r/ecommerce

Hello guys, i switched fully on broad and my creatives are crushing it. Now i want to do some retargeting, i did a research and many experts are saying that there is no need to waste money and time on retargeting because FB is already retargeting buyers when there is 1+ frequency. Or should i just use retargeting creatives on broad?

And if you are using retargeting campaigns, what are the campaign setup, what audiences you use, and what kind of creatives and copy do you use? Should i use more creatives or just one image ad?

Hi,

I am looking for suggestions and ideas. I am a manufacturer and run 8 figures revenue Shopify DTC in India in baby space (cotton based no plastic).

We want to launch UK, US but always faced two issues

1. Payments( Indian store doesn't have shopify payment so that's an issue

2. Our delivery model is we make stuff when we have the order and want to follow same processing so delivery time frame can be 10 to 15 days from India to the UK

Sometimes I think may be go via distribution or B2B but not sure. I would love to get some outside perspective regarding what can be the direction and if someone has experience in launching in the UK, I would love to connect.

Hey everyone, I'm learning how to do ecom sales on shopify, working on my second shop, doing the Shopify Store + Tiktok / IG organic business model. I plan to escalate to paid ads when I have some profits from organic. Just for context, I also run FBM on amazon, etsy and ebay, but totally different products.

My niche is fashion, and I modeled from these competitors:

• Esandro Vale

• Martino Milano

I didn't post the links or handles here, but you can google them easily.

Here's some relevant metrics - btw, I used Shop Hunter to estimate revenue, not sure if it's accurate or not:

Their tiktok posts average 1k to 5k views per post, and they post 2-3 times a day. Their websites are decent to good looking. Martino looks great on mobile, but bad on desktop.

My tiktok videos are performing somewhere between Esandro and Martino (avg 5k views / 500 likes) and my website looks about the same as well. I used a theme from Jordan Bown, and changed many things to make it fit the fashion niche, similar to the examples above. The tiktok account is about 1 month old.

The issue I'm having is: lots of tiktok views, but few visits to my shop, and no "add to carts". The last 7 days I had just over 100 US visits, and no products added to cart.

More info:

• I don't think the site is the issue, because it's my second shop, my previous site was similar, same theme, with a product that converted about 10% of visits to "add to cart" (the trend passed and the product died, but it did sell)

• The tiktok videos are similar to my competitors, and all of us have a call to action on both the descriptions and our bios.

• The products are mostly the same, with the same or similar pictures.

• Yes, I have a .com domain and the brand name sounds and looks similar to the competitors.

• And yes, the checkout is working fine, the accepted countries are US and Canada, and my tiktok account is targeting 90%+ US audience.

• According to Shop Hunter, the other shops are not running ads. They don't show up on Meta Ad library

I have no idea why this isn't converting while the other guys are selling a lot, and doing hundreds of sales a day! Can somebody help with a checklist of things to , could I be missing something here?

Thank you so much, and hope this serves as a case study for people with the same issue.

Hi r/ecommerce - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Every week for the past two years I've posted a summary recap of the week's top stories on this subreddit, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in to this week's top e-commerce news...

STAT OF THE WEEK: 40% of U.S. households are expected to shop on Amazon's Prime Day this week. More than half of Prime Day 2024 shoppers will likely be comparing prices on other retailers but still buying on Amazon. — According to a survey by Numerator

Etsy is attempting to go back to its roots and reclaim its original mission to support artisans and crafters, while still providing a sales platform for non-handmade goods. The company posted a policy update on Tuesday, noting that in place of its “handmade” and “vintage” labels, it will instead be categorizing products as Made by a seller, Designed by a seller, Sourced by a seller, & Handpicked by a seller. In addition to the product category updates, Etsy launched a new marketing campaign that'll feature Etsy sellers and their products in TV commercials, billboards, and social-media content in the U.S. and U.K. I think this is a brilliant way to humanize the buying experience on the platform — shopping with a real artisan as opposed to shopping with a fictitious private label brand name on Amazon. It's also bringing back its Etsy up virtual seller conference and launching Etsy Design Awards to honor the work of sellers.

Wix added the ability for merchants to customize their checkout forms, providing a more tailored experience for customers. Merchants can now add custom fields, customize the layout of checkout, adjust field settings, control the visibility of custom fields via conditional rules, and pass on custom field data to emails, thank you pages, and order pages.

More than 200 cryptocurrency domains registered with Squarespace have been identified at risk after the company was found to be under a massive DNS hijacking attack. By hijacking DNS functionality, hackers can redirect users to malicious websites or gain unauthorized remote access to an organization’s servers and steal sensitive data. The attack began Thursday with two websites of blockchain projects — Compound and Celer Networks — and then later researchers found that it impacted around 220 others. The incident is being blamed on the recent migration of 10M domains from Google Domains to Squarespace after the acquisition deal last September.

Meanwhile across the Canadian border, Shopify had nearly 174,000 customers' info leaked on a web hacking forum last week. Shopify denies that its servers were hacked and gave the following statement: “Shopify systems have not experienced a security incident. The data loss reported was caused by a third-party app. The app developer intends to notify affected customers.” Shopify declined to confirm the number of customers impacted or what the particular third-party app is that got hacked. That'd be a nice thing to know for the users of that app, don't you think?

Certain Amazon sellers lost their Buy Box status ahead of Prime Day after the company's algorithms found their items being sold for less on Target's website during its Target Circle Week promo, which ended July 13th. The problem for sellers resulted from a change in how Target promoted deals for Circle Week. In the past, Target would show the percentage discount off the regular price, while leaving the listed price the same. However this year, Target showed the item's actual sale price after the discount, which meant it was re-indexed by Amazon's pricing algorithms. Sellers took their concerns to Target, which then adjusted the Circle Week discounts on some listings to say “See price in cart” in order to skirt Amazon's pricing algorithms.

Indiegogo launched a new e-commerce offering called IndieShop, which allows users to purchase products developed via crowdfunding. The platform is now live on the Indiegogo site, after launching in Beta in May, and currently features 40+ products. Almost a decade ago, Indiegogo launched its InDemand offering, which allows creators to sell their products as pre-orders after crowdfunding is complete and manage customers using the site’s platform. This allows creators to continue driving revenue through the platform after they hit their goal and while the product is in production. The difference between InDemand and Indieshop is that with Indieshop, the products are in-stock and ready-to-ship. Now Indiegogo can take aspiring brands through the entire sales cycle from crowdfunding to pre-orders to selling live once the product is ready.

Chinese e-commerce vendors are struggling for survival as sales growth slows and price pressure rises due to shopping platforms competing with aggressive policies to attract customers, as reported by Reuters. Lu Zhenwang, a Shanghai-based e-commerce operator who sells items for small vendors, said, “The good times for e-commerce are over. This year there is fierce competition and I don't think a lot of sellers will survive another three years.” Lu said the operating environment is poor because the rise in e-commerce sales has created what is known in Chinese as the “neijuan” effect — working harder for smaller returns. He told Reuters, “There is no growth in sales, because there are no new customers and the average income of people is not rising like 10 years ago. There is only competition, between platforms, between sellers. This is the new normal for the e-commerce industry in China.”

The Reuters article focused on sellers getting squeezed, but it's not any better for Chinese manufacturers either right now in the country. Between Temu's aggressive price negotiations with manufacturers, and Shein's allegedly requiring factories to sign loyalty oaths promising they won't sell to competitors — the ones left in the wake of these pricing and exclusivity wars are the manufacturers. Giving the buying power and reach of China's major e-commerce players — like Alibaba, JD.com, Pinduoduo, ByteDance, and Shein — manufacturers are left with a choice: Do I want to make a little bit of money selling my products at rock bottom prices or not sell anything at all? The latter, which could mean shutting down their factories.

This year at its upcoming Prime Day sales event, Amazon promotions will be pointing shoppers toward collecting packages from its network of lockers and other pick-up points like Whole Foods stores. A spokesperson told Business Insider, “Amazon wants customers to choose the delivery option that is most convenient for them,” and that the company offers “tens of thousands of package pick-up locations” in the U.S. For customers, pick-up points are convenient and oftentimes more secure, especially for those that have previously experienced porch theft. For Amazon, it's less expensive for the company to deliver multiple customer orders to one location, as opposed to making individual drops across the city at each customer's home. Plus, porch piracy costs the company money too.

E-commerce executive shake ups this week....

commercetools appointed Andrew Burton as its new CEO, effective July 8th. Burton succeeds Dirk Hoerig, co-founder and CEO of commercetools, who will remain on the board and transition to the role of Chief Innovation Officer. Burton joins commercetools from Rapid7 where he served as President and COO, growing the company from $150M ARR to over $800M. 

Bold Commerce named Steven Guevarra as CFO, succeeding Stuart Henrickson, who left the company, and Brandon Briggs as head of sales and agency partnership, a new position. Bold said in a statement that Guevarra brings “more than two decades of financial experience and expertise scaling high-growth technology companies” and that Briggs, an e-commerce and technology veteran, will assist in the company's effort to build strategic partnerships.

Global-e Online promoted Tomer Gold as EVP, Head of the Channels and SMB Division, and Siddharth Jain as EVP, Technology. Gold formerly held the position of VP of Corporate Development at Global-e, while Jain is ascending from his role as Senior VP of Engineering within the company. 

Elk Home appointed Anna Lee Schlueter as its new Director of E-commerce, charged with driving advancements in the company's online presence. Schlueter has served as VP and Director of Operations for the past 15 years at Jaben Holdings.

Guitar Center appointed Adolfo Rodriguez as VP, Chief Technology & Information Officer, effective July 9th. Rodriguez is responsible for the end-to-end technology vision and execution of the company and will report directly to CEO Gabe Dalporto. He most recently served at Advance Auto Parts, where he spearheaded technological advancements across the company's e-commerce, brick-and-mortar stores, and supply chain. 

Hasbro Inc named Dan Rawson as global play lead for Dungeons & Dragons and D&D Beyond, its fan platform, where he will be responsible for all D2C and e-commerce operations. Rawson previously led e-commerce and SaaS businesses at Amazon and Microsoft. Hasbro named Stephanie Beal as its new chief supply chain officer. Beal has been with the company since 2022 and recently led a systems transformation to digitize planning processes across the enterprise. Hasbro also appointed Dan Shull as chief digital information officer, a newly created IT strategy position. Shull comes from REI where hew as CTO and previously held executive positions at Signet, Nike, and Borders.

Amazon's AI shopping assistant, Rufus, is now available to all U.S. customers, just in time for the company's annual Prime Day event this week. Amazon first revealed Rufus in February, but until now, it has only been accessible to a limited number of users in the app. The assistant is trained on Amazon's product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As, and information across the web. And this is just a rumor, but I heard that Rufus is secretly in love with Alexa.

eBay launched a new dashboard for its eBay Advertising, which the company described as a “reimagined and redesigned advertising experience.” The new version has a revamped Seller Hub Marketing tab and a new Advertising tab that provides sellers with a holistic view of all campaigns so that they can make quick adjustments, as well as a section with recommendations of the day which leverage to uncover trends and automatically build campaigns for your listings.

Carvana introduced a new feature that highlights electric vehicles that qualify for the Clean Vehicle Tax Credit within the search results and lets legible customers apply for up to $4,000 in savings from the credit at checkout. Instead of waiting for a lower tax bill next year, customers can now get up to $4,000 savings up front, which automatically flow through to eligible customers' financing terms. 

Ikea U.S. is trying to better serve the needs of its Spanish-speaking shoppers by launching a Spanish-language platform. In addition to the new online shopping experience, Spanish-speaking customers can also receive support before, during, and after their purchase with a Spanish-speaking associate when calling the support phone line. I'm kind of surprised a company that large didn't already have Spanish-language service for years now. 

Costco is hiking its annual membership fees in the U.S. and Canada by $5, and raising the cost of its higher-tier membership by $10, marking the first increase since 2017. That's an increase to $65 from $60 for regular annual memberships and from $120 to $130 for “Executive Membership.” Rest assured though, the hotdog + coke combo will still sell for $1.50.

Shein logistics software is in beta testing with select supply chain customers, and cybersecurity firms are concerned over the potential for a company with close ties to China to spy on the supply chain as it grows its global logistics footprint. Dewardric McNeal, senior policy analyst at Longview Global, said, “Given the intricate nature of the U.S. and global supply chains, the potential for espionage or data gathering is a significant risk. Shein’s software could provide unprecedented access to sensitive supply chain data, which the Chinese government could seize under its laws. This exposure poses a direct threat to U.S. supply chain integrity, making it vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation.” Meanwhile Shein's like, “We don't need your secrets. We're already better at this than you.”

Walmart is offering half off Walmart+ memberships until July 18th, which funny enough, overlaps with Amazon's Prime Day on July 16th and 17th. What are the odds? Walmart+ offers free shipping with no order minimum, free grocery delivery from your local store with a minimum order of $35, savings on fuel, video streaming with Paramount+, free tire repair and road hazard warranty, returns from home, and other perks. Not bad for $49! However note that unlike Amazon Prime memberships, you can't give access to your Walmart+ to other members of your household. They'd all have to login to the same account, which has your payment info tied to it. I learned that the hard way last night when I bought a year of Walmart+, thinking I could add my parents and have them share the membership perks via their own Walmart accounts.

More than 3,000 Amazon associates at Amazon's Coventry warehouse in England voted in a historic trade union recognition ballot that could allow U.K. employees to bargain collectively for rights and pay for the first time. If the collective vote supports recognition, the GMB would be given the right to represent them in negotiations over pay and conditions in what would be the first instance of Amazon recognizing a union in the U.K.

A US judge ruled against the FTC in a challenge to its ruling banning noncompete agreements, citing the FTC's lack of “substantive” rulemaking authority. The preliminary ruling blocks enforcement of the noncompete ban against the plaintiff and other groups that were involved in the case, and signals that the FTC cannot enforce the rule.

OpenAI whistleblowers filed a complaint with the SEC, calling for an investigation into the company for allegedly requiring restrictive NDAs. The whistleblowers claim that OpenAI issued overly restrictive employment, severance, and non-disclosure agreements to its employees, which could lead to penalties against workers who raised concerns about OpenAI to federal authorities.

Marc Andreessen sent $50k in Bitcoin to an AI bot on X called the Truth Terminal, which operates semi-autonomously, with its human handler only approving its Twitter posts and deciding who it gets to interact with. After a chat with Andreessen where the investor proposed a grant, the bot created a plan of upgrades which included a personal CPU, AI model tweaks, and even a billboard. Andreessen agreed to the plan and proceeded with a $50k one-time grant.

Amazon introduced App Studio at its AWS Summit last week, a new gen AI-powered platform that allows professionals to build apps using natural language descriptions and prompts. Users can specify the app's function and the data sources it should pull from, and App Studio will produce an app that would have otherwise taken the developer days. In a demo, Amazon demonstrated how App Studio can take a request for an invoice tracking app and lay out suggestions for how it should work, which the developer can approve before creating the actual app.

WhatsApp Business is reducing rates for utility messages and raising rates for marketing messages, effective Aug 4th and Oct 4th respectively. Over the last year, users have complained about the number of WhatsApp messages increasing over the platform, resulting in spam, so the company started testing restrictions on marketing messages sent to users in India, which it now expanded globally, hoping that the restrictions and increased cost will help reduce the Spam.

Mastercard and Nuvei teamed up to hep consumers in Europe convert digital assets into fiat currency via debit, credit, and prepaid cards. The off-ramping solutions lets consumers convert supported crypto currencies into fiat currency, which they can then transfer to Mastercards without the need to go through third-party exchanges.

Amazon says it reached its goal of matching all of the electricity consumed by its operations with 100% renewable energy in 2023 — seven years ahead of schedule — — making it the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world for four years running. The company is exploring new carbon-free energy sources in efforts to meet its Climate Pledge commitment of net-zero carbon by 2040. 

The EU declared that X breached its guidelines under the Digital Services Act, following an investigation into the company's advertising transparency, availability of data, and risk management. X was informed of these preliminary findings on Friday, which found three primary breaches of the DSA including its use of the Blue Check mark to receive verified status, its inability to search its advertising system, and for prohibiting researchers from independently accessing its public data.

TikTok ad spend is tapering off since March when the U.S. introduced the selloff bill that would require the company to divest the app to American ownership or be banned from the country next year. It's still growing, just slower. Ad spend was up 19% in March, 11% in April, but only 6% in May. Target reduced its spend by 30%, DoorDash by 25%, Bayer by 20%, and Procter & Gamble by 10%.

Amazon Pay India is introducing new payment methods this year including UPI, credit cards, and wallets, rather than just specializing in a single segment. The company says it sees opportunities in penetrating offline payments and smaller towns, where currently 65% of the transactions done by consumers in tier two and three cities were digital versus 75% in larger cities.

Plus 5 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including Flip's acquisition of Curated, a marketplace that connects consumers with verified experts for personalized shopping advice, for $330M in stock.

I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!

PAUL
Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter

PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.

I've been interested in fashion and styling for years, and I'm planning to launch a unisex fashion jewelry brand on Shopify (and Tiktok Shop as well). Price will range from $60 to $200, mostly $100 ish. For this price range, �?I think) I'm targeting gen Z and younger millennials who's into fashion and new stuff like myself.

Ideally Rimor Jewelry is my competitor, you can google them. I think they spend a lot on google ads.

I don't have any background in business, so it's my first time trying to start up a business from zero, and all by myself and doing it full time. Little did I know about market research or online marketing and I'm still learning, but good news is that I've been working for banks in data analysis for years and I've learned how to code and web development. I also took some tutorial about Google analytics and paid ads, and learning new useful marketing tips everyday from the internet and this subreddit <3

I can speak mandarin and I'm visiting China next month to find manufacturers and suppliers. I have some friends living in China, so I might persuade one of them to become my business partner so that she can help dealing with supply chain issues.

I do have a low budget so I may not be able to hire any full time employee at this moment I guess? Right now everything is idea only, and I feel overwhelmed by the to-do list:

• website,

• jewelry design (probably will start from copying other brands, but I should find some solution once i visit China)

• photo and lookbook shooting and planning

• managing instagram and tiktok accounts to raise brand awareness,

• google ads, potentially find influencers to help promote my products, email marketing

• fashion blog for organic traffic,

• wheatpasting posters in NYC,

• logistics

• ... etc etc.

With so much to do, a lower budget and a new business starting from scratch, I have three questions and I really hope to hear your opinions:

• With no social media followers and a new website, how do I use my limited marketing budget wisely? I'd say I'll spend less than $1000 on marketing for my first collection (probably 10 to 20 designs)

• I'm working on this full time but still too much work to do. Which part should I do by myself? What should I outsource if I have another $1000 budget for my first collection? I can probably hire some freelencers from China for less money

• Before visiting China, with my background in data analysis and programing, is there any tool or course I must learn?

Besides my questions, any advice on my business is appreciated!! Thank you all.

I’ve been using Etsy for the past 5 months and I’m getting decent sales. However, the fees are insane! I’m trying to sort out shipping and getting cheaper labels but the fees take a huge chunk of money and leave me a smaller net profit. Is there another platform I can use? Something with lower transaction and processing fees? How is Shopify?

I recently discovered a method to simplify the process of writing product descriptions using voice-to-text technology.

Instead of typing out descriptions from scratch, you can now record your voice, have it transcribed, and then make necessary edits to get a polished, formatted product description.

This has been a great help for me, saving a lot of time and effort.

This approach has greatly improved my workflow, and I believe it can help others who struggle with writing detailed and engaging product descriptions.

Anyone else tried anything similar?

Which one is the better platform?

I am a developer so woocommerce seems attractive however I don't want to be bogged down developing a Wordpress site when I can get a theme on shopify and start sourcing products and focusing on marketing and selling.

I also heard that woocommerce is better overall due to the blogging nature of wordpress. This may be beneficial for lead generation but how is Shopify in this regard?

My number one priority right now is sourcing the products and quickly setting up the site. However SEO is very important as well.

Any suggestions on which to start with?

I would like to invite you to review this website. What is good? What is bad? What can be improved?

Note: this is website of a takeaway based sushi restaurant with objective to receive online order.

Hello Redditors,

I hope this is the right place to post this. I am looking for some information or suggestions regarding B2B purchases, and I hope someone here can assist me.

I work in the retail sector and own several physical and online stores (Romania) specializing in DIY products, kitchenware, sports equipment, home and garden items, etc. We currently buy our products from a few local suppliers, but we often face issues with stock availability for the products we need. For example, we are currently looking to purchase a large stock of portable mini air conditioners with USB charging, but we can't find them anywhere.

We are looking to expand our list of suppliers and identify new B2B merchandise hubs. Primarily, we are interested in suppliers within Europe. Can anyone recommend places or platforms where we can find good wholesale deals?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Hey hey. I have a line of affirmation-filled goods ( guided journals, planners, affirmation cards etc) and I’d like to see what I can do to create the most traffic on a wholesaling page like faire. Any insights?

Hi all,

I offer fulfillment services for your online business, we basically offer all the services that amazon fulfillment center gives at a fraction of the cost. Warehousing for your products, labeling, returns processing etc.

Pm me for more info!

Hey,

What kind of graphic design work would you require for your ecommerce business if you hired a graphic designer?

Which are the best marketplaces in order to sell food supplements globally?

The person I am in contact with at Alibaba is ready to ship my product. There is a trade assurance link to make the rest of the payment but I think she wants me to type in the chat my “contact name, address, and phone number”. Is that necessary or normal?

I’ve been running my Ecom business for the last 6 months and things have been pretty smooth. Last month I started my first paid ad campaign and I’ve been getting a ton of refunds. (about 2 every 10 orders) I’m not sure if it’s my ads or my products but people will buy them minutes later refund. Here’s an email I got: “i recently bought two products on your website however they were purchased accidentally and i would like a refund as soon as possible thanks” Is this normal in Ecom or do I just have bad ads?

Hey everyone. So me and my biz partner have been thinking about starting a free weekly Webinar focused around marketing for clothing & fashion brands. Is this something anyone would be interested in? May expand to other niches but just this one for now.

Trying to see if it would be worth our time

Hey everyone,

I've been trying to land an entry-level marketing job in the UK for over 3 years now, but no luck so far. Currently working as a security guard to make ends meet.

I've taught myself a lot about marketing—Meta ad campaigns, email marketing, video/photo editing with Adobe—but I need real experience.

Thinking about starting a ecommerce business or a marketing agency. I would be starting with $5k and I'm able to put $700 into the agency or ecommerce business every month. If it takes off, awesome! If not, I'll gain valuable experience for my CV.

Any advice or tips?

Thanks!

I have my 1 product website running for 3 days with a total of 88 visits and 2 add to carts. No sales yet. How many more visits i should wait before I consider changing my offer (decrease the price, bundle, 10% off..etc)?

Online store for Italy market, opened recently The problem is that there are no conversions yet, 2 weeks since launch. I m running facebook/insta ads for traffic and retarget. Would appreciate any review input on how to improve it or maybe if there s any big design flaw. Thank you :)

We have over 10,000 customer names on our point of sale system but only 3700 emails and phone numbers. This wasn’t because customers opted out of giving us their name and number, my staff simply just did not ask them for it. This wasn’t because customers opted out of giving us their name and number, my staff simply just did not ask them for them.

Can anyone recommend a way to match these names with publicly available emails and phone numbers?

I am creating an e-commerce marketplace, I have solved the software issue, but can anyone provide information on other issues, such as the legal side, contract issues, return policy, etc.?

Any recommendations for services to collect video testimonials? My products have a lot of ravings fans and I would like to have that on video. I am curious if there are others out there doing this and if you are using a service to automate thr process, make it easy for customers? Also, do you offer any benefit to your customer for providing the video?