ChannelAdvisor have announced support for Google Shopping, Amazon Webstore and Amazon Italy, in their latest Winter update.
Google Shopping
The 13th of February is D Day for Google Shopping in the United Kingdom, the 13th is the date that Google will be switching on Product Listing Ads in the UK and will mark the end of free exposure on Google for merchants. This will definitely be a time you want to check your website analytics to see just how much (free) traffic you lose and experiment with (paid for) Google Product Listing Ads to replace that traffic.
If you’re still trying to figure out how you’ll get to grips with Google’s changes then ChannelAdvisor have 12 tips to get you started with Google Product Listing Ads.
ChannelAdvisor have added support in the UK France, Germany and Australia in anticipation of the Google Shopping transition in February
Amazon Webstore & Amazon Italy
Adding Amazon Webstore support is pretty significant as it gives retailers a viable alternative webshop when using ChannelAdvisor, in direct competition to ChannelAdvisor’s own webshop solution.
There’s no surprise that Amazon Italy support has been added to Amazon UK, US,Germany, France and Canada. Anyone who has attended ChannelAdvisor Catalyst over the past few years would have heard CEO Scot Wingo enthusiastically welcoming Amazon’s growth in his annual keynote. Although eBay is still a giant in ecommerce there’s no doubt that adding Amazon to an eBay business will probably double sales overnight, and the more Amazon territories you list in the bigger the potential for growth.
Groupon Goods, Shop.com, Trade Me
Other marketplaces added to ChannelAdvisor’s supported portfolio are Groupon Goods (US), Shop.com (US) and Trade me (New Zealand).
The one surprise I have here is that there’s no mention of Rakuten, although in fairness it may be a little early for any announcements. ChannelAdvisor already support Buy.com in the US, whose name will change to Rakuten.com at the end of the January. Play.com will also change to Rakuten.co.uk in two months time and Tradoria in Germany is already branded as Rakuten.de. Whilst the sites run on essentially different technology platforms today, we’ll have to wait and see what Rakuten change before ChannelAdvisor decides whether to provide access to these marketplaces for sellers.
Minor UK Marketplaces
No support was announced for the likes of Tesco of HMV and ASOS marketplace is only suitable for consumers. Judging by the size of the opportunities (and the fact that HMV has gone into administration), ignoring the upstarts is probably a good move as there’s not exactly a huge demand from retailers to list on these sites.
Enhancements
As well as adding support for Google and marketplaces in new countries, ChannelAdvisor have a raft of tweaks with better reporting and management as well as Amazon FBA cross border support. If you’re a ChannelAdvisor customer or considering using their services check out the full release on their website.
