Hey there! Welcome to CartHustle, the ecommerce newsletter that's as good as the 'cha-ching' sound of a cash register.

Your order this week:

• eCommerce tool of the week 🪛

• AI, ML, and CV tech on the rise 🤖

• Gmail and Yahoo follow Apple’s email privacy steps? 📧

• Shopify’s new alliance announced 🛒

• eCommerce Book of the Week 📚

eCommerce Tool of the Week

(not a sponsor just a tool we like)

Fomo is a social proof marketing tool that helps eCommerce business increase their conversion rates. With Fomo your visitors see customer interactions in real-time.

Retailers Embrace AI, ML, and CV Tech: Survey Reveals Promising Trends

A Honeywell survey reveals a tech-driven shift in retail as nearly 60% of retailers plan to incorporate AI, ML, and CV technologies within the next year.

Their aim is to enhance both in-store and online shopping without replacing their workforce.

Surveying 1,000 retail directors across the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Honeywell found:

• 38% are using these technologies for select use cases or regions.

• 35% have adopted them more broadly.

• 24% are in pilot phases or discussions.

• Only 3% are not using these technologies at all.

• A substantial 48% believe AI, ML, and CV will reshape the retail industry in the next three to five years.

Retailers are motivated by:

• Improving customer experience (59%)

• Boosting productivity (49%)

• Achieving cost efficiencies and ROI (44%)

These technologies are expected to bring the most value in automating day-to-day tasks, enhancing customer service across digital channels, crafting targeted marketing campaigns, and optimizing inventory management.

Retailers primarily see AI, ML, and CV as tools to enhance and maximize their workforce, with only 7% aiming to reduce human labor. These technologies promise improved workforce utilization through predictive analytics, leading to better job satisfaction and focus on high-value tasks.

Despite potential, survey data points to three primary barriers:

• Budget constraints (39%)

• Demonstrating business value (29%)

• Lack of internal expertise for technology maintenance (21%)

Attracting and retaining customers and employees is paramount, AI's evolution promises a future where innovative technologies unlock greater efficiency, engagement, and satisfaction in retail.

Google and Yahoo Announce New Email Policies

Google and Yahoo have unveiled new email-sending policies with potential implications for ecommerce and omnichannel marketers. Policy Highlights:

• The policies mandate email authentication, one-click unsubscribes, and low complaint rates.

• Gmail enforces these rules starting February 2024, while Yahoo and AOL email clients follow suit in Q1 2024.

• Noncompliant senders face the risk of having their emails automatically marked as spam, impacting deliverability and reducing clicks and conversions.

The primary objective of these policies is to significantly reduce the volume of unwanted email messages.

Changes for Email Senders

These policies align with practices already embraced by reputable senders. Key requirements include:

• Authentication: Effective from 2024, unauthenticated messages will be flagged as spam. Senders must implement SPF or DKIM (preferably both) and DMARC records for all emails, including transactional and marketing.

• Unsubscribe Simplicity: Senders deploying 5,000 or more emails in a day to Gmail or Yahoo Mail must offer a one-click unsubscribe link. This applies exclusively to subscription emails, not transactional messages.

• Sending Desired Content: Email senders must maintain spam rates below 0.3% as reported in Google Postmaster Tools.

Impact on Marketing

While there are additional requirements, email authentication, one-click unsubscribes, and low spam rates are likely to have the most significant impact on ecommerce, both online and in-store. Google encourages early adoption to enhance email deliverability.

However, some considerations include:

• Deliverability: Businesses using external domains can boost their reputation and improve deliverability by adding their domain with DMARC.

• Unsubscribes: Concerns arise regarding accidental unsubscribes due to the one-click link.

• List Hygiene: Maintaining low spam rates often necessitates removing unengaged subscribers.

It's important to note that Google and Yahoo's policies differ from Apple's email privacy protection initiative.

While the former focus on email legitimacy, authentication, and user preference, Apple's approach primarily centers on preventing senders from collecting actionable data about opens and clicks. Google's and Yahoo's policies aim to enhance email performance, whereas Apple's may complicate measurement.

WPP and Shopify Forge Global Partnership to Boost Commerce

WPP, a prominent global creative transformation company, has unveiled a strategic partnership with Shopify, a leading global commerce firm.

This collaboration aims to harness the full potential of Shopify's platform for enterprise clients worldwide. TLDR;

• It combines WPP and Shopify's strengths to co-create products driven by shared insights.

• Leverages WPP's extensive network of over 13,500 commerce experts and Shopify's advanced platform.

• Empowers ambitious brands for rapid growth and broader customer outreach.

In a dynamic landscape where consumer expectations continually evolve, coupled with constant commerce innovations and economic shifts, brands face the imperative of reaching consumers directly across various platforms—online, in-store, and social media.

This holds especially true for enterprise brands grappling with inflexible legacy commerce infrastructure. Through this collaboration, WPP clients gain access to Shopify's platform, unlocking growth potential and tapping into the expertise in direct-to-consumer strategies and conversion optimization.

Leaders' Perspectives

Mark Read, CEO of WPP, expressed his confidence in this partnership, emphasizing Shopify's enterprise credibility and agility in innovation. He sees this collaboration as a catalyst for growth opportunities for the brands WPP serves.

Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, noted Shopify's two-decade journey in empowering enterprise brands to engage with consumers directly and expand their global footprint. The partnership with WPP aims to unlock more avenues for global commerce innovation and assist brands in future-proofing their businesses.

This partnership underscores the importance of collaboration and innovation in the ever-evolving world of commerce.

eCommerce Book of the Week

Shopify For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance))

The book will help you:

• Manage and market your inventory, including how to create collections and upload multiple products and images with a single click

• Learn to market to the right people at the right time in the right way, through platforms like Facebook and Google

• Discover how to make the most of Shopify’s countless and powerful features, like email subscriber collection, tags, payment and currency options, shipping rules, and its in-depth analytics dashboard.

• Set shipping prices and rules, and create shipping accounts with Australia Post

GET THE BOOK ON AMAZON

Signing off,

The Merchant @CartHustle