Author: Francois Maingret (Page 1 of 9)

Let’s Put Our Tinfoil Hats On and Explore the Potential Dark Side of Amazon’s Generative AI

Generative AI has been all the rage for a while now. How many marketers use Chat-GPT to generate engaging copy for their product pages? Here’s some major news for those who do: Amazon is launching generative AI features to help sellers create product listing content.

“Yay, even less work!” some might say. And yes, it will make life easier for some sellers. But I can see some potential negative consequences for third-party sellers. These new features could also be a very smart move from Amazon to gain market share on the global ecommerce sales, and help them compete with Temu and Shein.

Continue reading

Why Are Amazon Third-Party Sellers Furious? Analyzing the New Inventory Placement Fee and How to Reduce it

When Amazon initially announced their new fee structures for 2024, sellers were expecting to see an increase in how much they’d pay. But now that the fees are implemented, there is a lot of outcry across Amazon seller forums, Reddit, LinkedIn, and social media. The object of all this rage: Amazon’s new inventory placement fees. Beyond the Change.org petition to get this fee removed, this made so much noise that the FTC is now investigating it. The agency’s interest followed Fortune’s recent article on how sellers feel about this new fee.

Today, I want us to review what this fee is, explain why sellers are furious and how it may impact your business. Finally, we will see if every company is impacted equally and investigate potential strategies to mitigate the impact of this fee.

Continue reading

Customers Want Omnichannel Coupons : How Realistic is That?

Not too long ago, omnichannel was the center of attention in the ecommerce world, before AI and new sales channels became a thing. However, a solid omnichannel strategy is still important for retailers and is expected from shoppers who seek a consistent brand experience. According to a recent PYMNTS Intelligence study, 75% of U.S. shoppers expect digital coupons to be available for both in-store and online shopping.

Continue reading

Is Walmart Marketplace Catching Up on Amazon? A Short Case Study on a Specific Category

If you missed the big news about Walmart this month, here it is: their earnings surpassed expectations, and the company hit a major ecommerce milestone with $100 billion in sales last year.

This announcement prompted many ecommerce managers and executives (I certainly did) to reflect on their strategy regarding Walmart.com and if their plan was appropriate. 

It is true that overlooking Walmart is easy these days. Amazon is still the king in the ecommerce realm, and flashy new entrants like Temu or Shein are being extremely aggressive in their marketing. And Walmart is in this awkward space where its ecommerce operations are too big to be completely ignored, but too small to be a company’s main focus (I get approached by Amazon agencies every day, but they very rarely mention Walmart). 

Continue reading

Target Considers a Paid Membership Program : What is it About and Should Ecommerce Professionals Care?

For some people, going to Target to buy a loaf of bread and returning with $300 worth of clothes and home decor is a familiar scenario. The addiction to Target is real and might become more intense for some. Bloomberg reports that the company is considering offering a paid membership program as early as this year. Should they launch it, this program would be another competitor for Amazon Prime, Walmart Plus, and Costco memberships. However, Target is late to the party, many years after its competitors. Would proceeding with the project make sense for the company, or would it be doomed to fail? Ultimately, should e-commerce entrepreneurs keep an eye on this program?

Continue reading

How Much Power Do Consumers Have Over Your Business?

Every company claims to be “Customer-centric”, and claims to make customer satisfaction their priority. Of course, everyone wants to keep their customers happy and maintain a good relationship with them. And in these brands-customers relationships, companies would rather see the power balance shifting towards them. It is easier said than done, even in the case of multi billion dollar businesses: customers as a whole sometimes have a lot of power over these massive companies. Some of us may remember Peloton, which was a massive success during Covid but faced customer backslash when they increased their prices and when alternatives became available again once the pandemic improved. 

Continue reading

Forget Gen Z: Why Boomers are Obsessed with Shopping on Temu

When I first heard about Temu, my knee-jerk reaction was to think it would be a Shein for random items, from kitchenware to toys. I also thought the target audience would be similar, Gen Z, especially after I saw some young influencers showing off their “Temu hauls” on TikTok. 

Recent reports proved me wrong: Boomers placed on average 5.6 orders last year on Temu, while Gen Z only ordered 2.6 times.

Continue reading
« Older posts

© 2024 François Maingret

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑