Tag: ecommerce website

Ecommerce Platforms for Small Businesses

Posted on by Maricar Morga

When you start your small eCommerce business, you want to reach a wide range of audiences that can make your business a success. To do this, you need to invest in your platform and make sure that you are using the best but reliable avenue to sell your product or run your business.

Decades ago, you would need to invest a considerable run of money for your brick and mortar store as it requires a distinct property and building to come to life. In this digital era, the take where to place your business has shifted dramatically.

Technology continues to evolve, which creates much impact on many industries and can make your business grow.

What is the eCommerce Platform?

The age of the internet has dawned upon businesses of all sizes. Many are now moving to the internet to sell their products, offer their services, and build a business empire.

Ecommerce

Ecommerce is a type of business model that has emerged from the evolution of the digital age that allows individuals and enterprises to buy and sell over the internet.

It has helped many businesses reach a broader market but through a cheaper and more efficient option than the traditional brick-and-store.

E-commerce platforms provide you with a lot of benefits like an open store for 24 hours a day and seven days a week, making your online business readily available for any person who wishes to check your company any time of the day.

With the influx of eCommerce platforms these days, deciding which platform to use is the trickiest part when moving or starting your online business.

Depending on your needs like the type of product you have or services you offer, the number of your products, your budget, and the control you want over your e-commerce business, you need to choose the best platform that will help your business grow.

In this article, you’ll find some of the best e-commerce platforms today for small businesses.

Ecommerce Platforms You Use For Your Small Business

1. Shopify

Many business experts and thought leaders in the eCommerce industry regard Shopify as one of the best eCommerce website builders for small businesses.

It is also one of the biggest and most widely-known platforms for online businesses of all sizes. Shopify is straightforward to use and has a user interface that does not require you to stock knowledge with IT or coding skills to build your online store.

Shopify

Shopify is among the top choices for small businesses as well as large and established enterprises. One of the reasons is that Shopify allows you to build customizable online stores even if you have zero knowledge in coding and design.

Should your business grow more prominent, you do not have to think about switching to other platforms. Instead, you can upgrade for plants that can cater to your growing business.

Because of the growing competition online, building a business over the internet is not easy. Aside from your product or services being available online, your store should also be pleasing aesthetically.

Shopify made it easy for you, as you can choose a hundred themes that fit your business. It even has a responsive design that allows your online store to adapt to whatever device your customer uses.

2. BigCommerce

Another one of the most popular eCommerce platforms these days is BigCommerce. True to its name, BigCommerce is also the biggest in the industry as it caters to small and large businesses to build an eCommerce website.

It offers an extensive set of tools that would help you work your way around your online business.

BigCommerce allows you to create storefronts on other popular sites like eBay and Amazon. This move can be a great way to grow your business and expand your reach without creating multiple accounts.

Selling your products through other mediums can be an easy way to branch out while creating a consistent branding for your business.

BigCommerceYour social media can also become part of your eCommerce store as BigCommerce allows you to integrate your social media into your online store. You can also sell your products through these avenues, thus growing your reach.

3. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that you can use to turn your WordPress website into an eCommerce site for your small business.

WordPress is usually used to power up a blogging website, but with WooCommerce, it can function as your online store.

WooCommerceUtilizing WooCommerce will allow you to bring in eCommerce functionalities to your website. It is an open-source eCommerce plugin that can fully customize your site, depending on your eCommerce needs. It is also a user-friendly plugin.

That is why it is very popular with small business owners around the planet.

WooCommerce can make it easy for people to view your product and even purchase them. By getting this plugin for your WordPress website, you can quickly turn your existing website that leverages WordPress to an online platform that can help your business grow.

4. Squarespace

Squarespace is another great option, especially for those who are keen on keeping track of inventories. As an eCommerce store, it is essential to keep track of the product’s quantity, so you will know which of the items are running low.

Leveraging on Squarespace, you will have the chance to use their inventory management system.

Squarespace

This website builder is suitable for small businesses that want a sophisticated and straightforward option for their eCommerce store.

It also has a wide range of store themes that you can choose. When using Squarespace, you will get to control some aspect of your like managing your email list, shipping configuration, and coupon offers.

5. Wix eCommerce

Not all online businesses offer a wide array of products. Some have even less than 50 items to sell online. If your eCommerce store has only an offering of 50 or less than products, you can opt for Wix eCommerce.

Wix eCommerce is an easy and straightforward way to create a reliable website for your online store. It is even set up with a drag and drag them where you can add and remove features based on your business needs.

This feature makes it easier for you to create a storefront that suits your business’s needs and your desired audience preferences.

WixeCommerce

Like Shopify, you do not need any adequate knowledge of coding and design to build a great website. It even offers many eye-catching themes that can make your eCommerce business stand out among the competition.

6. Andolasoft

A one-stop-shop for all your business needs, Andolasoft, is another top choice you can consider to help your small business.

Andolasoft can take your business to the next level with its renowned mobile-friendly eCommerce solutions.

Being mobile-friendly means your eCommerce website should be able to adapt to any screen size your customers are using.

Andolasoft

Andolasoft’s development services work and integrate with all the significant and popular eCommerce platforms in the market like Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and more.

It can make your website stand out with its key features such as Advanced Search, Wishlist, multiple themes, and dedicated blog on your eCommerce site.

Aside from an eCommerce solution, Andolasoft offers other services like mobile app development, open-source development, cloud management, support, and maintenance, making it easier for you to fulfill your small business’ needs.

With over 200 plus dedicated professionals, the company already has 11 years’ worth of experience in the eCommerce market. Andolasoft has a wide array of clients in about 35 countries worldwide, making them one of the top choices for any technological development requirement.

Final Thoughts

People are now online, not only to browse for any information but also to purchase any product or service they need.

Getting your eCommerce website is a must to make sure you take advantage of technology and the internet. However, just owning and building one is not enough. Aside from its aesthetics and beautiful design, your eCommerce site should be functional and user-friendly.

It should also be responsive and adaptive to any screen size your customer is using. To help you achieve this, take note of the eCommerce platforms mentioned in this article that you can consider in building your small business’ store online.

How eCommerce Strategy Can Help For Post-COVID Stage

Posted on by Jay

Almost $2.7 trillion from the global economy has been wiped out due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic lost output.
And there is no exception for eCommerce business as well.

Some experts are saying “the user behavior has dramatically changed within this short period.” And this is causing the fall of eCommerce sales.

For a long time, eCommerce has been on the holy grail of personalisation- it is considered as the cross- channel experience that adapts the needs of customers and achieves goals in real time.

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More than 80% of shoppers are likely to purchase from a company that offers a personalize experience.

So, many eCommerce brands are coming to grips with evolving consumer behavior trends, purchase patterns, and situational habits.

Making Of The New Normal

As per the recent research report by Nielsen, “there are 6 different major consumer behavior thresholds pertaining to the COVID-19-necessitated lockdown across countries”.

These are:

Nielsen Report

If we would go carefully through all behavioral sats we can see most of the developed and emerging economies have already gone through the first three levels.

And Consumer behavior patterns across the next three levels are now on the beginning stage to take shape as sustained global stay-at-home periods are extending regularly with new changing rules.

Levels 4, 5, and 6 are about the new demand signals across demographics and how to respond proactively for each opportunity.

Overall, to keep a firm pulse on your customers’ needs and expectations, you need to personalize the entire customer experiences by delivering the needful values at every stage of an individual session.

In a report by mcKinsey, it has discovered that the consumer sentiments were changing since post-Covid. Consumers have started to put less emphasis on brand loyalty and are opting to focus more on getting value for money.

With the eCommerce personalisation strategies effective in retaining customers, along with increasing sales efforts, the reluctance  to implement personalization can be costly.

To make an effective and successful implementation to combat these unprecedented times, re-imagine the growth on post COVID19 stage and most importantly deliver the customer delight – here I have mentioned the 8 actionable steps that can help you with:

1. Analyze The Customer Data To With New Actionable Insights:

As an e-commerce brand, you need to consider what worked for your business until February 2020. That is unlikely to shape your future customer and revenue growth engine.

So, make a deep-dive on gathering and unifying the right customer data.

Build and gather a 360-degree view of all individual customers based on their demographic, geolocation, behavioral, and device-related data points.

Slice-and-dice each data insights to gather new actionable insights on evolving the current consumer behavior trends.

In a study it was found that 76% of respondents said the real- time behavioral data  is a popular option to grow website personalisation. Real-time behavioral segmentation is generated through in-session behaviors. 

The sessions however refers to the specific user’s action performed in a page during a particular period of time, such as page load or button clicks.

(Source: Linnworks.com)

You may uncover the high engagement and conversion rates for the customer segments which were scored lowly on the ROI parameters or on the value of the purchase.

For Special Instance:

With staying indoors and without access to any physical grocery stores or pharmacies; many people including senior citizens have taken to ordering items of their need over online websites and apps.

This will bring an outlier customer segment into your eCommerce website and you need to put a sharp focus during the current COVID-19 crisis.

These new customer segments open up new engagement to increase ROI and retention in the long-run through.
But, don’t allow these insights to be reported as decision-making.

You have to dig deeper to identify and categorize consumption trends – relevant to your e-commerce platform – into the following buckets:

  • Temporarily postponed: This includes high ticket-value items such as apparel, electronic gadgets, footwear etc.
  • Accelerated: This includes daily grocery items, medicines, etc.
  • Disturbed: This includes face-masks, gloves, hand sanitizers, etc.

Categorizing these trends will enable you to make clearer distinctions between what your customers consider as “essentials” and “indulgences”. Remember that these customer perceptions are likely to evolve during this period and once a greater semblance of normalcy returns.

For instance: When the lockdown came into effect in the USA, only 13% of households were ordering food online in the first week. This percentage jumped to 38% by the third week. This highlights the changing attitude of customers towards food delivery from an “essential” to an “indulgence”.

2. Identify New Buyer Personas:

Fact 1: The COVID-19 crisis has reshaped buyer personas that are going to respond differently when the situation begins to normalize.

Fact 2: Based on the value chain in this current scenario, your customers will travel through the following phases towards retention:

buyer personas

After carefully analyzing millions of customer behavioral data points, we’ve identified five key buyer personas that are going to drive demand now:

  • The Captive Buyer:

This type of buyer is reluctant to substitute one product or e-commerce platform with another due to the high cost – in terms of time, effort, and/or money – involved in switching. He/she doesn’t mind postponing purchase based on product availability, last-mile delivery capability, ease and familiarity of platform usage, etc.

  • The Hoarder Or Panic Buyer:

This buyer’s demand is not dictated by the price but by the more primal emotion of fear. He/she is likely to purchase products in bulk – primarily “essentials” such as groceries, healthcare and hygiene items, etc. He/she is also unlikely to spend too much time and effort searching and browsing for products, which is why you need to offer the most relevant product recommendations ASAP.

  • The Price-Conscious Buyer:

This buyer display’s maximum loyalty to the price of the products he/she might be interested in rather than your platform or overall customer experience. He/she will be more attracted to product bundles, offers, and discounts that appeal to his/her spending propensity.

  • The Hesitant Buyer:

This buyer begins with the intention of making a purchase, but is highly likely to postpone or abandon the transaction completely during checkout. You need to give this persona confidence in your platform, customer experience, and last-mile delivery. An omnichannel marketing approach that allows you to orchestrate customer journeys, nudging them to complete the purchase, will go a long way in increasing conversions.

  • The Impulsive Buyer:

This type of buyer makes snap purchase decisions during checkout and is ripe for targeting with relevant cross-sell and upsell product recommendations. This is going to help you increase your average order value per conversion.

3. Personalize The Navigational Flow Across Your Website Or The Mobile App:

Fact: It doesn’t matter if your e-commerce website has the greatest looking Home Page or the most visually pleasing app UI/UX anymore. You need to do more. Your customers are unique individuals, so showing the same website or mobile app to both first-time visitors and repeat customers won’t work anymore!

Leverage your customer’s browsing behavior and order history to customize how you want them to navigate across your website. The more customized your navigational journey, the higher the chances of you directing them towards a purchase – faster.

You can also experiment with dynamic website elements such as graphics, banner images, and CTAs to optimize the persona-based viewing and navigation experience.

For instance: You can personalize the Home Page viewing and navigation flow across your e-commerce platform depending on whether a new visitor (or an unregistered app user) or a repeat registered customer lands on your website or launches your mobile app.

4. Strategically Leverage AI-driven Live Product Recommendations:

Fact: When your customers are active on your website or mobile app, you need to shorten their paths to conversion by giving them product recommendations that are tailor-made to each one of them. And, if you have a large product catalog, then you need AI to do all the heavy lifting, in real-time.

Our AI engine – Raman – enables you to show the most relevant product recommendations across your Home Page, Product Display Page, and Product Listing Page.

For instance: To better cater to your new buyer personas and customer segments, you need to deploy AI algorithms that learn from their actions and inactions in real-time to deliver contextual product recommendations on your website or mobile app.

The AI engine learns intuitively and can eventually predict with a great degree of accuracy what an individual user is most likely to click on, add-to-cart, and purchase.

5. Curate A Personalized Virtual Storefront:

Fact: Directing your customers to what they want has to be a relentless pursuit, as part of your larger personalization strategy.

You can climb higher up the personalization mountain by creating a virtual storefront for individual customers. Not only should this contain product recommendations with the highest probability of purchase, it would also continue to get dynamically refreshed based on customer eyeball data.

This means that this specially curated list of products would account for those recommendations that work and those that don’t and refresh automatically – based on how many seconds a customer spends hovering over an item. These time-stamped signals loop back into our AI engine, making it smarter, with every interaction that a customer has with your platform.

6. Deliver Predictive Product Recommendations Across Channels:

Fact: Your AI-led personalization strategy has to extend across multiple channels and devices, even when your customer is inactive on your e-commerce website or mobile app. Well-timed 1:1 customer engagement across digital touchpoints increases the probability of conversions – exponentially.

Deliver Predictive Product Recommendations Across Channels(Source: Bloomreach)

With Smartech, you can now trigger laser-focused product recommendations across high-impact channels such as email, app push notifications, and web messages.

Here is the kind of contextual recommendations that you can deliver to pursue conversions beyond just your website or the mobile app:

  • “Suggested for You” Recommendations: These are the best possible recommendations tailored to individual customers based on their general historical behavior; i.e. product/product categories viewed, items added to cart, purchase, etc.
  • “Cart Abandonment Recommendations: These are generated based on the products added to individual customers’ digital shopping carts where the customer may have dropped-off or not completed a purchase
  • Buying Pattern Recommendations: These are generated based on individual customers’ most recent product purchases

For instance: If you identify a customer segment that has repeatedly purchased Instant Noodles within the Dry Grocery category and is out of stock due to a demand surge – you can trigger personalized email recommendations updating this segment when the product is back in stock

  • Viewing Pattern Recommendations: These are triggered based on individual customers’ most recent products or product categories viewed
  • Bestselling Recommendations: These are generated based on the highest selling products on your website or mobile app. These are products that are being purchased the most when compared to other products over a period of time

For instance: In the current scenario, health safety and hygiene products such as facemasks, disinfectants, and hand sanitizers have quickly become best selling products – over the last 2 months – and will see a steady demand even when the lockdown period is relaxed.

  • Trending Recommendations: These are generated based on the most trending products on your website or mobile app. Essentially, these are products whose consumption has shown a percentage increase over a period of time.

For instance: Building on the above example, health safety, and hygiene products like facemasks rapidly became a trending product within its category and very soon emerged as a bestselling product, as the COVID-19 turned into a pandemic.

  • Recently Viewed Recommendations: These are generated based on the most common products that have been recently viewed by individual customers on your platform
  • “New Arrival” Recommendations: These are generated based on the new products that have been added to your product catalog. Our AI engine maps these products to the ones that are most relevant to individual customers and hit upon the ideal recommendations, capable of nudging him/her towards an eventual purchase

Depending upon what channels of customer engagement are working best for which customer segments and buyer personas, you can optimize your multi-channel mix as well as the send-times for these campaigns.

Not only do your recommendations have to be personalized, but they also need to be delivered on the right channel and at the right time. And, our AI engine facilitates all of this.

7. Harness AI-led Product Recommendations To Manage Your Inventory Effectively:

Fact: Your marketing efforts and inventory management have to go hand-in-hand to increase consumption while driving down overhead costs associated with surplus inventory.

The current COVID-19 situation would have fuelled greater demand for certain products while completely eroding demand for other items in your product catalog.

So, don’t just rely on “Bestselling” or “Trending” product recommendations to drive conversions, also account for other products – similar or otherwise – that you can suggest to ease the pressure on your built-up inventory.

Incentivize purchase with attractive discounts, offers, and combo deals. It’s a subtle balancing act and operational trade-off, but an aspect of your marketing strategy that requires urgent attention.

8. Deliver The Best-Possible End-To-End Customer Experience:

Fact: Customer satisfaction is a function of delivering seamless, reliable, and consistent customer experiences over a long period of time.

While AI-led product recommendations will open up relevance-backed conversion opportunities across customer segments and buyer personas, you still need to get other elements of your value chain just right, such as:

  • Seamless website or mobile app UI/UX
  • Fool-proof virtual payment gateways and flexible modes of payment
  • Sturdy packaging
  • Reliable in-time last-mile delivery
  • Provision for new-age package collection; eg: contactless delivery

The new rules of e-commerce marketing are already in play. But, relentless focus on the holistic customer experience – backed by personalization – can go a long way in bending those rules in your favor.

Personalization A Key Tool In The Post-Pandemic Ecommerce Landscape:

As more and more people are facing huge problems due to the pandemic, the one thing shoppers want to feel certain is purchasing.

Shoppers want to ensure they are purchasing the right product from the right brand with the right prices and this is taken into consideration as a person and not as a sales figure.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

In this period of time, personalization has become a vital tool in the ecommerce market. As it enables the customers to feel through their needs, wants and fears which are taken into consideration and it is not being recognized on a valued, individual level.

Conclusion:

Omnichannel personalisation helps the ecommerce brand to unlock the growth in the revenue and waves the user.

Customer data and AI enables you to fulfill the demands, new conversion opportunities, and it turns the newly identified focus customers segments into loyalists.

Andolasoft eCommerce Development & Personalization service can help your e-commerce brand unlock new waves of the user and revenue growth for the remainder of 2020 and beyond.

While customer data and AI will enable you to fulfill latent demand, tap into new conversion opportunities, and turn newly identified focus customer segments into loyalists – don’t be a hard-sell!

At such a time, you need to position yourself as a situation-aware, empathetic, and customer-centric brand. And, not come across as a tone-deaf, opportunistic, and ROI-focused brand.

If you want to develop your eCommerce website, you can connect to us. Our dedicated developers hold many experience in developing eCommerce websites.

How To Robust eCommerce Store Using WordPress

Posted on by Jay

Ecommerce is poised to become a major player in the global retail market, and the global eCommerce industry may make up as much as 6.7% of all retail sales by 2025.

And it’s not just giants like Amazon or Walmart that contribute to this figure, as the local marketplace features a multitude of stores selling everything online.

One of the best parts about entering the eCommerce world is that it’s easier than ever to do so. There’s a huge array of services that can give you everything you need to set up your online store with only a few clicks. Find a suitable eCommerce platform, you’re off to a good start!

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In our previous article about what you should consider before building an eCommerce store, we covered several of the best eCommerce platforms to choose from. This time, we zero in on building an online store with WordPress, one of the most popular and flexible solutions for eCommerce.

Why Use WordPress?

WordPress is a free-and-open-source content management system that is developed by both a core group of lead developers and a community composed entirely of volunteers.

About one-quarter of all the websites on the Internet have WordPress as their content management system, and for good reason—it combines ease of use that allows it to be applied to even the most basic websites and plugin-based modularity that allows its functionality to be extended to meet virtually any needs.

Its open-source, community-managed nature also ensures that WordPress is constantly up-to-date with security patches and new features. Tutorials and documentation to do just about anything can also be found all over the Web—if you have a question about WordPress, it’s almost certainly been answered already.

WordPress is particularly useful when building an eCommerce website because there are plenty of premade themes suited to an online storefront. It also features plugins that add complete eCommerce functionality to a site, from product display to shopping cart and checkout.

Finally, one of the top reasons to go with WordPress is that it’s a flexible platform that offers you complete control over what your website does and how it appears. On top of your storefront, you can also include a blog, a forum, and any other pages you need.

All this comes without any ongoing fees to make use of the WordPress platform. Your monthly fees come from your hosting company and domain registrar, with WordPress itself being free to use, and certain plugins and themes being one-time purchases.

Planning to create an online store with WordPress? This blog post will help you along every step of the process.

Step 1: Choose Your Domain Name And Hosting Provider.

The first step in WordPress eCommerce setup starts with your domain name. This will become the address of your future website. A domain name is what you enter into the address bar of your browser to access a website.

While WordPress itself is free, you’ll need to pay for your domain name, which starts at US$10 per year. The cost is well worth it, as having your own domain name (i.e. yourbusinessname.com) is far more professional-looking than having your name on someone else’s domain (i.e. yourbusinessname.otherdomain.com)

You will also need a hosting provider, a service that will host your website on the Internet. By having a dedicated hosting provider, you’re assured that your website will load quickly and not suffer from extended periods of downtime.

You have the option of a shared or dedicated host. With a shared host, your website is on the same server as several other websites, which is cheaper, but often provides you with less control over your website as well as potentially smaller storage and bandwidth availability. Meanwhile, a dedicated host is more expensive, but gives your website a whole server exclusively for your use, and gives you a wide degree of control, storage, and bandwidth.

After snagging your domain and host, you can now install WordPress, and there are two ways to go about it:

One-Click Install

In the one-click install, you register your domain name and get your WordPress site hosted from the same provider. WordPress recommends your host supports PHP 7, MySQL v5.6+ or MariaDB v10.0+, and HTTPS.

You can also use hosting providers trusted by WordPress, which will make installation easier and ensure that your chosen host is supported. WordPress itself recommends Pressable, BlueHost, Dreamhost, Flywheel, and Site Ground.

Manual install

With the manual option, you set up a server manually, then install the WordPress platform on your server, and configure it. You’ll need to have an FTP client, a database set up through cPanel or PHPMyAdmin, and access to your web server. As such, this option is recommended only for advanced users. WordPress has extensive documentation that can walk you through the process.

Step 2: Select An ECommerce Plugin.

What will separate your WordPress eCommerce website from a standard WordPress website will be the means by which you sell products directly from your site. There are no native WordPress eCommerce features, so to add this functionality to your website, you’ll need to install an eCommerce plugin.

WooCommerce

Once a mere eCommerce plugin, WooCommerce has now morphed into a whole platform with its own plugin system since it was acquired by Automattic two years ago. It’s a highly customizable platform that gives you total control over your online store. About 30% of all online stores use WooCommerce as their platform; some local stores that use it are Beauty Choice and Green Point Flowers.

WooCommerce features a complete eCommerce backend that helps you build and organize product pages, and provides a shopping cart and checkout process.

Easily manage and track customer discounts with the powerful WooCommerce plugin.

Download Plugin

It’s free to use, but you can extend its functionality even further with various paid and free extensions. Extensions can do anything from serving AI-driven recommendations to customers on product landing pages to providing the option for scheduled group and daily deals that trigger when a predefined number of people purchase an item.

Easy Digital Downloads

While most eCommerce plugins and platforms revolve around the sale of physical products, Easy Digital Downloads or EDD is specifically designed to help you sell digital products.

EDD allows you to create discount codes, place restrictions on downloads, and provides full tracking and data reporting of downloads, sales, and other statistics. You can also add new features to your EDD storefront with extensions, which give you the ability to sell software licenses and subscriptions, add payment processors like PayPal, and more.

EDD is free, with various paid extensions you can purchase.

WP eCommerce

WP eCommerce isn’t quite as fully-featured as WooCommerce, but it’s another popular and robust choice for creating an online store with WordPress.

It has all the basic features, including product pages, shopping cart, and checkout functionality, and comes with excellent data reporting capabilities and inventory management. Like the other plugins, it’s free but provides optional paid and free extensions that can add functionality. It also comes in a paid Gold Cart package option that adds more advanced tools, layouts, and features. You can also purchase premium payment gateways like Stripe and Authorize.net.

Step 3: Install Your eCommerce Plugin.

Once you’ve chosen an eCommerce plugin for your WordPress site, it’s time to install it through your WordPress backend. For convenience’s sake, the following steps assume that you chose the WooCommerce platform:

Log in to your WordPress dashboard.

On the sidebar, go to the Plugins section and click “Add New”.

In the search bar, type “WooCommerce” and hit Enter. Click “Install Now” on WooCommerce by WooThemes.

If you’re still at the stage where you’re looking for a hosting provider, you may want to check out Bluehost’s partnership with WooCommerce. Bluehost offers an all-in-one solution for WordPress eCommerce setup, which includes a domain name, WordPress with WooCommerce pre-installed, and SSL certification to keep your online store secure.

Step 4: Set Up The Product Pages.

Now that you have your plugin set up, it’s time to start adding products and their product pages. Every plugin does things differently, so we’ll cover the steps for doing this in WooCommerce.

At the very least, every product you add must have the following features:

  • Product name
  • Price
  • Image
  • Brief description

Begin by entering your WordPress admin panel, then select “Products” on the sidebar and select “Add Product”. WooCommerce allows you to add both physical and virtual products to your store.

a) Adding Physical Products

You’ll be greeted with an interface very similar to that of publishing a blog post on WordPress. Insert your product name where a post title would normally be, and add a description where post content would be. Then, on the right sidebar, add a product image for your product (analogous to a featured image), and then optionally insert more images in the product gallery.

Next, in the Product Data section, add more details about your product. The first thing to pay attention to is the Product Type drop-down box. The applicable product types for physical products are the following:

Simple: A simple product with no SKU options

Grouped: Multiple related products, which consist of several related “child” products, each of which is a Simple product

Variable: A product with different SKUs, for example, shirts or shoes that have different size options

External/Affiliate: Items sold outside of your store

For now, let’s go with a Simple product.

You’ll also see “Virtual” and “Downloadable” check boxes next to the Product Type. Leave these unchecked for physical products.
Let’s move on to the components on the left of Product Data, and what goes on in each:

The Attributes section is where you can assign special details to each product. You can add as many attribute fields as you like. Just make sure to keep the attribute consistent among similar products being sold.

b) Adding Virtual Products

Virtual products are products that are not sold physically, while downloadable products are downloaded from your store. Some products are both virtual and downloadable, such as eBooks.

Adding virtual products features the same process as physical products for the most part. However, with virtual products, you’ll check the “Virtual” or “Downloadable” boxes next to Product Type. When you select either option, you lose the Shipping tab in Product Data. You should also go to the Inventory tab and uncheck “Manage stock?”

For downloadable products, the General tab gets more options:

Downloadable files: Insert file links here for large files or files you’ve previously uploaded. Alternatively, click the “Choose file” to upload a file.

Download limit: Maximum number of times this file can be downloaded

Download expiry: Buyers can only download the file for a certain number of days.

Other than these changes, the process remains the same for physical products.

After the Product Data part, you’ll find the Product Short Description. This will appear at the top of your product landing page.

Your shoppers will see this short description before the full description that you’ve already written.

Once this is done, click “Update” and the product will be added.

WordPress eCommerce Product Uploading Tips

The following tips ensure that your products are attractive to customers, and can be located easily either from your storefront or through a search engine.

a) Don’t Forget Your Titles!

Your product should always be named in the title bar when you add a product to your store. You should also use SEO tools such as Yoast to determine the best possible title for your product based on SEO.

b) Create Catchy Product Descriptions.

Don’t copy descriptions from the product’s manufacturer. Be unique and creative with your descriptions. Also, use very specific, long-tail keywords that will ensure your product appears in search engine results. Finally, be short—limit descriptions to 150-250 words.

c) Mind The Quality Of Your Images.

Use a square-shaped featured product image to conform to WooCommerce standards. Also, use large, high-quality images to attract more customers.

d) Categorize And Tag Accordingly.

Place your products under categories and tags. The effect is twofold: Customers will have an easier time browsing for them, and Google will also consider them similar to keywords.

Step 5: Payment

Just as it is the last step in the shopping process, both online and offline, the last step in any WordPress eCommerce setup relates to payment. Your eCommerce site needs a means of receiving payments from customers.

Most online retail financial transactions take place over payment gateways, which are services that act as a middleman between you and your customer.

Upon checkout from your site, a customer is directed to the payment gateway’s website, where they input financial information or sign in to their account with the gateway. Money is exchanged securely from the customer to the payment gateway, and then the payment gateway transfers the money into your merchant account. Some payment gateways also host payment accounts as well.

PayPal is one of the leading payment gateways available, but it’s not necessarily everyone’s preference. Thankfully, WooCommerce supports a wide variety of other gateways, and adding them is as easy as a trip to the Payment Gateways section of the WooCommerce Extensions store, from which you can add the gateway of your choice with a single click. Payment gateways come in both free and paid forms.

To make use of most features of payment gateways, you’ll need to have an SSL certificate. This ensures that all transactions, and thus exchanges of financial information, between you and your customer are safe from the prying eyes of hackers. Getting an SSL certificate can usually be achieved through your hosting provider for a fee.

In Singapore, certain payment gateways are favored by both customers and local eCommerce sites. Here are some of the top that is in use:

2Checkout

2Checkout allows eCommerce merchants to accept payments seamlessly from all over the world, whether from mobile or online. eCommerce sites have the option of using 2Checkout as a hosted solution, where buyers are directed to the 2Checkout website to complete payment. More advanced site owners can choose to integrate their storefront directly with the 2Checkout Payment API.

Asia Pay

One of the largest payment gateways in Asia, Asia Pay is also among the top choices for payment processors in Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Paypal Express

Fast and efficient, PayPal Express lets users check out and pay for their items in three clicks. Users can store their financial information easily within PayPal, making the process quick and easy.

Avoid hidden charges and choose the correct payment gateways for your store.

Considerations when choosing a payment gateway

1. Cost

Every payment gateway charges a certain percentage fee per transaction. Check out the service charges for each gateway you plan on using. Sometimes, a higher fee is justifiable if a gateway has excellent service.

2. eCommerce Compatibility

Not all payment gateways are supported by every eCommerce plugin. Ensure that your payment gateway of choice is included in the list of extensions of your eCommerce plugin.

3. Financial Information Input

Payment gateways will offer two options for receiving financial information from customers. One is the hosted page, which redirects customers to the payment gateway’s website after checkout, where they enter their information. This is the most secure method, but it’s also a little unwieldy and is not likely to match your store’s visual theme.

The other method is integration, where customers input their financial information in a series of fields directly on your website, which will then be sent to your payment gateway. This method is much more seamless and convenient but is less secure.

4. Mobile compatibility

More and more online transactions are taking place over mobile devices. It’s imperative that users be allowed to purchase and pay for items from your store even if they’re using their smartphones. Choose a payment gateway that not only supports transactions over mobile but also has an optimized mobile experience with a good UI.

5. Security And Support

Few things are as important as the safety of your customers’ information. To ensure this, make sure that your payment gateway features encryption, support for SSL certificates, and anything else to do with the protection of data.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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You should also be able to respond to problems with payment, refunds, and other concerns about transactions. Your payment processor of choice should have efficient and timely support that responds to your needs effectively.

For more information about setting up a payment gateway with WooCommerce, check out this detailed guide.

Conclusion

This article is a WordPress eCommerce how-to guide that has walked you through every step of building your own online store on one of the biggest platforms on the Web. You’ve learned how to choose your hosting provider, decide what plugin to use, install your plugin of choice, add your very first product, and set up a payment gateway for your site.

Want to launch your own eCommerce Store? Let’s Discuss!

How To Boost eCommerce Sale During Covid19 Pandemic

Posted on by Jay

Since the last few years, COVID-19 has made the most unexpected impacts worldwide. As of December, 2021, COVID-19 has affected millions of people worldwide with many deaths.

As with the New variants of Covid-19, the Omicron variant is emerging again, creating a major impact on millions of lives and to the economic sector.

As for the impact on the global business, we can’t say the industry like eCommerce is experiencing the complete fallout. The online sale has taken the hit but it is not completely down.

It’s clear that moving forward, choosing between online sales and brick-and-mortar stores won’t be the answer — instead, “offering a compelling Omni channel experience…is a requirement for survival,” says McKinsey analysts.

The drastic E-commerce growth amid movement restrictions induced by Covid-19 has increased the online Retail sales from 16% to 27.6% in 2021.

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According to a report by UNCTAD, online retail sales have grown in many countries, with the Republic of korea holding a large number of  shares at 25.9% by 2021, up from 20.8% the year before.

This pandemic has spread to over 100+ countries now. But as an eCommerce vendor, it is also time to deliver to their customer despite the circumstances.

Actually, it is very important to handle every step along the way with safety as paramount.

Despite this “post- Covid” era, the situation is constantly changing. With retail and E-commerce business has begun to observe behavioural shifts in the shopping habits , along with many new behavioural shifts observed in the shopping habits.

Online Shopping Increases By Demographic:

A report by BigCommerce has shown that in the Covid-19  various gender and age-groups have adopted E-commerce in varying degrees.

According to a survey it was observed that in the UK and US, 96% of millennials and GenZ are worried about the pandemic which has affected the economy. The widespread worry was  observed that this age group differentiate their behaviours  more noticeably in comparison to other generations.

Agility PR has reported that 30% of millennials has done more Online shopping during pandemic. In contrast 20% of Gen X, 24% of Gen Z and 8% of Baby boomers. 

More data has shown that 24% of boomers and 34% of GenZ have seen Covid-19 has created an impact on the items they are purchasing, compared to nearly half of millennials. These effects might include the cutting back on spending, carrying certain items  and spending less on the experiences.

There is also much disparity observed between genders, with 24% of men found to be online shopping in the pandemic, in comparison to 18% of women. Also, one third of men, in comparison to 25% of women, said that Covid-19 has created more impact on how much they spend on products.

Here I have drafted some safety measures that you should adopt to make your selling experience more effective.

Sanitize Every Place That You Work

For the safety measures, you need to do this at shipment centres, inventories, warehouses, and all the workspaces of your organisation where works are made out. This is the top priority for included people, especially those in the eCommerce sector, considering the far-reaching geographical capabilities of the industry.

Here are some precaution checkpoints of sanitization that you can undertake:

  • Screening the warehouse personnel regularly
  • Instant sanitization of the warehouse
  • Minimizing the working resources and maintain the social distance
  • maintain heavy caution on entry and exit points
  • An emergency phone line to contact the hospital or police station, if required
  • Maintain the manual register for all visitors
  • Contactless delivery

By setting as an example India with1.3 billion people shut down, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said “India’s COVID fight could make or break the global war. WHO said India has a tremendous capacity to deal with the pandemic as it has experience of eradicating smallpox and polio”.

With the contactless initiative, customers can ask the delivery guy to leave their order package in a secure location, from where the end-user can pick it up.

“It can go a long way in containing the spread of COVID-19 and protects both your courier partner and the end customer.”

Winners On The E-Commerce Shift:

Big commerce has reported that month over month, the food and beverage has increased. The impact of E-commerce on emerging markets has grown to 18.8% and also shows a big growth in the downloads of  mobile applications. It has allowed people to hire personal shoppers to prepare and also in some cases they deliver the goods.

The rise of E-commerce popularity was observed as many of us were quarantined  at home, usinging Netflix, Disney+ and all the gaming subscribers has observed growth at an unprecedented rate in Q1 2021.

Provide Training On Sanitization

In these testing times, the biggest threat to society is perhaps, ignorance.

Ignorance, perhaps this is the biggest threat to society. It is so important that each and every single person is well informed about the basics to fight effectively.

Government officials of many countries have adopted epidemic training and awareness procedures for staying safe.

This includes;

  • how to wash your hands
  • how to wear a mask
  • how to stay away from infected surfaces
  • how to deliver using contactless delivery

Collaborate With Shipping Aggregators

The most advantageous outcome of partnering with a shipping partner is to reduce the workload of your internal team and make sure a clean, hygienic shipping process end-to-end.

There are many vendors using this workflow, so you will be able to choose an alternate courier partner without wasting any time.

Keep Customer Support Paramount

To ensure customer satisfaction and general peace amongst customers, make sure that customer support is available round the clock.

Customer service at whim can make sure that the customer and the seller are constantly in touch.

Okay. These are the safety measure for online vendors to ensure the safety of packing to deliver the goods to end-users.

But can we see this lockdown period as an opportunity to boost your eCommerce sale?

As people are willing to stay at their homes these days and they need their daily life stuff also.

So, the answer is YES!

Strategies To Boost Online Sales

It is very obvious that the consumers are spending more time on the internet as they are social distancing and IT professionals are working from home.

So, our recommendation would be to consider your online presence of the online store. This depends on the eCommerce platform you use. Various eCommerce platforms have different limitations.

Example; The core features of Magento, WordPress, are pretty much search engine friendly.

If everything is OKAY.. then revisit your marketing spend and improve the effectiveness of your virtual communications.

1. Reach Out To Your High-Value Customers

Analytica says, “20% of your customers contribute 80% of your total revenue”. Considering this you need to prioritize the high-value customers ensuring their lifetime loyalty.

eCommerce Stats
Source: Squarespace

Applications like Wakeupsales, (cloud-based Salesforce Automation tool) act like the customer relationship solution and contacting platform all in one.

Through this, your marketing staff can stay in touch with the prioritized high-value customers remotely.

So, you can send personalized recommendations that include links to purchase online.

2. Adapt Your Marketing Messaging

During this sensitive period, you also need to rethink your marketing strategy.

However, brands should be cautious of pivoting too far away from their core brand messaging, or worse yet, coming off as opportunistic.

Below are some examples of brands that made simple adjustments to their messaging to “read the cultural room” while remaining authentic.

3. Create “Social Experiences” On Social Media

Staying home means surfing the internet and social media. So the brand needs to get creative about how they leverage their social media presence.

The brand can create problem-solving social media campaigns to gain more reach of your brand or product.

Also, consider the campaign must make aware of your brand and how your brand gets to solve the daily life requirement.

This helps to acquire loyal customers.

4. Offer Free Shipping Or Local Pickup And Delivery

Shipping cost is always a barrier for online users. So if possible, you can consider offering free shipping.

There is another option available “curbside pickup”.

This term of delivery is actually, a customer ordered a product online and can pick it up fro your local store.

It decreases the hassle of the delivery process. And for customers, it also cut the waiting time.

Still, you need to integrate the whole setup on your eCommerce website. This is not a big development process. You can integrate this delivery set up by hiring an eCommerce developer remotely.

5. Extend Your Return And Exchange Policy

“Extending your return and exchange policy in acknowledgment of the current climate could alleviate buyer doubt and incentivize online sales.”

So, changing the return policy can bring some sighs to your customers. As on the lockdown period, the delivery time and pick up time could be delayed. So, extending the return period could help to gain some loyal customers too.

6. Use Retargeting Ads To Reach Your Customers

Paid advertising can help you to reach such people which you cannot go with organic campaigns. And doing it smartly would help you to regain such visitors who were at your store before.

Technically, we called this a Retargeting campaign.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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Through it, your ads or product can be displayed to those users who visited your website recently.

The various ads managers like Facebook, Google, etc have the algorithm to perform such methods.

Conclusion:

Developing and delivering the fruitful content display will always have the high-end stuff for your eCommerce website too.

So, before adopting all these methods and strategies, you need to ‘consider your existing website performance and capabilities.

When we come to the point of COVID-19, there is no ETA on when this crisis is going to end. But it is heartwarming to see all people coming together to fight this pandemic.

As the new Covid Variant, Omicron is growing gradually, therefore it is important to take all the necessary steps and grow your business gradually. Develop your E-commerce application now with Andolasoft. 

Our experts, App developers, will guide you with this path, by developing your desired eCommerce Application.

We at Andolasoft also urged the merchant to follow the guideline and secure every touchpoint.

Is your eCommerce site fully integrated to fight this situation? Let’s Discuss.

How to Grow Your eCommerce Company With Localization?

Posted on by Erica Sunarjo

The eCommerce market has become highly competitive. The idea of an online store has inspired many to become entrepreneurs.

However, this means that if you want to grow your company you need to stand out from the crowd. Besides uniqueness, devotion to marketing, and product quality, there is something else that can help you out – localization.

As the eCommerce market is growing, you can use the assistance of international customers to improve your company’s success.

This is your opportunity to reach a wider audience and spread awareness about your company. Not to mention that you’ll evoke trust in potential customers by providing them product descriptions in their own language.

So, if you are ready to take your eCommerce store to the next level, this is what you need to know.

What is Localization?

If this term seems somewhat familiar to you but you aren’t sure what it is really about, let’s clarify it.

First, you need to understand that localization is not the same as translation.

The translation is converting the text from one language to another.

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While localization does include translation in its process, it also demands that you use cultural context to convey the message. Meaning, that with localization you adapt the content to the culture it is intended for.

So, when you localize your website, you will translate the landing page, product description, image descriptions, and every other aspect of your website but you’ll also adapt it to the targeted culture.

The reason why localization is more valuable for sales growth is that you appeal to the new customers’ habits, traditions, and beliefs rather than just translating content word by word.

Common Sense Advisory did a study on 2,430 online consumers that spread across eight countries and the results showed that 72.4% of potential customers are more likely to buy a product if they can find the information in their native language.

Start by looking at your website’s analytics with the help of Google Analytics and find out where is your traffic coming from. This will help you define which languages and countries you should aim for.

Google AnalyticsImage Source: Google Analytics

Machine Translation or Human Translation?

While using machine translation can be faster and therefore, more tempting, you should be aware that it can never provide you with the quality that human translation can.

Localization is an especially tricky task because you need more than just transforming the content from source to target language. You also need to adapt the translation to the targeted culture. 

Instead of hiring a translator, you should think about working with a localization expert who has experience in this field. He or she can give you pointers on what you need to pay attention to on your website if you want to appeal to the target audience. 

If you feature some holiday discounts/sales on your website, keep in mind that countries celebrate different holidays. Talk with your localization expert about this aspect of localization and make sure to adapt it to the targeted country. 

Improve Customer Service

Responding to customers’ inquiries is a highly impact aspect of the eCommerce business. If you don’t deal with questions that your potential customers have about your products, you won’t be able to earn their trust.

For that reason, as a part of your localization process, you should provide customer service in multiple languages. 

There are several options depending on your plans and your budget:

  • Hire a customer service team that can address customers’ inquiries in their native language.
  • Hire a professional translator to translate FAQ to cover the most important questions.
  • Use machine translation just for the FAQ to cover the most important questions.

Adapt the Website’s Look 

Depending on target audience differences, you might need to think about adapting your website as well. 

There is more to localization than just translating the content based on the target culture. You should also think about the visuals that will be most effective.

Take Amazon as an example. While Amazon’s websites for the UK and Germany don’t differ, there is a clear difference between the European Amazon website and the Chinese Amazon website.

Adapt the Website's Look Image Source: Amazon UK

Amazon GermanyImage Source: Amazon Germany

Amazon ChinaImage Source: Amazon China

This global company is aware of differences between its target audiences so they adapted the visuals.

While the European audience has a similar taste, the Chinese audience prefers a more vivid, bright, and colorful visual effect which is evident in Amazon’s choice of design. 

Choose an Appropriate Platform

Before you start with localizing, you need to make sure that your current eCommerce platform is adequate for localization.

For example, it should offer order management integration, international shipping, multi-currency options, and be tailored for translation to different languages. 

To ensure the security is on point, check with your provider if the platform supports the rule of the global Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI).

Localized SEO

Optimizing an eCommerce website is very important for a company that aims at growth. If you don’t optimize the website, the customers won’t be able to find your products, and therefore you’ll fall short in organic traffic.

The thing with localization is that you need to adapt to the website’s SEO as well. 

Why?

Well, different countries have different preferences when it comes to online searches. For example, even though Google is the most popular search engine in the world, other search engines are used as well.

Users in China use Baidu (68.78%), users in Russia prefer Yandex (51.6%), and some Japanese users prefer Yahoo (23.09%). 

Depending on the search engine, you need to adapt the SEO efforts accordingly. 

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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Also, pay close attention to keywords. They shouldn’t just be translated word for word. There might be some variations that will influence the keywords.

If you run a US website and you want to adapt it for the UK market, keeping the word “sweater” as a keyword will hurt your SEO because the UK audience will rather use the word “jumper” in their search. 

Even such simple changes can make a huge difference. 

Some Final Thoughts

Localization can be one of the key moves you need to expand your global reach.

Unless you explore international markets, you’ll never know how the global audience will respond to your products or services.

With localization, you can affect the purchase decisions, build trust, and personalize the shopping experience. 

The above-mentioned guidelines will give you all the information you need to execute the localization perfectly. Through the whole process, just keep in mind that user-friendliness is what you need to aim for.

Localization can provide the customers with a positive shopping experience and get them to fall in love with your eCommerce store.