All posts by Jane Fazackarley

eBay Global Shipping Program: All Your Questions Answered

eBay Programs & Policies, Shipping & Fulfillment

eBay’s Global Shipping Program allows sellers to access international customers and reach new markets, but is it the best option for sellers?

Parcels being delivered around the world

International shipping is a complex activity. There are a multitude of considerations from customs duties and taxes, to long delivery time frames and flawed parcel tracking.

eBay’s Global Shipping Program (GSP) aims to make international shipping easy for eBay sellers. With GSP you only have to ship your product to a warehouse in your own country, then eBay takes over and handles international delivery to the buyer.

But how well does the program work? What are the pros and cons? And is it really the best way to ship internationally?

Continue reading →

Which Are the Best Places to Sell Clothes Online?

Alternative Marketplaces, Product Types

When it comes to selling boutique, designer or vintage clothes, eBay has strong competition from newer marketplaces that sell clothes online.

Women in clothes store working on a laptop

Selling new or used clothes online can be a profitable niche for many businesses. But there is no doubt about it, you need to have an eye for detail, bargains and trends, and sourcing your products can be time consuming.

Whatever your approach, you have plenty of options when it comes to choosing where to sell your clothes online. There are now a multitude of apps and websites used by professional clothing sellers, each with their own loyal base of fashion-conscious buyers.

In the past, eBay was often the go-to marketplace for clothes sellers, but it may no longer be your best option. So, in this article I am going to discuss some alternative marketplaces for selling clothes, and outline the key features of each.

Continue reading →

ManageByStats: The All-In-One Operating System for Amazon Sellers

Amazon Software & Services, Vendor Profiles

Amazon private label sellers can get everything from market research and analytics to PPC ad management and email automation in one tool.

Man working on computer on mountain

Most Amazon private label sellers have the same needs, and follow the same process. It starts with detailed market research, so the products you source will have the best possible chance of succeeding.

Even with great products, success doesn’t just happen by accident. Building sales momentum usually takes a lot of advertising, and asking customers for product reviews.

But how do you know if all your marketing efforts are working? You’ll need to monitor your search ranking, sales and profitability to find out. Once orders are flowing, you’ll need to plan when to restock and how many units to buy, or sales will come to a dead stop.

Market research. PPC ads. Review requests. Search rank. Reporting. Restocking. It’s a lot to think about. Many sellers use software to manage and automate each of these tasks, and end up using 5-10 separate apps, each with their own monthly subscription to pay.

ManageByStats, or MBS, takes a different approach. It’s one system which covers just about everything an Amazon private label seller needs.

Continue reading →

Will It Fit My Car? Help Customers Buy The Right Part With myFitment

Product Types, Vendor Profiles

Timely and complete fitment data across every online sales channel reduces customer questions, grows sales and lowers returns.

Car exploded into parts representing fitment

The auto parts niche is unlike any other product category. A lot of the success or failure of selling auto parts comes down to the fitment data that you add to your products. Fitment or compatibility is the vehicle year, make, model, engine etc. that your parts and accessories fit.

Having fitment data that is accurate and complete, and in the right format for every marketplace, is crucial to success in this industry. Only people who know the auto parts business will appreciate all the technical complexities involved in that.

myFitment founder Adrian Klingel has been in the industry for twenty years, starting at CARQUEST Auto Parts in 1998. In 2003 he created Illumaware, the first software-as-a-service business in the automotive aftermarket for data management, with customers including Ford Motorcraft, Brembo, and many other enterprise manufacturers. Over the years, Adrian has also been involved in the creation of industry-standard data formats like PIES XML, and eBay’s own master vehicle list (MVL).

As a whole, the myFitment team has been sending fitment data to Amazon for ten years. In the last three years they’ve provided over 1.5 billion lines of fitment data for over 25 million listings to leading marketplaces and websites. So, this company doesn’t just know how fitment works, they know how to handle it at scale.

Continue reading →

29+ States Are Bringing in Sales Tax Economic Nexus. Are You Ready?

Accounting, Taxes & Legal

Sales tax will never be the same again after South Dakota v. Wayfair, as a majority of states jump on this new opportunity to tax remote sellers.

US sales tax states and economic nexus chart

Shown above: remote seller nexus by state as of October 4, 2018

U.S. sales tax will never be the same again, especially for online sellers.

Why is that? Well, a Supreme Court ruling on June 21st, 2018 threw out the idea that liability for sales tax had to be based on having some sort of physical presence in the state.

Now, due to the South Dakota v. Wayfair case, states can introduce something called economic nexus. There are no tests of physical presence at all for economic nexus. Instead, a seller can become liable to sales tax based on the total number of orders shipped to customers in that state, or the total dollar value of those orders.

Today, 29 U.S. states have adopted economic nexus, and more could follow suit. How did this seismic shift in sales tax come about? What are online sellers’ new obligations, and what do they need to do to fulfill them?

We’ll also look at the services provided by post sponsor Avalara, to help sellers handle their sales tax responsibilities.

Continue reading →