How does a Product Attribute Scheme Design work as a competitive advantage?

Steve Jobs very well quoted “design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation”.

Product attributes refer to physical features, quality and design of a product that helps to attract customers to make a purchase. Physical nature, uses and benefits of the product, makes it unique and different from other competitive products in the market. Attributes include size, color, price, flavor etc., product attribute differs from product to product. For example, attributes which affects food product selection are taste, price, nutritional value and flavor. On the other hand durable products like shoes are influenced by cost, brand, color, usage, quality and durability.

Product attribute scheme design helps in describing your products, based on an understanding of your users. Designers study consumer behaviour – how the customers are making decisions about purchasing products. This will help them to design the product as per consumer taste. If the consumer gets what they are searching then they will end the purchasing cycle by purchasing the product.

Need for Product Attribute Scheme Design :

  A poor product attribute design has a very bad impact on your e-commerce business. Customers find difficulty in searching for your product due to poor product attribute this will lead to low sales and low conversion rate. For example, if visitors are coming to your landing page and leave the site before purchasing your product, it may be because they do not see the specified details that would help them choose the product they want. If customers cannot find what they need, they will move on to your competitor’s site. Such type of customer behaviour reveals which attribute needs to be given priority in the scheme design. Correct attribute design requires expert advice on user experience, PIM and taxonomy.

Competitiveness :

Products that are similar, usually are the products that are competing with one another. For example shampoo bottle. The goal of product attribute is to impress consumer enough that they pick your product over the rest. In order to stay competitive, a company needs to take it one step further and actually convince the customer to purchase their shampoo over the other shampoos. This is where companies need product attribute scheme designs by making the product look attractive, add some creative slogans and highlight the quality which other products can’t offer. To seal the deal – companies might offer competitive price, making their product simply irresistible.

Changes :

Changing product labels, and offering great price doesn’t always attract customer to buy your product. We live in a dynamic world, everything keeps on changing, so are the demands of the consumers. One year consumer may like shampoo that enhances the 9shiny texture of their hair, next year they may like a product that adds volume and increases the length of their hair. A successful product design, make changes quickly to adapt to the new customers demand. To be a competitive product attribute scheme design, need to keep up with the growing trends. To reap the benefits of the competitive market, your product attribute scheme should be more creative, add new varieties to your products, of course, competitive price is a must.

Advantages of Product Attribute Scheme Design:

  • Product attribute scheme design works as a competitive advantage as it helps you to know the changes in the consumer demand and accordingly to make changes.
  • Secondly attribute scheme helps in designing the product that matches with consumer expectations.
  • A good attribute scheme design, differentiate the company’s product with other products giving the company a competitive edge.
  • Product attribute scheme design helps in improving profit margins by increasing sales and also increases your market share.
  • A well product attribute scheme helps in easy manufacturing and distributing the products.

Conclusion : 

Product attribute helps you to identify gaps in the market, areas for improvement in product development and methods to better serve your target market to boost your sales. Consistency in attribute scheme across the entire product range will improve the customer experience leading to increased conversions and sales. Excellent product attribute scheme design is a gateway to business success. A well-designed product attribute will help you in exploring your organization’s capabilities.

Tips for prioritizing Product Content Enrichment

People are adopting online shopping like never before and the global eCommerce market size is expected to grow very high in the coming years. Current technology trends and accessibility have made it possible for every business to create an eCommerce platform in no time and start selling. As the demand for online shopping is increasing, it is necessary to see that your eCommerce site is functioning well enough.

Sometimes you may find that the content on your product page is inconsistent, lacks certain important information or deficiency in description. The product content is not optimizing your search engine ranking. Comparatively, with other websites, you may find that your website is lacking visual content, multiple product images etc. This is the time that you have to improve the quality of your online product content. If you are dealing with hundreds of SKUs (stock keeping units), the resources at your disposal may not be sufficient to enrich product data for every single product you a stock or sell.

Here are the ways to prioritize your product data enrichment for a better search engine ranking and enhancing your customers experience –

#1. 80/20 rule :

It is also known as “Pareto’s principle”. This rule is applicable in many fields like sports, health care, business etc. Applying it to the business world, the 80/20 rule suggests that 80% of your company sales come from 20% of your customers. In the sales and marketing sector, you can use the 80/20 rule as a guide with highly effective business solutions.

The main question, that most of the businesses are facing is – how to identify 20% of their main customers in order to make a marketing strategy, to achieve 80% of the result with minimum cost. Your online site may have hundreds or thousands of contacts on your product list. Keep a close watch on which customers made a recent purchase, who are frequent buyers, which ones were generous in their purchases. Which products are more in demand? Identify the 20% of your products that drive 80% of your eCommerce sales and make these products fully enriched.

#2. Customer focus:

It is important to know, which user behaviour will end up the cycle by purchasing your product. Many eCommerce websites are launched only for such selected customers who are generous in their purchase. In such cases, you can enrich those products content that is more applicable to those customers. By focusing on the products they purchase, you can increase the value of your eCommerce site and also enhance user experience.

#3. Enrich core product :

The essential products which define your brand and provide value to your eCommerce website, such products are best to choose and enrich the product content of those core products.

#4. New product launches :

When you are planning to launch a new product, make sure that your new product has relevant, current and high-quality content. Enrich your new product page with engaging and informative content, because in digital marketing ‘content is the king’.

#5. Seasonal products :

If your Online store is dealing with seasonal products, make sure that during that season your product page should be enriched with the rich and current content of the product. Since it’s a seasonal product, every season new feature will be added to your product. For example ceiling fans, refrigerators. These products are out every season with some newly added feature. Make sure you highlight your product page with that particular feature.

#6. Gated eCommerce :

If your website is accessible by only restricted or selected customers than those product pages should be enriched with relevant and informative content. For instance, I-phones are launched every year with some newly added version, so your content must have that current feature of your product, so that you can target the gated customers.

#7. Gap filling :

Identify weak points of your product content. Sometimes your product content has an insufficient description of your product then you have to enrich your content with relevant and current information about your product. For instance, if your product page is without images than you can add product images and can make it more engaging.

Pull up:

Prioritizing product content aims to boost more sales and increased revenue. Google analytic helps in identifying products with low online conversion rates. Once you identify the products – you can enrich the content of those products, helping you to increase conversion. Similarly, PIM also helps you in improving the quality and consistency of your product page, by enriching the content with more images, visual information and current eye-catching trends. Engaging content will attract buyers and convert them into online sales.

What is Product Information Management [PIM] for eCommerce

ECommerce businesses can have a massive amount of product data, including descriptions, measurements and inventory. A product data management system organizes and regulates this product data making it uniform and easily accessible.PDM system also makes it users friendly and available to customers as they browse your website.

Product information management is commonly known as PIM. It is a process of collecting and managing all the needed information from descriptions to images and more- about a given product in one central place. As updating of product information is possible through PIM, the efficiency of product information can be increased. PIM also facilitates to add new products to your online platforms. It ensures that your customers have to access to the right information about your products when they are ready to purchase.

Information stored by PIM :

PIM solutions store all the required information on the product, including description, taxation, composition, technical information, hardware versions and other types of information. It also store rich media files such as images, videos. The list of product information management tool depends on the particular business needs and can vary significantly.

When to use PIM :

  • There’s a need for data rich information.
  • You have multiple suppliers and source of distribution.
  • PIM is very useful when price and product catalog has to be updated frequently. 

When not to use PIM :

  • If you use one platform or one distribution channel.
  • Number of products your store is dealing with is very less.
  • If you are working with one or two manufacturers.
  • If your product doesn’t need rich data description. Less information of the product gives a clear picture to your customer. 

Key take aways :   

  1. PIM facilitates your brand awareness and provides excellent customer experience which in turn increases your sales and revenue. 
  2. Having a quality PIM platform is a major step towards creating omni channels consistency.
  3. PIM is a part of master data management.

Benefits of PIM for your eCommerce business :

#1. Establishes a single source for product information:

PIM exports the primary records of your products quickly to your eCommerce website, market place and social media shops. Any corrections, updates, or adjustments made in records, will automatically be done by PIM across all platforms and sales channels.

#2. Go to market faster :

whether you’re launching a new product or sales channel , you are in the market is determined once you start generating revenue. Automatic workflow reduces the need for manual data entry. Allowing team to launch and maintain new products and sales channel faster.

#3. Improves quality and consistency of product data : 

Incorrect or incomplete product data will not only reduce your sales but also the user’s experience. PIM facilitates you to edit, add and review data in one system you will improve the quality and consistency of your product data. Any changes made in the PIM system can be published across your eCommerce platform. Your accurate, up to date information will help you build brand image of your product.

#4. Creates more effective marketing strategies :

customers experience which the co provides is as important as its products and services. In this era customers using multiple channels, it is important that customer experience across different channel should be unified. PIM by establishing one source for your product data will allow you to enhance the user experience, by providing accurate and current information of your product at every step of the purchasing process.

Conclusion:

PIM centralizes product information for all other business applications. Product data pushed through PIM to multiple storefronts and sales channels providing the richest shopping experience possible. You can add selected products directly to your eCommerce from your PIM system and reuse product data and attributes from your PIM system in your eCommerce to save valuable time and money. Thus PIM can help grow and optimize your eCommerce business.

Which solution is best for managing your Product Data?

The growth and long term success of e-commerce business depends on effective product data management solutions. Product data management [PDM] is a structural approach to help control, access and share large quantities of crucial data, that provides significant value to your business. It is important and tedious to maintain and manage this product information.

What is data management ?

Data management is the process of collecting, storing and using data efficiently, securely and cost effectively. The main objective of PDM is to collect and connect data from different sources and use it efficiently during decision making.

Effective data management is a combination of best practices, processes procedures with the help of effective tools, to control and manage data resources effectively. Today’s data managers need a system that is versatile enough to meet all of their employees access needs with full data security.

Tools for effective data management:

#1. Users tracking and analysis tools :

Customers surveys or interviews are valuable tools in their own way. They will tell you only what your customers say and think and help you analyze what those customers actually do

      But the users tracking and analysis tool  intelligently  gives you an insight- how your user or your website visitors are actually engaging with your product and your content. Tools like pendo or amplitude can uncover important realities about what is good or inspires your users and what is not. Companies like Accenture use Amplitude and companies like Atricem use the Pendo tool.

#2. Road mapping software tool :

Road mapping tool is used for project planning, progress tracking, activity coordination and team collaboration. This software is a must on any list of product management tools. Best example for a road mapping software tool is product plan. 

 Product plan is a great tool for managers who prefer to create an overview of their project. It allows us to create road maps quickly and easily. It communicates plans for future work to the team and builds up a consistent and standardized work process. 

#3. Customers survey tools :

Through customers survey tools  you can send the survey out to your customers and easily track and analyze the results. For gathering quick answers to important user questions, these tools are extremely helpful.

Web based survey tools like survey monkey or type form, have so many types of pre-formatted questions that whether you want to offer multiple-choice questions, drop down lists or just open comment fields. These tools help you to do surveys in minutes. Even emails, online surveys are easy, convenient and inexpensive that it can be tempting but they may upset your UX if not executed properly.

#4. Recording app for customer’s interview:

When you speak on the phone with customers for some queries, it’s always a great idea to record a call. You never know when a customer will offer a valuable insight like why they are using your product. Tools like, Go To meeting or zoom makes it easy to record those conversations and references them later.

Go To meeting provides a fast, easy and reliable professional online meeting solution that enables customers to meet face to face and communicate virtually. Zoom brings teams together in a frictionless and secure video environment. This platform provides video meetings, webinars on all devices. 

#5. Team messaging tools :

With the outbreak of pandemic, a lot of people started working from home. These business messaging tools helped teams to stay in touch and stay productive even if they can’t come to the office. When your product data starts giving trouble or gets underway, you will want an easy and immediate means of communicating. There are certain tools that allow easy and centralized team communication. Slack and confluence are best examples for team messaging tools.

Slack is a channel based messaging platform. With slack, people can work together more effectively, connect all their software tools and services and find the information that they need to do their best work-all within a secure environment. Confluence is a collaboration tool that helps teams to collaborate and share knowledge, data efficiently.

#6. Flow charting tools :

Creating a customer journey map is helpful in giving your company a clear view of your customers full experience with your company. Journey maps focus specifically on UX of using your product. It shows all the main points of the visitors, from the first visit to your website till purchasing and using your product.

Flowcharting tools like Microsoft Visio and OmniGraffle help in mapping out the specific aspects of users’ experience with your product. These flow-chart tools help you to uncover insight and helps you to develop your future strategies through your product road map.

#7. Product management tools :

Product management tools help to simplify the tracking and documenting details. For example Trello is visually appealing and is known for its fun use of cards, lists and boards. Trello is easy, free and flexible to manage your projects in an organized way. Gantt chart is an open source software that allows its users to identify problem areas in the workflow. Another PM tool is Jira. It’s excellent for team collaboration. This tool helps you track and monitor the entire product creation process. Jira can be used on a server, a data center platform and in the cloud. Other popular project management tools include Microsoft project, Pivotal Tracker will help you to execute on your road map and keep your backlog organized.

#8. Presentation software tools :

Tools like PowerPoint, Google slides and keynote can all be used to create presentations. You can make your presentation more engaging by including images, creating movements. Vision decks for example can be a powerful way of communicating your product vision to your clients/customers and earning their buying decision.

Conclusion :

While there are many tools out there to handle different products management requirements, the choice of product management tool/software depends upon your specific needs. Product management users must use the right product management tools and product management software. There are many product management tools and product management software that you can try first, before moving on to paid ones.

Guidelines for improving your website’s user experience

Your website is the most powerful tool for online marketing. It is your salesman 24/7 at your disposal. A business website can leave a lasting impression on a customer, whether good or bad depends on a lot of factors.

       When you open and see Google Analytics, you see that people are visiting your website, but they aren’t doing what they are supposed to. Your website didn’t create much of an impact on their minds. If you put consistent effort into improving the users experience [UX] of your website than everything will flow smoothly and can enhance conversion ratio. 

What is UX ?

Digital trends are rapidly changing and can make your website feel old and outdated. To overcome this challenge, there are some ways and tips to improve your UX, to make it more helpful and useful. UX is the process of increasing user satisfaction, by improving the usability, accessibility and efficiency of user with the website. A good UX means :  * The user visited your website.

  • Scrolled through different pages.
  • Understood what the website is all about and
  • Finally got what they wanted.

Tactics to improve your website’s user experience

      A visitor is always on your website with a mission. Now it is up to you- how easy you make it for them to accomplish that mission. So here are the tactics that will improve your website UX and help users find the products more easily.

#1. Have a plan :

Now that you know that your site needs some improvements, it’s time to work to tackle them. Start research your customers journey from the time they visited your website to the moment they became a customer. While doing research, think about which pages they are going to view, what content they would like to read, what offers will convert them into customers. Understanding these things will help you to design your website accordingly. Knowing the needs of the customer, will help you know the key points of your website and can make changes accordingly.

#2. Simplify your design :

To have best UX, your website should be clean, in proper order and clutter free. Visually your website should be simple, as it will be easily understood by the user. Web visitor usually visit website to seek answers and not for creativity. So avoid complicating the website with designs. When you want a particular action to be taken by a visitor coming to your site, make your site hassle free with less clutter. Every page should have a single goal. The check out page for instance, contains only what is needed for the process of checkout.   

#3. Interactive content :

Using interactive content will make your site design fun and drive engagement. 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. High quality and informative content boosts the UX and in driving massive traffic to the site. So it is well said “content is king”. To enhance the UX try adding videos, games, quizzes. Make your content simple and clear. It should be accessible to a wider audience. Visitors should be able to engage with content after a quick glance.

#4. Optimize website speed :

If your website isn’t fast enough, most people will leave it almost immediately. Almost half of web users tend to leave if a website doesn’t load in three seconds and this will definitely have a big impact on your conversion rate. Site speed is one of the main factors for ranking websites in search engines. There are many tools available to make your site lightning fast, like web page test, Google page speed, yslow and others. 

#5. Mobile friendly design :

More than 50% of all internet traffic is from mobile devices. Google also has shifted its algorithm towards mobile users. The websites that perform best on mobile will enhance your website user experience. We live in a multi screen world. This is great. But when it comes to websites, we have to make sure that our website looks great on all of these screen sizes. That’s why it is important to make your website responsive. Responsive design helps solve many problems:

  • It adapts to screen size.
  • Improves user experience.
  • It is cost effective.
  • It is easier to manage

You can check whether your website is responsive by resizing your browser size. Your website should automatically adapt itself.

#6. Easily navigable :

website’s navigation is tied in with the user experience and your conversion rate. Bad navigation will lead to people leaving your website and not coming back- while good website navigation will not only keep people engaged on your website but also help convert more users. Best example for easy navigation is Amazon home page, everything is easy to find. At first glance you can see offers that are relevant to you, as well as any deals of the day or last minute deals. All you have to do is to click on them to see the offers. The easier you make it for them to navigate through your website, the better and better the chance they will convert.

#7. Use of white space :

white space is any empty space: on the sides, between paragraphs and around product images. White space has a significant impact on both user experience and your conversion rate. For instance use of white space can

  • Help you highlight a specific message that you want your visitors to see.
  • Draws people attention to something if you want people to notice something specific on your website [like an offer/discount],use white space around it.
  • It helps you to better organize your content and elements.

#9. Customers review :

when people search for products on platforms like Amazon or Flipkart, they tend to see the product reviews that contains mostly four or five stars. These reviews are from people who wrote out their experience with a product. Adding such reviews to your website helps the customer to gain trust in the product, which in turn pushes the customer to purchase it. As long as the reviews/testimonials are genuine, your website will surely enhance users experience and help in conversion too.

Conclusion:

To have a strong and positive impact of your website on visitors, your website should be speedy, mobile friendly, easily navigable, and a clean and clear website design, easy to understand. If your website is efficient and effective with your customers need, you will definitely be high. Year by year , you have to apply new strategies of improving your website. Improvement of website is necessary as expectations and technology keeps on changing from time to time.

Steps for Data Cleaning and why it matters?

In the world of data processing there is one saying

   “Garbage in – Garbage out”

It means your results are only as good as the data you’re using to get them. Incorrect or inconsistent data leads to false conclusions and false conclusions have bad impact on your business. This is true if you are a researcher, small business owner or a large enterprise.

If you make your decisions based on incorrect or inconsistent data, you can be sure that the business results will not be good. You may lose clients, business opportunities, time and money.

Data cleansing is referred to as data cleaning or data scrubbing. Data cleaning are steps to clean data before using data for analysis. This is accomplished by removing or modifying data that is incomplete, incorrect, irrelevant, duplicated or inaccurate. This technique minimizes the risk of wrong or inaccurate conclusions or results.

Steps for cleansing data :

The techniques used for data cleaning may vary according to the types of data your company stores.

Following are the basic steps for cleaning data :

#1. Removing duplicate or irrelevant data :

Duplicate observations will happen most often during data collection. When you combine data sets from multiple places or receive data from clients or multiple departments, there are chances of creating duplicate data. Deduplication of data has to be considered in this process.

Irrelevant data are those observations that do not fit into the specific problem you are trying to analyze. For example if you are analyzing data regarding young customers, but your data set includes older generations, then in such case you have to remove those irrelevant observations. This can make analysis more efficient.

#2. Structural errors : 

There are different types of structural errors from typos to inconsistent capitalization. This can create problems when categorizing or grouping data, so they need cleansing. For example “gender” is a categorical variable, usually of two classes, male and female, but you may encounter more than two different categories of the variable such as : *m; *male; *F; *fem. Data cleansing helps to recognize such mislabeled or inconsistently capitalized classes. Also review you data collection and data transformation process to prevent data issues.

#3. Handling missing data :

‘Missing data’ is a tricky issue. Just be clear that you cannot simply ignore missing values in your data set. Deciding whether to drop, impute or flag missing data. Using/not using the missing data affects the accuracy of your analysis.

  • Imputing : It means working out the missing value based on the other data. The pattern will be re-created that the observations have already created.
  • Dropping : Dropping observations that have missing values when analyzing statistical data. Study shows dropping is better than imputing values.
  • Flagging : Flagging means telling your ML algorithm about any missing value. Flagging is done when the data is missing continuously, rather than randomly.

#4. Filtering outliers :

Another thing you have to remember during  the process of data cleansing are outliers. Outliers are values that are totally very different. For example, you are researching your app user’s age and find entries like 72 and 2. The former might be a senior citizen who is up to date with the technology. But the latter is mostly likely an error since toddlers don’t use apps. If an outlier proves to be irrelevant for analysis or proves to be a mistake, it should be removed, in doing so you can increase the performance of the dataset.

#5. Standardization of data :

Cleansing your data includes standardizing it, to have a uniform format for each value. For example, all values of height should be in the same unit, so you may need to convert from feet to meters or vice-versa, to achieve uniformity. 

Make sure that you use a standardized unit of measurement. These include weight, distance and temperature. As for dates, choose either the USA style or the European format.

#6. Validate the data :

In the conclusion of the data cleaning process, you should be able to answer these questions:

  • Does the data make sense?
  • Is the data is appropriate with regard to its field?
  • Does your data help to develop your next theory?

False results, as a result of incorrect data, may inform poor strategy and decision making. Conversely, data cleansing can help achieve a long list of benefits which may lead to maximize profits.

Pull up :

Monitoring errors and better reporting to see where errors are coming from, Making it easier to fix incorrect or corrupt data for future applications. Clean data helps in taking effective and efficient decisions, resulting in increased productivity and revenue. Using tools for cleansing will make for more efficient business practices and quicker decision-making. Therefore cleansing data from time to time is advisable, for a good result.

Why all eCommerce merchants need Product Catalog Management?

ECommerce  trends are changing with the changing world. Every customer demands high quality, consistent product information before they purchase anything online. Thus eCommerce merchants have to meet this demand to stay ahead of their competitors. Here comes the role of catalog management.

          Product catalog management is a marketing strategy for organizing standardizing cleansing and publishing your product data for enhancing high sales of the product. A product catalog is a type of marketing broucher, that lists product details that helps buyers make a purchase decision. These details include product features, descriptions, dimensions, price, weight, color, availability, customer reviews and more.

          The best example of a product catalog is the Amazon market place, where you can get bundle of information in a single click. For example, if you want to buy a wrist watch- Amazon lists all the information that you need like it is for male or female, brand name, color of the dial, price, availability, offer/discounts, reviews and more. A product catalog is needed for both B2B and B2C domains.

Who needs Product Catalog?

Product catalogs are useful to several business users and groups such as sales reps, buyers, store and warehouse managers, field marketers, external parties such as agencies, partners.

Reasons why you need a product catalog

 #1. Help Retailers :

To overcome certain challenges like selling across multiple channels, updating products constantly, expanding product catalog, dealing with suppliers data and keeping data quality consistent. ECommerce catalog management helps merchants to build a good foundation for their business.

#2. Enhance users experience :

customers browse a product  on an online market place and may navigate to the business website for further information to help them in making a purchase decision. Here the product catalog helps the customer by providing accuracy and reliability of product information. As customer satisfaction has become the moto of today’s competitive eCommerce business. Thus eCommerce businesses must ensure consistency and accuracy of their product information across the multiple sales channels and platforms to provide a consistent customer experience.

#3. Improves conversion rate :

The main aim of product catalog management is to convert the visitors into a loyal customer. When customers have all the data that they need, they can make decision and buy the product, Thus increasing the conversion rate. A clear product catalog helps the customer during their browsing period and also helps them to buy the product of their choice.

#4. Enhance branding :

managing the entire product portfolio information is a challenging task and time consuming. Poor product categorization may leave a bad impact of your website. Thus may cause disappointments and inconvenience to the customers. As a result you may lose a potential customer of your brand. Difficulty in accessing your product data may affect the buying decision and you may lose a loyal customer. Product information documents are useful to promote a company’s brand. Using distinct colors, images, logo helps in enhancing your brand. A well organized product catalog system enables the customers to explore the products online with ease and optimized their experience.

#5.Helps in growing your business :

A good product catalog management will help in growing your business. A good product catalog allows you to support a bigger number of products; that you will be adding as per the changes and demand in the market. Excellent product catalog makes it easy for you to add more products; and push them to your sales channels without any problem.

#6. Generates sales offline :

Today, buyers research products online and make purchases offline in malls, shops, events etc; in such instances, it is important to help customers with information on their mobiles, iPads to fasten their buying process. Websites, landing pages with a clear product catalog enables customers to do research; and collect information about the product and thus making up their mind to buy the product.

#7.Omni channel experience :

managing catalog across various channels is a complex process. It is important to efficiently manage product data and maintain consistency across different channels to ensure shoppers find your product easily and have a great users experience. A proper catalog management should be built effectively to allow you to easily access product information from suppliers and publish it across different platforms. Thus catalog management allows you to maintain consistency across different channels enabling you to offer omni channel experience.

#8. Challenges :

Product catalog management is highly essential for retail brands to survive and strive in the ever changing business environment. There are certain challenges associated with their ever changing business. For instance today’s customers have shifted from desktop applications to multi-device and multi screen usage. Your product should be accessible across multiple platforms. Retailers face secondary challenge of optimizing t6heir product-catalog. Frequent updates related to the products such as changes in price, addition of new features etc, should be done at regular intervals.

Conclusion :

Efficient catalog management services help optimize time and cost in managing large volume of product data. Well presented products, appealing designs and relevant description optimizes the online store on search engine and also simplifies navigation. A well organized catalog enhance business growth.    

Top Magento development trends to follow in 2021

Surprisingly, there are more than 20 million ecommerce websites globally. Picking the right eCommerce platform is the foundation for benefitting from a successful online store. In today’s world, modern shoppers expect quick, consistent and smooth customer experience. Most of the eCommerce startups out there, fail due to their inability to deliver their customers a smooth customer experience. Another reason is, the eCommerce website is the platform on which they are built. Although there are tons of eCommerce platforms to choose from, Magento is gaining popularity and trust among the online owners. Startups and entrepreneurs are now seeking better Magento development services for expanding an edge over their competitors.

Some of the trends in 2021 for Magento eCommerce development are :

#1. Consistent and smooth consumer experience :

one of the most important features for an online website is to have a consistent and smooth consumer experience. Websites having this feature ranks higher on SEO. It also makes your online store stand out from the rest of your competitors. If your website doesn’t satisfy this feature then, you may lose potential customers, sales and revenue generated through them. Hundreds of new eCommerce websites are flooding the market on a daily basis, so make sure that your eCommerce website builds a consistent and smooth user experience. Platform like Magento helps your estore to fulfill this requirement on a large scale.

#2. Push notification :

website push notifications are short messages, sent by your website to your subscribers, browsers and customers. This feature is used by estore owners to grow their traffic inflow as well as to engage with their existing traffic flow i.e. their potential customers. Push notification is done through personalized emails, social media and SMS. Magento helps your website to deliver personalized push notifications to your customers by analyzing their buying patterns.

#3. Progressive web app [PWA] :

With PWA, customers have 24/7 access to the online store. It works in areas facing poor internet connection. Customers can view all the information irrespective of their platform. Magento has adapted this revolutionized feature. With this feature you can optimize eCommerce experience.

#4. Live streaming :

On eCommerce marketing, live streaming is the most effective feature, which is catching the trend. Recently webinars have gained much importance in the digital world. Live streaming of your store with live chats with your customer on a platform like Facebook helps the customers to know your product well and also the eCommerce owner will help the customer to satisfy their queries. Through live streaming you can engage with your customer from anywhere anytime. This huge shift happened because of the pandemic which pushed brands and retailers to move ahead, with this trend.

#5. Visual search :

people use visual search mostly to get directions, and identify landmarks, shop recipes, and local business reviews. People are searching more images than ever before. Platforms like Pinterest get 600 million visual searches monthly. If you want your site’s content to be served to your visitor as a search result, ensure you use image SEO. Equipping your online store with visual search and image recognition can help you attract more young buyers to your online store. Magento provides this feature to increase the capability of your eCommerce website.

#6. Voice search :

voice search has taken the eCommerce industry to a next level. The users no longer need to type a single word to search for any product with voice search feature. Voice operating assistants like Alexa, Siri or Google voice console are the buzz of the new era. As soon as the device has input, it will detect the language in which the query has been asked. The keywords in the query will be captured and the query will be answered accordingly. Magento by having this feature, helps in faster, easier and time saving search.

#7. Artificial intelligence :

artificial intelligence [AI] is transforming digital strategies. As it has the ability to improve digital marketing strategies and provide valuable customer insight for companies. For instance brands like Amazon and Spotify are using AI systems successfully. AI can analyze consumer search patterns and behaviors, use data from social media platforms and help businesses understand how customers find any product or services. So we can say that AI is the driving force behind digital marketing. Magento with this feature helps in enhancing the overall customer experience for eCommerce website and the businesses

#8. AR/VR :

Augmented reality [AR] and Virtual reality [VR] is enhancing the shopping experience. For example the users can now actually visualize the product in their surroundings and then decide whether to make a purchase or not. The main objective of AR in marketing is to achieve increased brand awareness and greater customer engagement. Best example of AR is Lens kart, it allows you to take your photo from your phone and test different types of frames by virtually placing it on your photo. You can move around and check how it looks. Magento eCommerce is providing a wonderful AR/VR technology in 2021.

#9. Integration with social media :

People spend a tremendous amount of time on social media platforms. It naturally becomes a good place to market your products and them and gain brand awareness. Leading channels like Facebook Instagram have added marketing packages to help businesses. Social media are a powerful digital marketing technique. Magento has been quick in adapting this trend to boost sales and increase revenue.

#10. To make B2B consumer centric :

today’s is a competitive market. Where we see neck to neck competition among the estores, Now there is a need for B2B companies to understand their buyers and develop a direct-to-consumer channel. This helps the estore owners to understand customer information and imparts a great customer experience. Magento has this feature of enabling B2B businesses to shift their attention from being product-centric to customer-centric.

#11. Conversion with micro animations :

The world has largely appreciated the utilization of animations such as GIFs. Currently the world is witnessing trends like memes and entertainment. Almost every social media is entertaining people with a wide range of memes. This is quite engaging. Hence animated icons can be used as one of the eCommerce shipping best practices. Magento with this revolutionized feature is helping in increasing conversion ratio.

#12. Smart search functionality :

There is no point in creating a website, if people are unaware of it. Magento has this functionality feature to look into the SEO parameters to help drive traffic to your platform. Not only driving traffic to your website but also helps in enhancing conversion ratio, thus giving a better user experience.

Conclusion :

For eCommerce platforms based on Magento, any change in technology or updation is not a big challenge to tackle. With the boom in mobile devices and websites online shopping continues to touch new heights in the coming years. Magento incorporates all the latest functionalities and keeps innovating to help brands stay ahead in online business.

UNSPSC/eclass/Etim classification.. why they are needed?

When working with product master data management [MDM] and Product Information Management [PIM], one important thing is product classification. There are two types of product classification standards 1. Internal standard classification  2. External classification standards. Internal standard classification, is using your own internal classification being product grouping and hierarchy management within your organization. External standard includes 

1.UNSPSC 2.eclass 3. Etim 4. GPC 5.commodity codes or HS codes.

Here we discuss about the first three external standards :

UNSPSC :

It stands for the United nations standard products and services code [UNSPSC]. Mostly used for the UN Development Programme [UNDP]. It is a global standard for classification of product and services. This standard is often used in public tenders and at some marketplaces. It has five levels of hierarchy with eight digit coding numbers. UNSPSC competes with a number of other product and commodity coding system like eclass, GPC etc.,

      The levels allow users to search products more precisely. The five levels of classification are : [segment, family class, commodity, business function]. Each level contains a two character numerical value and textual description.

UNSPSC classification example :

The UNSPSC can be further extended by adding a 9th & 10th digit after the commodity number. These numbers can indicate business relationships to the supplier such as rental/lease. For instance the classification code is “43-20-15-01-14”

Segment: 43 information technology broadcasting and telecommunication devices and accessories.

Family : 20 components for information technology or broadcasting or telecommunications computer equipment and accessories.

Class : 15 computers accessories

Commodity : 01 computer switch boxes. Docking station.

Business function : 14 retail.

  • Each level including the lowest “commodity” level of the UNSPSC hierarchy has a unique number assigned to it. For any given UNSPSC number, you can tell which segment, family and class the particular commodity belongs to.
  • Along with UNSPSC, companies can create their own taxonomies.
  • Also having a unique number for a given commodity doesn’t create confusion while translation of the commodity’s description in any language.

Eclass :

One of the standard classifications is eclass. It is suitable for different industrial branches, internationally successful and available in multiple languages. Eclass classifies a wide range of industrial products and was developed by leading German companies. It represents a standard for the exchange of information between suppliers and customers and especially represents the procurement markets for buyers. Eclass operates on the principle of a hierarchical system and classifies products and services into four step category [main groups, groups, commodity classes, properties]  

Classification example for the computer doc station.

19-01-92-01

19- information, communication and media technology.

  1. Computer system.

92- Computer system accessories.

  1. Docking station.

Similarities between UNSPSC and eclass :

  • Both UNSPSC and eclass have four levels of hierarchy.
  • Both support multiple language

Compared to UNSPSC, eclass has one more advantage. The standardized classification system under eclass, helps to perform statistical evaluation. It also helps to find, seek and describe products in a targeted manner. For this reason standard sets of properties are attached to the four levels of classification structure. These properties are used to describe the classified products.

ETIM :

It stands for European Technical Information Modes. Etim is used for the classification and technical description of products in the electronic industry. The central association of electro technical craftsmen [UNETO] in Netherlands, developed the basic model of this. The Etim standardization was initiated in Germany and has so far been supported by the association.

      Similarly, Etim provides product information from one source – the manufacturer. The main aim of this type of classification is to make sure that there are no ambiguities or misunderstandings when it comes to sharing the technical characteristics of products. So Etim helps manufacturers send product information to their wholesalers in a streamlined way.

Benefits of Etim : 

  • Reduces the risk of errors in product data.
  • Model is multi-lingual and translations are provided automatically for international markets.
  • Information can be sent either digitally or in print.
  • The consumers get better, more accurate product information.
  • The model is a reusable template.

ETIM uses the following way to classify products:

  • product groups
  • Product classes
  • synonyms [alternative keywords]
  • features
  • values
  • units

For example : EG000009 

Here G stands for group.  A string of six numbers that identifies the type.

The following are the industries that are adopting Etim:

  • Electro-technical
  • HVAC and sanitary
  • Building construction
  • Ship building.

          Likewise, we see that Etim is a free and open standard. However, Etim international allows companies to become influencing numbers of the association that allows them to vote on changes and improvements to the Etim standard.

Need for classification :

Even if you have already sorted your products into your own classification, and use this classification in your web shop, as a search tree. Customers and partners may ask you to additionally sort the products according to standard classification such as Etim, eclass etc.; above all the wholesalers want the industry to sort their products into standardized classes in order to offer their customers products from different manufacturers via uniform classifications.

              Thus the need for classification is to create a uniform and logical system, to manage product data. And also to facilitate problem free communication among different subjects. For instance, you and your partner use different words to say exactly the same thing. Thus the classification of products and services can prevent misunderstanding and unite classification.

       Therefore, Data collected for product classification, is always available with the clients. And so, the customer can find exactly those products that meet his requirements the most on the market.

Best UX practices to ensure a pleasant experience for your customers

What is UX ?

The way your visitor feels about your website determines whether he/she will use it again is all about user experience{UX}. While navigating your website, if the visitor finds it difficult what the website is all about, than Conversions are too far- in fact your visitor will not return to your site again. Hence it is necessary that you pay attention to the UX on your website and strive to improve it. 

Keep your website simple and easily understandable. Your content should be to the point. The same goes for advertisements. 72% of the users get annoyed when seeing irrelevant ad’s and promotions on a site. Users now expect more functionality and better usability. Your website should be rich with relevant content and designed to provide them with everything needed to purchase and use your service or product.

To transform your website into an effective marketing tool, you have to create an effective small business website with a dynamic user experience.

The following practices will ensure a pleasant experience for your customer :

#1. Clean website design :

A clean and simple web design makes it easy for the user to find what they are looking for. Remove the unnecessary clutter on your website. Most website visitors will spend fewer than 15 seconds on your website. Grab your users attention above this and impress them to increase the time they spend on your site.

#2. Choose colors and fonts appropriately :

we want the layout to look attractive. If the visitor feels hard, to make out what your page says, the more likely they are to back out of it. The website back ground should be simple clean and always easy to read. So look carefully while choosing color. Make sure that there is a healthy contrast between back grounds and font colors. Make your font size unique- so that your users can actually read it without squinting or zooming in.

#3. Keep it simple :

Readability and accessibility play an important role in creating great user experience. Just because the text in your app is error free, doesn’t mean it is easy to read. Low readability will create navigation problems and your user might feel lost. Instructions should be straight forward and easy to follow. You can achieve simplicity of your website, if you use simple language, which all users can understand it.

#4. Speed up the loading time :

Your website should fully load in a few seconds, even if you are using a secure website format. Study shows that 53% of visitors will abandon a web page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Many times slow speed affects user experience because people treat surfing the web is like talking to people. If your webpage is slow than users will look for something else that says more in less time. Google page speed helps to know about your website loading speed.

#5. Regular updates :

Your website is the first impression a customer or client will have of your business. Make sure the information they see is current and updated on your website, if the customer see stale information, they may not visit your site again. Keep your website updated, by uploading new content, product related videos and photos. This type of changes attract the visitors to your website.

#6. Mobile device compatibility :

We live in multi -screen world. This is great. Now-a-days customers find it handy and easy to search through mobile. Make sure your website is mobile friendly or you may lose many customers. mobile friendly websites are responsive. Responsive design helps solve many problems.

  • It adapts to screen size.
  • Improves users experience.
  • It is cost effective.
  • It is easier to manage.

#7. Easy to navigate :

Navigation is a huge factor when it comes to SEO, and this is because it directly affects the customer experience. Customers should move swiftly and easily around your site without confusion. Easy navigation will make customers and clients want to return to site over and over. When your website offers a rewarding experience, users will be more likely to return to it.

#8. Know your target audience :

You design products for specific users, this means you will have to get to know them inside out. Find out what their problems and pains are? What their needs are? Only by providing solutions to these queries the customers will get what they want with ease. This will give users a pleasant experience while shopping on your website.

#9. Clear call to action :

For eCommerce sites, your purchase call-to-action [CTA] will generally be an add to cart or a buy now button. Having a clear CTA is essential to convert traffic into sales. Tests have shown that CTA button performs best at the point in the page where the visitor finds information they need. Use a more strategic approach and place the button at the point where the visitor is prepared to make a decision. The button should look different on your page. Phrases like Buy now, Check out and Add to cart work really well. They are tested, tried and true.

#10. Functionality :

Functionality is what UX is all about. For a great functionality, remove stocky images and difficult terms. Use right images that work for your audience. For instance website like Amazon doesn’t have the most beautiful design, but it has excellent functionality. 

#11. Include reviews on product pages :

Including customer reviews on your product pages can be a very powerful tool in converting visitors into buyers. Visitors look for reviews as this will help them to learn about the service customers received when ordering products. Showing customer reviews on product page will show new visitors that you are a trust worthy seller. 

#12. Offer different payment methods :

Offering different payment methods on your e-commerce store has lots of advantages including

  • Customer convenience 
  • Payment customization
  • More security

If people don’t see their preferred methods of payment they’re much more likely to abandon their cart. There are more than 200 different ways to take payment online. Use those payment methods which are more popular with your customer. Some popular methods are PayPal, Alipay and credit cards.

Conclusion :

The primary purpose of UX design is to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through utility, ease of use and pleasure provided in the interaction with a product. Users experience gives your business the ability to increase repeatable traffic. It also provides an excellent return on investment. Increases digital sales, saves labor and time.