Retail TouchPoints

MARCH 28, 2022

Ulta Beauty is partnering with Happy Returns to add Return Bar services to 1,300 brick-and-mortar locations. Our pilot with the innovative return platform reinforced the value simplified, in-person returns offer consumers and retailers alike,” said Kecia Steelman, COO of Ulta Beauty in a statement.

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Retail TouchPoints

SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

Photo courtesy of TikTok Shop While the ecommerce functionality has been available to at least some users since late last year, today marks the service’s debut to the wider TikTok community, and to say that both consumers and brands have been eagerly anticipating this development might be an understatement.

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Retail TouchPoints

APRIL 18, 2023

There are seemingly endless opportunities to shop — or be inspired to shop — in both the physical and digital worlds at any moment. Today’s consumers move across digital, physical and social platforms with ease, switching from browsing, researching and buying in seconds. Shopping is everywhere.

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Merchant Services Payment Services Social Commerce Returns 266

Retail TouchPoints

DECEMBER 7, 2023

ContextLogic , the parent company of discount shopping app Wish , has launched a new third-party logistics service for non-Wish merchants called WishPost Smart Parcel. At launch, WishPost Smart Parcel supports shipments from China to destinations in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan and the U.S.

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Merchant Services Shipping Consumer Shopping 256

Retail TouchPoints

AUGUST 7, 2023

And Wish, which held that top spot back in 2018, has now dropped out of the top 50 completely after having fallen to #35 as of last March. There are other troublesome indicators for the company: Q2 saw declines across the board at Wish. The trade-off is long shipping times, another thing Wish is working hard to improve.

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Merchant Services Drop-Shipping Shipping Payment Services 223

Retail TouchPoints

OCTOBER 16, 2020

Free shipping days are behind us. Having the best product or lowest shipping fee will no longer guarantee you a sale. For a vast majority of consumers, a positive delivery experience inspires fierce brand loyalty. Delivery transparency : Real-time updates about location and shipping status notifications. What Can You Do?

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Shipping Merchant Services Fulfillment Checkout 286

Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 26, 2022

Merchants in particular had to quickly shift from in-store sales to online and learn how to accept payments digitally. Given the ongoing shift in consumer shopping preferences, many of these new businesses will be digital-first companies. These can all be categorized as customer service-type chargebacks.

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Retail TouchPoints

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

Despite having just officially begun, this holiday shopping season already is marked by supply chain disruption, persistent inflation and mixed consumer confidence. And just like last year, it looks like consumers will respond by turning to ecommerce. This is causing many Americans to stress this holiday season.”.

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Retail TouchPoints

AUGUST 8, 2022

There’s no question that strategic promotions and discounts motivate consumers to buy a product. There are numerous types of enrollment incentives, but the most common are discounts, free shipping and a gift with purchase. As a result, consumers save money when they subscribe to multiple products.

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Promotions Merchant Services Shipping Consumer 253

Retail TouchPoints

AUGUST 15, 2023

In 2017, Polywood had a great product sustainability story (its outdoor furniture is made from 100% recycled plastic and comes with a 20-year guarantee) and a solid launching pad for direct-to-consumer sales (a 27 -year history of selling through big box, home improvement and specialty patio stores). It was an involved, intense process.

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Checkout Merchant Services Payment Services Customer Experience 196

Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 26, 2021

In 2020, more than any year since the advent of online and mobile commerce, consumers lost a sense of control. Meanwhile, for merchants that had already built their businesses online before the pandemic, a larger addressable market buoyed most, but created scalability challenges for all (including Amazon).

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Retail TouchPoints

NOVEMBER 4, 2020

Consumer preference for online shopping continues to rise, as more purchases are being made online than in stores with each passing year. Because of this ease, merchants have begun relying on POS financing to drive sales growth. According to McKinsey, merchants face up to 2.4X According to McKinsey, merchants face up to 2.4X

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Retail TouchPoints

SEPTEMBER 28, 2022

Since the beginning of the pandemic, interest in buy now, pay later (BNPL) services has grown rapidly. This service will allow U.S. So, if the top BNPL fintechs are facing trouble at the moment, why is Apple making a dramatic entrance into the market? BNPL is More Than a Payment Method.

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Merchant Services Payment Services Consumer Shipping 182

Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 9, 2024

In 2020 he joined Alibaba, where he is now tasked with developing the company’s strategy and building platform-level solutions around international shipping, logistics, cross-border trade and global expansion. This will cause the channel to continue to narrow, further reducing ship traffic. and how can they prepare themselves?

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Merchant Services Shipping Fulfillment Inventory Management 256

A1 Retail

SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Mollie reveals that economically ‘concerned’ consumers are relying more on social media, BNPL, and discounts when shopping online but expect to spend more in the next year Mollie , one of the fastest growing financial service providers in Europe, today unveiled findings from its second annual European Ecommerce Report.

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Merchant Services Consumer Payment Services Checkout 59

Retail TouchPoints

APRIL 8, 2022

Some of the latest include a price optimization tool for online sellers, AR try-on for beauty products and advanced data insights for merchants. But there is one big difference between Google and the leading online marketplaces— Google offers all this to merchants for free. Our role is really to just facilitate that connection.”.

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Merchant Services Shopping Advertising Shipping 276

Retail TouchPoints

SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

However, experts note that in times of economic volatility and fast-changing consumer behaviors, brands need to think strategically about their path to global growth. They also can look at marketplaces, and even the resale market, to gauge demand and determine whether they can successfully capitalize on consumer needs.

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Merchant Services Customer Experience Marketing Consumer 303

Inside Retail

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

New research from Combank shows a growing divergence between Australian consumers who say they’re comfortable and those who say they’re doing it tough, irrespective of their financial situation. We are finding that consumers are more discerning now. They’re being a lot more discerning with their discretionary dollars.

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Merchant Services Payment Services Checkout Returns 289

Retail TouchPoints

JULY 10, 2023

And there’s plenty of money at stake. Retailers are discovering the power of generative AI for streamlining the process of onboarding new products for ecommerce product catalogs, using AI models trained on a wealth of specific product data. Global ecommerce sales, representing 22% of all retail sales, could increase to $5.4

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Merchant Services Customer Retention Shipping Marketing 277

Retail TouchPoints

OCTOBER 19, 2022

Klar n a is continuing to expand beyond payments as it looks to become “a starting point for every purchase” for its 150 million global consumers. This is far from Klarna’s first foray beyond the world of payments. Among the new tools available to Klarna users and merchants are: Search and Compare.

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Merchant Services Shopping Drop-Shipping Checkout 280

Inside Retail

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

The pandemic, geopolitical tensions, climate change and cost-of-living crisis have all redefined consumer behaviours. For resilience in these new waters, retailers must reshape conventional thinking and rekindle the essence of customer service. We are at the nexus of digital innovation and human-centred values.

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Retail TouchPoints

JULY 15, 2020

When retail historians compile the definitive chronicle of this era, they will recall something remarkable: as merchants across the nation responded to the COVID-19 outbreak by shifting more operations online, two years’ worth of e-Commerce growth got crammed into two weeks. How to explain that paradox? I would point to a couple of reasons.

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Merchant Services Payment Services Shipping Fulfillment 266

Retail TouchPoints

AUGUST 5, 2022

Online fraud cost digital commerce merchants $27 billion in 2021 , so it’s no surprise that retailers have redoubled their focus on eliminating these threats. Retailers are overly focused on quelling fraud at the expense of building customer relationships — which is their most foundational need for survival, growth and long-term success.

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Merchant Services Returns Shipping Payment Services 267

Retail TouchPoints

SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

At the same time, many retailers are reporting higher and higher shipping costs, which are affecting profits on their balance sheets. According to a recent survey , 38% of retailers are worried about meeting consumers’ fast delivery expectations. The real complexity comes when we are looking at thousands of SKUs.

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Retail TouchPoints

JUNE 6, 2023

While that’s attractive marketing fodder for retail CMOs who want to appeal to environmentally minded consumers, CFOs will appreciate the potential profitability of selling an article of clothing not just once but twice or more in the circular economy. Accurate demand forecasting is crucial for all merchants — recommerce players included.

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Merchant Services Inventory Management Shipping Consumer 266

Retail TouchPoints

DECEMBER 19, 2022

All of these retailers succeed by building hype around the launch, priming their loyal customers to place their order as soon as the product or service is released. Consumers are left disappointed, feeling cheated and let down. This surge of reseller abuse can have a negative impact on the business-consumer relationship.

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Merchant Services Payment Services Drop-Shipping Shipping 162

Retail TouchPoints

SEPTEMBER 8, 2021

It’s not just possible but inevitable that retailers can thrive on Amazon and compete with it at the same time. Amazon: the Consumer-First Platform. Amazon has completely upleveled what a high quality ecommerce experience looks like for consumers. The purchasing power of $79 in 2005 equals about $109.90 grocery market.

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Merchant Services Payment Services Fulfillment Shipping 235

Retail TouchPoints

OCTOBER 6, 2022

Rather than being limited to a jam-packed four to five weeks from Black Friday to Christmas Eve, consumers are beginning their shopping as early as October (with a few doing so even earlier than that). However, there are other dynamics at play that will impact seasonal results.

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Retail TouchPoints

DECEMBER 30, 2021

In 2020, consumers spent approximately $630 billion on online shopping, and merchants lost $12 billion to fraud. Consumers in every age bracket are in fraudsters’ sights. Consumers in every age bracket are in fraudsters’ sights. The youngest group of consumers is Generation Z.

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Merchant Services Accounting Payment Services Returns 282

Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 3, 2024

Pitney Bowes and PackageHub have debuted a no-box, no-label returns drop-off network at nearly 1,000 locations nationwide, with the promise of hundreds more launching soon. These new returns locations augment the existing network of 30,000 postal locations where Pitney Bowes currently offers no-label returns.

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Retail TouchPoints

SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

Happy Returns by PayPal has teamed with Staples US Retail to offer the Happy Returns in-person service, adding more than 1,000 Staples retail locations to its return service. “Staples is a destination for all things shipping, especially for small businesses and remote workers. .

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Retail TouchPoints

MARCH 24, 2022

Ask any retailer or consumer and they’ll agree on this point: ecommerce returns are a problem — albeit for diametrically opposed reasons. Meanwhile, more than three in four (78%) consumers say they’ve had an inconvenient online returns experience recently, per Pitney Bowes latest BOXpoll survey.

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Retail TouchPoints

MAY 18, 2021

So how can merchants get a piece of the pie? But by employing nine key strategies, merchants of all sizes can run successful subscription programs. To help build this awareness, a merchant should promote its subscription service throughout its site. Free shipping has become expected by many shoppers.

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Merchant Services Shipping Promotions Payment Services 150

Retail TouchPoints

JANUARY 20, 2022

For most types of consumer retail stores, the pandemic scared regulars away, diminished traffic from visitors, altered consumer preferences, snapped formerly reliable supply chains and required dramatic shifts in the way stores serve their clientele. But that’s only part of the story.

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Merchant Services Clienteling Shipping Inventory Management 248

Mass Relators

APRIL 20, 2022

SEATTLE — Amazon Prime will soon offer members to get perks like free delivery even when they are shopping from other online merchants. “We Members will have the flexibility to shop from merchants directly, all while enjoying the fast, free delivery, seamless checkout, and easy returns they’ve come to know and love from Amazon.”.

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Retail TouchPoints

JUNE 26, 2023

Groundbreaking at the time, but now sorely outdated, UPCs are finally getting a facelift and moving into the 21st century thanks to the GS1 Sunrise 2027 initiative. Consumers want more information about the products they buy, and retailers want more visibility into the products their customers buy. Who doesn’t want that?

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Merchant Services Inventory Management Grocer Customer Experience 276

Retail TouchPoints

SEPTEMBER 3, 2020

In the wake of COVID-19, returns are receiving serious (and necessary) attention for several key reasons: Retailers are spending more processing returns in stores. Return rates at physical stores range from 8% to 10% , but rise to approximately 20% for e-Commerce, according to data from CBRE. Returns is just one example.” .

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