Monday, October 6, 2025
Home Blog Page 62

Pinterest strives to earn more, grow more amidst pandemic by driving more transactions

Pinterest, the U.S. based image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information on the World Wide Web is growing at a tremendous speed. The COVID 19 pandemic has seen nearly 50 million new customers added and as per the company, it has also secured more advertisers over the same period.

Although starting out as a “social network” with boards, in later years the company has put increasing emphasis 0n visual search and e-commerce. The company is of the firm assumption that the rapid growth of e-commerce is the one most likely to stay — and Pinterest is poised to benefit.

Its uniqueness as a  visual search engine positions Pinterest as an alternative way to reach audiences at a time when many advertisers have maxed out the amount of reach they’re able to get from more search and social media.

Also, the whole Pinterest experience is clickable making it easier for advertisers to turn browsers into customers.

  Daisy Leaback, senior account director at Threepipe said, “We’re seeing more of our retail clients particularly the smaller to medium-sized ones, put Pinterest on plans. There are a lot more formats on Pinterest now that make it more shoppable for advertisers. Yes, they want to do more awareness, but they ultimately want sales from the media they buy.”

In the absence of in-store retail, there is an increasingly fascinating proposition for traditionally reach-based advertisers that are being forced to act like direct-to-consumer ones. So far most of that interest has come from either larger endemic advertisers in consumer -packaged- goods and retail such as Adidas and Swarovski or smaller-to-medium-sized businesses.

Some spending is also coming from those advertisers in non-endemic categories like finance and automotive, according to the businesses.

John Kaplan,  head of global sales said “The conversations we’re having with advertisers are really about how they’re going to drive topline sales while replicating some of the traffic that’s not going to be coming into the store. We want to drive more transactions in general.”

Fresh solutions for advertisers launched earlier this week on Sept. 29th reflects this sentiment. Pinterest opened three of the most visited areas to shop on the site —Pinterest Lens, the shop tab in search, and shopping on Pins.

Meanwhile, users in the U.K. will be able to buy more products directly from the platform, whether its from search results, their own personal boards, or even through the Lens camera visual search feature. Pinterest advertisers will also be able to see more clearly the impact of both paid and organic content on-site visits and checkouts when they use the analytics tool Conversion Insights.

With people not traveling much in the upcoming holiday season and being confined to their homes due to the unabating coronavirus crisis, Pinterest, like many other retail businesses, is banking on a major sales push.

Paul Kasamias, managing partner of performance at media agency Starcom says, “For one of our other CPG brands, Pinterest has moved, to an always-on channel, from only running small tests in 2019. The platform is used actively for purchases — and planning future purchases — in a way that other platforms provide more passive consumption.”

However, the company’s plan isn’t just about convincing advertisers that it can help them get early sales. The aim is that the advertisers also use the social network to build remarketing and audience segments to be used over the holiday season.

The company strives more advertisers to use it as a full-funnel marketing solution. However, its media business is still a long way off the likes of Amazon and Google, but it does sit within a different consideration phase for longer-term purchases.

The other e-commerce channels have yet to master these types of purchases so it offers Pinterest space to expand and then work back down the funnel from there.

Last week, the platform announced it was testing Story Pins, which combine multiple pages of images, videos, voiceover, and overlaid text on its popular stories format. The aim is to show users how others on the platform are trying new ideas and products. Unlike, other Stories, those on Pinterest aren’t ephemeral, meaning they won’t disappear after a set period of time.

A hit feature like this could open up further earning opportunities, particularly around social commerce, once it is opened up to advertisers. Social commerce is fast emerging as another big monetization opportunity globally for platforms.

For the likes of  Pinterest, it can be ease on its reliance on ad spending. In May, Pinterest partnered with Shopify to allow sellers in the U.S. and Canada to turn existing products on their store into Product Pins on Pinterest.

Oliver Booker, head of paid social in the U.K. for Reprise Digital said, “Spending on Pinterest has definitely increased over the last six months. With the likes of Facebook being under pressure due to brand safety and policy issues, we have seen brands wishing to diversify their spending with Pinterest being high on their place to test budget.”

The success of those conversations will be key for the social network going into the upcoming holiday season unlike any other. With Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays fast approaching, retailers will be focusing on sales more than before. Pinterest expects revenue to grow in the mid-30% range in its latest quarter to around $364 million. Some of that will be predicated on how well its international business does give that it accounted for 15% of its second-quarter revenues despite making up almost 75% of the user base.

“Over the summer there was a big drive from Pinterest to incentivize advertisers to spend,” said a media buyer on the condition of anonymity. If you spent up to a certain amount you would get free advertising worth the same which seems to be a real value for money proposition.

Retailing industries saw a lot of losses during the coronavirus pandemic: Mall operators change business module

The concerned authorities have stated the fact that more than 50% of the department stores will be closed by the end of 2021 in the region of the United States. Many people in the region are buying more and more products through e-commerce websites. Around 1000 malls in the US alone will no longer be supported by the people. It was also reported earlier that 27 retailers have filed for bankruptcy in the year 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many big names were included in the list. However, some of the retailers found new funding and new ownership. Although, the retailing stores which were unable to find the buyers were forced to shut down.

It is also estimated 20000 to 25000 physical retailing stores in the US will be seen closing in the year 2020. Around 50% of these stores are located in big malls. However, it is also stated that before the coronavirus pandemic many of the retailers were still struggling to make a profit because people were shifting towards the e-commerce platforms for their shopping. The retailers are also struggling to pay the rents and that’s why they have changed their business models. The basic business model of all of the retailers now is to just survive in the market and make a minimum profit so that they can have basic necessities of life.

Co-Tenancy was also introduced for all of the retailers so that they can pay low rents. Also, many of the retail analysts are still doubtful of the mall warehouse space to be coexisting with retail use. They are saying that the shoppers will not be liking to pass an industrial space just to enter the luxury retail store. It is also said that the mall operators will not be able to handle the situation such as the real estate experts. Restaurants are also seen adding more services rather than just serving food.

Real-time payments will be much easier to undertake in future due to the increasing potential in the sector

Contactless payments
Contactless payments

Real-time payments are normally the rapid exchange of money when anybody purchases a thing or two from the seller. This also can be described as the payment of the product within only a few seconds. It can also be called as Immediate Settlement. Real-time settlements can be also used in the case of merchants. Merchant will be greatly benefited from real-time payments. However, most accounts also require a long range of time to reflect the payments. The time also depends upon the size of the amount and the type of business. Merchant accounts are not able to settle money in real-time because they need to receive authorisations from the issuers and other participants. Few merchant accounts will now be able to provide you with real-time settlements because it will be more helpful for the independent business.

The square instant payment feature is also helpful for the merchants. It is also said by the experts that many of the different types of procedures can be used for real-time payments. Real-time payments are often available for employees, contractors and also freelancers. Merchants, however, have to deal with slow settlements. It is also noticed that freelancers often struggle with delayed payments from clients. However, if the clients are willing to pay real-time then it can be a very good day for them. Real-time payments will also help the individuals to eliminate the use of paper checks, insurance companies and other cumbersome procedures.

International payment procedure is also very inconvenient for all of the people. It takes more than 2 weeks of time to settle the payment abroad. However, making an international money transfer in real-time can also result in compromising one’s security. Also, Western Union has also announced Visa Direct that can be used for real-time money payment. P2P payments are also one type of real payment option. OCTs can also be used to make real-time payments.

Worten Spain will be closing around 17 stores because of potential losses: Company will be working on e-commerce

Worten Spain has decided that they will be closing around 17 stores to give more time to their e-commerce sector. The concerned authorities of the company will be closing around 17 physical stores that are situated in Spain. It is said that the authorities of the company will try to increase their focus on online sales channels. They were also witnessing continuous losses since the year 1998. They mainly deal with electronics products but the company has seen dissolution a lot of times. The company was founded in Portugal in the year 1996. Although, it entered the Spanish market much later in the year 2008. The company also acquired Boulanger and its 9 physical stores.

The success of the company was not going well for a lot of time. As calculated by the concerned authorities, the company has lost around 385 million euros in the last two decades. These euros were lost in Spain. The company had a total of 60 stores. Out of these 60, 17 stores will be closed in the upcoming time. Around 60 stores by the company were situated in Spain. Although, 11 of these outlets closed around last year. Three of the stores were closed in January and another three were closed in last June. The concerned authorities of the company worked very hard to adjust the situation but they were not able to control the losses of the company. It is also said that the company started to generate losses every year since the year 1998.

The company is working more and more towards the development of digital channels so that they can increase e-commerce sales. It is also said that the company doubled the activity of e-commerce as compared to the last year. The objective of the company is to improve the profitability of the operations in the region of Spain. The company has also till now remained consistent with business in the region of Spain. The authorities of the company are also framing out a new strategy so that they can rise in the market and develop themselves once again.

Logistics E-Commerce platform Whitebox raises $18M in funding

 Whitebox, the startup that manages e-commerce logistics and fulfillment for a variety of  MNC brands, has raised $18 million in Series B funding. It was led by Alan Taetle of Noro-Moseley Partners,  with participation from TDF Ventures, TCP Venture Capital’s Propel Baltimore Fund, Merkle global chairman David Williams and Millennial Media co-founder Chris Brandenburg

 CEO Marcus Startzel reiterated what he said last year -that the startup is differentiated by combining tools for managing e-commerce listings across a variety of marketplaces with the ability to store and ship products from its own warehouse spaces across the US. The company had its first round of Series A funding of $5M last year.

“Whitebox helps brands and manufacturers win more sales and reduce costs in one powerful platform solution. Sell and move more products everywhere your customers are with our e-commerce marketplace and fulfillment technology and expertise.”- proclaims its website.

Commenting further, Startzel said ”  We really saw an opportunity for a platform that could both sell stuff and move stuff. The thing that really shined for us through this period has been the third layer of that platform, which is our decisioning layer.

That’s the layer that allows brands to use data to answer questions like, “Should I fulfill this big wholesale order or hold inventory for the marketplaces? Should I inbound a bunch of stuff into Amazon, or do I keep it here in my Whitebox  warehouses to potentially fulfill wholesale orders?”

COVID19 has brought sweeping overnight changes in the e-commerce business. Startzel said that initially, Whitebox’s ideal customer was a “challenger brand” whose business was mostly coming from Shopify, and who needed help as it expanded to Amazon and other marketplaces. But increasingly, the startup is also working with more traditional customers.

“Twenty-five years ago, if you wanted to buy a bottle of ketchup, you had to go to a store and discover a bottle of ketchup as you walked down the condiment aisle,” Startzel said. “Today, the store brands can no longer count on foot traffic, and they’re beginning to recognize how important it is to be on e-commerce.”

The company grew its revenue 144% year-over-year between 2018 and 2019. That was followed by a 40% increase in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the first three months of 2019. Startzel expects to see even more growth throughout the remainder of the year. The icing on the cake comes with its direct-to-consumer shipments growing by 300% over the first half of the year.

Startzel also said that the company took “a very aggressive and conservative approach” to managing its fulfillment facilities during this period — aggressive in the sense that it wanted to ensure that there was no disruption in shipments, conservative in its efforts to make sure the facilities were safe.

Funding partner Taetle said, “Whitebox remains a leader in this extremely busy and competitive space, and is uniquely positioned to see continued growth. The team has built a technology platform that not only expands the tools and insights that brands need to manage their sales and fulfillment processes from top to bottom but also powers the larger e-commerce economy by eliminating marketplace complexities. Our investment signifies our confidence in Whitebox and the capabilities that we know the company can bring to the table for new and current customers.”

Startzel emphasized that the company will use the new funding to expand its sales and marketing teams, continue developing its technology platform and build out its fulfillment centers — it currently has centers in Baltimore-the HQ of  Whitebox, Las Vegas, and Memphis, having active plans of expanding in the Midwest next year.

French cloud-based E-Commerce Startup Mirakl raises $300M funding at $1.5 billion value

Mirakl, the French cloud-based e-commerce software company headquartered in Paris, France which provides online marketplace software to retailers, manufacturers, and wholesalers has raised $300 million in a funding round led by private equity firms Permira. This funding has raised the value of the e-commerce startup at $1.5 billion.

Philippe Corrot and Adrien Nussenbaum created Mirakl in 2011. The round makes Mirakl, which also has offices in Boston, a newly minted unicorn with a valuation of more than $1 billion.

The company makes software that helps build marketplaces and online stores for customers including Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., Kroger Co., and Siemens AG, its website showed.

Companies that power e-commerce have been boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic as consumers’ thrust focused on safe distancing and shopping patterns changed globally. Major e-commerce platforms such as Shopify Inc, have seen the share price jumping more than 100 percent since  March.

Nussenbaum said that the company partners with Shopify and Adobe Inc’s Magento Commerce on connecting their platforms to third-party sellers. Mirakl would use the investment to hire 300 engineers over the next three years.

Permira was an investor in Magento Commerce before it sold to Adobe for $1.68 billion in 2018. The funding was acknowledged by non-other than the French President Emmanuel Macron, who appreciated it with a  tweet as the biggest ever for a French startup.

Permira Partner Alexandre Margoline said in a statement that Mirakl can become the “central hub and platform for digital marketplace operators, sellers, and partners.”

Permira is investing through its growth opportunities fund that makes minority investments in growth-stage companies. Bruce Chizen, a former CEO of Adobe and current director at  Oracle Corp. will be an adviser to Mirakl’s board.

He said in an interview that Mirakl being headquartered in France is an advantage for hiring compared to Silicon Valley.”It’s less competitive in terms of recruiting great talent,” said Chizen, who is also a growth partner at Permira.

Other investors in the round include  83 North, Bain Capital Ventures, Eliana Partners, and Felix Capital. bringing total capital raised by the company to $400 million, as per a released statement.

Mirakl supports over 250 customers in over 40 countries including, Carrefour, Conrad, Toyota Material Handling, AStore by Accor, and Kroger to name a few.

Salsify, an e-commerce building platform closes $155M funding amidst COVID-19 business surge

Salify

Salsify, a product content management, and syndication platform, which powers the seamless exchange of product content that powers today’s commerce experience has raised a significant round of funding amidst the COVID 19 pandemic.

The company has closed $155 million in a Series E round of financing led by Warburg Pincus, with Matrix, Underscore, Venrock, and Greenspring also participating.

Salsify was founded in late 2012 by a team with deep experience in commerce, online search, and the semantic web. It provides brands and the companies behind them a single place to track product inventories, manage how they are described and sold across a disparate array of online and offline locations, and then run analytics on the data to figure out what next steps to take.

Jason Purcell, the CEO who co-founded the company with Jeremy Redburn (Chief Data Officer) and Rob Gonzalez (CMO), said the company would not be disclosing its valuation but only confirmed that it was a “significant up round” compared to Salsify’s valuation in its last fundraise, which was $308 million, according to data from  Pitchbook.

Prior to now, Salsify had raised around $98 million from investors including Underscore, Matrix Partners, Venrock, and North Bridge Venture Partners.

The funding is coming on the back of a big 2020 for Salsify, which, like a lot of other companies working in the wider area of e-commerce, has seen strong demand for its expertise due to the COVID-19 pandemic as shopping habits went through a transformational shift and browsing and shopping online gained prominence,

“Companies realize they need a strong digital footprint,”. Whether it’s Amazon or another marketplace, or their own site, what COVID has done is give many brands a fraction of the thought process: if we don’t have a strong digital footprint, we won’t be able to engage.” Purcell said in an interview.

The company is tackling a very basic problem in the world of online commerce. It’s an extremely fragmented landscape, with a huge number of potential ways for a brand to connect with potential customers: their own sites, those of other retailers, larger marketplaces, social channels, direct sales using messaging or email, and much more.

And this is where its expertise comes. The name Salsify denotes a plant with linear leaves cultivated for its light-skinned edible root and herbal properties. Sounding philosophical, Purcell commented that Salsify might be known by some as a black root vegetable that looks a bit like a thin white carrot when peeled but with a sweet and mild taste. But it’s also a wildflower that is a bit like a dandelion: it grows everywhere and its blooms spread far and wide, a metaphor for the wide, fragmented world of online commerce.

This is, in fact, the rationale for the name of the company, too. He said he and the founders originally wanted to name the company “Dandelion” but it was taken, so Salsify it was.

The fact that it’s a wide-ranging problem also means that there has been a wide-ranging field of companies that have aimed to tackle it. They include companies like Contently and Sitecore, as well as the likes of Salesforce and Adobe, although Purcell describes his company as “complementary to marketing clouds.”

The company recently was enriched by the joining of Mike Milburn, about two weeks ago, formerly Salesforce’s chief customer officer,  now Salsify’s president. Salsify counts companies like Coca-Cola, Rubbermaid, and Mars among its customers.

In all, it has some 800 companies and brands on its large platter with 225 contributing to more than $1 billion in revenues, and since its last round, a Series D in 2018, the company has seen a boom in business, with a 120%+ net revenue retention rate.

Purcell said that his company plans to use the funding in two main areas. First, it plans to continue expanding its product stack, currently based around the company’s CommerceXM (for “experience management”) platform, which includes features for managing product information, digital assets and managing how products are sold through a brand’s own site, marketplaces, online and offline retailers and social channels and more.

Second, the company has ambitious plans for expanding internationally.

The company is based out of Boston, and a couple of years ago it opened its first international headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal.

Right now some 40 of its customers are based overseas, and the plan will be to double down on more expansion both serving them, as well as their U.S. customers abroad, as adding on to new business

Purcell also added that the round and the choice of the lead investor was very much in line with the company’s ambition to come out with an IPO.

“This is pointing us on the path to an IPO. The intent is to build a company that can operate as a public company. It’s about how we hold ourselves against public companies while making sure we can operate the same from a growth perspective. Warburg Pincus has taken 150 companies public, and we are building with that in mind.” He added.

Warburg Pincus has been a pretty prolific growth-stage investor whose involvement indeed points not to existing scale and success, but wider ambition. Other companies it has backed include CrowdStrike, Avalara, Samsara, Ant Group, Privitar, Trax, and Gojek.

Vishnu Menon, managing director, Warburg Pincus, said in a statement, “Salsify is a clear market leader, serving some of the largest and most discerning global brands and retailers. The company’s strong track record, paired with a talented leadership team has positioned it well for the increase in demand for digital shelf solutions.”

“We are excited to partner with Salsify in their mission to help brands develop better and longer-lasting relationships with consumers online,” said Michael Ding, vice president, Warburg Pincus.

Walmart coming out with super discounted “Black Friday Experience”, set to hire 20K seasonal workers

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is throwing out daily new challenges for the e-commerce retailers and Walmart is now pushing the momentum with the holiday season fast approaching. The US-based largest e-commerce retailer has announced plans on Wednesday to cater to the thrust in online sales, gifting, and practicing safe shopping as sales are on the upswing.

It announced a  “promising an all-new Black Friday experience” and said that it “will spread traditional Black Friday savings throughout the season” with details yet to follow online.

Although the full details of the promo event were not available, yet Walmart said that saving will start earlier than ever. Furthermore, the company will be on a hiring spree adding 20,000 seasonal workers for its e-commerce fulfillment centers which include order fillers and power equipment, operators.

All temporary positions are posted on its website and also can be applied by texting FC to 240240.

Greg Smith, Walmart’s  U.S. executive  VP, supply chain commented in a news release that as more shoppers “turn to online shopping, we want to ensure we’re staffed and ready to help deliver that special gift to their loved ones while continuing to fulfill our customer’s everyday needs.”

The starting hourly rate for the seasonal jobs will range from $15.75 to $23.75 based on location, position, and schedule. The jobs begin immediately and will continue through Jan. 1.  Some of these positions may be converted to regular employment, the company release said.

The last six months’ period has seen the company grow by leaps and bounds. Walmart said that  it has hired more than 500,000 new employees across the company “to ensure the retailer could provide essential items to customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Last week, Walmart made it up to its workers by announcing that it was giving approximately 165, 000 hourly workers a raise by introducing new leadership roles and added learning skills by giving  “cross-training opportunities.”

The company had hinted at such an opportunity back in July when it announced that its stores would be closed on Thanksgiving for the first time since the late 1980s. For years, Thanksgiving has been seen as the start of the holiday shopping season and Black Friday weekend.

 Walmart’s executive  VP and Chief Merchandising Officer, Scott McCall,  said in a press release that customers have been shopping differently over the past six months and that’s expected to continue into the holiday season.

“We’ve heard from our customers that many plan on starting their holiday shopping well before Black Friday and that they’re looking for gifts that fit their current lifestyle. So, we’ve adjusted our strategy to adapt to these new shopping preferences – we’re offering more of what they want now, earlier than ever, and all at the best prices.”He added.

Commenting further, he said that the retailer is  “the increasing availability of unexpected holiday gifts that reflect lifestyles in this ‘new normal,’ including athleisure, loungewear and sleepwear for the family, outdoor grills, bicycles and exercise equipment, and outdoor sporting equipment.”

Walmart said that it has increased its inventory of traditional gifts including electronics with a “focus on TVs, laptops and video games” and will have over 1,300 new toys. There also will be a larger assortment of supply of pet products and Walmart said and is  “ready to sell over 3 million comfy pet beds.”

Walmart said its stores including “Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets will continue to be closed to customers overnight to give associates extra time to clean and sanitize stores and stock shelves.”

It did make an announcement last month about the majority of stores closing at 10 pm local time, which is an increase of 90 minutes. This was perhaps to make out for the store hours cut twice in March amid the growing peak of the COVID19  pandemic.

 Walmart’s special shopping hours for seniors and those most vulnerable also have been extended. Face masks  and coverings that Walmart started nationwide since July,20 will continue to be required, and the plastic barrier also known as sneeze guards will “remain in Walmart pharmacies, at checkout and at other points of sale to distance customers and associates.”

Ecommerce Sales Must Save Retailers: Zycada’s Subbu Varadarajan Explains How to Strengthen Online Strategies in Q&A

Retail Businesses are integrating new approaches to deal with the COVID pandemic. Team eCommerce Next interviewed Mr. Subbu Varadarajan, Founder and Chief Product Officer of Zycada Networks to get more insights. Following is our interview with him:

1) How has the global pandemic altered the needs and expectations of consumers?

The COVID pandemic has sped up the shift away from brick and mortar retail and towards e-commerce. While this trend had been unfolding for years, COVID significantly accelerated it. Consumers naturally expect convenience from online retail. After all, convenience has traditionally been the primary appeal of e-commerce: shoppers trade the dependability of being able to touch and try out products in person for the freedom to purchase items anytime and anywhere and have them delivered right to their doorstep. With e-commerce now growing rapidly, consumers will expect even greater convenience but also much of the same dependability they associate with brick and mortar shopping.

For online shoppers, convenience means that e-commerce platforms are quick, easy, and reliable. Pages load fast and transactions are completed without any technical issues. To deliver the type of dependability associated with brick and mortar shopping, online retailers will need to deliver a more personalized, immersive e-commerce experience that features much more dynamic content.

2) How can small businesses improve their online retail strategy to keep pace with Amazon?

E-commerce revenue is closely associated with speed – the faster the platform, the more revenue it brings in. Most small businesses feel like they have no hope to compete online with Amazon, which has some of the fastest e-commerce speeds in the industry, with an average desktop page load time of 2.7 seconds compared to the industry average of 4.7 seconds. These small businesses lack the capital to improve their online shopping speeds via sophisticated app development, paying for CDN services (highly distributed networks of servers that support faster delivery of content to end-users) or optimizing anything on their side of the network. As a result, they settle on selling their products through Amazon and give up a sizable chunk of their overall revenue.

But these small retailers can leverage recent innovations, such as performance bots,  to achieve up to 10X faster e-commerce speeds than Amazon without spending much. Performance bots don’t require any coding or configuration changes to a retailer’s website and can be incorporated within a few hours.

3) What obstacles exist for e-commerce sites looking to succeed during the online shopping season, and what capabilities are necessary to overcome these challenges?

Amazon is always the 10,000-pound gorilla in the room. And Amazon poses an even greater threat this year than in the past. After being delayed due to the pandemic, Prime Day is expected to happen sometime in October, just one month before holiday shopping for every other retailer kicks off with Black Friday. This means a lot of traditional holiday online shopping spending will be siphoned off by Amazon right before competing retailers have a chance to make their big Black Friday and Cyber Monday push.

As mentioned above, speed is critical. For online retailers to have a chance against Amazon this year, they must improve their e-commerce speeds while minimizing other technical issues that cause transactions to stall or time out. They have to make it as quick and smooth for the customer as possible.

4) Why should online retailers care about Time to Interactive (TTI)?

TTI is a key metric for modern online retailers. While page load times tell you more broadly how fast an e-commerce platform is moving, TTI provides a more granular look. TTI measures how long it takes for the interactive elements of a page to load. For example, the “buy now” or “add to cart” buttons. These features are critical parts of any online shopping experience. A customer cannot proceed all the way through their transaction until these interactive elements have loaded and are functional.

5) How has the shift to mobile commerce introduced new challenges to online retailers?

Mobile commerce introduces a few technical challenges that generally result in slower speeds for a couple of reasons. Cellular networks, which mobile devices typically use to connect to the internet, lack the speed and reliability of wi-fi networks that desktop devices use. In addition, since mobile devices are smaller than PCs, they can’t fit in as much processing power into the devices. Both of these factors result generally in slower speeds for mobile commerce apps compared to traditional desktop-based e-commerce sites.

Also, both mobile and e-commerce commerce face “last mile” challenges. The last mile is the final phase of transmission between an end-user and a CDN, such as when shoppers get to the checkout and are prompted to confirm their order. This last mile phase is often plagued by sudden packet loss and other issues that cause transactions to slow down and potentially time out. Mobile commerce experiences last-mile problems more often because of its reliance on weaker cellular networks. Furthermore, when you’re using a wi-fi network and encounter a last-mile problem, it’s usually easy to improve your connection by simply moving your device closer to your router. This isn’t possible when using cellular networks.

6) Are there special considerations retailers must be aware of if they’re introducing video shopping to their websites?

Videos provide a potent new way to engage customers and drive greater revenue. Because of that, they’re becoming an increasingly important part of e-commerce platforms. However, videos are a form of dynamic content (as opposed to static content, such as text). Dynamic content takes longer to load than static content, and it’s also more prone to errors that cause it to fail. Retailers need to make sure their video content is loading quickly and that they’re leveraging sufficient resources to support this content so it doesn’t fail.

7) What technologies can businesses leverage to improve their online experience?

Performance bots are an easy and cost-effective way for any retailer, from Fortune 500 organizations to SMBs, to boost their online shopping experience. Whitehat bot technology has been used for a couple of years now to protect against cybersecurity threats, but the use of bots to improve website performance is new. Performance bots work by observing an e-commerce platform’s users to learn how they behave with complete precision. Once trained, the bots can anticipate user interactions on that platform, working ahead of them to request and load content before the user has to, significantly improving page load and TTI metrics.

There are a couple of other straightforward approaches businesses can take to speed up their e-commerce platforms. One, they can invest in a more advanced website and app development, which will also improve page load and TTI to provide a quicker online shopping experience. Second, they can spend more money on CDN services to get more computing resources and support faster e-commerce speeds. However, no matter how much you invest in app design or CDNs to improve your online shopping experience, you still won’t be able to match the resources and speeds of Amazon. Performance bots is the only approach that Amazon isn’t leveraging and it gives retailers a chance to actually deliver faster e-commerce platforms.

8) Where do you see the e-commerce market progressing in the coming years?

Above all, the e-commerce market is going to get bigger and bigger as consumers increasingly move from brick and mortar retail to online shopping. Beyond that, mobile commerce will also grow rapidly in popularity and eventually will eclipse traditional desktop-based e-commerce.

Furthermore, as retailers look to provide a more immersive and personalized shopping experience, they will leverage more video content, which will mean supporting more dynamic content. To meet all these increasing demands – skyrocketing online shopping, growing mobile commerce, and rising use of video and rich dynamic content – we’ll see performance bots proliferate as a means to accelerate e-commerce experiences and help retailers better compete with Amazon.

About Subbu Varadarajan

Subbu Varadarajan is the Founder and Chief Product Officer of Zycada Networks. He has nearly 20 years of deep tech industry experience, including engineering roles at Akamai, Cisco, and Alcatel-Lucent. Varadarajan is credited with creating the world’s first WhiteHat Botnet. Historically, Botnets were used by malicious hackers to breach corporate data and sabotage cloud services. Varadarajan leveraged the power of Botnet technology for helping enterprises and cloud services enhance security and improve performance. As Founder of Zycada, he harnessed that vision to develop an innovative platform employed by numerous Fortune 1000 eCommerce and streaming companies, accelerating more than 120 billion transactions to date. He has authored 20+ patents and has written several publications on network security, bot management, and performance.

 Before founding Zycada, Varadarajan contributed to key patents used in the industry’s first Botwall disrupting the security industry. Varadarajan disrupted the Streaming industry by creating the world’s first HTTP-HD streaming technology. Both his inventions played a pivotal role in setting a new standard for the Streaming and Security Industry. Mr. Varadarajan has a BS in Engineering and Computer Science from Madurai Kamaraj and a MS in Computer Science at The University of Texas.

You can connect with him on Linkedin. 

About Zycada
Zycada empowers the fastest online shopping experience by leveraging the power and scale of bot technology. Zycada bots anticipate user interactions, working ahead of them as a personal concierge – dramatically enhancing the shopper’s experience and increasing online retail revenues. Zycada is backed by Khosla Ventures, Cervin Ventures, and Nordic Eye Venture Capital. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California. You can visit https://www.zycada.com for more information.

Oracle and Walmart all set to acquire a 20% stake in TikTok

(via Getty Images)

All speculations of banning TikTok amidst anti – Chinese sentiment were put to an end with TikTok’s US  announcing that  Oracle and Walmart will own a 20% stake in the newly formed TikTok Global and will be coming out with an IPO within the next twelve months.

President Trump did put his seal on the approval on Saturday, saving the company’s footprint in the most powerful country in the world.

Oracle said it will be TikTok’s cloud provider in a deal that gives it a 12.5% stake in the social media network and a key reference customer. Walmart will own a 7.5% stake and explore the intersection of TikTok and e-commerce. Oracle said in a statement  “the technical decision” by TikTok was based on the Zoom reference account.

However, TikTok, owned by ByteDance, was facing a Sunday shutdown order over security concerns by President Trump. Walmart announced its role in the deal for the Tiktok us operations shortly after Oracle. Meanwhile, the US Deptt of Commerce said the TikTok ban deadline has been extended by a week to Sept. 27.

Oracle CTO Larry Ellison, said that TikTok will run on Oracle Cloud. Its CEO Safra Catz further added  “Oracle will quickly deploy, rapidly scale, and operate TikTok systems in the Oracle Cloud. We are a hundred percent confident in our ability to deliver a highly secure environment to TikTok and ensure data privacy to TikTok’s American users, and users throughout the world.”

For Oracle, the cloud deal with TikTok is a win and can give it a broader platter. President Trump has been vociferously vocal about US threats to China with data security issues. Should Oracle be able to use its cloud infrastructure to protect and isolate US data, TikTok will equate to a key reference customer.

Oracle’s Generation 2 Cloud will isolate TikTok Global’s operations and respond to security threats autonomously.

While Oracle was looking to the TikTok deal for its cloud business, for Walmart it is all about e-commerce.

Walmart  strategically outlined the following key points  in a statement:

  1. Post acquiring a 7.5% stake in TikTok Global, Walmart will provide “e-commerce, fulfillment, payments and other omnichannel services to TikTok Global.”
  2.  Its CEO Doug McMillon will be one of the five board members of the newly created company.
  3. The plan is to bring TikTok public in the US “within the next year.”
  4. The move to make TikTok’s US operations independent will create 25,000 jobs.
  5. TikTok Global will pay more than $5 billion in taxes to the US Treasury.
  6. “Oracle, SIG, General Atlantic, Sequoia, Walmart and Coatue will create an educational initiative to develop and deliver an AI-driven online video curriculum to teach children from inner cities to the suburbs, a variety of courses from basic reading and math to science, history and computer engineering.”

The grass is not totally greener on the other side as certain contentious issues are still persisting in people’s minds as there may be more drama as the deal is finally closing ” in real times”.Also, another issue is neither Oracle nor Walmart addressed ByteDance’s algorithm behind TikTok. The algorithm is the secret  ingredient and it’s unclear whether Chinese regulators will allow that IP transfer as they are yet to approve of the deal

With Oracle and Walmart partnering on TikTok Global it’s safe to assume that Oracle Cloud will play some role in Walmart’s infrastructure in the future.

The financial pundits are also speculating that a TikTok Global IPO within a year would be classic to watch in 2021. ByteDance will be able to monetize its TikTok Global stake and Walmart and Oracle will make more money than ever.

US postal service’s biggest customer EBay plans to shift more business to UPS amidst speedy delivery issues

 eBay, the global giant of the auction sites which is also one of the U.S. Postal Service’s biggest customers, has said that it is shifting some of its business to private-sector rival United Parcel Service pertaining to issues of safety, speed, and reliability.

“Customers want and expect to receive their packages in the fastest and most reliable way possible, which is why our collaboration with UPS comes at such a critical moment,” eBay vice president Marni Levine commented in a message to eBay sellers while announcing the deal with UPS.

He had previously expressed his thoughts about the decreasing on-time delivery rate of the US postal service.

The company said that by Sept. end, eBay sellers will be able to print out discounted UPS shipping labels, at a cost going up to 62 percent cheaper than the  UPS rates.

As per statistics, the US postal service had shipped more than 130 million items up till springtime last year and was its second-largest retail customer. The US postal service generated more than $743 million in revenue from eBay packages in that fiscal year while struggling with a daunting  $160.9 billion deficit.

For the Postal Service, the loss of eBay revenue could be substantial as eBay is second only to Amazon, which generated more than $2.3 billion in revenue for it during the same time frame, and whose business top Postal Service managers were fearful of losing, The Washington Post reported this week.

eBay is an American MNC e-commerce corporation based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website which involves shipping hundreds of millions of items to buyers’ doorsteps each year.

In August,  e-bay started cautioning its sellers amid growing complaints of the US postal service delivery slowdowns.“US Postal Service is experiencing significant delays across their delivery network. Please consider using other carrier options that may provide a better buyer experience”, it said.

 The US postal service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy had come out with new policies after taking office in mid-June aimed to cut costs. This included stricter, leaner and meaner dispatch schedules that forced postal workers to leave mail behind and prohibited extra mail trips, a blaming reason for mail backups across the country.

Managers under him also cracked down on overtime, which postal workers commonly rely on to complete routes. Although DeJoy has denied playing role in those decisions, the loss seems to be evident.

Congressional Democrats have claimed that DeJoy’s changes held up a whopping seven percent of the country’s first-class mail. On-time delivery rates dropped from above 90 percent to 81.5 percent, as per a Senate report.

While facing mounting criticism about abrupt changes in agency operations, DeJoy was adamantly said that he would stop removing mail sorting machines and postal boxes and would restore overtime until after the election.

The final trigger was pulled on Friday when matters went overboard as a federal judge ordered the Postal Service to halt its operational changes, saying that DeJoy and President Trump are carrying out “a politically motivated attack” on mail delivery.

eBay had been treading carefully during the Postal Service’s tumultuous months.

“We are continually monitoring shipping developments and USPS delays. We are working on other affordable, more reliable delivery options for sellers. Stay tuned for important developments in this area in the coming weeks.”, Levine wrote to sellers in mid-August.

As the election fever is heating up, e bay has been vocal on its website about its lobbying stances that it supports “a viable postal system.”

Meanwhile, an eBay spokeswoman declined to comment when asked how many sellers would likely use UPS instead of the  US Postal Service.

How Costco makes billions charging people to shop in its stores

Costco Wholesale Corporation, the US-based MNC has made a crazy amount of money by charging customers to shop in its stores.

The company operates a chain of membership-only warehouse clubs and as per data available, is the second-largest retailer globally after Walmart. To add a feather to its cap, it is the world’s largest retailer of choice and prime beef, organic foods, rotisserie chicken, and wine.

The concept of paying a fee just to shop in its stores has worked beautifully for the company. Costco was born out of a merger of two stores with similar models — Price Club, founded in 1976, and Costco, founded in 1983.

The idea of charging memberships came from Price Club founder Sol Price, who got the idea from a company called FedCo, a single warehouse store that sold products mostly to U.S. Postal Service workers.

Its sales model is really unique as it attracts its shoppers to its warehouses by offering low prices, an array of services such as credit cards, and travel booking. A typical Costco warehouse carries only 3,700 distinct products, while a typical Walmart Supercenter carries approximately 140,000 products. If Costco feels the wholesale price of any individual product is too high, they will refuse to stock the product. Price discounts at times turn out to be treasure hunts and customers end up getting more than value for money products.

Lighting costs are reduced on sunny days, as most Costco locations have several skylights. The company has no public relations department and does not buy outside advertising savings to its costs.

The company’s rule is that no item may be marked up more than 14% over cost and no Kirkland Signature item may be marked up more than 15% over cost. The company runs very leanly, with overhead costs at about 10% of revenue and profit margins at 2%. Though memberships cost a minimum of $60 a year, renewal rates are high — around 90% in 2019.

In times of online sales booming in a big way and the Coronavirus pandemic redefining e-commerce, the company has been slower to move online than retail overall, causing investors much concern. The industry’s online penetration for retail was above 20% in the second quarter of 2020, whereas Costco’s was only about 7%. But the company is working at a faster pace to catch up.

Another point of contention with investors is the company’s ability to tune up with the new generation of shoppers. Costco’s average customer age is around 50, and the firm thinks lowering that to 40 or 45 would be better. Costco has been introducing product types popular among younger shoppers which include organic produce and items that are sustainably made.

The company is also expanding internationally, though some think its speed is slow. China is one of the few potentials for its bright future. When the company opened a store in Shanghai, it attracted mobs of customers.

Finally, the potential game-changing factor is members’ loyalty.

Membership fees make up most of Costco’s income. Some analysts worry that if consumers were to cancel subscriptions and memberships, either due to the pandemic hit recessionary times or even “subscription fatigue”, Costco would have problems but here comes the catch.

The company sells so many essentials,  which include food products and even toilet paper, and its private-label Kirkland Signature brand is so admired — not to mention its customers, who are loyal to the point of near-fanaticism — investors do not anticipate any dip in sales or cancel orders in times ahead.

FedEx reports bigger-than-expected profit amidst pandemic fueled growth

Fedex

FedEx Corporation, the American  MNC delivery services company headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, has come out with a bigger-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday. Shares of the company jumped 7.6% to $254.66 in extended trading.

The surge comes amidst the ongoing coronavirus times as price hikes, lower fuel costs, and efficiency gains countered negative impacts associated with a pandemic-fueled surge in online delivery bulk orders.

The numbers said it all as the average daily package volume for FedEx Ground, which handles e-commerce deliveries for retailer giants such as Walmart, jumped by 31% to 11.6 million during the fiscal first quarter ended Aug. 31.

Additionally, revenue per package rose 2% to $9.33 during the quarter, which also included one additional business day.

The coronavirus pandemic pushed the online delivery business to its core as people adhered to safe distancing norms and sought home delivery from anything to everything. People placed orders from exercise equipment to home furniture and even snacks and pet food. For FedEx and rival UPS, it was boom time.

Traditionally, home deliveries have been more expensive because they involved fewer packages and far-flung stops. The pandemic saw a rush in orders and rising volumes and investments in things like automated sorting centers and route optimization are now focusing on bringing these costs down.

Edward Jones analyst Matt Arnold said, “Minor improvements can make a big difference whenever you’re moving this many packages a day. The worst of the pressures on profitability are probably behind the company.”

FedEx did not provide an earnings forecast for fiscal 2021, citing continued uncertainty, but said it expects annual capital spending of $5.1 billion, above analysts’ average estimate of $4.96 billion, as per reports of Refinitiv data.

FedEx spent $565 million on fuel across the company during the quarter, 35% less than a year earlier. Fiscal first-quarter adjusted net income at FedEx jumped 60% to $1.28 billion, or $4.87 per share as the revenue rose 13.5% to $19.3 billion.

Analysts expected earnings of $2.69 per share and revenue of $17.55 billion.

Freshly CEO says, “I think we’ve hit a tipping point”

Freshly, the New york-based prepared meal delivery which was founded by Michael Wystrach and Carter Comstock in 2012 is now unstoppable.

“I think we’ve hit a tipping point,” said Wystrach the founder CEO. The company now is offering next day delivery to 48 states from kitchens in New Jersey, Maryland, and Arizona. The company adopted minimal food waste and sustainability into its menus and delivers all meals for a given week and are heated by microwave or oven without preparation. Freshly also donates excess ingredients and meals to local food banks as part of its partnership with Feeding America.

The company is now shipping out a million meals a week. With an average of $10 a meal, the annual sales would come to $520 million. Freshly donated $500 thousand in prepared foods to Meals on Wheels amidst the ongoing pandemic and reported sales up 50% year over year. In 2020, Freshly expanded to business-to-business food delivery, including to hospitals and essential service workers.

The company has also launched a B2B service to tap into demand from senior care facilities and other locations where due to the pandemic, food delivery services were disrupted.

” We’ve seen a huge influx of new customers, and existing customers are still ordering around 10 percent more now. we’ve also seen an increase in people ordering food for elderly parents, but in general, I’d say there are three power users: young urban singles or couples with no kids; family with kids aged 10and older; and then empty nesters”. said the CEO.

The uniqueness of the company is very much evident in terms of convenience, freshness price, and quantity. The company delivers 4, 6,10, or 12  chilled ‘ heat and eat’  meals a week, from $8.49 to $11.49 depending on how many one buys. Trends have indicated that people are cooking less. The pondering question is that during these  COVID hit recessionary times, can Americans afford to spend $8-12 on a meal?

Wystrach clears the air by stating “Every year people are cooking less and the fact is that the food market is $1.4 tr and it’s going online at scale. And so we fell that the market potential is massive “. When asked if the American is reluctant to commit to an online subscription model for prepared meals or meal kits, he said that the failure of some high-end players should not be seen as proof that the model does not work.

Nestle had acquired a minority stake in the company in 2017 and has a board member seat. “It is an amazing partner to us we’ll have to see where things go”, he said.  “Right now the focus is on adding new capacity to meet demand. We would be growing a lot faster, but demand far outstrips supply.”

The COVID 19 has indeed proved to be a game-changer and the company seems to have hit the tipping point.

CashKaro, Indian e-commerce deals site attracts $10 million Korean backed funding

CashKaro
CashKaro, the coupon  and cashback website based in India, is now in the acceleration mode as it announced 
$10 million in Series B funding today. The round was led by Korea Investment Partners, with participation from returning investor Kalaari Capital.
The company which was launched in 2013, primarily provides discounts through coupons and cashback on a variety of categories like electronics, apparel, home furnishings, beauty products, mobile recharge, and many other categories. It is headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana.
CashKaro.com has a tie-up with over 800 retailers to provide coupons and cashback. Some popular names include Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm. Five years back the company has raised a $3.8 million Series A funding. The latest round brings the company’s total funding so far to $15 million.

Over the past five years, the company has introduced new products, including a price comparison service, and EarnKaro, a social commerce cashback app that launched about a year and a half back.

Part of the Series B will be used to expand EarnKaro, which has about one million registered users. It allows social commerce sellers or people who use social media platforms and messaging apps like WhatsApp to sell items, make extra cash by creating affiliate links to major online shopping sites like Flipkart and Amazon.

The launch of EarnKaro also allowed CashKaro to expand its reach into smaller cities and rural areas, where shoppers rely more on local knowledge and trust instead of online-based information.

The husband-wife duo team of  Swati and Rohan Bhargava are the founding members. The seven years old startup claims about five million users and has partnerships with more than 1,500 shopping sites which include giants such as  Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and Ajio.

The company operates on the simple logic of charging brands a commission for transactions made through CashKaro links. The commissions are also how CashKaro is able to give cashback to shoppers, which can eighter be deposited into their bank accounts or redeemed as gift vouchers for Flipkart and Amazon. The company is currently handling more than a million transactions per month.

In a country obsessed with discounts and coupons, CashKaro has a huge kitty of both customers and rivals which include CouponDunia, GrabOn, and GoPaisa.

“We are the only VC-funded cashback site in India. While capital itself is not the differentiator, it is what we have been able to do with that capital which sets us apart,” Bhargava commented, adding that CashKaro’s cashback rates are among the highest in the market.

“Given that we now drive close to a half a billion dollars in GMV through CashKaro and EarnKaro to our partner sites, we are able to get higher commission rates from partner sites, which in turn helps us pass the most benefit to our members.”

The coronavirus pandemic saw new and unexpected challenges to the e-commerce industry as worldwide the online delivery model surged by leaps and bounds. The Indian scenario was further complicated  as lockdowns and containment zones posed serious delivery challenges as certain non- essential items were not allowed until May

“COVID-19 caught us by surprise and Indian e-commerce was neither prepared to handle the surge in demand, nor did we expect so many supply-side and delivery issues,” said Bhargava. “Given CashKaro works with all e-commerce sites, we saw these trends as well.” Since June, however, sales have started to recover and are seeing growth as people are practicing safe distancing and online shopping is on the upswing.

“Our business is growing month on month and, in fact, the pandemic spurred our expansion into new digital categories, like education, gaming, and online video streaming, which have seen exponential growth,” Bhargava added.  Adding to the sales kitty are electronics items, beauty and healthcare products, and kitchen essentials.

The new round of capital will be used for CashKaro’s goal of doubling its registered member base over the next 12 months from the current 5 million. Bhargava commented.

The company will cashback offers into categories like credit cards and education, and launch new marketing campaigns focused around events like upcoming festivals and the Indian Premier League season, which starts this weekend.

The company is also “chasing aggressive growth for EarnKaro and reaching out to more influencers, resellers, housewives, and students who are our primary target market for this product,” Swati Bhargava added.

Finally, part of the Series B will be used for hiring, including leadership positions.

The VC investor, Korea Investment Partners, is one of the largest South Korean venture capital firms. In a statement, managing partner Hudson Kyung-sik Ho said, “We believe this is a highly scalable opportunity and both Swati and Rohan have set it on a truly exciting growth trajectory. CashKaro and EarnKaro together have shown exceptional unit metrics and we are really excited to be a part of India’s affiliate story.”

What is OmniChannel Commerce? Meanings, Uses and Trends

Omnichannel Commerce
Omnichannel Commerce

Omnichannel commerce means providing the customers with each and every method through which they can purchase your products. Whether the customers are shopping from a mobile device, a laptop or even a personal computer they should be able to buy your products without any interference.

This type of commerce gives the customers proper satisfaction while they are purchasing something from the e-commerce platform. The customers will be able to enjoy the flexibility of different types of procedures through which they can buy the products from your website.

Read Also: Omnichannel E-commerce Platforms: A Comparative List

They can place the order using their personal computer. They can check the status of their order using their mobile phone. The customer has full flexibility of using whatever device that he or she wants to purchase from your E-Commerce platform. 

Omnichannel Commerce: Everything you need to know

Omnichannel Commerce
Omnichannel Commerce

If you want to provide a better user experience and you should definitely indulge in omnichannel commerce. People love the flexibility that they get using different types of platforms on your e-commerce website. There are a ton of benefits that will be provided to you if you indulge yourself in omnichannel commerce. We have accumulated for you the few benefits here:

Help Your Business To Improve The User Experience

The Omnichannel commerce will help your business to improve the user experience that it is providing to the customers through its E-Commerce platform. People will be able to access your platform through the different types of devices that they have in their hands.

Must Read: Unified Commerce Vs Omnichannel Systems

Your website will be more easily accessible even to your own officials also. Your retailers will also be able to answer the queries of the customers very easily and through the different types of devices available to them at any given point of time. The customers will be able to conduct their research about the product through the different types of communication channels. 

Improved Sales And Noting The Preferences

Your sales will definitely go up if you are using Omnichannel commerce because the people will be able to shop from different devices at any given point of time. They will not have to wait until they open your website from their personal computer.

Omnichannel commerce definitely provides a more personalized customer experience. You can track the preferences of your customers if you are using Omnichannel commerce. When you are able to track the preferences of your customers you will be able to provide the products according to the latest search history.

Search history plays a very important role in deciding the preferences of the customers. You will be able to look through the things that your customers are searching on your platform and with that you will be able to know the preferences very easily. 

Proper Data Analysis And Report

Because there will be multiple communication channels your business will be able to extract the information more quickly and more efficiently.

As an E-Commerce company, it is very important to understand the data which is given to you by the communication channel so that you can prepare the products as per the preference and the search history of your customers.

You have to make proper Data Analytics reports so that you can understand the pattern of your customers. There will be several communication channels available and this will help you in the long run. Proper data analysis is the key to make Omnichannel commerce successful. 

More Flexibility For The Users And Customers

Whenever we develop any E-Commerce platform the main aim is to provide customer satisfaction. If anyone is starting a retailing business one of the main concerns will be to provide 100% customer satisfaction so that each and every customer returns back to the same store to buy their stuff.

Omnichannel commerce definitely provides 100% customer satisfaction because there is huge flexibility of using multiple platforms to shop. Sometimes people are not able to use their personal computers so they can use their mobile phones. If people are not even able to use your mobile phones they can directly visit the shop. This flexibility helps the consumer to always rely on that particular e-commerce store. 

Higher Profits Possibility To The Retailers

Omnichannel commerce is not only favorable for the customers but it is also highly favorable to the retailers. The retailers can gain a huge profit margin by using these commerce lineups. Omnichannel commerce offers a huge profit margin to the retailers because the retailers are not bound to provide discounts on their products.

Their products will be selling out due to the multiple channels which are available for retail. Many times, retailers are bound to make discounts so that they can sell out all of the pieces but in Omnichannel commerce the pieces of the retailers are 90% predicted to sell out very quickly. 

Personalizing Omnichannel Commerce

There are certain ways through which the business maker must personalize the Omnichannel commerce so that it can derive the most profit which is possible in a business. We have given below some of the ways through which you can personalize your business and commerce as per your needs. 

Personalized Emails

One of the main things that you can do to provide 100% user experience to your customers is to provide them personalized emails. These personalized emails will help them to understand your products better so they will be able to shop from your platform very easily.

In these personalized emails, you have to send the catalog of the products that you think a particular customer is searching on your platform.

These emails can also be sent to the customer when a discount sale is going on on your platform. Make sure that you are sending the emails as per the search history of the customer. 

The main aim of personalized emails is to provide the products to the customers as per their preference. These emails will also create greater revenue. Emails are also easy to implement.

You just have to develop emails with proper product recommendations tailored as per the preference of each customer. You can also go for web personalization. Whenever a customer will visit your website you just have to showcase the products as per the search history of that particular customer. 

Engaging Platform

After you have personalized your website according to the preference of your customers you will have to provide content. You must develop the content which will help you to boost your revenues and sales. You can hire professionals who will curate your website according to the trendy blogs, videos, and offers.

You must provide information on your website which will give you leads on your product. Whenever you are providing engaging content on your platform people will stay on your platform longer and this will help you to boost your sales. You can provide content according to the trends, seasons, and locations.

If you want to develop an engaging platform then you can also provide videos related to your products. You can hire fashion designers and ask them to prepare videos related to your products or styling your products.

There are a ton of different ways through which you can make your platform engaging. In today’s world where technology is increasing forever, it is very easy to create an engaging platform in just a few bucks. 

Data And Analytics

When you are developing an E-Commerce platform it is very important to keep in mind the analytics of your page. The analytics and data of your page will help you to identify the problems.

If you want to take a deep look into the matters of your e-commerce platform then you can go for the analytics and understand the problems more clearly.

The main advantages of taking a look at your data and analytics page are the information that you will get about your customer patterns. Through these pages, you will be clearly understanding the patterns that your customers are following. 

Mobile Phone Platform

When setting up Omnichannel commerce it is very important to set a proper mobile personalization website for the customers to follow up on their mobile phones. It is not possible for everyone to open a laptop and to be on your website.

You have to provide a proper mobile application for your E-Commerce platform so that it can reach more types of masses. Customize your mobile application in such a way that it offers recommendation schemes to the customers and it is as efficient as your PC website.

Creating a mobile application can be a headache but once you have got hold of the basic features that you are going to provide in your mobile application it can be very easy.

In today’s world where everyone is using the mobile phone for every basic thing, it is really important to create a customised mobile website for your platform. 

Personalizing Your Store

Now that you have created a brilliant mobile application and a more efficient web application you have to make sure that your store is also capable of holding the customers. Developing your store is as important as developing your website in omnichannel commerce.

Having an omnichannel commerce business means that you are providing all of the types of ways through which your customers can shop from your products. You must have a pretty in-store experience for all of the customers so that they can stay longer and longer in your store and buy the things that they like the most. 

You can integrate digital displays in your stores. You just have to make your store technologically advanced so that it also looks pleasing to the customers. Make sure that the interior of the stores is also quite pretty to look at. Provide your best products on display.

Hire experienced sales managers and sales personnel. Make sure that you are introducing the latest designs on all of your retailing channels. One of the most important rules to follow in your store is to communicate with the customers and build the trust of the customers. When you have successfully built the trust of the customer it is very easy to sell them anything. 

Proper Customer Care And User Satisfaction

Your business can never achieve success unless and until you are providing a hundred percent user satisfaction. Providing customer satisfaction is the most simple role which is present in doing any business.

Once you have stepped your foot in the retailing world it is very important to provide customer satisfaction and products as per the needs of the customers. Your business must have a proper customer care executive always sitting on the helpline number of your business. Providing a helpline number to the customers is a must. 

Whenever you are selling any product through any retailing chain you must make sure that you are providing a helpline number so that your customers can record all of his or her queries on that number. That number must be always working.

A customer will only return to your store if you have provided him or her with the best service. You can also hire an online customer care executive. You can develop an email just to target the users who are facing problems related to the products. 

When you will provide quality products to your customers you will definitely get success. Unless and until you provide your best in the business you can never succeed. Omnichannel commerce is a very wide thing to explore.

There are many aspects present in omnichannel retailing. The customers are forever changing their behavior towards this type of commerce. There was a sudden increase in online shopping because of the pandemic which was going on. This change is not permanent.

When the pandemic will be over, there are chances that the customers will shift to shopping physically. Although, any assumption made cannot be fully true. People are always experimenting with their styles and with their way of shopping.

One time they can be shopping from the E-Commerce platform and the other time they will be seen going out of their houses. All of the patterns depend upon the current situation of the customers. 

Amazon’s online shopping booms, to hire 100,000 staff workers

Amazon employees
Amazon employees

Amazon.com, Inc, the US multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington is all set to hire an additional staff of 100,000 people amidst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic which has seen a record surge in its online sales.

The company said on Monday that the new hires will help pack, ship, or sort orders, working in part-time and full-time roles.  It further clarified that these jobs are not related to their typical holiday hiring.

The biggest US online retail giant saw a  record profit and revenue between April and June as online sales gained momentum and was further accelerated when people surged to stock groceries and supplies during the lockdown.

The company already had to hire 175,000 people earlier this year to keep up with the rush of orders, and announced further last week that it had 33,000 corporate and tech jobs it needed to fill. Amazon said that it needs the people at the 100 new warehouses, package sorting centers, and other facilities scheduled to open this month.

Alicia Boler Davis, who oversees Amazon’s warehouses, said the company is offering $1,000 sign-on bonuses in some cities where it is tough to find good staff, such as Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Louisville, and  Kentucky. The starting pay at Amazon is $15 an hour.

Much of the action is anticipated at Amazon’s warehouses’ in the coming holiday season. Amazon has ambitious plans to hold its busiest shopping days, Prime Day, in the fall this year after postponing it from July due to the  COVID 19 pandemic. Last year, the company hired 200,000 ahead of the holiday season.

Amazon will be closely watching whether it needs to hire more workers for the holidays, but doesn’t have anything to announce yet, Boler Davis added.

As the economy is slowly picking up and markets opening, another company is already preparing for the spike in orders: UPS said last week that it plans to hire additional  100,000 people for the delivery of packages during the upcoming holiday season.

Amazon accused of price jacking of essentials during Coronavirus times

Amazon
Amazon

A watchdog group accused Amazon of price gouging for essential goods sold to direct consumers during the COVID 19 pandemic. The company however is denial mode and has passed the blame of price- hike on third-party merchants.

The world’s largest online retailer and a prominent global cloud services provider is accused of hiking prices for 10 basic products — from cornstarch and flour to high in demand hand sanitizer and face masks — as much as 1,010 percent from February to mid-August, according to a report from Public Citizen which is a left-front consumer right group.

The group has accused that all of the products reviewed were listed as “sold by Amazon” and not sold by third-party vendors which contradicted the claims of Amazon that outside vendors were cashing on the tough times when consumers panicked and were storing essentials in fear of an extended lockdown globally.

“It is troubling that so much effort was put into blaming third-party sellers, but so little effort was made to stop the price increases — including on the products sold by Amazon directly,” Public Citizen said in its report dated Wednesday.

The group identified price hikes ranging from 48 percent to more than 1,000 percent for products listed as “sold by Amazon.” The biggest markup was for a 6.5-ounce package of cornstarch, which Amazon was napped selling for $8.99 while other retailers charge just 89 cents, the report emphasized.

The report further went on to say that a  pack of 50 disposable face masks saw an unprecedented hike of 1000 percent — which are considered important for controlling the spread of the coronavirus — that was listed for $39.99. on the website.

The product was for $4 before the pandemic, though it attributed that estimate to a February article in Wired that referenced prices for 100 masks

Other inflations included a 528 percent spike for eight rolls of toilet paper, which went for $36.39 compared to other retailers’ prices of $6.89; and a 470 percent jump for antibacterial soap from $1.49 to $7.

Amazon meanwhile responded by saying that the Public Citizen sampled just a tiny number of the hundreds of millions of products the company monitors. The company said it fixed the problems as soon as they were brought to its attention.

Damage control was immediately was on the way when Amazon’s spokesperson commented, “As we have said, there is no place for price gouging on Amazon and that includes products offered directly by Amazon. Our systems are designed to meet or beat the best available price amongst our competitors and if we see an error, we work quickly to fix it.”

Amazon has previously put the blame on a  virus-related price-gouging on “bad actors.”  It further commented that it has suspended more than 10,000 selling accounts for attempted price-gouging and referred the worst offenders to law enforcement authorities.

Citigroup wins rights for offering online furniture seller Wayfair new credit cards, edges out rival Alliance Data Systems

Citigroup, the  US multinational investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York, won the rights to offer a pair of new credit cards with online furniture seller  Wayfair, beating its rival Alliance Data Systems as informed by CNBC.

The deal comes amidst tough game-changing times as the COVID-19 pandemic is redefining working culture across the globe and people are shifting gears towards work- from- home norms.

Wayfair,  the US e-commerce company that sells furniture and home-goods, say an 84 percent jump in its second-quarter sales and turned a profit for the first time since going public in 2014. The stock is on a roll and has seen a steep growth of 192% this year.

The new offering includes a store card that works only at Wayfair and its affiliated brands, and a co-branded card that works anywhere Mastercard is accepted, as reported by Citigroup. Co-branding is a unique way of offering not only good deals but also giving the banks quick access to consumer spending at popular retailers. In this particular arrangement, they both offer 5% in rewards on eligible Wayfair purchases and have a variable APR of 26.99%.

Last year Goldman Sachs used this methodology with the privy access to offer the Apple Card which helped it make inroads into its new consumer finance business.

Citigroup, which took control of the Costco card from AmEx in 2016, similarly displaced Columbus, Ohio-based Alliance Data, a major provider of private-label cards that had previously offered a Wayfair card, according to reliable sources.

Online business has grown by leaps and bounds in the last four months due to social distancing and lockdowns worldwide and the users of  Citigroup retail cards jumped almost 30% this year versus 2019,  commented  Citigroup spokeswoman Jennifer Bombardier.

The  head of Citigroup’s retail services business Craig Vallorano, added, “As retail continues to move online, we are thrilled to partner with Wayfair to provide customers with seamless, convenient financing.”

Adding the icing on the cake is the fact that this co-branded card also earns 3% at grocery stores, 2% on online purchases, and 1% on all other transactions.  Furthermore, customers can use the cards for no-interest financing if paid in full up for to 24 months on qualifying purchases or for major purchase plans, which come with a 9.99% APR for up to 60 months.

Interview: Nora Inveiss from Printful gives insights on communicating with customers in times of COVID

Businesses and Brands have been trying to communicate with customers to recover from the COVID fiasco. Team eCommerce Next interviewed Nora Inveiss, Marketing Project Manager, Printful to get more insights. Following is our interview with her:

COVID has affected the way consumers are buying – what ways have you noticed changes?

Covid-19, similarly to the last financial crisis, has increased people’s interest in starting an online business. As people face economic uncertainty, they’re looking at other ways to supplement their income. So the number of new stores launched with Printful doubled.

To add to that, our orders drastically increased. Since shopping at brick-and-mortar stores is risky during a pandemic, more people are turning to online shopping. We saw levels of spending that were similar to what we usually see during Black Friday Cyber Monday. We usually hire additional staff and prepare for BFCM months in advance, so this was an unexpected spike.

Besides that, we also noticed increased popularity in products like neck gaiters and face masks. We launched those specifically to help slow the spread of the pandemic, and both products quickly became bestsellers.

Should you be overcommunicating with your customers?

During any time of crisis or uncertainty, it’s better to over-communicate rather than under-communicate. For starters, here are three things you can do:

  1. Include a disclaimer on your store so information is visible to your customers.
  2. Email customers who are waiting for their orders. Let them know when they can expect to receive their orders and whether there are any delays.
  3. Share updates on your social media channels.

What should you be communicating with your customers?

You should be setting expectations. Let customers know whether you’re still accepting orders and whether anything is different in the order process. Will shipping or fulfillment take longer than usual? If so, how much longer? Even if everything is OK, let your customers know about that too because they’ll be wondering.

Everything you communicate should have value to your customers. Think of what they might be concerned with right now, and what info they need to feel secure in their purchase.

Where should you communicate with your customers? Via email, social media, storefront?

You should be communicating in all of your channels and wherever customers expect to hear from you.

You should definitely communicate on your storefront so customers can easily access information throughout their buyer journey. Publish a banner on your home page, update your FAQ section, and add info on product pages.

Social media and email are both key channels. Just remember to make it relevant. What do customers need to know right now about your store and your policies?

Things change every day — how can you adapt and stay current?

Stay informed; follow the news and recommendations from the WHO and CDC. You should also follow updates from any suppliers or partners that you work with to stay on top of any changes that might affect your business. Once you know what’s going on, you can adapt as you need, whether that’s changing your shipping estimates or canceling promos of a product that’s in the backlog.

At Printful, we created a dedicated FAQ page about Covid-19 that we regularly updated with new info as the situation changed. We proactively linked to that page in our email campaigns, social media profiles, and throughout the Printful site.

Create a list of sources and people to check in with, and plan it in every other day, or at a frequency that works for your business. Find an organic way to make it part of your routine so you don’t have to think about it all the time. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by everything that’s going on, so make time to take care of yourself and take breaks.

Should you be promoting other content besides COVID?

That depends on your audience and your brand. Ultimately you need to decide what makes sense for your business.

If you do promote other content, then do it with empathy. Your customers may be struggling during this pandemic and period of uncertainty. Now, for example, isn’t a good time to promote music festival attire while social distancing is encouraged.

At Printful, we were cautious with our content. We focused a lot on Covid-19 updates and published content to help our customers navigate the times, like blog posts and videos. When we did promote other content, we took extra care to make sure the messaging was appropriate.

One thing we did was host our first online conference, Printful Threads. Our speakers did talk about Covid-19, but the focus of the conference was on how to get started in e-commerce.

So think of your strengths and what you can talk about right now, whether it’s promoting home goods or sharing self-care tips with your audience.

Consider also what else is going on besides the Covid-19 pandemic. In the US, we’re seeing the Black Lives Matter movement gain momentum and ongoing protests against police brutality and systemic racism. On top of that, we have a polarizing election coming up and the climate crisis constantly looming over us.

Conversations happening aren’t just about Covid-19. Where does your brand fit in? Can you get involved in a meaningful way?

What are some ways to stand out without seeming insensitive during COVID?

Consider what is going on in the world, with Covid-19 and beyond, and consider what’s important to your audience. What do they expect to hear from you right now?

My main advice is to remember that your brand doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Think of how your campaigns or promos fit in with the broader conversation. And approach all of your communication with empathy and awareness.

About Nora

Nora has been part of the Printful team since 2015. As a marketing project manager, she uses her writing skills to help customers succeed in ecommerce and motivates her team to do the same.

About Printful

Printful LogoPrintful is one of the largest custom on-demand printing and warehousing companies in the world. It has fulfilled 20 million items since its launch in 2013. Printful fulfills and ships products like clothing, accessories, and home & living items for online businesses.

Printful currently employs 1000+ people across six locations in California, North Carolina, Latvia, Spain, and Mexico, and partners with fulfillment centers in Australia.

Checkout: Printful Review 2020: Ultimate Print on Demand

1...616263...86Page 62 of 86

ABOUT US

At eCommerce Next, we stand true to our name – informing you what’s next in the game. As the e-commerce domain continues to expand, this dynamic industry moves leaps-and-bounds in all directions. It can get disorienting to keep a track of the gazillion things that happen in the online market every day. This is where we step in. From the latest happenings to the upcoming trends, our eyes and ears stay fixated on the global e-commerce market. Our goal is not just limited to reporting the news, but also informing and educating our audience.

Contact us: info@ecommercenext.org

FOLLOW US