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  • Google Still The King of Driving Ecommerce Sales

    Google Still The King of Driving Ecommerce Sales

    Facebook and Instagram may be the darlings of many advertisers, but data shows Google is still the king of driving ecommerce traffic.

    Analytics firm Oribi conducted an extensive study of shopping trends in 2019 and the results show that Facebook and Instagram still have a long way to go. According to the study, direct traffic in the form of mobile apps, email marketing and direct input accounts for nearly half of all traffic at 48.9%.

    Behind that, however, is Google organic search at 20.6%. Rounding out the top three is Google paid search at 14.1%, while Facebook and Instagram came in at 9.6% and 1.5% respectively.

    “Everyone seems to talk about Facebook’s shopping potential, but Google is, by far, the second traffic driver for online stores,” said Iris Shoor, Founder and CEO of Oribi. “And, despite Instagram’s rise, it’s responsible for less than 2% of traffic, even across the fashion stores we analyzed.”

    When it comes to conversions, the news doesn’t look much better for either Facebook or Instagram. Google paid search provides 2.7% conversion rates, while Google organic search results in 2.5%. Facebook and Instagram, both paid and organic, only result in 1.5% and 0.8% respectively.

    The study also showed a relatively clear distinction in the type of shopping the different platforms drive. Social media drives cheaper purchases, the digital equivalent of window shopping. In contrast, Google performs better for larger purchases where an individual is looking for, researching and buying something specific.

    One thing is clear from Oribi’s study: Facebook and Instagram will need to work hard if they have any hope of challenging Google’s dominance in the ecommerce realm.

  • How Non-Amazon Retailers “Leaned Into” Prime Day To Increase Sales

    How Non-Amazon Retailers “Leaned Into” Prime Day To Increase Sales

    “Retailers and brands took advantage of the buzz, the demand, the awareness, that Amazon has created and really rode that wave for great growth,” says Rob Garf, VP of Industry Strategy and Insights for Salesforce. “Retailers didn’t just ignore Prime Day, but they leaned into it. They really recognized this manufactured holiday, recognized the demand that was being created, and really took advantage of the consumers and their willingness to look for a good deal.”

    Rob Garf, VP Industry Strategy and Insights for Salesforce, discusses how retailers “leaned into” Amazon Prime Day, taking advantage of the buzz and overall consumer interest, to initiate their own Prime marketing. Rob was interviewed by Owen Milbury, Senior Manager, Analyst Relations for Salesforce:

    Retailers Didn’t Just Ignore Prime Day, They Leaned Into It

    What we saw is that this manufactured holiday, Hallmark has to be proud, really rose all ships if you well. The tide has risen where we saw 37 percent year over year growth for global retailers other than Amazon. What’s really interesting is that it just didn’t take place over those two days, but rather the entire month of July. We saw July having a ten percent higher growth rate than any typical month. Retailers and brands took advantage of the buzz, the demand, the awareness, that Amazon has created and really rode that wave for great growth. 

    Retailers didn’t just ignore Prime Day, but they leaned into it. What we found was that emails were at a heavy double-digit increase week over week. The other really interesting thing is our team stepped back and we actually looked at the Internet Retailer 500. We subscribed to all of their email lists and we went to their homepages over the last week. What we found was 51 percent of the IR 500, more than half, did some sort of promotion either on their home page or through email. 

    They just didn’t ignore it, they leaned into it. We found that 17 percent of the IR 500 mentioned either Prime Day or Black Friday in July as part of those promotions. They really recognized this manufactured holiday, recognized the demand that was being created, and really took advantage of the consumers and their willingness to look for a good deal. 

    We Saw Two Breakouts, Apparel, and Footwear

    Consumer electronics was certainly big. But we also saw two breakouts, apparel, and footwear. That’s really important because Amazon is leaning into their own private label. So these brands need to think how to differentiate. They didn’t just go to market and give deals. They also promoted limited edition products, special assortments, customizable merchandise, and even looking for subscriptions to be able not only to attract but to retain them over time. 

    The other one was consumer product goods. What was interesting about that was typically what you find in a grocery store they use the retailer as the intermediary, they’re looking generally to leapfrog these retailers. According to Salesforce research, 99 percent have some sort of active direct to consumer (D2C) type of initiative underway. That was no different this Amazon Prime Day. They were taking advantage of the buzz and really looking for ways to engage the consumer directly.

    49 Percent of Orders For Non-Amazon Retailers Were On Mobile

    When you think about the time of the year, most of Europe was on holiday, most of the US was taking time off as well, they’re not tethered to their computer. They don’t have the luxury of sitting down and searching that way. That showed in our data. In fact, 49 percent of orders for all non-Amazon retailers were done on a mobile device. This just speaks to the fact we’re on the go, the phone is the remote control of our daily lives. 

    We’re using it to break through the friction that usually exists between inspiration—I like something and I want to buy it—and then actually purchasing. Just for a point of context, that was a 20 percent increase year over year. It’s become a bellwether for shopping not only during the rest of the year but in particular on Prime Day.

    Retailers Saw Prime Day As a Test Run For Holidays

    Retailers are seeing this as really the test run for the holidays. They’re looking at their mobile strategy. How are they going to breakdown their friction? They want to make sure that they have mobile wallets so that they can really get through the checkout process. They are incorporating artificial intelligence so not forcing the consumer to swipe five times down the phone to find if you like this you might like this. Instead, putting it right above the fold. 

    They are also looking for fulfillment as well. As you are thinking through towards Cyber Week and the overall holiday season, and with it being five or six days shorter between Thanksgiving and Christmas, how are we going to use the store as a fulfillment center? You really bump up against that shipping deadline and need to also be able to fulfill that for several days after. Retailers are really cutting their teeth. They’re really bearing down. They’re looking at Prime Day as a way to get ready and gear up and go full force to back to school, Halloween, and through the holiday season.

    https://youtu.be/JHm8PZ2z1xU
    How Non-Amazon Retailers “Leaned Into” Prime Day To Increase Sales – Salesforce Execs Explain
  • Fiverr Is The Everything Store For Digital Services, Says CEO

    Fiverr Is The Everything Store For Digital Services, Says CEO

    “Fiverr is the everything store for digital services,” says Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman. “The way people usually find freelancers is they post on Facebook asking if someone knows a good graphics designer. What we’re doing is we’re making it a one-click experience. There’s no bidding, betting, negotiating. There’s browse, search, buy. It’s an Amazon experience to buy a digital service.”

    Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, discusses today’s IPO and how Fiverr has become the Amazon for digital services in an interview on CNBC:

    Fiverr Is The Everything Store For Digital Services

    Fiverr connects freelancers with businesses of all sizes. Really, the uniqueness of the platform is that the experience of buying a digital service on Fiverr is very similar to shopping on Amazon. You browse, you search, you find something, you click order, and it’s done. Graphic design is one of our most popular services on the platform. Also popular are content marketing, videography, animation, music services, and marketing and advertising. Anything you can imagine.

    It’s the everything store for digital services. The system helps you productize your offering. You can define what you’re offering, how much time it’s going to take you to deliver, and the asking price. All the buyers have to do is screen through the offerings, find something they like, click order and pay, and they are done.

    It’s An Amazon Experience To Buy a Digital Product

    In the categories in which we operate there is a volume of activity of $100 billion in the US alone. It’s still only a single digit percentage online. It’s a very old-school business. The way people usually find freelancers is they post on Facebook asking if someone knows a good graphics designer. What we’re doing is we’re making it a one-click experience. There’s no bidding, betting, negotiating. There’s browse, search, buy. It’s an Amazon experience to buy a digital service. Nobody has done it before. The average time to make an order on Fiverr is 15 minutes. this is unbeatable. It’s unmatched.

    We take a take out of every transaction. It’s one of the industry-leading take rates of over 26 percent. If you look at the EBITDA margins, you see that they’re shrinking. The way we actually structured the business is that we continue to grow aggressively while shrinking our negative EBITDA. There is a clear path to profitability. We are operating in over 160 countries. Our growth is coming globally from the adoption of freelancing online.

    Our Primary Competitor is Definitely the Offline Market

    Our primary competitor is definitely the offline market. I don’t know if it’s 96 or 97 percent of the activity offline, but we don’t need to eat anyone’s lunch to grow. We just need to move offline activity to the online. The offline freelancing market is massive. we’ve estimated that market to be a hundred billion dollars in the US alone. Europe is 1.5 times bigger than the US. There are over 162 million freelancers between the EU and the US. The opportunity is massive and it’s just starting to come online. This is like 1995 for ecommerce. This is so exciting.

    Fiverr doesn’t hire its freelancers. It’s just the market that connects freelancers with businesses that have their digital needs. The way the marketplace is structured is such where we don’t have any employee-employer relationships. We are not relying on freelancers. We’re just connecting that supply with a demand that comes forward. We’re the platform on top of which they actually conduct their transaction. We just provide the platform to make that happen. It is very different than Uber and Lyft.

    Fiverr Is The Everything Store For Digital Services, Says Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman
  • Younger Consumers Want To Connect Emotionally with Brands, Says PVH CEO

    Younger Consumers Want To Connect Emotionally with Brands, Says PVH CEO

    “Especially today, younger consumers want to connect emotionally with brands,” says Manny Chirico, CEO of apparel company PVH, which owns many lifestyle brands including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. “They don’t want to just aspire for your brand looking down the runway, they want to be part of the life of the brand. I think Tommy Hilfiger does it well.”

    Manny Chirico, CEO of apparel company PVH, which owns many lifestyle brands including Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, discusses how the company has turned around by focusing on ecommerce, technology, and connecting with young consumers. He was interviewed on CNBC:

    Consumer Experience is Critical

    You have to be willing to make the investment. I think we really have done it (turned around the company), from not only a brand marketing point of view, but investing in all the new technologies and investing in the ecommerce platforms that really will drive the business going forward. Our stores are highly profitable and we need to continue to invest in those stores. The consumer experience is critical and we’re making connections with a younger and younger consumer.

    We’re all dealing with the challenge of the distribution models changing, but fundamentally we’ve always been a multi-channel retailer. We have big businesses in brick and mortar, both direct-to-consumer in our own stores and through our key wholesale partners like Macy’s here in the US or Galeries Lafayette in Europe. Those key players we continue to invest back into those platforms.

    Younger Consumers Want To Connect Emotionally with Brands

    The challenge with that high-end collector fashion business is are you connecting with a younger consumer today and how do you make your investments as you as you go forward? I think it needs to be more balanced than it’s been. Especially today, younger consumers want to connect emotionally with brands. They don’t want to just aspire for your brand looking down the runway, they want to be part of the life of the brand.

    I think Tommy (Hilfiger) does it well. We just have a fashion show in Paris with Tommy selling product immediately after that trying to connect with the consumer at more affordable price points than what you would see from the luxury point of view. That’s how you build big businesses. We’re not trying to build niche businesses selling just $2,000 men’s suits or evening gowns. We’re really about building big lifestyle businesses.


  • Technology and Innovation Powering Levi Strauss Growth Strategy, Says CEO

    Technology and Innovation Powering Levi Strauss Growth Strategy, Says CEO

    Levi Strauss began trading on the New York Stock Exchange this morning under the ticker symbol ‘LEVI.’ By mid-afternoon, the stock was at $22.66, substantially higher than the price offered to institutional investors. It’s clear that investors believe that Levi’s can leverage technology and innovation to successfully compete online and in brick and mortar stores.

    Levi Strauss Soars in NYSE Debut

    Charles Bergh, CEO of Levi Strauss, discusses how technology and innovation are driving increased sales and market share in an interview with CNBC coinciding with their IPO:

    We Are Denim and We’re the Market Leader Globally

    We are denim and we’re the market leader globally. A lot of people as we were doing the (IPO) roadshow said aren’t you guys just riding the denim wave? We’re creating the denim wave. We’ve been driving the category with innovation across our men’s business and our women’s business. We’ve expanded to other categories. Last year we finished with 14 percent growth coming off of 8 percent growth the prior year. The business is really humming right now.

    I believe this is sustainable for the long term. Maybe not double digits forever. But we’ve got clear runway for growth across the categories that we’re competing in. We’re building share in our core categories and expanding to new categories. Last fiscal year, when we finished the year our growth was really broad-based. If you looked at it in the categories where we competed we grew every single category. If you looked at it by geography we grew every single geography. If you look at it by channel we grew across wholesale, including US wholesale, which is a little bit of a melting iceberg right now. We grew in our own brick-and-mortar and ecommerce. It was very broad-based growth last year and we’re confident we can continue that.

    We Have Built a Very Big Platform for Big Data

    First of all, to be successful it does come down to strong brands. Consumers at the end of the day love an emotional attachment with their brand. We’ve recreated that that love for Levi’s. We have built a very big platform for big data. In fact just a couple of weeks ago we announced that we’ve hired a head of advanced analytics and machine learning who will sit on the executive team and report directly to me. We are mining the data that we do collect and really turning it into revenue.

    Our strategies are working and one of the key strategic choices that we made seven years ago, shortly after I joined, was to become a leading world-class omnichannel retailer and it is working. The mix has shifted to omnichannel. When I joined the company it was about 20 percent of our business. Today, it’s almost a third. It is faster growing than our wholesale business and we’re continuing to invest in it. Most of our capital investment is going into retail and ecommerce and knitting that seamless consumer experience together.

    Implemented New Instance of SAP and Investing in RFID

    It (IPO funds) is going to go into continued investment in building out our omnichannel. So both brick-and-mortar retail as well as our ecommerce business and then knitting it together with technology. For example, we’re implementing a new instance of SAP and investing in RFID (radio frequency identification). We’ve implemented RFID across our business in the US and UK and that’s actually really turning into money. Every one of the products in our store is tagged with RFID.

    I’ve actually had this experience happen to me myself in our new Times Square store. There was an item I wanted to buy and they didn’t have it in my size. A stylist came over and scanned the tag and she could see that my size was available in the back room. Just two minutes later I was in the dressing room trying it on. A year ago before our RFID that would have been a lost sale. That just wouldn’t have happened. It gives us instant clear visibility to the inventory in our store, both in front of house as well as back of house.

    Levi’s Driving Market Share Through Product Innovation

    Back in 2013 and 2014, the headlines were the death of denim. It was all about athletic tights and Lululemon tights. It became a throwdown moment for us as a company. We have an innovation center a couple of blocks from our office. We brought our suppliers, the mills that make denim for us, into that innovation center. We understood what women were really telling us by wearing tights. That used to be a denim occasion. They wanted soft stretchy comfortable material that made them look great and gave them confidence. That was what was driving that conversion. So we innovated around soft stretchy comfortable denim which we can now do. We developed proprietary four-way stretch so that women don’t get baggy knees, which is their biggest dissatisfier.

    We relaunched our business in the middle of 2015 and we’ve grown 14 quarters in a row and in the last eight quarters at double-digit rates. It has been a huge part of our growth. We were under $800 million just on women’s bottoms about three years ago. We’re over a billion dollars today. We are number one globally with a nine percent market share, but we’re not number one in a number of markets including right here in the US. So I really do believe we can continue to grow at an accelerated rate on our women’s business. There are lots of what I like to call share donors out there for us to build share while we’re building the category.

    We haven’t seen any (backlash to being an American brand). This brand stands for everything good about America. Freedom, democracy, and allowing people to express themselves. Authentic self-expression is what the Levi’s brand is all about. We’ve not seen any backlash. None. We think there are lots of opportunities still for us. I am not worried at all about denim. We are denim and we’ll continue to drive this category through great innovation and marketing that connects with consumers and sends them into our stores.

    Technology and Innovation Powering Levi Strauss Growth Strategy


  • Digitizing Unilever is One of My Top Priorities, Says CEO

    Digitizing Unilever is One of My Top Priorities, Says CEO

    “Digitizing Unilever is one of my top priorities,” says Unilever’s new CEO Alan Jope. “How we digitize marketing. How we digitize working with our customers. Digitizing our supply chain. Digitizing our people processes. You are going to see a strong digital emphasis in my agenda for Unilever.”

    Alan Jope, CEO of Unilever, discussed Unilever’s growth in Asian markets and his priority to digitize the company in an interview on Bloomberg Markets and Finance this morning:

    Digitizing Unilever is One of My Top Priorities

    In China, all of our ecommerce partners are very important to us. That’s where a lot of the growth is. That’s because that’s where consumers are choosing to shop. That integration between ecommerce, search, social, and other digital platforms is also happening in the west. Digitizing Unilever is one of my top priorities. How we digitize marketing. How we digitize working with our customers. Digitizing our supply chain. Digitizing our people processes.

    You are going to see a strong digital emphasis in my agenda for Unilever. We are hiring people with good digital skills like crazy at the moment. We are bringing in digital natives and at the same time reskilling the Unilever team.

    China Has Become a Stable Part of Our Business

    China is a special place for me, I lived there for five years quite recently. I’m delighted to share that China has become a stable part of our business actually. We are seeing good growth year in and year out. Consumers are engaging with the type of brands we are selling and increasingly we are developing products in China for the Chinese market. In amongst all that volatility, it seems like the consumer products segment is one of the stable parts of the Chinese economy.

    We have a tremendous global footprint. We are very globally diversified. We are used to dealing with geopolitical shocks and movements. At the moment that is certainly not a significant impact on our business. We are seeing overall Asia doing very well. In particular Central Asia. The markets in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are really doing extremely well. As I mentioned China has been a stable source of growth. Also, that important part of the world where people are really moving into the consumer products markets Southeast Asia. We are starting to see a recovery led by our big business in Indonesia.

    https://youtu.be/dw8K4PF70_s


  • 5 Ways to Promote Your Brand with IGTV

    5 Ways to Promote Your Brand with IGTV

    These days, brands that want to be competitive in their niche will first have to accept two indisputable truths—most people prefer videos over every other type of content and consumers are spending more time on their mobile devices than ever before. In fact, one study showed that 69 percent of internet users watch digital media on their smartphones.

    Brands should take advantage of this trend by making the most of digital media. One effective way of doing this would be through applications like IGTV. Instagram’s latest feature perfectly combines consumers love of watching videos with the strong appeal of social media.

    IGTV is short for Instagram TV. Instagram users can now make their own channel where they can upload vertical videos. Unlike the short video clips of Stories, IGTV videos can run for up to an hour. This gives companies a new and novel way of marketing their product and developing their brand. Videos can be viewed on Instagram, but IGTV also has its own app that can be downloaded on laptops and other mobile devices.

    Why Use IGTV

    There are several key reasons why your brand should be using IGTV. For one, IGTV is designed specifically for use on mobile devices—in a vertical format and full screen. It’s also very intuitive. Videos play as soon as the app is opened, so you don’t have to browse or search long for what you want. The selected clips are based on the user’s interest. However, your followers are automatically linked to your video content. This means that you’ll already have a built-in audience that you can grow.

    Utilizing IGTV can also mean great things for your business. Aside from pioneering a rising format, vertical videos via IGTV will also help you connect to your target market. It will also be easier for your brands to be discovered by potential clients. IGTV’s format is optimized for mobile devices, making it convenient for Instagram users.

    More importantly, IGTV is developed around Instagram. This means you will have instant access to more than 1 billions active users on the social media network. The company is also considering implementing ads on this new platform, which makes now a good time to hop on the bandwagon.

    5 Ways to IGTV to Boost Your Business

    1. Give New Life to Previous Content

    IGTV gives businesses the chance to utilize the content they already have. You can reuse the most popular videos that you have posted on Facebook and YouTube. Another way would be to live-stream previous recordings. You can also convert listicles, tips, and how-to blog posts into IGTV videos. This approach can help you reach a new audience while followers will be given a fresh look at an old topic.

    2. Offer Exclusive Content

    Use your IGTV channel to share exclusive content with your followers. Providing them with special content on a regular basis will help you to build a dedicated audience. You can share a behind-the-scenes look at product development and distribution, upload interviews with experts, or stream company events like expos, speaking engagements, and social gatherings.

    3. Engage Directly With Customers

    One of the best ways to engage customers is to talk to them directly while providing the information they need. When you show clients that your company is open and ready for answering questions and hearing concerns, you’ll build trust. You can do this by hosting a Q&A session. Use the questions sticker in Instagram stories to gather common customer questions and answer them in a video.

    4. Share Your Expertise

    Tutorials have become very popular on most social media platforms. With IGTV allowing users to post longer videos, your tutorials can be more detailed. Post videos that teach users new skills or explain processes. For instance, an eCommerce store that sells cameras can teach users how to set up lighting equipment and offer tips for optimizing photo quality.

    5. Turn the Spotlight on Loyal Customers

    Consumers are likely to believe their fellow customers even more than a well-executed ad. Take advantage of this by featuring some of your loyal customers on IGTV. They can tell viewers in their own words why they prefer your brand. You can even take it a step further by showing how they use your product or services.

    IGTV is an effective method of sharing high-quality content with your present clients and target demographic. If your brand already has an Instagram account then you’re guaranteed IGTV followers immediately. This will ease the pressure of building an audience and leaves you free to develop better content that will boost your business.

    [Featured image via Instagram]

  • Read Your Customer’s Digital Body Language, Boost Sales!

    Read Your Customer’s Digital Body Language, Boost Sales!

    It’s no secret that personalized marketing can solidify brand loyalty, improve customer experience, and boost profit margins. In fact, one recent study showed that persuasive personalization can have a positive impact on revenue by as much as 15 percent.

    However, personalization is a challenge in itself. Traditional marketing would make use of what the shopper bought and their body language, but that’s not so straightforward with eCommerce as the decision-making process is different when consumers buy online.

    What is Digital Body Language?

    It’s a fact that most people use their feelings more than logic when they make purchasing decisions. This means that marketers can’t just rely on what customers bought in the past since there’s often no logical or repeatable pattern to reference. Instead, they’ll need to have a better understanding of the customer’s state of mind.

    A more effective strategy is to look into the shopper’s digital body language. This refers to the amalgamation of signals and digital gestures made by consumers, like taps, scrolls, zooms, and the movement of the mouse. In short, it’s how people behave on social media, websites, emails, etc. For instance, how many times they post on a social media platform, what platform they usually use, how many times they visit a site and what they click on when they’re at a specific website.

    Digital body language is a good way of discerning patterns and can help in understanding a shopper’s mindset and behavior. Marketers can measure this data objectively and learn where the client is in their shopping journey, what products they’re interested in and even when they should be sent a sales offer.

    How to Boost Sales With Digital Body Language

    Internet users always leave a trail of their actions online. As a marketer, you can use that trail to your advantage. Digital body language can give you a broad overview of your demographic. For instance, you can track the popularity of each page on your website to find out what content your customer’s like. Meanwhile, your customer’s location will give you an idea where to concentrate your efforts. The more data you accumulate, the more you can improve your sales.

    Determine if the Shopper is a Good Lead

    If a consumer has visited your site, cookies or a tracking software will tell you how many times they visited, the dates and time, and even what pages they went to. If the shopper visited your site several times a month, then you know they’re interested in your brand and are potentially a good lead.

    Improve Your Website Design

    A consumer’s digital language can also give you ideas on how to improve your website. If the visitor is taking their time browsing your product page, it could mean that they’re interested in what they’re seeing. A slow scroll down the page can also mean the visitor is invested in what they’re reading.

    However, a visitor clicking on your page several times in rapid succession could mean they’re confused or frustrated. Perhaps they’re expecting something more interactive or they’re looking for something specific and can’t find it. The same goes for rapid scrolling. The customer might be navigating from page to page because they’re confused with the layout. This type of behavior can tell you what pages you can improve.

    Provide Real-Time Response

    Once you have a good grasp of your customer’s digital body language, you can work on providing them with a more humanized and positive customer experience in real time. Banners, pop-ups, recommended content, and customized call-to-action buttons are good examples of real-time responses.

    Live chat is also an effective response to a shopper’s digital body language. For instance, if the prospective client is hovering their mouse over a button, it could mean that they’re hesitant or confused. It’s the perfect time for a chatbot to appear and offer help or even recommend a product or deal.

    Digitalization is the Future

    You can’t stop digitalization, especially now that they are means to understand shopper’s online behavior and emotions. While the majority of your site’s visitors are likely to be anonymous, you can tailor your site to read their digital body language. This will help you collect vital information about them, like what time is the best to send an email or whether they will be interested in a webinar or white paper. It will also help you build a good relationship with current and prospective clients.

    [Featured image via Pexels.com]

  • How to Use Reddit to Get More Traffic to Your Website and Boost Your Sales

    How to Use Reddit to Get More Traffic to Your Website and Boost Your Sales

    If you aren’t familiar with Reddit, your first visit to the website may feel a bit intimidating. Not only does it have the appearance of an old-school forum dating back from the early 2000s, but it also has a reputation for having users who don’t take kindly to blatant self-promoters. But dismissing Reddit as a vialble traffic source would be a mistake. For one, the site is not as intimidating as it looks, and it also boasts a massive online community with more than 330 million monthly active users. And according to Alexa.com, Reddit ranks as the #20 most-visited website in 2018. That’s a lot of eyeballs and potential traffic for your site.

    The site also has countless subcategories called “subreddits.” Whatever your business niche is, chances are it’s on Reddit. As such, Reddit can be a powerful source for driving traffic to your website once you understand how the site works and how to use it without provoking the ire of staunch Redditors.

    What is Reddit?

    Reddit is a social news website and discussion forum wherein content is curated and promoted by the site members themselves. It’s a place to explore, share, and discuss literally anything and everything. There are forums for eCommerce, marketing, small business, and even more mundane topics like trout fishing and board games.

    The site is comprised of millions of communities called “subreddits.” Each subreddit starts with /r/. For example, /r/boardgames is a community of people who love and discuss board games.

    Reddit - Subreddit page layout

    The front page or homepage shows the different trending posts taken from the subreddits. A button on the upper left sorts the posts by category, whether they’re hot, controversial, or new. There’s also a search bar at the top where you can find the subreddits and posts for a specific topic.

    Anyone with a Reddit profile can create a subreddit as long as it follows the site’s ground rules. Every post has up and down arrows, and users click on them to upvote or downvote. The number of votes determines the post’s visibility.

    The site is ruled by administrators and managed by moderators. Both have the power to edit subreddits, monitor and remove posts, or ban users.

    3 Ways to Use Reddit to Get More Sales and Traffic

    The important thing to remember about Reddit is that it’s a community, and its members hate blatant attempts at advertising. But there are ways to access this huge community to generate more traffic and boost your sales.

    1. Strive for Transparency.

    One of the main reasons people go to Reddit is to ask questions and get information. Companies can use Redditors’ need for answers by asking questions that will help you understand your target demographic. If you run a startup or small business, you could ask Redditors their opinion on how to further market your product. The answers you receive could give you vital information regarding prospective customers and also gave you new marketing ideas. Meanwhile, Reddit users will become more aware of your product.

    2. Engage Other Redditors in Conversation.

    Interaction is important on Reddit. It’s considered bad form if you just post a question or comment and then ignore the ensuing comments. A better strategy would be to stick around, thank members for their answers and engage in a conversation. This give and take will generate a lot of attention for your account.

    3. Make Posts Entertaining.

    Another reason people go to Reddit is to be entertained. Posting an amusing or entertaining ad or comment can build brand awareness, improve your image, and build customer loyalty. IKEA made history with its ad for a free crib for babies born nine months from Valentine’s Day. The company technically wasn’t selling any product but the post received two million views and had more than a thousand comments.

    Reddit’s marketing potential is unmatched, as long as you know how to tap this market. Subtlety is the keyword when dealing with this site. Companies should avoid blatantly advertising their product and instead use Redditors’ desire for information and entertainment to their advantage.

  • SAP CEO: It’s All About the Customer Experience

    SAP CEO: It’s All About the Customer Experience

    SAP CEO Bill McDermott, in a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg talked about enterprises moving to the cloud, competing with Oracle’s new autonomous database, competing with Salesforce, and its huge business in China:

    SAP Has Taken Over the Enterprise Database Market

    Do you have a major move to the cloud? If legacy companies haven’t fully invested themselves in the cloud where they’ve converted their revenue streams more to cloud than on-premise I think you will see them make bold moves to get cloud-ready. No choice, that’s where the customer wants us.

    We obviously have taken over the enterprise database market with HANA. HANA has many of the characteristics that you mentioned (referencing Oracle). HANA can take data from any source, everything that is either structured or unstructured and data from any source in the enterprise. HANA is running the biggest enterprises in the world now with 25,000 customers at mass scale. We like our HANA database very much.

    It’s All About the Customer Experience

    We see a fourth-generation of CRM where we go beyond the current market participants. Basically, they focus on sales, marketing campaigns, things that essentially take money out of the customers pocket. What we want to do is focus on an omnichannel ecommerce world where we connect the demand chain because our customers are social, mobile and on the run. They shop in every channel, direct to consumer, wholesale, retail. We want to connect that demand chain to the supply chain so that we have a complete end-to-end business.

    Why is this so important? We are not just talking about CRM, we are talking about customer experience. The way CEOs think about their brand, their products, their human capital, their customers. All of the people inside of the company have to be completely committed to the customers outside the company. This is what we call fourth-generation CRM. It’s all about the customer experience.

    We’d Like to See China and the US Cooperate

    The most important thing is that we get paid to run businesses and work in an environment where we let government do what government does. All government leaders have to do what’s best for their country and best for their constituents. These tariffs are obviously a serious situation. You have the two largest economies in the world with $30 trillion in combined economic firepower that right now are at a little bit at odds with each other.

    It’s good, as we saw in today’s tweet, it was stated that at the G20 President Xi and President Trump will sit down and talk. That’s very encouraging to the market. Markets like certainty. So certainly we would like to see China and the US cooperate. It’s good for supply chain, it’s good for business.

    China is Regarded as SAP’s Second Home

    Germain engineering is highly regarding in China, as it is in the United States and around the world, but we do particularly well in China. China is our fastest growing market. We think that China is easily regarded as SAP’s second home in terms of market receptivity, ecosystem growth in China, and our long-term prospects. We think China will end up being the biggest market in the world soon.

    We have the most sophisticated data privacy in the world. We acquired a company called Gigya where we have billions and billions of customer records. We protect your privacy, we don’t let customers actually engage you unless you agree that you want to opt-in on various offerings from our customers and they serve their customers. We follow the same reference architecture, the same high-security standards and cloud standards in China that we do in Europe, the United States, and every other theater in the world.

    We are very confident in China in the way enterprises can serve their customers in China with high-security standards. We recently announced a very important partnership with Alibaba and that is a cloud partnership that will not only impact our growth in one of the fastest growing regions in the world.

    We Are Very Diverse and Highly Inclusive

    We actually have appointed in the last 12 months two women to our Executive Board, not just because they are women, but because they are great leaders. That would be Adaire Fox-Martin and Jennifer Morgan. If you look at our company we have a third of our workforce that is female and we also have a third of our leaders that are female.

    We are very diverse and highly inclusive. One of the things we really enjoy is what we have done with Autism at Work and now we have dedicated one percent of our hiring to autistic folks, at least on the spectrum somewhere, to help our workforce be highly productive and diverse. That extends also to the solutions that we have. If you look at success factors, the number one human capital solution in the world, we have a business without bias mentality.

    Computers don’t have bias. In the way we build the algorithms in the software they eliminate bias from the hiring process. The computer doesn’t have a bias. It looks for the best candidates and it fills an algorithm or model that the company is trying to get at. If you want 40 percent of your workforce to be diverse and inclusive, the model is built to do that for you. You don’t leave it up to humans, you let the software do the work and then the human judgment comes in at the final phase of hiring. It’s changing companies everywhere.

  • Kynetic CEO Michael Rubin: We Owe All of Our Success to Amazon

    Kynetic CEO Michael Rubin: We Owe All of Our Success to Amazon

    Kynetic CEO Michael Rubin says that they owe all of their success to Amazon. “I owe all of our success to Amazon because we are such a big believer in what they were doing, a completely differentiative business model,” Rubin said. “What we’re doing is really all about vertical commerce.”

    Michael Rubin, CEO of Kynetic which also owns Fanatics, Rue Gilt Groupe, and ShopRunner and is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, recently discussed how his companies have become so successful in an interview with Jim Cramer of Mad Money:

    What I See is How Much Opportunity There is In China

    What I see as an entrepreneur is how much opportunity there is in China. When I went there it’s one of those things you had to see to believe it. We had 45 million people watch our preseason basketball game. Think about that, 45 million people watching a preseason basketball game! That’s like half of a Super Bowl rating. That’s home rabid the basketball fans are in China.

    So for me, I think we have nothing but growth opportunity in China. We’re just launching Fanatics there. It’s a massive opportunity and we think we could build a multi-billion dollar business there. I couldn’t be more bullish on the opportunity.

    I Owe All of Our Success to Amazon

    Fanatics is a really exciting business. I’ll break this down really simply for you. I had a core belief that Amazon and Alibaba we’re going to control ecommerce everywhere in the world. So if you have that belief, you’ve got two options, completely differentiate yourself or go out of business. I’m not a guy who wants to go out of business so you’ve got to completely differentiate yourself.

    People say all the time, “How do you feel about Amazon?” I owe all of our success to Amazon because we are such a big believer in what they were doing, a completely differentiative business model. What we’re doing is really all about vertical commerce. We design, develop, and sell directly to the consumer most of the products that we have, so it’s a completely different business. Think about it like an H&M or a Zara, but in the sports license business and mostly online.

    Kynetic is All About Verticality

    We’re designing the jersey, well actually in the case of the jersey, Nike designs the jersey, but going forward we’re actually gonna manufacture the jersey and sell directly to the consumer. But I’ll tell you, just over the Super Bowl specifically, we sold two and a half million units of Eagles merchandise. Two and a half millions units of Eagles merchandise within a few weeks after the Super Bowl and we design those products, we manufacture those products, we ship them directly to the consumer.

    Because of the verticality, the consumer gets a wider assortment of merchandise, they get anything they want, they get it more quickly, and the leagues and teams make more money. We are also using that data to better communicate with the fans, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

    If you really think about the sports license business and if you think about the sports leagues, what a league wants and what a team wants is to have the best marketing brand in the world. Nike is this incredible brand, but they don’t wake up every day and go to bed every night thinking about how do I maximize every sale in the licensed sports business. So what the leagues did was smart, they said let’s split this from one set of rights to two sets of rights. Let’s work with Nike to be this incredible marketing partner and then really use it to drive the Nike brand and the NFL brand. At the same time let’s work with Fanatics to drive transactions. Now you’ve got two companies instead of one really growing the business as much as possible.

    We Made the Businesses What They Are Today

    For us, the truth be told and people ask this all the time, “Was eBay smart for selling the businesses? First, eBay was very focused, they didn’t want to be in the owned inventory business. Number two, these were teeny companies. When I bought Fanatics back from eBay it was a 250 million dollar company. It’s going to do $2.3 billion dollars this year. It has a completely different strategy. When we bought back Rue la la from eBay it was a $200 million business, then we bought Gilt and now it’s close to a billion-dollar business. ShopRunner didn’t have $100 million in transactions and next year it’s going to do three or four billion dollars in transactions.

    We took these businesses, we’ve developed the strategies, we’ve evolved them, and we’ve made them into what they are today. And Here’s the most exciting thing, we’re just getting going.

    My Loyalty is All About Who Makes Us the Most Money

    Other than the Sixers my loyalty is all about who makes us the most money, so I’m very easy to swap teams. If I own the Panthers I would be rooting to destroy the Eagles. I mean I love Jeffrey, he’s my buddy, but business is business and sports is sports. You’re there for one reason which is to win. I actually always laugh when people come up to me before a game and say, “Hey good luck.” I wish I could tell them good luck, but I’m like for the next three hours I hope you die. I love you before the game and I love you after the game, but there’s no love during the game.

  • ThirdLove Leveraging Data and Tech to Successfully Compete With Victoria’s Secret

    ThirdLove Leveraging Data and Tech to Successfully Compete With Victoria’s Secret

    How does a startup compete with a huge brand like Victoria’s Secret which by some accounts has nearly a 50 percent market share? By being different and utilizing technology and data.

    That’s what Heidi Zak, co-founder, and Co-CEO of ThirdLove, says is key to their growth and success.

    Third Love co-founder and Co-CEO Heidi Zak recently spoke about how her company is competing effectively with Victoria’s Secret.

    ThirdLove Seeks to Be Different Than Victoria’s Secret

    We are a direct-to-consumer ecommerce vertically integrated brand that makes very comfortable bras and underwear. Our differentiation from Victoria’s Secret and others happens in a few different ways.

    One is really focusing on product quality and a range of sizes. We have 70 sizes while Victoria’s Secret offers about 36. We have more than double including half sizes. I always say that shoes have half sizes, so why shouldn’t bras?

    Another differentiator is our marketing where we use real women in our marketing instead of models with a lot of diversity. We also leverage data to help women find their fit online. What we have done is digitized that experience.

    ThirdLove Leveraging Data to Compete With Victoria’s Secret

    We created Fit Finder so that in under 60 seconds you can answer questions about your breast shape, body type, fit issues and we will recommend the size and style. Over ten million women have actually done the Fit Finder. We have a massive amount of data with over 700 million data points.

    We use the data for product development and design, for thinking about sizes and specs, we use it marketing and personalization, and we use it in inventory management. Across every aspect of the business we are using data day in and day out.

    ThirdLove is a Blend of Tech and Beautiful Products

    ThirdLove is a company that is a blend of apparel and tech, for sure. Absolutely, data and tech are at the core of what we do, but we also create really beautiful products.

    At Google, I really learned to push the boundaries and to think about new ways of solving problems and applied that at ThirdLove. Also, I had been in traditional retail in New York at Aeropostale after business school. So it was really that blend of retail and tech coming together in terms of my background that I think made me comfortable to start this company.

    We’ve been growing over 300 percent year-on-year since we were founded in 2012 so we have seen substantial growth. We have 1.5 million customers and we continue to take on more and more market share.

    Victoria Secret’s, depending on the numbers you look at, owns somewhere between a third to 50 percent of the market, so there is a substantial amount of market share to be taken given that they are the worst performing stock on the S&P this year. Our current market share is a few basis points, I would say.

  • Voice Commerce: Is It Living Up to Its Early Hype?

    Voice Commerce: Is It Living Up to Its Early Hype?

    A growing number of people around the world are using the voice search feature in their smartphones and smart speakers to find information, confirm appointments, and even order food. However, one area that voice technology seems to be lagging behind is voice commerce. 

    Rise of Voice Technology

    Telling a computer to retrieve information or to play a specific song was something that Star Trek fans used to see in their favorite show. But thanks to Google and Amazon, voice technology has been steadily rising. As a matter of fact, a GlobalWebIndex report revealed that 27 percent of the world’s online population is already using voice search on their mobile devices. Meanwhile, 1/3 of Internet users have indicated an interest in buying a voice-controlled smart assistant.

    Image result for GlobalWebIndex 27% voice command

    At the moment, Amazon is leading the voice tech charge with its smart speaker, the Amazon Echo. This was soundly proven during the 2017 holiday season when the Echo Dot became the company’s top-selling device and millions of Alexa-enabled smart devices were sold.

    Google Home’s voice assistant isn’t too far behind either. Ever since the Google Home Mini rolled out in October 2017, there’s more than one Google Home device being sold every second. Google Assistant is also now available on 400 million devices. Even Apple has gotten into the game with its Home Pod.

    What’s Taking Voice Commerce So Long?

    Aside from making web searches easier, voice technology can also change the way we make purchases. The GlobalWebIndex report pointed out that the grocery and retail would be significantly impacted by this technology in 2018. However, it appears that consumers are slow in embracing voice-powered eCommerce.

    According to The Information, 50 million people own and use Alexa-enabled devices but only two percent have used them to buy something. And 90 percent of those who did use Alexa to make a purchase have not made a second transaction. This has led to questions regarding voice technology’s feasibility and whether or not its impact is just all hype.

    One reason for consumers’ slow acceptance of voice tech is its irrelevance in particular niches. When it comes to online retailers, displays and graphics are a critical and decisive factor. Unfortunately, voice tech cannot really stand on its own in this industry. It should be considered as a means to augment and support visual channels instead. For instance, consumers who are looking to buy clothes require visuals of the product.

    Meanwhile, businesses, where graphics are less important, will find voice tech useful, like in ordering food, buying groceries, or reserving tickets. These are the kind of transactions that don’t demand a lot of in-store or on-screen assessment.

    Voice tech is also undergoing the inevitable teething pain. Some retailers have also complained about how their product keywords were constantly changed, thus making it harder for consumers to find. There’s also the fact that a lot of people prefer to research things like the prices of goods on their own.

    The Future of Voice Tech in eCommerce

    Consumers might be slow in taking advantage of voice tech in eCommerce, but it doesn’t mean that they will never embrace it. A survey conducted in France, Germany, and the US showed that 40 percent of the 5,000 respondents intend to use voice assistants to buy goods in the next three years.

    [Graphic via Capgemini]

    Tech companies will also be adjusting their designs and strategies to ensure the profitability of voice commerce. Amazon and Google are already taking steps to ensure this happens. For instance, Google’s latest Home assistants now come with a display screen. Instead of a garbled product description, consumers can now enjoy visual options.

    Consumer behavior is also expected to change. As more people become comfortable using voice to activate light switches and televisions, making a purchase via voice tech will feel normal. Businesses will also find more ways to use this technology to encourage purchases.

    One such company is Virgin Trains. The train company partnered with Alexa and Amazon Pay in May to allow customers to book their tickets via an Alexa-enabled device like the Amazon Echo or Dot.

    Image result for virgin trains alexa

    [Graphic via Amazon]

    Natasha Toothill, the head of enterprise over at Amazon Pay, is just one of many who believe that there’s room for growth in voice commerce. She explained at Future Stores Europe that compared to emails and IMs, voice tech is “the most natural way of communicating.”

  • 4 Snapchat Marketing Tips to Help You Rise Above Your Competition

    4 Snapchat Marketing Tips to Help You Rise Above Your Competition

    Compared to the larger social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat is a bit like The Little Engine That Could. That’s because it’s been underestimated by numerous brands and marketers alike. They dismiss Snapchat as a viable advertising tool because of its reputation for being a purely social platform, used mostly by teenagers and young adults. But the image-sharing app has the potential to generate leads and keep profits rolling in.

    In the first quarter of 2018, Snapchat reported 191 million active daily users—that’s a lot of potential customers. One survey also showed that 86 percent of the platform’s users fall into the 13 to 37 age group and more than seven billion videos were viewed on it daily in 2016.

    Image result for snapchat number of users 2018

    Despite these numbers, businesses are still not overly fond of Snapchat. A Clutch and Smart Insights study found that only 21 percent of businesses have Snapchat accounts. Compare that to the 89 percent of companies that are on Facebook, 80 percent on Twitter, and 56 percent on Instagram.

    The Social Media Platforms Businesses Value

    But this means that brands have fewer rivals and more room to maneuver on Snapchat. The platform is also evolving continuously, changing its user interface, featuring Stories for up to 24 hours, and adding eCommerce features. It’s also gaining popularity among older users as the teens who started using Snapchat when it launched in 2011 are becoming working adults.

    Savvy marketers know that Snapchat can be a powerful tool for rising above the competition. Here are four tips to help you tap into the benefits of Snapchat:

    1. Concentrate on a Younger Audience

    Snapchat developer Snap Inc. designed the multimedia messaging app for teenagers. Recent data has shown that the company is doing a great job of keeping their young demographic engaged. A Pew Research Center study revealed that 78 percent of the respondents between 18 to 24-years-old are using the app. Meanwhile, only 45 percent of the same demographic use Twitter.

    You can leave your competition in the dust by learning how to catch the attention of younger consumers. While a carefully worded call-to-action can be effective, creating an intriguing story or using entertaining filters in your Snap can exceedingly better. 

    In 2016, Taco Bell rolled out a comical Snap filter that turned the user’s head into a giant taco. The Cinco de Mayo promotion generated a whopping 224 million views. Now, image how that type of attention could change your business.

    Best Brands On Snapchat Taco Bell

    2. Launch Products and Push Promos

    Snapchat has a high engagement rate. As a matter of fact, it gets almost 4 times higher engagement than Instagram. This makes it a great place to launch your latest products or to push promos. Makeup brand NARS launched their new product line to great success on the platform. The company drummed up excitement by giving followers a quick look at their new line. Snapchat allows you to create short, informal videos that look unpolished but relatable to more users.

    Image result for NARS product line snapchat

    Image result for NARS product line snapchat

    3. Collaborate With Influencers

    Influencer marketing is a very effective strategy. Companies can draw in a big audience because their content will be viewed by followers of the brand and that of the influencer. It’s a quick way of develop a large following in a short amount of time.

    One company who successfully leveraged an influencer’s popularity was Audi. The car manufacturer partnered up with the popular show Pretty Little Liars and quickly amassed 115,000 followers on its Snapchat account.

    Image result for audi pretty little liars snapchat

    You can also have an influencer take over your Snapchat account and make posts on your behalf for a specific time frame. For instance, music producer Pharrell once took over one of the Adidas events.

    4. Keep Followers Interested Longer

    Snapchat is all about drawing people in and engaging them. You’ll have better sales results the longer people stay on your page or account. Other social network platforms keep followers engaged by having them take additional steps, like clicking on a link to send them to another website.

    Image result for snapchat ecommerce

    Snapchat keeps followers interested much longer because they have integrated eCommerce features in the app itself. For instance, users can use the app to call people, make dinner reservations, grab an Uber, or explore brands and their locations.

    With its impressively high engagement levels, business-friendly features and low competition from other brands, incorporating Snapchat into your marketing strategy could prove to be a worthwhile investment. 

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • How Mattel Optimizes Marketing on Walmart.com

    How Mattel Optimizes Marketing on Walmart.com

    Mattel is one of the largest distributors and brands sold on Walmart.com. Meredith Wollman manages the customer experience and all of the digital marketing for Mattel products that are sold through the Walmart.com channel. Wollman was interviewed at the eTail Conference by Tammy Everts, Senior Director of Research at SOASTA, now part of Akamai.

    How do you deliver the high conversion rates that Walmart and Mattel expect?

    If you don’t have the fundamentals down no campaign is going to be successful. Before we consider an ad campaign we go back to the cradle and look at setting up the items. We make sure that each item has the correct title, correct brand attribution, the right content in terms of A+ asset, beautiful imagery,  lifestyle imagery, package, out of package, the right videos, whether we have short TV commercials, and any user-generated content.

    Whatever the case may be, making sure that those items are set up and that they are optimized properly is very important to do before we even look at a campaign. No campaign will be successful if the item isn’t set up properly and they aren’t engaging for the consumers and there aren’t reviews already on the product.

    How do you plan a campaign for Mattel on Walmart.com?

    We are looking at what are our big bets? Where do we have the biggest investment in terms of the products that we want to put in front of the consumer? Every campaign looks at our on-hand inventory and where we are hoping on having the consumer lean in big. What we do is set up the campaign around that. We determine that if we can only have 5 or 6 hero images, what are those going to be? What are the products that we are going to use as the enticement for the consumer to come in and look at more?

    Then, which brands are we going to focus on? We also look at all of the analytics in terms of geo-targeting. In this particular zip code, are consumers leaning in towards our latin Barbie? Are they leaning in towards our African American Barbie? We want to really personalize what shows up on the screen for the consumers so they are seeing what they want to see and what they didn’t even know that they wanted to see.

    It’s Definitely a Data-Driven Process…

    I think the days of gut testing everything have gone the way of the Dodo Bird. Everything has to be data-driven now. That doesn’t mean that you can’t test something new, we do that all of the time. We really look at the data first to determine which products, where, who, when and how. All of those key factors are looked at when determining what we are going to put forward. It has to be data-driven.

    Most Mattel Shoppers Start on Mobile in the Store

    About 75 percent of our consumers start their journey on mobile. They are either in the store looking at a product and then they go on their phone and look for reviews or they are in the store and looking at products to see how quickly it could be shipped. A lot of people start their journey online which is why it’s so important to be mobile optimized.

    They don’t all necessarily buy online but that’s where they start their journey. Some will buy online but then go pick up in the store, which is actually considered a store purchase.

    How are conversions for Mattel on Walmart.com?

    They are slightly higher than the norm of 4-6 percent. If you are hitting the consumer when they want to see the product and with the product, they want to see you will, of course, have a greater conversion rate. It comes down to being scientific and artful at the same time about not necessarily telling the consumer what we want them to know, but giving the consumer the information that they want.

    Those two don’t always mesh as easily as we’d like because we have things we want to share at certain times, but that’s not always what works best for the consumer. The better we understand the consumer and what they want and when they want it the more successful the campaign. It’s always the case when we are communicating something that we want them to know in the time frame that we want them to know that it’s not nearly as successful.

    Akamai Study Shows Load Time Impacts Revenue Significantly

    A study by Akamai shows that every 1 second of load time improvement on Walmart.com equaled a 2% conversion rate increase.


    Also, for every 100ms of improvement, incremental revenue grew by 1%. All ecommerce sites can benefit from increasing both the speed and efficiency of the consumer experience.

  • eBay’s Stock Takes Massive Tumble, Company Axes 300 Employees

    eBay’s Stock Takes Massive Tumble, Company Axes 300 Employees

    This is not a good week for eBay. The company’s stocks took a massive tumble a day after revealing that it was slashing about 300 jobs in the Bay Area.

    eBay informed the Employment Development Department of California of its move to cut about 300 jobs in the area by Friday, July 20. The affected employees were reportedly notified last month that they were being laid off.

    The retail giant later reported its second-quarter earnings to its investors. The company secured a net profit of 64 cents per share, which was above what analysts projected. However, its warning that the present quarter’s revenue would go down resulted in a selloff that saw eBay’s stocks fall by 10 percent, ending in $34.11 per share.

    eBay also reported that its expected full-year profit will be around $10.75 billion to $10.85 billion, down from its previous estimate of about $10.9 billion to $11.1 billion. The company also lowered its expectations regarding its third-quarter earnings per share to somewhere between $0.54 and $0.56.

    News of the layoffs and the drop in stock prices is typically something to be worried about. Conventional wisdom dictates that cutting jobs should lead to a boost in share prices. After all, reduced cost means better profits. eBay certainly looks at it that way, as the company stated that the savings it made the previous quarter will provide them with additional funds to spend on marketing.

    eBay has been relatively quiet the past few years, particularly when compared to rival Amazon. But despite losing its luster, the company has been performing steadily. Its stock prices even reached a high $36 per share last January. This capped a 139 percent gain of the past five years. Unfortunately, shares have dropped 27 percent since then.

    Some Wall Street analysts have said that this drop in shares is puzzling, as the company continues to make progress with its key initiatives. They noted that the company is still “losing market share at a time when eCommerce, in general, is thriving.” One analyst even said that this could be due to eBay customers not bringing in new buyers to the platform.

  • Amazon and Google are Starting to Look More and More Alike

    Amazon and Google are Starting to Look More and More Alike

    The eCommerce landscape is in constant flux, with Amazon becoming more like a search-ads platform aside from being an eCommerce venture while Google seems to be doing the opposite. That’s one of the key takeaways from Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report.

    Meeker recently presented her report at Recode’s Code Conference. Among the highlights of the talk was her observation that Amazon and Google are starting to evolve and converge. 

    While this convergence might seem strange to some, it’s inevitable that companies evolve as eCommerce continues to grow steadily every year.

    Amazon the Search Engine

    There’s no question that Amazon is lording it over in online sales. The company had a 28% share in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in 2017, a big jump from its 20% share in 2013.

    The past few years has also seen Amazon becoming the start-off point for more product searches than Google. A reported 49% of shoppers begin their product search on Amazon while 36% opt for other search engines. What’s more, Amazon shoppers are a loyal group. A PricewaterhouseCooper’s survey revealed that 14% of shoppers use this site exclusively. The company is also perfectly suited to take advantage of these searches with key features like one-click purchasing, which allows customers to purchase from Amazon once they find the results they want.

    [Graphic via MediaPost]

    Amazon is also aggressively growing its advertising side. More marketers are investing in the company’s paid search products, with 82% of Amazon Marketing Services users purchasing sponsored products while 65% buy headline search and product display ads.

    Google as an eCommerce Platform

    Google and Facebook continue to dominate ad revenues; Amazon is currently in fifth place. But with Jeff Bezos nipping at their heels, the Alphabet group is not resting on its laurels and has started to develop ways to ensure shoppers remain onsite. The company’s new AdWords feature – Shopping Actions – will ensure that happens.

    Shopping Actions essentially turns Google Assistant and Google Search into marketplaces that retailers can tap into while also allowing users to make direct purchases. Shoppers can add what they find in their search to a common shopping cart and easily check out using payment data already filed with Google. What’s more, the program works across various devices. This can provide Google a major advantage, given the increasing popularity of voice search.

    Home Depot, Target, Ulta, and Walmart are just some of Google’s retail partners. However, these partner retailers would have to sacrifice some of their sales and control of their customer’s online shopping experience to Google, it’s a small price to pay for being able to utilize the company’s vast resources, technology, and millions of potential customers.

  • 5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Benefits eCommerce Businesses

    5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Benefits eCommerce Businesses

    Over the past few years, more people have turned to online shopping instead of brick-and-mortar stores because of convenience. In 2017, eCommerce businesses accounted for 9.1 percent of US retail sales during the fourth quarter, higher than the 8.2 percent share of the previous year.

    Amidst online sales growth and positive prospects of eCommerce, nearly half of the industry’s revenue comes from Amazon. This prompted other online retailers to tap into artificial intelligence, or AI, in gaining an edge over the eCommerce giant through personalized shopping experience. In utilizing AI for their businesses, retailers gain critical analytical data on consumers, allowing them to improve customer experience.

    From effective marketing strategies to efficient sales process, here’s a look at how using AI will benefit online retailers.

    1. Easier Product Searching

    Most sales online begin with a search, and if the results displayed are not relevant, this can prompt customers to look somewhere else. Keyword-based search is the usual method for websites to return a list of items based on entered words and description. However, this might not be the most accurate way to generate relevant results.

    To address this, a visual search engine powered by AI allows customers to send an image instead and discover similar products on your website. High-end retailer Neiman Marcus first announced said feature on its mobile app in 2015, recognizing the customer’s need to find related results based on photos.  

    Related image

    Image via Neiman Marcus website

    2. Better Customer Understanding

    Feedback, whether posted on social media or review sites, allows businesses to quickly gain valuable insights about their products. Although 40 percent of sales and marketing leaders acknowledge that word of mouth is crucial to a brand’s success on social media, less than half of these companies use this information for their customer analytics.

    By using AI and natural language processing (NLP), retailers can sift through every online feedback, be it positive, negative, or neutral, to learn more about customer expectations and respond accordingly.   

    3. Personalized Marketing Strategy

    AI-powered recommendation engines filter relevant information from numerous data about a buyer’s interest, preference, and behaviors on the site. Based on timely insights gathered, an online merchant suggests items uniquely patterned after your recent activity and past purchases on the site.

    This shopping experience mimicking the personal feel of brick-and-mortar stores translates to customer satisfaction and spending. In fact, retailers with personalized strategies have observed sales growth of 6-10 percent, two to three times faster than others that don’t, according to Boston Consulting Group study.

    4. Immediate Customer Service

    Chatbots and virtual shopping assistants, powered by AI, provide direct and quick customer engagement. For eCommerce businesses, chatbots can be used to automate customer service messages, send order-related information, resolve issues, and interact with clients in real-time. By using NLP to understand meaning and context of your customers’ messages, these virtual assistants can take on your brand’s personality and voice in creating human-like interaction.

    Image result for chatbot customer service

    Image via livingactor.com

    In a survey done by Oracle on 800 sales and marketing leaders, about 80% want to use chatbots in their businesses by 2020 as a way to automate some processes and improve customer experience.

    5. Systematic Sales Process

    Prior to social media, sales strategies include cold-calling and ad placements in the hopes of targeting the right market. These days, AI is used to gather patterns and numbers to help businesses convert queries to actual sales through data-driven feedback.

    Nowadays, people turn to social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram for shopping inspiration—a trove of data for AI companies like Yotpo to utilize in developing digital marketing tools. With proper use of user-generated content, customers discover products in a subtler, more natural way.  

    “Artificial intelligence programs can scan through millions of events to find patterns and correlations that we just would not notice on a day to day basis. So it might notice a correlation between sending a specific pitch deck to prospective clients before calling them results in better conversions,” Uzi Shmilovici, chief executive officer of Base CRM, explained.

    Digitally native retailers have recognized the importance of creating personalized shopping experience through the use of AI as a way to give them an edge over others offering the same products. By leveraging AI-driven innovations, smaller eCommerce businesses, as well as bigger retailers like Amazon, get the leg up in attracting and retaining their customers. 

  • Instagram Launches Shoppable Posts in 8 New Countries

    Instagram Launches Shoppable Posts in 8 New Countries

    Instagram is planning to increase its share in the eCommerce segment by expanding its shopping feature abroad. Previously available only in the US, the Facebook-owned photo and video sharing app now allows shoppable posts for businesses located in an additional eight countries.

    Instagram is expanding its shopping feature to other countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The feature was first tested in November of 2016 before it was introduced to US users of the app last year.

    Shoppable organic posts allow businesses to add eCommerce links to their social media posts. This makes it easier for brands to drive additional traffic to their eCommerce sites.

    The shopping feature acts as a shop window that allows users to explore products. Tapping on a post will display the product’s price as well as a link which brings Instagram users to the product page within the platform. The post shows additional product details as well as similar products and other items being offered by the brand. If the user is interested, they can then click on the “Shop Now” button which redirects them to the actual eCommerce site of the brand.

    The shopping feature’s international expansion can add more revenue to the app and increase the company’s share in the global eCommerce segment. Instagram noted an increase in eCommerce activity on the platform with more than 200 million users visiting at least one Instagram business profile daily. The feature was designed to entice users who love to shop as it noted that about half of its US-based active users follow a shopping business account.

    Given the feature’s popularity among Instagram users, many online stores could see a significant boost to their bottom line by adding it to their marketing strategy. According to Lulus Vice President of Marketing Noelle Sandler, their website traffic from the platform increased by 44 percent since shoppable organic posts were introduced last year.

    [Featured image via Pixabay]

  • Ghostery Goes Open Source, Reveals Two Proposed Revenue Streams

    Ghostery Goes Open Source, Reveals Two Proposed Revenue Streams

    Ad-blocker Ghostery published its entire programming code on Thursday. By going open source, the company aims to clear the air on its old business model and invite others to contribute to its continuing development.

    “As a privacy product, especially one designed to give users a look behind the scenes at what data companies are collecting and doing with it, we thought it was important to give our users a look under the hood,” Ghostery’s product manager Jeffrey Tillman said.

    This unprecedented move was Ghostery’s response to conspiracy theories hounding the company. Before its acquisition by web browser Cliqz last year, previous owner Evidon earned money for Ghostery by selling users’ data. Software users chose to disclose information on ad trackers they encountered, but the compiled information was sold to eCommerce sites to help them discover why loading times slowed down.

    Ghostery’s old business model was contradictory—a privacy-focused tool selling user data—and confused its users. “It was never a really great fit for Ghostery the consumer product,” Tillman admitted.

    Recently, Ghostery announced two revenue streams as its new business model. First is Ghostery Insights, a paid analytics service for researchers to gather more data about the tracker ecosystem. Likewise, the analytics tool will aid web developers in quantifying the effect of trackers on site performance, such as loading speeds.

    Meanwhile, Ghostery Rewards is an affiliate marketing program designed for its users. They can choose to sign up for the service wherein users will receive relevant promotional offers, a tamer version of aggressive web ads. There will still be advertisements, but only those worthwhile and interesting to Ghostery users.

    Of course, affiliate programs are nothing new as many publications and bloggers already use them to generate revenue. However, Ghostery’s decided to make its program distinctly different from that of its main rival Adblock Plus. Unlike Ghostery Rewards, Adblock has an “acceptable ads program” that shows ads that may not be relevant to the user. As long as advertisers meet certain criteria and agree to split some of their ad revenue, Adblock lets them through.

    Exposing Ghostery’s code to the public makes it more vulnerable for software developers to sidestep the ad blocker’s system. But Tillman isn’t losing sleep over it.

    “There will always be a cat-and-mouse game with advertisers that are trying to find new ways to evade our technology but, if anything, going open-source should empower our community of contributors to help keep Ghostery ahead of the curve,” Tillman pointed out.

    [Featured image via YouTube]

  • Top 5 KPIs That Will Keep Your eCommerce Business on Track for Success

    Top 5 KPIs That Will Keep Your eCommerce Business on Track for Success

    Running an eCommerce business is no walk in the park. Most of the time, things change so quickly that it’s difficult to keep track of what’s working for your business and what isn’t. What’s more, the tasks you have to do on a daily basis could make you lose sight of your long-term goals. This is why it’s important to have a few KPIs in place.

    Why KPIs Matter

    A KPI, or key performance indicator, is a determinable measure that a company uses to gauge how well it has met strategic and operational goals.

    Businesses use different KPIs based on their priorities and the performance criteria they set for themselves. The type of KPIs used depends on the company and its goals. Businesses can use as many KPIs as they deem necessary but most use four to ten KPIs. These are enough to provide them with the measurable data they need to assess their objectives, check their strategies, and make the necessary adjustments.

    KPIs are crucial to the success of a business. These indicators aid companies in focusing on their goals and ensuring these remain aligned within the business. Targeting these goals will help a company stay on track and work on projects and strategies that will aid them in hitting their targets faster.

    Top 5 KPIs for Your Business

    The challenge with KPIs is to determine which metric is best for your brand. For eCommerce businesses, the following are the ones that will give you a greater chance of success:

    1. Conversion Rate

    Conversion rate is simply the percentage of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This is determined by taking the total number of customers who bought something and divide it by the total number of guests on the site.

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    It’s easy to see why brands use this key KPI, as a good conversion indicates people are buying your product. In cases when conversion rates are poor, companies can take the necessary steps to correct it. For instance, they can improve how products are presented by using either visually appealing images or heartwarming text. Using videos and streamlining the checkout process also helps improve conversion rates.

    2. Average Order Value (AOV)

    As the name indicates, this is the average amount a client spends on an order. It’s calculated by taking the total amount of all purchases and dividing it by the number of orders.

    A high AOV means that you are making more profit per client. Of course, companies want to boost their AOV. They can do so by carefully examining their client’s shopping behavior and finding ways to push more products or offers that are relevant to them. A lot of brands are doing this by showing “related items” on the checkout page that are based on the shopper’s browsing or buying history.

    3. Repeat Customer Rate (RCR)

    RCR is the percent of customers who return to the site and make additional purchases. This is computed by taking the total number of customers in a given time frame (ex. March 2018) and dividing it by the number of clients who return and made another purchase within a specific duration (ex. 30 days).

    Companies love repeat customers and they encourage this by providing great customer service, doing email marketing campaigns and using loyalty programs.

    4. Cart Abandonment Rate

    This term refers to when visitors place items in their cart but then leaves the site without finishing the purchase. It’s vital for companies to track cart abandonment rate since it will enable them to understand what changes they can make to push customers to finally make a purchase.

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    Brands can experiment with different ways to forestall cart abandonment. Some have streamlined the purchasing process to encourage people to complete their transaction. Others have changed the placement of security seals to prove to customers that their personal data is secured.

    5. Website Traffic

    This is probably one of the most important metrics used. It indicates all the visitors to your website. The type of traffic you get to your site is a good indication of how many new customers you have and how much sales you made. Website traffic is determined by simply adding all those who visited your site from every available source, whether it’s organic, social, direct or through referrals and email.

    Marketers have a number of ways of improving traffic, like content marketing, emailing existing customers, and word of mouth. Companies who are willing to invest can also boost traffic via paid campaigns like display ads and print ads.

    KPIs are crucial if you want to monitor how your business is performing and to see what improvements can still be made. However, make sure you spend the time to choose the right metrics to use.