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Why social commerce is transforming online retail

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Sourced from RETAILDIVE

Social commerce is where social media and e-commerce intertwine. Consumers scroll social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram for entertainment and information. More recently, consumers are using social media to browse and shop online. If brands want to reach a new pool of consumers, they must meet shoppers where they are.

Consumers want convenience and variety when shopping online – and they are willing to invest time and effort to comparison shop. An overwhelming 82% of global consumers will visit two or more websites before buying, according to the 2023 Online Consumer Behaviour Global Report by Rithum and research firm Dynata. This report was based on a survey of over 6,000 online shoppers across the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark in August 2023.

That’s the same percentage of consumers who found items through Amazon recommended products and Google search ads. 72% of consumers said they would go further, visiting two to four websites before buying, according to the report.

Social commerce is popular among younger consumers

Adding social media platforms as a selling channel gives direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands the opportunity to connect with audiences they might not otherwise reach. This includes reaching younger consumers who are comfortable scrolling and trying new products they find through social media. According to the report, 63% of consumers between the ages 18-25 said they had been influenced to make a purchase after seeing a product promoted by a brand on social media in the past 12 months.

Consumers comfortable purchasing through social media are expected to buy more through 2027. According to market research company eMarketer, U.S. social commerce sales per buyer is expected to nearly double from $627.8 billion in 2023 to $1,223.7 billion in 2027.

That influence isn’t limited to Gen Z’ers. More than half of consumers (53%) ages 26-35, and 40% of consumers ages 36-45 also said they were influenced to buy products they saw through social media ads, according to the Rithum and Dynata report.

Social media goes beyond brand awareness

Social commerce is evolving. The rate at which it has grown has exploded over the last year. It is expected to reach $1.698 trillion in sales by the end of 2024, according to data gathering platform Statista. That momentum shows no signs of slowing.

Consumer behaviour indicates that social commerce is a retail opportunity for the long-term. 23% of global consumers indicated that they already use their social media feed to find products to buy online, according to the Rithum and Dynata report.

According to research and consulting firm Forrester’s August 2023 Consumer Pulse Survey, 46% of consumers who participated in back-to-school shopping bought directly from an ad they saw on social media. But brands are learning they can leverage social media beyond sponsored ads. It is its own selling channel.

ByteDance’s TikTok launched TikTok Shop in September 2023 in the United States. TikTok Shop is also live in the United Kingdom. Instead of relying solely on ads, influencer’s user-generated content (UGC) creates an authentic shopping experience. Consumers can now buy products promoted by their favourite content creators. TikTok’s community spans more than 1 billion monthly active users.

Social commerce as an authentic shopping experience

Brands can look to content creators, or influencers, to reach new consumers. Here, it’s the quality, rather than quantity, of followers that matter. Non-celebrity micro-influencers with a few thousand loyal followers capture attention and can contribute toward a higher conversion rate for a product.

Authenticity is increasingly important. Micro-influencers have gained followers by sharing their lives or advice on social media. UGC is not produced or polished by brands. Here, the content creator shares a product they like with their followers. As a result, consumers tend to trust their recommendations.

Brands can partner with influencers, where the influencer promotes the brand’s products or services through social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others. These relationships can be established directly between the influencer and brand or be connected through agencies that help usher these relationships to find the right fit.

Apparel and beauty categories are popular among consumers shopping through social media. These tend to be lower-priced purchases, so the risk and reward is less prohibitive. It’s also easy with less friction to pay at checkout. Consumers can increasingly pay through various social media apps using trusted methods such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Venmo.

The evolution of social commerce isn’t a passing trend. Consumers want an honest review – and they feel they can trust the content creators they follow on social media. Social media opens a gateway for brands to create an authentic connection with consumers. Learn more about selling on TikTok Shop, and Shops on Facebook and Instagram.

Feature Image Credit: iStock.com/georgeclerk

Sourced from RETAILDIVE

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The Power Of E-Commerce: How Small, Local Businesses Can Expand Online

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By John Hall

If you run a small, local business, chances are you’ve got some sort of a website. You may even be set up to sell a few products online, here and there. But you may not have tapped the massive potential of building out a real e-commerce arm for your business. And you might not realize just how easy — or how lucrative — it’s become for small, local businesses to move online.

If you’re still mostly bound to brick-and-mortar, it’s time to consider a change. Here are some low-risk, high-reward ways to successfully scale into the digital world.

1. Do a Digital Reboot

As noted, you may already have a great website or even a decent online store. But it’s likely you could be doing much more to make it competitive with other e-commerce sites in your niche.

If it isn’t already, your site should be hosted on—or at least integrated with—a platform that’s designed for e-commerce, like Shopify, Squarespace or BigCommerce. Make sure it’s easy to use, intuitive to navigate and has a clean, simple design. It might be worth having a specialist conduct a user experience audit.

Perhaps most importantly, ensure your site is optimized for mobile users. Remember that 91% of Americans ages 18 to 49—likely the bulk of your target customers—shop on their smartphones. Most web design platforms let you convert your desktop designs to mobile layouts almost automatically. But you still need to make sure the mobile version is attractive and usable.

2. Leverage the Power of Online Testimonials

Getting good product reviews on your site and on other platforms can do wonders for your business. Consumers don’t trust brands, but they trust other people’s experience of a brand or product. Positive reviews can be just as effective as hearing directly from people they know in real life.

Smallbiz Technology recommends that businesses feature reviews and testimonials directly on their website and social media channels, natch. But they also note that positive reviews on third-party sites like Google, Yelp, and Trustpilot can generate tons of traffic.

To encourage customers to write reviews, they suggest offering customers free products or discounts as incentives. But note that if you sell products through a marketplace like Amazon, exchanging gifts for reviews could violate their policies. Alternatively, you can reach out and simply ask customers who like your product to take a moment to do a short write-up.

3. Offer Convenient Payment and Shipping Options

Your customer won’t buy from you online if you don’t make it as easy for them as shopping on Amazon. It’s imperative to offer fast, free or cheap shipping and eliminate any trace of friction from the shopping experience. The smallest details can send a customer packing even when they were already pretty serious about making a purchase.

Whatever you do, don’t force your customers to create an account before checkout. That’s one of the fastest ways to turn a ready-to-buy customer into one who’s just closed your site’s browser tab. It’s also vital to offer a number of convenient payment options, including PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay in addition to the standard credit cards.

Packing and shipping your own orders in-house may save you money when you’re just starting out. But as a small business, you don’t have the infrastructure to keep doing that at scale. Eventually, you’ll need to contract with a third-party fulfilment service. Shopify offers its own in-house option and maintains a list of other recommended fulfilment services you can try.

4. Be Smart About Email Marketing and Social Media

One advantage you have as a small local business owner is that you already have a devoted following. You’ve got people in your corner who support your business and want to see it flourish. If you create content that speaks to your biggest champions, they’ll be excited to share it with others.

Email marketing remains one of the best ways to drive engagement and sales for your brand. After all, it’s one of the few forms of brand communication that customers actually enjoy receiving. Still, carefully consider your content—you don’t want to irritate your loyal fans with ads for the same old products. Use email to make announcements, share informative blog posts or offer valuable discounts. That’s the kind of content your devotees will be happy to pass along to their friends.

Social media is likewise a powerful tool for bonding with current customers and reaching new ones. This is especially true if you actively engage with users, such as responding to Instagram comments or stitching videos on TikTok. Partnering with influencers through a platform like Grin or Afluencer could also help drive engagement.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

As recently as five or 10 years ago, small businesses had to transition to e-commerce on their own. They needed their own systems for everything from packing and shipping to handling customer service to accepting credit card payments.

All that has changed. Now, there’s an easy, affordable third-party solution for just about any e-commerce problem you can think of. You’ve already got a small, likely overworked staff. Don’t make them—or yourself—create systems from scratch when there’s probably a ready-made solution a short Google search away.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By John Hall

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

John Hall is a sales keynote speaker and virtual keynote speaker. He’s an adviser for the growth marketing agency Relevance, a company that helps brands be the most relevant in their industry. He’s also the co-founder of Calendar, a scheduling and time management app. You can book him as a keynote speaker here.

Sourced from Forbes

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The Future of Site Design: How 5 Companies Make E-Commerce More Personal, Engaging, and Effective

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By Rebecca Deczynski

Site design shakeups are helping retail brands increase conversion, decrease return rates, and build lasting, fruitful relationships with their most loyal customers.

When’s the last time you updated your website?

While the rise of omnichannel retail has led countless brands to invest in in-person real estate and social commerce has driven investments in social media, some founders contend that retailers should focus on sharpening their own websites to increase conversion, customer loyalty, and lifetime customer value. “Platforms will come and go. What is consistent is your own channel,” says Janvi Shah, co-founder and CEO of the Boston-based e-commerce company Hue. “Even if a customer isn’t checking out from your own website, so many are doing a high level of research before they decide to purchase–so the halo effect of you investing in your own platform will spread to all the different channels you’re in.”

Innovations in artificial intelligence and site design present new opportunities for retailers to better connect with their audiences–and drive long-term benefits. Here are five ways B2B businesses are transforming e-commerce.

Improved product information

For beauty brands looking to increase conversion, Hue proposes a solution that isn’t new–user-generated content–but with a more seamless implementation. The company enables clients to embed video reviews of customers onto their website landing pages, product pages, and social media platforms to drive sales and increase engagement. Clients are also welcome to use Hue-sourced UGC in paid advertisements.

Hue handles the technology required for web integration, as well as video sourcing. The company manages a community of about 2,000 content creators who originate honest testing-and-review videos for Hue’s clients in exchange for free products. Video reviews are key to boosting customer engagement, says Shah, 30: On average, clients see a 127 percent lift in time spent on-site after integrating Hue. “What we see with video is that it’s a lot harder to fake,” Shah says. “People have a lot of scepticism about written reviews. And if someone is speaking to the camera and showing their skin, that’s not easy to Photoshop.”

New York City-based Surratt Beauty, a Hue client, embeds the company’s UGC on product pages for its foundation. Evadney Petgrave, e-commerce and digital marketing director for the company, says that that platform is user-friendly and has helped Surratt to replicate the in-store, shade-matching experience digitally. On average, Hue has seen sales on product pages with its embedded UGC increase by 23 percent. The company, which currently partners with more than 20 beauty brands and retailers, expects to triple its revenue in the next 12 months.

Hue enables clients to embed video reviews of customers onto their website landing pages.

Hue enables clients to embed video reviews of customers onto their website landing pages. Photo: Courtesy Company

Smarter search functionality

Getting the right product in front of the right customer is a huge hurdle for retail businesses–even when customers have already made it to their site. That has driven Lily AI, a Mountain View, California-based startup, to make the search bar more human. “There’s language I have in my mind when I look for products, but that’s not the same language [a brand uses] when they’re sold to me,” says co-founder and CEO Purva Gupta, 35. “Let’s say a brand describes a product as ‘midnight French terry activewear’–a consumer is going to call it ‘blue sweatshirt.'” The issue, Gupta says, is that for many retailers, the merchandising process is incredibly manual, typically requiring junior-level merchants to attribute three to four attributes per product.

Lily AI aims to solve the problem with image recognition technology that uses artificial intelligence to attribute more accurate, customer-centric keywords to products, at scale. The technology can also accommodate customer searches that may be more subjective or nebulous–such as trends like quiet luxury or cottagecore. Gupta says that Lily AI helped clients–which include Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s–increase site conversion, as well as average revenue per consumer. One Lily AI client, ThredUp, attributed a 15 percent lift in sell-through rate to Lily AI’s enhanced product attribution.

Lily AI aims to solve the problem with image recognition technology to attribute more accurate, "customer-centric" keywords to products.

Lily AI aims to solve the problem with image recognition technology to attribute more accurate, “customer-centric” keywords to products. Photo: Courtesy Company

Better personalization

New York City-based Psykhe AI envisions a world in which e-commerce sites cater directly to individual customers, serving them the products it knows they’ll most respond to. The company, which is currently in pilot testing with plans to launch in September, uses A.I. to merchandise category pages to unique visitors. By seeing which products a visitor engages with, it gathers information about their user preferences and serves them products that are likely to align with those preferences. For example, a shopper who interacts with classic, bright floral dresses that cost $100 or less isn’t likely to be served a more avante-garde, structural leather garment priced at $800. The platform–which is designed to work for both fashion and home décor brands–is trained on a data set that draws connections between personality traits such as neuroticism and agreeableness, style preferences, and three million aggregated products. The company has raised more than $3 million in funding.

Founder and CEO Anabel Maldonado, 37, who has a background in both fashion and psychology, says that the product is targeted toward large, multibrand retailers looking to improve discoverability. “It’s like a salesperson who sees you looking at something and from that is able to understand your aesthetic ecosystem,” Maldonado says. Pilot testing has shown a 5x increase in conversion rate, an 8x increase in dwell time, and a 25 percent decrease in return rates.

Psykhe AI uses artificial intelligence to merchandise category pages to unique visitors.

Psykhe AI uses artificial intelligence to merchandise category pages to unique visitors.Photo: Courtesy Company

More engaging digital interfaces

While retail brands are increasingly investing in their in-person strategies, Neha Singh, founder of the New York City-based tech company Obsess, contends that it’s well worth elevating their online presence, too. Working with clients like Coach, Mattel, and Crocs, Obsess designs interactive virtual storefronts that operate on both mobile devices and browsers. “It’s really about engagement and brand-building,” Singh says. “It typically takes seven to eight touch points for a customer to make a purchase decision. Now you’re making one of those touch points much deeper or more memorable.”

Because virtual storefronts increase time spent on a retail brand’s site and customer engagement, they can also lead brands to secure new sources of first-party data. “We have a lot of capabilities in our platform around gamification and quizzes that enable brands to ask questions in a way that’s baked into the flow of the experience,” Singh says. “And what we see is that people are much more likely to answer questions in our gamified environment versus if you just put a pop-up on a regular ecommerce site.” That has an impact on a brand’s long-term success, as it can provide learnings on customer preferences. Obsess declined to share revenue, but Singh says the company has grown more than 100 percent year-over-year for the past three years.

Targeted conversion tactics

The best opportunity to upsell a customer is when they’re already likely to make a purchase, says Elizabeth Buchanan, chief commercial officer of the New York City-based ecommerce company Rokt. That’s why Rokt enables retail businesses to promote offers–for both their own brand (like membership programs and store credit cards) or other brands (for which they’d earn revenue based on customer engagement)–through the checkout process and on order confirmation pages. The key, Buchanan says, is the ability to use A.I. to promote offers that are relevant.

Rokt enables retail businesses to promote offers through the checkout process.

Rokt enables retail businesses to promote offers through the checkout process.Photo: Courtesy Company

“If you think about a barista that remembers your order when you approach the counter–we try to achieve that same kind of seamless and relevant experience throughout the checkout flow,” she says. Relevancy has become paramount for brands to pull off upselling without alienating customers–to the point that, if Rokt’s A.I. determines that an offer will increase the risk of cart abandonment, it won’t present an offer to the customer, Buchanan adds. Especially as increased privacy restrictions have limited the ability of brands to track customers via cookies, the enhanced ability for companies to increase lifetime customer value through A.I. targeting can prove highly beneficial. One Rokt client, Panda Express, had a 7.8 percent positive engagement rate with post-purchase offers, which the company says increased revenue and customer loyalty. Rokt has a valuation of $2.4 billion and in the past financial year grew more than 45 percent.

Feature Image Credit: An Obsess interactive virtual storefront for the brand Laneige. Photo: Courtesy Company

By Rebecca Deczynski

@rebecca_decz

Sourced from Inc.

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E-commerce wasn’t working until livestreaming came along

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By Sedge Beswick 

Without sounding too ‘Been there, done that’ – when it comes to live stream events – we were early adopters at Asos.

During my time leading the social media team there, we ran an earlier iteration of this e-commerce revolution. Albeit a little scrappier than what we’re seeing now.

Ours included live and interactive Twitter competitions. Yes, remember Twitter?

We also coordinated live virtual games of Pass the Parcel and Take Me Out (although the latter was a total disaster!) on our social media platforms. But that was then, and in the seven years since, live events have evolved into something altogether slicker, cooler and oh-so profitable. So much so that Coresight Research predicts that by the end of this year, sales from livestream events will reach $32bn, and by 2026, will account for over 5% of total e-commerce sales.

Huge.

This contrasts sharply with a retail environment that feels more than a little flat. We’re hearing of super low conversation rates of around 1-2% and basket abandon rates of 90%. People are not finding what they want online. And if they do, about 20-30% return them afterward. But then there are live shopping events. The unicorn of e-commerce. A bastion of hope for brands and influencers.

Although it might seem gimmicky – may I refer you to my team’s earlier experiments at Asos – livestream shopping actually solves a significant customer problem. Although convenient, shopping online can feel boring, impersonal and wholly functional. There’s none of the human access and interaction that stores and social platforms can offer, and in the case of beauty in particular, none of the tailored advice those hallowed beauty counters provide. It’s all just transactional.

This is why we’ve seen so many brands and creators pivot in recent years. To take everything they’ve learned from their social media presence – and combine it with products they really know and believe in. The result is a new e-commerce revenue channel that feels engaging and interactive, like social, but sells products at speed and scale. The result is livestreaming.

So, what do I mean by livestreaming? I mean video content hosted on social media platforms like TikTok Live and Instagram Live or on a brand’s website. Presented by a personality, the content will usually be themed around a trend, product launch, seasonal moment etc. (think of it like a campaign), and when the presenter mentions certain products, the platform will show the product on screen. It will be easily-shoppable for viewers. Chat functionality allows viewers to ask questions in real-time to make their shopping experience feel even more tailored and special.

The success stories are rolling in thick and fast. In one week this summer, make-up artist and brand owner Mitchell Halliday earned $2m selling his Made by Mitchell (MBM) mystery bundles live on TikTok. Flash sales are nothing new in retail. But the power of his personality, the entertainment of not knowing what bundle a customer would get, the unboxing videos that followed, and his deep understanding of his followers and products made his flash sales feel entirely new.

But social media platforms don’t have a monopoly on providing this service to brands and creators. Most of them have lagged behind D2C e-commerce sites. In the UK, beauty brands like Pai Skincare have led the way. Mostly presented by the brand’s founder, Sarah Brown – it has gone live with 65 live shows since 2020, which, like Made by Mitchell’s, now live under a ‘Watch ’tab on its website. And just like MBM, it is being presented by a charismatic personality that embodies the brand and knows everything there is to know about the products – because it created them. That makes them totally authentic and, more importantly, unflappable during a live show. No question could derail them; no accidental deleting of a script would be an issue. And that’s why it works. In fact, by 2021, 10% of Pai’s online revenue was generated by live shopping. And its conversion rate from livestreamed shows? A staggering 17%.

The tech that enables live streaming is getting better and better, too. Third-party providers like Wonder.live or Bambuser – whose livestream shopping clients include fashion brands like Adidas, Stella McCartney, Net-A-Porter, Fendi and Farfetch – boast four times higher engagement than Instagram, three times longer session time than traditional e-commerce and ten times higher conversion.

There’s no longer the need to question whether the Western markets are ready for livestreaming; it is time to test, learn, go live and sell.

By Sedge Beswick 

Sourced from The Drum

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The Power Of E-Commerce: How Small, Local Businesses Can Expand Online

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By John Hall

If you run a small, local business, chances are you’ve got some sort of a website. You may even be set up to sell a few products online, here and there. But you may not have tapped the massive potential of building out a real e-commerce arm for your business. And you might not realize just how easy — or how lucrative — it’s become for small, local businesses to move online.

If you’re still mostly bound to brick-and-mortar, it’s time to consider a change. Here are some low-risk, high-reward ways to successfully scale into the digital world.

1. Do a Digital Reboot

As noted, you may already have a great website or even a decent online store. But it’s likely you could be doing much more to make it competitive with other e-commerce sites in your niche.

If it isn’t already, your site should be hosted on—or at least integrated with—a platform that’s designed for e-commerce, like Shopify, Squarespace or BigCommerce. Make sure it’s easy to use, intuitive to navigate and has a clean, simple design. It might be worth having a specialist conduct a user experience audit.

Perhaps most importantly, ensure your site is optimized for mobile users. Remember that 91% of Americans ages 18 to 49—likely the bulk of your target customers—shop on their smartphones. Most web design platforms let you convert your desktop designs to mobile layouts almost automatically. But you still need to make sure the mobile version is attractive and usable.

2. Leverage the Power of Online Testimonials

Getting good product reviews on your site and on other platforms can do wonders for your business. Consumers don’t trust brands, but they trust other people’s experience of a brand or product. Positive reviews can be just as effective as hearing directly from people they know in real life.

Smallbiz Technology recommends that businesses feature reviews and testimonials directly on their website and social media channels, natch. But they also note that positive reviews on third-party sites like Google, Yelp, and Trustpilot can generate tons of traffic.

To encourage customers to write reviews, they suggest offering customers free products or discounts as incentives. But note that if you sell products through a marketplace like Amazon, exchanging gifts for reviews could violate their policies. Alternatively, you can reach out and simply ask customers who like your product to take a moment to do a short write-up.

3. Offer Convenient Payment and Shipping Options

Your customer won’t buy from you online if you don’t make it as easy for them as shopping on Amazon. It’s imperative to offer fast, free or cheap shipping and eliminate any trace of friction from the shopping experience. The smallest details can send a customer packing even when they were already pretty serious about making a purchase.

Whatever you do, don’t force your customers to create an account before checkout. That’s one of the fastest ways to turn a ready-to-buy customer into one who’s just closed your site’s browser tab. It’s also vital to offer a number of convenient payment options, including PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay in addition to the standard credit cards.

Packing and shipping your own orders in-house may save you money when you’re just starting out. But as a small business, you don’t have the infrastructure to keep doing that at scale. Eventually, you’ll need to contract with a third-party fulfilment service. Shopify offers its own in-house option and maintains a list of other recommended fulfilment services you can try.

4. Be Smart About Email Marketing and Social Media

One advantage you have as a small local business owner is that you already have a devoted following. You’ve got people in your corner who support your business and want to see it flourish. If you create content that speaks to your biggest champions, they’ll be excited to share it with others.

Email marketing remains one of the best ways to drive engagement and sales for your brand. After all, it’s one of the few forms of brand communication that customers actually enjoy receiving. Still, carefully consider your content—you don’t want to irritate your loyal fans with ads for the same old products. Use email to make announcements, share informative blog posts or offer valuable discounts. That’s the kind of content your devotees will be happy to pass along to their friends.

Social media is likewise a powerful tool for bonding with current customers and reaching new ones. This is especially true if you actively engage with users, such as responding to Instagram comments or stitching videos on TikTok. Partnering with influencers through a platform like Grin or Afluencer could also help drive engagement.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

As recently as five or 10 years ago, small businesses had to transition to e-commerce on their own. They needed their own systems for everything from packing and shipping to handling customer service to accepting credit card payments.

All that has changed. Now, there’s an easy, affordable third-party solution for just about any e-commerce problem you can think of. You’ve already got a small, likely overworked staff. Don’t make them—or yourself—create systems from scratch when there’s probably a ready-made solution a short Google search away.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By John Hall

John Hall is a top motivational speaker and the co-founder of Calendar, a scheduling and time management app. He’s also an adviser for the growth marketing agency Relevance, a company that helps brands differentiate themselves and lead their industry online. You can book him as a keynote speaker here.

Sourced from Forbes

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WhatsApp For E-commerce: Boosting Sales and Enhancing Customer Interactions

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With the rapid growth and evolution of e-commerce platforms, businesses are always on the lookout for innovative tools to enhance customer interactions and drive sales. One such powerful tool that has emerged is WhatsApp.

Originally designed as a messaging platform, its vast potential for business use cannot be overlooked. With marketing tools such as WhatsApp Web Sender, automated messages, and more, businesses can now utilize WhatsApp for e-commerce to connect with their customers, promote products, and drive sales.

This article will explore the advantages of using WhatsApp for e-commerce and how it can revolutionize the way you interact with your customers.

Introduction to WhatsApp in E-commerce

The digital realm has evolved, and with it, so have the platforms that consumers use to communicate and make purchases. While platforms like Instagram and Facebook have their place in e-commerce, WhatsApp offers a more personal and direct line of communication between businesses and their customers.

Advantages of Using WhatsApp for E-commerce

  • Direct and Personalized Communication

Unlike traditional e-commerce platforms where communication might feel one-sided, WhatsApp allows businesses to engage in direct and personalized conversations with their customers. This not only builds trust but also fosters a deeper relationship with the customer. They can ask questions, get immediate responses, and feel more connected to the brand.

For instance, a business can decide to use third-party tools like WhatsApp Chrome extension to send automated messages and product updates straight to their customers. Businesses can also embed links in those messages which leads customers directly to product pages, allowing them to make purchases with just a few clicks.

  • Efficient Customer Service

Queries, complaints, and feedback can be handled in real time on WhatsApp. By integrating a WhatsApp chat option on your e-commerce platform, you give your customers an efficient way to reach out, which can significantly improve customer satisfaction rates.

  • Integration with CRM Systems

WhatsApp can be integrated into various Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. This means that customer interactions on WhatsApp can be tracked, recorded, and analyzed to provide better services and offers tailored to individual customer preferences.

  • Marketing and Promotions

One of the significant advantages of using WhatsApp for e-commerce is the ability to send out marketing campaigns and promotions directly to customers. With features like broadcast lists and group chats, businesses can share the latest product releases, offers, and discounts, ensuring that their message reaches the targeted audience efficiently.

  • Efficient Order Processing and Updates

Once a customer places an order, they can be updated on the processing status, shipment details, and delivery time through WhatsApp messages. This not only ensures transparency but also reduces the anxiety of waiting for an order to arrive.

  • Secure Transactions

With end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp ensures that all conversations and transactions remain private and secure. This level of security can boost customer confidence, knowing that their data and transaction details are in safe hands.

  • Building a Loyal Customer Base

Regular and personal interactions on WhatsApp can foster loyalty among customers. By providing excellent after-sales service, addressing concerns promptly, and offering tailored promotions, businesses can ensure a loyal and returning customer base.

  • Feedback and Reviews

Receiving feedback is crucial for any business. Through WhatsApp, businesses can easily solicit reviews and feedback post-purchase, helping them understand what works and where improvements are needed.

Conclusion

WhatsApp, with its vast user base and intuitive features, is poised to become a game-changer in the world of e-commerce. Whether it’s through direct communications or seamless integrations, businesses now have a powerful tool to boost sales and enhance customer interactions. In this fast-paced digital era, it’s essential to leverage all available resources, and WhatsApp, with its myriad of benefits, is one resource that e-commerce platforms can’t afford to ignore.

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How To Start and Grow Your E-Commerce Business in 2023

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By Chris Alarcon

Operating an e-commerce business is a rewarding experience. However, venturing into online selling without a plan can hamper your chances of success.

You may ask yourself, “Where do I start planning? What does it truly take to operate an e-commerce business in today’s age?”

Thankfully, we’re here to help answer those questions. This post will teach you how to start and grow your e-commerce business!

Let’s dive in.

Define Your E-Commerce Business Idea

Before entering the e-commerce world, you need to define your business idea. Defining your business idea will ensure you have a clear vision of what you want the business to be and determine if it will be successful.

By doing this, you’re finding your niche in the e-commerce market and learning how to do it better than the rest.

This step takes a bit of brainstorming and research, but soon, you will be on your way to financial freedom.

Choosing Your Right Product(s)

Choosing your product can seem like the easiest part of creating an e-commerce business plan, but the truth is that it takes quite a bit of forethought.

To find the right product for your business, you need to do some market research and sense what you are passionate about. Deciding what to sell means more than purchasing goods from a supplier.

You are identifying which market you want to tap into. Consider selling and creating a new business from various niche markets and products.

If you are unsure of what products or which markets you would like to tap into, here are a few examples:

  • Clothing
  • Home goods
  • Children’s toys
  • Homemade and handcrafted items
  • Digital services

No matter which product or market you choose, performing research is critical.

Validate Your Idea

Once you’ve decided what your product will be, you must validate your e-commerce business idea.

This process entails researching to ensure an audience for your product, learning about the market’s problems and why they are facing them, and finding out how to solve them. You should also see if there are potential trends you can capitalize on.

Answering the questions above will give you the insight you need into whether a business will succeed.

Any business idea can sound ground breaking at the moment. But moving forward is put on hold until you validate it by ensuring that there is a market for your product or that you can create the need for it.

Define Your Target Audience

Beyond discovering if there is an audience for your product, you will also need to define your target audience.

Is your audience the younger crowd that enjoys and needs trendy items and marketing? Or is it an older audience that prefers straightforward marketing and practical products? Of course, the gender, income level, and general location of your audience also factor in.

Further, you must know your intended audience’s lifestyle factors, interests, wants, and needs.

Implementing a solid definition of who your target audience is will help you shape your marketing approach and tailor your product offerings.

This definition will give you a sense of direction before jumping into the launch of your product or business. Then, you can visualize the prize you should focus on.

Brainstorm What Will Set Your Business Apart

Brainstorming how your business will differ from competitors is vital.

You need to give potential customers a reason why they should choose you over what else is available currently. Without a solid aspect that sets you apart, your business can become lost in the sea of emerging e-commerce businesses.

Research Your Competition

Knowing what sets your business apart from others in the market is critical. That’s why we also recommend spending a substantial amount of time researching your competitors.

To start researching your competitors, pretend you are a potential customer and search for the popular keyword and search queries pertaining to your business.

Then, take note of the pages with the highest rankings, as they will be your main competitors. Don’t stop there!

Dive into your competitors’ social media accounts and note how they brand and market themselves on the platforms. (Also, don’t forget about Amazon!) Use the infamous online retailer as a database to identify similar product offerings.

After you gather all of this information, organize it into a spreadsheet, listing the top competitors for your business.

Build Strong Branding

Branding is everything when marketing your products and your e-commerce business. It conveys the overall message that your company believes in and offers.

For example, brands like Nike will use motivational language to motivate their established customer base and draw potential customers.

But what does branding entail? How do you build your business with strong branding?

Building a strong brand doesn’t have to be costly; it simply takes consistency, planning, and research.

Audience Persona

Your audience persona is what customers will come to know your business for.

As previously mentioned, companies will utilize specific language to convey a message regarding branding. That helps build a company’s persona and brand identity.

You can implement your brand persona in all forms of marketing, from the colours you use in the marketing campaign to the vocabulary you use in social media posts. This implementation will help formulate the characteristics and emotions customers associate with your company.

When you are creating your persona, remember who your target audience is. For example, the persona for a brand like L.L. Bean will not have the same effect on a younger modern audience.

Brand Voice

In addition to vernacular and language, brand voice is critical for conveying your message. It will further tell your audience what your company is and what it can do for them.

This branding portion focuses explicitly on the language and vernacular part of the branding strategy.

To create a strong brand voice, you should first figure out how you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand’s online presence.

If a relaxed vibe is what you are going for, a laid-back tone and casual language are what you want when creating e-commerce marketing materials.

But on the other hand, if luxury and glamor are the vibe of your company, sophisticated language with flowery descriptions is what you need.

Social Media Branding

In our digital age, branding efforts extend into the social media sphere with most audiences, including older generations. In short, social media is the number one place to reach potential customers.

Your brand’s social media presence should be more than posting advertisements and product launches. Engaging with your audience is critical for building rapport and further ingraining brand voice, persona, and identity.

You can increase your audience engagement by hosting polls, commenting back to followers, and organizing live streams where they can interact with you and your company.

Brand Identity

Finally, we reach brand identity. This encompasses your voice, persona, and social media presence. It gets into the fine details of your visuals and content choices that will set you apart from your competitors.

With a proper brand identity, customers recognize your brand through adverts and social media posts without seeing your company’s name.

Visuals and Content

To establish your brand’s identity, you will want to choose your brand colours, design your logo, create content creation guidelines, and formulate your strategy.

Your branding guidelines should entail information about marketing copy, colour palette, brand story, and image guidelines.

Your strategy should also entail plans for reaching your intended audience through stylized branded content and marketing materials.

If you need help formulating these guidelines and plans, professional brand strategists are available on freelance marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr. They can help take your current vision and turn it into an actualized plan.

E-Commerce Websites

Next, incorporate that information into setting up your e-commerce website.

Your company’s website is a hub for selling your products to customers and establishing a home base for all things relating to your brand. In addition, this website is the place for driving your brand voice, persona, and identity into the hearts of established and potential customers.

So, remember to strictly enforce your brand guidelines when building and maintaining your website.

Again, if you need help building an e-commerce website, you can find website builders and your brand strategist on platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork.

Create Your Shipping Strategy

If you are running an e-commerce business with physical products, like clothing, home goods, or kids’ toys, you must create a shipping strategy that gets the product to your customers safely and efficiently.

First, you must determine if you will transfer the shipping costs to your customers or factor shipping into the product’s price and offer free shipping. Offering flat-rate shipping is also an option.

Additionally, no matter which shipping cost method you choose, you will want to keep a database of the weight of your product(s). This data will help you consistently track the price of shipping your products when it is dependent upon their weight.

Finally, you need to source your packaging materials. From boxes to envelopes and wrapping materials to filler, your packaging should help safely deliver the product to the consumer and leave a lasting impression with its presentation.

If you have downloadable digital products to sell online, you will want to find the best platform and software for delivering these materials. Consider these top five:

  • SendOwl
  • Shootproof
  • Shopify Digital Downloads
  • Fetch app
  • Digital Product Delivery

Each has unique offerings, and depending on the type of digital products you sell and your target audience, some will be more suitable than others.

Launch Your Business

After choosing your products, formulating a brand identity, creating a website, and developing a shipping strategy, it’s time to launch your e-commerce business!

Although you have accomplished so much already, the adventure is still ongoing because you need to start selling products.

When launching your business, it’s critical to remember that anything can happen, and you may have to reformulate your previous plans. But don’t be too quick to jump ship; the plan was created for a reason. You simply want to open yourself up to new possibilities.

From here on out, your mission is to achieve financial freedom, which sometimes requires testing variables to improve performance.

Market Your Business

After getting your business up and running, you must increase your marketing efforts to ensure your business grows.

But unlike decades past, with your online business, physical advertisements on billboards and in print newspapers won’t cut it. So instead, you need to learn the ways of e-commerce marketing.

Learn Basic SEO

Learning the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) is your ticket to boosting your business among the Google ranks.

Have a Baseline

To start venturing into the world of SEO, you need to have a baseline.

By utilizing a service like Semrush, you can see your domain overview, and it will tell you how visible your business/webpage is on mobile and desktop apps. Its domain overview section covers all the data and analytics you need to understand where your business currently stands.

Know Your Keywords

Additionally, you will want to research and learn the most prevalent keywords and search queries for your type of business. You can then use this information to create content that will help lead shoppers back to your website.

Discover The Power of Backlinks

Backlinks are also essential for creating online traffic for your business, as they are links to your website from other websites.

The more links you have from trustworthy and high-traffic web pages, the more search engines like Google and Bing will see your business and website as valuable and reliable sources.

But the most critical component of all when it comes to basic SEO is staying informed. SEO is an ever-evolving world that takes ongoing reform to remain successful.

Blog Consistently

While looking for the best ways to market your e-commerce store or business, you may have seen the phrase “content is king.” But what kind of content is best?

Blogging is one of the best forms of online content for marketing your business. By publishing blog posts consistently and utilizing the keywords and search queries that pertain to your business, you can increase your chances of climbing the Google ranks and accruing more backlinks.

Your blog posts should always surround topics pertaining to your business.

For instance, post frequent blog posts about what’s trending in fashion if you have a clothing business. Or, if it’s a digital service company, publish articles that discuss the benefits of utilizing a service like yours.

Implement Social Media Marketing

We live in the golden age of social media, and if you’re searching for more customers, you need to utilize Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and more.

You can do this by posting relevant branded content frequently. Your social media content should also utilize hashtags to help further increase your visibility among your target audience.

Like SEO keywords, hashtags can help lead potential customers back to your page, and the more interaction you have on a post, the more likely you are to appear on Explore and For You pages on social media.

Build and Grow an Email List

Building and growing an email list is the best way to create a direct line to your customer base. You can ensure they return and purchase more products by staying in touch with them.

But people prefer to keep their personal information, like email addresses, private. So how do you grow an email list?

You need to offer a deal in return for a customer’s email. Whether it’s free downloads or special sales offers, customers will take note of what you are willing to give in return.

Analyse Your Results

Adapting your e-commerce business to the ever-evolving world is crucial for long-term success.

After spending time in the market and gathering data, you should analyse your results. You will want to look at critical metrics, like your popular products.

Once you notice consistent growth in your business, you will want to optimize your online storefront for high-scale volume. Think about performing the following as your business grows:

  • Display popular products on the front page.
  • Manage fluctuating stock volumes by sending email invitations and allowing backorders.
  • Allow for more checkout options: guest checkout, abandoned shopping cart reminders, etc.
  • Match your brand and website messaging to the current market.

No matter what your results are after performing an annual analysis, being prepared to make a few changes is always wise.

FAQs

How Do You Start an E-Commerce Business Without Money?

You can start an e-commerce business without money in a few different ways. One of the best and easiest ways is to sell your expert service.

Whether you are a great writer, marketer, virtual assistant, or graphic designer, you can create an online e-commerce business today with zero or minimal start-up costs.

You can also start a dropshipping business, where you have an online store that customers can order from, and the supplier does the product fulfilment directly. AliExpress or Alibaba are popular suppliers for such storefronts.

How Do You Start an E-Commerce Business on Amazon?

Starting an e-commerce business on Amazon is simple.

First, you must choose what kind of products you want to sell; the possibilities are endless when you choose Amazon as your e-commerce platform.

Afterward, you must sign up for an Amazon seller’s account and select your business model. Wholesale, private label, and retail arbitrage are the most popular.

Once you have the basics covered, it’s time to start listing your products, send them to Amazon to handle storage and shipping, and then market yourself.

What Does an E-Commerce Business Do?

An e-commerce business is a business that sells goods or services online. These goods and services can range from writing and graphic design services to clothing retailers and home goods storefronts.

What Are The Four Types of E-Commerce?

What industry leaders commonly refer to as the four traditional types of e-commerce are business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and consumer-to-business (C2B).

Each type has specific traits and offerings that set them apart. The most common type is B2C.

Is E-Commerce Really Profitable?

E-commerce can be an incredibly profitable business venture. But if you’re looking for an entirely passive way to generate income, this venture isn’t for you.

Running an e-commerce business takes time and dedication. You have to be willing to devote all of your time to managing the business and potentially marketing yourself to thrive.

How Do You Start up an E-Commerce Business?

Suppose you want to start up an e-commerce business. In that case, you must follow a plan to define your business, create a branding and marketing strategy, and perform market analysis regularly.

Free and low-cost start-up options exist whether you want to sell a service or a physical product.

No matter what e-commerce business you decide to open, be prepared to dedicate a lot of time to starting it. However, it is a rewarding venture.

Start Your Journey to Financial Freedom Today!

Whether you want to operate a small business like a small-scale online retailer or an industry-leading digital service, e-commerce is a way to set yourself up for future financial freedom!

All it takes is time and dedication to ensure smooth sailing in e-commerce. So why not start today?

Start researching your ideas, get to know the current online marketplaces, validate those ideas, and start drawing up a plan. 

By Chris Alarcon

Chris is the founder of Financially Well Off, the blog for people looking to reach financial independence and stay inspired along the way. Go from being stressed and in debt to growing your net worth. Grab your free guide here.

Sourced from WEALTH OF GEEKS

 

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How Six Negative Economic Trends Could Drive The E-Commerce Marketplace Model Forward

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By Mike Faber

The e-commerce marketplace model has been making a splash recently thanks to a plethora of new platforms launched by big retailers such as Macy’s, media companies such as NBC Universal or U.K.’s ITV, top celebrities (Goop, Poosh, Cosmoss) and, most importantly, tens if not hundreds of smaller social media influencers, digital media companies or pivoting e-commerce brands.

The reason for the uptick in brands and companies using the model, in my opinion, is that multivendor e-commerce marketplace—such as those operated by Amazon, Etsy or Farfetch—could be resilient to the current economic downturn.

How An E-Commerce Marketplace Works

As a retailer or a social media influencer looking to get started with the marketplace model, you’ll need to invite domestic, quality e-commerce brands to the marketplace. The brands who agree to a partnership would need to upload their products from whatever platform they use, such as Shopify or WooCommerce, into your marketplace product catalogue.

Seller onboarding generally takes a few minutes per brand and allows your audience to enjoy multibrand and cross-category shopping experiences within multiple categories, such as fashion, beauty, wellness, lifestyle, home and garden or baby and kids. Because of this, buyers would be able to purchase multiple products from any number of sellers in a single order. They could also enjoy marketplace-wide promotions or free shipping when offered.

As a marketplace owner, it could take only a few weeks to onboard tens or hundreds of brands. One of the reasons for the popularity of the model is that a marketplace owner can start running an e-commerce business with thousands of products without investing in inventory or a warehouse, as the sellers take care of order fulfilment and returns in a drop shipping model.

Marketplace owners generally collect a 20% to 30% sales commission from completed orders and handle the commercial relationship with customers.

Because of the low risk, many marketplace entrants are using the model as momentum against the current economic trends. For example, consider these six reasons why the predicted recession may further expand the marketplace model.

1. Recession, Inflation, Uncertainty

Economic downturns have a way of optimizing economies for maximum efficiency. Platforms such as Google and Alibaba emerged from the dot-com bubble. Startups such as Airbnb, Zalando and Uber were built during the Global Financial Crisis.

As VC fund Speedinvest pointed out, the current economic downturn and expected recession may open opportunities for those looking to invest in the marketplace model. Rough seas tend to weed out competitors and make suppliers keener to collaborate, which could allow marketplaces to expand quicker and consolidate their supplier base, building up the defensibility through marketplace network effects.

2. Deflated Company Valuations

Business can be a zero-sum game, meaning that someone’s loss is sometimes somebody else’s gain. Previously overpriced businesses are no longer able to raise funding at the previous valuations to fuel their hyper-growth.

Less money on the market translates into less investment in general and less competition in online advertising in particular. Higher returns on your ad spend shouldn’t be a surprise, as many e-commerce and retail brands reduce their budgets.

3. Privacy Updates Ending The Highest Bidder Era

Say goodbye to cheap online advertising. Say hello to organic audiences. By the end of 2024, Google is going to put an end to user tracking and personally targeted advertising, following in Apple’s footsteps. That move should effectively end the era that ballooned Facebook and the entire AdTech-powered highest-bidder economy.

But it could also give rise to the Creator Economy and high-value ownership of organic, engaged audiences based on authentic authority, shared values, relationships, relatable content and curated commerce. In the words of Shopify president Harley Finkelstein, Gen-Z creators chart a new path to entrepreneurship: Build an audience first and only then launch an e-commerce business.

4. Customers Getting Locked Away In Walled Gardens

Remember the “walled gardens” of America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe? Welcome to the brave new world of Amazon, Apple and Google customer data-collection ecosystems.

Some people only see Cookiemagedon and the inevitable regression to the stone age of making individual customers happy. For others, it’s an opportunity for the consensual collection of first-party data, such as user emails, shopping preferences and wishlists within their own e-commerce platform.

5. Erosion Of DTC E-Commerce

Direct-to-consumer e-commerce will not work without the consumer. While some may see this as the collapse of the DTC rebellion, it also opens the possibility of a fresh start. A new order in which creators and e-commerce operators run niche marketplaces, catering to the needs of their audiences with curated advice, recommendations and products.

In anticipation of Google finally saying “lights out” to personally targeted ads following us around, Shopify has advised its millions of DTC brands to start looking for new sales channels, such as marketplaces, ahead of time.

6. Overstocked Suppliers Looking For Sales Channels

Retail and e-commerce brands’ biggest holiday wish is to get rid of excess inventory. Brands looking for new sales channels and an opportunity to sell through marketplaces may see it as a safe bet because they won’t have to invest upfront in customer acquisition.

Bill Gurley, one of Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capitalists, said lately that “If you’re going to build something from scratch, this might be as good a time as in a decade.”

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Mike Faber

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Mike Faber, a co-founder of Vendo, a marketplace SaaS empowering anyone to launch their own eCommerce platform with Shopify brads as sellers. Read Mike Faber’s full executive profile here.

Soured from Forbes

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Why Made.com’s ‘fall from grace’ serves as a warning to challenger brands

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By Hannah Bowler

With no buyer in sight, Made.com is set to become one of the first casualties of the UK’s recession. Is it a one-off, or is it a signal of what’s to come for e-commerce?

Made-to-order retailer Made.com stopped trading today (October 26) after talks of a buyout fell through, switching off its e-commerce site and replacing it with a holding image of a dog in a bed and a message telling customers to ‘sit tight, we’ll be back soon.’

The business is short of the £70m it needs to survive the next 18 months and, as a result, the share price plummeted by 93% to 1/2p after the announcement came that it had shut up shop.

But it is far from an isolated case. It follows brands such as Eve Sleep, which filed for administration in June (it was saved by rival Benson for Beds). The mattress D2C business was a darling from the pandemic boom era when consumers were stuck at home investing in delivery homeware and sales were on the up for brands including Emma, Hypnia and Simba.

There are tough times ahead. It wasn’t long ago e-commerce fashion brand Missguided was salvaged by the ever-hungry Fraser Group, and just last week the UK’s biggest online vegan supermarket The Vegan Kind went bust, only to be later saved by an individual shareholder.

Nicola Strange, senior problem solver and impact lead at B+A agency, says category disruptors like Made.com will also find themselves unable to survive.

“Stalwarts can use their vast infrastructures to pivot and respond to rivals, as John Lewis has with its Anyday collection of homewares and fashion,” she says. But for challengers like Made, Strange says they need a way of “adding value, such as social impact commitments, robust sustainability or an overriding brand purpose to keep customers loyal.”

It’s a bleak picture as retailers are suffering from a combination of supply chain issues, spiralling business costs, a living cost crisis tightening consumer purses and a pandemic boom that created an inflated success.

On Monday (October 24) EY-Parthenon’s latest Profit Warnings report revealed 86 UK-listed businesses hit the red zone in the third quarter of 2022 – the highest Q3 performance since the 2008 recession.

The rise and fall of Made.com

Made set up shop in 2011 as an upmarket online-only furniture and homeware delivery brand. It was alone in a niche that was soon crowded by brands such as Wayfair, Habitat, La Redoute and Swoon. The company went public in July 2021 when it was valued at £775m, below its £1bn predicted market valuation. Herschel Ozturk-Walker, marketing manager at Brandwidth, tells The Drum: “Perhaps one can ultimately question the decision to ‘rush’ into public trading during volatile times.”

At the time its IPO was questioned as the company was struggling with achieving profitability at scale.

Ozturk-Walker adds: “Imagine being both the beneficiary and victim of the same thing … For Made.com, the Covid-lockdown phenomenon presents not only their single largest opportunity for growth, but also their greatest risk.”

Strange suggests instead that Made suffered from a disconnect between the external brand and the internal company.

Made-to-order retailer Made.com stopped trading today (October 26) after talks of a buyout fell through, switching off its e-commerce site and replacing it with a holding image of a dog in a bed and a message telling customers to ‘sit tight, we’ll be back soon.’

The business is short of the £70m it needs to survive the next 18 months and, as a result, the share price plummeted by 93% to 1/2p after the announcement came that it had shut up shop.

But it is far from an isolated case. It follows brands such as Eve Sleep, which filed for administration in June (it was saved by rival Benson for Beds). The mattress D2C business was a darling from the pandemic boom era when consumers were stuck at home investing in delivery homeware and sales were on the up for brands including Emma, Hypnia and Simba.

There are tough times ahead. It wasn’t long ago e-commerce fashion brand Missguided was salvaged by the ever-hungry Fraser Group, and just last week the UK’s biggest online vegan supermarket The Vegan Kind went bust, only to be later saved by an individual shareholder.

Nicola Strange, senior problem solver and impact lead at B+A agency, says category disruptors like Made.com will also find themselves unable to survive.

“Stalwarts can use their vast infrastructures to pivot and respond to rivals, as John Lewis has with its Anyday collection of homewares and fashion,” she says. But for challengers like Made, Strange says they need a way of “adding value, such as social impact commitments, robust sustainability or an overriding brand purpose to keep customers loyal.”

It’s a bleak picture as retailers are suffering from a combination of supply chain issues, spiraling business costs, a living cost crisis tightening consumer purses and a pandemic boom that created an inflated success.

On Monday (October 24) EY-Parthenon’s latest Profit Warnings report revealed 86 UK-listed businesses hit the red zone in the third quarter of 2022 – the highest Q3 performance since the 2008 recession.

The rise and fall of Made.com

Made set up shop in 2011 as an upmarket online-only furniture and homeware delivery brand. It was alone in a niche that was soon crowded by brands such as Wayfair, Habitat, La Redoute and Swoon. The company went public in July 2021 when it was valued at £775m, below its £1bn predicted market valuation. Herschel Ozturk-Walker, marketing manager at Brandwidth, tells The Drum: “Perhaps one can ultimately question the decision to ‘rush’ into public trading during volatile times.”

At the time its IPO was questioned as the company was struggling with achieving profitability at scale.

Ozturk-Walker adds: “Imagine being both the beneficiary and victim of the same thing … For Made.com, the Covid-lockdown phenomenon presents not only their single largest opportunity for growth, but also their greatest risk.”

Strange suggests instead that Made suffered from a disconnect between the external brand and the internal company.

By Hannah Bowler

Sourced from The Drum

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What will be the top 5 content marketing trends of 2023?

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By Gavin Jordan

Gavin Jordan is the publishing manager of Open Mic – The Drum’s self-publishing content marketing platform. For The Drum’s Content Marketing in Focus, he predicts the most likely content marketing trends for 2023, and how marketers can tackle them head-on.

In 1999, Jeff Cannon wrote, “In content marketing, content is created to provide consumers with the information they seek.”

Almost a quarter of a century on, it’s amazing how many content marketers still fall at this first hurdle. They provide information – yes – but it’s not information that anyone is actually looking for. It’s no doubt why 71% of decision-makers say that half or less of the thought-leadership content they consume offers any sort of valuable insights.

A lot of the time, the line between content that thrives and content that dives is relevance. Content marketers who look inwardly (What can I say about my business? Why is my product/service so valuable? What are the benefits of my offering?), will always lose out to those looking outwardly (What is the target audience interested in? What are they searching for? What do they want to engage with?).

One of the top ways to stay relevant with your target audience is to keep up with current industry trends (i.e. the topics that your audience are flocking to time and again). To help guide your content strategy next year, we’ve scoured through a trove of readership data to predict the most-likely content marketing trends for 2023. Here are our top five.

1. E-commerce

While there was an understandable growth in e-commerce vs brick and mortar sales in 2020 (largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic), e-commerce continues to grow at record speed. A recent report by Morgan Stanley predicts that e-commerce could reach 36% of all retail sales by 2026 (up from 32% now), as more shoppers prioritize convenience.

As e-commerce’s popularity rises, so too will competition between online retail brands. Retail marketers will therefore be watching this area closely to see how to stay ahead of the curve, and where the newest wave of growth will come from. But it’s not just retail marketers. The future of retail will affect media owners and tech providers alike – making it a critical topic to stay informed on from all angles.

What topics are likely to thrive? If the past few months are anything to go by, eagle-eyed marketers will be on the lookout for content that covers:

Buy into all the latest e-commerce marketing trends by bookmarking The Drum’s e-commerce hub here.

2. Metaverse and gaming

Most are familiar with the old marketing adage, “meet your audience where they’re at.” And if marketers are serious about reaching younger generations, then where they’re ‘at’ is the metaverse.

Mostly populated with Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha audiences, ‘metaverse’ is a catch-all term to define a virtual space where people meet, play, socialize, shop – and so on. But really, as Chris Sutcliffe says, the metaverse ultimately represents potential. To many, the virtual worlds (including, but not exclusive to, gaming worlds) that collectively make up ‘the metaverse’ are part of a shift from one era of the internet (Web2) to another (Web3). And no marketer wants to get left behind.

With some analysts predicting that the metaverse will grow into an $800bn market by 2024, and the number of gamers worldwide totalling a staggering 3.2 billion, good metaverse and gaming content will undoubtedly attract marketers’ attention in 2023. This year, readers not only flocked to content that provided an answer to what the metaverse means for the industry, but also how their own brand might succeed in the metaverse, taking especial note of how major brands like Nike and adidas developed their own (albeit very different) metaverse strategies.

In 2023, with a better understanding of what the metaverse means (or is likely to mean), brands will be looking for actionable advice on how to enter the metaverse/hone their metaverse strategies, as well as the marketing opportunities within these virtual worlds, be it in-game advertising, audio ad opportunities or by utilizing virtual influencer marketing.

To stay plugged-in with the latest metaverse & gaming news, trends and insights, bookmark The Drum’s Metaverse hub.

3. Data & privacy

Google announced earlier this year that they’re postponing the end of third-party cookies on Chrome until 2024, giving the industry more time to innovate for a privacy-centric, anti-tracking world. But despite all the delays, there’s no denying the inevitable: one day the cookie will crumble.

Mixed with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework (which has been described as hypocritical by some), this will spell the end of collecting, measuring and utilizing audience data with relative ease. In 2023, marketers will be preparing to fill the cookie-shaped hole of the future, and content that helps them do this will reign king.

As well as how to obtain post-cookie data, marketers will also be looking closer at how to best analyze data. 76% of digital marketers evaluate their digital marketing using attribution models, but the so called “walled gardens” that govern these models are making it increasingly difficult for marketers to analyze the data effectively. In 2023, marketers will look to content that helps them overcome attribution challenges, or else provides a clear alternative.

Another opportunity in this space lies in providing genuinely enjoyable, engaging content. Because of its analytical – often jargon-heavy – nature, data & privacy can often be a dry subject to swallow. For content marketers to excel with this topic, content should be accessible, comprehensive and have personality. A lot of content might claim to have the best way to collect first-party data, for example, but it’s the most engaging of these that’ll get the most attention.

Track the latest data privacy news, trends and insights by bookmarking The Drum’s Data & Privacy hub here.

4. Audio

2022 saw a sharp rise in audience interest surrounding ad opportunities in the audio space. This should come as no surprise. With the almost unstoppable rise of podcast listeners, and the multitude of genres to meet their needs, brands have a new way to target niche audiences – and ensure they’re highly engaged. Marketers will be looking to understand how best to advertise on podcasts, how to ensure brand suitability and how to measure results. They may also look to understand how their own brand can utilize an effective podcast content strategy.

But podcasting isn’t the only space that audio can succeed in. With the boom in gamers worldwide, brands are not only using in-game advertising for visual ads – they’re looking to audio ads too. According to a study by AudioMob and YouGov, 75% of mobile gamers prefer audio ads over video. With arguably smoother integration, and less risk of interrupting gameplay, the growing opportunity of audio ads in gaming is likely to spark a lot of interest as we head into 2023 – as is the audio opportunity in the metaverse.

Keep your ears open to all the latest audio news, insights and thought-leadership by bookmarking The Drum’s Audio hub here.

5. Influencer marketing

The past few years have seen a huge shift in attitude towards influencers. The stereotype of the vacuous, Starbucks-sipping, fame-hungry narcissist is dead. Brands have finally come to recognize influencers for what they really are: publishers. And, like any publisher, they use content to build and maintain highly relevant and engaged audiences. For brands, that’s golden.

But influencer marketing is ultimately still in its infancy. For brands wanting to leverage it, there’s still a ton of education that can be supplied through content marketing. How do you find the right influencer? Should you go for one with broad appeal, or opt for a more niche micro-influencer? Do you choose paid content or branded content? What social media is most effective for using influencers?

But beyond these practical questions, marketers will be on the look out to see how influencer marketing continues to evolve. The rise of virtual influencers and live shopping have disrupted traditional notions of influencer marketing, and brands will be looking at thought-leadership closely to monitor these areas.

How to keep up with content marketing trends in 2023

At Open Mic, we keep all our members up to speed with the latest content marketing trends, so that they can target their audience with the right content at the right time. Find out more about how Open Mic can help your 2023 content strategy here.

By Gavin Jordan

Sourced from The Drum

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