Key Advantages of Mcommerce You Must Know About

Mobile ecommerce, also known as Mcommerce has completely transformed the ways in which eCommerce businesses approach their customers. You all must be aware that as a part of Mcommerce, most of the business transactions take place through mobile devices. However, Mobile commerce is not confined to eCommerce industry.

There are several ways in which it is influencing the lives of retailers and their customers. So what are the ways in which Mcommerce benefitting the businesses of today? What advantages are provided by Mcommerce to the retailers? Let us find out.

1. Bridging gaps through push notifications

Push notifications have become the most preferred way for businesses to get in touch with customers as well as potential clientele. Notifications help in sending an instant message and notifying customers about upcoming offers as mobiles are carried by people wherever they go.

A Survey by Responsys proved that 76% customers between the age group of 18 to 34 who shop through mobiles have enabled push notifications from their favourite brands. Hence, if you have an mCommerce app that sends push notifications, it can help to boost your conversion rate by targeting the audience you want to. There are several companies providing Android App development which enables you to send push notifications easily.

2. Single click calling

Gone are the days when customers used to shoot emails and wait to hear from the company in 24 hours or a week. Delays in getting back to the customers make them change their preferences and impression of the company. Thus, it is better to provide with a contact option that helps customers to reach service executives without a lot of effort. With the one click calling, real time chat assistance and toll-free numbers, companies have become more accessible and approachable.

3. Location Tracking & Personalized Notifications

Suppose your customer is passing by your coffee shop…and your company sends an instant push notification about the latest flavours of coffee or other offers at your shop; the customer is sure to check in and find out about it. So once a customer subscribes to your brand, you can send location based push notifications with personalized discounts and boost your sales. Yet another study by Responsys proved that personalized push notifications are liked by people and provide with 2 times higher conversion rates as compared to the ones made through marketing emails.

4. In App Payments

Payment convenience and security are the two most important aspects expected by customers when they making transactions with a brand. And this is why in app payment facility is one of the biggest advantages of Mcommerce. So how does in-app payment work? Once the customers download the app of your company, they can pay from within the application and get personalized offerings through you. Also there is no need of third-party payment gateways as they are hosted by the platform itself. This means that Android users can pay through Google Wallet and iOS users can pay through Apple Pay.

Through mobile wallets, customers can maintain a prepaid account through which amount is debited after making a purchase. These changes in the online payment systems enabled businesses to fetch more customers and offer products and services based on the subscription. Approach companies that provide MCommerce App Development so that you can come up with an intuitive and smart app for your customers.

5. Omnichannel promotions

If you are making the most out of mcommerce, you can promote your ecommerce business in a lot of ways. Besides push notifications, you can send daily/weekly deals, coupons, offer special prices for registered customers and free shipping so that the numbers of registered users go up. By doing so, you will be able to market your business well and increase the number of customers. People who get in touch with your brand through social media apps can be given a good user experience by optimizing content and user-friendly interface.

In the year 2015, a research by eMarketer proved that the mobile ad expenses comprise of 49% of total digital ad expense spent by brands and companies. The research revealed that mobile ad spending will go up to 57 billion US dollars in the year 2018; which makes it 29 billion dollars more than what it was in June 2015.

Investing for providing enriched Mobile commerce experience

Most of the companies today are working towards enhancing the customer experience by making innovative products, service and data so that the customers can make the most out of it and they can have a competitive advantage over others.

In today’s times when people interact with their devices more than anyone else, there can’t be a better opportunity to promote your business. So if you want to succeed with your mobile commerce ventures, you must find a unique mobile Ecommerce solution. You can conduct research, get in touch with companies that offer these services, and invest on different technologies to enhance the experience of your customers.

B2B Ecommerce Marketing: 6 Strategies for Success

When it comes to promoting a B2B business, the entrepreneurs are not as enthusiastic B2C business owners. They don’t make the most out of marketing and other tactics to enhance their market reach and often tend to underplay.

Also, owning an ecommerce store is not easy. You need to target the audience, indulge into product marketing, conduct SEO and do a lot more. During such times, it might get perplexing as to which tactics to choose for promoting your B2B ecommerce business. To help you get over your problems, we are here with some highly effective tactics that will help you to lessen the bounce rates and boost your sales. Take a look at them.

Provide an easy access to your product catalog

“If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” All the B2B business owners must remember this adage. You might want to restrict the shopping cart access for security purposes and keep it limited the registered customers so that they go through your sales team. But it is advisable to keep an open access to it so that the information can be looked into and shared by your potential customers to others. When your catalog is open to both general visitors and registered users, it will also enhance the ranking of your website on Google Search Engine.

In case your business is not meant for all the visitors, you can hide the Add to Cart button so that single purchases can’t be made on your wholesale website. Also, open catalog will make the work easy for your sales and marketing team as they will not have to spend a lot of time giving prolonged product explanations to customers.

Make bulk ordering simple

It is very important to optimize the ordering process on your B2B ecommerce store. The lesser the difficulty in checking out, the lesser are the number of cart abandonments. When it comes to bulk ordering, nobody likes to add product to the cart as many times as the number of products. In order to help your customers get over these ordering concerns, integrate a quotation manager extension to your ecommerce store.

With the help of this extension, users can search for the product, enter the quantity of products needed and add it to the cart. This way, your customers will not have to spend a lot of time in placing their order and you will also be able to boost your sales.

Provide better search options

Gone are the days when the access to products was dependent on a simple search bar. Over the years, search functionalities have become smarter and intelligent autofills, spelling corrections and suggestions have become some of the most common features.

Invest into an advanced search tool that helps customers to surf for products based on name, features, colour, SKU etc and also suggests products based on their purchase history. Analysis of searched information will also help you to conduct an effective SEO process.

Offer layered navigation

When customers are visiting your website for the first time, they might not be aware about your offerings. This makes it difficult for them to find what they are looking for. By offering layered navigation, wholesalers will be able to filter through your products easily. You will also be able to help them locate the products without the need for them to create a new search.

Inculcating multi select features, flashing latest offers and smart filter options will save the time of your customers spent behind reloading the pages and stopping the number of crashes.

Share useful content

Content still continues to reign as a king. You need to offer content that answers questions of your customers and takes care of their requirements. Take your ecommerce store beyond being just a catalog store and make yourself a valued partner of your customers. Several B2B website owners post product videos, images as well as customer reviews on their websites and it leads them to make better conversions.

Use rich content like CAD files, spec sheets, support documents, product catalogs, part explosion diagrams etc as it adds values for the shoppers. Remember, the more detailed the information, the more assurance it offers to your customers that they are investing into a right product.

Make the checkout process easy

If your checkout process is simple, your conversion rates are sure to get better. Try to a one page checkout process so that your customers do not have to traverse through several pages and provide with different information on each page. This checkout page should include customer, shipping and credit card information all in one place. Also, if you have a single checkout page, the likelihood of your website to crash will decrease.

You can also use extensions to provide discount codes, offers and newsletter subscriptions before they check out. It’s a great way to boost your sales.

Have a responsive ecommerce store

Mobiles have taken over the basic way in which people experience the World Wide Web. Most of the transactions happen on mobile, tablets and other devices these days. And that is why ecommerce experts advice the ecommerce store owners are to build a responsive ecommerce website time and again. Try developing an ecommerce website which doesn’t just look good on desktops and laptops.

You can get in touch with professional ecommerce website developers who use different responsive themes and templates for Magento so that they can provide you with an attractive and user-friendly interface.

On a concluding note

Above mentioned are the most crucial B2B ecommerce tactics that we could think of. But if you want to know more, you can read the case study “The Five Foundational Pillars of B2B Ecommerce” published by Magento.

It is the right time for ecommerce store owners to add layered navigation in their search tools, use responsive website design or adding bulk ordering. Do you have any insights on B2B ecommerce tactics that you would like to share? Feel free to write to us!

Top 8 PHP Frameworks for Developing Web Apps

 Business owners and developers are always on a lookout for a modern, scalable and organized framework when it comes to building a website that has a high complexity level. PHP frameworks are a perfect option during such times as 82.7% of websites thrive on PHP coding according to a Web Technology Survey.

If you too, are considering web development for your website, you first need to know why you should opt for PHP. Once you know what makes PHP the best, you can start looking for the right type of PHP framework for your website.

Why Should You Opt for PHP framework?

PHP frameworks are known to save a lot of time and effort spent behind website development. Here’s why you should choose PHP over other frameworks:

• Enables swift web development
• Offers developers with a systematized, maintainable and reusable coding
• Enhances the security of a website
• Helps build scalable web applications to boost your sales
• Follows the MVC (model-view-controller) which helps to separate logic and presentation
• Comes with object oriented programming tools

Now that you’ve known the features that make PHP the best, you might be wondering which PHP framework to go for. To help you get over the confusions, we have listed the 8 most popularly used PHP frameworks along with their features and advantages.

1. Laravel 

When it comes to finding a PHP framework that supports large scale web application development, Laravel stands in the forefront. It boasts support from a huge community and a lot of tutorials that provide you with all the information about building a website. The companies that offer Laravel development solutions make use of rich features in order to develop your website and bring it to life. It has its own template engine known as blade which enables the developers to write PHP in the templates bringing no performance overheads to the application.

2. Symfony

Symfony is the best choice if you need to craft a website for a large scale enterprise. It was released in the year 2005 by an interactive agency named Sensiolabs. The ecosystem of this PHP framework is packed with several reusable components and a very active community. You can get an idea about its feature rich components from the fact that even Laravel uses most of its components. Its template engine is known as “Twig” which is highly popular amongst the developers. There companies offering Symfony development services also make the most out of this template engine.

Symfony has driven some of the biggest open source projects like PHPBB, PIWIK, Dhrupal and OROCRM. It can be obtained under MIT license and also downloaded from the github repository. Symfony framework is available under MIT license and can be downloaded from its Github repository.

3. Phalcon

Phalcon, again, is one of the most modern frameworks which was crafted keeping the speed factor in mind. It is written in C language and is the fastest PHP framework available today. Despite of the fact that it is written in C, it is a full stack MVC framework that comes along with rich features like templates, controllers, routing, ORM, query language, caching etc.

It has stood strong in its competition with other frameworks and has defeated them with its swift performance. Released on 2012, Phalcon is extremely easy to learn and is loved by several PHP developers. However, there is some level of skepticism amongst few developers when it comes to developing Phalcon based solutions as it is written in C.

4. CakePHP

Despite of being the oldest PHP framework, CakePHP is still in high demand amongst the developers after the release of its latest version CakePHP 3.0. Laravel and Symfony being the latest frameworks haven’t been able to suppress its popularity. It was released in the year 2005 and can be obtained under MIT license and can be used in commercial as well as personal projects. Some of the well-known users of CakePHP frameworks are Hyundai, Zumba, BMW and Express.

The latest version used for CakePHP development offers decoupled components for better modularity, standalone libraries, session management and much more.

5. CodeIgniter

CodeIgniter was released in the year 2006 and is a decade old. It is very easy to install and has a simple configuration process making it easy for the developers to use. Whenever you need to get over the PHP version conflict, Codeigniter works the best as it is compatible with most of the hosting platforms.

Being a lean framework, it is only 2MB in size and can be downloaded easily. This means that third party plugins can be added if one needs to execute complicated functions. As most of the PHP developers go for Laravel and Phalcon, the demand of CodeIgniter development is declining.

 

6. Yii Framework

Yii Framework was released in the year 2008 and is one of the oldest PHP frameworks. After the advent of Symfony and Laravel, it had almost lost the race. But after the release of Yii 2.0, it is becoming a preferred choice for enterprise based Yii web application development.

Yii has a code generator tool named Gii and includes a lot of features that fulfill the requirements of modern web application development. This PHP framework boasts of a helpful and active community which is constantly making efforts to take it to the next level. If you use Yii, you will also realize that its documentation is better than any other PHP frameworks.

 

7. Zend Framework

Zend Framework has been around for over a decade and is used by several corporate giants like Cisco WebEx, BBC and BNP Paribas for their website projects. As Zend has a steep learning curve and is difficult to learn, it takes for senior and experienced developers to build a website using the framework.

The community development team of this framework consists of core PHP developers and they make sure that it remains complete, stable and robust. It is better to hire professionals for Zend development as its configuration is complicated. If you want to undertake small and medium scale projects, using Zend is not advisable. Some developers are also moving from Zend to Phalcon and Laravel as it is a complex framework. Google, IBM, Microsoft and Adobe are the partners of Zend framework.

 

8. Slim

Slim PHP framework offers the developers with everything they need and eliminates the extra and unnecessary features. The maker of this framework was inspired by a Ruby micro framework named Sinatra. It comes with a minimalistic design and works great for small apps which do not require a full-stack framework.

Slim is used by PHP developers when it comes to developing RESTful APIs and services. It provides with features like session and cookie encryption, client-side HTTP caching, URL routing etc. If you are into Slim development, you can read through its user guide.

 

Drawing Conclusions

Although PHP frameworks are built using different methods and concepts, there is a single underlying requirement which is – to have a smoothly running web application with a maintainable code. Although PHP is an old framework, its web development landscape has always remained dynamic. The above mentioned frameworks have been the most popular ones in the world of modern web applications.

If you have a website that has a complex infrastructure as well as huge CRM and CMS systems, PHP is the right choice. What is your experience with PHP frameworks? Which one of the above mentioned frameworks would you prefer to use? Please feel free to share with us.

Mistakes to Avoid While Hiring PHP Developers

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple and one of the most influential personalities in modern history once said “We want to hire people who want to make the best things in the world.” When you want professionals to build your website or web application, you should probably hold a similar attitude. After all, your web presence is very important to you and you want to grow your business out of it.
PHP is one the most frequently chosen programming languages when it comes to building a website. It is a server side scripting language and has empowered several start up firms. If you have decided to go with PHP web development and are looking forward to hire developers for the same, you must avoid certain mistakes. Some of them are given below.

1. Not considering outsourcing

Keeping confined to your own region and looking for developers only within your realms is one of the biggest mistakes you can commit. Several companies hold this mentality because they think that it is easy to connect with the developers, discuss problems with them and get issues resolved fast. However, this is not true and many companies have incurred huge losses due to this mentality. Technological advancements have made it very easy to connect with developers all over the world. In fact, outsourcing can prove to be quite cost effective.

2. Failing to look into the portfolio

It is very important to take a look at all the previous work and projects accomplished by the PHP developers you are intending to work with. Don’t just go by references as your requirement might differ from others. Ask about the number of years of experience they have had in building PHP websites. Taking a look at their portfolio will give you an idea about the skills of developers you have hired and give you insights as to how you want them to work on your website.

3. Neglecting the mode of communication

While striking a deal with an offshore company, make sure you decide on the communication channel. By doing so, you will be able to stay abreast with the latest developments and issues. Also when you discuss about your business website with developers, ensure that they have understood your requirements right and they have the required skills to implement it.

4. Lack of clarity in prices

It is always better to keep things transparent when it comes to deciding on the prices. Be precise and clear about your requirements and obtain a quote. Continue with the deal only if you agree on a mutually decided sum. Make sure that the company doesn’t dodge your inquiry on prices with vague answers. Once the fees are decided, have a contract in black and white and get it signed by the company you are working with.

5. Striking a deal with cheap service providers

Some prices are too good to be true. Don’t get coaxed into accepting cheap offers as it may result into lack of communication, incomplete websites, changed passwords and developers who disappear into the oblivion. Remember that a website is 24/7 presence of your business online. If you compromise with the design and development aspects, you will never be able to make profits out of your business. So beware of companies who try to lure you at extremely low prices.

6. Not considering the maintenance

All business structures are dynamic. It is possible that some changes are required after the website is built. So you need to make sure that the developers you are working with are more than happy to update things and make changes as and when needed. Even if there are major issues in your website, developers should be ready to conduct testing and make necessary enhancements.
A skilled PHP developer should be able to:

• Undertake Dynamic website development
• Identify the bugs and other issues in the website
• Work dedicatedly on your project
• Make your website smart and user-friendly
• Keep connected to you via different channels including Skype, email, etc
• Provide with a detailed report after the work is done
• Assist to with post development complications

If you have committed a mistake of hiring a wrong PHP developer, it’s okay. Don’t waste time mulling over it and discussing the problem time and again. Let go off the past and start looking for the right developers to build your website.
Make sure you discuss with the new developers as to what disappointed you the most about the website you had and what changes do you want to make in the new website. Conduct ample amount of research, make price comparisons, check quality of services and then zero on the company that can build your website the way you want.

How to Choose a CRM that is Compatible with Your Sales Processes

Hunting for a good quality CRM system can be quite daunting. Especially, when there are so many options to choose from. A lot of times, companies end up buying a CRM system thinking that it is apt for their business and regret at a later stage as it is not compatible with their sales processes. There are two reasons as to why business owners make such mistakes.

1. They did not have a detailed view of the CRM software and its working.
2. They had a wrong impression of the software and the sales functionalities it offers.

Most of the CRMs available today are built keeping a predefined sales process in mind.If your sales process is any different you would need a CRM development company to customize the software for your requirements.

But long before you think of customization there are certain crucial steps you should take to ensure any customization is minimal and you get a CRM system most suited for your business. Let’s see what these steps are.

1. Keep your sales process in mind

Defining the sales process is must before you start looking for a CRM software that is apt for your company. Your sales team must have a process in place for how the customers will go from finding you to buying from you. Once the sales funnel is in its place, you can go through each module and understand every step along the way in order to manoeuvre through the buying process. These steps can include anything from connecting with clients through emails to downloading the case study. As CRM helps you to act upon detailed sales intelligence, studying about these micro conversions will help you to choose it rightly.

2. Find out how will it help with customer retention

Customer retention is another important aspect that a good quality CRM needs to look after. A successful business is the one that goes beyond finding new prospects and leads. When a CRM is installed, its role in managing customer accounts is often overlooked. Make sure it just doesn’t help with organizing sales pipeline but also ensures a regular follow up with existing clients. Automated follow ups will make your customers feel important and help you to retain them. Remember that maintaining relationships with customers is as important as gaining further business opportunities.

3. Align your sales process with buyer’s journey

There is nothing worse than a sales process which is not compatible with the client’s journey. It might seem difficult to align your sales process with the journey of your buyer. However, it mostly depends on the type of business you own. Search for resources that can help you to analyze your sales data and understand the efficiency of your sales process. By doing so, you will gain insights about the areas in which your team is lagging and how to fill that gap with technology and training. You must also keep in mind that CRM is a mere software. The success of your business depends on how your sales team makes the most out of it. Once you install the software, you can review and revisit the sales process with your team.

4. Look for the following features

After you have addressed the sales and customer account management strategies, you can start thinking about the features that your CRM should have. Again, the features will totally depend on the type of business you have. There is a general belief that a CRM with myriad of features is a good choice. But this is not true. As and when your sales team starts working, things can get quite overwhelming and cluttered for them. It’s better to have few important features than have too many features that are good for nothing. If you want an effective CRM software, look for the following features:

• Customer profile management
• Account management
• Sales team coordination
• Communication tracker

You will find several types of CRM software in the market. And it is okay to purchase an advanced level CRM. But it should not be a hindrance in serving your customers. Make sure it fulfills the above mentioned requirements and helps you in elevating your sales processes.

The 10 Biggest Web Technologies Every Developer Should Know

The World Wide Web has metamorphosed over the time from its inception and technology has been its vehicle to improvement. Given the availability of limitless resources and the constant competition to come up with better websites has made the job of a web developer much more difficult and challenging. Take for instance, the success story of YouTube. While other similar sites failed before, YouTube took the road to success riding on the Adobe Flash player technology.

They key takeaway from these developments is the fact that the only game changer for the web today is proper utilization of tech advancements and path breaking graphic user interface (GUI). But to be able to exploit the web technology advancements and to keep up with the latest user interface trends, web developers and web development companies have to be a master of all the upcoming and advanced technologies.

While there is no end to what you can learn, if you are passionate about web technologies, there are few technologies that any modern web developer simply cannot ignore. Here are 10 such technology areas.

1. Browsers

Web browsers are tools that create an easy to use interface between commands by the user and the results returned by the web servers in form of relevant web pages. Commonly used web browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Internet explorer etc. Each one of these offer varied functions to their users all of which should be mastered by every developer to make sure how his designed website is responding to different browsers. Cross browser compatibility is one of the most basic requirements of a website today. Users are more adept at using various modern browsers today. Internet Chrome is not the default option anymore. Nor is Firefox. Though developers continue to use Firefox as the standard browser, Chrome has more user base than any other browser.

2. HTML5

The main markup language since the very beginning, HTML provides structure of a website so that web browsers know what to show. With every version, HTML comes up with better range of capabilities. HTML5 is the latest version of HTML and is obviously the best till now. HTML5 had been able to bypass the problem of media plug-ins along with an array of useful functions and features. Acceptability of HTML5 across various platforms including major web browsers and mobile devices makes it an important technology which every web developer should master. HTML5 has made flash redundant and made it super easy to use video content natively in HTML.

3. CSS3

CSS3 is the latest version of Cascading Style Sheets which offers an assortment of features that determine how your web properties look – from colors, shapes to various animation and shadow effects. It has lessened the dependence on javascript and other web elements that were vulnerable to bugs, were time consuming to develop, and mostly not compatible across browsers. Web developers today are using CSS3 more and more in conjunction with HTML5 to create web properties that are less dependent on scripts.

4. Programming Languages

Programming languages are used to write the code. All languages have their own syntax and logic. Some, like PHP are more widely used than others. To survive the throat cutting competition, web developers must be efficient in using and understanding different programming languages. Some of these languages popular on different frameworks include Javascript, Python, Coffeescript, Ruby, Java, PHP, Go, Objective-C, etc.

5. Responsive web designs

With increased use of multiple devices to access the web, flexi or responsive web designing concept has become immensely pertinent. Today responsive designs make it possible for us to view web page across various platforms with ease, where the matter adjusts itself in length and width for better viewer experience. For flexible view of any portal on various devices, a developer must excel in developing responsive web designs.

6. Databases

Proper organization of data in digital format is what we know as Database. There are two types of digital databases namely SQL and NoSQL. The structure of SQL is tailored to make sure that all the data is correct and validated while NoSQL provides more flexibility for the building and maintenance of applications. Proficient knowledge of various databases like MongoDB, Redis, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MSSQL, etc. is a must for every web developer.

7. Frameworks

Frameworks are built to facilitate the development of proficient and dynamic websites, web applications and mobile applications. Working on various programming languages becomes much easier with the aid of these frameworks as you don’t have to start from scratch. The entire complicated and repetitive task is reduced by promoting code reuse for activities like database access, session management, etc. Some of the more popular frameworks that every web developer should master include CMS frameworks like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal; ecommerce frameworks like Magento, Prestashop; PHP frameworks like CakePHP, Zend Framework; Microsoft frameworks like ASP.NET, SharePoint;

8. Protocols

Protocols are a set of instructions on how computers and devices communicate with each other and process information. For example HTTP protocol works on how a website gets to the browser. It requests the server for the website and gets response with the HTML, CSS, or Javascript of the website. A comparatively newer protocol, DDP, creates a continuous connection between the client and the server where websites update without even refreshing the browser. Another protocol called REST is majorly used for APIs and uses standard methods to exchange information between various applications. It is very important for any web developer to be well informed about the technology behind these protocols.

9. API

An application programming interface or API is created by the developer of an application to allow the usage of some of its functionalities to a third party app or website without sharing the code. This makes it possible to combine multiple APIs to create new applications. APIs allows sharing of data between various web applications. Hence, a web developer should master the technology of creating good APIs. All the popular web and mobile apps today come with their own APIs that help integrate the app with various other services.

10. Data Formats

The organization and storage of data in the databases, according to their particular specifications, is defined by structures called Data Formats. When we talk of web development, JSON is leading the market as the most popular data format. XMS continues to be in use since the time web development was introduced. XMS format was used mainly by Microsoft. The format which is used in excel is the CSV format, which every web developer should be able to work with. Here, the formatting of the data is done using commas.