Weekend reading: 23 July
Summer’s finally upon us, and the school holidays have started! While for many of us that means days of keeping the kids entertained, eCommerce doesn’t stop – and there’s a lot to plan ahead for, so be sure to plan your work around those rainy days that we all know the Great British Summer provides in abundance.
This week on the reads, we’re excited for our partner BigCommerce, questioning whether sending traffic to Amazon is the best move for retailers, considering business insurance policies, talking about fake reviews, and sharing the latest research about what customers hate about buying online.
The latest from us
Since our last weekend read post, we’ve brought additional suppliers of incredible brands on board – and you simply need to log in to browse what they’re providing. A quick overview:
- GB010100 is the sole UK distributor for Blaupunkt Tools, who are widely known and well regarded for their power tools such as pressure washers, cordless drills, jigsaws, belt sanders, and more.
- GB010102 has an extensive range of lighting products, many of which are vintage inspired, and suit many different interior design trends.
- GB010096 supplies Koi Artisan kitchen knives, which are outstanding quality and are beautifully styled – these are the sort of knives you’ll want to use forever.
- GB010094 is a supplier of high quality leather goods such as bags, purses and wallets, as well as accessories including passport covers, belts, and luggage tags.
There’s further exciting news from other suppliers too – GB010064 has made shipping free for all their items forever, which is fantastic for your profit margins, and many of our suppliers have added more products to our catalogue over the past few weeks too. Be sure to keep checking the home page when you log in for new items, and new suppliers.
We published two blog posts for you this week, talking about alternative sales channels to Amazon and eBay, as well as some tips to help minimise cart abandonment on your website.
The weekend reads
We were excited to see the growth that our partner BigCommerce has made this month. First, they announced their integration with Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment, and this week, they revealed that they are extending their reach into the Latin American market by partnering with Mercado Libre. If you’re looking for a website builder that can help your business to grow, BigCommerce is surely it – and you can get up to 3 months completely free when you sign up for BigCommerce with our link.
Amazon is offering incentives to brands that send customers to buy from Amazon, rather than from their own websites. Amazon Attribution is the scheme that offers reduced transaction fees, and while it has been around since 2018, retailers need to question whether that is the best way for them to make sales. You can read more about how Amazon is paying brands to drive traffic to Amazon here.
Have you considered the types of insurance that businesses should have? If your business is new, then you might not have got as far as that yet, and if you’re operating both online and offline, you might need different types of insurance. Since looking at the different types of business insurance and knowing which one(s) you need can be overwhelming, this article from Prowess puts everything in super-plain English, making it easy to start looking for the right policy.
Are fake reviews, or giving customers an incentive to leave a review part of your strategy? Not only are Amazon cracking down on this practice, but the UK government are now cracking down on it too, with potential financial penalties for businesses that continue to use such methods. With this in mind, it is time to eliminate this as a marketing tactic.
We think eCommerce is great, but it still isn’t without serious challenges – and if you’ve been in the sector for any time at all, you probably already know some of them. This post shares detailed research showing what customers hate about shopping online – which you can use to inform your policies, find partners that provide the best service, and to get the edge over competitors.
Dates for your diary
If you’ve been putting off thinking about those EU VAT changes because you’re not selling in Europe yet, but you’re planning to scale up then you’ll want to join this webinar from Tamebay and Avalara, next Tuesday, 27th July.
Amazon are making changes to FBA Restock Limits and SFP, and so if you’re going to be impacted by those changes, you should tune into this webinar on Thursday 29th July.
If you’re using the summer break to help you plan ahead, then you’ll want to hear what Retail Week have to say in their webinar on 10th August. They’ll be looking at consumer trends, to help plan ahead for the holiday period and into 2022. Perfect preparation for the busy Quarter Four period. Register for the event here.
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