• Black Friday online spending reached an all-time high of $9.8 billion, up 7.5% from last year.
• More than half of online sales revenue over Black Friday was through mobile shopping
• Shoppers in the U.S. are on track to spend $12 billion (or more) online over Cyber Monday

Black Friday Breakthroughs: A Dive into the Data

The landscape of online shopping is constantly evolving, and this Black Friday, Americans have not just followed but set new records, redefining the retail peak season. 

Adobe Analytics reports a new milestone with $9.8 billion in online Black Friday sales, a significant 7.5% year-over-year increase. Electronics, smartwatches, TVs, and audio equipment were the stars of the show. This spike follows a 5.5% increase in Thanksgiving Day sales, bringing the total to $5.6 billion.

It’s clear that eCommerce is not just thriving; it’s exploding. For Amazon sellers, these trends aren’t just numbers—they are the playbook for the coming year.

Mobile Shopping and Flexible Financial Solutions Add Fuel to the Fire

The convenience of mobile shopping continues to outpace traditional methods, with 54% of online sales made from mobile devices and a 10.4% increase in mobile purchases from the last year. With Cyber Monday projected to net a record $12 billion, growing 5.4% year-over-year, mobile devices are the front-runner in consumer preference.

At the same time, flexible financial solutions continue to help fuel online sales. As reported by Adobe, the use of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options surged by 47% on Black Friday, with consumers utilizing BNPL services for purchases amounting to $79 million. 

What Sold Best? The Online Favorites

Children’s toys and gaming consoles were the champions of Black Friday, with KidKraft playsets, Barbie dolls, and gaming consoles like PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X leading the charge. 

Not far behind were Bluetooth headphones, smartphones, skincare products, cookware, and coffee makers.

Consumer Confidence Extends to In-Store Shopping

According to a Deloitte survey, 95% of Americans plan to holiday shop, with an average spend of $1,652. That number topped pre-pandemic levels for the first time and were up from 92% in 2022 and 88% in 2021, 

In-store traffic also saw a resurgence, with nearly a 5% increase from last year, showcasing the enduring value of brick-and-mortar experiences.

Health and Beauty, Jewelry, and Apparel stores experienced significant in-store visitor increases, while home stores saw a decline. 

The Robust American Consumer and the FOMO Economy

Amazon agencies such as Canopy Management are poised to help sellers capitalize on these trends. With Adobe Analytics predicting that shoppers in the U.S. are on track to spend $12 billion (or more) online over Cyber Monday, it appears that in spite of a slight slow down of the economy, consumers are increasingly opening their wallets and treating themselves a little bit after years of pandemic-era restrictions.

In a LinkedIn post, Laura Meyer, the Founder of Envision Horizons said that her clients were particulary dedicated to mobile shopping with 75% of their traffic coming from smartphones. Her feeling about the strength of the economy was even more interesting. 

Laura said that “the effectiveness of personalized advertising and impactful organic social media is driving an impulsive or FOMO (fear of missing out) economy that consumers simply can’t resist.”

For Amazon agencies, this data isn’t just a retrospective of success; it’s a roadmap for the future. Leveraging personalized advertising, optimizing for mobile, and engaging with consumers through organic social media are not just strategies—they are necessities for capturing the attention and wallets of the modern consumer. 

The data is clear: the opportunity for Amazon sellers to grow and prosper is monumental, and it’s here to stay.

If you would like to know more about how Canopy Management can help you level up your eCommerce brand on Amazon (or Walmart), reach out to us here. 

Canopy Management is a full-service marketing agency for Walmart and Amazon sellers. Our team consists of former Amazonians, multi-million dollar sellers, and award-winning experts.

When you consider the many ways that Canopy Management can help you grow your business, you’ll see why selling on Amazon is much easier “under the Canopy”:

• Strategic Growth Planning
• Listing Copywriting Optimization
• Listing Photography
• Product Videography
• Advertising Management
• Customer Service
• Demand Side Platform (Amazon DSP)
• Amazon Posts
• Full Service Management
• Amazon Review Aggregation

The post Black Friday 2023 Unveiled: Leveraging Record eCommerce Spending to Grow Your Amazon Brand appeared first on Canopy Management.

Another big, sometimes unnoticed catalyst of ecommerce growth has been the rise of FinTech, and the ecommerce financial solutions that it makes possible.

What’s All This Talk About FinTech?

FinTech (or Financial Technology), refers to cutting-edge software and emerging technology that can supercharge the way that you use financial services.

It includes online banking applications and money transfer apps like Venmo and Zelle, as well as exciting new ecommerce funding options. FinTech makes purchases as easy as flashing your Apple watch “wallet” or simply using a credit card issued by a traditional bank.

There’s a very good chance that you’ve already used some aspect of FinTech in your everyday life. I have a troubling mental image of my grandfather spinning in his grave each time I authorize a business to access my personal bank account with the watch I wear on my wrist.

This form of FinTech is said to be “embedded” into the commerce ecosystem. Even though Shopify, Amazon, Visa, American Express, and Mastercard are not purely FinTech companies, it is a large part of how their businesses run (and make money).

Fintech’s Recent Marketplace Challenges

Today’s cryptocurrency troubles and the current recession have created ripples throughout the financial sector. 

Global fintech funding fell to $52.4 billion in the first half of 2023, down 17% from $63.2 billion in H2 2022. Still the US received the majority of interest and investment. Just this month (August, 2023) a new U.K. investment fund backed by Mastercard, Barclays and the London Stock Exchange Group with up to $1.27 billion in capital launched to back growth-stage financial technology companies.

There continues to be a lot of talk about the many different ways that the rapidly growing Fintech sector will continue to influence business in the next year.

For those in the know, Fintech is still hot. 

FinTech companies have launched applications for everyone from individual Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) sellers, to the billion dollar companies “aggregating” Amazon businesses.

Not to be outdone, Amazon has hopped on the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) bandwagon with its new partnership with the financial services company, Affirm.

To make this possible, our internet needed to evolve.

What is Web 3.0?

The first incarnation of the World Wide Web – often referred to as Web 1.0 – dates back to the 1990’s and early 2000’s. It can be quickly characterized as the internet of blogs, rudimentary message boards, early web portals and internet service providers such as AOL and CompuServe.

Then, as everybody is well aware of, came Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. That’s Web 2.0. It’s most commonly thought of as the point where users began creating and posting their own content. They were no longer just internet “passengers,” they wanted to be in the driver’s seat! 

Welcome to the Future 

Now, there’s a lot of talk about Web 3.0. That’s the name that some futurists and technologists have attached to a very different version of the internet. Even though cryptocurrency has taken its lumps lately, and blockchain is something very lightly understood by most, this idea of an internet “owned by the (individual) builders and users, orchestrated by tokens.”

Everyone on the internet is trying to gain more control over their content. Web 3.0 is tilting the field in favor of the “producers” by decentralizing the internet and rebuilding it using blockchain.

What is it going to look like, really?

How about decentralized social networks, “play-to-earn” video games and an increased emergence of NFT platforms. If you’ve been following the latest innovations to ecommerce, you’ll see why many think that online selling is helping drive this move to Web 3.0.

The Gamification of Ecommerce

If you’ve been selling on Amazon for any time at all, you know to expect innovations coming from China. Over the last few years, Chinese ecommerce pros have made huge advances in the “gamification” of purchases. 

Using this model, shoppers take part in virtual exhibitions and performances, then are able to seamlessly make their purchases on the platform itself through branded games and quizzes that blur the line between commerce and game play. 

Shein, the Chinese fast fashion retailer founded in 2008, is well versed in this exciting new form of ecommerce, and recently passed Zara and is fast approaching H&M as one of the world’s biggest fashion brands. Shein is known for its viral social media tactics, including a strong video presence on both TikTok and YouTube.

Don’t like the idea of balancing awkwardly on one leg in a tiny changing room? Snapchat users can now try on clothing and accessories virtually with technology that responds to your own specific physical dimensions.

FinTech Money is Helping Fuel Ecommerce

FinTech’s focus on ecommerce isn’t brand new. Still, the amount of money that is flowing into the global marketplace has begun to grow exponentially. It’s also helped entrepreneurs with scaling their Amazon FBA businesses.

Several years ago, the financial services firm Payoneer introduced a program called Capital Advance, which gives advances up to $500,000 to Walmart and Amazon sellers.

In 2021, SellersFunding (now SellersFi) secured $166.5 million in a combination of Series A equity funding and a credit facility to continue the development of their ecommerce-specific technology and payments platforms.

Later, Amazon, and Lendistry, an established minority-led Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), rolled out a joint pilot program. By providing U.S.-based Amazon online sellers access to short-term loans of up to $100,000 at competitive and affordable rates, the program’s goal is to create growth opportunities for urban and rural small businesses in socially and economically distressed communities.

Embedded Finance is Helping Amazon Sellers Connect the Dots

Embedded finance makes it possible for companies to offer consumers credit without having to leave their platform. That’s a critical innovation.

You’ve probably been offered the opportunity to “pay as little as $100/month or 0% APR with xxxx.” Embedded finance includes payment platforms, card payments, lending, investments, insurance and banking. All these innovations make scaling ecommerce easier than ever before. Marketing strategy is one thing, but making sure that your customer base has options is priceless.

Whether it’s SaaS (Software as a Service) company Helium 10 offering financing to Amazon sellers through its Alta financial services program, or Amazon’s partnership with Affirm, e-commerce has been quick to embrace making a user’s experience more streamlined.

Are Super Apps on the Horizon?

China’s WeChat was first released in 2011, and became the world’s largest standalone mobile app in 2018, with over 1 billion monthly active users. It has steadily evolved from a messaging app to a growing FinTech-embedded super app that offers everything from e-commerce payments to health services.

Consumers have rapidly come to expect an unbroken flow of assistance from their smartphone’s apps. To not have to close that same app when it comes time to check the inventory of their online business, then call for an Uber, or book a hotel room, is a golden ticket for those companies with the vision to imagine (and build) this new frontier.

Logiq, a global provider of award-winning ecommerce and FinTech solutions, announced plans to launch its first-ever super app in Indonesia that combines all of its mobile e-commerce and FinTech solutions into one mobile app.

Logiq said in the press release that, “the super app will provide access to PayLogiq e-Wallet, GoLogiq hyper-local food delivery and other mobile e-commerce solutions, as well as its recently announced mobile fintech platform for microlending, driver’s license testing payments and mental health consultations.”

Square and Amazon are Betting On a Different Way of Borrowing

As remarked upon earlier in this post, Buy Now Pay Later is helping many companies (and consumers) take a cautious step towards FinTech.

BNPL can easily be viewed as a “gateway” product that opens the door to more aggressive loaning (and borrowing).

Financial services company Square last year acquired the BNPL service provider AfterPay. Effectively a credit card, BNPL services allow shoppers to buy a product today and pay for it through scheduled installments.

The shares of Affirm Holdings (a point of sale financial lender of installment loans for consumers) recently skyrocketed after they disclosed a new partnership with Amazon.

That means that Amazon buyers can now split purchases for $50 or more into monthly payments. Interest rates are as low as 0% for qualified buyers and partner companies are offering special rates. This is an opportunity to use Amazon (and Affirm) money for free! The addition of Amazon now means Affirm is working with three of the most important ecommerce groups in the world, Walmart, Shopify, and Amazon.

For Ecommerce Sellers, Scaling Your Business has Never Been Easier

When it comes to efficiently managing your online selling, ready access to additional capital is crucial. Running out of inventory can kill your Amazon business. You risk losing the rankings you’ve fought so hard for.

How about being able to quickly react to the success of an Amazon product by branching out and expanding your brand offerings? Powerful Amazon brands are built that way. But, it requires a lender that understands how valuable the current online selling opportunity truly is.

For conventional banks, the whole idea of selling on Amazon is outside of their area of expertise. FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), online arbitrage, and drop shipping are probably a mystery to them. When you add the complexities of PPC (Pay per Click) advertising costs, most conventional lending channels are simply going to say no.

Many Amazon sellers were initially attracted by the fact that they don’t need a big bank account to get started. A lot of those same sellers successfully scaled up their ecommerce businesses after beginning with a shoestring budget.

When it comes to getting a small business loan, that same exciting aspect becomes a double edged sword.

Ecommerce is Just Good Business

Increasingly, FinTech is learning that loaning to Amazon sellers is just good business. What that means is that instead of hoping that a loan officer at your conservative banking institution is going to approve the small loan you’ve asked for, you could be speaking with a specialist who recognizes the tremendous potential of today’s exploding online marketplace.

The reach of ecommerce continues to expand. Global FinTech companies can help make sure that as a seller, you can navigate the many different currencies and tax requirements you are certain to encounter.

I have a feeling that this might not be a question of Amazon sellers searching for FinTech solutions to their cash flow problems. FinTech is probably coming to you, and sooner rather than later. The key will be knowing how to take advantage of the opportunities that FinTech will certainly provide.

How Canopy Management Can Help

Canopy Management is a full-service marketing agency for Walmart and Amazon sellers. Our team consists of former Amazonians, multi-million dollar sellers, and award-winning experts.

When you consider the many ways that Canopy Management can help you grow your business, you’ll see why selling on Amazon is much easier “under the Canopy”:

• Strategic Growth Planning
• Listing Copywriting Optimization
• Listing Photography
• Product Videography
• Advertising Management
• Customer Service
• Demand Side Platform (Amazon DSP)
• Amazon Posts
• Full Service Management
• Amazon Review Aggregation

The post How FinTech is Helping Future-Proof Life for Amazon Sellers appeared first on Canopy Management.

FinTech refers to cutting-edge software and emerging technology that can supercharge the way that you use financial services. It includes everything from online banking applications to money transfer apps like Venmo and Zelle.

FinTech is Already a Big Part of Our Lives

There’s a very good chance that you’ve already used some aspect of FinTech in your everyday life. FinTech is as easy (and ubiquitous) as flashing your Apple watch “wallet” or simply using a credit card issued by a traditional bank. 

This form of FinTech is said to be “embedded” into the commerce ecosystem. Even though Shopify, Amazon, Visa, American Express, and Mastercard are not purely FinTech companies, it is a large part of how their businesses run (and make money). 

Recently, FinTech companies specializing in supplementary funding for ecommerce sellers have become an important part of a rapidly changing business landscape. These companies are offering solutions for individual Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) sellers, as well as the billion dollar companies “aggregating” Amazon businesses that are making news every day. 

I recently had a (virtual) conversation with the founder and CEO of one of the most respected, and successful of these new FinTech companies.

FinTech Funding 101

SellersFunding is a global financial technology company on a mission to empower growth for ecommerce sellers by providing the most comprehensive suite of financial solutions. If you are one of the many users of Helium 10’s software tools, you might already know that SellersFunding is the company backstopping Helium 10’s Alta financial services. 

As the founder and CEO of SellersFunding, Ricardo Pero is uniquely positioned to speak to the recent changes in the online-selling marketplace. More importantly, he can help give us an idea of how sellers of all sizes might take advantage of this influx of ecommerce-optimized funding that is often the difference between a failed product and rapid, exponential growth. 

I asked Ricardo a series of questions that initially focused on the role that his company is playing in today’s business landscape. I then asked him to take out his crystal ball in order to make a (very) educated guess about where we might be headed in the next 12 months and how FinTech can help sellers to navigate that crucial period of time. 

Here is our conversation: 

6 Questions for SellersFunding’s Ricard Pero

1. Ecommerce has dramatically changed the retail landscape. What are the biggest challenges for (small and medium sized) businesses trying to adapt to the explosion of commerce? 

Ricardo Pero: Timing and capital are two of the main components that bring small and medium sized businesses to success. 38% of small businesses fail due to lack of access to capital. 

Appropriate deployment of that capital is also crucial. Many small businesses have to learn to navigate their debt and finances to achieve success. Learning about financing options and which options fit their business is a must. 

Choosing partners that will help them scale is a big challenge but that’s where SellersFunding steps in. Above having a full suite of financial tools, SellersFunding is a growth partner on a mission to get small and medium sized ecommerce businesses to the next step.

2. One of the first things that ecommerce sellers are told to focus on is scaling up their business. Can a FinTech company such as SellersFunding help sellers know when they are ready to start scaling up? 

Ricardo Pero: Scaling up a business starts with getting ahead and doing a lot of “homework.” Learning which products are moving the needle and which products are at the end of their lifecycle is a good start. 

Using capital to buy more inventory is a must to reduce unit costs, maintain healthy inventory, and improve relationships with suppliers. Reducing unit costs and increasing product price by as little as 3% on each side is the key for unlocking exponential growth. Deploying capital properly is the first step to achieve this.

3. Once a business starts scaling up, in addition to access to capital, are there other ways that SellersFunding can help businesses to grow? 

Ricardo Pero: Apart from capital, SellersFunding gives sellers access to low rates for FX (Foreign Exchange), a global collections account, cash management solutions, supplier pay tools, and a full data dashboard that helps ecommerce businesses see how they are performing and even what the valuation of their business is. 

Combining these tools with the one-on-one, hands-on account management style is the perfect recipe for growth for our clients.

4. Everyone has seen the images of container ships offshore waiting to be unloaded. Is there a way that a company such as SellersFunding can help alleviate this crisis for an ecommerce business? 

Ricardo Pero: Sellers have been forced to invest more in inventory to accommodate for the longer lead times and account for any unexpected delays on top of the surge in sales across categories. 

Any lag in inventory can seriously harm the performance of their business and the increase in lead times only makes the prospect even more grim. Many sellers rely on outside capital or credit lines to top up on their inventory which means they start paying back balances on inventory they haven’t even had the chance to sell yet.  

We offer flexible working capital options and interest only repayments for up to 6 months to our clients because we know that the supply chain and logistics crisis is adding additional stress to these businesses. We understand that they shouldn’t have to pay on inventory before they can move it.

5. As ecommerce has expanded around the globe, are there international complexities that you feel that FinTech is uniquely positioned to help solve? 

Ricardo Pero: Fintech is opening the door for more specialized capital solutions. SellersFunding knows ecommerce and offers tools specifically for this demographic. 

We have capital in the merchant’s hands in days, not in weeks or months like many institutions. The data we collect from our clients and the technology we built that backs us is a supplement to our financial savvy that drives our proprietary credit risk model. 

This makes us a better partner than traditional lenders. Ecommerce is a world of its own. 

6. Please take a look into your crystal ball. Is there anything you see coming that you would want your ecommerce-selling friends to know and prepare for? 

Ricardo Pero: Here are some trends that we anticipate for ecommerce:

1. Going into the holiday season for 2021, Black Friday/Cyber Monday are both going to continue to be relevant as shopping events/holidays. Most groups are estimating YOY (Year over Year) sales growth, but due to supply chain issues (such as longer shipping times, higher shipping and material costs, and increases in the cost of labor across the board), you can expect fewer deals compared to previous holiday seasons. This year is also expected to tell whether or not the large shift to online shopping is permanent, which is largely expected post-COVID.
2. The strongest retailers and brands will be the ones who began planning earlier in the year (July/Early August), where companies that are following the traditional 3-month logistics timeline that was the industry standard pre-COVID may see more items out of stock or unavailable.
3. With the rapid maturation of the ecommerce segment of the market, the providers, tools, and methods both born and refined during the pandemic are rapidly changing the face of the way we buy and sell. The entire industry is booming behind the scenes, and the marketplaces that can adapt and take advantage of this new technology will see the largest growth.
4. The global supply chain disruption caused by covid will inevitably drive change in the space. From policymaking to new innovation led by AI (Artificial Intelligence) and digitization, we expect there to be an increase in efficiencies to support this new era of global commerce.
5. Direct to consumer brick and mortar will be making big shifts into ecommerce as people sink into the convenience of online shopping. This includes ever expanding the ways clients can pay. (PayPal, BNPL, card, Google, Apple Pay, etc)

Better Solutions for a Tougher Ecommerce Landscape

A big thank you to Ricardo Pero for taking the time to give us all a better understanding of this new way that online sellers can navigate a constantly changing marketplace. 

Ecommerce in 2021 is played out in an increasingly competitive arena. Two of the most important components of success are the assistance of a financial technology company like SellersFunding, and the support of a skilled Amazon agency such as CANOPY Management. 

The CANOPY Management ‘Tribe’ is a team founded by top Amazon professionals, multi-million dollar sellers, and award winning ecommerce experts. When you’re with Canopy you’re more than a client, you’re a partner.

The post How to Unlock Parabolic Growth – An Interview with SellersFunding’s Ricardo Pero appeared first on Canopy Management.