🎁 Gift inspiration

Welcome to Morning Commerce!

Between the October long weekend and the start of daylight savings time here in Aus, this shortened sun-filled week has been a nice change of pace before things go absolutely bonkers any day now.

Here’s what’s good this week:

• Shopify X Faire

• Merchants exiting free returns

• Are Core Web Vitals a Ranking Factor?

• New Gmail rules for bulk email senders

• Where do consumers get gift inspiration?

• The SMS marketing consumer sentiment report

— Kyle Tully

ACQUISITION

Where do consumers get gift inspiration?

A new dive from RetailDive reveals where consumers of different ages will be getting their gift inspiration this holiday season.

• Facebook (35.8%)

• Instagram (32.7%)

• YouTube (24.1%)

• TikTok (23.4%)

• Pinterest (16.2%)

Not surprisingly, millennials and Gen X shoppers will be heading to Facebook and Instagram for inspo, while younger shoppers 18-29 will turn to Instagram and TikTok.

While nearly half of Gen Z plan to do their holiday shopping at malls, Amazon still dominates online destinations with a whopping 64.7% of consumers stating they will shop there. Walmart and Target rounded out the top three online retailers of choice, at 47.6% and 41.8% respectively.

CONVERSION

New Gmail rules for bulk email senders

Google has announced a new set of rules for bulk email senders, aimed at creating a safer and less spammy inbox.

Senders of over 5,000 messages per day to Gmail inboxes will be required to:

• authenticate emails using established protocols such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

• allow for easy one-click unsubscription to be processed within 2 days.

• stay under a reported spam threshold.

The new rules are set to go into effect in February 2024.

All major email providers already have one-click unsubscribe and the required functionality to implement authentication, but you may need to enable and set up authentication if you have not done so already.

Keeping under the spam threshold will likely make best practices such as list segmentation, list hygiene, and personalisation all the more important.

The SMS marketing consumer sentiment report

SMS marketing is a different ballgame to the email marketing most Shopify brands are long familiar with. What messages to send? When? How often? These are just some of the questions merchants struggle with.

A new SMS marketing report from Klaviyo goes a long way to answering these questions and more. Like why people subscribe (and unsubscribe) from SMS, which age groups are open to buying from SMS, and which brands are doing SMS effectively.

Here’s a sample of what they found:

• 96% reported willingness to receive a text at least once per week. (Up from 31% in 2021.)

• 70% said between once and a few times a week was preferred.

• Most people want confirmations via text — things such as order, delivery, and shipment notifications.

• 30-50% said they want coupons, promotional codes, and birthday deals.

• 30% said they wanted messages regarding back-in-stock items and loyalty program benefits.

• 48% said they wanted discounts tailored to their past purchases.

• 49% said they DON’T want articles.

• 44% said they DON’T want “item in cart” reminders.

• 37% said they DON’T want event announcements.

• 95% of consumers subscribe to less than 7 brands via SMS.

• Discounts are the biggest driver of SMS subscriptions at 69%.

• Too many (73%), too similar (69%), and no-purpose(62%) messages are the biggest reasons for unsubscribing.

Now, keep in mind they surveyed 1,975 consumers from the US & Canada all over the age of 18 who are engaging with brands via SMS. So the data is obviously skewed towards those demographics. But interesting data nonetheless.

As always, the answer is to test for yourself and find out what works for your market and your customers.

ECOMMERCE

Merchants exiting free returns

Returns cost retailers about $816 billion in lost sales in 2022, and many large stores have started fighting back with a sledgehammer: charging for returns.

H&M UK is the latest retailer to announce a fee for online shopping returns, charging £1.99 for each returned package.

Many prominent US brands — especially those in fashion and apparel — are now charging for returns, including:

• Uniqlo - $7

• REI - $5.99

• Zara - $3.95

• J.Crew - $7.50

• JCPenney - $8

• L.L.Bean - $6.50

• Foot Locker - $6.99

• Urban Outfitters - $5

This is virtually guaranteed to hurt conversions and one wonders if investing more into fit-technology, education, and more nuanced purchase/return policies would net better results?

SEO

Are Core Web Vitals a Ranking Factor?

Yes.

Core Web Vitals measure page experience signals — roughly translating to “website speed” — to ensure an engaging user experience for users.

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how long it takes to load the largest content in the viewport.

• First Input Delay (FID): how long for the browser to respond to a site visitor’s first interaction with the site while the site is loading.

• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): the unexpected shifting of webpage elements while the page is still downloading.

While there is some debate as to whether they impact search rankings, Google has stated it quite simply:

CWVs are not an independent ranking “system” on their own, but they do contribute to page experience evaluations. They work within the helpful content ranking system and go toward page experience signals.

Check your Search Console reports and take care of any pages that need work!

SHOPIFY NEWS

Shopify X Faire

Faire has announced a partnership with Shopify, establishing the B2B retail marketplace as Shopify’s recommended wholesale provider. Shopify Point of Sale will become the preferred provider for Faire’s retail community.

This partnership will allow merchants on Shopify to access close to 10 million products from over 100,000 brands directly via Faire’s buyer app. Meanwhile, brands selling on Shopify will get access to thousands of independent retailers via Faire’s wholesale seller channel. Brands on Shopify will be able to also enable a free Faire-powered Stockist Map on their ecommerce websites to help consumers shop their products locally.

As part of the deal, Shopify will also become a Faire shareholder, doubling their commitment to the partnership.

One new Shopify update

• Storefront API support for product bundles - Merchants using Hydrogen or the Storefront API through the Headless Channel in the admin, can now offer product bundles with Shopify.

INSPO OF THE WEEK

Lestrange’s clean-cut collection pages are brought to life with the strategic use of video on every few products. One moment you’re scrolling down looking at static product images and then an image comes to life and the model looks down, adjusts his jacket, or does a little spin. Simple but highly engaging.

How we can help…

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