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The evolution of shoppable content lies in social media streams

February 9, 2021 No Comments

Sourced from DIGIDAY

With the physical and social aspects of shopping stripped away due to various lockdown restrictions around the globe, shoppable social media is poised to fill the void.

In a recent example, Instagram launched its Reels and Shop tab for users to connect with brands and creators — and to discover products. The social media platform will further merge the two functions by allowing product tagging on Reels so that people can buy the products shown in the video.

“Shoppable content is not new, but there’s no question it’s gained more traction over the last year as consumers move online in their masses amid ongoing coronavirus restrictions,” says Olly Johnson, managing director of commerce at Jungle Creations. “Live shoppable video has been around since the days of TV channels like QVC.”

However, he adds, outlets such as Amazon Live have allowed shoppable video to enter the “big screen” of online, and it’s now “a proven concept.”

As Johnson puts it: “Trendy buzzword or not, headless commerce is truly enabling publishers and media brands to monetize their content. Adding ‘buy buttons’ within the content itself makes transactions seamless for consumers.”

Livestream shopping is taking off

Instagram rival TikTok also launched shoppable video ads and is testing a shoppable livestream experience.

Emma Chiu, global director at Wunderman Thompson Intelligence, says: “Livestream commerce is really taking off, as shoppers’ appetite for in-person and spontaneous live experiences, usually found in brick-and-mortar stores, are being adopted by digital platforms.” She says: “Offering live and interactive content to e-commerce is becoming the new way to browse ‘in-store’ in real time.”

It’s a trend that’s booming in China, where social e-commerce is ahead of the Western world. “Shoppable media is doing very well in China, where they do major content drops with influencers that drive massive sales,” says Jidé Maduako, CEO of influencer marketing agency Yoke Network.

Maduako gives the example of China’s top livestreamer, Viya, who sold $30 million worth of New Zealand products in hours. He says: “It’s still in its infancy in the West, but it will boom over the next few years: TikTok just entered the market in December by doing a deal with Walmart to showcase a fashion livestream using creators who have a big audience on the platform.”

Consumers are comfortable shopping via social media

The appetite to buy via shoppable media is growing. New research from Tipser — surveying 332 consumers in the U.S., U.K. and Germany — shows that when asked if they would be open to purchasing products from Instagram if offered direct checkout, 58 percent said yes. And 35 percent said the idea of shopping via livestream is an appealing prospect.

Further to this, 74 percent said they look to social media for inspiration. Shoppable media is another way brands can provide consumers with an opportunity to purchase products at the point of inspiration. With stores either operating under restricted measures or closed, people will be searching for alternative shopping experiences, ones that include the social aspect of browsing or learning about products before they buy.

The content in commerce matters

Social commerce has been growing for many years, but as TikTok and Instragam promote a rising cast of creators, it shows a move towards content that’s fit for purpose.

“Everything is about content now, and that is transferring to shoppable content,” says Maduako, at Yoke Network. He says there is a platform war happening where the likes of Disney and Netflix and Instagram and YouTube are “fighting for creators and their audiences” and using them to promote product drops “is really taking off.”

He says: “Any new e-commerce brand is going to launch with shoppable content, and by doing it with creators, you build engagement with your brand and your products because you’re seeing them in the right context.”

The future is shoppable, according to Johnson, at Jungle Creations. He says: “I’ve no doubt shopping directly through social platforms is set to take off exponentially in 2021, with increased engagement and personality cutting through via video from brands and influencers alike.”

As the pandemic continues, brands and media platforms will continue to experiment with ways of reaching, inspiring and converting consumers in the path to purchase. Shortening that path via shoppable video looks set to be the next evolution in e-commerce.

Sourced from DIGIDAY

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How To Succeed In A New Era Of Global Commerce

February 5, 2021 No Comments

By Amit Mathradas

President and COO of Avalara, a cloud-based compliance solutions provider that helps businesses of all sizes get tax compliance right.

The proliferation of e-commerce and cloud adoption in recent years has sparked a number of shifts in how our society engages in business. Businesses of any size are now able to leverage digital channels to reach a larger number of customers in nearly any corner of the globe. Cloud technology has increased the speed and efficiency of organizations through implementations across functions.

Through my time leading financial technology companies, I’ve found the adoption of these technologies has prompted more businesses to engage in real-time, 24-7 sales cycles across channels while enabling consumers to make purchases whenever, wherever and however they choose.

In the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of cloud and e-commerce, prompting even further change in consumer behaviour and business operations. Amid temporary in-person business closures and social distancing practices, consumers have prioritized things such as convenience when it comes to making purchases. These priorities among consumers have increased the need for efficiency and urgency across businesses looking to capture consumer attention and convert customers.

All of the changes taking place on a global scale have created new rules of commerce for businesses of all sizes. Here are some of my tips for business leaders to navigate and succeed in the new era of global commerce:

1. Embrace omni commerce.

To compete in a digital-first society, businesses should have not only an e-commerce store but also an omnichannel presence. Consumers seek options and flexibility when it comes to shopping online. Because of this, it’s important for sellers to have a presence across platforms and devices.

Businesses can employ a mix of in-person, e-commerce, online marketplaces, subscriptions, live-streaming events and other channels to reach customers in a variety of ways. And as in-person shopping remains limited, it’s more important than ever to have more than just one e-commerce store. Selling through online marketplaces and advertising across social media can help you reach more customers online.

While the move to omni commerce has created ample opportunity for sellers, it has also created a complex ecosystem of applications and systems. From platforms to billing systems to supply chain management, omni commerce businesses are using a number of disparate systems to manage inventories, host products, process transactions, facilitate online and in-store returns and more.

To succeed in omni commerce, businesses not only need to expand their sales channels but also should consider embracing technologies that can easily integrate across systems, applications and channels to increase visibility across the business and create a seamless customer experience.

2. Reimagine customer experiences for digital.

The digital customer experience isn’t confined to the time one spends on a business’s e-commerce website. The digital customer journey spans from customer discovery to delivery. I believe consumers expect access to responsive e-commerce websites that deliver in-person shopping benefits, such as 1-to-1 support and options to “try on” products.

They also expect to have options for payment types and demand security for their personal information when shopping online. And, perhaps one of the most important aspects of the digital customer journey is timely shipping, along with notifications and updates, and the ability to return merchandise.

With elevated customer expectations, businesses need to deliver great experiences. Because my company’s solutions are cloud-based, I’ve found that using cloud-based technologies to optimize the entire customer journey is a scalable way to keep up with customer demand while providing a personalized and convenient experience for each customer. For example, leveraging out-of-the-box, cloud-based e-commerce platforms can be an easy way for sellers to work with the technology integrations needed to personalize the browsing experience and ensure an accurate checkout process.

3. Digitize operations to remove friction and enable growth.

As businesses grow, whether it be through omnicommerce, acquisitions, adding new products or expanding geographically, the complexity of business operations also grows. To enable efficient and scalable growth, businesses can identify operations that can be digitized and automated to reduce the burden on personnel and financial resources.

By digitizing lower priority operations, businesses can reduce the amount of friction prohibiting growth and devote resources to the highest value projects.

4. Prepare for frequent tax rule and regulation changes.

Through my company’s specialization in tax compliance, I’ve seen firsthand that tax laws on a global scale have undergone rapid change in recent years. From economic nexus laws in the U.S. to e-invoicing across Europe, the sheer complexity of tax regulations and obligations facing digital businesses is unprecedented.

And in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, we can expect that tax authorities will be facing the daunting battle of balancing budgets and recouping lost revenue. This, in turn, can lead to trends including the addition of new taxes on goods and services and requiring even the smallest sellers to comply with tax regulations that previously impacted only larger e-commerce merchants.

In the new era of global commerce, businesses not only need to understand the tax obligations within their state or country but also those abroad. E-commerce enables businesses to sell virtually anywhere in the world, which also exposes sellers to a range of new, cross-border compliance obligations. As we move forward, I predict new tax regulations for a digital-first world will take aim at collecting revenue from digital commerce, and the enforcement of tax laws will become even more strict. In order to be competitive and thrive, businesses must have the expertise in place to manage these changing rules in real-time on a global scale.

The pandemic significantly disrupted how most of us make purchases and accelerated the adoption of digital-first strategies and channels. Consumers have more access to goods and services than ever before, and businesses have more power to reach and sell to consumers on a global scale. This new era of global commerce will require businesses to hedge on technology to provide the experiences, scalability and data needed to keep pace with the rapid changes impacting every industry. These new rules will continue to change, and businesses will need to put the foundation in place today to keep pace and continue growing their operations.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Amit Mathradas

Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website.

President and COO of Avalara, a cloud-based compliance solutions provider that helps businesses of all sizes get tax compliance right. Read Amit Mathradas’ full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Traffic Is Not Your Problem: How To Grow And Scale An E-Commerce Business

December 30, 2020 No Comments

By Matthew Stafford

You might think I’m crazy to say that traffic is not your problem, but I’m going to prove that to you in the following paragraphs. I’m also going to show you how to profitably grow and scale your e-commerce business using the traffic that is already coming to your store.

I’m the chief marketing officer of Build Grow Scale, an e-commerce education company, and have been working in e-commerce for almost 10 years now, alongside my partner Tanner Larsson, who has been doing it for over 19. When we partnered up on our first e-commerce store five years ago, I was really good at Facebook Ads, and he was really good with private-labelling products, so we were a perfect match. We started off well, but we weren’t very profitable, no matter what ad strategy I used — and I knew how good my ads were based on my previous ad success.

There had to be something else that we weren’t seeing. If it wasn’t the ads, it had to be the store. The only way to figure out what was happening on our store was to look at our Google Analytics data.

I started diving into the data and even paid someone to teach me how to better interpret that data. Immediately, we started detecting leaks on the store left and right. Very soon I realized that the more we worked on the store, the easier Facebook Ads got.

My biggest “aha” moment happened when I found that our site’s load time was 13 seconds and our site’s bounce rate was 90%. I realized that we were struggling to be profitable because we were paying to get people to the site, but 90% of them were bouncing because the site was so slow. Only 10% were actually seeing the website.

I did the math and realized that if I could reduce our 90% bounce rate by just 10%, I would be getting twice as many eyes for the same amount of money, effectively cutting my traffic cost in half and instantly becoming profitable.

Think about this: Let’s say I spent $500 to bring 1,000 visitors to our site. That means that our cost per visitor is 50 cents, right? Wrong. Here’s my epiphany. Our site’s bounce rate was 90%, meaning that out of those 1,000 visitors, only 100 actually saw our offer.

So, in practical terms, we were paying $500 to get only 100 people to our site, making the true cost $5 per visitor. That is 10 times more expensive than we’d thought. It’s no wonder we weren’t profitable.

Now, let’s say we cut that bounce rate to 80%. That means that out of 1,000 visitors, 200 people would see our offer, which means that our traffic will cost $2.50 per visitor. A minuscule reduction in the percentage of people who bounce could cut our actual traffic cost in half.

Realizing this, I immediately hired a developer, and we went to work. We did a 15-hour marathon during which we reduced our site’s load time from 13 seconds to 1.87 seconds, and instantly, our bounce rate went down, and our conversions more than doubled.

From there, I started asking myself, “What else can I do? What other 10% improvements can I make that will double my results?” After doing that a few more times, our store performed much better, and we started selling thousands of units per day.

At this point, I hired a Google Analytics expert. We realized that we’d been looking at very surface-level data. That’s why we began using Google Tag Manager (GTM) in conjunction with Google Analytics and started getting granular. GTM allowed us to track everything that was happening on the website and unlocked a whole new level of data that we could use to optimize our store.

The more I learned about collecting and reading that data, the better I became at optimization. The more I focused on optimizing our store, the better our ads performed, and the easier they were to run. It was a powerful upward spiral. To make sure that this wasn’t just good luck, I decided to volunteer and do the same for two of my good friends, who both saw excellent results.

The way you profitably grow and scale your business is by focusing on optimizing your store first before burning money on running more and more traffic to a broken store. You cannot control the traffic, but you can control your store.

Before optimizing, ensure that Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are set up properly and report accurately. You can only improve what you measure, and Google Analytics is how you’re going to track the changes in your metrics that result from your optimizations. This will also give you an idea of what you should optimize first.

I recommend you optimize your store backward, beginning with the checkout, then the cart page, the product page, the category page and, finally, the homepage. Start with the checkout because it’s closest to the money, so any fix there will mean a much bigger lift than a fix on your homepage, for example, which is many steps away from the purchase.

Finally, I recommend that you run A/B/n tests for any more significant changes you want to implement on your site. Make sure you test changes that alter user behavior rather than insignificant changes like new button colors. Run your tests for a minimum of two weeks and no more than one month. If you have a hard time finding leaks on your website, do 10 to 15 user tests using any of the tools out there, and you’ll likely discover issues that you can fix.

Why would you bet on something that you can’t control over something that you can? In fact, you are probably already better at traffic than you need to be. Focus on your store instead. Optimize before you maximize.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Matthew Stafford

Matthew Stafford is CMO of Build Grow Scale, an e-commerce education company. Read Matthew Stafford’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Levi’s Rejiggers Leadership Team for a Digital Future

December 2, 2020 No Comments

By Angela Velasquez.

Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) is recalibrating its leadership team to better serve the heritage company’s digital and direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels. The company announced Tuesday a series of leadership and role changes, effective Nov. 1, designed to strengthen the emerging channels and enable the company to respond more quickly and effectively in the marketplace.

The two business segments are helping to offset declines in Levi’s in-store and wholesale sales. Levi’s global digital business, which includes its e-commerce sites, as well as the online business of its pure-play and traditional wholesale customers, comprised nearly a quarter of total Q3 revenues, doubling the company’s digital footprint from the prior year.

“By doubling down on the company’s key growth drivers—the continued strengthening of our greatest asset, the Levi’s brand; leading with DTC and diversifying our business; and fully embracing digital to transform our operations and processes—we are capitalizing on the opportunities created by the global pandemic, which has accelerated changes in consumer behaviour and the competitive landscape,” said Chip Bergh, LS&Co. president and CEO.

To build on the existing strength of the Levi’s brand, the company is promoting its chief marketing officer, Jen Sey, to brand president. The Levi’s brand organization will bring together marketing, design, merchandising and brand experience to drive a “centre-led vision and execute with a consumer-centric focus globally.”

Liz O’Neill will become chief operations officer and leverage LS&Co.’s global supply chain by driving digitization, sustainability and agility, including the ongoing rollout of the company’s F.L.X. technology.

Seth Ellison, previously executive vice president and president, Europe, is being promoted to chief commercial officer (CCO), leading the company’s global commercial operations. As CCO, Ellison will adapt the company’s DTC-first mindset for Europe to amplify commercial growth across all channels and markets.

Marc Rosen, executive vice president and president, Americas, is taking on an additional role leading a new Digital Enterprise Office. In this capacity, Rosen will work with technology, business, data and artificial intelligence experts across the company to set the company’s “enterprise-wide” digital plan.

The business leaders will report to Bergh. “With an industry-leading management team, LS&Co. is fortunate to have a group of leaders who have been driving long-term value and are well-positioned to drive this focus for the next chapter of our growth,” he said.

Feature Image Credit: Levi’s: Courtesy

By Angela Velasquez.

Sourced from Sourcing Journal

In News

Data-driven Visits – The Future of E-commerce Websites

October 9, 2020 No Comments

By Kaushal Thakkar.

A testament to its reliability and rigidity, e-commerce is expected to cultivate even greater results once the pandemic subsides

With the monumental shift in all marketplaces amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the e-commerce sector has emerged more unscathed than other sectors. A testament to its reliability and rigidity, e-commerce is expected to cultivate even greater results once the pandemic subsides. This shift can be attributed to the major change seen in customer behaviours and their growing preference for online transactions.

For instance, the U.S retail sector saw consumers spending over $146 billion on online transactions, which is a 14.5% rise compared to last year. Moreover, the U.S daily e-commerce sales also saw a significant 49% rise from April 1st to April 23rd, when compared to 1st-11th March, when the pandemic was not in its full effect.

So, the main concern for e-commerce businesses now is how to generate traffic organically on their websites/portals and gain more consumers? Let us take a closer look at this predicament and the possible solutions.

DATA – More enticing and relevant than you might think!

Ever wondered what makes e-commerce giants like Amazon, JD, Walmart, Alibaba, and many more stand out in terms of the heights they are reaching? If you delve into the details, you will also come across questions such as how are they able to offer better and seamless customer experience and position themselves as the top search results on search engines?

The collective answer to these questions is that these e-commerce giants are heavily data-driven in their operations. Not only this, but they also implement the intrinsically analytical outcomes of data processing to get a better view of the market and customer behaviours.

Now, becoming data-driven in operations can be a major hurdle for e-commerce websites if not done correctly. But here is how e-commerce giants smartly and viscerally approach the implementation of data-driven reports to generate traffic on their websites:

1. Mobile-First Indexing

Over 52% of web searches are done via mobile devices. Hence, the first and foremost element that e-commerce businesses should concentrate on is indexing their websites for mobiles, as it can significantly impact their search rankings.

Mobile websites are going to be crawled first by Google’s bots and indexed to be shown as preferred search results for mobile users. Making a mobile-friendly website, optimizing it for increasing page loading speeds, and streamlining the UX are the key determiners for attracting more visits to the website.

2. Building Up Steadfast SEO Strategies

Implementing a data-driven approach on various domains while creating SEO strategies has helped major e-commerce websites create the best marketing campaigns in their respective domains. For instance, knowing your conversion rates and bounce rates can help you determine the areas you are lagging behind and developing SEO strategies to bridge that gap that can significantly improve your figures.

Similarly, knowing how much time a customer is spending on your website can let you know if the customers are closing your website quickly and why they are doing it. This can help you in building competent SEO strategies to battle the problem statements detected from collecting data for the same.

3. Conducting Comprehensive Keyword Research

It is a widely known fact that keyword research is one of the most important elements in SEO. Hence, conducting keyword research based on data collected through consumer behaviour, search patterns, and search volume are very imperative to attain higher search engine rankings. Moreover, determining the right keywords to implement on your website, which aligns well with your products/services or what your potential customers are searching for can propel your website visits to a whole new level.

4. Publishing Only Data-Driven SEO Content

Writing keyword flooded content with little to no context or girth to its meaning is a tried and failed strategy. Identifying your target demographic, analysing what type of content they read or respond to, and what benefits they are seeking to achieve from the content is the first stepping stone of data-driven content.

Now, the next step is to make the content have a ”goal”, which encourages the reader to make desirable actions, while simultaneously educating them on what they searched for. The data-driven approach comes into play at the front gates when determining what actions you want the reader to take.

5. Spotlighting Product Reviews

Any e-commerce business would know the power held by product and service reviews when it comes to customer retention and acquisition. Positive reviews not only safeguard the brand image of e-commerce businesses but also prove them to be socially credible, which in turn attracts more visitors on the website.

Over 67% of the customers are influenced by reviews, which becomes a major factor in driving more traffic on e-commerce websites. Moreover, product reviews, whether bad or good, are also an integral factor in improving conversion rates if they are promptly responded to.

6. Leveraging Forms and Surveys to Collect Customer Data

The use of forms and surveys can significantly help e-commerce businesses in getting a collective overview of their customers’ feedback and requirements. There are three types of customer data you can potentially obtain from surveys and forms, which are:

Purchase History: To help e-commerce businesses analyse the buying patterns of the customers to suggest them with the best-suited products exclusively.
Geographic Data: To help e-commerce businesses in finding out the most common locations from where most of their revenue is coming, along with focusing on promising or primary locations for determining key market regions.
Customer Demographics: Collecting customer information such as average income, occupations, gender, age, etc., to determine your key target audience. This can help in creating targeted and successful marketing strategies.

Being Data-Driven is the Call of the Future

Building an e-commerce website and making it attractive for the target demographics is a data-based activity in today’s digital world. Knowing the customer behaviours, competitor tactics, updates in SEO guidelines, and much more are the key determining factors of an e-commerce website’s success.

Keeping the aforementioned points in mind, it is safe to say that a data-driven approach is a make or break factor that e-commerce businesses should take very seriously. Collecting, Analysing, and Implementing – These are the three pillars of a successful data-driven approach, that can help budding e-commerce websites in generating as much or even more visits as are being generated by e-commerce giants.

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay

By Kaushal Thakkar

Founder, Infidigit

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

In News

How to Reduce Abandoned E-Commerce Carts With Email Marketing

October 1, 2020 No Comments

By Skye Schooley.

Learn how to use email marketing to recover e-commerce cart abandonment and increase sales.

We’ve all been there – you’re browsing an online store, you put some items in your cart, and then you exit before hitting “purchase.” This phenomenon is called cart abandonment, and even though it is common among all e-commerce stores, you can mitigate it with a tactful cart recovery strategy and email marketing campaign. Learn the leading causes of cart abandonment and 10 ways to improve your marketing strategies to convert abandoned carts into online sales.

How do you recover abandoned carts with email marketing?

Instead of viewing abandoned carts as lost sales, think of them as opportunities. Just because a customer leaves your site doesn’t mean you should stop communicating with them. One of the best ways to win over a potential customer who previously abandoned their e-commerce cart is through strategic email marketing.

Recent surveys show that 45% of all cart abandonment emails are opened. Additionally, the average abandoned cart email click-through rate is 21%, and the abandoned cart email conversion rate is roughly 10% (although rates vary by industry, device and recovery tactics). This gives you a great opportunity to create savvy and timely cart abandonment emails that resonate with your audience and increase conversions.

“Assuming the user is logged in when they abandon the cart, you will have their email address and can send them a reminder to complete their purchase,” said Harry Thakkar, partner at Avatria. “This type of email typically includes a list of items they left behind, some marketing copy focused on creating a sense of urgency and/or showcasing the products’ benefits, and potentially also a discount code to entice the user to come back and finish the transaction.”

Garin Hobbs, director of deal strategy at Iterable, suggested 10 ways to improve your cart abandonment email campaigns:

Replicate the abandoned cart in the email, showing the exact items the shopper left behind. Visually depict what they’re missing out on by abandoning their cart. There is often emotion at play in retail purchases, so use that to your advantage.
Display similar in-stock items to the customer at lower price points and/or with faster shipping. Give them the chance to add reliable and attractive replacement options to their cart.
Close the shipping gap by offering cheaper or faster shipping alternatives, such as curbside or in-store pickup, in your follow-up email. Of course, we are in the middle of a global pandemic, so provide high-touch options with caution.
Offer single-click, in-email purchase completion capabilities for customers to facilitate a faster purchase.
When you analyze your cart abandoners, segment those repeat gamifiers (customers who have a history of abandoning their cart and then converting when you offer a competitive coupon). Once you identify these customers, make sure to send them modest coupons. Recognize their value, appeal to their money-saving tactics, and make the sale.
Offer discounted shipping as an incentive to complete the purchase. This is a motivator to both the procrastinator and the proactive customer.
With companies like Amazon offering free one-day shipping, consumers expect the same from every brand. If a customer is concerned with shipping, follow up with an offer of free shipping if they reach a certain cart spend. This will not only incentivize greater spending, but show that your brand can compete with the conglomerates.
Synchronize messaging across email, mobile and web channels to create a reengagement ecosystem and a layered messaging scheme. This reactive workflow will enable you to message customers based on a series of anticipated user behaviors.
Use lifestyle content and imagery to illustrate how the product might fit into and improve the shopper’s day-to-day life. Brands that are not aware and empathetic won’t connect. We see the relevance of this tactic today; consumers are working from home, so fashion retailers that don’t shift to a casual style are losing loyalty.
When sending discounts and options to customers, remember that you must A/B test different messages, offers and calls to action in real time to determine what resonates with each consumer, down to the color of the button that generates more engagement. You’ll need to do this test for any campaign you run, at multiple intervals during the year. As customers change their preferences, change your marketing strategy.

“With the right optimization of timing, frequency, cadence, channel, and personalized content, offers and context, abandoned cart email performance can be improved up to an industry-standard recovery rate,” said Hobbs.

By Skye Schooley

Sourced from Business.com

In News

‘E-commerce is expensive’: How invisible technology and infrastructure overhauls will save retail

September 16, 2020 No Comments

By KAYLEIGH BARBER

Aside from DTC brands, there has been a slower adaptation of e-commerce from retailers and shoppers alike. That is until the pandemic hit, forcing the vast majority of stores to close and leaving online shopping as one of the few retail options.

With that came a scramble from retailers trying to figure out how to keep customers spending with them when their e-commerce operations had been second fiddle for so long. Meanwhile, platform giants in the space, like Shopify, grew even more, seeing an opportunity to step in as the technological partners that in-person retailers never had to think much about.

In the latest episode of The New Normal, editor-in-chief Cale Weissman of Digiday’s site Modern Retail and Digiday Media president and editor-in-chief Brian Morrissey discuss the dramatic changes that have roiled the retail industry as a result of the pandemic and who the winners and losers are in the upheaval.

‘The hottest company is Shopify’

As Shopify was on the rise, it clamped onto the DTC and digitally native brands that were also building their businesses and served as the e-commerce platform that many of them used, Weismann said. This is because Shopify acted as a cheap, turnkey solution that brands could add their own personalisation’s to and share in an open market, making it a great solution for marketers new to online sales.

“Now we get to March and all of these other companies are realizing, ‘I need to have a marketplace on my website,’” said Weismann, who added Shopify has been garnering more business from retailers who either didn’t have an e-commerce operation or were not prioritizing that business line.

Next for Shopify, Weismann said, is figuring out how to better serve brands that have grown to be multi-million dollar businesses on the platform. As they’ve grown, these brands are now looking for better, white label tools that give them more control over the sales process and help save money during each transaction. Shopify created its Shopify+ platform for this purpose, which Weismann said remains a work in progress.

Competing for the online market share

Coming as a surprise to no one, with in-person stores closed, online shopping has been booming and Amazon and Walmart are two online marketplaces that are reaping the rewards.

Weismann said that despite Amazon running into some supply chain issues early on, the company had a very healthy second quarter, growing sales by 40% year over year. But with that success, come opportunistic competitors — and Walmart pounced.

Walmart has spent a lot of time over the past few years building out infrastructure for different kinds of online shopping, pioneering the By Online, Pick-Up In Store (BOPIS) model. But during the pandemic, the company found particular success in its online grocery business.

“E-commerce is expensive,” said Weismann, “and if your bread and butter is cheap things, it’s really expensive to facilitate that.” That’s why online grocery businesses are going to be unprofitable for a really long time. Walmart, however, is leagues ahead of everybody else because they’ve put in the investment to make the margins on groceries better, he said.

DTC is on the rise, at least for a little while

As the recession took hold and the advertising market pulled back spending, online inventory became cheap, making it really easy and inexpensive for a slew of new DTC brands to get in front of consumers at scale.

But this ad space bonanza is going to subside at some point, Weismann said, and when that happens, there will be a reckoning.

With little money out in the world for investments, DTC brands are “focused on their economics achieving profitability and there is no way that all of them will [continue to] exist” once traditional advertisers return and the ad prices start creeping back up again, he said.

An identity crisis in retail

Weismann also said he expects that retail will return and people will shop in-store again, but for brands that have a “boring store experience,” they will need to rethink that decision.

Brand and destination identity are no longer going to get people through the door as people worry about health and safety. Therefore, customers are not going to think about that brand in the same way anymore.

For the DTC brands who built stores, however, their retail locations often serve more in a marketing capacity where customers could interact with the brand in-person, he said, adding he expects this is the direction that retail will have to go in in general, versus a warehouse with racks after racks of items.

“A lot of the thinking right now is about, ‘How do we redesign [stores] so it’s a place to show off our brand versus a place to sell things and make that profit,” Weismann said. “A lot of places with hundreds or thousands of locations will have to cut down.”

By KAYLEIGH BARBER

Sourced from DIGIDAY

In News

Why Social Commerce Could Eclipse E-Commerce

August 27, 2020 No Comments

By Bradian Muliadi.

Online commerce platforms have changed the process by which we discover and purchase a product. In fact, research has forecasted that e-sales will exceed $735 billion by 2023 as 81% of consumers search for products they need to buy on Instagram and Facebook, making the two channels a massive reference hub for shopping.

However, social commerce is not simply a way for social channels to increase traffic to your traditional sales channels. Instead, it is a new kind of commerce in which the entire shopping experience — from viewing to checkout — takes place in a social media channel. Traditional online store structures, such as websites or applications, are no longer the only way for consumers to shop online as the social media platforms that users love have become accessible storefronts. The surge in social commerce is likely due to the fact it benefits both the consumer and the brand: Social commerce cuts a significant length in a user’s buying journey by allowing them to take action immediately after seeing an advertised product, therefore eliminating the web sign-in process or app downloads, as well as reducing common issues for brands such as abandoned carts.

A Commerce Ecosystem Like Never Before

Since 2019, Instagram has tested in-app checkout. The Facebook-owned company also allows influencers to tag the products they endorse, which enables users to shop for products without even following the brand’s account. These influencers are an important factor in the social commerce industry. As we are expecting a market size of $9.7 billion in 2020 for influencer marketing, the ability to shop directly from an influencers’ post represents a massive opportunity for brands and research has shown that 63% of social media users between the ages of 18 and 34 trust influencers’ recommendations more than they trust brands.

Of course, that’s only a glimpse of how social commerce is charting a revolutionized shopping experience. Social media has an overwhelming amount of information that shows the likes, behaviors and relationships among users. This is increasingly important as users begin to expect personalized and algorithm-customized content. Roland Berger cited that almost three-quarters of users expect advertising content tailored to their preferences.

Social Commerce To Grow In Many Platforms

Instagram is one of the largest social media applications globally and a leader in social commerce as one-third of its users have bought something directly from an Instagram ad. eMarketer predicts that Instagram’s advertising revenue will increase by 47% in 2020, largely due to shoppable ads.

TikTok, dubbed the fastest-growing social app, has 800 million active users monthly. A large portion of its users are under the age of 30, making TikTok a viable channel to reach out to Gen Z, a market with $143 billion in spending power. The app is currently looking to test the social commerce functions that have succeeded in their Chinese-developed twin app, Douyin, such as the ability for users to zoom in on items that appear in a video and shop them directly on the app. Currently, the ability to link a post to a product page is available in most countries where TikTok is available. A “Shop Now” call to action has also been used by brands to turn creators’ content into in-feed ads.

Social commerce features that we have seen up to this point are only the beginning of a new era of shopping. Most social media apps are developing new ways that allow users to shop directly from their platform. Facebook allows cataloging products, managing sales and running ads for businesses big and small all over the globe. Pinterest enables ads with a “buy” call to action to appear in a user’s Pinterest board as well as targeted ads based on personal pins. Snapchat has partnered with Shopify to allow brands like Kylie Cosmetics to provide an in-app checkout option for U.S. users. It won’t end there.

Beyond unifying the fragmented online purchase experience to provide a smoother shopping experience for users, social commerce’s promise also lies in the democratization and empowerment of online sales for small to medium businesses, by providing a platform that enables an end-to-end purchase journey from product discovery to the final transaction. Although this means more competition among brands and platforms, it also means more consumer choice, which is always a good thing for online shoppers.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Bradian Muliadi

Founder & CEO at Analisa.io | Instagram & TikTok Analytics. Read Bradian Muliadi’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

20 E-Commerce Terms That All Marketers Need To Know

July 28, 2020 No Comments

By Kelly Ehlers

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many businesses to transition to a digital-first purchasing journey, and having a deep understanding of e-commerce has become a must for marketers. Still, as we pour our efforts into social content and online communications, some may be hitting a wall and missing the mark.

To successfully capitalize on e-commerce, marketers must go beyond product tags to knowing the ins and outs of the system. As we continue adapting to the shifting norms and expectations of consumers, marketers can study 20 need-to-know concepts to reinforce their offerings and thrive in an exceedingly digital sales environment:

1. A/B Testing: A/B testing is when you compare two versions of a site, advertisement, etc., to determine which performs best (including copy, visuals, formatting and lead times). When testing, be sure you pick just one element to change out. Alternating copy and creative makes it difficult to determine which is responsible for changing audience behavior. Be consistent, methodical and near-scientific when A/B testing — plus, give your ads enough run time to reach a solid conclusion.

2. Affiliate Marketing: A marketing model where independent marketers (i.e., influencers) are willing to sell a brand’s products for a commission. Amazon Affiliates is one example. When selecting influencers to represent your brand, do your homework. Know which other companies they are representing, and if competitors are also utilizing affiliates, be conscious of their network and the demographics they are reaching.

3. APIs (Application Program Interface): A system through which customer interactions are translated to determine computer interactions. Depending on the API of certain platforms (i.e., Instagram), marketers may run into restrictions on what data and capabilities they can and cannot access in third-party platforms. Speak with your platform representative ahead of time to know what limits a site may create for your brand.

4. Assisted Conversion: Actions taken outside of a final click that lead to a customer’s purchase. For example, imagine a customer sees an ad on Facebook and even clicks on it. However, they do not make a purchase on that visit. Instead, two days later they Google search the brand and choose to buy. In this case, the assisted conversion would be the Facebook ad.

5. Attribution Model: A value assigned to each touchpoint (e.g., email, social, organic search, paid search) along the consumer journey. There are a few theories on values, but the goal of each is to understand what tactic leads to a conversion.

6. Browser/Cart Abandonment: The rate of consumers that leave a brand’s website before completing an action.

7. Bounce Rate: The number of web visitors who visit a single webpage and leave. To lower your bounce rate, brands should include content beyond the product description, especially video! The more there is to learn and engage with on the page (besides just a shopping call to action), the longer a user is likely to stay and learn about your brand.

8. CMS (Content Management System): A digital system (i.e., WordPress) to alter and add digital content (e.g., products) through details such as SKU, name, price and inventory status.

9. Conversion Rate: Number of conversions divided by number of visitors to indicate the success of a brand’s marketing efforts.

10. CRM (Customer Relationship Management): A digital system (i.e., Salesforce) that maintains customer-to-brand relations through payment details, product updates, customer data and after-sale communications.

11. Facebook Pixel: Code placed on a brand’s website to track conversions through Facebook ads and determine future strategies (e.g., audience targeting and ad optimization).

12. Google Keywords: With this Google tool, brands are able to see which keywords related to their industry are most-searched. They can then include them in their ads to determine when and where they will show up. For paid keywords, remember that branded keywords will always be less expensive than non-branded.

13. HTML: Standard coding language for digitally appearing documents (e.g., websites).

14. JavaScript: Versatile coding language meant to extend the capabilities of a webpage beyond static use (e.g., customer communications and display).

15. Landing Page: Custom page developed for a brand’s unique audience targets. For example, consider you are running a campaign on shoes for summer. Rather than directing users from an ad or piece of organic content to the product description page, you could send them to a tailored landing page that showcases how a curated selection of shoes is perfect for summer. This creates a cohesive storyline that better illustrates your campaign message.

16. PPA/PPC (Pay Per Action/Pay Per Click): A method of ad purchasing in which advertisers pay each time an action is taken — for example, each time a link is clicked.

17. Purchase Funnel/Conversion Funnel: The route a consumer takes — made up of multiple touchpoints — from brand awareness to conversion.

18. Retargeting: A method of digital marketing which tracks previous web visitors and places continued ads on their browser.

19. ROAS/ROI (Return on Ad Spend/Return on Investment): Revenue from marketing divided by the cost of advertising to determine the efficiency of a brand’s marketing efforts.

20. SERP (Search Engine Results Page): The results delivered to a user after searching, as determined by SEO keywords.

Marketers are sure to confront each of these terms as they roll out extended digital offerings. Despite easing federal regulations on brick-and-mortar facilities, the transition from one historical event to another has forced us to, once again, lean heavily into e-commerce. By understanding these terms, brands can use their knowledge to create informed strategies that effectively reach and help convert consumers.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Kelly Ehlers

Founder and President of Ideas That Evoke, an influencer and social media agency focused on the beauty, lifestyle and luxury markets. Read Kelly Ehlers’ full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

In News

Why Amazon’s E-Commerce Sales Are About to Surge Even Higher

June 18, 2020 No Comments

By Andrew Tseng

What’s going to happen when Amazon can fulfil all the demand it’s seeing?

Overwhelming demand

Starting in early March, Amazon began to see a surge in demand in its e-commerce business as a result of consumers staying home and shifting more of their spending online. This surge in demand was so large and unexpected it overwhelmed Amazon’s fulfillment and delivery capabilities.

The company prioritized stocking and shipping “essential” items including household staples, medical supplies, and other critical products. It even actively discouraged customers from ordering nonessential items by “blocking” them or making them harder to find and significantly reducing its spending on marketing for certain product categories.

Massive hiring spree

On March 16, Amazon announced in a blog post that it would be hiring 100,000 people across the U.S. in full- and part-time fulfillment and delivery roles to help meet this demand. It also increased compensation by $350 million globally, which included temporary pay raises and a doubling of the hourly rate for overtime hours, up from the usual 1.5-times rate.

On April 13, Amazon announced it had hired the 100,000 people and would be hiring another 75,000. It also revised the $350 million compensation increase to over $500 million. Then on April 24, the company said it was extending the higher hourly pay and doubling overtime pay through May 16. And on May 13, the company once again extended the enhanced pay practices through May 30 and revised the compensation increase estimate to over $800 million.

Much of this hiring has related to fulfillment centers, but also to Prime Now, Amazon Fresh, and the Whole Foods delivery business. Amazon had announced a broad rollout of free same-day Whole Foods delivery to Prime members in January in the company’s fourth-quarter earnings release. In January and February it was easy to find and book available Whole Foods delivery times, but it began to get more difficult in March and into April as items sold out and demand outpaced delivery capacity.

Fulfilling demand

In Amazon’s first quarter, its online store sales — the global e-commerce business — grew net sales by 24% year over year. That was a sharp acceleration from last year’s 15% growth rate.

But the coronavirus-related demand only began to meaningfully surge in March. Presumably, January and February saw more normal growth rates. Amazon doesn’t disclose monthly sales, but let’s say those two months grew 17%. That would have been a slight acceleration from last year’s pace due to the positive effect of the rollout of free one-day shipping for Prime members and the broad launch of free same-day Whole Foods delivery. If that’s the case, that suggests March would have grown at a rate of around 39%.

But remember, March was a month when Amazon couldn’t even remotely fulfill all the demand it was seeing. To grow around 39% while not even fulfilling demand suggests that Amazon’s online store sales should surge much higher when it’s able to completely fulfill demand.

On the first-quarter earnings call, management said it wasn’t sure exactly when it would be able to fulfill all the demand and couldn’t “really project when that day will be or at what point in [the second quarter] or [third quarter] or beyond.” Considering Amazon’s conservative approach to financial guidance, suggesting it may meet all the demand during the second or third quarter is very bullish.

Later in the call, in response to a question about the second quarter, management made the following comment:

Well, we are heavily constrained — again, it’s an odd quarter because generally, the biggest uncertainty we have is customer demand and what they’ll order and how much of it they’ll order. Demand has been strong. And the biggest questions we have in [the second quarter] are more about ability to service that demand and that — the products that people are ordering in a full way, not blocking or making it hard to find nonessential items, increasing marketing and everything else.

It’s noteworthy that management said it was allowing people to order “in a full way” and “not blocking or making it hard to find nonessential items” and “increasing marketing and everything else.” It stands to reason Amazon would only open the flood gates like this if it felt it would be able to fulfill all that demand.

So what’s that mean? It’s a reasonable conclusion that Amazon’s online store sales growth should accelerate to well beyond 40% and possibly much higher in short order. There’s certainly precedent for this as so much more of consumer spending shifts online. For example, on Wayfair‘s (NYSE:W) first-quarter conference call, it said its second-quarter to-date sales growth has been about 90%. And on Etsy‘s (NASDAQ:ETSY) first-quarter call, it said it was seeing over 100% year-over-year growth in gross merchandise volume, the total value of products ordered on its platform.

Could Amazon grow that quickly if it’s fulfilling all the demand it’s seeing? Only time will tell, but at the very least its growth rate should go sharply higher. Investors should consider buying Amazon shares because of this underappreciated acceleration in e-commerce sales growth, but should also think about holding them for the long term considering where Amazon will be in 10 years.

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