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The Best Hosted and Paid Ecommerce Platforms

With so many different ecommerce platforms to choose from, finding the perfect one to host your business can be challenging. It's especially hard when you don't know what distinguishes one from another. So, to help you pick we've uploaded a handy guide to our five top picks.

Shopify

With over a million active users, Shopify is one of the leading ecommerce platforms at the moment. With its user friendly interface and in house team taking care of all technical problems, it's the perfect platform for those just starting out. However, those with coding skills can also benefit from Shopify's features, as it still lets users take complete control if they wish.

Best Features

Everything, including websites, stores and blogs, are fully and easily customisable. With a wide selection of third party shipping providers available, automating the fulfilment process is simple. Their Shopify Payment tool means stores can …


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Multi-channel Selling

These days selling your products on a singular platform is not enough. Consumers want the ease of multiple options. It may be important to make sure consumers are seeing your brand vision through your own website. However, the reality is almost half of all consumers will start their search on a marketplace platform, like Amazon or eBay. This is why it's so important to look into the prospect of multi-channel selling - making your products available not just on one site, but on as many different platforms as possible.


Advantages

Consumer trust

Consumers are a lot more likely to trust established marketplaces than brands they may not know. In turn, they are more likely to trust a brand that is tied to an online marketplace. When starting out, it can be really helpful to utilise consumers trust …


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5 Ways to Gain a Competitive Edge on Amazon

The Amazon marketplace is constantly growing and with it so is the competition. With increasing numbers of people selling products on Amazon, it is becoming more difficult to make a business stand out. Below are five suggestions to give your site the boost it needs and help improve sales and marketability.

Amazon Competitive Edge

1. Be objective and trust data

Whilst it's important to be passionate about your products, it's also important not to let emotions cloud your judgement. Sometimes items you thought would be best sellers aren't. Make sure you are constantly looking at data to see which of your products are performing best. Don't waste your time or capital on underperforming items.

2. Supplier relations

Creating and maintaining good relationships with suppliers is key to running a profitable business. It can also be mutually beneficial for both parties when a long term commitment is formed. Gaining …


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Optimising Amazon Product Listings

Making sure your product listings are optimised is an essential part of getting sales on Amazon. When you are competing against a multitude of other products it's your listing images and descriptions that will make what you're selling stand out. Think of it as your sales pitch to potential customers. Below we look at the key aspects of optimising your product listings to make sure you get the sale!

Image

One of the first things buyers eyes will be drawn to is the image of your product. If you don't have clear and detailed images, buyers will not trust what you are selling - this is their main way of getting a feel for the product. Think about these key aspects when selecting pictures to represent your listing:

  • High quality: Make sure your pictures are at least 1000x500 resolution. Blurry or …

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A quick guide to Amazon Business

Originally launched in the US in 2015, Amazon has found a great deal of success with their Amazon Business program, generating over $1 billion in sales in their first year. Building on that, they expanded the program to include Amazon Germany in 2016, and most recently to Amazon UK earlier this year (2017). With over 50,000 businesses utilising the German site for sales, it continues to grow making it a tool worth investigating for all B2B sellers.

Here we've uploaded a handy guide to explain what it is and some information that can help you decide if it's the right tool for your business.

So what exactly is it?

Amazon Business is a marketplace feature on Amazon that works as a targeted way for businesses to engage professional customers in supply chain relationships. Having a Business Seller account functions in a similar …


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Amazon Sponsored Products: The Basics

Already got the Buy Box but looking to take your sales one step further? Amazon Sponsored Products could offer the extra edge needed to get clicks on your listings and boost your profits even further.

Amazon Sponsored Products

How does it work?

Much like ads displayed in Google Adwords, Sponsored Products are essentially image ads that appear alongside other search results. In Amazon, however, the difference between sponsored posts is slightly more subtle, with only a small grey Sponsored tag appearing beside the paid for ads. These feature above, to the side or even in between other search results, leading to high visibility. They also tend to feature on the carousel of the product features page as related searches.

In order to be eligible for Sponsored Products, you must meet a few requirements; you have to be an active Seller with new product listings in an applicable category - …


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7 reasons customers are abandoning their shopping carts

There is nothing more frustrating to an ecommerce seller than losing a customer just before they were about to buy a product. With Baymard reporting that over two thirds of shopping carts are being abandoned before purchase, it's a problem that many sellers can relate to. Below we will go through some of the reasons for shopping cart abandonment and explain how they can be rectified in order to get that sale.

1. Overcomplicated checkout stage

Make sure your checkout stage is as simple as possible. If customers have to fill out lots of forms before getting to the payment stage it's very likely they will quit out of the process. Buyers want their journey to be as streamlined as possible to save time. Try not to add pop-up offers at this stage either - this is just another inconvenience for the customer to get through before …


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