Wednesday, July 12

#1 - 🔥 It’s Prime time, baby

📰 TL;DR - Happy Prime Day(s) to those mid-hustle. Tuesday marked the first of two Prime Days and stats show this year is shaping up to be a big one. As of 4 pm on July 11, the average Prime Day order size was $52.26, up from $52.22 last year. As well, more than half of the households shopping this year have already placed two or more orders, making the average household spend $115.23. Some of the top items so far include liquid IV packets, cat treats, and Amazon Fire TV sticks.

💡 Insight - Last year’s Prime Day sales broke records, and it seems like this year might do the same. I also wanted to mention something that comes along with Prime Day: Prime Day media coverage. So many publications are running roundups of Prime Day deals right now, often with affiliate links. Everyone wants a piece. I can tell you from first-hand experience that platforms like BuzzFeed are on the lookout for top sellers, as well as items that have at least a 4 out of 5-star rating as well as recent positive reviews. There’s still time to pitch publications on your own deals if you act fast. I’d also love to hear how your Prime Day is going — you can leave a comment in this newsletter’s poll at the bottom.

➡️ You can read the article here...

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#3 - 📺 Shopify brings shopping to Roku

📰 TL;DR - Roku and Shopify are teaming up to give people the ability to browse Shopify merchants right from their TV and make purchases. Viewers can check out goods using their remote then pay with Roku Pay. Theoretically, you can shop while you stream. Roku has some 71.6 million active accounts worldwide, so that’s a potentially huge audience. It’s an industry first and it have given Roku shares a boost on Tuesday.

💡 Insight - Not to be a downer, but I’m skeptical. Why mess around with the clunkiness of shopping on your TV when your phone is probably right in your hand? Still, this could be useful for product discovery and there is a certain novelty factor at play. It’s really the first time something like this has been introduced. Also don’t get too excited yet, it’s currently in a testing phase with three merchant partners — True Classic, Olly, and Ergatta.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

🪛 DIY - Here’s a roundup of DIY home improvement trends, including the rise of niche marketplaces. Read here.

🧐 NPS - Heard the term Net Promoter Score but don’t really know what it’s all about? Check out this article.

😈 FRAUD - E-commerce fraud is up, particularly online payment fraud. Read more here.

🧴 DOLLAR DEAL - This brand is taking care of an overstock deal by selling a $20 product for just $1. Find out why here.

💰 E-COMM - E-commerce sales are still growing, just not at the same pace as during the pandemic. Get all the numbers here.

#5 - 🛍️ Americans use social to browse, not shop

📰 TL;DR - A new study from PYMNTS found that just 43% of people browse social media to find goods and services, and just 14% ultimately purchase those goods. Ouch! It’s not all bad news though. It seems one of the barriers to going from browsing to buying is ease. 32% said they like social media shopping because it’s familiar, and 28% said they like that they can make the purchase with little effort. There’s also variation by category — clothing in particular seems to have an easier time selling via social.

💡 Insight - We kind of knew this, right? There’s been talk for a long time about how Western customers just don’t shop on social the way people in Asia in particular do. The ease bit is also very telling. If you’re sharing products but not an easy link to then shop, that’s not helping yourself out very much. Also, personally, I dislike that if I see a product link on say Instagram, it opens in Instagram’s browser when all my info is saved over in Chrome. I still fully believe social is incredibly important for product discovery and brand awareness, but here’s more proof it’s not that powerful as a shopping channel.

➡️ You can read the article here...