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The Future Of Online Business Through Ecommerce Web Development

Importance of Ecommerce

Businesses are moving ahead fast in this technologically driven world. To keep pace with the changes happening in the business environment, businesses turn to Ecommerce web development to make their presence visible in the market. These web development companies also absorb the principles that will drive the future ecommerce and evaluate where the company’s business is headed in the future. It is therefore essential to develop a dynamic and interactive web site with feature rich design and user friendly applications. The companies can have more interactive features so that the consumers keep visiting them and interact with them on a regular basis. The contents need to be updated frequently to stay up to date with all the related information so that customers can make their buying decisions accordingly. The success of the businesses depends on the ease of use and security of the ecommerce web site with attractive product display and multiple options.

Design and developmet of web portals

When a company goes for a web portal, many things have to be considered before finalizing the web site design. The key questions would be who the target audience is, what the purpose of the web site is, what are the products or services to be displayed and where the other information would be placed. The answers to these questions will guide in determining the programs and applications that need to be associated with building the web site. Thus an attractive, professional and easy to navigate ecommerce portal can stand out on the web to promote the client’s business to reach his marketing goals.

Services offered through ecommerce web development

The ecommerce web development companies serve the business community by offering multifarious services that are converged to create the ultimate business portal that is user friendly for both the client and the consumers. The enterprise level ecommerce solutions let the clients to manage their products or services while streamlining the business processes by anyone without the need for technical skills and knowledge of web design. The services that are offered are web design, Corporate Identity, Ecommerce consulting, Website development, custom shopping cart, content management, system integration, logo development, application development and more. Most of the companies offer free consultation regarding custom ecommerce web development for companies going for ecommerce web sites.

3 Ways Inconsistent Pricing Can Cost You Customers – How To Fix It Using Web Based CRM

There is not a lot of information around on what inconsistent pricing can do to your customer relationships, which is unusual. It makes you look bad, can cost you sales and cripple staff productivity. However there is good news. Recently a small selection of web based CRM providers have introduced software that can make even the most complicated pricing models simple and accessible to sales teams of any size.

Firstly let’s deal with the negative impact of inconsistent pricing. When you start business, pricing is pretty straight forward. Generally you have a single price list covering all your products and services. But what happens when you raise prices on some products? What happens if you open a new office that charges different rates? Or you open an office in a new location with a different pricing scale for that community? What about wholesalers or special clients, do they get different rates? You might even run a time sensitive special discount, how do you manage that?

This is when your pricing gets messy and begin to affect your staff and customers. There are 3 chief problems caused by inconsistent pricing:

1. Time Squandered

Most companies manage their pricing by publishing PDF documents or excel spreadsheets for personnel to refer to. When you have a wide range of products staff may find it difficult to find the price applicable to the customer they are talking to. Or they may not even be able to locate the most up to date pricing document.

This wastes time and staff efficiency. They should be interacting with customers not searching for prices. It can also make your sales team look ignorant and amateur, clients expect them to know the correct prices– it is their job.

2. Overcharging

Assuming that your team don’t have or can’t find the most up to date pricing information they might quote the client a price that is incorrect.

If the customer is given a price that is too high they may decide to go with your competition instead. Costing you a sale. The customer may also engage in ‘salesman shopping’ where they call your company multiple times asking for the price until they find a sales person who will give them a reduced rate. This is simply unprofessional and it makes your organization look sloppy. No-one wants to rely upon a company that can’t even get their own pricing right.

3. Misquoting– Price Too Low

So what happens when your sales team quotes a price that is too low? If you decide to honor the price quoted you could end up running that particular deal at a loss. If you tell the customer that the price you provided was incorrect and provide the correct price then you run the risk of losing the sale. It’s a no win situation.

To avoid these pitfalls it is important to have consistent pricing information that is easily handy to all staff. The easiest way to achieve this is through Web Based CRM software.

Web Based CRM (customer relationship management) systems are hosted by your CRM provider online, meaning your staff can log in anytime, from anywhere all they need is an internet connection.

A few of the newer web based CRM providers have even created software modules designed to streamline complicated pricing models. For example these systems allow you to program different prices based on quantity breaks (if you buy 1 bowl it is $ 7.50 each but if you buy 10 + bowls they are $ 6.00 each). You can also flag customers who get special prices, your staff only need to look up the customers name in the database and they will see the prices that specific customer has been approved to receive. And if you have a time sensitive special price, no worries. You can schedule the start date and end date using your Web based CRM, meaning your staff will only see that price while it is still applicable.

However the biggest benefit is simply having your up to date pricing information all in the same place. So staff can quickly confidently provide quotes to potential customers.

eTAS: A Web Based Time Attendance System

It is very essential to keep the productivity of a company measurable. This not only makes it easier to review the flaws in the procedures laid by the management, but gives an incite to make suitable changes in those procedures. If we try to keep track of all these measurable parameters through manual interventions, it will not only be expensive but inefficient and full of human errors. One of the parameters of measuring the productivity is how many hours your individual employees have worked, from what time to what time they have worked and what they have worked on. We have tried to bring automation to these parameters by introducing eTAS, a web based time attendance system.

Many conventional systems are available in the market catering to time attendance by means of access control system, i.e. keeping track of “in time” and “out time” of employees. We also provide this conventional system but we found many lacunae in this process.

1) You need to have sensors (proximity reader, biometric reader etc.) at both sides of the doors making it expensive and creating more hurdles in employee’s physical movements.

2) If one person tail gates through another person, wrong and unpredictable transactions are created.

3) You require to have a whole set of hardware even if you are using readers for only time attendance and not for security also.

4) You pay for hardware maintenance as well as data base management to an external agency or one of your own employee wastes his valuable time in doing this. The time which could have been utilized in doing more productive jobs.

Considering all these facts, we decided to go a step forward by providing time management system as a web service with the advent of cloud computing. The eTAS is used as a SaaS (Software as a service) hosted model or installed at the client site. Because, this software is available as a web based service, you don’t need to buy any hardware or software to start using it and it is via affordable monthly subscription and you get 60 days to try it free. So, eTAS is a web based employee time clock software and Time Attendance Management system. It has comprehensive reporting structure with complete leave application and management system. All your Employee details and transactions data are available on your web browser on real time basis saving you time, effort and hence money.

WHY eTAS?

Consider the following salient features and decide whether it will increase the productivity at your work environment:

1) eTAS is very affordable. Pricing depends on the number of employees in your organization and whether you want to host it at your site or you want to use is as a SAAS (software as a service).

2) eTAS is accessible via the Internet or your Intranet. As it is web-enabled, both users and administrators can log in using a wide range of browsers anywhere and at anytime.

3) eTAS may be configured to suit your work environment. Every business is unique and one general method may not be suitable to everyone.

4) eTAS doesn’t demand any expensive hardware or infrastructure to use. It uses existing hardware in order to achieve its full potential.

5) We are committed to keep upgrading eTAS as and when the internet environment changes so you don’t have to worry about future updates and changes.

Top 5 Web Analytics Tools To Improve Business Performance

Every business generates data and records them as part of its operational requirement. The data, particularly related to websites of companies, can come in many forms such as the number of users visiting your site and their locations or better, the number of them purchasing products from your site among others.

If left unattended the data can be treated as plain gibberish occupying precious server space whereas if analysed with proper tools and acted upon, can be transformational to the business. The methodology of web data analytics includes measuring the user traffic, predicting performance, gauging customer satisfaction levels and other attributes of business by using statistics and computer programming.

Why web data analytics is important

To find out current level of performance of your website and areas of improvement
To extract actionable information to improve marketing strategies, boost performance and improve decision making
To know the profile of users and understand their browsing & buying patterns
To predict changing user behaviour, market dynamics, and their impact on business

As the challenges before businesses become more complex and patterns of data more unwieldy, the use of analytics tools has become important more than ever before. Thus, to leverage the functionality of the available tools or services to the benefit of your business, engaging professional online advertising services with the right expertise can be a thoughtful strategy. Let’s discuss the top five web analytics tools that are widely used in most companies of today, and the ones you can readily use to help transform your business.

Google Analytics: Arguably the most popular among all the existing web analytics tools, this comes free with the following attributes. However, a subscription based version called Google Analytics 360 is available as well for enterprise users.

Tracks and collates the source of web data spread across channels, devices, and locations
Tracks the user activity on a website on the basis of performance related metrics such as total number of visits, transactions, revenue etc
Analyses user activity on the site including areas (pages) from where users seem to have bounced off
Provides detailed reports that can help to improve digital marketing strategies like social media campaigns, besides aiming at better targeting of search engine rankings, and conversions

An important aspect of Google Analytics related to online advertising is called Google AdWords, which offers bespoke services such as Pay Per Click (PPC) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). Known to be the highest revenue earner for Google, this paid marketing service is used by advertisers and web marketers to display product listings, advertising copies, and video content high on Google SERPs.

However, the only area where Google Analytics lags is in providing the description of real time data in its entirety, which it does to some extent but with a few data points only.

Kissmetrics: Unlike Google Analytics, Kissmetrics provides comprehensive web related data about user activity on a real time basis. It shows individual user activity over a period of time spanning across devices, locations and time. It gives an insight into individuals or specific user groups, and is specially useful for mobile apps and ecommerce sites. And yes, it doesn’t come free with charges starting from $200 per month.

Clicky: The tool provides comprehensive real time data on individual user activity, search rankings, and video analytics. Interestingly, it provides a heatmap traction of users in real time through an online widget. The best part is that it is free up to 3000 daily page views but charges $19.99 per month beyond that.

The tool alerts you as well when your site goes offline. It does so by keeping a tab on your site from five different locations worldwide. Thus, it helps companies to work towards real time optimization of business data to arrive at better outcomes.

Woopra: This real time analytics tool has a unique live chat feature that allows site owners or web marketers to chat with users visiting the site. This feature can give important insights about a site from a user’s perspective and helps to improve shortcomings (if any).

Also, by using the tool’s AppConnect feature you can connect with other platforms like Salesforce, WordPress, HubSpot, MailChimp etc. It is available in both free (up to 30,000 actions per month) and paid versions (up to $1,199.95 per month and higher with advanced enterprise level features.)

FoxMetrics: Available at $299 per month, the site provides actionable information to web owners relating to users’ browsing behaviour over a period of time including making sales. By using the tool you can even follow up with customers who have abandoned shopping carts through targeted emails and offers. The tool allows you to create user surveys and feedback forms apart from directing the users to pages that suit them better.

Conclusion

Web analytics tools can provide important insights into user traffic, various facets related to it, and its changing dynamics. However, such information won’t be of any use unless suitable action is taken towards improving the user experience and thereby possible conversions. In the article, top 5 web analytics tools have been discussed in terms of their usage in digital marketing. Readers are invited to give their comments on the same.

Efficient Invoicing Strategies for Freelancers and Web Designers to Get Payment on Time

When it comes to managing the finances of a business, it is certainly not a very exciting task. It can prove to be quite cumbersome and boring. Moreover, if one is not from accounting background, managing finances will seem like a herculean task. And the fact is that most of the designers do not prefer to take care of finances even if it is an integral part of a business.

In order to run a designing company successfully, mere designing skills are not sufficient. You need capital to run your business successfully. And for that you need to send an invoice to your clients so that they can send you your fee. Mentioned below are some great freelancing tips for freelancers and designers who are about to start their own company.

First and foremost, you need to find a powerful and a robust invoicing solution. Although there are plethora of online invoicing apps available. These online invoicing apps are designed keeping in mind the requirements of freelancers. Some of these apps are available for free, while others come with a price tag. The paid invoicing apps are available in different price range. The price of an app depends on the features provided by it. The more features an app has to offer, the higher will be the price.

Other than generating the invoices, an online invoicing app also helps a lot in saving a good amount of time and allows you to manage an archive of invoices in an efficient manner. An effective professional invoicing application helps you in searching previous bills, figuring out received funds. It also makes other such tasks a lot easier. Therefore, you should select an invoicing application carefully based on your basic requirements. Some apps are available with just one time fee, while others are available with a monthly subscription fee.

Secondly, you need to keep your clients well informed. Whatever policies you have set for your business, for instance- payment terms, hourly rates, pending amounts etc should be conveyed to the clients very clearly. If a client finds something irrelevant in the invoice, they may want to clarify it and this will result in a delay in your payment. Therefore, it is imperative that when you send your invoice, you should make sure that the client is aware of everything that you have mentioned in the invoice.

Thirdly, you should define all your policies well. Good clients always pay on time. But sometimes due to certain reasons there could be a delay in the payment. Here is what you should do if a client does not pay on time.

1.Determine how many days you want to give to clients for late payments.

2. Decide the amount of late fee that would be levied.

Once you set up the policies, you should also be flexible enough to accommodate some exceptions. For instance- if a client has a genuine reason for the delay in the payment, you should waive the late fee.

Fourthly, you should include your contact details in the invoice. Your contact details should be there stated clearly. Also, you can include some basic information about your business. You can include information like you name, company name, address, contact number and the email id. Including your contact details makes sure that the process gets accelerated and the client knows whom to contact if the need arises.

You should also include client’s information in the invoice. This is very important. It helps in establishing the fact that you are expecting payment from them. And if there is a non payment issue, you can always use the invoice as an evidence.

Another important thing to be mentioned is the due date of the invoice. State clearly by when the client should make the payment. If you do not mention the due date, you will not be able to implement your late fee policies. After designing the policies for non payment, you can include them as a note in the invoice.

Lastly, and importantly, you must mention the mode of payment which you accept. This will help clients in knowing how to transfer your fee to you. Also mention the details of the recipient. If you miss out on any important information, it may delay your payment.

6 Great Reasons to Avoid Free Web Hosting

When it comes to web hosting, there are a lot of options available. With so many alternatives to choose from, you might be tempted to consider one of the many free web hosting services out there. However, there are some common pitfalls related to that approach that can end up costing you and your business a lot of money down the road. Therefore, it is important to know what these red flags are so you can avoid them.

Here are 6 great reasons to avoid free web hosting:

Lost Credibility. Your web site will often be the first impression your potential customers have of your business. With free hosting, you may be stuck with a very long domain name such as http://freehostingservice.com/~yourbusiness. A domain name like this is an instant signal to your prospects that your business is still in the minor leagues. It is very difficult to build trust and credibility when your web presence appears to be fly-by-night.
Banner Ads. The main reason these services are free is because you agree to allow banner ads on your site. So you invest the time, money and energy into driving traffic to your site and the free hosting service profits by directing that traffic away from you. Clearly not the best way to build a successful, long-term business.
Limited Features. Free hosts usually offer a limited number of services. This lack of flexibility can seriously hinder your ability to conduct and grow your business online. For example, if you select a free service, you may have limited or no access to email, FTP accounts, content management systems or ecommerce options.
Lack of Portability. When you pay to register and host your own domain, you have the option to transfer it. With free hosting services, this is usually not the case. So, if you spend a year or two building up your site and driving traffic to it before realizing how beneficial it would be to have your own domain name, your hard work may be out the window.
Overcrowded Servers. This leads to slow load time for pages and increased downtime for your site. Of course, both of these issues can have a serious negative impact on the growth and profitability of your business.
Poor Customer Service. Another major issue with free hosting services is that they offer little to nothing in the way of customer support. If there is a problem with your site, you will have a very hard time contacting anyone to help resolve it. Every minute your site is down carries with it a huge opportunity cost in terms of frustrated customers and lost sales.

Based on this list, you can see that “you get what you pay for” with free hosting services. Instead, consider quality web hosting an important investment into your business – one that will continue to yield positive results for your business long into the future.

I Have Heard of SEO, SEM, and Social Media But What Is Web Presence Optimization?

Web Presence Optimization is a holistic approach to internet marketing. Today, consumers interact with local businesses online via a plethora of different methods. Web Presence Optimization ensures that consumers discover your business during all phases of their online activity. So the million dollar question is, “What are consumers doing online?”

Consumers are surfing, searching, and socializing. And consumers are doing all of this activity on thousands of websites, search engines, and social sites. The internet has evolved into a very big digital landscape! Today there are thousands of internet marketing companies soliciting small business owners. Each of these companies is trying to sell one piece of the digital landscape, each claiming there way is superior to the other.

Let’s just break it all down to a few forms of online advertising that most small business owners are already familiar with. First, you have search engine marketing, pay per click, PPC, this method goes by various names, but it all equals paid placement on a websites, directories, and search engines.

Then there is search engine optimization, SEO, again a few different names. It all equals getting your website to show in top positions of the organic search results for a few different keywords.

Next, there is Social Media. These companies work on getting consumers who frequent websites such as Facebook and Twitter to follow, like, and share your company with other consumers online.

Finally, there are companies that monitor and repair your online reputation. These companies focus on getting consumers to provide good reviews about your business online. Some times they find bad reviews and help you mitigate with unhappy consumers.

Web Presence Optimization is a combination of all these methods and more! Sounds exhausting huh? Web Presence Optimization is truly a holistic approach to targeting local consumers as they go about their normal activities online. The benefits to Web Presence Optimization are Social Discovery, Search Discovery, and Reputation Management.

In plain English, Web Presence Optimization equals more market share! For instance, imagine that you are checking out of super market. You just remembered you had to pick up some beer for the get together later on tonight. At the check out stand there are three coolers. Two coolers are packed full of Budweiser and the last cooler is full of various other brands.

Fact is because Budweiser has more shelf space (2 of 3 coolers) they will ultimately sell more of their product than the competitors. Web Presence Optimization works the same way! When a consumer is in the market for your product or service and they see you all over the page, not just once but multiple times, you will sell more than your competitors.

Tips to Choose the Best Business Web Hosting Platform

Are you thinking of taking your business to more potential customers rather than confining to the walls of the shop? Websites are the fastest and easiest way to reach a larger crowd. But to start and maintain one, you should approach a business web hosting company.

Whether you own a big business or your business budget is low, creating your own online platform is considered as the basic promotion nowadays. Most of the potential customers love to shop at home, where they can get their needs delivered to their doorsteps. So the website plays a vital role in the growth of your business and to get great customer satisfaction you should maintain them properly. This job is done by a business web hosting company.

Web hosting is a service provider for your website, where they store and maintain your files, documents, etc. There are diversified options for selecting a web hosting for your business. But basic thing to keep in mind is the type of business you own. Whether you own a big business and can afford good budget web hosting or you are in need of a more affordable choice. Also, consider what you expect your website to provide your customers with.

Commonly found types of web hosting are; shared, dedicated, VPS and cloud hosting. Shared hosting is the cheapest and has less disk space. As the name suggests, more than one website share a single server. They are better for new websites, as they are cheap and such websites may not expect a larger customer traffic.

Dedicated hosting offers a single server for your website and thus provide a larger disk space. They cost big than shared and other types, so it is best for big-budget businesses. They can handle customer traffic and better website tools as they have greater ranges. VPS and cloud type are a combination of both shared and dedicated hosting.

While choosing the web hosting company, check out whether they provide the following features.

The bandwidth and disk space they can provide for your budget: All your documents, website pages, your expectation of the number of customers who approach your website, all depends on the space your host offer. For customers to access every element of your website without any lag and traffic, you are going to need a decent range.

Compatibility and reliability: Make sure that the web hosting platform you approach has a higher availability rate which can also be termed as uptime. You don’t want to upset your customers by keeping your website unreachable or unavailable at times.

The security they offer is also important to keep your website away from malware and viruses.

24*7 customer support is a vital feature of a reliable business web hosting company can offer. Customers may even search for their need at late night, so it is better your website is available the whole day.

Why Outsource Web Design Service?

Web design service: Web designing is the most popular tool in the world of computers. Today is a world of technologies and everybody wants to use this technology for their betterment. Web designing is used to design and develop websites. These websites can be used in businesses for their publicity or by an individual for their portfolios etc. Web design services are in demand as every one wants a good look for their websites as this is the first impression and first impression should always be good. An impressive look always attracts towards it. It includes designing and developing part simultaneously. It should be done by experienced web designers.

Web designing tools: Web designing services tools include flash, Photoshop, corel draw, illustrator, firework, dream weaver, HTML, and dhtml. The developing tools include php, asp.net, vb.net etc. These tools are used by experienced person for designing and developing a website. Now days either in business or individual every body wants to create a website for their publicity.

Why need of outsourcing web design service?: As time changes, new techniques are developed for everything. Like in old days, the advertisement had been done through news papers, pamphlets etc. But now as new technology becomes vast new ways are come out like websites on internet. Today every active person knows about this. But the question arises what about those people who know what web designing is but don’t know how it works? What are the techniques used? The answer is Outsource web design service. This is a good concept for those who has less or no knowledge about designing that how it works but has a desire to develop a website for their product promotion internationally. Outsourcing is beneficial for those who know how to beat the time. In outsource web designing; there are professional designers who worked out for either an individual or a company according to their requirement. Just explain what your requirements are? and a skilled people will do exactly the same for you. Outsource web design services provide full range of web services like eCommerce website design, flash animation web site design etc. Web development services include shopping carts, online software etc.

Why India? There are many companies which provide outsource web designing services all over the world. These companies provide their services across the world. Some companies provide only designing services, some developing services and some both. These Companies appoints experienced and skilled staff for providing the services. Outsourcing these services to India is always beneficial. India has many experienced and professional web designing companies who have skilled people who are best in their work. It is also cost effective area than other countries. India has many web designing service providers who work at very low cost than others. Also Indians can do their work according to given time span. Indian designers are hard worker and complete their work in time. Indians are very efficient that they can work for 24 hours. So it is always being beneficial to outsource to India for getting cheap and best output.

VPS Hosting – What Is Web Hosting?

Have an established business? Considering starting your own website to help promote your product? You also should start to consider finding a web hosting service. Before you take the dive it is important to know what exactly web hosting is. Web hosting is basically the leasing of space on a web server. A web server is set up with software that sends and receives files stored on it. When web hosting is purchased, it is basically for a monthly maintenance fee and upgrading along with multiple other things. If you are starting your own web page, it is important to decide which will best suit your needs: a shared server, a dedicated server or would you be better off with VPS hosting?

Most websites are run on a shared server. The server is split among clients which helps keep the cost down. This is the most cost effective way to start a website. Each client is allowed a certain amount of resources depending on the package they purchase. Those with websites that are more powerful mainly use dedicated hosting. These are the websites that generate a lot of traffic or are more powerful than the smaller web pages. The shared server is less expensive but it is “shared.” For those that require a bit more out of their server but not quite ready for a dedicated server may choose VPS hosting.

VPS hosting is an intermediary between the shared server and the dedicated server. It is still a shared system but it has been partitioned which gives each website more individual control over their page. This type of hosting is more expensive than the shared hosting but less expensive than the dedicated hosting. If you are ready to have more control but not technologically advanced enough to have total control this might be a good option for you.

When you are looking for a web hosting service it is important to consider what exactly it is you page needs. Consider the amount of bandwidth you will need as well as how much memory capacity you will need. If your business is growing then you should grow your business to accommodate your viewers or customers. Change is a good thing especially when it is moving in the right direction. Business growth is definitely a positive change so if your business is moving in the right direction VPS hosting just might be the accommodating upgrade you need.