Wednesday, September 6

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#1 - 🤔 Zalando removed product reviews, but why?

📰 TL;DR - In a curious move, German e-commerce brand Zalando has removed consumer reviews from its product pages. Instead of posting a review, buyers can now fill in a survey about whether they found the product info useful. Zalando itself hasn’t said anything about the move, so it’s unclear whether this is a permanent decision or they’re testing something out. One theory is they’re trying to isolate and test the impact of a new body measurement sizing tool. This article also notes the EU has been trying to crack down on fake reviews.

💡 Insight - This is notable because it goes so against everything we think of — which is that reviews are critical for conversions. We know that most people read them. But they can also be a pain between spam, false review accusations, and negative reviews that in fact hurt sales. Some other brands have been experimenting with how they show reviews lately, such as using AI to summarize them instead of just showing a raw feed of the latest reviews. Altogether it seems there’s a trend here of shaking up reviews, so this is worth paying attention to. For my two cents, I think the best innovation in product reviews has been allowing people to upload their own photos — it’s a game changer, especially for apparel.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#2 - 🔥 How to create impactful videos for anything you sell?

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#3 - 🥊 Inside the Amazon-Shopify power struggle

📰 TL;DR - If you love getting the insider e-commerce industry tea, this one’s for you. This article (which may be paywalled, sorry!) has a look behind the deal to bring Buy with Prime to Amazon, based on insider documents and sources. Apparantly, Amazon has been persuing this integration for some time, but Shopify initially refused. In the end, it appears that Amazon had to make some concessions to Shopify to get it done, such as letting Shopify handle processing. It shows that in the Amazon-Shopify rivalry, Amazon may not have as much power as we might have assumed. Tons of juicy details in here, if it’s your sort of thing.

💡 Insight - Based on this, this integration could have gone deeper and really favored merchants in Amazon’s fulfillment network if Amazon had gotten everything they wanted. But clearly Shopify wasn’t prepared to do that. This piece also notes the initial announcement felt rushed and not all the pieces were actually in place, so there may still be some tension going on. I’m thinking Shopify is in fact pretty annoyed that it’s having to play nice with Amazon and acknowledge they both own a huge piece of the e-commerce pie.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

😎 INFLUENCER DISCOVERY - Looking for the perfect UGC creators + micro-influencers? Use Insense to filter through vetted creators within minutes. Learn more here.

📆 NEXT WEEK - Learn how the fastest growing DTC brands are leveraging innovation to win BF/CM in 2023 - Exclusive Webinar Sep 12! (48 seats remaining) Register Now.

💿 PRODUCTS - Here’s a roundup of the latest tech updates and product offerings for e-comm companies.

✨ TRENDS - And here’s a roundup of the week’s e-commerce trends and moves.

🧴 CLEAN AGE - Gen Z-friendly personal care brand Clean Age has inked a deal with Walmart. Read here.

#5 - 🎄 Welcome to the holiday season

📰 TL;DR - ‘Tis the season for market research on holiday shopping. Here, we have a new survey of 6,000 shoppers. It found that 38% of shoppers in the US are actually planning to start holiday shopping before it’s even Halloween. Another 44% will start before Thanksgiving. As well, 81% plan to use rewards programs and coupons as part of their strategy. Also, shoppers notice when you raise prices before the holidays — 73% said they already noticed increases.

💡 Insight - With people still feeling the effects of inflation this year, it makes sense that they’ll want to spread their holiday shopping over a longer period of time. The insight about wanting to engage with loyalty programs and coupons also suggests that now is the time to get people into your marketing ecosystem. That means collecting emails and phone numbers for SMS sends so that they can benefit from your holiday promotions. Overall, the holiday shopping seasons seems to be creeping up every year and it’s fair to say Black Friday isn’t really the launch date anymore.

➡️ You can read the article here...