Ecommerce Cheat Sheet: Your Online Store Improvement List for 2020

I believe it is just proper that I leave an ecommerce cheat sheet for you all before everybody go on a year end vacation.
This cheat sheet can serve as a guide for improvement to your ecommerce store when the year 2020 starts.

#1. Make it easy for your customers to be in your webshop.

Your site navigation is everything, start here. If your users can find what they want in the shortest time possible, they are more likely to buy something. They are also more likely to return to your site when they want something else.
Any improvement to your site navigation will have a dramatic effect on the user experience and your business objectives.
Another way to make it easy for your customers to surf your website is by speeding it up to world standard. Recent research indicates that 40% of users will abandon a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

Let’s accept the fact that, people today are fickle and impatient. And I can’t blame them! With all the many choices available around us, one will just have to go to the next one if you keep them waiting for even a second. They will leave your site without even reaching out for the shopping cart.

So making it easy for your customers to be in your website should be your top priority come 2020.

#2. Create better product pages.

Firstly. Come up with product images gives buyers the confidence to buy. Images in an ecommerce environment are massive in importance, because your consumer is buying from their laptop or mobile, they are not getting to see it and touch it like they do in a physical store.
Multiple photos of the product, zoom capability and even 360 degree rotations have all proven to convert better than one single image.
Secondly, deliver product descriptions that focuses on the 5 Ws of ecommerce:

• Whom is the product for? Are you targeting a particular gender, age group or demographic? Make it clear in the description.
• What are the basic details? These are technical attributes such as dimensions, functions, and materials.
• Where would it be used? Is it meant for outdoor or indoor use? At work, at home, or in the car? Explain the circumstances.
• When would the product be used? Is it seasonal or can it be used throughout the year? Is it for everyday use or special occasions?
• Why is it useful? Think about the unique product benefits and explain why it is better than comparable products on the market.

And don’t forget to optimize everything for SEO! In general, you want to show originality, authority, and relevance in your content — improve those areas and your rankings will rise.

#3. Help customers make decisions with clear calls to action.

A good place to start is to understand the stages of a buyer decision so that you can place call to action at the appropriate stage. You don’t want to have your call to action when your visitor is on the information stage yet. And you wouldn’t want to miss out the call when the visitor is done evaluating his options. And you wouldn’t want anything to disrupt his decision when he is ready to make it.

Here are stages a buyer go through when making buying decisions.

A purchase will take place when there is a recognition of the need. Without this recognition of needing something, it would be near impossible for people to buy a product they don’t need. The need may have been triggered by internal stimuli (such as hunger or thirst) or external stimuli (such as advertising or word of mouth).
The next step  in this journey is the search for the information. Most buyers will sift through tons  of information in order to find out what they feel is the best solution.
Identifying and evaluating information sources related to the “need to buy” decision, comes next naturally.
The purchase decision. This stage may be ‘disrupted’ by only two factors: negative feedback from other customers and the level of motivation to accept the feedback. This is where things get’s a little complicated or rather simplified for some people. A good measure of reviews or a recommendation from a friend or other buyers pushes this decision over the top.
The last stage in this journey is the post-purchase stage. Customers will compare products with their previous expectations and will be either satisfied or dissatisfied. On the basis of being either satisfied or dissatisfied, it is common for customers to distribute their positive or negative feedback about the product. This may be through reviews on website, social media networks or word of mouth. Companies should be very careful to create positive post-purchase communication, in order to engage customers and make the process as efficient as possible.

#4. Seek Customer Reviews

Reviews can have a colossal impact on the behavior of local consumers, and it’s clear to see that a business’s online reputation strongly affects whether customers choose to use a company. Positive reviews make 91% of consumers more likely to use a business, while 82% will be put off by negative reviews. The average consumer reads 10 reviews before feeling able to trust a local business, so businesses with lower review counts or negative feedback within their top reviews risk losing a significant proportion of potential customers to competitors with better online reputations.

Source
Consider the following statistics from the same website:

So start asking for reviews.

Make it part of your process. For online retailers it can be quite simple to set up automated emails after shipping, asking for feedback and reviews. Ask for reviews on your site, on your Google My Business listing, Facebook, and other relevant online review sites.

#5. Measure your traffic and use the data with Sm Analytics.

To succeed in the new digital retail environment, companies must learn how to collect and then use the raw data generated by the technology that underpins everything. Combined with advanced techniques and technologies, the base metal of data is transmuted into digital gold: actionable insights and business value where it matters most – the bottom line.
However, without the right tools and the access to data analytics that can stitch together structured and unstructured data for clearer insights, an organization cannot have a complete picture of their customers or become proactive to their needs.
Additional resource on using ecommerce analytics:

How Data Analytics Enhances Ecommerce Business Performance

Using the Store Analytics Data to Your Advantage

Ecommerce Analytics Presents Huge Advantages For Your Online Biz

5 Top Ecommerce Trend That Will Only Get Bigger in 2020

Other notable areas you might want to check and improve in 2020 are the following:

• Display security badges
• Display social proof
• Upselling
• Fixed or free shipping
• Digital Marketing strategy

How Data Analytics Enhances Ecommerce Business Performance

Analytics data enhances retail business in multiple ways that you can imagine! The possibilities are endless! Retail analysis is flush with sources of data, including information that can be derived from sales, inventory, traffic and marketing. Turning all this information into something useful, however, requires an understanding of where retail data systems fit into the bigger picture.

Why Should Ecommerce Retailers Invest in Data Analysis?

Data analytics feed into and inform your marketing strategy and content publication – boosting effectiveness and streamlining your supply chain and logistics operations significantly! As a result, improving the view and understanding of every element of an  ecommerce business and the organization that runs it.
“Knowing what people want and what they respond to makes it easy to get your product mix and inventory levels just right; while for those retailers with physical and digital storefronts, it will help dictate store layout and experience and ensure optimum channel alignment – everything they need to stand out from the competition.”
says Kuehl.

The Power to Know

To succeed in the new digital retail environment, companies must learn how to collect and then use the raw data generated by the technology that underpins everything. Combined with advanced techniques and technologies, the base metal of data is transmuted into digital gold: actionable insights and business value where it matters most - the bottom line.
However, without the right tools and the access to data analytics that can stitch together structured and unstructured data for clearer insights, an organization cannot have a complete picture of their customers or become proactive to their needs.

Personalization Offers Many Opportunities for Your Online Store.

Insights can be derived from mobile apps, website purchases, in-store sensors and point-of-sale units. Your marketing appeals can then be tailored to the specific tastes and desires of the customer.
You can increase revenues and retain customers with accurate personalized recommendations Amazon-style. Data analysis can segment customers, so you can focus on the most profitable ones, while understanding key metrics like their likelihood of making purchases and lifetime value analysis.
All of this is data intensive. Customer analytics calls for a back end of systems that can store data securely and make it readily available for you at the point of decision making.

Right Analytics Encourages Engagement

Analytics data enhances retail business because it makes you approach customer data analysis with a highly experimental attitude. Let’s say you want to determine the best product for your company offer. Testing methods can be utilized to discover how to maximize return on investment of each product.
Right analytics also increase the duration of engagement. It kept folks on the site longest, drove sales and encouraged return engagement. Customers expect a certain level of communication with your brand. Whether you desire feedback or not, people will share their opinions about your business.

Using Predictive Analytics

One of the more powerful use of store analytics data is it allows analysis of the business future! This is called predictive analysis!
Predictive analysis allows shop managers and owners to figure out where to put their money for expansion before the next sales season hits. This will be one of the biggest goals of many retail analysis efforts this holiday season and into 2020. Getting ahead of trends, decisions can be made about how many items to put on shelves, what times of day customer support is most needed, and where to place sales associates in-store. In simple terms, it transforms ecommerce data into analysis for future goals.
Additional Resource on ecommerce analytics data

Ecommerce Analytics Presents Huge Advantages For Your Online Biz

Using the Store Analytics Data to Your Advantage

In Conclusion

Data analytics enhances retail business operations and performance because it allows a company to have a robust base to work from.

Using the Store Analytics Data to Your Advantage

Store Analytics data for ecommerce is still rarely consulted and under use in Prestashop-thirtybees. But in the last couple of years it has gained traction, and is now one of the top trends for ecommerce platforms. It is by understanding these data that you can better serve your customers and grow your online business. There is a massive potential for ecommerce growth analytics provide that we can exploit.
As data experts Gordon Linoff and Michael Berry explain in their book, Data Mining Techniques,

"forward-looking companies are moving toward the goal of understanding each customer individually and using that understanding to make it easier (and more profitable) for the customer to do business with them rather than with competitors."

Source

Analytics is one of the 5 Top Ecommerce Trend That Will Only Get Bigger in 2020

Why You should Use Store analytics data more

It is true that many abandon the statistics. Two reasons can be deduce from this: Firstly is because you have to take the time to interpret them. And secondly, the default prestashop-thirtybees store statistics often times does not reflect the real store performance.
Having said that, we cannot discount the truth that with analytics data, especially with large catalog, you can better understand the "hot" zones, and the categories that bring the most order, allowing you to consolidate your offers. This is also important for the purchase of the stock, making it easy to bet on new products in categories which "pay off", rather than investing with your eyes closed on offers that are too wide-target.

Understanding Analytics data at the client level

With analytic stats you can check whether the age group you are touching is in line with the offer, whether it is in terms of visuals, texts and communication in general. Also take advantage of watching if the creation of accounts is constant, if it evolves from month to month and think of rewarding your best customers, because they are your ambassadors. At the same time, see if newsletter subscriptions are going well… if not, consider making Popup newsletter.
There is a lot of interesting things you can do with analytic stats once you appreciate them. No wonder, Google analytics has become so huge today!

Checking product Catalog health through statistics

Store analytics statistics also comes with features that provide feedback on how your catalog is structured. If we look at the side of the “Evolution of the catalog” section, there is a good indicator to check the general health of your product sheets. Admittedly, the more text you have the better… but you can outright do a quick health check thanks to the green stickers in the dashboard.

Make a monthly check of your statistics

As a final recommendation, set a time limit of 60 minutes maximum everyday  to check your stats and then make a small assessment and archive your report. It is important not to spend hours looking at its statistics, you must after 1 hour have established a conclusion for the month, in order to move in the right direction.
We admit that the default store statistics module has limited capability and cannot offer a comprehensive analysis of your ecommerce store performance. This is the exact reason why Shoptech Media has developed an advance Store Analytics. SM Analytics is a comprehensive and powerful tool every online store must have to fully understand site performance. Check the screenshots below or check the SM analytics knowledge base:
Comprehensive website overview

Powerful Visits log..

In conclusion

The picture that store analytics data convey is far from complete. But these insights help businesses to cater directly to their customers with confidence, optimize their resources, and innovate flexibly in-line with changing markets. Summarized into one line: Customer-centric focus!

5 Top Ecommerce Trend That Will Only Get Bigger in 2020

The ecommerce industry still has a lot of space to grow. According to data, it only represents around 12% of the total sales around the world. But the good thing is it is consistently getting bigger and bigger every year, and 2020 is not going to be an exception.
As we approach 2020 and what the future holds for digital merchants, it’s crucial to reflect and assess the ecommerce trend that have defined 2019 so far. More and more merchants are boasting omni-channel presences to reach buyers online, offline and on-the-go. Meanwhile, the importance of speedy shipping, social engagement and a lack of hidden fees remain paramount for high-performing retailers online.
But what will define digital merchants after the New Year? Let’s take a look at 5 top ecommerce trend that will only get bigger in 2020.

#1. Massive Influx of Mobile Shoppers

Around 2 billion people will make purchases from a mobile device in 2019, with about 95% of shoppers conducting research from their device prior to completing an in-store or an online checkout. About $1 in every $4 generated in ecommerce comes from mobile, with annual spending exceeding $35 billion.
While mobile’s average conversion rate is just 0.55%, as compared to desktop’s healthier 2.06%, average order value exceeds $100 across all devices (tablets and smartphones). Around 59% of smartphone and tablet users conduct research on their devices, with 59% of them planning to make the final purchase from the same device.
Interestingly, mobile users spend 59% of their time shopping versus closing the sale only 15% of the time, as compared to desktop users, who spend 41% of their time shopping versus closing the sale 85% of the time. So, while mobile shopping is popular, the conversion rate is still largely in favor of the desktop user.

Source 

2019 Mobile Ecommerce trend and stats

• 53% of global online traffic comes from mobile devices (Statista)
• 57% U.S. online traffic comes from mobile devices (BrightEdge)
• 200% increase in interactions when mobile devices are used (Google)
• 80% of users will complete sales when sites offer Q/A for mobile users (Google)
• 72% of all digital ad spending will go to mobile this year (Marketingland)
• 68% of companies are now using mobile marketing as a strategy (SalesForce)
• 31% increase in Black Friday sales from mobile year-over-year (Adobe)
• 33% increase in mobile payments by 2021 for an estimated $3.38b (Allied Market Research)
• 32% increase in digital wallet usage from mobile by 2022 (Zion Market Research)
• 71% of mobile purchases come from email influence (Adobe)
• 85% of users begin a sale on one device and complete it on another (Google)
• 52% of mobile shoppers will shop elsewhere after a bad experience (Google)
• 57% of mobile shoppers will abandon the cart if load time is 3 seconds or greater (Google)
• 82% of shoppers browse ecommerce stores from mobile while in-store (Omnicore)
• 62% of shoppers compare prices from mobile devices before buying (LinkedIn)
• $1 trillion in spending offline was influenced by mobile in 2018 (Biznessapps)
• Mobile commerce sales topped $626 billion in 2018 (SmartInsights)

This influx of mobile shoppers also presents new challenges to merchants, though. Considering that traditional desktops still outperform mobile devices when it comes to conversion rates, ecommerce brands clearly need all the help they can get to close sales with mobile users.

#2. The Use of Analytics Data for Ecommerce

Another ecommerce trend that will get bigger in 2020 is store analytics data. Analytics gives marketers valuable insights into the visitors on your website so you can analyse their behaviour and make tweaks to your website that improve your conversion rate and turn website visitors into customers.

Advantages that analytics ecommerce data provides are the following:
Creating a measurement plan for important ecommerce data
Reporting and analysis
Preparing Analysis
Traffic Source analysis
Multi Channel Analysis – Which Channels support people taking the action you want on your website (sale, signup, lead)
Customer Profile Analysis
Enhanced Ecommerce Techniques
On Site Merchandising Analysis
Shopping Behaivour and Analysis
Checkout Analysis

Analytics data provides huge advantages for your online business

#3. Ecommerce Conversion Optimization

Conversions has been a constant ecommerce trend for as long as we can remember, and are the most important metric for any ecommerce business. By increasing your conversion rate, your business will generate more revenue, earn a larger profit at the end of every month, and expand its audience of customers.
The great thing about ecommerce conversion optimization is that small changes often have significant results. A day spent reviewing and updating your website’s category structure, for example, can produce a lasting increase in conversions that drives a huge amount of revenue.

#4. B2B Ecommerce Boom

Although ecommerce is often discussed under the B2C lense, let’s not neglect the steady growth within the B2B community.
Projected to surpass $1 trillion in total sales by 2020, there’s no denying that B2B ecommerce still represents rocky territory for many brands. As merchants continue to iron out the finer details of pricing schemes, bulk shipping and quoting customers, streamlining the purchasing process remains a top priority for B2B ecommerce brands moving forward.

B2B ecommerce will streamline your customer interactions

By enabling the process of ordering be reliable and efficient. This is vital in the current climate of commerce where there are high demand and short time.

Through operation out of the web portal, all ordering may be merged with the ERP (enterprise resource planning) software so that the delay time between dispatch and ordering is negligible.
Mistakes in the ordering process or order fulfillment regarding stock counts that are inaccurate may be prevented since up-to-date counts from your warehouse is integrated into your website, this allows sales agents and customers to always know what is available.
Through the ERP, customers can order online when they want to and the client service can focus on real client service duties instead of being just order takers and the necessity of relay information in independent systems is removed.

Source

More Prevalent Storefront Apps

In a response to the aforementioned challenge of appealing to mobile buyers, expect to see a new wave of mobile “storefront apps” to reach buyers on-the-go. This ecommerce trend goes hand in hand with the need for merchants to have omnichannel presences, as well. Given that mobile users spend 86% of their time within apps versus mobile sites, perhaps branded native smartphone shopping apps are the key to converting those once-fickle customers.

“App commerce” platform Poq recently found that storefront apps outperform mobile web conversion rates by 40%, support longer browsing sessions than even desktop web browsers and are twice as likely to drive repeat visits. This all makes sense given the game-changing functionalities that storefront apps offer, which include superior content personalization opportunities, push notifications and geolocation-integrated brick-and-mortar shopping recommendations.

Source

Defining Ecommerce for 2020 and Beyond

Nobody can truly predict the future in regard to ecommerce. However, these current trends will continue to heavily influence the space for the time being.
Regardless of what merchants might be selling, it’s clear that no shopping brand can afford to rest on its laurels. Just as ecommerce trend is constantly evolving to keep up with the demands and desires of consumers, so should merchants.

Ecommerce Analytics Presents Huge Advantages For Your Online Biz

Every minute, your ecommerce site collect tons of customer data. Ecommerce analytics allows you to get a grip of all these data and generate effective sales strategies for your business.
In the last 5 years or so, the use of data analytics has widely spread across all business departments, from ecommerce development and marketing to operations and logistics. Analytics has become essential in processing valuable customer and market data that shapes the strategies ecommerce companies adopt to provide their services successfully.
Analyzing these massive data will not only benefit ecommerce companies, but also customers, given that ecommerce companies will use these data-driven insights to improve the way they cater to customer needs. And as the technology behind data analytics goes through the course of technological advancement, the advantages that customers receive will only increase.

Two Massive Advantage of Using Analytics Data

#1. Analytics capture customer data no matter how or where they shop.

As brands continue to turn to cloud-based unified commerce to deliver seamless, holistic customer journeys across every touchpoint — mobile, social, web, and store. Ecommerce analytics must also evolve to track shoppers wherever they may be, whether they are purchasing a product on Instagram, discovering a brand on their phone, or cashing in a gift card at a pop-up shop.

Shoptech Media offers a powerful analytics tool that integrates seamlessly with our ecommerce platform. Ecommerce analytics that keep up with the rapidly evolving customer journey.

Your Data is safe with you

Our goal is to provide everything you need to run your ecommerce website from development to analytics, to mailing system and CRM(in the future), right inside your back office dashboard. You will never have to go outside your ecommerce sytem to see valuable data about your customers,  ever again with SM Analytics!

SM Analytics protects your visitor privacy with advanced Privacy features. When using SM Analytics for Web Analytics, you ensure that your visitors behavior on your website(s) is not shared with advertising companies.

#2. Analytics data makes you optimize your website with data-driven insights.

Analytics helps you to effectively design your website, do UX optimization, and streamline the checkout process to help you connect shoppers to products and boost conversion rates. This will give you the ability to know what is working and what should be scrape in your process flow.

Ecommerce analytics provide you with these data-driven insights into how shoppers interact with your site — both the good and the bad - taking the guesswork and subjectivity out of website optimization, and uncover opportunities for improvement and innovation.

Key Focus Areas an Analytics can help you with

• Chief among these is a user-friendly checkout flow,
• optimal product presentation and recommendations,
• overall usability.

To truly maximize the effectiveness of these areas, SM Analytics provide  tools called ""widgets" that enable conversion rate optimization testing, heat mapping, click tracking, visitor recording, and more.

Consider tracking Key Performance Indicators

In order to understand and cultivate customer relationships — consider tracking KPIs. Overall lifetime value, returning visitors, purchasing behavior, social shares, subscription renewals, and upgrades are valuable indicators for you online shop.

Tracking KPIs are important to business objectives because they keep objectives at the top of your decision making. Tracking KPIs also ensure that performance is measured not blindly in pursuit of the KPI but in relation to the larger business objectives for your ecommerce business.

Source

In conclusion

An ecommerce store without the ability to accurately access, measure, and interpret the vast amount of data that your shoppers generate, is like navigating in darkness. Turn on the light and put your customer data to work with SM Analytics. It is the most advanced analytics feature available in the market today.
Use the comment section below to inquire how you can avail of SM analytics. Or use the Contact us page to send us an email!

Ecommerce Analytics

3 ways how to set your Prestashop-thirtybees in DEBUG mode

Debugging is an essential part of prestashop-thirtybees development. Prestashop-thirtybees in debug mode provides you a way to determine the cause of an error and act to resolve it accordingly.

Three ways to set your prestashop-thirtybees  in debug mode

#1. Use the build-in debug mode.

This is a very useful tool, but it's not recommended to turn it on in production because it can leak sensitive information about your website. 
To use the default or built-in debug more. Go to your back office dashboard, then Advance Parameters >> Performance. Look for Debug Mode. And set it to YES!
Debug Mode

• Disable Non thirty bees Modules -
• Disable All Overrides -
• Debug Mode - set this to YES
• Profiling -

Check the documentations for additional reading:

#2. Use a third party module.

There are free debug moduels out there that you can use. Some are free while others are not. Some debug module allows you to enable debug mode only for specific sessions.
This way, you (or anyone you share this url with) will have access to debugging information, yet your normal visitors will not be affected.

#3. Set it through the defines.inc.php

When your PrestaShop-thirtybees website has a blank screen or a 500 internal server error, you can debug it with PrestaShop-thirtybees debug mode. PrestaShop-thirtybees has a nice little utility built in that will show you exactly what is causing the error. Also, what is great about thirtybees is there is a very active community, so if you do not know how to fix the error you can post the error message to the thirtybees forums and more than likely someone will know and assist you.

If you can't find someone to help you out, you may send us a message using the comments section below or by using the Contact us form.

Working the defines.inc.php through FTP

To turn on debug mode you need to be familiar with how to FTP into your site. We recommend using FileZilla for FTP, it is the most popular FTP program, and it is FREE.
Once you are logged into your website FTP or Cpanel, find the config directory and enter into it. Inside the config directory, look for the file called defines.inc.php. You should be able to see a file structure similar to the screenshot below. Right click on the file and choose view/edit.

Editing the defines.inc.php using html editor

Once the file is open in your html editor or a text editor, scroll down to about line 34 and look for the code that look like the screenshot below. You will want to change the part with the arrow that says false, to true, like so!

Save the file and Filezilla will ask if you want to upload it. Choose yes.
Now if you reload the part of your site that was having the issue, you should see an error message like below.

You should be able to see the errors causing your website to malfunction. From these error messages you can start to figure out what is wrong and fix your site accordingly.
This is how you set your prestashop-thirtybees in debug mode
If you are not sure what to do with the error, you can always go to the thirtybees forum and post your concerns. Or you may contact us for help. Use the comment section below to shoot us a message regarding the issue you are having with your Prestashop-thirtybees store.

WARNING: DO NOT FORGET TO SET DEBUG MODE OFF AFTER.

Additional resource:
Learning Prestashop-thirtybees ecommerce

Improving the prestashop-thirtybees Contact Us page

Planning Growth of Your Ecommerce Business: 5 Key Best Practices

Small businesses can benefit from adopting some of the key best practices large companies does when it comes to planning growth of their ecommerce business.
Planning growth gives your business a guide to achieving your business objectives with profitability and expense control. It allows you to see into the future how your cash requirements are going to look like, what sales potential your business have, and the extent of expansion your business might be capable of.
Planning for growth also allows you to make revisions and adjustments to business goals down the road - quarterly, semi-annual, etc.
I have been involve in a lot of corporate planning over the years, and I came up with a few things companies do when planning growth.

Let's discuss some of these key best practices big corporations does when planning

Key #1. Ask employees for key improvement areas

Solicit key employees for areas of success and areas needing improvement. This is an activity that is easy to do and gets people thinking about the process. A couple of examples might be:
“Our parcel shipper met our cut-offs 98% of the time.”
“Our absenteeism rate caused us to carry over customer orders the next day.”
Later, do a deeper dive to determine why and use data to validate the impressions and determine options for improvement.

Key #2. Planning growth on a longer term basis

Whereas, most small businesses plans for an annual sales goal, big companies do a 2 years or even a 5 year growth plan. And some may not even have a detailed plan of how to get there. For a start, it is not easy to plan. Planning growth includes month-by-month goals for sales and expenses as well as profitability.
From our experience, planning growth gets more difficult beyond two or three years, especially with ecommerce businesses which relies on web technology that changes so fast.

Extend your planning for the current fiscal year forward to a second year as a series of realistic benchmarks, if you reach the current year’s goals. The second year will be necessary to plan purchases with longer lead times, such as proprietary and exclusive product. Update the plans quarterly with your best available data and intuition.

Key #3. Instituting a budgeting process to support the growth projections

Place a budget for at least the major expense categories and implement a monthly reporting on the comparisons of "planned" versus the "actual” sales, expenses, and profit.

To make accounting data more timely, reduce the time required to close a fiscal period. Large companies close within two weeks of the end of the month.

This gives them more leeway to interpret the data better in order to make a more disciplined action in the future.

Key #4. Start Planning as soon as Holiday Season Peak is through

In many ecommerce companies 20% of the products provide 80% of sales and maybe a higher percentage of profit. When you look at item profitability, are you doing to allocate advertising and fulfillment expenses to determine net profitability individually? Or are you going to determine it by the sum of the whole business sale for a particular season?
It is important that you are able to evaluate your profitability right after the holiday season peak! The same type of evaluation and planning is needed for all major areas and should become part of the planning process.
Let's get some  ideas as to what these major areas are:

• First of these is your analysis of the shipping carriers and costs. 
• Next is how you evaluate hiring and seasonal ramp up
• Another is the labor budget performance
• The review of Key growth metrics

Right after the holiday peak, get on with your team and evaluate, analyze your company profitability and allocations.

Key #5. Communicate monthly sales and profitability to senior staff

Communicate the results of monthly sales and profitability to senior people involved in the process. Help key employees understand how you make money and what the major expenses are. We have found that when given this type of knowledge and feedback, they help grow the business profitably. We believe most employees want to help the company reach its goals and not just pick up a paycheck.

In Conclusion

Online sales via ecommerce fulfillment services are going to dwarf that of traditional brick and mortar retailers. Online Shopping Forecast Worldwide Taking On Huge Steps Forward this coming year. Adopting a longer-term planning process has many advantages for your business. It does take time and will lead to more detailed planning in all major areas of your business. The time and effort invested in the new year leads to improved sales, profitability and improved customer service.
Additional reading:

Ecommerce Stores on Record-breaking Sales this year!

3 Biggest Ecommerce Business Growth Factor Every Merchant Should Learn

Resource on securing your ecommerce store:

Will Your Ecommerce Platform Survive A Cyberattack?

The No. 1 Ecommerce Business Problem You Should Take Care Of this new year

Secure Your Ecommerce Store This Holidays With These Simple Tips

Secure Your Ecommerce Store This Holidays With These Simple Tips

Secure your ecommerce store as holiday shoppers continue to prepare to spend online. It is critical that customers feel at ease while they are doing their shopping in your ecommerce shop.
Before everyone goes for the holiday vacation, I thought it would be proper for us to leave some kind of a reminder for all ecommerce managers out there.  These tips are meant to give you a check list of things to secure to avoid any loses due to security breach on your ecommerce system.

Let's go straight to the point

#1. Secure your ecommerce store with HTTPS.

If your ecommerce website is not yet on https, change it immediately before everything is too late. Buy an SSL certificate NOW. HTTPS allows your website to avoid online frauds.
Google uses HTTPS as a ranking signal to give your website a higher SERP ranking and hence, more visitors. HTTPS is essential for user protection as it creates a secure link between the users’ browsers and your servers to prevent hackers from stealing your data.

#2. Make sure you build your ecommerce store on a relatively secure platform

One of your top priority when building a secure ecommerce website is to use a secure platform. There are so many open source ecommerce platforms available for your out there. Choosing the best ecommerce platform can sometimes be difficult.
Here is the numbers: More than two third of all active E-commerce sites are using either Magento or WordPress WooCommerce. However, a lot of security vulnerability complaints in the web also comes from websites built on these platform. The most secure platform in our opinion is Thirtybees! Thirtybees ecommerce platfom is an intuitive platform that is light and fast, and relatively secure. In almost 20 years of experience working with different open-source platforms, I find Thirtybees to be the safest so far. But then again, it is not without fault.

Why is it relatively secure?

Mainly because of their sophisticated security features. There are other factors as well, but what makes them stand apart is the extensive security.
PrestaShop can be yet another choice with a proven security framework. However, it has unresolve bugs that has never been given attention by developers, at least to our knowledge!
No matter which platform you decide to use, go for security first rather than how it is being marketed.

#3. Secure your ecommerce store with user level information

User lever information, is a security feature for user levels. Guest have unique user level, registered users have another user level information, administration have another level of user information, etc.
Here is how it is defined:

Part of an access control procedure for computer systems, which allows a system administrator to set up a hierarchy of users. Thus, the low level users can access only a limited set of information, whereas the highest level users can access the most sensitive data on the system. Also called access rights.

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#4. Secure your ecommerce store by NOT storing sensitive customer data

Sensitive customer data are information that must be protected against unauthorized access. These data normally pertains to financial information of the user. Information like credit card numbers, passwords, and the like are sensitive customer data. Access to these sensitive data should be limited through sufficient data security to prevent unauthorized disclosure and data breaches.

#5. Secure your ecommerce store by doing regular backups

The purpose of the backup is to create a copy of your store files and database that can be recovered in the event of server or system failure. Failures can be the result of server or software failure, file and data corruption, or a human-caused event, such as a malicious attack (virus or malware), or accidental deletion of data. Backup copies allow data to be restored from an earlier point in time to help your ecommerce website recover from an unplanned event.
For best results, backup copies should be made on a consistent, regular basis to minimize the amount data lost between backups. The more time passes between backup copies, the more potential for data loss when recovering from a backup. Retaining multiple copies of data provides the insurance and flexibility to restore to a point in time not affected by data corruption or malicious attacks.

#6. Implement CDN

Although not directly a security measure, CDN improves your ecommerce store in a lot of ways. You must be well aware of that annoying delay caused due to the lapse in between the loading of web page and the content appearing on it. This delay could be because of the physical distance of your website's server to the user. CDN reduces this lapse time and make the content readily and immediately available.
When a user requests your site, the node closest in proximity to the user will deliver the static content, ensuring the shortest distance for the data to travel (reduced latency), therefore providing the fastest site experience.

Here are few reasons why CDN is important for your website

CDN distributes the content closer to the visitors by shifting it to the closest network node. This reduces the loading time of the page and thus increases the speed of the website. In other words CDN helps to reduce the bounce rate as the visitors and the users stay on the website due to good speed.
Increase the redundancy. In CDN the nodes are distributed hence they can withhold a large amount of traffic and can handle hardware failure better than other servers.
Cost Effective. Since there are many nodes in this network the load is equally distributed and hence the load on one server reduces. The only cost you will have to bare is that of the CDN which is lesser than the additional hardware you will have to implement otherwise.

In conclusion

Secure your ecommerce store as holiday shoppers continue to prepare to spend online with these easy and implementable tips.
Additional resources:
Security is The No. 1 Ecommerce Business Problem You Should Take Care Of this new year

Online Shopping Forecast Worldwide Taking On Huge Steps Forward

The Online Shopping forecast across the world is taking huge steps forward this new year and in the future. This is good news for business people who are planning to go into online retail business, and want their company ecommerce website built.

US and UK ecommerce sales sales forecast in 2020

It's interesting to look back at the growth of online sales and think forward to how much further they can grow at the expense of traditional channels. The overall percentage of Ecommerce retail sales are perhaps, surprisingly small at around 10% of sales in the US and 18% in the UK, but with sustained growth. The latest ecommerce growth forecast from eMarketer suggests that globally ecommerce sales will increase to 16% of all sales in 2020. This is an increase of 19%.

The projection above shows the growth in digital buyers and shows that growth rates for ecommerce are being sustained.
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Global online buyers estimate from 2018 to 2021

The trend for ecommerce sales worldwide since 2018 has a huge huge potential with the growth of online buyers almost doubling year by year! Check out this information from statista on the estimated purchase of goods online worldwide. The number of purchases of people who are going to make a purchase online by 2021 would have reached 4.8 trillion. Doubling the amount for 2018. Which means that businesses who have an ecommerce store will have gained more sales than those who doesn't have an online presence.

In 2018, an estimated 1.8 billion people worldwide purchase goods online. During the same year, global e-retail sales amounted to 2.8 trillion U.S. dollars and projections show a growth of up to 4.8 trillion U.S. dollars by 2021.

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46% of Aussie small businesses going online

Down under, almost half of Australian small businesses are predicted to go online in 2020, leveraging the upwrard trend of more and more people preferring to make a purchase online.

Almost half of Australian bricks and mortar small business owners (48%) predict their business will operate entirely online in the future, with more than a quarter (26%) of these businesses foreseeing this happening in the next three years.
Regardless of their future form, 46% of all small business operators predict online channels will account for at least half of their sales in three years’ time, according to this year’s The Economy of Shopping Small report, commissioned by American Express.

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Online Small Businesses have strong gains

Small Business Saturday posted a record breaking $3.6 billion dollars that was fueled by strong gains from both large and small retailers alike," said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe. "The weekend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is emerging as a truly lucrative period for online commerce. With a projected $7.6 billion generated over Small Business Saturday and Super Sunday, consumers are taking advantage of post-Black Friday deals and are accelerating spend in the run-up to Cyber Monday."

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Retailers experienced significant revenue growth of 43% when having an ecommerce shop

More and more retailers and small business go online to expand sales and customer base. And we can't help but be encourage by this trend. The world is going to go cyber sooner than later. In fact it already has.

Forty-three percent of business owners who sell products online say they have experienced significant revenue growth, according to a recent poll, echoing a predicted trend toward increased sales beyond brick-and-mortar locations.
The poll of more than 2,400 business owners conducted by Insureon and online small business directory Manta also revealed that 38% experienced a moderate revenue increase because of online sales, while only 19% did not experience any change.
Of the 29% of small businesses that reported selling products online, 66% use their company website for sales, while 24% sell products on Amazon, and 22% use eBay.

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The Perk Online shopping brings to Customers

In today’s world, people have become so used to go online to shop for products they need. They don’t need to go through a lot of frustration in order to shop online. They can easily access online stores through their personal computers or mobile devise and order what they want. The ordered products would be delivered to the doorstep as well. Here is a list of some advantages online shopping have over offline shopping.

• It saves time. You don't have to dress up and spend a penny just to out and buy an item you need.
• Saves you transportation expenses
• You can do the shopping anytime you want.
• The products are relatively cheaper online because retailers does not have to pay for physical store rent or showrooms to display their products
• No more waiting on long lines. This is the best reason I like. I hate waiting on queues.
• Able to avoid the crowded stores. This is the second thing I hate about shopping offline.
• Easy to search for the product you want.

If you are a businessman looking to expand or start a business, especially retail business, this information is for you. Take advantage of the growing number of people around the world going online. Your neighbors are going to eventually have online access and may become your online customers!
NOW is the best time for you to have your ecommerce store created. If you want to know more about which ecommerce system to use, we can help you with it. Or check this article:

Shopify, Prestashop, ThirtyBees. Which the right eCommerce System to Use?

An ecommerce website development is totally necessary in today's economy. If you do not have an ecommerce yet  for your company, you are probably losing on potential online sales.

eCommerce Website is Necessary For Businesses to Stay Relevant BF Huge Sales Proved

Ecommerce stores are on a record-breaking sales this year and it is only going to get better! Don't be left behind!  Contact shoptech.media to see how we can help you build your ecommerce website.

Ecommerce Stores on Record-breaking Sales this year!

5 Reasons an eCommerce Website is Necessary For Retailers and Businesses to Stay Relevant

What Black Friday huge sales has proven to us is that, ecommerce website is necessary for retailers and businesses to stay competitive. The weekend shopping frenzy which accompanies Thanksgiving has now become an annual retail norm around the world. If you are not online, you are going to be left behind. You simple cannot afford not to!
Consumers are now well-used to the discounting madness which it brings to online and bricks-and-mortar shopping. It is the springboard to the Christmas trading period and retailers around the world have jumped on the bandwagon.
Today I would like to present arguments as to why an ecommerce website is indispensable for retailers and businesses to have. In fact, the question is not whether to have one, but is there reason not to have one?

5 Reasons an eCommerce Website is Necessary For Retailers and Businesses to Stay Relevant:

#1. Reach new prospective customers through search engines.

When you sell a product or service through a national or global platform of an ecommerce website, then you tend to reach out to a much wider audience as compared to traditional commerce methods. This gives you a broader audience and hence possibility of better overall sales.
Whereas, location used to be the determining factor for retail and business sales, that is not the case anymore. Having an eCommerce website levels the playing field between prime locations and less trafficked areas. Instead of your physical address determining your business’s location, your ability to rank in searches engines determines how visible you are. Potential customers who haven’t driven past your stores or heard about your from someone else, have the ability to find you online.
Everyday someone is searching for something relevant to your stores products and eCommerce website gives you the ability to get found by and sell your products to them directly through the web.
Additional resource:
How To Ensure Your ecommerce website is being found in Google search?

5 Great Steps to Start an Ecommerce Business the Right Way

An ecommerce is worth it.

#2. An online store allows prospective customers to shop where, how, and when they want.

Ability to be open 24/7-with an ecommerce website, you will give your audiences to purchase from you not just during regular store hours but throughout the day. Whether it is Sunday or a national holiday, your estore is always open. This too helps you to make more sales, hence boosting sales.
In today's economy, more and more people like to shop online to avoid traveling time and traffic while enjoying the comfort of their own home. Shopping online also gives them the ability to shop when they want; including times that your store is closed. Remember, your eCommerce store is ALWAYS open. Regardless of an individual's reasons, more and more people are turning online to get shopping done.
Others prefer to drive to the physical store so they can touch and examine the products. Even if they found your store online and researched your products in more detail, they may decide to make the commute to the store in order to make the purchase.
Additional resource:

Common Small Business Website Problems that Makes you Loose Sales

Extremely Costly Newbie Mistakes To Avoid When Finding Ecommerce Niche in 2020

#3. Increase promotional visibility and customer re-engagement for better conversion rates

Every store has certain promotions and are always looking for ways to spread the word about their newest deals. Your eCommerce store is another avenue to market your special promotions. Visitors to either one of your stores (online and offline) should be exposed to these promotions so they can take advantage of them. Promotions help the business grow short- term with increased sales and long-term since promotions typically include a sign-up step - giving you the ability to re-engage these people later which drives better conversion rate.
No matter how popular your brand is, if conversion rate is low, then profits will be low. Having an ecommerce platform helps you to increase your conversion rate since people get a chance to immediately buy from you rather than wait to visit the store.
Additional resource:

3 Biggest Ecommerce Business Growth Factor Every Merchant Should Learn

Ultimate Characteristics of a Good Ecommerce Website

#4. Ecommerce platforms are now easier and cost less to setup than it was a decade ago.

To set up and run an ecommerce platform is definitely much easier than an actual physical store. But today more than ever, setting up an ecommerce store can be done with less and less programming and money.
Take for example prestashop or thirtybees ecommerce platfrom, a light-weight ecommerce system that really works. You can run this excellent system for FREE and within 5 minutes!
There are many other good website development and management platforms which can easily do this task for you at reasonable rates. Having an ecommerce website is not just easier but also a lot cheaper. Addons and module developers are aplenty to find - reducing your development cost even further.
Additional resource:

Thirtybees Ecommerce, Empowering Merchants to Increase Sales

Never Do These 4 Things When Starting An Online Business

#5. Having an ecommerce website allows you to build a customer email list and market to them directly

We know it’s tough to collect email addresses and other useful information during checkout in your store. Shoppers at the finish line of making a purchase will normally decide not to extend the process by providing info for the clerk to plug-in regardless of the offer. Gathering information online is much more effective as website visitors can do this on their own time.
Email marketing gives you the ability to increase new and repeat business by strategically and continuously re-engaging prospective customers. This opportunity doesn’t exist for businesses strictly running a physical storefront. You'll also need to develop ways to capture email addresses with various offers your website can provide.
Getting repeat buyers is much more difficult on a marketplace, because you don’t have direct access to your customers. This gives you fewer opportunities to provide good customer service and promote your other products. Since it’s easier and cheaper to retain a customer than it is to get a new one, communicating with existing customers is a necessary part of generating revenue for your business. This is where email marketing comes really handy.
Additional resource:

3 Simple Tools You Can Start Using To Get More Sales from Repeat Customers

Double Your Sales with Customer Loyalty Programs

In conclusion

Having an ecommerce website is necessary today. It gives you a certain competitive edge over those who may still not have gone online. Customers these days are looking for the easiest and cheapest way to make their purchasing and thus search online for their desired products and services. In such a case, the presence of an online store not only helps you to retain existing customers but also attract new ones. And it allows you to collect email data and build your email list. If you are someone who wants to get a good ecommerce website developed and managed for your business, then you can visit us at https://shoptech.media. All our ecommerce resource are free!