How to Fight Amazon Rights Infringement Claims
By Chris McCabe
The incidence of rights infringement claims at Amazon spiked upward recently, as many parties have realized how easily this can be abused to remove unwanted sellers from a desired listing.
In fact, Amazon’s policy teams have moved much more aggressively to suspend sellers, instead of warning them and removing the ASIN in question from their listings.
The net result of these actions is to drive up the number of suspended account appeals. These appeals require Plans of Action to address not only how you’ll resolve the current dispute with the claimant, but also how you’ll avoid such rights infringement cases in the future.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that the increased friction around notice claims has resulted in new methods to prevent notice abuse. Amazon is now taking this subject very seriously and no abuse of Amazon’s systems or policies will be tolerated going forward.
Amazon rights infringement claims: a recap
The past notice process led sellers to contact rights’ owners via email asking for a retraction or attempting to resolve the dispute, then asking that party to contact Amazon directly. Sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t. Either way, you had little hope of hearing from the claimant due to their lack of incentive to “help” you with your Amazon problems. Their intended goal was to drive you off the listing and perhaps even get you suspended, and it worked like a charm. Why should they play ball with you now?
Patterns of abuse, such as repeated false claims, will likely result in account closure
Often the only recourse in these situations was to remove all such inventory and declare that you’d never again list or sell those items, while also submitting a Plan of Action. Given the inconsistency of Amazon’s internal processes and varying degrees of Standard Operating Procedure enforcement by investigators, sometimes this worked, and sometimes it didn’t.
In recent conversations with sellers and various internal Amazon contacts, I have discovered more about the new team assembled to handle reports of such abuse. Reports of abuse by false claimants, and counter notices, will be assessed and acted upon when sellers give proper documentation. Patterns of abuse, such as repeated false claims from active sellers, will likely result in account closure. From what I’ve heard, they’ll be laying down the law shortly.
Time will tell if these new actions will improve the lot of sellers coping with false claims. The status quo methods of referring sellers to the rights owner, and standing entirely back from the fray, should be coming to an end as suspended sellers demand more attention to the complainant themselves – and the nature of their allegations.
In the old days…
The process of vetting infringement forms always appeared shaky, even back during my days at Amazon. How could an entity that looked like little more than a free email address and a hastily filled-out complaint result in warnings and removals out of the blue?
Now, Amazon will have to take seriously your dispute over the validity of the form
As policy enforcers, our options were limited. We had to act on the forms to prevent accusations of a failure to protect right’s owners, and we had to limit Amazon’s liability from the damages associated with that failure. Beyond that, we had no obligation to research who had what rights out there in the world. That was your responsibility as a seller, and you had the court system available to you if you wanted to litigate it with the claimant.
But what if you can’t even tell who the claimant is? Amazon only gives you an email address, in some cases. You could hire an IP attorney to write a letter and submit it on their law firm’s letterhead to generate a response, but who knows if that will even provoke a reaction?
In the future, your previously bleak options will become real and productive ones, with the use of the counter notice process, explained in detail below. Now, Amazon will have to take seriously your dispute over the validity of the form they’ve received. Did they act on on a false infringement form that could have been vetted and disregarded? Also, did Amazon suspend your account based on one or more false infringement claims? Were damages incurred?
What if you’re suspended for notices?
You won’t have much time to work with right’s owners (through your attorney) to resolve legal disputes if Amazon has suspended you.
The filers of the forms know this, and it’s one reason why these tools are so effective for them. They know that reporting you for multiple listings within a tight timeframe could easily mean a month-long suspension, or longer, depending on the strength (or weakness) of your Plan of Action.
Will it be enough to show Amazon, through FBA removal orders and listing deletions, that you’ve successfully resolved the matter, and won’t list or sell those products again? You’ll need a solid Plan of Action with a convincing method that specifies your capabilities for future avoidance. Care must be taken to lay out preventive steps that will eliminate their need to warn or suspend you for this from now on.
These days, with hundreds (if not thousands) of claims coming in every week, the last thing Amazon wants is to enforce infringement claims over and over on the same sellers. If Amazon must keep reviewing your account while killing your listings and sending you warnings, then you’re considered more trouble than you’re worth.
How to create a Plan of Action
Write an appeal that demonstrates the action items below. At minimum:
You’ve retained professional legal advice not only to protect yourself, but to prevent future possible violations.
All items you sell are vetted and documented prior to listing them, to ensure that the brand will not come after you for selling it on Amazon.com.
You’ve immediately removed offending items when contacted by the right’s owner or brand, upon verifying that their claims are legitimate, to resolve the dispute.
Indicate that you are going over ALL listings with your IP attorney to ensure that nothing will violate another party’s rights when you sell it.
In other words, talk about adherence to compliance, and show that you understand your place in the reseller universe. If the brand comes calling and files notices with Amazon, you can’t run and hide. You need to address it head-on.
But before thinking of the viability of a Plan of Action you may not need to write, yet, let’s talk solutions and first steps. What should you do when you get one of these and when should you counter?
Once again, I spoke to Suzi Hixon, The Private Label Lawyer, about how Amazon sellers need to react when confronting such right’s owner claims.
As an IP attorney, Suzi suggests that you:
First attempt to reach out to the right’s owner for an explanation of the allegations. Even if you’ve received a baseless notice and your account has not been suspended, do not ignore the letter.
It’s wise to reach out to the complainant politely. Don’t get angry and defensive, and certainly do not send accusatory or threatening letters to other parties or their attorneys. Also, don’t assume that you know what the basis for the IP rights infringement is.
In many circumstances, the right’s owner is enforcing IP rights that you might not even be aware of. Tell the alleged rights’ owner that you strive to respect other’s intellectual property, and that you are writing to them to determine the basis of their claim. Ask them to substantiate their claims, including any registration numbers upon which the claims are based.
Oftentimes, the right’s owner (or their agent) will explain to you the basis of the allegations, and may encourage you to retain your own attorney going forward. They may or may not agree to retract the complaint pending your removal of any infringing material. They may ignore you entirely.
Unfortunately, however, we are seeing more and more situations on Amazon where sellers are submitting false or unsubstantiated intellectual property rights infringement claims to intimidate and damage competitors. What do you do when you receive an allegation of intellectual property (IP) rights infringement from Amazon when the allegation is false or unsubstantiated?
You can consider filing a “DMCA counterclaim” (“counterclaim” or “counter notice”) to Amazon.
Please note: filing a DMCA counterclaim can have serious legal ramifications. Seek the advice of an attorney who can help guide you through determining whether the IP rights allegedly owned by a complainant can be substantiated.
What is a DMCA counterclaim?
An intellectual property rights holder may submit to a service provider (e.g., Amazon) a “takedown demand of allegedly infringing material.” The provider will then remove the allegedly infringing content, and it must then notify the alleged infringer. This is what happens usually when you’ve received a “notice” from Amazon.
The alleged infringer (i.e., the recipient of the notice) then has the opportunity to file a DMCA counterclaim in which they contest the claim of infringement. The provider should then forward the counterclaim to the initial complainant. Unless the complainant files an action seeking a court order against the alleged infringer, the provider should reinstate the material within 10 to 14 business days after receiving the counter notice.
In other words, with a DMCA counterclaim, you are telling the alleged right’s owner to put up, or shut up.
How do you do file a DMCA counterclaim?
First, try to determine the status of the underlying intellectual property rights that are allegedly being infringed. Again, we’re seeing lots of issues on Amazon where sellers are touting rights they do not have. You’ll need to reach out to the alleged rights’ holder or their agents, if possible, as discussed above.
Second, make sure you are confident that you are not infringing the alleged rights holder’s intellectual property. Hopefully, the complainant or their attorney will respond to you with the basis of their allegation. You might want to have your own attorney cross-check the validity of this.
Third, as long as you are not infringing the complainant’s IP rights, prepare your counter notice to Amazon.
Note: the DMCA creates liability for knowingly making false claims in a DMCA takedown notice or counter notice. If the alleged rights holder (complainant) has a solid infringement claim, sending a DMCA may trigger a lawsuit. Proceed with caution!
You’ll need to provide a legal signature, your full name and contact information, an identification of the material that’s been taken down and where it appeared before it was removed, and a statement made under penalty of perjury that you have a “good faith belief” the material was removed by mistake or misidentification.
If you misrepresent that material is not infringing, you may be liable for damages (including costs and attorney fees). Again, if you are not sure whether or not the material is infringing, you should contact an attorney before submitting a counter notice to Amazon. This can be a complex matter with legal ramifications. I cannot stress enough here how important it is to proceed with caution.
You will also need to indicate your consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court in the district where you live (if you reside in the U.S.), and you must provide your consent to accept service of process from whomever submitted the takedown notice, or that party’s agent.
At this point, the complainant should receive a copy of the counter notice from Amazon. If the complainant does not provide to Amazon, within 14 days, that a lawsuit has been filed, your content should then be reinstated.
Again, filing a DMCA counterclaim can have serious legal consequences, on and off the Amazon platform. In fact, it could trigger a lawsuit. Be sure you have a good faith belief that the removal was the result of a misidentification or an error, and consider retaining an attorney to help you.
This information is not legal advice. You are responsible for any use of this information. You should retain competent legal counsel if you have any questions.
So Amazon will be more responsive to abuse of the rights infringement notice process AND you can make use of counter notices, in the proper circumstances, to defend yourself against false claims.
It’s unclear how long all of this might take, but Amazon may be moving things in the right direction at long last.
They understand the nature of the problem and from what we hear, they’re turning their attention towards adequate solutions.
(SOURCE)
Sunday, 5 March 2017
Easy Money Selling Buttons On Ebay. Which Ones Sell For Good Profit?
Here's how to earn easy money selling buttons on eBay!
Saturday, 4 March 2017
How to Use Amazon’s Inventory Reports: Active Listings and Cancelled Listings
By Joshua Price
As we settle into 2017, it certainly looks to be a year of change in every area. I’m personally very excited about the growth and changes we’ll be seeing this year in technology, customer behavior and marketing. As business owners we’re all conscious of our markets, target customers and geographies. Regardless of your size, it’s really important to stay up to date with all the changes happening in this space.
One of the most useful products of the technological revolution of the last 25 years has been the ability to handle, record and report on vast arrays of information. Customer data has been a crucial part of online marketing for a long while now. Cookies, for example, are abundant online, and if I collected real cookies at the speed I consume digital ones, I’d be as wide as I am tall (and I’m really tall).
So today we’re going to discuss data. Specifically, I’m going to draw attention to some of the most important inventory reports that Amazon provides: the Active Listings Report and the Cancelled Listings Report. These reports are core to some of the services my company provides and I cannot stress enough how important it is that you use them.
Active Listings Report
How to generate this report
In Seller Central, hover over Inventory then select Inventory Reports.
On the Inventory Reports page, use the drop-down menu to select the report you want. So in this case select the Active Listings Report then click Request Report to request the data from Amazon.
Note that the report will not appear straight away – it takes time to generate. Once it’s ready, you’ll be able download it to your computer using the links in the Check Report Status & Download section.
The report will download as a .TXT file, which will open by default in a plain text editor like Notepad. To make sense of the data, you will need to right-click the file then select Open with to load it into Microsoft Excel.
What the report contains
There are 27 columns in this report, however for most basic items, only 14 or so of them will be populated with data.
Here’s what they are and what they mean:
item-name – This is the product title, as displayed on Amazon. Only 80 characters (including spaces) are shown. Longer titles are cut off.
item-description – This is the product description for the item, as displayed on Amazon. Only ASINs you’ve created will show, so “piggyback” listings will not display a description, unless you’ve contributed one to Amazon.
listing-id – This is the internal ID for Amazon to track the listing. It can be seen when manually editing a listing in Seller Central.
seller-sku – This is the SKU you allocated to the listing or that was automatically generated by Amazon upon listing creation.
price – This is the price of the item. Note that no currency is shown.
quantity – This is the quantity of stock available on Amazon currently (reserved stock for pending orders is shown in a separate column).
open-date – This is the listing creation / open date. Format: YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS.
product-id-type – This is the type of ID you used when creating the listing or offer. The code will be 1, 2, 3 or 4. The most common are 1 (for ASIN) and 4 for (UPC/EAN).
item-condition – This is the condition type selected. The code runs from 1 to 11, and the most common is 11 (New).
asin1 – This is the ASIN for the item.
will-ship-internationally – This and the other columns next to it refer to shipping settings for this item. 1 = Yes, and 0 = No.
product-id – This corresponds to product-id-type. It’s the actual value of the product ID, such as an ASIN, UPC/EAN, ISBN etc.
fulfillment-channel – This is the setting for fulfillment. Mainly you will see “Default” meaning Merchant Fulfilled, or “Amazon” meaning FBA.
How to use the report
Thanks to the varied information in this report there are many applications for the data. One of the most common is editing, updating or deleting listings by entering the data into an Inventory Loader File (more on that in a moment). You can also use it to update your stock management software or own spreadsheet with current stock levels.
As this is an active listings report, it only shows active listings – not inactive or blocked ones. That means it can also be used to ensure an item is listed correctly and available to buy on Amazon.
I work with clients on a variety of tasks, and this is the report I ask for the most. It’s a quick way, in combination with a business report, to get a solid overview of a selling account. It allows for an understanding of products, stock availability, price and more.
How are some of my top tips for making use of the Active Listings Report.
Tip 1: Bulk editing dispatch latency
One of the changes you could make, and can be a brilliant tool during busy periods, is changing your lead time to ship orders. This gives you more flexibility with shipping times, avoiding warnings or costly suspensions.
Here’s how to do it:
Download your Active Listings Report as above.
Download the Inventory Loader File template (go to Inventory, Add Products via Upload, then follow the instructions on the page).
Copy the ASINs and SKUs from your Active Listings Report into the corresponding columns in the Inventory Loader File.
On the Inventory Loader enter your new dispatch latency in the leadtime-to-ship column. The default on Amazon is two days (simply “2”). I recommend entering 3 days to 5 days during peak times (just enter “5”) if you are at risk of not meeting the two-day lead time.
In the “update–delete” column enter “U”.
Save as a “Text (Tab delimited)” file from Excel. Say OK to losing any non-compatible changes.
Upload in Seller Central.
Without using the Active Listings Report to get this information, it would be impossible to quickly and easily update your dispatch latency like this. A seller’s worst nightmare during peak times is losing their selling privileges, so make sure you keep on top of your lead time and increase it if you need to.
Tip 2: Bulk edit sale prices
The same idea works for putting items on sale.
Download an Inventory Loader File (it may need to be specific to your category), make the changes, and upload. You can enter a discounted price for a period of time – maybe a month for a seasonal sale – and the price will only apply for that time.
This is an easy way to help shift stock that’s stagnating, or give an extra boost to a popular line.
Tip 3: Weed out old stock
Many sellers have had their Amazon accounts for years, selling a range of items. It’s easy to accidentally leave an old, out-of-stock or discontinued line live on Amazon.
In my work with suspended Amazon accounts, I often see inauthentic or rights owner complaints focused on ASINs the seller hasn’t sold in months or years, but were still live in their account.
It’s important to keep your inventory clean in Amazon, because anything that you are not actively selling is a liability. You only need one unit “accidentally” left in stock and you could be suspended for selling inauthentic products – you won’t have an invoice from the last 180 days to show otherwise!
So I suggest using the Active Listings Report to periodically review your listings on Amazon and ensure there’s no old or incorrect stock still sitting there.
Cancelled Listings Report
We’ve covered how you can use the Active Listings Report, but it’s not the only inventory report you can exploit.
Let’s have a look at how the Cancelled Listings Report can be used.
How to generate this report
Unlike the Active Listings Report which is accessible directly through Seller Central, you have to ask for the Cancelled Listings Report to be added to your account.
Contact Seller Support to request the report. Be sure to tell them how often you want it to be generated. I once didn’t specify how regularly I wanted the report, and they set it to every 5 minutes! I received non-stop notification emails, “A new report has been generated”, for 48 hours until I could get the setting adjusted to once per day.
What the report contains
The Cancelled Listings Report looks exactly the same as the Active Listings Report above.
There’s no indication of why a listing was blocked, but you should be able to find that out by checking your performance notifications or Account Health dashboard.
How to use the report
The Cancelled Listings Report allows you to look at all the listings Amazon has cancelled (blocked) or that you’ve made inactive. This is useful for obvious reasons: you can quickly identify which listings are inactive and either fix the problem or remove the listing completely.
The Cancelled Listings Report is another great tool in the efficient running of your Amazon account, allowing you to rectify problems quickly and get your items back on sale.
I recommend using it often to keep on top of your inventory.
Wrapping up
In recent years we’ve all benefited from the growth of ecommerce – and Amazon’s growth specifically.
But with more customers and revenue coming to the marketplace, we’ve also seen an increase in sellers and competition. The value of information that can help us to get ahead and beat the competition – like these reports – is ever increasing.
I hope you’ve found this post useful, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about Amazon reports in the comments below.
(SOURCE)
By Joshua Price
As we settle into 2017, it certainly looks to be a year of change in every area. I’m personally very excited about the growth and changes we’ll be seeing this year in technology, customer behavior and marketing. As business owners we’re all conscious of our markets, target customers and geographies. Regardless of your size, it’s really important to stay up to date with all the changes happening in this space.
One of the most useful products of the technological revolution of the last 25 years has been the ability to handle, record and report on vast arrays of information. Customer data has been a crucial part of online marketing for a long while now. Cookies, for example, are abundant online, and if I collected real cookies at the speed I consume digital ones, I’d be as wide as I am tall (and I’m really tall).
So today we’re going to discuss data. Specifically, I’m going to draw attention to some of the most important inventory reports that Amazon provides: the Active Listings Report and the Cancelled Listings Report. These reports are core to some of the services my company provides and I cannot stress enough how important it is that you use them.
Active Listings Report
How to generate this report
In Seller Central, hover over Inventory then select Inventory Reports.
On the Inventory Reports page, use the drop-down menu to select the report you want. So in this case select the Active Listings Report then click Request Report to request the data from Amazon.
Note that the report will not appear straight away – it takes time to generate. Once it’s ready, you’ll be able download it to your computer using the links in the Check Report Status & Download section.
The report will download as a .TXT file, which will open by default in a plain text editor like Notepad. To make sense of the data, you will need to right-click the file then select Open with to load it into Microsoft Excel.
What the report contains
There are 27 columns in this report, however for most basic items, only 14 or so of them will be populated with data.
Here’s what they are and what they mean:
item-name – This is the product title, as displayed on Amazon. Only 80 characters (including spaces) are shown. Longer titles are cut off.
item-description – This is the product description for the item, as displayed on Amazon. Only ASINs you’ve created will show, so “piggyback” listings will not display a description, unless you’ve contributed one to Amazon.
listing-id – This is the internal ID for Amazon to track the listing. It can be seen when manually editing a listing in Seller Central.
seller-sku – This is the SKU you allocated to the listing or that was automatically generated by Amazon upon listing creation.
price – This is the price of the item. Note that no currency is shown.
quantity – This is the quantity of stock available on Amazon currently (reserved stock for pending orders is shown in a separate column).
open-date – This is the listing creation / open date. Format: YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM-SS.
product-id-type – This is the type of ID you used when creating the listing or offer. The code will be 1, 2, 3 or 4. The most common are 1 (for ASIN) and 4 for (UPC/EAN).
item-condition – This is the condition type selected. The code runs from 1 to 11, and the most common is 11 (New).
asin1 – This is the ASIN for the item.
will-ship-internationally – This and the other columns next to it refer to shipping settings for this item. 1 = Yes, and 0 = No.
product-id – This corresponds to product-id-type. It’s the actual value of the product ID, such as an ASIN, UPC/EAN, ISBN etc.
fulfillment-channel – This is the setting for fulfillment. Mainly you will see “Default” meaning Merchant Fulfilled, or “Amazon” meaning FBA.
How to use the report
Thanks to the varied information in this report there are many applications for the data. One of the most common is editing, updating or deleting listings by entering the data into an Inventory Loader File (more on that in a moment). You can also use it to update your stock management software or own spreadsheet with current stock levels.
As this is an active listings report, it only shows active listings – not inactive or blocked ones. That means it can also be used to ensure an item is listed correctly and available to buy on Amazon.
I work with clients on a variety of tasks, and this is the report I ask for the most. It’s a quick way, in combination with a business report, to get a solid overview of a selling account. It allows for an understanding of products, stock availability, price and more.
How are some of my top tips for making use of the Active Listings Report.
Tip 1: Bulk editing dispatch latency
One of the changes you could make, and can be a brilliant tool during busy periods, is changing your lead time to ship orders. This gives you more flexibility with shipping times, avoiding warnings or costly suspensions.
Here’s how to do it:
Download your Active Listings Report as above.
Download the Inventory Loader File template (go to Inventory, Add Products via Upload, then follow the instructions on the page).
Copy the ASINs and SKUs from your Active Listings Report into the corresponding columns in the Inventory Loader File.
On the Inventory Loader enter your new dispatch latency in the leadtime-to-ship column. The default on Amazon is two days (simply “2”). I recommend entering 3 days to 5 days during peak times (just enter “5”) if you are at risk of not meeting the two-day lead time.
In the “update–delete” column enter “U”.
Save as a “Text (Tab delimited)” file from Excel. Say OK to losing any non-compatible changes.
Upload in Seller Central.
Without using the Active Listings Report to get this information, it would be impossible to quickly and easily update your dispatch latency like this. A seller’s worst nightmare during peak times is losing their selling privileges, so make sure you keep on top of your lead time and increase it if you need to.
Tip 2: Bulk edit sale prices
The same idea works for putting items on sale.
Download an Inventory Loader File (it may need to be specific to your category), make the changes, and upload. You can enter a discounted price for a period of time – maybe a month for a seasonal sale – and the price will only apply for that time.
This is an easy way to help shift stock that’s stagnating, or give an extra boost to a popular line.
Tip 3: Weed out old stock
Many sellers have had their Amazon accounts for years, selling a range of items. It’s easy to accidentally leave an old, out-of-stock or discontinued line live on Amazon.
In my work with suspended Amazon accounts, I often see inauthentic or rights owner complaints focused on ASINs the seller hasn’t sold in months or years, but were still live in their account.
It’s important to keep your inventory clean in Amazon, because anything that you are not actively selling is a liability. You only need one unit “accidentally” left in stock and you could be suspended for selling inauthentic products – you won’t have an invoice from the last 180 days to show otherwise!
So I suggest using the Active Listings Report to periodically review your listings on Amazon and ensure there’s no old or incorrect stock still sitting there.
Cancelled Listings Report
We’ve covered how you can use the Active Listings Report, but it’s not the only inventory report you can exploit.
Let’s have a look at how the Cancelled Listings Report can be used.
How to generate this report
Unlike the Active Listings Report which is accessible directly through Seller Central, you have to ask for the Cancelled Listings Report to be added to your account.
Contact Seller Support to request the report. Be sure to tell them how often you want it to be generated. I once didn’t specify how regularly I wanted the report, and they set it to every 5 minutes! I received non-stop notification emails, “A new report has been generated”, for 48 hours until I could get the setting adjusted to once per day.
What the report contains
The Cancelled Listings Report looks exactly the same as the Active Listings Report above.
There’s no indication of why a listing was blocked, but you should be able to find that out by checking your performance notifications or Account Health dashboard.
How to use the report
The Cancelled Listings Report allows you to look at all the listings Amazon has cancelled (blocked) or that you’ve made inactive. This is useful for obvious reasons: you can quickly identify which listings are inactive and either fix the problem or remove the listing completely.
The Cancelled Listings Report is another great tool in the efficient running of your Amazon account, allowing you to rectify problems quickly and get your items back on sale.
I recommend using it often to keep on top of your inventory.
Wrapping up
In recent years we’ve all benefited from the growth of ecommerce – and Amazon’s growth specifically.
But with more customers and revenue coming to the marketplace, we’ve also seen an increase in sellers and competition. The value of information that can help us to get ahead and beat the competition – like these reports – is ever increasing.
I hope you’ve found this post useful, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about Amazon reports in the comments below.
(SOURCE)
When to give up on a private label product - ASK JUNGLE SCOUT EP #4.1
Ask Jungle Scout is a weekly show where we answer YOUR top questions about selling on Amazon, FBA and the private label business!
This week's questions:
0:15 How many sales should you look for when trying to identify a niche in the UK instead of the US? Does 3000 sales within the first 10 results still apply?
2:30 How do you prevent seeing an inflated sales number in Jungle Scout?
4:30 Should you ever give up on a product, and if so, when ?
Friday, 3 March 2017
Why aren’t you selling to buyers overseas?
By Dan Wilson
FedEx has released a report that says that UK SMEs are bullish about the export opportunity and those that embrace it are enjoying growth. Apparently 63% of British small businesses are trading overseas and of those 81% are ecommerce businesses.
The FedEx SMEs Export Report says 30% have seen growth in the past year. 86% of exporting British SMEs trade within Europe and 63% export to non-EU countries.
The case has never been easier to make: it’s a good time to embrace exporting with ecommerce. The relative weakness of Sterling after the Brexit vote in June 2016 is one reason (although that also has ramifications for traders sourcing stock from overseas) but even before that cross border trade offered a huge opportunity to tap into a much larger buying public than is on offer in the UK domestically.
So why doesn’t everyone who sells online sell overseas? The answer is that there are barriers, there’s much to learn and it can be a tricky business. Here are some of the key concerns:
Shipping and logistics: Sending items overseas can be unpredictable and fraught with problems. For instance, how do you live up to marketplace standards on returns when the cost of administering such a return might very well not be worth your while? Plenty of international couriers exist and can help, but can the cost be justified? It’s interesting to note that just this week Royal Mail reported changes and increases to international postage prices.
Tariffs and duties: Here the rules really are complex too. Whether it’s Canada, America, Australia, Peru, the Philippines or anywhere there are usually import and export duties that apply. And they differ from nation to nation. To know the full code for even a clutch of nations is a huge undertaking. Obviously, usually, buyers bear such fees. Make sure they know that.
VAT: One of the benefits of trading within the EU (and the UK is still in it, will be for at least a couple of years and we have no idea what the exit deal will be.) is that you don’t have to deal with import and export duties within the EU bloc. That’s the free movement of goods. But it isn’t all plain sailing. If you export goods from the UK to all of the EU member states and comply with all the VAT regulations then you’ll be posting over 60 VAT returns over the course of the year. Talk about red tape.
Language: Not all the world speaks English and even if you translate your listings effectively there will be customer queries and emails to deal with. Even if you or your team have language skills, it’s a big ask to be fluent in all the languages you may have to communicate in. Of course, services are available to help but it’s a stress.
Fear and complexity: It’s hard enough doing the day job, keeping the wheels on and just fulfilling the orders you have. Growing your base and embarking on new ventures can be scary and complex. So, it’s hardly reprehensible that you may feel apprehensive or put it off. There is plenty to learn. And when life’s busy, taking on new challenges isn’t easy.
Solutions
All of these problems can, of course, be solved. And in the Tamebay Guide you’ll find a stack of solutions to grease the wheels, but why aren’t you selling overseas? We’d love to know what the barriers you perceive are and why they stop you from selling abroad. Tell us why you don’t. And if you do sell online, tell us all how you overcame the most difficult challenges. And tell us how well it worked. :)
All of these problems can, of course, be solved. And in the Tamebay Guide you’ll find a stack of solutions to grease the wheels, but why aren’t you selling overseas? We’d love to know what the barriers you perceive are and why they stop you from selling abroad. Tell us why you don’t. And if you do sell online, tell us all how you overcame the most difficult challenges. And tell us how well it worked. :)
Get an overseas marketplace selling discount from the UK Government
By Dan Wilson
When I learnt about Selling Online Overseas at the TradeMe meet-up in London on Wednesday I declared it to be the “best kept secret in UK ecommerce.”
If you’re examining marketplaces in other countries and want to start selling to international buyers, then this is a must see resource, courtesy of the Department of International Trade.
A representative from the Department for International Trade detailed what the Government is doing for online traders at the event. The British Government, even before the Brexit vote, was keen to develop exports, especially by SMEs, and one key opportunity it identified was that offered by online marketplaces.
3000 firms were helped last year by 12 regional experts who can guide you to opportunities for export. You can find out more about that here. But you can also take a DIY approach with the Selling Online Overseas tool.
They’ve developed a programme that will help ecommerce SMEs find major online marketplaces in other countries and see whether these online marketplaces are suitable to sell your products. And the tool can also help you discover how to list your products on an online marketplace and provide information about costs of listing and how best to fulfil.
But most of all, get this, you can access special terms negotiated by the UK government.
I’ll repeat that. HM Government has negotiated special terms with 40 or so marketplaces globally (and that is set to rise to over 100 in the coming weeks) and that can mean preferential selling fees. Here are some examples:
Trade Me is going great guns in New Zealand. And if you qualify and apply this way you’ll get a 15% reduction in commission from 9.85% gross (including payment fees) to 8.37%. And I understand that to be a lifetime discount after discussion with the DIT rep.
If you fancy trading on US emerging marketplace star Newegg, and apply via the tool, you could enjoy commission reduced from 12% to 11% (and down to 10% for merchants selling over $100k/month).
Cdiscount is huge in France and Selling Online Overseas say: Try for free for the first 3 months (only pay commission on items you sell). This is valid during 2016 for all new registrations and subject to acceptance by Cdiscount.
Is anyone already taking advantage of these deals? I do hope so. But they are certainly worth looking at if it’s new. And we’ll keep you posted in the weeks to come as more arrangements are publicised.
Thursday, 2 March 2017
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