Buy now pay later, or "BNPL" services are growing in popularity during the pandemic as they enable consumers to pay for purchases over a short time with no interest and a small starting payment. However, money experts urge caution. Similar to credit cards, BNPL services can negatively impact credit scores and land people in debt or collections if not used properly.

If the ongoing struggles amid the pandemic have taught retailers anything, it is the need to automate their customer service experience. Customer experience automation is making the difference between hanging on until closing down and ensuring more returning customers.

The emergency caused by the novel coronavirus is causing deep structural changes to how we do business. We don't sell or market the way we did before the virus, and it may be some time before we return to that model -- if indeed we ever do. Oracle's strategy centers around the CX Unity Customer Intelligence Platform, a data management platform that's central to marketers' activities.

Several recently-published reports and surveys tracking changes in consumer buying habits reveal a growing competition between old versus new shopping habits. The E-Commerce Times discussed the implications of these new consumer buying trends with marketing experts. The results show that e-commerce is overwhelmingly becoming the first choice for many consumers. However, some consumers are beginning to show renewed interest in returning to their previous shopping norms.

Panic buying and competition for consumer attention between in-store and online transactions have created a brave new world of retail that is bound to continue into a post-pandemic reality. The E-Commerce Times reached out to several firms that guide brands on how to prepare for, and adapt to, changes in consumer behavior and product demand -- and what this means for the future of retail.

Recent research shows that employees are well aligned with the directions and goals of their companies, and that they are competently led and respect their bosses; but the technologies they use leave a lot to be desired. This includes CRM, and too often the functionality that their currently installed CRM doesn't offer. Consequently, the changes Salesforce just introduced in its Marketing Cloud could not have been more timely.

Getting a prospect on the line and talking to them directly matters. It's the ability to deliver the pitch with the right content, cadence, and care for your future clients' needs that makes a voice call so effective. It's not just salespeople who prefer a call -- 92 percent of all customer interactions happen over the phone. Simply put, that direct human connection creates the right environment to establish trust.

Some years ago, Marc Benioff told me he was not interested in developing back office apps that would compete with SAP and Oracle in the ERP and finance market. Many people, myself included, looked askance at that idea and wondered out loud how the company would continue to grow because, hey, there's front office and back office and nothing else right? Nope.

Marketers at B2C companies realize that personalization is key to business, but they are having problems implementing personalization strategies, according to a recent survey by Adweek Intelligence in association with IBM Watson Advertising. "Defining personalization has to start, stop and be continuously refined through the sole lens of the customer," Liz Miller, a principal analyst at Constellation Research advised.

If you search for "why CRM fails" you get over three million results. Analysts report that close to half of all CRM projects fail and about 40 percent of CRM software purchased goes unused -- because sales teams don't want to use software that makes them glorified data entry clerks and still doesn't "work." As a CRM industry veteran, this ongoing failure rate hits close to home, and in my experience is much higher.

The COVID-19 pandemic will be one of the defining events of our lifetime. The economic consequences will last years and forever change consumer behavior. Over the last 30 years, experts have been studying the slow burn of consumer adoption of new technologies. Never have we witnessed adoption rates accelerate to the degree we saw in the last 60 days in e-commerce and video-conferencing.

The United States Business Association of E-Commerce is poised to open for business. Its mission is to help small and mid-sized enterprises, as well as minority- and veteran-owned startups, to bridge the e-commerce digital divide. The B2B marketplace platform will connect small and medium-sized firms to domestic and global buyers. The USBAEC bills itself as a disruptive business ecosystem.

A pandemic, economic uncertainty and social distancing -- what a kerfuffle we are in. As marketing leaders, it's an incredibly difficult time to direct our teams. Yet, while we're all figuring out how to juggle emotions, families, dogs, toilet paper shortages, and a calendar full of conference calls, the revenue team has to press on in building pipeline and establishing predictable growth.

Customer service doesn't have to suffer while your company goes through a difficult transition. In fact, 78 percent of consumers said they stopped doing business with a company because of poor customer service. Now is the time to show your most valuable buyers how you'll keep them informed, updated and respected throughout this crisis by adapting your practices to the moment.

Shopify has unveiled an app that lets users discover local businesses, receive relevant product recommendations from their favorite brands, check out effortlessly, and track all their online orders. It can gather and track orders automatically, but it also works without auto-tracking. Consumers can get a customized feed with deals, trending items and recommendations from their favorite stores.

Merchants soon will be able to sell products on Google Shopping at no charge. Previously, they had to pay per click, but the cost was not fixed. There was no minimum, but they had to set a maximum for ad spend and Google would stop displaying their ads once the maximum was reached. Starting next week, search results on the Google Shopping tab will consist primarily of free product listings.

With something like 380 websites being created every minute, building an e-commerce shop can be a daunting task. It's easy to look at all of the success stories out there and think, "How could I possibly be that lucky?" However, the opportunity for growth in e-commerce is not slowing down. E-commerce sales are projected to grow 85 percent from their 2019 totals by 2022.

In this uncertain and increasingly homebound era, customers are turning online for everything from groceries to cat food. It's more important than ever to make sure that websites are optimized for the highest-possible customer engagement and conversion. E-commerce optimization is one game that companies struggling for market share in the midst of a pandemic must play.

With the business world -- and the world at large, for that matter -- changing at what feels like a moment's notice, businesses and brands have never been required to be as limber as in this current moment. Marketing leaders want hard evidence and objective facts for decision making. It wasn't long ago that multi-touch attribution was the prized child of the hype cycle among marketers.

More than 20 million individuals visit Amazon every month, making the platform the top e-commerce website in the U.S. Today's consumers don't use Amazon solely to make purchases -- they use the marketplace to check prices, discover new products, and research items they might want to buy. Amazon continues to dominate the shopping journey, and a reported 66 percent of consumers turn to Amazon first.

Does your customer relationship management strategy have what it takes to reach Generation Y? It's estimated that by 2021, an additional $394 billion in revenue could be gained from artificial intelligence adoption in CRM activities in the U.S. As companies grow and technology evolves at a faster-than-ever pace, collecting, storing and providing data is becoming a bigger and bigger task.

The sky starts to dump the first snow of the year. Looking down at your dress shoes, you make a mental note to order some sturdier winter boots. Later that day, you're comparing two boot brands on your laptop and get distracted -- no more online shopping at work. When you get home, you grab your tablet to continue browsing boots. Maybe you can find a recommendation on Twitter?

People have been giving presentations for thousands of years, from Moses with his stone tablets to Elon Musk revealing his grand plans to colonize Mars. While the elements of a great pitchman generally have remained the same over the past 5,000 years -- conviction, charisma, credibility -- today's successful presenters do more than just get in front of an audience and talk.

Several conferences I was scheduled to attend have been canceled in the past week. All of the sponsors cited an abundance of caution in the face of the unknown consequences of coronavirus transmission and outright COVID-19 pneumonia. That's all to the good, but we need to get business done even in the face of the virus, because business has to propel itself forward or individual companies wither.

Product vendors are facing a growing negative reaction from consumers concerned about product quality and fake or misleading product reviews posted online, according to new research. A large majority of consumers polled said they would flee a brand if the manufacturer sold them poor quality products, ran dishonest or misleading ads, or was associated with fake or fraudulent reviews.

Perhaps you're a direct-to-consumer brand trying to build brand awareness and tell your story. Perhaps you're looking to increase branded search volume across search engines like Amazon, Google, Bing and others. Maybe your brand is focused on new customer acquisition in your sales funnel and you have dedicated marketing resources and asset creation.

Social selling has changed how online consumers are interacting with and buying from e-commerce businesses. Why? Because it's had a huge impact on the buyer's journey as a whole. Today, we live in a digital world, and this means the consumer has the upper hand, thanks to the growth in e-commerce and the Internet of Things. The modern buyer does more research up front and online.

There were 4,521,480,071 Internet users as of Dec. 1, 2019. A month later it was closer to 5 billion users. A decade ago there were fewer than a billion social network users. That's worldwide. That user growth has been a leading indicator of the rise of alternative social networking platforms. Marketers -- and consumers -- are always on the lookout for the newest thing with which to engage.

The business-to-business buyer's journey is often difficult and long. The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision makers, each of them bringing information they independently gathered to share with the group before making a decision. This information often opens the door for new suggestions, creating an even longer buying process.

The prison workforce development program run by Televerde delivers significant economic and cultural value, concludes a study recently conducted at Arizona State University's Seidman Research Institute. Televerde trains and employs incarcerated women, and it offers many of them employment when they leave prison. Televerde CSRO Michelle Cirocco spoke about the study and about the long-term benefits of Televerde's program.