🔮 The future

GM! Welcome to your dose of Morning Commerce.

In this edition:

• Snapchat AR lens

• YouTube is killing Stories

• The future of AI/AR in retail

• The future of product photography

• Shopify one-page checkout coming!

Morning Commerce is once again brought to you by Nerdify :)

ACQUISITION

YouTube is killing Stories

Six years after stealing the concept from Instagram, who in turn had stolen it from Snapchat, Youtube is getting rid of Stories.

“Starting on 6/26/2023 the option to create a new YouTube Story will no longer be available. Stories that are already live on that date will expire 7 days after they were originally shared.”

Stories never really took off and Youtube is instead pushing creators towards creating either Community Posts, or Shorts.

U.S. Ad Index Falls For 10th Consecutive Month In April

Overall ad spend was down again in April, falling 1.5% according to the US Ad Market Tracker. However, this was the smallest drop in 7 months and may signal the ad recession we’ve been in may be coming to an end.

The tracker measures real ad spend across the nations largest advertisers, and as ad costs tend to roughly follow demand, it could signal the slightly cheaper ad costs we’ve been enjoying may also be wrapping up.

CONVERSION

Snapchat AR lens

Snapchat is fast becoming one of the leaders in the AR shopping revolution, recently partnering with Supergoop! and OPI on lenses that allow customers to virtually try on lipstick and nail polish colours without ever leaving the house.

With returns due to “not what I expected” being a huge cost to most ecommerce fashion retailers, these kind of AR experiences could be a game changer as the experiences become more and more photo realistic.

The press alone from experimenting with these new technologies is probably worth giving them a shot, as forward-thinking brands are earning hundreds of links from news-hungry tech publications ;)

The future of AI/AR in retail

Artificial intelligence and augmented reality stories continue to make headlines, with Retail Customer Experience reporting that “AI services in the retail sector are predicted to increase to over $31 billion by 2028, while AR in retail is expected to grow to over $61 billion by 2031.

They summarise the ways in which these technologies will impact retail:

• Metaverse - creating new retail experiences

• Conversational AI - responding to customers in real time

• ChatGPT - creating content and marketing materials

• Customized suggestions - offering tailored product suggestions

While some of these technologies are a little gimmicky (and in some ways overhyped) the rate of improvement day-to-day is astonishing. 

The future of product photography

This awesome project by Bjorn Karmann takes GPS location data and a prompt that describes the photo you’d like to create, then generates the “photo” using AI.

It reminded me of how close we are to having extremely predictable and reliable results from using AI to generate ecommerce product and lifestyle photos in a similar way. Have a play with Midjourney and see what’s possible already.

EMAIL MARKETING

How to setup your entire email marketing campaign for an entire year in a few minutes

A new AI-powered Shopify app called tinyEinstein looks promising for quickly generating email campaigns. Install the app, choose a layout, give it some basic info on your store, select one of the pre-defined automations, and BAM you’ve got an email campaign.

I wouldn’t use something like this for a high end brand — the technology is nowhere near as capable as what a human with some experience can do — but for smaller brands without the budget or in-house capabilities these types of tools can save countless hours of struggle.

SHOPIFY NEWS

Shopify one-page checkout coming in July

Inspo of the Week

Nicotine might not immediately come to mind when you think of markets ripe for disruption. But with a few entrenched players selling similar products with boring branding for years, anything new and fresh is bound to get attention. Lucy are one of the new wave of companies entering into this market with fresh ideas and their Shopify store is a good example of how to re-brand your fathers boring product into something for a new generation.

How we can help…

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Smart ecommerce brands rely on us for innovative design, development, optimisation, and growth strategies to create highly profitable Shopify websites. Work with our consultancy.

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