Tag: ecommerce

Twitter Starts Testing New Product Pages And Collections

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Following the roll-out of “buy buttons” last fall, Twitter continues to dive deeper into social ecommerce by testing a new feature that allows a “limited group of brand partners” to curate product pages and collections. The new pages will include related tweets and additional information about the products, as well as links to third-party destination sites that will help enable purchasing. Among early adopters, popular consumer electronics review site The Wirecutter stands out with a collection of travel gears. Other notable examples so far include a collection of Game of Thrones-related products, and a page of product recommendations from pop star Demi Lovato.

This new ad feature came right on the heels of Twitter’s announcement of its event-focused “Project Lightning” last week, and an underlying similarity between the two seems clear. Whereas the new “lighting” event page is looking to re-organize and curate disparate tweets to form real-time news coverage, this new “Product Page and Collection” feature aims to leverage editorial curating to create a browse-able shopping experience on Twitter. Whether or not this approach would actually further Twitter’s entry into ecommerce remains to be seen.

Facebook Continues To Expand Its Platforms

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Upholding the promise of expanding its platforms made at the Facebook F8 Conference (read event recap here) back in March, the social network has now officially added the first mobile game app on its Messenger platform app list, making “Doodle Draw Game” the first true game available since the platform launched in April. Messenger app has been logging a healthy growth rate, adding 100 million users in the last three months.

Meanwhile, Facebook is also accelerating the rollout of its in-stream “Buy Buttons”. Up until now, Facebook has only been testing the “Buy Button” with a few selected test merchants, but is now opening it up to any retailer on Shopify‘s ecommerce platform. The speed-up came just days after Pinterest unveiled the new “Buyable Pins”, and it almost seems like a reactionary move from Facebook to keep up with the race of social ecommerce.

Still, all things considered, Facebook is doing a great job, arguably the best among all social media platforms, at expanding its platforms with new features, be it in-line video player, Instant Articles, messaging apps, and games, all working to keep users inside its own cyber ecosystem and never need to leave.

Mondelez Seeking More Ecommerce Solutions From Tech Startups

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: AdWeek

Snack giant Mondelez International announced on Wednesday a three-month program named Shopper Futures, which asks participating tech startups to pitch innovative retail solutions involving emerging technology like beacons and conductive ink. The news came on the heels of the debut of Mondelez’s “buy buttons” across its digital platforms, a collaborative effort born out of the company’s partnership with Irish marketing tech firm ChannelSight. Now with the launch of Shopper Futures, it seems like Mondelez is still hungry for more tech-enabled solution to ramp up its sales.

Amazon Turns Boxes Of Its Packages Into Advertising Space

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

As the undisputable leader in ecommerce, Amazon has always been quite tech-savvy, actively exploring emerging media platforms like connected cars and smart home devices. Ironically, however, the ecommerce giant had been overlooking a low-tech, yet prime ad space right under its nose—the Amazon shipping box.

Perhaps realizing this missed opportunity, Amazon inked a deal with Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment to put cute cartoon characters from the Minions movie to help promote its impending release, the first time Amazon has ever allowed a third party to completely brand its iconic delivery boxes.

By accepting advertising on its packages, which litter doorsteps and apartment building lobbies across the states, Amazon may just have found a lucrative new revenue stream. Given that the mostly positive early responses from the customers, it seems reasonable to expect more branded boxes to pop up in the near future.

 

On Trend: Social Commerce Heats Up Again With “Buy Buttons”

Posted on by Lab Team

It all started last summer with Facebook testing “buy buttons” in newsfeed ads, which Twitter quickly followed by rolling out its own “buy now buttons” in September. Neither really gained much traction in the following months, and the race towards social commerce dominance seemed to cool down a bit—until last month. During May, Mondelez International, Google Search, and YouTube all announced their plans to insert their own version of “buy buttons” into their respective digital ad products.

Flash forward to today, both Pinterest and Instagram are making a big push into social ecommerce. Just one day after Amazon “ripped off” its visual layout for its new product curation page Stream, Pinterest has fought right back with “Buyable Pins”. Partnered with Shopify and Stripe, Pinterest will soon let its app users to browse products and make purchases with a few clicks. Not to be outdone, Instagram is also beefing up its ad tools with the addition of “Shop Now” buttons, along with buttons for app installs and sign-ups. Instagram’s API for ad campaign management is also updated to add “interest and demographic targeting” to make it more appealing to marketers and brands alike.

We have long expected social networks like Instagram and Pinterest to enter the commerce market directly, instead of just driving traffic to retailers’ websites. Now that Facebook seems finally ready to scale up the ad offerings on Instagram, as does Google on its search platform and YouTube, brands need to figure out the platform(s) that best suits their needs among an increasing number of viable platforms. Brands should also start developing strategies for social ecommerce in order to translate the convenience of “buy buttons” and the network effect on social platforms into actual sales. And although it’s in its early stages, social commerce will be an important aspect of attribution, finally allowing brands understand how their marketing converts to sales.

Why Amazon Launched A New Pinterest-Inspired Retail Curation

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: The Next Web

Today Amazon launched a curated product page named Amazon Stream which, with a visual repository of daily updated products and a conspicuous “Save” button, took some clear inspiration from Pinterest. Currently, all items featured in Stream are part of the “Amazon’s Sponsored Products” program.

The ecommerce giant has two obvious reasons for experimenting with the new layout. Firstly, Stream offers a new platform to showcase the sponsored products, therefore adding more value to its sponsored ad program. More importantly, Stream transforms the conventional “search-led” online shopping experience into a more “browsing-led” experience that is closer to brick-and-mortar retail experience.

As ecommerce continues to erode physical retail sales, online retailers have also been experimenting with new formats and designs to improve user experience. For more, you can click here to read our POV on “Shoppable Media” to learn how leading ecommerce brands like Amazon are integrating points of sale to create a consistent customer experience across platforms.

 

Head image screen-cap’ed from www.amazon.com/stream

 

How eBay Is Quietly Staging A Comeback

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original article on: WSJ Blog

In recent years, eBay has been lagging behind its competitors like Amazon and Alibaba, which was partly why it decided to spin off PayPal last year. Now just months before the planned split, the former ecommerce leader has quietly started to stage its comeback.

New reports claim that eBay is testing an Amazon Prime-like subscription program in Germany. The program, known as eBay+, promises customers free, expedited shipping and returns for just €15 to €20 (about $17 to $22) per year. For sellers, eBay will be offering discounts on selling fees and a subsidy to help cut the cost of shipping and returns.

Moreover, eBay is also reportedly planning a new ad unit called Promoted Listing that will allow some sellers to elevate their listings above others among the search results. Instead of the usual pay-per-click model, sellers only have to pay when a promoted listing translates into sales.

While it remains to be seen whether this comeback plan will work or not, it is clear that the ecommerce landscape will continues to evolve and expand. Brands operating in ecommerce space need to keep up with the constant changes, as well as the new opportunities they bring.

Google To Make YouTube’s Pre-roll Ads “Shoppable”

Posted on by Lab Team

Read the original story on: AdWeek

Google announced the new ad format at Wednesday’s Ad:Tech SF meeting that adds “shoppable” elements to YouTube’s pre-roll ads, also known as TrueView ads. Now in some pre-roll ads, viewers will start seeing product offers, complete with prices, images, and a link to the advertiser’s website.  Online furniture retailer Wayfair and cosmetics retailer Sephora are among early partners to test this new feature, with both reporting positive feedback. But whether YouTube viewers will click “shop” instead of “skip” is still up for debate and largely depends on the execution.

Overall, the new addition to YouTube came as a part of Google’s recent push for monetization across its platforms. Last week, reports surfaced that Google is planning to add “buy buttons” to its paid search results on mobile devices. Similarly, as part of a new advertising partnership inked last month, the search giant has also tweaked the layout of mobile search results to incorporate real-time updates from Twitter, extending the reach of branded tweets to mobile searchers.

By The Numbers: Mobile Purchase Habits

Posted on by Lab Team

As mobile usage continues to rise, mobile spending is correspondingly increasing, growing 42% annually over a four-year period. Therefore, it is important for brands looking to conquer the mobile space to understand how and when average users are making purchases on mobile devices and hopefully discover some behavioral patterns that can help inform brands’ mobile commerce strategy.

1- Applovin_RevenuebyHour

Whether in games, retail, travel or other commerce apps, users are much more likely to make purchases before and after work, according to a study from AppLovin and TUNE. The study found that, on an hourly basis, mobile revenues and usage spikes to a daily high around both 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. during weekdays, discrediting the myth of “lunch break shopping”.

2 -Applovin_RevenuebyWeekdayjpg

Similarly, on a day-to-day basis, mobile spending peaks over weekends, while Wednesday marks the lowest. Although it is generally established that Mondays are generally the best revenue for online retail, Fridays and Sundays take the top spots for most in-app purchasing and spending.

3- Applovin_UsagebyWeekday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is also important to note that mobile spending revenue pattern doesn’t necessarily correlate to mobile usage. While Wednesdays, the lowest day in terms of revenue, do register the lowest mobile usage of the week, Friday, second slowest day in terms of usage, is also the second highest in terms of revenue.

4 - Applovin_UsagebyHour

Likewise, on an hourly basis, evening is when usage and spending both hit their daily peaks, whereas the morning hours post similar spending but less usage. The bottom line here is mobile commerce is not the same as general ecommerce, and marketers need to find ways to programmatically increase win rates during peak hours and weekends that fit the mobile spending patterns.

All featured charts courtesy of AppLovin Blog.

 

How Google’s “Buy Buttons” Could Impact Ecommerce

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original article on: Engadget

Google is reportedly planning to add “buy buttons” to its paid search results on mobile devices in the coming weeks, which will redirect interested shoppers to another Google product page to complete the purchase. According to sources, the search giant will start showing the buttons displayed under a “Shop on Google” heading when users search for products on mobile devices, which won’t appear with the non-sponsored results composed by Google’s search algorithm. Macy’s is named as one of the launch partners.

This new feature, should it come to fruition, signals the search giant’s ambitious plan in branching out its search platform into ecommerce space. Although its share in desktop search has slipped 3% from 67.5% in March 2014 to 64.5% in March 2015, according to comScore, Google still commands over 83% of U.S. mobile search market, according to StatCounter’s data, putting it well ahead of its competitors. Backed with a dominant position in the mobile search market, it makes perfect sense for Google to become a one-stop shop for mobile searchers.

Update 5/29/2015: Google’s Chief Business Officer Omid Kordestani has confirmed in a interview that the buy buttons would indeed be coming soon.