Valentine’s Day is big business for brands and retailers. This year, U.S. consumers are expected to spend an average $143.56 on gifts for Valentine’s Day, an increase from last year’s U.S. total spending of $136.57, according to the National Retail Federation. Jewelry, flowers, candy and clothing are the top-performing categories for Valentine’s Day in the U.S. Consumers here don’t limit the [...]
Flow was thrilled to participate in this year’s IC Summit West Coast eCommerce event in Los Angeles. A uniquely diverse, powerful and sophisticated event for attendees and partners, IC Summit West served as a catalyst for discussions among retailers. I had the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion about supply chain and logistics featuring executives from three exciting brands in the [...]
China has extensive and complex customs rules and government regulations for cross-border purchases. It also has a huge and increasingly well-to-do population that prefers foreign — mostly western — consumer goods, primarily because of the poor quality of domestic products. China is home to the largest e-commerce market in the world and streamlined regulations offer an opportunity for western merchants looking [...]
In case you missed it, Flow Founder and CEO Rob Keve was a guest on the Fashion is Your Business Podcast, in which he discussed the benefits of going global and the pain points for e-commerce shops that are trying to sell into new markets. Rob covered a wide range of topics during the podcast, from why brands want to expand [...]
E-commerce is changing at an unprecedented pace. Anyone in e-commerce knows it can be tough to predict what consumers will want next. Retailers and consumer categories that were all the rage even a year ago can find themselves on the sidelines in the blink of an eye. New shopping trends, many driven by advancements in technology, mean that brands have to [...]
At first glance, much of the substance from NRF 2019 seemed like “déjà vu” compared to the themes explored at last year’s Big Show. Customer experience was once again top of mind: a theme that pulled through in a majority of the keynotes, panels and educational sessions. Most of the keynote speakers at this year’s event agreed that the future of [...]
The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week is an extravaganza of what’s possible in consumer gadgets: jet packs, talking robots, flying cars, intelligent drones and more. For online retailers, CES may seem like more of a pie-in-the-sky trip into the future than a place to gather practical advice. But if we put aside flashy prototypes that may [...]
The luxury e-commerce market has historically been slower to grow than other online retail segments. The idea of making high-ticket purchases without the benefit of touching or trying on goods has always been a disadvantage for luxury retailers. However, as younger generations of consumers become more interested in luxury shopping online, this is changing, with online global luxury sales increased by [...]
Part of our mission at Flow is to provide the most flexibility and control to merchants selling their products cross border, and we continuously add features and integrations to our solution to achieve this goal. Today, we are pleased to announce that we have integrated Google Pay into Flow’s Console, making this one of the latest additions to our growing list [...]
Retailers are often caught unaware about certain shipping charges, especially when selling cross-border. There are various situations where shipping carriers add fees and surcharges on international deliveries which can result in additional shipping charges that online retailers might not have expected. This can create a significant amount of friction for retailers and numerous challenges in developing a successful international shipping strategy. [...]
