Ecommerce – Bizibi Resources https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog Everything you wanted to know about ecommerce Mon, 15 Mar 2021 04:00:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.2 Eight best techniques to buildup eCommerce in Trinidad and Tobago by use of videos https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/03/15/eight-best-techniques-to-buildup-ecommerce-in-trinidad-and-tobago-by-use-of-videos/ Mon, 15 Mar 2021 04:00:06 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=275

The increasing trend of online shopping has led to the mushrooming growth of online stores. This has entirely changed the face of eCommerce in Trinidad and Tobago. User preferences and priorities are constantly changing the shape of eCommerce and online business. The competition is getting tougher and marketing practices are evolving.

Read more:  Best Six Marketing Practices for success in Trinidad and Tobago

Video-based content has become extremely important for business growth. This is primarily because of the popularity of YouTube, which has become the second most popular platform after Google.

Investment of time and resources in the production of business videos has now become critical for any online business. Nowadays, successful businesses resort to making excellent videos due to the following reasons:

  • Online shoppers and buyers would like to make their purchases after having a good look at the product and its features
  • The customer can gain valuable information about the product/service through good video content
  • If the video also covers product/service-related FAQs then the decision making becomes easy for the potential client
  • An engaging and informative video is positive publicity for the brand
  • Research shows that good quality, short-duration video on the landing page of a business, helps boost the conversion rate of that website.
  • More than ninety per cent of the contemporary businesses either already have or are in the process of making their videos, a critical part of their marketing strategy

Popular video types

The modern-day trend of promotion and growth of eCommerce through videos, mostly rely on four types of videos:

Cartoon or Animated videos

These base on pure imagination and creativity. Animated videos are usually liked because they deliver the message in a light and colourful manner. There are much-advanced software available to make high-resolution animations, however, if it seems difficult then make use of talented animators whose services are available on famous freelancing websites. The concept and idea of the video, however, is of prime importance and must be given due deliberation to subsequently produce a quality animated video.

Teaching and tutorial videos

You can also promote a product by making a tutorial video about its features and use. The customers are interested in watching an informative and elaborate video about their product of interest. This not only helps them learn its use but also makes their selection easier.

Videos are more convenient to watch than reading a manual. The video also gives the brand, a chance to introduce another related product, which might also be of interest to this viewer. Never the less, the content presented in the video must focus on the original product to keep the user engaged and interested in watching the whole video.

User feedback and review videos

Online users do thorough research before purchasing a product. The most important part of this research is going through previous customer’s reviews and feedback about that product. Therefore, if a video of a collection of reviews of your customers about a particular product is made, it will interest your potential customers. We are talking about positive reviews but do not get disheartened because of bad reviews. You can hand them in several ways.

Learn more: Eight Practical Guidelines to effectively respond to Negative Comments for every business owner in Trinidad and Tobago

To make such a video, former customers be requested to share a video clip, giving their reviews about your product. A gift may be presented to them as a token of appreciation. All the video clips received from previous customers should be compiled and processed by a professional video editor to produce a quality video.

Videos about a story

Build an interesting and engaging video-based story about your product or service. Describe it, highlight its features, working and advantages etc. The story must grab the attention of the viewers and they must be compelled to follow your CTA or URL to place an order.

We now come to the part where we discuss the eight best techniques to buildup eCommerce in Trinidad and Tobago by use of videos.

Learn everything about your target customer

Make deliberate efforts to have an in-depth knowledge of your target market. Learn about the priorities and preferences of your target customer. Discuss their requirements with them and try to give solutions through your products.

Take feedback from previous customers and deliberate upon any improvements that can be made in your product/service to achieve customer satisfaction.

Include all these efforts in your videos to build the trust of potential customers as well as the existing ones

Closely monitor your performance

Before making a video, unambiguously decide what you want to achieve from it. It can be to increase the number of likes, more content circulation, enhance website traffic or boost sales etc.

Monitor the performance of your video through any of the available software and evaluate it. Make necessary changes where required. Repeat the process at regular intervals to optimally benefit your business from your videos.

Be brief and to the point

The attention spell of a contemporary internet user is short. You have to successfully deliver your message through your video in the shortest possible time.

Your video must be brief, informative and interesting. Otherwise, the user might get distracted and leave even before the video is complete.

Due deliberation is therefore required to select the best content that delivers your message to the users before they get inattentive.

Decide your spending limit

Videos can be expensive, therefore, decide your budget beforehand. A good video should be cost-effective but to enhance the quality of production, you might have to pay a little more. However, the limit must be decided in advance so that your business benefits from your video without any unjustified financial burden.

Stretch for picture quality

The advancement in internet speeds and technology have raised the expectations of internet users. In this age of HQ, users do not bother to watch low-resolution videos.

As discussed above, the budget for producing your video must be decided before the production starts, however, a little more investment to enhance the quality and resolution to a minimum of 1080p is worth every cent.

Video production equipment and software

If you plan to make several videos for your eCommerce business in future, it is advisable to invest in good quality video making equipment and software of your own.

This investment is heavy; however, the production of several quality videos, using your equipment would be so beneficial for your business that this equipment would recoup its price in a few months or years. Of course, this does not imply that an average quality content, shot on the high resolution would give the desired results. Remember the modern saying “Content is King!”

Another option is to get video production gear on rent. Several companies offer video apparatus on different rental terms, therefore, find the best rental option in your area. The bottom line is, “Do not compromise on video’s production quality”.

Call to Action

The ultimate aim of making a video about your business is that you either want the viewer to visit your blog/website or purchase your product/service. Your video should thus prominently contain a URL, directing the interested user to your website.

The video must be engaging enough to compel the user to follow the “Call to action” button or link that you have smartly placed in your video.

Let social media do the rest

You have worked very hard and finally produced an excellent quality video. Now you want to show it to your target audience. This is where you utilize and harness the power of social media to reach a maximum number of users. Post it on social media pages and share with friend, family, and different groups. Embed the link to your videos on a maximum number of pages and posts that you can access. Let social media spread it for you.

Conclusion

Successful businesses always adapt to the latest trends in the market. Projection and promotion of business through videos is a trend that is on the increase. Make the best use of it and benefit your business. Take help from the tips discussed in this article and make the best video in your field to surprise your competitors.

bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an e-commerce platform purely focused on the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature-rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

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E-Commerce Strategies to Handle Duplicate Content for Higher Ranking in Trinidad and Tobago https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/03/07/e-commerce-strategies-to-handle-duplicate-content-for-higher-ranking-in-trinidad-and-tobago/ Mon, 08 Mar 2021 02:57:22 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=279 The duplicate content problem can harm your SEO endeavours. Particularly in eCommerce sites, the probabilities of having copied pages are enormous as the online shops post a tremendous amount of content – product descriptions, pictures, videos, user guides, etc.

Most of the duplicated pages in eCommerce mediums essentially come from product descriptions since various vendors reuse them. Consider everything you need to depict an item that numerous different retailers sell too. Also, generally, the product descriptions are given by the manufacturer. In the end, you have the same product description as your competitors, bringing about duplicate content.

An ideal approach to getting rid of your duplicate pages is investing additional exertion and composing novel item depictions. This can be very difficult if you have so many pages, yet it’s excellent.

Aside from composing unique content, there are more techniques you can apply. Inquisitive to learn what they are? Continue reading this article. In the end, you will be able to find out more ways to deal with duplicate content for a higher ranking in Trinidad and Tobago.

What Is Duplicate Content and Why You Should Avoid It?

According to Google:

“Duplicate content, by and large, refers to considerable blocks of content inside or across domains that either totally coordinates other content or are comparable.”

Anyway, not all duplicate content could harm your SEO execution. Google gives a couple of instances of non-malicious content, and they are:

•             Discussion forums that can create both regular and stripped-down pages focused on mobile devices

•             Store items are shown or connected through various distinct URLs

•             Printer-only versions of web pages

So, now we know what precisely is duplicated content, let’s have a look at the issues it creates:

•             It confuses search engines which version of the page ought to be incorporated or prohibited from their index.

•             They can’t recognize which is the most acceptable content to rank when a client types an inquiry.

It is evident that if you are not doing SEO of your eCommerce pages, you miss out on an opportunity. This will prompt lower search rankings, an awful user experience, and no traffic.

Below are the practical techniques to handle the duplicated content pages of your eCommerce site.

Ecommerce Strategies to Handle Duplicate Content

1. Make Unique Pages Where Possible

To improve your product description pages.

It’s very typical to compose a similar product description as the manufacturer depicted it. It is tricky to be creative as specific features of the product remain the same. You can’t compose a novel duplicate for the product size, material, or colour.

The solution to this problem is to rewrite the descriptions without altering the main features of the product. You can incorporate a couple of keywords you need for your brand to rank. It’s a tedious procedure, but it will enhance your rankings.

Let’s see an example of the same product available on different websites with a completely different product description.

Inventive and unique copy should go inseparably with fantastic photographs that display the item in the best light. In case if you have a video that can unexpectedly better depict the product to your customers.

Social proof signs and ratings can perform as a bonus. They can provide important information to your clients by providing them with the opinion of other people who have appreciated the product and its qualities.

Read more: Eight most popular local SEO tools to boost business in Trinidad and Tobago

2. Avoid Duplicate Content Across Categories and Clean Your URLs

Most online shops are organized in product categories.  What precisely happens with product classes, and how the search engines crawl them?

When you use different product categories, the CMS framework you’ve to construct your site creates a unique URL for every class. For instance, if you go to an online shop and search for a particular fiction book, you will likely follow these ways:

Home -> Books -> Fiction

Home -> Fiction -> Books

The issue comes once the unique URL is created for each path since this outcome is a copied URL. A few websites even make up to ten URLs for every item, producing more copied pages significantly. This is an issue if your competitor has better optimized its category pages and doesn’t have ten links for one product. Their site will rank better in Google.

Furthermore, Google will not crawl and index your pages because the search engine will characteries your pages as copied content. Ultimately, this will miss out on prospects, as the URLs are not optimized and will not be indexed by Google.

To fix this, you can utilize canonical tags and assign a specific field to every product that permits you to set a canonical URL.

Initially, you may believe it’s not a big deal and consider these URLs the same; however, they are all duplicate content for search engines. What you need to do is to build up a preferred domain with Google Webmaster Tools. When you set your favoured URL, Google will rank it to restrict your duplicate content issues.

Additionally, you need to ensure consistency in your internal links. This is relatively more important for eCommerce shops as they have numerous product pages and categories.

The category part is somewhat interesting. If you have shop.websitexample.com for a product page and then www.websitexample.com, there is an SEO issue. When you build up your favoured domain, this is where all your links will go to.

See also: 5 Ways for Marketing Manager in Trinidad and Tobago to Take Advantage from Proxies

3. Optimize Sitemaps, Robots.txt, and Internal Links

For google indexation, these three elements play a fundamental role. And these are not only important for eCommerce websites but all types of websites. Let’s discuss them in great detail one by one.

SITEMAPS

An eCommerce site is produced using numerous pages – the shopping basket or checkout page, the confirmation page, data, the FAQ area, product guidelines, etc. Apart from caring about user-friendly navigation, you need to ensure that the search engines will have a similar experience. For a higher ranking, you need to ensure that search engines can explore virtually your site.

A sitemap is a guide of your site’s substance and how your pages speak with the web search tools. They alert them if there should be an occurrence of any new, refreshed, or changed substance rapidly. If you’ve optimized your content pages and have a sitemap, it will aid in a quicker indexation.

If you have no idea about creating an XML sitemap, some CMS platforms provide auto-generation of it. Otherwise, on WordPress, install the Yoast SEO plugin, and it will do this for you.

ROBOTS.TXT

Another compulsory component for SEO is robots.txt. Search engines use robots, otherwise called crawlers, to look through content across the web and list it in their database. The robots.txt document is vital as this is the best approach to tell search engines what piece of your site must not be crawled or indexed.

Without this file, your site would be entirely open for search engines. And this isn’t a good SEO technique. You may have obsolete content or simple pages that are not required to be indexed. That is the reason you dismiss them from being crawled.

Ensure your robots.txt file functions accurately and does not block Google from any parts of your site that should index. Additionally, suppose you do not want some pages to get indexed by Google. In that case, you can bar them from indexation by using the robots.txt file.

INTERNAL LINKS

Internal linking plays a vital role for an eCommerce site. By providing more similar products to your clients, you strategically sell your items and increase your revenue as well. The best way to link products with one another is through product descriptions.

It is a prerequisite for your indexation. Each page you want to get indexed must be accessible through at least one link on your site. This is likewise useful for client experience as your site users, while browsing the site, will be directed to various other products.

Check this: Lead Generation Strategies for retailers in Trinidad and Tobago to Follow in 2021

Conclusion

The content, as mentioned above, has correctly explained the damage caused by duplicate pages. Content is not only visible to your customers but also to search engines. In the case of duplicate content, search engines don’t rank the same content higher. Duplicate content in terms of similar product descriptions could indeed affect your income. Similarly, your site will not rank well, ultimately resulting in low traffic and no sales.

bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an ecommerce platform purely focused to the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you, but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

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Eight Practical Guidelines to effectively respond to Negative Comments for every business owner in Trinidad and Tobago https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/21/eight-practical-guidelines-to-effectively-respond-to-negative-comments-for-every-business-owner-in-trinidad-and-tobago/ Mon, 22 Feb 2021 02:37:03 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=252 Online user reviews play a critical role in image building as well as the marketing of a product or service. A positive review is a free advertisement. It not only assures a potential client but also gives the supplier or service provider a dose of vigour and encouragement. 

On the contrary, negative user reviews or bad comments serve to dent these factors to some extent. As an online business grows, the number of its content, as well as dissatisfied customers, also progresses. This is critical for ecommerce and online stores in Trinidad and Tobago as we are just trying to build consumer confidence in purchasing online.

Feedback from both these groups of customers must be handled sensibly and discreetly to benefit the business and at the same time, bring a maximum number of unhappy customers to the satisfied customer bracket. With a phenomenal increase in online shopping trends all over the world, online user reviews become more and more significant for business growth. Google, by far, has emerged as the largest platform, used by the consumers to search for objective reviews against the product or service of their interest. 

Today, almost ninety per cent of consumers go through the existing reviews on Google before their final selection. Unfortunately, their decisions are influenced more by the negative comments. Businesses that delete or show selective reviews are thus viewed negatively by Google users. 

This article lists and elaborates eight rules or tips to effectively respond and benefit from negative user comments without deleting them. 

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THIS :    Eight most popular local SEO tools to boost business in Trinidad and Tobago

Reply Promptly – Do not pend 

An organization’s response time amply reflects its business practices and level of professionalism. May it be its response to a business query or a bad review/comment. A prompt reply creates a positive impact, even on an otherwise displeased customer. 

Oberlo data quantifies that within seven days a response is expected by more than fifty percent of dissatisfied clients. A delayed response, however, is better than not responding at all because no response disappoints more than sixty per cent of the already discontented client. This is especially true for ecommerce.

It is highly advisable that before furnishing a reply, take a quick stock of your internal inefficiencies, resulting in customer dissatisfaction. If more time is required for this, an interim, courteous reply be forwarded to appease the customer. 

Give it a personal touch 

The element of a personal touch and concern can work wonders with even the most irate customer. Take the negative comment positively. What if the customer is justified? This means that a thorough investigation of the problem might reveal genuine incompetence that should be addressed to improve the system. 

This exercise would also help in the framing of an objective and convincing reply, based on facts. If the problem is at your end, do not hesitate to admit and apologize. This would be a good start. Show genuine concerns for the inconvenience caused to the customer and try to propose a solution. 

If the customer can see the reflection of your effort, concern and admission in your reply, consider him/her to be on your side, now onwards. There might be cases where the customer has been too irrational or has even distorted the facts, but a cool-minded, professional and courteous approach is always the right card to play. 

Consumers in Trinidad and Tobago love the personal touch.

Develop Customer Confidence 

People usually pardon unintentional mistakes if they are convinced that the same will not be repeated in future. 

Your response to an unsatisfied customer should be phrased to convince the customer that the problem at hand was a one-time mistake and arrangements are now in place to make sure that this does not happen in future. This resolve would seem more meaningful to the client if this message or communication is authenticated by a person of reasonably higher authority in the organization, e.g. a general manager etc. For online stores with online reviews this can go a long way.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THIS :    Seven reasons to work on community building in your marketing strategy for Trinidad and Tobago

Show Gratitude 

Gratitude and thankfulness for a negative review? Yes, it is logical! Time is precious. If someone has taken some moments of his/her time to write even a negative review, their time and effort might benefit your setup, all successful ecommerce sites pay very close attention to this. 

Every problem, however minor, must be studied in detail to identify any inefficiencies and improve the system. Negative reviews must be taken in this positive spirit. A person, pointing out the weaknesses of our system at the cost of their precious time, thus deserves a sincere note of thanks. 

Politely shift communication channels 

Respond to comments and reviews on the public forum. If, however, the problem at hand requires intricate discussion with the customer, tactfully persuade the customer to switch to some private communication channel. 

The other channels might include email, phone or video call etc. The advantage of conversing on these private channels is that a candid discussion and data sharing can take place between both sides. Moreover, you may offer a solution or motivation for this particular customer only. 

The aim is to satisfy this customer and at the same time keep your solution or incentive, hidden from the rest of the public. Moreover, request the customer to delete or review their negative comments. After all, no one is listening or reading! 

Reward, Compensate or Reimburse 

One of the effective ways to pacify a displeased customer is to offer any sort of compensation for their inconvenience. 

It could be in the shape of a gift, refund or discount etc. Base the type and amount of compensation on the particular situation and mood of the customer. 

This is another form of persuasion. Make this offer on a private communication channel so that other customers might not take a lead and tend to write negative reviews to earn some bargaining advantage. 

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE THIS :    Best Six Marketing Practices for success in Trinidad and Tobago

Pursue until a successful conclusion 

Stay focused. The aim is to achieve complete customer satisfaction. The conversation on any of the private or public forum should ultimately achieve this aim. This requires constant pursuance and frequent follow up with the customer. 

Make the customer feel elevated by your efforts. At this point, discretely make up the customer’s mind to delete his bad review or at least add some positive remarks that reflect your organization’s valuable efforts in the resolution of the problem. 

Can we remove a bad review from Google? 

Yes, it may be done. However, move systematically. First, make all-out efforts to convince the customer to remove the negative review. In case, the customer refuses to do so for any reason, make sure that your efforts for the resolution of the problem are amply highlighted on the public forum for the consumption of other prospective clients. 

There can however be a situation where the negative comments violate Google’s code of conduct or content guidelines, in any form. In this case, approach Google with a removal request after flagging the comment as ‘inappropriate’. The removal might take some time, though the deletion is not guaranteed since the decision to do so lies with Google. 

Conclusion 

A continuous and determined effort is required to keep your customer satisfied. Always stay positive and optimistic. Make sure that the quality of your product/service, ease of availability and other marketing aspects are fine-tuned to ensure complete customer satisfaction. 

Your interactive approach can timely guard against the raising of any negative reviews. It is better to expend your efforts and resources in improving and providing the best services rather than being bogged down in the hassle that follows one single bad review.

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 bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an ecommerce platform purely focused to the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you, but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

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Seven reasons to work on community building in your marketing strategy for Trinidad and Tobago https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/21/seven-reasons-to-work-on-community-building-in-your-marketing-strategy-for-trinidad-and-tobago/ Mon, 22 Feb 2021 02:23:45 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=222

Connecting to the right audience is the most critical step in setting up and growth of a brand. The communication with the target audience then helps to build the brand around this community.

All efforts must be focused on identifying, connecting and communicating with this group, which is interested in your product or service.

Ecommerce has taken a completely new shape in the post-Covid scenario. The phenomenal growth of online stores and online shopping culture has increased the importance of community building manifolds. The modern trend of growing a business and the community around it is with the help of social media.

Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube etc. have emerged as a very effective way to communicate with a brand’s community. The power of social media, if harnessed in the right manner, can help in the fast-paced growth of the brand community and loyal clients.

Advantages of community building

This article discusses seven reasons to focus and work and on community building. This will be followed by examples of some of the brands that succeeded because of their effective community building strategies.

More repeat order clients

When you take good care of your customers and your community management team proactively communicates with them, the faith of the customers and community grows and cements. A devoted customer tends to return to your brand instead of experimenting with other brands and services.

Effective community growth because of meticulous management thus enhances your orders and revenues with a little expenditure of dedicated but regular time.

Satisfied community members spread a good word about your brand. This positive feedback is even more effective than some paid advertisements.

Economical yet effective

Online ads cost money. Moreover, the reader generally tends to ignore these ads. The modern way of engaging the user through Webinars, live streaming sessions and social listing etc is not only much more economical but fruitful as well.

Earning the loyalty and trust of the customer takes time and patience. However, direct contact and communication with potential customers have a high probability of securing clientele.

It is, however, important to use and conduct the above-mentioned methods of engagement in the right manner to reap full benefits.

Better Customer Service

Nowadays, the customers immediately contact the online community, in the case; they face any issue regarding product or service. The comments and remarks of the community members are very significant in fostering the standing of the product or service provider.

It is therefore crucial to promptly and efficiently handle the issue being faced by the customer and win his/her satisfaction. Moreover, negative comments (if any) must also be dealt with tactfully. Efficient handling and response to negative reviews build the trust of the brand community as well as potential customers.

Read more: Smart Way to Build Strategy for Customer Engagement in Trinidad and Tobago

Develop a loyal and trusted customer base

If you are honest and candid with your community, its trust in your brand develops further. Moreover, contact with the community as well as individual customers on a case-to-case basis helps cultivate a faithful customer base.  

Try to communicate with your brand community as frequently as possible, preferably, daily. Work on a deliberated schedule and ensure to take some time for this communication session. Not every message needs a reply but all the messages regarding any issue must be replied to appropriately and promptly.

This helps in taking your customers along in a very economical manner. However, make sure that the customers get facts and authentic information from your side. The clients appreciate your efforts if they are satisfied that you do not hide anything and are genuinely concerned about resolving the issues highlighted by them.

This should form the core of your marketing philosophy and would be critical in your overall marketing practices

Learn more: Final Best Six Marketing Practices to Adopt and Succeed in Trinidad and Tobago

Provides you with the chance to become the industry leader

New innovative ideas and their successful implementation, in line with the business goals and ethics are what make an industry leader.

Listen to your community carefully. Most of the good ideas for your business might come out of their feedback and suggestions. Keep them involved and encourage them to communicate more frequently.

The brand that innovates and manages its community well is the ultimate industry leader.

It breathes life into your brand

The messages and posts created by your community management team need thorough deliberation. The phrasing and tone should be such that the reader feels like talking to a human being with feelings and not to a computer.

Avoid standard and run of the mill replies. The social media interaction by your team should reflect your brand’s priorities regarding customer care and efforts to provide excellent customer care. If the message fully gets across to the customer and experienced in your dealing, the client will be your unofficial brand ambassador.

Gives you a greater insight into your target market

A successful business stands on a solid foundation of knowledge. It is the in-depth knowledge of its target market and its preferences. Properly conducted community management keeps you updated about your target audience. The communication, down to even personal level (if possible) gives you a fair idea about the inclinations and likes/dislikes of your target customer.

This knowledge and the data, collected from social media channels are very useful in tweaking your products and services to make them more desirable and approachable to your clientele.

This, however, has to be a continuous process if far-reaching dividends for the business are sought.

Some successful community builders

Let us now take a brief look at some of the brands that take their community building and management very seriously. This is one of the main factors behind their success.

Hydroflask

A community of adventurers and outdoor activists follows this brand. This company is primarily a vacuum water bottle manufacturer.

The brand community members share their experiences as well as with the brand. This communication helps in the improvement of the company’s product line, not to mention a healthy digital presence.

Love Your Melon

The company is a proud donor of 50 per cent of its profits from product sales to non-profit organizations that are helping to fight against pediatric cancer.

This noble cause is a great motivational and binding factor for its community members who learn from each other and in the process, help boost the company’s sales also.

Yellow Leaf Hammocks

This site is built around the philosophy to help alleviate some degree of poverty. It provides hammock-weaving jobs to women who have some spare time and they want to help their households financially.

The company helps train them also. It is thus a close-knit community of both the job seekers, suppliers and the customers.

Conclusion

Community building and management will gain more and more importance in future e-commerce. Online stores and businesses with better community management and a larger community of satisfied customers will emerge as business leaders.

The key lies in proactive, candid and authentic communication, followed by prompt corrective actions aimed at improvement of the overall system.

bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an e-commerce platform purely focused on the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature-rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

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Best Six Marketing Practices for success in Trinidad and Tobago https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/21/best-six-marketing-practices-for-success-in-trinidad-and-tobago/ Mon, 22 Feb 2021 02:17:31 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=228

The year 2020, witnessed phenomenal changes in the way we live, work, socialize and do business. All of this was due to the Covid 19 pandemic. People had to stay home, drastically limit social contacts and work online.

The pandemic changed the business methodology altogether. Ecommerce and online store saw an exponential growth since most of the business and shopping was being done online.

The survival war during the pandemic was fought on two front. One, the personal front, where all precautions were taken to keep the disease away from self and family. Secondly, it was on the business front. Here, the economic survival depended upon thinking out of the box and adapt to the new business environment as soon as possible.

The people of Trinidad and Tobago, though fought well on both these fronts, however, this fight must continue for some more time to come.

This article lists and elaborates on six practical marketing guidelines to help thrive a business in this changed and new environment.

Adjust and adapt quickly

Do not waste time waiting for the business environment to come back to the previous state anytime soon because it will not. It is not a pessimistic view, rather it is based on undeniable facts and realities.

Different COVID vaccines are being developed but their availability and efficacy leave a lot to be desired. Social distancing has altered people’s state of mind. They now avoid crowded places and hence prefer to work and shop from the comfort and safety of their homes.

It is thus imperative for the business setups to adapt their working and marketing protocols, in line with this changed scenario to facilitate, retain and increase their customers.

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Seek help; it is nothing to be ashamed of

If your business requires help in adapting to the changing eCommerce environment, seek the help of your community, customers and clients.

Helping each other develops a strong bond. Share your stories of efforts, successes and vulnerabilities. People will appreciate your honesty and would be able to relate to you and your organization, more comfortably. Moreover, based on diverse experiences, you might get some very precious ideas and suggestions in response to your call for help.

Develop your sphere of influence

Intelligently and expeditiously, adjust to the changing business environment, marketing and customer preferences. To enhance business influence, revamp your marketing strategies and explore new venues.

Change your product tagline and slogans to reflect your organization’s new approach. Make these changes in conformity to the changing customer priorities and preferences.

Explore and utilize the social media platforms that have gained immense popularity during lockdowns. These may include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, mobile gaming and video streaming platforms etc. Use them effectively to promote your business philosophy, products and services.

You May Also Like: Marketing Manager in Trinidad and Tobago to Take Advantage from Proxies

Keep your customer involved and informed

Make your customer a productive part of your team. Involve them and share information with them. They must know about your efforts. Highlight the changes made to benefit the customers. Invite their feedback, based on which, make new changes (if required).

The clients must be made aware of your efforts to uplift your community as well as the positive part played by the community to keep your business afloat. However, always share authentic information with them to keep their trust and loyalty intact.

Learn more about:  Seven reasons to work on community building in your marketing strategy for Trinidad and Tobago

Be authentic, accurate and factual

The pandemic has created a fearful environment of uncertainty. Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation and fake news has aggravated the situation even further.

People want real facts, accurate data and authentic news. Do not feed your customer even with the slightest amount of misleading information or distorted facts.

A trusting customer is a loyal customer. Take this opportunity to build up your loyal customer base. If your community starts looking up to your organization for authentic information, consider them a part of your team.

Make your offers more attractive

Cheer up the community by making some attractive new offers or modify some existing ones. This could be in the form of discounts, reduced prices, free membership or free home delivery of your product/service etc.

Think out of the box. Try to put yourself in customer’s shoes to visualize and understand their needs and preferences. This will help you come up with attractive and practical ideas, benefitting both the sides.

Never the less, strictly refrain from making unrealistic offers and commitments. This can lead you into trouble in the form of bad reviews and comments, which are difficult to handle.

You May Also Like: Mistakes Retailers in Trinidad and Tobago should avoid with their online strategy.

Some inspiring marketing leaders

Here are some industry leaders who successfully adapted to the situation and maybe a source of inspiration for people in Trinidad and Tobago.

Macdonald’s

A promotional video, released by Macdonald’s Philippines elaborates the fast-food chain’s changed philosophy to provide safe and healthy service to their customers in the pandemic.

The message prioritizes customer safety. The organization reassures the customers that in the pandemic they are following procedures that ensure customer safety, even at the cost of their business profits.

Ford

The automaker has a long and commendable service record. During the pandemic, Ford also used its technical facilities to manufacture medical equipment for frontline medical staff and patients, thus doing community service on a large scale. People do remember such gestures and the brand.

Ford also introduced a credit relief program to help the customers facing financial crunch due to Covid-19.

Walgreens

This US-based pharmacy and health care service provider served the community during the pandemic by providing a YouTube-based service, namely ‘Ask a pharmacist’. This service answered Covid related queries and provided online guidance. The company also introduced ‘Free drug prescription delivery service’ and ‘Drive through testing service’ for front line medical professionals.

Ikea

The home furnishing mega supplier made inspiring ads for people to help them make their home more comfortable to live in, during lockdowns. They encouraged people to love their abodes and stay in the safety and security of their homes for the safety of their self and family.

Conclusion

The world in general and business world, in particular, have witnessed transitions and recessions in the past as well. However, the successful survivors in those testing times have always been the ones who accepted the change and quickly adapted.

Current pandemic is a reality. Make the most of it by accepting it, understanding the changing dynamics and quickly adapting accordingly.

bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an eCommerce platform purely focused on the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature-rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

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Bizibi Market Place for Trinidad and Tobago. Getting online Part 3/3 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/10/bizibi-market-place-for-trinidad-and-tobago-getting-online-part-3-3/ Wed, 10 Feb 2021 05:22:58 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=210 This is the final part of our 3 series blogs. In part 1 we covered the pitfalls and mistakes in developing websites, hopefully that will help some of you to avoid some of the mistakes and make more informed decisions. In Part 2 we covered the differences between marketplaces vs websites, and now we are going to look deep into Bizibi Marketplace. For full disclosure this is our won marketplace, hence, for the risk of sounding biased we have not named or compared to other competitors but we definitely study them.

We believe we have the best market place in Trinidad and Tobago for ecommerce business. We believe it to be a gamechanger. Our platform has been build on php, we have not used any existing code like Magento or WooCommerce, we have nothing against these, but we decided to be in full control of our code and develop it specifically to over come specific challenges being faced by businesses in Trinidad and Tobago.

Bizibi is a full turnkey feature rich multivendor platform. We will go through some of the major feature in our system, we will not spend too much time on features that are standard and obvious. Our features have been specifically designed to make the business owner more efficient. When we say efficient we are talking about both cost and time. Not only do we offer some extremely powerful features we are automating and integrating with systems all the time to make it easier and quicker to use our system.

Finally , we are not only helping you get online but we are also helping you get business. We know that marketing and creating marketing collateral can be time consuming and expensive, we have put in a lot of time and effort developing a graphics engine that will create lots of marketing material for you, not only saving you lots of money and time, but elevating your image to compete with competitors who have much larger budgets and resources at hand.

  1. Subdomain that allows you to put up your own logo, theme and pages specific for your own store. With only your products.
  2. We take care of the payments and delivery for you. For small businesses getting an online payment facility can be both difficult and expensive. One of the major issues with online is how will you deliver the product, again we take care of this for you.
  3. CSV product import for bulk imports
  4. SEO algorithms built internally, that inject sitemaps on a daily basis to google search. We inject every single product every night.
  5. We do the marketing and advertising of the platform for you, you are free to any additional marketing if you wish
  6. We have integrated with Facebook so that you can post your products directly onto your Facebook page from the bizibi platform
  7. We have a graphics generator engine, preloaded with a growing number of templates, it allows you to create professional posts and flyers for you products from within our platform. You can download them and distribute them or you can use our Facebook integration to directly put them on to our FB page
  8. We have a catalogue generator, where we can create a pdf of all your products in a professional looking catalogue format
  9. We are working on vendor app, that allows you use your mobile phone to snap products and quickly upload them onto the portal. You can then download them for your own purpose.
  10. We are working on a slide show generator to create a professional looking video/animation for your products.
  11. We are working on email marketing engine so you can bulk email promotions and deals to your customers directly from our platform.
  12. We run pixel and google analytics in the back to ensure we are tracking all information and visitors
  13. B2B – if you are a distributor, you can sell to B2B customers at different prices, you can create different tiers for your different customers and give them different pricing
  14. Discounts/promotion codes, give your best customers coupons that they can redeem on your store

To join our platform you can go online and sign up for an account, we will create an account instantly, agree to the terms and conditions and you can start to upload your products and put them online instantly. You can have a full ecommerce store in less then 15mins inclusive of payments and delivery.

If you have an internal POS system that has an API we can assist in integrating with it, otherwise you can export a CSV file from your current system and import into our platforms.

If you have any questions you can email us at info@taurus.one

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Your own website or Marketplace. Getting online Part 2/3 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/10/your-own-website-or-marketplace-getting-online-part-2-3/ Wed, 10 Feb 2021 05:22:40 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=208 Businesses were already looking at going on line, before the COVID-19 shutdown. The
shutdown only sped up the inevitable, it accelerated the ongoing trend. In this blog
we discuss 2 main strategies of going on line. It is perfectly possible to use both
strategies and this blog still stands should you wish to consider a hybrid approach.
It used to be, 10-15 years ago, the only real way of getting online is to have your own
website, but that has changed. With the emergence of SaaS and marketplaces, you
now have different options, yet some businesses do not fully understand or appreciate
what’s involved.

Some businesses think it is too difficult and do not attempt it, and others will invest a lot
of money on a poorly advised or executed strategy, and then give up leaving them very
hesitant to attempt it again.

Every business will need to go online in order to survive, there is not doubt about this.
The only question is when they will go online, some will go online before others and
reap the benefits of moving first, others will follow the crowd and retain their neutral
market position and some will leave it too late and will lose market share, some may
become extinct.

The benefits of online business are :

  1. You are open 24 hours a day : With an online store your website is open
    24 hours a day. As more and more and more people start to shop outside of the
    conventional hours, your website can offer services to your customers around the
    clock. The consumer can browse your products and services at their leisure and
    at their pace. There is no rush. If they get distracted they can leave and come
    back, its convenient without any pressure.
  2. You can show your products to everyone anywhere anytime :
    You can have your product catalogue online, making it convenient for customers
    to browse your catalogue from the comfort of their home. A well designed
    website will allow users to create accounts and mark favourites or have cookies
    installed so that when the customer returns you know what they were looking at
    before and can assist in picking up from where the customer last left off.
  3. You can provide quotes and information: Shoppers will often either go
    to a number of shops to get quotes/prices or even call around. You make it easy
    and efficient to handle those queries. The easier it is to get information from you
    the more likely you are to generate traffic.
  4. You can take online payments : For those customers that want to
    purchase from home, you can offer online payments, allowing the transaction to
    be completed from the comfort of the customer’s home.
  5. You can drive traffic to your website more competitively then
    bringing footfall into a physical store: Similar to traditional advertising
    of TV, radio and print, you can use online marketing and advertising to drive
    traffic to your website, it is much cheaper and you can specifically target your
    required customers.
  6. You can grow your online store quickly with little expense: You
    can increase your catalogue or product range by x10 without having to increase
    your store front. Store fronts are normally expensive and prime property, but
    online you do not have that restriction.
    The benefits of online business are
  7. You don’t need to pay a premium to be on the high street to get
    the traffic: We will discuss this below, but the cost of being at Trinicity mall or
    West Mall is much higher than being on a high street, which itself is much higher
    than being on a side or local street. The online real estate works differently.
  8. You need less staff : As you have less customers coming to your directly
    needing in person assistance, you can reduce your staff account. Many of your
    processes and reporting can be automated, giving you a realtime picture of what
    is happening. Reducing inefficiencies.
  9. You can work remotely/globally: You can work from home or from
    around the world. It gives you the flexibility to have a better balance between
    your personal and work life. Empowering you to do more.

How to get online

Having covered some of the benefits briefly, let’s discuss how to get online. There are two ways
to do it. We will use the parallels from the physical/traditional way of doing things so to better
explain the options.
You can either build your own shop or you can rent a shop on the high street or a shopping mall.
Both of these options have their advantages and disadvantages and which one makes sense
will depend on your business and strategy.
In the same way in the online world you can either build your own website or you can rent space
in a marketplace (shopping mall).

The first option is to build your own website, this way you are in full control of what you will get
but it is a much higher risk.

Build your own website

  1. Purchase a domain name
  2. Purchase a web hosting package
  3. Configure your name servers
  4. Configure your email
  5. Develop your website
  6. SEO
  7. CMS
  8. Social Media and traffic drive
  9. Updates and changes

Benefits

  1. It is your website, you have full control to build exactly what you want.
  2. Build the features and functionality that you require
  3. It’s the same as purchasing land and then constructing whatever you need.

Disadvantages

  1. Huge amount of capital investment is needed
  2. You need to builders/developers, who will ask for down payments and then may not
    deliver
  3. Budget increases as deadlines pass
  4. You may need to change the developer
  5. If you make a mistake and get something wrong, or forget something important, changes
    will be expensive
  6. Also once developed the website will require ongoing maintenance
  7. You require technical IT staff to manage your business website and that can become
    single point of failure or reliance

Market Place

  1. Signup and register
  2. Pay monthly for the service
  3. No maintenance or technical skill or investment
  4. No contract
    Benefits
  5. Quicker, you have your store up within 10-30mins
  6. No capital investment needed. Some market places will give you free trials
  7. No contracts. Many do month to month contracts, although annual contracts are given
    discounts
  8. Quik ROI. With minimal capital investment your ROI is much quicker.
  9. No maintenance or technical expertise required. It’s like using Facebook. Infact
    facebook is also a marketplace (a social marketplace)
  10. No investment needed to generate traffic. Although you can advertise to increase traffic,
    it’s like a shopping mall, buyers go to shopping malls and market places because they
    will find variety and hence you need to do little marketing to drive extra traffic

Disadvantages

  1. You are limited to the features and functionality of the marketplace
  2. All your competitors are in the same place

Which way you decide to go will depend on your business. As a general rule, if you are a small
business then I recommend you go to the marketplace. The cost of developing and maintaining
an effective website will be too much. You may be offered a website for $20k-$30k or even
$100k but it will NOT be a full ecommerce site, it will lack functionality and will cost much more
when you look at the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). Many small businesses find themselves in
this situation and in the end give up, cut their losses.


If you are a large business, with sufficient internal IT then you could consider this, but we are
even seeing larger businesses going to marketplaces. There are very few if any businesses in
Trinidad and wider caribbean that are large enough and IT advanced enough to be able to
compete with a marketplace. There may be some short term gains, but in the long term I
believe the caribbean is a marketplace led economy.


One of the advantages an online marketplace has that a traditional shopping mall doesn’t is the
cost of replication. If a retail unit costs $100k to build in a shopping mall then 10 units will cost
close to $1million, there are some economies of scale saving, even if you say 20%-30%, it is
nothing compared to the savings in the digital world. If the cost of developing a single store is
$100k in the digital world then the cost for 10, 100 or 1000 is also $100k or maybe an extra
$10k. Hence the rental/monthly subscription cost for the marketplace will be much lower. You
can get access to a huge amount of rich technology for extremely cheap price.


Also the marketplaces are constantly investing in improvements, and when they are rolled out
everyone on their platform benefits, sometimes it may require additional costs, but that is small.
E.g a portal with 1000 businesses introduces a new feature that costs $100,000 to develop, they
only need to charge $10 a month extra and within 1 year they will have recovered their costs
and start to make extra profit. An independent portal will not have that power or scale.


Other options are to do both, the cost of running your own website is very high, and if you decide
to go that way, then you could also consider having a dual strategy and have presence on the
market place. Another strategy could be to quickly start on the marketplace and over time you
can develop your own website.


Many businesses use Facebook for their businesses and do not have their own websites, and
some do both.
This is a very simplified analysis, should you wish to speak to us please contact us at
info@taurus.one.


bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an ecommerce platform purely focused to the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you, but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

If you would like to have an online store go to bizibi and signup here.

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Mistakes Retailers in Trinidad and Tobago should avoid with their online strategy. Getting online. Part 1/3 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/10/mistakes-retailers-in-trinidad-and-tobago-should-avoid-with-their-online-strategy-getting-online-part-1-3/ Wed, 10 Feb 2021 05:22:07 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=206 Trinidad and Tobago is in the midst of digital transformation, both in the public and private sector. I am going to focus on the commercial private sector, and look at the challenges from a business owner/manager perspective. These may seem like common sense points, but you will be surprised how many projects end up failing due to one of these factors, not because they are not aware of these issues, but because the adverse affect is underestimated. We will go through each one and explain what to look out for and in part two we will discuss the alternatives you may have.

Lets get started, first lets set the scenario. Imagine you are small business owner, involved in a traditional retail business based around brick and mortar. You may be small with a single store and 1-2 employees, or a multistore outlet with 5-6 stores and 4-5 staff per store. You may have a POS (point of sale) system, but you have no real online presence except for Facebook or Instagram, you may have a social media marketing person or most likely you are doing the marketing yourself.

You want to build my own website.

This is where the fun/challenges start. We will use some analogies, so that you can better understand and relate to what you may expect in the process. We will use the analogy of building a house where you don’t know anything about construction.

The first step is to find a developer. You need to find a website developer, like house construction, there are many different types of skills and techniques you will need. Are you building a single story or double, do you want a pool, security, what type of foundation, are you going up 2 stories and then want to go up a third in the future. It is the same for websites, there is a lot that goes on in the background, and no developer will be an expert in all technologies, they will claim to be but they are not. They will specialise in a particular area and at best will know enough about the other areas to get by.

So how do you know what skills you need ?

You don’t ! chances are you will not even know what you want in your website. This is first issue, the requirements or technical specifications. Usually this is not done, or is vague at best, the developer will lead the businessman into a specification that he can deliver and not necessarily what is best for the situation. Based on this flawed design specification, a price and time line is negotiated, down payment made and the work starts.

In general, I would say, that the website development skillset in Trinidad and Tobago is still in its infancy, there are some very talented developers but they are rare, the main reason is that we are just starting and developers do not have a lot of experience with diverse projects, this will change in time but for now we have a limited skill set.

At different stages of the development the business man will get to test/play with the site, but as he plays and tries to use the website, he will start to playout his own business process and workflow in his head, and will start to raise issues or lack of features and functionality, this is where variations come in and the developer will say, yes we can do that, but it will cost a little more and I need to redo some code and also it will add another week or two on to the time line.

If you are lucky, the developer can actually do the functionality you want to implement, otherwise they will try to figure it out and end up creating bad code. This will most likely play out a few times, and each time the code becomes less structured, and both the developer and business owner will get tired. The business owner will start to fatigue in testing the same site, especially when they are busy running a business. They may find some bugs, the developer tries to fix them and ends up creating more bugs, some of the blame may be put on the extra features that were requested.

Many projects will fail at this stage for this reason. The developer and business owner get frustrated with each other, in their minds, they blame the other, the developer want to finish the product and get out, the business owner has spent a lot of money and is not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel. At some point the business owner may give up and cancel the project.

This scenario is very common, and neither party are to blame, this has happened for years and even happens in larger companies who have much more experience. One way to mitigate against this is to do a very thorough requirements analysis and mock UI/UX, the problem with this is that it is time consuming and will add a lot to the cost of the project.

Let’s say you get passed the first stage and you end up getting your website delivered, now you are presented with a new set of challenges. Where do you host it, domain name, DNS entries, security patches, backups, recoveries, etc… these are all operational matters, most developers may provide these services to you, as their business plan will be based on recurring support revenue after delivering the website. Sometimes this can become an issue, especially when it comes to updating the website with content. If your website is static then it will not serve much purpose, but if you have an ecommerce website then you need to upload the products.

Usually you will be given a management interface to upload the products, and you the business owner has to do this. The developer can do it, but will charge for their time and that will be expensive, so the responsibility will lie with you, and again most business owners are busy with limited time, and will not be able to keep the website updated. They may be active on social media, telephone calls, other marketplaces, emails etc… and to then fit in and find more time to manage a website may be too much, this can also be a common reason why an online strategy will fail. It is very time consuming, similar to a traditional store, you may not have physical stores, but you have other challenges that you need to overcome and that takes a lot of effort.

If you have your products in a POS system or some other software, it may be possible to integrate with the software so the online product uploading can be automatic, this will cost you but also if you have a basic small/old software it may not be an option, you may be able to export your products in a CSV format (excel sheet) and import them into your system. The common issue you may find regardless of having to do it manually, CSV or API is that you do not have the data, you don’t have high quality images or good descriptions of your products and as the purchaser doesn’t have access to the physical product, the images and description are absolutely critical, get this wrong and you will not sell anything.

Let us say make past this 3rd challenge too, and get your products online. Now you sit back and relax, the answer is no, now you need to let your purchasers and customers know you are online, you need to market. This is similar to normal marketing, but you may want to focus on online marketing because that is where your customers are. This can be expensive, especially in the initial stages when you are not generating any revenue from the site. You also need to think about SEO, otherwise you could end up spending much more for the same marketing effect then if you had employed a good SEO strategy.

These are the main areas where an online stores/ecommerce fails :

  1. Incorrect design specification
  2. Maintenance and ongoing costs
  3. Products/descriptions and content upload and keeping it updated
  4. Marketing your website

Well, do you still want to develop your own website ? What are your options ?

To answer that you need to checkout our next blog on websites vs market places.


bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an ecommerce platform purely focused to the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you, but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

If you would like to have an online store go to bizibi and signup here.

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5 Ways for Marketing Manager in Trinidad and Tobago to Take Advantage from Proxies https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/07/5-ways-for-marketing-manager-in-trinidad-and-tobago-to-take-advantage-from-proxies/ Sun, 07 Feb 2021 22:54:18 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=156 If the discussion is going about the security, many of the people are there who would mention proxies of internet, same as in VPNs breath. In this manner we can call proxies a fine security option but it will not be right if these are considered in the same category. Information technology (IT) is not the sole department to get most of the proxies, but another department also benefits from it which is marketing department.

There are so many opportunities available to run an advance business on internet, whether it is about prospects interaction their reach or even their security.

In order to avoid influential data gathering, some of the individuals and developers have sorted out impactful ways. Therefore, it is an imperative thing to understand that there are so many VPNs advantages of different types that we can get with internet proxies. It is important for digital marketing agencies in Trinidad and Tobago to be aware of this.

Introduction to Proxies

At its core, there are so many correspondences in the functionality of internet proxies, which makes them a friend of businesses. Also, it is interesting to know about internet proxies, like what are these actually?

The performance of internet proxies is more like an added layer of security. It indicates that whatever exits or enters the business’s web space, is being directed using the proxy. We can consider it as a gatehouse. The proxy does not let every visitor use your website via IP address of the system; instead it creates a mask over everything that comes in between.

To execute these technical tasks, the first thing that gets done is internet traffic. In this regard, the one who does internet surfing would be you. By creating its own IP address, the true IP address of yours gets proxy masked.

The very clear advantage of inter proxy can be considered the security and safety while using the web. Moreover, it is not limited to this particular advantage; it has a lot more features to surprise with.

Once you get used to the elementary level, then you can make a choice between IPv6 proxy and IPv4 proxy. There are some semi-dedicated options comes with IPv4, which are rotating and dedicated.

 Also Learn About: FAQ Page Creation for SaaS Product

While on the other hand, automatic replacement and cycling gets difficult while using the proxy IPv6. Also the proxy may take more time in getting changes is IPv6, in comparison with the proxy IPv4.

5 Ways for Marketing Manager to Take Advantage from Proxies

In this blog, we have catered some important points that can make you understand more precisely the advantages of proxies if incorporated in your business’s marketing strategies. We anticipate that these points will make you understand whether the proxies are fine choice or not for the growth of your business.

  1. Gather the Useful Information

If you are a professional of marketing then you are already familiar with information’s important that it is sheer a priceless asset. Whatever technical activities happen, there are solid grounds of information behind the, through which your business plan can come up. Did you ever wonder like how your specific needs get catered by some websites? There could be many of these, such as:

  • Recently searched products by you
  • Your area or region’s famous products
  • Your area or region’s intended products

The browsing has become easy using the website, and ultimately you get what you have been looking for, even faster.

Regrettably, there are chances that your attempts get blocked while trying to gather useful information from the customers. There are many networks and servers with enabled sets of protocol to avoid information access by crawlers of data. This blocking activity is judged by a quick digital audit, in which it is analyzed that which IP address is performing shadily and then it straight away gets blocked.

This problem can be overcome through cycling or creation of IP addresses specifically for the crawlers. It is because the crawlers have power to access the required information from the site you want fearlessly and with getting blocked.

If you are good at luck and find the correct proxy provider then you can also be given access to get information from many other proxy servers. It means that you will be able to spend on the prospects that you would choose by yourself, even the website will be of your choice.

  • Internet Navigation Anonymously

Often, a tiny sneak peak is mandatory. While doing the research, it then happens a lot in businesses. It does not happened because of any sever or suspicious activities by it might happened because of the savvy features of websites.

Know More About: Learn to Create a Video Landing Page for More Conversions

Most of the times the IP addresses are being noted by the websites itself. A relevant and recent example of such could be shoe stores i.e. have you ever noticed how top notch shoe brands make per customer purchase limited?

  • Optimized Speed of Page

Spacing out the website data, is an ability that a business gets though internet proxies. Over different servers, the partition of the site gets placed by the webmaster through cloud’s access. This process is known as peering.

The huge benefit of it is, you can host more users on your website, because different servers would be providing additional bandwidth.

Before selecting the proxy server for your business, it is important to keep in mind that server with unlimited bandwidth are the best servers. The efficiency of site increases with optimized speed if the speeds of all efficient networks combined, since you get the permission to boost these important elements.

  • Overcome the Challenge of Code Restrictions

If we talk about the restrictions, then it could be a usual observance that websites tend to avoid users to grant them access coming from other regions to your website. This is the same strategy that Netflix follows and also your competitors.

By making use of some proxy services which are professionals in nature, only then the users can access the websites being hosted in other proper regions. If you want to get an access of website that is only operation in Sweden, no need to worry about it, you only need to select a profession Sweden proxy server then you will be able to access the website right away.

Also, it is important that the proxy providers that you have selected must be professional enough to grant you that region’s full support. You must have a professional by your side for the time when you need someone’s assistance.

  • Make Security a Priority

In any business, there should be a top priority of security. The activities that are being performed in your business and other confidential data could be saved on your website. And above all, the information of your prospects will definitely be saved there in database.

Whatever the case is, security of the data should be the priority in every business. These days there are so many privacy invaders present over the internet, these invaders attack can be of following types:

  • Counterfeit Schemes
  • Phishing Scams
  • Malware Attacks

All the above mentioned scams and attacks are definitely harmful for the businesses. In fact, if any of these scams get successful in invading your business’s security then your business could see very bad experience of lifetime as such things can severely affect the development of brand in not time that had built in years.

Therefore, you need to have a proxy provider who is professional and complete every processes carefully and safely.

Don’t Miss: Nine Essential Factors to Drive User Engagement of Website

  • Proxy Providers Selection Criteria

Few points can be considered while choosing an appropriate proxy provider who actually is a professional. Below are those points to be considered:

  • Capability
    The proxy provider should have real skills to prove by securing the website, despite of just bragging about it.
  • Expertise

That professional should have good rotation in current market or industry and commits the fastest service time.

  • Customer Support

They should be able to solve the issue at run time, whenever required.

  • Conclusion

Summing up the detailed article, below are the benefits that you can get by having a professional proxy provider:

  • Addition of Security Layer
  • Page Speed Optimization
  • Overcome the Challenge of Code Restrictions
  • Internet Navigation Anonymously
  • Gather the Useful Information

While dealing the above proxies separately, you need to be careful which is best for your business. You can benefits in many ways by wisely using proxies.

bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an ecommerce platform purely focused to the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you, but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

If you would like to have an online store go to bizibi and signup here.

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How Can Artificial Intelligence Be Incorporated in Ecommerce by businesses in Trinidad and Tobago ? https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/2021/02/07/how-can-artificial-intelligence-be-incorporated-in-ecommerce/ Sun, 07 Feb 2021 22:42:10 +0000 https://blog.bizibi.taurus.one/blog/?p=149 Many years ago, it was sheer an anticipation that one day Artificial Intelligence (AI) will come up and take over the man handled functions. Well, the time has come and world is changing rapid that humans are being replaced with machines. But this is not something to worry about, human workload is being shared in a good way. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized this new era with so many benefits specifically the eCommerce industry.

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI)

A broader brand with advanced functionality in the domain of computer science is considered to be AI – it is an abbreviated form of Artificial Intelligence. The machines having AI technology are smartly designed in such a way that the tasks which are being managed by the humans can now be replaced with the technology of Artificial Intelligence. The are some key players in the world of science development among which, two of these factors are the Artificial Intelligence’s branches, which are Natural Language Processing (abbreviated as NLP) and Machine Learning.

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The eCommerce industry has been deployed the technology of Artificial Intelligence, that intends to provide specific targeting and personalized experience by the prospects. It has been claimed by Statista that by the end of year 2021, around 3.8 Billion people are anticipated to have smartphones, and we are witnessing the steady increase in these numbers going up.

This estimated indicates that mobile industry will see a boom since everyone urges to get himself or herself a phone. These smartphones aimed to provide user friendly interface and smooth functionality of the device which will give rise to the lead generation.

There are some methods and tips to incorporate the Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the industry of eCommerce so that the processes of sale could be optimized.

  1. Users Get Options for Effective Search

It is a thumb rule of business to follow customer centric values in which customer is a king, he/she can never be wrong regarding their needs or demands, and it’s your responsibility to provide them positive experience. Therefore, keeping your customers on priority is a core value of a customer centric businesses.

Don’t Miss: Nine Essential Factors to Drive User Engagement of Website

Does is bother if you are crazily looking for a specific thing and end up having nothing but lose temperament? Exactly, that’s your customers feel when your website doesn’t meet their expectations.

However, being a business handler, jot it down in your to-do list that it is your responsibility to give easy guide to customers regarding the products they had been looking for. This can be possible by incorporating a visual search feature or a voice search feature.

  • Voice Search

While using the Google on search engines, already the most famous feature is voice search. In it, you can put forward your query by just speaking in in Google mic and eventually the voice recognition feature gives the amazing outputs.

For instance, Alexa – it the Artificial Intelligence technology present on Amazon being its digital assistant, it recognizes the language in which you are speaking and show the results (command based) which you were looking for.

  • Visual Search

The online store’s engagement can be increased by incorporating the visual search feature and also enhances the chances to retain conversion visitors, thus generates more leads. By using this feature, one can upload the photo and make similar searches with it which are present in your online shop. This credit goes to the algorithms of machine learning which is processed by the system, then the image gets classified and at the end it shows similar outcomes.

Also Read: 6 Advantages of Adopting Personalized Marketing

  • Recommendation Sales Feature Implementation

Recommendation Sales Features is among those systems which analyze the information of the prospects i.e. the user’s browsing history, prior purchases track. This is all done in order to give suggestions or recommendations based on the services, information and the products.

The Recommendation Sales Feature comprises two main systems, which are:

  • Filter in Content

This is the system technique of Recommendation Sales Feature in which metadata filtration, choices and activities of a single user are utilized. This filter performs by considering the user behaviors, and pattern of activity for the integration to a smart algorithm. It can provide recommendations or suggestions to the visitors of website by keeping a trach of prior data and information.

  • Collaborative Filter

In the collaborative filtering feature, the system provides recommendations or suggestions by keeping track of several users’ data and information unlike content filtration in which data is gather by a single user only. Collaborative filter is more reliable and accurate than the content filtration. This particular feature was incorporated by the Amazon and it witnessed a big increment in sales, after implementing this algorithm.

An increase in website’s click-through rate along with personalized experience of potential buyers can be seen by incorporating the recommendation sales feature. Since the complementary products or services are being offered to the customers which gives a best combination when used with original product, a clear increase in average value of order can be seen. By holding the attention of your customer through such offers can make them stay on website or retain for a longer time than usual, thus conversions take place.

Know More About: Learn to Create a Video Landing Page for More Conversions

  • Designate a Virtual Assistant or Chat Bot

To start the conversations with your users, chat bot turns out to be the great source using different channels. This will benefit to your customers by offering them proper assistance and make them understand the right choice through the navigation.

Most of the times, prospects are quite eager to ask and know different details about the services and products. It is not easily possible to stay online all the time to entertain the questions of customers. Here, how does an automated chat bot incorporation idea sound like? Which can recognize the intention or aims of the customers by following the keywords and the already communicated scenarios.

There are 64% of the businesses’ customers who anticipate a smooth interaction by making use of online businesses. A quick response can be offered to the customers, from which different kind of data can be gathered i.e. email information and fill forms for other information. A digital and virtual assistant is an application program that knows the normal language of human beings and it can benefit users by responding to the questions, thus eventually enhances the chance of leads.

  • Products’ Description Optimization

A smart way to give detailed introduction about your products or services by adding products description on website against the respective item. This is how you can make your website SEO friendly to get the top rank of your online shop on search engine. It gives businesses the motivation to write optimized content for their products and services’ description, which helps to get organic audiences on your website. Well written descriptions that beautifully elaborates the products’ features can turn many leads into the conversions, since they can make up the minds of customers for a purchase.

Read More: 6 Important Ways to Measure the Business Using Influencer Marketing

This is all done manually usually, but it can all be performed automatically by using the technology of Artificial Intelligence, thus humans can save and utilize this time in other important tasks.

Many of the websites are incorporating Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology in order to get their products and services’ description writing done, Alibaba is one of them. More than 20,000 lines of descriptions can be prepared in a second by incorporation of Artificial Intelligence technology. This way website’s merchants will not consume more time in creating descriptions of products and services.

  • Avoid Fake Reviews

Majority of the prospects tend to make a purchase by following the reviews of other customers, and sometimes competitors or haters give bad reviews for no reason. Artificial Intelligence incorporation can identify and delete the spams and fake reviews.

Also Learn About: FAQ Page Creation for SaaS Product

  • Benefit from Price Optimization

It is the process in which a moderate price is identified that your targeted audience can pay for your products or the services. Through this, more sales and conversions can be made.

  • Supply Chain Automation

If there is a mismatch between demand and supply of your online shop, you can face trouble in terms of items’ shortage. The “Out of Stock” status divert your customers’ mind to switch to the websites of your competitors.

Having an automated supply chain management, you can keep check and balance of your inventory and win the conversions of ready buyers.

  • Conclusion

The online businesses’ and startups’ development and maintenance can be wisely managed by incorporating the Artificial Intelligence (AI). The consumers and merchants’ gap can also get bridged through (AI). With the passage of time, the demands of prospects are increasing, and it is becoming quite a challenge for every business to creatively engage the prospects. AI is on a journey to evolve the customer’s experience; thus, it is beneficial for ecommerce and customers both.

Must Read: 6 Advantages of Adopting Personalized Marketing

bizibi is a full turnkey solution for an ecommerce platform purely focused to the Trinidad and Tobago market. A feature rich multivendor platform that includes delivery and payments as well as a fully powerful marketing engine that not only generates a whole portfolio of marketing material for you, but also with its integration with social media we can also deliver it to your audience.

If you would like to have an online store go to bizibi and signup here.

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