MCM CommerceChat: Recent Episodes
MCM CommerceChat
MCM CommerceChat, where we explore all aspects of direct-to-customer commerce. Hear from key thought leaders on eCommerce, Operations and Fulfillment, and Marketing, as well as new technologies and trends that shape the industry going forward.
The digital landscape has experienced a seismic shift with the recent sunset of the widely-used Google Universal Analytics (UA) in favor of Google Analytics 4 or GA4, introduced three years ago this month. As of July 1, Google stopped processing data through UA, creating a forced migration.
Marketers have had very strong reactions, complaining about the differences in the UI as well as features and functions that went away; some even held mock funerals. As businesses grapple with all this, users need to understand what this major change means for affiliate marketing and for data analytics in general. Ben Hardt, VP of business intelligence and innovation at X Agency, walks us through the implications of this new system from Google and the impact on marketers.
The post GA4: Unraveling the New World of Google Analytics appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Tailored Brands, a menswear and formalwear retailer that includes Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank, needed to anticipate customers’ evolving preferences for various style, color and size choices in its tuxedo rental business. CTO Scott Vifquain and Gurhan Kok, founder of Invent Analytics, talk about how AI-based technology was applied, and the results so far in our MCM CommerceChat podcast.
The post Tailored Brands Leverages AI to Optimize Inventory Management appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
It’s undeniable that artificial intelligence is have a major impact across industries. But what does that mean in terms of dollars and cents? IHL Group estimated the business impact of AI, GenAI and machine learning on the retail and restaurant sectors through 2029: $1.5 trillion. IHL also ranks companies on AI readiness and projected business impact. IHL president Greg Busek breaks down their findings.
The post Who Is Leading in GenAI Readiness and Projected Business Impact? appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Welcome everyone to another episode of MCM’s CommerceChat; your home for all things ecommerce operations, logistics, supply chain and marketing. Our readers may have noticed that we’re dedicating a special … Continue Reading →
The post MCM CommerceChat: U.S. Spending on Returns Equals Public School Budget appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Can UPS and the Teamsters reach agreement in time? Should UPS meet the union's demand for higher part-time worker pay, or leave its last offer on the table? Is there a joint realization that too much is at stake? And if it happens, how will other carriers pick up the slack? We discuss all this with Gaston Curk, CEO of postal consolidator OSM Worldwide in this MCM CommerceChat podcast.
The post Looking At UPS-Teamster Scenarios appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Managing the costs of returns and leveraging them as an opportunity is critical for retailers. Returns might be a significant expense for retailers, and while managing those costs is critical … Continue Reading →
The post Returns: Minimizing the Impact of Escalating Costs appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
The Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Market Retail Marketplaces for Consumers Act, aka INFORM Act, was approved by Congress in December 2022 and goes into effect June 27. It’s meant to help stem the massive tide of stolen or counterfeit goods sold from ecommerce marketplaces, injecting a level of transparency and accountability.
The Buy Safe Coalition, which includes RILA (Retail Industry Leaders Association), estimated in 2021 that $54 billion was in lost annually from the sale of fraudulent goods online. You can imagine it’s gone up since. Even Amazon, long cited as a source of counterfeit traffic, has been working hard to clamp down, creating a coalition, hiring former federal prosecutors and filing lawsuits.
Under the INFORM Act, the Federal Trade Commission can impose a fine of $46,517 for a first-time violation, while they and state attorneys general can impose injunctions and pursue civil actions against marketplace operators that violate the act, up to and including shutting them down.
In general, the onus is on operators to ensure that their sellers are on the level. They must collect and verify information such as bank account number, contact information, tax ID number and working phone and email address from high-volume sellers. This is defined as those earning $5,000 or more or selling 200+ “new” items for any 12-month period within the last two years.
Alexandra Megaris, an advertising and marketing partner with the Washington, DC law firm of Venable LLP, handles cases before the FTC on behalf of ecommerce sellers. She joins our MCM CommerceChat podcast to provide some clarity and context on the ramifications of the INFORM Act.
The post The INFORM Act: What You Need to Know appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Secondhand clothing has come a long way since the days of the community thrift store as quick-acting brands have positioned themselves to capture some of the $100B global recommerce market. Multichannel Merchant caught up with Bernardine Wu, executive managing director, and Richard Siefert, consultant, from OSF Digital to talk about the results of their Brand Resale Index, how REI works to deliver a fantastic resale experience, why some brands falter when it comes to fully supporting their resale efforts, and how you can help get the ball rolling with launching your brand’s resale program.
The Brand Resale Index was designed to evaluate leading practice adoption across 40 brands across the fashion/apparel, outdoor, footwear, and luxury verticals. Brands were assessed on 147 criteria across brand positioning, commerce, and trade-in experiences, and an assessment on how the brand’s resale business model potentially contributes to environmental sustainability benefits. Readers interested in recommence and viewing more results from the study can find the report here.
The post What’s Going on with the Booming Recommerce Industry??? appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
A new global study by IBM found that 61% of consumer goods and retail leaders are purposefully aligning their sustainability and operational goals, with 77% of the respondents agreeing that sustainability investments will accelerate business growth.
The study, titled “Redesigning Brand Values: Purpose and Profit Converge in Core Operations,” highlights success stories from Levi Strauss, Pandora, Reckitt, Unilever and Walmart.
Luq Niazi, global managing partner and Industries and Global Consumer Industry leader at IBM Consulting, shared insights from the report in this MCM CommerceChat podcast. He explains how companies are allocating resources for sustainability, and advises how to communicate efforts to your customers without greenwashing. We also discuss AI technologies for sustainable efficiency, and how Walmart is using blockchain to reach the holy grail of supply chain transparency. You can access the full report here.
The post Retailers’ Real Appetite for Sustainability appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
The curious case of Walmart and its venture into creating a stable of hot startup DTC brands has come to a close, with the 2023 sales of Moosejaw, Bonobos and Eloquii in quick succession. So it’s a fitting time to take a look at the six-year-plus journey that began with the massive $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com in 2016.
While part of it may look ugly on the balance sheet, especially Jet.com and the 76% discount to Bonobos’ $310 million price tag in 2017, Walmart gained a good deal in terms of market intelligence, entrepreneurial innovation and insights into younger shoppers and fashion.
For one proof point, consider that Walmart’s ecommerce penetration more than doubled in that time, from 5% to about 13% or $80 billion as of Q4. As Adam Sandler would say, not too shabby. Being left in Amazon’s dust was a real fear in 2016.
Raj Konanahalli, a partner and managing director of business advisory firm AlixPartners, said Walmart saw the spree, overseen by former head of ecommerce Marc Lore, as a way to grow its digital presence, compete with Amazon and upgrade its branding. Having leveraged all the value from ownership, it was time to move on. Konanahalli shares more of his thoughts in our latest MCM CommerceChat podcast below.
The post Walmart and the DTC Brand Unwind appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), an amendment to the 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), went into effect on Jan. 1, requiring publishers and advertisers to ensure compliance with new consumer data privacy guidelines.
CPRA rulemaking is still in progress, and enforcement is set to begin July 1. Other states, including Virginia, Colorado and Connecticut are issuing their own privacy regulations. And in lieu of a national standard, the Federal Trade Commission has issued its own regulations on consumer data privacy, mostly focused on children and healthcare; one area the FTC is looking at is pixel tracking, with actions already taken against two healthcare organizations.
New consumer data privacy requirements under CPRA, borrowing from the GDPR in Europe, include the right to correct inaccurate personal data and the right to limit processing of sensitive personal information.
If you think California doesn’t mean business, Sephora was fined $1.2 million last summer under CCPA for not disclosing the sale of personal information, failing to respect users’ GPC opt-outs and neglecting to correct these infractions. Sephora didn’t have to admit to wrongdoing, but it did have to pony up, rectify its data sharing policy, avenues to opt out and service provider agreements; and report on its progress to the CA attorney general. And dozens of other infractions are listed on the California Attorney General’s website, although it hasn’t been updated since August.
How serious are these regulations? What kinds of risks are involved in noncompliance? Dan Frechtling, CEO of Boltive, helps us better understand the implications and impacts in this podcast episode.
The post Consumer Data Privacy on the March appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
In the 1967 Mike Nichols film “The Graduate,” there’s an iconic scene where Dustin Hoffman’s character Benjamin Braddock is given one word of career advice by a well-meaning family friend at his college graduation party: plastics.
Fast-forward more than 50 years, and there certainly was a future in it. The earth is literally swimming in the stuff, causing some forward-looking companies to pursue solutions that aren’t additive to that sea of petrochemical-based apparel and footwear ending up in landfills or incinerated.
Unless Collective, a Portland, OR startup that is creating plant- and mineral-based footwear and apparel, is one of a handful of companies looking to make a difference by its conscious choice of materials and manufacturing. Co-Founder and CEO Eric Liedtke, a nearly 30-year veteran of Adidas who helped start the company in 2019, said it’s the first brand to pilot what he calls “regenerative fashion” made from a 100% plant and mineral base.
In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Liedtke talks about his passion for creating sustainable apparel, the symbiotic relationship with another startup producing needed materials, the company’s channel approach and what he hopes will be more efforts like his to reverse the massive flow of forever products.
The post Compostable Apparel: A Conversation with Eric Liedtke of Unless Collective appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Photo credit: Alexander Grey on Unsplash
With a month of 2023 behind us, everyone in retail is wondering how consumer trends will play out this year in the face of ongoing (but lessening) inflation and a tricky macroeconomic picture, to say the least. While there may be something on the order of $1 trillion collectively still sitting in the discretionary pot among U.S. consumers, per NRF’s economists, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be pouring into stores and websites. To help us get a better understanding of the picture in the months ahead, we caught up with analyst Sarah Wyeth, Retail Sector Lead for S&P Global Ratings. We discussed consumer confidence (or lack thereof), waning demand, margin protection and retention vs. acquisition, among other hot-button topics.
The post Sizing Up Consumer Trends in 2023 with S&P appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Last month, the Department of Labor proposed a change to the way it determines the classification of independent contractors. If it eventually becomes law, the rule change would have a lasting effect on the gig economy and gig workers. It would replace a Trump-era rule that made it easier to classify workers as contractors, and thus not covered by federal minimum wage laws or entitled to benefits like health insurance and paid sick days. Yet the workforce is shifting to a flex model across the board, and delivery/rideshare drivers are no exception.
The recent AB5 reclassification measure in California has upended things, leading to some port work stoppages by angry contractors in Oakland who favored the status quo. So, of course, the DOL’s move has major implications for a huge portion of the last-mile delivery sector reliant on gig workers and independent contractors for their businesses to operate. Kashyap Deorah, CEO of HyperTrack, which has a logistics tech platform for last-mile providers, discusses how DOL and Congress need to take a balanced approach that doesn’t lean too far toward business interests or workers.
The post Gig Workers Change Considered by DOL appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
For 16 years, Alen has been selling its top-rated air purifiers on Alen.com and Amazon. Recently, the company made its first venture into retail, and its products are now available in 300+ Lowe’s stores, with the potential for expansion in 2023. The company saw great success during the pandemic, experiencing 210% growth since 2020 as the move indoors for work, school and living made clean air a must for many consumers. Now Alen’s retail expansion has opened up a new avenue outside of its ecommerce and DTC roots.
The bootstrapped private company has its air purifiers in over 70,000 classrooms, 200,000 homes and over 1,200 businesses nationwide, and has been named the top air purifier by Consumer Reports. In addition to the Lowe’s agreement, Alen recently launched a mobile app and air quality monitors, syncing its air purification system with the burgeoning smart home trend. We spoke with Warb Lee, founder and CEO, and Marsha Osborn, COO of Alen, about the company’s growth, the deal with Lowe’s and what’s next.
The post How Alen Expanded from DTC/Ecomm Onto Lowe’s Shelves appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
The Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 is intended to promote U.S. exports and make ocean transport more competitive, efficient and economical. But a requirement that invoices list the date of container accessibility is proving to be a fly in the ointment. Bryn Heimbeck of Trade Tech Inc. explains efforts to address the inequity.
The post Ocean Shipping Reform Act: Rework Container Fee Assessment appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Companion bills in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate aim to amend the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act, removing the overtime exemption for truckers. Predictably, it's opposed by shippers and rail carriers, and supported by unions, trucking associations and safety groups. A spokesman for a major auto carrier explains why he supports it.
The post One Carrier’s View: Let’s Lift OT Exemption for Truckers appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Last week Kroger announced it was acquiring Albertsons for $24.5B, a major deal on the order of Amazon buying Whole Foods in 2017 that immediately reshaped the power structure in grocery. Neil Saunders, managing director and retail analyst at GlobalData Retail, helps us put the deal in context in our latest MCM CommerceChat podcast.
The post Putting Kroger and Albertsons in Context appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Kroger and its data arm, 84.51, have launched a Science and Technology Solutions team. The focus is on delivering science and technology solutions that revolutionize customer engagement in retail. Andrew Cron, Chief Scientist and SVP of Science, and Barbara Connors, VP of Strategy and Acceleration at 84.51°, explain more in this podcast.
The post Kroger’s 84.51 Labs: Pushing the Boundaries of Data Science appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Amazon aggregators have become much more selective with brand acquisition and they're watching the bottom line, while forming alliances with non-Amazon marketplaces. They’re also affected by inflation and consumer spending. Max Firsau, co-founder of Accel Club, shares his thoughts about the space and explains his model.
The post Amazon Aggregators: One Player’s View on the Shifting Space appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Amazon has purchased, iRobot, naturally raising some privacy concerns about the use of consumer data in combination from Roomba, Alexa and Ring devices. It also fits in nicely with Amazon's bigger ambition to own the smart home market. Jason Boyce, founder and CEO of Avenue7Media, discusses this as well as antitrust concerns.
The post Amazon, iRobot and the Smart Home Data Play appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
The CHIPS act, which passed Congress in late July, sets aside $52B in subsidies and tax credits to boost domestic production and R&D, helping reduce our dependence on China’s semiconductor dominance. In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Spencer Shute, a consultant at Proxima, helps us understand the importance for retail.
The post The CHIPS Act and Retail appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
While scarcity has always been a tool used to drive desirability and prestige, inflation and supply chain issues have been changing consumers’ relationship to it. In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Katie Thomas of the Kearney Consumer Institute, explains the changing nature of scarcity, and how to watch for the scarcity tipping point.
The post The Changing Face of Scarcity appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Standards body GS1 US has published a new guideline retailers can use to leverage its Electronic Product Code (EPC)-based RFID technology. It supports claims compliance and is designed to improve inventory accuracy and supply chain visibility. Jonathan Gregory, director of community engagement with GS1 US, explains.
The post New GS1 RFID Guideline, Explained appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
E-grocery platform Farmstead is expanding into suburban markets with an offering tailored to the mass market. It targets the 70% of suburban consumers shopping mid-market grocers and have few delivery options. Co-founder and CEO Pradeep Elankumaran, talks about the business model, outsourcing of its tech stack and expansion plans.
The post Farmstead Looks to the Burbs for E-Grocery Growth appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Sustainability in ecommerce operations, the rise of autonomous vehicles and the need for supply chain visibility were all covered in day one of Ecommerce Operations Technology Summit 2022 in Orlando, FL. In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Michaela Wallin of H&M helps us break it all down.
The post Talking Ecommerce Operations Technology Summit with H&M appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Direct to consumer or DTC was hot as a firecracker a few years ago, as brands like Allbirds and Warby Parker flew high by bypassing the retail channel. Now the tide seems to be turning as several of these marquee DTC brands have stumbled. CNBC contributor Alex Kantrowitz helps us break it down in our MCM CommerceChat podcast.
The post High-Flying DTC Brands Coming to Earth appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Peel-off stacks, dedicated piles of 50 containers or more, are a great port congestion solution if you’re a mega shipper like Walmart, but less so if you’re an SMB. But now smaller players can have freight consolidated to create peel-off stacks. Bryn Heimbeck of Trade Tech talks about a pilot project at the port of Los Angeles/Long Beach.
The post Creating Peel-Off Stacks at Port for SMBs appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Reminiscent of "The Matrix," the metaverse is a fully immersive virtual world where people can interact and engage in gaming, concerts or live sports. Facebook rebranded to Meta, and brands from Victoria’s Secret to Gucci, to Louis Vuitton are staking a claim. Are we there yet? We explore this topic with Nexla CEO Saket Saurabh.
The post The Metaverse: Megatrend or Market Noise? appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Abe Eshkenazi, CEO of the Association for Supply Chain Management (ASCM), said organizations need to take more of a long-term, systemic view vs. short-term fixes in response to a crisis. In this MCM podcast, Eshkenazi stresses the need for better visibility to read demand signals, and consideration of upstream/downstream effects. of efforts in any one node.
The post Supply Chain Crisis: Applying Long-Term Thinking appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
BNPL has caught on more broadly in other markets but it's certainly poised to catch on here. Square's pending $29b acquisition of Afterpay is certainly a major indicator, as are other deals. What is the significance of Square/Afterpay, and where is BNPL headed? Rob Galtman, a director at Fitch Ratings, gives us his take.
The post Square/Afterpay and the Broader BNPL Trend appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
The last 18 months of lockdowns and restrictions have made it hard for consumers to shop at stores, eliminating the pleasure of leisurely, impulse buying, seeing a product or speaking with an associate. The answer to this problem may be livestreaming shopping. Is it the mall of the future? We talk to Jared Blank of VTEX to learn more.
The post Livestreaming Shopping: The New Virtual Mall? appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Instacart has been on its own shopping spree, hiring away Fidji Simo, who ran Facebook's main app, as CEO, as well as Facebookers Carolyn Everson as president and Asha Sharma as COO. What’s behind Instacart's Facebook hiring binge? In this latest MCM CommerceChat podcast, we explore the subject with Orlee Tal, CEO of Stor.ai.
The post Instacart and the Great Facebook Talent Raid appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
The 2020 peak season was certainly different and a challenge, as were many things during an unprecedented year. How have retailers adjusted things like inventory and supply chain, and dealt with transportation and labor issues to get ready for this Q4?
Israel Maynard, Senior Director of International Logistics and Fulfillment for outdoor gear and apparel retailer Burton, has been busy working with vendors overseas and partners here to get everything stocked and set for his peak season, which starts a bit ahead of everyone else, actually to his advantage. We discuss all this in our latest MCM CommerceChat podcast. You can also catch Israel on this topic at Ecommerce Operations Summit 2021, Aug. 17-18 at the Gaylord Opreyland in Nashville.
The post Prepping for Peak Season at Burton appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
In ecommerce operations, software upgrades big and small come your way, with all the requisite justification to management, then planning and scoping, system integration and preparation of users and stakeholder teams. It’s kind of a big deal! Then the magical go live day comes. You turn the system on, everything works, and there are high fives all around.
But down the road, months or even a year or two later, issues inevitably crop up you hadn’t anticipated or planned for. What happens then? What does that look like? To explore this important topic a bit more in our MCM CommerceChat podcast, we caught up with Katie Langrock, Vice President of Operations at Vermont Teddy Bear. Katie, part of a panel on this topic at Ecommerce Operations Summit 2021 (Aug. 17-18, Gaylord Opreyland, Nashville), talks about her team’s experience with a two-year-old ERP project.
The post Ecommerce Operations Software: After the Go Live appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
What were a lot of people looking for as the pandemic swept through the country last year? A chance to get away from urban environs, and to get back to the land, even if it was just their own backyard. Tractor Supply Co. was there to meet this burgeoning need. This of course presented the company with a new set of challenges, as the sudden spike in ecommerce sales and demand for omnichannel tactics required swift action.
Letitia Webster, Tractor Supply’s SVP of ecommerce, omnichannel and Master Data Management, and one of our keynote speakers at Ecommerce Operations Summit 2021 (Aug. 17-18, Gaylord Opreyland Nashville) talks about how her team rose to the challenge and improved their processes along the way in an MCM CommerceChat podcast.
The post Rolling With the Changes, Meeting New Demand at Tractor Supply appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
Meeting labor demands and being sufficiently staffed has become an acute problem across industries, and retail/ecommerce is no exception. One key aspect of this is, knowing how your staffing objectives align with what potential hires are looking for in an employer and company experience. And if you’re going through operational and structural changes, this is another wrinkle impacting the types of candidates and skills you’re looking for. In this MCM CommerceChat podcast, Mark Irvin, chief inclusion, diversity and talent officer for Best Buy and a keynote speaker at Ecommerce Operations Summit 2021 (Aug. 17-18, Gaylord Opreyland, Nashville), talks about how he’s addressing these particular challenges.
The post How Best Buy Approaches Hiring and Staffing Challenges appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
There has been a steady proliferation in recent years of vendors making autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), as well as serious investment and some M&A activity. At the same time, demand has grown steadily for this type of automated solution in order fulfillment and other applications, especially given the boom in ecommerce and the difficulty of securing sufficient labor. But can different warehouse robots play nice in the same setting?
To that end, trade group MassRobotics has created an AMR Interoperability Working Group. In May, the group, which includes vendors, engineers and client companies, published a standard to guide robotic automation interoperability. This working document will allow different types of warehouse robots to share data such as status information and operational conventions or “rules of the road” in order to better coexist on a warehouse or factory floor. In this MCM Commerce Chat podcast, we talk to Daniel Theobald, CEO and co-founder of Vecna Robotics and Tom Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics, to learn more about the standards initiative and its goals.
The post Driving Toward Interoperability for Warehouse Robots appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
We just had the third anniversary of the Wayfair decision, i.e. South Dakota vs. Wayfair, when the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the nexus rule requiring physical presence in a state for sales tax liability. That landmark ruling is still impacting retailers, especially smaller ones, in terms of compliance. Also, with so many companies turning on omnichannel services in the past year as stores shuttered, the addition of new channels has sales tax implications. For instance, curbside or store pickup and shipping within a city can be taxed at one rate, but another rate applies if a store shipment goes to an address outside that jurisdiction.
In our latest MCM CommerceChat podcast, Liz Armbruester, SVP of global compliance for tax services firm Avalara, and Kevin Permenter, a research manager with IDC, provide an update on the ecommerce taxation landscape. We also discuss the tax implications of the explosion in ecommerce since the pandemic, including how adding new sales channels equals new complexities.
The post 3 Years After Wayfair Decision, Issues Continue appeared first on Multichannel Merchant.
As of July 1, the EU is updating how retailers calculate Value-Added Tax (VAT) when selling goods into member countries. This extends a 2015 change to include low-cost ecommerce goods under 22 Euros. Peter Boerhof of Vertex helps us better understand the implications for sellers in our latest MCM CommerceChat podcast.
Amazon has revoked the 200-unit limit for new FBA sellers and changed how it assesses sellers’ storage limits. New sellers can start with 500-1,000 units depending on their storage type. It also now subject all sellers to new restock limits. Eytan Wiener, CEO of Getida and a former Amazon power seller, helps us break down the changes.
Cyber Weekend 2020 presented yet more evidence of the the monster that is mobile commerce: 40% of Black Friday sales were from smartphones, Adobe said. As mobile apps going hand-in-glove with this phenomenon, we talked to Lexi Sydow of App Annie about mobile app trends to follow in 2021, including TikTok and livestreaming.
Whether we see a reduction of the pandemic in 2021 (hold breath here), the retail landscape has been forever changed and omnichannel is locked in. How will retailers continue to adapt in a very challenging environment? We talked to Dave Cesaro, executive director of client strategy at Valassis, to get his thoughts on what to expect.
The Online Merchants Guild is suing California's taxing authority for holding Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) sellers liable for back sales tax. The issue: Is inventory stored in California by Amazon, which in many cases the individual sellers many not even be aware of, taxable? Scott Peterson of Avalar helps us unpack the issue.
Global Privacy Control focuses on letting consumers opt out of the sale of their personal data to third parties. The early-stage coalition includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Mozilla. Rob Shavell, CEO of Abine, who was involved in Do Not Track and now GPC, discusses what's ahead and why merchants should get on board.
Digital fraudsters are nothing if not opportunistic, and the current pandemic is an excellent example. Many reports from consultants and researchers talk of increasing scams and tricks, and “content fraud” is on the rise. Jeff Sakasegawa, a trust and safety architect at fraud prevention firm Sift, talks about the problem and his findings.
What do major changes at USPS mean for thousands of businesses that rely on it daily for parcel delivery, as well as giants like UPS, FedEx and Amazon? How will these changes affect SLAs and CSAT? We discuss these issues with Cathy Roberson, founder and president of Logistics Trends and Insights on our latest MCM podcast.
Understanding microbrowser traffic and its relationship to social can help correlate where conversions are really coming from, enabling marketing spend to be adjusted accordingly for better ROI. Jason Khoury, head of corporate marketing at Cloudinary, talks about how brands can tap the power of microbrowser traffic.
The European Union is making sweeping updates to how retailers need to calculate Value-Added Tax (VAT) when selling goods into its member countries, effective July 1, 2021. Peter Boerhof, EU VAT director for Vertex, explains the various changes and their significance, and the impact for companies selling goods into Europe.
As consumer spending dwindles, retail chains struggle and bankruptcy filings mount up. Yet retail and food sales rose a record 17.7% in May, and discount chains are flourishing. How do we account for this? Brett Rose, founder and CEO of United National Consumer Suppliers, shares his thoughts in this MCM CommerceChat podcast.