E-COMMERCE
Walmart Marketplace > Amazon FBA
If you’re currently selling on Amazon but not Walmart, this might change your mind.
Walmart just released its Q3 2021 earnings, which are pretty solid. And one stat stood out to us…Walmart’s marketplace size.
“..the world’s largest retailer also posed in front of fierce rival Amazon (AMZN) by adding a significant number of new third-party sellers to its Walmart.com business. Walmart (WMT) said it added about 21 million new items to its online marketplace in the third quarter.”
Yup, Walmart does have a marketplace. And it’s quite large (with over 120k sellers as of this month).
Getting started on it: Tinuiti has a pretty comprehensive guide on how to get started selling on Walmart’s marketplace, covering topics such as the approval process, payouts, and pricing.
Not for beginners: According to Tinuiti, Walmart will ask you for a sales history before approving you. This could be ideal if you’re selling on Amazon FBA or your own Shopify store and want to try a new marketing channel.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook releases a report on emerging shopper behavior
Today’s consumers see no difference between online and offline channels – it’s all just shopping.
This is what Facebook said when announcing their report on emerging shopper behavior. This might have been a bold claim in 2011, but we’re now in 2021.
Here are some interesting statistics from the report:
- People are doing more research online before buying offline. 66% of shoppers across markets use online resources to do research before visiting a physical store.
- Social media is a huge ecommerce discovery channel. A whopping 84% of shoppers across markets made an in-store purchase after seeing an item on social media.
- Your payment options matter. 63% of shoppers say paying via messaging apps (like WhatsApp) encourages them to revisit a store.
It’s all about convenience: Facebook’s report statistics seem to support this.
People want to reduce the risk of making a bad purchase by reading reviews, and they want to buy things via channels they’re already familiar with (like a messaging app that they already use).
Facebook has also released country-specific reports for Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, UK, and the US (scroll to the bottom of the blog post to see them).
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Back in the day, you had to hang out with your customers to get a deep understanding of their personalities.
That is still smart, but might seem out of reach for many teams.
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SEO
Going beyond keywords
As Lyndon NA states in this post, “keyword” is an out-of-date term.
A more updated classification that is used nowadays is:
- Head terms: These are primary terms with one to two words. They’re often nouns, verbs, or brand queries that may be ambiguous.
- Mid terms: These tend to have 2 to 5 words, and are more informational or commercial. “Shoe shop near me.”
- Longtail terms: These have more than 4 words, and usually come in the form of sentences. They have a high informational and commercial intent. “Why are Oxford shows called Oxford?”
However, you can go further. And the final goal is getting better SEO results.
When looking at a search query, there’s more to consider than the length:
- Target term
- Variant
- Intent
Let’s consider an example.
Women eco-friendly red clutch handbag london
- Keyword: Handbag.
- Keyword phrase: Clutch handbag.
- Target terms: Women and London.
- Variants: Eco-friendly and red.
- Intent: Since it’s a product, its commercial intent is implied.
The intent could be changed from commercial to informational by adding “which” or “best.”
Or the results could be expanded by adding the season, brand, material, size, etc.
Then there are the nature and the group of the search query.
Nature: This is how Google classifies a search term. For instance, it could classify it as a YMYL (your-money-your-life) or adult content.
Groups: Some words have abbreviations or different spelling. Hence, a keyword may cover a different range of phrases.
To wrap it up, the next time you do keyword research, consider the following factors:
- Primary term(s)
- Term group
- The intent of each term
- Intent triggers (or if implied)
- Journey stage
- Synonymous words/phrases
- Terms that make a difference (or not)
- Terms to avoid
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THE CREW’S INSIGHTS
You don’t need to be great at everything
Hold on – let us explain.
Since launching our Insights community, we’ve analyzed five brands. Many of them were e-commerce companies.
A common trend?
Most e-commerce brands do one thing incredibly well, and other things badly. It’s true for many successful brands:
- Goli, a multimillion-dollar supplement brand, works magic on Facebook Ads. But their landing page and buy page are swimming in issues (bad formatting, unclear image placements, and no real product pages).
- SIMULATE, the world’s most-hyped vegan chicken brand, kills it with copy and branding. But their old site, Nuggs (which is now defunct) was very difficult to navigate on mobile.
- Snow, an oral care brand, kills it with influencer deals and runs successful ads. But their SEO is lacking, and some of their marketing channels are filled with dark patterns and overly-aggressive messaging.
- PEEL, a phone case brand, relies heavily on social ads. But their SEO and SMS marketing are almost nonexistent.
Nobody’s perfect. But when you talk to many e-commerce owners or marketers, they’ll be hyper-focused on excelling in every area. “We need SEO, we need ads, we need influencers…”
Remember that many modern companies worth more than $100M don’t have a lick of SEO, or have ugly product pages. It’s because they figure out what’ll make money and they zero in on that channel.
If you like what you read, feel free to check us out on Twitter.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
EMAIL MARKETING: Do you use every feature your multi-channel marketing platform gives you? If you don’t, you’re not alone. Plenty of marketers are paying for extra stuff they don’t really need. Campaign Monitor is the best-in-class email marketing software that also integrates with some of your favorite tools. Make the switch and reduce your costs.*
AMAZON: Bye, Visa! Amazon will soon stop accepting UK Visa credit cards due to high fees.
ADVERTISING: Don’t be confused, Google has renamed ‘YouTube Video discovery ads’ to ‘In-feed video ads.’
YELP: Local businesses looking to work with national brands have new ad options from Yelp.
GOOGLE: The 2021 Core Update has been rolled out. Google also stated that this would most likely be the last core update for 2021 (we can already hear SEOs sigh of relief).
ADVERTISING: While Google is still deciding what to do with FloC, BuzzFeed is the latest big publisher to join Yahoo ConnectID’s third-party cookie replacement.
SEO: It takes time to build an authority. And no, having 30+ articles on your website isn’t enough, according to Google.
BUSINESS: “Click to subscribe, call to cancel” is illegal, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
*This is a sponsored post.
BRAIN TEASER
I’m a weight on your shoulders and only bring you down.
My only weakness is above you. What am I?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Staples Center to be renamed Crypto.com Arena
Imagine you’re at a Lakers game and hearing the commentator say: “The Lakers will be playing at Crypto today.” Sounds like a scene from an alternate timeline, doesn’t it? Well, we’ve got a news flash…
Staples Center, the iconic venue that houses the Lakers and Kings, will be renamed “Crypto.com Arena.”
Huh? Yes, it’s true.
The agreement is said to be worth $700 million and will last for 20 years. And the new name will take effect on Christmas Day.
Staples will be Staples: We’ve scoured the internet and many people said that they plan to continue to refer to the stadium as the “Staple Center.”
Although, you have to admit that Crypto.com is pulling off some impressive PR moves here. We hope the $700 million will pay off for them.