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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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 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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