ecommerce Archives - Page 6 of 17

Walmart Partners With Uber And Lyft For On-Demand Grocery Delivery

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Walmart is partnering with Uber and Lyft to test an on-demand grocery delivery service beginning within the next two weeks in Denver and Phoenix. Walmart will charge a $7 to $10 delivery fee when online orders are placed so customers don’t need to pay the Uber or Lyft drivers when their orders arrive. This new services puts Walmart in direct competition with Amazon, which offers similar services via Prime Now and AmazonFresh.

What Retailers Need To Do
Walmart has been taking measures to modernize its online retail experience in order to effectively compete with Amazon, including launching a mobile payment app in December and testing an online order pickup program. This new move marks a significant step in Walmart’s ecommerce expansion as the partnership with two leading ride-hailing services gives it a huge logistical boost to fight against Amazon. Retailers need to take a cue from the two retail giants and start testing similar on-demand programs to meet the growing consumer demand for convenience and instant gratification.

To learn more on what retailers can do to reach today’s connected shoppers across sales channels, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

Source: The Verge

eBay Opens A VR Shop That Lets You Shop With Your Eyes

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
eBay worked with Australian department store Myer to develop a virtual reality shop that allows users to shop with their eyes. Using a system called “Sight Search” that eBay developed, users can choose items by staring at them for a few seconds or add items to a shopping cart by staring at the “Add to Basket” button. eBay says it is also working on a payment solution that will allow customers to pay with their eye movements. The shop contains products sold through Myer, including 3D models for the top 100 items in each category, and it can be accessed through existing headsets such as Samsung Gear VR. eBay is also giving away 20,000 Google Cardboards it dubbed “Shopticals” to spread the word.

Why Brands Should Care
This new VR department store offers a glimpse of the future of ecommerce. To entice and attract shoppers with this type of innovative shopping experience, retailers and brands that sell directly to customers online may consider integrating VR technology into their online user experience.

Source: Engadget

Why JackThreads Pivoted To Its New Business Model

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Online men’s clothing retailer JackThreads is moving away from the deep discounting it has been known for since the site launched in 2008. Instead, CEO Mark Walker says JackThreads will pivot to a “try-at-home-before-buying” model, which gives customers a week to decide whether they want to keep what they ordered before their cards are charged. All orders will come with free delivery and free returns. The company is also in talks with on-demand shipping startups Shyp and Happy Returns, hoping to integrate their services into its app so as to make the return process as friction-free as possible.

What Retailers Need To Do
JackThreads’s pivot points to the diminishing returns of the online flash-sale fad due to the unsustainability of that business model. By granting customers a generous week-long tryout period and removing all the hassles surrounding online shopping and returns, JackThreads is bringing the fitting room into the online shopping experience and encouraging its customers to shop more – at full price. This pivot provides a great example in how retailers can modernize their shopping experience to meet the demands of connected shoppers.

For more information on this topic, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

Source: Recode

How Birchbox Is Using Facebook Live To Convert Customers

Posted on May 5, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Birchbox is joining the live-stream craze as the subscription-based, online beauty retailer recently started doing live shows on Facebook on a regular basis. The goal, according to Rachel Jo Silver, the former director of social marketing for Birchbox, is to build relationships with customers in real-time and convert interested social followers into customers. Birchbox has seen success in using livestreaming to acquire new subscribers and promote products. One of its best-performing livestreams lasted for 40 minutes and racked up nearly 50,000 live viewers with an average view time of 10 minutes. In addition, Birchbox is taking advantage of Facebook Live’s feature of saving livestreams as videos after they end to generate content for its various social media outlets.

What Brands Need To Do
Livestreaming is starting to explode across digital channels with Facebook making a strong push for its Live video feature in the past few months, which creates new opportunities for brands seeking to engage with online audiences in real time. Birchbox’s early success with Facebook Live is illustrative of how brands can use livestreaming to directly engage with online consumers. As this trend continues, we expect to see more brands start exploring live-streaming platforms to elevate brand image and attract new customers.

Source: Marketing Dive

Amazon Wants You To Pay With Amazon Payments Anywhere Online

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon is expanding its Amazon Payments Global Partner Program to help more ecommerce platform providers and merchants remove payment friction and combat shopping cart abandonment. Previously, individual merchants could sign up to integrate Amazon’s online payment solution into their sites to allow shoppers to check out with their Amazon account payment info. Now, Amazon is bringing this integration to ecommerce platforms, such as PrestaShop, Shopify, and Future Shop, to further expand the reach of its payment service and solidify its leading position in the ecommerce space.

What Retailers Need To Do
By allowing customers to check out with the credit card information they have on file with Amazon, e-retailers can make it easier for customers to complete their purchases and facilitate more sales. A recent study shows that 46% of shopping cart abandonments occur at the payment stage. Therefore, it would be smart for retailers to consider adding support for “Pay with Amazon” and win over customers with a frictionless shopping experience.

For more information on how brands can modernize their user experiences to better engage with shoppers, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

Source: TechCrunch

Header image courtesy of Amazon Payments

SXSW 2016: Shopgate Offers Retailers A New Way To Sell On Apple TV

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Mobile commerce platform Shopgate debuted its new tools for building tvOS apps, which allow retailers using Shopgate’s SaaS platform to create shopping apps designed for the new Apple TV. At the launch party it hosted on March 12 during SXSW Interactive, the company partnered with sports apparel retailer Gameday Merchandising for a demo that showcased a TV shopping experience with the Team Store app it created for the Golden State Warriors.

What Retailers Need To Do
The new Apple TV presents new opportunities for retailers to reach consumers with branded content and their apps. Retailers can use Shopgate to develop branded apps that leverage Apple TV’s large format interface to entice shoppers and turn online shopping into a group activity. As TV commerce evolves, retailers with video content would be smart to use the new tools available to create their own content portal apps for streaming platforms.

To read more on how retailers can reach shoppers on OTT platforms with shopping apps and branded content, please check out the Appified TV section in our Outlook 2016.

Source: Business Insider

Header image courtesy of Shopgate’s YouTube

Ecommerce App Spring Integrates With Popular Mobile Game

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Mobile shopping app Spring has struck a partnership to help it sell fashion items in an unusual place – Kim Kardashian’s popular mobile game. Starting Monday, users can get designer clothes sold by Spring to dress up their avatars from an in-app virtual boutique, which also features link-outs to nudge users to download the Spring app and buy the actual items for themselves. Currently, the in-app store features products from 12 fashion brands, including Derek Lam, Opening Ceremony, Jennifer Fisher, Modern Citizen, and Clare Vivier.

What Brands Need To Do
This integration allows the game’s tens of millions of users to view and purchase items on Spring, which should add considerable exposure for Spring’s ecommerce platform. For retailers and fashion brands, using a popular game app as a trojan horse to get your products on consumer’s mobile screen can be a good strategy for increasing brand awareness and capturing mobile shoppers. Brands looking to conquer the mobile commerce space should try exploring similar partnerships if they can find a compatible app to partner with.

Source: Digiday

Net-a-Porter Puts Shoppable Content In Branded Print Magazine

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Net-a-Porter’s in-house print magazine, Porter, may has relatively small circulations, but it boasts purchases through the e-retailer’s website and its affiliate brands with buyable content. On average, an issue of Porter features 500 piece of buyable items, enabled by Net-a-Porter’s mobile app. When readers flip through Porter’s pages, they can scan each page to find more information on the items presented on the page, as well as tapping on the buy buttons to order the items within the app. The London-based fashion e-retailer first launched the magazine in February 2014, and, based on a survey it conducted last year, the buyable items had been scanned 85,000 times, an interaction rate of 78%.

What Brands Need To Do
This shoppable magazine from Net-a-Porter provides a great examples in how brands can leverage their branded content to reach customers and convert those eyeballs into sales. As consumers become more and more comfortable with shopping on smartphones, with mobile commerce now making up over 30% of all U.S. ecommerce sales, it is up to retail brands to figure out new way to use buyable content on mobile to move shoppers down the sales funnel.

For more details on how retailers can better utilize customer data to connect with shoppers across channels. check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

Source: Digiday

Header image courtesy of Net-a-Porter.com

FameBit Partners With Shopify To Help Influencers Set Up Shop

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Lab Team

What Happened
Social influencer marketplace FameBit has partnered up with ecommerce platform Shopify to make it easier for the 31,000 social media stars in Famebit’s network to set up their own digital storefronts. This will allow social influencers to sell their own merchandise directly to fans or form partnerships with existing brands to co-create branded products. Besides access to Shopify VIP, an exclusive service that provides infrastructure and customer management support for online stores, Shopify will also offer some ecommerce tools, such as embeddable buy buttons, to help them cross-promote their online stores across various digital channels.

What Brands Need To Do
This deal highlights the growing importance of influencer marketing in ecommerce as it turns more influencers into online retailers with a built-in audience. As more and more brands seek partnerships with social influencers in order to reach younger generations that are shunning traditional media channels, this FameBit-Shopify deal spells new opportunities for brands to collaborate with the next generation of celebrities.

For more information on why brands should leverage partnerships with social influencers and content creators to reach new audiences, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.

Source: Marketing Dive

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