Online sales

Free stuff: Returnless refunds can define the customer journey

This holiday season is expected to be even better than the blockbuster 2020 season, with new research from Deloitte predicting holiday retail sales will increase between 7% and 9% over 2020. E-commerce is expected to grow between 11% and 15% this year, reaching at least $210 billion and as much as $218 billion. Total retail sales are forecast to be $1.28 trillion to $1.3 trillion.

“We anticipate strong consumer spending for the upcoming holiday season. As vaccination rates rise and consumers are...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/free-stuff-returnless-refunds-can-define-the-customer-journey

The secret to global e-commerce success is making it local

Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, once said that “a big business starts small.” In 1970, Branson opened a mail-order record business that eventually became Virgin Records. Many businesses followed and the Virgin Group now controls over 400 different companies.

What Branson didn’t have at his disposal in the 1970s was the e-commerce ecosystem that exists in 2021. That ecosystem allows nearly any business – regardless of size – to reach a global customer base, almost instantaneously.

“Wh...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/the-secret-to-global-e-commerce-success-is-making-it-local

Target takes ownership of the e-commerce experience

While most view Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Walmart (NYSE: WMT) as the gold standards when it comes to e-commerce, Target (NYSE: TGT) has quietly made gains, and it is doing it in innovative ways.

“We created a ‘local guest experience’ battleground,” Arthur L. Valdez Jr., Target’s chief supply chain and logistics officer, told the audience during a keynote address on Wednesday at the Home Delivery World 2021 conference in Philadelphia. “That is how you [use goods in stores] to win that experience.”

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/target-takes-ownership-of-the-e-commerce-experience

Capacity issues keep e-commerce shippers on their toes

Shippo releases e-commerce shipping study

Much has been written about shipping capacity issues on the ocean and on the nation’s truckload lanes, but those capacity issues continue to filter down to the last mile, and that has e-commerce shippers worried.

That is one of the issues that Vince DeAngelis, vice president of carrier partnerships for e-commerce technology provider Shippo, told Modern Shipper is top of mind for retailers in 2021.

“Once those floodgates open it is going to stretch capacity for carriers,” he said. “It’s not going...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/capacity-issues-keep-e-commerce-shippers-on-their-toes

Closer to the consumer: How Levi Strauss thought about life post-pandemic

At 168 years old, Levi Strauss & Co. (NYSE: LEVI) has some knowledge about its customers. But that knowledge was put to the test in 2020 as the pandemic took hold and consumers shifted buying strategies. Liz O’Neill, executive vice president and COO of the company, said Levi had to make some tough choices to manage though the COVID-19 pandemic before it could contemplate what the future would look like.

“[It was a] healthy triage mode which was walking this balance beam where we had to balance...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/closer-to-the-consumer-how-levi-strauss-thought-about-life-post-pandemic

Target and Walmart building inventories for different reasons

This is an excerpt from Thursday’s (5/20) Point of Sale retail supply chain newsletter sponsored by ArcBest.

Target welcomes margin compression if it means fewer empty shelves

Chart: Andrew Cox/FreightWaves; Data: Company earnings releases

On Wednesday, Target reported monster first-quarter results, handily beating Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom lines. In the first three months of the year, comparable sales grew 23%. This is remarkable given that the quarter was lapping a big 10.8%...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/target-and-walmart-building-inventories-for-different-reasons

April retail sales were excellent (for freight markets)

This is an excerpt from Thursday’s (5/17) Point of Sale retail supply chain newsletter sponsored by ArcBest.

The headlines read something like “April retail sales flat, missing expectations.” Indeed, Americans spent 0.0% more in April (seasonally adjusted) than we did in March. Compared to this time last year, retail sales in April climbed 37.2%. Both of these numbers mean very little because of their respective wacky denominators. 

Retail sales came in flat month-over-month in April, but after a...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/april-retail-sales-were-excellent-for-freight-markets

PayPal dives into post-purchase sector with acquisition of Happy Returns

PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) will acquire e-commerce returns specialist Happy Returns. Terms were not disclosed.

The news was first reported by CNBC.

Frank Keller, senior vice president of consumer in-store and digital commerce at PayPal, told CNBC the acquisition fits with PayPal’s vision moving forward.

“The post-purchase experience is something we’ve been looking into since it’s such a pain point — people want to shop online and return in store, and vice versa,” he said. “For retailers, we’re...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/paypal-dives-into-post-purchase-sector-with-acquisition-of-happy-returns

Cloud-payments firm Gr4vy announces $11.1M funding

From PayPal to Gr4vy. John Lunn, a leading executive with Paypal (NASDAQ: PYPL) during his time leading the company’s Developer and Start-up Relations division, has come back to the payments business with a new firm, Gr4vy.

After that stint in 2015-16, Lunn became a partner in PayPay Ventures until early 2020. In late 2020, he launched Gr4vy, a cloud-native payments company. The company announced a $11.1 million Series A funding round led by Nyca Partners with participation from Activant Capital,

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/cloud-payments-firm-gr4vy-announces-111m-funding

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