Retail Archives | Lateshipment.com Experience the future of logistics with LateShipment.com. Discover how we revolutionize efficiency and cost savings in shipping and delivery operation Tue, 28 May 2024 06:49:37 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://lswordpress.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/01181630/ipad-retina-144X144-100x100.png Retail Archives | Lateshipment.com 32 32 How E-commerce Businesses Can Have a Great Festive Season in 2022 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/ecommerce-festive-season/ Fri, 16 Sep 2022 13:15:27 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9960 For shoppers, the festive season comprises the much-needed break they deserve from their daily lives to spend quality time meeting friends, family, and colleagues; traveling; buying gifts for their loved ones; etc. However, for e-commerce retail businesses the next 3 months (From Halloween to New Year) are pretty hectic, as they have to come up […]

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For shoppers, the festive season comprises the much-needed break they deserve from their daily lives to spend quality time meeting friends, family, and colleagues; traveling; buying gifts for their loved ones; etc.  

However, for e-commerce retail businesses the next 3 months (From Halloween to New Year) are pretty hectic, as they have to come up with new initiatives to sell more products, delight all customers, and most importantly have a season to remember. 

To help them save time and effort. We have come up with some ideas that can help them get prepared in advance and increase revenue opportunities this festive season. 

Without further ado, let’s take a look at what they are.

But before that, we at LateShipment.com have prepared a downloadable checklist comprising 30+ actionable ways to help you boost holiday sales. Feel free to check it out. 

How E-commerce Businesses Can Have a Great Festive Season in 2022

1. Anticipate higher than regular seasonal visitors/potential shoppers

Holiday sales are usually 3x or even 4x than the rest of the year. Also, this year, experts are still hopeful of holiday retail and e-commerce sales increasing over 2021 numbers despite inflation putting a burden on customers’ spending. 

Thus, it is clear that e-commerce businesses will have to deal with a higher number of shoppers than usual. However, more shoppers won’t equal more sales if businesses have not anticipated this holiday season trend. 

For example, 

  • A website/ application that is not optimized to handle the incoming traffic and crashes often
  • A lack of inventory at hand that there are frequent ‘out-of-stock’ labels on fast-selling products
  • Insecure site and payment gateways
  • A lack of personalized experience 

All of it can cause customer dissatisfaction and discourages sales and repeat purchases. 

Therefore, businesses must start with an optimized shopping experience to enjoy festive season success before the incoming rush. 

2. Get into the festive mood

A great way to display trustworthiness in today’s scenario is staying relevant to the current trends and frequently updating business practices to suit the customers’ trends. 

Let’s take a look at the former for now. 

Imagine customers with the festive mood flowing through them, looking for holiday gifts for a very important person in their life. But to their shock, the website looks the same old — without a holiday theme, no special season offers, no special product launches, etc. This gives them the feeling that they might be shopping for the holiday season in March and June. And this might be bad for businesses. 

To avoid this scenario, businesses must extend the holiday theme across social media promotions, landing pages, and the website (primarily the home page and product pages) to display that they’re just as excited about the festive season as their customers. 

3. Provide a lot of seasonal offers and giveaways

Attracting customers’ attention by getting into the festive mood is just half the job done. There’s more to do if businesses are actively looking to increase their conversion rates. All of it involves providing offers and giveaways. 

  • Run limited-time offers such as “Flat 25% on combos”, “Buy 1 Get 1”, etc.  
  • Include giveaway elements such as a countdown timer or a limited-period discount spin-wheel on your landing pages 
  • Share special offers for customers who are sitting on the fence 
  • Use non-product marketing techniques such as “Free shipping and returns”, “Cash-on-Delivery”, “BOPIS, etc. 
  • Begin a customer loyalty program and share personalized recommendations during order tracking moments (products that go well together) 

Such offers can help businesses to bring in new customers by catching their attention, preventing cart abandonment, and also encouraging repeat shoppers.

However, businesses must keep in mind that offers must be treated as the last arrow in the quiver. Therefore, they must be strategically placed across campaign funnel stages, so that they’re not overlapped and result in higher acquisition costs. 

4. Expand your sales channels to boom festive season sales

One of the great ways for businesses to maximize sales during the festive season is considering making use of multiple channels other than their e-commerce store, such as:  

  • Online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.
  • Social commerce: sell your products directly on social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
  • Brick-and-mortar shops: Ensure your efforts are consistent across online and offline channels.

The idea of selling your products on multiple channels, particularly social media platforms is a great way to improve the CX as customers now enjoy better convenience by shopping from the place where they spend most of their time. 

All brands have to do now is not stop with just introducing different channels but integrating them to offer the same level of experience across channels.

5. Update your seasonal merchandising strategy

The festive season is also a great way to introduce new products to your showcase. It might be too late to start with it now. But I’m guessing you, as an e-commerce retailer, would’ve had that figured out. 

Interacting with customers can give brands an idea of what their customers expect from them. If a major demographic of them desire specific seasonal products, then brands have no choice but to sell them as holiday specials. 

Even if brands aren’t keen on introducing new products to their shelves, they can still make use of their merchandising strategy by categorizing seasonal items into holiday gift bundles and creating upsell and cross-sell opportunities. 

Quick pro tip: ensure that the product pages have clear and accurate product descriptions, sizing charts, etc. This creates a win-win situation for both customers and merchants as the former is now the recipient of a great customer experience while the latter can reduce cart abandonment.

6. Focus on providing memorable post-purchase experiences

All brands are hell-bent on making their customers hit that ‘buy’ button. But most of them unwillingly leave out what happens later as they feel the post-purchase phase to be the responsibility of a third-party shipping carrier (who does not share the same level of commitment to it as you do). 

However, what must be kept in mind is that the post-purchase experience is just as (if not more) important than every other step in the customer journey. It’s the last touchpoint your customer will have with your brand, and if, God forbid, it goes haywire, it could be what your customers remember most about your brand. 

For starters, here are some ways e-commerce businesses can focus on providing memorable CX in the post-purchase phase:

  • Proactively resolve delivery issues before they impact your customer. 
  • Keep customers updated on their order status to mitigate customer anxiety about late deliveries and lost/damaged shipments.
  • Provide an on-brand and seamless order tracking experiences.
  • Regularly collect customer feedback and make better shipping decisions to optimize the shipping experience. 
  • Make the returns process easy and frictionless for your customers.
  • Make the packaging and unboxing experience special via personal and seasonal messaging.

Remember, don’t just stop with making a one-time sale. Also focus on providing memorable post-purchase experiences, as they are key to customer delight and long-lasting relationships.

Final Word

We’ve just scratched the surface here. 

For deeper insights, feel free to check out our downloadable holiday sales checklist for the 2022 season.

The checklist provides you 30+ actionable ways to help you boost your holiday sales and ultimately have a successful 2022 holiday season.

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10 E-commerce Retail Memes on Order Delivery Experiences https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/e-commerce-retail-memes/ Fri, 29 Apr 2022 04:50:19 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9478 Working at an e-commerce store comes a close second. While looking for e-commerce retail memes to share with you for laughs (help you relax), I found that a lot of them were only based on marketing, website optimization, sales, etc. Which made me realize that the remaining half of the CX, the post-purchase, is involuntarily left […]

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Working at an e-commerce store comes a close second. While looking for e-commerce retail memes to share with you for laughs (help you relax), I found that a lot of them were only based on marketing, website optimization, sales, etc. Which made me realize that the remaining half of the CX, the post-purchase, is involuntarily left out by e-commerce brands not just for memes but in their business operations as well. 

Businesses put a lot of time and effort into making the customer hit the ‘buy’ button. But what about creating delightful delivery experiences?

To answer that question (and have some fun along the way!) Here are some e-commerce retail memes, particularly on delivery experiences that you can relate to.  

Let’s start with this one for example.

Customers waiting for the delivery their parcels

This is how your customers spend their entire day after purchasing at your e-commerce store. But we can’t blame them.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment, someone just made you spend dollars on something that you don’t have on your hand yet. 

When you’re shopping at a physical store, you leave with the product in your hand and the closest to replicating the experience in the e-commerce space is the assurance of the order arriving. 

And the first thing towards that feeling of comfort is the customers receiving an ‘order confirmation’ notification as early as possible. 

However, in certain cases, an order confirmation won’t be enough as customers expect to be kept in the loop of their orders. 

If you’ve spent at least a day in customer support of an e-commerce business, you’ll definitely relate to this. 

The #1 question regarding customer service in e-commerce is “Where is my Order” or WISMO for short. 

Once again, your customers can’t be blamed. Their anticipation is at its peak when they are waiting for their orders, and that is what makes them constantly bombard your support reps with such requests. 

Proactively communicating with your customers via Emails and SMS notifications about the whereabouts of their parcels can free up your support time to focus on more pressing issues. 

Not to forget, making order tracking self-service can also put more power in the hands of your customers and make your life easier.

Unlike this one.  

E-commerce retail memes on anxious customers sending WISMO requests

Your customers like to know what’s going on with their orders even when things go wrong. Therefore, the key is to keep an eye out for delivery disruptions and proactively resolve issues when they pop up. 

E-commerce retail memes on lack of proactiveness - 1

An alternative version of this meme would be:

Proactive customer experience - fix lissues before impact

Customers want their issues resolved and they want it done as quickly as possible. This must matter to you because the longer you take, the more customers’ faith in your brand is lost. 

However, keep in mind that being reactive to issues (no matter how instant) is good. But the best ploy is to proactively address them before they impact your customer

As they say, prevention is better than cure. Assuring a customer that you’ll take care of the issue that you brought to light is a much better idea than trying to mitigate an angry customer’s frustrations. 

In such cases, even if the issue goes unresolved, your efforts will be appreciated and customers’ trust in your brand will be revived.

E-commerce retail memes on proactive delivery issue resolution

If proactive issue resolution and meaningful customer engagement are the customer front of your post-purchase action(able) plan, leveraging order tracking moments can help you in driving 25% more repeat sales.

E-commerce retail memes - branded tracking pages

Customers track their packages way too often. Now, that’s valuable time with your customers you cannot miss. 

What you can do instead is fully utilize these tracking moments to build your brand, upsell, cross-sell and convert the page into a marketing channel on its own – all while putting a big smile on your customers’ faces with live updates of their package.

E-commerce retail memes -personalized product recommendations

The last but not the least part of your post-purchase plan is to decode customer sentiment and see what’s working (and what’s not!). 

To deliver phenomenal experiences, you need to understand whether all that money, time, and effort spent on shipping are working in your favor or not.

E-commerce retail memes - Customer service survey

By capturing customers’ delivery experience ratings, decoding customer actions post-purchase, evaluating your carriers’ performances, etc you can perfect your post-purchase strategy by simply giving your customers what they need.

Customer feedback on delivery experiences

That’s all for now! It’s time for you to do bigger things with your post-purchase. 

The post-purchase phase is a goldmine for brands that ship. 

Carrier errors and customer anxiety beyond the buy button are inevitable. However, you can turn customer anxiety into fierce loyalty by delivering stunning experiences post-purchase and ensuring you are rightfully compensated for carriers’ mistakes.

If you’re interested, check out LateShiment.com, an all-in-one platform that combines stellar delivery experiences with easy, seamless returns – all while significantly reducing your shipping spend by auditing your invoices and recovering eligible refunds from your carriers.

E-commerce retail memes on post-purchase experiences

That’s all from us for now. We at LateShipment.com are no strangers to e-commerce retail memes based on post-purchase and delivery experiences. We often use them in articles and social media posts. 

Hope you had fun with these e-commerce retail memes (I know I did!). And if you have your favorite memes on this topic, do send them. I’ll make sure to include them in this article.

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5 Ways AI Can Transform the Retail Industry: Examples and Benefits https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/ai-and-retail/ Mon, 25 Apr 2022 11:54:25 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9448 The retail industry has been undergoing a digital transformation for years. It has improved in speed, efficiency, and accuracy, thanks, in large part, to improved data and predictive analytics technologies that allow firms to make data-driven business decisions. None of these insights would be possible without the internet of things (IoT) and, more importantly, artificial […]

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The retail industry has been undergoing a digital transformation for years. It has improved in speed, efficiency, and accuracy, thanks, in large part, to improved data and predictive analytics technologies that allow firms to make data-driven business decisions. None of these insights would be possible without the internet of things (IoT) and, more importantly, artificial intelligence (AI). 

Retailers now have access to high-level data and information, which they can utilize to improve operations and open up new business opportunities. In fact, AI in retail is expected to create $40 billion in additional income over the next three years. Many industries use the term artificial intelligence, yet many people don’t fully get what it means. 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning refer to the technology that can collect, process, and analyze large volumes of data to predict, forecast, inform, and support retailers in making reliable, data-driven business decisions. These technologies can even work on their own, transforming raw data from IoT and other sources into actionable insights with the help of advanced analytics.

AI Applications in Retail

AI has a significant impact on the retail industry, accelerating and automating a handful of functionalities. Below, we’ll discuss a list of AI applications in retail to give you a headstart:

Provides valuable data to keep track of Inventory

In the retail industry, artificial intelligence is improving demand forecasts.

AI business intelligence systems foresee industry movements and make proactive changes to a company’s marketing, merchandising, and business strategies by mining insights from the marketplace, customer, and competition data. This has ramifications for supply chain planning, pricing, and promotional planning. 

Creating interactive chat programs in the retail business is a fantastic way to employ AI technologies while improving customer service and engagement. These bots use AI and machine learning to engage with customers, answer common questions, and direct them to useful answers and outcomes. As a result, these bots collect crucial client data and then label the data that can be used to inform future business decisions.

Maintaining appropriate stocks is a major concern for retailers. By connecting more aspects of their business and using AI to help with inventory management, retailers may get a holistic view of their stores, customers, and merchandise.

Helps you understand customer behavior

The more you understand customer behavior and trends, the more you’ll be able to meet demand and provide the best products possible. 

AI might help retailers improve demand forecasting, pricing, and product positioning. As a result, customers have access to the right products at the right time and in the right place.

Predictive analytics can help you order the right amount of inventory, ensuring that shops don’t have too much or too little on hand. AI may be able to track data from online channels, enabling better e-commerce activities. 

New kinds of AI can help you understand customer intent and personalize the shopper’s journey accordingly at the retail edge. One instance is marking some areas in stores using heat mapping. Cameras and computer vision combine to indicate which items are picked up, returned, and where the customer goes after leaving the shelf.

Empowers you to offer stellar customer support

Whether it’s a little boutique or a worldwide behemoth, businesses strive to deliver quick, customized, and delightful shopping experiences.

Customers should be able to locate what they’re searching for easily, obtain assistance when needed, and check out swiftly. These operations are streamlined by AI to help generate more fulfilling client experiences. 

Customers are being recognized by mobile and digital portals, which are personalizing the e-commerce experience to reflect their current environment, previous purchases, and buying activity. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are continually evolving a user’s digital experience to develop hyper-relevant displays for each interaction. Customer engagement may be measured using digital signage with computer vision, and real-time advertising tailored to the audience can be served. AI gives additional opportunities to tailor experiences, from the retail edge to the cloud.

Manages fluctuating pricing

AI applications in retail outlets might aid in the pricing of items by showing the anticipated results of various pricing schemes. 

Systems collect information on other items, promotional efforts, sales numbers, and other data in order to carry out this task. 

Business owners can showcase the greatest deals to attract new clients and increase revenue. eBay and Kroger both use Artificial Intelligence to optimize their pricing and remain flexible in their capacity to modify rates and promotions based on the data they collect. 

The price of a product is forecasted based on demand, seasonal trends, attributes, the release date of new versions of the same item, and other factors. Its most obvious application is in the travel business, but it might also be utilized in retail. 

Consider an app or service that allows your consumers to see how the price of a product will change in advance. This is doable and simple to accomplish using Artificial Intelligence.

Improve shopping experience

During the buying process, Artificial Intelligence (AI) may also help in the detection and segmentation of your customers’ emotions. Walmart has already employed face recognition technology for this reason. 

Each checkout line is equipped with cameras, and if a customer becomes agitated, a business employee will talk with him or her. Mood tracking will surely contribute to the formation of stronger client relationships. Business owners may utilize behavioral economics to build a customized strategy for each consumer using Artificial Intelligence technologies.

Wrapping up

AI’s role in the retail industry is increasing exponentially all the time.

Applications in retail are not only bound to a software end but several other fields such as Internet-of-things and robotics also play an important role in the development of such systems so this process includes most of the major engineering disciplines and because of such facts, any company that fails to focus on such developments might struggle to stay contemporary or compete internationally. 

Such innovation not only increases the overall working skills but also eliminates the requirement for traditional or antiquated systems with intelligent automation, such as inventory management. 

AI is simply changing the way stores function for the better. You can put your shop in a better position to make better decisions, increase sales, and eventually improve customer retention by implementing AI. So, there’s no better time than now to start incorporating AI into your daily operations.

As you consider how to include AI into your retail organization, keep in mind the several advantages listed above. You may be well on your way to attaining a whole new level of business growth in the months and years ahead with the correct AI technologies.

This article is a contribution by Melanie Johnson.

Melanie Johnson

Melanie Johnson is an AI and computer vision enthusiast with a wealth of experience in technical writing. Passionate about innovation and AI-powered solutions. Loves sharing expert insights and educating individuals on tech.

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Transportation Trends Affecting the Commercial Vehicle Industry in the US https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/transportation-trends-in-the-us/ Wed, 20 Apr 2022 05:55:04 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9357 Globe Newswire stats show that the demand for commercial vehicles, will be worth around $3.07 trillion by 2030 despite the technological advances in transportation over the last few years. This is probably enough to display that as long as there are goods that need transporting, commercial vehicles will always be necessary. Road infrastructure networks have […]

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Globe Newswire stats show that the demand for commercial vehicles, will be worth around $3.07 trillion by 2030 despite the technological advances in transportation over the last few years. This is probably enough to display that as long as there are goods that need transporting, commercial vehicles will always be necessary. 

Road infrastructure networks have consistently improved not just in the United States, but also in countries like India and South Africa, meaning that the demand for commercial vehicles, all around the globe, has been increasing at a steady pace. 

As the global economy starts to recover and industries can once again open up, here are some transportation trends and predictions in the commercial vehicle market to have a strong 2022 and beyond.

Electric Vehicles Are On The Rise

Transportation trend 1- electric vehicles

PR Newswire has highlighted the fact that electric and automated vehicles, in particular, are currently trending in the transportation and automotive industry, and this includes the market for commercial vehicles. It is expected that electric vehicles will expand the commercial vehicle market soon as the industry leans toward trends that contribute to a sustainable future. 

Furthermore, due to the reliability and significant improvements that an electric engine has over an internal combustion engine, electric vehicle use is expected to grow steadily in the industry over the next few years.

Dually Trucks Are Growing In Popularity

Transportation trend 2 - Dually trucks

Many truck-based commercial vehicles companies are starting to move towards dually trucks as a means to replace old or worn-out vehicles that can no longer complete the necessary duties.

Dually trucks are essentially dual-rear-wheel trucks as they have two rear wheels on each side. The wheel configuration contributes to more stability on the roads as well as stronger rear axles, which allow dually trucks to haul larger loads over longer distances. This makes them exceptional vehicles for the long-haul commercial transport industry.

Driving on a narrow urban road with a dually truck might be a difficult task, but these vehicles are perfectly optimized for wider, open roads, making them the perfect fit for the transportation and construction industry.

Commercial Transportation Will Thrive Again

Commercial vehicle industry

Transportation in the commercial vehicle industry is coming back strong after a rough couple of years. Experts at PWC predict that the industry will be worth close to US$3 trillion by the year 2030, and electric vehicles and dually trucks are the latest trends to spur this growth. With so many technological advancements happening so quickly, it’s almost certain that the projected growth for commercial vehicles will come to fruition.

This is a guest post by Linda Carter

Linda Carter

Linda Carter is a writer and a digital marketing manager who inspires and empowers you to create marketing that your customers will love, igniting real results for your business. 

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How Packaging Contributes to the Growth of an E-commerce Business https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/e-commerce-packaging/ Fri, 08 Apr 2022 08:12:38 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9324 Analysts expect the value of the business-to-customer (B2C) market to reach over $7 trillion in 2030. The continued increase of e-commerce enterprises will make it more challenging for companies to stand out from the rest. Brand identity will undeniably help businesses achieve the goal of automatic recognition, but it needs to be applied consistently to […]

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Analysts expect the value of the business-to-customer (B2C) market to reach over $7 trillion in 2030. The continued increase of e-commerce enterprises will make it more challenging for companies to stand out from the rest. 

Brand identity will undeniably help businesses achieve the goal of automatic recognition, but it needs to be applied consistently to all their marketing efforts. 

The packaging of your products is a vital aspect of this. It is part of the post-purchase experience and giving your clients a pleasant one will nurture customer retention.

Packaging Creates a Lasting First Impression

Great packaging with your brand on it can influence a first-time customer’s impression of your company.

Aside from conveying what your business stands for, it can delight clients and even urge them to make posts on their social media accounts. If done cleverly, you may have repeat customers who may keep on buying just because they love how their purchases look when delivered.

According to marketing experts Neon Ambition, creating a great brand identity that will set you apart from other online merchants is essential if you want to see your business grow.

Make sure that your brand colors, logo, and name are visible on the packaging.

Creative Packaging Makes Advertising Less Costly

Marketing campaigns can be costly and “packvertising” is the less expensive way to advertise your products, according to Packhelp.

Packvertising or using packaging for advertising is an innovative approach that helps promote goods AND beautifully secure them at a lower price. 

A striking package design is a brilliant marketing strategy. It is very effective when you use it together with social media, content, and email marketing.

Packaging Shapes an Emotional Connection

Customers consider packaging almost as important as the products inside in the opinion of the GWP Group. They know your merchandise can help them, but how their orders look will cement their perception of your brand. 

An initial positive response will pave the way for future sales. The continuity of branding in every step of the customer experience will be rewarding for both you and the client. 

Remember, none of this will matter if the delivery service you use does not have the same level of commitment as you do. 

Bottom Line

Customers will truly appreciate your business when the delivery of orders is timely and they arrive in excellent condition. Be sure that you pick one that aligns with the image that your firm projects.

The success of your company’s brand identity relies on how well you think about each stage of the sales process. 

Packaging and vis-à-vis delivery as an afterthought will reflect poorly on the image your brand wants to represent.

This is a guest post by Linda Carter

Linda Carter

Linda Carter is a writer and a digital marketing manager who inspires and empowers you to create marketing that your customers will love, igniting real results for your business. 

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The Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on E-commerce Shipping https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/russia-ukraine-war-and-e-commerce/ Fri, 18 Mar 2022 08:15:58 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9205 The global supply chain has had a really wild time for the past couple of years. First came the pandemic, then came port logjams, and now we’re in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war — adding more troubles to the existing chaos. While different countries have conflicted with each other in the past, this full-blown […]

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The global supply chain has had a really wild time for the past couple of years. First came the pandemic, then came port logjams, and now we’re in the midst of the Russia-Ukraine war — adding more troubles to the existing chaos.

While different countries have conflicted with each other in the past, this full-blown Russian invasion of Ukraine is treated differently by the countries of the world, especially the U.S, since they tend to lose a lot more compared to the others. 

How? you ask. Here’s how.

How the Russia-Ukraine War Has Impacted E-commerce and the Global Supply Chain

First of all, it is wise to understand that the supply chain has already been rattled since the pandemic. And when prominent countries like Russia and Ukraine are involved in a conflict, it is no surprise that the existing disruptions will continue or even get worse down the line.

We saw how the supply chain crisis that happened last year already caused a mild economic disruption by holding off important holiday season gifts at ports. Now imagine the same but with an essential good like fuel. That’s exactly how worse the situation is right now. 

Let’s take a look at the impact in detail. 

Inflation

To run the supply chain, you need oil. And one of the major producers of oil and natural gas is, well, Russia. Therefore, the geopolitical conflict has skyrocketed the prices of both in recent weeks. 

The effect of this inflation? 

Mobility service providers such as Lyft and Uber are adding temporary fuel surcharges to fares for ride-hail and deliveries as fuel prices around the U.S rise.

In the U.S., the average price per gallon was $4.69 on March 14, 2022, according to USA Today.

Gas inflation due to the Russa-Ukraine war meme

Oil and gas prices are set to spike further as the Russia-Ukraine crisis escalates, but the impact on energy won’t be the only ramification. 

There’s wheat, which Russia and Ukraine together make up nearly 30 percent of global export used in basically everything from Bread, Pasta, and packaged food for people, especially in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. A snowball effect increasing these food prices further increases the risk of social unrest in poorer countries.  

The United States imports relatively little directly from Russia, but a commodities crunch caused by a conflict could have knock-on effects that at least temporarily drive up prices for raw materials and finished goods when much of the world, including the United States, is experiencing rapid inflation. – The New York Times.

Shortages

The U.S primarily imports materials such as Xenon, Palladium, Neon, Aluminum, etc. substantially from Russia and Ukraine. Companies dealing in car manufacturing, semiconductors, catalytic converters, etc could all face serious shortages.  

Such shortages could lead to 

  • Companies selling their produce at a higher rate to meet their usual ends
  • Increased shipping and freight costs (flights and cargo from Europe and Asia taking alternate and longer routes to avoid Ukraine and Russia) and
  • Lower purchases from customers due to the sudden inflation

And ultimately result in economic disruption.

Responses from major companies

Companies were not only forced to deal with the supply chain crisis that resulted from the war, certain companies willingly took the risk of putting a hold on their business activities primarily in Russia and also in countries such as Ukraine and Belarus. 

Major companies that have responded to the Russia-Ukraine war
Image source - Anadolu Agency

Not just corporations, even nations such as the U.S. and Canada have banned Russian oil and gas imports, and the U.K. is moving in the same direction. The governments behind these decisions believe that the actions can put meaningful pressure on Russia to end the war on Ukraine. 

Issues That E-commerce Businesses Are Prone to Face as a Result of the Russia-Ukraine War

The e-commerce impact of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine may not be limited to that region. For one, the conflict is driving inflation rates higher, which could decrease the flow of e-commerce shipments through supply chains due to their cost.

Interos, a U.S.-based supply chain management firm, estimates that more than 300,000 American companies have supply chain dependencies in Russia or Ukraine.

As we mentioned earlier, the Russia-Ukraine war hit an already crippled supply chain from the pandemic. Therefore, consequences are bound, even if you don’t have Tier-1 or Tier-2 suppliers in Russia and Ukraine. 

If the war worsens or even comes to an impasse, there definitely will be key issues supply chain leaders and e-commerce businesses will have to deal with. Here are some of them. 

1. Prolonged delivery times

The first and foremost issue for e-commerce businesses is their shipments reaching their customers’ doorstep late because of a conflict happening some 5000 miles away. 

Due to packages being held off citing the suspension of services in parts of Ukraine and Russia, there has been an increase in delays which, under the prevailing situation, can make it difficult for your business to deal with already panic-stricken customers.

Thanks to the war, the pileups at ports have created bottlenecks in the transport of goods and commodities and threatening fresh economic disruptions for countries and businesses, especially near Ukraine and Russia (or dependent on them). Adding to this disruption is logistics firms suspending services as a sign of taking a stand. 

FedEx over the weekend said in a statement on its website that the company is “closely monitoring the situation” and that it has “contingency plans in place, including temporarily suspending services in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus until further notice.” 

“Our focus is on the safety of our people, providing continued service, and minimizing disruption to our customers. UPS continues to closely monitor the situation and will re-establish service as soon as it is practical and safe to do so,” UPS said in a statement after disrupting service.

Similar to FedEx and UPS, The German logistics company Deutsche Post, DHL has said that they are suspending the delivery of goods and documents to Russia and Belarus amid the rising tensions in Ukraine due to the Russian invasion. As per a message on the company’s website, the reception of parcels in both countries has been suspended until further notice. 

2. Surging shipping costs

If delays don’t seem to be enough, imagine your worries when you realize that you’ll probably be paying skyrocketing shipping prices for them.  

FedEx Express notified customers on Thursday that it will hike its peak surcharge for many international parcels and freight shipments, beginning next week, because of the latest supply chain disruptions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

This surcharge is unofficially named ‘War surcharge’ by retail pundits due to the news of the fee coming nearly a week after the disruption in Europe, particularly around Ukraine and Russia. 

Due to continuous disruptions in the global supply chain, air cargo capacity remains limited. We are incurring incremental costs as we continue to adjust our international networks and operate in this constrained environment. – FedEx

FedEx is increasing the surcharge by 20 to 30 cents per kilogram for most of Asia-Pacific and by a tenth of a euro, or 11 cents, per kilogram on European exports and imports. Increases also apply in the Indian subcontinent, Africa and Latin America, according to their tariff schedule

But in these tough times, we definitely cannot blame the shipping carriers, who themselves are straining capacity amidst this whole crisis. The fuel cost increase is passed along the supply chain to the carriers and finally ends up hurting your bottom line.

While all of this may seem like a worry, don’t let your hopes down. There are measures that you can take to counter the crisis. Understand what they are and make sure that you are least affected by them.

What Businesses Can Do to Overcome Disruptions and Reduce Risks

Experts have some suggestions for growing businesses such as yours to overcome this disruption: 

  • Encourage customers to start shopping early as weeks to avoid last-minute delays on their orders 
  • Provide a realistic estimated delivery date of delivery even before customers make their purchase so that they become aware of the crisis and refrain from blaming you in case the delivery timeline gets extended
  • Track your parcels in real-time and gain the ability to take preemptive action before customer impact
  • Keep your customers in the loop of their orders via tracking information across post-purchase touchpoints to avoid getting blamed for delays that are no fault of yours.

Bottom line

From the experts’ point of view, the past stands for an unprecedented issue, the present stands at the Russia-Ukraine war situation getting worse before it gets better, and the future is the calling out of the existing logistics operations model. 

The supply chain and logistics system will not and should not revert to the original model that existed during the pre-pandemic times as the current scenario calls for desperate measures in the form of modernization.

As of now follow the experts’ advice, keep yourself updated on the changes to the supply chain, and hope for the situation to get better or ‘normalize’ if there were such a thing.

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Baraka Sheabutter – an Ecommerce Brand That Aligns Social Impact & Profitability Together https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/brand-stories-baraka-sheabutter/ Fri, 11 Mar 2022 14:39:41 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9174 The world is increasingly looking to adopt eco-friendly options in our day-to-day lives. The shift towards eco-consciousness and sustainability is now the expected benchmark for businesses world wide. And we can see brands across the globe prime themselves to this shift. Multiple corporations are taking up sustainability projects as a passion project to get in […]

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The world is increasingly looking to adopt eco-friendly options in our day-to-day lives. The shift towards eco-consciousness and sustainability is now the expected benchmark for businesses world wide. And we can see brands across the globe prime themselves to this shift. Multiple corporations are taking up sustainability projects as a passion project to get in the goodbooks of their customers. But most often, these passion projects are isolated initiatives and are not built into their business model.

This is where Baraka Sheabutter has cracked the code. This ecommerce brand can be considered the pioneer of a holistic sustainable business model. Prof. Wayne Dunn has successfully created a global ecommerce network that ventures in wholesaling, D2C, leveraging sustainable private labels & small scale DIY labels on the sales side; while on the other hand have created a system for community building, reforestation, and zero waste systems on the environmental stewardship side. 

Yeah, that was a lot to process even for us. And if you’re like us, you must be wondering how an ecommerce business could even dream such complex and ambitious structures of workflows, and on top of it, tie it all together in a single flowing system. And if other businesses can also find their own profitable way to make a social impact on their own terms. 

To gain insights on how they managed to pull off such a feat, and how businesses can become a sustainable and profitable model like the one they’ve created, we sat with Mr. Dunn on a call.

Here’s what Mr.Dunn had to say about it.

Let me start off with a question you might be very often asked. How did you establish a business with such a strong vision? And also, could you tell us a bit about the history of Baraka shea butter?

Two things drove the start of Baraka. One of my founders is from Northern Ghana, and we were married. And we were often bringing things back and helping the women in villages around where she grew up in Northern Ghana. The women basically said, you know, we want income, not charity. We love that you bring us stuff, but we want to earn an income, not be dependent on you, and we have more control on our finances. 

My wife was making some products out of shea butter, and I was bringing it back at the time. And because I was doing consulting, I had a consulting and training agency, the Corporate Social Responsibility Training Institute, we were on the cutting edge of theory and practice in the space where business meets community. This was 20 years ago, when we focused on Millennium Development Goals before the sustainable development goals. We eventually started realizing that there was a role to play on social and environmental issues and the leading businesses were finding that it didn’t have to come at a cost, it could be a strategic opportunity. So I was consulting and training on that, all over the world. And Baraka sort of started up as a hobby. As my wife was already making products out of shea butter, I thought, well, if people want to buy it, maybe we can find a way to sell it, it’ll give more income for the women and in the community. And that’s how it started.

It wasn’t until 2013-2014 did we finally ship a full container of products. Our main focus was on consulting and training, I was doing lectures and programs all over the world and, and what I started to find was that, the way I built Baraka the way we had aligned social impact, environmental stewardship, and business strategy and brand was making a great story was making a great case study for my lectures, as the model of sustainability resonated world wide. And not to mention, it was a very slow business. 

Paralelly, there was a rise in the need of natural organic skincare and cosmetics products, where people were interested in knowing what goes into making these products and what’s the story of the makers. And, Baraka was providing that story, which was rooted and was both authentic and amateurish.

I started working with Lateshipment.com, as you guys had a clear value proposition – there was no cost to having you monitor my shipments. And catch the ones that were late and delayed and I knew there was a lot more you could do.That really drove the start of Baraka, and as we started to reach out more into D2C as we could meet the needs of the markets.

As the pandemic approached, we had to rethink our entire operations, as until then, we were mostly doing bricks and mortar and craft fairs while the whole world was shutting down. I never dreamed of such a change until then and I could see that people were being sent home. I also knew there was this growing interest in DIY in the natural and organic skincare market, people wanted to make their own products and know what goes into their products. So literally, on the flight home, I came up with this strategy of sizing down our products, we didn’t have a thing under five kilograms. At that point, I took them down to 500 grams and started to work out a marketing strategy, an order fulfillment strategy that would let us adjust to the pandemic and become a D2C brand. 

Once we started to go down, we had different marks, we had to get faster and sharper on our marketing, but we also had to get more efficient on our fulfillment. And I think it was around that time, maybe sooner that I started working with late shipment, because you know, you guys were you, you had such a clear value proposition, there was no cost to having you monitor my shipments. And, you know, and catch the ones that were late and delayed and, and I knew there was a lot more you could do, and I just never got around until recently to really take advantage of what you could do. That really drove the start of Baraka, and as we started to reach out more into, you know, some D2C, but I’ll call it a quasi-D2C because we’re selling to people who make their own product, or maybe they make it and, and sell a little bit online or to share it with family. So it’s not quite a consumer but they were really resonating with the brand’s story and that authenticity, and the fact that we could demonstrate the impact their purchases were having.

We’re very clear in the fact that Baraka on its own will not have any impact on women and communities in Ghana, period. We only have that impact, because our customers buy into that process. And we try to give our customers content that support them in their conscious purchasing decisions and allow them for our business customers. 

We try to give them content that can help support them in their own marketing so that their customers can know the impact that they’re having. So we’ve even created an entire framework for it called “Your impact”. I mean, some people give our business credit for it and that’s just the way it goes but our business works, when we connect social and environmental impact in our far upstream reaches in the impoverished rural villages where we work with impact for our customers are getting high quality product that they can know and see where it comes from product that their customers love. And they get there feeling good from buying and using those products? Because they know they’re making an impact. That was a long answer. I think I answered more than one question. Sorry.

That really was a very informational load. It covered quite a few of the other questions I had to thank you so much for that. Your model is not only inspiring, but also was so clearly articulated, which lets us know that it's not always a straight path from A to B, or a combination of a variety of decisions sometimes taken on the fly, the collective impact that the customers as suppliers have on the ecosystem as a whole. Related to that, an interesting part that as well about your business, I think one of the other undulations that your business has, was that you started out primarily doing retail, direct to consumers, but then kind of branched out from there and also doing white label raw material sale to larger businesses, which don't have their own retail labels, right. So what was the transformation like?

That’s really a really good question there. And I think so, we look at the natural and organic skincare market. As you know, there are some major major players in there, it’s a rapidly growing market, it’s many 10s of billions of dollars and growing rapidly and there’s major players and then there you know, smaller businesses, some even micro businesses that are buying ingredients, buying butters and oils making products and selling them either wholesale either through the website, again, in fairs, craft fairs and exhibits; and then there’s the the DIY market, people who are buying essentially to make for themselves and their families and maybe selling a little bit and then underneath and supporting everyone except the DIY market as the consumers the who are buying finished products to use and you often see consumers moving from consumers to DIY and, and back or you see those micro businesses are making some products, they buy some others. So our initial foray into that market was with the small and micro businesses, people were buying 25 kilos of shea butter, or five kilos of shea butter. And, you know, we started out with just shea butter. And then we added on cocoa butter and coconut oils and palm oils and but all of them with a very strong, easily easy to understand origin story, supply chain story.

We can tell you where it comes from, and the impact that it has. So we were, in essence, giving your white label branding and marketing content and tools to our customers to allow them to, to market our product. Some of our customers were using our brand. I mean, it’s ironic in a way that probably our biggest competitor in the US online market right now is a company called Brambleberry. And they’re also one of our biggest, biggest customers. So they’re actually marketing our branded products on their site. And, you know, I think they recognize the, you know, the impact branding, the halo effect that the baraka brand can have on other brands, because it’s not easy for a lot of companies and consumers. I used to teach this when I was a professor of corporate social responsibility. Everyone is expecting more from businesses. Globally there’s an expectation that businesses should it have a positive social impact and it should be an effective steward of the environment at the same time as it’s producing profits and shareholder value and that’s not always an easy thread to follow, it’s a nice needle to thread because, often the social and the environmental are seen as costs rather than contributors to value and Baraka has really focused on aligning those. 

 

We now have a lot of people that love to see Baraka branded consumer products, and we slowly or very cautiously dipped our toe in that market, we started with the black soaps, which there’s, you know, there are a lot of sort of ad hoc black soap brands and suppliers in North America and we keep expanding our market with these base products, for example, we’ve recently launched recipe kits for our black soaps for the DIY market.

Again, that was so enlightening. The fact that brands typically think about being just one or the other, the fact that you can be successful both on the b2c as well as b2b front without being afraid about one part cannibalizing the other other parts of the business that I think will help a lot of times. How do you achieve a balance with the things you’ve mentioned? And what advice do you have for brands, especially the ones that hope to create a social impact?

Find an alignment, where social impact drives value rather than cost where environmental stewardship creates value rather than rakes a cost. I did a keynote lecture on how the path to profit has shifted. Before it used to be that the path to profit was simply by optimizing what the market wanted to buy. The more efficient you could be at creating and getting something to market that the market wanted to buy, the more profitable you’d be. And as expectations around social and environmental impact and management started to work their way in, the first response for business was to treat them as a cost. So, strategically work to minimize them and you strategically treat them as a cost. And the path to profit went from where your business is, to your profit, and social issues. And environmental issues are like little detours that you sent somebody else on, but you tried not to let them get in the way of getting your business down the path to profit.

The reality today is that those expectations on social and environmental performance are higher but at the same time there are higher financial performance expectations of investors and bankers. It’s harder for businesses to thread that needle to what to do with all of them. Traditionally businesses thinking around social impact and social responsibility was – let’s find something good to do something that’s good for society and we’ll do that and then we’ll do our business and often they were totally divorced 

Traditional communities thrive on subsistence economies. When big businesses get into the market, they shift the natives to a cash based economy who wouldn’t fully grasp the potential they could create and oftentimes feel overwhelmed and run back to their original ways. The school idea of personal and economic life skills are running in families through generations. Now that there’s one or more people in a household earning cash incomes, they’ve got regular cash coming in; it doesn’t all have to be barter or subsistence anymore. So how do you manage that? How do you take advantage of the savings and loans and insurance and all of these other areas? 

Teaching that to them is more of a service than creating a feeding program. That is an incredibly valuable service you’re going to do a lot of social good when you do that you can credit you know you don’t have to do it yourself you can probably find you own in your organization to do it with and when you do that your your social good is going to equal or maybe surpassed what you’re achieving before but on the business side you are getting your brand in front of your potential customers and putting yourself and your brand ahead of your competition and you’re giving yourself more educated and getting customers are better able to use your services so they’re going to get more benefit in you’ll have less churn. That’s the sort of thinking that needs to be picked up.

I don't think anybody else could’ve put it better. Moving on from the social aspect of your business, you’re also running a very complicated supply chain network, from sourcing and directly selling in different parts of the world. What’s your take on emphasis on customer experience? How do you keep up your customer satisfaction?

I didn’t start off thinking all this through strategically or make some master plan. When we started it evolved with us but it is challenging. I mean we worked our way through finding little reaches, working with the women gathering Shae nuts, running nearly 1000 person days of our economic livelihood training right in villages and in northern Ghana.And navigating shipping through all of this is so complicated. We’ve had to add 3 months on our inventory pipeline and in finance 3 months from our inventory pipeline just because of shipping challenges. Especially during the pandemic shipping delays, I’ve had a container sit idle for 6 weeks midway. Half the products got spoiled by the time they got shipped which was not just a loss, but also looked bad for us in the face of our customers. I’m still figuring out and bringing people in, from back end operational support in Ghana to investment banks, and software like yours. 

E-commerce is about what the brand stands for, and we’re lucky our story was memorable for our customers and that’s worked in our favor. None of us get it right all the time. We all make mistakes all the time.  If you wait until you’re going to have a perfect you’re going to get run over by the bus coming behind you.

Some words on LateShipment.com

My exposure to Lateshipment.com was just that you had a very simple value proposition you really focused on the value your you were bringing to my business it was easy; simple to understand it was clear and and it was a medium what was that focus on on value and that as I got to know you I realized that value proposition was backed up by incredible service as well.

Interview with LateShipment.com CEO, Sriram Sridhar. Transcripted by Hemalatha Sekar.

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10 Women-owned Sustainable Businesses That You Need to Support https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/women-owned-businesses/ Fri, 04 Mar 2022 15:06:12 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=9119 Though women comprise almost half the global workforce, the gender ratio gets skewed as we go up the hierarchy. Multiple reasons factor into this – starting from men being preferred over women in leadership roles, women themselves not taking the risk to climb up the ladder due to their preconceived biases, to external glass ceilings […]

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Though women comprise almost half the global workforce, the gender ratio gets skewed as we go up the hierarchy. Multiple reasons factor into this – starting from men being preferred over women in leadership roles, women themselves not taking the risk to climb up the ladder due to their preconceived biases, to external glass ceilings that women have to break every single day.

To help women break their barriers and find the light in them to aim for the stars, we at Lateshipment.com would like to highlight the stories of 10 women-owned sustainable businesses and inspire our readers to put on their entrepreneurial shoes as well as think eco-friendly starting this women’s day.

10 Women-owned Sustainable Businesses That You Need to Support

1. Nola Skinsentials

Women-owned business - Nola Skinsentials

Founder Jane Ormon was one of the multiple women who constantly felt that it was challenging to find plant-based skincare products suitable for the needs of women of color. But the thing that makes her special is the willingness to take a step forward and create a brand of her own. 

Nola Skinsentials is a skincare line that is not only for melanin-rich skin tones but has different products to suit all skin tones and skin types. Nola uses natural, plant-based ingredients to create handcrafted, cruelty-free, vegan-friendly, and skin-loving products. 

Nola Skinsentials is also actively fighting the unattainable beauty standards through inclusivity through their 160k strong community. They believe in promoting ‘beauty in their own skin’ utilizing real models, untouched images, and real results. 

So, if you’re battling hyperpigmentation, have acne-prone skin, or just need to indulge in self-care, Nola Skinsentials is just the brand for your skin concern. Also, when you shop with them, you can support a great cause and feel good about it.

2. Baraka Shea Butter

Baraka Shea Butter is a small Canadian/Ghanaian family-owned business located on Vancouver Island in Canada founded by Gifty Serbeh-Dunn and her husband Wayne Dunn. 

Baraka took shape when women in Gifty’s home community in Wa, Ghana, wanted to work and earn income rather than just receive care packages. That’s when she came up with the idea of providing work for the women by selling their shea butter to the rest of the world. 

“Baraka is designed to help women and communities to help themselves. They constantly tell me they want the dignity of income and not charity handouts.” – Gifty Serbeh-Dunn

Baraka Shea Butter offers handmade products using organic and ethically sourced Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Palm Oil, and Coconut Oil. Each nut is carefully gathered from the wild, uncontaminated by pesticides and herbicides. The butter is hand-processed using age-old traditional methods without any chemicals and additives. 

Every product you buy through Baraka is good for you, good for the environment, and most importantly good for the women who are sourcing it as a community.

Shameless plug

Both Nola Skinsentials and Baraka Shea Butter use LateShipment.com to make the post-purchase phase customer-friendly via: 

  • Staying transparent about shipping updates and delays
  • Proactively communicating with customers
  • Curbing helpdesk ticket volume

And more. Here’s what they shared about their success stories (and something about us as well). 

3. I’m With The Band

Women-owned business - I'm With The Band

Kailee, the “gal” behind I’m With The Band, started her brand with the vision to combine all the things she loves (music, fashion, health and well-being) into one and make it something that works. 

IWTB is all about doing what she is passionate about and getting good vibes while doing it. Her vision is to grow IWTB into a lifestyle brand with meaningful offerings that inspires people. 

All IWTB goods are locally made in Los Angeles, California, by people who are paid fair wages and a part of the team and mission. The fabrics are carefully sourced with the focus of leaving the lightest carbon footprint. Many of the pieces are made from recycled, deadstock, and remnant materials, making them sustainable. 

IWTB currently offers ‘free U.S shipping’ on orders above $75. Feel free to join the band by trying out their products.

4. Eadem

Pronounced ee-dem, in Latin, Eadem means the same or all. Marie Kouadio Amouzame and Alice Lin Glover chose this name because we share invisible bonds and stories that bind us together and define our daily existence. 

Eadem is specifically made for the path-forging woman of color by other women of color. The brand looks to redefine beauty standards and challenge the industry to push beyond tokenism with its source ‘Smart Melanin’ that keeps the WOC’s skin needs and melanin in mind.

Eadem believes that health is the only beauty standard. It’s an ugly truth that WOC spend more on beauty products with parabens and sulfates, which are harmful. Eadem calls this the ‘beauty burden’ and is out to correct it.  

Their formulas combine heritage botanicals and clean, clinically-tested ingredients to effectively, and safely care for skins of color. Their products are locally made in the U.S and are not tested on animals at any stage of product development.

5. La Boheme Collective

Women-owned business -La Boheme Collective

Founder Danielle Perea considers La Boheme Collective to be more than just a boutique. The 2021-born eco-fashion brand is just her dream coming true. 

The jewelry, resort wear, and home goods selling brand is all about offering eco-friendly and sustainably-sourced pieces at an affordable price, i.e accessible to everyone. 

Their bags are made of vegan leather, hats from vegan wool, straws from bamboo, etc. 

When you shop with La Boheme Collective, you are helping to build a community that supports small-batch, eco-friendly vendors and artisans. Embody the #LaBohemeLife and support them. 

They are currently offering an end-of-season sale on their ‘luxe essentials edit’ collection.  

6. For Now

Women-owned business -For Now

Founded by co-workers Kaity Cimo and Katharine Requa, For Now is an e-commerce marketplace that helps budding entrepreneurs sell apparel and accessories. 

People have great ideas but might be unclear on where to start. That’s where For Now comes in to ‘invest’ in the up-and-coming brands and cover all their bases from marketing to funding.

Though For Now is a place for all, they take the extra effort to add a separate section in their website to help customers ‘shop by impact’. This section covers businesses that are BIPOC owned, female-founded, thoughtful materials made from recycled plastic bottles, made by local artisans, etc. 

For Now calls themselves ‘a retail incubator’ that makes it easy to shop and support emerging entrepreneurs. The brands that they stand behind inspire them. And, they think they’ll inspire you too.

7. FW Beauty

FW Beauty is a UK-based brand created by sisters Fatiha and Yasmine with the belief of making natural and handmade beauty products that are highly effective as well as available to everyone. 

They have a line of premium skin, hair, and body care products sourced from ingredients of the Earth. All the ingredients used in their products are plant-based and are not tested on animals.

They also believe in being ethical in different aspects of business, be it in work or sourcing their ingredients. Not just their products, even their packaging is sustainable as they make use of recyclable materials. 

A part of FW Beauty’s proceedings is donated to a charity that provides educational and housing programs in rural Bangladesh. Kudos!

8. Fast Penny Spirits

Fast Penny

Founded by Jamie Hunt and Holly Robinson, the mission of Fast Penny Spirits is to produce the highest-quality, sustainable, and desirable Amari that infuse joy and empower the community through consciously sourced ingredients from our region and around the world.

Apart from common interests in cookbooks, shellfish, and bitter joys in life, what strengthens their partnership is the desire to give back in their everyday work. Be it supporting sustainable and environmental practices, or empowering women. 

The brand dedicates itself to sustainability. From recycled glass bottles, reclaimed corks, supporting local and sustainable farming practices, eco-friendly packaging, etc, everything is done with sustainability in mind. 

That’s not all! They are also on the lookout to invest in female-led businesses. 3% of their revenue is directed towards supporting women in their communities, business, and industry.

9. Lola

Founded by Jordana Kier and Alexandra Friedman, women with sky-high standards, Lola is constantly reinventing feminine care. Starting with high-quality, natural ingredients that you can trust.

Lola makes period and sexual wellness products by using quality ingredients that are mentioned upfront and are made with their customers in mind. The brand uses no toxins, dyes, or mystery ingredients. 

In order to make the product affordable across different social and economic structures, the brand has donated over 6 million products to those in need. They’re also dedicated to shining a light on the racial and social disparities that contribute to reproductive inequity.  

Apart from providing access to basic feminine health products, Lola is also constantly spreading awareness about reproductive health and fighting to end the discriminatory tampon tax.

10. Copper Cow Coffee

Copper Cow Coffee

Founded by Debbie Wei Mullin, Copper Cow Coffee brings you two things to your morning cup at a time — sustainability and Vietnamese flavor.

Copper Cow Coffee offers 100% naturally flavored coffees sourced from high-quality beans. These beans are grown in sustainable and organic farms in Vietnam, where the farmers are paid 2x the market rate to ensure a higher quality of life (and delicious coffee).

Copper Cow Coffee has been featured in leading magazines such as Forbes, The New York Times, BuzzFeed, WSJ, etc. 

The best part is the ‘Create your own box’ that lets you perfect your brew. Get personalized recommendations from their team of coffee experts and choose your favorite coffees & creamers to enjoy the coffee that is actually made for you.

The Impact of Women-owned Sustainable Businesses

Businesses that are women-owned and sell sustainable products hit two birds with one stone. 

First, the idea of gender equality brings more diversity and inclusiveness to the world of e-commerce. It fights the idea of a socially regressive structure and empowers women to take up leadership roles and build a better future for themselves and others, who are fighting similar battles. 

Next, the idea of sustainable offerings and ethical practices shows that a lot of today’s e-commerce businesses are environmentally conscious and are focusing on the planet rather than just profits.

Therefore, we as a collective society need to recognize such businesses equally as the others and support them, so that more of them will follow suit in the future. Start encouraging women-owned sustainable businesses to support a better cause. 

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Shipping Carriers’ 100% Money-Back Guarantee Policies and Why Avoid Signing Refund Waivers https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/money-back-guarantees-shipping-refund-waivers/ Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:44:18 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=2699 Shipping is an area of e-commerce business that is highly risk-worthy and more prone to errors than the other phases of the order journey. The carriers responsible for your customers’ orders during this stage are very much aware of this — hence, major carriers such as FedEx, UPS, Canada Post, Purolator, Royal Mail, DHL, UK […]

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Shipping is an area of e-commerce business that is highly risk-worthy and more prone to errors than the other phases of the order journey. The carriers responsible for your customers’ orders during this stage are very much aware of this — hence, major carriers such as FedEx, UPS, Canada Post, Purolator, Royal Mail, DHL, UK Mail, etc, offer the option to claim refunds when they commit a service failure.

Given that over 15% of parcels shipped through them face service failures and delivery issues (it becomes 2x or even 3x during busy seasons such as holidays), claiming refunds is a must to ensure you’re not overpaying your shipping carrier. 

While carriers provide the option to claim refunds for different errors from their end, they understand the need for shippers like you to extra-emphasize handling as many late deliveries as possible. This is what led them to specifically come up with a money-back guarantee policy for late deliveries.

What are Money-Back Guarantees or Guaranteed Service Refunds?

Shipping carriers work on the condition that they abide by their contract and one such condition is their commitment to on-time deliveries. If these deliveries are missing their mark, carriers will ensure a 100% refund under their ‘money-back’ guarantee policy’.

Money-back guarantees are refund policies within the carrier’s SLAs that promise a 100% refund on shipping charges for select service types if a parcel is delayed (sometimes even by 60 seconds) except in exceptional circumstances (natural disasters, weather delays, etc.).

FedEx vs UPS vs DHL Money Back Guarantee
Terms and conditions from the money-back guarantees of FedEx, UPS, and DHL

Major carriers that provide money-back guarantees for late deliveries

Shipping carriers offer money-back guarantees to assure customers of the reliability and timeliness of their services. I.e., if the carrier fails to meet certain predefined service standards or delivery commitments, then you, the shipper, are entitled to hold them accountable for their service failures and thereby are eligible for a refund of the shipping cost. 

Benefits of claiming refunds under the money-back guarantee

Shipping carriers such as FedEx and UPS have money-back guarantees that offer refunds for late deliveries. However, they either don’t get automatically credited to your account nor are not easy to claim. Therefore, shipping invoice audits act as document evidence that can help you recover costs directly associated with late deliveries. There’s more to it. 

Firstly, making full use of the money-back guarantee and claiming refunds gives you the opportunity to save on your shipping costs.

Second, regular auditing of invoices and claiming refunds holds carriers accountable for their service level agreements (SLAs). This ensures better visibility into your carrier’s delivery performance and fosters a more transparent relationship between you and the carrier.

As a third, with insights into the form carrier performance metrics such as recurring delays with specific routes, services, etc., you can optimize your shipping and make informed decisions regarding logistics.  

Data from audited invoices can also be used as leverage in negotiating better terms (lower rates or improved service guarantees) for future contracts with shipping carriers, thereby enhancing overall logistics efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

However, enjoying these benefits and claiming refunds are not so straightforward, as these money-back guarantee policies often come with certain fine print caveats that make it complicated for you to claim refunds. 

Refund hurdles under the money-back guarantee policy

  • There is a list of eligible services – Only certain services are applicable for money-back guarantees. It is important to check if your packages are sent through a service where the guarantee is valid.
  • It can be excluded based on conditions –  Money-back guarantee is not applicable when delays are caused by natural disasters, weather conditions, incorrect addresses, customs delays, the unavailability of the recipient, or other events beyond the carriers’ control.
  • There are modifications and suspensions – Carriers reserve the right to modify (increase the permissible duration) or suspend the money-back guarantee during high-volume periods like the holiday season. 
  • The claim process is tiresome and time-consuming – Even if all conditions are in your favor, the claim can still be rejected owing to the reason that the carrier must be notified within a specific time frame after the delivery (typically 15 days). This can be a hassle, especially if you’re filing these claims manually. 

What Are Shipping Refund (Money-Back Guarantee) Waivers And Why Avoid Them?

Shipping refund waivers or (specifically called) money-back guarantee waivers are clauses within the SLAs that provide special benefits (typically discounted prices) to shippers in return for giving up (waiving off) their right to claim shipping refunds. Carriers more often than not claim that not signing the waiver will deprive you of saving on your shipping costs and insist you do sign them.

However, signing a shipping refund waiver might not be best for you and hence, must be avoided. Before we look into why you must avoid waivers, let’s see why carriers insist on signing them so much. 

Why do carriers want shippers to sign refund waivers?

Now the obvious question arises: Why are carrier representatives so keen on getting shippers to sign refund waivers? Is it because they want to provide them with discounts and help their clients reduce their shipping costs in the bottom line?

Not at all.

So, why are they insisting then? This is why:  

  • Over 3 billion dollars go into unclaimed shipping refunds each year –  Unclaimed refunds are just money left on the table and carriers want to keep it for themselves. This money rightfully belongs to retailers like you, but if you cannot claim your refunds because of the waiver you signed.
  • Fear of accountability despite ever-increasing shipping costs – Shipping carriers have dodged accountability despite higher shipping costs due to a lack of close watch on their service failures and not claiming refunds.    

However, the growing demand for refund claims and better service has proved inconvenient for them. This makes them eager to get shippers to sign refund waivers so that they can skirt their responsibilities despite increasing costs YoY.

Now that it is evident that signing waivers only stands to benefit these carriers, let’s consider how you, the shipper, stand to lose because of them.

What are the disadvantages of signing a shipping refund waiver?

Not claiming refunds roughly translates to not holding your shipping carrier accountable for their failures.

With your shipping carrier conveniently left out of accountability, the next thing that happens is you bear the brunt of the delivery issues. And as if that won’t be enough, keep in mind that about one-third of customers won’t repurchase from you after a late delivery.

In the long term, lack of accountability also leads up to the fact that you can’t expect better service performance from the carriers. In a situation where a waiver has been signed, there would be nothing you could do to pull up the carrier for the poor quality of service, leading to your last-mile suffering in a big way.

Amidst growing concerns about on-time deliveries, you end up overpaying your shipping carrier. It is to be noted that the meager discounts that are promised at the time of signing a waiver are often superseded by add-on charges beyond the cost of shipping. Also, discounts promised on waivers usually last for a limited period. On the other hand, the waiver is permanent.

Worry not! At the end of the day, there are ways for you to avoid being forced to sign a waiver of your money-back guarantee.

What can you do to avoid signing shipping refund waivers?

  • Be prepared with comparative data about the services of various shipping carriers before negotiating a contract.
  • Ask the shipping carrier representative to provide you with an impact summary to detail how signing a refund waiver will affect your monthly shipping spend and how many packages will be affected.
  • Before signing the contract, check to ensure that there is no clause waiving off your right to claim refunds.

Congratulations! You’ve managed to avoid signing a waiver and are now eligible to claim refunds from shipping carriers for their service failures. So, what next? 

Before you start claiming refunds, there’s one more thing that you must keep in mind. 

Manually claiming shipping refunds with carriers is such a hassle for more reasons than one. Therefore, it is a good ploy to start using automated parcel audit companies such as LateShipment.com to do it for you.

Rather than seamlessly cruising through the tiresome process of late delivery claims, LateShipment.com also helps in identifying and claiming refunds for 50+ service failures and billing errors

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Damaged Packages: How to Handle Them https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/how-to-handle-damaged-packages/ https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/how-to-handle-damaged-packages/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2021 13:34:25 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=8134 Why Do Packages Get Damaged in the First Place? The packages you dearly send to your customers can get damaged for various reasons such as Mishandling at the sorting facility – sorting your fragile package under other heavier packages Wrong packaging – Haphazard packaging using cheap packing material for cutting costs Damaged in-transit – Bad […]

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Why Do Packages Get Damaged in the First Place?

The packages you dearly send to your customers can get damaged for various reasons such as 

  1. Mishandling at the sorting facility – sorting your fragile package under other heavier packages
  2. Wrong packaging – Haphazard packaging using cheap packing material for cutting costs
  3. Damaged in-transit – Bad weather or road conditions too can weaken your packaging and damage the contents within. 

What Happens When Your Customer Receives Packages That Are Damaged?

Here’s a short but not so sweet description of what would happen if such an event occurs:

  • Even if the order reaches on time with all its contents, when the customer finds it damaged there are still chances of them getting frustrated
  • It doesn’t matter if the carrier has caused the damage, the customer holds YOU responsible for damaged packages and decides not to shop with you
  • To make matters worse, they also tend to take the issue to social media and tarnish your reputation, demotivating others from shopping with you as well.  

Is that distress I see in your face? There’s no need to worry… 

Before you start to panic over what can be done, we’ll just spoil the ending for you.

Yes, just like late deliveries, lost packages, or even package theft – issues that arise from damaged packages can also be resolved and you can turn your frustrated customer into a happy one that shops with you again. 

Stay tuned to learn how you can effectively handle damaged packages, so that you recover your lost dollars and your customers are no longer frustrated – that’s two birds with one stone.

How to Handle Damaged Packages

By making use of the right packaging material and technique you can reduce damage to an extent but despite all that, a package gets damaged and your customer informs you of it – What’s next? 

  1. First things first – Acknowledge your mistake even if you had nothing to do with it. The last thing your customer wants is you staying mum over the issue or a blame game between you and the carrier. Therefore, take this as an opportunity to communicate with your customer at the earliest and apologize. This makes sure that their frustration is mitigated to an extent. 
  2. Secondly – Ensure a fast resolution. Assure the customer that the issue will be resolved based on their requirement ASAP. This further elevates their satisfaction levels. 
  3. Last but not least – Make sure they receive a compensation offer to make it worth their while. This is kind of a bonus, pro-tip. But works to your advantage when it comes to changing your customer from a frustrated one to a happy one. 

Also, you need to watch out for fraudulent claims made by certain customers over damaged packages. They might have damaged it themselves or simply fake damage for personal gain. 

In such cases, you can follow the footsteps of other retailers who require proof of damage or cross-verify with the shipping carrier for a seamless issue resolution. 

While acknowledging and providing a resolution works to your advantage to an extent, there are still certain hurdles you need to watch out for while handling damaged packages.

Handling damaged packages is an expensive process

Faux or not, either way, handling damaged package queries are expensive. 

  • If the customer’s frustration doesn’t seem to reduce and they stop shopping with you – you have to spend on customer acquisition costs
  • If you’re looking to reduce their frustration, you’ve to spend on refunds, product returns, sending out replacements, providing special offers, etc. 

 Don’t you worry! There are time-tested ways for you to recover the costs you spent on damaged packages. For example, The shipping carrier indeed provides an option for you to claim refunds for damaged packages as compensation under their service guarantee.

How to File a Claim for Damaged Packages with the Shipping Carrier

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind if you’re going to file a claim for damaged packages:

  1. If the contents of the package cost less than $100, you can complete the entire form online and request a refund without documentation.
  2. In the event of the package costing anywhere above $100, proper documentation is necessary for the claim to get processed.
  3. Documentation can include pickup records, photos of the damaged contents, and proof of value documentation.
  4. The tracking number that was initially allocated to the package is vital to the process and has to be provided.

After a scheduled inspection, your claim will be processed and you can track its progress.

While these are the common things you should be aware of, here are more specific conditions that adhere to particular shipping carriers. 

If you think filing refund claims for damaged packages is as straightforward as it looks, caution! It isn’t.

Filing refund claims for damaged packages by yourself is a huge hassle

Apart from running your hectic business, manually submitting claims with shipping carriers by yourself is a huge hassle for more reasons than one:  

Here's why filing refund claims for damaged packages by yourself can be a huge hassle

So, what is the easy way out?

LateShipment.com’s Parcel Audit and Shipping Refunds solution effortlessly audits your invoices and helps save up to 20% on your shipping costs. The best part is that it takes less than 2 minutes to set up and seamlessly integrates with your existing workflow.

Our parcel audit and refunds solution: 

  1. Not only submits claims on your behalf but also constantly follows up till issue resolution. 
  2. Make sure that all claims are submitted within the timeframe of the carrier(s).
  3. Not just damaged shipments, but also helps you recover refunds for 50+ service failures like late deliveries
  4. And best of all this, you don’t have to pay anything out of your pockets. We only charge 50% of the refunds you’ve received, that too only when it is successfully recovered.

Damaged Packages? Here's How to Make Them Right

Sure, refunds are great for your business. 

But what about mitigating the pain of a loyal customer who has an important package such as an anniversary gift damaged in their hands?

That’s when our other feature Delivery Experience Management (DEM) platform can help. DEM is particularly helpful if you are a bulk shipper who uses multiple carriers and would prefer an efficient automated workflow.

DEM helps you track your parcels in real-time and lets you stay aware of packages that are damaged at the loading or sorting facility (when it is about to be sent out for delivery). 

By letting you know well in advance if your packages are damaged, it gives you an edge when you get in touch with the carrier to resolve the issue or send a quick replacement in case of a time-sensitive delivery.

DEM dashboard showing Damaged packages

While damages are inevitable, handling them appropriately can really be the deciding factor between your customers being agitated and calm. It also ensures that your customers go to the extent of becoming advocates for your brand based on your commitment to handle issues. 

Try LateShipment.com today and take your first step towards handling damaged packages or write to us at sales@lateshipment.com if you have any questions.

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Retail & Delivery Trends That Are Likely to Remain Post-pandemic https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/retail-delivery-trends-that-are-likely-to-remain-post-pandemic/ Thu, 27 May 2021 08:16:59 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=8103 How The Pandemic Affected Retail & Delivery In the present circumstances (due to the pandemic, of course) trends around the retail and delivery landscape has gone through massive changes across the globe. Physical stores have shut down, there have been disruptions throughout the supply chain, and businesses are left to deal with this mess. On […]

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How The Pandemic Affected Retail & Delivery

In the present circumstances (due to the pandemic, of course) trends around the retail and delivery landscape has gone through massive changes across the globe.

Physical stores have shut down, there have been disruptions throughout the supply chain, and businesses are left to deal with this mess.

On the other hand, the pandemic has also brought a paradigm shift in the way of eCommerce around the world.

eCommerce retail sales have increased in the 1st quarter of 2021 following last year and don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. 

These trends have turned out to be so effective even in a restored normal version of the planet (if there ever was such a thing). Therefore, business owners can expect them to be followed in a post-pandemic world as well.

Retail & Delivery Trends That Are Here to Stay

The how and where of retail shopping is changing at breakneck speed. 

Shopping behavior has changed so rapidly that a huge number of companies are caught unaware. 

Trends that have been in their forecast materialized throughout the decade have accelerated beyond recognition. 

Let’s look at such trends that are here to stay in detail.

Online Shopping

Online Shopping

Online sales are not an alternative, but a need for brick-and-mortar businesses. 

While people have been buying from online stores for a long time – on the customer side, the pandemic is responsible for a massive spike in the need for eCommerce, which is here to stay for decades to come. 

Several brand new platforms gained importance in emerging markets by developing business models and also assisting the general landscape to be much more competitive by nature. 

And also the pandemic may open possibilities for second-generation “niche” eCommerce sites that work in certain industry segments which are usually excluded from large eCommerce platforms. 

For instance, baskets of various vegetables and fruits are now in demand as customers look for businesses that can deliver fresh produce to their doorstep. 

Livestream Selling

Livestream Selling

Using video to boost sales is a tried and evaluated technique for brands and retailers.

The application of footage to push sales started with TV shopping channels like HSN and QVC, which showed items in a live broadcast. This method also invited audience participants to gain the product and put an order.

The pandemic and social distancing norms have now given customers a new way to discover and purchase goods from the comfort of their own homes without risking their safety. 

Last November, reality star Kim Kardashian appeared on a live marketing stream and sold 15,000 bottles of perfume within minutes.

While major social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook rolled out live marketing opportunities in May 2020, YouTube is preparing to come out with very similar features.

One particular thing is clear, lots of businesses are gearing up for the development of live selling.

Subscription-based Services

Instead of a one-time purchase of an item, a buyer subscribes to access a product or service over a length of time. This may be a subscription to services like Amazon and Netflix or a subscription to makeup brands.

The upside for the buyer may be the comfort of automatic payments and regular delivery, and also personalization. To the company, it implies a much better prediction of revenues, reliable customer data, and much better customer engagement.

The subscription-based model is theoretically meant to be great for the world, as we change from an ownership design to a sharing-based one, maximizing reducing waste and also resource efficiency.

Virtual Experiences

Virtual Experiences

With the pandemic, any outside house tasks are temporarily closed, which leads to people searching for secure ways to continue their hobbies. Thus rose the popularity of virtual experiences through conferencing companies. 

One business that exploded during the pandemic was Zoom where it held online classes, company meetings, yoga, and cooking classes. 

And as people got creative, virtual experiences included live concerts, museum trips, and theme park visits. 

Brands can tie up with these events or influencers and promote their product in relevant spaces. 

For example, as a sports company, you can can sponsor a yoga retreat and market their goods to the attendants. There is a good chance that attendants who are trying something new will be intrigued and try out your products.

Same-day Delivery

The pandemic disrupted our way of accessing goods and with government-mandated lockdowns, the usual shopping patterns stopped abruptly with a sudden halt. 

Many businesses have switched to altered activities as consumers looked to home delivery as a solution. 

As the lockdowns extend further, consumers are now shopping more and more online, leading to further competition among major online retailers. This has further led to the popularity of same-day delivery services becoming a rising trend. 

Customers too, looking for convenience in their order delivery, would decide to opt for brands that offer same-day delivery.

Curbside Pickup

Unlike us, who mostly work at home and feel safe, individuals who work in delivery services remain open and at risk. In the case of constant deliveries at multiple locations, there’s a chance of them getting infected. 

Fortunately, curbside pickup enables the safety of both customers and employees. Curbside 

Pickup lets consumers shop online and choose an available time slot where they can pick up their order with no face-to-face interaction with other individuals. 

While this may look like an ideal way of shopping without risking safety, it can be a challenge for small retailers and even bigger businesses who never considered curbside pickup. 

What complicates this is having a designated pickup area followed by the requirement to confirm which customer is picking up the order and ensuring the payment process is legitimate. 

In the coming days, and maybe even after that, contactless and safe queuing is the deciding factor in client retention.

The Post Pandemic Retail & Delivery Landscape

With the current situation, we’ll see a continuous rise of electronic payments and the use of digital wallets allowing consumers to make safe and instant transactions. 

The uncertainty of financial solutions such as secured electronic payments can be a vital risk for businesses, especially eCommerce platforms. With the segment evolving rapidly, it’s essential to have a coherent framework to use. 

With the aforementioned trends likely to remain for a while until we all feel comfortable to step out, businesses can likely follow them to not get FOMO. 

Even if you feel you are an SMB who cannot implement it all at once, you can look to test out some of the trends by implementing them one by one.

This is a guest post by Anna Carter

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[eCommerce 2021] The Benefits of User-Generated Content https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/the-benefits-of-user-generated-content-in-ecommerce/ Thu, 08 Apr 2021 08:53:38 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=5923 Is user-generated content (UGC) really worth your time if you’re a retail business owner? Without a doubt. In this article, let’s take a look at the advantages of making use of content created by customers on your eCommerce website and social media accounts, as well as find out how important and powerful they can be […]

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Is user-generated content (UGC) really worth your time if you’re a retail business owner? 

Without a doubt. 

In this article, let’s take a look at the advantages of making use of content created by customers on your eCommerce website and social media accounts, as well as find out how important and powerful they can be in the online retail sphere.

We’ll also take a peek at the latest trends in user-generated content and how some brands are leveraging it.

If you own a retail eCommerce business, you’ve probably looked for ways to provide customers the best shopping experience possible while also saving on expenses. Read till the end for a great way to do that.

What is User-Generated Content?

User-generated content (UGC) includes various types of content voluntarily created by people and shared online (on social media for example). 

Such user-created content serves as social proof for businesses and is contributed by people voluntarily without pay.

User-Generated Content is also known as earned media or earned content and takes up the E in the PESO (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned) model coined by Gini Dietrich’s 2014 book Spin Sucks, consists of content in the form of: 

  • Customer reviews
  • Blogs or articles published by customers/users
  • Word of mouth
  • Replies or comments to your social media post

That’s not all! User-Generated Content has a horde of benefits which we’ll see further below. 

How Can User-Generated Content Benefit Your eCommerce Business?

A significant 70% of consumers will consider user-generated content such as reviews or ratings before making a purchasing decision. At least 41% of them will read four to seven reviews to gain important insights on a product.” – Tint

If that’s not clear enough, here’s something more for you:  

  • User-generated content is realistic – Today’s customers are so aware that they see right through the difference between a PR campaign and a review from an actual customer. Marketing campaigns are slick – no doubt but it lacks the honesty in a real person’s real opinion. And people want honesty rather than glossy. 
  • People trust user-generated content more –  Not just paying attention to but people tend to trust the opinions of others more than dry advertisements or the results of pure marketing. Moreover, in this age of social media, customers are expected to trust a stranger online and not just their close friends when it comes to choosing a product.  

With the help of increased brand awareness and credibility, you can also influence purchasing decisions and inspire prospective customers to hit the ‘buy button’. 

This is why placing user-generated content on your customer-facing pages/channels can be a good ploy. 

Which Retail Verticals are Best Suited to User-Generated Content?

To be clear, implementing user-generated content in one way or another will help your eCommerce business regardless of industry. Yet, it’s vital to understand that user-generated content won’t work equally well for all spheres. 

Some retail verticals that should be using user-generated content for sure are businesses that are dealing in apparel, home decor, beauty products, children and pets products, etc. 

And as far as demographics are concerned, with the boom of social media, millennials, more than any other generation, are inclined toward user-generated content. 

Roughly 30% of the time that millennials spend consuming all media is spent on user-generated content. 84 percent of millennials report that user-generated content has some influence on what they buy.” – CrowdRiff

With the basics of user-generated content out of the way, let’s take a look at what the latest eCommerce trends in user-generated content are.

The Latest eCommerce User-Generated Content Trends in 2021

Without a doubt, a big part of the effectiveness of your user-generated content strategy will depend on how well it is executed.

Consistency is among the main points to keep in mind for sure. Similarly, giving something in return to your customers for their content can be a good move (for instance, you could motivate your customers by offering them a discount, coupon, or free product delivery in return for reviewing the product they bought from you).

Here’s how renowned brands are leveraging user-generated content in 2021: 

1. Linking Social Media to Your Website

One of the first places to look for user-generated content is your social media channels.

Posts that your customers make on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, or even TikTok can be useful. Thus, adding functionality to connect your official social media accounts to your online store is the first step you should take.

Importantly, make sure to give credit to content creators, state what should be done to be featured, and think of a way to organize content in such a way to promote what you’re selling.

Here’s what a user-generated content section on the official Puma website looks like. 

Placed right on the home page, the “AS WORN BY YOU” block allows for adding photos to the gallery and also explains how to mention the brand on Instagram. The carousel with the photos shows the name of the contributor.

When a post is clicked, we can see the tagged product on the picture and a button with a CTA that allows us to purchase the item. 

2. Enhancing Product Pages With User-Generate Content

Undoubtedly, placing user-generated content on the product pages of your online store is a blazing tactic too. Not only can you build trust this way but can also showcase how your customers are using a product. The latter can result in the “I want this too” reaction and lead to a sale.

The Prismatic Shadows product page on the official NYX Cosmetics website is a good example. 

First of all, the highlighted pink “@NYXCOSMETICS” heading hints at how to tag a social media post in order to be featured. The “NYX Cosmetics Community” section displays photos of the looks that people have created with the product that’s on sale.

These photos are collected on the website by a widget that pulls out those posts that mention the brand and that have corresponding hashtags and products that were used for creating a particular look.

Content strategy for eCommerce branding

3. Displaying Customer Feedback With Visuals

Positive customer reviews are immensely effective at convincing someone to make a purchase decision. 

On your site, customers could share what they like and dislike about the product they’ve bought or their impressions of the service they received.

Apart from just submitting text, giving users the opportunity to back up their feedback with pictures makes a lot of sense.

Here’s a tip: To avoid fraud reviews, make sure to verify every review that’s added. You should be certain that every piece of feedback is from a real customer.

Let’s take a look at how the official Azazie website uses this strategy out of user-generated content. 

Since buying wedding dresses online without a physical try-on can be a stressful experience, seeing pictures of other real brides (not just models) wearing the dress can be a relief.

The product page is equipped with a gallery that gathers all customer images featuring a specific product.

Even better, the testimonials include pictures and other important data apart from the comment (the size the customer wears, their body type, the item’s fit, rating, etc).

User-Generated Content

4. Cross-Posting on Various Social Media Channels

Like we mentioned earlier, it’s worth noting that user-generated content works well not only on eCommerce websites but on social media channels too.

Reposting content in which you’re featured and sharing feedback on your business accounts is a great tactic.

This way, you additionally expand the content on your accounts and can increase the number of views. To give an example, this screenshot was taken from the Stories of the official MAC Cosmetics Instagram account.

Having run a short survey, they’ve collected feedback from clients regarding their favorite lipstick and shade. Noteworthy, the “See more” button leads viewers to a page where they can order the item (this is possible only if the business account has an Instagram Shop).

MAC cosmetics - User Generated Content

5. Boosting Email Send-outs & Ads

It is a great idea to enhance email campaigns with user-generated content.

Be it a quote from a customer’s testimonial or an image of a happy customer, the click-through rates of a mailer featuring such content will be higher.

Luckily, most email campaign builder tools are already armed with functionality that allows for linking UGC from social media as well as boast various templates that can assist in designing beautiful blocks with customer reviews and content.

Finally, just as in the case with email campaigns, the click-through rates of ads are several times higher if they feature an element of user-generated content. This means that you can potentially cut costs on PPC and save more of your marketing budget.

Final Word

All in all, user-generated content is a mighty marketing resource and weapon that’s especially relevant in retail eCommerce. 

Because people tend to believe the opinions of others and are often moved by the trends that others start, user-generated content is a strategy that can not only spark the interest of your customers but also ultimately result in more sales.

About the Author

Alex Husar

Alex Husar is CTO at Onilab with 8+ years of experience in Magento and Salesforce development services. He graduated from the Czech Technical University and obtained a bachelor’s degree in Computer Software Engineering. Alex’s expertise includes both full-stack dev skills and a strong ability to provide project-critical guidance to entire teams

A Little about LateShipment.com

LateShipment.com is the world’s only logistics cloud tool that helps businesses of every size reduce shipping costs by up to 20% and provide memorable delivery experiences to customers at scale.

At LateShipment.com, our focus has remained steadfastly on the last mile, typically the part of the logistics chain that is the most opaque.

Some of our high-impact offerings are :

  • Save up to 20% on ShippingAutomatically audit your shipping carriers’ invoices and recover refunds for 50+ service failures & billing errors including late deliveries.
  • Real-Time VisibilityMonitor your outbound & inbound shipments across multiple shipping carriers on a centralized window, in real-time.
  • Critical Delivery Alerts – Pay attention to daily deliveries with predictive delay alerts and more on a purpose-built dashboard for support reps.
  • Proactive Issue Resolution – Proactively communicate with customers to prevent them from having bad experiences due to delivery failures.
  • Custom Delivery Notifications  – Send custom or automated delivery status notifications for events like “shipped,” “attempted,” & “delivered.”
  • Branded Tracking Pages – Build fully customizable order tracking pages for your customers to improve brand recall and sales.

The best part is, it takes less than 2 minutes to see LateShipment.com in action.

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[eCommerce 2021] 6 Trends That You Need to Watch out For https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/ecommerce-trends-to-watch-out-for/ Fri, 02 Apr 2021 07:23:02 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=7654 Everybody loves memes… It really helps us take a breather from the pressures of work and cool off for a moment. And the best part, it’s a different joke that cracks us up every time! Every week there’s a new meme trending online – From Bernie Sanders to a ship stuck in the Suez Canal. […]

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Everybody loves memes… 

It really helps us take a breather from the pressures of work and cool off for a moment. And the best part, it’s a different joke that cracks us up every time! 

Every week there’s a new meme trending online – From Bernie Sanders to a ship stuck in the Suez Canal. 

eCommerce works exactly the same way. Now and then there come new trends that shape the industry for the future. 

But you might wonder why we’re talking about change now?

Well, that’s because 2020 (the year of the pandemic) has drastically accelerated these changes, ergo leaving a lasting impact on businesses in the longer run. 

Let’s not waste any more time and dive right into the eCommerce trends for 2021 and how they can help you improve your online business in terms of sales, CX, and customer loyalty – to thrive in 2021!  

eCommerce is Growing (Higher, Further, Faster)​

Like we mentioned earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic has largely accelerated the shift to eCommerce, and guess what? It’s still growing and doesn’t seem to be slowing down even as the world returns to normalcy. 

Amidst the wave of digital transformation and innovation in retail, eCommerce sales grew an astounding 30% in 2020, a number expected to grow in 2021 and in the years to come.

This makes it clear that customers who ordered from an online store for the first time in 2020, don’t plan on going back to a physical store anytime soon.  

Take away – Despite the surge in online orders, it is practically difficult for SMBs like yours to compete with companies such as Amazon and Walmart, which have established dominance over the eCommerce market

But that doesn’t mean you just sit around and wait for things to happen your way! You can start by growing your online presence by enlisting yourself in eCommerce marketplaces of your niche (take advantage of the high traffic reach). 

However, you must keep in mind that entirely relying on these marketplaces can limit your brand’s growth (as you don’t own the customer data).

A good ploy would be to just sell limited products on such marketplaces and drive visitors to your site by intriguing their curiosity. 

Hybrid (Omnichannel) Marketing is the Future Now

Hybrid (omnichannel) marketing

In this IoT era, growing eCommerce brands can follow the footsteps of companies like Amazon and give customers what they want – a seamless shopping experience no matter what channel they’re on. 

And how you can do that, you ask? 

Hybrid marketing (also known as omnichannel marketing) can enable businesses like yours to do just that. 

Take away – With hybrid (omnichannel) selling becoming the norm, you can make use of public cloud platforms, which help you to collect customer data across all platforms. 

You can then make use of headless eCommerce services that enable brands to improve their customer experience and communicate with customers across multiple channels.

Start with the data you have on your customers and create ideal customer personas to guide each customer’s personalized content and platform. 

91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations. – Data from Accenture

For example, you can display a social media advertisement for a user who has just browsed your website and send out retargeting emails to a customer who has abandoned their cart. 

You can also focus on the channels where your customers go the most and sell to them there.

The Battle for Speed (⚡) is Done!

The massive surge in eCommerce has also led to advancements in shipping & delivery as well. 

The pre-COVID trend of same-day delivery is done! Customers no longer eye faster delivery but are now into flexible delivery options. 

If you are uncertain about how you plan to do that, worry not! 

We’ve got the right solution for you 😉I

Take away – While the impact of COVID-19 still in place, businesses are still recovering from the supply-chain restrictions. 

With smaller inventory and a higher no. of orders, businesses can effectively capitalize on the “2-3 day delivery” trend to keep customers satisfied. 

2-3 day shipping

On the other hand, customers waiting in anticipation for their orders would lose their peace of mind, if say anything was to happen to their package. 

They feel that is the responsibility of the business to mitigate their anxiety and keep them informed of their package status. 

And businesses can do just that by making use of last-mile technologies and enable real-time package tracking, to have an edge moving into 2021.

Stellar Customer Support = Enhanced Overall Shopping Experience

Stellar customer support improves overall shopping experience

Despite everything that happened in the past year, one thing that your customers expect to have little or no room for error would be your customer service. 

A recent survey shows that post-COVID-19, 59% of consumers will care even more about the customer experience than they did “before” when deciding to buy. 

That gives businesses of today, all the more reason to invest in great customer service to remain competitive. 

Take away – Customer service’s future will be to provide omnichannel customer support – anytime, across channels. 

Omnichannel customer support – Not just live chat, brands need to connect with their customers on platforms they prefer, be it social channels or emails, or even SMS. 

Customer support will also influence sales – A great customer service will not just help you survive but will play the key differentiator between you and your competitor as 

  • 75% of the customers say they will shop with and recommend a brand they trust rather than a brand i.e hot and trendy. 
  • On the other hand, 80% of consumers will switch to another company after just one poor customer experience

Therefore, businesses will have to keep in mind to provide an excellent personalized customer support experience if they want to develop loyalty and add value to customer retention.  

Sustainability Will Be given Higher Priority

Sustainability will be given higher priority

Sustainability is no longer a USP of select brands to attain popularity. Green consumerism is slowly becoming the norm as 65% of buyers say they will buy from brands that advocate sustainability. 

Take away – Today’s consumers don’t just desire transparency in what they buy but expect it.

Not just in your products, they want sustainability to be your mantra across manufacturing, packing, and even transportation. 

You can start by

  • Rolling out a one-off sustainable product
  • Reducing the amount of packaging waste, and
  • Informing your customers on how they can recycle your product after use.

You can also align your brand with an NGO that advocates for a cause such as sustainability or cruelty-free or partner with an influencer who advocates ethical buying.

The Post-purchase Phase Will Be the Deciding (X) Factor

The post-purchase phase will be the deciding (X) factor

Businesses get 6-8 touchpoints in the post-purchase to interact with customers and engage with them. These critical touchpoints are opportunities to strengthen customer relationships, build trust, and brand loyalty.

However, when you do not pay heed to your customers at this stage, you leave them at the mercy of your shipping carrier. Which in turn widens the CX gap between you and your customers, resulting in far more serious consequences. 

And if you think these are just trivial, you must understand that the post-purchase phase takes up 50% of the overall order experience. 

Take away – There are just 3 common areas that you need to pay attention to in order to take control of your post-purchase experience and plug the existing gaps. 

  1. Keep customers in the loop about orders in transit (more than just sending tracking numbers!)
  2. Be the first to learn about every delivery issue (and act on it!)
  3. Grab every (post-purchase) opportunity to engage with customers. Earns both additional revenue and loyalty!

Provide Outstanding Post-purchase Experiences with Lateshipment.com

For businesses like yours, we at LateShipment.com, have built the world’s only logistics cloud tool that helps you reduce shipping costs by up to 20% and provide stellar post-post purchase experiences to customers at scale – focussing steadfastly on the last mile, typically the most opaque part of the logistics chain.

With our Delivery Experience Management (DEM) Platform, you can effortlessly:

Track parcels in real-time – Monitor your outbound & inbound shipments across multiple shipping carriers on a centralized window, in real-time

Receive predictive delay alerts – Pay attention to daily deliveries with predictive delay alerts and more on a purpose-built dashboard for support reps.

> Resolve delivery issues proactively– Proactively communicate with customers to prevent them from having bad experiences due to delivery failures.

Send out delivery status notifications  – Send custom or automated delivery status notifications to your customers for events like “shipped,” “attempted,” & “delivered.”

Not just that, LateShipment.com additionally helps you:

Provide branded order tracking – Build fully customizable order tracking pages for your customers to improve brand recall and sales.

Receive delivery experience feedback – Gather feedback from customers about their delivery experience. Measure and optimize shipping operations.

Conclusion

With some of its effects still reeling in, 2020 will be a year that nobody will forget, especially people in the eCommerce industry. Stepping into 2021 and almost crossing the first quarter, these trends which have passed on from 2020 are still making waves in the current year. 

Taking advantage of these trends would make 2021 memorable but for the positive reasons. 

When applied, these strategies will surely positively impact your sales, CX, and customer loyalty. 

The post [eCommerce 2021] 6 Trends That You Need to Watch out For appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

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[Inspiration 2021] Celebrating the success of 21 women-owned eCommerce businesses https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/celebrating-the-success-of-women-owned-ecommerce-businesses/ https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/celebrating-the-success-of-women-owned-ecommerce-businesses/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2021 12:00:32 +0000 https://www.lateshipment.com/blog/?p=2355 Women leaders have made their mark in this world. They’ve broken norms and stood for the values they believe in. They’ve bucked the trend and become an inspiration to millions of other women (and men). Resilience, tenacity, and hard work have brought them where they are now. These are women who have chosen the path […]

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Women leaders have made their mark in this world. They’ve broken norms and stood for the values they believe in. They’ve bucked the trend and become an inspiration to millions of other women (and men). 

Resilience, tenacity, and hard work have brought them where they are now. These are women who have chosen the path less traveled and came out unscathed despite the hurdles. Here’s to every single woman who has inspired many in the course of their journey. 

This Women’s Day, let’s train the spotlight on 21 retail businesses with strong-willed, highly successful women in the driver’s seat.

The Brave Collection

The Brave Collection

The life-changing journey of New York-based designer Jessica Hendricks Yee began when she noticed that many Cambodian women lacked dignified job opportunities and were forced into sexual slavery. This pushed Yee into deciding that she had to help empower these women. And she certainly did make a difference!

Yee started The Brave Collection of bracelets with the twin aims of providing job opportunities to survivors of human trafficking and shining a light on the plight of vulnerable Cambodian women.

Artisans who work with The Brave Collection are paid above-average wages and provided fair and dignified working conditions at a studio in Cambodia. Many of them are young mothers who work from home. All of them are provided health insurance and stipends for their children’s education.

Such a noteworthy effort ought to be appreciated!

The Oula Company

The Oula Company

Founded by Erika Dalya Massaquoi; who is well-versed in fashion, art, and cinema; The Oula Company highlights sourcing textiles responsibly, globally, handcrafting them, and, made in the USA on its homepage.

Oula’s signature garments are patterned both vibrant & colorful and are made with Ankara (African Wax Fabric).

The garments are hand-cut and are sewn locally in the USA – resulting in a smaller carbon footprint. The pieces are durable, long-lasting, and can be worn throughout the year, giving them more value than fast fashion.

The brand believes that style can liberate and empower and its design ethos is particularly influenced by the Black Is Beautiful movement and inspires the iconic natural beauty.

Wildfang

Wildfang is a brand that is out there to create a home for badass women, who are bold, unafraid, and in tune with their identity. 

In 2013, founders Emma McIlroy and Julia Parsley started this brand with the “radical” belief that a woman has the right to wear whatever the hell they want and be whoever the hell they want.

Since then, the brand has been vocal in spreading the message of emancipation and female pride and given back over $500k to charities and organizations that support reproductive, immigrant, and queer rights.

Wildfang makes a real-world difference by contributing to organizations that further women’s causes: ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the Malala Fund to name a few.

Otherwild

Otherwild

If you step into an Otherwild store, the first thing that greets you is the fresh quirkiness of the space and its merchandise. Apart from funky apparel and ceramics, you also have your pick of a good-natured dose of LGBT-friendly merch thrown in. 

The woman behind this radical, fun store is Rachel Berks. An artist and graphic designer by profession, Berks has created her concept store intending to provide a space for events and a platform for upcoming design artists to showcase their wares.

Instagram has been her go-to place to advertise anything new her team has brewed. The most easily identifiable objects in her store are “the future is female” tees that have gone crazy viral on Instagram.

As Berks, herself says in an interview, the focus is on LGBTQ, artists, and designers.

Dôen

Dôen

The attitude behind Dôen is casual and bohemian. 

Sisters Margaret and Katherine Kleveland started the direct-to-customer site as a means to celebrate all it means to be a woman. Exasperated with a state-of-affairs in which men called the shots at most levels in fashion, they started a company that would be run entirely by women.

The Kleveland sisters are so intent on female ownership in a business that even the factories they source from are either owned or co-owned by women. This is what real-world emancipation looks like!

Dôen has amassed a cult following for its dreamy aesthetic. The website lists categories such as tops, knitwear, footwear, and sleepwear, among others.

Yelani

Yelani

Yelani was founded in 2009 by Yetunde Jude, a recognized veteran black hair care expert, to develop hair care products of the highest quality for women.

The brand states its purpose to ‘uplift black women’, by making it easier for them to take care of their hair. Its gentle products are designed to reduce shedding, detangling time, and breakage while focusing on softening and strengthening the hair. 

Yelani’s products are 100% free of chemicals that can cause cancer and hair damage. And is known for using herbs, essential oils, and plant-based ingredients, that are tailor-made for women with natural curls and give healthy, and soft hair.

Apart from its niche of catering to women with natural curls, the brand also has a wide range of products, with the focus of providing healthy hair for kids and helping men grow fuller, thicker beards.  

Mulberry & Grand

Mulberry & Grand

“Inspiration is everywhere we look. My goal is to bring that inspiration to life with this brand, and to inspire women to celebrate themselves,” says Emily Guggino, the founder of Mulberry & Grand

The NY-based boutique offers a unique selection of jewelry, accessories, clothing, gifts & more that are hand-made, trendy, and affordable. 

Along with its passion for unique style, the brand strongly believes in and spreads the message of diversity and inclusivity as they always look to hire and collaborate with a diverse group of people from all over the world.

They are currently offering a 15% discount for students and free shipping on US orders above $35. Check them out! 

ByChari

Established in 2012, ByChari is a reflection of designer Chari Cuthbert’s approach to life and style. More than a jewelry line as they state, it’s a way for women to create and share their stories. 

Handmade sustainably in Los Angeles, Chari and her team remain committed to supporting local small businesses so that each BYCHARI piece can be worn with confidence.

Started just as a concept of creating effortless, unique, and modern designs that aren’t found anywhere else, BYCHARI is now worn by household names including Kate Hudson, Rose Huntington-Whiteley, Aimee Song, Chiara Ferragni, and Rocky Barnes.

If you are someone who appreciates simplicity but demands luxury in their jewelry, BYCHARI is your cup of tea in style and fashion. 

“There is something so subtle and beautiful about jewelry. I love how each piece, and how it’s worn, tells a story about the woman who wears it.” –– Chari Cuthbert, Designer & Creative Director

Natural Earth Paint

Natural Earth Paint was founded in 2011 by professional artist Leah Fanning, after searching for non-toxic yet high-quality art supplies and finally decided to create the products she desired herself. 

Not just products, NEP is committed to being 100% eco-friendly, even in their packaging (made with biodegradable plastic bags and recyclable glass bottles.) and a solar-powered production facility. 

NEP received the prestigious Gold certification from Green America – the highest rank for a green business, the Cribsie Award in 2016 after receiving 40,000 votes, and has been featured in over 100 blogs, reviews, and magazine articles, including Forbes and Huffington Post.

Then I Met You

Then I Met You

Founded by Charlotte Cho, Then I Met You is inspired by the Korean concept of Jeong, a deep feeling of empathy and affection that one can develop for people, places, and things. 

Jeong is what drives the brand to put others ahead of themselves and work towards the greater good of the community. 

The name ‘Then I Met You’ is synonymous with the moment of interaction when customers try out the product for the first time, which will impact their lives forever. 

The brand is known for its suite of unique products of the highest quality ingredients such as the radiant orange of sea buckthorn, the deep brown of cocoa, and licorice, etc without artificial colorants, parabens, silicones, and alcohol (‘product perfectionists’ seems so apt now). 

Following its journey towards the greater good, the brand also focuses on sustainability in its formulations, production, and packaging. I Gotta say, excellent stuff! 

The Lip Bar

While the concept of Lip Bar may be trivial, the story and the cause behind it make it so much inspirational and show us why the brand has grown so much since its inception in 2012. 

Melissa Butler started Lip Bar over frustration caused by the media and the beauty industry in defining beauty standards even in shades of lipsticks. She realized that despite high standards and unnecessary chemicals, the industry had low diversity and a lack of inclusivity. 

That’s when she decided to kill all the birds with one stone. 

The Lip Bar is a vegan and cruelty-free beauty brand that exists to change the way people think about beauty and remind them that there are no beauty standards and they are enough to be beautiful!   

The Lip Bar has been featured in various magazines such as Elle, WWD, Glamour, Essence, etc.

Ettitude

Ettitude

Founded by Phoebe Yu, Ettitude’s brand stands by one thing and one thing only, comfort with a conscience. 

And how do they do that, you ask? 

Ettitude uses their own fabric CleanBamboo, which uses 500x less water (saves 8,189 gallons – as much as 93 Americans use in a day!) and emits 50% less CO2 (saving 25.9 Kg – equivalent to driving 64.3 miles!). 

Apart from the effort with their products, Ettitude has also been donating to various causes such as anti-racism, gender equality, bushfires, and climate change, etc.

The W Marketplace

The W Marketplace

The pandemic has negatively impacted millions of lives across the world, with women comparatively more affected more than their male counterparts. A survey shows as much as 45% of the permanently-closed women-led businesses may never set up shop again.

That’s when the team led by Kate Isler and Susan Gates decided to step up and create a platform where women could launch or grow a business, find resources to help them succeed, and meet other women entrepreneurs and business owners. And Voila! The W Marketplace was born. 

Apart from just providing a platform to set up shop, the marketplace also has a blog section, where womentrepreneurs share their inspiring success stories. Have a read at them.

The Honey Pot Company

The Honey Pot Company

The Honey Pot Company is the first one that is out there to provide a complete feminine care system with their feminine hygiene products. 

Founded by Beatrice Dixon, Honey Pot Co’s products are made with herbs that are 100% natural, without any chemicals or toxins, are biodegradable, and are made in a cruelty-free way.  

The brand further steps up its game by providing menstrual care for women who are homeless, low income, or living in poverty. 

They also offer you personalized recommendations based on your answers. Check out for yourself

Beauty Bakerie

Beauty Bakerie

After a successful fight with breast cancer, Cashmere Nicole founded Beauty Bakerie in 2011 when she became extremely conscious about the products she uses and decided to share them with the world. 

The Beauty Bakerie brand is a direct reflection of Cashmere’s perseverance and passion for both high-quality and healthy ingredients, cruelty-free, all-inclusive cosmetics that enhance the beauty in everyone, every day.

The brand has also been instrumental in setting up Sugar Homes, an initiative that supports the needs of orphaned children worldwide and has been vocal for various issues such as addressing the disparities within the beauty industry and the Black Lives Matter movement, etc. Check out their collections here.

Redwood Classics Apparel

Redwood Classics Apparel

Founded by Kathy Cheng, Redwood Classics Apparel strives to provide its customers with the highest level of quality fabric available.

Their garments feature flatlock stitching which weaves in an extra thread to provide greater strength and durability and their entire process from sewing and dyeing to packaging and shipping combines traditional, handcrafted practices with state-of-the-art technology and computerization.

The brand stands for promoting and facilitating diversity and continues its efforts to help aboriginal and minority-owned businesses in Canada and strengthen a nationwide movement toward a more equitable, globally responsible industry. 

Their website has beautiful behind-the-scenes videos of their factory. Take a look at them here.

Mented Cosmetics

Mented

A glass of pinot and a conversation between KJ Miller and Amanda Johnson on how hard it was to find the perfect shade of lipstick was what sparked the idea of creating Mented Cosmetics.  

Each of the brand’s products is perfectly pigMented to match your skin tones because the brand wants all women, from light to tan to dark skin tones, to feel like they have makeup that actually works for their complexions. 

All lipsticks are vegan, paraben-free, non-toxic, and cruelty-free. Explore their full collection of makeup products.

Vital Pet Life

Started by Donie and her partner Kyle, Vital Pet Life’s story began when they were unable to find a soothing, non-GMO, toxin-free product for their dog Tuxedo. 

All of their products are clean, sustainably sourced, and toxin-free. 

After you purchase a VPL product, you’re not only a customer but a part of the community that unlocks their happiness, vibrance, and longevity for their fur-babies.

The brand strives to always give you quality products and the best customer service and is committed to the health of your furry loved ones and your satisfaction. Much appreciation!

Black Girl Sunscreen

Black Girl Sunscreen

Black Girl Sunscreen’s story begins with the need for melanin women to have a sunscreen brand that caters exclusively to them.

It all started when founder Shontay Lundy grew frustrated with either having to carry expensive umbrellas or neglecting to go outside altogether due to white residue from regular sunscreens. That’s when she decided to create a natural non-white residue sunscreen brand for women of color.

Black Girl Sunscreen uses NO parabens, or other harmful chemicals while infusing the finest ingredients to shield and moisturize your melanated skin without the dreaded white residue common with most sunscreen.

Apart from sunscreens and skin care products, they also offer cool coffee mugs and sweatshirts. Check them out!

The Herbs and Bees

The Herbs and Bees

Founded by Noha Soliman, The Herbs & Bees is a business with a mission to bring safe, fresh skincare products into every household and overall, make the world a better place. 

They are an ethical and environmentally-conscious brand that uses flower extracts, plan-based and seed oils instead of petroleum-based oils, parabens and sulfates, etc so that your skin can detox and heal itself.

The products are fully produced in the USA, and their packaging is 100% reusable and recyclable as they believe in making their carbon footprint as small as possible.  

The brand uses ingredients such as activated charcoal, bergamot, bentonite clay, etc, and has been certified as organic, vegan, and cruelty-free by organizations such as PETA.

Universal Standard

Why does it have to be so hard to shop when you’re a plus-size? Why do you not get the same options like everybody else? Why do you have to forgo the pleasure of shopping due to a lack of options?

These are some of the questions that enabled Alexandra Waldman and Polina Veksler to create their own brand: Universal Standard.

Their clothing line has all sizes (0 to 40), catering to any woman who walks into the store wishing to buy a garment. Nobody will be turned away as their size isn’t available.

They not only have clothes sizes up in their collection but also down. Gotta love the all-inclusive policy!

Good quality stylish clothes that fit perfectly should certainly be available to everybody! Way to go!

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