Month: May 2020

Ecommerce business models of all types are thriving. Sales from online stores are expected to increase 78% by 2020.

It’s easy to get caught up and excited in the latest ecommerce trends, but unless you know the fundamentals, you’ll hit a profitability wall without knowing it.

A booming ecommerce business takes intuition, knowledge of your market, a solid business plan, and careful research into products and business models. But one of the biggest hurdles most newcomers to the space face is easy to solve. Many would-be ecommerce business owners just don’t know how ecommerce businesses are set up and what different types of e-commerce are available to them.

E-business models can generally be categorized into the following categories:

1. Business – to – Business

A website following the B2B business model sells its products to an intermediate buyer who then sells the product to the final customer. As an example, a wholesaler places an order from a company’s website and after receiving the consignment, sells the endproduct to the final customer who comes to buy the product at one of its retail outlets.

2. Business – to – Consumer

A website following the B2C business model sells its products directly to a customer. A customer can view the products shown on the website. The customer can choose a product and order the same. The website will then send a notification to the business organization via email and the organization will dispatch the product/goods to the customer.

3. Consumer – to – Consumer

A website following the C2C business model helps consumers to sell their assets like residential property, cars, motorcycles, etc., or rent a room by publishing their information on the website. Website may or may not charge the consumer for its services. Another consumer may opt to buy the product of the first customer by viewing the post/advertisement on the website.

4. Consumer – to – Business

In this model, a consumer approaches a website showing multiple business organizations for a particular service. The consumer places an estimate of amount he/she wants to spend for a particular service. For example, the comparison of interest rates of personal loan/car loan provided by various banks via websites. A business organization who fulfills the consumer’s requirement within the specified budget, approaches the customer and provides its services.

5. Business – to – Government

B2G model is a variant of B2B model. Such websites are used by governments to trade and exchange information with various business organizations. Such websites are accredited by the government and provide a medium to businesses to submit application forms to the government.

6. Government – to – Business

Governments use B2G model websites to approach business organizations. Such websites support auctions, tenders, and application submission functionalities.

7. Government – to – Citizen

Governments use G2C model websites to approach citizen in general. Such websites support auctions of vehicles, machinery, or any other material. Such website also provides services like registration for birth, marriage or death certificates. The main objective of G2C websites is to reduce the average time for fulfilling citizen’s requests for various government services.

Recent years have seen an exceptional evolution in the way India trades and shops. E-commerce is one of the rapidly growing sectors, stimulating an entire generation of entrepreneurs, large scale manufacturing of small and medium-sized enterprises. E-commerce has enabled helped reduce barriers and bring the manufacturer closer to the customer. The presence of a virtual store on e-commerce websites has helped millions of business flourish in India and has led to more employment opportunities as well.

Today, technology has advanced at a rapid pace and with the use of smart phones, the online shopping experience has become seamless for customers. With easy to use mobile apps with elaborate store catalogs, e-commerce has ushered new opportunities for both traders and consumers.

India is one of the largest markets of e-commerce players. With giants like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Myntra, new entrants like PayTm Mall, Shopclues, etc are also establishing a strong hold in the Indian market.

Top 7 e-commerce websites in India

1. Amazon

Amazon is one of the biggest online stores with a global presence. It not only provides a variety of product choices but also provides a great user experience and splendid customer service. Besides putting prominence to personalization, Amazon also monitors user’s browsing and purchase patterns in order to provide them recommended products for future purchases. It operates in India as a marketplace rather than a retailer.

Amazon has started two new initiatives for sellers in India: the ‘Self Service Registration (SSR)’ and ‘Amazon Easy Ship’.

Amazon SSR allows sellers to self register in Amazon marketplace, irrespective of location and size of the catalog. It enables sellers to start selling within a day without any third party intervention. With Amazon Easy Ship, the seller has to pack the shipment and confirm to Amazon that they are ready to ship. Amazon Logistics ensures that the pack is delivered to the customers within two to three working days. With new features such as Amazon Prime, customers can receive delivery of products within 24 hours. By reducing the shipping time, Amazon keeps both retailers and customers happy and increases customer stickiness on the website.

Right from mobile phones, to fashion products, electrical appliances, books, and grocery, Amazon has become a one-stop shop for all consumer needs.

2. Flipkart

Flipkart is an Indian based e-commerce venture and over the years, it has garnered a lot of interest in the minds of Indian consumers. It has opened up the scope for Indian e-tail market in a tremendous way. It started out as an online bookstore and now it has a gamut of products ranging from: books, apparels, electronics, digital music, home care and beauty. Moreover, it has now become a mega marketplace.

Flipkart’s fundamental differentiator is its supply chain efficiency— definitive delivery of goods. It has been continuously developing and improving the customer experience. The website is easy to browse, hassle-free, and convenient.

Two of the most important reasons for Flipkart’s grand success are the discounts and the option of Cash- on- Delivery which makes consumers more confident in purchasing products. Flipkart has an amazing customer retention rate with 70% of repeat customers.

Apart from the shopping experience, Flipkart’s biggest online shopping festival – Big Billion Days is one of the most successful campaigns and it churns out millions of orders during that shopping season.

3. Jabong

Jabong came into the e-commerce market with a bang and created a revolution within 6 to 7 months of launch. Besides selling products on their own through inventories, Jabong is also an online marketplace for third-party sellers. They predominantly cater to apparel, footwear, jewelry, and accessories and catalog more than 50,000 products across 700 brands.

Jabong is known for its own logistics network that ensures fast delivery. If you are in a city like Delhi, you are bound to receive the product within 24 hours of order placement. Jabong is also trying to expand its international presence through its site ‘JabongWorld.com’. It ships Indian products to international customers.

One of Jabong’s uniqueness lies in its new idea of a fashion magazine— “The Juice”an interesting blend of fashion, people, trends and pop culture. The magazine has everything in it that readers would love to read in a fashion magazine. Jabong has also collaborated with films such as “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag”, “Main Tera Hero”, and “Humpty Sharma ki Dulhaniya” to offer exclusive products inspired by the movie.

The various payment gateways offered by Jabong have made it convenient for consumers to order products from the website. In 2016, Jabong was acquired by Myntra.

4. Snapdeal

Snapdeal is a successful e-commerce portal catering to customer’s buying needs at a much wider aspect. It was established with a concept of making products available to the customers at a discounted rate through offers and Snapdeal coupons.

It gives you the best deals in a particular city in various service categories ranging from: restaurants, spas and salons, apparel, footwear, baby care, home and décor. It has adopted the marketplace business model. Snapdeal came up with a unique idea of permitting local vendors and manufacturers to publish their product catalog and sell it on the Snapdeal portal. This avoids expensive costs involved in building own inventory.

Snapdeal’s business model was awarded with mammoth funding to scale up their products, business and operations. It focuses on logistics and efficient delivery to customers.  It operates in such a fast pace that a new product is added in every 30 seconds.

5. Myntra

Myntra is one of the largest shopping e-tailers in fashion and lifestyle merchandise. It supplies a wide range of products from clothing to footwear and accessories. It focuses on bringing the most fashionable brands for its customers. In 2014, Myntra was acquired by Flipkart.

Myntra has created a niche in the territory of e-commerce and subtle trust from people. Additionally, from discounts to Cash-on-Delivery benefits, the Myntra success mantra belongs to its hybrid logistics model. It takes uttermost care of its supply chain management and employs delivery agents with high experience.

Myntra has also come up with a complete guide to your everyday fashion and latest style trends. The “MyntraLookGood” is a daily fix of style tips, beauty tricks, celeb fashion, and non-stop entertainment. The tie-ups with celebrities and events are an outstanding strategy by Myntra to represent that fashion is in its DNA. Myntra has many celebrity brands— Hrithik Roshan’s HRX, Salman Khan’s Being Human, Deepika Padukone’s All About You, and Farhan Akhtar’s MARD. They believe that Bollywood influences fashion and frequent tie-up with celebrities helps to bring customers closer to Myntra.

6. Shopclues

Shopclues is the latest addition to the top e-commerce websites in India. Unlike Amazon and Flipkart, Shopclues is a market place that focuses on unstructured categories of home, electrical, fashion, and daily utility items.  The mass market of shopclues comes from tier 2 and tier 3 cities and most of its business comes from smaller cities. Shopclues helps give brands from unstructured markets a voice of its own.

Shopclues has a comparatively larger merchant base. It focuses on small and medium sized traders located in smaller cities and helps them take their business online. With over 50 million visitors on its website, one of the major revenue generating categories has been the home and kitchen appliances category.

7. PayTm

PayTm is the second largest e-commerce platform in India and has also made its way to the list of unicorn startups. Primarily started as a mobile wallet, in 2016, PayTm entered the e-commerce industry with PayTm Mall. As the name suggests, it is an online market place for products ranging from electronics to daily consumer needs.

One of the attractive features of PayTm has been its cashback feature. Consumers are given a variety of discount coupons to choose from and also provide good savings on the purchase of goods. With close to 120 million buyers on the platform, PayTm Mall is finding new ways to enhance the buying experience. It is also collaborating with retail brick-and-motor stores and with use of its mobile app and QR codes, it takes the customer through an online shopping experience with attractive discounts.

Thus, India is a growing marketplace and e-commerce industries are bound to flourish. But with the right technology and design strategy, new entrants can have a competitive edge.

Be it a website, a mobile app, or even building a market place software from scratch, GoodWorkLabs has helped clients in the retail, real estate, and fashion industry build powerful e-commerce applications for their business.

Hardware Tools

The following are the tangible, hands-on tools you should have available for your use when managing and maintaining your network. While virtually monitoring your system is made easier with the right software, the network itself still lives and breathes through the technological foundation you’ve built here in the real world.

1. Butt Set

Used in telephony, a butt set allows you to test your network’s phone lines using alligator clips and a handheld set.

2. Cable Certifier

Want to verify your cable’s bandwidth and frequency? A cable certifier can help you confirm that your CAT 5e cable meets proper specifications, supporting speeds of 1000 Mbps.

3. Cable Tester

A cable tester can help you verify that your cable is wired correctly or to troubleshoot suspected faulty cables, allowing you to identify short or open cables. Fluke Networks is a great resource for high quality cable testing and diagnostic hardware.

4. Crimper

You’ll need a crimper to attach cables and connectors.

5. Toner Probe

Need to find the other end of a cable? Then a toner probe’s your new best friend, allowing you to place a tone on one end of the wire to find the corresponding tone on the other end with a speaker and contact probe. This excellent troubleshooting tool can also be used to identify cable continuity because a short or open cable will not complete the circuit and produce the tone.

6. Environmental monitor

Your environmental monitor will log the conditions (temp and humidity) of the room in which your sensitive network equipment resides. An excellent tool for monitoring the conditions in your data center(s) and/or server rooms, an environmental monitor can help you identify those issues that could potentially cause problems for your equipment helping you to sidestep a down. Tracking these logs can also assist you in ferreting out potential environmental causes of problems like random reboots or overheated systems. AVTECH makes a wide range of tools to monitor your environmental and power status in server rooms.

7. Loop back plug

Want to test your data ports and NIC jacks? A loop back plug can help you verify that data is flowing properly on that port, both sending and receiving.

8. Multimeter

Your multimeter can help you with continuity checks, measuring voltages, amperage, and resistance. Touch the probes to two ends of a wire and listen for the multimeter’s characteristic beep. No beep? Your cable has a break in continuity it’s that simple.

9. OTDR & TDR

The optical time domain reflectometer (OTDR) and time domain reflectometer (TDR) work similarly, allowing you to isolate the locations of breaks, measuring the distance between cable ends by sending a signal down the cable and measuring how long it takes to return or reflect the signal back from a break. Both are invaluable in troubleshooting breaks and even more minor disruptions in the electrical flow of your cables. OTDR works on fiber optic cables.

10. Punch Down Tool

Allowing you to “punch down” connecting cables to wiring blocks or terminate cables to jacks with a small amount of pressure, the punch down tool is spring loaded and a must have for all those maintaining a network.

Hardware or Software Tools

Some tools offer an opportunity for choice between hardware or software to do the same job, which you choose will depend on your network’s needs, budget, and priorities.

Protocol Analyzer aka “Packet Sniffer”

Want to hunt down an unauthorized application or suspected attack on your network? Send in the sniffer. Protect your network by analyzing traffic, troubleshooting problems or suspicious activity using a protocol analyzer. While many folks view a hardware-based protocol analyzer solution as superior to software solutions, the cost difference and network priorities of your organization may make a software solution a better choice for you.

Regardless of which you choose, this hardware device or software program is used to sniff out issues and allows you to see a snapshot of wireless traffic on your network, capturing packets traveling over the network for analysis. Packets are then saved in a capture file and can be inspected for information like the source and destination IP addresses, service set identifier (SSID), source and destination media access control (MAC) addresses, source and destination ports, and payload data, allowing admins to verify they’ve been compromised and to identify the location of the computer involved. Wireshark provides both free and commercial resources for deep inspection of network activity.

Software Tools

While there are many all-in-one solutions available to help you monitor, analyze, and maintain your network – we’ll leave the choice of which to use up to you. Here is a list of the most common tools your network management software should contain and how they can assist you in doing what you do.

1. Bandwidth Monitor

Monitor the average BPS and utilization percentage of interfaces, identifying traffic bottlenecks in a switch or router in real-time with this vital bandwidth tool. Presented in an easy-to-understand graphical format.

2. Network Monitor

Continuously monitoring device response time, your network monitor alerts you via email, reporting node status and prioritizing severity. Ipswitch creates industry leading tools to visualize and monitor your network.

3. Port Scanner

Track down unknown or unwanted services running on your system using a port scanner to scan for port status, associating ports with known services.

4. Switch Port Mapper

Manual cable tracing is both time consuming and a total drag, save yourself from tedium and identify each switch port a device is connected to within a switch using a switch port mapper. Useful in helping you quickly assess port availability and gain real-time operational status and speeds of each port.

5. System Details Update

Streamline your system details update process using this handy tool that lets you to view, scan, modify, and update the details on a range of devices all at once.

6. TCP Reset

Providing a list of all established TCP connections in a device, the TCP reset lets you verify legitimate connections and reset those that are unwanted or unauthorized.

7. Wake-On-LAN

Wake it up when you’re on the go-go. Wake-on LAN allows you to remotely “wake” or boot up a machine in low power mode on the network with the use of a remote command. Solarwinds provides free tools to manage your network power consumption and use wake-on-lan technology to save energy and remotely control system power.

E-Business plan for an E-Commerce company typically involves creating a document to use to obtain financing and start the business. Using the resources and tools provided from mentoring organizations such as SCORE.org, small E-Business owners can develop a comprehensive E-Business plan to get an online business up and running efficiently.

These are the way that planning E-Business

1. Executive Summary

Writing a business plan typically starts with downloading a template or developing a simple format. Alternatively, the Small Business Administration provides an online wizard to generate a plan for you. This tool guides a potential E-Business owner in describing his E-Business’ objectives and goals. Effective small business owners create an executive summary that clearly states how they intend to overcome problems commonly associated with online businesses, such as difficult-to-use websites and inefficient distribution systems. An executive summary usually includes a mission statement that explains the company’s primary purpose. It lists the names of company founders and their roles as well as office locations. It also provides graphs and charts to show projected growth plans.

2. Market Analysis

To conduct a market analysis for your E-Business, research online companies serving the industry in your area of expertise. For example, a budding E-Business owner might search the Internet to find out how many other companies supply the same type of products and services. This will give him an idea of how much competition is out there, and whether there is enough demand to support another company. After learning about other businesses, write a description of how you plan to differentiate your E-Business from others. This will help you build a compelling story that investors find attractive.

3. Company Description

The company description section of an E-Business plan describes how the business owner plans to organize and manage his company. It articulates the vision for marketing, selling and distributing the website’s products and services, and lists the features and benefits to customers. The plan should also describe research and development activities the founders have conducted so far, as well as activities planned for the future.

4. Financial

The financial section of an E-Business plan states the budget. If the business owner seeks funding, it lists the amount required and the projected return on investment for the online business. This section also identifies the costs associated with building the e-Business website, including desktops, laptops and mobile devices. It can list free or low-cost tools as well. For example, websites such as Homestead, Openxcell and Free Webstore provide functions to set up an online shop and accept payments for it, using applications like Google Checkout and PayPal.

5. Regulations

Writing an E-Business plan also involves researching the rules and regulations associated with conducting business online. The Small Business Administration Online Business Law website provides details on these laws. You should learn how to avoid legal and financial liabilities, how to conduct business securely, how to protect your privacy, and how to adhere to copyright and tax laws. Conducting business online usually means working in the global marketplace. An effective E-Business plan proposes a strategy for shipping products overseas and handling taxes, duties and international laws. It also describes a plan to collect sales taxes when necessary.

Framework for Successful Ecommerce Implementation and Controlling

1. Strategic business planning and roadmaps

Strategy is about making the right choices that will help reach the stated business objectives.

There should to be a clear cut vision, mission and objective about what will be achieved, in how much time, within what budget, identification of the right resources for and constraints in the face of execution of the strategy mentioned in the business plan, and what elements will be considered for roadmap.

Knowledge and deep understanding of the digital marketing tools and techniques that will help in reaching and acquiring customers is required. Your business must reach out to customers who are online across multiple dimensions and devices.

So, the assumptions considered in preparing the strategic business plan should be in alignment with the ecommerce industry’s norms and trends.

2. Technology selection/ website audit and analysis

In order to provide the maximum benefit to the end customer, your chosen ecommerce technology should be fully capable of being customizable, and be able to complement the business model, and adhere to the existing best practices in offline retail.

If you’re a retailer taking the first-time plunge into ecommerce, various functionalities on the e-commerce website should be carefully thought over based on the industry, audience being targeted, various customer segments who may be buying the offered products and services.

With respect to retailers who have implemented an ecommerce strategy and have not yet received the rewards of the complete capability of the ecommerce technologies, there needs be a complete assessment of how the website can perform better by examining the store front and customer flow, analysis of competing websites, identification and implementation of solutions based on the gap analysis carried out (‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’). It is equally important to measure and monitor the process that was made because of the implementation of the suggested changes.

3. Customer acquisition

Online or popular digital marketing encompasses multiple tools for reaching out to the new generation of customers, who are actively engaged in using multiple devices, through search engine optimization, search engine marketing (paid advertisement that includes both cost per click and cost per thousand impressions), social media marketing (that includes both cost per click and cost per thousand impressions), email campaigns, display advertisements using various ad networks, referral programs and re-targeting campaigns.

Going by the sales principles of AIDA (awareness, interest, desire and action), it’s important to note that the cost of customer acquisition will be very high for brands and retailers that are newly establishing their product offerings exclusively online.

However, for brands that are well established offline and are pursuing ecommerce strategy, the cost of customer acquisition is lesser compared to the new entrants.

4. Customer engagement

Customers these days are actively seeking to engage with brands to understand the core benefits and unique value proposition that the brand offers, discount and offers during special seasons, a robust support mechanism for queries/clarifications regarding the products displayed and interaction with customer support executives to know more about policies on returns and exchange, etc.

Engaging customers through various social media channels also instills superior trust in the minds of customers.

5. Customer retention

With the advent of sophisticated e-commerce technologies, new age retailers will be able to leverage an almost one-to-one customer experience and that’s the best a customer can really expect.

However, it should be noted that to fully leverage best-in-class technology, there needs to be a constant effort to look out for features and functionalities that will enhance the customer experience.

6. Optimization based on key metrics

Some of the key metrics to measure the health of an ecommerce venture are the total revenue generated, cost of customer acquisition, % of customers converted, and % of customers entering the website through various channels.

However, these metrics may vary significantly based on the business objectives and so every business needs a fully customized approach for defining the key metrics and further analysis.

Once these are defined and there are a substantial number of customers visiting the website, a deeper level of optimization is needed at 2 levels on the technology and the business front.

• Technology: This generally includes optimizing the page load speed, shopping cart, check-out and other web pages, a/b and multivariate testing, etc.
• Business: Optimization here includes analysis of the total revenues generated, total spends for running the e-commerce operations, optimizing the gross net margins, conversion rates from each of the various channels, customer loyalty and retention rates, rate of repeat purchase, frequency of repeat customers (across multiple dimensions), % of carts abandoned, etc.
• There are a lot of features and functionalities to helping online retailers improve these numbers. There is a lot of research evidence supporting the incorporation of features like reviews and ratings, and display of the right products either through up-selling or cross-selling.
• Based on the statistics, 47% of shoppers read product reviews prior to their online purchases and 63% are more likely to buy from websites with online reviews or ratings. Similarly, online companies that leverage a recommendation system can increase sales by 8-10%.

7. Business analysis and customer insights

The final step in the entire process is about fine-tuning and understanding the product categories that have performed well compared to other products displayed in the webstore. Assessing this is crucial since each of these categories and products within those categories occupy the prime real estate in the online world – the web store.

• It also should consist of understanding the customer segments, demographics, profitable customers, source of channels through which the profitable customers came to the web store, % of revenue each profitable customer contributes to and the marketing spends that has gone into acquiring these customers.
• These metrics are only a small representation of a larger list that can be optimized further. These metrics vary based on the business needs and require a customized approach for defining, monitoring and optimization.

Getting buyers to visit, buy and keep buying is the essence of marketing for websites selling things online. When people share your content with their friends, your campaigns gain far more reach at no additional cost.

Selling online requires a specialized marketing mix but the same principles can be applied to almost any website.

1. User experience

First thing’s first. If customers can’t figure out where to go and what to do on your website then they won’t stay or come back. By definition that means they won’t buy anything, and they definitely won’t be referring their friends to your store.

When it comes to selling things online, you don’t have the luxury of in person conversations or salespeople, so you need to fill those gaps in the customer experience with a great user experience. Remember that a great user experience doesn’t mean fancy or expensive design. It just means having a logical and intuitive workflow.

With a little bit of thought and planning you can even replicate in a reasonable way some of the elements of an in-person shopping experience on your site.

2. Design

Your store design and user experience go hand in hand. Not only should the layout and navigation of your site be easy to follow, but the first aesthetic impression you leave on your customer counts too. Product photos should be clean and professional, your font and color selections should all work together, and everything on your site should look like some design thought was put into it.

If you’re not a designer yourself, this is an area where it pays off to bring in some professional help.

3. Content

Good content is one of the most strategic things you can add to your online store. Content helps users find your store and also helps users make the decision to buy from your store.

Content helps sell your business, your expertise and your products. This includes everything from the copy, to the images and video you use on your site.

Another great place to contribute content is through a store blog. If you’re looking for a hand in crafting super shareable content here is a technique we’ve come to know and love called the skyscraper technique.

4. Search

If your business is online, there is one marketing tactic that you absolutely cannot afford to ignore. Search. Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are critical to the discoverability of your business.

Consumers are now trained to ask Google all of the questions they have in life. This is especially true when it comes to shopping and product questions. Knowing how to make your site easily searchable by Google and other search engines (like Bing and DuckDuckGo) should be top of mind when it comes to any online marketing strategy.

5. Email

With the breadth of choice out there for marketers, some of the older, proven, tactics fall to the wayside. Email is an example of one of those. I‘m amazed by how often people I advise are surprised by the effectiveness and the engagement levels that can be generated by email marketing.

I think the world of business has had the fear of being called a spammer drilled into them, to the point where many businesses actually overlook their most valuable marketing asset their opt-in subscriber list. Remember customers who have opted-in to communications from you expect just that. Communication from you.

More than ever consumers are reading and catching up on email through a mobile device. Here’s some advice on making sure your messages are coming in clearly.

6. Social Media

The last thing the world needs is another blog post with advice on social media. So I’ll just leave it at that. Social media is no longer a fad, it’s a must when it comes to your marketing mix and marketing channels. Here are some thoughts on how to make the most of it.

7. PR and Publicity

Now we’re getting a bit more old school. Public relations (mentions on news outlets, blogs and other news outlets) can be a huge help for businesses starting out. They help to get you more search juice when it comes to Google and SEO and also more importantly help to establish credibility for your brand in the eyes of consumers.

Here’s some advice on creating a simple (but effective) PR strategy.

According to recent data, E-Commerce spending has risen to $2.1 trillion in the past few years and will reach $5 trillion by 2020.

Such rapid growth promises a great future for the Indian e-commerce industry signifying a strong market and increased customer demand. Despite these growth trends, many e-commerce businesses fail to take off within their first year. It is worth exploring the various challenges which the ecommerce.

Over the past 10-15 years, electronic trading platforms have emerged in the depths of large enterprises as a system of resource allocation between departments. Shoes, furniture, consumer electronics – there is almost nothing that cannot be ordered on the Internet. But the consumption in the net has also dark sides. Bogus orders, fake websites, illegal purchases, etc. are also more frequent. In such a case, the protection of user data has also become a major challenge in the online world. With the growing financial services, the type of payment your business accepts also effects the e-commerce today. Payment solution like My Payment Savvy provides a custom payment solution for your business which can maximize your conversion. We have listed some of the major challenges facing e-commerce today, and their solutions.

1. Dependence on Google for traffic

Google is the world leader in search engines, and by extension, responsible for the visibility of websites. More than 50% of online shops are dependent on Google for traffic. Despite plans for new search engines that are competing with Google, the supremacy of Google seems destined to last a few more years. And this can impact e-merchants when Google changes the rules of the game. Recently, there was the requirement to switch to HTTPS to make Google Shopping campaigns, in addition to displaying the non-security of data in the Chrome and Firefox browsers. Unencrypted web pages that query passwords, bank details or credit card information was marked as “unsafe” by major browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge and others. Therefore, it is recommended changing the traffic acquisition channels of websites, so as not to depend solely on Google for visibility and transactions.

2. Absence of online verification of customers

The genuineness of the new customers is questionable in an online portal. When a visitor signs up, e-websites have nothing but the address and phone number entered by them. If those visitors are a scam, and if they order cash on delivery purchases to a fake address, it can be a huge loss for the company. It becomes impossible to contact them if the number is also fake. Therefore, to be at the safe side, e-websites or online portals should take all necessary steps required to decline these risks. It is necessary to recognize bogus orders, fake phone numbers, invalid zip code, etc. Alternatively, they can install services or software that automates a call on placing an order. These services also send some verification code through SMS to validate the customers’ identity. It can help in reducing the number of cancellation and bogus orders which may otherwise be expensive for the business.

3. Maintain Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is an important indicator of firm performance. The modern consumer is so sophisticated and busy that showing content or sending offers that are not relevant to him at all is a real failure. If the online store does not understand what the potential consumer wants or does not consider it necessary to understand, then it may cost the store a customer. Unlike normal street shopping, the buyer and seller do not see each other in online shopping. Therefore, it is difficult to build trust between them. Building trust, therefore, can take some time and transactions in online shops. You can also earn customers loyalty through excellent customer service. By displaying your address, answering calls, adding a live chat option on your website, etc. can also help you in building trust among customers.

4. Customer Service

In a general store, the customer leaves the store with his product. However, this situation is not the same as e-commerce. In e-shopping, the user sends you money for a product he does not have yet. He waits impatiently for the arrival of his order. Problems can still arise if the delivery service provider has lost a package, or the product has been damaged during transport, or you have simply fallen behind before shipping. This can cause customer dissatisfaction, which will then need to be managed. The idea is to be transparent and responsive and to keep customers abreast of the situation as soon as possible. If you are in a discussion with the delivery provider to find a lost package, keep the user informed of your steps, do not wait for him to come to the news. Similarly, if you are late in your parcel preparations, inform him of the expected date of shipment. If the product has been damaged during transport, quickly propose a solution according to your legal notice, whether a total or partial refund or a replacement. Internet users who have received good communication in the case of litigation generally keep good relations with the e-commerce site, 95% of the negative opinions turn into loyal customers if a solution has been made. The responsiveness of the after-sales service greatly affects the image of a company.

5. Plan your digital strategy

In the continuity of the multidisciplinary profession, the e-merchant forgets to promote and animate his merchant site. E-merchants should determine the communication channels to be used (social networks, newsletters, partnerships, online advertising) and define the messages to be transmitted, set up editorial planning, create the visuals, etc. Getting help from an outside provider for some of these tasks can help to free up time for managing your e-commerce site.

The everyday life of the e-shopkeeper is filled with things to manage, to plan, and lots of small tasks to do. As such, it requires outstanding strategies to survive in the e-commerce competition.

We all have dreams, be it owning a car, a house, child attending a prestigious college or building a healthy retirement corpus. But we seldom pen down these goals and work towards a plan for achieving them. These can be termed as your life goals.

Financial Planning

Contrary to popular belief, financial planning is not just investing. It is a process. It allows you to manage your finances in such a way that you link it to your goals. Making a standalone investment in a life insurance product means nothing if you do not know the amount of cover you need, or whether the maturity proceeds are adequate, or whether you need a life cover.

The process of financial planning should help you answer three questions. Where you are today, that is, your current personal balance sheet, where do you want to be tomorrow, that is, finances linked to your goals, and what you must do to get there, that is, the asset allocation and investment strategy that will help you achieve your objectives.

Developing a financial plan needs a consideration of various factors. First, your objective or the purpose for which the investments are being made. The time period, too, is critical, since the longer the period of investment, the higher is the ability to absorb risks. Also, one of the most important factors that many of us did not account for earlier is inflation. The level of inflation can deplete your return from investment considerably. Today’s expense of Rs 10,000 would be Rs 43,000 in 30 years if the inflation rate stays at 5% per annum.

Mutual funds as a financial planning tool: Mutual funds have managed to constantly deliver financial planning solutions to investors by way of various products that they offer. Contrary to popular belief, mutual funds are not an asset class. They are vehicles that allow you to execute your financial plan.

In terms of the risk-return perspective, not only can you choose funds which are as safe as you want (such as liquid funds), you can also invest in funds that can be as risky as you want (such as sectoral funds). In between there are various types of funds that have different levels of risk. Not only are they cost efficient, they are tax efficient as well.

Investment tools such as systematic investment plans (SIPs) and systematic transfer plans (STPs) are ideal for salaried individuals who want to invest consistently and ride through market volatility. By rightly identifying the risk you are willing to take, your liquidity requirement and your return expectation, you can match a fund to suit your investment objective.

Remember to invest in products you understand, and more important, stick to funds that have an established record. Given below are excerpts from the interaction that investors had with the panelists.

How to Create a Financial Plan?

A good Financial plan differs from person to person according to their individual needs, goals and long-term plan. But the steps involved in a creating a sound personal financial plan are by and large similar for all. Let’s look at the steps involved in the creating a financial plan for yourself:

1. Find out your Current Financial Situation

You should be well aware of your current financial status and net worth before setting out to reach your goals. A discussion with your financial advisor will help you understand your net worth and put a spotlight on your priorities. For example, after the analyzing your current financial situation, you discover that planning for the marriage is more important than planning for buying a car. You need to understand your cash flows, income levels, dependants, running loans, liabilities etc. This research will help you prioritise your goals and carve a plan accordingly.

2. Time Frame and Budgeting

For a financial plan to work, it is of utmost importance that a clear timeline is defined. The timeline gives you a direction to reach your set goals. Moreover, the deadlines keep you alert and motivated to reach your goals in time. Along with this time frame, it is important to have a budget accompanying it. A budget gives you an idea about your expenses, spending, and savings that ultimately help you in reaching your goals.

3. Set Goals- Short Term, Mid Term, and Long Term

You must have clear goals in order to make full use of your financial plan. The financial plan is the road that leads you to the targets that you have set. Your goals can be either short-term, mid-term or long-term.

Short-term goals are those goals that you set for the near future. These goals have specific time frames and an objective that you want to accomplish in say a year or two years’ time. There are a lot of short-term financial goals that can be set as per your wish list. For example, save for a family vacation, buy high-tech gadgets, etc. Mid-term goals are those goals that you wish to achieve in the next three to four years. It may include important goals like saving up for marriage or higher education, buy a fancy car, paying off previous debts (if any), or to start a business, etc. As you march on to complete your short-term goals, you can start ideating your mid-term goals and also plan on how you can achieve them.

Long term goals are the ones that might take you considerably more time to achieve than the previous two types of financial goals. Planning for long-term goals such as your children’s future, their education, your own retirement, etc. takes meticulous planning and organization. You can start by setting up short-term and mid-term goals, deliver them on time and then build on it to achieve your long-term goals.

4. Assess your Risk

Investing plays a big role in your long-term wealth management. It’s never too late to start investing. Any investment comes with a risk factor attached to it. Investing Early gives you the ability to take bigger risks and thus an opportunity to generate higher returns. But before investing, one should assess their own risk-taking ability or do their Risk assessment to know their risk appetite. Risk profiling helps you understand how much risk can you take and then invest accordingly. Assessing risk involves many factors such as the ability to tolerate loss, intended holding period, knowledge of investments, current cash flows, dependants etc. Assessment of risk ensures that one stays within the zone defined by risk. This tries to ensure that in the long run, one does not see unexpected action or outcomes in the investment portfolio.

When an investor undergoes risk profiling, they have to answer a set of questions designed specifically for the purpose. The answers to those questions are recorded and used to calculate their risk appetite. These set of questions differ for different Mutual Fund Houses or distributors. The score of an investor after answering the questions determines their ability to take a risk. An investor can be a high-risk taker, mid-risk taker or can be a low-risk taker.

5. Asset Allocation

You should decide the mix of your asset classes such as debt and equity depending upon the risk appetite that one has. The asset allocation can be aggressive (investing mainly in equity), moderate (more inclined toward Debt fund) or it can be conservative (less inclined towards equity). You need to match your risk profile or risk taking capacity with the asset allocation you seek to have in your investment portfolio.

E-commerce is big much bigger than you might think. According to a survey from Pew Research, 35 percent of Indian have made an online purchase, and those numbers are even higher among younger demographics.

Because of this, it should hardly be surprising that more and more entrepreneurs are looking to enter the B2C e-commerce world and are using dropshipping as their go-to method. Dropshipping is an extremely cost-effective method of starting your own online business that can yield big dividends, but it is still largely misunderstood by many would-be entrepreneurs.

By understanding a few key e-commerce terms, you can better comprehend how dropshipping works and learn what you need to do to turn your own dropshipping endeavors into a profitable business.

Without further ado, here are seven key e-commerce terms you need to know.

1. Trading companies and wholesalers

Trading companies and wholesalers play a central role in dropshipping. Rather than ordering and storing your own inventory, the products you sell in your e-commerce store are made available through a third party manufacturer. You feature items in your store, but after the customer places an order, the trading company will fulfill the order. You essentially “buy” the item from the wholesaler, while keeping any profits from your price markups. While you need to be careful to only work with quality manufacturers, this partnership dramatically reduces overhead costs when compared with a more traditional business model.

2. HTTPS

With digital data theft a constant threat, customers are understandably wary of submitting their credit card information to a new site. Because of this, it is essential that you update your e-commerce site to use HTTPS. This system uses either an SSL or TLS protocol connection to provide an extra layer of security for your site, encrypting traffic so that hackers won’t be able to steal any data that is communicated through your platform.

If you don’t offer an HTTPS connection, many potential buyers will avoid your site entirely but worse yet, you’ll put your own information and that of your customers at risk.

3. PPC advertising

It’s one thing to set up a store; it’s quite another to actually get customers to come to it. For dropshipping businesses, one of the best ways to attract new customers is through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. In a PPC campaign, you create advertisements through AdWords or another similar resource, developing engaging content with keywords that are related to your products or store.

Your completed ads will then appear when a web browser conducts a relevant online search in Google or another search engine but you’ll only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad. The quality of your ad and the amount you are willing to bid for an ad placement will affect where your content will show up in the search results. PPC is one of the most important tools in your dropshipping arsenal the more you do to master this digital advertising method, the more likely you are to achieve success.

4. MAP pricing

While most of us understand the term MSRP, MAP pricing is a less commonly used term however, it is of extreme importance for dropshipping businesses. Because of dropshipping’s low overhead costs, many sellers adopt a strategy of offering deep discounts in an effort to boost sales. However, many manufacturers enforce a minimum advertised price (MAP) agreement. In a nutshell, this means that sellers must agree to not offer items below a certain price. Should you break the agreement, the manufacturer can revoke your selling privileges for their products.

5. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

While your marketing efforts can help bring new customers to your store, it is essential that they do so in a cost-effective manner. Cost per acquisition (CPA) refers to how much money you needed to spend to acquire a customer. For example, if you were to evaluate the CPA for a PPC campaign, you would look at how much money you spent on the campaign, and then divide it by the number of conversions you achieved from your efforts.

It should come as no surprise that you should always be trying to lower your CPA, but you need to examine this crucial data point more closely than that. Your CPA should be evaluated alongside your other overhead costs and then compared to how much your average converted customer spends on your site. If your CPA is higher than your average customer spend, it’s time to rethink your marketing strategy otherwise, you’ll only lose money.

6. Responsive design

People use their smartphones for social media and games, but they also use it for shopping. Currently, an estimated 34.5 percent of e-commerce sales come from mobile users, and that number is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, with mobile sales making up the majority of purchases by 2021. This means that responsive design is an absolute must for your e-commerce site.

Responsive website design accounts for the device someone is using to browse your site by adapting the presentation of images, menus and text so that a user can easily navigate the page. Responsive design makes it easy for someone visiting your site to fill out forms, browse items and make a purchase, regardless of whether they are using a desktop computer or a smartphone.

7. Bounce rate

Another important term for understanding the effectiveness of your website is its bounce rate. The bounce rate refers to how many people click away from your site before clicking on any of your links or content. In other words, these people are taking a quick glance at your landing page, deciding they don’t like what they see and leaving before ever having the chance to become a paying customer.

While bounce rates for almost any website are relatively high, you should consistently examine your bounce rate and look for steps you can take to make your site more appealing to visitors. A retail commerce site that uses good targeting should aim to have a bounce rate between 20 percent and 40 percent any higher, and you likely have issues with either your marketing campaigns or the site content itself that need to be addressed.

Conclusion

Knowledge is power, and that is definitely the case with these e-commerce keywords. As you come to understand these important terms and leverage them in your day-to-day business activities, you’ll be able to lay the foundations for a successful e-commerce store and get more out of your dropshipping efforts.

An e-commerce payment system (or an electronic payment system) facilitates the acceptance of electronic payment for online transactions. Also known as a subcomponent of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), e-commerce payment systems have become increasingly popular due to the widespread use of the internet-based shopping and banking.

Credit cards remain the most common forms of payment for e-commerce transactions. As of 2019, in India almost 65% of online retail transactions were made with this payment type. It is difficult for an online retailer to operate without supporting credit and debit cards due to their widespread use. Online merchants must comply with stringent rules stipulated by the credit and debit card issuers (e.g. Visa and MasterCard) in accordance with bank and financial regulation in the countries where the debit/credit service conducts business.

For the vast majority of payment systems accessible on the public Internet, baseline authentication data integrity, and confidentiality of the electronic information exchanged over the public network involves obtaining a certificate from an authorized certification authority (CA) who provides public-key infrastructure (PKI). Even with transport layer security (TLS) in place to safeguard the portion of the transaction conducted over public networks especially with payment systems the customer-facing website itself must be coded with great care, so as not to leak credentials and expose customers to subsequent identity theft.

Despite widespread use in North America, there are still many countries such as China and India that have some problems to overcome in regard to credit card security. Increased security measures include use of the card verification number (CVN) which detects fraud by comparing the verification number printed on the signature strip on the back of the card with the information on file with the cardholder’s issuing bank.

There are companies that specialize in financial transaction over the internet, such as Stripe for credit cards processing, Smartpay for direct online bank payments and PayPal for alternative payment methods at checkout. Many of the mediaries permit consumers to establish an account quickly, and to transfer funds between their on-line accounts and traditional bank accounts, typically via Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions.

Electronic Payment Methods

One of the most popular payment forms online are credit and debit cards. Besides them, there are also alternative payment methods, such as bank transfers, electronic wallets, smart cards or bitcoin wallet (bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency).

E-payment methods could be classified into two areas, credit payment systems and cash payment systems.

1. Credit Payment System

• Credit Card: A form of the e-payment system which requires the use of the card issued by a financial institute to the cardholder for making payments online or through an electronic device, without the use of cash.
• E-wallet: A form of prepaid account that stores user’s financial data, like debit and credit card information to make an online transaction easier.
• Smart card: A plastic card with a microprocessor that can be loaded with funds to make transactions; also known as a chip card.

2. Cash Payment System

• Direct debit: A financial transaction in which the account holder instructs the bank to collect a specific amount of money from his account electronically to pay for goods or services.
• E-check: A digital version of an old paper check. It’s an electronic transfer of money from a bank account, usually checking account, without the use of the paper check.
• E-cash is a form of an electronic payment system, where a certain amount of money is stored on a client’s device and made accessible for online transactions.
• Stored-value card: A card with a certain amount of money that can be used to perform the transaction in the issuer store. A typical example of stored-value cards are gift cards.

Pros and Cons of Using an E-payment System

E-payment systems are made to facilitate the acceptance of electronic payments for online transactions. With the growing popularity of online shopping, e-payment systems became a must for online consumers — to make shopping and banking more convenient. It comes with many benefits, such as:

• Reaching more clients from all over the world, which results in more sales.
• More effective and efficient transactions: It’s because transactions are made in seconds (with one-click), without wasting customer’s time. It comes with speed and simplicity.
• Customers can pay for items on an e-commerce website at anytime and anywhere. They just need an internet connected device. As simple as that!
• Lower transaction cost and decreased technology costs.
• Expenses control for customers, as they can always check their virtual account where they can find the transaction history.
• Today it’s easy to add payments to a website, so even a non-technical person may implement it in minutes and start processing online payments.
• Payment gateways and payment providers offer highly effective security and anti-fraud tools to make transactions reliable.

Sounds great, so are there any drawbacks?

• E-commerce fraud is growing at 30% per year. If you follow the security rules, there shouldn’t be such problems, but when a merchant chooses a payment system which is not highly secure, there is a risk of sensitive data breach which may cause identity theft.
• The lack of anonymity: For most, it’s not a problem at all, but you need to remember that some of your personal data is stored in the database of the payment system.
• The need for internet access: As you may guess, if the internet connection fails, it’s impossible to complete a transaction, get to your online account, etc.

E-commerce, as well as m-commerce, is getting bigger year after year, so having an e-payment system in your online store is a must. It’s simple, fast and convenient, so why not have one?

Still, one of the most popular payment methods are credit and debit card payments, but people also choose some alternatives or local payment methods. If you run an online business, find out what your target audience needs and provide the most convenient and relevant e-payment system.