At CommerceHub, our focus is on finding opportunities to increase your ecommerce revenue, whether that is adding new channels or by optimizing existing ones.
Check this page regularly as we share the latest and most impactful industry information with you.
August 2020
Potential for New Shipping Messaging on eBay
If you notice an unexpected change in your eBay conversion rate over the next couple of months, it may be new shipping badging. eBay has informed CommerceHub that they are testing badging to replace the “FAST ‘N FREE” badging, including the truck icon, that currently surfaces throughout the buying experience. Below is a quick summary of the details.
What is changing?
eBay is replacing the truck icon and “FAST ‘N FREE” messaging with the statement, “Free # day shipping.” eBay calculates the number of business delivery days using the seller-defined handling time and rate tables to determine the number of business delivery days to populate the message. The “Guaranteed by: #” message will be removed, as the days will be provided in the preceding statement. There is no change to the underlying process/algorithms that determine what listings get the badging.
How will I be impacted?
Other than the impact of the badging, sellers will not be impacted. Most sellers will not see the new badging, as the testing is limited to only 40% of buying sessions in the US on desktop only.
When will it occur?
Testing will begin in the US in early August and run for up to four weeks.
Following the close of their test, eBay may opt to roll the new badging out to 100% of buying sessions across all platforms. They plan to make change announcements in Seller Update 20.2, which is currently scheduled for September 9th.
August 2020
Amazon Announces 2020 Peak Season FBA Changes 
In line with the ongoing ecommerce theme of prep for peak (see our 2H prep blog here), Amazon recently announced upcoming FBA changes as they work to manage fulfillment center (FC) capacity during the holiday shipping season. Amazon has invested in developing a premier fulfillment network that provides them with the ability to ship massive order volume in relatively short times to most of the US population. However, the shift in purchasing habits when stay-at-home orders and physical retail store closures coupled the need to maintain a safe workspace for their FC associates created capacity issues that impacted their ability to fulfill orders timely. Amazon addressed these challenges, and steps they were taking in a recent announcement to sellers.
Key highlights among the announcement were:
- In 2019/20, Amazon invested more than $30 billion to, “build capacity, tools, services, and programs for sellers, as well as to hire more people”
- Opening 33 new FCs this year, adding almost 35MM cubic feet YoY
- Added more than 175K employees
In addition to these investments, Amazon is also implementing some new FBA policies to help in managing capacity as we move into peak season.
- Effective August 16th, if your Inventory Performance Index falls below 500, your selling account will be subject to storage limits.
- ASIN-specific quantity limits will be implemented, though Amazon expects the limits will support more than three months of sales.
- Beginning on July 14th, Amazon launched a free removal fee promotion which will enable sellers to remove inventory from FBA with no removal fee.
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