The 2017 Identity Fraud Study released today by Javelin Strategy & Research (@JavelinStrategy), revealed that the number of identity fraud victims increased by sixteen percent (rising to 15.4 million U.S. consumers) in the last year, a record high since Javelin Strategy & Research began tracking identity fraud in 2003. The study found that despite the efforts of the industry, fraudsters successfully adapted to net two million more victims this year with the amount fraudsters took rising by nearly one billion dollars to $16 billion. There was a resurgence in existing card fraud in 2016, which saw an increase of 40 percent in card-not-present (CNP) fraud.The study also found that the increase in EMV cards and terminals was a catalyst for driving fraudsters to shift to fraudulently opening new accounts. On a positive note, while fraudsters are becoming better at evading detection, consumers with an online presence are getting better at detecting fraud quicker, leading to less stolen overall per attempt....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Astonishing level of identity fraud cost US consumers $16 billion in 2016 and inpacted 6.15% of Americans directly.
The e-commerce technology company announced on Monday a new Seattle location, Amazon Go, that has no registers. Instead, shoppers scan into the store with their free Amazon Go app, shop as normal, and leave the store with the items billed to their Amazon.com account.
While some stores have used a wedding-registry technique to allow this kind of shopping, Amazon takes it one step further. Using computer vision — the kind of technology that lets self-driving cars “see” — the store recognizes the user, making it unnecessary to individually scan items.
According to the Seattle Times, the 1,800 square-foot store, featuring ready-to-eat meals and snacks, is open to Amazon employees participating in a testing program. The store will open to the public in early 2017....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Amazon is now testing three different types of retail – bookstores, pickup/drive-through and now, an innovative no cashier, no checkout, no lineups, convenience store. Retailers look out!
The migration of consumers from stores to online shopping over the crucial Thanksgiving-Black Friday weekend continued dramatically this year, adding to the pressure on brick-and-mortar retailers as they seek to compete with Amazon.com.
A survey released by the National Retail Federation on Sunday estimated that 108.5 million Americans shopped online over the long weekend that kicks off the holiday shopping season in earnest, well above the 99.1 million who hit stores.
Last year, the numbers were about even for both avenues of shopping.It’s not a surprising finding given that Target tgt and Kohl’s mss , among others, reported record online sales on Thanksgiving.
Adobe said online shopping not only eclipsed the $5 billion mark for Thanksgiving and Black Friday, but told Fortune that U.S. online sales from Thursday to Saturday rose 17.3% to $7.23 billion. Many retailers, including Walmart, began their Black Friday deals online right after midnight on Thanksgiving morning....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Online ruled! Some 108.5 million Americans shopped online over the long Black Friday weekend, far more than the 99 million who went to stores
Black Friday is losing its relevancy to US shoppers. The holiday, which takes place the day after Thanksgiving, has historically been the biggest shopping day of the year in the US.
But over the last several years, shopper traffic in stores on Black Friday has been falling with many retailers like Walmart, Target, and Amazon kicking off their holiday discounts online several weeks in advance.
Foot traffic in stores this year is expected to fall by about 3.5% on Black Friday compared to last year, according to data from the location tracking service Foursquare....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Black Friday isn't driving shoppers to stores like it used to. Victim of its online success?
Instagram has rolled out a game-changer for businesses: brands can now sell products directly from the app.
The photo-sharing app introduced a new ‘tap to view’ button on November 1, 2016. The button gives shoppers the opportunity to learn more about an item in an image, as well as the option to go directly to the retailer’s website to purchase the item.
Vishal Shah, head of product management for monetization at Instagram, explained the inspiration to Recode: “We’ve seen pretty good progress in mobile on making purchases easier. But these two things—discovery and the actual purchase—are just not well-connected like happens in physical stores.”
The network’s announcement post explained: “Most mobile shopping experiences today take people from the shop window right to check out—without giving consumers the opportunity to consider a product and get more information.”...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
E-commerce comes to Instagram... for better or for worse?
Howdy all and welcome to a special edition of Whiteboard Friday. My name is Rand Fishkin. I'm the founder of Moz, and today I want to talk with you about how to craft the best damn ecommerce page on the web. I'm actually going to be using the example of one of my very favorite ecommerce pages. That is the Bellroy Slim Wallet page. Now, Bellroy, actually, all of their pages, Bellroy makes wallets and they market them online primarily. They make some fantastic products. I've been an owner of one for a long time, and it was this very page that convinced me to buy it. So what better example to use?
So what I want to do today is walk us through the elements of a fantastic ecommerce page, talk about some things where I think perhaps even Bellroy could improve, and then walk through, at the very end, the process for improving your own ecommerce page....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Rand Fishkin reviews e-commerce page best practices and offers valuable tips.
The online retail ecosystem is fast evolving, and increasingly, shoppers no longer simply go to the nearest store. Rather, they grab the nearest digital device. And with the world at our fingertips, why only shop domestically? In fact, digital analytics firm eMarketer projects that online retail sales will more than double between 2015 and 2019 and account for more than 12% of global sales by 2019. Retail therapy is giving way to e-tail therapy.
To gain a better understanding of how consumers are navigating the connected commerce landscape, the Nielsen Global Connected Commerce Survey polled respondents in 26 countries. We looked at how consumers are using the Internet to make shopping decisions both in stores and online, and we examined what they’re buying, where they’re purchasing and how they’re paying for goods and services.
While connected commerce is still largely a domestic affair, with consumers primarily ordering from retailers in their own country, cross-border ecommerce is a growing phenomenon. Shoppers are increasingly looking outside their country’s borders, as more than half of online respondents in the study who made an online purchase in the past six months say they bought from an overseas retailer (57%).
Nearly three-quarters of Indian respondents* who purchased online in the past six months say they bought items from an overseas retailer (74%). But this isn’t just a developing-market trend. Roughly two-thirds of respondents in the Western European countries in the survey say they purchased from an overseas retailer, including 79% in Italy—the highest percentage in the online study—and 73% in Germany....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Cross-border e-commerce is growing quickly and evolving just as fast. This Nielsen report is a must read for marketers looking at overseas markets.
Retail marketers have long focused on perfecting their omnichannel strategies; however, the rules of consumer engagement have changed. Many major anchor stores are either closing or redesigning their approaches, and the overall mall landscape is changing to meet the needs of a new audience.
And while shoppers can be reached on a variety of platforms, they remain individuals and prefer a unified experience that engages them in unique ways. Business is not as usual. And, as this year’s holiday shopping season approaches, there are important lessons to learn.
Unique experiences build on brick and mortar’s strength Even though online sales continue to grow, a recent Deloitte study confirms that consumers still prefer in-store shopping, choosing to make more than 90 percent of all transactions in store.
The fact remains — brick-and-mortar retailers offer shoppers something they want that online retailers just can’t provide: a hands-on experience with products and the ability to take them home immediately. That’s why today’s retail landscape is fertile for brick-and-mortar retailers to nurture shoppers, seeding growth with unique shopping experiences....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
The retail landscape is now omnichannel.and consumers are setting the table with new demands.
U.S. retail and food services sales were down 0.3 percent in August, the Census Bureau reported on Thursday, which was an unexpected drop. It’s also a metric that might make retailers nervous ahead of the critical holiday sales season (and no matter how retailers try to stretch it forward, we’re still not there yet), though one month’s data can, in the long run, be noise. Compared with the same month last year, retail sales are still up, turning in a gain of 1.9 percent.
Only a few kinds of retailers gained any ground at all in August. Clothing store sales were up by 0.7 percent for the month, and electronics retailers eked out a gain of 0.1 percent. Grocery store sales were up 0.4 percent in August, and food services and drinking places enjoyed a 0.9 percent gain for the month.
Remarkably, non-store (Internet) retail sales, which rarely see any kind of downtick in sales, were off 0.3 percent for the month. The two categories that did the worst in August—each down 1.4 percent for the month—were building material and garden equipment and supplies, along with sporting goods, hobby, book and music stores....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Retailers saw an unexpected drop in sales in August, but most are still seeing year-over-year gains, the Census Bureau reported. E-commerce dropped 0.3% too.
It’s no secret bricks and mortar retailers are struggling to maintain profitability and manage expenses for their retail stores. As the importance of omnichannel grows, who are the US retailers finding success with e-commerce? Today’s retail and e-commerce roundup answers that question.
According to the US Department of Commerce, Q2 2016 e-commerce sales grew 16%. Walmart announced positive Q2 earnings and an 11.8% jump in its e-commerce business.Target had a strong first half 2016 with e-commerce sales for pickup in-store up 50%. While Perry Ellis online sales grew 35.6% in Q2, it also plans to close 15 US stores, 20% of its retail locations.
Overall revenue decreased at Bon-Ton but sales on mobile devices were up 129% after enhancements to the mobile shopping site and simplifying its checkout for customers.
Q2 2016 total sales for Nordstrom.com grew 9.4% to reach $683 million. Revenue was up 6.6% at Home Depot and it fulfilled 42% of online orders in-store. Staples saw online revenue grow to more than 50% of sales in its B2B e-commerce business....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Retailers struggled to grow in-store revenue but e-commerce shone brightly for many US retailers, up 16% in Q2 2016 according to the US Department of Commerce.
Twitter is one of the best places for ecommerce entrepreneurs to get awesome info to help grow their online store. With a few hundred million different Twitter accounts, it's tough to decide who to follow.
To help all the entrepreneurs out there, I've put a list of 50 must follow Twitter accounts for ecommerce entrepreneurs. Check them out below, and follow them here....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Useful list of e-commerce Twitter experts to follow.
As of the first quarter 2016, the total amount of retail spending online (ecommerce) was $92.8 billion, which was only 7.8% of all retail sales. Ecommerce is in its infancy, which means that there are huge opportunities ahead, not just for the types of Amazon, but for small merchants and startups as well.
Worldwide retail sales, including in-store and internet purchases, surpassed $22 trillion in 2015, up 5.6% from 2014, according to a study by eMarketer. They say that retail ecommerce sales, those purchased over the internet, will make up 7.4% of the total retail market worldwide, or $1.671 trillion. By 2019, that share will jump to $3.578 trillion, yet retail ecommerce will still only account for 12.8% of all retail purchases.
Even though the internet and technology is the source of major disruption for retailers, brick and mortar is alive and well for the foreseeable future.
The study says that retail ecommerce sales are accelerating faster than previously anticipated and will jump 25.1% year on year in 2015. "Online sales growth will outpace brick-and-mortar sales growth by a more than 3-to-1 margin over our forecast period," the report predicts....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Want some impressive numbers for the size of e-commerce in the future? How does $1.671 trillion strike you for today's e-commerce sales? How about $3.570 trillion by 2019?
Marketers spend a lot of time trying to nail down abstract concepts. They're tasked with turning brainstorming sessions and comments sourced during focus groups into campaigns that sum up everything about a brand's identity in a neat, tidy, and most importantly, interesting way.
But what if a consumer could walk into a room and fully experience your brand with all their senses? Pop-up events offer just that -- the chance for consumers to get up close and personal with their favorite companies in a truly immersive setting.
In their simplest form, pop-up events are temporary retail spaces that give companies the opportunity to sell their products in an environment completely designed and controlled by them. Since they're temporary, they offer a relatively low-cost and low-commitment way for companies to take creative risks, generate buzz, and introduce their brands to new audiences.
Consumers love the lure of exclusivity, and brands love the unmatched opportunity for experimentation. To inspire your next branded experience, we've curated a list of 15 innovative and visually stunning pop-up events....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Creative marketing concepts are evident in these 15 examples of branded pop-up stores. good lessons. Good lessons.
Whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) is something you’ve just come across or it’s something you’ve been monitoring for a while, there’s no denying that it’s starting to influence many industries. And one place that it’s really starting to change things is e-commerce.
Below you’ll find some interesting stats and facts about how AI is growing in e-commerce and how it’s changing the way we do things. From personalizing the shopping experience for customers to creating personal buying assistants, AI is something retailers can’t ignore. We’ll also take a look at some examples of how leading online stores have used AI to enrich the customer buying experience....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Red Stag Fulfillment explains how Artificial Intelligence is altering how ecommerce stores & fulfillment warehouses operate to engage with customers!
It’s easy to have missed some interesting innovations in retail with the past few weeks focused on Black Friday sales. Today, we’ve got a roundup of retail innovators and news to keep you up-to-speed on who’s getting industry and consumer attention.
First, we start with the announcement of Amazon Go – the online leader’s latest retail innovation which lets consumers pick up grocery products at an Amazon convenience store, pay by mobile app with their Amazon account and leave without a check out lineup thanks to innovative technology. Amazon also opens a drive through store concept early in 2017 in addition to new retail bookstores. With 2,000 or more stores on the horizon, that’s the sound of retail competitors shivering and the industry buzz is enormous.
Walmart is building new warehouse distribution centers and investing in new technology in order to keep up with Amazon. Not to be left behind, Target is developing and planning to open hundreds of new smaller-format stores in urban centers and college towns. Toys “R” Us launched a fourth new interactive toy store in Santa Ana, CA with interactive in-store displays including video screens, sound effects and motion-sensor lights.
Nike used the launch of its $720 HyperAdapt high-tech, self-lacing sneakers to generate consumer buzz and store visits. Ace Hardware and online marketplace The Grommet launched a “makers” initiative to sell 20 unique US-made products exclusively in its 160 stores. What’s ahead for retail in 2017? Social is king and influences everything. And of course, Amazon will continue to innovate and be the elephant in the shopping centers....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Here's a great look at retail innovations and who's innovating and winning new customers online and in retail..
In October 2016, Nigeria-based BalogunMarket.ng launched an app that allows users to buy products and services via chat. The online marketplace was developed to make the goods sold at Balogun Market in Lagos more accessible by allowing customers to avoid travel and high temperatures in the city.
Users can browse products and complete sales through the app, along side interacting with sellers and haggling for products through BuyChat, the in-app chat function called. Shoppers can also book flights and hotels, order food, and connect with local brands.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
BuyChat. One way e-commerce works in Nigeria with potential for other developing economies.
Singles Day is a huge promotional deal in China. How big you ask? Imagine Black Friday in the US and then triple it. In its first five minutes, Alibaba has already racked up more than $1 billion in sales and more than $5.2 billion in the first hour, more than$7 billion after just two hours, with than 84% of sales on mobile devices. Now, halfway through the promotion, sales have passed $12 billion.
2015 Singles Day sales were $14.3 billion in China for one day alone. compared with a $5.8 billion in US Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. Impressive, for a promotion started by Alibaba in 2009. Here’s what’s planned, projected by the leading e-commerce companies for November 11 and a couple of early returns.
Singles Day has turned into a huge “Retailtainment“, three-week event complete with international celebrities and sales at Alibaba alone are expected to grow by 40% and exceed $20 billion. Launching Singles Day this year in Shenzhen for Alibaba were NBA superstar Kobe Bryant and super-celebrities David and Victoria Beckham after Lady Gaga canceled citing post-US election blues.
Alibaba,JD.com, Baidu, Amazon, Tencent and other e-commerce leaders received warnings from the Chinese government about past Singles Day consumer complaints of counterfeiting, delivery of damaged products, falsification of facts and other fraudulent behavior.
Rivals JD.com and Alibaba traded insults ahead of the extra-competitive Singles Day sales event. JD.comreported 14 million sales last year but did not disclose dollar value. This year, JD.com is partnering withWalmart and promoting sales in advance of November 11 as well as during the sales promotion. Both JD.com and Alibaba are hoping the addition of tens of thousands of international brands will push sales higher. By the time you read this post with your coffee this morning in North America, Singles Day will be over in China and we’ll have updates on our Twitter feed and in-depth sales analysis next week....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Alibaba has already racked up more than $1 billion in sales and more than $5.2 billion in the first hour with more than 84% of sales on mobile devices. 2015 Singles Day sales were $14.3 billion in China for one day alone.
Called a "Retailtainment", JD.com and Alibaba rivals over who will make the most sales from the three-week event "Singles Day" held in China. Sales at Alibaba alone are expected to grow by 40% and exceed $20 billion. This year, JD.com is partnering with Walmart and promoting sales in advance of November 11 as well as during the sales promotion.
Every November, the average shopper in the US and China spends a fistful of Benjamins and a fistful of Maos on the year’s hottest sales events.
It happens first in China on Singles Day, which falls on November 11. Next it’s the turn of American shoppers the day after Thanksgiving on Black Friday, and then again on Cyber Monday. So which day is bigger? Which country wins?
Adobe Digital Insights predicts 2016 online sales will be up 11% and shoppers will be out earlier than ever. 55% of US and UK retailers say Amazon will drive the majority of their holiday sales this year according to research by ChannelAdvisor and Morar Consulting. The National Retail Federation expects US consumers to spend an average of $935.58 with overall holiday sales to rise 3.6% and online sales up 7% to 10%.
What’s Walmart’s holiday sales strategy? Value, price rollbacks and features, along with Santa’s helpers at checkout. UPS expects to be busy as well, shipping more than 700 million packages during the holidays, up 16.7% from 2015. Bestblackfriday.com, says Friday’s Black Friday sales may drop by 10% in-store to$9.2 billion though online sales may reach $3 billion, up 13%....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Here's an interesting roundup of holiday e-commerce and retail predictions.
Retail ecommerce sales—which include products and services (barring travel, restaurant and event ticket sales) ordered via the internet over any device—will reach $1.915 trillion in 2016, accounting for 8.7% of total retail spending worldwide. While the pace of growth for overall retail sales is subdued, the digital portion of sales continues to expand rapidly, with a 23.7% growth rate forecast for 2016.
eMarketer expects retail ecommerce sales will increase to $4.058 trillion in 2020, making up 14.6% of total retail spending that year.Asia-Pacific will remain the world’s largest retail ecommerce market throughout the forecast period, with sales expected to top $1 trillion in 2016 and more than double to $2.725 trillion by 2020. The region will also see the fastest rise in retail ecommerce sales, climbing 31.5% this year. Expanding middle classes, greater mobile and internet penetration, growing competition of ecommerce players and improving logistics and infrastructure will all fuel ecommerce growth in the region.
The bulk of retail ecommerce will come from China, where sales are expected to reach $899.09 billion this year, representing almost half (47.0%) of all such sales worldwide. While there is plenty of opportunity for growth, parts of Asia-Pacific are still faced with challenges. In Southeast Asia in particular, ecommerce still represents only a fraction of total retail sales. An underdeveloped digital payments infrastructure and a weak logistics framework have made these markets unprepared to handle high volumes of ecommerce orders and have kept ecommerce at a nascent stage....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Double-digit growth will continue through 2020, when sales will top $4 trillion.
Our industry faces a well-known duopoly, with Facebook and Google commanding an ever-increasing share of digital ad spend, both in the U.S. and globally. I recently dug into the data and forecasts available, to better quantify (for my own benefit and hopefully yours!) just how much Facebook and Google are eating digital.
Global ad spend, across all channels (digital, TV, print, radio, outdoor, etc.) is growing annually on average by 5.6 percent from 2015 to 2020, and will reach $674 Billion from $513 Billion in 2015.
The U.S. market will represent 35 percent of the global ad market, reaching $234 Billion by 2020 with a slightly slower growth rate compared to the global average, at 5.0 percent from 2015 to 2020. This is expected as rapidly developing markets in the East and a growing middle class represent new markets on which advertisers can focus.
45% Of U.S. Ad Spend Will Be Digital 33 percent of ad spend in the U.S. was digital last year and that is expected to reach 45 percent by 2020. In real numbers, that’s a $60-billion market growing to $105-billion, with a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11.9 percent.
The growth of digital is more than 2 times higher than the growth of the overall ad market, which represents a tremendous opportunity for digital businesses. More people are accessing content online and more advertisers are spending their budgets online. Will the rising tide lift all ships?...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Facebook and Google dominate digital ad revenue and here's a look at how the industry shapes up globally.
When it comes to digital smarts, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Kohl’s and JC Penney rank at the Genius Level, according to the latest report from think tank L2. But while the industry as a whole is getting sharper, now spending 52% of digital ad budgets on mobile and maximizing customer engagement on Instagram, stores are still no match for the Amazon onslaught.
“Only five years ago, Macy’s apparel and accessories sales were five times that of Amazon, providing a wide lead in a logistically challenging product category that features a high exchange rate,” the new ranking says. “By next year, Wall Street analysts estimate that Amazon will overtake Macy’s as the largest U.S. retailer of apparel and accessories, with sales of $28 billion in the category.”
But Amazon isn’t the only problem. Department stores are also challenged by the fast-fashion wizardry of brands like H&M, Zara and Uniqlo, as well as companies like Coach and Michael Kors cutting back on department-store distribution. “With key partnerships that help differentiate the customer shopping experience under threat, the historical outperformance of department stores versus the S&P 500 has evaporated over the last 18 months,” it says....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
As mobile now gets 52% of digital spending, some retailers are getting it right.
In the fourth quarter of 2015, Amazon.com Inc. posted a profit of $482 million, more than double its previous highest-earning quarter. In the two quarters since, profits continued to rise, to $513 million in the first quarter and $857 million in the second quarter. In the first six months of 2016, the company’s combined profit was $1.37 billion—no other half in Amazon’s history is in the same universe.
So after years of reporting little to no profit, Amazon is now posting record gains quarter upon quarter. At the same time, its expenses are growing faster—26.4% in the first half of 2016 versus 17.5% in the first half of 2015.
So what’s propelling Amazon into profitability? Let’s look at the numbers.
First, there’s revenue. Amazon’s compound annual growth rate from 2012 to 2015 was 20.5%.....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Here's a look at why Amazon is 'suddenly" in the money.
The largest-ever acquisition of an e-commerce company likely won't be enough for Wal-Mart to dethrone Amazon. But there's no shame in playing for second.
In a bid to juice its online business, the world's largest retailer agreed Monday to purchase Jet.com in a $3.3 billion deal. The acquisition will beef up Wal-Mart's e-commerce prowess, from deepening its bench of talent to finding the cheapest way to ship online orders. These capabilities should help Wal-Mart grab a larger piece of the growing e-commerce pie. They're also the best chance it has of closing the wide — and growing — gap between it and Amazon, analysts said.
"Amazon's got this huge lead. That lead is going to be tough to relinquish but there's a lot of [share] out there," Moody's analyst Charlie O'Shea told CNBC....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Worst-kept secret, but Walmart finally completes the deal to buy Jet.com.
Both current and former customers of the outdoor-clothing company Patagonia, for example, are more likely to consider themselves quite knowledgeable when compared to other shoppers, yet less equipped with social skills than the Lord & Taylor crowd. People who shop at Hot Topic, which caters to a younger, more alternative demographic, see themselves as highly imaginative, while patrons of Jos. A. Bank, which sells men's suits and business casual attire, see themselves as leaders.
Overall, these distinct personality types reveal the power of marketing, if done right.
One report anticipates that the retail industry alone will spend $15.09 billion on digital ads in 2016, followed by $16.95 billion in 2017 — a 12% increase. While it's important to know the best location to place an ad, knowing the personality of your intended audience is just as crucial....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
There are potential strategic marketing advantages within the personalities of retail brands.
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Astonishing level of identity fraud cost US consumers $16 billion in 2016 and inpacted 6.15% of Americans directly.