Welcome to the Future of Ecommerce Global

A talk by Derric Haynie, Chief Ecommerce Technologist, EcommerceTech

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Overview: Derric Haynie is the Chief Ecommerce Technologist at Ecommercetech.io – Where Ecommerce stores go to research, discover, and buy the right tools to grow their store. Derric is on a mission to do a demo a day until he’s researched every major tool in the Shopify app ecosystem.

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Notes: We’re in for a number of jam-packed sessions over the next couple of days to teach you the best practices for building up a successful Global brand.

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Exploring Ecommerce, Technology, Retail, and International Commerce

A talk by Derric Haynie, CEO EcommerceTech.io and  Christine Russo, Retail Creative and Consulting Agency 

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Overview:  Derric Haynie is the Chief Ecommerce Technologist at Ecommercetech.io – Where Ecommerce stores go to research, discover, and buy the right tools to grow their store. Derric is on a mission to do a demo a day until he’s researched every major tool in the Shopify app ecosystem.

Christine Russo and RCCA work with brands and retailers from enterprise through independent and is a source for optimizing business through digitization, automation, and technology.

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Notes: 

• Can synthesize information into bite-sized nuggets
• The future of ecommerce is important because there’s been a lot of new tech and changes to the industry and it’s difficult to know what your next steps should be

Two major categories coming to the forefront of Ecommerce:

Loyalty

• Any type of app or widget to dovetail into your system that works well with others is critical as a business driver
• If you’ve been following the largest retailers, all of their business models are propelled by loyalty

If brands can have a loyalty program that works to sell burritos, sofas, etc., you can cultivate loyalty in your niche as well. Loyalty is based on segmentation and segmentation is based on RFM (filter to put people through): Recency, Frequency and Monetary interaction.

Peel Insights enables you to have an easy-to-read RFM model for your site

• Bridge online and offline loyalty with the overall concept of loyalty: Make sure customers remember you and Everyone’s “feet” were retrained during covid because different brands were able to remain open amid the pandemic.

• Privacy/Segmentation: Clients want both privacy and personalization; Text is a great way to deliver personalized information; Moving to text makes sense when there’s ENGAGEMENT; Communicating with someone after a transaction sets expectations for how they want to be communicated with in the future. https://opensaredead.com/
  

AI

• Ad optimization using AI is one example of a new way to use AI that’s a game-changer
• Seen several solutions that solve difficult problems in advertising. Examples include:

Klickly for ad testing to different audiences

Pencil for AI ad copy (if you’re doing over $30k in ad spend each month)

Copysmith for copy

Confect for ad testing

The Future of Ecommerce:

• Clean your website code. There are tech providers that will help assess your load time

• Edgemesh is a great tool to look into if page speed is having an impact on your conversion rate and you’d like to optimize it (this works best if you’re at $5M or more in annual revenue)

• For Shopify or Shopify Plus merchants, Edgemesh has a solution called Edgemesh Server that can significantly increase your page speed load time. Cost is $5k/month

• https://ecommercetech.io/free-tech-co…

• Offer different options for payment

• Verifone (formerly 2Checkout)
• CoinPayments

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How to Drive Retention & Conversion Through Customer Experience

A talk by Chris Lavoie, Tech Partner Manager, Gorgias

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Overview:  In this talk, you’ll learn how: Brands can create personalized experiences tailored to the shopper. Automate your support with macros and auto-responses. No more manual replies to Where is my order? Return requests, etc. Empower shoppers with self-service portals to navigate their needs.

Notes:

• Think of your helpdesk as an engagement tool and a critical layer of your tech stack for driving conversions

Make exceptional support the new normal for customers

• Customer engagement is a critical layers of the Ecommerce growth stack
• Holy grail is a good balance between automation and speed
• Set yourself up for scale at all stages of growth

Today, buyers are frustrated, and legacy helpdesk providers aren’t helping

• 12+ hour first contact time
• 17+ hour resolution time
• Lack of personalization: “I feel like just another ticket number”
• Nobody is listening: “I had to repeat myself 3 times”

Where do traditional CX programs fall short?

• Lack of automations > increase costs and decrease in CSAT
• Lack of customer intelligence and personalization > missed sales and retention
• Lack of channel aggregation > poor consumer experience

Tips for mitigating common CX issues:

• Understand your support volume.

1. Focus less on FAQs and more on pre-sale inquiries and bigger support issues
2. Deflect 30-40% of support volume with self-serve

• Put a premium on speed and automation

1. 28% conversion rate for presale chat or SMS replied to in less than 10 minutes
2. 400-500% conversion rate increase when you respond to chats in under 5 minutes

• Turn support agents into sales reps

1. Unlock revenue
2. Drive conversions with proactive chat
3. Turn social browsers into buyers
4. More personalized engagement with commerce integrations

• Be everywhere

1. Turn omnichannel tickets into conversations
2. Make sure your entire support experience is consistent across all channels and includes the conversation history for your agent, across all channels from the very beginning
3. Leverage your most influential customers with Gorgias’ Gatsby integration

• Get your tech stack fully integrated

1. Book a forever free tech consult with EcommerceTech to find the best tools for you
2. Example: integrate Yotpo loyalty data into Gorgias

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Contact Chris for 2 Free Months of Gorgias:

• chris@gorgias.com

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Key Commerce Strategies for Taking Your Online Business Globally

A talk by Nataliya Shadykulova, Head of Digital Sales EMEA & Asia, 2Checkout (now Verifone)

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Overview:  Join this session with Nataliya Shadykulova, Head of Digital Sales EMEA & Asia at 2Checkout (now Verifone), to find out the key things you need to know when planning your expansion into local markets. Nataliya will show why localization matters, why alternative payment methods make a difference, and more!

Notes: 

Today’s digital customers are unforgiving. You need to capture customers at every moment, across any channel, on THEIR terms...or get left behind

Why you should be tracking authorization rates. What impacts them?

• Implications on authorization rates (define the success of your transactions - # of successful orders divided by the # of order attempts)

1. Payment method
2. Merchant’s country
3. Shopper’s country
4. Order value
5. MCC code (level of risk as defined by the payment company you use)
6. Transaction type (new acquisition, manual renewal, automatic renewal)

• Impact depends on whether you’re doing global or local processing

1. Ideal setup is having a local processor for your key location(s)

• Smart payment tools:

1. Dynamic 3D secure on the payment level (2-factor authentication)

1. Mitigates fraud risks
2. Reduces chargebacks
3. Different impact by country

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Why localization is essential for global business and what it involves

• Complexity of localization

1. Localizing your content
2. Local currencies
3. Local payment options
4. Local support

• It’s best not to force the language, but take the language from the browser
• Currencies and payment methods should be triggered by the IP address of the customer
• Customers are at least 70% more likely to purchase if the shopping cart is displayed in their native language and their preferred payment method is listed as an option

1. Up to 25% increase in authorization rates with multi-currency management

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Why taxation and compliance shouldn't be underestimated when going globally

• Compliance initiatives have been accelerated and tightened due to COVID
• On tax...it’s not just the ability to calculate tax correctly, but also management, remittance, and reporting to get tax compliance in any market (at least in your key geographies)
• VAT and cross-border online sales

1. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a destination-based tax

Global sales action plan

• Measure authorization rates in key markets. Check if there are any improvements possible in those markets
• Make sure your websites and checkouts are localized

1. Language
2. Currency
3. Payment options

• Be aware of local tax and compliance to avoid liability

Contact Nataliya:

• Have questions about international transaction rates? nataliya.shadykulova@verifone.com 

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3 Magnetic Forces That Drive Insane ROI

A talk by Brigitta Ruha, Partnerships & Marketing Manager, Recart

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Overview:  A global economy provides a unique opportunity to connect with your customers from around the world.

That opportunity, however, can bring new challenges when it comes to tying together all aspects of the customer experience.

Join me to learn how to perfect the best customer journey and get an actionable playbook for building your lists, growing revenue on autopilot, and generate LTV:

1. Why prepare your online store for quick browsing - and how to increase the opt-ins 
2. How to automate the engagement to drive revenue on autopilot
3. Campaigns that stand out from the crowd and generate LTV

Q3 is here. Ready to make the most out of it?

Notes: 

Global ecommerce in 2021

• Harder to cut through the noise

1. 2m+ shopify businesses
2. 18% increase in ecommerce YOY
3. 6-12% decrease in ROAS YoY

• Rise in mCommerce

1. 60% of the shoppers shop exclusively mobile
2. 54% mobile share in ecommerce sales

• New trends and challenges

1. Privacy changes
2. Exceptional CX
3. Supplement your existing marketing strategy with Messenger marketing (use in addition to email and SMS)

Mobile marketing tactics:

• Ensure that your website is fully mobile optimized

1. Is the user experience seamless across all devices?
2. Have you tested the mobile responsiveness of your store?
3. Is your shopify theme mobile-friendly enough?

• Turn existing store traffic into email and SMS subscribers

• Check your traffic and keep up-to-date on where your traffic comes from

• Create critical automations to grow revenue on autopilot

1. Discount abandonment
2. Cart abandonment
3. Shipping notifications
4. Browser abandonment
5. Purchase

• Always onboard and convert your new subscribers with a welcome series

• Personalize to generate LTV

1. Re-engagement is a key revenue driver
2. Sponsored messages go right into messenger inbox
3. Avg CTR is 1%with email, 10%+ with sponsored messages
4. Only pay for messages seen (avg. 0.13c per person)
5. Can be sent to anyone who opened a conversation with you in the past year. You already have messenger subscribers

Say goodbye to post-campaign blues

• Community building
• Freebies
• Restock alerts
• Birthday messages
• Product bundles
• VIP access

Contact Brigitta:

• brigitta.ruha@recart.com
• https://recart.com/2021

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Tech Showcase: Syte

A talk by Julian Vardi, Partnerships Manager, Syte

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Overview:  

Syte is the world’s first Product Discovery Platform. Powered by visual AI, we drive eCommerce revenue and brand loyalty with next-generation search and discovery experiences.

Notes: 

Syte harnesses the power of AI for 4 verticals: fashion, furniture, home decor/DIY, and jewelry

• Based on 3 core capabilities

• Visual AI

• Visual similarities
• Deep-tagging (converting images into words)

• Hyper personalization

• Past website sessions + deep tags
• current session data + deep tags
• Multi-layered neural network

• NLP

Interested in Syte? Minimum requirements:

• 500+ SKUs
• 100k+ monthly visits
• $1.5 million+ online revenue

Contact Julian:

• julian.v@syte-vc.com
• https://ecommercetech.io/apps/syte

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Why Your Online Store Is At Risk

A talk by Farrah Boehm, Partner Marketing Manager, Rewind

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Overview:  What would you do if someone on your team accidentally deleted all of the products from your store, the day before Black Friday? How long would it take to rebuild? How much would that downtime cost? Join this talk to learn the common ways that data loss happens in Ecommerce, and 6 easy steps you can take now to safeguard your online store.

Notes: 

Why your online store is at risk and how to protect it

1. Your sales depend on your store being up and running properly

• Platforms don’t have an undo button for your store if something goes wrong

• This is because they operate on the shared responsibility model

1. What can go wrong?

• Human errors (cause of 90% of data breaches)

• Ex: CSV imports

• Whisker seeker imported a bulk import of changes that deleted their entire product catalogue 3 days before black Friday

• Theme code edits

• Third party app errors
• Ill-intentioned employees
• Hackers and malware

1. What’s at stake?

• Lost revenue from downtime
• Time spent manually recovering lost data
• Lost customers and credibility

1. 6 tips for protecting your store

• Always have an up-to-date backup of your store

1. Backups should be automatically triggered
2. Backups Should be consistent

• Use a password manager

1. Onepassword, lastpass, etc.

• Embrace multi-factor authentication
• Adopt the principle of least privilege
• Manage app access for 3rd party apps
• Watch out for phishing attacks

1. Use a different channel to verify emails that look suspicious
2. Do not click suspicious links
3. Ignore unsolicited instructions and emails from people outside your organization

Contact Farrah:

• farrah@rewind.io
• Protect your store from disaster: https://ecomtech.link/rewind

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Data is the Buzzword That Never Dies. How Do I Order It?

A talk by Yasmin Nozari, COO, Peel Insights

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Overview:  Peel is a fully automated data analysis tool that analyzes 100+ metrics across all dimensions to show e-commerce teams the key drivers of change for their organization. Peel is designed for DTC Shopify brands to quickly understand trends in their business and react to the most promising cohort signals, without the need for any technical skills. Our number one goal is to provide merchants with the analysis they need to make growth decisions.

Notes: 

About Peel and Ecommerce pain points:

• Peel delivers data insights to grow your Ecommerce revenue across new and existing customers
• Know where your baseline is, what’s going on, and build on top of it
• Great Ecommerce teams need more than a spreadsheet

1. Good analysis requires technical expertise and time
2. Analysis tools need to be automated, fast and smart
3. Customer acquisition is tied to uncovering key data insights
4. Shopify brands crave easy-to-understand, actionable data

• DTC brands grow by understanding their customers. Automated analytics help acquire more high value customers and retain more customers

1. Organizing tips to collect clean and actionable data

• Think about how you want to consume the analysis
• Define the questions you are looking to answer and set up the tracking
• Everything should be treated as a hypothesis-driven experiment
• If you want to know:

1. Products by size > track the sizes
2. Products by color > track the colors
3. Sample products > make “sample only” SKUs
4. Marketing channels > set up pixels, conversion tracking, and goals/events

• Tips:

1. Discount codes: use discount codes as n attribution/campaign/affiliate/influencer/marketing initiative tracker

1. Tie the discount code to ONE specific initiative to understand efficacy

1. Shopify tags: customer tags, product tags, order tags

1. Use them! Don’t ignore them!

• Metrics to watch and build experiments around

1. Build campaigns: what products do I show in ads? Which ones do we promote? What products are the leading indicators for LTV, retention and repurchase?

1. Find out the bestselling products
2. Learn the value and growth rate of these products so you can promote them in ads to acquire new customers
3. How are the cohorts developing over time?

1. Acquire more high-value customers

1. Is your AOV increasing for new cohorts? Is the AOV of returning orders increasing over time?

1. Optimize profit

1. What are the most profitable products in terms of margins?
2. Should you promote those products in campaigns?
3. Can you take a loss on a popular product and upsell later in marketing?

1. Retain more customers

1. How do you know which customers are coming back?
2. What do they have in common?

• SEGMENTS, SEGMENTS, SEGMENTS

Contact Yasmin:

• yasmin@peelinsights.com

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Ecommerce Payment Processing - Everything You Didn’t Know But You Should

A talk by Ognjen Vukovic, CEO and Co-Founder, Bridge Payments

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Overview:  Get to know the strategies to optimize your profitability. Adapt payments to your business, not the way around. Understand how the right payments tech stack can scale your business.

Notes: 

Payment processing for Ecommerce:

1. Terminology:

• Payment gateway/payment processor
• MID/TID/SUB-MID
• Rolling reserve/chargeback coverfund

1. Biggest mistake: going to the most well-known payment solution without researching to determine which is best for them
2. Stripe:

• Best in the industry, but they don’t provide your own personal merchant account
• Very clear about the types of merchants they prefer to work with

• When you’re in Ecommerce and trying to scale, 9/10 times, some of your balances are going to be frozen and not given permission to use your balance

1. Ecommerce merchants have one problem: delivery

• Everyone who is in payments dislikes risk. Their entire purpose is to mitigate risk
• To ensure you mitigate the risk and enable yourself to scale, set up your payment structure according to payment processor requirements
• If you’re a CBD brand, you can’t use some of the biggest providers and you shouldn’t. That’s why you need to mitigate risk

• When you start choosing your payment provider, look at multiple aspects

• Don’t just sign up for the most well-known provider
• Personalize the payment methods you provide for your customers

• Personalize the checkout page as well according to where your buyer is, what language they speak, what payment methods they can use, etc.

• If you have multiple brands, multiple markets, etc., make sure you compare solutions before you choose one

• Look at the tech
• Look at somebody who can onboard you as a master admin merchant and give you the ability to open sub slots for all your vendors, especially if you’re directly in the financial flow

1. If you have a risky business, choose a backup payment provider or switch to a different payment provider that gives you a personalized setup according to your needs while helping you remain compliant
2. If you aren’t using fraud or risk protection right now in the age of COVID, you’re in big trouble

Key takeaways:

1. Know your model
2. Know your buyer
3. Focus on infrastructure
4. Have a custom setup
5. Take advantage of global coverage
6. Invest in risk management

Contact Ognjen:

• https://bridgepayments.io/?utm_campai...

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Tech Showcase: Bloom AI

A talk by Sam Dundas, Co-Founder, Bloom AI

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Overview:  Keep it real - leverage user-generated content as part of your merchandising strategy.

Winning shot - Bloom data shows that 73% of mobile traffic only looks at 1 PDP photo before bouncing - that's 73% of people who could have bought the product if they saw a better image.

Revenue per impression is the new Revenue per sqft - As a DTC brand, product photos take up more pixels than anything else on your site. You deserve to know what each impression is worth.

Notes: 

Which shooting styles perform the best?

• With countless new ways to merchandise content, it’s time to start thinking about product photos like ad creative
• Maximize collection > PDP conversion
• Out of the box personalization

How does Bloom work?

• Know and show the right photos

• Bloom shows you the highest-performing product photos

• Shooting styles that convert

• Build custom tags and learn how different shooting styles perform, enabling data-driven photoshoots for creative teams

• During the 30-day free trial, Bloom splits your shopper traffic into two cohorts:

• Default grid hero images (performance benchmark)
• Optimized with bloom (highest purchase rate)

• Bloom’s dashboard displays a real-time view of both cohorts
• PDP optimization (beta)

• Bloom tracks PDP photo swipe interactions to determine which result in the highest number of purchases:

• Photo style
• Order of photos
• Number of photos

• Bloom will automatically display the best-performing order of photos

• Other initiatives - AI models

• Create photorealistic AI models and test them along with your existing content

Performance pricing

• Billed on a monthly basis

Contact Sam:

• sam@getbloom.ai

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Using Email and SMS Benchmarks to Increase Your Email Marketing Sales

A talk by Greg Zakowicz, Veteran Marketer & Director of Content, Omnisend

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Overview:  This session will dig into recently released 2021 email and SMS marketing metrics that matter, how to use them to identify revenue gaps in your own marketing program, and provide optimization suggestions that will increase your email marketing sales, not your workload.

Notes: 

Using email and SMS benchmarks to increase your email marketing sales

• Trends with opt-in channels
• Identify gaps in your own strategies based on those trends
• Ways to increase performance

SMS:

• Q4 sends the majority of SMS messages
• 3x SMS sent as of this year
• As inboxes become more crowded, SMS is a good way to cut through the clutter
• Everyone texts!
• SMS is a trusted opt-in channel
• Add to email workflows

Optimize Automation:

• Welcome message

• 19.5% CTOR
• 5.6% CTR
• 52.9% conversion rate
• Customer journey
• Design for clicks

• Abandoned cart

• 20.4% CTOR
• 5.8% CTR
• 39.7% conversion rate
• Ask yourself 2 questions:

• What matters
• Who are these potential customers

Recap:

1. Opt-in channels are important
2. Focus on intent
3. Focus on the customer experience
4. Get things done, not perfect

Contact Greg:

• greg@omnisend.com
• Subscribe to this podcast: https://www.omnisend.com/resources/po...

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Global 21 - Day 2

Welcome back for Day 2 of the Future of Ecommerce Global

A talk by Derric Haynie, Chief Ecommerce Technologist, EcommerceTech

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Overview: Derric Haynie is the Chief Ecommerce Technologist at Ecommercetech.io – Where Ecommerce stores go to research, discover, and buy the right tools to grow their store. Derric is on a mission to do a demo a day until he’s researched every major tool in the Shopify app ecosystem.

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How the Evolution of Technology Impacts Ecommerce Teams

A talk by Elise DeCamp, VP of Acquisitions, WeCommerce

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Overview: WeCommerce is an operating company of businesses in the Shopify ecosystem. We buy and build software, services, and themes businesses that support e-commerce merchants. Their portfolio includes Four Sixty, Stamped.io, Pixel Union, and Out of the Sandbox.

Notes: 

Changes in the eCommerce landscape (WeCommerce)

1. The WeCommerce Fund

• Approached by investors in the public sector to launch WeCommerce as a focus on the ecommerce landscape
• A little over a year old
• Listed on the Canadian stock exchange
• Able to tap into the public markets at any time, allowing them to build a true platform and grow the businesses that they acquire

• Examples of businesses that they’ve acquired:

• Pixel Union
• Stamped

• Every acquisition is done on a case-by-case basis. In many cases, the founders stay involved in their businesses after acquisition

1. AI in eCommerce

• AI is no longer an exception, but not a rule. Everyone is implementing AI capabilities in some capacity
• Don’t see it as a clear differentiator in every field. Most notable in fields like personalization, upsells, etc.

1. How to evaluate software tools

• New tech is being created every day, which means you need to evaluate your tech stack quarterly
• Have your own competitive landscape of what tech is important for you and your business goals
• One way to keep abreast of changes outside of your own research is to speak with Derric or look at your competitors’ landscape to see what they’re prioritizing (with that being said, it’s important to not follow competitors blindly)
• Customers will value anything you can do that’s completely separate from what others do

1. Can most of marketing operations, advertising, and sales be fully automated within the next 10 years?

• There are definitely tools that cause job contraction (Alloy is an interesting example of automation, as is Wonderment)
• The focus is shifting within everyone’s teams as everything shifts
• As some things get easier, it means there are just other things to focus on
• Personalization/Upsells and Cross-Sells:

• LimeSpot
• Rebuy
• Syte

1. Cookie-pocalypse

• The focus on zero-party data is important and is a defense-mechanism in the sphere
• The idea of and process for owning your data and collecting completely new and interesting data points are interesting and super important
• Having your own app is critical

• TapCart
• Plobal
• Shopney

• Shopping quizzes are another important method for gathering data

• ShopQuiz by Octane

• Post-Purchase Data collection

• EnquireLabs

1. One thing you should be doing today:

• Implement a CDP and do it as early as you can
• This is tough as a small merchant, but investing in data behind your customers empowers you with so much more knowledge
• Invest in CDP and be really thoughtful about segmentation

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Conversational Commerce, From Intent to Purchase

A talk by Henrik Fabrin, CEO and Co-Founder, and Daniel Nackovski, VP of Sales, Certainly

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Overview: Ecommerce can become an integrated experience for brands and customers through Conversational Commerce. 

With Ecommerce expected to account for 21.8% of global retail sales by 2024, and only 1.94% (Statista) of commerce website visits convert into a purchase, retailers are rushing to accelerate their digital transformation and deliver seamless online experiences for their customers. 

But how to go about doing this? And how can you, as an ambitious retailer, ensure you are understanding your customers to achieve long-term success? 

In this session we will not only show how conversational commerce can enhance user experiences, optimize customer service, and strengthen online sales, but outline how it improves:

• Data collection
• Product recommendation
• Checkout & payment
• Ticket deflection
• Customer insights
• Return rates

Notes: 

Do people want to hear from chatbots?

• A few years ago, there was a hesitation, and they were used for typical post-purchase ticket deflection

Is this your reality too?

• Bounce rate of 30-50%
• Conversion rates of 2-5%
• Average cart value not optimized
• Cart abandonment rates 50-70%
• Return rates average 30%

What is conversational commerce and how can you use it?

• Return online shopping to being done on human terms
• Access real-time/zero party data of your customers to read their intent
• 98% of people don’t convert. This is real.

The solution: have more conversations with more visitors

• An infinitely scalable way to understand the individual intent of, and sell to every visitor on your website
• You need a way to tap into the minds of the 98% and act on what’s on their minds in real time
• There are 2 major problems

• Humans are not scalable
• Third and first-party data is not enough

• Create a digital twin of your best salesperson

It’s all about having a strong layer of intent. Here’s how to do it:

1. Data collection

1. Understand why an end-user is visiting your webshop and what’s important at that moment. Use this to either drive sales through the conversation via the bot or use the data for better retargeting later

1. Product evaluation

1. Support the active buying intent by helping end-users find the right product, in the right context (sizing, gifting, upsell/cross-sell, etc.)

1. Checkout and payment

1. Pre-empt cart abandonment with supportive conversations, ask to join loyalty programs, etc.

1. Ticket deflection

1. Reduce incoming email and phone requests by providing fast answers to frequently asked questions
2. Order lookups, return and refund policies, replacement and exchange policies

Revenue Driving (customer examples)

• Tiger of Sweden

• 70% of all engagement happens via bot
• 18% conversion rate
• 50% lower bounce rate
• 96% customer satisfaction (rose from 67%)

• FS

• 40$ average order value increase
• 14% conversion rate increase
• 31% customers reaching checkout increase

Key takeaways

• Learn the intents of the 98% that don’t convert today
• Conversational commerce enhances 4 use cases in the buying journey
• Customers increase online sales, decrease return rates, and enhance customer lifetime value

Contact Daniel:

• dn@certainly.io
• Download the ebook: https://certainly.io/conversational-commerce-ebook
  

Using AI to Generate and Test Ads that Learn to Drive Sales

A talk by James Chadwick, Co-Founder and CCO, and Chase Mohseni, Customer Success Lead, Pencil

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Overview: Pencil is a Creative AI company on a mission to generate unexpected ideas that get results. Pencil generates ads that learn to perform, delivering the return on ad spend that helps brands scale their businesses.

Notes: 

What if AI could audit your FB history, generate better ads, and then learn?

• Almost all FB revenue comes from advertising over the last decade
• Even for pro teams, running ads is harder than it should be

• Guesswork: is this the right ad to run now
• Fatigue: how long will my results last
• Repetition: how do I reduce the monthly grind

• Testing and learning outperforms everything on Facebook

Pencil - Creative AI system for eCommerce advertising

• 3V testing for hits ~30% of budget

• 3Vs: volume + variety + velocity
• Find “hit” as to scale
• Use creative AI to drive 3Vs

• Scale hit ads ~70%

• Large, broader audiences and “liquid” setup to benefit from Facebook’s ML

Creating Ads with Pencil

• Connect to FB to use your best ads to predict your next ads (new feature)
• Marketers work with pencil like they would a human creative team
• Generate a variety of different creative concepts for testing in 1 click

Step 1: Analyse your winning and losing ads

Step 2: replace losers by generating new ads 

Step 3: use insights to inform what you say, shoot, an sell

Creative AI already drives hard metrics like ROAS and CPA

Contact James:

• james@trypencil.com

When to start with Pencil:

• No ad spend minimum
• Free 7 day trial without having to put your credit card information in
• Try it here.

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Tech Showcase: GoodCarts

A talk by Steven Clift, CEO, GoodCarts

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Overview: GoodCarts delivers free customers to hundreds of Ecommerce brands. With Shopify and WooCommerce apps, we power post-purchase cross-promotion based on “good” themes from sustainable products to premium DTC to Made in the USA, to black-owned or veteran-owned to “main street” business and everyday small businesses promoting entrepreneurship (aka well-curated dropshipping driven stores).

Notes: 

Problems:

1. Ad costs are going up
2. Brand discovery

1. Especially for sustainable/shop for good brands

Solution:

• Grow together, win together -- starting with cross-promotion

Goodcarts “recycles” post-purchase traffic

• Via “circles” of stores based on themes like “shop for good”

Consumer “good” discounts demo:

• Post-purchase “thank you banner” on member stores
• Over 110 members in “shop for good” circle

Explaining the tech:

• Smart digital coupons on the back fo the receipt

Why join Goodcarts?

• Free

• To join
• Coupon views and collections
• Web visitors to your store
• New paying customers - zero customer acquisition costs
• And no commissions -- for impact retailers

Join GoodCarts:

• https://ecomtech.link/goodcarts
• hello@goodcarts.co

5 Ways to Get Leverage From Your Existing Customers

A talk by Valentin Radu, CEO and Founder, OmniConvert

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Overview:  

Notes: 

5 ways to get leverage from your existing customers

• Segment your customers using RFM, NPS score

• Recency
• Frequency
• MOnetary Value

• Create lookalikes

• https://bit.ly/facebook-lookalike

• Trigger evergreen winback campaigns that work on autopilot

• Based on the product/brand/category

• Segment with NPS Score

• https://bit.ly/NPS-Blueprint

• Segment with Customer location
• Plant retention seeds on the thank-you page
• BONUS: unboxing campaign

3 ways to change behavior:

1. Have an epiphany
2. Change the environment
3. Create tiny habits

New passions:

• Highest recency
• Highest monetary value
• Lowest frequency

The purpose of the thank you page:

• What the buyers want to know

• Was this a good decision?

• What if they don’t send me the product?
• When will I get it?
• What if I want to return it?

Top 3 things to achieve with your thank you page:

• Make the customers feel good about their purchase
• Give them clarity over what’s next
• Plant the seeds for the future orders

• Invite them to your community, invite them to subscribe to your newsletter, ask them more about their needs, etc.

7 reasons to consider inserts

1. Under promise, over deliver principle
2. Package inserts are cost effective
3. You can personalize the inserts for specific RFM segments
4. The cost of delivering the message has already been paid
5. You can do cross-sells that are highly relevant
6. Package inserts are a great way to get rid of products that don’t sell
7. Effective inserts increase CLV and they do that on autopilot

Contact Valentin:

• valentin.radu@omniconvert.com
• LinkedIn
• https://bit.ly/free-CVO-course
• https://ecomtech.link/omniconvert

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How to Get Acquired for Ecommerce Stores

A talk by Derric Haynie, CEO and Founder, EcommerceTech and Kohlman Verheyen, Kohlman Stock Capital

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Overview:  Session takeaways:

• Valuation = Profit x Multiple
• Maximize Profit: Manage by Measuring, Measure What Matters.
• Multiple = Certainty.

Derric Haynie is the Chief Ecommerce Technologist at Ecommercetech.io – Where Ecommerce stores go to research, discover, and buy the right tools to grow their store. Derric is on a mission to do a demo a day until he’s researched every major tool in the Shopify app ecosystem.

Kohlman Stock Capital is an operational growth equity firm with focus on founder/capital alignment. I'll help grow your brand and sell it.

Notes: 

Acquisitions and Performance marketing for Ecommerce brands:

• Measure what matters and manage it all

Breaking down ROAS

• Pre-click (also includes the click)

• All of the metrics that come from your FB ads
• Everything that happens on the platform your advertising on

• Post-click

• Interacting with your site
• Look at cost, impressions, thumb stop rate, cost per thumb stop, CTR
• Once you look at your customer MER, you can determine where your spend should go
• So what are customers doing once they get to the site? How qualified is the traffic?

How to Get Acquired:

• Assigning a numerical value

• Profit (measurement for a vast majority of acquisitions)
• A multiple (measurement of buyers’ certainty in your product that they’re going to be able to produce the same results you did)

• if you’re not VC backed pre-profit and have less than 10 employees, you won’t be acquired

• Supply chain ownerships/partnerships

• The clearest way to make that connection is MOTE
• Something defensible that’s a barrier to entry for competition coming in, it helps in getting acquired. Buyer will have more certainty around the purchase

• Fragility is super important

• You don’t want anything where “if you pull out this jenga piece, everything will immediately collapse”
• If you don’t have this, reconsider why you’re selling your brand
• Communicate to the potential buyer that there’s nothing that’s going to pull the rug out from this jenga tower

• Going international

• Don’t do it until you’ve successfully sold domestically

• Beefing up profit

• First 12 months of profit

• Think about your potential buyer every day that you’re in business
• Getting the best value for your business

• As a buyer:

• Hopeless
• Not confident in alternative options besides selling
• Looking for a quick exit

• As a seller:

• Chase down two congruent paths where you can decide whether to invest in a team, office, etc.
• Some sort of capital expense
• “Double down or cash out” decision tree
• As indifferent about the two outcomes

Contact Kohlman:

• kohlman@kohlmanstockcapital.com

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Reconsider Discounting in Favor of Donations and Be Pleasantly Surprised

A talk by Andrew Forman, Founder & CEO, Givz

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Overview:  It is possible to drive sales without discounting, WHILE weaving in social impact

1. Givz donations are cheaper than discounts, increasing your margin
2. Not your typical cause marketing

Givz is a donation-driven marketing platform that enables brands like H&M, Tervis, Betterment, SmileDirectClub, Terez & Seedlip to replace discounts with donations. Givz drives sales, increases AOV, costs less than traditional discount strategies, and can be live in 24 hours.

Notes: 

Trends in ecommerce:

• Discounts bring in lowest LTV customers and teaching people to not expect to pay full price
• Brands want to put their money where their mouth is and show customers how much they care

How Givz Works:

• You can pick and choose your own charities, set featured charities, and/or allow customers to make donations to the charities of their choice
• Post-purchase donation option where the customers can choose their favorite charities

Causes per industry/incorporating into your business:

• Eco-friendly charities and causes that people are really interested in

• Anything to do with the environment

• Animal charities
• Check out Krissie's session on sustainability in Ecommerce here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJQSL…

Givz next steps

• Helping with the pre-purchase marketing for cause marketing

Contact Andrew:

• andrew@givz.com
• Contact Andrew for the cause marketing playbook
  

Tech Showcase: Rush

A talk by Kiril Kirilov, CEO and Co-Founder, Rush

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Overview:  Session takeaways:

• Shipping emails that are guaranteed to get 8x more opens and clicks and 6x more revenue
• Increasing your customer retention rate by just 5% can increase store profits by up to 95%
• Reduce tracking inquiries by up to 78% in the upcoming BFCM season

Rush helps you generate more revenue and increase retention. No more endless email chains asking about the status of your customer's orders.

Notes: 

Reduce tracking inquiries by up to 78% with smart post-purchase shipping notifications

• Neglecting your customer once the purchase is completed is losing you money

• 75% of shoppers state that clear communication is key to a good delivery experience with 38% expecting to be notified immediately in the event of an issue
• The expectations for thai 2021 BFCM 2021 season are to have 20% of all packages delayed, period
• Why wait until your customers are angry to update them on the status of their order?

• Rush helps you generate more revenue and increase retention. No more endless email chains asking about the status of your customer’s order

• Give your customers full transparency with smart-triggered email and SMS notifications
• Customers will check the status of their purchase 2-4 times for every order they make

• Go to: https://rush.app/primaltrack
• Integrates with 600+ carriers

Rush Features

• Custom branded tracking page
• Smart-triggered email and sms notifications
• Upsells and cross-sells built in
• Review request emails according to actual delivery dates
• Last-mile carrier updates and notifications
• Analytics: dashboard, exports, and smart delivery estimate

Benefits

• Increase customer satisfaction
• Prevent “where is my order” emails
• Save time and money on customer support tickets
• No more unnecessary disputes, chargebacks on paypal
• Build your brand with every shipment you send
• Increase revenue and repeat purchasers

Contact Kiril:

• 7 day free trial + 30% off: https://ecomtech.link/rush

‍

Raising $10M in Funding in a Traditionally Taboo Industry

A talk by Eva Goicochea, Founder and CEO, Maude and Olivia McNaughten, Director of Product Marketing, Rho

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Overview:  Overcoming barriers to fundraising as a female Latina founder. Normalizing the conversation around sexual wellness, especially with investors. Building inclusivity into your brand / Building a “modern” brand. 

Session takeaways:

• Overcoming barriers to fundraising as a female Latina founder
• Normalizing the conversation around sexual wellness, especially with investors 
• Building inclusivity into your brand / Building a “modern” brand

Notes: 

Series A fundraise:

• Just closed - led by TrueBeautyVentures, Endeavor, and FableInvestments
• Easiest raise out of 4
• Closed $5.8M
• First sexual wellness company that’s raised a series A in over 7 years

The Fear Around Fundraising

• Can be scary and feel nebulous
• Build relationships over a solid period of time
• How much do you actually need and is your business fundable?
• Match the right stage of business with the right investors

• Aka, don’t start fundraising too soon

• Went from 6 to 10 employees after the fundraise ended

Building the network

• Background in Ecommerce and startups
• If you have the opportunity to work at a startup in the early stage, it’s really helpful
• Don’t be afraid to take courses

Normalizing the sex conversation

• Always recognized that the products are for a basic thing that all humans do
• Never was told it’s a bad idea
• North star metric = inclusivity

Retail

• Just picked up by Nordstrom, Saks, Bloomingdales, etc.
• Long term goal was always to be omni-channel
• Affordable products, assortment, etc.
• 80% DTC, 20% retail