Sutraz

An ecommerce sales funnel is a series of web pages crafted to systematically convert visitors to an online store into paying customers.

It is a marketing term that describes the journey potential customers go through from visitor to buyer. There are several steps to an e-commerce sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on the retailer’s sales model.

Simply put, as a visual representation of your customer journey. Consumers enter the top of the sales funnel and move down, stage by stage until they (hopefully) become repeat customers.

For example: notice how this sales funnel pulls people in with a big discount, and then tries to upsell them with a one-time-offer before triggering the “Order Received” page… 

Some consumers slide through the funnel quickly, going from a lead to a fan in the blink of an eye — they see something they want; they buy that thing; they become a brand advocate. Other consumers navigate sales funnels like three-toed sloths, taking months or years to reach your checkout page.

Many people confuse sales funnels with marketing funnels,  which is the higher-level process of awareness/interest/desire/action that all companies must analyze and document. We’re talking about sales funnels.

And sales funnels are page-by-page experiences that get people to take action, they’re crafted with human psychology in mind so that your visitors can’t help but click, opt-in, and buy.

Keeping up with high order volume: As your D2C brand grows, your order volume increases and your day to day operations become challenging. From keeping a track of inventory levels to picking, packing and shipping become more difficult to manage manually. You also have to maintain a fulfillment center or warehouse and hire more staff. Moreover, the requirement for automation also arises to minimize the need for manual operations that are time-consuming and not at all cost-effective.

High shipping rates: When you’re shipping your D2C orders yourself, you have to rely on shipping providers for providing cost-efficient shipping services across the country. However, it is unlikely for you to get discounts and negotiated shipping rates because of low order volumes. This makes speedy delivery expensive.

Pressure to offer fast and free delivery: Customers expect fast and free delivery as a standard service from D2C brands. You need to fulfil your orders from multiple locations in order to increase the shipping speed. For that, you need a distributed network of warehouses across the country to store your inventory closer to your customers. 

Delivery transparency at checkout: Nowadays, customers not only want fast shipping, but they also want to know when their order will be delivered. 80% of customers expect to see an estimated delivery date at checkout. However, only 40% of ecommerce brands actually show them. This is what makes the last mile the most costly and least efficient part of the fulfillment process. If deliveries are late or missed completely due to failed drop-off attempts, this results in poor post-purchase experiences that damage a customer’s relationship with your brand.

Handling increasing returns: The possibility of returns also increases with orders. Most importantly, for a D2C brand, it is essential to make returns and refunds as customer-centric as possible. When you’re dealing directly with your customers, you must offer them free returns and a hassle-free returns process. However, returns are costly and the whole process is tedious. Also, when returns processing is slow and unwieldy, returned items begin piling up at your facilities, resulting in frustrated customers and lost resale opportunities. If left unchecked, there’s a real risk of dead stock accumulating.

Enhancing the customer experience: When you’re only handling a low volume of orders, it’s relatively straightforward to add embellishments to the order fulfillment process that enhance the customer experience. However, elaborate fulfillment practices don’t necessarily scale well as your business grows. Creating an unboxing experience, for example, adds a lot of extra time to the fulfillment of each order. This puts D2C brands in a difficult position. Losing the trimmings can disappoint loyal customers, while also removing what makes your business unique. But as order volumes increase, it’s not always feasible to continue with such time-consuming practices.

Seamless integrations: Direct-to-consumer order fulfillment is about far more than just moving goods from A to B. Unless you have fast and reliable integrations between your ecommerce platform and your OMS (Order Management System) you’re not even going to know which goods you have in stock – much less where you need to send them.

Brands face multiple obstacles when organizing the content function for their blogs. A blog gives you the opportunity to connect directly with your readership, to contribute to the literary community, and, of course, to promote your writing. But maintaining an effective, interesting blog that keeps your readers coming back for more can be harder than you might expect. 

Just because you’re a writer and have a certain mastery of words doesn’t mean you’ll be a successful blogger. Blogging requires an additional set of skills, such as putting on your marketing hat and considering what will hook your readers. It is a full-time job and requires dedication, patience, creativity, commitment, marketing skills, and so much more. The sad reality is that there are lots of problems bloggers face and they cause most of the beginning bloggers to fail. It is especially a drag to browse already popular blogs and see the whole range of skills and talents on display: excellent writing, brilliant photography, fun videos and witty debates in the comments. 

Lack of inspiration:

We all have those days, weeks or months where blogging is difficult. Call it writer’s block or lack of motivation. It happens to the best of us and can be a struggle to get through. As a writer, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of staring at a blank screen while waiting for inspiration to strike. But as a savvy writer, you should also know that writing only when you’re feeling inspired is a recipe for slow progress, wasted time, and wasted potential.

No Traffic:

Of the many difficulties associated with maintaining a blog, one of the most heartbreaking and frustrating is the demoralizing effect of having little or no audience. You work hard on your posts, you have informative and interesting content, but your blog gets no traffic. The search engines just hide your blog from potential readers.

Few or zero returning visitors:

Do you just write a blog when the mood suits you? If you want people to become regular readers of your blog then you need to be consistent. 

For any website, returning visitors are important because they tell how successful your marketing campaigns are, who are your loyal customers, and how powerful your brand is. You might be read but not consistently. If very few are willing to stick around and follow your blog, something is definitely wrong.

Technical problems:

For many writers, the hardest part about having a blog is dealing with the technical demands of running your own curated space on the Internet. After all, you’re a writer, not an IT specialist! (Unless, of course, you’re an IT specialist who also happens to write poetry or prose.)

Not keeping on topic: 

Once you’ve established your niche, you should stick to it. Consistency in topics is crucial for keeping your readers and followers: they started following you for a reason. Failing to keep on topic is one of the reasons some bloggers fail to maintain and grow their community.

Most organizations understand the benefits of maintaining a business blog, such as improved search visibility and thought leadership development; however, there are still many companies that chose not to blog for one reason or another.

With the prevalence of content marketing, business blogs are becoming more and more common. Corporate blogs among Fortune 500 companies jumped from 23% in 2010 to 42% last year, and the rest of the country is following suit. What was once a competitive advantage is now business as usual, to the point where “Should My Business Have A Blog?” is a question with a foregone conclusion.

Another study showed that marketing firms that blogged received 67% more leads than firms that didn’t. Blogs not only generate more leads, they boost authority, give value to prospective customers, and improve your site’s SEO ranking.

Of course you should have a small business blog.  The real question is, why isn’t every business out there blogging?

Don’t have the time

Every small business owner knows that time is precious. Every minute you spend on your website, (and your website’s blog,) is a minute that you could be spending running another aspect of your business.

Sometimes, a small business owner has to think like someone running an emergency room, triaging patients based on the severity of condition and the amount of good that treatment is likely to achieve.  

If your business is new to blogging, carving time out of your already busy day to write a blog seems like a tall order.

The reality? We make time for the things that are important. If you “don’t have time” to blog, it means that you don’t understand the value of using some of your time to invest in one.

Don’t see the benefit

People like to see instant results. It’s just our nature. And it’s amplified by online tools and social media networks that give us the rush of instant gratification on a daily basis. 

This is an understandable reaction, because when people invest their time, resources, and silly dog pictures, they want to see a good return on that investment. 

On a daily basis bloggers lash out against others and make false accusations which traditional journalists stray from. Is this freedom of speech? Of course but there is definitely crossing the line and the decision of bloggers as a whole to show their willingness to make slanderous statements about others is why big brands stay away.

In reality, the purpose of a blog is to provide value to customers, to give them a chance to get to know your company, and to become a voice of authority in your field. Moreover, a well promoted blog does get leads and referrals.

Not good at writing

You’re a small business owner. Why would anybody read something that you wrote? The answer is, because people who read blogs aren’t looking for the next literary masterpiece. You don’t need to be a seasoned journalist to be able to write blog posts. They’re looking for a solution to a problem, an answer to a question, or guidance in making a purchasing decision. It’s not about your writing skills- it’s about your expertise. So write about what your customers care about! In fact, the raw content created through deep passion and expertise often outweighs formal training and education. 

With that being said, you still need to ensure legibility and credibility and there are ample ways to do that. Enlisting the help of a colleague or friend to copy edit is one option, and there are a variety of contractors and services out there for hire as well. This excuse simply cannot stop you from blogging. Harness the expertise and passion you have for your subject, and enlist the help of someone else to pull it all together if necessary.

Your blog readers don’t care if you can spin a sentence like Tolstoy or weave a world like Tolkien. They want to get to know you, your company, and your field of expertise. They want to research what you know and what you stand for before they make a decision to work with you. The more opportunity you give them to see why you’re worth doing business with, the better chance you have of opening up a whole new channel for leads.

Nobody cares about our business

Despite all those long hours and effort you put into it, the right results just don’t seem to be coming. This is a common objection from the very worst offenders. If no one cares about your business or products, then why are you in business in the first place and who are you trying to help? Regardless of the product or service you provide, and industry or market you’re a part of, people care about your product, your mission, and the problem you’re trying to solve – even if they don’t know it yet. Once a potential visitor begins the need recognition process and begins a buying journey, you’ll want to be sure you’re as visible as possible, and blogging helps you do that.

Senior Management doesn’t get it – what’s the point?

A company stuck in this mentality largely indicates that someone simply isn’t doing their job. You might argue that it’s the problem of the member of senior staff who has adopted this attitude, and in general you are mostly right. They say, if the blog works out, it is likely to demand more time and attention from the executive. If it doesn’t, the executive in question will need to admit he/she made a mistake somewhere. In this day of digital sales and marketing, leadership that ‘doesn’t get it’ most likely doesn’t get a lot of things and may need to be reassessed as to the appropriateness of their posting. 

Be that as it may, there is enough supporting data and information around the efficacy of blogging that is inescapable if not fully undeniable. This being the case, subordinates who are not building the pro-blogging case to upper management are also not doing their job.

A well-written and informative blog can attract new leads, keep current customers engaged with your brand, and provide your company value in other ways too.

Every brand needs a blog. You may think that no one will care about your brand’s new product launch or what goes on behind the scenes, but that is not the case. Consumers want to know the story behind their favorite brands and feel confident that they are making the right choice when they strongly identify with a brand.

A company blog can do all those things and more. Blogging for a brand is also not hard to maintain because most companies do not update their blogs daily.

A blog is one of the most effective ways to boost brand awareness and reach your target audiences by authoring content that is relevant to their searches.

 Social media. Newsletters. Video. You name it. When it comes to marketing a brand, there are seemingly thousands of options to choose from. Although every digital channel has something unique to offer, the first option brands should consider when enhancing their marketing strategy is a blog. Believe it or not, a blog is one of the most effective ways to boost brand awareness and reach your target audiences by authoring content that is relevant to their searches.

Enhance Your Brand’s Image

A brand’s blog needs to be relevant to what it sells. Otherwise, it serves no purpose and can dilute a brand’s message. If you are thinking about creating a company blog, you need to figure out what voice you want to use.

Does your brand target working moms? Then, you’re going to want to feature articles on how your products make juggling their careers with raising their family easier. You might even want to provide tips on how moms can make the most of their time. Not everything on your blog has to be selling your product. In fact, you’re going to lose readers if you focus too much on making a sale. Give people a reason to care about your brand by giving them information they find helpful or interesting.

The Disney Parks Blog does an excellent job of enhancing the allure of Disney’s theme parks. It’s written as though it was a Travel Channel documentary narrated by your Disney-loving friends. The blog is equal parts “check out this cool behind the scenes video” and “I can’t wait to try the food at Disney World’s new restaurant.” You don’t have to be a Disney fan to appreciate the thought that went into the Disney Parks brand’s blog.

For those who work in social media, Hootsuite’s blog provides tips on how to better use Facebook, Snapchat, and other platforms. It also covers stories social media professionals find useful and inspirational, such as the post “How One University Used Social Media to Raise $28M in a Single Day.” These are all things relevant to the target audience but don’t push the HootSuite brand.

Readers of the Hootsuite blog will appreciate that the company spends more time educating them about changes in the digital marketing world than explaining the benefits of Hootsuite, which will make these reader’s more likely to want to use Hootsuite for their social media needs.

Control the Narrative

Having a company blog enables you to get ahead of a story and break the story ahead of the media. Once the press reports on your new product launch or a controversy, you’ve lost control of the narrative. If the press widely reports on a negative story, your brand can lose customer goodwill and possibly suffer irreparable damage.  

Your website messaging is an important way to reinforce your brand, but a blog gives you more flexibility to tell your story and convey your company’s personality, values, and goals. A blog is a great way to give your individual employees a voice as well—having multiple authors can bring different perspectives and help keep the blog well-stocked with fresh content.

For example, Apple has been struggling to convince iPhone owners that the slow down of older iPhones is to preserve battery performance and not force owners of old phones to buy new ones. The company is now being sued because it did not previously disclose this, which is not helped by the public’s natural distrust of large corporations. Had Apple been upfront, the company would have been able to clarify that all older phones need a new battery to regain their previous functionality.

Before allegations of consumer fraud were made, Apple should have explained that all batteries lose power over time and that once a battery starts showing signs of its age, the company will be happy to prolong the life of your phone with a $79 replacement battery. However, because that didn’t happen, Apple is doing damage control and temporarily offering iPhone battery replacements for $29, which is like putting a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches.

Apple is doing a much better job explaining it’s international tax situation. The company’s not trying to get out of paying taxes. It just wants the tax code to make sense, which is hard to argue with.

Find Out About Your Customers

Posting regularly to your brand’s blog allows you to find out which articles draw the most views. You should also use Google Analytics and/or Facebook Pixel to get information about your blog’s visitors. By using these tools, you can find out audience information, such as location, age breakdown, gender breakdown, and time of day most people visit. This information will enable you to make educated decisions about what demographics to target, how to improve brand awareness, and what products and services to offer.

If you are brave enough to enable comments on your brand’s blog, you’ll be able to gauge what people are saying about your content and how they feel about your brand. While comments can be a useful tool, there is a high likelihood that spammers and trolls will abuse the comment section. Therefore, before comments are allowed it is important to consider whether the feedback gained is worth the time spent monitoring the comments.

A brand blog should be an essential part of your company’s marketing strategy, but it’s necessary to have a plan prior to implementation. A poorly thought out blog will do more damage than good, whereas a well-done blog will expand your brand’s presence and make your brand appear more accessible.

Keep your audience updated about your business

Beyond your company website, a blog is a fantastic tool to keep your audience in the loop about your business. While a website might be more practical in content and straightforward in tone, a blog offers more flexibility to connect with customers, to share updates in a way that shows who you are, not just what you do.

Think of your blog as your direct communication channel. It’s a space to talk in depth about your products and services, share timely content, and comment on relevant industry trends in a way that lets your brand personality shine.

Get feedback from your customers

Good business websites do a solid job of giving customers the information they need, but it is usually done so in a one-way manner. There’s often no room to ask questions, comment on content, or start a conversation.

This is why a blog is so powerful. It creates a two-way conversation with customers, leads and industry peers. With a more relatable tone and an interactive platform, you can encourage feedback and discussion in the comment sections of your blogs.

Having in-depth conversations with your customers is a great way to build trust and authority in your brand. Plus, it allows you to examine your business from your audience’s point of view and make changes to improve your services.

Helps you build your email database

Email marketing is still a solid marketing strategy. But it’s not always easy to get people to sign up. This is where a blog can help. It ensures your business stays top of mind and helps reinforce your audience’s need to keep updated.

If people find your blog content informative, relevant and engaging, chances are they’ll trust that your email newsletters are as well. To push them towards signing up, include internal links in both your blogs and newsletters. This makes it easier for them to read about promotions, new products, or business updates on your blog.

Health and Fitness has become a hot topic in recent years. From contemporary yoga classes to trendy new diets, everyone seems to be on the hunt for the next big thing. Blogging is a great way to share your insight on at-home workouts and be inspired when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle. From nutrition and fitness to spiritual and mental health, these websites are full of useful resources to help boost your well-being.

Teach and explain more about products

Blogs allow for in-depth explanations and teaching about what your products and services can really offer. For example, you could write customer case studies, explore specific benefits, or provide easy-to-read “how to” guides on your most technical services.

The more your company produces content like this, the more it will be seen as an authority in the industry. This not only builds up your knowledge bank, it also breeds innovation and creativity. The deeper and more complex your posts are, the more ideas you’re likely to generate.

Great for building long tail and driving traffic

A chief reason every company needs a blog is to increase their visibility. Put simply, the more blog content you create, the more opportunities you’ll have to show up in search engines and drive organic traffic to your website. Some of your blog traffic will come from existing customers, but a blog is a great way to get new customers as well. If someone finds one of your blog posts by doing a Google search for that topic, you earn yourself a reader who might never have heard of you otherwise. Blogging is a great way to share your insight on at-home workouts and eating best practices. 

Perhaps the most important reason why blogging is important is that it gives you the opportunity to create relevant content for your target audience. Use this as a marketing strategy to push traffic back to your website.

Blogs provide the perfect platform to strengthen your SEO strategy. Your business can boost its chances of generating traffic and converting leads by creating fresh and well-written articles that incorporate long-tail keywords, images and videos.

It’s much easier to get social exposure with blog articles

Blogging is a simple way to get discovered via social media. A quick social post announcing new blog content and providing a link is a great way to connect with your social media audience. Every time you write a blog post, you’re creating content that people can easily share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other channels. This helps expose your company to audiences you might not even know yet.

On the other hand, blog content helps fuel your social media output. Instead of trying to pull new social media content ideas out of a hat, you can simply promote and link recent and relevant blog posts. You’re simultaneously strengthening your social media presence and bringing in new visitors. It’s a win-win.

Your blog posts are great pieces of content that you can share across various social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Pinterest. This is a great way to attract new and potential customers that may not have heard of your business yet.

Repurposing your blog content is a fantastic way for you to keep your social media presence active without having to constantly create new content.

If you’re looking to reach new audiences, build your brand and stand out from the competition. Take inspiration from the reasons above and get started on a business blog.

Having a blog not only provides a strong foundation for your marketing, it’s also fun and inspiring—and a great way to share ideas, generate new ones, and build a community of like-minded and engaged people.

Establish trust with your customers.

Make your blog an extension of your customer service efforts by using it as a platform to address common concerns or questions you hear from your customers. When you blog about things that are important to your customers, you show you truly care about their problems and want to use your expertise to provide solutions. That makes your readers trust you, and people are more likely to make purchases from a company they trust. 

People trust the written word, and blogs improve the level of trust towards your organization or venture. Make sure you provide helpful and accurate content, encourage discussions and knowledge sharing, and see increased confidence in your brand!

The importance of blogging for a business cannot be underestimated. Even with the emergence of other creative tools to support your visibility and push forward your services, it does not diminish the value of what a blog can do for your brand. Whatever your needs are, a blog post is an essential tool for creating a steady stream of website traffic, growing audience, and new prospects.

Keep Your Audience Engaged and Share Relevant, Helpful Content

Promoting your services and goods is not easy, especially in a highly competitive business climate. That’s when the blog comes in handy. It helps you with the multimedia representation of your company, keeps the audience interested, and promotes your company. Think about promoting your videos, podcasts, interviews, and more on your blog. Content like this is beneficial for your audience and great content for your website. The most critical part is the overall quality of your posts.

Generate leads:

Blogging is a great way of converting visitors into leads. Since each blog post is indexed by search engines separately, it presents an opportunity to generate leads if you add a call-to-action to the post.

These call-to-actions can lead to offers such as free ebooks, whitepapers, templates, trials, or any other type of content that people would trade for their information.

Content and commerce pertains to a business’s ability to offer engaging narratives around their product or services to the consumer (in the form of rich product content like detailed information, brochures, product guides, video tutorials, social media stories, online or offline events or even user generated content like reviews or experience sharing) and an equally intuitive and intelligent commerce platform to seamlessly send them down to the path of purchase. This is what a good content-commerce combination looks like. It provides consistent, connected experiences to customers.

By delivering personalized content, based on customer data, individual shopping behavior, and industry trends, eCommerce is evolving away from simple ‘product pages’ to a new generation of immersive, insight-driven customer journeys. That’s where a merger of content and commerce becomes significant; it can achieve the right personalization and contextualization needed to fuel customer friendly purchase experiences.

Content-driven Commerce is a goldmine to amplify customer experience. The digital landscape is transforming day by day. Most companies recognize that content and commerce must intertwine to drive business results online and help deliver a friction-free customer experience. 

Customers are looking for a personalized content-driven experience. The possibilities in omnichannel marketing have increased customer expectations forcing eCommerce vendors to explore new terrains to enrich customer experience. Omnichannel experiences are reigning supreme and it’s rapidly becoming clear that there’s no way forward without creating moments of buying by integrating content and commerce.

Content, if rightly curated, can generate interest in the minds of customers. Specific content channelized to the right customers will educate them about your product and inspire them to take necessary actions. 79 percent of people say that user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions. Customers expect accurate and detailed descriptions, it is how they will be able to build trust in your products before purchasing them.

Brand experiences are no longer limited or constrained by specific channels. The ability to shop, view ads and create engaging experiences on mobile or web, or even at offline kiosks, is integral to eCommerce. This also means that businesses need to shift from a channel-centric to a customer-centric perspective when it comes to building a seamless brand experience that drives online sales.

By setting up a robust set of APIs, you enable bi-directional communication through your entire content system, from presentation and site management to checkouts and promotions – this frees your eCommerce platform from infrastructural dependencies and helps you create a consistent brand experience at every stage of the buyer journey.

One major way that businesses are now gaining a competitive advantage in digital is by providing a seamless customer journey that establishes a lasting relationship with the customer.

Building a meaningful customer experience is important for all retailers, brands and manufacturers, whether they are selling directly to consumers or to other enterprises. The hard truth is that it’s not enough to just employ standard best practices  retailers have to dig in and elevate themselves above the competition. Too often, unfortunately, retailers’ differentiated customer experiences blend together in a sea of sameness.

Typically, whenever someone starts talking about the best ways to create a differentiated customer experience, the things they list are not distinct from their competitors in the least. Instead, they are common practices that every business knows they have to perform to succeed. Delivering this consistent cross-channel experience involves synchronizing personal data and shopping carts across all touchpoints.

Unless you’re selling a totally niche product, chances are you have competition out there. You may have similar products and even price points to some of your competitors. Content is one way you can differentiate your brand and use your brand story and user experience to encourage consumers to choose your products over other options.

Essentially, no two customer journeys are alike. The key is to know your customers well, so you can understand how to best support them through their path to purchase. Design your business model such that your marketing and product departments are in lockstep. This makes sure you’re providing relevant content that is both helpful to consumers and supportive of the products and services you actually offer.

If your first priority is to sell your products to your customer, they will see right through that and be less likely to engage with your content. When creating content, be sure to give them something of value that they can use in making their purchasing decisions.

Providing the right content for all those people, at just the right point in their individual shopping processes is a big job, especially when you consider the multitude of different devices and marketing channels that consumers interact with throughout the day. Think of your content strategy as a long game. Your goal is to build strong relationships with customers that will not only encourage them to buy your products once, but to come back to your ecommerce store time and time again.

The true differentiation for tomorrow’s eCommerce is when you marry the best of both of these worlds,  content and commerce and personalize them both for each consumer at the moment.

Content commerce is here to stay, and it’s just the beginning. Publishers should consider how they can capitalize on the opportunity ahead by curating a community of brand partners and offering a native commerce experience on their websites.

Get a head start on curating your brand partners. We’re a supplier enablement platform that makes it easy for you to get your multi vendor marketplace up and running. Contact our sales team today to get started. 

Combining content and commerce into one platform and preventing them from being siloed makes it easier for you to deliver results by viewing products and media content in one location.

Customers of today prefer to do their research before purchasing from a brand. The reason being that they are constantly bombarded with advertisements at every turn, from television to social media platforms. Instead of letting brands dictate what they should buy, customers are in a much better position to do so themselves.

Content is one of the critical drivers of eCommerce spending with companies that utilize content marketing, enjoying an almost 6x increase in conversions when compared to those that don’t. 

For publishers and brands, the answer is both. Consumers are being bombarded with ads, influencers, and dodgy search results. As a result, there is a greater need for sources of truth for product information before hitting the checkout.

Consumers want to educate themselves about what they should purchase. In an environment where every product category has dozens of highly-rated options to choose from, they have to do their research to find the best product that matches their needs. Education delivered in the customer journey through content — social media walkthroughs, customer case studies, or SEO-powered product pages — is one of the keys to driving more revenue.  

On the other side of the equation, consumers want frictionless purchase options for products. A 2021 study showed that nearly 1 in 5 shoppers abandoned their cart because of a long or complicated checkout process. 

The symbiotic relationship between content and commerce has created a new business model for publishers and a new distribution channel for brands: content commerce.

Content commerce is the strategic integration of relevant products and media to deliver differentiated shopping experiences for consumers.

For example, let’s say you’re checking out The Fascination’s Holiday Gift Guide. You scroll through the list and notice The Apex watch from Vincero. You think it’ll be a great gift for your dad, just in time for the holidays.

That’s content commerce in action. It reduces the friction between content and commerce, creating seamless purchase experiences that benefit consumers, publishers, and brands. 

Content commerce is just one application of the Operating System for B2B Trade that we talk a lot about at Convictional, and we think it’ll become even more relevant as publishers become ecommerce businesses.

Content commerce is the strategic integration of content-driven marketing to nurture brand loyalty and provide value to customers. It focuses on content as a service and develops a consistent and connected experience to drive customers towards the purchase path.

With a B2B sales funnel, you can establish the different stages that a business representative might go through from the first contact with your brand to the purchase of the product or service itself. The primary goal of a B2B sales funnel is to increase return on investment (ROI). This involves working according to a plan to influence prospects’ decision-making so that they become your customer. Regardless, you must avoid pushing your prospects into deciding. This is because doing so could drive them away instead of turning them into paying customers.

B2B Sales funnels use marketing strategies that tell you what to do step-by-step, based on your audiences’ interests. A sales funnel will inform you of the accurate number of leads that enter your sales pipeline and the ones that eventually convert. 

It is imperative that every piece of content you create appeals to your potential customers. For this reason, you should learn about their interests, dislikes, fears, and other factors to create compelling content. B2B sales funnel informs you of the same stage each prospect has reached and ensures your content to be more appropriate.

You can accurately determine the percentage of people who come out of your sales funnel with one or two experiments. With this information, you can better optimize your B2B sales process and cut every associated risk. You will also reduce the time, effort, or other resources and make better forecasts.

You built your B2B business to see steady growth. Using a funnel can help you get there by increasing sales and retaining customers. You probably already get sales, but if you understand the process by which sales take place, you can increase conversions.

Sales funnel can help you sort, evaluate and rank your prospects. Not all leads are created equal. Knowing who requires immediate attention and who needs long-term nurturing, for example, will help prevent any missed opportunities for conversions. 

Creating a sales funnel will help you know your public. In turn, you can make sure your product or service meets your Client’s needs and solves their problems. Amazon Business recently revealed that 91% of business buyers prefer online procurement to offline, which means more chances to gather insights and data to understand your target audiences. 

Video commerce has become an important factor in e-commerce strategy and as a result, there is a huge amount of activity to support improved conversion through video.

Video has the ability to convey an incredible amount of information very fast. Displaying your product via video will give your customer so much more information about how it looks like. It is also possible to strike an emotional chord and tell customers how they should feel about an item.

Studies show that people are more likely to share videos than text pages. Additionally, people are also more inclined to click on a video thumbnail than on something with no visual or multimedia element. Videos are naturally more engaging than plain text. As such, audiences are much more likely to watch video commerce content than read product pages. They can also convey information quicker, which is important given the shrinking attention spans of consumers. The benefits of video are that it gives visitors a reason to spend more time on your site, which lays a ground for future purchases. 

Higher Conversion Rates

Video Commerce produces higher conversion rates. Website visitors are 64-85% more likely to buy a product online after watching a video. Moreover, 73% of consumers say they are more likely to buy a product after watching videos that explain how it works. It helps consumers understand product features and benefits.

Boost Consumer Confidence

Videos help boost consumer confidence. In fact, 57% of consumers say that videos make them more confident in products they buy and less likely to return their orders. 

Stronger Branding

Video Commerce allows for stronger branding. Viewers can see company representatives handle and use products while watching a video, they learn to trust the company selling to them. Consumer trust often leads to greater retention and loyalty. Human connection is a powerful thing!

Video Turns Viewer to Customers

A proper informative video is one of the best ways of turning your viewers to potential customers. Three-quarter of those who view a product video are more likely to buy the commodity. Visual evidence gives them the confidence they need to purchase your merchandise. The fact that they are seeing another person using the product makes them excited to try it out for themselves. 

Adds Value to your Product

A proper video can make a tremendous difference to your product. A video provides a substantial amount of information regarding your commodity in a few seconds. It will give your customers an insight into what to expect. The benefits of your assets and a demonstration of how they can use it will make it easy for the customers to see the value of your product.

Builds Trust Towards Your Product

No one will purchase an item without trusting that it can deliver. Because of this, companies spend time and money to create videos to show their consumers they believe the products they offer are reliable. Video commerce experiences increase customers’ loyalty by educating and entertaining them at every step of the shopping process. 

Easy to Click and Share

People are more likely to share digital content than texts. With the constant sharing of video content, the information on the video moves from one person to another; this way, getting your business out to the world. This works even better on social media, where whatever you share or like will be seen by your followers or friend.

Video Commerce is the practice of using video content to promote and sell commercial products or services on the Internet. It is significant for the retailers because it has the power to translate brand experience into a transaction. Video Commerce is a new trend in online shopping. With video, people can see products and shop from their mobile devices at any time, anywhere.

Video Commerce is hugely important for retailers as it presents the opportunity to go into depth into the product, give the shopper an experience of the product and ultimately the brand. In this article, we go through the elements of video commerce that are now the key driver in e-commerce growth today.

Video Commerce is the future of e-commerce. It’s what retailers need to be doing to keep up with the changing times and stay competitive. It is a new type of video advertising that combines AI-powered shoppable videos with product placement. Consumers watch the ad and then click on a link to buy or learn more about the product, all within the same viewing experience.

Video Commerce allows brands to engage with customers in an immersive way while also providing them with an opportunity to purchase products from their favorite brands at any time, day or night. It allows merchants to create video content to drive sales. These videos are then distributed on various platforms, including social media and paid advertising campaigns. The goal of this type of marketing is to get potential customers interested in a product.

Video Commerce is a new way to connect with your customers. It’s about creating videos that answer frequently asked questions, show how-to guides, and share product information.

WordPress is the most popular website builder and content management system in the world. It has a market share of 43% of websites on the internet. With WordPress, you can make a website, start a blog, or create an online store. It comes with thousands of free and premium plugins that work as addons to extend the features and functionality on your site.

Most websites use WordPress for its flexibility, easy-to-use admin panel, and thousands of themes / templates. You can set up a WordPress site quickly without writing any code.

BBC America

BBC America is a popular entertainment site that broadcasts several British TV shows like The Graham Norton Show, Top Gear, Doctor Who, and more. The site uses WordPress as a content management system and offers features that include full episodes, live TV, and user registration. 

BBC America is responsible for both and many more TV dramas, sci-fi series, and natural history documentaries. It even lets you stream movies, too. But what makes this website so versatile is that you can read the blog and shop online for merchandise as well.

The Walt Disney Company

One of the biggest names in the media industry, The Walt Disney Company is known for creating the happiest place on Earth. This well-known brand also takes advantage of the best CMS on Earth – WordPress. Utilizing a large hero image, the website offers users recent updates about company events, philanthropy efforts, a sticky navigation menu, and dedicated sections for investors, those looking to change careers, this site oozes WordPress design and functionality.

Sweden’s Official Site

Sweden’s Official Site is the country’s official information portal that shares news related to business, culture, traditions, nature, facts, and society. The Official Site of Sweden runs on WordPress, is super impressive and utilizes it in a very effective way. Can’t imagine any government agency using WordPress. They prefer to give us websites that seem to have been designed by a committee in 1995.

Sony Music

Sony Music is the official website of the global music brand. It uses WordPress to display their featured artists, labels, and news from the music industry. Columbia, RCA, Epic, and Arista Records are all part of Sony Music, along with many other smaller labels. Some Sony Music artists you may have heard of include Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and Automatic Dog Machine.

The Official James Bond Website

Whether your favorite James Bond actor is Sean Connery or Roger Moore, 007.com has something for you. The official James Bond website uses WordPress to showcase their watch collection, display brand news, and promote Bond movies. The site also integrates with social networks to showcase Twitter feeds in the sidebar. The site keeps fans around the globe up to date on the history of one of the world’s more notorious agents, behind-the-scenes features, current/upcoming promotions, and more.

Time.com

One of the earliest print magazines to adapt to the web, Time has been online in one form or another since 1994. It is one of the oldest American news and magazine websites. The site uses WordPress to post news in categories, embed YouTube videos, and publish weekly magazines. Published for almost 100 years, Time has the world’s largest circulation for a weekly news magazine. With an online archive of every article they’ve ever published, Time has taken full advantage of its online presence.

Katy Perry:

Katy Perry is a well-known American singer and songwriter. Her official site is using WordPress to display the latest albums, songs, and video releases. Easily scrollable and user friendly, her simple website showcases the unique style of the pop star, providing information about the upcoming tours, top news, and a handful of easily navigable links to the artist’s music, top products, etc. Browsing the site is such a pleasure that you might spend a good 3 hours just jumping from page to page, checking the prices of cool Katy Perry tops and listening to her music, “cause she’s a champion and you’re gonna hear her roar!”

Harvard University Gazette:

Harvard University is one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The Harvard Gazette is the official news outlet of Harvard University which is managed by Harvard University using WordPress as a CMS for their journal. The website looks stunning where you can find news and events organized in categories. Formerly a print publication, it is now a website. Their site employs various fade-in face-out and popping effects and the topics highlight innovation and discovery in teaching, learning, and research.

The Washington Post | Brand Studio:

The Washington Post is a leading investigative journalism website that shares news on politics, public opinions, and more. It is using WordPress for their Brand Studio website that showcases their interactive stories. The Washington Post used a user-centered design philosophy to radically shift our development process to launch dozens of successful new blogs, platforms and tools in the past year. This philosophy is the reason why they use WordPress.

Van Heusen:

Van Heusen is an American fashion and clothing brand well-known all around the globe as a popular website. It is using WordPress with a shopping cart, newsletter subscriptions, and product galleries that specializes in high-quality, dresses and casual shoes for men and women.

Installing updates is important to the health of your WordPress site, but can be a nuisance if not done thoughtfully. Premium WordPress themes are updated and improved often. These updates are important to maintain proper security on WordPress websites. Updates may bring some small problems to a website in which case you may have to revert to an older WordPress state.

As the use of WordPress websites are increasing with each passing day, dangers looming around them have also increased. Yes, it’s 100% true. Professional hackers and cybercriminals make numerous endeavors to hack WordPress websites and destroy the web-based business being generated through that. Once your website is hacked, you suffer a great loss in terms of business, leads and sales, revenues, the SEO ranking of your website, lots of trust of customers. To mitigate this risk, again, it is always good to be knowledgeable in choosing plugins and themes for your WordPress site; always assess the quality of a WordPress plugin and install with caution.

WordPress releases its new updates frequently. Most of the updates are updates aimed at eliminating the faults of the previous versions of the WordPress CMS, themes, and plugins. It helps users to use the updated software, themes, and plugins and run his/her WordPress site smoothly. However, in some cases, certain WordPress themes, plugins or even websites don’t recognize new WordPress updates and they behave strongly. It might affect your business negatively and you might suffer a huge loss if the problem is not solved immediately.

Certain themes contain a lot of unnecessary generic code. This can decrease the speed of the site and cause slow load times. Without prior WordPress experience it can be hard to understand what code you need and what code you can do without.  Fast loading websites are loved & liked by Google and visitors. People like to browse faster websites to find the desired stuff easily and quickly. Google lists faster websites in its SERP to give users a pleasant browsing experience. If you publish content daily on your WordPress website, your website becomes slow after a certain period of time because of the accumulation of lots of content. Slow websites generally have a lower ranking in Google, high bounce rate, less traffic and it receives frequent criticism from the targeted audience.

WordPress plugins are the main reason why people are passionate about this CMS platform. Plugins help WordPress users to add more features and functionalities to WordPress websites without editing a single code. However, there are many non-tech individuals who heavily rely on different plugins to operate WordPress websites because they don’t know the PHP, HTML, CSS, JS to operate WordPress websites independently. Using too many WordPress plugins can make your website slow and plummet the business volume drastically.

We all hesitate to invest in customization, as it can get expensive. WordPress is a very flexible tool unlike many of the other drag and drop web builder tools out there. However, if you aren’t a WordPress expert and you didn’t have one develop your site, then this can be an issue. As mentioned above, updating core WordPress may cause some problems on your site. These updates may break up some of the functionality and if you don’t have best practices employed when designing the site, this can become an issue.

WordPress Multisite is a feature, which allows users to run multiple websites from one backend. But, its installation and activation process is quite complicated. Non-tech persons can’t think of handling a WordPress multisite.

Ecommerce blogging is a way to write consistent content, content that specifically targets users, based on the stage of their buying journey. It can be educational that explains about your product & how it can solve the challenges which they’re facing.

It helps to increase the organic traffic of your site, ranking your site for multiple keywords. Finally, present you as an industry thought leader.

Ecommerce Blog offers opportunities for people to find your products and ultimately add them to their shopping carts. It doesn’t end there, though. Blog articles offer another way for you to get social shares to your website, amplifying your reach.

Ecommerce Blogging provides them with a venue to share their creativity and ideas to a wider audience. Top brands and businesses create blogs to educate their customers, share news, and reach a wider audience. Blogging is an essential part of online marketing strategy for many businesses.

If a blog isn’t a core part of your ecommerce marketing strategy, you’re losing out on traffic, organic list growth and sales. As selling online becomes more and more competitive, having great products is no longer enough. Every day, over 500 new online stores are launched on Shopify alone.

In the competitive online marketplace, an ecommerce blog is the most affordable and effective way to help you differentiate your brand and attract new customers.

If you manage to publish consistent content it can be a game-changer for you, according to recent research by Semrush, on average, companies who write blogs consistently produce 67% more leads per month. That is huge for any eCommerce business.

Winners keep score, and successful businesses invariably think about where their customers come from. A well-planned sales funnel can help you drive traffic to your site, improve your conversion ratio, build your customer base, and grow brand awareness.

Consumers in the awareness stage are brand new on the scene. They found out about your company via Google (this is where SEO tactics pay off), or a paid Facebook ad, or an influencer. Are you a legitimate company, or are you running a scam? Do you sell a product they might like? Do they have a problem you can fix? These folks don’t know yet. So here, you need to make a great first impression and fast. You need to educate these folks about your business and favorably position your brand. Think of yourself as a gardener: this is the seed-planting phase of your marketing plan.

In the Consideration stage, they reach this juncture, consumers know who you are and what you sell. They’ve identified a need — a “pain point” and they’re looking for solutions. They begin to think about buying your product. They might decide to subscribe to your newsletter. If you offer a paid content upgrade, you’ll see an uptick in interest at the consideration stage.

This is the mid-funnel phase. You have to work a little harder to get results, a call to action won’t cut it here, but you’re one step closer to checkout. You need to show these people customer testimonials, curated product descriptions, and other compelling content.

Consumers in the purchase stage want to buy but they’re not 100% convinced they want to buy from you. Not yet, anyway. Your job at this stage is to make the decision as easy as possible for them. You need to prove that you’re better than the competition: you offer better products, or better shipping options, or better aftercare, or better prices. Try adding an exit-intent popup to your page. These clever little ads appear when consumers try to leave your site: offer a discount, free shipping, or a time-limited bundle proposal to give your conversion rate a lift.

Your sales funnel doesn’t end with a customer’s first purchase. This is what happens in the retention stage, repeat customers are an invaluable part of eCommerce success, after all, it’s much cheaper and easier to retain a customer than to attract a new one. This vital, final part of the marketing pipeline keeps your consumer base coming back time and again.

Building an e-commerce sales funnel for your online store helps you map the buyer’s journey and identify what you need to do at each stage. Because let’s face it, not everyone who’s heard about your brand will magically turn into loyal customers. 

As they visually demonstrate, e-commerce consumers move through a funnel. Your goal should be optimizing your marketing activities in each stage of the funnel to make sure that you carry as many users as possible to the next stage.

It acquires qualified leads and high-value prospects for your business. It helps you identify optimal marketing strategies. It reveals the kind of content you should be going for. It identifies ways in which you can solve your consumers’ pain points.

A well-defined and optimized sales funnel helps you attract and convert as many leads as possible; It also helps you increase repeat purchases and brand advocacy.

Sales funnels are the secret weapon of successful eCommerce stores all around the world  whether it’s run by big corporations, solopreneurs, stay-at-home moms, or somebody just like you. A sales funnel can help you get more conversions, waste fewer advertising dollars, and turn your business into something greater.

Six of those ten reasons are related to the customer’s buying experience: 

The site wanted me to create an account (24%)

Too long/complicated checkout process (18%)

I didn’t trust the site… (17%)

I couldn’t see/calculate the total order cost up-front (17%)

Website had errors / crashed (12%)

There weren’t enough payment methods (7%)

That adds up to… 95%!

This means that 95% of respondents listed at least one reason related to their buying experience for why they abandoned their shopping cart.

The good news is the things related to the buyer’s experience are entirely fixable with a sales funnel, a smoother checkout process, more social proof, and transparency about costs.

An ecommerce sales funnel is a series of web pages crafted to systematically convert visitors to an online store into paying customers.

It is a marketing term that describes the journey potential customers go through from visitor to buyer. There are several steps to an e-commerce sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on the retailer’s sales model.

Simply put, as a visual representation of your customer journey. Consumers enter the top of the sales funnel and move down, stage by stage until they (hopefully) become repeat customers.

For example: notice how this sales funnel pulls people in with a big discount, and then tries to upsell them with a one-time-offer before triggering the “Order Received” page… 

Some consumers slide through the funnel quickly, going from a lead to a fan in the blink of an eye — they see something they want; they buy that thing; they become a brand advocate. Other consumers navigate sales funnels like three-toed sloths, taking months or years to reach your checkout page.

Many people confuse sales funnels with marketing funnels,  which is the higher-level process of awareness/interest/desire/action that all companies must analyze and document. We’re talking about sales funnels.

And sales funnels are page-by-page experiences that get people to take action, they’re crafted with human psychology in mind so that your visitors can’t help but click, opt-in, and buy.

A sales funnel is the marketing term for the journey potential customers go through on the way to purchase. There are several steps to a sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on a company’s sales model.

Any business owner knows the pain of just missing a sale. After weeks of pitches and demos, chatter and charm, the prospect drops out of the sales funnel without buying. It happens, but it happens less if you have the right sales funnel management help. Many small business sales funnels are more like sieves, with holes left by patched-together spreadsheets, sticky notes, missed appointments and forgotten follow-ups.

The top of the funnel is where new leads, or prospects, enter the buying journey, while the narrow bottom reflects how many of those leads are converted to customers by the end of the sales process. It is the series of steps that prospects need to take to become a paying customer. 

The stages of a sales funnel can vary, but a traditional model follows these phases from top to bottom:

Awareness – People become aware of a brand or product/service: The first of the sales funnel stages is called the “awareness” level, because it’s where people first become aware of your product or service. They may hear about you from your advertising, social media, even word of mouth.

Interest – People show genuine interest in a product or service: Once prospects have learned about your brand, they’ll evaluate it based on their interest level. They’ll think about the problem they’re trying to solve and conduct competitive research to make sure your offering is the best solution.

Desire – People show desire to purchase when it becomes clear the product/service meets a specific need: Armed with information about your company, prospects will dig deeper into your pricing and packaging options. Sales pages, webinars, and calls are helpful in this stage to help sway people to make a purchase.

Action – People decide to purchase a product/service: All your work comes down to this stage: whether the people make a purchase or not. If they didn’t, the deal isn’t lost forever. You can create nurture campaigns to make sure you stay top of mind.

High distribution cost: The distribution costs hit hard on Meesho financials. Acquiring & retaining the users who are price conscious needs constant burning of cash. Furthermore, Meesho distribution climbed even higher than usual during COVID. The lockdown measures have seen consumers turning to fulfil essential items for home delivery which hampered the Meesho growth. 

Inconsistent Product quality: Multiple Meesho buyers mentioned degrading the quality of merchandise being delivered to them. Poor product quality results in a high number of returns and suppliers need to pay some penalty to Meesho.

Late delivery & slow customer service: Multiple customers complain that sometimes the products are not delivered on time. Once the product is delayed, customers gravitate towards “customer service” to know the status of their order. The customer support team is key to building trust and delivering a great customer experience. 

Lack of Branded and Unique Products:

There is a shortage of Branded and Unique Products in Meesho App. There is a great need for the company to improve its product because any company must have Unique and Branded products for good publicity.

Over Advertising :

Meesho does a lot of advertisements through TV and Internet, of course it is very important for the user to know the company, And through Meesho, the customer is also being provided an opportunity to become a reseller, to a large extent this is true because for any company its customer matters the most.

But in such a situation, if the customer becomes very less in the company and the reseller becomes more. So problems can arise for both the company and the reseller.

High Price :

Along with the low quality of Meesho products, its price is also high because other e-commerce platforms are providing the product at a lower price as soon as Meesho.

Inflated Price: Prices shown on the delivery menu of the food delivery apps are inflated. If you ever match them with the rates on the restaurant menu card, you would find a significant difference. This can range anywhere between 10% and 25%, most of the time. This is done by the restaurants because for every order placed, the restaurants have to pay a commission of around 20% to the food delivery startups. The process of deducting the commission is automated or built into the system. Unfortunately, the organizations enabling these food delivery apps lack the technology to prevent this inflation, and even if they did have the technology, they would never be able to implement it, thanks to the nature of the business model.

Misguided Discounts: There are no free lunches in the world. And restaurants are not charitable organizations that serve you for free. If not an increase in price, they will reduce the quantity to ensure that their margins are not impacted.

Increase in Brand Name: Currently, Swiggy’s brand awareness is less, and it needs to pay more attention to branding. Swiggy should create more marketing strategies to have the right brand image.

Targets Zonal Restaurants: Swiggy takes orders that are only from the restaurants located within the zone of the customers. Many competitors increase the customer’s requirement and expand to more restaurants. The logistics challenges faced by food delivery startups are immense. Whether to keep the delivery radius restricted to a few areas or cater to wider geography, the scope of getting higher orders from a specific area, allocating the right number of vehicles, ensuring the food quality, etc. are some of the critical logistics-related issues that food delivery companies face.

Delivery Charges: The brand incurs some delivery and packing charges from the customer wherein the total bill amount would increase. So, this is a great weakness for the brand because some customers might hesitate to order through the platform as it might cost an extra amount.

Shifting Customer Preferences: The ultimate aim of any food delivery service would be to grow its market share by offering the best possible value to customers at the least possible cost. Food delivery market players have elevated the marketing game to such a level that customers are spoilt for choice even as competition grows. This is making the customer base unstable and is affecting brand loyalty. 

Unstable Market Prices: Apart from the customer base, food costs are also highly volatile. Several factors affect the prices in the food industry. Businesses dealing in food delivery often cannot track or keep up with market prices and struggle to find the right pricing strategy.

Adhering to the Food Quality Standards: Due to a massive demand for online orders, delivering food from a restaurant far away from the customer’s place while maintaining the utmost quality becomes highly challenging for the delivery partners. The difference in the food that is served in the restaurant premises and the one being delivered to one’s doorstep creates a significant loophole that food delivery companies should strive hard to overcome.

Managing Customer Expectations: Regardless of how big the market captured may be, it’s a failed attempt if the businesses are unable to satisfy customer needs. The customer satisfaction factor herein is not the responsibility of the delivery partners alone but the ones working at the point of origin, the restaurant staff. Thus, it is a challenge to fill the gap that exists between delivery partners and restaurant owners to work together and meet customer expectations proactively.

Improper Food Handling: One of the most significant issues that delivery drivers face is mishandling orders because of a lack of training. Only a few food delivery companies have proper measures in place to ensure that their drivers handle food properly. The lack of hygiene leaves many customers concerned, and that is one of the main reasons why restaurants must ensure proper training to optimize the food delivery experience and retain control over delivery times. 

High Commission Rates: The commission rate of Swiggy and Zomato is 18-40% which varies at different parameters. This is the biggest disadvantage of Swiggy and Zomato. Due to the high commission rate, you cannot offer a big discount to your customers.

Limited space to advertise and brand yourself: Nowadays Cloud Kitchen’s craze is increasing in India. And also there are big restaurants that deliver food online. In this situation, it is necessary to build your Cloud Kitchen as a Brand and take a great position in the market to survive in the future. And if you go through Zomato then it is too difficult to build your Cloud Kitchen a Brand.

Price Differences: When someone goes on Zomato to order something. Then they see lots of restaurants which are listed on it. And then they start to compare the product on the basis of offers and prices. And now they get no restaurants to order and your cloud kitchen might be one of them.

Reduce profit margins: Every restaurant or Cloud kitchen wants to sell their product and a race is started. Everyone reduces their price as compared to others and due to which you also have to reduce your price and finally your profit margin also reduces.

Product Listing Ads: To achieve more sales you need to drive higher traffic towards your products. The more clicks your products get, the higher the probability of them getting sold. The easiest way to get more clicks for your products on flipkart.com is through Product Listing Ads. 

Being caught unprepared: You might think offering huge discounts during promotional sales are a sure shot way to attract buyers. But before you jump on the bandwagon, plan, plan, and then plan some more! Make sure you have adequate stocks and are prepared to handle the multi-fold spike in traffic. Any slip up will not only shake customers’ confidence but also give your competitors an opportunity to steal your thunder.

Indirect proposals: Make sure you secure your current market before you venture into new spaces. Many e-tailers have been left with a bitter experience while trying to bite off more than they could chew. Scaling up business is important, but even more important is to equip yourself with proper infrastructure and capabilities. Pace yourself accordingly as your business grows.

Spreading yourself thin: Make sure you secure your current market before you venture into new spaces. Many e-tailers have been left with a bitter experience while trying to bite off more than they could chew. Scaling up business is important, but even more important is to equip yourself with proper infrastructure and capabilities. Pace yourself accordingly as your business grows.

Not smart with smartphones: Speaking of mistakes, a common one is underplaying the importance of making sure your website is mobile-friendly. Many online portals have lost the plot, unable to cash in on this trend. The number of smartphone owners in India is poised to reach a staggering 10 crore by year-end. 

Customers come first: With everything just a click away and choices limitless, customers today are an impatient lot. In our socially-connected online world, both successes and failures get amplified. Making sure that your products are genuine, well-packaged, delivered on time and giving away freebies and extra warranty will keep your customers coming back for more.

Barriers to Entry:  It has become more and more difficult to just jump on Amazon and start selling. As the platform continues to take on new sellers who don’t always follow the rules, Amazon has had to become more strict in allowing who can sell, what can be sold, and how. Sellers must receive approval to sell clothing, shoes, handbags, automotive items, and many more types of inventory. The list of categories requiring approval keeps growing. And it isn’t that easy to be approved. On the plus side, sellers on Amazon do have automatic approval to sell in a few categories as soon as they open their selling account.

Amazon Sellers Only Get Their Money Every Two Weeks: When you sell an item on Amazon, payment is made by direct deposit to your checking account every 14 days, unless you’re one of the lucky few who still has a legacy account that allows you to request payments as often as every 24 hours. Amazon does not accept PayPal from buyers. That can be a problem if you are using the revenue from your sales on other platforms to purchase more inventory to sell. There are ways to work around the two-week payment system, but you must apply and be approved by Amazon.

Competition is Brutal: Many Amazon sellers don’t sell their own one-of-a-kind items. They simply resell items they’ve purchased from wholesalers or suppliers in bulk, just like a retail gift or other shop. The issue is, if you can buy it in bulk, then many other people can too, which creates a large degree of competition for the same items. This has led to many sellers creating unique products with the help of companies that will put a seller’s brand-name on an existing product and make small customizations to the product such as minor color, fabric or formulation changes. Due to excessive competition, new sellers are having difficulty penetrating the market. 

It Takes Time to Build a Positive Feedback Profile: In 2016, when Amazon noticed alleged review manipulation, the tech giant made major changes to its review policy. Sellers are no longer allowed to directly ask for reviews in exchange for free items or incentives. Only about one out of every 30 buyers leave feedback on Amazon, so you have to sell a lot of products to build up your feedback, compared to about one out of every three eBay customers that leave feedback. Fortunately, feedback doesn’t carry quite as much weight on Amazon as it does on eBay.

Your Products Can Become Restricted and Unsellable at Any Time: Amazon works closely with large manufacturers and established brands. If a brand decides they don’t want third-party sellers listing their products on Amazon, they can have Amazon deem their products restricted at any time. This means that no one but the brand owner can sell the product on Amazon’s platform. 

Amazon is Complicated and Expensive: With the reality of excessive competition in the Amazon marketplace, it is inevitable for Amazon sellers to enter into price wars. This is commonly observed among sellers who are aiming for their listing to appear in the Amazon Buy Box. Most inexperienced sellers will try to outbid their competition by offering a lower price than its precedence. However, practicing such methods would simply mean settling for less and eating up the profit margin.

Strict Restrictions and Policies: Unlike other methods, such as drop shipping, Amazon provides guidelines on items that are allowed and not allowed to be sold on their platform. In terms of overall community guidelines, Amazon has laid down strict guidelines for community participation. This includes but is not limited to eligibility, promotions and commercial solicitations, and content infringement.

This is to test the post by mail feature of WordPress.

Video commerce has become an important factor in e-commerce strategy and as a result, there is a huge amount of activity to support improved conversion through video.

Video has the ability to convey an incredible amount of information very fast. Displaying your product via video will give your customer so much more information about how it looks like. It is also possible to strike an emotional chord and tell customers how they should feel about an item.

Studies show that people are more likely to share videos than text pages. Additionally, people are also more inclined to click on a video thumbnail than on something with no visual or multimedia element. Videos are naturally more engaging than plain text. As such, audiences are much more likely to watch video commerce content than read product pages. They can also convey information quicker, which is important given the shrinking attention spans of consumers. The benefits of video are that it gives visitors a reason to spend more time on your site, which lays a ground for future purchases. 

Video Commerce produces higher conversion rates. Website visitors are 64-85% more likely to buy a product online after watching a video. Moreover, 73% of consumers say they are more likely to buy a product after watching videos that explain how it works. It helps consumers understand product features and benefits.

Videos help boost consumer confidence. In fact, 57% of consumers say that videos make them more confident in products they buy and less likely to return their orders. 

Video Commerce allows for stronger branding. Viewers can see company representatives handle and use products while watching a video, they learn to trust the company selling to them. Consumer trust often leads to greater retention and loyalty. Human connection is a powerful thing!