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COVID-19: Top Tips for Ecommerce Shopping and Feeds

Tag: ecommerce

PayTabs
Mohab Covid19 Resources 0

COVID-19-Top-Tips-for-Ecommerce-Shopping-and-Feeds

The onslaught of COVID 19 has changed the shopping landscape dramatically. Its impact on e-commerce and online shopping has also been intense. However, it is important that businesses understand the overall effect and devise appropriate strategies to deal with the situation. To make sure that your business is in a position to provide the best possible services during this difficult time, there are certain guidelines you can follow. These pointers will also help you in maintaining the liquidity and profitability of your business.

  • Figure out the impact: In order to design an appropriate strategy, it is important to figure out the areas which are going to be impacted by the pandemic. Further, it is also important to quantify the impact, so that you are fully aware of the changes. Depending on the type of your business, you may experience a drop in your website traffic. However, you should endeavor to measure the drop exactly, or at least have an approximate idea. Once these areas have been identified, the next step is to take mitigating actions to minimize the negative impact. This step will also allow you to identify your critical resources and ensure their proper utilization.
  • Streamline your costs: The pandemic has stalled the pace of growth for the e-commerce landscape, and is likely to have a negative impact on revenue and profit margins. During such times, it is important that you cut down your costs to preserve your financial resources. This is also the best time to evaluate your plans such as marketing budgets etc. You may decide to suspend some of the activities until things get back to normal. In other cases, you may find some expenses to be completely superfluous, and decide to eliminate them completely. You may also want to automate various operations, leading to more efficiency and reduction in cost.
  • Manage your resources: Apart from planning your expenses, you should plan about your resources as well. Identify the assets which are most resource-incentive. For example, maintaining an inventory calls for substantial investment, and therefore, you may want to carry out ABC analysis of the items lying with you. With this analysis, you can identify the items which are most critical for your business. You may want to reduce your investment in non-critical items while focusing on the important ones. Similarly, you may want to renegotiate the terms and conditions with your debtors, so as to speed up the cash flow and boost your liquidity. You may also carry out a similar process with your creditors to renegotiate your contract.
  • Focus on revenue: The long lockdown is indeed going to have a negative impact on the revenues of most businesses. However, such a negative effect is not going to be equal for all. In fact, for some businesses, this calamity may lead to higher revenues. In this scenario, you may want to figure out alternative revenue streams for your business. You may want to expand your business into health-related areas, and by doing this, you will not only be able to seek new revenue streams, but also provide essential services to the society. For example, you may add items such as face masks, gloves etc. to your inventory.
  • Implement and track metrics: You can use this slack time to try out various marketing and analytics strategies. You can implement new metrics which may help you in tracking your business activities in an efficient manner. Most of these metrics are real time and may help you in taking timely and prompt decisions. The metrics regarding site visit and sales value are especially helpful. Additionally, you may also want to keep an eye on the competition to see how they are faring in this environment. Some of the most prominent metrics you need to look out for are Benchmark CPC and Benchmark CTR. Another important area for analysis is the price competitiveness, where metrics such as benchmark product price difference may be used.

COVID 19 has presented e-commerce businesses with an unprecedented situation. While the environment is unpredictable, you can successfully navigate through this situation with the appropriate tools and intensive planning. So, try and use this downtime for planning your future course of action.

4 years ago
PayTabs
Mohab Partners & Partnerships 0

PayTabs-Collaborates-with-Zbooni-to-facilitate-micro-payments

PayTabs is enhancing its portfolio of solutions to provide more relevant and sustainable services to clients during these exceptional times. The company’s collaboration with Zbooni will now allow PayTabs to offer micro payment solutions to small businesses units that traditionally operate without online presence. Through this tie up, PayTabs seeks to provide entrepreneurs and home based businesses such as bakers, designers, consultants, tailors, craftsmen and women the ability to carry out their business operations in safe manner by continuing to sell on social media platforms and then receiving payments seamlessly and conveniently.

In support of small businesses and in line with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s leadership initiatives during this unique situation, PayTabs is also offering those who sign up for the service zero set up fees or transaction fees until 15 June 2020. This is with the objective of protecting people and reducing the burden on families by empowering SMB’s to  setup their accounts within hours on the Zbooni platform and sell their products through any social media channel.

Let’s have a look at this tie up to see how these new services can help you manage your business in the current scenario. This service is mainly targeted on the businesses offering services such as baking, designing, tailoring, art & fitness, consultation and e-tailing home-made crafts.

What Does Zbooni Do?

Zbooni is a micro payment platform which also offers several user-friendly features for aiding offline as well as online businesses. One of the most prominent USPs of Zbooni is its mobile invoicing service. With the help of its dedicated app, any business can start accepting card payments, including debit cards and credit cards. Its holistic portfolio of services lets you create your online store in a matter of an hour. However, Zbooni goes even further as you do not necessarily need to have online presence to start using its services. Its features are highly applicable to offline businesses as well.

One Stop App: Zbooni offers you a centralized interface to manage your business’s cash flow in an intuitive and efficient manner. Its app is mainly designed to let the businesses accept payments from anywhere. You can manage your cash inflow by generating invoices and sending them through a wide range of channels including WhatsApp and other messaging services. Subsequently, your clients also get the pick of the payment options. They can clear their bills through any major card or even by using Mada. Zbooni lets you collect your dues fast and efficiently.

Easy Sign Up & Documentation Process: Customers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can easily set up a Zbooni account by signing up at PayTabs.com/sign_up_zbooni and submitting a couple of documents. The documents required while signing up are as follows:

  • Two Personal IDs (Passport & Local ID) of the authorized signatory of the merchant
  • Personal IDs of Partner/ Shareholder/ Ultimate Beneficiary holding over 10% of the shares in the company
  • Business/ Trade License issued by government or Freelancing Official License (for KSA merchants) matching website business activity.
  • Last 3 months bank statements or a bank letter in case the account is new. Bank account should be under the company name
  • Proof of address (rent contract, electricity bill, mobile bill, bank statement, Wasel etc.)
  • Memorandum of Association/ Shareholder Registry

Mobile Payments: with the massive increase in mobile technology, it is important that your business possesses the ability to process mobile payments. Zbooni is optimally designed to do just that for your business. Clients are not even required to have Zbooni app installed on their phones to make the payments. can simply send them a link through a browser which they can click to complete the payment process. The money is then deposited in your wallet and is transferred to your bank account and PayTabs will now facilitate the process.

Intuitive Operations: Zbooni has made it a lot easier for you to process your payments. The process followed by Zbooni is highly intuitive and convenient to follow. The process starts with creating an account using the app. After this, the business is required to create an order and generate an invoice. Afterward, you simply have to send the link to your clients. Once they confirm the order they are guided through the payment process. Zbooni ensures that the entire process is quick and easy both for you and your clients.

Flat Fee Structure: With Zboomi you do not need to worry about complex fee structures. Zboomi charges a flat fee, which makes it easier for you to keep track of your expenses. Unlike staggered fee structure where your payments pile up with increase in your volume, the expenses ratio remains flat with Zboomi option. The amount is automatically deducted from successful transactions, offering you convenience. There are no hidden costs, no maintenance fee and no set up costs. Its flat structure and simplified process allows all kinds of business including the small ones to use this service. Now, you do not need to use your precious resources for unnecessary paper work.

And now you can avail one-time special offer for small businesses in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In order to help businesses in this difficult time, PayTabs has designed a special pricing plan, which is valid until June 15th, 2020. Under this plan, the eligible businesses are not required to pay any transaction fees, set up fees or monthly fees. Further, the businesses are also exempted from any minimum volume requirement. This special offer is only available to new Zbooni customers and existing PayTabs customers in KSA.

4 years ago
PayTabs
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Affiliate-Marketing-How-it-Transforms-Your-Ecommerce-Business

Affiliate marketing has proven its worth in promoting businesses. This concept is now being applied to online endeavors as well. Affiliate marketing involves using the brute force of individuals or companies to sell the products endorsed by them. Influencers may use various media such as videos, mobiles, social media and blog for promoting the products and services. These affiliates earn commissions as and when a person buys the products promoted by them. Here are some of the ways you can use this trend for promoting your e-commerce business. 

  1. Create a Niche Market: Affiliate marketing can be effectively used for creating a niche market for your business. This is done by increasing customer stickiness and loyalty. If you are using a social media celebrity as your endorser then they are likely to bring their fan following. Such followers generally are easily convertible into loyal patrons for the promoted products. It also helps you in creating a particularly targeted image of your product and business. This feature is especially helpful if you are introducing a novel product in the market.  
  2. Indirect Sales Promotion: Affiliate marketing can help you build your own sales promotion team without incurring hefty expenditures. With this indirect sales team, you can reap the benefits of an actual sales team and then some more. Affiliate marketing has proven to be highly successful in boosting the traffic to targeted websites. This in turn is helpful in expanding the scope of your marketing and adding to the revenue. Apart from generating higher traffic, affiliate marketing is helpful in improving the quality of traffic as well. This type of targeted promotion improves the conversion, offering you better bang for your advertising buck. Further, it is also more convenient to customize and alter affiliate marketing tools to suit the ever changing requirements of online businesses.  
  3. Economical: One of the most appealing features of affiliate marketing is its economy. Affiliate marketing does not require hefty outlay of funds as it does not require funding massive ad campaigns. It is also relatively simple to start and operate. Such marketing technique is highly concentrated thus ensures that you are able to tap your target market without spending an exorbitant amount of money. Affiliate marketing requires payment only when the sale is generated. This ensures that such projects have high return on investment in comparison to the investment made in traditional marketing channels. You can also design your commission tier system in such a way so as to ensure that each penny works the hardest for your brand. 
  4. Harness User Generated Content:  Employing user generated content for promotional purpose is amongst one of the hottest trends in the e-commerce segment. Affiliate marketing offers you ample opportunities to integrate user generated content to your sales promotion material. The scope of user generated content is ever increasing as more and more people rely upon social media for getting information about the products. These online information portals also provide reviews of the products which are then used by potential customers for making their purchase decisions. User generated content is important as it is a highly economical way of spreading awareness about your products and offerings.  However, you should be proactive to maintain appropriate quality of user generated content. 
  5. Choose Wisely and Track: While affiliate marketing can serve all types of businesses, it is important that you pay careful attention while choosing such channels. There is a wide range of such programs available, each of which caters to specific types of ventures. For this purpose, it is important to be clear about your end objective. You should also be clear about your target niche market, so that you can choose appropriate affiliate marketing channel. Some of the most prominent affiliate marketing channels currently available are Rakuten, Amazon Associates and Jex Ads among others. Once the selection and implementation is done, it is equally important to have proper tracking systems installed.  

Affiliate marketing has come a long way and offers a wide range of options. For optimal performance, affiliate marketing may be integrated with traditional marketing tools. However, affiliate marketing has high potential as a standalone technique as well due to its high versatility.

4 years ago
PayTabs
Mohab Customer Experience 0

customer reviews

The Ultimate Guide to Customer Reviews and Testimonials

As the Internet emerged, customer reviews and testimonials have appeared as an indirect method of  promoting goods and services. The usefulness of customer reviews has increased with the rise  in e-commerce and online shopping. Shopping websites invariably carry a large number of testimonials and customer reviews for most of their products. Such reviews are not only helpful for the business but also for the customers as they get unbiased information and get to make an informed choice about the products prior to purchasing them. Here are some of the reasons why a business should actively manage its reviews and testimonials and how they should do it.

What is a Customer Review?

A customer review is a written statement and provides an opinion about a product or an entity. This statement reflects the customer’s opinion as well as their experience. It is estimated that over 90% of online shoppers read customer reviews before making a purchase. These reviews have now largely replaced personal referrals as people find these reviews to be more relevant and objective. A business can use reviews received to expand its market share and broaden its customer base. Further, these reviews may also help a business to get better search engine rankings.

Top Customer Review Strategies

In order to utilize the benefits of customer reviews and testimonials, it is important to take stock of your objectives and draw up a relevant strategy. These strategies will ensure that you get better bang for your buck.

  1. Ask Your Existing Customers: You can harness the power of your existing customer base to create new markets. Request them to provide reviews and testimonials in return for a shoutout or corporate giveaway for example. In order to induce them to write a meaningful review, you can also provide them with benefits such as discount coupons or exclusive deals and pricing. Additionally, you can also provide them with information about specific details to be included in the review. This step will ensure that you do not have to carry out extensive editing of the reviews and the reviews are relevant to your potential customers.
  2. Find the Promoters: While reviews are expected to be unbiased, you can still boost your positions by focusing on people who are more likely to provide positive reviews about your business. Promoters are the people who are very pleased with your services and therefore are more prone to recommend your business to their family and friends. You can also automate the process of approaching such promoters and asking them to leave a review. There are many tools available for this purpose and you can more than recover your cost by boosting your topline.
  3. Guide Your Customers: While your customers may have very high view of your products, they may not be accustomed to the nuances of online reviews. Such inexperience may render reviews ineffective and unable to garner proper results. It is imperative that you guide your customers to help them write powerful yet unbiased reviews. You may also guide them towards proper places where they should post their reviews. While many businesses post review on their own websites, they may also rely upon third party review websites. In such situations, it is important to steer customers in the right direction.
  4. Manage User Generated Reviews: With the increase in the popularity of aggregating sites and review sites such as Yelp and Twitter, it has become a little more difficult for businesses to properly manage their reviews. However, the businesses are still required to monitor such sites carefully so as to present a truthful picture of their operations and offerings. You can encourage your customers to leave their reviews on such websites by incentivizing them. One of the ways to do this is to add link to such websites in your web content. You can also start your own fan page on Facebook and other social media websites and gather reviews there.

In the e-commerce era, customer reviews are more than just a statement. It is a comprehensive marketing strategy which combines written testimonials with the wise use of social media influencers and promoters. With a customized approach, you can transform customer reviews into a viable and efficient marketing and PR tool.

4 years ago
PayTabs
Mohab Ecommerce 0

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.

4 years ago