July – the month of school holidays, holiday holidays and the following not-to-be-missed eCommerce news.
Etsy’s been busy
Etsy certainly hasn’t been on holiday this July, sharing an array of platform updates including:
– A new conversation interface to live chat with customers;
– Automatic renewals for all listings;
– Priority search result placement for free shippers in the US;
– New style attributes (including gothic); and
– New categories in Accessories, Bags and Purses, Furniture, Bathrooms and Plumbing, and Laundry Supplies.
And, they’ve announced plans to acquire Reverb – a leading online marketplace for musical instruments. Holiday well and truly earnt.
Seller productivity unlocked
The summer is all about being as productive as you can so that you can sit in that beer garden as quickly as you can – and eBay‘s is here to help. eBay’s annual seller event, eBay Open, included a series of productivity-boosting announcements including:
– Multi-user account access;
– Terapeak pricing insight integration; and
– Advanced seller protection.
China’s calling
And Royal Mail has the postal service to get your products there. You can now send Tracked and Signed items to China, with a delivery estimation of between 5-7 days. Compensation is set at £100, with the option to increase to £300, and the service is now available through all Royal Mail systems.
Prime insights
Prime day 2019 happened, and it was huge. We told sellers what to expect in our Prime Day 2019, but nothing could prepare you for 175 million item sales, and figures that surpassed Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
How did you do?
MonXo
Monzo is launching a business account, and Xero‘s integrating. It’s all very hush-hush at the moment, but you can register your interest here and start preparing your Monzo-Xero-eCommerce integration here.
Shipping stats
No, we’re not talking about cruise ship holidays (although that would be nice) – we’re talking about BigCommerce‘s latest research on the importance of shipping. Specifically:
– More than half of shoppers have left a retailer due to a poor shipping experience; and
– Nearly three-quarters of shoppers have abandoned their cart because of shipping.
Avoid this all with these fast shipping best practices for 2019.
In other delivery news, Amazon is expanding its Shipping with Amazon (SWA) courier service into the UK, and eBay is launching its own Managed Delivery end-to-end fulfilment service, starting in the US.
PrestaShop 1.7.6 now available
The latest version of PrestaShop is now available, bringing performance, acquisition & conversions with it. New features include:
– Customer reviews;
– Dynamic SEO previews;
– Optimised theme navigations, and lots more.
Find the full list here.
Product serialisation
Amazon‘s product serialisation service is coming to the UK. Transparency helps brands to apply unique codes to their products that customers, brands, Amazon and others can use to authenticate items. 4,000 brands are already enrolled in the US, and now sellers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, U.K., India and Canada can join in.
Cash flow restricting business growth
Joint research by PayPal and Xero has found that 37% of small businesses have considered closing because of cash flow issues caused by late payments. Outstanding amounts owed to small businesses is up by 17%, damaging business finances, personal savings and restful sleep.
Is poor inventory management restricting your cash flow?
India’s eCommerce growth
All eyes are on India’s eCommerce growth, especially since eBay has expanded its presence there. India marketplace Paytm Mall has integrated with eBay to make eBay’s inventory accessible to its tens of millions of customers. Watch this space.
In other news…
eBay reports second quarter results (as did Amazon), WooCommerce turned 11, bold blooms are in, eBay has reduced fees for UK sellers, Amazon Business Prime UK launched, and we’ve been talking about Getting MTD ready, multi-channel eCommerce software checklists, and the future of eCommerce.
Here’s to an absolutely smashing August!