Archive for the ‘Ecommerce’ Category

5 Ways to Make Your Website More Enticing to Customers

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Web Page CloseupWith such a fiercely competitive network of websites and blogs out there, getting your website onto the screens of your customers and keeping it there is a tough job. There are many ways in which to help your business become more popular and more profitable if you own a physical store on a high street – doing things like regular advertising, improving the appearance of your shop front, placing special offers in the window and being friendly and courteous to your customers.

Similar concepts can be explored and utilised in the online environment to help your e-business become a success:

Unique Content

Having unique content on your website is a very important thing for two reasons. One reason is that when people come to your website they don’t want to see the same thing over and over again, they want to see something new and interesting to make them want to come back. Another reason is that search engines want to see that you are constantly updating your website. This will be a factor in how they rank your website in their search results.

SEO

This brings us on to search engine optimisation (SEO). SEO is the art of improving websites rankings in the search engines – thereby getting more potential customers to your website – through a series of techniques such as on-site optimisation, link building and keyword analysis. By employing a sustained SEO campaign your website can be swiftly moved up the search rankings and find you more new customers.

Pictures

Having created some awesome content and optimised your site for search engines, you don’t want to scare your customers off with some poor quality, pointless photos which don’t do you or your products justice. A good photo can be the difference between a customer staying or not.

Involvement Devices

An involvement device is a tool which immediately grabs your customer’s attention as soon as they reach the site. Not just verbally, but with something they have to interact with which encourages them to stay on the page and invest their time and attention on you.

Attractive

Having a well designed site is not only important for usability, but is something which people subconsciously look for when they touch down on your website. How many times have you arrived at a webpage only to not find anything working, not know how to find out what you want and not like how anything looks? This is what you want to avoid with your site.

Have a good look at your website and really go through these important points and tick off each one that you could do with addressing, then act!

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Top Tips from the Big Boys on How to Be Successful in Online Business

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Ecommerce GlobeIf you are a business owner, you will likely have aspirations of high sales figures, loyal customers and growing budgets. One way of helping you get your business heading in the right direction, and in this case online business, is to look up to businesses which currently captivate and entice millions of people around the world to invest in, log on to and buy from their websites. By taking a look at the heavy hitters out there you can see what makes them an online success and what advice you can take from their example to help your business improve.

By using the Alexa top 500 websites in the world list, which calculates its list based on the highest combination of visitors and page views, picking websites which are basically ecommerce sites and discounting websites that are search engines or directories or social networking, this list of most successful online businesses becomes a bit more interesting and less of a popularity contest.

Tucked in at No.11 on Alexa’s UK list, Amazon is the top ecommerce site behind search giants Google, Yahoo and Windows Live, and behind Facebook and things like BBC online and Wikipedia. All of which are not normal ecommerce sites. Amazon has a massive multinational customer base with, in the US, nearly three times the internet sales revenue of its nearest competitor Staples. Amazon can teach us that constantly diversifying your product base and never sitting on your laurels will keep your business profitable and ahead of the curve.

eBay sits at no.8 on Alexa’s list. Now while it is not necessarily always making profit for itself through selling items it certainly turns a healthy profit through an ‘insertion fee’ for every item users submit for auction. It must have done having purchased PayPal for $1.5 billion. Ingenuity eBay teaches us, is the key to making money online. When eBay first launched in 1995, it for a long while had a veritable monopoly on the genre until people caught up.

While these are the two biggest direct online retailers, the likes of Google, Facebook and Yahoo all make an even healthier profit by selling services, links and advertising. Is this a sign of the times that to make money online, selling goods is a less lucrative option? If you are trying to beat the top dogs then yes. But if you are a normal business with good products then online selling is still by far the best option.

Martin Able is an established team member at the payment service provider Lancore and has a wealth of experience in secure and reliable money transfer services.

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The Best Smartphones for Business Owners

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

smartphoneIf you are in business these days it is almost essential to have a smartphone. With all the mobility of a…er…mobile, and all the handy application usefulness of a computer, they go with business like bread and butter. They are particularly valuable for small businesses and can act as an entire office for some one man companies. If they could find somewhere to keep the mugs in a smartphone they would no doubt do coffee too.

Every month it feels like there is a new development in the smartphone market, with the iPhone 4 not long out, regular upgrades to operating systems opening new avenues and new handsets popping up all over the place, how do you know what to get if you are looking to buy? Well here are what I can tell are the top dogs of the moment and a taste of what they have to offer people in business.

iPhone

Positives: For starters there is no denying its iconic status and the element of prestige that make people fork out those extra few pounds to pull this out when in envious circles is certainly a positive factor. The new iPhone 4 with iOS4 has multi tasking, a multitude of business friendly apps and speedy browsing all of which make for a great business-use smartphone.

Negatives: Possible problems with the antenna on the new phone have been well documented but supposedly are due to be solved with a software update.

HTC

Positives: Using the Android operating system, new HTC smartphones such as the Desire and HD2 provide a very fast and user friendly experience with a very fast processor, multi tasking and a personalsable home screen. This along with a platform which allows you to create and upload your very own apps makes this a very versatile smartphone.

Negatives: A few missing areas of built in functionality but which can easily be plugged with the multitude of apps, plus some have said it has an inferior battery life. However, in practice it seems to be no different to the other smartphones of this generation.

Blackberry

Positives: Has been the first choice for many business professionals for a long time and now even the Queen has one after being given a Blackberry as a gift after touring the Canadian headquarters of its maker, Research in Motion. Blackberries have multi-tasking skills and a great battery life to allow for lots of emailing and status updating.

Negatives: A limited application store choice in comparison to the Apple app store and relatively slow browser when compared to its competitors.

Any one of these amazing smartphones will be a massive asset to any business professional but the question is: do you buy now or wait a few months for the next amazing innovation to be announced?

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Government to get everyone in the UK Online by 2015

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

UK_OnlineThe Networked Nation Manifesto published on 12th July 2010 highlighted the number of people in the UK who are missing out on opportunities that the internet brings. The UK digital champion Martha Lane Fox produced this manifesto and has announced plans to try and get everyone in the UK of working age online by 2015. This is spurred by the fact that if everyone who is not online took advantage of the opportunities the internet can bring, in the shape of access to jobs and consumer savings it could in turn save a lot of money for the UK economy. For example if just 3.5% of UK unemployed gained employment this would save £560m, and with 90% of jobs now requiring basic internet skills, getting everyone online could be an easy way to save some money.

The document not only ranks economic reason for getting everyone online, it highlights many social reasons, such as the statistics that show children from households with internet access do better at school than children from households without it. Also, the elderly tend to be the demographic least likely to access the internet but with old age being a prime time for loneliness and isolation, opening up the older generation to the social side of the internet could mean a lot to social services and concerned families around the country.

For online business this move can only be a good thing. More people online means more people to use online services and shopping outlets. Also if more elderly people get online, then this will open up what is currently a relatively small market with new online services created specifically for older men and women. It is likely that any services created with them in mind would need to be easy to use and as technologically friendly as possible.

While it may be impossible to get 100% of the UK population online, this manifesto may certainly lead to many more plugging in when before they may not have. For the success of the manifesto plan the proof will be in the pudding over the next few years; cost will of course be a factor with 50% of those not online earning less than £11,500/year. Martha Lane Fox hopes for this not to cost the UK anything, with investment coming from private and voluntary sectors, but with money levels in the UK circling the plug hole and what money there is being diverted away from things like schools, if people see any money being poured into internet access and don’t appreciate the benefits there could be some serious complaining on the way.

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Social Media is Becoming a Major Business Channel

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

Social Media

While we mentioned in a previous post how social media can be a valuable tool for online businesses, new statistics have arisen which show just how big a part of our lives they have become. Two reports, one by Hitwise and one from Econsultancy show some remarkable results.

The results produced by Hitwise show that in the UK in May, there were more people using social networking sites than search engines. This is an alarming statistic for some as it shows the extent to which social networking has grown, to where it can attract more visitors than the giant search engines. From a business point of view this brings up the question, where should your investment in advertising be made? And if social media is going to become a consistently more visited medium than the search engines, will people be as easy to pitch to when they are chatting to their friends about a product as opposed to when they are actively searching for a something they want?

With this in mind, Econsultancy’s 3rd annual Online Measurement and Strategy Report handily shows that since 2009 there has been a 9% increase in the number of agencies using social media monitoring analytics. This is the biggest increase in all types of analytics, proving that people are now beginning to appreciate the power of social media and are looking for ways to use them to help their business. The report shows how organisations use a variety of methods to monitor social media including free to use feeds and dashboards, web analytics tools, paid for reputation monitoring tools, a mixture of all of these or of course, none of these. It seems business is going social in a big way.

However, Hitwise’s statistics when broken down show that Google on its own is still the most visited site in the UK. This may be just a sign that Google is beating its rivals into submission leaving a space in the stats which happens to be filled by a social networking site (Facebook is second, 2% behind), but if you look at it another way, people may be getting from social networking what they were looking for from search engines, plus all the fun and games on top. Why go back to a search engine?

Whether these stats herald the beginning of a new age or just signify a blip being followed up by a conscientious tech savvy business community, only time will tell. But if companies are to move to a more social media centric forum you can be sure that Lancore will be there ready and waiting with all the online multi-currency payment processing required.

As an intrinsic part of the Lancore team Martin Able is specialised in arranging secure payment gateways for quick and effective money transfer services.

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How is HTML5 going to affect your business?

Monday, June 28th, 2010

HTML

In a rapidly changing web environment, things become obsolete quickly as user requirements and innovation constantly push the boundaries of existing technology to the limit. A major development in the distance rumbling towards us is HTML5. HTML5 (hyper text markup language) is a new version of the core markup language (HTML) with which the web is built. Currently in order to have video or audio on a webpage, you need to use software plug-ins such as Flash, Silverlight or JavaFX. The problem with plug-ins are that they need to be installed onto your browser first, and tend to cause a number of problems which slow down websites and can even crash your computer. But with HTML5, video and audio can be written into the code allowing for slicker websites and a lot less crashing.

For businesses the native video support will mean that it is incredibly easy to have websites which can play back your videos for product demos, presentations and commercials. No longer will potential customers get to your site only to be confronted with a black box and a link to download the plug-in to view the video. How many sales do you think you’ve lost because of this?

Another feature is the “section” tag, which will provide internet marketers the opportunity to describe the topic of each section of their website individually and allow them to avoid using h2, h3 tags. This means that search engines will have even better chances of finding the most relevant content when returning your search results and get your business in front of potential customers faster.

Apple is the biggest advocate of HTML5 currently as they want it to be used by everyone as soon as possible. Mostly because they have made the decision that their new devices will not support flash, and as Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained at the recent D8 conference, they feel that Flash is dying software, and is being overtaken by the likes of HTML5. He explains that:

“Apple is a company that doesn’t have the resources that everyone else has. We choose what tech horses to ride, we look for tech that has a future and is headed up.” Steve Jobs @ D:8.

Currently, HTML5 is still off in the distance but it seems like it is only a matter of time, as big businesses, TV and News networks have been making changes to their sites so that they are ready for the changeover. Flash isn’t going to disappear right away either, but with all the sensible and business positive changes coming with HTML5 it could be on a shallow ledge.

Working within Lancore has allowed Martin Able to become a leading professional in providing secure payment gateways allowing seamless money transfer services for an array of clients.

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How do New Technologies like the iPhone 4 affect New Business Opportunities?

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

smartphonesWith the launch of new technologies such as the iPhone 4 and the iPad, it’s easy to forget that not so long ago there was a time when the most advanced technology in an office was the telephone:  A simpler time when pen and paper, or maybe a typewriter, along with the postal service and a filing cabinet was the basis of all work and communication. A time when salesmen went out and about to do business on the road and when computers were closer to abacuses than today’s superfast nanotech marvels.

When starting a new business in today’s environment, the technology you require has gone from being nonexistent, through large clunky and unreliable, to sleek, sophisticated, user friendly, often beautiful and increasingly open sourced. Here are some of the most important new technologies and how they affect new businesses:

Broadband Internet, HTML5

There is no escaping that we are now an online world. Without a website your company could make the best grommets in the world, but not many people would know about it. With the step to broadband internet, the World Wide Web came to households around the country like never before, (as dial-up was fairly limited), and made it possible for even the smallest start up business to create a webpage for people to see their products.

HTML is the core markup language of the internet, and the basis upon which webpages are built. HTML5 (and CSS3) is the latest version of this language, which is set to make it even easier for new businesses to incorporate various modern elements into their websites when browsers get up to speed with the technology.

Search Engines, SEO

Search engines have changed the way people search for businesses and services. When looking for anything from a new job to somewhere to sell your 1956 limited edition Elvis original album press, instead of going to the yellow pages, the majority of the world goes to a search engine.

Search engines like Google are now among the biggest and most profitable companies in the world which shows how big a part of our lives they have become. A new business that appears at the top of search engine rankings will get more business. So SEO (search engine optimisation) is an increasingly key part of any new businesses strategy, as this improves the position of a businesses website within the search engine rankings.

Smartphones

Smartphones such as the new iPhone 4 or the very popular Blackberry have massively improved the connection between small business owners and their customers. Even one person companies can maintain contact with their suppliers, other staff, accountants and clients without having to be tied to or constantly returning to a desk. With a smartphone a new business can have lower overheads also, as a number of apps available on smartphones can keep track of your finances, track your tasks and appointments, allow you to access the internet on the move and maintain a constant point of contact for potential new customers.

New technologies have revolutionised business, but have also made it easier for a business’s competition at the same time. The bar has been raised for everyone and new technologies are here to help.

Martin Able has worked for years as part of the Lancore team to provide the most secure money transfer services through complete payment gateways solutions.

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Many New Ways to Make Payments with Your Mobile

Monday, June 14th, 2010

New e-commerce developments are upon us from brains akin to the likes of Einstein and Copernicus. First, there was ‘ye olde’ methods of paying for things; trading pigs and chickens at the local market or swapping shiny shells for goods and services; next there was actual gold and jewels in rich men’s pockets which were swiftly swapped for paper money because wallets and purses couldn’t handle the weight. In the modern age we have progressed from paper money and cheques, to plastic money, to online digital money and now…now we have some of these offerings below. People want to pay for things with as little hassle as possible and while keeping track of their accounts at the same time.

Apple iPhone 4 (Image Courtesy Of Apple)

Apple iPhone 4 (Image Courtesy Of Apple)

Square

The ‘Square’ looks like a sugar lump with an audio jack sticking out of it. This clever device allows you to make payments from your mobile at any location which has the appropriate software, or alternatively if you are a retailer, allows you to take payments from customers if they are also tooled up. It is free to sign up to the service and you can even have your receipts sent to your email or mobile phone to save on paper. What is most interesting is that as a retailer you can set up your Square account to use photo verification, so that whenever someone makes a payment, you can visually confirm they are the account holder.

Pageonce

Pageonce is a free iPhone app which can be used to make payments and help keep track of all your bills and transactions from your phone. Unlike regular mobile banking, this cracking app ties all your bills and services into one handy place to let you keep track of and manage your money. Bank accounts, utility bills and many other types of payment can be tracked and altered from the palm of your hand, allowing you to see a calendar of payments, charts and other stats on your spending. All in all it could be the best way for you to manage and hopefully save money.

NFC

Near Field Communication is a contactless way of transferring data from a mobile device to a receiver within a 10 centimetre radius. This technology was designed with mobile devices in mind and is an ideal platform for people to make close proximity payments with their phones. Currently used in some parts of Asia and Europe, NFC is used to pay for public transport ticketing, to read ‘smart posters’ and to use a mobile phone as a debit/credit card. Phones need to be built with NFC hardware inside, much like Bluetooth, but the infrastructure is already out there, ready for it to be used more widely.

As an online multi-currency payment processer and merchant service operator, Lancore is a market leader when it comes to online commerce and has opened up a world of new markets for new and existing business customers worldwide.

Having worked in money transfer services for over a decade, Martin Able has vast experience in ensuring secure online credit card processing.

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Why Your Business Needs a Mobile Webpage

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Browsing the web on a mobile has never been easier. There are more than 68 million mobile internet users worldwide and this number is growing. Since the development of Smartphones like the iPhone and Android platforms, getting online on your phone is an increasingly seamless and daily occurrence. Also, next year sees the launch of 4G internet. Much like the 3G internet currently used by mobile surfers but up to 20 times faster. With this in the pipeline you can be assured that mobile commerce is going to be a big part of the future of business.

Just picture it, someone sitting on the bus on the way home from work with their iPhone, watching Youtube videos and clicking through web pages when they come across something that catches their eye relating to your product. They click onto your mobile web page and before you know it, they have placed an order. This sort of impulse buy could lead to a big increase in sales.

Currently in the world of mobile internet there is a hot pot of mobile operating systems and browsers all bubbling away bouncing off each other not quite sure where to go and with who, or if they should go off and get their own operating system. They call this fragmentation, and it is likely to continue. However, while operating system decisions will remain in the pot for a while, it seems mobile browsers are getting out and heading for the shower because they have been in for longer. Browsers for the most part will be based on Webkit and have, judging by the trend, agreed to support HTML5, meaning that the majority of mobile browsers will be more consistent. Not that HTML5 is by any means the piece de resistance as there is much new innovation round every corner but it is at least a sign that things will have a strong base.

So with this in mind there is no reason for you to hold off building your mobile web page. Business is going mobile whether you like it or not so best jump on board now.

Amazon has an excellent mobile web page, check that out first to get an idea of what to aim for.

Check out these pages to give you some help with design and layout.

  • W3C – Web Mobile best practices
  • Google – Tips on developing mobile sites

There are some requirements when creating your mobile site:

  • Your site must be XHTML compliant
  • Do not use frames
  • Create a site map telling Google this is a mobile web page
  • Keep your internal page links shallow to keep your mobile users engaged
  • Use external CSS style sheets for mobile speed

Martin Able is a professional in providing complete payment gateways for top businesses allowing money transfer services to run smoothly.

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Top 5 Ecommerce Applications Of Social Media

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Social Media is big business and with the right plan of action and a delicate touch any site can utilise people power to improve their ecommerce. Here are a few brands which have made a big difference to their ecommerce growth using social media.

Zappos

Zappos is an online shoe and clothing store which uses their company culture to sell their products. They believe that their company culture is strong enough to sell their brands by using Twitter (400 staff tweeting) and other social media outlets to project their lifestyle. Their blogs for example contains more information on their day to day life than about product updates and new releases.

Dell

Dell asks its customers to help shape its brand and even its products. A while back, some might say it was in the bad books of the social media world, but if its websites navigation is anything to go by they now make a strong statement about their commitment to community and service. They are active in every social media sector and have over 400,000 ‘Twitterers,’ or is it ‘Twits’ or ‘Tweeterers’? Most interestingly, Dell has an idea generating community called ‘Ideastorm,’ from which tens of thousands of ideas have been generated. 200+ of which have been implemented.

Best Buy

Best Buy has a mantra of radical transparency. It is also a company of regular Twitter users, but its use of an open application interface is awesome as this provides developers with access all its catalogue data from their ecommerce website to allow them to use it to test and create new applications.

Wet Seal

Wet Seal is a clothing store which has an online gallery where customers can create ensembles from their catalogue in order to best judge what to buy. However this catalogue is also a community forum where people can publish their ensembles and get reviews from other customers. This is a step beyond a normal review by being imagination driven and brings in visitors motivated by social validation. The idea is taken a step further when you visit a store physically. Customers published ensembles are searchable, so your choice of outfit could be a tool to sell to another customer – user generated merchandising.

Build A Bear Workshop

How can you use social media to sell something like a teddy bear? – Primarily, an experience centric product. Well ‘Build A Bear Workshop’ created an online world for its, largely child, patrons. This online world is basically a ‘Facebook’ for kids. From this interactive world customers can chat and share online items from each other and have access to staff from ‘Build A Bear Workshop’ to answer questions and buy online goods.

Social Media is an important and growing part of the ecommerce universe, and when used with innovation and sincerity it can be a powerful tool. How could your business use social media to better sell your product?

Martin Able is an e-commerce professional experienced with money transfer services and cheque processing for internet retailers.

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