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Here's this week's roundup of industry news

Here's this week's roundup of industry news

Here's this week's roundup of industry news

As consumers rethink their consumption habits, marketers are giving talent the spotlight in new spaces.

In this edition, we explore Pinterest as the go-to platform for luxury brands, the disparity in pay between BIPOC and non-BIPOC creators, and the relationship between fans and creators. We also explore some influencer trends to look out for in 2024, and share a creator spotlight about an inspiring adventurous creator.

More emphasis on Twitter videos could potentially create a whole new space for Twitter creator marketing—and launch Twitter as a bona fide video platform on par with YouTube and TikTok. Here’s how.

According to Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan, “something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search.” Instead, said Raghavan, they turn to “TikTok or Instagram.”

Most people might not group LinkedIn with mega-creator platforms like YouTube and TikTok. TikTok is the exciting new kid on the block, rocket-blasting from $82 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2019 to $1,567 billion three years later. YouTube has been around longer, but its status as the world’s top video-sharing network makes it a titanic platform for any influencer.

China’s leading tech innovation is a top reason for its place as a global commerce leader. Many of the world’s most popular social media and commerce platforms started in China first and then moved westward.

As the eCommerce industry continues to grow, businesses are looking for ways to stay ahead of the competition. To do this, they need to employ the best eCommerce tactics. Here are some of the top eCommerce tactics that businesses should consider:

Do brands lie? Of course they do! But you may be surprised how many brands used a deceptive and false email marketing tactic this past Black Friday weekend—and customers started to catch on.

Nibble is a new eCommerce technology company that’s trying to disrupt eCommerce product pricing. The technology brings customer and merchant negotiation into the online shopping experience for Shopify stores. 

So-called one-click checkout company Bolt underwent another round of sweeping layoffs this week, according to posts from several former employees across Linkedin.

While it’s still early on in the acquisition, folks are complaining on Twitter about Musk, his “sh*tposting” (for a lack of a better term), and these new changes (mostly the pay-for-verification issue.) One community that’s specifically concerned is the Direct-to-Consumer one—a small subset of Twitter where founders, marketers, and operators of eCommerce technology and brands came together and built strong connections over the past several years.

After an internal study of sales data, executives at Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch found that brands targeted toward teens were losing sales. Part of this was due to inflation and the rising cost of living, but they found the key pain point was an age-old reality: most teens simply don’t have much purchasing power. After researching today’s Gen Alpha (teen) consumers, Hollister created the Share2Pay app to tackle this problem.

Unless a shopper can picture him or herself using a product, it’s difficult to validate a buying decision. This is especially true within the eCommerce environment, as shoppers face the hurdle of not being able to touch/feel/try on an item before buying. So why, then, are so many eCommerce brands still utilizing plain product images on a flat, white background?

So-called one-click checkout company Bolt scored a win today, going live on the Fanatics website. Fanatics is one of the largest websites to join the Bolt network, and it comes at a time when the SaaS has been fighting an uphill battle against lawsuits, layoffs and struggling to raise.

Two steps forward, one step back. That’s how eCommerce founders are feeling after what’s been considered a “belt-tightening year” by many.Despite a successful 2019 through 2021 for eCommerce, we’re now in a DTC downturn where investments are drying up, stock is dropping rapidly, and layoffs seem to be happening every day.

A cushy new sofa or mattress isn’t always enough to pad the discomfort of inflation and a down economy, and furniture sales are now slowing. 

DTC furniture brand Industry West has announced the launch of a new luxury bath line, diversifying the company's online offerings in what is its largest product launch since its inception in 2015.

If you want to stay competitive in the world of eCommerce, you need to understand how social media algorithms work, how they’re changing, and how this will affect the way you market your business on social media.

Here’s just some of what’s come down the pike in terms of social media updates over the past couple of weeks.

A new brand focused on "empowering dog parents to prepare home-cooked meals for their dogs" has launched online and is trying to upend a busy direct-to-consumer (DTC) pet-food vertical.

This Govalo x Recharge integration makes it possible for merchants who have built a successful gifting program to capture all the benefits of both gifting and subscription commerce.

Community roles are closely tied to the ability to deliver value. With so many brands vying for consumers’ attention, how can a company differentiate itself and provide additional value to customers beyond its product or service? How can it make customers feel closer to the brand? How can it solve user problems, or provide outstanding support, in a way that actually scales? 

The cost of running ads across Facebook and Instagram continues to dip as CPMs decreased year-over-year when comparing July 1-4, repeating the CPM declines that were seen over Memorial Day weekend.

Direct mail is as old as dirt.Okay, maybe it’s not that old, but it’s been around for a long time. It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of direct mail, but the Montgomery Ward catalog from 1872 is credited as the first public mail order catalog.

The women’s skincare market is tough. Think of any problem, from a pimple to a pore, and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of products available.Men don’t have the same options. Stryx was one of the first names in the industry to understand this gap and to create products that addressed men’s skincare issues specifically. 

Founded in 2020, part of Gwella and Mojo Microdose’s success in product development is its work with creators and influencers, shying away from traditional marketing tactics.

At the end of the day, Web 3 isn’t going anywhere though its adoption may be a bit slower than advertised, and all of this needs to be considered as you prepare your company for the future, considering that the global eCommerce market will expand by $1 trillion by 2025.

VISIONS is a first-of-its-kind consumer and culture trends report, bringing together fifteen content creators, leaders, and artists for candid conversations around the future of commerce.

The trend of eCommerce brands moving off of so-called enterprise content management solutions—like Adobe Commerce (previously Magento) and Salesforce Commerce Cloud is continuing in earnest, with several websites announcing their move to Shopify over just the past couple of weeks.Ecommerce furniture company Industry West announced last week that it had moved off of Adobe, opting to migrate the main site, its Canadian subdomain and its sister-brand, Favor, to Shopify.

The cost of running ads across Facebook and Instagram over Memorial Day weekend dipped by 6 percent globally and 12 percent in the United States from 2021 to 2022, according to a tracker created by Gupta Media.

In all this decoupling, most eCommerce merchants and SaaS providers are still pushing consumers toward an experience where checkout occurs entirely via browser. But Osayame Gaius, founder and CEO of Parrot, is focused on helping merchants decouple mobile payments from the browser.

Faced with driving inflation and continued uncertainty along the international supply-chain retailers and etailers are aligned in their uncertainty over how beneficial Memorial Day sales will be in filling their cash coffers.

In an eCommerce world constantly shouting about faster website launches and one-click checkout, Kelsey Hunter is betting on an economy not dependent on websites but rather conversions via direct messages across social media. As founder and CEO of Paloma, Hunter has long understood the power of DMs. In 2018 she launched Paloma’s first product, which allows merchants to connect their backend catalog with their Facebook and Instagrams DMs. This essentially streamlined the discovery process for customers who engaged with brands via DMs, pointing them to the right products and aiding them in checkout.

Salesforce is reporting a year-over-year decline in global digital sales for Q1 2022 as recorded by its Shopping Index, the first-ever reported decline in the nine year history of the index.

Ecommerce personalization and customer experience platform Nosto has announced the release of shoppable Instagram functionality, adding its product to a growing market of softwares looking to help brands make the most of their creator partnerships and user generated content.

Social Media and ecommerce channels were historically siloed. As it matured, social media became more commerce-focused, and ecommerce has started to integrate more social content

Reviews are such an important part of any direct-to-consumer business because they have a huge impact on relationship-building with customers and driving sales

Retail hasn’t died—it has evolved. Smart DTCs and brick-and-mortar stores reinvented themselves as true destination experiences.

Singer discusses the types of DTC marketing tactics that really impress her, how brands should and should not show up on Instagram, and why this new intersection of brands becoming media companies—and media companies becoming brands—is a phenomenon that’s maybe not built to last.

A conversation about influencers vs. creators, building a startup in 2022, and predictions for the creator economy

Over the past year, I've read (and written) hundreds of articles about influencer marketing, social advertising, and the Creator Economy. Here are the most important things I’ve learned and some common themes running through conversations.

How retailers are leveraging digital assets to boost brand recognition, engage buyers, and grow communities

To better understand how brands can master social advertising, I talked to the Tsar-itsa of social advertising, Savannah Sanchez.

The supply chain crisis and port congestion have created issues far beyond just waiting for materials to arrive.

DTC brands now face an uncomfortable truth—you can only do so much with paid advertising. Moving forward, the key to success will be building a self-sustainable strategy centered around content, commerce, and community.

What trends can you cash in on to up your social media game in a constantly-evolving social media landscape? Let’s take a look at how social media is changing and what you can expect in this space during 2022.

Brands have a unique opportunity right now to leverage this new-ish social commerce trend and use it to blow their customer acquisition goals out of the water.

I credit the thriving state of our business to the unwavering dedication of our customers, our heirloom-quality and meticulous attention to detail, our blossoming affiliate program, and our ability to be flexible with the changing times.

I learned from great leaders and enjoyed incredible opportunities to test myself, which culminated in working with Iggy Pop on a campaign that went on to win a Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions.

Orendorff discusses how eCommerce brands are navigating the ongoing global shipping crisis and the absolute dos and don’ts around Facebook ad tactics in the wake of this year’s iOS updates.

How Netflix and Apple TV dropped the ball with fan merch, and a few ideas on how they can redeem themselves.

19 eCommerce and DTC experts share their top three gift recommendations for this holiday season. Keep reading to discover 50+ unique gift ideas for your holiday shopping.

The primary benefit of UGC for brands is that it directs customers right to your product pages. And, it influences them to buy.

In the highly competitive eCommerce world, personalization isn’t an option; it’s a must.

Instagram search optimization uses a combination of hashtags, keywords, captions, names, and bios to increase exposure and attract followers.

The rise of the subscription model is rewriting the rules of fashion in favor of access over ownership.

People don’t change—but the market does.

The real deal: Direct-to-consumer brands just need to be everywhere

TrendHunter has marked the DTC plant industry as “hot”, and it’s not hard to see why.

Let's look at a few creators who are driving this shift, subtle or not, and explore why flexing your tote bag is more fun than flexing a handbag.

Retail and DTC are evolving rapidly due to the increasing costs associated with advertising and customer acquisition.

Social commerce is here. Who's going to bundle it for us?

ECommerce brands are slowly taking product sampling into a digital space—but how do you take a traditionally physical marketing tool and translate it into an online one?

Win $500 in home furnishings from Industry West

There’s nothing worse than getting customers to that final checkout page only to have them leave and shop elsewhere.

The rise of re-commerce and clothing rentals are worthy examples in womenswear, but on the men’s side, the thought of dudes renting clothing (not named a tuxedo) sounds crazy, until it's not.

We’re obsessed with sharing our thoughts and opinions online—everything you need already exists somewhere.

Sneaker brokers are difficult to put in a box. Yuanrun Zheng is a mediator, buyer, seller, and delivery guy. Being dialed into the who, what, when, and where is everything in this business.

Do consumers only want to spend their money with eco-friendly brands?

Businesses need to adjust and embrace the future of retail. Here are some things to consider for the rest of 2021.

Brands using social media to sell products are bringing in a whopping $90 billion—and it’s projected to hit $605 billion within the next seven years.

DTC healthcare is exploding—and it's just the beginning

The product detail page (PDP) is the main place where consumers interact with your brand, yet only over a third of brands invest time and money on optimizing these pages.

We can’t escape the truth: People don’t want to see ads online. They want to scroll their social feeds to see what their friends are doing.

Let’s look at America’s history with coffee, how it’s morphed from function to luxury, and how eCommerce has changed this for the better.

Vacation’s launch is rife with clever marketing strategies cloaked under Poolside FM’s perpetually laid-back approach.

There was a disconnect between the beverage industry and the culture at large–I wanted to connect those dots.

Many brands forget the fundamentals of marketing when they’re chasing after a shiny new generation of buyers. While some growth hacking tactics are valuable considerations, never forget your basics

Creative product descriptions like J. Peterman’s aren’t for every DTC brand––but they might be for yours.

And a few lessons that consumer brands can learn from food brands.

To attract foot traffic and inspire user-generated content (UGC), retailers are dreaming up visual environments they hope will become can’t-miss photo opps

With so much of China’s ecommerce revenue fueled by livestreaming, it’s only natural to wonder if the trend will hit North America and Europe in the same way

Peloton was poised to become the pandemic fitness brand of choice because of its investment in community; see how they did it.

If you’re not accepting bitcoin as a merchant, are you missing out on an opportunity to capture a meaningful segment of your market?

When everything around us seems to be changing at warp speed, it makes sense that consumers place importance on more things than just affordability. So, what do consumers want now?

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) platforms enable customers to spread the cost of their sale out across a pre-determined number of equal payments.

How an Instagram trend inspired a new sales tactic for Industry West

Hear from Ugmonk founder Jeff Sheldon about why he forgoes 3PL providers to manage order fulfillment in-house

There’s an opportunity to repackage your popular content into various other forms for different mediums (like audio, visuals/video, and syndicating it to your website) so it can reach even more people in their preferred formats.

Content and creatives that capture an audience’s attention will be the primary driving factor in the new selling era because they will always be vital.

Packaging is the first physical touchpoint between your business and your customer. Plus, it’s the only marketing channel that reaches 100% of your customers.

If TV is dead, why are traditionally DTC companies spending millions of dollars on ads?

Ecommerce is evolving into something bigger and more meaningful in our lives, and sustainability efforts are moving front and center as shoppers and brands alike ask: What’s best for the environment?

While email as a channel may not be new or sexy, it is effective. The conversion rate for e-commerce brands via email hovers at around 15% in 2020, much higher than paid and organic social.

Four key principles for entrepreneurs looking to build a great direct-to-consumer brand

Linear Commerce is evolving quickly. Nelk started as a prank channel on YouTube. Learn more here.

Fast-growing creator marketing company brings on industry executive and eCommerce pioneer