Here are few tips and observations;

1. Send email to the cart abandoners.
   
   • Send a series of three or more shopping cart abandonment messages, and see upwards of 60% of recovered revenue coming from the second and third mails.
2. Content of the emails;
   
   • Personalize – Include name of the buyer
   • Product – show the products in the abandoned cart. Include price of these products.
   • Including recommended products in shopping cart abandonment messages will help increase sales and AOV (Average Order Value)
   • A call to action – all the mails must have a visible call to action. e.g. 'buy now' 'checkout now and get 5% off', 'take your cart home'
3. Right frequency of emails;
   
   • Sending the first message one hour after abandonment has the highest conversion rates, but waiting three to six hours results in higher average order value.
     
   • The second message should be sent within 24 hours of abandonment.
   • and the third one should be sent within 72 hours of abandonment.
4. Show urgency;
   
   • inform that the product is running out, that products in cart will be deleted within so many hours, that the offer will expire soon.
   • Don't offer any discounts in the first message.
   • Offer incremental discounts in the following mails. Remember, these are time bound discounts.
   • Last message to inform that the cart will be deleted within such time if no action is taken.

Do write back on to inform me the % increase in sales you got after following these practices. Happy emailing!!

A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of information among a payment portal and the Front End Processor or obtaining bank. When a customer orders a product from a payment gateway-enabled merchant, the payment gateway achieves a variety of tasks to process the transaction such as a customer places order on website by pressing the 'Checkout' or equivalent button, the merchant then forwards the transaction details to their payment gateway.

Business People or Customers can receive the payment from the following methods

1. Website
   
2. Mobile
   
3. Automatic IVR System
   

Magento is the most power packed Open Source shopping cart software that is most convenient for both the shop owner as well as customers. 

Now come across at the major advantages that Magento has over the other open source software. 

• Magento is e-commerce software that offers with numerous options and supports covered one page checkout. The users of Magento can hoard time while making the option of their products by merely using the dropdown menus in Magento. With dropdown menus, a user can usually pick a product alternative, prices alternative, and colors alternative and so on easily from one page itself.
• Magento allows the users to create fair assessment between the products and thereby, select the one that is best appropriate for their needs. Not only this, but all the clientele can also make an evaluation of the products that is bought is from here. A review helps the expectations purchasers to know about a particular product in a appropriate way and hence, guide them in buying the right product.
• Magento also supports various shipping addresses for the online shopper’s convenience within a single transaction. Hence, it is most well-matched way for shopping bringing in good profit to the store owners as they can make available these kinds of unique advantages while making the purchase. This also makes sure that the international clients are satisfied too.

1. Focus on Customer Service: By providing a world class customer service you can stand out from your competitors.  You can give the ultimate in customer service by understand their needs, wants, desires and of course by always always being friendly.

2. Be Customer Focused: It isn’t enough to give the best customer service, you have to have a team which eats, sleeps and breathes an ethos of putting the customer first. The team should never be about profit or time keeping (though someone should be responsible for this) they should always be driven by the customers – after all without customers you have no business.

3. In Retail, the key is Detail: Oh, so corny. But you will probably remember it for that reason. What I am trying to say is dot your i’s and cross your t’s. Make sure product details and specifications are correct and upto date, the same with your images and any feeds you have. Detail will enhance your websites rankings naturally (it’s great content), put you above your competitors (better descriptions than them) and ultimately increase revenue (GOAL!!!).

4. Establish your Brand and your company Values: Sounds a little odd to mention values, but it really isn’t. Most companies have a natural ethos, some have a mission statement, others just float on by with values in their heads – either way they all have a set way of working and idea of what they want to achieve, these are their values. In E-commerce your first value should be “the customer comes first” then maybe “quality of products” is second etc … make a list of your 10 key values. By clearly defining them you are defining your business and how it operates, this can make you stand out from the crowd.

5. Put Quality in everything you do: Make sure everything that you do, your team does and you supply is the best it possibly can be. Do testing on everything your team does and you supply. You and your company should always strive to provide the best service everyday and each & every time your team interacts with a person (your website counts as part of your team).

6. Get the best from your team: You should now begin to understand that you need to get the best out of everything, and this could mean lots more training of staff to ensure they give their best. But what else can you do to ensure they always give their best? One of the best ways to incentivise a team is to reward them with a bonus for reaching a target or a commission on each sale. But be careful this kind of thing can lead to pressure sales tactics and this is a big “no no!”.

7. Do Not Procrastinate!: Sitting on your hands humming and ahh-ing gives your competitors an advantage because you are not moving forward, you become a spectator sat on the fence. So get down before you give your backside some splinters, make a decision and go with it – if it doesn’t work try another way. What ever you do, the world is moving fast, so don’t stop moving!

8. It isn’t quantum physics: Selling things has been happening since the dawn of man, well it started with bartering as we see it today. Anyway to be blunt, people buy an item from you, you are selling it at cost+margin make sure you do the maths and you are making a profit. There is nothing like a business loosing money to bring team spirit down with a bump.

9. Get and Use, Facts and Information: Basically this means analyse any data about your site you can get your hands on, and your competitors if you can. Use the information to define and refine the shopping experience for the user. By analysing the information you can diagnose potential problems and fix them before it becomes a problem. You can also see “hotspots” and replicate them to make the most of your site’s real estate.

10. Enjoy Yourself!: The journey that is SEO is one that means you have to work hard, but you should also play hard. Take yourself and your team out whenever you can, there is nothing like a few drinks down the local (pub) to get colleagues nattering and increase team spirit and it will help your team to bond and grow together. It also means you will end up with a team that is well rounded and loves their boss, because they respect their staff and treat them well.

Source: www.seoandy.com

Other parts of this strategy include Google Wallet to make payments by cellphone, Google Offers for daily deals, apps that show location-based mobile ads and product search for local stores. The idea behind the new delivery service is that people searching for products online or on their phones could buy something from a retailer beginning with the local branches of nationwide chains, and could then take the next step – delivery – through Google. 

Google does not intend to build stores or warehouses or become a retailer itself, two of the people briefed on the delivery service said. Instead, it is talking with potential partners, including retailers and possibly couriers. The service is the latest example of how the biggest tech companies – including Google, Apple and Amazon – are trying to branch out and, in the process, blurring the lines between their businesses. 

For example, Apple's iTunes business is formidable, and much of its success in selling phones and tablets, which compete with Google's Android and Chrome devices, comes from its retail stores. And shoppers increasingly search Amazon directly, instead of looking first for products on Google, in part because of Amazon's Prime program, which offers free two-day shipping for a $79 annual fee. Amazon also operates AmazonFresh, a local delivery service focused on groceries, in Seattle. 

"Google is arguably at a competitive disadvantage because consumers view Amazon and maybe eBay as guaranteeing overall a higher-quality shopping experience, and retail ads are almost half of Google's business," said Eric Best, chief executive of Mercent, which does online advertising and e-commerce on Google, Amazon and other sites for 400 brands. 

Google wants to use mobile phones and the Web to connect shoppers with merchants, both online and offline, and benefit by selling ads to merchants, one of the people briefed on the project said. Eventually, Google hopes, the delivery service would be integrated into Android mobile devices and Google(PLUS), another person said. 

If Google decides to move forward with it, the service would start in a few cities, including San Francisco and New York, one person said. It is unclear whether Google would take a cut of the revenue from sales or make money only on merchant ads. Google does not take a portion of payments with the Google Wallet mobile app, but it does earn money from sales of Google Offers. 

Source: www.techgig.com

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that ecommerce sites are increasingly adding social features. She shared with us a new statistic: 88% of Internet Retailer Top 200 retail sites are integrated with Facebook.

Sociable Labs’ founder and CEO Nisan Gabbay explained that the target age market for an ecommerce site has surprisingly little influence on the percentage of visitors that were logged in to Facebook. Those aimed at college students were closer to 60%, but even those with middle aged saw at least 40% of visitors logged in.

The data was collected using the FB.getLoginStatus() API call from sites of Sociable Labs’ analytics and eCommerce integration customers. Gabbay tells me that while some of the studied sites attract early adopters, he has discussed the data with Facebook and the company validated it. Also, despite the fact that his company could benefit from more sites adopting social, the sample size is large enough to decrease the likelihood of bias.

“People look at Facebook’s active user count but don’t quite get how pervasive the service is in people’s lives. It’s there all the time in any activity they do online”, Gabbay says. The stats indicate that there may be less risk of sites offending non-Facebook users by adding social functionality than one might expect, because there just aren’t that many hold-outs any more. There’s also technical ways to detect if a user is logged in, and hide those big blue social plugins if they’re not.

As we enter the holiday season, there will be a critical mass of shoppers taking actions on ecommerce sites. Those willing to develop or license Facebook integrations can use social data to point visitors to the products most relevant to them. This can produce a lot more sales than leaving visitors them to browse aimlessly.

Source: Techgig

• Money Transfer

• Location-Based Services

• Mobile Search

• Mobile Browsing

• Mobile Health Monitoring

• Mobile Payment

• Near Field Communication Services

• Mobile Advertising

• Mobile Instant Messaging

• Mobile Music

1. Carefully research your own favorite e-commerce sites. Creatively adapt the most compelling marketing and design techniques to enhance your site's effectiveness.

2. Your home page is your site's – and your business’ – online front door. It's essential that it make a good first impression on visitors. Make sure it clearly presents the following basic elements that customers are always likely to look for:

• Your company name, logo, and tagline prominently displayed.Take full advantage of the opportunity to showcase your brand identity.
  
• Contact information. Don't make it difficult for visitors to find your phone number, e-mail address, mailing address, and fax number.
  
• A link to an "About the Company" page for customers to quickly learn who you are and what your business offers.
  
• A site menu listing the basic subsections of your site. Keep this menu in the same place on every page throughout your site to make it easy to navigate.
  
• A "What's New" section for news, announcements, and product promotions. Frequently updating this area will encourage customers to return often.
  
• Your privacy statement, clearly describing your business's policy for protecting customer's personal information.

3. Make it easy for customers to navigate your site. As you build your site, try to minimize the number of clicks it takes the customer to go from your home page to actually being able to make a purchase. Four to six clicks is a useful rule of thumb. Make sure links make sense, so customers know what to click to find what they're looking for. Don't make your navigation buttons or links too dominant an element in your site design: instead, focus on product information.

Where to Find the Right Web Host VeriSign's Secure Site ISP Program's Premier Partners include the industry's leading ISPs and Web hosting companies, such as:

• Interland
  
• Digital Insight
  
• Rackspace
  
• Affinity
  
• Digex

4. Keep things simple. Don't fill up your site with graphics, animations, and other visual bells and whistles. Stick to the same basic color palette and fonts your company uses in other communications, like your logo, brochures, and signage. Ensure that images and graphics serve to enhance, not distract from, your marketing goals. Make sure the text is easy to read – black letters on a white ground may not be terribly original, but they are easier on the eyes than orange type on a purple background.

5. Keep download times short. Test pages to make sure they're not too heavy with graphics that will slow load times – and minimize the size of your images when possible. Zona Research estimates that most Web pages take anywhere from three to eleven seconds to load, depending on the user's modem and Internet connection (remember: many e-commerce customers shop from home using slower connections). Most users click away to another site or log off if a page takes more than eight seconds to load, costing e-commerce businesses billions in lost potential revenue.

It need not be told that designing an e-commerce website is a bit different as well as demanding. It is required to be designed keeping in mind the target audience. In fact, it is very important to ensure the success of the site. The prerequisites for the success of an e-commerce website are high productivity, usability, and functionality. Visual impact is highly significant and productivity and convenience comes after that. There is no dearth of web development services offering different types of web design services. However, not all that glistens is gold. One has to be extremely careful while selecting a web development company.

So how can you make sure that your e-commerce web page design becomes a success? Discussed below are some of the dos and don’t s of e-commerce web page design.

Dos

1. Do make the design simple and concise.  It is important to realize that simplicity and concision are the stepping stones towards success. These two factors help to give you an edge. Instead of stuffing too much and irrelevant information, which visitors find really annoying, simply provide the required information in a nice manner. Keep the site structure neat and simple. The focus should be on providing only the relevant content and information.
   
2. Navigation plays an important role. Make it convenient for the visitors to navigate through the site. A complex design results in difficult navigation that confuses the visitor. When confused, the visitor will switch to some other site. Ensure that the navigation of your site is highly user friendly. One of the good ways to turn your visitor into a customer, place a ‘buy now’ link that helps a visitor to close the deal right there. This really helps and researches have also proved it.
   
3. Make sure that you have the working links. One of the biggest frustrations for the visitors for an e-commerce website is the broken or wrongly directed links. It is highly imperative to ensure that each and every link placed on your site leads to the right place.
   
4. Keep the language simple. There is no point trying to impress customers using bombastic language. They are there to buy products not to review the quality of content. E-commerce website is all about providing lucid and required information to visitors that helps them to make instant purchases. Therefore, keep the language simple and clear.
   

Don’t s

1. Do not develop a site that takes time to load. Most of the times, people end up stuffing too much of images, audios and videos to make the site attractive. But they only contribute in making a website really slow. A slow loading website annoys the customers. Hence, avoid using unnecessary and irrelevant audios and videos.
   
2. Do not make the interaction a challenge for your visitors. When it comes to shopping online, visitors love to make purchases from an interactive site. You should provide your contact information to them. It would encourage them to make the purchase.
   
3. Do not install unnecessary software. Keep the things simple. Do not make customers download and install software for viewing your site. This makes them run away.
   

All the above mentioned points will definitely do the trick for you. Follow them in the right manner and it will help you come up with a perfect ecommerce web  design that will definitely bring success for your website.

Source: pixelcrayons.com

1. Easily accept online payments
   
2. Immediate and convenient.
   
3. Payment is deposited directly into the seller's account.
   
4. No need for customer to have a PayPal account
   
5. Send money to anyone with an email address.
   
6. No separate hosting, shopping cart, payment gateway or merchant account required.
   
7. Inexpensive set-up and processing fees
   
8. You can pay directly from the item listing page.
   
9. No requirement that you use your credit card (you can transfer money directly from your bank account).
   
10. Sellers don't see your credit card number (it is safely encrypted through PayPal's server), which limits the risk of unauthorized use.
    
11. Automatic payment tracking.
    
12. Easy set-up on the shopping cart websites
    
13. PayPal Buyer Protection offered on qualifying items – up to $1,000 in free coverage. 
    
14. Include your own logo or background in Paypal
    
15. Additional limited protection offered through PayPal's Money Back Guarantee.
    

"4 out of 5 internet users ‘shop’ online, translating into a 50 million strong online consumer base. 17 million of these ‘online shoppers’ (or 29 per cent of all internet users), also ‘buy’ online recording a growth of 70 per cent from 10 million last year. Online buyers of ‘non-travel’ products stand at 13.5 million outnumbering 8.6 million travel buyers," the study quoted.

Most bought ‘non-travel’ products were mobile phones and accessories recording 56 per cent responses, computer hardware and consumer electronics contribute 35 per cent each and movie tickets stand at 30 per cent. Most bought ‘travel’ products were train tickets at 83 per cent and air tickets at 58 per cent.

“The growth is largely ‘PC’ driven as access on mobile phones is still only among 1 in 4 internet user. Mobile is adding ‘depth of usage’ and 8 out of 10 mobile internet users are ‘dual’ users. Only mobile based usage is low at 3 per cent with 1.8 million users,” the study said. Home is the single largest place of access recording 58 per cent, and the most preferred place of access recording 43 per cent responses. Only ‘Home’ and ‘transit’ show growth in usage on ‘preferred place’ basis.

The study further states that internet reaches 29 million Indian households (avg. users per household up marginally at 2.23) and covers 11.3 per cent of all Indian households and 5.4 per cent of all Indians with 13 per cent urban and 2 per cent rural. Over 4 in 5 are ‘daily’ users. Daily users’ base grew at 33 per cent.

Almost 2/3rd of all internet users are employed and 71 per cent of the employed ones ‘head’ of their households. 2/3rd of online Indians belong to SEC A,B and C, with claimed ‘average’ monthly family income of `18,720; 1 in 4 have a credit card. Female user-ship ‘inch’ up further at 27 per cent but ‘housewives’ segment declines.

Connection speeds of internet usage has picked up noticeably from all places of access, which indicated that a good proportion of existing users have been ‘upgrading’ their connection speeds.

Online search for products (especially non-travel products) has been up significantly, making ‘shopping’ the 2nd most popular online activity (at 85 per cent) after emailing. Social and professional networking also gained usership further reaching 61 per cent and 48 per cent usage. Usage of all ‘social media’ platforms put together inched up to 86 per cent.

Job search, cinema ticket booking and reading product reviews are other activities that gained users. Downloading screensavers/wallpapers, online trading in shares and watching videos showed the most declines in usage. Usership of ‘local language’ content gained only marginally recording 2 per cent growth to reach 29 per cent.

Google continues to dominate the online landscape with Google, Gmail, Gtalk and YouTube being the most used websites for 19 distinct online activities (compared to 24 activities last year). Facebook emerges as the leader in 6 distinct verticals including online games and even professional networking. For the rest of the verticals, it is the ‘specialized’ players who lead or dominate user preferences like Naukri, IRCTC, EBay, 99Acres, MoneyControl, ShareKhan, BharatMatrimony, Toorentz, Songs.pk, ESPNStar.

“25 to 35 years’ user segment grows further as the ‘single largest’ online age group. 9 out of 10 ‘home’ and ‘office’ based online Indians log on to the net ‘daily’ and almost half of all ‘home based’ net users are ‘heavy users’ of internet (spending >2 hours a day on weekdays). Less than 1 in 3 of them spend that kind time on other media. Net surfing is among top 3 favorite ‘indoor entertainment’ for 3 out of 4 of them and 9 out of 10 of them (86 per cent) use some ‘social media’ (networking, communities, blogs, tweets, reviews).

The India Online Landscape 2011 studies the online Indians and their net usage behavior and preferences. This year’s annual land survey was conducted between April 2011 to Mid June 2011 to profile and estimate ‘internet users’ in India.  The survey covered ‘towns’ and ‘villages’ of all population strata in all the mainland states and union territories in India (covering all the key, and 80 of the total 88 regions in India as per latest classification by NSSO). Net usage dynamics, usage behavior and website preferences were captured from the ‘actual’ internet users in an online survey using Juxt’s own 180,000+ member Internet User Panel.

Source: http://www.techgig.com

Google’s new social product Google+ launched to great fanfare a few weeks ago, and since then many have been speculating about how quickly the site has grown and whether or not it’s the fastest growing site in history. It’s fair to say the initial market response has been very positive overall, with accolades going to its design, usability and approach to group networking with Circles.

To get a better understanding of how Google+ is performing to date and who is using it, comScore pulled together some figures based on the first 21 days of its public existence (June 29, 2011 – July 19, 2011). Importantly, these data are based on unique visitors (which is different than “users” in that people who never sign up may visit Google+ pages) from home and work computers (which excludes usage via mobile devices). In addition, comScore is measuring behavior from people who visit plus.google.com pages, which may not include usage that occurs through the Google+ bar at the top of most Google pages.

As of July 19, comScore showed Google+ at just about 20 million visitors worldwide, an extraordinary number in just its first three weeks. That number represents an increase of 82% from the previous week and 561% vs. two weeks prior. The U.S. audience recently surpassed 5 million visitors, up 81% from the previous week and 723% from two weeks earlier.

It would be difficult to think of many sites that reached such a large number in such a short period of time. That said, Google does have a built-in visitor base of more than 1 billion to work with, so there is clearly potential to convert a high number of users to its new social tool – even if it is still invite-only.

What is also interesting about the rapid growth of Google+ is its proliferation on a global basis. While the U.S. leads in Google+ audience, it currently accounts for 27% of the total worldwide audience. Interestingly, India holds a strong #2 position with 2.8 million visitors. The UK (867,000 visitors), Canada (859,000 visitors) and Germany (706,000 visitors) round out the top five.

Time will ultimately tell if Google+ can leverage its early momentum to reach critical mass among users and capture a firm foothold in the well-established social networking market.

Source: bestmediainfo.com

Rick Rusch who is a senior leader in business and marketing.predicting that 2012 will be the year of the mobile payment movement.

Mobile payment, if you’re unfamiliar with the concept, is when consumers use their phones, like a credit card, with the help of a special near-field communication (NFC) microchip. Consumers could conceivably leave their wallets at home and pay with the tap of a phone instead.  While mobile commerce (buying stuff from online websites was nearly a $5 billion business in 2010, according to ABI Research estimates…their forecast for 2015 is jaw dropping. Shoppers around the world are expected to spend about $119 billion on goods and services purchased via  mobile phones. That number represents about 8% of the total e-commerce market.

But back to mobile payment, which is yet to take off in the USA.

Not surprisingly Apple has their eye on a “bigger” use for NFC technology.

The maker of the best-selling smartphone in the world—the iPhone 4—and the fourth largest cell phone manufacturer in the world, Apple Inc. reportedly wants to use NFC technology in future iPhone models to allow Apple’s computers to be able to act as terminals for information stored on iPhones. Users would essentially sync their iPhones with their Macintosh computers and then be able to use other Macs as their own after quickly scanning their iPhone via NFC and temporarily transferring their user data to the Mac acting as a terminal. You would be able to login to your computer from anywhere as long as you have the proper iPhone and can find access to a Mac with the ability turned on.

Be prepared for your smartphone to be even more hardworking in the next few months. Once your phone becomes the gateway to purchases and the remote key to your computer you’ll never want to “leave home without it.”

Let us have a look at some of the recent investments by Global Venture Funds in Indian e-commerce ventures

Online Apparel retailers – Myntra.com, Zovi.com, Exclusively.In, Yebhi.com (primarily shoes)

Deals and Group discounting – Snapdeal, Deals and you, Fashion & You.

Books to Electronics: Flipkart, Indiaplaza, Letsbuy, BuyThePrice

Baby and Maternity wear: Babyoye.com, Firstcry.com

Closed group exclusive discounting: Fashion & You. 99labels

Some Acquisitions: Chaupaati Bazaar by Future Group, SoSasta by Groupon, PicSquare by Infibeam

Newspapers, blogs and other media forms are talking endlessly about e-commerce being the next big thing. We have humungous numbers being spelt out daily, projecting the industry to grow @70% Y-o-Y to reach $ 10 Billion this financial year. The growth and revenue targets might really sound a tall order to the cynics, but let us compare the figures with some other regions of the world.

USA: $ 210 Billion (Amazon reached $32 Billion)

Western Europe: $120 Billion

Japan: No clear figure but clearly more than $ 100 Billion

China: $ 80 Billion (Taobao.com did $61 Billion and did $150 Million in a single promotional day)

Compared to these numbers, the $ 10 Billion suddenly looks very small. Especially considering that the size of internet users in India has crossed 100 Million, we are only talking about $100 per person in a year. This is less than the online payment it’d generate if it is assumed that half the internet users have broadband connection and they pay their monthly rental online. Or, everyone buys one electronic item a year. Or, only 10% buy their grocery online. Or, only 1% buy their grocery, apparel, tickets, electronics online. Now this number suddenly is dwarfed by the possibilities that the remaining 99% of the market presents.

So, it is very safe to assume that the next gold rush is in Indian E-commerce market. The earlier you jump onto it, the better prospects you have of making a fortune!

Video Marketing: Getting a marketing campaign to go viral can take one of two things: hard work or luck. Regardless of whether your company becomes the next top video on YouTube, more consumers are finding out about great companies through video marketing.

SEO for Best Results: SEO is no longer a static field (although it never was as such). SEO is changing in tandem with changes in search engines (such as Google introducing Google Instant) and with more and more optimization focused on social media.

Mobile Ecommerce: Mobile ecommerce is on the rise – 2011 will show an increase in the number of solely mobile (dedicated) ecommerce websites than in 2010. This is because smartphone usage has increased by 48.7% in the UK only with 54.3 Million units in 2010.

eMail Marketing: No longer are email marketers just sending out standard emails to everyone on their list. Segmentation is just a middleman: if full personalization is possible, you should grab it by the neck. More than just targeting previous purchasers, our Personal Merchant email add-on enables each email to be personalized based upon buy, browse and click behavior.

Increased importance of Analytics: In 2011, merchants will increasingly rely on Analytics in their ecommerce – an aspect of ecommerce that was previously neglected. This is after a decrease in online search for products and an increase in other search terms such as getting discounts. As such, ecommerce merchants will rely more on analytics.

Tweets and Social Networking: With the explosion of social networking, most ecommerce companies are creating social network profiles of their own. Through sites like Twitter and Facebook, companies are able to offer promotions to fans, get feedback on products, and connect with the people buying their products and services. Some companies are even using social networking as one component of their customer service. Have a complaint? Tweet about it and see how quickly you get a response.

Embitel announcing our 8th webinar of the Retail e-Commerce Series which is titled: “Bridging the gap between Offline and Online Retailing: Multi-Channel Retailing” on May 19th, 2011 at 4:00 PM IST. We are sure that you would be interested to participate in this webinar and also will nominate your colleagues in our programs. 

Growth of Multi Channel Retailing

Retailers are increasingly leveraging their presence across channels like catalog, web, store, call centers and kiosks to increase their share of the customer’s wallet and expand across consumer segment.  Recent studies of consumer shopping behavior indicate that multi-channel shoppers show a significantly higher value and frequency of purchase than single channel shoppers. Over 65% of online shoppers use catalogs and 60% of retailers found multi-channel customers more profitable than single channel customers.

In this webinar, Mr. Daniel Rebhorn will share his knowledge about Multi-channel retailing with following agenda:

Webinar Agenda:

• Idea of Multi-Channel Retailing?
  
• Is Indian customer ready for Multi Channel Retailing?
  
• Does Multi – Channel Retailing leads to cannibalization of your existing sales channel?
  
• Channel Integration in Multi-Channel Retailing
  
• Worldwide Case Studies
  
• Suggested approach for Multi Channel Retailing in India
  
• Multi – Channel Retailing Outlook
  

You're very welcome to JOIN THIS WEBINAR @ FREE and learn more about the possibilities in “Multi-Channel Retailing”

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION

About Speaker: Mr. Daniel Rebhorn

- Founder, dmc GmbH Germany and Chairman, Embitel India
- Industry expert with more than 16 years of experience in Retail e-Commerce and e-Marketing

When: Thursday, 19th May 2011

Time: 4:00pm to 5:00pm IST

Venue: Just stay in front of your PC

Cost: Free

Yes, I mean it!!! Don’t play dirty SEO tricks (AKA black hat techniques) with the big G to capture those sweet top spots. If you do so, then you’ll be nowhere on Google’s search result again. I can substantiate my statement with a recent SEO scam that was published in NY Times. I am sure all of you must be aware of it. 

For those who are not aware of the news, here is a glimpse of it…

The retail giant JCPenney was identified for implementing black hat SEO techniques that ideally dominated the top spots for most of the umbrella phrases like dresses, bedding, area rugs, and more. So, how did they make their way to the top? The company was getting its SEO done through a third-party vendor who allegedly topped the Google results by getting backlinks from websites which were irrelevant to JCPenney or any of its pages. Though JCpenney said that they did not authorize this campaign as this is against their natural search policies, at the end of the day it was they (JCPenney) who had to suffer. 

Generally speaking, to gain top position on Google a site must have…

• Good site architecture – Crawler friendly site for easy crawling and indexing

• Relevant content – Information rich and useful content fortified with words, users type to find sites/pages

• Quality backlinks – A link from a site is considered as a vote for a linked site. Ideally, it has to be relevant and trustworthy. 

These techniques are obvious white hat practices and an ethical way of conducting search engine optimization, and it definitely takes time to yield result. While on the other hand, the so called black hat techniques will get you a quick result, but only for a short time. Black hat techniques involve paid links, page cloaking, keyword spamming, doorway pages, content spamming, hidden text, etc. These techniques are illegitimate and are regarded as dirty tricks which basically spam the search result and violate the search engine guidelines. 

Remember, Google is very much concerned about its search result because they want to display the most relevant sites/pages when their users use their service.  They will never tolerate if a site is found employing questionable SEO tactics that have spoiled their search result. 

If you or your SEO vendor is using any of the black hat techniques that I mentioned above, then be on high alert, who knows you could be the next victim of Google. 

How to identify black hat SEO techniques?

• Ask your SEO vendor to disclose their monthly SEO activities/strategies. Don’t get fooled by SEO companies that claim to bring you on top in short time, get xx no. of backlinks for x$, etc.

• Check your website’s backlink profile. To do this, you can use opensiteexplorer 

• Check if your site has been loaded with hidden content

• Check if a page has been created solely for targeting a specific search phrase 

• Check if a page is getting redirected 

• Check for excessive link exchanging from irrelevant sites 

Reference: retail-ecommerce.com

"Recent industry reports from InMobi and Synovate have revealed that consumers are showing a greater inclination towards receiving mobile advertising and marketing messages," said Rohit Dadwal, managing director, MMA Asia Pacific Pte Ltd in Singapore.

"The global mobile advertising market is expected to grow to $13 to $14 billion in 2011 and Asia Pacific is expected to bring in the majority of this revenue followed by North America and Europe. As the market continues to grow, we hope to continue to provide insights that we believe should to be on the radar screen of every organization when deciding on their mobile spends for the region."

1. Personalization and privacy will increase effectiveness and credibility of the mobile media as a marketing channel

As mobile technology continues to evolve, mobile marketing messages will become increasingly personalized / relevant. Additionally, the adoption of transparent, permission-based marketing along with the introduction of regulations and applications for blocking unwanted content will help overcome the perception that mobile advertising is nothing but spam. Mobile will be the only truly conversational and measurable medium that can lead to an actual, real-time increase in business-to-consumer transactions.

2. Over the top services will drive data usage

On-deck operator ad revenues will be overshadowed by over the top application-based value-added services revenues. These services will help create mobile inventory and enable greater mobile ad spend. Operators should take a step back from establishing their own app stores and concentrate on enabling more converged devices like tablets. Telecom service providers will be forced to review their publishing business investments and plans.

3. Free SMS/free video/free phone calls will be available across devices.

Applications like WhatsApp and Viber are already allowing free SMS and calls from mobile devices. More such applications will be entering the market making these basic mobile features available free of cost across devices. We will also keep seeing an increase in mobile video consumption. The introduction of new ad units, including interactive and partial screen, will subsidize free content.

4. The re-birth of Windows 7 mobile

The new and relatively strict hardware specifications introduced by Microsoft are geared towards providing a universal user experience much like Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple. Based on prior experience with the availability of too many phones variants, Microsoft is focused on restricting the use of its new operating system by phones that are not compatible. The re-birth of the Windows 7 mobile will further fuel the growth of mobile Internet and advertising.

5. New winner in the HTML5 vs. Apps war

A lot has been said about how apps are expected to peak in 2013 and have already shown signs of slowing down. Though the new HTML offers great opportunities, apps and app stores continue to rule mobile content. The availability of basic functions of an app even without an active or stable data connection combined with the high level of usability and engagement offered by app stores make it a much more appealing option for customers. However, the fact that apps are device specific and limit penetration offers opportunities for experimentation that might lead to a decline in their popularity over the coming years.

6. Location-Based Services (LBS) + Augmented Reality (AR) will be the leading integrated mobile technology in the market

The proliferation of GPS phones with digital compasses has already given rise to a series of location-based AR software platforms and applications. The combination of AR with LBS allows for graphic content related to the position of the user to be overlaid in real-time onto camera images taken by the phone. This makes for one of the most intuitive user interface currently available on mobile and also makes the consumption of location-based information a lot more fun. Such specific targeting will not only fuel ad spend but also transactions.

7. Mobile micropayments will allow customers to pay from their 'electronic wallets' rather than ATM cards

The electronic payment industry is growing rapidly and provides significant opportunities for all electronic payment channels including those on mobile platforms. In developing countries, mobile banking services can address a service gap that is critical to their development. The key advantage of the introduction of mobile payment will be quick transactions. There are no credit card readers, no paper slips and more security than written forms. It will be like an electronic wallet that a customer will always have access to and will provide them with relevant purchase opportunities while they're on-the-go.

8. The re-emergence of mobile blogging

As mobile phones become more sophisticated and feature-rich, they are increasingly being used as a replacement for computers. With the introduction and adoption of tablet devices, the consumers now have greater speed, connectivity and battery life in their mobile devices. Several writers/bloggers are already using these devices to pen down their thoughts. With processing power that allows for editing and upload of content in various formats, these mobile devices are fast becoming the preferred travel gadget for professionals and have created opportunities for the development of a whole new set of user applications.

9. Continued proliferation of smartphones and mobile Internet advertising

It is expected that by 2011 over 85% of handsets shipped globally will have browser capabilities. The relatively large growth in smartphones combined with their superior user interface will continue to encourage more people to access conventional websites on their mobile handsets. Business-to-consumer applications can be delivered using conventional Web tools as well as Web adaptation tools. As smartphone penetration increases, more users will possess the technology to view richer content on their mobile devices making the medium extremely useful for marketers.

10. Mobiles will jump onto the 3D bandwagon

3D technology is being incorporated in any and every gadget available in the market today. Mobile manufacturers have also experimented with the technology and Spice Mobility in India has already introduced a phone with 3D capabilities. Manufacturers still have a long way to go in terms of creating a sophisticated 3D mobile device but the market will see a lot more experimentation in 3D phones in the coming year. The technology will lead to the development of new content and advertising avenues.

Article Taken from rediff news

Type of M-Commerce

1. Premium content
this is where special or expensive content is offered to the phone subscriber on his phone. It depends a lot on the phone technology that is 3g (third generation) or 4g (4th generation). 3G phones are available in almost every country however there are only a few countries like Japan and South Korea with 4G technologies enabled. These services include like video and music. Mobile phone companies also offer premium content like stock exchange information.

2. Remote payment
this is largely similar to ecommerce on the web. It basically refers to the online payment of money whereby the one paying is in a different location from the one receiving. This is supported in m-commerce through secure payment connections.

3. Point-of-sale
this refers to commerce in which the mobile device is used as a point of sale. This is possible if the device can access the online store. These devices are not the typical mobile devices but are capable of accessing higher content. They are usually WAP enabled and can access xml and java components as well.

Advantages of M-Commerce

• Any transaction with a monetary value that is conducted over a wireless telephone network
• M-Commerce increases customer satisfaction, cost savings, and new business opportunities
• M-commerce is available anywhere with relatively small devices that are mobile phones and PDA’s
• Mobile commerce can be highly personalized and user has control over data. Personally owned smart phones reduce IT training and help desk resources.
• Enhance customer seller relationships because communication is easier.

Limitations of M-Commerce

• Less functionality for mobile Internet over mobile phones and existing generation of handhelds than for mobile computers (laptops and next generation handhelds).
• Small screens of most devices still limit types of file and data transfer (i.e. streaming videos, etc.)
• No real standards in M-commerce.  There is a lot differentiation in M-commerce solutions offered.
• Technology constraints of mobile devices (memory, processing power, display capabilities, input methods)

Applications of M-Commerce

1) Finance and Applications

Many applications in the service industry, such as banking, travel, stocks, and more can be conducted with wireless devices. Shopping can be done from mobile devices, too.

2) Intra business Applications

Large number of Intra business applications, including inventory management, sales force automation, wireless voice, job dispatching, wireless office, and more are evident inside organizations.

As per the study by IMRB and IAMAI, 27% mobile phones are Internet ready (127 million mobile subscribers out of 471 million total subscribers) and out of these 127 million subscribers, only 12 million have used Mobile Internet and this number further reduces down to 2 million or 17% when it comes to active users.

This is quite in line with what we published earlier (Urban Mobile Users in India – What do they access Internet For?), i.e. around 2.7million active unique users while the total number was around 12 million

Why the People Using Mobile Internet?

For Checking emails and searching for information are the two most popular reasons for accessing net over mobile phones. 2.8% of Urban Indian mobile population used the Internet over their phones to check emails while 2.5% used the net to search for information.

2. Use a Unique Title Tag: Every product page should have a unique title. An Ecommerce site can contain any number of web pages. You can ask the programmer to code the title from the page content and product name. This makes your SEO more dynamic.

3. Select an Appropriate Keyword: The keywords must be unique for every webpage. They must reflect the important phrases within the webpage content. For an Ecommerce site, you can ask the programmer to select keywords from the content and product name.

4. Create a Relevant Description Per Web Page: The description of a web page is the snippet which appears in the SERPS. Every visitor reads the snippet and then clicks on the search result. It is very important to include a description relevant to the webpage content.

5. Include Breadcrumbs for All Inner Pages: A breadcrumb is like a secondary navigation structure. It helps the visitor to navigate back to the main product category page. A breadcrumb also helps in the internal linking of the website. Overall, including a breadcrumb makes the website SEO friendly. 

6. Use a Heading Tag: Searchbots assign a lot of importance to the heading tag. The heading tag is SEO friendly and can be used to format the title of the web page content.

7. Avoid Usage of Flash: Avoid using flash on every web page of your Ecommerce website. This will expand the site loading time. If the use of flash is inevitable, include textual content in the flash. Search engines are capable of reading the text in the flash file.

8. Optimize Images: Add the Alt tag to all the images of your website. Search engines cannot read images. The Alt tag is a means of ensuring that the search engines read the alternate text for images.

9. Optimize Anchor Text: Anchor text appears between the anchor opening and closing tag. It is good practice to use keywords as the anchor text.

10. Create an SEO Friendly URL Structure: The default URL structure of a dynamic website contains parameters. Search engines are not capable of understanding these parameters. A good URL structure must contain words separated by hyphens. 

11. Generate a XML Sitemap: A XML sitemap contains all the URLs present in the website and makes it easy for searchbots to find and index all web pages. If the number of web pages on a site is large, you can create a number of XML sitemaps and then submit these sitemaps to Google via Webmaster Tools. E.g. sitemap1.xml, sitemap2.xml.

12. Limit the Number of Outbound Links: Always link to a safe and secure website. If you are not sure about the quality of the website you are linking out to, use the no follow attribute.

13. Submít to Search Directories: Forward your website URL to good quality search directories. Most of the search directories take a few weeks to link back to a site. Fill in the details of the submission form carefully, so that the administrator accepts the submission.

14. Submít to Article Directories and Social Bookmarking Sites: Article submission is the quickest way of obtaining high quality backlinks. You need to select the do follow bookmarking sites and submit the URL to them. Growth in traffic is a plus point of submitting to social bookmarking sites.

15. Integrate a Secure Payment Gateway: A secure payment gateway is the heart of an Ecommerce website. Get a trust seal from Verisign, TrustE, etc. Visitors will be more likely to trust your site and to make an online payment.

16. Track User Behavior with a Good Analytics Tool: You can track and analyze visitor behavior with a good analytics tool. You need to select an analytics tool based on your requirements. If your Ecommerce website operates on a large scale, you can opt for a paid analytics tool. Otherwise you can use a variety of free tools to obtain the best results.

Author: Debbie A. Everson

With this kind of growth it is hardly a surprise that India’s largest mobile service provider – Bharti Airtel – is all set to join the M-Commerce bandwagon in a big way.

According to the latest news, Bharti will launch host of value-added services, primarily related to M-commerce applications.

The application includes a platform that allows both its prepaid and postpaid users to link their credit card, debit card or bank accounts to their mobile connection. (This facility has already been thrown open to its pre-paid users and Bharti subscriber can use this facility to top up or pay the bill of other cellular users also). Also on the cards is an extension of these M-commerce applications to allow customers pays their utility bills and also pay for their railway tickets and hotel rooms via their handsets.

Paymate is another mobile payment gateway that offer similar service to what Bharti plans to offer.Very recently, Magicbricks, one of the leading real estate portals came up with their mobile real estate portal.

There are also host of other M-Commerce application providers in India. However, with entry of Bharti in this arena, M-Commerce in India will take much bigger proportions. Remember, they already have more than 50 million strong subscriber base who are readymade customers for M-Commerce applications.

Source: trak.in

Where is M-Commerce Now?
“The presence of e-retailers with mobile sites is growing; but just like Internet adoption in the mid-‘90s, e-retailers today are taking baby steps toward initiating a mobile presence. At the moment the majority of m-commerce transactions are limited to mobile device add-ons like ringtones, games, wallpapers, and screensavers.”

What is interesting, however, is what these consumers are buying. While the number or consumers utilizing m-commerce platforms has not changed too drastically, the purchases have. Of those that have made purchases via their mobile phones 58% purchased digital content for their phones, 51% purchased consumer electronics, 37% purchased computers/laptops/related equipment, 36% purchased books, 31% purchased apparel, and 20% purchased jewelry. This illustrates that consumers who use their mobile phones to make purchases are now purchasing as if they were in a retail store.

This is a dramatic difference in purchasing patterns is likely a result of increased consumer confidence in the security of m-commerce. A recent poll found that approximately 71% of consumers believe it is “very safe” or “fairly safe” to make a purchase via cell phone.

Where is M-Commerce Going?
M-commerce may not explode in the next few years, but it is likely to continue growing steadily as more advanced wireless handheld accessories become available, more applications are released to facilitate “anywhere shopping,” and retailers get on board with the technology. The biggest challenges we will see with m-commerce over the next few years will be a continuation of the struggles that retailers have faced thus far: user experience barriers, security concerns, and negative perceptions about the value of m-commerce investment.

(May 24, 2010) –  MarketResearch.com has announced the addition of Ovum Plc 's new report "M-Commerce: Seizing the Immediate Opportunity to Build for the Future (Strategic Focus)," to their collection of E-Financial Services market reports. For more information, visit http://www.marketresearch.com/redirect.asp?progid=67618&productid=2659324

Areas / Uses of M-Commerce

In the current commerce industry, mobile commerce or M-Commerce has been entered in finance, services, retails, tele-communication and information technology services. In these sectors, M-Commerce is not only being widely accepted but also it is being more used as a popular way of business/ commerce.

M-Commerce Advice
Moving forward ecommerce companies should do two things: get educated about m-commerce, and leave room for m-commerce in their marketing plans. First of all, find out as much as you can about m-commerce now and stay briefed on the latest news as advancements are made so that when m-commerce starts to become vital to your business you are ready with strategy and insight. Secondly, begin developing a marketing strategy that will leverage your m-commerce website when it is time to invest in it.

Feature of M-Commerce

Ubiquity - It means that the user can avail of services and carry out transactions largely independent of his current geographic location.

Immediacy - It provides real-time availability of services.

Localization – Location based services such as GPS, allow companies to offer goods and services to the user specific to his current location.

Instant Connectivity – This feature brings convenience to the user, due to introduction of services like GPRS which keeps users always in touch and connected. 

Simple Authentication – Mobile telecommunication devices function with an electronic Chip called SIM, which is easily identifiable. This in combination with an individual

Personal Identification Number (PIN) makes the authentication process simple.

One of the main reasons for such vulnerabilities is the fact that web application developers are often not very well versed with secure programming techniques. Every developer when working with the projects looks for completing the project in the given deadlines and thinks to implement the security later. There is no security model implemented before starting the project which is the main cause.

The website losing its importance even though it has the good look and feel and good modules in an website because of proper vulnerabilities techniques not implemented in the website. Another reason why security vulnerabilities appear is because of the inherent complexity in most online systems.

Nowadays, users are placing very demanding requirements on their e-commerce providers, and this requires complex designs and programming logic below are some of the security vulnerabilities that have been discovered in shopping cart and online payment systems.

SQL Injection

SQL injection refers to the insertion of SQL meta-characters in user input, which allows attacker's queries, are executed by the back-end database. Attackers will first determine if a site is vulnerable to such an attack by sending in the single-quote (') character. The results from an SQL injection attack on a vulnerable site may range from a detailed error message, which discloses the back-end technology being used, or allowing the attacker to access restricted areas of the site because he manipulated the query to an always-true Boolean value, or it may even allow the execution of operating system commands.

SQL injection varies from database to database, for example in Oracle database, this  is done by using the UNION keyword and is much more difficult than on the MS SQL Server, where multiple queries can be executed by separating them with the semi-colon.

In its default configuration, MS SQL server runs with Local System privileges and has the 'xp_cmdshell' extended procedure, which allows execution of operating system commands.

Manipulating price at Run Time

This is one of the most unique vulnerabilities seen in the online shopping carts and payment gateways. In this vulnerability the total payable price of the purchased goods is stored in a hidden HTML field of a dynamically generated web page.

An attacker can use a web application proxy such as Achilles to simply modify the amount that is payable, when this information flows from the user's browser to the web server The final payable price  can be manipulated by the attacker to a value of his choice.

This information is eventually sent to the payment gateway with whom the online merchant has partnered. If the number of transactions is very high, the price manipulation may go completely unnoticed. Repeated attacks of this nature could destroy the number of users to the website

Cross-site scripting

The Cross-site Scripting (XSS) attack are targeted against the end user and leverages two factors: 1.The lack of input and output validation being done by the web application 2.The trust placed by the end-user in a URL that carries the vulnerable web site's name. The XSS attack requires a web form that takes in user input, processes it, and prints out the results on a web page, which also contains the user's original input. It is most commonly found in 'search' features, where the search logic will print out the results along with a line such as 'Results for user_supplied_input'.

Suppose if we write the JavaScript function also with the search elements then the result page of the search will the output of the search results along with the JavaScript result, which is not good in any website.

In another scenario we can use JavaScript to redirect the user to a site that looks similar to the original web site and requests the user to enter sensitive information such as his authentication details for that web site, or his credit card number or social security number which should not happen in the real time scenarios.

Weak Authentication and Authorization

Since HTTP is a stateless protocol, web applications commonly maintain state using session IDs or transaction IDs stored in a cookie on the user's system. Thus session ID is the only way that the web application can determine the online identity of the user.

If the session ID is stolen (say through XSS), or it can be predicted, then an attacker can take over a genuine user's online identity. Hence we need to take care of the session id by providing the necessary algorithms.

The other cause is providing the week passwords, which can be broken very easily. When providing the password option to the user we need to have some passwords policy like in the given passwords we need to have a 1 capital letters, 1 numeric and passwords length should be 4 – 10 characters. Such policies will strength the user passwords.

Video Marketing:

• Create videos that research proves will do well on the sites you are marketing to. Usually funny videos and tutorials tend to do well.
• Decide what video marketing stance you are going to approach with your video marketing: Cut the video and add branding before amazing comical or interesting happens to redirect the viewer to your site. Or allow the entire video shown to allow for more viewers and impressions.
• Initiate streaming rich media ads on videos.
• Distribute your video across the multiple free & paid video sharing sites.
• Optimize the Video with specific Keywords and Description.
• Give a Good Title to the video which you are distributing.

Conversational Marketing

• Influence the sites like Sponsored Reviews in order to generate a viral buzz online regarding your brand.
• Join as many forums as you can sufficiently maintain an excellence contributor.
• Get to know who the business voice is for your niche and post comments on their blogs.
• Contribute to online groups like Google groups and MySpace groups.
• Market yourself by adding a blog.
• Use highly developed techniques to gain RSS subscribers for utmost exposure.

Pay Per Click Marketing

• If you have a larger budget creates an account on the top tier pay per click networks, Google, MSN and Yahoo!
• If you have a smaller ad budget go with Google and some tier 2 and tier 3 networks.
• A great way to get branding is to get those impressions. Try giving 3^rd tier networks a try but know that conversions may be lower on 3^rd tier networks.
• Make use of key fight to get a good base on competitor PPC advertising.
• Do extensive keywords research to find best possible experience and converting keywords.
• Try to find niches and keyword markets to target that are not as a great deal competitive but are highly traffic, so your cost per click will be way down.
• Mind your ad quality.

Social Media Marketing

• Stay as principled as you possibly can.
• To successfully leverage your social media for online marketing you need to really be active in your communities, ergo is best to have power accounts on a few social media sites rather than trying to manage many of them across multiple networks. Find your niche.
• Start social bookmarking campaigns online.
• Create content to sustain edits in Wikipedia.

Email Marketing

• Team with companies with double opt in lists
• Sponsor mailing lists with companies who have a wide subscriber base.
• Try to leverage DBA lists
• Setup a network of sites geared towards lead generation. By capturing these leads you can use them for yourself or sell them to leading lead brokers.

Search Engine Optimization

• Optimize all title tags and meta data according to your rev mix.
• If you are having problems ranking internal pages for their given keyword terms consider developing an effective silo.
• Develop search engine friendly html sitemap.
• Develop quality internal linking structure.
• Create optimized html source code.
• Create optimized robots.txt
• Create optimized XML sitemap.

Affiliate Marketing

• Create accounts in the 2 major affiliate networks, link share and commission junction.
• Evaluate your opposition affiliate program
• If you do not have an affiliate selection for your services or products then think about creating one because the chance to have others advertise your products and services is a great way to get exposure and build your branding.
• Incentivize your affiliate deals to attract the affiliate and the consumers.

Banner Advertising

• Scrutinize potential sites demographics.
• Get media break outs
• Think Portal Advertising
• Weight your cost per acquisition model between the cost of CPM and CPC banner advertising.

Rarely has a new area of business been heralded with such enthusiasm as "mobile commerce", that is the conduct of business and services over portable, wireless devices. Due to the astronomical growth of the Internet users, maturation of the Internet technologies, realization of the Internet's capabilities, the power of electronic commerce, and the promising advancement of wireless communication technologies and devices, mobile commerce has rapidly attained the business forefront. An m-commerce application can be B2B, B2C or any other of the classifications available with e-commerce world. M-commerce, although not fully mature, has the potential to make it more convenient for consumers to spend money and purchase goods and services. Since wireless devices travel with the consumer, the ability or perhaps temptation to purchase goods and services is always present. This is clearly a technique that can be used to raise revenue. Also, the successful future of m-commerce depends o! n the power of the underlying technology drivers and the attractiveness of m-commerce applications.

Motivating Factors for M-Commerce

Internet use has grown to such a level on the strength of PC networks. Due to the huge base of installed PCs, which is predicted to grow in a faster pace in the days to come, electronic commerce and other communication applications are bound to thrive further. Also, these computing systems will have greater power and storage capability, the best ever price-performance ratios, more powerful and sophisticated applications will likely emerge for desktop computing and the Internet. However, there are two major limitations on PCs. First , users have to sit in front of them, PCs, even portable-notebook computers, have to load software, dial into and connect with a network service provider and await for the initial process to be accomplished before launching an Internet application.

There will be a huge increase in other wireless portable devices, such as wireless PDA. The advantage with these wireless devices is they do not need no booting process and thus facilitating immediate usage of them. This makes them attractive for quick-hit applications.

M-Commerce Applications

The general m-commerce applications are categorized as transaction management, digital content delivery and telemetry services. The applications can be further subdivided into passive and active m-commerce applications. Active application relates with the applications in which the user has to take the initiative on his wireless device. In contrast, the passive applications themselves get activated towards accomplishing the assigned jobs or facilitate the users to carry forward.

Indian Retail Industry is the 5th largest of the world. Comparing organized and unorganized areas retail industry is fastest growing in India. Esepically for the last few years.

The high growth of Indian Retail Industry is due to huge amount of investments and breaking up traditional marketing sector. This growth is giving for Indian Retail Industry for further growth in Retail sector.

Now a days,Because of the increasing technical boom E-Shopping growth is increasing in India. And also one of the main reason Internet facilities also available in urban and rural areas.Other reason Growth in Credit Card Industry and also other online transaction methods.

The major focus area in Indian Retail Industry is supply chain management. In outside India retail sector is highly depending on the system supply chain. However development in the supply chain in Indian Retail sector is quite slow.

Other area that needs attention for growing Indian Retail Sector is including duty and tax structure,infrastructure , rising land prices and effective trend forecasting. Trend forecasting needs to be done in the country especially in the segments of cosmetics, apparel and footwear for this will help the retail companies to curtail their expenses substantially.
 
The chains in the Indian sectors needs to be changed frequently their stocks and also provides home delivery facilities.  If all these area are implemented,then the growth of Indian Retail will increase fatly.

Why Indians are fear about the Online Shopping? 
 

In India E-commerces has been very slow track compare to other countries in olden days. Because earlier days lack of Internet accessing knowledge and also lack of Internet facilities.

Some of the reasons which are working against the E-Shopping industry.  

1. Product demo is not available.
2. Bargaining is not possible.
3. Delay in product delivery
4. In security of creditable of shopping portal
5. Not sure of product quality
6. Low retail management skills.

Why People are choosing Retail Industry?

Online shopping is most convince for customers. And also it will give better deals for their money.

It has more advantages some of them are.  

1. Saves time and efforts
2. Convenience of shopping at home
3. Wide range / variety of products are available
4. Get details / demo of the products
5. We can compare various of products

Development of Gift Voucher :

1. Customer has to register once and has to login every time he wants to purchase the Gift Voucher.
2. Provision for customer to select a template from different types of templates.
3. Provision for customer to type a recipe name.
4. Provision for customer to type his name.
5. Provision for customer to give message, what purpose customer is giving the Gift Voucher.
6. Provision for customer to select a different denominations and expected quantity.
7. Provision for customer to check his Gift Vouchers preview.
8. Provision for customer to change another template and editing any details.
9. In the next step customer can see his invoice.
10. In the next step provision for customer to pay amount through paypall or other payment gateway with secure manner.
11. As soon as customer payment is successful Barcode, Gift Voucher number has to generate ontime for every Gift Voucher and print should happen automatically and that session should expire.

In the above process till 9^th step its partial transaction this information maintains in only session, not in database. At 11^th step while printing Gift Voucher its details will be store into DataBase and expires its session, This is complete transaction.

A vexed question to many traditional retailers in Australia is whether the investment in an online presence with full e commerce capability will have some kind of return on investment. Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman, one of Australia’s top retailers has continuously said that online retailing is a waste of time and cannot provide the kind of return he is used to from his retail stores. He says that retailers making $300,000 – $400,000 a year online are just wasting his time. David Jones another major retailer attempted to enter the online retailing market in the late 90’s and had to retract from the market to prevent shareholder backlash on poor performance. I think these types of examples have been well publicized and possibly contribute to the slow uptake of online in this country. Other factors one could attribute to the slow uptake are the large distances between major cities, relatively high cost of delivery and a small population relative to the size of the country. There are a few major retail chains and brands that dominate the market and there is just no need in their eyes to pursue an online strategy.  

From a usage perspective over 14 million Australians use the web, and in November 2009 according to Nielsen research 46% of all Internet use was on Facebook. GetPrice.com.au a shopping comparison site commissioned some research on pre Christmas shopping behavior and not surprisingly a high percentage of shoppers researched online before buying. Now this is one of the crucial elements that a lot of retailers don’t think about. The value of an online presence to drive customers into stores. 

From a different perspective, small to medium sized businesses have attempted to harness online retailing. The top 5 online retailers are all pure play online retailers and are relatively successful. They however are not anywhere near the size of any of the major retailers in Australia. Security and trust online are still a large barrier for many shoppers.

Many shoppers would not feel comfortable paying $1500 to an unknown online retailer for a laptop for example, just in case they never see their money or the laptop. (see this link related to a site that is damaging the reputation of online retail in Australia: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/967179.html)

As time moves on we believe that more retailers will develop a web presence with ecommerce capabilities because their customers will demand it. There won’t be a sudden massive increase in online retailers, and at the same time as consumers get more comfortable with buying online the number of online shoppers will steadily increase.  

Mark Freidin

Founder

InternetRetailing.com.au

The use of barcode technology in an industrial setting can be traced back as far as the 1960s, with some early implementations to identify railroad cars. Today, barcodes are just about everywhere and are used for identification in almost all areas of business.

When barcodes are implemented in business processes, procedures can be automated to reduce human error and increase productivity. More accurate data entry, better document tracking, reduced inventory costs, increased sales–such benefits as these are now within the reach of any size business, with barcode's use and its capabilities are being applied with sometimes startling results by firms that range from defense contractors to libraries.

Most firms used bar-code systems to track documents on microfilm, to follow the processing of materials in factories, to record billing time, and even to replace time clocks. Many firms begin using bar codes to record their inventory and then discover other applications for the technology.

Are they limited to do so?

One of the most common methods of reading barcodes is with a hand-held pen or wand-type readers and Fix-mount readers for automatic reading. These days, The few mobile phones and iPhones having facility to scan barcodes using the camera. With their scanning applications, you can scan a product and depending on the barcodes, it can be anything from opening a mobile webpage, to retrieving information about the product, to downloading a piece of content.

This app lets you shop by scanning the products, and one-click order at the end in the counter, Need not roll your trolley or carry your baskets in the shop.This can also used in all retailing industry to track products, modify orders, receive personalized recommendations, customer reviews, receive the newsletters about the retailing products, access your Wish list and check out the products then and there. And also if you have updated with the "Wish list/Monthly List" you need not come to shop for the next time, modify the list(if required) send a query to the retailing shops.

Even more, you can look for the same products from different shops and search for the price and compare them. Verify the duplication or malfunctions of the products.

Order your favorite foods, Look for the film previews and reviews and order film tickets,And Still not yet limited… Still to go… It’s all to make you and your customers to have a more happy sophisticated life.

References: http://www.barcodefaq.com/barcode-scanning.html

Working to stay at the top of the organic search results for their top product categories involves a very different approach, which is not as easy to succeed at without the right approach and plan. Since organic search results are a reflection of Google’s assessment of site content and link popularity, it means that internet retailers need to continually create content and establish links to their online store from other sites. This is not as easy as it sounds because retailers need the right type of content and links if they want to be first for their desired product category keywords. 

The study used over 300 keywords to determine where top internet retailers ranked on Google’s search engine for a number of product categories. It found that they only owned the top three spots in a little more than 50% of the 20 merchandising categories, placing in 35 of 60 possible spots.  

Results were slightly improved over the prior year, but still indicated that Google completely passes over internet retailers for the top positions in the organic results. For example, when searching for "refrigerator" 3 out of 5 of the top results did not even sell the product and were informational sites like wikipedia.org and energystar.org. Profit margins on organic search traffic are typically significantly higher than that of paid search and if internet retailers want to improve their overall profitability then they will need to focus on a strong search engine optimization strategy.

The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail sales index showed online sales rose a lower-than-normal 1.9 percent month-on-month in September to 3.9 billion pounds ($6.4 billion) and were up 7.6 percent on the year. "The results for September show a slowdown in the growth of online spending but we view this as a temporary blip and expect growth rates to return to the 15 percent year on year trend we have seen over the last year," said Mike Petevinos, head of consulting for retail at Capgemini UK.

Growth in online sales of clothing, footwear and accessories slowed to an annual rate of 10 percent from a recent average of 20 percent due to a step in promotions from store groups and warm weather, which encouraged shoppers to leave their homes. "Postal strikes have also acted as a deterrent for online shoppers, and will continue to be a key concern for e-retailers in the lead up to Christmas," IMRG Capgemini said.

Workers at Britain’s state-owned Royal mail postal service are planning a series of one-day strikes from October 22 in a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and modernization.

(Reporting by Mark Potter; editing by Elaine Hardcastle : Source: bnet.com)

What a contact for must contain:  

1.       Name, email, (optional: phone), and message fields

2.       Shouldn’t Contain… A ridiculous captcha verification script 

3.       Confirmation / feedback that the form was properly submitted  

4.       An email response that the form was successfully received 

5.       Finally… A response from someone that read the form (If necessary) 

1.) Name, email, and message fields:

This is the one part that is rarely messed up, but often far overdone. A phone field is often useful but you will rarely need an address or any anything more personal than a person’s name, email, phone, and whatever they want to tell you. This is not a application form, it is a contact form! You shouldn’t be trying to qualify your customer in some way with a contact form.  

The more fields a customer has to fill out, the less likely they will use your contact form, and the more likely they will call you for something that can be handled over email.  

2.) Shouldn’t Contain… A ridiculous captcha verification script!:

Captcha scripts can help reduce email spam from bots and automated programs designed to spam you. They also make it a complete pain to get through. Captcha itself is virtually impossible to get through at this point.

Use alternatives that are actually readable or ones that make a user solve a simple math problem to proceed, or use nothing if spam isn’t a huge problem. 

USE THIS: 

NOT THIS: 

Requiring anyone to decipher an unreadable image of text is not a proactive customer service approach and will undoubtedly end with frustrated and confused customers. 

3.) Confirmation / feedback that the form was properly submitted:  

DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT simply dump your customer into another page or refresh the form itself without a clear message that the form was submitted. This is a sure way to get multiple emails from your customer, each successive one showing more frustration than its predecessor.  

Ideally, you should have a dedicated thank you, or confirmation page that the user is redirected to once the form is submitted. This is a better method than displaying an in-line message on the same page because there is no question that the form was properly submitted. This is one area where Web 2.0 is killing usability, because on-page changes are very often hard to detect and are not what a user is expecting.   

It’s also a good idea to include links to informational pages, FAQ’s, and other areas of your website that could answer a question that a customer might have. 

4.) An email response that the form was successfully received: 

More than half the sites that I ever have contacted do not provide immediate email response when using their contact form.  

You should always provide an immediate confirmation email that the message has been received. This will reiterate the response in the previous step, and makes your business look much more professional. Even a generic message is much better than no message. The message is a great time to provide alternate / emergency contact information in case they really need to get a hold of you, or provide links to FAQ and informational pages about your services or website.   

You can setup a automated email response on just about any web server. It’s free and takes no human interaction to send an automated response email. There’s simply no reason not to send one.

5.) Finally… A response from someone that read the form (If necessary):  

I put this on here because a huge number of customer inquiries are never responded to. Actually get back to your customer, by email, phone or whatever method you can. You don’t need to reply to spam, but you’re probably in business because you have customers.Providing unmatched response times is one of the best ways to set yourself apart from your competitors. Seriously, shoot for five or ten minutes during normal working hours.

Only when you customers reply with “wow that was fast”, is your response time prefect!

Contact forms are a cornerstone of online customer service and there’s absolutely no reason to mess them up. Stick with these steps and you can’t go wrong.

Source: ecommerce-blog.org

Google usage is more prevalent in certain global markets than others. Two particular markets stand apart from the rest in terms of their dependence on Google: Brazil and India. In July, 29.8 percent of total time spent online in Brazil was spent on Google Sites, with India only slightly lower at 28.9 percent. The next highest global market was Ireland at 15.9 percent. Notably, despite Google’s high relative share of time spent in Brazil, it slightly trailed Microsoft Sites’ 30.1 percent share of time spent in the market.

This makes Germany the world leader in per-capita B2C turnover with € 913, accordingly higher than in the United States (€ 906), UK (€ 737) & Japan (€ 681). According to estimates by TNS Infratest, German online sales will achieve € 145 billion in 2010.

Growth of Retail ECommerce Worldwide

More than 85 percent of the worldwide respondents to a poll had purchased something online. Growing middle class is spurring online commerce in China and India. The growth of retail e-commerce since 2006 and projected till 2010 is provided below:

2006 : $335 billion
2007 : $419 billion
2008 : $517 billion
2009 : $608 billion
2010 : $711 billion

Growth of Retail ECommerce in India

India’s share of online commerce is projected to grow from 1.3 percent of Asia-Pacific in 2006 to 3.3 percent by 2011. The projected value of the market over the years and projected for the upcoming years are:

2006 : $800 million
2007 : $1.2 billion
2008 : $1.9 billion
2009 : $2.8 billion
2010 : $4.1 billion
2011 : $5.6 billion

Source: techcrunchies.com

Product Images/Gallery: unfortunate images do not motivate assurance so don’t use them. Use multiple images/views and reflect on the use of video to help sell the product.

User Product Reviews/Comments: Research shows that these work, increasing conversions by as much as 20%, make sure you use customer feedback to help sell your products.

Cross Sell: Take every opportunity to up sell and cross-sell by linking associated products, accessories/add-ons, ‘people, who bought this, also bought that’ and promotional bundles.

Delivery Charges and Profits: Don’t make customers wait until the checkout to find out the release charge. Make sure that these are crystal clear and without difficulty located.

Contact Information: Make it easy for customers to get in touch and always include a phone number and other contact details on contact page or any of other pages. This can be the variation between making and losing the sale.

Registration: In order to reduce shopping cart rejection, we should have procedure to checkout without registration option.

Customer Assurance: Ensure that you display your secure SSL server certifications for customer data and payment processing.

Advertising: Evaluation your ecommerce website to make sure it is optimized for purchaser conscription via the search engines. Use email marketing to build customer loyalty and engage in social media marketing via blogs, forums and networks.

Phishing: A form of identity theft in which a scammer/hacker uses an authentic-looking email to trick recipients into giving out sensitive personal information such as credit card, bank account and Social Security number.

In order to check on information thieving phishing scams, banking sectors is testing a new security feature that would allow user to customize their login page. The new security feature requires user to create a sign in seal that tells the user that he/she is seeing an authenticate site not a phishing site.

Identity Theft: Theft Identification is serious problem that many consumers face today. The identity theft and assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 define identity theft as an Illegal use of someone's means of identification.

Securing personal information in work place and at home, and looking over credit card reports are a few ways to minimize the risk of identity theft.

An online business eCommerce podium is planned & implemented to make the most of its reach to potential customers and provide them with a convenient, satisfying & protected shopping experience.

Advantages of E-Commerce to the Online Business

• E-Commerce helps to Increase the sales revenue to the business
• Business people can spend less money and earn high profits with e-commerce
• It is very Easier to scale up online
• Easily we can track the segment of customers who are happy with purchasing goods through online
• Avoid losing sales to competitors who are online
• Instantaneous global sales presence in quick time
• We can Operate the business in 24 *7 basis
• Easily we can increase our business customers
• We set up shop anywhere in the world, self-governing of geographical locations
• Inexpensive way to turn your Web site into a revenue center
• Reduce Customer Support costs via e-mail marketing & customary newsletters
• We can create customized mailing list
• Easily we can drive free traffic to the website
• Instantly we can develop our business across the internet by using various e-commerce strategies
• Customers can easily buy their products by using different payment gateways
• Develop more shopping carts by using e-commerce
• We can easily promote our business website by using various promotional activities such as Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click Management, Email Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Online Banner Advertisement, Online Branding and Affiliate Management etc

• What are you planning to sell?

You may want to move only a few categories or products from your complete range online, or may want to move them online in phases. Just because you can move your whole range online easily doesn’t mean that you should do that. It can easily lead to supply related issues and customer dissatisfaction which can rub off on your physical retail operations.

• What will your target customers be?

It’s no use if your target customers are people who do not use the internet at all.

• What are the likely volumes you can expect?

Put in some target levels just so that you can have something to shoot at…Keep revising your targets as you move forward…

• What level of effort do you want to put in?

Can you spare a team to manage your online store….will your people have part time responsibility? Or do you want to bring a specialist partner in….or do you want to just do a pilot before launching full Online Retail operations…

• You may also want to have a look at competitors who already have an online store and learn from their experience.
• Once you’ve decided your approach…..you need to get your web store in order.

Booking Your Website

Decide your online store name and book your website with a Domain Registration provider. This is usually very cheap and you will find dozens of service provider through Google. You may also want to book additional site names which sound similar to your website. Most businesses will already own their websites and if you still don’t have it you may find someone else owns the website with your businesses name!!

Getting Your Website in Place

Next you need to decide your strategy to create your website…keep in mind that you website will consist of the following

• A website front which will be visible to the customer
• A content management tool , which will help maintain and update the website (pictures , prices etc)
• A backend database which stores all product data and attributes (prices etc)
• Additionally there will be a whole set of activities to ensure that your website runs efficiently and attracts business. Typically these would be handled by the Marketing department in a physical retail operation

There are three strategies that an Online Retailer can follow:

• Use a standard ecommerce platform to setup a website quickly and start doing business. An ecommerce platform would have standard functionality available for loading content and images, manage prices and market your website.
• Custom develop your website to your requirements , use a third party tool or custom build a content management program for loading content and images and use third part tools , services to market your website.

Use a hybrid approach where the website is setup quickly using an ecommerce platform to be up and running quickly, but develop a custom application over the long term.

Here’s a quick survey of some of the latest trends driving this hotbed of e-commerce today:

• Vast Online Marketplaces - eBay, Amazon, Overstock, and other online auction sites have spawned millions of businesses—from the home-based, do-it-yourselfers (DIY) to larger enterprises—buying and selling everything imaginable. These sites make it easy to learn the ups and downs of e-commerce with less risk.
• Turnkey E-Commerce Solutions - Now online sellers can sign up with robust e-commerce platforms or services to help them configure and operate online stores, handle shopping cart transactions, credit card processing, and publicize your site on multiple online marketplaces.
• Safe Electronic Payment Services - One of the pitfalls of early e-commerce was the specter of online fraud and spotty payment methods. PayPal and other electronic payment services have paved the way for safe, painless online transactions.
• Search Engine Marketing - By placing ads for your online business with popular search engines and choosing key words or phrases that match with your products or services, you can drive more traffic to your site and dramatically increase revenue. You can also sign up for affiliate marketing programs on popular sites that steer shoppers to products and get fees.
• Web Site Traffic Reports - This may sound complicated, but it’s really using simple (and free) tools to see how many visitors come to your site monthly, get a handle on what they’re buying (or not), and which search terms they’re using to find your site.

In addition to these trends, online sellers today are using other new tools like blogs, social media (LinkedIn, MySpace, Face book), and photo sharing (Flickr) to reach out and connect with potential customers all over the world.

Other benefits of e-commerce include:

• Increased sales
• Access to new sales channels
• Better brand awareness
• Increased efficiency with new technology
• New partnership and cross-selling opportunities
• Optimization of merchandise
• Instant customer feedback
• Happier customers

So what are you waiting for? Get started…

Do’s:

1. Treat your online business as your offline business and apply the same rules
2. Increase the range of new customers (national & international) and attract them by new marketing channels
3. Understand your customer behavior- Use customer data to give each individual a personalized shopping experience
4. Provide as many payment options as your customers need
5. Make the transaction process easy and convenient (from home page to checkout) for your customers- Failed transactions means customer in your competition’s hand
6. Use easy and intelligent methods for Up and Cross-selling

Don’ts:

1. Don’t underestimate the need of eCommerce awareness among the customers
2. Don’t handle eCommerce as a order channel- Handle as sales channel
3. Don’t underestimate the update efforts of your web shop- “Consumer can‘t be sure about product quality, convince through content quality!”
4. Don’t rely on the price alone. Convenience and selection often have greater value to your customers.
5. Don’t wait for customers to find you. Market wisely with online and offline marketing channels- Integrate online and offline channels
6. Don’t underestimate the order management- Plan stock, packaging & delivery wisely