Colin Loughran

The eCommerce Merchant's Guide to the TikTok Shop Affiliate Program

TikTok Shop is making a big splash.  In 2024, it was responsible for more than two-thirds of sales (that’s 68.1% of gross market value sales) across all social media platforms. And last year, it generated $3.8 billion in sales. Clearly feeling bullish about new markets, the social media giant also launched a series of betas in advance of soon-to-be expansion into Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Despite a few challenges to its supremacy in North America, the rise of TikTok Shop signa

How AI Personalization is Reshaping eCommerce in 2024

Your customers have a whole different understanding of “personalization” than you do. Sure, the principle makes sense to them — who doesn’t love the idea of getting tailored service that matches their needs and shopping habits? Who doesn’t want merchants to treat them like humans and not numbers? But the forms of personalization they actually see from modern marketing almost never live up to these lofty goals. Instead of taking a customer-centric approach to personalization, most brands fall i

How to Fight Porch Piracy in BFCM 2024

Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) in 2024 is set to be a whirlwind of online shopping excitement, with countless packages soon journeying to eager customers worldwide. But alongside the buzz and bustle of the peak shopping season, there's also an increased risk of porch piracy — a threat that can cut into your revenue and ruin your customers' post-purchase experience. Not only does this impact your bottom line, but it upsets customers — they may even blame you for it. As eCommerce merchants gear

3 Ways AI is Transforming eCommerce Marketing (and 1 Way It's Not)

Let’s jump into our time machine. Set the dial in the Delorean to October 2014 — ten years ago, at the time of publication. Gartner has just published ‘Top 10 Strategic Predictions for 2015 and Beyond,’ prepared by nearly two dozen analysts who are attempting to lay out a roadmap for digital business in the coming decade.  Here’s a sample of the predictions most relevant to eCommerce marketing: * By 2016, $2.5 billion in online shopping will be performed exclusively by mobile digital assista

Black Friday (BFCM) Discounting for Your Online Store

For consumers, the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping period (or BFCM, to retailers in the know) has long been synonymous with big deals. Every Thanksgiving weekend, Americans flood retail shops and hit the web looking for Black Friday sales on items from smart TVs to high fashion to candles shaped and scented like Starbucks Frappuccinos. Though traditional retail doesn't draw the physical crowds it once did — and boy, we're glad to see the end of crushing crowds at Walmart — consumer spend