Social Path to Purchase, Singles Day, Amazon Chargebacks
By Cleveland AdminSocial Media in the eCommerce Path to Purchase
US consumers are using social media across most phases of the path to purchase. Perhaps unsurprisingly, shoppers report that they are commonly using social media platforms to discover new products, although even that increased meaningfully this year. More surprising is the growing number of consumers using it for both research and consumer reviews. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest tend to be the most used platforms for these functions. Our research also suggests that this year, 21% of consumers are using social media to find similar products and 13% are using various platforms while in store.
Alibaba Singles Day Sales Top $38 Billion
Alibaba announced that GMV sold during this week’s Single Day event reached $38.4 billion, topping last year’s GMV of $30.7 billion. The event, although comparable to the US’s Black Friday, is now surpassing it in sales as Black Friday sales in the US were only ~$25 billion over the five day long weekend. Over 500 million consumers participated in the event across a number of countries. A number of international brands saw strong sales across the event, with Alibaba noting that 299 brands sold over RMB 100 million ($14.3 million) and 15 brands surpassed RMB 1 billion.
Success in Disputing Amazon Chargebacks Limited
One of the challenges vendors face are shortage deductions. Nearly every company we benchmarked indicated they typically dispute these deductions, regardless of category, size of business or level of maturity. In our research, several manufacturers have indicated they hire dedicated headcount or partner with a third-party to specifically help fight charges of this nature. The issue is that only a small minority of companies are successful at getting nearly all of the deductions corrected. Most companies are only somewhat successful (61%) or not very successful (28%).