Weekly recap of eCommerce news - W32

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: New Social Media Marketing Tools; Behavioural Segmentation; Push or Pull Marketing; Holiday Email Marketing Campaigns; Using Videos on Your Website; Product Promotion; TikTok Ads
• Platforms and Products: August eCommerce Product Release 
• Customer Experience: Guide to Fixing 504 Gateway Timeout Errors
• Customer Acquisition & Retention: Ways to Give Options & Control to Customers
• Conversion Optimisation: Cart Abandonment Reduction Strategies for Beauty Brands
• Things to read or listen to: Interview - Winning the Digital Shelf; Report: Evolving Tech Stacks
• The eCommerce week in numbers: eBay’s Declining GMV

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Marketing and Advertising

There is probably no other field of online marketing that requires updates as often as social media marketing, which is why suggestions for new online marketing tools offered by social media platforms will be received by many with joy.  From YouTube Stories and Shorts to TikTok and Clubhouse, from Twitter Spaces to LinkedIn Stories and Instagram Reels, all you need to know about the new social media marketing tools, their pros, cons, and the best type of content for each can be found here.

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Learning about customers and their browsing and purchasing behaviours is an important part of the job of any marketer. In this article, Kristen Baker of HubSpot takes us through the process of behavioural segmentation with a few of the most common examples of how it is done. Read and learn how behavioural segmentation can help you grow your business.

Starting a business that brings a product to the market will eventually bring in front of entrepreneurs the choice between push or pull marketing strategies. Find out which strategy is more efficient and what are some concrete examples of push and pull marketing campaigns, as well as useful tools from this piece.

If you follow us every week, you know by now that the entire eCommerce world has started preparing for the holidays weeks ago. The preparations are in full swing, and this week we came across an article that talks about 10 email marketing ideas for the holidays. Start browsing through and pick your winning ideas.

Images might be worth 1000 words, but videos are worth a lot more. Videos are a great way to tell your brand’s story. But before you decide to go for it and embed them on every page of the website, you might want to delve into this article and find out what are the best ways to use video content on your website.

Product promotion has been around since forever, but marketers never get tired of talking about it because it is continuously evolving. Even the most well-versed marketers will be seeking inspiration from time to time and if you’re one of them, we found this article that talks about 15 highly effective ways to promote a product. All of them come with expert recommendations, so you also get the best advice from those who have tried and tested them.

The potential of TikTok ads is yet to be exploited to its fullest. For marketers on the search for new ways to push products in front of potential customers, TikTok might just be the answer. Find out from this piece why you should advertise on TikTok, how TikTok ads work and how to create a strategy that suits your company.

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Platforms and Products

The summer slumber has not stopped companies from launching all sorts of new products and solutions for online retailers. Wix’s mobile app builder and Edgemesh’s one-click headless performance for eCommerce companies, plus a myriad of acquisitions and expansions are all discussed and detailed in this article.

Customer Experience

Websites crash, it’s a fact. At times, it might be a more complicated issue and you will need to get those team members with serious technical knowledge involved. Other times, there are quick and easy fixes that anyone can do to have the website back up in no time. Here is a quick and easy guide to fixing 504 gateway timeout errors for when you need to quickly get back online for your customers.

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Customer Acquisition & Retention

No matter how bad they want your product, many customers will be put off by too many barriers to entry and a cumbersome purchase or sign-up process. This piece sums up 13 things you can do to simplify the customer journeys and ensure they don’t give up along the way. It covers all stages, from onboarding, to purchase or website navigation, and even marketing. 

Conversion Optimisation

Different sectors will face high cart abandonment rates for different reasons. This is why attempts to reduce cart abandonment must take into consideration both the business model, as well as the particularities of the industry. In this article, Robin Trickett has gathered some advice on the strategies beauty brands can adopt to reduce shopping cart abandonment rates.

Things to read or listen to

The digital shelf has an entirely different look-and-feel from the physical shelf of department stores. It includes any browse, searches, or attempts to purchase online. Joe Gaudreau, vice president of pre-sales at Salsify, gave this live interview for CommerceCo by Practical eCommerce last week in which he talks about the digital shelf maturity curve, following a brand’s path from the physical to the digital shelf. 

The growth and evolution that eCommerce brands experienced in 2020 would not have been possible without the help of robust tech stacks. However, there were still many merchants who struggled with the limitations imposed by their aging tech stacks. The report titled “Retail eCommerce in context: the next iteration” comes to shed some light on what these challenges were and how can merchants better prepare for the future. Check it out here.

The eCommerce week in numbers

I guess it was only a matter of time until eCommerce online retailer’s growth came to a halt. It starts with eBay, whose gross merchandise volume (GMV), which includes sales on its international marketplaces, was down 7% in Q2 of 2021 from $23.65 billion to $22.11 billion. Find out what eBay’s long-term strategy is moving forward from this piece.