Category: marketing

20 Aug 2020

Why Customers Pick eTrader Websites

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In our latest blog we have put together a list of reasons why customers pick us over the competition.

With years of experience we have a website solution perfect for garment decorators looking to go online hassle free.

Do not just our word for it.

One of our latest customers Castle Printwear spoke to Images Magazine about why they picked us over competitors saying

'We put off having an ecommerce website for some time, thinking it would be too expensive and time consuming to set up. However, eTrader has taken most of the pain away. The support from them has been excellent! They have been so helpful. I wish we had done this years ago'.

First and foremost - what is it we offer?

We offer print and embroidery businesses an ecommerce website filled with garments of their choice and a selection of sales, marketing and search engine tools. We tick all the boxes and provide print and embroidery business practical, useable websites.

What are the other 'options'?

There are three main other options to consider for your print & embroidery businesses website:

A simple, basic wholesalers website

This is the cheapest option but offers limited tools and you are stuck selling their garments offering little or no flexibility.

Use similar web platforms

There are not many platforms for print and embroidery businesses. What is out there is lacklustre in comparison, dictates how to run your business, its accounts, workflow and so on (even though its your business!) You also have to build the thing - surely leave that to the experts...

Go bespoke

This is the expensive option. Have a website built exactly how you want it. It will be personalised to you and your businesses every need. Bear in mind this comes at a price and not every web design ecommerce company understands the print and embroidery industry.

What about us?

Our ecommerce package offers print and embroidery companies a variety of tools to generate online sales and success. Of course being a platform there is a bit of compromise to be had but we tick 95%+ of what most customers are after such as:

We actually build the websites

Unlike other solutions in the industry we actually build the websites for you. No drag and drop designers for you to scratch your head at, no HTML skills required at your end. We do all the graftt.

Sell whatever clothing you like online

You can sell clothing from whoever you like - Pencarrie, BTC, Portwest, Uneek, Prestige and 100s more to pick and choose from. There is no tie in to any supplier or no limits to what you can have on-site.

Our aftercare is unmatched, we help every step of the way

We do not just sit back and relax once the website is up and running. We want you to get the most out of the website, we assist with things like training, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation and much more.

Unlimited shop areas for customers

There are no limit to the number of stores you can set up for your customers, clubs, schools or shops.

Hassle free shopping

Our easy to use design tool is customer friendly and offers customers a simple way to buy printed or embroidered garments online both safely and securely.

Again do not just take our word for it...

Simon at Curtis Sports came to us looking for a new practial solution for their business which focuses on schoolwear, workwear, teamwear and more.

Asked why he picked us 'We were looking for a website provider with a comprehensive catalogue that we could use to allow our customers easy, simple online purchasing options and provided the ability to set up customers with their own online shops with all their products in one place.

A quick chat with Andrew from Etrader and a short demo later there was only once choice for us. We are very pleased with the work Andrew and the Etrader team have done for us and can’t praise them highly enough'.

Want to find out more?

Get in touch with us on info@etraderwebsites.co.uk or call 029 2074 1663. We can run an online demo and show you how we can transform your print and embroidery business with a brand new website.

23 Jul 2020

Why Your Print & Embroidery Business Needs Ecommerce After COVID

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The global pandemic COVID has shut down the high street and businesses across the UK & Ireland. With a return to work being slowly phased and uncertainty ahead, the online garment decoration industry is not going to be the same again.

Footfall in retail premises will decrease rapidly to the point of being non-existent, customers are looking to be safe and secure in their shopping. Taking your business online gives customers the comfort blank of being able to order their workwear, printed & embroidered from the comfort of their home and so on.

The problem is intensified for those who provide school uniforms, customers will not be able to just pop in-store, try on items and takeaway their uniforms the same day. An ecommerce website is especially pivotal for those who rely on the school uniform rush to build up cashflow.

The demand for creating a website that can take online orders recently has taken off with solutions (such as the one we offer!) providing a popular choice among garment decorators.

There are pros and cons when it comes to using a solution. Bear in mind they are built for the industry and will cover most bases but maybe not tick 100% of the boxes you want, there is a bit of compromise to be had. But the time, money and resources that can be saved using an ecommerce solution is invaluable.

To get your business thriving online in the post-COVID era we have put together some advice to help you achieve success with an ecommerce website.

Ensure the website layout is mobile & tablet friendly: An almost essential for a website which is still overlooked by many. Your website needs to look great on both a desktop PC/laptop and a mobile & tablet. Customers shopping from home are looking for a crisp, easy user experience to buy their goods online.

Mirror how you work in-store online: Make sure users know all about your knowledge & expertise. Customers previously would have potentially visited your store to find out about your products, service, and branding methods. With this being limited ensure this can be found online to put their minds at ease and help with any queries.

Communicate with your customers through the website: A simple point inexplicably overlooked, provide clear call to actions (CTAs) for customers. Make it easy for them to reach out to you, this can also be through the use of chat bots and live chat facilities.

Set up designated areas for your customers: There will be exiting customers – schools, clubs, businesses who will want to re-order. Provide them their very own shop facility to make their repeat orders simple.

Keep products & prices up to date: This is a mammoth task, but one that needs to be considered. Products are continuously dis-continued and added from suppliers with prices often changing. There are website solutions from wholesalers that manage this aspect but are extremely limited and tie you in to using their products offering no choices or flexibility. Create a website selling the products you want at the prices you want.

Keep your website safe & secure: Customer information needs to be safe & secure and since the introduction of GDPR this is under more scrutiny than ever before. Your website needs an SSL certificate to appear safe in your customers browsers. If it does not have one it will display an error and give your customers a poor user experience or cast doubt in their mind.

Taking payments online: Something not many consider when looking for an ecommerce website, you need a secure payment processor and checkout plus in most cases a merchant account. There is often a monthly cost to these services from banks & payment providers.

Lastly, consider the costs of building an ecommerce website. The garment decoration industry is unique and to build a solution from scratch with products and branding options is complex and expensive. An ecommerce solution may not tick every box a bespoke website does, but it will save you £1000s in development and increase your businesses sales post COVID.

For more information or to book an online demo to see how we could help your print & embroidery business with its website email info@etraderwebsites.co.uk or call 029 2074 1663

04 Jun 2020

COVID: The Challenges Online Marketers Face

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Covid-19 has had a profound effect on the UK nation as a whole with many industries coming to a grinding halt. The garment decoration industry has not seen anything quite like it and yes it is difficult to see business picking back up, but inevitably it will.

While it is a great challenge for businesses trying to survive the pandemic it also presents a once in a lifetime opportunity to reset, re-charge and prepare for what awaits once this is all over.

From a Marketing perspective it firstly provides a chance to evaluate, analyse and review your existing strategy. Identify what is working and conversely what is not working, areas you would like to target, areas that are not being targeting effectively and work out how to get the maximum return on your Marketing budget. Your purse strings going to be tighter than ever before squeeze every bit of value out of your Marketing and plan accordingly.

With in-store promotions and local advertising grinding to a complete halt this frees up some budget to potentially look at your business’s online strategy

With website traffic being minimal it is the ideal chance to assess your businesses website, review it, work on any maintenance, updates and ensure it is full optimised and ready to go for a ‘re-launch’ when the time comes.

Similar with other Online Marketing tools, look at things like Sponsored Ads on Social Media, Google Adwords and identify if there is opportunity for your business. Plan a strategy, budget and build all the key words ready to go live to your audience once business is fully operational.

You might think all this sounds a bit costly. Where will the budget come from with cashflow being tight, it is a great opportunity for a bit of Marketing DIY. Grow your knowledge, skills and carry out the review and analysis. Plus there is also a chance to broaden your skillset and carry out these ideas yourself learning on the go, familiarising yourself with Social Media channels, or testing our different pieces of software for CRM, Email Campaigns, Social Media scheduling and so on.

It is an unprecedented time that presents many challenges but the optimistic business owner the freed up time is a great opportunity to look at your business, think of where it was, where it is now and think of where you want it to be in a year’s time. Use the time to develop your skills and your business, time wasted is time lost.

13 Mar 2020

Programmatic Advertising: An Introduction

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Programmatic advertising is the use of a software to buy digital ad space, it provides complete autonomy for businesses. In the past few years it has made great strides in its development with a whole heap of tools, platforms and resources available for businesses looking to streamline their online advertising.

This form of advertising uses data science to improve your online conversions, it considers seasonality, user behaviours and much more to model paid search results. It essentially uses predictive analytics to monitor, maintain and enhance your ads based on a number of behaviours namely customer demand.

For this you need the right data sources, this allows you to build models to explore customers behaviours. There is a whole heap of data out there when it comes to Online Marketing and your business (I would argue too much, some useless data which only causes confusion when trying to make decisions).

A fully data driven approach requires autonomous decision making such as AI & Machine Learning provides has become vital over a manual approach analysing 1000s of sets of data. Using AI & ML provides valuable Marketing insights which a manual approach can’t deliver and can be used to streamline future campaigns.

There are a few things to consider when using an automated approach:

Define your goals & outcomes: What is your campaigns end goal? What data is relevant to be collected and collated? Knowing your aims & goals allows you to decipher what data is the most relevant and appropriate to use.
Complete a data audit: Your business probably has an abundance of data readily available. Data from Analytics, Webmasters & Ads plus any CRM data or transactional data from previous orders and enquiries. Assess this data and work out what is relevant, what can be used and what would provide value to your business and its online efforts.
Consider external data sources: Alongside having data about existing customers, creating an online profile for a new potential customer is essential. Use public data sources such as Google Trends, UK Data Service and other readily available datasets to identify any existing online retail trends.

Undertaking Machine Learning & utilising AI in Marketing is in its infancy for businesses with only large multi-nationals having the facilities and resources to build bespoke software to fully utilise it. But there are a growing number of software available for small businesses to utilise with the pick of the bunch being Phraseee, Optimove, Rapidminer and Automat.

30 Jan 2020

How Local Advertising Can Work For Your Business

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With the rise of e-commerce and shopping online mixed with the steady decline of the high street, traditional local advertising has taken a back seat with customers focusing more on modern marketing techniques rather than the traditional ones.

But there is a place for both, especially for SMEs looking to survive in the competitive print, embroidery and branding industry.

Local advertising can be both traditional and modern. Traditional advertising focuses on elements such as radio adverts, advertorials for magazines, directories etc, direct mail, brochures and so on. This is seen as ‘old-fashioned’ by many but done right this is a highly effective eye-catching way of gaining new customers for your business.

The modern approach to undertaking local advertising is focusing on things such as online directories (Yell etc) plus paid advertising such as Google Ads & Facebook Ads which allows you to target users based on their behaviours and importantly in this case their location.

Focusing on a local strategy and gradually building up to a larger audience has its advantages, they include:

Being cost effective: Focusing on a specific customer base allows you to focus your efforts and reach the relevant customers increasing your ROI.
Increased referrals: Something that you cannot do online as well as in person is referrals ‘word of mouth’. Engaging with local customers & communities will increase your businesses presence in an area. The lowest cost but most effective form of local advertising.
Get found online for local searches: Focusing locally and using directories for your business will help you get found online for searches relating to your location.
Easier to maintain & manage: Working on a smaller scale will give your business the confidence to get stuck into Marketing activities as they are on a smaller scale and easier to manage.
Allows for more dynamism: Engaging with local customers over different medians means you can work a tailored message per platform. It also gives you the opportunity to test what works and what doesn’t before launching your idea on a bigger stage.