Role of Social Media in Promoting Your Online Store’s Products

A study by the leading business analyst group Nielsenwire has revealed some startling facts about the American web surfers. The study shows that 23% of an American’s time used online, is spent on social media websites. As for online search, they spent only 3.5% of their time. The growth in affinity for social media has increased by 43%, whereas time spent on emailing has declined by 29%. Instant messaging which was a must-do for everyone using the Internet even a few years back, has only 4% of share in the whole pie which is steadily declining.

These facts and others point to only one thing – social media rules; at least for the time being. Naturally, the most likely places where you can find people (read customers) are social media networks. Being an online retailer now is the time for you to focus on social media and make your presence felt there. Here are a few tips to make your online ecommerce store visible in social media:

1. It is important that your shopping cart software display icons that links to your accounts – put the icons for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn etc. in one place and give proper visibility.

2. While socializing, people are mostly in joyous mood. Entice them by running games or lucky-draws; give away a few prizes (Why - use your least sold products!). This will give people a chance to visit your online store – even if they don’t play or win. Chances are that 4 out of 10 visitors will return.

3. Update your social media site regularly. This is very important, as your followers will always get the latest info; otherwise they would conveniently walk to the next ecommerce shopping store.

4. Don’t ‘push’ your products; rather try helping your followers. Don’t portray yourself always as a business person who is after profit. Instead, be a friend first, people will automatically follow. Do not go gaga about “what you have”, tell people “what you can give”.

5. Use shopping cart software that offers interface to link products directly to your favorite social media site. For example, there are ecommerce store providers who can help you to take your products directly into the Fan pages of your Facebook account. Your Facebook fans can see all the latest products from your online store from inside their Facebook accounts only.

Interacting with your fans/followers/customers is the key to spread your brand’s value in social media. Search engine optimization techniques are good for enhancing your search ranking. However, to be known in the social media front, you need to a have different strategy in place. You must give your followers the freedom to judge your products, comment on them and compare. On your part, you will need to analyze people’s views, follow trends, and implement changes and so on.

Social media networks have immense potentiality to expose your products sold through your ecommerce shopping store to new customers. Furthermore, it’s the perfect platform to help you retaining customers and build a sustainable relationship with new ones. So, when the social media rules, you can take your online ecommerce shopping cart to new heights, if you closely follow the rules of the game!

Customer Care Process For Your Online Shopping Cart

The success of an online store depends on how effectively you can serve your customers. Online customers are more detail-oriented and they prefer to be treated more attentively. The reason is simple – the customer cannot ‘see’ you and your products in reality and to give them the ‘feeling’ that he gets when he visits your store physically, you need to be more specific in both pre and post sale scenarios. Naturally, an extravagant design, use of cutting-edge technologies, and a range of hotcake products – nothing can ensure your success for a longtime if your customer care facility is inadequate.

Gone are the days when customer care meant that your customer would call up to complain about a defect in the product and the lady sitting on the customer care desk would pick up the phone lazily, note down the complaint, give a complain number to the customer, hang up the phone and start polishing her nails or continue reading the trash novel. For today’s business, customer care plays the most pivotal role. Good customer care means you are emphasizing on customer’s delight and thereby winning loyalty, which is the most significant thing for an online shopping cart owner who often faces fierce competition to remain in the market.

The customer care process for your website powered by shopping cart software should consist of the following services:

• Email support – The turnaround time for an email should be ideally 12 hrs although the normal practice amongst online shopping cart owners is of 24 hrs.

• Chat support – Should cover at least the business hours of your country/locality (12 to 16 hrs a day at least)

• Phone support – Business hours normally; should employ additional manpower during shopping seasons

Please note that your customer care reps should be adequately trained to handle the queries and they should have proper product-knowledge and operational details of the shopping cart software. Besides, the customer care reps should also have the skill to build rapport with the customers and take the finer points of your products and services to them. Like your sales team, your customer care team should know about your customers’ demography, orientation, likings and so on. Most importantly, your customer care team members should have the linguistic abilities and communication skill to carry out their responsibilities successfully.

Besides these traditional customer support mechanisms, online retailers should also focus on social networking platforms which getting popular day by day. Social media platforms offer excellent ways to build communities loyal to your brand or product. At the same time, it offers a platform to advertise your product. Moreover, you can easily bring out new changes, offers or anything that connects with your customers on social media platforms and your customers will know this instantly. An account in Twitter or FaceBook has an enormous reach when it comes to sales through your online shopping cart. A small and targeted tweet or a short message send to your customers or a FAN page that describes the latest additions in your product-line is far more impacting than a roadside billboard in your locality.

ECommerce Websites bring buyers to Retail Shopping Stores - Ecommerce Software Solution 24SevenCart

eCommerce have been greatly increased in the past few years. It proved a lot profitable for the buyers as well as for the retailers. Where in today’s fast paced life people have scarcity of time, eCommerce proved as a boon.

There has been a great increase noticed in the number of eCommerce websites which had simultaneously increased retail shopping. Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution helps a lot in bringing buyers to the retails stores. Whether you are looking for any consumer product, industrial item or just general shopping, eCommerce websites acts as one of the best place to purchase the items from. Online transactions are easily carried out at Ecommerce Shopping Cart websites. Retailer’s gives lucrative offers and buyers get ready to purchase products offered at the shopping cart website.

eCommerce gives buyers the opportunity to select the item of their own choice with just a click of mouse on the Integrated Ecommerce Shopping Solution. The buyer can make purchases by sitting in their comfort zone of home, office, café or any other place. The retailers give buyers the chance to make their wish list, place orders and get the shipment done that’s within very less time. Thus eCommerce website saves in lots of time, money and travel, yet offering an excellent shopping extravaganza.

If you login to an eCommerce website but are unable to find the product of your choice, you can easily login to another website for the same product. Secondly, there are Integrated Ecommerce Solution which helps in comparing the price and act as Price Comparison Engine. It helps you in comparing price of same product and choose retailer offering the best price.

Microsoft Retail Management System Integrated Ecommerce Solution provides you the privilege of utilizing an automated system. This avoids manual data entry. You can choose any item and put it in RMS Cart and if you feel to change the item, you may remove it. You, as a buyer only need to place the order whereas other procedures are done automatically by the system. This reduces the chances of errors.

The entire ordering process until payments are automated, there is no room for errors in an Integrated Ecommerce Solution. You can also expect good online discounts while buying products. On the other side, if you don’t wish to make purchasing online you can view the items listed on the website, and get their details, can compare their prices and purchase them from the nearby retail shop. This helps you save the selection time.

So we can conclude that eCommerce has made online business transaction very easier for retailers as well as for customers. E-business is gaining momentum day-by-day. Different type of eCommerce websites proving helpful for the retailers bringing the buyers to their door steps whether manually or automatically.