A 4-Part guide to starting your first eCommerce store from someone who learned a lot creating one himself.
ECommerce may be the future of retail. The lives of younger generations i.e. Millennials, Genx, etc. seem to be heading down a path of non-routine, instant gratification, and increased consumerist behavior. Online shopping provides a solution to limited physical store hours and insatiable consumerist desire.
I ran my first eCommerce store in June 2017. With no prior experience, I registered an account with Shopify and set out to create an online business selling fidget spinners. As a young student, eager to start my own business, I was determined to sustain myself by working at an office one day per week and focusing on a few entrepreneurial side projects. Through determination, experimentation, extensive research, and hard work, I launched my first eCommerce store.
This article will provide you with the knowledge I grasped from running my first online business, along with information I wish I knew when it all began.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is the easiest way to start an online business, especially with limited funds.
It’s a simple 5-Step process:
- Create an eCommerce store (we’ll go into more detail later)
- Find a product listed at a low price on an existing website (ex. Aliexpress)
- List that same product on your website at a higher price
- When someone buys from your website, order from AliExpress using their shipping info
- Profit from the difference between your price and AliExpress’ price
This means no inventory, low startup cost, and low maintenance cost. Dropshipping websites are essentially a middleman between AliExpress and the consumer.
Choosing your Product
The first step when starting an eCommerce business is to choose a niche. There are two approaches when choosing your product: trends vs common goods. If you plan on growing your business through a loyal following, and delivering consistent quality, you’re better off choosing common goods. This may be hard at times depending on the source of your products. If your goal is to sell quick and start making decent sales 1 to 2 months in, trending products are a better option.
Trends
Trends are an easy break-in to eCommerce because these are ‘want’ rather than ‘need’ purchases and tend to be spur-of-the-moment. Often times there is also somewhat of a social pressure to have the same trendy items as those around you (i.e. Fidget spinners). The downside to trends is that they don’t last. You may end up riding the highs and lows until you’re back at square one. If you learn from your first experience, however, it will be easy to transfer your knowledge and audience over to the next trend you chose to pursue.
Common goods
Common goods follow the same structure as trends in terms of running your eCommerce store, however, the buying behavior may be different. These products tend to have more thought put into them when making a purchase because they will be used somewhat regularly and are expected to last longer (i.e. swimsuits). The most effective way to sell these types of products is by keeping your prices low compared to the general sales price. This is possible if you chose the right sources to find your products.
I started off selling fidget spinners in June of 2017, a bit past the halfway point of the fidget spinner trend. In 2017, fidget spinner was among the top ten most searched google queries in multiple countries. Being that these spinning toys were extremely popular among young people, it seemed like an easy sell.
Pt.1: Setting up
Finding your Products
There are many websites available for finding your products: Aliexpress, DHgate, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, etc. Each of these has their pros and cons.
Aliexpress, DHgate
- Very inexpensive products directly from wholesalers
- Slow shipping (1-4 weeks)
- Reliable
- Sometimes difficult to communicate with vendors
- Seemingly unlimited stock
Amazon
- Price range varies (always higher than AliExpress or DHgate because of Amazon seller fees)
- Fast shipping (sometimes)
- Reliable
- Easy communication with vendors
- The possibility of limited stock
- Amazon is already used as a dropshipping platform, you might be dropshipping a dropshipper
Walmart
- Price range varies (always higher than AliExpress or DHgate)
- Fast shipping
- Reliable
- Seemingly unlimited stock
eBay
- Price range varies (always higher than AliExpress or DHgate)
- Shipping speed varies
- Usually reliable
- Sometimes difficult to communicate with vendors
- The possibility of limited stock
I suggest a mix of AliExpress and DHgate. The extremely low prices found on these websites means lower prices for your customers and higher profit margins for your business. As for long shipping times, paying a bit extra for ePacket shipping (available for most AliExpress products) will bring the US shipping down to 1-3 weeks.
When choosing the specific products to sell, you should look for a mix of popular and unique products. To find popular products easily, search for the AliExpress product you would like sell and sort by the number of orders. For unique products, search through multiple pages of AliExpress until you find a unique, interesting product at a good price.
Once you have found your products, you’re ready to start building your online store.
Setting up your Shopify Store
The “Basic Shopify” plan has everything you need for only $30/month. Luckily, Shopify offers a free 14 day trial period to set up the store. The process of setting up the store is straightforward however YouTube tutorials may provide helpful tips and insights about the service.
In terms of design, look at existing online stores of established brands to find inspiration for your own eCommerce store. On Unsplash.com, you’ll find a variety of high-quality images, free to use for your website. To have a simple, professional logo designed for under $10, visit Fiverr.com. The primary goal of your store design is to make people comfortable buying from you. If your website looks unfinished or low-quality, it may turn potential consumers away from your site. Ask friends and family if your website looks legitimate, without giving them any context, to get their honest opinion.
Adding products to your site may also be time-consuming. To keep your workload manageable, start with 10-15 products on your first day and add 1-5 products a day until you’ve reached your desired total product amount. To keep your products organized, Shopify allows users to add tags to their products for easy products searching. Take advantage of these features, however, limit your product tags to avoid too many filtering options.
Once you’ve finished setting up and designing your eCommerce website, you’ll need a way to generate traffic.
Pt. 2: Selling
When starting an eCommerce website, finding customers can seem like an overwhelming task. Luckily, there are two easy, effective ways to generate traffic: Growing a social media page, and running targeted social media ads.
Growing an Instagram Account
Set Up Your Account
Instagram is the easiest social media channel for growing a following. This is due to its follow-back culture, high engagement, and post-viewing algorithms. Using the following methods, you can target the right audience for your eCommerce website, free of charge. Remember, treat your social media channel as a community rather than strictly a selling page. No one wants to be sold a product, they want to experience your business’ culture.
The setup process for an Instagram business account is simple. This video provides an in-depth walk-through of the capabilities of Instagram’s analytics.
Post Consistently
The first and most important aspect of growing your Instagram page is consistent, daily posting. Due to their’s algorithm, your posts will reach more viewers and appear higher on a user’s feed if you post more frequently. If posting a photo every day seems like too much work, Hootsuite offers scheduled posting for $19.99/month.
When posting pictures of your product or the culture surrounding your product, find user-generated content on Instagram and repost it (using a reposting app) with credits. Another option, when posting product images, it to use the same images as your website. These photos tend to be of lower quality if they are coming from AliExpress. However, vendors are often willing to send non-watermarked, high-resolution versions of their pictures if you explain that you are dropshipping. Add an Instagram filter, or use Adobe Lightroom ($9.99/month) to make your pictures look professional, then post your picture at Instagram’s best suggested time.
Tip: If you choose to use filters, Stick to the same one or two filters for all your pictures. This makes your feed look more professional because of the uniformity of your feed.
Join The Community
Instagram is all about community. The more you like and comment on the photos of others, the more likely they are to view your page. Replying to the comments of others, and showing your genuine interest in the community around your product goes a long way.
Comment
To find user-generated content relevant to your product, you can search Instagram using hashtags (#). There are two effective commenting strategies.
Generic comments are non-specific to the post they’re replying to. They can, however, be tailored to a general topic by using hashtags. Example: I have a hot sauce company. I look up #jalapeno in the Instagram search bar. In the notes section of my phone, I write a generic comment: “That looks delicious”. I then copy the sentence and paste it into a comment, along with a like, to every food post within the past hour which uses #jalapeno. The audience I am engaging with enjoys spicy food because they’re posting about jalapenos. By commenting on their picture, I am promoting my company to an audience that is likely to click on my profile and view what I am selling. The flaw with generic comments is their tendency to be viewed as non-genuine. The upside is quick commenting speed.
Unique comments are specific to the post they’re replying to. Example: I have a hot sauce company. I look up #jalapeno in the Instagram search bar. When scrolling through the pictures with #jalapeno, I create a unique comment for each picture which shows the user that genuine interest was put into my comment. The downside is the long time spent thinking of unique comments. The upside is a higher response rate because your comments come across as genuine.
Hashtag
Instagram allows users to use up to 30 hashtags per post. A hashtag tags your photo in the category of your choosing. To make your hashtag process more efficient, choose a base of 10-20 hashtags which are relevant to your brand and all your posts. Save these in the notes section of your phone to copy and paste when needed. With the remaining 10 hashtags, tailor them to each individual post.
By searching on Instagram, you can view the number of times a specific hashtag was used. It is important to have both popular hashtags and less popular hashtags. Popular hashtags will be seen on the hashtag feed for a short period of time because new posts with the same hashtag are being generated quickly. This means high viewership but short-lasting viewership because of their popularity. Less popular hashtags will be visible for longer however likes will spread out over a longer time period. Make sure your hashtags are always relevant. If not, your engagement will come from users who may not be potential clients, and may even attract spam.
Tip: Paste your hashtags as the first comment of your picture rather than in your caption for a more appealing post.
Captions
Captions should make a comment on the picture posted. To find inspiration for photo captions, visit successful Instagram pages who are selling similar items as your business. End your caption with a call to action, asking your audience to like, comment, or share.
Page Bio
The final aspect of your Instagram page is your Bio. This is the small blurb on your Instagram page which defines your page and your company. A simple approach to your bio is using emojis, followed by a word describing your page or business. Follow these with a call to action above your website link.
Final Thoughts
A common thought among those starting a business with the help on Instagram is to buy followers. Buying followers may seem beneficial to give your page a seemingly better reputation. This can have the opposite effect as the engagement on your posts will suffer, and therefore, Instagram users will be able to come to the conclusion that your followers are illegitimate. Instagram’s algorithm is also created to detect illegitimate followers and will be less inclined to show your content to users who are interested in your products.
Instagram Ads
Running targeted social media ads is a quicker, yet riskier, way to generate conversions through your Instagram page. With the help of Facebook Business Manager, the process is simple. If proper techniques are applied, users can generate a high amount of conversions for a relatively low cost. To keep costs low, both ads and target audiences must be tested against each other.
Testing your audience
Often times, the ideal customer of a particular product may be unclear. Luckily Facebook provides insight into the buying behaviors of different target groups. Although their data is fairly general, using Facebook’s knowledge along with common sense can go a long way. It is important to think of the purchaser rather than the end user.
For Example: When selling fidget spinners, the end user is between ~5 to 15 years old. However, parents of 5 to 15 year-olds will be the product purchasers. This means your audience’s age demographic will range from around 30-45. Of course, this is my estimation which leads to a more important point.
Choose 3 to 5 different audiences who are all potential consumers of your product. Next, chose 3 to 5 different pictures and/or videos which you think will capture the eye of a potential consumer. These pictures or videos should focus on aesthetic appeal rather than an overload of information. Remember, most people only look at Instagram images for a few seconds; too much (or any) text in your image could drive a viewer away.
Once you have chosen both your audience and media, create ad sets for each audience. Within those ad sets, add each picture or video chosen. If you have chosen 3 audiences and 3 images, you would total 9 different ads. Next, dedicate $10 to each ad set and launch your ads. As the next few days go by, you’ll likely notice that certain ads are performing better than others. You can view this in your Facebook manager under Cost per Result. Invest more in your top ads, and delete those that aren’t performing to optimize your cost per conversion. For a more in-depth understanding of Instagram ads, video tutorials can provide further insight.
On-Site Selling
After following these steps, with hard work, persistence, common sense, and a bit of luck, customers should start visiting your site and making purchases. You may find, however, that the majority of potential customers are leaving your site without making a purchase. This may be due to overcharging, improper site design, targeting the wrong group, or simply a change of heart. There are a few simple strategies to counteract losing customers.
Low Stock Alerts
Research shows that consumers are more likely to make a purchase when they are under unavoidable pressure. By adding a low stock alert to your buy now page may increase a consumers incentive to purchase. Using the While Supplies Last plugin for Shopify ($9.99/month), shop owners can add an unobtrusive text on their product page. Similar Shopify plugins exist however they are often too aggressive and may scare away a customer. The main objective is to give your customer a small push in the right direction without scaring them away.
Exit Coupons
The exit coupon is an effective strategy to sell to customers who deem your products too costly. Using the Better Coupon Box plugin (free), any customer who places an item in their cart will receive a coupon pop-up if they try to leave your site without purchasing. Store owners can customize their coupons to test the optimal percentage they should offer to keep a customer.
Upselling
Upselling is offering a customer an additional product related to the product they’re about to purchase. This can be effective when the product offered is low in price compared to the main purchase. Adding small amounts to the total price can have a large impact on sales over time.
Example: When a user purchases a laptop, a logical upsell is a computer mouse, a laptop case, or even a pair of headphones.
Using the Upsell for Products plugin (24.95/month) is an easy way to integrate upselling into your store. Keep in mind that plugin expenses can add up quickly. Using the free trial period for each plugin is an effective way to test if the plugin is worth the price.
Abandoned Cart Retrieval
Abandoned cart retrieval is similar to the exit coupon. It is a way of retrieving lost customers who found their way to the buy now page and turned back. Using the Beautiful Abandoned Cart Emails plugin ($9/month), lost customers will receive an email shortly after their visit to the site. The email will notify them of non-purchased goods left in their cart. Emails are fully customized, therefore it is up to the store owner to deliver a convincing pitch for a customer to return to their site. A good practice is to include a coupon code within the cart retrieval email to increase a customer’s incentive to purchase.
Email Coupons
Email coupons are an effective strategy to subscribe customers and potential customers to your mailing list while giving them the incentive to make a purchase. Using the Privy plugin (free) store owners can add a popup to their store which sends the customer a coupon via email in return for their mailing list subscription. Email can be a strong selling force of your Shopify store if approached properly.
Plugins can be an effective way to boost sales and make your site easier to use. These three free plugins may also be useful for your website: Easyship, Auto Currency Switcher, Loyalty Points.
Pt.3: After-Sale Service
Acquiring a new customer is up to 25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one. To sustain your business in the most cost-efficient manner, following up with past customers and interested customers is vital. Contacting customers via email is a cost-efficient solution to keeping in contact with future buyers. Simple tips will help your email interaction go a long way.
Use Plain Text
Research shows plain text emails have a much higher open rate and click-through rate than HTML emails. Aside from being easier to format, they also have a higher delivery rate than HTML emails (they don’t end up in the spam folder). Using plain text emails adds a more human aspect to your email and takes away the unnecessary graphics contained in HTML. If personalized properly, consumers will perceive a mass email as a message sent solely to them. This evokes a feeling of importance in your consumer and can have a large impact on the success on your email campaign.
Everyone likes coupons. Sending weekly or biweekly promotional offers to your emailing list can drive customers to your site. To find inspiration for quality email content, take notes from successful companies who regularly send you promotional emails.
Create a Unique Business Email
An email address using your domain can be costly if hosted from Google or similar paid hosting services. Fortunately, there are free alternatives. Having YourName@YourDomain.com is a way to show the legitimacy of your business. Using Zoho, you can create a free email address using your domain. Using a 3rd party service such as Zoho to access your emails, however, may be time-consuming when your mail email is with a different provider. Luckily, Gmail users can link 3rd party email accounts to their main account using Gmail settings. This short video tutorial will run you through the simple process.
MailChimp
Sending emails to a long list of customers can be an unbearable task if handled manually. Fortunately, MailChimp offers a free (or paid for additional features) mailing service to facilitate your email marketing campaigns. Using this service, users can organize their mailing list, personalize their emails, and format to their liking, among other features. This tutorial provides a basic understanding of Mailchimp’s services.
Pt.4: Long-Term Choices
The rules listed in this article should provide you with an understanding of basic steps and principles needed to run an eCommerce store. If applied properly, your website should begin to generate revenue fairly quickly. With persistence and time put into your business, you can expect to grow slowly over time and learn many new tricks along the way.
What next?
ECommerce can be a lot of hard work as you may come to realize if choosing to pursue this venture. In my personal experience, the site creation, Instagram page building, and lead generation were my favorite aspects of the eCommerce process. After some time, the experience became less creative as the business stabilized. I no longer felt the excitement of building something new. If this becomes the case these options are available.
Selling the Site
Shopify provides a platform within their site for users to sell their stores to others who do not want to put the effort into starting something new but would rather manage an existing business. The platform automatically estimates a price based on the traffic generated through your site. This is a viable option for someone like myself who finds more joy in creating rather than sustaining. When it comes to selling trending items, it can be an effective strategy to build up a successful store, and sell at a high price when you estimate the trend will begin to decrease in popularity.
Hiring
Hiring a trusted worker is another viable solution to sustain your business. If your Shopify store is generating significant revenue, it may be worth outsourcing the work to others while continuing to profit from your site. This is a better solution for a user who has a greater attachment to their site (if you work hard on it, you probably will), or someone who can’t sell their site for the desired amount they would like.
Moving forward
This article is a cohesive understanding of everything I learned and everything I wish I knew about eCommerce when starting my first website. I hope this can provide guidance to someone who hopes to start their own eCommerce website.
How Will Blockchain Impact the Future of Marketing?
/by Corey PadveenBlockchain may be the future of marketing. With a limitless potential for data storage and retrieval, it only makes sense that it has the structure to be a marketer’s dream.
What is the blockchain? The blockchain is a way to keep permanent public records of any data transfers done through the blockchain network. It has been described as a public unchangeable Google Doc: you can add to it, but you can’t change what’s already there. Why use blockchain in marketing? It has the ability to increase marketing transparency, target customers more efficiently, and increase the overall effectiveness of advertisements.
Transparency
With the use of blockchain, advertising fraud could be avoided. Advertising fraud occurs when ad impressions are falsely represented, this can happen due to bots, for example, which view your ad and make it seem as if a real person was viewing it. This has negative repercussions on advertising companies, the paying advertiser, and investors. Using blockchain, anyone would have access to a public database of information showing everything related to an ad impression. This database would show clicks, conversions, impressions, website, location, and any other relevant information to any marketing campaign. Due to its public nature, companies would be forced to deliver on their promises of ad impressions because all the information would be public and verifiable by anyone.
Efficiency
Blockchain can affect the efficiency of marketing in various ways. Currently, marketers must use a tools to conduct proper marketing research and practices across multiple social media platforms. This is often facilitated with the help of third-party technology which analyzes various social media platforms at once and pools the data into one place. Currently, large companies such as Facebook, Twitter, or Google have no incentive to work together and therefore do not facilitate the jobs of marketers. With the help of blockchain, all information would be located in one central database. This would prevent the use of costly third-party tech and give more depth and insight to marketers.
Efficiency could also increase through payments. Using the blockchain, users could send money to content creators at no added cost by a third party. Blockchain would also verify the identify of the content creator (making sure no fraudulent activity is taking place). The money would then be sent, creating a permanent record of the transaction, free of service charges for either party. The payment would be sent instantly with no waiting time which is a significant improvement from 3-day bank processing fees or weekly payments from third-party middlemen.
Effectiveness
Using blockchain will provide marketers with real-time info about the preferences and information consumption of users. This will allow marketers to create the most targeted ads possible, generating effective content for their audience. In one study, close to 80 percent of ad block technology users said they wouldn’t mind seeing advertisements if they were more personalized. This open system will also show how big companies are using data to target customers for advertisements as mentioned previously. This means anyone can see how their ad traffic is being generated, and what kind of individuals like their content. This will increase efficiency because companies will feel pressured to deliver when there’s nowhere to hide. Instead of potentially using fraudulent methods to deliver impressions such as bots, companies will have to deliver quality.
Blockchain has potential to be the internet’s force for good if used properly. Transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness of internet marketing may become a reality in the coming years. Until then, marketers will have to blindly trust large companies, and jump through some hoops to find important data and produce great campaigns and data.
5 Easy Ways to Promote your Small Business
/by Corey PadveenWhen running a small business, it may seem difficult to spread the word and develop a following.
Luckily, with these 5 simple online and offline marketing tips, you can meet like-minded individuals, grow your customer base and increase your sales in no time.
1. Social Media
When promoting your business, social media is the easiest way to reach your target audience. When promoting your business, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest are effective platforms for showcasing a product. Facebook Business Manager allows businesses to narrow their audience by interests, demographics, and buyer behavior for advertising on both Facebook and Instagram. For eCommerce, businesses can also sell to consumers using these platforms. On Facebook, products can be sold using Shopify’s Facebook Shop plugin, you can set up a shop directly on your Facebook page. With the addition of Instagram’s Shopping Tags, posted pictures now show product price tags within images. Despite this being a new feature, it may be an effective new strategy to generate sales through Instagram’s platform. There’s also Pinterest, which features buyable pins along with visual search (similar to Instagram’s shopping tags) which allows businesses to sell to users directly through the platform, free of charge.
2. Press Releases
Press releases are a great way to give an update on your company’s latest achievements and have your brand recognized by the public. Next time your company has a big announcement or reaches a new milestone, write a press release.
Press releases should be one page long, have a captivating headline, and have quotable sentences that make your article easy for journalists to promote. Once published, reach out to journalists who may be interested in your content, and let them know why they should use your article in their next media publication.
2. Email Marketing
Email marketing may seem outdated. However, there are still 3.7 billion email users globally. With an extremely high return on investment of 3800%, consistent email marketing is an effective way to boost sales. Email marketing is often more effective in plain text and can be facilitated using Mailchimp’s free (or paid) service. Email addresses can be collected through your website, social media platforms, or in-store. By sending weekly newsletters to subscribers containing discount updates, and coupons, email marketing can have a positive impact on your business.
4. Join the community
To get your company’s name out to the public, it is important to engage with people within your business’ community. For example, you’re starting a marketing company, attend business conferences and meetups. Making yourself known within the community is important to build a reputation. Chances are, if you’re going to conferences, you will meet people who aren’t yet knowledgeable on the topic of the conference. By showing your knowledge of the topic when networking, you can meet new potential customers and gain their trust. If your business is still growing, this may also be a great way to find potential employees and business partners.
5. Get involved
Volunteering for an organization is important for any business which wants to give back to the community. Along with doing a great deed, this allows you to meet individuals who share the same values as you. Making contacts with like-minded individuals may benefit both you and your business in the future. If you can’t find an organization that fits your values, there are other ways to give back to your community. Teaching a free class at your local community center once a month is a great way to add value to your community and to get individuals interested in your field of business. It is important to note that volunteering should never be a way to sell a product but rather to do a good deed, and meet people who have similar interests as you.
Gen Z Fun Facts from Snapchat
/by Corey PadveenWe know a lot about millennials, but what are some fun facts about Gen Z that marketers should know about?
Snap Inc., the parent company behind Snapchat, recently released some insightful bits of information about the first digital-native generation: Gen Z. In their infographic, they highlight some key findings about the generation’s mobile usage, brand engagement and user engagement on devices and the web. Have a look!
Why Did Microsoft Acquire Github?
/by Corey PadveenWhat does Microsoft stand to gain by acquiring GitHub for $7.5 billion?
GitHub has been described as a “Google Docs for developers” – that’s a pretty powerful comparison. For example, when a developer wants to update an app, they use GitHub to download the existing code, make changes, and then re-upload the new version of code as an update. GitHub is used by both developers and non-developers as a space to collaborate around the world on various code-based projects. The community is composed of people with ideas to improve software and developers willing to take on the task of realizing these improvements. So what exactly does Microsoft have to gain by acquiring it?
GitHub announced its acquisition by Microsoft for $7.5 billion. This is the tech giant’s second-biggest acquisition after their $26.5 billion LinkedIn acquisition in June of 2016. While the exact reason for Microsoft’s acquisition is uncertain, three different conclusions can be drawn from the market and Microsoft’s perceived value of GitHub.
1. To gain trust from the open source community.
Microsoft has had a bad reputation when it comes to their acceptance of open source software. Leaked internal documents back in 1998 showed that Microsoft employees had concerns about open source software, such as Linux, posing a threat to Microsoft’s long-term business model. Microsoft has also been criticized for using open source platforms as a way to lure users to its own platforms. By acquiring GitHub, Microsoft may be hoping to regain the trust of the open source developer community.
2. Microsoft may be moving towards open source
In recent years, there have been rumors that Microsoft may be moving to an open-source version of Windows. By acquiring GitHub, this could be Microsoft’s attempt to connect with developers and introduce open-source Windows. With Windows generating about 10% of Microsoft’s revenue, open source may change the minds of the developer community, and generate more business for Microsoft in the long-run, as the developer community only continues to grow.
3. Open source Monitoring
A large concern among the open source community is Microsoft’s potential ability to monitor the community’s software development. In doing so, the tech giant could find the best and most innovative projects within the community, and create their own versions of these projects to lead the development industry. With a community of over 26 million users, there is an abundance of skilled developers and interesting projects within Github. Many concerned developers may be leaving GitHub for its competitors. GitLab, a GitHub competitor, has seen a huge spike in traffic since the beginning of Microsoft acquisition rumors.
Just as with LinkedIn, we’ll have to wait and see what Microsoft’s bigger, long-term path is, but one thing we can conclude for certain is that Microsoft has plans that stretch beyond operating systems and workplace software, and it will be interesting to see how those unfold and evolve.
A Beginner’s Guide to Launching Your First eCommerce Store
/by Corey PadveenA 4-Part guide to starting your first eCommerce store from someone who learned a lot creating one himself.
ECommerce may be the future of retail. The lives of younger generations i.e. Millennials, Genx, etc. seem to be heading down a path of non-routine, instant gratification, and increased consumerist behavior. Online shopping provides a solution to limited physical store hours and insatiable consumerist desire.
I ran my first eCommerce store in June 2017. With no prior experience, I registered an account with Shopify and set out to create an online business selling fidget spinners. As a young student, eager to start my own business, I was determined to sustain myself by working at an office one day per week and focusing on a few entrepreneurial side projects. Through determination, experimentation, extensive research, and hard work, I launched my first eCommerce store.
This article will provide you with the knowledge I grasped from running my first online business, along with information I wish I knew when it all began.
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is the easiest way to start an online business, especially with limited funds.
It’s a simple 5-Step process:
This means no inventory, low startup cost, and low maintenance cost. Dropshipping websites are essentially a middleman between AliExpress and the consumer.
Choosing your Product
The first step when starting an eCommerce business is to choose a niche. There are two approaches when choosing your product: trends vs common goods. If you plan on growing your business through a loyal following, and delivering consistent quality, you’re better off choosing common goods. This may be hard at times depending on the source of your products. If your goal is to sell quick and start making decent sales 1 to 2 months in, trending products are a better option.
Trends
Trends are an easy break-in to eCommerce because these are ‘want’ rather than ‘need’ purchases and tend to be spur-of-the-moment. Often times there is also somewhat of a social pressure to have the same trendy items as those around you (i.e. Fidget spinners). The downside to trends is that they don’t last. You may end up riding the highs and lows until you’re back at square one. If you learn from your first experience, however, it will be easy to transfer your knowledge and audience over to the next trend you chose to pursue.
Common goods
Common goods follow the same structure as trends in terms of running your eCommerce store, however, the buying behavior may be different. These products tend to have more thought put into them when making a purchase because they will be used somewhat regularly and are expected to last longer (i.e. swimsuits). The most effective way to sell these types of products is by keeping your prices low compared to the general sales price. This is possible if you chose the right sources to find your products.
I started off selling fidget spinners in June of 2017, a bit past the halfway point of the fidget spinner trend. In 2017, fidget spinner was among the top ten most searched google queries in multiple countries. Being that these spinning toys were extremely popular among young people, it seemed like an easy sell.
Pt.1: Setting up
Finding your Products
There are many websites available for finding your products: Aliexpress, DHgate, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, etc. Each of these has their pros and cons.
Aliexpress, DHgate
Amazon
Walmart
eBay
I suggest a mix of AliExpress and DHgate. The extremely low prices found on these websites means lower prices for your customers and higher profit margins for your business. As for long shipping times, paying a bit extra for ePacket shipping (available for most AliExpress products) will bring the US shipping down to 1-3 weeks.
When choosing the specific products to sell, you should look for a mix of popular and unique products. To find popular products easily, search for the AliExpress product you would like sell and sort by the number of orders. For unique products, search through multiple pages of AliExpress until you find a unique, interesting product at a good price.
Once you have found your products, you’re ready to start building your online store.
Setting up your Shopify Store
The “Basic Shopify” plan has everything you need for only $30/month. Luckily, Shopify offers a free 14 day trial period to set up the store. The process of setting up the store is straightforward however YouTube tutorials may provide helpful tips and insights about the service.
In terms of design, look at existing online stores of established brands to find inspiration for your own eCommerce store. On Unsplash.com, you’ll find a variety of high-quality images, free to use for your website. To have a simple, professional logo designed for under $10, visit Fiverr.com. The primary goal of your store design is to make people comfortable buying from you. If your website looks unfinished or low-quality, it may turn potential consumers away from your site. Ask friends and family if your website looks legitimate, without giving them any context, to get their honest opinion.
Adding products to your site may also be time-consuming. To keep your workload manageable, start with 10-15 products on your first day and add 1-5 products a day until you’ve reached your desired total product amount. To keep your products organized, Shopify allows users to add tags to their products for easy products searching. Take advantage of these features, however, limit your product tags to avoid too many filtering options.
Once you’ve finished setting up and designing your eCommerce website, you’ll need a way to generate traffic.
Pt. 2: Selling
When starting an eCommerce website, finding customers can seem like an overwhelming task. Luckily, there are two easy, effective ways to generate traffic: Growing a social media page, and running targeted social media ads.
Growing an Instagram Account
Set Up Your Account
Instagram is the easiest social media channel for growing a following. This is due to its follow-back culture, high engagement, and post-viewing algorithms. Using the following methods, you can target the right audience for your eCommerce website, free of charge. Remember, treat your social media channel as a community rather than strictly a selling page. No one wants to be sold a product, they want to experience your business’ culture.
The setup process for an Instagram business account is simple. This video provides an in-depth walk-through of the capabilities of Instagram’s analytics.
Post Consistently
The first and most important aspect of growing your Instagram page is consistent, daily posting. Due to their’s algorithm, your posts will reach more viewers and appear higher on a user’s feed if you post more frequently. If posting a photo every day seems like too much work, Hootsuite offers scheduled posting for $19.99/month.
When posting pictures of your product or the culture surrounding your product, find user-generated content on Instagram and repost it (using a reposting app) with credits. Another option, when posting product images, it to use the same images as your website. These photos tend to be of lower quality if they are coming from AliExpress. However, vendors are often willing to send non-watermarked, high-resolution versions of their pictures if you explain that you are dropshipping. Add an Instagram filter, or use Adobe Lightroom ($9.99/month) to make your pictures look professional, then post your picture at Instagram’s best suggested time.
Tip: If you choose to use filters, Stick to the same one or two filters for all your pictures. This makes your feed look more professional because of the uniformity of your feed.
Join The Community
Instagram is all about community. The more you like and comment on the photos of others, the more likely they are to view your page. Replying to the comments of others, and showing your genuine interest in the community around your product goes a long way.
Comment
To find user-generated content relevant to your product, you can search Instagram using hashtags (#). There are two effective commenting strategies.
Generic comments are non-specific to the post they’re replying to. They can, however, be tailored to a general topic by using hashtags. Example: I have a hot sauce company. I look up #jalapeno in the Instagram search bar. In the notes section of my phone, I write a generic comment: “That looks delicious”. I then copy the sentence and paste it into a comment, along with a like, to every food post within the past hour which uses #jalapeno. The audience I am engaging with enjoys spicy food because they’re posting about jalapenos. By commenting on their picture, I am promoting my company to an audience that is likely to click on my profile and view what I am selling. The flaw with generic comments is their tendency to be viewed as non-genuine. The upside is quick commenting speed.
Unique comments are specific to the post they’re replying to. Example: I have a hot sauce company. I look up #jalapeno in the Instagram search bar. When scrolling through the pictures with #jalapeno, I create a unique comment for each picture which shows the user that genuine interest was put into my comment. The downside is the long time spent thinking of unique comments. The upside is a higher response rate because your comments come across as genuine.
Hashtag
Instagram allows users to use up to 30 hashtags per post. A hashtag tags your photo in the category of your choosing. To make your hashtag process more efficient, choose a base of 10-20 hashtags which are relevant to your brand and all your posts. Save these in the notes section of your phone to copy and paste when needed. With the remaining 10 hashtags, tailor them to each individual post.
By searching on Instagram, you can view the number of times a specific hashtag was used. It is important to have both popular hashtags and less popular hashtags. Popular hashtags will be seen on the hashtag feed for a short period of time because new posts with the same hashtag are being generated quickly. This means high viewership but short-lasting viewership because of their popularity. Less popular hashtags will be visible for longer however likes will spread out over a longer time period. Make sure your hashtags are always relevant. If not, your engagement will come from users who may not be potential clients, and may even attract spam.
Tip: Paste your hashtags as the first comment of your picture rather than in your caption for a more appealing post.
Captions
Captions should make a comment on the picture posted. To find inspiration for photo captions, visit successful Instagram pages who are selling similar items as your business. End your caption with a call to action, asking your audience to like, comment, or share.
Page Bio
The final aspect of your Instagram page is your Bio. This is the small blurb on your Instagram page which defines your page and your company. A simple approach to your bio is using emojis, followed by a word describing your page or business. Follow these with a call to action above your website link.
Final Thoughts
A common thought among those starting a business with the help on Instagram is to buy followers. Buying followers may seem beneficial to give your page a seemingly better reputation. This can have the opposite effect as the engagement on your posts will suffer, and therefore, Instagram users will be able to come to the conclusion that your followers are illegitimate. Instagram’s algorithm is also created to detect illegitimate followers and will be less inclined to show your content to users who are interested in your products.
Instagram Ads
Running targeted social media ads is a quicker, yet riskier, way to generate conversions through your Instagram page. With the help of Facebook Business Manager, the process is simple. If proper techniques are applied, users can generate a high amount of conversions for a relatively low cost. To keep costs low, both ads and target audiences must be tested against each other.
Testing your audience
Often times, the ideal customer of a particular product may be unclear. Luckily Facebook provides insight into the buying behaviors of different target groups. Although their data is fairly general, using Facebook’s knowledge along with common sense can go a long way. It is important to think of the purchaser rather than the end user.
For Example: When selling fidget spinners, the end user is between ~5 to 15 years old. However, parents of 5 to 15 year-olds will be the product purchasers. This means your audience’s age demographic will range from around 30-45. Of course, this is my estimation which leads to a more important point.
Choose 3 to 5 different audiences who are all potential consumers of your product. Next, chose 3 to 5 different pictures and/or videos which you think will capture the eye of a potential consumer. These pictures or videos should focus on aesthetic appeal rather than an overload of information. Remember, most people only look at Instagram images for a few seconds; too much (or any) text in your image could drive a viewer away.
Once you have chosen both your audience and media, create ad sets for each audience. Within those ad sets, add each picture or video chosen. If you have chosen 3 audiences and 3 images, you would total 9 different ads. Next, dedicate $10 to each ad set and launch your ads. As the next few days go by, you’ll likely notice that certain ads are performing better than others. You can view this in your Facebook manager under Cost per Result. Invest more in your top ads, and delete those that aren’t performing to optimize your cost per conversion. For a more in-depth understanding of Instagram ads, video tutorials can provide further insight.
On-Site Selling
After following these steps, with hard work, persistence, common sense, and a bit of luck, customers should start visiting your site and making purchases. You may find, however, that the majority of potential customers are leaving your site without making a purchase. This may be due to overcharging, improper site design, targeting the wrong group, or simply a change of heart. There are a few simple strategies to counteract losing customers.
Low Stock Alerts
Research shows that consumers are more likely to make a purchase when they are under unavoidable pressure. By adding a low stock alert to your buy now page may increase a consumers incentive to purchase. Using the While Supplies Last plugin for Shopify ($9.99/month), shop owners can add an unobtrusive text on their product page. Similar Shopify plugins exist however they are often too aggressive and may scare away a customer. The main objective is to give your customer a small push in the right direction without scaring them away.
Exit Coupons
The exit coupon is an effective strategy to sell to customers who deem your products too costly. Using the Better Coupon Box plugin (free), any customer who places an item in their cart will receive a coupon pop-up if they try to leave your site without purchasing. Store owners can customize their coupons to test the optimal percentage they should offer to keep a customer.
Upselling
Upselling is offering a customer an additional product related to the product they’re about to purchase. This can be effective when the product offered is low in price compared to the main purchase. Adding small amounts to the total price can have a large impact on sales over time.
Example: When a user purchases a laptop, a logical upsell is a computer mouse, a laptop case, or even a pair of headphones.
Using the Upsell for Products plugin (24.95/month) is an easy way to integrate upselling into your store. Keep in mind that plugin expenses can add up quickly. Using the free trial period for each plugin is an effective way to test if the plugin is worth the price.
Abandoned Cart Retrieval
Abandoned cart retrieval is similar to the exit coupon. It is a way of retrieving lost customers who found their way to the buy now page and turned back. Using the Beautiful Abandoned Cart Emails plugin ($9/month), lost customers will receive an email shortly after their visit to the site. The email will notify them of non-purchased goods left in their cart. Emails are fully customized, therefore it is up to the store owner to deliver a convincing pitch for a customer to return to their site. A good practice is to include a coupon code within the cart retrieval email to increase a customer’s incentive to purchase.
Email Coupons
Email coupons are an effective strategy to subscribe customers and potential customers to your mailing list while giving them the incentive to make a purchase. Using the Privy plugin (free) store owners can add a popup to their store which sends the customer a coupon via email in return for their mailing list subscription. Email can be a strong selling force of your Shopify store if approached properly.
Plugins can be an effective way to boost sales and make your site easier to use. These three free plugins may also be useful for your website: Easyship, Auto Currency Switcher, Loyalty Points.
Pt.3: After-Sale Service
Acquiring a new customer is up to 25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one. To sustain your business in the most cost-efficient manner, following up with past customers and interested customers is vital. Contacting customers via email is a cost-efficient solution to keeping in contact with future buyers. Simple tips will help your email interaction go a long way.
Use Plain Text
Research shows plain text emails have a much higher open rate and click-through rate than HTML emails. Aside from being easier to format, they also have a higher delivery rate than HTML emails (they don’t end up in the spam folder). Using plain text emails adds a more human aspect to your email and takes away the unnecessary graphics contained in HTML. If personalized properly, consumers will perceive a mass email as a message sent solely to them. This evokes a feeling of importance in your consumer and can have a large impact on the success on your email campaign.
Everyone likes coupons. Sending weekly or biweekly promotional offers to your emailing list can drive customers to your site. To find inspiration for quality email content, take notes from successful companies who regularly send you promotional emails.
Create a Unique Business Email
An email address using your domain can be costly if hosted from Google or similar paid hosting services. Fortunately, there are free alternatives. Having YourName@YourDomain.com is a way to show the legitimacy of your business. Using Zoho, you can create a free email address using your domain. Using a 3rd party service such as Zoho to access your emails, however, may be time-consuming when your mail email is with a different provider. Luckily, Gmail users can link 3rd party email accounts to their main account using Gmail settings. This short video tutorial will run you through the simple process.
MailChimp
Sending emails to a long list of customers can be an unbearable task if handled manually. Fortunately, MailChimp offers a free (or paid for additional features) mailing service to facilitate your email marketing campaigns. Using this service, users can organize their mailing list, personalize their emails, and format to their liking, among other features. This tutorial provides a basic understanding of Mailchimp’s services.
Pt.4: Long-Term Choices
The rules listed in this article should provide you with an understanding of basic steps and principles needed to run an eCommerce store. If applied properly, your website should begin to generate revenue fairly quickly. With persistence and time put into your business, you can expect to grow slowly over time and learn many new tricks along the way.
What next?
ECommerce can be a lot of hard work as you may come to realize if choosing to pursue this venture. In my personal experience, the site creation, Instagram page building, and lead generation were my favorite aspects of the eCommerce process. After some time, the experience became less creative as the business stabilized. I no longer felt the excitement of building something new. If this becomes the case these options are available.
Selling the Site
Shopify provides a platform within their site for users to sell their stores to others who do not want to put the effort into starting something new but would rather manage an existing business. The platform automatically estimates a price based on the traffic generated through your site. This is a viable option for someone like myself who finds more joy in creating rather than sustaining. When it comes to selling trending items, it can be an effective strategy to build up a successful store, and sell at a high price when you estimate the trend will begin to decrease in popularity.
Hiring
Hiring a trusted worker is another viable solution to sustain your business. If your Shopify store is generating significant revenue, it may be worth outsourcing the work to others while continuing to profit from your site. This is a better solution for a user who has a greater attachment to their site (if you work hard on it, you probably will), or someone who can’t sell their site for the desired amount they would like.
Moving forward
This article is a cohesive understanding of everything I learned and everything I wish I knew about eCommerce when starting my first website. I hope this can provide guidance to someone who hopes to start their own eCommerce website.
14 Places to List Your Local Business Online
/by Corey PadveenMost of today’s businesses have likely heard about search engine optimization and have taken steps to try to optimize their web pages. Good search engine optimization is important because it can help to increase your business’s visibility and ranking on Google and other popular search engines.
In addition to global search engine optimization, it is also important for business owners to pay attention to their local SEO. Improving your local SEO can help potential customers to quickly find your business. According to Forbes, 50 percent of people who search for local businesses while using their smartphones visit stores during the same day. One way to increase your local search rankings and your business’s visibility is with local listings. When you list your business in online directories, you increase the chances that your business will be found by consumers, helping to increase your customer base. Ideally, you should try to list your local business in numerous online directories. With each additional listing, you add more people to your potential customer base. Here are 14 directories that you should include when you begin adding online listings for your company.
1. Angie’s List
Angie’s List has built its reputation as a highly respected site that offers business reviews that are known for their objectivity. The site has more than three million members who use it to review businesses and to find ones that are rated highly. In order to create your business’s listing on Angie’s List, you can complete the site’s online form.
2. Better Business Bureau
When consumers are trying to decide to whom to give their business, many check the business’s record with the Better Business Bureau. By listing your business and apply for accreditation, you may increase your customer base. The Better Business Bureau reports that 70 percent of customers prefer to do business with companies that are accredited by the BBB. In order to list your business and to apply for accreditation, click here.
3. Bing
Bing Places for Business allows you to increase your business’s visibility by tapping into customers who opt to use Bing instead of Google. Since it is the default search engine that is used by Windows 8, it is also the second-most used behind Google. When you enroll your business, you are able to add photographs, videos and multiple business locations. To list your business, start by clicking here.
4. Citysearch
Citysearch is a very popular mobile app that allows customers to quickly find your business on their smartphones. The company lists a variety of different types of businesses and includes “best of” lists across a variety of categories. Sign your business up on Citysearch here.
5. Facebook
Facebook lets your business go where your customers are. It is important for you to establish a social media presence for your company so that you can interact with your potential customers and increase your brand awareness. You can sign your business up for your local business page by starting here.
6. Foursquare
Foursquare is both a social media site as well as a business directory. When you list your business on Foursquare, customers can leave comments about your business and check in using a map. The site boasts more than 60 million users and can offer your business good exposure. You can sign your business up on Foursquare here.
7. Google My Business
Google is recognized as the most powerful search engine in the world, and it makes sense for you to start by listing your business with it. Google My Business is the search engine’s free listing for businesses. When you list your company on it, consumers will be able to easily find your location on its easy-to-use map. You can add photos and respond to customer reviews. To list your business on Google My Business, start here.
8. Hotfrog
Hotfrog is an online directory that enjoys 1.5 million active visitors each month in more than 38 countries. The directory is detailed, and it allows you to offer coupons for your business. A Hotfrog business listing may also help your business to appear in Google searches. You can sign up for your listing here.
9. LinkedIn
Having a presence on LinkedIn can help to improve your brand awareness and your business’s reputation. This platform is the most recognized site for business networking and can help you to find new employees and customers while also letting you to socialize with other professionals in your field. To create a LinkedIn company page, follow the instructions that are given on this page.
10. Local.com
Local.com is a free online directory that lets people know about different events, activities and businesses in their areas. There are more than 16 million listings for businesses in the U.S. on Local.com. You can list your business for free, but the paid option also allows you to offer coupons and paid advertisements. Sign up your company on this page.
11. Mapquest
While Mapquest has been around for a while, it is still popular with many people. According to the Washington Post, an average of one out of every 20 smartphones has the Mapquest app installed. When you list your business on Mapquest, people can quickly find it on the local map and get directions for getting there. List your business on Mapquest by filling out your information on this page.
12. Whitepages
More than 30 million companies are listed on Whitepages. A straightforward listing service, Whitepages allows you to potentially reach as many as 200 million people in the U.S. and Canada. You can sign up for your listing by starting here.
13. Yelp
Yelp is a terrific resource for both businesses and consumers. This review site is favored by people who are between the ages of 18 and 34, allowing your company to tap into this burgeoning generation. When you list your business on Yelp, you are able to send messages, including deals, to your customers. Enroll your business here to get started on Yelp.
14. YP.com
Before the internet changed how people find businesses, they turned to the Yellow Pages. The company has established an online presence, and millions of people regularly search for companies by searching its online directory. The company offers ads and can give you detailed analyses about how your advertising on its site is performing. Get started with your Yellow Pages listing at this link.
In addition to these listing sites, there are other online directories that you can use to increase the visibility of your business and to build your brand. When you list your local business in online directories, you can help your local SEO so that customers can find you.
Questions to Ask When Building a Hypertargeted Audience
/by Corey PadveenWhen it comes to building lasting relationships with your audience, you’re going to want to segment the general audience into hypertargeted audience segments. Start the process with these questions.
Building a collection of hypertargeted audience segments is a crucial step in the process of developing authentic relationships with your prospects and customers, particularly millennials. While creating those segments has become a much simpler task with all of the data we have at our fingertips, it is still a seemingly daunting task, and it might not be clear where you can begin the process. Luckily, one of the best ways to get started is by asking yourself a series of questions and using the answers to start defining clearly outlined pockets of prospects that you can target with customized content.
Getting Started
Digging Deeper
More Specific
While there might be several more questions you want to ask yourself while building these hypertargeted audience segments, this is a good starting point that can help you begin to develop audience pockets and their associated content that lead to more stable, longer-lasting relationships.
8 Easy SEO Tips to Boost Your Ranking
/by Corey PadveenUse 8 Easy SEO Tips to Boost Your Rank
If you are like the many people who try to rank their content on the first page of Google and the other top search engines, you could be wondering what steps will improve your odds of success. Trying to do search engine optimization without putting in the effort to follow the correct path will cause you to waste time and energy on an approach that won’t work. If you learn effective tips and follow each step, you will be pleased with the outcome.
Discover Winning Keywords
Some people make a list of random keywords related to their business without doing keyword research, and you don’t want to make that mistake. You must target keywords that indicate buyer intent if you don’t want to waste your time. People looking for reviews or price comparisons are in the late stage of the buying process, and going after the right keywords will let you get their attention.
Keyword competition is another factor you need to consider when you use SEO. If you enter your desired keyword into Google and find several news sites or other authority domains, ranking for that term will not be easy. Keywords that produce random blogs and websites won’t be too hard to rank, and you can enjoy some success within the first few weeks.
Focus on Engagement
Focusing on engagement is a smart move when your mission is to improve SEO as soon as you can. Too many marketers and business owners only pay attention to their keywords, but that oversight will harm their bottom line.
Inability to produce engaging content will reduce your odds of getting your message to appear on Google, but it will also make your content boring. Writing with an active voice and using terms and phrases to which your prospects can relate will improve your engagement and help you rank. Use short paragraphs and subheadings to make each article easy and fun to read, and you will notice the difference. No matter what you would like to achieve, keeping your prospects’ needs near the front of your mind will take you far.
Increase Article Length
You likely create blog posts and articles containing between 300 and 600 words, which is a good place from which to start. But if you want to improve SEO, you need to make your articles a little longer. Content with 1,000 to 2,500 words will outrank short articles and send plenty of people to your website before you know it. Writing long articles will take some time, but the rewards are worth the dedication.
Enhance Your Website’s Speed
Some people only work on their articles and off-site factors when they want to rank on the No. 1 page of Google, but they are making a mistake. The loading speed of your website plays a role in the rank you can expect, so you can’t afford to overlook that fact if you would like to get long-term results. You can take your loading speed to the next level by optimizing your code, removing unnecessary pictures and upgrading your hosting package.
Target Topics
Using keywords as the main focus of your content won’t get your website or blog to the first page of Google. You can combat that problem by targeting topics related to your desired keywords, and you will get much better results. Use the main keyword to generate topic ideas for your next article, and you can then include other keywords related to your topic.
Focus on Quality Backlinks
Quality backlinks from authority domains are vital for anyone who wants to use search engine optimization to grow and expand a business. Writing guest posts for popular bloggers in your industry is a powerful way to get a few backlinks that will boost your rank. If you want to take this tip to the next level, look for press release companies that have high standards.
Use Local SEO
Local search terms have a lot less competition than broad keywords that appeal to people from all locations. While local businesses commonly take advantage of this method, large chains and corporations can also benefit. Write keywords that target major cities around the nation, and you won’t be disappointed.
Final Thoughts
Even though search engine optimization comes with a range of challenges and setbacks, you can simplify the process by using the right tips. You can use a winning blueprint to rank your content in no time, and you will smile when you see what it can do for your profit. The best keywords will get you moving on the right path, but building quality backlinks and improving your website’s speed will enhance your results. The rank of which you have been dreaming is not as far as you might think, and you can take the critical first steps right away.
So Apple is Slowing Your iPhone
/by Corey PadveenApple has confirmed that older iPhones are running slower than new ones following the release of a new iOS.
You’ve probably heard the news that Apple iOS updates do, in fact, slow down old iPhones. This confirms a theory that began circling earlier this year as people noticed that with the release of new devices, old ones seemed to be working much more slowly (particularly after an update to the operating system). Apple has provided a fairly straightforward explanation, detailing the deterioration of lithium-ion batteries and how this slowing of the system helps keep the battery life intact, but the question still remains: why would they keep this a secret?
What Got People Talking
When this theory first began making the rounds, the hypothesis was that iPhone was intentionally slowing down older devices following the release of a new device in order to push people to upgrade their phones. This seemed pretty devious, but not at all out of the realm of possibility. At the end of the day, Apple lives and dies by its sales numbers, like any other company, and if they could find a way to manipulate sales, we wouldn’t put it past them to do so. That’s one of the big differences with Apple devices and Android. Unlike Apple, which controls both the device and the software, Android is (in most cases) operating independently of the hardware onto which it’s installed.
With that in mind, the conversation picked up steam over the past few months and the focal point was that Apple was deceiving customers and, ironically, downgrading the performance of older hardware with every software upgrade. Now, having reached a boiling point, Apple has been forced to respond.
What Apple Has Said
On Wednesday, Apple released the following statement:
At its core, this is a fairly simple and understandable explanation. The trials that exist with lithium-ion batteries are no secret. Battery life is also something that consumers have noted as an issue in the past, so it would make sense that slowing the performance of hardware that is not built to run more advanced software would help with battery issues. But the issue here is not with Apple’s justification, it is with how they have handled this situation.
Too Late to Apologize?
Call it vanity, call it hubris, call it whatever you want, but Apple has shown time and time again that it is loathe to admit failure. Silicon Valley has largely adapted the concept of ‘Fail Fast, Fail Often’ or, in the case of Facebook until a few years ago, ‘Move Fast and Break Things’, but Steve Jobs was a notorious perfectionist. Apple’s culture (and Board, I presume) would not allow a representative to stand on the world’s stage and talk about software updates hindering the performance of old devices.
It also would not sit particularly well with iPhone owners to hear that the jokes that are often made about a phone being worthless within minutes of its purchase as upgrades are already being released to be completely true. In other words, Apple likely didn’t want to hop on stage at one of their conferences and say: “You have no choice but to buy this new phone for $1,000 even though yours is working fine, because soon it won’t.”
So instead of sharing with the world this bit of (fairly pertinent) information, Apple kept it quiet. Now, in the modern age of information sharing, there really isn’t much worse for a brand’s image than when consumers uncover the truth and expose an issue a brand has been trying to hide. That makes it virtually impossible for anything the brand says after the fact to be taken well. It falls very much into the category of ‘You’re Only Sorry Because You Got Caught’, which is nothing to be proud of. There is also the issue that Apple’s explanation, while believable, is going up against the widely believed theory that this is a sales tactic used to push iPhone owners to buy a new device as the old phones function at a fraction of the speed. That’s a hard opinion to shake, particularly when consumer trust in brands has been on a steady decline in the new age of information.
Will this hurt Apple? Probably not. Apple’s has built a strong enough base of loyalists and a good enough product that there is little they can do to ruin their brand value. Will this teach them a lesson? One hopes, but again, admissions like this aren’t decided by a virtuous employee, they are decided by a series of stakeholders and analysts running meticulously designed cost-benefit analyses.
Long story short: expect nothing to change.
Understanding Google Algorithm Updates in 2018 [Infographic]
/by Corey PadveenIn order to improve your search rankings, it’s important to completely understand Google algorithm updates and how they impact search rankings.
It’s Google’s world and we’re just living in it. While that might be a bit of an exaggeration, when it comes to search, that statement holds true. Marketers are all desperate to improve search rankings, and to do that, we need to carefully study and understand Google algorithm updates. Thanks to Miller Media Management, that task has been rendered pretty simple with the help of this infographic outlining what most of the major updates do to your rankings. Have a look and improve your understanding of Google algorithm updates as we head into 2018!