March 2020 | Page 6 of 9 | Altius Technologies

What are the Requirements of a Modern PIM System?

You need to invest in proper technology to keep up with customer demands. You know the demands that you need to cater to, considering the shift of consumer behavior season to season.

Product Information Management, helps you organize your data and help you grow in this dynamic world.

When it comes to choosing a PIM platform for your business, you need to consider one that manages to adapt to the rapidly changing content requirements of digital channels.

With many PIM software out there, you need one that fits your needs.

Analytic Solutions Powering Modern E-Commerce

PIM is a tool meant to power modern commerce. With the already generated data like a core customer base, you can test your marketing content amongst them.

You will get to know what kind of content works, and what doesn’t. Getting real-time analytics, allows you to change things that aren’t getting a positive response.

Also, when there is a huge customer base, you tend to get insight into human behavior and purchasing patterns.

The Evolved Product Content

Using real-time analytics, helps you make a much more informed and faster decisions.

You will see that your competitors are competitive enough to use the same kind of PIM platform.

You may have to also change your product content every day because of the dynamic consumer behavior. The PIM you use should be able to integrate all the said features.

Making Data Changes

Modern PIM tools help you change data across multiple channels through a single application. This is absent in the older versions.

Modern PIM tools help you make changes according to dynamic consumer behavior, thus helping you in making faster and informed decisions.

Workflow

Syndications tools are important in all PIM applications. It helps you transfer your updated content across many people and enriching the process.

Consolidated syndication workflow helps content to be brought out to the market immediately after a change takes place, avoiding time lag. This just-in-time concept of data availability helps retail outlets make an informed decision in the buying process.

Using A Dependable Cloud Platform

To benefit from modern PIM deliverables, you need to choose the right PIM platform that offers public, private, cloud or hybrid environments.

A lack of these you could face downtime in managing your data, leading to financial losses and communication errors. Choose a platform with continuous updates with the absence of lags.

Eliminating ‘Data First’ Model

The smart thing to do is to use the PIM process to extract data from source systems to benefit high on time.

Doing the ‘Data First’ model could take you weeks to complete the task. You need to understand your PIM better to make complete and smart use of it.

Connecting everyone involved in your business is your goal here and what a modern PIM product helps you achieve.

Looking for more advice on Modern PIM’s for your business?

Saravanan Baskaran

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

Altius Technologies is proud to announce ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Certification

Focussing primarily in Product Content Management and related services, the company has been providing data and securing data from third party institutions as part of the solutions we provide.

This 2019, we saw the ISO accreditation of Altius Technologies under the ISO/IEC 27001:2013.

The certification is an internationally recognized standard that ensures to help keep the data secure with establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving an information security management system (ISMS) of the customer data and data owned by Altius within the organization.

What is ISMS?

Information Security Management System (ISMS) is a set of policies and procedures for systematically managing an organization’s sensitive data. The goal of an ISMS is to minimize risk and ensure business continuity by pro-actively limiting the impact of a security breach.

Source- https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/information-security-management-system-ISMS

ISMS in Altius focusses in the following:

Information management
Securing data of the customers’ and within the organization
Organization processes and procedures
Human Resources

Benefits of implementing

Ensuring the data security in the place
Increase in meeting an organization’s compliance requirements and standards
Increase in customer satisfaction, demonstrating that security issues are tackled in the most appropriate manner
Increase in quality of service
Process approach adoption, which helps account for all legal and regulatory requirements
More easily identifiable and managed risks
Also covers information security (IS) (in addition to IT information security)
Provides a competitive edge to an organization with the help of tackling risks and managing resources/processes

Source- https://www.techopedia.com/definition/16515/information-security-management-system-isms

What is ISO/IEC 27001:2013?

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization.

ISO 27001 is a globally recognized, internationally accepted standard to help securing the critical data owned by Altius Technologies and as well as the customer’s mandating numerous controls for the establishing, maintaining and continually improving of an Information Security Management System (ISMS).

Source- https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso-iec:27001:ed-2:v1:en

Mr. Vellayan’s vision to grow this company from a data provider to an end to end solutions expert has come along way. Today Altius handles more than 30,000 SKU’s of data services at any given point in time.

With the sheer quantity of data being handled, security of this data is given utmost importance. Following strict rules and regulations for data security, our clients have been rest assured of highest quality of data solutions from Altius Technologies.

Interested in getting to know more about our data services.

Lalitha Vadivelu

Senior Human Resources at Altius Technologies

Why Search Engine Optimization is important for B2B Distributors?

With the millennials taking over the distribution industry worldwide, their purchasing behaviour has been extremely different in comparison to their former generation.

Research is the first step of every process they do. With so much online content about everything, research has now become extremely easy to do too.. In the end they also expect an Amazon like online shopping experience for a B2B or a B2C product.

Since having an online presence has now become a mandate, you need to ask yourself how soon you can get onto the online wagon.

Usually, distributors do their research, hire an external source to get their company online. After months, he wonders, was the investment worth it. The traffic decreases bounce rate decreases, and lead flow decreases.

How do you fix this?

Bring your product at the top of the Google page!

When a buyer decides to buy a product, what does he do first?

Ans. Google it.

The right focus keyword

When a buyer researches a product, and he uses the right keyword, based on his knowledge, the options displayed will be related to the search term.

You need to make sure you understand your consumer jargon, to use the right key focus key word to relate to the query and continue the conversation.

Impact of content

Quality of content determines the ranking of the page on Google. Content plays a huge role in SEO and marketing.

The search engine ranks your website based on the website’s content. Good and detailed content attracts more traffic. Use your focus keyword as part of your content to keep the customers engaged.

Two important points to keep in mid while adding content:

Meta-Title and Description
Heading text appropriate to the focus keyword

Optimizing Online SEO

While creating your online store, imagine the kind of atmosphere and ambience the customer feels when he walks into your brick & mortar store. The same needs to be replicated in your online store.

User friendly SEOs and URLs
Convenient navigations
Good product images and videos
Detailed descriptions
Optimize webpage and website’s speed
Proper navigation
Correct headline tags
Updated sitemap
Easy checkout
Overall the best shopping experience that would persuade him for his next purchase at your e-store.

SEO for B2B Distributors

If you currently have only a brick & mortar store and looking to migrate to an online store, your first steps to consider:

Look for a suitable e-commerce platform
Create a website design plan
Create an SEO plan
Find your focus keywords
Create content with the selected focus keywords
Optimize your website for conversion

Hiring an SEO agency that specializes in SEO related content, marketing, copywriting and competitor analysis can help your website reach substantial growth.

These agencies have specialists with B2B and B2C backgrounds who would be able to understand your position better and advice you as well.

Still unclear on how to get started.

Gladys Christabel

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

Why give your B2B e-commerce website a B2C experience?

Today if you’re a B2B distributor or retailer or even a manufacturer, it is a mandate to have a website. Preferably, with all your products displayed along with their tech specs, usage information and prices, leading to a payment gateway.

Your consumer has evolved over the years. With B2C Marketing through e-commerce websites making life easy and purchases fast, people now expect the same kind of service from B2B related brands/companies as well.

Being present in the online world ultimately increases your brand image and therefore sales, assuming you have a good product to sell.

Enhances credibility

The millennials are not ready to make a purchase from a store that has no online presence. With all your competition being present online, the same is expected out of you too. Most customers today search online before they even make a visit to a physical store.

If you have a store that has no online presence, it would rank low on the customer’s search engine results. Research has shown that all customers do an online research of the company before they make the final decision to buy a certain product.

Ultimately, your online presence, only increases your brand image and ultimately sales.

Automate sales

With an online e-store within your website, you are also giving your website visitors the chance to make an immediate purchase of their necessary product.

After validating the technical specification of the product and looking at the usage and other information, customers can make immediate purchase through payment gateways within your website.

This way, there is no delay in sales. Time of purchase is not a constraint. Sales personnel is not involved and hence saves you cost. Online purchases are transparent, easy and quick.

Scalability

Having an e-commerce website helps you increase stock, provide more choices based on customer requirement, meet market demand, and open new sales channels.

Reaching out to new market segments is always a possibility with the absence of geographical constraints the online business boasts.

Customer centric experience

With B2C e-commerce setting standards to online shopping, customer centric experiences are of high demand even by B2B customers.

With the usage of B2B rich content, beautiful images , interactive designs, and basically giving a B2C look and feel to your e-commerce website could actually boost your sales considerably.

Multiple offers & discounts

With advent of many holidays through the year, the B2B e-commerce marketeer has more chances of running multiple campaigns, discounts and offers through the year.

Pushing sales with many kinds of discounts through the year, increases your brand awareness and sales. A brick & mortar shop always poses on constraint on running multiple campaigns or discounts through the year.

Improved efficiencies

Through the implementation of ERP ( any B2C CRM), and other back-end business systems, an increase in efficiency is seen in many e-commerce organizations.

Customers can order online at the convenience, make informed purchases in a matter of time.

Delay is sales is largely eliminated since a customer does his product and cost comparison online. With automated sales, payment and dispatch, the order process is considerably reduced compared to a brick & mortar store.

The absence of physical salesforce cuts down cost to a very large extent.

With B2C e- ecommerce companies setting up a benchmark in the last 2 years, B2B e-commerce companies have a lot to catch up on. Treating and behaving like a B2C e-commerce company is the first step to success.

Great products, reasonable prices, interactive websites and a to- die- for dispatch and delivery, is the right path to your online success.

Get expert advice from Altius Technologies to curate your B2B website.

Deepika Ganapathi

Responsible for Revenue generation and Enhancing User Experience in e-stores at Altius Technologies.

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5 Signs Your Enterprise Needs a Robust PIM Platform

Today, PIM plays an important role in the final decision-making stage in the consumer’s buying experience. The Product Information Management, aka, PIM, adds value to customer experience by delivering accurate and consistent data, thus generating revenue. A superior PIM software provides an omnichannel experience and a seamless integration and availability of product information across multiple channels.

There are a multitude of open source PIM platforms available today.

Here are 5 significant signs to look out for, to see if your company is in dire need of a robust PIM.

Spreadsheets is old school

Major drawback of working with spreadsheet is the lack of synchronization.

With the lack of a centralized platform, data entry & type of data entry will tend to vary depending on the individual at that point in time working with the company.

The old school way of product documentation and sharing is thus inaccurate, obsolete and inconsistent.

Dynamic product data

Products get updated all the time. Hence product content also needs updating. Handling millions of products and constant updating requires manpower on the job constantly.

They monitor, track and record all data transactions and filter out wrong data.

This tedious job affects the productivity of the employees. With the time and energy wasted on this, there is a loss of revenue as well.

Customer service calls

When wrong data is circulated across all systems, the customer too looks at wrong data and buys the product. Once the product is delivered he realises that this product doesn’t fit his need.

Unhappy customers give bad feedback, leading to poor customer experience. This will effect your brand and revenue ultimately.

From inventory management, to order placement, to order processing and ultimately delivery, if you are unable to govern and check data quality at every step, you will not be able to convert potential customers smoothly – or worse, lose the existing ones.

Wrong decision calls

With wrong data floating in the system, decisions are hampered at every touch point. The relationship between data quality, and decision accuracy is tightly knit together.

The departments entrusted with the strategy-making for the company’s future will rely on data to make these decisions. When the data itself is wrong, the decisions also do not serve any purpose. Wrong data does not point you in the right direction.

Historical data and current data is mighty useful in learning buying patterns, cost breakdown & predictive analysis amongst many more.

Geographical management of data

When your brand/store is big and covers many geographical locations, using a PIM makes more sense.

Managing spreadsheets across various departments, spread across locations with the content being updated constantly, the human is bound to make an error. This can be especially challenging when the sales teams are handling the clients directly face2face.

The volume and consumption of data has increased to great lengths in the last couple of years.

In the age of digital transformation high quality, accurate , standardized, properly formatted data is necessary for you to have a competitive advantage over other retailers.

Using a PIM, helps you manage SKU numbers, description, pricing, images and much more product information across many channels. Altius Technologies specializes in setting up the right PIM for businesses.

For a free consultation about setting up your PIM.

Saravanan Baskaran

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

How Artificial Intelligence will be helpful for B2B Marketers/Distributors?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grown in leaps and lengths in the last few years. Though B2C marketers were the first to use AI in their marketing efforts, B2B marketers are not too far behind.

Let us see the emerging B2B marketing trends in the area of AI.

Digital Marketing using AI

Businesses are forced to adopt evolving marketing trends to survive and be relatable to the end consumer. Using AI in digital marketing strategies, will lead the way this 2020.

The influence of AI can be seen in machine learning and automation of smarter B2B campaigns. Since B2C has been using AI to learn consumer behaviour, the same can be applied by B2B as well.

Marketers can use AI to map consumer behaviour and draw parallels to their marketing campaigns. With social media being thrown into this mix, the results would be extremely beneficial to B2B marketers.

Lead generation

With the advent of social media, the use of AI has only maximised. AI tools can instantly analyse huge sets of data, in search patterns, and find inconsistencies and opportunities.

By considering past learning, the conclusion and prediction accuracy is high. Hence, AI has high chances of identifying a B2B customer, at the same time also suggesting how to reach out to him.

Integration of AI in the sales process will only increase lead conversion. As a great time-saver, with the help of AI , sales teams can concentrate on other areas of business.

Digital marketing industry, by 2023, will spend almost 25.1 billion USD on automation tools. Also, 79% of top-performing companies are already leveraging AI-based marketing automation tools, thereby leading to a 10% bump in revenue in only 6-9 months.

Automating marketing processes

By embedding AI in CRM databases, tasks like cold- calling, cold-emailing, answering customer tickets can all be automated.

Research proves that 80% of the sales force’s time is spent in carrying out monotonous activities, that can be prevented with the inclusion of AI in their respective CRM.

SEO rankings

The use of SEO in B2B companies cannot be stressed further. If you don’t rank in Google, all is lost for your company. With Google being responsible for 94% of internet traffic, it only makes sense to be present in the search engine results.

Businesses must try to rank in the first page of the search engine results, since research shows that 75% of the users do not go further than the first page.

With AI’s use of website and keyword analysis, high ranking SEO words will be suggested. AI can also audit your website and provide suggestions on word inclusions across the site for better ranking SEO.

It can also make changes to your content for better optimization. With the use of AI’s machine learning capability, we see great potential for business growth.

Personalization

Customers have greater affinity towards personalized emails targeted to them specifically. AI can increase relevancy of email , messages and ads based on specific sets of data.

AI can carry out email campaigns, ads and pop-up messages to market specific industrial tools and services to those in needs. The potential of personalization for B2B clientele is virtually endless for AI.

Most of the above-mentioned tricks and trades are already in practice in some B2B companies.

Where as SME’s are yet to adopt AI based marketing tools. Considering the usage of AI in B2B companies’ marketing strategies, choosing t will be the right choice for those who believe in evolving their B2B companies to sustain and stay relatable in the future.

Get a free audit of your B2B company’s website and see if you can be AI friendly now.

Sulak B

eCommerce Strategist helping with effective eStore Product Data and increase conversions at Altius Technologies.

Why eCommerce for Small and Medium Enterprises?

In the last few years, e-commerce has become one of the most preferred means of shopping. Be it B2C or B2B, customers have been spoilt for choice, price comparisons and delivery of products at their doorstep.

E-commerce has revolutionized the sales for small and medium enterprises. With geographical location not being an issue anymore, sales have seen an upward swing in the last couple of years, thanks to e-commerce.

Just like that, online shopping has now become more quick, convenient and more user-friendly.

If you are an SME and wondering if B2B e-commerce is the right way for you, there are a few things you need to consider:

Financial implications- Do you have what it takes to provide your customers an end to end online shopping experience.

Skilled IT Personnel team– To run an online store, you need a team of IT personnel to keep it up and running.

Operation architecture- Decide on your operating model architecture. From where you would source, store and sell your products. Operational structure is the foundation for the success of your e-store.

Risk-taker- Even if your e-store has the right products, product content, and in enriched with SEO keywords, it will still take time for a complete turnaround. So don’t lose hope. You may have to wait it out.

Management/board support- Without the collaborative effort from each member of your team, no store or e-store can be successful. If even one member does not comply with your thought and ideas related to e-store investment, you may have a problem brewing there for the future.

Legal assistance- Make sure you hire a lawyer to draft your sales policies and partnership policies if any. You do not want future customers dragging you to court for a faulty product or service.

Technology research to stay updated- Make sure you have done enough research product wise and technology wise in the market. You do not want to be out-dated as soon as you launch. Being up-to-date is key in managing a successful e-store.

Physical Infrastructure-Make sure you have the physical infrastructure needed to run an e-store. You will still need an office space for your small member teams to operate from or even a warehouse to store your products.

Government rules & policies- Every country has s different policy towards managing their internet accessibility and online sales. Make sure you adhere to the rules and regulations put out by the government.

Choosing the right e-commercesolution- Though this may sound as the most important of the 10 step check list, this is the most taken-for granted point by many start-ups.

Make sure your have an inbuilt software algorithm to map customer behaviour. This will help you understand consumer behaviour better. Recording the purchase journey of every customer will give you unfiltered access to insights that can be used for making future strategic decisions.
Categorization of products, creation of promotional email, targeted email campaigns etc., should be carried out in seasonally. Make sure the solution’s architecture supports this.
Some products’ demands may peak during certain times of the year. The solution you opt for should be able to handle these sudden demands.
The solution should be scalable enough to increase product numbers or be open to any upgrades in the years to come.
Make sure your solution provides a seamless buying experience for your customers. Given that B2C is now taking precedence and making a benchmark in online shopping, make sure the B2B shopping experience you provide is close enough to a B2C seasoning and sophistication.

Yes, there are many benefits in choosing the B2B e-commerce way.

Such as,

Low operating budget- Running an e-commerce store is much more financially viable compared to running a brick and mortar store. Consider the expenditure you would be shedding for the physical store itself, along with the sales force and operating cost.

Having an e-store, you only need a small office space, with the right technical people to run the show.

Increased ROI- With the absence of geographical limitations, the revenue you are bound to generate from an e-store is no comparison to a brick and mortar store.

You can capture new audiences everyday with the written feedback from your old and happy customers. With e-store functioning 24/7, you are open to different times zones and holidays all year long.

Social media Recommendation-With the boom of social media, customers happy with your product and service talk about their experience in social media platforms like Facebook, twitter, Pintrest, LinkedIn, Instagram and more.

This is an added advantage against the biggies in the industry, who usually do not have their customer recommendations working for them.

Learning consumer behaviour- In a mom & pop shop, small businesses are forced to assume and speculate over the purchase journey of a customer. With no fixed data to support his findings, he hovers around pre-conceived notions usually from big players in the same industry.

Having an e-store, with the right software algorithm in-built, helps you understand consumer behavior. How much time a specific consumer spends on a product, what he reads, which page he goes to, how much time he spends on a page, so on and so forth.

The insights are extensive and proves beneficial in making strategic choices for the future.

Larger marketing ROI- After saving so much cost, all that money can be diverted to marketing your e-store. Advertising worldwide, online or offline, you can drive customers to your e-store.

You can also create targeted marketing messages to specific customers, based on their behavioural data collected by your e-store whilst they were browsing through their purchase journey.

There are so many reasons pointing towards e-commerce being the next big idea you are going to work on for your SME’s lifecycle.

Make sure you hire a consultant who can help you lead the way.

For more queries and a free consult, Get in touch with us, Altius Technologies

Sulak B

eCommerce Strategist helping with effective eStore Product Data and increase conversions at Altius Technologies.

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Why Distributors Need to Think More Like E-Commerce Companies?

According to a survey conducted by Accenture, 86% of US-based B2B companies with over 500Million USD in annual returns have already implemented e-commerce solutions as part of their offerings. If you haven’t realized this yet, now is the time to wake up, before you miss the bus.

The emergence of e-commerce in the last 5years has made a drastic change in consumer behavior and expectations.

Since we can assume that our B2B customer will also be at some point a B2C customer, his needs- satisfaction scale has a higher benchmark today.

In order to sustain in the market and stay relevant to customers, many B2B marketers are forced to emulate ‘the thought’ and ‘digital ideas’ that have helped e-commerce companies provide a successful customer experience (CX), Omnichannel experience, provide a mobile-optimized site and having a 24/7 sales team and support.

Behold the growth of B2B eCommerce.

Need for Online Presence

Absence in the online world is good enough to be considered non-existent. If you want to survive this digital age you need to build your online website capable of making sales.

If this wasn’t enough, you also need to make sure that you are ‘approachable’.

Meaning- a seamless customer experience through easy navigation and easy to the eye designs across the site. Also, make sure you have the right content for every product you display.

As a distributor, if your competitive edge consists of your services, on-time delivery, and other value-added services, make sure you mention it on your home page. You need to stand out in the crowd.

Build Customer Trust

A first -time customer will always hesitate to buy a product. But by looking at the design and how you have marketed yourself on your home page, the customer may be inclined to go and view your products.

But, if you have done a sloppy job of providing low-res images and insufficient product content, the customer will exit your page immediately.

Hence, to avoid this blunder, make sure you provide accurate product content, tech specs, and also guidance notes, that would help the customer understand the other uses of a specific product. These qualifiable guidance notes might just take you to the home stretch.

Effective SEO

Today it’s all about SEO.

Search Engine Optimized keywords are KEY in writing product content. If your content words are not going to come up when somebody searches for a product, what use is your online presence.

Some B2B companies, use SEO keywords in writing their blogs & whitepapers. Google’s algorithm is much more likely to show a useful page than an e-commerce product page.

How do you do this?

Put yourself in your buyer’s shoes.

Imagine the toughest questions he may have for which you have the answers. Create a blog around this and publish it. Using effective SEO will help increase your B2B e-commerce sales.

Digital Upselling

As a brick and mortar distributor, your sales team will be in the habit of up-selling products to customers, claiming a future need that they may have. The same can be done in the digital world too.

Send email blasts– personalized your email blasts to customers who may need a specific product. Use limited language. Use a solution based content to get the maximum effect of your email.

Personalize suggested content– With the use of many tools online, you can reach out to your customer browsing your webpage with recommendations that you think he might like.

Digital Customer Service Acess

With e-commerce, some unlucky customers may have issues with drop shipments, or breakage of products during shipment.

Make sure you have a team to deal with this. Your customer needs to know that you understand his unhappiness and you are here to fix it. Bottom line- retain your customers. Do not lose him to the competition.

Increase Customer Service Accessibility Online

There are many tools online that one can use to create a chat screen or raise a ticket for issues.

The former tools can be placed as part of your home page, giving your customer easy accessibility to your sales & service team when he has a doubt or issue to be sorted.

Integrate your Systems

Small or big, you must unify all your information for better data management. This also helps in digital marketing and customer service efforts. Integrating all your information will save you unnecessary headaches and build long-lasting customer relationships.

Choosing the right CRM is key here.

Many world-famous B2B e-commerce companies known for their free drop shipping have implemented CRM for a seamless flow of information throughout the company.

Listen up Distributors

You are not the only B2B distributor in town. Certainly not in the online world either. The millennials go online, choose their requirement and get it shipped to them in a matter of minutes.

The whole sales process is completed in less than half the time needed in a brick & mortar store. If your standards and services do not meet the customer benchmark, you may lose to your competition.

It is very important to start alert, ahead and aware of your customer’s needs and choices.

Bringing out your very own e-commerce store is the need of the hour! Having said that, you also need to go that extra mile to satisfy your customers in every possible way from service offerings, product offerings and after-sales help to retain and build your customer loyalty online.

Choosing an entity/agency to handle your website requirements would be the smart thing to do.

Altius Technologies has helped many B2B distributors, set up their e-commerce store with a unique and flawless seamless design.

Govindaraj L

Responsible for Data Quality and Revenue Generation at Altius Technologies

Why outsource your e-commerce catalog management?

As an e-commerce retailer, you would very well understand how important it is to have a detailed product description and tech specs for all your products. Considering the plethora of products, you are dealing with, keeping up with updated information is a challenge.

The information is becoming redundant and managing this data becomes a time-consuming and costly affair.

Below are the challenges that you face when it comes to managing your e-commerce product catalog.

Constant Product Updation

With new products coming up every day and old products being refurbished, it is necessary you have updated product content for all your products at any given time.

You may end up setting up a team just to handle this everyday chaos. Instead, invest in an outsourced team that could be on a constant lookout for product updation.

By doing so you can concentrate on expanding your venture and focussing on marketing, operations, branding and customer relations.

Providing an Omnichannel Experience

Every seller would agree that if you are selling your products at multiple market places, the biggest challenge is listing the products simultaneously.

The main challenge is that every site has its own specification that it requires you to adhere to.

When you try to fit your product information as per the required marketplace’s framework, you are bound to miss out on some critical information about the product.

This will in-turn hurt your reputation and hurt the customer’s decision-making process.

Most sellers do not understand that there might be an easier way to display all the product information consistently across all marketplaces, thus making sure all the required information is intact.

Expert agencies focus on creating such detailed information that sellers can use.

Hiring these experts could help you in your marketplace listings.

The Right Supplier Data

If you are a re-seller, you should know how important it is to get the right supplier data.

More importantly, publish the supplier’s data. Most suppliers hand over products to re-sellers with bare minimum information about the product.

There are sometimes even spelling errors in this information shared

This nuisance needs to be fixed by the re-seller. He knows that by showcasing minimum or errored information will take a toll on his sales and company’s brand value.

Finding a way to dodge this bullet could be helpful in the long run.

Maintaining Data Quality

It is difficult to maintain data quality when you are dealing with millions of products, across multiple channels and working with supplier data.

Your product information can have wrong spellings, wrong information, wrong descriptions or even attributes.

Managing all this information on Excel can be an overwhelming experience.

You need to understand that Excel was not built for catalog management. You need to look out for robust content management tools to manage this amount of data.

You will also end up employing a team to handle this amount of information. Their sole purpose of work would be only constant updation with the right information.

This might not prove beneficial in the long run.

You will be wasting your time and money on something that can be outsourced, thus saving both time and money.

Choosing experts to deal with this amount of information could prove beneficial to you.

Centralize your Information- PIM

If there is one thing that you have learned in all this Gyan, is that centralizing your information holds the key to proper catalog management.

Choosing the right PIM according to the kind of data you currently have and the option of scalability every PIM could offer should be kept in mind before investing in a PIM solution.

The painful process of searching products for updating their related information across multiple channels, could be easily avoided using the right PIM.

The right PIM would have you update only at one point and share that information across multiple internal and external channels.

Do you see yourself facing all the above-mentioned problems day to day?

Are you looking for advice on selecting the right PIM?

We can help you.

Ravinthar R

Asses e-stores and recommend revenue-generating SaaS solutions from Altius Technologies.

How to boost your Christmas sales using Marketing Tips?

With 20% of annual sales is connected to the Christmas period, brands and retailers optimize their marketing spends around this time.

If one doesn’t do so, there is always the risk of losing customers to more aggressive players. Here are a few pointers to boost your e-commerce Christmas sale.

1. Create a sense of urgency

Though this may sound very B2C, creating a sense of urgency like ‘one 2 left in stock’ surprisingly increases sales.

Many popular B2C marketplaces use this tactic. This should prove useful to a B2B e-store owner as well.

2. Get in touch with old customers

A happy customer is always a good customer. Reminding an old customer from your database through email, on the products he purchased and the value- added services you provided, will jog his memory.

Sending a personal wish along with a discount coupon around the Christmas feel, or just updating them on the new stock you are selling now, will give your old customers a good feeling about you.

Managing your brand health at any time of the year, is key for sales.

3. Do not over-concentrate your budget around the Christmas dates

Research shows that although search volume and clicks go up during the cyber weekend a significant percentage of shoppers don’t convert until the following week.

Hence, it is advisable to spread your budget through the cyber week, leading upto Christmas.

This will help you convert higher-intent shoppers who are ready to make the final purchase, based on the research they had done the previous week.

4. Offer free shipping on selected items

Research shows that a vast majority of shoppers look for free shipping instead of discounts on products. In-order to capitalize on this incentive, draw a formula around the products your sell.

I am sure, you would have products in your stock, that have a high retail value, but low shipping costs.

You can offer free shipping on such products for a limited period. IF this does not work out, offer free shipping to those who make a minimum dollar purchase.

5. Use popular keywords

SEO forms a base to a multitude of searched items on the internet.

Make sure you use popular keywords in your e-store’s content to get maximum hits.

Use relevant and popular keywords. Plan your Christmas marketing strategy around these optimized keywords.

6. Referral program

Using a referral program with a code to happy customers, is a great way to increase your customer base.

Satisfied customers are bound to share this code with family and friends, thus increasing your potential sales for the holiday season.

This is a great way to increase your sales and profits without much thought.

7. Social Media strategy

The power of social media is limitless. Identify social media channels that get maximum number of ‘your kind of visitors’.

Next, plan an e-commerce marketing strategy in a social media platform and communicate what needs to be heard.

Appealing to your target audience in the right environment in key to doing great marketing.

Make sure your profile and all communications has the ‘Christmas feeling’ to it. Imagery, content and the design should all shout out, ‘Merry Christmas’!

8. Using the right content

We all know that Christmas is often an excuse to buy new things. Target people who believe in this by using keywords like ‘Christmas Deals’, ‘Holiday shopping deals’, ‘Must buy Christmas gifts’ etc.

Your content should excite and educate your target audience. Your content should drive your target audience to your website.

Beyond that they are free to make an informed decision on their own.

9. Your special customers get special rewards

Many B2C retailers have now started to attract and keep their special/high profit customers happy by showcasing deals before everybody else gets to see. The same can be applied in B2B aswell.

Contact your sharks and make sure they get codes, coupons and limited access deals to products unlike the usual customers.

Using this tactic, helps you get your word-of-mouth marketing going amongst similar customers and you also make sure your sharks are happy.

10. Stock up!

You need to stock up well before December. Make sure you get the right warehouse and shipping third party details to send out stock as and when the purchase is made.

All this, so that you do not want to put up ‘ Out of stock’ against some products.

If you know that there is going to be demand for a certain kind of product, make sure you stock some extra.

When you are unable to deliver goods that are purchased, it reflects bad on you and your brand. Don’t let that happen!

11. Bundle up products

Give your users the power of choice. When you bundle up products that could together give your customer a massive discount over and above the holiday discount, he is sure to clear some products from your warehouse.

Bundle up products that you think may serve the similar purpose or go together as a set. This is a tactical way to push inventory and save shipping costs.

12. Customer reviews

Research shows that at least 85% of online shoppers consider, product feedback and customer reviews before making the final purchase decision.

In this holiday rush, people are bound to be reading customer feedback on products before doing their research on other brands’ of products.

Make sure your have positive feedback and appealing customer reviews to enable positive purchase decisions.

13. Seamless shopping experience

Make sure your product pages are updated with the right product content, High-res images are uploaded and of course your webpage loads effortlessly on a desktop or on a mobile device.

Make sure there are no broken pages.

Providing an easy to navigate and informed e-store increases to chances of purchase from visitors. Remember, customer engagement is key!

The above mentioned are mere ideas.

Ideas brought to life, increases your profits. As an online seller, make sure you hire the right team to get the job done.

You are one whole month ahead of the holiday season.

Make sure your e-store is Christmas ready this 2019, by partnering with Altius Technologies.

Providing end to end solutions for e-stores, Altius can help you with data enrichment, catalog management, e-store designs, payment gateways, thus — increasing profits this holiday season.

To know more,