LightenWeb Technologies - Blog: E-commerce

There are not many trusted and easy payment processing gateways in India. There are quite few but again there are many limitations and not very user friendly. Here I found a payment processing network called Instamojo using which you can sell products online either physical or digital with just a link. InstaMojo allows users to buy & sell digital files like reports, code, documents, photos, templates, tutorials, music, videos and offer physical goods. Thousands of users are using Instamojo to collect payments for ebooks, reports, tickets, tutorials, merchandise, invoices, services, and much more.

Features of Instamojo:

Upload the Digital goods, buyer pay via Instamojo payment gateway & everything else including delivery is taken care of Instamojo.
You can also collect payment for physical goods.
All the product page can be SEO optimized along with support for the canonical tag.
Only 1.9% transaction fees.
Instamojo apps (Paid & free) let you add features such as SMS alerts, Affiliate program.
There are no setup fees & it takes 5 or maximum 10 minutes to get started.
Google Analytics integration enabled
You can create a discount code for your product.
You can allocate separate commission for individual affiliates ( Enjoy the power of super affiliate)
Export your Sales & Affiliates. You can import them to your email list for up-selling.
Request payment by sending SMS (Yah! this is for real)
You can either buy or sell your digital products and physical products online.
Payment processing with just a single link.
Accepts all major modes of payments like Credit Cards, Debit Cards and Net Banking.
If you are selling some products online then you can receive payments every Friday directly to your bank.
There is also a feature to directly mail your customers directly from your Dashboard.

Getting Started with Instamojo:

The signup is pretty much simple and straight forward process. As I already mentioned there won’t be any initial fee to join the network. Its complete hassle free process.

Go to Instamojo.com
Click on Get Started Now and register over a free account over there.
Once you are registered for a free account you will see the below Dashboard.

Instamojo has a processing fee of 5% per transaction if you are selling something online. But if you make sales of a good amount then this transaction fee can be decreased.

Collect Payment in few easy steps:

Once you are signed up on your dashboard you will see Create a Link
Click on that and then choose a product you want to sell.
Just fill out the information of your product and proceed.
Your product will undergo approval which will not take much time.
Once its approved get the link and share it on either social media or your own website to accept payments.
You can also use buttons to accept payments from your website.

Few more Features of Instamojo:

You can easily integrated Instamojo buttons on your website if you are selling some digital product. These buttons are complete SEO friendly and very easy to integrate.

There is also one more feature called Social Pay using which your customer can pay you via Tweets and Facebook Shares.

You can set a base price for a product and ask customers to pay how much ever they want. This can be helpful if you are collecting donations from someone.
You can track the number of clicks, sales, traffic sources and conversion rates directly from the dashboard.
Last but not the least Instamojo is trusted and reliable payment processing gateway and its hassle free.

Conclusion:

Instamojo is the one and only payment processing network of its kind. If you are looking forward for sell something online then without any question get started with Instamojo. As of now this service is available only in India and in future you might expect their expansion globally to receive payments globally.

Click Here to get Started

If you are running an ecommerce business, you know how important it is to have a well-designed and well-serviced website.

It’s often challenging to run an ecommerce website successfully, since there are so many elements to consider. After all, you’re not just presenting your company to visitors, you are also running your business through your website – including taking orders, accepting payments, providing delivery information, and more. While you may be personally acquainted with how your website functions, it is also necessary to take into account how easy it is for customers to navigate, and also what appeals most to potential customers.

Here’s some components of an ecommerce site that contribute to a great customer experience and that can in turn increase your sales.

Design and Appearance

Since there’s no personal interaction with customers, the design and layout of your website is paramount. Think of your website as being the “face” of your company. You could have the greatest products in the world and provide customer service that’s second-to-none, but potential customers will never get to experience this unless they actually make a purchase. First impressions count!

Some quick tips:

Research how to design great websites
Keep it simple and cut the clutter
Organize and categorize your products to make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for
Get external feedback of your website from resources like Usertesting.com
Product Range

When deciding on product selection, it’s important to realize that more is not necessarily better. The number of products on your site also won’t necessarily determine the success of your business. In fact, limiting your product selection can actually prove beneficial, since it prevents customers from experiencing decision paralysis, enables them to easily locate particular products, and reduces the number of steps before a purchase is completed.

Another drawback in having too huge a selection of products is the logistical challenges this poses. The failure to source and deliver products in a timely fashion can have a negative impact on your business.

Searchability / Navigation

An often-overlooked element of an ecommerce website is an onsite search engine. An effective search tool should provide an optimal number of relevant results quickly.

Navigation is also key – and refers not just to the menu bar on your site, but the various paths that visitors can take to find products. Successful ecommerce sites allow customers to search for products by category, by brand, by simple keyword search, or even by color or size. The categories you choose of course must reflect the types of products you’re selling – but take the time here to really think through how different visitors may search. You can’t sell something that cannot be found!

Product Pages

If a potential customer is at all uncertain about whether to make a purchase on your site, what they see and read on a detailed product page can make or break the sale. Here’s where you will describe the product more fully and provide images, link to reviews and ratings, and – where applicable – suggest accessories or complementary products. Keep your product pages neatly organized and be careful of information overkill or clutter, but don’t skimp on detail.

Visuals play an important role here. Because customers cannot actually touch and feel the product, they want to at least be able to see it – with multiple views, where possible. Even customers purchasing books at online bookstores like to see images of the cover to know whether they’re hardcover or paperback.

The Point of Sale

Once the customer has his shopping cart filled and is ready to buy, your website must be able to process the transaction smoothly. However, this involves more than just having a great server and payment gateway. You’ve got the customer at the cash register… now don’t let him slip through your fingers! Barriers to completing the sale can include:

Requiring an account before the sale gets processed. Be careful here that you ask for appropriate information, but don’t make it onerous. Another option is to ask at the end of the transaction if they would like to create an account (which then will pull much of the info they’ve already input for shipping/billing details, etc.)
High shipping costs, and/or vague shipping costs. Be transparent here and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.
Inconvenient payment methods. Be sure to list all payments on the product page and give multiple payment methods (at least 2 types of credit cards plus PayPal, at a minimum).

Speed

Speed is especially important for an ecommerce site. Customers are impatient and the faster you can get them to the purchase point, the more likely they are to buy. Website speed is also a way that customers evaluate your reliability as a merchant.

After the Purchase

After the transaction has been completed, your customer should be able to view an order summary and receipt, which should also be provided by email to them. Including links in the receipt that direct the customer to a page on the website where they can track their order is a great way to improve your customer’s experience and build trust.

Have your own ecommerce website tips to share? Post them here and we’ll feature them in a future blog posting!

Social media success can be hard to measure, especially for small business owners who may not be the most tech-savvy individuals. Regardless of your skills, social media has proven to be an incredibly important tool for businesses of all sizes. In fact, 64 percent of Twitter users and 51 percent of Facebook users are more likely to buy the products of brands they follow online through social media channels.

Whether you’re pressed for time, don’t understand how certain content becomes popular or goes viral, or simply don’t like the idea of interacting with strangers, social media is a challenge for many. However, it’s essential to engage with your customers on a personal level. It’s what the modern customer expects from a brand or business and social media is the best place to do it.

One of the main reasons some companies standout in terms of their social media presence is because they understand what content people want. It all comes from data they have received and analyzed in the past, allowing the companies to adjust and improve upon the kind of content they share going forward.

As such, you need to get your hands on some of the best tools for measuring social media success. With these tools, you can look back to see what the engagements levels were on certain posts, then restructure your strategy to focus only on the content that performs well.

The 5 Best Tools to Measure Social Media Success

Google Analytics

“Google Analytics Solutions offer free and enterprise analytics tools to measure website, app, digital and offline data to gain customer insights.”

One of the tools that often gets overlooked in terms of social media insight is Google Analytics. Sure, it’s a great app for checking to see where all of your web customers are coming from, but what about how those same customers interact on Facebook or Twitter?

What’s cool is that Google provides options for establishing social media objectives and goals for your website. Therefore, you can check back to see if you reached these goals and make changes to continue improving. Network referrals are key to seeing whether or not your social media posts are making money or generating leads for your business. For example, you can analyze the extent that Facebook drives traffic to your website. Sessions are tracked after someone clicks through to your website from a social media network, so you can evaluate how long customers stick around for and if they contact you, or buy an item from your site.

Analyzing social media metrics within Google Analytics

Check out Google Analytics

Kissmetrics

“Giving you the knowledge you need to make better decisions. Kissmetrics is a revolutionary person-based analytics platform for your whole team.”

Kissmetrics offers an entire suite of website monitoring tools, but the main area we want to focus on is the social media module. The whole point of Kissmetrics is to fully understand the ROI for each of your visitors. You can track individual customers and see when they leave your site, or consider grouping your customers into particular batches.

ROI can be tracked from places like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. The best part is that once a customer is attributed to a particular social media site you have the ability to track the whole customer lifecycle. For example, if you gained a visitor from Facebook it would register when they come back to your site and if they are looking to buy something. In addition, you can view if they’re a repeat buyer.

Check out Kissmetrics

ViralHeat

“Viralheat is the enterprise content marketing and social media management platform that provides digital marketers with social media monitoring, publishing, analytics, content intelligence, and reporting in a single, intuitive interface.”

Viral Heat serves as an enterprise social media tool, and it allows for monitoring, publishing, analysis, and engagement. You get to review trends and evaluate key insights when someone visits your site from a social media network. The standout feature is the one that helps you find relevant content for sharing on your social profiles when you don’t have content of your own to share.

In addition, it lets you schedule and manage all of your posts from the comfort of one dashboard. So, if you’d like to schedule all of your posts a month in advance, it’s completely possible. After uploading a post, you can go back to evaluate each one to see which of them were most effective.

Analyzing Twitter metrics within ViralHeat

Check out Viral Heat

Klout

“Klout helps people who want to be great at social media. Join today to start sharing original content and measuring your online impact.”

Every company should be registered with Klout, since it’s free and it provides a true score of how well you’re doing on all of your social media accounts. It all starts with recommended content, which you share with your followers to get a reaction.

Based on your follower counts and reaction, your score goes up or down. Tracking things like re-tweets and likes adjusts your Klout score and encourages you to work on better content.

Check out Klout

Hootsuite

“Enhance your social media management with Hootsuite, the leading social media dashboard.”

The most widely used platform for managing social media on the planet, Hootsuite was created by Ryan Holmes back in 2008. The app has some of the best social media scheduling and management features you can find on the market. Not only that, but the reports are beautiful for when you’d like to evaluate what went right (or wrong) in the past.

The social insights deliver real-time results, with charts and metrics telling you how many people are engaging with certain posts. In addition, it alerts you when trends are taking off, allowing you to take advantage of news that is getting talked about a lot online.

Analyzing social metrics within the Hootsuite dashboard.

Check out Hootsuite

For small businesses, Black Friday can feel overwhelming. It can seem like a day more suited for large companies that can afford to slash prices and offer special deals. In reality, there are many ways that a small business can benefit from the number of consumers shopping over the weekend.

By analyzing your market and promoting your deals properly, your small business could not only bring in a huge profit on Black Friday, but also on the days following.

Check out our tips on how your small business can cash in on Black Friday:

Keep an eye on the big companies

While your small business may not be able to match a large company’s budget or offers, it can be very beneficial to see exactly how the big guys are getting people in the door. Afterall, there is a reason why many large companies have people crowding outside of their doors prior to their stores opening.

Many of these large companies have a plan for the weekend of all the festivals. Amazon for example, runs some of the most successful email campaigns in the business world. Every email that Amazon sends out is customized to the customer it is sent to, which can entice the customer into buying something.

There isn’t a large chain of command to go through with a small business, so you can be more flexible and creative than the larger companies. Learn what you can from the big corporations and re-invent their ideas to make them your own, within a budget you can afford.

Make them an offer they can’t refuse

Black Friday is fueled by the special deals that companies offer to consumers. This means that your small business will have to make some kind of offer that will intrigue people enough to come shop at your store. Everyone loves great door crashers. This does not necessarily mean that you need to slash your prices to the point where you can’t make a profit.

There are many other ways to garner consumer interest. Let’s take offering bundles as an example:

If you sell a flashlight, include the batteries for free.
If you sell pizza, you can add in free delivery.
If you offer a service such as cutting hair, you could add in a free hair product of the customer’s choice.

Try and come up with different special offers that will help get customers into your store and cash into your pocket.

Promote, promote, promote!

A great Black Friday offer means nothing if you don’t promote it. Social media is a great way to get the word out about your Black Friday special deals. You can share your offers with your followers or subscribers for free. Marketing credits can also help promote your small business. Web Service provider companies often offer marketing credits for free when you sign up for their services.

An email blast is another cheap option to promote your Black Friday deals. If you have built a fairly strong email list, you can easily send out an email marketing campaign to advertise your upcoming deals. There are many email marketing software tools out there that are affordable and easy to use.

Get personal

As a small business you probably know your local area and consumers a whole lot better than any big corporation. When you are sending out your promotions, target local events or locations. Targeting your promotions can give you a leg up on large companies that may not know the area very well. If you send out mail or email, personalize it to everyone that you send it to. It’s a little bit of extra work, but your customers will appreciate it.

Small Business Saturday & Cyber Monday

Black Friday isn’t the only important day of the weekend. In 2010, American Express helped create Small Business Saturday to encourage consumers to buy from local businesses. Make sure to keep your promotions and special deals going past Black Friday, as you can continue to cash in throughout the weekend. Small businesses can potentially have one of their best sales days of the year during this Saturday event. It has been reported that Small Business Saturday can outperform sales of other Saturdays by over 200%.

Cyber Monday is another potential huge sales day that you should get your small business ready for. This “deal day” is used to promote online shopping, so you may want to ensure that your ecommerce site is in good shape. Just like the other two saving days, you’ll want to promote and have special deals ready for Cyber Monday to appeal to your consumers. In India alone consumers spent over 2.5 billion INR on Cyber Monday.

Festivals are one of the most important sales periods of the year. It marks the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season and many people try to get their shopping done for the holidays during this time. Being prepared for the entire weekend with promotions and special deals will go a long way to make your Thanksgiving profitable.

LightenWeb has teamed up with Web-Review to offer an exclusive Black Friday deal you don’t want to miss. Check back here this Friday to find out more!

So you want to start a business – congratulations! Once you get over the initial excitement, it’s time to break down the process of launching your startup into manageable chunks.

You might get overwhelmed with the sheer number of items on your to-do list. But not to worry; I’ve broken down this startup checklist into the primary tasks you need to do now, and those that you can defer until later.

What You Need to Do Now

Do the following tasks either before launch or during the early days of your startup.

1. Determine viability

Be brutally honest. Your startup needs to be something you can make a profit doing or delivering. Ask yourself: would you buy it? Run the numbers: will customers pay enough so that you can cover costs and make a profit? Here is a list of 29 more questions to ask.

2. Create a business plan

It’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t need a business plan, but creating a business plan with financial projections forces you to think through details. Keep your plan a living breathing thing that you revisit and adapt regularly.

3. Figure out the money

Most startups take a lot more time to get off the ground than you expect. Know where your living expenses for the first year will come from (savings, a job, spouse’s income, etc.). If you need financing for the business start investigating as soon as possible.

4. Get family behind you

Spend time to make sure your spouse and other close family ‘buy into’ your startup. You’ll have enough challenges without resistance from family.

5. Choose a business name

You want a name that will stick in your target audience’s heads. And it shouldn’t already be taken by another company. Do Google searches and use a corporate name search tool to see if the name you have in mind is unique. Check at the state and Federal level.

6. Register a domain name

Get a matching domain to your business name. An AOL email address or a website with free hosting and a name like mysite.wordpress.com makes it seem like either (a) you are not running a real business or (b) you don’t plan to be around long.

7. Incorporate / figure out legal structure

Incorporating your startup can protect your personal assets. Talk over structure (corporation, LLC, sole proprietorship) with your attorney and accountant.

8. Apply for an EIN

An Employer Identification Number (EIN) helps you separate yourself from your business. You’ll need it if you plan to incorporate your business or open a business bank account. Plus, with it you can avoid giving out your social security number (an opening to identity theft). EIN numbers are free; apply online.

9. Investigate and apply for business licenses

You may need one, if not several, business licenses for your startup, depending on your industry and where you are located. Most licenses are at the state or local level. Here in the United States, the SBA has a helpful business license and permits tool.

10. Set up a website

Get your website up and running as soon as possible. Today, it’s necessary for credibility. Even if your product is not yet built, you can start with company information.

11. Register social media profiles

Getting set up on the major social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, to start) will make marketing on them later easier. Also, it’s important to reserve your brand as a profile name. Try Knowem.com to reserve the names.

12. Start your revenue stream

Start generating revenue as soon as possible. At the early stages of a startup there is never enough money – resist the temptation to wait until things are “perfect.” Oh, and get your lawyer to create any customer contract forms necessary.

13. Rent retail or office space

If you’ve got a brick-and-mortar business, you’ll need to sort this out early. If you plan to run a retail business, pay attention to foot traffic, accessibility, and other factors that will affect the number of people that will walk in your store. EXCEPTION: If you don’t have a brick and mortar or retail business, then hold off renting an office as long as possible to avoid saddling your startup with lease payments.

14. Order business cards

As a startup founder, you’ll be doing a lot of networking, so order plenty of business cards. They are inexpensive enough that you can reorder them later if things change. Without cards you lack credibility.

15. Open a business bank account

It’s all too easy to use your personal bank account to pay for business expenses, but it becomes a gnarl to untangle later.

16. Set up your accounting system

Once you have your bank account set up, choose an accounting program. Start as you intend to go. Few things will doom your business faster than books that are a mess.

17. Assign responsibilities to co-founders

If you have one or more founders, it’s imperative that you decide who will do what up front. Put it in writing. Co-founder disagreements can destroy your business.

What You Can Do A Bit Later

While you don’t want to put off these tasks too long, they don’t need to be checked off your list before you launch.

18. Upgrade your Smartphone and choose apps

As an entrepreneur you are going to be on the go – a lot. I can’t emphasize enough how useful a good phone with good business apps can be, in running your startup. Get a credit card swipe device to accept payments, too.

19. Find free advice

Your local SBA office, SCORE, and other small business resources can provide you with free advice, access to business templates, and other tools.

20. Consult your insurance agent and secure coverage

Depending on the type of business you’re starting, you may need insurance of one kind or another, like liability, workers’ comp, or health insurance, especially if you hire full-time staff.

21. Hire your first employee

Depending on the type of business you have, you may need staff from day one (retail) or you may be able to outsource to freelancers, interns, and third-party vendors for a while (service and tech businesses). Just remember, trying to do everything yourself takes you away from growing the business.

22. Line up suppliers and service providers

Finding a good source of inventory is crucial, especially in certain types of businesses (retail, manufacturing). Beyond inventory, line up good reliable suppliers and service providers so you don’t have to sweat the details.

23. File for trademarks and patents

The best thing to do is consult an attorney early about the need for patents, especially. Get the advice early. Then you may be able to defer filing for a while, depending on the nature of your business.

24. Work your network

Reach out to former co-workers and colleagues, as well as friends and family. Don’t pressure them to buy your products or services. Instead, tap into them for introductions and help with other things on this startup checklist.

25. Don’t waste time on “partnerships”

Be careful about wasting time on “business partnership” discussions. Your business won’t be attractive to potential partners unless and until you start making headway. Focus your precious time to make sales and get customers.

26. Refine your pitch

You need a good elevator pitch for many reasons: potential investors, customers, prospective new hires, bankers. If you can’t persuasively and clearly pitch your business, how can you expect key stakeholders to buy in?

27. Refine your product and marketing and sales approach

As you go along you will learn more about the marketplace. Use customer feedback to refine your product and service offerings, and your go-to-market approach.

28. Secure your IT

Whether you’re running a tech company or not, you likely have sensitive data on computers and devices that you want protected. Protect it from intrusions and disasters. Back it up! IT problems can derail a fledgling company.

29. Get a salesperson or sales team in place

In many startups the business owner starts out as the chief salesperson. But to grow you need a dedicated sales function, so you can focus on activities other than day-to-day sales.

30. Get a mentor

It’s all too easy to work “in” your business rather than “on” it. As Michael Gerber tells us in The E-Myth, we need to be working “on” our businesses if we want them to grow and flourish. A mentor who has succeeded in your industry can provide you with priceless advice and serve as a sounding board.

Your checklist might be longer than this, but organizing what needs to be done before you launch and what you can take care of down the road makes it easier to prioritize your tasks.

Instamojo Payment Gateway - Best Way To Sell & Collect Payment Digitally in India

Features of Instamojo:

Getting Started with Instamojo:

Collect Payment in few easy steps:

Few more Features of Instamojo:

Conclusion:

Best Ecommerce Site… From the Customer’s Point of View

Best Analytics Tools to Measure Social Media Success

The 5 Best Tools to Measure Social Media Success

Google Analytics

Kissmetrics

ViralHeat

Klout

Hootsuite

How Startups Can Cash in on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Important factors to start your Entrepreneurial Journey

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