Latest Articles
The Importance of Satisfying Returns in eCommerce
Customize Invoices on Shopify with Order Printer Pro
Augmented Reality: Take Your Store To The Next Level
How To Grow Your Online Store: Influencer Marketing
TikTok Announces eCommerce Features
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- Written by Louw van Riet
After a week's worth of waiting and a hole in your bank account - your brand-spanking-new pair of shoes arrive at your doorstep. Unfortunately, due to an order mismatch - you get the wrong size. After an hour's worth of tedious form-filling and checking boxes, you wonder if the headache of filing for a return is even worth it.
Read more: The Importance of Satisfying Returns in eCommerce
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Earlier this year, Shopify added the feature of including packaging slips when you ship your customers' products. This is a very nice touch, although their execution missed a bit. To put it bluntly, their default design is plain ugly!
Luckily, with the help of third party apps, you can customize this packaging slip, and other documents like invoices and return forms.
Order Printer Pro is an app available on the Shopify App store, which allows you to easily create, design, and print invoices, packing slips, draft orders, and returns forms for your Shopify orders.
These beautiful designs take your Shopify store to the next level, showcasing professionalism and putting you a cut above other Shopify stores in your market.
Read the full article here: Order Printer Pro Complete Review
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Imagine an online store where customers can see the products they desire in front of them — interested in a new carpet? Plop it down virtually in your current living room to see how it will look surrounded by your existing furniture.
This might sound far-fetched, but it's real - and on the rise.
Read more: Augmented Reality: Take Your Store To The Next Level
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- Written by Louw van Riet
You're watching television, and suddenly Jennifer Anniston appears, holding the new popular flavour-of-the-month skincare product – because everyone wants to look as good as her (the woman doesn't age!)
This is a classic example of a popular marketing strategy that has been around for ages. But these days, simply having a pretty celeberity telling people your product is the greatest thing since sliced bread, simply isn't enough.
Read more: How To Grow Your Online Store: Influencer Marketing
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Social media giant TikTok has recently revealed their plans to explode its diversification into the world of eCommerce. This will allow brands to use the culture-shaping impact and reach that this app has proven to have.
In their annual advertiser-brief, TikTok revealed their planned features for the app in 2021. According to several attendees - TikTok is planning to allow brands to showcase their products to be purchased directly on the app.
This news is extra exciting to Shopify store owners, as Shopify integration is almost guaranteed following TikTok's partnership with Shopify last year.
Read the full article here: eCommerce with TikTok
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Starting your eCommerce journey is an exhilarating experience. Seeing your online store come together, with all your products ready to be sold to people all around the world, is truly exciting.
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- Written by Louw van Riet
"In a world of predominantly desktop-based eCommerce platforms, Shopify Mobile App is a beam of hope, pioneering the future that is mobile eCommerce. Shopify has always been on the front-lines of innovation, in order to help business owners to improve and refine their online stores. The Shopify Mobile App aims to bring easy and convenient store management to the comfort of your palm, without sacrificing features and functionalities."
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Are you looking to grow your Shopify store? Expand your reach with Shopify’s Sales Channels:
One of the biggest benefits Shopify offers is the convenient access it gives you to other sales channels. Sales channels represent platforms (websites or marketplaces) where you can sell your products
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: Shopify Sales Channels - Growing Your eCommerce Business
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- Written by Louw van Riet
The world of ecommerce is rich in potential. All you need to create the next Amazon, eBay or Alibaba, is an idea. All you need is a flash of inspiration... or lots and lots of research.
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Online newsletters are the future, allowing businesses to showcase their expertise, by providing expert insights on their specific fields.
The amount of marketing platforms available can be overwhelming, so picking the right one isn't the easiest task.
"These platforms need to be flexible, easy to use, and not break the bank. This is where AWeber swings into the scene."
Click here to read the full article: The Ultimate AWeber Review
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- Written by Louw van Riet
The e-commerce industry continued its unstoppable growth in 2020. A magnitude of factors sparked this explosive growth, including COVID-19, that reportedly accelerated E-commerce growth 4 to 6 years. The estimated total of online spending reached almost $83 billion in May, a 77% increase from the previous year. If you don’t already own an online store, now is the perfect time to take the dive. However, you’re not the only one looking to capitalize on this enormous growth, and the abundance of rival stores can be overwhelming. If you are planning on creating a successful online marketplace, take note of the following points to put you a cut above the rest.
1. Create an engaging website
Your store having the best products and prices simply isn’t good enough – if your website’s design looks terrible, your store’s presence will be non-existent. Most customers consider your website’s appearance the most important factor before purchasing a product. Commissioning a talented web designer for your store is well worth it.
Read more: 10 Tips On Running a Successful E-Commerce Business
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- Written by Louw van Riet
2020 cemented e-commerce as the future of shopping. With retail sales at an all-time low due to COVID-concerned customers, online stores have become the go-to alternative. This enormous influx means big bucks for online store owners, but is your store ready?
It’s becoming more apparent that Shopify is the future of e-commerce. Before Shopify, an e-commerce platform offering such a plethora of features, including security, reliability, scalability, and customization, was unheard of.
Are you unsure if your e-commerce platform will stand the trials of time? If you relate to any of the following points, it might be time to upgrade.
1. Sluggish website performance
Nothing deters customers like a website that takes ages to load. After all, your website should provide customers with an easy, simple way to purchase your products. Slow loading speeds lead to frustrated customers using a rival website instead. This problem is commonly found in unoptimized and dated e-commerce stores.
Read more: When is it time to upgrade your e-Commerce Online Store?
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Here are 10 tips on how to improve your conversion rate using images:
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Advanced Search for Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento and more
We all know what a terrible experience site search can be as consumers. Trying to find the specific product you are looking for can be an exhausting experience. You are usually shown results not related to your search term or even worse, no result at all.
That is why we recommend Searchanise Advanced Search to all our Shopify customers and recommend it with all new and existing online stores. It is also compatible with Woocommerce and Magento so there is no reason to keep on with the regular stock search that comes with your store or theme.
10 Key Ways You Can Improve Your Search
- Include a search bar in header on all pages
- Allow visitors to filter the results
- Use Autocomplete
- Use Breadcrumbs to show the customer where they are
- Use A Magnifying Class to make it easy to find
- Autocorrect for misspelling
- Display how many results there are for search term
- Show suggestions instead of zero results
- Allow customers to change result display, List View vs Grid View
- Use an Advanced Search Tool to improve your site search
Searchanise Review from e-Commerce News HQ:
More Than Just Products
Searchanise assists by showing products together with blog, category/collection & page results. This helps to drive clickthroughs to informative articles and specials you want to highlight.
Imagine a customer is searching for the benefits of rooibos tea during pregnancy. With the basic search function, they would only see the product page displayed. Searchanise will provide them with a complete picture of the information available.
It even allows search by substring which makes searching by parts of a field possible. For instance, only search for parts of an SKU. A useful trick if you consider the complicity of Variant SKUs.
Instant search powers up your website by providing immediate results as the user types. You have total control over how much data is visible in search results. For instance, a B2C/B2B store might want to hide product pricing or decide to remove product reviews so as not to clutter the results page.
Click here for the full Advanced Search Review article or here to try it out for yourself
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- Written by Louw van Riet
The world of B2B commerce has changed in the last couple of years. Clients expect an easy to use solution similar to what retail customers enjoy. Below we explore some of the must-have features and solutions that you have to offer your wholesale customers to make sure they have a pleasant experience and of course, buy more of your products.
The Ability for Customers to Self Manage Their Orders
Wholesale customers want to be able to order what they want and when they want without the need to pick up the phone or speak to a sales agent. Your e-Commerce store can provide this to your customers, 24/7. This allows them to search your full product offering, ask for quotes, place orders and reorders easily, and also log in to check their order status.
Makes Sales Available to B2B customers
Use retail sales techniques to market specials to your wholesale customers. Create special collections for on sale items, use suggestive text throughout the sales process to notify them of these items. This could be a popup when they land on-site, on product pages or when they land at checkout. Use non-intrusive messages that inform instead of annoy so they now what is on offer.
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- Written by Louw van Riet
We believe that an online e-commerce solution will add significant value to almost any business. The ability to sell through your own store brings control of your products and sales back into your hands.
No longer are you only dependent on other platforms and retailers to sell and market your products. Having your own store brings full control over how your products display, what prices you ask, and the marketing you do around it.
The issue with a normal website is that it fails to complete the customer journey. Someone searches for your product/service but cannot buy it directly from the site.
With your own store, the sales journey becomes complete. You can use your marketing channels such as email, Google Ads, social media pages, or even live events to drive sales to your online store.
Read more: Why Your Business Needs an e-Commerce Online Store
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- Written by Louw van Riet
If you really want to beat the competition, you should consider hiring a Shopify developer to create a truly stunning site that functions better than most other Shopify stores. We understand every facet of what makes a Shopify store attract and convert customers, and are capable of advanced online store techniques, such as custom coding.
HTML, Javascript, and CSS Coding
Professional Shopify developers are able to use HTML, Javascript, and CSS coding to change how your site looks and functions. This can be a major advantage over the thousands of stores using identical templates. Using custom code is especially important for the branding of your store, since most templates may come close to your exact color scheme and imagery, but won’t be perfect. Since consistent branding across channels is essential in any marketing plan, you won’t want your other channels to be consistent but have your Shopify look different.
In terms of site functionality, custom coding performed by online store designers can greatly improve customer experience on your site. Shopify developers can implement some really cool features such as countdown clocks, sliding banner images, animations, and custom background images. Custom features like these will really make your site look like more than a typical Shopify store.
Read more: 7 Advantages of Using a Shopify Developer for Your Store
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- Written by Louw van Riet
Our MD, Louw van Riet was recently featured on the Kanoobi Show with a discussion about e-Commerce in South Africa, how Covid-19 has impacted online sales and what the future of e-Commerce looks like.. Click below for the full video by Iban Vermeulen, MD of Kanoobi
Read more: Featured on the Kanoobi Show: e-Commerce in South Africa
