Our clients operate in a wide range of ecommerce markets including eBay, Amazon, Play and Magento, so you’ll be sure of a varied work environment.

So, what does the role include?

Working on the StoreFeeder software and other related sites, you will be devising new concepts and user interaction design. It is essential that you possess good ASP.NET C# skills as well as a good understanding of MS SQL Server. Although not essential, knowledge of PHP would be beneficial.

You will have a good working knowledge of usability and online applications, allowing you to produce high quality resources in collaboration with the design and technical teams. You must express a keen interest in the ecommerce industry. You will be encouraged to be proactive in investigating and suggesting ways to improve the software and in return we will provide the opportunity to learn new skills and for you to work on exciting new projects.

You will be based in our Nottingham office, working Mon-Fri 9-5.
Salary is negotiable dependent on experience.

How to apply

To apply for the role please send your CV with a covering note outlining your experience and why we should hire you to jobs @ storefeeder.com. NO AGENCIES PLEASE.

Successful candidates will be invited for an interview by the end of May. Good luck!

We’ve received some great feedback and suggestions over the months from existing StoreFeeder users, many of which we’ve already put into place. Due to the fast growth of features in the software, the layout has taken a bit of a back seat and we’ve been working hard on addressing this. So, our designers have been busy in the background putting in the ground work for an improved user interface.

The improved interface aims to be even more intuitive, making better use of the screen real estate and integrating ‘on page’ help with tips on the page’s functionality.

Sneaky Peek

We’re aiming to roll out the new interface during May, with the first screens going live next week, but here’s a quick look at a couple of the changes.

Integrated help – we’ll be adding on page help / tips which you can show and hide at the click of a button. It will provide a brief overview of the page’s functionality, as well as links to resources such as manual pages and support.

Side menu – we’ve done some research and guess what, side menus are still cool! Which is great, as introducing a side menu on a page instead of the top level tabs will improve the site’s navigation, making it more intuitive to use.

And many more general improvements – We hope that you like them!

The very fact that you are looking at the StoreFeeder blog, means that you either are or you are considering selling your products on multiple sales channels. The evolution of the ecommerce market has been staggering and without fantastic pieces of multi-channel ecommerce software, like StoreFeeder, to help companies manage their stock and sales activity, time would be a very precious resource in this industry.

Time, an interesting concept, who could not do with more time in the day, more time to source new products, or new suppliers for your existing ones, or even (dare I say it) relax away from the business!

The selling of a product is just the start of the journey, it means that you have done the right things so far. You have a product that the customer wants and at a price they are happy to pay. Your sales channel is good and the customer feels a sense of trust to buy from you.

But this really is the start of the journey and this journey is where ‘time’ is often a factor in whether your customer will ultimately be happy with you and their purchase.

Whether you are a start up company or an established e-seller, the time that it takes to process your orders and get it to your customer is often neglected. Gaining the order is great, but keep a customer waiting after that point and you are not likely to retain them.

Gone are the days when “please allow 28 days for delivery” was the acceptable norm, these days if our order is not sat on the doormat the next morning we are not impressed, and getting this part of your service right on your own can be expensive, complicated and time consuming.

You have to consider warehousing, rent, rates, insurance, staff, IT systems, carrier contracts, the list goes on. How will you cope when you get a huge spike in orders? Will you be able to get all the orders out on time? What will your staff do when you are in a quiet period? They will still want paying.

Well, the simple answer is, you give UK Fulfilment a call.

We are the sister company of StoreFeeder. If you look in the “Company” section of their website, you will see me, sat at the bottom of the page with Petros staring at me. I have been working for Meads (the parent company of both UK Fulfilment and StoreFeeder) for nearly 15 years, so I have a great deal of expertise in this industry.

UK Fulfilment is perfectly placed to allow you to grab back that precious commodity of time and take the stress and hassle out of your order processing operation. We integrate seamlessly with StoreFeeder (as you would expect) so as soon as your receive an order over any of your sales channels we know about it and then we can put our expertise into practice and get your order out.

We store your products for you, receive your orders from eBay, Amazon, your website, in fact wherever you sell them, and then we pick, pack and despatch them to your customers. Because we do this for many companies, we have a slick operation that allows us to process your orders quickly, accurately and efficiently and with the integration and backup of StoreFeeder, you can see this happening on your computer with order statuses, stock levels and POD’s all updating live.

We can process orders safe in the knowledge that stock is available as the StoreFeeder software has ensured live stock levels on all channels, so there have been no double sales across the different sales platforms. This allows for faster processing and gets the order to the warehouse quicker as previously we had to wait for a manual release of orders from our clients own systems to ensure there was no cross selling before the order was released to be processed.

Our operation is trusted by some high profile clients, because they know we can deliver what they promise to their customers. We have capability to handle spikes in orders and there are no problems if your sales are low for a period. You only pay for what you use so no fixed costs for rent and staff to worry about during slower periods.

The ecommerce market is booming and we are here to help companies make the most of their opportunities by offering a reliable, efficient and cost effective solution that allows you the time to establish and grow your brand, customer base and sales, or maybe, have the time for a break.

Visit www.ukfulfilment.co.uk for more information, or pick up the phone and give me a call.

Ian

UK Fulfilment – 0800 0141010
Proud partner of StoreFeeder.com

1. Create unique content

And I mean unique across all of your channels. You should avoid using manufacturer descriptions for products as this can be seen as duplicate content. If 10 websites were to all sell Product X and all 10 websites used the manufacturer description, the website that first started selling Product X would be indexed by Google first and the other 9 seen as duplicate. The same issue arises if you sell Product X across multiple channels such as your website, eBay and Amazon.

2. Include a sitemap

Help the search engines out where possible. By including a sitemap for your ecommerce site you’ll give search engines the key to all of your pages. Better yet, submit a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.

3. Optimise your page content

If you’re looking for a page to rank in search engines you need to pick your keyword or phrase, most likely the product name, then use this to optimise that page’s content for search engines. Include your keywords in headings particularly H1 tags (there should only be one H1 tag on any given page) and H2 tags, as well as throughout the page. But remember, write your content for humans not for search engines – so no keyword stuffing!

4. Don’t forget those title tags

The title tag, or page title, is the line which will appear as the blue link in search engine results and at the top of the web browser. It should be effeciently descriptive of the page’s content as well as being optimised for your keywords.

A few helpful hints;

• The words at the start of your tag have more weight with search engines so try to get your keywords here
• If you want to include your company name pop it at the end
• Keep your title tags to the recommended 70 characters
• As with your content, don’t keyword stuff!

5. Make sure you have user friendly URLs

Your URLs which are the page’s web address should be descriptive rather than programmatical. For example if we go back to selling Product X the optimal URL for this product page would be www.companyname.com/Product-X and not www.companyname.com/page?id=12345. This helps both SEO by using your keywords and is more visually informative for users.

6. Check your navigation and internal linking

This one is a must for both your users and for SEO. Make sure that your site doesn’t have any broken links, and that all of your pages are linked to internally.

7. High quality backlinks

A backlink is when another website links to yours. Link building is an key part of SEO as generally the more backlinks a website has the better it will rank. The important point to remember here however is that these links need to be of high quality to have a positive impact.

High quality links can be regarded as those coming from respected sources, like high ranking websites, websites with related content to your own and within your industry. Writing a blog gives you the opportunity to create link worthy content and can also increase traffic in itself, as well as generating more content pages for your website.

Moving forward…

Of course I’m just scratching the surface with these 7 tips, and SEO is an ongoing process. Ideally SEO should be built into your website from day one. Work on your on-page SEO first and then once you’ve optimised your website look at your off-page techniques such as link building and being proactive in industry related forums.

If you’ve got any other tips please do share them in our comments below.

If you cast your mind back to 1995 you may or may not remember that Amazon actually started out as an online bookstore. They have of course since added many other product lines to their catalogue including DVDs, CDs, MP3s, software, electronics, furniture, toys, clothing and even food.

While Amazon may still be running several stores in beta, such as the Clothing Store and the Grocery Store, they are definitely a household name with it comes to online shopping with more and more consumers opting to browse Amazon’s ‘aisles’ over bricks and mortar shops.

And in true integration style, having an Amazon account along with an eBay, Play, Magento and many others in one location means you can grow your business without all the extra time and resources.

Along with the benefits mentioned in my previous post about eBay integration, by managing your Amazon account from multi-channel software you will be able to;

• Download your Amazon orders, along with eBay orders, Magento orders and so on
• Pick, pack and dispatch orders with integrated couriers
• Send tracking information to Amazon, which will then be passed on to the customer
• Update and synchronise inventory so all channels are aware of the sale

If you’d like to learn more about multi-channel integration then watch our short video.

eBay Sellersphere – http://sellersphere.ebay.co.uk/

The Sellersphere is eBay.co.uk’s resource for business and professional sellers. A great place to find out the latest news when it comes to eBay, as well as tips and answers to popular questions about the marketplace.

A  post titled Your eBay selling questions answered earlier this month covered questions answered by Patrick Munden, Head of Seller Communications at eBay.

Q. Why can’t sellers leave negative and neutral feedback?
A. We had a lot of buyers tell us that sellers were unfairly giving bad feedback. We want more buyers, and one of the biggest things stopping them buying was the feedback structure. We brought in the Resolution Centre to increase trust.

eBay ink – http://ebayinkblog.com/

Another eBay blog with opinions and perspectives on eBay Inc, but these posts come from an employee’s point of view. Richard Brewer-Hay is the Senior Manager of Social Media for eBay Inc. and the chief blogger for the company.

One of Richard’s recent posts included an infographic titled ‘I won it on eBay‘ which looks at the differences between people who have bought or sold on eBay, and those who haven’t.

Amazon Seller Support – http://www.amazonsellersupportblog.co.uk/

A blog from Amazon’s Seller Support team. With the aim to pass on helpful information such as strategies and best practices to Amazon sellers.

Over the Christmas period they released a 3 part series of posts with tips on how to resolve issues with orders, as well as many other ‘Festive selling tips’.

TameBay – http://tamebay.co.uk/

While the name suggests ‘eBay blog’, TameBay actually covers a much broader range of topics, including Amazon, PayPal and ecommerce in general. Run by Chris Dawson, they offer industry news, selling tips and links to tools. As an eBay powerseller himself, Chris knows what he’s talking about.

HubSpot – http://blog.hubspot.com/

This one is for your inbound marketing quests. Covering topics such as SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Landing Pages, Lead Generation and Analytics, HubSpot offers a great deal of advice in the form of how tos, videos and ebooks.

A couple of ebooks you may want to check out are;

• Introduction to Business Blogging
• 25 Website ‘Must Haves’ for Driving Traffic, Leads and Sales

This is just a few examples of useful blogs, of course if you have any others you would like to share then please do add them in the comments section below. And one last word of advice – Be careful on that ice! (I really didn’t mean for that to rhyme, I promise.)

Ok, let’s get stuck straight in shall we…

1. Make sure you meet the right requirements

Before you can open an eBay shop there are a few requirements you need to take care of depending on which level of shop you would like to open. There are 3 main shop subscription levels on eBay, each with slightly varying requirements.

Subscription levels

* Prices correct for eBay.co.uk on 08/02/2012.
** For 30-day or Good ‘Til Cancelled listings. For listings of a shorter duration, the fee is £0.01 per listing.
Further and up to date information on shop fees.

Subscription level requirements

Basic Shop :

• You must have a minimum feedback score of 10, or
• You must be PayPal Verified

Featured Shop or Anchor Shop:

• You must be a registered business seller on eBay
• You must be PayPal Verified
• Maintain a 12-month average Detailed Seller Ratings score of 4.4 or above for a Featured Shop or 4.6 or above for an Anchor Shop in each of the four areas

2. Choose your eBay Shop name

You’ll be able to give your eBay Shop a name of your choice, but remember that this name is also the shop’s website address, so if you’re trading as a business seller for example it would be a good idea to use your company name.

Once you’ve decided which level and a shop name go to the Subscribe to Shops page to sign up.

3. Set up and customise your eBay Shop

Next you’ll need to setup your ‘shop window’, this is your chance to incorporate your company branding and setup your shop categories.

As an online retailer you’ll want to design a professional looking eBay Shop, you can either use eBay’s inbuilt tools or there are companies around that design templates specifically for eBay Shops.

A few things you’ll want to include are:

• Your company logo, so customers instantly know who they are buying from
• A header, including contact details
• Your shop policies such as delivery and returns
• A shop theme to include your company colours and fonts

4. List those items!

Once you’ve setup your shop you can start selling your products. In an eBay Shop you have the option of selling items as either Auction-Style or Fixed Price listings. These listing will then automatically show in your shop, add them to the relevant category so visitors can navigate to the type of product they are looking for.

5. Grow your business

Ok, so this isn’t really a step about setting up your shop but it’s an important step nonetheless.

Managing your shop and adding new products over time will keep your customers coming back, and with the right marketing you can build up a reliable customer base.

Further reading: For more information about setting up an Ebay Shop from eBay themselves click here.

If you have any questions about setting up an eBay Shop or any advice for those just starting out then leave a comment below.

When you think about selling online what’s one of the first words that comes to mind? eBay, right? It’s no wonder, as a company they’ve been around since 1995 and have become a multi-billion dollar business. eBay is a marketplace used by both private and business sellers worldwide and given how simple it is to set up an online store more and more companies are making the leap.

eBay is however one of many sales channels available, and while they have a HUGE user base, there are a number of additional sales channels that can help businesses increase their product reach. If you’re thinking Amazon, Play, PIXmania and your very own website as a few examples then you’re reading my mind.

As an online retailer if you’re looking at branching out onto other sales channels, or if you already have then one of the problems you face is the amount of admin involved keeping on top of your product listings and stock levels.This is where multi-channel management software comes in.

There are a number of benefits you can gain by utilising software for eBay integration;

With all these great benefits using multi-channel software for eBay integration means businesses can invest more time and money into growing their business and new product lines.

If you’d like to learn more about multi-channel integration then watch our short video.

In order to allow a system such as StoreFeeder to connect with your Magento store you will need to set up something called an API user along with an associated role. An API is the means by which software can communicate with each other.

We’ve produced a manual page with screenshots to cover the steps on how to go about doing this for StoreFeeder > Magento channel integration.

But I’ll summarise here;

1. Login to your Magento admin, and navigate to Systems > Web services > Users
2. Add a new user and fill out the form, the API key is your password so pick something secure
3. Next you’ll need to add a new role, Systems > Web services > Roles, giving it the name the software requires (in our case StoreFeeder).
4. You’ll then need to set the ‘role resources’ from the left hand menu, you can set this to ‘All’ or select items individulally.
5. Pop back to the user screen and assign the role to the user you set up in step 2.

And that’s it. You’ve now set up an API user and role ready for Magento integration!

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So, what is Pinterest?

In their words “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.”

I’ve used the site for over a year now, though I’m a little intermittent with my ‘pinning’, and I use it as an ‘inspiration’ board full of ideas and images that catch my eye. Think of it as the pinboard you keep in your kitchen, your study or your office and anything you pin to that board as cut outs from a magazine or catalogue. You can categorise your pins onto ‘pinboards’, with popular categories including home decor, food and wedding inspiration.

That’s all very nice isn’t it, but how can ecommerce sites utilise the social bookmarking site you ask?

With many users now creating wishlists of items they want, or are looking to buy and the ability to link these pins direct to a retailer’s website there is an opportunity to generate more traffic to your website. Users can even indicate how much a product costs, which allows visitors to browse ‘Gifts’ by price.

A few ideas for using Pinterest for Marketing

- Promote a lifestyle
- Use it like a focus group
- Crowdsource
- Run contests
- Inspire
- Invite people to pin your products with a ‘Pin it’ button

You can find these ideas and more information in Mashable’s Pinterest Infographic and further reading over at HubSpot blog. Feel free to leave your thoughts on Pinterest in the comments section below.

Pinterest is still in invite only mode but if you’d like to give it a go send me your email address [gemma at storefeeder dot com] and I’ll drop you an invite.