ThriftBooks ranks No. 319 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of North America’s largest online retailers by web sales.

ThriftBooks, generative AI and LLMs

Using generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to improve the ThriftBooks.com experience is a top priority this year, Hagen said.

“Generative AI is a big focus. And so is using the large language models to find a new way to connect our customers with books that they might not have known they were looking for,” she said. 

The online bookseller uses AI to make relevant recommendations on books to customers, she said. For example, the proprietary technology learns that customers who read a specific recent bestseller tend to purchase other subgenres, which it can then recommend to them. As more customers purchase through ThriftBooks’ website, the recommendations become better because they have more data to draw on.

“This customized approach helps to create a ‘surprise and delight’ customer experience, ultimately leading to increases in customer engagement and retention,” Hagen said, without sharing specific figures. 

Recommendations are important because ThriftBooks has a vast inventory of books. It sells 19 million titles, Hagen said.

“It’s a lot of information for a human to be able to process,” she said. With LLMs, though, they can “make that experience that much more succinct and manageable without having to add costs to the system.”

The LLMs generate summaries of books based on product descriptions, author biographies, and reviews to present the information in a digestible way for consumers. That’s particularly useful for less popular books, like out-of-print titles that ThriftBooks sells, she said. 

The retailer started rolling out these tools in early 2023, with plans to continue experimenting in 2024. It uses open-source machine learning libraries and is experimenting with various LLMs, Hagen said without revealing more.

ThriftBooks’ loyalty program

ThriftBooks has a few other tools to engage with customers. Its loyalty program, ReadingRewards, is also key to customer retention, Hagen said. The program contains three tiers:

• Reader: free to join
• Bookworm: $75 in annual spending
• Literati: $150 in annual spending

Members earn points for shopping with ThriftBooks, and members in higher tiers earn more points per dollar spent with the retailer. 

“The best thing about the loyalty program is we give out free books. So it’s not like you’re redeeming points for dollars off,” Hagen said. “Our customers love to get free books, and so it’s really been a way for our customers to engage with us and get excited about their free books when they arrive in the mail.” 

The free book rewards also provide a low-risk way for members to experiment with AI-generated recommendations.

“Part of using large language models is helping customers find a book that maybe they didn’t know existed. There’s a book you’re not familiar with, and you try it, and then hopefully it’s something that they really enjoy,” Hagen said.

ReadingRewards members are more likely to return to ThriftBooks, she said. The top Literati tier grew 30% year over year in 2023, and the middle Bookworm tier grew 20%.

ThriftBooks and social media

An active social media presence is keeping ThriftBooks in touch with a younger audience of consumers, Hagen said.

“What we’ve seen in the last several years is Booktok, and the whole TikTok space has really taken off, and it’s really helped us create some resonance with a younger generation, a younger set of consumers,” she said.

Booktok refers to TikTok videos about books, which publishers credit with selling 20 million copies in 2021.

ThriftBooks sees gains from social media without directly selling there, Hagen explained. The retailer does not sell on TikTok Shop and has no current plans to. Instead, it capitalizes on videos created by customers, reposting unboxing videos, for example. ThriftBooks has more than 166,000 followers. That’s also why ThriftBooks doesn’t spend much on influencer marketing, she said. There’s simply enough organic content out there for free as consumers create their own videos about ThriftBooks and engage with the retailer’s videos.

One exception was in celebration of ThriftBooks’ 20th anniversary last year. The retailer invited BookTok influencers to tour one of its processing centers and share videos with their followers. That was particularly popular, she said.

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The ecommerce retailer sells automotive parts through CarID.com, TruckID.com and CamperID.com. Parts ID is No. 479 in  Top 1000. The Digital Commerce 360 database ranks North America’s leading online retailers by their web sales.

Parts ID went public in 2020 through a special purpose acquisitions company (SPAC), Legacy Acquisition Corp.

Why did Parts ID file for bankruptcy?

Parts ID’s bankruptcy is due in part to challenging elements in the economy, according to the retailer’s filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

“Recent economic conditions have caused fluctuations in business and consumer confidence, which has impacted spending on automotive parts and accessories,” CEO Lev Peker said in the filing. “These economic conditions include supply chain challenges, an inflationary environment, overall economic uncertainty and the potential for economic slowdown or recession, which have impacted consumer confidence and spending.”

As of the filing, Parts ID lists $55 million in debts and $18.7 million in assets. 

Will Parts ID shut down?

The Cranbury, N.J.-based auto parts retailer plans to continue operating normally with the bankruptcy in motion, the filing states. In the meantime, Parts ID will negotiate a repayment plan for its debt. The ecommerce company outlined a restructuring plan for the debt in the filing, which it says has support from vendors and lenders who hold the debt.

Bankruptcy proceedings

Investment firm Fifth Star committed to financing for Parts ID through the bankruptcy, the filing shows. Fifth Star will provide up to $32 million for payments to vendors and creditors. The firm is also a likely top bidder in a future sale process, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“After years of financial challenges due to the global impact of COVID-19 and an uncertain economy, the Plan Restructuring will position the recapitalized Debtors to execute on its strategic initiatives and deliver on the promise of its proprietary digital commerce platform while prioritizing the Debtors’ commitment to Vendors, the filing says of the proposed plan.

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Ultimately, stakeholders deemed the decision to wind down “necessary” in order “to maximize value for the companies’ creditors,” according to the notice from Douglas Wilson Companies, the firm overseeing the liquidation.

Why Zulily is shutting down

“This decision was not easy nor was it entered into lightly,” Ryan C. Baker, vice president at Douglas Wilson Companies, wrote in the message posted to Zulily’s site. “However, given the challenging business environment in which Zulily operated, and the corresponding financial instability, Zulily decided to take immediate and swift action.”

The Seattle-based company, which was founded in 2010, fought for years to compete with Amazon and other major retailers. Zulily even filed a lawsuit as recently as Dec. 11 against Amazon, accusing the ecommerce giant of trying to destroy Zulily through price-fixing.

How unfulfilled Zulily orders will be handled

In the announcement about Zulily shutting down, Baker noted that the company intends to fulfill all pending orders where possible. Then, it will then issue cancellations and refunds in the remaining cases. The statement lists January 22, 2024, as the date by which that process should be completed.

The liquidation news follows a tumultuous year for Zulily. Private equity firm Regent and Baker acquired it in May. Terms were not publicly disclosed for the transaction, which saw Zulily leave Qurate Retail Group. Previously, Zulily became part of a portfolio at Qurate alongside QVC and HSN after Qurate (then operating as Liberty Interactive) acquired Zulily for $2.4 billion in 2015.

Qurate ranks No. 18 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s database of the largest North American e-retailers by online sales.

Zulily’s layoffs and other issues in 2023

Earlier in the year, Zulily laid off hundreds of its employees. Notably, Terry Boyle, Zulily’s CEO departing at the end of October.

On Thursday, the online retailer’s Facebook page was still live. However, the homepage for its website, currently redirects to Baker’s letter about Zulily shutting down.

“We realize that this news comes with many questions, and we have put a team in place to address customer, vendor, and other interested party inquiries,” the letter explains. It lists information for Omni Agent Solutions, telling customers and vendors to use those points of contact for any inquiries.

Liquidation through ABC

Zulily will liquidate using a process known as Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (ABC). As described in the official announcement, “an assignee – Zulily ABC, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Douglas Wilson Companies – will complete an orderly wind-down of the business to maximize the recovery for the companies’ creditors as a third-party fiduciary.”

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Alibaba owns the world’s two largest online marketplaces by gross merchandise value (GMV), Taobao and Tmall. Taobao ranks No. 1 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest such marketplaces by GMV. Tmall ranks No. 2. Both outrank Amazon, the third-largest global online marketplace, according to Digital Commerce 360 research.

Changes at Alibaba

Wu took over Alibaba’s domestic ecommerce effective immediately, the Associated Press reported on Dec. 19. Wu became CEO of the Alibaba Group in September, when he also took on leadership of the company’s cloud division. He now heads the overall business, along with two of the most important sectors: ecommerce and cloud.

Wu took over ecommerce from Trudy Dai, one of Alibaba Group’s founding members. Dai will work in a new role focused on creating a new asset management company, says chairman Joe Tsai in an internal letter. Tsai also wrote that Alibaba needs a “brand-new strategy” with changes to the way business is organized.

“Eddie’s leadership of both Alibaba Cloud and [Taobao and Tmall Group] will ensure total focus on, and significant and sustained investment in, our two core businesses of cloud computing and ecommerce,” Tsai wrote in the letter, CNBC reported.

In March 2023, Alibaba announced plans to spin six of its divisions off into separate units, operating independently with plans to go public eventually. That was the biggest restructuring in the business’ 24-year history. Alibaba has since scrapped plans for spinning off the cloud business and appears to be reversing course, bringing two major sectors back into direct control of the company’s CEO.

Alibaba’s response to ecommerce competition

Alibaba’s latest announcement comes amid competition from other ecommerce retailers and marketplaces. Rival PDD Holdings Inc, which owns Pinduoduo and fast-growing U.S. marketplace Temu, recently surpassed Alibaba in market value. 

Pinduoduo does not rank in the Digital Commerce 360’s Asia Database rankings because it operates through an app-only marketplace, without an ecommerce website.

Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, also recently praised PDD’s business strategy.

“Everyone can be successful. But only those willing to reform for the sake of tomorrow, and the day after that, and an organization willing to make any sacrifice needed, are considered respectable,” Ma wrote in an internal Alibaba forum, Business Insider reported. 

Alibaba was once the most valuable company in China, and it handily dominated Chinese ecommerce. Since 2020, the business has lost market share to rivals including PDD. PDD’s growth in 2023 significantly outpaced Alibaba’s, with 94% year-over-year revenue growth in Q3, compared to 9% growth over the same period for Alibaba. Much of that difference is thanks to Temu’s explosive growth as the discount shopping app took off in 2023, also surpassing rival Shein Ltd. (No. 36 in the Asian database).

Bringing Alibaba’s ecommerce categories back into the main fold could be a way to return to earlier growth and keep up with PDD and other rivals in 2024.

Alibaba and rivals compete for consumers’ budgets

Chinese ecommerce retailers are in a fight for consumer spending, battling over who can offer the lowest prices and best discounts. In March, JD.com Inc. (No. 4 largest marketplace and No. 1 online retailer in Asia) started a price war with $1.4 billion in discounts to entice new customers. Alibaba responded with its own price cuts. 

The trend is a result of declining consumer demand, according to McKinsey analysis. Third-quarter retail spending in China grew just 3% year over year, representing a slowdown from high growth quarters earlier. Consumer reluctance to spend can be attributed to declines in property sales, declining exports, and worries over geopolitical tensions, analyst Daniel Zipser says.

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Digital Commerce 360 editors and researchers found out how much consumers spent, where, on which days, and how they paid. We also learned how online retailers approached the shopping-centric days, and which ones offered promotions.

Understanding these spending (and discounting) habits is critical for online retailers, especially if they want to learn what went right — and wrong — before the next busy shopping season comes around.

Here’s an overview of some of our best Cyber 5 coverage this year — just a sampling of examples you’ll find in the rest of this report. Download the entire December 2023 Cyber 5 edition of Strategy Insights here.

The Cyber 5 edition of Strategy Insights covers a lot, including how online retailers capitalized on the holiday season rush in November.

1) Cyber 5 online sales grow 7.8%

We found out just how big this year’s key Thanksgiving-week shopping days were. Unsurprisingly, Cyber Monday is still the largest online sales day in the U.S., with web sales reaching $12.4 billion in 2023, according to Adobe Analytics data. Cyber Monday 2023 online sales grew 9.6% over 2022’s $11.3 billion.

For perspective, the next-busiest online shopping day (Black Friday) didn’t crack $10 billion. This year, Black Friday online sales grew 7.5% to $9.8 billion.

2) Online retailers share how Black Friday and Cyber Monday really went

Despite record spending overall, retailers that Digital Commerce 360 spoke with reported mixed results. For many retailers, 2023 has been about coping with budget-conscious consumers who are choosier about how to spend their discretionary income.

Digital Commerce 360 heard from Adore Me, Meble Furniture, Buy Buy Baby, and other retailers on how they performed during the Cyber 5, and how those results will impact the rest of the holiday season.

3) 92% of top online retailers offer Cyber Monday promotions

We already know Cyber Monday is meant to be the day for online shopping promotions, and online retailers affirmed that. Of the 100 online retailers we paneled, 92 offered some kind of promotion on Cyber Monday. And of those 92 retailers, 84.8% specifically made those promotions about Cyber Monday.

3.5) DNVBs stay steady with Cyber Monday promotions

The trends differed among digitally native vertical brands, though. According to Digital Commerce 360 research, 85.0% of the 80 DNVBs in the Top 1000 ran promotions on Cyber Monday. While many brands were offering discounts, it’s a smaller share than the Top 1000 overall. Just 63% of DNVBs that offered promotions tied deals to the holidays, and many didn’t bother with decorating their websites.

4) Holiday online traffic data shows who shopped for what

With all these deals, online retailers enticed shoppers to browse the web for holiday gifts. Early results showed notable sales spikes in apparel, appliances, toys, and elsewhere. Data Digital Commerce 360 analyzed gives insights into who was doing holiday shopping during the Cyber 5, broken down by age and gender across different merchandise categories.

5) Amazon gains Cyber 5 traffic share from other top retailers

Ecommerce industry observers shouldn’t be surprised to hear that Amazon had the largest share of web traffic during the Cyber 5. And it wasn’t close. Amazon accounted for more than a quarter of all web traffic to Top 1000 retailers from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday.

6) Consumers embrace buy now, pay later during Cyber 5

BNPL usage reached record levels on Cyber Monday, accounting for $940 million of the total $12.4 billion spent, according to Adobe. That’s a 42.5% increase year over year, on top of 85% it grew on Cyber Monday 2022. And with that increase in usage came changing habits.

7) Online holiday shoppers boost record overall Cyber 5 results

Holiday shoppers showed up in historic numbers for online and in-store purchases over the Cyber 5, according to the annual survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. That surpassed NRF’s expectations of 182 million shoppers by more than 18 million as more shoppers took to the web this year. Online was the top destination for Cyber 5 shoppers, NRF found.

— Abbas Haleem, Associate Editor, Digital Commerce 360

Additional reporting from Digital Commerce 360 editors Mary Meisenzahl, Brian Warmoth, Mark Brohan and James Risley.

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On an earnings call with investors, he announced eBay revenue and gross merchandise value (GMV) grew in the marketplace’s fiscal third quarter, ended Sept. 30. EBay GMV grew to nearly $18 billion in Q3, he said. And much of its GMV in the past year has come just from collectibles.

“We generated over $10 billion in GMV from collectibles over the last 12 months, and more than one in four eBay buyers purchased at least one collectibles item over the past year,” Iannone said. “These buyers carry some of the highest conversion, repurchase, and retention rates on eBay. And they are also among the heaviest cross-category shoppers on our platform, which supports our other categories.”

In the past 12 months, eBay GMV reached about $72.8 billion, according to financials listed in its most recent earnings release. Based on those figures and Iannone’s statement, Digital Commerce 360 estimates eBay collectibles accounted for about 13% of GMV in the past 12 months.

EBay ranks No. 6 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces database. The database ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by 2023 third-party GMV. Digital Commerce 360’s 2023 Global Online Marketplaces Report includes key insights into the biggest players in the database.

eBay capitalizes on collectibles in Q3

Iannone said eBay’s goal is to remain “the world’s most loved destination for passionate collectibles enthusiasts.” Working toward that goal, he said, eBay launched direct submissions to its vault.

“This enables any U.S. resident to send in trading cards valued at $250 or higher from their personal collections to the vault, even if they were not purchased on eBay,” he said.

Additionally, in July, eBay announced what it calls Vault Enhanced Submission. It enables eBay “to gather large amounts” of valuable trading cards in person at events. In one weekend, eBay added “tens of millions of dollars of assets under management to the eBay vault,” Iannone added. That includes a signed Jackie Robinson card valued at about $1 million.

The marketplace describes eBay vault as “a secure, climate-controlled, physical storage facility for graded trading cards available to eBay customers. In addition to best-in-class storage, the eBay vault offers opportunities for seamless buying and hassle-free selling with the confidence that comes with Authenticity Guarantee.”

The eBay collectibles category includes sports trading cards, toys and figures, sports memorabilia, comic books and more. The category accounts for more than 10% of eBay GMV.

eBay revamps condition grading system for trading cards

Iannone said eBay “revamped” its condition grading system for trading cards. It improves transparency for collectibles in the subcategory, he said. New listings now carry more precise details, he added. That includes whether a card has been professionally graded and the numerical grade, or one of several predefined card conditions.

EBay will also migrate existing listings to the new standard “over the coming months,” Iannone said. “Sellers have been asking us for this feature for some time, and we believe it will drive improved trust for buyers, better and more consistent price realization for sellers, as well as more robust data and insights around individual card values for eBay.”

Making the shopping experience more interactive

Although still in beta, eBay launched eBay Live last year in response to its growing community of collectors and enthusiasts, Iannone said. The interactive live-shopping feature is available within the eBay app, and the marketplace continues to expand its availability to more sellers and categories, he said.

Using eBay Live, buyers can interact with sellers and checkout in real time without leaving the livestream, Iannone added.

“Q3 marked an inflection point as we hosted over 1,000 live events, saw our millionth buyer tune in, and grew GMV from eBay Live by 4x quarter-over-quarter,” Iannone said.

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The bridesmaid dress retailer revamped its blog in Q2 2023 with a strategy, plan and one goal in mind: to have Azazie.com show up higher in search engine results, says marketing manager Keily Hernandez. 

Azazie has had a blog on its site since 2019, with search engine optimization as one of its goals as well as using it to promote giveaways and promotions without significant financial investment. But SEO wasn’t the primary focus, and the merchant didn’t have a team dedicated to managing it. As a result, Azazie did not rank highly in search results for its targeted keywords, Hernandez says. 

Now, Azazie updates the blog one to two times a week. Each month, Azazie picks a keyword to focus on, such as “bridesmaid” or “bridal gown,” and focuses all its marketing content, including social media posts, influencer content, content across the website and its blog, on that keyword.  

“We have everything point back to us as the leader of that keyword,” Hernandez says.  

This focused and integrated effort has led to a 24% increase in sales revenue attributed to organic search (which includes blog content) from April until September 2023, compared with that same period in 2022, Hernandez says. And the content is resonating with shoppers, as sales from shoppers who viewed Azazie’s blog content increased 50% from January through September 2023, compared with the year-ago period.  

Azazie is among the roughly half or so retailers that offer a blog or editorial content on their site, according to Gartner data. A Gartner analysis of 300 U.S. retailers (75 luxury retailers, 105 multi-brand retailers and 120 monobrands) in March 2023 finds that 47% of retailers have a blog or editorial content on their site, such as articles related to the products they sell, content about that category’s trends, company history or policies.  

Merchants cite several reasons why investing in editorial content can help their bottom lines, including more traffic from search engines, higher conversion rates and low return rates. But execution is key, as retailers will not see any return on their investments if they are not thoughtful and thorough with their strategies. And investments can be significant, as merchants may have to invest in internal employees to generate the content or hire outside agencies. 

Only 6% of online shoppers say blog content is an important feature for a well-designed and functional online shopping experience, according to a Digital Commerce 360 and Bizrate Insights survey of 999 online shoppers in October 2023. But shoppers put a higher value on similar content, which retailers could publish on a blog, such as how-to guides, at 19%, and an About Us page, at 12%. 

Data from research firm Forrester Research Inc. also finds that only a small subset of consumers consult a blog before a purchase. 3% of U.S. online adults who purchased clothing or footwear (online or in person), and 5% who purchased furniture or home improvement products in the past six months visited the retailer’s blog in the past month, according to data fielded between November 2022-March 2023. 

Yet, only 17% of shoppers say online retailers have met or exceeded their expectations with providing detailed product information such as origin story, history, business policies and sustainability. And only 12% said online retailers have met or exceeded their expectations with additional content such as how-to guides and blogs.  

Retail blogs boost SEO value, organic search traffic

While shoppers may not rely on blog content to make a purchase, retailers and analysts still believe it can be an important component in the online shopping journey. In fact, shoppers may not realize that a blog post was how they landed on that retailer’s site to begin with. If brands write their blogs and editorial content with search engine optimization in mind, it can have a large impact on bringing in organic traffic, says Brad Jashinsky, director analyst at Gartner.  

And organic traffic is important for Azazie. The wedding apparel retailer says about 10% of its site traffic and sales come from organic search, which includes shoppers finding its site from the blog articles. 

“I would think and I would hope that every company and every brand in every industry has a blog,” Hernandez says. “It’s kind of like the low-hanging fruit of organic content.” 

Chip Malt, CEO and co-founder of cookware brand Made In, says that roughly 25% of its site traffic comes from organic search, which includes shoppers who come to Made In’s robust blog. On average per month, its blog receives 2 million page views, and each reader views about six pages in the blog, Malt says. This shows good engagement, Malt says. On average, this is about 20% of the site’s overall page views, he says.  

What’s more, when Made In sends content-focused emails, the click-through rates are three times higher than its selling-focused emails, Malt says. Similarly, its content-focused ads on Google produce click-through rates at four to 10 times higher than selling-focused ads, he says. 

Education through content has been a part of cookware brand Made In’s strategy since Day 1, Malt says. Made In launched a blog six months prior to launching products on its cookware site and the fourth employee the brand hired was a part-time content contributor, he says.  

“Education is a part of the brand’s story,” Malt says.  

Made In sells high-end cookware that’s designed for cooking enthusiasts and is popular among professional chefs. For example, its 10-inch blue carbon steel frying pan is $109, and the brand’s average order value is $330, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates. The blog helps to explain the value of its cookware.  

Today, the brand has 10 full-time employees on its content team, it publishes roughly 50 blogs per month and the blog ranks for 56,000 keywords within Google Search, Malt says. About 50% of these keywords are in the top 20 search terms on Google, with 25% of those on the first page of search results, he says.  

One of the top navigation tabs on MadeinCookware.com is “Learn,” where the brand publishes its founding story, recipes, care for its products and cooking techniques. As Made In has expanded its product lines to include bakeware and wine glasses, it also has added content to support these products as well.  

“If we are offering this line of cookware, we also want to keep up the pace of content. …. It’s something we wanted to do for our community,” Malt says.  

Retail blog content connects to shoppers post-purchase 

This large breadth of content distinguishes the brand from its competitors, such as All-Clad, Malt says. 

“Long term, we believe if you are shown All-Clad or Made In, and you walk out the door and you are on your own, and you went with Made In, you have all this helpful content behind you. And that makes the consumer go with us overall, because they see us as a value-add,” Malt says.  

All-Clad has a blog on its site with recipes and other product content. All-Clad did not provide a comment as of press time.  

Top online floral merchant 1-800-Flowers.com Inc. also invests in editorial content as a way to engage with shoppers, says chief marketing officer Jason John.  

It operates six blogs across its 17 brands, which include a variety of giftable products such as cookies and chocolates as well as flowers. The goal is to deepen the relationship with shoppers, so they don’t just view the e-retailer’s ecommerce sites as shopping destinations, John says. It updates each blog multiple times per month.  

“It takes us beyond one transaction and helps solidify us as a part of the customer relationship,” John says.   

1800Flowers.com addresses themes within each brand’s product assortment and customer base to appeal to shoppers. For example, topics that have resonated with consumers are about how to write sympathy cards, including pet sympathy cards, for its 1800Flowers.com blog, and articles about hosting holiday dinners for its food and gifting brand HarryandDavid.com.  

Results from retail blogs 

Web visits to its blog have increased 70% year over year, John says. Even more telling is that shoppers who view a brand’s blog content convert at a 3%-5% higher rate than shoppers who don’t. This speaks to the quality of its blogs, John says.  

“You need a North Star with content,” John says. “A lot of companies, you can tell they are putting out content to put out content, and they are putting out content for a commerce outcome. We don’t believe there is authenticity in that type of content.”  

While conversion metrics are a clear performance indicator, Made In says privacy regulations can make it difficult to track a direct conversion to a blog post, because many shoppers don’t accept cookies and may visit the site several times before deciding to make a purchase. The path to purchase becomes more muddled especially with products that are high-ticket and more considered, like Made In’s relatively pricey skillets and knife sets. Instead, Malt describes its investment in content as a “brand tax that we absorb,” meaning a cost of doing business for higher-end products.   

Besides increasing site traffic, results from investing in a blog shows up in other ways, Malt says, such as aiding in the customer journey, helping its customer service team and low return rates. If shoppers are more informed about the products they buy from reading the blog, they are more likely to purchase the right product for their needs and not return it. He points to its stainless-steel products, which have a less than 2% return rate, without sharing more. 

Roughly a third of the visits to Made In’s blog come from shoppers already on the website, and the rest from outside the site, such as search results, emails and ads. If Made In was only doing the blog for SEO purposes or completely focused on that as the goal, Malt would expect 99% of the traffic to come from outside sources. But that’s not Made In’s primary goal.  

The fact that a third is internal traffic shows that the content is providing value to shoppers as they consider the brand’s products. Instead of having an article only live in the blog section, Made In peppers relevant content throughout the site to aid in the shopper journey, Malt says. For example, on the search results page, it may surface a post about the difference between nonstick and stainless-steel cookware.  

“We believe content should be intertwined in the customer journey and are happy to have internal traffic get there,” Malt says. 

Using blog content in multiple ways is smart, Gartner’s Jashinsky says.  

“If you are going the extra mile to make great content, you need to make sure it’s discoverable, across social, across search, and product pages and search pages,” Jashinsky says.  

How retailers know what to feature in blog content

Made In surveys its shoppers via email and uses that feedback to inform its content strategy. Based on 20,000 comments, Made In determined it needed more blogs about how to care for its products post-purchase, and now publishes such articles regularly.  

“The nice part of being a direct brand is that people tell you exactly what they think,” Malt says. 

Made In’s editorial team plans the focus of its blog posts for each month. Each of the brand’s departments, such as its product, customer service and marketing teams, give input on their teams’ current priorities. For example, the product team may say that it is launching a bird beak’s paring knife that month and request at least two articles featuring the product. The customer service team might say it’s had an influx of shoppers calling in about how to season their carbon skillet and propose a video blog and step-by-step instructions on how to do this.  

“Customer service acts as a very direct line to our actual customer. So our customer service team has direct input into the content calendar,” Malt says. 

The customer service team’s input gets particularly high priority when planning the blog’s editorial calendar, as the articles they suggest can help them assist customers much faster, Malt says. For example, with the “how to season the carbon skillet?” question, instead of taking 10 minutes to write out tailored instructions for each shopper, agents can direct shoppers to a video or blog that addresses their need.  

“It’s an efficiency play,” Malt says. While Malt doesn’t have a direct KPI figure to tie to its retail blog, he knows speeding up solving customer service issues keeps agents and shoppers satisfied.  

Azazie also taps its customer service team for input on what it should include in its blogs.  

“If they have a question about a trend, we can respond and create a content strategy to that, that tying into what’s trending, and what we are also offering,” Hernandez says. 

For example, a common question shoppers call in about is sizing for a bridesmaid dress while pregnant. Azazie has a blog that provides examples and tips on this topic, but it was first published in 2016. So, the content team refreshed the blog with examples of Azazie’s current maternity dresses and relevant links to its products. The customer service team refers to this blog while helping shoppers and directs shoppers to read it.   

Azazie also looks to any interactions it’s gotten on social media and trends in the bridal industry to inform its content strategy.  

The blog is under the purview of its digital marketing team, and Azazie also employs an SEO consultant to help determine its content and execution. Overall, the blogs that gain the most traffic and lead to the most sales are the ones that are integrated into its overall marketing strategy and are tied to press releases and influencers, she says.  

“It’s a lot of moving pieces and work, in order to put a campaign behind a keyword, but those are the most successful, the ones with a content strategy,” Hernandez says.  

Involving multiple departments in content creation will serve retailers well, Gartner’s Jashinsky says. Retailers would also be wise to track which types of content shoppers click on, and use that information to personalize product recommendations and for ad targeting. This is a way to gather first-party data directly from the consumer, which is especially valuable now that cookies that track shopper behavior across the web are increasingly being phased out, and can greatly benefit retailers in the long term, he says.  

If retailers do decide to make a focused effort on improving SEO through blog content or guided selling tools like a quiz to match shoppers with suitable products, they should expect it could take a year or two to see results, not months, Jashinsky says.  

“We always tell clients, this is not something you can get up and running in a week or month,” Jashinsky says. “This takes many months to get up and running, and takes a year or two to start to see significant payout. So you really need to make sure you have a long-term strategy and you are ensuring you reallocate this content as many places as possible to make sure that investment pays off.” 

For something like a quiz that guides shoppers through a series of questions and links to relevant product pages, retailers should expect to pay thousands to tens of thousands of dollars to a vendor to build it, Jashinsky says. But to do an editorial program at scale — which may take a team of writers to publish content daily and collaborate with different teams, plus the technology to plug into personalization software — that could take hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions, he says. 

For Made In, these marketing costs show up as the salaries for 10 employees dedicated to digital content instead of spending these dollars on ads. Similarly, the cost of the blog for Azazie shows up in its marketing staff resources. 1-800-Flowers also has an editorial staff that “fluctuates” depending on the time of year, John says without revealing more. 

Retailers that do strategically invest in content often see an increase in traffic from organic search, and small increases in basket size and conversion rates for shoppers that engage with this content, Jashinsky says. This, of course, varies by how well the content strategy is executed and product category.  

“Whether you are selling online or in-store, it is a pretty cost-effective way to increase SEO and increase conversion rates, and typically almost every retailer is already creating content and already has a lot of these pieces in other parts of ecosystem,” he says.  

The post Retail blogs can deliver sales but only with a strategic plan appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.

The online furniture retailer reported a larger increase in U.S. net revenue, which grew 5.4% to $2.6 billion. Meanwhile, international revenue declined 7.0% over the same period. Net loss was $163 million.

Wayfair ranks No. 10 in the Top 1000, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest online retailers in North America.

“We executed further in the third quarter to produce consistent profitability — with Adjusted EBITDA now positive on a trailing 12-month basis — while also driving demonstrable market share growth, as evidenced by our gains on customers and orders,” CEO Niraj Shah said in a statement. “Even with a turbulent macro, we remain committed to our profitability goals in good times and bad.”

Wayfair leans on promotions

Consumers are careful with their spending this year, and reluctant to make a purchase until they see a good deal, Niraj Shah told investors in an earnings call. Once the deal pulls them in, though, they start to shop around, he says. During promotional events, less than one-third of revenue comes from the featured products, he told investors.

Wayfair is using promotions to draw in customers year-round, Shah says. For example, the online retailer created a promotion in its app for National Dog Day over the summer that drove double-digit increases in click-through rates, conversions, and sales, he says. The retailer also held a second Way Day event in late October.

Wayfair’s suppliers are also discounting products as a way to clear out inventory. That allows Wayfair to purchase the inventory at lower prices and mark them down for consumers, gaining market share.

Wayfair says a slow housing market isn’t a dealbreaker

While a slowdown in the U.S. housing market has hurt home goods retailers, Shah says that doesn’t have a major impact on Wayfair. While some customers do go to Wayfair to outfit a new home, that’s not the typical customer experience, he says.

The average Wayfair customer spends $540 with the retailer annually, spread across two orders.

“This isn’t someone that’s typically refitting an entire room or house. Instead, they’re a shopper that’s going through their home item by item, project by project making small updates on a much more frequent cadence,” he says. Moreover, Wayfair is well positioned to be the retailer consumers choose when they redo a room in their existing home, Shah says. 

Headwinds facing the home category were largely offset by Wayfair’s gains in market share, according to an analyst note from consumer research firm Baird Equity Research.

Wayfair earnings

For the fiscal third quarter ended Sept. 30, Wayfair reported:

• Total net revenue grew 3.7% to $2.9 billion.
• Net loss was $163 million.
• Active customers declined 1.3% to 22.3 million.
• Repeat customers made 79.7% of all orders, up from 77.8% in Q3 last year.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Wayfair reported:

• Net revenue declined 2.5% to $8.9 billion.
• Net loss was $564 million, down from $$980 million in 2022. 
• Active customers declined from 23 million to 22 million.

Percentage changes may not align exactly with dollar figures due to rounding.

Check back for more earnings reports.

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U.S. consumers will spend more than $12 billion on Halloween celebrations this year, according to The National Retail Federation. About one-third of Halloween spending will be through ecommerce, NRF says. Retailers shared these tips for making the most of the holiday.

1. Build anticipation for new products before they launch.

“We teased the drop of our Halloween collection before it went online, and they create engaging content that gives Halloween fans a behind the scenes look at our collection,” says Lance Allen, senior merchant of decorative Holiday at Home Depot.

2. Introduce new products, but keep classics around.

Home Depot’s 12-foot-tall “Skelly” has been a viral success since 2020. The retailer still sells the skeleton, and it has since introduced other giant decor items to build on its success.

3. Use TikTok and other video platforms to display new merchandise.

“One of the biggest changes we’ve made this year is with short-form video. We are producing and deploying more video than we ever have in the past,” chief marketing officer at Fun.com Mark Bietz says. “It’s been amazing to see how customers have responded to having more rich experiences with our brand.”

4. Experiment with new advertising avenues.

Lingerie brand Adore Me is seeing success with digital out-of-home advertising on subways and billboards, with plans to continue investing, says vice president of strategy Ranjan Roy. Meanwhile, Fun.com says connected TV ads are driving “excellent results.”

5. Give consumers as many fulfillment options as possible.

Walmart offers late-night express delivery and pickup options ready in between 30 and 90 minutes. Walgreens has 30-minute pickup, one-hour delivery, and 24-hour delivery, a spokesperson says.

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