Ecommerce News for the Week Ahead: May 11
3 Min Read
Kick the week off right by catching up on the latest industry news. Corra is bringing you the top ecommerce and multi-channel headlines of the past week, so read on for the big stories from May 4 through today.
We’ve all heard word of Amazon’s plans to deliver by drone, but the latest news adds an interesting element. Customers can opt to use their phone’s GPS to let the drone find you, and deliver your package to you even when you’re not at home. On a different note, Forbes looks into the Chinese consumer. They’re all about (you guessed it!) mobile. According to this article, 69% of smartphone users in China have used their devices to make a purchase, compared to only 46% in the US. That’s a huge market!
If shopping on a phone isn’t exciting enough for you, YouTube is launching a ‘shoppable’ show. By teaming up with retailer Wayfair, this channel will offer videos with pop-up links that viewers can click to purchase the products they see. Meanwhile, a new startup called Cratejoy has launched an online marketplace for subscription services. Is the subscription model the future of ecommerce? Share your thoughts in the comments!
For the full stories, click the links below.
Heads Up: Amazon Wants Delivery Drones to Find You Wherever You Are (Entrepreneur)
“With an option called “Bring It to Me,” a drone could bring a package directly to a user by tracking the location of the user’s smartphone or the Wi-Fi network the person used when he or she placed their order. If the user decides to run an errand or go for a walk in their neighborhood, utilizing the GPS data in the phone, the drone will follow the user to his or her next location.”
Chinese Consumers Go Mobile (Forbes)
“Alibaba’s rise symbolizes the breaknecek growth of China’s Internet and e-commerce sectors. By 2016, China will have 730 million Internet users and 380 million online shoppers, up from 460 million and 145 million in 2010.”
Wayfair and a YouTube network launch a ‘shoppable’ home makeover show (Internet Retailer)
The series leverages YouTube’s merchandise cards tool that enables video creators to promote merchandise via a popup that occurs within the video. Consumers can then click the link within the popup to purchase the item on a retailer’s site.
The subscription economy gets an online marketplace (Retail Wire)
The subscription model, once reserved solely for magazines sales and premium TV channels, has exploded in popularity. From Netflix to Amazon Subscribe and Save to Dollar Shave Club, subscriptions have become a familiar fixture of e-commerce. A startup called Cratejoy is combining this popular way of paying with an online marketplace.
Header image via Amazon
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Sasha Butkovich is Marketing Copywriter at Corra, a New York and Los Angeles based digital commerce agency creating unified customer experiences for fashion, lifestyle, and beauty. With a team of 100+ ecommerce strategy, design and technology professionals, Corra delivers rich shopping and buying experiences across all channels and devices. Corra is trusted by retailers of all sizes to implement and support Magento Enterprise, Demandware and hybris platforms.
Sasha Butkovich is Communications Marketing Manager at Corra. Managing the agency's communication, branding, PR and social strategies, Sasha focuses on developing engaging content for decision makers in the digital commerce industry. Sasha brings a background in copywriting and over five years in ecommerce marketing to her role at Corra.
Corra, a Publicis Sapient company, is the global commerce leader and SI helping brands and organizations grow by evaluating, building, and optimizing their digital commerce ecosystems. Our vast experience with composable and headless implementations speeds time-to-value and provides technical freedom to our clients. Our TotalCare managed services program provides gold-standard support, enhancements and ongoing commerce strategy. We are strategic thinkers, accomplished engineers, and award-winning experience designers. We believe outstanding customer experiences can’t exist without flawless technology, and that flawless technology is pointless without beautiful, human-centered design. Our clients are an integral part of our team. Together, we remove the obstacles that are limiting growth and discover new opportunities. We don’t rest until our clients achieve their full potential. Our clients’ KPIs are our KPIs. We have 20 years of experience in commerce technology, but we also know that customer expectations are constantly evolving. For this reason, we’ve built future-proof solutions and refined an agile execution process that helps our clients achieve more with less. As a Publicis Sapient company, Corra joins a global network spanning 20,000 people with 53 offices around the world enabling us to accelerate our clients’ businesses through designing and building the experiences and services their customers demand.
