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How to Attract Millennial Shoppers to Your Online Store

Category: Ecommerce

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How-to-Attract-Millennial-Shoppers-to-Your-Online-Store

Millennial customers have transformed the modern shopping scene in dramatic ways. This is the generation that has witnessed rapid technological development while growing up and is extremely comfortable using the latest digital innovations. So, to ensure that your online business thrives, it is important that you prepare your strategies keeping these millennial customers in mind.Why? Well, this generation shops for almost everything online, from clothes and books to movie tickets, insurance and even expensive jewelry. Now, if you are worried that this task might be easier said than done, the simple tricks mentioned here can help you out.By following these, you can reel in more millennial shoppers, build a solid customer base,and realize more profits in no time.

Personalize the Experience: Millennial shoppers believe in unique experiences and ultimate convenience. Therefore, it is important that your online store is able to provide them a unique ambiance. The overall user experience needs to be personalized in a holistic manner. In order to implement the process, you should define your target market first. Your website design, your curated items and customer accounts should be designed accordingly. You can further enhance the experience by displaying your client’s name when they login to your site. It is also recommended that you send the promotional mails directly addressing the clients by their names, thus making the experience more personal to them. The content and graphics in such mails should also be personalized as much as possible.

Use Multichannel Strategy: While millennial shoppers are super comfortable with technology, it is only natural that they will not stick to one particular channel. In order to capture their interest and keep them engaged, it is important that your online business adopts a multichannel strategy. In simple terms, multichannel strategy incorporates both marketplace and digital marketing strategies. You should also optimize your website for different screen sizes, ranging from tiny phones to big screen computers. As more and more people are moving towards mobile shopping, your website should be tweaked to suit handheld screens. Further, your website should be easy to load even on slower networks. You should also work on your supply chain and it should be properly integrated with your online and offline stores.

Invest in Social Media: Most online shoppers throng to social media platforms before making any purchase. They do it to gather more information, seek advice and to find a connection with the business in question. Therefore, it is important that you bolster your online media presence. It will help you build your brand value as well as engage your target market. Social media can also be used for addressing various issues faced by your clients and for disseminating important information. Today, there are several social media sites available such as Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter,etc. You should ensure that you have a comprehensive strategy regarding the use of social media, so that all these platforms provide a cohesive image of your business.

Enhance User Experience: Millennial customers put a premium on experience, and so, you need to ensure that your business is capable of providing a holistic ambiance to them. The strategy for ensuring customer satisfaction needs to be comprehensive so that various facets of the business are involved. It may start with your online store layout where the color scheme, placement of items and curation is done with the aim of enhancing user experience. Another important aspect of excellent user experience is the integration of different services. The payment system should be simple and secure while the cart checkout system needs to be intuitive. Overall, different systems running the business should work in tandem, to ensure that the customers get a seamless experience.

Be Dynamic: Millennial shoppers quickly adapt to changes and are highly dynamic. In order to keep them interested, it is important that your online business practices the same formula. For example, you can reset your product line frequently to offer new items to your clients. You may also seek to tweak your website design to keep it looking fresh and attractive. However, you should also ensure that such frequent changes do not change the basic structure of your business. Also, these changes need to be intuitive, to help customers navigate through them easily.

To conclude, the millennial generation can prove to be an excellent customer base, provided your business is able to adopt dynamic practices to suit their changing requirements. With the above guidelines though, you can make your online store more suitable for millennial shoppers without wasting much time.

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5 Ecommerce Trends That You Need to Know in 2020

Ecommerce has come a long way since its beginning in the late last century. In the present era, most of the offline businesses have their online iterations live. With new technologies coming up and more and more people adopting the latest trends, eCommerce is not only here to stay but is bound to grow by leaps. The segment also sees frequent changes and new trends. So, here are some new concepts making waves in the eCommerce sector that you need to know to remain updated:

  • Mobile Ecommerce is on the Rise: While eCommerce in general is on the rise, mobile eCommerce has outpaced the general trend. According to a number of studies done on this topic, the growth in revenue generated through sales made from mobile devices have increased 15 percent since 2016. It is also estimated that 73 percent of the entire eCommerce transactions will be carried out on mobile devices. This trend is mainly fueled by millenials and gen Z. In order to fully exploit the opportunities thrown open by this trend, it is important to ensure that your business is mobile friendly. You can either optimize your website for mobile browsing or can develop a standalone app for this purpose. Whichever way you choose, the proliferation of mobile eCommerce will help you expand your market.
  • Social Media to the Rescue: As more and more people alter their shopping habits for eCommerce, the role of social media is becoming vital. Social media is not only important for promoting products and services of your business but is also required for engaging your clients. Through optimal use of social media, a business can create a loyal customer base and maintain rapport with them. Further, you may also engage the services of social media influencers which may help you in getting your products discovered by hitherto untapped markets. Social media channels employ different formats ranging from simple texts to videos, thereby providing your business with a wide range of choices.
  • Artificial Intelligence & Customer Care: Another big trend in eCommerce is related to the incorporation of artificial intelligence or AI. While AI is being used to manage various aspects of online businesses, it is particularly useful for addressing customer grievances and maintaining client relations. AI assistance and chatbots have revolutionized the way online businesses interact with their client base. These bots may be used for attending to customer inquiries and for handling complaints. Further, there is also ample scope of customizing these services to meet individual requirements. Clients are also becoming accustomed to interacting with these AI-enabled customer care personnel.
  • Personalization: In order to survive intense competition and prosper, online businesses are now personalizing their offerings. With this approach, the customers are made to feel more connected to the business as the products and services are modified to meet their specific demands. Personalization helps in gaining new customers while also helping in retaining the older ones. The main aim of personalization is to increase the stickiness so that the client keeps coming back to the business in future. Apart from customizing the products and services, the online businesses also seek to personalize their marketing and advertising messages to gain maximum advantage.
  • Social Concerns to the Fore: Ecommerce is recognizing its social and environmental responsibilities as well. The rise of green consumerism is the main force behind this change. Online businesses are now working towards more sustainable practices and products. Some of the main steps in this direction are to source materials from ethically proven sources and cutting down on plastic packaging, etc. Additionally, eCommerce is also working towards offering more environment-friendly products. The emphasis is on ensuring that the products use minimal chemicals which may harm the environment. These green products generally command premium pricing. However, businesses are now looking for the ways these products and services may be made accessible to and affordable for the masses.

While the above-mentioned trends are quite prominent, the other developments in this segment are also noticeable. Ecommerce is now experiencing resurgence in QR code payment and the use of augmented reality. It is important for online businesses to be aware of these trends and adapt accordingly.

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Dynamic Ads for eCommerce

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Dynamic Product Ads for eCommerce

Online advertising is a highly vibrant concept and is constantly undergoing drastic changes. It is highly challenging to draw customers’ attention and then to keep them engaged. Facebook dynamic ads are one of the most powerful marketing tools available today. Despite their unique features, these ads are not difficult to master. So here are some of the tips to get you started with Facebook dynamic ads.

What are Facebook Dynamic Product Ads?

Facebook is constantly innovating when it comes to product ads on its pages. The social media site has a well diversified product portfolio which contains different types of ad formats to suit different requirements. Its latest offering is dynamic product ads which are highly amenable to personalization, making them more effective. As per the definition given by Facebook itself, dynamic ads eliminate the need to create individual ads for different products. Instead, you are just required to provide a template and the data and images from your feed are automatically incorporated.

How to Set it Up?

Dynamic ads are highly impressive but fortunately, the task of setting them up is not that daunting. With a couple of directives, you can easily install your own dynamic ad mechanism. However, before you embark upon this journey, you need to make sure you have your basics down i.e. you already have a Facebook Page, a Facebook ad account and a Business Manager account.

Install Facebook Pixel: Before getting started with dynamic ads, you have to make sure that you have properly installed Facebook Pixel, which is a small code which is required to be embedded in the website. Alternatively, you can opt for installing Facebook SDK, which is highly useful for tracking the performance of the ads and providing analytics. However, if you are using any compatible eCommerce platform such as BigCommerce or Shopify, then you are not required to alter your code for creating Facebook Pixel. Instead, you can simply use a third party module to install Pixel.

Designing Product Catalog: For running dynamic Facebook ads, you are required to prepare a detailed product portfolio. This portfolio should contain vital information such as item description, pricing and pictures. A well-designed catalog is highly important as it acts as a repository of the product information. Your data feed should contain all the information which you want to be included in the ads. You can also create multiple data feeds.

Create Product Sets: For making dynamic ads more productive, you can go for creating product sets. This exercise is useful ensuring that your dynamic ads are more targeted and result in better cross sells and up sells. You can use different criterions such as availability, category, brand or product type. The ideal way is to create sets with broad themes as very narrowly defined parameters may lead to sparse products in each category. Facebook dynamic ads allow up to 5 custom columns for adding more data.

Define Target Market: Now is the time to identify the market segments you are looking to capture with your dynamic ads. The retargeting option allows you to focus on a range of visitors such as people who added items to cart but did not actually purchase them. You can also cater to specific customers to up sell or cross sell your products. Another interesting option is to go for custom combination where you can create your own filters to better meet your business’s requirements. You can also choose to broaden your horizons and go for broad audience targeting by opening up your products to newer market segments.

Create an Ad Template: Now comes the final stage of creating the ad template. For this purpose, you need to head to the Ads Manager option and click on Create and choose Catalog Sales. The process designed by Facebook for creating an ad template is highly intuitive. You can use your product catalog for populating various fields. There is also the provision of using dynamic placeholders to let you control the content.

Once your dynamic ad is live, it is important to keep track of its performance. You can accordingly change various parameters of ads to make them more suitable for your business and business objectives.

How to setup your e-commerce store using Payshop

How to setup your e-commerce store using Payshop

We are all aware that e-stores are more than just an add-on in today’s world. They are now a necessity. E-stores are fast becoming the preferred choice for buyers to make purchases. With their online presence, e-stores are easily searchable through most search engines, thus enabling the retailer to reach a wider customer base.

Here we present to you Payshop, a single-stop resource for all your e-retailing needs. Payshop gives you access to a multitude of templates, effective SEO tools, and everything else you need to run your e-commerce store.

While brick and mortar stores have limitations when it comes to timing, e-stores are available all the time. So buyers can make purchases at their leisure. Additionally, the detailed descriptions provided on e-stores make it easier for buyers to make purchase decisions quickly, while online payment platforms make the transactions much simpler.

Payshop, through Expandcart software, provides you with a volley of highly responsive and beautifully designed templates to start up an online store. Another one, Xcart software, is a type of PCI-DSS compliant software that gives you the freedom to operate flawlessly on your personal server. Xcart helps your e-store integrate seamlessly with the most popular payment gateways.

So, if you are a retailer without an e-store, Payshop can help you create one with ease.

Find templates

A good e-store requires a good template. The very first thing that a prospective buyer notices is how your e-store makes them feel. A template can tell a lot about a business and can help build trust and confidence in buyers. At Payshop, you are able to find pre-designed templates for your web-store. You can find the template that is the best possible fit for your business without the hassle of having someone create a template for you. The choices are all laid out, all you need to do is pick one and it’s yours.

SEO tools

It is common knowledge now that search engine optimization is vital for the growth of a business with an online presence. Where your store appears on a search engine, has a huge role to play in its growth and expansion. Payshop provides you with a myriad of SEO solutions to fit your business needs. Using these simple tools and effective strategies, you can help your business grow by leaps and bounds.

One-time licensing fee

Most e-commerce providers, which are supposedly ‘free’, charge you heavy hidden fees when it comes to transactions or a monthly subscription. With Payshop, you needn’t worry about being duped. Payshop charges you a one-time licensing fee with no hidden costs which will sneak up on you in the future. It’s a one-time investment for a lifetime of worry-free e-retailing.

Social media and marketing campaigns

In order to enable any e-store to be heard over the cacophony of loud online retailers trying to sell their wares, it is vital to create unique and strategic marketing and social media campaigns. Marketing for an e-retailing site must be aggressive if you are aiming to outrun the competition.

A business must aim to not only make its campaigns unique but also to be able to touch an emotional chord with its buyers. Payshop gives you the ability to design and run social media and marketing campaigns that will make the presence of your e-store known by the world.

Set up your e-shop with Payshop

People want to be able to do things quickly and with ease. E-retailing is now the major choice of buyers for making any kind of purchase. For the growth and survival of your business, creating and maintaining an e-store is a necessity. E-retailing enables you not only to maintain your older client base but also to grow and expand, and reach out to a whole new section of people. It allows your business to reach places way beyond what you could have ever imagined.

An online business needs to have an online payment gateway to operate. Payshop supports seamless integration of a payment gateway into your e-store. By creating an e-store using Payshop, you will be able to reach out to a worldwide audience.

Startups living in uncertain times?

Startups living in uncertain times?It goes without saying that startups have transformed how we interact with the world around us in the past few years. If you’ve traveled to any of the world’s major cities in, say, 2010, you would have likely checked into a hotel and hailed a taxi cab to take you there. Today, you can expect greater convenience, value for money and, possibly, a chance to meet locals at a click of a button through Airbnb and Uber.

The trend carries on as I type this blog entry. Uber, an established company by now, is being made to tweak its operations to keep newcomers like Bird, which now rent scooters as an affordable, convenient and reliable means of transportation, from eating into their market share. Also consider how corporate giants such as HBO, Amazon and Disney are being compelled to launch their own streaming services to reclaim their market shares from the likes of Netflix and Hulu.

But the truth is that startups can only flourish in healthy economies. Successful startup enterprises, after all, reflect harmonious matchmaking between entrepreneurial creativity and innovation and an optimistic outlook by investors. Perhaps it’s within our nature as humans to be creative and problem-solve, so the entrepreneurial spirit will probably never flag. But access to capital can be a problem. Even the most revolutionary business ideas of our time couldn’t have seen the light of day without funding.

There are many scenarios that can affect access to capital. How business-friendly is the economy? Are investors and lenders bogged down with red tape? Are they optimistic about the prospects of yielding a profit? Might they be concerned about consumer purchasing power if it’s not rising? Or maybe regard the market as saturated in a given sector? Endless possibilities can influence the outlook of investors and lenders.

One scenario that can surely affect startups’ access to capital is a financial crisis. Despite the inspiring success stories I’ve mentioned above, there is evidence that shows that potential for startups to succeed in the US has not yet fully recovered to its former pre-crisis levels in terms of births and deaths of startups, job creation and, perhaps most importantly, commercial lending. Fast-forward to 2018, and you’ll find the business press making noise about an upcoming and potentially deeper recession. Gloomy headlines such as “another economic downturn is just a matter of time” and “monetary policy for the next recession” can be found in the Economist and the Financial Times. JPMorgan Chase has even put a date on when it expects the bad news: 2020.

If the recession of 2008 is any guide, we know that we can’t underestimate how connected the GCC markets are to the fortunes of Wall Street: the US market, as the world’s biggest and most important, had a direct impact on commodity markets globally, which in turn affected GCC financial markets and government revenues. So the question for us becomes: how will we cope if a new crisis befalls us? Can we prepare any contingencies to keep new startups connected to their lifeline? Crisis or not, a lot can be said about the ability of startups to address all sorts of challenges, including the problem of access to capital. Just ask the people behind Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Beyond that, the role of pro-business institutions like Bahrain’s Tamkeen will be key in helping startups to rise and, if the doomsayers are correct, survive the winter of another recession on Wall Street.

About the author

Mahmood Almahmood is a translator and editor at a national news service. Trained in the social sciences and the arts, he enjoys staying abreast of the business press and analyzing its trends.