The JetRails Podcast
Hosted by Robert Rand, The JetRails Podcast presents interviews with industry leaders, experts, visionaries, and are veterans with insights and expertise into websites, eCommerce, and digital marketing. Learn tips, recommendations, and items of interest as we help you stay ahead of the curve on the internet.
Episodes
April 26, 2021 • 51 min
For eCommerce stores, 2020 was heavily focused on acquiring and supporting new customers. In 2021 those same eCommerce merchants are putting a bigger focus on retention and customer lifetime value (CLV).
So, we wanted to spend some time discussing organized ways to keep your shoppers engaged with your brand and loyal to your store. Through the process, we also touch on a lot of things that don't work well and should be avoide...
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April 16, 2021 • 46 min
eCommerce shoppers, in the words of a famous cartoon character, will "gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". While the words of J. Wellington Wimpy, a well-known character from Popeye were meant to be entertaining, there's a serious underlying concept.
Shoppers don't all have lines of credit at the ready. They may have steady incomes but haven't built a credit history yet. Whether they're young adu...
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April 6, 2021 • 48 min
Some items don't belong on a standard UPS or FedEx truck. Perhaps the items are heavy or big. Maybe you're just moving items in bulk quantities. That's where less-than-truckload (LTL) freight comes in. These services have been in high demand in recent times, delivering items from B2B and B2C orders alike.
As a merchant, if you need to spread out your goods between multiple warehouses so that they can be delivered in 1...
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March 30, 2021 • 36 min
Browser extensions like Honey and Capital One Shopping (formerly Wikibuy) promise to give shoppers the best coupon codes at checkout automatically. For merchants, it's like someone's standing at the checkout handing out photocopies of exclusive coupons - something they'd never stand for at brick-and-mortar stores. Shoppers wind up using coupons that weren't intended for them, hurting margins and making it harder to ...
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March 26, 2021 • 89 min
Whether you're a frontend dev, backend dev, eCommerce manager, marketer, or other stakeholder, figuring out how to gain expertise in Magento can be difficult. If you want to improve your work and advance your business or career, you'll appreciate this episode!
We cover everything from where to get started, to how to become a rockstar in the Magento community.
Guest: Joseph Maxwell, SwiftOtter.com
Host: Robert Rand, JetRa...
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March 24, 2021 • 51 min
As consumers, we are the product. The data that we generate has value. Individuals, however, are increasingly getting a say in what happens to their data.
Much like sales tax collection, this puts a burden on eCommerce store owners, who need to comply with an increasing number of laws from different jurisdictions. This includes GDPR from the EU, CCPA from California, LGPD down in Brazil, and now VCDPA in Virginia.
States, count...
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March 16, 2021 • 38 min
Online shoppers compare your prices to those of other eCommerce stores. How do you track and use competitor pricing and inventory availability? Can this practice help you to increase your prices? Which products should you track, and how often should you adjust prices? Not sure? Well, get ready to learn how eCommerce merchants are tracking competitors and optimizing their product prices continuously in this episode about eCommerce p...
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March 15, 2021 • 39 min
Highly customizable applications like Drupal and Magento have made auto-updating elusive. For some, allocating resources to patch and update software in a timely fashion can be a challenge. So, we asked an expert in the area of auto-updating these kinds of platforms what a healthy workflow can look like.
Tune in to learn about the pros and cons of common practices for updating CMS, eCommerce, and other open-source software. This ...
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March 10, 2021 • 63 min
We frequently discuss increasing conversion rates, average order values, and customer lifetime values, so we thought it would be helpful to focus this episode on the mice, as opposed to making it all about the mousetraps.
Guest: Will Laurenson, CustomersWhoClick.com
Host: Robert Rand, JetRails.com
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March 8, 2021 • 53 min
Email marketing is important to most successful eCommerce organizations, but lots of organizations are bottlenecked and don't leverage all of the bells and whistles that their email platforms support. So, we thought it would be helpful to talk about what you can get help with, and what you should avoid trying to outsource.
Let's assume that your newsletter and sale emails are going out and getting a good response. Here are...
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March 3, 2021 • 103 min
eCommerce is always evolving. In this episode, you'll hear stories from 3 industry insiders as they discuss what's already changed, what's changing... and even some predictions. Along the way, you'll learn about the intersections of eCommerce with other important areas, like Sales Tax and ERP solutions. You'll also hear about different disruptions and improvements for different eCommerce merchants, including B2C...
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February 17, 2021 • 40 min
There's something to be said for experiences where we look past AI and allow shoppers to help optimize their own experiences. If you've ever been a regular at a restaurant or a local store, you know what I'm talking about. You walk in, and the staff already know what you like - because you've told them. It's not about guessing and averages, it's about listening to shoppers and treating them like highly-value...
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February 16, 2021 • 41 min
eCommerce businesses are now data companies. Data helps merchants find the best marketing channels and campaigns. It assists in optimizing on-site experiences, and even efforts to retain customers for the long haul. In this episode, we focused on tips, tools, and recommendations for merchants that want to use data to be more successful in 2021. That includes newer products like Google Analytics 4 and Microsoft Clarity, but also imp...
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February 15, 2021 • 40 min
Sure, you can list products on Amazon's Marketplace and Amazon will be thrilled to take your money to promote those listings... but the Amazon DSP is capable of a lot more. You can leverage Amazon's vast reach and data sets to target shoppers with ads that lead to your own eCommerce store. You can also run ads across Amazon's advertising network, which includes properties like IMDb, Twitch, Zappos, and Goodreads. In thi...
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February 8, 2021 • 63 min
What Magento extensions are in demand? What are merchants and developers asking for? How has demand for different extensions changed in the last year? What are extension developers doing differently to better service eCommerce businesses?
We had a lot of questions, and we certainly weren't disappointed by the answers. Tune in to learn more!
Guest: Sergej Derzap, Amasty.com
Host: Robert Rand, JetRails.com
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February 4, 2021 • 38 min
eCommerce businesses experience operations challenges as they grow. Sometimes, it's with forecasting and inventory management. In other situations, there are delays in fulfillment operations, or there's time wasted and errors introduced through manual data entry. While every business is unique, in this episode, we pull at some common threads that eCommerce merchants are tethered by as they scale up... whether they realize i...
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January 18, 2021 • 69 min
Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM), and the rest of the holiday shopping season is in the rearview mirror. Black Friday was up 22% year-over-year. Cyber Monday was up 15%. Bots were buying up all the Playstations. It's 2021 and shoppers are still returning holiday purchases to Amazon sellers. Those returns will wind up going to...
With so many unique experiences and challenges, it's hard to imagine an eCommerce business that...
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December 21, 2020 • 59 min
Many merchants treat gift cards, loyalty programs, and coupons as business features rather than strategies.
In this episode, we do discuss the features that set eCommerce and multichannel merchants up for success, but we also discuss strategies for using these features, including in combination with each other. The goal is always to find ways to appeal to consumers.
Guest: Pravin Kamble, 99minds.io
Host: Robert Rand, JetRails.co...
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November 17, 2020 • 71 min
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) isn't a specific set of tasks. It's a state of mind. You have to know your audience, test, measure, realize you don't really know your audience as well as you think you do and continue a cycle of improving your eCommerce operations. You start to understand what helps and hurts your sales stats as it relates to different customer segments and you can lean into the winning strategies. Yo...
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November 12, 2020 • 81 min
Integrating data is one thing, but transforming that data through automated workflows is a whole other challenge. Learn how technology providers and service providers are coming together to solve challenges and increase eCommerce business efficiencies.
Guests:
- Ramesh Cooke, LYSI.co
- Nate Roybal, Workato.com
Host:
- Robert Rand, JetRails.com
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