An ecommerce sales funnel is a series of web pages crafted to systematically convert visitors to an online store into paying customers. It is a marketing term that describes the journey potential customers go through from visitor to buyer. There are several steps to an e-commerce sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on the retailer’s sales model. Simply put, as a visual representation of your customer journey. Consumers enter the top of the sales funnel and move down, stage by stage until they (hopefully) become repeat customers. For example: notice how this sales funnel pulls people in with a big discount, and then tries to upsell them with a one-time-offer before triggering the “Order Received” page…  Some consumers slide through the funnel quickly, going from a lead to a fan in the blink of an eye — they see something they want; they buy that thing; they become a brand advocate. Other consumers navigate sales funnels like three-toed sloths, taking months or …

Keeping up with high order volume: As your D2C brand grows, your order volume increases and your day to day operations become challenging. From keeping a track of inventory levels to picking, packing and shipping become more difficult to manage manually. You also have to maintain a fulfillment center or warehouse and hire more staff. Moreover, the requirement for automation also arises to minimize the need for manual operations that are time-consuming and not at all cost-effective. High shipping rates: When you’re shipping your D2C orders yourself, you have to rely on shipping providers for providing cost-efficient shipping services across the country. However, it is unlikely for you to get discounts and negotiated shipping rates because of low order volumes. This makes speedy delivery expensive. Pressure to offer fast and free delivery: Customers expect fast and free delivery as a standard service from D2C brands. You need to fulfil your orders from multiple locations in order to increase the shipping speed. For that, you need a distributed network of warehouses across the country to store …

Brands face multiple obstacles when organizing the content function for their blogs. A blog gives you the opportunity to connect directly with your readership, to contribute to the literary community, and, of course, to promote your writing. But maintaining an effective, interesting blog that keeps your readers coming back for more can be harder than you might expect.  Just because you’re a writer and have a certain mastery of words doesn’t mean you’ll be a successful blogger. Blogging requires an additional set of skills, such as putting on your marketing hat and considering what will hook your readers. It is a full-time job and requires dedication, patience, creativity, commitment, marketing skills, and so much more. The sad reality is that there are lots of problems bloggers face and they cause most of the beginning bloggers to fail. It is especially a drag to browse already popular blogs and see the whole range of skills and talents on display: excellent writing, brilliant photography, fun videos and witty debates in the comments.    Lack of inspiration: We …

Most organizations understand the benefits of maintaining a business blog, such as improved search visibility and thought leadership development; however, there are still many companies that chose not to blog for one reason or another. With the prevalence of content marketing, business blogs are becoming more and more common. Corporate blogs among Fortune 500 companies jumped from 23% in 2010 to 42% last year, and the rest of the country is following suit. What was once a competitive advantage is now business as usual, to the point where “Should My Business Have A Blog?” is a question with a foregone conclusion. Another study showed that marketing firms that blogged received 67% more leads than firms that didn’t. Blogs not only generate more leads, they boost authority, give value to prospective customers, and improve your site’s SEO ranking. Of course you should have a small business blog.  The real question is, why isn’t every business out there blogging? Don’t have the time Every small business owner knows that time is precious. Every minute you spend on …

A well-written and informative blog can attract new leads, keep current customers engaged with your brand, and provide your company value in other ways too. Every brand needs a blog. You may think that no one will care about your brand’s new product launch or what goes on behind the scenes, but that is not the case. Consumers want to know the story behind their favorite brands and feel confident that they are making the right choice when they strongly identify with a brand. A company blog can do all those things and more. Blogging for a brand is also not hard to maintain because most companies do not update their blogs daily. A blog is one of the most effective ways to boost brand awareness and reach your target audiences by authoring content that is relevant to their searches.  Social media. Newsletters. Video. You name it. When it comes to marketing a brand, there are seemingly thousands of options to choose from. Although every digital channel has something unique to offer, the first option …

Content and commerce pertains to a business’s ability to offer engaging narratives around their product or services to the consumer (in the form of rich product content like detailed information, brochures, product guides, video tutorials, social media stories, online or offline events or even user generated content like reviews or experience sharing) and an equally intuitive and intelligent commerce platform to seamlessly send them down to the path of purchase. This is what a good content-commerce combination looks like. It provides consistent, connected experiences to customers. By delivering personalized content, based on customer data, individual shopping behavior, and industry trends, eCommerce is evolving away from simple ‘product pages’ to a new generation of immersive, insight-driven customer journeys. That’s where a merger of content and commerce becomes significant; it can achieve the right personalization and contextualization needed to fuel customer friendly purchase experiences. Content-driven Commerce is a goldmine to amplify customer experience. The digital landscape is transforming day by day. Most companies recognize that content and commerce must intertwine to drive business results online and help …

One major way that businesses are now gaining a competitive advantage in digital is by providing a seamless customer journey that establishes a lasting relationship with the customer. Building a meaningful customer experience is important for all retailers, brands and manufacturers, whether they are selling directly to consumers or to other enterprises. The hard truth is that it’s not enough to just employ standard best practices  retailers have to dig in and elevate themselves above the competition. Too often, unfortunately, retailers’ differentiated customer experiences blend together in a sea of sameness. Typically, whenever someone starts talking about the best ways to create a differentiated customer experience, the things they list are not distinct from their competitors in the least. Instead, they are common practices that every business knows they have to perform to succeed. Delivering this consistent cross-channel experience involves synchronizing personal data and shopping carts across all touchpoints. Unless you’re selling a totally niche product, chances are you have competition out there. You may have similar products and even price points to some of …

Content commerce is here to stay, and it’s just the beginning. Publishers should consider how they can capitalize on the opportunity ahead by curating a community of brand partners and offering a native commerce experience on their websites. Get a head start on curating your brand partners. We’re a supplier enablement platform that makes it easy for you to get your multi vendor marketplace up and running. Contact our sales team today to get started.  Combining content and commerce into one platform and preventing them from being siloed makes it easier for you to deliver results by viewing products and media content in one location. Customers of today prefer to do their research before purchasing from a brand. The reason being that they are constantly bombarded with advertisements at every turn, from television to social media platforms. Instead of letting brands dictate what they should buy, customers are in a much better position to do so themselves. Content is one of the critical drivers of eCommerce spending with companies that utilize content marketing, enjoying an …

For publishers and brands, the answer is both. Consumers are being bombarded with ads, influencers, and dodgy search results. As a result, there is a greater need for sources of truth for product information before hitting the checkout. Consumers want to educate themselves about what they should purchase. In an environment where every product category has dozens of highly-rated options to choose from, they have to do their research to find the best product that matches their needs. Education delivered in the customer journey through content — social media walkthroughs, customer case studies, or SEO-powered product pages — is one of the keys to driving more revenue.   On the other side of the equation, consumers want frictionless purchase options for products. A 2021 study showed that nearly 1 in 5 shoppers abandoned their cart because of a long or complicated checkout process.  The symbiotic relationship between content and commerce has created a new business model for publishers and a new distribution channel for brands: content commerce. Content commerce is the strategic integration of relevant products …

With a B2B sales funnel, you can establish the different stages that a business representative might go through from the first contact with your brand to the purchase of the product or service itself. The primary goal of a B2B sales funnel is to increase return on investment (ROI). This involves working according to a plan to influence prospects’ decision-making so that they become your customer. Regardless, you must avoid pushing your prospects into deciding. This is because doing so could drive them away instead of turning them into paying customers. B2B Sales funnels use marketing strategies that tell you what to do step-by-step, based on your audiences’ interests. A sales funnel will inform you of the accurate number of leads that enter your sales pipeline and the ones that eventually convert.  It is imperative that every piece of content you create appeals to your potential customers. For this reason, you should learn about their interests, dislikes, fears, and other factors to create compelling content. B2B sales funnel informs you of the same stage each …

Video commerce has become an important factor in e-commerce strategy and as a result, there is a huge amount of activity to support improved conversion through video. Video has the ability to convey an incredible amount of information very fast. Displaying your product via video will give your customer so much more information about how it looks like. It is also possible to strike an emotional chord and tell customers how they should feel about an item. Studies show that people are more likely to share videos than text pages. Additionally, people are also more inclined to click on a video thumbnail than on something with no visual or multimedia element. Videos are naturally more engaging than plain text. As such, audiences are much more likely to watch video commerce content than read product pages. They can also convey information quicker, which is important given the shrinking attention spans of consumers. The benefits of video are that it gives visitors a reason to spend more time on your site, which lays a ground for future …

Video Commerce is the practice of using video content to promote and sell commercial products or services on the Internet. It is significant for the retailers because it has the power to translate brand experience into a transaction. Video Commerce is a new trend in online shopping. With video, people can see products and shop from their mobile devices at any time, anywhere. Video Commerce is hugely important for retailers as it presents the opportunity to go into depth into the product, give the shopper an experience of the product and ultimately the brand. In this article, we go through the elements of video commerce that are now the key driver in e-commerce growth today. Video Commerce is the future of e-commerce. It’s what retailers need to be doing to keep up with the changing times and stay competitive. It is a new type of video advertising that combines AI-powered shoppable videos with product placement. Consumers watch the ad and then click on a link to buy or learn more about the product, all within …

WordPress is the most popular website builder and content management system in the world. It has a market share of 43% of websites on the internet. With WordPress, you can make a website, start a blog, or create an online store. It comes with thousands of free and premium plugins that work as addons to extend the features and functionality on your site. Most websites use WordPress for its flexibility, easy-to-use admin panel, and thousands of themes / templates. You can set up a WordPress site quickly without writing any code. BBC America BBC America is a popular entertainment site that broadcasts several British TV shows like The Graham Norton Show, Top Gear, Doctor Who, and more. The site uses WordPress as a content management system and offers features that include full episodes, live TV, and user registration.  BBC America is responsible for both and many more TV dramas, sci-fi series, and natural history documentaries. It even lets you stream movies, too. But what makes this website so versatile is that you can read the …

Installing updates is important to the health of your WordPress site, but can be a nuisance if not done thoughtfully. Premium WordPress themes are updated and improved often. These updates are important to maintain proper security on WordPress websites. Updates may bring some small problems to a website in which case you may have to revert to an older WordPress state. As the use of WordPress websites are increasing with each passing day, dangers looming around them have also increased. Yes, it’s 100% true. Professional hackers and cybercriminals make numerous endeavors to hack WordPress websites and destroy the web-based business being generated through that. Once your website is hacked, you suffer a great loss in terms of business, leads and sales, revenues, the SEO ranking of your website, lots of trust of customers. To mitigate this risk, again, it is always good to be knowledgeable in choosing plugins and themes for your WordPress site; always assess the quality of a WordPress plugin and install with caution. WordPress releases its new updates frequently. Most of the …

Ecommerce blogging is a way to write consistent content, content that specifically targets users, based on the stage of their buying journey. It can be educational that explains about your product & how it can solve the challenges which they’re facing. It helps to increase the organic traffic of your site, ranking your site for multiple keywords. Finally, present you as an industry thought leader. Ecommerce Blog offers opportunities for people to find your products and ultimately add them to their shopping carts. It doesn’t end there, though. Blog articles offer another way for you to get social shares to your website, amplifying your reach. Ecommerce Blogging provides them with a venue to share their creativity and ideas to a wider audience. Top brands and businesses create blogs to educate their customers, share news, and reach a wider audience. Blogging is an essential part of online marketing strategy for many businesses. If a blog isn’t a core part of your ecommerce marketing strategy, you’re losing out on traffic, organic list growth and sales. As selling …

Winners keep score, and successful businesses invariably think about where their customers come from. A well-planned sales funnel can help you drive traffic to your site, improve your conversion ratio, build your customer base, and grow brand awareness. Consumers in the awareness stage are brand new on the scene. They found out about your company via Google (this is where SEO tactics pay off), or a paid Facebook ad, or an influencer. Are you a legitimate company, or are you running a scam? Do you sell a product they might like? Do they have a problem you can fix? These folks don’t know yet. So here, you need to make a great first impression and fast. You need to educate these folks about your business and favorably position your brand. Think of yourself as a gardener: this is the seed-planting phase of your marketing plan. In the Consideration stage, they reach this juncture, consumers know who you are and what you sell. They’ve identified a need — a “pain point” and they’re looking for solutions. …

Building an e-commerce sales funnel for your online store helps you map the buyer’s journey and identify what you need to do at each stage. Because let’s face it, not everyone who’s heard about your brand will magically turn into loyal customers.  As they visually demonstrate, e-commerce consumers move through a funnel. Your goal should be optimizing your marketing activities in each stage of the funnel to make sure that you carry as many users as possible to the next stage. It acquires qualified leads and high-value prospects for your business. It helps you identify optimal marketing strategies. It reveals the kind of content you should be going for. It identifies ways in which you can solve your consumers’ pain points. A well-defined and optimized sales funnel helps you attract and convert as many leads as possible; It also helps you increase repeat purchases and brand advocacy. Sales funnels are the secret weapon of successful eCommerce stores all around the world  whether it’s run by big corporations, solopreneurs, stay-at-home moms, or somebody just like you. …

An ecommerce sales funnel is a series of web pages crafted to systematically convert visitors to an online store into paying customers. It is a marketing term that describes the journey potential customers go through from visitor to buyer. There are several steps to an e-commerce sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on the retailer’s sales model. Simply put, as a visual representation of your customer journey. Consumers enter the top of the sales funnel and move down, stage by stage until they (hopefully) become repeat customers. For example: notice how this sales funnel pulls people in with a big discount, and then tries to upsell them with a one-time-offer before triggering the “Order Received” page…  Some consumers slide through the funnel quickly, going from a lead to a fan in the blink of an eye — they see something they want; they buy that thing; they become a brand advocate. Other consumers navigate sales funnels like three-toed sloths, taking months or …

A sales funnel is the marketing term for the journey potential customers go through on the way to purchase. There are several steps to a sales funnel, usually known as the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel, although these steps may vary depending on a company’s sales model. Any business owner knows the pain of just missing a sale. After weeks of pitches and demos, chatter and charm, the prospect drops out of the sales funnel without buying. It happens, but it happens less if you have the right sales funnel management help. Many small business sales funnels are more like sieves, with holes left by patched-together spreadsheets, sticky notes, missed appointments and forgotten follow-ups. The top of the funnel is where new leads, or prospects, enter the buying journey, while the narrow bottom reflects how many of those leads are converted to customers by the end of the sales process. It is the series of steps that prospects need to take to become a paying customer.  The stages of a sales funnel can …

High distribution cost: The distribution costs hit hard on Meesho financials. Acquiring & retaining the users who are price conscious needs constant burning of cash. Furthermore, Meesho distribution climbed even higher than usual during COVID. The lockdown measures have seen consumers turning to fulfil essential items for home delivery which hampered the Meesho growth.  Inconsistent Product quality: Multiple Meesho buyers mentioned degrading the quality of merchandise being delivered to them. Poor product quality results in a high number of returns and suppliers need to pay some penalty to Meesho. Late delivery & slow customer service: Multiple customers complain that sometimes the products are not delivered on time. Once the product is delayed, customers gravitate towards “customer service” to know the status of their order. The customer support team is key to building trust and delivering a great customer experience.  Lack of Branded and Unique Products: There is a shortage of Branded and Unique Products in Meesho App. There is a great need for the company to improve its product because any company must have Unique …

Inflated Price: Prices shown on the delivery menu of the food delivery apps are inflated. If you ever match them with the rates on the restaurant menu card, you would find a significant difference. This can range anywhere between 10% and 25%, most of the time. This is done by the restaurants because for every order placed, the restaurants have to pay a commission of around 20% to the food delivery startups. The process of deducting the commission is automated or built into the system. Unfortunately, the organizations enabling these food delivery apps lack the technology to prevent this inflation, and even if they did have the technology, they would never be able to implement it, thanks to the nature of the business model. Misguided Discounts: There are no free lunches in the world. And restaurants are not charitable organizations that serve you for free. If not an increase in price, they will reduce the quantity to ensure that their margins are not impacted. Increase in Brand Name: Currently, Swiggy’s brand awareness is less, and …

High Commission Rates: The commission rate of Swiggy and Zomato is 18-40% which varies at different parameters. This is the biggest disadvantage of Swiggy and Zomato. Due to the high commission rate, you cannot offer a big discount to your customers. Limited space to advertise and brand yourself: Nowadays Cloud Kitchen’s craze is increasing in India. And also there are big restaurants that deliver food online. In this situation, it is necessary to build your Cloud Kitchen as a Brand and take a great position in the market to survive in the future. And if you go through Zomato then it is too difficult to build your Cloud Kitchen a Brand. Price Differences: When someone goes on Zomato to order something. Then they see lots of restaurants which are listed on it. And then they start to compare the product on the basis of offers and prices. And now they get no restaurants to order and your cloud kitchen might be one of them. Reduce profit margins: Every restaurant or Cloud kitchen wants to sell …

Product Listing Ads: To achieve more sales you need to drive higher traffic towards your products. The more clicks your products get, the higher the probability of them getting sold. The easiest way to get more clicks for your products on flipkart.com is through Product Listing Ads.  Being caught unprepared: You might think offering huge discounts during promotional sales are a sure shot way to attract buyers. But before you jump on the bandwagon, plan, plan, and then plan some more! Make sure you have adequate stocks and are prepared to handle the multi-fold spike in traffic. Any slip up will not only shake customers’ confidence but also give your competitors an opportunity to steal your thunder. Indirect proposals: Make sure you secure your current market before you venture into new spaces. Many e-tailers have been left with a bitter experience while trying to bite off more than they could chew. Scaling up business is important, but even more important is to equip yourself with proper infrastructure and capabilities. Pace yourself accordingly as your business …

Barriers to Entry:  It has become more and more difficult to just jump on Amazon and start selling. As the platform continues to take on new sellers who don’t always follow the rules, Amazon has had to become more strict in allowing who can sell, what can be sold, and how. Sellers must receive approval to sell clothing, shoes, handbags, automotive items, and many more types of inventory. The list of categories requiring approval keeps growing. And it isn’t that easy to be approved. On the plus side, sellers on Amazon do have automatic approval to sell in a few categories as soon as they open their selling account. Amazon Sellers Only Get Their Money Every Two Weeks: When you sell an item on Amazon, payment is made by direct deposit to your checking account every 14 days, unless you’re one of the lucky few who still has a legacy account that allows you to request payments as often as every 24 hours. Amazon does not accept PayPal from buyers. That can be a problem …

This is to test the post by mail feature of WordPress.

Video commerce has become an important factor in e-commerce strategy and as a result, there is a huge amount of activity to support improved conversion through video. Video has the ability to convey an incredible amount of information very fast. Displaying your product via video will give your customer so much more information about how it looks like. It is also possible to strike an emotional chord and tell customers how they should feel about an item. Studies show that people are more likely to share videos than text pages. Additionally, people are also more inclined to click on a video thumbnail than on something with no visual or multimedia element. Videos are naturally more engaging than plain text. As such, audiences are much more likely to watch video commerce content than read product pages. They can also convey information quicker, which is important given the shrinking attention spans of consumers. The benefits of video are that it gives visitors a reason to spend more time on your site, which lays a ground for future …