OMD FWD w/c Nov 21st
Black Friday is fast approaching. As people get ready to hit the online sales, reports are predicting that shoppers will return over £1 billion worth of goods purchased. UK shoppers will spend £5bn in a four-day internet shopping frenzy from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. Yet, these huge returns will result in tying stock up for three to four weeks in the supply chain returns loop. As a result, on any one day, there is roughly £978m worth of e-commerce stock tied up in the returns cycle in the UK alone. E-commerce returns are costing the industry £25.5bn each year. It is clear there is a problem that needs tackling. One such problem is that products aren’t as expected from their online descriptions and images. Using the data that is already collected, there could be simple fixes to reduce the number of returns and money lost.
HEADLINES
- Snap Inc (Snapchat’s parent company) prepares for IPO, secrecy and intrigue make up the narrative
- Facebook has had to issue a response to another miscalculation in its page insights, fortunately in metrics that were little used by marketers
- Instagram rolls out Live features and includes updates to Direct messaging
INSIGHTS
- How the Snapchat Spectacles (reviewed here) release isn’t repeating the same mistakes as Google Glass, and how some brands are already getting involved
- £1 in every £5 of web sales on Black Friday is returned
- Google launches APIs for its machine learning tech through Google Cloud and also updates us on how Google Translate is getting better through Neural Machine Translation
COOL
- Love Pictionary? Google’s Quick Draw is the most fun you can have learning about machine learning
- Microsoft uses HoloLens to do a mixed reality Mannequin challenge
- Google Earth used to create a ‘love letter’ to cities
DEEP READS
- How Google, Facebook and Microsoft are remaking themselves in response to AI
- Here we go again; how 5G technology will change the way we use the web
- And final, some thoughts on why Facebook might need a news editor
Share anything you see through the week with the hashtag #OMDFWD