Sat.Feb 13, 2021 - Fri.Feb 19, 2021

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The 10 Biggest Trends in Entrepreneurship to Look For in 2021

Kissmetrics

Ever wish you could predict the future? Me too. If only you could predict what’s shaping business trends, or what your clients need, you could plan and grow your company, right? Well, there’s good news. While we don’t have a crystal ball, it’s entirely possible to gain a little insight into how the market is evolving and how the changes affect your long-term business planning.

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Zero Trust Is Not A Security Solution; It’s A Strategy

Forrester eCommerce

One of the top challenges and misunderstandings that I continue to see here at Forrester is about what the definition of Zero Trust actually is. Zero Trust is not one product or platform; it’s a security framework built around the concept of “never trust, always verify” and “assuming breach.” Attempting to buy Zero Trust as […].

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Is Direct Mail Marketing Making a Comeback?

Optimizely

Ahh, direct mail! Does it still ring a bell? You walk out to your mailbox either excited to receive a package or maybe an acceptance letter to your school of choice, or you’re anxiety-riddled because you’re expecting a bunch of bills or, (gasp!) a jury summons. If you think about it, direct mail marketing has never really gone away. Even though I pay most of my bills online, I still receive a healthy abundance of junk mail on a weekly basis.

Marketing 195
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Five Ways Omnichannel Marketing Can Help Your Business Thrive in 2021

BigCommerce

2020 was a challenging year for, well, everyone — but retailers suffered the particular challenges of shutting down or restricting in-store…

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The Trends You Need to Succeed This Holiday Season

October Prime Day is usually an early sign of how consumer spending trends ahead of the holidays. This one was no exception. Our October Prime Day Report breaks down what’s working: the products flying off the shelves, the categories winning big, big brands, and the search terms defining demand. All brought to you via Similarweb’s Shopper Intelligence platform.

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Instagram Marketing Tips: 10 Ways To Boost Your Social Media Strategy

Groove

Though Instagram may seem like a feed of endless photos, it's really one of the most powerful social media platforms out there for eCommerce brands. In fact, Instagram's average engagement ratio is 8 times greater than that of other social media platforms, making it full of potential opportunities to build engagement with your audience and sell more online with Instagram eCommerce.

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Meet The New Analyst Covering SecOps: Allie Mellen

Forrester eCommerce

Tell Us About You I have a background in computer engineering, and over the past 10 years I’ve been in engineering and consulting roles at organizations like MIT and a variety of startups. I live in New York City and love to read, do yoga, and learn new languages. In normal, non-pandemic times, I’m an avid traveler, though that has obviously […].

Travel 527

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As ‘Appointment Retailing’ Use Cases Expand, More Brands See Value

Retail TouchPoints

Count appointment-based selling as another existing trend that was supercharged by COVID-19. Retailers such as Best Buy and Apple were two of the first to implement the model at scale, showing the value for businesses outside of luxury and specialty retail. And as COVID-19 volatility continues to put retailers and consumers in a frustrating holding pattern, more retail brands are turning to appointments to minimize store traffic and keep social distancing guidelines in place.

Retail 311
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342: How My Student Amanda Makes 6 Figures Selling Dollhouse Furniture

My Wife Quit Her Job

Today, I’m really happy to have Amanda Austin on the show. Amanda is a student in my Create A Profitable Online Store Course and she runs a 6 figure business selling dollhouse furniture over at ShopOfMiniatures.com. In this episode, we’re going to do a deep dive into her journey, how she decided what to sell, how she grew her business, and what obstacles she had to overcome to get to this point.

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Take Security To The Zero Trust Edge

Forrester eCommerce

Forrester’s take on the SASE model This is big, folks. This is really big. Bigger than Gamestop. Even bigger than Heeleys (the adult version saved in my Amazon wish list). This could be the biggest technological transformation since sliced bread, Dorito tacos, or public cloud. A year ago, fellow Forrester analyst Andre Kindness and I […].

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Save 10 Hours Every Week With these Social Media Marketing Shortcuts

Kissmetrics

Businesses of all sizes typically can’t afford to ignore social media. Every enterprise, regardless of its sector, can benefit from the massive audience you can reach with popular social platforms. There’s just one small problem: it’s far too easy to spend time on tasks that take too long and offer little reward. This is where social media marketing shortcuts can prove useful.

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Is Your Business AI-Ready? Find Out with Orium’s Maturity Model

Generative AI is poised to redefine B2B, but scaling AI success in this space isn’t without obstacles. From fragmented data sources and complex buyer journeys to operational inefficiencies, the road to AI-powered growth can be challenging. To achieve a competitive edge, understanding your organization’s AI-readiness is essential. Orium's Data & AI Maturity Model provides a quick, actionable way to assess your starting point.

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Why Off-Retailer-Platform Commerce-Enablement is Essential for CPG Brands

Retail TouchPoints

Today, most CPG brands or grocery retailers would consider the retailer’s own website the single most important digital touch point for online grocery shopping. Throughout the last five to 10 years of grocery ecommerce evolution, the industry has been hyper-focused on how it could bring the brick-and-mortar format online. This led to a narrow focus on the retailers’ owned digital properties and traditional methods of user tracking and communication, like the loyalty card.

Retail 299
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Building a Modern B2B E-Commerce Tech Stack

Fabric

Most articles about building e-commerce software focus on B2C (business-to-consumer) settings. While B2C is widely written about, there are far fewer technical guides for developers in the $1.3 trillion B2B (business-to-business) e-commerce industry. B2B e-commerce is notably different from B2C retailing, and building software for this industry poses a unique set of challenges.

eCommerce 246
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Adopt Three Practices To Boost Resiliency For Customer Service

Forrester eCommerce

The COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed the need for change in customer service organizations – changes in the ways we work, we hire new talent, we invest in new technology, and in the way we practice risk management. We are all aware of the operational holes that were exposed when contact centers moved agents home in […].

Customer 493
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How to Get Google to Instantly Index Your New Website

Kissmetrics

Do you want more organic search traffic to your site? I’m willing to bet the answer is yes – we all do! Organic search traffic is critical for growing your website and business. Some research claims around 53% of your site’s traffic can be attributed to organic search. But the stats don’t matter much if your site doesn’t show up in the search results at all.

SEO 352
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Less Stress, More Success: Accounting Best Practices & Processes for 2025

Speaker: Amanda Adams, Fractional CFO, CPA

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Amanda Adams, a seasoned fractional CFO and CPA passionate about transforming back-office operations for finance teams. This session will cover critical best practices and process improvements tailored specifically for accounting professionals.

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How Retail Businesses Can Use Customer Data to Enhance Targeted Marketing

Retail TouchPoints

As soon as COVID-19 and the ensuing stay-at-home orders first hit the U.S. in March 2020, consumer buying behavior began shifting. As a result, retailers needed to reshape their ordering options and, in some cases, the entire layout of their stores. In addition, as the popularity of online ordering and delivery continues to skyrocket, marketers need to rethink how they communicate with and market to consumers.

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Should I Quit My Job Or Close My Business? Here’s When To Move On

My Wife Quit Her Job

Should I quit my job? Should I shut down my business? Should I end a partnership? In this post, you’ll learn the exact questions that I ask myself when deciding whether to move on and pursue something else. First off, the principles outlined in this post apply to all areas of life. For example, I use this framework for relationships, projects, marketing strategies, everything!

Marketing 207
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Your Website Is Your B2B Shop Window

Forrester eCommerce

How many buyers really use the website? This was a question asked in a recent conversation with a consulting services client. It was asked in response to a critique of the website. My analysis showed how difficult it was for a buyer to understand digital business transformation services from the firm’s website. It’s perhaps not […].

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25 Sneaky Online Tools and Gadgets to Help You Spy on Your Competitors

Kissmetrics

There are dozens of factors to consider when spying on your competition–what are they ranking for, what are they doing on social, is there a new platform you should be considering? It can be overwhelming, but paying attention to what is working and what doesn’t can make or breatk your long-term success. This is where marketing tools come into play.

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Omnichannel E-Commerce: Drive More Revenue at Less Cost

Today’s e-commerce landscape is vast and it’s moving fast and is fiercely competitive. To thrive you need to offer the right products to the right customers on the best channels. Learn how to successfully harness the power of omnichannel selling to reach more online buyers, diversify and grow revenue, and reduce cost – while delivering a seamless "shop to ship" customer experience across all channels.

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Target, Lowe’s, Sephora, Foot Locker Among Retailers Boosting Black Brands

Retail TouchPoints

Tracee Ellis Ross. Retailers across multiple verticals are taking concrete steps to diversify their merchandise mixes with products produced by women, Black people and other people of color. Some companies are using the power of celebrity, like Ulta Beauty naming actress and Pattern Beauty CEO Tracee Ellis Ross as the retailer’s new Diversity and Inclusion Advisor.

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Amazon Fulfillment Center Locations & How Sales Tax Works For MCF

My Wife Quit Her Job

If you are using Amazon multi channel fulfillment to store and ship orders for your online store, you need to know exactly which Amazon fulfillment centers are being used for your sales tax calculations. Sales tax laws have changed dramatically over the past few years and more and more states are fighting to collect sales tax for online purchases. Thanks to marketplace facilitator laws, almost every single state in the US now forces marketplaces like Amazon to collect and remit sales tax on your

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Sales Tech Convergence And Confusion

Forrester eCommerce

How do sales leaders, sales operations, and sales enablement practitioners navigate their way through an increasingly crowded technology space?

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The Marketer’s 5 Step Guide to Beacon Technology

Kissmetrics

Beacon technology has completely revolutionized both business and marketing. As one Business.com article put it, with “Retail going digital and digital media coming to retail,” this technology is completely changing the marketing game. The key to the versatility of this location-based mobile technology lies in its size and function. It relies on small devices, often the size of a postage stamp, using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals to transmit information to mobile devices via mobile apps.

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NEWS: SML RFID Delivers 98% Inventory Accuracy to Gina Tricot

I’m getting in touch with the news that fashion retailer, Gina Trictot, has achieved 98% inventory accuracy thanks to its partnership with SML RFID. Please see the full press release below, including exclusive quotes.

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Walking the Line: How a Post-Pandemic Retail Hybrid Might Make the Best of Both Worlds

Retail TouchPoints

Even the best business plans expect some bumps along the road: financial insecurity among consumers, supply chain complications, a shortage of labor or reduced in-store traffic. But the COVID-19 pandemic forced retailers to grapple with all of the above, all at once. Facing a near-apocalyptic situation, retailers have had to pivot quickly, creatively and competently in order to withstand the chaos of the 2020 economy.

Retail 279
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How Gamification Marketing Can Increase Your Ecommerce Sales

Omnisend

Reading Time: 6 minutes. Think about the last time you won something. How did it make you feel? People look for gaming pleasure for years–it taps into our competitive human nature. Unexpected entertainment and winning something makes people feel good, increases their engagement, and makes the occasion more memorable. That’s why gamification in marketing is so effective and businesses are constantly searching for ways to include this element in their strategies.

Marketing 180
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Promising Improvements — Forrester’s US Retail Recovery Heat Map, February 2021

Forrester eCommerce

Since April 2020, we have estimated how the retail economies of 30 major US metropolitan areas are recovering from COVID-19. By aggregating 11 metrics (across retail sales, local economic indicators, and virus spread), our model predicts that these metropolitan areas will face differing levels of COVID-19 disruption. For these metrics, we looked at US metropolitan-, […].

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The Ultimate Guide to Copywriting

Kissmetrics

Great copywriting can move mountains. Think about the last time you bought something — what was it that sold you on the product or service? The features, the benefits, or the price may have all played a part in your decision. But in reality, it was the copy that did the heavy lifting. After all, you wouldn’t have known about those amazing features or that killer price unless someone, somewhere spent time figuring out what would be most appealing to you and put it into words.

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Is Your Brand AI-Ready? Find Out with Orium’s Maturity Model

Generative AI is reshaping retail, but achieving true AI success isn’t simple. Many brands face hurdles—underdeveloped data strategies, limited AI-ready infrastructure, or lack of seamless integration across systems. As you explore how AI can boost efficiency and transform customer experiences, understanding your business’s readiness is key. Orium's Data & AI Maturity Model offers a clear starting point.

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Walmart Generates 69% Online Sales Growth in Q4, Plans Wage Increases for 425,000 Workers

Retail TouchPoints

Walmart reported 69% online sales growth and an 8.6% same-store sales bump in the U.S. during Q4 2021, which ended Jan 31, 2021. Total revenue for the full fiscal 2021 was $559.2 billion , up 6.7% from fiscal 2020. The retailer will build on this momentum by accelerating investments in services across the company and increasing wages for 425,000 frontline workers.

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Fixing Index Bloat: Why Deleting Website Pages Is Great for SEO in 2021

Inflow Insights

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in 2018 and has been updated since to ensure accuracy and to adhere to modern best practices. When you’re an SEO managing a website for years and publishing content consistently, there comes a point where things can seem out of control. You’ve published so many test pages, thank you pages, and articles that you’re not even sure which URLs are relevant anymore.

SEO 164
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We Need To Shift How We Think About Emotion And Journeys

Forrester eCommerce

Emotion Is The Key To Benchmarking Journeys We know customer journeys matter. We know emotion matters. It’s time to bring these two together and use journeys to design for the full scope of emotion. To know what good looks like — and to benchmark customer journeys — we need to understand how to design for […].

Customer 361
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How to Increase E-Commerce Sales Through Paid Search & Social Media Campaigns

Kissmetrics

The move from brick-and-mortar retail shopping to e-commerce sites has continued steadily over the last decade. Between 2014 and 2023, global retail e-commerce sales are expected to increase by $5.2 billion. As online shopping integrates seamlessly with search and social platforms and as UX improves, more users are inclined to make their purchases online.

eCommerce 323
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eCommerce in 2025: How Customer Experience Drives Online Retail Success

Speaker: Jennifer Wright and Nick Barron

2025 is right around the corner, and with it comes a new wave of consumer expectations, competitive pressures, and operational challenges. Success lies in finding the balance between operational flexibility and creating experiences that keep customers coming back. The future of retail belongs to those who can stay ahead of shifting customer preferences and marketing trends. 🔮 In this session, we’ll dive deep into what it takes to keep customers engaged and your operations nimble, no matt