Running an online business shouldn’t cause bankruptcy – especially if it is a side business. The golden rule to starting an online business is “keep your day job until your profits outweigh your income.” Many people make the mistake of quitting their money making job in order to put all of their eggs into that dream business. While commitment is great, common sense is even better. Expenses such as storefront software and merchant service can be curved with open source software; however, many choose to use big name shopping carts (such as Shopify, Volusion, and BigCommerce) and well known merchant centers (such as 2checkout and Authorize) in order to have a worry-free, technical supported, customized store. It is a personal preference that is based on available time, technical know-how, and overall desire. The point is: you shouldn’t have to take out a small business loan to get started.

Once the business is up a going, how do people know it is even exists? That is where most begin to drain their finances – advertisement. Advertisement can make or break a business. A company can’t make money if it doesn’t have customers. Having a website online doesn’t mean it will be found – many wish it was that easy. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to get those initial doors open to even a few people. During this journey, a company’s best friends are Alexa and Google Analytics – these allow the owner to monitor what is working (ads vs. social media vs. organic searches), where people are coming from (referring sites), how long they are staying, and what is peaking their interest. This should be setup before the first dime is even spent – how else would you know that the $.95 cpc keyword actually worked and made a user stay on the site for 5 minutes versus 2 seconds because it wasn’t relevant to the site.

As soon as your free monitoring sites are setup, a new owner should begin to strategize their marketing approach from free to expensive. Begin brainstorming to determine the cheapest way to be found versus the most expensive way to obtain customers. The cheapest way to obtain a customer is through a number of free methods: Social media sites (Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, Polyvore, Twitter), Blog Sites (Hubpages, Tumblr, Posterous), Web Crawl Sites (Google Webmaster Tools, Bing, Submit Express, Ping My URL), Directories (Yahoo, Google Places, DMOZ, Yelp, Manta, Merchant Circle), and through literature by submitting articles, videos, and press releases to a number of sites.

Social Media is an online business’s greatest ally – not only does it provide free advertisement, it allows people to easily suggest a site to friends and family by the means of “likes”, “pins”, and “shares”. It puts those interested in your information to work for you. By using these means, visitors and followers can keep up with the latest additions, customer favorites, and sale items. They are also able to link their Facebook account and Twitter account to each of these in order to have one social media platform help another.

Web Crawl Sites allow a site to be surveyed and recorded in search engines. By making sure your site is SEO friendly, a web crawl of the site will make is searchable in some of the biggest search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Your site may appear on page 15 but at least it is appearing. Pay per click advertisements will help that but it can be an expensive helper. Directories are great for businesses that also have a physical location; however, they can still be used as a place for online businesses to obtain reviews. An additional source to consider is site dedicated to coupons. Sites such as RetailMeNot and GroupOn allow companies to offer discounts and specials to potential customers in order to drive traffic to their sites.

Press Releases, articles, and videos provide two forms of assistance, they deliver your intended message to customers, and they allow for backlinks to be created. Microsoft Office programs such as PowerPoint and Word can assist in creating these items for free. Backlinks will help with a page’s ranking which will assist in its position in search engines. An owner does not have to pay for the submission of press releases, articles, and videos – there are a number of sites that allow these items to be posted for free (such as EzineArticles, YouTube, and PRLog). If a person is interested in having their press releases and articles created as well as submitted, there are a number of services (such as PrWeb and Submit Your Article) that will be provide these services at a reasonable cost. There may be additional free methods that were not mentioned in this article but these are some of the most popular methods utilized by beginners.

Once the free methods are exhausted, the owner can review Google Analytics and Alexa to see how their hard work is paying off for them. If desired conversation rates are still minimal, paying options may be the next resort. A person can invest in pay per click ads or banners that will appear on several sites. Google Ads and Facebook provide pay per click services that allow the advertiser to set their own minimum bids and maximum budgets. The controversy behind ppc services is that the little man cannot compete with the big businesses uses the same services, so unless you have a niche to market, you may be paying $1.00 or more per click to obtain first through third page status. While that does not sound expensive, imagine at least 300 people visiting your site a day and no one purchases. That means a person just spent $300 in a day or $2100 in a week for advertisement that may or may not convert to a purchase. Other paid services include SEO optimization, website submission, backlink creations, marketing solutions, and etc.

Starting a business does not have to cost a fortune, it just requires commitment, dedication, and time. It may take six months to a year before you make your first sale. Spending your budget wisely will make the wait for that sale much less stressful then sinking thousands of dollars into a business only to make $50 in the end. The choice is yours.

You might not think your service can be sold online but here's 3 reasons why you might be wrong!

We've all seen how quickly e-commerce has taken over but many service-based small business owners and entrepreneurs are still gun shy about taking their business to the next level online.

Whether you sell a physical product or provide a service you could benefit from online sales.

In this post we'll look at the barriers presented by e-commerce for service providers and how many perceived obstacles are easily and affordably addressed by planning your approach like a pro (or with one) and using third party tools that make the whole process much easier.

Want to use sponsored posts on Instagram to grow your business? Try our post: 3 Beginner Steps to Building Your Business on Instagram Using Sponsored Posts.

Here's 3 common barriers business owners face when contemplating adding e-commerce to their business tools:

1. You Do not Sell a Product

Many businesses sell a service that can not draw a clear line between the user and the service.

Whether it's consulting, speaking, coaching, or any other industry where you are the product, the perception is that e-commerce is not something you should pursue.

In reality you do sell something, but you'll have to be an out-of-the-box thinker if you want to use e-commerce to build your business and your personal brand.

Are you a consultant? Consultants tend to adapt to the project and use their experience to guide business owners or other service providers through a lengthy process that evolves as the problems are discovered.

Sometimes there are consistent problems that are encountered and that's where you will see your opportunities.

If you see that company after company is hiring the same wall and you have helped previous clients get past it, then that solution can be a product you can sell.

Get creative! Many successful apps started because someone like you saw an opportunity no one else was addressing and pounced.

This can be said for other service industries as well. It's not the only approach though; If you're a coach or a speaker you've got potential for e-commerce as well.

Speakers and coaches undervalue themselves habitually. Your value is clear to many other businesses who have hired you so understand that your personal brand makes a big impact.

Take that knowledge and monetize!

Write a book, have shirts and mugs printed, or look at any other way to turn your knowledge into tangible items. These could be promotional items or anything else you think of.

You'll then not only be making money through sales but building your brand at the same time.

The big point here is not to limit yourself to your service and to recognize the potential of your knowledge. If you're having issues with this, we have a great mentoring program that can help you discover the hidden potential for e-commerce your brand offers.

2. You Do not Have the Time

This is the largest reason most people do not get into online sales.

The setup, the maintenance, and the temporary product shipping all look like major time commitments.

The new reality of e-commerce for small businesses is these things take very little time.

The setup can be quick or take a long time and the barrier will actually be you. Being overly picky about design elements or quirky functionality always hold businesses back.

Always put the emphasis on your business servicing the user.

Really all you need to do is make sure your website can take and process an order and the information and products are presented clearly with as few steps as possible for the user to complete their purchase.

Maintenance can vary and often it's a good idea to start things yourself and then hire a third party or freelancer to handle the maintenance.

Sometimes there is not much required other than logging in in a few times a week, though once you see it all working you'll probably be inclined to check all the time (in a good way).

Shipping is as easy as applying an app to print shipping labels and then having the item picked up for delivery or taking the items to the post office.

Look at your potential profit margins and see what selling could mean for your business. You might be surprised at how much revenue you're missing out on!

3. It's Too Expensive

This is a major obstacle for many service-based businesses because they've seen how expensive it used to be to get into e-commerce, but it's not anymore.

We looked at the barriers such as making your service viable and how time factor factor in. Both estimate loss of revenue for the existing business if you split your time and start up some e-commerce.

In reality it's unbelievably cheap to start selling online.

Whichever you choose Wocommerce https://woocommerce.com/ for your WordPress website, open a Shopify https://www.shopify.ca/ store, or opt for BigCommerce https://www.bigcommerce.ca/ you will not have to break the bank to get up and running.

With Wocommerce the expense is whatever your professional web developer costs. This system works with WordPress so if you're already up and running with WordPress then you're cost will either be your time in trying to set it up yourself or the cost of getting it done professionally.

Shopify and Bigcommerce both make it much easier but they're also either need to be installed as a subdomain of your existing website or you'll be setting up a whole new one.

These two have near identical pricing starting at $ 30 per month and this includes your hosting. They take care of everything such credit card processing and there is no shortage of apps to handle functionality not native to their platforms.

Taking this approach will be time consuming though.

If you hire a professional developer for any of these systems, make sure they really know the platforms beforehand because they differ very right down to the programming languages ​​they're built with.

Of course, there are plenty of other options to consider such as 1ShoppingCart or even Infusionsoft and Magento, which are considered to be higher-end options for large-scaled shops.

Ultimately, the short answer to the question is: no, it's not too expensive. This is because the price range starts with FREE.

The real cost is your time and the only risk is wasting it.

If you do elect to explore e-commerce as an option, put a lot of time into the planning. Not just one day of grinding out ideas but weeks of spit balling and brain storming.

Look around at what others in your industry have done and even more importantly what they've not done and plan everything out properly.

Hiring a professional business mentor to guide you can be the best decision you ever made. You'll be walking past the typical hiccups and hurdles and on your way to launching your e-commerce project much faster and with much less effort.

More and more service-based businesses are seeing the potential of e-commerce so the quicker you jump into the ring the better. For many, the e-commerce even takes over as the primary revenue driver.

Amazon.com is the largest online marketplace, and the platform keeps growing. It offers amazing possibilities for online retail businesses to market products to countless consumers. If you are selling on Amazon.com, you are definitely going the best way. But if you are only offering on Amazon, you may be losing out on more product sales. It might appear like a challenging task to broaden to more systems, but since you are already selling on Amazon.com, it will be easy to use other platforms to boost your sales like the Amazon FBA platform.

Amazon.com provides a Multiple Channel Fulfillment (MCF) option that will help you expand to more sales platforms with hardly any added costs.

What Is Amazon Multi Channel Fulfillment?

The FBA support from Amazon meets your Amazon orders, as the MCF choice fulfills purchases from all other systems. You are able to delegate most fulfillment to Amazon. Whether you sell items on auction websites, Shopify, any other platform, Amazon will choose and channel products to your clients. You simply need to pay for shipping and handling.

Multi Funnel Fulfillment enables you to choose regular, two-day, or next-day delivery, and it computes shipping and delivery costs depending on the size of the item combined with the chosen shipping approach.

If you would like to use Amazon.com MCF, there are a few requirements you need to think about. First, you have to be authorized for FBA, and that means you possess credit cards on record with Amazon. Those cards will surely be charged for fulfillment costs, except if your seller account has a positive balance after that MCF fees will be subtracted from your stability.

You should also have a professional seller account with Amazon to use MCF which usually costs $ 39. 99 each month, however, you do not pay for product list charges.

• Take advantage of Amazon's MCF with These guidelines

Amazon's MCF is an excellent strategy for online stores so long as you use FBA and may stick to the above-mentioned requirements. But there are some things that may make this better still for you as well as your customers.

• Make use of Messaging on Packing Slips

With Amazon MCF, logos and customization are limited. You can not consist of personalized inserts or packing slides, you could have particular communications printed on the packaging slide. Make the most of these special messages to exhibit that you value customer's business and value them as customers.

• Change Prices Hanging on the Platform

One good thing regarding multichannel selling is that you could plan prices to boost your revenue. For instance, if you are offering a product on Amazon, it may require a low cost to be competitive. That same product on another system that is not as competitive and so can cost more.

• Set Aside Some Profits

This tip makes business sense where you sell products online. You never can tell when unpredictable expenses can come up. With MCF, however, the pricing can be cost-effective, you may have to pay for things like delivery and managing, supplies, and account costs. Even if you do pass these costs on to clients, it is usually a good idea to have some money put as for if you have a great item and have to list it to other product sales channels quickly.

The word "Custom" makes up the overall difference that can put any perspective business owner in dilemma while going for web applications. When there is choice, there is always a possibility of mistakes and it is this possibility that makes reasonable analysis very critical before we make a choice. Especially, in business that involves hefty money, such choices should be made after solid research and well informed retrospection on cost as well as Return on Investment.

There are two options for business in Web Application Development: Custom or Ready-Made. Custom applications are developed from the scratch, especially to attain the business objectives. Its features are designed and developed according to the exact and unique requirements of the enterprise. Whereas, ready-made ones are prebuilt platforms featuring various sets of facilities. These platforms are customized to certain extent per the needs of businesses. WordPress and Shopify are such ready-made platforms that are popular among enterprises.

There are certain advantages and disadvantages of going with either custom-made or ready-made applications. Both scores in their own ways, but it can be argued that a custom application is always better than the other one. There are several reasons for it:

1. Using a custom application means using one's own system and being independent. Any changes or customization required in the application can be achieved through own developers. Furthermore, it is always easier to meddle up with one's own creation in order to develop it further.
2. Meanwhile, using a ready-made application means working on something that is already developed. Although there are many applications that are open source, most of the popular applications has their own dedicated teams for development. They have the actual key that fits into the platform. It is simply not possible to use these platforms fully, without their assistance.
3. On the other hand, since the control of custom applications are generally under-house developers, they are secure. The security features securing the codes can be added to make the application immune to external threats like hacking. In contrast, a larger part of the ready-made platforms is always under the control of the service providers.
4. The scalability feature is among the most crucial advantages of custom made applications. Even ready-made applications are scalable, but to access or use their actual features that count, it would always involve a good money.

Apart from these, there are many other advantages that make custom web development the most returning or amicable choice for enterprises. A major reason for choosing ready-made applications is the cost factor for businesses. Most of them are free or can be bought at nominal prices. However, in the long run, it is always the custom ones that turn out profitable. Although, the basic platforms appear cheap or even free, they can burn a big hole in your pockets once you begin to use them in real time. The worst case is when enterprises reach a point of no return, while going on with such platforms to end up wasting money as well as time at the cost of their businesses.

Although it has been over 18 months since the arrival of Magento 2 yet it is still popular on behalf of its e-commerce friendly features that make it a preferred platform overall. It has the capacity of outranking its competitors like Shopify and WooCommerce.

Here are some key features that boost my claim regarding the popularity of Magento 2

Performance Boost

Improved performance in comparison to its previous version as fast as 20%. A fast website encourages users towards more sales and is a determining factor that makes a website search engine friendly. This speed boost is on behalf of Full-page caching built default into the e-commerce version of the platform which is also enabling better handling catalog pages without any slow down. This has drastically improved page load time to 1-2 seconds max compared to 7-10 seconds in case it is a non-caching page. Here, Magento 2 is a better option that is highly scalable for an online store of any size.

Checkout is a User Delight

A smooth checkout process in Magento 2 makes it easy and fast for customers to move from the cart and finish their order. The high degree of customization it offers as well as require minimum steps with less than usual customer data. A positive impact on behalf of limited checkout time helps in limiting abandon carts and result in an instant boost in conversions.

When an existing customer makes a purchase, there is the option of even faster check out due to saved information. There is also this interesting option of single click account creation right from the order Thank You page.

More Mobile Friendly Platform

The key to boosting sales is mobile responsiveness now if not all, at least close to all internet savvy customers find smartphone as the first choice to shop online. This fact is highly respected by Magento development team, since they ensured it latest Magento version as their priority. It is equipped with latest responsive and SEO-friendly themes, smart video integration and even easier checkout. These technical improvements will improve the look and feel of your Magento stores for mobile devices thereby improving sales.

Easily Upgradable

It is now much easier to install and upgrade either the core Magento application or installation of extensions. Basically, prior to installation, Magento 2 standalone installer will check for prerequisites. This will assist system integrators to smoothly script installations and upgrades for the creation of standard deployments. The option of export / import feature is available to export customer records, product catalog and inventory data and much more and then import it into Magento 2.

Beautiful Backend

The Grid views of Page Titles or Inventory Levels can be smoothly created in the admin area and information can be further edited directly on the page in the grid just like you would like to simply do it in Excel sheet. This is highly time-saving as you need not launch every product individually and hit the sub-tabs to edit responsive information.

The Future of Magento 2 can be summed up as below:

1. Performance and scalability updates
2. Enhanced preview functionality
3. New and Advanced search capability
4. Usability improvements for the Admin Panel
5. Multi-warehouse support
6. Features more suitable for B2B

Creating web applications is not always easy. Most of the time, it takes several weeks and even months before an app can be developed. However, through Ruby on Rails Technology, the barriers of programming have been significantly lowered. The man behind RoR technology is David Heinemeier Hanssonand. From the smallest to the largest companies, this technology is being used since 2003.

The Ruby on Rails Framework is open-source and it is specifically optimized for programmers around the globe. In fact, some of the famous apps like Github, 500px, Shopify, and Twitter have been developed through the Rails framework!

Ruby is actually an OOP or object-oriented programming language and it is similar to the Perland Python. It is different from other web development frameworks because it is user-friendly and offers amazing speed. The regular development cycle is time consuming, but with Rails, you can skip this inconvenience and apply changes immediately. In fact, Java experts like David Geary claimed that this technology can be very beneficial in blog posting since it is so much faster in comparison to other Java-based frameworks.

The Ruby on Rails Technology is made up of various components, including:

· Prototype

· Action web services

· Action mailer

· Action pack

· Active record

The Rails framework will run on CGI-supporting web servers. RoR also supports SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, and DB2. When you use this technology, you no longer have to worry about additional support from other frameworks because RoR is actually a model-view-controller (MVC) framework. By visiting the official website of RoR, you can learn more about the availability of distributions.

Why Use RoR technology over other similar frameworks? The reasons are found below.

The impressive language of Ruby is hard to ignore. It is a combination of static strongly-typed languages, dynamic languages' best features, and object-oriented paradigm. Instead of writing many codes, you can focus more on 'getting it done'. Data models are defined with codes. Once you've created the data model, you will only need to use scripts to make the changes.

It was also mentioned above that the Ruby on Rails Technology is open source, so you can be sure that you will have access to helpful and thriving community. You may have second thoughts about the RoR framework, but even if you can not find a lot of traditional books at local bookstores, you will find extensive resources online like videos that teach programmers on how to use the said technology.

When was the last time you've searched online? You can now find lots of ads on Rails. In fact, many people are now managing Rail shops around the globe, and they are able to enjoy reasonable profits. When it comes to rapid apps development, you can count on the Rails framework to work for you! Even if you are using systems that are less flexible, you will be able to produce appealing websites because you'll have direct access to CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.

Thanks to large scale community support of Ruby on Rails Technology, one will be able to get the most out of this open source technology.

Undeniably, the process of picking up any capable platform that best implements all the features of online shopping sites is a hectic one. With a wide spectrum of choices for eCart platforms, paid or free, hosted or downloadable, generic or customized, choosing the best one becomes even more difficult. It's needless to mention that it takes a good deal of research for business owners who are novices in eCommerce but are willing to mark their online presence in a remarkable way. The main way is to decide from where to start and what are the things about a platform to take into account. Thus, without further ado, let's pinpoint the basic checklist of the facts to consider to select the best or befitting platform.

Pricing

Whether it is a small-sized online store for a new business or a large extravagant store resembling a successful brick-mortar business, owners need to know what exactly they have to pay for. While the popular and flexible platforms charge separately for their plan, hosting, features, back-end support, security, help, and maintenance; one must agree to pay according to the functions they avail.

Support for Integrations

The second most important consideration for eCommerce beginners while choosing a platform is its integrations and different plugins that can beautify the store and make it multifaceted. While the key purpose and nature of the store determine the integrations and type of plugins it requires, owners need to compare between differenting platforms to know the one that their site needs.

Scalability and functionality

Can the online site create handle the targeted volume of customers of a business every day? Thus, capacity is one the critical functionality of any eCommerce store that owners must consider. While some of the best-built and assured platforms like Magento, Shopify, ZenCart provides for scalability, it is not always enough. Will the site allow customers search according to their location? Get notified on ran out stocks or get cart reminders on unfinished purchases? All this depends on functionality. Here, owners need to choose the platform that allows customizing their customer experience to the most.

SEO friendly structure and functions

eCommerce businesses are at one point useless without an effective SEO strategy. To make it rank higher on the search engines so that customers can easily find it out when they look for similar products on the web, one needs to create a site with an SEO friendly platform. Such platform is a prerequisite because it makes easy to create and add content with optimized keywords, provide relevant SEO friendly URLs, titles, image ALt tags, navigation links, headings etc, all that help a site scale up in the general search results.

Payment gateways

eCommerce players also need to contemplate the precise process of payments for their customers. While some platforms do not support third-party payment vendors like PayPal, it can be a major cause of inconvenience for customers and can even frustrate them to abandon the cart. Thus, it is crucial for every new online business to consider the forms of payments that it will be providing in the site to avoid such risks and choose a platform with payment gateways accordingly.

Mobile responsiveness

Lastly, looking at the ever-increasing use of mobiles for major activities and a prominent shift in the web use pattern from desktop systems to mobile devices, is not it critical to consider a platform that creates an online site with both desktop and mobile versions ? Thus, it is vital for every business to pick a platform that allows customers to access a store from their mobiles too.

Here ends the checklist of the paramount things to consider before embarking on the process of online store by choosing a fitting platform. While starting an upright and all-inclusive eCommerce store can be little challenging, figuring out every aspect beforehand and planning them properly can help businesses become triumphant in their journey!

Linnworks is a CRM + stock management system used by "multi channel" eCoommerce retailers to track sales and order flow through the likes of Amazon, eBay and BigCommerce / Shopify.

Whilst the system is extremely popular, and has lifetime support, one issue is that it does not have the most effective documentation on how to correctly set up its label printing facility.

I was recently asked to fix a problem with a company whose label printers were not assigning the correct margins to newly printed labels.

I presumed a problem with Linnworks – but was actually an issue with the OS.

How It Works

Linnworks – like other third party software – sends print jobs to Windows, Mac or Linux – which forwards the job onto the appropriate printer.

The point here is that Linnworks itself does very little with the printer; it relies on the third-party drivers provided by the printer manufacturer to keep the label printers running on whichever system they're allocated to.

This means that when you're looking at problems with the printers, if Linnworks is sending the jobs okay – it will likely be a problem with the way in which each printer is set up on the local system that's the problem.

In the case of the recent job I did – this is exactly what happened.

Label Printers Are Standardized

I used to think that label printers were a highly specialized piece of equipment, requiring special drivers / software to run.

What I quickly realized was that the printers themselves were actually just standardized tools – often being supplied for free by couriers.

This meant that if you were printing labels on either system, you'd have to ensure that you had the printer set up correctly on the system that they were connected to.

In the case of the issue my client was facing – the computers which were using the printers did not have their margins set up correctly.

Linnworks Just Sends Print Jobs (Does not Connect Directly To Printers)

To explain, here's the rundown of what happened:

• Linnworks would print to the various label printers installed
• Unfortunately, printing from certain computers (there were 5 in the network) would cause the margins to become weird
• I looked on Linnworks and could not find anything regarding the printers were set up (the standard label templates were not the issue)
• I started to look at Windows' printer settings

The discovery I made was that every "label" printer uses standard label sizes – 4×4 "or 6×4".

This insight allowed me to consider the way in which the printers were setup on each networked system the company had.

It turns out that the systems using the printers all needed to specify the label size inside each printer.

As mentioned, they were all 4 "wide; some were 6" tall.

By correctly stipulating the sizes of the print-stock inside the various printers, it allowed each computer to send correct print jobs (with the right margins) to each printer.

Change Printer Preferences

To affect this fix, you need to access the "Printer Preferences" inside Windows.

This is done by using the following:

• In Windows 7, click on "Start"> "Control Panel"> "Devices & Printers"
• In Windows 10, click on the "Start" button, select the "Settings" (cog) icon from the left "charms" menu and pick "Devices" (select "Printers" from the left menu)

When you are on each of these screens, you need to select a printing device (the label printer you wish to connect to Linnworks) and access "Printing Preferences".

To do this depends on each system (although the results are the same in both):

• In Windows 7, right-click on the printer to manage and select "Printing Preferences"
• In Windows 10, left-click on the printer to manage and select "Printing Preferences" from the left menu

This will bring up the same panel on any Windows OS – it should give you a number of options, with "Paper Format" & "Size" being two of them.

In the "Paper Format" section, select the following:

• Inches
• Portrait

In the "Size" section, type:

• Width: 4 "
• Height: 4 "(or 6" depending on the print stock)

Once this is done, click "OK" and you may wish to print a test label.

If it works, it means you've set it up correctly.

If not, you may need to play around with the various settings available in the printing preferences applet to get it working.

This needs to be repeated for all computers – even if they are connecting to another to send a print job.

Customer service is the key to keeping your business bubbling along, without this important element supporting your business you will lose customers as quickly as your appealing them.

CUSTOMER SERVICE USES

There are many ways that customer service grows your business its the human element of just wanting acceptance and become part of the community in which could be as simple as welcoming the new member, or having the virtual assistant that watching your new Facebook group that you have formed and being there to answer simple questions and comments.

AMAZON – SHOPIFY – EBAY STORES

These stores are very expensive on you the owner to have the best customer support possible to help keep people with quick response times to questions, to give login information and be responsive to reviews that they write to know that they are being heard.

These simple steps are the way to have repeat customers that turn into raving fans that bring you more business. Does not it make sense to spend advertising dollars once and then to keep them for repeat customers they're after all then costing you absolutely nothing to retain.

Many customers just want to have their questions answered or follow up their orders or how to apply a code to give them the discount off the full price you are offering. To keep the customer happy it all comes down to quick response time to questions in order to avoid frustrations, which leads to refunds and buyers remorse.

Research reveals that customers want human interaction not something that frustrates them like a recorded message or phone prompts that they want to speak to a human voice to answer questions quickly.

It may be something as simple as logging on people get stumped and annoyed when they can not get access to products that they have just purchased. This delay in getting back to them with a solution to their problem gets them upset and writes reviews that are sometimes unpleasant and will hurt your future business.

With all the hard work that goes behind a launch of a new product or service with advertising and webinars I have seen personally the numbers of new sign ups drop off dramatically between 25-30% due to no customer service. This is leaving money on the table.

WEBINARS

What about shopping cart abandonment this happens a lot and many businesses just send an email to get lost among the many emails that people get sent would not your company stand out from others to pick up the phone and ask them "was there a problem – how can we help you? "

WELCOME CALL

There are some clients who will say nothing and will never take the next step because they are unsure of the next step in your program or service. A follow up call warms the person and shows warmth of your company.

This only takes a few minutes and something like "Hi Mary this is Dan from ABC Company, just giving you a courtesy call to first to welcome you to our company and to see if I can help you with and questions."

How good does that customer feel now, first they are acknowledged and secondly they have an opportunity to say if there is a problem and have someone help them.

Creating a downright online store is not that hard when there are plethora of platforms available including Magento, Shopify to WooCommerce or Zencart. However, considering the fierce competition in the eCommerce segment, starting an online venture is more about building credibility and making things perfect to boost conversions. For online retailers, success is a sure instance only if they know how to fetch new customers consistently and fill all the gaps on the website. At every step, they have to be careful not to fall prey to the costly mistakes that most retailers make and ruin their scope for earnings.

Whether retail merchants wish to launch an eCommerce store or get their existing store optimized, here are the most-obvious mistakes that they should be aware of to offer exhilarating user experience to their visitors.

# 1 Not having a proper plan for targeting

For an eCommerce site, one does not need a formal strategic plan, but still a simple plan on how to proceed and target the specific segments. You do not need a business plan as a roadmap for success but simply be aware of who are your customers, what they like, what you can sell to them and what customers are willing to pay for the products offered by you.

# 2 Not having a definite value proposition

Research identified that most buyers stay for some fraction of seconds on any online site before deciding whether they will purchase or leave for another shopping destination. The only thing that can affirm their decision to stay is a Unique value proposition of your store. Your value proposition will make you different from the rest sellers and exhibits what you have in offer for them. More strictly, the value proposition is a promising prospect from the retailers' end to deliver specific benefits to the customers and telling them why they are the best.

# 3 Hiding product details and information

Most online retailers make the mistake of hiding a lot of details like the complementary items added to the product, rebate or discounts, certain less-important features or the surcharges needed for delivery. They think that customers will love surprises and may get exhilarated after placing the order. But, the truth is customers feel tricked down in the instances where they have to pay more and did not know about it. So, even if you have best intentions of hiding some information, do not go for it as people like you to be straightforward especially about shipping and prices.

# 4 Ignoring after-sales customer treatment

You just can not forget the customers who have bought something or other from your store because they might be the one to return for their next purchases. Thus, make sure you offer them good experience even after the product sale. For this, retailers need to promote some prominent way of interaction with the customers afterwards like email, messages, push notifications, live chat and so forth.

# 5 Not emphasizing on SEO strategy with understanding of the market

SEO for eCommerce or any website predominately involves studying the competitors in the market and what are the keywords or key phrases that they targeting. You must not act silly and consider only keywords relevant to your business but should consider those quality keywords that can elevate your ranking in search engines above your competitors.

It is always better to learn from the mistakes of others than your own. These above illustrations are to make you and every aspiring retailer aware of the pervasive mistakes that might happen in eCommerce development. This will probably let your mind buzz with different ideas on how to avoid these mistakes and improve the scope of revenues for your store.