What Does It Take to Start an E-commerce Store? 2019-10-15 10:06
It is no secret that the e-commerce space has been expanding rapidly and will continue to do so for many years to come. Source: Statista Statistics from Statista shows that in 2017 retails online sales amounted to 2.3 trillion USD and is expected to grow to 4.9 trillion by 2021 (30% increase year-on-year). This is mainly due to changing consumer behaviors such as the preference of purchasing products from the comfort of the own devices such as mobile phones and tablets. So what does it take to start an ecommerce shop? Is it difficult? Is it expensive? In this article, let’s look at the cost, skill and time needed to get an online shop started successfully. 1. Starting an E-commerce Shop Source: Shutterstock There are many options out there, varying in both the cost and skill needed to start an e-commerce shop. Usually the relationship between skill needed and the cost are linearly dependent. If you want an ecommerce site that is cheap to start, you could try Magento or Woocommerce (a Wordpress ecommerce plugin), but it would require substantial coding skills to get started. Then there are the easy-to-start ecommerce shop that would require some cost to it, usually in the terms of monthly subscription such as Shopify. The cost will even balloon up the more functionality that you require. So one question to ask before using a pay-to-use ecommerce solution is to first find out all the functionality you would need, and then finding the cost. Fortunately there are solutions out there that does not require much payment or coding knowledge, such as PosifyStarter. With the ability to list up to 50 products and 30 over shop themes to use, setting up an online shop is easy and requires no cost. Cost: 0 Dollars Technical Skill: Minimal Time: 1 hour 2. Setting up an Online Payment Gateway Source: Shutterstock There are many payment gateway options out there such as Paypal, Mastercard, Visa and Stripe. In terms of security, most payment gateways are properly secure, which means the only vulnerability you would need to consider is whether your website is SSL secured. Another thing to consider would be the commission that these payment gateways take for each purchase made. These payment gateways have commissions ranging from 4% to 12% of the total sale. They may also have rules about how often you can cash out your revenue, so do read up on the terms and conditions. Once you have chosen a payment gateway, it is as easy as putting in your API keys into your ecommerce system and the given script by the payment gateway. If you use PosifyStarter, all you need is the API key, no coding needed at all! Cost: % of your Total Sales Technical Skill: Low Time: 1 hour 3. Managing Your Delivery Source: Shutterstock Now comes the tedious part, which is delivering the items that were purchased. This is a highly contentious part because on the surface it looks easy. Get an order, pack the order and send it out. The tough part comes when managing the cost of delivery especially for overseas delivery. Not to mention the higher the weight the higher the cost of delivery. Make sure that you understand how to calculate delivery cost by distance, weight and product category. When it comes to overseas delivery, check to see if your item is able to go through customs without much trouble. To recuperate the cost of delivery, you can include it in the costing on your ecommerce store. Based on the customer’s location and item chosen, the delivery cost should be calculated and included in the final charges. Problems also arise when large volumes of orders starts to flow in, increasing the chances of making the wrong delivery or not being able to deliver at all. Troubles you may face with delivery are such as: communicating carrier cutoffs Not enough delivery people Running out of packing materials Not validating delivery address Having an integrated delivery system to manage orders to not only let you know the current status of orders but also able to give you a forecast of incoming delivery expectation goes a long way in keeping your delivery running smoothly. PosifyStarter has a great integrated delivery management system that is free and easy to use. Just list your delivery costing and it will automatically add it to the item when it is being checked out by the customer. Cost: 0 Technical Skill: Moderate Time: 1 hour 4. Start Planning Your Digital Marketing Source: Shutterstock Just like a brick-and-mortar shop, you definitely need to spend effort getting the word out about your online store. If you don’t do that, how are customers supposed to know about your online store? Especially since there are probably millions of other online stores competing for the same clientele base. There are 2 common methods of gaining visibility for your store, again with a linear correlation between effort and cost. These 2 methods are: 4a. Organic Search Visibility (also refered to Search Engine Optimization – SEO) 4b. Paid Per Click Ads (Search Engine Marketing – SEM) 4a. Organic Search Visibility (SEO) SEO refers to the ability of a website to ORGANICALLY appear high in the list of search results when a user uses a search engine such as Google, Bing and others. In a nutshell, search engines gives websites a SEO score, and based on that score will recommended sites that have higher score for a keyword. There are a few attributes that contributes to that score, such as: Site Relevancy (keywords used in the site) Meta Tag (has required syntax such as title tags, meta description etc) Site Security (is it SSL certified?) Page Loading Speed Number of Backlinks (do other people refer to the site?) Content Age (are the contents constantly updated?) Hence having an e-commerce site that allows you to touch on this attributes can help you get a good SEO score. However, this may take a while to get to a score that gets you your returns. Cost: 0 Dollars Technical Skill: Moderate Time: +3 months 4b. Paid Per Click Ads (SEM) This is a paid option which you probably see when you do a Google Search. Usually on the top of the searches you will see ads, which are basically vendors paying for the opportunity to be listed first when a keyword is typed. Not much effort is needed for this, and sometimes the returns can be immediate. However without proper planning and researching, you could end up wasting money on clicks which would never lead to a sale. Cost: HKD 3,000-200,000 /month Technical Skill: Low Time: within 1 days To improve your SEM results, you would need to have analytical tools to help you see whether clicks lead to an actual purchase. Google provides Google Analytics and Facebook provides Facebook Pixel, but putting the script into your ecommerce shop might be a pain. However there are solutions that makes it easy to integrate Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics. PosifyStarter provides a copy and paste method to get you started on integrating with various analytical tool, so that your ads do not go to waste. If you think it’s complicated, you can ask for the Google Ads Management Services from Posify. If you would like to know more about how Posify can help your online business get started successfully, do get in touch with us at enquiry@posify.me or visit www.posify.me/hk/posifystarter Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.
Lack of O2O Strategies - Forever 21 Bankruptcy Signals a Shift in New Retail Age 2019-10-9 14:16
US fashion brand Forever 21 has filed for bankruptcy protection and asked to close 178 stores across the US, as well as most of its stores across Asia and Europe, including the last shop located in Mongkok, Hong Kong. Graphic Source: SCMP After launching the first store in Los Angeles in 1984, Forever 21 later rapidly developed into a leading enterprise in fast fashion sector, peaking at 700 outlets worldwide. What is the reason that this once-thriving retailer finally went bankruptcy? Superficially there is a sales hit for Forever 21 by the rise of competition from online sellers like Amazon and the changing fashion trends dictated by millennial shoppers. But is online retailing really killing old-fashioned physical retailing? Can’t they be compatible in the new retail age? Let’s further study the case of Forever 21. The Reasons Why Forever 21 Went Bankruptcy Expanded too many physical stores with limited foot traffic Although the foot traffic in physical store had gradually decreasing, Forever 21 still aggressively expanded its branch stores in shopping malls with high retention costs in recent years. It also opened many big-box format stores, averaging about 38,000 square feet, despite the high overhead costs. However, the retailer did not has the effective solutions and channels to attract the customers to purchase in the physical store, thus it was not able to stay profitable as foot traffic becomes less and less. Ignored Online Sales Forever 21 helped popularize fast fashion in the 2000s by trendy but affordable clothes which was a great marketing point at that age, but the retailer struggled to keep pace when its mostly millennial shoppers shifted their spending online to internet fashion retailers like ASOS, as well as ecommerce platform like Amazon. There is no doubt that online shopping is convenient, however, Forever 21 did not emphasize on the online market thus it got only 16% of its sales from digital channels. Lack of Online-to-Offline (O2O) Strategies O2O commerce is a new business strategy designed to bring online customers to brick and mortar locations and vice versa as well as create a seamless digital experience during the whole purchase process. Forever 21 used to be a well-known brand name with highly number of branch stores worldwide which were supposed to be the greatest comparative advantages to run an O2O business such as providing Click & Collect Services. The customers already knew and trusted it. The combination allowed the customers to view and inspect new seasonal products in the online store and followed up with purchases in physical store or vice versa. The highly number of branch stores provided a nearly and convenient location for customers to pick up after online order. However, Forever 21 had also fallen behind competitors in the O2O field and it was unable to fully capture the benefit from O2O commerce. When other competitors like Zara and H&M were far ahead in bridging online and physical retailer, Forever 21 only recently launched a ship-to-store option for online orders, and its stores were still notoriously filled with merchandise from old seasons and unpopular products. All of the above evidences show that Forever 21 is extremely slow to adapt to O2O commerce and lack of related strategies. Graphic Source: coresight.com O2O New Retail Age Refer to the case of the Forever 21’s bankruptcy, it does not spell the end of physical retailing and it is not killed by online retailing. Oppositely, developing the O2O commerce with effective integration of online and offline channels is the new business opportunity for most of traditional retailers to adapt and keep growing under the new retail age, but Forever 21 had obviously failed to do it. This is also the main reason why Zara and H&M still dominate in the fast fashion relevance war but Forever 21 went bankruptcy. How SMEs Can Run an O2O Commerce? PosifyRetail is the first truly seamlessly integrated New Retail O2O cloud platform in Asia. It could cost a global retailer more than 10 million dollars for developing its own O2O retail platform, but in order to support more SMEs to grow their businesses with the fully utilization of the new potential digital opportunities from O2O at an affordable cost, PosifyRetail is designed to be a cost-effective and all-round retail system, providing everything from online to offline. Now SMEs can enjoy the robust O2O feature of PosifyRetail by paying the lowest price as the daily coffee costs. To explore more about PosifyRetail, please click https://bit.ly/2lVLs9d Related Article Click & Collect driven by Seamless O2O Integration How Uniqlo Improves User Engagement wit O2O New Retail Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.
Posify Won Best Retail Startup Innovation (Product) Award at Hong Kong Retail Innovation Award 2019 2019-9-30 18:37
Posify was announced as the winner of Best Retail Startup Innovation (Product) Award (Merit) on September 27, in the Annual Ceremony of Retail Innovation Award 2019 organized by Hong Kong Retail Technology Industry Association (RTIA) The Retail Innovation Award, recognizies Posify’s success in the outstanding application projects – PosifyRetail which empowers SME retailers to drive efficiency, productivity and profitability. PosifyRetail is the first truly seamlessly integrated New Retail O2O cloud platform in Asia which is designed to help today’s enterprises especially the fasting growing SME retailers to better acquire the benefits of O2O commerce. All SMEs need for digitalizing their traditional businesses can also be fulfilled by PosifyRetail – a one-stop and robust SaaS platform, which includes holistic end-to-end capabilities from the front-end consumer experience to back-end operations management and analytics with the following 8 functional modules. With the help of these robust features from PosifyRetail, SMEs retailers are able to shorten the time and stay away from large capital expenditure in dealing with the technical problems, this favours SMEs to focus on developing their businesses. We are very honored and encouraged by RTIA’s recognition of our efforts and achievements. The entire journey was a learning experience for Posify and with the success of PosifyRetail, we are more energized and charged up to take up new and challenging projects which would work in the benefit of the SMEs retailers and also the entire retail industry. To explore more about PosifyRetail, please click https://bit.ly/2lv1HKC Disclaimer The information contented on this blog is the purely analysis from Posify. We do not responsible for any consequence for those who make reference to any blog content.
Why Fast Growing SMEs Use PosifyRetail? 2019-9-26 17:51
Online-to Offline (O2O) commerce is a new business model which is the coordination between the network world and the real world. It is an effective strategy to drive more purchases from online stores to physical stores or vice versa. With the growing trend of the e-business technology, retailers can no longer rely on the single channel but the combination of both online and offline, this evolves to O2O commerce now. Most of the enterprises agree that O2O is a prevailing marketing trend, but it is difficult for many SMEs to create their own O2O platform like the other leading enterprises do due to their limited technology level and capital, they cannot solve their retailing problems fundamentally, and it hinders the sustainable development of a company. The problems that fast growing SMEs may face include: Lack of Talent and Skills Nowadays, digital technology is reshaping the global business landscape. SMEs are eager to digitalize and transform, however, they are lack of know-how. Critical Data and Information Between Online and Offline are Out of Sync It is definitely a big trouble when the stock inventory between shops, order promotion and member data are unable to synchronize because the merchants can only handle the data manually, which will lower the effectiveness and have a higher risk that errors occur. What’s more, because of the inconsistence between online and offline, this results in unsatisfactory shopping experience to customers, which will damage customer loyalty. Limited Function of Customer Management and Data Analysis System The rationale behind repeat sales generation is how retailers attract new customers and maintain existing customer relationships. It is all related to full functional CRM. The fast-growing SMEs, however, could not afford the high cost of a comprehensive CRM system. As a result, they can solely reply on traditional and ineffective ways to attract customers. What is PosifyRetail? PosifyRetail is the first truly seamlessly integrated New Retail O2O cloud platform in Asia which is designed to help today’s enterprises especially the fasting growing SME retailers to better acquire the benefits of O2O commerce. By providing the most effective and economic way of accomplishing the end-to-end retail operations, Posify aims to empower SME retailers to drive efficiency, productivity and profitability. What O2O Benefits that PosifyRetail can Offer to SMEs? Source: Designed by Posify Provides Use-Friendly Control Panel & Professional Consultation Services PosifyRetail provides all SMEs need for digitalizing their traditional businesses – a one-stop and robust SaaS platform, which includes holistic end-to-end capabilities from the front-end consumer experience to back-end operations management and analytics with 8 functional modules. With the user-friendly control panel provided by PosifyRetail, SMEs can easily digitalize their businesses and handle everything online and offline. Furthermore, considering of limited resources among SMEs, PosifyRetail leverages the best practice and professionals to provide the guideline, 1-to-1 consultation and configuration services to SMEs, which allows them to shorten the time and stay away from large capital expenditure in dealing with the technical problems, this favours SMEs to focus on developing their businesses. Source: Designed by Posify Synchronizes All Offline & Online Data in Real Time PosifyRetail helps SMEs to automatically synchronize all the data from both online and physical stores in real time with one system in order to improve the operation efficiency. Thus, plenty of time and labour cost can be saved when avoid doing data integration manually. Moreover, merchants are able to provide click & collect service to their online customers according to the real-time inventory level, customers can pick up their products at physical stores so that they will not miss the delivery or pay extra delivery costs. The synchronized CRM system also allows staffs in physical stores to easily read the related information such as reward points of customers who registered as member or bought in online shop so as to create a convenient shopping experience to customers and encourage O2O cross-selling. Source: Designed by Posify Includes Built-in Full Functional CRM PosifyRetail formulates 3R strategy which stands for Recruit, Retain and Reward that help SMEs to manage the member accounts and set up different promotions in one panel. The built-in CRM function provides diversified member promotion plans, such as welcome gift, birthday voucher, or create other multi-tire membership scheme. Retailers can also provide different offers and discounts according to different customer groups. In spite of the promotion schemes, retailers can set up their Referral Marketing Program. Each of the members could receive an auto-created referral link, and the referee can obtain credits once the new members register successfully via the referral link or QR code. This Program boosts up the referral intention of the existing members and encourage them to invite more new members. As a result, SMEs can also benefit from expanding a large customer base at low cost. Source: Designed by Posify Supports the Most Intuitive and Powerful Promotion Module In the market, most of the retail systems only support single promotion settings which are not effective enough for the merchants to launch their promotion plans, thus, PosifyRetail R&D team identifies the pain points and achieve a breakthrough in calculating multi-element offers, this enables retailers to execute diversified promotion scheme to effectively target their audiences. The comprehensive promotion rule setting is based on 6 promotion types with more than 100 combinations, for example, buy one get one free together with bundle sale, flash sale, redemption and add-on items, etc. Besides, the retailers can launch new promotions both online and offline simultaneously, the promotion can be set to provide to a particular group so as to support different marketing needs. Source: Designed by Posify Creates a Highly Scalable Platform for Supporting Rapid Growth Many SMEs start their businesses from a pure online, pure physical or an O2O store, technical and managerial problems emerge afterwards when they develop rapidly into multi-outlets, cross-industries or even multi-national business. Due to the limitation of the system they have been using, SMEs tend to look for new system from time to time. Searching and operating new system usually require a lot of capital and human resources, this may impose a heavy burden to SMEs. Nevertheless, PosifyRetail can help them to seamlessly transform to different development stages no matter consignments, dealers, distributors, wholesalers and chain stores. For cross-industries businesses such as “food + retail” or “retail + service”, PosifyRetail enables the parent companies to achieve synergy by sharing the purchase information between their brand shops from different industries, thus, the consumers can also transfer and use their reward points among all the shops under one parent company. This stimulates their purchase intention and reaches win-win situation. For multi-national businesses which have many physical stores worldwide to serve international customers, PosifyRetail supports the function of multi-currency and price by location so that the parent company can easily consolidate the data from different countries even with different currencies. Besides, PosifyRetail is beyond a pure O2O solution to provide ERP-likely functions. The value-added HRM module is a great example. It allows enterprises to easily manage their staffs and optimize resource allocation such as time card, rostering, salary & commission, travel & expense in the simplest way. Therefore, the increase of operation efficiency, reduction of the time and cost from human resources could accelerate the business development. Enjoy the Robust Features at the Cost Just as 1 Cup of Coffee per Day It could cost a global retailer more than 10 million dollars for developing its own retail platform, but in order to support more SMEs to grow their businesses with the fully utilization of the new digital opportunities from O2O at an affordable cost, PosifyRetail is designed to be a cost-effective and all-round retail system, providing everything from online to offline. Now SMEs can enjoy these robust features at the cost just as 1 cup of coffee per day. To explore more about PosifyRetail, please click https://bit.ly/2lVLs9d Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.
Google My Business - Stand Out on Google for Free 2019-8-30 10:52
Except Google Ads, Google provides many free channels for enterprises to promote their businesses online. Google My Business is one of the most effective channels to enhance the online marketing performance if you are a small business owner with a physical store. Source: Shutterstock What is Google My Business? Google My Business is the profile which appears on the right of the window when people are searching for the businesses like yours on Google Search or Maps. With your business profile and company updates shown on Google, it allows you to attract potential customers while they are searching for the related information. Why do I need a Google My Business page? Setting up your Google My Business profile properly will help search engines to provide relevant, well-structured information of your business, your website link will be appeared on Google+, Google Maps and Search for free which are very important information for customers to reach you easily. Source: Screenshot Taken on Google How to set up Google My Business? 1. Visit https://www.google.com/intl/en/business/ and click “START NOW” 2. Select the Google account to sign in 3. Type your business name in the search field Some pre-filled information will be shown if you successfully find your business. If not, click [add your business to Google] 4. Fill in your business information correspondingly 5. Verify your identity and address on Google. Click [Mail] and then a poster card with your verification code will be mailed to your business address. You will receive within 14 days. 6. Remember to enter the code once received 7. Upload your profile photo and other missing information Source: Screenshot Taken on Google Tips for Google My Business 1. Don't skip the quick tour when you enter your Dashboard at first time, because it helps you get familiar with all you can do 2. The impression of your business profile will not be increased by creating more than one Google My Business account 3. Beware of the sales call claiming that from Google because Google My Business is free and Google never charge any fees for optimising your ranking 4. Keep monitoring your business profile since everyone can suggest edits on it 5. Report spam reviews to Google to make your profile look clear Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.
Facebook Pixel – Your Secret Online Sales Booster 2019-8-15 14:23
Facebook Pixel is a small piece of JavaScript code that site owners place on their online shop. It is valuable for e-Commerce businesses to optimize the effectiveness of FB advertising by collecting data that helps retailers to track conversions from existing ads and builds targeted audiences for future ads. Source: Designed by Posify How Does It Work? The Pixel will be triggered and collect data when the visitor takes an action on the online shop such as viewing a product page or clicking on the checkout button. Once the database is enriched, the retailers are able to define the type of custom audience by certain kinds of actions and show different types of ads to relevant user groups. For example, You may define the type of custom audience by the following actions: Group 1 - Viewed only one product and left Group 2 - Viewed only one product category and left Group 3 - Viewed several products in different categories but bought only one product Group 4 - Added a viewed product to shopping cart but did not buy Based on the different actions taken by targeted group, you can implement various advertising campaigns for each group, such as creating a remarketing ads of viewed product for group 4 to remind them to make a purchase and creating a bundle discounts to get higher repeat sales. Why Do You Need FB Pixel for Your Online Shop? The Pixel allows the online retailers to optimize the conversion and achieve better ROI by ensuring the ads are only displayed to the people who are most likely to take the desired action. To avoid the loss of valuable data, it should be firstly installed to the online shop and start collecting data immediately even the retailers are not using FB ads yet. How to Install FB Pixel on Your Online Shop through Posify CMS? Step 1 – Create a Facebook Pixel 1. Go to FB Event Manager (https://www.facebook.com/events_manager) 2. Click [Get started] under the Facebook Pixel section 3. Enter the Pixel name & website URL, and click [Create] 4. Click [Create a pixel] 5. Click [Create] in the box that appears to finish creating the Pixel Step 2 - Add the Facebook Pixel to your Online Shop 1. Go to the Pixels tab in Events Manager 2. Click [Set up pixel] 3. Click [Manually install pixel code yourself] Step 3 - Add the Code to your Online Shop through Posify 1. Copy The Pixel ID in Events Manager Source: Designed by Posify 2. Log in Posify CMS, and Click [Online Shop]→[Facebook Pixel] 3. Paste the Pixel ID on the field, and Click [Save] Source: Screenshot Taken on Posify CMS Step 4 – Send Test Traffic to Your Pixel 1. Return to the Pixels tab in Event Manager Pixel 2. Enter the URL of your online shop in step 4, and click [Send Test Traffic] 3. The code has been installed correctly if the status is shown as [Active] p.s. This process may take several minutes. The Pixel code may not be installed correctly if the status is still shown [No Activity Yet] after 20 mins. Source: Screenshot Taken on Facebook Know More About Posify CMS Posify CMS enables you to install the FB Pixel on your online shop without coding knowledge. Instead, all you have to do is enter the Pixel ID in your online store setting. If you are interested to know more about the feature of Posify CMS, please visit https://bit.ly/2JXw5GS Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.
How to Decide between Facebook Ads & Google Ads in 10 Mins 2019-8-1 11:51
Facebook Ads and Google Ads are now the two top online ads platforms. Being an O2O solution provider, we have been asked this question by dozens of clients, “Facebook Ads vs Google Ads, which is better for O2O business model?” There is no absolute answer of which is the best ads platform, it all depends on your product nature, your targeted audience and the advertising goal. We understand that most of the SMEs may have a tight budget, it is not an easy task to choose among the ad platforms. We are not going to introduce FB ads & Google Ads in details since there are already a lot of online articles talking about the pros & cons of these two ads platforms, instead we would like to focus on helping fellow O2O retailers to find out the more suitable platform which fits for their products or sales targets in the simplest way. Source: Designed by Posify What are FB Ads & Google Ads? FB Ads and Google Ads are both pay-per-click (PPC) ad platforms, but they work in different areas. In most of the situations, FB ads display in social feeds and the targeted audience is mainly defined by the interests, behavior & demographic information from FB huge database. Google ads appear as the top results in Google search engine which are triggered by specific keyword searches from potential customers. When to Use FB Ads Facebook ads are suitable for O2O retailers who are seeking to increase the product awareness, especially the innovative products which are not well-known by targeted audiences. Example Alex is the founder of an O2O juice shop. He would like to introduce a new beverage product with a durian flavor to his potential customers. He searches “durian juice” on Google but cannot find any related ads on the search results, which reflects that people are not usually to search for this kind of product through Google. Thus he decides to use FB ads to reach more potential customers who have expressed an interest in or liked pages related to juice. Source: Screenshot Taken on Facebook When to Use Google Ads Google ads are suitable for O2O retailers with a product that users already know and are actively searching for. Example This time Alex would like to boost the sales of apple juice. He searches “apple juice” on Google and there are a lot of related ads on search results. He hopes that targeted customers will purchase his products directly through the ads, thus he decides to show the product detail pages of his online store on the search results for “apple juice” by using Google Shopping Ads. Source: Screenshot Taken on Google Conclusion There is no model answer on whether choosing Facebook Ads or Google Ads, as you have to consider your product nature, targeted audience and the advertising goal which are crucial for formulating digital marketing strategy. Both ads platforms offer O2O retailers opportunities to increase product awareness and grow sales. Actually, the above is only the quick tips for your reference. There are still a lot of factors such as CPC (Cost per Click), ROI (Return of Investment) which should be considered when you are going to launch an online ads campaign for your O2O business. If you have any enquires about online ads or digital marketing, please contact Posify at (852) 24772883 or email us at marketing@posify.me. Our Google Certified Expert is pleased to provide a 1-1 free consultation for you. Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.
How Uniqlo Improves User Engagement with O2O New Retail 2019-7-15 11:12
According to a recent study conducted by GE Capital Retail Bank, 81% of shoppers research product online before making a purchase either in physical store or online, meaning that the buying decision of the majority of shoppers will be obviously affected by how familiar are they with the products. Meanwhile, a CRBE survey has mentioned that 70% of millennials prefer physical store rather than shopping online. These statistics have indicated that how to effectively integrate the online and offline channels is one of the greatest challenges faced by multi-channel retailers under the new retail age. Source: www.uniqlo.com.hk In view of this situation, being one of the largest clothing retailers in the world, Uniqlo encourages their customers to purchase products via the app or online store, the search function in these e-commerce platforms allow users to find out all the information related to the products such as clothing materials and sizes, etc., very easily. Moreover, customers could decide to pick up the products in physical store after the online purchase, the app or online store will provide the locations and direct the users to the nearest Uniqlo stores where the products are in stock. This is how Uniqlo prevents the digital window shoppers from abandoning the purchase before payment. Source: Photo Taken in Uniqlo Retail Store Apart from Uniqlo, plenty of international fashion brands such as Zara and H&M are also focused on integrating brick and mortar with e-commerce to build an online presence with positive results. However, most of the SMEs are still unable to take the full advantage of this new digital opportunities due to the limited budget and insufficient technical support. Actually, there is no one-size-fits-all answer for how much does an e-commerce platform costs to build and host, depending on the complexity of the specific requirements. It could cost a global retailer more than 1 million dollars for developing an O2O e-commerce platform, but with the advance of science and technology, now using an O2O e-commerce platform is no longer the exclusive right for the global retailers with abundant funds. PosifyRetail is a cloud platform with a fully-integrated O2O function which is suitable for most SMEs in various industries. In order to support more SMEs to grow their businesses with the fully utilization of the new digital opportunities from O2O at an affordable cost, it is designed to be a cost-effective and all-round retail system, providing everything from online to offline. You can enjoy the below functions by paying the lowest price as your daily coffee costs: • Holistic ePOS • Intuitive eShop builder • Holistic Inventory Management • Powerful CRM • Flexible Promotion Module • Encompassing Digital Marketing • Holistic reporting If you would like to know more about how these functions can be applied to your business, please click PosifyRetail. Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.
Click & Collect driven by Seamless O2O Integration 2019-5-2 15:47
Source: Robert Stockdill, "Online-offline integration key to AS Watson Group success" Recently, AS Watsons Group has just celebrated its 15,000th physical store opening. Everyone is curious about its rapid expansion. AS Watson Group MD Dominic Lai reveals that online-to-offline business model is the key to the company’s success. Why does O2O integration become so powerful and beneficial even for such a well-known retail store like Watsons? Mr Lai noted that “Click and Collect” is at the heart of the O2O integration. It's important to link the physical stores to localised e-commerce sites in order to provide a better customer connectivity. That, exactly, is what Posify does. Nowadays, “Click and Deliver” becomes such a common feature and it can no longer help you to stand out from the crowd. In view of this, Posify provides the “Click and Collect” feature, by helping merchants to combine physical stores with mobile, website and social media. Posify helps to synchronise inventory, product data, and even customer data, hence provides a better customer engagement. To know more, please visit: www.posify.me Source: www.insideretail.asia/2019/04/12/online-offline-integration-key-to-as-watson-group-success/ Disclaimer The information contained in this blog is for general information purposes only. We are not responsible for any consequences caused.