e-commerce – Taglr – India's Leading Shopping Search Engine

Augmented Reality Is The Next Step In The World Of eCommerce

Let’s face it, Black Mirror is awesome!

We know it has nothing to do with the title of the post, but somehow it will all make sense by the time we are done with the post.

The buzzword in the tech circle these days is Augmented Reality. Every second day there is an app launch highlighting how it uses augmented reality to offer you an experience you’ve never had. From entertainment (hence Black Mirror mention) to gaming ( remember Pokemon Go) to e-commerce, augmented reality is the way forward in pretty much every field. From being a futuristic technology to become a reality, AR has come a long way.

Such is the battle to advance in the field of AR that every tech giant wants to have a bit of the AR pie. Apple recently made a significant move with the launch of their ARKit, which was soon followed by ARCore from Google. These software frameworks enable the developers to develop their solutions and products with augmented reality being at the core of it all. As far as the hardware manufacturers are considered, the battle is equally fierce there as well with all major hardware manufacturer fighting to develop the best AR glasses.

With all the major tech giants exploring ways to use AR to benefit their business. One area where we feel augmented reality can make a real difference in the world of eCommerce. It very well could be the beginning of A-Commerce and a departure from the traditional eCommerce. It will certainly take some time, but we could very well be on course to the world of A-Commerce.

Why do we say so?

Well, simply because the signs are all around us. Let’s be honest and admit that despite the humongous growth and development that the eCommerce world and the world of online shopping has seen, the brick-and-mortar stores still are relevant and perhaps still a preferred mode for shopping for a lot of shoppers. And one simple reason for that being the fact that the online stores still fall short when it comes to giving the complete shopping experience in terms of experiencing the product you are buying.

This is why a lot of modern customers start their shopping on one channel and end it on another. It has given birth to the shopping pattern like “research online, buy offline.” Customers, for all its advancements, are still not confident buying online and making their purchase decisions based primarily on flat images, specs, dimensions etc.

This is where the Augmented Reality comes into play. AR brings the missing piece of the puzzle by adding a dash of realism to the overall shopping experience. It familiarizes the online shoppers with the products, which initially were only visible as photos in the current e-commerce world.

In an ideal omnichannel retail scenario, the customer gets to experience the product across all mediums. And that is what AR brings to the table. With the inclusion of AR in the online shopping process, the customers can now experience the products of their choice, which is kind of revolutionary.

By bridging the gap between the online and offline world, Augmented-Commerce (aka A-Commerce) revolutionizes the traditional eCommerce market as we know it. Retailers can now offer a lot more personal and interactive experience to the online shoppers.

Yes, the brick-and-mortar stores still remain relevant and will not disappear overnight, however, with the growing implementation of augmented reality in the modern e-commerce world, we are inching towards them becoming obsolete one day.

Here are few of the finest usage of augmented reality by the e-commerce giants to lift the shopping experience for their customers.

IKEA Place –

Ikea has already released its AR app with the release of Apple’s ARKit and iOS 11, enabling the customers to visualize how their furniture will look in their homes in real time. Customers can now browse through their most popular collections and check how they will look at their homes.

This is just the beginning, but a big step towards A-Commerce.

Amazon –

Following the footsteps of Ikea, Amazon too has released their AR app, which allows the customers to check how a certain product will look on them or in their home prior to placing the order.

Known as AR View, the feature can be activated by clicking the camera icon in the Amazon shopping app. You browse the products from different categories starting from furniture, home decor, or kitchenware and check how they will look at your home.

Ray-Ban –

Buying sunglasses online has been one of the toughest shopping decision one has to make. Especially if you do not have the chiseled looks of the models wearing them in the ads. But not with Ray-Ban’s new app. It allows you to virtually try all their sunglasses right from the comfort of your home and not even needing a mirror.

“Virtual Try-On” App by Ray-Ban uses the face mapping technology to create a model of your face and see yourself in different angles. It is yet another fine amalgamation of online shopping with augmented reality.

So, with already significant strides being made in the world of e-commerce in terms of AR adaptation, we feel augmented reality is the next step in the world of eCommerce and certainly the way forward. ')}

AI and Hyper-Personalization

For many, the age of personalization in the field of advertisement and marketing began when they first got the mail that was addressed as “Dear Marry” as opposed to an anonymous greeting like “Dear Sir”. To an extent they are right. Many of us in the world of advertisement and marketing woke up to the power of personalization with the significant success of personalized campaigns as opposed to the generic ones. Since then, consumers have been bombarded with hundreds of promotional messages on a daily basis.

As a result, the consumers have lost the interest and excitement that they once had for such personalized emails and campaigns. It has made it harder for the brands to engage with their consumers on a personal level. Marketers all over the world are working to find an effective solution to all of that and they might have found one in Artificial Intelligence. With the monumental rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning in recent years, their implementation in pretty much every field has been groundbreaking. So, why not marketing?

Now, as we all know, data is at the core of it all. To make an AI implementation work for you, you need big sets of data. The bigger the data set, the more relevant and useful information will we be able to extract. While this marks the beginning of a totally new marketing approach – Hyper-Personalization, it is the end of the road for the segmentation approach. And from the looks of it, hyper-personalization is the way forward.

So, let’s take a closer look at the Artificial Intelligence-Based Hyper-Personalization and how it changes the conventional marketing techniques we’ve all grown up on.

The emergence of big data

“Data is the new oil” we all have come across statements like this more often than we care to count. Mostly in recent times. This significant rise of big data and companies capitalizing on it is the biggest factor behind the meteoric influence of technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence in every field. The machine learning algorithms, when running through a huge set of data sets, can draw patterns and conclusions in minutes, for which the human brain will need years. It computes consumer behaviors such as their likes, dislikes, their shopping pattern etc making it easier for the marketers to target the consumers.

The feedback loop

One important part of hyper-personalizing the online marketing campaigns is constantly tweaking the consumer details after every campaign. This is done through a feedback look, which is a part of Artificial Intelligences’ self-learning. In simple terms, a feedback look is a simple process which constantly gives feedback on the decisions made by the system. Based on the feedback the AI system learns whether the decisions made were right or not and if they need any tweaking. Depending on the outcome the algorithm is smart enough to tweak itself according to the new data to help marketing teams.

Understanding the difference between Personalization and Hyper-Personalization and

It’s easy to confuse personalization with hyper-personalization if you are just starting in the world of AI. However, they both are totally different. While personalization deals with the personal and transactional data like name, purchase history, and basic profile details, the hyper-personalization is all about the behavioral data in real time.

To help you understand hyper-personalization better, let’s take the example of an online shopping website. You sign up with them, you search for products there, you spend hours finding the right product and then you finally place the order. Now all of those actions you took becomes the data point for that particular website. Now they know your name, search query, your purchase history, and brand affinity etc, an average spend amount, etc. They can use all that information to create a profile for you for a very personalized email, which will only feature things that you like.

Why Hyper-Personalization?

Studies have found the hyper-personalized campaigns to be almost twice as successful as the general campaigns. In fact, in the world of e-Commerce, it amounts for the 60% higher conversion rates as opposed to the normal campaigns.

The best thing is that hyper-personalization not only helps the brands, but it incentivizes the brands as well. The consumers are now able to find deals and products at better prices and just in time of need. They get the promotional campaigns for the products that interest them as opposed to a whole gamut of products that might not be relevant to them. It’s a win-win for all.

Finally, with artificial intelligence being the driving force behind the e-commerce world, technologies like hyper-personalization are bound to make marketing a lot effective. So, if you are looking to leverage the power of artificial intelligence for your business, listing it on product discovery platform like Taglr, is a smart step forward. ')}

Get your e-commerce business ready for 2019

What works today, might not work tomorrow!

This can be said about pretty much everything around us. And marketing is no exception. Whether you run a successful e-commerce store or are just starting into the world of online shopping, you must make a note of it. The marketing trend in the modern technology-driven world changes even before you notice them. This is why the big organizations or the successful e-commerce stores make sure that they are updated with the changing marketing trends and adapting accordingly.

Adapting to the new changing trends and experimenting with them is the way forward for businesses online and offline. If you want to drive profit to your business, you must stay updated on the changing online marketing trends.

In the year 2018, we have already heard about data analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence etc. And while we will continue to hear about them in 2019, some other terms that you will eventually encounter include the likes of influencer marketing, augmented reality, virtual reality, and a wide range of advertising and marketing possibilities. But not all of them will have an instant impact and you will still have to wait for a year or so to see them in full action.

Some practical ones though, which will have a significant effect on the e-commerce marketing world we will be discussing today. You might have heard of them before, but if you have not started using them for the greater good of your business, you should start now.

So let’s get started.

Website Performance

Website development and designing are the first steps every business takes after deciding to go online. Unless you list your business on product discovery platform like Taglr. And while the website development and maintenance comes under the technical department, with a programmer and a designer, a lot of decisions regarding the website are taken by the marketing team. The content, the SEO (search engine optimization), the flow of the website, the layout, and many other parameters are being decided by the marketing team.

However, at times while making those marketing decisions, the technical aspects like sites loading time gets overlooked. And in 2019, that could be disastrous for your business. According to recent studies by Google, the average webpage load time on mobile is 22 seconds, which when compared to the 3-second attention span of the user is huge. And if you don’t address it, it can have a huge impact on the performance of your business.

In the recent Google SEO updates, Google has made the website load speed a ranking factor. This is the reason why all the major e-commerce websites have improved their websites, web apps, and developed accelerated mobile pages. And we suggest you should too.

Voice Search

According to the recent studies, the future of search is Voice. In coming few years we will see a significant growth in the voice search across all devices. And we can see it happening as we speak with the significant development in the voice technology. Devices like Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa have already made their way into our drawing rooms and many others will soon follow their footsteps.

So, when the future of search is voice, it’s important that you not only optimize your business for text search but also for the voice. The use of NLP (natural language processing) can help you in optimizing your business for voice search. And like always if you start early, you will certainly reap the benefits ahead of your peers.

Content Marketing

Amid the talks of all the technological developments taking over the marketing sphere it’s easy to overlook the fact that content marketing still is the most powerful and rather new phenomenon. Content marketing has evolved from just one way communication from the brands with the consumers to a powerful doorway to connect and build relationships with the consumers.

Some of the most successful marketing campaigns of recent times are the ones where the brands have established a relationship with their customers and capitalized on that bond. Having a strong content marketing strategy helps e-commerce businesses engage with customers on a more personal level and ultimately turn that into a business relationship with assured success.

The year 2019 will see further growth in the field of content marketing and while it might not be a new trend, it will still be on the rise and will be a good weapon to have in your arsenal.

These are just three of trends that you need to keep your eye on in 2019 if you are looking to boost the visibility and profit margins for your business. We will continue posting many such trends that will help you grow your space, so keep watching this space. ')}

The world of retail is evolving, and so should your business

E-Commerce Trends That Will Drive Business In 2019

With the Holiday season upon us, the flurry of deals and discounts are on the offer all around us. The customer spending’s are at all time high and the world of retail is cherishing every bit of it. The retail sales in the year 2018 as of now have been $24.86 trillion and are expected to grow up to $27.73 trillion by the year 2020. If anything, it is a clear sign that the world of retail is growing faster than ever before, primarily online, but the offline sector is not too far behind. However, online is where the action is. Offline retailers in current times not only competing with the online behemoths like Amazon but also with their fellow retailers. And in such a competitive market it’s imperative to remain relevant and to keep up with the changing trend to make your business survive and eventually, thrive.

The modern digital landscape demands a tad more than a brick and mortar store accompanied with a website online to stay ahead of the competition. New tools, platforms, and software developments have made digital transformation the order of the hour for pretty much every retailer looking to keep their business afloat. And while many retailers are on-board the digital transformation bandwagon, there still is a significant number of retailers who still are far away from anything digital. While it has taken a toll on their business already, it can be devastating in the coming years. So, if you are among those or are just getting to terms with the ongoing digital transformation around us, we are alongside you in this transition and will help you in every possible way. But first, let’s lay down the basics and understand why do you need a digital transformation and why your business needs to evolve with technology to remain relevant.

What Is Digital Transformation?

Despite the widespread technological breakthroughs, for a lot of retailers, a digital transformation ends with getting a website for their store. But in real fact, it actually starts with getting one. So, if you have one (or not) the journey has just started. With online shopping platforms like Amazon disrupting the e-commerce sphere with their technological prowess, a successful digital transformation will need a lot more than a website. Studies have shown that the retailers who have adopted technology for their businesses have experienced almost 6 percent of revenue growth in the past 3 years or so.

Some of the general changes that technology has brought into the world of retail to help the businesses serve their customers better include personalized customer experience, on-demand services, contextually relevant offers, and a seamless online shopping experience. Some others have gone a step further by bringing in mobile apps, secure payment processing, listing their businesses on product discovery platforms like Taglr or just better in-store information on mobiles. In general, every retailer is ready to up their retail game in order to offer the best e-commerce experience to their customers and in return keeping their business at pace with the changing technological developments.

And if you are looking to digitally transform your retail business, here’s how you can do it.

Just start

Transforming a brick and mortar business digitally might sound a daunting task, but if you take one step at a time, it actually is not. Especially with product discovery platforms like Taglr. However, that’s just half the battle won. You still have a lot of work to do.

Give your business a strong social media presence

You’ve got your business, good. But that’s not enough. Social media in current times has a huge influence on the shopper behavior and brands are leveraging the power of social media to establish a strong bond with their consumers. So, whether you own a small retail store in the neighborhood or run a multi-store retail chain, it’s very important to have a strong social media presence to connect with the shoppers where they are. With the growing number of smartphone users, most of the shopping decisions these days are made over social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. So, if you want to take your products, offers, and latest updates on your business straight to the fingertips of your shoppers, you need to give your business a social handle. It’s easy, simple, and incredibly beneficial if you are just starting your digital transformation.

Understands the consumer requirements

In the current age of high-speed internet and smartphones, the attention span of modern customers is really fickle. In the digital world, consumers want things to happen quick and fast, so if you are moving in this direction, it’s vital that you avoid any delay in your products or services. You also need to tailor your products and services differently for a different set of users. You also need to take into consideration that every new technology you implement to your business will take some time to be accepted and adopted by your customers, so you need to trade carefully. It’s highly recommended to have an attentive customer support available to make sure that you don’t lose any customer due to a small delay in the product or service.

Get a dedicated IT department

This is applicable for the businesses who are looking to do everything in-house as opposed to adopting platforms like Taglr, which takes your business online in a jiffy and provide complete IT infrastructure and support to your business. Having an in-house IT department will ensure a smooth running for your business and will make sure that all your customer grievances are addressed at the earliest. Your IT department will also make sure that the new tools and technologies are integrated on a timely manner for business gains. This will help you run your business alongside the online shopping behemoths like Amazon at their own pace.

And that will be all. We think we will evolve with the changing environment with time, however, in the retail industry, the change will not happen if you don’t make it happen. So, if you are still thinking about digitally transforming your business, we suggest you stop thinking and act. ')}

What 2019 Has For E-Commerce

What 2019 Has For E-Commerce | Taglr

There still are few months before the celebrations of the arrival of 2019 kicks in. And while there still is a good lot of 2018 in our hands, it is just the right time to think about what 2019 holds in store for us. More specifically, for the e-commerce market in Indian. According to Forrester, the retail market in India saw a growth of estimated $470 billion in the year 2011, grew to an estimated $675 Bn by the year 2016 and is expected to touch the $850 billion mark by 2020 with an estimated CAGR of 10%. It is the fastest growing retail market in the Asia-Pacific Region with a CAGR of over 57% between the year 2012–16.

The incredible growth of the retail industry has also rejuvenated the online shopping industry in India, which now is among the largest in the world. So, it is only fair to have a closer look at what the future has in store for the Indian e-commerce market. We have already seen an incredible growth in the number of products offered online, a number of online stores itself have gone up significantly and so has the number of services offered by them. And if the trends are anything to go by, the Indian e-commerce market has just begun. With a deeper penetration of technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning the Indian e-commerce industry is set for some monumental changes in the coming years.

Retailers have started to understand the needs of consumers in a better way, they are open to adopting new technologies and new ways to cater to consumer needs, and to remain competitive. So, with 2018 just about to say goodbye to us, it’s about time what are some of the groundbreaking developments we can see in the year 2019.

The emergence of product discovery platforms and marketplaces –

Marketplaces have dominated the Indian e-commerce industry since the beginning of time and they will continue to do so for at least the foreseeable future. But alongside them will be the product discovery platforms like Taglr and many others using advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to make it easier for their consumers to find products of their choice beyond the physical boundaries. The increasing use of technology to better the online shopping experience for consumers will lead to world-class products and services, new innovations, and even lower prices for the consumers. So, if you think you’ve already had the best online shopping experience, there are quite a lot of surprises waiting for you in the year 2019.

Automation For The Win –

Automation in the e-commerce industry has been a game changer since its inception. However, while initially automation has been used extensively in order tracking and marketing purposes, it now has started to become an integral part of the inventory management and fulfillment across the sales channels. And we hope to see it increase even further as we see the emergence of new product discovery platforms and marketplaces. Some other areas where automation can have a significant role to play include the likes of operations, physical channels etc. So, if you have to survive in the modern e-commerce market, automation seems to be the road forward.

The rise of Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, and Chat Bots –

In the year we saw augmented reality make inroads in the gaming industry extensively. In the year 2019 augmented reality with its extensive use in the practical applications will head towards the retail stores and into our homes. Some of the fine examples of it we have already seen in the applications that allow you to try your products even without leaving your homes. Chatbots will also see a significant boost in the field of customer service by taking over the tasks such as order status or checking the tracking numbers. In a similar way, the machine learning and artificial intelligence applications will help the businesses in their strategic growth.

Voice Commerce –

The increasing number of smartphones and handheld devices has given a significant boost to voice search, which consequently has given birth to voice commerce. As per a study, the number of users using voice assistants will grow up to 76.5 million by the year 2019 and retailers will have to tailor their products and services to tap into this growing market. By including this technology in their businesses, retailers have a huge opportunity to put their business ahead of the game and maximize their profits.

Personalized & unique offers over discounts –

A lot of retailers in the current online market focuses on offering lucrative discounts as opposed to building a unique brand experience that will align with their customer values rather than just providing them short-term gains. Going forward this approach will yield them very little to know business gains. The future is all about personalized shopping experience as far as the e-commerce industry is concerned and with deeper integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning, it has become a lot easier for the businesses to offer personalized products and services to satisfy their customers. So, if you want to attract more customers to your business you might want to switch your focus from offering discounts to actually offering a unique brand experience. ')}

Blockchain-based e-commerce and its challenges

Technology, for all its perks is only useful in any walk of life if, it is user-friendly. One fine example of it is the smartphone in your hand. We all proudly boast our smartphones devoid of knowing the technology behind it.

Why so?

Because it is user-friendly.

Even the most novice of smartphone users will use their phones as if they know the technology behind it, inside out. But in reality, there are only a handful of people who actually understand the technology that empowers the smartphone.

And we are no exception.

This is why when we talk about blockchain-based e-commerce – irrespective of how tempting or techy it sounds – it has its own fair share of challenges. And user-friendliness of blockchain-based e-commerce retail is just one of them. So, we decided to break down the challenge into four underlying problems, which will help you understand the blockchain-based e-commerce and the challenges it faces in establishing itself in the traditional e-commerce market.

So, let’s get started.

Cumbersome or unintuitive transactions – “Cryptocurrency” is no more an alien term to the modern tech-savvy shoppers. We have all heard of cryptocurrencies and some of us might even have had mined them or are mining them. However, as swanky as the term cryptocurrency sounds, the technology behind it is equally complicated and your everyday shopper will understand it. Now, when you compare the cryptocurrency transactions to the normal credit/debit card or any online payment platform, the latter comfortably triumphs the former. Using a credit/debit card or an online payment platform comes with no learning curve and are easy to understand, fast, and intuitive. However, understanding cryptocurrency payments comes with a steep learning curve and normally will take some time to get hold of.

For an everyday shopper who has never purchased anything using cryptocurrency, setting up a wallet is a herculean task. And when you are only going to buy a pack of trunks, the effort just doesn’t seem like worth it. Not to mention the fear of making a mistake and losing everything. And it’s this fear that makes the shoppers shy away from the cryptocurrency transactions. So, by the time the transactions cannot be made intuitive and as fast as paying by a credit card, we might have to wait for the blockchain revolution to take over the e-commerce world. However, going by the developments in the field of the blockchain, the wait might not have to wait for long.

The slow nature of blockchain-based e-commerce – One of the key factors accounting for the success of modern e-commerce is its fast nature. The modern shoppers are impatient and they want everything at as few clicks as possible and as fast as possible. And the cloud-based e-commerce industry provides them exactly that. Getting a fast and responsive application using blockchain at present seems more like an experiment than a technologically sound solution. In the current scenario, the blockchain ledgers have not been developed to be a great source of data, which makes having a fully decentralized marketplace powered blockchain a tad slower when compared with the traditional cloud-based marketplace. The current blockchain protocols are comparatively slower in comparison to the cloud-based servers. And speed is something the modern e-commerce industry is based upon. So, speed is the second big challenge that the blockchain-based e-commerce faces.
Differential Data Handling – Applying blockchain to the modern e-commerce might sound cool, however, in real fact, it is not at all cool. It might suggest as if you just have to move all the data to the public blockchain, but it is a lot more complicated than that. While, it certainly is good to have the data of all the sellers on a public blockchain along with the products and offerings for consumption of shoppers, doing the same with the shoppers’ data is just inappropriate. Also, modern shoppers are a lot more protective of their data as opposed to the shoppers from the early days of e-commerce. It might not go down well with all the shoppers.
The lack of flexibility in smart contracts – When it comes to handling simple transactions, smart contracts excel. However, a lot can go wrong when it comes to handling e-commerce transactions. For starters, a wrong item could be delivered or there can be some variation in the product ordered depending on the seller, and at times also the buyer. All these disputes and issues that arise in the e-commerce industry needs to be handled with absolute fairness and transparency, which can be difficult with smart contracts. Also, we need to make sure that the system at any point cannot be compromised by either side. Having said that, developers have tried using smart contracts for handling this problem, but it lacked serious real-world e-commerce experience. So, until the developers can fix it, we will have to see the real-world implementation of blockchain-based e-commerce.

These are just four of the many challenges that blockchain-based e-commerce faces. And as daunting as they might seem, we think we can overcome them all and it will not be long before we see a real-world implementation of blockchain-based e-commerce. ')}

Drive Your E-Commerce To Success With Social Media

Social media in current times is the driving force behind pretty much everything. From the weird challenges that we come across every now and then to the trendy shoes your colleague came in wearing today, pretty much everything in current times is the byproduct of social media. And the world of commerce has already started seeing the influence of social media in different sectors. From sales to marketing, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc have emerged as a fruitful channel for pretty much every field you associate with a modern business.

With the significant rise in online shopping, social media platforms have become the primary source of information for the customers and have a strong influence on their shopping decisions. According to a recent study, almost 93% of modern customers make their buying decisions using social media and around 90% uses the product recommendations from their friends and family before making a buying decision. When the strong signs of social media influences are all around us, it’s tough to avoid social media for your business, if you are looking to start or establish a fruitful business. Especially, if you run an online business or have an offline store, but are looking to create a brand online as well.

So, we thought will break social media down for you to help you drive your business to success or greater heights harnessing the power of social media.

Let’s start by understanding why do you need social media for your e-commerce business, shall we?

We all know that the success of running an online shopping website or an e-commerce store largely depends on the website traffic. And even though the traditional ways of Search Engine Optimization or running paid Google Ads still yields great benefits for any website, it’s the social media that has emerged as the frontrunner for driving traffic in the e-commerce universe.

And that is why you need social media for your e-commerce business.

However, driving website traffic through social media is easier said than done. You not only will need tactics but also a strong social media strategy to establish a steady flow of traffic to your website.

It will be tough, but it will all be worth it. So let’s start.

Set your goals: Even before you start implementing a social media marketing strategy or contacting a social media agency it’s important to have clear goals. So, it’s very important to have specific measurable objectives such as:

The traffic you are looking for from social media
Number of page likes, Twitter and Instagram followers you are looking for
The ratio of a visit to conversion
Amount of engagement you are looking for and the number of posts you are willing to make for the same
Finally, the follower to sale ratio

To give you an idea, on an average in the e-commerce industry businesses make 6.02 posts per week fetching them 11.4 interactions per post and almost 37K followers. However, those numbers can vary for different markets, so it’s advised to understand your market before you arrive at any number.

Understand your customers and create content accordingly: There has been a significant rise in the number of customers unfollowing the brands on social media platform due to the excessive and irrelevant content shared by the brand. You must grab a deep insight of your customers and understand what they want before you start creating and posting content on your platforms. Also, every post that you make must be studied and analyzed in depth to gather the customer engagement on social media.

Share content, don’t sell: It might contradict the title of the blog, but it is not. Yes, it is correct that majority of customers begin their shopping journey on social media platforms, however, they do not like things to be sold to them there. Modern shoppers don’t come to social media platforms with an intent of shopping, they seek information and a meaningful connection with the brands that they follow, the sale soon follows. So, your primary focus should be building a meaningful relationship and not selling. Whether you are in the B2B business or B2C you must take good care of your customers.

Optimize your social media posts: Just as in traditional search engine optimization, it’s advised to optimize your social media posts as well using relevant keywords to make them appear in the search results. You can use keyword planning tools like Google Keyword planner to extract keywords most relevant to your content and products and then use them in your posts to make them discoverable. Also, if possible add some visuals to support your keywords to catch the attention of your audience.

Use social media widgets for your business gains: Whether you run a website or have a business app for your products and services, you must make good use of the social media widgets like Facebook’s “Like” button, Twitter “Follow” button to attract customers who are willing to keep in touch with you. The placement of these buttons is key here. You must place the buttons in such a way that they will encourage the customer to share their purchase, review, or just a recommendation rather than asking them to “Like” your page or “Follow” you on every page. So, it’s always better to have them at the very last when the customer has completed the transaction and is satisfied with your service.

And that will be all for now from us. If you can integrate social media into your online marketing campaigns in a fruitful manner, you will reap great benefits out of it going forward. So in your next marketing meeting have a balanced mix of traditional as well as social media marketing tactics and you can drive your e-commerce business to success in no time. ')}

Factors Influencing Shopper Behavior

Understanding a consumer behavior is in no way easy. You can not pinpoint a single factor that influences the purchasing behavior of the modern shopper. What drives customers to the shop and out of them, is a study in progress. And in the times of online shopping with a plethora of e-commerce websites and apps afloat in the market, it becomes even harder for the retailers to study the consumer behavior and then tailor their products, services, marketing campaigns, etc to maximize their profit margins. However, what can be said with some certainty is the fact that the modern shoppers are emotional and most of their purchases have a reason behind them.

However, never before the study of customer behavior has come out with absolute concrete evidence of guaranteed success and it never will in the future. So, as a retailer, it’s very important for you to make sure that whatever little information you get or have, you use it wisely to drive customers to your business.

And we thought we will list a few of them down for you.

So, whether you are running an e-commerce website, have a shopping app, or sell your products from your retail store through product discovery platforms, these tips can help you amp up, if not significantly boost your profit margins.

Let’s start,

Market regularly

It’s no secret that your marketing campaign plays a huge role in influencing the customers shopping decision. There have been incidents when great marketing campaigns have even changed the market trend for some products. However, with the evolution of social media and technology the traditional marketing campaigns which were “for” the customers have taken back seat and the data-driven advertisements are at the forefront of it all. With the increasing adoption of social media, smartphones, and internet penetration the shoppers are more connected to the brands & products they love than they were ever before. However, all those factors have also made the shoppers vulnerable. They can easily be persuaded towards a new brand and product. So, it’s very important for the retailers or the e-commerce website owners to market their products and services to the customers they know.

Your marketing campaigns should be consistent and regular aimed at your shoppers to keep them engaged and stop them from getting into the frivolous shopping. You must harness the shopper data you have to understand your customers, their likes, dislikes, the factors that made them shop with you in the first place and the factors that they do not like as much about your product or services. Once you have concrete data you can create different marketing campaigns aimed at different set of shoppers to ensure maximum gains. Studies have proven that marketing campaigns targeted at the shoppers can influence them to shop more frequently and regularly from the platform or the app they are loyal to. So, if you have a set of loyal shopper base, market to them, and if you don’t you can start building one by running marketing campaigns at regular intervals.

Understand the financial condition

No one understands the financial condition better than someone who runs a business. However, understanding the financial situation in the market and understanding the financial situation of the shoppers are two different things, unless you are in the market of cars, real estate, or such big articles in general, as in that case, the market situation pretty much reflect the condition of the shoppers or buyers in this case. In the retail world, however, the spending pattern of shoppers can easily be predicted based upon the area you are in. A majority of shoppers prefer to shop in the in or around their payday, which just makes it easy for the retailers to run their best campaigns, deals, and offers to capitalize on those days and influence their shoppers to spend more on their purchases.

Give preference to shoppers personal likings

In the times of social media, a shoppers personal liking and disliking play a significant role in influencing their shopping decisions. This is why it’s very important for the retailers to give due attention of the shopper’s likes, dislikes, choices, priorities, and values. Industries such as fashion, food and personal care, are heavily affected by all these factors and in some cases, they are the dominant influencing factor for the shoppers. So, it’s highly advised to the retailers to tailor their advertisements, marketing campaigns keeping all such factors into consideration. Such campaigns can have a huge impact on the purchase decision made by the customer.

Social Influence

Social influence plays a significant role in influencing a shoppers’ purchase. A lot of shoppers these days discover products using product discovery platforms like Taglr, which not only allows the customers to discover products online but also connects them with the retailers in the nearby area. So, if a shopper sees a familiar retailer on the app from where most of his/her friends shop or a product that most of his/her shopper friends have purchased, he/she is more likely to go for that retailer or the product as opposed to a new product or retailer he/she sees.

Social influence can also be observed over social media platforms by running ad campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc to understand and learn what the customers think of a certain product or platform. This helps the retailers to engage with the shoppers on the platform of their choice and promote their products on the same.

Convenience

With the e-commerce industry on the rise, convenience has become a major influencing factor for a customer’s purchase. The days of getting ready and heading to a mall to buy a product are behind us and the modern shoppers are more inclined towards having everything under their fingertips. This is why we have seen a significant rise in the number of e-commerce app and websites in recent times. Now, while it has come as a boon to the customers, the traditional retailers have faced some issues in keeping up with the major e-commerce giants. But now with the product discovery platforms like Taglr, even the traditional retailers are harnessing the power to technology to boost their sales by listing their stores on the platform and taking their products from the shelf of their brick-and-mortar store to the fingertips of modern customers.

So, whether you are a small retailer or the owner of a multi-store retail chain, it’s very important that you give due attention to the convenience of your shoppers and take your products to them rather than bringing them to your stores.

Finally, the factors influencing the shopper behavior can vary depending on the market, however, analyzing the consumer behavior will always help you in capitalizing on whatever factors your customers are most influenced by. So, for every retailer out there it’s very important to understand their customers and tailor their services accordingly. ')}

Image Search Technology – The Next E-Commerce Revolution

According to a recent study, there are about 2.6 Billion smartphone users globally and by 2020 that number is expected to soar to a staggering figure of 6.1 Billion smartphone users worldwide. It not only will lead to numerous new technological developments, but also will revamp the many existing ones. And the one area we can be certain of to see the huge impact of the technological development is the modern e-commerce market. We have already seen the gigantic rise of e-commerce websites and apps disrupting the traditional retail industry and we will continue to see further disruptions in the same space as the e-commerce companies vow to provide better services to their loyal customers.

And one such technological disruption taking place as we speak is the rise of “image search technology.”

Image search technology has been around just long enough for most of the tech-savvy users to have used it at least once, if not more. However, there still remain many questions surrounding Image Search Technology. Most of these questions are more like confusions as not everyone who has used image search technology not necessarily understand it. The difference between image search, visual search, and reverse image search is still unclear even to the most tech-savvy customers. And even though all the above terms sound pretty much the same, the fact is that they are worlds apart from each other. So before, we start discussing how image search technology will reshape the future of e-commerce it’s quite important to understand them. It will help you adopt the best-suited technology for your business. So, let’s have a closer look at the three one by one.

Image Search –

Image Search is exactly the same as what you think it is when you read the term. Image search is the process of reverting back images as the search results regardless of the search query or the search input. A fine example of this is the Images tab in the Google SERP when you search for “Cat images” or “memes.” Don’t act like you have not searched for cat images ever. We all have.

Reverse Image Search –

Reverse Image Search is a subcategory of image search where the input query is either an image or the URL of the image. The search result page displays the image that is associated with the URL or the image that was given as the input.

Visual Search –

Visual Search, as opposed to the other two, uses the metadata associated with the image, the keywords, the description etc. as the input to display search results. This is a slightly different process in a way that it displays diverse search results as opposed to ‘similar’ images to the input query.

So, now that we have explained the different types of Image Search Technology currently in use, let’s take a step further and understand how modern e-commerce websites can leverage them for their business gains.

Image Search Technology For E-Commerce

The significant use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in the modern e-commerce websites or product discovery platforms like Taglr, using image search technology has become a lot easier than before.

The machine learning algorithms in current times is capable enough to identify the shape, size, color, face etc in an image using technologies like Tensorflow, which means, if you have an image database, strong enough for the system to study and identify, your website and app can yield better results for every search query entered by the user. One of the biggest benefits of image search technology for e-commerce is the rise of offline to online shopping practices. The shoppers now can click the picture of the article offline and search for them online from their favorite e-commerce platform. Even the offline retailers have started to integrate the technology for their business gains by signing up with online product discovery platforms like Taglr, which allows the retailers to list their inventory online and makes them discoverable to the shoppers online. The increase in smartphone adoption by modern shoppers has just aided to the technology in a big way as the customers can now snap the picture of the product on the go and search them anytime he/she is ready to shop. The best thing about this technology is that you do not need the picture of the exact item you are planning to buy, you can even use images from the real life and use them to find the articles related to them online. It has made the transition from offline to online a lot smoother than it earlier was.

Amp Up Your Revenue With Image Search

One of the biggest hurdle the modern shopper face is finding the right product from the stack of millions of products available online. Shoppers either need to remember the exact product details or have to go through millions of products to find the one best suited to them. As a result at times, they end their search long before completing the purchase. As a result, the revenue for the retailer takes a hit. But with image search, the hurdle gets shortened to a great extent. With the image search technology allowing shoppers to upload images in a different format to find the perfect product it not only saves significant time for the shoppers but also makes searching for the product a lot easier. It means the whole process of online shopping becomes a lot faster and gives a bit of boost to the revenues of the modern retailer. So with a simple integration of image search technology, you can amp up your revenue.

Thus, if you are not harnessing the power of image search technology for your e-commerce business it’s about time you give it a second thought. A smarter decision today can paint a brighter picture for tomorrow. ')}

Product Discovery Platform – Every Retailers’ New Best Friend

There was a time when retailers will pay a guy to stand outside their store to attract customers in. Some others will put on flashy store signs displaying their latest range of products, offers, and deals going on in store. Some still do, but the majority of the retailers don’t. Those days are long gone. In the times of online shopping, those marketing gimmicks are passe. With fast changing technology sphere around us, the conventional way of selling and marketing have taken back seat, with technology right at the forefront of it all.

The way customers shop in modern days is no way near the way customers use to shop some time back. They now have the power of technology, which allows them to browse multiple stores, options, and deals at once, right on their fingertips. The emergence of big e-commerce has empowered the customers even more and with easy payment and delivery options, it’s getting tougher and tougher to make the customers leave their comfy couches, let alone walk into a brick-and-mortar store. Now that is not to say that the conventional offline retail market is dead. It is not. At least, not now.

We have seen some significant development in the virtual world with the emergence of e-commerce stores that have made it easier for the customers to shop right from the comfort of their homes. The offline market has also seen a significant growth in the opportunities to take their business to next level and stay relevant in the modern online shopping dominated market. One such technological development that has emerged as the new and perhaps the saving grace for the offline retailers is the emergence of the product discovery platform(s). And today, we are going to discuss product discovery platforms like Taglr and how they have emerged as the new best friend of the traditional brick-and-mortar retailers and the shoppers alike.

What exactly is a product discovery platform?

Now there are a lot of ways in which we can look at these product discovery platforms (s). But we will try to keep it simple and help you understand these platform(s) in a very clear and crisp way. Or at least we will try.

If e-commerce platforms and internet brought the shoppers online and made online shopping a thing, the product discovery platform(s) are doing the same for the retailers. These platforms empowered by technologies like artificial intelligence augmented reality, machine learning and many other latest technologies are providing a level playing field to the retailers to showcase their products to the modern online buyers and compete with online e-commerce giants.

These online product discovery platforms are tailored to match the need of the seller and the buyers at the same time. While for the customers these product discovery platforms make it easy to research and find the best products online, for the retailers they take their stores to the smartphones and laptops of the potential customers in an easy and simple way, even without any technical acumen. These platforms are revamping the way customers discover products by not online showing them the product options available online, but also showing the product options from the stores nearby.

How does a normal retailer benefit from an online product discovery platform?

With the increasing penetration of internet and handheld devices, customers are more connected to the online world than the real world. According to a study published by Google, India alone will have over 100 million online shoppers by the year 2020, which is a clear indication that taking your business online is the way forward. The sooner the brick-and-mortar retailers take their businesses online, the better will be the results for them. So, amid all this talk of the internet being the future and e-commerce giants constantly broadening their profit margin, where does the online product discovery platform fit in? Let us tell you how.

These online product discovery platforms allow retailers to list their products and advertise them to the online shoppers without the hassle of opening a store of their own.
They put the small to medium retailers right in the mix of the big e-commerce giants without going through the technological hassle that comes with creating and building an online store.
They provide complete freedom to the retailers in terms of listing the products, pricing, and products they want to promote.
Finally, they use advanced technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence to help retailers understand the modern shoppers in an easy and detailed manner.

With all these awesome features and functionalities these online product discovery platforms tailored for retailers are the gateway to the constantly growing e-commerce world across the world. Whether you are a small retailer looking to expand your business avenues or a multi-channel retailer looking to spice up your profit margins, we think signing up with one of these online product discovery platforms like Taglr can benefit your business in more ways than you can imagine. So what are you waiting for, sign up now and swim among the big fishes? ')}