clickandcrop-blog

[clickandcrop-blog]

Reasons Inbound Marketing Campaigns Fail - And What To Do About It!

Implementing an Inbound Marketing campaign is not always an easy process.

Sure, you may be aware of the individual components that Inbound marketing campaigns need. But putting those pieces together can be hard. It’s easy to go wrong, make mistakes, and end up with results that are wildly different from your goals.Campaign mistakes can dramatically hinder lead generation and ROI performance. So to help you avoid error in your strategy planning, here are the most common mistakes that Inbound campaigns encounter.

check the link below and see how to fix them.

http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/reasons-inbound-marketing-campaigns-fail#sm.001c3n810eexdqn11ru21mixraxrt

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6 Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaigns for Q3 2016

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/124534-6-Ecommerce-Email-Marketing-Campaigns-for-Q3-2016

Email marketing campaigns around holidays and seasons can help to drive ecommerce sales in the third quarter of 2016.

Email marketing remains one of the most potent tools available to online retailers. Email messages can be segmented, personalized, and optimized to reach a specific set of customers, with a relevant offer, at the right time, leading to conversions and, ultimately, profit.

What follows are six suggestions for email marketing campaigns in July, August, and September 2016.

1. Fourth of July Sales Event

Every retailer needs to decide if it will offer “sales” — discounted prices to attract shoppers — or, instead, use other means to boost purchases around an event. There are solid business arguments for each approach.

In either case, Independence Day in the United States could be a rallying point for an ecommerce sales event and an email marketing campaign can help drive that event.

Fourth of July marketing emails could:

Promote discounted prices on relevant products;

Promote Fourth of July product bundles;

Promote holiday-specific items;

Recast products in light of the holiday.

As an example, a retailer of sportswear might bundle a shirt, shorts, flip-flops, and sunglasses into a promotable Fourth of July package. In fact, an online retailer could build several of these Independence Day packages with specific customer groups in mind and send segmented email messages so that shoppers get the package most likely to interest them.

Online retailers might bundle items together to create Fourth of July packages. None of the items shown in this example package are specific to Independence Day, but when put together, the can be a holiday package.

2. Personalized Birthday Offer

Consider sending customers a personalized birthday email, including a gift code, coupon code, or special birthday discount offer, such as a $25 digital gift card.

For this to work, the online retailer would need to know its customers’ birthdays. There are a couple of options to get this information.

It could run an online contest that required a birthdate. The contest rules would explain how the birthdate would be used. It will also be important to collect the entrant’s name and identifiable information since this promotion will work best if the store can associate an entry in the contest with a shopper’s purchase history.

A second approach may be to simply have a birthday club of some sort, wherein shoppers sign up knowing they will receive a birthday offer. This will certainly work, but it may be less impactful since the store will get shoppers who tend to be discount seekers and the personalized, email birthday greeting will not be a surprise.

3. Summer Closeout Sale

Seasons change and so does the product mix for some online retailers. Swimsuits and bikinis, as examples, may be hot sellers when the weather is warm, but somewhat less popular during winter months.

While it may make sense to keep a supply of core swimsuits and bikinis in stock year around, some retailers will want to close out less popular styles before demand dries up.

A summer closeout email campaign can be just the thing to clear out inventory and boost cash flow. To make this sale more effective, consider targeting shoppers who abandoned in a cart one of the now-closed-out items.

4. Back-to-school Sales Event

Back-to-school shopping lists might include everything from fall fashion apparel and backpacks to tablet computers and pencils. Many online retailers may therefore find a reason to send a back-to-school email promotion.

In fact, it might make sense to send it more than once. By some estimates, about 55 percent of shoppers will complete back-to-school shopping in August, while some 23 percent won’t be done until the end of September.

5. Labor Day Sale

Labor Day, which is devoted to American workers, is a traditional retail sale date. Shoppers expect retailers large and small to offer discounts. Labor Day sales events are so popular that many personal finance websites, magazines, and newspapers publish guides to help shoppers take advantage of the best offers.

The 2015 article from USA Today — “Plan ahead now for snapping the best Labor Day sales” — is an example of how popular Labor Day is for retail sales.

Online retailers might consider a three-part email campaign for Labor Day, September 5, 2016.

First, send a Labor Day Sale preview on August 30, 2016. This preview email should show some of the items offered in the upcoming Labor Day Sale. But keep the prices a secret. If possible, point to a landing page featuring all of the Labor Day Sale items, but do not disclose the sale prices.

Second, send a Labor Day Sale email with prices on Sunday, September 4, 2016. Make the items available for purchase at the discounted prices and tell email recipients they are getting a special preview of the sale.

Third, send a last-chance Labor Day Sale email message on Labor Day. Try to segment the message so that recipients see featured items specifically for them.

6. New Products for Autumn

Near the end of Q3, the season will officially change. Summertime will give way to autumn. Use this natural transition to feature new seasonal products. Send an email campaign — perhaps a series of messages — to introduce shoppers to the best fall products from your store.

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5 Research-Backed #Strategies to Increase Your #Sales Revenues

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/276815

Without awareness and traffic, your website will never be able to convert customers. On the other hand, most businesses put too muchemphasis on generating traffic, and invest insufficiently in optimizing their websites for conversion.

According to research from Eisenberg Holdings, for every $92 that the average company spends to attract people, it spends just $1 to convert them. This explains the abysmal conversion rates many companies suffer from (with rates typically under 3.5 percent, according to Monetate Ecommerce Quarterly’s data). It also explains why generating revenue and staying profitable are among themost pressing challenges that businesses face today.

Thankfully, your business can be made more profitable. Ample research has been conducted on what it takes to take your company out of the red and into the black. Here are five research-backed principles guaranteed to hike your revenue.

1. Smart, personalized email marketing

Research shows that email is the most effective of all marketing channels -- both inbound and outbound. Data from the Direct Marketing Association shows that you can expect an ROI of $38 from every $1 spent on email marketing. And research by Monetate, which analyzed over 500 million shopping experiences, found that email (at 3.19 percent) beats search (1.95 percent) and social media (0.71 percent), combined, when it comes to driving sales.

If you haven’t invested in segmented or triggered email-marketing already, it’s time to start, since doing so could double your revenue. Once you’ve gotten started with  email, take things a step further by fully personalizing your messages. According to Marketing Sherpa, simply personalizing your emails can boost your sales by up to 208 percent over using the general “batch-and-blast” email approach.

2. Up-selling and cross-selling

Extensive research has shown that up-selling and cross-selling are two of the most effective ways to boost revenue in a business. At one point, Amazon attributed up to 35 percent of its revenue to cross-selling, and JetBlue was able to generate $190 million in additional revenue in 2014 simply by up-selling its users. According to social ecommerce platform Viral Style, simply enabling upsells can “automatically increase your average profit by an additional 15 to 25 percent.”

The two challenges involved with upsells and cross-sells are relevance and timing. Make sure that your content-management system is capable of associating related products together. That way, when you offer an upgrade or a multi-item bundle, that move will make sense, given your site visitors’ browsing patterns.

Also, to ensure that your offer doesn’t turn off a prospect who would otherwise become a converted customer, consider setting it to appear as part of the checkout experience instead of as a suggestion on a product page.

Related: 4 Simple Strategies to Increase Your Website's Conversion Rate

3. Increase your trust factor.

Trust plays a major role in the average customer’s decision whether or not to buy from you; and unless you can effectively optimize and increase your trust factor, your business will basically be leaving money on the table.

While there are many ways to amplify your company's impression of trustworthiness -- and, ultimately, every tip in this article will help you do that in some way -- here are some of the most effective ways:

Enable SSL: Enabling SSL (Secure Sockets Layer security technology) has been observed as massively boosting sales; when people see the green padlock and “HTTPS” in their browser’s address bar, they’re more likely to buy from you.

Use security seals: Research shows that displaying security seals on your website is the foremost way to get people to trust and buy from you. Simply embedding a familiar security seal will go a long way to increase your trust factor and maximize sales.

Make an address and phone number visible: Available data showsthat having a visible phone number and physical address on your website can boost sales by up to 5 percent.

Have a social media presence: Even if you’re a brick and mortar store, you’ll lose out on a lot of business if you don’t have a diverse digital footprint. In addition to your website, you should maintain an active, attentive presence on each of the major social networks.

4. Opt for a faster website.

How much do you think each one-second delay in site loading time costs ecommerce giant Amazon? That’s a massive $1.6 billion annually. Yes, every single year! And it’s not just Amazon we’re talking about.It’s been estimated that a one-second delay in any site’s load time will result in a 7 percent loss in conversions.

People simply don’t have the patience to watch web pages slowly render in today’s “everything on-demand” climate. Slow websites cost the U.S. ecommerce industry as a whole around $500 billion annually.

Simply making your website faster can -- and will -- boost sales dramatically. According to data from Gomez, which monitored real user data from 33 major retailers, decreasing page load time from eight to two seconds increases conversion rates by a whopping 74 percent.

5. Leverage the authority of social proof.

The “Milgram Experiments” of 1963 were designed by psychologists at Yale to observe the extent to which humans are willing to go when it comes to obeying authority figures. Surprisingly, the studies found that approximately 60 percent of people will remain obedient  even to the point of inflicting significant harm on others.

Thankfully, converting customers with your website involves harming no one, and it’s relatively easy to use the principle of human obedience to amplify your site’s sense of authority and improve your revenues.

The key here to boosting sales lies in using this psychological phenomenon as a form of social proof: Simply having someone respected as an authority in your niche endorse your product can double or triple sales. Just ask Weight Watchers.

When Oprah Winfrey announced that she had invested in the company, a form of authority endorsement, its stock prices shot up by 110 percent overnight. If you are struggling to convert sales and generate revenue, consider sponsoring a relevant industry authority -- or influencer -- to endorse your brand.

Conclusion

As the studies referenced here show, increasing your business revenue by 30 percent, 50 percent, 100 percent or even more is certainly within reach. Leverage the above principles in your business, and watch your revenue and profit skyrocket.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://ecommercenews.eu/ecommerce-europe-needs-click-collect-thrive/#more-6003

@clickandcrop   ‘Ecommerce in Europe needs click & collect to thrive’

About one in seven online consumers in Europe uses the click and collect option whenever it’s available, with the French online buyers to be the most likely to use this delivery method. According to new research, European retailers need click and collect to thrive as it offers customers convenience.

E-commercefacts shared this news today, based on research done by Forrester. The research company surveyed 15,000 consumers from the United Kingdom, France, German, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. It found out that 26 percent of online consumers in France use the click and collect option every time or at least most of the time whenever it’s available. That’s the highest share among the six European countries researched.

In the United Kingdom, picking up orders in store is also a popular choice, as 34 percent of the respondents said they sometimes use it, while another 16 percent said they use this method every time or most of the time.

Consumer expectations are high Online shoppers in Europe choose click and collect as a way to avoid delivery costs, for convenience and to save themselves some time. While they appreciate this delivery method, their expectations are still sky high. Almost six out of ten Europeans (59%) expect their online orders to be ready for collection fro a store within the hour. But most European retailers are struggling to support even same-day collection, as E-commercefacts writes.

“For retailers in the UK, the click & collect race focuses on pushing ‘last online order’ cutoff times later and later for guaranteed in-store collection the next day”, Forrester analyst Michelle Beeson explains. “But, as our data shows, customer expectations have already moved on.”

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.theasians.co.uk/story/20160119_price_discr

MPs May Question On Gender 'Price Discrimination'

Retailers could be called to Parliament to face questioning after research suggested high street stores are charging up to twice as much for products aimed at women than men.

Analysis of hundreds of products by The Times newspaper found the cost of clothes, beauty products and toys for females are routinely higher than equivalent items pitched at males.

In one case, Tesco charges double the price for 10 disposable razors which are pink, while Levi's 501 jeans for women are on average 46% more expensive than the men's version, according to the newspaper.

Maria Miller, chairwoman of the Women and Equalities Committee, told the Press Association: "Retailers need to explain how they can be charging such different prices for items which look identical.

"It's an excellent piece of research and it's something which the committee will be considering whether we should take further.

"This is just the sort of thing the Women and Equalities Select Committee can consider and make sure that in this instance retailers are made to account for what appears to be price discrimination based on sex."

She added: "I think many women will understand the point that is being made, particularly when it comes to clothing and toiletries.

"Sometimes the difference in price is noticeable, but I think an independent piece of research like this, an investigative piece of journalism, has really shone a spotlight on how widespread this problem appears to be."

The Times reported that out of hundreds of products its team analysed, they found only one example of a male item which was pricier than one aimed at females - a set of underwear.

But dozens of "female" products were more expensive.

Across all products with different prices, those pitched at women were 37% higher on average, the newspaper said.

Sam Smethers, chief executive of women's rights charity the Fawcett Society, accused retailers of a "sexist rip-off".

She told the Press Association: "These findings are shocking because they show just how systematic it is across the retail industry.

"They didn't just find one or two examples. Some are targeted at adults, some at children, it includes clothing, toiletries and so on - it really is a wide range of products, and they found a 37% mark up on average for products that were marketed as being for women or for girls.

"That is not just 5%, 10%, that is over a third more that women are paying for the pleasure of being marketed to as a woman. And there is nothing intrinsically different about those products that justifies an increase of that kind.

"It is a big rip-off. It is a sexist rip-off and we have all just got to see through it and start demanding something different."

Ms Smethers called for retailers and manufacturers to create a new "gender-neutral" line of products which would not be targeted at men or women and would create a "fairer deal for consumers".

She said: "We need to pull the wool from our eyes and wake up to the fact that this is the entire retail industry ripping us off for being women, and we have got to stop it."

She warned that if retailers "carry on with this kind of rip-off" then the Government should consider using legislation to stop the practice.

She said: "We will also be talking to the Government about what they could do to treat this as a form of discrimination under the law, because it is so systematic you could make a case that this is a kind of discriminatory practice that should be outlawed.

"One of the things we want to look at is how we can get the law to change, if that is needed, but first of all let's see if there is a positive response from retailers."

A Tesco spokesman said: "We work hard to offer customers clear, fair and transparent pricing. A number of products for females have additional design and performance features which can add to the retail price.

"We continually review our pricing strategy so that none of our customers lose out when shopping at Tesco."

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http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/83002.html?rss=1

Demandware Teams With eBay on Omnichannel E-Commerce Solution

Demandware and eBay Enterprise on Monday announced an alliance to develop a fully enabled omnichannel commerce solution that will provide integrated access to Demandware's Commerce Cloud platform and eBay Enterprise's suite of back-end and fulfillment technologies and services.

The solution will let current and prospective clients significantly reduce the complexity of managing their front- and back-end systems to deliver an all-around customer experience, said the companies, which have several customers in common, including Michaels Stores.

"Demandware gains a broader set of capabilities beyond just e-commerce cloud for its customers, which should enable it to better compete against other e-commerce partnerships out there," said Rebecca Wettemann, a research VP at Nucleus Research.

"Likely more important is the boost Demandware gets from the eBay brand," she told CRM Buyer.

Current Offerings

Demandware's Commerce Cloud streamlines retail operations across all digital channels, delivering a unified view of customer data across all shopping channels, the company said.

It's automatically updated throughout the year, is highly secure and customizable, and can scale to support the largest enterprise dealers.

The eBay Enterprise suite of post-click commerce technologies and services includes retail order management, store fulfillment and drop-ship management.

It provides users with a centralized records system for orders and inventory across the supply chain so they can fulfill orders from distribution centers, physical stores or suppliers.

The company's commerce services include payments, tax, fraud prevention, fulfillment, and freight and customer care. They let users maximize order conversions, minimize risk, introduce operational efficiencies, and deliver great customer experiences, eBay Enterprise said.

It's not clear when the joint solution will be rolled out.

Potential Impact

"The announcement is very attractive to both existing and new customers," remarked Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

"Consider Demandware the front end and eBay Enterprise's offering the back end that makes the front end more efficient and smarter. They work hand in hand and address a gap many customers have had," he told CRM Buyer.

Demandware "has a great customer base; eBay has a more modern architecture," Wang said. The joint solution will "help Demandware customers who seek to modernize an older platform."

However, the announcement "is unlikely to make existing eBay Enterprise customers that are using another commerce platform today jump to Demandware unless their existing platform is aging or in need of a significant upgrade," observed Nucleus Research's Wettemann.

eBay's Evolution

eBay Enterprise is owned by a group of investors -- Sterling Partners, Longview Asset Management, Innotrac, and companies owned by the Permira Funds -- that purchased it from eBay last year for US$925 million.

The investors then spun out Magento, an open source e-commerce platform that eBay had acquired back in 2011 to serve as one of the pillars of its X.commerce ecosystem together with PayPal, Milo and RedLaser. PayPal wasspun off last year.

Importance of Omnichannel Strategies

Consumers increasingly are accessing online stores from mobile devices in a variety of ways -- through search engines, directly from a retailer's site, and through social media and other apps -- giving rise to data that retailers need to track.

The move to engage customers online has spawned yet another source of consumer data.

Additionally, consumers often want to be able to continue conversations they began in one medium in yet another medium.

All of that makes omnichannel support critical for businesses.

"The market is shifting as CRM is changing to include commerce," Constellation Research's Wang said. "Right now, companies expect to deliver from campaign to commerce, and we can expect more partnerships and acquisitions in this space in the next 12 to 18 months."

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/shoppers-pay-0-retailers-10-in-strained-asean-credit-mart

Shoppers pay 0%, retailers 10% in strained Asean credit mart

Families buying televisions are getting lower borrowing costs than the stores selling them, a reflection of the toll taken on Southeast Asia retailers by flagging consumer demand and e-commerce rivalry. Courts Asia Ltd, which offers shoppers 0% long- term credit on higher-end products, has seen its Singapore dollar bond yields rise 28 basis points to 4.34% in the past six months and is trying to refinance the note ahead of its May repayment. The yield on US currency bonds of Parkson Retail Group Ltd, part of a Malaysian retailer which operates across Southeast Asia, has soared 320 basis points to 10.21%. 

Flagging global growth and rising household debt is knocking consumer demand across Southeast Asia, with Indonesian phone seller PT Trikomsel Oke in November becoming the first company to default on Singapore dollar bonds since 2009. Retailers which borrowed to finance growth are also losing ground to online market places like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. 

 The median debt load of the region’s retailers rose to 1.75 times operating profit in latest filings compared with 1.3 at the end of fiscal 2014. “I have been very careful about some local currency corporate bonds,” said Singapore-based Desmond Soon, co-head of investment management for Asia at Western Asset Management Co, which has US$446 billion under management at September 30 and held Courts Asia bonds as of November 30, according to Bloomberg-compiled data. 

“Bricks-and-mortar retailers do have an issue,” Soon said, adding the money manager isn’t likely to buy Courts’s potential new offering.

 Retail store sales in Singapore dropped for a third month in November, falling 2% from a year earlier, Department of Statistics data show. Meanwhile, online transactions in the region are growing. Singapore Post Ltd’s domestic e-commerce orders in Southeast Asia and Australia rose 384% in the 12 months through November, according to a company presentation.

 Courts Asia, which sells goods from electronics to home furniture in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, began meeting investors last week ahead of its scheduled S$125 million (RM383 million) repayment of notes in May.

 It’s looking to raise funds to help refinance and repay the bond, Courts’s Singapore-based spokesman Tammy Teo said by phone.  The company had S$107 million of cash and S$263 million of short-term liabilities at Sept. 30, according to its latest quarterly report. 

Prospects 

“Everyone recognises that the retail sector for Southeast Asia markets will continue to be a bit challenging in the short term,” said Teo. 

“But if investors look across the medium- and long-term, the prospects are still there.” 

The financial position of Hong Kong-listed Parkson Retail, which is majority-owned by Kuala Lumpur-based Parkson Group, remains “strong” with cash balances of 3.7 billion yuan (RM2.5 billion), said the group’s external press representatives at Bell Pottinger LLP. While it has no plans for fund-raising this year, the firm will be “more than happy” to seize any opportunities to lower the group’s borrowing costs. Potential debt investors may not be encouraged by 24-year-old student Samuel Ng, who says that young Singaporeans rarely visit physical outlets.  

“No one buys at the store, unless it’s urgent,” he said via a Samsung S4 phone that was bought on shopping app Carousell.com. “Generally, mobile phones are cheaper online.”  

The changing habits are reflected in stock and bond prices. On average, the shares of Southeast Asia’s listed department and electronics stores shed 21% of their value over the last year, and the prices of all bonds issued by the companies are down.

 Courts was building up its online presence as it looks to explore all avenues to boost sales, said Teo. For now, less than 3% of its revenue comes from the web. “A key emerging risk, especially for Singapore, is the advent of e-commerce,” said Hasira de Silva, a Singapore-based analyst at Fitch Ratings. 

That’s “likely to have an impact on the long-term profitability of retailers that don’t have a strong online sales platform.”

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.itproportal.com/2016/01/14/e-commerce-what-businesses-need-to-know/

E-commerce: What businesses need to know

E-commerce has come a long way in recent years. We’ve all heard about how online shopping was responsible for the death of the high street, but e-commerce is now about much more than the likes of Amazon and eBay. As an industry, e-commerce is expected to be worth $6.7 Trillion by 2020 and now encompasses relatively recent technological developments such as mobile payments and cryptocurrencies. The convenience offered by e-commerce is proving hugely popular with consumers and so it is not surprising that some of the tech industry’s biggest players are looking to dominate the market. However, e-commerce is becoming increasingly diverse, so there are plenty of options for businesses that are looking to make in-roads, whether you specialise in retail, security, or something else.

Mobile payments

Mobile payments have been around for some time now, but it is only recently that they have begun to have a major impact on consumer and business behaviour. Google Wallet, for example, was released in 2011 but failed to gain much traction before being rebranded as Android Pay in September of last year. The impetus behind Google’s renewed efforts and an increase in mobile payments more generally comes from the launch of Apple Pay. Apple’s mobile payments service allows customers to make purchases using iOS apps or at contactless payment terminals. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, more than 1 million credit cards were registered with the service in just three days following the launch. These are the sort of figures that businesses cannot afford to ignore and Apple Pay has already secured support from a number of banks and retailers across the world.

However, it is not only Apple and Google that are looking to dominate the mobile payments environment. Samsung, Barclays, LG and a host of smaller startups are all looking to find their own niche. For businesses, the key is being able to offer support for the kinds of services that their customers demand. Mobile payments offer great convenience for shoppers, and so businesses will be keen to back the winning horse in the mobile payments race. However, this may require technological investment in order to process payments. Businesses will need to weight up this cost against the threat of customers joining a rival service that is offering mobile payments.

Bitcoin

Cryptocurrencies have hit the headlines recently, but usually for controversial reasons. The rapid rise and subsequent fall in the value of Bitcoin in 2013 reinforced claims over the currency’s instability, while online black markets mean that cryptocurrencies are sometimes unfairly typecast as part of a criminal underworld. However, Bitcoin does have a legitimate role to play in e-commerce. A number of businesses have begun accepting the currency, including Amazon and Microsoft, legitimising the currency to a certain extent. Bitcoin, and similar cryptocurrencies, are particularly useful for facilitating transactions amongst individuals that do not have a bank account. Bitcoin has enabled women to receive payment in countries where they are still not allowed to open their own bank account. This is just one example, but Bitcoin has the potential to reach millions of “unbanked” people all over the world, as well as those that simply prefer the anonymity it provides.

Big Data

Many businesses think of e-commerce purely in terms of facilitating transactions, but there are other uses when it comes to digital transactions. E-commerce could provide a huge data source that ultimately enables businesses to better understand their customers. Although physical retailers can develop an ongoing rapport with shoppers, it is hard to back up any supposed trends with data. With online and mobile transactions, however, businesses can acquire visibility into which customers are buying certain products, when they are buying them and their reasons for purchasing. When all this e-commerce data is combined with analytics programs, businesses can generate the kind of insights that foresee retail trends in advance and drive revenues forward.

Staying secure

Despite recent strides, there is an ever-present threat to the growth of e-commerce: security. High-profile cyberattacks can shake consumer and business confidence in the industry, pushing individuals back towards more traditional retail options, even if they lack the convenience and flexibility of online technology. For businesses to retain consumer confidence they should adhere to the highest security standards within their e-commerce platforms, whether it’s a mobile app or website. Companies should only retain customer information where it is absolutely necessary and sensitive data such as credit card numbers should be encrypted. Businesses should also regularly update their applications and general security protocols to ensure that they are resistant to the latest threats. Ensuring that your business is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) is vital for any organisation looking to enter the world of e-commerce.

Finding growth in emerging markets

One of the biggest growth areas for businesses looking to embrace e-commerce is found in emerging markets. China is expected to be the largest online B2B market by 2020 and we have already seen domestic businesses like Alibaba take a foothold. Shopping using a smartphone, in particular, is key in many developing countries, where mobile Internet is relatively developed compared to fixed-line connections. In addition, the physical, bricks and mortar shopping experience is also less developed in emerging economies, providing further opportunities for e-commerce firms. Competition is fierce amongst organisations looking to dominate the e-commerce market in the likes of China and India, so businesses would be wise to act quickly to avoid being outpaced by their competitors.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.zdnet.com/article/apac-online-shoppers-spent-594b-in-2015/

APAC online shoppers spent $594B in 2015

Online shoppers across six Asia-Pacific markets have spent an estimated US$594 billion in 2015, with many heading to US e-commerce sites for their retail therapy.

Singapore led the pack in terms of cross-border purchases, with 69 percent in the city-state making online buys beyond local shores. Australia followed at 65 percent and India ranked third, with 38 percent in the second most populous country heading overseas for their online shopping.

And they are expected to continue spending over the next couple of years, according to stats from PayPal's cross-border e-commerce global report that included six Asia-Pacific markets: Singapore, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Conducted by Ipsos, the study polled 23,354 respondents across 29 countries, which also included Germany, US, and South Africa.

The report noted that e-commerce spending was expected to climb as more consumers in the Asia-Pacific region turned to online shopping. For instance, by 2017, India was projected to see a 53 percent increase in online shopping, while China would clock a 28 percent growth and Singapore a 16 percent spike.

And with the growing adoption of mobile devices, the study found that mobile purchases accounted for an average of 42 percent and 36 percent of online spend in China and India, respectively. The majority of online buys in the region, however, were still transacted via a desktop or mobile computer.

In addition, US e-commerce sites were the leading shopping destination for Asia-Pacific shoppers, followed by online stores in China, the UK, and Japan. Some 68 percent of the region's respondents noted a preference for large international stores, such as Amazon, when they made cross-border purchases.

While the usual suspects such as clothing, beauty products, and travel accounted for most of the online transactions, the report noted increasing demand for basic needs. Grocery shopping, for instance, was projected to grow 21 percent this year in Singapore.

Hamish Moline, PayPal's Asia-Pacific vice president of regional merchant services, said: "As both the internet and usage of mobile phones and tablets transform the face and form of retail, online borderless shopping continues to grow rapidly, presenting a clear opportunity for businesses to embrace their export potential.

"With the transformation of consumer demand for online and cross-border goods, as well as the platforms now available, any business can become a competitive player in the global marketplace," said Moline. "The data from the PayPal research underscores an opportunity for businesses in Asia-Pacific to extend their reach to the global market without the exorbitant cost from traditional geo-expansion."

Indeed, free shipping was cited by 47 percent of respondents in the region as an incentive to make cross-border online purchases, while 46 percent pointed to secured payments and 41 percent identified proof of authenticity.

Not surprising then that shipping cost was the biggest barrier, highlighted among 47 percent respondents, of cross-border shopping. Other concerns included the lack of help when problems surfaced (44 percent), while 42 percent were worried about not receiving their purchases.

There also was anxiety over currency conversion, with 75 percent of online shoppers in the region preferring to have the ability to choose to pay in their local currency, and 52 percent expressing uneasiness over having to pay in a foreign currency.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.dmnews.com/dataanalytics/daas-defined/article/463486/?DCMP=EMC-DMN_iMktingNewsDaily&spMailingID=13467592&spUserID=MjQxMjk5MzkwMzQ2S0&spJobID=700899560&spReportId=NzAwODk5NTYwS0

DaaS Defined

With all the customer data marketers have on hand, do they really need data as a service? Quite possibly, because DaaS isn't about getting more data; it's about having the right data when marketers need it. Still, many marketers are unsure of what DaaS actually is, unapprised of the benefits and drawbacks of using it, and uncertain of how they can find the right vendor to meet their needs. Here's a primer:

What it is

DaaS is a repository of data sources aggregated by a vendor that marketers can shop on-demand through service connections, like the cloud, and pump into their systems to fuel their marketing efforts. Cory Treffiletti, VP of marketing for DaaS platform Oracle Data Cloud, likens a marketer's software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to a luxury vehicle and DaaS to the gas that powers it.

“In that example, you want to buy the highest octane, most efficient gas so you can maximize the engine in that car—that's the role DaaS plays,” he says.

Why you want it

This model offers marketers numerous benefits. According to Anders Ekman, president of DaaS provider DataMentors, one benefit is that DaaS “makes big data small” by allowing marketers to cut through the clutter and find the data they need. Doing so delivers another benefit: allowing them to go to market faster. Ekman adds that DaaS can lower costs and drive efficiency by helping marketers craft more targeted messages. “You're able to market to fewer and do better,” he says.

Kitty Kolding, CEO of data acquisition agency Infocore, adds that acquiring data from a central repository, such as the cloud, allows marketers to avoid the time and monetary costs associated with implementing, storing, and maintaining their own databases. Plus, she says, it enables marketers to pass on these technological and data processing responsibilities to vendors—freeing up their time to focus on their strategies and messaging.

“The idea is compelling because those costs are real,” she says.

Why you don't

Marketers drawn to those benefits need to tread carefully. Kolding points out that the lure of DaaS is based more on the fantasy of what could be than on reality, and that marketers still have a long way to go before these benefits can come to fruition. “There are a lot of really cool things happening, but the reality of merging all of these data inputs [and] figuring out exactly who you're dealing with…is very, very hard to do,” she says. “I don't yet believe that the technology is up to the task, and I don't believe that the sources of data are in a condition yet that allow a marketer to really synthesize everything that's out there.”

Indeed, there are quite a few DaaS-related challenges that marketers have yet to overcome. One area, perhaps surprisingly, is the limitations of the data on offer. Although DaaS provides marketers with a variety of data, they're limited to the data sources their vendor offers, Kolding says. What's more, she says, marketers aren't buying data as much as they're renting it. After all, once they stop paying for a particular data source, their pipeline is cutoff. “You don't have that data anymore,” she says. “That's the promise and peril.”

Another issue is that DaaS does not guarantee data quality or security, points out George Corugedo, CTO of data management solutions provider RedPoint Global; so, marketers need processes in place to manage these aspects.

“Data as a service isn't going to solve your data quality problem, which is an enormous problem across the board with marketers,” he says. “They often live in a world with very fragmented data. Just because you put it in a data-as-a-service environment, doesn't mean it's integrated.”

What to look for

So, how can marketers determine whether DaaS is right for their organization? And, if so, how can they select the right vendor? Kolding advises marketers to start by identifying what they hope to accomplish through DaaS. Oracle Data Cloud's Treffiletti suggests that marketers follow a three-step construct to better determine their needs and how a vendor's services will meet them: data in, adding value, and data out.

Data in is all about ingesting, organizing, and accessing data, Treffiletti says. To do this, he notes, marketers have to identify which data sets they have and which ones they need, as well as where the incoming data is going to come from, how they're going to store it, and how they're going to use it.

Adding value, he continues, involves connecting the data points, using analytics to derive insight, and establish success metrics. “Many companies offer elements of value, but few are capable of doing all of these,” he notes, “and even fewer can do this accurately and at scale.”

Finally, data out relates to the distribution of data and the ability to transfer it to partners, activate it, and manage the licensing of it, Treffiletti explains.

After marketers complete this three-step vendor review process, he notes, they need to do an internal examination to see if they have the right people and processes in place.

“You need people with analytical skills, but also with a commercial mind-set,” he says. “You need people who can either do or manage the analytics, but are experienced in understanding consumers and revenue-driving requirements. This is a unique combination of skills and ones that are becoming more and more valuable to the marketing organization.”

In fact, Brian Hopkins, VP and principal analyst for Forrester Research, asserts that DaaS isn't enough. It provides the “raw materials,” he says, adding that many providers don't offer the analytics capabilities needed to derive the insight marketers need. “There's this enormous gap between data and action, and just providing data as a service doesn't create the action. It's just data.”

To drive this action, Hopkins recommends that marketers aspire to create a “System of Insights”: a trifecta of people, processes, and technology that work together to access data, leverage analytics and data science to derive insights, test those insights against business outcomes, measure customers' response to those insights, and refine.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.netimperative.com/2016/01/online-market-trends-in-slovenia-cross-border-ecommerce-soars/

Online market trends in Slovenia: Cross-border ecommerce soars

Online shopping is thriving in Slovenia, with 85% of all internet users in the country buying online at least occasionally, up from 78 percent in 2013, according to new research.

Online shopping is thriving in Slovenia, with 85% of all internet users in the country buying online at least occasionally, up from 78 percent in 2013, according to new research.

The study, from comparison shopping platform Ceneje, surveyed the opinions of more than 33,000 Slovenian online shoppers.

Trends and dynamics of the Slovenian online market

The results of the survey show that 85 % of all Slovenian internet users shop online at least occasionally, in 2013 that percentage was 78. More than half of them performs online shopping frequently or intensively.

The number and intensity of online purchases in Slovenia is steadily increasing. In comparison with 2013 the share of consumers who make at least one online purchase per month increased by 58 % and in 2015 this share amounts to one-third of all internet users. On the other hand, only 16 % of all internet users in Slovenia do not have any experience with online shopping yet.

According to the number of online stores per capita, Slovenia is very high in Europe, there is about 1500 Slovenian web retailers. At the same time it is one of the leading countries in the impact of the internet on purchasing decisions – the share of those who search online information about products and services before buying them ranks well above EU average.

In Slovenia the internet has certainly a significant impact both on online and traditional sales channels, but the number of online purchases still lags behind the EU average. According to European Commission data, collected in May this year, in Slovenia 9 out of 10 internet users search online information about goods and services before the purchase while only one in five actually shops online.

The intensity of shopping by age groups

The largest share of online shoppers is in the age group of 12-24 years where 96 % of all internet users shop online, of these 39 % shop online at least once per month. In the age group of 25-34 years the proportion of online customers amounts to 95%. In this demographic group there is the largest share of intensive purchases – almost half of internet users shop online at least once a month. As expected, in the age group of 45-84 years the share of online shoppers is the lowest and it amounts to 73 % of all internet users.

Encouraging data for cross-border e-commerce

An important result of the survey is growth in cross-border online shopping. 43 percent of Slovenian internet users still shop exclusively in national online shops, but on the other hand proportion of those who shop abroad (out of ten online purchases at least one is performed in foreign store) is growing and today amounts to 57 % of all internet users.

The fact is that competitive offers from foreign online retailers are becoming increasingly relevant for Slovenian online shoppers and in the future we can certainly expect further development of cross-border e-commerce.

Some still choose not to shop online – why?

According to the research, the main two reasons for consumers not to choose to shop online are distrust and the fact that they are accustomed to the physical store. 84% of those who never shop online claim that they prefer to see the product in a physical store, 42 % of them doesn’t want to share their personal data on the internet, one-third is concerned about the misuse of credit cards. Among the reported reasons there is also consideration that there is harder and more complicated to solve problems online, that online consumers are less protected and that it is easier to compare prices and products in a physical store.

The future of e-commerce in Slovenia?

Development of e-commerce in Slovenia and in general is today intensively affected by the penetration of new technologies that shape consumers’ daily routine. The future of modern commerce will not be limited to national markets and especially not just on the internet. It will consist of a network of physical locations and online sales solutions. The development of technology is increasingly enabling the growth of hybrid shopping patterns such as’ click and collect’ which will become a key to a successful business.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.dmnews.com/direct-line-blog/7-secrets-for-high-performing-content/article/464671/?DCMP=EMC-DMN_iMktingNewsDaily&spMailingID=13467592&spUserID=MjQxMjk5MzkwMzQ2S0&spJobID=700899560&spReportId=NzAwODk5NTYwS0

7 Secrets for High-Performing Content

January is a good month to reflect. It's a time to think about what you did well the previous year and where you could improve the next.

Keeping with this theme, I decided to see which of my articles performed the best last year and which ones were subpar. The list at the bottom of this article includes my top 10 articles of 2015. As I assembled the list, I started to notice reoccurring qualities that I believe drove reader engagement. So, here are my seven secrets for content marketing success.

1. Experiment with humor.

My editorial colleagues may have thought I was a little crazy when I wrote a blog post that linked marketing to cheese. However, the article ended up being one of the top articles of the month and one of my best-performing pieces for the entire year. I even had readers send me their own spin-offs.   As exciting as data and analytics can be, sometimes marketing coverage can, admittedly, be a little dry (and, thus, not so shareable). While it's essential to write about the nuts and bolts of marketing, I also believe that getting creative and occasionally taking a lighthearted approach is critical to getting your content to stand out.

So the next time your team is writing an article about a stodgy topic, brainstorm ways you can approach it from a new angle. Just think: If you saw this article in your feed, would you click on it?

2. Don't be afraid to reveal something personal about yourself.

Whether it's my love for the Green Bay Packers or reality TV, I'm not afraid to give readers glimpses into my personal life. I believe that it helps define my writing voice and makes my posts more relatable. For instance, the article “The 3 Emails I Fell for This Fall” gives readers a peek into my personal inbox. Writing this piece, in my opinion, proved to our readers that I not only approach email marketing from a marketing or journalistic perspective but it's also something that I experience as a real consumer.

I also find that consistently sharing bits and pieces of my personal life provides context. I knew, for example, that by the time I published “6 Marketing Lessons from the Packers-Cowboys Game,” our readers wouldn't be turned off by my Packers bias because I had written about my affinity for the team and Wisconsin several times before. Of course, you should always be cognizant of oversharing. I try to think about how revealing something personal could affect my personal and professional brands, as well as my relationships. To find a good balance, I remember that my boss and parents are reading these pieces, and if the content isn't something that I would be comfortable sharing with them, then it's probably not appropriate to share with our readers. Marketers should also follow this advice and consider how their content reflects their brand and impacts their relationships with their consumers and vendors.

3. Be relatable.

The best way to connect with someone is to find something that you have in common. When I wrote “6 Lessons Marketers Can Learn from Childhood Fables” and revealed my favorite children's books, I tried to develop a mutual sense of nostalgia with our readers. Tapping into these childhood memories clearly worked because the article was one of my top blog posts of the year.

When marketing to consumers, try to find common ground; however, this connection must be genuine. Consumers can spot a phony from a mile away, and appearing fake can hinder trust in the future.

4. Know what's going on in the world.

When I wrote “5 Marketing Lessons We Can All Learn From Pixar,” Inside Out had just debuted. I knew that people would be searching for it and that it would be trending on social and in the media. I wanted to insert our brand into these existing conversations in a natural way. So, I wrote a blog post about lessons marketers could learn from the famous movie studio. Using tools like Google Trends can help marketers find inspiration for relevant content topics.

Granted, marketers can't always anticipate what's going to be trending.  But it's important that they plan for content opportunities when they can. For example, I knew that 50 Shades of Grey was coming to theaters last Valentine's Day. So the week before the film's release, I emailed several marketers and asked them to identify areas of vagueness or confusion for my blog post “50 Shades of Grey Area in Marketing.”

The bottom line: Marketers need to address real-time events and create content on the fly; however, they also need to anticipate and plan for popular events.

5. Understand your audience's preferences.

Email is a favorite topic among Direct Marketing News readers and whenever we post an article about the channel it usually does well.  Knowing this, we try to produce email content frequently to encourage marketers to revisit our site. We also know that list articles perform well and are easily digestible. So, writing an article called the “4 Factors That Impact Your Open Rates” was a no-brainer.

When producing content, marketers need to understand the types of content their audiences prefer, the forms of content they enjoy (e.g. video versus analysis), and the channels through which they consume content.

6. Be informative.

One of the biggest lessons I took away from interviewing BuzzFeed's VP of Creative Services Melissa Rosenthal back in May 2014 is that great, shareable content offers readers some sort of “gift”, like humor or nostalgia. Educating consumers and offering them thought leadership provides tremendous value. That's why I try to stay on top of recent studies and cover them, as I did in the article “The Millennial-Baby Boomer Divide.”

Also, marketers shouldn't be afraid to take an authoritative stance on areas where they possess expertise, just as how Retention Science's Jerry Jao did in the article“How to Send the (Almost) Perfect Email.” If they're truly knowledgeable about a particular field, and can prove it, then sharing their insight with others can help them develop a devoted following.

7. Resurface evergreen content at opportune moments.

I originally wrote my Star Wars-themed article “5 Ways B2B Marketers Can Channel the B2C Force” in August for our September issue. But when Star Wars: The Force Awakens hit theaters in December, I knew that I could resurface the article and promote the piece by including trending Star Wars hashtags in my social posts.

Content rarely has a lengthy lifespan. So it's vital for marketers to look for opportunities (e.g. anniversaries, pop culture events) where they can bring old content to light. Doing so will help save them time and resources.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.eyefortravel.com/social-media-and-marketing/naspers-prosiebensat1-new-media-boys-online-travel-bloc

Behind the scenes, two companies - one South African, the other German - are making quiet, yet significant, moves in online travel. Sally White reports

Well away from the main headlines there is an interesting new sector diversifying into online travel. It is has all the right qualifications for a successful incursion - plenty of both money and connections. Its members are two giant international media companies with interests spreading from TV, e-commerce and advertising to video, to name just a few.

While from two very different parts of the world, both are spreading fast internationally. They are South Africa’s Naspers and ProSieben.1 Group from Germany. Both are making significant, if small, moves. Yet, sitting as online travel does very comfortably within the groups’ strategies, at this level additions can be cherry-picked.  

Naspers has direct interests in India and other parts of Asia, and indirectly in China, through its 34% stake in giant internet conglomerate Tencent. In fact, the Tencent stake, started with an initial $32 million investment in 2001, accounts for almost all of Naspers stock market price, now having around a $65 billion value. Ownership of this stake makes Naspers South Africa’s biggest company. However, its original, ageing print base has shrunk, and it is the e-commerce and classified ad business, stretching over 40 countries, that have transformed the group.

However, Naspers has raised a large war chest of funds for its quest to find another Tencent, launching a successful $1.2 billion bond issue last summer.Under the leadership of billionaire chairman Koos Bekker, it is scouring the globe for new internet acquisitions. In particular, it is looking for companies that will capitalise on the switch by consumers to smart devices for shopping, banking and other services, including travel.

Its Indian subsidiary, The MIH Group, has travel investments that include Goibibo (travel aggregator), Tradus (for deals and discount coupons), redBus(an online bus ticketing platform bought for $138 million cash),TravelBoutiqueOnline (a B2B online travel platform) and PayU (online payment). Naspers says its travel business under the Ibibo Group brand is eight times the size of the nearest competitor in bus ticket sales.

Ever up with the latest trends, its online travel firm Ibibo Group is also venturing into the budget and alternative accommodation space. This is with a new platform, GoStays.

“The online travel space is a space we find interesting,” Bob van Dijk, who left US online trading company eBay to join Naspers as head of e-commerce, told financial news agency Bloomberg. “We’ll keep looking at merger and acquisition opportunities and we’ll be scrubbing them carefully.”

While local commercial conditions and competition make India a less than easy market in which to operate, it is a good testing ground for elsewhere in Asia. Naspers is using ibibo to take its bus ticketing service redBus to Singapore and Malaysia, and has just opened up operations there. The strategy is to enable travellers to book bus tickets between the two South East Asian countries and for inter-city travel within Malaysia.

Once that is rolled out, there are plans to build a redBus platform to support multiple currencies, languages, time zones and iOS/Android-based local apps.

German style low-profile travel diversification

Back in Europe, at ProSiebenSat.1 Group, one of the largest independent media corporations in Europe, the growth is also from advertising but from TV ads. With the stations SAT.1, ProSieben, kabel eins, sixx, SAT.1 Gold and ProSieben MAX it is No. 1 for ads in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. There are also video interests and entertainment apps.

For diversification it has, over the last few years, built up a strong e-commerce portfolio in which the products are particularly suited to marketing via TV advertising. This is now one of its most important growth drivers. For the future it is looking to add the English-speaking markets of the UK and US.

Through its main travel brand, Travel7 and online publication Snooze, ProSiebenSat.1 Group has told the trade that it has ambitions to become a major European player. Like Naspers it keeps low profile on its travel wing.

Near the end of last year it bought ETraveli, an online flight specialist, from a Nordic private equity group for €235 million, by far its largest travel purchase to date. Thus it has 12 different brands in its portfolio including Seat24, GoToGate, BudJet, Charter and GoLeif.

“With our investment in Etraveli, we have taken a significant step toward internationalising our existing travel portfolio and we have laid the foundation for additional growth that extends far beyond the borders of Europe. Our strategic goal is to gradually globalise the digital business fields..” Dr. Christian Wegner, member of ProSiebenSat.1’s board said in an October press release.

Etraveli joins an international portfolio that includes travel portal weg.de; billiger-mietwagen.de(Germany's largest portal for rental cars); mydays.de (specialist for experience gifts and events); OTA reise.com and weather portal wetter.com. There is also the hotel price comparison site Discavo as well as a stake in Travador, a platform for last-minute and adventure trips.

Jörg Trouvain, CEO 7Travel, says that: “Etraveli adds .. the flights segment to our 7Travel portfolio as a key element for further profitable growth. We're supporting the market entry in Germany with TV backing and integrating the Etraveli flights package into the offerings of our other 7Travel companies..”

So, loads of synergies in house!

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.dmnews.com/email-marketing/5-must-haves-to-revamp-your-2016-email-strategy/article/464405/

5 Must-Haves to Revamp Your 2016 Email Strategy

The New Year is all about new beginnings. And often that means taking a fresh look at how to make real connections with audiences. Email, no doubt, will continue to be a major focal point for marketers in 2016. But the question is this: How can marketers improve customer experiences and boost return on investment with email messaging? The answer: value.

Cadence, content, design, relevance, and healthy email lists are five ways to increase value of email marketing messages. Christopher Lester, VP of sales for Emma, and Marie Homne, senior agency services strategist at Yesmail, spell out how each facet can improve the impact of email messages this year—and beyond.

Cadence Lester: The key to this is that not everyone is on the same cadence. There are friends that you call every week; there are friends that you call every day. They're just different levels; you have a different cadence with them. This year [marketers] can use [email marketing] tools...to make the cadence seem more human, based on how much someone is involved with the brand.

Homne: This year cadence is tied to relevance. If you're delivering something of value and relevance you could likely send something every day—or even every hour—depending on the service that you're providing. What really matters is that it's relevant and that it hits your customer at the right time.

Content Lester: Content has to be created through a meaningful lens—meaningful to the customer. In 2016 email marketers are going to have to take one piece of content, craft it a couple of different ways, then send it to their audience in different ways because they're going to get more out of it, and then [consumers] are going to get more out of it.

Homne: For content in 2016 [marketers are] going to want to move into a more mobile-friendly space. Everybody knows that's what they're supposed to do, but they don't quite get how they're supposed to do it. First make sure the content is visible—readable—on [mobile] devices. Then make sure it's actionable on the devices.

Design Lester: Design has been on the forefront for a long time with responsive design, optimized design, and dynamic design. We're to the point where that's table stakes. Design this year is really about the ease of experience; the ease of use. Consider how emails make it easy for readers to maneuver through stories, articles, or other content this year. We're thinking less about design as aesthetics. We've gotten to the point where design is part of the overall end goal.

Homne: Refresh your templates in the New Year. Give people—your design teams and your audience—something to look forward to. It's something your audience will appreciate.

Relevance Lester: The overall theme we see happening [in email marketing] this year is relevancy—in other words, what's relevant to the consumer and not to solely the sender of the message. The expectation of the consumer is that it's not just content for content sake. Content should be relevant to something you know about the readers.

Homne: Really understand the customers' perspectives and know their expectations of your brand; it is crucial to creating relevant emails. Email in 2016 is leaning more towards an attitudinal relevance. Understand more how people feel about your brand. Email is such a great medium; people are always on it. I wouldn't waste it on just sales or promotional content.

Healthy email lists Lester: List quality is more about what is the quality of the conversation or the information that you have going between you and that recipient. This is a great time to think about how healthy your list is. Healthy isn't about size. It's about making sure you know that this is a good time to ask consumers what they want to hear about in 2016. Track what it is that you can be the most helpful with, what it is that you're providing. I think it ties into experience and the fact that people don't want to be sold to anymore.

Homne: This year it's not about focusing on just an active audience but the inactive audience on your list. Track response over time and see when those inactive subscribers fell off. Maybe then you can determine a plan that will encourage those subscribers to be active again.

[clickandcrop-blog]

https://www.internetretailer.com/2016/01/11/ebay-enterprise-buys-affiliate-technology-vendor-affiliatetracti

eBay Enterprise buys affiliate technology vendor AffiliateTraction

EBay Enterprise says the move will give far more tools to the retailers who work with its affiliate marketing program, which has 59 retailer clients in the Internet Retailer Top 1000.

EBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions has acquired AffiliateTraction, an affiliate technology vendor that counts such retailers as Fathead LLC, Skechers USA Inc., Guess Inc. and American Apparel Inc. among its clients, the companies said today.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

EBay Enterprise also announced that AffiliateTraction CEO and president Greg Shepard will assume the role of chief strategy officer at eBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions.

The deal enables eBay Enterprise to give far more tools to the retailers who work with its affiliate marketing program, Michael Jones, eBay Enterprise’s CEO, tells Internet Retailer. EBay Enterprise’s affiliate program has 59 retailer clients in the Internet Retailer Top 1000, according to Internet Retailer’s Top500Guide.com. That ranked eBay Enterprise fourth among retailers’ affiliate marketing vendors to the Internet Retailer Top 1000, behind CJ Affiliate, Rakuten and ShareASale. EBay Enterprise says it works with “hundreds of thousands” of affiliates and roughly 3,000 retailers.

In acquiring AffiliateTraction, eBay Enterprise is adding technology that seeks to automate the process of acquiring and developing relationships with affiliates. For instance, it recommends affiliates that the retailer should work with, and it also offers dynamic attribution—it tells retailers who they’re going to pay—and dynamic commissioning—it tells them how much they ought to pay each affiliate.

AffiliateTraction had operated as a technology service provider and didn’t give its retailer clients access to its technology, but that will change with the acquisition. Coupling that technology with eBay Enterprise’s large affiliate network should help eBay Enterprise better serve both retailers and affiliates, says Jones. Jones was a co-founder of Pepperjam, the online marketing agency and affiliate network acquired by GSI Commerce in 2009 that is one of the key pieces that makes up eBay Enterprise. EBay acquired GSI Commerce in 2011.

“Within the affiliate marketing world, not much has changed over the past 10 years,” he says. “It’s been the same old thing. But this changes everything.”

By giving retailers access to the robust set of tools that AffiliateTraction has long used to make affiliate acquisition more like programmatic ad buying, it could disrupt the channel, Jones says.

Within the next three months, eBay Enterprise will begin to offer agencies and advertisers access to some AffiliateTraction tools, with the goal of fully integrating the technology into eBay Enterprise’s platform within six months.

AffiliateTraction is headquartered in Santa Cruz, Calif., with offices in Toronto, London and Sydney.

In related eBay Enterprise news, Jones says that the vendor plans to rebrand its business, which is no longer affiliated with eBay Inc., within the next few months.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.dmnews.com/e-commerce/b2b-glass-is-half-empty-on-digital-commerce/article/464484/?DCMP=EMC-DMN_iMktingNewsDaily&spMailingID=13452298&spUserID=MjQxMjk5MzkwMzQ2S0&spJobID=700803353&spReportId=NzAwODAzMzUzS0

B2B: Glass Is Half Empty on Digital Commerce

The customer experience for B2B and B2C customers may be looking ever more similar, with more and more B2B customer journeys beginning with online research and even social interaction with peers. But the revenue from B2B digital commerce remains low.

That's the implication of a recent report from Accenture Interactive ("Channel Shift: Measuring B2B Efforts to Shift Customers Online"), which found that half of the 50 senior digital commerce professionals surveyed reported online sales as responsible for less than 10 percent of their revenues.  Of course, to some extent that's a glass-half-empty view: half of those surveyed reported healthier online revenues: "Fifty-five percent of “digital-first” B2B organizations (those that began focusing on eCommerce five or more years ago) report that more than half of their customers currently complete transactions online, compared to only 22 percent completion for 'lagging' firms that began focusing on eCommerce less than three years ago."

The opportunity to expand digital B2B sales is nevertheless clearly huge.  What are the obstacles standing in the way of buyers resistant to online commerce? According to the report, there are three main ones:

Long-term customers are the main hold-out, with around 80 percent of mid-maturity and lagging eCommerce sellers reporting resistance to change. Understandably, this is much less of an issue for digital first sellers, who report only 43 percent of customers reluctant to complete purchases online.

But sales teams themselves are also a problem. Perhaps reflecting the perceived resistance of customers, 50 percent of mid-maturity and over 60 percent of lagging sellers are hesitant to drive customers online.

Finally, there's a lack of executive push, with some management resistant to driving online commerce.

I asked Matt Schmeltz, CMO at CloudCraze, an enterprise eCommerce solution built natively on the Salesforce platform, whether the correct takeaway from the "less than 10 percent" data was positive or negative. "This statistic definitely projects an outlook of a move towards greater--and eventually major--adoption of online as an important channel for B2B companies to be leveraged long-term." he said. "The resistance currently seen both internally around commerce applications that meet the business's needs and externally by their customers is going to diminish as B2B eCommerce increasingly resembles the B2C eCommerce experience. B2B companies that integrate eCommerce platforms that are scalable, centralized, and user-friendly are going to see the consumer adoption of online channels grow tremendously."

Indeed, Schmeltz sees little choice for the vendors. "B2B companies that aren't offering an eCommerce option for their customers are going to begin to hit major growth roadblocks in 2016, which will grow in significance as eCommerce becomes a standard in the industry. Of course the personal value of phone and in-person support for a business will likely never dissolve, but the major portion of business activity will be handled on the streamlined and automated network that only an enterprise eCommerce platform can effectively and efficiently support."

The report also looked at the most promising strategies for transitioning customers to online sales. Email continues to be the most successful channel--according to those surveyed at least, with around half rating it the most important channel. Websites and direct outreach come next, with social media and editorial content--perhaps surprisingly--lagging far behind.

This suggests, LinkedIn notwithstanding, making social and peer interaction a crucial element in the B2B buyer journey is a problem which remains to be solved.

[clickandcrop-blog]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/chinese-startups-embrace-mergers/news-story/0cd56aef2c007e8291f463dec24a355f

Chinese start-ups embrace mergers

The $US2.5 billion merger of two Chinese online shopping companies is the latest sign start-ups are changing their strategies as the world’s second-largest economy stumbles with slowing growth and stockmarket routs.

China’s start-ups are consolidating to secure their future amid growing competition for investors and customers, which means only the leading companies will survive.

Social-shopping start-up Mogujie.com said it has agreed to take over rival Meilishuo.com to form a new company. After completing the deal, the new entity expects to raise fresh capital at a possible valuation near $US3 billion, Mogujie Chief Executive Chen Qi said in a letter to employees that was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Both Mogujie and Meilishuo, which is backed by Chinese social-network company Tencent Holdings, run fashion-focused platforms mainly for women that combine shopping with social networking.

The deal continues the recent trend toward consolidation in China’s tech-start-up scene. China’s volatile stock market and economic uncertainties are making venture capitalists more reluctant to put high price tags on start-ups that are burning through investor cash to compete with rivals. As investors become more selective, start-up founders are facing more pressure to consider mergers with rivals as an alternative to intensifying competition that often turns into a discounting war.

“Investors are looking for clear winners in the market … more capital is concentrating into fewer winners,” said Annabelle Long, managing partner of Beijing-based venture-capital firm Bertelsmann Asia Investments, an investor in Mogujie.

A rationale behind consolidation is to reduce competition, lower costs and increase efficiency, and such measures become more necessary when investors are worried about a downward market, Ms Long said.

Beijing-based Meilishuo, whose name means “Beauty Talk,” had been trying to raise fresh funds for months without success, according to people familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, Hangzhou-based Mogujie, which means “Mushroom Street,” raised $US200 million in its latest funding round in November that valued the company at roughly $US1.7 billion. Meilishuo’s struggles in fundraising created a bigger incentive for the company to accept the takeover deal, which values Mogujie twice as much as Meilishuo, the people said.

The companies didn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal.

The latest deal follows other high-profile mergers and acquisitions over the past year in China’s technology sector. In October, Meituan.com and Dianping Holdings Ltd., two Chinese start-ups whose smartphone applications connect online users with offline services such as restaurant bookings and movie ticketing, agreed to merge under a new joint company valued at more than $15 billion. Ride-hailing service Didi Kuaidi Joint Co., China’s biggest competitor of Uber Technologies, also was created by a merger last year.

Over the past few years, Chinese start-ups that connect online users with all kinds of offline services — including food deliveries, massages and car washes — have burned through the cash raised from investors to subsidise deep discounts aimed at attracting consumers. As more investors questioned the sustainability of the start-ups’ business models, discussions about mergers became more serious.

Investors and bankers have said that Chinese start-ups shouldn’t assume that they will always be able to raise bigger funding rounds at higher valuations, as business models come under close scrutiny. “Over the past year, investors have become more concerned about start-ups’ plans for generating revenue,” said Du Jian, a manager at Shenzhen Capital Group, a Chinese private-equity and venture-capital firm.

Mogujie’s deal with Meilishuo creates a stronger competitor among fashion-focused social-shopping platforms. The two start-ups’ combined sales last year stood at nearly 20 billion yuan, or about $US3 billion, according to Mr. Chen. Tencent plans to increase its minority stake in the new company, a person familiar with the matter said. Still, the new company will continue to face competition from more comprehensive e-commerce companies such as Alibaba Group.

The mergers-and-acquisitions trend hasn’t been limited to start-ups. Two of China’s biggest online travel companies that are listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market, Ctrip.com International and Qunar Cayman Islands, said in October that they would join forces.

The start-up-financing market’s slowdown and the trend toward consolidation is a “healthy development” for the industry, Ms. Long said. For investors, the trend creates more exit options other than an initial public offering of stock, she said.

“This overall M & A trend will continue. This should be one of the future growth paths for Chinese start-ups,” Ms Long said.