Amazon Sales Channel Updates

Amazon Sales Channel in Magento Is Now Available in the U.K.

There was a lot of excitement amongst Magento brands and merchants when we recently announced Amazon Sales Channel extension for Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source at Imagine. 
It’s no secret that consumers today are hyper-connected and using more touchpoints in their commerce journey. This not only applies to how they shop—whether it’s browsing online while at work, on a smartphone or checking out products in-store—but also where they ultimately click the “Buy” button: on a brand’s owned channel or on an online marketplace like Amazon, eBay and others.
Try a simple Google search on Amazon and you’ll run into a seemingly endless stream of stats about why it’s so important to list your products on the marketplace. For example, Amazon said that Prime Day this year was the “largest shopping event in Amazon history,” and some suggest that Amazon has accounted for 44 percent of US e-commerce sales, if not more. Ultimately, by having a presence on Amazon, it’s likely that you can reach a far bigger customer base, and Amazon indisputably knows how to keep its customers shopping on its site by offering incentives like one-day shipping.
This is why the Amazon Sales Channel extension in Magento can be such an incredibly powerful tool for merchants that are trying to grow their business. 

Announcing Amazon Sales Channel Extension for Europe

At MagentoLive Europe, I’m excited to announce that the Amazon Sales Channel extension is now also available for the Amazon U.K. Marketplace, with support for additional European territories arriving next year. This means that regardless of the Magento merchant’s location, they’re able to utilize the extension to list their products in the Amazon U.K. Marketplace. This already holds true for the other territories where the Amazon Sales Channel extension is already available, including the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Since the launch of Amazon Sales Channel extension in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, we’ve seen really strong adoption from Magento merchants. Today, hundreds of brands have downloaded the extension and are now managing over 200K product listings on Amazon. Additionally, the gross merchandise volume has doubled month over month, and the number of sellers with product listings on Amazon has also increased close to 20 percent month over month as well.

How Brands Benefit from the Amazon Sales Channel Extension for Magento

Amazon Sales Channel removes the barriers to entry for Magento merchants trying to gain a foothold in Amazon and reduces friction for those already selling on Amazon by allowing them to quickly integrate their catalog, establish a bi-directional data flow and start managing listings from their Magento admin. By seamlessly integrating their Magento store with multiple Amazon accounts and regions, merchants can make their Magento Admin the central hub for all their critical Amazon marketplace activities, thereby reducing data silos, removing operational friction, and eliminating additional integration costs. You can read more about the benefits of the extension here.

Source: https://magento.com/blog/magento-news/amazon-sales-channel-magento-now-available-uk

 

Magento Commerce Product Recommendations

Announcing Early Access Program for Magento Commerce Product Recommendations

Earlier this year we announced a robust product roadmap to augment Magento Commerce with enterprise-grade capabilities to empower our SMB and mid-market companies to deliver superior shopping experiences to their customers,  compete effectively and, rapidly scale their business.

Since Imagine 2019, our work around Product Recommendations powered by Adobe Sensei—our artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology—has garnered a lot of enthusiasm from our customers as it speaks to our core tenets around enabling brands to leverage data and insights to drive real-time relevance and personalized experiences.
At MagentoLive Europe, I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve made great strides in bringing this powerful feature into the hands of Magento merchants. Starting in January of next year, we will be opening the Early Access Program to Magento Commerce customers. Once the program kicks off, participating merchants will be able to embed the feature in their Magento storefront and reap the benefits immediately.
Research has shown that product recommendations alone—when executed correctly—can help increase sales by up to 30 percent for retailers. For multi-brand marketplaces like Amazon, product recommendations are even more important and drive as much as 35 percent of revenue.

View More:  https://magento.com/blog/magento-news/early-access-magento-commerce-product-recommendations

 

Magento Innovations with AWS

Magento Innovations Lab Teams Up With Amazon Web Services (AWS)

 

As we look ahead to our third year of Magento Innovations Lab, we are expanding our existing relationship with AWS beyond our cloud solution into the broader partner and developer community. We are excited to invite developers and partners to imagine new possibilities on Magento by embedding AWS innovations into their Innovations Lab submissions.
Technology is driving unprecedented change and innovation across every aspect of commerce. Magento Innovations Lab surfaces the creative development work from the global Magento community with the goal of promoting early-stage implementations of emerging technologies on the Magento eCommerce platform. From merchandising to customer service to payments (and more), these innovations are empowering growing companies to deliver exceptional online retail experiences to their customers.
This partnership with AWS marks a growing and enthusiastic developer community who are keen on pushing the limits of what’s possible with Magento. There is a long-standing history via the community to not only hold Magento accountable for delivering exceptional products but to instill a culture of innovation, and provide the foundation upon which to envision, discover, and implement superior customer experiences that drive top-line revenue growth for merchants. 
Among the Amazon services that Magento developers can leverage are:

• Visual search with AWS Rekognition: a simple and easy to use API that can quickly analyze any image or video file stored in Amazon S3.
  
• Machine Learning (ML) services that make it easy for developers -- with no prior ML experience -- to build individualized recommendations for customers into their applications with Amazon Personalize; and to combine time series data with additional variables to build forecasts with Amazon Forecast.
  
• Voice Commerce with Alexa skills for voice-driven search, product comparisons, order status, etc.
  

So whether building their first application on AWS, or looking to sharpen and expand their skills, dig into technical documentation, or share ideas, through this partnership Magento developers will have greater access to:

• Developer guides: https://aws.amazon.com/developer/
  
• Free AWS developer accounts to registered partners/community developers
  
• Ongoing tech support
  
• Hosted office hours
  

The AWS partnership with Magento Innovations Lab is a natural advancement to the program’s support of the community to nurture and promote a mindset of continuous innovation on the Magento eCommerce platform. The Magento and AWS developer communities are both expansive, passionate, and driven towards improving online shopping experiences for merchants of all sizes.
The next submission window for Magento Innovations Lab opens on November 11, so check out these new resources for your next Magento Innovations Lab submission.

Source: https://magento.com/blog/magento-news/magento-innovations-lab-teams-amazon-web-services-aws

 

Improve Your B2B eCommerce Website

7 Techniques To Improve Your B2B eCommerce Website

Many B2B customers today are turning to B2B websites to purchase their products and services directly. While B2B businesses receive value from customer satisfaction within their operating procedures, customers today are looking for companies to go above and beyond their expectations.
The fact is that most B2B buyers are also consumer buyers, and where B2B customer experiences have improved, the B2B buying journey often hasn’t. B2B buyers now expect a more B2C-like customer experience when they purchase from a vendor.
If you are a B2B company, you need to adapt your current website to meet B2B buyer demands, otherwise, you’re at risk of losing potential business. According to a study by Gallup, only 29% of B2B customers are fully engaged and invested in the companies they do business with. This means that 71% are willing to switch gears and take their business elsewhere if the right opportunity presents itself. You do not want to be the business on the 71% side of this equation. You need to raise your client retention numbers with an eCommerce website that will nurture loyalty, foster engagement, and attract new customers through streamlined and optimized purchasing experiences.
Here are seven ways you can take your B2B eCommerce website to the next level.

Paid Media

One of the biggest mistakes we see businesses making is building out websites and experiences for customers and then assuming they will just arrive. This isn’t the case.  You need to actively seek out customers and drive them to your website.
A paid and organic media strategy must be established prior to building your website. Be ready and willing to spend both money and resources to draw your customers to your business through channels such as display advertising, search marketing, social media, and email.

Omnichannel Commerce 

Developing an omnichannel commerce strategy for your business will provide your customers with seamless navigation across the buying process. Customers want to buy whenever and wherever they want, through any channel, or on any device.[1]
An omnichannel strategy captures that technologically savvy customer who expects a variety of delivery options. These customers may begin their search on their tablet, but continue shopping and eventually purchase on their laptop later that evening. This omnichannel experience will give them the power and consistency to access every touchpoint in the buying process.
Maybe most importantly, an omnichannel approach will arm you with data that tracks your customer's purchasing process across all the channels you employ, giving you a complete view of your customers and their purchase habits. This is key to a strong Customer Experience Management (CXM) strategy. This data will help you identify and implement opportunities to personalize and optimize each specific buying experience.

Mobile Optimization

In 2019, the average US adult will spend 2 hours, 55 minutes on a smartphone, which a 9-minute increase from 2018[2]. With this increase in browsing time via mobile, your business needs to provide a smooth and seamless mobile platform.
57% of mobile users say that they won’t recommend a business with a poorly developed mobile platform[3]. Not only does your B2B website need to be able to provide the information your customers seek, but this information needs to translate across all devices (mobile, desktop, and tablet). If there are any hiccups or discrepancies between experiences, then potential customers may land on a competitor’s site instead. Your mobile-optimized website should not only include information relevant to your product, but be designed responsively, and with a flawless mobile payment system or chatbot feature to assist with additional questions and answers.

Chatbots

Chatbots are extremely useful for your business. They can help you upsell or cross-promote products, and more importantly, they can respond to your site visitor's questions or concerns 24/7. 
Customers may leave your site if they have difficulties finding information or encounter problems with payment. According to a study commissioned by Genesys, a chatbot feature done right can result in a 50% reduction in customer cart abandonment at critical points in the customer journey.

View More: https://magento.com/blog/small-business/7-techniques-improve-your-b2b-ecommerce-website

 

B2B Mobile Commerce

Master the Art of B2B Mobile Commerce with These 4 Tips

Mobile is changing the way people research and eventually purchase products and services. Indeed, the speed, simplicity, and evolving features and functionality of the devices we use have transformed the buying experience and mobile commerce is finally moving to the mainstream.

In fact, Adobe (Magento’s parent company), forecasts that nearly 36% of e-commerce sales this holiday season will be made from a smartphone. And while those numbers show more and more people are buying from their smartphones, B2B companies are behind their B2C counterparts when it comes to their mobile commerce offerings.
The hesitation B2B companies have to jump into mobile commerce stems from a belief that their products and services are just too complex to translate to a small screen. However, businesses cannot afford to invest in just one channel, especially as younger generations come of age and start making purchases for their companies. Gen Z, for example, spends an average of four hours and fifteen minutes per day on mobile and 95% of them own a smartphone. Additionally, 78% of them consider mobile devices their most important device for online access, and Millennials aren’t that far off at 74%.
For continued growth, businesses need to provide an omnichannel commerce experience--across mobile, online and offline--that empowers customers to make purchases on their terms and on the platforms of their choice.

Mobile Commerce is More Than Buying From Your Smartphone

When most people think of m-commerce, they immediately assume that it is limited to buying goods or services using a mobile device. While buying is one part of the equation, all of the research and browsing that a person does on their phone leading up to a purchase is a major part of the mobile commerce experience. Research shows that 80% of B2B buyers are using mobile at work, and more than 60% report that mobile played a significant role in a recent purchase. If the experience isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, consumers are likely to give up and look for the same product elsewhere. It is imperative that your business invests in a mobile experience that offers speed, convenience, and meets customers’ expectations.
Mastering the art of your B2B mobile commerce experience should be a priority. Below we do a deep dive into some of the key features that people have come to expect from a mobile commerce experience:

Source: https://magento.com/blog/best-practices/master-art-b2b-mobile-commerce-these-4-tips

 

Magento Commerce with NetSuite ERP

Need help integrating Magento Commerce with NetSuite ERP? 

 

NetSuite is one of the most flexible and scalable ERP systems on the market today. In fact, it’s especially popular among mid-market businesses with plans to grow big. The idea is to install the NetSuite ERP system once—and keep expanding—without ever having to install a new back office. In theory, it’s a back-office you’ll never outgrow.
However, most NetSuite users that sell online will eventually have to choose a more advanced eCommerce platform. And it’s no surprise that many of them select Magento Commerce. It’s proven to scale quickly and comes with advanced features like rapid content publishing and out of the box support for B2B use cases.  Plus, you can find thousands of eCommerce extensions in the Magento Marketplace that make it easy to customize your commerce experience.
To get the most out of the NetSuite ERP system and Magento Commerce, you’ll need to integrate them. There are many pre-built integration connectors available across the global Magento ecosystem. If you have a dedicated IT department, you may consider integrating the two platforms on your own. However, the vast majority of merchants opt to work with a Magento solution partner with a track record of successful NetSuite-Magento Commerce integrations. Why? Working with the right integration partner can help you minimize risk, launch faster, and even save money.
If you’re ready to integrate your NetSuite ERP with Magento Commerce—or you’re just thinking about it—the 10 questions outlined in this post can help you identify the best solution partner for your business needs.

Reasons to integrate Your ERP System

Systems integration projects often have a bad reputation. The stereotype is that they’re prone to delays, cost overruns, and avoidable mistakes. When it comes to NetSuite and Magento Commerce, that doesn’t have to be the case. ERP Integrations managed by qualified solution partners typically run smoothly. And the benefits far outweigh the risks. By integrating, you get:

1. Better visibility for your customers. With an ERP integration, Magento Commerce has access to customer data stored in NetSuite, such as order status and history. This means you can give customers access to all their interactions with your brand in one place. (You’ll also get fewer “Where Is My Order” or WISMO calls.)
   
2. Better visibility across your business operations. Because integration gives NetSuite access to online transaction data, you can get a more complete picture of how your business is performing overall.
   
3. More accurate online product information. When you integrate your NetSuite product catalog and inventory with Magento Commerce, your online store will display the latest product availability and pricing. This means customers will not order products that are actually out of stock or be charged the wrong price.
   
4. Fewer manual processes. Connecting NetSuite ERP software and Magento Commerce helps you automate workflows—including fulfillment and restocking inventory—and eliminate the need to manually enter data to keep your systems synchronized.
   

Do your homework

Your eCommerce solution partner can make or break your ERP integration. The right solution partner will work with you to define and refine your requirements, decide between a variety of pre-built connectors, and establish an integration timeline. But a partner that’s not a good fit for your business can add complexity and cost.
Before you start talking to potential solution partners, be sure to do your homework:

• Get a rough idea of your business requirements.
  
• Document workflows that require data from both systems.
  
• Consider which platform will be your “system of record” for different types of data.
  
• Map out data flows between the systems.
  
• Figure out your budget.
  

Ask these 10 questions

After you’ve done your prep work, research ERP systems integrators in your region, pick a shortlist, and ask them the following questions:

1. What experience do you have working with companies in our industry?
   
2. Are you a Magento partner? Do you have a track record of building Magento Commerce stores or integrations?
   
3. Are you a NetSuite partner? Do you have a track record of installing, working with, or building commerce-ERP integrations for NetSuite?
   
4. How many successful Magento Commerce-NetSuite integrations has your firm managed?
   
5. Do you have referenceable customers we can contact?
   
6. Can you describe a typical client in terms of industry and size?
   
7. Do you recommend integrating platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) solutions? Why or why not?
   
8. Do you outsource any of your development work?
   
9. What development process do you use for integrations?
   
10. What is this going to cost? Can we break the project into phases?
    

Also, remember that your conversations with potential integration partners should be a learning experience. If you hear from several partners that your budget is too low or your requirements are not workable, you may need to rethink one or both.
Ready to take the next steps to integrate your ERP platform?

Source: https://magento.com/blog/best-practices/need-help-integrating-magento-commerce-netsuite-erp

 

Event "MagentoLive Europe 2019 Celebrates Incredible Momentum in EMEA"

Last week, MagentoLive Europe 2019 brought its own shade of orange to Amsterdam. Over 2,000 attendees from 59 countries, making it the biggest Magento event in the region, and, of course, our community members in attendance made it the most fun.
In case you missed out, here are the highlights:

“The strength of the Magento Community comes from Europe!”

Brian Green, Head of Commerce Sales EMEA, opened the day one keynote celebrating the Magento Community in Europe, which includes:

• 60% of the Top 50 Contributors
  
• Majority of #MagentoMasters
  
• And the dominant share of global Magento certifications
  

Green recognized that the business and commerce expertise of the Magento community is increasingly important as the conversations with customers are changing.

view More: https://magento.com/blog/events/magentolive-europe-2019-celebrates-incredible-momentum-emea