5 Challenges of Endless Aisle for Retailers

(This post was last published on May 4th, 2016. It’s been updated for accuracy and completeness.)

Retailers are missing out on nearly $1 trillion in in-store sales because they don’t have on hand what their customers want to buy. When customers can’t find what they want on your shelves, they’re quick to shop online or with one of your competitors.

There’s a lot of reasons why your shelves might be empty like miscalculating labor costs, customer satisfaction, and poor communication between vendors and retailers. To combat this problem, retailers of all sizes are turning to technology to ensure their shelves stay stocked, or appear to have an endless aisle of products consumers are looking for.

Implementing this retail strategy isn’t easy though. This article discusses some of the common challenges of deploying an endless aisle program.

Why Your eCommerce Delivery Strategy Is More Important than Ever

(This post was originally published on July 6, 2017. We’ve updated it for accuracy and completeness.)

Can your customers rely on your shipping policies? How often do you miss a date or ship the wrong item?

A negative shipping experience can have an irreparable impact on your relationship with customers. 84% of consumers say that they won’t return to a brand after just one poor delivery experience.

All it takes is one mistakes to erode your brand image and customer loyalty. These mistakes add up and affect your bottom line too.

If there’s one business area to focus on next, consider making it your eCommerce delivery strategy. Statistics show that a good shipping experience is more important than ever for customer retention.

2019 Retail Goals: Improve Your Returns Process

The faux holiday National Returns Day came earlier this season than previous years. UPS estimated that they would process and ship 1.5 M returned packages on December 19^th and expected another wave of 1.3M packages to hit on January 3rd. It’s unusual to see a spike in returns before Christmas. Experts, however, contribute this new trend to major holiday deals happening even before Black Friday. No matter when “National Returns Day” happens though, returns are an inevitable part of holiday selling or retail in general. And how you handle returns can have a major impact on both your profitability and customer satisfaction.

So, were you ready to handle returns this year? If you weren’t, here’s our latest tips and advice on why you should improve returns in 2019 and how to do so. (more…)

Why Branded Packaging Matters for eCommerce (and Why Your Business Should Adopt It)

(This is a guest post from our friends over at Noissue, a company that allows merchants to design their own branded tissue paper.)

The importance of packaging often gets lost in the world of eCommerce retail. It’s a myth that a good product ‘sells itself’. As markets become more competitive, small points of difference can have a huge impact. Does your current packaging excite your customers, and help to ‘sell’ your brand? If not, it might be worth thinking about a refresh. (more…)

What We’re Reading: Retail Channels, Back-to-School, and CX Assessment

This week we’re reading a variety of articles about how to create an online retail channel on a budget, how retailers are raising the game for back-to-school, and best practices for doing a customer experience assessment.  (more…)