Customer Service Optimization

Hi All,


                  

Customers want efficient, effortless service from the touchpoint and communication channel of their choice. They want to receive accurate, relevant, and complete answers to their questions upon first contact with a company.

Why is it so important to deliver on customer expectations? Customer satisfaction correlates to customer loyalty, and loyalty has economic benefits.

We also know that it is difficult to deliver customer service in line with customer expectations. Our customer service technology ecosystem is increasingly complex. Social technologies have disrupted traditional communications, and smartphones and tablets have made the delivery of consistent experiences across touchpoints more challenging. And the number of vendor mergers and acquisitions has complicated vendor selection. So how do you do better?

• Discover what matters for customer service

Understand customer-facing, agent-facing, and technology trends that are shaping the future of customer service–trends like changes in communication channel usage by demographic, mobility solutions for customer service, the value of tighter coupling of knowledge management to case management, the rising importance of outsourcing, cloud-based technologies, and the evolving technology landscape.

• Plan for improvements

Assess your current operations against best practices to understand your strengths and pinpoint areas of opportunity. This will help you build a concrete plan for improvements and lay out a technology adoption road map.

• Act on your findings

With your planning in place, it’s time to choose whether to outsource customer service operations and/or technology, buy it from a vendor, or in unique cases, build it yourself. This decision is very important, as the vendor landscape is broad, mature, and rife with mergers and acquisitions. Partnering with the right technology provider can make or break your operations.

•  Optimize

Customer service is no longer viewed as just a cost center. Key success metrics have historically focused on productivity, efficiency, and regulatory compliance instead of customer satisfaction.

Courtesy: http://blogs.forrester.com/kate_leggett/13-02-28-four_steps_for_optimizing_customer_service_operations

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Product page abandonment

Hi All,






There is an established flow for customers when it comes to e-commerce. They navigate to a product’s page, view it, sometimes check reviews left by other users, inspect some of the product images on the page, then they add the product to their cart before checking out and completing their purchase. Or they might just leave!

The innate problem with this process is that some users leave the product page without adding it to their cart. This is known as product page abandonment, and it is a very real issue that businesses with e-commerce websites face.

Small businesses tend to deal with product page abandonment the most. They may have a small pool of potential customers, which means that even one product sale could mean the difference between a profitable month and one that ends up in the red. Of course, it is never possible to completely avoid it—some users will have no intention to make a purchase, they may just be browsing or researching some item. The goal is to minimize as much as possible product page abandonment, so that anyone who does abandon the product page, does so for reasons beyond your control, and not because of a poor product page.

Let’s explore some things that you can do to enhance your product pages, which includes tweaking your product descriptions to ensuring that full shipping details are accessible from the product page. Enhancements such as these will greatly improve the chance of a customer adding a product to the cart.

Understanding product abandonment

The first step to solving product page abandonment is to understand why it happens. When a user reaches a product page, they expect to see certain things that will answer the questions they may have. The price of the product, a description of it and the total cost are things that most customers expect to see without navigating to a checkout.

The reason these things are so important concerns the way the consumer’s mind works. The consumer is doing one or more of the following things:

• Researching an initial solution to a problem
• Comparing products for price, usefulness or both
• Searching the most reliable seller
• Researching the product that is most likely to give them a reliable solution
• Inspecting the product itself via pictures or videos
• Looking to finalize their purchasing decision after doing research

Without catering to the many modes a consumer experiences, most potential customers will abandon the product before adding it to their cart.




Courtesy: http://internet.com/website-building/product-page-abandonment-what-you-can-do-to-prevent-it/




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Why User Experience(UX)?

Hi All,


                                                       

This article clarifies about why UX really matters.

What is UX really? It measures a person's attitude when interacting with a brand or product through online.

Why UX?

UX calculates the amount of emotional response from the customers. Here frustration is the common factor. These are the two reasons which makes UX most vital.

Some of the top reasons why we need UX are:

It’s everywhere

UX is everywhere right from your Facebook page, your phone, your iPod or whatever device you use to buy a product through ecommerce platforms.

Impact of Customer Experience
   
Negative experience = negative feelings

Your brand can be abandoned for lifetime by a customer when he encounters just one bad experience.
A global customer source survey reveals that consumers talk about a negative experience twice when compared to a positive one. And this creates a negative impact on the particular brand.

Positive feelings for positive experience

Similarly, a positive experience makes your product to have a lifetime customer. This in turn increases your overall customer loyalty and they are 10 times much worthy as much as their first purchase.

Use or lose

A source says that 45% of US consumers drop their online transaction if their queries are not addressed quickly.

Customer is KING

Every organization should bear this in general when it comes for user experience:

It's not that a product to be the best in the world, but it's the way how a product is presented to the right customers in the right way by which they thought or expected, otherwise that brand will flop.
   
Responsiveness

Since your customers have a lot of options to view your product(mobile, tablet, desktop) these days, it is your quality responsive design that matters. Users experience the best possible way to view or purchase your product, anywhere and everywhere.

User Expert

Apart from your content, design, UX, web development you should also have a closely monitoring UX expert in your organization in order to present your brand to the end users with better user experience. This builds your user experience all the way from design to development.




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Maybe you gave up on ordering that gift online because the checkout process was a hassle. Maybe you tried to schedule a doctor appointment, but the clinic’s website wasn’t mobile-friendly. Or maybe your wine shipment exploded because the overnight temp was -25°, and then you couldn’t find customer service info online.
Sound familiar? (Ok, minus the -25° part? We love living in Fargo anyway.)
Here’s my point: frustration is the common denominator. And that emotional response is exactly why user experience (UX) is so vital.
Wait, what is UX – really? Well, it measures a person’s behavior and feelings when interacting with a brand or product across platforms. It involves research, technical architecture, usability testing and much more. It’s complex. But the reasons why it’s so important? Those are actually pretty simple.
Top 7 Countdown

1. It’s everywhere. Your Facebook page, your phone, your Fitbit, your iPod. You name it. If you touch a device that uses technology, guess what? Someone, somewhere, considered how to best organize every bit of information you need to access with it. (And if they did it well, you’ll never even think about the professionals behind that curtain.)
2. Negative experience = negative feelings. One bad experience can turn a user away from a brand for life. And consumers are TWICE as likely to talk about a negative experience than a positive one, which also creates a ripple effect. (Source: 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer)
3. Likewise, positive experiences = positive feelings. Exceptional experiences can create a vocal advocate for your brand and a customer for life. And on average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase. (Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs)
4. Use it or lose it. 45% of US consumers will abandon an online transaction if their questions or concerns are not addressed quickly. Enough said. (Source: Forrester)
5. It’s not about you; it’s about THEM. Your organization knows what you want to sell and is a great advocate for that. But UX experts are advocates for the end users of your products. This quote from Laura Schjeldahl, Sundog’s own Experience Architect, sums it up perfectly: “A company can have the best product in the world, but if it isn’t presented to the right customers in the way they want to see it and can understand it, the company will fail.” Nobody wants that, right? Right.
6. Responsiveness matters. Mobile and tablets and desktops, oh my! Your customers have tons of choices when it comes to when, where and how they are interacting with your products and your brand. From smart watches to 100-inch screens, quality responsive design is key to making sure your users have the best possible experience. Everywhere.
7. The end result should be seamless. You have a lot of different departments at your company, and that means it’s easy to have tunnel vision. But guess what? Content strategy + design + UX + web development (and more) = everything your user will see at the exact same time. So tear down your silos. The best websites and applications come from a UX expert working closely with those key players – from designers to developers – to build your user experience together.

- See more at: https://www.sundoginteractive.com/blog/7-reasons-why-ux-matters#sthash.ZcmgBbED.dpuf

Maybe you gave up on ordering that gift online because the checkout process was a hassle. Maybe you tried to schedule a doctor appointment, but the clinic’s website wasn’t mobile-friendly. Or maybe your wine shipment exploded because the overnight temp was -25°, and then you couldn’t find customer service info online.
Sound familiar? (Ok, minus the -25° part? We love living in Fargo anyway.)
Here’s my point: frustration is the common denominator. And that emotional response is exactly why user experience (UX) is so vital.
Wait, what is UX – really? Well, it measures a person’s behavior and feelings when interacting with a brand or product across platforms. It involves research, technical architecture, usability testing and much more. It’s complex. But the reasons why it’s so important? Those are actually pretty simple.
Top 7 Countdown

1. It’s everywhere. Your Facebook page, your phone, your Fitbit, your iPod. You name it. If you touch a device that uses technology, guess what? Someone, somewhere, considered how to best organize every bit of information you need to access with it. (And if they did it well, you’ll never even think about the professionals behind that curtain.)
2. Negative experience = negative feelings. One bad experience can turn a user away from a brand for life. And consumers are TWICE as likely to talk about a negative experience than a positive one, which also creates a ripple effect. (Source: 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer)
3. Likewise, positive experiences = positive feelings. Exceptional experiences can create a vocal advocate for your brand and a customer for life. And on average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase. (Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs)
4. Use it or lose it. 45% of US consumers will abandon an online transaction if their questions or concerns are not addressed quickly. Enough said. (Source: Forrester)
5. It’s not about you; it’s about THEM. Your organization knows what you want to sell and is a great advocate for that. But UX experts are advocates for the end users of your products. This quote from Laura Schjeldahl, Sundog’s own Experience Architect, sums it up perfectly: “A company can have the best product in the world, but if it isn’t presented to the right customers in the way they want to see it and can understand it, the company will fail.” Nobody wants that, right? Right.
6. Responsiveness matters. Mobile and tablets and desktops, oh my! Your customers have tons of choices when it comes to when, where and how they are interacting with your products and your brand. From smart watches to 100-inch screens, quality responsive design is key to making sure your users have the best possible experience. Everywhere.
7. The end result should be seamless. You have a lot of different departments at your company, and that means it’s easy to have tunnel vision. But guess what? Content strategy + design + UX + web development (and more) = everything your user will see at the exact same time. So tear down your silos. The best websites and applications come from a UX expert working closely with those key players – from designers to developers – to build your user experience together.

- See more at: https://www.sundoginteractive.com/blog/7-reasons-why-ux-matters#sthash.ZcmgBbED.dpuf

Customer Relationship Management

Hi All,





CRM stands for 'customer relationship management'.

What Is CRM Software?

CRM, or customer relationship management, refers to software that lets companies track every interaction with current and future customers. Though the software capabilities can change depending on which provider you're using, the software itself is usually just referred to by the acronym, CRM.
Most CRMs will have features for keeping track of prospect and customer names, emails, and phone numbers. Others can track phone calls, log emails sent to prospects, and keep track of prospects' social media feeds. More advanced and complex ones can rotate leads to the right sales reps and log interactions with customer support teams.

Regardless of the features in place, the goal of implementing a CRM is to create a system that your company (most often the sales and marketing teams) can use to more efficiently and effectively interact with prospects or customers.

Marketing will often use a CRM to ensure that they're rotating the right leads to sales -- a key aspect of developing a strong relationship with the sales team. On the sales side, having the entire prospect history in one place saves a ton of time and improves productivity.

Need for CRM System

CRMs automatically keep track of your prospect and customer information so you can focus on growing. Every company is in the business of growth.

Decide Your CRM Software

There are many CRM options out there that could work for your business. It all depends on which features your business needs most. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you figure out which CRM you should get:

• Does your sales team have a clear process for whom to call and when? If not, you might want a CRM that gives them insight into which prospects are most engaged.

• Does your company work on large B2B deals that require you to interact with many people inside one organization? You might want a CRM that can easily pull and organize someone's data based on the company they work for.

• How do you primarily interact with leads: by phone, email, social media, or a combination? You should find out how different CRMs could make prospect interaction easy for representatives.

The best way to figure out what you need right now is to talk with people both high up in your sales organization and those on the ground floor. That way, you'll find out what features your team will need as a whole and in the day-to-day.

What's the one feature pretty much every company will need? A sound integration between your CRM and marketing software. For you to properly communicate and track your company's prospects, leads, and customers at every stage of the buying journey, your technology needs to play nice together.


The moral of the story here is this: If you’re running a business and intend to keep growing, you should get a CRM. Your success depends on being able to delight your customers. Knowing as much about them as possible, delivering rapid responses to their inquiries, solving problems quickly, and delivering a personalized experience in which a customer feels special will help you delight your customers -- and ultimately, help you grow.



Courtesy: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/what-is-crm-ht




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Editing Virtual Product in URSify

Hi All,

In this article we will go through some of the steps involved in editing your virtual product.

Virtual Product:

This kind of product is generally a service oriented one (e.g. AC AMC). You can experience the product as a service.

Virtual Product Editing:

We assume that you have already added a virtual product namely an AC Annual Maintenance Contract(e.g. AC AMC). Here customers agree to avail AMC service from your online store.

To edit your added virtual product click 'Product' menu in your shop admin(which will be available in your registered email). In the product menu, select 'Product Listing' tab. This shows the available list of products that were added by you(online store owner in general). Click 'Edit' option(button).This redirects to a new tab: Edit Product(here 'AC AMC - Virtual Product - Edit').

Available Button Controls:

The controls(buttons) Back, Save, Save & View are available in Edit Product tab.

Editable Forms:

The following forms will be displayed in edit menu:

General Description:

You can edit your virtual product's 'name', 'brief description', 'brand name' and 'status'. These are the portions that can be edited under your product's general description.

Tags:

Tags generally displays (in your online store front) your product names in tags. There are two types of tags namely 'system' and 'user' tags. System tag cannot be edited while you have the option to edit or delete user created tags. You can also add a new tag (i.e. user tag).

Images:

While editing images for your added virtual products, the image with same file name cannot be uploaded. This prompts you to enter unique filename for your added virtual product(s). Apart from this you can make changes for fields such as 'image'(contains your virtual product image), 'image description'(contains label for your image).

While at the time of adding your virtual product, if you have selected 'main product image'(radio control), this cannot be altered. Whereas another field named 'Gallery image'(choosing this check box makes your virtual product's image displayed in gallery). If you wish to delete your previously added image and upload a new image for your product you can click the 'Remove' button control.

SEO:

Here you can edit your added 'virtual' product's 'meta title', 'meta keyword' and 'meta description'.

Pricing:

All details can be altered under Pricing section. You can change your virtual product's price value under 'Price' field. 

Custom Options:

We assume that you have already entered custom options for your virtual product.(e.g. Option Title: Service Period, Option Values: bi-monthly, tri-monthly)

Under 'Custom Options' you can edit all options namely 'Option Title', 'Option Type', 'Option Values' and 'Action'.

You may delete an option inside the Option Values column by clicking the option's cross symbol(x) and can enter new value or can change the option type by selecting any of the drop down option under the Option Type column.

If you wish to change the Option Title you can click the desired text field and can enter new name for the Option Title.

Click 'Save' or 'Save & View' to complete your editing successfully. Verify your changes by viewing your shop front.

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Reasons to Hire a PPC Management Expert

Hi All,






In the battle for marketing dollars, SEO and PPC (pay-per-click) are in constant competition with one another. As Google changes its algorithms, companies find themselves competing against moving goal posts.

PPC advertising has the potential to deliver targeted traffic, but it takes technical know-how to do it properly. Even marketing veterans can make mistakes when they enter into a new market, or start selling a new product with PPC. It takes an expert PPC analyst to review every potential facet of your account, looking for ways to improve on the copy and the landing page.

Here are 10 reasons why you should hire a PPC management expert.

Keyword Research Isn't Easy

Keyword research is crucial to your success, and it's something PPC experts spend a lot of time on initially and throughout the PPC process. If you pick the wrong keywords you can quickly exhaust your budget and your campaign will have very poor returns.

PPC experts don't stop at one of these tools, either. They use multiple data points to form a more complete picture of the sales landscape.

Wrong Ad Copy Could Result in Low Conversion

One of the greatest strengths a PPC expert has is the ability to perform competitive research. PPC experts understand how to find good copy, they study your competition, and they form ads based on what they know works. That kind of copy isn't something the amateur can do overnight, especially when every word means something.

Tracking Requires Technical Expertise

The foundation of any good PPC program is its ability to track not only sales, but where those sales are coming from. Good analysis can show you which placements and keywords are likely to bring you the most conversions.

In addition, tagging your campaigns allows you to see which ones are most effective. Tracking code installation requires at least some basic HTML knowledge, so if you have no such knowledge then you better leave this to the experts or you may have to pay your webmaster to install it for you. If you would like to track your leads/sales from phone calls, that would require additional set up and expertise.

Campaign Settings Can Be Confusing

There are several potential settings you must adjust in order to get optimum exposure for your campaigns. For example, geographic settings can help you target a specific part of the country.
Should you target locally, statewide, nationally, or worldwide? Should you set up different ad groups for each? Without a clear understanding of these settings, and how they may benefit you, you might be paying too much for the same traffic that a similar marketer pays pennies on the dollar for.

Prior Experience With Similar Clients

Often times a PPC expert may have worked with other clients in your industry and have competitive knowledge he can apply to your account, which would save you thousands of dollars. In paid search it's beneficial to hire a person or a company that has worked with one or more of your competitors before.

Most paid search companies probably won't take on direct competitors as clients at the same time – if they do, then that's probably not a good idea – but if they have worked with your competitors or similar companies previously, then that would be a plus.


Unless you have some prior PPC experience yourself, then you shouldn't attempt to do this yourself.




Courtesy: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/opinion/2343094/10-reasons-to-hire-a-ppc-management-expert




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E-Commerce: Seasonal sales maximization

Hi All,





Much of your business growth comes from exploiting seasonal shopping bonanzas such as Christmas and Easter. So, with Easter just around the marketing corner, here are some top tips for tapping into the chocolate and daffodil inspired ecommerce frenzy – though of course, these rules apply to any season.

When should you do it?

Naturally, your seasonal marketing should be in place before the season, so for Easter – which in case you hadn’t noticed is 3 to 6 April this year – you should be getting it up and running right now. For Christmas 2015, you can probably relax until about September.

Ideally, you should be working these seasonal sales splurges into your annual marketing plan and be well aware of them all year round – and make sure that you have budgeted for the extra marketing spend you may need to make to promote your seasonal offering.

Get the goods

First of all you should already have identified what goods you have on your inventory – or what goods your suppliers have on theirs’ – well in advance and ordered them. Now, in the case of Easter this may be simple: themed goods around eggs, candles, rabbits, crucifixion, resurrection and so on.

So look at what you sell and see how you can make it seasonally relevant.

Alternatively, you can box-clever and try to create a relevant story around what you already sell. This is the hard bit, but can be the most rewarding if you can pull it off. If you sell mugs, then look at how to put an Easter egg in a mug or similar. If you sell bike lights, you may have to really give it some thought – although Easter can be a good time to get rid of anything yellow.

Marketing the goods

The key thing about seasonal selling is the marketing. We have already touched on the idea that you have to create a seasonally relevant ‘story’ around your goods to tap the seasonally affected orderer and this is indeed key, but you also have to look at how create seasonal collateral.

• Message – You need to come up with a seasonal ‘story’ about the specific goods you are looking at promoting and using seasonal language and allusion. This is where you really have to sell the idea that what you are pushing is relevant to the Easter or Christmas – but it should be a matter of writing down cleverly how you arrived at the promo in the first place.

• Promotional codes – Another approach is to offer a special seasonal discount on certain goods. This can obviate the need for special graphics and messaging, but you do need to have a code in place and a story as to why those particular bobble hats or inner tubes are being reduced for Easter, Christmas.

• Market materials – You need to push your seasonal marketing with advertising, graphics, mailers, emails and messages to help sprinkle some of the season’s magic over the marketing medium as well as making the message and the goods seasonal.

• Your website – You may want to carry this theme through to pimping the appropriate parts of your website so that it too looks the part. Again, make it relevant to the season, make sure its in place at the right time and allocate some budget to it.

• Make it mobile – people will be out and about in the run up to and over the holiday period, so make sure that what you are sending – be it email, text or just a promo on your site – is mobile optimised. This should be a given these days for any marketing activity, but seasonal specials make it all the more relevant.

• Seasonal SEO – The last, and very important, part of the seasonal marketing puzzle is to add seasonal SEO to help shoppers actually find your seasonal offerings in the first place.

Courtesy: http://eseller.net/ecommerce-easter-maximise-seasonal-sales/

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Tools to Improve Online Merchandising

Hi All,

Online Merchandising

In a nutshell, online merchandising is about how you present your products, both individually and collectively. It’s also about how you promote products and other offers. Some aspects of merchandising are about the products themselves. Much of merchandising is about how products are presented. In many cases, specific online tools and tactics are used to enhance presentation.

Here are some tools and tactics to improve online merchandising.

• Individual product content

This includes primary and alternative images, descriptions, specifications, pricing details, availability, country of manufacture, manufacturer, and so forth. This is very basic information, but incredibility important for shoppers as well as search engine optimization.

• Product categories

Most stores sell categories of similar products. How do you present them? Are they grouped together side by side in a grid view or presented down the page in a list view? How many products make up a category? Are there subcategories? Do you present an ensemble of related items for context?

• Store pages

These are the shopping aisles of your online store. Key pages in your online store are the home page, product category pages, product list pages, search results pages, product detail pages, landing pages, shopping cart, registration, checkout, informational pages, and comparison pages. Each needs to be the best possible at what it does.

• Related items

Do you present related items on a product detail page only, or add them to a category page or even the shopping cart? These are usually cross sells, but can also be complementary items.

• Alternative items

Unlike related items, these are usually upsells.

• Comparison features

Do you include features that allow shoppers to select products for comparison?

• Ratings and reviews

This has become a staple of online merchandising. If you don’t have this feature and a shopper relies on other peoples’ opinions about a product, he is likely to shop elsewhere.

• Promotional offers

As shopping becomes more personalized, stores are delivering pop-up offers that are generally related to the items you are shopping for. This may be a free shipping offer, a discount, a buy-one-get-one free or other types of incentives.

• Page density

This is an ongoing debate in design circles. How much white space should you have in your product list or product detail pages. The answer is: It depends on your branding, products, customers, and the quality and types of content you have about your products.

• Pricing

Do you go bold or subtle with your pricing. Do you present a “list price” and “our price” to show value? Do you highlight the savings? Again, it depends on your target market, your value proposition and your branding.

• Search results

Do you present your default search based on “best sellers,” “price,” “most relevant,” or “brand”? Do you allow shoppers to choose their own preferences?

• Promotional categories

These are used for seasonal sales, clearances, or simply related items. They are usually attached to promotions – such as email, social media, and advertising. They can be basic product list pages, or something much more focused on the products being featured.

• Promotional banners

Most sites leverage a wide variety of promotional banners that appear based on behaviors or specific site locations. They may be promoting the weekly special, free shipping, loyalty programs, and so forth.

• Social media

Leverage your likes, comments, and tweets on specific product categories or items. Millennials in particular are a group that likes to hear what their friends and peers think about products.

Courtesy: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/66443-20-Tools-Tactics-to-Improve-Online-Merchandising




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URSify: Simple Product Editing

Hi All,

In this article we will see how to edit your added simple product under URSify's Shop Admin.

Why Product Editing is Necessary:

You can make alterations or changes in your selling products that reflects directly in your online store to your customers. Hence it is vital to edit a product in order to update or change some of the information of your product.

Constraint:
Note that you can edit products that were added  previously by .

Editing a Simple Product:

Follow the below steps for editing your added simple product(s):

In Shop Admin(shop admin details will be sent to your registered email at the time of your online store purchase) select Product menu and select Product Listing tab

Click Edit option which redirects to a new tab known as Edit Product. This displays details of previously added products(that were created in Add Product).

Available Button Controls:

Be sure to know about the button controls that are available such as Back, Save, Save & View in Edit Product tab(whereas Add Product tab contains Add, Save & AddNew and Reset as extra buttons).

General Description:

You can change details such as description of your added product, brand name and status.

Tags:

Here you have the option to change user tag(the tag that was added during addition of a simple product). All details except System tags can be edited in Tags section.

Images:

While editing images for user's added products the image with same file name cannot be uploaded. This is because you should enter unique filename for your added products(NOTE: Same file name under different product methods is allowed).

SEO:

You can change all fields such as Meta Title, Meta Keyword, Meta Description that are used to improve your store's search engine optimization.

Pricing & Inventory:

In this section you have the facility to change fields namely Price and Manage Stock. At the time of addition of your product if you had chosen to manage stock then you can change even the number of quantity for your simple product.

Shipping & Taxes:

You can change details of your product's shipping and taxes under this section. Shipping Available and Tax are the two fields that can be edited. If you had enabled shipping available already(during product addition) then you can decide to change the type of shipping(whether free or cost). Additionally you can also change your product's weight and weight unit(kilogram or gram).




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E-Commerce Platform Requirements

Hi All,

The ecommerce platform consists of the software used to manage the look and feel of the site, inventory, payment processes, and so on. The platform selection is a critical driver of the hosting choice, so there is a lot to consider. This list offers a foundation for platform requirements, although additional concerns unique to the business will undoubtedly be uncovered during the selection process.

• PRODUCT MERCHANDISING: Controlling how products and information are displayed, and how discounts are presented to the customer and processed in a payment system; presenting product customization requirements; displaying global product content.

• DATA COMPATIBILITY: Parsing of multiple data points simultaneously for a split-second redirect to dynamic pages or to deliver custom content, allowing incompatible data types or data stored in silos to “talk” to each other, not hindering customer experience initiatives.

• PAYMENT SYSTEM: Supporting trials with opt-in/opt-out capability, physical product purchasing, access management for SaaS products, support for global payments, shopping cart compatibility.

• CHANNEL MANAGEMENT: Features to differentiate customer segments, serve dynamic content based on customer profile, price list management to offer alternative pricing to selected customers, global compliance management.

• MOBILE FUNCTIONALITY: Creating high-impact mobile interfaces across smartphones and tablets, real-time processing, mobile shopping cart optimization.

• MARKETING: Tools for customer contact testing, multivariate testing capabilities, acquisition/retention marketing (PPC campaigns, SEO, email list management), support for affiliate programs.

• CUSTOMER CONTACTS: Ability to customize and send transactional emails for account creation, order-related contacts, localized content, new product versions.

• HOSTING MANAGEMENT: Access to scalable, dedicated bare-metal components; implementing cloud expandability for bursting; building in redundancy for disaster recovery.

HOSTING SELECTION

Every company has unique business and IT requirements, and there are many solutions that may be a good fit. Sometimes, the best configuration for a business includes more than one option. When evaluating hosting options, it’s important to consider whether potential integration and deployment issues are aligned with the organization’s IT resources and experience. There’s a huge difference between a general cloud provider that only offers raw infrastructure—leaving organizations to figure out how to deploy and connect the ecommerce platform—and hosting specialists that can provide expertise around unique workloads. Choosing a hosting partner with specialized experience in ecommerce platforms and infrastructure helps the organization sort out the complexities to architect an optimal solution.

Options include:

• CLOUD: Choose a public cloud for low cost or a private cloud for workloads subject to stringent security or compliance mandates.

• ON-PREMISES: This option delivers ultimate control—as well as all the headaches that accompany being responsible for the entire ecommerce infrastructure.

• HYBRID: In a hybrid cloud environment, a retailer can move certain workloads, like email or content delivery, to the cloud while maintaining control over other critical systems best run on dedicated or on-premises equipment.

Courtesy: http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/whitepaper/ecommerce-re-platforming-basics

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Testing Plan For An Ecommerce Site

Hi All,

The main aspects that you should consider while testing an ecommerce site are as follows.

Ecommerce sites can get very complicated but this list is a starting point when carrying out testing before a site launch.

Functionality

First of all, we’ll run through the main functionality of an ecommerce website that needs to be tested. Your website may not have all these items, or indeed may have some not included here.

Main pages

• Home page
• Featured products
• Special offers
• Information pages
  • About page
  • Shipping information
  • Returns policy
  • Terms page
  • Privacy policy

Product category pages

• Any filters such as product filters, colours, sizes, types of product, etc.
• Any ability to sort products by name, price, size, etc.
• Add to shortlist or wish list facility.
• Add to basket.

Product detail pages

• Product title
• Product description
• Product images
• Enlarge image
• 360 degree view of products
• Related products
• Any further product information, colours, sizes, options, extras.
• Add to shopping basket

Product search

• Keyword search

Shopping basket

• Add products to basket
• Remove product from basket
• Change quantities
• Select delivery option
• Check VAT and delivery costs add up correctly

Pay now

• Move into checkout process

Checkout and Payment Systems

• Place Paypal payment

• Place Visa payment

• Place Visa Debit payment

• Place Visa Electron payment

• Place Mastercard payment

• Place Amex payment

• Place false payment

• Test cancelling order

Browser Compatibility

• Internet Explorer 7

• Internet Explorer 8

• Internet Explorer 9

• Mozilla Firefox (latest version)

• Google Chrome (latest version)

• Safari

Mobile Device Compatibility

• Apple iPhone – 5, 6 and 6 Plus

• Apple iPad – iPad 2, 3, 4, iPad Air and iPad Air 2)

• Apple iPad Mini – 1, 2 and 3

• Android Smartphone – such as Samsung Galaxy S5

• Android Tablet – such as Google Nexus 7

• Windows Phone – such as Nokia Lumia 635

Accessibility

• Try browsing your website with a screen reader and/or text browser

• Try browsing your website without a mouse, i.e. with just your keyboard

Analytics Checkup

SEO

• Structure of URLs

• Unique title tags for each page and product page

• Title tags should include product name and category

• Meta description tag for each page and product page

• Robots.txt in place

• Check that alt text has been added to images

• Internal linking

• XML sitemap

Social

As this is a testing plan for an ecommerce site then a specific section of the plan should be devoted to the checkout and payment area of the website.

Test the checkout process including the following aspects:

Final amount to pay – make sure that this value is correct, after the price of the products, VAT, delivery and any other charges. Test making changes to the products being ordered, changing delivery options, etc. and make sure that this final amount updates correctly.

Next is payments.

Carry out a test payment using each payment method that you are offering such as debit cards, credit cards, Paypal, Google Checkout, etc. Your payment system will most likely still be in test mode before you launch so all test payments will be carried out using the test payment details.

E-mail confirmations:

Check that confirmation emails are sent correctly when a payment is made, whether those confirmation emails are being sent by your website or by the payment provider.

Make sure that you can refund a payment and that any confirmation emails are sent to the recipient of the refund successfully.

You will probably want to carry out several payments again once the site is live so you can use real debit and credit cards to check the system works correctly.

This is the central aspect of your ecommerce website and so if time is short then make sure you thoroughly test the checkout and payment area.

These are some of the basic requirements that are to be tested to launch your ecommerce site successfully.




Courtesy: http://www.testing-web-sites.co.uk/testing-plans-checklists/testing-plan-for-an-ecommerce-site/




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Micro-Conversion

Hi All,

What is a micro-conversion?

A micro conversion is a user activity that leads them to your major target conversion. Google defines it as “activities that users frequently engage in before purchasing.”

An ecommerce site, for example, would lead a user through a few actions that lead up to the main conversion (macro conversion) — purchasing an item.

Why measure micro conversions?

No one is going go straight to your website, clicking buy now, and plunking down their credit card info.

Every single user is going to convert in small ways before they convert in a big way. What are these small ways? That’s what you get to decide based on the development and architecture of your site. That’s where you realize that micro conversions are awesome.

Focus on measuring your macro (overall) conversions, but for optimal awesomeness identify and measure your micro conversions as well.

Measuring micro conversions is just as important as measuring macro conversions.

You will only discover the path to success (macro conversion) if you measure the process that users engage in. Those are your micro conversions.

Most of the people who visit your website won’t complete a macro conversion.

Advantages:

Here are some advantages of identifying and measuring your site’s micro conversion points.

• Provides a complete picture of your website visitors. Viewing your visitors as a holistic demographic rather than just a paltry few ultimate converters is valuable. You get a far more nuanced understanding of why they are coming to your website, what they are doing, and who they are. 

• Furnishes you with the best areas to focus on for conversion optimization. As a conversion optimizer, I’m always looking for the low hanging fruit. I want to fix the stuff that will make the biggest impact.

• Gives you insight into what user are most interested in. If there are micro conversion rates that hit the roof, you know that these are some of the best areas for conversion potential.

• You can track multi-channel engagement. Many micro conversions go beyond the site itself, and track user involvement into social channels, downloads, and other brand events.

• Identifies areas where users are getting stuck or derailed. Want to unstick your conversion flow? Then figure out what’s making users get stuck, and blow through it.

• Proves the success of particular conversion strategies. If you’ve ever wondered which lead technique or process was best for your audience, wonder no more.

• Creates a comprehensive website performance picture for executives and decision makers. The world of micro conversions unlocks sheer power for the data-loving, bottom-line executives who rule the company with a quarterly-earnings-iron-fist. Give them the data that best paints the picture of the customer, their needs, their proclivities, their up-and-to-the-right potential. Give them micro conversion data.

Courtesy: http://www.jeremysaid.com/the-power-of-micro-conversions/




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E-Commerce Personalization

Hi All,

97% of an online stores’ visitors will leave the website without buying.

Most of them never visited the site before nor will ever get back again, which means there’s no second chance for a first impression.

Online retailers have a massive edge over their brick and mortar counterparts, thanks to online personalization technologies. It’s possible for each visitor to feel as though the web store was designed just for them, that each offer and message they encounter is relevant and timely.
Shoppers have come to expect a personalized web store experience.

Real-Time Offers & Website Personalization

On-Site Personalization Opportunities

You probably consider the majority of your website visitors as anonymous—meaning you have no previous data about them. Because they’re anonymous, once they leave your site (and that will happen sooner than you think) you will have no way to communicate with them (because you don’t know their email). If you want to bring them back to your site, you must invest in retargeting ads.
Not necessarily.

Check out these on-site targeting opportunities:


Navigational personalization:


Even a first-time site visitor can enjoy a personalized shopping experience, with messaging and offers based on the behavior that brought them to your site and their on-site activity.

Where the individual came from and how they were referred to your site (ads, search, social, etc., and for which keyword terms) help inform navigational personalization.


Third-party data:

Data aggregators are the most common source of third-party data, which provides your higher level, huge volume audience insights. Third-party data is great for contextual, behavioral and demographic targeting; it isn’t exclusive to you, but it can tell you a great deal more about various audience segments.

Predictive personalization:

With enough customer data at your disposal, you can begin to actually predict what your audience may want next.


Personal preferences: 

Returning visitors and customers have a great deal of insight for you. Customer preferences, on-site browsing history, purchase history and more can inform new messages and offers that will appeal to their unique interests.

Creative messaging that really matters

There are unlimited options of creative messaging and ideas you could test. Let’s take a quick look at various proven effective personalized campaigns:

Real-Time Offers:

Real-time offers are a proven way to increase conversion rates by offering limited discounts to valued customers (or potential customers) only.

Micro Conversions:

You spend a lot of money on customer acquisition. But when a visitor lands on your site, they are still likely to bounce quickly. That’s where your micro conversion strategy should take place.

Instead of trying to get visitors to purchase from you on the spot, get a minimal commitment from that visitor.


Geo-Location Messaging:

Do you offer shipping to the U.S? Do you offer world-wide shipping? Why not to let every shopper feel special by announcing your shipping policy to their exact location.

Make sure to draw your visitors’ attention

Even if your CMS already provides some basic personalization capabilities, you might want to consider a platform to help you match the right display mode for the best shopping experience.
Typically, about 70% of an e-commerce site’s traffic lands on specific product pages or categories.

Post-Abandonment Personalization

After maximizing your on-site experience and your sales goals, it’s now time to do the same for your remarketing campaigns.

Probably you already send emails to subscribers, possibly including promotions as part of your newsletter. Now it’s time to make some quick, effective changes to your strategies.

Email Personalization Opportunities

When it comes to sending out emails there are many aspects that could be personalized with some reasonable effort, from segmenting your lists to customizing the content of the email to increase its efficacy.

Email List Segmentation:

As a first step, you could separate your subscribers into two groups: buyers from non-buyers.
To your existing customers, you could emphasize the benefits of being a loyal customer, either by running a loyalty program or by simply mentioning that the promotion in your newsletter is reserved for customers only.

Personalized Retargeting

Retargeting allows you to get your ads in front of visitors who have visited your website—even if they didn’t take action. Making it personal can increase results.

Recent items:

Promote on your retargeting ads the last items a visitor viewed before leaving your site.

Time-based retargeting:

Target visitors that didn’t get back to your site after several days or simply adjust to seasonality, updating your remarketing campaigns to suit the seasons or holidays.

Conclusion

Personalization platforms have been shown to improve the conversion rates so dramatically, it’s almost a no-brainer to integrate them into your everyday work process.
Use personalization to powerfully target your visitors and see the difference in your conversion rate.




Courtesy:  http://blog.crazyegg.com/2015/02/13/getting-started-ecommerce-personalization/




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SaaS Benefits

Hi All,

What is SaaS?

Software as a service (SaaS) is transforming information technology today. The provider delivers software based on one set of common code and data definitions that is consumed in a one-to-many model by all contracted customers at any time on a pay-for-use basis or as a subscription based on use metrics.

In effect, SaaS is a leased software maintained by its creator and not hosted on your premises. SaaS apps run in the cloud.

Who uses SaaS?

SaaS adoption has so far been concentrated mostly in human resource management (HRM), customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration software (e.g., email), and procurement solutions, but is poised to widen.

Today it’s possible to have a data warehouse in the cloud that you can access with business intelligence software running as a service and connect to your cloud-based ERP . The dollar savings can run into the millions. And SaaS installations are often installed and working in a fraction of the time of on-premises deployments—some can be ready in hours.

Sales is going SaaS too, with apps available to support sales in order management, compensation, quote production and configure, price, quoting, electronic signatures, contract management and more.

Why SaaS?

Thinking of moving towards a SaaS solution for your sales process?  Here are some reasons you should.

Low entry cost

With SaaS, you pay for what you need, without having to buy hardware to host your new applications. Instead of provisioning internal resources to install the software, the vendor provides APIs and performs much of the work to get their software working for you. The time to a working solution can drop from months in the traditional model to weeks, days or hours with the SaaS model. In some businesses, IT wants nothing to do with installing and running a sales app.

Reduced time to benefit/rapid prototyping

In the SaaS model, the software application is already installed and configured. Users can provision the server for the cloud and quickly have the application ready for use. This cuts the time to benefit and allows for rapid demonstrations and prototyping.

Pay as you go

SaaS software gives you the benefit of predictable costs both for the subscription and to some extent, the administration. Even as you scale, you can have a clear idea of what your costs will be. This allows for much more accurate budgeting, especially as compared to the costs of internal IT to manage upgrades and address issues for an owned instance.

The SaaS vendor is responsible for upgrades, uptime and security

Under the SaaS model, since the software is hosted by the vendor, they take on the responsibility for maintaining the software and upgrading it, ensuring that it is reliable and meeting agreed-upon service level agreements, and keeping the application and its data secure.

Higher adoption rates

SaaS apps tend to have lower learning curves and higher adoption rates. This can be especially significant given the high cost of on-premises software development and implementation, vs. the low cost of entry for SaaS. No one want to invest a lot of money in custom developed software or off-the-shelf software that users don’t care to adopt.

Integration and scalability

Most SaaS apps are designed to support some amount of customization for the way you do business. SaaS vendors create APIs to allow connections not only to internal applications like ERPs or CRMs but also to other SaaS providers.

Work anywhere

Since the software is hosted in the cloud and accessible over the internet, users can access it via mobile devices wherever they are connected. This includes checking customer order histories prior to a sales call, as well as having access to real time data and real time order taking with the customer.




Courtesy: https://www.handshake.com/blog/why-saas-cloud-benefits-vs-on-premise-software/




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How to Increase Your Brand's Online Visibility

       




Hi All,

An easy way to increase your company's visibility is to boost your online marketing efforts.
Businesses that aren't promoting themselves online are missing out on a simple way to gain new customers.

You want to build a strong customer base, who ultimately become ambassadors for your brand. Having an online marketing plan and publishing compelling online content allows customers and fans of your product to find your business as well as spread the word through their social networks.

To help small businesses increase their online visibility:

• Get busy blogging

Setting up a blog on your website can be a great way to drive more traffic to your site from potential and current customers. For blogs to be a successful tool, though, you need post frequently and use custom-written content that shows you're an expert in your field.

• Make it hot

Do your research, and find out which keywords for your market are "hot" and frequently used on search engines. Once you've figured out what those "hot" keywords are, incorporate them into your posts.

• Go off-topic

Your articles and contributions to social media need to be interesting, and not sales- oriented.  You want the posts to be something that people share with their friends, such as tips or photos.

• Get authorized

Google Authorship is a free and easy way to claim all the content you've written and cultivate an online presence. To set it up, you'll need to go to your Google+ profile and fill out details about your background, experiences, and the websites where you are a contributor. Once you become a verified author, people will believe that your website is legit and in turn, view you as more of an authority figure.

• Spread the message

Use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to share the content you've written. All you have to do is write a brief description about the post and then include a link to it. I highly recommend taking advantage of promoted posts on Twitter and Facebook because they can work for anyone no matter your budget. It's also a great tool to really reach out to and hit your target audience since you can be very specific in the reach for who should see the post.




Courtesy: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6487-increase-your-online-visibility.html




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Online marketing opens up a business's doors to customers they wouldn't be able to reach otherwise, said Joe Palko, chief marketing officer for eCommerce platform provider 3dcart.
"Implementing a strong, multifaceted online marketing plan can help your business stand out," Palko told Business News Daily.
- See more at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6487-increase-your-online-visibility.html#sthash.5ZfeEHbQ.dpuf

E-Commerce Benchmarks

                     




Hi All,

Here are some of the top E-Commerce benchmarks that are considered for high business performance.

Top customers spend 5x more per order

On average, 90% of e-commerce customers spend $54 per order. The top 10% are spending $163 per order, 3x more per order than 90% of customers. When we zoomed in even further we found that the top 1% of customers have an Average Order Value (AOV) of $267, 5x more than the AOV of most of your customer base.

Top customers make 4x more purchases

The typical online store gets 43% of its revenue from repeat customers. Companies that have mastered repeat purchases are getting up to 75% of their revenue from repeat customers. If you tend to focus on customer acquisition, now is the time to pay attention to how you can grow revenue by looking at your existing customer base.


Don’t be afraid to break the discount cycle

There’s a tendency in e-commerce to solve problems with discounts rather than data. When it comes to driving repeat purchases, your data can help you figure out things like how soon after a purchase you should reach out to a customer or how often you should be emailing your various customer segments. Leverage those insights. Now is the time to get better at repeat business that doesn’t rely on deep discounts.

Top customers spend 30x more than the average customer

Customer Lifetime Value is the single most important metric for your e-commerce store. The top 1% of e-commerce customers spends 30x more than the average customer. The lifetime value of these customers isn’t just a little better, it’s dramatically better.


If you’re still tracking marketing ROI using metrics like cost of customer acquisition or first purchase this data should make it overwhelmingly obvious that it’s time to stop. Your customers are not all the same, and you shouldn’t be treating them as if they are. Spending $15 on a customer whose lifetime value is $35 probably isn’t a great move, spending $15 on a customer whose lifetime value is $1,050 is a no-brainer.

Treat your best customers like VIPs

Every month, pull a list of your top 1% of customers and do something special for them. Write a note, send a gift, invite them to a special event. If you can do this more often or at scale, even better. Try showing some love to your big spenders and just see what happens.




Courtesy: http://blog.bigcommerce.com/the-3-most-important-e-commerce-benchmarks-and-how-you-can-crush-them/




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Ecommerce Tactics Overshadowed by Coupons

                     




When you’re desperate to spread the word about your ecommerce site and get visitors clicking on products, your first thought may be to blast out a coupon to everyone on your contact list. While coupons definitely work, they’re not the only marketing tools you have in your toolbox. Several other techniques exist and have been proven to work. Try some of the following tactics and watch your conversions grow.

Free Shipping

Giving customers a chance to save money is a great way to reel them in. If you’re inundating them with coupon offers, however, the power is diminished. Because the cost of shipping is the number one reason for cart abandonment, it’s easy to see that consumers would love a chance to get the products they love without tacking more money onto the total.

Your offer for free shipping could be all-inclusive, which definitely inspires more shopping. However, you could take a chance on losing money in the long run when the shipping costs outweigh the profit from the items you sell. For short-term campaigns, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You’ll still hook customers who might have otherwise moved along.

For long-term loyalty, free shipping for purchases that meet a certain dollar amount is the way to go. Loyal customers will visit when they’re ready to fill those shopping carts and take advantage of the free shipping.

Exclusive Shopping

You might be surprised how many of your current and past customers would love a chance to see next season’s products before anyone else. If you give them a chance to own them first, they’ll show up in droves.
This works well with almost any industry, not just fashion. Send out new product announcements, catalogs for next season’s styles, and new solutions to old problems. The possibilities are endless, and your customers will definitely respond to their chance to get exclusive rights.

Contests

Competition is a great way to get your company and products in front of potential customers who might not have otherwise heard of you. Contests with enviable and valuable prizes get shared on social media, talked about around the water cooler, and even covered by news outlets.

Because contests can’t require a purchase for entry, you have to make them valuable to your company in other ways. Encourage sharing for additional entries or ask for user-generated content. The possibilities are endless.

Tutorials and Guides

When a potential customer is still hanging right there on the edge, there may be a reason. You could offer them a discount to see if they’ll budge. More often, they still have questions you need to answer before they’ll commit. By offering tutorials and how-to guides, you may hit the nail right on the head.
You can be quite sensitive to those customers who are ready to purchase by following their movement through the buyer’s journey. Keep an eye on the content they’ve viewed, the items they’ve placed in their carts, and the questions they’ve asked on social media. You’ll know the right time to offer answers.

Gift Suggestions

Keep in mind that buyers aren’t always out for themselves. If they don’t have a reason to buy something, they probably won’t. If, however, you remind them that others in their lives might love your products, you could spark a purchase.

Gift guides for birthdays, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, anniversaries, graduations, Christmas, and pretty much any other holiday will prompt purchases. You just have to organize those gift guides and get them into the hands of your customers.

With these plans in your toolbox, you’ll never need to offer another discount again. If you’re not planning to cancel your coupons completely, consider pairing the special savings with a couple of the ideas above. If something really works out for you, let us know. We like sharing ideas with others!

Courtesy: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ecommerce-marketing-staples-overshadowed-coupons

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