ecommerce blog

Superhero Syndrome At Large Among Small Business Owners

Being a superhero for your children, spouse, parents or partner is great, but the same cannot be said about your business. Sure, you may run a successful single-office agency and could be the jack of all trades for your business. But do you realize it could be detrimental if you are the master of none? Most entrepreneurs take great pride in completing every task and jump at every small opportunity to be the only ones at the helms of their businesses. Chris Ducker, the author of ‘Virtual Freedom’ has coined a term for this situation and calls it the ‘Superhero Syndrome‘, a prevalent condition wherein entrepreneurs and small business owners believe that they can handle everything on their own without having to delegate or subcontract work. Though there is nothing wrong with handling everything yourself, it is only prudent to outsource dreary business processes to specialized Virtual Assistants at the right time. This could save you from facing a burnout in the long run, can positively impact your business and give you the opportunity to let professionals handle specialist tasks at a fraction of the cost! What’s more, you have access to a large pool of skills and can outsource practically any aspect of the business you like! So, what do you do, you ask? What you should really be focusing on as a small business owner is to give more value to your clients, measure results, build ideas and re-strategize your business for the future. Take a look at what you need to know about overcoming the ‘Superhero Syndrome’ Repetitiveness And Systemization In a business, you’ll find that a lot of processes are repetitive and the repetition can in fact, be systemized. Consider a car service centre, for example. When a car has been taken to a service centre, mechanics take their time to gauge the problems with the car before they get down to fixing them. However, when it comes to specialized jobs such as fixing the filters in the car or changing the cover for the seats, mechanics may not be able to handle these tasks themselves. There are specialized contractors and suppliers who provide these products and/or services. When a filter or a seat cover needs to be changed, service centres will not waste their clients? time and their resources by learning how to change these filters internally or manufacturing leather seat covers themselves. They will instead, outsource the work to the professionals who carry out bulk supplies of these certain products outside the service centre. A final markup to the price is added, before handing your car back to you. Ergo, the service centre is benefitting from making additional money out of a job that they are not even doing and are building a name for themselves. This is all thanks to the fabulous job done by the specialist suppliers/vendors, who helped the centre with their timely ? ‘behind-the-scenes’ support. Okay, So How Does It Help My Business? Think about a similar situation for your business. You could outsource everyday functions to a professional Virtual Assistance company like GetFriday and end up saving a lot of time and money. This will ensure that you don’t work your way out of your own business and will also give you the time to re-focus on the core functions while your able team of Virtual Assistant professionals work behind the scenes and handle other aspects of your business for you. On The Lighter Side? It is okay to have delusions of being a superhero. But learning when to get your sidekicks (in this case, your Virtual Assistants) into the picture and sharing the load with them can help you do a better job of running the business and still give you the opportunity to govern the work being done. Let’s take the classic examples of Batman and Robin for instance. Though we know which one of the two shoulders the mantle all the way through, Robin’s character was created for two very simple yet important reasons- 1.Batman needed a friend, a brother and a confidante. Someone he could talk to because a hero can very often find himself ‘alone’ in the humdrum of everyday life. 2.Robin, the Boy Wonder, was not just a wingman, but also a vigilante who kept Batman from making the wrong choices and was always around to ‘help’ Batman fight crime. The reasons are straight forward. No matter how big a superhero you are, you will, at some point, require ‘help’. Whether it is a boy in green hot-pants who comes to the rescue or a resourceful Virtual Assistant, halfway across the world from you, a helping hand is all you need to ease your work burdens and can make you and your business a better one. Got It. What Do I Do Now? Take control and start by making a list that contains the following three columns- Outsourcing what you don’t like to do Outsourcing what you shouldn’t be doing Outsourcing what you can’t do Once you have written down your tasks under each column, it will become easier for you to delegate your work to your professional Virtual Assistants. Your online virtual assistants will work flexibly to understand and learn the ways of your business and probably do your work better than what you would have done! Rest assured, your Virtual Assistants can handle pretty much all your boring business functions and do a lot more specialist tasks that you wouldn’t be able to do yourself i.e. handling all your web page requirements, writing blogs, graphic designing, specialized SEO services, email management, accounting and so much more! Be a real superhero by outsourcing unimportant functions in your business and take out more time to do high-value work, build networks or make time for the family. This will help you focus better on doing the things you love, can do and should do!

Superhero Syndrome At Large Among Small Business Owners Read More »

Being a superhero for your children, spouse, parents or partner is great, but the same cannot be said about your business. Sure, you may run a successful single-office agency and could be the jack of all trades for your business. But do you realize it could be detrimental if you are the master of none? Most entrepreneurs take great pride in completing every task and jump at every small opportunity to be the only ones at the helms of their businesses. Chris Ducker, the author of ‘Virtual Freedom’ has coined a term for this situation and calls it the ‘Superhero Syndrome‘, a prevalent condition wherein entrepreneurs and small business owners believe that they can handle everything on their own without having to delegate or subcontract work. Though there is nothing wrong with handling everything yourself, it is only prudent to outsource dreary business processes to specialized Virtual Assistants at the right time. This could save you from facing a burnout in the long run, can positively impact your business and give you the opportunity to let professionals handle specialist tasks at a fraction of the cost! What’s more, you have access to a large pool of skills and can outsource practically any aspect of the business you like! So, what do you do, you ask? What you should really be focusing on as a small business owner is to give more value to your clients, measure results, build ideas and re-strategize your business for the future. Take a look at what you need to know about overcoming the ‘Superhero Syndrome’ Repetitiveness And Systemization In a business, you’ll find that a lot of processes are repetitive and the repetition can in fact, be systemized. Consider a car service centre, for example. When a car has been taken to a service centre, mechanics take their time to gauge the problems with the car before they get down to fixing them. However, when it comes to specialized jobs such as fixing the filters in the car or changing the cover for the seats, mechanics may not be able to handle these tasks themselves. There are specialized contractors and suppliers who provide these products and/or services. When a filter or a seat cover needs to be changed, service centres will not waste their clients? time and their resources by learning how to change these filters internally or manufacturing leather seat covers themselves. They will instead, outsource the work to the professionals who carry out bulk supplies of these certain products outside the service centre. A final markup to the price is added, before handing your car back to you. Ergo, the service centre is benefitting from making additional money out of a job that they are not even doing and are building a name for themselves. This is all thanks to the fabulous job done by the specialist suppliers/vendors, who helped the centre with their timely ? ‘behind-the-scenes’ support. Okay, So How Does It Help My Business? Think about a similar situation for your business. You could outsource everyday functions to a professional Virtual Assistance company like GetFriday and end up saving a lot of time and money. This will ensure that you don’t work your way out of your own business and will also give you the time to re-focus on the core functions while your able team of Virtual Assistant professionals work behind the scenes and handle other aspects of your business for you. On The Lighter Side? It is okay to have delusions of being a superhero. But learning when to get your sidekicks (in this case, your Virtual Assistants) into the picture and sharing the load with them can help you do a better job of running the business and still give you the opportunity to govern the work being done. Let’s take the classic examples of Batman and Robin for instance. Though we know which one of the two shoulders the mantle all the way through, Robin’s character was created for two very simple yet important reasons- 1.Batman needed a friend, a brother and a confidante. Someone he could talk to because a hero can very often find himself ‘alone’ in the humdrum of everyday life. 2.Robin, the Boy Wonder, was not just a wingman, but also a vigilante who kept Batman from making the wrong choices and was always around to ‘help’ Batman fight crime. The reasons are straight forward. No matter how big a superhero you are, you will, at some point, require ‘help’. Whether it is a boy in green hot-pants who comes to the rescue or a resourceful Virtual Assistant, halfway across the world from you, a helping hand is all you need to ease your work burdens and can make you and your business a better one. Got It. What Do I Do Now? Take control and start by making a list that contains the following three columns- Outsourcing what you don’t like to do Outsourcing what you shouldn’t be doing Outsourcing what you can’t do Once you have written down your tasks under each column, it will become easier for you to delegate your work to your professional Virtual Assistants. Your online virtual assistants will work flexibly to understand and learn the ways of your business and probably do your work better than what you would have done! Rest assured, your Virtual Assistants can handle pretty much all your boring business functions and do a lot more specialist tasks that you wouldn’t be able to do yourself i.e. handling all your web page requirements, writing blogs, graphic designing, specialized SEO services, email management, accounting and so much more! Be a real superhero by outsourcing unimportant functions in your business and take out more time to do high-value work, build networks or make time for the family. This will help you focus better on doing the things you love, can do and should do!

E-Commerce Store – Holiday Season Check List For Increasing Sales

Holiday season is near and this is the time online stores see a surge in sales. But like all things in life you need to be prepared. GetFriday has been around for 10 years now and we have come to understand and learn from our ecommerce clients, the essentials that are required to increase sales during the holiday season. Click on the picture below to see this blog in a slideshare format. Here is a checklist for your quick consumption:   1. This is the best time to launch new products This is the time of the year GetFriday associates get busy with remodeling e-commerce stores, resizing and editing the product images, proof reading the content, uploading products on amazon and rearranging the website display. Most e-commerce firms would consider this as the best time to launch a new product. The chances of succeeding now are far higher than any time later. The known factor about customers is that they are willing to spend more during this season. US retail sales for December 2014 was $442.9 billion – this was an increase of 3.2% over December 2013.   2. Start early with promotions and campaigns A recent study conducted by Oracle Marketing Cloud and Edison Research shows that consumers are doing their holiday shopping early, spending as much as $900 more in the month of October than in December. Start early with planning holiday promotions and campaigns. Our data shows that e-commerce stores start preparing for the holiday season as early as September – October and are ready to launch their campaigns. This give enough time for e-commerce stores to conduct experimental marketing and figure out ways to succeed with customers. With consumers, too willing to take advantage of early shopping discounts and promotions, the timing of promotions and campaigns has gained relevance in recent times. Remember you are competing for the customer wallet. If you are not ready for launching promotions for all your visitors in October, it is advisable to start campaigns with your existing database of clients. Give them the opportunity to take advantage of promotions before your new visitors. It is a known fact that cost of acquiring a new customer is higher than retaining an existing customer. 3. Increase your advertisement budget Let us simplify advertising for you – As you reach more customers with relevant offers, chances of sales increases proportionally. Holiday season is the best time to increase your spending on marketing, as you know for sure customers are looking for your products. If not yours they will land on a competitor’s website. Research shows that social media has a major impact on purchasing choices made by holiday shoppers. “More than half of users (52 percent) say they learned about a product they later purchased because of Twitter, and it’s so convenient to find gift ideas on Twitter that 39 percent say Twitter serves as their new holiday shopping list,” a 2014 Twitter study found. 4. Is your operations ready for holiday season? Make sure operational capabilities are ready for the holiday season. This is the time new customers would be experiencing your product and service, and chances of making them your loyal customer rests with the experience they will gain. It is a common practice with large retailers to hire employees during holiday season to manage customer operations. Learning from this industry practice, you could hire virtual assistants to help manage operations during the holiday season. 5. Is your website spreading the joy – with analytics? Your website needs to reflect the holiday season spirit and create the festive effect. Happy customers tend to buy more. You probably already know that the website is your store front. Look at data generated from your campaigns to optimize your pages. Let the best sellers be visible to your customers. 6. Be ready for customers purchasing from their phones UPS compass in its recent article How America will shop in 2015 quoted IBM data to reveal that mobiles accounted for 45 percent of all 2014 online holiday traffic and for 22.6 percent of online sales, a 27.2 percent gain over the 2013 total More than 50 percent of online shopping traffic came from mobiles during the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. These numbers drive home the point of need to be prepared with providing customers options of shopping through their mobiles and making their experiences pleasant and user-friendly.

E-Commerce Store – Holiday Season Check List For Increasing Sales Read More »

Holiday season is near and this is the time online stores see a surge in sales. But like all things in life you need to be prepared. GetFriday has been around for 10 years now and we have come to understand and learn from our ecommerce clients, the essentials that are required to increase sales during the holiday season. Click on the picture below to see this blog in a slideshare format. Here is a checklist for your quick consumption:   1. This is the best time to launch new products This is the time of the year GetFriday associates get busy with remodeling e-commerce stores, resizing and editing the product images, proof reading the content, uploading products on amazon and rearranging the website display. Most e-commerce firms would consider this as the best time to launch a new product. The chances of succeeding now are far higher than any time later. The known factor about customers is that they are willing to spend more during this season. US retail sales for December 2014 was $442.9 billion – this was an increase of 3.2% over December 2013.   2. Start early with promotions and campaigns A recent study conducted by Oracle Marketing Cloud and Edison Research shows that consumers are doing their holiday shopping early, spending as much as $900 more in the month of October than in December. Start early with planning holiday promotions and campaigns. Our data shows that e-commerce stores start preparing for the holiday season as early as September – October and are ready to launch their campaigns. This give enough time for e-commerce stores to conduct experimental marketing and figure out ways to succeed with customers. With consumers, too willing to take advantage of early shopping discounts and promotions, the timing of promotions and campaigns has gained relevance in recent times. Remember you are competing for the customer wallet. If you are not ready for launching promotions for all your visitors in October, it is advisable to start campaigns with your existing database of clients. Give them the opportunity to take advantage of promotions before your new visitors. It is a known fact that cost of acquiring a new customer is higher than retaining an existing customer. 3. Increase your advertisement budget Let us simplify advertising for you – As you reach more customers with relevant offers, chances of sales increases proportionally. Holiday season is the best time to increase your spending on marketing, as you know for sure customers are looking for your products. If not yours they will land on a competitor’s website. Research shows that social media has a major impact on purchasing choices made by holiday shoppers. “More than half of users (52 percent) say they learned about a product they later purchased because of Twitter, and it’s so convenient to find gift ideas on Twitter that 39 percent say Twitter serves as their new holiday shopping list,” a 2014 Twitter study found. 4. Is your operations ready for holiday season? Make sure operational capabilities are ready for the holiday season. This is the time new customers would be experiencing your product and service, and chances of making them your loyal customer rests with the experience they will gain. It is a common practice with large retailers to hire employees during holiday season to manage customer operations. Learning from this industry practice, you could hire virtual assistants to help manage operations during the holiday season. 5. Is your website spreading the joy – with analytics? Your website needs to reflect the holiday season spirit and create the festive effect. Happy customers tend to buy more. You probably already know that the website is your store front. Look at data generated from your campaigns to optimize your pages. Let the best sellers be visible to your customers. 6. Be ready for customers purchasing from their phones UPS compass in its recent article How America will shop in 2015 quoted IBM data to reveal that mobiles accounted for 45 percent of all 2014 online holiday traffic and for 22.6 percent of online sales, a 27.2 percent gain over the 2013 total More than 50 percent of online shopping traffic came from mobiles during the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. These numbers drive home the point of need to be prepared with providing customers options of shopping through their mobiles and making their experiences pleasant and user-friendly.

Simple Guide To E-Commerce Product Taxonomy

What is taxonomy? When you think of ‘Taxonomy’, you immediately associate the term with the classification of organisms into hierarchical groups as per what you studied in your biology class. Quite right, except that in this case, the word is used to describe not the classifications of organisms, but the classification and organization of ‘unstructured information’ on e-commerce websites for the benefit of users and the business. Why taxonomy? Taxonomy is an extremely crucial component because it helps users navigate through e-commerce websites in a more user-friendly manner, enhances their search experience and thus increases the prospects of a higher ROI for the business. Instead of sifting through the haystack in the wild web, the application of taxonomy helps with search navigation and leads to a more manageable experience – one that is less time-consuming, organized and leads to the ‘right’. Here we provide you a guide to understand ‘e-commerce taxonomy’ better, its benefits and how a business can implement it effectively. Content Strategies & Taxonomy There’s a lot more to taxonomy than just mere categorizing. Just as librarians would sift and arrange books according to title, labels, author and call numbers, this would also apply to e-commerce websites, except that the content can be subdivided, using ‘taxonomy structure’. Taxonomy categorizes unorganized information while the metadata describes the category. Metadata will help with better categorization and more recognizable content from the e-commerce website design perspective. Website Design & Taxonomy A website with unstructured content could lead to difficulties when it comes to navigation and searches. Taxonomy directly corresponds with website design in the form of ‘taxonomy view’ and helps create a positive user-navigation experience, with the neatly arranged categories. Here is a screenshot of an Australian e-commerce website and their distinct categories of footwear, clothing, bags and accessories etc., making navigation through the page an easy, comprehensible one. The highlighted boxes in red in above image shows the categorization of the different footwear for women on this website for easy user navigation and quick searches. What Are The Common Problems Of E-Commerce Sites With No Taxonomy? Let us take the simple example of a taxonomy tree and see what problems could arise from not planning out e-commerce websites taxonomy efficiently:- Categories: -Men -Women -Kids Men: -Babywear -Boys -Adults Women: -Babywear -Girls -Adults The next category after men and women is kids. Now under kids, you can either have the combination of:- Kids -Baby-Boys-Girls Or Baby-Boys Baby-Girls   If you go back to the original taxonomy tree, you will notice that babywear, boys and girls are already listed out under men and women separately. So, by creating another sub-category for ‘kids’, there is an ‘overlap’ or a ‘duplication’ of categories. At this stage, as an e-commerce website, you could either continue to work with the same structure or go back and start and remove the category of ‘kids’ from the parent category. By doing so, you will need to rebuild another taxonomy design from scratch. That leads us to the next part of understanding how to go about building an effective taxonomy. How Do You Build An Effective Taxonomy? Now that you know and understand that taxonomy is crucial for an e-commerce website, you need to build one. With the right direction and information, you can go on to build an effective taxonomy for your e-commerce site. Here’s how you can do it:- 1. Detailed Planning With A Team Taxonomy creation cannot be handled by one member at the work place. A special, multidisciplinary team working across a wide-range of domains is required. The team should have in-depth knowledge in the field of taxonomy, content creation/management, website design and development and SEO in order to do full justice to technical, managerial and business angles. 2. What Is The Scope? Once the team has been formed, find out what the scope is for the project and ask/answer these questions jointly as a team. Is it a small one or a large-scale project? What is the purpose of creating the taxonomy? What is the context in which it will be used? What is the ultimate goal we are trying to achieve? What will the design of the e-commerce website look like? What is the content scope? And who is ultimately the end user? 3. Check Inventory, Make A Draft To start with, begin by jotting down the inventory. Build a taxonomy based on only what you can sell. Once you have done that, make a draft of the taxonomy. Have your hierarchies and categories clearly listed out and divided based on utility, price, size, type, color and make etc. and make sure that the content created adheres to and falls within the functions of each category. 4. Implement & Test It Now is the stage for the implementation of the taxonomy that can be achieved through website design. This will initially take the form of skeleton wire-frames, navigation maps and interface. The second step would be to ‘populate’ the taxonomy with content and integrate it with the existing content management process. The final step and the most crucial step to the implementation process is to check if the taxonomy is corresponding with the onsite search results. Once the implementation stage is complete, it would be wise to test it thoroughly to identify any loopholes and flaws in the design. Check for ambiguity of categories, navigation and whether it takes more than ‘3-clicks’ for customers to find what they are looking for. 5. Maintenance The final and the most crucial step is to maintain the taxonomy structure. As the organization grows and the requirements change, the basic taxonomy model can be modified or amended, adding newer concepts, information, context, content and vocabulary. This will not only ensure that the e-commerce website is consistent in its performance but will also draw in more returns for the company. Benefits of E-commerce taxonomy: -Better e-commerce website navigation and design -Effective retrieval of information -Less time wasted in searches -Improves brand image and the reputation of the

Simple Guide To E-Commerce Product Taxonomy Read More »

What is taxonomy? When you think of ‘Taxonomy’, you immediately associate the term with the classification of organisms into hierarchical groups as per what you studied in your biology class. Quite right, except that in this case, the word is used to describe not the classifications of organisms, but the classification and organization of ‘unstructured information’ on e-commerce websites for the benefit of users and the business. Why taxonomy? Taxonomy is an extremely crucial component because it helps users navigate through e-commerce websites in a more user-friendly manner, enhances their search experience and thus increases the prospects of a higher ROI for the business. Instead of sifting through the haystack in the wild web, the application of taxonomy helps with search navigation and leads to a more manageable experience – one that is less time-consuming, organized and leads to the ‘right’. Here we provide you a guide to understand ‘e-commerce taxonomy’ better, its benefits and how a business can implement it effectively. Content Strategies & Taxonomy There’s a lot more to taxonomy than just mere categorizing. Just as librarians would sift and arrange books according to title, labels, author and call numbers, this would also apply to e-commerce websites, except that the content can be subdivided, using ‘taxonomy structure’. Taxonomy categorizes unorganized information while the metadata describes the category. Metadata will help with better categorization and more recognizable content from the e-commerce website design perspective. Website Design & Taxonomy A website with unstructured content could lead to difficulties when it comes to navigation and searches. Taxonomy directly corresponds with website design in the form of ‘taxonomy view’ and helps create a positive user-navigation experience, with the neatly arranged categories. Here is a screenshot of an Australian e-commerce website and their distinct categories of footwear, clothing, bags and accessories etc., making navigation through the page an easy, comprehensible one. The highlighted boxes in red in above image shows the categorization of the different footwear for women on this website for easy user navigation and quick searches. What Are The Common Problems Of E-Commerce Sites With No Taxonomy? Let us take the simple example of a taxonomy tree and see what problems could arise from not planning out e-commerce websites taxonomy efficiently:- Categories: -Men -Women -Kids Men: -Babywear -Boys -Adults Women: -Babywear -Girls -Adults The next category after men and women is kids. Now under kids, you can either have the combination of:- Kids -Baby-Boys-Girls Or Baby-Boys Baby-Girls   If you go back to the original taxonomy tree, you will notice that babywear, boys and girls are already listed out under men and women separately. So, by creating another sub-category for ‘kids’, there is an ‘overlap’ or a ‘duplication’ of categories. At this stage, as an e-commerce website, you could either continue to work with the same structure or go back and start and remove the category of ‘kids’ from the parent category. By doing so, you will need to rebuild another taxonomy design from scratch. That leads us to the next part of understanding how to go about building an effective taxonomy. How Do You Build An Effective Taxonomy? Now that you know and understand that taxonomy is crucial for an e-commerce website, you need to build one. With the right direction and information, you can go on to build an effective taxonomy for your e-commerce site. Here’s how you can do it:- 1. Detailed Planning With A Team Taxonomy creation cannot be handled by one member at the work place. A special, multidisciplinary team working across a wide-range of domains is required. The team should have in-depth knowledge in the field of taxonomy, content creation/management, website design and development and SEO in order to do full justice to technical, managerial and business angles. 2. What Is The Scope? Once the team has been formed, find out what the scope is for the project and ask/answer these questions jointly as a team. Is it a small one or a large-scale project? What is the purpose of creating the taxonomy? What is the context in which it will be used? What is the ultimate goal we are trying to achieve? What will the design of the e-commerce website look like? What is the content scope? And who is ultimately the end user? 3. Check Inventory, Make A Draft To start with, begin by jotting down the inventory. Build a taxonomy based on only what you can sell. Once you have done that, make a draft of the taxonomy. Have your hierarchies and categories clearly listed out and divided based on utility, price, size, type, color and make etc. and make sure that the content created adheres to and falls within the functions of each category. 4. Implement & Test It Now is the stage for the implementation of the taxonomy that can be achieved through website design. This will initially take the form of skeleton wire-frames, navigation maps and interface. The second step would be to ‘populate’ the taxonomy with content and integrate it with the existing content management process. The final step and the most crucial step to the implementation process is to check if the taxonomy is corresponding with the onsite search results. Once the implementation stage is complete, it would be wise to test it thoroughly to identify any loopholes and flaws in the design. Check for ambiguity of categories, navigation and whether it takes more than ‘3-clicks’ for customers to find what they are looking for. 5. Maintenance The final and the most crucial step is to maintain the taxonomy structure. As the organization grows and the requirements change, the basic taxonomy model can be modified or amended, adding newer concepts, information, context, content and vocabulary. This will not only ensure that the e-commerce website is consistent in its performance but will also draw in more returns for the company. Benefits of E-commerce taxonomy: -Better e-commerce website navigation and design -Effective retrieval of information -Less time wasted in searches -Improves brand image and the reputation of the

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