Diwan Bookstore, Egypt Launches New and Improved RMS Integrated Web Store on 24Seven Cart Platform

 LAN Services LLC, a global provider of eCommerce software solutions, has recently developed an online store for Diwan Bookstore, Egypt on its 24Seven Cart platform. The company unveiled a new eCommerce store fully designed in Arabic language.

With the successful launch of online store, Diwan Bookstore has made its presence felt to book lovers who can now access information about books in the Arabic language and as well as in English from anywhere.

It’s the first of its kind of Microsoft Dynamic RMS integrated web store in Arabic language that is completely built on 24Seven Cart platform. This custom-made online store highlights a collection of in-house developed features built on 24Seven Cart software. Various aspects like look & feel, simplicity, order management, category & product management were meticulously researched before developing this online bookstore.

“One of the most challenging part while conceptualizing this e-Bookstore was uploading of inventory from RMS to the web store and downloading of orders to RMS as both these processes were to be done in Arabic language,” said one of the spokesperson of LAN Services. This seamless integration between web store & RMS helps in real-time synchronization of in-store sales inventory with the web store.

Various custom-made features were incorporated in fully customizable 24Seven shopping cart software to cater the requirements of Diwan Bookstore. Few specific features of the web store include:  

• Visitors’ login is not compulsory to write product reviews.
• The Web Store’s home page displays information about the book’s author.
• Connected to Social media networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
• Advanced Site search option based on Product Categories.
• Setting Event Calender based on the specific forth-coming events.

“From managing the products & categories and marketing activities to processing orders, all functionalities are designed to leverage the online presence of Diwan Bookstore in Arabic and English speaking countries especially in the Middle-East,” said the spokesperson of the company.

24Seven Cart is the flagship product under the aegis of LAN Services which is a California based company. The company offers a wide range of e-retailing solutions like RMS eCommerce integration, search engine marketing, point-of-sale solution for quick service restaurants, online store management, etc. For detailed information about the 24Seven Cart.

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24Seven Cart- A elixir for shopping cart

The comprehensiveness of this web store takes care of the different requirements of the online retailers. The seamless integration of RMS with 24Seven Cart and real time synchronization of different processes make it one stop shop for retailers.

Features of 24Seven Cart

The biggest advantage of 24Seven Cart is that it is an in-house product. This means customization can be done at any time and according to the changing requirements of business. This feature facilitates the online retailers or developers to create sites with multiple options to choose. This establishes the trustworthiness& credibility for this eCommerce cart solution.

A bunch of features of this shopping cart includes integration with point-of-sales systems, integration with Microsoft Dynamics RMS, advanced product cataloguing and integration with price comparison engine. It is one of the most economical solutions for integrating operations of product, shipping, marketing & sales and managing front &backend of the store.

Apart from these features, the best part of this store is that it takes care of various aspects of the webstore management. Features like product zooming, customer’s wish list, featured products and access through social media login IDs etc. are making this webstore invincible. It even takes care of those customers/ visitors who leaves online retailers’ website at the checkout stage after adding products to their shopping carts. Email reminders are sent to such customers.

Why 24Seven Cart

What makes 24Seven cart different from its peers is that it is developed by an experienced team that increases credibility & reliability of the web store platform. Retailers can customize it at any point and various features can be integrated by any skilled development team. Since it’s an in-house product developed on.NET platform, it offers complete security to webstore solution.

Who uses 24Seven Cart?

This eCommerce shopping cart is used by many companies around the world for its high quality website designs.paulswarehouse.com.au, emersonscigars.com and store.quiltedthreads.com are among some of the websites that rely on 24Seven Cart for its comprehensive functionality. It supports every kind of retailers whether small & medium enterprises or any large online retailers having stores in various locations.

Development

This is an in-house product designed to understand, develop & integrate different requirements which the online retailers demand. Online retailers can show their products, invite others to write & submit reviews. Any webstore developed on 24Seven Cart can be optimized for search engines and can attract traffic from social media.

It is one of the most economical solutions for integrating operations of product, shipping, marketing & sales and managing front &backend of the store.

LAN Services is based in San Jose, California and has offering customer-oriented e-retailing solutions, social media automation services, internet marketing services, intranet portal solutions, and Point-of-Sale solutions. For detailed information about LAN Service’s e-retailing solutions.

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The New and Comprehensive Product & Category Management Feature by 24Seven Shopping Cart

Managing the products and categories pertaining to the catalog management of an eCommerce shopping cart is always a tedious task. 24 Seven Cart has come up with the most comprehensive and advanced product and category management feature which helps the online retailers in managing the different functions of web store at one go. 

Managing the products and categories pertaining to the catalog management of an eCommerce shopping cart is always a tedious task. 24 Seven Cart has come up with the most comprehensive and advanced product and category management feature which helps the online retailers in managing the different functions of web store at one go.

It also helps the online customers and visitors to find out their desired products on this online storefront. It helps them in navigating from one category of product to another and ultimately increases the sales conversion.

One of the basic concerns of all the online retailers is to manage their never-ending list of products & their categories. Additionally, they also need to handle the various variants of the products in which they deal. The price of the products, the placement of these products and categories on an eCommerce shopping cart, are a few of the areas of concern.

24Seven Cart has developed one of the most robust catalog management system for managing various aspects related to the products & their categories. The various issues which are taken care with it belongs to the different prices of products, their placement under related product category or as specials, managing the product variants or uploading them in the web store.

Features like displaying brands of the products, managing products under gift registry and additional services are helpful in engaging customers for a longer duration with the web store. The newly added features of 24Seven Cart are: 

·         Multiple Pricing Displays: Online retailers can choose the price which they want to display to their customers. To increase the conversions, different options like list price, retail price, and the wholesale price for different regions are displayed.

·         Product's Display Options: Online retailers can choose how to display their products from the different categories. The online customers can choose their products on the basis of price, color and size of the products. Additionally, online retailers can display products in the ‘new arrivals' section or under ‘sales' section or under ‘featured products' section or display under ‘specials' section. Several categories can be assigned to one product and the number of products in each category can be shown or hidden. This means that they can put a product on sale in selected countries.

·         Category Display Order: Increase the category's visibility by making it appear at the top of the category list. 24Seven Cart offers the functionality to manually change the order in which the goods are visible on the storefront and the entire look & feel by changing it from the vertical category list to ‘mega menu' format.

·         Category Navigator: Category navigator helps to keep an eye on the track through which online customers reach for a particular product. This actually saves a lot of time of the customers who needs to shuffle through numerous pages.

• Product & Category Options: It supports unlimited products & categories and add/edit/remove categories, products, manufacturers, customers.
• Out of stock products functionality: Online retailers manage the out of stock products from displaying them in the store and made available for sale.
• Small image thumbnails: Online retailers can list their products with small thumbnail images. The image of a product from different viewing angles enhances the chances of customers buying the products.
• Define Refine Filters to search items faster: Set the refine filters based on the groups & the different options in the groups to search the items on the basis of brand, price, style, color or material. 

24Seven Cart is owned by LAN Services, LLC, a company based out of San Jose, California. The company is offering an array of e-retailing solutions like MS RMS integrated solution, online marketing services, restaurant POS solution and social media automation. For detailed information about the 24Seven Cart.

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Launching the Mobile version of 24Seven Shopping Cart

After considering the growth in the internet & mobile penetration in the developed & developing economies, The LAN Services has launched the mobile version of its 24Seven shopping cart platform.

Every retaileris vying on increasing the visibility of their online store on different platforms.And with the surge in the usage of internet on the mobile devices, online retailers find it lucrative to make their webstores compatible with mobile devices.

An increase in the smart phone use has led the users to spend more time on their mobile devices for email, product research, and everyday use. This increased usage is making it necessary for the online retailers to either to make their shopping cartmobile compatible or launch  a separate mobile website for enhanced user experience.

24Seven Cart has integrated many new features for making its webstore mobile compatible. The ‘Responsive web design’ of this mobile version makes this eCommerce shopping cart visible same on different screen sizes. This responsive web design has led the customers to get access to the webstore through their mobile phones or laptops or tablets.

With an advent of mobile compatibility for 24Seven Cart, the customers can get access to the webstore from anywhere. The access to information is actually manifested in the form of product research, price comparisons, product reviews and purchase decisions. Information access from this channel allows to place itself within the process of consumer research which actually leads to more conversion.

The online retailers need not to optimize the URLs of their mobile webstore as they can use the same URL for both regular & mobile sites. Additionally, Google can use the existing inbound links for ranking the mobile compatible webstore.

24Seven Cart complements LAN Services’s creative set of services that streamlined the eCommerce software solutions. The company is offering an array of e-retailing solutions like MS RMS integration solution, online marketing services, point-of-sales solutions and social media automation. For detailed information about the 24Seven Cart.

It is not enough for web based store locator pages to provide basic information like physical addresses of different businesses. The pages need to house more comprehensive information such as working hours, holidays, services, name of the business owner, contact numbers and other related information which can be of use to searchers. Usually, searchers look for this kind of information and a locations page to cater to this requirement.

You need to be very careful when you plan site migration from one platform to another or when you plan to revamp your existing website. Such drastic changes might have a deep influence on SEO, besides posing a potential threat to sales and traffic. However, if you keep certain things in mind, you can turn this impact into your advantage and enhance your SEO rank.

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Deciding on the type of eCommerce Platform

One of the most common frequently asked questions from eCommerce website designers is about type of shopping cart most suitable for any retailer. Retailers, before trying to search the suitable eCommerce platform, should focus on the goals they want to achieve by setting up the eCommerce web store. Additionally, the features which they want to integrate in their shopping online cart also help in determining about the eCommerce platform.

Ignoring these critical issues would result in under utilization of the shopping cart or the shopping online cart would not be able to manage cart's operations effectively.

Emphasizing on the very fundamental issues offers a better clarity & retailers can choose their suitable platform from a few selected one like platform with light add-ons, hosted or SaaS, self hosted or custom eCommerce shopping online cart.

Types of eCommerce Platform

Light add-on cart: This means that any cart which integrates with the existing shopping cart of the online retailer or Content Management System(CMS) like Word Press. The basic advantage of this platform is that it is inexpensive &suitable for those retailers with a limited number of items which requires very little customization. Retailers, while opting for this platform, will face some issues regarding the flexibility of the custom items restricted design features.

Hosted or SaaS Carts: Hosted Carts are those shopping online cart where the hosting is done on the web server of the online retailer. Conventionally, the hosted carts offer more flexibility for inventory management and customer service than any add-on cart.

This type of shopping platform is suitable for those start-up businesses with limited resources that have a few hundred items. The cost of initial setup is low, but the retailers need to spare for monthly hosting fees and fees for uploading further products.

Those retailers who have custom design needs or requirement of any customized data integration should not use hosted solutions. Using a hosted solution for any customization cost the same amount as that of using a licensed or purchased cart.

Self-hosted open source or licensed/purchased cart: Those shopping carts which online retailers can place on their own servers or web hosting service belongs to this section. This cart is usually suggested for customized website designing. Retailers can download this type of the eCommerce platform on their servers and can modify them according to their requirements.

There are few downsides to this approach like the preliminary cost of setting up is high and the cost to upgrade is very high.

Custom eCommerce shopping cart: This type of eCommerce platform is suitable for those retailers who are using various other web applications like ERP or CRM. Custom shopping online cart allows retailers to fully integrate the existing systems.

These are suitable for enterprise companies as the cost of setting up is very high and normally takes long duration for designing & commissioning.

Deciding on the type of eCommerce platform is always a tricky situation. To remove such an indecisive situation, most of the shopping online cart are coming up with their demo versions.

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Transition from eCommerce to Social Commerce

Businesses operating in the dynamic environment need to be vigilant about the current trends of the market. They need to be acquainted with market trends to adopt new communication channels for revenue a generation that promises growth.

The social networking channel is one of the latest fads that is inflicting among customers of every segment. Customers are using this communication channel not only for socializing and increasing their social circle but also for researching products online before purchasing. Among such customers who are using social networking media, at least half of those publish reviews and post comments about the products they buy.

Utilizing this communication media to develop an ecosystem for retailers nurtures new course of revenues. This is also true for different platform vendors who are providing such solutions to enable social commerce.

This social media enable online retailers to exploit social capital and helps in extracting tremendous word-of-mouth publicity of fans who like the products, make purchases and share about it with their friends. Now there are several ways to pull the power of social networking media and social commerce.

1)   Rating & Reviews: This system of rating & writing reviews on social sites is a decade old practice. Acknowledging that the friends’ recommendation scores more than any other criterion for influencing the buying behavior, companies like Amazon integrated reviews & ratings to their sites paving a way of substantial growth.

There are two aspects which the online retailers need to consider. Firstly, customers rely heavily on researching about the products which they are going to buy and look out for any such kind of reviews on the retailers’ site from first hand users & experts.

Secondly, the online retailers should utilize the user generated content on their site as a successful social commerce strategy. Search engines give preference to those sites which posts new content on a regular basis.

2)   Social Logins: According a report by Forrester, approximately 25% of the online shoppers abandon their shopping cart at the checkout stage if they need to fill the traditional registration form for creating an account.

For online retailers, account information is necessary as they learn more about shopping pattern or to offer them promotional discounts so as to retain & develop a relationship. But online shoppers are averse in filling out such lengthy registration forms. Moreover, most of the customers fill inaccurate information.

To tackle such issues, a feasible option is opting for social logins. Social logins means login through IDs created on social sites like Facebook, Google etc. It reduces the time spent on registration as it fetches required information from such logins. This ultimately reduces the abandonment of shopping carts by expediting the registration process.

3)   Social Sharing: It monitors the recommendations of the fellows for driving qualified traffic to the product pages on the ecommerce sites. This kind of arrangement leverages social advocacy about the purchases made by the customers or their product reviews to their friends on multiple social networks.

It also helps retailers in avoiding the news feed optimization. Social networking sites like Facebook, etc. are designed to promote the significance by preferring news feed posts from friends who interact frequently. News feed posts that customers write are likely to get higher rank in the news feed than those from the brand.

Social commerce has become mandatory in today’s market. The only need is to develop deep analytic& using this channel as a complementary vertical only.

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Resizing website for different screen sizes

An increase in the internet and mobile penetration has led the online retailers to design their eCommerce sites compatible with mobile devices. To increase the visibility of their web store, online retailers  have made separate mobile websites. But with the increase in display technologies, nowadays, mobile devices are coming in different screen sizes.

To confront this issue, online retailers are crafting their sites on responsive web design.The responsive web design allows the web content to re-size according to the device’s screen size. The concept of responsive web design emphasizes more on fitting content to various screen sizes instead of shaping the content to fit the value.

A responsive web design adjusts the width of the browser and adjust the content accordingly. The coding language transforms the site’s web presence. Since the websites are now accessible through multiple devices, the visitors get the optimal viewing experience. This easy access of information through various devices has led businesses across different sectors to opt for this responsive design.

But before opting for it, there are certain issues which online retailers need to consider like what is the difference which the responsive web design makes, how it is going to expand the online presence. Responsive design is definitely going to offer convenience. The content adjusts itself depending on the screen size and this helps in gathering information anytime & from anywhere.

It also requires less code & are usually preferred by most of the search engine sites. This ultimately leads to more uniform clicks. Besides from having a compatibility across various screen sizes, it is also helpful in search engine optimization.

SEO Benefits-

Reducing the bounce rates: If the visitors are not able to access the websites through their mobile devices, they will go back to the result pages. This increases the bounce rates for the website. And ultimately, the Google will reduce the ranking of the site after considering the pattern of the visits to the site.Therefore, responsive web design also helps in optimizing the sites.

Leading traffic to one URL: Having a separate mobile site has its own advantages & disadvantages. The owner of the site needs to optimize the URLs of both regular &the mobile sites. But in case of responsive web design, optimization is done only for one URL & this helps in avoiding confusion among the site visitors.

Using the prevalent inbound links: Google is using the pre-existing inbound links for ranking the websites in mobile search. Therefore, those sites that are using responsive web design gets higher ranks due to existing inbuilt links. This improves the SERPs functioning thus increasing the visibility among mobile user.

But having said that, there are a few hindrances while adopting this technology.

CSS media queries limitation:To be compatible with a wide range of devices, the responsive design depends on CSS media queries. But in reality, majority of the devices are not matched with CSS media queries.

Resizing images: Image resizing in the responsive web designing needlessly consumes CPU & RAM.

Loading speed: Speed of loading sites on the mobile devices is less as compared to desktops. Responsive design doesn’t remove any Java Scripts or HTML codes. This makes the site slower on the mobile devices.

The responsive web design is definitely not a passing fad. It is going to stay but the site owners need to be considerate while opting for this technology.

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High mobile penetration & social media drives Online shopping

With a rise in the number of web stores, customers are more inclined to make purchases online. The major reason behind this higher favour can be attributed to high internet &mobile penetration. Now whether it’s the home or on the way, these consumers use their phones to browse, research, find deals & make purchases from these online retail shopping carts.

According to a report by e Marketer, US consumers alone will spend nearly $37.44 billion in 2013 on purchases made via smart phones or any mobile devices like tablets or laptops which is approx. 57% more than last year figures. As far as number of mobile shoppers are concerned, such high revenues denotes an approx. 23million more consumers for 2013 reaching the figure to 118 million. Such a figure also indicates a more mobile centric lifestyle even if shoppers don’t buy on mobile.

Of these 118 million mobile shoppers for the year 2013, approx. 72 million will make purchases through a mobile device. The new trend seen in the mobile shopping vertical is that consumers who were using a mobile device are more likely to spend more while in-store than those who did not use it. Moreover, consumers who were using their mobile device for product research were more likely to make a purchase from eCommerce shopping carts.

The real challenge which the marketers & online retailers are facing is how to engage customers &convert them to final sales. To tackle this issue, they are using different resources to make their presence feel. Making their website mobile compatible is definitely one of the ways to tackle such issues. In addition to this, online retailers are also adopting social networking media to increase their visibility.

Report by e Marketers states that, ‘As social media has gone mobile, more & more consumers are accessing their accounts via smart phones & tablets. Now, marketers are racing to catch up with consumers where they connect, employing a variety of strategies for outreach. The key opportunity to capitalize is that mobile users not only log in more frequently, but they also spend more time on social networking sites too’.

As devices integrate social media more deeply, for e.g., by making it easier to upload photos from a mobile phone to a social site, it reinforces the mobile-social virtuous circle, making it even stronger.

But even to realize this, marketers need to make their content accessible through all mobile devices. Moreover, they need to focus more on content they write as news feed for their social media promotions. Therefore, before adopting this mobile commerce strategy, there are certain points that need to be attended.

Online retailers need to generate news feed for their social media promotions. For this, they can focus on using more images than simple text as images are more self explanatory. Marketers can carefully craft the content that includes images, product price, availability & other related options.

An important point to note is that while generating news feed for social media campaigns,  marketers  need to focus less on promotions tied to their brand page & more on the content.

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High mobile penetration & social media drives Online shopping

With a rise in the number of web stores, customers are more inclined to make purchases online. The major reason behind this higher favour can be attributed to high internet &mobile penetration. Now whether it’s the home or on the way, these consumers use their phones to browse, research, find deals & make purchases from these online retail shopping carts.

According to a report by e Marketer, US consumers alone will spend nearly $37.44 billion in 2013 on purchases made via smart phones or any mobile devices like tablets or laptops which is approx. 57% more than last year figures. As far as number of mobile shoppers are concerned, such high revenues denotes an approx. 23million more consumers for 2013 reaching the figure to 118 million. Such a figure also indicates a more mobile centric lifestyle even if shoppers don’t buy on mobile.

Of these 118 million mobile shoppers for the year 2013, approx. 72 million will make purchases through a mobile device. The new trend seen in the mobile shopping vertical is that consumers who were using a mobile device are more likely to spend more while in-store than those who did not use it. Moreover, consumers who were using their mobile device for product research were more likely to make a purchase from eCommerce shopping carts.

The real challenge which the marketers & online retailers are facing is how to engage customers &convert them to final sales. To tackle this issue, they are using different resources to make their presence feel. Making their website mobile compatible is definitely one of the ways to tackle such issues. In addition to this, online retailers are also adopting social networking media to increase their visibility.

Report by e Marketers states that, ‘As social media has gone mobile, more & more consumers are accessing their accounts via smart phones & tablets. Now, marketers are racing to catch up with consumers where they connect, employing a variety of strategies for outreach. The key opportunity to capitalize is that mobile users not only log in more frequently, but they also spend more time on social networking sites too’.

As devices integrate social media more deeply, for e.g., by making it easier to upload photos from a mobile phone to a social site, it reinforces the mobile-social virtuous circle, making it even stronger.

But even to realize this, marketers need to make their content accessible through all mobile devices. Moreover, they need to focus more on content they write as news feed for their social media promotions. Therefore, before adopting this mobile commerce strategy, there are certain points that need to be attended.

Online retailers need to generate news feed for their social media promotions. For this, they can focus on using more images than simple text as images are more self explanatory. Marketers can carefully craft the content that includes images, product price, availability & other related options. 

An important point to note is that while generating news feed for social media campaigns,  marketers  need to focus less on promotions tied to their brand page & more on the content.

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