The Avasam update – what’s new?

While the Avasam team are understandably proud of what we’ve built so far and achieved – the platform is off to a great start – but we’re definitely of the opinion that even the best products can benefit from refinement. With that in mind, we’ve been hard at work recently to increase the functionality of the platform, and to iron out some of the bugs that we know have caused problems for some users. As any Microsoft user knows, software bugs are pretty much unavoidable even for the best developers, and we’re on a mission to fix as many as we can in each update that we release.

In addition to fixing those bugs, we’ve got some pretty exciting new functionality coming in this update. We’ve put the really technical information about what we’ve changed in the release notes in our help centre, we thought we’d put together an overview of the new features to give you an idea of what to expect.

Automated returns

Many platforms that help sellers with DropShipping don’t support returns – which is where we hear a lot of sellers struggle, because they’re left at the mercy of having to wait for suppliers to reply to emails, if they ever do. And that’s a huge problem, since not being able to easily arrange a return, replacement or refund means sellers end up needing to refund out of their own pockets, or they risk customers leaving negative reviews that can damage the reputation of your brand.

We’re working with UK suppliers that we know and trust, which means these types of situations happen much less frequently. But to make this tricky part of DropShipping easier for both parties, as part of this update we’ve automated the return and refund process. While implementing this was a pretty epic job, what users will experience is a simple click through system, with complete visibility so you’ll know exactly how far along your refund requests are. No more need to worry about whether you’ll get replies to your emails, or even if they have been read. We’ve also built the ability to be able to escalate a refund or return request to us for review, in the event that a request is declined but you disagree with that decision.

Removal of SKU limit

When we first created our pricing plans, we restricted the number of SKUs that you could list as part of the plans. We found that that wasn’t working quite as well as we had liked for our users, and so we revised this part of our offering. Now, whichever Avasam package you start with, you’ll be able to list as many products as you like, which should help you to scale your business much quicker.

Sourcing multiple products

Following on from the removal of the SKU limit, we also knew there were sellers who wanted to be able to source all of the products on Avasam to fill their online stores. As part of this update, we’ve now made it simple for sellers to be able to request the entire catalogue, which then gives the ability to be able to bulk upload all of the products as sourced products.

Full product details export for shipping

To help sellers to better understand the costs of shipping for the items they are selling, and to set margins accordingly, we’ve allowed for three types of shipping costs to be added to the full product details export file. Standard shipping cost, standard tracked shipping cost, and expedited tracked shipping cost (all excluding VAT) will all now be included in the download.

Improved financial reporting

We understand the value of reporting – it is essential for all businesses – and even more so when we’re in the busiest quarter of the year. You need to know what is going right, and what isn’t going as well as you had hoped, so you can act quickly to prevent damage to your profits. In this release, we’ve updated the financial reporting available so you can get the information you need, when you need it, and keep building on your success.

Help menu and change buttons

If you spot a problem, or you need to check something in documentation, you don’t want to waste time searching for the answer and going back and forth between browser windows. We’ve added a button with a question mark icon in the top right hand corner so that users can access help instantly, and a few changes to the menu to help users find links quickly, to raise a support ticket and send feedback.

In-app guide

In our new release, we’ve created and implemented a guide that helps to get new sellers up and running. We designed Avasam to be as intuitive as possible, but everyone can benefit from a little more information when they start something new! This in-app guide will help anyone who is new to Avasam (and even people who haven’t sold before) to get up and running quicker, and while our team will always be here to support, we expect the guide to empower users to make their sales much more efficiently.

New sales channel – OnBuy

If you’ve been in retail for any time at all, you’ll have seen new UK marketplace OnBuy being mentioned in trade publications and on LinkedIn on a pretty regular basis. OnBuy is growing at an incredible rate, and to ensure that Avasam sellers can increase their success by listing products on the platform, we’ve created an integration with them as part of this update.

Enhanced Shopify integration

Our Shopify integration has been updated so that there is a much smoother process when adding the integration to your Avasam account. We’ve got more Shopify functionality coming – scheduled for our next update – that we can’t wait to be fully tested and ready, so we can make that available for you.

Changes for suppliers

We’ve had a few suppliers approach us about starting to list their products on Avasam, but they’re already working with a number of sellers that they want to be able to continue working with. Going forward, they want to handle their activity through Avasam. We’ve now made this possible, so that future suppliers can join Avasam and transition their sellers across, so that they can benefit from the automation that the platform offers.

Coming soon

While we have been hard at work on this update, be assured that we aren’t resting on our laurels. We’ve got our next couple of releases already planned, and we’re excited to let you know a few things we’re already working on.

These aren’t the only things we’ll have coming, but they are all we can really let you know about at the moment. The main thing we want to let you know is that we’re not anywhere near done – our aim is to make the Avasam platform the best it can be, so that all our users can sell more.