E-Commerce Minute

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E-Commerce Minute: Monday -- October 23, 2017

The E-Commerce Times -- E-Business Means Business
http://www.ecommercetimes.com
Part of the ECT News Network

Headline Scan
7 Tips for Highly Effective Content Marketing
PayPal Lets Messenger Users Send Money to Buddies
Email Marketing Goes Hand-in-Glove With E-Commerce Shipping
AI vs. Echo's Eavesdropping and Google's Home Invasion
Counting Down to ASC 606
New Tools Offer Wholesale Distributors Fast Track to E-Commerce
Accenture, SAP Plot One CX Platform for All
Evolution of the 4th Utility: Fixed Broadband
Helpshift VP Tushar Makhija: Not All Customers Will Help You Make Money
Retailers Slowly Embracing In-Store Tech Tools
Salesforce's IoT Strategy
Study: Music Improves Customer Experience, Even in Serious Settings
Salesforce Reshuffles SaaS, PaaS in Internet of Things and AI

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Today's Story Highlights

7 Tips for Highly Effective Content Marketing
Content marketing, which bridges the divide between marketing and
storytelling, is vital to attracting and keeping e-commerce customers.
"Content marketing is the practice of sharing information your target
audience will find helpful and valuable with the intention of creating a
profitable customer relationship," said Ardath Albee, CEO of Marketing
Interactions.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84904.html

PayPal Lets Messenger Users Send Money to Buddies
PayPal has announced the immediate availability of its peer-to-peer
payment service on Facebook Messenger, making it easy to exchange money
between friends and family. PayPal also introduced its first-ever
customer service bot. Payments can be made in Messenger by pressing the
blue plus icon when composing a message and then tapping the green
payments button.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84899.html

Email Marketing Goes Hand-in-Glove With E-Commerce Shipping
ShippingEasy on Thursday launched Automated Email Marketing as an
addition to its customer management module. This new tool has a powerful
rules engine that helps users increase sales, the company said. Among
other things, it can set up a trigger to send an email to first-time
buyers immediately after an order is downloaded -- customized with a
logo and specific coupon code if desired.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84898.html

AI vs. Echo's Eavesdropping and Google's Home Invasion
There's a lot of excitement about all the new artificial intelligence
technology hitting the market -- like Amazon's Echo and Google's Home
smart speakers, among many other products. However, there's also growing
concern over how these devices may invade our privacy. Despite the
companies' assurances to the contrary, some people worry that they could
be listening to every word we utter.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84895.html

Counting Down to ASC 606
There will be little New Year's Eve celebrating but perhaps a lot of
morning-after hangovers for U.S. businesses that haven't begun preparing
for ASC 606, the Financial Accounting Standards Board's new rules about
revenue recognition. They are set to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2018. The
news is much the same for Europe, though there the rule's name is "IFRS
15." The change is hard to do.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84897.html

New Tools Offer Wholesale Distributors Fast Track to E-Commerce
picor this week released Epicor Commerce Connect, a cloud-based
application designed to help wholesale distributors quickly deploy e-
commerce sites that will automate many of the steps required to move
product to their customers. The Commerce Connect software is now
available for Epicor Eclipse, a cloud-based platform geared toward
helping companies deploy rich B2B and B2C solutions.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84892.html

Accenture, SAP Plot One CX Platform for All
Accenture Interactive and SAP Hybris have partnered to create a new
platform that will let users build and curate end-to-end contextual,
personalized customer experiences -- from marketing, e-commerce and
offline shopping to customer service and loyalty management. The joint
platform will target B2C and B2B firms in retail, telecommunications and
resources.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84893.html

Evolution of the 4th Utility: Fixed Broadband
In-home broadband has become "the fourth utility" in United States
households, many of which have multiple connected devices and viewing
screens. More than 85 percent of U.S. homes have broadband service,
according to Parks Associates, 93 percent of those have DSL, fiber or
cable high-speed, fixed-line Internet services. Fixed broadband demand
is a key contributor to operators' ongoing profits.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84887.html

Helpshift VP Tushar Makhija: Not All Customers Will Help You Make Money
"As services are getting more and more mobile, service needs to get
mobile as well," said Helpshift VP Tushar Makhija. "If you look at
customer service over the last 10 to 15 years, first it was all about
average handling time. If you grew quickly as a business, you needed to
stack up a call center. The next five to six years were all about self-
service, so technology started building up."
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84886.html

Retailers Slowly Embracing In-Store Tech Tools
Most retailers don't have the in-store technology to view customer
information across various touchpoints, suggests a new study from Kibo.
Fifty-eight percent of retailers who participated in the study, released
last Thursday, acknowledged they did not have that capability. The study
was based on questions posed to 115 retail executives during the Future
Stores 2017 conference.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84884.html

Salesforce's IoT Strategy
Salesforce is a large and well-disciplined development company. It's
pretty good at marketing too. It continues to innovate in all product
areas, from core platform to applications, and the one criticism I'd
make is that it's information overload at times. Lately Salesforce has
made a big deal of adding its AI product, Einstein, to every application
area to provide insights and stack rank options.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84885.html

Study: Music Improves Customer Experience, Even in Serious Settings
Music can enhance the customer experience even in nontraditional retail
environments, suggests a study released Thursday by Mood Media and the
Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers. The study was
conducted in France. Customers had a more favorable experience in five
business locations -- including gas station, optical, banking, sports
apparel and pharmacy locations, the study found.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84878.html

Salesforce Reshuffles SaaS, PaaS in Internet of Things and AI
It can be a full-time job trying to keep up with Salesforce's newest
cloud offerings. However, it is always worth the effort, because the
company's pronouncements are often early bellwethers of the future
direction of the software industry. This has become particularly true
with respect to the company's evolving efforts to penetrate and gain a
prominent position in the AI and IoT markets.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/84883.html

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