This trend has picked up steam in the recent past for good reason. Not only is eCommerce a profitable way for business owners to sell merchandize, but also the preferred way for customers to buy what they need.

A Quick Checklist to Starting Your eCommerce Business

Here are a few important things to keep in mind while planning to make the switch to eccommerce to get your online business started.

Licenses

Different states have different laws that govern businesses. It is essential that you find out everything there is to know about these laws, rules and regulations before getting started. Depending on where you are and what the nature of your business is, you may require to acquire various certifications, permits and licenses. Consult your legal advisor about tax liabilities and business compliance requirements for your type of business. There may be laws regarding import, export, shipping, etc., so understand all the implications that may be relevant to your ecommerce business.

Platforms

Unlike the era gone by, it is fairly simple for anyone to set up an ecommerce business today. With numerous user-friendly tools and software available to business owners, it is no longer necessary for you to create your own ecommerce website from scratch. Instead, you can choose to use any of the following ecommerce platforms:

1. Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular all-in-one ecommerce platforms out there. With an easy setup and hundreds of ecommerce templates to choose from, Shopify offers a range of customization options. With excellent back-end support and secure payment integration, it is also amongst the most reliable platforms. Here are some of the key features and functionalities the platform allows you to explore:

• Select your own domain name
• Customize the look and feel of the template you choose
• Create a structured product catalogs
• Organize SKUs
• Track and manage orders
• Post and manage content easily
• Make smart decisions based on eCommerce analytics

2. Magento Commerce

Affordable, customizable and trusted by hundreds of B2B and B2C enterprises, Magento is ideal for businesses. With flexible and extensible ecommerce options, you can create a unique shopping experience using this platform. The salient features of Magento Commerce include:

• Cloud hosting and deployment
• Seamless third-party integrations
• Customer segmentation and personalization
• Content staging and preview
• Inventory and order management
• End-to-end support
• Business intelligence tools

3. eBay

Here is a great alternative to creating and maintaining a full-fledged website for your ecommerce operations. eBay Shop enables businesses to showcase their offerings in one place. The customization options, allow you to use eBay’s staggering customer reach (millions of buyers worldwide) to draw attention to your own merchandise. It is essentially a digital marketplace that charges a small fee for every new product you list. Some of eBay’s standout features for eCommerce businesses are:

• A customizable storefront
• Easy product listing options
• Branding and personalization options
• Assign and organize SKUs
• Content management and promotion

4. Etsy

Hey, whoever said Etsy was only meant for creative businesses and artists was not entirely correct. Etsy doubles up as an online marketplace that enables you to list your products alongside other sellers. With a massive customer base, it provides a phenomenal option for businesses who do not want to spend a fortune on marketing.

• Easy account and store setup
• Fully customizable storefront
• Streamlined product listing options
• Handy sales tools

Apart from the platforms mentioned above, you could also consider other similar options such as Yahoo Small Business, Yola, Volusion and BigCommerce. All these platforms offer ecommerce as a service at reasonable rates and are extremely user friendly. 

Some of the factors that small businesses must consider when choosing a platform to host their ecommerce operations are:

• Affordable starter packages
• Data security
• User friendliness 
• Scalability 
• Personalization 
• Conversion and marketing tools
• Order fulfillment options
• Shipping support 
• Easy third-party integration
• Customer relationship management support
• Accounting support

Marketing

While you may invest a lot of time and effort into streamlining your ecommerce business on the platform of your choice, it is also important that you bring qualified traffic to your online store. Make sure you do your research about what kind of marketing strategy is best suited for your business type. You can explore targeted online marketing options such as:

• Email marketing
• Paid marketing
• Social media marketing
• Pay-per-click ads (PPC)
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Content marketing
• Video marketing

Gone are the days when you would rely solely on a brick-and-mortar store to conduct business. eCommerce is the present and future of businesses. This business model allows you to reach a wider audience base, market your offerings easily and sell products and services to your customers in any corner of the world. 

Make sure you check off every pointer mentioned in the checklist above to work your way towards creating a successful ecommerce business. If you need a partner who can help you create and maintain your eCommerce store, check out our dedicated services.

QualDev is the frontrunner in ecommerce development solutions for businesses in the United States. Whether you want to set up a new ecommerce store or manage your existing one, we can help you. Get in touch with us today!

The post Go Online: How to Unleash the Potential of Your Business with eCommerce appeared first on QualDev.

In light of current developments and local efforts towards containment, local brick and mortar businesses (and wholesalers who supply them with products) may witness a steep drop in the number of customers visiting their store and in overall business volume. Businesses that have a presence online will not be affected that much, because their existing online solutions allow them to carry out business remotely even in these difficult times. 

Businesses that do not have a presence online have an opportunity to develop websites and mobile apps, so that they can move some part of business online, or making it an option because doing so is beneficial to their long term interests. These businesses can benefit from getting 

1. An iOS or Android app for promoting your products and services online.
2. A website that provides details about the services, products and special offers you provide.
3. In addition to a website or app, Local SEO services so that local customers can find your business.
4. An e-commerce website from where you can advertise and sell products, services and special offers.

For those that have a presence online, we can help you improve interaction on your websites and mobile apps by providing a quick turn around and deployment of solutions you need.

For Retailers

1. Adding eCommerce to existing catalog website, to collect orders and payments, or inquiries about products
2. Build iOS and Android apps for promoting products across additional channels.
3. Tailoring PPC and SEO campaigns to target key-words and phrases that are in trend for their business.
4. Schedule an appointment – for customers to join in for screen sharing and video conferencing.
5. Tailored pop up notes, Chat/Chatbots, SMS, push notifications, etc. – informing about the change in the availability of staff at the store or change in delivery schedules for orders received.
6. Integrating additional online payment gateways including pay over-time options.
7. Integrating social media sharing tools to build product and brand awareness and keeping customers informed.

For Wholesalers

1. Mobile App, for sharing New Arrivals, marketing media and latest price updates with retailers.
2. App or Web-Based Tools that your sales force can use to easily communicate with the retailers and help them manage orders etc.
3. Individual accounts with secure access for Retailers from where they can interact with products and place orders.
4. Online tools that retailers can use to sell merchandise online – like inventory in excel file with images, iFrames, Dropshipping module, etc.
5. Customizing Tools to manage and streamline workflow online – We can also customize these tools to work with existing office management tools currently in use by the business.
6. Schedule an appointment – for customers to join in for screen sharing and video conferencing.
7. Tailored pop up notes, Chat/Chatbots, SMS, push notifications, etc. – informing about the change in the availability of staff at the store or change in delivery schedules for orders received

Feel free to get in touch with us to know more about any feature mentioned above. We are happy to provide you with the support you need to rise above these difficult times.

At QualDev, we are closely monitoring and addressing the challenges of the corona-virus (COVID-19).

As the number of people affected by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to increase worldwide; and from our understanding of the critical role QualDev plays for your business, we have implemented best practices to ensure that we are ready to support you and your business needs, without compromising the health and the safety of our team members, who are the heart of our organization.

We Learn, We Prepare, We Take Action Read More.

The post How Retailers Can Mitigate Business Losses Due To Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on QualDev.

As we know, 37 percent of the world’s population is now shopping online. Holidays like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and New Year, are days on which nearly unlimited sales and shopping take place. Over the years, e-retailers have adopted, and are using, cutting-edge technology to their advantage; they also focus on various holidays and events for successful online business.

Nevertheless, pressure on businesses to perform may build up during the holidays due to the higher volumes of traffic, sales and support tickets generated. If you are not prepared, this pressure can cause nightmares. To save you time, we have put together some of the best holiday e-commerce marketing tips and checklists that can help you increase sales and maintain an edge over your competitors.

Plan Your Holiday Marketing Campaign

From display ads to re-marketing emails and promotion codes, create a ‘complete’ special holiday campaign to take advantage of the holiday shopping trend. Also, make sure your website can handle the increase in traffic that occurs during the holiday season, by performing or getting regular website maintenance throughout the year, especially just before the holidays. Important dates to keep in mind during the holiday season are:

Solid Web Design

Website design directly affects conversion rates. User experience and user interface plays a key role in the success of a website. Since mobile commerce because popular, a growing number of consumers have used their mobiles to make at least one purchase online. As the sizes and capabilities of all the different mobile devices differ, getting the design and interface right can be a time consuming process. Good design is especially important for your mobile e-commerce site, because a delay of even one-second can affect conversion of a sale by 20%.

Health Of Your Products

Measuring the health of your products is important at any point in a year, especially during the peak holiday season. The data you collect, measure and analyze can help you make informed decisions during the holidays. Although products that remain popular during the 9 months leading up to the holiday are the ones that would get you the best sales, checking the data you about the products you list on your website is equally important. Replacing incomplete, outdated data with updated information as soon as you can will propel you down the path to success.

Customized Email Marketing Campaigns

E-mail marketing does a good job of driving sales during the holidays. According to Shopify, e-mail marketing accounted for 24% of holiday sales during the 2018 e-commerce season. Plan your email campaigns and tweaks them to get better results by:

• Customized Email Template

  Most brands change the color and themes of their website according to the holiday season. You can do the same with your holiday email marketing campaigns. Let us face it. If your emails are still the same, your subscribers will soon get bored. It is good to change your email templates regularly. Use holiday email templates, to get much more attention and open rates.

• Exclusive Offers For Subscribers

  You can also surprise your subscribers by emailing them information about exclusive holiday offers. Getting something for nothing is not just a pleasant feeling; it is a way to show your subscribers you appreciate their patronage. Offering discounts can even help you generate more revenue.

• Test Your Campaigns

  Try out your email marketing campaigns by sending test emails to close confidants, use the feedback you gather from them to tweak your campaign. You do not need to wait for the holidays to try out your email marketing campaigns. Get an idea of what your subscribers liked during earlier holidays. That way, you can determine which products, services, and campaigns get the best response and take steps to drive more sales before the holiday starts.

Checkout Optimization

User experience, from surfing to buying a product on your website should be easy and simple. Trust plays an important role in selling online and sending a buyer through a non-branded or a third-party payment gateway can quickly undermine customer trust.
Buyers want to be sure of whom they are buying from, as well as whether the transaction they are engaging in is secured or not. Therefore, you must enable an SSL certificate on your website and check that the checkout on your website is an extension of your brand. Your checkout page must have a consistent look that matches the colors, fonts, buttons, design, and logo of your website.

Last-Minute Holiday E-Commerce Optimization Tips:

1. Put Up Banners

   Banners are a good way to inform customers about sales, approaching deadlines, and promotions. You can use ideas in your banner content, such as:

   • Discount Codes:
     During the holidays, you can add discount coupon codes to the banners on your website, so that buyers find them easily while browsing your website. You can also include a countdown timer to create a sense of urgency.
   • Sales or Promotions:
     To get more sales you could provide offers in all categories, like a buy one – get one.
   • Free shipping:
     Shipping costs remain one of the main reasons for cart abandonment. Free shipping gives a new user a very good reason to shop from your website.
   • Guaranteed Delivery:
     If you can guarantee delivery before Christmas, a banner that tells customers in advance increases the chances of more visitors and conversions.

2. Easy Return And Exchange Policies

   Keeping your return and exchange policy flexible and simple obviously helps in closing more sales. Indicate how long buyers have to exchange or return their products. If the contract duration is 30 days or less, you should consider renewing at least until mid-January. This would give recipients the time they need to unpack and appreciate their purchases and creates more trust for your business.

3. Integrate Live Chat Support

   Many users left e-commerce sites because of confusion or lack of customer support. If your store features live chat, now is the time to make sure a representative is available 24/7 to answer questions. If they are not, shoppers are apt to go elsewhere.

4. Take Advantage Of Social Media

   Video marketing is very effective. Video marketing results in an increase of 54% in brand awareness and 66% in qualified leads per year. You can create a short and appealing video to add to your Instagram, Facebook stories or on YouTube.

   Videos make it easy to establish and maintain a relationship with your audience. With video, you can share current product information, reviews of your products, services or features, and also the latest holiday sales offers.

5. Take Advantage of PPC

   Ideally, you would want to reach out to new customers who are interested in your products, besides interacting with people who already know about your business. Pay-per-click advertising can help you achieve that goal. We recommend that you schedule your ads to start 2-4 weeks before the holidays. You can use PPC advertising to promote your holiday offerings and draw attention to items you sell that people may consider as gifts. People going straight to a search engine to looking for holiday gifts, have a better chance of seeing your products at the top of the search results page, when they use keywords that you target.

6. Make Sure The Search Box On Your Website Works Perfectly

   Customers may search by category or click on products they find desirable on the homepage. However, a large proportion of potential buyers may look for specific products using the search bar on your website. Make sure that the search box is working properly and that it considers misspelled words as well. If someone misspells the name of a product, does he still lands to the right product page? Take care of these issues before the holiday begins.

Bottom Line:

Winter is near and so is the holiday season. Pull up your socks and give it your best shot. While we have covered most of the important tips for holiday e-commerce, you can always find new concepts to maximize sales.

The post How To Boost E-Commerce Sales During The Holiday Season (Tips & Checklist) appeared first on QualDev.

Email marketing is in-arguably the most direct form of digital marketing.

Unlike the one-to-many communication model used across social media platforms, blogs and advertisements, ecommerce email marketing work on a simple, one-to-one basis.

If you perfect your email campaigns, you’re almost guaranteed to boost sales, improve customer loyalty and build your ecommerce brand image within no time.

Need a Free Consultation – Click here

Whether it’s a monthly update, a welcome email or an upcoming sale notification, these email marketing tips will help you to boost your ecommerce sales and put your online business ahead of the curve:

Keep it personal

Emails are a direct form of marketing communication, so you’ll want to keep your messages light and personal. And it all starts with the greeting. Sending out countless detached, irrelevant emails isn’t going to get you or your business very far; customers like to feel as though you’ve carefully crafted an email specifically for them.

Something as simple as adding the customer’s name in the greeting is a good start. Consumers would much rather open an email to read something like, “Good morning, Karen!” instead of a general mass greeting. With the right email marketing provider, a simple automated personalization tool can make this task easy.

Another way to keep your emails personal, yet professional, is to add dynamic content. Dynamic content is content that changes based on the preference or the demographics of your customers, which allows your business to target individual subscribers.

Adding dynamic content to your emails could be as easy as switching the image that is displayed for your male subscribers versus your female subscribers.

Make it clear as to who you are

Once you’ve selected a personal greeting, let your customers know who you are. The more information you provide, the less likely your email will be tossed into the spam pile.

Every person wants to know the following three things when they receive an email:

1. Who is writing to me?
2. Why are they writing to me?
3. What to do they want me to do?

You want to make sure the “who” part is answered almost immediately upon opening, as this is the basis for legitimizing the rest of the email.

Grab their attention

Think about the subject line before shooting off an email with something generic. It should be engaging and interesting enough for the receiver to open the email.

Remember, your email is competing against several other “unread” messages sitting in their inbox, so why should they open yours? The subject line is the first thing readers see – think of it as a first impression.

Keep it short and sweet

Keeping your emails concise is crucial. While you may be tempted to cram in as much information as possible, do refrain.

Follow these three rules to compose your email:

1. Exclusive: Let your readers know they’ve received this email because they’re special. For example, let them know they are the “first to know” about your newest products or offer them an “exclusive discount.”
2. Urgent: Try and make the proposition a limited-time offer.
3. Simple: Don’t crowd the email with too many visuals or information. Stick to one or two calls-to-action and one or two key messages.

Remember: People want to know who you are, why you are contacting them, and what you want them to do, all within a few sentences or paragraphs.

Double and triple check everything you send out

Sending an email with broken links or out-of-date information sends the wrong message. Be sure to check your links and proofread your copy before it’s sent out.

In addition, redundant coding and an excessive use of links, text, and images are practices that should be avoided. If you’re unsure about your emails’ link or image-to-text ratio, try running your email through a spam checker before sending it out.

A top email marketing platform includes spam check and preview tools so your email not only appears at its best but also reaches its intended audience. These checks also ensure everyone in your team (or appropriate stakeholders) can review before you hit send.

When done right, the direct and personalized nature of email marketing means you’re likely to see a boost in online sales. By following these tips, you’re setting yourself up for a successful marketing campaign.

blog.dotmailer.com

The post Top 5 Ecommerce Email Marketing Tips to Triple Your Sales appeared first on QualDev.

A set of changes to the algorithms were in the making, and many developers have been waiting for them for a while. It goes to show that search engines are becoming smarter and are moving towards evaluating content based on the presentation of the content, instead of depending entirely on text-crawling bots to index content. In other words, search engine crawlers have taken another step towards providing richer more relevant results for the search carried out.

Here is what Google has to say about some of the additional changes  we could see from these changes.

Mobile search results to be simplified

As recent as two years back, Google included a mobile-friendly label for aiding users’ to access pages wherein content and text was legible and clear; all without the need for zooming in. The tap targets were placed at appropriate positions with proper spacing. Ever since then, the ecosystem has evolved to a considerable degree. Quite recently, it was found that over 85% of mobile search results pages show cased the mobile-friendly label and adhered to these criteria. In order to keep the search results from getting overbearing or cluttered, website owners could retain the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal, but remove the label. There will be no changes in the ways that Google displays the mobile usability report they provided in the Search Console, or how mobile-friendly tests would continue to help webmasters go about the evaluation of the effects of mobile-friendly signals on their pages.

Finding the right content has become easier for users

Though the content and text on most pages can be appropriately read without zooming, recently, there have been many such examples in which intrusive interstitials have been shown to users on landing pages. In such cases, though the underlying content is accessible on the page and can be readily indexed by Google, it may be visually obscured because of the presence of an interstitial. These interstitials can frustrate users as they disallow easy access to the content that they expected to see upon tapping into the search result.

Pages with intrusive interstitials offer poor user experiences and are unfavorable in comparison to other pages on which the content is available for immediate access. This is especially problematic in case of mobile devices with smaller screens. Post January 10, 2017, in order to enrich mobile search experiences even further, the after pages that have content that is difficult to access by users (and give off unreliable mobile search experiences), may not attain high rankings.

Still wondering how content is made less accessible to users? Here are some techniques that do not work in favor of readers.

– Including a popup that hides the main content, either while users are still going through the page or immediately after they navigate to the page from search results

– Showing a standalone interstitial, that has to be dismissed by users so that the main content may be accessed

– Usage of a layout wherein the above-the-fold section of the page is similar in looks to a standalone interstitial; and the original content is laid out beneath the fold

Interstitials that make the published content difficult to access by users

Example of how an intrusive popup disturbs the display

Example of an intrusive standalone interstitial on the display screen

Yet another example depicting an intrusive standalone interstitial

On the other hand, if used in a responsible manner, these techniques could coexist with the newly introduced signal.

– Interstitials for age verification, cookie usage, or those that are in response to other legal obligations

– The login messages on websites wherein the content is not indexed publicly. For instance, unendurable content that is present behind any pay wall, or private content like emails are not affected by the new signal.

– Easily dismissible banners and those that use up a fair amount of screen space also fall in this category. For instance, Safari and Chrome offer app install banners that occupy a reasonable amount of available screen space but are not too intrusive

Given below are examples of interstitials that are not likely to be affected by the newly introduced signal, if it is used responsibly

Example of an interstitial applied for cookie usage

Example of an interstitial that enables age verification

Example of an easily dismissible banner that occupies a reasonably fair amount of screen space

Developers had earlier explored a signal that inducted a search for interstitials and that urged users to install specific mobile apps. Over time, and with more development efforts coming into the fray, Google felt the need to broaden their focus towards interstitials in a more generalized way. Thus, in order to avoid duplication with respect to their signals, they removed the checks for app-install interstitials from their mobile-friendly tests. These checks have now been incorporated in the new signal pertaining to Google Search.

Do remember that this new signal happens to be just one of the numerous signals that are in use for ranking purposes. One of the strongest signals is the intent with which the search query is commissioned; so, a specific page will continue to rank high in case it boasts of relevant, meaningful and read-worthy content.

As always, Google welcome everyone to send them your queries and feedback @ webmaster forums.

The post Google Provides Official Information About Indexing And Crawling Algorithms appeared first on QualDev.

Almost all image editing programs, including the good-old MS Paint, have built-in resizing tools to help you quickly change the dimensions (or resolution) of your photos. However, if there were a requirement to resize a large number of images to multiple sizes, you might have to take the help of more complicated tools like GIMP or even Photoshop.
Batch Resize Images

Transfer multiple images to your Dropbox folder to resize automatically!
Resize Photos with the help of Dropbox

There is a new Dropbox-based option called SizzlePig, that can help you resize a large number of images automatically without requiring any additional software.

SizzlePig connects to your Dropbox account and then continuously monitors a particular folder inside your main Dropbox folder. As soon as you add any new images to this “watch” folder, SizzlePig resizes the entire batch in the required dimensions and copies the processed images back to your Dropbox folder.

To get started, you need to define the input and output folders (they should exist inside your Dropbox folder) and also specify the various sizes that your images should be resized to. Advanced users may also experiment with different image formats should they wish to reduce the size (and the visual quality) of the processed images.

Also, if you aren’t too happy with the quality of compressed images, you can always manually adjust the scale or the crop dimensions of individual images and SizzlePig will remember your preferences for images that have the same name.

The service is in private beta though it is expected to go live later today. Also, it is completely free at this time though it is unlikely to stay like that forever.

The post How To Resize Multiple Images Without Requiring Any Software appeared first on QualDev.

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75% of sellers having eBay Stores – when surveyed said that opening an eBay Store increased their sales.**
How does opening an eBay Store increase your sales? eBay Stores provide powerful tools to build, manage, promote, and track your business. Take your sales to the next level with these built-in benefits of an eBay Store.

Benefits On Owning eBay Store for your business
1.    You’ll have a unique, personalized and customized section of eBay just for your listings to be presented to potential buyers.

2.    You’ll be able to develop your own brand, including a color scheme, theme, logo, and format for your Store, to become more memorable and recognizable to other eBay users, particularly buyers.

3.    You’ll be able to have a Store header at the top of all of your item descriptions that include links to some of your Store products/categories/pages, your Store logo and/or color scheme, and even a search box for buyers to search through all of the items in your store, right from any item page for one of your listings.

4.    You’ll have access to many additional advertising and marketing tools and techniques, including the ability to create Promotional Boxes to display prominently on your main Store homepage, announcing new items, specials, sales, or featured products

5.    You’ll have an email mailing list for which eBay users can sign up and opt in to receive promotional emails, newsletters, etc. from you, all of which will include links to some of your current listings so people can essentially buy your items right from their email inboxes!

6.    You’ll have several different buttons, links, icons, logos, etc. you can use to promote your store and drive attention and traffic to it.

The post How Does Opening An Ebay Store Increase Your Sales? appeared first on QualDev.