ECommerce – Page 4 – Create. Read. Update. Delete.

6 Straightforward Steps To Protect Your E-Commerce Website

6 Straightforward Steps To Protect Your E-Commerce Website BY SUSAN MELONY . Available from <http://www.businesscomputingworld.co.uk/6-straightforward-steps-to-protect-your-e-commerce-website/> 02/05/2017

Despite popular belief, the secret ingredient to getting the mount out of your e-commerce site isn’t necessarily about your product or site design. In short, it comes down to security. Although it’s crystal clear that we live in an era where today’s shoppers are more comfortable than ever with the concept buying online, the fact remains that spammers and scammers seem to be around every corner. Likewise, consider the common hesitations which plague today’s online shoppers such as…

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4 essential eCommerce SEO tips

4 essential eCommerce SEO tips by Sam Davtyan.  Available from <http://www.businesszone.co.uk/community/blogs/sam-davtyan/4-essential-ecommerce-seo-tips> [March 09, 2017]

Making an eCommerce-based website shine on Google is no easy task. With hundreds of popular brands showing up in the top 10 results, many mom-and-pop shops are finding it next to impossible to rank. No wonder many small business owners choose Etsy as a platform to sell their products.

While it may be harder to rank today, it doesn’t mean you should ignore SEO as a marketing strategy. If you want to rank among the best, here are four SEO tips you will want to keep in mind:

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How to Increase Your E-Commerce Conversions in 2017

How to Increase Your E-Commerce Conversions in 2017 Posted By John Surdakowski.  Available from <http://www.business.com/sales/john-surdakowski-increase-e-commerce-conversions/> [January 23, 2017] Photo Credit: By Varun s (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Your company’s ability to thrive in today’s ultra competitive e-commerce industry hinges upon your ability to create an extraordinary experience for your customers. This experience begins with an inviting, captivating website that helps your customers achieve their goals quickly and easily. Below are five ways to increase your e-commerce conversions.

1. Revamp your website

Your path to e-commerce prosperity begins with a fantastic website. After all, new customers will never make it to the decision-making phase unless they are drawn to your website. While the extent to which you update your site will depend upon the current state of your website, you should consider a total overhaul of your website if any of the following conditions are met:

Your website contains content or design elements that are severely outdated
Your business goals have completely changed
Customers are unable to submit questions or inquiries through your site
Your website does not function properly on mobile devices
Your website is not secure or has outdated software
Customers cannot find your website
Your website is stuck in the 1990s
Customers complain that your website moves at a snail’s pace

Even if your website does not require a complete overhaul, you should still regularly review its functionality to ensure that your website is your company’s best asset. While the frequency with which you should review your website will depend upon the nature of your e-commerce business, experts suggest that a website can benefit from a complete facelift or redesign every two or three years. If your customers are technologically adept, you may wish to revamp your website more frequently. A key goal of the web redesign process should be to foster a positive user experience, as outlined below.

2. Lay the foundation for a stellar user experience

According to a Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) report, 77 percent of agencies acknowledged that a subpar website user experience is a big weakness for businesses. Successfully updating your e-commerce website requires you to understand the needs of your target audience and update your website in a way that exceeds their expectations. The result is a captivated customer who is unable to resist the allure of your company and products. Below are tips to creating such a user experience:

Build an eye-catching landing page that holds the user’s attention.
Make sure that your website is speedy. Pages should take no longer than 2 to 3 seconds to load.
Customers should be able to easily navigate through your site or search for items.
Your website should be intuitive and easy to use.
Ensure that your website has a mobile-friendly design.
Avoid the inclusion of too many ads or pop-ups.
The content on your site should be helpful to your audience and easy to view.
Customers should have a means of submitting an inquiry or request through your site.
Your website should be well-organized and aesthetically pleasing.

You can speak with your user-experience specialist about a/b testing your e-commerce website or run some tests yourself. There are some amazing tools online to help get a better grasp on your website’s UX and conversion performance. Here are a few tools that you should check out:

3. Create an outstanding customer experience

An impeccable customer experience is astonishingly powerful. In addition to helping you increase conversions, a great customer experience can even help ease the sting of a poor user experience. Key elements to remember when fostering a positive customer experience are as follows:

Be transparent with your pricing. Make sure there are no hidden fees.
Make the online checkout process seamless and intuitive.
Provide customers with prompt notification of their tracking information.
Notify customers immediately if a product is on back order.
If an item is sold out, suggest a comparative alternative if one is available.
Make it easy for customers to return a product that is not satisfactory.
Offer customers a means of providing feedback about their customer experience.

This last point is particularly critical, as customer feedback is an incredibly valuable tool to employ in bolstering your e-commerce conversions. Seeking suggestions and comments from your existing customers will help you increase conversions and grow your business in the following ways:

You gain valuable insight into the minds of your target market
You cultivate loyalty among existing customers by showing them that their opinions matter
You receive unfiltered criticism and positive feedback from an honest and unbiased source

The importance of an exceptional customer experience cannot be stressed enough. A good customer experience will increase conversions, while a poor experience will undoubtedly be detrimental to your bottom line. According to Esteban Kolsky’s presentation at the Callidus Customer Conference, 13 percent of unhappy customers will tell 15 or more people about their experience, while 72 percent of customers will share their experience with six others if they are happy.

4. Generate a list of best practices and adhere to them

Identifying best practices and committing to follow them is vital to the continued success and growth of your business. Ideally, you should involve your employees when discussing best practices to ensure that you are fostering a unified culture at work. Four of the most fruitful best practices within the e-commerce industry are:

Create a blog and update it regularly. Your blog content should be current and relevant to your target audience. Use a calendar to ensure that you update your blog in accordance with your desired frequency.
Feature star-studded testimonials on your website. Customer testimonials are one of the most influential forms of advertising available, especially if the testimonial is provided by an industry expert. Keep testimonials short and to the point, and include a customer photo with the quote if possible.
Present an offer your customers can’t refuse. Few things are more enticing to a prospective customer than an irresistible offer on a product that they need or want. Examples include bundling free accessory packages with key products or extending a 15 percent discount to all new customers.
Keep a close eye on your competitors. As the owner of an e-commerce store, you cannot afford to live in a bubble. Failure to monitor your competitors’ pricing and sales tactics may ultimately lead to customer abandonment. In addition to monitoring the websites of your online competitors, you can maintain a competitive edge by participating in industry trade shows and surveying your customers.

5. Enlist the help of an industry expert

The best way to increase your e-commerce conversions is to seek the guidance of an experienced industry professional. An industry expert can help you define your goals, enhance your website and create a superb user experience for your customers.

Consider the example of KITH, a multifunctional lifestyle brand for both women and men, as well as a progressive retail establishment. The KITH team recognized the need to increase their online brand identity and create a better user experience. KITH reached out to my agency, Avex Designs and embarked upon a campaign to develop their online brand experience. We helped the NYC-based brand achieve this goal through the following steps:

Enhancing the KITH website by making it faster and more SEO friendly
Creating a custom user experience that focuses on KITH’s strong brand identity
Educating the KITH team about how they can better manage their content
Providing ongoing support by providing a website style guide

As you evaluate marketing and design companies, you should remember that web design companies are not all created equal. You should choose a creative agency that is committed to collaborating with their clients and educating them about the ways that the customer’s digital experience can increase conversions. Ideally, you should seek a marketing and design company with the following attributes:

An impressive breadth of experience that includes web design, SEO, web development and digital strategy
A robust portfolio of references
Experience using testing and prototyping to develop client solutions
A desire and ability to facilitate customer growth

With the help of a trusted creative digital agency, you can optimize your e-commerce company’s online presence and foster a winning user experience. However, many of the above enhancements can be applied by you or your web designer. Either way, the end result is an increase in your overall conversion rate and a higher level of customer satisfaction.

How to Increase Your E-Commerce Conversions in 2017 Posted By John Surdakowski.  Available from <http://www.business.com/sales/john-surdakowski-increase-e-commerce-conversions/> [January 23, 2017] Photo Credit: By Varun s (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

9 Technologies E-Commerce Marketers Must Use in 2017 and Beyond

9 Technologies E-Commerce Marketers Must Use in 2017 and Beyond by Kunjal Panchal.  Available from <https://www.searchenginejournal.com/9-technologies-e-commerce-marketers-must-use-2017-beyond/181942/> [January 04, 2017]

Mastering SEO is not easy; it’s slow and competition for the top organic rank is very high. And, it won’t get any easier in 2017. As an e-commerce player, all this is hardly news for you. However, now is the perfect time to analyze the past year’s progress and start things fresh. Below are some marketing tips that can rejuvenate your e-commerce marketing in 2017:

1. Engagement with Content

You can Google “how to create engaging content for e-commerce” and spend an entire year taking notes. Yet most of that is probably common sense. The main challenge for e-commerce players is to find enough resources to support their expanding product portfolio.

Writing product descriptions is a monotonous and laborious activity. Firms cannot afford to engage their marketing or creative teams in product descriptions. They also cannot ignore product descriptions as these are crucial for their customers. Perhaps technology has come up with the answer: Automated Insights’ Smart AI engine turns data into product descriptions.

“The standard way of creating content is, ‘I hope a million people read this.’ Our model is the inverse of that. We want to create a million pieces of content with one individual reading each copy.” – Robbie Allen, Automated Insights, CEO

Automated Insights is not alone. You can also check out Quill and Lingustat. While machines can create product descriptions, there’s nothing better than getting users involved in content generation.

Users love writing reviews and take star ratings seriously. Although every e-commerce website has comments and product review sections, few of these are able to leverage user-generated content for marketing. User-generated content needs proper moderation and promotion strategy.

Honest product reviews create trust while you should moderate spamming. You can take some inspiration from Starbucks – which is known for misspelling its customers’ names on coffee cups.

2. Engagement with Bots

Today, the world of online marketing relies on clicks and taps to gauge consumer journey and effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Needless to say, these metrics provide a hazy picture.

Often, the actual conversions are much lower than what these metrics reflect. Nonetheless, marketers devote their entire budgets in increasing CTRs and website visits. Chatbots take an entirely new approach to customer engagement.

Leading brands today are focusing on building brand engagement with newer technologies, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) based chatbots perfectly suit the bill. With chatbots, conversations are more natural and significantly more effective than a traditional ad or video. These interactions leave users wanting more. Moreover, spreading the word is easier with chatbots as most of them are present on messengers, which are increasingly becoming a default media for communication.

Wondering where to start? Explore Operator, which is aimed at e-commerce businesses looking to transform the shopping experience for their customers. Operator allows online customers to browse virtual stores and get goods delivered from the closest, cheapest possible source. Further, users can chat with a bot for shopping assistance which eventually connects them with a human expert (operating on a commission basis).

It must not have skipped your notice that messengers are now bigger than social media. It makes sense to deploy bots on major messaging platforms. However, managing bots on multiple messengers can be tricky as there is little convergence between chat messengers.

To achieve some sanity, Message.io is offering bot developers private beta access to its bot management platform. This makes it possible to develop once and deploy across multiple messaging services.

3. Advertise with Programmatic

Businesses are increasing their spends on Programmatic Advertising. According to a report published by marketing and advertising agency Zenith, “Programmatic will become the principal method of trading digital display this year, accounting for 51% of expenditure, and will rise to 58% of expenditure in 2017.”

Programmatic Advertising offers increased cost efficiency and speed over traditional methods which involve human buyers, salespeople, and a lot of guesswork. With latest advancements, Programmatic now makes use of data analytics to decide apt audience and the right ad format to be displayed to that audience.

With all this automation, you can spend more time on your strategic tasks and other crucial marketing initiatives in 2017.

4. Engagement with AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality)

Pokemon Go must have caught your attention. Gartner predicts that “by 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality.” A large number of omnichannel retailers now accept AR and VR as a crucial part of their customer engagement strategy.

With AR and VR, retailers are building immersive experiences and hoping to increase footfall to their brick-and-mortar store. At the same time, these technologies can also transform shopping experience for their online customers.

With Google Tango finally arriving on the developers’ table, advanced AR apps can transform the way consumers make product selections online. For example, Wayfair is working on an app which will enable customers to place virtual 3D renderings of furniture from its online store into their home. This will allow customers to visualize products in their home environments and not just on their smartphones.

Such AR apps hold tremendous potential for increasing online engagement. Further, according to a Business Insider report, a significant number of online customers rate AR and VR as a favorable addition to their shopping experience. E-commerce players would have to act in time to meet their evolving expectations.

5. Customization

This isn’t exactly a new strategy, but it will align with your efforts towards improving customer experience and brand engagement. Online product customization has tremendous revenue potential and has its unique space in the online world.

With customization, you can charge more for the same products as customers are willing to pay more for self-designed products, compared to non-customized ones. It is also likely that customers would be willing to talk about these products; these are their own creations! You should promote such interactions by allowing customers to easily share their designs in the social space.

6. Think Beyond Apps

The world has been advocating “mobile first” and “mobile only” since the launch of the first smartphone by Apple.

Application development companies have overhauled their processes and offerings to cater to the demands of the expanding app economy. However, an increasing number of successful mobile-driven businesses are now building web apps for larger screens. Moreover, mobile disruptors (Uber, Instagram, Flipboard, etc.) now feel the need to serve their customers across all screen sizes and not just mobile.

This is crucial for e-commerce players, as apps are not going to be the only channel for engaging customers in the future.

Several surveys show that people tend to use mobile for casual browsing, while they make most of their online purchases via desktop. Instead of trying to change this behavior, you should gauge customer journey across all screen sizes and make it seamless for them to switch devices. There is no point categorizing users in different groups; ‘mobile users’ and ‘desktop users’ are essentially the same.

7. Voice First Browsing

Thinking beyond apps, voice first browsing is the first thing that should get your attention. Voice search is a rising trend; according to a report, “mobile voice searches have tripled in the past two years (2014-15).” Moreover, there is a lot of innovation and the hardware around this technology is also evolving rapidly.

Millennials love voice search via Amazon Echo, Apple AirPods, and Google Home. The technology eliminates screens completely which might worry advertisers. However, such vocal interactions have the potential to transform web experience as it allows connectivity without hindering activities like driving, cooking, walking, exercising, etc.

8. Swift and Seamless Payments

Amazon made headlines with Amazon Go; checking out from its new stores now takes less time than checking out from an e-commerce store. Even though the average experience for buying online has evolved over the years, payments can still be painful for customers.

This explains high shopping cart abandonment rates. The experience from shopping cart to the checkout involves a lot of form filling.

Further, some of the customers simply drop out if they encounter a glitch in applying a coupon. It would be a good idea to automate coupons and other loyalty-based deductions for customers.

You should also prompt customers to use online wallets. Alternatively, you can explore social selling. Facebook messenger already allows payments in its 30,000 chat bots. By allowing users to seamlessly complete a purchase via FB messenger, you can capitalize on customers’ impulse buying behavior.

9. Delivery and Returns

Essentially a part of operations, the marketing department cannot ignore this customer touch point.

Deliveries and Returns play a crucial part in customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. Customers generally expect hassle-free return policy and don’t want to bear any associated costs. The only way to justify the costs associated with reverse logistics is to link it with your marketing spends.

This is perhaps easier said than done.

However, you can balance these additional costs by attaching higher delivery charges to same-day delivery options. While it’s too early to comment on the viability of Amazon’s drone-based deliveries, you must try replicating Amazon Prime’s subscription-based delivery model.

Conclusion

Modern day e-commerce marketing is not only about wooing customers through promotional strategies. It is about making each and every arm of your business more customer-centric.

Let’s draw an analogy with a website. Remember those good old days when building a website was enough and you didn’t really have to worry about the various design and functional elements as long as it looked good? Well, resource-driven sites like Colorlib have made it even simpler to come up with a really good-looking online presence that balances functionality with visual appeal. But you need to tie in this presence with cutting edge marketing technology.

A cut to today, when a website’s target audience expects a far more immersive and exceptionally functional experience from websites. Each and every website element must be used to engage potential and existing customers. That’s the case with modern-day marketing as well. It’s imperative to use the various business processes to engage customers and tell them they matter. That’s how you win them over for the long-term.

9 Technologies E-Commerce Marketers Must Use in 2017 and Beyond by Kunjal Panchal.  Available from <https://www.searchenginejournal.com/9-technologies-e-commerce-marketers-must-use-2017-beyond/181942/> [January 04, 2017]

Important Tips for Designing Effective Online Shops

Important Tips for Designing Effective Online Shops by shyambhardwaj Available from <http://techniblogic.com/important-tips-designing-effective-online-shops/#> [Jan 08, 2017]

The online shopping web design is effective to make the process continues until the user reaches the end point of their buying process as quick and easy as possible. If you follow these tips you will create a web e-commerce site that will delight your customers and help you increase sales.

We’ve all been through similar situations. We want to buy a product online and Google in one of its results it returns a link to an online store where that item you’re looking for a great price.

We click on it in order to take a look … but upon entering find what makes us shoot out and look elsewhere. Sometimes we can find an online store which web design is very nice, almost could say it’s a work of art, but later we found that in order to buy what we want, this ecommerce forces us to make a long buying process, asking fill in many details, and finally we get tired and leave.

The design of an online web store must not only have intended to create a website with an aesthetically appealing design (although that certainly helps). Also has to focus on getting the potential customer reaches the end point of their buying process as quickly and easily as possible, and thus it will increase the chances of your purchase is complete.

Here are some key tips that we have gathered over our years of experience in the design and creation of e-commerce websites. Not intended to be an exhaustive list, are simple recommendations you should follow if you want to create a successful online store.

1. Gives the customer the option to filter out searches

Benetton option gives its customers that filter by “price”, “color” and “size”.

When customers are trying to find a product in your online store, a number of fields Make it easy filtering to save time and effort. This is really interesting when your products have different sizes, colors and prices, as with clothing. Customers hate finding the perfect garment to discover that is not your size.

2. Facilitates they can go back to browsing

MediaMarkt in their online store includes a breadcrumb perfectly visible

When a user accesses a particular category, you may realize that you made a mistake or want to change to another. This is of vital importance to the option that the client can retrace your steps, adding for example a navigation path (breadcrumbs) on the page. Thus we do not force the client has to have to repeatedly click on the arrows to step back from your browser and avoid losing attention to the online store.

3. Place search form in a conspicuous place

The Amazon homepage is dominated by a large search form.

Many of us are unaware of how often the search field on a website e-commerce uses. When a customer comes to a website looking for something in particular, if the target page where land does not offer what you are looking user reaction will be to keep looking at the rest of the web.

Consider that the search form is the central focus of your virtual store. This will also further the user keeps browsing your site and be tempted to look for other options.

4. If items are out of stock please indicate clear

This important Bookseller reports that the product is not available and given the option to create a message.

One of the biggest mistakes we can make when it comes to having an online store is to not have to update the stock of products. For SEO, it is best to keep the active ingredients in the store, instead of deleting and re-load when stock. If a product from your store is out of stock, indicate clearly, but the user can bother, lose confidence in your service and cancel the order, and what is worse, never to return to your store.

5. Use quality photos

Loewe has in its online store with full-screen images of high quality.

In an online store, cart enters the eye since most of the time we did not see or touch the product until you have given us. Have various product images taken from different angles and zoom option to see the details, will help the client to have the feeling of having the product in your hands. You have to plan how you will show your customers your items, if you’re going to make a larger image and multiple thumbnails below, etc.. Make sure that images are of high quality and are clearly displayed at any size. Blurry or pixelated pictures make your customer make a purchase put and conveys a message that your site is of poor quality.

6. Put the shopping cart visible

Shopping cart and search form elegantly added to the site.

Users accustomed to shopping online dislike being sent directly to the page of your cart every time you add a product. Therefore it is important that the contents of the shopping cart are visible on all pages of the site.

Many designers like to use the sidebar to locate the basket, but it seems to us that occupies valuable to promote other articles or sections space. Searching for how to incorporate search form and shopping cart elegant and cleanly on every page of your site.

A shopping cart can also provide more information than just the list of selected products. Consider using thumbnail images of the products you have added to your basket.

7. Make your site easy to navigate

EBay provides access to its contents with a full menu.

Especially on websites with lots of content is crucial to have a well structured and organized content. Step into the shoes of the user and think give you access to all products in the fewest number of clicks. Pay attention to the language you use to describe your categories and products. Adapt them to the words that customers use to search the Internet.

A good navigation menu certainly will help to effectively show different categories so your site. One tip, located the categories in order of importance (most to least claimed), rather than alphabetically, see how you improve your sales.

Try to make your site easy to navigate. Using lanes on pages give the user to know where you are and to retrace his steps.

Photo Credit: www.flickr.com/Robbert Noordzij

Important Tips for Designing Effective Online Shops by shyambhardwaj Available from <http://techniblogic.com/important-tips-designing-effective-online-shops/#> [Jan 08, 2017]