This Week in Ecommerce: April 20
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 April 13 through today.
Instagram gets closer to integrating ecommerce through new marketing initiatives. Retailers can link to product pages through ads on the social network, offering one-click shopping to this photo-loving audience. Another segment just beginning to warm to ecommerce: luxury brands. Luxury Daily wonders if high-fashion retailers should stop shunning ecommerce (basically, yes, so long as the online and mobile experience meets customers’ expectations of the brand).
In a prime example of exactly what retailers can miss out on by not offering ecommerce, the Apple watch is expected to break some big sales records this week. With an estimated 957,000 online pre-orders in the U.S., the iExcitement is in the air. And although omni-commerce is thriving, Internet Retailer released data showing that among their Top 500 retailers, web-only merchants grew at a faster pace than others last year. Web-only retailers grew their sales 18% in 2014, compared with 16.5% growth in retail chains. It will be interesting to see how this trend plays out in the year to come.
Read the full articles at the links below, and have a great week!
Instagram Takes Another Step Toward E-Commerce (AdWeek)
“In its slow but steady embrace of e-commerce, Instagram is running its first marketing campaigns that transform viewers into shoppers with a single click. Finally, retailers can link to product pages from their Instagram ads—a feature Banana Republic was among the first to employ—and still more sophisticated ads are in the works.” Read more…
Should luxury brands stop avoiding ecommerce? (Luxury Daily)
“Chanel is the latest luxury brand to dip its toe into ecommerce through a three-week fine jewelry capsule on Net-A-Porter, but the brand currently limits its direct operated ecommerce to cosmetics. Even with the possibilities through ecommerce from a sales perspective, how can luxury brands decide if selling online is right for them?”
Apple Watch To Smash Smartwatch Sales Record In First Week (Forbes)
“And, if analyst forecasts are to be believed, the Apple Watch is easily set to be the biggest selling smartwatch of all time – even going by the most modest guestimates. Slice Intelligence estimated 957,000 people in the US pre-ordered the Apple Watch when the online sales portal opened up on 10 April. Its report even stated the average devices per order was more than one, indicating that some Apple fans were happy to splash their cash on multiple models.”
Web-only e-retailers outpace other Top 500 merchants for growth (Internet Retailer)
“Web-only retailers, including Amazon, accounted for 42% of sales of all retailers ranked in the 2015 Top 500 Guide and grew their sales 18% in 2014. Retail chains were next in line, collectively growing 16.5% and representing 34% of all Top 500 sales.”
Header image via Wired
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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.
