How DTC Brands Are Adapting to Covid-19
When Covid shut down the world, it wasn’t just traditional retailers that were hit. DTC brands were, too. Shifts in consumer shopping habits during the pandemic forced DTC brands to alter the ways they think and they still came up on top. As the world continues to navigate our new normal, we hope that others can learn from the strategies DTCs are implementing.
Street Fight’s December Theme: Leaving 2020
What will the “next normal” look like in the post-Covid era of local commerce? Will things go back to the old normal or be a hybrid reality that cherry-picks components and new perspectives from the past nine months? Will e-commerce dip back down to pre-Covid levels or keep surging?
We’ll be answering these questions and others throughout the month, along with 2021 predictions (’tis the season) for our theme, Leaving 2020.
Locating Holiday Success for Small Businesses
Because of the enormous spike in online transactions, there are more ways for customers to shop than ever before, creating new opportunities for small businesses to connect with core segments and personalize messaging with data-based insights grounded in historical trends and real-time behaviors. The ability to target individuals based on where they have previously been is tremendously valuable as consumer behavior has been required to adjust to ever-changing guidelines at the state/city and local level.
How to Beat Amazon and Walmart at E-Commerce amid Covid-19
Make personalization a priority to stand out from e-commerce giants like Amazon. Offer true advice and perhaps extended warranties or return policies as a way to build trust. Value ads like tech support personally have gone a long way for our brand. Make sure you are encouraging and incentivizing customers to take the next step with your company.
Have Generational Shopping Habits Changed for Good?
During the pandemic, we took a fresh look into generational shopping habits, surveying 2,000 UK and 2,000 US consumers to find out if and how Covid-19 and the measures taken to fight it had permanently altered shopping behavior. These findings reveal that shopping behaviors are converging across generations.
The Brandify Consumer Holiday Survey: Shopping Habits Likely to Shift Dramatically
More purchases will be made online, and when consumers do venture out to stores, they expect thorough, stringent safety practices as well as tools that help to make shopping as efficient as possible. Popular shopping events like Black Friday are likely to capture far less attention from consumers this year.
But on a positive note, consumers generally feel confident that their holiday budgets will be consistent with prior years and that the amount of time allocated for holiday shopping won’t change significantly.
How To Grow Your E-Commerce Sales Outside of Amazon
I do not mean to suggest that you should stop using Amazon as a means to make a sale – just that investing in a marketplace that you personally have more control over and leveraging an integrated strategy (that will also include your Amazon pages) can prove to be the more lucrative option.
Here’s what you need to do to grow sales on your own website.
7 Shoppable Video Platforms
How do you engage customers when in-store shopping is in many places all but obsolete? One solution that brand retailers around the country have been digging into this year is shoppable video. Using recorded and live video streams, brands have been able to capitalize on the shift toward mobile video and give customers direct links to buy their products online.
Here are seven examples of shoppable video platforms brands are using right now.
How Small Businesses Can Conquer E-Commerce for the Holidays
As the pandemic continues, consumers are shifting their expectations of brands as well. They don’t just want coupons in their email anymore, they expect an intuitive browsing and checkout process, accurate inventory and out-of-stock notifications, curbside delivery, and fast shipping.
E-commerce is already a must-have, and small businesses who understand this and take steps to offer their customers a way to buy online will create a memorable experience, more long-term loyalty, and ultimately more sales this holiday season.
How Marketers Should Prepare for an Abnormal Holiday Season
Marketers overuse the word “unique,” but the adjective actually applies to this year’s holiday season. Consumer-facing brands and retailers have not faced such an adverse economic environment for more than a decade, and they have never grappled with a Q4 in which driving customers to their stores came with daily, life-or-death stakes.
I spoke to Michele Marzan, chief strategy officer at MainAd, about these holidays’ unprecedented challenges and unexpected opportunities.
Holiday Sales Are Starting Earlier Than Ever. Here’s Why
“Retailers are responding to social distancing guidelines [this] year and preparing for potential decreases in spending by kicking off promotions earlier than we’ve ever seen,” says Dosh CEO Ryan Wuerch.
Wuerch says Covid-19 safety protocols require a more elongated approach to holiday marketing. Kohl’s, L Brands, and Macy’s have all referenced pulling forward holiday promotions, and Amazon’s Prime Day later this month seems perfectly timed to pull in early holiday shoppers.
How E-Commerce Sites Can Remain Competitive in a Rapidly Accelerating Digital Age
Customer experience isn’t anything new, but new ideas can be applied here, especially in the digital space. The question now revolves around how to create the same welcoming environment you’d create in a physical store online. It can be as simple as choosing colors for your website to elicit certain moods or using certain tech features like a chatbot to welcome customers as they “enter” your store. And it’s about making sure that customers can find your store — and this is where our affiliates become a key part of our strategy.
Ditch the Department Store: How DTC Brands Take Back Control
We are anticipating monumental online sales volume for brands with the approaching holiday season. To capitalize on this transition to online shopping, DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands must take back control of their sales channels. DTC brands can’t control whether big-box retailers open their storefronts or the number of consumers they allow inside. They also can’t manage the customer experience with the brand, especially given the many variables Covid-19 has thrown at brick-and-mortar retail.
The one thing brands can control is their online sales channel.
Earnings Season Teases Retail’s Next Normal
Earnings results that rolled out from retail giants over the past week further demonstrate what our next normal will look like. Specifically, Walmart and Target both hit record numbers. This is partly a function of Covid-era circumstances, but it is also due to each retailer’s active e-commerce momentum.
The earnings validate consumer acclimation to digitally infused local shopping. What’s more, other retailers and down-market businesses will look to replicate this success. This can all therefore be viewed as a leading indicator for retail’s next normal.
How Brands Meet Evolving Customer Expectations with Creative Automation
What customers want from brands is transparency, product information, and available services. Tell audiences about new curbside pickup or what you’re doing to make deliveries safer. Think of how you are removing friction and easing customers’ worry and then speak about it, because not only are they listening, but they’re also paying attention to those who haven’t gotten it right.
Aside from finding the right story angle for customers, many marketing and in-house creative teams are struggling to produce enough new assets and push them quickly out the door, especially as they adjust to remote work. Here are some of the most common challenges brand-side creative teams face during these times and how creative automation can help overcome them.
How to Start Selling on Amazon in 4 Steps: Complete Guide for Beginners
As the coronavirus pandemic keeps shoppers away from brick-and-mortar stores, those same customers are looking for shopping alternatives online. That, combined with the general increase in e-commerce popularity, makes this an opportune time to expand your online retail presence — including opening up shop on the Moby Dick of all e-commerce marketplaces, Amazon.
How the E-Commerce Wave Is Helping SMBs Increase Revenue
For many of the small businesses that have stayed afloat so far, e-commerce has become the new focus. A quarter of brick-and-mortar retail businesses surveyed in June said they’ve already added an e-commerce channel to their operations this year. Retail SMBs either want a piece of the growing pie that is e-commerce sales in 2020, or they’ve realized they won’t survive without an online sales component.
Whatever the motivation, the uptick in e-commerce sales has set the stage for SMBs to start boosting their revenue. And to complement the current market conditions, the rise of no-code tools is making online retail success more accessible than ever to SMBs. These solutions are proving to be the surfboard that helps small businesses successfully ride that e-commerce wave.
Voice Growth Will Further Amazon and Google’s E-Commerce Dominance
For most people, e-commerce starts with a Google or Amazon search on our computer or phone. We read reviews, compare prices, and analyze how something will look or fit in our lives. We don’t know where we will end up, but we browse options from our favorite retailers until we find exactly what we are looking for.
What happens when we stop using visual cues and start searching with our voice? And what happens when the results that our voice triggers are controlled by the device interpreting those questions or commands?