3 Pandemic-Fueled Commerce Trends Poised to Yield Long-Term Growth for Businesses
Text-based marketing aided businesses in developing the brand-to-shopper closeness that texting fosters. Loyalty programs have progressed beyond the exchange of points for purchases to include experiences and increased convenience. For example, Sephora’s Beauty Insider program members may utilize their reward points to contribute to the Black Justice Coalition. Walmart Plus subscription loyalty programs are based on services such as home delivery and a scan-and-go function through mobile app. REI, the outdoor retailer, now provides experience-driven membership benefits such as guided walks.
Online marketplaces are emerging as a (low-cost) sales channel for startups and small businesses. These services allow businesses to generate sales online without investing in a website or paying for advertising to attract visitors. One of the most significant changes in purchasing patterns after COVID-19 has been a move toward local shops and away from malls.
Ecommerce Fraud Increasing, But Help Is On the Way
Account takeover, friendly fraud, phishing, spoofing, counterfeiting, chargebacks, and other methods are all used by fraudsters to disrupt and derail eCommerce. This is a big thorn in the side of both retailers and honest customers. Nonetheless, despite certain dismal trends in fraud, this is hardly a doom-and-gloom scenario. Retailers may choose from a variety of solid solutions and services. This unique study from Multichannel Merchant delves into current fraud trends and discusses solutions and actions you can take to protect yourself against the increasing risks.
You will learn:
- How bot management solutions protect against this malicious behavior
- How payment protection systems combat friendly fraud
- How machine learning and manual review complement one another
- How technology is fighting the increasing counterfeit danger
Ecommerce Microservices: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Many commerce practitioners consider microservices to be a trendy new paradigm for commerce back end. Microservices share nothing: platform, deployment, and data storage are all separate. This differs from a full-stack monolithic suite, which houses the bulk of functionality in a single service. That functionality is then tested, deployed, and scaled as a single unit. Depending on the methodology used, transitioning from a monolith to a microservices eCommerce system may be very challenging. You may be forced to lay off or retrain employees; you may have duplicate data and connections; you may lose control of the database, and you may end up with a distributed monolith.
It gets a lot simpler if you use an API-first, Microservices-based commerce solution like Elastic Path. The actual disadvantage of microservices is the complexity they bring into the design. And the Packaged Business Capabilities (PBC’s) with Composable Commerce, Uber has started to solve these problems. Unfortunately, many people mistake PBCs and Microservices for the same thing. However, they are different. The fundamental distinction is whether the intention for a microservice is to provide a well-defined business capability. That nuance is the ultimate litmus test.
Users will benefit from decreased complexity, improved clarity, and business-centric planning by packaging these microservices to precisely meet business requirements. It is critical to define the structure of the data needed to execute the service.
Is warehouse automation the key to unlocking truck capacity?
The Smart Mixed Case palletizing system, developed in collaboration with warehouse management software vendor WSR Solutions, lowers operating expenses by 40%. The flow of ordered products between the storage area and the pickup station is optimized using Geek+ AMRs. WSR’s algorithm assists warehouse personnel in stacking cases of varied weight, height, and breadth appropriately at the pickup station. The integrated system includes a storage space, a buffer area, a case picking area, and a loading area. A picking robot selects cases from donor pallets and stacks them on an outgoing pallet following a pre-calculated stacking pattern. Circle K, Walmart, Decathlon, and other businesses have used the company’s automated warehouses.
Etsy Waves $500 at Users to Get Them to Download Its App
Etsy is encouraging customers to download its mobile app by giving them the opportunity to win $500. Last week, a marketing email promised, “Receive the app, get $500 – Download the app to monitor your orders, communicate with sellers, and enter to win a $500 Etsy gift card.”
Customers who download the mobile app for the first time are eligible for the offer, which began on August 9 and will end on August 23, 2021.
Etsy will conduct a random lottery for four $500 gift cards on Tuesday, August 17, 2021, and Tuesday, August 24, 2021.
US Buyer accounts on Etsy.com are eligible. Entrants must download and login into the Etsy App during the promotional period to be eligible. (If your Etsy account was previously used to download the app and you redownload it, the entry is invalid.)
You can find more information and conditions in the small print on the Etsy website.
Digital sales growth slows at Target as pandemic eCommerce sales spike cools.
Target Corp. increased its comparable digital sales by 10% year on year in the second quarter. This comes on top of a year of more than 270 percent growth. Same-store sales, a crucial indicator of retail success, increased by 8.9 percent. Total sales increased 9.4 percent to $24.83 billion, up from $22.67 billion the previous year. Digital sales accounted for $4.22 billion, or 17% of total sales.
Target said in May that it expects to improve profits this year as it sells more higher-margin goods such as apparel. Apparel was the best-performing of its five core categories in the second quarter, with double-digit growth. To sustain its “amazing” expansion, the business is turning to areas such as cosmetics. Target CEO Brian Cornell said the business is off to a good start for the back-to-school shopping season. The retail company introduced School List Assist, allowing customers to quickly locate their school-specific supply list and purchase by item or whole list.
Digital sales increased by 25.7 percent to $8.62 billion, up from $6.86 billion the previous year. In addition, target announced that overall sales increased 15.8 percent to $48.71 billion in the first six months of 2021, while net profits rose 98.2 percent to $3.91 billion.
eBay Snags Amazon Exec to Help Run Ads Program
Elisabeth Rommel is the General Manager of eBay Ads North America at eBay. She oversees the program’s seller and brand relationships, operations, and marketing. Rommel has been an Amazon employee for many years and has also worked at Google to assist big online merchants. She claims that eBay is not like her previous jobs. We are focusing on what has always been eBay’s primary mission: to build a marketplace of happy customers that allows for the discovery of both new and used products in a trusted purchasing environment.” Rommel said that she wants to “reimagine” the eBay Ads brand and contribute to the development of a comprehensive portfolio of products and solutions that other marketplaces simply do not or cannot provide. The business just announced a pay-per-click marketing program that offers merchants priority access to the top of eBay search results pages – learns a result,