Things you need to do after launching your eCommerce website

The real work begins after launching e-commerce website. Many businesses launch their website, but very few succeed. Once the site is set up there are several other things which should be ensured, so that it is ready for the users.

Things you should do after launching an eCommerce website

#1. Be ready with Product Feeds:

Once the website is launched, now its time for the world to know about it. Here comes the product data feed. Product data feed is a file which includes a text based list of data from an eCommerce store. The file includes list of products in an organized way. So that each product can be displayed advertised or compared in a unique way. Submitting product data feed to shopping channels like amazon, Flipkart and others. Make sure your data is specific and comprehensive. This helps you to maximize your online exposure through product visibility.

#2. Web Analytics:

Web analytics helps in measuring web traffic. This is used as a tool by eStore owners to assess and improve the website effectiveness. Google analytics alone is enough to receive traffic statistics. This helps you to know 1. How many people are visiting your site. 2.where the traffic is coming from ?.

#3. Webmaster Tools:

Google webmaster tools [GWT] is a free service that helps you to evaluate and maintain your website’s performance in search results. It offers you valuable information that can help you in marketing. Also tells you which queries are driving the most traffic. It allows you to know about the website security compromises and to eliminate the same.

#4. Improve the Content:

Keep churning out the new content. Nobody wants to visit a stale website. So keep producing a steady stream of content to keep the site relevant and current. Make your content simple and clear. It should be accessible to a wider audience. High quality and informative content boosts the search engine ranking, resulting in driving massive traffic to the site. So it is well said “content is the king “.

#5. Improve the Site Speed:

Site speed is one of the main factors for ranking websites in the search engines. Searchers hate waiting. Check the loading time of the webpage, if it takes more than 3 seconds to load than there is need to make the website lightning fast. There are many tools available to make the site faster. Such as web page test, google page speed, yslow and others.

#6. Promote the Website:

Online marketing has become so popular and successful that businesses are spending more on promoting website. Promoting the website via social media, SEO, promotional ad’s content marketing are more commonly used platforms. Having a blog on your website can increase your ranking on  search engines. You will get both exposure, traffic and social media share.

#7. Social Media:

Social Media is the most influential tool for any type of business, whether it is online or offline. It helps in connecting with the customers and driving them back to the website. Do some research and find which social media helps in driving more traffic to the site and increasing the conversion ratio. Online stores with the social media presence such as Facebook, Twitter accounts, has 32% more sales than the average store.

#8. Optimize Search Engines:

Website optimization is essential to make it more easily found by search engines. Using of relevant keywords through out the website content can do wonders. while dealing with eCommerce store ,customer rush online can slow down the search engine. So it is essential to optimize the search engine performance for a hassle free trading. Make sure to optimize the website content for local search, image search and voice search.

#9. Google Search Console:

Google Search Console is a free service offered by google. It helps to monitor, maintain and any difficulty the website is facing. Google search console helps to understand how Google sees the website and can take specific steps to improve the ranking. It also points out internal errors, if there are any. This is an extremely valuable tool to set up on the website.

Conclusion:

Launching an eCommerce website is not an easy task. What you do after the launch really determines your success. Keeping up the business website is an uphill task. But the above mentioned tactics can truly change the game.

Catalog Building and Indexing

eCommerce Catalog Building and Indexing Services

Catalog Building and Indexing

Catalog building and indexing are important aspects for an eCommerce business as they help to display a company’s product list effectively. Having a good product catalog and index enhances the overall shopping experience and enables faster decision-making of the customers. Most often eCommerce companies tend to look for comprehensive, affordable catalog management services. Therefore, Outsourcing catalog building and indexing services is the best option for such companies.

Here are some advantages of outsourcing catalog management services:

  1. Eliminates any possible product data discrepancies

2. Saves time and efforts of the client company and increases productivity

3. Client receives online and offline product catalogs

4. Highlights product list and increases customer appeal

Catalog building and indexing services enhances a business’s product offerings and expands the scope of their catalog allowing it to reach various marketing channels. Therefore, a carefully organized catalog helps customers, employees, shipping deployment centers, and internal operations keep the track of products, inventory levels, pricing and details.

Several eCommerce business solution providers offer catalog building and indexing services through their catalog management system. These services are required by B2B as well as B2C companies. Certainly, based on the paper product catalogs available and other details provided by the client, a dedicated team starts to create the online product catalog. Hence, the team consists of catalog building experts who analyze and categorize the products under a specific hierarchy. Thereby, ensuring that the products appear in the search results while customers browse over the internet. The end result is an attractive digital brochure that has error-free data in a presentable manner.

In the process of catalog indexing, a team of catalog indexing professionals work to customize digital templates for the catalogs. The existing information is then enriched with the help of alphanumeric codes, graphs and tables, images, text, dimensions, available quantity, attributes, MSRP, and other relevant elements.

The team works to attract customers’ attention and to make the website more appealing. Therefore, the product catalog is created using appropriate headings and subheadings that have the apt keywords for effective search results. Once the catalog is ready, the team checks for any possible errors and accuracy and submits it to the client company.

Catalog building and indexing offers several benefits to the eCommerce business:

  1. Helps to manage the resources optimally

2. Efficiently reduces costs

3. Increases accuracy

4. Improves customer experience

5. Helps to update the key performance indicators

6. Improves quality catalog offerings

Product catalogs continue to be an important marketing channel for every eCommerce business. As a result, Customers come to know about the latest offerings and any promotional offers given by the organization. Hence, Considering the competitive environment of eCommerce, building an effective product catalog on a timely basis and keeping it updated with accurate information becomes a crucial task for any business.

Mobile App Development

Top 10 Tips for Mobile App Development (Android & iOS)

Mobile App Development

Mobile app development is a rapidly growing field wherein people from across varied industries and professions are creating different types of mobile applications on a daily basis. To survive in such a competitive and demanding world, one must be able to create a unique mobile application that serves its original purpose and stays updated with the changing market scenario.

Mobile app development can be extremely challenging. Smartphones keep upgrading their versions very often, which makes it even more difficult for app developers to maintain their pace. By the time an app developer develops an app, there are likely chances that the mobile version might change. Mobile app development requires a vision to understand what the users really need. If the app is able to fulfill the need, then it can survive for a longer time.

Mobile is extensively used for communication worldwide and if done right then mobile app can be helpful to a larger audience for a longer time. No matter if you are an experienced developer or a newbie in the field, here are few tips that you must consider while developing a mobile application.

1. Study the Market – Before you start to ideate over developing a mobile application take some time to study the market. Also, understand the needs of users. This is the initial part of creating a mobile app strategy which will later include factors like user interface, languages, regions, and so on. Know the latest trends of the market so that your application stands out from the rest. Today’s latest trends include Augmented Reality app development, Unity game development, etc.

2. Ensure Right Platforms and Features – This aspect comes once you understand your users. Decide over a suitable platform and apt features keeping in mind the likes and dislikes of your users. Focus more on the UI and UX, so that users enjoy using your app for a longer time. The app features must be user-friendly and appealing in appearance.

3. Make your App ASO and SEO Friendly – The app name must be creative, unique, and appealing to the users. It must attract the users, and compel them to install, use and talk about it. Once you have decided on the name for your app, try to make it ASO (App Store Optimization) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly. This means including certain keywords in your app name to make it easier to locate in search engines and app stores.

4. Pricing your Mobile App Correctly – Pricing is an aspect that will decide whether or not people will use the app. It starts from deciding whether the app must be free to use, or should the user pay some amount. If the pricing is too high, then not many users may use it. If the pricing is too low, then the developer will lose out on any possible profit.

5. Optimize your App – If you are a developer, you would not want your app to be too heavy and occupy a major space in the user’s mobile. Developers must keep the app as light as possible by avoiding using unnecessary objects and variables. Apps that are higher in size tend to perform slowly, which is not very appealing to the users.

6. Offline or Online – Smartphone users often struggle to find a stable internet connection. Keeping this point in mind, developers must consider whether their app should be available to users through constant internet connectivity or can be used offline as well. Very often, if users find that the app does not function well under weak internet connection, then they might not use it. Offline apps are hence more popular.

7. Keep the App Simple – Although revenue is important, keep the app as simple and hassle-free as possible. Check the number of ads that follow your app, since users do not like a lot of ads and banners coming in the way of their usage. Also, make sure that most of the age-groups can use your app.

8. Study your Competitors – In order to understand how you can generate more money from the app that you develop, you must study similar apps present in the market. You can analyze the performance of those competitor apps and learn from them. With the help of a careful study of the app features and business model, you can successfully position your app in the market.

9. Have the Right Updates – Offering the right update means offering the right content at the right time. Developers must figure out the exact time when the app updates must roll out. While too many updates might be irritating to the user, too few updates will make the app outdated. The balance must be rightly maintained.

10. Reviews and Feedbacks – No app can be perfect in its first version. Once the app is released take some time out to read and study your app reviews and understand your customers’ feedback. Do not be overwhelmed with positive as well as negative comments. Connect with your users regularly and try to rectify the errors in the app.

Developing an application starts from an idea and the urge to fulfill a need. Once the development starts, one must ensure that everything from user acquisition to retention is covered. Follow these tips to develop a successful mobile application.

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product data cleansing

Advantages of Product Data Cleansing for an eCommerce Store

The importance of offering clean and clear product data to the customers cannot be emphasized more. And if you own an eCommerce business, then this must stand out to be a golden rule for you. The quality of your product data is directly proportionate to your business sales. Inconsistent, incorrect, and poor-quality data can lead to loss of sales and business reputation.

Companies spend years to understand their customers and collect data. So, what exactly constitutes data?

Data may be customers’ chats, likes and dislikes, behavioral patterns, complaints, sales numbers, and also the future business goals. In other words, data provides the overall view of your products, services, and business processes.

An eCommerce store has to deal with a large amount of data on a daily basis. While managing such large chunks of data can be challenging; offering correct and updated product information to customers at all times is equally necessary. The ultimate motive of product data cleansing is to structure all the available data and make it useful for multiple users.

The eCommerce data cleansing is important as it impacts decision-making, marketing strategies, customer services, and also offers new updates in your products and services. Let us understand in detail why product cleansing is essential?

·  Product data cleansing allows the business to track customer behavior. Collecting accurate product data helps you to personalize the shopping experience based on customers’ purchasing habits, location, specific shopping requirements, and payment choices. These aspects directly impact your business revenues.

·  Data cleansing offers 100% accurate, correct, relevant, and uncorrupted information which can be used to gain valuable business insights. It also helps to reduce shipping errors, customer complaints, and any fraudulent practices.

·  Data cleansing also safeguards your mailing services. You can identify irrelevant recipients and spam emails. It helps you target your emails in the right manner leading to maximum leads and conversions.

·  Data cleansing minimizes errors caused unintentionally by customers; for example, errors caused while typing customer information, or wrong shopping details while browsing the site.

·  Clean data decreases the number of failed orders leading to reduced losses. Clean data enhances valid addresses and email contacts so that the material can reach the right customer.

All of the above-mentioned pointers explain the importance of product data cleansing. Here are some more advantages for an e-store to opt for data cleansing services.

·   Updated information is readily available to the customers at all times.

·   Accurate information reduces buying errors which lowers the rate of product returns. This is beneficial for the customers as well as the business.

·   Product data cleansing removes any duplicate inputs

·   Customers can locate their desired products easily

·   Product data presentation is consistent

Business data is sensitive to inaccuracies. It interferes with the productivity leading to loss of sales leads, revenue, and business reputation. Inaccurate analysis reports can be harmful for the business over the long run. Opting for product data cleansing services allows managers to use the accurate data efficiently and make the right business decisions. Investing in this service helps businesses to troubleshoot any problems caused due to data discrepancies. Ensure that your data is rectified and structured well so that your employees can focus on other crucial business functions.

Product Catalog

Tips to Make your Product Catalog Relevant

A product catalog provides clarity to customers regarding the products and services offered by a particular business. When it is an eCommerce business which deals with its customers over an online platform, having an effective product catalog becomes more of a necessity rather than a privilege.

An online product catalog not only enhances the sales for an eCommerce business but also saves time and efforts of the customers. Customers can easily navigate through the website and locate their desired product. This fastens their purchase decision and compels them to revisit the website for further shopping needs.

A rightly done product catalog can analyze customer behavior and is capable of reaching wider audiences and new markets. Before starting to create a product catalog, the business must have clarity related to the purpose. For instance, whether the purpose of building a product catalog is for improving brand recognition or for enhancing sales?

Once the purpose is clear then the business must understand its target audience. Example, which age group and demographics will the business target, and so on. Thereafter comes some specific technical requirements, such as, finding the right Content Management System (CMS) or Product Information Management (PIM) tools. By finding the right tools one can create a product catalog easily and in less time. Finally, a product datasheet must be prepared which has all the details of the products, including the hierarchy and the attributes of the same. This datasheet helps the catalog developers to get a clear picture of your expectations.

As you carry out functions under each step, you tend to get more clarity about the expectations from the final product catalog. Here are some tips that you can use in order to create a relevant product catalog for your business.

  • Your product catalog must be attractive, must have high resolution quality images or videos, and a smart layout. The catalog design must match with your offerings.
  • Customize your catalog as per your customer requirements. Catalog might be required to be altered from time to time in order to stay updated.
  • Ensure that your product catalog has a suitable format and size which allows you to showcase your entire product list along with product attributes and relevant photos and videos.
  • Ensure that the photos and videos used in the product catalog are of high quality. This gives a polished look to the catalog and makes it more appealing.
  • Once your product catalog is ready, take feedback from your customers and modify the catalog if necessary. This enhances trust between customers and the business.

Product catalog making process initially requires all your time, commitment and patience. However, once done right, it can offer you an increased customer footfall and a long-term upliftment in the business sales.

Product Taxonomy

Increasing Productivity through Product Taxonomy

Product taxonomy is defined as creating a structure to organize all available products in a way that customers can find. In product taxonomy, all available products are put into several categories to which specific attributes are applied. A good taxonomy is a perfect combination of user behavior, trends, and cultural differences. The end result being it becomes easy for the customers to find their desired product amidst the long list.

Having a proper product taxonomy is very important as it leads to faster purchase decision-making and incremental business sales. Improper taxonomy can cause loss of sales. Product taxonomy cannot and must not be avoided. In this blog, we will look at how product taxonomy increases productivity.

Research has found that a poorly structured website causes 50% less sales as compared to a properly organized website. Visitors tend to visit a particular website while they browse over the internet. If your products are not properly placed within the website, either the website will miss out on potential searches, or the visitor will visit your website but will be unable to find the product. In both the situations, your product sales will be affected.

A well-built taxonomy will allow your website to display relevant products at all times, directly impacting the decision-making process of the buyer. Clear distinct categories and correct labelling directly improves business sales.

Here are some best practices to develop the right product taxonomy for your eCommerce business:

  • Get an energetic team onboard and explain them the importance of good product categorization. Try to get a qualified team who have degrees in information science or linguistics. They will be capable of understanding the right terminology and hierarchy.
  • Understand your users’ psychology and shopping behavior. Study the way customers navigate through different websites and choose their product. Find out their search behavior and factors that influence their buying decision. You can also talk to them or conduct a survey to understand their likes and dislikes distinctly.
  • Have a deep understanding of your entire data. Focus on information that really matters to your buyers. Maintain the accuracy of the product information.
  • To categorize, start visualizing your products with various attributes. A complicated taxonomy is of no use to anyone. Prepare a proper hierarchy to all the categories. Stay consistent with names at all levels. Users tend to spare lesser time searching for products; hence, the taxonomy needs to be as simple and clear as possible.
  • Allow your users to navigate and test your taxonomy in all possible ways. Take reviews and modify your taxonomy accordingly to make it better. Taxonomy must be updated regularly. Add new categories and improve the hierarchy whenever necessary.
  • The taxonomy must be the same across all the business units within the company. There must not be any discrepancies internally.

Product taxonomy is an important foundation for the success of any eCommerce business. A good product taxonomy is always built keeping the users in mind. It can start with simply writing on a few cards and creating divisions, to developing them into a brilliant architecture that customers would love to visit again and again in order to shop. Product taxonomy made right will increase productivity and enhance business sales. In the longer run, an efficient taxonomy minimizes the work of both the buyer as well as the seller.

Product Catalog Management

Best Practices: eCommerce Product Catalog Management

Customers are well-versed with the online technology now. From online shopping to online ticket reservation; several usual activities have transformed from offline to online. Customers navigate through various websites before making their decision. Hence, an eCommerce business must be able to provide the right product information to customers at all times.

A product catalog is essential for every eCommerce business and it ensures that the products are conveniently available online. An efficient product catalog directly impacts the sales of the organization. However, creating and managing a product catalog effectively can be challenging at times.

Challenges in Product Catalog Management

  • Different information coming in from multiple stakeholders from inside and outside the organization. For example, if measurement units differ then it can create a major problem in product catalog management

  • If the internal data is not converted properly for users, then incorrect product categorization can create issues.

  • Choosing a catalog management tool can be a challenge in itself. Before selecting a tool, one must understand the working of the tool in detail.

  • Product catalog growth is directly proportional to business growth. The need of the organization must align with the need of catalog.

Let us look at some of the best practices of product catalog management:

1. Offer Quality Product Information

The importance of providing valuable and correct product information to the customer can never be emphasized. The first objective is to ensure that your customers feel comfortable while they navigate through the eCommerce website. This also means that the website must not only be user friendly, but also customers must be able to easily locate their desired product.

By offering accurate product information customers will start trusting your brand and this will help them make faster purchase decisions. High quality product information includes technical attributes, attractive high-resolution images, videos, inventory information, units of measurement, and product usage combinations and recommendations. All the information must be updated to optimize the overall shopping experience of the customer.

2. Categorizing product catalog

Customers look for easy navigation options and clear categories like filter, refine, colors, etc. However, one must categorize their product catalog by considering the customer’s point of view. For example:

  • Using ‘M’ to denote “Medium” to represent a product size

  • Keeping consistency in all measurement units

  • Adding various product attributes to different products based on customer needs and not have limited attributes to all products

3. Measuring the catalog management process

To effectively manage a product catalog the business must understand three pointers and analyze them from time to time:

1. Which parts of the product catalog are managed by the stakeholders?

2. Who is affected by the catalog changes?

3. When during the process does the changes affect the most?

Once you are able to understand these factors, you can quickly seek for the right person who can help you during the mapping process. Catalog management mapping processes helps you understand the different steps to be taken and in which order.

4. Offer recommendations and suggest alternatives

A product catalog must not only offer the right product information, but also suggest alternatives and recommendations for different products. This will give ideas to the customers and also provide alternatives in case a desired product is out of stock.

5. Managing your Product Catalog Database

Catalog management is similar to information management and must be maintained well. Hence, one must create a product catalog database to ensure that the right information is given to the customer. This also prevents information errors and enables expansion of products.

The above-mentioned best practices will help an eCommerce business to manage their product catalog efficiently. The eCommerce businesses are developing online as well as offline product catalogs in order to provide maximum shopping experience to their customers. While online catalogs help in faster navigation through the website, offline catalogs help in easy-to-read experience for the customers. Both are equally important to enhance business sales.

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5 Proven Techniques To Lower Bounce Rate On Your Website and eCommerce Store

If you are reading this space, the chances are that you have a pretty website, an established name, reasonable search traffic, lead-generating ads yet experiencing a higher bounce rate on your website and eCommerce store.

In other words, genuine visitors looking for products/services in your niche area are simply bouncing off the website without even giving you a chance to convert them as your customer. 

Let’s jump into defining what constitutes a High Bounce Rate. As per Google Analytics, Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visit which increases when: 

  • Users exit your website just after viewing a single page
  • Users follow an outbound link just after viewing a single page
  • Users click the back button after viewing a single page
  • Users go through the entire page and not interact with any element on your website

As a result, it majorly affects your conversions and sales revenues. Additionally, Google takes your bounce rate into account as one of many factors on how to rank your site on its Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The higher the bounce rate, lower the rank, the poorer is your discoverability online.

Here are some pre-requisites that you are required to ensure in order to bring the bounce rate under control for your eCommerce store. 

Improve Page load speed

Consumers expect a typical webpage to load in about 2 seconds or less. Beyond which they began to move on to your competitor’s site. 

Not only consumers, but even Google considers the page loading time for ranking your site. If your site is consistently slow to load, it will result in a higher bounce rate as well as slip in SERP rankings. 

Here, we are also recommending to integrate a sub-second website module to your eCommerce store.

 

Check for Product page optimization

Sometimes businesses end up concentrating too much on-site UX that they fail to optimize theproduct content and data. Ultimately, it’s the product page that makes or breaks the sale.

Having a clean product page with genuine reviews, adequate attributes, relevant user manuals, effective Call-To-Action texts, compelling product descriptions, simple colour theme, appropriate placement of “Add to cart” and “Buy now”, all contributes to lowering of bounce rate.

Additionally, offering faster checkout, mentioning recognized credentials will improve your sales conversion and reduce bounce rate. 

Offer a visible and accurate site-search solution

As elementary as it may be, proper visibility of a site-search box is very essential for an eCommerce site. According to a 2002 report, an ideal search box should be 27-character wide. 

You can choose to customize it accordingly: fixing it at the top of the page so that visitors who scroll down the page never lose sight of it and having an auto-fill search box are recommended.

Using Taxonomy and Attribute development approach will offer better navigation and search functionalities to the users. It will incentivise the users to go beyond a single page and interact more with the website, thereby reducing your bounce rate. 

Optimize your website for smartphones/tabs

Improvements in mobile technology have drastically increased the use of smartphones and tablets.  Almost 95% of your customers, including that of B2B customers, prefer shopping using their mobile devices. 

Therefore, it makes more sense to optimize your web page elements for viewing on mobile devices other than conventional desktops. Even Google Analytics has started considering mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor for its SERP. 

Personalize shopping using exit-intent popups

It is proven that Exit-intent popups on eCommerce sites will lead upto 20% increase in conversion rate. Exit-intent popups can be your last resort to prevent users from exiting your website. 

Such popups if used wisely can make users interact with various elements on your website, thereby reducing single-view page exit, i.e. bounce rate on your website. 

Best things to mention in an exit-intent popup would be to show promo codes and discounts, offer to find the desired products, ensure free shipping etc. 

Thanks to the opaque nature of eCommerce, building trust among your customers come to be of prime importance before you make a sale. This is majorly achieved by implementing the above-discussed techniques.  

However, let’s assume you own a local business operating in Austin, Texas. It is found out that most of the traffic came from the region outside the area of operation. Kudos to your SEO efforts but visitors are prone to see your location and leave, heading back to search results. In such cases too, the bounce rate is incredibly high.

So, where did you go wrong? While integrating the above pre-requisites on to your site will impact your bounce rate and improve site UX, we suggest you book an appointment with our expert Solutions Provider, who will help analyze your bounce rate in the context of your business and also offer specific solutions to minimize it.   

 

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How can an eCommerce Company Benefit from the Catalog Updation Services?

An eCommerce business has to deal with a large chunk of data at all times. Considering the fact that all of a company’s information related to its products and services are made available to the customers online; the product information must be correct. And to ensure that the product information given to the customers is right, a product catalogue must be created and updated regularly.

One of the major challenges for an eCommerce company is to maintain an updated product database. Incorrect product information can not only lead to dissatisfied customers but also loss in sales and reputation of the eCommerce business. In addition, potential buyers find it difficult to navigate through the website and search for a suitable product. This hinders with their purchase decisions as well.

Updating product information is a continuous process. Product catalog must be maintained and so must be the high-resolution product images to attract potential buyers. Having an updated product catalog can offer the following benefits to the company and the buyer.

Benefits of Catalog Updation:

·  Efficient Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ensures your products show up often in search engine results

·  Makes it easy for the buyer to navigate through your site enabling faster buying decision

·  Shows product recommendations to buyers on the site to increase sales opportunities.

·  Customers can easily view the available promotions, discounts, and offers on various products and services.

There is a variety of product catalog services that helps increase the online presence of any eCommerce business. High-quality images and content are included to make the product catalog more appealing, attracting new users. The product catalog services include:

·  Catalog content management

·  Catalog building and indexing

·  Catalog conversion

·  Catalog image processing

·  Catalog updation

The catalog updation team takes care of the entire process starting from identifying the desired products, gathering product specifications and price, and creating a unique product catalog, to regularly updating and maintaining the product catalog.

Availability of advanced technologies tend to eliminate the process of manual catalog updation. The entire catalog updation process is automated, ensuring that the discounts on specific products are mentioned at the right time for promotional purposes. Once the catalog is prepared, product descriptions and images can also be changed easily.

The right product information must reach customers at all times. This helps customers to make faster purchase decisions. Customers can simply provide their specific catalog updating requirements, and the services provider will start developing a customized solution.

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Three ways to Streamline your eCommerce Supply Chain

Supply Chain is an important process for any organization which enables efficient movement of raw materials and finished products from the manufacturer to retailer, distributor, finally reaching the end customer. A strong supply chain can reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction.

For an eCommerce setup, the supply chain process includes sourcing, storage, fulfillment, distribution, IT and transportation. Supply chain most often takes care of three aspects of any product – Price, Quality, and Lead Times. It depends on the organization whether they want a well-priced product, high quality product, or a product that reaches the fastest to the market. The main objective of supply chain is to have the right products in the right quantities at the right moment and at minimal cost.

Here are some of the benefits of an efficient supply chain management:

·  Reduction of costs across the supply chain and more efficient management of working capital

·  Efficient management of raw materials, work-in-process, and finished good inventory

·  Increased efficiency between supply chain partners and their transactions

·  Enhanced customer value

In this blog, we will look at the ways in which you can streamline your eCommerce supply chain in order to help it function more efficiently.

1. Dock to Dock Processes and Systems

Avoid stock delays by increasing throughput and product order cycle time. One can improve the process by getting some work done by the manufacturers, in order to reduce delays and expenses. It is best to have vendor compliance policies, transportation routing guide, and product specifications barcoding in place to ensure that there is minimal mismanagement. This way supply chain delays can easily be avoided.

2. Optimize Inventory Management

Inventory management is an important part of supply chain. Having the right items in stock at the right time can be challenging. The solution to overcome this challenge is to be efficient in planning, purchasing, and managing inventory. Another tip is to have clear communication with the vendors on the purchase order delivery dates.

3. Reduce Shipping Costs

eCommerce companies are finding ways to shorten their delivery time which will result in reduced shipping costs. Shipping costs can be reduced significantly if one takes care of the inventory management. Having the right stock and shipping it at the right time helps in faster delivery. This way, customers can expect low-cost shipping charges or even free shipping charges at times.

Streamlining supply chain is very important for any eCommerce business as it enables better customer service. This also proves to be of financial advantage to the organization, since it reduces freight costs, and optimizes the entire process for better functioning. Companies must assess and streamline their supply chain process regularly in order to avoid any fulfillment delays and unnecessary expenses.