Net Syndicate Blog

• Using mobile technology your customers can and it’s easier than you think!
• Having a dedicated mobile application for your online store means that customers can search for and buy products via their smart phone
• Our system is currently available on the iPhone and iPad, with Android coming soon. The mobile app can be fully customised and branded with the ability to add products and pages
•  It’s your own store with your own brand and products
•  Low project start-up cost and low on-going costs
• Currently integrates with PayPal Mobile payment syste.
  

  Can be fully integrate with our nopCommerce ecommerce system.

  Call 0845 009 5560  or email ecommerce@netsyndicate.co.uk for more information.

We are extremely happy to announce the availability of nopCommerce 2.20 . Visit this page to see the latest version and how Net Syndicate can provide you with one of the best .net open source ecommerce system available today.

The abandonment of online shopping carts is a concern for all businesses. With UK abandonment rates in the region of 50%, the average online business could be missing out on potential sales equivalent to 100% of its current turnover!

What are the reasons for shopping cart abandonment and what can the ecommerce business do to reduce this? Here are just a few of the key reasons and some suggestions:-

·         Delivery costs - high delivery charges was given by 46% of shoppers as a reason for abandonment. This is something that retailers can solve by offering free shipping where possible (at least over a certain threshold), or by making charges as low as possible, especially in comparison to rivals in their sector.  Also, if customers are reaching the shopping cart and then bailing out due to delivery costs, then this suggests that this has not been effectively communicated until this point, and shoppers may even have gone to the checkout to find out these charges without any strong intention to purchase. Delivery charges should be made clear on product pages at the very least, and even better if they can be prominently displayed on the homepage and around the site, as B&Q does here with its free delivery offer.

·         Comparison shopping - 37% gave this as a reason for abandonment. These customers possibly had no intention of buying, but wanted to compare total costs with another website. There is less retailers can do about this, but providing a good user experience and making it easy for them to find the information they want, as well as offering a competitive price, may make it more likely that they will return after their research is complete. It could also be argued that these shoppers shouldn’t have to reach the shopping basket to find out all  the price and delivery information they are looking for, as this could be provided on product pages.

·         Couldn’t find preferred payment option
For 24%, the lack of a suitable payment method meant that they abandoned the checkout. To combat this, retailers should look at their customer base and decide whether offering alternatives to debit and credit cards would help them to attract extra business.

·         Item unavailable at checkout
23% abandoned carts because the item turned out to be unavailable when they arrived there. This is just bad usability, and an excellent way to annoy your customers. Customers should not be finding this out on the shopping cart page.

·         Couldn’t find customer support
22% were unable to find a contact option.  They may have had a query about the product or website that needed to be answered before they went ahead with the purchase, or simply needed some reassurance, so not providing clear contact details can mean lost sales.

·         Security concerns
If 21% are abandoning for this reason, it suggests that some sites are not doing enough to make customers trust them. Displaying clear security information and logos, as well as contact details can all help to address these concerns.

(Statistics and Information provided by www.econsultancy.com)

We are extremely happy to announce the availability of nopCommerce v2.00 for download and upgrade. nopCommerce 2.00 was rewritten from scratch. Our development efforts were focused on moving nopCommerce to ASP.NET MVC 3.0, architecture improvements, further enhancements and fixing bugs. nopCommerce is the leading .net open source ecommerce system.

Highlight features

·    Architecture improvements

·    Moved to ASP.NET MVC 3.0 (Razor syntax)

·    Really pluggable architecture (just drop a plugin to the /plugins folder in your nopCommerce directory)

·    SQL Server Compact support

·    Code-First Development with Entity Framework 4 (data access)

·    More flexible ACL implementation

·    More user-friendly admin area

·    Added unit tests

This new release features many new improvements and additional functions. (extract from press release by nopCommerce august 2011)

Net Syndicate’s Managing Director, David Swain commented “nopCommerce is true to its word and has produced, in our view, the best .net open source ecommerce system available”

More information on 0845 009 5560, email ecommerce@netsyndicate.co.uk or visit www.netsyndicate.co.uk

ecommerce sales have increased in comparison to traditional stores with many businesses and individuals turning to online shops to sell products online. The following are some guidelines to start or improve your online product business.

Finding Products
Visitors can’t buy products that they cannot find. It’s critical that your ecommerce site helps them to easily locate what they want, and a good site search function and clear navigation are critical factors. Visitors should be able to search for products by entering descriptive words or item numbers and get an accurate and helpful list of products. Navigation should be clear and show types of products (categories) available. This, together with promotional items, discounts and other special offers, provides the visitor with a good experience of your ecommerce website..

Simple Checkout
Make the checkout simple. Long and complicated processes will turn users away from buying your products. The shorter and easier your checkout process is, the less abandoned and aborted shopping carts you will have. Work to streamline the checkout process so it involves as few steps as possible.

Accessible
Make sure your website works in ALL the major browsers. Test all functions, product displays and features to ensure users can view the website correctly.
 
Website Traffic
To get sales you need traffic/visitors. You may have a great design and the coolest products out there, but if no one is seeing them it really doesn’t matter. Make sure that you have a marketing plan or someone who is dedicated to promoting the site because simply putting it up will not draw enough visitors.

Trustworthy
There are a lot of scammers out there and unfortunately that means that those who are trustworthy need to be able to prove it. Visitors will be hesitant to make a purchase online until they feel that they can trust the merchant. A common practice is to include badges for any associations, as well as for payment methods like VeriSign, Sage Pay or PayPal.

Optimized for Search Engines
Online searches provide some of the highest quality of traffic that you can get to your site. People who find your site through a search are looking for what you have to offer, so they are pretty likely to buy if your site does a good job. Many ecommerce sites suffer from poor search engine optimization. This is a huge topic that cannot be covered here, but if you are not familiar with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) make sure that you consult with a professional.

Maximising Selling Opportunities
Develop a number of promotional areas to get customers interested and returning to the site, such as:-
• Register for newsletter, catalogue or more info
• Cross sell products “People who bought this also purchased….”
• Add related products. Relate each product to another and show them on the product page
• Offer bundles. If you sell shoes, think about selling the cleaner and shoe bag as well.
• Email promotional item to registered customers on a regular basis with links back to the specific product page.
• Offer basket discounts
• Sell your customers gift cards for Birthdays, Christmas etc…
We could build up a big list here……

Add in tracking Code
Track users on your website and gain vital statistics and usage information. A must is to set up Google Analytics for your ecommerce website.

Turning visitors into buyers, however, is not simple. There are several factors that you need to consider and improve on to entice visitors to spend their hard-earned cash on your website. Here are some of the important factors:
• Simplicity or ease of use
• Attitude and accessibility
• Responsiveness or the quality, speed and helpfulness of your email replies
• Transparency of your policies including privacy and return policies
• Selection and presentation of products.

Net Syndicate is the main partner for nopCommerce’s ecommerce solution in the UK.
Contact 0845 009 5560 or email david@netsyndicate.co.uk

Net Syndicate has been asked to undertake an evaluation of two well-known .net Open Source Content Management Systems by one of its major clients. The evaluation will look at mojoPortal and Umbraco and the report will be published later in the summer.

Net Syndicate provides ecommerce systems based on the nopCommerce ecommerce platform as well as web design and development and database integration.

Contact 0845 009 5560 or support@netsyndicate.co.uk

These are just a few of the important things to consider when planning your ecommerce project. They are not exhaustive, but will put you on the right lines. Select a company to assist you who have a track record in designing and building ecommerce applications and solutions.

1. Select your design/template or get a customised design built for you. This will include home page and all second level pages, category and product pages. Remember the right design will attract users to buy your products. Make it easy for customers to buy your products and get them coming back to you! Also remember that your website design needs to be flexible to allow changes to offers, banners advert, copy, new products and services

2. Select your ecommerce solution. Net Syndicate uses nopCommerce one of the leading providers of ecommerce solutions. Implement the templates into the ecommerce system

3. Get your products ready to import into the ecommerce system. Compile them on a spread sheet with related images. Product images are vital in showing off your products, so always use quality product images

4. Select your payment process. Whether your will be using PayPal or one of the many other payment providers for your website, start this process early as it can take several weeks to set up. Your bank can help here or you can go directly to SagePay or Paypal to set up your Merchant account. Make sure visitors know they can trust the website, include a badge such as Verisign, PayPal or SSL certificate.

5. With your chosen development company customise the ecommerce settings for your VAT, customisable shipping charges, discount options and information pages. It is most important to make sure your products are aligned with your categories, setting up related products and “customers who purchased this also bought”. Optimise each product for the search engines. Check out Google Merchant, a must for any online shop.

6. Add in all copy pages, such as About Us, terms, delivery etc.

7. Test the payment system and the ecommerce process thoroughly before going live

8. Consider your website hosting company seriously, you will need 24/7 support as your customers will be buying at any time of the day or night.

nopCommerce is the leading ASP.NET online shop e-commerce solution. Net Syndicate have over 2 years of experience installing, customising and designing ecommerce systems using nopCommerce. nopCommerce is a secure, scalable and extendable e-commerce platform. It has user friendly administration tools to manage your shop front, customers, wish lists, discounts, and coupons. It also has flexible tax support, multi-lingual support, and hundreds of other features. Support for the most popular gateways: SagePay, WorldPay, Paypoint, Authorize.net, PayPal, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, and more. nopCommerce also runs in Medium Trust. Fully optimised for search engines

 “Nominated by Packt Publishing in 2010 as one of the best open source ecommerce systems”.

Contact Net Syndicate on 0845 009 5560 or email david@netsyndicate.co.uk

Net Syndicate is pleased to announce its second full year as a Solutions Partner for nopCommerce.

nopCommerce is a proven open source ecommerce solution based on the Microsoft .NET platform.

This decision was made to specialise in nopCommerce because of the systems long list of functionality, ease of customisation and speed of development.

As a Microsoft Solutions Partner nopCommerce fits perfectly into Net Syndicates service offerings, where we can integrate nopCommerce into CRM, Accounts (Sage & Opera II) and 3^rd party databases.

Example nopCommerce websites:-

www.izziwotnotoutlet.com

www.bksills.org

http://td.dev.netsyndicate.co.uk

Also this year, Net Syndicate celebrates its 10 year birthday and wishes to thank all its clients for their support over the past years.

Contact 0845 009 5560 or email David Swain at david@netsyndicate.co.uk

Net Syndicate operates throughout the UK from its offices in Birmingham, Coleshill and Derby, providing web applications, ecommerce solutions, application integration services, Digital Marketing and web Support services.

Net Syndicate has developed an ecommerce system to allow colleges to sell their courses online.by:-

• providing you with a comprehensive ecommerce platform to sell and market your courses online

• optimising each course for the major search engines

• Integrating with all the major online payment providers, such as SagePay, Paypal and Paypoint

• easy day to day management and comprehensive reporting

• flexible discount, promotional management and customer/order management built in

• low project starter cost

• low ongoing costs

Let Net Syndicate’s experience work for you!  

Net Syndicate is pleased to announce the successful launch of the new Business Skills Stourbridge (BSS) ecommerce website. This will allow BSS to sell its extensive range of training courses online to a wide audience.

Business Skills is the employer training arm of Stourbridge College offering a wide range of training courses and advice for people who are keen to improve their career prospects, build on their professional development or get back into work through training. As well as being a market leader in training for Health & Safety, including IOSH and NEBOSH, Business Skills offers a range of apprenticeships, NVQs and gas and electric courses.

Business Skills is a Patron of the Black Country Chamber of Commerce and was one of the first colleges in the region to be accredited with the Training Quality Standard.

see http://www.bskills.org/ for more details..