Courtesy Pixabay | mohamed_hassan
2018 was an eventful year in eCommerce, one that presented both opportunity and disruption.
Now that we’re in a few weeks into 2019, we wanted to take a moment to share some popular initiatives and concerns we helped our customers address during 2018.
Sales Tax
Sales tax was by far the biggest disrupter the eCommerce industry has faced in several years. If you’re not familiar with the story behind this change, you can read our blog posts from last year about how sales tax regulations changed once again and the historic South Dakota v Wayfair ruling.
In every conversation we had with customers and prospects during Q4 of 2018, sales tax was a concern. With the uncertainty surrounding virtually everything regarding sales tax collection, reporting & remittance, we expect these conversations to continue to dominate eCommerce in 2019.
Freestyle will be making a major announcement regarding a partnership with one of the largest solutions providers in this space, so keep an eye on our blog for more details.
Business Expansion
Once you move past disruption, the idea of growing revenue was a huge theme last year. There were several topics that received a lot of attention from our customers:
Controlling Shipping Costs – Controlling is only one part of the story. The other aspect is leveraging shipping as an advantage. When every one of your competitors uses reduced or free shipping to entice and convert new customers, how do you respond? Our customers have Shippo, our partner process built right into M.O.M. to provide:
- rate shopping
- process improvement
- comprehensive shipping information, and, most importantly,
- the ability to differentiate your brand through control of shipping costs and excellent service
Seasonal Stations – Many eTailers see a spike in orders during the holiday season or other times of the year. If you want to add seasonal employees but not the cost of permanent infrastructure, then opting for short term use of seasonal M.O.M. station licenses is a great advantage.
Adding a New Brand – Quite a few of our customers decided to add new product lines last year, and some were different enough that they required separate inventory and/or business rules. The solution to this problem for many was our Multi Company Module. We’re proud to have assisted the successful launch of many new lines last year through the flexibility of the rules within the multi company structure.
Amazon – Need we say more? Whether you consider the eCommerce giant to be a friend or foe, you still need to address how your company responds. No matter what your strategy is, we cover the bases by helping you optimize your processes to compete or with Amazon-specific modules that make it easy to sell on the marketplace.
Mobile is the Standard – For customer experience and business growth going forward. All the predictions about the growth of mobile shopping heading into 2018 came true, and if you haven’t addressed the usability of your commerce site for mobile devices, there is little doubt that you’ll quickly be left behind. Take it from our SiteLINK customers who introduced responsive site design: the return on the effort is significant, and a responsive site is becoming table stakes.
With so much to look forward to this year, we hope that sharing these lessons from last year will offer examples of how you can meet your goals in 2019.
To learn more about these topics and many other ways Freestyle can help you, reach out at marketing@freestylesolutions.com
It’s not often that a market-leading disruptor has the tables turned on them, but that’s what we saw this week when FedEx announced it’s ending a lucrative package delivery contract with Amazon. It’s always surprising when a corporation says no to millions in revenue from a “frenemy,” and it’s even more surprising to see analysts applaud the action, but that is exactly what happened.
