7 Tips to Retain Customers in your E-commerce Business

With more and more people now shopping online, e-commerce business owners really need to explore all ways to retain customers. If as a business you invest a huge amount of money, time and effort in attracting customers, it makes a lot sense to do things that can help you retain these customers in a hugely competitive market space as the internet. You cannot afford to lose customers if you want your e-commerce business to thrive. This is more so when you factor in that today’s time-strapped consumers expect a lot from their buying experience and are easily distracted by offerings from your competition. Doing everything to retain customers is key to success in your e-commerce business. Following are a few steps you can take to help you retain customers in your online business.

1. Robust Social Media Presence: Presently, it appears as if social media is where everyone is at worldwide 24/7. Taking your business on social media is like taking it to where your customers can be found. A robust social media presence for your business helps it to source customers and retain customers. A constructive and engaging social media presence for your business helps to increase online visibility for the business by creating a valuable connection with your audience. Taking your business on social media is taking the business to where potential customers like to spend their time and where you can meet them on their terms. It is one place your marketing messages can be widely shared and interacted with by potential customers as well as customers.

2. Positive User Experience: Online, user experience is made up of different elements. These are elements that attract customers to your website, retain them there for a while and lure them to do business with you. To enhance this, make sure your website design is user-friendly, fast loading, looks professional and is easy to navigate. Be sure it has a clean and intuitive design that works perfectly well on mobile devices. Take quality time to ensure the details of products/services you are marketing are kept engaging with snappy paragraphs and good aesthetics. Deliberately use bullet points and informative visuals to attract and retain buyers’ attention, making sure the site displays clear CTAs to help guide buyers towards a seamless checkout.

3. Personalized Marketing: Selling out of your e-commerce website should be clearly more than just a simple transaction if you want to retain customers. This is why you must carefully tailor your marketing messages to specified audiences. You can do this effectively if you clearly understand your audiences then cater your content to it. You also need to have the behavioral data of your customers. This can be useful in getting a feel of what pages they click on and what content they interact with the most. You can effectively cater better to their needs with these insights. If you engage in personalized marketing, your customers will feel valued and will be encouraged to do more business with you. This is more so in a hugely competitive market space like the internet. You can retain customers better by using effective methods to curt and build their loyalty. Such methods that include offering rewards programs, or regularly sending out personalized emails with product recommendations and discount codes.

4. Simplified Checkout Experience: Available research data indicates that global cart abandonment rate is an astonishing 70%. This directly translates to lost business in e-commerce stores. Taking steps that can help reduce shopping carts abandonment and lost sales can help you retain customers. On this score, you can make your checkout process as simple as possible. Make sure you have multiple payment methods that are safe and easy to use such as PayPal and other reputable e-payment channels.

 
5. Unlimited Shipping Options: Most consumers always expect to receive their online orders within a very short period say from 1-7 days depending on their locations around the world. However, some consumers always have a preference for free delivery, even if they have to wait a bit longer. It helps your customers therefore to offer several options at checkout. This helps to give them choices such as speedy delivery at cost or no delivery charges, making sure to be transparent about costs and delivery times. It is great for customer retention to offer tracking services so buyers can keep their eyes on their orders and know exactly when to expect the products.

6. Selling Globally: In today’s globalized world, geography is no longer a barrier to trade. You can always position your e-commerce store to sell globally because consumers now look beyond geography if they can find any product they want at the right price. You must therefore set up your e-commerce website with features that enables it to trade globally. Doing so will help the site with unlimited growth opportunities and reach. Be sure the site is set up to accept international payment options, that is, popularly acceptable and credible e-channels payment options worldwide. You can also offer international shipping options depending on the country or geographical region. If you’re targeting a specific country, it is a good marketing strategy to make sure your website is accessible in its local language.

7. Robust Security Measures: With hackers and cyber criminals everywhere on the internet, protecting your customer data is of utmost importance as a viable strategy to retaining customers. Your business needs robust security strategy in matters of creating a mutually beneficial relationship with your customers. Because of the nefarious activities of hackers and other cyber criminals, many shoppers are usually apprehensive when shopping online. Your business should always aim to give customers all the assurances they need that they are shopping on a secure website. To enhance security on your website, get your domain address on HTTPS// and a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification for the website. These help a great deal to enhance online security and assure shoppers on your website. 

6 Global Best Practices to Combat Inevitable Cyber Threats on Your Online Apps

The need for web Apps is increasing in tandem with increasing digitization of businesses around the globe. There is hardly any online business today that is not using web Apps. This also increases the necessity of having these Apps secure enough to do business with. If you are taking your business online, even if you fulfill the need for an App, making sure the App is secure is quite essential. Online marketing experts generally agree that developing a secure web App is one of the most vital steps any business needs to ensure business security and growth. This is more so when you factor in the current trend of increased cyber crimes and the daring nature of cyber criminals. If you want to directly combat cyber crimes and threats to your online Apps, these here global best practices come in very handy.

1. Back Up all your Data

Online, there is always a threat of compromised or stolen data by cyber criminals. This is more worrisome because no matter how secure your App is, there is always a slight chance that your data can be compromised or stolen. Exactly why you must take all steps necessary to back up your data! Backing up all your data therefore becomes an important move to put your business on a safer side. This is one very important precaution you can take to checkmate any hacker who manages to get access to your online App data. You can arrange this back up by storing all your online App information in another location and replicate the archives in multiple places. If any hacker manages to get access to your data in the primary location and compromising it, you can protect your business from serious data losses by falling back on the back up location to retrieve your important data.
 
2. Use a Virtual Private Network, VPN

A very dependable way to protect against cyber crimes is the use of a Virtual Private Network, VPN. But using a VPN does not mean cyber criminals cannot get to you. They can but the VPN adds an additional protective layer. That gives you additional security because a VPN protects against cyber-attacks in many ways through traffic encryption. VPN also has some real advantage of being very cheap to use. This adds to its attraction for business owners.

3. Use SSL Certificates

With the use of Secure Socket Layers, SSL certificates, you can secure your online Apps by simply encoding all the data that is shared on it. Presently, it is one of the best practices to combat cyber threats. This it does using SSL protocols to secure the information available on the App from cyber criminals. It is hugely important for your business therefore to activate SSL Certificates for your online Apps. Once it is in place, it becomes doubly difficult for hackers and cyber criminals to easily access the information you share on the Apps. It is actually the cryptographic keys the SSL Certificate uses that really make it pretty difficult for hackers to read your data. If they can’t read the data, they can’t steal it.

4. Provide Adequate Training

Employees that are well trained and proactive can be vital assets to combat cyber crimes and cyber threats. So, if you train your workers well enough, they’ll have the requisite knowledge about cyber criminals and cyber crimes. That equips them to know what to expect from hackers and exactly what to do to prevent attacks. You can take advantage of well-packaged cyber security training for all your employees using reputable experts and experienced web App security masters. Through these experts, your employees can learn about the online Apps and the surrounding potential threats. Well-trained employees can always put the vital checks in place to checkmate any ambitious cyber criminal at any point in time when they dare to launch an attack on your Apps.

5. Update Your App Regularly

An updated App is always a safer App to use. One of the very best practices in the business is to ensure security against threats by releasing regular App updates for your users. This is hugely important because it is outdated Apps that are more susceptible to cyber-attacks. They are more vulnerable to these attacks as well because most of the time, an outdated software may lead to weak security features which may enable hackers to easily manipulate the data on the App. An App can have its online App’s components updated on and off based on its infrastructure. This prevents hackers from easily accessing the information on the App, thus making the App effectively protected from cyber threats and attacks.

6. Manage User Permissions

One smart step towards having a secure web App is to skillfully manage user permissions. Even if you have many employees in your business, you can limit vital full internet access to a few well-trained employees. The fewer the number of such privileged workers the easier it is to keep your online Apps secure. Doing this greatly reduces the volume of data that hackers can attack. But, if you are careless enough to allow everyone in your employ unfettered access, it will take one, just one successful cyber-attack to compromise all your data. Managing your user permissions skillfully is about the best way to prevent that.

Summary

Poor App security and other vital loopholes are increasingly making online Apps vulnerable to hackers and cyber criminals. Incidentally, as Apps are upgrading, cyber criminals are learning new ways to attack them. This is exactly where the real challenge is for business owners. For now however, making an App difficult to hack is about the most practical option available to business owners. The foregoing best practices come in very handy in that quest. Ignoring them can quickly spell doom for your much-cherished online business. It is smart therefore to take all necessary precautions now before you have cause to regret.

5 Reasons App Security is Important on the Internet

Digital marketers who use unprotected and unsecured apps online risk their entire business. With hackers and cyber criminals everywhere on the internet, unsecured and unprotected apps are a huge risk for any online business no matter the size of the business. In this age and time particularly now that many more businesses are going online daily, security has become one of the most essential factors to take into consideration when your business is going digitized. Apps are indispensable to most online operations and most marketers depend hugely on them. But, significantly, Apps are particularly most vulnerable to cyber threats as they are linked with cloud networks. It is these networks make Apps easily accessible to everyone. This puts Apps at a higher risk of data leaks, hacking and cyber threats, making it imperative that they be protected and secured at all times. Irrespective of the size of your online business, securing your Apps is a very smart business decision you must have to make. If you are marketing products online, without a secure App, you lose the trust and loyalty of most of your customers.

 
Below are 5 of the strongest reasons App security is important on the Internet. According to expert webmasters, App security is important for:

1. Combating Security Breaches and Threats

With hackers and cyber criminals on the prowl on the internet, securing your Apps online has become hugely imperative. As most digital marketers very well know, marketing with unsecured Apps, can make your business really vulnerable to cyber threats and security breaches. No business owner can be comfortable doing business in an environment where because of App insecurity, cyber criminals can easily seize the business or wipe it out completely.

2. Avoiding Data Leaks

Online data are hugely valuable assets for businesses. The core and even the soul of a business may lie embedded in such data. If your App is secure, you can easily protect your data against any chances of data leaks. Because most Apps usually contain users’ data which cyber attackers and hackers are very much interested in, the threat is always there. But, if your App is secured, hackers and cyber criminals would find it very difficult to steal any data from your website without your permission.

3. Gaining User Confidence in the App

If an App is insecure and unprotected, it cannot be downloaded easily by anyone. That is what really tests user confidence on such App. In extreme cases, most users prefer to stay away from such App. But, if your app is secure, it will help build users’ trust and consequently help to increase the number of downloads. With downloadable App, user confidence is boosted making them more comfortable in sharing their information with your business.

4. Avoiding Phishing Attacks

As businesses are growing on the internet, so are phishing attacks. Significantly, it is only secure Apps that can effectively prevent phishing attacks. When your App does not have security measures in place, it is prone to these attacks. The good news though is that business owners can take advantage of advanced security tools online to prevent hackers from performing any phishing attacks on their Apps.

5. Meeting Country-Specific Regulations

App makers are always concerned about which region or country their Apps will be in use. They always need all the information that can help them to design and launch Apps with the right country-specific regulations. Granted security is important to online users no matter where they are in the world but advanced countries are usually more stringent about regulations covering these Apps. And, security is one of the most vital regulations that a country imposes on the use of Apps. So, before launching an App in the market, businesses must always make sure it follows the country-specific regulations. Creating a well-secured and protected App becomes imperative to meet these regulations.

6 Ways to Maximize Cyber Security on Your Online Business

Presently online, cyber-attacks occur every second of the day so much so that it’s the new normal to feel like you are being watched and your information is at risk whenever you go online. Right now, hackers are permanently on the prowl with their criminal activities. You can never who or where they’ll be hitting next. Maximum protection is the only effective means to deal with hackers. If you work online like I do, it therefore becomes hugely important to take steps to protect yourself and you data. Specifically, beefing up your cyber security becomes imperative by way of deliberate efforts. Some of such efforts include using secure software and establishing specific cyber security habits. That may sound daunting because of the technicalities involved but, in reality it is quite easy to put in place some viable aspects of cyber security even without knowing much about technology. You don’t have to be an expert on the counterfeit industry or a professional coder to create effective ways to secure your information online. If you are desirous to maximize cyber security for your online business, these here 6 ways can be of help to keep you safe from attacks particularly while using any electronic device or accessing an online service or account.

1. Set a Password on Every Device

These days, many people have multiple ways of accessing information online. Depending on their preferences and convenience, people access info from computers, smartphones and tablets. Through these devices, it is highly possible that valuable information can fall into the wrong hands because of the peculiarities of the devices which hackers know very well. For this reason, it helps to make sure that every device you use is password protected with a unique and different password. That is, if you don’t want unauthorized people gaining access by simply guessing your password if it is weak on one device and then using it elsewhere. You must be extra careful with your passwords whenever you use public Wi-Fi or go online in public cyber cafes. If however it becomes inevitable for you to make purchases or conduct business on an unsecured network, it is strongly advised that you use a virtual private network (VPN) service like Hotspot Shield instead. Doing so will enhance your security since your data will stay safe no matter where you are.

2. Encrypt Sensitive Files and Back them Up

If you want to store valuable and sensitive info/files on your computer, it is best to encrypt them to prevent hackers from even seeing them. If hackers can’t see your data, they can’t steal them either. You can in addition take deliberate steps to back up your data in as many ways as convenient for you. Backing up information allows you to have access to it somewhere else even if some other place has been compromised. It is one very viable way to forestall losing everything when hackers strike. To effectively back up your data, you can take advantage of multiple storage locations. You may even choose to keep backups on computers other than your own or the ones you use often. By doing so, if one system gets compromised, you can always fall back on the backups to access your data.

3. Make Your Passwords Strong and Safe

You may prefer passwords you can easily remember but such passwords are also easy to crack as well. The stronger the password, the more difficult it is for hackers to crack it. For better security, it is not advisable to use a password on multiple sites even if the password is strong. The best passwords are passwords that are strong enough and can’t be guessed easily by hackers or cracked by automated tools. For best security protection online, you must use unique and long passwords with random characters for every site and service you use. If you work on multiple sites, you can consider using a password manager if you have trouble remembering all your passwords. When choosing passwords, always have at the back of your mind, that comfort doesn’t always equate to safety.

4. Install Anti-Virus Software

Yeah, nearly everyone does this, and webmasters always recommend the use of anti-virus software too. Even at that and as basic as it may seem, there are still many people who avoid installing antivirus software for various reasons. Some anti-virus software need frequent upgrading while others may not even be very effective on all threats to your website. Besides, anti-virus programs aren’t just for computers only. There are variants for smartphones and tablets. Expert marketers recommend that the best anti-virus software to use are those that automatically scan your email attachments, documents, media files and web browsing history for viruses. They can then act to clean them up, sometimes even before closing from work. Some of such variants too are also automatically self-updating to newer versions as soon as they come online. They also clean up existing threats without any intervention from you. For best results, do not rely fully on automatic updating. Just make sure you take steps to update your antivirus programs every few weeks with new virus definitions. The extra vigilance is always worth the while because cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated and more daring by the day. As a direct consequence, cyber-attacks are becoming more common. You can never be over-protected. You can only be under-protected to your regrets when you get hit because you were not vigilant enough.

5. Use Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication before you access a website is becoming more popular these days. It has therefore become a must-have protection for anyone with an online presence in this age and time. Two-factor authentication is simply an extra layer of security you can use on top of your password no matter how strong and safe the password is. What it does is that at the point of signing into any of your websites, you’ll need not only your username and password but also a security code that can be either texted or emailed to you for authentication. What this means is that even if someone gets hold of your password, they still won’t be able to access your account without the two-factor authentication. If you are active online, you must have already noticed that virtually all email and social media platforms now demand two-factor authentication. That is good news though. However, two-factor authentication may seem like a lot of work since you have to go through an additional step every time you login to your accounts through a different device. But, it is definitely a step worth the while because of the huge protection advantage it packs.
 
6. Keep a Keen Eye on Security Updates

This is absolutely necessary because security updates are released very frequently and sometimes without notice. It is imperative therefore to make sure you have a keen eye on these updates and staying on top of them. You can do this effectively by reading cyber security blogs, listening to cyber security podcasts and following cyber security experts on social media. Doing so is about the most efficient way to increase your overall knowledge about technology and the highly technical world of cyber security. Security software tools like Malwarebytes can also help keep your information safe. If you shop online as nearly everyone does these days, make sure that you use a Credit Card rather than a Debit Card. This is because Credit Cards have better fraud protection than Debit Cards and they don't allow thieves to withdraw money directly from your bank account. If you diligently follow the news about security, it will help enhance your personal decision making on general security not just security online.

Last Line

From the foregoing, it is obvious that you’ll be doing your business a lot of disservice if you neglect to maximize cyber security on it. It is not that difficult to do if you choose to. It merely takes a few deliberate steps, a little money and time to get your information/data protected online. All told, being on top of the cyber security game about your business is a great investment. Once you start applying the foregoing security options to your everyday online transactions and activities, you can stave off most of the common cyber security threats pervasive online.

5 Smart Ways to Keep Your Social Media Accounts Secure

You may want to have a strong online presence if you market on social media, but it carries some risks. A strong online presence unduly exposes your business to hackers and you must strive to find a way around that if you don’t want them to stifle you out of business. Characteristically, most hackers are always very smart. So, you’ve got to be smart too if you want to stay a step ahead them in your social media marketing. You must take deliberate steps to protect your business from cyber criminals who are always on the prowl.

 
Here is what expert marketers recommend to keep your social media accounts protected round the clock.

1. Be Alert to Suspicious Activity: Cyber criminals are always on the prowl, the reason you must always be on alert for suspicious activity on your accounts. Diligently monitor your accounts for suspicious activity and take quick remedial measures if you notice any unauthorized activity. Some of such measures include but not limited to quickly changing your password, strengthening it or promptly reporting the activity to the platform admins.

2. Use Strong Encryption Tools: A social app like Whatsapp boasts of end-to-end encryption but even that may not be foolproof. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn use some encryption too to keep users’ data safe and secure. If you have access to additional encryption tools, you can use them in addition to what the social media platforms provide. When it comes to matters of online security for your social media accounts, you can never be too prepared.
 
3. Regularly Change Your Passwords: This is a good idea to keep hackers real busy trying unsuccessfully to break your passwords. If you change your passwords regularly and at any time you suspect any unauthorized activity, it can help you stave off security breaches. It may appear complex and requiring a lot of efforts from time to time, but it is all worth the while to keep your accounts secured.

4. Use Only Secure Passwords: It is only social media accounts with simple passwords that can be hacked easily. The more complex the passwords are, the more difficult it is to hack the accounts. What ensure this complexity are the length of characters counts and the mixture of these characters. Therefore, you must avoid using passwords that are easy to guess such as first names, names of pets, maiden names and so on. The general rule for strong passwords is a minimum 8-12 characters length, mixture of uppercase and lowercase characters, mixed with numbers and even some special and not too common characters/symbols.

TIP: No matter how secure your password appears to be, never use the same password across every social platform. Always make your passwords unique for each social media account.

5: Adopt Two-Factor Authentication: Since hackers are becoming smarter by the day, some social media platforms are now on their own recommending and even enforcing two-factor authentication on their accounts. It simply makes the job of hackers pretty difficult. When in place, it helps to prevent unauthorized parties from accessing your social media accounts. Even when they try, the platforms promptly raise alarms to notify and warn the accounts owners. Two-factor authentication is effective at point of logging in. While in place, anytime anyone tries to log in to your account, they’ll be asked to provide a second authentication factor. This factor may be a numeric code sent to your email or phone. It is that code in addition to your usual password that can give access into your account. Such authentication simply creates a huge lot of problems for hackers no doubt.

Do You Know What Ransomware Is?

Yes you guessed right! They are a bunch of malwares cyber criminals now deploy with extreme dexterity to attack your business. Ransomware now appears to be the biggest malware threat in the world. According to security researchers, the number of ransomware victims increased by a shocking 550 percent in less than a year, from 131,000 in 2015 to 718,000 in 2016.

Why has ransomware become such a big and universal problem? It is because currently, it does not just affect big businesses, it appears as if cyber criminals are increasingly targeting small businesses too. Considering the number of small businesses out there online, you can just imagine the enormity of the problem. These wares are very deadly for your small business and they can wipe you out completely in a matter of seconds. They are that dangerous.

There is hope though. You can with some deliberate care protect your small business from ransomware. Here is how. You should be extremely careful with attachments and links sent to you via email, even from people you trust. That is one very vital tip since the most used ransomware vector now, according to security researchers, is through emails with malicious attachments and links to infected websites. The next tip is precautionary. It is vital for small businesses to always have a backup of important files offsite. With backup offsite files, you could just easily restore your important files from your offsite backup if you ever get hit by any ransomware variant. However, the best form of protection is to avoid getting hit at all. That is cheaper and safer for you and your business.

“No pains, no gains. To get the prize, you must pay the price.”