E-commerce trends in 2023

Cutting-Edge E-commerce Trends to Explore in 2023! 

/0 Comments/in /by

Introduction:

E-commerce has made (or broken) a great number of businesses in recent years. This is no more a thing of secrecy. Furthermore, you can witness more and more consumers gazing at online websites and storefronts to fulfill their shopping needs.

The digital world is bombarded with options in nearly every retail market. Hence, staying abreast of e-commerce trends is clamorous for any business hoping to excel in any industry.

We’ve formulated a list of e-commerce trends in 2023 to facilitate you and your business leverage your online presence for profit.

Enhanced Learning on Online & Mobile

According to a recent survey, most consumers are relying more heavily on the digital world. Owing to the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we expect these figures to skyrocket each year subsequently.

The extremely convenient, cozy, and no-contact nature of online shopping is determined to stay here. It can be predominantly on a desktop, tablet or mobile device. Owing to the continuous metamorphosis of technologies and algorithms, you can witness continued business growth via e-commerce, in particular. 

Voice Search

Lately, Smart speakers such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home are utilized widely to complete tasks. Mobile services such as Siri and Cortana also form a part of the list. According to a recent survey, a whopping 72% of smart speaker owners agree they make use of their speakers every single day. 

For the creation of shopping lists, completing other home organization tasks and conducting web searches, these speakers can be used. Businesses should naturally optimize keywords and content as it relates to voice searches. If the customer literally asks, then you will turn out to be the first one to respond.

Ways to Pay

Lately, consumers have started to rely on secure digital payment services such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Square. In contrast to providing credit card information to each individual site, they have started to trust these checkout methods. 

Enabling flexibility with payment options at checkout is a colossal way to protect against canceled sales. It is also said to increase conversion rates. 

Current Generation:

The Millennial Shopping Habits 

In a recent survey, it was found that 80% of consumers aged 25 to 40 prefer online shopping primarily. Optimizing online sites to the whims and fancies of younger shoppers can aid in boosting sales potential subsequently. 

Social Media

Product Marketing, Product Reviews, and shopping ads have typically integrated into nearly all social media platforms. They include Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Nearly 68% of users report opting for purchases through a social media platform. The surprising factor here is that almost all of them intend to make such a purchase within the next year, undoubtedly.

Efficiently building a social media presence and effectively marketing your products on these sites will help you reach these consumers. This will increase your potential sales and business manifold. If you’re already on social media, just analyze- ‘whether what you’re doing is working?’ If not, it is high time to try something else.

Environmental Concerns

Another vital e-commerce trends in 2023 (globally) is that people have become more environmentally conscious than ever before. An enhanced willingness to amp up companies prioritizing sustainable practices means a consumer base ready to uphold positive business values. 

The latest aspects to gain steam are carbon neutrality, fair trade, local sourcing, pro-environment, and pro-social responsibility movements. 

Nonetheless, transitioning your company to a greener business model and aligning the company’s values with today’s consumers will aid in forming a loyal customer base. 

Video & Visual Commerce

With the emergence of e-commerce, the significance of rendering engaging product representation jacks up. In other words, static photos of products aren’t enough anymore. Before destining to purchase, consumers would prefer to explore a product in-depth. According to the recent trends in e-commerce, providing videos, reviews and interactive content about a product can make it more marketable in the online world.

Augmented & Virtual Reality

Online shopping, the new trends in e-commerce have restricted the customer’s ability to evaluate. Picture and video representation have become predominantly crucial, especially in grabbing a customer’s attention. As a matter of fact, they don’t substitute well enough to supersede interacting with many products beforehand.

Augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR, respectively) can proffer a previously impossible level of engagement with online consumers. The multitude of applications for AR and VR in the world of e-commerce imparts an opportunity for tech-savvy businesses to use this revolutionary technology. This can ultimately bring the in-person shopping experience to customers at home.

Personalization

Do you like reckoning yourself as a statistic? Your customers purportedly don’t. Individualized needs and experience symbolizes-your the company must cough up a personalized experience.

Data is collected online and it can be harnessed to create a more personalized shopping experience for the customer if the performance is outstanding. 

Virtual Assistants

‘Chatbots’ are slowly garnering importance and have become the future of e-commerce. They have become the online kin of an in-person customer service representative. Virtual Assistant Services has become the hot topic pertaining to the e-commerce trends in 2023 …

Relative Tasks:

  • Guide customers in product searches 

  • Oblige with frequently asked questions 

  • Direct customers to the apt page 

  • Soothe potential frustrations 

Virtual assistants can complement a customer service department while dwindling overhead.

Subscriptions & its Growth

Reorganizing some services to a subscription model has aggravated many customers and offered some businesses support. Ultimately, subscriptions can keep customers coming back for more when there is wise utilization.

 Convenient and nonchalant options for frequently accessed products can turn out to be a worthwhile investment for many consumers. The subscription market has only continued to flourish. Moreover, some models advocate that subscription-based revenues will reach $150 billion in 2023.

Final Thoughts:

If you’re initiating an online business or transposing your business online, laying hands on the ace e-commerce platform will be critical to the company’s success. As you forge your e-commerce strategy for 2023, you should always remember: ‘customer-centric experience’ is one trend that never fails. Still, if you are a bit doubtful, ask yourself, “What would my customer want?”. Then, you’ll stand the test of time, irrefutably.

Video and Image Annotation

How to find out a Professional Provider for Video and Image Annotation Outsourcing

/0 Comments/in /by

Introduction:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have taken the front seat in Digital Transformation. This was possible only with the innovation in science and technology in the past few years.

An innumerable data set is needed, which facilitates machines to easily recognize objects through diverse annotation techniques. There may be variation owing to the use case requirements. Whether it’s the autonomous car, facial recognition, medical imaging, or other AI/ ML models, a set procedure of annotation and labeling is needed.

Taking into account the versatility of the projects, the collation of such wide and diverse datasets will be beyond the imagination of the companies. To be precise, it applies to companies involved in AI or ML development. Moreover, the budget and team involvement constraint does not have any say in such development processes.

Hence, outsourcing data annotation and labeling projects to a particular affiliate will aid a company to get the right data. They will be in accordance with the project requirements and budget constraints.

What is Image Annotation?

‘Image Annotation’ is the process of labeling images. It is a part of the machine learning model. Image Annotation aids the computer to understand the visuals on its own after the completion of the data set.

Image Annotation is usually executed in a computer-assisted model. The engineer is expected to come up with the label definition. They should also provide image-specific information to the computer.

Even after the engineer has labeled all the images in a data set, the computer will continue to recognize the predetermined features in the new images. The significant point here is that it includes the ones that the engineer has not labeled.

The activity of image annotation is part of the machine learning process that helps create a set of databases. It is helpful in myriad industries like e-commerce, logistics, agriculture, healthcare, security, and much more.

Here is why image annotation services are essential for today’s business:

Object Detection

Image annotation allows the computer to trace out the various objects in a machine-learning process. Whether your system is powered by artificial intelligence or machine learning, you need to train the system via image/video annotation to get a hang of various objects.

Object Classification

Image annotation does not refrain to object detection. You can also classify the various objects in various categories as part of this exercise subsequently.

Data Validation

The image annotation tool is essential for a business lately. This tool can create model validation training data. It enables computer vision to understand the next set of images on its own. Nonetheless, it is a critical feature to enable the computer to use AI.

Accuracy

Image annotation skyrockets the level of accuracy of computer vision in the project.

Things to consider while outsourcing Image Annotation

We take our vision for a ride. With computer vision, we’ve unraveled many futuristic technologies much sooner than we’d anticipated. Its applications include:

  • Facial recognition: On top of unlocking your phone, this technology identifies faces, even when they are hidden within a crowd. Amazing, isn’t it? This has reinvented security standards.

For instance, if you shake a fist at someone under knifepoint, facial recognition technology can nab you in under 24 hours.

  • Autonomous Vehicles: Nothing says innovative like self-driving cars. But the future is much closer than you think. We can take into account the riderless vehicles making food deliveries on behalf of food banks during the pandemic.
  • Robotics: When you consider the productivity of industrial robots, one robot with built-in computer vision is worth multiple blind robots. A sharp robot can easily transport items from one place to another while eschewing workers and other robots.

None of the above would be possible without a vital technique: ‘Image and Video Annotation’. In other words, for a machine to recognize its surroundings, it is mandatory to train it properly.

So, how do companies/corporate running short on time and money ensure that training datasets for computer vision AI are accurate?

The answer is simple and easy — they just outsource data annotation to the Professionals.

5 Rationales to Outsource Image & Video Annotation

1.Time Investment

There is no need to waste your time and money piling tens of thousands of images and videos at your employees’ feet. Without the right and professional expertise, the annotation will turn out to be a time-consuming and labor-intensive process.

Data annotation services have been designed exclusively for data annotation. You can leave it to the professionals to deliver the goods without slowing down the ongoing in-house projects, in particular. In addition, not compromising on the accuracy of your training datasets.

2. Top-notch quality Datasets

By feeding the system inaccurate training datasets, wrong lessons will be taught to AI. In order to avoid misaligned bounding boxes and confusion in the classifiers, you can go for outsourcing. Outsourcing image annotation to a team of professional annotators can be a well-acclaimed solution.

3. Internal BiasMitigation

Bias is terribly bad news in Machine Learning. When your results are systematically prejudiced, your end solution suffers vehemently. Therefore, ‘Mitigating Bias’ is one of the major advantages of video and image annotation outsourcing for AI.

4. Scalability

Regardless of the scope pertaining to your Machine Learning project, training your model certainly demands a high volume of accurate data. Large-scale data annotation takes training, time, and manpower resources that most companies simply can’t think of/ afford.

Instead, outsource your data-labeling tasks to a team of professional annotators who dish out high-quality results.

5. Trained Professionals

Annotation is phenomenally time-consuming and laborious if you don’t possess the apt training and experience. You can rely on the annotators as they are well-equipped to tackle high volumes of complex data.

Now, let us focus on the aspects of why data annotation outsourcing is the right choice for all AI and machine learning companies, in particular.

  • High-Quality Data Sets
  • Scalability with Right TAT
  • Data Security & Confidentiality
  • Timely Availability
  • Rationalize In-House Biasing

Conclusion:

If you are in search of a cost-effective method, you should go for outsourcing. This paves the way to get the image annotation services of an expert team. In addition, you can also expect more agility in the processes.

To explore further, you can reach IG Solutions, the best image, and video annotation services, provider!!!

E-commerce localization

E-Commerce Localization & Its Magnitude in the Current Businesses

/0 Comments/in /by

What is E-commerce localization?

E-commerce Localization is the mechanism of assimilating online shopping experiences. It predominantly focuses on E-commerce websites and shopping apps to customer support and marketing campaigns.

E-commerce Localization engulfs:

  • Content Localization
  • UI Localization
  • UX Localization
  • Customer-service Localization
  • Marketing Localization

In simple words, E-commerce Localization is what guarantees that you can do business in multiple markets without brimming over into cultural barriers. As a matter of fact, when your target market can understand and engage with your E-commerce platform, they’re more likely to make a purchase. Moreover, they will come back for more and also beat the drum for your products/services. 

Hence, a company that doesn’t take E-commerce Localization seriously is likely to confront issues such as:

  • A high number of customer service issues
  • Abandonment of Shopping cart 
  • Low Conversion Rates
  • Poor Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) 
  • Decreased Website Traffic

For instance, the biggest players in E-commerce have long perceived the importance of the E-commerce Localization strategy. Amazon, for example, has invested grindingly in a Rural India strategy, subsequently.

Benefits of E-commerce Localization

Lately, localization isn’t just an accessory but it has turned out to be a necessity for all those e-commerce businesses looking to expand universally. However, if you’re still confused about investing time and money into website localization, here are some benefits you should consider:

Local Market Penetration

In every target market, there’s always a large population that relentlessly chooses to procure from local sellers. Why is it so? Local sellers have an edge over others as they easily understand the buying preferences of the locals. In addition, their brand messaging also appeals to them. 

While localization will facilitate you win half the battle, you must also necessarily capitalize on all sorts of cultural peculiarities to stay tuned. 

Build Trust 

In a survey stretching across ten countries, including Brazil, China, France, and Germany, there was a shocking finding. It was found that 30% of customers either never buy anything on English-only websites. They also avoid surfing such sites altogether.

By all means, translating your e-commerce site or retail translation (in different languages) can help you garner people’s attention. On the contrary, localizing it will create ‘repeat’ customers by and large.

Diminish Customer Service Issues

Miscommunication occupies a major role in terms of customer service or support issues. The customer might forfeit some information included in the product description. In addition, he/she might find some discrepancies in the information and visuals. E-commerce Localization services reduce the occurrence of these issues.

When various elements of an e-commerce website are culturally relevant, then your customers won’t go off the rails in translation. 

Global Shopping

The E-commerce landscape is more complex and competitive than ever before.  Customers today strive for a seamless, personalized, and multichannel E-commerce experience—no matter where they exist.

Furthermore, there’s the ultimatum of keeping your brand messaging stable across multiple markets while achieving local requirements. Consistency deals with an inherent degree of trustworthiness. In addition, it also fosters brand loyalty and conveys reliability. All these will drive the sales up. In addition, they will also be fulfilling local consumers’ demands. Needless to say, they help you stay ahead of the rat race.

Customers’ preferences

Each locale has its own E-commerce landscape and consumer needs. Therefore, it’s pivotal to be well-grounded in the nuances of each market particularly. Meanwhile, you can tailor your E-commerce experiences accordingly.

Audit your UX

UX Localization is a phenomenal element in dishing out outstanding e-commerce experiences. As a matter of fact, regional norms, expectations, thought processes, and language is all of utmost importance. They affect the way how your customers perceive your brand, products, and marketing. Hence, it’s imperative to localize your E-commerce UX accordingly.

Locally Relevant Information

E-commerce shoppers always envisage stumbling upon locally relevant product information, e.g., product specifications, reviews, availability, and more.

Multi-lingual Customer Service

The level of support E-commerce customers receive will cast a spell on their entire E-commerce journey. Being able to speak/converse with a real person in their preferred language gives confidence to E-commerce shoppers. In addition, it also boosts brand loyalty and slashes the likelihood of abandoned carts or negative reviews.

Complementing your multi-lingual support with chatbots and other AI-powered E-commerce support tools can elevate things to the next level.

Marketing Content 

Your marketing deal and website copy should ideally be localized. This is predominantly to align with the cultural, linguistic, and technological expectations of your target markets.

Post-purchase Customer Engagement

After delivering a successful E-commerce experience, ensure that you continue engaging with customers across multifarious channels. 

Doing this in the local language and guaranteeing that you’re using culturally appropriate tones will portray that you truly care about the customer’s experience.

Multi-lingual Sentiment Analysis

With multi-lingual sentiment analysis tools, you can track E-commerce metrics across local markets in real-time. Not only that, you can make timely adjustments to jack up E-commerce sales all over the map.

Adapt Your Sales Channels

E-commerce sales channels may vary greatly across markets. For instance, in Argentina, customers are habituated to purchasing from businesses via WhatsApp and Facebook marketplace. 

Complementing your E-commerce platform in this manner can facilitate you to engage and convert E-commerce customers in this market more effectively. Furthermore, with cross-border E-commerce localization, the same logic applies to preferred E-commerce sales channels in other markets as well, undoubtedly.

Best Practices:

When it comes to E-commerce Localization, there are a few best practices that can help you succeed in your business expansion.

Some of the top-notch tips include: 

  • Conducting Market Research
  • Content Prioritization
  • Investment in multi-lingual SEO
  • Shopping Cart Localization
  • Compliance with Local Regulations
  • Usage of Representative Photos/Pictures
  • Social Media Localization

Summing Up:

You can build a stronger presence in international markets by fashioning a localized customer experience in your audience’s native language. Retail Document Translation services pave the way to reach your localization goals. You can also enhance your approach to reaching new markets with IG’s Localization Services. 

 

UI UX design trends in 2023 

UX/UI Design Trends to Look Out For in 2023

/0 Comments/in /by

Lately, it has become imperative for businesses to keep pace with the emerging UX and UI trends as digital transformation occurs, in particular. In this post, you will figure out some of the most important digital UI/UX trends that will have a mammoth impact on software development in the coming years. If your organization or business is looking or planning to implement new software or update its existing applications, then it’s essential to get the picture of the latest UI UX design trends in 2023 

Let’s take a look at the Happening UI UX Trends…

AI-based UX Design

As machine learning and AI technologies become more accomplished, it is likely that we can witness an increasing number of AI-based user experience (UX) design tools. These tools will help businesses concoct more effective websites and apps. 

Nonetheless, businesses will be savvy enough to implement user experience best practices. This will make it breezier to improve UX design as users provide feedback and resolve customer problems before they surface.

Responsive and Mobile-first UX Design

With the augmentation of users accessing websites and apps via their mobile devices, organizations are forced to shift their focus to mobile-first design. 

This shift signifies that organizations have had to adopt responsive design principles. They predominantly allow their websites and apps to scale to different screen sizes. In addition, they will be readily available on all devices. 

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality is a computer-generated mirroring of an immersive environment. On the other hand, Augmented Reality is a real-world scene that has been augmented with computer-generated sensory input subsequently. It includes sound, video, graphics, and other sensory input. 

As AR and VR technologies become predominantly accessible to businesses, they will jack up customer experiences. In addition to marketing, people have made use of AR and VR technologies for training and development, product design and testing, and customer care, in particular.

Dark UX and UI

Dark UX and UI are the most happening design trends in 2023. They zero in on creating a darker and more minimalist user interface that is less overwhelming for users. Darker interfaces are scantily packed and come up with a more soothing experience. The benefits/advantages of a darker user interface are manifold. It can embellish focus, augment engagement, and slash the amount of time it takes to complete tasks, undoubtedly.

Motion Design

As digital technologies pursue restyling the world of experiential graphic design, motion design is gradually turning out to be a critical skill.

Motion Design

It is a discipline that pulls off graphic design principles. Some of the glaring examples include films, films, animated text, and web-based animations and applications. Motion design has flourished significantly owing to technological improvements.

Motion design doles out a new dimension to graphics, in addition to time. This gives the nod for designers to create and modify graphics.

Immersive Scrolling

Ordinary scrolling looks dull even when it embodies video or animation content because it is static. Vertical movement can still be improvised to deliver a message thanks to its specific hierarchy. Designers can now make use of JavaScript and animation libraries to keep a tab on the look and order of content as well as its appearance.

The scroll itself can be modulated to deliver smoother or more specific behaviors. 

3D Elements

A visual effect can amass a consumer’s attention. Furthermore, it facilitates the enhancement of the experience of the virtual space. 

In 2023, the trend in user interface and user experience design will be to scale down website or application startup times. 

3D Elements

 

Many developers and designers will forage for tools that make it breezier to upload website pages and graphics. As a result, users are more likely to stay glued to interactive animation, as it is remembered more competently. The 3D impact increases brand recognition and also widens the target audience by and large.

Bold and Distinctive Fonts

Ancient typography or rule-breaking typography is a UI trend that lays down typography front and center. In this aesthetic design, typography takes on a key position beyond its traditional function.

UI/UX Design Trends

In certain designs, typography is permitted to spin, twist, and divide words into multiple lines. If you wish to bend the rules of typography correctly, you should be familiar with them, in particular.

Bolder typography is a central part of UI design trends, which makes a sizable statement and imparts optimum value. 

Gradient Design

In the forthcoming years, Gradients will once again play an important part in terms of storytelling and visualizing by shifting to vibrant colors.

This latest UI/UX design trend will impart creators with more graphical options in order to subtly evoke certain emotions in the hearts of the users.  

By exerting soft pastel gradients to pal around with beauty, lightness, and calmness, cosmetic brands will be able to entice the public’s behavior and opinion. Evidently, vibrant palettes will be apt for sports, urban clothing, and other companies.

Summing UP:

The digital user experience and interface trends discussed in this post will definitely have a glorious effect on software development in the future. By adopting these website design trends, organizations will be able to jack up their digital user experience and craft a superior product. Digital transformation is around the corner, and businesses must stay up to date on emerging user experience and interface trends subsequently.

 

 AI-powered virtual assistants

The omnipresence of Virtual Assistants and Their Business Significance

/0 Comments/in /by

Virtual Assistants – An Introduction

 

Virtual Assistants are mechanized systems that can mirror human interaction. It seamlessly offloads the burden of high-level tasks that may appear at every phase of the process.

For instance, your customer has to book a ticket past midnight, and he needs it done without further ado. Given the scenario, he is concerned about whether the travel agencies would be available at that hour. Isn’t it tangible that hooking your customer service support personnel is available 24/7?

AI-powered virtual assistants can be efficacious around the clock and furnish a flawless booking experience for customers.

The significant benefit of virtual assistants for both you and your customers are a more optimized and effective approach to customer service. Business virtual assistants can leave their mark behind every industry. It includes e-commerce, healthcare, travel, banking, hospitality, manufacturing, retail, and many more. 

Ultimately, all you have to do is sit back and make the final declaration; virtual assistants will take care of the rest subsequently. 

Virtual Assistants & Their Impact

Lately, virtual assistant services are ruling the roost. They are successfully leaving their mark in almost all industries. Each industry hires virtual assistants on the basis of their skills. They vary in accordance with the industries. Some of them are discussed below:

Healthcare: 

In terms of Healthcare, there are certain vital skills that the VAs should possess. The pivotal skills of Virtual assistants include appointment scheduling and entering data into the concerned applications.

As a matter of fact, front-office operations get a facelift. This is with regard to accelerating admissions, discharges, transfers, scheduling patient consultations, and much more.

Hospitality: 

When the Hospitality industry is concerned, Virtual executive assistants slash the time spent on generic FAQs relatively. In addition to that, they can automate repetitive tasks, and provide insights to customers in real-time by dint of an in-depth data analysis. 

It paves customers to book and reserve rooms anytime anywhere hassle-free. On the contrary, it can also boost their social scores to the maximum extent. By hiring a virtual assistant, you can accelerate the lead conversion process. Performance Optimization of your sales and marketing teams is also very much feasible.

Banking: 

Irrespective of the time or location, an AI-enhanced virtual assistant can be available anytime with regard to the consumer’s need. 

Lately, on-demand personal bankers, wealth managers, and loan service agents are readily available to customers. These virtual executive assistants concoct banking as simple as texting. The virtual assistants swiftly respond to questions ranging from facile requests to challenging functions, undeniably.

 Along with the above-mentioned, virtual assistant services also focus on customer support services. It includes fraud detection, adding or removing a payee, setting up a recurring bill payment, and more. 

Food: 

A virtual assistant allows you to address your customers’ most frequent queries. They help in lessening order delay time and also in easing your order tracking process to a remarkable extent. 

As icing on the cake, a completely no-contact experience for your customers can be abetted with the help of virtual assistants. Not to mention, starting with the meal ordering process and ending with safe payment and prompt delivery, virtual assistant services render a seamless experience throughout.   

Travel: 

Virtual assistants can empower you to lead your customers with regard to trip planning, room types, food, visa information, and much more. Virtual Assistants can also collect this data from your customers in real-time and link it with your CRM. By doing this, they can keep their customers updated with new offers, seasonal offers, and discounts.  

Even with all the perks of delegation, you might still be wondering why you should opt for a remote assistant/virtual assistant for business instead of a full-time in-office employee?

There are multifarious reasons why a virtual assistant will be the better choice for most of the budding entrepreneurs and small businesses. 

Let’s take a look at the reasons….

Affordability:

Most small business owners and budding entrepreneurs would have started their business journey with limited capital. Hence, they are forced to be in a situation where they need to prioritize their expenses, in particular.

Therefore, they may not be in a position to hire staff as required in their initial stages. In short, hiring a virtual assistant on an hourly basis is the ideal solution for small businesses.

Scalability:

In the current financial market, it’s totally impossible to predict the future. There will be some hectic months and some months will also move at a snail’s pace.

With virtual assistants, you can seamlessly increase/decrease the size of your team as per your requirements. The catch involved here is – there’s no long-term contract. But the same agreement cannot be negotiated with full-time employees.

Flexibility:

Unlike traditional office employees who work a regular 9-5, with a remote assistant, you have full control over their working hours. That is especially meritorious if you work with international clients in a different time zone.

Global Talent: 

As remote work drains physical and geographical barriers, hiring a remote/virtual assistant paves entrepreneurs to work and collaborate with international talent. This aspect can never be heard of if it is with the in-office. 

Social Media

Social media is an integral thing in a business. But it is often overlooked, undeniably. It is regarded as the company’s mirror and it should be treated accordingly.

In the case of e-commerce businesses, a lot of the client base breezes in from social media and the company website. Therefore, it is mandatory that they should be regularly updated with relevant content. 

A social media assistant can facilitate you with tasks such as:

  • Scheduling Social Media Posts
  • Blog Writing
  • Research
  • Proof-reading 
  • Writing e-books
  • Video Editing
  • Graphic Design
  • Guest Posts
  • Website Maintenance
  • Email marketing

Marketing Tasks

 A marketing virtual assistant can synchronize various marketing tasks such as:

  • Planning and Campaign Execution
  • Social Media Strategies
  • Designing ads, brochures, and also fliers

There are many other industries that seriously consider hiring a virtual assistant for their business activities. As a matter of fact, there are many virtual assistant companies which run the show. But how to find out the best virtual assistant company remains a million-dollar question.

Put an end to all your concerns by getting in touch with www.infognanasolutions.com

 

Category Management

Category Management & Its Vitality in E-commerce

/0 Comments/in /by

Category Management is a function in retail and e-commerce businesses wherein related products are grouped together under distinct categories. This is done in order to manage their performance in an efficient way by all means.

As a matter of fact, the e-commerce industry is enormous. Still, it functions in a smooth way. You might be wondering how it is possible in this competitive world. There is a secret recipe behind it, and it is ‘e-commerce category management. There is a specific group of experts who predominantly deal with matters of concern in various categories. These e-commerce category managers are the guardian angels of your business. They are in charge of everything- right from the pricing to space allocation, and much more. The list is endless.

Moreover, when a retail or an e-commerce business reaches a level, where there are thousands of SKUs across many different product departments, there will be a change in the scenario. The category Manager should assign tasks for his team members, and he will be solely responsible for the ROI, subsequently.

Category Management is often doled out by big retailers, such as grocery stores, home improvement stores, and major e-commerce players like Amazon, in particular.

Category Management predominantly stands for the organization of product categories, which provides solutions for everything in our modern world. Just recall your last trip to the Super Market: how long did it take for you to find the PANEER? You very well know that it belongs to the category of dairy products. Hence, it is located on the shelf next to the milk.

Just Imagine if the Paneer was classified, for example, as a dessert; how long would it take for you to find it? It will be really time-consuming, isn’t it?

Category Management regulates the organization of retail space, both offline and online! It is the categories you need to shape up when molding online store browsing and developing your website design.

In addition, Category Management involves working with procurement. For instance, knowing what is included in every category of your products and what KPIs it is supposed to meet allows you to choose only the best suppliers. Apart from that, you can also negotiate the most favorable collaboration terms in a professional way.

One of the shocking revelations is that owing to poor category management,  an online business can lose up to 30% of its customers. Hence, a professional category manager is worth their weight in gold, undoubtedly. So, what are their duties/responsibilities? How do they contribute and bring maximum results to your business? Let’s take a look.

How to Become a Category Manager?

A Category Manager is visualized as an independent business unit manager. Hence, in order to become a category manager, you should possess good business acumen and managerial skills. You will also be expected to have an extensive experience with or product knowledge of the category you will be managing.

Vital Skills Required :

  • Relationship Management 
  • Communication Skills
  • Business Acumen
  • Analytical Skills
  • Presentation Skills
  • Excel Knowledge
  • Category Knowledge

 Category Manager’s Role in e-commerce?

The phenomenal responsibilities of a Category Manager in the e-commerce arena include:

  • Data Analysis to determine the market trends and consumer requirements
  • Strategy Development for category management
  • Developing tactics for promoting specific product items
  • Communication with suppliers
  • Building long-term relationships 
  • Concluding favorable terms of cooperation with an excellent price-quality ratio;
  • Order Placement
  • Procurement Dealing
  • Placement of product categories 
  • Determination of the most competitive as well as the profitable prices for product categories
  • Demand Forecasting
  • Budgeting and cost optimization
  • Stock Replenishment

Benefits of Category Management:

The preeminent goal of the category management function is to make sure that each category’s performance is maximized to its fullest potential. This can be achieved by implementing different strategies and tactics. It includes supplier management, visual displays, and sales performance management.

In general, each category is treated as a stand-alone business unit and extra care is provided to the different product SKUs under that category. This determines that the products don’t get neglected, and inventory return is also maximized as much as possible.

Furthermore, each category will have it’s own Open to Buy, and managers will render extraneous insights into the sales forecast of the category’s products.

Another sovereign benefit of category management is a consolidation and achieving savings through economies of scale.

The reason behind this is, the purchasing for all the stores of the same retailer will be centralized through the category manager.  Hence, instead of buying for one or two stores, the manager will be procuring for a chain of 50 or 100 stores and will be negotiating for better product prices. Ultimately, an enormous bargaining power will be transferred to the retailers. This will pave way for further negotiation in addition to product cost savings.

Vital strategies:

  • Traffic Building
  • Transaction Building
  • Turf Defending
  • Profit Generation
  • Excitement Generation
  • Image Building

Category Management Tools 

Open to Buy Plan: One of the most important Category Management tools to plan and manage inventory is this OTB. Open to Buy (OTB) is a planning tool that gives an overview of the inventory levels in the category. Further, OTB also gives us an idea of the requirement of the inventory in order to deliver future sales goals.

Google Trends: Another tool that is utilized by marketers and that we have found to be of utmost use in category management is Google Trends. This tool aids the category manager or buyer in spying out specific trends inside their respective category. 

Category Management Considerations:

The primary goal of category management in the first place is to devote more attention and resources to each category in the business. However, since category management is a function of a bigger business, it is very imperative for the top-level management to ensure that the different product categories do not cross swords with each other or endanger each other’s plans. 

In the end, all the categories have to assure- that they communicate the same message of the business to the end consumer and also render their due in brand image building. This is especially important when it comes to the implementation of different pricing and promotional strategies. 

In a nutshell, we can say that the importance of Category Management is growing by leaps and bounds. For the enhancement of business, it is vital to follow a proper category management strategy. You can also reach us at www.infognanasolutions.com for further clarification.