Category: eCommerce

The evolving e-Commerce industry and the M-commerce boom are set to turn around the face of economy in the middle east. But this exciting transition does not come without its fair share of obstacles. So what are the challenges these industries face?

1. Traditional logistics

Many of the traditional logistics businesses find it hard to create an online presence. In the Middle East, although the potential for e-commerce is high, it remains relatively unexplored largely due to logistical challenges. Automated discovery of delivery location using GPS services is almost impossible since home delivery postal systems do not exist. This in turn requires mobile apps to be able to utilize location services to automatically tag the order location, increasing the investment and time requirement for the development of apps. The under-developed warehouses & stocking points in the region pose another challenge for the e-commerce industries. Since the traditional retail businesses did not require such infrastructure, the initial investment of e-commerce transition for the local industries increases.

The solution?

Retailers have already started adopting omni-channel strategies to solve the investment problem, by utilizing the pre-existing retail outlet infrastructure to serve as warehouses and stocking locations. Better development of e-commerce mobile apps, keeping in mind the above requirements, is another thing to keep in mind.

2. Competitive pricing and customer satisfaction

With further growth of M-commerce, companies tend to focus on the most common customer requirement: price. As per PwC’s 2017 e-commerce report, 40 % of respondents in the region said ‘cheaper price’ is the biggest motivation to buy online. And while that wins the battle for e-commerce industry as a whole, the competition between the existing online retailers and the newer generation of app development is intense, so much so that quality of products and services gets compromised, leading to consumer dissatisfaction, bringing the entire process of customer approval back to square one.

The solution?

As per the KPMG 2017 Global Online Consumer Report, while pricing remained the most common reason why people shopped online, factors like return policies and being a trusted website are far more important for the baby boomer generation, who are biggest spenders and almost as frequent shoppers as the most commonly thought target generation, the millenials. Focusing on customer satisfaction, therefore, becomes more important than blatant lowering of price without consideration of service quality. Safer payment gateways, and more efficient and faster delivery times will serve better to ensure customer satisfaction and increase participation.

3. Communication gap: The hurdles to Loyalty creation

The e-commerce industry, especially the newly developing ones, such as in this region, suffer from a profound lack of loyalty. A very important aspect which allowed traditional brick and mortar services to flourish was direct communication between the seller and buyer, which made the entire process trustworthy, complete with feedback and problem solving, making it an experience the consumer wants to repeat. E-commerce in the region as of now, however, lacks any such interaction. With cheaper pricing and faster delivery being the drivers of consumer satisfaction, loyalty to a single brand becomes a challenge. Another obstacle is incentives. Offline shopping is heavily incentivized, with shops offering membership cards, special discounts and loyalty benefits personalized for each person. Online platforms still suffer from the lack of such incentives.

The solution?

The KPMG 2017 report shows that providing excellent customer support, having loyalty programs and exclusive member offers constituted the 3 major criteria for customer loyalty. Understanding the local demographics and creating content based upon local patterns instead of a globally accepted safe formula is the key to surviving the cut throat e-commerce competition.

4. Omnipresence: Omni-commerce

The concept of omni-channel business is very simple – in theory, at least. Creating a network such that a brand is present everywhere, in all forms, not restricted to just online vs offline conundrum. It has become a business prerequisite to survive in a rapidly developing e-commerce scene. So where do the problems lie?

A. The pure-players (Only e-commerce) and the brick and mortar retailers (who are trying to enter the e-commerce scene) both are at a risk of becoming obsolete if they continue to rake in profits by conventional safe approaches and fail to adapt themselves to the rising consumer expectations. And as of now, no omni-channel experience of substantial quality exists from these industries in the region.

B. Another problem that is being recognized, due to already established omni-channel services globally, is the failure of service providers to integrate the channels to provide a smooth experience.

The solution?

As Martin Simonsen from Implement Consulting Group writes, “the winning solution being the ability to deliver a seamless customer experience in alignment with those needs and simultaneously integrate all channels on relevant platforms, each carefully adjusted to enhance what it does best.”When done well, buyers seamlessly transition from one channel to the next, blissfully falling deeper and deeper into the brand experience.

A research by McKinsey Research and Harvard Business Review showed that Customers who used 4+ channels spent 9% more in the store, on average, when compared to those who used just one cchannel. Aberdeen Group found that companies with omni-channel engagement strategies enjoy an aaverage 9.5% increase in annual revenue, compared with 3.4% and 89% retention rate of their customers vs 33% for companies with weak omni-channel customer engagement. The result? Better revenues, loyalty and market presence.

5. Funding challenges: The start-up bottleneck

How does one of the biggest investor markets in the world become a problem for its own start-ups? Dubai-based Research and Markets estimates that around $165 billion are tied up in venture capital firms, but most of them are non-regional VC funds. Traditionally, Middle Eastern investors have looked at investment opportunities outside of the region, with real estate returns been spectacular around the region, hence the hesitancy to step out of the safe profit zone. Other than that, lack of information about start-ups in the region and doubt of the legitimacy of the project discourages investors. The region suffers from a low credit card penetration, hence setup and payments becomes a costly affair.

The solution?

The investment scene has started to change, more so in face of the changing commerce landscape in the region. Al Tayyar Travel Group, the largest travel company in the region and Majid Al Futtaim Group, a diversified private company, have both invested in startups recently.

Another important option which comes to the fore in midst of unwilling investor is: Crowd-funding. With sky high internet penetration in the region, and increasing investors taking risks, crowd-funding is more important than ever today.

A newer challenge

The GCC introduced a 5% VAT following expensive military campaigns and drop in global oil prices. Introduction of a 5% tax seems pale in comparison to global VAT rates, but poses threat to investments, revenue and spending in the region. The transition to e-commerce for many businesses is now pricier, and so are the services provided by them. However, the VAT tax provides an alternative source of income in the region, and may prove instrumental in providing a safe haven for industrialists and start-ups alike in a future with lower global oil prices.

Conclusion

The MENA region is poised to experience an e-commerce boom despite the challenges faced by the companies. Smart planning, understanding the demographic, the user base and catering to their needs, all the while adopting the concepts of Omni-commerce will prove beneficial both to the retailers transiting to e-commerce and the ones trying to excel in it.

I know you all have must heard about Artificial Intelligence somewhere or the other as it is the most discussed topic now-a-days. It is the rising technology helping almost all the industry to one or the other way to improve productivity and the ease of work.

Artificial Intelligence – Transforming Industries

Defining it according to the father of Artificial Intelligence, John McCarthy, it is “The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs”.

It is the technological advancement that simulates human intelligence in machines especially in computers. In general terms, it is all about making machines to understand human language, behaviour and sentiments and work intelligently without interference of human. It is evolving at a rapid pace and has the capability to work alongside the humans. Sound interesting right!

When the machines will

• start adapting human behaviour based on the experiences
• not be dependent on instructions from humans and
• start thinking, learning and acting like humans and
• come up with unanticipated results

Then, we will experience advantages of strong AI.

AI – Intelligent Analysis, Intelligent Interaction and Intelligent Automation!

Artificial Intelligent has already enabled various industries like automobile, healthcare, Data security, Finance and accountancy and many more including Ecommerce. If you took a glance around the technology you’re using, you’ll get to know that AI has already entered in your daily lifestyle. Think of the facilities provided by your smart phone.

UBER, by providing cab booking application using AI technology has made the life very easier and it is now embedded in your routines.

Amzon has designed its store called “AmazonGo” where you can go, shop whatever you want and just walk away without standing in queue to pay the bills! It automatically identifies the products you bought, charge you from your account and send you invoice on your mobile. No human interaction, enabled by AI technology.

In Australia, few innovators have developed software based on AI which can predict localized ride demand in next 30 minutes within a 500 square meter area. It enhances the business and also saves wastage of time in waiting for customers.

Implication of Artificial Intelligence in Ecommerce

AI has also not left ecommerce or mobile commerce industry by transforming it the way people experience online shopping. Find out the ways AI has and will transform Ecommerce business.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) Capability of AI

AI comprises of Robotics, Machine Learning, Expert systems, General Intelligence and Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP helps ecommerce industry to very great extent.

NLP includes text translation, sentiment analysis and speech recognition that enables machine for contextual understanding of human language. Chatbots, product searches, Customer relationship management etc. is based on NLP enhancing successful conversions.

It helps to improve in store purchase behaviour result into high probability of business growth.
CHATBOT enables “Chat Now” for prompt assistance

You must have seen “Chat Now” or “Online Chat Assistant” while browsing through websites and I am sure you must have used that as well. There are high chances that there won’t be any human talent in the backend and machines via “bots’ technology was assisting you to solve your queries and questions!

AI based Bots technology with IT service management system has developed ‘Chatbots’ to reduce human efforts, prompt reply and 24*7 service. It enables conversational and natural language user interfaces by understanding the human language and expressions and replying accordingly. Data base is the most important factor while developing such technology. It’s all made possible with the Natural Language Processing capabilities of AI.

As per Juniper’s new research, it is forecasted that Chatbots will be responsible for cost savings of over $8 billion p.a. by 2022, up from $20 million in 2017 in retail, ecommerce, healthcare and banking industries.

According to TechEmergence, chatbots are expected to be the number one consumer application of AI over the next five years.

Enabling “Search” to be more powerful

Current search algorithm works based on keyword matches, search queries, keywords in product title or description. Thus, it shows multiple different products in search results and reduces the relevancy. It increases visitor’s burden to identify the product they want from search results! So, if customer won’t find the required products within certain time, customer goes away without making purchase and ecommerce sites have to bear the cost of losing customer.

Improving this results with the help of AI will enhance the search performance and of course the sales ratio. AI will enhance contextual understanding, practical intelligence and ability to understand natural language and expression powered with NLP. This will result into increased transaction, consumer satisfaction, retention and ultimately more conversions.

As per the forecast made by Gartner, “more than 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human by 2020.”

“Image Search” Classification

Many of the time it happens that you wanted to buy certain products but you don’t know the name of it. AI allows image search option to you to resolve this problem.

You can experience this in Pinterest, where you can pin the product you want and then it will pull visually similar such results.

Voice Recognition

Virtual Personal Assistant is increasing day by day with NLP and voice interaction has increased at a compound annual growth rate of 43% from 2015 to 2020 according to Gartner. Voice commands has enabled consumer to do voice search, accepted widely for ease of work and faster process.

Inventory Management

Smart technology is helping you to manage your products and stocks by keeping the track of your inventory, providing analytics report and ordering it when stock gets low. AI also analyse your business, does the predictive analyse and identify the future demands based on current business trends, consumer patterns and factors that are driving the business and industry. It’s not an easy but will yield more results for you.

Samsung’s Family Hub fridge actually monitors the products kept in your fridge with the help of camera and ask you to order groceries when the stock gets low. AI can also recommend you about recipes for upcoming meals based on inventory!

Such technology will reduce human labour involved in managing inventory and is very helpful for ecommerce and marketplace sites to arrange the stocks.

Personalised Product Recommendation

You searched for particular product on ecommerce site e.g. on Amazon and left without making purchase. When next time you will browse any other site, you will see the ads for that product or such relevant products over there.

AI recommends you personalised products based on choice and likelihood based on your search history. This gives easy platform for customer to buy the product quickly without much hustle of searching it, also enabling more business of ecommerce owners.

Predictive Analysis and CRM

AI has the ability to do all the predictive analysis of your customer’s data and will tell you who has the potential to buy the products along with bifurcating customers based on that buying requirements and patterns, who is likely to buy products, what will they buy and many more. You just need to have AI enabled program installed and machine will do everything for you.

Artificial Intelligence will not be limited to this, it is growing at a very fast pace and 2018 is dramatically becoming transforming phase for ecommerce. It would be highly accepted by the benefits it provides to consumers over ecommerce mobile apps or websites. Gartner predicts that by 2020, “AI will be the top most investment priority for more than 20% of CIOs.”

Stay tuned with the latest AI updates and Start implementing it to yield better improved results and gains.

With passing years, there is a noticeable change observed in the trends and patterns of the ecommerce industries. Ecommerce is no more confined to developing an ecommerce app and website. It has grown more. Convenience and demands of the consumers are the main factors which have led to the emergence of new concept called Subscription Commerce.

Basic Concept of Subscription Commerce

Well “Subscription” is new for ecommerce industry but it has a strong presence in the traditional format such as subscription of newspaper, magazines, TV channel subscription and many more. With the benefits experienced in it, it has now been introduced on consumer demands for online retail too which may incur many advantages through it.

Advantages of Subscription Commerce for Customers

1) Ease of ordering: Subscription commerce gives convenience to order the products or services instantly. Once you subscribe, you can enjoy the perks of receiving orders every month without ordering or reordering it again and again.

For e.g. Vegetables and groceries is something which need to be ordered on daily basis. Customers can easily subscribe for repeat orders and get them delivered daily without placing the order every day.

2) Timely Delivery: Get your products delivered timely every day, every month or every week without fail.

For e.g. Aged people can get their medicines delivered every month on time without any reminders or calls to the chemists.

Not only from the customer’s perspective, it is advantageous from retailer’s perspective too.

Advantages of Subscription Commerce for Retailers

1) Engage the customers: Post installing your app, its quiet difficult to keep your user engaged. Subscription Ecommerce can be one of the ways to remind them about you every month, week or quarter.

2) Long term relationship with the customer: Subscription business gives retailers the ability to communicate with their customers very often and a strong and long term relationship with them.

3) Affordable retention rate: When your customer subscribe for your products/services, the effort to bring them back is almost null. You do not have to spend on display retargeting, social, email, etc. to bring them back because they will automatically buy from you either every week, month or quarter which means you have lower or almost no retention cost.

4) High margins: You earn higher margins as the cost on the subscribed customer is almost zero and the revenue earned via them is fixed at regular intervals.

5) Stock forecasting: With knowing the orders well in advance, you get a better idea of how much to stock for future orders and there won’t be any wastage. You get the full- fledged order predictability.

6) Brand building: If a customer receives order on recurring basis, your brand becomes the part of their routine life, and further it can help in spreading a word about your brand. They can also promote your products and services indirectly via social media.

7) Consistent monthly revenue: Get a stable revenue graph with fixed monthly, weekly or quarterly revenue.

Apart from the above advantages, one of the biggest advantages is that acquiring a new customer in Subscription ecommerce means you hold a customer for a longer duration, rather than just a one-time purchase.

Recommended Blog: 8 Must Try Marketing Strategies While Launching Your eCommerce Store

Subscription commerce works well with only few industries. It doesn’t fit well for the industries like fashion, accessories, restaurants and electronics. But there are few industries that can earn maximum out of it.

For retailers, having their own ecommerce store in this era is a must much like food and clothing required for the sake of surviving. Building an ecommerce mobile app or ecommerce website just won’t fulfil your purpose of expanding your business rather it would be just a vague step taken. To pull out the best out of your ecommerce store, it is mandatory to spread a word prior its launch. Most of the retailers fail all because of a weak launch plan for their ecommerce store.

Well if you are planning to start-up with your ecommerce store or create a mobile app for your ecommerce website, Try out the below 8 effective launching strategy for your ecommerce store:

1) Content Marketing: It all starts with content. Content forms an important part as what all needs to be placed in Videos, PR, Product detail page and other media needs to be decided well in advance. How you want to project your estore among your targeted audience totally depends on your content. For your content, having a strategy is essential. It should be something you plan up week wise or to be precise day wise. While deciding the content strategy, understand your target audience their interest level, their age group and how you can convince them to visit your ecommerce store.

Plan up each and every small step like planning to post contents on social media, setting your calendar for publishing the PR’s and ads or any other.

2) Email Marketing: As per a study conducted by direct marketing association, Email has an ROI of around 4,300%. Moreover,

• It has an effective reach coz 80% of people say they receive marketing messages alongside their personal emails on a daily basis.
• It has also been found that 70% of audience make use of coupons codes they receive via email.
• Also, 60% of people subscribe to an email list just to receive special offers from a particular business.

Above stats prove that email marketing would prove an effective methodology while launching your new ecommerce mobile app or website.

3)Social Media Marketing: A trending or you can say a default marketing strategy nowadays as 80% of your target audience spend around 3 hours a day on social platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram are the popular ones which almost every individual uses. While Pinterest, Linked in and others are used quiet often by mid-aged group audience. You just have to analyse your set of audience and their presence on particular platform and just target that platform rather than wasting your time and money on all platforms.

4)Offline Marketing: In addition to online marketing, do explore the offline media too like Print media- Newspaper ad, Magazine ad, Leaflet, Hoardings and many more.

When to do what is very important while enabling the offline channel. It is suggested that if you are a well-established business, you can try out offline marketing as per your business requirements while for a start-up, it is advisable to go for an online channel first and at later stage when the funding or revenues are generated, offline channel can be a wise choice.

Recommended Blog: How to promote eCommerce mobile app and website using QR Code

5)Local Marketing:If your business falls under a category where you require establishing a local presence, do not forget to go for local marketing such as, if you own a brick and mortar store, reaching out to customers near your store with geo-location tools and local search engine targeting are proven to be an effective launch strategy.

6)Promote through PPC and SEO: An effective way to launch is exploring the Pay per click and SEO as 70% of people own a smartphone and uses the search option effectively. It is being advised that the Paid advertising should not always be the first option for a start-up as it requires funding therefore it can be the best way to generate sales if you have an ample amount of marketing funds or you can put your efforts in SEO strategies and grab an organic crowd.

7)Leverage PR Platforms: PR is something which gives your business an instant boost. All you need to do is list down the publicationsread by your target market/audience, segment it to different focuses with different pitch lines and there you go, results would be visible to you. Your ecommerce app and website would be spreaded at a go.

8)Bloggers & Influencers: When you are all new to your audience, Influencers and bloggers help you out in fixing your products/services on your consumers mind coz they are passionate about a particular topic and can attract followers having the same interest. You can easily amplify your reach with their help.

Now that you’ve ticked all the 8 points of the launch plan, it’s time to get the fruits out of it. If you’ve implemented everything listed above, you should surely have a healthy reach as well as following on the social media and an effective subscriber list of customer ready to visit and purchase from your ecommerce store.

Venturing an ecommerce start up is no different than any conventional commerce start up. The rules applied are the same, particularly with regards to finances. You need to make investment (substantial or not) to start your business before expecting any returns. Many a time it happens that despite having a really sound business strategy, one lacks the finances to launch it. How does one acquire those finances to fuel one’s vision without compromising on most part? Below are a few of those ways

1. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding websites are frequented by investors looking for business startups asking for startup capital. You need to keep in your mind while campaigning to finance your business that you not only have a monetary goal but also a time goal. Don’t forget to add PDF document detailing your business plan in the description. You can surpass your monetary goal far too easily and early if you do your crowdfunding campaign right.

2. Venture Capitalist Investment

Of late the VCs (Venture capitalists) have been frugal with their purses and start ups haven’t been receiving much funding from them. In 2016’s first quarter, it was found that venture capitalists spent 25-percent less than the previous quarter . Approaching the VCs should be done with complete preparedness, your plan business plan should be detailed enough to tell them what you expect your brand to earn in its first year and in 5 years and so on.

Recommended Blog: 8 eCommerce Strategies for Building Trust through Branding

3. Personal Savings

This is a very safe option to go with as it has no complication and costly application, no interest payment and you don’t have to lose stake in your business. Personal savings are also called as bootstrapping. This is the preferred option when the returns on your money are low and borrowing cost is high. You also have the option of borrowing from your retirement plan (401(k)) but making withdrawal from it before 59.5 years of age can lead to steep penalties. Also it is advisable to not dry your rainy day funds.

4. Angel Investors

Just like major malls and supermarkets, e-commerce has also come to a stage where the giants in the field have brought not one, but several vendors on board in order to attract more fish in the sea.A multi-vendor eCommerce marketplace is a huge virtual shopping mall that offers innumerable types of stuff to buy. Today, people barely even want to move from their comfortable chairs and sofas, out onto the busy streets just to shop for some stuff that allures them. In 2017, the E-commerce market had a whopping 2290 billion dollar sale and is expected to reach 2774 billion sales. E-commerce market has eliminated the need for people to strain their muscles by giving its customers a huge variety of products to keep them busy choosing for a good amount of time. And what’s more? It’s cheaper!

WhyMulti-Vendor eCommerce Marketplace?

Digitalizing the world has come to a point where anything, from vegetables to those little beads on that sofa cover can be bought online at moderate prices. This has been possible due to various kinds of vendors coming together on a common platform to share their products with the customer, thus giving them a wholesome shopping environment. 1.61 billion people chose to buy things online in 2016. The total global sales are expected to reach a whopping 4.06 trillion US dollars in the year 2020.

So what are its benefits over a single vendor marketplace? It keeps all, the business owner, the consumer, and the vendor happy. Let’s find out:

1. A commission can be asked for from the vendor in exchange for giving their products some space in the e-commerce website that the business owner handles. This commission can be based on the number of products sold, the total amount made in the month, etc. depending upon the owner and vendor mutual agreement. This grows the overall profit of the business owner.

2. Consumers can buy directly from the platform as the stock is readily available and prices are mentioned right on the screen. No hustle-bustle, whatsoever!

Recommended Blog: Why Customer Engagement & Retention is Important for Businesses

3. Timing is no more an issue due to the fact that the e-commerce platform is available 24*7.

4. Vendors would automatically get more recognition by attaching themselves with a running e-commerce multi-vendor renowned giant. Even the minor vendors, who cannot start their own websites, can easily approach the bigger e-commerce businesses and start selling their products there and make good profits.

5. Overseas sales, that were once a great deal, have now become a piece of cake!

6. Inexpensive and excellent quality products, with utter variety, are available for the users to look at and choose from.

7. Comparison of products has become oh so simple. All one has to do is open the other website and look at the price of the same product, instead of going shop to shop and confirming prices.

8. Products and their costs are regularly updated and thus the users cannot be blinded or fooled anymore.

9. With the ease of mobile app commerce, the users are given constant updates on the latest deals and can access them anywhere, anytime, even while spending the first few minutes of the day in the washroom.

How to choose the right Multi-Vendor E-Commerce Marketplace for your Business?

Before coming to the final conclusion of picking the Marketplace, one needs to keep in mind a few major factors in order to gain the most from it.

1. Vendor Management and Support
It is important to note that the e-commerce business is giving all sorts of comfortable and required support to the vendors which include the registration of vendors, product picture uploading, management of inventory, costing, delivery, and obviously the commission standards. Make sure it is authentic and easily manageable.

2. Performance Statistics
Going over the history and previous year sales and performance can give a good outlook of how the e-commerce website operates. Look at the customer visitation statistics and build a graph to come to the conclusion.

3. User Interface of the Mobile App
Every other individual is using mobile apps these days to do the simplest of the tasks. It is important to have a catchy, yet easy to use interface, making it more feasible for the user to select from the available products and make one-click payments. The search and filter algorithms must be well refined to cater to the impatience of today’s customers. It doesn’t take long to direct them out of the website/app.

4. Cost Effectiveness
Before finalizing which marketplace to invest your products in, it is a necessity to compare the costs of the shortlisted e-commerce solutions. There might be a good variation in them depending on the platforms used to build the websites, i.e. Magneto, WordPress, etc.

5. Customer Reviews
Customers do not mind giving good reviews to something that satiates them completely. Going through customer reviews and ratings could give a good understanding of how good the e-commerce marketplace is running.

Going through these points should sure come handy in selecting the right e-commerce marketplace for your business. Clearly, there is no reason why this market should fall down in the next few years. However, in order to keep up in the game, one has to be updated and innovative.

For any eCommerce business, a payment gateway is their gateway to success. Of course, it is a huge thing that a visitor explores your online store, add products to the shopping cart and reaches your payment gateway but the real happiness for any e-commerce mobile app or store owner lies in when the visitor actually buys the product and turns into a customer. Hence it can be said that the real success of an online business depends on the conversion rate.

Now, for the conversion rate to increase, it is important that customers buy things from your e-commerce portal. But unfortunately, it happens that a majority of potential customers abandon the shopping cart when it comes to the payment. Reason? Not enough trust in sharing their precious financial details. For them to make the purchase you must gain their trust first by providing them with a good payment gateway showing that it is safe, certified and how much you value their privacy.

By getting an efficient and secure payment gateway integrated by an online e-commerce store app builder in your portal, you will not only build trust in your customer’s mind but will gain a reduction in the rate of abandoned carts. UAE is a shopping spree country and the e-commerce sales in it alone has reached approximately ten billion U.S. dollars in 2018. Nearly 135 e-commerce websites are operating in the UAE and 63% of them actually make online purchases. For such an e-commerce crazy nation, here are the tops 5 eCommerce payment gateways in UAE according to us. Before that, we are highlighting some factors to keep in mind while choosing the payment gateway.

Choosing the aptest and right Payment Gateway is very important for any online business. Take enough time to decide on which one to choose for your portal.

Factors to keep in mind while choosing the payment gateway

Security

The first and the foremost thing that customers look for when they make an online payment which cannot be compromised upon. You have to ensure that the payment gateway you have integrated on your portal is safe & secure. It should be able to protect all banks, cards and transactions details of the customers. It must have a 3D secure function.

Fees

A very important factor to discuss before you decide upon a payment gateway. Make sure with your online eCommerce store app creator that there are no hidden charges that will kill your profit later. Some gateways charge fees per transaction while others have a monthly subscription. Choose the one that best fits your budget.

Customer support

If you are providing 24/7 support for your online store, then why not a customer support for payment gateways too? Ensure a payment gateway with good customer support that can solve the queries of your customers instantly over a call or via email.

Multi-Currency Support

It is very important that your payment gateway support multiple currencies in online business. There is a possibility of a global demand for the product, so if you have multiple currency options, taking payments will never be a problem. Moreover, you can then extend your reach globally.

Now let us focus on the main point and these are the top 5 payment gateways in UAE.

Top 5 Payment Gateways in UAE

#1. TELR

Telr is a very famous payment gateway in UAE. Initially, known to people as Innovative Payments, it was later acquired by Telr in 2014. Telr now supports people in more than 120 countries and the unique part about it is that it offers its services even to the growing or developing countries like Indonesia and others. It has 3 levels of account Entry, Small & Medium, each having its upfront payment to start with Telr for e-commerce merchants of
AED 349/Year, AED 99/Year+ Transaction charges, and AED 49/year + transaction charges respectively. You can also opt to go for the monthly subscription to begin with. Check it now on Telr.

#2. PAYFORT

One of the most widely used payment gateways in UAE, PayFort, comes with no setup fee or monthly charges for the starter packages. All you need is to pay a small amount of
$27 per month for the mid-tier account. Even Its commission rates are very low like 2.99% & 2.65%. After having collaborated with SOUQ.com, a giant in e-commerce trade in UAE, it launched its card-on-delivery (COD) services. Payfort also made it easier for delivery agents to process the major cards using the mobile card machines allotted to them. Check it now on Payfort.

#3. CCAVENUE

Originated in India, CCAvenue has become a popular and most preferred payment gateway in UAE today for people engaged in the e-commerce trade. Although they have a
zero setup fee, there is a huge monthly fee of $54.45 with an additional cost of 3% for every transaction.
It is definitely an expensive option, but then there are some free services that you will get along with them such as fraud prevention and 24/7 on-call support. Check it now on CCAvenue.

People everywhere will be preaching about the goodness of having a mobile app for your business. Every business today has an app. Talk about grocery stores, vegetable& fruits stores, apparels, flower shop, etc. all have apps to ease their and their customers’ life. It has not only proved beneficial but has given them greater ROI.

Mobile usage is increasing rigorously. The graph below will tell you the revenue generated through a mobile app in 2015, 2016, and 2020. In 2015, where it was the only US $69.7 billion, in 2016 it was US $88.3 Billion but by 2020 it is expected to reach US$ 188.9 Dollars.

Well, now that you know more people are using mobile apps you also need to know how many people use a Smartphone for Restaurant Mobile App.

There are many apps already in the market for various businesses. Businesses have started doing well and it’s recommended that all have an app for their business. You can run your business on the go too.  There are many reasons why an app is important. Let us look at what Statista’s survey has to say for the same:

They found out that 46.1 % used a restaurant app to check its hours of operation. 38.2% search for deal or offers, 30% order food online 23.8% make reservation through the app. Therefore, apps for restaurants are very important.

Top 5 Reasons Why Your Restaurant Needs a Mobile App

Increases Bookings

A restaurant’s KPI (Key Performance Indicator)is depends entirely on number of customers who have been served their food or have ordered take away or home delivery. Now, you know that 30% are already ordering online and with an app things will be faster. The usage of apps and mobile is only going to increase. Despite using smartphones people prefer to use apps rather than calling for placing orders. Your KPI can increase largely if you launch an app for your restaurant business. You can use Push Notifications to confirm the booking in case you do not want to hire someone specially to make calls for confirmation on bookings.

Increases Customer Loyalty

Keeping an old customer retained is much cheaper than acquiring new ones. That is why it is important to keep an eye on your loyal customers and offer them with coupons and discounts from time-to-time. This is how some food joints increased their sales using the loyalty programs.

Loyalty programs become the top motivators that make customers spend more, and offering loyalty programs through the mobile app is easier and convenient to both you and the customer.

Helps Boost your Brand

All restaurants prime focus is to increase the brand awareness and let more people know about them. In addition, having a mobile app from where they can order, book a table for 2 or more and check the menu will increase your restaurant’s brand awareness. Therefore, yes a mobile is important for the growth and popularity of any restaurant. When planning to develop an app keep the following points in mind:

• You should have a unique logo and icon for your restaurant that catches the eye of your customer and they can immediately connect to it.
• The color scheme and the design itself should be same in the entire app and your other branding activities.
• Check other apps logo and designs and compare to what you have created. Will it make you stand out and be noticeable among the others?
• Do not clutter your icon by using words.

Location based Tracking

With location based tracking enabled in the app, you can track the correct address of the customers and make sure to deliver in time. You can also use locations to send deals for specific locations luring them into a meal for a specific time and specific location. This will fetch you more customers and you will always be correct and even your customers will get to the right restaurant with the location details.

Better Payment Methods

There are times when customers come to take the orders from the restaurant but have placed the order through the app or online. Many do not turn up because they have to stand in lines to make the payment. When you are allowing them to place the order from the app, why not allow them to make the payment. This will ease your work and the customers will find it easy to make payments and will not have to wait to pick their order. Giving them multiple options for payments in the app itself is beneficial.

You must have faced issues where they place the order and do not come to pick it, with taking in app payments; they will never leave the order and will come to pick it. It saves time and keeps your restaurant clear.

MobiCommerce Restaurant’s Turnkey Solutions

Where you have only thought about an app, how about having a website, web app, mobile app, and a Facebook store altogether? However, MobiCommerce has the right restaurant turnkey solutions for you where they provide each of these to you. You do not have an app, do not worry we help to set-up all the four for you. It supports both Magento & PrestaShop eCommerce Platforms. We help to bring your offline business online.

The Turnkey Solution consists of an E-commerce Website, Mobile App, Web App, and Facebook Store. Let us take a closer look at each of them.

With technology, moving fast in all sectors it has seeped into the food and restaurant sector too. Having a mobile app not only eases your work but it also helps to boost your brand and increase your sales. It connects you and the customers well and makes sure that you are offering them the best services. Therefore, an app for a restaurant is very important.

Human relationships are founded on trust nurtured between persons. If either party breaks it, building it again will be difficult. In eCommerce, it makes things more problematic, as trust is an intangible binding a consumer has with a product or a company. Most often, the trust becomes an emotional but non-contractual obligation, subsequent to a better customer experience.

In all contexts, companies hold vested interests in developing trust as a means to meet their promotional goals, and therefore it is finally your strategic pulling-in the customers by infusing in them consumer loyalty. Without developing any trust element between your product and the customers, you will never be able to maintain consumer loyalty, which is the only way for growing eCommerce business.

Here are a few ways to build trust and brand loyalty of your online business.

#1. Get attached with your consumers emotionally

No customers will just buy a product, simply because you placed it on your web page. For this, they need persuasion, which is your trust building strategy. Your eCommerce success revolves around how far you are successful in doing this. Your customers’ buying decision can become positive only if they could cultivate an emotional relationship with the product.

#2. Make your product reliable

Mostly your customers may not have any prior knowledge about you or your product, except what is discretely fed into them by the search engines. Naturally, such visits often leave doubts about your integrity in keeping their money safe. There are also chances of their suppressing a feeling of uncertainty about your fulfilling the orders.

#3. Try to retain your customers

Getting a new customer involves 7 times more money, time, and effort than retaining an existing one. Therefore, customer retention must be given priority, as even a small percentage of increase in retention can lead to a dramatic increase in the product sales.

That said, the average order value for returning customers is thrice that of the first-time customers.

Image Source: SwellRewards

Recent researches have affirmed that 65% of the revenue collected by the eCommerce companies comes straight from the returning customers, and their contribution is 48% of the total U.S. e-commerce.

#4. Improve customer relationship and service

Many customers will leave your company if the support given is below their expectations. Dissatisfaction with the quality of your products and poor after sales service can compel the customers to leave your company in distrust. Such failures in trust building and customer retention can be fatal for all eCommerce business owners.

The latest statistics reveal that the average value of loss due to non-retention of customers at the global level is $243 billion. In the US alone, poor customer service caused a loss of $83 billion, last year.

#5. Reinvent customer experience

Customer experience is a major factor determining customers’ trust with a company. As per the Walker study, it has already indicated that what is going to decide on the price and product of a company in eCommerce by the year 2020 will be customer experience.

Image Source: VisionCentral

#6. Maintains Transparency

The success of eCommerce depends mostly on the customer experience, which is always linked with transparency in transactions. Therefore, while maintaining transparency at all levels of the transaction, you can easily place customer reviews on your sites, as well as the social networks.

#7. Do check customer reviews and improve it

Researches have reinstated that people who happen to read customer reviews are 105% more likely to purchase during page visits. Any failure in promoting positive reviews can become disastrous to your eCommerce dreams, as recent surveys have indicated that consumer reviews are trusted 12 times more before making an online purchase.

Also, 89% of shoppers have stopped buying online, due to bad customer service. The contribution of customer review in developing trust can be understood from the fact that 61% of customers read online reviews prior to their purchase decision.

What is third party reviews and how it helps to your brand?

The retailers can use third-party review platforms for raising the customer service standards to avoid negative feedbacks. Many retailers, such as; Comet, Argos, Tesco and many more employ this strategy to construct reliable reviews on their product pages, so that the customers get a good impression about the products, which are pathways of building trust. The market research studies have validated this, stating that 63% of online customers purchase; only from sites that post user reviews.

#8. Be active on social media

Posting reviews about your product and service on social media, along with your vendor platform, will surely act as a catalyst in generating trust in your visitors. Equally, it will make you committed to quality service, increasing your website’s conversion rate.

Image Source: SmartInsights

Additionally, posting social proof as evidence of the quality and reliability of the product, will inspire the customers to trust not only the product but also the company. Basically, people’s trust in anything is deeply influenced by the recommendations of their kith and kin, rather than the reviews and testimonies from other sources.

Conclusion

To conclude, eCommerce is built upon trust, that is developed through repeated customer visits, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty. The business owners need to provide more insights about their products and service publicly, so that the new customers can make a purchase decision with confidence. Consumer reviews on social media, testimonials, and social proof have a deep impact in building consumer trust, which is the only way to make eCommerce glorious.

Emerging of the social network platforms with hype in social commerce within just a few years has shown its power and proven to be beneficial to various e-commerce businesses. Today’s generation prefers to follow brands on social networking platforms and thus have led the brands to keep them active and engaging through various social media mobile apps. Viewing the charm of these social platforms, brands have started using the social commerce space offered by these platforms to grow their ecommerce business. Facebook has found to be the most popular one among all the social platforms for direct buying behaviour followed by Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. These platforms not only have proven to be beneficial in terms of sales but have also helped retailers in establishing their community.

In all, social platforms have helped retailers to turn strangers in to loyal customers.

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The basic principle of marketing is not in selling your products or services to your customers. You have to create circumstances wherein the customers will buy it from you. Therefore, every aspect of marketing starts and ends with customer service alone. A satisfied buyer can act as a perfect brand ambassador for the company. At the same time, an unsatisfied one can do great damage as well. Hence, your endeavor is to ensure that the customer gets the best of everything you have to offer.

This is going to be our principle area of discussion as we discuss the different ways by which we can improve customer participation and thereby boost the sales.

You can see a marked difference in customer behavior over the years. Today, shoppers prefer to shop online. This explains the introduction of a number of online eCommerce websites all over the place. Magento is one such eCommerce platform that has become extremely popular in recent times. The following graphic can explain things better.

How eCommerce and Magento are made for each other

Recent studies have shown that 29.1% of the eCommerce websites use Magento. The following graphic can give you a better idea about the statistic.

There are people who have the opinion that WordPress is the perfect platform for doing e-commerce business. However, Magento, an open sourced platform has certain inherent advantages that a web hosted platform such as WordPress does not. You have to wait until such people experience the power of this platform specially built for e-commerce.

We shall now look at the simple Magento hacks that can make eCommerce a more profitable venture for the business enterprise. Following these simple tips can help you to increase your customer base and thereby boost your sales.

Magento hacks to boost up your sales

Create a lasting impression

Who does not like to avail a discount in the world? The customer might just not have the time to browse your entire website searching for his discount. Inserting a coupon pop up the moment he enters the website can play a great role in sustaining his interest in the product. You can just ask the customer to follow the online store’s social media account or maybe even subscribe to a newsletter for availing the discount.

A majority of customers do not feel any difficulty in subscribing to these simple requests especially when they get a handsome discount coupon to use. Designing the offer in a beautiful way so that it matches your product should be a great idea.

Improve your Magento store’s SEO

Magento is an SEO ready platform. However, there is no harm in trying to increase your website’s SEO. It can always work out to your advantage. Using a Magento Extension such as “Advanced SEO Suite” should be perfect for you. It can increase your website’s ranking and also take care of issues that can affect the proper functioning of the website.

Enhance Customer Relationship

One of the best ways of arousing customer interest in your website and your products is to send a welcome email message. This message can play a great role in making the customer feel important. Everyone loves a personal touch. Integrate an email sending app with your website like SendwithUs. This can do wonders to boost your sales.

Secondly, customers always prefer to have online help. Having an online chat support is the best thing you can do to improve customer interaction. This is the best platform for you to resolve the doubts of the end users. An online chat is always better than directing the buyers to the FAQ section. This is because the each customer might have different kinds of doubts. Immediate resolution can have a positive impact on your sales.

Incorporate an improvised shopping cart

The customer should not find it difficult to add or delete items from the shopping cart. The integration with a Magento extension such as Easy Ajax Cart can help in removing the hassles such as reloading of the pages when you add or delete the products. This can enhance the shopping experience and thereby increase his interest.

Simplify the checkout process

The human psychology is such that customers prefer to visit the websites that have the easiest check out procedures. Easing their tension levels at this point is very important. A tedious procedure can make them abandon their shopping carts. This can have a detrimental effect on his experience making him reluctant to choose the site again. On the other hand, a simple check out procedure can encourage him to use the website again in the future. Purchasers usually prefer the One-Step Checkout Extension because of the ease of using the same.

Easy Payment Options

Customer satisfaction is the ultimate in any business. Hence, your endeavor should be in making it as easy for the buyer as possible. Not everyone in the world uses credit cards for making payments. They may prefer to use other safer methods like internet banking, payment wallets, and PayPal. Having multi-currency options is a great idea as well because you might have a global setup encompassing different countries in the world. Each country has its specific payment options. Adapting to every kind of situation should be easy. This can increase the customer satisfaction a great deal.

Move your Magento Store to App

People are more comfortable today with using the mobile applications in comparison to the normal desk top modules. The easy availability of mobile devices has contributed a lot towards its popularity. Therefore, one should move with time in order to be successful. Having an equally accessible mobile store should be the best option for you.

Build Trust with Reviews & Ratings

Customers love to read the product reviews before buying anything from the online market. Ensure that your eCommerce website has provisions for including product reviews. If you would like to use review extension, it should be such that it should also allow for easy posting of the reviews and ratings. You can also get the reviews and ratings on your website like we’ve received it on Trustpilot. This is one of the best methods of boosting sales.

Explore the scope for recommendations

A satisfied customer can bring you good referrals thereby boosting your sales further. Your e-commerce website should explore this possibility of seeking referrals from your existing customers. You can offer additional discount coupons to your buyers and thereby encourage them to refer their friends. Introduce the concept of reward points to your existing customers to improve their loyalty towards the store.

Summary

The main objective of any business enterprise is to boost the sales and thereby its revenue. eCommerce is one of the best ways to do business today. You have the open sourced platforms like Magento to help you achieve this objective. We shall summarize certain tips that can help you enhance the Magento experience.

• Introduce the concept of discounts
• Improve your website’s SEO
• Increase customer interaction
• Improve customer experience with shopping carts
• Simplify the payment procedures
• Offer multiple payment gateways
• Try out the Mobile app
• Incorporate product reviews and ratings
• Give incentives to your customers for their referrals