Need to know
Retail
Avoiding Disaster: Where Most Magento 2 Projects Go Wrong
Here’s what we’ve learned from nearly 20 Magento 2 rescues/takeovers “Did we choose the wrong platform?!?” Replatforming to Magento 2 is an exciting project, full of options. You might be switching because M1 will no longer be supported after June 2020 or...
read more
New Sales Tax Laws in the US: the eCommerce Impact
With 52 different states and jurisdictions + a dizzying amount of sales tax laws, how will merchants keep up? Sales tax is a big source of revenue for states. It is in each state’s best interest to be vigilant about getting paid. Up until 2018, there were some...
read more
Home Decor x Omnichannel eCommerce White Paper
The Ultimate Guide To Selling Home Decor, Furniture and Housewares in an Omnichannel World “Omnichannel Home Decor, Furniture and Housewares, Oh My!” Find out how today’s consumers discover, research and purchase furniture and housewares, which touchpoints...
read more
inRiver PIM User Insight: Improvements to CVL Exports, Contribute App and Long-running Jobs
The industry-leading PIM solution just got even easier to work with! Most inRiver Product Marketing Cloud (iPMC) updates contain small improvements or bug fixes. But inRiver’s most recent release includes some major updates that we really like. If you were irritated...
read more
Half the Awards at Quebec eCommerce Summit Won by Absolunet Clients
BMR Group, Structube and Surplus RD celebrated as Quebec’s leading digital merchants. The CQCD, Quebec’s retail board, announced the winners of its annual eCommerce awards - among which six Absolunet-powered projects were finalists, with 3 of 6 awards...
read more
Absolunet Takes Home inRiver North-American Partner of the Year and PIM Dream Team Award
PIM leader, inRiver, awards top partnership status to Absolunet and highlights its PIM work with client Miller Coors Montreal, QC – October 5th, 2018 – InRiver has named Absolunet its North-American Partner of the Year. This is the fourth consecutive time the...
read more
Getting Your PIM Project Off to the Right Start
Are you considering a Product Information or Product Content Management solution for your company? Good, that means that you (and your organization) understand how essential product information is to digital growth. You may, however, be wondering “where do we start?”...
read more
How Absolunet’s Luxury Clients Transform the Meghan Markle Effect into eCommerce Sales
What happens when a super-influencer wears your brand? It can make your year… or crash your eCommerce site. When the über-stylish Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, wears something, media and people around the world notice, leading to major spikes in demand...
read more
Google Maps’ New Pay-as-you-go Model: eCommerce Implications and Required Actions
What Retailers and Merchants (including B2B) need to know: store locators and other services may stop working if no action is taken. Google Maps may have stopped working for your store(s). Key eCommerce takeaways of Google Maps’ new structure: Google Maps...
read more
The Magento/Google Analytics Gap, Explained
Why does the sales data from your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system differ from the numbers shown on Google Analytics (GA)? As it turns out, the number gap is normal and somewhat unavoidable. Here are the factors that create the divide. When a...
read more
Absolunet’s Canadian eCommerce Index: Mobile Nearly HALF of eCommerce Traffic in Q2
A typically sleepy second quarter sees substantial growth for Canadian retailers, particularly in terms of mobile traffic and total transactions. The second quarter of the year is typically slower sales-wise for retailers. Yet Q2 KPIs suggest that...
read more
Brand Manufacturers + Product Information Syndication = A Match Made in eCommerce Heaven
Decrease your time to market, build consumer confidence, and increase sales with product information syndication. The dynamic: before they buy, consumers thoroughly research the product. Say you are shopping for clothing online. If you landed on a product...
read more
The 3 Rules of Product Content
Product content syndication creates strategic and technical advantages in eCommerce, something that more and more brands in both retail and B2B have realized. Product content is an eCommerce “must-have”. Whether you are a retailer, wholesaler or brand...
read more
Magento Knocks IBM Out of the Big Four in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce
In 5 years, Magento has gone from little fish to enterprise player, replacing IBM among the big four eCommerce platforms, alongside SAP, Salesforce and Oracle, according to Gartner. Moving from “niche player” to “leader” in 5 years, Magento’s significant...
read more
The End of Sporting Goods Retail as We Know It (White Paper)
How sporting goods brands and retailers are embracing digital disruption Major chains have shut their doors. In-store traffic is on the decline. The workout clothing/athleisure market continues to expand and consumers are showing a preference for buying...
read more
International eCommerce Checklist: Before You Go Global…
Thinking of expanding into new geographical markets? There’s a checklist for that. Selling online across regions and borders brings complexities that are easy (yet so, so costly) to overlook. So, we created this easy-to-use checklist to help retailers,...
read more
Absolunet’s Canadian eCommerce Index: Strong Revenue Growth and Other KPIs Up in Q1
Revenue and traffic on the rise for Canadian retailers in 2018 The first quarter of the year was a time of significant growth for Canadian retailers who invested in their eCommerce infrastructures, reports Absolunet’s 2018 Q1 Canadian eCommerce Index,...
read more
4 Mother’s Day Tactics to Drive eCommerce Sales
Spending for Mother’s Day is projected to reach 23.1 billion dollars this year in the United States as 86% of buyers will shell out an average of $180 for the mothers in their lives. This is an excellent opportunity to increase sales, even if you don't...
read more
eCommerce Insights: The Difference Between Personalization and Segmentation
The first step on the path to implementing these strategies is to understand the difference between the two. The Difference: a high-level view: Segmentation is done manually. You divide your visitors/clients/customers into groups or categories, based on general...
read more
What Consumer Data Do You Need to Start Doing Personalization?
A hot topic in eCommerce, personalization is only profitable if you have the right data. For those who are less familiar, personalization is an automated process that uses an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to generate unique and relevant content for each...
read more
How to Get Started with eCommerce Segmentation
In eCommerce, segmentation involves dividing the sum of your customers/visitors into more manageable groups based on who/what/where they are. First, understand why segmentation (and its more algorithmic sibling, personalization) works: Today’s consumers: are...
read more
Absolunet’s eCommerce Holiday Index : Growth, Mobile and Trends for Canadian Retailers
eCommerce Revenue up 53%, and 4 other KPI from the 2017 holiday period in Canada The 2017 holiday period was a time of significant growth for Canadian retailers who invested in their eCommerce infrastructures, reports the first eCommerce Holiday Index for...
read more
Alcohol Retail’s Digital Future
Consumers are about to start adding beer, wine and spirits to their digital shopping carts like never before. The grocery industry's eCommerce surge will soon hit the liquor/alcohol industry. In 2016, 29% of digital consumers in the U.S. purchased groceries online at...
read more
The Digital Transformation of Alcohol Retail
Alcohol retailers: When it comes to alcohol, your next biggest segment of customers (millennials) has different product preferences and buying habits than their predecessors. You already knew that. But as a liquor board (in Canada) or an alcohol retailer...
read more
Top 10 eCommerce Trends That Will Impact Retailers in 2018
Absolunet analyzed over 60 eCommerce initiatives from brands and retailers to predict the 10 trends that will have the greatest impact in 2018. Montreal - December 11 2017 - Absolunet reveals the top 10 trends that will impact North American retailers in 2018. The...
read more
Adobe’s 5 Predictions for the 2017 Holiday Season
Adobe Digital Insights (ADI)’s annual “Holiday Predictions Report” is out. Here is a condensed version so you can a) be aware of retail trends on the horizon or b) sound like an eCommerce guru at your next holiday party. Prediction No. 1: The 2017...
read more
6 Strategies High Performing Retailers Can Use This Holiday Season
Retailers: if your holiday strategy is all about rebates and discounts, read this, thank us later. Gain practical, usable insight on: Reducing buying friction The irresistible promo Leveraging your consumers’ social networks Ecosystems Inventory +...
read more
eCommerce-Québec Summit: Recap and Highlights
The CQCD’s 2017 Summit featured several Absolunet clients, including Sportium, Marie Claire and Gosselin Photo. On October 4th and 5th, Absolunet actively participated in the CQCD’s yearly conference. Alongside clients Sportium, Marie Claire and Gosselin...
read more
A Cyber-November Cheat Sheet for Retailers
In short: be ready WAY before Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Have a plan and focus on (eCommerce) basics Your Cyber November Strategy is ready by now, right? With the right strategy, Cyber November will not only increase sales, but also draw in new consumers and...
read more
A Sleek, User-Centric eCommerce Platform for Kanuk
The new Kanuk.com promotes the brand’s values as well as its quality, selection and style. Kanuk’s digital platform was designed to meet the needs of a growing client base in Quebec, Canada, the US and Europe, all while respecting the brand’s heritage and...
read more
4 Reasons for Amazon’s Weak Presence in Québec…and Why All That is About to Change.
This week at eCOM MTL, Alexandre Gagnon, the Vice-President of Amazon Canada and Amazon Mexico, spoke about Amazon’s underrepresentation in Quebec markets. Here are 4 possible reasons for explaining this phenomenon which, honestly, is about to change. 1....
read more
From 3,000 to 40,000 SKUs Online : How SAIL Leverages PIM.
SAIL, the outdoors superstore, was featuring only 3,000 of their 50,000 products on their online platform. Needing to better serve their customers and grow its online product footprint, SAIL chose inRiver’s Product Information Management solution. SAIL...
read more
Canadian Lingerie Giant Centralizes 4,000 SKUs Into PIM System
La Vie en Rose, the leading Canadian retailer in lingerie and swimwear, was distributing 4,000 products to 18 countries, yet their in-house product information management (PIM) system was woefully inadequate - and they knew it. Each department was...
read more
eCommerce Basics: Is the Customer Journey Dead?
Rumors of the death of the customer journey have been greatly exaggerated. Don’t believe the hype: Customer Journey Mapping (CJM), customer experience and customer-centric design are alive and well - and they’re part of the solution to bridging the...
read more
TOPS Products Enables Massive Channel Growth With Automated Product Information System
“Welcome to Excel hell” With 10,000 stock-keeping units (SKU) and the acquisition of 4 new brands, TOPS Products, an office products manufacturer, was struggling to manage the explosion of product information. Employees were juggling enormous data...
read more
3 Justifications for Investing in Augmented Reality
After the initial “novelty” phase, Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities will transform the way B2C and B2B customers buy. Reality check: Augmented Reality or AR refers to a technology that superimposes computer-generated images onto a user’s view of the...
read more
PCI Compliance – Understanding the Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ)
Once you know your merchant level, you’ll need to walk through the correct Self-Assessment Questionnaire, one of 3 validations required for PCI compliance This article is part 3 in a 4-part series on PCI compliance. Choosing the right Self-Assessment...
read more
PCI Compliance: Which “Merchant Level” Applies to Your Business?
Whether you’re processing $15k in transactions a month or $6 million, you need to be PCI Compliant. This article is part 2 in a 4-part series on PCI compliance. PCI Compliance : the basics Who: The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council or PCI...
read more
PCI Compliance: What Online Retailers Need to Know
If you accept credit card payments, Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards need to be fully integrated into your eCommerce business. This article is part 1 in a 4-part series on PCI compliance. In other words, if you sell using digital, you should be PCI...
read more
Gosselin Photo Moves to Omnichannel Commerce
The biggest photo specialist in Quebec launches an omnichannel website through a partnership with Absolunet Absolunet is proud to announce the launch of Gosselin Photo’s new website: www.gosselinphoto.ca. Developed in collaboration with Adviso, the site offers...
read more