Oracle Releases Update to SaaS Suite of Products: Newsletter August 4, 2017

ImageOracle recently released a complete refresh to its entire SaaS suite of products. Its most recent update includes new applications and features for four of their suites (SCM, CX, ERP, and HCM), as well as an improved user interface. This is good news for SaaS and e-commerce business owners, as the updates improve customer experience, aiming to increase conversion and upsells. They even add advanced features like social listening, which monitors social media for opportunities. If you are a SaaS or e-commerce business owner and use Oracle or are considering switching to them, you can read more about the complete update here.

Speaking of improving SaaS operations, Founder Thomas Smale was featured as a guest contributor to the Baremetrics blog with his advice on “How to Increase the Value of Your SaaS business.” If you’re a SaaS owner looking for tried and tested ways to improve your business value, this is worth a read. In addition, as an update for all online business owners, CEO Ismael Wrixen provides actionable insights based on the recent 2017 Internet Trends Report from Code Conference. You can read what he advises to online business owners based on the latest trends in online advertising, the role algorithmic learning should play in your website, and more here.

New listings this week include a $1.38M SaaS business in the code deployment niche, and an e-commerce business in the women’s fashion space priced at $537K. If you’re looking for a different type of business, you can take a look at all of our listings here.

Thomas had a busy week, stopping by Affiliate Summit East in New York, and being a guest judge at a local Boston startup incubator for high school students hosted by Leangap. At the pitch, teens from around the world were invited for six weeks to develop and pitch their startup ideas to investors. If you weren’t able to catch him at the sold-out ASE event and are in the Northeast, join us at our next local e-commerce meetup in Boston on August 23rd at WeWork South Station. Our panel of experienced entrepreneurs will cover how to create a brand that people can trust. RSVP now if you’re interested in learning more.

Continue on for updates on Amazon’s seller-fulfilled return policy and Google’s Search Console beta testing.

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Deal Highlights

SaaS – Code Deployment – $43K MRR

  • Low MRR churn rate of only c.3.2% over the trailing 12 months
  • Strong and consistent revenue growth with a CAGR of 124% between 2014 to 2017
  • Stable site traffic generating over 5,770,000 page views in the trailing 12 months
  • Large customer base of over 2,000 customers and still growing
  • Low owner involvement

Yearly net profit: $380,000
Asking price: $1,383,000

E-Commerce – Fashion & Apparel – $25K gross/mo​

  • Authoritative brand in the niche as one of Pinterest’s few buyable pins program sites
  • High gross margin of 65%
  • Strong annual growth of c.308% CAGR for the forecasted period 2015 to 2017
  • Significant traffic of 745,000 page views over the last 12 months
  • Diversified sales across over 140 SKUs

Yearly net profit: $186,000
Asking price: $537,000

Sold:

Affiliate – Blogging/Hosting – $2.9K gross/mo

Affiliate – Gardening Tools – $2.8K gross/mo

In the News…

Amazon Loosens Direct Fulfillers’ Return Policy

Starting in October, Amazon will automatically authorize returns to any seller who fulfills orders directly, rather than through an Amazon warehouse. Shoppers will no longer be required to communicate with sellers before requesting a return. This will limit sellers’ opportunity to mitigate a return for problems that can be solved through further customer support. Additionally, a new initiative approves in-policy returnless refunds to buyers, which has been met with mixed feelings from sellers.

While some sellers might view returnless refunds as a relief (e.g., broken merchandise that can be proven with a picture, and a seller would have no use for), many are outraged at what they view as an opportunity for customers to scam sellers for free items. Sellers are authorized to exempt a certain number of their products from this service.

The goal of the policy changes by Amazon seems to be to provide the same service to buyers regardless of the fulfillment method, in time for the holiday rush.

If you’re an Amazon seller who chooses to fulfill orders yourself, you can read the report to learn more about how this new policy will affect you here.

Google Console Tease

Google has released a sneak peak into their new Search Console reports. The current console was redesigned just last year, but Google has been beta testing a new user interface for the Search console. It appears that some users have been added to the beta version as Google slowly rolls out the update. This week, it granted insight to two of the new features that will be part of the beta console.

One of the features will be an Index Coverage Report, which lets you see the number of indexed pages as well as information about why some pages could not be indexed. A second feature included in this report is an AMP fixing flow report.

Google says that while the Index Coverage Report will allow you to “filter all Index Coverage data to any of the submitted sitemaps”, the AMP fixing flow report will update you on the current AMP problems preventing sites from showing your AMP content in searches. Content business owners may find this a handy tool for optimizing their site’s searchability. Learn more about the new reporting interface here.