The Retail Industry has experienced a massive shift, moving from brick-and-mortar shops to the wonderland that is the internet. Customers are now courted online rather than on the streets and all aspects of life from shopping and entertainment to even interaction happen online. The shift might seem sudden and enormous to some, and newcomers to the field are sure to have a hard time grappling with it. Here are a few useful tips for those finding their footing on the web space. Narrow Down your Customer Pool for Marketing Having a rough grid of the kind of customers you want to invite to your site is pivotal when building your base. Get to know your customers by their background, and then set-up appropriate marketing channels that target the particular pool of visitors. Make the Website Clean and User-Friendly Visitors need to be impressed at the design of your site, but at the same time, not feel befuddled when navigating through it. Your website needs to have a dashing look, but also stay neat and user-friendly. Increase Influence through Pop-Ups Pop-ups, or hover ads, have a significant impact on your marketing operation. Apart from other advertising channels, implant a pop-up or two in your website. However, be careful not to overload the site with these ads as they tend to distract visitors from the substance of your service, and create hindrances for them. Exploit the Visual Element Regular content has a limited reach. On the internet, patience for reading runs low, and you need to use the visual dimension to trigger visitors’ interest. Incorporate images, animated graphs and also videos in the main page. This helps to conjure a more interactive environment that visitors are sure to like. Optimize Marketing Channels through Social Media Facebook, Twitter, and Google-Plus are more than just social networks, they are engines for marketing. Expand your web of influence through these channels. Keep a constant update feed on all of these channels, and ensure that you link them back to your website. Make a Statistical Approach The web brings the power of data by your side. Compile a regular, statistical evaluation of your performance to judge how you’re doing. This helps you identify flaws, and to build on your current performance. Customer Service is Critical The focus of your entire business should rest on the customer. Connect with them through social media channels, and also incorporate messaging or chatting interfaces on your website to give visitors the feeling that you’re listening to them. eCommerce has taken the world by storm, and to have a thriving business, you need to exploit the web. Openwave has decades of experience in bridging the online divide for retail stores and building success on the web B2B / B2C eCommerce. Partner with us to explore the possibilities and opportunities today.
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Every business that sells products or services online needs to be able to accept cashless payments. A third-party service provider - called a Payment Gateway - usually, handles the processing of transactions on your website. To put it simply, they accept money from customers through cards or wallets and update it into your account. Some examples of popular payment gateways include PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net. How do you quickly & securely integrate a payment gateway into website? Pick the right gateway The first step is choosing the right gateway for your business type and long-term goals. Providers will, typically, charge you a monthly licensing/usage fee as well as a per-transaction fee - which goes up if it is an international transaction. Costs can quickly mount up – so do your research and get multiple quotes before settling on one. Create a merchant account You will then need to create a merchant account where you can accept payments. These merchant accounts will also charge you a transaction fee. Like before, do your research well before picking one. Consulting with an experienced eCommerce web developer can help you make an informed decision. Add the gateway to your site The next step is to add the option to your site. Depending on the provider, you will have one of two choices:
Building a custom gateway Don’t want to pay huge transaction fees? You could create a custom gateway (or hire developers to do it for you). What’s the catch? Development can be expensive – upwards of a $100,000 for a simple, no-frills option. Thousands of websites get hacked every day. It’s important that the solution you add to your site is as hacker-proof as possible. For best results, hire a web development team in Singapore to help you with the task, so that any transactions conducted on your site will be secure. The eCommerce industry generates revenues more than $2 trillion globally at the moment, and about 40% of all online stores run on WooCommerce. WooCommerce is an extension for the WordPress platform which turns a regular website into a fully-functional online store with advanced features. If you’ve ever wanted to make money online, you can do it effortlessly with the help of the plugin. Turn your existing WordPress site into a store If you already own a WordPress website and are familiar with the platform, WooCommerce is made for you! You can easily turn your existing site into a store with a few clicks. All you have to do is install the plugin – available in the app market for free! Make it professional-looking and mobile-friendly Just because the plugin is available for free doesn't mean it's not sufficient for a professional store, far from it! You have access to dozens of unique, good-looking themes that are highly customization. You can build an amazing store that looks good and can be accessed from both computers and mobile phones. Advanced features and analytics You get access to advanced features out-of-the-box – features you need to run a successful e-store. You get detailed order tracking, customer engagement tools, inventory management options, coupon codes, shipping options, and the ability to sell physical, virtual, and affiliate products. You also get a built-in analytics tool that provides a range of useful statistics. Best of both worlds You can do more than just selling products, as you’re using both WordPress and WooCommerce. That means you will be able to build a shop within your website – giving you the best of both worlds. You can write about your products on a blog, provide informative text and video content about your services, as well as sell products. If you’re not good with programming or you want an e-store that ranks highly on search engines, you should engage the services of a professional wordpress cms development team in Singapore to integrate the WooCommerce plugin for you. They’ll be able to build you a professional store that looks good and performs well. Microsoft's .NET is one of the most popular web development platforms for businesses in the market at the moment. It allows you to create powerful, flexible, and reliable web service apps and websites that showcase your business in the best possible light. The technology allows developers to code fast thanks to integration with the Visual Studio environment. So why should you choose .NET for present and future web apps development projects? Fast development Thanks to an extensive library and support for multiple programming languages, it’s very simple for even novice programmers to build powerful apps in a short span of time. The Visual Studio environment also supports drag and drop functionality - as well as automated troubleshooting - for fast development. Supports WYSIWYG One reason why it is so popular is because it supports the "What You See Is What You Get" programming approach. Business heads can get a good idea of the look and feel of the end product even before development begins. It’s also possible to create functional prototypes too with the help of the ASP.NET technology. MVC based Thanks to MVC model support, designers and developers can work together to build something that is not only efficient but also easy to use and good to look at. The work on the project can be broken down and distributed quickly amongst members of a large team. Excellent performance Thanks to continuous development, an extensive global developer community, and great support by Microsoft’s developers, you can build products with the best possible cutting-edge technology available in the market. Your software will be useful, advanced, as well as future-proof. Build hybrid Mobile Apps There's been a significant demand for enterprise level software that can be accessed via mobile phones and wearable devices recently. The .NET technology supports the building of ‘hybrid' products that can be accessed freely across a variety of devices and platforms, without a significant hit in performance. Don’t have the in-house talent or experience to build .NET projects? You can outsource the project to an experienced dot net development team in Singapore at an affordable price and avoid spending time and money on infrastructure and talent scouting. Developing Web Applications is a must in today’s fast-paced, information-driven world for every startup. Applications are a great way to engage with customers and improve business productivity and revenues. PHP is one of the most popular web development languages in the world at the moment, used by over 800 million websites in one form or another. If you’re interested in using PHP and are new to the whole thing, how can you go about building your very own app with it? PHP frameworks for building apps Frameworks are a collection of app-building tools and code libraries that allow you to create complex applications very quickly. They include blueprints of sorts that developers can follow to build industry standard software. They also allow developers and designers to work together to make the software not only run well but also to look good. Some of the most popular frameworks in the market are:
Using PHP-based CMS platforms Your web apps will need a good website for support. A content management system (CMS) is software that allows you to build and manage a dynamic website fairly easily. These websites run almost automatically, leaving you free to look after your business. Some of the most popular PHP-based platforms in the market include:
Choosing the right developers and designers If you are a small business owner, you may be able to build an application yourself, if you have basic coding knowledge. If you want a flexible, platform-independent, high-performing app/website that grows with your business, though, you should ideally outsource the project to a team of dedicated developers. Here are some top qualities that the right development team will have:
Only if you pick the right team will you be able to build a php web application that will benefit your business. These days, almost everyone checks a business online before choosing to conduct transactions with it. However, there are still plenty of business owners that don’t own a website yet. Owners cite many reasons why they aren’t online yet; including it being too expensive and also that they simply don’t have the time to maintain it. However, you don’t need a lot of time and money to build and maintain modern dynamic websites, especially if you use a CMS platform like WordPress. Here are some easy-to-follow steps to building your very own site: Pick an appropriate domain name What name do you want your website to have? It should be memorable as well as professional. People should be able to say it easily and type it out with little trouble. You need to register the name with an online registrar like GoDaddy or Blue Host, which will cost you a small yearly fee. It’s always better to get a .com name than a .net name. Decide on a layout and create content Business websites don’t have to be complex. In fact, the simpler your pages and content are, the better. Here are four main sections your site must include:
A logo to sum it up A logo is what will differentiate your business from the rest. Customers will associate your business with it, so use a logo that stands for your business and sums up what you do effectively. You can hire freelance designers to make you one or design one by yourself. You can also use sites like fiverr.com to find a designer to make you a logo for $5. Build your site quickly with a site-builder The final step involves bringing all the elements above together into a working site. You can use a website builder like WordPress or Drupal to speed things up. WordPress is very easy to use and is recommended for beginners with little coding experience. Alternately, you can hire dedicated web developers in Singapore at an affordable price to make you a site that ranks high in search engine rankings and is a joy to browse. Shopify is one of the top-rated eCommerce platforms in the world this year, and for a good reason. It lets you build powerful web stores that look good, run amazingly well, and provide a great experience overall for customers. Unlike Magento - which is its biggest competitor - Shopify is a hosted platform, which means you don’t have to waste time searching for a host and you can get started with building your shop directly. Here are some undeniable reasons why Shopify should be your eCommerce platform of choice in 2017: Shopify is budget-friendly Shopify is perfect for startups on a budget. They have several pricing options - the lowest of which can help you get set up for a small amount of investment each month. You get a secure, fast server for the cost and you can scale up your store as your business grows. You get great technical support Shopify's technical support is legendary. Their team is available to help with any problems you have with the platform 24/7. The team is very friendly and offers helpful advice for users that aren't very tech-savvy. Build fully-customizable stores The platform lets you build stores according to your specifications. You can modify and change nearly every aspect of your store, from how it looks to how visitors are supposed to navigate it. You can go for a professional or a more casual look via multiple design options. Mobile-friendly design Your web shop will be mobile-friendly, as the platform supports responsive design. As a large percentage of your visitors will access your site from their smartphones, this is an essential feature if you want to be successful. Build a futuristic store quickly The platform lets you set up a futuristic store with all the latest bells and whistles. Get advanced features like a shopping cart saving tool and personalised recommendations with the help of hundreds of third-party tools. If you're planning to make a significant impact in the eCommerce world but don't have the experience to know what kind of a store you'll need to succeed, you can hire a qualified eCommerce development company to make you a fully fledged store for cheap. WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) in the world. It first started out as a blogging platform and has gradually evolved into an all-inclusive CMS that can handle even advanced requirements. The platform has been around for almost a decade now and is used by some of the most successful, prominent Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Sony, UPS, Xerox, and Target. Here are some undeniable reasons why WordPress is the perfect platform for setting up official business websites: Easy to set up and maintain WordPress sites are very easy to set up and maintain. Not only will this save you huge development and maintenance costs, but you can also focus your efforts on your marketing strategy instead of micromanaging your site and grow your business. Highly stable and secure The platform has very few bugs. It has been around for a while and bugs, if any, are quickly dealt with. It is also known to be highly secure out-of-the-box, and you can download and install free updates periodically to keep it that way. Supports responsive design A large chunk of incoming traffic will originate from mobile devices. WordPress supports responsive design that fits desktop-sized content on small screens. You can use themes or plugins to make your pages responsive. Advanced functionality through plugins There are over 45000+ unique plugins that give advanced functionalities to your site. They help you improve SEO, add language support in multiple foreign languages, connect your site to social media networks, and even let you convert your website into an eCommerce store. Scalable platform You can add more pages as your business continues to grow, making it a scalable platform which is perfect for small businesses and startups. You won’t have to invest more money to get a new site made later - you can just build on a stable, secure foundation as time goes by. Your website needs to be well-optimized, SEO-friendly, feature-rich and bug-free to draw and engage incoming traffic. You can hire an experienced WordPress CMS Developers in Singapore on a short-term basis to put your business online at an affordable price, based on your unique requirements. 2017 is nearly upon us, and Google is probably going to change its search engine algorithm again. This time, Google is going to rank mobile friendly websites higher than non-mobile friendly ones. This fact alone tells us that responsive design is where the future of web development is headed. If that doesn’t convince you, here is some irrefutable proof that shows mobile-friendly design has become a necessity these days: Mobile usage is through the roof It’s a known fact that over 20% Google searches - and over 50% in some developed countries – are made from mobile phones alone. Also, it is estimated that over 3 billion people will own a portable mobile device of some kind in the coming few years. It affects SEO A website that isn’t designed responsively - or doesn’t have an alternate adaptive version will be ranked lower on Google’s search engine rankings. Responsive websites automatically gain higher rankings. Load time affects bounce rates A number one reason why people leave websites is slow loading times – very few people have the patience to wait more than 5 seconds for a site to load. If someone from a mobile device visits your desktop site, they are likely to abandon it. Responsive design makes websites load faster. It provides a better user experience Responsive design makes the content on your site fit even the smallest screens neatly. Users don’t have to strain to navigate through it or read the content - which makes a positive impression about your business. It prep your business for the future With so much more people - especially from developing countries - getting on the internet with a mobile device, you can get your business better prepared for the future by getting a responsive website designed. If you are looking to make an existing website responsive, you can use tools, extensions, or plugins (depending on the CMS you’re using) for the task. It’s most effective if you change the base code of the website - or maybe the theme itself - to give a better UX to visitors. You can hire web designer / developers at Singapore for help with that if you’re not good with coding. Over 160 billion apps have been downloaded till date on the iPhone platform. With app downloads expected to double by 2020, businesses worldwide are in a rush to cash-in on the mobile trend. Apps can let you automate business tasks and also make money by selling to customers directly. If you build for the iOS platform, you get maximum ROI by selling to well-off users. It isn’t easy making an app, though – it takes a great deal of technical knowledge and expertise to build a bug-free, user-centric application. You can either hire an in-house team or outsource the development. It is cheaper and more effective to hire dedicated developers for the job, though. In-house teams are expensive to maintain, and it takes a lot of time to build them. By outsourcing to app developers, you can: Bring ideas to life It’s all well and good to have a unique idea – it takes hard work and technical skill to implement it in today’s competitive market. Developers with experience should be able to help you implement your idea, and market it to too. Get dedicated help Multi-tasking is an inefficient way to go about doing something. By getting dedicated developers, you will be assured that a team of professionals is focusing solely on your project and giving it everything they’ve got. Leverage practical knowledge Developers with skills on paper will not be able to deliver on real life. It is much more complicated to build an app than you think. A good development team has been in the business for a while and has the practical knowledge necessary to deliver a high-quality product. Build scalable A business app may require more resources later, especially if you’re changing features halfway. The right team will be able to put extra people on the project when necessary – and remove them when demand slackens. Not only will this save you a lot of money, but it also speeds up project development. Of course, you will only gain all these benefits if the iOS developers you hire are good at their jobs. It’s a good idea to take a look at their past work experience – and examples of their apps – before hiring a team. |
AuthorExpertise in Web & Mobile App Development as done many projects in eCommerce, CMS, Dot Net, PHP technologies Archives
October 2018
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