Tag: ecommerce

by Incredible Planet Staff

10 Reasons eCommerce SEO Is Critical for Your Online Business


Business

Running an online retail store takes time, patience, effort, as well as an SEO-friendly website. But more than the three factors mentioned, running an eCommerce business requires paying attention to critical trends in today’s fast-growing and changing economic landscape. In the absence of SEO guidelines and expertise from an eCommerce SEO agency, no business can generate traction in its website’s organic traffic. So, here are some reasons why your business needs eCommerce SEO services:

1. Build Your Online Brand and Visibility

A good SEO Birmingham agency will make a mark on a business’s presence online through their SEO knowledge and techniques. SEO plays a critical role in enhancing one’s visibility in search engines. There is an entire process as to how SEO accomplishes this, but once you start it, your business and its products or services are bound to gain optimum visibility. Of course, with the right optimization tools and strategies, every content becomes effortlessly accessible by search engines from various parts of the world.

When it comes to the eCommerce industry, word-of-mouth marketing doesn’t work as efficiently as SEO. The majority of your demographic is now online, which is why you should have an online presence. Make it a point to establish a strong presence and connection with your audience right where they are.

2. Long-Term Results

The majority of digital marketing techniques utilized by an eCommerce SEO agency are engineered to get fast results. As you work your way through your SEO tactics, it promises to deliver enhanced organic traffic to your website over the long term.

3. SEO Is Not Costly

When you operate a warehouse where you manufacture and store most of your products, everything can become costly. It is a great thing that SEO is free of charge, which makes it one of the most excellent digital marketing tactics ever to exist, if not the best out there.

Providing your company’s products or services online is a terrific way to mitigate costs and make money simultaneously. It creates an opportunity for your customers to see and purchase your products 24/7 and in any location, which will significantly help you generate additional income in the long run. Also, you don’t have to be hassled about expenses or cost adjustments since your website already acts as your sales clerk who works for you all day at a meagre cost.

4.Operation Convenience of an eCommerce Website

Maintaining an eCommerce website is a fantastic way to attract additional visitors and customers. As stated, consumers like it when they can see and buy products from the comfort of their home rather than travelling to a brick-and-mortar store since this can mean having to deal with traffic or leaving the store empty-handed as stocks are sold out.

Transitioning to an online business allows you to reach out to a larger geographical area. It invites more customers and consumers. More than anything else, this enables your eCommerce business to expand beyond the limitations of time and location compared to operating a brick-and-mortar store.

5. Customize Your eCommerce SEO Depending on Your Needs

Regardless of which industry you fit into, SEO will play a significant role. SEO is flexible and can be customized to suit your business. Web designers can create a customized eCommerce website where you can establish your SEO at the same time. It also allows you to make tactics that feature highlights of your online store that makes it distinct from the rest. Also, investing in high-quality web hosting solutions makes a significant impact on your search engine rankings.

6. Social Media Presence

SEO not only helps enhance your eCommerce website’s visibility but also further generates your business’s social media profiles while enhancing the traffic of your page. Social media and SEO help each other. Each one supports the other to get your business to become well-known. High-ranking websites are likely to be popular among people, and they will likely choose them when they are looking for products or services. Because of this, you must develop an awesome video marketing tactic to further enhance your SEO since it is the most engaging form of content on social media platforms.

For example, when someone purchases the latest iPhone, they will start following Apple’s pages on social media. In the same manner, they want to know more about Apple’s other products as they might want to purchase something else in the future.

7. SEO Gives You a Competitive Advantage

When it comes to business, there is always competition out there. You will be battling out to get more sales. Currently, irrespective of the scale of a business, whether it is a startup or not, websites are crucial. Companies utilize these websites to manage their activities. If you want to sell more products than your competitors, all you have to do is to rank higher than them. In turn, this makes searchers in every area of the Internet consider your business more often than your competition. SEO allows you to compete with businesses that are bigger and more established to gain a huge chunk of the market.

8. SEO Allows Customers to Find Your Business

Customers will likely find it hard to know about your business in the absence of SEO. Keep in mind that there is a sea of retail stores online as well as websites and pages that can easily drown out your presence, and because of this, embracing SEO as one of your digital marketing approaches is crucial. Ranking at the top levels of search engines allows you to reach out to large groups of audiences, making it more effortless for you to market your products and services.

9. SEO Is Indicative of Better User Experience

Ranking on the top level of search engines means one thing, and that happens when you have a user-friendly and good website design. First off, Google has already stated that it rewards websites that are mobile-friendly. It is critical because over half of current users utilize mobile for the search of different products and services they require. With this in mind, websites that contain streamlined and crucial information along with several images and videos undoubtedly enhance organic traffic.

  • SEO Enhances Trust Among Customers About Your eCommerce Site

As discussed, ranking on top of the search engine allows businesses to appear more authoritative than those on the third or fourth pages. Because of this, customers are likely to trust a brand that ranks on top of the list, making it easier to generate more sales and level up organic traffic.

Embarking on SEO for your eCommerce business is not as effortless as it sounds, but it is worth it. It would help if you considered its accessibility. Brands should never underestimate the enormous potential and opportunity of SEO for businesses, especially eCommerce.


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by Incredible Planet Staff

Breaking It Down: 7 Tips for Choosing the Right Boxes for Ecommerce Packaging


Business

In 2018 alone, businesses in the eCommerce industry brought in more than $517.36 billion in sales in the United States. With more people placing orders online instead of heading to local shops, that number will only increase over the next few years.

This means that now is the perfect time to start selling online. However, before you can send out your first shipment, you need to choose the right eCommerce packaging materials for your business.

With so many different packing box sizes and materials, figuring out which ones are right for your needs can be tough. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when you start your search.

  1. Remember Your Budget

When you’re deciding on the best type of boxes to use for your upcoming shipments, you need to keep your budget in mind. Typically, it’s cheaper to order boxes in bulk than it is to place smaller orders more frequently.

Get quotes from different packaging providers and discuss your needs with them in detail. Once you have quotes from several companies, choose the provider that gives you the best value for the money you’re spending.

Just don’t panic when you see a large number upfront. Break the price down by box and consider the overall costs that way.

  1. Think About What You’re Shipping

Before you can decide on the best type of eCommerce packaging for your business, you need to consider the items you’re selling to consumers.

Think about how large and heavy those items are. The heavier the item is, the sturdier your boxes need to be. If they’re smaller and lighter, you’ll be able to choose a small cardboard box or even an envelope to ship items to consumers.

Choosing the wrong size and strength box could result in damage to your items before they even reach your customers. Ultimately, this will cause you to lose more money on returns and replacements than you’d ever spend on high-quality packing materials.

  1. Make It Personal

When you run a brick-and-mortar retail store, the store itself is what gives your customers a peek into your personality and values. When you run an online store, you have to find a different way to showcase those values to your customers. While it often starts with your website, you need to make sure your brand carries over onto your packaging.

If possible, get your logo and brand name printed on the exterior of the box so customers know where it came from at first glance. Depending on your budget, you can also look into getting custom box liners and branded padding materials.

The more personal you can make the box, the more professional and successful it will make your brand appear. It’s the best way to make a lasting impression with your customers and can go a long way toward improving your brand’s recognition.

  1. Pay Attention to Security

Not all boxes are able to stand up to the demands of shipping long distances. They get crushed, torn, and fall open in-transit.

Your customers expect their order to reach them in pristine condition. This means you need boxes that can stand up to the abuse they’ll suffer throughout the shipping process.

When choosing the best packing box sizes for your products, choose options that are thick enough and sturdy enough to stand up to both the shipping process and the weight of the materials you’re shipping. Find out more about the types of closures they use and look for ones that will adequately secure the items inside.

  1. Consider Recyclability 

Customers love businesses that support eco-friendly initiatives. This means choosing packing materials that are recyclable at a bare minimum.

Think of fun and creative ways to incorporate repurposed materials into your eCommerce packaging. This could mean choosing boxes made from 100 percent recycled materials or making padding out of shredded newspapers or biodegradable packing peanuts.

The more thought you put into your packaging, the more your customers will appreciate it and notice your efforts. This can go a long way toward encouraging their willingness to order from you again in the future.

  1. Don’t Neglect Room for Padding and Other Items

Typically, smaller standard box sizes will cost less than larger ones. This can make it tempting to choose the smallest possible boxes for your items.

However, that doesn’t mean you should. You still need to leave room for padding, promotional materials, and anything else you want to include inside the box.

Make sure the boxes you choose have enough room to adequately pad the items as needed. You also need to make sure to order several box sizes to accommodate larger orders. Remember, customers prefer to receive their orders in single shipments rather than getting several smaller boxes.

You don’t have to go crazy here. Just choose several different sizes and adjust the amount of padding you use accordingly. This will let you better customize your shipping options based on the orders you receive.

  1. Get Inspiration From Your Competition

If you’re really not sure where to start, take a look at how your competition packs their orders. Use this as a guide.

Look at the types of boxes they use and the way they pack their orders. If you like what you see, think about how you can mimic those tactics and improve upon them with your own orders.

You can use their methods as a starting point and gradually customize your shipping materials over time.

The Right eCommerce Packaging Is Key

Choosing the right types of eCommerce packaging can make all the difference in how customers view your brand and how confident they’ll feel ordering from you again.

Keep these tips in mind when you first start looking for boxes and packing materials. This way, you’ll be ready to choose the best options for your business.

Looking for more insightful tips to make growing your online business easy? Check out our latest posts.

by James Adam

Tips For E-Commerce Business To Make Sales from Instagram


Lifestyle

Don’t you just hate how much big websites and brands suck up in the first page of search results? These brands and websites are hard to outrank.

If you want to get your business fast in front of your audience then social media platforms are the best options for you. Best and top Social Media platforms to boost your business are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google Plus and many more. But today I am going to share with how to use Instagram to grow your eCommerce business and boost your sales. If you want to find your target audience and get engagements from your target audience then you can use Instagram Auto Liker to grow fast and get more engagements.

Instagram is the best Marketing tool to take your eCommerce business to the next level

In this article, I will try to share some Instagram E-commerce Solutions that can help you to grow your eCommerce business and boost your sales. And how Instagram can bring you high revenue more than any other social platform.
Why Instagram For Your E-commerce Business?

There are a lot of reasons why to use Instagram for your eCommerce business but here are some few reasons that you need to know before you switch your business on Instagram.

1 Billion Monthly Active users on Instagram from around the globe.
500 Million peoples actives are every single day on Instagram from all over the world.
More than 4.5 Billion posts like every day.
95 million peoples shared videos and photos in a single day.
Most Instagram users are teenagers.
Instagram has one of the most engaged and active user databases
One report from e-commerce platform Shopify found that the average price tag for a sale referred from Instagram is $65, compared to $55 for Facebook and $46 for Twitter.

Instagram Marketing For E-commerce Business:

When it comes to shopping on Instagram, there are only three ways that you can use to drive traffic to your product page and encourage your followers to shop your products: tagging products in your Instagram stories ot posts, using the “swipe up” feature in Instagram Stories, or driving traffic through the link in your Instagram bio.
Here is step by step complete guide of Instagram marketing tips for eCommerce business to grow on Instagram to boost their sales and revenue.

1- Tag Your Products to Make Sales from Instagram:

If you want to get more sales from Instagram for your eCommerce business then tags your individual product is the best way for you to increase your conversions. Instagram now lets brands to tag individual products I Instagram posts to help users to shop products on Instagram easily.

If you’re a business selling physical goods and products, then you can link your e-commerce platform or inventory to your Instagram account, which then allows you to tag individual products in your posts. If you are selling physical goods and products then verify your platform and tag products in your post to get more sales from Instagram. This is one of the best ways to boost your sales and increase your revenue.

2- Swipe Up in Instagram Stories to Make Sales:

Brands with business Account and over 10,000 followers can add a link to their Instagram stories and then encourage their followers to “swipe up” to learn more or shop the item. If you don’t have 10,000 followers yet then become an Instagram famous brand and increase your followers over 10,000 then you are able to add a link to your Instagram stories. This is also one of a great way to make sales from Instagram for your eCommerce business.

3- Add the Link In Your Bio to Make Sales from Instagram:

Before adding a link in Instagram stories, link in bio was the the way to add a link in an Instagram account. It is still an effective and one of the best way to drive traffic from Instagram to increase website traffic and sales.

In order to get more sales from your bio link, make sure first you short your link using any URL Shortener to track your clicks, locations, and conversations. And ensure that the website you’re linking in your Instagram bio is mobile optimized because Instagram users will be clicking your link from an Instagram app on their phone.

4- Shoppable Instagram Ads to Make Sale on Instagram:Υnstagram ads are also another great way to reach your audience and promote your products in front of right peoples to get more sales. Instagram Advertising is a great tool for marketers to target any audience they want on Instagram. Instagram Ads are also clickable and shoppable so users can click on the ad and shop the products easily.

Low conversion rates and high cart abandonment rates are two major problems e-commerce businesses face. The Instagram Advertising tool can help you to see which users are converting better so you can retarget them again anytime. Instagram Ads can also help you to get more sales from Instagram.

Final Thoughts:

By implementing these tactics and strategies into your current marketing efforts can help you to increase your conversion rates. These are best strategies that you can use to get more sales from your Instagram for your e-commerce business. If you have any question that is related to Instagram for E-commerce marketing then feel free to leave a comment below.

by Incredible Planet Staff

How to Choose the Best Payment Gateway for High Risk Ecommerce Products


Business, Technology

If you have an e-commerce platform selling high-risk products you may be finding it hard to choose a payment gateway. Here’s how to choose the best payment gateway.

If you want to sell high-risk items online, you might not be able to use some of the common payment gateways. This can initially seem quite disheartening and might stop you from going into business.

But you’ll be happy to know not all hope is lost, as there are some payment gateways which are happy to work with you.

Keep reading to find out how you can find the best payment gateway for your high-risk e-commerce products. By the time you’re finished, you’ll have the knowledge needed to get your store up and running.

Let’s begin!

Define What You Want to Sell

It’s worth noting a wide range of items belong to the high-risk product category.

Odds are you’re not going to be selling items from this entire category. Following this, you should take some time to define exactly which items you are going to sell. Taking this step is important as some payment gateways specialize in specific kinds of products.

If you work with a specialized gateway, it reduces the potential ‘friction’ you might experience during this part of the process. A simple online search should help you find a gateway that’s best suited to your specific product category.

Take into Account Past Customer Experiences

Some of the companies who provide payment gateway services have not been in business for a long time. Some of them may think providing this service is just a fast way to make money because the market isn’t crowded.

Due to this, they might not have the proper infrastructure in place to support clients. They may also lack the staff needed to provide adequate customer service. A lot of the time, you’ll need to work with a payment gateway to determine whether this is the case.

But in some cases, you can read reviews to help you learn more. If you can, try to uncover the experiences of past customers. You can do this by reading some specialist forums dedicated to your product category. You could even visit specialist subreddits.

Is the Pricing Reasonable?

When working with a specialized payment gateway, you’ll find they have higher than usual pricing.

This is sometimes due to the increased costs of working with a specific, high-risk product category. But other times a payment gateway may raise prices because there’s little competition, thus making it easy for them to charge higher amounts.

If there’s no way around these higher costs, you need to consider what you can afford and how it will affect the prices of your products. It might be worth setting up a special spreadsheet to help you work this out.

Make sure you take into account the base fee as well as the percentage you’ll need to pay per item. Review this in line with your profit margin. If you’re left with no profit, you’ll need to raise prices or figure out how you can source your products for less. If you’re struggling to keep track of this, consider hiring an accountant.

What’s the Agreement?

To help secure business, some payment gateways may ask you to sign a contract. The details of this contract are going to vary from case to case.

If you sign up to a contract, you need to ensure you’re aware of all the terms involved. You also want to be certain of any early termination fees. This is important as you might have to pay these if your business no longer needs the services of the payment gateway.

Do You Need Any Special Kind of Hardware?

Some payment gateways will ask you to buy some hardware so you can complete your transactions. This is especially going to be the case if you’re dealing with a physical location that needs a point of sale (POS) setup.

If the hardware isn’t specialized then you should be able to source your own items. If you’re struggling to keep cost low, there’s the option of buying items second hand.

What Are the Payment Terms?

Different payment gateways have different payment terms. This means the time it takes to receive money from your transactions is going to vary. Some companies might take a week and some might take only a day.

Make sure you have a clear understanding of the payment terms before you sign up for a particular offering. If you don’t do this, you may experience some significant problems with your cash flow.

For instance, suppose you sell a significant number of items. So much so, that the items in your store are no longer in stock. If this happens you’ll then need to buy more stock. But if the payment terms are around a week and you have no money, you’ll need to wait.

Until the money arrives in your bank account you won’t be able to rebuild your stock. The time you spend waiting can mean you end up losing out on potential customers. This figure can amount to a lot if a large number of your customers end up being repeat customers.

Will You Have Special Currency Requirements?

It’s also worth noting not all payment providers are able to work with a wide range of currencies. You need to keep this in mind, as this can have a significant impact on your ability to do business.

If you expect you’ll have clients from a wide range of countries, note this down. Then look for payment providers who are able to accept payments from the countries you’re looking to do business with. You may even have special requirements in regards to the way you accept payments.

For instance, some of your customers may use echecks instead of credit cards to complete payments. If you think you’ll need to accept high risk echeck payments, ask payment gateways if they can handle this payment method before using them.

Do You Know How to Choose the Best Payment Gateway?

If you want to start a successful e-commerce store, you’ll need the help of a payment gateway. But if you’re dealing with high-risk products, choosing the right payment gateway can be a bit more challenging.

In this post, we’ve explored how you can find the best payment gateway for your high-risk ecommerce products. You need to first understand what it is you’re going to sell and what category these products belong to. You should also figure out if you have any special currency requirements.

Finding a payment gateway isn’t easy and you’ll likely need to work with many of them before you find the right one for you. As long as you test out the various options on offer, you should eventually find a payment gateway that properly meets your needs.

Writing content for your ecommerce store? Check out this post for some tips on how you can improve your headlines!

by Incredible Planet Staff

Important Elements of a Successful Ecommerce Business


Business

Though some of the ins and outs may work a little differently, for the most part, an ecommerce business is just like any other. They have a corporate website to build, markets to dominate, and customers to try and appeal to and satisfy. Many of the goals are the same, but the route to achieving them is sometimes slightly different to a traditional firm.

Consequently, here are the important elements of a successful ecommerce business.

Accessible Website

While an ecommerce website should look as attractive and appealing as possible, these are by no means the driving forces of a decent website. Aesthetics alone will only take a website so far, and if there’s no substance beneath the glossy banners and fancy fonts, any visitors will quickly learn this and exit the website without a second thought.

For all intents and purposes, an ecommerce’s web presence is the springboard to a good business, and thus success. Clear text should always be a priority, as well as headings in a bold, easy to read font to help site navigation. Visitors will struggle to get around the website if it has an overly elaborate presentation, so things should be kept smart yet simple.

Product

Of course, one can have the flashiest website in existence and still make no headway. Obviously, a quality product is essential for an ecommerce business to become successful. Not only does it need to be of a good quality in terms of design and manufacturing, but it also needs to make waves in the market to ousts potential competitors.

Companies, whether online or not, fare much better when they minimise their competition by offering something truly unique. Therefore, a new niche needs to be created and explored to create this affect, rather than ripping off a rival’s already proven idea. Potential customers see through shameless copying straightaway, so integrity in a new idea is the best way to go.

Customer Service

Bad customer service is not an isolated event; rather, it’s the driving factor behind any firms overarching reputation. In fact, bad reputations can be so severe that the worst businesses can be printed across the major broadsheets, leaving nowhere left to hide. All it takes is one bad word, and things can quickly spiral out of control.

However, customer service can be improved for an ecommerce company by utilising chatbots and live chats that are programmed to pop up as soon as a visitor browses the web page. This offers them the chance to spark a dialogue and captivate their attention. Answering immediate queries through the website can expand customer retention, in place of them clicking away the moment they become confused.

Delivery

It can be easy to think that the entire business can be found on a screen, and that the online world is the only thing that matters. However, at some point, every ecommerce company needs to tangibly prove their worth. If the grandiose marketing on the internet doesn’t match up with the real-world experience of customers, trouble will soon follow.

Late deliveries can dent the reputation of the ecommerce business severely. Many will use quality delivery companies like Whistl to ensure all orders arrive on time, minimising the chances of disgruntling customers. They have 60+ million ecommerce parcels passing through their dedicated hubs every year, so they’re more than capable of supporting online retailers big and small.

by Incredible Planet Staff

Read On To Find Out Why You Should Not Hire An Inexperienced Ecommerce Developer!


Technology

The best online store, ecommerce platform has been trending upwards for the last few years and is utilized by most establishments these days. If you are looking forward creating an effective and secure e-commerce application for your business, then it would be best to employ an experienced and professional ecommerce developer on whom you can rely.

Experienced Ecommerce Hands Are Required

Each and every e-commerce developer can produce an e-commerce application. However, not all e-commerce developers can build productive and secure e-commerce applications to generate lots of sales of e-commerce goods and services. Employing e-commerce developers without experience in this field is quite risky. The reason is that there are high chances that they can only create substandard e-commerce solutions. This is the reason why you should never employ fresh e-commerce developers for your business. Instead, you should hire professional and reliable developers having experience in the ecommerce industry. This is just in case if you want to produce lucrative e-commerce applications for selling goods and services online.

There are quite a lot of ecommerce platforms available in the market these days. Each is different from one and the other. After having picked out an e-commerce platform, you need to look out for a developer having some experience in this platform. However, before employing an e-commerce developer, you need to do thorough research work on the e-commerce developer organizations just to find out whether or not it has a good image for quality. You must also see to it that the e-commerce developer organizations care about project target dates for establishing and maintaining a successful business.

It is of paramount importance to determine quality over quantity of their works. This is vital especially when it comes to examining the project portfolios in order to assist the organizations so well that the firms can achieve their comprehensive stratagem. You will find that quite a number of e-commerce websites are available on the internet nowadays and there is a huge competition in the competitive markets. Each and every client wants to build a profitable and professional looking e-commerce application. This would not be possible without the help of highly experienced, proficient and professional and trustworthy e-commerce developers from companies like Shopify. Having experienced e-commerce developers at hand is invaluable when needed. Supposedly, if your ecommerce store fails, an experienced e-commerce developer will play the role of a superhero by solving the biggest obstacles of your ecommerce store.

Why Should You Not Hire An Inexperienced Ecommerce Developer?

If you do not possess the necessary abilities and knowledge to accomplish particular chores related to technology for the development of embarking on an ecommerce store, the greatest thing you can do is engaging a highly experienced, knowledgeable, proficient, and professional ecommerce developer in your business. This would give you the following ten dividends:

  1. You can get easy to use as well as an appealing e commerce website.
  2. An experienced developer can create a secure e-commerce application. Inexperienced e-commerce developers are likely to produce inferior quality applications.
  3. You can get the e-commerce application which is cost effective.
  4. You can get the e-commerce application on time.
  5. An experienced ecommerce developer will have up to date knowledge of an e-commerce platform. They help you choose the best platform suitable for the needs of your business. An inexperienced ecommerce developer would not be able to do so.
  6. An experience e-commerce developer specialized in the field will ensure that you get a website better than your competitors.
  7. It is better to keep away from an inexperienced ecommerce developer to avoid future consequences.
  8. You can expect that an experienced ecommerce developer will be able to attend and address all your queries in a satisfactory way. Responses from e-commerce developing company are vital. An inexperienced ecommerce developer may not be able to rise up to the occasion.
  9. Frequent communication is absolutely necessary between you and the e-commerce development company for many reasons. The reasons may range from talking about the subject, providing clarifications, resolving your queries, submitting progress reports and for support.
  10. An ecommerce developer company provides several modes of communication links. They are easily available over communication links like telephone, email and live chat. Such infrastructural facility may not be available to an inexperienced ecommerce developer.

Hope this clarifies why hiring an inexperienced ecommerce developer won’t make any sense. You will not get the above-mentioned benefits from an inexperienced ecommerce developer. However, it can be tough searching for the most suitable ecommerce developer for starting an ecommerce store and making it successful.

by James Miller

Business Storage And Small Inventory Management Tips


Business

Now that you have your low-risk, low-cost business idea, it is time for you to determine how best to manage it.  Although it might seem very daunting trying to create a small business inventory storage system, helpful advice from other business owners, intuitive apps and strategic organization can help you come up with a system that works for you.

Managing Your Inventory

Inventory management is a method for saving money by making sure that your products that are most in demand are exactly where you need them to be and that they are easy to locate and package.  It might seem kind of silly to be thinking about inventory when you are just getting started.  However, what beings as a small idea can definitely grow very unexpectedly and quickly. Since fulfilling orders quickly is critical for keeping your customers happy, one of the keys to your success could be to start out with a simple inventory system to use in your small business.  You can even use temporary storage buildings early on so that you don’t have to commit to more permanent solutions as you grow.

Applying The 80/20 Rule

You can apply the Pareto Principle, or 80/20 rule, to managing your inventory.  Basically, what the means is 80% of  your revenue will come from about 20% of your entire product line. So whether you are considering self storage, or other types of storage such as in a warehouse or locker, it is important to keep this ratio in mind.

Certain products will sell more often than others.  When you have those items nearby that can help you fill your orders efficiently and keep a close watch on your supply of product.  The key to determining which items to keep in stock is a trial-and-error process.  New business owners need to be flexible and utilize strategies that complement their personalities.

Identifying Bestsellers

When you first start a new business that it the perfect time to closely watch your sales and identify seasonality and buying trends.  There are numerous strategies that can be used for monitoring your top-selling items and managing your inventory.  It could be just something simple like placing a sticker on the shelf next to your fastest moving products.  Watching your bestsellers carefully can also help you focus on your top priorities and prevent you from having all of your capital tied up in inventory that isn’t moving.

Accurate Inventory Tracking

One thing that is critical to building up your brand is gaining your customer’s  trust.  One of the fastest ways to lose your customers trust is to provide them with inaccurate information on what is out of stock and what is available. In today’s e-commerce world it is very easy to make mistakes, especially when your products are stored in several different locations.  Fortunately, there is inventory management software available – especially those that have barcode scanning abilities – that will help you keep track of what products you have in stock.

The software definitely can make your processes much more efficient, but you still need to do quality checks and cycle counts on your inventory regularly, and a physical inventory at least once a year.

Practice Quality Control

 Having the world’s best inventory tracking will be worthless if you don’t get the right quality products in a timely manner to your customers.  Quality control and pre-package all of your products before you even list them.  Although a majority of customers these days are accustomed to instant shipping, if you jump the gun and rush your inventory out without good preparation it will tend to lead to really stressful moments.

People these days expect to get things faster and faster all the time, and so we try to do everything we can with our packaging and inventory.  That way, when you do get a sale, you will be prepared to box it up and ship it out.

by Incredible Planet Staff

11 Must Have Features for Your mobile shopping cart


Technology

Research has predicted that mobile e-shopping will shoot up at walloping $163 billion deals overall this year. Furthermore, that assessed that 85% of mobile clients will utilize mobile applications as opposed to mobile site.

Considering everything number aside, the most startling actuality here is even if 33% of mobile deals happen through mobile applications, just 10% of retailers overall offer mobile applications to its clients.

The blast in versatile ecommerce has prompted the formation of mobile applications and platforms. Deals using ecommerce Mobile App have grown 39% over a year ago to reach $123.13 billion this year in the United States. This implies m-commerce will represent 1/3 of all ecommerce deals.

Here is a rundown of 11 must-have elements for your mobile shopping cart.

Simple User Interface

A mobile screen is littler than that of a PC, henceforth, you’re constrained to utilize and show content on the screen. Further, whatever content you utilize must be orchestrated in an improved way, guaranteeing the client can relish all these features effortlessly. The home screen must be engaged, free and should just feature the most recent items and upgrades.

No requirement of registration

A regular ecommerce client never needs to shed the sweat behind a long multi-page registration or checkout process. You can make steps less demanding by enabling clients to register utilizing their favored social platforms. While checking out, inquire as to whether you can store their payment specifications for future buys. This will demolish entering information continuously and make checkout easy.

Incorporate larger images

Presently, since our ability to focus is restricted and we can take whatever gives us visual interest, it is proposed that your application should show fewer items under every category and every item ought to have a major, clear and engaging perspective. Visual Website enhancer uncovered in an investigation that your deal is probably going to increase by 10% when your pictures are sufficiently enormous to offer an attractive personality!

“Add to cart” option

Keep in mind to shorten the buying procedure. If there are excessively numerous means for checkout, you are well on the way to lose your client. Utilizing ‘Add to Cart’ button on your item leads your client to buy faster. This keeps their enthusiasm up and you get more deals.

Quick Checkout Feature

Mobile applications need to contain Quick Checkout element. The Quick Checkout feature enables customers to complete a request with predefined data from the quick checkout profile and consequently sets the transportation and billing addresses for the client.

Filters

Fashion or style applications and additionally couple of more ecommerce applications have two sorts of channels with one enabling different choices to be made, as in array where one can choose sorts of items and costs both and other being very specific. It must be remembered which channel suits your plan of action and how to mastermind the channels to help deals.

Research indicates “Price” button is the most clicked button in any application. Modify price button as per different classifications that an item remains available to be purchased.

Implement a progress bar

As said before, the whole checkout process should wind up ahead of schedule. On the off chance that your clients appear to encounter a more drawn out time than anticipated, consider utilizing a progress bar recommending what number of screens they need to go before checking out. This keeps them patient and encourages them to create better relationship with your site as well.

Include “Wish List”

Include somewhat fun and more advantageous shopping experience. Enable your clients to pick couple of items and store in “Wish List” or “Favorites” so that before buying the actual item, they can look through and think about every one of the items by and by. This encourages them purchasing the best item and be content having a memorable experience with you!

Mind-boggling themes

A mobile phone has a constrained space and if the outline is excessively jumbled, it would influence the client to navigate being confused. Guarantee the application utilizes space without compromising on plan and meets business needs. Also, the visual ought to be alluring, drawing in and must pass on to the users.

Inclusion of Push-Notifications

Probably the most effective ecommerce mobile applications are the ones that have Push Notifications into their list of features. Push notices have a tendency to demand immediate action like select endorsements, uncommon offers. You can combine up this component with analytics, and you would see a critical lift in sales in a matter of moments.

Consistent Navigation

You can simply your user’s experience by positioning the menu consistently all across the app. The list should carry only the crucial categories.

These are the primary features without which your shopping cart cannot exist, incorporate them and your mobile shopping cart will be supported like never before. Get the best ecommerce mobile app builder and enjoy exhilarating features you have never seen before.

by Incredible Planet Staff

Four Reasons to Sell Your Things Online


People

A lot of things today have the letter e affixed to them. We have emails, ebooks, and ecommerce. This one-letter difference, to put it simply, identifies it as something online.

Technology has changed the course of the trade and business industry. Through the Internet, entrepreneurs can easily take their businesses online. Need a new house? Just go to a real estate website. Need to learn a new language? Take a course online. The same thing goes for buying and selling.

Because of the fact that online selling means paying less since, for one, the product goes directly to the consumer and does not have to go through distributors, people are now purchasing online.

Here are four other reasons to start selling things online.

Less Capital

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savings 2789112 640

Before, selling would mean putting up a stall or kiosk on the sidewalk. In some cases, it entails getting a spot in a shopping mall or leasing a studio. These are physical forms of selling: people actually go to the store, try the clothes out, and then buy them. Sounds pretty fun, but the truth is, it’s too costly. Paying the lease is just one of the concerns. There are other things to be considered, like staffing and construction costs.

When you sell online, a physical store is not needed. What takes its place are a functioning computer, stable internet connection, a bank account or online payment method, and competitive marketing strategy. In online selling, lesser capital is needed, as compared to putting up a physical store.

Fewer People to Manage

Most of the time, opening up a physical store requires more than one person to operate it. It is also a known fact that manpower cost is high in all kinds of businesses. Not only that, paying someone does not necessarily translate to them contributing to business profit.

For startups, unless employees are micromanaged. Not all of them can deliver the desired output. In this fast-paced world, who has time to micromanage?

Reach More People

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people 2603112 1920

The internet brings everyone in the world together. Through it, far does not seem too far anymore. Online sellers can reach far more people than those with physical stores. As more people discover an online store, it becomes viral, and soon after, sales more or less shoot up.

Accessibility and Convenience

With online shops, consumers no longer need to drive to the store to buy what they need. Instead, their items are delivered right at their doorstep. After all, who does not want hassle-free shopping?

In addition, selling online is not only convenient for the consumers but for business owners as well. Unlike putting up an actual physical store, creating an online shop only takes a few minutes thanks to various online platforms.

Remember

Just like everything, there are upsides and downsides to selling online. However, these won’t really matter as the pros will more likely outweigh the negative, especially if entrepreneurs equip themselves with online marketing skills and, of course,  knowledge in e-commerce.

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by Incredible Planet Staff

Why Is It Necessary to Protect Your E-Commerce Site?


Business

It takes an immense time and energy to make it up with an e-commerce website. You would have strived a lot to partner up with thousands of vendors and come up with a competitive price online. On the other hand, you set up an amazing website that satisfies your customers and you work hard on achieving great customer conversion. All these works out for your strength but there is another element which is the most important one that should be considered by an e-commerce agency is the SECURITY.

If you are running an e-commerce business in the long run, then you would understand how e-commerce acts as a fleshy feed for hackers on the web. They are not just a feed for hackers but a bull’s eye for your competitors. Imagine an e-commerce website with all customer data available on it regardless of its size. It is definitely going to be a great harvest for hackers out there.

It is not just an important aspect for those who have online e-commerce store but also for ones those run an e-commerce business. That is why I have come up with an effective post on how to secure your e-commerce website with some powerful tools.

Let’s Get Started!!!

Step #1: Make Use Of SSL And Ensure Website PCI Compliant:

I have mentioned it in my existing post regarding the need for an SSL certificate for your website. Would like to remind it once again, SSL certificate encrypts the information between the web server and the browser. The very trusted way to secure your website. SSL obviously helps people to know that your site is securing enough shares their credentials.

You could make it still better with EV SSL Certificate. Wish to know what EV-SSL here is your answer is:

What is EV-SSL?

“EV” remains for Extended Validation.

Extended Validation SSL Certificates are another sort of SSL Certificate which is expected to give clients more trust in your identity (the lawful substance that has connected for the SSL endorsement) and that you control/claim your site. In particular, an Extended Validation SSL (EV-SSL) Certificate assures your clients that they are truly seeing your site and not an impostor site that looks precisely like yours.

PCI compliance is a security need that was highly dependent on credit card brands. This was an initiative to avoid fraudulence and to improve e-commerce website security.

Step #2: Secure E-Commerce Platform:

You need to make a complete research on any particular e-commerce platform. It is recommended to have an e-commerce platform based on an object-oriented programming language with built-in security protocols. If you wish to use WordPress then you could make it more comfortable using a WordPress Security plugin. This acts as an extra layer and protects your website.

Keep in mind that from a site security point of view, eCommerce stages don’t furnish with a bot moderation arrangement, an absolute necessity have set up for eCommerce sites.

Step #3: Educate Customers to Use Strong Passwords:

It is a well-known fact that none of the customers agrees on his or her mistake for the trouble caused. Rather they would claim you and your website security for their loss of money. This might be ridiculous. But you need to save your customers in order to bring them back to your website.

You could take initiatives to set up rules that force them to keep strong passwords using upper, lower cases and even special characters. Make sure that they set long passwords for better security. It is far better to force them to do so.

Step #4: Train Employees to Be Watchful About Security:

Human errors are the ultimate cause of fraud happenings. There are chances that your customer support representative would have shared account number over live chat. Some may log in using passwords on someone else’s devices and left it logged out. All these are some common mistakes that people do when they use their e-commerce websites. And this can be avoided by training your employees with strict rules and policies and watch that they abide by the rules.

Step #5: Adapt Address Card Verification System:

Empower an Address Verification System (AVS) and require the card check esteem (CVV) for MasterCard exchanges to lessen deceitful charges,” says Colin O’Dell, lead Magento engineer for Unleashed Technologies.

Step #6: System Alerts On Doubtful Activities:

Try to come up with alert notice especially for multiple and doubtful transactions which occur on the same IP address. On the other hand, system alerts for placing frequent orders on the same credit cards must be set up, telephone numbers that are from notably unexpected regions in comparison to the charging location and requests where the beneficiary name is not quite the same as the cardholder name.

Step #7: Provide Tracking Numbers:

TO avoid chargeback fraud, you can implement or provide tracking number system for every order sent. This could highly help retailers who drop ship. At recent times, chargeback fraud is the very common crime that is high to be noticed on e-commerce platforms. It is always good to have tracking numbers for orders placed.

Step #8: Monitor Site Every Now and Then:

It’s this present reality likeness introducing surveillance cameras in your shop. Apparatuses like Woopra or Clicky enable you to watch how guests are exploring and connecting with your site continuously, enabling you to distinguish false or suspicious conduct. With instruments like these, we even set alarms on our telephones when there is suspicious activity, enabling us to act rapidly and keep the suspicious conduct from causing hurt.

Likewise, ensure whoever is facilitating your online business website, routinely screens their servers for malware, infections and another harmful programming.

Step #9: Fix Your Systems:

Always try to fix your systems immediately the day they release a new version. At the same time you find any sort of issue that disturbs the normal functioning of the system, try to fix it immediately. Fixing the system also includes third-party code like Perl, WordPress, Java, Python, and Joomla, which are favorite targets for attackers.

Broken destinations are continually discovered running a three-year-old rendition of PHP or ColdFusion. So it’s basic you introduce fixes on all product: Your Web applications, Xcart, OSCommerce, ZenCart and any of the others all should be fixed frequently.

Step #10: Try Fraud Management Service:

There is nothing such as 100% security. Some or the other way there are flaws that can cause big issues. Most MasterCard organizations offer extortion administration and chargeback management services. This is a realistic way to deal with.

Hope the above mentioned #10 valuable point could help you way better than anything else in maintaining a perfect and a secure e-commerce website. Try to make use of all these steps in order to run a successful and a secure business. As security is the key not for a successful business.

Your customers also wish to return to you only when they believe that you own a trustworthy website. And it is your need to make them satisfied with your mode of service. What do you wait for? Get on track and fix all the flaws that you have failed so far. If I have missed any of the valuable points do let me know through your comments.

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by Incredible Planet Staff

Instagram Can Be a Powerful Tool for Enhancing Your SEO


Technology

As an owner or manager of an ecommerce site interested in enhancing your search engine optimization (SEO), you might be surprised to find out that Instagram can significantly boost traffic to your site and increase sales. The photo and video sharing platform offers you an opportunity to reach a much larger audience.

Simply put, Instagram is a potent marketing tool that ought to be part of your arsenal for boosting SEO. Before we delve into some Instagram tips, it is important to note that there are some common questions a number of online business owners still have regarding the relationship between Instagram and business.

Commonly asked questions

Isn’t Instagram only used by younger people that may not be part of my target market? Instagram is among the fastest growingsocial media platforms and gaining a presence on the site offers real returns for a vast majority of businesses.

Is Instagram relevant to my business? The social media app is for sharing photos and videos. If your business can benefit from representing your products or services in a visually appealing way online, then you certainly stand to gain from using Instagram as a marketing platform.

I’m not really gifted in photography or film-making. How can I produce good content for Instagram? If you own a standard smartphone, it has a camera that can take great photos. Like many others, you can learn how to take good photos, edit them and post them on your feed in a way that is appealing to your target audience.

Enhancing your SEO with Instagram

The number of photos you can post on Instagram is limitless. So whenever an opportunity presents itself to take a great photo, grab it. Keep in mind that the philosophy that drives the Instagram community is sharing beautiful imagery. Frequently sharing content is among the most effective ways of getting attention and if you consider the possibility that you can buy Instagram followers and likes, then it becomes relatively simple to rank a site.

As is the case in all other social media sites, the more content you share, the more visible you are. Remember that your post will be at the top of the feed only for a limited time. It is therefore important to share often to ensure that your current and potential customers have more opportunities to engage with your content.

Additionally, don’t lose sight of your goal, which is driving traffic to your site. So be sure to link back to your site. Instagram doesn’t allow links in the captions. A good strategy is updating the link in your bio to match the call-to-action in the caption.

Research your hashtags

As with other powerful forms of marketing, research is essential to success. In simple terms, you want to use keywords that your target audience is actually interested in. Some of these hashtags may be static and some change from time to time.

Note that Instagram allows you to use as many as 30 hashtags on a single post. The more keywords you use and the more relevant they are to your target audience, the more likely you are to reach them and generate traffic to your site. It is a good idea to load the keywords in the comment section in order to keep your caption clean.

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by Incredible Planet Staff

Digital Marketing Companies


Technology

What do they do? And is your company missing out?

Put briefly an SEO Company is employed to develop, implement and manage marketing “campaigns.”

First, let me clarify what is meant by a marketing campaign, it sounds fancy, but it is simply another word for a plan. A plan that usually involves a suite of different digital mediums like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the internet.

Digital Marketing companies develop specific “campaigns” or projects that target and attract prospective clients who are looking for services in your industry. Digital Marketing does including advertising; however, it is only a part of the campaign. Modern digital marketing involves more than placing ads online (and through google), managing social media and writing website content.

Let’s cover the development of a marketing campaign and how they aim to help a company. A digital marketing company should (not all do) meet with you and learn about how your business works, the products or services you sell, your business goals and which audience you would like to reach.

All this information is funneled into a marketing and SEO campaign specific to your business. They will take into consideration your target audience, and it should be designed based on how young or old the target audience is, the industry and how customers search (Google, industry specific directories, social media, etc.).

Now for the implementation. Once all the above factors are injecting into a plan, they need to be put into place. Let’s start with the basics, building a company website that is easy to navigate, hopefully, mobile friendly and informative and easy to read.

This is the first step, and next will be social media, of course depending on your company’s industry however usually most will need a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. which will link to your website. Your website and social media should have regular updates, which advertise products, showcase special offers and if feasible, include regular informative blogs and industry tips which will attract prospective clients to your site.

Even if it is to view a blog or article, you have increased your online traffic and exposed them to your services and or products which they may now or in the future purchase, recommend and anything else that can benefit your company. Now for Google, an important tool for most searching, and I don’t know about you, but when you search the top of the page or at most to the bottom of the first page is as far as you go. To get your company on the top or even onto the first page – well your search engine and marketing company will need to pay Google to advertise and will use a handful of behind the scene tools like keywords, Meta Data, picture tags and cooler technical tricks. I’ll let them explain.

The management of a campaign is the most technical by far. I will briefly skim over the handy tricks (not dodgy) that digital marketing companies use to check the progress of your campaign. Some tools can track how many people visit your website, how far they click into pages, how long they spend on your site and if you choose phone call analysis a marketing company can even assess customer service and how services are promoted and quoted to clients.

I have left out one of the most popular forms of digital marketing, and I assume most people use a Google search or the equivalent to the search for services or information am I right? Well, Google has its tools to keep up with web traffic specific to not only your website but your industry.

This gives the digital marketing company a great indication of how your business’s website and advertising campaign is doing compared to other companies. Google does a lot cooler stuff but let’s just leave it here.

Is your company missing out?

Unless you are happy with what you have, may it be paper adverts in the local paper, billboards, branding on your car, mailbox drops or by the good old method of word of mouth recommendations you may not think you are missing out.

However, times are changing, and the internet is dominating, with not only the young using the internet to search for services and research, but also the older generation has also embraced the internet and how shopping around for services can save money.

And this is exactly what digital marketing is one way or another trying to do, attract prospective clients when they are searching for information on a topic or are searching for a service.

For digital marketing managers and digital marketing companies, please excuse this very brief and simplified explanation of digital marketing streams and campaigns. We are only covering the basics here.

Wrap up

So now you know what digital marketing is in some shape or form and how it can help your business now if you have decided that digital marketing is something you want to use to promote your services now to choose a digital marketing company.

Unfortunately, they are not all the same, and I’m not going to go into the specifics. There is an easy way of assessing the “one package suits all” marketing companies to the “client centred” marketing companies.

The first and most telling sign is that the marketing company will want to meet with you (in person!!!) and learn about your business, how it works, your target audience and your company’s goals. Even if the marketing company has other clients in the same field, every company is different, and if they are taking the time to meet with you, they truly understand this.

Now, that’s the biggest one who will cross off a lot of companies. From here things can get tricky. And if you don’t know much about digital marketing you should probably go and see a digital marketing company that is happy to explain step by step how your money is being divided up into different streams of marketing (e.g. how much is spent on Google ads, content writing, website management costs). Usually, digital marketing companies will charge month by month.

However, most can be flexible. Most will have contracts which state that you will commit to 12 months or 24 months and what and how they are committing to do to market your company.

There it is. A brief and hopefully informative run down on digital marketing companies, what they do, how they do it and how it can help your business thrive and increase your brand’s coverage and of course increase revenue.

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by Incredible Planet Staff

How SEO Can Help Your Ecommerce Store


Technology

Search Engine Optimisation, or more commonly referred to as SEO, can significantly impact the amount of traffic you can pull to your online store.

You want the right visitors, because attracting the wrong traffic will fail to covert and is a waste of your valuable time.

If you have an online store, here are the essentials. How many of these have you done?

Create unique content

Quality, unique content is going to have positive outcomes for your ecommerce store. Not only will it add something for your readers, but it will encourage the search engines to keep coming back.

While you should include a blog, and update it regularly, this isn’t the only type of content you need to consider. It is clear that duplicate content could have a negative impact on your SEO efforts, so everything you write needs to be as original as possible.

Instead of copying and pasting common product descriptions, try to change them to your own words. Longer content is always better, and you should be aiming for at least 300 words per page. To avoid overwhelming your readers you can include dot points to break up masses of text.

Choose your keywords carefully

Choosing the right keywords requires some research. You can begin by checking out which keywords your competition are ranking highly for.

If you have a good AdWords account you can use it to discover new, but similar keywords. Long tail keywords can be less competitive than shorter phrases, try to include the product brand in this. In the product title, include any keywords you want to feature, as well as in the body of the text.

Think about what your potential shoppers would be searching for in order to find you. Know your traffic and set yourself realistic goals.

Make sure your site is running efficiently

Your store needs to make sense to both your shoppers and the web crawlers. You should always include breadcrumbs as it allows for easy navigation.

A slow website is going to frustrate your customers, try making your image files smaller and fix anything else which may be causing slow loading times. There are free speed tests available and these can be accessed to gain further information.

You may find your website ranks higher when you have a https:// rather than a http://. At the very least you will increase your customer’s perception on the safety of your brand.

Make sure your website is mobile friendly. This means it should be easy to read, fast loading and resizes to fit a smaller device.

Use tags wisely

Simplify those title tags and try to use header tags to define what is important. Look at your URLs, are they unique?

Make sure you include the product name in the web address and use title tags for all of your products.

Links, links and more links

Building quality backlinks will allow you to collect votes and rank higher in the search engines. The more authority a website has, the more it will boost your own.

Try to get your link on .edu, .gov, .au or similar, and anything which has a good page rank. You can ask to guest post or offer something useful which they may like to include on their resources page.

Don’t forget your internal links – this is where you link back to other relevant pages on your site.

Think about your users

The main goal is to increase conversions. You can do this by including previous customer ratings and reviews, while utilising social media.

In your blog, write product reviews and how to’s with images and video. Make them shareable and you might just find they spread on their own.

Your homepage should be able to direct shoppers and is normally the first stop. You’ve got them there but will you be able to keep them?

What makes you stand out? Many fashion brands have a look book which clicks to the individual product, and this could be modified for different product types.

More and more consumers are shopping online. You can be successful but you have to put in the time. Make sure you have quality products and the correct processes in place for customer satisfaction.

Stay on top of trends and follow the pros, making sure you don’t get stuck in your ways.

SEO should help but the user experience still matters. After all it will be your customers who are completing the checkout, not Google.

We wish you every success for your online store!

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by Alice Porter

5 Biggest Influencers of Mobile App Development


Technology

Technological advancements are the driving force for any kind of application development. Without new forms of technology and new ways for people to use them, applications will remain relatively the same. In order to create a successful and well-rounded application, it’s important to first gain an understanding of what people want, and how that can be delivered in a new and exciting way.

As an application developer, it’s important to appreciate that the subtle nuances of the market and stay one step ahead of the game. Here are 5 of the biggest influencers of application development…

Wearable devices:

Wearable devices are a relatively new idea. The Apple watch is heralding the way for wearable devices, first introduced as a novelty, and from this has sparked a whole new generation of accessories and smart devices.

It’s undeniable that the market for these type of devices is currently being monopolised by Apple, but it has brought the potential for new and exciting devices to the table. Because of this new found market trend, app developers are going to have to consider creating user friendly applications which coincide with various wearable devices and accessories, whatever the future holds, it is clearly becoming more technologically driven.

M-Commerce vs. E-Commerce:

So, we have all heard of E-Commerce (online shopping), but M-Commerce is a relatively new phrase, brought about with the improvement of smartphone technology. M-Commerce is essentially the act of shopping online on a smartphone device. Industry experts have predicted that this will have overtaken E-Commerce by 2020. Interestingly, it’s been revealed that purchase rates are 50% more successful on a mobile that on a desktop.

This is thought to be because people have a higher purchase intent when looking for something on their phones – time is a big factor that needs to be taken into account, and buying something off a smartphone takes a fraction of the time and can be accessed from anywhere.

If a store has an online shop (it would be shocking if they didn’t), then it’s vital for them to capitalise on this new market trend, having an application makes for an even quicker and more trusted journey. App developers and retailers need to be able to collaborate to provide quicker sales and a more trusted method of online purchase.

Smart everyday objects:

Have you ever gone out and worried that you’ve left the oven on, or the iron, or wished that the heating was on and waiting for your return on a cold evening? All of your dreams are becoming a reality as the rise of smart objects are flooding into the mainstream market. The Dutch app developers, Nodes, are looking at ways to incorporate this tech into existing VR apps on the market already. Listen to what they have to say:

“Objects can now be controlled by smartphones and devices such as tablet and even wearable devices. Everything is becoming more technologically connected by the day, there are so many different variations of device that can be tapped into, whether that’s a television set, a home heating system or even a microwave.”

The general consensus is that the more objects that can be controlled by a smartphone or tablet, the easier and more futuristic life can be. By 2020, there will be 26 billion smart devices in circulation in the mainstream market, meaning that applications need to be developed and accounted for in the near future.

All of these different smart devices and objects are most likely being perfected and beta tested by engineers so they can be able to be controlled and manipulated by mobile phone applications.

UX design:

We are progressing into a techno-driven lifestyle as a society, as an addition to this, we are also becoming used to a higher quality user experience. It’s evident that we expect quicker loading times, easy navigation, and an aesthetically pleasing sites.

If you have a site or an app that has good user experience, then you are guaranteed for people to keep using them, or for more people to begin to use them. App developers need to design applications with the user in mind if they want to ensure that their work is successful.

Motion sensors:

Pretty much every single smartphone in circulation has location and motion sensors built in. If you have used any application or website on your smartphone, you will often be greeted with the message “this application would like to access your location”, this gives mobile app development and companies a lot of interesting information about the people who are using their app – where they are using it from, how many people are using the app in certain areas etc.

Analysing the data of how and where your application is being used, can really give an indication of how you can tailor your app to suit the individual. It can help to convert your information into better design and a better understanding of app development.

There are so many different factors that play into the hands of the future of mobile app development. Technology is the driving force of our society and everything else falls beneath and follows in its footsteps.

So if there are drastic changes in technology, there will be changes in consumer habits, and then there will be a necessity to have new and innovative application design, with the most effective and understanding user experience, which caters to both the individual and the technology that it is serving. With the progression of new technology and future trends such as AR, VR and AI, there is no knowing the bounds to which mobile app development will reach.