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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24Seven Cart leverages online business with Facebook / Energizing 24Seven Cart with Facebook

LAN Services has revolutionized the online shopping experience by launching 24Seven shopping cart integrated with Facebook. Now customers can experience this enhanced feature not only at the time of making purchases but even while researching about the products.

Purchasing products online can be a tedious task especially when customers don’t know about any features or usability of it. To tackle this issue, they need to search extensively on the web or need to ask personally with their friends or experts. It’s a time consuming process & at times the final result is not satisfactory as they can ask about it with a limited number of people.

To confront such issues, 24Seven shopping cart software has come up with a feature to integrate Facebook in their shopping cart. This integration of Facebook works for both online retailers and online shoppers. Online retailers get an extra channel to promote about their web stores. They can use this social networking platform to increase the visibility of their shopping carts.

This feature offers online retailers:

Higher Conversions: By simplifying the process of sign-in, customers can bypass creating separate IDs and passwords, removing a key hurdle for getting a potential sales conversion (and future conversions). With more customers getting first hand information themselves before they buy, retailers gain powerful insights on their potential customers, enhancing revenue generation.

Encouraging Social Marketing: With access to potential customer data and social graphs, online retailers gain initial information about the potential customers’ behavior, interests and favorite brands. Facebook link also simplifies how customers share the products they buy and the online retailers they check.

Customized Interaction with Customers: Identifying potential customers gives online retailers to offer recommendations or suggestions based on previous purchases and interests. More relevant products are likely to grasp the customer’s attention which will increase the chances of buying.

Online shoppers can reap the benefits of Facebook integration with 24Seven Cart even before making the final purchase. Web stores built on 24Seven shopping cart software offers a feature to write reviews about the products shown in the web store. This helps the prospective online customers to get the first hand information about the features, usability and the overall performance of the products. In addition to this customers can rate the products by liking/unliking the products.

This helps prospective customers in their products research and decision making regarding the final purchase as they can read the reviews of the products. Moreover we even can add a web link of a video showing product usability while writing reviews about the products. This even makes it simple for potential customers to find information about product usage.

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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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Marketers failing at Content Marketing

Content marketing is a marketing format for the creation and sharing of content. It helps in promoting the business online and finally acquiring customers. Now-a-days, online retailers are using the content marketing to attract customers. However, generating the quality content requires time & resources.

Until recently, marketers who were performing SEO had focused on link building to get high-ranking on Google SERPs. Since Google has changed its algorithm that is used for ranking the websites, marketers are now interested in content marketing.  Online marketers may get benefited from content marketing for their online retail shopping carts if they avoid the following common mistakes:

Not scheduling the content activities: Content should have to be planned & created ahead of time. Marketers should devise plans and the marketing activities for the year & all the events should comply with this schedule. One of the easiest ways to design the content calendar is to consider all the upcoming holidays or festivals. Marketers along with online retailers can decide about the content theme and promotional offers for each festival.

Not using the buyers’ perception: Marketers & online retailers need to understand that, to have an effective marketing campaign, right message should have to be delivered, to the right audience and at the right time. If the marketers don’t know about their customers, they cannot create the customized messages for them. This also helps in answering the queries of the customers/ visitors. Marketers can customize their content for promotion based on the questions their customers are asking.

To create the content according to the buyers’ perception, marketers need to keep in mind about the age & the gender of their customers and their income levels.

Not prioritizing the content: There are many options available to marketers for publishing the content. They can send e-mails to their prospective customers or can share information on social media or write in the forums/blogs etc. Marketers/ online retailers should prioritize which medium they are going to utilize. This is important as every medium used for publishing the content generates different types of results.

The quality of the content: Online retailers or marketers should create & publish the content by themselves for their online storefront. The problem with a lot of businesses is that, to save money, they outsource the content creation for extremely low rates. The quality of such content is not upto the mark. Now-a-days, good content is denoted by how much it is commented, shared and liked.

Not optimizing the content: Content promotion is not just posting the same content on several sites, but rather promoting the content through various mediums of optimization. These mediums for optimization include the use of social media, keyword usage in headline, meta title & description and link building. Marketers can re-purpose the content and publish in different formats on different sites.

Results not measurable: Marketers need to understand that every content created for eCommerce shopping carts is not going to  generate good results in terms of likes it generates or the number of times it's going to be shared. They need to chalk out a plan about what specific goals they are going to achieve with their content marketing.

Content marketing is the foundation of a successful online marketing campaign. It will lead marketers & online retailers to a successful campaign.

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Supporting webstore solution by Microsoft Dynamics RMS

A web store supported by Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (MS RMS) is easy-to-use and affordable way to automate online retailer’s single or multiple store business.There are various functions which Microsoft Dynamics RMS can manage like inventory control, pricing, employee management, information security, reporting and accounting. It works more than just a POS front end interface.

The Microsoft RMS cart will take the online retailers products across the geographies.The best part of Microsoft dynamics RMS with an integrated eCommerce shopping cart software is in its synchronization power. The whole MS RMS can be set-up easily. It can be set up quickly, tailored to meet specific retail needs, and provides access to expert support. Intuitive user interface help managers and associates to learn point-of-sale procedures in minutes.

RMS integrated web store eliminates the need to conduct inefficient manual stock counts, saves time and reduces employee overhead. Online retailers can track and manage items across their businesses. In addition to this, different inventory types can be managed like standard, serialized, kit, assembly, matrix, lot matrix, voucher, and weighed.

Microsoft dynamics RMS with web integrator helps in improving the productivity and overall performance of the online retailer’s business. Now online retailers can make fast informed decisions and offer superior customer services. It helps in gaining the full visibility of the store operations and retailers can preview, search and print journals by register, batch, and receipt number.

Online retailers can access and analyze data across their entire business using powerful reporting and communications functionality. With the help of insights from detailed current information, online retailers can identify sales trends in every department, category and season. Microsoft Dynamics RMS equips the staff to respond quickly to customer needs, making it easier for online retailers to turn a single purchase into a lasting and profitable customer relationship. Associates can expedite checkouts quickly, target customer preferences to offer up-sells and cross-sells.

With these kind of functionalists, it facilitates online retailers in recovering the investments. This translates into more cash-in per customer, minimizing labour cost and reducing the inventory cost and out-of-stocks. Now online retailers can target customer preferences to suggest up-sells and cross-sells, and advertise other products at point of sale with onscreen graphical displays.

With such a robust retail management system, online retailers can maintain tight control over inventory with automatically generated purchase orders and stock levels. Centralized purchasing and in-store transfers enables them to replenish items efficiently and cost-effectively.

A flexible, customizable and affordable eCommerce cart for Microsoft RMS has the potentiality to take the business to the next level and helps in getting that month-on-month sales figure.

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E-Commerce solution for Tally

Tally has existed for years now. By continually innovating and reinventing itself, this accounting package has made life easier and simpler for millions of enterprises. Now, it is all equipped to do more. While Tally has been always associated with financial aspects such as book keeping, taxation, inventory management, balance sheets and purchases, it has now gone much beyond just maintaining accounts for businesses. Today, in order to cater to the current trends and demands, Tally is enriched by integration with e-Stores.

Whether you have a design house, jewellery shop, an apparel store, book shop or a general grocery store – all of these businesses need to have a web presence if they wish to multiply their sales. With fierce competition already existent in every sector, restricting your business only to a ‘brick and mortar’ store while an increasing percentage of population is online 6-8 hours a day spells lowered profitability for your business. The only way to get better of this restriction is to have an online presence in form of an e-store.

The only hitch that is making a large number of business owners sidestepping from having a website in addition to a retail presence is the heightened demands for management of the two databases simultaneously. Considering the mundane and clerical task that goes in maintaining data, keeping the inventory posted and having real time updates on sales and stocks, it needs a lot more than “managing”.

These challenges can be well taken care of by integrating your Tally ERP software with 24Seven Cart, the most reliable and user friendly E-Commerce solution. In order to enhance functionality of Tally ERP, integration with 24Seven Cart offers better store management features, in terms of inventory management as well as finance management.

Once the integrated system is operational on your computer, you can feed product details to 24Seven Cart platform and handle all store related tasks such as uploading pricing details, stocks, product variants, discounts and all others. When you make all these changes, the other operations of your store are not affected because 24Seven Cart works in the background and does not interfere with any other program on the store.

The major advantage of using 24SevenCart is that you save a lot of time – avoid double data entry. Most of the managerial operations can be done in a single go. For example, if you need to make a common update for all the products listed on your store, you only have to make the update once and all other products are automatically updated. So, within a few minutes, your entire store inventory can be fed with new data.

24SevenCart adds a lot of other functionalities to Tally ERP 9 software. It offers a simple checkout feature that also stores all visitor information regarding their activity on the website as well as personal details. This is an automatic process that goes on round the clock.

The functionality of 24Seven Cart integrated online store is enormous. With the amount of time that you save on managing your store, you can focus on taking your business to greater heights and in the process, you can save money and increase profitability.

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