Mobile phones are increasingly being used in our daily lives to do almost everything form browsing the web, staying in touch via social media, taking selfies etc.
Smartphone’s offer a multitude of ways to communicate with friends & loved ones. capturing special moments and shop for products and services, whilst on the move.
Source: https://www.vouchercloud.com/resources/portrait-mobile-consumer
Fuel your Ecommerce strategy by staying up to date with the major industry trends!
We have compiled a list of some major game changing trends you can take advantage of this year:
Use Big Data and Predictive Analysis to gather even more information about your buyer personas and use the perks of advanced personalization technologies to gain competitive advantage.
You have probably heard Mobile is getting even bigger with the customers this year, so you might want to consider investing more in your Mobile Marketing Campaigns in 2016 as the industry’s mobile payment methods will diversify, mobile revenues will peak and mobile traffic will soon push past the 50% mark.
If you are a retailer, we recommend you to start blending Digital Tech, from iPads to Beacons, in your brick and mortar store to win your customers’ hearts, minds and wallets.
Investments in Customer Experience is predicted to be the No.1 priority for the major Ecommerce players, so we recommend you to consider hiring more UX specialists and invest in training your Customer Support team to offer the best customer care on your specific market.
Looking at the technological aspects of the Ecommerce business, 2016 will bring an increased adoption of one-stop shop technology partners – online shopping platforms that support all touch points: digital, traditional retail, enterprise technology.
We have gathered all the Top Ecommerce Trends to watch in 2016 in one Infographic that we hope will help you employ the best strategies and tactics to achieve your business goals this year.
Online store owners should be prepared for another record Cyber Monday as the ecommerce shopping event continues to become increasingly popular in the UK, according to online printer and office supplier TonerGiant.co.uk .
Spikes in traffic on the 1st December will give brands the chance to sell to a new audience hungry for an offer. From ensuring servers can cope with this excess demand to creating strategic promotions, site owners should prepare now in order to capitalise on this opportunity.
Things to consider:
In 2013, consumers set a record of 115 million visits to retail websites on Cyber Monday, beating the record number of visits in a single day which was set on Boxing Day 2012. (1)
UK shoppers also spent 15.3 million hours shopping online, spending on average 8 minutes per site visit. (1)
Last year saw total UK sales on Cyber Monday reach £600 million, almost double the figure from three years ago, as more British shoppers and retailers continue to adopt the day that’s been a fixture on the American shopping calendar since 2006. (2)
Gary Flynn, Managing Director of TonerGiant.co.uk, has also stressed the importance of not assuming that Cyber Monday applies only to certain product sectors and niches.
“These figures highlight just how big a day Cyber Monday has become in the online business calendar in this country. But it’s not just your traditional high street brands that benefit from this surge in shopping.
“For example at TonerGiant.co.uk we primarily sell office and printer supplies to businesses; not your typical festive season purchase. Yet even we noticed increased demand on Cyber Monday. Indeed last year we saw a 15.9% increase in traffic and a 33.2% increase in transactions on Cyber Monday compared to the Monday the previous week.
“It goes to show that no matter how big a business you are, what you sell and what your customer base is you can capitalise on the heightened popularity of Cyber Monday.”
TonerGiant.co.uk has created an infographic that details some of the key statistics from Cyber Monday 2013, as well as detailing a list of steps that site owners can take to ensure they’re suitably prepared for this year’s event. For more information visit http://www.tonergiant.co.uk/blog/2014/11/cybermonday/.
Cyber Monday Info Graphic
Notes for editors:
About TonerGiant.co.uk
Launched in 2006, TonerGiant.co.uk is one of the UK’s largest online suppliers of printers, printer consumables and office stationery. It’s a trading brand of NetGiant Ltd, founded by Gary & Joanne Flynn in 2003. The company is based in Atherton, Greater Manchester. An asset library for the TonerGiant brand can be found at http://www.tonergiant.co.uk/blog/assets/.
Sources
We live in a vain world where numbers matter and are a symbol of status. Whether it is how many zeros are in your bank account; offering you a sense of security to how, many people are friends with you on your Facebook, the number of likes you have on your Like page, or the number of followers you have on Twitter.
In the late 1990’s business made a bee-line to get their businesses online because that was the craze at the time. The current day craze is Social Media. Of the many board rooms I have been in, up and down the country. the talk is, “we need to be on Facebook, our competitors are already using Facebook” or “our competitors have more twitter followers than us, we need more followers, and we need them fast”.
Businesses know that Consumers make a snap shot decision about their business based on how many followers or likes they have. Ultimately this leads to whether the Consumer decides to make a purchase. There is pressure on businesses for this reason to have high number of likes and followers. Consumers use these figures as an indicator of popularity, good service & quality of product.
This gives rise to the wholesale purchase of likes and followers from shady websites to whom you pay a small fee to for followers. This works on a sliding scale, the more you pay ,the greater number of followers your money gets you. Although this method may get you the much desired numbers beware of these likes and followers, which are mainly all dummy accounts that do not interact with you. At the core of Social Media is interaction between your patrons. Dummy accounts are like people who do not hear or speak or spread the good word about your brand. Other than giving you a false image of popularity a purchased like or follower has no value whatsoever and is a cancer to social media.
Conversely a natural like or follower will be a real person and more inclined to interact and spread the word about your product or brand to others. Essentially this all boils down to the age old Quantity versus Quality argument.
So I put these two questions to you; would you rather have just a few hundred natural likes and followers who regularly interact with you, or thousands of purchased likes and followers who make you look popular but with little or no interaction?
Businesses should focus on getting natural likes and followers. They need to add a bit of personality in their statuses, do regular interesting status updates, interact with their audience, and finally exercise a bit of patience and the followers will slowly grow.
Print based media tends to be more costly than advertising through digital media offerings. Digital media may appear financially more viable at first but budgets can quickly get used up.
Argument for Print Based Media
Many printing houses offer very competitive prices for leaflets, and brochures. In my opinion print based media is an excellent way to get your message out locally. I say locally because with print based media you are responsible for its distribution,
An important fact that needs to be made is that many printing houses also offer 100% recycled paper so the argument that print based media is not green is highly questionable.
Argument for Digital Media
The ability to segment the market and to zero-in on your market is in my option the biggest advantage digital media has to offer. Once your marketing message is in digital form it is flexible enough to be displayed on various digital mediums, like TV, internet, mobile etc. The cost of reproducing your digital message costs noting, so the dissemination of information is a big plus.
Marketing Trends
Facebook
There are 500 million users on facebook, a social networking site which businesses are using to connect to their audience.
Twitter
Many businesses recognize that they must engage in dialogue with their market and communicate in real-time with business news and offers.
What are digital based media delivery mechanisms that directly rival print based media?
Conclusion
We are currently going through a recession and sp businesses and the Government are making cuts. Printed media is being affected by this too. Digital media is chosen over print based media because the perception is that it is financially more viable. In my experience I would say that you cannot and should not ever rule out print based media.
I do not work for Moonfruit nor am I affiliated in any way financial or non-financial with Moonfruit. I have a Client that uses Moonfruit for whom I am managing SEO. I have investigated into this matter fully and the following is my professional opinion and fact which I can prove with evidential findings:
It is true that content within a flash file cannot be indexed by Googlebot or Yahoo Slurp. However Moonfruit has overcome this issue in its entirety.
Although viewing a Moonfruit site via a desktop web browser displays a flash website; when a search engine looks at the site a HTML version is presented. Therefore there is no need to remove the flash.
If a user visiting a Moonfruit site does not have flash installed they are presented with the HTML version of the site and as such are mobile / iPhone friendly.
So, well done Moonfruit developers!
Many shared hosting websites and VDS virtually dedicated servers are single point hosting. Meaning your site exists on a single server unlike a CDN Content Distributed Network.
Most web servers in their SLA’s (Service Level Agreements) state a 99% uptime on your business website.
This equates to more than 3 days of it being down in a year. How much does your business stand to lose in three days?
There is a solution…drum roll…IsMySiteUp.org
IsMySiteUp.org is a cloud-based service that monitors your website 24/7and alerts you when your site is down via email and SMS texted message.
So you can react within minutes and get your site back online.