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HOW TO BE SUPER EFFECTIVE? – Yan’s Journey with a Virtual Assistant (Part – 3)

Yan Knudtskov Nielsen, a GetFriday client and the Founder & CEO of Yan&Co in Copenhagen, Denmark is narrating his Journey with Virtual Assistance. Read from the beginning of the journey. How to use a service like GetFriday effectively, some of my key lessons learned Utilizing the help of a virtual assistant comes with a lot of responsibility, I believe. But, if you respect some “basic” rules you will quickly get to a point where you’ll be hands-free on a lot of tasks as your VA will catch on and tasks will become routines. Here are my pointers on using a service like GetFriday effectively. 1. Remember the human aspect First of all, keep in the very front and center of your mind that your VA is a person. He/she isn’t a robot and probably does not have god-like abilities (although Jaya does seem to have that sometimes, haha!). I like to think of my assistant of as much of a co-worker as if I’m sitting next to someone on my team. 2. Put your tasks and processes on paper Begin describing your tasks and processes, make sure you break them down in to steps. Questions I like to ask myself during the creation of these is “How do I know this information” and “How can I provide the most unambiguous description possible”. I highly recommend using a tool like Asana, Process Street or similar systems that makes the above easier and makes revising process easier as well. And one very important thing: Test your processes. I like to put on my “I don’t know anything hat and try to do EXACTLY as I’ve described” as this have a tendency to reveal to me what I’m missing. 3. Communication is key As with most things remember communication is key. Spend those 5 minutes being articulate about the descriptions. It will pay off in the long run I promise you. 4. Trust but verify, at least in the beginning Don’t expect everything to go smooth and go on holidays after handing over the tasks. In the beginning verify that the tasks were completed as you wanted. And keep a calm mind when something isn’t as it should, chances are you most likely messed up something in a description or something was ambiguous. And even if not, remember: We all make mistakes. I most certainly do – all the time. It’s the correcting of small failures and mistakes that in the end make up a greater whole. You can choose to respond in a way to solve the issue at hand and then you will have saved time in the future. Or you could just become frustrated and write an annoyed email. I most certainly recommend the first option. 5. Remember, making processes is a process Be willing to invest yourself and some extra time in getting it right. Yes, it will require an initial investment of time but remember that each time your assistant completes a task you just saved precious time. Time you can spend on other things important to your. 6. ”So, how do I know which tasks to send?” A mentor of mine introduced me to a very simple question: “Does this task energize me or drain me of energy?” When I heard it that really was all there was to it. We all like to spend our time doing things we enjoy and to me this question was a key in identifying just what those things are. Moving onwards I’d like to say a huge thanks to GetFriday, because my life and business is improved because of these guys and girls existence and the services they provide. It enables me to do more of the things I love, like business, travelling the world, serving and helping people and businesses with code and strategies as the tool, training and blogging about WordPress and related topics (in Danish). I am able to do this because I know I have an awesome team behind me, both in the form of GetFriday and my team from Yan&Co. Without these guys and girls, I simply wouldn’t be able to do the stuff I do, in the way I do them and enjoying it and I’m grateful I have every one of them. If you have any questions feel free to connect with me and I’d be happy to talk! Try GetFriday’s virtual assistant services 7-day trial without any commitments now! Connect to GetFriday support team to know how we can help you.

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GETTING TO FRIDAY – Yan’s Journey with a Virtual Assistant (Part -2)

Yan Knudtskov Nielsen, a GetFriday client and the Founder & CEO of Yan&Co in Copenhagen, Denmark is narrating his Journey with Virtual Assistance. Take a look at Part 1. A month or two went by after my conversation with Vanessa.. (or so it felt) I kept thinking about this wonderful magical unicorn like person called a “Virtual Assistant”, which I had read in books existed, but, since I had never really seen one, could not believe existed. As I thought about the VA, I also slowly realized why I had panicked: I was simply scared that no one could do the tasks as well as I could – even though I dreaded doing them (and at the same time I was actually blind to the fact that I could be quite terrible at them). I got back to Vanessa to have her introduce me to GetFriday, which she so fondly recommended. Some of my initial concerns was among these: How about privacy of sensitive information (credit cards, logins, etc.) Are they any good? What happens if something goes wrong? What if they don’t know how to do the tasks? Will they overcharge? How much will it cost? And a lot of other concerns Getting to Friday The initial meeting was done over Skype with Mahesh who was to become my teamlead/manager at GetFriday. The Skype meeting was an absolute pleasure. The level at which Mahesh asked questions to my business was nothing short of excellent. He went the extra mile in understanding what I needed help within the business. I had been recommended a particular VA at GetFriday, which was the one Vanessa used and I asked if it was possible to get the same assistant as her. Mahesh then, after understanding the tasks I need help with, went on to explain me that this VA actually wouldn’t be the right fit as the tasks I needed help with, didn’t match the specialties of this VA. This alone made me trust GetFriday even more as they didn’t just comply with my wishes but made an effort in getting me the right VA. After the Skype call Mahesh got back to and I was assigned with a VA as well as instructions on how to best introduce GetFriday to my tasks. The challenges of putting my mind to writing You may very well be more aware of what you do on a daily basis than I was at the time, but it came as a surprise to me how many steps of the tasks I did, involved what I would call internalized knowledge and automated behavior. Let me give a concrete example of this: One of the monthly tasks that GetFriday now handles is structuring the invoices for my accountant. I would look at an invoice and immediately know how to choose the filename for it so the accountant would know where it belonged in the accounting. Also, I’d convert it to a PDF and know in which folder to put it. This may sound quite simple, but when I had to describe it, I discovered a lot of small steps were involved. Steps that involved information which was in my head like: How does another person know what to name the file? How would anyone know the right folder to put it in? Also, any exceptions to the rules where I’d add extra information And this was just a simple task. I quickly realised I had a huge responsibility in describing the tasks and making sure the information was available – or I’d just make someone else’s workday nightmare. And that I didn’t want to happen. It took more hours than I thought, because I had quite a few tasks and processes. But, it was huge relief getting all this information out of my head and into workflows. My super-awesome assistant My assistant at GetFriday is Jaya. I’m not afraid to name-drop as she’s awesome. Really super awesome. In the back of my mind I had a voice still worried about all the “exceptions” and “processes I might not have described well enough,” and the first time I sent a task description to Jaya I received an email back. She had found a question to the task and just wanted to know if she’d understood it correctly and how to move on with it – and was totally my fault! Here I thought I had described it thoroughly and still there was information in my head. She’d “caught” me and wasn’t afraid to ask. Amazing! So I had to redo part of the process to get it right. And this still continues to happen – I map out a process and Jaya is on-the-spot and let’s me know if something is missing. That is such a valuable thing to have happen! This is what really amazed me about GetFriday; the level of service they provide! Continue reading Yan’s journey with a Virtual assistant.

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Perks of hiring a Virtual Assistant

Time management and smart work is the key to success, but can we really focus on all our duties without hampering its quality or missing out on small tasks? Businessmen or a commoner, we all require a helping hand at some point in time. It is common to be forgetful and make mistakes once in a while, but even minor errors at work or forgetting small occasions back at home can result in disastrous outcomes. We do think about hiring an assistant to take care of the flimsy tasks but that involves doing market research for eligible candidates, interviewing them and shelling out big bucks in the form of their pay checks. The process itself sounds terrifying. So what can one do in the modern world? The answer is, Virtual Assistants. Uniquely equipped professionals who are at your disposal working round the clock to get your job done, no matter what it is. It could be travel bookings or getting the perfect gift for your wife or keeping a track of your expenditure. They might not be able to laugh at your jokes like a personal assistant, but your duties are their first priority. In this blog post, we will give you major perks of hiring a virtual assistant. Gift yourself the luxury of time :- Amid tight schedules and long working hours, we ache for a break from the routine and wish to do something to relax or relieve ourselves from stress. Even though we do hire someone to do our duties, we constantly need to supervise them or sit on their backs to get the job done and most likely end up with horrid results. But with a virtual assistant, there is no supervision required, as there are professionals working on your tasks and their superiors to make sure its done right. All you need to do is, sit back and relax. 2. Cost effective round the clock service:- Hiring an assistant is a strenuous task and burns a whole in your pockets. Not only do you end up with bad service, but sometimes they are not present even when you need them the most. Whereas, a VA is both cost effective and available at all times. The prices to hire a virtual assistant are low as 7$ an hour and the quality of service is beyond imagination. So even when the world is sleeping, your VA is always there for you. 3. Limitless Tasks:- Imagine hiring an assistant who never says ‘No’ to a task, Imagine an employee who is an all rounder and delivers quality service, Imagine if you could hire both at economical wages. With a VA, all your imaginations could come true. As long as it is not illegal or unethical, a Virtual Assistant is capable of preforming any given tasks, unlike assistants who have ‘Limitation’. 4. Hire and Fire at your convenience:- Unlike any other form of employment, you can hire or fire a VA at any given point. You pay only when you have a task on hand and hire by the hour. The best part about hiring a virtual assistant is that you could take on a trial before hiring them on a regular basis and hire them only if you liked their services. 5. On time at all times, No false commitments:- Even after repeated follow ups on simple tasks, all you hear from your employees or assistants are words like ‘In some time’ or ‘Sorry’. They commit to deadlines they cannot keep up to and you end up paying the price. But with a VA, the time promised is the time delivered. So never again will you fall back on your work, as your Virtual Assistant will make sure it’s done. 6. Office space or tools not required! :- A Virtual Assistant does not require any workspace, working tools or any stationary; they come well equipped and perform their duties without expecting anything from you. For millions, having a VA is a dream come true, apart from their working cost, there is no other form of investments required. 7. No employee benefits:- Providing your employees with health benefits, provident funds, bonus and insurances means spending big bucks. Few employees are worth the effort but most of them just end up becoming dead investment. But, with a VA, you pay only for the services and not a penny more. The services are top notch and they do not require any incentives as a sign of appreciation, sounds like a perfect employee. So, when you think about it, hiring a VA is like getting yourself a team of knowledgeable, trained and highly experienced employees at the price of one and the fact that you would never have to worry about your job getting done. You could pick you very own virtual assistant at GetFriday, Brickwork India, Acelerar and many more.

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Interesting Tasks @ GetFriday

Every day a number of tasks are executed by virtual assistants. Most of the tasks which are taken up by the assistants are routine and mundane. But at times there come requests from clients to do tasks that are out of the ordinary. These tasks stretch the boundary of the normal and can be termed as “Special” tasks. This article tries to explore some of the tasks that came into GetFriday and was executed with full zest by the employees. Task 1 Expressing through Post Cards One of our client’s former teacher was based in France. The client residing in the UK wanted someone to write postcards for his teacher who was interested in Indian culture. This task seemed interesting and virtual assistants at GetFriday took up the task. They started sending postcards from Indian to France, once every 2 weeks. The teacher was very pleased with the fact that she was receiving postcards from India on a regular basis and that too on behalf of her former student. The client was also delighted that he could do his bit to bring a cheer on to his teacher’s face. GetFriday, the virtual assistant services company has experience with over 14,000 clients over a decade of its existence. If you have a task similar to the one mentioned above, you can right way forward it to assistants at GetFriday. Task 2 Healing from Far A client at GetFriday based in America wanted someone to send medicines to an elder relative in Bangalore. We at GetFriday were asked if this task was at all possible from our side, to which we replied in the affirmative. Our virtual assistants here at Bangalore procured the medicine and sent it to the client’s relative on a regular basis. The client was happy about the fact he was able to help his elder relative with medication. The relative was praising the client all along for having done so. Even if you have such tasks that are out of the ordinary, virtual assistant companies such as GetFriday will be happy to accommodate such tasks if you are willing to come forward. There are many such tasks that have come through the doors of GetFriday. We are willing to take such interesting tasks and you can follow us on social media https://www.facebook.com/GetFriday for updates on such interesting tasks.

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How to Retain Customers in E-commerce

Online retailers are always looking at increasing their revenues; one of the best ways of doing it is to get repeat customers. Several studies say it costs between 4 and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. As an E-commerce owner, are you aware that repeat customers are responsible for generating 40% of a store’s revenue? It might sound hard but is actually easy to accomplish. It is a tried and tested way to improve your sales, even if you are new to this business or are a seasoned ecommerce player anyone can take heed to these actionable tips, which are on offer in this article. Exclusive discounts for loyal customers Everyone likes to be treated special, in line with this thought, offer your customers exclusive access to the site for special discounts. You can give this exclusive access, 1 or 2 days before the discounts become available to the general public. This will truly mean a genuine advantage for being a loyal customer. You can also do this discount special by making available a special promo code for a limited time that will give special 20-30% discounts. This kind of exclusive discounts is one of the most popular loyalty perks for customers. Send emails reminding of abandoned cart Convey through emails to customers about items left behind in carts by customers. You can send visually appealing email (showing the product) to the customer, to show them exactly what they considered purchasing while browsing through the site last time around. A recent survey showed that email marketing helped 29% abandoned carts to be recovered. Suggest Products One of the most powerful ways of making a customer do a repurchase is to nudge them to buy a product. You could also remind them about something additional they need to purchase in going with their previous purchase. For example, if a customer has bought a pencil, remind them to buy a pencil sharpener. Offer Personalized products If you have demographic data about the customer, you can make a personalized offer to the customer based on his/her likeness. Suppose if you are targeting a customer who is 21 years old, you can send him back-to-college offer for clothing, backpacks, school supplies etc. A recent study suggested that personalized offers help increase click-through rates by an average of 14% and improves conversion rates by an average of 10%. “We miss you” emails One of the ways of re-targeting, follow-up email can be at the bargain hunter. There is no better way to stay on top of the mind than with a coupon. Knowing this, you can send an email stating that we have noticed you have not been coming to the website anymore, with the addition of a coupon. Starbucks is famous for sending such ‘we miss you’ emails to its customers. Show Social Proof People respond positively to social proof. In the sense, if you show people a pair of shoes, bought over by a 10,000 people they are likely to react positively. This is a fact and there are real psychological factors at play here. You can do this by tracking purchase data (or Facebook likes) for specific products or soliciting actual customers’ reviews and displaying it on the website and in the emails to many of your customers. This is one of the ways of finding repeat customers. Launch a Loyalty Program There needs to be financial incentive for the customer for having made the first purchase. In addition, there needs to be avenues for saving money on subsequent purchases. According to a study, 54% buy more from companies when they are rewarded for purchases. In another survey, it was found that loyalty programs help increase market share by 20%. Nordstrom is one such company that has benefitted tremendously from its loyalty program. They encourage customers to sign-up to receive special benefits, which include reward points that can be redeemed for products as well as early access to sales. Direct Mail still helps This kind of approach helps in earning repeat customers. If you have the physical address of the customer, you can send exclusive sales, discounts and special offers by snail mail. It is to be noted that a direct mail is a way of saying ‘thank you’ to the customer for their loyalty, so there should not be an overemphasis on pushing sales. The trick is to keep the sales part subtle. Overall it is always a good idea to target the existing customers. It is the proverbial ‘low hanging fruit’ that a company must exploit in order to succeed in increasing sales. Also, if your e-commerce firm is finding it cumbersome to handle all the tasks to run the company in a smooth manner. You can assign your errands to GetFriday. At GetFriday we take care of major tasks associated with e-commerce domain such as inventory management, order processing, order tracking and customer support.

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Sell Better With GetFriday

If you have just taken your business online or are planning to do so, you will know that it is easy to “get started” and with minimum overhead costs, you can make your business as small or large as possible. However, one of the biggest disadvantages of running your e-commerce store on platforms such as Amazon or eBay is working with tedious, never-ending processes that, unfortunately, cannot be automated. When you begin selling on e-commerce platforms, you will slowly begin to realize that there is a wide spectrum of work that will require plenty of your time. Each process, though simple, will require human control and like mentioned earlier, cannot be automated. Soon enough, you’ll find yourself spending more time on broken links and listings than actually focusing on growing your business. You definitely don’t want to be doing this when your focus should ideally be on boosting sales. This is where online virtual assistants should be hired. These virtual aces can handle mundane processes for you, while you continue to ace the e-commerce domain with growing sales. But How Do I Know What To Outsource? If there are tasks that do not fall under your core skill set or if you find certain processes eating through most of your day, you know it is not worth your time, especially when you have more important functions to handle. You can always divvy up administrative, repetitive tasks to the virtual assistants. This will leave you with significant time to deal with strategizing and building your business. Working with online, personal virtual assistants come with multiple benefits. For starters, they will save you a lot of money because your costs of having to deal with keeping employees in-house, renting office space, training them etc., don’t exist. Why bother incurring such considerable costs when your entire business can be carried out online? Virtual assistants, as the name suggests, work “virtually” and can handle tasks that range from managing general to specialized work depending on your requirement. If you have listed your business on Amazon or eBay, they can handle time-consuming aspects such as vendor management, customer support and product listings, to name a few processes. If you’ve been shouldering all the responsibility so far, here are some of the ways Virtual Assistance firms like GetFriday, can help you sell better and help you make most of your day. Product Listing & Product Description Writing One of the most tedious tasks on an e-commerce platform involves uploading pictures, building category pages, optimizing content and updating and uploading the product listings. If you’ve ever faced a dip in the sales, chances are, it is a problem with one of your listings. Listings should always be monitored for reviews, images, and description if you still want to remain competitive. To have someone manage that aspect of the business, will give you more time to develop marketing strategies and handle other core functions of the business. Along with managing product listings, another aspect of the business that can be governed by a professional virtual assistant, is product description writing. You may find that on some days, your creative juices don’t flow or you don’t have the knack to develop an effective sales pitch through brief content. In such a scenario, leave it to the experts! Virtual Assistance firms like GetFriday, have professional in-house copywriters who can handle this aspect of your business with no trouble at all. After all, the better the sales pitch in the product description, the better the returns in the long run. A good copywriter could just make all the difference! 24/7 Customer Support Responding to the e-mails of customers is a Herculean task and can take up half your time while you’re at work. Responding to queries, tracking order statuses, gathering feedback and filtering requests are processes that don’t necessarily need to be done by you as head of the company. You don’t even need to hire people to sit in office to tackle this. This is something that can most definitely be handled virtually (and better!) by online, personal virtual assistants. Getting tangled with customer support can be a frustrating aspect of business that needs to be dealt with diligently. The fine art of communication needs to be done regardless of the size of your business and if you don’t someone who can handle all these processes and more, chances are, you’ll get sucked into this black hole and you’ll have to eventually handle it all by yourself. The opportunity cost? Developing and actually working on growing your business! Order & Vendor Management Your Virtual Assistant can not only manage your inventory, but he/she can also help you keep your virtual shelves stocked. No matter the size of your business, having a virtual assistant to manage inventory levels or simply working with your suppliers, sending invoices, or just getting your stock to the warehouse or anywhere else it needs to be, can be a boon for your business. These time-consuming tasks are essential and having a virtual assistant on board could also mean that he/she could help plan ahead for stock, help with pricing, conduct competitive analyses and produce up-to-date reports on fast and slow-moving inventory. All this and more can be handled by a virtual assistant and can help make crucial business processes function seamlessly. Marketing To Acquire New Customers The fact is, running an online store can be demanding. Having too many hats to wear could get the better of you. Having a Virtual Assistant can help you retain that A-game while you delegate all inevitable and routine processes. With the right skill sets, your virtual assistant could even handle crucial marketing functions. Website performance optimization, Search optimization, online promotions and Amazon Buy Box Strategy are some of the many aspects that GetFriday Virtual Assistants are adept at handling. These are some of the tasks that you are probably already doing, but virtual assistants can handle better. The end result? They could help bring in bigger sales for you. Other Support Other support services such as Merchandising support, returns/exchanges, formatting images, checking for broken links, writing press-releases, updating meaningful content for products and product information collection are some of the other administrative tasks your personal assistant could take up for you while you focus on more crucial

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How to inculcate, the productivity culture in small businesses?

Culture has been a buzzword in the corporate world for sometime now. A company’s culture is defined as a set of values and beliefs that companies develop over time. In other words, culture is the personality of the organization from the perspective of the employee and includes the company’s mission, expectations and work atmosphere. In fact, growth in the business can be directly attributed to the company’s productive culture. To be productive it requires active participation of both employer and employee on a regular basis for working effectively on set targets. This article here tries to identify actions that will culminate in a productive culture in a small business: Trusting employees – It is important that employees are trusted by the management in carrying out the tasks set forth. The employees should not merely be puppets at the hands of the management but should rather have the liberty of taking productive measures into consideration as per their abilities to execute tasks. The company should trust the employee after giving general guidelines to perform a specific task as per their own discretion. This will make the employees to be feeling genuinely part of the company and improve productivity levels. Having realistic targets – To improve productivity in the business, it is necessary that the organization sets realistic targets and goals. Any organization that is overly ambitious and sets forth ambitious goals is surely setting up its employees for failure as the results from over ambitious goals is bound to be counter productive. It is important that the organization keeps its goals and objectives clear to keep the productivity and the employee morale high. Keep projects at manageable scale, is to break them into smaller steps, this will help show clear progress and keep employees motivated as they advance towards the final results. Simply assigning a project for 2 months can be overwhelming, by breaking it up keeps the productivity levels high to complete the project. Following Up on Targets – For a small business, it is not enough to set the goals and lay back and think the employees will take care of the rest. As a business, it becomes essential that employers follow up on the targets and deadlines. With follow up, employees will become aware of the loopholes and the tools required to improvise on efficiency. Keeping track of the goals being pursued will help measure individual performance of the employee and the measures taken to improve in-efficient performance. Proper follow-up will help measure individual productivity. Acknowledging Performances – To keep a tab on productivity, it is essential that good performances are noted and rewarded. This will keep the motivation of the performing employees high and make him eager to perform better the next time around. It is important to ensure the bad performer is made aware of his/ her performance and made known about the inadequacies in performance on a one-to-one basis without harming the employee’s dignity in the organization. Studies have shown that employees are most productive when their interests including incentive based pay are aligned. Training for employees – Every employer needs to keep track of the latest developments in his domain and also arrange for training sessions regarding the same. The training will help the employee to stay abreast with the latest workflow procedures and adopt them on requirement. Training is meant for employees for gaining knowledge regarding their profession and for improving productivity. Studies have shown that employees are motivated by a sense of responsibility when it comes to their work and maintaining high productivity levels. Training should be imparted into employees as an incentive, this way more people will be attuned to receiving training with serious motivation at organizations. By maintaining high motivation levels, employees are able to improve business productivity. Training employees on new skills can give them a new sense of purpose. It lets them know that the organization is willing and able to evolve. When employees are trained on new methods it is a win-win situation. Enhanced communication between employer and employee – It is important that employees are given the privilege to report matters directly to the management. By being able to report directly to the management, the employee will be convinced about his voice being heard in the company. This will ensure new vigor and vitality in his/her work performance in the company. Two and fro communication between employee and employer is essential because if adequate information is not conveyed, it can lead to delay and at times non-completion of the task at hand. So clear communication between employer and employee is essential for keeping productivity scales high. Flexible working hours – By following relaxed working hours option, it will become easy on the employee to perform well, without getting constrained to limited working hours. The 9 to 5 schedule is under attack with the availability of internet connectivity and laptops, which makes it easier for employees to complete their tasks beyond the working hours. Efficient managers ensure the best use of resources with flexible work patterns address workplace pressures by optimizing the available labor. Flexible working hours can lead to increased job satisfaction, improved staff morale, engagement and motivation leading to good productivity. Management’s responsibility – It is the responsibility of the management to ask the right questions to when the productivity levels are not high. There is a need to put in efforts to avoid micro-management; it hinders the sense of accomplishment on the part of the employee. It can feel great from a manager’s point of view of holding the reigns tightly, however, it is always advisable to believe in your team and allow them to make judgment calls for the projects they own. Management can help employees prioritize their work. An employee should not be overwhelmed by the long to-do lists but should be concentrating on one task at a time. The management should communicate the top team priorities, so everyone knows where to focus their energy. Conclusion – Although

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Seven E-commerce Trends for 2017

E-commerce is here to stay, even with limited customer service, no instant gratification and no access to a physical store where you can touch and feel the product. The online platform provides 24x 7 services and the amount of selection one gets to see on online cannot be matched in a physical store. With such advantages, e-commerce has changed the way we shop. Presently, it consists of only 8% of the total retail sales in the US, but the situation is here to change with increasing usage and a growing preference for purchasing online. This article seeks to look at trends which suggest how the e-commerce domain is changing as we go through 2017. Some of the trends are: Shopping on the Mobile We have seen in recent years that there is a shift in consumer behavior towards mobile. And as we move forward, there will be more movement towards this medium. The number of searches emanating from a mobile exceed that of a desktop and more websites are making themselves mobile ready. It must have come to everyone’s notice that Google is slowly removing sites that do not cater to a mobile experience. It is becoming increasingly clear that the way forward is mobile. Having said that, it is known that mobile still lags behind desktop when it comes to conversions. People like to search for their online goods on mobile, but prefer make the purchase on the desktop. This means there aren’t separate consumers for mobile and desktop. This only means at times, it is the same consumer, who searches on the mobile and later purchases through a desktop. This is seen as a habitual fact and will take time to see any improvement. But as we see more smartphone penetration and new technologies like AI (Artificial Intelligence) assistants getting included to smartphone devices, the future definitely looks brighter for mobile. Mobile Payments or E-wallets Gone are the days when going cashless meant using the credit or debt card, today, people are turning towards contactless mobile payments. There is an array of companies offering services catering towards mobile payments. It is estimated that mobile payments by 2021 are going to reach $3 trillion dollars. While, it is a lot of money getting transacted on small screens, mobile payments will only equate to 11 percent of all transactions made, a jump from the modest 5% in 2016. As we see more e-commerce companies adopt mobile payments as the preferred mode of payment, there is a world of possibilities that are emerging such as digital loyalty and reward programs. With the increased spread of smartphone and more user-friendly apps, it will further cement the prospect of convenient payment through mobiles. In the US, where the mobile based e-commerce is going to grow the largest, the mobile payment’s ratio of e-commerce is expected to increase from 20% in 2015 to 46% in 2020. Personalization and customization Already users are seeing customization from Netflix and Amazon, these channels with large amount of data from users are able to target customers in a personalized way. Till now customization was exclusively a domain of the big e-commerce retailers, but 2017 will see the small retailers also venturing in with highly targeted ads and embrace personalization. They will start with collecting behavioral data from each website user and send highly targeted campaigns based on customer segments and previous online experiences. This would mean each user who comes to the website will have unique experience from the brand, if he/she is a repeat customer. Same Day Delivery 2017 will see more e-commerce companies taking the step towards same day delivery instead of the normal 3-5 business days. While the trend was started by Amazon prime, the flexibility of delivery options would become a key differentiator in e-commerce domain. According to one study, 29% of the users were keen to pay extra for same day delivery. In today’s world of online commerce, logistics will play a key role in defining the future of e-commerce players. Every online retailer, who is there for the long run is working towards building a strong logistics network and up the game by making delivery of goods as fast as possible for its valued customers. Social Selling We are seeing a lot of noise on social network about including “buy“ buttons on these networks. These social networks have a vested interest in making this work, because they have people who visit their sites regularly. By leveraging their traffic for selling is the new strategy on social networking sites, since people like to include their friends in the purchase decisions. Social media users can now buy items without ever having to switch to a different more traditional e-commerce site. The ability to offer your products and services directly through social media platform represents the essence of social selling phenomenon, which is gaining traction as we go through 2017. Sales can increase and sales costs will drop by applying social media to the online sales process effectively. This also concerns with using the true power of social media to acquire more leads and with that more turnover. Exceptional Content or Inbound Marketing Brands which are ahead are putting out exceptional content in the digital space. Good e-commerce marketers know they have to consistently stand out by producing exceptional content to attract and convert prospects into customers. In 2017, we are going to see more content marketing strategies and as the brand looks for conversion with content, great pieces of content will be created and this content will reproduced in various forms such as blog-posts, e-books, pod casts, info-graphics, data visualizations and videos etc. After which, focus should be on measuring the response of each content and focusing only on promoting the content on the successful 3-5 channels. Chatbots This is one of the unique feature to look-out for in 2017. We will see the rise of chatbots led conversation on most of the e-commerce sites. Chatbot is a robotic agent that will help

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Digital Nomad Experience accentuated with GetFriday

It is not always you meet someone, who likes to carry their office wherever they go. This is precisely how digital nomads lives their life – out of the suitcase. They are the people who are following their dreams by pushing themselves outside their comfort zone, who go alone for long periods focusing on their goals; making friends with strangers, building connections and network at every opportunity. This lifestyle requires one to put up with foreign cuisines, unavailability or bad connectivity with the internet, coping with culture and customs of a foreign land. All of this comes as a baggage for a digital nomad. So, it is important for a digital nomad to be self-driven and disciplined. Now for a person who has chosen this way of life, it becomes equally important that he/she builds a support network. It is better if such help comes from a professional source, say a company that has enough experience in handling remotely located clients. From the below-given infographics you will get an idea on how GetFriday helps digital nomads. We have handled all the tasks from logistics to content management and much more. Are you a digital nomad who is location independent, loves to travel and looks for opportunities to start business on less investment? Then GetFriday can be your best choice to save time, enjoy life and to stay in touch with family and business partners. GetFriday simplifies and makes a digital nomad’s life more manageable and satisfying.

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