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  • 25 Home Based Business Ideas That Let You Work From Home - When you think of owning and operating a business, you might think about renting commercial real estate, commuting to an office, or managing employees. But there are plenty of ways you can pursue entrepreneurship with your headquarters at home.More
    Topics: based, start, selling, business, sell, online, let, ideas, homebased, products, youre, work, create, social.
  • 25 Top Amazon Marketplace Sellers Based on Number of Reviews - Reviewing the top sellers on Amazon's marketplace could provide ideas on products, descriptions, and customer service. Here is a list of top sellers on the Amazon marketplace based on the number of reviews.
    Topics: reviews, sellers, based, products, brands, including, number, health, marketplace, days, amazon, sells, lifetime, offers.
  • 4 Data-Driven Ways to Create More Targeted Ad Campaigns - Digital marketing is undergoing a revolution. Agencies have more granular insight than ever before into how their campaigns are performing. The days of selecting media channels based on broad demographic data and relying on generalized ad impression numbers are over.
    Topics: digital, create, ad, buying, way, targeted, data, track, datadriven, campaigns, based, right, media, user, ways.
  • 40% of new sellers Amazon Europe are based in China - Amazon Marketplace is growing fast worldwide. In one year’s time, there are one million new sellers on the Amazon marketplaces across the globe. Many new sellers are Chinese. In Europe for example, 40 percent of new sellers are based in China. Within less than a year, one million new sellers Continue reading
    Topics: million, china, amazon, marketplace, europe, european, uk, rest, marketplaces, based, sellers.
  • 6 Best Practices for B2B Site Search - Search-led conversion rates are usually three to six times higher
    Topics: b2b, best, based, site, experience, practices, specific, merchants, search, product, merchandising, products, results.
  • A Marketer's Quick Guide to Dynamic Ads - Remember when you'd go to the mall, see something you liked, but then leave without it? Then you’d leave the mall and think about it the whole drive home, wondering if you made the right decision until you forgot about it. That was until you saw someone else with the exact item we wanted. Ah, the good ol’ days.
    Topics: based, product, search, marketers, ads, user, users, ad, quick, relevant, website, dynamic, guide.
  • A YouTuber's Journey Of Launching Products Based on Community Feedback - Youtuber Joe Andrews, has been creating content on haircare and style for over a decade. As his community grew, Joe decided to create hair products based on the feedback that individuals shared with him and launched BluMaan. In this episode of Shopify Masters, we speak with Colin Chik, who’s the current CEO of BluMaan to hear how Joe and the team launched a company based on community feedback, how manufacturers can be your mentors, and why working with micro-influencers is a great investment.More
    Topics: youtubers, community, lot, really, journey, based, product, thats, actually, things, feedback, hair, products, group, launching.
  • Beyond the Basic: 3 Elements of an Advanced Automation Strategy -   Marketing automation in retail is nothing new.   From cart abandonment to welcome campaigns, customers are becoming more accustomed to receiving automated messages from retailers as they work through their online shopping journey.   But as the likes of Uber and Deliveroo continue to push the boundaries of offering tailored and personalised customer experiences, the finer details of those expectations are slowly but surely growing. Simple automation is no longer enough; if retailers don’t want to be left behind it is essential that they advance their execution to meet customer-first campaign standards. According to our own research, 46% of consumers would “consider not shopping again with a company if they keep sending them marketing emails with products they’re not interested in or aren’t tailored for them. The keyword here is tailored. Do the automated messages feel relevant? Are they reflective of a customer’s buying habits, or do they seem generic? In order to stand out you need to take your automation strategy a step further. You can take a deep-dive into the methodology of executing a great strategy in our latest download ‘An Advanced Guide to Marketing Automation in Retail’. In this blog we will address the three top-line elements required to cement your strategy.
    Topics: engage, customers, campaign, strategy, marketing, automation, email, basic, advanced, customer, content, elements, messages, based.
  • Digital commerce in the 5G world - 5G adoption will accelerate Digital Transformation for enterprises across the world. It will enable hyper-personalization of consumer services, evolution of B2B services and broad adoption of M2M/IoT. To capitalize on the opportunity enterprises will need robust commerce solution supporting real-time transactions, digital touchpoints and new business models.
    Topics: equipment, usecases, including, services, based, products, 5g, digital, connected, enable, commerce, world, enterprises.
  • Everything You Need to Know About Behavioral Segmentation [+ Examples] - Do you ever ask yourself why you act the way you do? Like why you venture out during a snowstorm to get an iced coffee? 
    Topics: marketers, customers, users, behavioral, based, brand, customer, segmentation, examples, behavior, need, journey, know.
  • Getting Started with Marketing Automation (for Ecommerce) - Marketing automation is the process of using software to manage repetitive marketing tasks. Examples include automated emails based on a user’s action and automated social media posts. Offering relevant cross-sells ...
    Topics: ecommerce, based, marketing, tools, getting, email, tool, data, users, automation, started, offer, integrate.
  • Getting Started with Promotions Based on Product Attributes - In today’s market, increasing customer satisfaction and retention cannot be done without an effective promotional strategy. Convert Cart reports that 80% of customers end up making a first-time purchase after receiving an offer. This means that you’re missing out on revenue if you do not have an effective promotional merchandising strategy. At Elastic Path, we understand the challenges merchandisers face to deliver innovative product experiences, including eCommerce promotions. As you manage the myriad of SKUs and merchandising strategies, creating promotions can be a time consuming endeavor if you don’t have flexible functionality. That is why we have released attribute-based promotions in Commerce Manager, our business user tooling. Create Attribute-Based Promotions with Ease What are product attributes? They are the features that describe a product such as color, size, texture, brand, etc. Attribute-based promotions is a way to allow users to navigate an eCommerce store through product filter and search. It gives merchandisers the ability to dynamically include or exclude groups of products in a promotion based on a specific attribute, without custom development or time-consuming manual work.  For example, you want to run a promotion for all red and green shirts for a Christmas sale. You’d create a promotion based on the red and green attribute. However, you don’t want to offer promotions on silk tops. You could simply exclude all products with the “silk’ attribute. This functionality is available for percent discount, fixed discount, amount-based discount, and line-item discount promotions.  No longer will you have to go through the tedious manual process of including and excluding items within a promotion. You can now simply add your preferred attributes in Commerce Manager, choose to include or exclude specific attributes based on your promotion strategy, and those items will be eliminated or included in the promotion.   This enhancement saves merchandising teams time and money while ensuring that customers see the product experience they expect. In other words, the right products at the right price. This new feature builds on recently released hierarchy-based promotions which gives merchandisers the ability to include or exclude categories or subcategories (hierarchies and nodes) in your promotions. Now, your merchandising team can combine attribute-based promotions and hierarchy-based promotions in one single promotion.  EP Product Experience Manager (PXM) Merchandise Every Unique Product Experience, Without Custom Dev Work Go to EP PXM Implement Attribute-Based Promotions for Any Use Case So, why does this matter for merchandising teams? In short, merchandisers can quickly and easily create unique promotion strategies. Let’s say you’re a clothing brand that would like to create a promotion within your women’s clothing catalog. It is an end of summer sales promotion, so you would like to put all shirts on sale except for long-sleeved knit shirts. As you create a new promotion in Commerce Manager, you can click “add exclude” in the promotion and type in the components so this product is excluded from site promotions and discounts.  All this can be done in a matter of minutes. Let’s take a look at this example in action: Attribute-based promotions are a great way to configure promotions for specific products quickly. At Elastic Path, we will continue to serve merchandisers with product innovations that drive revenue and conversion and help you create innovative product experiences with ease.
    Topics: promotions, create, exclude, merchandisers, manager, product, attributes, getting, merchandising, discount, based, started, promotion, attributebased.
  • Harness Customer Behavior to Boost Conversions - The actions of shoppers on-site and off indicates their preferences and needs. Merchants who act on that behavior can greatly improve sales. We explain.
    Topics: boost, customer, site, behavior, product, shoppers, marketing, harness, emails, based, customers, conversions, actions, recommendations.
  • How AI Powers Distribution, Logistics - Artificial intelligence is a list of instructions and rules that a computer needs to complete a task. Ecommerce examples include site search, product recommendations, and chatbots — all increasingly rely on AI. But the distribution and logistics industries use AI, too.
    Topics: logistics, fewer, food, tools, lower, distribution, ai, product, powers, costs, based, efficient.
  • How Ecommerce Will Empower Individuals In the Decade Ahead - Your daily life will be made easier by changes coming over the next 10 years.
    Topics: personalized, individuals, empower, ahead, youll, world, need, glasses, ar, parameters, ecommerce, based, purchases, decade.
  • How This Plant Based Ramen Brand Built A Community of Thousands Prior to Launching - Kevin Lee and Kevin Chanthasiriphan grew up enjoying the vast noodle offerings from their Taiwanese and Thai upbringing. Together they launched immi, a ramen brand that paid homage to their favorite foods while using high-quality ingredients that are nutritious and 100% plant based. In this episode of Shopify Masters, the two Kevins share how they built a community of thousands prior to launching, and how they overcame a 6-figure inventory setback.More
    Topics: kchan, immi, prior, know, thousands, thats, product, ramen, built, based, launching, community, plant, lot, actually, different, brand, going.
  • - Make sense of Shopify taxes with this simple tax guide for your drop shipping business.
    Topics: taxes, shipping, handle, sales, nexus, based, states, tax, york, required, shopify, drop, pay, state.
  • - Let’s start with the obvious: Google is the largest search network.  It saw 246 million U.S. unique visitors in December 2018 alone, and people conduct more than  3.5 billion Google searches each day. Over the years, Google has made changes to the way we search and get results. One of […]
    Topics: ads, keyword, keywords, display, crush, online, google, search, revenue, ad, based, user, goals, youre.
  • How to Master Website Personalization - In the summer, there's so many things I enjoy: The sun, the temperature, chilled drinks, BBC's Pride and Prejudice miniseries, but most of all … my summer subscription box.
    Topics: software, data, visitors, customer, company, website, customers, recommendations, personalization, based, master.
  • How to Pace Monthly Ad Spend - Choosing marketing channels is only the first step in digital advertising. Equally important is assigning a budget and then managing the spend based on performance. In this post, I'll provide a framework.
    Topics: ad, pace, budget, days, calculate, spent, cost, daily, month, spend, monthly, based.
  • How to Train Your ChatGPT — A Marketer’s Guide - If it’s your first time using ChatGPT, your answers may sound stilted. The program doesn’t know your voice and is trying to learn what you want. If you want to get the best results, you’ll need to invest time in training the algorithm.
    Topics: train, guide, create, chatgpt, tool, python, ideas, install, based, marketing, marketers, training.
  • How-To: Conditional Formatting Based on Another Cell in Google Sheets - Conditional formatting is a feature in Google Sheets in which a cell is formatted in a particular way when certain conditions are met. The formatting can include highlighting, bolding, italicizing – just about any visual changes to the cell.
    Topics: conditional, format, select, sheets, cell, google, formula, rule, howto, based, formatting, click, value.
  • Innovative Ideas to Automate Ecommerce Tasks - This post is the second in a series that focuses on innovation in ecommerce. My objective is to highlight improvements that can help merchants. The first post addressed advancements in drone delivery. In this installment, I'll review progress in ecommerce automation, to streamline routine tasks.
    Topics: products, tasks, customer, shopify, automate, based, ecommerce, innovative, product, automation, ideas, shoppers, customers.
  • Keto, Plant-Based or Gluten-Free? Supermarket Chain Introduces Shelf Label System to Make It Easier to Shop by Dietary Restrictions. - Raley's of Northern California has greatly expanded its system of icons that it says will take the guesswork out of food shopping.
    Topics: label, products, shelf, ingredients, based, supermarket, restrictions, glutenfree, shop, raleys, customers, system, labels, items, introduces, food, keto, plantbased.
  • - Now that ChatGPT has been tried by almost every person in the ecommerce business, machine learning is becoming more and more normalized. It’s also a lot more accessible to small and medium business owners. Want to understand what machine learning… Continue reading Machine Learning in Ecommerce: Benefits and Examples
    Topics: data, business, products, human, ecommerce, based, customer, machine, examples, benefits, behavior, learning.
  • Meet the 2019 Magento Masters: Makers - Makers actively engage with others, sharing ideas, insights, and constructive feedback
    Topics: magento, based, meet, community, selected, contributions, github, makers, masters, speaking, master.
  • Meet the 2019 Magento Masters: Mentors - Mentors help to educate and develop resources for the Magento Community
    Topics: masters, working, contributions, helping, magento, mentors, community, master, selected, based, meet.
  • Meet the 2019 Magento Masters: Qualified Alumni - Qualified Alumni continue to contribute year over year
    Topics: community, alumni, based, organizing, meet, contributions, master, masters, qualified, selected, magento.
  • Meet the 2020 Magento Masters: Makers - Makers actively engage with others, sharing ideas, insights, and constructive feedback. Read more.
    Topics: makers, masters, based, meet, community, github, master, maintainer, magento, contributions, selected.
  • Meet the 2020 Magento Masters: Mentors - Mentors help to educate and develop resources for the Magento Community. Read more.
    Topics: masters, mentors, contributing, community, magento, master, based, working, contributions, meet, selected.
  • New Search Console Updates Confirm Mobile-first Indexing - Recent changes to Google’s Search Console made it easier to identify whether a site was primarily indexed based on mobile or desktop content and identified which crawler (Googlebot Smartphone or Googlebot Desktop) was primary on a given report or chart.
    Topics: console, content, search, mobilefirst, confirm, site, version, desktop, based, google, updates, mobile, indexing, url.
  • - Founded in 2014 with the aim of creating luxury clothing and unisex accessories, Manière De Voir now wants to make high end clothing more accessible both via price point and its online stores. Guided by the three core brand principles ‘great design, premium quality, customer value’ the clothes retailer showcases its distinct style and the comfort of their items by maximising the use of multiple channels. Via social media especially, customers are encouraged to show off their wares and the brand continues to cultivate a strong following, regardless of gender.
    Topics: gender, manière, customers, needs, voir, data, preempt, personalisation, practice, experience, truly, customer, based, behavioural, brand, used.
  • - As a reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic consumer behavior is changing on a dime, in new and frankly unpredictable ways, advises AB Tasty.
    Topics: ab, personalisation, items, wishlist, consumers, tasty, based, product, normal, customer, consumer, principles.
  • Psykhe secures seed funding to match consumer personalities to fashion products - In an overcrowded market of online fashion brands, consumers are spoilt for choice on what site to visit. They are generally forced to visit each brand one by one, manually filtering down to what they like. Most of the experience is not that great, and past purchase history and cookies aren’t much to go on […]
    Topics: match, trait, ecommerce, personality, seed, users, techcrunch, funding, startup, based, fashion, products, platform, secures, personalities, consumer, psykhe, retailers.
  • Smart Targeting: The Better Way to Reach Audiences & Customers - Have you ever visited a website you frequent and found that the text interacts with you?
    Topics: website, example, customers, set, content, based, list, smart, way, audiences, experience, rule, reach, targeting, better.
  • - Wouldn’t it be great to be able to predict the future? Your business would be guaranteed to bring in the big bucks. While that’s not possible (yet – we’re watching you, AI), many businesses are using sales forecasting as a way to predict the ebbs and flows of their performance […]
    Topics: closed, methods, guide, rep, data, ultimate, months, month, number, forecasting, sales, based.
  • The World of Asset Based Lending - If you are not quite sure what asset based lending is in relation to other types of lending, you are definitely not alone. David Golob is CEO of Microcom Technologies, a high-volume wholesaler and Amazon seller, and an expert on asset based lending, and he’s here to give us the goods on this unique lending […]
    Topics: asset, lending, standard, bank, based, world, types, process, mistakes, consider, david.
  • UK’s Selina Finance raises $53M for its SMB loans platform based on home equity - When you need a loan, the cost and speed of getting it can be as critical to get right as the financing itself, a principle that might be even more relevant today in our shaky pandemic-hit economy than ever before. Today, a company that proposes to cut both the time and price for securing financing, […]
    Topics: value, platform, finance, smb, loan, based, process, capital, million, business, property, raises, techcrunch, loans, uks, equity, selina, today.
  • What Is Automated List Building Software and Why Your Marketing Team Needs It - List building is a strategy that allows marketers to target customers based on their needs, goals, or other personal criteria (e.g. purchase history, location, age, etc.). These lists can be applied to all marketing materials (as well as the work of sales and service reps) to help your team offer customers a personalized and delightful customer experience.
    Topics: software, lists, customers, automated, sms, based, needs, help, team, building, create, email, marketing, list.
  • - There’s a fine line that separates profitable marketing from a complete waste of time and money. The problem is that it can be tough to know where that line is and when you’re at risk of crossing it. This is especially true with traditional marketing efforts, which are often hard […]
    Topics: performance, publisher, brands, brand, marketing, does, look, work, media, based, affiliate, youre.
  • When Selling Online, Make Decisions Based on Data, Not Your Emotions - It's important to keep your emotions in check when making big decisions for your ecommerce store.
    Topics: emotions, based, facebook, decisions, online, store, sell, ad, ecommerce, products, selling, profit, youre, product, data, spend.
  • Why Modern Solutions Break Business Model Boundaries - An Analysis of Subscriptions - Information technology is a sea of techno babble, three letter acronyms (TLAs) and jargon, which is not helped by our human condition driving us to compartmentalise and classify everything neatly into clearly aligned boxes, which I have successfully extended with my own lexicon of buzz words over the years. The most common TLAs are focussed on defining transactional business relationships B2C, B2B, D2C...  and the list goes on. This basically works even in our rapidly changing world, although it does leave interpretation open to the individual. Let’s examine this Opening Statement:  Do we need to draw artificial lines between B2C / B2B / D2C / M2Q etc. to get to the right composed solution? Modern Composable Commerce solutions cross both functional and business model boundaries aiming to deliver the most personalised, targeted, enriched and immersive experience for all purchasers. Subscriptions based solutions are a great example of this in action, offering predictable revenues for the selling organisation, whilst increasing options for buyers that drives affordability and positively impacts loyalty. COVID has accelerated in-device and online orders, which subscription offerings maximise, due to our growing consumption-based needs during lock down, which conversely calls for increased choice, on-demand delivery, and flexibility in financial options. Robbie Baxter’s book, The Membership Economy, demonstrates how for agile companies focused on ongoing buyer relationships and providing access instead of just ownership, leveraging subscriptions is significantly impacting recurring revenues. This is further highlighted by Gartner stating the growing importance of subscriptions in our daily lives and predicts that by 2023 - 75% of online offers will be subscription based. The growth of subscriptions is impacting our lives as consumers and the industry generally: CFO Research have outlined that “53% of senior finance executives say at least 40% of organisations’ revenue is recurring”   Deliotte say over 41% of households today subscribe to one or more music streaming service and 69% subscribe to video streaming   PYMNTS.com say “The luxury car subscription market is set to grow by 71% by 2022”   Invesp highlight Average conversion rate by service type is:       • 65% Replenishment       • 52% Curation       • 51% Access Let’s dive deeper into subscriptions, to examine why they operate across boundaries, and are critical to modern trading strategies. Firstly, we generally subscribe to three types of commodities: Physical Goods; Digital Goods and Services, in isolation or in concert. Each commodity shares common characteristics that define them as a subscription: Duration   Renewal processes   Cancelation policies   Payment terms   Price These attributes are critical to both buyers or sellers and determine clear recurring order cycles which help sellers react accurately to supply and demand and buyers quickly assess a cost / benefit analysis. All consumers see this from a value-based purchase perspective, but buyer personas consumption need vary, for example: A procurer at a large hospital will assess the purchase against operational running costs and usages trends.   A manufacturer would define production volumes and profit margins based on the materials required from suppliers in subscription cycles. Arguably the buyer examples open the question “Are these all subscriptions?” and what is the difference between a recurring order vs. manufacturing supply chain vs. subscription. This further dives into the alignment of business and technology needs questions like “Is recurring billing a subscription? Or Is order replenishment a subscription?” I want to recognise that there are fine lines to draw here which can have different interpretations. These differences in language and interpretation provide the 1st supporting point to the opening statement, that we are building artificial boundaries, which we’ll review at the end. Some great customer examples: Blink cat food is a great example of Physical Goods based subscriptions. Providing cat owners the ability to build their own cat food box subscription to meet their specific cats’ needs while giving them peace of mind that they’ll never be caught off guard by an empty cupboard. Starting with a simple trial and graduating to a fully configurable monthly box with personalised discounts all within a few simple clicks while supporting all the base characteristics of great a subscription. Blink was implemented by Pixie Labs, a UK based product development studio and partner of Elastic Path, leveraging Elastic Path Commerce Cloud as the headless commerce solution of choice. Pixie Labs recently launched their new Pre-Composed SolutionTM for Subscriptions which will offer clients selling physical goods a rapidly configurable solution founded on the concepts of Blink, which reduces speed to market and total cost of ownership with a highly customizable subscription management solution which can flex with your needs to ensure complete control over customer experience. CTA reMarkable is a great example of Digital Goods based subscriptions. The recently launched reMarkable Connect subscription services, provide reMarkable customers with the ability to leverage Dropbox or Google Drive integrations to access PDFs which can be uploaded to the reMarkable for reading and dynamic annotation, then sharing via email, to the cloud storage or present live. The reMarkable internal IT team have been leveraging Elastic Path Commerce Cloud for over 5 years and have extended our headless platform with Stripe our premier partner, leveraged by clients for recurring billing-based subscription solutions. Services based subscriptions around various traders is combined the other subscription based or purchasable items. Generally in complex and highly configurable solution offerings to clients & businesses, installation services, maintenance contracts, phone tariffs like T-Mobile and are combined with hardware & software. Today many service based subscriptions are custom built as every service offering is unique to support the the complete services like incident & maintenance services. The baseline attributes required to support service offerings changes the baseline across different business models, requiring a variety of consumption, utilization or distribution approaches, and require allocation of expert services. They help to start building from the baseline attributes, as different business models as the examples above demonstrate, require varying consumption or distribution approaches, and require allocation of expert services. These radically change how the seller markets and release commodities to maximise revenue from the target subscribers, example of addition attributes: These attributes only scratch the surface of possibilities and shouts “With great power comes great responsibility.” I say this as the increasing commercial benefits of subscriptions and our access driven generation of buyers (like my three sons {18, 19, 25}) are: demanding social immersion, experiential engagement, hyper personalisation, low entry costs and simplicity of acquisition. These factors are moving us to what I would call “multi-dimensional subscription configurations” which will combine all purchases & subscriptions into a super subscription set or consumption-based ordering. This also carries the risk of over complicating initial purchasing experiences, and allowing technicians to confuse and scare buyers if not designed with the buyer in mind, and begs the question: Does the most complex model cover all requirements? Well, experience teaches me that the most complete and flexible model “NOT complex” will cover North of 85% of use cases, but never all, and opens a world of potential. This also highlights why there is a growing ecosystem of specialised Subscription software vendor working with this in mind. This serves as the 3rd supporting point to the opening statement. Beyond these basic subscription elements, most running solutions in the wild leverage other touch points which increasingly impacting why subscriptions are becoming more influential, including: Trials, Teasers, Testers, Tasters: Being able to have an initial small order sent home or access to a game you want to test out for a limited usage. As part of the composable subscription solution, inventory and fulfilment could be restricted or the download series will have a timeout set in the entitlement system. The ability to try before you buy is nothing new and is something generally which increases confidence and longevity.   Social & Community: As COVID has proven, we will adapt and overcome and the human desire to interact, communicate, collaborate, and share only burns even brighter online than ever. Coupling this to the fact that many traditional subscriptions offered as part of membership to clubs (crafting, reading, sports .. ). Social and immersive experiences within the eCommerce landscape are at the heart of all great compositions, while leveraging natural and authentic interactions which supports subscribers and allows them to socialise with each other organically growing the future stickiness of the commodity and providing value feedback to the seller.   Loyalty: When we subscribe, especially to a service, the seller wants to build our loyalty to protect their revenue stream. Microsoft and Amazon are great examples as they release additional value-added services and either provide them for free or bundle them for a limited time, and additionally provide services points that can be redeemed as rewards for play and usage.   Promotions: There isn’t a a trading journey or solution operating today that isn’t impacted by some form of promotion and marketing activity. Subscriptions models expand the needs further: i.     First 3 months free and remaining 9 months at 20% off; ii.    Subscribe to this get access to this for 4 weeks free; Additionally handling the promotions at time of renewal and during reverse logistics can be a little unique. Each of these composable components are defined, selected and controlled by the needs and requirements of the business, so transcend baseline concepts of a business model and remove boundaries to trading with all buyer personas. The growing ecosystem of critical touch points is the 4th supporting point to the opening statements that subscription trading models highlight. So let’s wrap up: “Do we need to draw artificial lines between B2C / B2B / D2C / M2Q etc. to get to the right composed solution?” I suggest we should not, let’s look at the supporting point: The overlap in functional and terms, exemplified by subscriptions, shows a wider challenge we face in communicating clearly how to address business needs and impact revenue growth, and trying to bundle everything into a B2B or B2C bucket kills our opportunity to innovate.   Businesses who provide subscriptions want to generate a predictable revenue stream for all commodities they offer. This is designed with a target persona in mind, however the seller wants to open the ability for others to purchase and grow their customer base, whether consumer, reseller, distributor, etc.   The need for open and flexible subscription solutions supports all types of commodities and purchasing terms has not direct correlation to the business model, but the type of commodity and how it will be consumed by the end buyer. Especially with access-based consumption if I’m a business buyer or consumer has little importance.   The expanding Composable Commerce ecosystem demands agility, flexibility, and choice. Subscription models are a collision point requiring interaction across the broader solution landscape while increasing cohesion with the end subscriber to bring value. This is like the 3rd point but is more architectural in nature. When considering the convenience and reduced cost for the buyer, coupled with predictable revenue and increased control over the supply chain, highlights the growing importance of subscriptions in our modern trading world and in my view an important step in the dissolution of boundaries across business models.
    Topics: business, services, break, service, boundaries, based, subscriptions, analysis, subscription, solution, model, great, buyer, revenue, modern, solutions.
  • Wicked Quick: Facebook chatbot remarketing tips with Larry Kim - For this week’s Wicked Quick, we caught up with Larry Kim, founder of Wordstream and Facebook Messenger marketing platform MobileMonkey on how to optimize chatbots for ecommerce. Larry will be speaking on The Top 7 Chatbot Marketing Hacks of All Time at Unbounce’s Call to Action Conference this month.
    Topics: messenger, quick, strategy, kim, messaging, users, based, remarketing, unsubscribe, tips, chatbots, way, facebook, chatbot, larry, wicked.
  • eCommerce Couponing Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them - Everybody loves coupons – but too many coupons and discounts devalue your brand. When a store overuses coupons, it’s often a sign of an inferior product or a marketing person who’s out of ideas. It can also send the message that you don’t believe in your products, and they’re not worth what you’re charging. The best […]
    Topics: couponing, pitfalls, coupons, customers, reward, avoid, ecommerce, moment, discount, specific, cart, coupon, based, offer.
  • eCommerce Platform TCO Comparison: BigCommerce, Magento, Commercetools & Elastic Path -   This post was originally published on June 30, 2019 and has been updated for accuracy and extended context surrounding the topic. When it’s time to choose an eCommerce platform, everyone wants to know which solution will be the best one for their business. But more often than not, the next question is “How much does it cost?” Ideally, we all want the best bang for our buck, but it’s easy to get distracted by the displayed pricing on a website, or the lack thereof. Sometimes we end up jumping for a cheaper priced solution and shying away from those vendors that don’t display their pricing on the website, because we think it’ll be too costly. Only to find out, your “cheaper” solution is more expensive, because you were unaware of all of the additional cost you would incur.   At Elastic Path, we happen to be one of the vendors without upfront pricing because our pricing is truly customized to a business’ needs. However, to help you understand how your total cost of ownership would compare to other vendors on the market, we will outline all the factors that you should be taking into consideration when evaluating your eCommerce solution. We’ll also make reference to some of the the top eCommerce vendors on the market such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Big Commerce, Magento and Commercetools to give you a better idea of where Elastic Path is positioned in comparison.    To get a true understanding of your total cost of ownership you will need to take into account both your first year costs as well as your future costs. These costs include but aren’t limited to:  Base software fee / Licensing fee Hosting cost Implementation cost Third party integrations cost Cost of changes   In this article, we will first dissect each category of cost you should be considering followed by a breakdown of the total cost you can expect over a typical contract period for the aforementioned vendors.     Base Software Fee/ Licensing Fee The base software fee or licensing fee is what we like to refer to as the “upfront” pricing. These fees tend to reflect either monthly or yearly licensing fees, which can be: Tier based, continuous revenue based or percent of sales based.    Tier-based means that there is a predefined price that your company will get locked into based on your current and expected revenue. Elastic Path and Commercetools are examples of vendors that do tier pricing by revenue. The Elastic Path model is based on your transaction volume, which can be structured by Gross Merchandise Volume(GMV) or by the number of orders processed(used more regularly for B2B companies).  For example our pricing starts at $50,000 for companies who are just getting started and have revenue under $10 Million. Our pricing strategy allows you to plan your estimated growth over the next three years, lock in pricing, and allow you to plan for your spend in the future. This promises guaranteed pricing and clarity year over year so you can make plans for the future.   By continuous revenue, we mean the strategy by which vendors price their customers based on the revenue tier that they’re in, but automatically bump them up to the next pricing tier as soon as they go over. We’ve seen vendors such as BigCommerce and Magento use this type of strategy. For Magento customers with revenue between $5-$10 Million, you can expect a licensing fee of about $50K for Magento Enterprise Edition and $80K for Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition.    By percent of sales based pricing, we mean the strategy by which vendors take a small percentage of your Gross Merchandise Volume. Salesforce Commerce is an example of a vendor that uses this type of model. For example, Salesforce Commerce Cloud takes 1-2% of your GMV annually. So at $10 Million in revenue, you can expect to pay around $100K to $200K. This type of model can be quite attractive because there’s no immediate upfront cost and it scales based on how your business performs. However, there is also an additional annual fee of $150K that is mandatory to begin. This is a great example of hidden costs that you may not be aware of upfront.    Implementation Cost Implementation costs are usually the most feared by businesses as it is perceived as the highest costs they will incur. These will usually be dependent on the cost of your developer and the time it takes to build the frontend and backend of your system. However, if you’re in the market for an out-of-the-box solution, the majority of your cost will be dependent on the changes and customizations you will need to alter your pre-built solution. For brands with a unique brand vision and requirements, there will most likely always be customizations needed, and therefore, we recommend working with an agency or systems integrator. Here are a few of the tasks you can expect an agency to complete, that will determine your implementation costs:  Frontend development  Backend development  UI/UX design  Software systems integrations Omnichannel design    Hosting Cost Hosting costs are typically overlooked by teams when planning their yearly budget, but happens to be one of the most important costs you want to consider. Not because it’s overly expensive, but because the hosting provider you choose will determine the performance of your website. Some platforms offer hosting on premise or in the cloud within their platform, while others allow you to choose an outside hosting vendor to be integrated with their solution.  Elastic Path allows you to choose from a variety of hosting vendors that will best fit your business such as Netflify and Amazon AWS. Your hosting cost is commonly determined by the bandwidth and the seats you require. For example, for a mid-sized company with $10 Million in revenue, you can expect to pay around $1000/month for Netlify.  Platforms like Magento also utilize outside vendors such as Nexcess to provide dedicated hosting. For one dedicated server it says you could pay between $700 and  $800/month. However, due to Magento’s large code base, many customers have informed us that they have had to opt in for higher end hosting options in order to not compromise on speed. On average they have spent around $2000/ month on hosting. Other out-of-the-box platforms such as Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Big Commerce will typically have hosting included in their licensing cost.   Third Party Cost Third party costs are a little bit more intricate. When we think about this cost, we think about either plugins that are supplied by your platform as an application, or api integrations from third party vendors. The purpose of these integrations are to essentially extend your existing platform with other functionality. Some of the core third-party integrations include: content infrastructure, search engines, sales tax management, product information management, and shipping solutions. These costs will differ from vendor to vendor depending on if you leverage the third party as a plugin to your out-of-the-box solution, or buy a specific vendor solution for your Composable Commerce solution.   Cost of Changes One of the most important costs that are often neglected or forgotten are the costs associated with making changes to your solution. Most times we tend to plan and make decisions for “now,” but when the time comes and you are faced with costly changes that you weren’t prepared for, it can be very detrimental to your fiscal budget planning. In addition, if you’re the type of brand that wants to keep up with the ever changing times, updates and changes are inevitable and therefore it is imperative you understand what those costs will look like in the future.    Typical changes you will need to prepare for include:  Upgrades to your commerce software Maintenance of your system Upgrades or changes to your third party technology partners Changes in the backend functionality to fit your business requirements Addition of new user experiences to keep up with customer expectations These changes can become costly very quickly with traditional legacy platforms, as their rigid structure makes changes more difficult, thus driving up developer costs. Composable Commerce solutions on the other hand are more flexible by nature and therefore will end up lowering your overall total cost of changes in the future. As each business’ requirements will be different, we will not be able to provide an estimate of these costs across each vendor. However, from feedback from past customers, on average, Composable Commerce solutions like Elastic Path and Commercetools, lower cost of changes by 40% when compared to rigid legacy platforms like Salesforce Commerce Cloud and Magento.    Now that we've dissected the various cost categories, we have provided an overview of the total costs you can expect either on a monthly or annual basis for a few of the top legacy and Composable Commerce solutions on the market.      BigCommerce BigCommerce positions itself as an eCommerce platform for high volume brands, with  two main payment plans: Essentials Plan and Enterprise Plan.    BigCommerce Essentials  Plan BigCommerce Standard BigCommerce  Plus BigCommerce  Pro Yearly Sales $50,000 $150,000 $400,000 Monthly Pricing $29.95 $79.95 $299.95 The pricing represents their upfront license fee. At these rates, you get your average out-of-the-box store with zero customization, providing you with all the features you need to get a basic store up-and-running. Two additional costs you may not be considering when choosing BigCommerce: They automatically bump you to the next tier if your actual sales exceed the threshold. You spend an additional $150 per $200k sales increase if you go  higher than the BigCommerce Pro Sales Threshold’ e.g. 800k+ Sales = $700+/month.  In addition to these hidden fees, there are also costs associated with plug-in applications for advanced services, as well as a list of 80 themes that range from $145 - $235.   BigCommerce Enterprise BigCommerce Enterprise offers all the core features, along with the addition of some premium features including hosting, security, and support. Their pricing widely varies based on the average order value and the average number of orders processed per month. Based on conversations from some of their sales representatives, the pricing plan ranges anywhere between $400 and $20,000 monthly.  For some additional context, their TCO Calculator shows that based on a $250,000 yearly revenue you will incur:    Infrastructure cost →  $38000+ Site launch cost →  Design, QA Build: $30,000+  Integrations: $3000  Managed support costs→ $5000   Shopify  Shopify is the market leader for SMB customers looking for an out of the box eCommerce website. Shopify customers give up flexibility, meaning that they'll need to be comfortable running their eCommerce website according to Shopify's templates and structures - but for many companies, that is fine because they're just looking for a standard website. Shopify has 5 primary offerings: Lite starts at $9/month Basic starts at $29/month Standard starts at $79/month Advanced starts at $299/month Shopify+ starts at $2,000/month There are also gateway fees, which range from 2.15-3% + $.30 per transaction.    Magento  Magento Community Edition positions themselves as an Open Source eCommerce platform that provides businesses with a flexible, digital commerce solution to successfully sell online. We’ve already written a more detailed post on our blog  that digs into Magento’s TCO. To give you a brief overview of their pricing structure, we’ll focus on Magento’s two main plans: Magento Open Source and Magento Enterprise.   Magento Open Source Magento’s “FREE” Open Source plan proves to be a more customizable option when compared to BigCommerce. Be careful - the only thing free about this option is their licensing fee/download. There are few costs hidden in the background:  Implementation → $30,000 - $100,000+ Hosting → $1000+ Themes → $29-499 Maintenance and Support → $30,000+ Extensions → $0 - $10,000 Third Party Integrations → $6,000 I know what you’re thinking, those added up pretty quickly! To be upfront, the price for a more customized store than BigCommerce is going to start somewhere between $30,000 and $100,000 upwards.     Discover our eCommerce Platform Buyer's Guide See The 7 Considerations when Choosing the best eCommerce Platform in our comprehensive buyer's guide. There is no "best" and therefore, when choosing an eCommerce solution, you should focus on matching your company's specific requirements to each vendor's offering. Go to Buyer's Guide   Magento Enterprise  Magento Enterprise is the premium paid version of Magento, designed for those stores that need more than the community edition offers, based on the size of their company, and the level of customization they’re looking for. However, with this option, you have to empty your pockets for a much higher licensing fee. Based on your revenue, Magento displays their upfront price between  $22,000/year and $125,000/year. Of course this also includes access to more advanced features such as security, mobile commerce, and free professional customer support. However, in addition to including all the core features that the open source version consists of, the same features tend to come at a higher price for this plan. Some of these higher feature costs include:  Implementation → $60,000+ Hosting → $7000+ Themes → $29-499 Magento Certified Gold Partner - $10,000 Extensions → $0 - $10,000 Third Party Integrations → $6,000+   Overall, this comes with more customization, but still lacks complete control over your content. The price for this package starts between $100,000 and $250,000  Overall, Magento Enterprise comes with more customization, but still lacks complete control over your content. The price for this package starts between $100,000 and $250,000 upwards! These are high costs and to make it even worse, Magento’s performance has not been up to standard either. We have evaluated over 1,000 websites running on a range of eCommerce platforms and Magento came close bottom for website performance as a whole. You may want to consider the costs associated with their slow performing stores when considering your total cost of ownership as well. Commercetools Commercetools is a Headless Commerce Platform. To be completely frank, there are no signs of Commercetools’ pricing anywhere! They seem to be a bit secretive, but we have done our best to provide you with the most accurate information based on feedback from our customers, who shared what Commercetools has proposed to them. These costs include:  Implementation →  $300,000 - $1 Million License Fees →  $200,000/year  - $500,000/year Specialized resources→ $150,000/year   Elastic Path  Elastic Path offers Composable Commerce-as-a-Service, an API-First headless commerce microservices solution. Composable Commerce is a modern approach to eCommerce that is built on the concept of composability, where core commerce functionality and partner integrations can be selected and assembled in various combinations to satisfy specific business requirements, at the speed digitally driven brands need to succeed. Composable Commerce were built on three main tenets: Modular architecture  Open Ecosystem  Business Centric Solutions  And it’s with these tenets that Elastic Path has been able to reduce business’ overall total cost of ownership by 25%. As mentioned before, Elastic Path provides a tier based pricing based on Gross Merchandise Revenue. Overall based on a 10 Million revenue, pricing would be around $50K for Elastic Path.  Elastic Path also offers Composable Commerce Experience Assurance that de-risks the management of multi-vendor solutions by providing an expert 24x7 global support team for all issues. This cost of the feature will be 25% of your annual contract value and capped at $25,000 USD/ year. Additional costs will include: implementation costs, hosting costs and third party costs which will lie in the same range of costs for Magento. Where you will end up seeing the greatest cost savings are in the phases of customizations and changes. To get a better understanding of how cost of changes will compare across traditional legacy platforms and Composable Commerce solutions visit our Total Cost of Ownership Guide. If you have more specific questions regarding Elastic Path costs, please refer to the pricing page here.  Summary  Understanding your total cost of ownership is not straight forward and often times we prioritize certain categories of costs and lose overall sight on our expected total cost in the future. As each vendor has different offerings, it will never be easy to compare them across the board. However, if you follow the guide of assessing each category of cost, this will give you and your team a good understanding to make an informed decision. If you have any questions, we are always happy to help - Just reach out to us.        Stay on top of industry trends with the latest blogs and articles from our eCommerce experts.   i { -webkit-transition: color .25s ease-in-out; -moz-transition: color .25s ease-in-out; -o-transition: color .25s ease-in-out; transition: color .25s ease-in-out; color: rgba(68, 68, 68, 1.0) !important; } .subscribe--bar.module_15628520315781867 .btn:hover > i { color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 1.0) !important; } ]]>
    Topics: commercetools, ecommerce, pricing, platform, based, magento, path, costs, solution, tco, comparison, cost, bigcommerce, vendors, commerce, revenue, elastic.