E-commerce Shopping Experience across Mobile Reflects Cross-Platform Unification Challenges

Mobile vs Conventional Web Sites

In an article by Karen Hanna on Smarter Commerce, 25% of consumers shopping and purchasing online prefer using mobile devices over desktop. The article airs concern over the shopper bouncing back and forth between multiple platforms such as their mobile device(s) and laptop and/or desktop.

“The broad and varied retail experience brings to light the many critical issues related to bringing multiple platform consistency to the e-commerce domain.”  

When it comes to small- and mid-size businesses looking to leverage new technology, it can be a daunting task given most companies charge businesses extra for having two platforms for displaying their Web site, one for conventional platforms such as desktop and laptop computers - one for mobile devices.

Not many companies have developed their technology  in order to merge managing a Web site from one location rather than having one site for mobile devices, and one for conventional platforms; and when it comes to eCommerce the challenge becomes even greater.

Karen goes on to say

“There is no singular answer to how these challenges may be met, though it seems logical to presume that the winners will be those retailers that are able to create a seamless experience for the customer, whether that customer is shopping in store or online, from a mobile device or a desktop computer. It boils down to a trust issue; having a retail experience that is consistent and synchronized across platforms breeds trust, which is an important consideration for midsize companies.”

Mobile Web Site Integration with Conventional Web Sites

The good news is technology does exist that seamlessly integrates both conventional Web Sites with Mobile Web Sites. Business owners can reach their customers anywhere, anytime. These were questions asked of business owners:

What if there was a way that your sales messages could reach your prospects and customers no matter where they were? And in just seconds after you press the send button? Would you call that an edge? Perhaps an advantage over the competition?

The answers were obvious and so was the solution. It was called a Mobile Web Site. Advanced technology brings better and less expensive services and resources to business owners. We believe in passing on those savings so rather than charge extra for this technology and capability, the service was added at no extra cost with all of our 4.0 Web sites.

What's the benefit of having a mobile site? It means that as long as customers have their smartphones or other mobile devices, they not only are able to view the business’s Web site, but they can easily purchase products and services while on the go.

The mobile site includes the following great features:

• Update once and go. Mobile site instantly reflects changes made to main site.
• Easy editing. "Show/hide" toggles enable you to easily decide which content to display on your mobile site.
• All-platform friendly. Visitors' browsers are automatically detected, and the mobile site is reformatted accordingly.
• Dedicated look. You can choose specific colors and even upload your business' logo for increased brand awareness.

The bottom line, we knew what the business owner would need based upon technology used by their customers for searching and purchasing online… and we brought the solution for both the business owner and the consumer without any additional cost - a significant benefit for both businesses and consumers.

The “E-commerce Shopping Experience across Mobile Reflects Cross-Platform Unification Challenges” have been met and solved.

Bruce Swartz and GrowOnlineNow.com provides affordable business class Web site solutions for small- and mid-size businesses.

New Upgrades for our 4.0 WebCenter Clients!

Recently we made some major advancement to our 4.0 platform. On behalf of GrowOnlineNow.com and our partner, maWebCenters© , we are proud to announce the launch of some amazing new software that is sure to drive sales, and make you very happy.

Below is a quick rundown of exciting new developments and the overhauled resources available to you through GrowOnlineNow.com and our 4.0 platform from our partner maWebCenters©.

Ø Free Mobile Web sites

Look around and you’ll see most everyone is using a smartphone, tablet or other device. And they’re not just browsing and texting … they’re buying. It’s an edge you can use to help set up appointments with prospects.

Mobile Web sites are included for free, all your clients need to do is login to their administration area, enable it and update anything they want on the mobile version. Here are more detaills

• Update content in one place – When site owners update content on the full desktop version of their site, the Mobile version of their site will update automatically
• Choose which content they want to display on their mobile site simply by flipping “show/hide on Mobile site” toggle
• Enable/disable pages for mobile and set any page you wish as the mobile home page, even their product catalog!
• No need to point mobile users to a dedicated Mobile URL. Nope, our system automatically serves Mobile site to user when server detects browser type = Mobile
• Administrators can update color scheme of Mobile site on the fly
• Add your own logo and/or customize text content of header and footer
• Full desktop version of site widgets are converted to mobile friendly versions
• Choose different navigation menu styles
• Automatically prompt site visitor to drop bookmark to site on their smartphones home screen
• In our ongoing mission to cater to all user types, our new mobile features attempt to make the site look great right out of the box for novices. However, if you are a more advanced user, you can utilize your own CSS, HTML, JavaScript…etc and make the Mobile version of the site as robust as you need it to be!

Ø Crop, Resize & Rotate images

If you haven’t figured out how to use one of the many graphics suites out there to edit your graphics but need to make a simple image adjustment, you can now Crop, Resize or Rotate an image right in the editor!

Ø 24/7 Customer Care

Have you have ever had a late night panic and needed to speak to someone in order to fix a last minute crisis? Our clients have never had it so good… but now they have it even better. Our clients have always been pleasantly surprised by our professional Customer Care group; however we just finished running a pilot project to test out expanding our Customer Care group’s hours and now our clients have even more reasons to be thrilled. We are pleased to announce that we are now officially open for your assistance 24/7! Again, there is absolutely no cost for this service.

Ø Edit 4.0 sites on a Tablet device

If you've ever wished you could edit your site while on the go and only had access to your Tablet (iPad or Android tablet) or other mobile device? Your wishes have been answered! You can now make edits to our 4.0 Web sites right from your favorite Tablet or Mobile device.

Ø Upgrades

As with any of our system upgrades, they are always free and come with the best support in the business! If you want to learn more, please feel free to visit us at www.growonlinenow.com, email us bruce@growonlinenow.com or give us a ring @ 1-678.392.3218.

Resolving eCommerce Issues

What is important in teaming up with professionals for an Internet Presence?

Does everyone look for ways to cut corners, save money, or to get by with the least amount of effort? How many look for shortcuts or, take the road most traveled? The problem is, the road most traveled, the shortcut or trying to get the cheapest deal invariably costs more in time and money. If you’re a business owner, can you afford taking chances?

I would like to share a story and event which took place just last week; then I would like you to ask yourself what would you have done, and how easy would it have been for you to resolve the problem that faced my client.

My client, whom I will call Mr. Zee, contacted me last week with an issue concerning his shopping cart. It seemed customers ordering products from his site were receiving error codes. After a few questions I let him go about his business, he had a tight schedule so there was no need for him to waste time trying to run this to ground. I would simply put his IT team to work in resolving the issue, no matter what it is (take note of this statement, “no matter what it is”.) One of the many benefits Mr. Zee has with GrowOnlineNow.com is my maWebCenter and iTransact team which supports every aspect of his eCommerce needs.

In looking at the code, I thought that the error message may be generating from his Internet Payment Gateway which is a proprietary service of iTransact. If you have not heard of iTransact, they are a privately held payment-acceptance company based near Salt Lake City, Utah. iTransact was founded in 1994 as RediCheck, the first provider of Internet-based check acceptance services.

I contacted my iTransact Post Operations Team member Jason and explained the issue along with sending him a screenshot of the error message. Jason first confirmed all settings were correct on the client’s gateway then he had his programmers confirm there were no programming issues which would cause the error. Once Jason was satisfied that the problem was not coming from his side of the house, we contacted maWebCenters’ eCommerce tech support team to verify Mr. Zee’s System Configuration with iTransact was correct. Holly, along with her supervisor and programmers confirmed that the website was correctly setup and the error code was not being generated from their end.

Here is where this maWebCenter and iTransact team combo saved the day. Holly and Jason discussed the possibility that the problem could be the result of a communication disruption. Since the code was for a disrupted communication error, it could be that Mr. Zee’s service may have been terminated at the debit and credit card processing center. Mr. Zee has been with this one company since they first opened their business, many years before they stood up their website with GrowOnlineNow.com. In order to find out if this was the problem, Jason contacted his resource at TSYS.

Jason called his contact at TSYS to look into the possibility of a terminated connection. Once I mentioned that the credit card processing company had taken over another company, TSYS was able to identify the source of the problem. They looked into the VAR sheet provided to iTransact and found it containing incorrect information as a result of the transition between the two companies. TSYS recommended calling the new credit card processing company to obtain the correct information.

Jason contacted the new credit card processing company and obtained the correct VAR sheet information which should have been forwarded to Mr. Zee when they took over the credit card processing from the old company. Once Jason implemented the changes into iTransact’s payment gateway, we successfully retested Mr. Zee’s site by submitting an actual order. The website and gateway were now connected and working properly.

This entire process took just a little over two hours. The point to take away from this story is how important it is in having a professional team dedicated to you and your business. When I tell prospective customers that an entire team of IT experts are at their beck and call, 24/7, it often just seems impossible. This was no small issue! My professional IT experts found the issue that lay with a company my client Mr. Zee has had for years which was not a service provider with GrowOnlineNow.com. Remember above when I said to remember “no matter what it is”? Now ask yourself, how many service providers have you dealt with willing to not only find a problem that is not theirs, but resolve it for you? But here is the kicker… this entire team of experts that is at Mr. Zee’s beck and call costs only $50.00 per month. Where can any company hire an entire division of IT experts for $50.00 per month?

It doesn’t matter if you are a business owner with an online store, or a web developer or designer, our team of experts makes everyone’s business easier and far more productive.

Can you answer the question “what is important in teaming up with professionals for an Internet Presence?

Are You Prepared for a Financial Emergency?

We’ve been told from practically the beginning of our working lives (once we were independently responsible for our own finances) that we should always have six months of living expenses in our savings. But in an economy where many of us are working lower-paying jobs (or have no jobs at all), that kind of saving is unrealistic.

A recent article says that most Americans don’t have enough savings for a financial emergency.

The article, which appeared in Forbes, says that out of 1000 Americans surveyed, 66% have no more than five months of expenses in savings, and a shocking 28% have no savings at all. Earlier last month, the same author wrote an article on the "Brutal Recession Destroyed Americans' Wealth, Net Worth Down 40% In 3 Years."

The economic environment right now is such that only those taking greater risks or seeking non-traditional ways of earning income will succeed or rise above their financial circumstances. The banks will not bail us out, and it is unlikely that we will see any great turnaround, increase in availability of domestic (U.S.-based) jobs, or pay increases to complement increased living expenses.

The stakes may be higher, but the opportunity for reward is greater than in earlier economic conditions. Now is the time to take your finances into your own hands, and stop spending your valuable hours working to fulfill someone else’s vision.

Live "Your Dream" - Explore and Evaluate all Opportunities - Start with Explore Grow Online Now!

What is in your Online Future? e-Commerce?

According to Wikipedia, "Stay the course" is a phrase used in the context of a war or battle meaning to pursue a goal regardless of any obstacles or criticism. In business it used to mean just hang in there... but in today’s economic uncertainty, a business cannot afford to simply hang in there less they experience a long slow death, or even worse sudden death. Eastman Kodak was a great example used in Margaret Case Little’s article below. Eastman Kodak never thought its business would ever be taken away by digital technology… why? They thought of themselves as a film company rather than a photography company. That was the kiss of death.

Today even the smallest business can overcome the kiss of death, but they must take action… remember David and Goliath? Today’s technology affords owners of even the smallest business to take advantage of high tech advances to level the playing field, or even beat the most successful of their rivals. Having a professional internet presence no longer costs tens of thousands of dollars… not even $5,000… and in “Most” cases, less than $3,000 with everything a business requires to conduct a fully integrated and interactive online presence.

Small budget or not budget, there is no better way to economically measure, monitor, adjust and control a business’s marketing strategy than having an all-inclusive menu of features and services that sets them on the path of becoming leaders in their industry!

U.S. vs. Europe: The future of e-commerce
By MARGARET CASE LITTLE, DIRECTOR, NRF | Published: JUNE 5, 2012
Be the first to comment | This entry was posted in Events, International

NRF is flexing its international chops this week as three of the organization’s top executives lead the charge at the 4th annual Global E-Commerce Summit held in Barcelona. Kicking off the conference, NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay shared a few of statistics to put online growth in the United States and Europe in perspective.

• Forrester Research is projecting online sales of $210 billion in the United States alone in 2012. The number is expected to hit nearly $250 billion in 2014. More than two-thirds of the online population buy something online every year, and that number is growing rapidly.
• In Europe, Forrester says online retail sales in 17 major countries were close to 97 billion Euros in 2011 and are expected to hit 172 billion Euros by 2016. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 12 percent. By 2016, online sales will account for more than 14 percent of total retail sales in the UK and more than 10 percent in Germany.

In light of these statistics, Shay noted, “In the U.S. we’re hearing two key takeaways from our members on how to live in this omnichannel world—first, make sure that the way you present your brand is optimized for the devices that your customers are using—and second, upgrade your in-store technology to meet your consumers’ needs.”

Shay also used the example of the death of historic companies and products to prove that technology truly is king. Like for instance, Eastman Kodak thought of itself as a film company rather than a photography company and saw its business taken away by the digital technology it invented but failed to embrace. Movie studios that once resisted the VHS tape are now rushing out digital downloads of their blockbusters nearly as quickly as the movies appear in theaters.

Shay concluded, “The world is changing, and it’s up to us to continue to imagine the next great thing for our customers. If we don’t someone else will.”

Other executives from NRF are sharing their industry knowledge as well over the 3-day conference, as NRF SVP and Shop.org Executive Director Vicki Cantrell takes the stage on June 6 to lead the discussion on social commerce.

Three critical factors for picking perfect keywords!

As we all know by now, SEO relies heavily on keywords - the words and phrases used by search engines to determine a website's page rankings. As SEO expert Jeff Quipp writes, "Choosing the right keywords is often the difference between getting found in search and not getting found. As a result, keyword research is the foundation of an effective online marketing strategy."

So how does one begin to research the best keywords for their business' website? Here are three things business owners can keep in mind!

Brand Names
When choosing keywords, people tend to overlook brands names, but those descriptors are vital for boosting SEO!

• What brand names do you sell? 
• What is the name of the company that makes the products you provide? 
• What are some common names or terms used to describe your services? 

Consider these descriptive words, and take into account any variations that people use (such as abbreviations for product names).

Qualifiers
Qualifiers are like brand names in that they are descriptive phrases used for specificity. But qualifiers in this case would be used to identify keywords that are geographically-oriented, or terms that narrow down a field of expertise. A doctor, for instance, would use a qualifier to describe their specialty.

If you consider the nuances of your own industry, you can creatively come up with a keyword to qualify your business.

• A hairstylist with a penchant for color services becomes a "colorist." 
• A photographer who prefers to shoot sporting events becomes a "sports photographer." 

In this way, you're not just separating yourself from the competition; you're also adding valuable SEO qualifiers.

Competitive Edge
Business owners should evaluate their own power as a competitive entity when selecting keywords. By using a tool like the one available for free on Google AdWords to evaluate the competitiveness of certain keywords, businesses can determine whether those keywords are a good fit. Generally, a keyword ranked "highly competitive" - one that is used often - means you've got a tough match against the competition...and that usually means lower page rankings.

This is something to be experimented with and modified as a business' online presence strengthens. When a business thrives online, it becomes a stronger competitive force, so those "highly competitive" keywords might not be so formidable!

Did you know... 
If your business sells to the female demographic, then you certainly will want to evaluate our solution - it's a perfect fit (no puns intended!) According to the Total Beauty Media Group:

• Women spend 20 minutes online researching products before shopping trips.
• Women spend 50 percent more time than men reading content like reviews and ratings about products. 
• Sixty-six percent of women who research products are brand-specific when they search. 
• Thirty-two percent of women said free samples convert them from browser to purchaser! 

That's valuable market research for owners of boutiques or salons that carry specific product lines.

Helpful Hint: 
When evaluating different platforms to help your business target niche markets, always look for companies providing comprehensive solutions and services. Ask if they have add-on services or capabilities and ask for a full disclosure of their costs. What sounded as a great deal at first could come back to cost much, much more.

The Story Behind "Looking for Paradise"

"We're all looking for something...that's what connects us"- Alicia Keys

I oftened wondered what makes this company so special... The story behind this song made me realize it is all about families, creating friendships, bringing people together and actually helping people find their own "Paradise". I hope you enjoy the story behind this song which was inspired by the sincerity of a couple who become friends with everyone they meet. Perhaps this story and song will spark something in you like it has for millions who have heard it; and for many of us who have been inspired by Loren and JR and the opportunity they brought to the world to help us all look for our "Paradise".

Obviously Alajadro Sanz and Alicia Keys were just as inspired! 

Serendipity brought them together. A twilight cruise on the Utopia III with mutual friends Loren and JR Ridinger, the breezy Miami air, and a shared love for music became a magical recipe for paradise for Alejandro Sanz and Alicia Keys. Alejandro strummed his guitar while Alicia hummed an intoxicating melody—one which would eventually evolve into “Looking for Paradise”, a song with the ability to transcend culture and language and speak to humanity and our common search for paradise: a place as authentic as it is uplifting.

Click to watch Alicia and Alejandro tell their story.

Alejandro Sanz and Alicia Keys perform live their World Wide Hit "Looking For Paradise"

As you watch the video below you will see Loren, JR, & Daughter Amanda Ridinger along with Ava Longoria (minute 3:15). Looking for Paradise was a #1 WorldWide hit when released and is still a favorite to this day. Enjoy and let yourself be lifted.