Powerful eCommerce Holiday Marketing Strategies for 2014

Online shopping and online selling has become more efficient and fun these days. With new technologies been introduced round the year, eCommerce stores are making haste by harnessing new techniques that sets them on the path of spectacular growth.  

Last year, it was all about guest blogging, website optimization, higher CTR & conversion rates, and responsive design. This year, it's all about mobile, social networking, big data, analytics and personalization. All these changes has led to new trends in the world of eCommerce.

The long and short of it is that there are significant changes happening in the eCommerce space and some of the important ones have been listed below:

1. Mobile Optimized Websites:

Last year, the chant was all about building responsive web design that were mobile-friendly. This year, however, the eCommerce owners are completely focusing on building sites that blossom beautifully on smartphones and tablets.

2. Mobile Advertising:

Mobile Advertising is catching fire. It's the latest fad to enter the eCommerce arena, and the big, branded eCommece stores are going to the first big spenders on mobile ads. Though, small store owners may be not be prepared for the big leap, larger store owners will try to reach as many mobile users as possible. Even video mobile ads will be in great demand.

3. Advertising On Wearable Devices:

Google glasses, smart watches and other wearable devices are set to enter the market in 2014. If demand of these devices pick up, eCommerce stores are sure to bombard it with promotions, offers, and updates to their customers through these wearable devices.

4. Re-emergence Of Long Content:

Bid adieu to short content. Long-form content is the order of the day. We will see the rise of long-form content for all the products and services offered by the stores. Plus, all the articles and blog posts will have to be long enough going forward. Moreover, the easy availability of analytics and data will lead to the creation of more data-based content.

5. Increase In Social and Search Ads:

With more and more content marketers turning toward social media and search ads for revenue, PPC and CPC ads experiments in small and large eCommerce companies will increase manifold.

6. Brand and Author Identity Assumes More Importance:

The death of large-scale guest blogging has inspired the rise of digital brand both for authors and businesses. Going forward, a brand blog plus a team of well-known bloggers will be  for eCommerce businesses.

7. Personalized Product Displays:

With users becoming more comfortable sharing personal information with brands and trusted online stores, it would lead to rise in personalized product displays and suggestions for registered users.

8. Instant Delivery:

Amazon is stepping up its delivery services manifold with drone delivery. Online stores are not meant for instant gratification. For this offline stores are better as you get your goods instantly. However, in case of online stores you have to wait for 2 days to 2 weeks. But this won't be the case in 2014. Next-day delivery options and same-day delivery options are on the top of the agenda for many eCommerce stores.

9. Local SEO:

While larger eCommerce stores try out new ways to attract customers, smaller eCommerce store owners will focus on traditional SEO to target customers in a limited geographic area.

10. Marketing Automation:

Online shoppers are known for their notorious trait of browsing the store for endless hours and leaving it without buying anything. Targeted marketing can solve this issue to a greater extent. For instance, lead nurturing, emails and analytics should be automated to help small online store owners gain better insights and convert visitors into buyers.

These are some of the most important eCommerce trends that can be used in upcoming holiday season and increase sales.

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9 Ways to Empower your Sales Reps via B2B Platform

Believe it or not, sales reps view online platforms as a threat. They think that online platforms not only eat into their commissions but block sales opportunities as well.  But there's a sunnier side to it well. The online platform acts as a bridge between the customers and the sales reps, as they stay connected 24/7. And what with manufacturers and distributors adding more tools and functionalities to their B2B platform to support sales reps on a day-to-day basis. The arrangement enables the manufacturer to offer customers exact information on pricing, inventory availability, and product information to the sales reps.

Some of the important B2B eCommerce platform features that empower sales staff are as follows:

• Include a dashboard with key performance indicators such as sales by customer, sales by product, trending products, customer order history, commissions, order status etc.  
• Include alerts that keeps the rep updated on the order status, whether it's placed or not placed etc.  
• Include price, and quote capabilities. It helps reps easily generate a proposal from their mobile or laptop device.
• Include reporting and analytics capabilities. This help reps view abandoned carts and customer behavior on the website so they can get insight about the areas of interest and lost sales.
• Include subscriptions for recurring orders so reps can easily set them up for customers.
• Include instant chat capabilities to connect reps to customers who are shopping online.

Also, the reps should learn to use the already rich product content available in your online store as they make sales calls in the field. This will equip them with all the necessary ammunition with regard to pricing, availability, comparisons, data sheets, and videos, which will be useful to them while meeting customers. Plus, they should have instant access to up-sells, cross-sells and substitute products at their fingertips, which will help them sell more while holding conversation with the buyers.

Further, allow your reps to preconfigure shopping lists, which can be used by buyers to quickly place reorders. Once you have these tools in place, train your reps to use your online store and sales application to be more productive in the field.

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How To Be A Retail Giant In The World Like Amazon

Believe it or not, Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world. In 2013, Amazon's online retail sales recorded a whopping $67.9 billion, more than the next 9 largest e-retailers combined.

Through this post, we make sure our clients know how an Amazon Webstore, the eCommerce platform of Amazon can reap huge benefits by giving an amazing online shopping experience to their customers.

What makes Amazon Webstore a success, while others are forced to bite the bullet. 

1. Personalized Services:

As per a research from Infosys, one-third of the consumers expect personalized shopping experience. And Amazon rocks at the personalization front. Their on-site recommendations are not only colossal but they are interesting enough. 

2. Easy Checkout:

While slow shopping carts kill conversions, on the other hand, speedy carts attract buyers. Speed is where Amazon scores. An ideal shopping cart completes the purchase in 2 or 3 clicks. And Amazon does it well.

Plus, it saves your previous carts, in case you want to come back to it later. It also gives notification about price changes at checkout. Also, credit card purchases with Amazon is easy than other sites.      

3. Product ratings and reviews:

Research shows that two-thirds of shoppers are interested in your product only if you have product ratings and reviews. Since Amazon has both, making it world's first choice for online shopping.

In fact, most of the products have hundreds of reviews, for instance Kindle Paper white has no less than thousand reviews.  If more and more customers are rating a product highly, then it simply means the product is worth consideration. Amazon displays both favorable and critical reviews, thereby building trust among buyers.

4. Product Images, Videos and Descriptions:

Large product images boost conversions. It fires buyers’ imagination. Though Amazon so far hasn't succeeded in doing this every time, but whenever it does the results are outstanding. One can even add video about the product, enabling buyers to get a 360 degree view of products.

The other remarkable thing about Amazon is you will find all the information on a particular product on a single page – be it colors, variations, new, used etc. 

5. Up-selling and Cross-selling:

Up-selling and cross-selling is Amazon's strength. It encourages customers to buy more of similar products by informing them about the customers who looked at the same products, as you are doing right now, but eventually bought something different.   

6. Easy Filtering, Navigation and Search:

Navigation and search are the two important pillars of  eCommerce Optimization, and no one knows it better than Amazon. Given the number of products available for sale on Amazon, anyone should feel overwhelmed, but one doesn't given its excellent filters.

Plus, if you are searching for a certain product, it guides not just by price and star rating but by operating system, brand and more. It’s gives you a sense of satisfaction that you are finding the right product that meets your needs.

Besides these, Amazon has eCommerce conversion optimization funnel.  It helps visitor track interesting products they want to buy. This is why eCommerce is there for, after all.  Follow this implacable strategies to be a retail giant like Amazon going forward. 

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How to Make Non-shoppers Shop With eCommerce

Nowadays businesses have classified shoppers into four different categories : the bargain hunter, the researcher, the impulse shopper and the loyal shopper. But then, there's one more important category that businesses tend to ignore. Yes, the non-shopper. These shoppers are said to be low on patience and they tend to dislike shopping anywhere and anytime. They hate digging through the sales rack to find that perfect shirt or pair of pants. 

 

Shop With eCommerce

For such shoppers, there are online subscription retailers like Fancy, Trunk Club and Mantry. These retailers attract the non-shoppers through their monthly subscription programmes. This is how they work: A non-shopper pays a certain amount every month to an online subscription retailer. The retailer on receiving the subscription amount chooses an assortment of products based on customer's profile, and sends it directly to his or her office or house. The non-shopper picks and chooses what's best for him within the given budget. 

 

Such innovative services not only saves customer time but the best part is that non-shoppers get what they want. But to achieve this level of efficiency, the online companies require a robust and capable eCommerce platform that's able to capture and leverage customer records to offer the best tailored shopping experience. 

 

Here’s how they do it.

Solid Customer Profile: 

 

This is a prerequisite that every online subscription retailer should consider. There's a huge responsibility on retailer's shoulder to built trust with customers and gather data about their likes and dislikes. 

 

Order Management:

 

Match customer profiles with supplier inventory levels, lead times, inventory position and financial considerations. Once this is done, come up with a monthly box that's sure to tempt your customers every month and ensure that they stick with their plan of paying the monthly fee. 

 

Packaging and Order Fulfillment

Packaging and Order Fulfillment: 

 

Smart retailers pay extra attention to packaging. It should not look like any plain eCommerce delivery. The box should be printed and branded with an inviting message on it. 

 

Iteration:

Making the customer fill the survey form or profile questionnaire only once in a while is not sufficient. Best of the subscription service companies continually request feedback and additional profile attributes to refine customer profile and use it to stock products that shoppers are counting on.

 

Systems:

Successful on line subscription retailers focus on building scalable and automated systems so as to offer subscribers personalized shopping experience.

To cut the chase, today online retailer can be style experts for their customers by offering customized products. But to carry out this practice efficiently, they should be able to capture the data, store it and act on the information quickly and easily. Non-stoppers are not God, they too can be tempted simply by going the online subscription way.

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Benefits of Using Inventory Management Software

Are you managing the inventory of your store manually and wondering if you should opt for one of those inventory management software that's available widely in the market? Yes, you definitely should because it offers loads of benefits. Just have a look at some of those benefits.

Empowered workforce

An effective inventory management system will arm you with a barcode scanner and an in-depth knowledge about how much inventory you have and where it's located. Once you receive an order, it becomes very easy for the employees to find the right product and pack them. Also, each and every aspect of the inventory management system will be streamlined and simplified.

Affordable

As the processes will be streamlined and employees will be empowered to perform well, inventory management software will help you save on storage costs, carrying costs, overstocks and other unnecessary costs. Moreover, you will also stop loosing money by avoiding overselling of the products.

Quick shipping

When you have an inventory management software and you receive multiple purchase orders, you still can ship them quickly because the system will tell you where exactly the inventory is and how much of it needs to be shipping. Again, quick shipping translates into quick delivery and better customer service. All this is not possible if you aren't using the software.

Effective planning

With the help of inventory management software, you can predict the right level of inventory that you will require – eliminating the chances of facing out-of-the-stock situation or oversold situation. The software will offer you important insights into hot-selling items and upcoming trends through graphs, charts and spreadsheets.

Warehouse management

Whenever you receive an order, you won't have to hunt through the website to look for the ordered products. The software will offer you detailed information, including where the product is and on which shelf. Based on this information, you can put low-selling items farther while hot-selling items closer to aid in the shipment process. You can even put two products together if they generally get sold together.

Higher ROI

Through inventory management software, you are eliminating the scope of human error while streamlining the entire process. This in turn will reduce the wastage of resources, leading to higher ROI and business performance.

Although all inventory management software offer you several benefits, it doesn't mean that all of them will work for you. Keeping your business requirements in focus, you should look at each and every feature offered by the various software.

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How to Track Inventory in Multiple Locations

As the size of inventory increases, management becomes complex and convoluted. The problem becomes more severe when you have to expand the warehouse facility and manage multiple warehouses. If you don't have a proper inventory management system in place, you will never know how much of inventory is stored in each of the warehouse locations. So in this kind of situations, an highly advanced inventory system that helps you in warehouse management is a must. Ideally, a flexible inventory management system will help you:

• Check inventory levels of each products at each location with a click
• Integrate shipping options such as UPS, FedEx and USPS
• Transfer bulk of items from one warehouse to another in case of shortage or excess
• Monitor short-term as well as long-term trends, leading to optimum inventory decisions
• Streamline shipping and ordering processes for both customer orders and supplier orders
• Utilize wireless barcode scanners to order, receive and cycle count inventory for each location
• Update information about inventory, orders and shipment real time across the board
• Update relevant information in all other locations, including Quickbooks and Microsoft Dynamics

If you scour the market, you will find several inventory management software but not all can offer the above mentioned features. Kaushalam's inventory and order management system will offer the most advanced features over and above the functionalities mentioned above. Our software will offer convenience, reliability, efficiency and sophistication.

If you wish to know what else our inventory and order management software can offer you, contact us. Pronto.

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Basics of Setting Up An eCommerce Stores

If you are selling through a brick-and-mortar store, it's about time that you set up an online store and expand your horizons. The reason for doing so is simple: daily more customers are shifting to online buying due to packed work schedules and advanced technology. And there will come a day when a customer will rarely go to a brick-and-mortar store to buy anything. Consequently, if you want to keep pace with the changing times, you have to have an eCommerce store. If you are wondering from where to start, no worries. Here are the basic steps that you need to follow to set up the store.            

Setting Up An eCommerce Stores

Domain name

Like your brick-and-mortar store, your eCommerce store too will need a name. Catchier the name, better the business. Make sure that the name you are selecting reflects the business you are in, and it's appealing to your target audience. Also, if the name is already taken by any other business, you won't be able to get a domain name for that. So, the name needs to be unique too. If you aren't able to make a concrete decision regarding the name, do some research – as in how your competitors have named their business. But do not copy them by making minor tweaks to it or you might end up with a weak branding strategy.  

Platform
 
The next step is to decide the platform of the store. When you are building a store, you should select the language which is flexible for creating user-friendly websites. Unless you are a technical person, you won't be able to do it on your own. It's better to hire professionals for this task. If you don't want do so much of work, you have an option to choose existing eCommerce platforms such as Amazon, Yahoo, Collusion and Shopify.  

Design

There are several eCommerce stores out in the market, selling the exact product or service that you are selling. Consequently, if you want to attract customers in hordes, you have to set yourself apart from the crowd. You have to differentiate yourself from your peers, and you can do so by customizing the design, layout and shopping cart. While customizing, make sure that the overall look and feel of the store reflects your business.  

Search engine optimization
 
Once you have set up the store, the last step is to make sure that your target audience is able to find you. To let them find you easily, you have to make your website readable and searchable for search engine bots. Optimizing the website from SEO point of view requires lot of effort and unless you are an SEO expert, it's better to hire professionals for them. If you are on shoe-string budget, you have the alternative to read up loads of material available over the internet and learn. However, do remember, this alternative will take up lot of time because mostly you'd be doing trial and error for the website.

If you are new to setting up a business and require some guidance, do not hesitate to contact us. We specialize in offering a range of products and services that simplifies eCommerce business while offering maximum output.

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Make Your eCommerce Store Social-Shopping Ready

In the era of social networking platform, social shopping is gaining prominence. When we talk about social shopping, we are talking about sharing of outfit ideas on Pinterest to tweeting links to coupon codes to more. If you aren't trying to explore this avenue for more sales, you are losing out on a lot. Are you wondering how you are going to take advantage of the new phenomenon? If so, you just need to make sure of three things – be mobile ready, merge online and offline marketing and offer personalized shopping experience.

Be mobile ready

Consider these figures:

Mobile sales is expected to rise from $204 billion in 2013 to $626 billion in 2018.
29% of the American consumers made at least one purchase on a smartphone in 2013, 28% on the tablet 535 million consumers worldwide are expected to make a purchase in 2014 through mobile 46% of American smartphone users engage in mCommerce

Now do you think ignoring mobile users is a smart strategy, especially when we are talking about social shopping? One of the best ways to make sure that your website/eCommerce store is accessible through all types of smartphones and tablets is to use responsive/adaptive web designs. If you are receiving majority of the traffic from smartphones, you can even get a special mobile website designed.

Merge online and offline marketing

A recent study by Econsultancy and IBM Tealeaf revealed that most of the retail stores fail to seamlessly merge online and offline shopping experiences for the buyers. Although most of the stores display their store location and hours on the website, they fail to provide retail product information and services through social media. The study also revealed that less than a third of businesses optimize content for local and mobile search, and only 18% allow customers to place an order online and pick it up on the store.

To merge online and offline marketing efforts, you have to look for ways to bring social media, online shopping and local promotions together. You can get started on this task by emailing a coupon code that offers extra discount when used in the physical store; and by offering flash sale notifications or limited-time coupons. Depending on your target audience demographic, you should also explore other means to offer unified shopping experience.

Offer personalized shopping experience

If you think a single deal or promotion will appeal to all your customers, you need to think again. If you are looking to create loyalty while pushing up the sales, you will need to personalize the deals based on the customers' demographic and shopping history. But it's easier said than done, especially when customers are unwilling to share their social media or any other contact details. To make the unwilling customers into willing customers, you have to win their trust, and to win their trust, you need to put more marketing control in their hands. Let them decide how frequently they can receive deals and promotions from you; let them decide what kind of information they would like to receive.

Future of social shopping

Social shopping is here to stay. Many companies are even coming up with apps that helps companies share data throughout all the platforms, including POS systems, eCommerce stores and mobile apps. You too can look for this kind of apps and get ready for social sharing.

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Tips to Leverage Pinterest for eCommerce Business

Pinterest is one of the most popular social networking platform. Generally, there are five types of Pinterest users – passion, profession, pastime, project and preference. If you want to make the most of Pinterest, you have to offer the content that your target audience wants.

Pinterest Media Optimization

The task, however, doesn't end with just offering the content. As there are over 750 million boards with 30 billion pins, if you aren't using Pinterest properly, your content is never going to be found by the target audience. Following are some of the tips that you should use to leverage Pinterest effectively.

1. Optimize pins

As we said earlier, there are millions of boards with billions of pins. To make yourself visible, you should:

Make your pins descriptive. If you are selling sweaters, pinning it as just a sweater isn't enough. Mention the color, the kind of wool that's used and so on. If you are getting confused about it, just think how would you optimize the description for Google and other search engines.

Pre-populate pin descriptions on the website. This means, you should include thoughtful descriptions about the products people pin from your website. You can even use Pinterest's widget builder to add pins to your website.

2. Reach Pinterest mobile users

75% of the Pinterest users are from smartphones and tablets. So it definitely makes sense to reach those 75% of the user base by understanding how the social networking platform works on the mobile.

Make your pins and boards mobile friendly. While creating boards and pins, think how they will look on mobile devices.

Add the Pinterest mobile SDK to your mobile app. When you do this, a “Pin It” buttons will be added to the images in your app, which in turn will increase your pins and referral traffic.

Have a mobile-friendly website. As Pinterest is great for driving traffic to the eCommerce sites, make sure that your website is mobile-friendly.

3. Use Pinterest Analytics

Through this tool, you will be able to keep track of the images that are being pinned from your website, how the pins from your Pinterest profile are performing, which pins and boards are driving the most impressions, clicks and repins, and which pins are driving engagement across different platforms.

4. Utilize Promoted Pins

Promoted Pins is Pinterest's advertising platform. Just like Facebook Ads and Twitter Promoted Tweets, you can set your own budget to promote your products.

5. Follow Pinterest portfolio boards

To inspire users and businesses, Pinterest has put together a collection of boards. By following these boards, you will be able to connect with people from your field.

6. Get featured on Pinterest's business blog

At regular interval of time, Pinterest spotlights on businesses to talk about how they are using the platform to promote their business. So submit your profile to Pinterest with a brief summary about how you use Pinterest for your business. You might find yourself featured over there, giving another boost to your presence.

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How to Start A Profitable eCommerce Business

Starting an online store is as difficult as starting a brick-and-mortar store. Right from choosing what to sell to how to sell, you have to take 1001 decisions. In this article, we are going to help you do primary homework for your new upcoming eCommerce store.

Profitable eCommerce Business

Choosing a product

The first and foremost step toward building a successful online business is to decide what to sell. If you are having any hobby or you are passionate about a particular product, starting a business around it is a good idea. However, if you don’t have any such passions, you should look for what’s trending and what’s likely to survive for years. Also, while choosing the product, you should consider your financial resources and from where you are going to source it.

Research

The next step is to research your competition. You should know what they are selling, where they are selling and at what price they are selling. If possible, you should also know how they are targeting the customers. If you have this last piece of information, it will become very easy for you to tap into your competitors’ customer base.

Planning

Once you are aware of what you have to sell and how are your competitors selling, you have to plan a strategy. Your business plan should clearly mention from where you are going to source the products, how you are going to target your audience, how you are going to market the products, and so on. Each and every aspect of your business should be spelled out for better execution.

Setting Up

The next step is to register your business. To register your business, you have to find a suitable name. Also, the name you have decided upon should be available because if the domain for that name is unavailable, the name would be useless for you.

After the name is decided, you need to create a logo. The logo should be unique and attractive, and should reflect your business. If you are selling sunglasses, having a logo with sunglasses would make sense.

You will also need to register your business with the concerned authority. If you are registering as a private limited company, it’s better to hire a lawyer. But if you are registering as a sole proprietor, just go to the government office and ask the procedure there.

Building Store

Once you have registered and set up your business legally, it’s time to set the business online too. To build a store, you will need to select design and layout, add product images and descriptions, highlight the special products and offer unique relevant content to the users. If you are selling products directly from the website, you will need to add a payment gateway too.

Search Engine Optimization

After the store is set, you will need to optimize it to attract organic traffic. And to optimize the store, you should know the basics of how search engines work. There’s lot of material available on this topic on the Internet but if you are still confused, it’s better to go for expert services.

Launch

The last step to start an online business is to launch the store, and to launch the store, you will need to advertisement and market the store to let your target audience know that you are open for business. You will need to have a strategy for paid marketing to attain desired footfalls. You can even have marketing campaign.

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Use Videos to Sharpen your Marketing Strategy

Video blogging or simply videos are the latest marketing fad, and the reason behind it is very simple – customers engage with videos better than text and images. Put simply, a video will attract 10 times more traffic than a simple text. So of course you should use videos to promote and brand your store and products. Still want to know what you stand to gain through videos? Have a look below.

Enhanced look
When you embed videos on your website or online store, you are enhancing the look and feel of your website. Customers will experience a unique shopping experience, turning them into your regular customers.

Informative
Informative videos are great for imparting knowledge to your customers. Create videos of your products, highlighting their benefits, features and functionalities. This will give your customers an idea about how your products can be beneficial to them. Grabbing their attention for higher conversion ratio would be a bonus.

Customer engagement
As we said above, when it comes to customer engagement, nothing can beat videos. Be it products’ demo or simple tutorials, videos attract users as honey attract flies. To improve your customer engagement ratio, you can also utilize user-generated videos to showcase your happy and satisfied customers. Additionally, this will create a sense of authenticity and trust among the users.

Social Media
Social networking platforms such as Pinterest allows users to pin images and videos of their choice and share them – opening up a powerful venue for you to promote your brand, products and services. Encourage your satisfied users to share videos on these platforms among their friends.

SEO Rankings
If you have noticed, Google has started giving lot of importance to videos. Whenever you perform a search, you will see more of video results. So we can safely conclude that your video will definitely gain higher ranking on SERP than your text-based or image-based web page.

Do you want to promote videos of your products? You can easily do so by creating a dedicated YouTube channel for your products and use the feed in your online store. If you are looking for a customized video showcase, you will need to create your own video streaming solution.

If you have products or a brand that deserve marketing on YouTube, just contact us, and we can take it from there.

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How to Protect Yourself Against Fraud with Amazon

As eCommerce businesses expand, so does eCommerce frauds. Every year, millions of dollars are lost due to cyber-attacks and identity thefts. Consequently, when eCommerce industry is expanding more than 20% every year, it becomes all the more important for eCommerce merchants to protect themselves and their customers against any type of fraud. Amazon, one of the most influencing eCommerce platforms, offers highly advanced fraud detection technology that helps you get rid of cyber frauds while keeping your business safe and sound.

Designed with multiple layers of security, Amazon’s fraud detection technology offers sophisticated industrialized authentication procedures and guides to help eCommerce merchants protect themselves against number of risks and threats. Amazon’s highly advanced security system calculates thousands of individual risk indicators per order and leverages refined machine learning procedures to recognize orders that have to be stopped. It calculates probabilities of fraud in milliseconds, and stops the transactions that need to be.

The features offered by Amazon’s fraud detection technology include:

• Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to protect financial data and personal information of customers
• Reliable and secure payment processing gateway
• A-to-Z Guarantee for appropriate purchases
• Regular updates to security features for the most up-to-date fraud detection capabilities

What do you gain through Amazon’s fraud detection capabilities?

• Enhanced customer satisfaction: When customers are offered Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee, they make purchases on your store with full confidence, which in turn enhances their shopping experience.
• Hassle-free business operations: By leveraging Amazon’s infrastructure, you can reduce your operational costs that you otherwise would have spent to protect yourself against frauds.
• SSL encryption: Through Amazon’s SSL encryption features, you can safeguard yourself against the loss of financial data as well as customer data.
• Latest technology: Amazon will offer you updates throughout your term on their platform free of cost. Consequently, you will always have access to highly sophisticated tools and features to secure your business.

Want to know what more you can do? Contact us.

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How Order Management Works

Order management is a significant part of any business operation as it connects inventory and customers. It starts right from the moment a customer places an order and ends when the customer receives it. Many times, eCommerce merchants connects with the customers after few days to know how happy they are with their products. Although it seems easy, there are lot many intricacies involved in this process. Let’s have a look at the process in detail.

Steps involved in order management

• When the order is placed, the merchant will pick the ordered items from the inventory and ship it to the customers
• Send email notifications to the customer, informing him/her about the shipment status

Problems involved in the process

• The merchant may be facing an out-of-stock situation when he/she received an order. So now the merchant has two options: either he/she can partially ship the order and request the customer to wait for few days to receive other part of the order, or he/she can ask the customer to cancel the order altogether.
• Sometimes the merchant may not stock all the items, especially when he/she is selling thousands of items. He/she may be using drop shipping, asking the manufacturer to directly ship the item to the customers.
• Another potential area of problem is when the merchant is using fulfillment warehouse. When the cost of carrying inventory rises too much, many merchants use third-party warehouses to store their inventory. When the merchant using such facilities receives an order, he/she forwards the order information to the warehouse party, who in turn will ship the goods directly to the customers.

Execution of the process

As I said earlier, many times there can be multiple parties involved in the order management – merchant, customer, shipping company, manufacturer/vendor, and/or fulfillment warehouse. To co-ordinate between all these parties, the merchant will need to use series of communication tools, including email, fax and phone calls. This method is feasible until the operations are small. As your business starts expanding, problems will start cropping up in this system. So in this situation, it’s better to use order management software.

What can order management software do?

Through order management software, a merchant can automate the entire process – right from the moment a customer places an order to the moment when the customer receives an order. Merchants can even set reminders to follow up with customers. Through an order management system, a merchant can:

• Send automatic order details to the involved parties
• Keep track of your inventory through a centralized inventory system
• Co-ordinate with various parties involved through a set procedure
• Send automatic shipping information to the customers
• Follow up with the customers to gather their feedback

Do you need help in implementing such order management system? Contact us.

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Why to Do Business with Amazon

Amazon Webstore is not only popular in the U.S.A. but it’s also gaining recognition as a powerful eCommerce platform throughout the world. With strong infrastructure and user-friendly features, Amazon is growing leaps and bounds. Have you ever wondered why eCommerce merchants love Amazon?

Consider the following features:

Infrastructure: Amazon offers highly reliable technological infrastructure that reassures customers and merchants alike for timely and accurate payments. The checkout process is secured with the latest firewalls and anti-hacking programs to protect your information. It employs risk management techniques to reduce your bad debt. Apart from payment, Amazon offers logistics and fulfillment support too to its sellers.

Templates and layouts: At Amazon, you can find several thematically organized and arranged design templates and layouts. You just need to select the one that’s appropriate for your business and customize it. You can even personalize your entire store to give it a unique feel and look.

Costs: To set up a store on Amazon, you require quite a small pool capital. Apart from charging monthly fees, Amazon charges a small percentage of commission when you sell the product.

Products: Listing products on Amazon is quite easy. It just takes few minutes to do so. Also, you can list unlimited number of items on Amazon Webstore.

Marketing: Apart from helping you list your products, Amazon helps you sell your products with highly search engine optimized website. With Amazon, you can optimize the keywords as well as images of the products. You can even use marketing strategies like product recommendations, customer reviews and recently viewed items on web store.

Multiple store: You can even create multiple stores on Amazon if you are targeting two different segment of audience. For each store, you can have customized looks, features and shopping cart. What’s more, you can even integrated the dashboard of both the stores for easy management.

User experience: To offer the best user experience, Amazon lets customers use the same account, shipping addresses and billing methods on other sites that Amazon.com empowers.

If we conclude that Amazon Webstore is indeed an amazing platform to big boost to your eCommerce business, we wouldn’t be wrong. So go on and set up your shop on Amazon.

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4 Tips To Improve eCommerce Brand

When you are selling online, it’s quite important to create a strong brand. A brand that will stand out among thousands of products and services; a brand that differentiates itself from your competitors. 

Brand strengthening can be done through social media comments, customer reviews, videos and content syndication. 

Let’s discuss them further.

1. Social media comments

Social networking platforms aren't just for socializing; they are great for connecting with the customers too. When you engage and discuss with customers, you are doing free advertising of your business as well as growing your brand online at the same time. Be proactive and post more than just one-line sentences about your products. Use social networking platforms to tell stories, ask questions, sharing news related to your products and initiating discussions about your products. Also, when you get comments, respond to them – thank customers for positive comments and try to resolve customer’s query for negative comments. Once you solve their problems, those customers will get converted into loyal customers, always ready to buy from you.

2. Customer reviews

When customers are unhappy, they are going to review your product negatively – if not at your website then somewhere else. Why not convert the unhappy customer into a happy one? Actively ask for their reviews and feedback. When those are positive, it’s a great way to attract new customers; and when those are negative, you can work with the customers to change their opinion. However, do remember not to spam your customers’ email box with repeated requests. One email asking them to post what they thought of your product is a good idea. Also, when you respond to reviews, you are building a positive image for your brand.

3. Videos

Videos are great for giving a product demo for potential customers. And they have the ability to go viral, presenting your brand to millions of people. Apart from showcasing your products, you can use videos to tell your story or use various techniques to engage people in your brand and draw them to your store. You can even make a funny tutorial to make your brand lively.

4. Content syndication

In simple terms, content syndication means the content – including text, video and audio – that’s created by you is made available at other sites for use.  When you syndicate the content, you are allowing customers to access the information about your products that you want them to have, instead of information created by the secondary company. Syndication is the best way to offer accurate and consistent information to your customers.

Now, all you need to do is to make sure that all the functionality or eCommerce branding features as mentioned above should be implemented and customized in your eCommerce website properly as a part of your branding and marketing.

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5 Factors To Consider While Hiring An eCommerce Developer

Hiring a Professional eCommerce Developer

A lot has to be taken care of while developing an eCommerce site, and due to this very reason, eCommerce merchants usually prefer to hire a professional developer even when they have little bit of technical knowledge. Hiring a professional developer, however, doesn't guarantee that everything will be hunky-dory, especially when a relatively inexperienced developer is hired. If you wish to make the development process of the website simple and quick, you need to consider following five factors while hiring the developer.

Experience:

The first and the foremost factor to consider is developers’ experience. While discussing the idea of eCommerce sites, they usually tend to spout technical jargon. You need to cut through that and look at the hard facts. Ask them for the examples. Look at the websites created by them. Scrutinize the designs they have used, features they have embedded in the websites and the applications that are implemented to offer superior user experience. If the given examples do not match with what you are expecting, ask them to show the example of what they can do. This will give you a fair idea of what the developers can do for you and if that’s enough for you.

eCommerce Platform:

Before you proceed with the development, you definitely need to know which eCommerce platform the developers are going to use. But before you ask this question, you will need to conduct your own research. So look at the various eCommerce platforms and solutions that are available in the market; what exactly they bring to the table and how much they can contribute toward your business success. Apart from the paid software and solutions that offer hi-tech features, ecommerce platforms such as e-Smart eCommerce Suite, Magento and PrestaShop are quite handy because they offer convenience yet are free for use. 

Special features:

Although you will require bit of technical knowledge for looking into this aspect, it’s definitely worth the research time. Ask the developers what special features they will embed in the website, ask whether the theme will be the existing one or a new, custom one built from the scratch. Consider the amount of time they will need to create such features an

d embed them. Compare this estimate with the open-source eCommerce platforms that offer various innovative features at nominal prices.

Mobile-friendly:

Mobile website is as important as a desktop website, if not more. You need to make sure that your eCommerce site is easily accessible for mobile users as well as is user-friendly enough to engage them. You can opt for responsive eCommerce site that will allow you to offer unique shopping experience to all the users irrespective of the gadgets they are using.

Managing website:

Building a website is a one-time effort; however, managing it is a continuous process. The photos, videos, content, product details and banners need to be constantly updated. So make sure the developers understand this and they create a website that you can handle it on your own. Also, ask them how they are keeping your website’s backup as well as get access to all accounts, passwords and codes associated with your site.

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How to Measure ROI for Social Media Marketing

Measuring an accurate return on investment for each business operation is quite necessary as it gives businesses an idea about how successful their strategies are and how effective their processes are. Measuring an accurate ROI for social media marketing is complex and difficult, and due to this very reason many eCommerce sellers hesitate to initiate such a strategy. However, through the following metrics, you can measure the ROI of your social media marketing efforts up to a certain limit.    

Referring domains or traffic sources

When you are selling on eBay, Amazon or Etsy, you don't have access to the information about how the customer found the product they were looking for even though the marketplaces have that information. But you can definitely learn how your customers visited your store or item pages if you are selling on eBay or Etsy. This is called referring traffic or traffic source.

If you are selling on eBay store, traffic reports will be included in your subscription price. From this report, you will know from where your customers came, i.e., if they found you through eBay search or through your Facebook page.

Amazon doesn't offer traffic source information to merchants, but merchants do have access to total traffic per item data.

Followers

You can gauge the success of your social media presence by monitoring the number of followers you have. As your following grows, so does your influence. Initially your followers may just consist of people who know you but as you continue to share interesting and informative content, interested people too will start following you.

Approval

When you get a "Like" on Facebook and Pinterest, a "Heart" on Instagram, a "+1" on Google+, and a "Favorite" on Twitter, it means your content is being liked by the readers and they are approving it. Monitor how many of your posts garner approval and study the trend of the most liked posts. This will help you understand what's working for you and what's not.
 
Comments

On social media platforms, readers have an option to offer their comment. Whenever the readers come across interesting content, they tend to comment or reply. Monitor and measure how many comments and replies your content is receiving.

Shares, retweets and repins

Whenever the readers like your content, they will share it, retweet it and repin it on various platforms. This simply means that your content is being shared without any cost or effort from your side, and this is the best feature of social networks. So always aim to create the type of content that the users would like to rebroadcast on their own without any prodding.

While monitoring shares, retweets and repins, do understand getting likes, shares or comments on every post is impossible. If a post doesn't get any interest from the users, try posting similar content at a different time of the day and gauge its success. If it doesn't seem to be working, it's better to avoid such content in the future.

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Top 10 Features For eCommerce Websites

Although mobile websites and apps are gaining popularity, eCommerce websites are still in vogue. Focusing on an effective website would be definitely beneficial for any business in the long run. Following are the Top Ten eCommerce Features that any eCommerce website should have to reach and engage its target audience.

1.Branding: Have your logo and tag line in the front and center. The features and content of the website should revolve around the logo, making visitors aware of your brand and business.

2.Focus: Clutter free websites are always attractive and soothing on eyes. Update only relevant and helpful information and sections on the website. Too much of fluff is not very amusing or entertaining for visitors.

3.Attractive images: This is the age of clarity and transparency, specially when it comes to eCommerce websites. You need to have multiple images for all your products. Also, make sure those images are of high resolution for better visitors' interest.

4.Videos: The latest fad is to have demo videos of the products. If you can't mange to have a demo video, upload videos of user guides and videos about your customer reviews.

5.Easy search: User-friendliness is key to success. Let your customers easily find the products they are looking for through simple and effective search options. Having a huge search bar at the top of all the pages is a good idea. You can also keep a button for advanced search along with the regular search option.

6.Easy login and checkout: Garner customers' loyalty by giving them easy access to their accounts. Make the checkout process quick and painless. Also, reassure the customers about the security of their personal and financial data.

7.Free offers: Customers love free stuff. Always have something free for your customers. It could be free gift, shipping or something similar.

8.Clearance section: Do away with your old products or clear the overflowing stock by having a separate clearance section. You can also offer cheaper alternatives in this section, drawing a wider section of audience.

9.Information: Customers like to make informed decisions. Have a news section, broadcasting the latest happenings of your industry.

10.Personal touch: Customers love to feel human connection even if they are buying online. Put up your team's information in a friendly manner, encouraging your visitors to connect with them.

We’re here to answer any questions you may have or give you information on how we can help grow your eBusiness!

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Why Choose us for Amazon Webstore?

Amazon stands for genuineness and trust.

(1) We want you to succeed.

We earning more than 60% of our new business from referrals, we want you to succeed. That is our goal for you. We have been creating a reputation for outstanding web service (and results) in Kaushalam.Inc for almost 5 years of professional experience and they are highly qualified to tackle any kind of developments issue.

(2) We promise…

Based on your Requirement, audience, and budget, we promise to keep up with the growing trends, ever-changing technology, and make sophisticated recommendations for your online success.

(3) We treat clients like partners.

Part of the success is our process and quality. The other part is that we build partnerships with our clients. We understand that loyalty is tough to come by, so we work extra hard to earn your trust and keep your business. We will demonstrate results, provide superior service, and always consider your best interest.

Please call us to understand how we can help you with your Amazon Webstore.

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