Back-office is one of the most important functions of an ecommerce business. Accounting, finance, inventory, order fulfillment, shipping, vendor management and website updates contribute to building a strong back-office system. The back-office team handles these aspects, allowing the business to keep running smoothly.
Amazon once again claimed that the latest Prime Day event was the biggest ever, with 300 million items sold and importantly, more than $1.7 billion saved by shoppers, as some observers had said ahead of the fact that deals weren’t all that spectacular compared to everyday offerings.
Google parent Alphabet is reportedly considering splitting up parts of its business that handle digital advertising into a separate unit, to avoid antitrust litigation from the U.S. Justice Dept. as part of an ongoing investigation, according to the WSJ. It’s not clear whether anything short of an asset sale would satisfy federal regulators.
After hitting a peak of 24% in the lockdown era of mid-2020, the ecommerce share of U.S. retail has slipped a bit but is expected to settle at 22% by year end, according to FTI Consulting, as consumer behavior has become entrenched even as stores have been reopened now for over a year.
Now that technology has advanced further and skills are being acquired to deliver on past ideas and dreams, we are at a potential breakthrough point. We are in an exciting time of discovery, and everyone is racing to be at the forefront. Here’s my advice for retailers from within and outside the metaverse.
Despite inflation fears, retailers are likely to see an increase in consumer spending this summer, with 61% planning to shop “holidays” like Prime Day, and 76% of them saying they’ll spend the same or more on the extravaganza as last year, according to data from Adobe Commerce.
Focusing on ecommerce sustainability initiatives can help you set your company up for success by focusing on the planet, while also creating more opportunities to boost sales. Therefore, it behooves you to step up your ecommerce sustainability game or risk being overlooked by increasingly values-conscious consumers.
Shopify is pursuing a new avenue of attack against Amazon, launching 100 new/updated apps including tools for merchants to drive B2B sales while also turning on social commerce via Twitter, in an effort to boost slowing DTC ecommerce revenue growth. The company said Shopify Editions represents a “connect-to-consumer” focus.
Amazon is looking for a big win from Prime Day 2022 (July 12-13) to help restore some mojo to a company unaccustomed to criticism for earnings challenges, overbuilt warehouses and a stock that shed 40% of its value in the past 12 months, pre-split. This is the first time since 2019 it’s been in its accustomed spot in mid-July.
As shoppers are back in stores, retailers now need to determine which COVID innovations they will keep and how those measures will mature over the long term. This will help maximize the value of COVID innovations, bringing the benefits of digital to brick-and-mortar and scaling capabilities to accommodate long-term needs.