Brightpearl Blog

A positive sign of growth in the UK from eBay Posted on February 22nd, 2012 by Harriet Fletcher

eBay announced the UK as its fastest growing territory, outpacing even their two largest marketplaces – US and Germany.  The number of Britons using the UK eBay site has seen double digit growth year on year, at 15%.

Not only is this a really positive sign of retail growth in the UK but it also proves the value for companies using eBay as a sales channel to help them on the road to growth and profits.

At Brightpearl we definitely believe eBay is a great sales channel for retailers and we’ve made it even easier for our customers to tap into this channel following our recent eBay announcement, but we also believe that a multichannel retail strategy is the key for retail success. Recent research suggests that multichannel retailers – i.e. those selling via more than one distribution channel – marketplaces, webstore, in-store, mobile – can generate up to four times the sales per customer compared to companies that rely on only one channel – why is this?

It’s being driven by both retailers and consumers.

Retailers are looking to spread risk and increase exposure to as many potential buyers as possible through adopting multiple channels.  High street retailers are looking to get online to make up for lost sales on the high street.  Online retailers are looking to maximise touch points through not just marketplaces or a webstore but by having both.

Consumers are shopping in different ways, they are always so quick to adopt different methods to buy and communicate – taking advantage of the benefits of the different sales channels e.g. the transparency of price and reviews offered through marketplaces vs the ability to touch, feel and assess quality by seeing the physical product vs the ease of purchasing something through a mobile device. If you have brand continuity and touch points across every sales channel you are more likely to see the customer purchase, wherever it is they choose to buy.

By adopting a multichannel strategy Retailers create a win-win situation. Consumers get more choice about where they can make purchases and Retailers are more likely to  increase sales through maximising customer touch points.

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The taxman says he’s coming for eBay sellers: how to be ready Posted on February 10th, 2012 by James Marchant

This is a guest blog by James Marchant, one of the founders and CEO of Marchant Dice, a manufacturer and distributor of CNC equipment based in the UK with customers around the world.  James has been selling on eBay since 2003 and his own webstore since 2006, he has been a Brightpearl customer since early 2011.

An article posted in the Daily Mail on Wednesday covers the latest announcement by UK HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that it has used ‘new technology’ to identify parts of the UK economy that are likely to have a high number of missing tax returns. eBay and other ‘e-marketplaces’ have been identified as one part of the economy where this is indeed the case, which is particularly interesting for us for obvious reasons!

The HMRC reaffirmed plans to launch campaigns specifically targeted at those who trade on eBay – to ensure that VAT returns are being produced regularly and accurately. The intention is to launch these before the end of next month.

If you’re an eBay seller, you’re provided with a number of online tools to help you sell, and then help you ship, however it’s then a manual case of dealing with the accounting and tax implications of that sale. This means that it often takes second place in your priorities, leading to late, rushed and inaccurate VAT returns.

But not any more! The HMRC announcement this week is timed perfectly with the launch of the Brightpearl eBay integration, which lets you handle your eBay accounting automatically, accurately and immediately.

 

ebay profit and loss report in brightpearl

 

My own research from talking to companies we deal with as well as other local business people has indicated that people and companies legally trading on eBay as well as other marketplaces can and really do struggle to maintain their accounts in order to fulfil these requirements by HMRC. Our own company Marchant Dice Ltd manufactures and distributes CNC milling machines and components worldwide through multiple sales channels including eBay as well as our own website, telephone and cash sales as well as listing on Amazon in the near future. Selling over multiple channels is required more than ever in the current economic environment but it brings about its own headaches which we have suffered with for the last 9 years before discovering Brightpearl and the latest eBay integration.

Before the Brightpearl eBay integration was launched we had to run at least 2 separate sales order systems with an accounting package over the top in order to bring these sales channels together. This meant for us two excel workbooks for sales order processing and a third excel workbook for import into our accounting package which recorded the invoices generated to track sales values, tax and produce consecutive invoice numbers.

Needless to say stock control was a near impossibility and even with the best efforts, it quickly became out of sync over the various channels leading to customer service issues as well as a lot of wasted time and resources.

The Solution

Brightpearl has totally transformed the way we run our business in a whole host of ways. It has meant for the first time we have been able to bring all our sales from all sales channels together into one system. This means no wasted time fiddling between excel workbooks which looking back ….well I’d rather not!

The Brightpearl eBay integration is the single biggest breakthrough in terms of how we run our business that we have ever had.

To have eBay sales automatically appear inside Brightpearl without any need to be copying and pasting from eBay or PayPal emails is a massive relief and saves an enormous amount of time. The eBay buyer details that are automatically brought in to the system allows us to tie orders to a particular customer together over multiple sales channels often saving the customer shipping costs. It also allows us to target specific customers with marketing material based on their sales history as well as providing a great service.

As well as this the Brightpearl eBay integration has FINALLY allowed us to implement a stock control system that is always up to date across all sales channels and provides a real time accounting system so we can track everything from profit to TAX!

This new crackdown on eBay sellers is most certainly not a problem for us and there is no reason it should be for you either!

Find out more about how the Brightpearl eBay integration works.

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Brightpearl transforms multichannel offering with eBay and Magento Posted on February 8th, 2012 by Harriet Fletcher

Along with some other really cool stuff released in 4.15 today, we’re delighted to launch the addition of  two new online sales channels to Brightpearl. Customers can now connect their eBay listings and Magento-based stores with Brightpearl.

eBay needs no introduction, other than to remember that it’s still the largest marketplace for goods online. Whether you’re an existing eBay seller or you’re looking to start selling on eBay, it’s now a whole lot easier and less painful with the ability to sync your eBay sales, inventory and prices in real time into Brightpearl.

Magento is the leading ecommerce platform used worldwide, and is the most frequently requested integration by our customers. Adding Magento now gives customers another choice in their ecommerce platform, with the benefit of having all orders, inventory and price data updated simultaneously with Brightpearl.

We want to make sure that adding new channels doesn’t create new headaches on the back end. Using Brightpearl customers can scale smoothly across all channels — online and offline.

Check out the whole multichannel retail solution from Brightpearl and learn more on our webinar next Wednesday 15th, register here

 

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Customer Focus: Lahloo Tea – EPOS for multichannel retail and wholesale Posted on January 23rd, 2012 by Penny Edwards

We recently caught up with Kate Gover managing director of Lahloo Tea, who uses Brightpearl to manage her small retail and wholesale business. Utilising Brightpearl’s powerful multichannel capabilities to sell in-store in their tea room, online on their website as well as to wholesale and trade customers, she talks to us about how Brightpearl helps them to overcome the seemingly impossible challenge of tying all these channels together. Take a look at the video below to get the full story on how Brightpearl helps Lahloo to manage their business better.

Video transcript

I started Lahloo Tea three and a half years ago. I spent most of my life disliking tea and still don’t really like normal – what people call ‘normal tea’. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I tasted a japanese green tea and was just blown away by the delicate flavour and also how much flavour there was, and it was really that that took me on this kind of random obsession with hunting out tea that I really liked.

For the first year it was predominantly farmers markets, food festivals and events like that, but with demand from trade customers we realised that there was an opportunity, and so we launched both that side of the business as well as an online shop two and a half years ago. The latest development in October 2011 was we opened our first store and tea rooms.

Brightpearl’s really helpful in integrating online, wholesale, trade, retail, the cafe, and tying it altogether would seem like it would be almost impossible. It’s rare to find an EPOS system that works with a wholesale system, so being able to use Brightpearl for every bit of it means that at any given time if we’re out of stock of a product, for example, it can’t be sold in the shop, or online, or to a wholesale customer. So from a customer service point of view, it’s brilliant.

Being able to just log on and tap in and see when that customer last placed an order, or was last invoiced, or if they haven’t paid is really important. It just facilitates and also enables us to keep in touch with customers much better.

It’s really exciting!

Do you have a retail or wholesale business? Check out how Brightpearl can integrate your systems and sales channels, from your stock control, EPOS, ecommerce, and more, to help you to become a truly multichannel business.

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