Shopify is said to be building commerce bots for Messenger, a project that will allow merchants to have more interactive and engaging conversations with customers. Bots for Messenger and the Messenger Platform were announced at this year’s F8. Shopify has seen messaging apps grow in popularity and start to outpace social networks when it comes to where consumers are spending their time.
Soft conversions don’t immediately ring the register, but they’re an essential part of good web strategy. They might be additions to a newsletter, requests for comparison information, or emails captured from abandoned carts. In some cases, social conversions can be considered as well. But in this article I’m going to focus on those soft conversions where an email is captured.
In the official contract, Michigan will be paid a total of $85 million in Nike apparel and products through the full length of the 15 years, and a total of $88.8 million in base compensation. That figure includes a $12,000,000 lump sum payment made by Nike to Michigan within 10 days of the completed agreement.
Many management consulting firms and technology companies have created advertising agencies in the past few years, mostly through the acquisition of agencies that have capabilities in user experiences, digital marketing, design, Web and mobile. They are ramping up their creative expertise as they are expanding the traditional set of agencies competing for marketing dollars, challenging giants like WPP, Publicis and Omnicom.
Secondhand e-comm has apparently been booming in recent years, especially compared to other segments of the shopping community. The online apparel resale market has had an annual growth rate of 82% over past three years; e-comm had just 14%, and retail had a paltry 3%, according to the report, and the fashion resale market (online as well as brick-and-mortar) is expected to hit $25 million in 2025.
Retail outlets like Amazon are branching out from their traditional sales approach and into IoT in a big way. Amazon has recently launched an entire line of products and services aimed at making their services accessible throughout your home. This includes buttons that place orders for common household products with a single press and actively-listening devices that respond to voice commands.
The documents highlight Postmates’ gross profit margins, which we understand are now above 20%. This is not the same thing as actual profitability because it excludes operating costs, but it does demonstrate that Postmates brings in more revenue than what it pays the couriers. (Postmates is also forecasting actual profitability in 2017 – we’ve confirmed that they are still on track).
We believe ecommerce for Snapchat initially would be something similar to the "buy button" that Facebook and Twitter have introduced on their platforms. We envision the buy button could be something similar to their current advertising offerings where the user sees see an ad that they could then engage with by swiping up to see more options like selecting a size or type and purchasing the product all in‐app
We believe messaging apps are the gateway for the Internet on mobile, and conversational commerce represents a huge opportunity for Shopify. Kit addresses a real pain point for merchants and is one of our most highly rated apps in the Shopify App Store. We look forward to having the Kit team join Shopify and help us define the future of conversational commerce together.” said Craig Miller, Chief Marketing Officer at Shopify.
The culprit: Shrinking iPhone sales, which generate the bulk of Apple’s revenue. Analysts expect the company to report March-quarter iPhone shipments of around 50 million to 52 million, down from 61 million a year ago. (That specific quarter had an unusual boost: iPhone 6 supply constraints had pushed more sales past the holiday period.
Last Word: the rise of 'hot chicken'
A five forces analysis of the 'hot chicken' industry will reveal movement in each direction. The pool of customers has grown tremendously since 2013. KFC now features a hot chicken knockoff in many of its southern and midwestern markets. There have been an influx of competitors and shifting cost / supply restraints. The Nashville-born culinary craze has taken on a life of its own.
Joe Deloss is more responsible for the craze's international growth than you'd think. Sure, his business is in the (reported) seven figure range and that, alone, is an achievement. But I'd argue that his successful business did as much to attract new hot chicken entrepreneurs than the city of Nashville, itself. His Hot Chicken Takeover did exactly that. It bent the demand curve by 378.8 miles.
Columbus, Ohio is hot chicken's second largest market - internationally. In the city's premier business news, it was reported by Dan Eaton that a competing hot chicken franchise was launching just to further commoditize and franchise the product. Opportunism and timing is a reality of business but so is altruism.
Businesses that offer a second chance to the un-hireable deserve our attention and our dollars. Joe Deloss's business does just that. Consumerism is a form of democracy. And it is important to support the small businesses that are built on principle. The ones that exceed the typical path of 'start, grow, IPO.'
Hot Chicken Takeover was founded in the Fall of 2013. Columbus, Ohio (once known as America's test market) was nowhere on the trend chart before Deloss sold his first plate.