Each week, we publish a mishmash of ecommerce related, insight infused articles for your to smash through. Just as we collect business information across all a merchant’s channels in a single place, we’re doing the same for ecommerce related content from a variety of top tier content creators.
If you find the material filling your appetite for knowledge, feel free to share this post, as well as any article you see here. This week, it’s a variety. From insights on marketing to millennials, to personalization and dropshipping, there’s bound to be something of interest to your business.
Generalizing the millennial generation
Generally, it’s a bad idea to classify an entire generation on the basis of a couple characteristics. And the mysterious millennials – whose buying behaviors have been highly sought after by marketers – are proving to be more diverse than their typical label of “hyper-connected, socially active.” AdAge covers a survey of 14,000 millennials that reveals four broad marketing categories that such 14-35 year olds tend to fall into.
The drop on dropshipping
Dropshipping is a very appealing way of fulfillment for a businesses, but it can be a little more complicated than it’s made out to be. To better understand it, A Better Lemonade Stand provides a great layout of how the process is laid out along with ways to find and select products and suppliers. If you’re interested in trying out dropshipping, but have no clue where to begin, this is a fantastic starting point.
FBA all the way?
For sellers on Amazon, a question lurks: will my odds of snatching sales increase if I use Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA), the company’s fulfillment program that involves storing and shipping a merchant’s products? Long story short, the answer is yes according to an article by Practical Ecommerce, but there are some exceptions where a seller doesn’t need to use FBA for an advantage. Brand name, large, and low priced products don’t necessarily need the benefits of FBA.
Hurry, there aren’t many left
Two rules rule at psychologically persuading customers to hit the buy button: scarcity and urgency. Nobody likes to miss out on things, whether it’s a deal or a sale, and that aversion to risk can be used to your advantage. Hustle up and take a look at this article by Shopify on how you can use scarcity and urgency to tap into a consumer’s conscious for a boost in sales.
Omnipotent omnichannel customer service
If customer is king, then customer service needs to be treated as royalty. Take a look at this infographic by Zendesk with stats and guidance on building an omnichannel customer service that meets if not exceeds their expectation. Killer customer service can be factored into your pricing – customers are willing to pay just a bit more for that added perk, so it’s definitely worth some attention.
Save your precious subscribers
Personalization is largely considered essential for effective emails, but that means more than automatically inserting a customer’s first name into an email. A study by Flagship Research took a look at what could convince unsubscribers to stay on email lists, and 40% claimed they were committed to leaving, but some would refrain from doing so if emails could be received less frequently. It’s also requested that merchants offer preferences on what types of emails land in the consumer’s inbox.
