Tag Archives: eCommerce

eCommerce, Shopify

Vulnerabilities in eCommerce Web Development that Hackers Can Exploit

With more and more sales going online, many eCommerce Web Development companies are finding it difficult to address privacy and security concerns. According to Statista, global e-commerce sales were $3.53 trillion in 2019, and are expected to reach $6.54 trillion by 2022. As technology advances and hackers become more sophisticated, the sorts of security flaws in e-commerce become increasingly diverse and complex.

According to a 2019 global online buying survey, around 76 percent of online customers value data privacy and security when determining where to buy. So, what are the top security concerns that eCommerce Web Development Company should be aware of? And how can online merchants safeguard themselves, and their consumers from frequent e-commerce threats? Let’s investigate.

How Hackers Find Your eCommerce Website

There are many ways, really. Here are a few of the more common methods:

1.  Attacks on open-source software

Because they are usually very easy to identify and exploit, these assaults are one of the most common. The assaults are aimed at businesses that employ open-source code and technologies in their apps. These websites are seen as “low hanging fruit” by many attackers.

Because open-source technologies are free and allow for relatively easy customization by low-cost, entry-level programmers, many organisations prefer to use them to develop their websites. Unfortunately, inexperienced programmers frequently make configuration and code modifications without fully understanding the security implications.

Because many eCommerce systems and online programming languages are open-source, hackers, pen testers, and white hat researchers are continually discovering, testing, and exposing found vulnerabilities as well as the ways that were or could be used to exploit them. Wannabe hackers and script kids typically exploit easy-to-use tools developed by skilled hackers to compromise vulnerable websites.

WordPress and Magento Web Development are two of the most popular open-source tools targeted by hackers. These two tools are appealing to attackers since they’re easy to set up and adapt for organisations while also having a very complex code base with numerous attack avenues.

  • Magento is a popular open source, off-the-shelf shopping cart that is used by tens of thousands of companies.
  • WordPress is both a content management system (CMS) and an e-commerce platform.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use these tools. It simply means that because they are open source, they may be more vulnerable to security flaws; as a result, extra caution should be exercised when customising them. Also keep in mind that, at the same time that hackers are discovering vulnerabilities, people are working to fix them. That’s why, if you use these kinds of website tools, staying up to speed on security fixes is vital.

When working with any open source system, it’s a good idea to work with trustworthy experts and recommended plug-ins as a best practise. Experts from Magento or the WordPress community can assist you with this.

2.  Third party plugins

Open-source programmes like Magento and WordPress are often updated with new features. At times, attackers will create and publish new plugins, as well as modify existing open-source plugins. These plugins appear to be helpful and innocent, but they may have hidden backdoors or intentional or unintended flaws. When using third-party plugins, users should exercise extreme caution.

3.  Zero-day attacks

Zero-day attacks occur when an attacker discovers a vulnerability before the vendor does and begins exploiting it. Users are occasionally forced to wait for a “hot fix” from vendors. However, fully fixing a vulnerability can take several months in some circumstances. Your website could be vulnerable to hackers between the time it’s identified and patched, and the time it’s discovered and patched.

4.  PHP and other web languages are vulnerable to attacks.

For web development and back-end application programming, PHP (hypertext preprocessor) and comparable open-source scripting languages are utilised. One issue with open-source languages is that hackers know a lot about them and can uncover flaws in even the most boring lines of code. Hackers go into overdrive every time a new language or version of the language is published, looking for new vulnerabilities to attack before they are identified and patched by the support community or developers.

5.  Injection of code into the input field

SQL injection attacks are well-known among website owners. Despite how simple it is to prevent, this method continues to be a hacker favourite. An input field is a section of a web form where specific information is requested (date, phone number, credit card number, etc.).

However, input fields aren’t the only way to convey information to a web server. In many cases, the URL line contains input fields that can be easily modified by an attacker. Attackers can exploit particular coding characters to cause the backend programming language to run malicious code instead when input fields aren’t properly sanitised.

Even if fields are cleaned, the way the server responds to odd input data can reveal useful information that can be leveraged to gather extra insight.

6.  Attacks on Buffer Overflow

Even if incoming data is cleaned, if it is not also verified for things like right size and data type expectations, hackers could employ a clever method like uploading massive volumes of data to a website, perhaps causing the web server to malfunction. If the problem is severe enough, hackers may be able to take advantage of it and take control of the web server.

7.  Reconnaissance of Error Messages

Most users quickly hit the back button when they see an error notice like the one below.

However, this might be a gold mine of information about the server for an experienced hacker. These types of error messages are common on websites, and hackers can utilise them to obtain vital information that can be used to establish a successful breach later.

To avoid this danger, make sure that every data is sanitised and validated. Any programming characters found in any incoming data fields are removed during sanitization. Programmers sometimes overlook the need to sanitise and validate data from sources such as their own database, assuming that because they control the data source, sanitation and validation are not necessary.

However, if a web application comprises a database, the attacker has uncontrolled access to the database. A smart hacker can compromise the entire website and web server if the website uses tainted data from the database. Sanitization is the process of removing potentially harmful characters from any incoming data stream. Validation verifies that the data is what it should be, that it is the proper type of data, and that it is the right amount of data.

What can you do to avoid being hacked?

The good news is that, at the same time as hackers are discovering vulnerabilities in open source resources, a large number of individuals are identifying and resolving issues. The goal is to stay current on security issues and to adhere to all recommended best practises. Listed below are a few of the most important best practise tips for running a secure website:

  • Install and run an application for file integrity monitoring (FIM): Changes to individual files or all files within defined folders are monitored by File Integrity Monitoring. FIM can notify IT personnel if an attacker successfully modifies a file, allowing them to respond quickly and rectify the incident. FIM is frequently installed, but alarms are sent to an email account that is rarely accessed or a log file that is rarely inspected. Many FIM systems now allow alerts to be issued to both IT personnel and a management through text message, allowing incidents to be dealt with immediately and with complete accountability.
  • Keep up with security patches and hotfixes: Security patches and hotfixes should be deployed as soon as feasible after publication, but no later than 24 hours. When new patches or releases are available, many applications send out notifications. Policies should be in place to ensure that patch updates are applied as soon as possible.
  • Use intrusion detection systems (IDS): IDS monitor logs for signs of a breach. IDS notifications should be dealt with as soon as possible.
  • Use intrusion prevention systems (IPS): Like IDS, IPS monitor traffic in [near] real-time, looking for signs of real-time attacks, and will create an alarm if suspicious activity is identified.
  • Avoid exposing weaknesses: Customizing your website and tools can be beneficial for your business, but it can also expose you to risks. When changing code, programmers should exercise utmost caution. Regular code reviews should be performed to check for security flaws and unintended consequences.
  • As previously stated, every incoming data should be sanitised by removing potentially harmful characters and evaluated to ensure that the data satisfies the necessary type and size limits.
  • To test new code and third-party plugins, use staging or development servers: Website modifications, as well as any plugins and outsourced development, should always be tested and assessed in a non-production environment.

One of the most serious difficulties with eCommerce security is that criminals have plenty of time to hunt for and exploit flaws. To have a successful breach, they just need to be correct once. IT personnel, pen testers, programmers, and security researchers must all be correct at all times. Of course, this is unachievable, and data breaches will happen from time to time. If you make something hack-proof, the world will breed better hackers. Is this a sign that the situation is hopeless? Not in the least!

Remember that hackers are drawn to low-hanging fruit, and there is plenty of it available. Implementing a few easy, reasonable security safeguards and methods can swiftly elevate your eCommerce environment to the relative safety of higher branches.

Naturally, the more lucrative your eCommerce environment appears to data thieves, the more thorough your security procedures must be. The most important best practices to follow is to never assume that your security is complete. What is today’s ultra-secure app, web server, or computer code could be tomorrow’s Achilles’ heel.

In order to act proactively and respond effectively, business owners, IT employees, developers, and management must be up to speed and thoroughly schooled on security risks. This frequently necessitates a significant investment of time and resources, and the return on that effort is often missed when things go well. Thousands of firms that have endured the mental, moral, and financial toll of a severe security breach can attest that none of them ever wished they had invested less in the first place.

ONLINE PAYMENT FRAUD

We have all witnessed a movement from physical to online transactions in recent years. People no longer need to display a card to retailers when placing an order and making a payment. Because credit card information is not physically provided to third parties, it appears that the number of credit card fraud cases have decreased. However, credit card theft incidents have grown to 25% of all instances. According to the 2019 Trustwave Global Security Report, CNP (Card Not Present) data incidents account for 84 percent of all occurrences in e-commerce. Payment fraud is one of the most common types of security flaws in e-commerce.

Historical data, such as that from the 2009 recession, demonstrates that fraud increases during downturns. As a result, there will be an increase in friendly fraud (such as buying a high-value item online like a large, flat-screen TV, and then claiming that it was a fraudulent transaction). While retailers contest chargebacks when they detect friendly fraud, just 32% of them are successful in disputing chargebacks more than 45 percent of the time.

Furthermore, CNP fraud is anticipated to climb by 14 percent by 2023, with retailers potentially losing $13 billion by that time. Online payment fraud can take many forms, but the most prevalent include identity theft, friendly fraud, triangulation, and clean fraud. It’s no surprise that during peak spikes like the holiday season, there are more attempts at online payment fraud. This is especially true of benevolent fraud.

In addition, an increase in internet buying during pandemic lockdowns has increased the number of online payment fraud cases. In the United Kingdom, for example, research suggests that 16,352 persons were victims of online purchasing fraud. So, how might transaction fraud be combated?

Today’s ERFM solutions only give customers a limited amount of insight into and control over their AI and machine learning (ML) models. This presents major problems for merchants, who rely on their investigators to figure out why the AI programme rejected a transaction and explain it to both customers and auditors. The good news is that suppliers are emphasising in their roadmaps that their AI/ML models should 1) “rely less on black box models” and 2) provide explanatory features.

HOW TO AVOID IT:

Online shops may do a few simple steps to protect themselves and their customers from online payment fraud:

  • Attain and maintain the PCI standard, which assures that credit card information collected online is safely transported and stored, or select a reputable PCI-compliant payment system provider.
  • Use an Address Verification System (AVS), which verifies a customer’s billing address to the information on file with a credit card provider.
  • Use Secure Server Layer (SSL) certificates to ensure that all sensitive communications on your website take place over a secure channel protected by data encryption.
  • Change to HTTPS protocols to protect client data and sensitive information.
  • Use required CVV for all e-commerce transactions involving credit or debit cards.
  • Ensure multi-factor authentication and urge customers to create more secure passwords.
  • Use AI/ML algorithms to combat e-commerce and retail fraud (ERFM).

WEB APPLICATION MISCONFIGURATION

To meet the expectations of the customers, e-commerce enterprises require several types of web apps. Web apps make it simple to establish product or service listings, product/service descriptions, a personal profile, a shopping cart, and secure e-payment alternatives. Furthermore, mobile devices account for the majority of online purchasing traffic. Since 2016, mobile commerce (or “m-commerce”) has grown at a 33.8 percent annual rate. As a result, web apps are the greatest choice for increasing engagement and income.

However, when it comes to security, many online shops fail to implement appropriate security measures throughout the software development life cycle and underestimate the need of encryption.

This results in many forms of security vulnerabilities in e-commerce web apps, which result in compromised user accounts, malicious code installation, lost sales revenue, consumer confidence loss, brand reputation harm, and so on. The following is a list of the most prevalent web application attacks:

  • Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of code injection attack that occurs on the client-side.
  • SQL injection entails inserting harmful code into SQL statements via web page input.
  • Cookie poisoning is the alteration of a cookie in order to obtain unauthorized information about the user.
  • Remote command execution refers to the execution of arbitrary commands on the host operating system through a susceptible program.
  • File-path traversal is a technique that allows you to navigate through files.

The case of an order’s auto increment id is another common misconfiguration that could allow your competitors to gain a better understanding of your sales. You can place an order and receive an email with your order-id, then place another order a week later and obtain a different order-id to compare. This is a method of obtaining sensitive information about your sales that someone could exploit. Using a universally unique identity (UUID) instead of an auto incremented id is all that is required to avoid such an issue. This is an easy thing to do, but it can save you a lot of grief.

HOW TO AVOID IT:

Online retailers should consider the following factors to ensure that their website apps are secure against harmful threats:

  • Choose the best web host for your e-commerce website: based on your demands, you can go with shared hosting, virtual private server hosting, or dedicated hosting.
  • Implement effective monitoring and alerting: you should set up a Web Application Firewall to detect malicious requests and respond in a way that prevents any loss.
  • Never save highly sensitive or vital information in cookies, and always encrypt the information stored in cookies.
  • To avoid XSS attacks, use the x-XSS-protection security header.

ATTACKS ON DISTRIBUTED DENIAL OF SERVICE (DDOS)

Denial of service (DDoS) attacks are used to bring down a web server or online system by flooding it with traffic from a large number of infected devices. The initial signs of DDoS are an abundance of spam emails, delayed file access, Internet outage, and so on. Without professional instruments and a thorough diagnosis, it can be extremely difficult to recognize these signs.

HOW TO AVOID IT

The major goal is to distinguish actual network traffic spikes from fraudulent traffic and to restrict “bad” traffic before it reaches the site. There are various steps you may take to prevent and minimize DDoS attacks:

  • Use a DDoS mitigation solution that filters traffic and prevents DDoS attacks from taking impact.
  • Configure your firewall and router to reject inbound ICMP packets and to reject DNS replies from outside your network.
  • Switch to a cloud-based supplier with high bandwidth and various points of presence in data centers around the world.
  • Set up a load balancer to optimize the network, server, and app performance by dispersing harmful traffic over multiple data centers.

BAD BOTS

Bad bots behave like real users and can be used not only by hackers to steal your users’ credit card numbers, CVVs, and log-in credentials, but also by your competitors to manipulate your product prices, block shopping carts, and create an artificial traffic spike to slow down your e-commerce website.

HOW TO AVOID IT:

If you wish to defend yourself from bot attacks, there are some simple steps you can do right now to begin tackling the issue:

  • Always assess traffic sources.
  • Look into sudden traffic increases.
  • Keep an eye out for failed login attempts.
  • Safeguard exposed APIs and mobile apps.
  • Use content delivery networks and web application firewalls.
  • Install a CAPTCHA test.
  • Consider purchasing a bot mitigation solution.

Wrapping Up

An e-commerce website is a sophisticated system comprising numerous components such as a product catalogue, a shopping basket system, online payment systems, personalised profile pages, a contact us page, and many others. And there is a diverse set of attack vectors aimed against each of these components. Hackers typically hunt for vulnerabilities in your server, infrastructure, network environment, databases, APIs, integrations with third-party vendors, and so on in order to obtain illegal information about users. To ensure that your e-commerce site is well-defended from cyber-criminals, security should be included in every stage of website construction.

Business, Digital Marketing, eCommerce

How To Sell Products Online – Successful eCommerce Strategy

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One pioneering question that baffled every entrepreneur is, How to Sell Online. There are numerous articles that are written around this topic. Few specifically on How to Sell Products Online. Yet, only a handful of business entities are able to master the e-Commerce strategies and increase their topline.

Other Easy way is that, You do not need to worry eCommerce Website, Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing and traffic on website etc. Geoxis is providing a Plateform where you can sell your products. All your headache is handle by Geoxis Team. Register your self as a Vendor and Start selling Now. For more infromation Visit Geoxis Marketplace.

Create an e-Commerce Store and Start Selling online.

The core component of any e-Commerce strategy is people. That’s why most businesses claims about having a written draft, on how individual marketing channels will help add value to the people. Once your marketing team master this realm, then it gets easier to sell products online.

Convenience and Time – Why it Matters

Simplicity and speed. People want instant solutions in a simplified manner. Nobody wants to go through a troublesome experience to muster an ideal solution. The extreme competition has forced digital entities to create modular yet comprehensive products.

The higher you optimize the buyer’s journey, greater the impact on your balance sheet.

Try to answer these, What made digital commerce one of the ideal channels among people? Why forced the legacy processes to slip down? How modern marketing strategies become the driving force in the virtual world? What solution does Amazon, Zomato, Netflix, etc offer when compared to traditional business models? Well, all these giants were able to add value to people’s time. All these companies are focused to add convenience to your daily life and save a considerable amount of time. Lending you an extra hand to chase your daily errands.

Does My Virtual Identity Matters

The landscape of modern business is highly influenced by the virtual identity a business owns. You may find it quite interesting how brands interact with people in the virtual world. A study conducted, found that on an average a person spends around 2.6 hours online. Significant number for a marketer. A wise man always prefers to set up his shop near a congregation. Where he is sure that people move around and he will end up with a sale.

The virtual identity gives you an added advantage to reach a great no: of audience. Which no other medium was able to offer. The virtual world gives an opportunity for startups and established brands to compete on the same platform (almost under the same rules and regulation). How you present your business and connect with your audience through multiple online channels can make or break your business.

The Personality of your Website/ e-Commerce Store Matters

Your website/ eCommerce store acts as the core touch point for your customers. Your website is your virtual identity. That’s where you refer your customers to. An elegant design with a simplified user interface accentuates the visitor to interact with the business. When was the last time you went to a crappy website and decided to make a purchase? A mere glance, that’s all it took you to hit the small button at the right-hand corner. If you want to sell online then you need to have a strong platform. One main reason for high cart abandon is that at some point along the buyer’s journey the customer felt sceptical about the website.

The marketplace is getting crammed with alternates and substitute products. If not you, your competitor will be happy to cater the needs. You may have incentivised the person to visit your website, don’t give them a chance to bounce. Your e-Commerce strategy should be designed to give the best possible customer experience.

What e-Commerce Strategy is the Best eCommerce Strategy

It’s a complex question to answer. I do recommend a holistic strategy. There are umpteen online marketing strategies that you can use to sell your products online. How you plan and execute those strategies depends on you. Scout for any activity that aids to a sale. Even the smallest option like adding a WhatsApp channel to the product page can boost sales. The option gives the visitor an opportunity to interact with a person, clarify their doubts and then proceed. Commercialising and optimizing your digital entity is the most sagacious pursuit to sell products online.

Identify, Study, and Explore the Market

To sell products online you need to understand the market that you are targeting. At times you will be gauged upon the industry knowledge you have. Every market has its own characteristics and unique features. If you are planning to sell sustainable clothing, then you need to understand what does it take to weave sustainable clothes and what kind of people prefer to buy it. Unless and until you get yourself familiarized with the driving forces of the market, selling online remains a puzzle.

Industry Knowledge in Marketing

We live in a data-driven world where information can be the key differentiator. Knowledge is power because it equips you with information that can be used for your advantage. Gathering the latest information about the industry gives to a competitive edge in understanding the market pulse.

Prepare yourself to answer these questions

  • What trends are more preferred among people?
  • How customers are reacting to the recent policy change?
  • Who are my competitors? what are their key differentiators and their marketing strategies? What are the latest trends and how it is going to impact my business?

Once you get in-depth insights into these details you will be able to frame a well-customised e-Commerce strategy for your target niche.

List Your products on Marketplaces

Marketplaces are a great resource that you need to look into. As a startup entrepreneur, you don’t have the luxury to ignore an opportunity that helps you sell. Online marketplaces are platforms where you can list your product and sell online. Wondering why online marketplaces are important. It’s the brand presence that matters. Amazon is an online marketplace. Almost everybody is familiar with the brand. In most cases, people trust the brand so much that they ignore all the competitor offerings and dive straight to the platform and place the order.

Note:- With marketplaces trying to capitalize the market with their own private label brands, it looks a bit hard to get shortlisted as an authorised seller on most platforms.

Advantages a startup could get by listing their products on online marketplaces

  • As a startup, your entity is not familiar to people. Getting listed on these platforms will help create some traction in the virtual world.
  • Marketing channels like SEO will take time to evolve into a well-established source and build a solid customer base. In the short period, you can rely on marketplaces to drive sales.
  • Platforms like Amazon is a source to get genuine reviews. A stack of positive reviews on these platforms can help root trust among people.
  • Almost all marketplaces are professionally managed and operate around the clock. As a startup, you will get an opportunity to learn more about managing a virtual entity.

Invite Dropshippers and Affiliates To Sell Products Online

Hope you guys are familiar with the terms drop shipping and affiliate programs. These two commercial models help you club a bunch of freelancers to promote your business. The idea behind these two business models remains the same. You incentivise a person based on the sale he/ she was able to make.

Create opportunities for people to work from home

With digital transformation and increasing job opportunities, there are a lot of people who prefer to be their own boss and work from home. Why not give them an opportunity to commercialise your business model. Start an affiliate program for your business, take enquiries from drop shippers. Note that every opportunity takes you one step closer to a target segment.

A brief about drop shipping and how to refine your e-Commerce Strategy

In drop-shipping, you don’t own or manage the inventory. You simply own an online store were you list the products that a wholesaler/ retailer/ manufacturer has. Through drop-shipping, you enter into a mutual agreement with certain drop-shippers. In an unadorned form – Your virtual store will get an online order and the drop shipper should fulfil the order placement. Drop-shipping is a win-win strategy, wherein the dealer/ manufacturer was able to make a sale, and in the process you will earn a percentage as a commission.

How you Present your Products Plays an Important Role in Conversion

Like I mentioned, How you design your website/ eCommerce store matters. Decide what kind of content should go to the page. Whether its a gif, image, video, etc. The best strategy is to place the customer at the centre and try to answer all his concerns when deciding to buy a product.

Let’s take an example; Consider that you are selling pre-owned luxury bags online. The first and foremost concern that comes to your mind is the condition of the product. What does a lightly used product mean, Under what slab does it fall, etc? The second concern will be, how to verify that the products are original and not a first copy? Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and try to address this scenario. Don’t you think adding a certification from an authority will help convince the visitor.

Few other optimizations that you can use are;

  • Talk to your customers in the native language. If your online visitors are showing interest towards products that fall into a specific category Say the aviation category. Don’t you think that these people are interested in that special category. Why not draft your messages/ description with a milieu to their interest.
  • Instead of a plain image try tagging few images that give a context to the product you sell. Make people visualize using the product or how it looks in the real life.
  • If you are selling variants of the same products, then its better if you list multiple images of it.
  • Use high-resolution images and makes sure to follow the same dimensions all along. Consistency matters.
  • If you are planning to display videos on the product page make sure that it’s well edited and neatly displayed.
  • Try to list complementary products in the same page.

Social Media – Use it, Opportunity Knocks

Social media marketing is a buzzword which has already gained significant interest among businesses around the world. For few, its a channel to boost their brand visibility, a segment claims that their social channels are the money churners, a category still plans to master the art of social selling, another segment claims that they find the learning curve to be too steep. Regardless of what, according to SocialMediaExaminer 97% of marketers are still participating in social media.

The biggest mistake that a brand makes with social media is that they still use the channel as a broadcast media. Marketers and entrepreneurs need to know the fact that it is a channel meant to add value to people who engage in it. The platform has way surpassed the ambiguity of a broadcast channel, rather it’s a dedicated channel to interact and engage with people.

How Social Media Can Help You

  • Create loyal followers
  • Increase Brand Recognition
  • Additional channel to sell more
  • Drive inbound traffic to your website
  • Social signals to your SEO

Personalised Emails with a Definite Intend

Emails are widely used by marketers to reach out to customers with exciting offers and promotions. Stats published on CampaignMonitor.com clearly shows the importance of emails. The channel gives you the best ROI, $38 for every $1 spent. Email marketing can used by business entities of all nature. The increasing demand and technological outburst have led to questionable marketing strategies. As a marketer, you need to understand that hitting your prospects inbox with spammy emails is a facetious effort.

When you draft an email you need to consider multiple factors

  • How the receiver will react to it?
  • To whom you are sending? What time seems to be the best time to get a high CTR?
  • What should be the subject line?
  • How to draft email content, etc.

An email blast is not the right solution at times. Segregate your database and then customize the email such that it gets a higher vitality to convince the reader.

In every email, you need to reflect the fact that you care for your customer. If you are sending a welcome email, be cordial, express your genuine bliss for having the customer on the platform, encourage their effort in reaching out to your business with an offer. The higher you refine your emails, personalise it, and tag a purpose, lesser the chance for it to be flagged as a spam.

To sell products online you need to come up with an email strategy that entices the prospects to engage with your virtual entity.

Parting Note:- Ecommerce strategies are as good as how you execute it and iterate it to meet the demand of your market segment. In an overcrowded marketplace, to sell products online you need to come up with innovative marketing ideas.

Data Management, eCommerce

Why eCommerce Data Management is Crucial for Your Online Business?

How Product Data Management Services Helps in Your E-Commerce Business?

In the world of Ecommerce, you’re as effective as your product data management is. In the online and digital environment, data is the new currency. If you know how to use it to your advantage, you can beat your competition and increase your profitability. Put simply, Ecommerce data management is a highly collaborative and well-structured modern solution that helps your ecommerce business access and control crucial data that adds significant value to your business.

Effective data management also helps you stay competitive by providing a more agile response to market demand. EDM allows you to achieve higher efficiency and reduce time, as well as human error when satisfying the needs of your customers.

On top of all that, it’s also an effective way to cope with the latest trends in ecommerce and develop innovative products that your customers will buy. If used properly, Ecommerce data management will help your business grow and develop in a highly competitive global environment.

eCommerce Data Management Services

Your online business depends on your Ecommerce catalog. The better you manage your catalog, the more you’re able to advertise and sell your products or services. It’s imperative to have an e-commerce catalog today, as this tool helps you stay competitive.

Since these catalogs store tremendous amounts of data, obtaining professional ecommerce data management services is essential to organizing that data and classifying it in any way you need to achieve your business goals.

With that in mind, here are four of the most important Ecommerce data management services that will offer you the advantage you need to increase your sales and make the most of your profitability.

1) Content Update

Making changes and modifications to loads of information like your online contents, prices, product descriptions, and inventory updates can be an extremely time-consuming and daunting task. With Ecommerce data management software, you can take care of your content updates quickly and easily.

2) Visual impact

Ecommerce data management allows for the incorporation of visual material, such as animations, videos, images, and photos. This helps generate attention-grabbing advertisements that will attract more potential prospects.

3) Ecommerce

Enabling electronic payment systems and allowing your customers to make their orders online is the only safe way to develop and grow your online business.

4) Information Sharing

The electronic catalog allows you to store huge amounts of information that you can modify, update, access, and share any time. You can add product descriptions, technical details, and every characteristic you deem necessary, as well as product recommendations to engage with your customers even further.

Product Data Management – What is it?

Product data management is a very effective and useful way to share any required product information within one company to keep every segment and system within the organization updated.

It’s also an effective way to reduce human error, increase business efficiency, and keep your online customers and employees well informed about all products and services. Product data management provides refined information on demand that can be used for many different purposes, from marketing to design.

The best thing about PDM is that it allows you to centralize all product-related data into a single location so that you can use it strategically to achieve a certain goal.

Why Product Data Management Services is Critical in eCommerce Business?

Product data such as materials needed to make a product, the quantity of those materials, the price, and the supplier are all valuable bits of information. If you can effectively manage such data, you can beat your competition, reduce the time and cost of your operations.

To effectively manage such data, you need the right tool. That is where product data management services and Ecommerce data management come into play. These services provide many advantages that you can use to improve your e-commerce.

One of the biggest advantages is the accessibility of your product data. PDM allows you to quickly and easily access any product data at any time, which is extremely helpful for product management. Since online business is a fast-paced and ever-changing environment, you will be required to make changes in the database on a regular basis.

PDM allows you to make these changes in a timely manner and see the exact results of every change you make, which can be extremely profitable to your business. Then, you can track the product specifications, reuse the design to make modifications, and so on. The sooner you implement the product data management process, the better it will be for your entire business. More importantly, your employees need the training to become proficient with the software, so you want to ensure that your database is updated on a regular basis.

Your quality assurance team, product engineers, sales personnel, and product managers will reap the benefits of using the product data management software.

To cut a long story short, the product data management system allows you to centralize all data related to your products to keep your entire organization, as well as customer base, up to date with any information regarding your products.

Aside from that, you will also get access to all metadata like who accessed any information and when, the latest version of the product, the release date, and more.

Since communication is extremely important in the age of information, PDM also allows you to improve your internal and external communication.

There’s no doubt that the PDM solution is the much-needed leverage that your online business can use to demolish the competition. Therefore, teaming up with a Back Office Pro Team that rely on their long years of PDM experience is a certain way to get ahead of the curve and increase sales.

Effective Data Management Leads to High Business Performance

Since ecommerce never stagnates, controlling access to valuable data, and sharing information in a timely order is critical in running your online business. All the latest studies indicate that there’s a strong connection between the ability of a business to manage data with success and business performance.

Online businesses that manage their data professionally have much better chances of growing revenue and increasing profitability than those that still struggle with their data management. Information is power, and those who know how to wield it and use it to their advantage are those who will prosper.

Author Bio

Juliana has been an avid blogger for 5 years, with particular interests in E-commerce Data management, Web Designing etc. Today she is an expert on the subject and over the years she has consistently contributed articles to top Web Development web designing, e-commerce and Data management publications. Presently, she is associated with Back Office Pro- a e-commerce data management service providers. For more visit Backofficepro.

 

Website Design

How to Start a Shopify Store

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Here we have drafted a Shopify tutorial: How to Start a Shopify Store to clear all hitches you ever had about the Shopify store setup. Still you are facing any problem then discuss with our expert for setup your store.

What Is Shopify?

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that allows to create own
online store. It provides with several themes that can be customized to meet
individual users’ branding requirements.

WordPress is good for Blog Website like that Shopify is good for ecommerce website. User can build ecommerce websites without technical or design experience.

As stated on their website, Shopify powers ambitious
entrepreneurs all over the world with more than 600,000 stores, 1,000,000+
active users and $72B+ sold on Shopify.

Shopify is most user friendly ecommerce platform like
wordpress.

How to Start Shopify Store For Free

  • Shopify can start selling free for 14 days. No
    credit card required.
  • They have several plans to accommodate a wide
    range of entrepreneurs with their most popular ones being basic shopify,
    shopify and advanced shopify.

How much does it cost to set up a Shopify website?

  • Here is an indication of budget you will need to get started:
    • Shopify Online Store: $29 USD per month after the 14 day free trial
    • Oberlo Application (if using Aliexpress): $29.90 USD per month if selling more than 50 items per month. If you are selling less than 50 items per month then Oberlo is free.
    • Domain Name: $14 USD per year for a domain name registration
    • Professional Email address: $5 USD per month
    • Marketing budget (Facebook or other): $500 minimum, recommend $1,000 USD per month if marketing on Facebook.

Shopify Store Creation

  • Pick a Name For Your Store
    • Choose a Name for store or Shopify has the tool to generate the name. User can generate the name for the store.
    • For generating the name visit the link.
    • Enter a word that you want your business name to include then click on “Generate names”.
  • Sign up for Shopify
    • Click on “Start free trial” in the top right corner or the middle of the page.
    • Enter the required details and click the ‘Create your store now’ button.
    • Your store name needs to be unique or Shopify will ask you to choose something else.
    • After this initial screen, you’ll be asked for a few more details, including your name, address, country and a contact number.

Setting up a domain for your store

  • Shopify gives you a free domain name that looks like this mygeoxis.myshopify.com.
  • For branding purposes it is advisable to have a shorter domain name, preferably “.com” that people can easily remember.
  • Customers can reach your store by typing in your domain name.
  • You have two options for domain purchasing:
    • Firstly you can buy a domain from Shopify and it will be added to your store automatically. This is the easiest option and it saves you time.
    • Second option is to buy a domain from a third party but you will have to redirect the DNS records yourself.

Branding: Free logo creation

  • Shopify has a tool for free logo creation. This will help you with branding without spending tons of money for a designer. You can upload your logo if you have or there are many websites who offers logo creation. You can create a logo.
  • Click get started to create stunning logos in seconds.
  • Follow the straightforward instructions and provide an email address where your designs will be sent. Download the files and save them in a safe place for later user.

Theme Installation and Customization

  • Shopify comes loaded with a default theme and you have the option of installing a free or paid theme of your choice.
  • I recommend using the free shopify theme called Brooklyn. It’s mobile responsive, fully supported by Shopify technical team and used by many online stores.

Setting up a shopify store

  • Before your site can go live we need to add a
    few more details about company and how you plan to make deliveries and pay tax.
    This section is all about the store settings you need to adjust.
  • In the left-hand sidebar of your admin panel you
    will see the menu to all your settings in Shopify. Start by clicking on the
    menu link the lower left called Settings.

General

  • Enter your business information. Store title,
    business address, unit and currency settings.

Payment
Providers

  • An ecommerce payment gateway is a service that
    allows you to accept credit card payments securely online through your Shopify
    store. Shopify connects to over 70 different payment gateways across the world.
  • Using Shopify Payments powered by Stripe and/or
    Paypal.

Checkout Settings

  • Set what customer information is collected
    during checkout, how the order is processed, and your return / terms and
    conditions.

Shipping

  • Shopify Admin helps you manage the delivery of
    your goods to your customers – a very important aspect of your business! You
    configure all your shipping settings, including features like free delivery or
    customer pickup, from your Shipping page.

Taxes

  • When your shop is first created, Shopify sets up
    some default tax rates for your own country (and its provinces, states, or
    territories, if applicable).
  • They do their best to keep the default tax rates
    up to date, but you should double-check to make sure that they are current and
    correct.

Gift Cards

  • Gift cards provide a flexible way for your
    customers to purchase a gift for someone from your store, making it easy for
    them to share their love for your brand while also maintaining full freedom of
    choice. With Shopify, customers purchase gift cards the same way they purchase
    any other product.

Notifications

Choose what notifications are sent to you and your customers

Files

You can upload and manage all your images in one area.

Sales Channels

Shopify to sell your products using one or more online sales
channels. Each place where you are selling is like a channel that flows into
your business, helping customers from a variety of audiences find your
products.

Account

Manage your user account settings and add new staff accounts
to help you run your store.

Billing

Manage your billing information and update or upgrade your
plan settings

Legal

You can generate some legal pages required for your store
such as Refund Policy, Privacy Policy, Terms of Services and Shipping Policy

Navigation

In order to give your customers access to all the pages,
collections and blogs within your online store, you must link to each page in a
central place. Your store’s most prominently featured navigation is the main
menu.

Create Collections

A collection is any group of products (chosen by you) with
some feature in common that customers might look for when visiting your store.

Adding Products to your Store

Products are the meat and potatoes of your store. Without
products to sell, you can’t make any money! Products are often physical goods,
but they can also be a digital download (such as a movie, music or ebook file),
or a service (an extended warranty, equipment rental, customization of another
product or work for hire). Shopify keeps track of all of your products and
their inventory on your products page.

Product Variants

A product variant is a variation of a product in your store,
with differences based on elements such as size, color, material, etc. Let’s
say you have a store that sells t-shirts. You create your original product called
“t-shirt,” and product variants allow you to advertise the different colors and
sizes.

Going Live with Shopify Store

Setting up preferences

You need to capture your homepage title and meta
description. This is what shows when your store appears in search engine
results.

Google Analytics Shopify Setup

Google Analytics lets you track visitors to your store, and
generates reports that will help you with your marketing

Facebook Pixel

Facebook Pixels allow you to connect your Shopify store to
your Facebook Ads account.

Storefront Password

The last step is to remove your storefront password. This makes your store public to everyone on the internet.

Shopify Experts

If you are looking for Professional expert to setup you ecommerce website on shopify then you are write place. Share your requirement and we will take care your ecommerce website. We can done for you.