Weekly Recap 3: The Supply Chain, Facebook Ads, & Netlify Graph

Below is the transcription from the third recap podcast episode, hosted by Avex Founder and CEO John Surdakowski. Subscribe to hear more episodes here.

John 0:04 Welcome to the Agency X podcast weekly round up, where I run through some quick updates about what's going on in eCommerce today. I'm John Surdakowski, CEO and founder at Avex, an Ccommerce agency out of New York City that builds and optimizes customer experiences for high-growth brands.

John 0:26 Supply chain problems, inventory and supply chain issues are still causing headaches for many merchants at Avex. We've heard from numerous clients and leads who are unable to move forward with some of the initiatives simply due to the lack of product availability. Supply chain issues have been an ongoing and sporadic problem for many brands over the last two years. While some industries have seen improvements, it looks like many will continue to face these challenges ahead.

John 0:53 There's been a lot of talk about iOS updates causing advertising issues for DTC brands that relied on Facebook to acquire new customers. Costs are way up and the data is not accurate anymore. While brands are still very profitable from Facebook ads, others have seen a massive drop-off. Brands with great creative, a strong brand presence and a killer product won't have as many troubles. But we've been talking about loyalty, brand building and retention a lot in the past, especially recently, something that will be even more important in 2022 and beyond.

John 1:30 One announcement made by Netlify that we’re super excited about here: Netlify announced the beta release of Netlify graph, a GraphQL powered solution that aims to make building with API's faster and easier. This release follows the company's acquisition of OneGraph, a company that specializes in GraphQL resources. Netlify Graph allows developers to integrate with third party API's and services with a single click and provide streamlined authentication. Additionally, the company notes that by utilizing the solution developers avoid the need to operate a separate GraphQL server. Netlify believes that this unified approach to API integration improves productivity and decreases time to market. Headless eCommerce developers will definitely find this useful when it comes to building and deploying PWAs. One problem with headless commerce is the time to market due to larger development timelines. Netlify is dedicated to helping developers speed up this process, especially when it comes to APIs.