Aakaansha, Author at E-commerce Made Easy in India | E-commerce Solutions India - ANS Commerce

Buy Now Pay Later Revolution: Why E-businesses Should Adopt It?

For modern shopaholics, nothing is as exciting as the idea of buying now and paying later. Fortunately for them, this fantasy is now a reality.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) has gained huge popularity over the last few years.

With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ensuing lockdown, and the financial ramifications it has had for consumers and businesses alike, BNPL is likely to become an important part of the e-commerce domain. It enables customers to buy a product or service without worrying about the purchase price.

With the ability to encourage impulse buying and drive additional sales, it’s no surprise that BNPL is the next big payment trend in the online retail world.

What is Buy Now, Pay Later?

The idea behind buy now, pay later is quite simple. Shoppers buy something online and, instead of paying the total amount upfront, pay in instalments over some time. BNPL also makes it possible for businesses to move goods quickly out of inventory.

Companies can offer their financing, or go through a third party such as Simpl or LazyPay.

How does Buy Now, Pay Later work?

At checkout, shoppers have the option to receive their product right away and pay the amount in full either after a set period or in smaller instalments over time. They usually have to make 3-4 equally spaced payments, also, there are no extra fees or interest charges, provided they pay on time.

The businesses have to pay the service provider a certain percentage of the amount as commission plus a fixed fee for every transaction.

The majority of the BNPL service providers do a soft credit check to avoid giving money to people who have shown general disregard for repayment obligations, but this isn’t universal.

Social e-commerce drives further adoption of Buy Now, Pay Later

A change driver that is closely tied to the BNPL boom, is the rise of social e-commerce. It enables users to shop directly from social media apps by bringing social media and e-commerce together. Buy Now, Pay Later assists in fast-tracking the purchase decision by providing shoppers with the option to pay later, leading to more impulse buying.

Whether or not they are active in the social e-commerce domain, brands with an online store need to optimize their checkout experience to remain competitive.

Now that you know what Buy Now, Pay Later is, let’s see how implementing it can benefit your e-commerce business.

Why should businesses offer Buy Now, Pay Later?

Convert more visitors

For businesses, there’s nothing more frustrating than seeing visitors spending a lot of time on their website, browsing products, adding them to the cart, only to abandon them.

While there are multiple reasons for a customer to abandon their cart, affordability always comes on top.

BNPL enables customers to purchase goods even during a tight financial situation. Suppose, you are selling a certain product for two thousand rupees. If you let the buyer pay in two or more instalments, you will sell twice as many products.

Quick Tip – By offering BNPL and making the purchase more economical, you can reach a wider audience, including the younger generation. At ANS Commerce, our in-house tech Kartify is a feature-rich platform and comes with an integrated payment gateway. Request your free DEMO now.

Looking for a logistics partner for your FMCG goods? Read on to find out how we safely store and ship perishable goods.

Increase your average order value

The Average Order Value (AOV) is the amount a customer pays when they make a purchase. Many e-commerce businesses have witnessed more than a 100% increase in AOV after adopting the BNPL payment system on their website.

Smaller, spread-out payments increase the customers’ purchasing power, driving sales for businesses. People prefer BNPL to avoid the exorbitant interest rates of credit cards.

The Buy Now, Pay Later system is also quite helpful for brands selling high-value goods like jewellery and electronics. It enables consumers to purchase these expensive items without worrying about the payment. Therefore, making it easier for brands to drive order conversion.

Offer better customer experience

A hassle-free custom experience builds loyalty and encourages repeat purchases.

For a customer, more ways to shop, pay, and products to choose from, are all positive factors. Offering customers the option to shop and pay the way they want leads to an increase in loyalty and sales.

Which payment method you choose to provide on your checkout page is up to you. Although millennials are more likely to prefer mobile wallet/UPI, the more choices offered, the better.

BNPL is just one more option the customers would like to see on the checkout page. Adopting this growing trend can provide them with a seamless shopping experience leading to repeat business.

Data safety is of utmost importance when it comes to online shopping. Read this article to learn how you can avoid a data breach.

Drawbacks of adopting Buy Now, Pay Later?

There are always certain drawbacks associated with every financing option, BNPL is no exception.

BNPL third-party service providers usually charge 2-6% of the purchase amount, which is higher than the traditional payment methods. However, for brands, it can still be profitable because BNPL assists in driving more conversions

One of the biggest cons of offering the Buy Now, Pay Later option is that it invites several administrative problems. Also, there’s a risk of loss of revenue if the customer doesn’t pay the amount, or stops paying after a few installments. However, BNPL service provided by third parties is a great way to avoid such situations. Once a customer buys through the third-party gateway, the seller is paid in full within a few business days. The payment partner services the loan and takes on the risk, from chargebacks to fraud

BNPL also involves integration challenges, incorporating it requires some serious workaround on your checkout page. It needs special tools and technology, which adds up to your business expense thus lowering your profit margin. To avoid this, brands should choose a feature-rich platform that is integration-ready

How can ANS Commerce assist you?

Our in-house, fully customizable, integration-ready proprietary brand store platform, Kartify comes with a payment gateway that is safe and secure. We do not store user financial details and conduct regular security audits for more safety.

BNPL is the latest wave within the fintech industry to further disrupt the traditional banking and business landscape. With the long-term financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially among the younger generation, BNPL services will likely witness accelerated adoption in the future. Kartify offers an option to enable BNPL for our partner brands. We advise you to jump on this trend with our assistance so that you can drive more sales, safely. Request your free DEMO now!

Facebook Ad Targeting Tips to Drive Conversions for Your Business

More than a billion people log onto Facebook every day, making it an excellent and cost-effective tool for marketing your offerings to a huge audience. The platform’s advanced targeting system helps businesses cut through the noise and find their ideal customers.

An effective Facebook ad targeting strategy increases conversions while lowering the cost per conversion, the ultimate measure of an ad’s value.

Email marketing is another powerful tool to reach target audiences. Read this article to understand how you can optimize your order confirmation email for driving sales

Facebook Ad Campaign Goals

A powerful message helps in creating a strong connection with your audience and demonstrates how your product/service can solve their problems and make their life more comfortable.

For instance, if you are creating an ad campaign to market sports shoes, you should mention –

How comfortable they are
How they can help buyers in achieving their fitness goals

The social media giant offers brands an opportunity to test a wide variety of targeting features to find the most effective and pocket-friendly way to reach customers and drive sales.

The targeting options are broadly classified into two categories:

Cold Traffic

People who are not aware of your business or product and have never visited your website are known as cold traffic.

Facebook enables you to target audience based on the following criteria:

Interests and Brands

Age, events, businesses that the users follow (for instance, target users who follow businesses similar to yours)

Life Events and Profile Status

Event management companies can target people who recently got engaged or have children

Age and Gender

Brands dealing in women clothing or makeup should target female Facebook users

Location

Businesses can target a whole nation or just their locality

Lookalike Audiences

You can request Facebook to display the ads to users who are similar to the audience set you have provided.

Retargeted Traffic

Users who visited your website or somehow came in contact with your brand are called retargeted traffic. It includes –

Website visitors

people who visited specific pages of your website, product, or checkout page

Engagement

Users who engaged with the brand’s organic posts or ads

Custom List

Businesses can upload a custom list on Facebook like a list of people who signed up for their newsletter

Facebook video viewers

Users who viewed the brand’s video posts

Facebook page likes

Users who liked the business’s Facebook page

Businesses can display such users’ ads to remind them of the products they have visited or left in their carts.

Now that you understand a bit about Facebook ads, let’s dive into high-converting Facebook ad-targeting strategies that can propel your business to the top.

4 High-converting Facebook Ad Targeting Strategies

Target your competitor’s customers

Facebook Audience Insights offers a treasure trove of valuable information that can help businesses understand their audience. They can leverage this data to learn how to target potential customers.

Brands can also use Facebook insights to find and target their competitor’s customers. Just go to the Create Audience tab and type the name of your competitor’s Facebook Pages in the interest box. Check out the demographics information to see if you can gain any more insights that will assist you in reaching your target audience. Now, create new audiences based on this data and save it for the future.

Quick Tips – You can further target this audience to make sure you get the best fit for your specific business and campaign goal. If you find this to be too technical, reach out to us. We offer performance marketing services and take care of all your promotional needs. Request your free DEMO today!

Leverage life event targeting

Some businesses and campaigns are designed to sell products/services to people experiencing certain life events. For example, wedding photographers will target recently engaged couples or their family members. Packers and movers want to reach people who have just purchased a new house or are moving to a new city.

Facebook has every conceivable life event targeting option since users tend to post these on their timelines.

The life events parameters are unique, brands can choose to target people at specific intervals of time. For instance, a jewellery brand that wants to reach people celebrating their 1st wedding anniversary can target audience members who were newlyweds 1 year ago.

Expand to lookalike audiences

Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences enable businesses to create target lists of potential customers who share similar interests with their existing customers.

If the Facebook insights inform you that your existing customers are new dog parents who live in Delhi NCR, you should target other dog parents in the same location.

The platform’s tools are quite sophisticated in their audience matching. Brands don’t even have to know what data points they have to match, Facebook will figure it out for them.

Quick Tip – Lookalike audience is an excellent way to target and reach new customers. The trick is to choose the right source, the two key criteria are – audience size and quality.

Get super granular with layered targeting

The best thing about advertising on Facebook is that it enables businesses to layer targeting options, gradually making their audience more and more specific.

Brands can use combinations of behaviours, demographics, and locations for a more targeted approach. Suppose, a moving company is offering a flat 20% discount to senior citizens. It can target people who recently purchased a house, layered with an age range of 60 years or older and their service area location.

This Facebook targeting strategy is best suited for promotions designed to target a specific audience or niche. Coupled with a strong landing page, this strategy can provide you with excellent results.

Facebook advertising is inexpensive and offers a more focused targeting strategy. If executed correctly. It can provide a huge ROI by pulling users from the conversion funnel.

Now that you know how to effectively target audiences on Facebook the next obvious step is to target them through Google ads. Read this article to learn how to create a successful Google Ad campaign.

Why ANS Commerce?

When planning your Facebook ad targeting strategy, don’t just pick one of the above-mentioned tips. Implement each of them and see how they might fit into your target market segments. If you feel overwhelmed with all this information, get in touch with us. At ANS Commerce, we take care of everything e-commerce leaving you free to focus on your core business operations. We offer custom performance marketing services, our in-house platform LimeReach is designed to track customer data and enables businesses to make data-backed decisions.

Still, confused? Request your free DEMO today!

Instagram SEO: 4 Ways to Enhance Your Brand’s Reach

Instagram has established itself as one of the biggest social media platforms with more than one billion active users. For businesses, it can be a powerful marketing tool to reach new prospects and gain more customers. The best way to do that is by increasing your followers, the more people you reach, the higher your chances of driving sales. However, Instagram has become quite saturated, and marketing on the platform is very competitive. Getting noticed amidst millions of other accounts is certainly difficult if you’re a relatively new or small business.

So, the question is, how can you effectively promote your brand on Instagram?

The answer is easy, Instagram SEO!

Instagram recently made a significant update to its search functionality, instead of only being able to search profiles, hashtags, and locations, users can now search general keywords and it will show all posts that include those words.

It means with this change in Instagram algorithm, brands need to incorporate Instagram SEO into their marketing strategy.

Email marketing is another effective way to reach target customers and increase sales, read this article to learn how to optimize your order confirmation emails to drive more conversions

Instagram SEO Algorithm

Google has its algorithm to decide which page will rank on top of its result page. Following the same principle, the Instagram algorithm determines which post (photos and videos) will rank on top of users’ feeds, in Instagram Search, and on the Explore page.

Just like with traditional SEO, the higher a brand’s Instagram post ranks, the more organic reach it will generate. Now, the question is, how does the platform’s algorithm work, and what factors influence the ranking?

Instagram does not favour videos over images or vice versa. For instance, if the user engages with more videos regularly, then he’ll receive more video recommendations

The main factor in determining a page’s Instagram ranking is user engagement. The platform uses AI and machine learning to monitor user engagement data in real time and is constantly updating

The type of Instagram account, Personal, Business, or Creator, does not influence the algorithm

The platform is actively monitoring for bought likes and fake followers and can ban your account if it suspects you of indulging in such fraudulent activities

How fast the audience engages with your posts does not influence your ranking on Instagram

Now that you have a basic understanding of Instagram SEO and algorithm, here are a few powerful Instagram SEO tips to help you navigate the social landscape.

4 Instagram SEO Tips to Increase Brand’s Discoverability

Instagram SEO Tip #1: Optimize Your Profile for Search

As part of the Explore page, Instagram Search is the directory where users can find any account on the platform.

Similar to Google, users can use the search bar on top of the Explore page to find and discover accounts, hashtags, and locations. The search result is based on a variety of factors such as people the searchers follow, who they’re connected to, and what type of content they interact with on the platform. However, the results are also based on keywords now.

When a user searches for something by typing in a keyword on Instagram (such as a leather handbag), the platform sorts through millions of accounts to find the most relevant result for what they’re looking for – accounts that have those keywords. Therefore, to rank for specific keywords brands need to optimize their profile for such terms.

For instance, to rank for the term handbag, incorporate that keyword into your name and username since both are searchable on Instagram.

Quick Tip – If you don’t want to use the keyword in your username, place it in the name field of your Instagram bio. It’s fully customizable and separate from your username. Change the name to something that highlights what your business is about. It is an excellent way to boost your visibility on Instagram.

Instagram SEO Tip #2: Use Instagram Alt Text

Alt-text is a relatively new feature on Instagram that enables users to write captions for their images. It was designed to assist visually impaired users to enjoy their Instagram experience, but it can also be used by brands to rank higher. The platform automatically generates the alt text for the images if you don’t add one. However, It’s better to do it yourself to make sure it matches what’s actually in the photo. It helps your post rank higher in the search results, resulting in more engagement.

Instagram SEO Tip #3: Treat Hashtags Like Keywords

Adding relevant hashtags to your posts and stories is one of the best ways to get discovered by the target audiences on Instagram. This can easily translate into more engagement, followers, and customers for your business.

If you add a hashtag to your post, that post will be displayed on the corresponding hashtag’s results page. Since they’re used to discover new content, using relevant hashtags can put your post/account in front of the target audience, even if they are not following you on Instagram.

Hashtags offer plenty of benefits apart from improving your discoverability. They can help you in community-building, sourcing user-generated content, running social media campaigns, researching target audiences, and more. Therefore, it’s important to have a clear and well-developed hashtag strategy. Without one, you would be missing out on opportunities to optimize your Instagram account and drive more engagement and followers.

Quick Tip – Instagram hashtag strategy doesn’t have to be too complex. Just test and track your efforts so that you can find out what’s working and what isn’t. At ANS Commerce, we have in-house tools for testing and tracking marketing campaign performance, request your free DEMO today!

Instagram SEO Tip #4: Optimize Your Page for Engagement

As mentioned above, engagement influences the Instagram algorithm, and to improve engagement, brands need to improve three main aspects of their posts:

Attractiveness

In this highly competitive Instagram environment, it is important to create and post content that your target audience would find valuable. Publish carefully curated and enticing photos/videos with attractive captions. Also, if the engagement on one of your posts is high, it will be beneficial for your future posts.

Check out this post to learn about the trending Instagram themes and incorporate them to increase your audience engagement!

Timing

Instagram doesn’t display the content chronologically on its Explore page, however, newer posts are more likely to appear first in the user’s feed. Therefore, spotting the right time to post your photos/videos is very important to increase your engagement. Simply check Instagram Insights and find out when your followers are the most active. You can also use various Instagram analytical tools for this purpose, but you’d need to research your target audience first.

Relationships

Instagram algorithms also take into account the depth of the engagement, if someone likes or comments on your posts often, it will recommend more of your post to that user. Therefore, knowing your target audience and posting content that will resonate with them is very important. Conduct intensive market research and define your target audience, and develop your content based on those insights.

Why Choose ANS Commerce?

Planning and executing Instagram marketing campaigns can be quite overwhelming if you don’t possess the necessary skills and tools. At ANS Commerce, we offer our clients custom performance marketing solutions, from checking brand logos and guidelines for creatives to collecting actionable insights with our in-house tools, we have everything you need to reach and convert your target audience. Request your free DEMO today!

Instagram SEO is a cost-effective, high-impact strategy that can assist brands in reaching their target audience and driving conversions and sales. It may not be as effective as paid advertising, but the potential ROI is staggering. For brands committed to using social media for marketing purposes, Instagram SEO is an effective tool.

The Ultimate Guide For Storing And Shipping Chocolates

Every e-commerce merchant will agree: it’s one thing to store and ship durables, but quite another to ship chocolates. A lot can go wrong while shipping chocolates, which requires e-retailers to carefully consider warehouse services and courier partners.

Customer satisfaction is a top priority for every business, therefore, it’s important to deliver the goods in perfect condition. Storing and shipping FMCG products is not an easy task, various factors must be taken into consideration to prevent them from spoiling while in storage and transit.

Some common challenges faced while storing and shipping chocolates

Maintaining the optimal temperature 24*7 to avoid melting and blooming (when chocolate turns white on its surface when it’s too cold). Also, the chocolates expand, and their shape change if the temperature is higher than 22 degrees

Packing and shipping chocolates in insulated vehicles and boxes, however, these containers and vehicles are quite expensive

Reducing transit time, however, for this, you need to have zonal or regional warehouses, which is not financially feasible for every business

Delivering chocolates while keeping the packaging and shipping cost minimum

How does ANS Commerce store and deliver chocolates safely?

Maintaining optimal temperature

Chocolate being a food item is categorized as perishable goods. Take weather conditions into consideration while planning the shipping week so that you can decide whether or not it’s a good day to ship. However, this is only possible for those who have a flexible timeline for deliveries.

At ANS Commerce warehouses, we maintain the temperature between 18-22 degrees to avoid ruining the texture of the chocolates. There’s a 24-hour power backup to prevent chocolates from melting irrespective of the weather conditions. Our warehouses have temperature sensor monitors to check for any variations. We offer gel packs and insulated boxes and vehicles for maintaining optimal temperature during transit.

Request your free DEMO today!

Quick Tip – Keep the chocolates away from direct heat or light. Also, always place frozen gel packs while shipping chocolates, and these packs should be inside plastic bags to avoid condensation.

Making sure the packaging is damage-proof

Packing the chocolates should both be safe and practical. You want the packaging to be safe and spill-proof but also easy to open without damaging the goods inside. Here are some of the packaging materials we use at ANS Commerce to ship chocolates.

Insulated Containers

At our warehouses, we offer insulated containers to keep chocolates safe during transit. A foil backing combined with foam or fibre fillers makes our insulation containers highly effective for providing temperature control for 48 hours.

Cold Packs

The insulated containers keep the temperature low for 48 hours. However, sealed in a plastic bag, cold packs help in maintaining the temperature of the chocolates for an even longer duration and act as portable refrigerators. We use cold packs for FMCG company Mars Wrigley’s chocolates, and they always reach their destination in perfect condition.

We recently onboarded a leading FMCG and chocolate brand, Mars Wrigley, to offer tech-enabled warehousing and shipping services. Read on to learn more about how we’re helping the company in order fulfillment

Steps for Packaging Process

Prepare the shipping container
Put the reflective insulation liner inside the container, covering all six sides
Take out the chocolate from the cold storage unit and put it in the shipping box. We use bubble wraps to prevent cold packs from freezing the chocolates
Seal the insulated box with adhesive strips
Close the outer box and seal the edges with tape

While packing chocolates make sure there is no space between them. If they’re not tightly packed, there’s a higher chance of breakage during shipping and handling. If you’re shipping chocolates of different sizes and weights, place the larger and heavier ones at the bottom. This would prevent them from crushing.

Quick Tip – We always recommend using a box twice the size of your shipment so that there’s room for protective material.

Planning and executing the delivery

Prepare a checklist of all the things you need before scheduling your shipments such as shipping fees, permits, and more. Inform the customer about the delivery timeline and shipping cost (in case of postpaid order) to ensure faster processing. Research and find out the best method to ship chocolates safely. Usually, they’re shipped in vans or trailers since they have a cooling system to keep the chocolates fresh.

Choosing the right logistics partner is very important. You need a partner that would deliver the chocolates timely and in good condition. At ANS Commerce, we have regional warehouses to make sure that the delivery time never exceeds 48 hours and that the Mars shipment reaches its destination in good condition. We also offer insulated vehicles to make sure the chocolates do not get damaged in transit.

Storing and shipping can be a difficult task to accomplish when you’re selling chocolates, but once you do thorough research and figure out the best way to pack and ship them, you can rest assured that they will reach their destination safely.

Partnering with multiple warehouses and delivery partners can be quite expensive and time-consuming for brands. A better approach is to partner with a full-stack e-commerce enabler such as ANS Commerce that maintains high safety standards while storing and shipping FMCG goods. Moreover, with our regional warehouses, brands can easily offer next-day delivery to their customers. With excellent performance in all aspects of order fulfillment, ANS Commerce offers cost-effective shipping solutions. What are you waiting for? Request your free DEMO today!

Strategies To Optimize Order Confirmation Emails To Build Stronger Customer Relationships

Nothing feels more amazing than changing a lead into a sale. We know that feeling hits a different level of satisfaction. But, is your relationship with your buyer just limited to making a purchase? Well, that is not an ending but just the beginning of the customer-seller relationship. This is the crucial moment where you can make your customer realize that your brand cares about every touchpoint they go through. It’s imperative you actively engage with the customers and keep them informed at every point of their journey.

We just wish that while optimizing your email marketing strategy, you are not forgetting the most crucial mail that everyone awaits for – order confirmation mail.

What makes Order Confirmation Mails so important?

How will you feel if you make a purchase from an offline store and did not receive any bill? No matter how amazing the service or the product was, you need a confirmation of your purchase which is a bill. In the same way, an order confirmation mail is a bill and acts as a proof for the buyer, so they tend to engage with it more.

Order Confirmation emails are transactional emails and are triggered when purchases are completed, they even contain additional components which increase engagement.

Basic components of an Order Confirmation Email

Order placement confirmation
Amount charged for that order
Estimated delivery time
Delivery address

These are the basic elements of every order confirmation email, however, if you want to attract customers and encourage them to do business with you again then follow these strategies!

5 ways to optimize order confirmation email to build stronger customer relationship

Encourage customers to buy more

Making cross-sell offers in the order confirmation mail is an effective way to encourage your customers to buy more from you. After all, if a person has already bought from you, they’re more likely to buy again.

You can encourage customers to buy more by sharing a ‘frequently bought together’ list in the confirmation email. For instance, if someone bought a shower gel from you then it’s reasonable to assume that they’ll also need a shower cap, body scrub, and moisturizer. It is also helpful for the customer because these products are all relevant.

Now, the question arises which product needs a cross-sell?

The answer is simple, they all do!

Any product bought by the customer fills a need and creates a need for a new one. For example, if they buy a new phone, they’ll need a new phone cover and screen protector. The question is not whether the product needs a cross-sell, it’s about making it relevant to the customer.

Quick Tip – Create a sense of FOMO by offering a limited-time offer in your order confirmation mail. Also, do not confuse the customers with too many options, just recommend 5 items to them.

Want to know the secrets of an effective email marketing strategy? Tap here

Boost social media followers

Social media is an excellent tool to generate leads and sales, it also provides businesses access to more audiences.

Adding social media buttons to your confirmation email can assist in boosting your followers. A higher follower count enables you to target a custom audience on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

You can also ask customers in the order confirmation email to share their favourite products on social media. When they share it, their followers will click through to view the products, providing you with a chance to add a tracking code and launch a remarketing campaign on social media.

Motivate shoppers to join the referral program

Referral marketing is an effective way to persuade new customers to buy your products. Leverage order confirmation emails to encourage satisfied customers to promote your products, it’ll assist you in generating new leads and sales. However, to run a successful referral program, you need to incentivize your existing customers. For instance, motivate shoppers to share your products on social media with their followers by offering them a 10% discount on the next purchase.

Promote loyalty programs

Order confirmation emails are an important part of the post-purchase promotion strategy. If you’re running a loyalty program, the best time to promote it is right after the customer has placed an order on your website.

You can run a loyalty program wherein the customers earn redeemable points every time they buy from you. This way you can turn a one-time purchase into repeat customers. Also, use this opportunity to remind shoppers of their total unredeemed loyalty points to encourage them to make a purchase.

Quick Tip – You can occasionally send customers emails reminding them of the unused benefits that they’re missing out on. At ANS Commerce we provide our clients with complete performance marketing services. To find out more, request your free DEMO now!

Leverage user-generated content to boost sales

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, however, in the context of the order confirmation email, it is worth a lot more than that.

Businesses that are serious about boosting their sales through order confirmation emails should consider using user-generated content (UGC).

UGC is any piece of content that your customer has posted on social media and online forums. It could be anything, photos, reviews, etc. Incorporating it in the order confirmation email assists in creating trust and authenticity. UGC can also assist in boosting sales, for example, if you add a review wherein a customer raved about buying, say, a bedsheet and a matching pair of pillowcases, it will encourage the recipient to make a purchase.

How can ANS Commerce assist you?

Are you worried about handling and managing customers’ orders? Well, leave everything to us, our in-house tech Kartify is a fully customizable, integration-ready proprietary brandstore platform.

Completely mobile-friendly to offer a seamless shopping experience to customers
In-built tools to collect customer data for remarketing campaigns
Equipped with custom email reports.

Still, having second thoughts? You can request a free DEMO now!

An order confirmation email is one of the most-awaited, engaging, and informative emails that a business sends to its customers. Therefore, brands should invest more time in creating them. Also, it helps businesses to sell more and gain loyal customers. With just a few tweaks, you can optimize your order confirmation email for higher engagement, traffic, and revenue.

How A/B Testing can help you in upgrading your business?

Do you know which approach is the best to make your customers happy? Well, this is a question that every marketer gets confused about. The most common dilemma that businesses face these days is they think they understand customers. However, customer behaviour is quite unpredictable. You just can’t afford to rely upon gut feeling or intuition as customers’ purchasing habits are very dynamic in this era of online shopping. Well, we have an amazing solution for you which is to conduct A/B testing.

A/B testing is a statistical way to compare the two versions such as A and B to know which versions go better for you.

A/B Testing Process

Here’s an A/B testing framework you can use to start running tests –

Collect data to find out where you need to improve. Start with areas attracting high volume on your website, it will enable you to gather data faster. Look for pages with low conversion or high abandonment rates

Identify and set objectives to find out whether or not the new variations are performing better than the original version

After identifying your objective, start generating A/B testing ideas and hypotheses for why you think they will perform better than the current version. Prioritize them in terms of expected impact and level of difficulty in implementation

Use an A/B testing software to make desired changes in an element of your website experience. It could be anything from changing the color of a button to hiding the navigation elements

Run experiments and wait for your visitors to participate. They will be randomly assigned to either the control or variation version of the website. Their response to each experience is measured and compared to determine how each performed

Start analyzing the results after the experiment is over. You’ll find out how the two visions of your page performed and whether or not there is a statistically significant difference

Quick Tip – Running a successful A/B test requires years of experience and skill, it’s quite normal to feel overwhelmed by the extensive steps involved in the experiment. At ANS Commerce, we provide our clients with complete performance marketing services and take care of all the marketing planning and campaigns for them. Request your free DEMO today!

Benefits of A/B Testing

Boost Your ROI

A/B testing can assist you in analyzing the website visitor and customer behavior before investing in major decisions. It can assist you in avoiding unwanted risks by helping you focus your efforts and resources for maximum efficiency. Ultimately increasing your ROI, conversions, long-term customer loyalty, and other relevant metrics.

Quick tip: You must know of every single point that took you to success, we recommend you to always take an independent variable first and measure its performance.

Prevent Cart Abandonment

The final goal of every website is to sell goods and services. However, getting visitors to follow through with checkout after clicking the add to cart button is not an easy task because usually, potential customers abandon their carts before paying. A/B testing can assist businesses in finding the optimal combination of tweaks to the order pages that will motivate the users to finish the purchase.

The customer journey between checkout and entering a delivery address is the best place to implement the A/B testing.

Want to know about constructive Website designing tips? Just CLICK HERE

Lower Bounce Rate

It hurts when a visitor just vanishes from the website in a few seconds. A/B testing is an easy way to determine the best combination of elements that will make the visitors stay on your website for longer. The more time they spend on your website, the more chances of them discovering something of value, resulting in conversion.

Want to know some amazing tips to fix your brandstore speed? CLICK HERE

Quick tip: You must experiment while creating a new page on web design, write fresh titles while testing the variations to boost conversions.

Improved User Engagement

Elements of a website that can be A/B tested include the headline, images, call-to-action (CTA) forms and language, layouts, fonts, and more. Testing one change at a time helps in finding out which influenced user behavior and which did not. Implementing the winner variation will improve the user experience, resulting in overall success.

Quick tip: If you are facing problems with tracking your website, ANS Commerce is here for you. We provide an in-house tool for marketing automation and detailed analysis to enhance your CTA. Request your free DEMO now!

How Can We Help You?

Well, now you know how incredibly A/B testing works in optimizing your business. But are you worried about how you will implement it? Well, no worries we are here to help you as ANS Commerce provides the best assistance when it comes to A/B testing. As it has special features like:

Experiments different audience sets: It experiments with different audience sets to analyze the best approach for the brand
Segmenting custom audience: It segments the custom audience on the basis of behaviour on the website to know what works best for them
Tech & Product: ANS helps you in optimizing the load time of the website, one-page checkout for faster transactions, a data layer for better tracking, and a lot more features

Go ahead and request your free DEMO now!

We all know how dynamic e-commerce businesses are these days which is even more of a big alert for the companies that make certain decisions on gut feeling or intuition. That’s the reason A/B testing is imperative and the most useful tool these days to drive your e-business growth. A lot of companies in the world have achieved a lot more than their goals by A/B testing and your business could be the next! What are you still thinking? Implement A/B testing now!

Upcoming Supply Chain Technology Trends That Can Amplify Your E-commerce Business

The pandemic exposed many ongoing and hidden issues in the logistics industry. Therefore, companies are now looking for ways to transform their supply chain models. One of those ways is to invest in new technologies for achieving higher efficiency. Businesses can no longer ignore the benefits technology offers to supply chain and business management. With proper data collection and centralization, trends like AI and blockchain can assist businesses to shape up and boost efficiency.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has simultaneously disrupted the supply chain industry, re-emphasized its significance, and created completely new goals and opportunities.”

5 Supply Chain Technology Trends That Can Supercharge Your Business

1. Automate with artificial intelligence

Automation has been a growing trend in almost every industry for the past decade. The continued success indicates that it will only get stronger in the future. Recently, artificial intelligence(AI) is being leveraged for automation in the supply chain industry. AI algorithms can automate basic operations such as inventory management, delivery, and more by crunching past data. This saves a lot of time and eliminates the possibility of errors, resulting in higher efficiency. It also frees up the human resource to execute more complex tasks.

The potential of AI is quite vast, it can be used to identify patterns in data and deliver valuable insights. They can be used, for example, to forecast product demand shortly. With artificial intelligence, logistics operations can become more efficient and accurate.

Quick Tip – Automation is not limited to just manual tasks inside the warehouses. Companies are now investing billions to make driverless truck deliveries a reality. Although it will take years before being implemented industry-wide, issues like driver shortage and sustainability concerns will keep driving the demand.

2. Boost transparency with blockchain

Over the years, blockchain has been called “the biggest breakthrough” and also “just hype”. However, it has proved its significance in multiple fields; the supply chain is one of them.

The primary use of blockchain has been to facilitate transparency because obscurity in data sharing often harms a supply chain. Blockchain facilitates more transparent and accurate tracking in the supply chain, businesses can digitize physical assets and develop a decentralized record of all transactions, making it easy to track assets throughout the supply chain. It is completely immutable and incorruptible, making it more secure than the cloud.

Blockchain can assist businesses in reducing fraud, especially in high-valued goods. It can assist them in understanding how raw materials and finished goods are passed through each subcontractor and reduce profit losses from counterfeit and grey market trade.

“Blockchain is an open ledger of transactions distributed among computers in a particular network. Everyone on the shared blockchain has complete access to that ledger, thus, enabling complete transparency”

With the wider adoption of blockchain, logistic operations would become more transparent and efficient.

3. Settle payments with smart contracts

“Smart contracts are computer protocols that automatically verify, control and execute an agreement. The terms of the agreement are directly written into the lines of codes, therefore, eliminating the need for a middleman. The code controls the execution of transactions, which are trackable and irreversible.”

The tides of automation will not stop at AI and robotics, smart contracts have emerged as another technology to achieve it. They are transaction protocols that are meant to execute when certain conditions are met. In SCM, it could be used to automatically generate an invoice when the shipment reaches the destination or conduct financial transactions between the concerned parties. Smart contracts are being used to settle payments using cryptocurrencies. They remove the need for arbitration from a trusted party, making the process much faster.

4. Improve operational efficiency with digital twins

Computer modelling in its current form never takes into account how products wear out and are replaced, how they become obsolete, or how owners modify them to suit changing needs. Digital twins enable interacting with the virtual model of a product or part just like one would with their physical counterparts.

In the supply chain industry, a digital twin is a virtual supply chain replica that consists of multiple assets, warehouses, logistics, and inventory data. It has gained so much popularity in the industry because it offers improvements in technical and computational capabilities. It supports the entire value chain, from designing and construction to commissioning and operations. For instance, it can be used to collect product and packaging data and use the information to identify potential weaknesses and recurring problems to improve future operations. The technology can also be used to create accurate 3D models of the warehouses and experiment with layout changes or the addition of new equipment to see its impact, risk-free. Delivery networks can leverage technology to provide real-time information to improve shipping and delivery.

Are you looking for a warehouse? Check out these tips to choose a warehouse that suits all your business needs!

Quick Tip – We handle the complete ‘pick-pack-dispatch’ process & manifestation of the B2C orders with strict SLAs, thereby, leaving you free to focus on product development and customer acquisition. Request your free DEMO now!

5. Increase supply chain visibility(SCV) with IoT

Gone are the days when static SCV data was enough to satisfy customers and carriers. Nowadays, the demand for real-time SCV data has risen exponentially. Now, the question arises, how can companies obtain this real-time data? The answer is simple, through technology, specifically the Internet of Things(IoT).

With IoT sensors attached to shipments, companies can retrieve data required to track the location and condition of the goods along with the security of the shipment. It can provide real-time information like temperature, humidity, shock, and more for better shipment management. Also, it can boost efficiency by providing information about the machines, including predictive maintenance requirements, within a warehouse.

How Can We Assist You?

These SCM trends are still in their early stages of adoption and are not implemented actively. However, If you’re someone who’s looking for logistics solutions, ANS Commerce is the right place for you. We manage warehousing, and supply chain execution across channels and offer return management with JIT flexibility. We have warehouses in Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi NCR to offer seamless logistics solutions to our clients. Request your free DEMO now!

What can you expect from ANS?

Scale and knowledge – Extensive TPL network and marketplace partnerships facilitate better response and costs
Flexibility – Custom solutions for optimized storage and seamless integration with client OMS and WMS
End-to-end support – Manage all pieces of logistics by tapping order checkpoints including reliable return and refurbishment

The logistics industry stands amidst unprecedented times, but the future holds great promise. Adopting these innovations gradually will assist the industry in facing the challenges and help businesses achieve greater operational efficiencies.

Google Ads: How They Work And Tips To Create An Effective Ad Campaign

Google Ads are an excellent way to drive traffic and generate leads for businesses. They enable retailers to create and share well-timed ads with the target audience. The ad shows up in the search results whenever the customer searches for goods and services in their niche.

In this article, we will dive deep into the intricacies of a Google Ad campaign and explain how you can drive high-volume conversions.

“Google Ads connect businesses with the target audience when they are in the purchase stage of their customer journey”

How Do Google Ads Work?

Advertisers create an ad and bid on the target keywords, the winner’s ad is placed at the top of the search results, in YouTube ads, and other partner websites based on the ad campaign selected. Google then displays the ad to users who have shown an active interest in their offerings.

Multiple factors influence your ability to create effective and responsive ads. We have compiled a list of such factors to assist you in developing high-yielding ads.

1. Improve AdRank and Quality Score(QS)

AdRank determines the placement of the ads, while Quality Score determines the AdRank.

Quality Score is based on the quality and relevance of the ad, Google measures that by finding out how many people clicked on your ad. Focus your attention and resources on QS while setting up the campaign. Higher the Quality Score, lower the acquisition costs, and better the ad placement.

2. Set Your Target Location

While setting up the Google Ad, you’re required to select a geographic area where the ad will be displayed. For a physical store, it should be within a reasonable radius of its location. If you have a brandstore and a tangible product, the location should be set to places where you ship.

3. Conduct Keywords Research

Keyword research is an important part of the paid ad campaign. They should match with the searcher’s intent because Google matches the ad with search queries based on your keywords.

Each ad group created within an ad campaign targets a small set of keywords, Google displays your ads based on them. Therefore, conduct thorough research before selecting the target keywords.

4. Create Ad Copy

Creating an attractive ad copy for Google Ads is not difficult, you just need to flex both your art and science muscles. While crafting the copy, envision the visitor journey from the query, to ad copy, to the landing page. If there’s a hiccup along the way or they are not satisfied with the offering, they’ll abandon your site and hop on to your competitor’s.

“An attractive ad copy matches the searcher’s intent, is aligned with relevant keywords, and addresses the customer pain points with clear solutions.”

The ad copy should include relevant keywords and details to entice the visitor into clicking on the ad. It should have a call to action to make sure the ad is only getting clicked by those interested in your offerings.

5. Retarget Website Visitors

Retargeting or remarketing is a way to advertise to users who have previously interacted with you online but haven’t converted yet. It involves using a special tracking code to place cookies on the browser of visitors and serving ads on the Display and Search network. Retargeting is effective because potential customers need to see your ad more than once to convert.

Want to know how to retarget website visitors to boost conversions? Read these 12 proven tips to increase your brandstore sales

Quick Tip – If you are still facing trouble with Google Ads, let us lend you a helping hand with our robust performance marketing solutions. To learn more, request your free DEMO now!

Now that you know how Google Ads works, it’s time to set up your ad campaign. Read ahead to learn how to create a successful Google campaign.

Tips To Create Effective Google Ad Campaigns

Setting up the paid Google campaign is relatively quick and simple. After you land on the Google Ads site and click “Start Now”, it will take you through a series of steps to get the ad up and running. If you’ve curated the ad copy and images beforehand, the procedure will take no longer than ten minutes.

There are certain steps one needs to take to ensure the ads are optimally set up and easily trackable. Below, we’ve mentioned a few such steps to help you get the most out of the campaign.

Want to drive high-volume traffic to your brandstore? Read on

1. Link Google Analytics to Google Ads

Your website most likely has Google Analytics installed to track traffic, conversions, goals, and other metrics. You need to link it with Google Ads for better results. Linking them makes tracking, analyzing, and reporting between channels and campaigns much easier since you can view them all in one place.

2. Implement Funnel Strategy

Funnel optimization is a versatile strategy that will boost the reach of your campaign, attract the audience, and make conversions more profitable.

The Google Ads funnel strategy uses a series of campaigns to guide prospects through their customer journey. It is created to attract audiences, generate interest and demand, encourage them to actively search for products and services in your niche, and turn them into paying customers. It achieves its goal with targeted content and offers.

3. Set Up Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking informs you whether or not the ads are bringing the desired results. The insight collected from the conversion data can assist you in fine-tuning the campaign to drive more traffic and sales.

Conversion tracking produces data that facilitates you to make data-driven decisions, identify high-performing keywords, and optimize the campaign.

Quick Tip – A low-converting ad could also be explained by insufficient landing page content. Providing relevant and valuable content on the website can work wonders for your conversion rate.

4. Leverage Enhanced E-commerce

Enhanced e-commerce plugin provides the comprehensive data businesses need to make an informed decision. It enables them to analyze which products the customers are viewing, adding to or removing from their baskets, and buying. It facilitates identifying trends or pushing the data collected into Google Display Network for remarketing purposes.

How Can ANS Commerce Assist You?

Creating and launching a successful Google Ads campaign requires a certain skill set and prior experience, not possessed by everyone. ANS Commerce, India’s #1 full-stack e-commerce enabler provides custom performance marketing services, leaving you free to focus on product development and customer acquisition. Our in-house tech Kartify is built to track all the customer data and logs to make it easy for the business to make informed decisions. Request your free DEMO today!

What can you expect from ANS Commerce?

Account Hygiene – We conduct regular brainstorming sessions with the client team and share the preview link before going live with the campaign
Experiments – We regularly experiment with different audience sets and customize the ad content for different customer personas
Business & Analytics – We offer in-house tools for automating manual tasks to save time and resources

Given its reach and authority, Google Ads should be an important part of your marketing strategy. Implement the tips and tricks we covered to get started and keep optimizing the campaign for better results.

Transition From Brick and Mortar Store To Click and Mortar Store (And Tips to Promote it)

With the brick and mortar model hitting a snag last year, multiple businesses jumped on the e-retail bandwagon. Some even transitioned to online-only stores. An e-commerce store offers certain advantages that a physical store does not, like, the ability to sell 24/7 and a wider audience to market to. However, this ease of accessibility has resulted in an influx of online merchants, dramatically increasing the competition and marketing noise across the internet. The question arises, how do you offer customers value in this highly competitive market?

Here, your experience in running an offline store will come in handy. A brick-and-mortar store is the physical representation of the brand and you’ve already invested a good amount of time and resources into establishing its identity. Therefore, one part of the equation is complete. In this article, we have curated a list of 5 essentials for setting up a successful online store.

“Leverage your offline brand identity to drive your e-commerce business to the top.”

Consider These 5 Factors While Setting Up Your Brandstore

1. Choose a platform according to your business model

The most important step while transitioning from offline to an online store is setting up a website. In the past few years, multiple web hosting and site-building platforms have sprung up. Finding the one that works for you is not easy. It is as important as finding the right location for your next offline store. Therefore, conduct thorough research before making any platform decision.

One rule holds for both online and offline business: Moving is time-consuming. Transferring all the product details from the physical store to an online storefront can be quite tedious and expensive. Choose a scalable platform by identifying your current needs and forecasting your future requirements. Invest in accurate growth projections before making any decisions to avoid outgrowing the platform.

Quick Tip: If you want a customizable and integration-ready platform that can be scaled easily, then Kartify is your best bet. Request your free DEMO now!

2. Select integrations based on your brandstore requirements

After finding a platform to suit your business model, it’s time to explore integrations for payment, design, and shipping that are compatible with it.

Extensions or plugins are software additions designed to fulfill certain tasks that the platform cannot. They are either produced by the parent company or third-party vendors. A few of them are free, others require a one-time payment, and other work on a monthly subscription model. Accurately defining your needs will assist you in cost projection.

For instance, you can not run a successful online store if the customers can’t pay for the products or services they want. Make sure your store accepts all major methods of payment.

Quick tip: If you want to add third-party integrations without third-party sandbox apps, you must prefer Kartify. It provides you basic key integrations, making it easier for you to operate. With more than 60 integrations, all the features in Kartify are regularly updated with new versions. Request your free DEMO now!

3. Choose the right products

While it can be quite tempting to hit the ground right out the gate, we advise you to start slow and test the waters when moving to an online store. Instead of adding all the products to the site, start by offering only your best-sellers. It will facilitate gauging the popularity of the store and determining the best course of action.

4. Consider changes in product prices

Multiple factors determine the pricing for online products. While moving from brick-and-mortar to e-commerce, the product prices will not stay the same. The two main components are –

Determine the sales tax ahead of time. In the beginning, figure out sales tax in your own country, as you start shipping worldwide, research the tax structure of other countries.
The next online-specific pricing factor is the shipping cost. Figure out whether or not the product price should increase to offer a flat rate or free shipping option to shoppers. A common practice for new click and mortars that operate on a small budget is to offer free shipping over a certain amount.

5. Choose your shipping partner wisely

One of the biggest challenges of the click-and-mortar model is shipping goods to customers. The shipping fee may be detrimental to your business and can put an end to your digital venture before it even starts. While selecting a dedicated shipping service, consider these three things:

Cost

Will the shoppers pay the cost of shipping or is it too expensive? If you decide on free shipping, can you handle the overhead without making the customers pay for it?

Speed

How long does it take for the shipping service to deliver the products? Does it offer express delivery? Is it safe?

Inventory

After adding e-commerce to your services, you need to maintain a large inventory to keep up with the increased demand. Do you have the extra space necessary to store your goods? If the answer is no, search for shipping companies that offer inventory space for a fee.

Want to know the complete process of order fulfillment? Read on!

Quick Tip: To make sure you focus time and resources on product development, ANS Commerce India’s #1 full-stack e-commerce service provider manages warehouses and supply chains across channels, including multi-category storage support and return management with JIT flexibility. Request your free DEMO now!

Now that you have launched your brandstore, it’s time to promote it. Below, we have mentioned 4 ways to get the word out about your digital venture.

4 Proven Ways To Promote Your Online Store For Boosting Website Traffic

1. Share on social media

Social media is an excellent way to keep your existing and potential customers up to date on business operations, product and service offerings, sales, and more. Stories on Facebook or Instagram offer an off-the-cuff opportunity to connect with followers. Leverage it to provide regular offerings, behind-the-scenes, or create a unique experience for your audience.

2. Spread the word with email marketing

An email marketing campaign represents an important touchpoint with existing and potential customers. These are the people who have shown an active interest in your business offerings. It means they are just a few steps away from becoming your paying customers. Now, it is your turn to convert them by offering value in one of two forms: either promotional value or engaging and useful content.

For instance, if you sell international cosmetic and skincare products, offering makeup hygiene tips or Black Friday discount coupons is a great way to serve your customers and subtly encourage them to make a purchase.

How to escalate your business with Email Marketing? Read on!

Quick Tip: As a physical store owner, you already have a strong customer base. Collect their email addresses to grow your biggest digital marketing asset.

3. Curate valuable content

Content marketing is relatively new to the digital marketing domain. It has gained popularity due to the increased competition in the online marketplace. To deal with the influx of new businesses, Google has made it a priority to show the most relevant result for every search query.

Suppose you manage a fashion and clothing brandstore. The competition in this niche is fierce. To appear in that desired featured snippet, you need to stand out; the content should be more relevant and valuable than your competitor’s. To accomplish that, you need to have a strategic long-term content plan.

To implement content marketing successfully, identify and curate the type of content your target audience will prefer.

Want to improve your content marketing strategy? Explore our complete guide to persona-driven content marketing for your e-commerce brandstore!

Quick tip: We advise creating a content marketing calendar and following it religiously. It makes sure that you’re regularly posting new content that is valuable and relevant to your audience.

“Creating compelling content requires periodic analysis of user behavior and content performance.”

4. Boost website traffic with pay per click (PPC) marketing

In layman’s terms, PPC marketing involves designing ads via an ad platform such as Google Adwords. Once created, you then bid on the amount you’re willing to pay to get it displayed when searchers use relevant keywords.

PPC offers certain direct and indirect benefits. When a user clicks on your ad it leads to an increase in website traffic. Now, you have the opportunity to make a sale, gain a new subscriber, or provide valuable information to the visitor.

Even if a user doesn’t click on the Google ad, he/she now knows your name. It’s called an ad impression. It could lead to a later visit or sale.

How Can ANS Commerce Assist You?

If you are worried about your transition from brick and mortar store to e-commerce, we are here to assist. We provide full-stack e-commerce solutions for businesses to scale brandstore and leverage marketplaces. Our in-house tech, Kartify, delivers an exceptional e-commerce experience and is fully customizable. Request your free DEMO now!

What can you expect from ANS Commerce?

Account Hygiene: We regularly check the brand logo and guidelines for creatives. Our dedicated team creates and presents periodic account progress reports
Tech & Product: We conduct website load time optimization to reduce site abandonment and provide one-page checkout to facilitate faster transactions
Operational Execution: We assist in onboarding, listing products, price management, inventory, and promotions to drive topline and bottom-line

Success in the e-commerce domain is not instant, but it’s still quite formulaic. Leverage your brick and mortar assets wisely, pay attention to detail, understand your target audience, plan diligently, and execute timely. Most importantly, remember that long-term success requires a consistent investment of time and resources.