2018

article thumbnail

The Ultimate Instagram Marketing Guide for Ecommerce Stores

BigCommerce

On 9 April 2012, the lives of Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger were about to change forever.

Marketing 404
article thumbnail

Word Of Mouth Is Less Important For Top-Line Growth Than You Think

Forrester eCommerce

Many companies ask their customers “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?” However, for most brands, advocacy — positive word of mouth — isn’t the key to revenue growth. Retention and enrichment matter much more. Retention is when current customers continue to buy your products and services.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Long B2C Sales Cycle? Use Content to Power Marketing

Optimizely

Think about the last time you bought a toothbrush. How long did it take you to decide which toothbrush to buy? Did you research the best toothbrush, read reviews, ask friends and family for their opinion, try the product in-store, and then finally look for the best deal online? Probably not. You likely just picked up a new toothbrush when you were standing in line at the store.

B2C 354
article thumbnail

The Dangers Of Selling On Amazon And Horror Stories From Real Amazon Sellers

My Wife Quit Her Job

Right now, selling on Amazon is almost too easy. All you have to do is find a product with good margins/demand, list it on Amazon, and it will eventually sell because Amazon’s audience and reach is so vast. When my wife and I first started selling on Amazon several years ago, we sold over 60 units in a matter of 8 days with just 3 products listed online with no reviews.

Marketing 335
article thumbnail

State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

article thumbnail

Channel Software Tech Stack (2019) – INFOGRAPHIC

Forrester eCommerce

(CLICK FOR HIGH RES) The channel technology stack is a group of technologies that brands leverage to manage and improve their indirect sales process and partner programs. Often, the focus of channel technologies is to make difficult processes easier, automate workflows, measure multi-tier activities, and drive more efficient spending, coverage, and partner communication.

Channel 419
article thumbnail

Predictions 2019: Transformation Goes Pragmatic

Forrester eCommerce

Our Predictions 2019 guide, “Transformation Goes Pragmatic,” is live. What do we mean by pragmatism? A sense of realism, practical steps, a desire for tangible outcomes. It’s a good description for what we are seeing in a market that carried ambitious strategies into 2018 but ran afoul of internal headwinds. Don’t get me wrong, the […].

Marketing 419

More Trending

article thumbnail

Affiliate Marketing in 2018: What It Is and How You Can Get Started

BigCommerce

Wake up at an ungodly hour. Drive to the office through total gridlock, streets jammed with other half-asleep commuters. Slog through email after mind-numbing email until the sweet release at five o’clock. Sound terrible? What if, instead of dealing with the monotony and stupor of the rat race to earn a few bucks, you could make money at any time, from anywhere — even while you sleep?

article thumbnail

The State of Ecommerce Platforms in 2018: Cloud Commerce, Open SaaS and The API Economy

BigCommerce

Meeting your business objectives isn’t easy – no matter how many Inc., Entrepreneur, Fast Company or Medium posts go viral within the executive community explaining why this or that strategy produced hockey stick growth. The truth of the matter is this: What makes your business successful is your dedication to customer experience, your market strategies, your operational efficiencies and the team of people you build.

article thumbnail

Everything You Need to Know About Achieving PCI Compliance [Checklist Included]

BigCommerce

If you’ve been contacted by your bank or financial institution lately only to discover that your credit card information has been compromised, then you’ve felt the growing frustration many consumers face today. Indeed, the situation with respect to credit card fraud is only getting worse. Card data stolen from 5 million Saks and Lord & Taylor’s customers in 2018. 56 million card numbers from Home Depot in 2014. 40 million card numbers from Target in 2013.

article thumbnail

Forrester 2018 Mobile Banking Industry Wave™: BBVA Offers World-Class Mobile Banking Services

Forrester eCommerce

Digital banks are not eating the incumbent banks’ lunch (yet!) but they’re certainly demonstrating voracious appetite. In the UK, Monzo recently hit the one million customer mark, whilst Revolut has almost tripled its customers to 2.8 million in a year. Lifestyle-app Alipay, the digital wallet and payments solution operated by Ant Financial, now has 700 […].

Banking 418
article thumbnail

AI for Commerce: Foundations, Aspirations, and Hype

AI is rapidly transforming digital commerce, but how do you separate real opportunities from hype? Moderated by Orium, AI for Commerce: Foundations, Aspirations, and Hype , experts from Bloomreach , commercetools , Contentstack , and Fluent Commerce explores where AI is already delivering results and where its potential is still unfolding. This masterclass dives into proven AI applications, emerging innovations , and the gaps between promise and reality in commerce.

article thumbnail

7 Brands Discuss the Benefits of the New Cashless Economy and Apple Pay’s Growing Ubiquity

BigCommerce

Technology is restructuring how money moves. From crypto-currencies to peer-topper payments and one-click checkouts, modern innovations are shifting the basic payment infrastructure of our economy. The gadget we carry in our pockets is becoming more than ever thought possible. And the wallet is its next target. Adii Pienaar, Founder of Conversio and WooThemes (later acquired by WooCommerce), sums this up best: Customers worldwide are using their mobile devices for online shopping more often.

article thumbnail

Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Comes Of Age

Forrester eCommerce

Maturing Into A Horizontal Channel Management Platform Aligned With CRM and Marketing Automation. Channel and alliance leaders are known to be good jugglers. With the average partner program containing over 90 distinct components, encouraging channel growth while mediating conflict is a complex undertaking. Partner relationship management (PRM) connects the dots between partner planning, recruitment, […].

article thumbnail

You Can’t Afford to Ignore The Benefits of SaaS: It’s Brand Bankruptcy or Digital Transformation

BigCommerce

It’s decision time for traditional retailers. Time to decide whether you’re going to use an old self-hosted platform and business model that holds you back, or make a game-changing decision to use cloud and SaaS to take your business into the future. For you, Amazon’s commodity market is profitable but earns little brand equity. And micro-brands numbering in the thousands are chipping away at your brand recognition and loyalty – with much smaller teams and much smaller budgets.

article thumbnail

“Crap” Content Continues To Describe B2B Marketing – Don’t Let It Describe Yours

Forrester eCommerce

In 2013, Doug Kessler and the crew at Velocity Partners published “Crap: the single biggest threat to B2B content marketing” – a work of thought leadership genius that I still tell marketers to read today. In just 50 PowerPoint slides, Velocity Partners explains why the current deluge of marketing “content” won’t serve buyers and what […].

B2B 417
article thumbnail

Staying Ahead of UFLPA Enforcement: Best Practices for Retail Supply Chains

Speaker: Ethan Woolley, Director at Kharon

This webinar will explore how companies can proactively address compliance risks–rather than reactively responding to–UFLPA enforcement actions. Ethan Woolley will provide insights into the latest CBP enforcement trends, entity list updates, and industries under increased scrutiny, with a look at potential shifts under the Trump administration. Ethan will also explore how predictive data and strategic due diligence can help organizations stay ahead of regulatory challenges and strengthen complia

article thumbnail

With 1 in 4 Online Dollars Spent on Mobile, Ecommerce Mobile SEO is More Important [& Intricate] Than Ever

BigCommerce

By the time you read this, everything we’ve learned about mobile SEO could be wrong. This is because the existing paradigm is based on a desktop-first world, and Google is about to catapult us into a mobile-first world with a major update on how they crawl, render and rank the web. Even the “Mobilegeddon” update of 2015, which promoted “mobile friendly” sites in the search results, did not approach the importance of what’s about to happen.

Mobile 419
article thumbnail

How to (Realistically) Start an Online Ecommerce Business That Actually Grows

BigCommerce

Why people are starting online businesses. The most popular course at Stanford isn’t a STEM class. It isn’t in entrepreneurship, how to start a business, nor coding. It is one in how to design a happy life. The course is co-taught by Dave Evans, the former lead designer of Apple’s first mouse and co-founder of Electronic Arts. In those positions, he learned how to design for user experience and remove unnecessary elements.

eCommerce 419
article thumbnail

What to Sell in 2018: How to Find a Product Niche and Start Selling Online

BigCommerce

Online competition is fiercer than ever. This is why figuring out what to sell online is a strategy in and of itself. You’d be surprised how many people set up a store before identifying ecommerce opportunities. This is setting yourself up for failure. Choosing the right products to sell will impact every other business decision you make. Forget a pretty theme.

article thumbnail

21 Sessions, Presentations and Workshops You Can’t Miss at IRCE 2018

BigCommerce

IRCE is arguably the ecommerce industry’s biggest and most influential annual event. My first year attending, I rode the bus from hotel to expo center along with representatives from Nordstrom, Walmart, Macy’s and more. The chatter was a mix of ecommerce technicalities, marketing strategies and a bunch of “I haven’t seen you in forever!”. IRCE is the who’s who of ecommerce – and it doesn’t discriminate.

Workshop 419
article thumbnail

Future-Proofing Enterprise Commerce: Why Extensibility Wins with Shopify

Speaker: Benjamin Woll, Tiffany Spizzo, and Jaime Santos Alcón

Enterprise commerce is evolving fast, and brands relying on rigid, one-size-fits-all solutions risk losing agility. But modernization doesn’t have to mean disruption. In this webinar, we’ll explore how an extensible, modular approach empowers brands to integrate new capabilities, enhance performance, and scale efficiently—all while leveraging Shopify’s strengths.

article thumbnail

How You Can Build A Powerful Influencer Marketing Strategy in 2018

BigCommerce

In the words of marketing guru Seth Godin, “People do not buy goods and services.

Marketing 417
article thumbnail

How to Master Product Photography on a Tight Budget (We Did it With Less Than $50)

BigCommerce

Consumers seek time-saving shortcuts all the time, and their attention naturally gravitates to the quickest way to gather information: images. Product images not only testify to the quality of your product, but also serve as windowfs into your ecommerce store, creating 2 very important things: Transparency. Trust. When consumers view a product page, they are looking for proof of quality and value.

article thumbnail

Finding Dropshipping Companies & Suppliers (Free Directory Updated for 2018)

BigCommerce

Are you looking to start an ecommerce business without the need to stock inventory yourself? Or are you wanting to expand your existing business by offering more products? Dropshipping may be the way to go. What is Dropshipping? Dropshipping allows you to partner with a supplier to display their products in your store. In other words, you can sell their goods. .

article thumbnail

The Complete Handbook to Sales Tax, Business Tax and Amazon FBA Tax (+92 Ways to Save)

BigCommerce

Paying your taxes isn’t what any entrepreneur dreams of when starting a business. You don’t think about the spreadsheets and the constant state updates. You don’t think about how to charge sales tax, when, where, why and on which products. That’s because taxes are just the cost of doing business. Sadly, doing them incorrectly (and definitely not doing them at all) can cost you your business.

article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

30 Inspirational Entrepreneurs Quotes to Motivate Them for Greatness

BigCommerce

Running a successful ecommerce business requires a lot work, and some days you might feel like you won’t see the fruits of your labor. That’s why we’ve gathered 30 inspiration quotes from BigCommerce merchants to help you push through rough patches and gray days to the brighter moment ahead. We asked each merchant: What is your favorite inspirational business quote?

article thumbnail

29 Ecommerce Metrics & KPIs to Measure to Drive 10X Growth in 2018 [Downloadable Key Metrics Included]

BigCommerce

The most successful ecommerce and retail businesses are metrics obsessed. SpearmintLOVE got 62.48% of their Facebook Fanbase talking about them – and used the power of data (and re-targeting) to do it. The Stray Whisker was able to avoid a bad agency promising them a 2.3% conversion rate: “We already have a 4.6%…”. Rollie Shoes launched internationally based on their sales data, and saw 200% growth.

Download 418
article thumbnail

Your Free Ecommerce RFP Template + 176 Questions to Ask Before You Migrate

BigCommerce

You’ve reached the tipping point. One last major site outage. One bug undetected for months that could have cost you millions (but you thankfully caught!). One more feature that will cost way too much and take much too long to build. One last peak season losing sleep wondering if the infrastructure will hold this time around. It’s time to switch ecommerce platforms.

article thumbnail

Predictions 2019: Automation Will Become Central To Business Strategy And Operations

Forrester eCommerce

Automation will be central to the next phase of digital transformation, driving new levels of customer value such as faster delivery of products, higher quality and dependability, deeper personalization, and greater convenience. Last year, Forrester predicted that automation would reach a tipping point — altering the workforce, augmenting employees, and driving new levels of customer value.

article thumbnail

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

Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System

Are you ready to elevate your accounting processes for 2025? 🚀 Join us for an exclusive webinar led by Duke Heninger, 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.

article thumbnail

The 19 Ecommerce Growth Challenges of 2018, Outlined by Amazon’s Annual Report

BigCommerce

On May 18th, Amazon released its Annual Report for the past fiscal year (2017). The Amazon Annual Report, which is made available to the public through the SEC, recapped the company’s remarkable year of growth. However, it also put a spotlight on some of the challenges and obstacles Amazon will face in the year ahead. From general Amazon growing pains to government regulation, part of the report took a hard look at some of the major issues and potential risks ahead that all ecommerce retailers n

article thumbnail

Predictions 2019: Customer Experience Comes Under Fire

Forrester eCommerce

Let’s face it: 2018 was not a fabulous year for customer experience. On average, CX quality was flat, with Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) scores showing little movement for the third year in a row. And what little movement that did happen was toward the middle of our scale, where 62% of brands bunched up in […].

article thumbnail

Busting The Two Myths Of Low-Code Platforms

Forrester eCommerce

Not everyone is on board with low-code development platforms, even though they are a key part of a strategy to accelerate app delivery. Why do many pro developers shun low-code? Two reasons: Low-code will limit the kinds of apps I can build and the scale of apps. Low-code will lock out me out of […].

415
415
article thumbnail

The Key to Wielding Big Data in Ecommerce to Build Personalized Experiences and Improve Retention

BigCommerce

The surfacing of the Facebook debacle involving Cambridge Analytica and the massive amounts of data collected from 87 million users, which was used to influence the 2016 presidential election, revealed big data as the powerful beast it can be. Even when used with good intentions, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg alleged his company did, data can lead people, and businesses, astray.

article thumbnail

5 Steps to Omnichannel E-Commerce Success

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.