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Organic Food Products: Expanding eCommerce Market for Value-First Shoppers

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The Indian organic food market is expected to reach a staggering $4,602 million by 2028 with growth at a remarkable CAGR of 23.8% during 2023-2028. The need for healthier life choices was realized with an awkward awakening during the global pandemic. The post-pandemic world has woken up to a new way of life ‘The new normal’ where health took the front seat. The changing lifestyle with value-driven spending on products becomes essential in the global Commerce ecosystem in the FMCG market segment. What started almost a decade ago moved with rapid pace across eCommerce platforms at a rapid pace. The plethora of organic brands has flooded the e-commerce landscape led by the digitally native brands (DNB) competing with organic variants of big brands. The fiercely competitive space is heating up. It is basically all about shoppers getting more inclined towards value-first product choices. The Health-Conscious Organic Food eCom Landscape The broader section of tier-1 demographics is now attracted to products that add value to their daily life. The focus is on value-oriented purchases rather than cost. This shift in consumer behavior has widened the organic food section in the digital commerce ecosystem. It’s an exciting transformation phase in the Indian organic food eCommerce market driven by consumer demand for more sustainable and healthier alternatives. eCom Marketplaces has been redefining this market segment, catering to the growing needs of health-conscious consumers and providing a platform for organic brands to flourish. The favorable norms and ample support from the government help Digitally Native Brands grow in the segment. Even FMCG giants like ITC are also moving towards providing organic variants. India’s organic sector is poised for a remarkable future, benefiting consumers and farmers as well. Organic Food & Beverage Industry The e-commerce revolution has provided organic brands and producers with a powerful platform to reach a wider audience and tap into the growing consumer demand. Online stores specializing in organic products have emerged as convenient one-stop destinations for consumers seeking healthy, chemical-free alternatives. These platforms offer an extensive range of organic food, beverages, and household products. The diverse array of organic choices on the brand’s website and eCommerce platforms have made it easy for shoppers to pick these products over non-organic alternatives. According to a report by the IMARC Group, the Indian organic food market reached a value of $1,278 million in 2022. Even more impressive is the projected growth, with estimates suggesting that the market will reach a staggering $4,602 million by 2028, reflecting a remarkable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.8% during 2023-2028. This data underscores the immense potential and promising future of the organic sector in India. The IMARC Group’s report states that the organic food market in India was worth $1,278 million in 2022. The report predicts that the market will grow even more and reach an astonishing $4,602 million by 2028. The staggering growth rate of 23.8% from 2023 to 2028 highlights the potential of the organic industry in India. Rise of Value-First Shoppers One of the perks of organic food balance of quality and pricing. The target is the value-first shoppers. Expanding businesses are generating the need to prefer organic alternatives opening new avenues and exploring demographics in tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Invention & innovation are the driving forces behind the rise of organically produced and processed food dominated and promoted by the value-first customers, this segment. The segment is deepening its impact on the eCommerce landscape. The Advantages Indian e-commerce platforms have witnessed significant growth in the organic food category in recent years. The increasing health consciousness among consumers and the demand for chemical-free and environmentally sustainable products have contributed to the popularity of organic food in India. Several major e-commerce platforms in India, such as Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket, and Grofers, offer a diverse range of organic food products. These platforms act as a marketplace where sellers and brands can showcase and sell their organic food items to consumers across the country. For brands, it’s critical to push for sales across the omnichannel digital commerce landscape. This includes organic cereals and grains, pulses and legumes, dairy products, spices, oils, snacks, beverages, and even organic baby food. To ensure the authenticity and quality of organic products, there are certification standards in place like the National Program for Organic Production (NPOP) and the Participatory Guarantee System for India (PGS-India). Brands need to highlight this while listing products on eCommerce platforms. What do the Organic brands need to excel on the eCommerce platform? Understanding of the market segment & competition Indian e-commerce platforms have also provided a platform for regional and local organic food brands to reach a wider customer base. These brands often focus on sourcing organic produce from local farmers and promoting sustainable agricultural practices. But doing good is not enough on the eCommerce platform. Brands need to update on market trends with competitive insight and analysis across eCommerce places and geographies to cope with fierce competition among brands. To stay on top of the eCom game brands need to have a clear understanding of the market segment and identify the target customers and white spaces in the segment. Make customers feel valued Customer reviews and ratings play an important role in guiding purchase decisions. Brands need to understand customer sentiments and utilize the insights to cater to their needs and improve brand performance. The Customers’ feedback and experiences with organic food products can help them make informed choices and make them feel valued. Balance of quality and pricing Pricing is a critical part of the organic food segment on the eCommerce platform as they not only compete with other organic brands and product variants but also with the non-organic products in that food & beverage category or sub-category. This makes tracking pricing trends for own brand and competition very important for organic food brands. Brands need to highlight the value of their organic product in their product detail page (PDP) to help make customer purchase decisions based on the value it adds to their daily life.

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Decode the Fraud Series: Cracking Down on Click Spamming?

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While online fraud perhaps started with email spamming, it has come a long way. Today, ad fraud takes many forms, and it costs digital advertisers several billion dollars. The lure of making quick money has motivated modern fraudsters to employ sophisticated techniques to commit fraud. Ad fraud techniques such as domain spoofing, cookie stuffing, ad stacking, ad injection, geo masking, and many others are just a few of the many techniques employed by modern fraudsters. Ad fraud is a serious problem that drains budgets and can cause long-term damage by skewing campaign performance data. Awareness is the first step for any advertiser looking to protect their ad campaigns and the budgets associated with them. This article will help you build this awareness. In the subsequent sections of this article, you will gain an in-depth understanding of one of the most prevalent click fraud techniques- click spamming. Let’s dive right in: What Is Click Spamming? Click spamming is a click fraud technique that involves the generation of fake clicks on ads or app download links. With click spamming, the clicks generated often come from genuine devices with authentic devices and user IDs. Click spamming can take many forms. Some of the most common ones are: Click Flooding- Fraudsters generate several fake clicks on ads within an app. Generating Fake Impressions- Fraudsters use a mobile app to generate fake views on videos in the background. The user is often unaware of this activity. In some cases, the app may place multiple ‘hidden’ ads within the ad interface and get credit for authentic impressions when a user views them. Organic Poaching- Fraudsters use malware-laced apps to claim credit for authentic app downloads. How Does Click Spamming Happen? Click spamming activity usually happens in one of the following two ways: 1. Click Flooding and Generating Fake Impressions: To execute this type of click fraud, the fraudster first places a utility app on the app download store. Examples of such apps may include a torch app or a calculator. However, this activity is not limited to utility apps and has been observed in games and other types of apps. Once a user has downloaded the app, it continues to run in the background. Without the knowledge of the user, the app’s in-built features generate automated clicks on ads. Similar techniques are used to generate impressions and views. 2. Organic Poaching: With organic poaching, the app downloaded by the user generates a number of clicks within the app. In some cases, it may be designed to enable an external device to click within the app. This goes on until the user downloads a promoted app or makes an in-app purchase. When they do, the credit is stolen by the fraudsters using organic poaching. While the obvious impact of such click fraud activities is the lost ad budget, there is a deeper, more serious problem. Click fraud can distort advertisers’ analytics, compromising their ability to make informed decisions. Access to data, the ability to test different ads and audiences, and the ability to optimize campaigns are perhaps the most pressing reasons to use digital advertising. Click fraud prevents advertisers from enjoying the full benefits of this access to data and associated benefits. Difference Between Click Spamming and Botnet Activity Click spamming and botnet activity have a few similarities and are often confused with each other. Both involve generating a large number of clicks on mobile apps, mobile landing pages, and web pages. However, the key difference lies in the source of the clicks. How To Identify Click Spamming in Your Ad Campaigns? Click spamming can be difficult to detect. This is because the origin of the clicks is an authentic device with a genuine device ID. That said, detecting click spamming isn’t impossible. If your ads are receiving a lot of traffic from a source, but the conversion rate is unusually low, it may be a sign of click spamming. To be sure, you can: Look into the publisher app. If the app does not have a lot of downloads but is generating a disproportionate number of clicks, consider it a red flag. It is also worth watching out for apps that haven’t been validated by Google’s Play Store. However, do you remember that there may be some genuine apps that have chosen to forego the validation process to protect their code? If you suspect a conversion, check the time between a click and a conversion. In most cases of organic poaching, fraudsters claim a conversion sometime after the click has been generated. How To Stop Click Spamming? Once you have identified sources of fake clicks, you can simply block them. However, doing this at scale every day is often not practical or effective. Manually tracking click spamming activity can be time-consuming. Moreover, the process is prone to human errors that may lead you to overlook important sources of clicks. Similarly, in some cases, wrong judgment may lead advertisers to block genuine sources of authentic conversions. The most reliable way to fight click spamming is to use an ad fraud solution like mFilterIt. mFilterIt uses its AI and ML capabilities to pinpoint verified instances of click spamming and also identify human-like traffic sources. This paints a transparent picture of your campaign performance and allows you to block sources of fraudulent traffic. Conclusion Click spamming is a serious fraud issue, but the unfortunate reality is that it is not the only one. Click fraud and other forms of online ad fraud are plaguing ad budgets and campaign reports. While this means that some advertisers will continue to struggle, for smart advertisers, this presents an opportunity to get ahead. Think about it, simply by using an ad fraud tool, you can improve campaign performance and the accuracy of your attribution sources. Get in Touch to learn more about click spamming. 

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The Rise of Direct Carrier Billing Across the Global Payment Ecosystem

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The global digital landscape is evolving swiftly with high rates of mobile penetration across the world even among the unbanked population. This has led to rapid changes in digital consumption patterns which fuel the need for swift, seamless, and secure payments. Rising to the occasion is Direct Carrier Billing (DCB). It has the upper hand compared to other payment modes. The ease of transaction via DCB is what is leading the global market penetration. It is set to experience significant growth. The key highlight of this rise is the African region which is estimated 84% rise in revenue in 2023. But still, ensuring secure and seamless DCB transactions remains a cause of concern. Let’s take a closer look at how various regions flourish with Direct Carrier Billing. The Global Prospects of DCB Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) has emerged as a powerful and convenient payment method that is rapidly gaining popularity across the world. In coming years, the DCB market size is all set to expand and grow at a notable CAGR of 13.13% in 2030 and is estimated to surpass US $115.72 billion by 2030. So, what’s propelling DCB? The answer is quite simple – need to make quick payments without any KYC or OTP. All it needs is a mobile phone and an active mobile number for billing. This has helped DCB find its foothold among the unbanked population in regions such as North Africa where internet penetration is limited and in the APAC region where high media consumption rates are driving DCB growth. According to research, 49% of DCB growth originates from Asia Pacific regions. But the challenge is the fragmented market and competition from digital wallets. Emerging DCB Markets: The emerging market geographies make up almost 60% of the DCB market value. Surprised? Don’t be. Factor in the high penetration of mobiles compared to emerging market’s unbanked population, then the number will look quite obvious. Carrier billing is the most prominent means of online transactions among the unbanked population. People with pre-paid can simply top up and begin spending. For Postpaid users, it could also be the source of credit with buy now pay later as the operator’s monthly bill. The key emerging market for DCB is the Middle East & Africa, where half of the population is unbanked, reaching as high as 70% in countries like Morocco, and in Central & South America, nearly 40% of the population is unbanked. This can translate almost directly into growth rates. End-user spending via carrier billing is expected to grow fastest in regions like Latin America with a rapid CAGR of 41 % by 2025. The Asia region (excluding the Far East & China), Africa, and the Middle East are not far behind, growing the second fastest at 24% CAGR to 2025. A secure environment is also essential for expanding DCB into new markets, particularly in emerging economies where DCB has the potential to revolutionize access to digital goods and services. These markets may be more vulnerable to fraud, so implementing a secure payment system is critical to ensure that DCB is seen as a trusted and reliable payment method. The DCB Ecosystem MENA (MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA) The region is one of the fastest-growing DCB markets in terms of mobile connections, with a big percentage of the population owning mobile phones. In a survey, 19% of consumers from the MENA region used cashless payment options last year. This is quite significant as the use of mobile payment methods is on the rise in the region. Another fact that came out of the survey was that 64% of consumers used one digital payment option at least. This also includes DCB (Source: FinTech News 2023). This highlights how payment systems are being adopted by the region. The emerging markets, such as ticketing, online gaming, and physical goods, have a projected YoY growth rate of 31%, 57%, and 40%, respectively, for the next four years. It is a sector already showing signs of high potential. This year will close with $7M in ticket sales in Africa and the Middle East region. Specifically, these categories will represent an expense of $86M in 2022. Credit card ownership in these countries is not widespread with only a small percentage of users. Therefore, options like DCB come along as a reliable and practical solution. SOUTH AFRICA The region spent about $89 million for digital content and services in 2022 via Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) with a year-on-year growth rate of 16% and above. Between 2022-2026 it’s all set to reach $159M in 2026. (Source: “DCB Evolution and Trends 2022-2026” by Telecom) DCB spending in South Africa represents around 15% of the global market in Africa and the Middle East, placing it as one of the most relevant countries by billing. South Africans currently spend an average of $4.2 per month on digital content. By 2026, this average figure will reach $5.5/month/user. The digital market is largely the one that most stimulate users when it comes to paying for their purchases through the operator. The most popular content paid with DCB is, in order, video games, videos, and music. ASIA-PACIFIC It is estimated that the Asia-Pacific direct carrier billing market will grow at a CAGR of 14.52% during the 2019-2028 period, with Japan currently leading the adoption of this mobile-based digital payment mode. One of the biggest reasons for the stupendous growth of DCB is a steady increase in the usage of mobile phones and smartphones in the region. Developed Markets Even in geographies where a high percentage of the population is banked, DCB provides opportunity. Looking at younger generations, there is lower credit card adoption, and as an age group who grew up with mobile phones, DCB is a more natural option. In the United States, only 50% of Gen Z have a credit card. Even among the card holders, the use is far less at 1.5 cards on average as compared to 4 credit cards for the average American. Win-Win for businesses, direct carrier

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Purchase Phase: Push Your Sales to Boost Conversions

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The third phase of the customer journey is where the decision-making process leads to the purchase Did you know? Shopping cart abandonment rates for most market segments and brands across eCommerce platforms are still around 70%! There could be multiple reasons for that some controllable some uncontrollable. The task at hand is optimizing customer experience at the purchase phase of the customer journey. Turn Browsers Into Customers The Purchase Phase is known as the decision stage. The consumer has completed their decision-making process. Also, have evaluated your brand in comparison to others, and is now prepared to make a purchase. This is the phase where shoppers convert into your customers. “Conversion” or “purchase” are the magic words for eCommerce brands but this stage is not always a guaranteed sale. It is at this stage that you as a business have to begin delivering on any promises you may have made to get the customer to this point. This phase includes performance tracking, monitoring sales conversions, reconciliations, and reviewing overall market performance across product listings, sales platforms, and geographies. It points out areas to optimize, and monitor your sales performance across the digital ecosystem. Your brand needs to clear certain efficiency checkpoints to optimize the purchase phase of the customer journey in the digital commerce ecosystem. Checkpoint I: Sales Performance To effectively monitor sales performance, businesses need a comprehensive sales analysis. Map brand sales data across multiple platforms, products, and key variables to ensure the purchase process becomes seamless and transparent for shoppers. Shoppers have already considered your product on factors such as availability, pricing, discounts, and reviews. If at this point item added to the cart does not end up in purchase, you need to identify the parameters that impact sales conversion. – Mapping brand sales time trends across platforms for your brand: Understanding how your brand’s sales fluctuate over time across different platforms is important. This information allows you to identify patterns, follow up on seasonal trends, and the impact of marketing campaigns on your sales. – Providing in-depth weekly sales insights: Regular monitoring of sales data is essential to stay ahead of any changes. By analyzing weekly sales insights, you can track fluctuations in sales, availability, pricing, ratings, and organic and sponsored rankings. This helps you promptly identify any issues and make data-driven decisions to optimize performance. – Business Impact of Monitoring Sales: Monitoring sales performance has several key impacts on your business. It enables your brand to streamline your efforts by comparing your key performance indicators (KPIs) against total sales. By identifying strengths and weaknesses in your sales strategy, you can visualize solutions and make informed decisions based on precise sales data. Checkpoint II: Market Performance Understanding how your brand performs in the market is crucial for sustained success. Even if you map the entire customer journey on various touchpoints brands need to maintain a scorecard of market performance. Monitoring market performance involves tracking brand-specific markets, market trends, and sub-category performance. – Tracking brand performance on product sub-categories compared to the competition: Analyzing your brand’s performance in specific sub-categories allows you to gain insights into your market share, identify areas where you excel, and discover growth opportunities. By benchmarking against competitors, you can make strategic adjustments to gain a competitive edge. – Monitoring month-over-month positive and negative changes in brand performance: Keeping a close eye on changes in your brand score is essential for understanding market dynamics. By tracking fluctuations and identifying positive and negative trends, you can proactively address issues, capitalize on opportunities, and refine your marketing and sales strategies. – Insights into the brand and individual brand score trends at brand and sub-category levels: In-depth insights into brand and individual brand score trends provide a comprehensive understanding of your performance. This information allows you to assess the impact of your marketing efforts, pricing strategies, customer sentiment, media presence, product availability, and best-seller scores. It empowers you to make data-driven decisions to enhance your brand’s positioning. Business Impact of Monitoring Market Performance: Monitoring market performance covers a broad spectrum, including SKU performance at the brand and product sub-category levels. It offers valuable insights into how your brand is performing in targeted markets and sub-categories. By tracking market trends and benchmarking against the competition, you gain a competitive advantage, identify growth opportunities, and refine your strategies accordingly. Checkpoint III: Sales Reconciliation Reconciliation is also the key part of this phase as it brings in transparency and ensures there is no discrepancy causing friction in the customer journey. It includes monitoring the return status across sellers, platforms, geographies, etc., and checking up on store performances and SKU sales. Final Thoughts In the highly competitive eCommerce landscape, customer retention is vital for sustained success. Monitoring sales and market performance provides valuable insights into your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. By leveraging precise sales data and market trends, businesses can optimize their strategies, boost sales, and deliver on customer expectations. By embracing these efficiency checkpoints and making informed decisions based on data-driven insights you can position your brand for long-term growth and profitability. mScanit, digital commerce solution can help you with end-to-end actionable insight and analysis vis-a-vis competition. It gives you that added edge that you need to stay ahead of your competition. Connect with us if you like to know how your brands can optimize the customer journey with digital commerce intelligence. The competitive digital commerce landscape means brands need to be on their toes on every phase of the customer journey – awareness, consideration, and purchase.

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From Vulnerability to Vigilance: Navigating Brand Safety in 2023

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Ensuring brand safety in the online ecosystem is becoming a growing concern for modern brands. A large chunk of marketers has started recognizing the threats against their brand’s safety. Misinformation, wrong messaging, bot traffic, and “algorithms” are just some of the many serious threats facing brands these days. In a survey of over 600 leaders at top brands, agencies, and media buying companies, 40% expressed that they expect threats to their brand safety to grow in 2023. While that is an alarming number, the good news is that the awareness needed to push back against such threats is increasing. As online fraudsters become more creative and innovative with the techniques, they use to commit fraud, advertisers are also becoming more cautious. If you are one such advertiser, this article is for you. In the upcoming sections, we will discuss how advertisers and brands can prepare themselves to face and triumph over the ever-evolving brand safety issues in 2023. Without wasting any time, let’s jump right in. Why is Brand Safety Essential for Brands in 2023? Brand safety is important to every single stakeholder involved in the advertising supply chain. Starting from the ad networks to the publishers, it is important to do their part in maintaining brand safety to ensure that their customers, the advertisers, continue trusting them with their ad budgets. That said, there is no denying that brand safety incidents have the biggest impact on advertisers and brands. In worst cases, brands may experience permanent, irreparable damage to their brand reputation. Paying attention to brand safety and protection isn’t just important from the point of view of preventing a negative impact on brand reputation. There are many positive benefits of actively pursuing and monitoring brand safety. Some of them are: For a Positive Brand Image Brand safety threats can take many forms. One of the most daunting ones includes instances where a brand’s ad is published on websites that host questionable or extremist content. Having a brand’s ad published on websites that engage in fraudulent activities can also cause significant damage to the brand’s reputation. While most stakeholders are aware that in most cases, advertisers have little control over where their ads are displayed, the same isn’t true for modern consumers. They may be quick to think that the brand in question supports the views or activities found on the publishing website. This, if not monitored and avoided, can cause serious damage to any brand’s reputation. This isn’t an imagined threat. The world’s biggest brands have experienced such a threat to their brand image and have used their position to transfer some of the consequences to publishers like Google. Unfortunately, smaller brands don’t enjoy the same luxury and thus, they must proactively protect their brand’s reputation against such a threat. To Make a Strong First Impression Brand reputation incidents can hurt any brand. However, established brands have a history associated with them, along with a loyal audience. These elements can prove advantageous and contribute towards a quick recovery after a brand reputation incident. However, upcoming brands don’t enjoy any such advantages. Even a single brand reputation-threatening instance can prove fatal for new brands trying to make a name for themselves. While that is the worst case, even in less extreme scenarios, emerging brands can expect their advertising costs to spike significantly after even a minor brand reputation incident. This is because in order to recover from such an incident will involve rebuilding the brand’s reputation from scratch. This may prove to be an undertaking that may demand a higher-than-usual investment in terms of the advertising budget. Key Considerations to Implement Brand Safety Now that we have established the importance of ensuring brand safety, you may be wondering what you can do to ensure the same. Here are actionable steps you can take to ensure your brand’s reputation is not under threat: 1. Set brand safety guidelines Defining brand safety best practices will enable you to understand actionable steps you must take (or avoid) in order to protect your brand’s reputation. To that end, you should consider defining guidelines that outline what ‘brand-safe’ content is, and what isn’t. You should also have clear guidelines outlining the kind of content that you never want to be associated with your brand. Most advertisers try to avoid content that talks about military conflict, drugs, arms, crime, death, and hate speech. While these can act as a good starting point for defining unsafe content for your brand, remember that this list is not exhaustive. You may want to add or omit certain types of content based on your brand’s preferences and audience. 2. Create a list of blocklisted sites Once you have identified what type of content you want to avoid, it is time to identify websites that are known to publish such content. This will be your own list of blocklisted websites. You can instruct publishers to never publish your content on any website in this list and ensure your brand does not appear next to questionable content. To make sure that this exercise has a positive impact, it is important to understand that it isn’t a one-time undertaking. It is recommended that you revisit this list from time to time and update your list. 3. Collaborate with a Brand Protection Partner Any smart advertiser can understand that as important as their list of blocked websites is, it can never be complete. There will always be questionable websites that you may not be aware of. However, just because you aren’t aware of such websites, it doesn’t mean that their potential to hurt your brand’s reputation is any less than others. So how do you protect your brand against threats that you are not even aware of? With the help of a brand protection partner like mFilterIt’s brand protection solution. Such a solution ensures that your brand protection infrastructure is bulletproof, with no missed instances. Let’s find out how this is made possible. How can mFilterIt help you protect your brand reputation? As mentioned above,

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Awareness Phase: Road to Reach The Top Shelf

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The first phase of the customer Journey is all about being discoverable across the e-commerce platforms Are your products the top draws on the eCommerce marketplace? In simpleton terms, Does your product pop up in the top search results and get picked up first? No?   Just being a known name in the brick-mortar shops and marketplace does not transpire the same way in the eCommerce arena. Unless the shopper is looking for a specific product of your brand.  So how does it work in the eCommerce ecosystem? Let’s take the first step on the journey and start charting your path to reach the top of the digital Shelf. Brand Efficiency in the Product Awareness Phase The spot on the top shelf is what drives brand efficiency. The fierce and feisty competition on the eCommerce landscape put immense pressure on brands to push for more and do better in digital marketplaces. But all efforts can turn to dust if your product does not reach the intended segment of shoppers. The brand being efficient in the Awareness Phase is key to getting on the top in organic search. So, what are the things your brand needs to do to be efficient in an awareness phase? Analyse and optimize content to create a perfect product detail page. Enhance Product Discoverability with Keywords Analyse & Optimize Banner Keep track of existing and new competitors in your segment Looks simple right? Not at all. In this preliminary phase of the customer journey making the product more discoverable and enhancing awareness is like starting from scratch which starts with getting the Product Display Page (PDP) content right. Efficiency Checkpoint 01 – Content Discoverability Check Pick the right words. What you write in the Product Title & Description is key to making the product more discoverable than competitors. Brands need to perform content audits regularly to ensure that the product pages are engaging on eCommerce platforms. To know more about what makes the content description more effective click here. PDP content Audit typically involves evaluating various aspects of content to assess its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. This includes: Image Analysis: Involves evaluating the images used to ensure they are visually appealing, relevant, and optimized for performance. Let the pictures speak for the product. Brands need to conduct Image Analysis on product images and ad banner images to check for performance and compliance. Perfect Page Analysis: Focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of individual pages. It involves assessing various aspects. The goal is to identify any issues or areas for improvement that might be hindering the page’s performance and user engagement. Keyword Recommendation for PDP (Product Detail Page): Identifying relevant and high-impact keywords that can optimize the page’s visibility. The recommended keywords should be strategically incorporated into the PDP’s content to improve its ranking and attract more organic traffic. Optimizing listing needs accurate, effective, and engaging content with the right set of high-performing keywords to boost rankings. Brands need to keep track of keywords to bid on their brand and competition for organic, sponsored, and generic keywords. Efficiency Checkpoint 02: PDP Discoverability Check Making your product discoverable on the eCommerce marketplace requires a lot of factors to come together and help optimize product performance. Optimize Brand-wise Discoverability Share: Analyzing how well your product content is being discovered and shared across different platforms. It involves assessing your brand’s visibility and tracking its performance over time. Role of Keywords: The key to boosting discoverability is the keywords. The keywords play an important role in making your products under various sub-brands, categories, and sub-categories pop up among the top searched results. Use of high-performing keyword Banner Performance: Analyzing eCommerce ad banner performance is essential for enhancing brand discoverability across different platforms. By evaluating the effectiveness of category page banners, banner themes, and keyword themes, brands can optimize their strategies to capture the attention of their target audience, increase brand exposure, and drive sales. With a data-driven approach to banner analysis, brands can refine their design, messaging, and targeting strategies to stand out in the competitive eCommerce landscape. (a). Category Page banner: Category page banners play a significant role in capturing the attention of potential customers as they navigate through eCommerce platforms. These banners are strategically placed within specific product categories, attracting users who are already interested in those particular items. By understanding which banners generate the most engagement and conversions, brands can optimize their designs and content to increase brand exposure and drive sales within relevant product categories. (b). Banner theme: The theme of an eCommerce ad banner refers to the overall visual and messaging concept it conveys. Analyzing the performance of different banner themes helps brands determine which styles resonate most effectively with their target audience. By identifying the most successful banner themes, brands can refine their design strategies to align with customer preferences and increase brand recognition. (c). Keyword Theme: Keyword themes are an integral part of eCommerce ad banners as they influence the ad’s visibility when users search for specific terms. By understanding which keywords are most relevant to their target audience and driving the desired actions, brands can optimize their ad campaigns for improved discoverability. Additionally, analyzing keyword themes helps brands refine their search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, ensuring their ads appear prominently when customers search for related products or services. Efficiency Checkpoint 03: Competition Discoverability Check Competitive insights and analytics across brands, sub-brands, product categories, sub-categories, and variants lead to data-driven business decisions that boost brand efficiencies on the eCommerce platform. Constant monitoring and performance tracking are required to stay updated on market trends and developments made by competitors across eCommerce marketplaces. Brands need to track new and existing competition brands and the product performance vs competition to upswing their performance and formulate effective business strategies. This analysis process goes beyond the Awareness & Discoverability phase of the brand. We shall cover that aspect of the customer journey and various touch points for a follow-up piece. Final Thoughts Awareness is just the first step in optimizing the customer journey, and ably the most crucial one as it’s a phase where

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Bricks to clicks: Brands expanding their footprints

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It’s not about the wings, it’s about the will to fly high. Shopping has been traditionally about look & feel, banking high on customers’ needs, and getting assured by trusting what they see. But times have changed Brands, digital-first, or offline stores, all are moving to the new sky of digital retail expanding their wings and flying high with massive boosts in omnichannel sales in the post-pandemic new normal. Let’s explore how brands are expanding their digital footprints, what’s then towards it, and the perks of going digital. Big Brands Moving to Digital Stores and Luxury eCom Marketplaces The implementation of lockdown measures has not impacted people’s expenditures significantly; rather, it has led to a shift in their spending habits. In response to this change in consumer behavior, well-known fashion brands have adapted by investing in their online shopping platforms and eCommerce stores. As a result, major players in the fashion industry, such as H&M, Puma, Hugo Boss, and Zalando, have witnessed a remarkable surge in sales and an expansion of their customer base over the past few months. For example, H&M, the Swedish fashion retailer that ranks as the world’s second-largest, managed to recover from a 57% decline in local sales through a nearly one-third increase in online sales. Puma, the world-known sportswear firm has decided to invest more in online logistics after they saw their e-commerce sales grow by around 40% in the first quarter and by 77% in April. Showcase For Offline Sale In today’s digital landscape, where a majority (63%) of shopping instances commence online, it has become crucial for businesses to establish a strong online presence to reach potential customers. Even if these customers ultimately make their purchases from local brick-and-mortar stores, it is vital for companies to showcase their products or services on the web. However, the rising costs associated with digital marketing and the need for eCommerce adjustments have raised concerns about the sustainability of exclusively direct-to-consumer (DTC) business models. According to the State of Fashion 2023 report, brands will need to diversify their channel strategies beyond DTC to foster growth and success. Why do brands need to expand their online footprint? Most brands across the world are available online now in the post-pandemic world, even the luxury stores and houses of brands are also available on niche luxury online platforms or selling via their own online store. The ease of accessibility is the key. The ease of purchase and expanding reach to new shoppers who prefer online stores even for luxury shopping. Customer experience. Seamless transition from offline to online saves on massive inventory management costs and store costs. It translates the offline shop experience to online with more consumer-friendly options. What do brands need to do when they decide to go online? Understand the eCom landscape & competition: When a brand goes online, it needs to get hold of the market first to understand what & where it wants to sell and who it is targeting. Understand competition various product performance matrices as it has sharp contrast, starkly different from a brick and mortar sales competition. Know your target: The target customers need to be identified as the brand decides to move into new territory in the online segment. What future holds? The future looks bright as brick-and-mortar stores can co-exist with online marketplaces. The brands on the shelf of the store now making a smooth transition to digital shelf with more control over product performance. The growing digital retail marketplaces with new technology like augmented reality are enhancing the shopping experience like never before. Brands also moving towards competitive intelligence to stay ahead of market trends with insights and analysis vs competitors across geographies and platforms. The sales channels on the online shopping spectrum are also evolving with new avenues with on-the-go shopping potential – Live commerce and Social commerce are extending the reach of brands beyond the bounds of platforms. But still, eCommerce marketplaces remain the key for a brand to boost sales. The rise of Digital Native Brands (DNB) has also opened door the to an innovative set of products and more options for customers along with Brands which has both online & offline presence. The race to reach the top shelf is heating up but the future looks exciting for more Brands across industries and sectors on the eCommerce landscape. Conclusion To sum it up – the World is changing and brands need to change with it. Marketing strategies and sales channels are expanding and online sales is the bandwagon they need to hop on. Expanding digital footprints in the eCommerce arena is the right move. But brands need to back the decision with data-driven decisions, getting that top spot on e-commerce marketplaces is not that easy. Gear up with digital commerce intelligence, and make your marketing strategies based on insights & analytics while keeping a sharp eye on market trends and competitors’ activities. Spread your winds in eCom Sky, fly high, and make your journey more worth it. Click here to connect with us and learn more about what your brand needs to expand its digital footprint in the global digital commerce ecosystem.

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Fraud Exposed Series: Unmasking Device Spoofing and Its Impact on Advertisers!

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Your ad campaign data is probably skewed. The platforms you think are driving results may be delivering numbers, but there’s a chance they may be only delivering numbers. The reason? Ad fraud. Ad fraud takes many forms, and device spoofing is one of the most common ones. Spoofing allows fraudsters to hide behind a veil and carry out fraudulent activities. Unfortunately, because of the lack of awareness and ability to detect device spoofing, advertisers lose millions of dollars to ad fraud. This article will solve both of those problems. In the upcoming sections, you will learn what device spoofing is, how it is carried out, how it impacts advertisers, and how you can protect your business from mobile ad fraud that uses device spoofing. Let’s jump right in and start with the basics. What is Device Spoofing? The word “spoof” literally means “hoax” or “trick”. Device spoofing is the act of tricking advertisers by presenting a device as a different device. Let’s understand this with a simple example. If you are running an ad for app downloads, you are only interested in traffic coming from mobile devices. With device spoofing, fraudsters can present a server in their data center as a mobile device visiting the publisher’s website and clicking on your ad. Fraudsters employ a variety of technical processes to achieve this. One such method is known as User Agent (UA) spoofing. The User-Agent string of every device carries many data points that are used to identify the device. These include the device make and model, processor information, location information (based on IP address), and information about the operating system running on the device. UA spoofing allows fraudsters to falsify this information. Most advertisers also use a technique called device fingerprinting to identify the devices clicking on their ad and subsequently accessing their website or landing page. This includes going beyond the UA string and looking at additional information to identify devices. This may include GPS information, caller ID, and other technical device information like unique Android/Apple ID, graphic card information, etc. However, using techniques similar to UA spoofing, fraudsters can fake almost every piece of information associated with a device. Surprisingly, UA spoofing is a useful tool in software development circles. Developers employ it to test their applications on different devices without actually having to access them on other devices. Unfortunately, this means that UA spoofing is a relatively easy undertaking, especially with the right developer tools. Even fraudsters with limited resources can use this technique to commit mobile ad fraud. What’s more alarming is that this exact method can be utilized to get around a large variety of online security protocols. This means that the use of device spoofing can be used to conduct a variety of fraudulent activities including, but not limited to: Advertising click fraud Malware injection Spam attacks Account hijack Card fraud Online advertisers are one of the biggest targets of device spoofing-led fraudulent activities. How does device spoofing impact advertisers? As mentioned earlier, committing ad fraud using device spoofing is relatively easy. There is device spoofing software available on the dark web. One can obtain such software for as little as $130. Combining the abilities of this software with a VPN network, fraudsters can easily commit thousands of dollars worth of fraud in a matter of a few hours. This has made committing ad fraud so easy that many fraudsters use this method as simply a way to make some extra cash. However, this can mean a collective loss of billions of dollars in ad spending for advertisers. Alarmingly, this loss isn’t the only negative impact that advertisers experience because of device spoofing and fraud. Besides the obvious loss, device spoofing also messes with the data advertisers use to make campaign-related decisions. For instance, running an app promotion campaign and seeing a lot of traffic from iPhones may motivate you to push a larger percentage of your budget on App Store advertising. However, if a certain percentage of this traffic is fake, then this decision will not deliver the results you may be anticipating. This, in turn, can lead to more wastage of ad budgets. In other words, device spoofing results in the loss of advertising budgets and leads advertisers to misjudged conclusions that subsequently lead to bad decisions. Why is it essential to take action against device spoofing? Device spoofing, and ad fraud, in general, must be stopped to ensure advertisers continue to place their trust in digital advertising. This is necessary to ensure authentic publishers can thrive online. Online advertising presents a lucrative opportunity for advertisers of all sizes. It’s a technology that supports small and local businesses and enables large businesses to expand quickly. It levels the playing field and enables small advertisers to compete with the giants of their industry. If ad fraud isn’t controlled in time and advertisers lose their trust in online advertising, the future of digital advertising will indeed be bleak. Device spoofing is a useful technique that is being misused to conduct fraud. Since it is relatively easy, it presents a lucrative opportunity for those with questionable ethics and a will to make quick money. We’ve already discussed how device spoofing results in a dual loss for advertisers. However, another party this practice hurts is authentic publishers. Because some publishers with malicious intent, it becomes difficult for advertisers to trust any publisher or advertising network. Practices like device spoofing pose a big threat to the overall reputation of the digital advertising industry. How to protect your app from device spoofing? Putting a stop to device spoofing is necessary for advertisers. Unfortunately, there aren’t many manual ways to track instances of device spoofing and avoid fraud. Advertisers will need to depend on an ad fraud detection. Using such a tool to track and block ad fraud isn’t just more convenient. It ensures that your ads and your app are completely off-limits for fraudulent traffic. For you, this means better use of your ad budget and access to more accurate

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Consideration Phase: What Makes Shoppers Pick Your Product?| mFilterIt Blog

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The second phase of the eCom Customer Journey is where shoppers evaluate and consider your product The job is not done yet. Creating awareness and generating interest in your product is just the beginning. To truly win over shoppers and make your product the top bargain, you need to excel in the consideration phase. “ACCORDING TO A SURVEY REPORT, 85% OF CONSUMERS COMPARE PRODUCTS BEFORE MAKING A PURCHASE ONLINE” This is the phase where shoppers evaluate your product for their purchase decision. They go beyond the product description and start asking questions like: Is the product available? Does the price suit their budget? What are other customers saying about the product? When will it be delivered? These are the key questions that need to be addressed during this phase. Checkpoint I: Quest for the perfect price Pricing plays a crucial role in a shopper’s decision-making process. It is essential to analyze and determine the perfect price point for your product. Conduct thorough market research and competitor analysis to ensure your pricing is competitive and attractive to potential customers. To optimize their performance with the right pricing brands need: Identify and monitor pricing & discount trends Boost market positioning with the better pricing decision Identify MAP violations across platforms “ACCORDING TO A SURVEY REPORT, 57% OF CONSUMERS CITE PRICE AS THE MOST IMPORTANT PURCHASE CRITERION” Checkpoint II: Stock it up Product availability is a significant factor influencing purchase decisions. Nothing turns away a shopper more than finding their desired product out of stock. Implement a robust inventory management system to track and ensure sufficient stock levels. Anticipate demand patterns and replenish stock accordingly to avoid missed opportunities. Being aware of their stock situation across geography and platforms brands need: Insights on competitors Out-of-Stock (OOS) gives for pushing own brand on such geographies The optimized stock status also ensures that competition does not eat up their brand market Upswing buy-box wins with improved availability across geographies “44 PERCENT OF CONSUMERS CHOSE TO PURCHASE THE PRODUCT AT A DIFFERENT RETAILER WHEN THE PRODUCT WAS OUT OF STOCK.” Checkpoint III: Lend Your Ears Listening to your customers is vital in the consideration phase. Analyze customer feedback, reviews, and ratings to gain valuable insights into their experiences with your product. It helps brands address any concerns or issues promptly and make necessary improvements based on their feedback. This not only builds customer trust but also helps in product refinement. To understand customer sentiment brands need: Provide actionable insights for every department in the company to improve product pricing, packaging, and logistics Optimize product experience for the customer and thereby reviews and ratings Insights unraveling what’s working for the brand and where need to improve in terms of price, quality, quantity, packaging, taste/flavor, genuineness, delivery, etc. “ABOUT 70% OF CONSUMERS HAVE CHANGED THEIR PERCEPTION OF A BRAND BASED ON IF AND HOW THE COMPANY REPLIED TO AN ONLINE REVIEW” Checkpoint IV: Seller Check Collaborating with reliable sellers is crucial for maintaining a positive brand image. Regularly monitor and evaluate the performance of your sellers. Ensure they meet your brand’s standards in terms of product quality, customer service, and adherence to pricing policies. Take appropriate actions if any issues arise to maintain consistency and reliability. To stay updated on seller activities your brand need to: Monitor Best performing brand in the sub-category Actionable insights for making effective decisions to upswing product into being a best seller Boost the brand’s positioning in the market Checkpoint V: Deliver on time Timely delivery is a key factor in customer satisfaction. Monitor and optimize your delivery process to ensure that orders are fulfilled promptly. Set realistic delivery time frames and communicate them clearly to customers. By consistently delivering on time, you build trust and enhance the overall customer experience. For uplifting delivery performance and build customer trust your brand need to: Optimize delivery time/TAT Ensure faster delivery across product categories especially for the best sellers Upswing Amazon Buy Box win percentage Checkpoint VI: Stay SKU healthy Each stock-keeping unit (SKU) represents a unique product variant. It is crucial to track the performance and health of your SKUs. Analyse, identify underperforming SKUs, and take necessary actions such as promotions, marketing campaigns, or discontinuation of low-performing SKUs. By optimizing SKU performance, you maximize profitability and align your product offerings with customer preferences. Understand your SKUs and optimize performance through: Deep Insights into Perfect Page Analysis of SKU Monitoring inventory, and financial analysis at the SKU level Find new ways to push products based on perfect page scores and better the product experience Final Thoughts To be on top of the competition, brands need an extra impetus to stay ahead. Digital commerce intelligence provides that edge by optimizing every touch point across the customer journey. The consideration phase is a make-or-break moment for brands as customers evaluate and make purchase decisions. Imagine a scenario where your product goes out of stock during a holiday season sale, or your competitors are driving more sales through dynamic pricing and discounts. To avoid such scenarios, it is crucial to optimize the consideration phase using mScanIt digital commerce intelligence and rewrite your brand’s success story. Wait! It’s not over yet the final phase purchase phase is still due. Follow up and discover what your brand needs to optimize the customer journey and boost efficiency across the three phases.

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How Can Competitive Pricing Analysis Boost eCommerce Growth

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Things are changing rapidly in the digital commerce arena. A lot of smart, socially conscious, and sustainable D2C startups are entering the fray, each one telling the customers why they need to rethink product choices and buy only the products on offer. While that is the job marketers must do, what they need to remember is that for online shoppers, price is still a key consideration. You might hear that product pricing is no longer relevant, and customers prefer quality over discount now. That might be right for particular cases and luxury commerce products but the comparison of average prices and trying to get products at lower rates is something that always attracts online shoppers. Barring some instances, customers tend to do a thorough pricing comparison to identify the best deals and buy from sellers that offer more suitable prices. That is where the challenge lies. There are new brands entering markets almost every day and it is humanly impossible to keep track of the product pricing of each new player. When you look at a platform like Amazon, chances are that sellers offer a discount that causes variations in the pricing of the same item, and customers would naturally go for the seller that offers the best value. Competitive pricing analysis and smart product pricing is the only way to beat the competition, and for that, digital commerce players need to use digital commerce intelligence tools that enable the monitoring of price trends and facilitate data-driven dynamic pricing. What is Competitive Pricing Analysis? Competitive pricing analysis is the process through which digital commerce brands can undertake competitive analytics of the pricing strategies of their rivals. They can monitor price trends, and choose competition-based pricing. When such pricing strategies are adopted, brands can identify and cover the market gaps by ensuring that they offer discounts or pricing that makes the products more appealing to the customers than the competition. Let’s take a deeper look at some of how competitive pricing analysis can boost eCommerce brand growth across the digital commerce ecosystem. Outpacing the competition: One of the biggest benefits of undertaking pricing analysis is that it enables brands to monitor price trends continuously, and they can base their pricing decision on the prevalent trends. You can sweet spot the pricing and outpace the competition through such smart pricing strategies. Formulating a data-driven pricing strategy: Since competitive pricing analysis empowers brands to monitor market trends, you can use the right competitive analytics tools to understand the price metrics and figure out the best average price for the product. This ensures that the price is neither high enough to discourage the customers nor too low to make you lose out on potential revenue. You also get to identify which products are popular and trending, and which ones are not, and adopt a dynamic pricing strategy to boost sales accordingly. Tracking MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) violations (also called Pricing violations) A study revealed that 50% of the time, unauthorized sellers ignore a brand’s Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) guidelines. These violations adversely affect a brand’s reputation and also reduce profit margins. That is why you need to monitor the minimum advertised price violations. However, it is almost an impossible task manually since there are going to be a large number of products on multiple eCommerce marketplaces. For instance, an authorized seller be selling product A above MAP, but someone else on another portal could be selling it at a 5% lower price. You won’t know it, but will bleed sales and revenue. That is where it is extremely important to use digital product pricing trackers that can identify minimum advertised price violations and enable remedial action by your brand. If a product is sold below the threshold price it could severely hamper brand reputation. Offering Attractive pricing and discounts boosts customer acquisition and retention When you undertake pricing analysis and monitor all pricing trends, you can create pricing strategies that are competitive and attractive. Customers would not only buy from you but keep coming back if they perceive the brand as value-for-money and trustworthy. In the competitive environs, where customer acquisition is getting costlier by the day, and greater lifetime value (LTV) through customer retention is key to growth, this is one advantage you can’t overlook. Conclusion There is no doubt that modern-day consumers are usually more aware, conscious, and better informed than the average brick-and-mortar store customers. However, pricing still holds the key to market dominance and acquiring more customers quickly. By adopting digital pricing analysis tools, you can create pricing strategies that are more profitable, sustainable, and appealing to the target audience. mScanIt, Digital commerce intelligence is the key to expanding the customer base and staying ahead of competitors across the digital commerce landscape. Get in touch to learn more about pricing analysis.

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