Mobile Friendly Website Vs. Responsive Design

With the craze for mobile shopping peaking, small businesses are turning toward responsive design, in real big numbers. Responsive design is all about making your current website mobile-friendly. Such sites help manage, update, market and optimize your online store. Conversely, businesses are also coming up with a parallel site with entire focus on mobile phones. The specialty of only-for-mobile sites is that you can cut down content as and images as much as you want.

Mobile Friendly Website Vs. Responsive Design

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And if you are already using a CMS like WordPress or Magento with a premium theme, there’s a high possibility that your online store is already responsive and you simply need to make small tweaks and changes. But in case you are just about to launch an online store, do consider the following tips to create a mobile-friendly website.  

Keep it simple:

The mobile version of your website should be simple and to the point. Meaning, instead of focusing on the business history or about us page, you need to directly link them to your shop. This helps the mobile user to have a look at your products. Also, keep your navigation menu short and simple, and also install a search bar which will help customers search pages easily. Further, you can consider single-page layouts for smaller mobile phone screens. Something such as a simple business logo and description and also table of contents are enough for customers to achieve the desired actions.

Keep it fast:

Speed matters, for smartphones. So ensure that your website offers swift and seamless service on smartphones. As mobile users don’t have the patience like the Desktop users, you need to ensure that your website is designed in such a way that it can be speedily browsed on a smartphone.

Plus, include lower resolution version of the images because consumers like to browse images on mobile phones. Besides, videos are also popular. So for videos, use a technology and a video player that offers flawless video experience. When it comes to content, keep it bare minimum. Long pieces of content only irritates the customers as it takes too much time in loading.

Keep the 'touch' factor in mind:

As mobile users use fingers for browsing and tapping on the screen, you should build links and buttons that are large enough to tap easily. Also, keep space between links and buttons generously.

As users hold the smartphones or tablet with one hand and use the other to navigate through the products and offers, it’s important to design the website in such a way that all you need is to slide and tap without having to flip the smart phone all the time.

Easy checkout process:

Don’t make your customers fill lengthy forms and unnecessary fields. Making them enter too much text while making an order frustrates them.

Plus, use well-known checkout and payment gateway, given that most of the transactions are done publicly

Lastly, test your online store on smartphones or tablets instead of testing it on online emulators. This will give you a proper feel of how your website, shopping cart or checkout works in real.

Head over to Ydeveloper to find more benefits of responsive web design as it offers the better SEO prospects and user experience than mobile friendly website.

Use these eCommerce Web Design Strategies to Improve Sales

It’s given thing in the eCommerce world that the design of your eCommerce website directly impact sales. If you are still unsure of it, then it’s time for you to not only familiarize with it but also be on trouble-shooting mode.

The design of a site directly affects sales. It mainly helps build corporate identity, develop brand, and differentiate your products from your competition. So, if your design is wrong, in no time your potential income and overall business prospects will come under tremendous stress.

Listed below are dynamic eCommerce web design tips which will help you accelerate your sales numbers.

Build a professional website:

One of the best-known ways to maintain a professional looking website is to keep content and photographs organized. In fact, you should feature multiple pictures for each product and showcase it at different angles. This will help customers get a feel of the product. And if you have categories and subcategories, organize them into drop-down menu form, so that shoppers can open it easily by simply hovering over them with their cursor.

However, ensure the photographs you use are best in quality and the product descriptions carefully done.

Make it easy to use:

Keep the checkout process easy and quick. This helps complete the purchases quickly. Also include a search box on the top of the page. This enables customers filter results quickly. Also, shoppers should be able to get from the product page to the checkout pages in a few easy steps as possible, so that customers don't get impatient along the way and abandon your store.  Moreover, it should be easy for shoppers to see what is in their cart, so that they can remove items that they don’t need. 

Make Information Easily Accessible:

When a customer decides to buy online, he looks for information, such as the shipping costs, delivery time, tracking instructions and so on. So you have to ensure that such information is easily accessible to shoppers. You can also include ‘live chat’ for shoppers with questions. Plus, an email address or phone number to help shoppers reach customer service.   

Share Your Social Media:

Shoppers who are interested in your products will be looking for ways to engage themselves with you on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more. So don't forget to include buttons linking to the social media pages of your company. Customers can visit these pages to get updated information on the latest deals and newest products right away.

Feature Customer Reviews:

If you want to make people feel comfortable buying your product, then you need to include customer reviews on your website. This will give them certain amount of confidence before buying. So you should include a feature on your website that would prompt customers to quickly leave reviews on purchased products.

  

So now you know what a carefully designed website can do for your sales. For one thing, you enjoy more conversions and customers, and you also enjoy repeat customers and earn valuable profits.

Let's find www.Ydeveloper.com to get an affordable eCommerce web design sevices.

e-Business Marketing Strategies 2014

Online shopping and online selling has become more efficient and fun these days. With new technologies been introduced round the year, eCommerce stores are making haste by harnessing new techniques that sets them on the path of spectacular growth.  

Last year, it was all about guest blogging, website optimization, higher CTR & conversion rates, and responsive design. This year, it's all about mobile, social networking, big data, analytics and personalization. All these changes has led to new trends in the world of eCommerce.

The long and short of it is that there are dramatic changes happening in the eCommerce space and some of the important ones have been listed below:

1. Mobile Optimized Websites

Last year, the chant was all about building responsive web design that were mobile-friendly. This year, however, the eCommerce owners are completely focusing on building sites that could blossom beautifully on smartphones and tablets, thereby driving traffic to their websites.

2. Mobile Advertising

Mobile Advertising is catching fire. It's the latest fad to enter the eCommerce arena, and the big, branded eCommece stores are going to the first big spenders on mobile ads. Though, small store owners may be not be prepared for the big leap, larger store owners will try to reach as many mobile users as possible. Even video mobile ads will be in great demand.

3. Advertising On Wearable Devices  

Google glasses, smart watches and other wearable devices are set to enter the market in 2014. If demand of these devices pick up, eCommerce stores are sure to bombard it with promotions, offers, and updates to their customers through these wearable devices.

4. Re-emergence Of Long Content

Bid adieu to short content. Long-form content is the order of the day.  We will see the rise of long-form content for all the products and services offered by the stores. Plus, all the articles and blog posts will have to be long enough going forward. Moreover, the easy availability of analytics and data will lead to the creation of more data-based content.

5. Increase In Social and Search Ads

With more and more content marketers turning toward social media and search ads for revenue, PPC and CPC ads experiments in small and large eCommerce companies will increase manifold.

6. Brand and Author Identity Assumes More Importance

The death of large-scale guest blogging has inspired the rise of digital brand both for authors and businesses. Going forward, eCommerce stores and marketers would have to focus on building quality communities and blogs to further their marketing efforts. Even building a brand blog, plus a team of well-known bloggers will become priceless for eCommerce businesses.

7. Personalized Product Displays

With users becoming more and more comfortable sharing personal information with brands and trusted online stores, personalized product displays for registered users will be the next big thing in the eCommerce arena.

8. Instant  Delivery

Amazon is stepping up its delivery services manifold with drone delivery. Online stores are not meant for instant gratification. For this offline stores are better as you get your goods instantly. In case of online stores you have to wait for 2 days to 2 weeks for order delivery. But this won't be the case in 2014. Next-day delivery options and same-day delivery options are on the top of the agenda for many eCommerce stores.

9. Local SEO

While larger eCommerce stores try out new ways to attract customers globally, smaller eCommerce store owners will focus on traditional SEO to target customers in a limited geographic area.

10. Marketing Automation

Online shoppers are known for their notorious trait of browsing the store for endless hours and leaving it without buying anything. Targeted marketing can solve this issue to a greater extent. By automating lead nurturing process, emails and analytics small online store owners tend to get better insights that helps covert visitors into buyers.  

These are some of the most important trends that eCommerce stores need to focus upon if they really want to stand out in the sea of eCommerce sites. Ydeveloper with its growing army of SEOs, SMOs and online marketing experts will help you nail the rankings in search engines.

How Small Businesses Sell More Via Multi-Vendor eCommerce Stores

Small Businesses, think twice before starting an online store. Why? Because they are always on tenterhooks: Whether they will get enough traffic or not? Whether their sales will shoot up or not? Whether their site is compelling enough to turn traffic into customers or not, so on and further.

Sell More via Multi-vendor eCommerce Platform

All these nagging questions simply squelch their thoughts about starting an online store. But then the big question is, why worry when you have a multi-vendor eCommerce store? Small businesses can sell their wares not only on their sites(if they have one), but also on other multi-vendor sites to boost sales.

So, don't panic even if there are dime-a-dozen shopping sites selling similar or same wares? Don't panic even if they are offering products at competitive rates. Because if you are present on multi-vendor platforms it becomes easier for you to attract big traffic and big volumes.  More than anything, it costs less to be on a multi-vendor platform.

Other benefits of becoming a part of multi-vendor shopping cart:

1. Take advantage of all the benefits that a single seller ecommerce store offers, minus the shortcomings.
2. You get a bigger platform to sell your products/services at a lesser cost. The cost of creating a custom website, management of logistics and other such operations are reduced.
3. A multi-vendor system gets greater footfall, which is difficult for small businesses to get from their own efforts.
4. Being less in investment and other costs, the profit ratio of a multi-vendor store is higher.

A multi-vendor eCommerce system is the best bet when it comes to online retailing. It's not only cost effective, but it also brings along ease of functionality. As in, small businesses don't have to worry about tabulating the purchases and payments because everything gets added automatically to individual accounts. They can also easily manage and update their individual offers, and shipment policies and enjoy sales without any hassles.

If you aware of anymore benefits, use the comment box to elaborate on the same.

5 Tips For Successful eCommerce Business

According to Statistic Brain, an average user has an attention span of 8 seconds – one second less than that of a goldfish. Interesting, isn't it? And it even becomes more interesting when we consider that an eCommerce merchant has only so much of time to catch the user's attention and make a successful sale. Now the question arises, how to catch attention in 8 seconds flat? If you think it's difficult to do, think again. There are few companies who have successfully managed to do so, and joining their league is easy if you can implement the following principles:

eCommerce Business

Innovation

This is the age of innovation, you have to offer something out-of-the-box to differentiate yourself from the competition. You can promote innovation in your company by empowering various teams to develop creative solutions based on the strategic objectives of the company. If you have a decision committee in place which is hindering innovation, it's high time that you implement an organizational restructure.

Business unit

Many business organizations – especially the larger ones – have lengthy processes in place, and usually these processes are at fault for the lack of innovation. The best way to overcome this problem is the creation of a separate business unit. This business unit should have adequate decision-making power, technical capabilities and information to push innovation and modernization beyond corporate bureaucracy. Moreover, the new business unit should have its own independent setting, including physical space with its profit and loss accountability.

Streamlined processes

Having good business ideas is not enough. They should be quickly implemented. If you have a good product in mind, you should be able to conduct market research immediately. Based on the market research, the product should be manufactured and put in the market. Customers' feedback should be taken and analyzed, and then appropriate decisions should be taken. If the product needs modification, it should be done quickly and if the target audience isn't impressed with the products, you either need to implement a strong marketing strategy or pull back the product. In short the bottom line is, the processes – right from the moment the idea was conceived to the customers' feedback – should be executed quickly and seamlessly without any bottlenecks.

Innovation accounting

In this age of intense competition, traditional accounting is no longer enough. When factors such as innovation, adaptability, flexibility and scalability are of paramount importance, accounting needs to consider them too. In this situation, innovation accounting comes in the play. Unlike traditional accounting, innovation accounting will allow you to measure the success of your business based on your ability to innovate. You just need to define your innovation criteria and measure the actual performance against it.

Agile methodology

To stay ahead of the competition, you should create agile team that will help the business create new ideas, design innovative products and speed up the manufacturing process to beat the competition. Agile teams are usually are more adaptable to changes and open to innovation.

Do you want to build a successful eCommerce business? Ydeveloper is specialized in offering a range of custom-built and multi-store ecommerce products and solutions (e-Smart eCommerce Suite) that help you penetrate target audience effectively and efficiently for outstanding sales and profits.

How to Build Trust Online

Just like a brick-and-mortar store, you need to build trust for your eCommerce business. If you fail to do so, there are tons of eCommerce merchants who are just waiting to nab your customers, and believe us, you definitely don't want that to happen. Just following the following steps to gain your customers' trust.

Display payment logos

Unless you are operating since years or you have a strong market presence, you have to display payment logos. The reason for this is simple: when the customers are assured of the secured payment gateway, they are assured about the safety and security of their personal and financial information. Also, display of visible padlock from software companies such as Comodo Secured or PayPoint will reflect your commitment to keep the customers' data safe and secure. You can even put up a list of payment processing card issuers like MasterCard or Visa as well as the logo of payment services you support like PayPal or GoogleWallet. This will show that you are vetted by reputed companies.

Third-party badges

If you are using reputed services, like UPS and FedEx, you should display their badges because it will show how you use effective and efficient services. This, in turn, will have positive impact on the customers. If you are selling on huge online platforms such as eBay or Amazon, make sure you include their logos somewhere on your site.

Use customer reviews and testimonials

As you might already know, nothing is as effective as customer reviews. If you are still doubtful, consider this: A research by BrightLocal conducted in 2013 found that 79% of the customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. So make sure that you are leveraging the customer reviews at the right place.

Display contact details prominently

A 2013 study by Response Tap found that 57% of the customers give priority to those merchants who can be reached easily. When you offer contact information to the customers, they are assured of some human interaction, and this goes a long way in building customer confidence. Also, when you display a fixed address, your business will appear real, reliable and tangible.

Simple website navigation

A user-friendly website always attracts traffic in hordes. According to professional web designers, every part of the website should be accessible in three clicks from the home page. Would you have a complex brick-and-mortar store? You shouldn't treat your eCommerce store any different.


Display “About Us” section prominently

Customers would love to know from whom they are buying. So let them know about it. Be friendly and honest because this will inspire trust within customers. Tell them how the business started and what kind of products you are offering. Also, let them know how you are different from your competitors and how many satisfied customers you have.

Transparent company policies

Customers are always wary when they can't get enough information about the store from which they are thinking to buy. Rightly so. If you don't want your customers to doubt your integrity, have clear and concise return policy, shipping policy and delivery times.

Improve presence on social media platforms

Be active on social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter to reinforce on people's minds that the business is alive and well. Also, keep social media links on the website to build a strong brand presence.

How Visitors View Your eCommerce Store

Running an eCommerce store is not as easy as it seems. There are several things that can impact the conversion ratio of your store – right from the look of the store to the available selection of products to customer service.

The sure fire way to improve sales of your store is to have a look at your eCommerce store from a visitor's point of view. Are you wondering what your customers see when they visit your store? 

Let's begin the journey to find out the answer.

Design:

Whenever you visit a store that's in disarray, what would you think of the store? Will you be impressed? Most probably not. Think in the same way when you enter your store. Is the design of the store unique and attractive? How easy is it find products? Are all the products categorized properly with appropriate sub-categories? In short, the design and layout of the store should be impressive enough to retain the visitors. It shouldn't be contributing to the bounce rate.

Speed:

How long would you stay on a website that takes ages to load? Not more than 5 minutes, right? According to various studies, slower page response time results in an increase in page abandonment, and the problem is exacerbated when it comes to mobile sites. Now check the speed of your store. If the pages are taking too long to load, it's time to check for the problem. If you aren't techno-savvy, hire a professional. He/she will know what to do and how to reduce the loading time.

Product selection:

Usually start ups can't afford to offer wide array of products. But that's okay. Instead of worrying about the product selection, make sure that visitors are able to find products quickly and easily. At the same time, are you bombarding your customers with too many options and inducing “decision paralysis”? Find a workaround for offering choices without confusing them. If you are selling multiple brands, you can offer search option for brands too. This will prevent confusions between different brands.

Product pages:

How much time do you spend on the product pages to make a decision whether you will buy it or not? Usually it's 10 seconds. Now go to your product pages and see if it has something unique that can compel the visitors to make a positive buying decision within 10 seconds. If not, then it's time to redesign the product pages. 

Shopping cart:

After design and layout, ill-designed shopping carts are usually the culprit for high abandonment rates. The reasons for abandonment vary from unexpectedly high shipping costs to not accepting certain payment methods to compulsory user registration for the purchases. For high conversion ration, you should have a clear cut shipping policy right on the product listing page; accept all types of payments; and offer guest checkout or social login.

After-sales service:

How would you feel if a shop from where you had bought a shirt couple of months back gets in touch with you to know how do you find the shirt? Awesome, won't you? Offer the same level of customer service to your customers. Ask them for the feedback. If they aren't returning anymore, ask them why. Offer them special discounts that can bring them back to the store.

Single Dashboard for Multi-store Owner:

Are you running multiple eCommerce stores and managing all from Single Admin? If it's Yes, then you should get an access to all the important functionality in this panel. This helps you to save your time, and get instant report of the visitor's behavior to improve the conversion.