July 2019 – E-Commerce POC

Choosing OS Commerce vs. Zen Cart Shopping Solution for Web Development

Posted on July 25, 2019 by blogger

Today, diverse shopping carts are being used by e-retail outlets to enhance their e-commerce and Web Development activities and offer a unique experience to its customers. There is an exhaustive list of Shopping Carts that include Magento, PrestaShop, CubeCart, OpenCart and StoreSprite. Two of the major open-source Shopping Carts that have attained high popularity in the recent years are OS Commerce and Zen Cart. Many Web Development service providers offer these two Shopping Cart Solutions at a very large scale. However, it is proven that Web Developers do not embrace a single Shopping Cart solution completely, because of the fear of obsolescence or lock-in.

The comparison among OS Commerce and Zen Cart Shopping Cart has taken place by Webmasters at many levels, and this article, by no means, intends to be an extension of the same. This article instead discusses the benefits of both OS Commerce and Zen Cart in a little detail and helps you choose a sound Shopping Cart for your Web Development projects.

Zen Cart Shopping Cart for Efficient Web Development

For efficient Web Development, developers bank on Zen Cart Shopping Cart. Zen is free, extremely user-friendly, an easy-to-install and open-source shopping cart. More than the developers, Zen Cart is a Shopping Cart solution for shoppers. Zen Cart also offers various exclusive features like multiple payment support, varied shipping options, quantity discounts and coupons.

Zen Cart also features multiple customer modes and sales and discounts, unlimited category depth and display modes. It also efficiently supports XHTML template system and offers the liberty to use unlimited extra pages and several ad banners. Many Web Development Companies in India, believe that no Shopping Cart solutions comes as close as Zen when it comes to features and benefits.

OS Commerce for a Strong and Dedicated Shopping Cart

OS Commerce is an open source online shopping cart that offers a wide range of features to online e-commerce stores. Like Zen Cart, OS Commerce also supports multiple currencies and allows the customers to print invoices directly from the order screen. Many Web Development companies vouch for its easy database backup system, and effective Web Development processes.

OS Commerce Shopping Cart features a rich set of functionality that allows e-commerce owners to setup and maintain online stores with minimum efforts and absolutely no costs. Many Web Development, India, firms have Java proficient web developers and are solely dedicated to designing projects in Java language.

Hope this article has been able to provide some help to all those who are yet to decide between Zen and OS Commerce Shopping for their Web Development projects.

Mobile Commerce Platforms – Facts to Consider

Posted on July 15, 2019 by blogger

With mobile commerce becoming advanced each day, retailers are becoming eager to branch out into the mobile web scenario. To make their products and services more reachable, new mobile commerce platforms need to be developed. There are numerous players in the market who provide platforms like Magneto, ATG, Marketlive, Escalate Retail, and Demandware. Platforms are being offered within the app through the mobile web combining browser detection and CSS, through services that allow mobile app usage, and through partnerships with third parties.

However, there are some factors that need to be kept in mind while retailers are looking to provide this mobile ecommerce solution:
Attention must be paid to the cost. Although the forum is expanding, the ROI will be significantly less due to lack of direct mobile transactions. M-commerce will surely be beneficial to the multichannel customer experience, but there is no parameter against which we can measure the benefits.
The management of the mobile site has to be integrated into the management tools and existing site merchandising. Adequate support must be available for content management, product content, category management, and order management.
Any mobile website needs to be maintained on a regular basis. The inventory, price, and production information must be up-to-date, but it also needs to include brand assets, product data, and assortment taxonomy. A constant synchronization needs to be maintained with the platform provider. Agencies and firms are cashing in on marketplace feeds or retailers affiliate to power the mobile websites but this has a drawback too. The feeds are often a part of the total assortment and may not have catalog management features.
The payment options must be made extremely easy. Users should be able to conduct transactions quickly using secure and PCI compliant webservices. That is why Apple has tasted success with their iPhone or iPod Touches.
The foundation of the operating systems of phones frequently undergoes changes with OS versions, new devices, and ecosystems. The management needs to be done pro-actively and the providers must help their customers to navigate easily.
Order management and customer care needs to be effectively coordinated. If this is not done, then the rate of customer satisfaction will start to drop and they will be roped in by the other players. Ideally, a constant and portable cart should be present that allows customers to shop via mobile and web and to be able to access via the other channel makes the entire procedure simple and easy for them. With the help of a consistent customer authentication capability, the multichannel effect of mobile commerce can be easily measured.

Mobile commerce platforms
have been developed and tested successfully but they still have a long way to go in terms of performance. Industry experts say that the current infrastructure of m-commerce platforms is not suitable to keep up with the demands that are increasing each day. A lot of evaluation and upgrading needs to be done immediately so that the implementation can be done in the proper way.

Questions to Ask Yourself When Setting Up Ecommerce

Posted on July 2, 2019 by blogger

For years now e-commerce has been continuously evolving and transforming the shopping experience. It isnt to say that brick and mortar stores are necessarily on the decline, but rather innovative bells and whistles have been added to the industry. If you had mentioned the term e-commerce to anyone a few years ago, the majority would have answered with, “Oh its like Ebay and Amazon” or “Its online shopping.” The fact of the matter is that trying to compare it to anything else is only going to be relevant for that particular time period.

With the release of every new technology, a new way to attract and retain customers is simultaneously born. Try explaining to someone before the introduction of smart phones and tablets, that one day they will be able to buy products not only from the comfort of their own PC at home, but also in public transport, while waiting for an appointment at the doctors office, or even on a treadmill at the gym. And with the recent introduction of wearable technology such as Google Glass among others, the e-commerce experience and shopper behavior is only going to further evolve.

When e-commerce first began to take off, typically the shopper would order a product online and wait four to six weeks for it to arrive. Today that model has been reversed. Individuals preview a number of different products on a number of different devices, reserving or buying online but picking the product up in person. It is killing two birds with one stone so to say. The shopper looks at merchandise when its convenient for them without having to take time out from their schedule to visit a store, not to mention eliminating the shipping and handling process completely.

Questions, Questions, Questions

If you are a retailer who is reading this, naturally you are concerned, quite discombobulated, and have many questions in respect to how you will keep up with the never ending cycle of technological advancements and fluctuating shopper behavior:

Am I effectively engaging my target audience and how much should I invest in it?
Am I getting the most use out of my customer databases?
How can I predict customers behavior?
How can I offer customers the products they want but werent aware of the fact until they were shown to them?
What can I do to improve my online business visibility?
How user friendly is my on-line platform?
How can I increase the number of visitors to my site and keep them there for longer than 10 seconds?

Who holds the key?

The best ally a retailer of any product can have against volatility in todays market is a reliable technology partner who is constantly informed about the changing market trends and is always able to offer the right solutions at the right time, before it is too late! There is a reason for the saying, “Knowledge is power.”

Ecommerce and client orientation.

How to combine two terms?

The rapidly transforming industry makes a retailer confront the issue of how to stay relevant and keep pace in such situation. Moreover new tendencies and technologies that appeared recently the entrepreneur pay more attention to client orientation of their services. For example would you really buy new iPhone or MacBook if you had to lose half an hour of your expensive time while searching on their tangled website? I bet that you wont. Thats why Apple services is extremely client oriented and even intuitive. As you may notice from your personal experience this approach works for both small firms and international enterprises. Isnt it sweet when you come to a coffee shop next to your door and the barista knows which syrup you like the most in your latte? It is easy to focus business philosophy on the clients needs when online shopping is not an option for your business. But now the status quo has changed.

So what is the most challenging point of eCommerce client orientation? To fit demands of the client you definitely should think of device diversity that is in every-day use. Think of it: even if your website is profitable, at some point your user will stand up from his PC and move along with his smartphone or tablet in hand thats where all the troubles start for you. The chinese say: A good client doesn’t change shop in three years, a good shop doesn’t change clients in three years. So lets see what is the best option for you to follow. OmniChannel is the key to your clients heart and wallet. One of the ways to explain OmniChannel is: cross channel being done well. But real OmniChannel goes well beyond this definition its not only understanding of customer needs its predicting of what your user has in mind. Allow customers to own their data and experience, then give them the ability to use it to guide creation and context of every future experience and youll reap the harvest of your efforts.