific requirements simultaneously in the future.
​ 
​What happened?
​We rolled out item specifics changes to approximately 70% of Home & Garden and 80% of Consumer Electronics worldwide with little or no disruption this year. We've already seen the positive results as sellers who adopted the guidelines are performing better.On the back of this success, we decided to make category and classification changes the same day as we implemented new item specifics requirements.
Because these changes happened on the same day:

What have we done about it?
​Because of the scale of the changes, it was difficult to rollback any of them without affecting other parts of the platform. We worked around the clock to re-sort the item specifics values, copy values from Recommended into Required fields and, to get search filters working again, we reset rules on which values were Required.

Buyers could still find your listings during the disruption because your item specifics were linked to the listing, although they appeared to be missing. No data was lost. However, we realise that this experience caused confusion and frustration. We are deeply apologetic.

What have we learned?
Going forward, we won't make category changes and item specifics requirements simultaneously. New changes will be gradually rolled out to minimise the chances of disruption to sellers.There are no further planned changes in 2019, giving you time to concentrate on the busy peak trading season.We thank you for your patience and, as always, thank you for selling on eBay.
​
Thanks,
eBay Partnerships Team

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

 
We hope you have enjoyed the winter 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
​ 
​ 

 
​ 
​