Across the EU and Switzerland, Facebook enabled an economic impact of €15.3 billion in 2011, supporting 232,000 jobs. Deloitte’s report,‘Measuring Facebook’s economic impact in Europe’ breaks down Facebook’s economic impact across Europe and also in France, UK, Germany, Spain and Italy. Read the full article here.
Sellerdeck is the new name for Sellerdeck, a British company dedicated to online retail software. Sellerdeck Business 2013 is its new midrange software package.
Sellerdeck takes a different approach, providing a desktop application which creates and manages a shop on your own PC.
Click here to read the full Sellerdeck Business 2013 review.
If you don’t treat your customers with respect, it will come back to haunt you. Chris Barling shares a lesson about humility.
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The average order value has remained virtually unchanged at £76.30 for Q4 2011 compared to £76.38 for Q4 2010.
Simon Armstrong, marketing manager at Sellerdeck comments, “These figures show a turbulent time for SME online store owners with many needing special offers even before Christmas to tempt customers to place an order, thus hitting the gross profit margins for many e-tailers. However, in comparison to the high street, with frequent announcements of chains of stores in difficulty, online is still faring well in very uncertain times.”
January sales start early
This year saw a new trend in which retailers brought sales forward with many offering discounts to entice shoppers to spend in the last few days before Christmas. Many online sellers started their sales on Christmas Day with Experian reporting 86 million hits to British shopping websites on Boxing Day. This was borne out by Sellerdeck merchants like Nick Powell of Trout Catchers:
“It was noticeable that shoppers were delaying placing orders before Christmas. In fact, many waited until after Christmas Day, and we saw a definite increase in orders from 26th through to New Year’s Eve, which hasn’t happened before.”
This is backed up by Paul Nicolson, designer for TerraTag: “We are always trying different styles of promotions, but a percentage discount invariably works the best. Christmas 2011 was no exception; to get the orders we had to offer better prices than our competitors, but also ensure deliveries arrived promptly. That way customers are more likely to return.”
Online shoppers to spend nearly £8 billion this Christmas.
UK consumers are expected to spend almost £8 billion online this Christmas, despite tough economic conditions – a 14 per cent increase on last year, writes Simon Wicks. Research by the online retail membership body IMRG predicts that online shopping sales will hit £7.75 billion over the five weeks from Monday, 28 November – also known as ‘Cyber Monday’. Almost half (£3.72 billion) is expected to be spent in the first two weeks alone. The forecast is based on data from 100 online retailers and reflects the trend seen in the past two years in the run-up to Christmas. Read the full article here.
The latest update for Sellerdeck EPOS is now available for download. As well as a number of fixes, the new version adds:
The annual conference for Sellerdeck’s customers will be sponsored by PayPal for the 4th year, and held at its prestigious offices in Richmond, Surrey.
This year there will be a strong line-up of speakers from PayPal and Global Freight Solutions, as well as Sellerdeck itself. These presentations will provide insight into the following key areas:
There will also be a chance to hear about product developments, including Sellerdeck 2014, along with the opportunity to book expert technical help in 1-2-1 sessions.
Ben Dyer, CEO of Sellerdeck says, “This year everyone is concerned about how to maintain and expand sales in an economy where consumers are more reluctant to spend. Therefore, we’ve chosen sessions that give insights into m-commerce, the value of overseas markets and how to attract new visitors.”
He adds, “However, the conference is as much about delegates networking and sharing their experiences with fellow merchants, as it is about listening to industry experts.”
Duncan Rounding of Genesis Technical has attended several conferences: “As both a developer and merchant I found the previous conferences really worthwhile. The content was very interesting and relevant, plus meeting with other like-minded merchants was a valuable experience.”
Tickets
Tickets are available at £50 + VAT for Sellerdeck Cover/Developer subscribers, and £99 + VAT for non-subscribers. Click to book your ticket.
Contacts
For more information, contact:
Sellerdeck’s PR: Jane Lee, Dexterity, sellerdeck@dexterity.co.uk, +44 (0)1273 470199, @janemlee
About Sellerdeck
Sellerdeck supplies E-Commerce software and EPOS systems to small and mid-sized companies that want to be in full control of their online business. The company’s desktop application gives merchants control over key components such as hosting, payments, fraud detection and customer feedback without having to rely on third-party, cloud-based solutions.
Established in 1996 as Sellerdeck Software and rebranded in 2012, Sellerdeck is the oldest established E-Commerce developer trading today and has enabled tens of thousands of UK SMEs to make an estimated £11bn in sales over its 17 years.
Graham Hart is at the helm of family-run Harts of Stur, a business which has been trading for over 60 years. Before that, his great grandfather ran the blacksmith business manufacturing steel parts for agriculture.
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The prediction, from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) in association with price comparison website Kelkoo, means that Britain will be by far the biggest market in Europe for mobile retail. Read the full article here.
Sellerdeck 2013 is the first new version of the E-Commerce platform to launch under the company’s new name and adds a swathe of enhancements that are designed to turn visitors who were just browsing into happy customers. Sellerdeck changed its name from Sellerdeck Desktop in June 2012.
While the previous two versions of Sellerdeck’s product – Sellerdeck Desktop v10 and Sellerdeck Desktop v11 – focused on streamlining the checkout process and customer service features, Sellerdeck 2013 offers merchants the chance to make it even easier for customers to find the products they are looking for with improved search functions.
New merchant-defined filters mean customers can quickly narrow down their search to items in a particular size, colour, brand or price range, for example. Dynamic pricing and product option features mean that visitors won’t be shown items that are out of stock and will always be aware of the price they’re paying.
Sellerdeck 2013 also brings additional enhancements to SEO. The new automated pagination feature lets merchants specify the number of products appearing on a page. And though these pages are automatically generated, they are static HTML pages with a fixed filename, which lets search engines index them easily.
There are also improvements to the Design Wizard, which now comes with a set of eight different page layouts and 11 different themes. The Design Wizard automatically adjusts the page and sidebar widths, repositioning key elements such as the search bar and cart summary and modifying their styles as required according to the layout and theme selected.
“One of the biggest problems online merchants have is people coming to their site but leaving without buying anything. With our new platform, we’re aiming to help merchants make the whole experience so seamless for visitors that they have every reason to make a purchase – and come back again and again,” said Ben Dyer, CEO of Sellerdeck.
“Our research has shown that well-designed, secure websites with plenty of product information – as well as large, detailed images of products – are in the best position to win over a potential customer, and Sellerdeck 2013 will help merchants tick these boxes so they can increase conversion rates,” Dyer continued.
While configuring and applying the new features is a simple – and fast – process, upgrading to Sellerdeck 2013 is also designed to be as hassle-free as possible, with no in-depth technical expertise required.
Sellerdeck 2013 comes in four different versions – Catalog, Business, Business Plus and Enterprise – to suit all sizes of organisation. Prices begin at £515 excluding VAT, or £340 ex VAT for customers upgrading from older versions of Sellerdeck Desktop.
For more details about Sellerdeck 2013, to obtain review copies, images or to arrange an interview with Ben Dyer please contact:
Ben Camm-Jones
e: ben@clarity.pr
t: +44(0) 20 7100 1333
m: +44(0) 7515 877 621
