News and Analysis

6 Fulfillment Services for Personalizing E-Commerce Orders

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Packages full of bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts just aren’t cutting it anymore. Instead, more retailers are using e-commerce fulfillment services to create branded experiences, replete with everything from personalized tissue paper to custom selected product samples. Whether the purchase takes place online or in person, industry players are realizing that presentation is a critical component of the complete brand experience.

Digital Privacy

2022 Predictions: Immersive Tech Edition

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Here are three predictions for what could happen at the intersection of immersive tech and local commerce. And because I often disparage broad predictions that don’t have any teeth, we’ve included action-specific or figure-based statements in each prediction (highlighted in bold).

SOCi Study Finds 62% of Google Reviews Are Written by Local Guides

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Local Guides write most of the reviews on Google today — about 62% of all reviews, in fact. In the restaurant category, the dominance of Local Guides is even greater, with Local Guides writing about 69% of all reviews.

Commentary

Low-Hanging Technical SEO Fruit for Local Ranking

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Local SEO is powerful. If you run an ice cream shop out of Wichita, Kansas, then you’d probably want to show up on Google when a person there searches for ice cream. Search engines have become crucial for existing and potential customers to connect with businesses. 

Some business owners unintentionally set up obstacles to appearing on local search by improper site structure. Here are some low-hanging fruits to help your business appear for local searches.

Phone-as-a-Service?

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It’s becoming clear that we’re headed toward a new vision for our devices: the Phone as a Service (PaaS). Yes, sounds crazy, but look at the parallels between your phone and how/why other “X”s have become services:

X-as-a-service (XaaS) is delivery of X directly via the internet, eliminating the need to use and manage multiple and independent solutions on locally hosted devices, right? So, PaaS is the delivery of personalized media via the phone, eliminating the need to use and manage multiple and independent, locally hosted apps. We’re already seeing that happen.

Consulting Firms and Agencies Are the Perfect Complement for Data-as-a-Service

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External data is incredibly hard to use and make sense of. After all, it is just data. It is usually delivered via a big CSV dump or API call.  Most data companies just hand off the data to their customers and say “good luck.” In fact, a decent amount of purchased data just sits on the shelf and is never used.  

This is where the forward-thinking consulting firms and agencies come in. They have a massive opportunity to help organizations make use of external data.  

Latest Posts

Street Fight Daily: Snap Doubles Down on Location, A Grocery Mega-Merger?

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Location May Be the X Factor for Snap’s Appeal to Advertisers… As Amazon Applies Pressure, Target and Kroger Mull a Merger… Where and When AI Can Make a Difference in Marketing…

Street Fight Daily: Zuckerberg Breaks His Silence, Voice Revolution Not Here Yet

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Zuckerberg Breaks His Silence on the Controversy Surrounding Data Security… Survey Finds Few Consumers Using Voice-Assisted Devices to Browse, Make Purchases… Amazon Customer Shopping Habits Divided by Age, With Some Surprises…

Survey Finds Few Consumers Using Voice-Assisted Devices to Browse, Make Purchases

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In surveying more than 4,000 global consumers, Episerver found that although nearly 40% own voice-assisted devices, 60% of those consumers never browse on them, and 66% never make purchases on them.

Will the ‘Sustained Outrage’ of One W. Virginia Newspaper Survive Auction Block’s Hammer?

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The biggest heartbreaker is what happens to those families whose long-held newspapers were dedicated to publishing all the news without fear or favor. This is the story of one of those families, the Chiltons, and their paper, the Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette-Mail, which the Chiltons owned for 111 years.

Image Recognition and Smartphone Ubiquity Create Opportunities for CPGs in Emerging Markets

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The combination of advancements in image recognition technology and a growing global network of smartphone owners is shaping up to be a powerful duo for data intelligence abroad for CPG brands.

Report: Growth in Convenience Stores Presents Opportunity for CPG Marketers

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If there’s one thing that Charlie Lang hopes CPG brands get from Koupon’s report, it’s that the retail landscape is changing quickly, and the convenience store category presents tremendous upside for marketers.

Street Fight Daily: Leave In-Store Shoppers Alone, Google Courts Publishers as Facebook Flails

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… In-Store Shoppers Lean on Tech, Want to Be Left Alone in Stores… While Facebook Battles Fires, Google Rolls Out Pro-Publisher Initiatives… Media Rating Council Considers Bumping up Video Ad Standards…

Report: Google Shopping Ads Taking Over Ad Spend from Traditional Formats

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A new report from search intelligence company Adthena shows how consumers are interacting differently with new advertising formats and points to ad innovation as an essential brand investment.

Back to Basics: Why Every Business Should Invest in SEO

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Contributor Kelsey Taylor goes back to the basics, laying out a case regarding the fundamental usefulness of SEO that might be presented to local business owners or industry newcomers. 

Street Fight Daily: Duopoly Dominance Declines, Macy’s Rolls Out AR & Mobile Checkout

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A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Duopoly’s Share of the Ad Market Could Decline for the First Time… Demonstrating Where Retailers Are Going, Macy’s Rolls Out Mobile Checkout & AR Feature… The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Won’t Stop Advertisers from Spending on Facebook..