It’s no secret that today’s consumers are more tech-savvy than ever before. It’s also no secret that ecommerce is booming – now worth 2.3 trillion USD. However, this does not mean that brick-and-mortar is dying. On the contrary, it’s actually thriving. In 2017, 91% of all US retail sales took place in-store, not online. What is happening in correlation with…
Industry Insights Blog
Every retailer knows they need to get closer to their customers – but what does being customer-centric mean, and how do you actually achieve it? What are the big challenges, and where do you start? Barnaby Moffat, commercial director and co-founder of UK e-commerce specialists Envoy Digital, shares valuable insights about how his agency is helping its retail clients place…
Instagram Shopping features are relatively new to the nearly 10-year-old photo and video-sharing social networking service. Shopping on Instagram enables e-commerce brands to host an “immersive storefront for people to explore your best products.” Put simply, Instagram Shopping capabilities give brands the opportunity to share products through organic posts, Stories, or the Search & Explore function—all without ever leaving the…
SMEs and large corporations of the world have one thing in common— all of them want to find ways to make their commercial operations run smoother, efficiently and profitably. With that in mind, IBM has announced the launch of Blockchain World Wire, a real-time global payments network for regulated financial institutions, which is now accessible across a growing number of…
Consumers are using their voice much more frequently to engage with devices and the Internet. Smart speakers from Amazon, Google and others can take much of the credit here, quickly becoming popular gadgets for people to have in their homes. While the growth is certainly impressive, voice devices are still nowhere near the ubiquity of smartphones. The industry currently stands…
Instagram has introduced a tool designed to shore up its hold on shopping. The company announced today that it will be rolling out an in-app checkout function to users in the United States, a secure and, Instagram hopes, friction-free method for purchasing products onthe app without ever leaving. At its introduction, 23 brands in fashion, apparel and beauty have signed…
We live in a global economy where increasingly businesses are expanding internationally to drive growth. When it comes to payments, it’s easy to underestimate the complexity involved in receiving money across borders. Receiving money internationally is complicated, because there isn’t one ubiquitous system in place for routing money across borders. Instead, banks are linked through a correspondent system, which can…
Research from Rakuten Marketing has found the amount celebrities get for promoting brands on social media has declined dramatically. Only two years ago celebrities could expect the astronomical sum of £75,000 for a social media post, but now they are receiving £25,000. This does not mean less is being invested in social media influencer campaigns. Quite the opposite is true because…
Whereas a problematic data gap existed between shoppers’ digital and physical shopping journeys, RetailNext’s new Connected Journey product extension now delivers to retailers enhanced connected journey analytics, better insights on what marketing programs are driving traffic and conversion, and data to best connect personalized messaging to shoppers who desire it. If there’s one certainty related to retail today, it’s that the…
Rather than boosting its revenue from Amazon, FedEx sees better prospects in helping customers compete against the e-commerce behemoth. FedEx, looking beyond Amazon for growth in e-commerce, is introducing a new late-night shipping option for retailers who want to speedily send orders directly to online customers.
The program will offer retailers the option to deliver items the next day when they…
September approaches, of course (as it always does) – but this time, with a red-letter day on the 13th as PSD2 takes effect.
As readers of these digital pages know, the European Union directive mandates that bank customers can use third-party providers for financial services. The latest PSD2 Tracker, via joint efforts of PYMNTS and Whitepages Pro, found that though PSD2 looms,…
Voice assistants continue to gain momentum, but there’s still little clarity around how this new interface affects the brand-consumer relationship, and how brands need to reposition themselves in light of this. With strong chances of more growth on the horizon, stakeholders in voice tech are having to consider questions that underline its durability and monetization potential.
Above all, they’re grappling with the…
Nonstop innovations including expanded shipping capabilities, faster delivery times and cashierless stores make Amazon a force to be reckoned with. The e-commerce giant’s constant developments pose a threat to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers for obvious reasons. However, though they may not realize it, brick-and-mortar stores are in a position to compete with Amazon quite successfully. …
Those times are long gone when we simply filled in the address at an online store and hoped that the parcel would arrive, sometimes even after several weeks. Nowadays, parcels are moving fast and customers closely follow the journey of their parcels. And versatile delivery types have also become significant factors in customer satisfaction. For customers, the ease of pick-up is…
For three digitally native brands, brick-and-mortar locations are for consumer education — and more. The days of pure-play retail are in the rearview mirror for digitally native brands. Over the next five years, the burgeoning cohort of direct-to-consumer companies could open up to 850 stores. But don’t expect them to serve the same purpose as, say, a Macy’s, Target or…
People do not want to speak with robots while shopping in-store or online according to a new study conducted by Oracle NetSuite in partnership with Wakefield Research and The Retail Doctor, a retail consulting firm created by expert consultant and business mentor Bob Phibbs. The global study of 1,200 consumers and 400 retail executives across the U.S., U.K. and Australia…
The cross-platform feature, which is self-service and runs on a CPA model, had test partners including teen favorite TikTok and Sony’s Crackle streaming platform. Amazon announced a new self-service loyalty offering called Amazon Moments, which doles out both physical and digital rewards for marketers that are fulfilled, shipped and delivered by the online retailing giant. The cross-platform feature, rolling out to…
Manufacturers are developing two packaging designs for the same product: those destined for the retail shelf, and those sent directly to consumers. Tide created a stir when it introduced e-commerce packaging for laundry detergent, shifting to a cardboard case holding a bladder of liquid detergent. Comparisons to boxed wine ensued, with its meta depictions of the original Tide bottle printed onto…
Today e-commerce websites and in general online merchants are facing a big challenge on a daily basis: the reduction of frauds and chargebacks. Login and password details get often hacked, credit cards are sometimes cloned, as a result fraudulent transactions as a serious threat, both to the security of the customers, and to the reliability of the merchant, who has to…
Data storytelling bridges two worlds: the creative and the formulaic; emotive communication and hard data. While nothing new, storytelling is fast becoming the most effective way to reach today’s consumers. More and more brands are looking to deep consumer insight to shape meaningful stories that resonate with their audience. Here’s why.
What is Data Storytelling?
Data storytelling is about making connections, using…