David Brackin is the co-founder of Stuff U Sell and has sold over 150,000 different items on eBay. He is also a regular contributor to Tamebay.
A new seller starting out can get quite a long way in the world of ecommerce armed only with Turbo Lister and a spreadsheet. However, once their business reaches a certain size and complexity, they will need a good solution for managing inventory across multiple channels and effectively handling dispatch.
There are many names which regularly crop up in this sphere, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Linnworks is one which is mentioned more often than most, and I attended their recent “Linnworks Workshop” to hear about recent developments.
The core Linnworks product has traditionally been a desktop application which syncs to their servers. However, all that is changing. Linnworks.net is a new cloud-based version which is accessed through the browser – on any platform. It is currently in beta testing, but it is clear that something interesting is emerging. Their founder, Fedor Dzjuba, presented the main features to a packed room in Reading.
The interface is familiar to existing users but with better design built-in. The filtering and customisation of layout is more flexible. Multi-user enterprises are better catered for with instant syncing and the screens actively changing as another user works. Behind the scenes, the system spins up new servers when load increases so it is able to handle peak loads much better and operations are quicker to complete. As a real bonus, support is being thought about in an entirely new way. The pro-active support system constantly monitors performance so that before you notice a problem and raise a ticket, alerts are sent to developers to start on the fix.
It is still in beta so there are plenty of bugs, and Fedor is open and honest about this when we speak – “it’s an odd on-boarding call where I tell you everything that’s broken”, he admits. However, that’s one of the things that I find so interesting and exciting about Linnworks: you get a sense that they really want to engage with customers and solve their problems with the highest quality technical product they can build, rather than just placate with smooth account management.
https://youtu.be/Pm7_XqcfO9s
I’m keen to see how this new phase of the Linnworks product develops and looks when finally in production. To join the beta programme, existing Linnworks customers can get in touch via Linnworks.net.
5 Responses
Brilliant news to hear this. I was told a while ago it was in the making. With a business fully operated on mac computers we may very well be switching to linnworks as soon as this is up and running.
We have been using Linnworks for a number of years now. At first the customer service was excellent. However in the last year we have seen the software becoming very slow, there are many bugs, courier integrations are corrupt and for even the smallest problems all you get is ‘open a ticket’ response.
For a piece of software for which we are paying over £500 every month I am excepting much better service and scalable options.
None of our request (or recommendations) from our own IT department have been actioned and I cannot see it getting any better. Linnworks is getting a victim of its own success and quality and customer service has been severely compromised for accelerated growth.
Make sure you have a good look around as there are now better and more competent order management packages out there, Orderwise being one of them.