6 Mobile Marketing Trends To Be Mindful Of In 2020

If you stumbled across this article online there’s a good chance you are reading it on a mobile device. And just like you, millions of people worldwide are engaging with content on the web at their leisure on a daily basis through IOS or Android. In fact, people are known to spend up to 5.5 hours of every day on their mobile devices. Mobile content consumption is now such an accepted behavioral trait that it simply cannot be ignored as one of the main drivers for nurturing customers to they key touchpoints within your online business ecosystem.

If you are thinking of expanding your current digital roadmap to include mobile as a core acquisition channel, or are actively testing and reporting on existing mobile engagement tactics then the following trends may inspire your next steps to continue to grow in 2020.

1. Domination of mobile video

Google is making a hard play for YouTube as one of our social media staples to capture the lion share of video consumption on mobile. After all, nearly 40% of YouTube video views are via mobile. This sets a precedent for how video is quickly becoming the preferred mode of content distribution not only for brands but by the general public also, particularly those who are attempting to grow a personal brand online and earn a living off of collaborating with brands.

Because video is such a fierce mobile traffic driver, businesses can utilize video to be more personal and transparent thus building a stronger rapport with their audiences. Fully automated environments within Instagram and Facebook whereby video messaging serves as the top sales funnel entry point should not be ignored as cost-efficient ways to test out video content marketing strategies.

2. Pop-up penalization

This is officially the era of ad-overload. Launching pop-ups was once commended as a means for ushering customers through to the sales funnel seamlessly however, in recent years as mobile growth has spurted those same tactics have become out-dated and invasive. Google now frowns upon showing a popup before users can glean value from the web page or app they land upon., Brands who fail to recognize these trends run the very strong risk of a slap on the wrist from Google, which in e-commerce terms can equate to an SEO penalty. The risk is even greater for mobile websites, in the wake of Google’s mobile-first indexing guidelines.

Rather than interrupt the user’s journey, ad pop-ups should now pay heed to best practice for the most relevant and convenient moments when they can be presented to the user.

3. SEO mobile search listings

Gone are the days when 10 organic results would appear like clockwork for any given search query. Google invested a significant amount of time in 2019 testing a restructure of SERPs of up to 14 ads in a single mobile search results page. It’s a generous amount of real estate to reallocate to paid ads no matter how you look at it. What we are likely witnessing is Google experimenting with how ads using keywords with higher buyer intent are faring when placed in greater view of the consumer. A multitude of testing variants has been rolled out for different industries over the last six months.

This spells good news for brands heavily leaning towards PPC but not such a great forecast for businesses that depend on SEO for sales or leads. It’s hard to imagine Google not reverting to the previous balance of organic and paid within mobile we are used to, however, if this trend is anything to go by it’s that digital channels out of your control can turn on their head overnight; and those without a contingency plan may risk losing out on business to competitors with a more diverse marketing mix.

4. Mobile app burnout

The market is oversaturated with apps and that’s a fact brand must contend with if they are to compete in this space. Apps are relevant but often ignored; the average smartphone user downloads approximately 25-40 apps for keeps but is prone to using only a handful of those on a regular basis. It’s fair to agree that a serious case of mobile app burnout is just around the corner. If so, it bodes the question as to whether your brand should invest a huge amount of time, resources and capital into developing an app when it can be better spent elsewhere, such as Facebook or Instagram marketing. If you do continue down this path be wise to offering a pragmatic reward or incentive to users who download your app in order to reap the benefits through your online business.

5. Evolution of social media apps

Social media a great way for businesses to reach consumers through mobile and learn of their buying habits to refine tactics for growth time and time again. It is estimated that two-thirds of smartphone and tablet owners connect with their social network accounts from mobile devices, with Facebook being the top smartphone app accessed. If you are not leveraging social media in 2020, namely emerging platforms like TikTok you are simply alienating a potentially large chunk of your audience.

The app formally known as Musical.ly was acquired by the Beijing-based internet company ByteDance but morphed quickly into a virtual realm for sharing content. Few brands have managed to penetrate the social media site with unbridled success as yet however this may change in early 2020.

6. Security compliance

Whilst the majority of trends carry a silver lining for marketers there are those that require some general housekeeping as a matter of damage limitation. A case in point is maintaining a secure website – not only for mobile users – to help shut out the risk of activities that fly in the face of a positive online experience. We all may know someone who has had their identity stolen after shopping online or become a victim of online fraud and these are two examples of murky tactics that remain a constant threat.

A recent survey indicated that roughly two-thirds of consumers are too nervous to shop on their mobile device in fear of being hacked. Another report highlighted that over half of the online shoppers refuse to use a mobile app due to security concerns. And 58% won’t use an app out of fear of compromised privacy.

If you have an online store it’s your duty to install rigorous security systems and reassure your customer base measures have been taken to care for their online security.

The post 6 Mobile Marketing Trends To Be Mindful Of In 2020 appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/marketing-strategy/mobile-trends-2

How to Get Your Side Hustle Off the Ground in 2020

Side hustles are pretty common these days. In fact, according to MarketWatch, one-third of Americans need a side hustle to pay expenses. Starting a side hustle can be intimidating though, especially for people that have little experience with freelancing or running their own business.

Luckily, with just a few tips, you can easily turn your side hustle idea into a reality. But, let’s not stop there. With these tips, you can actually turn your side hustle into a profitable, full-time business.

Here’s how to get your side hustle off the ground in 2020.

Change Your Mindset

First things first, if you want to get your side hustle off the ground, you need to change your mindset. Many people who have a side hustle see it as just that, a side hustle; something they do in their free time that makes them a little extra money. But, if you want to turn your side hustle into a fully-fledged business, you need to stop thinking of yourself as a side hustler or freelancer and start thinking of yourself as a business owner.

So, instead of saying to yourself and others “I do graphic design on the side,” say “I have a graphic design business.”

When you start to think of yourself as a business owner, you’ll be more confident in your ability to take your side hustle and turn it into a successful, full-time business. Plus, when you think of yourself as a business owner, other people will think of you as a business owner, which will help you gain the confidence and trust of potential clients and customers.

Create a Schedule and Stick to It

After coming home from your day job, it can be hard to sit down and start working on growing your side hustle. But, you need to make time for it if you want to grow it into a successful business. So, you should create a schedule and stick to it. By making a schedule to follow, instead of coming home and saying “I’ll work on my side hustle tomorrow,” you’ll be able to hunker down and get things done easier.

You can mark off an hour each weekday or you can set aside 4 hours on the weekend, whatever works for you and your lifestyle. In fact, Chris Guillebeau, the author of Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days, says that with just 30 minutes per day you can create a successful side hustle. Remember, when creating your schedule, set a notification alarm for it. That way, when you’re dealing with day-to-day distractions, you won’t forget to work on your side hustle.

Get Organized

Next, your side hustle isn’t going to be successful or turn into a full-time business if your to-do lists are scattered all across your work area.

To get organized you can use a tool like Trello or Asana. Asana is a web and mobile application that will help you organize, track, and manage your work. With this tool, you’re able to lay out all of the tasks that need to be done and set due dates for them to help you stay on track.

Image Source

You also need to make sure that you’re not spending hours manually completing repetitive tasks that could be automated with the help of some online tools.

Check out some of these online tools to help you automate processes and get organized:

• Hubstaff – Automates time tracking, reporting, and invoicing.
• Zapier – Connects all of your apps and automates your workflow.
• Buffer – Schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
• Bidsketch – Create professional proposals in minutes with their proposal software.
• HubSpot Meetings – Allow your prospects to automatically schedule meetings with you.

Implementing just a couple of automated tools like these will help you save a few extra hours each week. You can then use that precious extra time to work on growing your business.

Present a Professional Image

When you look like a hobbyist, clients and customers won’t give you their business because they’d rather go to a professional. So, if you want your side hustle to be successful, then you need to present a professional image.

The first step to presenting a professional image is to create a website. Not just any website though. If you want to look like a real business, you need your own domain name. A free website such as www.wix.com/mybusiness doesn’t look as professional as a domain name like www.mybusiness.com. With your own website domain, you’ll also get a professional business email address, which also looks better than emailing potential clients from your Gmail account.

And don’t worry, you don’t need to hire a web designer to create a great-looking website like the one below from copywriter Tyler J. Koenig.

Image Source

With WordPress and many other website builders, you can get free or affordable website templates that will give your site a professional look in an instant.

On your website, be sure to post any glowing customer testimonials you have to show potential clients that they should work with you.

Start Marketing Your Business

Now that you’re starting to treat your side hustle like an actual business, it’s time to start marketing it like one too. But aside from printing business cards and handing them out to family and friends, get online to promote your side hustle.

Social media is a free and very effective way to promote your side hustle business to a wide range of people. For example, check out how Stitch and Wick promote their hand-crafted products with this eye-catching Instagram post.

Image Source

Don’t forget to use relevant hashtags on your social media posts so you can attract more potential customers and clients. In the Instagram post above, Stitch and Wick use hashtags like #SoyCandles, #GirlBoss, #SideBiz, and #BuyLocal to attract customers that are interested in buying soy candles from locally-owned small businesses.

Conclusion

Don’t be scared to dive into your side hustle headfirst in 2020. With these tips, you’ll not only get your side hustle off the ground, but you can reach a level of success that you could have never imagined. And maybe in 2021, you can quit your day job and run your business full-time.

Entrepreneur – DepositPhotos

The post How to Get Your Side Hustle Off the Ground in 2020 appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/entrepreneurship/side-hustle-growth

Pentaho and Jaspersoft – An Exhaustive Comparison

“Data is what you need to do analytics. Information is what you need to do business.”– John Owen

One of the most worthwhile assets to any organization, retrieving the right information at the right time at the right place, in the right format is what Business Intelligence offers, to its finest. Business Intelligence services have proven to be an indispensable ingredient in the success and growth of any business, irrespective of geography, size or domain. Of the leading BI tools that rule the IT world, two names have carved a niche for themselves – Pentaho and Jaspersoft. BI enthusiasts have always been keen to know more about them and the nuances that make them special in their own ways.

Before we dive deeper into the comparison of both, let us have a look at what these technologies are.

Pentaho

Pentaho Open Source community gives a modern, integrated and embeddable platform built for retrieving virtually all types of data sources including Big Data. Pentaho tightly pairs data integration with business analytics to effortlessly access, mine, visualize and explore all data that impacts business results. Pentaho BI Suite is a comprehensive suite of Pentaho business analytics – Pentaho EE (Server), Pentaho CE (Server), Pentaho EE/CE (Client), for BI, Big Data & Data Integration.

Supporting organizations to frame their future towards analytics, Pentaho Consulting excels in any type of BI requirement apart from its proficiency in Traditional BI, Embedded BI, Mobile BI, Self Service BI, Agile BI, and Predictive BI.

Jaspersoft

Jaspersoft is an intelligent and scalable BI suite, having multifold products and services in its framework. It ensures quicker decision making with the availability of timely and accurate information. Creating a reporting and analytics embeddable platform to enhance organizational processes is a key USP of Jaspersoft BI. Jaspersoft solutions can be implemented across multiple devices using embedded services. It offers a pixel-perfect dashboard and an elaborate enterprise reporting system with cloud-based deployment options.

How It All Began – An Interesting History

Pentaho

Based in Orlando, Florida, Pentaho was founded in 2004 by Doug Moran, James Dixon, Marc Batchelor, and Richard Daley. Pentaho reporting began as JFreeReport, a Java-based reporting engine widget which later, got launched as a successful open-source Java project. Pentaho was later, acquired by Hitachi Data Systems in 2015 and on September 19, 2017, it became a part of Hitachi Vantara. It grew further to bring two editions – the community edition and the enterprise edition. The product stack of Pentaho has, since then, knew no bounds.

Jaspersoft

Originally termed as Panscopic, Jaspersoft was founded by Al Campa and Raj Bhargava in the year 2001. In 2004, Jaspersoft co-founder and a Java developer, Teodor Danciu was in search of a reporting capability tool for an application that could integrate seamlessly with the Java platform and was cost-effective. He built his own Java-based reporting engine and library that later got refined to JasperReports and offered stability, security, and balance. That was when Panscopic became Jaspersoft. Then came Jasper iReport Designer, a visual report designer for JasperReports which offered embeddable reports. In the year 2014, they were acquired by TIBCO Software and they never looked back.

Product Stack Components

Pentaho BI Product Stack

Pentaho EE (Server)

 

• Pentaho BA Server
• Pentaho BI Platform
• Pentaho Analysis Service (Mondrian)
• Pentaho Dashboard Design
• Pentaho Analyzer
• Pentaho Interactive Reporting
• Pentaho Data Access
• Pentaho Mobile

 

Pentaho CE (Server)

 

• Pentaho BI Platform
• Pentaho Analysis Service / Pentaho Analytics
• CTools
• Community Charting Components (CCC)
• Community Dashboard Editor (CDE)
• Community Build Framework (CBF)
• Community Data Access (CDA)
• Saiku / Saiku Reporting

 

Pentaho EE / CE (Client)

 

• Client Applications
• Pentaho Data Integration (aka KETTLE)
• Pentaho Report Designer
• Pentaho Metadata Editor
• Pentaho Aggregate Designer
• Pentaho Schema Workbench
• Pentaho Design Studio

Jaspersoft BI Product Stack

Enterprise Edition / Professional Edition

 

• Jaspersoft Studio
• Jasperreports Library
• Jasperreports Server
• Jaspersoft ETL
• Jaspersoft OLAP

Key Components That Form the Building Block of these BI Technologies

These basic components are the fundamental building block of both Pentaho and Jaspersoft, though each one of them has its own individual characteristics. Have a look here to know more:

	Pentaho	Jaspersoft
ETL	Pentaho Data Integration (aka Kettle) is a popular ETL solution worldwide. Being robust and flexible, it proves to be a highly recommended tool for data transformations.	Talend Studio is the ETL component of Jaspersoft and is an independent company that offer its products autonomously. It is a UI intuitive approach based on a native Java or Perl code. Java based instructions can be compiled through it.
Web Application Server	The BI Pentaho server facilitates management of all BI resources, has a UI available where reports are stored, OLAP views and dashboards. The application and data usage can be managed and monitored effortlessly with management support.	As a cent percent Java J2EE web server, JasperServer facilitates management of all BI resources. It encompasses all necessary resources needed to make it a fully functional application.
Reporting	As a complete reporting solution, Pentaho reporting encompasses almost all areas of reporting. It is an older version of JFreeReport and provides an execution engine, a metadata tool and UI for steering reports ad-hoc.	Offering great flexibility, this component offers report development environment that is useful for ad-hoc reporting and predefined reporting. The runtime version of reports is widely used and can be easily exported into multiple document types. It showcases a high-quality structured tool for analysis.
OLAP	OLAP stands for Online Analytical Processing – an innovative mechanism to facilitate organizing information in a dimensional structure. Mondrian represents the Pentaho OLAP engine that offers a combined feature list of ROLAP engines with a cache that offers speed.	Mondrian is the OLAP engine that uses JasperServer. Mondrian represents the Jaspersoft OLAP engine that offers a combined feature list of ROLAP engines with a cache that offers speed.
Dashboards	One of the alluring key components of Pentaho is Dashboards, which it makes through web interface utilizing the dashboard designer.	The Jaspersoft dashboard designer offers provision to cull out ad-hoc as well as predefined reports.

Feature Wise Comparison Between Pentaho and Jaspersoft

Feature List	Pentaho	Jaspersoft
Reporting Analysis / Dashboards	A variety of in-depth and insightful reports and dashboards. Functionally, aesthetically superior dashboards	Better user interface and easier to use. Lightweight reports. Dashboards available only in enterprise edition
ETL	Pentaho Data Integrator aka Kettle is its own and has greater ETL capabilities and limited CPU utilization	Jaspersoft uses Talend as the ETL tool but has limited ETL capabilities and an increment of CPU time during ETL analysis
Mobile Business Intelligence	Mobile BI available for enterprise edition. Pentaho developers must depend on 3rd party tools to have a better experience	Jaspersoft offers BI for iOS and Android both. Gives a better experience in terms of functionality and UI. Provides native mobile API
Available Plugins	Pentaho has multiple plugins like Saiku, CDE, CDF etc. and comes alongwith marketplace	Jaspersoft has restricted plugins till now
Data Mining Capabilities	Pentaho’s data mining capacity is handled by Weka which is developed by Pentaho itself	Jaspersoft uses R which is quite advanced and capable
Geo charting	Pentaho uses Google maps for geographical charting	Jaspersoft uses mapbox for geo charting
Integrated BI Suite	Since most of the components are developed by themselves, the Pentaho BI suite is tightly integrated	There is integration with external components which are quite competent but don’t belong to the Jasper family
Documentation	A great user community to help and enhance knowledge though documentation is a little insufficient	Informational website, better documentation, case studies and hence easy to find information. Also there is strong community support
Flexibility & Adaptability	Due to an intermediate layer Xactions, it is highly flexible in terms of plugin design, app integration	Less flexible in intermediate layer but iReport plugins and Jasper server plugins serve well for the plug in designing

What Suits Better and When – Pentaho or Jaspersoft?

Pentaho Suits Best When:

 

• The need is for small and medium enterprises where the quantity of data and the workload are not critical
• There is need for a decision supported system
• There is a requirement for detailed dashboards for decision making
• The platform is enterprise BI driven

Jaspersoft Suits Best When:

 

• There is need for row level security with deepened layers
• Pixel perfect and embedded reports are of high importance
• Cost effectiveness is a concern
• There is a high level of reporting required

A Quick Statistical Analysis

Top Companies Using Pentaho

 

• JPMorgan Chase
• Sigma Infosolutions
• Acumen Solutions, Inc
• Navigant Consulting Inc
• Pivotal Software, Inc.
• Tata Consultancy Services
• Accenture
• Synechron

Courtesy: https://idatalabs.com/

Top Companies Using Jaspersoft

 

• Lufthansa Systems
• Alacatel Lucent
• Rail Europe
• Alten Italia
• Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
• ICS Consultancy Services
• NorthgateArinso, Inc
• QA Agility Technologies

Courtesy: https://idatalabs.com/

On a Parting Note:

Which BI tool is to be used, whether to go in for enterprise edition or community edition – such decisions should ideally be taken by the organization with the help of the BI service provider.

Based on organizational requirements, infrastructure, and business workflow, the IT partner can suggest the tool which suits best – Pentaho or Jaspersoft.

The solution provider is assumed to be having spread-out experience about cutting-edge BI tools, Pentaho and Jaspersoft and hence, choosing an apt solution provider is equally important as choosing the best BI tool. Isn’t it? It would be interesting to see what’s next in the pipeline for both these BI stalwarts!

Software – DepositPhotos

The post Pentaho and Jaspersoft – An Exhaustive Comparison appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/software/pentaho-vs-jaspersoft

5 Detailed Tips For A Profitable Vacation Rental Marketing Plan

Let’s begin with a myth that goes around all kinds of online businesses and their marketing plans –Many entrepreneurs believe that they can withhold marketing to begin only after the launch of the business.

Take vacation rental business for instance. You might drag yourself in believing that you can sketch your marketing plan once you have your website ready and launched. However, it’s a myth that may cost you your entire business. Here is the thing-

Online businesses depend on web applications or mobile apps to offer the values capable of bringing revenue to the business. Modern-day marketing aligns so much with an application’s abilities that even a minute restriction in the features can restrain the entire business from adopting profitable marketing strategies. Let’s understand this with an example.

Say, your vacation rental marketplace and mobile applications are ready and live. On a fine day, you came to know that high-quality videos of the properties could increase the bookings by say, 20%. Hence, you went and tried uploading some professionally created HD videos, only to discover that your website does not even support files over 100 MB.

This is a situation where you know a certain marketing strategy could boost your revenue, but you cannot adopt it, as your rental marketplace software limits you from doing so. That’s why you should not retain your marketing strategies as an aftermath or “we would look into it later after launching the business”.

Aligning with the same view, the first tip for a profitable vacation rental-marketing plan talks about how to start an online rental marketplace with a competent technology at your disposal.

1.      Build a powerful web application with online booking management

HubSpot, a well-known marketing brand states, “94% of the users on an online platform do not trust a website or application only because it has a poor design”. Good website design is one of the features that retain authority over how users feel about your business.

How to make sure your rental marketplace platform is up-to-date in terms of website design, cutting-edged features, and competitive marketing feasibilities? It’s simple, by knowing all the options you can adopt to build your online rental marketplace, and what kind of competent rental marketplace software you can adopt as per your budget constraints.

There are two major ways to build an online rental marketplace platform:

• Develop from scratch
• Use an Airbnb clone

Development from scratch:

Building a rental marketplace from scratch is a massive project that requires a lot of development, workforce, time, and money. Considering the modern-day web development cost, required features, and customizability, and time to implement the same, we can break the cost components of a simple Airbnb like rental marketplace platform into the following segments: 

• Android development
• iOS development
• Website designing
• Graphic designing
• Front-end development 
• Back-end development
• API integrations
• Server Administration
• Software Testing
• Technical Writing

Following is a breakdown of how long the development of each segment will take in hours:

The overall turnaround time for such a project may cross 2700 hours of development. Even if we take the development cost as low as $50/hour, it would cost you around-

• $50,000+ for Web development  
• $80,000+ for Android development
• $70,000+ for development

Development from scratch is something that requires a significant amount of time and money. However, if you are not willing to spend a fortune and looking for cheaper alternatives, the second approach using an Airbnb clone would come handy.

Using an open-source Airbnb clone script:

A well designed Airbnb clone script comes with a package of website and mobile apps. There are software vendors who sell complete suites of Airbnb clones for as low as $2000. If you are lucky, they might also offer free of cost assistance for deployment and installation.

Since these scripts are open-source, you can also customize them to modify website design, add new features, or remove unused features. If you have a limited budget, purchasing an Airbnb like script will be profitable, as they come with all kinds of modern-day feasibilities to accommodate trending marketing strategies.

2.      Aim at qualified traffic with SEO, local SEO, and citation marketing

Although I suggest offering a niche rental service to stand out from popular platforms, if you still going eye-to-eye with Airbnb and Home away, you want your SEO to be of top-notch.

To be honest, a large number of travelers will visit popular vacation rental platforms like Airbnb and Home Away directly. However, there are still significant amounts of travelers who look on Google directly using keywords such as “vacation rental house in ‘local area name’ “. You should focus on driving such users on your site.

Nonetheless, don’t just rely on Google SEO to drive traffic, also optimize for Local SEO. Local SEO will give you a better chance to drive more traffic despite the competition. Most of the time, local businesses rank higher than giants if optimized properly.

So focus more on local SEO and area-specific keywords. With a combined optimization on both SEO and local SEO fronts, you would have a good chance to come to the relevant search results. Once, you have good visibility in general and local search result, you may deploy the other tips in our list to please the users and get bookings.

3.      Optimize property listings for not just SEO but also for Customers

Ranking on top of the search results is not enough. Even if you come in the search results, you still cannot drive traffic or bookings without optimizing your listings for the customers. There is always a room for improvement in your listings and their representation to the users. This is conversion rate optimization (CRO) where you optimize your touchpoints to convert as much traffic into paying customers.

Production listing optimization is the first step towards CRO and intriguing users. You can start with high-quality photographs of the properties, detailed description of the amenities, estimation of the charges, mentioning accepted payment methods, and reviews from previous customers. You can take a cue from the following listing page on Airbnb:

Source: Airbnb

This particular listing is a one-stop example to explain everything you should include in your listing to attract the users. It has everything from property details, availability details, customer reviews, host’s details, house rules, and neighborhood information, to the local attractions.

You too can make your listings further informative by mentioning the distance from the nearby airport, train station, bus stop, and popular landmark. Moreover, intrigue them by showing the HD images of local attractions, out-side view from the property, and fun activities.

Source: Airbnb

4.      Balance value with competition to set the pricing right

There is no doubt that people look for affordable accommodations, and affordability was actually one of the biggest values proposed by Airbnb when it went to eyes-to-eyes with expensive hotel accommodations. The idea applies to your vacation rentals too.

However, vacation rentals are not just about affordability but a lot more is important to consider while pricing your properties:

• Rentals in the areas that lack hotel accommodations
• Amenities that traditional hotels cannot provide (Example: self-cooking, activities)
• Comfort and option to rent entire property rather than just a room

So, don’t just focus on affordability; focus on balancing the same with unique value propositions such as;

• Great interiors
• Additional activities
• Multi-lingual hosts
• Great customer service

Bottom line is that travelers on a vacation seek a reason to enjoy their time. Unlike hotels where guests just lookout for a place to spend the night and leave, vacation rentals are more about creating memories and great experiences. The better the service, the lesser people go skeptical about the pricing.

5.      Accept local as well as international payment methods

Vacation rentals are international by default. You will have guests visiting from home as well as international locations. Therefore, overlooking international payment methods would not be a good idea. Offer both local and international payment alternatives to attract all of the following kinds of travelers-

• Those who book and pay from their home country
• Those who pay after the visit is complete
• Domestic visitors

Credit card payments are a must. Make sure your rental marketplace software is open to the API integration with popular credit card payment solutions such as PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree. Besides this, also integrate local payment solutions such as mobile wallet payments and traditional payment options such as Net banking. In short, accept as many payment options as you can.

Bonus tips

These were some of the most important requirements to excel in a vacation rental business. Besides them, you should also sketch a marketing plan on the following fronts to make the most out of the available opportunities: 

• Social media: Build a strong brand identity with social media marketing. Use your social media handles to let your followers have a glimpse of the experiences, latest offers, upcoming events, and of course, for handling the customer grievances too. 
• Customer-generated content: Generate as many customer reviews and respond to the same. Whether on social media, public forums, or your own website, you need customer reviews to build a trustworthy brand image. 
• Dynamic pricing: Don’t just stick to a price. Use dynamic pricing and offer coupons, vouchers, and seasonal sales to attract customers. Offering an affiliate program is a good idea to not only generate revenue but also boost word of mouth marketing.
• Advertise everywhere: It depends on your budget. The more you advertise, the popular you would become. So depending on the marketing budget, utilize all sorts of paid advertising to gain popularity. For example, TV Ads, News Paper Ads, Search Ads, Social media Ads, collaboration with travel bloggers and YouTube creators, etc.

It takes some patience

No marketing produces results overnight. It takes a lot of willingness and patience to launch a successful marketing campaign. Especially, when you are running a highly competitive business, you should not afraid of going extra-miles to stamp a positive impression. These tips will help you start with your journey. Rest depends on how you implement and how much value you are willing to offer without breaking your margins.

Beach House – DepositPhotos

The post 5 Detailed Tips For A Profitable Vacation Rental Marketing Plan appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/marketing-strategy/vacation-rental-tips

7 Tools to Help Manage All Aspects of Your SMB in 2020

Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) now participate in a highly competitive landscape. Large enterprises have all the resources to dominate their competition. Because of this, SMB leaders must find crafty ways to level the playing field. Technology is one such force multiplier.

If SMBs can effectively and efficiently leverage software to their advantage, it’s possible for them to find success in their respective segments. SAP recently examined the differences between companies that adopt technology and those that don’t and found that 80 percent of digital leaders report a significant lift in profits post-transformation, compared to just 53 percent of non-leaders. Considering profitability is key to any small business’s sustainability, you have all the more reason to integrate digital tools and solutions into your processes.

Unfortunately, some SMB owners lack the technical knowledge to build their own tech stacks. Others are simply afraid of making proper investments in digital adoption. As such, the emergence of SMB-focused platforms and tools should come as a welcome development for these organizations. These solutions are designed to address the needs of smaller organizations. They’re built to be easy-to-use and are affordable.

If you manage one such company, here’s a list of digital tools that you may consider adopting to give your business processes a big boost this coming year.

1. Cybersecurity with Reason

Cyberattacks and data breaches aren’t just a problem for huge enterprises and organizations anymore. Hackers are now increasingly targeting small businesses with threats like malware, ransomware, and spyware, so you must shore up your defenses.

Reason offers an endpoint protection solution designed for SMBs. The reason has a powerful detection engine that can detect and eliminate viruses and malware. It can also prevent unauthorized access to a computer’s webcam or microphone. In addition, Reason protects computers against ransomware by blocking rogue encryption attempts from locking user files. Plus, it offers browser plugins that help users identify which webpage and file download links are safe to click on. All these features help prevent malware from spreading and inflicting harm on your operations. The reason has a free version that includes its antivirus with real-time protection. It’s premium version that includes all protection features typically retails for $60 a year.

2. Lead Management with vCita

Generating leads can be very difficult, especially for small businesses that have yet to build a strong reputation and a wide customer base. Attracting prospective customers is not enough. You must keep them engaged unless you want them to start looking for other options.

vCita offers a comprehensive toolkit that allows you to generate leads, close deals and work on strengthening relationships with customers. The platform enables you to create email and SMS campaigns to engage prospects and customers. It can also generate landing pages that can help you book appointments with potential customers. You can also add a floating widget on your site to help you effectively capture leads and schedule meetings. The platform will automatically remind you, and your clients, of upcoming meetings and notify you when a prospect gets in touch with your business so that you won’t miss out on key customer interactions.

vCita Business starts at $45 per month.

3. Finance and Bookkeeping with Bkper

SMBs must always be on top of their cash flow. You always need clear and accurate financial statements – otherwise, you could be obscuring poor performance, or worse, fraud and theft by your employees. Your bookkeeping entries must be updated regularly and accurately so that you can monitor how your business actually doing. Bookkeeping software is essential for you to accomplish this.

Bkper is one such solution that allows you to manage your finances, monitor accounts, track profits, expenditures, and debts, and generate financial reports in one centralized platform. This way, you can readily check the financial health of your venture. It can also integrate with different apps. For instance, it can readily record invoices generated by third-party tools so that you instantly know what needs to be collected or paid.

Bkper Business is available for $27 per month, billed annually.

4. Human Resources with GoCo

Good help can be hard to find. Skilled and experienced workers often command high salaries, which many SMBs can’t afford. One way you can get around this is by developing the talent of your own. To do this, you must be able to hire good candidates, and onboard and train them effectively.

GoCo’s platform can streamline these processes. It offers a fully customizable onboarding feature that allows you to automate and lay out the schedule for the first few days of new employees. Its feedback tools also ensure continuous growth by allowing you to monitor team performance and address any concerns. GoCo also provides comprehensive reports that provide insights to help you implement strategies and programs to increase productivity.

GoCo’s basic plan is available for free for companies with up to 20 employees. Its premium plan costs $4 per employee per month plus an $80 base fee per month.

5. Customer Support with Freshdesk

Keeping customers happy is the key to sustaining a business. Customers want to feel that their opinions matter and that their concerns are heard. They also want their questions to be answered instantly. This can be quite difficult for SMBs that may not even have dedicated support and success agents.

Freshdesk is a customer service platform that allows you to quickly address people’s concerns through channels such as live chat, support content hubs, social media or a fully functional call center. The platform can also help your team generate reply templates to more efficiently respond to common inquiries. Agents can be assigned to specific customers or issues depending on their skills or expertise to improve response time and the satisfactory resolution of their concerns.

Freshdesk starts at $15 per agent per month.

6. Legal and Contracts with ContractZen

Considering the expense and damage that lawsuits can cause you, it’s best to always have easy access to contracts between your business and everyone you deal with, including suppliers, creditors, and even customers.

Contract management software such as ContractZen allows you to easily manage and store contracts and other important files using an intuitive interface. You can add meta tags and perform searches of document content to your contacts to find them easily. This way, you’d be readily able to pull up necessary information should you need it to stay on top of due dates, compliance requirements, or deal with a problematic engagement. The secure platform also allows stakeholders to e-sign documents, set meetings, share files and due date reminders.

Contract Zen starts at $9.50 per user per month, billed annually.

7. Project Management with Trello

Staying on top of multiple projects can be a challenge, especially for SMBs that typically have employees with overlapping job functions, one-man teams, and remote workers.

Project management platform Trello can help you easily manage multiple projects. It provides you with the ability to create boards for each project. In each board, you can create lists pertaining to the various phases of the project and use cards to identify each task that needs to be done. You can then assign members, add important details and checklists, and set due dates to each card. Team members can also comment, upload files, and get notified about recent project updates on the cards.

Trello has three price tiers: Free, Business Class ($10 per user per month), and Enterprise (starts at $21 per user per month)

Conclusion

Your organization may be feeling pressure to compete against large corporations in order to survive. Fortunately, there are now plenty of innovative solutions that can help you improve your effectiveness and efficiency by streamlining and automating your various processes. With the proper integration and use, these digital tools can help you become capable of serving the needs of your customers.

Businesses that can consistently provide value to their customers are the ones most likely to succeed.

SMB – DepositPhotos

The post 7 Tools to Help Manage All Aspects of Your SMB in 2020 appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/software/smb-tools

How to Build a New Website to Take Your Business to the Next Level in 2020

What are your business goals for 2020? Whether you are looking to boost sales, increase your profit margin, expand your business, or all of the above, a strong website will be a key element in making sure you achieve your goals.

Online search is one of the main methods consumers use to find products and services. This means it is essential that you have a site that ranks on Google in order to bring traffic to your door. Additionally, your website needs to be engaging and persuasive in order to convert this traffic into customers.

Let’s take a look at how you can build a site that will take your business to the next level in 2020.

How to Build a New Website for Your Business

1. Choose a Website Builder

Website builders have revolutionized the online marketing landscape in recent years. It is now possible to build your own website with zero coding experience, thanks to these handy tools. There are a number of website builders on the market, with the best website builders around arguably being Wix and Weebly for beginners, and Squarespace for creatives. Site123 can also be a great option if you’re looking to build a small website. If you don’t know which website builder to choose, you can always take the free trial or free plan option and test it out before committing.

2. Choose a Price Plan

The website builder itself isn’t the choice you’ll need to make – you also need to decide on a price plan. Most website builders have a range of monthly subscription plans, and some include a free option. Prices can range wildly, as can the features within each plan. However, if you are looking for a fairly simple site, such as a design or writing portfolio or a small service business site, the more basic plans will likely be sufficient. There are also free plans for those on a very tight budget. However, you should be cautious with these, as many free plans are very limited in their feature and usually come with ads, which can detract greatly from your site. If you can’t decide, it’s a good idea to start with the lower option and upgrade later.

3. Choose a Domain Name

Your domain name is your website’s unique address. It is how people will find your site, so this means it’s an important thing to get right. You want to make sure your domain name is relevant to your business, short, and unique. When you sign up for your website builder, you’ll be prompted to choose a domain name from the available options. If you already have a domain name you’ll also be able to transfer it to the new platform. The cost for the domain name and hosting is often included in the website builder’s monthly plan, although some charge a few extra dollars for this.

4. Build your site!

Finally, you have these basic elements in place and you’re ready to build your site. Website builders make this process very simple by having a range of templates you can use as the basis for your site. Start by choosing the best template for your business (they are usually categorized by industry) – test out a few if you’re not sure! With your template, you can then add in the content and design elements. Builders like Wix and Weebly make this very simple: all you need to do is drag and drop. Most website builders also allow you to customize by changing elements such as fonts. The more you can customize the better, to make sure your site fits your branding and stands out from your competitors.

Essential Elements for a Successful Website

Quality and Diverse Content

Of course, content is an essential part of any website. Content plays two key roles for a site:

1) Drive traffic to your site, mostly through search engine results, but also through organic means.

2) Convert website visitors into customers by persuading them to buy your product, email for a quote, or whatever your call to action is.

As businesses become more and more savvy with their digital marketing, staying competitive means making sure your content is on point. It is no longer enough to throw any old copy onto your site: you need to have quality content, where every word is carefully crafted for both SEO and conversion purposes.

Having a blog on your website is a great way to expand your content, improve SEO and drive organic traffic to your site. Additionally, content doesn’t have to be written: video marketing is a great way to add some flavor to your website. Modern consumers are more likely to stop and watch a video than reading blocks of text, so this is one of the most effective ways of capturing their attention and ultimately converting them.

A Clear, Formal Strategy

If you want to avoid financial stress, you need to have a detailed financial plan and follow it closely. Likewise, if you want your website to be effective, you need to carefully plan it out. This means having a formal strategy for your website.

Some things to consider when developing your website strategy are:

• What are your goals for your website?
• Who is your target audience?
• What does your brand represent?
• What is your message?
• What are your main asks?

From there, you can develop a plan for your website which will help you to reach your goals by reaching your target audience, conveying your branding and your message in the most effective way possible and presenting your ask in the most engaging and persuasive way.

Search Engine Optimisation

One of the most important things for an effective website that will support your business to smash its 2020 goals is SEO. Research shows that 97% of consumers search for businesses online, while 87% of shoppers start looking for a product on the internet. This means that if your business is not ranking within the first few results when your target customer searches online, you are missing out on an incredible amount of potential business.

Because Google is constantly changing its algorithms, SEO is constantly evolving. This means it is essential that you stay up to date with the latest SEO trends.

Here are some trends we can expect in SEO in 2020:

1) Google will continue to adapt more and more to voice and visual search, so the content must be optimized for these kinds of searches.

2) Snippets will be a major feature on SERPs and users are more likely to click through on these results. A business should, therefore, aim to be featured in snippets.

3) Google will prioritize mobile versions of webpages, so it is more vital than ever that your site is mobile-friendly.

4) Longer, better quality content will yield better rankings.

5) Google continues to refine searcher intent, meaning set keywords are less important, rather content which overall matches the searcher’s intent is preferred.

Website – DepositPhotos

The post How to Build a New Website to Take Your Business to the Next Level in 2020 appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/websites/essential-business-elements

How to Achieve Your Content Marketing Goals by Maximizing Sponsorships

I have always found it daunting. There have been some occasions when I was called into a meeting for sharing my thoughts on a sponsorship agreement. I was a bit nervous at that time but I soon realized that 95% job is done.

Yes, I had no chance to contribute to the rights but still, there was something for me to do. I had to add a link to the sponsored property’s site.

It is not just me who often face such situations. I’m sure you might have also been through such a situation or you will experience such things if you are a content marketing and SEO professional.

I have learned my lessons and now sharing my thoughts on how you can maximize sponsorships to instate your Content Marketing Goals.

Do a thorough analysis of the sponsored party’s assets and access

You are going to use links that belong to a reliable website and it might be almost impossible for your rivals to acquire.

However, as a professional in the content marketing field, I always think more widely about the opportunity I get.

The fact is that if you succeed in accurately activating sponsorship, the results will be quite overwhelming.

Only a few would be there to compete against you. It is important for you to be a part of a team or company producing rights package.

It will help you in succeeding faster. When you are not a part of the discussion, the assets and access can underwhelm you.

I personally believe that you can be an integral part of the conversation if you evangelize the virtues of digital marketing.

The decision-makers in the team will recognize your potential and make you a part of the discussion.

You should remember one thing that you have to promote your work to prove your support is worthwhile.

The assets and access play a very crucial role in the success of sponsorship activation. It can be anything depending on the associate you are sponsoring and the type of sponsorship. We can list it as:

• Merchandise

• Tickets

• Access to influential people

• Access to unique locations

• Social media promotion

• Website coverage

One major thing you cannot quantify on this level is how much of each mentioned asset you might require.

As the experts suggest, you should always overestimate the requirements for three simple reasons:

• Assets you want are comparatively affordable in comparison to naming rights which are an integral part of the agreement. So, you should not worry that your requirements will increase the cost. 

• Your sponsored party is going to negotiate down from the quantity you need. It happens and you should be ready for that.
•  
• Whatever remains after the allocation of the obtained assets to your marketing tactic will always be safe.

We were talking about tangible assets, but the agreement will also provide you with access to the sponsored party’s intangible assets.

You will know their cultural value in the eyes of the target audience and perception. You can analyze that before preparing a positioning strategy and set a perfect tone of voice.

Describe and evaluate brand communication goals

Businesses invest their money in teams, events, and personalities because these things can help them in establishing a powerful bond with the audience.

Every productive sponsorship passes the perception and values of the sponsored party on the business and brand.  

Every brand spending money on sponsorship wants to achieve this goal. Branded content offers a way of establishing this insight into the target audience’s mind.

It is your job as a content marketer to choose which values you are willing to derive from your partner if you want to activate the sponsorship from the standpoint of branded content.

It is an essential part of the selection process. Therefore, you need to put a little extra effort in it.

The brand would always like to convey a precise sentiment from the associate. Such as:

• A new brand would prefer to work with a reliable establishment to provide trust.

• A small brand would like to associate with a large and successful business to gain credibility.

• A branding willing to prove its significance to a younger audience would choose events, people, and organizations that are popular amongst the targeted group of people.

• A brand that is targeting people from a certain lifestyle will choose a partner that has successfully maintained properties that describe that way of life.  

Once you prove that you are dedicated to producing content with the assets and access offered in the partnership to influence the target people and community, the brand also incarnates that sentiment.

However, everything is not so simple at this stage.

When creating content plans you should not forget what the brand is all about. You should focus on finding a method through which sponsorship can work as a vehicle to express this message.

The audience is no fool. People will easily recognize the content is presenting that brand in an unrealistic manner.

It is not necessary that each activation should convey this sentiment. The main goal should be long-lasting change and significant or strengthening of brand insights in the mind of that brand’s target audience. 

I have seen many brands that waste their sponsorship rights on short-lived content. It can gain millions of views but such content does not influence people and does not impact their decisions.

Although it is an easy way, it will never help you in changing the target audience’s perception. 

You can use sentiment studies and brand uplift to assess the effectiveness of the campaign. You should try to reveal the following things:

• Are the target people ingesting your content?

• How did they find it?

• How did they react to the brand before?

• Has your content altered that notion?

• How the target audience will define the brand to a colleague?

You can find all the answers if you do pre and post-campaign research. You should try to assess change in sentiment and awareness.

It will assist you in evaluating whether the sponsored property’s values and perception are benefiting your brand or not. This should be the main goal of every sponsorship activation.

Positioning and tone guide

There is a big difference between traditional advertising and branded content. You will understand the value of branded content but your colleagues will take it just like a television ad.

They will think it is just a simple effort to gain mass awareness for the brand but you know what it took to produce branded content.

Perfectly created branded content is simply editorial in style and tone. You enter in that particular community when you are working with a sponsorship partner.

You should admire it and treat it with full respect. Produce and supply content that people need.

Many professionals make a mistake that they put their efforts into gaining attention with the partner. It backfires their tactic and does not make any significant impact.

Your focus should always remain on improving the audience’s experience with the sponsored partner.

The day you achieve this, you are going to gather a lot more positive sentiment. Consequently, there will be a lot more engagements.

Publishers also get this dynamic. If they believe you are producing content that their target community will consume, they would happily agree to carry the content and offer a link.

Develop relationship management skills to get the most from sponsorship

Do not presume that the toughest job is done once you sign the deal. Hence you had asked for affordable rights, its drawback will also come in your view.

Suppose the deal majorly included the naming rights of event, stadium, jersey name, etc. you have secured is less important to that.

Here you will face the main challenge because the other party of the agreement will always prefer to deliver on the naming rights regardless of your needs.

In addition, you may be one of the numerous other brands that have signed the agreement. It is more frightening that other brands may have the better position as brand sponsors.

Over to You

All in all, it is always a challenge to work with a sponsored party. You will find many factors that can upset your best-laid plans.

You can reduce such risks effectively. You will have to establish close links and you will have to participate in regular structured discussions with the account manager.

Your partner should always know your rights. Keep your plans ready in advance and make the sponsored party aware of your plans.

I also suggest you assess the risks quite often. Be ready with a backup plan if something does not work in your favor. Your content thoughts should be phase collaborative.

It will reduce the risks of sponsored parties vetoing your plans. You should not forget about the sponsored party.

Your content should also contribute to their success. This is how you can reduce the risks and gain better opportunities.

Sponsorship – DepositPhotos

The post How to Achieve Your Content Marketing Goals by Maximizing Sponsorships appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/content-marketing/maximize-sponsorships-goals

Common Mistakes Every e-Commerce Store Makes

With every business making the most out of the bloom of the digital market, e-commerce sites have started to become a norm.

Not only are the internationally competing businesses benefiting from the luxury of an e-commerce store, but many local stores have also joined the league. The e-commerce market is increasingly competitive now.

It is also interesting to note that not every business that has flourishing sales retail wise is successful in the e-commerce arena. The two said types are not only different in their nature but also have a unique customer base from each other.

Many e-commerce sites fail to achieve even a fraction of their set targets. And this is not because people do not trust online stores; the reason might be a bit more technical than that.

As a novice to the e-commerce area, many sites make a few mistakes that can result in the viewers’ lack of interest in the website.

Here are a few of the common mistakes every e-commerce store tends to make:

The intricate design of the site

Design is an integral part of every type of website. Whether it is an e-commerce website or a blog, the design of the website has a lot to do with how many visitors will it attract.

And when it comes down to e-commerce specifically, it won’t be wrong to say that design is one of the drivers of the sales (with just a tad bit of exaggeration).

Imagine yourself as a customer who wants to buy something online. Although users are enticed to open a website due to different reasons, what makes them stay on the site is how user-friendly that website appears.

A website that straight up focuses on aesthetics and not the simplicity in design ends up losing the customer base. The shopping cart, add-to-cart, and other e-commerce related features should be one-tap away and must not be a hassle. The pages should not direct the viewer to the wrong page.

This is one of the most common problems with e-commerce stores. The user-friendly design should be one’s top priority while creating an e-commerce website.

Lack of responsiveness

When it comes to online shopping, it is the responsiveness that seals the deal. Whenever one shops online, if the site takes longer than usual to respond, it is but natural for the users to leave the website. Responsiveness is a mandatory feature of every e-commerce website.

More than half of the current population uses their smartphones to purchase things online. Every e-commerce store needs to be functional on the phones.

According to Healthy Links, Google credits mobile-friendly websites.

Repetition in content

Product descriptions should not be as dull as the writers make them sound like. No matter how good your product might be, you have got to sell it with your words. Many e-commerce stores use the same description for every item in the same category except for the name, of course.

Nobody is interested in reading redundant descriptions. Every e-commerce store should keep this in mind that every product should have a unique description and must not look like a mere copy of another. It is a big put off for the viewers, trust me.

Broken Links

If the site is under construction or any of its pages is for that matter, let the viewers know about it instead of showing an error.

If a visitor clicks on a page and it directs them to an error page, the probability is that the visitor will leave the website immediately.

The same is the case with broken links. Not only does harboring broken links on a site puts off the visitors but it also sets a very bad impression of it in the SERP. Having broken links on the website is frowned upon in Google. It also has a negative impact on the website’s ranking.

No understanding of the target audience

Yes, it sounds just about right. Many of the e-commerce stores, without even doing any research on their target audience, create a website that would only appeal to irrelevant people.

It is essential to know the right things to say that would attract the potential audience. And it is not just about the right things, but it is also about how you put it out there. A little research before creating a website never hurts. Make sure you understand your target audience well to be able to grab their attention.

Poor customer service

The customer is always RIGHT! And yes, according to researches, many of the businesses are likely to grow when they focus too much on customer loyalty. The ‘WOW’ factor always makes the difference and many businesses have their goals to provide customers with a big moment.

Customers are always looking to get their issues solved at a rapid pace or in the blink of an eye. This is when all the attention is diverted towards the customer and all the expenses are added in the product cost, customer satisfaction is the crucial factor. The changing parameter from modern customer service to linking the phone calls with your website is the need of the day.

SEO Errors

The charisma for a successful e-commerce site can sometimes hinder a simple SEO mistake. From the search engine obstacle to the canonicalization of the URLs, you need to be very careful while virtually managing your website.

Some other factors of SEO errors do occur when most of the links, which are redirected, take the user to some other place. Always check the navigation of your page and adjust according to the theme for smooth and professional running.

Final Thoughts

Trying the best is always the most common way to survive in the competitive world and when e-commerce is booming, you always grab the chance to learn.

Running the e-commerce is not an easy task but you can easily manage the ranking of your webpage by avoiding the mistakes discussed. But still, if you encounter any mistake, try to fix them before it’s too late.

Honestly, if you want lead generations, avoid the aforementioned mistakes at every cost.

The post Common Mistakes Every e-Commerce Store Makes appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/e-commerce/common-ecommerce-mistakes

Informational Guide to Start an Ecommerce Platform in 2020

Ecommerce is quickly becoming the preferred mode of shopping for the world. Especially in 2019, it has been one of the most imperative, interactive, inventive, transformative, and interesting years for ecommerce till now.

After conducting proper research, we have formulated an informational guide before starting an ecommerce platform in 2020. Let us start by recognizing what has been achieved by e commerce giants in the year 2019.

• Gross sales of the Amazon will be 43% of U.S. e-commerce sales in 2019 which was 28% in 2015.

Amazon’s landscape focuses on consumer usage and engagement trends which made the number rise to nearly twice in 4 years period. Amazon’s sale has surpassed $200 billion and has shown steady growth from the past many years. This growth has been propelled by the increasing retail category by depth and breadth, significant technological innovations, major foray into Omni channel retail.

• TikTok enters the Ecommerce sector

TikTok is a social media video app for creating and sharing short lip-sync comedy and talent videos. TikTok is now testing ecommerce related features that would allow retailers to market their products easily. They conducted a test in the US where the author could add a link in their bio or post which would redirect them to another browser within the app.

• Alibaba set a sales record on Singles Day, the world’s largest 24-hour shopping event

Alibaba’s gross merchandise value crossed last year’s $30.5 billion in a single day sale. At the end of the sale, the GMV stood at 268.4 billion yuan which was a 26% rise from last year’s figures. It was the 11th edition of the annual single-day event, the double 11 shopping festival which falls on the 11th Nov.

 

These achievements of ecommerce giants inspire startups to be a part of this profitable wave. Aspiring entrepreneurs should focus on what the future has in store for their potential ecommerce brands. Here are some stats that are predicting the growth of ecommerce in 2020.

• In 2017, eCommerce sales were responsible for $2.3 trillion worldwide, and it is expected to be nearly doubled by 2021. The projected global sales for 2020 come out to a predicted $3.9 trillion.
• Statista predicts Amazon’s market share of the U.S. eCommerce retail market to hit 47% in 2020. (16) To put it in perspective, that is more than Apple (3.8%), eBay (6.1%), Wal-Mart (4.6%), and Wayfair (1.3%) combined.

Influencing Factors that persuade Shoppers to Shop Online

Shoppers from all around the world have been shopping online for most of their products. A Survey by Google has survey 4 major countries where the ecommerce sales in high. Top reasons for shopping online were:

• Fast Shipping – Consumers in the U.S. are much more interested in fast shipping times than in-store pickup.
• Mobile Payment (UPI Enabled) – Quick and easy access to mobile devices along with slashed data prices have brought digital payments to the forefront of retail transactions, especially in the case of UPI. This is also evident from the fact that the number of merchants accepting them has increased to over 10 million in a short span of two to three years.
• Discounted Prices – Incentivize repeat visits with promos and coupons. While U.K. consumer habits are related to their U.S. counterparts, they are more inclined to buy from the same store twice.
• Testimonials – Brazilians value product reviews from other customers nearly 2X as much as shoppers in the U.S. or U.K., so make sure they can find reviews on the top of the product page.

Ecommerce Trends to keep a watch in 2020

• Multi-channel selling – most online sellers start their online journey with only one channel but that is not the case with the buyer. Buyers perform their sales from different touch point which makes the seller lose their potential customers. Multi-channel retailing is a practice to sell particular merchandise on the channels where the target audience would preferably shop.
• Direct to Customer – as the name suggests, it means an entrepreneur selling their products directly to the end-user without the meddling of third-party retailers, middlemen, and wholesalers. The multi-channel retailer is falling apart because of the margins being very small.
• AR and VR are becoming more commonplace – Many ecommerce marketplaces are already using augmented reality and virtual reality on their ecommerce website and even their offline store. Customers want to try on their products so businesses introduced AR and VR to try virtually than physically.
• Flexible payment option for big purchases – Especially in the case of premium products, entrepreneurs should understand that customers believe making huge online payments as a risky investment. While developing an ecommerce marketplace, flexible payment options like providing breakdown payments, or net banking transfer should be available.
• Smart home assistants and voice search- People are more and more relying on smart home assistants and voice search while purchasing a product. Ecommerce businesses are being a part of the customer journey and influencing them to make their buying decision in different possible ways. Ecommerce is using the power of voice search and home assistance to influence customers.

Ecommerce platforms to start an online store in 2020

Shopify: One of the biggest names in ecommerce development, Shopify is an easy-to launch platform. It has become popular among aspiring entrepreneur as it is easy to use and makes launching an ecommerce website easy.

Strengths:

This platform uses a single dashboard to manage order, shipment and payment

The pricing starts from $9 to $299 per month.

Features like amazon integration, different pricing plans and hosting included helps in building your business from the ground up.

Offers own payment gateway i.e. Shopify pay

Weakness:

You can use popular payment gateways like PayPal and stripe but Shopify charges extra money for these changes.

If you will be managing higher sales then you must not consider Shopify

If you are considering to launch a mobile app for your business then Shopify will burn a hole through your pocket.

Magento: An adobe company, Magento is the most customizable ecommerce platform. According to BuiltWith report, Magento has been ranked third position globally. A huge merchant community and old traditions make this platform solid and trustworthy. Magento provides two types of packages: Magento Open Source and Magento Commerce (cloud solution).

Strengths:

Some of the big names in the industry trust Magento for the digital requirement like Nike, HP Inc., and The North Face.

Clients receive support for their troubles from the  community

It is optimized for search engine and have features that will make the website ranks higher

Customizable platform for the different needs of the client

Weakness:

Costly as compared to most ecommerce platforms

Customization requires an experienced developer

The open-source version of Magento requires lots of customization to develop an ecommerce website.

Yo!Kart  – Yo!Kart is a multivendor ecommerce platform that is fully customizable. It is a self-hosted solution with a lifetime license.  YoKart also offers ready to launch mobile applications that provide superior online experience. It is an ideal platform if you are looking to launch mid-size and large scale enterprises with multi-vendor functionalities.

Strengths:

• This platform is Inherent  multivendor platform
• You can launch your ecommerce multivendor website within a week
• Budget-friendly as clients have to pay once and they get the lifetime licence
• The Platform also has ready to launch mobile applications
• The platform guarantees high performance and claims to handle 1 million products.

Weakness:

• The platforms code are partially encrypted for security purposes
• YoKart does not offer free trials

Woocommerce – 30% of total online stores are powered by woo commerce with 1M+ download. Popular among masses woo commerce is a WordPress toolkit provider to extend the experience. According to BuiltWith reports, Woocommerce is the best ecommerce platform on earth..

Strengths:

Woocommerce is an open source platform

For people who are already using WordPress, Woocommerce is free

Lets you sell physical and digital products.

Fully customizable

Weakness:

The hosting and extension that comes along is not entirely budget-friendly.

Does not have a particular support team for clients

Should have an experience in building websites

Quick eSelling: Quick eSelling is another ecommerce platform that deserves a place in this list. As written on Quick eSelling website, it is only intelligent ecommerce platform to offer free website & mobile app with unlimited ecommerce features. The platform has launched in 2015 and gained massive popularity due to its free ecommerce store set up plan.

Strengths:

• Quick & easy set up
• Zero coding is needed
• Single platform to manage web & apps
• Comes with multiple payment gateways
• Easy integration with popular online marketplaces

Weakness:

No iOS app in free plan

Prestashop – an open-source, cloud-hosted ecommerce platform to easily launch a website. There are 3 options for aspiring entrepreneurs to launch an e-commerce website. They can either download it for free, customize it on their own or pay for preta ready which is a hosted version.

Strengths

• According to the needs of the customers both hosted and self hosted version are available
• It has features which make it search engine friendly and optimized
• The platform can be easily customized and has a huge community of support if needed

Weakness

• The add-ons which any ecommerce website must have are expensive
• The client’s needs to have basic development skills to work on the platform
• Support is available but it is paid

Conclusion

The global stats, predictions, and trends are in favor of ecommerce. The customers are already influenced to buy any and every commodity online thus creating a huge window for ecommerce startups. In this blog we have mentioned all the information an entrepreneur would need before starting an ecommerce platform. Stats that will push him to make the decision, influencing factors that will help him decide the USP of the website and top ecommerce platform to choose their technology partner.

Ecommerce – DepositPhotos

The post Informational Guide to Start an Ecommerce Platform in 2020 appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/technology/e-commerce/platform-informational-guide