Small Businesses and Web Application Security: Preventing Data Breaches

We live in a world of digital transformation. The coronavirus pandemic has sped up this transformation, forcing enterprises that were a little reluctant to embrace change to either get on board or risk losing their customers and eventually closing their doors. Unfortunately, with digital transformation comes cybercrime. It is estimated that over the next five years cybercrime will cost businesses over $5 trillion.

Cybercrime’s Effect on Small Businesses

Small business owners may mistakenly believe that their size makes them immune to attack. However, reports show that over 40 percent of cyber-attacks are aimed at small businesses because they present a softer target.

Most small businesses lack internal network security futures or web hosting security on par with what larger organizations can afford. According to CNBC only 14 percent of small businesses have taken the steps to prepare to defend themselves properly. Small business owners must see cybersecurity as a priority and treat it in the same way that larger organizations do. That means protecting their data adequately, investing in solutions that offer top-notch security including highly encrypted web hosting service. 

This is becoming even more important because of the increasing complexity of the IT structure needed to run even the smallest of businesses. As the IT structure becomes more complicated, so do the tools that cybercriminals can use to carry out a data breach.

Small businesses are exceptionally vulnerable because they lack the financial and legal backing to bounce back from a data breach. Digital incidents are costing small businesses at least $200,000 on average. Research shows that six out of 10 businesses that are the victims of cyber-attacks close their doors within six months.

The Role of Web Application Security in Preventing Data Breaches

All businesses that have a web presence should be concerned about web application security. The global reach of the Internet means endless customers, but it also means that web-based businesses are vulnerable to attacks from a variety of locations that feature various levels of sophistication and complexity. Web application security focuses on the security aspects of web applications, services like APIs, and websites.

Cybercriminals zero in on web applications because their source code is inherently complicated. This means that there is a higher chance of vulnerabilities that can be manipulated to insert malicious code. Web applications are prime value targets because they often house private data that can be easily harvested with proper source code manipulation.

Web applications are targeted because attacks are easy to execute. Many attacks can be automated and launched simultaneously against countless potential victims. Organizations that do not take securing their web applications seriously risk information theft, which can lead to legal proceedings, revoked licenses, damaged client relationships, and loss of capital.

Zeroing in on Web Application Vulnerabilities

Web app vulnerabilities often result from a failure to execute proper input/output sanitization. This creates vulnerabilities that can be exploited, allowing unauthorized access or granting the attacker the ability to manipulate source code. Here are some of the attack vectors that are used.

SQL Injection

This is where bad actors will use malicious SQL code to trick the back end database into giving up information. The hacker can view lists they are not authorized to see, delete tables, and authorize administrative access.

Cross-Site Scripting

This is where malicious code is inputted directly into an application. Reflected cross-site scripting happens when malicious code is reflected from an application onto the user’s browser.

Remote File Inclusion

Hackers can use this technique to remotely inject a web app server. The result is that a malicious script or code is executed within the application. This opens the door for data manipulation and theft.

Cross-Site Request Forgery

This form of attack causes a user’s browser platform to independently perform actions on a site that a user is logged onto. For example, it can lead to unsolicited funds being transfer, data theft, or passwords being changed.

From a purely theoretical standpoint, the above attacks could be mitigated with detailed input/output sanitization. However, in the real world this is impossible because most applications are constantly being updated, so they are in a constant development state. Most web apps integrate with other apps, creating an enormous and complicated coded environment.

Steps Small Businesses Can Take to Secure Web Applications

There are several methods for securing web applications. Organizations looking to protect themselves should have a web security checklist that could include the following.

Authorization

Applications should be tested for path traversals. Horizontal and vertical access control issues should be identified. Direct and insecure object references and missing authorizations should be addressed.

Encryption

Check for and strengthen weak algorithms. Are there randomness errors that need to be addressed? All data transmissions should be secured, and specific data must be encrypted.

Information Gathering

Third-party hosted content must be classified. A manual review of the application should be performed to identify entry points and client-side codes.

In order to secure their web applications, an organization has to identify security issues and vulnerabilities in their applications before cybercriminals do. The web application vulnerability detection process should be done thoroughly throughout all the development stages as opposed to waiting until the application goes live. There are multiple ways of detecting vulnerabilities in web applications. A black box scanner can be used. A manual source code audit or an audit along with a penetration test can be used.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution or a silver bullet that will make it easy for you to identify all the vulnerabilities a web application has. For example, an automated tool can discover technical vulnerabilities with greater accuracy. However, automated solutions fall short when looking for logical vulnerabilities. These require a manual audit.

Small businesses that have a sufficient budget and the time may want to use several tools and testing methods. If time and budget are limited, the goal should be to select the most cost-effective solutions that can realistically imitate what a malicious hacker would try to do to a website or an application and then create steps to protect the web app.

Knowledge is a powerful weapon that can help small businesses improve the security of their web applications. Keeping informed about what is happening in the web application security industry and attacks that have been perpetrated on similar organizations will enable small businesses to better protect themselves and secure their web applications.

internet security concept -DepositPhotos

The post Small Businesses and Web Application Security: Preventing Data Breaches appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/security/web-app-cybercrime

10 Simple Tips to Boost Productivity When You Work From Home

While working from home has become more prevalent in recent years, it has boomed in popularity in recent months especially. However, for most of the employees who have never worked from home in their past careers, it would be challenging to adopt new changes in their work conditions.

For a technical approach to make it possible and successful, It not all depends only on IT experts of your company but on the users as well,  with their IT support/solutions and work commitment, it seems easy to work from home for an extended period. But it is not, and even not all of us are very comfortable with the new working conditions.

Given the current worldwide conditions, adjusting to this sort of work conditions is more than should be expected, and that is the reason today we share with you a few effective work from home tips that have worked effectively for any remote workers.

Follow the Old Work Schedule

To keep up consistency in your daily routine, and you have already maintained the difference between both work hours and home hours. It would be better you keep maintaining similar work hours no matter you work from home or somewhere else. Your brain has already adjusted it with the old work schedules, and to avoid such instability, just follow the same routine which you used to follow during the regular working days. And you must try harder to follow it as much as you can.

Maintain Your Daily Routine as Usual

Working from home cannot be synonymous with not working. We must continue with our daily routines and adhere to schedules. For that, do not stop doing what you did when you went to the office. If you entered at 8:00 am, continue to work at that time, if you stopped to eat at 1:30 pm, stop to have a lunch break and if you finish your work at 4:00 pm, do not extend yourself any longer and be able to end your workday at the time you have. 

Define a schedule and mark both work and break hours. You are not in the office for 8 hours straight in front of a computer, and you shouldn’t be at home either: take your breaks, have a coffee, do four stretches, etc. 

Do not eat with the laptop next to you, do not keep checking emails at 8:00 p.m., and when you are working, try to focus to the maximum. This way, you can dedicate the time required to work without exceeding yourself and also not waste time with household chores when you should be working. Make your schedule and stick to it.

 Set Rules at Home

Working from home becomes more challenging as compared to the office. There are a lot of distractions, interruptions, Home laziness, etc. which hinders you from delivering as much you used to at the office. When you try to focus on your work, your children will interrupt you, the loud sound of television will distract you, and the irritating uninvited guests. To avoid such a situation, you must Set strict Home rules and ask your family members to follow and co-operate with you during working hours. Even you are also abiding by all the home rules which you have posted on your family members.

Schedule Breaks

Working from home will be quite tedious and frustrating at times because Home is a comfort zone where you used to relax after office, where you do other kinds of stuff other than office works. To overcome this boredom and frustration, you can schedule your breaks according to your convenience during work hours, i.e, tea time, lunchtime, etc. You may get urges to stroll for a moment or talk to someone on a phone call, which can only bring distraction and low productivity. By scheduling breaks, you can arrange all unproductive work at that time and maintain your workflow.

Dedicate a Space for Your Remote Office

It is true that when we work from home, we have more comfort and freedom to work wherever we want within the home facilities or as we wish, taking into account clothing and so on. 

But, we cannot forget that our objective is to be as productive as possible and to perform as well as when we are in the office. Thus, one of the essential things when telecommuting is having a stipulated place in the house for work. 

This will depend a lot on the type of house you have, but the fundamental thing is that you have your corner to carry out the work tasks. 

Find a table and especially a comfortable chair, since you will spend 8 hours a day sitting there. Do not worry if you do not have the typical office chair, with you put a cushion behind the kitchen chair and bring it well to the table where you have settled will be enough. 

Of course, make sure you have everything you need: a laptop and mouse, a monitor if necessary, your schedule and notebook to organize yourself, the typical container with various pens, and good light. This tries to always have it on that table where you go to work, and if you are going to use the table for more things like eating, every day, before starting, try to have all the material prepared to avoid distractions once you start working.

Get Fresh air

 For Proper functioning of mental health, you need to get out your house on after every completion of the task to breathe fresh air and get proper natural light. You don’t need to go in a crowd or a public place; just you have to follow appropriate social distancing rules and stroll around nearby buildings or parks.

Strengthen Communication With Your Team

Without a doubt, one of the most accessible modes of communication is an email, and it can turn into a mode of communication between your colleagues and team members. However, that won’t generally work. It is necessary that while working remotely, you should have other methods of communication as well. Communication from time to time or excessively is way better than improper or incomplete communication. You can connect and communicate as much as you can through SMS, emails, or better conference calls in doubt.  With the help of various Video calling platforms available like zoom or google hangout, which has screen sharing features that can help you in time of any technical doubt for better assistance and support. You can also use social media channels to communicate and consider it as your backup plan in case of an emergency.

Don’t Procrastinate

With Remote working or work from home, it is more common to leave tasks that could or should be done today, for tomorrow because, as we know, since we do not have the supervision of a superior 8 hours a day, we can organize our time differently and cause chores to be delayed.

So that this does not happen, take into account the advice that we have given you previously and set yourself goals. There is no point in taking an hour break because you want to disconnect and watch Netflix, in the middle of your workday, with the excuse that “you will do it tomorrow.” Don’t fall for that mistake. We are all adults enough not to overlook our responsibilities and abide by all our tasks when appropriate. 

Think that if you do it, the task that you have not done in that hour of Netflix that you have thrown yourself, you are going to have to do it tomorrow, quickly and running and without the same attention or dedication. 

Avoid Working on Weekends

Let’s be realistic. Being confined in a state of alarm, we do not care if it is Monday, Friday, or Sunday, or if it is sunny or it rains. And perhaps, there is a task that you have pending that you want to solve on Saturday or Sunday to be able to deliver it on Monday, as you should. 

One of our tips is not to work on weekends or at least avoid it. Everything will depend on what position your company is in or what role you play in it. Still, it is better to forget that Netflix hour in the middle of your workday, during the week, or that half-hour watching stories or memes of the Coronavirus, a Monday morning, and do your homework to be free on weekends, not to do the chore on Saturdays because you have not organized your days of the week as you should. 

Still, as in everything, there are cases and cases. And perhaps, for H or B, you better do that pending task on Saturday because your children are entertained watching their favorite series and not on Monday at 3 pm when you are pending to do the food or everything else. 

Avoid Stress

If you get stressed at work, I don’t want to imagine you isolated, with the kids running around the house and you trying not to stress. But seriously, don’t despair. You won’t gain anything by getting frustrated.

I assure you that by following the advice we have given you, you will be able to put stress aside and make work from home one of your best experiences on confinement days. 

Play relaxing music or find a playlist that will cheer you up when you need to get up. Think about the positive side, nobody will listen to you here, and you will not have to be aware of whether the music of which you are a super fan resounds beyond the earpiece, but that makes you a little embarrassed to be heard. And if you dare, try meditation! They say it works, and now we have time for everything.

Conclusion

If you are lucky enough to be able to work from home, take the positive side of the experience, and take advantage of the occasion. 

We know that this is going to taste and that some will love not having to get up at 6 in the morning to catch the train and be able to work from the tranquility of their home, but others, among naughty dogs and children, will count the hours to return to the office. 

But come on, deep down you know that work from home has more advantages than inconveniences, and with employee engagement ideas for the remote working team can help to boost up the morale and productivity during work from home. So you don’t play around and take advantage of the moment, because you know that later when you ask the boss when everything has happened, maybe he won’t give it to you and you will be dying to work from home. 

DepositPhotos – working from home

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source https://tweakyourbiz.com/management/remote-working/productivity-tips

Using Drools as an Integrated Business Rules Management System Solution

Introduction

A few claim that the reason software applications exist today is due to the rules of business. And, as business applications become more robust and sophisticated, consideration of how the program handles them is becoming more critical. Moreover, it usually translates into higher production costs, longer cycles, and more updates and deployments as market regulations become more complex. And, if the business rules of your system are built into the code, developers are required because they are the only ones that should be upgrading software.

Entering Drools

Drools is an integrated Business Logic Platform (BLiP)written in Java. It is an open-source project with support from JBoss and Red Hat, Inc. It extends and implements an algorithm corresponding to the Rete Pattern.

Drools is a set of tools that allow us to isolate the logic and data contained inside business processes and to explain why. Logic and Data are the two essential keywords we need to remember.

Drools is divided into two principal parts: Authoring and Runtime.

Authoring − Authoring method consists of developing Rules files (.DRL files). 

Runtime − Consists of building working memory and controlling activation.

Rule Engine

Drools is a Rule Engine that uses the rule-based approach to implement and the expert system. Expert Systems are information-based systems that use the representation of expertise to translate knowledge gained into a knowledge base that can be used for reasoning.

A Production Rule System is Turing complete with an emphasis on the representation of information to first-order logic in a descriptive, non-ambiguous, and declarative way.

The production rule system is an inference engine that can scale to a high number of rules and facts. The Inference Engine compares facts and data against Production Rules, also known as Productions or just Rules, to draw assumptions leading to practice.

A Production Rule is a two-part structure that uses the logic of the first order to reason on the representation of facts. A business rule engine is a software program that implements one or more business rules in an environment in which development runs.

Advantages of the Rule Engine

The following are the list of advantages of the rule engine. They are:

• Rules are written in less abstract language; a set of rules can be interpreted and reviewed easily by market analysts.
• Logic and data separation represents data resides in domain objects, and logic resides in rules, depending on the project structure.
• You can achieve more speed and scalability for your applications in drools with the advent of the rete algorithm.
• The knowledgebase is centralized to establish the truth of the business policies.
• It comes with many tools for easy use such as eclipse, tools for auditing, validation and debugging etc.

Tools Set to Drools 

Below are five device forms that are included in the Drools suite: 

1. Guvnor Drools: This is a single server for the KnowledgeBase Drools. 
2. Drools Flow: Offers business processes and workflows. 
3. Fusion drools: Tool used for dynamic analysis of events 
4. Expert Drools or Rules Engine: A useful tool for reasoning. 
5. Drools Planner: Automated planning offers that involve NP-hard planning problems.

Drools Essential Components

Here, words used in Drools are;

• Facts-Facts are the data that serves as the input for rules. 
• Working Memory-Storing with Data, where they are used to suit patterns. It can be changed, added, and removed.
• Knowledge Session-This part contains all the tools required for the rule of shooting. Both details are introduced into the single session here, and the relevant guidelines are then shot out. 
• Information Base-This represents knowledge in the environment of the Drools. 

Why Drools Are Considered

Drools are preferred because of the following reasons:

• Drools is open source.
• It provides forward and backward chaining of rules execution.
• It provides template base rule definitions.
• It is implemented using JSR-94.
• It has a decision table facility.
• Its rules are human-readable
• It is integrated with spring.

Rules Writing in Drools

The drools rules are described into three parts: namely package, import statement and rule definition, etc.

• Package: Here, every rule starts with a package name. The rule names within that package should be relevant and unique too. Moreover, packages in rules are similar to that of the java packages.
• Import statement: Whatever things you need to apply to the rules, you need to import them.
• Rule definition: Rule definition consists of rule name, condition, and consequences. The drools keywords are run, when, then, and end. Here when part is the condition, and then part is the consequence of it.

Sample Syntax Example for Rules Writing:

Package packagename

Import package name.filename;

rule “example”

when

  Declaration of the variables

then

   System.out.println();—used to print the output

end

Why Are Drools Rules Dynamic?

The solution governing the Drools rules is complex. While the engine is still filled with data, meaning rules can be added and removed at run time.

Rules can be generated on the fly and picked up by the application without needing a release and deployment. It can accelerate testing as business analysts can adjust the rules and re-execute tests without the development and downtime necessary.

Definitions of Rules are versatile. Attributes to be set include: 

• Priority-The rule’s importance of “patience.” 
• Period-How long does the rule last. 
• Activated-The rule’s activated condition. 
• Timers and Calendars-Timers with dates of start and end. 
• Activation Groups – Grouping such that, within the same group, only one rule can fire and cancel any current activation of other rules.

Why Use the Drools Rule Engine?

The following are the reasons to use it:

• To developers and industry analysts, the guidelines are easy to understand. 
• Laws are easy to follow. 
• Rule Engine uses a Rete algorithm that states that the engine ‘s output never depends on how many rules. 
• Rules may be updated and applied without the program being taken down.
• Outsources the logic of business from a comparatively static codebase. 
• Rules are developed in less complicated formats, so a group of rules can be read and checked easily by the business analyst. 
• Rules allow you to create an information warehouse that can be implemented in type. 
• Tools such as Eclipse help you navigate the rules, get an instant response, authentication, and support for content.

How business rules engine lowers cost?

If business processes are hard-coded in the program, developers need to make adjustments and then juggle the management, scheduling, and deployments of updates. However, if the creation of business rules does not work, the production and implementation process must be replicated all over again.

When a solution for the Drools decision table is applied correctly, the additional development, release, and delivery process will theoretically be bypassed. As the rules are written in a spreadsheet format, without the extra overhead, a business analyst who is familiar with spreadsheet software and features can design, implement, and test.

That supports an optimal separation of concerns. Decision tables by spreadsheets promote cooperation between experts in development and subject matter, as well as clarifying the market rules for business analysts.

Conclusion

For every business to operate in excellence, needs to follow proper rules to increase their output globally. In many organizations, even talented experts are facing several issues in implementing these rules for effectual business logic. However, a certified person can deliver most out of their skills. So wants to introduce a new business logic for the businesses, then drools certification course is must and should. It tells your true potential to deal with the facts. 

DepositPhotos – business management

The post Using Drools as an Integrated Business Rules Management System Solution appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/management/business-resources/drools-brms-solutions

Ultimate List of Social Media Strategies for Promoting Your Small Business

Today’s customers are the most likely to research and look up products and services online before they make a purchase. Social media is an integral part of their online research. For this reason, implementing social media in your marketing strategy is vitally important. Integrating social media can have many benefits for your business in that it reinforces your brand’s personality and encourages customer loyalty. Social media provides you with more channels in which to interact and share content with your customers. With that being said, we’ve compiled a list of the top social media marketing strategies that you can apply to help promote your small business.    

Efficient Content Marketing

The magic of content marketing is its power to build a real connection with your customer base. The most crucial aspect of content marketing isn’t your brand, your products, or your services. It’s your audience. Everything you share with your audience has to be tailored to their taste. Also, the content has to be of high quality. This means that when sharing a video, post, or photo, your customer takes something of value from that experience. A way of ensuring this happens is by developing content that tells a story rather than content that is very obviously trying to promote or sell a product or service. One way to do this is by creating educational content. For example, if your business involves selling inventory management software to small businesses, you may want to create a video or write an article on how to manage a wholesale business via a B2B e-commerce platform. 

Diverse Content

The diversity of your content has become as important as developing the content itself. Since most businesses understand the importance of content and social media marketing, finding exciting and inventive ways of standing out from the crowd is increasingly essential. Thankfully, different social media platforms are conducive to various forms of content. For example, Instagram is primarily used for photos and videos, while Twitter also has short-form written posts. Therefore, having active accounts on a variety of platforms automatically means that you will be creating diverse content. It’s important to consider who your target audience is when deciding on the forms of content that will appeal to them. For example, a younger demographic may enjoy pictures and videos more than text. Keeping this in mind will ensure that the kind of content you’re creating is also tailored to your audience.

Personalized Experience 

User-Generated Content, or UGC, is a cost-effective form of promotion. It refers to any content including pictures, videos, testimonials, tweets, blog posts, etc. that have been created displayed by an unpaid contributor. Typically, an unpaid contributor is a fan who enjoys your product or service so much that they choose to share their positive experience via social media. If you can manage to create a campaign by incentivizing your customers to share their experience with their friends and followers, it comes across as a much more genuine and organic form of promotion. Potential customers hear positive unpaid reviews from customers just like them. They are more likely to trust your product or service.

Create a Community

When you’re creating your diverse content, make sure that you are allowing a two-way path of communication between yourself and the customer, rather than talking at them. Your customers has to feel like their voices are being heard and that their opinions are valuable. You can do this by encouraging an open path of communication. In this way, you are fostering a community environment rather than strictly a business/customer relationship. Some ways you can do this is by asking them questions, asking their opinions on different matters, sharing newsworthy info, and even linking and sharing their posts occasionally. 

Humanize Your Brand

People respond to people really well. By humanizing your brand on social media, you can make your social media marketing that much more effective and productive. Interacts with your followers or subscribers as much as possible, respond to comments, share their stories on your platform, use UGC, and so much more. 

Don’t forget to spotlight your team members and their stories, share their achievements, successes. Link every SMM effort back to your unique brand story.

Choose the Right Platform

Choosing the right social media platform to engage your customers is also important. Many companies go for the obvious—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. However, different social platforms may lend themselves to your business even more. Examples of other platforms include Snapchat and Pinterest. Another platform you shouldn’t overlook is customer review sites. They provide a webpage to advertise your product or service offerings while also containing a social component where users can add reviews and share their experience doing business with you. This platform also allows you to communicate with customers by replying to their reviews. You can thank them for leaving positive reviews, and tackle a problem head-on with customers who didn’t have a great experience. 

Cross-Channel Campaigns

In the digital age, people are online more than ever before and are constantly switching devices while expecting the most personalized experience. This can provide a challenge to companies. Namely, how can companies create a link between all the channels and ensure that the customer’s experience is seamless? Cross-channel advertising refers to the process of distributing paid messages to prospective customers across different marketing channels. For social media, that means not only advertising to customers on various social platforms, but also making sure that the message and campaign remain consistent regardless of the medium and device in which it’s being displayed on. This uniformity allows prospects to remember and connect with your message.

Go Live

Broadcasting live video has become a powerful tool for brands, businesses, and influencers for several reasons. For one, it fosters a more intimate connection between the viewer and the company. There is a degree of closeness that forms when a customer can watch you in real-time. It also can establish trust because live streaming demonstrates a level of transparency. It tells your customers and prospects that you conduct your business in a manner that you’re proud to showcase. Live video also creates personal and authentic interactions because it allows people to share their ideas and opinions with you immediately and very directly.

DepositPhotos – social media

The post Ultimate List of Social Media Strategies for Promoting Your Small Business appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/marketing/social-media/small-business-promotion-strategies

How to Choose the Best Shipping Software for Your Business

You can have the best-sophisticated system in the world to set up to market your product. Which in return, also generates sales leads, encourages the customers, and thereafter closes the sale.

But at the end of the day, you will be having a big bundle of orders to label and ship.

The eCommerce software solution should not at all end when once the transaction gets finalized. With this, you also need a shipping software that will directly lead you to the labeling process of orders. Moreover, gets the order out of the door with the features that will support eCommerce business and an affordable price point.

The major point of difference of eCommerce industries from that of the technology industry is it’s in physical fulfillment. Thus, once you occupy the cash, further you have to fulfill your shipping and delivery promises made prior.

The whole post-purchase experience, including the way of shipping, is considered as an extension of your brand. Placing the customers at the top in the post-purchase process, with giving competition to the likes of Walmart and Amazon is not an easy task to do.

What can a non-fortune 500 retailer can do to keep up?

It implements different shipping software that totally supports your business to meet your potential shoppers’ shipping and essential fulfillment needs. And all this, without making a hit to your profit margin.

Thus this shipping software and technology companies are performing their part to corporate mid-market and retailing in small businesses around the globe compete in a more effective way with the various shipping standards and expectations targeted by retail giants such as Amazon and Walmart. 

What Are Shipping Standards and Customer Expectations

Before going deep into customer retention and shipping software, let’s have a look at the recent customer expectations and shipping expectations landscape to get where do you stand exact! Thus, the following are the key data points to go through: 

60% of the customers want to buy with free shipping.

The statistics from 2018, tells us that free shipping is not just a playing tool or marketing ploy for gaining customer trust. Free shipping is a kind of truth in expectation among customers. And, if you are not practicing it, your competitors likely are doing the same to stand in the market. 

• 54% of the potential consumers will make their mindset to cancel an order if shipping costs are too high for them, which will directly contribute to your abandoned cart rate. Just imagine being *this* close till closing the deal, and in this way, you will able to boost up your shipping cost.
• With this, 52% of shoppers will prefer to buy more if they capture an order amount pertains to receive free shipping. Therefore, you should be creative with your promotional techniques, and use the effective tool of “free shipping” to enhance your average order value. Thus in this way, it makes truly a  logical sense for your online business to provide the free shipping, without consuming as much of a hit to your respective profit margin.

It is stated by 78% of consumers that a brisk delivery method is important

It is not only what your shoppers expect at increasingly cheaper shipping options, but with this the customers also need those options to be the fastest one. Different customers are now needing their products to get delivered in less than a week.

75% of consumers don’t pay more than $10 for shipping

On behalf of the business you want to charge for shipping, you have to just understand that many of the shoppers will not spend more than $10 as the shipping costs and more than half of those shoppers won’t be paying more than $5.

Best Shipping Software Available Now

Shipping Easy

ShippingEasy is totally up to its name as it provides a user-friendly experience. It is a great solution for shipping based on the web which is perfect for small to medium-sized businesses.

It is totally free if you ship 50 or fewer orders per month, with the price tiers ranging from $29 per month for the optimization of 500 monthly orders; to $149 for the infinite enterprise plan. 

Automation in labeling and tracking is involved, and they provide comprehensive onboarding and support.

ShipperHQ

If you have specific requirements involved in shipping the products with the need to have the whole of control of the shipping options which are provided to shoppers.

There exist a solid reason why ShipperHQ has been ranked as the world’s no.1 storefront shipping management system. In the ShipperHQ, the rating of in-cart customizations seems to be limitless.

If you are having a product that can’t be shipped to specific areas due to some of the restrictions, which ShipperHQ has covered.

But, if you are in the thought to offer free shipping but have to limit the products which are qualified, ShipperHQ can easily handle that.

Shopify Shipping 

If you are already using Shopify for your particular shopping cart and point-of-sale needs, you may be feel tempted to give Shopify Shipping a try. Overall, it is already involved in the subscription of your Shopify. 

This makes it a good deal for the various existing Shopify customers. As it is a shipping-only tool, it lacks advanced features is one of the major drawbacks. Shopify Shipping can shaft almost all the needs of smaller businesses in a fairly well manner.

Thus with this, they can easily get hooked up with good discounts from main carriers which also includes USPS, UPS, and DHL.

ShipBob

ShipBob is one of the leading modern Third Party Logistics i.e. 3PL kind of solution for the flourishing brands.

They can provide you incredibly fast shipping, which means 2 days or even fewer shipping tools to your clients across the various United States. ShipBob uses the dealing with the major complexities that go walk along with logics like managing the stock levels of your products over many fulfillment locations. 

In case personalization is a major element to your business then ShipBob has the involvement of partners that you can easily use to carry the custom packaging, which directly ensures your shoppers to have a social media photo-worthy one for the “unboxing experience”.

Webinterpret

When it comes to internalizing the things, WebInterpret is one of the effortless solutions to the alliance into your existing store and in a very fast manner makes it available to more than 60 countries.

If you are noticing heavy traffic from foreign countries but just not able to get the high sales volume you would the cross-in-border commerce, just use WebInterpret localization expertise.

WebInterpret includes the full localization service involving currency conversion, language translation, conversion of size, and the shipping.

When it comes to international order, you just have to ship it to the WebInterpret and after that, they will take care of getting the order over the border and to the potential shopper.

Freightview 

Freightview is basically created for small to medium-sized businesses that ships with the help of LTL freight. The software offers a centralized hub with the help of which to make the comparison and choose the negotiated rates, handles the pickup schedule, with the automation process you can print the bills of lading and shipping labels with tracking available.

Future of Shipping Software 

Choosing the right eCommerce platform can be very difficult as well as a challenging part of the eCommerce store. It is considered as an important thing for the repeated success of your business. Overall, your website can do an amazing job as nobody can for effective marketing, with the various effective campaigns, attractive images, high rates of conversion rates, and good customer experience. But, overall if the product is not get delivered in a timely and effective manner with the perfect condition then the whole of the efforts goes drained off.

Various Shipping software helps the businesses to get coordinated and streamline their outgoing shipments to the potential customers with characteristics like comparative carrier pricing on the shipments, editing in bulk, and printing of essential shipment information with the custom tracking and confirmation notifications.

DepositPhotos – shipping packages

The post How to Choose the Best Shipping Software for Your Business appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/business-apps/best-shipping-software

Most Common VoIP Phone Issues for UK Businesses

Switching to VoIP can be an easier decision for any business. After all, who does not need to have an effective and efficient system at a low cost? Even though deploying VoIP phone system doesn’t take a lot of time, but you still can run into issues. Even if the initial set up if trouble-free, you can bet that some problems are bound to crop up later.

Therefore, it can always be useful to monitor the VoIP system. If you know how to identify and fix basic issues, you can prevent such problems from becoming massive headaches down the line. A VoIP service provider is responsible for providing services. However, you must know how you can troubleshoot less common problems on your network.

Implement VoIP Phone Troubleshooting Checklists

Despite the real issue, your business must have a procedure to bug reports. You have to document the steps required to address different aspects. For example, who should users contact if the VoIP phones aren’t working? What is the growth process if problems can’t be fixed at a specific level? When must you approach the provider?

A checklist is a common means to implement VoIP troubleshooting procedures. You have to ensure that there shouldn’t be any confusion about the next step. Check if your VoIP provider has any resources on VoIP phone issues. Now we are going to discuss some of the most common VoIP service issues.

The Most Common VoIP Issues

While VoIP phone technology has indeed come a long way since its launch, a lot of businesses still struggle to fix common VoIP issues. You need to consider the issue of audio quality. The majority of reputable VoIP providers Uk guarantee HD audio on par with traditional landline systems. Yet businesses struggle to get high-quality calls. You might be surprised to know that fixing majority VoIP phone issues just take a few basic steps.

A few of the most common VoIP phone issues fall into one of the following categories:

• Hardware and cables
• Internet and network connectivity
• Audio quality

Hardware and Cables

This may appear to be a fundamental step, but one of the first things you need to check is the hardware. If you start facing issues suddenly with your IP business phones, then make sure that all the cables are correctly connected. Frayed wires or loose connections can cause problems. However, simultaneously you need to go through every network equipment such as a router, models, switches, and SBCs. You have to ensure whether they are configured and working correctly. You can at least reset network hardware once to ensure it is not the source of the issue. Every equipment and hardware must have the latest patches as well. At times an issue that you face can easily be solved by applying the latest firmware update from the provider.

• Computers and Smartphones

The majority of businesses utilize a combination of laptops, computers, and smartphones for phone calls. You have to ensure that all these devices are functioning correctly. If only a handful of users face issues, it might come down to a particular device that they use.

• Softphone Apps

VoIP service providers have softphone apps for users to make phone calls from their computers. You can also download VoIP phone apps for the majority of operating systems out there. Just ensure that you get the latest version of the app that you use. The old version is most probably to have security issues, bugs, and other issues.

Internet and Network Connectivity

Keep in mind that all VoIP telephone services depend on the internet to function properly. This means that the connection between your business and the ISP plays an essential role. In case the connection goes down, or if your ISP faces technical issues, then your phone will suffer as well. The majority of businesses find that having a second broadband connection as a backup is a good policy.

• Power

It is easy to forget that the VoIP hardware requires power too. Unlike traditional phone landlines, VoIP services can’t draw power from the wall outlet. Hence, in case of a power outage, your phones will stop working as well. Again, connecting your VoIP phone to a backup energy source is a good policy.

• Quality of Services (QoS)

QoS is one way to prioritize audio phone calls on your network. Whenever you set up QoS properly, the digital audio packets are tagged automatically. If a digital audio packet is struggling with other types of data, the router will allow the audio call through. This is exceptionally significant for real-time communication like voice and video calls.

• Bandwidth

What will happen if your network doesn’t have enough bandwidth for all the data traffic? A few businesses make the mistake of not analyzing their network traffic before switching to hosted PBX phone services. In case your network already struggles with an existing, then it won’t cope with audio phone calls as well. It might well be time to upgrade to a better connection or to switch to a different channel altogether (fiber instead of DSL etc.)

Audio Quality

Even though VoIP phone technology is quite mature, a lot of businesses continue to struggle with the audio quality. What does poor quality of audio look like? The symptoms generally take one or more of the following forms:

• Sound distortion like strange noises
• Missing words and sounds
• Talking over each other since no one knows when the other person starts or stops talking
• The delay between one user speaking and the other hearing them

Imagine if your staff is talking to your customers while struggling with these problems. How can you expect your employees to be productive if their tools do not work properly? Things such as latency, packet loss, and jitter can compromise the audio quality significantly. Therefore, it is significant to set up QoS on all your VoIP services hardware.

If packet loss and latency are within acceptable limits, and you still experience quality problems, it might be time to check with your provider. You need to find out the codecs that they utilize for the VoIP services. Several codecs compromise quality for speed and vice versa. You have to decide which is more significant for your business’s requirements.

Remember, VoIP phone troubleshooting can take some work and time. However, if you catch it early enough, then you will be good to go. If you are looking into VoIP services, then ensure to check out Modern Voice Over IP System as they are one of the Best VoIP providers for business.

DepositPhotos – VoIP

The post Most Common VoIP Phone Issues for UK Businesses appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/global/strategy/common-voip-issues

5 Questions to Ask Before Developing an App for Your Business

If you’re a small business, startup, or entrepreneur, the prestige of having an app to legitimize your business further can be an appealing concept. For example, having a mobile app can help your business build brand loyalty, improve the experience for your customers through ease of purchasing or push notifications, and potentially expand your reach to a new audience.

However, creating an app is a process that requires careful planning, intelligent customer discovery, and thoughtful execution. Is your business app-ready? Here are five questions (and some sub-questions) you should ask yourself and your team before committing to app development:

1. Why Do I Think I Need an App for My Business?

The most important question you can ask yourself is why your business should develop an app in the first place. While it’s true that there’s a certain prestige that comes with having your own mobile app, that doesn’t always translate to profitability or even increased engagement.

Ask yourself these sub-questions to better determine why your business needs an app specifically:

• In what ways will a mobile app help our business that a web app can’t?
• What evidence do we have that customers will use our app?
• Do our main competitors have apps, and if so are their reviews positive or negative?
• Will a mobile app fit in with our current product line?

2. What Is the Goal?

To help guide your thought process as to why you think your business needs an app, ask yourself: what is the primary goal of this application?

Once development gets underway, and you begin exploring possible features, it’s common for people involved in the project to come up with ideas that, while exciting, have the potential to take the app concept in many different directions. Stating a clear goal at the outset of the project will help keep your team members focused–all working cohesively towards a common objective.

Here are a few key reasons you might want to create an app for your business in the first place:

• Current customers are asking for an app.
• You want a compelling mobile platform where people login and socialize with one another in real-time
• You want to send push notifications to increase engagement.
• You want to streamline your sales process (especially true for E-Commerce/M-Commerce)
• You want to sell an application easily on the App Store or Google Play.

For a more detailed list of benefits, check out this related post 6 Biggest Benefits of Developing a Mobile App for Your Business.

3. What Is My Revenue Model?

Is the goal of your mobile app to make money? If your app just needs to reproduce an already existing process on the web, then you probably already know the answer to this question.

If you’re unfamiliar with the monetization methods of app development, here’s a breakdown of the most common strategies:

Premium (Pay to Download)

The premium model is best for businesses that already have a broad audience or following on social media, and wish to cash in quickly with a straightforward payment model. This is also the easiest (and therefore cheapest) monetization method to implement.

Freemium With In-App Purchases (IAP)

The freemium model is the most popular monetization method for games and social apps. People can download the app for free and then have the option to buy additional features as an In-App Purchase.

M-Commerce

M-commerce (mobile commerce) is the most effective monetization method for online stores that sell material goods.

Subscription Model

The subscription model is attractive from the standpoint of being able to generate recurring revenue. However, this strategy can expensive as the subscription capability will need to be coded separately for each platform (iOS, Android, and Web).

Advertising

The advertising model is easy and cost-effective to implement but requires tens of thousands of impressions to generate substantial revenue.

Each of these monetization methods has pros and cons, and all but the M-Commerce model are subject to the 30% fee per transaction charged by Apple and Google. For more details on each of these models, check out this Essential Guide to App Development.

4. Are There Integrations I Need to Consider?

The question of integration is twofold: Do you currently have a database or other technologies in place that you’ll need to integrate with the mobile app? OR are you aware of existing technologies that you want to leverage to simplify or expedite the app development process?

In many cases, leveraging existing technologies through an API can be helpful for users. Integration can also potentially save you money compared to rolling out your solution. For instance, a small business m-commerce app might benefit from integrating a system like GiftUp for distributing and processing virtual gift cards, rather than rolling out their own custom solution.

Are you interested in learning more about mobile app integrations? Check out the article Digital Fractal article What is Mobile App Integration?

5. What’s My Ideal Budget and Timeline?

Can your business afford app development? What is your ideal timeline and budget for your project? The answers to these questions will vary widely depending on your feature set, budget, and the development team you work with.

When it comes to your development timeline, make sure to set reasonable expectations for yourself as well as the development team. Keep in mind that throughout the development process you’ll do a round of internal testing (sometimes referred to as Alpha testing), internal Beta testing with a slightly larger group, and external (or public) Beta testing to a larger group of potential customers before release.

After each of these testing stages, you may determine that features or design needs to be tweaked based on user responses. Collecting feedback, planning, and pushing changes during the development phase can cause delays to the project launch, so planning ample time to dedicate to your app project is a necessity.

Generally speaking, app projects can range anywhere from one to three months, three to six months, or six months to one year depending on complexity, planning, and testing. The cost of apps developed in the U.S. can range anywhere from $5K to $100K+ depending on the feature set, infrastructure, screen views, or other factors.

Conclusion

With the right product or service, creating an app for your business can be a rewarding and profitable investment. However, just having an app for app’s sake isn’t a practical or financially sound approach.

Ask your customers or clients if they would use your mobile app and gauge their responses. Sometimes their immediate honest opinions will even provide you with exactly what they want your app to do, rather than you have to explain what you think they should want it to do. This is called the customer discovery phase, and it’s crucial to determine whether or not you have the right app idea in mind!

Look at your top competitors. Do they have a mobile app, and if so what do the user reviews look like? They’ve already spent a lot of time and money going through the app development process, so you can learn a lot from their mistakes and successes to expedite your app discovery process.

Need to develop and launch your app quickly? Check out the Forbes article Six Ways to Speed Up Your App Development Timeline.

Asking yourself the questions raised in this article will help you evaluate whether or not you should develop an app for your business. For best results, stay focused on the main goal monetization strategies.

DepositPhotos – mobile apps

The post 5 Questions to Ask Before Developing an App for Your Business appeared first on Tweak Your Biz.

source https://tweakyourbiz.com/business/business-apps/development-questions