Inside Commerce: Ecommerce Strategy, CX and Technology Podcast

Maplin is a much-loved UK brand with a surprisingly large product catalogue and diverse audience. Having gone into administration in 2018, the brand was bought by Digital First Retail Ltd. It’s now online only having shuttered the stores, so we’re getting under the hood to explore how & why Magento was used to power its new ecommerce operation.

Rapha was founded in 2004 in London with the goal of making the world’s finest cycling clothing, for beginners through to cycling professionals. The brand has grown rapidly online and technology has inevitably been a key enabler. For this episode we talked to Rapha’s Technology Director Ben Bodien about the technologies they use and how they’re using them to support and drive business growth.

Investment in marketing automation tools has been increasing rapidly. Did you know that 9 out of 10 marketers use more than one form of marketing automation software? According to Marketo 76% of companies that implement marketing automation generate a return on their investment within the first year.

Having recently talked at BrightonSEO, we invited Nick Huber, cofounder & CEO of Noopd, to discuss how AI tools help people make smarter campaign decisions. This episode is ideal for people working in ecommerce who don't yet have an advanced level of paid media knowledge and want to learn more

It’s the $million question. You’re migrating to a new platform and want to ensure it’s fit for purpose, and you’ve understood potential issues & risks to enable mitigation plans to be put in place. How do you evaluate a new platform to get meaningful insights and avoid a vanilla box ticking exercise?

In this episode, Paul & James provide practical advice and tips based on years of experience. They cover deciding which capabilities to focus on, how to plan & run effective demos, how to do due diligence and much more. 

We've been involved in many agency selection processes, whether that's offering advice on how to run the project or making agency recommendations. What these projects have in common is a find the best-fit agency partner based on culture, capability, experience and affordability.

In this episode we share advice on how to select an agency partner, discussing why you need to take this process seriously, the key capabilities of a good partner and effective decision criteria.

Did you know that cart and checkout abandonment account for up to a 70% loss in sales on average, based on 41 studies conducted between 2012 and 2019? Reducing and recapturing this lost revenue can greatly increase your conversions, allowing you to grow faster. One way to achieve this is to improve the quality of data capture using smart automation tools.

For our 96th episode, James was joined by Matt Furneaux, Global Commercial Director at Loqate, a GBG solution. Loqate is a global solution specialist, providing a range of technology services to ecommerce teams to improve data capture and validation in the checkout.

In our 95th episode, Paul and James discuss a host of different roles and when / why they're needed for different types of replatforming projects. Key topics for this episode include resourcing PM functions, different approaches to creative / design, the benefits of different technical inputs / roles and the importance of subject matter experts.

Ecommerce growth has been pretty epic since 2019. McKinsey stated that the US experienced 10 years’ growth in just 30 days! There are two sub-trends we’re covering on this podcast episode: ecommerce marketplaces and pre-owned luxury shopping.  Linnworks consumer research found that nine out of 10 shoppers regularly started product searches on marketplaces, while figures from Mirakl show marketplaces grew 80% in the final quarter of 2020, twice the growth rate of other ecommerce channels.  We discuss the challenges of starting and scaling a marketplace for pre-owned fashion and accessories with the CEO of Open For Vintage, Colin Saunders.

In our 93rd episode, Paul goes solo and is joined by Diego Fria, experienced Luxury ecommerce professional and Ecommerce Director at global fashion brand Toteme. Diego talks about Toteme's recent migration to Shopify Plus, scaling internationally, growing in Asian markets, multi-channel ecommerce and building out his internal ecommerce team.

In our 92nd episode, we're joined by TrueFit EMEA Managing Director Sarah Curran and Principal Success Manager, Astrid Laidet. Sarah and Astrid talk to us about the optimum setup for sizing in ecommerce, the impact of poor sizing information and context, how TrueFit works and various case studies illustrating how retailers are reducing returns rates.