Friday, 15 May 2015

How You Can Find The Best Price For Your Product

Shopping online has changed and so have all the lingo that came associated with it. People who were once diffident to make a purchase online are now casually making a beeline ( i mean, on the internet) towards ecommerce websites with a laundry list of products for the festive sales. This is largely because ecommerce frees them from the inevitable constraints of traditional shopping such as commuting, scarcity of options, pricing, and lack of comfort. For cost-conscious buyers, the ecommerce sites are a boon. 
 
But with the growing number of ecommerce websites selling the same product, you need to make the best deal. This article looks at how you can compare prices across the board, and the different ways you can do that.

Be Clear About The Brand and The Product 
 
Firstly, it is important that you are clear about what you are going to buy. This means the specification of the product, and its brand. This is because only then will you be able to find the best price available for the product that you are searching. 
 
Once you’re done with that, you are now in a position to identify if your product is niche or a normal segment product. If it falls into the niche category, stop looking for discounts. Otherwise, compare your product price with other sites with options such as buyhatke etc.

Blowout Sales

Now ecommerce sites are always flush with lots of big deals as companies behind them are ever ready to pay them for it. But the ones on the big deals and slashed discounts include unsold products, product that lack quality similar to the racks in your local mall. So, sift through your search engine and cut the crap and wade through the mist.

Online Auctions

This is another way to sell products en masse, though there is some criticism that the product prices are not what they are indicated to be. But you can trust established sellers and ecommerce websites though.

What we’ve mentioned above are just some of the ways in which you can slash the prices of the products that you wish to buy though there are other options too, such as dollar deals. For that and other details on ecommerce website development though, we’ll have to wait another day!

Tuesday, 12 May 2015

Why Xcart Must Be Your Choice For a Feature-Rich Ecommerce Website

Well, managing an ecommerce store and extracting results out of it can be a tough task. Getting people to visit your site is the easy part. But converting them is the harder one. For this, your ecommerce website has to be feature rich and have additional functionalities than what is offered by your rivals. This means that you need to start off with a robust ecommerce platform. This article looks at X-cart web development and explores why it is precisely the ecommerce platform that fits the bill in the current scenario.

What You’re Looking For:

The right online store is one that fulfils your requirement while at the same time giving you that extra that helps you give flight to your own imagination in designing your website. Users today are no longer diffident about making a purchase if they find the site comfortable to use and the product to their liking. So features and functionality should be on top of your agenda.

What X-cart Has to Offer you:

X-cart is tailor made to meet your specific business needs and gives you the leeway to add additional functionalities in the website as and when you desire. Images, multimedia, third party plugins, you name it, X-cart has it.

But first, you need to select which X-cart template suits you. You need to be careful when you choose from the wide variety of plugins available. With X-cart web development, you needn’t worry about creating a good look or interface for your website as X-cart is one of the few ecommerce web development platforms that give you plenty of room to integrate your ideas into images and content integration.

After The Design:

Once the design part is done, you can add whatever features you need for your website using X-cart addons or X-cart modules. These save you the time of developing these functionalities on your own and you can enhance the features of your website by just clicking on them and dragging them where you want.

At each step in the ecommerce purchase process, X-cart helps you by offering you something more than what the rest have on the table. This is what makes X-cart web development special and why it is the choice for a truly next generation ecommerce website.

Thursday, 7 May 2015

5 Great Usability Mantras For Ecommerce Businesses

How important is usability in designing an ecommerce website? Well, as important as ecommerce itself, if you consider the fact that it is usability that determines whether the visitor stays or leaves your website. When your ecommerce website has been designed keeping the customer’s ease-of-use in mind, then the rest simply falls into place. 
 

It is due to their focus on usability that ecommerce sites such as ebay and amazon reached where they are today. In this article we look at the 5 best usability functions that should be part of your website. 


The 5 Best Usability Axioms For Your Shopping Cart:

Titles, Subtitles and Ease of Navigation: 
 

If you’re preparing content for an ecommerce website, then titles, subtitles, and ease of navigation are very important from the usability point of view. This is because the customer first needs to know which page he is on and which topic he’s reading about. Navigation signs help the user know where he is in the site. 
 

Site Search Function: 
 

It has now become essential for all online shopping sites to have a search function that is linked to their database. Placing the site search at the top web development would also be a good idea to make things easy for the customer. This is essential to help the customer find the product that he or she was looking for so as to help them place their orders quickly. 
 

Visually Appealing Product Images and Buttons: 
 

If your site has to be responsive, you need to focus on employing more images to describe products better to your customers. Captivating images play a huge role in attracting visitors to your site and turning them into your loyal customers. Have ‘add to cart’ buttons that are visible and different from what other online portals have to offer. This way you enhance customer experience and give him/her something new.


Contact Info:


Many customer orders are made mostly through the website and it is therefore extremely important that you display your complete contact information on your website. Display your company’s phone number and address prominently on each page of the website. 
 

Refined Search Options: 
 

Make your search options less complicated by allowing the customer to search for products by category, colour, brand, size etc. In short, allow them to search the way they want to. Allow users of the shopping cart solution users to quickly and effortlessly. This gives the user flexible search options and helps them get results that they desired for.


Wednesday, 6 May 2015

How Ecommerce Businesses Can Build Trust With The Customer

Every contact a visitor has with an ecommerce website is an opportunity for a business to instil trust in the visitor. In this article, we look at how a business can do that, at different points in a customer lifecycle.

1. Before entering the website 
 
Many will be hesitant to buy from an ecommerce store they’ve never heard of. A great chance to establish trust from the beginning via your advertising beckons you. A well designed ad can help establish a great first impression. But, we have a few quick and handy tips and things you may want to mention in your advertising.
  • Mention total number of orders shipped
  • Include customer service hours
  • Use a solid domain name
  • If you are a verified reseller of a brand, include this fact
  • Do mention if you take PayPal as a payment method
  • If you’ve been quoted in a credible publication, make sure you show that quote

2. When customers enter and browse your website

So they’ve entered your website and are browsing-great! Now, here are some ways to build upon those assurances. You don’t need to add all those elements to your page. It is important to test and find a healthy balance that increase sales.
  • Imagery- Use only high quality ecommerce images.
  • Reviews- Highlight the reviews of products showing that other people shop at your ecommerce store.
  • Contact- Make your contact information clear. You may even want to put it at the bottom of every page.
  • Testimonials- Customer testimonials with faces, on pages would help. Embedding a tweet would add freshness.
  • Blog- Educate users on your products. Being a thought leader can benefit in the long run.
  • About- Include a photo of your staff in your about page. If you were previously the founder of another company or worked for another company, do mention it clearly.

3. When customers finalise the items in the cart

Now you have a visitor with intent to buy. They’re so close to becoming a customer, but how do you ensure they stay through the checkout process and complete the sale?

For this, you need to ensure the following:
  • Get an SSL certificate. (to make sure you have https)
  • Mention the number of orders shipped
  • It’s important to disclose your shipping facility is located as people like to know where the product they purchase is produced.

Monday, 4 May 2015

The Best Web Builders For Your Ecommerce Website

To build a great ecommerce website a lot many things have to come together. Because it’s not about just getting the design approach or the platform right, it is also about getting the functionality, security, UI, and performance right. In this article we look at some reputed builders that you can choose for your ecommerce design.

Weebly

Secure, customizable, and easy-to-use. It is as of now the most reputed website builder for ecommerce. You can create a full store and customize it as you want in a short time. And you need not know any code to do all of this because you only need to know how to drop elements in the right places. You just need to organize them by dragging them into columns and rows.          
                                                                                           
Wix

Wix has redefined itself over the years (post Flash) into a trusted name for building ecommerce website that last in the long run. Now, you can create Javascript/HTML websites with Wix with consummate ease as it truly lives up to its tag of a drag and drop editor. This of course means only one thing. Yes, zero coding knowledge! 
 
But still, it is not without flaws. And the major flaw is that it is not made for the mobile and therefore you need to have two separate websites, one for your desktop and one for mobile, making your site experience inconsistent.

Squarespace

Robust, secure and totally flexible. These are just some of the features that make Sqaurespace exciting and popular. With thirty two templates that come with unique structures, it is one of those softwares that capture your imagination the moment you see it. It has new features like a large splash image on the home page with the shift template on the left and the navigation template on the right. 
 
For bloggers, Squarespace has the native template.

Now, all these may still not be enough if you want to see an increase in traffic and sales. For that, you will need the help of a trusted and competent developer who has years of experience behind him. If you are looking for one, or a team of developers, reach us at Openwavecomp.com!

Thursday, 30 April 2015

Are You Ready to Optimize Your Shopping Cart?

The shopping cart software you use will determine the success of your ecommerce store because of the functionalities it must have in order for you to do the things necessary to succeed in ecommerce. You must optimize certain aspects of your shopping cart ecommerce platform in certain areas.

To ensure your ecommerce website success you must have a plan in place and have an idea what you're doing before you get started if not it will be a very long and hard road ahead for you. So, where do you start?

You have to make sure you choose the right shopping cart software to make sure you have the right platform to sell your product. There are many ecommerce shopping cart software companies out there so make sure you choose a reputable shopping cart. Make sure you do your research on the platform you choose as there are many resources out there for you to do so. Once you have chosen your platform, start thinking about your design and how you envision your website to look. Most ecommerce software's have ready-to-go templates that will allow you to choose a design and can literally be up and running in minutes.


You want to make sure you already have a logo in place and it's very important you have a nice and attractive colour scheme. You must optimize your design and that starts with making sure the basic elements on your website are in the right place. Heat map services could help you here. Or you could use Google analytics (free of charge, you see!). You must always test different buttons on your website like ‘add to cart' or ‘buy now' and see which one works best to make sure you're converting at optimal levels.

Once you have a layout of your website, you should start uploading your product. But you must first study your competition before you upload. When you create your website, it’s very important that you have search engine optimization in mind. This is crucial to ensuring traffic to your site.

Like all businesses, here too, you need to start little by little and with time and experience, you'll see different things you can implement to your ecommerce strategy. It is essential you have the basics down to begin your ecommerce business. You have plenty of good content regarding ecommerce on the web. Make sure you read them as also blogs about new ecommerce trends and that should keep you well.

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

Why Magento is The Best Choice for Your Business Needs


Business owners today want a platform that not only provides them with security and portability, but also gives them the extra edge in terms of attractiveness, for that is what generates traffic. To get the eyeballs, your site needs to be built keeping the user in mind at every stage of development and this is precisely what Magento gives you. This article looks at why its time you leveraged the Magento advantage.

Flexible eCommerce Components: Magento is a unique program of versatile e-Commerce components. These components can be designed as per your specific store requirements. The endless versatility of Magento and its components allows us to add new features or change the current ones. Magento is an enormous open-source e-Commerce solution that allows transformation of information from one foundation to the other without many complications.

Powerful Zend PHP Scripting Language: Magento is effective than any other e-Commerce systems for a variety of factors and the primary being its base on MySQL data resource and particularly effective Zend PHP Scripting terminology. The information saved in it is in the form of shrub plans framework in the information design. The time of development is relatively quicker and versatile mainly due to this scripting terminology performance.

Easy Operating Process: This fact can never be declined by any of the professionals who have used Magento as it assures excellent e-Commerce websites with its elegant features, flexibility and scalability. You don't need to be a lover or it is not necessary to learn any new technological innovation or PHP terminology for interacting with Magento. The significant procedure is really simple, minimal and user-friendly. Any of your e-Commerce programs or e-Commerce websites can be designed quickly with the remarkable elements and resources of Magento.

 
Page check out system: Magento is known for its versatility and faultless incorporation of transaction gateways. With Magento you can create protected transaction gateways like Authorize, PayPal Pro, Google Check out, PayPal etc. Other transaction methods like Zen cart, credit card, and shopping cart are also available in Magento. This is proof of the wide range of options that it gives you when you set out to develop an online store.