**1. ** Understanding Shopify

Before diving into the process of creating your Shopify store, it’s crucial to have a basic understanding of what Shopify is. Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows you to set up and manage an online store. It provides various tools and features to help you sell products and reach your customers. To get started, visit the Shopify website and sign up for an account.

**2. ** Choosing a Niche

One of the most important decisions when starting an online store is selecting a niche or industry to focus on. Your niche should align with your interests and expertise, as this will make it easier to create and curate products, write compelling content, and connect with your target audience. Research the market and identify trends to ensure there is demand for your chosen niche.

**3. ** Market Research

Once you’ve chosen your niche, conduct thorough market research to understand your competition and target audience. Identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and look for opportunities to differentiate your store. Define your target audience’s demographics, preferences, and pain points to tailor your offerings and marketing strategies accordingly.

**4. ** Choosing Products

Selecting the right products to sell is a critical step in the process. Consider whether you want to sell physical products, digital goods, or a combination of both. You can either create your products or source them from suppliers, wholesalers, or dropshipping companies. Ensure that the products you choose align with your niche and have the potential for profitability.

**5. ** Setting Up Your Store

Now that you have a clear vision of your niche and products, it’s time to set up your Shopify store:

• Choose a Domain Name: Select a domain name that reflects your brand and is easy to remember. Shopify offers domain registration services if you don’t already have one.
• Select a Theme: Shopify provides a variety of customizable themes for your store’s design. Choose one that suits your brand and products, and make necessary customizations.
• Add Products: Upload your products to your store, complete with detailed descriptions, high-quality images, and pricing information.
• Set Up Payment and Shipping: Configure your payment gateway to accept payments from customers. Set up shipping options and rates based on your products’ size, weight, and destination.
• Configure Taxes: Depending on your location and the locations you ship to, configure tax settings to comply with local regulations.

**6. ** Design and Branding

Your store’s design and branding play a significant role in attracting and retaining customers. Ensure that your store’s visual elements, such as colors, logos, and fonts, align with your niche and target audience. A consistent and visually appealing brand will make your store more memorable.

**7. ** Content Creation

Create high-quality content to engage and inform your audience. Write product descriptions that highlight the benefits and features of your products. Start a blog or create educational content related to your niche to establish yourself as an authority in your field and drive organic traffic to your store.

**8. ** Marketing and Promotion

To drive traffic and sales, you’ll need to implement marketing strategies:

• Social Media: Utilize platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to connect with your audience, share content, and run targeted ads.
• Email Marketing: Build an email list and send regular newsletters, promotions, and updates to your subscribers.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimize your store’s content for search engines to improve its visibility in search results.
• Paid Advertising: Consider using platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your store.
• Influencer Marketing: Partner with influencers in your niche to promote your products to their followers.

**9. ** Customer Support

Offer excellent customer support to build trust and retain customers. Provide clear contact information, respond to inquiries promptly, and address any issues or concerns professionally. Happy customers are more likely to become repeat buyers and refer others to your store.

**10. ** Monitor and Adapt

Regularly analyze your store’s performance using Shopify’s analytics tools. Track key metrics such as traffic, conversion rates, and sales. Use this data to make informed decisions, refine your marketing strategies, and continuously improve your store’s performance.

Starting your own Shopify store is a rewarding journey that requires dedication, creativity, and adaptability. By following these steps and staying committed to your goals, you can build a successful online business that generates income and provides value to your customers. Good luck with your Shopify venture!

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What is Microsoft Clarity?
While similar in some respects to Google Analytics and perhaps more like Yandex Metrica in others, Microsoft’s monitoring tool is designed to be used even by novice users. The main features offered, by this tool, are:

• Dashboard for an overview of user performance and behavior
• Session logging that notes the behavior of visitors to your website
• Heat map that allows you to observe, in a precise way, the different movements and where visitors click the most

Importantly, thanks to its careful optimization, it does not slow down page loading on sites where it is used. In addition, it has no traffic limit: even sites with large influx of visitors can use it for free.

Clarity uses real evidence but does so while respecting user privacy and GDPR.

How Microsoft Clarity works
To use and make Clarity active, it is necessary, first of all, to register and create a project. Next, simply click on the “Start” button, and as soon as you sign up, a dashboard will appear with a popup asking you to enter a new project, the URL of your website, and choose a site category.

Next, you will have to enter a monitoring code inside the tag of a site, e-commerce or app that you want to analyze. You can also install the code using third-party platforms such as Google Tag Manager.

In addition, Clarity offers the ability to integrate data derived from Google Analytics by simply connecting your Google account.

Dashboard
This section is well structured and easy to understand. It is designed to provide a single set of information, and each metric is juxtaposed with a quick explanation. This approach is very useful for those users who come from other monitoring tools and are unfamiliar with the new entries:

• Rage clicks When a small section of a page is clicked on continuously. This indicates a certain nervous state of the user;
• Dead clicks A visitor clicks idly on a page and gets no results;
• Excessive scrolling A lot of scrolling is done within the page, as if to quickly scroll through the page without getting a chance to see anything.

Eliminating these issues and knowing the most interesting user sessions allows you to make important decisions that serve to simplify the design and optimize the user experience of your site, improving the conversion rate.

Recording Panel
This tool allows users’ sessions and behavior to be recorded as they use the page. The data that are highlighted are:

• the duration;
• the number of pages visited;;
• the number of clicks made;
• the device and operating system used;
• the country of origin.

The navigation video faithfully reflects what the user viewed. The only exceptions are mouse movement from desktops and touches on the screen from smartphones. Convenient filters can be used to make it easier to find a session.

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Who is the ecommerce buyer?
The buyer-or purchasing manager-is a figure who is responsible for planning the selection and purchase of goods and services for resale by an ecommerce.
As a purchasing manager, this figure must be responsible for planning procurement in order to optimize inventory, improve storage flows with a view to reducing costs. Depending on the reality in which he or she operates, he or she may be in charge of choosing raw materials to purchase, as well as products to resell and energy suppliers.

This is a very complex task-though it may not seem so-since the figure in question must be able to understand the needs and preferences of the designated target audience and know how to negotiate smoothly between the parties involved.

The buyer covers many useful functions in ecommerce purchasing and sales including:

• establishing procurement strategies
• selecting the most advantageous suppliers (scouting)
• evaluating designers to understand what they offer
• negotiating procurement budgets with management
• managing relationships with suppliers and customers
• plan purchases (quantities, deadlines) within the assigned budget
• study market trends
• supervise the distribution of goods
• monitor stock trends
• assess the quality of products distributed
• keep abreast of changes in the industry and customer tastes
• visit showrooms, trade shows, and industry events
• study sales materials
• store item master records using management software
• collaborate with other departments in the company to make reasoned decisions
• evaluate the terms and conditions of purchasing contracts
• prepare reports for the purchasing department

What an ecommerce buyer does
The buyer is in charge of evaluating suppliers and their respective offerings to judge whether they are congruent with his company’s needs. He must, of course, understand changes in the market to ascertain whether the goods he can buy meet the needs of his target audience.

He negotiates with suppliers to buy products within the predetermined budget and to possibly obtain discounts. It directly checks the quality of products and, if it finds discrepancies with what was agreed upon, it points this out to suppliers.

In a broader sense, he frequently monitors the industry to define changes in trends that may affect the ability to sell goods. Analyzes the results of market research to define the product lines to be sold. It also makes decisions on final product details, models, sizes and colors. To this end, he compares with suppliers and designers to evaluate the choices available.
Once the products have been chosen, he presents them to the senior manager who gives the go-ahead for distribution in stores. Of course, he can also think of new product lines than conventional ones to propose to the company.

In the supervisor’s capacity, he serves as a unifying figure for the various business sections, oversees the work of the salespeople, and liaises with the sales department to decide whether it is appropriate to withdraw a product that is no longer profitable. Based on the information from the various company departments (purchasing, production, sales…) he can make more effective decisions, and possibly modify the purchasing plans undertaken based on additional data received.

On the administrative side, he or she is responsible for checking quotes, contacting suppliers to make sure deliveries are made on time.

What characteristics should the ecommerce buyer have
The buyer generally possesses excellent communication skills, both written and oral, which he or she uses in negotiating with suppliers.
He or she possesses excellent organizational and planning skills to perform his or her tasks to the best of his or her ability, excellent mathematical skills to compare prices, and data analysis skills to make well-reasoned decisions.
The buyer must be able to relate to the company as a whole to be able to define in advance the timing and quantities of products to be met.
Appreciated qualities are resistance to stress and the ability to act on multiple levels to ensure tasks are carried out correctly.

Typically, buyers have a degree in business related to a technical background. Educational backgrounds such as master’s degrees in subjects related to warehouse management and logistics, and a knowledge of corporate contracting are also appreciated.
This professional can specialize in certain sectors (e.g., clothing, toys, electronics): in fact, Buyers can work in all areas of retail: large retail bookstores, fashion, hi-tech stores.

They certainly cannot lack a certain amount of resourcefulness that drives them to make motivated and perhaps innovative decisions to improve ecommerce performance!

The post Buyers for ecommerce: who they are and what they do appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

However, there is another important step to take in lead generation, which is the creation of incisive call-to-actions to stimulate conversions and increase sales.

A good copywriter must therefore be able to complement texts with engaging and direct calls-to-action that finalize the viewers’ attention toward taking actions beneficial to the business.

What are calls to action
A call to action (CTA) is a call to action placed in a web content to prompt the reader to take an action beneficial to conversion goals.

The call to action can be simple text as well as a button or widget placed prominently,. It can be an element with the function of transporting the user to another page where they can take a desired action, such as leaving their information in exchange for an appealing free product.

Devising compelling call-to-actions is a task that is far from obvious and not necessarily easy to accomplish. Indeed, one must be able to combine clear indications of what one wants users to do, with an idea of the benefit that will accrue to those who will accept.

In fact, the CTA is critical in lead generation campaigns to convert casual visitors into actual customers and to get them to take actions such as:

• request a quote
• requesting more information
• download a trial of a product
• download an ebook
• subscribe to the company newsletter
• invite to share on social media

These are also very useful invitations to create a strong community around one’s brand and to increase the visibility of content.

Many times it makes use of phrases such as “Click here,” “Discover now,” and “Sign up now” to make the action to be taken obvious.

Once the user clicks on the call to action, they are on a landing page that either urges them to take an action (e.g., provide their contact information to sign up for a newsletter) or thanks them for taking the action (e.g., thank you page after placing an order). In this way an occasional contact can be turned into an actual lead (business contact).

We thus have a process like this:

• landing on the landing page
• identifying the call to action
• clicking on the call to action
• landing on a “thank you page” that delivers what was promised and says thank you

How to create effective call to action
An effective call to action must be able to reach the viewer’s attention and prompt them to take the desired action.

The important thing is always to put the user’s needs at the center, to act on the levers that are really able to push the user to take action.

An effective call to action must:

• express how it is able to satisfy the person’s need
• nudge the viewer in a “gentle” way to take the action toward the product or service you are offering
• clearly state the action you want the reader to perform
• adopt the company’s usual tone of voice.

The CTA should be concise and direct and clearly express the benefit the reader will receive if he or she takes the suggested action.

The call to action must be placed in strategic locations on the page so that it is clearly visible and entices the user to click.

It should point directly to indicate the action to be taken and the promised benefit, without getting lost in frills.

Some examples of effective call-to-actions might be:

• Join our community and learn all the tricks to earn money!
• Download our software and keep track of all your expenses
• Leave a comment and share with your friends
• Save now
• Discover our Free Guide

These texts aim to make it very clear in a few words the benefit that those who perform the required action will receive, without diluting, inviting the viewer to act immediately.

Although using verbs in imperative form may seem aggressive and “rude,” it allows for more direct reception and prompts action more effectively.

Netflix’s call-to-action:

“Watch what you want anywhere. Cancel anytime you want

Free subscription for one month.”

is effective since it expresses the benefit of watching countless products, as well as the ability to subscribe for free with no commitment and easy to cancel.

Trello reports instead:

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to illustrate how the proposed product succeeds in increasing users’ productivity.

Evernote reports:

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which hints at the benefit in terms of streamlining the work it offers, and then invites you to sign up now.

It is then a matter of choosing the right combination of form, text and color that will capture the viewer’s attention and propel them to action.

To assess the effectiveness of each choice, special A/B tests are conducted: these involve changing a small number of elements so as to assess which arrangement yields the best results.

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Brands are constantly looking for new ways to excite users and convey their commercial messages more effectively. One such strategy is product placement. What is it all about?

What is product placement
Product placement (or “embedded marketing” or “embedded advertising”) is a form of promotion that consists of showing, mentioning or otherwise highlighting a commercial product within a narrative product (movie, TV series, radio show…) so that it is received by the viewer in an unconscious way.

It is a technique that has really been used for dozens of years and was already present in films of the 1950s-60s. You only have to think of even black-and-white films where you could see a Hollywood actor smoking a Marlboro, complete with a clearly visible pack.

What does traditional brand promotion mean today? Why doesn’t regular advertising work? The consumer today is more aware and demanding; that is why the conventional way of product brand promotion is not enough. Nowadays, marketers are reaching for unconventional marketing tools. This is precisely where product placement comes in.

According to several studies, product placement has a great impact in the recipient of advertising. The product, directly shown, affects on average about 30 percent of viewers.

In addition, if the product is shown near the actor or secondary characters, the effectiveness of the message increases to more than 50 percent. While if the main character uses the product, the visibility goes up to 80%. Really high numbers when compared to other advertisements. This also explains why during our times, advertising done through influencer marketing has a very very high response.

The same research also tells us that if there is a verbal mention within a program or movie (thus without visual impact) 60% of the target audience will notice it.

How much does it cost to do product Placement
Product placement usually takes place for a financial consideration, that is, it is a covert sponsorship performed without the viewers being aware of it from the beginning.

In other cases, the “reward” for the sponsoring company consists of another form of financial return, such as selling its products and services needed for the production of the film.

Unlike conventional advertising, which is presented as such and which viewers take in its true purposes, product placement acts more “sneakily” by reaching out to users when their defenses are down, presenting marketed products as elements of a narrative context.

Generally, the product should stand out but not too blatantly, possibly in a way that is functional to the plot. A product displayed in a way that disturbs the viewer or does not stick in the mind, on the other hand, is not considered effective.

As the July 30, 2004 Decree adopted by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities clarifies, “The placement of products or brands within films or television programs must integrate into the development of the action, without constituting interruption of the narrative context.”

Product placement is applied in many channels such as movies, TV shows, radio shows, video games, games and events, so that the enjoyment of the entertainment product is not interrupted. It is a more insidious form of indirect advertising, if you will, as it is mixed with other entertainment elements but, unlike these, with a commercial intent.

Product Placement: why did it catch on?
You may be wondering: but why has product placement caught on?

In traditional commercials, the viewer is already prepared to receive advertising messages and therefore knows that he or she will be called upon to decide whether or not the offer is appropriate. For this reason, commercials often do not achieve the desired effects, as viewers either do not pay attention to the advertisements or skip them directly.

In product placement, on the other hand, the user is predisposed to follow the film, TV series or show carefully, and if the product is part of it undoubtedly reaches the viewer.

In these cases, the user identifies the product as a part of the entertainment media, so his judgment of it is “distorted” by the emotions conveyed to him by the narrative.

Obviously, the more the product is presented in a smooth, obvious though not overly placed manner, the more the message goes unnoticed but reaches its destination.

This advertising technique requires larger investments than the other modes, costs that are justified by the returns that can be obtained when entertainment products have high notoriety.

From a certain point of view, product placement acts like native advertising, since it is integrated into the context consulted by the user.

Over the years, this system became established as a real method of increasing film budgets, as companies financed film productions in exchange for the appearance of their products in films.

According to a report by PQMedia, product placement in 2020 reached global value of more than $20 billion!

Nielsen Media Research released a study showing that 58 percent of viewers recognized a brand while viewing a product placement in combination with the commercial, while 47 percent of viewers recognized a brand exposed only to the commercial.

Of course, this study does not show an overall view of the impact of brand placement that brand awareness increases with product placement. But the fact that a brand appears every 3 minutes in prime-time TV shows and media forecast data suggests an annual increase of more than 10 percent of the $8 billion spent globally on brand placement of film and TV products.

Examples of Product Placement.
Forrest Gump drinking 15 bottles of Dr. Pepper or discarding Nikes

• Tom Cruise wearing Ray-Ban glasses in Top Gun

• In Et the Extraterrestrial Spielberg there are in several scenes with Rece’s Pieces candy

• Jurassic World. Watch this video, a trailer made all of Product Placement was created. Had you ever paid attention to it?

At one time this practice was performed in a rather common way, configuring itself as de facto unregulated advertising. Over the years, regulatory interventions (such as the Urbani Decree of July 30, 2004) were developed so that its influence on the viewer would be regulated.

Product placement – The types
Different types of product placement have been developed over the years, evolving in parallel with the entertainment products provided to the public.

• Visual (screen placement): the brand is placed in a highly visible manner for the viewer (this is one of the most effective modes)
• Verbal (script placement): the brand is named by the characters in the story (its effectiveness depends on the context and how it is integrated)
• Integrated (plot placement): unlike the more superficial modes, in this case the product is integrated with the plot of the entertainment channel and becomes part of it if not a real pillar of the story (see “The Devil Wears Prada,” although in this case it is called “title placement” since the product is present in the title)

The integrated formula in particular has evolved in recent years so that it is increasingly perceived as an actual entertainment product rather as a way put in place strictly to advertise a product.

See the “Lego Movie” films that revolve entirely around the use of Lego bricks to build different kinds of artifacts (i.e., the function that is meant to prompt potential customers to buy them) or “Wreck-it Ralph” where characters from video game brands as well as Mentos and Coca Cola are mentioned. And who more than others Toy Story, with its cen.

In some cases, on the other hand, product placement originates after the release of the entertainment product: this is the case with Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans from the Harry Potter films or the novels attributed to the TV character Richard Castle, which were released after an existence only in fiction.

Where product placement is done
Product placement nowadays is done not only in TV series, dramas or children’s TV series, but also in school textbooks.

In France, children can learn techniques for brushing their teeth with images of Colgate materials.

At the moment, the consumer who sees shoes, cars, cell phones and other products of specific brands in TV programs or serials is not surprised and even convinced that this kind of advertising has been paid for by the company that wants to promote its brand.

But product placement in print, especially in books, is a relatively new and rare mode of promotion. Multiple brand placement in the text can be an effective marketing technique that allows consumers to become familiar with the brand embedded in the text and thus become a favorite brand of consumers in the selected product category of other brands. This may subconsciously change the reader’s own thoughts.

Advantages and disadvantages of product placement
Although product placement is an effective marketing communication tool, it is not without its drawbacks. However, numerous advantages that affect the effectiveness of product placement make these negative elements become less visible. Summary of the positive and negative aspects of product placement presented below.

The most important advantages are.
Alternative to traditional forms of advertising, product placement unlike television communication does not affect the interruption of the broadcast. Advertising blocks cause annoyance to viewers.

Credibility of the message: brands presented in films or TV series introduce an atmosphere of authenticity. By seeing the products they know from the real world on the screen, the recipient is gaining trust in the content presented.

The presentation of the brand-product in the audiovisual broadcast takes place in the company of the celebrities who use them. According to the viewer, the actors/sportsmen/television personalities are attractive, so that product also becomes an object of desire.

Low cost and high efficiency: the cost of product placement is much lower than that incurred by the advertiser in the case of television advertising. Companies often have the option of placing the brand in exchange for providing props for the film, which is a minimal cost to them.

Unlimited range: product placement in the film offers the opportunity to reach a wider audience because the film can be seen anywhere in the world. This is attractive to companies that operate globally, because they have the opportunity to reach an international clientele.

The ability to promote products prohibited in classic advertising: product placement creates a space in which manufacturers can present their products prohibited by law in advertising. These include products such as alcohol and tobacco products. Films are extremely attractive to producers of these types of products because they have fewer opportunities in the classic mode of promotion than, for example, food.

Unrestricted access: each audiovisual work appears in different mass media; in the case of films, the first is the cinema, then the Internet, DVD and television. The viewer thus has unlimited access to the image, and the product thus localized can be seen many times.

The disadvantages of this promotional tool include the following
Unpredictable number of clients: it is difficult for producers to predict whether the film or any other work will be successful or not. Careful selection of the cast and a good idea for a script do not guarantee success. It may be the case that using brand positioning incurs costs, but the investment has not been worthwhile.

Bad placement: the reception of product placement depends on screenwriters bringing a brand into the film. If done superficially, producers and sponsors of the video project can have the brand exposed to negative public reviews. In the Internet age, bad reputation spreads very quickly. For example, let’s take a car as a product for positioning. Let’s put the car in scenes where there is a chase and the car manages to catch up with the car in front with great acceleration, this car brand will look like a high-quality product with a high-performance engine. Take another scene with the same car not losing the chase with a car in the same category, the brand will be seen as a brand with low quality and non-performing engines and therefore not trustworthy.

It remains stationary at the moment it is photographed: the introduction of product placement photographs the product at that specific moment. If the product changes visual identification and some external features (logo, packaging, etc.), the image of this product will continue to circulate not updated to the time of fruition.

Limited opportunities for communication differentiation: the situation applies to brands that operate globally. Sometimes a product arrives in different countries under a different name or not at all, which is a kind of limitation that does not allow the full potential of this kind of promotion tool to be exploited.

Low sales effect: product placement performs the functions of branding. Therefore, this tool requires support from other forms of promotion that will induce the consumer to decide to buy.

Lack of control over the life of the product in the film: once identified, the product is in the film forever. It may happen that the product is withdrawn or begins to be positioned differently, thus making its presence in the film obsolete.

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Among all the techniques of modern marketing, there is a whole class of them whose use is based on the objective results, obtained by rigorous scientific method, of the in-depth studies of psychology. Not only to promote a product, but also to outperform the competition.

Since one cannot openly denigrate what another brand produces (the law forbids it), one leverages unconscious mechanisms to favor one’s own at the expense of another, appropriately “guiding” the consumer.

Without often the latter even realizing it. Let’s look in detail at one such marketing tool called the “decoy effect” or, in English “decoy effect” (with decoy properly meaning “false target” or, indeed, “bait”).

Don’t believe it? Get to the end of the article and you will find many practical examples and a video of an experiment.

What is the Decoy Effect (decoy effect)
The most proper and strict definition of the decoy effect is “that which induces changes in individual preferences between two choice options, when a third, which was not present before, is introduced.”

This additional option, to have a “decoy effect,” must possess characteristics such that it is, as they say, “asymmetrically dominant.”

The concept of “asymmetric dominance,” a marketing jargon term that, however, much more properly and correctly should be called “anisoprodynamic” = “unequally promoting,” indicates a certain action.

That is, to emphasize, among three or more options, to the exclusion of the third, more one of the remaining two than the other, without “symmetry,” between them

How does it affect the psyche of individual consumers
The primary purpose of those who make use of the decoy effect, as part of marketing campaigns, is not to steer individual consumers toward their own products, but rather to keep them away from those of other competing manufacturers. Manufacturers operating in the same market segment, of course.

By turning consumers away and disinviting them from buying the products of competing firms, it will, indirectly, have the effect of turning their attention toward ours. So, even without promoting them directly, that will be the result in the end. Only, achieved vicariously.

Marketing bait effect, history and practical examples
The earliest recorded description of the decoy effect is dated 1981. Three scholars, namely: Joel Huber, John Payne and Christopher Puto, in an academic paper jointly presented at an economics conference, then republished in a journal the following year.

Conducted as a study with carefully selected participants, their experiment debunked previous theories of “heuristic similarity” and “conditional regularity.” These asserted that a new product would divert consumers from choosing the original one and, thus, cause the company marketing it, economic harm. Thus with no advantage over competing products.

Bait Effect Examples
To understand the mechanism well in detail, we will give some practical examples.

Let us imagine a situation where, initially, only two products are offered at two different prices. The products are of the same kind (e.g., a tablet) but in different setups and with more or less accessories provided to accompany the main product.

We mark these two business proposals with A and B.

• A – 900-watt vacuum cleaner sold for 89 euros (without accessories)
• B – 1200-watt vacuum cleaner + accessory bag + complete set of nozzles of various sizes and lengths, sold for 149 euros

In such a scenario, consumers’ choices would preferentially lean toward the proposal with the best price-quality ratio. However, it is not so immediate to realize
That proposal B is the one with the best ratio.

In fact, B offers 35 percent more power, plus several enclosed accessories, all for a price about 67 percent higher. Not little then. Sure, it offers a full set of sccessories, but what is the real value of those accessories, would they justify the higher expense compared to proposal A?

Let us now introduce a third proposal C

• C – 1000-watt vacuum cleaner, complete with two additional suction nozzles, sold at 129 euros.

At this point the consumer thinks that, for only 20 euros more, he can take home a vacuum cleaner that is more powerful (1200 watts versus 1000) and with several other accessories included in the price, plus the bag for storage.

So now the best proposition has become, in the eyes of the consumer, definitely the B. And here we have just seen the decoy effect at work, factually.

The same technique is used continuously in, for example, movie theaters to sell popcorn or even in Starbucks, Mcdonald’s etc etc.

See this example: there are two sizes of popcorn sold in cinemas.

At this point almost all consumers will go for the 3-euro format because they will see the 7-euro format as very distant in price.

At this point the Bait effect comes into play. The vendor proposes 3 options, and the middle one is very close to the one that costs the most.
Let’s look at the example now.

As if by magic, the vast majority of users finding the larger package and comparing it with the average one will be inclined to buy that one for only 50 cents more. The shopkeeper will succeed in his intent to raise the take from 3 to 7 euros. Can you believe it?

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An ecommerce, to prove to be a profitable investment, needs to be promoted with appropriate marketing strategies.

Cross-selling and up-selling are of paramount importance in ecommerce promotion, as they allow the brand’s customer base to be enhanced to increase the chances of revenue.

These are very important factors for ecommerce implementers to consider.

What is cross selling?
Cross selling is a marketing technique of offering a buyer to purchase products or services that are complementary to those originally purchased. The purpose is to enhance a business relationship with the customer and increase the customer’s profitability by increasing the variety of goods sold to them.

What is up selling?
Up selling is a marketing practice that aims to steer the customer toward the purchase of products or services of a higher class than those he or she intended to purchase. This is a practice that targets a small percentage of acquired customers who are willing to spend more to have better-performing products that can improve their lives and work to an appreciable degree than would the basic version of the same. It is also estimated that up selling has a much stronger influence on overall sales than is potentially achieved by cross selling.

Therefore, if we have to find ourselves choosing between the two, it is worthwhile to focus first on cross selling.

These are strategies for promoting stores, and in our case ecommerce, and are aimed at individuals who have already purchased from us, therefore already mentally predisposed to purchase, and who having already assayed the quality of the products and services offered have a greater incentive to obtain more.

To be clear, Amazon derives 35 percent of its revenue from upselling and cross selling strategies.

Cross Selling and Upselling Strategies
Customers buy products to meet their needs, but they may not necessarily be aware of all the alternatives available to them. Merchants can apply upselling and cross selling strategies to highlight combinations of products that are more appealing than single ones, and more advanced versions of products than low-end ones, making them more inviting in the eyes of customers.

Thus, these are strategies that aim to improve the buyer’s life by offering him products that more effectively meet his needs, clearly leading him to spend more money than expected.

Difference between upselling and cross-selling
The difference between the two tactics lies in the fact that upselling involves offering more expensive products (because they are of higher value) while cross-selling involves offering products that are complementary to those identified at the outset.

These are popular strategies because they do not involve any special costs (if we exclude the discounts that have to be applied to make the offers more inviting) and that allow marketers to highlight the full range of products available.

Thus we can have, for example, promotions of larger screen sizes that make them more inviting than smaller ones (e.g., leveraging the buyer’s desire to enjoy movies and games with higher quality), or tour packages with more benefits included than the standard versions (to enjoy an even more fulfilling vacation).

An example of cross selling can be the electronic appliance store that, to the customer who has chosen a notebook, also offers a case to carry it around without safe from shock, or the appliance in plain sight with batteries that can be purchased for a small extra charge. An example of up selling is when you aim to suggest that the customer buy a higher-end computer equipped with a superior graphics card and sound compartment for better performance without having to upgrade later.

In this example in the image after buying an Oculus Quest2, Amazon suggests related products to me.

Amazon Example of Cross Selling.
MacDonald’s, for example, offers customers who go to pay to “upgrade” their order to a richer menu for a small surcharge.

How to apply cross selling and upselling for your ecommerce
Start thinking about what kinds of products can be offered in conjunction with others.

An example of cross-selling is Amazon’s strategy, which under selected books recommends others in related genres that those who have bought the ones in question usually buy.

You can divide the products by price ranges so that visitors to an A-level product will be signaled the benefits they will get from buying B-level ones.

A good strategy is to contextualize the difference between the two products and the benefits you get from a higher quality one.

We can add a message such as <> by including the guaranteed better technical performance.

We can then highlight, with a box or pop-up, the availability of more affordable products at a feature or performance level to entice surfers to consider them for purchase.

These are strategies that take root more on the kind of products that are best-selling, reviewed (therefore more popular with the public) and therefore relevant to those to whom they are sold. Upselling can be practiced either naturally (with good observation and planning skills) or automatically through plugins.

If you prefer to work by hand, you should divide your products into categories and for each of them divide them into bands to identify the luxury ones versus the basic ones.

You can determine, for example, which sweaters or pants are luxury versus those of a more ordinary level, and point out why the user may prefer to buy them.

Directly aiming to upsell high-end products will help you increase sales in a short time. To implement these suggestions, if you are unable to do it yourself, you can turn to a web designer who can introduce solutions to highlight products without compromising the navigability of the site.

These are very important introductions to ensure the profitability of your ecommerce, so you need to check that those introduced do not hinder those who have to navigate the portal.

You can also rely on data from Google Analytics to ascertain which product pages are receiving the most visits, and identify the most appropriate high-end products related to them to denote.

If you are interested in ecommerce strategies, don’t miss the article on the bait effect in marketing.

The post Cross selling and upselling: how do they help ecommerces sell more? appeared first on E-Commerce Marketing.

These days, with the announcement of the renaming of Facebook inc to Meta, the concept of the Metaverse has emerged from the cyberpunk sphere in which it arose to affect everyday life.

The Metaverse we are approaching stands as an evolution of the Internet, but not as a substitute for it, but already doubts are being raised about the risks it might pose on sociality, mental health and physical well-being.

At the moment we do not even know what it will be and what features it will possess, but we are probably looking forward to a virtual reality full of avatars intersected with the material world. It is therefore a new way of experiencing one’s identity and interacting with people, products and services fully immersed in new technologies.

What is the metaverse
The metaverse-since its creation by writer Neal Stephenson in 1992 for the novel “Snow Crash”-has been a concept used in science fiction works, particularly in a negative sense, which see a humanity alienated from material reality to live in the virtual one. Traditionally, the Metaverse is seen as an immersive virtual reality in which everyone can interact with the elements of this world through three-dimensional avatars.

A version of this concept appears in Ernest Cline’s novel “Ready Player One” in which participants in the virtual Oasis system can interact via virtual helmets in a three-dimensional digital environment.

The Metaverse is proposed as a direct evolution of the Internet. A virtual world in which one can perform virtually any kind of action: watch movies, attend concerts, play games, hold business meetings, play sports, attend trade shows and meet with friends.

The concept is back in the limelight with Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to rename his holding company Facebook to Meta, a new project in which to make it possible to play games, play sports, and work without moving from your living room at home. The world of the metaverse thus accommodates every need for interaction that one might seek in the real world, from work interactions to college education via games.

Large companies such as Facebook, precisely, are investing in this new reality, betting on it becoming a standard within everyone’s reach within the next few years. A real new way of life!

Of course, everyone’s concerns are directed at whether such a lifestyle will eventually swallow us completely and make material life lose its attractiveness

How the Metaverse works
In the original version of “Snow Crash,” the Metaverse was depicted as a black sphere interrupted in the middle by a road where people could accomplish whatever they wished via 3d avatars, the resolution of which reflected the class differences of the respective human subjects.

Today the idea of the Metaverse, as this concept is commonly understood, is that a subject, wearing a visor, can enter the virtual universe in which he or she can do virtually anything he or she wants, just as we decide what to do in front of a computer. For example, one can choose what clothes to wear, watch movies, play games or sports, admire works of art, as well as buy virtual objects. This is precisely what many major companies are aiming for; already sales of products are being initiated via blockchain and NFT.

While we are currently used to navigating through a screen that separates us from digital functions, the evolution of this state of affairs in the Metaverse will lead to total immersion through the wearable visor.

Of course, the success of this project will depend on the affordability of devices to enter the virtual world, to expand its use. But the possibilities in the air are many: from business meetings, to surfing, to engaging in fitness as well as playing games or attending a concert.

How to access the Metaverse
The phenomenon is yet to be defined. First of all, it needs to be understood whether an entity will be set up to manage access to the Metaverse, or whether it will all be in the hands of private individuals who will each initiate their own version of the virtual world. Indeed, it is not yet certain that all companies will agree to cooperate in creating a single shared Metaverse that users can access differently.

The time is beginning to be ripe. New wearable technologies and the cloud make all information available, computer graphics are so advanced that they can simulate a world with its own rules about light, sound and perspective. The idea, however, is not to replace the Internet or material life with its equivalent made of bits, but to integrate the two types of reality to pursue a natural evolution of the lifestyle that began with the massive takeover of the Internet in our lives.

At the Facebook Connect 2021 convention, Zuckerberg unveiled Horizon Home, which seems to be the first step for his Metaverse. Apple, Samsung, Sony are just some of the companies that are following this trend in their new devices.

Zuckerberg’s company is already working on a viewer that can be worn all day long more comfortably than the traditional ones we are used to.

How the metaverse will change the world
Many large companies such as Microsoft, Alibaba, Tencent, and Epic Games are investing considerable amounts of money in this project.The evolution of the internet into its meta version seems like a stage that is not only certain, but even imminent. And the possibilities for profit from the sale of virtual goods existing only in the digital world seem just around the corner.

Microsoft, for example, has developed technology to participate in video meetings in avatar format. Such an innovation is within everyone’s reach since you don’t even need a visor to make use of it, but it is prepared by Microsoft’s own cloud.

Epic Games already plans to set itself up to enjoy games, virtual events and movies. ByteDance (the one from TikTok) is studying how to convert videos to 3D format.

Facebook, according to the words of its CEO, has already begun the path that will lead the company to evolve from a social network to a metaverse, developing an immersive life experience in virtual reality.

Apparently, therefore, big brands are already working on creating a virtual world in which it is possible to perform all the actions we are familiar with: talking, dancing, working, shopping, wearing clothes, buying items to show off. But all while experiencing it with one’s senses through an immersive experience, rather than with a screen standing between us and the content.

Of course, obviously the process is still ongoing and millions of viewers will be needed to make the metaverse usable on a large scale.

Current estimates suggest that within 5 years part of the population will be living a virtual existence parallel to their material one. And at that point new questions will open up about the safety, privacy and lawfulness of actions that can be performed in this virtual universe. We will be ready to face them!

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Every company should aim to achieve maximum customer satisfaction, a useful condition for ensuring satisfactory profitability and promoting a positive brand image. Customer satisfaction is a measure of customer satisfaction and a useful basis for improving one’s operations and increasing customer retention.

What is customer satisfaction?
Customer satisfaction is a concept that measures customer satisfaction with a brand, product, or service.

In fact, customers can evaluate the buying experience toward a company in terms of:

• quality of products
• benefits from fruition
• value for money
• obtaining special benefits
• fulfillment of promises made

When the customer’s expectations of the buying experience are exceeded, it becomes easier to establish a positive lasting relationship with the customer. In fact, the customer perceives that his or her needs are being met and that he or she even gets something more than he or she would get from the offerings of others, and therefore has no reason to buy from other vendors.

Customer satisfaction measures five different aspects of satisfaction:

• material aspects (premises, personnel, means of transportation, etc.)
• reliability (ability to perform the entrusted task correctly)
• speed of response to customer needs
• ability to respond to customer needs as expected
• customer care and ability to convey positive feelings to customers

These aspects are analyzed from the perspective of expectations and actual satisfaction derived from fruition. By comparing these evaluations, it is possible to study the discrepancy between the imagined situation and the situation that actually occurred, and to understand whether this can affect the commercial profitability of the brand.

A satisfied customer accepts higher-level business proposals
Customer satisfaction also fuels customer loyalty by fostering the conditions that make customers continue to buy over time repeatedly. In addition, a satisfied customer tends to accept commercial proposals of higher amounts than those normally perceived as convenient. Greater customer satisfaction makes it possible to avoid the use of pricing strategies that lead to competing with lower-end competitors, and to continue to maintain prices in keeping with its quality.

In fact, the customer perceives higher quality and a commitment to making solutions more relevant to his or her needs and is willing to shell out more to get what effectively meets his or her needs. A satisfied customer can give rise to positive word of mouth that increases brand visibility and conveys a sense of satisfaction about the solutions provided.

Companies can develop special tests and questionnaires to monitor customer satisfaction and measure in objective terms the satisfaction with the activities undertaken, as well as obtain valuable information on aspects that need to be improved to make customers more satisfied.

Customer satisfaction data are used to assess a company’s sales prospects in the future, so they allow management to get an idea of the profitability of the brand and the possibility of continuing to sell to loyal customers over time.

How to measure customer satisfaction
Companies have a vested interest in assessing their customers’ satisfaction in detail to ascertain whether it is appropriate to devise strategies to improve brand identity liking and make business offerings more receptive.

Customer satisfaction indicators make it possible to touch on the appreciation that customers feel for the brand’s offerings, in terms of benefit/cost ratio.

Of course, the various business communication channels come in handy to submit questionnaires in the way customers prefer, so as to increase the chances of getting them back filled out. Companies have several elements at their disposal to assess customer satisfaction such as:

• form in the site
• email feedback requests
• paper questionnaires
• questions asked by employees in sales stores, which can be used in conjunction or alternately to achieve greater coverage. It is necessary if possible to ensure that stakeholders provide a response when they feel comfortable, so that they do not return improvised feedback that is not really felt, for the purpose of, for example, quickly getting rid of the questionnaire.

The ServQual (Service Quality) method makes it possible to ascertain by questionnaire the gap between customer expectations and performance achieved. With this method, discrepancies between what was expected and what was received can be estimated, so as to ascertain which aspects need to be corrected and prevent reputational crises that could sink the value of the brand.

Indicators
The indicators that give a measure of customer satisfaction are:

• customer satisfaction score (CSAT): the average degree of consumer satisfaction with a product, service or initiative.
• net promoter score (NPS): the propensity of customers to recommend a product, service or brand to another person

Satisfaction is then expressed with a series of levels that allow for objectively comparable feedback of customer satisfaction. We can then apply a rating from 1 to 5 (where one is “Not at all” and five is “Very Much”) to get a concrete feedback of satisfaction. Then we will group all the customers who returned the same value and compare them with the total, to get the liking percentages of each band.

For example, having an 80% approval rating range between 4 and 5 is certainly a more desirable condition than having 50% ratings below three and 50% from 3 and up.

Net Promoter is a very important variable since it gives insight into the ability to turn customers into brand evangelists, individuals who spontaneously spread the company’s messages and produce content that increases brand visibility. Through their actions, companies multiply the reach of their business activities by reaching a much larger audience than originally within its reach.

Of course, not all customers feel incentivized to respond to satisfaction questionnaires: in this case, it may be useful to point out that the information collected, in addition to being anonymous, will help companies improve their service, with consequent benefits on those who provided it. Involving operators directly in contact with customers helps to make them feel more motivated to provide feedback, so as not to disappoint their counterparts.

We can have, for example, restaurant cashiers who are in charge of asking customers how the evening went and what, if anything, they were not satisfied with, point-of-service clerks who ask customers what they thought of the service provided, hotel receptionists can ask customers for an evaluation of the service by externalizing their requests for subsequent bookings.

A customer who feels that he or she is being followed by companies at the level of needs to be met is a customer who is more likely to be retained, because he or she knows that he or she will get products and services that are more relevant to his or her needs than standardized products and services from other brands.

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Google Analytics 4 (formerly called “App+Web”) is the new version of the popular platform for analyzing website usage data that promises to be a real revolution. This is not a minor change from GA3 (Universal Analytics), but a real rethink from the tool’s starting canons. The tool, rethought for the occasion, revolves primarily around user tracking, rather than fragmented device or platform tracking: the ultimate goal is to analyze the entire customer lifecycle, from landing on the site to retention.

For now, we can make use of both Google Analytics and GA4, but not for long: as of July 1, 2023, it will no longer be possible to use the old Universal Analytics properties, which will stop recording data. Stored data will be set aside for six months and it will be necessary to upgrade to the new GA4 version.

Google Analytics 4 is the new platform designed to meet the challenges associated with modern data analysis, but learning to use it with mastery is also a challenge.

At first glance, however, the new tool appears less intuitive to use than the previous version, and it is not easy to become familiar with the new configuration.

Why should we learn to use this spartan, revamped configuration as opposed to the easy configuration with which we are already familiar? Because it has many new features that will come in handy! And also because as of July 1, 2023, the standard Universal Analytics properties will no longer process data. A good reason to activate new properties now with c

Google Analytics 4: what’s new
GA4 is a more predictive analytics-oriented platform than the previous version, places more emphasis on events and appears more precise and powerful in measuring data. The tool is also more privacy-friendly, in fact users’ IP addresses are no longer stored.

The platform distributes data according to these classifications:

• data model: whereas Universal Analytics was focused on sessions, the new version is based on event analysis.
• the interface appears more minimal, but a reduction in screens is not matched by greater ease of use.
• appearance of Data Steam instead of views
• measurement of engagement instead of bounce rate

An important difference with the previous version is that GA4 makes up for the lack of data due to the fact that some users block cookies, with a machine learning system that introduces predictive analytics to fill the gap of missing data. This makes up for the limitations introduced by compliance with Privacy Laws by providing views based on plausible simulations of user behavior and preferences.

Incidentally, Google Consent Mode is the new standard in interaction on privacy preferences set by users.

You’ll soon notice that bounce rate and pageviews have been set aside, in favor of events placed much more prominently. The new configuration has been rethought to collect both app and website data under a single property, so that we can work on a decidedly fruitful set of information to interpret user behavior in its entirety to enhance the effectiveness of marketing actions.

At the level of functionality, we can see that already at the visual level the interface of the new version has significant differences from the previous one. New graphical changes will probably be introduced in the coming months with the aim of reducing the perceived differences between the two configurations.

With the new platform, it is possible to measure engagement indicators such as:

• average time of involvement
• engagement sessions per user
• average time of engagement per session;

We note that the concept of view has now been replaced by that of data stream. The stream ID uniquely identifies a data stream from a given platform.

The “Explore” section, which allows the creation of much more complex and customizable reports; Also enhanced is the linking between domains as well as the evaluation in Ecommerce functions. A Debugview version is also introduced to monitor the proper functioning of tracking within the tool.

Google Analytics 4: event management
A relevant new feature of the new version of Analytics is the no longer session-based, but event-based approach. What this means.

All hits are considered events (in the previous version there were also other types of hits, such as pageview).

With the new version it is possible to track events automatically, without the need to configure Google Tag Manager. Data tracking therefore appears free and accessible to all. Goals are replaced by conversions, which can be configured only through events, and new events can be created directly from the GA4 interface.

Currently, the platform has 4 categories of events:

• automatically monitored events (they do not require any implementation other than the activation of Google Analytics 4);
• enhanced measurement events (enhanced measurement events) that must be specially configured
• recommended events: must be independently activated at the code level from the default parameters
• custom events: they must be independently activated and have no predefined Google parameters.

Thanks to GA4, it is possible to configure tailor-made advanced audience segments with relative ease, which is useful for dividing customers into purchase brackets, for example.

How to migrate to Google Analytics 4
From your admin panel you will see enabled the ability to upgrade to the new Google Analytics 4 version. At the end of the procedure: a new Google Analytics 4 property will be generated; the pre-existing one will remain unchanged and will continue to collect data

Google Analytics 4: what’s new
Data analytics is a key resource for SEOs and marketers who want to touch on the performance of their website. This is a paradigm shift that is not exactly painless and will require some adaptability.

Google Analytics 4 turns out to be a platform designed to make big data available for anyone to improve their analytics processes with artificial intelligence, with the ultimate goal of making it increasingly user-friendly.

However, the platform’s interface is still immature. In fact, quite a few users claim that the current interface model is not very user-friendly, although others praise its orientation toward events that make it more fruitful from a data measurement point of view. Changes will certainly be introduced in the coming months to make it more user friendly.

GA4 meets the needs for full customization of data analysis. There is no rigid configuration to be adopted at all costs; we can create events with the names we prefer (provided, of course, that we can follow the creation procedure correctly.

Better implementation of data from Google Ads and Youtube will also be provided.

This platform still seems to be improving, and the possibilities for data analysis have yet to fully open up.

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