Hello from FillZ,

Thank you to everyone who participated in our postage survey. We received a lot of great feedback from you. I'll be sending out a summary with some of the suggestions you made and also answers to some of the questions you asked in next month's newsletter.
 
The marketplaces have been very active this last month. Be sure to stay in the know and check out "Marketplace News" below for the most recent announcements. We've also included a feature on building your own e-commerce store to give your listings more exposure and to give you complete control of your business; check out the segment called "If you build it..." below.

London Book Fair Report:

Last month, Shaun Jamieson attended the London Book Fair and was pleased to have the opportunity to speak with many of our existing and prospective sellers. We would like to welcome Saint Book Store back to FillZ!

The book fair gave us a new perspective on our UK clients and we feel we are starting to gain a better understanding of their needs. We have already prioritized several improvements to our interface to accommodate the feedback we received at the show.

Our recent integration with Play.com has been well received and sellers who have signed up are seeing strong sales. If you are a US-based seller and want to find out more about listing abroad, please contact us directly. We have referral programs in place to help you set up foreign bank accounts and we have also established agreements with shipping brokers to get your items to UK customers. We can help you get started with the international markets on which you wish to sell.

As always, if you have suggestions for how FillZ could meet your needs better, please email us directly at support@fillz.com.

Happy Selling!

Aleksa H.

Marketplace News: Abunga: New kid on the block: The newest marketplace to hit the online selling world is Abunga.com. Just a few weeks away from its hard launch, Abunga is accepting new seller applications. Inventory management is supported by FillZ; for more information, click here. Alibris: Shipping credit increase: As of May 11, shipping credits for Canadian orders have been raised to compensate for the latest USPS rate change. To see the new credits, click here.  Partners with Borders: Borders is offering a new marketplace site for third-party sellers. The new site was built by Alibris and should be ready to launch in the next few weeks. All sellers registered with Alibris will be automatically opted into this new Partner Program. [read more] No changes need to be made in your FillZ account. These orders will be retrieved from Alibris in the same way that Alibris-B&N orders are. Amazon: Sues N.Y.: Amazon has filed a law suit against the state of New York over the newest legislation requiring out-of-state online retailers to collect sales taxes. [read more] New gift-giving application: Amazon Giver is the latest in an array of innovative Facebook Applications to hit the web. This latest app. allows FB users to share their Amazon.com wish lists with their friends. The  program also anticipates potential gifts based on the interests users have listed on Facebook accounts and links directly to Amazon.com search pages. [read more] Changes to packing slips: Amazon modified the packing slips that are available through the Manage Your Orders area in your Seller Account. [read more] eBay & Half.com: Earnings: eBay reports Q1 profits up by 22% year over year. [read more] DSR ratings for Half: Detailed Seller Ratings are going to make their way over to Half.com over the next few months. [read more] PayPal fees lowered: Canadian merchants are benefiting from a PayPal fee change that was introduced at the beginning of May. [read more] Feedback changes: Just a reminder that feedback changes rolled out at the beginning of this week for US sellers. The new feedback model was rolled out to the UK and Australian sites last week. For more details, click here. Top-10 selling markets revealed: eBay identified 10 regions as the top Seller Markets accounting for 55% of all sales generated by US-based sellers, totalling more than $7 billion in GMV. To see if you're in the region, click here.  PayPal-only in Australia sparks rumours: On June 17, Australian eBay buyers will only be able to purchase items via PayPal. This controversial move by eBay has created a stir among the US selling community with fears that the same plan will be rolled out on the .com site.[read more] Other Marketplace News: New Marketplace Alternatives: There's a new genre of online shopping cropping up and it's being labelled "engagement commerce." Earlier this month, Fididel launched a beta-marketplace based on a 'real-time' negotiation model. The new "haggling" business model seems to be gaining popularity as Fididel is the second site of its kind; last month, Wigix.com was launched. [read more] FillZ News: BookByte Uploads: We've been working with the team at BookByte and we're happy to announce that inventory uploads for new users are now working again. We recommend that new and old users alike upload to BookByte using the "UIEE" file format. If you're unsure as to whether you are using this format or not, please contact us for assistance. *Order retrieval will be coming soon. Amazon Seller Central: FillZ can fully support booksellers who are being migrated from the ProMerchant platform to the Seller Central platform. If you receive an email from Amazon Support indicating that your account is being moved, please contact us, as we will have to set a flag in order for order retrieval to work properly.

Trade Shows Book Expo America Visit with Shaun Jamieson, FillZ President, at BEA from May 29-June 1 in LA this year. eBay Live 2008! This year eBay Live is being held in Chicago, June 19-21. Come and meet our Developers, Cory and Tyler, and let them know how you think we can improve FillZ for you! Seller Conference We would like to invite all of our sellers to be our guests at the upcoming Seller's Conference. When you register, mention FillZ and you'll receive a $25.00 rebate per attendee. Be there, July 18-21, Seattle, WA. If you build it ... Practical Ecommerce recently identified the five key components that can make or break your e-com web site: 1. Checkout 2. Navigation 3. Organization 4. Security & Privacy 5. User Friendliness What? You don't have your own web site yet? What are you waiting for? Check out Chrislands.com for all of your ecommerce needs! Through Chrislands you: -can promote yourself -have a fully functioning web store built for you in a week -accept credit cards through your own merchant account or through ProPay, Google checkout and/or PayPal -can list your inventory automatically on Google Base and Froogle Still not sure? Read what a long time FillZ user has to say: "As an online seller with exposure in domestic and international markets, I would say that Chrislands is the best independent book store solution. We have worked with Lance for several years and have had the best customer service on every level. We have also recommended Chrislands to several other booksellers. Chrislands is easy to use and integrated well into the Filllz.com venue for a perfect online selling solution. The recent integration of Google checkout has boosted sales even more!" -Jerry Bloom treasurechristianbooks wholesalechristianbooks To read the Practical eCommerce article on improving website usability, click here. Survey We want you ... to take our very short survey! We're gearing up to start working on our integration with eBay. We're hoping to get your feedback to find out what you would like to see in your ideal FillZ-eBay world. Click here to take the survey. Sales Are Up! Internet sales hit an all time high in the UK and sales are still rising in the US. In the first quarter of this year, online sales reached £13 billion, up by 50% over the same period last year. [read more] Despite reports of economic downturn in the US, online sales are still on the rise. [here & here] Even brick & mortar stores in the US are seeing increases in revenue. Publisher's Weekly reported that sales rose 1.3% to $1.03 billion in March. The increase for the bookstore segment was higher than for the entire retail sector. Developer Buzz Inventory Input Project We have 10 sellers beta-testing new features for our Inventory Input Project. Stay tuned for more news in the upcoming weeks. Order Confirmation Many of you will be very happy to hear that we're working on order confirmation for the following venues: -TextbooksRus -Biblio -Valore -eCampus -a1 Books Etc. Do you want this Bulletin to be delivered to a different Inbox? Send us an email at news1@fillz.com and we'll deliver the newsletter to as many email addresses as you'd like!

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