The Best Open Source Platforms for eCommerce Compared

October 27, 2018 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Henry Rise. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

Looking for the best ecommerce platform for your store? You’re not alone. As per InternetLiveStats, in 2017 the number of websites doubled as compared to 2016. Wonder how many online stores are there among these numbers? To get these stats we’ll have to refer to BuiltWith to find data about all CMS and website engines for statistical or outreach purposes. When you do a quick search for e-commerce you’ll notice the big players in the open source e-commerce platforms genres are Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and OpenCart.

In case you’re trying to figure out which eCommerce engine will be the best for your store, it’s likely you will not find the best one, simply because there isn’t one which is “the best”. Each eCommerce engine is best on its own, each one plays well for every store, product, or use case. It’s the subtle differences which matter. If you want to understand which eCommerce CMS you need, first of all, you need to think ahead what your store will be like in a year or two. If it’s something seasonal I’m pretty sure you don’t need CMS at all, some SAAS solution like Shopify will be your perfect choice, 3-4 hours of work and store is ready to accept payments. But if you need something robust, a store that can be easily transformed into a marketplace than you need to look closer at open source eCommerce platforms I’m going to talk about in this blog.

The Contenders

Luckily for you, there’s a number of open source eCommerce platforms that are either free or have an attractive price tag, with the majority being free. Each of these engines offers great customizability and scalability, as well as community support that isn’t always found in enterprise solutions. Opting for a free open source eCommerce platform to sell your goodies online might be the easiest option for you. However, choosing the best open source e-commerce platform may not be as easy. To make this a bit better, we have a list of 4 of the best open source eCommerce platforms which stand out in terms of popularity and utility. As a proof popularity statement, here’s a graph from Google Trends.

If you change the time frame you will see that long before September 2015 Joomla was a lot more popular than other engines, but due to some circumstances, other engines outperformed it. Now let’s have a closer look at each of these, on their strengths and weaknesses.

#1 WooCommerce

The first example is WooCommerce, I’ve placed it on top of this list because a WooCommerce-based store is the easiest solution you can opt for. If you have a WordPress website you can transform it into a store by downloading and installing the WooCommerce plugin.

After the installation, you will get several new sections (WooCommerce, Products) in your WordPress dashboard where you can create new products, manage orders, finetune your store by adding payment methods, shipping options, currencies, and so on. With WooCommerce you can sell both digital and physical products without having to install additional plugins for digital downloads. Here you can refer to the WooCommerce documentation to find more about WooCommerce store setup.

How Easy is it to Use WooCommerce?

For installation, I can give 5 points, for managing and maintenance 5 points, for sales reporting 3 points. Among all the rest items this eCommerce platform will help you build any store in a short timeframe. When combined with a powerful WooCommerce theme that can be edited with a page builder like WP Bakery, you will save lots of time and efforts customizing your store. If there’s a category where a WooCommerce store will be an undisputed winner, it’s the design. As you may know, the number of WordPress themes available today is really astonishing, and most of them are WooCommerce compatible meaning that you can get any WordPress theme and build a store on its basis. For example, here’s how a WooCommerce store would look with the popular theme Ozisti. P.S. I’m not getting into the design capabilities of other eCommerce platforms because they will lose immediately unless they are Shopify. Installation – 5 points. Managing & maintenance – 4 points. Sales reporting – 3 points.

#2 Magento

Launching an online store with Magento CMS can be a little bit more complicated. Luckily for you, the CPanel (in any hosting provider) has a 1-click engine installation. This option will remove all the headache you may have had while installing Magento.

Just for laughs, I’ve Googled “how to install Magento 2 cms”, and most results had a remark “without errors”. That’s because Magento installation can be a bit tricky. If you visit the official Magento website you’ll notice that there’re two versions of this engine Magento Commerce and Magento Open Source. The first one is an enterprise level engine that will cost you 2K+ per month, the second one is free and this is the option to go for. I won’t recommend installing this engine manually because I’ve never met a living human being who was able to install Magento manually in the first try (Magento developers not included). After installing Magento engine you will get access to its admin panel which is a lot clearer than installation process. All CMS features are neatly organized and can be easily accessed.

How Easy is it to Use Magento?

Compared to WooCommerce, Magento engine installation is easy when it’s automated. In terms of admin functionalities, Magento is tuned to giving you all eCommerce features possible letting you decide how of them you need. The sales reporting tool is super awesome, it’s insanely detailed that even WooCommerce stats + Google Analytics will hardly give you as much data. Installation – 3 points. Managing & maintenance – 4 points. Sales reporting – 5 points.

#3 Prestashop

When you’re using a 1-click installation you won’t face any difficulties handling the PrestaShop engine. And once it’s installed you will get access to a handy admin panel.

All store elements and features are placed where you may expect to find them, which implies, navigation is easy. Using this handy menu you’ll be able to configure product features, create product packs, product variations, sell digital products without using third-party extensions, and so on. The Stats section will give you access to extensive reporting data, which is a lot more comprehensive than one WooCommerce will provide you with. But there’s a thing you might find a little bit strange. If you want to have a blog on your store you will have to install an additional module to make this happen.

How Easy is it to Use PrestaShop?

Unlike WooCommerce, PrestaShop is a lot more comprehensive and powerful in terms of features. Somehow it resembles Magento, especially in sales reports. Overall PrestaShop deserves the following points: Installation – 5 points. Managing & maintenance – 4 points. Sales reporting – 5 points.

#4 OpenCart

Unlike previous contestant you won’t be able to find OpenCart in the quick installation in your CPanel, you need to go to OpenCart.com download the archive, upload it to your host and install it. Unfortunately, OpenCart doesn’t have as many details in sales reports as previous two contestants but still, you can get a lot of information about your clients. In case you want to have a blog on your store you will have to install an additional module to turn it on.

How Easy is it to Use OpenCart?

Unlike Magento, you can install OpenCart in a few clicks with the help of a semi-automatic installation. The admin panel is quite intuitive you won’t find it difficult creating and managing products. Still, OpenCart deserves the following points: Installation – 3 points. Managing & maintenance – 4 points. Sales reporting – 4 points.

Features Comparison

	WooCommerce	Magento	Prestashop	OpenCart
Website integration type	Part of your WordPress website	Self-sufficient eCommerce engine	Self-sufficient eCommerce engine	Self-sufficient eCommerce engine
Order management	+	+	+	+
Payment gateways support	+	+	+	+
Customer management	+	+	+	+
Themes / Designs	1000’s of themes	1000’s of themes	1000’s of themes	1000’s of themes
Sales reports	Good reports on sales and store activity.	Advanced and in-depth reports on sales and store activity.	Advanced and in-depth reports	Great analytics module, with reports, purchase funnels, abandoned carts stats, and much more.
Discounts, gift cards, and coupon codes.	+	+	+	+
Plugins / Extensions	+	+	+	+
Multilingual	Built-in	Built-in multilingual support	Built-in multilingual support	Built-in multilingual support
Multi-Currency support	Via third-party plugin	Built-in multicurrency support	Via third-party module	Via third-party extension
Pricing	Free	Free/Paid	Free	Free
Handling	Easy	Hard	Moderate	Easy

Overall Points

	WooCommerce	Magento	Prestashop	OpenCart
Installation	5	3	5	3
Managing & maintenance	5	4	4	4
Sales reporting	3	5	5	4
Average	4.3	4	4.3	3.6

Final Words

Now, it’s entirely up to you which platform you want to use. Each of them is perfect for selling online, but they all have their strong and weak sides. All in all, if you already have a website, which I’m pretty sure is WordPress, it’s best for you to build a store on its basis. This will save you a lot of time and will give a lot more freedom in terms of customization. But if you’re starting from scratch or want to have something more scalable, I advise you to opt for PrestaShop. For an enterprise business, Magento is the definite choice. Rock your store with the perfect design and you’re all set. What are your thoughts about these ecommerce platforms? We’d like to know.

Author Bio

Henry Rise is the CEO of ThemeRex, and a ThemeForest Power Elite Author. He loves to help people build their business online. Every business begins with the right choice of a micro-niche WP Theme.

WisdmLabs is now a System Integrator Partner for PayPal!

August 21, 2018 by Shreya Reddy Leave a Comment

From getting accredited as GOLD Woo Experts to becoming Certified Event Espresso Experts, our endeavor to build innovative and scalable client-centric e-commerce solutions has always kept us pacing forward. When it comes to e-commerce, we understand the importance of a reliable Payments Solution for your business. Accepting payments from customers online is a crucial part of any business and choosing the right payment gateway is a major contributing factor in making lives easier for both- the customers and the business owners. Owing to the unmatched superiority of PayPal in terms of its ease of use, fraud protection, ability to accept International payments and huge Potential Customer Base, it has been our preferred Payment Gateway Solution for numerous Projects over the years! And now, we’ve finally reached a new milestone in our e-commerce escapade as- PayPal System Integrator Partners!

Why PayPal?

PayPal is a robust end-to-end payment solution that can connect your business to over 179 million existing PayPal users worldwide and hence, vastly increase your sales potential! Here’s a gist of what PayPal brings to the table as your primary online payments processor:

It’s easy to set up and use.
You can create and send invoices right through your account.
Your clients/customers don’t need a PayPal account to pay you.
You can set up recurring payments.
It allows you to accept debit card, credit card, and bank account payments for a low fee
You can manage users and give separate access rights to each of your employees.

PayPal offers a wide range of products and services, and choosing a suitable PayPal account structure is not a straightforward resolution for most people. For small business owners, PayPal offers ease-of-use and simplicity. It is a great option for those looking for quick set up, limited customization, and minimal financial paperwork. While adding a simple ‘Buy Now’ feature is all that a small business may be looking for, bigger businesses generally have some more complex needs. PayPal allows you to tailor the online payments process according to the specific requirements of your business, and that’s where we come in!

What can WisdmLabs do for you?

In addition to all the benefits that you are entitled to as PayPal users such as, PayPal Checkout, PayPal for Marketplaces, PayPal Working Capital, PayPal Credit, PayPal Here, we can help you get fine-grained control over your transactions by Customizing Checkout, Enabling Express Checkouts, Setting up Payouts, Integrating Adaptive Payments, and much more! No matter how basic or complex your requirement is, we’re here for you. We’re extremely pumped up about this partnership, as it opens up better opportunities for us to create value for our clients and there’s nothing that motivates us more! If you want to know how this partnership can benefit you, or want to get started with PayPal for your online store, drop us a line.

DISCLAIMER

In the spirit of complete disclosure, we would like you to know that, as a part of our System Integrator Partnership with PayPal, we are entitled to commissions when we set up PayPal for you. We also emphasize on the fact that, we’re only recommending PayPal because we genuinely believe it’s an extremely versatile Payment Gateway.

Future of E-Commerce: How Technology Will Change 10 Years from Today

February 12, 2018 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Sohail. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

It’s exciting to see the constantly evolving e-commerce world move forward. The online space has now become a haven for buyers. Products that you wouldn’t find online a few years ago, for example, groceries, medical equipment, taxis, are now easily available. E-commerce is changing and will continue to grow and thrive as the market moves along. Let’s take a look at what the experts have predicted will happen, in the next 10 years.

Automated Shipping Vehicles

Get ready for automated shipping vehicles to transport shipments of various sizes without manual intervention. Drones are among the more prominent small shipping vehicles to check out; Amazon is working to build its own drone delivery system. Such drones could help deliver items to your home in just a few hours after you order them. There is a potential for self-driving cars to work as delivery vehicles too. A self-driving car can alert you when it comes to your property so you can pick up an item that someone is trying to ship out to you. But as intriguing as this sounds, such cars are still in development. They would require extensive software programs and sensors to work as expected. Plenty of testing is also needed to ensure they don’t cause wrecks or go off of their designated routes.

The Value of Virtual Reality

Virtual reality is a huge aspect of e-commerce that deserves to be explored. Virtual reality devices can be used to give people a closer look at products they want to buy. You could feel the impact of a product or see how it looks from many angles, albeit virtually. Looking at stuff through a VR headset is surely more realistic and immersive than just looking at two-dimensional images of something online.

Know What’s In Stock

The days of having to drive from one store to another to pick up something will be a thing of the past thanks to the evolution of the e-commerce technology. While you will have the option to get something delivered to your home, you could also find out where a product you want to buy is located, in a physical store. You may have the option to reserve a product at one of these stores after you find it online. This saves you the trouble of having to check individual places for something you want to buy.

Interactive Mobile Apps

Mobile apps will help you find details on everything you want to get in a store. Such apps may be designed to display information on things and how they might look. For instance, a beauty store might offer an app that works with your camera to give you a simulated look at how some makeup product might look on your face.

Automated Customer Service

While many businesses these days use customer service departments, they will switch over to automated systems in the future. This would entail machines being used to identify certain keywords or concerns that you have. You could enter details on questions you have into a website. The site would then analyze your content and produce an answer based on the words found and how they are laid out. When you add artificial intelligence to the mix, this proves to be a fail-safe solution for online vendors. Shoppers would have to take care of being as specific as possible when trying to get the answers, to get the expected results in as little time as possible.

Cryptocurrency Support

Cryptocurrencies have become increasingly popular in recent time. Some of these currencies can make it easier for people to perform online transactions quickly and with lesser fees. The potential for more e-commerce sites to adopt the bitcoin and other related cryptocurrencies as payment options is something worth looking into. But you will have to watch for how well such currencies evolve and how their values change. These investments have become notorious recently for having extremely volatile values that are impossible to predict or figure out.

Endnote

You will be surprised by what you might find in the technology sector in the next few years. There is a great potential for technology to evolve and change over time to make shopping a little easier while giving you more options for everything you wish to work with. Stay tuned for more updates. Until then, it’s over to you!

About the Author

Sohail Khan is passionate about traveling and exploring new places. He also loves writing articles that motivate students to live a better life. Currently, he is associated with smiletutor.sg a private tuition agency in Singapore.

5 Creative Examples of eCommerce Personalization

January 15, 2018 by WisdmLabs 1 Comment

This is a guest post by Nera Cruz. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

Tell me if you’ve heard of this story before. You are browsing a shopping website who just happens to greet you with your name and suddenly in the recommended items list, you see the exact pair of yellow underwear with the duck print that you were looking for since last week – and it’s on discount. You quickly whip out your credit card to buy it right away.

It’s personalization at work. You see, all your customers do not come from a single mold. Every one of them has their quirks that make them unique and that’s why you need to personalize to sell better. It’s also a good part of your marketing plan.

In any case, we collected some of the best examples you can use personalization to supercharge your website.

Being on a first name basis with your client

personyze-example-ecommerce-personalization

Image source: personyze.com

It is nice to get called by your first name. Try this when you are ordering at a restaurant. Speak to your waiter on a first name basis. Call him by his first name. More often than not, you will receive some great service.

You see calling someone by their first name is based on trust. Only people you trust, call you by your first name. It’s a psychological hack that makes your would-be customer feel at home.

Knowing the important dates

Image source: invecspro.com

Treat your customers like your significant other. Your significant other surely likes it when you remember the important dates – birthdays and anniversaries. Everybody likes being greeted on their birthday. They like it so much that they will open any e-mail greeting them a happy birthday.

It’s a great time to give them an offer. These life events usually make people want to make a purchase, sort of like a birthday present for yourself. You see it working in buffets all over the world.

Selling only what they want

Image source: addthis.com

Big stores have huge inventories and they are all trying to sell it to you. That is a huge problem when your customers get overloaded with all the choices. Personalization allows you to put only the items they want in front of them.

Analytics can do this for you by seeing what your customers are looking at and finding possible items that they might want based on their behavior. It may seem a bit Big Brother but at the end of the day, it makes for a good shopping experience as almost always, this leads to another sale.

Ask the right questions

Image source: springtab.com

Sometimes it is best to ask your customers outright what they like. It’s less invasive this way. By using filters and questionnaires, you can narrow down the options to what your customer will probably buy.

This allows you to filter a unique basket of goods for your customer. It’s like having your own personal shopper with you.

Make it a group thing

Image source: smartinsights.com

It may sound counter-intuitive, but being part of a group is actually a very personal experience. If you are part of a group, you tend to take on the qualities and behaviors of that group. Call it a version of group-think or herd mentality.

This also makes a great opportunity for “exclusivity” and making your customers feel like they are special, except of course for the fact that your group is essentially open for everyone.

What to do next?

That is a pretty good list of some personalization hacks you can do for your website. Remember that if you make it a personal experience, the more likely it is that your customer will buy from you. Treat it like being a friend to your customer. You would rather buy from a friend, wouldn’t you?

Was this article helpful for you? Show us some love in the comments below.

About the Author

Nera Cruz is a technical writer and a web merchandiser for different online marketplaces around the globe since 2011. Nera gained tons of experience working with several e-commerce platforms. She spends her free time selling her fashion products and gadgets on Facebook (Nera Shoppe). You can also connect with her on Twitter @nera_joy

4 Ways to Optimize Your eCommerce Site for Voice Search

December 18, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Bernard. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

I think you can agree with me: it’s really hard to make your ecommerce site stand out in Google’s search results page. There are so many aspects to good SEO, but you’re also busy trying to improve all the other parts of your ecommerce business. It seems almost impossible that you can break through and get great rankings for your ecommerce site. But what if it wasn’t so difficult? What if you could optimize your site for search little competition and great results? Well, you can, with voice search. These are the devices like mobile phones, digital virtual assistants such as Amazon Echo, Alexa, Google Home, Siri, Cortana, or others like the Roku. Today I’m going to show you how you can optimize your ecommerce site for voice search—and not only stand above the competition, but also get much better sales. Voice search is great since it allows people to do hands-free searches (such as when they’re driving, or just for fun). It’s also much more efficient for users to speak than to type. Even better, while voice search made up 20% of Google’s total searches, it’s set to make up 50% of all searches by 2020.

#1 Make your site faster

Visitors nowadays have very little patience for slow-loading sites. Anything that takes longer than 7 seconds means you’ve just lost another site visitor. They’re even less patient on mobile. This is especially true since the programs they’re using (like OK Google) has to come up with a good answer to their question within a second or two. If you have slow-loading pages, the voice search app won’t be able to get all your information in time. That means you’ll get passed up and ignored. You need to make sure your site is loading within 3 seconds, though optimally under 2 seconds.

#2 Prepare for voice search queries

People search very differently when they type and when they speak. For example, if you’re typing a search query into Google search, you’ll probably type in “Black Friday deals Seattle” or something similar. However, when doing a voice search, people tend to speak in fuller phrases and sentences. So it would look something like:

“Siri, what are the best Black Friday deals in Seattle?”

“OK Google, how do I find the best Black Friday deals in Seattle?”

For that reason, when you’re optimizing for voice searches, you need to make a list of long-tail keywords and questions (sentences and phrases) that are related to your business. Then, make sure your content is optimized for that. So, for example, instead of going for keywords like “children’s shoes” you should use long-tail keywords such as “brands with the highest quality children’s shoes.” You can also optimize for questions, such as, “What are the highest quality children’s shoes?”

#3 Make your mobile experience better

Let’s say you’ve taken care of #1 and #2 from above, and your content is optimized for voice queries and your site speed is good. But how does your actual site look when a visitor comes to your site? Remember, SEO (including voice search) isn’t about just getting visitors to your site. It’s also about keeping visitors engaged. If visitors have a terrible mobile experience and have a high bounce rate with a low average time on page, then your rankings will drop in the search results pages. That’s why you’ll need to make sure that your mobile experience is great for all users. This is especially true if you are (and you should be) preparing for the high ecommerce holiday shopping season.

#4 Use schema markups

Schema markups can help search engines like Google quickly find out the keywords and crucial information about your content. You can often see this with all types of content, including recipes:

Above you can see not just the eye-catching image, but also the rating, votes, and other important details like cooking time and calories. With ecommerce, you can use rich snippets in the same way. Here’s what we see when typing in “apple ipad with retina display”:

Only one result really stands out, and that’s one that is using schema markups, which are known as rich snippets. In this example, we see the average rating and the number of reviews. When search engines like Google can easily pull the information from your content, they can easily pass this along to searches to make your site stand out above your competition.

Wrapping Up

With these 4 tips, you’ll be much more able to stand out from your competition in multiple ways. After all, although voice search is soon set to make up 50% of all searches, not many of your competitors are focusing on it. That gives you the perfect opportunity to boost your rankings, increase your visitors and boost your ecommerce sales. Good luck!

About the Author

Bernard is a content marketer for Omnisend, the ecommerce marketing automation platform dedicated to helping ecommerce stores build strong, lasting relationships with their customers. He also has a passion for good research and helping ecommerce businesses with their multichannel marketing needs.

How do Payment Gateways Impact User Experience on WooCommerce

December 4, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by XAdapter. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

User Experience – UX, for short- is simply defined as your customer’s experience when using your product or platform. In today’s world where online purchases are ever growing, customer experience can be the single most important factor in deciding the success of any business.

Why is User Experience Important?

User experience is the opinion of consumers. Poor experience of a single customer has the ability to earn you a bad reputation and drive away potential buyers. Thus, more and more online businesses have started focusing on improving the look and feel of their e-stores. For example, when a WordPress designer thinks about bettering the experience of a client, selection of the right theme becomes a priority. Their concern is navigation, page layout and more, to support the website’s purpose. Similarly, when it comes to your WooCommerce store, your concerns should be –

What can I do to help customers find the product they are looking for?
How can I make their search and checkout experience smoother?
How can I provide them personal attention?

All these questions will help you improve the UX on your store.

When Does the Role of a Payment Gateway Come into Picture?

When designing your WooCommerce store to improve user experience, payment gateways might be the last thing on your mind. But, a Woo store should be easy to use right from the homepage to the order completion page- and a payment gateway is one of the steps that fit in between the two extremes. The final step for a customer when making a purchase is- payment. And a payment gateway adds to the whole purchase experience. For a customer, every purchase is an investment. They want to be assured of a secure, trustworthy transaction. At the point of checkout, you don’t want them wondering about losing their money. Your payment gateway can ensure be the difference between a successful transaction and an abandoned cart. In order to give your customers a sense of security while making the payment, the following points should help –

Usage of familiar logos – Customers with a fair experience of online shopping are well acquainted with the popular logos such as Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, etc.
Clear messaging – If you are using an off-site payment method (we’ll come to it later), make sure you convey the message as clearly as possible to your customers. Being redirected to a different site to process the payment without prior notice, can worry your customers prompting them to abandon their cart.
SSL certification – Make sure your payment gateway is SSL certified. It is a good idea to include the security logo as well.

How to Decide the Right Payment Gateway for Your Store?

So the next step is deciding the right payment gateway, so as to ensure a flawless customer experience. A payment gateway can be either a hosted one or integrated via API. A hosted payment gateway redirects the customer to the gateway’s site in order to enter the payment information. Now, think of it this way. How would you feel if at a physical store asked you to go next door to make a payment? Would you consider it? Sending customers to another site is kind of the same, and it might have a negative impact on sales. But not always. What if you had to go to a bank to make a payment? You’d trust it, right? Hosted payment gateways work the same way.

The biggest gain of hosted payment gateways is that the offsite provider is responsible for all PCI compliance and data security. Thus, you have one thing less to worry about and can start selling sooner.
When the off-site payment gateways are popular, customers can trust them better (like PayPal, Stripe).
Hosted payment gateways work well when you cater to different countries or currencies and can’t integrate all possible payment options on your site.

Now let’s consider another scenario. Let’s say there’s an impatient customer who’s in a hurry to make a purchase. How would redirecting to another site make him/her feel? Forcing the customer to go through multiple steps might be frustrating. In that case, one-page checkout is always a better choice. And hence, for most online stores integrated payment gateways is the preferred choice. If you go for the integrated payment gateway route, make sure that the checkout page reflects the same simplicity and styling of your store. Here is an example of an integrated payment gateway – Authorize.net

Going Modern or Classic?

Then comes the decision to choose between “Modern” and “Classic” payment gateways. A modern payment gateway would enable you to start your store without much hassle as it doesn’t come with the requirement of setting up a merchant account. But, the downside is that they usually charge a larger per-transaction fee which might become a burden as your store grows bigger. Also, you should note that most of the Modern payment gateways send customers offsite to make the payments. Another criteria to be considered is the support for recurring payments. If you’re planning on selling subscription-based products, modern gateways are a wiser option, as they support automatic billing. Now, the good part is that there’s a wide number of popular WooCommerce payment gateway extensions for you to choose from. And you can view their features to choose between a “Classic” or “Modern” approach.

Lastly

Now, based on your audience, your location, popular payment options as per trend, you have to make a choice between picking the right payment gateways to appease your customers. As a rule of thumb, multiple options are better than one. Also, it goes without mentioning that switching between payment gateways is not as painful as switching between eCommerce platforms. So, even if you change your mind, there’re always services available to help you along the way. 🙂 The most important point to remember is to provide your customers a seamless shopping experience to ensure more sales! Happy selling!

About the Author

XAdapter is a company of problem-solvers actively seeking out innovative solutions to handle varied challenges in the eCommerce industry, with their primary focus being WooCommerce! Get to know all about them via their website or connect with them on twitter @XAdapter

Transferring Brick-and-Mortar Tactics into Ecommerce Success

November 27, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Tracy Vides. If you’d like to contribute to our blog, feel free to get in touch with us.

Consumerism as we know it has seen a drastic shift in the past few years. New technology has provided a simple choice for shoppers. They can either (a) fight crowds at a physical store to look for the items they need, or (b) browse online catalogs and make purchases in the comfort of their homes. This distinction forms the origins of the “Retail Apocalypse.” According to Invesp, the percentage of total ecommerce sales is trending upwards across the globe.

It’s become blatantly clear that online is going to take an even bigger role in retail as time goes by. Currently, we are in an era of transition. Although the general feel of shopping has changed, there are plenty of brick-and-mortar values that made brands successful in the past, which can easily be brought over into the world of ecommerce. Let’s talk about a few of the major ones.

Keep the Emphasis on Customer Service

Perhaps the most common myth about ecommerce is that personalized customer service becomes practically non-existent. True, there is something to be said about the lack of a physically present humans to answer questions or help choose a product. For one, just the notion of having to call a support line and wait on hold is enough to frustrate any customer these days. However, this does not mean a customer should be lost every time they are unsure or have a query. In fact, there are plenty of methods and channels online stores can use to actually improve customer service while selling online. The key to providing stellar ecommerce customer service is simply being timely in responding. One of the best ways to achieve this is with live chat. A Zendesk study found that this medium led to 92% customer satisfaction and is the most preferred approach to customer support. Aside from instantaneous responses, the biggest advantage of using live chat is agents are able to assist multiple customers at once, as opposed to just one at a time with voice. Velaro is a fantastic live chat tool with features designed specifically for ecommerce. Using the software, you are given reports on engagement levels, workflows, routing, and security. If you run multiple websites, you can manage all of your live chat functions in one centralized platform.

Keep in mind, customer service can expand beyond the actual website. The Sprout Social Index recently found that social media has emerged as the second most important channel for consumer complaints now:

As a result, many businesses are putting social media to good use as a vehicle for communicating with their customers. For example, if you go to Finish Line’s Facebook page, you easily notice the option to start a chat with them:

Ultimately, for ecommerce brands to be successful in customer service, they must be easy to reach. Impatience is a common trait in today’s consumers and they are quick to move on if needs aren’t being met.

Adapt your Supply Chain Strategy

The supply chain is the foundation of both online and offline retail. In any form of this concept, the need and susceptibility to adapt will always be a critical part of the process. Ecommerce has brought gargantuan change to this area of business operations. In today’s highly competitive landscape, any lapse in judgement can result in huge problems and harm the bottom line. Therefore, having a flawless supply chain strategy is imperative. There are many components that make up this entity. For ecommerce, there are six major factors to consider.

Inventory cost – The total cost of storing everything you sell
Valuation – How much the items in your inventory are worth and puts a value on your major assets
Quality control – Finds potential inefficiencies throughout the manufacturing stage
Sales channels – The primary outlets via which goods are sold to consumers
Warehousing – The entire process of how your inventory is packed, stored, and shipped
Fulfillment – How well demand is being met and orders are being closed

A constant task ecommerce businesses are faced with is finding ways to optimize their supply chain to increase revenue. Luckily, the rise of big data has helped shed light on in-depth solutions to help online businesses adapt more accurately to the world around them. There are platform-specific ecommerce solutions that identify trends in factors like historical sales data, pricing, state of the economy, etc. For example, Forecastly is a tool for Amazon sellers that lets them minimize arbitrary guesswork and foresee potential issues in their supply chain management system in real-time.

The end goal is to eliminate as much waste as possible in meeting demand requirements. Failing to utilize and acclimate to the hard numbers will put any ecommerce brand at a huge disadvantage.

Personalize the Experience

Another major misconception about ecommerce businesses is they aren’t able to provide personalized shopping experiences. In reality, personalization has just taken on a different meaning and is absolutely vital for success. In fact, an Infosys report revealed that 86% of shoppers admitted that personalization plays a major role in their purchase decisions. Businesses can switch out the friendly smiles in a physical store with things like targeted product recommendations and relevant promo codes. Amazon has been doing this successfully for years, with the help of machine learning and automation. Essentially, ecommerce brands can gather data on shoppers’ browsing behavior by analyzing their interactions with the site, and use algorithms to provide suggestions tailored to individual interests. If you do it right, you can isolate buying habits and alter your messaging to provide a unique brand experience to each customer. A tool that can help in this area is Windsor Circle, a lifecycle automation software designed for the likes of predictive marketing and customer retention. It can be integrated with a wide range of ecommerce and email marketing platforms to provide personalized shopping interactions through the use of detailed analytics.

The trick to creating authentic, individualized experiences comes down to the ability to put the right content in front of the most interested eyes. Businesses now have the means to do so automatically. That being said, ecommerce businesses are actually in a better positon to provide a more meaningful retail environment that accurately points customers in the right direction.

Final Thoughts

While ecommerce may not exactly be ramrodding retail, it’s constantly changing the status quo and finding new ways to achieve success. However, the foundational tactics practiced throughout centuries of brick-and-mortar business operations will always hold merit, and it’s important to keep them close. Advancements in tech only find ways to re-define the core processes. Retailers need to stay on top of what their customers want and do more of what works for them!

About the Author

Tracy Vides is a digital strategist who works with startups and ecommerce retailers on building their brands. Tracy is also a prolific blogger – her insights are regularly featured on Digitalist Mag, Business 2 Community and Usability Geek. Connect with her on Twitter @TracyVides for a chat anytime!

Top 6 Challenges of Enterprise e-Commerce

April 3, 2017 by Pranoti Panchwagh Leave a Comment

The advent of robust selling platforms has led to an exponential increase in the e-commerce industry in recent years. There are over 25 million online stores today, big and small, built on various e-commerce platforms of varying scale. However, the number of stores successfully earning revenue from their sites is a mere 2.6%! This discrepancy stems from the fact that most of the small-scale businesses that are initially successful find it difficult to make the transition to enterprise e-commerce, once the customers start rolling in big time. Most of us view enterprise e-commerce as an essentially larger version of a regular online store. While that is true in the literal sense, there are several other factors that come into play when it comes to multi-million dollar industries. Business at an enterprise level is a whole different ball game, which is why the aforementioned transition is never easy. Here we shall explore the challenges every entrepreneur faces while setting up an enterprise-level e-commerce store, or transitioning to one.

A Brief Overview of the Enterprise e-Commerce Platforms

The enterprise e-commerce platform, or the enterprise e-commerce software caters to the many different aspects of a large business. It supports all the functionalities required by the store to set up, sell, and market all products and product variations. Unlike small stores, enterprise plans do not have limited bandwidths or a fixed number of visitors; they can have unlimited traction fluctuations without causing any server issues. The most popular enterprise e-commerce platforms used today are Shopify Plus, Magento Enterprise, and BigCommerce Enterprise. There are two predominant methods of setting up e-commerce enterprise solutions. The first is a ‘paid hosting + open source e-commerce platform + external, third-party plugins’ approach, while the other is the ‘self-hosted e-commerce platform + integrated plugins’ approach.

Paid Hosting + Open Source e-Commerce Platform

More specifically, in the first approach, you need to choose a hosting plan, a domain name, and then build your e-commerce store with the open source platform you have chosen. Here you are responsible for the security and maintenance of your website and have complete backend access to the core website. Consequently, using this method requires a certain degree of familiarity with web development and coding, for better website customization. Magento’s Enterprise Edition falls under this category.

Self Hosted e-Commerce Platform

In the second method, the self-hosted e-commerce solution allows you complete freedom to build your store without necessitating separate hosting plans. It ensures that you become free from the site maintenance and security hassles of the website, making operations easy and user-friendly. On the downside, however, you have no access to your databases or the back-end of the website and have to rely completely on the software’s development team for the upkeep of your store. BigCommerce Enterprise and Shopify Plus work with this module of business development.

Each of the individual enterprise e-commerce solutions has its own advantages and drawbacks, in terms of scalability, ease of use, operational features, and other, peripheral functionalities. The platform can be selected based on your technical expertise, budget, and the potential customization you require. Despite choosing your e-commerce platform wisely and as per your store’s ever-increasing needs, every store is confronted with various issues. Whether it is a matter of scalability or maintaining your website’s SEO ranking, there are six challenges every large-scale e-commerce website owner faces. These include:

The 6 Challenges of Enterprise e-Commerce

#1 Inadequacy in Scaling

Mega-e-commerce companies often have trouble scaling their e-commerce platform with the increase in their product portfolios. Enterprise-level e-commerce includes organization of thousands of SKU’s, considering multiple products, product variations, and variable costs, which need to be updated regularly. In addition, the company has to incorporate separate methods of scaling to be able to cater to B2B and B2C businesses equally successfully. Quite a lot of the industries in the market tank due to the inability of their website to keep up with the exponential increase in sales.

#2 Cart Abandonment

One of the major problems that enterprise e-commerce faces today is cart abandonment. The average cart abandonment rate today is nearly 70%, due to a multitude of reasons such as high shipping costs, complicated checkout processes, insufficient payment methods, and more. One of the strongest sources of revenue for enterprise-level businesses is the millennial population. However, this age group has increasingly started using e-commerce websites to search for and compare products only for ‘window shopping’ and buying the actual product from a brick-and-mortar store. To mitigate the losses due to cart abandonment, enterprises will have to deploy new, creative solutions to retain consumer interest and convince customers to complete the purchase, thereby increasing the conversion rates.

#3 Increasing Competition

A very real challenge for large-scale enterprises is the increasing competition in e-commerce. The sheer number of websites providing similar products at competitive rates requires the conglomerates to keep on their toes and devise radical marketing strategies to maintain their market share. The increase in the number of local players further drives the competition, as each of the players tries to gauge the market and improve their presence in the market.

#4 Cross-platform integration

Mobile shopping has become an integral part of e-commerce, with a large chunk of the younger generation browsing for products on their smartphones. Due to this rapidly rising demand for mobile integration, e-commerce giants have started taking mobile optimization and app customization seriously. However, there is more to mobile optimization than just selecting a responsive theme for the website. The problem with enterprise-level businesses is that their efforts for mobile optimization seem half-hearted at best, too little too late. The need of the hour for enterprise e-commerce companies is to actively develop responsive sites with cross-platform integration to see a significant increase in their conversion rates.

#5 Localization

Localization indicates tweaking the website to suit the requirements of the area it is functioning in. The local connect is extremely important as it persuades the customer to trust the seller enough to complete the purchase. Insufficient localization was one of the challenges that e-commerce giant Amazon faced when it tapped into the Asian markets. Nevertheless, the lack of payment methods necessitated Amazon to introduce the ‘Cash on Delivery’ option for the Asian and South-Asian markets, to become a significant shareholder. Quite a lot of the independent enterprise-level e-commerce businesses suffer due to lack of localization, as it limits the scope of expansion for the company within the market. Companies are faced with the challenge to identify the shortcomings of their local stores and utilize the local resources to their benefit to maximize profits.

#6 Shipping and Delivery Issues

Shipping and delivery can be a logistical nightmare for enterprise-level businesses if handled incompetently. As seen with the hurdle of localization above, shipping and delivery methods need to be adjusted as per the ways and means available to a specific area. Organizing infrastructure and manpower for timely delivery across an entire continent is no mean feat. Conglomerates have a tendency to over-promise ETA’s for product delivery, which can result in dissatisfied customers and reduced sales. Recruiting the local population as a support mechanism can ensure a smooth supply chain and efficient deliveries in optimum time.

Winding Up

The success story of every enterprise-level e-commerce business is its own. Here we have listed only a few of the common trials and tribulations that practically every company has to go through. Nevertheless, each of these challenges can be overcome with proper planning and a strong marketing and operational strategy. Facing the said challenges is a learning curve for the company and can be a stepping stone to greater success if an appropriate solution is devised to overcome these hurdles! Have an experience you would like to share? Let us know in the comments section below! Are you searching for an Enterprise eCommerce solution? Get in touch with our Enterprise Experts today!

How to Create a Subscription Box Website on WordPress

February 22, 2017 by Pranoti Panchwagh 1 Comment

Subscription boxes have been creating waves in the e-commerce world for quite some time now. Thousands of subscription box providers cater to niche markets today, from beauty products, chocolates, and lifestyle goodies to gourmet food, pet peeves, games, and toys! While the concept itself is no longer new, the market has grown exponentially, with customized services cropping up for physical as well as digital goods. However, before you start building castles in the air, there are a few things that you need to check off your list.

Before You Get Started

Even as you plan to set up your very own subscription box website, it is necessary to analyse the factors that make these mega-conglomerates like Birchbox, Dollar Shave Club, Ipsy, Loot Crate, and more tick. Granted, each has its own business model and marketing strategies, however, all of them have a common growth process that becomes the foundation of their success. Here is a brief overview of the best features of some popular subscription box websites:

Focus on a niche market
Flexible subscriptions, ranging from low-cost to high-range packages
A beautiful Display
Comprehensive product information
Contact forms for customers to fill up their preferences and add User Profiles
A specific target audience
Fast and secure payment gateways
No mandatory contracts or product purchases
Distinct Subscription and Shop interfaces
Attractive offers and discounts to encourage user engagement

These features give us several reference points we can use while designing our own subscription box website. In this article, we will primarily be discussing how to create a subscription box website using WordPress as the CMS platform, for physical products. WordPress, as you may know, is an open source content management system that can be used to create practically any kind of website.

Creating a Subscription Box Website on WordPress

The plethora of plugins available for integrating various functionalities into your website make it relatively easy to create a subscription box website using WordPress. Nevertheless, there are two distinct ways for the same:

#1 Opting for a Full-Fledged Subscription Box Setup Plugin

A complete solution for creating a subscription box website is offered by plugins like Subscription Boxer. Once installed, the plugin creates the basic setup for your boxes, content, subscriptions, payment gateways, and more. Subscription Boxer has additional, responsive themes that can be separately purchased. The main features of the plugin include:

Customizable Product Boxes
Creation of Multiple Subscription Tiers
Three Payment Gateways (PayPal, Authorize.net, and Chargify)
Integrated Photo Gallery for Image Display
Customizable Themes

The drawback of the plugin is that the theme is not purchased within the plugin package; it has to be purchased separately. Also, there are no Analytics and SEO options integrated, and have to be added externally to your WordPress installation. With respect to the cost, there are three pricing plans for the plugin:

Lite – $99.99 for a Lifetime license for 1 site (theme not included)
Startup – $199.99 for a Lifetime license for 1 site (theme included)
Full – $499.99 for a Lifetime license for 5 sites (theme included)

The plugin is rather expensive for the number of features it offers. It works well enough as a turnkey solution for a small subscription box website, you can check out their demo here; however, if you are looking for a more scalable approach, Subscription Boxer is not your answer.

#2 The WordPress + WooCommerce Approach

The WordPress and WooCommerce method gives you far more flexibility to design and build your subscription box website. Depending on the niche market you choose, you can create a separate shop for the products you plan to sell on your website and add a link to it on the subscriptions website. With this in mind, we shall segment the website into two parts for convenience’s sake: the Subscriptions website and the Shop.

The Subscriptions website

This is the core of your subscription box enterprise. On this part of your website, the people can sign-up for monthly boxes of your product. For example, consider you are planning to start a confectionery subscription box service that will send out boxes on a fortnightly basis. Let us see how such a website can be built.

WordPress + WooCommerce

As we have seen previously, WordPress is the basic CMS platform we are using. As we are planning to sell subscription boxes with physical goods here, we opt for the most popular e-commerce platform, WooCommerce. A robust framework, plenty of extensible add-ons, and a number of options to set up an e-commerce shop make WooCommerce the best fit for our enterprise.

Adding a Theme

WordPress has a vast portfolio of WooCommerce-compatible themes to choose from, both free and paid. However, when you select a theme specifically from the point of view of a subscription box website, there as some specific angles you need to address. Ask yourself these questions while choosing the theme:

Is the theme responsive?
Does it highlight my boxes in the best possible light?
Is the display customizable?
Can I incorporate additional elements, like a Slider bar, or a picture gallery here?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, you can go for the theme. Always remember, images are going to be your key selling point. The appeal of various, unique box designs, featured boxes, recommended combinations and more can be most successfully conveyed via images. Whichever theme you choose, an elegant display and the responsive feature are a must.

Adding a Subscription Plugin: WooCommerce Subscriptions

Then follows the most important part for this half of the website; adding a subscriptions plugin. A subscription plugin integrates all the features you require for managing recurring payments from subscribers and setting up flexible billing schemes for them to choose from. Here you can consider the WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin for the job. An advantage of using a popular plugin like WooCommerce Subscriptions, is that you can avail several setup plans offered to get your website ready in no time! The WooCommerce Subscriptions plugin gives you access to a full-fledged set of features that let you create periodic billing schedules, add trial periods for customers, let users manage their subscriptions at the front-end and more. The plugin also incorporates built-in email notifications that can be sent to users reminding them if their payment is due, or informing them of special offers and discounts they are entitled to. Customers can opt to upgrade their plans in the middle of a billing schedule and purchase subscriptions to different boxes in one transaction. This makes tracking of sales extremely easy, as does the detailed sales analysis you receive at the end of every month, informing you about the rise/decrease in your subscriptions. The plugin has 25 integrated payment gateways, so no external payment gateway incorporation is required. WooCommerce Subscriptions is priced at $199 for 1 site, with support and updates for one year. The license can be renewed at a discounted price for the consecutive years.

Adding Coupons and Discounts

WooCommerce has an in-built interface for adding coupons codes, so you need not install a different plugin for that functionality. To add a Coupon Code, all you have to do is go to WooCommerce -> Coupons -> Add Coupon. Here you can specify the discount type and amount (whether it is a percentage discount or a reduction in the price), make any other changes necessary and hit Publish.

Creating Marketing Campaigns

Marketing your subscription box store takes place in two stages (pre-launch and post-launch) and via two channels (on-website and off-website). It is a good idea to start creating a buzz about your product before the website is even launched. You know your target audience, you know how your product satisfies their need, start capitalizing on it. If your subscription box pushes all the right buttons, pre-launch marketing can even help you raise some capital before you ship your boxes. Post-launch you can aggressively push your beta subscribers towards more permanent memberships, and of course start targeting a wider audience. Speaking of the channels for marketing, the on-website marketing methods include coupons and discounts which we have already discussed. Off-website marketing is more interesting. There are plenty of avenues that can be used today to capture customers’ interest. Social media, email marketing, newsletters, you name it. To avail of these, you can integrate your website with social media platforms and regularly update posts with information about the developments on your website. For email marketing, consider any one mass email sending and management plugins out of the many available.

Adding a Blog

One of the best ways of showing your expertise in the field to your subscribers is via a blog. Several biggies of the subscription box industry maintain their blogs as much as they do their website, and why not? Your blog gives you an opportunity to expand on the various tips you might want to offer your subscribers, post user experiences, and publish notes about developments and updates. The blog is what adds a personal touch to the otherwise potentially sterile website; and blogs are WordPress’s specialty.

Integrating Contact Forms

No matter how self-explanatory your website is, your customers are going to have queries. To this end, it is necessary to incorporate a contact form into your website, which lets users get in touch with you easily and quickly. It is a good idea to embed these forms in easily accessible locations for ease of use of the customer. WordPress has a multitude of contact form plugins, including Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, WPForms, Pirate Forms, and more. Each of these has varying degrees of customization possible and requires varying degrees of technical expertise.

Adding Surveys and Profiles

Surveys and user profiles come in handy by helping you get to know your customer’s reactions after receiving the subscription boxes and can customize their next box accordingly, so that they won’t ever be disappointed. WordPress has some amazing integrations like BuddyPress, which lets you create social profiles of all your subscribers where they can entire their likes, dislikes, preferences, and more which can then be used to create semi-personalized boxes. To conduct surveys, you can consider survey plugins like FSQM Pro or Modal Surveys.

Adding Vendors and Associates

Networking is an integral part of running a subscription box website. You need to constantly interact with vendors, investors, and all related functionaries to keep procuring products for your subscription boxes. This is where a plugin like AffiliateWP is useful. The plugin lets you track all your contacts, referrals, and earning in real-time. This completes the list of features that you require to build a comprehensive subscription box website. As you can see, building the website with WordPress gives you a significant amount of freedom in experimenting with the website.

Setting up Shop

The second part of the website, i.e. the Shop can be built like any other WooCommerce store, adding products and prices to your pages. This is where your subscribers will be coming to purchase full-sized products after they have sampled them in your subscription box. Similar to what we discussed for the subscription website, a few things you need to ensure that your e-store has are:

A Responsive Display
A Vibrant Picture Gallery
Comprehensive Content about your Products
Mobile App Integration
Secure Payment Gateways

WordPress as a CMS platform is extremely flexible and can be used in a variety of ways to create various types of websites. Software options like Cratejoy or Subbly are great in their own right, they give you a working solution for a functioning subscription box website which you can use to hit the ground running. A functional subscription box website is your primary requirement to build a successful business model. It is worth investing time and money in creating a website that gives your business a distinctive vibe and can be managed easily. And hey, there’s always professional help if you need it! What are your suggestions for creating a kick-ass subscription box website? Let us know in the comments below!

6 E-commerce Trends that Will Impact Buyers in 2017

February 13, 2017 by WisdmLabs Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by Christopher Meloni. If you’d like to feature your content here, feel free to get in touch with us.

As the new year comes upon us, we expect and anticipate change in most spheres of our lives, and so it is with e-commerce too. There are new trends and new forms of consumer behavior emerging that need the use of new technologies and tools to be used. Recently, consumers aged 16-25 years have been shaping the e-commerce experience. This age group and the next generation form a large part of the total retail spending power, which calls for newness in the e-commerce world.

Given below are six top trends that will shape the e-commerce scene in 2017:

#1 Artificial Intelligence

In 2017, machine-generated content will evolve under the label of artificial intelligence. AI could take several avatars as it enters the realm of e-commerce content marketing and extends its reach to include automated translation, perhaps foretelling what to write about and offering personalized content experiences.

#2 Contextual Shopping

Here’s one new trend that can go miles this year. This new trend is all about e-commerce platforms tracking how much of a product you have used already and remind you to place an order for the next pack when the present one’s almost finishing. If you do this on Amazon, for instance, all you would do is to press a button to place an order and it is immediately charged to your card that you have set up with them earlier. This convenience can be taken a little forward with shopping sites being able to send you reminders to refill and offers on products that you use regularly.

#3 Increasing Use of Mobile Phones

Searches on mobile phones are more the order of the day than desktops. In 2017, shoppers will prefer to shop online by making just a click to buy. By taking advantage of the fact that people always have their smartphones with them rather than a tablet, the trend to shop more online will grow this year.

#4 Perfect Shopping Experience

When social media networks are used as platforms for e-commerce transactions, the result is social commerce. In 2017, one trend that will become easily apparent is that social commerce will be on the rise because they will help offline shoppers have the same experience as when they shopped at brick and mortar stores. Brands that come with emotional value will have more loyal shoppers and enjoy more revenue earnings. In turn, such consumers will unknowingly become the brand ambassadors of such products.

#5 Easier Returns

In 2017, stores’ return policies will be quick, convenient and zero-hassle. This is a trend to look out for because if a store doesn’t offer these conveniences, shoppers will turn away and go to other shopping sites. If you shop on large sites like Amazon with huge options in each category, making a sale here would be easy because the products here are unique and consumer confidence is high. In this context, if such sites make it difficult for people to return products, shoppers will just turn away from here and shop at sites where the return policy is easy and convenient. Besides, by ensuring easy and quick returns, sites increase their revenue because shoppers spend more confidently, knowing that they can return products with ease. This also helps increase customer loyalty.

#6 The Power of Online Reviews

An indirect manner of garnering popularity for products on e-commerce platforms is to publish online reviews of them by users of these products. Besides, they lead to tons of referral traffic and bring in a constant traffic to the site. This is all set to increase in 2017 as more than 60% of customers regularly read online reviews before buying any product. A prospective buyer will most likely trust a consumer review than a product description. On the other hand, such reviews increase sales on e-commerce sites by about 18%.

Conclusion

With shoppers becoming tech-savvier and wanting to get the best bang for their buck, 2017 will see retailers being forced to adapt to the demands of consumers to buck the competition. Author Bio: Christopher Meloni is a Marketing Manager at Kodematix. Apart from his profession, he also has a passion of blogging and he likes to explore new and innovative methods of marketing within his field. Connect with Christopher on Twitter @tweetmeloni.

mCommerce – Why And How You Can Embrace It

January 17, 2017 by Shehnaz Jabbar Leave a Comment

“Most of us carry at least one device, all the time, everyday. In fact, many of us will feel naked without our smartphone. It’s hardly surprising mobile search engines and mobile commerce are growing dramatically across the globe” – Larry Page

Image Courtesy: Google

Technology is growing swiftly and the explosion of mobile over the last few years has been staggering. Smartphones have become the HUB of our lives and with mobile internet usage working its way into the daily life of smartphone and tablet users, consumers can now access and share information on the go. Hence, it’s not surprising to know why mobile shopping is yielding lots of attraction in vogue. Smartphones are already beginning to overtake Desktops. Though Desktop’s death will be slow—and calling it a “death” is really a misnomer, considering traditional Desktops will probably be around for many years. But there’s clearly been a shift! And this trend doesn’t look like it will be slowing down any time soon. In fact, a recent study by eMarketer, predicts that 25% of all retail eCommerce sales will take place on mobile devices by the end of 2016.

So, What Does This all Mean ?

If a consumer can make an instant service purchase to dig themselves out of a hole, your business must be on-hand to provide that particular service. It’s not just about online sales anymore, and it’s not enough to just maintain a mobile friendly website. Consumers are increasingly looking for integrated, interactive buying experiences, and all indications point to the fact that the digital experience often precedes the physical one. So, just as you put in the time, money, and other resources into the physical experience of buying from your business- regardless of whether you offer products or services- you need to be investing in your digital experience as well. And if you’re reading this, perhaps, you already realize the importance of mobilising your eCommerce or business. There is no room for hesitation. There is nothing that should stop you from serving your mobile visitors. Here’s how you can cash in on this ever-growing, shifting marketplace :-

1. Get Responsive

According to Google, 67% of people are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site, while 61% are eager to leave when they can’t find what they’re looking for. And you definitely don’t want to miss out on hundreds of people accessing your website from their respective mobile phones/tablets. The key, therefore, is to maintain your site’s fluidity, i.e to have your site optimised for devices like smartphones and tablets. Businesses can also take this fluid design concept a step further, by customising content by device to engage with users in ways that match their exact needs of the moment. (Mobile users have different habits than desktop users and even tablet users, after all)

2. Invest in a Mobile App

Flurry finds that 80% of mobile device time is spent in apps, 20% in browser. When mobile is how we are spending our time, and we are ALREADY spending 80% of that mobile time in apps, I believe this demonstrates that consumers indeed want the simplicity and focus that apps provide, rather than the variety and diffusion inherent in websites. Consumers want to be met with a seamless app that makes everything easy, that’s slick and just… works. Moreover with a mobile app, you can achieve results you simply cannot with just a mobile-friendly website. For starters, the app, once downloaded, stays on in the device, while the website doesn’t! Here are the some of the real advantages of creating a mobile app for your business :-

#1 Boosts Interests

When you develop an app, it gives you an easy way to showcase your products or services to your customers and prospective customers. Whenever they want, they can just use it as a one-stop point to get all the info they need. And when you update the content, you give them a glimpse of the new products or services you have on offer. This excites and interests customers and prospects to check out your updates regularly. Developing a mobile app and promoting it among your users is hence extremely beneficial to further your business.

#2 Helps Reinforce Brand and Increase Engagement

Most shoppers cannot resist the temptation of a good deal or a great discount, especially when one stares at their face. And this is exactly what you can do with your mobile app. You can engage your customers with offers and incentives in real time. You can even use their profile information and location to customize your offers and reward them for their loyalty thus helping you build lasting relationships with your customers.

#3 Aids Promotion

Suppose you have an apparel and accessories boutique at a central location. And you know that many prospective customers walk by your store every day. What if you design an app that lures them to your store? Create an offer that is simply too irresistible and notify about it through the app. An easy way to promote your business, apparently, but you will soon reap its benefits. Groupon is an example that does this very well.

#4 Offers Support

While it is often a hassle to receive and respond to a customer support request, the same becomes easy when you have an appropriate app to do it. With a mobile app that can offer instructions and how-to’s, you are sure to win approval. Whether you have a small, medium or big business, going mobile is the only way nowadays. It not only increases your exposure but also helps you connect with on-the-go consumers. People, especially the younger crowd, are constantly using their mobile devices to browse the World Wide Web and if you aren’t there, you are missing out on the opportunities.

3. Go Simple on User Experience

When it comes to mobile commerce you should have one motto: go simple or go home. There’s never been a more important time to create a seamless experience for your customers. Your main goal is to remove any barriers to buying on the go.

Remember on a mobile device every action occurs with a tap instead of a click. Your navigation and design should be built firmly with this in mind. For example, you should make your buttons larger and ensure that they are clearly labelled (think big fonts and simple words). Minimize the steps your customer needs to take to make a transaction (but remember the importance of clearly displaying your security settings). You will then need to conduct user testing across a range of different mobile devices to check for any potential issues that might prevent your customers from buying. Creating a seamless and easy-to-use experience for your customers will mean that they’re more likely to browse for longer and stick around to buy.

4. Get Secure

One of the difficulties of getting mobile commerce right is striking the balance between providing both a secure payment process and creating a seamless and speedy checkout (Android Pay, iPhone Pay services) experience. Not only does it allow users to save their card details so they can pay with minimal clicks, it is also facilitates a secure and reliable payment service. Having a secure payment process (and clearly displaying your security settings to potential buyers) is essential to alleviating any concerns your customers might have over buying on the go. Having a safe, secure and simple payment and checkout options, being transparent about your display settings will help you to gain trust among the customers thus increasing the conversion rate in return.

Conclusion

mCommerce is sweeping the globe. Mobile shoppers are primed for this moment. In fact, if you do not have a mobile offering, then it would mean hindrance to your growth and success. In this fast-paced, noisy world, it’s the one area where your customers are directing their attention. You’ll have a better chance of being successful if you meet your customers there. Ready to deliver better mobile experience in 2017? WisdmLabs would be happy to help. Contact Us to know more.

6 Web Design Trends Taking Over Ecommerce in 2017

January 12, 2017 by Rishabh Leave a Comment

The Information Age has also ushered in an era of exceptional and almost lazy convenience when it comes to buying things you’ve always wanted, all from the comfort of your couch.

Any thing. Any brand.

Yes, we’ve all fallen prey to the pleasures of online shopping, known in corporate circles as e-commerce.

Apart from the big players like Amazon, Alibaba, and more recently, Flipkart, we have millions of online stores selling products we all want at the click of a button. And many of these store look just as beautiful as an actual store of a high end designer brand down the corner. (Apple Stores, anyone?)

Web Design is just as tactful as designing a physical product store. There are trends that catch on to the masses imagination, just like there are trends that are forgotten in an era bygone.

Dwelling on the past aside, I came up with a list a eCommerce Design trends that you’ll most likely come across on any of these millions of e-stores in 2016.

First up on the list is..

Masonry Design

Masonry design was first conceived by David DeSandro as a jQuery plug-in called Masonry. It owes its massive popularity over the years to Pinterest, the first major website to adopt this form of page layout.

What Masonry does to your website is it optimizes the use of space within a web page by eliminating unnecessary gaps. It styles its elements in a grid based fashion, first by vertically stacking them up and proceeding to do the same horizontally, as opposed to CSS floats which does the exact opposite.

It’s akin to a mason piling up bricks on top of each other to build a wall, and hence the name.

Masonry also takes into consideration the size of every individual element and dynamically calculates an appropriate arrangement without wasting space.

Masonry is being swiftly adopted by online stores all over the internet, and, well, this is just the start.

The main reason for this, apart from its beautiful aesthetics, being that it’s incredibly eye catching. Which is exactly what you would want as a seller with a large catalogue of products: catch the customer’s eye.

Also, given that there’s no fixed size for a element, you can have images of products of varying size on top of each other right on a single page, saving user the trouble of having to navigate to another page.

Read : 25 Powerful Examples of Masonry jQuery Web Design

Apart from WordPress, which already houses several Masonry themes, eCommerce giants like Magento and Shopify are witnessing an ever increasing number of themes adopt this approach.

Combine this with design schemes like minimalism and you have a webstore with a rich and an appealing feel that attracts sales by the dozen.

Mobile First Approach

That smartphones have taken over our lives is old news, but did you know that by 2018, mcommerce will account combined global revenue of over 630 Billion U.S Dollars?

That’s about the total revenue generated by whole of ecommerce, as seen in 2013.

No wonder most retailers are now opting for a mobile first design strategy for their websites.

Let’s be clear on one thing: Mobile-first does NOT equate to Responsive Design. Sure, the two have a lot of things in common, the ultimate goal being a smooth and snappy mobile experience. But mobile-first is an altogether different web design strategy, of which Responsive Design is a part.

Traditionally, when a web designer sets about blueprinting his plans for a website, it’s usually from the point of view of a desktop. He then gradually scales down his design as the viewport decreases in size, getting rid of elements that would generally slow down the website (flash, javascripts) when viewed from, say, a smartphone or a tablet.

The end result, for a user browsing on his smartphone, is a plain and dull website that contains just about enough content and elements for the website to be functional.

Hardly impressive and completely lackluster.

A mobile first approach takes this strategy and turns it on the flipside: you start with basing your designs for an optimal mobile experience, taking full advantage of your platform, and then add elements to make your website more robust and noteworthy as you work your way up towards the desktop.

What you get with a mobile first approach is a fantastic UX for your prospective buyers, regardless of the platform. It’s called progressive enhancement.

Read: Mobile First Design- Pros and Cons

And while we’re dealing with the platform that is Mobile, an ever increasing number of users are opting to browse the internet solely via their mobile phones. In fact, global smartphone penetration will rise up to 34%, which is to say that one in three persons in the world will own a smartphone as early as next year!

To sum it all up, if you’re looking to sell online, it’s either go mobile or go home!

Customer Specific Product Listings

Behavioural targeting has been known to double the effectiveness of advertisements; one can only imagine the same will apply to behavioral marketing.

Collecting data pertaining to the browsing habits of an average visitor to your website, and analyzing it, can be a very effective precursor to increasing conversion rates for your site traffic.

One way to do this is implementing a dynamic product listing on your website, one that targets the needs of an individual visitor.

Imagine viewing a product on an online store and seeing a catalogue side listed that specifically interests you, what are your chances of making a successful purchase?

Pretty high, would be my guess.

Another idea that comes into play when you talk about behavioral marketing is the concept of behavioural cross selling.

Let’s break it down for your with an example. Suppose you were browsing for mobile accessories on this website that your friend said offered great deals, but never went through with the purchase. And now, a couple of weeks later you find yourself in dire need of a new smartphone.

Read: An In-depth Analysis of Behavioral Targeting

You log onto your favourite e-store, and are just about hit ‘Buy Now’ on the smartphone of your choice, when you suddenly spot this this awesome accessory that you never bought being offered to you with the smartphone as a part of a lucrative deal. It’s the best of both worlds!

This, my friend, is no mere co-incidence, but a very sophisticated form of intelligent cross selling by the website. The website analyzes the your behavioural data and clubs together a relevant side product to go with your purchase and offers it you as bundled package at a discounted price.

Major players in the ecommerce space like Amazon are already reaping the benefits of this strategy, and so should you!

Minimalist Design

Do you know of this little company called Apple? The one that revolutionized the electronics industry as we know it and all.

Of course you do!

Apart from its outstanding range of products, Apple is also known for its ingenious marketing and advertising skills. Their minimalist approach has been lauded by web designers and marketing professionals alike.

If you’ve keenly paid attention to its advertisements and hoardings over the years, you would have noticed how it sticks to ultra-clean minimalism: a high quality image of its product, lots of white space and closely spaced text in black and grey color scheme. It’s clean and it’s elegant. A perfect reflection of everything Apple stands for.

Their website follows the same approach, and is a prime example of how a minimalist approach can work wonders for your online store, while retaining functionality and design.

The advantages of a minimalist web design are numerous: it’s a marked relief on the eyes when compared to websites over stuffed with loud and brazen design schemes, leads to better conversion rates and of course, let’s you lay more emphasis more than ever on your products!

Take a look at this list of 13 great examples of minimal ecommerce stores and notice how they utilize the scheme to best of their advantage.

Minimal design means you can shift your focus on the functionality of your store.

Out of the many possibilities, as listed eloquently on the the above mentioned list, some that stand out are the use of banners to upsell products, optimizing the process of adding products to cart and checking out, innovative use of icons and of course, instant focus on the product range.

Less is clearly more.

Stand Out Product Landing Pages

Every product has a story of it’s own, and it deserves to be told. Move over dull and drab pages for individual products in the catalogue, 2016 is the year where you’ll see more and more full fashioned landing pages focused on marketing individual products.

While most products have a page dedicated to themselves, it’s mostly just a handful of hi-res images of the product along with the specifications and the selling price. Add to that customer reviews and product ratings and you have every average product page on the web ever.

While these pages do serve the purpose of providing the user with all the relevant information about the product, they hardly do anything about the marketability of it all.

And really suck at converting leads.

There’s nothing worse than portraying an appealing product in an unattractive manner, which is why you ought to focus more on the design and the feel of the page.

Well designed landing pages are equally great at up selling high end products from within your product line up and/or launching new products!

They basically do the same three essential things as the afore-mentioned ‘every product page ever’, but with much more elegance, poise and style.

They don’t sell you the product, they sell the deal. They don’t sell you the features, they sell you the benefits.

They don’t tell you about customer reviews, they share with you their stories.

See the difference? Not yet?

Take a look at these 8 exceptional product landing pages, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Honourable Mentions

With that we round up my list of trending and clever designs you’ll encounter on e-stores this year, but here are a few honorable mentions that will also be spotted while shopping online in 2016.

Less-bulky, Tiled Navigation : For those who can’t find their way amidst a thousand navigation options on most websites. Basically all of us.
Full-Width Content Design: Full width background images and parallax scrolling with well spaced content. These are (and will remain) evergreen.
Material Design: Google has been all about this since the past couple of years. Need I say more?

Did I miss anything major or get any of the above details wrong? I’d love to hear from you! Comment away!