Category: Marketing

Staying Afloat During the Pandemic

Posted on by Elena Stewart

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on countless small businesses. If your business has yet to re-open, or you are finding it difficult to stay afloat, it’s essential to figure out how you can push forward.

Hopefully, the information and advice below can help you get back on track so that your business can survive and continue to grow.

Figuring Out Finances

Let’s start with the engine that powers your business: money.

  • Assess how the pandemic has impacted your cash flow, sales, and profits.
  • Then, think of adjustments you can make to put your business in a better financial position, such as cutting expenses and/or adding revenue.
  • And look into the wealth of financial assistance programs, such as non-government grants and government loans that can help to keep you afloat as you regain your footing.

Afloat During the Pandemic

Image Source: Burst

Making Moves Online

Companies of all shapes and sizes were already doing more and more things online, but the pandemic has exponentially increased the need for such efforts.

  • Make sure you have a quality website that represents your company well and provides users with an engaging experience.
  • Up your social media marketing efforts to connect with your audience.
  • Whether it means selling items you already offer or finding new, trendy items to sell, open an e-commerce store to create some extra cash flow.
  • Make it even easier for customers to buy from you by developing a mobile app.
  • If possible, allow employees to work remotely, and make sure everyone is equipped to communicate and collaborate effectively.

Creating a Space at Home

Whether you have a large team of employees or it’s just you, remote work may be able to benefit your situation now and in the future. However, in order to do it successfully, you will need a comfortable place at home for working.

  • Pick a location for your home office that will help you stay focused and productive.
  • Make sure your office has adequate insulation, ventilation, and flooring, especially if you’re converting a garage or basement.
  • Position your primary workstation where natural light can flow in through the windows.
  • Make sure you get all the equipment you need to work productively.
  • And of course, you will need a daily routine that helps you actually get stuff done!

For small business owners, now is a time for making adjustments. Sit down with your budget to come up with ways you can improve your situation, and take advantage of everything the web can offer you.

Also, make sure you have a dedicated area at home for working remotely.

While there are plenty of other steps you can take to keep your small business healthy during the pandemic, starting with these will put you in a better position to succeed.

How To Build An eCommerce Marketing Plan?

Posted on by Nicol Garrison

Running an eCommerce website means you’re fighting for your piece of the market with some seriously strong competitors. Regardless of what you’re selling, you’re bound to face the competition and realize you need to up your game if you want to stand out. This is why you need to invest your efforts in developing a strong marketing plan.

Your marketing plan will help you achieve your goals. You’ll be able to raise brand awareness, increase sales, and earn your place on the market. If you’re not sure how to write a marketing plan for your eCommerce, just keep reading.

We’ll walk you through each step.

Walk Each Step

Source: Pexels

1. Analyze Your Competitors

The first thing you need to do before you start developing your marketing strategy is to detect your biggest competition.
You’re not doing this to copy what they’re doing. On the contrary. You’re doing this to be able to stand out from them.

So, make sure that you:

  • analyze the market
  • detect your direct competition
  • analyze their marketing efforts, strategies, customer relationship, and tools they’re using

Once you do this, you’ll be able to see a pattern and think outside the box to avoid becoming just another eCommerce.

2. Use Content Marketing

Content Marketing is the building block of your marketing strategy. Content marketing is about creating useful, informative, or entertaining content to draw attention to your brand.

The key steps of content marketing are the following:

  • Keyword Research

Find specific keywords your target audience might be interested in. Choose those that are easy to rank and avoid general keywords.

  • Content Creation & Blogging

A blog is the center of your content marketing strategy. There, you’ll publish blog posts covering topics your target audience is interested in. Your blog posts need to; answer questions, solve problems, provide guidance, inform, teach, provide value, cover trending topics.

  • Promoting Your Content

Your blog is not the only place where you promote your content. Use social media such as Instagram and Facebook to further boost your content engagement.

Content marketing will help you raise brand awareness and reach those people who don’t even know your eCommerce exists.

3. Use Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the oldest, yet most effective marketing strategies.

Email marketing gives you a chance to connect to your current and potential customers and make sure they become loyal to your brand.

Using email marketing, you can send emails such as:

  • Welcome emails
  • abandoned cart reminder
  • special offer note
  • coupons
  • birthday cards and discounts
  • sale notifications
  • recommended products that just arrived

Email marketing is closely related to personalization since you’ll be using personalized data about each customer to create those special offers and specific emails.

Email Marketing

Source: Gmail printscreen

4. Use Instagram Product Tagging

Instagram

Did you know that Instagram has more than 1 billion active users globally? This social media platform is absolutely essential for your eCommerce marketing and here’s why.

Instagram offers you the option of using product tagging. It’s a quick and effective way to get your customers from your social media post to your website and a shopping bag.

Here’s how it works:

  • you post an image of your products on Instagram
  • you tag each product on the image
  • the tag shows the name of the product as well as the price
  • if the customer is interested in buying, all the have to do is click the tag
  • the tag takes them directly to the product they choose, on your eCommerce website

They don’t have to search for it and waste time during which they might even give up on the sale.

Instagram product tagging is a brilliant strategy you need to use.

5. Use Videos

Videos are an extremely popular form of content. This is because more and more people are instantly bored when they see huge chunks of text and like to be provided with this form of instant information that videos offer.

You can create different types of videos, test them, and see what resonates best with your audience. We strongly recommend:

  • product videos showing how a product is used
  • how-to-videos giving advice on how to use the product properly
  • interviews with influencers or experts in your niche
  • “behind the scene” videos showing your offices, team members, or the process of creating a product
  • educational videos providing information your target audience might be interested in

“Videos are great because they are visual, entertaining, and attention-grabbing. Every eCommerce should invest in creating videos as one of the primary forms of content they share,” says Daniel Faber, a digital marketing specialist and writer at Studicus.

Share your videos on your blog, IGTV, YouTube Channel and all the other platforms you’re using.

6. Show Product Reviews

It’s one thing when you promote your brand, but it’s a whole other thing when your customers do it for you.

People who are shopping online like to check how other customers felt about the product before they make the purchase. In fact, nearly 95%of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase.

This is why you need to ensure you have other people:

  • leaving reviews
  • leaving comments
  • leaving images of the product they’ve received

Product review

Source: Romwe

This way, you’ll encourage other customers to trust your eCommerce and go on with their initial shopping intentions.

Final Thoughts

Building an eCommerce marketing plan requires doing proper market analysis, and using several different strategies and tools. With some effort and dedication, you’ll be able to create a unique and effective marketing plan for your eCommerce.
Use the advice provided above and start working on your new marketing plan.

6 Trends And Future Of eCommerce In Upcoming Years

Posted on by Naman Modi

Keeping an eye on the eCommerce trends should be a hobby since the year is coming to an end, and the business partners want future growth in eCommerce.

Several future eCommerce trends that retailers should pay attention to are the eCommerce techniques. In they need positive growth in their organization are discussed in this article.

Online-Offline Linkages:Online-offline linkages

Both the online and offline shopping options are believed to be the key trends that are believed in shaping future eCommerce regarding how businesses can increase their sales.

Borrowing from the online giant market, Amazon, the process of coming up with physical stores, allows people to interact with the products that may have come across or ordered online.

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Similarly, the retail businesses have noted the importance of offering their digital experiences to younger customers as they seem to spend most of their time online and social media, making purchase decisions.

Thus, it is very logical predicting the eCommerce landscape of 2020 to be either a physical or digital presence.

Multi-Channel Engagement and Buying:

Having many people spend their time on social media, retail businesses have the opportunity of communicating and engaging with their target audiences through various channels.

For example, one may come across a picture of a friend carrying a trendy handbag on Instagram or any social media hurdle.

It will be obvious for the person to inquire about the brand of the bag, its cost, and of course, where she bought it.

After acquiring this information, the person will surely log into the brand’s website or other pages that are selling to make their purchase.

Therefore, multi-channel engagement can be said to be one of the eCommerce future trends that have already begun yielding fruits for retailers.

The multi-channel trend is good news for all businesses as the research clearly shows that most shoppers spend more than those individuals who restrict shopping to a certain channel.

However, it is wrong to rule out that the drivers of eCommerce in the future have changed their availability, utility to the personalized product.

Native Social-Selling

About 18.2% of people say they are comfortable transacting through the social media pages of the prevalent brands.

Although it is still a niche where buying and selling can take place, this group of early adopters will only grow in the near future.

“For example, Instagram has more than a billion active users who spend most of their time on the site messaging and doing other stuff but only get interested in shopping whenever they find something that catches their eye or rather recommended by the influencers.”

Famous Apps & We

The same case is happening to the Facebook brands where their shops on Facebook attract heavy traffic with an increasing number of buyers if they have unique goods.

In the near future, the large brands with a global presence are not going to ignore the native-selling since their target audience will be doing the bulk of the product they admire on social media platforms.

Markedly, it will be an interesting development since eCommerce space will no longer be liable to restricted to the online businesses’ well-known brands as they are probably going to set up their brands on social media.

Automated Operations

None of the future trends will get fruits until their business get automation of their prevalent processes.

That is, ranging from inventory management, invoicing, billing, delivery, and even handling refunds and returns of the firms.

This is because, like in the multi-channel, eCommerce will only be possible if the retailer has general information concerning the stock levels for their various products at the time of shipping.

If there will be an automated inventory, then it will be safe, fast, and customer satisfying since there will be no need for mastering every particular product.

Lack of this information in the app and the websites will continue accepting new orders for their products without customer’s knowledge.

Research shows that enhancing customer satisfaction is a vital factor in influencing loyalty and repeat purchases in the future of eCommerce.

In case deliveries are at any time-delayed or orders are canceled, then the reputation will take a hit.

Mobile CommerceMobile commerce

Almost everyone owns a smartphone, and there is rapid penetration of the same, even in the developing countries for middle-class persons.

The mobile commerce emerging trend results from the rise of using smartphones, which shows mobile commerce in the near future will hit a higher note.

However, retailers and customers have been taking full advantage of their smartphones, but now it important the phones are made being mobile-friendly.

Hence the purchases are simplified. In essence, many people are not going to navigate multiple fill-in forms and pages before completing any transaction.

With that in mind, eCommerce will be required to start looking beyond America and its markets in the coming years.

This is because of the emerging economies like in China, North Africa, and South Asia, where smartphone penetration is the rise but still below global expectations.

For retailers who are in a position to develop mobile apps can be easily downloaded and used without using too much bandwidth in finding themselves a significant advantage where the internet connections are slow or of limited ranges.

Social Media eCommerceSocial media commerce

Many eCommerce analysts believe that online shopping and social media as a natural fit.

They argue that most people spend most of their time on Facebook and Twitter, browsing different products, and asking for recommendations.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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Recently, businesses and customer research show that this shift in the behavior of consumers is taking hold, especially the youths who are considered as the primary target audience in the future of eCommerce.

Many young people have begun using social media to find products and other services that fulfill their needs.

As well they seek to get feedback from individuals within their online circles who might have used the same product before.

Conclusion

For a prosperous future of eCommerce, businesses will have to work with the technology and data firms.

As well the social media platforms will need to ensure the information is always safeguarded for the transaction to take place.

We featured as Top Magento Developers at eCommerceCompanies.

Data leakage is common nowadays which has become a norm for social media hurdles leading to customers remaining top extra cautious with their information online.

Features Available With New Magento 2.3

Posted on by Jay

Finally, the latest Magento 2.3.0 is now officially released! It combines with many new tools that improve both merchant, developer experience, as well as enhance its performance.

So, what exactly does this latest platform version have in store?

In a nutshell: Performance, security, and innovation. The features of Magento 2.3.0 have been elevated to a whole new level, building upon their already robust capabilities.

According to the official release notes of Magento 2.3, this update introduces a multitude of functional fixes, supercharges performance, and bolsters security through numerous updates.

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The enhancements in Magento 2.3.0 are set to transform the way we approach e-commerce, opening up exciting possibilities for merchants and developers alike.

Let’s dive into the key features and benefits that await, and witness the future of online business unfold!

Core Features Based On:

  • Tools to personalize content and add local preferences.
  • Build and manage all channels and experiences via a single code base, one deployment and app.
  • Intuitive user experience with innovative commerce and CMS theme.
  • Module component architecture to help drive opportunities for extension providers.
  • Purpose-built developer tools for fast prototyping, helpful debugging, rich feedback, and increased productivity

(Source: magento.com)

New Magento 2.3

Improved Experience

The new release has features to increase the performance level be delivering the resources faster by lessening the burden on the server.

  • Magento 2.3 now supports the newest version of PHP 7.2. In result, you will get higher security, better performance, and a lot of many new development features at your Magento resource.
  • The all-new encryption and decryption will now be handled by the sodium library in it which will remove the PHP encryption module ‘mcrypt’ and migrate to Libsodium for password hashing.
  • The GraphQL API is now available on Magento 2.3.  This API makes available an alternative to REST and SOAP web APIs for custom frontend development, as well as headless storefronts and PWAs. You can take this advantage in getting more refined data with fewer API requests.
  • Asynchronous Web APIs feature will allow any previous Magento REST APIs to be called asynchronously. This community-contributed element includes separate status APIs that have been formed to check the position of each request. Developers can now use the asynchronous APIs in combination with queues that have also been migrating to Magento App Development.
  • Both Magento commerce, Message Queue are now available in Magento 2.3.0. It’s available as “limited only” before . It allows asynchronous communication between systems. In short, it simplifies the strain on the application band enhances the performance of your Magento store.
  • Another features have been included to the New Release is Declarative Database Schema. It would simplify the installation and upgrading procedure for Magento and the extensions. The Declarative schema reduces the need for many database scripts, eliminating the need to retain these scripts. This feature also supports split and shared database structures and database structure confirmation.

Substantial Security Enhancement

The new release brought over 30 securities fixes to core Magento code including the two-factor authentication features.

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In addition, it also has the Google Authenticator, Duo Security, U2F Devices features now support this service.

Magento 2 Factor AuthenticationImage Source: CloudWays.com

  • The Two Factor Authentication or CAPTCHA protects the Admin panel against stolen passwords and affects stores against bots.

Magento CaptchaImage Source: Dropified.com

  • The security features also include Cache flush ACL, which grant granular access to cache management settings to avoid accidental modification that may potentially affect system performance. This ACL also lets merchants control which administrative users can clear site caches.

Bundled Extension Enhancement

The Core extension like Amazon Payments, Dotmailer, Klarna Payments, Magento Shipping, Vertex is now supporting on Magento 2.3.0.

Other Helpful Improvements

  • Inventory management/ MSI is available on Magento 2.3.0. This feature would help to control over order and shipment options and will give the full control over the stock store directly from the admin panel.
  • The New Updated version has the PWA Studio feature. It is a set of tools that support the development, deployment, and maintenance of progressive web applications.
  • Through Page Builder features, a merchant can easily customize the look and fill their store by drag and drop visual content editing tool. You can also integrate third party contents such as YouTube, Vimeo videos, and Google Maps.

Conclusion

Unlock the full potential of e-commerce with Andolasoft‘s specialized Magento app development company. Our team of skilled developers possesses in-depth expertise in harnessing the capabilities of Magento to create extraordinary online shopping experiences.

Whether you need tailor-made theme customization, powerful extensions, or seamless third-party integrations, we have you covered.

With our reliable and cost-effective solutions, your business will soar to new heights, captivating customers and driving exceptional growth. Hire our magento developer to transform your e-commerce venture and stay ahead in the dynamic digital landscape.

The Next Generation of eCommerce

Posted on by Lori H Morrisis

Amazon celebrated its birthday on July 5, 2017. The conglomerate already commands 37 per cent of the eCommerce market according to recent projections. And will be responsible for half of all the online sales within 3 years.

Taking these numbers into consideration, it’s easy to forget that both Amazon and eCommerce are still in their infancy in the grand scheme of things.

In spite of the futuristic advances such as the new drone service and 2-hour delivery, success in the long run starts with an understanding of the potential points of friction and fundamental market opportunities.

What does the future of eCommerce hold for 2018 and beyond? The answer is in the following trends:

eCommerce is enjoying growth, but represents just 9.1% of retail sales

The market share of eCommerce in Q3 2017 expressed as a percentage of the overall retail sales has grown to 9.1% according to the U.S. census bureau, which is up from 3.5% just one decade ago.

However, brick and mortar businesses are still dominant, and by a huge margin. The quick growth coupled with a low market share means that the opportunity still exists for new players to outpace the leaders in the industry.

High-growth businesses should find ways to enjoy success in business and life. Companies that wish to capitalize on this trend also need to focus on optimizing the in-store experiences for customers in conjunction with the eCommerce expressions.

B2B eCommerce dwarfs B2C eCommerce by more than $2 Trillion

You might not have already made an investment in your own eCommerce wholesale channel, but you have probably considered it. The B2B eCommerce numbers speak for themselves after all. Statista estimates that the gross merchandise volume of B2B eCommerce transactions in 2017 is projected to equal $7.66 trillion up from 2013’s $5.83 trillion.

The difference in growth is almost equal to the whole amount of projected transactions in business-to-consumer transactions in 2017 at $2.143. The average conversion rate of business-to-business survey respondents was 10%, which is more than 3 times higher than the 3 percent average that B2C eCommerce executives reported.

The opportunity naturally comes with its own challenges. All B2B eCommerce buyers are also potential B2C eCommerce shoppers. Having shopped at Amazon, they are also likely to be conditioned to desire a similar experience i.e. streamlined, direct, and fast operations without any resistance between search and checkout. They are likely to prefer buying at the website and not via a sales representative.

It is mandatory to experiment with self-service B2B eCommerce.

 eCommerce Automation is an Attainable Reality for Businesses

Would you tell anybody if your business had a secret formula to reducing costs, saving time, and selling more? Marketing automation was that secret a decade ago. Enterprises such as Costco, Walmart, and Amazon, which had resources for research and development on a large scale leveraged its power to build empires.

Automation is an emerging new secret for the future of eCommerce. For starters, no eCommerce platform offers comprehensive automation as an accessible feature. Firms that are automating have either created custom in-house processes at a great financial cost, or assembled mix-and-match workarounds using third-party applications.

No platform has unleashed eCommerce automation until now:

1. Shopify Scripts

With Shopify Scripts, you can add relevant payment options, automatic discounts, and specialized shipping options to ensure that each customer has a customized checkout experience. Scripts provide enhanced control over the customer’s cart and helps optimize closest to the money.

2. Launch pad

Launchpad acts as the command center for major commerce events such as special celebrations, product releases, and flash sales. Schedule everything on the to-do list long before the arrival of big days and take the heavy-lifting and guesswork out of driving revenue to the store.

3. Shopify Flow

Shopify Flow refers to a 3-step visual builder that makes automation for any back-office or customer-facing process that you can imagine possible. By specifying actions, conditions, and triggers, you can create your own processes or even download and then install a growing number of per-made workflows without the need to code.

The biggest Challenge for eCommerce is Fragmentation

The accessibility of digital has made it possible for consumers to enjoy access to increased buying opportunities than previously. Phones now provide users with immediate access to numerous retailers. For the big-ticket items, it means an exponential increase i.e. touch points.

The lower-cost products hardly ever takes 3 months of research, but just about all the online buyers currently follow the same, meandering path. If you are a large company, this can scare you since niche boutiques are uniquely positioned to enjoy increased market share. If you are a smaller company, the lower barriers to market entry and growth will excite you.

Irrespective of where you sit on the fence between a dominant player in the industry and a startup, there is always an opportunity to win as well as an opportunity to lose.

International eCommerce is Still Mostly Untapped

1.4 billion People are likely to join the middle class in the world by 2020 according to McKinsey.

85 of these people will be in the Asia Pacific region. Retailers that enter this space early enough are likely to gain competitive advantage when it comes to meeting market demand.

For example, the William Wrigley Jr. Company, which is a leading manufacturer of chewing gum, has already gained 40% market share in China. eCommerce as a whole is actually likely to shift away from the West too in the future.

Why?

Every country introduces a new set of market preferences, constraints, and security challenges. Take a country such as a Nigeria for example, where U.S. eCommerce products might be in high demand but fulfilling this demand is highly risky.

You shouldn’t just avoid these global opportunities. A better idea would be to find a trusted partner and creative workaround. For example, Mall for Africa is a service that helps UK and US eCommerce companies reduce the stress and risk associated with selling into Africa because of fraud.

The company has managed to create distribution points in key locations to make sure that goods can be accessed even in somewhat remote locations and depends on rigorous and multi-level security systems to protect data and identities and even identify any unusual purchases.

The company has helped lower the risk and allowed brands such as Ralph Lauren, Abercrombie & Fitch, Brooks Brothers, and J. Crew entry into African markets where they are in high demand.

Double down on the global eCommerce markets and ensure that infrastructure such as the international warehouses and global fulfillment partner is ready to handle it.

Mobile might be the norm now, but it adds complexities to purchases

You have probably witnessed mobile traffic outpacing or at least coming close to your desktop traffic levels in the past year. In the most recent Black Friday and Cyber Monday saw Shopify, mobile sales accounted for 59.6% of overall number of orders and 64% of the Black Friday sales specifically, which represents a growth of 10 percent year-over-year.

Native social selling is finally producing results

Selling directly on social media might still be in its experimental stage, but the results are in!

Instagram will have more than 1 billion monthly active users by the time you read this. Flurry estimates that the average adult spends about 5 hours daily on their devices and over half the time is spent on messaging, social, entertainment and media applications.

A good percentage of them are translating into sales with about 18.2% of respondents to the September 2016 survey reporting to have purchased products via social media directly. More are likely to buy in the future because the early adopters help vet and validate the experience.

MVMT Watches has already enjoyed some success with social selling. The brand generated $15,000 in revenue and 1,500 people visited their Facebook in a week. The brand director of brand and retention marketing, Blake Pinsker says that the brand’s mobile conversion rate was more than double once people became comfortable with the idea of buying from their phones. Blake says that the brand believes that its growth on its Facebook shop is almost the same as people familiarize themselves with the platform.

The Holy Grail of eCommerce engagement is content

Great content is helpful, educational, and entertaining. It is cost-effective and impact to ROI as a marketing strategy. It is the reason why 78% of CMOs believe custom content is the future of marketing. In addition, brands that depend on content usually save more than $14 on every customer you acquire.

Hypothetically, content is something companies can create as soon as the next day. Creating a product guide or launching a blog requires minimal resources. However, it is important to be strategic and thoughtful about your approach: the attention spans of consumers are spread thin and audiences have high-quality standards when it comes to what they read, watch, and interact with.

Some Final Words…

It is no longer “business as usual.” eCommerce leaders now have a world of opportunity to evolve and adapt, with success emanating from a series of small steps.

Except the web and mobile app development, Andolasoft has its own shopping cart (JuggernautCart) with digital products and serving others in building their own shopping carts. JuggernautCart is the most affordable shopping cart to sell your digital products or assets like eBooks, add-ons, podcasts, images, videos and many more and you can customize and use these according to your need.

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SEO Helps You Make Money Online!

Posted on by Jay

 

SEO is considered as one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing available. Today the optimized result pages of most search engines are just like the yellow pages of earlier times.

Starting from business names to product names to the type of services in the offering; people now prefer to look for search engines for any kind of information.

SEO will widen up your business to the online market segments which you have never considered earlier.

Getting a higher rank on the search engine page will help you attract higher traffic. But getting higher traffic is not the solution; you need to get quality traffic that can turn to be your potential business leads.

Only a quality SEO service provider like Andolasoft can generate quality traffic for your site.

Unlike other search engine optimization service providers, Andolasoft doesn’t guarantee an overnight result for your website.

There are sites that might be using Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing to bring your site to the top.

But then these methods are more like pay-per-click engines where you will have to pay for each click on your link. Moreover, it’s no guarantee to reach through your target audience.

At Andolasoft, we don’t claim to make your site into the top of the search engine result pages (SERP) because it depends on several factors.

What we can guarantee is our efforts for ethical SEO services. Our successful clients’ list is a guarantee of our successful stint in the SEO service arena.