6 Simple Ways to Reduce Shipping Cost

The trends in the business industry change every day hence no businesses have attained perfection. It is okay if sales are dropping on a day and the bounce rate has increased but it becomes a snag if you cannot do something about it. Sometimes the increase in bounce rate for eCommerce is due to shipping charges. Is there any way we can reduce shipping cost? Yes, We can!

If increasing rates isn’t in the cards, and you want to cut down the cost then these pro tips can help you potentially reduce shipping cost. Optimize your products on the eCommerce store and practice these methods to make your product affordable for you and your customer.

1. Change your packaging material

The packaging material is a major factor that affects the shipping cost but by changing the material a merchant could save a lot. Shipping charges depend upon the size and weight of the material you are using for packaging. You can always go for a small-sized box made with a lighter material to reduce shipping cost. Alternatively, you can switch to a poly mailer or a padded bubble wrapped poly bag and avoid the extra cost.

2. Take help of regional carriers

By decreasing the shipping distance with the help of regional distributors an eCommerce store owner can save some pennies. A bulk order can be shipped to one place for a particular zone or region.

An app like ‘Product Availability Check by Zipcode’ can be used by the store owners while uploading the product. The admin can map zones with zip codes for different geographic locations.

To reduce the shipping cost bulk orders can be sent to the regional distributor who will ship the product to its right destination

3. Waive off the shipping cost with in-store pickup

In recent days, to avoid the shipping time delay and to get the product by the earliest customer started opting for the in-store pickup option. This feature benefits both the merchant and the customer. It increases impulse buy opportunities, fewer returns, and cut down the shipping cost for the merchant. Consumers get the benefit of click and collect too by saving the extra cost which is meant to be spent on shipping and they can collect the order as per their convenience. This is a win-win option for both parties.

4. Merchant can do liaising with the supplier

Liaising with the supplier will reduce shipping cost for the merchant. The owner can ask for lower delivery fees with this. The extra transportation cost will be reducing it to nearly half the price and this is most applicable to high-value products. Always try to negotiate with your suppliers to get good deals.

5. Cut down the cost by taking prepaid shipping services

Various third-party carriers offer prepaid shipping services where they provide good deals and discounts. Prepaid shipping will get you up to 20% off shipping costs simply by buying a range of shipping labels in advance. You don’t need to add them to a package before an actual order needs to go out. This not only saves time but also costs.

It only works if you regularly ship orders of the same weight and measurements or if you know the same details and scale.

6. Hybrid orders can save money

Hybrid shipping providers pick up your orders and then partner with other carriers, to move the parcels to a sort facility or post office site, where they are delivered to a local area for the last mile delivery. In certain cases, this can reduce delivery costs by as much as 50%. The biggest drawback to hybrid systems is that they have a restrictive weight, volume, and size strategy. Delivery times can also be longer than using normal shipping options with the same carriers.

Final Words: Some of the main factors that decide the performance of your online company are the degree to which you reduce costs. These amazing ways will lower pricing. If not closely controlled, shipping costs can escalate rapidly. And by the end of the fiscal year, you’ll find that they’ve put a huge dent in your profit margin.

Knowband provides some tools to help you with shipping issues like the COD plugin and free shipping addon. These can help you with a better shipping experience and increase customer conversions.

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How to Start On-demand Grocery Business with Knowband’s Marketplace Modules

With other businesses fighting hard to sustain in the COVID crisis, the online grocery business is flourishing. The pandemic has for the first time inspired many customers all over the globe to purchase online groceries. The situation in other countries such as India, Canada, Italy, and France is no different.

A grocery marketplace platform will be helping many small vendors to sell groceries online. The outbreak has anticipated the in-store visits for foodstuffs and groceries to critical decline and people are more cautious and making proactive online purchases for food, groceries, medicines, and other household things.

Shopping patterns formed by consumers in the midst of self-isolation may become a standard for imagining new possibilities for the future. The global market size of online grocery business is estimated at US$ 27.5 billion and the further growth projected was to hit US$ 129.5 billion by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of 24.8% in 2019–25.

Look around to see competent strategies and marketing plans before starting your own marketplace grocery store. How do you carve your niche in the market? We have developed two modules focused on customer comfort and security for helping you build up your own Multivendor Grocery Marketplace. Before rushing to modules, let us understand the business model it follows.

Insight into the Multivendor Grocery Business Model

The grocery business model can either be an inventory model or a Marketplace model. But with the Multi-Vendor marketplace extension, you can make the hybrid model for your grocery marketplace. A model in which the admin and the seller both can sell their products and services is coined as the hybrid model. To make a multivendor marketplace that will bring more traffic, you must take care of the user experience and convenience.

Attract with Alluring UI

An attractive user interface is the most important part of a website or application developed for Multivendor Grocery Marketplace. Not just attractive but it should be efficiently designed and completely accessible. You must take care of the page loading time, product category display management, secure and flawless transactions, and transparency.

Location is the key

If you want to start a hyperlocal grocery marketplace then the combination of Multi-Vendor Marketplace Extension and Hyperlocal Marketplace Extension is worth adding. Multivendor Marketplace Extension will help you and the seller for managing the admin and seller interface along with explicit front-end while the Hyperlocal Marketplace Module will provide you location input option. Location and time are the two major factors for the hyperlocal grocery business.

Simplified Product Listing

For a successful multi-seller grocery marketplace, a simplified product listing and order handling management system are vigorously needed. The product finding should not be difficult for customers. Before starting up, you can ask for the demands and types of products people prefer. An online survey can be conducted.

Even your strategy should dwell on what your clients don’t want. Try focusing on both positive and negative feedback. Keep a record of the grocery products your customers disliked.

Multiple Payment Gateways and on-time Shipping

Offer customers several payment methods on your multi-seller grocery marketplace. Add a quicker payment gateway like PayPal, Stripe, etc. and let the customers make payments at the click of a button. Avoid using a payment method that people have not heard of because they prefer only reliable and secured gateways.

In any on-demand business, shipping is the most important factor, particularly in grocery. Delivering quality grocery products on time will help you attract customers. No matter how good your App Design is, or how smooth your checkout process is, you’ll lose the entire game if you have a bad distribution network.

Modules which can help you start your grocery business:

1.     Create your Marketplace for Grocery business:

The module allows you to make a multi-vendor marketplace for your grocery business. It is mobile responsive and compatible with the mobile App. Also, supports the return manager module.

Admin and Seller benefits of Marketplace

Easy Vendor Registration: The multi-vendor marketplace allows easy seller registration from both the admin panel and the front end of the marketplace. Any small or big grocery business owner can register on your marketplace.

Easy Seller Monitoring and Management: Admin and seller both are allowed to track the orders from the admin interface and seller interface. The product listing can be done by the admin end as well as the seller end.

Commission Handling: Admin can easily define, edit, and manage commission on goods- charged by a vendor, and commission on delivery- for delivery staff, on the eCommerce platform for grocery stores.

Effortless Category and Product Management: The multivendor marketplace has an effortless category and product management functionality. The store owner is allowed to check the added product and permit the seller if he can sell that product or not.

Versatile Approach: All Product types are supported with a multivendor marketplace module. You can add many products in a different category. A grocery business with several products will grab customers to your website.

Track Grocery Orders: Admin can track seller orders and sellers can track customers’ orders.

Add Custom Fields on seller page:  for seller profile, admin can show custom fields on seller front page and make custom fields as many as required

Effective Membership Plans for the grocery sellers: Admin can allow sellers to opt for a membership plan. Sellers should subscribe to the plan to get their items published in the admin shop. Sellers to turn off their membership plan if possible. Also, he can set a one-time setup charge for the plans he makes for sellers.

About Seller Dashboard: Your grocery marketplace seller dashboard in the marketplace module will help you monitor your progress as a seller, maintain outstanding customer service, and maintain your account in good standing. All sellers have access to the seller standards dashboard.

Transaction Payout Request: Seller can ask for the payment to the admin. Admin can auto-update the settings for payments.

The seller can add custom shipping methods: Multiple custom shipping methods can be added by the seller for product delivery.

Track Earnings:  The seller can track the orders from the seller’s dashboard and keep a record of earnings.

Link Social Accounts: Link your grocery business with various social accounts that can help you increase brand awareness and customer loyalty.

Email Notifications: This functionality allows admin and seller to send email notification for order updates and other parameters.

Customer Benefits:

Multiple Choices from Multiple Vendors:

In a multi-vendor marketplace, a customer gets multiple choices from multiple sellers. The cost comparison is easier and the competition always plays an important role in a business.

Feedback is Important:

Your credibility for your brand depends on the vendors listed in your market place. But you have to make sure none of them ruins your brand name with their unprofessional services. Your main goal should be to have reputable vendors on your marketplace. To do that, you have to get customer feedback and take action accordingly. Highly reviewed products and with good ratings will be the preference of many.

Easy Return/Refund:

Grocery comes in fast consuming goods category but your marketplace should be ready with the unexpected situations in case a customer needs to return any item. The multi-vendor marketplace module is compatible with the return and refund manager module available on the Knowband store.

A customizable and optimized marketplace module can help you in starting a new Grocery Multivendor Marketplace. You can find detailed information about the module on our product page.  This extension is available for PrestaShop, OpenCart, and Magento 2 stores.

2.     Hyperlocal Marketplace:

Grocery should be delivered on time hence the idea of Hyperlocal grocery business came into the picture. The hyperlocal Marketplace module is available for the PrestaShop store. It allows the admin to add a location in which the owner wants to operate the marketplace.

All the features of Hyperlocal Marketplace are similar to the Multi-Vendor Marketplace module but it has some additional functionality to support on-demand delivery. Time, Geo-location, and distance parameters, which are the major requirements for Hyperlocal Grocery Marketplace businesses are integrated into this module.

Define the radius of the marketplace: Admin can set the radius and distance in any parameter where he wants to operate the grocery business. Suppose, 25km radius is set by the admin then he will operate anywhere but not beyond 25km of the distance.

Customers can enter the Geo-location: While searching for a product, a pop-up will appear on the screen of the customer which will ask them to enter the location for product delivery.

Live location or Pincode: There are two ways a customer can choose their location, they can go for the live location or enter the Pincode. Now, the marketplace will display products from the sellers delivering in that location.

Multiple Shipping methods for multiple delivery locations- It allows the seller to provide different delivery modes for every location. They are allowed to select the location for delivery by adding the Pincode or according to the region/area details.

Delivery Charges: Seller can charge for the delivery either by weight or by distance. It is customizable from the seller dashboard.

Admin can review the location: Admin is allowed to review the locations entered by sellers and approve them.

To understand the module in detail and its features and benefits for customer, seller, and admin, you can visit our product page here.

Wrapping Up

Maximize the efficiency of a multivendor marketplace with technologies such as automation, organizational flexibility, and bundling resources, during and after the pandemic. The grocery marketplace has tremendous scope by 2025. Even during and after the pandemic, the grocery market is flourishing all over the world. This is the right time to start your Multi seller Marketplace or a Grocery Delivery business.

If you need any kind of assistance for setting up a marketplace for your grocery or any other industry, our customer support team is ready to help in your new journey. You can visit the Knowband store or write to us at support@knowband.com

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Best Customer Support Communication Channels for Online Businesses

Right from the beginning of communication, we needed a channel to express our thoughts. Being a netizen, we all know how important it is to have a customer support communication channel. Customer support channels are an important part of business, be it in-store or an eCommerce. To provide a quality customer experience, the store owner must give up to scratch customer support and customer services.

There are tons of communication channels available that an eCommerce can use as a customer support channel but you have to choose the right one for your business. Having said that, the best support channel of communication is the one your customer chooses so try to offer many. Some of the best possible ways to connect with your customers to provide user support are discussed below. Voice support, written support, and chat support are the major communication channel types available.

Customer Support With Voice Communications Channels

Phone calls:

The old traditional voice support system is phone calls. The telephone-based contact center is one of the most common solutions for customer service teams, and most of the businesses have already set up a traditional telephone-based call center. This is a tried-and-tested system with demonstrated performance, and since consumers are familiar with the process, it is a common communication channel for businesses to introduce.

Every customer needs the assurance that they will be able to get in touch at any time and receive a response in the shortest time possible. Make sure your number is clearly shown in your store so that even if the customer does not call, he knows he has the option to do so.

web calling:

It is highly advisable over the traditional phone call. A web call is a good option as the customer does not have to leave the website for getting any support.

Using WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) technology, a click-to-call button ensures that consumers can engage in a voice call with an agent directly via the website. It comes with features like Desktop Dialing, No hardware is required and it is easy to use.

Offer Customer Support with Verbal Content

Another way to deliver customer support can be through verbal communication channels. Sometimes a customer needs to raise a query with detailed information. In that case, the verbal content channel will be the best fit.

Email:

Email support is the most used and acceptable after phone calls. This is a flexible medium that can be used to exchange personal correspondence about customer service or to disseminate news and knowledge through the customer base of an organization.

The benefit of email is that both the client and the agent have the right to make their emails as detailed and structured as they would like. There is a drawback for email support as you have to wait for the response. Though it is a good option for taking customer feedback and to send follow-up emails.

web forms:

Web forms work in the same way as emails, but a key benefit is that they do not allow the customer to leave the website set in the first place, which can enable longer stays.

The main advantage of the web forms is that people who send them also obtain confirmation of acceptance so that those who know the message have been received by the client.

Responses are also sent to the customer’s email address, making potential communication simpler. Web forms are also a safe way to collect consumer data-provided that GDPR is compliant.

Marketplace Customers-Sellers Ticket System Addon like modules for eCommerce store can help the customer to raise a ticket to get the support or any service.

Offer Chat Support:

Millennials prefer using chat messengers over calls or emails. Even for day to day conversation, people are using chat more than phone calls or web calls.

Live Chat:

Live chat is an extremely beneficial function for your shop, as it allows the executive to respond rapidly, allowing the customer to overcome their concerns and, as a result, closing the purchase. This can also be a proactive feature, where a customer service executive can serve as a personal shopper and assist with the selling of items.

Messenger App:

Messenger apps are considered as convenient chat support communication channels and they are quick. Messengers are a better choice as you can easily see if the message has been delivered or not. Social messenger is a module for messenger support for your eCommerce store. This can help you connect with your customers through Facebook messenger.

Messengers are powerful tools as they can be used for broadcasting messages and to offer promotions.

Social Media:

Social media is a powerful tool with double support, marketing, and communication. It is a platform which can be used as both marketing and customer support communication channel. The good service comes with better communications. Millennials spend most of their time on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, etc.

Organizations may and do make use of this to their benefit. Particularly on Twitter, many businesses ensure that they communicate using their brand ‘face’ as they participate in consumer interactions to enhance or alter the image of their brand.

Other Customer Support Options:

FAQs:

To give a better customer experience it is important to answer all the questions your customer has for you and your product. The FAQ or Frequently Asked Questions page helps users to find answers to all their questions in one location.

Not only does it make life easier for your website visitors, but it can also save time and resources for your company because you don’t have as many clients contacting you for answers. You can list some common queries to your FAQ’s to help your customers.

Contact Forum :

Customer forums are anyway important for customer support. Many users face the same difficulty or have some queries that can be answered on the forum. Contact forums improve customer relations. Customers feel that their feedback is important and it will create an impact on both users and the owner.

Bottom line:

If you want to provide excellent customer experience to your existing and new users, choose a communication support channel which will be convenient for your user. Keep in mind that the customer base is important and analyze it well for your product and services. A customer support channel can improve customer satisfaction which ultimately enhances the retention rate.

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10 best Magento 2 Extensions to uplift eCommerce Sales

Creating an eCommerce store on Magento 2 is easy, simple, and affordable. Optimize store with some of its best and popular Magento 2 extensions to make it user friendly. A fully developed website that can provide customer satisfaction that increases conversion and reduce cart abandonment rate is all that an eCommerce merchant need.

Optimizing your web store pages related to product and checkout will help you boost conversion. Ensure that the visitor land to correct search results on your website. You will only get conversions if you deliver what you have promised. Consider the design, navigation, and product page, the main factors for website optimization which will lead to the result that is ‘purchase’.

I am going to tell you about some most popular Magento 2 extensions you should have for uplifting the sales.

1. Go smart with Magento 2 Mobile App builder

With the evolving technology, it is quite essential to keep up with the trend. There are 5.2billion mobile users in the world and the graph is predicted to go up by 7.22billion till 2023. Make your eCommerce Magento 2 store completely mobile responsive with the Mobile App builder plugin. The module turns the store into a customizable app and the new version has a lot to offer.

This Magento 2 extension allows the admin to edit the home page design and update the layout. This ensures greater customization and improved user experience for the users of the application. Hence these variables increase customer engagement.

2. Magento 2 One Page Checkout Extension to Boost Conversion

The rushed billing counter in a brick and mortar store drive away from the potential customers. This can happen on an online store if your checkout page is not optimized. Replace the long, boring checkout page with a Magento 2 extension, One Page Checkout. It gives you all the required functionality and super-smooth checkout experience to users.

Reduce checkout friction with Magento 2 One Page Checkout. It offers guest checkout and social login for the buyers who do not like to spend extra time in the registration process. A lot of alluring features like multiple payment and shipping choices and customizable layout are the features that make it the best extension for Magento 2 store.

3. Magento 2 Abandoned Cart Extension to Reduce Cart Abandonment

We have got a solution to all your problems and cart abandonment is the one every seller deals with. Abandoned Cart – Magento 2 Extension, helps the seller to keep the track of all the carts which are abandoned by the customer, and its statistics settings allow the admin to analyze the reasons for the same.

The auto-trigger email functionality is the best feature of the abandoned cart Magento 2 extension as it converts the clogged sales by recovering the carts. Reduce cart abandonment with the Abandoned cart plugin.

4. Magento 2 Return Manager Extension for flexible return management

Product return and cancellation takes place in massive number and to manage the returns, every eCommerce website owner needs a flexible management system. The Return Manager plugin also known as the RMA extension is a perfect plugin for this job. Disappointing the customers by not providing an easy return facility will discourage the customers and degrade your brand reputation.

Manage your returns comfortably on Magento 2 store with the Return manager extension.

5. Magento 2 Social Loginizer Extension allows quick sign up

5 out of 10 people do not like to fill up the registration form or like proceeding through an easy way like social login. Social Login only requires the email ID of the user and it synchronizes the information from the social media account of the user. The collected information can be used in personalized email marketing.

Magento 2 Social Loginiser extension comes with 12 social media platform options for easy login. It is compatible with One Page Checkout and helps customers to complete the sign-up process in a few clicks. Social login 12 in 1 Magento 2 extension encourages quick sign-up, captures more leads, and reduces cart abandonment.

6. Magento 2 Review Reminder and Incentives Extension enhances customer satisfaction

Now you know how to uplift sales, reduce cart abandonment, and minimize the checkout friction. There are modules that are designed to increase user experience and built customer loyalty. The Review Reminder and Incentive extension is one that increases customer satisfaction.

The seller can offer Incentives to collect Product Reviews and Rating in Magento 2 stores. Giving customers a source of passive income can be beneficial. 92% of the visitors prefer reading the product reviews given by other customers to make the purchase decision.

7. Magento 2 Spin and Win Extension increases email subscribers

Add a fun game element to your store for gathering more email subscribers for the newsletter. Spin and Win – Magento 2 extension adds a gamified interface to the front end. This is a 3 in one plugin which can be used as an entry popup, exit popup, and email subscription module.

Attract more customers to your store with this customer engaging extension. It helps you increase the conversion rate and customer retention. There are many unique features that make it a part of the top 10 Magento 2 extension list.

8. Magento 2 Store Locator Extension allows the in-store pickup

By staying in their comfort zone and saving both time and energy, shoppers are happy shopping online. Many customers, however, believe in shopping online and picking the orders physically from the store. Online retailers should try to apply the BOPIS factor, i.e. Buy Online and Pick-up In-store, on their website.

The demand for one-click shopping and in-store pickup is increasing. The Store locator and pickup extension of the Magento 2 store detect the Geo-location of the customer to show the most appropriate recommendations for in-store pickup. Add Store Locator extension to Magento 2 store to keep up with the trend.

9. Magento 2 Affiliate and Referral program Extension

Give incentives or commission to the customers for new user registration, order placement, or both. Knowband developed an extension for the Magento 2 Affiliate and Referral Program that enables the customers to have an opportunity to become an affiliate and earn a profit. With this program, the owner can increase brand awareness at a low cost.

Affiliates have an opportunity to share vouchers with their referrals. These vouchers can be used during the checkout process. Customers are always looking for discounts and sellers are always looking to get more potential customers. Offering Incentives and making them an affiliate can solve both the purposes.

10. Magento 2 Multi-vendor Marketplace Extension

With such rising competition, keeping up with the market’s speed & trend is important. Today, the multi-vendor marketplace is attracting lots of vendors. The COVID 19 triggered the situation and now every brick and mortar is willing to sell online. This is the perfect time to convert your eCommerce Magento 2 website into a Multi-Seller Marketplace with a Multi-vendor Marketplace extension.

You will get a passive source of income and sellers will have a platform for their product to sell. The multi-vendor market place is a win-win idea booming these days. The extension has separate dashboards for admin and seller. Easy seller handling, product management, and many such features are incorporated into it. There are various types of online marketplaces and you can start your own with Multi-Vendor Marketplace Extension.

Wrapping up:

These are the top 10 extensions that can be a great fit for your Magento 2 store. I would recommend you to add them to your existing store for boosting sales, improving conversions, and enhancing user experience. To know more about these extensions, you can visit the Knowband store. All the Knowband extensions are designed to increase UX and are easy to configure.

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How to Attract Sellers on OpenCart Marketplace

Attracting sellers on a marketplace is more difficult than setting up an online store. The multi-vendor marketplace is the most prominent trends in the eCommerce industry. If you are looking forward to creating your own marketplace then OpenCart Marketplace Module can be the solution that will convert your OpenCart website into a Multi-Vendor Marketplace.

The OpenCart Marketplace extension is easy to configure and in a few simple steps you can start your own marketplace similar to eBay, Amazon, ETSY, etc., that too without coding. It allows customers to register as a seller on your marketplace and provide them with a platform to sale their products.

Are you facing problems in approaching sellers to your OpenCart Marketplace?

Marketplace extension makes everything effortless but attracting sellers is intimidating and is still a task. When your platform is ready, onboarding sellers on your marketplace and making them add their products should be the very first step of your marketplace project.

Being able to attract a large number of suppliers would likely decide the marketplace’s performance and make it appealing to customers. This article will explain to you how to attract sellers to your OpenCart online marketplace after launching a successful online eCommerce marketplace.

1.   Make smart strategies to market your marketplace

If you have launched or planning to launch a marketplace on the OpenCart website then your first target should be on marketing. If you have launched a website and you fail to grab the potential traffic then the whole process and efforts will go in vain. Develop a plan for customer acquisition by knowing your target audience and their purchase pattern.

  • Social Media is advantageous

If you belong to millennials then you know the importance of social media. After starting the OpenCart Multi vendor marketplace, promote your products on every possible social media platform to attract the potential customer. Try to make a profile that is easier to find and join the right groups. Share knowledgeable and thoughtful content. Irrelevant and useless content can push your customers away.

  • Pay attention to branding with ad

If you want to attract sellers to your OpenCart marketplace then you must have an excellent branding strategy that will help them grow. By explaining your branding plans and advertisement methods you can convince sellers to choose your marketplace as an e-commerce business platform. There are many options available for advertising your marketplace to reach customers such as running classic ads in newspapers, magazines, video advertising, and television ads.

  • Navigate the sellers with catalogs and blog posts

Let the world know about your marketplace seller’s success stories and reviews. With some marketing data, an insightful blog can tempt the sellers and get them close to your shop. In addition, Google indexes blogs can easily assist the administrator in a limited time to draw the interest of numerous sellers around the world.

2.   Let sellers know about the commission management plan

Sellers would love to register with your marketplace if you are maintaining the transaction transparency. OpenCart Marketplace plugin allows customers to register as sellers and has an option for affiliate customers incorporated within. Consider the following points for offering effortless commission management and to track earning:

  • With OpenCart Marketplace Module, the store owner can charge commission globally, product wise, category wise, or even a different commission to individual sellers. Explain this to the sellers beforehand to maintain the transparency.
  • Feel free to inform them about the tax charges and with the OpenCart marketplace plugin, the admin can add that tax charges in commission.
  • Follow a payment strategy for the payouts. You can make payments every day, weekly, or monthly. This leaves the books at the end of the sellers clean and liquidity preserved.

3.   Help them upload products and manage inventory

For all online retailers, inventory management is the greatest dilemma. This is another justification for them to hesitate to delve into the marketplace of multi-vendors. With the OpenCart Multi vendor marketplace, sellers can list their products with ease.

  • Inventory management

Offering inventory assistance can encourage sellers to register on your OpenCart marketplace. With the multi-vendor extension, sellers are able to monitor their store products and update customers with the required details. This significantly improves the acquisition of buyers and makes it easier to attract sellers.

  • Product listing

Adding new products on a marketplace appears to be difficult but now product listing is not a tedious task. Sellers can upload the CSV file for bulk enlisting of the products or add them one by one.

4.   Educate the sellers

Optimize the marketplace according to the vendors’ needs and it will become easier to persuade the vendors.

  • Teach sellers about the whole concept of the marketplace to make it easier for them.
  • Conduct consumer modules and training sessions because it helps sellers to understand the features and benefits.

The Marketplace’s limitless functionality will make sellers feel like they’re using their own website. Simple management of inventory, payment options, and order management will make the sellers’ whole business transaction smooth.

5.   Offer a customer support system

To encourage sellers to sell on your OpenCart marketplace, you must optimize the customer seller support system. It is needed to notify customers about the order status from time to time, provide good customer service to enhance customer experience which can boost customer retention rate.

  • Notify customers with Customized email templates

The OpenCart Marketplace extension provides numerous email templates to handle the entire contact between sellers and administrators, sellers & customers in the marketplace.

  • Helpdesk Customer Seller

In case of any question related to the product, customers may directly contact the sellers on the OpenCart Multi-Vendor Marketplace. This in turn draws buyers towards the brand and forces them to go for instant purchase.

  • Managing Product Return is not an issue

The returns can easily be initiated by the customers for the products. The OpenCart Multi-vendor marketplace seller and admin both will be able to access return requests from the vendor dashboard and process them.

6.   Consumer Sales Promotion

Sales promotion has been shown to be a successful marketing strategy for both mature and emerging companies to reach the customer about a new product. A new customer might not only be of interest to you but also be outstanding in the competition.

  • Reduce cost with discount

Studies have shown that when their prices are temporarily reduced, it is tempting to purchase more items.

  • Offer Coupons

The client would be inclined to buy from you again with gifts, discounts, coupons, and promo codes.

OpenCart Marketplace Extension allows sellers to run discounts and promotions by offering coupon codes to the customers.

In addition, the OpenCart Marketplace extension built by Knowband has several other features that make it much easier to dig into the multi-vendor scenario for the store administrator. These alluring features make the selling process effortless for the vendors.

How Knowband helps you in Creating Your OpenCart Multi vendor Marketplace?

1. Activate or deactivate seller profile

The administrator may easily enable a vendor to sell on the store from the OpenCart multi-vendor marketplace backend. If a seller’s profile is disabled, all the goods of that seller are automatically deleted.

2. View orders and the order status

The store administrator of OpenCart can monitor orders from the admin panel. On the admin screen, a list of orders with vendor details and order status will be shown.

3. Manage Product listing

OpenCart multi-vendor marketplace store owner has control to approve the products enlisted by sellers. Admin may set the appropriate field of approval globally or for the individual sellers.

4. Track customer-seller transactions

It is easy to track customer-seller transactions and total seller earnings from the marketplace module’s admin panel with the admin commission.

5. View and update seller review and product feedback

The vendor and the items in the store can be rated and reviewed by the customer. The OpenCart Multi-vendor marketplace plugin allows the seller to search, edit, and approve all customer feedback.

6. Versatile approach:

The robust mobile app is compliant with the OpenCart Multi-vendor Marketplace extension. It is compatible with all the themes and modules of OpenCart. The OpenCart Marketplace extension is compatible with all currency types. All types of products can be sold on the OpenCart Multi-vendor Marketplace extension.

Conclusion

It won’t be justified if I say you won’t face any difficulty after launching a marketplace because you will have to face a lot of problems while going through the process. Incorporating OpenCart Multi vendor Marketplace Plugin will reduce your extra efforts and help you run the store smoothly. You can refer to the user manual of the OpenCart Multi-Vendor marketplace for a better understanding of the module.
The chicken-and-egg problem of the marketplaces is not new but this is what it is. Set up your OpenCart marketplace and start generating revenue even when you are asleep.

For any queries feel free to write to us at support@Knowband.com

Buy Online and Pick up In-Store: How Click and Collect can Win Customers and Grow Sales

Online shopping from eCommerce websites is now a very common way of shopping. With changing time, the online shopping and pick up in-store concept is gaining thrust. People often opt for home delivery but many are opting for in-store pickup too.

Shoppers love picking their orders from the brick and mortar store because they don’t want to wait for it to deliver which may sometimes kill the excitement if delayed. Buy online and In-store Pickup is the best option for the impatient ones.

You can start offering ‘Click and Collect’ services on your store by incorporating ‘Store Locator and Pickup Extension’ to your existing website. The module developed by Knowband is easy to install and configure. It is catered specially for the merchants who want to allow the in-store pickup to their customers.

How does buy online and pick up in-store works?

The process of Buy online and Pick up in-store (BOPIS) also known as click and collect is simple and you need to follow the steps mentioned below:

Step 1: Buy your product online

Buy your product online through the website or mobile app of the store you want to purchase from.

Step 2: Choose the preferred store location on the checkout page

After the first step, select the near-by store from which you want to collect the order.

Step 3: Select the pick-up date and time

Following that, you have to mention the date and time on which you will be collecting the order.

Step 4: You will receive a confirmation mail

After the successful checkout, you have to wait for the confirmation mail sent by the store admin.

Step 5:  Collect the order from the selected store

In the meantime, the owner will pack your desired items for you.

Yay!! Now you can go and pick-up your order on the selected date.

Sellers are in advantage with ‘Click and Collect’

Shoppers want access to products instantaneously. They always look forward to finding a product that is available for instant purchase and ‘Click and Collect’ will lend a helping hand to sellers who believe in customer satisfaction.

The store locator and pick-up module are integrated with Google locations and allow customers to pick up from the nearby store. Some of the major benefits of buy online and pick-up in-store are discussed here.

1.        Save time and money on shipping

Higher shipping costs and delayed deliveries are a reason for cart abandonment. Click and collect service saves the shipping cost and encourages more customers to buy online. The merchant even saves money which is spent on the delivery channel.

No delivery boy is required, no transportation charges and moreover you save time.

2.        No more delivery failure

Late delivery can affect customer satisfaction and it might cause you, potential customers. But, if a customer purchases the product online and collects it from the store, there won’t be any delay or delivery failure. They can buy online and pick up from the store at their convenience.

3.        Increases Overall Sales

Even if a small customer base of your online shoppers converting to click and collect will uplift your sales. In reality, click-and-collect or BOPIS retailers reported an average sales growth of 20%.

•       Balance In-Store Inventory

Leveraging BOPIS from nearby brick-and-mortar locations enables order fulfillment. Geolocation intelligence identifies the closest store with the item in stock for delivery after a customer places an order online. If the product in stock is not available in local stores, retailers can conveniently import the items from another store location that has the item available, speeding up the process.

•       Increases Average Order Value

When a new customer arrives at your store, there are chances that he will purchase more products from your brick and mortar. This increases the average order value (AOV). Buy online and pick-up in-store hence increases overall sales.

4.        Fewer Product Returns

Product returns are the problem faced by every merchant being it small or a big brand. Allowing customers to purchase online and collect the order after trial can help you reduce the number of returns. You can promote this on your online store to grab customer attention and believe me, this will yield favorable results.

4 reasons why customers prefer Buy online and Pick up in-store

1.        No extra Shipping Charges

Customers do not have to pay charges for delivery or fast shipping. They can buy online and pick-up the order at their convenience from the nearest store without any hassle.

2.        Makes shopping easier

Many customers afraid to shop from new websites but a store with ‘buy online and pick up in-store’ which is present in their vicinity makes it easier. Let customers decide what they want, when they want it and how they get it. Offering freedom to purchase online, home delivery, or in-store pick-up is advantageous this is everything they are looking for. No late delivery and no more waiting!

3.        Gives customer more flexibility

Comfort and convenience are what every human is catering for. Online shoppers want retailers to make purchasing their products and services simpler. Consumers want websites and retailers to work together better as well. An extension like store locator and pick up allows customers to shop any time in their comfort zone and allows them to pick up the order with their convenience. This is the flexibility every customer is looking out for.

4.        Boosts customer loyalty

Customer loyalty is a result of customer satisfaction and overall customer journey while purchasing from your store. A business doesn’t work without potential buyers and the factors which can cause you customer opportunity are not an issue anymore.

Since store locator and pickup extension overcomes the major bounce rate issues like extra shipping charges and late delivery for impatient buyers, this is a highly recommended industry trend to implement in your store.

Knowband’s Store locator and Pickup Module for an eCommerce store

You can easily start ‘Buy Online and In-Store Pickup’ in your existing eCommerce store. Knowband is a specialized eCommerce platform that has developed several solutions for demands and requirements that an eCommerce store owner desires. The store locator and Pickup Module is the one designed to attain the need of launching the click and collect option in an online store.

  • It is integrated with Geolocation functionality and the store owner can easily generate Google API key for the Google maps.
  • The details like the name of the store, owner details, contact number, and store timings can be displayed using Store locator and Pickup Addon.
  • The module allows users to select the desired store location, date, and time for order pick-up.

The Store locator and Pickup Module is available for the following platforms:

Store Locator And Pickup – Prestashop Addons

Store Locator – Magento ® Extensions

Store Locator – Magento 2 ® Extensions

Store Locator – Opencart Extensions

Any online website on these platforms can incorporate the plugin and start offering click and collect to increase foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores.

Conclusion:

If the retailer allows connectivity between its online and in-store shopping networks and provides the opportunity to provide the consumer with a real-time feed of available inventory, in-store pickup is not difficult. This immediately lets the customer know if he/she can pick up the order from the desired store right away.

You can implement BOPIS- Buy online and Pickup in-store for better customer experience, grow sales, and to keep up with the trend. Undoubtedly!

Recommended Reads:

Key Benefits of Starting an Online Marketplace

The possible benefits to be obtained by entering an online marketplace can differ between industries and firms, and between buyers and sellers. If you are looking for the advantages and the downside of the online marketplace before starting one then you have landed on the right page.

The marketplace model is booming in the business industry and the growth rate is out of the blue. Companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, ETSY are operating for years and are now at the top.

There are many types of online marketplaces and websites where you can sell your goods to customers who would not otherwise find you, in addition to having your own physical and e-commerce shop. An online marketplace has various advantages for the admin, seller, and buyers.

Benefits of Online Marketplace for your businesses

An online marketplace is a platform for small businesses to bring it on the web. Sellers and merchants are benefited but the customers get the most advantage. Some of the potential advantages are summarised below:

General business benefits

Develop new partnerships:

There are greater opportunities, either within their supply chain or through supply chains, for sellers and buyers to develop new trading relationships. The radar of a marketplace is anytime greater than an individual eCommerce website because many sellers and buyers from different niches come to the same platform for their needs.

Greater Transparency:

Because the availability, rates and stock levels are all available in an open environment; e-marketplaces can provide greater transparency in the buying process.

Operate anytime:

Time restrictions and concerns with various working hours for foreign trade are avoided when round-the-clock operations are feasible. No one has to wait for the shop to open as these marketplaces can be operated anytime from anywhere. The online Marketplace is highly convenient for both sellers and buyers.

Easy Management:

Product Information Management software that automates the bulk upload to your marketplaces of product information. This way, at the same time, you can be sure that the catalog and stock details are standardized in all your networks.

Choose Revenue Stream:

There are two ways the marketplaces earn income, one is commission based and another is by charging subscription or membership fees. Some of the e-marketplaces find commission the best choice as it is easier to operate and is a sustained source of income. While the online marketplaces like OLX make money through premium subscription plans.

Benefits of the online marketplace for the buyer

Best Deals:

Buyers can secure the best deals due to updated information on the availability and price of the product. An online marketplace brings the right buyers in touch with the right sellers with much greater precision than it could ever happen in a simple web search.

Convenient to compare product and prices:

Instead of wasting time calling individual suppliers, e-marketplaces provide an easy way to compare rates and products on a single platform. One of the key benefits of an online marketplace is that it puts together all deals from different vendors or service providers. Customers are more likely to use an app with a wide variety of choices so that they can select exactly what they want without restricting a single provider to their preference.

Builds Trust:

Developed e-marketplaces provide the customer with a degree of confidence as they exclusively work with vendors who are members. This builds trust and looks convincing when a new customer visits the eCommerce marketplace. A significant number of buyers feel intimidated by sharing card details for financial transactions when they operate on a new website.

Benefits of the online marketplace for the seller

Regular orders

Sellers get daily requests from both new and existing customers for quotes and products. An e-marketplace increases business opportunities. You could meet customers with whom you’ve never crossed paths before, or pursue new demographic niches and find new prospects for sales.

Sales Channel

You provide multiple touchpoints for clients to connect with your brand when you sell through multiple platforms, online, offline, and everywhere in between. To advertise and sell products, the online marketplace creates an alternative distribution channel.

Low cost of marketing

When compared to other distribution platforms, e-marketplaces may deliver reduced marketing costs. The seller can reach a potential customer with little effort. You can sell right there where potential customers are found without investing either extra time or money. Marketplaces have the benefit that they have their resources, target groups, and customers.

Sales overseas

The global e-marketplaces will provide opportunities that you would not be aware of for overseas sales. Through online marketplaces, overseas sales are incredibly easy. In particular, foreign operators, such as Amazon or eBay, typically provide assistance and rights to retailers. In the face of high inventory levels, an enticing price will persuade foreign customers most of all. Provide multiple payment gateways according to customer demands.

Final Words:

These were the major advantages of the online marketplace but never forget the fact that there is a risk involved in every new business. Different types of online marketplaces are classified considering several parameters like their focus, niche, revenue-generating system, etc. If you want to start your marketplace or sell on an e-marketplace then you should study both advantages and disadvantages. An online marketplace might be the ticket to building a big, profitable business with a lasting impact if you can resolve the challenges.

Recommended Reads:

How to Use the Newly Launched Instagram Reels for Business Marketing

Instagram Stories have already marked a significant shift in the way we create, share, and interact with content on social media. This style of content is fun, casual, and quick-fire and it’s being rolled out on a massive scale.

People are already using Instagram for marketing purposes and many are running their businesses on Instagram itself. It is important to have followers for increasing engagement on your product page. We already know how important is #hashtag when it comes to social media especially Instagram. After the launch of Instagram Reels, the business marketer got another opportunity to display their products and portfolios.

In this blog, I am going to discuss how Instagram reels work. Firstly, what is this new feature? Secondly, how Instagram reel can benefit business marketing? Lastly, How to create an interesting reel? Let’s get started:

What is Instagram Reel?

It’s been a month when Instagram introduced reels in the year 2020, no doubt they snagged this interesting idea from the popular competent app TikTok. From a survey, 9 out of 10 Americans think Instagram Reels is similar to TikTok.

The Instagram reel allows the user to make captivative, fun, and short video clips that can be posted as a reel, a story, or in the news feed. Reels in the Explore section will showcase Instagram’s best trending culture. Discover an entertaining customized selection of reels made by anyone on Instagram.   You can easily like, comment, or share a reel with your friends if you love it.

Instagram Reels in Business Marketing

I will be giving you 7 ways how you can use the reels for your business marketing? But before explaining that I would like you to explore the trending reels and learn how others are doing it. It is always good to learn from others when you are jumping into something you never did before.

Make a Tutorial Clip

If you are into education not the real lecture or whiteboard tutor, instead you’re doing tutorials or step-by-step videos for products or tips in your industry, certainly, Reels can create videos of a similar style.

Give some Pro Tips

Are you already into digital marketing or an expert in your field? Then, Instagram reels can be a good platform for giving some pro tips and advice to the world. Make a short clip and do not forget to put Call-to-Action message clearly into your content.

A DIY on Reel

A “Do It Yourself” video clip can be made with Instagram Reel. DIY’s are most watched and people like exploring new ideas of building, modifying, or repairing things without the direct aid of experts or professionals.

Best way to Display Outfits

A fashion influencer or a Merchant business owner can display as many outfits as possible in one short clip. Keep the device in one place and divide the clip into multiple parts. This will create an appealing display video for your outfits.

Why not a Behind the Scenes Clip?

It is fun watching behind the scenes videos. You can make one for your IGTV tutorial which you have recently posted or for a YouTube video of your food channel. this is a great idea!

Product Demo

Are you an Influencer who promotes other products? Is your company launching a new product? Take the advantage of Instagram Reels. Make the product demo and let people explore it in their feeds.

Product Assembly

If you own a furniture business then make a reel for the product assembly. Not just furniture but a product assembly reel can be made for any object which appears as a Jig-Sa to the people.

How to Create Your First Reel on Instagram?

It’s easy to create your Reels on Instagram App but it only supports the mobile device.

You need to follow these basic steps:

  • Record your video with reels or use a pre-recorded video clip or a sequence of clips not more than 15sec
  • If you record without audio, choose a popular song or borrow the audio of someone else’s video but do not prejudice the Copywrite rights.
  • Edit your video using the built-in Instagram editing tools, like time-synced captions, filters and transition overlay.
  • Let the world see your reel as stories or news feeds!

Final Thoughts

Marketers and businesses must adopt a new strategy. In the era of digital marketing, platforms are constantly changing. Social media managers and marketers need to be flexible and willing to learn constantly. I can’t say this is the best possible option but you can give it a try with your old video clips or a bunch of photos to test the results.

As I said earlier, explore more before making one for your own business. It does have some limitations for business accounts like the audio functionality is not available but you can figure out a way to make your video more interesting and engaging.

If you have any tips and advice and you are going to try it after reading this then please write a comment below and let me know how it went? Make a film, edit, upload, and have fun!

Recommended reads:

How to Prepare Online Store for Holiday Season- Module Guide

Every eCommerce store merchant waits for the holiday season because there is maximum participation of the online shoppers in the store during this time. Along with that holiday season records the highest sales in the entire year. It is time to prepare online store for holiday season.

Over the next few months, the online stores will be planning for a shopping marathon, and eCommerce traders need to get ready to meet the enormous demands that come with that. You need to do the eCommerce holiday planning, starting with effective marketing strategies, offering free shipping and easy returns, and a lot more to stand out from the competitors.

Optimizing the store for all these points is necessary to achieve holiday sales, nothing holds more importance than providing customers with a seamless and hassle-free shopping experience and increase customer retention.

Refer to an eCommerce Holiday Calendar for holiday readiness.  As you know, the holiday season begins from Halloween and ends at the arrival of the New Year and you have to plan your marketing campaigns months before it begins.

ECommerce Holiday Season Statistics 2020

If we talk about global m-commerce stats, it has already surpassed eCommerce. The numbers speak about the importance of smooth site functionality on mobile devices.

  1. Did you know m-commerce accounted for 35.8% of the total sales in the US in 2020, as per Statista? For the year 2020, the record sales according to Statista was 755.3 billion US dollars, which was 729.3 in the year 2019 and 701.2 billion dollars in 2018.
  1. Customer Loyalty is a major concern for every business. From the previous year’s eCommerce holiday season data, only 12% of customers are continuing to stay loyal.
  1. During the 4th quarter of 2020, Amazon generated total net sales of 125.56 billion U.S. dollars, surpassing 87.44 billion U.S. dollars in the same quarter of the previous year.
  1. Adobe tweeted, online shoppers spent 4 billion U.S. dollars during 2020’s Cyber Week — a 20.7% increase YoY.
  2. 2020 was a delight to small businesses as 44% of people planned to spend on small businesses.

How to prepare your online business for the holidays?

For starters, add some holiday vibe to your online store. Use attractive banners with holiday offers, discounts along with the wishes to make it more engaging. Additionally, you can use eCommerce plugins that enhance customer engagement, brand awareness, customer retention and gives a flawless checkout experience.

Here is the list of 13 modules by KnowBand which can help you optimize your store this holiday season. This is the time to start preparing for a holiday rush to ensure a lucrative selling season.

Modules to increase customer engagement

In a dynamic eCommerce environment, stay ahead of trends and in line with the industry’s fresh and up-to-date trends. Use Spin and Win Popup and Exit Pop up for customer engagement.

1.   Add exciting Spin and Win Popup

Increase customer engagement on your website by adding a Gamification element. Popup draws the attention of your customers towards the eye-catching spin-win wheel module and engages them in a fun activity.

Along with user engagement, this plugin can be a treat to your home page. It has several themes for every occasion and event, for example, Christmas, New Year, Halloween, and Cyber Monday themes for the holiday season. Visitors are asked to try their luck by spinning the wheel and grab some exciting offers. But, to complete the spin, a user needs to share their email address, which you can use for your eCommerce email marketing campaigns, and thus boost your conversions.

The module provides merchants with tons of customization ranging from designing the look of the popup to set up the time for the popup appearance. Click here to check out the Spin and Win fortune wheel module.

Available for:

PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, Magento 2, WooCommerce, and Shopify

2.   Exit Pop-up

The next eCommerce Holiday planning idea is to add an Exit Popup in your digital commerce. It is not always used to show an offer. You can configure it as per your requirements based on what outcomes you want to achieve through it.

Exit popup appears when a customer leaves the browsing area or intends to exit the tab. You can make the pop-up as appealing as you can. Also, you can ask for feedback from your customers.

Using the exit pop-up module can reduce the bounce rate, increase customer engagement, and boosts conversions. During the holiday season, you can compel users to shop more from your eCommerce store by offering some exciting offers when they are about to leave.

Knowband provides an exit pop-up module.

Available for:

Prestashop, Magento, and OpenCart store

Prepare For Customer Retention

All eCommerce stores look forward to repeating sales and to make it easier, Knowband has a range of plugins. Adding a Gift Card and Loyalty Point program will be a great holiday season idea.

3.   Offer Loyalty Points

Encourage repeat purchases by rewarding your customers with loyalty points. Our Loyalty Points module ensures customer retention as well as customer acquisition. It lets you provide reward points to every new user who performs a sign-up on your store and triggers impulse buying, followed by more loyalty points on the successful purchases.

This marketing strategy converts visitors into potential buyers and makes them stick to your store in the long run. It also enhances brand loyalty to a great extent. You can set up some rules for users like offer loyalty points when customers share their feedback. It can also include offering loyalty points based on the total cart value, product quantity, product price, selected payment methods, etc.

These points can be used as a discount voucher on the checkout page. Click here to check out the Loyalty Point module.

Available for:

PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, and Magento 2 store

4.   Gift the Product

Since you are setting up your store for the holiday season blast, you can attract visitors and upsell by giving gift products on a fixed amount of purchase.

There are some major advantages of giving gifts with purchase. It increases the average cart value, boosts conversion, and reduces the bounce rate on your store.

Gift the product is an amazing plugin and it can set your sales on fire. It is a sales strategy that attracts and converts the buyers. Refer to this blog that explains how you can use the Gift with Purchase campaign in B2C Marketing.

Available for:

PrestaShop and Opencart

Build Brand Awareness

5.   Gift Card Module

While striking off the eCommerce holiday season checklist for customer retention and advance sales, consider selling personalized digital gift cards.

The Gift card module is a must-have plugin for holiday season sales,  as it brings new customers to your store. Also, it saves your customer from sending awful gifts to their loved ones.

Other benefits of the Gift Card module are that it boosts brand awareness and makes digital gifting easy. Customers can send photo gift cards with custom messages.

Explore Knowband Gift card Manager extension.

Available for:

Prestashop, Magento, and OpenCart eCommerce stores.

eCommerce Plugins to improve the shopping experience

When developing an eCommerce website, you have to make sure that the website is mobile responsive and keep users engaged for a while. Create a mobile app for your website or make the pages mobile responsive with the AMP module. You can also use the Progressive web app (PWA) plugin to make your digital commerce user-friendly.

6.   Mobile App Builder

Mobile App Builder is not just a module for holiday season sales but it is for everyday user experience.

It lets you transform your eCommerce website into an Android and iOS Mobile App conveniently, without any requirement of coding or technical knowledge. The app will give a rich and user-friendly, experience to smartphone users.

Since users nowadays demand an app for an easy browsing experience, the Mobile App Builder module makes it the best fit to provide an amazing user experience.

The holiday season is coming close, now is the best time to introduce your mobile app and delight your users, and grab huge holiday sales.

Moreover, to achieve the best shopping experience, the Mobile App Builder offers easy customization, Social login, Fingerprint login, and OTP login. Also, it has WhatsApp live chat and Zopim Chat support. The real-time synchronization of the website into App is a bonus. Sell across the world with its multi-lingual support, multiple payment and shipping methods, etc.

Check out here.

We are currently running an exclusive offer for the PrestaShop website owners where they can get an additional 30% discount on the new purchase.

All you need to do is apply the coupon code “MOBI30” during the checkout.

Available for:

Prestashop, OpenCart, and Magento eCommerce stores

7. Reduce site load time with AMP

Our AMP module tackles the slow loading of your website on mobile devices and increases the page load speed to a great extent. When website traffic is at its peak in the holiday season, the website speed may get affected.

Thus, the AMP module, ensures that your mobile users do not find any troublesome experience with your website and are offered a faster and smoother loading.

Also, faster loading not only helps you reduce the bounce rate but also benefits in improved mobile rankings on the search engine.

Talking about its features, you can enable the AMP functionality for multiple pages on your website like the Home page, Category page, Product page, etc. You can also customize these pages as per your requirements.

Available for:

PrestaShop AMP Addon

OpenCart AMP Extension

8.   Choose PWA over Native

A Progressive web app provides App like experience when a customer explores the website on a mobile browser. In the holiday season, eCommerce receives a lot of attention, and to keep your customers engaged, you have to provide a responsive interface. PWA makes the store more interactive and user-friendly.

Even with no internet, the website will display the products and loads the pages using saved caches. PWA is smooth, lightweight, and fast loading. Convert your website into a PWA with KnowBand’s Progressive web app builder without any coding knowledge.

A responsive website is engaging and has the potential to convert your visitors into customers and they will spend more time. Provide an awesome user experience to your customers when they visit your store for holiday shopping.

Available for:

PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento 2, WooCommerce

Recommended Reads:

For flawless Checkout experience

9. One Page Checkout

Being an eCommerce store owner, you must provide your customers with a hassle-free checkout experience this holiday season. Unlike the multi-step checkout process, it displays all the checkout elements on a single page and reduces the checkout friction.

To make the checkout path convenient for customers, our One Page Checkout offers Social Login, Guest Checkout, Inline Validation, Google Auto-address fill, and supports nearly all the payment methods and shipping services. A long and complicated checkout shackles the shopping experience which eventually results in cart abandonment.

The Prestashop One Page Checkout is our best seller extension. It has 10000+ downloads on the PrestaShop Addon store while 12000+ downloads on the KnowBand store.

Find the complete features and benefits of the One Page checkout module for the respective platforms:

Prestashop One Page Checkout

OpenCart One Page Checkout

Magento One Page Checkout

Magento 2 One Page Checkout

Marketing technique for abandoned cart recovery

10. Abandoned Cart

The Abandoned Cart module helps you recover your lost sales by sending regular follow-up emails to the abandoned carters. With so many competitors, there are hundreds of choices available and many users leave the orders in their cart. While planning for the holiday season, prepare your store to track the user behavior for cart abandonment.

The module reminds users about incomplete purchases and converts them into customers by including exclusive offers in your emails and on a reminder pop-up.

You can send serial emails as reminders and if not sure how to write an abandoned cart email, refer to our guide.

The Abandoned Cart module can boost your conversions significantly.

Available for:

PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, and Magento 2 Abandoned Cart Addons

Module To improve customer loyalty

11. Return Manager

Are you prepared for managing the order returns? Since the holiday season captures a huge number of orders, there will be returns for sure. Use a return manager to prepare online store for holiday Season. Our Return Manager module ensures that you do not lose out on customers due to a poor return process.

The Return Manager module helps you manage your eCommerce returns conveniently and enhances customer loyalty by making the return process way too easy for the customers.

The module provides 3 return choices to the customers in the form of Credits, Refund, and Replacement, and allows them to highlight the defect by uploading the image of the defective/damaged product. One interesting feature of the module is that the admin can create the return request on the customer’s behalf.

Available for:

PrestaShop, Magento, and Magento 2

Extend Your Business Reach

12.  Booking and Rental system for PrestaShop

PrestaShop Booking and Rental system addon provides your customers with a hassle-free online booking experience and makes it a simple task for the merchants to manage their online bookings.

This PrestaShop addon offers an appointment booking facility, hotel booking facility, and rental booking facility. It lets you adjust your booking days and time slots as per the availability, and you can adjust the price for different days and timing. There is much more it offers for every booking type.

If you have a costume rental business then this Halloween, manage your orders with KnowBand’s Booking and Rental system plugin.

Check out the OpenCart and PrestaShop Booking and Rental System addon to know the complete features and benefits.

If you wish to transform your online booking PrestaShop website into a mobile app, you can look out for PrestaShop Booking and Rental Mobile App.

13.   Product Customization

Consumers are increasingly demanding a customized shopping experience from their favorite brands. Delivering an amazing customer experience that can help you grow sales this Christmas season requires a strong customer data management system and personalization tools.

Personalization benefits have also made their way into the product experience. Customization allows online consumers to create more considerate gifts, which is a product feature that is projected to grow in popularity over time. It’s a brilliant and memorable method to please customers to have a pleasant interface that allows them to customize a product online.

Customers may choose the appropriate printing options for their items with KnowBand’s Product Customizer.

Available for:

Opencart and PrestaShop eCommerce store

14.   Multi-vendor marketplace

Earn extra cash this holiday season and make money while you sleep. You can introduce your marketplace website and allow vendors to sell on it. A marketplace runs on various commission models like membership fees, commission model, and subscription plans, etc.

KnowBand’s multivendor marketplace provides major two revenue options. The store manager can create different membership plans. Also, they can charge a commission on products sold.

It has several facilities for the admin and seller of the marketplace. Convert your website into a multi-vendor marketplace like Amazon or ETSY. Whether you are a new or an experienced merchant, you can always look forward to expanding your services.

Available for:

PrestaShop, Magento, Magento 2, and OpenCart eCommerce

Modules to send stock alerts

15. Web Push Notifications

Notifications and stock alerts can drive your customer’s psychology and trigger impulse buying. This holiday season, notify your customers about the new arrivals, price drops, various product statuses, and abandoned cart details.

Knowband’s Web Push Notifications module lets merchants schedule the alerts for their users about product availability with push notifications. For each of them, the user can decide whether they want to receive updates regarding them.

Moreover, you can customize the welcome popup in the holiday season theme that shows the request message for notification approval.

Available for:

PrestaShop Web Push Notifications

Magento Web Push Notifications

Magento 2 Web Push Notifications

16.   Back in Stock Alert module

Many customers visit multiple stores to compare product prices.  and  You can compel the Customer to Return to your Store with the Back in Stock Module. The Back-in-stock module allows the eCommerce store owners to inform the customers about the re-stocked products.

It sends a push notification or an email to registered customers about the product which is back in stock. The customers can opt to get notified when the product of their interest comes back in stock.

You can find the back in Stock Module for your Prestashop and Magento eCommerce store on our Knowband Shop.

Available for:

PrestaShop, OpenCart and Magento

For Customer Acquisition

17. The Affiliate and Referral Marketing

The Affiliate and Referral Program module allows users to register as an Affiliate partner on your store and earn commissions for every successful referral. Affiliate and referral marketing is a sneaky way to earn passive income.

The user can refer your store to his/her friends, family, relatives, etc. by sharing with them the affiliate link or the referral code. In addition, they can  send it over email and also share the link on social media directly from their affiliate account.

You can assign the commission to the affiliate partner for every new signup via their referral and also provide incentives when the referred user places an order. The commission rate can be set under the configurations of the module. Check out

Available for:

PrestaShop Affiliate and Referral Program

Magento Affiliate and Referral Program

Magento 2 Affiliate and Referral Program

Wrap up: That’s it. Get your desired module before it gets too late to leave an impact on your holiday sales. One thing is for sure: The online commerce sales on holiday season 2021 will increase and if you don’t have an online presence for your business, you need to get started.

Plan out your goal, remain updated with trends, and use new technologies.

Here are some helpful resources to get you started:

What is the best way to start an online store?

The most effective eCommerce platforms

How to optimize the product page?

If you have to need eCommerce assistance, you can drop a mail to us at support@knowband.com

Prestashop Modules to Offer Best Customer Support

A great customer support system can reinforce the teams working to achieve respective goals in a company. To fulfill the demands of the customer and improve customer experience, strategic planning, support tools, and a fully dedicated team play a significant role.

The information collected from the user can be implemented to improve customer service by making reasonable policies that can help the company grow and flourish your PrestaShop customer support.

Customer support is an indicator of customer repurchase and loyalty. Customer satisfaction assures you that the customer will be willing to purchase from you in the future.

In a marketplace where companies are competing to grab more customers, a customer support system can back you up. A company with versed customer services can sustain longer and can provide outstanding customer experience.

There are some amazing modules that have been developed by the Knowband team to help you with customer support management and in improvising customer experience on your PrestaShop store.

1. RMA to manage returns and canceled orders

I am putting Return Manager Addon first on the list because sellers find it hectic and fail to manage the return or canceled orders. Prestashop RMA will help you manage the returns easily as it is fully configured and you can track the return orders from the backend of the module.

Store admin can see various choices for reacting to the return if the customer claims that the item arrived damaged or does not fit the listing description. Also, the customer can upload the image of the faulty product with a reason or add one if it does not match the listed description. This will hopefully reduce your tension of order return management.

2. Deskoid Helpdesk system for customer service

The Deskoid Helpdesk system provides a unified customer experience which makes it easier for the customers to shop from your Prestashop online store. The Prestashop Deskoid Helpdesk add-on combines the store with a helpdesk ticket system.

The admin will provide an interface with the aid where clients will contact the support team for any query or problem and it shows the message thread inside the message block hence they can also see old tickets.

3. Facebook Messenger – Live Chat Support Module

Half of the world’s population is using mobile phones and most of them are on social media platforms. The Social Messenger module can be used by PrestaShop store admin for live chat support to enhance the customer experience. It helps customers to connect using their personal Facebook messenger account with the store owners.

The administrator will set the look and feel settings for the icon and window of the social messenger. Live chat support can boost the conversion rate and customer acquisition.

Final Thought:

Customer services are a considerable stream to spend your time and money if you own an eCommerce company. To provide better customer services you should have a live desktop chat support, easy return policy and management system, contact forums or you can provide customer care calling services.

Customer satisfaction and UX plays an essential role in an eCommerce for business growth and productivity. With 24×7 customer support channels show your customer that you care.

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