News Cart for October 9th

Hello from the ECFuel Pump!

In the forum this week, we learned that the United States narrowly avoided its own postal “Brexit,” and that some Amazon sellers are using a new A/B testing tool for A+ content.

In other headlines, websites maintained by brick-and-mortar stores must comply with ADA requirements after the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the case.

Facebook settled a class action with advertisers for $40 million, and CM Commerce is the new email marketing system built from Conversio.

Toys R Us tapped Target to power its online operations, while Walmart took steps to cut its e-commerce losses.

It’s all in the ECF News Cart for Oct. 9. You can also listen to this week’s roundup on the podcast via iTunes, Stitcher or the ECF Blog.

Enjoy!

– Andrew

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher

In the News:

U.S. Avoids Postal ‘Brexit’ as Universal Postal Union Reaches a Deal (Hat tip to ECF member Brandon Eley)

• President Trump had threatened to leave the UN’s Universal Postal Union if the group’s 192 members didn’t agree to reform the fee structure
• As part of the compromise, the U.S. gets to set its own postal rates starting in July 2020
• U.S. will also pay the postal union $40 million to help combat the shipment of fentanyl and other illegal goods

Supreme Court Rejects Domino’s Bid to Avoid Disabilities Lawsuit

• Stems from a blind man’s 2016 lawsuit claiming he couldn’t order a pizza on Domino’s website or mobile app
• Leaves in place a 9th Circuit ruling that brick-and-mortar stores subject to the ADA must also accommodate customers who use their websites and apps
• Does not affect web-only stores, as the ADA applies to physical locations

Amazon Rolls Out A/B Testing Tool to Some Sellers (Hat tip to F.N. in the forums; link available to members only)

• New tool called Manage Your Experiments in Seller Central lets certain sellers run free A/B tests on their A+ content (formerly EBC)
• Sellers receive insights on how their 4- to 10-week experiments performed

Toys R Us Relaunches Website, Powered by Target

• Target is helping parent company TRU Kids relaunch the bankrupt Toys R Us website
• ToysRUs.com redirects customers to Target.com to complete their purchases
• Could be huge boost to Target’s toy business ahead of the holiday season

Walmart Sells ModCloth, Bonobos Trims Job in Effort to Cut E-commerce Losses

• Walmart is selling ModCloth to investment firm Go Global Retail for an undisclosed amount; Bonobos laid off dozens of employees
• Walmart’s e-commerce division is projecting losses of more than $1 billion this year
• Retailer says e-commerce strategy has evolved “to focus on building direct-to-consumer brands that we can leverage in an omni[channel] way”

Facebook to Pay Advertisers $40 Million to Settle Class Action

• Advertisers said Facebook exaggerated how much time users spent watching sponsored content in 2015 and 2016
• Facebook admitted to miscalculating this metric but called it an “innocent mistake”
• If both sides agree to the terms, affected advertisers will be eligible for cash awards proportionate to how much they spent on video ads

Everything Amazon Announced at Alexa Event

• Alexa gets smarter and weirder with celebrity voices and the ability to answer your doorbell with, “Hi, this is Alexa. Is this a delivery?” (among other skills)
• Amazon Sidewalk’s long-range wireless network can track your runaway dog
• Beta, invite-only hardware include Alexa-enabled glasses and a smart ring

Campaign Monitor Acquires Conversio, Launches Email Marketing Platform

• CM Commerce integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce
• Built from Conversio, CM Commerce offers prebuilt workflows and email automation

E-commerce Patent: Text eBay to Sell Your Phone

Top Forum Discussions: 

(Membership required to access. Not a member? Apply to join our vibrant community of 7-figure store owners today.)

• Call for Speakers for ECF Live 2020
• Content Site Pruning to Improve Conversion Rate
• How One Blog Post Can Keep Customers Coming Back the Entire Holiday Season
• How I Increased Our DR Ranking 16 Points in 4 Months (The Good SEO Work!)
• Time Tracking for Remote Workers? Bad Idea or Normal?
• Best Practices for Building Remote Teams

Things My Friends Are Doing:

State of Independent SaaS Report – In the off-chance you run a SaaS business alongside having an interest in eCommerce, you need to take part in Rob Walling’s State of Independent SaaS Report. It takes less than 10 minutes, and study participants gain access to the final full report plus exclusive analysis.

Post by Andrew Youderian

Andrew is the founder of eCommerceFuel and has been building eCommerce businesses ever since gleefully leaving the corporate world in 2008.  Join him and 1,000+ vetted 7- and 8-figure store owners inside the eCommerceFuel Community.