Ecommerce is a great chance for you to increase your B2B sales. Whether you’re just starting out, or strengthening existing relationships, giving customers the chance to buy from you online makes great business sense. Ecommerce has surged in popularity in the last few years and by incorporating it into your business plan, you can ensure you remain at the forefront of your field.

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The 8 myths holding you back

Despite its importance in today’s world, myths abound on what ecommerce entails and who it is for. In order to launch a successful ecommerce business, it’s worth making sure you know exactly what it involves. So let’s look at eight common myths and show why they’re wrong, as well as providing practical advice on what you can do to make ecommerce work for you and your B2B customers.

1. Ecommerce isn’t the right fit for my business

Some companies think that their customer base won’t be interested in buying online. But, at the end of the day, the more options you have for sales, the greater the chance you have of increasing business. Besides, recent statistics show that the ecommerce MENA market is worth around $22 billion. With 82% of businesses in Saudi Arabia and the UAE planning to buy online in the future, it’s clear the demand is high.

2. B2B ecommerce is expensive

This may have been true in the past, but with the advances that have taken place over the last few years, it is no longer the case. Various platforms allow you to create a business website at an affordable price. One of the key ways you can cut costs is by considering an RPA solution. While there is an initial upfront cost, in the long run it reduces the amount of repetitive tasks your employees need to do – saving you time and money.

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3. You need to appeal to everyone

Let’s say you’ve made the decision to create a new website that incorporates options for business customers. You might be tempted to try and appeal to theoretical new buyers out there. However, it’s far better to craft the website around customers you already have. By tailoring it to their needs, you will put them at ease and show them how much you value your continued relationship. Your website doesn’t need to appeal to everyone – just to your ideal customers and intended market.

4. Ecommerce is impersonal

For those who have really honed their communication skills over years of face-to-face interactions, selling online can be a daunting prospect. But ecommerce doesn’t need to be impersonal, or replace human interaction. You can still keep your phone lines open, and, using an automatic call distribution system, send the call to agents familiar with particular clients. 

By having a customer sign-in option, you can provide personalized options on the website too – from unique offers, to easy invoicing.

5. Just by having a website you’ll attract customers

Let’s say you’ve invested the time and money to create a fancy new website. What should you do next? There’s no use having ecommerce options if no one knows they are there. Promotion is key. Tell existing customers about your website during face-to-face sales and via your call centre. Invest in SEO, paid adverts and other marketing campaigns.

6. Social proofs are not required for B2B ecommerce

Reviews and testimonials are just as important for B2B sales as to B2C ones. From the very beginning of your new online journey, create a space for them on your website and encourage them on your social media platforms. Post-purchase emails will encourage customers to leave reviews – and you can use ecommerce automation solutions to send these automatically! Make sure to actively engage with any reviews you recieve, especially negative ones. Acting on feedback is a surefire way to make customers feel heard.

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7. Sales representatives aren’t needed in B2B ecommerce

Sales representatives will always be needed for the familiarity of human interactions they bring. They can continue to act as ambassadors for your company and their role in cross-selling and upselling will continue to be key. As they go about their daily work, sales representatives can promote your online store. You can retrain your team online by using video conference solutions for small business to make sure everyone’s on the same page.

8. Business customers don’t want to deal with technology

Your business buyers are likely to be familiar with online purchases. The leap from doing it for personal items to doing it for their business is not that big. It also has lots of advantages – technology can help repetitive tasks like order management become easier by having information about past orders saved on their online account. 

If you do find your existing customers struggling, you may find it’s worth building a core team of agents that can help walk customers through the process of ordering online. Additionally, consider chatbots or a self-service hub where they can quickly find answers to their questions. This can help turn even the most technophobic users into happy customers.

Conclusion

By setting aside these eight myths, you can focus on ways to make ecommerce work for you. The preceding guidelines will help you to modernise your business and keep your customers happy. With a little reflection and adaptation, you can make some important changes without losing sight of what makes your business so great in the first place. Remember: ecommerce doesn’t mean losing who you are. It just means expanding on it.

-Jenna Bunnell is the Senior Manager for Content Marketing at Dialpad, an AI-incorporated cloud-hosted unified communications system with automated answering services that provides valuable call details for business owners and sales representatives. She is driven and passionate about communicating a brand’s design sensibility and visualizing how content can be presented in creative and comprehensive ways. Here is her LinkedIn.

Paytabs, an award-winning payment solutions company that helps entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises in the MENA region achieve their full potential in online payments – has launched a new platform called, Paytabs market.

Paytabs market is the ideal express payment platform for managing a handful of sellers and vendors in the e-commerce space. It is a centralized platform designed to help companies and businesses of all shapes and sizes manage online payments across multiple branches and stores.

It works best with any business or company that operates more than a single branch or store across different countries and cities in the MENA region. Businesses can now use the platform to manage multiple sellers and vendors and also receive payments from customers.

The way this works is simple. You can use it to create and access multiple vendor profiles within a single dashboard. The business, merchant or company will go through a series of registration and onboarding processes, while the stores and branches will become listed under the same company.

The company or merchant will sign up for the platform and then continues with the onboarding application. Paytabs then reviews the company in need and then approves the application. After that, the platform creates profiles for the merchant or company for each sub-vendor. Now the vendors and branches can start processing their activities while the merchant or company monitors their transactions.

The platform gives the ability to report and manage the group profiles involved for the business. It also offers management capabilities for the user or teams involved.  You can also use the dashboard to view and monitor the activities and transactions of the group profiles within the business.

Paytabs Market offers lots of benefits. Some of these are:

1. It supports multiple currencies and local payment options for the country in which the business operates.
2. It supports online wallets or e-wallets, debit cards, and credit cards.
3. It helps merchants to offer unique and customized invoices to their customers.
4. It supports and manages store accounting and pay-outs.
5. Offers single and bulk invoicing options to businesses.
6. It helps merchants and businesses to operate manual, scheduled and recurring invoices to their customers.
7. It supports Paylinks – a web link that directs customers to a payment page and QR payments for social commerce. It helps to make online payments super simple.
8. It integrates e-commerce plugins from popular providers like Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and many others that suit your business model and online shoppers and enable seamless check-out for customers.

-Abdullah Idris Makarfi is a writer and content marketing strategist for companies in the finance industry. He works with brands offering financial services to create content that increases their website traffic, generate inbound leads and improves their keyword rankings. You can check out some of his work here: https://medium.com/financegeek.

If you’re a new business owner, learning how to pay your employees may seem tricky. After all, you can’t just hand them a wad of cash. You need to document every dollar that passes through your hands to theirs in a legal way.

‍Fortunately, the process isn’t as daunting as it seems.

In this guide, you’ll learn:‍

• Different types of compensation classifications
• How to determine how much to pay an employee
• How to pay an employee in a small business

Different Types of Compensation

There are three primary ways that businesses compensate their employees:

• Hourly wages
• Fixed annual salary
• Commission

Hourly Compensation

Hourly wages are based on an hourly rate. The employee’s pay is determined by how much time they work during a pay period.

For example, you could pay an associate $20 per hour for their work. If they work 80 hours in a pay period, they are owed $1,600.

An hourly wage is ideal for a part-time employee or someone who doesn’t work a consistent schedule, like a restaurant server. Typically, hourly workers are “non-exempt,” which means they qualify for overtime pay.

Salaried Compensation

Salaried employees are paid a fixed annual rate. Each payday they are paid a consistent figure, which is determined by dividing their annual salary by the number of pay periods.

For example, with a $60,000 annual salary and a bi-weekly pay period, an employee will receive $2,307 in pre-tax wages each payday.

Salaries are best for corporate roles in which the employee’s time input is predictable. Salaried employees are typically exempt from receiving overtime pay.

Commission-Based Compensation

You can also pay employees on commission. They would potentially earn a low base rate — which can be hourly or salaried — plus additional pay based on predetermined sales goals.

For example, a salesperson at your company might have a $35,000 base annual salary. On top of that, they also earn a commission based on a percentage of any deals they close.

Commission-based compensation is ideal for sales roles, as it incentivizes employees to meet specific goals.

Refer to the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act) to ensure that you are properly compensating your employees while adhering to minimum wage and overtime laws.

How Much to Pay an Employee

How much you should pay your employees depends on what your competitors are paying for similar roles.

Conduct market research to see what other companies in your field and location pay for the role you’re hiring for, or for the type of work you need to be done.

Online tools like PayScale and Salary crowdsource pay rates from around the country.

How to Pay an Employee as a Small Business

To start paying employees, you’ll need to set up a payroll system.

First, let’s uncover what processing payroll involves. Then, we can explore the best payroll options for small business owners.

1. Collect Paperwork from Your Employees

Have new employees and current employees fill out and submit these tax forms:

• IRS W-4 form for federal tax withholding
• State form (like California’s DE 4)
• Any other state forms required, as well as forms for local withholding
• USCIS 1-9 form for verifying work eligibility

If you plan on paying your employees via direct deposit, you will need to request their banking information as well.

2. Calculate Pre-Tax Pay

Determine your employees’ gross pay for the pay period:

• Hourly employees: Multiply their hourly rate by the number of hours they worked during the pay period.
• Salaried employees: Divide their yearly salary by the number of pay periods in your annual payroll schedule.
• Commission employees: Determine their hourly or salaried base pay. Then, add their commission earnings for that pay period, based on your company’s commission structure.

3. Determine Tax Withholding

Refer to the paperwork you collected from employees to calculate how much of their earnings you need to withhold for (pre-tax and post-tax):

• Federal income taxes
• State income taxes
• Local taxes
• FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act), which comprises Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes, a.k.a. payroll taxes.
• Deductions for benefits such as healthcare, retirement savings plans, flexible spending accounts, and commuter benefits

If applicable, you’ll also want to consider the cost of unemployment insurance, including SUTA (State Unemployment Tax Act) and FUTA (Federal Unemployment Tax Act). Typically, this is not deducted from employees but paid on the employer side.

4. How to Pay an Employee: Calculate Net Pay

You’ve determined your employees’ gross pay and how much to withhold from their paycheck in taxes. Calculate their net pay by subtracting the withheld amount from their gross pay.

For example, if an employee’s gross pay for the pay period is $2,500 and $680 needs to be withheld for taxes, the employee receives a payment of $1,820 on payday.

5. Distribute Paychecks to Your Employees

Now it’s time to pay your employees the net pay they are owed. Checks and direct deposits are the most popular ways to pay an employee.

If you use direct deposit, refer to the bank information your employees gave you. Alternatively, you can have your bank or payroll provider cut checks for employees.

6. File Taxes

You are responsible for paying taxes on behalf of your W-2 employees. Take the portion of the employee’s paycheck that has been withheld (determined in step three) and distribute those funds to the proper places. Specifically, file taxes with the IRS, your state’s tax collection agency, and (if applicable) your municipality’s tax collection agency. Note that some taxes are paid only by the employer.

7. Pay Into Benefits

Not all withheld pay will go to the government. Depending on your company, a portion may go toward employee benefits.

This might include contributions toward:

• Health insurance
• Retirement
• Commuter benefits
• Health savings accounts
• Flexible spending accounts

If you offer any employee benefits program, make a payment on behalf of your employees into the relevant accounts.

8. Update Payroll Records

You’ll need to keep your payroll records for several years in case of an audit. Keep your payroll register up to date, organized, and accessible. Include information about who got paid, how much they worked, how much they were paid, and what taxes were withheld.

How to Pay an Employee: Best Payroll Solution for Small Businesses

Payroll sounds complicated, doesn’t it? How do small business owners handle it?

Enterprise-level businesses have in-house teams dedicated to paying employees. Small businesses may not be able to afford a payroll specialist or even have enough people on the payroll to warrant the expense.

However, even one-person businesses are responsible for labor law compliance and tax withholding in most cases.

Using payroll software is the best way to pay employees in a small business. It’s cost- and time-effective. In fact, payroll software automates each step of the detailed payroll process we just covered, including distributing payments.

Final Thoughts: How to Pay an Employee in a Small Business

There’s a lot to know when it comes to paying your staff.

First, you must determine how much they’ll make and how you’ll pay them. Then, you have to determine whether your staffs are W-2 employees or 1099 contractors to figure out whether you are responsible for withholding their taxes. Finally, you must run payroll correctly (and on a regular schedule) to make sure everyone is happy on payday.

This article was contributed by Maddy Osman and originally posted on Hourly.io

-Maddy Osman is an SEO Content Strategist who writes creative and relevant content for businesses.” Please see the attached file for her photo. We would just like to request proper attribution, along with a canonical tag, or a do-follow link redirecting to the original article:
“This article first from hourly.io has been posted with permission.”
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Only the top 1% of golfers play on the professional circuit and earn millions. But if you have a passion for golf, there’s no reason you can’t use it to earn money online and gain financial freedom!
Sharing your love for the sport and your golfing expertise online could be the perfect way to build a successful business.
If you like the idea of using your golfing skills to create a money-making e-commerce store and gain financial freedom, then here are the steps you should take.

Do Your Research

There are a number of niches in the online golf market. However, take some time to do your research and identify which niche you want to go into.

You may want to specialize in golf equipment for left-handed players or women. Maybe you want to focus on apparel, golf gear in general, or discounted equipment. You could also look at creating a specialized market by providing advice on driving, chipping, and putting for beginners.

While you’re doing your research, you’ll also be discovering your target market. This will help you to create a go-to-market strategy that’s effective from the start.

Choosing The Right Platform

Choosing the right platform is critical to the success of your online business. There are a variety of platforms—like Shopify, Etsy, or BigCommerce—and they all offer different benefits, like SEO or multichannel functionality.

Ideally, you want to choose a platform that will help you manage the start-up of your web store and provide customized payment solutions while remaining scalable and flexible.

Make sure that when your e-commerce store’s pages load, it does so quickly. You can also check what the ranking data is on the platforms that you’re looking at, on AHREFS.

This will help you to make an informed decision on which platform would best suit your business needs.

Create Your Online Store

Now you get to have some fun creating your online store. The website needs to be engaging and attractive to potential clients.

Spend time on the “About Us” page and make sure that the potential buyers know exactly what you can offer them. If you have “social proof”, be sure to include that on your website too.

Offer a payment solution that’s user-friendly, so that customers can make their purchases easily. Make sure that your web store is mobile-friendly too, as this will allow your customers to purchase a golf GPS, golf bag, or set of clubs easily on-the-go.

Digital Products

Open up a new avenue to generate revenue by including digital products. You could look at selling tickets to golf tournaments, golf-related books, or offering online golf tips or coaching lessons.

Digital products allow you to create a passive income by essentially selling the same product again and again. All you’d need to do is update your digital products. The best benefit is that there’s no need to store stock or pay for shipping.

Conclusion

Playing professional golf may not be for everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a living from your love for golf. If you’re looking for financial freedom, a golfing e-commerce store is ideal. There are low start-up costs and the potential to earn passive income by including digital products.

Whatever niche you decide to go into, the work you put into your e-commerce golf store will be worth it when you can earn money from your passion.

-Jordan Fuller is a retired golfer, mentor, coach, and writer. He writes for his own golf site, where he shares some tips and tricks about golf.

As technology continues to advance, financial sectors and fintech are very receptive as they seek to improve service delivery and boost efficiency. With numerous programming languages to choose from, making the right choice for your business can be challenging. While some programming languages are more popular than others, the best language eventually boils down to your business needs.PayTabs

Do remember that every programming language can deliver desired results if you apply it accordingly. With numerous programs and boot camps offering programming training, you can utilize your GI benefits to learn code if you are a retired service member. Here are the best programming languages to consider for fintech.

1. Python

Python is one of the oldest and most popular languages for fintech. The simplicity and flexibility of its syntax make it beginner-friendly as it is easy to learn. Not only does it come with a wide array of libraries, but it is also highly scalable due to its consistency and interactive abilities. Since it allows type checking during code execution, it reduces the time you spend testing code.

You can use Python for web development, data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence applications. In fintech, it is applicable in risk and trade management, as well as pricing. It is, therefore, ideal for hedge funds, insurance, and investment banks.

2. C++

If you are looking for speed and efficiency, C++ is the perfect fit. It is great for operations that require advanced computations, which makes it ideal for quantitative analysis and finance. C++ is efficient as it allows code reusability. Therefore, you can use it when building complex projects.

The rich library gives you access to all the tools you need for your tasks and operations. Although it allows simultaneous operations fast, C++ is complex. It is, therefore, not ideal for beginners. Since it may also have security issues, it is advisable to use C++ in specific niches.

3. Java

Java Programming language can handle large amounts of data and offers impeccable security, making it ideal for fintech.  The security abilities of Java allow for easy isolation of suspicious code and virtual machines. It is also stable and versatile, meaning it can run on any platform as it works on virtual environments. You can change devices from web to mobile without necessarily having to switch code.

Java programming language is popular with banks as they handle sensitive information that requires highly secure systems. Programmers working on long-term projects can use Java as it also allows you to detect errors during the compilation stage. For big enterprises that want reliable and stable software, Java is the best option.

4. Scala

Scala is a functional and object-oriented programming language that addresses Java’s inadequacies, such as concurrency issues. It is a widely-used language in financial technology, especially in areas such as data architecture and finance platforms based on the cloud. Since it has concurrent support and immutable collection, it works well for data-intensive applications.

Although Scala is primarily a JVM language, you can compile it to other representations such as JavaScript and Native Code. With continuous improvements, Scala is simple, more stable, and predictable. Compared to other languages like Kotlin, Scala performs better in data-intensive applications and stream processing. One of the notable platforms that use Scala is PayPal.

5. Ruby

Ruby has all the ideal characteristics and features necessary for fast development. Although it may not be the most popular language in the fintech industry, it is highly effective and combines the efficient qualities of other technologies such as Pearl and Lisp. Ruby’s powerful framework allows for the development of scalable apps and the writing of highly secure codes. It also has numerous built-in plug-ins and libraries. Therefore, you can achieve time efficiency as you don’t have to write lines of code.

Ruby’s qualities make it a cost effective programming language as the free plug-ins and secure code allows for fast and cheap development.  You can use Ruby to develop financial technology such as digital payment systems and e-wallets for e-commerce. You can also build financial and analytical dashboards, as well as asset management systems.

6. SQL

SQL, also known as Structured Query Language, SQL is a crucial language for database operations. It is useful in storing, retrieving, and manipulating data. In finance, SQL makes it possible to analyze data, establish patterns and make future predictions. It is also an indispensable language for handling data with multiple variables and relationships.

Since most data in the financial sector have complex relationships, SQL makes it easy to manage it. With the increase in data science and analysis, SQL has grown in popularity. Note that SQL is ideal for small databases as it may not work well with large expansive databases.

The right financial technology is essential for any successful project, and the above programming languages can help you achieve efficiency in the finance sector. If you want to venture into the development of financial apps and systems, you can learn to code using your GI benefits and get the best out of each language.

-Angela Martin: 30-something data enthusiast who enjoys statistics, yoga, running and using technology to get insights from large amounts of data.
Currently has been working in a data-related field for 6 years and her favorite animals are cats.