by Nawaz Charania | Ecommerce Business Tips |

The seller who lists the same items on eBay, Amazon, and Sears websites has to keep track of the listings, and cancel or update them whenever such items are sold. This is a truly labor intense way to handle business, but for many it has been the “norm” for far too long.

As an example, take the reseller of refurbished cell phones. This person obtains their products, houses them at a facility near their home, and then lists them on several popular sites, such as those listed above. Each time an item sells, they have to make note of it and make sure to end the listings on the other sites or adjust the number they have available…. Read the full article

by Nawaz Charania | Ecommerce Business Tips |

Retail is a two-way street. There are purchases and sometimes there are returns. There is the exchange of money for goods. There is also the exchange of faith from the buyer to the seller. The buyer gives over the money and expects the item to be sent and/or to perform as described. Whether it is a scarf that is supposed to be soft and warm or an electronic device rebuilt to factor specifications, the buyer hands over the money with good faith and with reasonable expectations.

Those expectations encompass several key things. As someone involved in the world of online selling, you know that your customers expect you to fair and accurate in your product descriptions, and that you extend the most realistic terms. This tends to mean that you will accept returns and you promise that items ship within a set time frame after the purchase is complete…. Read the full article

by Nawaz Charania | Ecommerce Business Tips |

Have you heard the phrase that “dropshippers are invisible”? This is something that an online entrepreneur might understand. After all, many use dropshipping as a key component of their business. Though there are some risks in this way of doing business (wrong items sent, inventory glitches, and lower profit margins for the seller), it can help you to begin building a very successful, multichannel retail business.

This is even more the case when you use integrated solutions to streamline and organize all of your sales operations. For instance, most multichannel vendors establish a presence at Amazon.com. The size of the audience and the diversity of goods ensures that this is a savvy business decision, and yet without proper Amazon shipping management functions, it can all go haywire. This is particularly true when dropshipping is the business model…. Read the full article

by Nawaz Charania | Ecommerce Business Tips |

You know that you should use eBay as one of your retail channels and yet the time it takes to upload good photos and create unique and appealing listings is just too much. After all, if you sell something that has to be listed in a few ways, you might easily burn through an entire work day just creating, proofreading and activating listings. Then you still have to go back into eBay when inventory sells and adjust the number available, and so on.

Just reading that brief description of a slim sampling of the things you have to do to sell on eBay may make even a serious multichannel retailer hesitate to participate in this market. But that would be a huge mistake. It is a global marketplace with the capacity for helping you to establish a world-class business and make tremendous profits…. Read the full article

by Nawaz Charania | Ecommerce Business Tips |

Multichannel retailers know that their work is never easy. Sure, it is described as the ultimate “work for yourself” arrangement, and a business structure that can be as simple or as hands on as you want. Regardless of the many promises made about this sort of business structure, however, it is undeniable that it does take a lot of time and effort to sell across several channels.

Just the inventory management alone can become a full time gig. You have to enter the products into each system (including such things as uploading photos, tagging them, and completing a multiple-step product listing process), you have to make note of when something sells on one channel in order to input this into the other channels and either delete or deactivate listings, and then there are the inevitable typos…. Read the full article