More on software buying: this CMO Council / KPMG study finds just 26% of marketing leaders actively partner with their company’s procurement departments. Those who do work closely with procurement end up placing higher weight on price, vendors’ industry standing, security, and privacy practices, and less on ability to scale and to meet compliance rules. It’s not clear this results in better outcomes.
Marketers are getting smarter about buying software, and one increasingly common practice is to test software before buying it. TestBox promises to make that easier by offering preconfigured test installations of selected systems, complete with synthetic data. They currently offer test versions of several customer support systems but plan to add new categories over time. The service is free to users, with revenue coming from vendors who pay TestBox a commission on sales. They just raised a $10 million seed round.
Google has barred businesses from using Rich Communication Services for promotion in India, the company’s largest market by users, in a setback for the standard that the company is expecting to help become the future of SMS messaging, following accusations of excessive spam by some corporations.
Amazon would prefer that you buy everything through them, but if you insist on using another merchant, they’re still willing to handle the shipping and fulfillment. They’ve just made their Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) service available to Walmart merchants and will soon add Shopify and Shein options. MCF clients place their inventory in Amazon-run warehouses, where Amazon will pick, pack, and shop customer orders.