I recently ran into Matthew Ogborne and Dave Furness and having heard rumours that they were working on free multichannel management software I wanted to find out more.
They’ve been working on UnderstandingE, a new concept in how to manage multiple online selling channels without costs. For most retailers there are only two choices – manage each channel as a separate business unit with separate stock, or pay for multi-channel management software. UnderstandingE aim to help you put your own solution together using off the shelf free software.
In essence this harks back to the days when eBay were bigging up X.Commerce, although that seems to have died a death and certainly eBay aren’t talking about it any more. However many of the building blocks are in place, they just need someone to put them together.
eBay owned Magento is the centrepiece of the puzzle, add on M2E Pro and you can connect to eBay, Amazon, and Rakuten Play.com.
UnderstandingE is the ‘knowledge’ part of the puzzle. They aim to show you how you can use Magento and M2E Pro to create your own multi-channel software and most importantly give you the business owner the ability to innovate once more.
UnderstandingE is going Live on January 1st 2014. It probably wouldn’t be in your interest to change your multichannel management systems in Q4 and likely you’re too busy to even look at it yet. Look out for more news in the New Year.
