Monday, July 17

#1 - 👩🏼‍⚖️ Shein is being sued for copying designs

📰 TL;DR - Three independent designers are suing Shein, saying the company produced, distributed, and sold exact copies of their creative work.” The article here has an example from the court papers, and it looks pretty blatant. What’s interesting is that the lawsuit has been fairly difficult due to Shein’s company structure and production strategy. For its part, Shein said they will “vigorously defend ourselves against this lawsuit and any claims that are without merit.”

💡 Insight - Knock-offs and copies are sold all the time across many e-commerce sites. We all know this. Copyright infringement and intellectual theft can actually be fairly hard to prove in a court case, particularly with apparel. An expert also noted here that even if these applicants win their lawsuit, it likely won’t be a big payday. Shein is structured in such a way that it’s tough to pin down exactly who did the alleged infringing. All that to say, if you’ve ever had your own products knocked off, you know how difficult this all is.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#2 - 🪝 8 video ad hooks to try

📰 TL;DR - Here’s a Twitter thread for Social Savannah of eight ad hooks to try with video examples. Savannah is, if you’re not familiar, an ad creative who often shares inspiration like this on Twitter. The hooks include “back by popular demand,” “The way these x have helped me,” and “the truth about this product from x,” and more. They’re all hooks I’ve definitely seen of late on TikTok and they do seem to work.

💡 Insight - What I really want you to pay attention to isn’t just these hook ideas, but the execution in the videos. Savannah shares these hooks because she knows it’s a lot harder to copy her style than her suggestions. Some common elements here are that these videos tend to feature actual people, have higher quality than a simple selfie video, and integrate the product seamlessly. They also show the products in action with plenty of fun b-roll type shots, as well as screenshots from company websites. I’d also suggest trying some of these hooks organically on TikTok, seeing what sticks, and then promoting them as ads if you’re not ready to commit to a full campaign.

➡️ You can read the tweets here...

📣 If you want to reach our audience of 10,000+ DTC store owners, tap here 

#3 - 📦 What customers want from returns

📰 TL;DR - A new survey from Loop looked at what e-commerce customers want from a returns program and the key is just to make it easy. 69% of people want an easy-to-follow returns process. Further, 47% want to be able to drop off packages at a shipping partner, 37% just want to do it in-store, and 36% would love at-home pickup. Just having free returns apparently doesn’t cut it anymore, people want a seamless, personalized experience. Of course they do!

💡 Insight - There are some other insights in this survey worth reading, but the above really got me thinking about the rise of charging a fee for returns. Customers, understandably, aren’t fond of those fees but I could see them being easier to swallow if they came with an easier returns process, like not having to print your own label, or find your own packaging, or at-home pickup. That could even open a world of tiered returns programs. Returns are already costly enough for brands without customers now expecting bells and whistles. Also, all this underscores that your return policy should be crystal clear and super easy to find.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

💵 FINANCING - Unleash your e-commerce ads' potential with Juni's flexible financing. Extend payment terms, access up to €20M credit, and automate invoices effortlessly. Learn more.

✨ INFLUENCERS - Welcome to the future of influencer marketing with Magic Search by affable.ai. Find the perfect influencers for your business easily. Sign up for a free trial.

🛍️ TEMU - The ultra-cheap shopping app Temu has some surprisingly high reviews. Read more here.

💃🏽 TIKTOK - We know TikTok has some very lofty e-commerce ambitions and this article gets into how they’re trying to pull it off.

🔥 OPTIMIZATION - Web performance optimization is super important for both customer satisfaction and SEO. Read how to improve it here.

#5 - 🛒 Checkout pitfalls to avoid

📰 TL;DR - Here’s another survey of e-commerce customers, this time on the checkout process. First, not quite about checking out, but 65% of people want a direct link within content to be able to buy something. On checkout, we have some reasons why people abandon their carts. 20% said they’ll abandon if there are too many pop-ups, 19% will do so if the discount doesn’t work, 18% will do so if they have to create an account, and 17% will do is if they’re redirected more than once.

💡 Insight - On the first point, include direct links to product pages (or even links that put the product in a cart) from social media as much as you can. I’m definitely seeing this a lot on Instagram stories. On abandonment, these numbers tell us that pop-ups shouldn’t appear from the cart page onwards, and also that it’s important to offer a guest check-out option. Sure, offers incentives for signing up in some way, but give them the option to simply not.

➡️ You can read the article here...