Ecommerce

𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚'𝐬 "𝟏𝟎-𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐮𝐦" 𝐓𝐚𝐱: 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚’𝐬 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐭 I visited my local chemist recently for a 3-day course of medicine. The strip had 10 pills; I needed 6. The chemist refused to cut it. The reason I asked? "If I cut it, the next customer won’t buy it because they can’t see the expiry date." He’s right - but only because our packaging design is stuck in the past. This isn't just a minor inconvenience; it’s a systemic failure that leads to MASSIVE MEDICAL WASTE and an unfair "waste tax" on every Indian household. 📈 THE NUMBERS TELL A STORY: The Indian pharma industry is a global powerhouse. In 2025, the domestic market grew to ₹2.4 lakh crore, with top companies enjoying operating profit margins of 25% to 32%. When an industry is this profitable and growing at 9-11% YoY, the oft-touted argument that "retooling packaging is too costly" loses its sting. Improving packaging isn't a cost - it’s a basic requirement for patient safety and affordability. ❌ THE PROBLEM: In India, manufacturing and expiry details are usually printed in a single block on one end of a strip. Cut the strip, and you lose the "source of truth." 💡 THE "ZERO-WASTE" SOLUTIONS: (Common elsewhere, missing here) 1️⃣ Vertical Repetitive Printing: Regulators (CDSCO) should mandate that expiry and batch info be printed across every single blister cell, not just once per strip. 2️⃣ Unit-Dose Perforation: Designing strips that are pre-perforated into single, fully-labeled units. You buy one pill; you get the full data for that one pill. 3️⃣ Micro QR Codes: Every pill pocket could carry a 2D data matrix. A quick scan by the consumer verifies the batch and expiry instantly, no matter how the strip is cut. 🎯 THE BOTTOM LINE: We are the "Pharmacy of the World," yet we are forcing our own citizens to buy 40% more medicine than they need just because we haven't updated our printing standards. Pharma companies have the margins to absorb this transition. It’s time for regulators to move from "bulk-first" to "PATIENT-FIRST" packaging. What do you think? Is it time for a mandate on unit-dose labelling?

The European Parliament has officially passed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation that fundamentally shifts the responsibility for textile waste management to fashion brands and retailers – with far-reaching global implications. This new law requires all producers, including e-commerce platforms, to cover the full cost of collecting, sorting, and recycling textiles, regardless of whether they are based within or outside the EU. The financial burden of Europe's textile waste now falls squarely on the brands that create it. What are the critical business implications? UNIVERSAL SCOPE: The legislation applies to all producers selling in the EU market, including those of clothing, accessories, footwear, home textiles, and curtains. No company is exempt based on location. FAST FASHION PENALTY: Member states must specifically address ultra-fast and fast fashion practices when determining EPR financial contributions, creating cost penalties for unsustainable business models. GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN DISRUPTION: As the world's largest textile importer, the EU's new rules will ripple across global supply chains, particularly impacting exporters from Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, and India who supply much of Europe's fast fashion. TIMELINE PRESSURE: Officially adopted September 2025, this creates immediate operational and financial planning requirements. COMPETITIVE RESHAPING: Brands and retailers will inevitably pass increased costs down their supply chains, fundamentally altering supplier relationships and pricing structures globally. What are the implications for various stakeholders? For CEOs and board members: This represents more than regulatory compliance – it's a complete business model transformation. Companies must now integrate end-of-life costs into product pricing, rethink supplier partnerships, and accelerate circular design strategies. For sustainability and decarbonisation executives: This creates unprecedented opportunities for circular economy solutions, sustainable material innovation, and traceability system development across global supply chains. Link: https://lnkd.in/dTyHtHuD #sustainablefashion #circulareconomy #textilwaste #epr #fashionindustry #sustainability #supplychainmanagement #fastfashion #environmentalregulation #businessstrategy #decarbonisation #textilerecycling #fashionceos #boardgovernance #climateaction #wastemanagement #producerresponsibility #fashionsustainability #textileindustry #greenbusiness

Replenishment isn’t a side feature, it’s a force multiplier. This is a big mistake. We’ve seen replenishment flows outperform promos and win-back emails combined. They convert better every time with the right timing and zero customer effort. Brands overspend on ads to win new customers, then forget to win them again. They need to predict exactly when a customer needs to repurchase and trigger the message at the perfect moment. Not too soon, not too late. Just right. ++ 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 – 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗶𝘅 𝗜𝘁 ++  𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 ✅ Fix: Replenit’s AI triggers proactive reminders across channels exactly when customers are likely to run out, via the brand's own marketing automation vendors, without any migration. 𝗣𝗼𝗼𝗿 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗿 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹 ✅ Fix: Multichannel orchestration (SMS, push, email) with personalized timing based on consumption behavior. 𝗡𝗼 𝗖𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 ✅ Fix: Smart upsell bundles, urgency messages (“running low?”), and loyalty integration improve reorder ROI.   • Food & Beverage, pet food and treats, wellness & beauty products hold the highest repeat purchase potential, being very high due to frequent, perishable-driven consumption patterns. • Online groceries and FMCG rank high in habitual/impulsive behavior, presenting a strong fit for mobile push and SMS-driven replenishment campaigns. Brands like Glosel turned a leaky bucket into a revenue engine with Replenit’s AI-powered multichannel replenishment flows. 🚀 53.75% more automation revenue 🛒 +28% higher AOV 📲 100% of the Multichannel approach, email, SMS & Push channel revenue -12X Higher Engagement Rate Why does it work? Because Replenit activates timely, no-effort reorders across email, SMS, push, and more. Most brands forget to remind customers. ++ 𝟯 𝗧𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀 ++ 1️⃣ Make Replenishment an Always-On Growth Engine Don’t treat it as a postscript. Integrate replenishment flows as a core revenue pillar in your retention strategy. 2️⃣ Automate Across Channels With Smart Triggers Use AI-powered solutions to trigger SMS, email, and push notifications based on usage cycles, not guesswork. 3️⃣ Track and Optimize With First-Party Data Loops Leverage Replenit’s dashboards to identify top retention products, run experiments on timing, and iterate continuously. 𝗧𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 ecommert® 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗷𝗼𝗶𝗻 𝟭𝟰,𝟮𝟬𝟬+ 𝗖𝗣𝗚, 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗹, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗰𝗿𝗶𝗯𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘁® : 𝗖𝗣𝗚 𝗗𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗻𝗲𝘄𝘀𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. About ecommert We partner with CPG businesses and leading technology companies of all sizes to accelerate growth through AI-driven digital commerce solutions. #CPG #ecommerce #Replenishment #AI #FMCG

Having a dominating share on e-commerce marketplaces has been one of the pillars of our growth. 10 pointers for founders to keep in mind while scaling e-com: 1. The fundamental equation of e-com is “Sales= Traffic*Conversion”. Not meeting sales numbers is either a traffic problem or a conversion problem. For every SKU, figure out whether it is a traffic problem or a conversion problem. Do not try to solve traffic problems with conversion levers. And vice versa. 2. Like all performance marketing, e-com media also has diminishing returns. Beyond a point, increasing spends will not increase sales at the same speed. Stop at that point 3. If you want to increase profitability, you need to increase your organic discoverability in the platform. Amazon is a search led platform with search contributing to 60-70% views in most categories. For Flipkart, along with search, merch and reco are equally important. But the fundamentals of organic discoverability is same. Both platforms have an algorithm where SKUs with the best reviews, highest listing quality score, lowest time to delivery and highest conversion rates get pushed. Optimize for these parameters and see organic discoverability skyrocket 4. The other way to reduce dependency on platform ads( and hence increase profitability) is to ensure your branded searches increase. This is directly a function of your off platform marketing activities, word of mouth and repeat customers. So, work on those parameters 5. Category Relationships matter a lot. Understand what the number 1 objective of your category manager is for the year. And help them achieve it. Eg: If they are looking to improve ASP, help them with your premium assortment. If you help them achieve their number 1 KPI, they will ensure you do well on the platform 6. Whatever the ads team tell you, take it with a pinch of salt. Most times they are very helpful. But their number 1 KPI is to sell ads. Not your success. So, sometimes what is good for them might not be good for you 7. All SKUs will not do well. All sub-categories won’t do well. If there is no PPCMF, no amount of good execution will cut it. So, important to cut your losses and stop investing more money on losers. Instead, allocate to your winners in the portfolio 8. Have a E-Commerce dashboard which goes beyond the L0 metrics. Look at your L1 and L2 metrics daily and hold teams accountable for these metrics. Ads driven sales, share of search, organic visits, conversion rates etc are all examples of L1 metrics 9. Sometimes there will be irrational competition and they will bid crazily for keywords. Do not compete with them. They are burning cash and because blind venture money is running out quickly in consumer brands, they will fizzle out. 10. Do not overdo discounts. Discounts are like antibiotics. You use it 2-3 times a year, you see huge spikes. Use it every alternate day, and that becomes your market operating price.

Dove fly-posted negative Reddit reviews across NYC. They launched “r/eal reviews” built entirely from unfiltered Reddit commentary about its Intensive Repair 10-in-1 Serum Mask. The first 50 consumer reviews, positive, negative and neutral, appear exactly as written. No attempt to steer sentiment. 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝟭𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬+ 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝟭𝟭𝟲𝗺+ 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘀. And content views on Reddit are growing 30%+ year on year. It’s where people get answers, share ideas, offer advice and go for real product reviews. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗳𝘁: → Review culture has moved from brand-controlled testimonials to open community commentary. → Consumers are actively seeking out unfiltered opinions in places like Reddit before they buy. → Brands are responding by engaging directly within communities rather than relying solely on influencer amplification. → On Reddit, that means participating in the format of the platform. AMAs, community threads, content that sits naturally within the ecosystem. The campaign launched with a pop-up takeover of Flatiron Plaza in New York, where oversized, unedited reviews sit alongside product sampling. To honour Reddit’s anonymity, Dove covered all participant faces with their Snoo avatars. There’s a HUGE opportunity on Reddit that most brands are still underestimating.

I hear from a lot of social media teams that they “ask for forgiveness, not permission” to use songs that they don’t have the rights to on TikTok and Instagram. Turns out forgiveness is expensive. Last week, UMG sued Quince for copyright infringement for including unlicensed music in Instagram and TikTok posts. While I’ve talked about brands being sued by music labels before, this one is interesting because it also holds the brand responsible for sponsored influencer posts that use unlicensed music. UMG has identified a whopping 130 works infringed by Quince. The exposure in statutory damages alone is over $20M. I asked marketing lawyer Rob Freund what brands should take away from this lawsuit: “The Quince case is the latest in a string of cases against brands using unlicensed popular songs on social media, both on brand-owned pages and via influencers. The takeaway is that brands cannot use the general popular music libraries that the platforms provide for any commercial content (which includes any posting on brand-owned pages) and cannot treat influencer content as a copyright safe harbor. The platform licenses do not extend to commercial use, unless you use the designated commercial sound libraries. Any brand running a creator program needs a music licensing strategy and clear contractual guardrails for its influencers.”

Retail is dead. Foot traffic is down across the board. That’s the narrative we hear over and over being pushed in the media. Yet TALA - Grace Beverley’s brand born online - has opened their first physical store in Carnaby Street this weekend, to queues around Soho & a sell-out ticketed event. So rather than being dead, what if the role of brand retail has simply transformed? My take 👉 The store is no longer solely top of the funnel or entirely about discoverability. It’s the destination. The community hub. The clubhouse. It’s where content becomes tangible. Where brand world becomes real world. Where you walk through the door and it feels like stepping into their Instagram, their TikToks, their values. We’re not just talking racks and rails - there’s a coffee bar, photobooths, events, and experiences. This is community-led commerce. It’s a cultural space disguised as a high street shop. And I believe this is where we see the real revival of the high street - not as a retail destination, but as a brand world brought to life. A place to deepen connection with your community - ultimately strengthening the life time value of that customer. The blueprint is clear: Content captures. Community keeps. IRL deepens. TALA joins the ranks of Gymshark, Odd Muse and Glossier, Inc. - brands that built strong digital tribes before laying a single brick and now use their stores as destinations for the community to connect IRL. And in a world where discovery is unpredictable - spanning podcasts, group chats, TikToks and Substack - trying to funnel people in linearly is a lost cause. The smartest brands aren’t forcing a path. They’re showing up where their community already is & then inviting them in deeper. Retail isn’t dead. It’s reinventing itself & I'm so here for it. Calling it now - your favourite digital brand worlds will manifest in real life in the next 18 months whether through pop ups or permanent stores. Mark my words!

It’s an oxymoron, but in the era of AI moving funds from one account to another has been signaled as one of the major payments’ trends. Where’s the catch? Let’s take a look. Transferring funds between accounts is not a novelty, but rather one of the oldest and more basic payments’ use cases. And yet if you look at today’s increasingly complicated payments landscape, there is an entire debate going on, hooked on the principle that Account-to-Account (A2A) payments can lead the next wave of payments #innovation. The numbers from the 2024 Global Payments Report are telling: —     A2A was in 2023 the leading #ecommerce payment method in Finland, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Thailand —     In established card markets (Australia, Canada, UK, USA) A2A growth has been considerably slower —     In emerging markets (i.e. India, Brazil) A2A schemes have risen mainly due to strong government support as a means to achieve financial inclusion and promote digital payments, whereas in more advanced markets the use of A2A schemes is driven by collaborative initiatives between banks Despite their differences, A2A schemes across the globe have one common denominator: they are all local. Interoperability is almost non-existent (Alipay+ is an exception), reflecting a plethora of challenges: different geographies, local consumer preferences, infrastructure, regulation, etc. The rise of A2A #payments is driven by: 1. The proliferation of real-time rails that bring novel use-cases 2. The growth of Open Banking schemes (OB payments are by default A2A Payments) 3. Major actors (merchants, payments players) in an increasingly digital and mobile-first FS ecosystem looking for reliable, efficient and price-competitive payment alternatives 4. Regulation - the recently adopted Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) in Europe is a primary example Despite all the above and the attractiveness of the model, there are 2 main challenges holding back #A2A payments and schemes from dominating, especially in card markets: —  The lack of all the bits and pieces adding value around simple payments’ transactions: chargebacks, disputes, exceptions and fraud protection. These are areas where the big schemes (i.e. Visa, Mastercard) have a competitive advantage, having spent decades optimizing them —  Loyalty schemes and premium perks (i.e. hotel credits, airline miles, discounts) funded from card interchange fees (that don’t exist in A2A set-ups) that drive card adoption These challenges notwithstanding a significant part of the payments’ innovation is heading back to where it started from: the bank account. It’s not therefore by accident that the card networks have bought their way into the space (i.e. Mastercard has bought Finicity and Aiia and Visa has acquired Tink). In the new, multi-rail payments landscape A2A is here to stay. Opinions: my own, Graphic sources: Arkwright Consulting, The Paypers

🔮 Design Patterns For AI Interfaces (https://lnkd.in/dyyMKuU9), a practical overview with emerging AI UI patterns, layout considerations and real-life examples — along with interaction patterns and limitations. Neatly put together by Sharang Sharma. One of the major shifts is the move away from traditional “chat-alike” AI interfaces. As Luke Wroblewski wrote, when agents can use multiple tools, call other agents and run in the background, users orchestrate AI work — there’s a lot less chatting back and forth. In fact, chatbot widgets are rarely an experience paradigm that people truly enjoy and can fall in love with. Mostly because the burden of articulating intent efficiently lies on the user. It can be done (and we’ve learned to do that), but it takes an incredible amount of time and articulation to give AI enough meaningful context for it to produce meaningful insights. As it turned out, AI is much better at generating prompt based on user’s context to then feed it into itself. So we see more task-oriented UIs, semantic spreadsheets and infinite canvases — with AI proactively asking questions with predefined options, or where AI suggests presets and templates to get started. Or where AI agents collect context autonomously, and emphasize the work, the plan, the tasks — the outcome, instead of the chat input. All of it are examples of great User-First, AI-Second experiences. Not experiences circling around AI features, but experiences that truly amplify value for users by sprinkling a bit of AI in places where it delivers real value to real users. And that’s what makes truly great products — with AI or without. ✤ Useful Design Patterns Catalogs: Shape of AI: Design Patterns, by Emily Campbell 👍 https://shapeof.ai/ AI UX Patterns, by Luke Bennis 👍 https://lnkd.in/dF9AZeKZ Design Patterns For Trust With AI, via Sarah Gold 👍 https://lnkd.in/etZ7mm2Y AI Guidebook Design Patterns, by Google https://lnkd.in/dTAHuZxh ✤ Useful resources: Usable Chat Interfaces to AI Models, by Luke Wroblewski https://lnkd.in/d-Ssb5G7 The Receding Role of AI Chat, by Luke Wroblewski https://lnkd.in/d8xcujMC Agent Management Interface Patterns, by Luke Wroblewski https://lnkd.in/dp2H9-HQ Designing for AI Engineers, by Eve Weinberg https://lnkd.in/dWHstucP #ux #ai #design

Would you believe me if I told you that the marketing rollout for one of the most commercially successful, critically acclaimed independent albums of 2023 was bankrolled by a file-sharing company? It's true — and I gave a whole presentation about it. I'm excited to share below the FULL case study I developed for a workshop last year, on the groundbreaking brand partnership between Jungle and WeTransfer for the "Volcano" album campaign. As someone who typically focuses on tech industry trends, this case study was a rare opportunity for me to flex my muscles in marketing strategy. And there was truly no better subject for me than Jungle — who is one of my favorite live acts, and whose "Volcano" was my most-streamed album of last year. An independent release on AWAL, "Volcano" currently boasts over 500 million Spotify streams, a Brit Award, and stellar music video choreography that would make even professional dancers envious. What many might not realize is that WeTransfer is credited as a producer on all 14 music videos for the album, as well as the full-length Volcano Motion Picture released in December 2023. WeTransfer timed this partnership with their own rebranding as a company, making Jungle the face of their key feature launches. The campaign rolled out across multiple platforms over the course of 250+ days, with many exclusive content releases in Jungle's Medallion fan community, as well as on a bespoke, Jungle-branded WeTransfer landing page. In the deck below, I break down: 🌋 The shape of Volcano's 254-day "waterfall" content release strategy, and how WeTransfer's role as a brand partner evolved throughout 🌋 Why WeTransfer and Jungle's brand aesthetics and audiences align 🌋 How the campaign catapulted Jungle's streaming and social media growth 🌋 How the campaign did NOT move the needle on brand awareness for WeTransfer — but still may have succeeded for the company in other ways 🌋 How to use tools like Chartmetric, Semrush, and SocialBlade to benchmark performance of similar campaigns across streaming, social media, and web traffic metrics Disclaimer: This analysis only covers March–December 2023, so does not include Jungle's recent campaign with Gap, which had an even further impact on Jungle's streaming and social performance. I *love* doing these data-driven music marketing breakdowns — especially for artists and scenes close to my heart — and would love to help other people out with this work. There's so much insight to be gained, even just from publicly available data. If you're interested in collaborating on similar case studies or audits on social media campaigns for your artist or brand, please DM me to discuss! #musicmarketing #musicdata #musictech #dataanalysis #musicindustry #musicbiz #musicbusiness #marketingstrategy