hints and tips

Nov 201428

Tailoring Your Customers Online Experience!

andrew ecommerce, etrader, hints and tips

Online shopping is a pretty simple mundane task, a simple transaction process - nothing more, and nothing less. The transaction process is repeated online approximately 200,000 times per day for UK garment decorators. The worry for businesses is customers can afford to pick and choose who they deal with. The key for garment decorators is to set your online experience apart from your competitors, make your business stand out and offer your customers more.

Here at eTrader, we have come up with something to address the problem!

Your business will rarely meet the majority of your customers, so the key to success is offering customers more online – a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to make your business stand out from your competitors and the rest of the crowd. Offer your customer the personal touch, the ‘experience’ and build up a connection through your website.

This is seen as essential online practice when dealing with larger customers. Whether your customer is a school, sports clubs, groups/organisations, regular contracts or repeat customers, you’ll want to do everything you can to make it as simple as possible for them to place orders and give them something your competitors can’t compete with!

Just Simply Remember - It may be your website but it’s their experience!

eTrader addresses the need of tailored online experiences by offering fully customisable shops that can be easily set up to meet each of your customer’s needs. For other businesses implementing this, the cost of using web developers to develop their existing or a new site is highly expensive and time consuming process. But with eTrader it could not be simpler, with easy to follow instructions letting you fully customise shops to meet each customer’s personal preference.

Creating shops streamlines business between you and your customers a much simpler process - cutting out the lengthy negotiations back and forth, the administration, processing etc. Setting up an online personal shop is the most effective way of personalising your larger customers shopping experience.

Customising your business is not difficult or time consuming but it is a key tool in ensuring you retain key customers and perform financially.

eTrader Tip:

Customise content within personalised shops to meet your major customer’s specific needs; retention is vital for garment decorators in the current economy!
Provide your customer an online experience mirroring your in-store experience and service, this will ensure your customers will keep coming back!

Nov 201421

Garment Decorators - Making the most of the bad days!

andrew ecommerce, etrader, hints and tips, social media

The garment decorating industry is a complex one (as you’re all probably more than aware of!) there are many challenges ahead for garment decorators alike, however big or small your business is. The industry has seasonal peaks and troughs which most garment decorators simply accept - calling it the nature of the industry.

BUT the quiet period isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are ways to make the most of the downturn and prepare your garment business for what etrader

Sep 201906

Maximising Twitter Lists

andrew etrader, hints and tips, latest news, marketing, social media

Twitter lists are one of the biggest hidden secrets in Social Media, an under-utilised tool to help gain followers and interact with potential new customers.

The challenge for businesses is the platform itself has over 330m users and over 500m tweets are sent per day through these accounts. Twitter lists allow you to cut through the cluttered news feeds and interact with accounts based on interests, keywords and topics (They also give you the chance to keep one eye on your competition!)

Simply click the three dots (…) next to an account name and click add or remove from list, this will give you the option to create a new list or add accounts to an existing one.

Ideal for garment decorators you can group up lists of potential customers by sector, existing customers, local schools and many other target customers. Engage with these lists on a regular basis instead of using a slapdash approach and using your general news feed.

To get started here are some tips for help with maximising your lists:

Create separate lists for your target audience – a list for existing clients, prospects, accounts of interest and so on
Create a list dedicated to your competition – keep a track on what your competitors are offering in their Social Media campaigns and keep a private list to see what is working and what is not similar businesses
Grow your followers – as well as creating your own list it may be likely your account itself will be added to one by someone else. You can see all lists you are a member of, this will also display all their followers who may also be a target audience for you
Find existing lists online – there are tools out there to find existing lists based on whatever your search might be, use this and identify existing lists to potentially replicate

If you use Social Media management tools like Hootsuite, Crowdfire etc you can also integrate your lists and create custom feeds to use and monitor on an hourly, daily or weekly basis.

Lists require a bit more effort than conventional Social Media techniques, but the results can lead to an increase in your Social Media following, increased coverage and engagement which can only be a good thing for driving traffic to your businesses website.

Aug 201909

Why You Should Declutter Your Businesses Website

andrew ecommerce, etrader, hints and tips, latest news, marketing, web design

Your businesses website is no different to your store appearance is everything. Customers will walk past a tired, messy and cluttered store with minimal or next to no interest.

The same goes for your website!

Customers will click and shop around looking for the simplest user experience possible. They do not want to be confused, overloaded with information or be faced with a difficult to use website. In Lehman terms they want to go online, order their printed t-shirts for an event, work or whatever the occasion may be and checkout. They are not as excited as most garment decorators by set up costs, stitch counts and number of colours within a print.

Strive for simplicity and provide your customer base an easy to use experience, shopping basket and make sure they do not need to search around when it comes to buying branded clothing.

With that in mind, here are five tips to help declutter your businesses website:

Streamline Your Home/Navigation Bar: This is the spine of your site and holds it all together in terms of accessibility. M your customers and the industry throw at you next. The key to doing this successfully involves developing skills and smart practices that will allow your business to remain profitable during off-seasons and periodic slowdowns.

Here are some of our key hints & tips to help you and your business during these times:

Gain an understanding of the cycles in the garment decorating industry: The industry has a natural yearly cycle which is pretty universal meaning seasonality is inevitable. The challenge for decorators alike is to understand each season, what it means for you, your business, your online performance and how to best utilise each season to maximise profit.

Work on your planning/management skills: A key tool in making the most of the downturn is foresight. As an owner of a garment decorating business, the focus is on profit not planning. However, much research shows planning is key in making this profit. Plan rigorously, leaving no stone unturned – consider all situations and scenarios for your embroidery or printing business and how to best prepare for these. Manage your resources and people as effectively as possible to fit into this plan and your overall strategy.

Generate new ideas and fill the service gap: The printing & embroidery industry is a highly adaptable sector; you can transform simple garments into anything you like; with flexible e-commerce systems (such as our eTrader websites) offering opportunities to branch into other areas/markets. You don’t have to build up expensive new businesses branching off your core business. Simply, test your products in new markets, tailor your new printed/embroidered products for certain industries and play about with ideas (In a cost effective manner of course).

Stay in touch with your customers: Become pragmatic, find your customers. Don’t wait for them to come back to you. A proactive approach to business in the quiet periods is much more likely to yield results than that of sitting around accepting the situation. The key is constant communication with your customers, simply send out soft email campaigns, engaging in social media campaigns or simply just make a courtesy call. Your prerogative will always be sales, but just simply let them know you and your business are still there to meet their needs.

In conclusion, these simple hints & tips show your printing and embroidery business does not have to come to an abrupt halt. There are many areas within your garment decoration business that can be used to increase sales and defeat the downturn.

The logic is simple: Build up your solid foundations for your core garment decorating business - but when the going gets tough, be smart,innovative and pragmatic in your approach to managing your business effectively.

Don’t just settle for following the normal industry cycles, set your own!

Nov 201418

Slow quarters aren't the end of the world!

andrew ecommerce, etrader, hints and tips

It’s that time of year where garment decorators alike start to pull their hair out, the volume of sales has decreased - the school uniforms have been fulfilled, sports teams simply don’t order once their seasons underway and businesses are simply being constrained by tight budgets. The key for garment decorators is to somehow not just survive but thrive.

The answers simple! – Develop your online presence; reaching new levels with your business. Here are a few simple pieces of advice to help you improve your business online and enhance your customer’s online experience & increase sales:

Homepage

1. Arouse interest and create demand: Exciting and emotional images and texts with call to action can whet your customer’s appetite.

2. Sales appeal: Position your top selling products in highly visible areas along with featured products. Make products highly desirable and eye catching using the tools at your disposal.

3. Consistency: Be clear and consistent throughout your homepage, using clear concise eye- catching content sticking to your brand guidelines and aimed at your target audience and key customers.

Product Pages

1. Present your product appealingly: Make it eye catching, something to remember! Display big images and offer the possibility to zoom in.

2. Information about product features: Clearly show the most important product details. Many don’t do this on sites but by showing the customer your attention to detail, you’ll reap the rewards.

Purchasing

1. Stick to the basic ordering/invoicing: Remove all website elements which are not necessary to display to keep the focus on the actual products.

2. Create safety and trust: Keep on displaying important trust elements such as customer reviews.

3. Communicate effectively: Offer the customer the latest updates regarding their order as soon as possible (Generating that previously mentioned trust).

4. Quick and customer-friendly process: Stick to the user friendly experience, offer customers what they want, customers often require a speedy easy to order process (like the eTrader way). Stick to this and you can’t go wrong!

Final thought, it’s important to see things from the customers’ perspective. From main page to check out, always be self-critical and ask yourself what you can do to improve your customer’s experience.

Dec 201218

Learn SEO: SEO Tips for Beginners

Morgan hints and tips, seo

According to Google, 95% of all online searchers never go past the first page of results.

Ask yourself these two questions:

1. Is my website on the first page of results for my industry’s major keywords?

If not…

2. What can I do about it?

If your website is not showing up on the first page of Google, Yahoo! or Bing for your industry’s major keywords then your website is not receiving the traffic that it should be and your business is not acquiring as many leads as it needs to be.

As far as online searchers are concerned, if they don’t see your website on the first page of results then it might as well not even exist.

Now, I’m sure that isn’t the kind of news you want to hear after you invested all that time and money into your website. Fortunately, there are things that you can do to improve your website’s rankings. Keep in mind that some of the things we will talk about in this article take time and patience.

The following information is free advice on how to improve your search engine rankings.

SEO Beginner Tip 1: Title Tags

Title Tags are one of, if not, the most important on-site SEO component. A webpage’s title tag is located at the top of your internet browser.

A webpage’s title tag tells the search engines, and the public, what they can expect to find on that page. Without proper title tags the odds of your page being ranked high for your industry’s keywords are extremely low.

What you want to do is place your keywords in the title tags of your site’s pages. Make sure that each page on your site has a unique title tag relating to the content on the page.

SEO Beginner Tip 2: Meta Data

Meta data is information that is hidden in the code of your site and that the search engines use to find out more information about each page on your site. This data, while not as important to search rankings as it once was, is still useful and should be added to each page of your website.

The first piece of meta information that you want to add to each page is called the “meta description.”

The meta description is literally a description of what can be found on the corresponding page.

Your meta description should not only describe what can be found on the page, but also include a call to action. Being ranked high in the search engines is good, but if people are not clicking on your link then it doesn’t matter how high you are ranked. You want to give people a good reason to visit your site.

Also, make sure that your meta description contains the keywords that you are optimizing that particular page for.

The next piece of meta information is your “meta keywords.” Meta keywords are not used by Google anymore in regards to how they rank your site. There is some indication that Bing and Yahoo! still use them, but the weight that they give them in their search algorithm is very low. We still suggest placing these keywords in the code of your site because things change so much with the three major search engines that it is better to be safe than sorry. We may wake up tomorrow to find out that meta keywords are now important again and having to go through all your website’s pages again to add them could take a lot of time. It’s better to add them now and not have to worry about it later.

Your meta keywords should contain all the keywords related to your SEO campaign and all industry keywords that are related to that particular page regardless if you are optimizing for them or not.

SEO Beginner Tip 3: Internal Linking

Internal linking is not only helpful for search engine rankings, but it also allows your visitors to find other pages on your site that may not be reachable through your main navigation or easily found. Internal linking can also pass along link juice from one page to another on your site, which can help with rankings.

You want to link the pages of your site together using anchor text links. An anchor text link is a link that uses a keyword instead of, for example, “click here.”

Anchor text links tell the search engines what the page that the link leads to is about. You want to make sure that you use this technique to link the pages of your sites together. For example, if you were to write a blog post talking about link building techniques, you may link the phrase “link building techniques” to a corresponding page because you would want that page to be found for the keyword phrase “link building techniques.”

SEO Beginner Tip 4: Content

Content is extremely important. Search engines love content. The content on your site needs to be unique, well written and contain useful information. It also needs to contain the keywords which you are optimizing for, and which are relevant to each particular page. Your should also be adding to the content of your site on a consistent basis. Stagnant sites, ones that never add content, for the most part, will not rank high. The easiest way to continually add content to your site is by adding a blog and posting at least once a month. The more often you post the better.

SEO Beginner Tip 5: Back Links

Back links, at this point, are still the most important off-site factor when it comes to where your site ranks. Gaining back links, however, is a time-consuming process and something that needs to constantly be done in order to not only achieve high rankings, but also to maintain the rankings you have already achieved.

A few of the many different ways to gain back links are blogging, business directory submissions, article marketing, press releases, commenting in forums and on other blogs, creating content on your site that people want to link to as well as simply asking other webmasters for links. The one thing you should never do is pay for links. All three major search engines frown upon that and doing so will get your site penalized in the rankings.

The above tips are very basic and meant for beginners.

Dec 201217

Conversion Optimisation- Who’s responsible and how it works

Morgan ecommerce, hints and tips

If your company has separate departments or suppliers for marketing and web design, the responsibility for turning website visits into conversions (sales and enquiries) can tend to fall between two camps. This can be bad news for any business hoping to turn their online investments into real profitability.

So who is responsible for ensuring the website leads to a conversion? And how do you make sure the right people, in the right departments, take the right steps to make your website convert? In this article I look at the problem and offer some tips to help you turn your website views into conversions.

You may assume that the optimisation of conversions is part of the web designer’s role (they’re the technical experts after all). However, as marketing managers delve deeper into the world of online marketing, conversion optimisation becomes much more of a collaborative effort between the two teams.

Marketers have a unique understanding of the needs and wants of their customers, this gives them valuable insight into what will convert visitors into clients or customers, and what won’t. These sorts of Insights may not be available to many web designers. Meanwhile, many marketers may not realise how important their customer knowledge is to conversion optimisation and how crucial their understanding is to successful web marketing.

I will now suggest some key points that when applied can improve website conversions, the points are summarised on a format that both marketers and web designers can use:

Delivery Relevance

Clear headlines and suitable images reassure potential customers they are on the right page to find the information they need, this ensures they continue their ‘journey’ on your site and are much more likely to convert in the long run.

Integration

As a marketer you work hard to entice customers to visit the website. Keeping your message consistent from offline to online will improve conversions by keeping visitors on site for the same reasons they visited in the first place (the messages in your offline material).

Details

Whilst short sharp points will attract attention, visitors are also likely to be looking for informative text which helps them to make buying decisions. Give them all the facts they need to make the decision to buy/ enquire.

User Journey

This is where the web design department becomes a part of the optimisation process. Every page should be designed to take users on a journey, whilst minimising the number of clicks to reach their destination.

Page Length

Part of conversion optimisation is about thesting out which approach is most effective. Longer pages with lots of information or shorter, more impactful pages. Try both and test which is the most effective at converting

Graphics

Through experience with offline brochures and advertisements, marketers will have gained useful insight into the images that illicit the strongest response from the target market. These should be incorporated into your web design to improve conversions.

Menu Options

Reducing the number of menu options on a page also reduces the number of possible clicks, often resulting in improved conversions

Call to Action

Marketers should be adept at writing persuasive copy, and strategically placed calls to action could be the difference between a conversion and a lost customer

Whilst the web department will have an expert understanding of what looks the most appealing, website design should be guided by the expertise of marketers. By working together and analysing the data, conversion optimisation becomes a lot easier.

There is no single solution to website conversion optimisation. Only testing and in house knowledge and expertise can help to provide your customers with the ultimate online experience.

Website design & development by Designer Websites Ltd.

opposite, the other end of the spectrum. The everyday garment decorator, printer and embroiderer. The small business with limited online resources and limited cash flow to develop their online site. The majority of businesses in the sector are like this in nature, small, diminutive but hard working & honest. These businesses often utilise free resources available to them. The vast majority often use free website providers, with WordPress with its e-commerce plugins proving hugely popular.

This isn't the worst ploy in the world, a cost effective measure in a tight economic climate. But there are drawbacks; there is no sense of ownership using free software. Limited controls, set parameters restricting what you can/cannot do with your website, all culminating in undermining your businesses online image and professionalism as your website looks 'home made' and slightly lesser in appearance than your nearest competitors. All in all not ideal or fit for purpose.

This widening gap between the business owners looking to spend huge amounts and the low end cost effective small businesses has led to the development and creation of the eTrader. The eTrader system ultimately fills the service gap, which is why our product is thriving within the UK.

We quickly realised that the complexity and diverse range of products in the garment decoration industry did not translate easily into the world of online shopping. This was largely due to the bespoke nature of printing or embroidering a garment/product and indeed the vast array of products available from 100’s of brands, styles, sizes, shapes, positions, stitch counts and colours.

Our e-commerce platform is available to print and embroidery companies all over the UK. We continuously work with a specialist team of web designers & garment decorators to discover what is required for businesses in this sector to succeed.

eTrader offers all of our valued customers ultimate flexibility and control at a very low price in comparison to other service providers offering similar packages. Our system develops a fully personalised website with a full e-commerce system in place. The website knows no bounds, the customer has full control of the administration side of things covering areas such as customising brands & categories, 'Marking Up' products and pricing structures. The customer also controls the creative aspect of the businesses page. Our web page layouts are fully customisable & SEO friendly, working alongside our fully customisable content creator and adjustable banners giving businesses an array of marketing tools for their homepage to stand out from the competition.

Customers often say the biggest advantage of using our product is significantly saving time and importantly cost, the websites are live and running within weeks and the costs are significantly reduced compared to web developers. We fully understand the industry; and its customers. We listen to our customers, we know what they want and we provide it to them at a reasonable price. And as for the results, we often let them speak for themselves....

Dec 201417

Quality Content: Increasing Sales Has Never Been Simpler!

andrew ecommerce, etrader, hints and tips, seo

Content is an easy way to make your business stand apart from the rest. We understand that it isn't every garment decorator’s main priority, but it’s a vital tool in getting your decoration businesses website noticed.

Many independent decorators think this is a specialist job, way out of their comfort zone. Save you & your business valuable time and money & create your own content. You have the most knowledge of your business, your products & your market!

Creating content is something that can be done by anyone from anywhere. With simple guidance, any business - however large or small can create effective content for their business. There’s no need to call in the experts - nobody knows the industry better than garment decorators themselves.

At eTrader, we provide our customers the tools required to make creating content simple but effective, laying out your content in a SEO friendly way aimed at improving your sites online performance with minimal fuss.

We offer all our customers, simple but effective advice on creating content for their website. We get asked similar questions by our customers, so we have simply put together our Five Key Tips to Quality Content aimed at garment decorators.

Be Clear & Concise: Focus on getting your businesses key points across
Identify Your Keywords: Identify your main products/services keywords and build content around them
Identify Your Audience: Tailor your content to your potential customers, put yourself in their shoes, and imagine what they would like to hear.
Be Unique & Creative: Think outside the box, make your website stand apart from your competitors (Nobody wants to read boring content!)
Finally, Thoroughly Proofread Your Work: Maintain a professional image; small simple mistakes can impact small businesses much more than if a larger business was to make a similar mistake.

Following these tips, taking a small chunk of time to create quality content is highly effective in developing your garment decorating businesses online.

It’s the simplest way to take your online business to the next level - setting it apart from your competition, generating more leads, increasing sales and enhancing your websites SEO performance.

Dec 201405

Responsive Web Design – What Does It Mean For You and Your Businesses Website?

andrew ecommerce, etrader, seo, web design

What is Responsive Design?

Simply, when a website is responsive the website is adaptable across various platforms– based on the size of the screen viewing the website. A responsive website automatically changes to fit the device you’re viewing it on. Mobile Responsive Websites are aimed at all manner of sized displays – varying from small screen handheld devices to large widescreen monitors covering every other size in between.

Why Have Responsive Websites?

The need for garment decorators to deliver online is at an all-time high, the marketplace is intense and the competition is tough.

So garment decorators need to use any tool necessary to stay ahead of the fierce competition!

You want your customers to keep coming back; you want them to have the best experience possible through any means necessary. And this now includes your businesses website! Previously, businesses just create websites and the online platform will look after itself. However the continuous rise and development of tablet and mobile technology has meant viewing websites has become an ‘on the go’ experience – customers are not afraid to purchase using their phones and tablets anymore. The chances are your nearest competitor is not making use of responsive design, so why not make the most of this new development and stay ahead of the competition?!

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

We all understand Google & SEO are crucial for your businesses online performance. Google fully values responsive websites and the customer’s online experience. Google has recently not so subtly stated the desire for all websites to eventually go this way. It is much easier and much more efficient using responsive design from Google's SEO perspective - Google's bots find crawling websites, indexing and ranking pages much simpler using responsive design as it simple requires just one URL!

The value for your decorating business is incredible – 24% of Google searches are now being performed on tablet and mobile devices and 26% of e-mails received are viewed on mobiles, with a further 11% on tablets. The development of handheld and compact technology has led to the fast tracking of mobile responsive design– it’s a new concept to web designers but customers from all sectors are already demanding it.

With the development of a responsive website, the sky is the limit! Decorators alike can rejoice – your business can now provide customers with quality online service wherever they are, whatever they’re doing 24/7, 365 days of the year. The use of responsive sites can also generate greater leads; the multi-platform nature of the website furthers your reach to customers outside of your traditional audience!

Here are some of our favourite examples we have found from garment decorators around the UK. Try them out on different devices & see how they ‘Respond’ - giving you the best user experience possible!

Kustom Kits

Kustom-Clothing

Axent Embroidery

It’s a simple, but highly innovative concept. Mobile Responsive Design provides an all-round solution to your online services covering all your customers viewing devices. It’s beneficial for both your print business and your customers. Your customer gets the optimum online experience using your website and you simply provide them this using just one platform.

Using just one platform also allows you to reach wider audiences at a relatively low cost, but the greater benefits are in term of SEO – your campaign becomes much easier to manage. Instead of managing each platform’s SEO, using responsive sites make managing a much simpler process – only one SEO campaign has to be managed instead of potentially having to manage several. Saving your business both valuable time & money!

Pros	Cons
· A single website for three platforms	· Expensive to Set Up
· Only requires a single URL	· Time Consuming & Requires Web Developers
· Easier SEO
· Wider Audience Reach
· Enhances Customer Experience

The customer experience is vital for any business but more so in the print & decorating business - retention is critical (See last week’s blog for more on that). Mobile Responsive Design on your site is a simple but effective way of providing your key customers what they want, when they want and wherever they want!