Rohan Ayyar

In this two-part series, I'm offering insights into how startups or small businesses can close the gap between themselves and enterprise e-tailers or big-box stores through the use of software and technology, as well as digital branding and marketing channels. (Here is part one.) Providers of SaaS platforms and MarTech experts seem to think the…

It just makes sense: Merchants with businesses that operate on different scales are going to have different needs and different expectations when it comes to the e-commerce platforms they use. However, in the age of democratized technology, are the differences stark enough for solution providers to reconsider what they offer their users? To an increasing…

Retailers and their marketing teams are forever trying to nudge shoppers to load up their shopping carts, and go on to click the “Buy” button. In parts one and two of this three-part series, I looked at how the base of e-commerce is built, all the way from setting the right goals to pushing customers…

Retailers and their marketing teams are forever trying to nudge shoppers to load up their shopping carts and go on to click the “Buy” button. In part one of this series, we looked at how retailers can set measurable goals, conduct keyword research and put in place a content strategy for their e-commerce site. Let’s move…

E-Commerce is a sector with very few guarantees. It seems as though there are monumental changes happening by the hour in terms of new technologies, consumer mind-sets, big data, etc. However, amidst all the chaos, one thing is clear: e-commerce isn't going anywhere anytime soon. According to the U.S Census Bureau, online retail sales have been…

Retailers and their marketing teams are perennially engaged in a grueling, thankless struggle to try and prevent consumers from ditching them before they hit the elusive Buy button. In part one of this series, we looked at how brands are now turning to automated marketing to identify and correct generic problems in their e-commerce interface,…

When you run an e-commerce website, your most fearsome enemies aren’t necessarily your competitors. They could be the snags in your platform and the bottlenecks in your visitor funnel. Everything you work towards within your online store should have a prominent goal to reduce dreaded cart abandonment and increase conversions. In the last quarter of…

Was it 2011 or 2012 when we saw the advent of big data? Suddenly everyone was talking about the data explosion and predictive analytics. Every industry was jumping onto the bandwagon, including retail. It started innocuously enough with A/B testing, data gathering and funnel mapping, but it didn’t stop there. The new-age, number-crunching, stat-spewing marketers…

Every time around Christmas, I think of this movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger struggles to find a Turbo-Man for his kid. Depicting the commercialization around Christmas in a lighter vein, "Jingle All the Way" was the first movie that made me see Christmas through the retail lens. Interestingly, it’s my inbox and smartphone doing the job…

Some of us remember those old-time grocery stores from our childhood that accepted only cash. Sometimes not having exact change meant redoing a part of your shopping on a different day or somewhere else. Thankfully, memories of those days are just that. Memories. The digital boom that happened in the last 25 years permeated retail…