Online visibility now crucial as Covid-19 forces all retailers to focus on online sales
Optiseller, a Scottish-based e-commerce expert, has seen business double in size in the last six months, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to force all businesses to focus on online sales.
Due to rocketing demand for its services, Optiseller has seen its headcount grow by 20 since the beginning of the year, taking the total number of employees to over 50, with ongoing recruitment efforts to fill another 20 job openings. The Stirling-based company has appointed a new Chief Operating Officer (COO), Richard Falconer, to oversee further growth and expansion. Optiseller also recently won an Innovate UK grant to develop a new automated platform to onboard retailers on to the eBay marketplace, and saw an extension to its agreement to offer its Aspect Finder tool free of charge to all eBay users.
Richard Falconer joins Optiseller from digital marketing firm Yard, where he was managing director for over 4 years. Richard is a search engine optimisation specialist, and has a strong track record of success in award winning major brand SEO campaigns.
Falconer comments: “The Covid-19 pandemic continues to generate a great deal of uncertainty and worry for all of us. At the same time, however, it has forced many businesses to concentrate on online sales and improving their online presence. Even businesses which never considered moving online before have been forced to quickly pivot their route to market. “
“It is absolutely crucial for all these businesses to ensure they are visible and easily accessible online; their customers need to know they are still here and know where they can easily find their product and services. Optiseller helps online retailers improve and optimize their data, which is key to success. It does not matter if retailers are a huge multinational or a small family-run business: if they are difficult to find or their products are poorly listed, they will be losing out on lots of sales, and quite possibly be blissfully unaware of what’s happening.”
Optiseller’s £43,000 grant from Innovate UK will be used to develop a first-of-its-kind automated platform, which will fast-track online retailers onto the eBay marketplace. The aim of the new platform is to completely automate the process of onboarding a retailer onto eBay, reducing the time it takes from 10-12 weeks to just 4 weeks, and also slashing the costs from £15,000 to approximately £5,000.
Falconer adds: “Many retail businesses have suffered great losses during the COVID-19 lockdown, where non-essential physical stores have been forced to close for months on end. This new platform will transform a typically challenging, time consuming and expensive task for businesses, not only providing a short-term fix but also helping them to build a solid foundation to multi-channel retail as the country recovers. “Our solution not only mitigates against the temporary closure of the high street, but also helps companies grow revenues when demand has returned.”
Optiseller already has a strategic agreement in place with eBay, which has just been extended, to offer its Aspect Finder+ tool free of charge to users around the world until 31 December 2020. The Aspect Finder+ tool automatically scans a user’s entire inventory, highlighting the missing specifics and providing a report on what additional information is required to comply. Users can use this report to update their listings directly on eBay or in bulk through their listing tool. This technology has now been used by over 35,000 retailers in 120 countries worldwide.”
