Archive for the ‘smartphone’ Category

Visa aims to make online checkout easier in Australia

Wednesday, July 30th, 2014
Photo courtesy of TaxRebate.org.uk on Flickr

Photo courtesy of TaxRebate.org.uk on Flickr

Visa has unveiled a new system for using the card during online checkouts that the company hopes will cut down on abandoned online shopping carts.

The new service, called Visa Checkout, allows people to sign up with Visa credit and debit cards, as well as other branded cards, and enter their card information just once. Then they will be able pay for things via Visa by only entering their username and password at participating sites.

The service is currently being offered in Australia, Canada and the U.S.

As more customers shop on smaller screens like smartphones and tablets, the hassle of entering in credit card numbers and billing addresses is becoming a sticking point and payment processors have been working to find ways to simplify the process.

To read more about this story, click here.

Australia ranked as best place to do online business

Monday, July 28th, 2014
Photo credit; Marc Falardeau on Flickr

Photo credit; Marc Falardeau on Flickr

Australia is the best country to do ­business over the internet, the e-Trade Readiness Index shows.

The index, compiled by eBay and The Economist intelligence unit, ranks Group of 20 countries’ internet-enabled trade. Because the European Union is treated as a separate entity, 19 countries are ranked in this particular index and Australia has the highest e-trade ranking out of those 19.

Rounding out the top five are the United States, South Korea, Britain and Japan respectively. The lowest ranked is Argentina.

Australia topped the list because of:

  • affordable internet access,
  • high smartphone penetration,
  • a well- ­developed regulatory framework and
  • high e-payments adoption.

The index comprises more than 40 indicators across five categories:

  • investment climate,
  • internet environment,
  • international trading environment,
  • regulatory and legal framework, and
  • the environment for e-payments.

The categories are weighted based on The Economist intelligence unit’s assumptions of their importance in cross-border trade using the internet.

However, the report also says that customs and regulation restrictions may hinder the growth of small and ­medium-sized businesses.

To read more on this story, click here.

WooThemes introduces WooCommerce iPhone app

Thursday, July 17th, 2014

best-WooCommerceplugins-logoWooThemes has released an iPhone App for its merchant users.

WooCommerce iOS is designed to let you see detailed product information, customer orders, specific order details, and a range of statistical data illustrating your store’s sales performance – all from your iOS device.

You can download the app from the App Store for $4.99, connect it to your WooCommerce store by logging in, and your orders and products will be automatically imported and synced.

Features include:

  • See your total revenue, number of new orders/customers, and top sellers
  • Get insight into trends by checking your numbers for Today, the last 7 days, or the current month
  • Get a quick count of your open orders (processing/pending/held)
  • Quickly see a list of all orders with customer name, order number, status, and date
  • Scroll through orders and easily search them by customer name
  • See the summary for an order, with customer info, order status, products, and payment/shipping details
  • View order notes to help you see the history for an order
  • For registered customers, you can see previous orders and their lifetime order total
  • See a complete list of all your products with name and thumbnail
  • Quickly search your products by name
  • See full product details including inventory and variations
  • Add up to 4 separate WooCommerce stores
  • Easily switch between your stores using the side menu
  • Delete shops you’re no longer using

Planned updates include: editing & managing orders, individual customer views, Push Notifications for new orders, and more.

Brisbane Times reveals 11 biggest ecommerce mistakes

Wednesday, July 16th, 2014
Photo courtesy of Terrance Heath on Flickr

Photo courtesy of Terrance Heath on Flickr

The Brisbane Times has published a list of the 11 biggest mistakes e-commerce sites make. Heed these warnings:

1. Having Complex Functionality

The best sites should be structured so absolutely no thinking is necessary when navigating through, including minimal steps between product viewing and purchase.

2. Having Poor Site Appearance

A busy, confusing, or ad-strewn site poses functionality issues and isn’t a particularly professional front for a business expecting customers to leave sensitive credit card details. A beautiful website that makes for easy shopping and security will ensure customers are happy.

3. Not Having Compatibility with Mobile and Tablet

Digital retailers must accommodate a range of customers across diverse platforms and employ a website design that is fast loading for mobiles as well as desktop computers.

4. Having Unexpected Fees and Shipping Costs

The number one reason customers abandon their shopping cart is unexpected costs added to their purchase, such as GST, insurance and high shipping fees. Free delivery can be the defining feature that sets a site apart from direct competitors. While free shipping is undoubtedly a huge attraction, shoppers will generally concede to a shipping fee if they feel it is reflective of the product and level of service. A tracking number is also a plus.

5. Overly Long Product and Lack of Customer Reviews

Long-winded product descriptions can turn off shoppers. Pairing concise, keyword-rich descriptions with customer reviews, and even stats on how many times the item has been previously bought, is a good way to reassure customers. A unique product description, rather than that composed by the manufacturer, can also ensure a higher ranking on internet search engines.

6. Having Poor Search Capability

Faceted search — a function that allows users to apply a range of filters to explore information — enhances customer power and control by making it easier for them to home in on the products they are most interested in. Typo-sensitive search also increases the likelihood that a clumsy-fingered user will still see results that best match what they’re looking for.

7. Convoluted Checkout Procedures and Customer Accounts

Forcing a buyer to create an account and enter personal details at the checkout has obvious benefits for the retailer, but it is likely to cause frustration among shoppers who want an instant transaction. Features such as single sign-on, automated saving of a customer’s details, and the option for “guest checkout” transactions that don’t require the creation of a password quicken and enhance the shopping experience.

8. Lack of Social Media Integration

If you’re not posting, instagraming, pinning or tweeting, you’re just not competing. But more than posting a photo, social media should be used to generate positive dialogue among customers and aid the transaction process by facilitating direct contact between the company and consumer. All retailers should have an effective communications policy in place, especially for when customers turn to social media to complain.

9. Poor Quality Images and Zoom Function

Grainy photos or poor zoom function are easy ways to lose a sale, as customers can’t see the detail in the craftsmanship. Instead, use clear, high quality photos.

10. Believing the Transaction is Complete After the Order is Placed

Another golden rule of running an online business is realising that the shopping experience isn’t over when the customer clicks “buy”. Don’t neglect functions such as: recommended “buy next” options, live purchase stats (for instance, five people bought this in the last hour), or prompts for low stock in a “watched” item.

11. Having Ineffective Customer Service

One of the cornerstones of face-to-face retail is good customer service, and this still applies online. Ensuring the product over delivers, that delivery service is on time, and that phone, email and live chat service staff are friendly and helpful, will usually ensure a positive customer response even if something goes wrong.

To read more on this story, click here.

Australia social media company MOKO to list on the NASDAQ

Wednesday, July 2nd, 2014
Photo credit; Richard Patterson on Flickr

Photo credit; Richard Patterson on Flickr

Australian app development company MOKO Social Media will soon be listed on the NASDAQ.

The company’s public offering price is set to be between $US7.50-9.00 per American depositary shares (ADS), with each ADS representing 40 ordinary fully paid MOKO shares. That is equivalent to a price range of $A0.20- 0.24 per share.

MOKO’s flagship app REC*IT uses data provided by colleges through an exclusive agreement to help organise student recreational and sporting activities.

The free app is to be adopted across 700 colleges by the end of September, with a reach of 10 million possible users. This will allow advertisers to directly target a highly attractive and segmented audience.

Chairman Greg McCann said the possibilities of this audience are part of the reasoning behind the ASX-listed company’s decision to dual list.

“[The US] is a very big market, and it’s a very sophisticated market — We really wanted to give American investors the opportunity to invest, because they were probably more likely to put a truer value on the stocks that you would in Australia,” he said.

“There’s not a lot of technology stocks here, particularly doing what we’re doing,  which is really pushing the boundaries into a new area.”

To read more on this story, click here.

Aussie small business is missing the mobile, social, cloud revolution

Monday, June 30th, 2014
Photo credit; Pavel Medzyun on Flickr

Photo credit; Pavel Medzyun on Flickr

Many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are missing the opportunity to use online tools to run their core business better by: cutting costs, reaching customers and suppliers, innovating and getting more control over their business, according to a new Grattan Institute discussion paper.

Businesses with less than 200 employees employ two-thirds of private sector workers and contribute more than half of Australia’s private sector GDP and if advanced online technology becomes the norm among SMEs, the productivity gains would spread through the whole economy.

There are four big opportunities for SMEs to use online tools more effectively: mobile, social, data analytics, and the cloud. The paper says:

  • only 18% of Australian SMEs with an internet connection have developed mobile-optimised websites.
  • only a quarter of Australian SMEs with an internet connection say they use social networking for marketing purposes.
  • many SMEs haven’t realised the full potential of data analytics to understand their customer segments.
  • only 8% of Australian SME managers say they use the cloud. But 47% of SMEs with an internet connection use basic cloud computing services such as webmail or cloud data storage.

All four opportunities can help small firms win where before they would have lost to larger firms that could absorb the fixed costs of corporate IT.

To read more on this story, click here.

Australian online security startup inks big deal with Singapore government

Monday, May 12th, 2014
Photo credit; FutUndBeidl on Flickr

Photo credit; FutUndBeidl on Flickr

An Australian online security startup has won the backing of the Singapore government.

Singapore government-owned Assurity Trusted Solutions has entered a strategic alliance with Melbourne identity verification specialist iSignthis to provide identity verification for its OneKey two-factor authentication token. The government intends the token to be used as a national standard.

As part of the agreement it has also picked up rights to supply the tokens and its security network internationally in other markets. Assurity plans to distribute the OneKey token as a smartphone application for Android and iOS devices.

iSignthis chairman Tim Hart said the company had set its sights on south-east Asia and Europe.

“The citizens and residents of Singapore, the EU, most of south-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand will benefit from [evidence of identity] and [two-factor authentication] services being executed online. We look forward to building on our strategic alliance with other products and services going forward,” Hart said.

To read more about this story, click here.

Brisbane businessman turns disaster into dollars

Monday, September 30th, 2013

Brisbane businessman Michael French turned the raging floods in that city in 2011 into a successful online business by filling a niche that so many people don’t know they need until it’s too late.

Photo credit; johndal on Flickr

Photo credit; johndal on Flickr

While he watched flood waters near his home, French worried about the state of his office, which held his digital marketing company only a few kilometres away. That’s when the idea for his Bizeo app hit him.

Essentially a dashboard app, Bizeo monitors all available data from servers to engines on key machinery, to temperature to exchange rates and social media for a business that is experiencing an emergency like a flood.

“Business owners spend a lot of their time running around checking on things, but this does it for them, and gives them a single indicator that everything is alright,” French says. “Bizeo monitors the status and data across your whole enterprise, and watches everything at once.”

As many Brisbane businesses struggled in the aftermath of the floods, French realized he could add even more functionality to the app.

“Our cashflow was struggling as our debtors blew out and our sales pipeline struggled as many Brisbane groups went under,” French says. “Bizeo now plugs into your CRM, accounting and social media systems.”

Bizeo received a $200,000 grant from Commercialisation Australia last year and French used those funds to hire a business development manager, and file for intellectual property protections such as trademarks and patents and is currently working with clients in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Mexico and London.

To read more on this story, click here.

Australian businesses rapidly adopting 4G technology

Friday, July 19th, 2013

Australian businesses are quickly jumping on the 4G train as, Vodafone became the final of the big three telecommunications companies to launch an LTE network last month. The latest generation mobile technology provides faster speeds and makes more efficient use of wireless spectrum capacity.

Telsyte analyst Foad Fadaghi said 13 per cent of all mobile connections in Australia — including consumer, business and M2M — are 4G, and the percentage specific to business penetration is likely consistent.

While 13 per cent may not appear large at first, it shows rapid adoption considering that Telstra has only had a 4G network for 18 months, Optus for only 12 months, and Vodafone has just launched, Fadaghi said.

To read more about this story, click here.

Google releases “Wallet”, rivals likely to follow

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Google became the first company to allow people to use their smartphones as credit cards when they released “Wallet”, and it is expected their rivals will follow suit.

Not everything went smoothly for Google though, with EBay filing a lawsuit accusing Google of stealing trade secrets to build the platform.

Apple, Amazon.com, eBay and Facebook are all believed to be working on similar technology, also allowing consumers to use smartphones to pay for goods or services.

You can read more at the sydneymorningherald.com.au