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Daily E-Commerce Pulse Report: Fri 03 Sep 2021

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10 interesting articles found from a total of 22 different sources analyzed:

  • Berlin Brands Group raises €590 million, becomes unicorn - Berlin Brands Group has secured 700 million dollars (590 million euros) of additional debt and equity financing. The millions of euros were raised for the acquisition of ecommerce brands and the development of an international logistics network. Berlin Brands Group, or BBG, is one of many Amazon seller acquisition companies… Continue reading from ecommercenews.eu
    Topics: largest, group, berlin, acquiring, europe, million, bbg, euros, bain, brands, raises, consumer, unicorn, ecommerce.
  • Cajoo raises $40 million for its instant grocery delivery service - French startup Cajoo is raising some money in order to compete more aggressively in the new and highly competitive category of food delivery companies. Interestingly, the lead investor in today’s funding round is Carrefour, the supermarket giant. Headline (formerly e.ventures) is also participating in the round as well as existing investors Frst and XAnge. Carrefour’s […] from techcrunch.com
    Topics: capoul, service, grocery, category, french, instant, million, techcrunch, cajoo, company, raises, market, henri, players, products, delivery.
  • Data Ingestion: What It Is Plus How And Why Your Business Should Leverage It - A scaling business is bound to have data stored across multiple sources (e.g. databases, files, live data feeds). Even individual teams within a department — such as Content  Marketing, Brand Strategy, and SEO — likely use multiple data sources simultaneously.  from blog.hubspot.com
    Topics: ingestion, business, plus, data, tool, integration, single, process, framework, sources, leverage, batch, streaming.
  • Dwarfs attracts 30 million euros, acquires 4 online shops - Dutch ecommerce acquisition company Dwarfs has attracted 30 million euros in debt financing from European investor North Wall Capital. Dwarfs has used the money to acquire four online shops that are active in the lifestyle and home furnishing industry. When Dwarfs launched in May this year, it said it wanted… Continue reading from ecommercenews.eu
    Topics: capital, operating, founded, million, acquisition, shops, euros, dwarfs, acquires, attracts, companies, netherlands, online.
  • Employee Spotlight: Inside Elastic Path With Rosie Hamilton - Our people are the center of everything we do at Elastic Path. The “Inside Elastic Path” series is designed to give you insight on what it's like the be a part of our team. Get to know Rosie Hamilton, a Senior Software Engineer, who celebrated her one-year work anniversary last month.   Q: Can you describe a usual workday as a Senior Software Engineer? Rosie: Elastic Pathhas several offices across different time zones. Since I live in UK, I start my work day catching up on slack messages and emails from my colleagues in Canada and the U.S. The rest of the day I have sprint meetings to see how far along we are. I am generally working towards building new features, such as a “Green-Field Service,” so I am quite lucky I get to build things out for the first time.   Q: What is typically the highlight of your day or week? Rosie: The highlight is towards the end of the sprint, when we get to the sprint review. The developers come together to show off what we built.   Q: In your current role, is there something you are most proud of? Rosie:    Q: How would you describe the culture at Elastic Path? Rosie: The culture at Elastic Path is friendly, open and supportive. We get the autonomy to do our own work, and we collaborate and ask for help when needed. There are “no stupid questions,” everyone is very helpful; if you are stuck something you can ping someone on slack, everyone is willing to help.   Q: How has your experience been since shifting to remote work? Have you felt supported? RosieI started this job as a remote worker during the pandemic. There have been positives to working remotely, employees reach out on how I am doing every day, and I constantly feel supported at my role at Elastic Path. I hope to go into an office soon, to meet new faces, since I haven't met anyone in my new city yet.   Q: How has Elastic Path supported your learning & development? Rosie: Elastic Path provides an allowance and dedicated learning and development days every year. During the pandemic I got to attend a development conference called GopherCon EU, that was all remote and I got to do that online. In October, I plan to attend GopherCon UK using the rest of my allowance and that event is face-to-face. So, I am hoping to go to that conference in person.   Q: Thinking back, what were the reasons that made you join Elastic Path? What are the reasons you choose to stay? Rosie: One of my former colleagues was working at Elastic Path. I saw a post about an open position and decided to message them and apply. They gave me information when I asked about the open position. The position was primarily developing using the Go programming language, which I am very passionate about. The main reason I chose Elastic Path is the person I knew was able to vouch for the company, indicating the good culture, friendly team and the software they are building is quite exciting.   Q: Tell me about something that motivates you before work or during work? Rosie: Something that motivates me to stay fit and healthy is working out. I work out by doing weightlifting, running, rowing and climbing. I just started doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I use my EP Gym and Fitness allowance to pay towards the jiu-jitsu classes, which is really nice, since I enjoy staying active. I like working out before work or during lunch time, I usually get out to do some running. I like being at home because it means I have my stuff here, so I can eat, write, and train from home. Stay tuned for our next “Inside Elastic Path” series. If you are interested joining our team, check out our open listings and apply today. from www.elasticpath.com
    Topics: elastic, remote, hamilton, software, working, work, spotlight, path, day, team, open, sprint, inside, employee, rosie.
  • - I have been an Account Manager and Consultant for a large portion of my career before making the switch to sales and marketing operations a few years back. I recently joined Elastic Path in January of 2021, where I am really enjoying working in the eCommerce market and learning a ton. While I had some exposure to eCommerce in my past, specifically when I managed the Lenovo account as consultant, I constantly find myself internalizing how eCommerce impacts B2B account managers. Earlier this year, Elastic Path announced its BETA release of Account Management for Elastic Path Commerce Cloud. While B2B eCommerce teams have been clamoring for more feature rich experiences that enable the B2B buyer to get full account level visibility into transaction history, there are considerations the business will need to consider ensuring so that the customer experience is seamless and aligned across new digital and past account management processes. I will explore some of these areas and provide some recommendations for how to get the account team, marketing team and eCommerce team aligned. Market Trends in B2B eCommerce Back in 2015 Forrester analyst Andy Hoar forecasted that 1 million US B2B salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service eCommerce by the year 2020.  With a prediction like that, it is not surprising that account managers felt a threat to their jobs and had a skeptical outlook on how eCommerce experiences would benefit their customers.  With the pandemic hitting in 2020, it is not clear if this prediction came true, but eMarketer published a study last year that predicts double digit YoY growth of B2B eCommerce through 2024.  Adoption of B2B eCommerce is no doubt accelerating and aligning a B2B eCommerce strategy with existing account management teams could be the most critical success factor.     Time = Money Every account manager that is worth their salt has reflected on the fact that if they could only find more time in the day, they could manage more customers and make more money.  Now think about all the repeatable tasks you might be doing as an account manager that could be automated or self-service enabled for the buyer.  This is where eCommerce can be a major ally to the account manager and enable the low effort buying experience customers want.  Processing order forms for consumable parts, adding more user licenses to the active contract, amending the contract to increase monthly supply, helping to coordinate service calls, managing renewal paperwork, etc.  eCommerce enabling and automating these experiences with over the course of a month, likely free up more time for account managers to engage with customers in value-added conversations vs. pushing internal process through.  The research says that the customer would prefer to manage these tasks without the account manager involved anyway, so why is the account manager wasting value time doing it for the customer?  Gartner recently reported “43% of B2B customers would prefer not to interact with a sales rep at all, leaving the long-term future of in-person B2B selling in significant doubt for even the most complex of purchases.” Recommended Action: Account managers likely have a list of repeatable tasks the eCommerce and marketing automation teams can use to design more self-service buyer experiences.  Once the experience is online, account managers then can show customers how they can use them, enabling a more positive experience for the buyer that they can pass on to other buyers at the account to expand revenue opportunities between the buyer and seller.   Selling "Inside" of Digital Humans are creatures of habit and as an account manager you can add value to your customer by learning how to operate inside of the digital buying experience.  What that means is, account managers can engage with the buyer while in the digital workflow and enable a low effort experience that creates value and helps buyers gain more confidence in your product/brand.  Essentially you turn the buyer into an educated advocate, and you give them the resources they need to educate others at the account internally.  Success in this area requires tight collaboration with marketing, as the Website needs to have the content buyers seek during the selling process.  Account managers can help identify and create the experiences that work best for buyers.  That content also needs to show strong differentiation – which is typically the main reason sales creates PPT for each customer meeting.  They need to show how different the solution they sell is compared to competitors.  Recommended Action: Ensure account managers know the Website inside and out.  Limit the use of attaching static content to email and instead promote the use of links and content online when nurturing customers through a buying process.  Consider putting core documents like MSAs, Terms and Conditions and Quoting tools online that the buyer and selling can use together when engaging.   Looking to implement a headless approach? Our comprehensive guide to getting started with headless commerce will teach you more about the architecture, how to work with the front-end of your choice, and how to choose a platform that fits your needs. Read the Guide Account Managers + Chat = eCommerce Gold Account managers have more tools at their disposal than ever to understand buyer engagement and communicate with buyers. eMail and LinkedIn have become the norm for account managers in how they communicate with buyers online, and while those are digital experiences, they are also very static and do not meet the buyer on your Website when they are engaging in an active buying decision.  In B2B the more an account manager is in sync with buyers’ active digital behavior, the more they will be meeting the buyer in a low-effort, digital experience when it is best for their schedule.  In B2B there are almost always questions that need human assistance to gain confidence needed to make a purchase decision, which is why Website chat has become so popular in B2B and almost mission critical when coupled with eCommerce.   Chat has become the leading contact source within the online environment, with 42% of customers using chat versus email (23%) or other social media forum (16%). (Source: J.D. Power) However, the gap with most B2B sellers, it that most resources that staff live chat are junior business development resources and they will do their best to take in the information and route it back to the account manager for follow-up.  However, as eCommerce is enabled in B2B, buyers are in active buying processes while they are on your website. The best buying experience will be to have the account manager online, ready to answer questions that in turn enable the buyer to feel confident about making a purchase in that moment.  Marketing and sales technology operations have tools available to enable this always on “segment of one” for account managers.  It just requires getting involved with the technology, ensuring your customer data is updated and accurate and making yourself a part of the channel your customers want to use when online making a purchase decision.  For the account manager, they can consider this is the new “closing while on the golf course” model.  Instead of closing the deal playing golf with your buyer, you can be out on the course with your friends, significant other or maybe enjoying a peaceful round on your own.  Recommended Action: Account managers need to insist that they get access to more “always on channels” that engage with customers online and in an active buying process.  Marketing is more than willing to enable these tools, the missing link is account managers willing to make digital communications (beyond email) an integrated part of their daily lives at work.  We are doing it with Facebook, Texting, Tick-Tock, and Instagram part of our personal lives.  Why not add it to our work lives, customers will appreciate you being there. Buyer Confidence is Critical When a buyer is online and presented with the option to buy using an eCommerce experience, the most critical factor is confidence that their decision will be a good one.  This is true for both B2C and B2B buying decisions.  However, unlike B2C purchases, the B2B buyer is likely making a decision that will affect their entire team or maybe even the entire organization.  Confidence is even more critical in B2B and without the account manager to answer questions or help find content and documents that build trust between the seller and buyer, you may struggle to gain buyer adoption online.  A Gartner survey of nearly 1,000 B2B customers reveals that those who report a high level of decision confidence are 10 times more likely to make a high-quality, low-regret purchase.  Confidence is created when the buyer can clearly understand and articulate the differences between your offering and the competitions’.  As outlined in the Gartner study, account managers that become part of the digital experience can “help customers make sense of all the information they encounter, explaining implications, alternatives, and undiscovered opportunities in an understandable and compelling way.” This combined with better digital experience guided by what worked in live account manager meetings of the past will be a critical success factor for B2B eCommerce success. Recommended Action: Bring the account team into your eCommerce project and have them input on what does and does not work to process the sale.  Ask how they create differentiation and get their input on where things are too “look-a-like” with the competition. Use this as an opportunity to not only create new low-effort digital experiences for buyers, but also enable the account management to internalize how they can be “inside” the experience with the customer.    from www.elasticpath.com
    Topics: buyer, managers, account, management, impacts, manager, digital, b2b, ecommerce, customers, experience, online.
  • Pancake aims to make customers flip for its virtual home design platform - Pancake is democratizing interior design services to make it accessible to everyone. from techcrunch.com
    Topics: flip, designer, pancake, seed, platform, aims, virtual, techcrunch, space, work, round, company, design, furniture, customers.
  • Ramping Up Google Analytics 4 - I first addressed Google Analytics 4 last fall. It is becoming the go-to platform in Google's analytics ecosystem. The older version, Universal Analytics, will eventually sunset. For now, continue using Universal Analytics while ramping up GA4. from www.practicalecommerce.com
    Topics: click, create, universal, tag, analytics, ga4, ramping, reporting, reports, page, google.
  • Understanding and Troubleshooting Failed Orders - Why do orders fail in WooCommerce? Is there a site problem? Can it be fixed? Learn why orders fail, how to solve common issues, & how to prevent future errors. from woocommerce.com
    Topics: gateway, card, woocommerce, understand, order, failed, solved, payment, steps, fix, message, customers, status, error.
  • YouTravel.Me packs up $1M to match travelers with curated small group adventures - YouTravel.Me is the latest startup to grab some venture capital dollars as the travel industry gets back on its feet amid the global pandemic. from techcrunch.com
    Topics: trips, group, curated, travelers, experts, adventures, bortnikova, techcrunch, 1m, million, platform, match, company, youtravelme, industry, packs, small, travel.