This week in eCommerce, Shopify and Facebook have worked closely together to update Facebook’s Shop Pages making improvements to help merchants showcase their products on their Facebook Pages. Gibu Thomas, the executive that brought mega-retailer Walmart into the digital age with its eCommerce operations, is leaving to join PepsiCo and leverage the power of online for the manufacturer. Heineken is going for the slow-burn eCommerce approach with its The Sub beer machine, following in the footsteps of the successful Nespresso. Digital didn’t kill the bricks and mortar star! In fact eCommerce is driving a huge change in the way offline retailers operate with direct-to-consumer brands like Warby Parker setting the new standard. Target is investing more into its IT system to help support their eCommerce push, helping to improve communications before the holidays with RFID tags to track products and beacons in store to personalize offers to customers. For all the details from this week’s newsmakers continue reading our Weekly eCommerce Wrap-Up below!
Let Shoppers Discover Your Shopify Store on Facebook
Shopify Introduces the Shop Section on Facebook Pages
Source: Shopify
Select merchants on Shopify’s eCommerce platform have had access to the new shop section on Facebook pages. Shopify and the Facebook team have worked closely together over the last several months to make improvements and add functionality to Facebook’s Shop Pages making it easier for merchants to showcase their products on their Facebook page. These new updates will allow merchants to direct shoppers to their online stores or let them checkout without leaving the Facebook site or application. Buyers have the option to save payment information on Facebook for future purchases, facilitating a better experience for those on mobile. This new service is being rolled out to all Shopify merchants at no additional cost. Currently Facebook Store apps do not work on mobile devices, and with the vast majority of those on Facebook now using mobile devices you’re missing out on traffic. The new Shop section lets people find your products and subscribe to get notified when you upload new products. Click here to learn more about the new Shop Pages, and to sign up and be notified when this feature is available for you business.
Gibu Thomas is Bringing Companies into the Digital Age
Walmart’s mobile chief just joined PepsiCo to lead its new e-commerce push
Source: QZ
The Walmart executive that dragged the world’s largest retailer into the 21st century by spearheading the launch of @WalmartLabs, their Silicon Valley tech shop, has left the company to join the CPG world. In joining PepsiCo this month, makers of Pepsi-cola and Doritos, Gibu Thomas is helping their push to eCommerce. Consumers are heading online to purchase their groceries and other consumable products, and CPG companies are struggling to keep with this shift to internet shopping. The online sale of food an beverage and only makes up only 2.2% of the hundreds of billions of dollars that is spent on eCommerce retail, a category growing at more than 12% a year. PepsiCo CEO declared that, “eCommerce is shaping up to be the next great revolution in the food and beverage industry,”. the company is shifting it’s advertising dollars towards digital media and expanding internationally through digital retail. Thomas Gibus overhauled Walmart’s website and eCommerce operations over the course of his 5 years there, helping the mega-retailer compete against Amazon.
Heineken Goes for The Slow-Burn Approach
Can Heineken’s eCommerce ambitions be realised?
Source: TheDrum
Draft beer in your home? The Sub is Heineken’s draft beer machine, realized two years ago to help the brewer create an eCommerce stream for Desperados, Birra Moretti and Affligem. Haven’t heard about it? Neither have we, that’s because Heineken is being shy about marketing the product. The brewer isn’t making a big push for The Sub as it wants to keep the relationships strong between existing commerce partners like Amazon, Tesco, and Carrefour. There is a strategy behind the lack of…strategy. Heineken is hoping to accomplish what Nestle did with the Nespresso coffee machine, with creating something that materializes over time and adds value to customers. This beer machine retails at $340 with refills cost between 8 to 11 pounds on Heineken’s eCommerce platform. This “slow-burn” approach could work for Heineken as it has for Nespresso, whose first machine was released in 1986 and now has a global market share of over 19% in the segment of espresso and filtered portioned coffee machines.
Offline is Fuelling Online
Let’s Get Physical: Why E-Commerce Makes Offline Stores More Important Than Ever
Source: Forbes
Buyer behaviour has changed rapidly over the years with the rise of direct-to-consumer labels, on demand ordering, and the delivery of nearly anything anywhere. Most people might be thinking that eCommerce is killing the bricks and mortar start, however in this digital age offline has taken on a new meaning and purpose. Co-Founder of retail pop-up marketplace Storefront declares that stores are no longer transactional, they are experiential. This perspective stems from his experience in having companies use his marketplace to create pop-ups in interesting locations. The world’s biggest direct to consumers brands and eCommerce sites are using this method to revolutionize the relationship between digital and physical. One company you may have heard of, Warby Parker, has been incredibly successful online and is now experimenting with physical locations, hosting pop-up locations and opening a showroom in NYC. Today Warby Parker has stores in 15 cities, with plans to expand and stores bringing in $3000 per square foot. 85% of their shoppers will later visit their website after visiting a store, increasing the chances for orders.
Target Aims to Lead eCommerce
Target’s plan to beef up its e-commerce
Source: Fortune
Target is trying to become a leader in eCommerce, several years after taking back its operations from Amazon.com. The retail giant is spending $1 billion this year to strengthen its eCommerce capacity. Part of this digital push is a partnership with Instacart, a grocery delivery service based in Minneapolis. Target is testing out ship from store to speed up delivery ad deploying 50 beacons in store to personalize its offering to customers. Digital sales for Target rose 30% in Q2 of 2015 but is pushing to grow even more to challenge the digital success of other mega-retailers like Walmart and Amazon. Investments will also be made in the less glamourous behind the scenes technology and systems that keeps their website stable. These IT upgrades are necessary to improve communication with tags that can be embedded into a products packaging to help Target track locations, as well as ensure their website doesn’t go down during the busiest season of the year. Target needs the infrastructure to support the next phase of their in-store and eCommerce operations. For example they are adding RFID tags to make it easier to track inventory and therefore speed-up delivery, as well as launching a new program that gives customers a much narrower delivery time window. By the holiday season Target will be using 460 stores to help with online delivery!
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