Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Appealing To Women - Key To Success in Online Retailing

Shopping has been an obsession of women across the globe. A new shop in the neighborhood, a new shopping mall in the area, a new brand launched - women are first to know and first to go. When it comes to shopping, women are more organized (45% of women come to with shopping-lists as compared 27% of men), regularized and they show some definite trends in their buying behaviors. A retail stores woman is more likely to spend time in a retail store (29%) as compared to her male counterpart (23%).

Now, let us look at online retailing; a Jupiter Research survey says 60% of U.S. online shoppers are women! Another equally intriguing and related fact is - 92% of UK female Internet users buy products online. Undoubtedly, these figures show that there is an increasing trend amongst women to go for the online option.

When a woman visits a retail store she will consider a few factors such as:

• How conveniently the store is located

• Behavior of the staff

• Cleanliness (most of women are obsessed with it)

• Products put at an easy reach so that she can check the label, feel it (if required) and physically compare it with a similar product from a different manufacturer

• Overall aesthetic decoration of the store

• And most importantly - freebies and discounts available with the products

Naturally, the same woman when she would visit an online retail store will look for these factors in her sub-conscious mind. She would love to get the same feeling as she derives from the environment of her favorite retail store. She will unknowingly demand these from your online shopping store.

She would choose to stay and buy from your online web store if you can meet the following:

Save time: You should give her the navigational freedom and easy roam around options in your store; give her instantly whatever she wants.

Get a better selection: Your product should be the best in the designated price bracket

Complete product details: Do not describe your products in single words; give as much detail as possible.

Better value/offer: Your freebies should be 'useful' enough and the discount should be noticeable

Logistics: You must deliver the product right at her doorsteps and nowhere else!

Flexible return policy: Many times a woman takes a second opinion and you should respect this nature. Be flexible if she asks you to replace what she has bought.

It is the convenience of shopping from home that drives women to buy online and this has been the single most influencing factor that drives online retail sales. Online shopping store can help you to generate hefty profits and as women are your major customers, you must enact everything in your store to please them.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

TILE - Best Practices With Microsoft RMS Solution

When we talk about best practices, we do not mean those "precautionary measures" that you should take to make your software perform! Rather, our best practices are combinatorics of different options that would directly affect your productivity towards a positive side.
For example, TILE gives us a dynamic interface to manage images.

TILE is not just a single image with a product. Rather it is an entire set of images that can be further re-sized or reshaped for a collective web display.


Download TILE and Integrate it up with Microsoft RMS (Retail Management System)

TILE can make the task of record editing and updating extremely easy. With TILE, you will simply open your RMS records in a grid-like view (as we have in MS-Excel), quickly apply one or more filters, use your mouse to select the records, right-click, enter the desired value and update. All 100 records will be updated in a flash.