Weekly Recap of eCommerce News - W27

The internet is a great, yet overwhelming source of information. Every week, we read the articles published on eCommerce blogs, journals, and websites. We then curate and sum up what's hot and what’s not in eCommerce, and link to the information that matters to you. 

Here’s the lowdown on some of the hot topics in the industry last week:

• Advertising & Marketing Trends: A Process for Linkbuilding; Instagram Reel Ads; Competitive Pricing Analysis 
• Customer Engagement: eCommerce Journeys
• Plugins & Products: Shopify vs. Squarespace; Wix vs. Shopify
• Headless Commerce: Platforms for Headless Commerce; Headless Checkouts
• Things to read or listen to: Podcast: 10 KPIs for Multichannel Success; 
• Podcast: 8-Figure Fragrance Company; Summer Reading List
• The eCommerce week in numbers: Web Accessibility Lawsuits on the Rise 

Marketing and Advertising

Link-building can be daunting if you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how to get there. Mainly used to increase domain and page authority scores, link building can backfire and harm the credibility of your website unless done right. Armando Roggio breaks down the way to successful link-building into manageable steps and backs his advice with examples from his own experience. You can read all about it here. 

As much as every marketer was eagerly waiting for Instagram to launch Reel Ads, the launch also brought up a lot of questions and uncertainty. Marketers are facing a steep learning curve. This article comes in handy for those who want to find out what Reels Ads are, what they look like and where to find them, why they are a good ad placement for eCommerce, as well as some of the cons of using them. 

Businesses operate in a competitive environment. This means they have to constantly look at what their competitors are doing and do it better. Competitive pricing analysis can be a decisive factor for the success of a business. This article talks about the importance of price tracking other companies and what are some of the best ways to conduct a price analysis. 

Customer Engagement

A customer journey is not always a one-way street from interest to purchase. There are a lot of moments in between that need to be acknowledged and taken into consideration when building an effective customer journey. In this piece, Vivian Wagner writes about how to create paths of engagement by following your customers’ digital footsteps and putting data to work to define future journeys that your customers will want to embark upon.

Plugins & Products

To have, or not to have an online store with Shopify? To have, or no to have an online store with Squarespace. Those are the questions answered in this article. Thomas J. Law looks at what sets the two platforms apart to help users understand which one is best suited for their needs. He covers everything from pricing and value, eCommerce, payment gateways and transaction fees, themes and designs, apps, dropshipping, customer support, and POS. If those questions ever kept you up at night, now’s your chance to get some answers. This article is part of a series and is followed by a comparison between Wix and Shopify.

Headless Commerce

If you follow us, you know by now that headless commerce is a big deal because it has revolutionized the way online shops work. Those who have been convinced by the power of headless will be happy to read about the platforms that facilitate a headless approach both for the front and back end. Here is an extensive list of the options available to help you take that first step towards a headless architecture.

This article starts with some terrifying stats: 88% of online shoppers abandon their cart during checkout, and 61% of shoppers leave a transaction because of an extra cost. As a result, brands lose $18 billion in sales revenue to cart abandonment each year. Optimizing the checkout experience becomes imperative, especially with studies showing that it can boost conversations by up to 35.2%. If this sounds all too familiar, this article has the solution: different checkout experiences for different channels made possible by a headless architecture.

Things to read and listen to

Jon Shanahan, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Stryx - a men's multichannel skincare brand, met up last week with Monica Grohne Founder and CEO of Marea Wellness - a female health provider, to discuss KPIs for retailers operating on multiple channels. They made a list of the 10 most important KPIs you need to keep an eye on to find out if you’re on the right track. Grab your coffee, put your headset on and listen to their podcast here.

There are those who make success sound simple. But we all know there is more to it even though we often don’t know what that is. In this podcast, Felix Thea talks to the two Youtubers who went from reviewing perfumes to creating their own 8-figure perfume brand about how they pre-sold one million dollars in sales before launching a single fragrance and what it takes to transition from influencer to business owner.

Mike Sanchez, Bold’s Chief Revenue Officer spoke at WP Engine Summit 2021 about what brands can do to stand out online. As the pandemic has forced many brands that were traditionally found on the high-street to move online, the competition for who offers the best customer experience in this environment is also on the rise. Check out here the key takeaways from Sanchez’s talk about what tactics your need to use to ensure your eCommerce brand sticks out. 

Molly Pittmann and John Grimshaw continue their series of recommendations, this time with a list of 6 non-business books. Learn about the idea behind “thought balancing” and why it’s important to read books that aren’t “challenging” from this podcast. 

The eCommerce week in numbers

In the first half of this year, companies in the US have seen an increase in web-accessibility lawsuits. Often these lawsuits target smaller online retailers, nearly 74% of all lawsuits are against retailers and 67.0% against companies with less than $50 million in annual sales. There is an increasing demand that online retailers make their websites “meaningfully accessible”. Wondering what that means? This article explains it in detail.