Weekend reading: 10th September

With most of the children back to school now, the majority of us are putting our foot to the floor preparing for the holiday period. There’s a lot to do, and as you’d expect, we’ve got a lot to offer you – as well as our usual weekend reads.

This week on the reads, we’re talking about the Autumn Update from eBay, advising Amazon sellers from overseas assess their options for returns, taking a look at holiday trends, wondering whether vintage brands are the future, and thinking about in-game commerce as a marketing strategy.

The latest from us

Just like all eCommerce businesses, we’re gearing up for Q4 – you might have noticed the Get set for Christmas card that crept onto the home page recently, so you can easily source products for your sales channels.

In addition to curating lists of products for you, we’ve got a lot going on for you to take advantage of, with a range of special offers that have been running for a while, some new ones, and even more to come. A few of the highlights:

We’ve also made more new suppliers live on the platform this week, including a supplier of stylish casual shirts and cotton underwear for men – meaning that there is even more choice to be found in our catalogue, and more opportunities to make sales.

We’ve got some great new suppliers currently being onboarded, and there’s some more special offers coming too, so keep your eye on your inbox, and on the home page when you log in.

The weekend reads

eBay made their Autumn update this week – and there’s a lot to know about. There are more eBay Item Specific Updates for 2022, but there are definitely some interesting changes to come that we’re sure you’ll be excited about. You can get the highlights and need to know info here.

Amazon has decided that overseas sellers will need to offer a UK return address or offer a returnless refund for all orders under £20. This is starting on 5th October, so if you’re based outside the UK then now is likely to be a good time to sign up for Avasam, to source products from UK based suppliers and avoid losing money on those returns.

As we’re approaching the start of Q4 with all the busy times that brings, you might be wondering just how big this holiday peak will actually be. Our partners at BigCommerce have put together their list of trends to watch here, and you can read about predicted delivery trends in this post.

It seems that there’s a tendency to return to vintage brands – Macy’s recently announced that they are bringing back Toys R Us to appeal to millennial US shoppers, and this week Marks and Spencer announced they would be resurrecting their St Michael brand to use on certain clothing more than 20 years after they scrapped it. While that’s not quite a return to using it fully, with the success that is expected, it can surely only be a matter of time – we wonder which brands might reappear next?

You might be just starting to get to grips with social commerce – we’ve mentioned TikTok’s eCommerce offerings recently on the reads – yet it seems that there’s even further blurring of marketing. Vans, the skate and sports brand, has announced ‘Vans World’ – a virtual store on the online game Roblox, that allows users to customise shoes and skateboards for wearing and buying digitally. Find out more here.

Dates for your diary

ChannelAdvisor Connect 2021 is running as a virtual event on 14th and 15th September, and promises a wealth of ecommerce insights, digital strategies, and dynamic perspectives. Find out more here.

eBay Open UK 2021 takes place between 28th and 30th September. You can find out more, and register your interest here.

Linn Academy is running on 6th and 7th October as a virtual event, and is free to register but there are limited spaces, so if you’re interested, definitely register sooner than later – you can do so here.