Despatch Cloud is delighted to announce that we have been chosen as finalists in two categories for this year’s FSB Small Business Awards.
Competing in the Yorkshire and Humber region, we’ve been nominated for the Digital/eCommerce Business Award as well as the Business and Product Innovation Award, for Shipping by Despatch Cloud. This is a tremendous achievement for the whole team, and we can’t wait for the finals.
The FSB Awards is an annual event that focuses on the progress made by small businesses around the country. Every year, the incredible work put in these companies is recognised at regional award shows, before the winners compete for the chance to be named the UK’s leading small business at an awards event which this year is being held in Glasgow.
To be chosen for not one, but two categories make us incredibly proud. When notifying us of our progress, the team at FSB mentioned an ‘increase in both the number of entries received and the quality of entries’, so being put through to the finals in two different sections is testament to the hard work and motivation shown by the entire Despatch Cloud team.
The Yorkshire and Humber Awards will take place at the Principal Hotel in York this year, on February 25th. This prestigious award has risen in prominence since its founding and is now classed as the largest event in the small business calendar. FSB is a company that is known for the work they do in supporting small businesses and recognising their work. They are now nearing half a century of operation, and continue to be at the forefront of the small business world, always providing help to small businesses and proudly showcasing their work.
Shipping by Despatch Cloud is competing for the Business and Product Innovation award. This product provides a single access point to over 55 couriers and offers customers the chance to instantly switch between couriers, track deliveries, and set shipping rules to automatically select the right service for the job. It is a product we are incredibly proud of, and we look forward to seeing Shipping rubbing shoulders with other innovative products from our region.
We are also a finalist in the Digital/eCommerce Business award. The whole team at Despatch Cloud work tirelessly to provide time-saving and simple solutions to eCommerce businesses of all sizes, and we are proud to offer a business the chance to scale with ease and to save time on their logistics, meaning they will have more time to focus on their whole operation.
2021 was a great year for our business, and we now have more integrations, more staff and more customers than ever before. We would like to thank the team at FSB awards for choosing Despatch Cloud as one of the leading small businesses in this country and are excited to attend the event on 25 February. We would like to wish every attendee the best of luck, and we look forward to getting to meet you all at the ceremony.
Yorkshire based company Despatch Cloud has provided key services to help facilitate UK Biobank’s study that will enable scientists to monitor the long-term health effects of infection with coronavirus across the full disease spectrum.
In the largest study of its kind, 500,000 UK Biobank participants are being invited to receive a self-test kit to find out if they have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Data from these tests will be added to UK Biobank’s biomedical database and made available to the scientific research community. This unique dataset, combined with the genetic and lifestyle information already collected by UK Biobank, and regular updates of health through linkage to electronic health records, will allow researchers to study the long-term health impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
UK Biobank is using a global eCommerce business’s logistics network to distribute the antibody kits to participants across the UK, which has waived its fees for the length of the project.
Alongside this, Despatch Cloud is providing the technology to generate the shipping labels required for shipping purposes free of charge.
Despatch Cloud’s label generation software works across multiple carriers nationally and internationally. With integrations to all the major carriers and resellers, Despatch Cloud’s platform gives businesses flexibility on their shipping requirements and the ability to scale as your business grows.
Despatch Cloud Founder Matthew Dunne stated the following on his company’s involvement in the project: “As soon as we were contacted and asked about providing our services as part of the project, we jumped at the chance to do our bit in helping the scientific community better understand the long term effects of this terrible virus. Our label generation software has enabled UK Biobank to ensure their testing kits can get out to the participants speedily and correctly through the logistics network.”
The project is expected to run for several months and the widespread hope is that the new information gained from the testing will enable a greater understanding of the virus and its long-term effects.
Multichannel retail or eRetail is selling through more than one channel (such as your website or on eBay) and getting your products on many different places. Often the easiest way is to get onto various marketplaces, such as Amazon or Fruugo.
Some eRetails go beyond this and launch country specific websites or individual websites for their different brands. Integrating multiple websites can drive revenue as each website can target specific demographics or keywords.
Why do multichannel eCommerce?
First, and most obviously, rather than limiting who gets to view your products, you get your products in front of a far wider audience and thus more potential customers. Different marketplaces attract different demographics. You will find that customers are attracted to the various marketplaces, due to their confidence in each platform and good loyalty programs that they offer.
It is worth remembering, too, that multichannel eCommerce gives you the ability to get in front of the same customer several times if they are browsing. Research shows that people would need to see an offer 7–10 times before taking action. Getting on multiple channels and marketplaces means you are more likely to have your product in front of them when they reach the buying decision.
5 tips for multichannel selling
1. Multichannel means multi-channels
While Amazon is a huge presence in eCommerce and is ranked as the # 1 online shopping website in most of the major economies, so it’s understandable that they are the first marketplace businesses will think of when considering multichannel eCommerce.
But don’t limit yourself just to Amazon, other marketplaces offer significant sales and some like Etsy may be so relevant to your products that they may actually be better for your business and brand. The smaller sales channels may not have the volume of visitors but there may well be less competition.
2. Make sure your multichannel listings differ
When you list your items across channels, make sure that the actual content is different. The content is the titles and descriptions of the listing. The reason for this is search engines like Google and Yahoo don’t like duplicate content. If you use the same content in multiple places, it won’t have the same visibility as different content.
Also, you need to optimise the listing title for each channel, you will note that listings on eBay will have very different titles to Amazon.
3. Ensure that you run your multichannel efficiently
Adding additional channels does add more work but you need to ensure that the additional revenue outweighs the increase in cost. Otherwise, it is simply not worth it. Automation is the key. Getting all the orders onto the same platform for data analysis is a good start, from there you can run your customer service (if a customer calls you don’t want to be checking several platforms).
But getting your Multichannel Stock Synchronised is vital. If you sell across multiple channels, you run the risk of overselling. Overselling is where you sell more items than you have in stock. This is a real pain as you then need to contact customers to let them know and then issue refunds, or place new purchase orders and get the stock in quickly. Not a great customer experience.
Despatch Cloud, for example, connects to all your channels and as soon as an item sells, it will automatically update the other channels with the new stock quantities. This means that you won’t oversell due to being multichannel.
4. Make sure you don’t discriminate between buyers on multichannel
If you move from one channel to multichannel, then it is likely that most of your sales will, at the start, be on your first channel. It may be a natural reaction to focus on those. But many marketplaces have demands on how you treat their customers (and don’t misunderstand, on a marketplace they are their customers from the point of view of the marketplace). Failure to meet their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the marketplace may mean that your listings are less visible.
Aspiring to give all your customers the best customer experience will be the best multichannel strategy.
5. Stand out on multichannel
If you already sell on your own website, you are selling from a single place with no competition. Selling multichannel, you are facing competition from far more products and sellers. You will need to put more effort into standing out. Many marketplaces allow you to pay them in order to promote your products. But this is not ideal from a profit point of view.
Paying attention to the details of your listing is really important, as suggested already, you should ensure you have unique content for the listings but pick a style which matches your brand and keep it consistent. Mildly humorous and quirky styles can work well.
Visuals, as you will know or have guessed, are vital on multichannel marketplaces. Pay attention to the photos you use, look at ways you can make them more exciting, use backdrops or accessories which can help engage your customers and give your product the “wow” factor.
5 Marketplaces to Consider
Amazon Marketplace
Starting as an online bookseller, Amazon is now the world’s largest online retailer offering services from cloud hosting to feed deliveries. Amazon sells in its own right and also sells other people’s products through it’s marketplace, taking commission. One big advantage is that you can list products across their network of country-specific Amazon sites.
Fruugo
A challenger marketplace based in the beautiful region of Cumbria, in the northwest of England, Fruugo offers fully localised marketplaces in over 46 countries and in places which Amazon does not reach. One listing gives you access to all of them. Bear in mind that if you are a UK seller, they charge VAT on their commission which if you are VAT registered you can reclaim. They are growing fast, so a great way to extend the reach of your products.
eBay
One of the earliest eCommerce companies, eBay is well known and well used. For many start up eCommerce companies, Ebay is the starting point where they turn a hobby into a business, due to ease of use and simple pricing structure.
Etsy
Known best for its arts and crafts, it is the destination of choice for those looking for unique and often quirky gifts. If you sell handmade, or unique, vintage products this is the marketplace for you. New York based Etsy are a very human business and try to keep eCommerce as a human to human transaction rather than a cold electronic interface. Their aim is to millions of buys to products which have a human touch.
OnBuy
The fastest-growing marketplace in the world, UK-based OnBuy offers lower selling fees than other marketplaces (at just 5-9%) and gives you access to millions of customers. They promise never to compete against sellers, but instead focus all their efforts on helping you grow your business.
With plans for expansion into over 140 countries, starting with more than 40 initial sites in 2020, OnBuy gives an incredibly significant breadth of markets to access. They also utilise PayPal as their payment gateway meaning that you get paid immediately on item dispatch, unlike many other marketplaces, and you can access the PayPal Seller Protection scheme.
Want to expand your eCommerce business and expand onto more channels? Despatch Cloud has order management software and stock management software which can help you remain as efficient on multichannel as you are on a single channel.
Since the introduction of the barcode in 1974, the world has changed dramatically and with it the demands for reliable data have increased. The authorities who manage the numbers which underpin barcodes named GS1 have also established new standards to support modern supply chains and customer requirements.
What does the barcode tell us of the items we are buying?
The linear barcode, which is recognisable to most of us as the vertical black and white lines scanned at the checkout, provides a small amount of product information. It actually only holds the number in binary format which sits below it, including the brand name, information about the product including type and variation and price.
Barcodes to do more in the future
Shoppers are constantly demanding more information about the products they are buying, from where they were farmed or manufactured and to how to best use and recycle them. Retailers are getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data coming from multiple sources in various formats, which is becoming increasingly tricky when it comes to product recalls.
Step forward the 2D barcode
You will have seen a barcode in 2D before. They look quite similar in many respects to QR codes and can be found on certain prescription medications. A 2D barcode, compared to a regular linear barcode, has the advantage that it can store more data. It can hold information such as an item’s batch and lot number, which is important in healthcare, as well as expiry dates, making it ideal for fresh food monitoring. This can also warn you, for example when a chicken is scanned at the point of sale, if the chicken is past its expiry date and the device would prevent the transaction from occurring.
In addition to increasing the amount of available data, 2D barcodes take up far less space on packages than a conventional linear barcode. It provides more room on the product label, room that can be used to show off your brand credentials or provide a deeper insight into your product, helping you develop greater trust with your consumers.
How will 2D barcodes affect your business?
There has been an increase in products coming onto the market featuring several different barcodes on the packaging. We’ve seen a major global drinks manufacturer add the following to their bottles featuring three different codes on one product:
GS1 Standards – 2D barcodes
One EAN linear barcode for point of sale
One QR code for smart label nutritional information
One proprietary code to enable marketing activities
Given a finite space on the packaging, it is important to use this efficiently.
In February 2020, Digital Link was ratified by the industry. Digital Link allows digital linkage of product information, all from one data carrier (or barcode). Improving the experience for consumers and patients around the globe while reinforcing brand loyalty, improving traceability of the supply chain, patient safety and efficiencies while bringing barcode scanning into the 21st century.
GS1 Digital Link would allow connection to all forms of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to – consumer (B2C) information, similar to the way a web address (URL) points to a specific website. And, instead of being restricted to one type of data carrier like a standard barcode, brands can now use QR code, RFID, GS1 DataMatrix tag or Near-field Communication (NFC) to transmit the information to their customers.
Same barcode – for both on and offline
The current barcode is going to be with us for some time, but the new 2D barcode standard will become more and used and ubiquitous as companies become aware of the benefits. The roll out of the barcode will require a critical mass of retailers to be able to support the new barcodes.
The Despatch Cloud App supports standard 1D barcodes as well as QR codes, GS1 Digital Link and other 2D barcodes. Our Warehouse management System supports the data encoded into both 1D and 2D barcodes, including serial numbers, expiry dates and batches.
This is also in favor of the old adage of fewer. Less space, more commercialisation. Less readability, less high definition. More info, less barcode.
Stock Keeping Units or SKUS are the internal record number of the products for companies. Unlike barcodes (EANS or European Articles Numbers or UPC or Universal Product code), SKUS are your own product identification number and not centrally organised.
What are the limitations of SKUs?
The main weakness of SKUs are that that they are not necessarily unique. As your company chooses the SKU then there is nothing to stop over companies also picking the same SKU.
This is why if you wish to sell your products on market places such as Frrugo, or Amazon they specify that a EAN (European Article Number) or UPC (Universal Product Code) in addition to a SKU.
Because SKUs are not centrally organised there is also the possibility of your SKU not being unique. A consumer searching for your SKU might find some one else’s products not yours. So keep this in mind when designing the format of your SKUs.
Best practice of SKUs
Set out a format for your SKUs and stick to it, so all SKUs are in the same format. Bare in mind our product range will increase over time.
Try and identify your business in the SKU, it helps make them unique. Sam’s widgets ltd may start their SKUs with SAM-XXXXX
Create your SKU and don’t use those of a supplier
Avoid using non-standard characters, stick to letters and numbers. Using nonstandard characters such as / @ or # can cause problems if your data is transmitted electronically as these characters have uses in computer code. In addition, they are often not allowed by market places such as Fruugo, Ebay or Amazon.
Don’t start your SKUs with a zero, on spreadsheets and other electronic records the leading zeros are often removed and this can make your life difficult.
Avoid using certain letters which can be misread, such as O and 0 or I and 1. Wrong inputs can make reconciliation difficult and cause no end of problems getting your stock records to match.
Don’t make SKUs too long, use the minimum needed for your business, keeping in mind your business may grow.
Don’t mix cases, keep them either all capitals or all lower case
What’s the difference between a UPC and a EAN?
UPCs (Universal Product codes) are used mostly in North America, and are a a 12 digit system. Although being the original barcode system outside of the US other countries wanted to be able to localise the barcodes so added an additional digit to the number. These are the EANs
EANs are the predominate system in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. The most commonly used is EAN-13, based on a 13 digit number. The first three digits are used to denote the local GS1 agency who issued the EAN. IN the UK these are 500–509.
The various organisations which organise barcodes are working to ensure that in future all the different standards are compatible.
How to get EANs or UPCs
In the UK
EANS are issued by GS1 and in the UK this is the responsibility of GS1-UK https://www.gs1uk.org/
Outside the UK
European countries have their own local GS1 agencies and can be found by looking online.
Cost control has never been more important to companies and maintaining the most efficient processes in warehouses is an important aspect to this. Read our 5 top tips to save money in your warehouse operation.
1. Efficient warehouse picking
Staff are expensive, factor in not just their hourly pay, but social contributions such as national insurance in the United Kingdom, pensions, holidays and you will see the true cost of your staff. They are an expensive resource and the chief cost saving measure any warehouse can achieve is ensure the staff are working efficiently.
Use efficient picking methods, picking items in sequence is only efficient in a small warehouse, A warehouse of any larger size requires the ability to pick far more efficiently using other methods. Tote picking involves picking multiple orders at once, using a trolley or pallet with multiple boxes. Bulk and Sort involves the picking of many items for multiple orders and sorting them out before packing. Using an effective Warehouse Management system can help with this.
2. Reduce warehouse errors and damaged goods
Staff training is a keyway to reduce expensive errors. Staff who know how to handle the items they are picking, will know how to avoid damaging them. Miss picks are at best waste of time and at worst are expense to rectify. As well as the risk of loss you need to remember that it will put your stock accuracy out, resulting in over selling or under selling. Ensuring that all products are barcoded with a well thought out goods in procedure will and a method to scan out.
3. Optimise space in your warehouse
Again, you need to factor in not just rent or financing costs but the others costs like land taxes and rates. Ensuring that you use every square meter efficiently not so much savings costs but increasing your ability to turn over revenue. Key to this is accurate records which are held in near Realtime. Being able to accurately identify warehouse locations with low stock levels which can be consolidated and then being efficiently moved.
4. Leverage technology to lower warehouse costs
A small scale warehouse can operate efficiently using basically methods. But as warehouses scale, it calls for different methods to retain optimal efficiency.
One of the most obvious is paper and printing. Printing is surprisingly expensive. There is simply no reason why a medium or large scale enterprise should be using paper pick lists.
5. Track everything
Having better data, means you can use it to create better information and thus lead to better decision making. A good warehouse management system, which tracks all sorts of data means you have access to the right information.
Key metrics to track
Warehouse productivity – With so many operations in a warehouse this would combine as many as practically possible, such as pick rates, distance travelled, time taken to do physical inventory, rate at which items are put away
Stock accuracy – Ensuring that the stock quantities are accurate are vital to stop over and underselling, both of which eat into your profits. Tracking the accuracy of your stock gives you control over this and may identify shrinkage (industry terms for loss due to errors or theft).
Order Pick error rate – The number of picks with errors and who makes the most errors, going back to staff training and management, knowing who needs to improve is important.
How to make your warehouse paperless
Eliminating paper is a great way to reduce costs. At Despatch Cloud we have an Android App, not only can you load your orders on there, but you can choose the most efficient picking option for your warehouse operation. From straight forward in sequence picking, picking multiple orders into totes and bulk and sort picking.
Scanning each item’s barcode into the app avoids mistakes in picking and the App will alert the user to mistakes.
Then moving stock around, all you need is the device and App, scan the items out from one warehouse location, move it and them scan into the next location. Ensuring that keeping your warehouse is optimised is a quick and efficient job.
Our software can save your company money, so come and talk to us today and see how we can save your warehouse operation time and money.
Stop the press and pay attention! The eagerly anticipated version 3.5 has arrived and is being rolled out to all our customers. “So what?” I hear you cry, well let me tell you all the updated features and tweaks we have in this version and I’ll let you make your own mind up.
Improved Stock Management
We now have a better way of managing your stock across all your marketplaces and sales channels. All channel activities and stock management processes are now being handled by our brand new product Channel API: created using the latest programming technologies to ensure you have everything you need to keep up with increasing demand in the eCommerce industry.
Say Bye-Bye to Overselling
Alongside our stock management updates through our new connection between Despatch Cloud and Channel API, getting your stock updates are now quicker than ever. We understand how overselling may be an issue for fast-selling businesses – especially if you are selling across multiple stores and channels. Our new stock updates system ensures your stock levels are synchronised across all your sales channels and marketplaces within less than a minute of the sale, minimising the risk of overselling.
Order Rules
Who doesn’t love a set of rules to govern everything? Well, in V3.5 we have some rules you will definitely enjoy, and we are excited to tell you all about it. Order Rules allow you to automate your orders even before they are placed. You can decide what happens to your orders under what conditions. For instance, you might want to assign a special shipping service to orders placed by specific customers or add a bespoke label to orders coming from a certain sales channel. This functionality also comes in handy when you make special promotions such as when a customer buys a product on a certain date, you can set the rules to send them another product as a gift.
Shipping Rules
We have greatly improved the shipping rules to be much more efficient and streamlined. V3.5 calculates the pieces and dimensions in your order and assigns the best matching shipping service on the fly. This will ensure a smoother and quicker order processing, eliminating timeout issues or having to go back and manually select services due to wrongly assigned shipping methods. So you can concentrate on the running of your business instead of worrying over courier choices.
Automated Purchase Orders
Imagine if you had an order processing software that kept track of your supply level and made sure your stock never goes below zero. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Well, now you do. With V3.5, you can automate your purchase order creation by telling the system when and under what circumstances you want to be alerted to low stock levels. The system will create your purchase orders based on the rules you set (i.e quantity, supplier etc.) and at that point, you can decide which supplier to place your order with. Now, how about that for a time-saving solution!
Renewed Filters
Finally, in our bag of updates and tricks, you will notice that V3.5 comes with a much more comprehensive and efficient set of filters. The improved UI design and smart filter groups ensure you have a better view of what exactly your search is filtered by and adjust your parameters quickly and easily.
For many retail companies Amazon is a vital sales channel for their products. Amazon.com is one of the world’s most often visited sites, and the local sites such as Amazon.co.uk are frequently the top ecommerce sites in the region. More than just casual traffic, Amazon attracts traffic who are looking to buy.
Good for Products, not so good for brands
For almost all companies their brand is one of their most critical selling points. Unfortunately, while Amazon is designed for selling product it has few facilities to help you develop as a brand. Therefore, Amazon can only be part of your online strategy.
But that said, take every opportunity to promote your brand and utilise the Amazon Platform to gain extra sales.
How Amazon ranks items for sale
Amazon uses their own company called A9, who designed the Amazon Search Engine. Like other search engines including Google, A9 indexes each product page, searching for data points which it can then match with the searches of customers. And like other search engines it does not like to be tricked into showing pages which are not relevant, this gives a poor visitor experience and that is not what Amazon is about.
Amazon A9 though, does differ in one very important aspect from other search engines, Amazon looks only at the relevance of what you put on your product page. Backlinks, social media and other off page SEO has no effect on A9.
A9 is designed always to maximise Revenue Per Customer (for Amazon not you we are afraid). Therefore Amazon wants to present the most buyable item to customers. Let’s explore in more detail the factors which will affect that.
Product titles, descriptions and content
In A9’s own words
One of A9’s tenets is that relevance is in the eye of the customer and we strive to get the best results for our users. Once we determine which items are good matches to the customer’s query, our ranking algorithms score them to present the most relevant results to the user.
A9 is seeking relevancy, and the first place it looks is in the title, descriptions and contents of your listing. They don’t rank equally; more weight will be given to the title. So chose this carefully making sure it contains the keywords you want to rank well for but avoiding stuffing it with keywords and making it unreadable. Ultimately it is people who will read your title and decide to click or not.
Adding plenty of well written content though is not a waste of time, the more content you add the more you are giving Amazon A9 to work with and to Index and the more searches A9 will find your relevant for. All the content is indexed by them after all. This is especially useful for the long tail keywords; those key words search for less often but are highly relevant to your product.
Finally, when setting up the product listing make sure that you reinforce the keywords in your content by adding them to the keywords in the listing set up. You are showing Amazon where your product is relevant. Bullet points are great for keywords.
Make sure you use all the opportunities to add content, not just the description but also and other features/Bullet Points and the various specifications you can add where they are relevant to your listing. Amazon won’t even show your listing without these.
Don’t be tempted to keyword stuff or use keywords which are not relevant to your product, just to get your product highlighted in other searches. Amazon will quickly detect this and as mentioned previously they don’t like it and your listing will likely suffer a penalty.
Customer satisfaction
Well now you have been indexed and your relevance to a search established. That is not the end of the story though. Amazon demand a high level of customer satisfaction. Getting orders out swiftly, speed at responding to customer queries, the rate of orders with no problems are all part of the metrics. Good sellers rank better than those who don’t meet Amazon expectations.
Effective order processing
One of the key metrics Amazon tracks is the speed of shipment, Amazon demand that their customers (remember that Amazon consider them as their customers) receive goods quickly. Using an Order Processing Management system which processes the orders, and updates Amazon automatically, not just with the status but also the tracking method and tracking number. Despatch Cloud is a multi channel Ecommerce solution which integrates with Amazon MarketPlaces and Seller Fulfilled Prime, Amazon Vendor.
Reviews
Positive reviews are also a vital factor in the A9 ranking engine. Amazon weigh the more recent reviews more highly than older ones, and likely they weigh the verified purchase reviews more as well. Again search Amazon for any product and you will see how many of the top results have a high number of positive reviews.
Price
Remember Amazon are looking to maximise their sales, not yours. They use both predicted and real conversion rates to predict what you will sell. Higher prices reduce the predicted conversion rates and thus Amazon will reduce your ranking compared to alternative products. It some cases it may be better to offer small units at a lower price than better value bigger units.
Sales
Sales rank is obviously one of the most important factors. A simple search on Amazon should demonstrate the importance of how many units you sell. You can buy your way in to this to an extent by paying for your product to take a prominent position.
Other factors
Clear and good quality photos, Amazon won’t even display your listing with images below 1000×1000 pixels
Use Parent/Child listings, where a similar products are linked, it has been reported that Amazon tend to rank listings with multiple options better than those without and this maximises reviews
Categories and sub categories vital for searches, as once a customer has selected a category then the A9 search engine restricts the search to that category. Pick wisely.
Despatch Cloud offers a large number of Shopping Channels and Market Place integrations, making your order processing seamless and allowing you to synchronise stock between platforms. Come and talk to us at [email protected] and see how we can help you increase your sales by expanding on more marketplaces and reduce your costs.
The international B2C market is trying so at breakneck speeds. Indeed, e-commerce is an upward trend. Sales forecasts for next year are estimated $51.4 billion in most countries. Mobile commerce, emerging markets, international brands move to markets and advance shipment, and payment options encourage this overall growth. How can your company’s e-commerce make the most of the explosive Opportunities? Here are some smart and efficient tips for successful e-commerce.
– Establish multi-channel offering. Consumers demand variety and convenience. And they have different methods of shopping. Today, your in-store shopping should combine your multi-channel strategy with online purchasing; your multi-channel should consist of mobile app stores, catalog shopping, and even telephone orders if it is part of your customers buying behavior. A store will boost sales if they can offer on-the-floor checkout with mobile devices better than a store that still use the old cash checkout. Your e-commerce business can benefit from the opportunities online and offline with multi-channel offerings.
– Invest in effective, and efficient systems to run your e-commerce. It is true that you need to offer the best products at the best prices to gain traction in the market. But you also need the smartest ERP solutions. Expert retail brands like yours will achieve more by integrating applications and automating management in every aspect of the company seamlessly.
– Experiences, consider functional offerings. It seems like a lot of effort and stressful, and it is, but your e-commerce business will benefit more. One-of-a-kind occurrences can captivate customers and strengthen brand loyalty. Meanwhile, individualized promotions can capitalize on niche markets that could prove lucrative in the long run.
– Integration of mobile commerce. Tablets and smartphones should not only be used as part of your in-store online browsing or on-the-floor checkout. Your mobile store should be able to fuss-free access to services like a map to your store or store layout, click to call, delivery update and much more.
– Improve the customer experience beyond all channels. Online and in-store, a seamless experience that advances beyond the trained staff to meet the needs of the client, and the use of the best-POS software. Your e-commerce venture needs to be confident about product availability and implement smart supply chain technology consistently to Provide a seamless customer experience beyond all channels.
– Invest in innovative solutions. Finally, continue to develop because of changing markets trends, and technology. Your e-commerce company has a better chance of growth if it never ceases to increase and improve you will soon achieve your targeted goals.
One of the great ways to making profits online is by selling online. In fact, it is also an excellent way to broaden your audience and grow your business quickly. Please note that by putting your business online, you are also expanding your global reach. However, as you grow your business online, it is also important to check out some online sales tips that can help you achieve success in your business of selling online.
Here are some of the things you might want to keep in mind:
– Plan your move in expanding your business online. A plan for your online marketing is relevant and useful. Just like your business plan, make a different plan that will help you make a list of what you need to do to sell or launch your products online. One of the online marketing tips to keep in mind is to choose a niche for your website.
– Pick a niche that fits your business. In selling online, it is important to be able to put up a website with a niche that fits your business. If you sell computer software, then you should have a niche about computers to be able to sell your products.
– Advertising. It is not enough to have a website to sell online. You should be able to advertise your products and your company to be able to sell more online. Find time to research online; you can discover a lot of ways to promote your business and your products. You can do the pay per click advertising, you can do banner advertising, and you can also advertise in the search engines page.
– Selling in online auctions. If you want to get a good price for your items, you can also join other sellers on online auction sites like eBay. One good thing about auctions is that you can set a minimum price, and the price will likely go up if there are many bidders interested in your item. However, a drawback to online auction sites, especially on eBay, is the fierce competition. If others are willing to sell items just like yours, you will be forced to lower your price too. But of course, if you know your way around tough competition, you can learn to make money on eBay as well.
– Provide valuable information. One of the online marketing tips that you can take note is to provide some useful information to your online readers. People come online to find information and by providing them with useful information; you can also gain their interest to patronize your business and purchase your product as well.
These are just some of the online marketing tips that you should take note. There are a lot of things you can do to make your selling online a successful one. You just study and practice a few techniques and also learn new selling strategy as well, so competitors will not outsmart you.
