Amazon is taking a serious run at counterfeit sellers on its marketplace, with the creation of a Counterfeit Crimes Unit that includes former federal prosecutors, investigators and data analysts. The company said it has limited counterfeit complaints to 0.1% of items listed, but legislators and media investigations have still taken it to task.
Brands are challenged with finding a way forward even when traditional DTC models threaten to crack—and thinking outside the box to find the post-coronavirus formula for success. Fortunately, DTC doesn’t just mean selling on your own site. Here are some of the strong benefits of adding marketplaces to your DTC channel mix.
Walmart has made another move in the never-ending ecommerce battle with market leader Amazon, through an alliance with ecommerce platform titan Shopify that gives Shopify’s 1 million-plus merchants access to Walmart’s online marketplace.
Although Facebook Shops is being marketed to potentially distressed small businesses, large Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies should be paying attention as they think through their own strategies, especially given the shift in consumer shopping behavior caused by COVID-19.
Right now, there is a golden opportunity for direct to consumer brands to take the initiative and gain share, launch new products and increase their visibility at a time when many competitors are holding back due to various challenges related to COVID-19, experts from ChannelAdvisor said.
Facebook launched of Facebook Shops, a way for small businesses to set up free online storefronts that will stretch across Facebook and Instagram, and eventually across its Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger universe of users as well. It integrates with a number of major ecommerce platforms, excluding Adobe’s Magento.
While everyone might be caught between a rock and a hard place, the COVID-19 outbreak has proven there is definitely a wrong way to act during times of crisis. Here are several instances in which ecommerce sellers paid a hefty price for the decisions they made. Avoid resorting to these methods when your business is in crisis mode.
Amazon has recently adjusted its “buy box” product search algorithm to favor items that can be fulfilled and delivered faster by sellers themselves over Prime eligible products offered through Fulfilled By Amazon, which are taking weeks vs. days, experts say. The change was noticed last week by sellers using Merchant Fulfilled Prime.
Competing with Amazon, addressing privacy issues linked to collection of data by third-party technologies and improving site speed to boost sales are top priorities identified in a new study from ecommerce platform provider Yottaa. The report suggests Prime-style free same-day shipping will become widespread among brands in 2020.
With a legislator raising the alarm that consumers’ “lives are at risk” due to dangerous counterfeit ecommerce products, a bipartisan group proposed the SHOP SAFE Act to crack down on ecommerce fakes. The GAO found that 20 of 47 items purchased from third-party sellers on popular consumer websites were counterfeit.