March 2020 | Page 5 of 9 | Altius Technologies

How to Develop an Online Product Catalog for Your E-Commerce Business

An online product catalog plays a very important role in an e-commerce business. It gives a prospective customer the technical details of the product that enables him to make the purchase decision. This catalog is usually detailed and accurate along with multiple images of the product itself.

Here, we give you a few tips for effective product catalog management.

Give maximum information available

An interested customer should never have to look for other sources to get additional information of the product you have displayed for their purchase.

Ensure that the title and the description of your listing is not the same as that of your competitors if they sell identical products. Use appropriate keywords within 50 characters limit without overusing them. Separate the keywords using a single space. Avoid punctuations to do the same.

Choose a white background and either a PNG, GIF, JPG or TIFF format for your image. Remember to check that the clarity is not affected when the image is zoomed.

Use bullet points to highlight details

Bullet points will make it easy for interested customers in their decision-making process. Mention the essential points at the beginning followed by other details.

For best results, mention the bullet points appear just below or to the right of the product image. This will help customers see the details without having to scroll down.

Maintain consistency throughout

Use the same format and notations for all product listings. For example, if you mention the color as ‘BLUE’ for a product, do not use ‘blue’, ‘Blue’ or ‘BLU’ for other products of the same color. This makes the search process easy.

List the attributes in the same order for all products. If you list the attributes color, size and price in the mentioned order for a product, retain the same order for all products.

Ensure accurate category mapping

Category mapping serves as the guide to your product catalog. It helps a prospective customer easily find what he wants from the huge list of products available. With correct category mapping and product filters, a customer can make his selection from just the set of appropriate products.

Deploy cross-selling techniques

Cross-selling techniques can help you to improve your sales. After a product listing, use a “You may be interested in” link that prompts them to related products.

For example, if a viewer is looking at a lipstick, you can use the “You may be interested in” link to direct her to the category that displays your collection of lip glosses.

Maintain user friendly internal search

Keep the search function as user friendly as possible. If a prospective customer starts typing the name of a product in the search bar, display various appropriate suggestions to minimize the typing time.

You can also direct customers to the right product even when they accidentally make a spelling mistake.

Avoid using duplicate content

Do not use the same content for a product listing even if two products have same features. In other words, do not reuse content from a page of your own catalog or another website. This will be considered as duplicate content and can trigger SEO problems.

An online product catalog can play an important role in transforming occasional customers to loyal shoppers. With ample information and images about the product listings, it can make customers make up their mind without much apprehension.

Ravinthar R

Asses e-stores and recommend revenue generating SaaS solutions

Are you ready for Amazon Prime Day 2019?

This is the 5th consecutive year of Amazon Prime Day. Last year 70 countries across the world participated in this event. On the 15th & 16th of July, a two-day extravaganza of deals has been planned for.

Amazon Prime features collaborations with brands, musicians, actors and more. The ads have started to feature on national television now, leading up to the event.

Brands will have to make sure they get as much visibility as possible, to convert traffic and get the best out of Prime Day.

Your checklist

Re-check your product catalog and update it with keywords. The more details, the higher the chance of buying.

Improve your brand value, through your brand store and enhanced brand content.

Increase your chance of seller ranking during Prime Day. Altius Technologies‘ Digital Experiences Services enhances and enables winning e-commerce strategies. Our Product Cataloging Services, EBC and Brand Store creation will help you increase sales on Amazon Prime Day.

To know more about how to make the best use of Amazon Prime Day, get in touch with us.

Prasanna. M

Business Head – eCommerce Solutions and SaaS Product

Why outsourcing E-commerce Product content is better than doing it in-house?

As an online distributor to B2B industrial products, you will have a lot on your plate. starting with supply chain management, inventory, shipping and returns, product catalog, customer service strategy, and marketing.

So how do you focus on completing several important tasks at hand?

The solution is simple: By Outsourcing your Ecommerce product content.

Every product is unique. The requirement of every customer is different.

How do you stay relevant and engage your customers and answer their questions while they select the product in need?

Ans: Effective Product Content Solution.

Get Free Sample product content for your 10 products

Benefits of Outsourcing product content services

Product content may be one of the most tedious tasks for every online distributor to handle. It is the platform were the dealership was physical, the customer would produce technical details to the customer service executive to help him out with the product.

In an online store, one can reach the customer service executive usually post the purchase is made. So, to answer the immediate concern of getting a specific product with the specified technical details, you need enriched product content.

Outsourcing product content is the smart way to do this.

Fresh perspective

Enriched product content is usually provided by external entities.

The content as the name suggests is enriched, normalized & optimized.

Following industry standards, SEO friendly, the content is up to date and detailed. Details go a long way.

Giving more technical attributes helps faster purchase decisions. Getting your product content enriched in-house, will not give your content that ‘X’ factor that will resonate with your customers.

360 degree approach

A simple screw can be used for different needs. For carpentry work. For lights and fittings. The list could go on. Suggesting the areas where the product could be found useful, helps customers in understanding and thinking beyond their current needs. This point-of-view usually comes to play when an external entity does your product content.

Cost effective

Writing product descriptions is considered a short-term and seasonal task because this only comes up when there are additional items in the inventory or sometimes writing content for the first time even. Having a fixed investment in-house to cater to this is not cost-effective. Outsourcing product content also helps you in focussing investment on other important areas that will need in-house resource time.

Product Content Services are usually both SEO friendly and consumer friendly.

Altius Technologies is dedicated to writing content that will bring your products high on the search terms. The content about the product itself is very precise and detailed.

Having 17+years in catalog, the company has a rich database they bank upon to get valid information for B2B industrial products.

Still thinking of doing Product Content Enrichment, in-house?

Get free consultation with our E-commerce Product Content Experts

Govindaraj L

Responsible for Data Quality and Revenue Generation

How distributors can increase sales with B2B ecommerce website?

Create your e-store now for increasing your online sales by 10X

We are in the age of B2B e-commerce and online shopping. Your customer’s decision-making process has changed dramatically over the years. Customers now do extensive research about a product online before making the purchase. The internet makes online shopping easier and faster. Selling directly on the internet increases your reach. With a B2B e-commerce store,your profits are no longer limited by the number of customers visiting your brick & mortar store. You can sell beyond limited geographical locations.

Online stores can

Save time for both the buyer and seller
Reduce phone calls about product availability
Increase your operation hours
Provide easy access to company and product information

With the opulence of mobility and maintaining continued order in work-flow in factories, purchase through an e-store is now the most preferred point of purchase. B2B e-commerce for distributors worldwide is taking a shift in paradigm for their sales approach. It is inevitable that you too will have to join the race for having a B2B e-commerce website soon.

Convenience

Convenience is the biggest perk. No lines to wait, no assistants to wait on to help the customers, buyers can do their shopping in minutes. Giving a 24/7 accessibility, products can be ordered from anywhere at any time.

No travel or crowds

It is chaotic to be part of crowds and make purchases feel rushed and hurried. With no personal attention to be given, the customer tends to go into another shop for his other requirements. This is completely avoided in an e-store. The customer can patiently look through and decide on the products to buy.

Offers and Price Comparisons

You can run offers for products that no other online/ offline store would be running now. This can help you reach more customers and increase sales. With online stores, the customer gets the freedom to compare prices sitting at one place. So, if you have the most cost-efficient product, more chances of increasing sales.

Any-time accessibility

Through a smart-phone or a computer, customers can keep track of the items purchased. Date of delivery, exchange status or even feedback can be tracked for every product. Having access to a plethora of products from various manufacturers helps customers in making informed decisions.

Cost-effective

Running a brick & mortar store is so much more expensive in comparison to an online store. You save on manpower, electricity, space, rent and the whole management of the floor space. Having an online store allows you to choose and plan your investment month wise. You save a great deal in every aspect compared to running a physical store.

B2B e-commerce for distributors is not new, though it is taking shape as a primary source of revenue.With customers having a flawless experience though e-commerce platforms on a day to day level, it is only natural that they expect the same from their B2B distributors.

Investing in your e-store is the right way forward for your B2B distributorship.

We can help you to set up your online e-store

Ashok V

Online R&D of e-stores, Revenue Generation Consultant

How B2B eCommerce store improves Digital Customer Experience?

Win Digital customer experience from B2B online store

With the onset of digital, the global mobile and tablet usage has exceeded that of desktop since 2016. B2B consumers are turning more to digital for support when it concerns a product part number or tech specs or even sourcing a unique product. It is abundantly clear that digital experience across platforms are turning out to be essential KPI’s that will ultimately lead to the path to purchase and retention of your product & brand respectively.

There are many touch points to a B2B customer’s digital experience. It is no longer looked at as a singular event leading to sales.

So why does a customer visit your B2B online store?

Simply to compare price and product?
Is he here for pre-post-sales support?
Has your brand resonated and persuaded him to buy a product from my B2B online store?
Do you have a unique product he would want to buy?

The answer can be any of them. The catch is to keep him browsing through your e-store. The longer he stays, you can assume that his digital experience has been positive.

UX/UI is key

Your UX/UI design must be flawless. With customers using online marketplaces to make purchases for their personal needs. It is only true, that they expect the same level of experience, optimization & product information from your B2B online store. Your customer would want to buy a product, quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Digital strategy

You must have your own e-commerce experience design, digital marketing & strategy team to keep your online store SEO friendly. Keeping your products updated, having a detailed product information and running offers, keeps you accessible to all kinds of potential customers. Your customer compares prices, products, manufacturers, product information and looks at feedback to make his final decision to purchase. Having a team to run your e-store, may not be a bad idea.

Your platform

Choosing the right platform to host your B2B e-store is crucial. Depending on the number of products you have to offer and the scalability the e-commerce platform has to offer, there are many companies that could help you. If you are new to the whole digital game, get a consultant on board to help you choose and set up your e-store. Altius Technologies could help you with this. Collaborated with InRiver and Agility Multi-channel, Altius Technologies gives you a hand in helping you deliver an exceptional B2B digital experience to your customers.

Today, your B2B customer is simply focussed on getting what he wants in the most convenient way possible. So, your focus in your B2B digital experience must be concerned with improving user interface, mobile responsiveness, design, communication methods and delivering real time data across all interactions, rather than individual touch points.

Looking for guidance to take you a step further?

Gladys Christabel

Helping B2B companies to Generate results in search engines,Social Media and Content Marketing.

How distributors can differentiate themselves by building their B2B online store?

It is always seen that distributors significant amount of money for an online store and fail to get ROI from them. With many online web store builders, many distributors run out of luck when they fail to get quick and easy returns.

Research shows, that most frequently ignored part of the website is the front page. Though the website would be heavy with all products and their specs, but when it comes to the face value of the website, the company fails to make an impression.

You can differentiate your company online by featuring a picture of your headquarters. Create an impression when the customer comes to your website. Look at selling your products in your B2B online store like how you would sell at your retail outlet. Today many consumers are looking for a B2C experience out of a B2B online store. Make sure you give them, and they will choose you every time.

Altius Technologies has created a unique web tool that enables better product presentation by covering maximum product information. It delivers just-in-time product suggestions and prompts in the available web browser area. This single page quick ordering tool gives B2B customers a B2C look and feel to the website.

For more information on this, click on the link below and fill up the form for a Demo.

Having a good home page, ‘about us’ page, blog and resource center is very important. Having an online store with a pleasing product page design, product catalog template that runs across all products in the online store, detailed product descriptions, how-to videos, case studies and technical brochures will surely increase your credibility.

It is important that you translate the experience and expertise you have in the products you sell in your B2B online store, onto the digital platform. Your website should reflect the kind of relationship you want to build with your potential customers. If technical know-how is an integral part of the purchase decision, make sure your website has all enough information. Including blogs, vlogs, picture, case studies all prove that you are an expert in the field. Demonstrating expertise takes you a long way. When you do a digital marketing campaign, make sure you include case studies and research papers that talk about your expertise in the related technical field.

Differentiating yourself from your competitors is very important in any kind of business. Differentiating yourself online, is a tough job.

Remember, fresh, original and expert content gets your website noticed by Google. This will help you get noticed and remembered by your customers

Hurry!

Build your B2B online store now!

Deepika Ganapathi

Responsible for Revenue generation and Enhancing User Experience in e-stores

Why is it important for you to outsource your PIM requirement?

With the advent of multiple brands and variants for a single product in both B2B and B2C, it is difficult to manage price lists, promotions and other complexities simultaneously across various countries and platforms.

The sheer volume of data necessitates the implementation of Product Information Management– PIM(PIM requirment).

The PIM system allows creation of a single source of accurate and enriched product information that can be consumed confidentially by internal and external sources within the company.

It improves the availability of information within sales teams, ecommerce channels, procurement teams inventory management, distributors, retailers and the end customers.

Benefits of PIM

Centralized data with single view of content.
Ensure data accuracy and consistency.
Availability of updated content across various channels.
Integration of data from multiple source, formats and communication channels.
Easy expansion of product catalog.
Quick export of product info for various markets and sales channels/platforms.
Easy management of content, media and digital assets.
Boosts team productivity.

There are many PIM solutions available in the market.

Choosing the right PIM for your business is crucial. Not every business requirement is alike. Though the features maybe similar across all PIM solutions, not all of them can be high on your expectation level.

Hiring a consultant who is well-versed in this area might be a wise thing to do.

Outsourcing is a means of reducing operational costs. It also means, that you would be choosing to go to an expert in the field instead of hiring a team for a seasonal time period.

Altius Technologies helps clients in choosing the right PIM for their businesses. An expert in ecommerce product data entry services (product content enrichment), Altius understands the need to be updated at all touch points.

Having partnered with InRiver and Agility Multichannel, Altius consults and implements PIM systems to various clients depending on the volume and scalability of data needed.

In conclusion, as your business grows, data is expected to grow. Keeping in mind the growth potential of your business and concentrating on your own expertise will help you guide your instincts towards choosing an expert solution provider to handle your product data and PIM solutions.

Saravanan Baskaran

Observant to enrich & generate revenue for e-stores with the right product content and other SaaS Solutions.

How to Write Epic Product Descriptions That Sell?

A detailed and well-written product description has the power to transport your customer through the sales funnel.

For B2B products, focussing on detailed tech specs and product benefits, can help customers make an informed decision.

This will also help you gain an edge over competition.

Here are a few trade secrets that you can use to keep your customers hooked to your website.

Eye for detail

While a photo of the product is important, the tech specs provides information to the customers on whether the product is the right fit for their need or not.

Giving complete information about the product persuades customers to browse through and engage in the lookout for more products in your website.

Know your customer

When you know your customer, you can predict the kind of questions he is going to come up with when he is in the look out for a specific product.

Answer these questions in your product descriptor. Answering frequently asked questions will bring down loss of potential customers to a great extent.

Should you write product description?

Firstly, ask yourself, are you well educated about the technical specification of your products?

Or are you good at selling the right product to solve your customer’s problem.

I expect your answer to be the latter.

When you are selling a B2B product, it is best advised you get the help of experts in the field. These experts have databases of products with their tech specs, that run into the minutest details.

Altius Technologies has been providing product content services to B2B distributors for more than 10years now.

Their expertise and experience in industrial tools – manufacturing, electronics, engineering, plumbing, janitorial etc., has now helped them develop an industrial tool database with more than 3Million SKU’s. They also provide a subscription model for the same.

Why go to experts for product description?

Having optimized product descriptions can help you improve your SEO rankings. Using certain keywords can help you improve your chances of ranking in Google.
Product description should be standardized across the website. Getting one expert to do the whole taxonomy, normalization, gap fill, enrichment, cleansing and catalog management of your product content can help you have a standardized website. A product description template must be followed across the website for optimal customer experience.
Go that extra mile. Beyond giving just technical specifications for your product, go that extra mile and provide description on the uses of the product. If it is compatible to other products, make sure to mention them. Giving more than the usual information as part of the product description, will help your website rank high in your customer’s consideration chart.

Conclusion

Mastering in product description requires patience, creativity and bankable data.

When you have a long list of products in your website that needs product descriptors, the wise thing to do is hire an expert.

To narrow down on the expert, look at their previous work and who they have worked with in the past. This will help you determine their quality of writing.

Looking for more information on product description for your page

Ashok V

Online R&D of e-stores, Revenue Generation Consultant

Significance of Data Cleansing

Data cleansing is an important task in every e-commerce company. When you have your products online and visitors to convert into customers, your data needs to be precise, accurate and faultless.

Data cleansing helps you achieve this. Inaccurate and repeated data is removed alongside corrections made in spelling, invalid data and misinformation.

Need for clean data

In B2B e-commerce, inaccurate data analytics leads to misguided decision making and can expose the industry to compliance issues. Since most items are bought basis requirement, the specifications need to be precise.

Data is dynamic in nature

Having said that, it is important to know how to organize and utilise data. Data cleansing helps arrange data in a way that can be accessible to anybody and everybody. Data cleansing also helps in removing duplicate entries and inaccurate data. Any update on specifications can be done on time in the right place , by anybody who has the right information.

Data that leads to the manufacturers

Product specifications online must match to the manufacturer’s specifications for the said product.

And it is very important that the specs are right. Wrong specs for a product can bring a bad image to the manufacturer. In B2B e-commerce wrongful data could cost lawsuits being filed.

Develop a framework in advance

Data cleansing is a repetitive and time-consuming job. Once the data is cleaned it needs to be stored in a secure location.

The staff should keep a complete log of the process, as to which all data went through compilation and which didn’t. If a data cleansing framework is not created in advance, the entire process will become repetitive.

Outsource your data cleansing

It is always wise to focus on what you are good at- selling industrial tools. Your team is trained to handle calls, clients and sell. You do not want to hire a team for a seasonal period. Consider an outside expert’s help to do your data cleansing.

The need for cleansing data has never been so needed by the world. Data is useless unless it is cleaned thoroughly.

Choose Altius Technologies for your Data Cleansing services

Altius has been providing top quality data cleansing services for 11 years now. Altius also does a host of data entry services.

Our data cleansing specialists can handle your requests while ensuring that the requirements are met within the expected time.

Our cost-effective services help you save considerable amount of time and money as well.

With 200+ skilled engineers in data management services, Altius boasts a 99% accuracy rate in all its 350+ projects. We also do Product Content Management/ enrichment services, PIM implementation and software services.

Govindaraj L

Responsible for Data Quality and Revenue Generation.

10 Reasons Why You Should Use SEO Practices for B2B Marketers

As a B2B Marketer, it is imperative that your presence is felt online. SEO strategies are always subject to change. This is due to a variety of factors like algorithm updates, change in user behaviour, new platforms and features, new industry findings etc.,

Here are 10 SEO best practices which would enable you to improve lead quality, build valuable relationships and gain brand exposure. Overall, looking at the data you could understand your target audience better.

1.Personalized content

Addressing your customer’s pain points is crucial in your content. In-order to direct your content, you need to think and understand your customer’s issues. Creating strategies, targeted blogs, industry news articles, webinars, product videos etc.,

2.Create High-Quality Landing Pages

How do you know that your landing page is of high quality? Look at how many people actually link to your pages and/or share them social media. If you have existing pages that generate links, replicate the strategy across all your website pages.

3.Take a Topical Approach to Keyword Research

The key is to focus on relevant topics instead of specific keywords. Learning more about the audience will help you device this.

4.Use natural language

Extensive thesaurus usage hampers understanding of the content to a large extent. Use words that are identifiable by voice recognition softwares.

5.Mobile friendliness

Make sure your design is mobile friendly. Do keep in mind, font size, multimedia content, site structure and navigation, content load times and conversion optimization while designing your website.

6.Consider chatbots to your site

Chatbots take engagement to higher level with interactive conversations with your potential customers. By looking at the chat, you could understand your customer better and work on strategies based on the learnings.

7.Social Media Matters

Today, not being an active person/company on social media is a huge negative for your brand. You will want your brand to be there amongst 1000’s of other brands and talk about current issues, solutions to problemst etc., At a bare minimum, you should be sharing content to increase your visibility, support link acquisition and gain exposure in search.

8.Infographics

Though video may be a highly influential to market your products, Infographics is the same , only that can be created faster. And the information is bang on, without a premise leading to the issues and solutions. High quality, visual information of a certain subject naturally supports and builds traffic in organic search. They also present the opportunity to be added in slide shares, blog posts and much more.

9.Optimize for Site Speed

With the introduction of AMP, Google has amplified its speed, especially in mobile devices. Slow page load times not only impacts the user experience and conversion, but also brings down rankings.

10.Keep up with change

Every industry evolves and change is constant. Keeping up with every change is crucial. Being seen is more important. Taking part in tradefairs, subscribing to industry newsletters, and keeping your clients updated with trends is very important to stay relevant.

Looking to jump-start your existing B2B Website or even create and manage a successful one?

Write to us at info@altiussolution.com and our experts will get back to you shortly.