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Talking Shop – What Your Ecommerce Site Can’t Do Without

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If you’re reading this then you know that the future of shopping is well-and-truly online. But not every shop is created equal. The ecommerce businesses that keep the tips below in mind are going to see much more success with their customers.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article

Focus on the user experience first and foremost

This should be a given for any site but in the world of ecommerce, it’s actually easier to lose customers. Beyond categorization for products that makes sense and smart advanced search options, take an in-depth look through the whole process of buying items on your store. Think about where you can trim the fat, where another page or another click might not necessarily be needed. Putting customers through too long a process puts you at real risk of shopping cart abandonment. Another way of fighting it is by using breadcrumb navigation that shows customers at what stage they’re at through every part of the process. User friendliness must be your first and last concern.

Work to your product

No two ecommerce systems should work alike. In fact, if they have different products and different target markets, they should be wildly different. Beyond good navigation, you need a focus on the value proposition of the site and the individual products. For instance, the front page should be loud and clear with the deals on some of the most popular product types on the site. A front page that says nothing about the products is going to result in a lot of confused visitors. But attention to detail should go deeper than that. For instance, writing great product descriptions depends wildly from product to product. Lifestyle and fashion products, for instance, rely more on greater visual detail. Meanwhile, tech like computers and TVs need the technical details up-front. We’re talking resolutions, gigabytes, and compatibilities. You can’t sell two different kinds of products on the same selling points.

Have a site that works with you

Even worse than a site that’s confusing to customers is one that’s confusing to you. Not just in terms of design but management. Nowadays, there a lot of ecommerce hosting options that make it a lot easier for site owners to choose a platform built specifically for hosting ecommerce pages, with all the various sub-pages that go with it. Continuous, never-ending testing of the site is essential, too. Not just to make sure all pages are working. Methods like A/B testing also help you better understand how to make the site much easier to use for the customer.

Watch and learn

One of the best things about running a shop online as opposed to in the physical world is how much easier it is to store data on not just your customer base, but individual customers, too. Measuring the whole gives you a finger on the pulse of the market, seeing the trends from the customer’s’ point of view that can help you decide on which new stock might work best for the business. Building individual customer profiles, however, lets you go even further. You can specialize offers and create a bespoke browsing experience for each user that makes them a lot more likely to see something they’re tempted to buy.

3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Hiring Your First Employee

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Hiring a First Employee|3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Hiring Your First EmployeeHiring your first employee is a big step for a new business. Things are going well and the workload is increasing so you think that now is the right time to start bringing more people on board, but that isn’t always the case. If you start expanding the business and hiring people too early, you might end up in a difficult financial situation and it could be the end of the business entirely. You may also find that you hire the wrong person if you rush into things without really thinking about it properly first. If you want to avoid getting it wrong, you need to ask yourself these 3 questions before you hire your first employee.

Why Are You Hiring Them?

This is important and it seems like an obvious question but a lot of people don’t actually think about this before they start hiring people. If your answer to this question is simply that you’re making more money and the business is getting a bit bigger so it seems like the right thing to do, you probably aren’t making the right choice. You should be hiring employees to help in specific areas where you’re struggling. For example, if you’re struggling to handle the volume of sales that you’re seeing and you need a sales rep to take on some of that workload, that’s fine. Or maybe you aren’t very good at digital marketing and you think that the company would benefit from having somebody with more experience do it, that’s a great reason to hire somebody. Before you jump into anything, consider how hiring a new employee will actually improve the business in a specific way. If you can’t think of anything, it’s not the right time to start hiring.

Can You Actually Pay Them?

A lot of people have a good month and then decide that they’re financially stable enough to pay an employee. Then they hire somebody and the following month sales dip again and they’re struggling to find the money. It’s best to wait until you’re seeing stable growth over a period of a few months before you decide to hire somebody, and try to put some money aside to cover their salary for a while.

You don’t just need to think about whether you can afford to pay them, you need to think about the actual process of paying them. In other words, do you have a payroll system in place? You’ll need some software to handle that for you and choosing the best payroll software for your business isn’t something that you can just do overnight. If you don’t understand how to deal with payroll yourself, that’s a big problem as well and you’ll need to hire somebody to do that first. If you rush into it and find that you can’t actually pay your employees, you’re going to have a big problem on your hands.

Do You Have A Clear Hiring Process?

Hiring an employee is a lot harder than you might realize. You’re going to get a lot of applications and you need to know how to narrow it down to a few candidates for interview and then choose the perfect person. If your process isn’t good, your first employee won’t be the right fit for the position and you’ll be wasting money. So, before you do anything, you need to sort your hiring process out and make sure that you know how to pick the right candidate.

If you can’t confidently answer all of these questions, it might be best to hold off for a while before hiring your first employee.

Great Tips to Improve Your Marketing Skills

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Improve your Marketing Skills| Great Tips to Improve Your Marketing SkillsMarketing is one of the most vital elements of any business and can often make or break a company’s success, which is why it pays to boost your marketing skills.

Research Traditional & Contemporary Techniques

Understanding is easily one of the most important things you could ever have when looking to improve any ability, especially one such as marketing. There is a myriad of useful and interesting techniques available to you, both traditional and contemporary, and an understanding of these techniques is the best way to learn how to apply them practically to your business.

Contemporary Marketing Techniques. The majority of contemporary marketing techniques revolve around implementing web-based marketing, mainly through social media, to drive highly specialized web traffic towards your company. Skills such as SEO optimization, social media marketing, understanding how to write a press release, and producing high-quality content are all useful aspects of this kind of marketing and contribute greatly to the success of your marketing campaigns.

Traditional Marketing Techniques. Alternatively, more traditional marketing techniques refer to tried and true methods such as car sign advertising and storefront advertising. These traditional methods tend to cost significantly less than more contemporary marketing and have lower upkeep requirements. However, they also tend to drive less of a response and reach far fewer potential customers than contemporary techniques.

Attend Classes

On top of undertaking your own research, a brilliant way to improve your understanding of marketing skills is to engage with classes on the subject, either online or in person. Fortunately, there are many avenues to accrue an understanding of key marketing skills, any of which are work pursuing.

Relevance of Techniques to Specific Situations. Among the many important skills conferred by this kind of education, one of the most beneficial is assessing when it is most appropriate to apply specific marketing techniques. By understanding when you should be marketing and in which areas of your business, you can apply your efforts and budget far more specifically than you would otherwise. This can help your marketing budget to stretch further and can also help to ensure your marketing campaigns make the most impact possible.

Apply Your Knowledge

Finally, after accumulating relevant marketing knowledge, the best way to continue to improve your skills is to ensure that you are applying your marketing knowledge in the most effective ways possible. By applying your marketing knowledge, you can get a feel for how this knowledge translates to the field and also learn from the experience.

Generate Your Own Marketing Campaigns. The best way to apply the knowledge you have gained is to work at generating your own marketing campaigns, whether or not these are successful for your company.

Learn from Your Failures. One of the most important things to do when you are applying your knowledge in this way is to ensure that you learn from your mistakes. When something goes wrong, take note of why so that when you try again, you know how to avoid similar mistakes.

Why You Should Take Advantage Of Overnight Shipping Services

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Why You Should Take Advantage Of Overnight Shipping ServicesToday’s world has been influenced by numerous factors, many of which have resulted in a consumerist mindset. The two main factors are the internet and the media.

As the name suggests, overnight delivery is done overnight. The term refers to a delivery option guaranteeing that shipments will be delivered by a specific time the following business day.

The term is often used interchangeably with other phrasings such as next-day shipping, 1-day shipping and express delivery (next business day). These are some of the advantages of using overnight shipping services.

Convenience For Certain Shipments

Overnight delivery is ideal for time-sensitive shipments. For example, if they needed to be delivered at the beginning of the following day, preferably by a certain time. Regardless of the industry, businesses selling a product should take advantage of this delivery method. Ensure that any important packages are delivered the following morning at the earliest convenience.

Trusted Shipping Companies

Identify the most reputable companies. Find one that sets high standards in their service of delivery.

It should offer more than just tips and standard shipping services. For instance, LSO is an example of one such shipping firm. They provide tips on shipping practices, as well as an overnight shipping service to customers. As a leading delivery service, they offer a selection of next day delivery services, which can be delivered at certain times the following day.

Earn Loyalty Of The Customer

Next day delivery has a loyal customer base. The flexibility and success rate of this option has built this loyal base. Customers who have had a bad experience with a business that offers next day delivery, do not want to go through that again.

Instead, they look for businesses that provide standard delivery services, in addition to the next day. Keeping in mind customer satisfaction, provide customers with this professional and reliable delivery option is the best way to go.

Satisfied customers generate business. They tell friends, relatives, co-workers, or business partners about the positive service they received. Some leave positive reviews that can be integrated into marketing materials to promote the business. Positive information that customers put up about the company online is good for website optimization.

Potential To Save Money

The cost of overnight shipping is often more than regular shipping. However, it costs more to keep items in storage. You have to pay monthly rent on a storage facility and invest in security to keep belongings safe.

Overnight shipping can cut these costs. The need for storage space decreases when items are shipped out overnight.

Reputation is crucial for business. Research the delivery options available to you as a business. Consider their reputation and what previous customers have said about the service. Use this information and the benefits of implementing overnight delivery services to make an informed decision.

Taking these steps will enable you to take off your company’s shipping effectively and efficiently for years to come.

3 Top Tips for Every Entrepreneur

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Tips for Entrepreneurs|3 Top Tips for Every EntrepreneurThe world of business is ever-changing, and there have been more changes in the last 18 months than we have seen or experienced in the last 20 years. Entrepreneurial action has changed, and the purpose of business may have softened to include a range of social stakeholders, but the basics should not change. This article presents three of these entrepreneurial basics that should form the foundation of your enterprise and basic operating instructions. Entrepreneurial success is not widely guaranteed. As such, any head start you can get on your competitors is well worth the time it will take you to finish reading this article and plan your ascent.

Perfect your core business

The journey of any entrepreneur is primarily to strive to be the best at what it is that they sell or do. This is the be all and end of entrepreneurial success, and many will fail in the first year. There is no point being in business if you’re there to make up the numbers. Your product or service must meet a specific need in order to be relevant and sustainable.

This should be your main concern, and everything else will stem from this. Business acumen can be learnt, taught, and if all else fails, subcontracted out—there are people who can do your HR, IT, and accounting a great deal better than you can. Stick to what it is that has allowed you start the business, and above all else pride yourself in perfecting this to the best of your ability.

Sweat the small details

It is proven that the entrepreneurs who care about the small details are the ones who make it big. Its not about being pedantic, but rather paying attention to detail, ensuring that what you and tour team do is worthy of the brand you hope to build. It’s as simple sometimes as the DC to AC inverters that you don’t see and yet can’t run without; it’s the logo positioning perfectly on each product; it’s the small elements that can make or break you as an entrepreneur. You need to notice the elements that others don’t.

Speed and not haste

Business is fast moving and ever changing; you must become accustomed to the pace and the need for immediacy. The modern customer or client doesn’t want to wait and won’t understand your schedule or the reasons that you won’t make a deadline. They will simply find another supply or service provider. The speed of action is what defines successful and sustainable businesses: the speed to market, the speed to deliver, and the speed at which you return communication with customers and consumers. In the same vein, avoid haste at all costs. It’s the rushed response, the hurriedly prepared order, and the unplanned haste that is the downfall of many a good product.

These are three pieces of advice that every entrepreneur, regardless of their sector, should be following. Success is hard come by, and by keeping processes simple yet clear, you will able to begin to plot a way to success.