Inspire - Tips To Grow Your Business, Productivity & Relationships

The outbreak of the COVID -19 pandemic has affected the whole world. A couple of years ago, things that were not imaginable have become the new normal today. Businesses around the globe are also facing the consequences of the pandemic. eCommerce is one of the sectors that has been affected the most.

Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, the brick-and-mortar stores were already experiencing a decline. However, the pandemic increased consumers’ preference for online shopping even more. Due to the shutdowns and lockdowns across the globe, consumers could not move out of their homes. This made them rely on the eCommerce platforms and fulfillment services to meet all their shopping needs.

Are you wondering how the eCommerce world will be post COVID-19 pandemic? In that case, here are some of the most prominent developments in the eCommerce world.

Increase in Competition

Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world, businesses were gradually moving to the online platform to offer their services and products. However, in the pandemic days, the competition has intensified over the years. With the enforcement of sudden lockdowns, physical stores could no longer operate and make sales. To survive and increase their revenues, eCommerce was the only solution. This, in turn, led to the increase in the players in the industry, thereby resulting in tough competition.

Rise of Dark Stores

Have you ever heard of dark stores? Well, you may be hearing it for the first time. Dark stores are a relatively new and innovative concept that came up due to the logistical requirements of eCommerce. The dark stores are physical establishments that contain a vast amount of different products. However, these stores are not accessible by the general public. You must have heard of the ghost kitchens.

The ghost kitchens do not serve food to the guests but make food for online delivery. The dark stores also operate similarly. These stores are meant explicitly for being for eCommerce order fulfillment use. While the dark stores were rare in the pre-pandemic years, they are likely to become a common sight in the post-Covid world.

Expansion of Delivery Orbits

In the pre-pandemic world, eCommerce or online business was more of an urban thing. More and more online companies aim at delivering their products to metropolitan areas and focus on bulk orders. However, things have changed a lot after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the global lockdowns and shutdowns, consumers from suburb regions and small towns started ordering essential things online. To meet the increasing needs of the rural population, businesses have begun expanding their operations and delivering products in the towns and suburbs.

Contactless Delivery and Payment

Since the outbreak of the life-threatening coronavirus, people have developed a fear of getting the virus and germ transferred through contact. For this reason, individuals started avoiding contact with other people as much as possible. This, in turn, increased the demand for contactless delivery and payment among the consumers.

To avoid physical handovers, products are now being placed at the consumers’ doorsteps. Moreover, the delivery people are equipped with appropriate systems to facilitate easy contactless payments. Most eCommerce businesses allow their consumers to make payments for the products while purchasing the items.

However, if they want to make the payment after receiving the product, there is also an option for that. The delivery people are provided with devices to accept payments without any physical contact. Simply, by scanning the QR codes, consumers can make the payment. Owing to the convenience these systems offer, they are likely to continue in the post-pandemic years.

Social Media Shopping

Social media has become a part of people’s lives today. They spend quite a significant amount of time on social media platforms daily. While social media was a channel of communication initially, it has become a channel of eCommerce. Social media has brought about a revolution in people who shop and engage with different brands. Today, more and more eCommerce businesses are marketing their products on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and more.

It enables them to reach out to more consumers worldwide and increases their sales significantly. Social media has emerged as a marketplace for direct purchases. Social media shopping is likely to experience more growth in the post-pandemic era. Moreover, the presence of content creators to help businesses market their products on social media platforms will boost its demand even more.

Conclusion

The post-pandemic era will bring a lot of changes in the eCommerce industry. Right from an increase in the number of dark stores to the rise of social media shopping, you are likely to witness all of them. The changes may seem to be uncomfortable at first. However, they will benefit the businesses and consumers in the long run.

Earlier this holiday season, US Customs and Border Protection officers seized $30.4 million of counterfeit goods bound for Los Angeles and Long Beach. Customs officers suggest that the rise of e-commerce has given counterfeit goods new life. Previously, a fake Louis Vuitton bag would have had to be sold via a black market. These days, it’s more and more common for fakes to hide behind seemingly legit listings on popular websites.

While your business’ web presence is less likely to attract direct counterfeits, low-quality clutter can significantly detract from your legitimate interests. Protecting your brand from misleading information, competition from other sites and negative reviews can be just as important as keeping the markets clear of counterfeit goods.

Accuracy Is Key

A fake handbag with a few flaws will make a customer unhappy. Consequently, bad information about your brand will cost you a sale. Today’s consumers don’t always get their information from your main website. Instead, they’ll take key details from their search page without checking for accuracy. Take the time to run a few searches for your business and verify that the results are accurate, expected, and desired. If a rival’s phone number is popping up instead of yours, you’re likely losing lots of money to a direct competitor.

Even beyond the information that Google provides, it’s important to ensure that all of the information about your business online is accurate and consistent. Modern SEO strategies involve building a portfolio of “citations,” or references to your company on other websites. Any inconsistencies in these citations (like using “street” and “st” interchangeably instead of sticking with one) will hurt your page rank. Moreover, any inaccuracies could result in customers being confused about your business’ basic details. Policing these citations might seem like busywork, but it can make a world of difference when it comes to generating leads.

Managing Compliance

Regulatory bodies have been enforcing more and more stringent rules about content, presentation, and data retention. In most cases, following these rules can be a big boon to the visibility and accessibility of your website. Making sure that you utilize high-contrast text, you have both PC and mobile-friendly versions of pages, and all of your images have alt-text will help your visitors find the information that they need. In some countries, certain websites will need to maintain a detailed web archive, ensuring that there’s a record of all of their communications. Compliance with these regulations will protect your business against hefty fines and other consequences from government agencies.

Proactive Strategies

Even the best business will get a bad review sometimes. Staying on top of these negative postings can help you stay ahead of your competition. Some SEO experts suggest responding to almost every review, even with a simple “thank you.” When a negative review comes in, politely apologize and share your business’ perspective on the situation. Then, describe how you’ll be addressing problems going forward. This simple strategy has a massive impact on how prospective customers and clients read bad reviews. Without your response, your business looks like it’s flawed. With your response, they’ll see that you’re working to improve your business.

It’s important to proactively analyze what people are searching for in relation to your business. Take the time to skim through the results for all of these searches every once in a while and see what comes up. It’s not unheard of for a negative review or a critical take on your business to work its way into these search results. You might also find that your competition is slowly catching up on contested keywords, or that your pages have disappeared entirely. Performing a quick audit of these searches can inform your SEO strategies and prevent you from losing customers to an uninformed article or a blogger’s hot take. In some cases, you can simply contact the site owner and clear up their misconceptions.

Protecting Your Business’ Digital Presence From Misleading Content

Removing misleading, inaccurate, and negative content about your business from the web is vital. By taking an active stance and engaging with these online threats early, you can keep your business’ web presence safe and ensure that you’re presenting your best face to every lead.

Providing a comfortable work environment for staff involves adjusting the environment to ensure safety. It also involves supplying employees with essential resources that promote their health and well-being.

Based on 2017 turnover rates, your company could incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee replacement costs each year, undermining your ability to generate a profit. You can improve employee retention by enhancing your workspace. Let’s look at how you can improve employee comfort in your call center and some of the benefits of making your workspace more comfortable.

How can you improve comfort in your call center?

Call centers include inbound call centers and outbound call centers. Inbound call center staff answer communications from consumers. They may take orders for goods, help clients resolve a technical issue with a product, or address consumer complaints. Outbound call centers employ sales teams who contact potential clients to sell goods or services.

Increase employee comfort by supplying your employees with the best call center software available. Today’s cloud based call center solutions enable you to decentralize operations. Customer service representatives connect to the software online and access customer data, allowing employees to work from any location. You can increase call center comfort by providing employees with individual offices or using smaller rooms with fewer representatives. Your team can work remotely some or all of the time. Rotating remote work schedules reduces the number of people in the office, making it less likely a sick employee will infect your entire team. You may also reduce coworker conflicts by reducing the number of staff reporting to your call center.

Using omnichannel call center software also improves operations because employees can easily switch between different communication platforms. Customer service representatives can process inbound calls, emails, text messages, or social media messages, enabling them to increase customer satisfaction rates by addressing customer needs via the client’s preferred communication platform.

You can increase employee comfort at on-site call centers by offering both sitting and standing desks. Employees can improve their health by using a standing desk. Sitting for extended periods can cause back and neck pain. People who sit for extended periods also have a higher risk of developing diabetes or suffering from high blood pressure and heart disease.

Although standing may alleviate the risk of some health issues, it can cause foot pain. Provide employees using standing desks with the best arch support insoles available. Let employees choose suitable inserts to address health issues such as flat feet, fallen arches, plantar fasciitis, knee pain, and heel spurs. Employees can also select insoles suitable for dress shoes or casual shoes based on their footwear preferences.

Invest in quality headsets with cushioned ear cuffs. Since call center employees wear headsets for several hours each day, they need comfortable headsets that won’t cause discomfort.

How can your company benefit from making employees more comfortable?

When employees are uncomfortable, they may be distracted, making it harder to provide optimal customer service. Comfortable staff members focus on their work tasks, increasing their productivity rates.

Investing in employee comfort reduces callouts. When employees struggle with heel spurs, chronic back pain, or other ailments, they’re more likely to take time off work for medical treatment. While your employees must receive appropriate medical care, frequent callouts can affect your company’s ability to provide prompt customer service, undermining your operations.

Investing in your employees’ comfort can reduce health care costs. Maintaining your building’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system can improve comfort for everyone in your building. Replacing the filter and removing mold and other toxins from the unit prevents your system from spreading toxins and allergens throughout your workspaces. Since airborne pollutants can cause respiratory illnesses, eliminating these toxins can reduce staff illnesses and help employees stay healthy.

Making your employees more comfortable can increase their productivity and prevent employee absences. You can also reduce employee turnover by providing a safe, comfortable working environment.

A recent survey showed that the average supermarket features more than 50,000 different types of products on their shelves. With such a large number of competitors, finding a way to reach customers is no easy feat.  

Consequently, creating a foothold on online platforms can be a challenge without putting aside part of your budget for an aggressive marketing campaign. When these concerns begin to rise, it may be time to re-evaluate your packaging choices and designs. 

Your business’ packaging is the first thing anyone sees when you pitch your product to customers. With the stakes this high, creating a great first impression will be crucial in closing the sale. Additionally, learning the unspoken language of packaging can be the edge you need to stand out above the rest of the competition. 

Read on to discover the specific ways in which food packaging boxes and containers help your business grow.  

1. Entices Customers To Try Your Product 

As previously stated, your packaging will be the first point of contact between you and your customers. As such, choosing designs that appeal to your specific audience can greatly generate interest in your food product. Moreover, choosing the best shaped container for your product can merge functionality and aesthetics in one move. 

Some of the more common choices of packaging and their uses include: 

• Glass Containers – mostly used for liquid products 

• Thermoformed Containers – plastic trays for eggs and meats 
• Cans – commonly used to hold drinks or food 
• Cardboard Containers – used by restaurants for takeout orders 

Studies show that customers can make decisions in a fraction of a second. Catching people’s attention during this short window will be the mark of excellent packaging choices. A deep understanding of your brand image can be the best guide as well. Knowing when to utilize flashy versus minimalist designs will help increase the allure to your product. 

2. Saves More Money 

The next point to bring up is the cost of packaging with regards to its contents. For each type of food product, they must be matched with packaging that is suited to their specific qualities. As such, maximizing container space can help ensure quality products without having to raise prices to cover the costs. 

Keep in mind that any business that includes food handling is subject to strict monitoring. Mismatching food and its containers can have a multitude of consequences. These include broken packaging, underutilized space, and product contamination. All of which could incur heavy losses on your company. 

As a final note, your packaging methods can be studied for improvements too. Comparing the pros and cons of machine packaging versus hand packaging can lead to substantial savings to your business. 

3. Improves Brand Image 

The right packaging also increases the exposure of your business and could even improve the brand’s image. Becoming a recognizable brand for the right reasons can be your signal to begin plans for expansion. 

Now more than ever, transparency is one of the most sought-after qualities by customers. Social media platforms make it easier for people to do their research on any business beforehand. Excellent packaging choices will address these concerns and paint a good portrait of your business. 

For example, environmentally-friendly packaging can be your method of creating connections with your customers. Single-use plastics and Styrofoam containers are usually frowned upon by conscious buyers these days. That’s because these materials take many years to decompose and has negative effects on the environment.  

Ultimately, using paper-based or recycled cardboard containers will send the right message to your audience. These food packaging materials are generally cheaper and give off an all-natural look to them. These and other green practices can be taken as undeniable proof to your commitment for sustainability. Many consumers would then prefer to support you. 

4. Gives You An Edge In Online Marketing 

Although new to the scene, the influence online marketing can have on customers will be a tool that propels your business to staggering levels of growth. Even without spending on marketing ads just yet, your food packaging choice can be enough to stir up buzz for your business. 

As a rule of thumb in the food industry, people eat with their eyes before they taste your product. Visually-stimulating and attractive packaging may actually positively affect customer experience before even trying it out.  

To take full advantage of this effect, ensure that your containers look appealing in pictures no matter the angle. Social media and online sharing platforms place high value on aesthetically-pleasing products. As people take photos or videos of your food items and share them on the internet, your packaging’s personality will be the biggest selling point to new customers. 

Whether selling cans of tuna to major food distributors or starting a vegan-focused venture, the power of online marketing can be harnessed by anyone. Furthermore, investing in your food packaging’s charm can be all the endorsement you need. 

Conclusion 

No matter the business, first impressions matter. Creating interesting and sustainable packaging for your food business can tell customers all they need to know about you. Moreover, big industries and small startups can utilize online platforms to their advantage.   

Your website is the front door to your business online. If potential customers can’t find what they’re searching for or your site isn’t updated, they’ll leave and look elsewhere. You won’t get a second chance at making that first impression. Make sure your site is ready for prime time! 

Whether you’re just getting started with an online presence or have had your site up for years, there are good indicators that you need to give your website a major overhaul. 

The following are six signs that your website needs a major redesign: 

1. Poor Design 

The design of your website helps communicate your image to the online world. If your website looks dated or unprofessional, it gives potential customers the impression that you’re out of touch. You can’t afford to let design flaws leave a negative mark on your online image. 

You may consider visiting a design agency in York or wherever you are. But if you’re design-savvy, you can create a fresh, updated web design yourself. Just be sure to design something clean and straightforward, reflects well on your company, and appeals to the target audience. 

2. Low Security 

Your website should be hosted on a secure server to keep it protected from hackers and malware attacks. The importance of a secure server can’t be emphasized enough to protect your company’s image and information. It’s the equivalent of having guard personnel on duty at your front door. 

How do you solve poor security? Select a scalable hosting option that guarantees safety, availability, and excellent performance. Always be equipped with the proper security software to protect your site from hackers and firewalls to prevent illegal access.  

3. Slow Load Time  

When was the last time you checked your website’s speed? Your website load time shouldn’t be more than five seconds; otherwise, visitors will leave immediately.  

In addition, a lack of caching to reduce server load or poorly optimized images can impact your site’s speed. Caching is a way of temporarily storing data, so the server doesn’t have to retrieve it over and over again. This saves bandwidth and reduces load times, which will help retain existing users and attract new visitors. 

You can also use a content delivery network (CDN) or content distribution network to host your site, preventing low server speeds. It’ll reduce the load on your hosting servers and improve your website’s loading time, ultimately providing a better user experience. 

4. Outdated Content  

Current, relevant, and fresh content is essential for success online. It tells search engines you’re not just another expired website that’s long been forgotten. Even if your site is new, updating old content to the latest version helps drive traffic and rank better in search engines.  

While there are multiple changes in the world of technology, it’s inevitable that you need to keep up with the trends. But how can you update content and attract potential customers with your product or services? 

You can start by creating new pages or sections with updated information, including: 

• Recent industry news  
• Adding fresh blog posts  
• Rearranging existing text without changing the overall message 

• Adding new images or videos that are relevant to your topic at hand 

5. Low Revenues 

If you’re not generating enough revenue from your website, this could indicate that your site needs to be redesigned. Revamp your sales pitch or content and use social media marketing to increase traffic.
 
Your web presence is one of the most valuable assets for growing your business. Of course, no one wants to let that opportunity slip away! So, the more people visit your site, the better it is for your business. 

6. Difficult Navigation 

Your website navigation should be simple, intuitive, and easy to use. They’re designed for user convenience as it takes full advantage of the Internet without making users jump through hoops for your product or services. 

If something looks too complicated, then you’ll probably lose visitors along the way. To simplify, a navigation structure allows visitors to find your products and services easily. Also, ensure your objectives are crystal-clear so the audience knows where to go and why.  

Conclusion 

Website redesigning doesn’t only entail aesthetics. It requires extensive research and thinking because it determines whether your business can generate more traffic, leads, and sales. Planning is essential when redesigning your website. Avoid missing pages, outdated content, and poor navigation to optimize growth. 

Ensure that you cover all relevant points before redoing your website, either updating sections or creating new ones. Your website represents your business in the online industry, and the main goal is to attract and engage your target audience.