Mobile Responsive

Infographic – Global eCommerce sales and trends

October 13, 2014 by Rishabh Arora 1 Comment

Multichannel transformation requires adoption of technology that dissolves the boundaries that create an operational divide across various retail touch points. As retailers continue to see rapid shifts in customer demands, competitors’ capabilities and available technologies, the pressure for Multi-channel transformation has reached a tipping point.
Retailers are investing, but it is of prime importance for them to know which capabilities are most important.
The infographic below highlights the new phenomenon observed in Retail indicating that almost one-third of the shoppers of the top 10 retailers whether big or small use smartphones and tablets to make purchases. In a recent event India’s biggest online retailer Flipkart took just 10 hours to hit its target of $100 million in gross merchandise value (GMV), or the value of goods sold, , when it hosted its Big Billion Day sale

The mobile commerce trend is now picking momentum and empowering customers to engage more with retail sites, apps and transact easily. This calls for retailers to adapt to this ever-changing landscape if they wish to succeed in this realm.

Infographic - Global eCommerce sales and trends

Filed Under: Ecommerce Tagged With: eCommerce Sales, iVend Retail, mCommerce, Mobile Responsive

Mobile Responsive: Future of Online Retail

August 14, 2014 by Mahendra Jha Leave a Comment

Mobile Responsive Web design is a new design approach that enables retailers to build and maintain a single online shopping portal to serve to all kinds of customers on all sorts of Mobile devices: smartphones, tablets, laptops and more.

Mobile adoption is skyrocketing, as is the diversity of mobile devices on the market. Smartphones and tablets are currently leading multi-screen customer experiences. Today’s multi-device environment is bolstering mindshare and profile for responsive design because it offers a compelling promise to both website visitors and to those who build the Web: a single eCommerce portal that works on all devices.

iVend eCommerce portal’s new mobile responsive skin demonstrates that something as complex as shopping online for any commodity whether it is apparel, sports gear, footwear or car accessories or jewelry – can be easy, intuitive and secure on a mobile responsive site.

With Mobile responsive shopping portals, retail businesses can be in front of consumers at every step of their online journey. Customers search for a business’ site, begin reading content and viewing videos from their desktop computers and then continue their shopping journey on their smartphones into products and services.

In contrast, if the retailer has a traditional, non mobile responsive website, the retailer runs a heavy risk of frustrating potential customers visiting the website from a smartphone due to the cramped interface appearing on the devices – eventually losing revenue.

iVend eCommerce, a mobile responsive shopping portal provides continuity between different viewing contexts, remaining completely agnostic to the type of device used and the size of the screen being viewed. This means that the same portal will present an optimized layout regardless of which device it finds itself being loaded in.

Consumers are increasingly wanting to share the purchases and their shopping experience in their social circle. New research indicates that more than 75% of consumers trust peer recommendations of products and services, while less than 15% trust paid advertising. iVend eCommerce gives retailers an opportunity to tap into this trusted form of communication to market their Brand and through a mobile responsive platform becomes a lot more easier.

e-commerce business is huge, it is therefore important for a retailer to think beyond immediate network and find creative ways to encourage fans to spread the message about the brand and a mobile responsive portal eases the task.

One thing is certain, that a mobile responsive eCommerce portal is the only durable, flexible and future-proof approach to building Online retail stores for today’s multi-channel retail landscape. A retailer who doesn’t want to lag behind and watch competitors go ahead must focus to get responsive with iVend eCommerce now.

Filed Under: Ecommerce Tagged With: iVend eCommerce, mCommerce, Mobile Responsive, Online Portal

iVend eCommerce 1.4 enables Mobile responsive sites

July 17, 2014 by Mahendra Jha Leave a Comment

With great pleasure we announce today the release of iVend eCommerce 1.4 version, which in addition to a host of features, includes the new Mobile Responsive skin enriching the online shopping experience. Also significant in this release is the RTL (right to left) feature which will enable right to left languages like Arabic to be displayed appropriately.

Listed below are the main features that have been incorporated in this release.

Mobile Responsive Skin

The default skin in iVend eCommerce has been replaced with a new mobile responsive skin. The new skin is intuitive and rich in user experience.

download

Promotions

With iVend eCommerce 1.4 store admin can define exhaustive promotions for the online store. Promotions can be setup to auto apply or can applied manually by the shopper by entering a promo code. Following are some of the sample promotions that can be setup in iVend eCommerce:

Buy X and get Y free
Buy X and get Z % or Fixed Amount discount on Y
Buy any item from Product Group / Product Category / Manufacturer and get Z% or Fixed Amount discount on Y
Buy N quantity from Product Group / Product Category / Manufacturer and get Z% or Fixed Amount discount on Y
Get X discount percent on the entire sale if Bill values exceeds N amount.
Buy N quantity and get Z% discount on Shipping
Buy any item from Product Group / Product Category / Manufacturer and get Gift Certificate free
Get discount on current order based on total bill value of past orders within a date range.
Get discount on current order based on number of past orders within a date range.
Get discount on current order based on total bill value of past orders within a date range.
Get discount on current order based on past purchase of specific products within a date range.

The Promotional Sale Countdown Timer is a very handy tool in promoting time bound sales. On the Product Page it displays Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds remaining for the validity of a special price on the product. This tool draws attention of shoppers and is helpful for time sensitive sale events and is perfect for Seasonal Sales, Holiday Sales, etc.

Coupon Issue

Coupons are a great way to attract shoppers to keep coming back to the online store and avail discounts on subsequent purchases. With iVend eCommerce 1.4 the store admin can setup automated delivery of coupons based on rules. Following are some of the examples:

Issue a discount coupon in the welcome mail whenever a shopper registers on the portal between X and Y dates.
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt when the bill value is more that X
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt on purchase of specific products between X and Y dates.
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt if past order value exceeds X within a date range.
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt on every Nth order placed on the portal
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt for the first N orders.
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt for specific customer or customer group
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt on use of specific payment method
Issue a discount coupon in the receipt only once per customer between a date range.

Payment Profile

Payment Profile in iVend eCommerce 1.4 allow the Site Admin to setup conditions based on which payment methods will be available to shoppers during the checkout process. Following are some of the examples:

If the Bill total exceeds X then block checkout by COD.
If the shopper is purchasing from a specific Product Group / Product Category / Manufacturer then allow checkout only by Credit Card.
If the customer balance exceeds the available credit limit then block checkout by PO option.
Based on customer’s shipping address (Country, State, City, Zip) block checkout by COD.
For specific customer or customer group block checkout by specific payment methods.

Customer Hierarchy

For B2B implementations the site admin can setup a parent child relationship between customer records. This will allow the Parent customer to:

View orders placed by his child customers
Make payment for orders placed by his child customers
Impersonate any of his child customers and place an order on their behalf.

Store Credit

With iVend eCommerce 1.4 a store credit can be issued for refunds against cancelled orders. Store Credits issued from iVend eCommerce can also be redeemed at iVend POS at the brick and mortar stores.

Store locator

The store locator in iVend eCommrce 1.4 will enable shoppers to locate brick and mortar stores close to their location. Shoppers can search for stores by city or zip code. The store locator is integrated with Google Map that will help the shopper to get directions to store easily.

Price Display (Tax Inclusive/Exclusive)

iVend eCommerce 1.4 can be setup to display the Tax Inclusive or Tax Exclusive product prices for a specific customer or customer group.

Quotation to Order

iVend eCommerce 1.4 can be configured to allow shoppers to generate a quotation by selecting Quotation as the payment method during the checkout process. The site admin can setup a validity period for a quotation. Shoppers can further convert quotations to orders.

UDF Integration

UDFs created on Customer and Product objects in iVend POS are integrated with iVend eCommerce 1.4. UDFs created on customer object can be used for collecting additional information during the registration process. UDFs on product object will be available as Read-Only on the Product Page.

CC Avenue Payment Gateway Integration

iVend eCommerce 1.4 is integrated to CC Avenue Payment Gateway for online payments. With this integration the shopper has the option to pay by Credit Card, Debit Card and Net Banking. This feature is only available for India.

RTL Support

iVend eCommerce 1.4 can be setup to display the Storefront section in Right to Left format for Arabic language.

Approval based Order Integration

iVend eCommerce 1.4 can be setup to integrate online orders to iVend Enterprise based on payment methods. For example – A COD order will not automatically integrate to iVend Enterprise unless approved by the site admin.

Report Designer

A new reporting module has been included in iVend eCommerce 1.4. An admin user can change the existing canned reports as well as create new reports. The store admin can also publish reports to the storefront section for specific customer / customer group.

Enhancements

Improved Digital Download

Digital Downloads functionality has been enhanced in iVend eCommerce 1.4. The site admin can now setup a validity period for the download link.

Site Configuration Wizard (Admin Section)

The site configuration wizard in iVend eCommerce 1.4 has been enhanced for better end user experience by grouping configuration settings under different sections.

Integrated Application Pool

The iVend eCommerce 1.4 Website can now be run in a .Net 4.0 Integrated Application Pool.

Popup on IE10 and above

Admin editing popup windows now work with IE10.

Caching Product Price

With this release, the product price is being cached which substantially improves the overall web site performance.

Filed Under: iVend eCommerce, Product update Tagged With: iVend eCommerce, Mobile Responsive, Product Update