January 2007

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[edit] Get Your FillZ! January 2007

Dear ,

FillZ is proud to present the inaugural issue of our monthly newsletter. We are pleased to have the opportunity to provide our clients with monthly updates about FillZ: New Partnerships, New Markets, and New Products! We will also be profiling one of your fellow sellers in each edition. We would like your feedback as to what features you would like to see in upcoming newsletters. If you have ideas, comments or suggestions, please forward them to mailto:news1@fillz.com.

[edit] New Site Features

Our Technical Team has been very busy implementing the following exciting New Features:

[edit] Bienvenue Amazon.fr!

FillZ now fully supports Amazon.fr. For more information regarding Amazon.fr requirements, please click http://wiki.fillz.com/wiki/index.php/Market:Amazon.fr.

[edit] FillZ Wiki

We are very excited to announce the launch of our FillZ Wiki site. Over the last few months, we have been working on building the Wiki out to provide a one-stop 'Knowledge Hub' for our new and existing users. We have added information about FillZ, the marketplaces we support and other third-party services that are available for use in conjunction with FillZ. Click here to check out the Main Page!

Once in the Wiki, if you click on "FillZ" you will be directed to a page that includes information about Account Settings/Features, Help for New Users, FAQs, Contact Information for FillZ, etc.

Some of you may have already visited some of these pages and you may notice some changes; the Wiki is part of a dynamic process and we continue to add information relevant to you as we develop it. One area we would like to highlight is a feature that we are very excited about: FillZ Repricing. We have developed this comprehensive page as a tool to assist you with Competitive Pricing Strategies. Over the years, we have created custom scripts for various sellers and have decided to add the most frequently requested strategies here for your use. We highly recommend that you review this information.

We have also added a page for you to contribute your own custom scripts to share with other sellers. Please click here for more information.

[edit] Introducing...

We would like to take the opportunity to introduce the FillZ team to you. In future issues, we will profile each member individually, but we thought that we would present the entire FillZ team in our premier edition:

Miron Cuperman: Founder, CEO and head Technical Engineer. Been here since: The very beginning!

Shaun Jamieson: Business Development Manager. Been here since: June 2006.

Geoff Wilson: Technical Services Manager. Been here since: September 2006.

Lee-Ann Gavin: Account Manager /Customer Support. Been here since: November 2006.

Aleksa Havelaar: Communications Specialist/Customer Support. Been here since: July 2006.

Many of you may be familiar with Miron, but the rest of us are probably new to you. As you can see, we are a fresh new team and we are committed to focusing our efforts to ensure that FillZ continues to be the best Third-Party Inventory Management Service available. We promise to continue to deliver the same Great service and support that you have grown accustomed to. We will continue to add new features requested by you and to respond to the needs of a dynamic marketplace. We are always open to suggestions from our sellers and would be happy to hear your thoughts.

[edit] Upcoming Releases

Watch for the following exciting new announcements in the next Newsletter:

  • New fully Supported Marketplaces in the near future! We are currently testing two new markets and look forward to launching them very soon!
  • New functionality on the Orders Page!
  • A New "User Features" Demo!
  • Full Support for sellers listing directly on Barnes & Noble.
  • New Order Export Features.
  • A FillZ Demonstration tool for new users.
  • More Scripts for the Repricing Wiki page

[edit] Did You Know That ...

FillZ has a referral program?

  • FillZ rewards clients who refer our business to their friends and associates. Here’s how it works.
    • You pass the word on about FillZ.
    • A new client references your FillZ user or store name at sign-up.
    • We credit your account in the amount that the new client pays to FillZ after the first full month of chargeable services.

It’s that easy!


FillZ offers Support via Live Chat?

We would like to encourage our sellers to try our Live Chat. We have expanded our support hours from 8:00am to 4:00pm, PST, Monday to Friday (excluding holidays). For more information on setting up Live Support, please click here:

For instructions on using the chat room, please click here.

[edit] Reminders

Auto-repricing

  • If you carry listings that violate eBay's Policies, you can use a filter script to exclude these listing from being exported to eBay.
  • To review the list of Filter Scripts, please click here.
  • Once you have copied, pasted and saved your script, you should enable auto-repricing. For more information, please click here.

[edit] Who Uses FillZ?

Elsie’s Antiques Case Study

Elsie’s Antiques – FillZ.com case study

Elsie’s Antiques has been selling online through FillZ.com since September 2003. Based in a western suburb of Chicago, the firm is owned by Kenneth and Susan Hickey and offers used books, videos and CDs.

Elsie’s Antiques’ memorable name comes from the famous cow that fronted the Borden Milk Company’s promotional campaigns across America in the 1940s and 1950s. Although the name might be a throwback to another generation, its use of the internet is thoroughly modern.

“I spent nine years selling online from my home and have run a retail store for the past four years,” explained Kenneth, who spent 25 years in the video rental business before becoming an online seller. “I’ve now returned to selling solely from my home because the store didn’t get enough foot traffic and overheads were too high.”

One of FillZ’s first clients, Kenneth lists around 35,000 items on seven online marketplaces – Abebooks, Amazon, Alibris, Half, ChooseBooks, Biblio and eBay. General used books make up 80 per cent of Kenneth’s inventory.

“I first began selling on Amazon. I was the owner of a video store and had too many tapes, so I started to put them online. I also started to sell books through Abebooks by using its software HomeBase,” he said. “I moved more into books and I then realized that I wanted to sell on as many online marketplaces as possible - that’s when I came across FillZ.

“Customer service is really important to me. I don’t want to lose a single order. It’s not easy to manage your inventory across multiple websites and that’s why I use FillZ.”

Kenneth and Susan take care of order fulfillment while four other members of staff input data to maintain the inventory.

Although all the marketplaces have different criteria for sellers, FillZ writes custom java scripts to ensure Elsie’s Antiques conforms to all their demands. For instance, FillZ ensures Elsie’s Antiques only provides books to Abebooks.com – a marketplace that doesn’t sell CDs or videos. FillZ ensures teacher’s edition textbooks are not sent to eBay and Half.com where they are prohibited.

“We receive around 75 orders each day,” said Kenneth. “We build the inventory by using SellerEngine – a third party software for listing and then our file is uploaded to Fillz where they take care of the rest. If a book is pre-ISBN then we manually input the data into the FillZ online interface.”

Kenneth’s staff uses a barcode scanner to enter basic book data into the inventory management software. In order to make his listings more detailed, the condition of the book is then manually entered to enhance the listing. Antiquarian books also receive detailed descriptions to catch the eye of rare book-buyers. We also take digital images of more expensive books, and FillZ provides that image to many marketplaces.”

Thanks to FillZ, Elsie’s Antiques is able to easily sell on Amazon’s marketplace, which is designed for ISBN books, and also Abebooks, Alibris and Biblio – three sites dedicated to pre-ISBN books.

Individual listings can be manually edited via the FillZ online interface and Kenneth regularly provides new files of additional inventory to FillZ for uploading across the marketplaces. FillZ also has a series of pre-written java scripts for clients wishing to make wholesale changes – such as an inventory-wide price increase or decrease.

“I even use FillZ to place our inventory on our own site – www.elsiesantiques.com,” added Kenneth. “It’s easier to use FillZ than manually do it ourselves. FillZ adds all items to our own website, designed by Chrislands, and processes orders reducing inventory automatically so all we have to do is pull item and ship it. Shipping is interfaced with Endicia, an online mailing program, and shipment confirmations are automatically sent to the buyers, who greatly appreciate the updates.”

Ken added: "FillZ's automation of inventory and order processing has provided me more free time to scout new and higher value books, thereby increasing our success in the online book business."


Many of you may be familiar with Miron, but the rest of the team is probably new to you. As you can see, we are a fresh new team and we are committed to focusing our efforts to ensure that FillZ continues to be the best Third-Party Inventory Management Service available. We promise to continue to deliver the same great service and support that you have grown accustomed to.

FillZ Presents Elsie's Antiques Elsie's Antiques has been selling online through FillZ.com since September 2003. Based in a western suburb of Chicago, the firm is owned by Kenneth and Susan Hickey and offers used books, videos and CDs.

Elsie's Antiques' memorable name comes from the famous cow that fronted the Borden Milk Company's promotional campaigns across America in the 1940s and 1950s. Although the name might be a throwback to another generation, its use of the internet is thoroughly modern.

"I spent nine years selling online from my home and have run a retail store for the past four years," explained Kenneth, who spent 25 years in the video rental business before becoming an online seller. "I've now returned to selling solely from my home because the store didn't get enough foot traffic and overheads were too high." (Read On).

[edit] Common Questions

What is FillZ doing to help sellers transition to the new ISBN-13 format?

FillZ is already able to support ISBN-13. Please click [[here. What are ISBN-13s? For more information, please click [[here.

[edit] Forum

Do You Like to Post?

We'd like to remind all of our sellers about the FillZ Forum. We often post announcements and feedback requests in this space. It's also a great way for new users to learn about FillZ and to ask other sellers questions about getting started. Please click here to visit our Seller Forum. You should also check out other forums such as Amazon's Seller Community; sellers post a lot of useful information about third-party tools in this forum.

[edit] Etc.

Do you want this Bulletin to be delivered to a different Inbox?

Send us an email at mailto:news1@fillz.com and we'll deliver the newsletter to as many email addresses as you'd like!

[edit] Get Profiled!

Would you like your business to be featured in an upcoming "FillZ Presents" article?

Send us an email at mailto:news1@fillz.com.


FillZ Newsletter Copyright © 2006 Fillz. All rights reserved.

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