by Don Pingaro | Dec 13, 2018 | Commerce Strategy, Press, System Integrations
“It is easier to invent the future than it is to predict it.”
This variation of a quote by computer scientist Alan Kay was the last line of a 1994 job listing written by Jeff Bezos, and still holds true to this day. While Redstage’s team of forward thinkers possess a knack for accurate predictions, we’ve also helped shape the future of eCommerce through our mobile research initiatives.
Throughout 2018, our team made strides to advance the cause of B2B eCommerce, offering insight into new technology, mobile commerce, and the millennial customer experience. We remain dedicated to helping clients and readers alike stay informed of emerging trends and the strategies you can use to master them. With this said, here are the top insights and articles of the past year:
OUR YEAR IN REVIEW: TOP ARTICLES OF 2018
“B2B eCommerce has several types of customers, each with their individual requirements for how they define their success. These customer types include B2B consumers (the company plans to resell the product or service to them). Other customer types include wholesalers/distributors who will sell your products and services to other B2B companies and dealers who sometimes resell the company’s product for them. Knowing your customers, here’s a few things to consider when selecting the best eCommerce platform for your online store.” — Read More
“Will it be the illustrious AI, the illuminating abilities of augmented reality, delivery drones, or perhaps… chatbots? With the emergence of all this new tech, marketers are left to base their budget allocation for 2018 on speculation. As a result, I am inclined to believe that without a doubt, 2018 will be somewhat of a plateau for marketing; defined by a knowledge-gap surrounding new avenues for advertising and the deteriorating value of current methods. Here’s why…” — Read More
“At this very moment, it’s likely that retail executives around the US are screaming about their Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales performance. For some, these sounds resemble a triumphant war chant. For others, these are the shrill cries of defeat. The reason? Mobile-first adoption. No matter where you stand, this data changes the eCommerce landscape. Here are the latest stats and key trends from the long-weekend of holiday sales events.” — Read More
“The development of AI and Big data, in recent years, has given online retailers both opportunities and challenges. In the next decade, digital stores will be equipped more optimized tools based on AI, and through this, they are empowered to strengthen customer relationship and enhance customer retention. This is a technology competition and I believe that the one who wins the game will also win the customer’s heart.” –Read More
“Today, a single blogger has the same opportunity to get a million comments on a post as Walmart does. A mom and pop online store has the same chance of winning over customers as Amazon. Time, resources and budget notwithstanding, the Internet provides a fair medium for all business to compete, and we owe the state of our world to this universal marketplace of ideas… With the Net Neutrality repeal in effect, major changes are coming that will affect every businesses, especially in the world of advertising and eCommerce.” — Read More
Top Case Study of The Year!
Check out our most viewed case study of the year:
White Mountain Footwear. If this were a blog post, it would hold the #3 spot above!
Top Download of The Year!
Take a look at our
Digital Sales Engagement Ebook, our most viewed downloadable of 2018! Discover all the tools you can use to optimize your digital sales team and top tactics to revolutionize your digital acquisition strategy.
Top 5 Most Popular Articles of 2017:
#1. Online Buying Behavior: The Difference Between Men & Women
#2. Selling & Upselling with Psychology & Human Behavior
#3. How All B2C Companies Should Be Marketing By 2020
#4. The Incredible Benefits of Magento 2
#5. Top eCommerce Challenges Stores Will Face This Holiday Season
Can’t find info on a specific topic? Send us a message and we’ll help you find it, or we’ll add it to our content schedule! Our team of researchers and thought leaders are always looking for ways to best serve our readers. Visit our blog page to subscribe!
by Don Pingaro | Jan 11, 2018 | System Integrations
Everyone’s asking, “What technology will have the biggest impact on marketing in 2018?” Will it be the illustrious AI, the illuminating abilities of augmented reality, or perhaps… chatbots?
With the emergence of all this new tech, marketers are left to base their budget allocation for 2018 on speculation. As a result, I am inclined to believe that without a doubt, 2018 will be somewhat of a plateau for marketing; defined by a knowledge-gap surrounding new avenues for advertising and the deteriorating value of current methods. Here’s why:
Marketing Tech in 2018
As we await the true advent of AI, AR, VR and Mixed Reality in the mainstream, contemporary digital advertising is rolling over and dying, with search, social and display ads experiencing a gradual decline in usefulness. Gen-Y and Gen-Z hate ads, and while pervasive multichannel messaging was previously a working strategy, ads are ignored now more than ever… and expansive ad campaigns are annoying customers, damaging brands.
The savior in this scenario was and still is video, which many companies lack the capability or know-how to properly leverage. Many still refuse any attempt to enter the video realm, despite annual marketing reports for the past decade marking video as the most effective channel for sales and brand engagement. Right now, the benefits of video seem to be buffering (pun intended), with numbers stagnating as users look for something new.
As a natural side-effect of the decline in channel efficiency, marketers have turned to big data as the new god to drive vertical engagement. However, many retail marketers lack the experience and/or artificial intelligence applications necessary to make sense of this wealth of data.
Getting a Grip on AI
This past year, we’ve seen the launch of some incredible remarketing software in eCommerce, like HiConversion and Rejoiner. Programs so powerful they can replace entire marketing teams that would typically manage the breadth of digital messaging (emails, ads, social, tracking, analytics, etc).
However… because these systems and the technology are so new, we’re combining the adoption curve with a learning curve. While marketers get a grip on machine learning Saas, I expect their true potential will be neither realized, nor their full impact felt in the market this year.
To make matters worse, today’s AI market focuses exclusively on predictive AI, which all-too-soon will be replaced with cognitive AI (Rajesh Sinha, Fulcrum Digital‘s CEO, predicts in the next two years). There’s a chance the change-over could immediately render predictive systems obsolete. On the other hand, retailers and brands can’t sit around waiting for cognitive AI, and those that do could see big-time losses (Hence the dilemma). Overall, what most of the martech world considers “AI” will soon be baked into every major software system available. What matters is how you use them.
Playing the Waiting Game & Winning
For now, we have to keep milking the avenues we have available. Optimize performance as much as possible with regard to channel strategy and be diligent. With the current pace of innovation, you might not get a second chance.
Now is the time for companies to start looking into how AR, AI, VR, IoT and other emerging tech can reshape business alongside other digital transformation strategies. While the long-term strategy teams focus on how they will deliver value in 2020 and beyond (when these technologies are expected to have much wider reach), it’s time to bring our websites into the new age. Maximize your site and sales funnels with every possible upgrade, build out content and bulk-up ad spend while we get over this hump. Rethink your strategy for the next four years and think seriously about how you plan to invest all the new martech. If you haven’t already made significant investments in your mobile customer experience, that’s a good place to start.
Some companies will spend a little more on ads to wait this out. Others will buy into expensive (soon-to-be outdated) platforms they’ll be stuck with long after the competition moves on. Unfortunately, the largest group will likely be those who sit on their hands and refuse to innovate. These will be the losers. Instead, find out how much budget you can pack into the time between now and 2020. Focus on your omnichannel experience and unifying your brand strategies with supportive AI products you can afford (for the short term). In addition, bulk up your ad spend, get some videos or podcasts going, and settle in for the long hibernation period ahead.
Final Thoughts
So let’s review. What technology will have the biggest impact on marketing in 2018? You, the human, which should be an empowering, albeit intimidating challenge for marketers. Lastly, remember, there’s no need to be discouraged. Plateaus are part of every high-growth process…
We just happen to be crossing the Rubicon.
by Redstage Team | Jun 27, 2016 | eCommerce Platforms
Magento just took everything to a whole new level with Magento 2.0. Magento 2 offers a superior feature set compared to nearly any other eCommerce platforms but you may ask yourself… What are the real benefits of Magento 2?
Originally, we thought that Magento 2 would simply be a major upgrade from Magento 1, but it’s actually much, much more than that. The file structure, admin panel organization and themeing system are all highly upgraded from the original Magento branch. What we would like to discuss are the major benefits of Magento 2.X and why you should embrace these changes and all of the opportunities for improvement that an upgrade will bring your business. As long time members of the Magento Community, we compiled a list of all the features and changes we love in an attempt to familiarize you with the improvements.
Let’s get started with the basics.
Intuitive Dashboard for User Admin:
The new Magento Admin is intuitive, easy to use, fully mobile responsive and accessible on any device. This update allows you to effortlessly configure your administrative workspace to manage products, process orders, and analyze customer data. You now have the ability to turn on or off any column in your view and drag it into the position of your choosing which allows you to quickly access the information you need when you need it. You can save the specific view and return to it in the future. Multiple admin users can create and edit products without fear of data conflicts. Menu grouping by function- system or eCommerce all modules are more logically organized and user friendly.
Real Time notifications of Updates
Data Grid & Keyword Search:
Combine your use of full text searches with keyword searches and SEO for greater customer satisfaction and greater exposure of your products. Omnichannel capabilities allow you to connect your site to other sites such as Ebay in order to increase the exposure of your products and their sales.
Visual Merchandiser:
You can reduce optimization time with the drag and drop tool and the new automated sorting tool.
Reporting & Analytics
Built in reporting and support for google analytics and google tag manager.
More Opportunities for Magento Customization & New Speeds
Magento 2 provides more opportunities for customization without changing core site functionality. It organizes everything under the app structure and allows every module to have its very own directory where you can access all Magento templates, layouts, etc. Setting up new products is a breeze with a guided process that allows you to easily configure your product values such as size, color, and price. The new Magento Attributes give you an opportunity to recreate and better your site and gives you the motivation you need to reevaluate your Magento Performance to make it a better experience for your customers.
Other Magento eCommerce features include its partnership with Varnish Cache, a leading http accelerator technology for fast page loads and server loads which are making Magento sites work much faster than in previous versions. The efficient updates have improved query performance and speed dramatically.
Guided Migration
Magento 2 has a robust a migration tool to help with the data migration between platforms. This assists with store setup, products, customers, orders, and promo rules, but theme and code customizations which includes 3rd party extensions will not be transferable. This is a very interesting tool that we’re excited to see grow into an even more powerful system.
At Redstage, we always treat new Magento versions with caution and wait patiently while the new version is tested by the real world and the outstanding Magento community of partners and merchants. Magento 2.0 was released in November of 2015 and it’s truly ready to be your eCommerce platform!
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