Handelskraft - The E-Commerce and Online Marketing Blog

Tips to succeed in logistics during Christmas

17. November 2016 | by Sara Herrera

After the carnival kick-off and the Chinese “Single’s Day”, the general feeling is that Christmas is now around the corner. Shoppers are intensifying their searches online. Even some have ordered their first wave of presents before the so-called Black Friday kicks off. Also the first Christmas parcels have been successfully delivered.

Precisely, logistics providers such as Hermes or DHL are warming up to guarantee the timely delivery of every parcel ordered. They definitely play an important role to assure the success of the purchase, but they are not enough in the spotlight. What are their main challenges and pain points? How can they reach excellence within this critical part of e-commerce?

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(1 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce

How and when do German shoppers buy Christmas presents? [5 Reading Tips]

14. November 201614. November 2016 | by Sara Herrera

As every year, November is here to kick off a new Christmas shopping season, which promises to break all the records online once again. 31% of German shoppers start their Christmas shopping in November, while 34% will do so during the first two weeks of December. This season will be especially challenging for logistics as it is expected to reach a new record of shipments, but also rewarding for those retailers who place big bets on offering seamless and consistent omnichannel shopping experiences.

In the most remarkable season of the year (Google estimates 20% of the annual sales depend on the Christmas campaign performance), the smartphone cannot be forgotten, as it is a decisive touchpoint that enables other multiple interactions along the customer journey.

As a result, the customer journey is more complex and the competition extremely fierce. The race has just started for both buyers and sellers. Will consumer expectations be met? Who will be fully satisfied with the decisions taken? What is clear, whatever the answers to these questions are, is that the most important battle of the year for trade is played online!

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(3 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce Reading Tips of the Week

The main challenges of the omnichannel era

10. November 2016 | by Sara Herrera

In digital life, the average consumer owns 7.2 devices and uses three on a daily basis. As a result, the customer journey is more complex and flexible than in the analogue age. There are multiple channels and, consequently, more data to analyse and more touchpoints through which organisations can interact with consumers.

However, this breath-taking scenario involves a challenging reality at all levels in which certain processes, systems, and technologies should be gently polished and linked to make the most of the omnichannel environment.

Are companies ready to accept the omni-challenge? Are they adapting their marketing strategies to this scenario? Do companies store and analyse data effectively? Are they doing so by integrated solutions?

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(2 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce

Throw your credit cards away! The smartphone is your next payment method [5 Reading Tips]

7. November 2016 | by Sara Herrera

Quelle: Denis Prikhodov - Fotolia.de — Quelle: Denis Prikhodov – Fotolia.de

It is exciting times for quick and easy payment methods. Google, Paypal, Apple, and Samsung are recently moving forward in their race to increase the reach of their online and mobile payment solutions. The new payment methods aim to boost conversation rates at the checkout point by enhancing the customer paying experience on every device, especially on smartphone. Where is the new batch of payment methods heading?

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(2 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce Reading Tips of the Week

The latest colour trends for mobile app design

27. October 201627. October 2016 | by Sara Herrera

Colour belongs to the most powerful tools of designers when talking about mobile app design together with usability. Colours can be used to impact the users’ emotions, draw their attention, and put them in the right frame of mind to make a purchase. However, in order to do so, it is essential to understand how colours affect people.

In e-commerce, as the interaction user-internet device is mainly based on graphical UI components, colours play a decisive role to free up emotions that trigger spontaneous purchases.

There are countless studies and also very comprehensive articles that explain how colours (warm and cold) affect human perception through the colour theory and the psychology of colours. Even Goethe was concerned about the influence of colours on the human psyche.

Today we focus on the latest trends in mobile web design that no designer should miss. However, it is important to note that colour trends depends on sector, CI, and country.

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(1 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

Design & Usability E-Commerce

Lack of digital skills – still a big barrier towards digital transformation [5 Reading Tips]

24. October 2016 | by Sara Herrera

Digital transformation, change management, and agile methods are words that naturally come to mind when thinking about how organisations should face the challenges arising from innovation and digitalisation. Executives seem to know how critical these words are for the future possibilities of their companies but they are still static or just about to start preparing for new business models in the best case. And, what is more worrying, they forget that people are the key to master digital transformation, while technology and data are only enablers.

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(1 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce Reading Tips of the Week

E-Food: Kaufland is firmly turning online [5 Reading Tips]

17. October 201617. October 2016 | by Sara Herrera

Quelle: ehaurylik - Fotolia — Quelle: ehaurylik – Fotolia

The degree of digitalisation of a society can be measured by the amount of everyday activities that turn digital. This is one of the reasons why Handelskraft carefully gauges the state of the e-food market and regularly follows the exciting online food offensives that traditional German supermarkets (Rewe, Lidl, Edeka, Aldi and Kaufland) have been waging in the last ~~years~~ months with an eye on the forthcoming opening of Amazon Fresh in Germany.

The last one to take a step forward in this fierce race has been Kaufland, which is testing a new delivery service in Berlin. With this, Berlin shoppers have four supermarket chains to choose from in order to order fresh food online and receive it right to their door at their convenience.

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(2 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce Reading Tips of the Week

SEA: Google Adwords is placing big bets on mobile-first experiences

13. October 201613. October 2016 | by Sara Herrera

Mobile is taking root in our digital lives, becoming critical for current online marketing strategies. To respond to this reality, Google has made a set of announcements in which the common denominator is to boost mobile-first innovations. Where is the search engine market leader looking to this time?

To SEA! With the latest version of the Google AdWords Editors (11.6) launched last week, the universal app campaigns (UAC) have undergone several changes. In particular, Google gives more relevance to interactions at the expense of downloads and, above all, lets marketers reach a larger target audience through different platforms with the optimisation of the UAC for iOS. This is, without doubt, good news. However we prompt you to not stay on the surface, but to deepen! What is the real impact of the UAC update?

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(2 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce

SEO: What are the real opportunities of Penguin 4.0 for webmasters?

29. September 2016 | by Sara Herrera

Certainly, Google has started the new season on fire. In the last days, the Mountain View company has been hitting the headlines again with fresh news in interconnected areas that might give us a glimpse of our digital future. One of this big news was the announcement of the long-awaited update of the Penguin algorithm that, for sure, has filled SEOs with more than joy. But why is the Penguin update so important?

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(1 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)

E-Commerce