Over 80% of the clothes women aren’t wearing is worth half a trillion dollars in the US according to Finery founder and CEO Whitney Casey. Finery, which was just listed in CNBC’s Upstart 100 list of promising young startups, keeps track of all your clothing purchases and creates a digital wardrobe and then helps style you in the clothes you already own.
Whitney Casey, founder, and CEO of Finery discussed her company’s service and business model in a recent interview:
Finery is a Digital Wardrobe
Finery is a digital wardrobe. What we do is we find all of your purchases, from your e-receipts, from your browser history, from attaching your accounts, and then we instantly upload all of those items into a virtual closet so you can see everything you own. We have a bunch of tools on the site that can help you add items easily. You Google anything, you find the image, you push the little ‘F’ browser button and it uploads to your closet. That’s our tech. We go back ten years into your purchase history to find and call all those receipts and put it into this closet for you. The bigger picture of this is really about data and that’s the ethos that this company is built off of.
We let you also take your account and upload your accounts such as Neiman Marcus, Target, or whatever. The data is really important and when we talk about data we tell women that we really think that your data should be working for you. It should not be working for Facebook. Women are the consumers with 85 percent of the consumer goods purchased by women. Yet, 91 percent of women say they don’t feel like advertisers or anyone really understand them.
Why Do Women Need Finery?
What’s great is we style you. A woman will spend eight years of her life shopping and two years getting dressed, we’re shaving the time off that. We also give you a return receipt. So think about this, you buy something and you have seven days left so you can no longer return, you need to know that so we ping you. Hey, it’s raining outside, here are five things you can wear from your closet. Hey, it’s Sunday, you have four interviews this week so here are five outfits for you from your closet.
We have hundreds of thousands of users currently. But we have a big vision and it is around data because we really do feel like women need to have their data working for them. It’s very hard actually to get data from women because they don’t want this same purple boot following them around the internet like it does (via behavioral ads) for two years that they bought. Instead, they really want their data to be working for them and that’s what we’re doing.
When you log in to a retail site why does it do you any good to log in with your Facebook account? It only does Facebook good so they can then advertise to you. What we want to do is create a login from your Finery account so that all of your data can come with you and then it could make your purchasing way easier.
How Does Finery Make Money?
We offer a rev share, we call it a knowledge tax. Companies pay us to give women a personalization lifeline. When you go to these retailers it’s not very easy, you sift through all of these pages. If you think about it, the service, the flywheel of giving women some utility and they give us more access to themselves and every time access makes the utility better.
It’s crazy because 80% of the clothes you aren’t wearing is worth half a trillion dollars in the US. If we put RFID tags in all of your clothes we would we could know exactly where you’re wearing them and exactly the amount of time you’re wearing them and then break the cost. Via a consignment site, you could then just tap on any item in your wardrobe and then sell it. It all starts in your wardrobe, all of these all of these functionalities, re-commerce, commerce, rentals, it all has to start with the clothes that you own.
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.
The wedding niche is a $100 billion industry in the US alone and is ripe for ecommerce startups. In 2013, Shan-lyn Ma and Nobu Nakaguchi realized through their own experiences that they could not only improve on but literally reinvent the wedding industry, so they started Zola.
According to Shan-lyn Ma, Zola is the fastest growing wedding company in the US, with the goal of reinventing the wedding planning and registry experience. To date, it has received over $140 million in funding.
Shan-lyn Ma, CEO, and co-founder of Zola recently talked about how Zola came about and where it’s going:
Personal Experiences Were the Spark
Zola means love in the Zulu language. In 2013, which was the year that we were brainstorming was also the year all my friends got married at exactly the same time. I was shopping on a lot of my friend’s department store registries and finding that it was the worst ecommerce shopping experience I had ever seen. Talking to my co-founder Nobu Nakaguchi, he’s married and he was complaining about how painful it was from the couple’s perspective.
We had worked in design and product and technology together building great products and so we knew we could do a much better job and we knew our friends getting married deserved a much better product. Before Zola launched a couple would have an average of three registries and Zola takes that down to just one registry.
Zola Weddings Launched Last Year
Last year we launched a second product called Zola weddings. That includes is free a wedding website, our guest list manager, and our checklist for all your to-do’s in order to plan your wedding. This was the number one request we were hearing from couples who were saying I love you for my registry, why can’t I just add a few more details about my wedding and I’ll make it my wedding website and then I’m done.
Pitching Zola to Investors
Regarding how we pitched Zola to investors, it was harder to show that emotional connection to a problem and how the product sold this better than anything else. We focused on how is this business model is innovating how we are redoing retail and we had the numbers to show it and they absolutely got it.
Weddings are a $100 Billion Industry
Weddings are a $100 billion industry in the US and globally it’s a $300 billion industry. When you think about it, weddings is one of the few industries remaining where we haven’t seen a dominant startup player or disruptor emerge to take the market.
There’s no one that does everything that we do and there’s certainly no one that does it all on the website and on your mobile device serving every couple no matter who you are, no matter what your sexual orientation, no matter what you want your wedding to look like, or your religion. We are there to serve you and that is what is unique and that’s why we’re the fastest growing wedding company.
Online retailers and small businesses understand how crucial advertising is in driving traffic to their websites. Unfortunately, 97 percent of first-time site visitors will leave without buying anything. There’s a big chance that they won’t ever come back unless you can find a way to convince them to return. One way to go about this is by retargeting them.
What are Retargeting Ads?
Have you noticed that some of the ads you see while browsing a site or checking your Facebook feed are from a website that you previously visited? That is retargeting. These ads either offer you customized deals on items you previously looked at or remind you of an abandoned cart. They can help your business re-engage consumers who visited your online store but didn’t push through with a purchase. These ads ensure that your brand is kept in front of bounced traffic even after your prospects have left your website.
How Do These Ads Work?
Retargeting is an ad technology that redisplays your company’s product or service to consumers who had shown an interest. If someone visits your product page or downloads your app, that’s a pretty good indication that they’re interested in your brand.
Retargeting utilizes a simple Javascript code called a “cookie” that allows you to “follow” your audience. This inconspicuous, little code is integrated on your website. An undisclosed browser cookie is then dropped whenever a new visitor lands on your site.
Once the visitor tagged with the cookie starts to browse, the code informs your retargeting provider when to serve your ads. The prospective client will then see your ads popping up while they’re playing a game, listening to music, reading an article, or browsing another store. For example, if a visitor checked a product page for a blue blazer but didn’t buy it, an ad retargeting them would show the same blazer and maybe a deal slashing the price by 15 percent. Or they might see an ad showing similar apparel.
Your ads will remind them of their interest in your product and hopefully bring them back to your website. Site visitors who see retargeted ads are70 percent more likely to make a purchase.
Why Should Your Business Consider Retargeting Ads?
You won’t be able to convince all your site visitors to buy your product or try your services. The best that you can hope for is to keep them interested while they decide whether they are willing to try your brand. In order to do this, you have to utilize more than one marketing channel. Google revealed that integrating retargeting with other marketing campaigns can help you close up to 50 percent more deals. That’s because most shoppers are more likely to notice the products that they had previously looked up.
Retargeting ads are also 10 times more effective than conventional display ads. The former’s click-through rate is close to 0.7 percent while the latter only has a CTR of 0.07 percent. It’s understandable that small businesses would typically opt for display ads. But a retargeting campaign is still relatively affordable and can complement any ad strategy.
Here’s the Kicker
Retargeting is apowerful and compelling conversion and branding optimization tool. However, this strategy is more effective when used in conjunction with a bigger digital marketing campaign.
Strategies like AdWords, content marketing, and targeted display are good for driving traffic, but they’re not as effective when it comes to optimizing conversion. Meanwhile, retargeting helps boost conversions but can’t drive traffic to websites. It’s best to combine the tools that push traffic and retargeting ads. You’ll get the best of both worlds while helping your brand make its mark.
The clothing as a service business model is not disruptive for clothing retailers says CaaStle founder and CEO Christine Hunsicker. “It’s completely accretive and one of the big things about this technology is that it’s not disruptive. It’s not a disruptive model that’s threatening their businesses.”
CaaStle is a fully managed service that allows retailers to offer Clothing as a Service (CaaS) to their consumers. CaaS is an access model that they say has “transformative benefits” for retailers and consumers. CaaStle says it simply provides technology, reverse logistics and managed services to help retailers participate in the new economy.
CaaStle founder and CEO, Christine Hunsicker, recently discussed her CaaStle and why clothing as a service is not a disruptive model threatening retailers:
Enables Clothing Retailers to Rent Clothing on a Subscription Basis
CaaStle is a fully managed service that allows any retailer to offer a rental subscription service to their customers using their inventory. We are completely behind the scenes and nobody knows we exist. We are the people building the front end consumer experience, we’re handling the logistics and were handling the technology and the algorithms. We just take the clothing and the consumer list from the retailer and make it all happen.
What we found is that fundamentally consumers rent very differently than they buy, so most of the things that you buy, and if you think about your own wardrobe, are gonna be the basic core and the staples, things that you can get a lot of wear out of, and that makes sense from a cost per wear perspective.
When you rent you tend to go more towards the fashion and the trend. For a company like Express or like Ann Taylor or like New York & Company they’re going to continue to sell just like they always have. What they’re doing now is increasing engagement with their brand and increasing that brand loyalty through renting more of the fashion pieces.
Our Clothing as a Service (CAAS) Technology is not Disruptive
It’s completely accretive and one of the big things about this technology is that it’s not disruptive. It’s not a disruptive model that’s threatening their businesses. Right now it’s an opportunity for these retailers to jump on board and increase the number of new consumers they have and increase the spend that consumers have with them. It’s a significantly more profitable business and has very high engagement rates.
It’s everyday clothing. You can’t be concerned that you may snag it or tear it or spill something on it, there’s going to be some damage that happens. We want the consumers and the retailers want the consumers to be very relaxed and comfortable in the clothing. It’s actually part of the service fee, there’s no nickel and diming for extra insurance. It’s going to happen that occasionally the clothing comes back damaged, very rarely though.
We get paid on a per consumer basis so we’re completely aligned with the retailer to help them grow their base and maintain their base and have very happy consumers.
We’re Building this Company to Take it Public
As far as the Eloquii acquisition ($100 million) by Walmart, they have this strategy with Mark Lore (Walmart CEO) and under Andy Dunn to bring in a bunch of brands and expand their consumer base. As far as straight retail goes you saw it with Bonobos and Eloquii and ModCloth, this is just another step in that in that path.
I think it’s great for the plus-size consumer. I think it’s great for the Eloquii customer. They’re going to be able to leverage the Walmart supply chain and logistics and deliver a better experience probably at a lower cost point.
When it comes to, do we want to be acquired? We’re building this company to take it public. We don’t want to be acquired by any single player largely because we believe in fragmentation. If you believe the industry has been fragmented and will remain fragmented and if you want to impact the tremendous part of the economy you need to be a platform underlying all of the brands and the retailers as opposed to being a singular consumer-facing brand.
Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck said in an interview that “Facebook and Google are not your friends, they’re unreliable partners and are after domination.” He added in a blog post, “That’s why we’re building a company that stands apart from Google and Facebook as the most trusted, independent platform for understanding location.”
Glueck also announced the first close of a new round of $33 million of equity funding led by strategic investors Simon Ventures and Naver Corp. and by Union Square Ventures. He says that the first close of $25 million occurred on Friday and that he anticipates a secondary close of at least $8 million by year’s end.
Jeff Glueck, CEO of Foursquare, spoke about the new funding and how they were going to use it in their quest to “become the location layer of the internet” on CNBC:
Foursquare is Really the Location Layer of the Internet
Foursquare is really the location layer of the Internet. This round led by Simon Ventures is really gonna give us the fuel to continue investing. If you think about the location features on your phone, most of the time they’re powered by Foursquare technology. If you get a Snapchat geofilter, if you type a place into Uber, if you get matched on Tinder to people who like the same places, those are all examples of Foursquare technology at work.
Foursquare Helping Companies Take on the Amazon’s of the World
With this round of financing we’re going to take that into the retail world, into the dining world, and into the general media publishing world to bring location technology to bear. Foursquare helps media companies and brands and apps create location features. The examples of our customers are like Apple and Microsoft the like but 90 percent of commerce still happens in the real world.
For all the attention on Amazon and what Jeff Bezos said, Amazon is just 4 percent of consumer spending. Over 90 percent takes place in the in the real world including grocery, auto, and retail. We want to help those companies prepare to take on the Amazon’s of the world and that’s what we’re doing.
We help marketers reach people based on where they go in the real world, measure whether it leads people into the stores. We help apps be contextually aware so that when you walk into the store if there’s an offer you’re aware.
We Started as a Consumer App so 100% of What We Do is Opt-In
We started as a consumer app, so we think about privacy and enhancing consumer experiences with everything we do, so 100 percent of what we do is consumer opt-in. For instance, a lot of the apps that use us they say would you like to opt into background location to be to be alerted when you’re near a service or a special offer, about 60 or 70 percent of people choose to participate and about 30 to 40 percent don’t.
Everything we do is anonymized or aggregated. For instance, the data goes into a panel of over 25 million phones that we see always on and that creates a kind of Nielsen panel of the real world foot traffic. We were able to, for instance, predict the Chipotle sales famously we’re going to be down 30 percent before they announced their earnings. At an aggregate level, no one’s worried about privacy.
Everything We Do is Designed to Create Value for Users
Everything we do is designed to create value for the users. We’re not helping some flashlight app ask you for your always-on location. What good is that to you? We’re helping pair people in dating based on their favorite places. We’re helping to deliver contextually aware weather alerts for AccuWeather. Hey, you’re at the stadium and rain is about to happen.
All the cases where we make the experiences better the users opt-in because it makes the experience better. In a world where you don’t want to open a lot of apps, you want the app to tap you on the shoulder at the right time to remind you that you have a chance to get 50% off, or there’s a weather alert, or you’re near a friend. All these things are really valuable. Apple already reminds people that you’re opted into location sharing. It’s actually the part of the ad tech ecosystem that is doing shoddy things that we don’t think are best practice in privacy that I think will be heard over time. Why should a location be on for your flashlight app?
We are the independent Switzerland. If you think about Facebook and Google, there are only three companies in the world that can understand when a phone moves out of your pocket moves out of 100 million businesses in over 170 countries, that’s Google, Facebook, and Foursquare. We are the independent option.
Facebook and Google Are Not Your Friends and are After Domination
Our customers, which include folks like Apple and Microsoft and Tencent and Twitter and Snapchat and on and on. They look to us as an independent company. Facebook and Google are not your friends, they’re unreliable partners and are after domination. We are the Switzerland and I do think the location space needs a public independent company at some point that has the wherewithal to invest in pushing location technology.
What if going to a store was easier than shopping online where you could just walk in and pick up your purchases and walk out with payment happening all in the background?
You have heard about Amazon’s cashierless stores, Amazon Go, and their plans to open thousands of those stores in the coming years. Now there are startups that intend to bring this concept to all stores by providing a software platform and a technology solution to retailers.
Zippin Co-founder and CEO Krishna Motukuri talked about the technology behind his new checkout-free solution in a recent CNBC profile:
At Zippin, our mission is to banish checkout lines for good. You can simply walk in, check-in when you enter, pick up whatever you want, and simply walk out. If there was somebody that actually was able to follow a customer around the store and see what they were picking and just took a note of that information and then when they walked out simply just gave them a bill, it would be very convenient for the customer.
We use overhead cameras that look straight down and get a bird’s-eye view of the entire store. That allows us to uniquely identify customers and we use that information to also understand which items they’re picking from the shelf and which ones they’re putting back. This information is paired with sensors that are on the shelf that worked with the cameras to accurately identify which products cart picked.
As we’ve seen in the online world where ecommerce customers can actually see which product you’ve clicked on how long you actually considered it or whether you put it in the cart or taking it out, there will be retailers that will be responsible in the way they use that information.
In addition to supermarkets and grocery stores, we’re also getting a lot of interest from hotels, airports, stadiums, and commercial buildings. For the first time, this technology allows you to operate a store more cost efficiently. We expect more of these smaller stores to appear in residential complexes and office buildings where there was nothing other than just a vending machine and some salty snacks before.
Our next step is to actually take the technology to an existing retailer and implement it in their stores. I would say five to ten years you should expect every store will be checkout free.
Steve Stone, former CIO of L Brands and Lowes, recently discussed how retailers can use data to serve their customers better and become incredibly customer-centric:
Retail Grew Up Differently
When you think about retail, retail grew up differently. We started with stores and then we eventually added e-commerce. We were also very much notorious best-of-breed in the way we build our applications. Over time, you’ve got this technical debt where information about the customer and information about the product is stored in many different places.
When you’re trying to build an integrated seamless frictionless customer experience it’s very hard to do that if your information is disjointed. One of my favorite sayings is if the plumbing isn’t right it doesn’t matter how nice the experience is it just isn’t going to work. This is a huge challenge for retailers and it’s where technology really has to play a role, not only to combine the information but to find ways to add speed and agility to the entire process.
Data Key to Meaningful Customer Experiences
I’ve always said data governance isn’t exactly sexy but it’s it’s what really drives the ability to deliver those types of meaningful customer experiences. With the focus now today on the customer experience with the Internet of Things and with all these new technologies coming at us and especially with the advent of AI and machine learning, we now see that data has to be right, the hygiene has to be great. Suddenly, master data has become a vogue term in retail and in consumer products.
I think the biggest problem a lot of companies find is they’ve got to find a place to start. You’ve got to get that starting point. Picking an experience, an experience that you want for the customer, and then flowing back through, where are all the interaction points of data, where does it originate, and where is it getting corrupt? Cleansing that and building that one experience we’ll start you on your journey.
Be Customer Centric, Not Product Centric
After that, it’s really getting into the plumbing and understanding your data and understanding the customer. It’s always amazing when we build these great customer experiences, but they’re built more for us and not for the customer. At L Brands we always put the customer first. Be customer centric, not product-centric. How do we integrate, how do we become customer first in everything that we do?
We’re really at the point now where the technology exists to do this right. The integration platforms such as MuleSoft are really strong now that allows you to stitch together your applications plus build an extensible layer where applications can change quickly. That experience becomes one where if I’m a customer and I walk into a store and you don’t have the product I want there’s no problem. The product will still be at my doorstep the next day or hopefully that day.
Knowing Your Customer
I’m online and I want this product and I don’t want to have to wait for it to come from your distribution center in Detroit or Wisconsin. I want it and I’m in California and I get it in a couple of hours because the retailers are able to use the inventory in those local stores.
As a customer, you know me regardless of the channel, whether I came to you via the call center or whether I came to you in a store or online. You know me and that’s to me where retailers have to be. I don’t think that’s differentiating as much anymore, instead, I think that’s becoming the table stakes.
You can’t compete against the past, you’ve got to compete against what the future is going to be. I see retail changing so much from inventory, from the customer, and even the whole level of personalization that we’re trying to offer to the customer now. The customer is going to be asking for things that we would never have dreamed possible and yet in a few years we’re going to be delivering it.
The Best Retailers Cater to Their Customers
Retailers that I really admire are Costco, Lilly Pulitzer, Ulta Beauty, Tractor Supply, they have a really great connection with their customer. They cater to that customer and they’re building out technology capabilities that really allow that customer to operate on their terms, not on the retailer’s terms, and I just think that’s so powerful.
Target, Macy’s and other retailers are already gearing up for the upcoming holidays and the accompanying shopping madness. Insiders are anticipating a good season, thanks to consumer optimism and low unemployment. But can retailers find enough seasonal workers to fill their needs?
Target is aiming to hire 120,000 seasonal employees while Macy’s plans to bring onboard 80,000. The Gap is reportedly looking for around 65,000 part-time workers. Meanwhile, delivery carriers are also looking for more workers in anticipation of the upcoming surge in online shopping. FedEx is hoping to sign up 55,000 extra hands while UPS will have room for 100,000 employees.
Unfortunately for retailers, finding extra employees won’t be easy. The US job market is very worker-friendly at the moment, thanks to the record low unemployment rate. Job seekers now have more options and can afford to be picky about who they want to work for.
Because of this, a lot of businesses haveimplemented some strategies in the hopes of seducing seasonal employees. For instance, some retailers are offering customized incentives or hiring HR contractors. Others businesses are opting to give better training to their existing workers instead of hiring additional ones.
As a small business owner, you’ll also need seasonal employees. However, thehiring strategies used by large enterprises might not be effective for you. But that doesn’t mean they can’t compete.If your small business needs more workers for the holidays, here are a few strategies to help you fill your roster.
How to Get Seasonal Employees Interested
1. Tap Into Your Team’s Network
One of the best sources of temporary employees is through your current staff members. Tap into your team’s network and ask for their help in looking for new teammates. The holiday season can be brutal and most small businesses won’t have the luxury of replacing unreliable workers at this time of year. You’ll have to hire trustworthy people and the best way of doing that is via personal referrals.
Implement an employee referral system for your small business. This will give you a consistent pipeline of candidates while keeping current staff happy with their referral incentives. Plus, employee retention tends to be higher with referred applicants.
2. Be Flexible With Schedules and Incentives
Monetary incentives are often not enough to get a worker interested, especially in today’s labor market. However, customizing your job offer and the perks that come with it can get you a nibble in the job pool.
Seasonal workers have a different motivation for taking on the job. They might need extra income for school, the position could be an internship they need, or maybe they have family commitments to meet. This also means a conventional schedule or payday might not cut if for them. Your new hires might ask to be paid daily or want the option to give you their preferred weekly schedule. Being flexible with your worker’s schedule or incentive structure will go a long way in helping you to fill your job openings in time for the holidays.
3. Check College Campuses
College and university campuses are a great hiring ground for seasonal workers. Many students don’t return home for the holidays and the majority look forward to earning money and getting some work experience during this time.
Businesses are also ensured of employees that are energetic, enthusiastic and well-educated. The holiday season is also an ideal time for students to work part-time or as interns as their position comes with a definite end date. It’s a win-win situation. Boost your odds by advertising on campuses and posting on college job recruitment websites.
4. Host a Job Fair
A job fair is one of the most efficient ways of sourcing contract workers. However, an event like this takes time to plan and organize. But when executed properly, you can connect with numerous candidates in a short period of time.
Join annual job fairs several months ahead of the season you want to hire for. This will give you enough time to select the best candidates and train them. Spread the word by advertising at local colleges, newspapers, and news stations. Make sure you also post your requirements on your website and through online job boards.
5. Look at a Different Job Pool
Don’t limit yourself to conventional job pools or postings. There are numerous organizations or programs that you can reach out to for job placements. For instance, why not get in touch with organizations that work with ex-cons or the handicap?
A temporary HR contractor can also help fill your job openings. Recruiting is time-consuming and most many small businesses aren’t able to outsource, interview and process applicants. An HR contractor can manage your staffing requirements so you’ll have more time to focus on other critical tasks. What’s more, an HR company knows how to select the best candidates for the job. And if you’re lucky, your seasonal hire could become a permanent asset to your company.
Businesses hire millions of seasonal employees every year. While it’s more challenging for small businesses to catch the attention of these workers, you can still do it. You’ll just have to think outside the box and come up with creative tactics. Asking for employee referrals, being flexible with incentives and tapping college students are just some ways to secure hires and be productive during the holiday season.
Amazon 4-Star is Amazon’s first retail store focused on selling Amazon’s products. The first of presumably many stores just opened in the Soho area of New York City and of course has made a big splash in the media. But what’s special about this store and what makes it a unique shopping experience?
Amazon Physical Stores VP Cameron Janes answers that question in a Bloomberg interview:
Amazon 4-Star is Built Around What Our Customers Our Loving
What is uniquely different is that we really built this store around our customers. It’s a direct reflection of our customers, not just what they’re buying, but really what they’re loving.
Everything in the store is rated 4 star or above by our customers, is a top seller or is the newest trending on Amazon.com. Our goal is that customers can walk into this store and pick up anything and know that it is going to be a great product because customers online have already said so.
The average rating of products in this store is 4.4 stars and collectively we have about 1,800 products in the store and they earned 1.8 million 5 star reviews. These are really high-quality products that our customers love. The product with the most customer reviews in Amazon 4-Star is actually the Fire TV Stick with Alexa voice remote with over 197,000 customer reviews and it’s rated 4.4 stars.
Curation is What 4-Star is About
Whenever your working offline you can’t have the endless aisle that you have online. When you are working offline you really have to curate and that’s actually what Amazon 4 star is all about. We have a highly curated selection from some of the top categories, the most popular categories on Amazon.com. We’ve got devices, electronics, kitchen, toys, home, and all of these hit that 4-star selection bar that we think is so important.
Here at 4-Star what we are trying to do is create an experience where customers can come in, browse, have fun shopping find products they love. With all of these experiences, we are trying to find more ways to connect with our customers. Of course, customers love to shop online, but a lot of customers love to shop offline as well. What we can do with these experiences is create a new type of shopping experiences and help them discover new products.
Our Focus is Connecting With Customers
Another thing you can do in offline that you can’t do online is that customers can come in and touch the products themselves. Certainly, with our device category, customers can come in the store, play with the Fire TV, they can read on the Kindle, they can interact with the Amazon Echo and Alexa products and see how those products work in first person and make a more confident buying decision.
Our focus here is on connecting with customers and if customers come in here and discover products that they love, we know they will come back and over time that can be something big. That’s really what we are focused on today.
“Amazon” and “ads” are two words that are not usually associated with each other. However, that will soon change as Amazon appears set to become the third largest online advertising platform in the United States.
According to eMarketer, there’s a strong possibility that the retail giant will surpass Microsoft and Verizon in terms of online advertising this year. The company estimated that Amazon’s advertising arm will bring in around $4.6 billion in profits in 2018. This gives Amazon a 4.1 percent slice of the advertising pie. What’s more, $1.6 billion of that revenue would likely come from mobile ads, giving Jeff Bezos’ company a 2.1 percent share of America’s mobile ad market.
Alphabet (Google) and Facebook remain the market leaders, controlling 37.1% and 20.6% respectively. However, eMarketer theorizes that Amazon’s share will reach 7 percent by 2020, while Google and Facebook’s combined hold on the market will drop to 55.9 percent.
The news ofAmazon’s emerging ad dominance is unexpected as the company is more known for making money from its online store and cloud services. Meanwhile, consumers who use the company primarily for shopping or watching videos rarely notice the ads that permeate Amazon’s services. However, these ad products have been steadily growing. It includes paid ads on Amazon’s own marketplace while also facilitating advertisements on other sites.
Most people are unaware of this but the retail giant’s advertising arm used to have three key divisions—the Amazon Media Group (AMG), Amazon Advertising Platform (AAP), and Amazon Marketing Services (AMS). In a bid to make it easier for brands to buy ads, the three groups were merged into a single unit early this month and renamed “Amazon Advertising.”
Amazon’s SVP of Advertising Paul Kotasexplained in a blog post that merging the three groups was another step in the company’s goal of “providing advertising solutions that are simple and intuitive for the hundreds of thousands of advertisers who use our products to help grow their business.”
The company is also looking into ways to push its advertising further. For instance, Amazon has rolled out a new service dubbed “Scout.” The feature offers suggestions for visually-inclined products, like shoes and furnishings, based on the customer’s preferences. A spokesperson for the company explained that Scout is a novel way of shopping. It provides customers the chance to browse thousands of items and refine their selections based on the products’ visual characteristics.
The changes that Amazon has made clearly shows that the company is setting its sights on advertising. It further reinforces CFO Brian Olsavsky’s claims during July’s investors’ call that Amazon’s advertising arm is a rising star and will soon have an impact on the business’ overall gross revenue.
CEO’s of Adobe, Microsoft, SAP announced the launch of the Open Data Initiative, a new data repository in the cloud dedicated to facilitating collaboration across the global research community. This is an initiative squarely aimed at Facebook and Google, in effect challenging them to provide all customer related data back to the customer. Here is Microsoft’s portal to the Open Data Initiative.
Below are key highlights from a discussion the three tech CEO’s had on CNBC…
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft:
The insight that all three of us had based on the work we’re doing with many customers, such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, and Walmart, today as customers they’re all excited about this open data initiative. It’s their real insight that led us to do this, how do we work to put them in control of their own customer data, because that’s the real currency.
Any brand out there cares deeply about the continuous improvement of their own customer data understanding. The three of us coming together is going to be central to them feeling in control of their own customer data.
Bill McDermott, CEO, SAP:
There isn’t a CEO in the world that does not want to have a single view of their customer and they have to connect their demand chain to their supply chain and do so in real time. If you think about the consumer whose social, mobile, they’re geospatial, they’re always on the fly, they’re going to shop different companies in all channels, direct to consumer and retail, and you have to make sure that connection point with that consumer is really intimate.
These companies need to be intelligent enterprises because more and more AI and predictive analytics is going to rule how you engage with that customer. Ultimately, what you have to do is fulfill, so now you’re going to see the demand and the supply chain completely integrated and that data will be shared evenly among our companies so the customer is the major benefactor of the Open Data Initiative we announced today.
Shantanu Narayen, CEO, Adobe:
All three of us shared this vision of how do we enable enterprises to put customers at the front of the digital journey. Getting behavioral data, getting transactional data, and getting customer engagement to be the front and center is the most important thing that enterprises can do so that digital is actually a tailwind rather than a headwind.
What Marketo does is add to our offerings in the Experience Cloud of being able to create this unified profile for all customers. The thing that every customer will tell you today is that they want an engaging experience with whoever they’re doing business with, whether it’s financial services, automotive, or retail. Adobe focused a lot more on B2C customers, but the same requirements that were true for B2C customers are now true for B2B customers and that’s what Marketo provides.
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft:
The name itself should tell everything, it’s an open data initiative. It’s about really unlocking the data that is our customers’ data about their own customers. I think what is foundational here is trust. In other words, ultimately customers will decide.
Also, compliance with their own customers trust in them is also going to be very key, because if you think about it one of the top considerations for anything around customer data is privacy and regulation around privacy. So the most important thing here would be for each vendor to think through how they participate here and ensure that there is more trust in the entirety of the value chain, starting with the end consumer to the brand and to us as software vendors or tech companies.
I think the real challenge is going to be for some who may want to join but their business model is probably not going to allow them to join. I think overall though what we have all anchored on is if we can create an architecture and an incentive system that turns the tide to put customers in control of their own customer data I think the overall economy will be better off.
Recently, SnackNation secured $12 million in Series B funding and is on a roll with their digitally integrated healthy snack delivery business. SnackNation may be focusing on snack delivery now but it’s really building a consumer insights and consumer products delivery platform that can plug in anything.
Will SnackNation become the next big online thing in online retail? After all, Amazon started with books and look at them now.
SnackNation CEO and Co-founder Sean Kelly recently talked about how SnackNation is using consumer data as a cornerstone of its business model:
We are the authority when it comes to discovering emerging and innovative snack food brands. More specifically, we are a tech-enabled snack delivery service that delivers curations to thousands of companies and homes across the country. We go out and find the best emerging and innovative brands that are also better for you and clean and delicious and bring them direct to people.
In today’s world, it’s so important to be able to innovate and iterate, especially if you are a big CPG company. What we do is go direct to the consumer and have a direct relationship with them at their most engaged moments. We collect consumer insights and data that we feed back to the brands so they can better understand their customer and therefore improve their products.
We also use all of that data to determine what emerging brands are going to win tomorrow. We have a predictive analytics engine that gives us a leg up. We sell that data back to brands and there are also ways to work with industry leaders and big CPGs to deliver some of that information to them.
Although we started out focusing on enterprise sales, we don’t look at B2B and B2C as being different. It’s all about where the consumer is. For us, why did we start at the office, it’s because it’s where the younger generation spends the most time.
Being able to collect these insights and having a forward-looking view in terms of what’s going to work and what’s not is very important.
We are actually setting this up as a platform where we can deliver any consumer products through this. Even though our focus is on snacks we are already starting to plug health and beauty items through our consumer insights funnel.
Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO, recently discussed on CNBC about how Adobe is working to actually create a brand new industry focused on digital engagement and customer experience management. I thought this was interesting in that this makes Adobe a CRM company competing with the likes of Salesforce, rather than what most people think when they hear the name Adobe, a company providing creative, marketing and document solutions.
Much of this new focus will rely on their AI solution, platform Adobe Sensei, which you can read more about here.
Narayen’s expands on Adobe’s intent to be a CRM leader in the excerpts below:
We really believe that what’s happening is that every enterprise wants to in real time engage with customers. When you think about what CRM used to be, CRM was more about a record that was in a relational database. That is not as important as what you do with that customer information and how you make action out of it.
That’s where the Adobe and Microsoft partnership is so valuable because together with what they have done with Azure and the ability for people to process the data at the pace at which they want and what Adobe has done. We enable people to attract customers to your platform. We allow you to engage it. We think we’re actually creating a brand new category and industry which is all about digital engagement and customer experience management, far more critical than what a record might store.
We continue to think that content and data and how content and data come together is really where this magic happens. You’ve walked into a retail store you’re accessing an application on a mobile device and it’s all about what’s the right content that’s being delivered based on the intelligence.
I think it’s a dramatically different approach that Adobe has pioneered and I think it’s companies like Adobe and Microsoft and SAP who actually see this vision for what’s happening in the world.
The mindset of the modern consumer is one of urgency and convenience. Businesses that reply to queries and concerns quickly and without hassle generally earn more customer loyalty and have better brand reputation. And thanks to chatbots, more companies can now be online 24/7 to meet their customer’s needs.
Chatbot is an amalgamation of the words “chat” and “robot.” Basically, a chatbot is a computer that can have a written conversation with a customer, either online or via SMS. They are used primarily for customer service, marketing, and sales. Most large enterprises have already incorporated chatbot technology into their daily operations, and a growing number of mid-sized and small businesses are following suit. But could your business benefit from using a chatbot? Here’s what you should consider:
1. You’re Having Difficulty Providing 24/7 Customer Service
Many businesses want to be able to provide their customers with support 24/7, but are unable to do so because of cost and human limitations. Chatbots go around these constraints. They can remain running all throughout the year. This means there will always be someone to interact with your customers regardless of the time of day.
2. You Need New Ways to Interact With Customers
It seems that there’s an app for everything these days. However, people can only devote their time to a limited number of apps, particularly messaging platforms. Instead of rolling out a company app or relaunching your website, you can deploy your chatbot on a messaging site. These robots can be programmed to provide personal and meaningful conversations with customers. What’s more, they can present your brand in much the same way that a real person would.
The Sydney Opera House’s “Seal Bot” on Facebook Messenger is great at engaging people. It shares facts about the venue’s history as well as information about any upcoming performances or events.
Meanwhile, customers can have a dynamic discussion with Nike’s Messenger bot as they customize their sneakers based on their preferred color scheme or while checking out the shop’s different shoe styles.
3. Efficiency is a Company Goal
Chatbots can help make your business run more efficiently. You can automate tedious tasks and free up your employees for more crucial or creative ones. You can also program your chatbot to handle your employees’ human resource concerns, like sick leaves or questions regarding attendance. Bots can even be integrated into programs like Slack. They can assist in managing team projects, streamlining conversations and keeping tasks organized.
4. Cart Abandonment is Becoming a Concern
Abandoned carts are a problem a lot of online retailers are familiar with. There are instances when a customer is finalizing their purchase, gets interrupted and is forced to abandon the transaction. Chatbots can cut down on these missed purchases by giving customers gentle reminders. They can even be programmed to suggest other products that could interest the buyer.
5. You Want to Build a Better Relationship With Millenials
Millennials have different expectations when it comes to customer service. Research revealed that the majority of millennial consumers prefer to resolve their customer service issues by themselves, and 69 percent feel good when a problem is solved without having to talk to a customer service representative. They prefer self-service solutions that chatbots can provide. If your company caters to this demographic or you want to target them, then automating your customer support is a good move.
Chatbots can provide you with two key benefits—market presence and good customer service. These two things can make a big difference if you’re the owner of a small or medium-sized business. But make sure you first take the time to come up with a strategy for using a chatbot efficiently and in a way that also communicates your brand’s vision and personality.
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.
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. Asurvey 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.
Tech companies will also be adjusting their designs and strategies toensure 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.
[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.”
One of the most important topics for retailers is getting your listings to the top of eBay search results, or in other words, eBay SEO. For many businesses, learning how to do effective eBay SEO can literally mean the difference between making a few hundred bucks or thousands of dollars.
JR Business recently talked about how they have risen to the top of very popular eBay search results and offered their insider advice for you to do the same. In fact, on one recent listing, they have made over $70,000 in just two months. Below are some highlights from their recent talk on how to do eBay right:
Getting Started with eBay SEO
We’ve been using eBay for ten years now and are very successful on the platform. We have hundreds of listings that occupy very high SEO rankings on search results. For example, there’s a search result with 1.8 million results and we occupy two of the top three slots. eBay SEO is very tricky, they are constantly changing things, tweaking things, updating the platform, so you have to stay up-to-date and if you don’t make certain changes when they need to be made you’re gonna drop in SEO ranking. It’s very hard to stay relevant and at the top but we’ve managed to do it by following 3 important steps.
The 3 big things are the performance of your account, the listing set up, and your customer satisfaction. eBay SEO really falls into those 3 categories and those are what’s going to make up your ranking.
Becoming a Top Rated Seller
eBay is not going to put their number one listing as somebody who has 4 seller feedback points, 40 points or even 400 points. You need a lot of seller feedback points to get to the top of eBay search results.
Being a top rated seller or a power seller is going to help immensely. However, becoming a top-rated seller is really tricky to get. You have to accept refunds, you have to have a certain shipping time and can’t be delayed on shipments, and you have to have a high customer satisfaction. You have to meet all these standards and also have a certain number of transactions and also hit a certain dollar amount in sales. All these things have to be there to become a top rated seller. Once you are there, you get a discount on seller fees and again it helps with SEO.
Pay for Everything eBay Offers
It is important to pay for everything that they offer sellers on eBay. If your listing is going to do super successful long-term, you’re going to make a ton of money from it, then pay for the $2 subtitle, the $4 bull title, the secondary listing category, the enlarged images for a dollar… all that stuff! It is very little in the grand scheme of things. If you’re gonna be making a lot of money for that listing, like its a cash cow listing, then you need to throw the money at eBay.
My theory is that since you’re paying eBay more then they may help you out a little bit. More importantly, in the buyer’s eyes, when they see a bold title, an enlarged image, and they can find you in two categories, this will increase engagement with your listing.
Pack Your Titles Full of Keywords
I also can’t emphasize enough the packing of your listing title full of keywords that people are going to search for. Based on what industry and niche you’re in you should know what keywords are going to do the best. If you’re selling iPhone chargers, you better know to pack that title with “works with iPhone six, seven, eight and ten, etc.
When you’re done with the title there should be zero characters remaining. You need to pack that thing full. When somebody searches something on eBay it is referencing off the title unless they do a description search, but otherwise, it has to be in the title to show up.
The subtitle isn’t searchable but it’s still important. Once they find your listing, you want to make sure they stay on your listing and that they have enough information.
Create Extremely Long Descriptions
They need to know about the product, so not only are you packing in information into the title and the subtitle, but also the item specifics. Those are the pre-fill in little boxes that eBay gives you based on what category you selected. So fill in that information but also the description, it’s one of the most important parts of the listing.
Please do not have a four-sentence description! I see it all too often, but that’s just gonna kill your listing. If you not giving them all the information they need to know about the item and if you’re not keeping them on your listing, they’re gonna go somewhere else and find one that explains it better.
You should have a nice attractive title, maybe inlay a picture or something in the description, but also just have paragraph upon paragraph about the item. Then talk about your shipping methods and if you’re an experienced account say so. We always say that we’re a trusted eBay seller for the past ten years with thousands of feedback points. We tell them to look at our recent feedback, reassuring confidence in them.
Ship as Fast as Possible and for Free
It’s unbelievably important to have quick shipping times. There’s no reason not to be shipping within one to two days, and you shouldn’t ever need three-day handling time because it starts to hurt your sales. Anything above five days or more is really going to affect your performance.
If eBay sees that you’re a fast shipper and that’s what you described, at the top of the listing they’ll post fast and free shipping and estimated time delivery. People want to get their stuff quick!
You should also offer free shipping. Personally, just about every single one of my items is free shipping. That helps with the algorithm because eBay can tell the buyers free shipping and they see it as a better deal.
Improve Listing Performance with Deals
One other big tip for listing performance, I have found a lot of success with using sales promotions. It may not even be that much of a sale, but something about buyers seeing sale is going to Incline them to buy. Sales also plays into eBay SEO as well.
Experiment with Sponsored Listings
One other thing that you can experiment with is the sponsored listings with eBay. I promote some of my listings and have found good success because it helps them move up in search results quickly.
To get the ball rolling I throw some sponsored ad budget through eBay and they’ll often bump it up to the first page. Then people start to see it and then some solds will start to appear. Once you start selling some items and you have good buyer satisfaction on that listing and people are leaving good reviews and they’re not returning the items that will help immensely with your eBay search ranking.
Keep Your Customers Satisfied
If you have 6 five-star reviews on your listing people are gonna feel super safe buying. We all know we feel reassured when we see good reviews on an item. Alternatively, if you see only one-star reviews on an item that will hurt your customer satisfaction. That’s why having good communications with your customer, working out problems and just making sure everything is top-notch with the transaction is so important.
Good reviews and good feedback on your account is so big because once you get some products sold on the listing everything is gonna compound pretty quickly. You’ll start getting some reviews on your products, you’ll start to get some sold quantity.
I Made $70,000 With One Good eBay Listing
Two months ago I added what I thought would be a good listing, nothing crazy, but I knew it’d be a decent cash cow listing. I probably spent about six hours making a full thorough description. I went really really detailed on that and I paid $12 for extra eBay boosts as I described above.
So $12 and six hours of my time and within a couple weeks it was starting to sell. I sold 30 or 40 quantity on this listing and each item is over 50 bucks apiece, so I was making some money. I’m like okay that’s pretty good, and then that point of compounding came and things just started to hit and the listing took off. It went crazy with people loving the items, had great reviews and eBay could see that fast and free shipping with timely deliveries tracking.
It was a perfect listing and it really started to take off and now two months later that single listing has sold over $70,000 worth of product!
Every generation is grouped according to the time its members were born, but for years now, there’s been an ongoing debate about the specific cutoff point between Millennials and Generation Z. The United Nations data marks the years 2000/2001 as the intergenerational split, while otherresearchers define it earlier, around 1995 to 1997.
Gen Z, also called iGeneration and Post-Millennials, is the demographic cohort following the Millennials and is set to overtake them in terms of headcount by next year. According to theBloomberg analysis, Gen Z will account for nearly a third of the 2019 global population at 2.47 billion, surpassing the estimated 2.43 billion millennials in the world.
Because of the vague delineation between the two generations, marketers often make the mistake of using similar strategies in selling to each of these groups. They forget that Gen Z’ers are vastly different from millennials in terms of formative experiences, including world events, economic changes, social shifts, and primarily, technological advancements.
One thing that separates Gen Z’ers from their predecessors is their exposure to digital technology in their early years. Thanks to mobile devices and fast Internet services, many Gen Z’ers grew up with apps, social media, and constant online presence. Sometimes referred to as the post-digital generation, they have an intuitive relationship with technology.
Surprising Statistics About Gen Z
Gen Z’ers have a complicated relationship with digital technology, despite growing up with its ubiquity. Based on an UNiDAYS and Ad Age Studio 30 study of 22,700 college students, 98 percent have smartphones. Of these, only 22 percent have used their devices for purchasing online, unlike millennials who rely on the ease and convenience of mobile shopping.
The digitally savvy generation has, in fact, a few, quirky analog habits. This includes their preference forpersonal interactions with brands, as Gen Z’ers are 23 percent more likely to visit malls and physical stores compared to older generations. This unexpected trend from the recentFoursquare and Carat study has prompted retailers to integrate the brick-and-mortar experience with tech features like augmented reality and self-service.
Technology adoption comes easy to Gen Z’ers, so it’s not surprising to know that many of them have social media accounts. But what is surprising is the fact that the majority, or 59 percent of those surveyed, are distrustful of Facebook with their personal data, perhaps in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The post-digital generation is also not as preoccupied with social media as they’re depicted to be. Gen Z’ers are more likely to be anxious or depressed over these platforms, which can cause them to consider taking a break from social media or quitting altogether. They have become increasingly selective and wary of oversharing on social networks but still believe in its role in establishing connections and developing relationships.
How to Actually Market to Gen Z
When it comes to marketing strategies, what works for a particular generation might not fly with younger or older cohorts. Compared to the Baby Boomers and the lure of mass marketing during their time, the tech-savvy Gen Z has probably seen the old tricks and usual come-ons of brands when it comes to selling. One way to entice these true digital natives is through effective communication online.
Much like their need to be constantly connected to others, Gen Z’ers appreciate brands that reach out to their clients and engage with them. An online presence, be it on social media or through email, is necessary when businesses choose to cater to the post-digital generation. According to the UNiDAYS study, 40 percent of surveyed Gen Zers prefer to communicate with brands via email.
However, this doesn’t mean that brands should stick to email correspondence, as it often lacks interaction and feels impersonal. Gen Z’ers are searching for relevant exchange and emotional approach in marketing through social media—given that it’s on the right platform. If businesses can evoke a sense of purpose behind their brand or an experience with a product, then it’s the first step in making themselves noticed by the younger, more discriminating generation.
There’s no one single marketing solution applicable to every generation. Marketers should realize that for them to touch base with Gen Z, they must maintain a human, two-way interaction, even if it’s online. While Gen Z’ers exhibit ambivalent behavior towards social media, marketers and brands alike should learn how to get their message across effectively. Understanding the younger audience is going beyond selling the product; it also means discovering how they feel about your brand and earning their loyalty in the process.
Jonathan Um, Cofounder, and COO of Holler.com, the world’s first online dollar store, recently spoke at Retail (R)Evolution 2018 about how important the supply chain and automation is to his young start-up.
We are on the extreme end of the online spectrum. For us, carrying about 10,000 SKU’s, providing the ultimate digital hunt to our 6 million users, the number one thing we focus on, first, second and third, is supply chain excellence. We take a holistic view of the supply chain, from the way we buy, what we buy, how we source, how we bring it in, how we pay, to the way we fulfill and ship. It was inevitable for a bunch of scrappy guys trying to squeeze every ounce of fat from that supply chain to turn to automation. Not just your run of the mill automation, but robotics.
Speed Isn’t Everything
I think with Amazon out there in the market there is a misconception that speed is everything. You have to deliver next-day, same day, and that’s simply not true. In fact, what rings the most true is free is king. And customers will do amazing things to try to get to free shipping. It is the end all, be all for the extreme value segment. For us, we are very focused on how to deliver free shipping and make our unit economics work. That’s number one. Number two is transparency. Customers want to know what’s going on with their order?
If it’s getting picked, packed–there are actually features in our WMS with HighJump Software where you get a Facebook notification if the order is being picked at that very instant. For the customer, it’s really about not worrying that you have our attention on your order because you receive regular updates. That whole stat about 8 contacts per package is a real cost and that is a reality that we’re living through. Every time we update and add transparency is a win for our business.
Same Day: The Exception for Delivery but Not for Notification
In terms of click to ship, it is same day, that is the expectation. When you place an order on Holler.com, the expectation is that you get a shipping notification the same day. The constraint is that we have a 5-day work schedule, we don’t have a 7-day work schedule, so we need to catch up on Monday and Tuesday very quickly. But that same day ship notification, that is the standard.
Small Start-Ups Must Outsource Automation to be Successful
We are a well-funded company, but we don’t have the capital to deploy traditional automation. You ask us to spend $2 million, $5 million we are just going to say no out of the gate. It’s a non-starter for us. There is no scenario that would payback for us, ever. I don’t know what my order volume is in Q4 five years from now. I can barely tell you five quarters from now. So I cannot put up $5 million, $10 million or $15 million.
We are working with a solution called Invia Robotics. It’s basically a little robot, costs no more than a couple thousand dollars to build, and it’s a pay as you go service. So in the day of Uber and Lyft and Airbnb, why would you pay for your own capX as a small company like us? We pay by the pick, the replenishment tasks, and the inventory tasks. This is a great solution for where we are as a business, doing about 3,000 orders a day and 30,000 lines.
If we were to scale up to 100,000 lines in a couple of years, I’d be totally open to insourcing.
“Ecommerce is essentially digital disruption,” says David Spitz, ChannelAdvisor CEO, at the recent Retail (R)evolution 2018 conference. “If you are a brand or retailer and you are in that supply chain, or flow of commerce, digital disruption for ecommerce is like what Netflix did to Blockbuster. There’s a lot of retail disruption. The alternative of being able to click and get products very quickly, where you can now get deliveries in as little as an hour, makes the value proposition of getting in your car and going to the store very diminished.” Spitz says this leaves retailers looking for what they can do to remain relevant.
He says that if you are a brand, manufacturer or CPG type company the path to the consumer is changing very rapidly. “In the US, ecommerce is still only 10 percent of total retail spend,” notes Spitz. “Most companies are still driving 90 percent of their revenue through the traditional retail channels, but the growth is in that (ecommerce) 10 percent. The path to the consumer is changing and it’s creating a new world order with the landscape shifting very rapidly.”
Spitz is focused on the challenges of retailers. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking to a variety of brands such as paint manufacturers, tire manufacturers, apparel companies, etc. They are in this interesting crossroads because the bulk of their revenue still comes from the traditional retail channel and those are partnerships that are important to them and they don’t want to upset those partnerships. On the other hand, if you look at the rate of growth of Amazon, they are approaching half of US ecommerce. It continues to grow at roughly twice the rate of the industry so it’s not hard to imagine waking up in a world where Amazon accounts for 60-75 percent of US ecommerce.”
Here they come…..😎👊
Amazon rolls out branded delivery vans in Austin https://t.co/r47hekaFph
If you are a brand, how do you reach those consumers? “Consumers are saying this is how I like to shop, it’s an easy app, I click and know I’m going to get the product quickly,” says Spitz. “Last summer, Nike decided to start selling on Amazon, and Nike had resisted selling on Amazon for the last 10 years. I think there was some dawning realization at some point that this is how customers want to shop. So a lot of these brands see it as inevitable, that’s how consumers like to shop and why make life hard for your customers?”
Amazon is to e-commerce what Netflix is to media. This is why I believe they will ultimately own >75% of e-commerce in the West. https://t.co/2WAddW3tPR$amzn
“I think that channel mix conflict is very much real for brands but at the end of the day, the customer is what matters the most. If the customer says this is how I want to purchase your product if you are a brand you have to listen to that.”
Every year, millions of new websites are launched, and they’re directly or indirectly competing for the same visitors you are. That makes driving traffic your website, increasingly more difficult. Even major social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are having trouble generating organic reach. But that doesn’t seem to be a problem with Pinterest.
Pinterest has become more than just a visual search platform. It’s more of a search engine now where prospective customers go to look for products.Statistics have revealed that 93 percent of account holders use the platform to plan what they want to buy while 50 percent have actually bought something after seeing a Promoted Pin. And with 20 million monthly users, it makes sense for marketers to take advantage of Pinterest’s power.
These seven marketing tools are among the best for helping generate more website traffic with Pinterest in 2018:
1. Canva
You need captivating images if you want people to notice your Pins, and Canva is just the design software to help you achieve this. Canva offers ready to use Pinterest Pin templates with a variety of layouts to choose from. The layouts are customizable, so you can easily change the font, text, and background image. You can also add more graphics or take out elements that don’t fit with your vision or website theme. You can use the app for free and just purchase new images or assets for $1. However, a paid version will give you more designs and photos to choose from, as well as the option of saving your logo or brand to make designing a board go quicker.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes it possible for you to create boards, make a publishing schedule, and post pins directly to Pinterest from its dashboard. You can also manage several accounts using this tool, making it easier and safer for your team since you’re just using one secure workflow. This full integration on a single dashboard saves time and makes it easier to reach a wider audience.
3. PicMonkey
Eye-catching images are what sets Pinterest apart from other social platforms. Retailers and service-based companies willhave more impact on this platform if they use a visual format for their content. PicMonkey is an online image editor that can help with designing and editing your brand’s images so that simple shots become more compelling. You can give photos a quick touch-up, resize images, create image quotes, and overlay photos with text. More importantly, it’s free so you won’t even need to hire a digital artist or invest in Photoshop.
4. PinFollow
You need a lot of followers to establish your brand’s credibility, influence, and popularity. One way to get more followers on Pinterest is to follow other Pinners and hope they will do the same. PinFollow will help you weed out which Pinners are not following you so you can unfollow these accounts. This will streamline your list and leave you with more loyal followers.
5. PinGroupie
One of the fastest ways to make connections on this social media platform is through groups, but finding the right group board to join is tricky. PinGroupie helps you establish the best Pinterest Group Boards for your brand. This tool lists live group boards, allowing you to reach out to the owners and see if they are willing to let you join or contribute to the board. PinGroupie also has an industry sorting feature that you can use to check what kind of content other brands are offering and see if there’s anything unique that you can provide.
6. Pinterest Analytics
This tool provides Pinterest users with the basic metrics about their Pins, like reach, impressions, and what people save from their website. It also shows how much traffic your site receives and indicates what your customers want. It’s very simple to use; just click on the stats icon on your Pins to get an overview of the essential metrics. You can use the tool to improve your marketing strategy and come up with ways to get more clicks, saves, and impressions.
7. Tailwind
Tailwind is one of the most essential tools you need to successfully market on Pinterest. This analytics and campaign management tool will help you do everything, from scheduling the content you need published, to pinpointing your most influential followers to determining the most popular pins. It can also monitor your competitors and track the engagements on your account. What’s more, it seamlessly integrates with Google Analytics.
