Jasmine Brown
As merchants search for ways to contend with the behemoth of Amazon — which accounted for about half of ecommerce sales in 2017 — many are focusing on three areas to battle back: The last mile of fulfillment, returns and outsourcing of logistics services.
It began in 2009 as two cousins selling winter outwear from their uncle’s company at mall kiosks and fairs in the Philadelphia area. Today, JustBrand Ltd is a successful stable of innovative, interrelated seasonal apparel products that has been called out by CNN’s Anderson Cooper and CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Amazon may have raised the bar on customer expectations with Prime and free two-day shipping — soon to be one-day shipping. But the pressure refuses to abate industry-wide as merchants large and small scramble to meet increased demands and not get swamped in the process.
Ecommerce continues to boom, outpacing overall retail growth, drawing successful new entrants and remaking traditional players. Yet e-fulfillment strategies — and the supply chain infrastructures that support them — are not advancing quick enough to keep pace with this growth. That’s because online orders present inherent challenges that can quickly drive up fulfillment costs, exacerbated by the increasing need for speed demanded by consumers.
As your SMB merchant business continues to grow, how do you gain a single view of unified data on your customers, sales and reports across channels? It involves removing redundant manual data entry and streamlining overall processes.
Artificial Intelligence and predictive content are changing the way people are shopping today. Using AI, a retailer can provide chatbots as personal assistants. AI can also be used to predict what items a customer will like based on their shopping history, displaying those results as they go through the shopping experience.
As a customer finds her way through the purchase journey to website checkout, it’s the moment of truth where you either close the deal or log another cart abandonment. This make-or-break instant points up the critical need to create a frictionless experience for every customer, every time.
The global payments landscape is ever changing as new technologies like Apple Pay, WeChat Pay and several others help make frictionless cross-border payment a reality.
While there is so much focus on social media as a channel for engaging with customers, email remains a major player in the marketing game. Having a strong email marketing strategy is critical when it comes to reaching customers across mobile, desktop and tablet, as it still delivers consistent results.
Finding innovative ways to market to consumers today is no easy task. Today, retailers are looking for various ways to enhance the customer experience and one of those ways is through SMS. This marketing strategy is particularly important since, according to Pew Research Center, 77% of U.S. adults are using a smartphone today.