From eCommerce
The eCommerce Delivery Wars: Who Will Win?
A recent report by Cindy Waxer at Gigaom Research asks who will win the brewing battle over the fastest, most efficient way to get goods and services to consumers.
Waxer identified three different factions in the delivery wars:
– The Old Guard (USPS, UPS and FedEx).
– The eCommerce Giants (Amazon and Google).
– The Groundbreakers (Uber and Matternet).
Learn from the Experts: 2 Must-Listen Podcasts on Holiday eCommerce
Podcasts seem to be having a moment, and I, for one, am jumping on board with the cultural mania.
But while I would love to dedicate this post to discussing Serial or Startup, I’ve actually found a couple of recent podcast episodes that are more relevant to the topic at hand—holiday eCommerce.
Become an ECommerce Maven in 2015
Maybe you’ve been thinking about opening an online store on WooCommerce, but you feel like you need to learn more about it first.
Perhaps you aren’t sure which online store software to use.
Or maybe you’re a big-picture person, so you want to know more about global trends in eCommerce.
In this post, I’ll give you three courses that you can take now—or over the next few months—to learn more about eCommerce. They range from WooCommerce specific, to hybrid WooCommerce/eCommerce, to big-picture thinking.
The best part? They’re all either very affordable or free!
9 Billion Reasons Alibaba Loves Loneliness
It’s the world’s biggest online shopping day in the world’s biggest eCommerce market.
You might not have even heard of Singles Day, but it just made Alibaba over $9 billion.
Why Payments Are So Hot Right Now
Payments, payments, payments. I could write about them all day. In what’s shaping up to be the next innovation battleground, there’s just so much going on lately.
To that end, Accenture released its 2014 North American Consumer Payments Survey of 4,000 consumers last month. The survey canvassed respondents’ attitudes to different ways of making payments, as well as their expectations of the future.
Does Location Matter for eCommerce?
You run an online store, which means that location doesn’t matter, right?
Not necessarily. Even though we spend a lot of time in the digital world these days, the physical world still exists, and still has an important influence on us.
Where we live, our friends, the local weather, local brands—these factors still heavily influence what we prefer and buy, including online.
And with the rise of mobile—and wearable—devices, location is playing an even more important role in our online experience.
In this post we ask the question: does location matter for eCommerce?
What is Really Going on With Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is mysterious. Is it the cryptocurrency used by criminals? A tool of anarchists? Or is Bitcoin simply a way to buy goods on Overstock.com?
Last week, Bitcoin news resource Coindesk released its Q3 State of Bitcoin Report for 2014, which helps unpack what is really going on with Bitcoin right now.
Online Grocery Shopping: Can the U.S. Copy the U.K.’s Success?
With AmazonFresh, Instacart and Google Shopping Express competing against each other to find the perfect home grocery delivery solution, things are really heating up in the world of online grocery shopping. From a consumer’s perspective, this could revolutionize the way we buy groceries—the competition could lead to more choice, lower prices, and, of course, unrivalled convenience.
Despite the significant investments into finding that solution, the online U.S. grocery market is still in relative infancy. Yet while these three juggernauts are busy working out logistics and marketing ploys to encourage U.S. consumers to jump online to buy their food, elsewhere the online grocery market is reaching maturity.
In the U.K., for example, it’s been relatively common for families to do their grocery shopping online for years. In fact, this has led to the U.K. being heralded as one of the world leaders in the field of online grocery sales and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
Why has the U.S., with all its resources, lagged behind for so long when the rewards for cracking this market are so huge?
Global eCommerce Business: Learn from Birchbox, Braintree and HotelTonight
Do you sometimes wonder how you would expand your online store into a global eCommerce business?
We often hear how eCommerce is wonderful because you have the opportunity to tap a global market. While this is true to some extent, often a business will derive the majority of their success from a single market.
And just because something has worked well in the U.S., it won’t necessarily be a winning strategy in China, Brazil or Indonesia.
If these sorts of quandaries sound familiar to you, keep reading.
60 Minute Delivery; Do We Need All eCommerce Products Instantly?
Imagine you are lusting after a new item of clothing, let’s say a comfy sweater.
You scan a variety of online stores. Perhaps you check out Macy’s and Nordstrom, and then visit the websites for another couple of well-known brands, like Anthropology and Uniqlo.
You don’t see anything you really like.
Then you come across an eCommerce store that not only has some great-looking sweaters, but also promises to get your purchase to you within the same day, or even better, the same hour.
Would you buy from them?