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With technology advancing, AI becoming more and more popular and incorporated into most businesses, and recent COVID-19 events resulting in life moving to the online zone, companies really need to do everything they can to stay relevant. Get inspired by a couple of new and very innovative eCommerce businesses.

 

Customers want to be surprised by companies

 

Over the last year the online commerce has grown rapidly, and its existence has truly been a lifesaver during the lockdowns. The pandemic surely has influenced shopping behaviors and patterns, but also made us buy more products and services online. 36% of consumers now shop online weekly, an increase from 28% before the pandemic.

 

On the other hand, with so many people switching to online channels, companies are rushing on their feet to meet the consumers’ expectations, racing to come up with newer and better ideas. They know that if they don’t meet these exaggerated, so to speak, demands, they will have to wave goodbye to the market.

 

Top 6 business innovations that’d make you pop

 

Here are the Top 6 business innovations you should be learning from to not drop out from the hunger games of ecommerce. 

 

Headless Ecommerce – edit the frontend without interfering with the backend 

Augmented reality – connect the real world with the computer generated world

Radical Transparency – be transparent with your production process

Killer referrals – master the word-of-mouth marketing strategy

Rent fashion and personal shopping service – instead of selling, rent your products and tailor them to your customers 

Online education – enable people from all over the world to learn from you without leaving their homes

 

#1 Headless Ecommerce: Annie Selke turned to faster, and more engaging experience

 

Headless eCommerce really stands out because it separates frontend (head) presentation from backend commerce functionality. In short, this means that the user interface, social commerce and digital marketplace can be updated individually without having to change the backend.

 

Annie Selke took advantage of this feature and used a combination of PWA and AMP technologies and server-side rendering to improve site performance. 

 

With improved load times, the brand saw a sudden boost, increasing overall organic traffic by 32% and organic traffic from mobile devices by 40.41%.

 

 

#2 Augmented reality: Spatial – Sit next to each other from across the world

 

Although augmented reality is on the market for some time now, last year made our love for it burst again. 

 

Spatial company felt the right moment perfectly. During 2020, when face-to-face contacts were restricted, they presented 3D collaborative virtual space. It lets participants from around the world represent themselves in a virtual work space using an avatar.

 

They simply listened to their customer needs, and it definitely paid off as at the beginning of the year, they raised additional $14M more for a holographic 3D workspace.

 

 

#3 Radical Transparency: Everlane – It’s expensive, but you can see exactly why

 

The online market is so crowded that it’s nearly impossible to stand out and compete, when you don’t have the lowest prices. 

 

However, Everlane decided to reverse the narrative and show the true cost of each step in the production process. They posted these costs on their product pages, along with information about the factories they used, the materials, and the exact profits from each transaction. 

 

This radical step is something eCommerce doesn’t practice very often, yet it has made the company stand out from its competitors by turning to a conscious way of buying

 

 

#4 Killer referrals: Greats – marketing campaign run by itself

 

Would you like your campaign to be run by itself? It’s possible with a solid word-of-mouth marketing strategy. 

 

“Friends? Frenemies? Become Friends with Benefits and give them $25 OFF their first order.”

 

Greats is using their killer referral system, which allows them to cut the costs of any additional campaign tools, leaving it all in the hands of their loyal customers. 

 

There’s an important lesson from Greats: When you provide a product or service worth bragging about, and a discount for referrals to monetize, the marketing campaign basically runs itself.

 

 

#5 Rent fashion and personal shopping service: Armoire – solve the quiz and get tailored clothes

 

When it comes to shopping, the most tedious part is finding what fits you. That’s why you can simply tell someone to pick out the clothes for you! What’s more, if you get bored with them, you can simply send them back. 

 

Armoire has combined these two solutions, creating a unique customer experience, perfectly answering their customer needs. After completing the quiz on their website, they curate a selection of styles with help from algorithms and professional stylists. Customer can rent his favorite styles, then exchange and repeat the process. 

 

This is a great example of AI and humans working together to lead to better CX.

 

 

#6 Online education: Skillshare – learn new stuff without leaving your house

 

Recent events have taught mankind that it will not always be possible to take onsite courses, which is why online learning platforms have become even more desirable than before. 

 

Skillshare offers courses for both professional creatives and everyday creative hobbyists. But not only that! They provide option for teachers as well. Simply sign up for free and start creating a variety of unique courses.

 

When the companies will move 10% of their employees to permanent remote positions post-COVID 19, consumers will surely be eager to stay at home and turn to online learning for entertainment and enrichment. That’s a real tip on how to plan your business for future events.

 

 

Meeting today’s market demands is not easy. If you are looking to improve your online business, consider implementing a Customer Data Platform. By building 360° customer profiles in a unified and persistent customer database, you will be able to provide incredible Customer Experience

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Take control of your Twitter account by applying some smart tricks to create automated workflows. Do it nicely, do it the Funky Marketing way. Twitter is your friend. You’ve been trying to convince yourself about it every time you click on the blue bird icon to start or get back to a conversation. But let’s be honest, keeping the rhythm of this social platform can be exhausting. Twitter can become excessively demanding and that’s definitely not cool. All that dependence…maybe not for you. Fortunately, technology, if well implemented, can be your best ally in the fight for winning the algorithm. There are ways to make your life easier, so why not making the most out of them? If you want to automate Twitter and live to tell the tale, here’s some practical advice and tools you may want to test – and love. Pss, an important note here: use tech wisely. Don’t be spammy, don’t annoy the Twitter automation rules, and above all, don’t mess with your audience’s patience. Your weapons can quickly turn against you, so let’s keep this all about friendship, shall we? Before anything, you gotta find your perfect tool, the one you’ll use to implement your workflows. Some great examples of workflow automation are:

Automate
Zapier Zoho Audiense Status Brew
Once you’ve made your choice, it’s time to take action and develop your Twitter automation ideas. Ready? Let’s see some examples of what you can do. ⚡️ https://funkymarketing.net/best-ways-of-automating-twitter/
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Imagine this – you’ve recently created a new website to host your content, and you’re excited to see it go live. You can’t wait to dive into SEO and begin ranking for keywords and attracting an audience to your brand.
But then a friend emails you and says, “Hey, is there a reason I see this when I click on your website? ”
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Undoubtedly, a “403 Forbidden” message is cause for immediate concern. How many potential viewers are you losing, as they come across your website to find this message?
Fortunately, there are a few quick-and-easy solutions to a 403 error. Here, we’ll explain the top three, so you can get your site up and running.

What you’ll typically see when you land on a page with a 403 forbidden error is something like this: “You don’t have authorization to view this page – HTTP Error 403.”
It can also have slightly different wording, like the example below.

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Wondering about the difference between a 403 and 404 error? Here it is: A 404 error happens when you access a page that no longer exists or cannot be found. A 403 error, on the other hand, indicates that your access has been denied due to incorrect credentials.
An easy way to remember it: 403 says “access denied” while 404 says “We can’t find what you asked for.”
What causes a 403 error?
There are a few reasons why you may see a 403 forbidden error. Here are the most common:

Permission or ownership error – Permissions are represented by codes, which indicate what each type of user can do. If you have the incorrect code associated with a file or directory then your users may run into a 403 error.

Wrong file or folder location – When uploading content to your site, you may have added it to the wrong directory, which is not accessible to your end-users.

No index page – If your homepage doesn’t have an index page, it will not display correctly on a browser.

Misconfigured WordPress plugin – A plugin may be blocking IP addresses to avoid malware, causing the 403 forbidden error.

Now that you know the causes, let’s address how to fix them.
How to Fix 403 Errors
1. Set the correct file permissions.
If you’ve configured your web server, you’ll want to add the server to the www-data group, and set ownership of /var/www to the www-data user and www-data group.
Then, make sure your directories are set to 755, your files are set to 644, and your dynamic content is set to 700. This determines which user types (owner, group, everyone) can read, write, and execute.
2. Make sure you have an index page.
Your website’s home page must be called index.html or index.php – if it’s not, you should rename the homepage to include one of those URL names.
Alternatively, you can upload an index page to your httpdocs directory and then set up a redirect on the index page to your real homepage.
3. Upload your website content to the correct directory on your server.
You might see a 403 forbidden message if you haven’t correctly uploaded your content to the directory on your server.
There are several different FTP clients you might’ve chosen to host your domain — let’s say you chose FileZilla, which is free and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
To publish your content online, you’ll need to put your files into the public/htdocs directory.
Note: If you’re using FileZilla, these instructions will vary if you use a different FTP client. Once you’ve dragged and dropped your files into the directory, you should search your website’s URL to double-check they now appear online.
If you’re in your FTP server and don’t see the httpdocs directory, you can create a file within the directory with this title, which could also solve the issue.
4. Deactivate and reactivate your plugins.
If you suspect one of your plugins is responsible for the 403 forbidden error, temporarily deactivate all of your plugins.
You may have noticed the error shortly after installing a plugin. If so, start with that one and work your way down from the most recent installation to the oldest.
Then, one by one, activate each plugin and refresh the page to determine which plugin is causing the error.
As you can see, 403 errors can typically be resolved in just a few easy steps. It’s just about knowing where to look.