Tag: ecommerce

What We Learned From The Digiday Retail Summit

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Digiday

Last week we closely followed the coverage of the Digiday Retail Summit, where executives from the retail world came together to talk about the future of retail and the challenges facing the industry. A lot was discussed, but two themes stood out for us:

Attribution technology still needs work

With the growing number of devices and the dizzying array of ad types, cross-channel attribution keeps fracturing ad measurements. Insiders from the retail industry are increasingly impatient for the attribution technology to be precise enough to pinpoint exactly where their sale is coming from, but it looks like we might still need a few years for it to fully catch up.

Digital retail starts to converge with physical stores

As online commerce starts to circle back into physical space and converge with brick-and-mortar, how to efficiently make both work together poses an ongoing challenge for retailers today. Some are willing to experiment with cutting-edge technologies to tackle the challenge. Lowe’s, for instance, is using 3D virtual-reality rooms in their physical stores that allow customers to see a 3D model of their renovation projects.

 

3 Reasons Why Startups Are Succeeding In Online Retail

Posted on by Lab Team

Read the original story on: TechCrunch

E-commerce startups like Bonobos, Warby Parker and Birchbox have been thriving in online retail—some have even made their way back to brick-and-mortal stores—but some traditional retailers have struggled with the transfer. Kit Hickey, co-founder of online menswear store Ministry of Supply, sums up the three key reasons behind such the contrast:

  1. E-commerce startups are tapping into flexible and unique spaces such as vacant storefronts, with short-term leases.
  2. E-commerce startups have centralized inventory, which leads to significant savings on storage cost and shipping.
  3. E-commerce startups have a better understanding of their customers thru purchase data and customer profile.

All of these factors are hugely beneficial to e-commerce companies as they continue to scale both online and offline.

 

What Amazon Has Been Up To This Week

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: VentureBeat

It’s only Tuesday, but Amazon has already unveiled a trifecta of new services with one-hour delivery in NYC, 4K Streaming for Amazon Instant, and a new price-negotiation feature.

  • Trialing now in New York City, Amazon Prime Now uses bike messengers to deliver Amazon-ordered packages within an hour, helping the ecommerce giant better compete with brick-and-mortar stores, as well other instant-delivery services.
  • Amazon Instant has started offering 4K or Ultra HD resolution for a limited number of movies and TV titles to its Prime members at no extra charge. Similarly, fellow streaming service Netflix also has offered 4K streaming, but for a $3 monthly markup.
  • Amazon is taking a leaf out of eBay’s playbook by introducing a new “Make an Offer” feature that lets consumers negotiate prices with sellers. Right now this feature is limited to categories only—namely Sports & Entertainment Collectibles, Collectible Coins, and Fine Art, and is entirely opt-in from the merchant’s side—so don’t expect Amazon to turn into a haggle-friendly bazaar just yet.

Mobile Sales Dominated Black Friday Sales, According To PayPal And Walmart

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

Yesterday we covered the stellar performance of online sales this past Black Friday weekend, and now various sources are reporting the staggering growth of mobile shopping as well.

Walmart’s online store reported that mobile traffic constituted 70% of its pageviews over the Thanksgiving weekend. Its designated mobile app also reported over 4 times up in usage from the same time last year.

Similarly, PayPal also saw a 43% increase in PayPal mobile shoppers on Thanksgiving, and a 51% increase on Black Friday. Other firms saw mobile accounting for somewhere between 27-30% of sales. So if you haven’t paid much attention to mobile commerce, you might want to start now.

Online Black Friday Sales Breaks $1.5B As Physical Retail Slides

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: TechCrunch

It looks like online sales got off to a good start in the U.S., with Thanksgiving topping $1 billion and Black Friday passing $1.5 billion — respectively, a growth of 32% and 26% over 2013, according to early numbers from comScore. As online retailers use Cyber Monday to extend the post-Thanksgiving holiday sales rush, further growth in Ecommerce is expected this holiday season.

The good news for online sales, however, might come at the expense of subpar brick-and-mortar performance, as sales across physical stores for the past four days are down 11% to $50.9 billion from year-ago $57.4 billion, based on a new National Retail Federation report.

Twitter Enters Brick-and-Mortar Retail With “Offers”

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Re/code

After experimenting with several ecommerce features, today Twitter is officially entering brick-and-mortar retail with Twitter Offers, a new feature that allows users to claim discounts right from a brand’s promoted tweets by linking their credit or debit card account with Twitter. Users can then redeem the discount simply by paying with the linked card in the retailer’s store.

As of now, Twitter is only charging brands for the promoted tweets. If this type of digital coupon catches on, Twitter could start charging retailers a fee for every offer claimed or redeemed. If anything, Twitter Offers would certainly provide physical retailers with a new way to measure the impact of online promotions.

Global Watch: Secrets To Alibaba Record-Smashing Single’s Day Sale

Posted on by Richard Yao

 A new global e-retail record was set on November 11 when Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba finished its annual sale on Single’s Day—a new holiday in China popularized and trademarked by Alibaba to encourage splurging on oneself—with a smashing $9.3 billion (RMB 57.1 billion) in total transaction volume. This astronomical number surpassed the combined $3.7 billion online sales of Black Friday and Cyber Monday made from desktops in the U.S. last year, according to comScore.

To achieve such an impressive number, Alibaba tried a couple of new tricks this year. First, it streamlined the purchase experience on smartphones, where 43% of this year’s sales reportedly came from. It also signed special logistics deals with delivery companies to facilitate faster movement of the 200 million orders generated on that day.

Alibaba also successfully connected Chinese consumers with international brands and online retailers: more than 200 merchants from over 20 countries participated with special discounts, including Muji, Desigual, and The North Face. Chinese shoppers bought overseas deals not just though Alibaba’s own retail sites, such as Taobao and Tmall, but also from overseas retailers’ official websites with Alipay, thanks to its newly-launched EPass program.

Considering the 60% increase from last year’s sales, Alibaba’s strategy of turning a silly, unofficial holiday into a national shopping frenzy provides a shining example for retailers worldwide.

Walmart Matches Price With Amazon To Combat Showrooming

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: Gizmodo

The growing power of ecommerce is bleeding into brick-and-mortar retail. Walmart has reportedly informed managers of its roughly 5,000 stores across the US that they can match prices with Amazon.com and other online retailers.  As 21% of US respondents use a smartphone to research online in their purchase journey, according to Google’s consumer barometer, we expect more practices like this to be formalized in retail stores to combat the showrooming effect.

 

Theater Play To Be Broadcast Live Online

Posted on by Lab Team

Read original story on: THR

A theater production called The Noir Series running this weekend in Los Angeles has managed to be both a stage play and live Internet TV: tickets are available to see the show in person while special “online viewing tickets” for live streaming are also available. It’s an interesting twist on companies such as BroadwayHD and Broadway Near You that have been working to bring hit Broadway shows to movie screens around the world. These dual models could potentially open up new revenue streams for the struggling theater business.

 

Amazon Is Extending Prime Benefits To Other Online Stores

Posted on by Lab Team

 Read original story on: TechCrunch

Amazon is now extending the benefits of its Prime membership to other digital stores, starting with British retailer AllSaints. Besides granting free next-day shipping to Prime members, Amazon is also incorporating products from AllSaints’ web store into its search results.  If this arrangement continues to spread, Amazon Prime could very well become the VIP pass of ecommerce.