“We’re forecasting that ecommerce spending this year will be somewhere between $850 billion and $930 billion,” says John Copeland, Vice President of Marketing Science and Customer Insights at Adobe. This would be a 14 percent increase over last year. That would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.”
John Copeland of Adobe, predicts that ecommerce spending could be $930 billion, or just under $1 trillion, in 2021:
COVID was a catalyst to the ecommerce channel last year. What we saw when you look at the full calendar year of 2020 was $813 billion dollars in ecommerce spending, 42 percent growth over 2019. That’s like combining two years’ worth of growth into a single year. Consumers have really embraced the online channel to meet their needs during these challenging times.
We’re all kind of wondering what (the vaccine rollout) is going to do in terms of ecommerce. We’re forecasting this year somewhere between $850 billion, only a 5 percent over last year, and up to $930 billion, which would be a 14 percent increase over last year. The 5 percent increase would be if everybody gets vaccinated and rushes out and we see kind of a slowdown. The $930 billion, 14 percent increase, would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.
Buy Now Pay Later Up 215 Percent Over Last Year
Buy Now Pay Later is very much good for retailers. In fact, what we’ve seen in February this year relative to February 2020, which is kind of on the cusp of the pandemic, is a 215 percent increase year over year in buy now pay later orders. In terms of retailers, it comes along with larger average order values. What we’re seeing is 18 percent larger orders when customers are using that service. Unlike layaway, with buy now pay later you actually get the goods upfront, you don’t have to wait until the payment’s done.
Another trend is Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store, also known as BOPUS. In February of this year, we’re already seeing it growing 67 percent year on year. It’s always been huge and growing during the holiday season but now people are clearly working it in as part of their fulfillment options. Picking up in the store gives consumers the ability to schedule it according to their availability and knowing that stock will be there for them when they want to pick it up.
Ecommerce Nearing $1 Trillion, Says John Copeland of Adobe
Salesforce and FedEx are partnering to deliver an end-to-end e-commerce and shipping solution.
The partnership between the two companies will see the integration of Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Salesforce Order Management with features from FedEx and its e-commerce subsidiary, ShopRunner. The combination of platforms and services should help e-commerce shops manage the entire process, from promotion to purchase to shipping.
“Brands and merchants have to move quicker than ever to meet their customers’ expectations,” said Claude Russ, COO of FedEx Dataworks and CEO of ShopRunner. “With the combined power of Salesforce and FedEx, we will provide them the speed, control and economics they need to help them exceed those expectations. From optimizing their inventory management and fulfillment operations, to faster delivery and attracting new buyers, together we’re helping change the game so brands and merchants can have greater control over the links of their supply chain and increase their competitiveness.”
“We are in a world of commerce anytime and anywhere,” said Lidiane Jones, EVP & GM, Salesforce Commerce Cloud. “Commerce Cloud and Order Management let companies sell wherever their customers shop and fulfill on any channel. Pairing that with FedEx’s logistics capabilities lets us deliver an even faster, easier, and cost-efficient experience for our customers. Now, retailers can better meet shoppers’ two-day shipping expectations without accumulating extensive costs, or sacrificing their time or brand.”
The partnership is a multi-year agreement, with US customers set to see the first results of the partnership in Spring 2022.
Amazon sellers are encouraging users to delete negative reviews, even offering refunds above and beyond the sale price in exchange.
Amazon has long-struggled with fake reviews, with an entire industrysprouting up to game the system. The problem has even received the attention of regulators, with Britain’s Competition and Market Authority investigating whether the company is doing enough to combat the issue.
According to The Wall Street Journal, via Business Insider, some resellers on the platform are contacting individuals who have left negative reviews to offer refunds, in some cases more than double the initial price, in exchange for removing the negative reviews. In some cases, resellers have repeatedly contacted individuals until they get a response.
Amazon’s policy prohibits sellers from contacting buyers outside of the company’s own platform, but that hasn’t stopped sellers from doing just that. The company has reiterated these types of interactions shouldn’t occur, and that it takes action against those responsible.
“Amazon provides a great deal of help content, proactive coaching, warnings and other assistance to sellers to ensure they remain compliant with our clearly stated policies,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Journal. “We have clear policies for both reviewers and selling partners that prohibit abuse of our community features, and we suspend, ban and take legal action against those who violate these policies.”
In the meantime, as The Journal points out, customers leaving a review should be careful not to leave personal details in their reviews, thereby making it more difficult for sellers to contact them outside of Amazon’s system.
GoDaddy online shops will now be able to integrate their products and inventory across Google.
GoDaddy is a popular web hosting option used by many small and medium-sized businesses. Google has been teaming up with e-commerce platforms in an effort to better integrate their inventory and products across the search giant’s properties.
“Starting today, we welcome GoDaddy online store customers to more easily integrate their product inventory across Google at no additional cost,” writes Matt Madrigal, VP/GM of Merchant Shopping. “This means that GoDaddy merchants can now get discovered across Search, Shopping, Image Search and YouTube in just a few clicks. With this integration, GoDaddy merchants can upload their products to Google, create free listings and ad campaigns and review performance metrics — all without leaving GoDaddy’s Online Store.”
The move is good news for small shops, and should help them gain even more visibility. Especially as small companies have increasingly turned to e-commerce to survive the pandemic, the arrangement should help them make the transition even more successful.
A new report shows just how widespread the impacts from COVID have been as consumers look toward a post-COVID world.
Brooks Bell conducted a survey of 700 consumers on a variety of topics, and the results show just how much the pandemic has altered consumer views and habits. The “New Normals in Retail, Travel and Financial Services: Consumer Sentiment Beyond 2020” report offers a number of insights businesses should pay attention to.
The report is good news for brick and mortar stores, with 76% of respondents planning to buy in-store post-COVID restrictions. At the same time, curbside pickup is here to stay, with 34% planning to continue using the service.
Travel is also looking to rebound, with 70% of Americans eager to travel. Millennials, in particular, are the most eager to do so. Interesting, 20% said safety will be a travel consideration indefinitely, while the single biggest consideration remains price.
Banking is another industry set to experience a revival, with in-person banking set to almost double from pre-pandemic levels. In-person banking doesn’t equate to face-to-face banking, however, as a preference for interacting with a human teller dropped 8 points to 38%. Even more telling, online communication in banking was the top choice among 56-74 and the over-74 age groups, dispelling the myth that older consumers are opposed to online banking.
The full report is well-worth a read and can be found here.
Shopify is dropping its revenue cut for developers that earn less than $1 million annually, in a move that rivals other tech platforms.
Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms, powering some $120 billion in Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) in 2020. Until now, the company took a 20% revenue commission, but the company is waiving that for smaller developers.
Developers who build for the Shopify App Store will now pay 0% revenue share for the first $1M they earn annually on the platform starting on August 1. That’s down from 20%. The $1M benchmark resets annually.
The same 0% revenue share model will also be available to Theme Store developers.
The announcement follows similar moves by Google, Apple and Amazon as app ecosystems are increasingly under scrutiny by regulators. Whatever the motivation, the move will certainly help small developers.
Britain’s Competition and Market Authority is investigating whether Amazon and Google are doing enough to combat fake reviews.
Fake reviews have become an increasing problem for online platforms and shoppers alike. As online shopping has displaced brick and mortar stores, users rely on reviews more than ever. Not surprisingly, an entire industry has grown up around providing fake reviews to dupe customers into purchasing products they otherwise may not have.
The Competition and Market Authority is investing Amazon and Google to see if they’re doing enough to protect customers by combatting fake reviews, according to The Washington Post.
Both companies have said they will continue to work with the CMA and its inquiries.
“Our digital performance was up 50 percent,” says Target CEO Brian Cornell. “As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. Same-day fulfillment services now represent over half of our digital channel.”
Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, discusses their massive Q1 results in an interview on CNBC:
Digital Performance Up 50 Percent
We’ve had a string of really solid results going back to 2017 but this quarter may be one of the highlights. Our team executed throughout the quarter. We had a great performance from our store teams with a store comp of 18%. Our digital performance was up 50%. It was really a team effort. We had great supply chain support with our merchants and marketers all coming together to support the results which speak for themselves.
We are benefitting from investments we’ve been making for years now. Our investment in our store experience, our curated Home Brand and national brand mix, and then the fulfillment services that we offer. That combined with the investment in our team, I think we are seeing continued strength. We feel really good sitting here right now about our outlook, not just for the second quarter but for the full year.
We’ve Connected With The Consumer
As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. They really connect with our curation of Great Home Brand, national brands, and the service our team provides each and every day.
We are feeling very confident about our position today. I look at the proof point from Q1, we picked up another billion dollars in market share on top of the $9 billion of share last year. That’s just a sign that we’ve connected with the consumer, we’re building relevance, and we’re providing what they need and what they want throughout the year.
Newness Is A Huge Trend In Our Business
When you see the combination of stores comping up at 18%, which to me is just a highlight number, and categories like apparel growing again by over 60%, that combination of store traffic and category mix really benefited us throughout the quarter. We are seeing a resilient consumer. They’re clearly shopping our stores and when they’re there they are attracted to anything that’s new.
Newness has certainly been a trend throughout our business in the first quarter and I think that’s going to continue. That great combination of store traffic and store comps and the continued movement of same-day fulfillment services which now represent over half of our digital channel. We really like that transaction. It looks and feels more like a store transaction which from a profitability standpoint certainly is beneficial for us.
Target CEO Brian Cornell Says Digital Performance Up 50%
Amazon has detailed its efforts to fight counterfeit products, including the destruction of more than 2 million counterfeits.
Few companies have enjoyed as much success as Amazon during the pandemic. The company became a lifeline for many who were under lockdown and quarantine, and significantly expanded its workforce to keep up.
A long-term problem Amazon has faced, however, has been companies and individuals trying to sell counterfeit goods on the site. As Amazon has become a force to be reckoned with in the retail market, it is also stepping up its efforts to combat counterfeit products and attract brands that have been reluctant to sell on the site.
In its first Brand Protection Report, Amazon said fewer than 0.01% of products sold received a counterfeit complaint. That low number was, in part, the result of the company’s aggressive fight against the problem.
We seized and destroyed more than 2 million products sent to our fulfillment centers and that we detected as counterfeit before being sent to a customer.
The company also stepped up its efforts to prevent bad actors from even gaining a foothold in the store.
Our verification processes stopped over 6 million attempts to create a selling account before they were able to publish a single listing for sale. This is a significant increase from the 2.5 million attempts we stopped in 2019, and it was driven by increased bad actor attempts to get into our store that we successfully thwarted.
Amazon’s transparency about its efforts may help sway companies and brands that have been reluctant to embrace the e-commerce giant.
Amazon has announced it is launching a lawsuit to tackle text scams that purport to be from the e-commerce giant.
Countless individuals have received text messages claiming to be from Amazon, many of them requesting feedback in an online survey. Unfortunately, many of these messages are part of an illegal advertising scheme. The text messages promise rewards or gifts, but direct people to sites where they must purchase products that have no affiliation with Amazon.
The company is taking the fight to the scammers, filling a federal lawsuit in the Western District of Washington against a number of yet-to-be-named participants. Amazon sees the lawsuit as a way of expanding its fraud-fighting efforts, holding the accountable parties responsible.
“Amazon works hard to build a great, trusted experience for our customers and sellers,” said Kathy Sheehan, VP, Business Conduct & Ethics, Amazon. “These bad actors are misusing our brand to deceive the public and we will hold them accountable. We also want to remind consumers to be vigilant and learn how to recognize the signs of a scam so they are protected, no matter where they shop.”
The company points to its history of successfully litigating these type of suits, having filed five previous lawsuits, winning multiple injunctions and forced seven parties to settle for more than $1.5 million in damages.
“We are arming the rebels… the entrepreneurs, the small business owners, the independent brands, and the rebels are winning,” says Shopify President Harley Finkelstein. “It feels like the retail world that would have existed in 2030 was pulled back to 2020. We have seen this massive catalyst to an acceleration in digitalization in commerce and retail. We are writing the future of commerce and entrepreneurs are really the heroes of the Shopify story.”
Shopify President Harley Finkelstein says the rebels―the entrepreneurs and the small business owners―are the heroes of the Shopify story… and the rebels are winning:
We Are Arming The Rebels
There’s a lot to be optimistic about even in the second half of 2021. It feels like the retail world that would have existed in 2030 was pulled back to 2020. We certainly have seen this massive catalyst to an acceleration in digitalization in commerce and retail. But actually, we are writing the future of commerce and entrepreneurs are really the heroes of the Shopify story. We are arming the rebels… the entrepreneurs, the small business owners, the independent brands, and the rebels are winning.
Consumers have been voting with their wallets for the last ten months or so to buy from independent brands wherever possible. In 2020, 47 million consumers purchased from a Shopify merchant. That’s up 52 from 2019. Our merchant’s performance helped expand Shopify’s lead on an aggregated basis to be the second-largest e-commerce retailer in the U.S. Shopify is now about nine percent of all US ecom. If you think about it, Shopify is a proxy for independent retail and for direct-to-consumer retail.
Shop Pay Launches Accelerated Checkout
We only succeed when our merchants do. This has led to us having more than 1.7 million merchants on Shopify. This includes people from first-time entrepreneurs making their first sale every 28 seconds to the likes of O’Neill and Hallmark and Herman Miller and Purina. Diageo, who also just launched in Shopify and in Q4 alone revenue nearly doubled year over year to $978 million. There’s a lot to be optimistic about. Actually, the future of retail and commerce we think is going to look a lot more like these independent brands than these sort of department stores that existed in the past.
Shop Pay is our accelerated checkout. We just announced it last week. We know that it not only helps merchants get more sales, it helps buyers convert better and much faster. Now we think that providing it to the Instagram and Facebook platforms means that our merchants can not only access new customers on those platforms, and frankly anywhere where customers are, but now can transact in a more efficient way. Shopify is becoming far more than an e-commerce provider.
Future of Retail Is Wherever Consumers Are
We are trying to build the world’s first retail operating system, which makes it as easy as possible and where the cost of failure is as low as possible, so more people can participate in entrepreneurship. We think the future retail is not online or offline or anywhere, in particular, it’s wherever consumers are. That’s what we’re trying to build. Seeing Shop Pay move into Facebook and Instagram is a really great way to demonstrate where the future of retail is happening.
We are trying to get to a point where we completely democratize entrepreneurship. We use a 100-year perspective and we want to build a 100-year company. We’re about 15 years into our journey right now and we have 85 years left to go. In the long run, we’re happy where Shopify is but frankly, on the topic of more participation in the equity markets, we think that is also entrepreneurial and we think that’s also democratizing.
During yesterday’s earnings call Disney CEO Bob Chapek said it has accelerated the company’s pivot towards a DTC-first business model. “Our recent strategic reorganization has enabled us to accelerate the company’s pivot, towards a DTC-first business model and further grow our streaming services,” says Chapek. “Disney+ has exceeded even our highest expectations, in just over a year since its launch with 94.9 million subscribers. ESPN+ and Hulu have also performed well, with 12.1 million and 39.4 million subscriptions, respectively.”
Chapek attributes the company’s massive streaming growth to its huge collection of brands. “The wealth of IP from our unrivaled collection of brands and franchises provides us with an incredible breadth and depth of storylines and characters to mine for Disney+ and our other streaming services,” says Chapek. “We have the ability to interconnect these storylines and characters in unprecedented ways as we saw with The Mandalorian and WandaVision tying into the broader Star Wars and Marvel franchises. We’re excited to continue exploring the endless possibilities that this unique ecosystem provides.”
DTC Results Improved By $650 Million
“We believe that we’ve got a great price-value relationship,” says Chapek. “I think the best insulation we’ve got (to lower churn) is to keep the price-value relationship very high and there’s no better way to do it than powerhouse franchises cranking out regular new releases on a monthly basis.”
Disney’s direct-to-consumer results have improved by nearly $650 million versus the prior year. “Last quarter, we guided to direct-to-consumer operating income declining by $100 million versus the prior year under our former segment structure,” says Disney CFO Christine McCarthy. “Our reported results are $750 million higher than that guidance.”
Lower Disney Losses Attributed To Disney+
Disney attributes their lower losses to the growth of the Disney+ streaming service. “A lower loss in the first quarter compared to the prior year was driven by subscriber growth partially offset by higher costs due to the launch and expansion of Disney+. With 94.9 million paid subscribers at the end of Q1, Disney+’s global net additions were 21.2 million versus Q4.”
“Disney+ Hotstar subscriber additions continued their strong growth trend with Disney+ Hotstar subscribers making up approximately 30% of our global subscriber base,” said McCarthy. “We also saw strong additions to our subscriber base from our November launch in Latin America.”
Disney Happy With Level Of Churn
Disney is also very happy with its level of churn especially as it relates to subscribers who came into the Disney+ service via their Verizon partnership which helped power its launch last year. “We are very pleased with what we’ve seen so far on the level of churn,” said McCarthy. “And as our product offering matures and we put more content into the service and our subscriber base becomes more tenured, we expect to see our churn rates continue to decline.
So in regard to the specific churn related to the anniversary of the Verizon launch promotion from last November 2020, we’re really happy with the conversion numbers that we have seen there going from the promotion to become paid subscribers.”
100 New Titles a Year
“With Disney+ originals along with the theatrical releases and the library titles, we’ll be adding something new to the service every week,” noted McCarthy. “We are very pleased with the engagement overall. We believe we’re going to reach that cadence of getting content on the service every week within the next few years. We’ve also set that target for 100-plus new titles per year. And that’s across Disney Animation, Disney Live Action, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Nat Geo. And of course, we’ll continue to add more to our library as we go through time as well.”
“Given the value of growing our sub base, we are continuing to invest in high-quality content,” says McCarthy. “We believe that content is the single biggest driver to not only acquiring subs, but retaining them.”
Postscript announced it has raised $4.5 million in seed funding to help bring turbocharged SMS marketing to Shopify and e-commerce stores.
Postscript specializes in SMS marketing for e-commerce. The company’s goal is to help bring SMS marketing mainstream, while at the same time doing it in a way that respects users’ inboxes.
The company has now raised $4.5 million to help it reach that goal. The investors include Y Combinator, Accomplice, 1984vc, and Ali Capital. Postscript also has the backing of some of the biggest entrepreneurial names in the e-commerce industry.
“At Postscript, we obsess about supporting independent brands & e-commerce merchants and will always put their needs first,” said CEO Adam Turner. “Our approach to text messaging emphasizes brands build meaningful relationships with their customers by respecting the SMS inbox and encouraging two way communication. So far our competitive advantage has been our people and our product, and this funding will help us continue along that path. By operating remotely, we’re able to hire in any region, resulting in an extremely talented team dedicated to delivering a top-tier product and customer experience.”
Postscript already claims Native, Brooklinen, StackCommerce, Frey, Oars + Alps and Olivers among its clients. The company also boasts 26x ROI with clickthrough rates ranging between 7.5% and 40%. Somewhat unique to the industry, Postscript guarantees a 4x ROI or they will refund a client’s investment — something they have not yet had to do.
“The Postscript team has taken a product-first approach to a gigantic, fast-growing market, and the growth speaks for itself,” said angel investor Paul English, founder of Kayak. “They have outstanding founder/product/market fit, and I believe what they’re building will be an essential part of any e-commerce company’s marketing stack. I’m proud to support them in this round.”
Instagram has introduced Live Rooms, doubling the capacity of its Live on Instagram feature.
Instagram previously allowed creators to go live with a single individual, meaning a livestream only had a total of two people in it. With Live Rooms, creators can now go live with up to three people, bringing the total participants to four.
We hope that doubling up on Live will open up more creative opportunities — start a talk show, host a jam session or co-create with other artists, host more engaging Q&As or tutorials with your following, or just hang out with more of your friends.
Live Rooms is designed to help creators monetize their social media presence even more, building on existing features. The company recently made it possible for Live viewers to buy badges to support their favorite creators. Viewers can also take advantage of the Shopping and Live Fundraisers features.
Instagram says it is working on additional options, such as moderator controls and audio features that it hopes will continue to aid content creators.
Best Buy has laid off some 5,000 employees and plans to close additional stores as customers turn to online shopping.
American customers have increasingly been turning to Amazon and online stores for their electronics needs, putting pressure on traditional, brick and mortar stores. With the pandemic further changing consumers’ shopping habits, traditional stores have been under even more pressure. Fry’s Electronics announced it was closing Wednesday, illustrating the growing challenges traditional businesses are facing.
Best Buy, in contrast, has fared relatively well during the pandemic. Much of this is due to the company’s online sales. According to CNN Business, the company expects 40% of its sales to come from online purchases in 2021, as opposed to 19% two years ago. The company has also been relatively successful with its physical stores, although it expects in-store business to slow this year.
As a result, Best Buy has laid off 5,000 staff, mostly full-time employees. The company is also raising the bar for evaluating whether to renew store leases. The company already closed 20 stores a year for the past couple of years, and expects that number to go up this year.
Amazon is grappling with an entire industry aimed at providing fake reviews and gaming the system, according to new research.
Which? is a UK-based company that reviews products and services and helps consumers make educated choices. The company has investigated the state of Amazon reviews and found that fake reviews are being sold in bulk.
Customers rely on Amazon reviews to make decisions about their purchases. Even when customers ultimately end up purchasing elsewhere, Amazon product reviews often still impact customers’ decisions. Unfortunately, many of those reviews may be fake, according to Which?.
“More people are shopping online than ever before due to the coronavirus crisis – yet our latest research shows that Amazon is facing an uphill struggle against a relentless and widespread fake reviews industry geared towards misleading consumers,” Natalie Hitchins, Head of Home Products and Services at Which?, said.
Some companies charge as little as £5 per review, while others charge more, up to £8,000 for 1,000 reviews. Many of the companies provided incentives and rewards programs, along with guidelines to help their armies of reviews avoid detection by Amazon.
All the sites Which? signed up to gave advice for how to write reviews so as not to arouse Amazon’s suspicion, and in many cases had criteria for reviewers to meet to qualify for rewards. These included leaving reviews that were at least two sentences long, posting an accompanying image or video and not posting reviews until at least four days after receiving a product. Some sites also had no return policies – as returned products are monitored by Amazon and high return rates can affect the chance of an Amazon’s Choice endorsement.
Which? is calling on regulators to take action against these kind of schemes, in the interest of protecting customers that rely on such reviews to make informed decisions. The company is also calling on tech firms, such as Google and Facebook, to crack down on these companies, as many of them use search and social media platforms to gain reviewers.
“The regulator must crack down on bad actors and hold sites to account if they fail to keep their users safe. If it is unable to do so, the government must urgently strengthen online consumer protections,” Hitchins added.
“Amazon, and other online platforms, must do more to proactively prevent fake reviews infiltrating their sites so that consumers can trust the integrity of their reviews.”
It remains to be seen what, if any, action will be taken. in the meantime, savvy purchasers would do well to take Amazon’s reviews with a grain of salt.
Amazon is coming under fire from consumer groups for how it handles Prime cancellation.
Amazon Prime is a wildly popular service the online giant offers, providing expedited shipping, steaming services, ebooks, groceries, gaming and more. Given everything the service offers, it’s $119 per year fee is a good deal, especially compared to other streaming services.
When customers do want to cancel, however, Amazon doesn’t make it easy, running them through multiple prompts and warnings. This has caught the attention of consumer groups in both the US and the EU, according to The Seattle Times.
A Norwegian customer rights group has filed a legal complaint against Amazon, citing the company’s cancellation policy.
“It should be as easy to end a subscription as it was to subscribe in the first place,” said Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad, director of digital policy for the Norwegian Consumer Council. “This practice not only betrays the expectations and trust of consumers but breaches European law.”
Groups in other EU countries have expressed support, sharing similar concerns. Even in the US, the Public Citizen consumer group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Amazon’s policy.
“Amazon should treat customers with respect instead of trying to undermine their autonomy and fight their decisions,” said Burcu Kilic, Public Citizen’s director of digital rights program.
It remains to be seen if regulators will do anything about Amazon’s Prime cancellation, but the scrutiny is further evidence of the increased pressure Big Tech is under.
As technology changes so does the way we interact with each other. Before smartphones and ordering online, popping into a shop to search for a particular item or calling around to find it before heading out were both common things to do. The internet and later smartphones changed all that. Now we have access to whatever information we need right at our fingertips at all times. If we are searching for something hard to find we can simply order it online. If we are planning to go purchase something in person or we want more information about an item before we buy it, we often consult our smartphones for further information rather than asking a store employee for help. In fact, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 69% of people would rather search for information on their phones instead of asking for help from a store employee, and the pandemic has just made this practice all the more practical.
All the information and technology we carry around in our pockets has changed the way we interact with the world. We send text messages and emails more frequently than calling now and if we don’t know something it’s just a matter of knowing how to find it. With the spread of the pandemic accessing information has become even more crucial. We can look up mask policies and procedures before we go to a business, find out if a business has special hours for those with disabilities and the elderly, and look up every-changing hours and services.
Increasingly, stores are giving information to consumers that they have never given out before. One of the things customers can look for online with many businesses is not only where an item is located in a store, but also how many of that item are in stock at any given time. Customers want accurate information and they want it now, as their time is becoming more valuable than ever. What’s more, knowing you will find what you are looking for before you leave the house is actually pretty critical during the age of social distancing.
Mobile Communication In Retail
Communicating with customers is changing thanks to the mobile revolution. Answering phone calls from customers is no longer the main interaction with them. In fact, 85% of those who own smartphones prefer text messages to calls or even emails, which means that businesses that aren’t responsive to this type of communication are likely missing out on customers.
Mobile ordering and messaging has also been a boon to restaurants since the start of the pandemic. In many places restaurants have only been open for takeout orders, so having apps and messaging abilities for taking orders and telling customers when their orders are ready has helped them to run on a skeleton crew while making the changes necessary to function as a takeout only business.
As restaurants begin to reopen with new social distancing guidelines in place, mobile messaging helps to keep communication going for reservations, when tables are ready, and more.
Mobile Communication In Medicine
Accessing medical services has been challenging because of the pandemic, and early on laws were relaxed to allow people to access telehealth services. In order to make the transition easier for medical providers and patients alike, all messaging and video call services were allowed so that doctors could get care to those who needed it via whatever means they were able to use. Teladoc saw a 50% increase in use in the first week alone.
When it comes to customer complaints, nothing makes customers angrier than sitting on hold for hours waiting for their call to be answered, which makes it not the best way to solve customer complaints to begin with.
Chats and mobile messaging give customers the ability to initiate contact and then do other things while they await a response. It’s a much less stressful way to deal with contacting customer service, and it’s a lot more effective than airing out grievances on social media, which can come back around with undesirable consequences later on.
But text messaging has to go both ways. It’s not enough to send marketing messages via SMS, businesses also need to be able to respond to messages they receive. One in three customers report sending a message to a company and never hearing back from them, and in many cases it is simply because the company has not enabled two way messaging.
Customers say that businesses that offer messaging respect their time, which makes them more likely to choose to do business with that company. It also means those happy customers are more likely to recommend that business to friends and family.
As technology changes, the ways that businesses interact with customers have to keep up with the times. The first rule of customer service is to meet customers where they are, and if that means hanging up the phone and sending out a text message that’s how it has to be.
Mobile communication is likely to hinge on SMS messages for some time to come, and businesses that aren’t already using this method are missing out on business. Is your business ready to harness the power of mobile communication?
Online marketing sensation Dan Lok says that when it comes to marketing online, there are only two things, conversion and traffic. That’s it. “To convert the right attention, to convert followers and likes into money, in between you a need conversion mechanism,” says Lok.
Lok adds that if you are getting zero conversions it doesn’t matter if you increase your traffic because you cannot multiply zero.
Dan Lok, one of the most-in-demand marketing consultants in the world, a 2 times TEDx speaker, and best-selling author, recently talked about the first rule of online marketing in a YouTube video (watch below):
Know Who Your Audience Is
The very first rule of online marketing is you need to know who your audience is. It’s not about making noise, it’s not about just getting your name out there. A lot of people I talk about, even entrepreneurs, marketers, and business owners, you hear this all the time, I just need to get my name out there. It’s not about getting your name out there, it’s about getting your customers into your door. It’s not getting them out there it’s getting them in here. That’s the very first rule of marketing online.
You Need the Right Type of Attention
You have to know it’s not just about getting attention. A lot of people they think they need a lot of followers or need a lot of fans or a big social media reach. I have a massive social media reach but fame doesn’t equal fortune. The right type of fame to the right type of people equals fortune. So it’s not just about getting attention because right now you could run around naked in the winter in Vancouver. Guess what, you will get a lot of attention but it’s not the right attention.
You need the right type of attention at the right time from the right prospect, that’s what makes sales. If you run any kind of business, it can be a home-based business or any type, whatever you’re selling online, first, you have to define exactly who you’re selling to. Who is your ideal customer? If your answer is anyone who breathes, anyone who has a heartbeat, then you’ve got a problem.
Who are they? Are they men or woman? What age group? What kind of professions? What did they do and what are their ping points. Once you’ve narrowed that down then you craft your offer, you craft your message specifically talking to this group of people. The amount of money you’ll make from marketing, the amount of money you make for your business, is in direct proportion to how well you understand your potential customers. Once you do that then you will know where you could get traffic.
When Marketing There is Only Conversion and Traffic
For example, if you know this is your demographic, this is the ideal customer profile, then yes now you can do Facebook Ads, now you can do banner ads, now you can do affiliate marketing, now you can run Google Ads, now you can do Instagram, now you know exactly who you’re talking to. Versus I need to get more followers, I just need to make some noise, I need to get more traffic. It doesn’t help. When it comes to marketing online, there are only two things, conversion and traffic. That’s it.
If you’ve got these conversions going on, let’s say you are converting one out of every hundred visitors buying your product, a one percent conversion. That’s fine, so now you know if you get two hundred visitors that are the right type of visitors that will get you two sales and then three hundred visitors and so on and so forth. It’s a one percent conversion.
You Need a Conversion Mechanism
However, if you have had a few hundred visitors or even a few thousand visitors to your website, to your offer, and none of them bought, listen to me, you cannot multiply zero. If you’re not getting sells with a few thousand visitors, guess what, let me get more followers, let me get more visitors. I’ll get 20,000 visitors and then my problem will be solved. I’ll get more sales. No, it won’t.
You cannot multiply zero and you cannot go to the bank and say hey, you know what, I don’t have a check to deposit but I’ve got a lot of Instagram followers to deposit. The bank wants cash. You cannot deposit likes, you cannot deposit followers, you cannot deposit fans, you deposit cash. To convert the right attention, to convert followers and likes into money, in between you a need conversion mechanism. Whatever that thing might be.
Most People Suck at the Conversion Mechanism
It could be your ecommerce site, it could be a webinar, it could be a good old telephone to convert them to a sale. Whatever that mechanism is I can tell you from my experience that when it comes to making money online most people they focus on traffic, but they all suck at this conversion mechanism. Either they don’t have one in place or the conversion mechanism they have sucks.
Their web page sucks, it doesn’t convert, it doesn’t get people to act, it doesn’t get people to buy, it doesn’t get people to click. They thought, then just get more people viewing my page, let me get more traffic and that will solve my problem. It won’t.
What Offer Will Get Them to Put Up Their Hand?
The very first action that you need to figure out is who is my ideal audience? What kind of offer can I put in front of them to get them to put up their hand? Maybe it’s generating a lead, maybe it’s a making a small purchase, maybe a big purchase, it doesn’t matter. What is the right offer to put in front of them?
Once that’s converting then you can find ways to buy traffic. There are so many ways and so many places you can buy traffic. That’s how you do it, that’s the rule of marketing online and that’s the rule of selling anything online.
Everything you do in the company drives you toward the vision and the mission of the brand and the company itself, says Jan Bednar, Founder & CEO of ShipMonk. “Something we have learned in the last few years is that once you communicate those values and what the brand really means to your employees and to your customers, it kind of does the job itself,” he says. “You don’t really have to spend a lot of time maintaining it.”
Bednar adds: “Everything you do at that point is the brand.”
The one important thing in the way we look at our products and our brand is we try to figure out who are users are and what does our brand mean. We have a certain set of values that are associated with our brand. It’s not just a bunch of text that we put on a whiteboard three years ago and we never look at it. We have them everywhere and everyone knows them. They basically become the pillars of the organization. It’s something that everybody looks up to. You know what they are.
Everything you do in the company drives you toward the vision and the mission of the brand and the company itself. Something we have learned in the last few years is that once you communicate those values and what the brand really means to your employees and to your customers, it kind of does the job itself. You don’t really have to spend a lot of time maintaining it.
ShipMonk Values
Everything You Do is The Brand
Everything you do at that point is the brand. It’s how you answer the phone. It’s how you decorate your office. It’s how you go to work. It’s what you wear to work. Every single detail, as long as you have those values in the back of your mind and you know what the brand really means, it’s almost like a self-sustaining organism at that point.
That’s been really important for us. We really see with our customers that once they like our brand and they see what we are doing they become part of it. It’s one of the most rewarding things. They love coming to our office. They love sharing their thoughts and improving the product. It becomes this one big ShipMonk family in a way. Everything we do from a branding and marketing standpoint surrounds those values and the proposition of the brand.
From their inception in 2014, ShipMonk has operated with a singular guiding principle: to help small and medium-sized businesses scale by offering technology-driven fulfillment solutions that enable business founders to devote more time to the things that matter most in their businesses. Put simply, ShipMonk helps eCommerce companies stress less and grow more.
“Ecommerce exploded when everybody got their stimulus checks,” says marketing superstar Gary Vaynerchuk. “It reminded me how much of a materialistic capitalistic country we are. The numbers are through the roof on food and beverage and things of that nature. Obviously, apparel has been hit in certain ways also. But net-net this is a capitalistic materialistic country and people want to buy things so you’re seeing a ton of activity.”
Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia and host of his own “GaryVee” channel on YouTube with 2.6 million subscribers, discusses how ecommerce is booming in spite of the current pandemic:
Ecommerce Exploded With The Stimulus Checks
Ecommerce exploded when everybody got their stimulus checks. It reminded me how much of a materialistic capitalistic country we are. A lot of my businesses are in ecommerce and I was “micro happy.” But I was macro disappointed because I’m hoping that people learn how to save money during this time. With VaynerMedia, my marketing firm, we sit with a lot of Fortune 500 companies that have consumer brands and we’re very involved in a lot of their e-commerce businesses.
The numbers are through the roof on food and beverage and things of that nature. Obviously, apparel has been hit in certain ways also. But net-net this is a capitalistic materialistic country and people want to buy things so you’re seeing a ton of activity. Sports cards are a space I pay attention to. I can’t believe how well it’s doing.
People Still Think Another Stimulus Check Is Coming
I actually think the macro conversation is the way this is all playing out. It’s disguising some of the economic vulnerabilities because we’re still in this cocoon. People still think there may be another stimulus check coming for me. As soon as this is over I’m gonna get a job.
I think the most interesting part of this from a kind of thoughtful economic standpoint it’s kind of that first month to three months or four months after it gets back to normal-ish. I’m really eyeing February, March, and April of next year where I think that you could see a dip because people will say wait a minute we’re in something bad. Right now I think it’s fake to some people.
Ecommerce Exploded When Everybody Got Their Stimulus Checks
