Choosing The Right Ecommerce Platform

Every consumer brand today understands that to grow and scale profitably, they have to be omnichannel. Simply because their consumers are. Whether it is commerce or content consumption, consumers are doing it across channels seamlessly. Research offline, buy online, and vice versa is extremely common For example- 70% of consumer durables/electronics research begins online, but 70% sales are still offline. The keyword searches for many categories on Amazon/Google is only a small % of actual sales happening online. Same for youtube views on product review videos And now, with the advent of Quick-com, there are categories like beauty, general merchandise where research/discovery is happening on Nykaa/Amazon/Google/offline and purchase on Q-com For brands which have both D2C websites and EBOs, the best/highest converting footfall in the EBOs are actually people who have visited and researched the products on the website But despite understanding all of these, most consumer brands fail miserably when it comes to being truly omni-channel. So, if you are looking to scale across channels successfully, here are some must-dos across 4 heads a) Organization Structure & KPIs : Traditional structures simply won’t work if you are trying to build omnichannel. Most often we see different sales heads for different channel. We also see independent teams for e-commerce/modern trade resulting in internal competition for same consumer and often conflicting promotions And as a result channel conflict emerges from different margins across channels, Separate targets and KPIs and separate marketing budgets by channel Even for many new age brands who have a good D2C business and have newly opened EBOs, there are no synergies. The team that drives D2C has absolutely no incentive to drive relevant consumers to EBOs. In fact I will not be surprised if D2C teams in these companies will hide/remove the store locator to improve site conversions as that is what they are incentivized for The first way to solve it is to structurally remove silos and align incentives. Incentives drive behaviour. Have common joint goals and KPIs. At Atomberg, the growth team which drives e-commerce demand is also responsible for generating searches on Google and Youtube as this has highest correlation with offline demand. They are also responsible for generating leads that can be forwarded to the local teams. They are also responsible for driving footfalls to our marquee MBOs using the store locator. And all of these at a city level and a state level. So, in addition to channel wise targets at a national level, there are region wise targets for all channels combined which is of equal importance for the growth team The link to the complete post is in the first comment. It covers technology, product portfolio and pricing/promotions must dos for an omnichannel brand Do read

🇪🇺💡Today, the European Data Protection Board published its Recommendations 2/2025 that aim to clarify when #ecommerce providers may lawfully require users to create an account as a condition for accessing offers or completing a purchase. 🔹The #EDPB stresses that mandatory accounts generally expose individuals to unnecessary and disproportionate risks such as expanded identification across sessions, longer retention of personal data, increased attack surfaces through dormant accounts, and greater opportunities for tracking and profiling. 🔹The EDPB reiterates that controllers must identify a valid Article 6 #GDPR legal basis and demonstrate strict necessity for each processing purpose. Account creation is rarely “necessary for contract performance” as one-time purchases can be fulfilled through guest checkout without persistent identifiers. 🔹Even after-sales services, exercising consumer or GDPR rights, or verifying eligibility conditions can be delivered through alternative, less intrusive mechanisms such as temporary links or secure upload forms. By contrast, mandatory accounts may be justified for genuine subscription models that require recurring authenticated access, or for exclusive, closed-membership communities where account-based identification is integral to the service. 🔹Controllers also cannot rely on Article 6(1)(c) GDPR unless a precise legal obligation explicitly requires account creation, which is seldom the case in typical retail or tax record scenarios. Article 6(1)(f) GDPR provides no broad justification either: purposes such as order tracking, operational convenience, customer loyalty, facilitation of future purchases, or fraud prevention fail the strict necessity and balancing tests when equally effective and less intrusive alternatives exist. The Board underlines that users do not reasonably expect compulsory account creation in ordinary purchasing flows, mainly when prompted only at checkout. 🔹Accordingly, the EDPB recommends that e-merchants offer genuine choice: a voluntary account or a guest checkout option. Guest mode better reflects data minimisation, limits retention, reduces security risks, and supports transparency by allowing individuals to understand and control the scope of processing. Additional services such as loyalty programmes, personalised recommendations or facilitated re-orders must rely on an appropriate legal basis (typically consent) and remain clearly separated from the core purchase process. 🔹Overall, requiring user accounts should be lawful only in narrow, well-defined circumstances where controllers can demonstrate strict necessity, such as for subscription-based services. In all other cases, forcing account creation breaches Article 6 GDPR and undermines data protection by design and by default. #privacy

Omnichannel Orchestration Is Quietly Redefining How Payments Work Think about the last time you paid: maybe you tapped your card at a café, bought something online, or checked out through an app. For you, it was simple. But for the merchant, each of those transactions flowed through entirely different systems — card-present vs. card-not-present — with separate devices, gateways, and reconciliation processes. This fragmentation is one of the biggest hidden challenges in payments. And it’s where omnichannel orchestration changes the game. So what exactly is it? 👉 Payment orchestration is the “traffic controller” for transactions. It sits between merchants and providers (acquirers, PSPs, schemes) and intelligently routes, secures, and reconciles payments across all channels. Instead of merchants juggling multiple integrations, settlement reports, and reconciliation headaches, orchestration unifies everything: POS, softPOS, eCommerce, and MOTO all flow through a single layer. ✅ Here’s what that means in practice: 🔹 Smarter routing → Transactions are directed to the best acquirer, cutting failures and boosting approvals. 🔹 Omnichannel tokenization → A card saved online can also be used in-store, enabling loyalty and smoother experiences. 🔹 Unified APIs → One integration for merchants replaces the complexity of managing many. 🔹 Consolidated reporting → Finance teams get one view of payments, no matter the channel. 🔹 Resilience → Failover and retries keep commerce moving, even if one provider is down. And here’s the bigger picture: As mobile tap-to-pay and digitized in-store experiences grow, the wall between online and offline commerce is crumbling. Merchants can’t afford to treat channels separately anymore. Orchestration is what makes this convergence possible. Think of it as the invisible layer of intelligence that powers: 🔹 Better customer journeys 🔹 More resilient operations 🔹 Smarter, data-driven growth Platforms like Akurateco Payment Hub are showing how this isn’t just “nice-to-have infrastructure.” It’s quickly becoming the backbone of modern payments. 👉 Subscribe for more insights https://lnkd.in/d94JgWBU Source Akurateco #fintech #payments #paymentorchestration

Everyone’s talking about “AEO” and “Generative Engine Optimization.” Yet GenAI engines account for less than 4% of online discovery time, while search still drives 93%, per EMARKETER. So why the panic? Because the shift isn’t about volume yet, it’s about influence. Similarweb data shows that one in five of Walmart’s referral clicks in August came from ChatGPT, up 15 % from July. Etsy, Target, and eBay are seeing double-digit lifts too. https://lnkd.in/etPhtW8j A small slice of time is already reshaping a huge part of the journey. When I started in Oral Care at P&G, we knew that dentists and hygienists were the key opinion leaders that moved market share. Today, imagine that instead of thousands of human KOLs, there are just a handful of LLMs, and hundreds of brands vying for a share of recommendation inside each one. That’s why marketers are anxious. Because these “new KOLs” live inside the same devices where every purchase happens. Soon, consumers won’t just ask an AI what to buy, they’ll buy through it. Will marketing teams of the future have a “Share of Recommendation” target? Will we build Professional Marketing teams for LLMs the way we once did for dentists, stylists, or dermatologists? The channels may change — the battle for influence never does. #MarketingStrategy #GenAI #DigitalTransformation #Ecommerce #ConsumerJourney

21,000 creators. 14.5 million consumers. The next big thing in e-commerce isn’t ads—it’s content. I’ve spent 6+ years in influencer marketing, helping brands scale with the right creators. I’ve worked with hundreds of brands and seen influencer trends come and go. But here’s what never changes—the power of relatable, everyday creators. That’s why Meesho’s Creator Club excites me. Not because it’s another creator platform, but because it taps into a completely different kind of influencer—one that most brands overlook. Who are these creators? ✅ A Marathi vlogger from Kolhapur reviewing budget-friendly fashion hauls. ✅ A Kannada-speaking mom sharing home remedies passed down through generations. ✅ A West Bengal-based small business owner showcasing handmade sarees to a niche but highly engaged audience. These aren’t your glamorous, metro-based influencers with aesthetic feeds. But they sell. Take Lucknow’s Nidhi Pandey—she started by reviewing a simple kitchen chopper. Today, she earns ₹5L+ per month by building trust and selling through content. Multiply that by 21,000 creators already on Meesho, and you see the massive shift happening. What does this mean for brands? 1️⃣ The future of influencer marketing isn’t about big creators—it’s about relatable ones. Big influencers still work, but they are expensive and have lower trust levels. Consumers now want real people recommending products. 2️⃣ Regional content is the next goldmine. English-speaking influencers dominate brand campaigns, but what about the hundreds of millions who consume content in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Marathi? These audiences convert better because they relate more. 3️⃣ Content is the new commerce. With no ad fatigue and more trust, content-led selling is outperforming traditional ads. People don’t want to be sold to—they want to buy from people they trust. Why does this excite me at LetsInfluence? At Letsinfluence.io | Influencer Marketing Agency, we’ve always believed in performance-driven influencer marketing. ▪️ We don’t chase vanity metrics. We find creators who drive conversions. ▪️ We’ve worked with brands that cracked regional influencer strategies before they were a trend. ▪️ We know that UGC, nano, and regional creators will define the future of social commerce. Meesho’s Creator Club is not for T1/T2 influencers, but it’s a game-changer for hyper-local creators. And if brands don’t start looking beyond the obvious, they’ll miss out on the biggest e-commerce shift in India. What do you think—can micro & regional creators change the game for e-commerce? Drop your thoughts.   #InfluencerMarketing #ContentCommerce #UGC #MarketingTrends #LetsInfluence

TikTok says creator-driven commerce across APAC could reach US$1.2T by 2030. That headline will travel. But the number isn’t the real signal. The signal is this: in Southeast Asia, creators are becoming part of the commerce infrastructure. Not just awareness. Not just engagement. Actual conversion. Across the region, discovery already happens inside: - short video - live streams - affiliate loops - creator storefronts And that matters because SEA didn’t grow up with search-first commerce. It grew up with social-first commerce. The mechanics are converging fast: - Creators shape trust - AI shapes discovery - Marketplaces handle fulfilment And once that loop closes, switching costs rise. Global data already shows marketplaces capturing the majority of e-commerce value, with platform ecosystems accounting for nearly nine out of ten online sales dollars. At the same time, grocery and repeat-purchase categories are outperforming discretionary retail — meaning trust and frequency matter more than polished brand storytelling. Put those together and the structure becomes clear. The risk for brands isn’t that creators replace them. It’s that discovery moves to environments where the brand isn’t structurally present. I'm already seeing three patterns across SEA: 1. Discovery is compressing Research, comparison and purchase now happen in the same scroll. 2. Trust beats production value Consumers engage more with content that feels useful and local than content that looks perfect. 3. Commerce is becoming integrated Creator → platform → marketplace → fulfilment → repeat. This doesn’t mean every brand should chase creators. It does mean: if your product isn’t visible inside the ecosystems shaping decisions, growth gets harder. The next phase of social commerce in SEA won’t be driven by hype. It will be driven by integration: - product data - creator relationships - AI-assisted discovery - marketplace readiness The brands that treat creator ecosystems as infrastructure — not campaigns — will compound. The rest will keep buying reach while conversion happens somewhere else. Disclaimer: Views are based on publicly available industry reports and regional market observations. This is not investment or platform advice. #Ecommerce #CreatorEconomy #DigitalCommerce #RetailTech #SoutheastAsia https://lnkd.in/gcKiCaec

Stripe and Meta just announced last week a one-click checkout. Another clear signal that Shopify's hold on commerce revenue is fragmenting and it's accelerating faster than most brands realise. But here's the thing: this isn't a future problem. It's happening right now. TikTok Shop orders are already arriving into Shopify blind. No email match. No loyalty profile. No purchase history. Just a transaction. The brand has made a sale but has no idea who bought it. Worse yet, they don't know if the cost of TikTok Shop is driving incremental new customers or lowering overall company profits. Our CDP at ProfitPeak connects those blind incoming orders to your existing customer base — matching TikTok Shop buyers to profiles you already hold, using identity resolution across email, device, address and behavioural signals. A blind order becomes a known customer. A profit profile connected. Meta's closed-loop commerce is coming next. When it lands, the same dynamic will play out at significantly greater scale. Brands that aren't ready will haemorrhage customer intelligence with every sale. I've watched this pattern repeat throughout my career in ecommerce. Bricks and mortar said online would kill the high street. It didn't — it gave us omnichannel. Desktop said mobile would never dominate. It does — but desktop isn't dead. Google said social commerce was a distraction. TikTok Shop proved otherwise. Commerce doesn't consolidate. It fragments, then expands. Every new channel is additive. The brands that win show up wherever their customer is. And right now, very few brands I speak to are purely single-channel. Most are already across Amazon, TikTok Shop, wholesale and bricks and mortar. LLMs and agentic commerce will be no different. But here's what will separate the winners: not the best marketing measurement — the best infrastructure. → A CDP that resolves blind customer data across every channel → Inventory live to the second → Structured data at the core with an integrated PIM → Real-time connectivity to the agentic financial ERP layer → Cognitive and circular decision making with an understanding of cash, inventory turnover, marketing investment and other key KPIs The businesses that build this infrastructure now are the ones that will own the next decade of commerce. The fragmentation is the signal. Is your stack ready for it?

Most brands hire influencers for a one-time campaign. A video, a post, maybe a short-term partnership. And that’s it. But I found Meesho’s Creator Marketplace (launched last week) doing the opposite. They aren’t just running influencer marketing campaigns. They’re turning content into commerce - where influencers don’t just promote, they sell. And that’s the real shift - from content being just a marketing tool to becoming the sales engine itself. Content has the power to build trust, influence decisions, and drive real action. Meesho had already been working with influencers - 21000 of them, driving a 3X increase in order volume through content commerce alone between January and December 2024. The introduction of the Creator Marketplace now makes it more structured and scalable, pulling influencers (and their content) instead of pushing them into one-off campaigns. (I even shared it with a couple of fashion influencers that I know.) Meesho’s approach is proof of this: 📌 No approvals. No middlemen. Just content → sales. 📌 Real-time analytics, AutoDM to share links of the products, and seamless product tagging. 📌 Earnings tied directly to performance, not fixed deals. And the numbers? 💰 10% commission on affiliate products 💰 0.5% commission on non-affiliate products 💰 Top creators making up to ₹5L/month More brands will likely follow this model where influencers aren’t just storytellers anymore - they are becoming distribution channels for brands. Content commerce will be the next big thing in the e-commerce space opening up plethora of opportunities for creators. Would love to hear thoughts from fellow marketers & creators. 👇 #content #influencer #CreatorEconomy #ecommerce

How do you really know which platform is best for #b2becommerce? Even if someone hands you a shortlist of the “top” platforms, how do you actually evaluate them and determine which one fits your needs? The truth? You need an objective approach. The goal isn’t just picking a platform, it’s finding the one that: ✅ Delivers a great customer experience ✅ Plays best with business operations ✅ Minimizes long-term implementation and maintenance costs Here’s how to get there: 1️⃣ Discovery Strategic and tactical input from every key internal and external stakeholder- including customers. 2️⃣ Create user stories and requirements Who’s using the platform, and what do they need it to do (in granular detail)? 3️⃣ Score the platforms Prioritize based on documented requirements - not a vendor’s checklist. 4️⃣ Roll everything into a simple scoring structure. The process should be transparent, shareable, and decision-ready for leadership. B2B e-commerce isn’t just a tech decision, it’s an organizational commitment. Your scoring methodology needs to be clear, data-driven, and free from guesswork. We’ve been working on something that does just that. It removes the subjectivity from platform selection, helps identify the right platform based on your priorities, backed by objective data. No bias. No uncertainty. Just the right choice for your distribution or manufacturing business. What’s your company’s process for evaluating technology? #PlatformSelection #B2B #Ecommerce #DigitalTransformation #B2BPlatforms

Flipkart just spent more on a single Diwali influencer campaign than most brands spend all year. Here's what caught my attention: They're not just throwing money at mega influencers anymore. 42% of their festive budget went to micro creators with 10K-50K followers. Why? Because a beauty blogger with 15K followers in Pune got them 8.2% conversion rates. Their 2M follower celebrity? 1.3%. The math is brutal but beautiful. E-commerce brands now control 23% of India's influencer marketing spend. That's ₹2,300 crores this year. But here's the kicker - they're using AI to match creators with products. Not just demographics. Actual purchase behavior patterns. Saw a skincare brand pair a tech reviewer with their new face wash. Sounds weird? His audience bought 40% more than traditional beauty influencers. The old playbook of pretty faces selling pretty products is dead. Data-driven weird is the new normal. What's the strangest brand-creator pairing you've seen work?