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Physical Store vs Online Store

Category: Ecommerce

Physical Store vs Online Store
Mohab Ecommerce 0

 

Physical Store vs Online Store

One fine morning, you wake up and you stumble upon a business idea that you instantaneously believe in and you think it will work great in the marketplace. You start working on your business plan and then you stop at a critical juncture, you start evaluating the feasibility and costs of starting a physical store vis a vis an online store.

Let’s look at the scenarios and help you take a wise decision.

When you decide to open a physical store, there are costs that need to be borne in terms of infrastructure, furniture, labor, etc.…. Furthermore, you must invest in the security of the store, the maintenance of the store, etc.… The costs involved in setting up and operating a physical store to sell your products are very high to begin with, not to mention you would have to indulge in some outdoor marketing to attract customers to your store. If you think you don’t need to do marketing, then your store better be in a good location to cash in on the automatic visibility. But, a good location comes at a cost.

Sometimes, the rent of the store will be abysmally high, due to locational advantages. Oh, last but not the least, there are regulatory clearances from the civic body & government that needs to be sought, before you start operating a physical store. In many countries, receiving regulatory clearances is not easy as sometimes, the process is cumbersome and tedious.

Therefore, purely from a short to medium term, it certainly doesn’t make sense to open a Physical Store, because it will take a while before you realize your return on investment. Hence, what’s the other option? Online, right!

It is 2017, the peak of the e-commerce revolution, the possibilities are immense. You don’t need to worry about location, physical security and outdoor marketing, to start shop. Sure, these elements exist in the online space as well but it is easier to deal with. To start up in the online space, you don’t particularly need any regulatory clearances. You would just need a few computers and a good internet connection.

However, you must ensure that you have adequate stock to service your orders. It is imperative to have a good supply chain and logistics system in place, because if the first 100 costumers, like your products, chances are that your orders will increase in a very short span of time, aided by digital marketing.

Having said that, the most important factor is the experience you provide to customers, when they land on your online store. The UX/UI (User Experience/User Interface) of your website needs to be top notch. Right from the homepage to the payment gateway, the amount of time that a customer will spend on your online, he should be blown away by the experience. The UX/UI will be your single most important driving factor for your online store, initially.

Contact us and we will be able to guide you on setting up a viable online business, apart from providing a seamless payment experience for your online store. Sign up for a free demo to understand the value of our payments solutions.

8 years ago
We can Ride on Your Cart!
Mohab Ecommerce 0

We can Ride on Your Cart!

When a customer shops on your website, little he is aware of the fact that you have shopped elsewhere to integrate your website with a shopping cart platform. Shopping cart platforms lie at the very heart of e-commerce and no merchant looking to venture online, can do without a shopping cart platform. What a door and furniture is to a offline store, a shopping cart is to an online store.

Quite simply put, the technology that runs in the back-end when you buy any product on any e-commerce site and add it to the cart for checking out. That virtual process is executed by a shopping cart platform. Once the customer arrives at the checkout page and agrees to pay, that’s where the payment gateways come to the picture. It is important to draw the distinction between shopping carts and payment gateways because merchants might be ambiguous to an extent.

In a world that has been shrunk with the onslaught of global e-commerce sites and multiple variants of shopping carts, it is imperative to have a payment gateway that caters to all types of shopping carts, be it Magento, Open Cart, Cs Cart, Woo Commerce, Shopify, Prestashop or WHMCS.

We have ready made extensions/plugins for you to integrate directly onto the platform of your choice. Now it is easy to integrate the shopping cart of your choice and start accepting payments with PayTabs.

Click here to learn more about shopping cart plugin integration onto your website, using PayTabs as a payment gateway. Moreover, you can contact us for any technical questions regarding shopping cart integration.

8 years ago
PCI-DSS: Does it sound Greek to you?
Mohab Ecommerce 0

PCI-DSS: Does it sound Greek to you?

Ever seen the green logo at the bottom of the checkout page for an e-commerce site? The PCI-DSS logo. You must have wondered what does the logo signify? Well, it is a mark of authentic security verification for the site and all the payment gateways associated with the particular site.

PCI-DSS stands for Payment Cards Industry- Data Security Standard. It is a worldwide industry body which verifies the security measures in place with regards to a payment gateway, an e-commerce site and banks as well. The certification and compliance measures are executed through globally approved scanning vendors of PCI-DSS.

One such vendor goes by the name of SISA, which recently audited PayTabs’ India office and ensured that operations in the particular office meets their security standards. SISA is a vendor which operates across the globe for PCI-DSS.

The PCI-DSS certification & compliance helps instill confidence among the uconsumer to provide their card details to the site or the payment gateway, because the card data is SSL encrypted or TLS 1.2 encrypted, thereby ensuring maximum security for the consumer’s card data.

The basic parameter of a PCI-DSS audit is to check for devices within the organization which has the potential to store, process and transact card data. No card data should be stored openly in any of the devices in an organization. All data should be in encrypted format. The CVV of a particular card should not be stored under any circumstances.

Last but not the least, the PCI council which consists of leading payments solutions providers such as MasterCard, Visa, Amex, JCB, RuPay and Dicover.

As a customer, whenever you are using your card details or bank details on any site or payment gateway, it is imperative for you to check for PCI-DSS certification/data encryption denotion.

To gain more insight on the security imperative for payment gateways, click here.

You can now subscribe to our blog alerts and stay at the top of trends and knowledge in the context of e-commerce and payments. Moreover, if you are interested in experiencing the completely secure PayTabs payment solution, sign up for a free demo!

Please feel free to leave us a comment or a query below.

 

8 years ago
Invoicing in a Jiffy!
Mohab Ecommerce 0

Invoicing in a Jiffy!

As a merchant, one of your primary concerns is the invoice generation for your customers, who has placed bulk orders or offline orders with you, for the products you have sold or the services you have delivered. Especially, you are in the space of taking international orders, it is a necessity to have an invoicing system that works for you and takes care of multiple currencies and has provision for multiple customizations and itemizations as per your requirement.

Over the years, with the advent and penetration of e-invoicing, the transactional process between a merchant and a buyer has been made easier. Automated workflows help you save time and receive payments faster and leads to reduced exceptions and disputes.  All in all, switching from manual to e-invoicing is a win-win proposition for you that enable your business grow.

Don’t pay heed to certain misconceptions in the marketplace that paints a picture of e-invoicing being only for businesses that have a website. That’s not true. If you are a brick and mortar business, you can still benefit from e-invoicing without owning a website or a marketplace. In fact, it is not just convenient; an optimum e-invoicing solution comes with user friendly features such as logo, discounting systems, taxes, invoice terms, etc.

Ideally, an e-invoicing solution should provide you with multiple benefits:

  • Manage Multiple Invoices
  • Recurring Invoices
  • Speed, Reliability and Security when it comes to payments
  • Single Dashboard for all your transactions

Besides the above, an intelligent invoicing solution should help you keep a track of your productivity through financial reporting which results in better financial management, apart from providing real time financial analysis.

PayTabs has been at the forefront of revolutionizing the invoicing space with an intelligent and robust solution known as PayPage which adds tremendous value for merchants.

8 years ago
Payment Gateway Selection: 6 Factors to be Considered
Mohab Ecommerce 0

Payment Gateway Selection: 6 Factors to be Considered

If you take a step back and look at the entire e-commerce ecosystem, you would realize that one of the key elements of an e-commerce portal is the effectiveness and efficiency of your Payment Gateway. As you are in the process of choosing a payment gateway, we are here to give you a ready reckoner on the factors to evaluate while considering a payment gateway.

  1. Security: In a world where cyber security risk has been growing by the day, it is critical for you to check the security parameters of the gateway. Look for a PCI-DSS certification apart from elements such as anti-fraud protection, 3D secure authentication for cards.
  2. Ease of Integration: There are multiple platforms, on which your e-commerce portal might have been built, be it Magento, Shopify, OpenCart, Woo Commerce, PrestaShop, etc. The payment gateway should be easy to integrate onto any of these shopping cart platforms. Whether it is Mobile SDK, Direct API, iFrame or Express Checkout, the method of integrating with your shopping cart should be hassle free with minimum documentation.
  3. Mobile Optimization: The penetration of mobile onto or lives has been wide reaching an m-commerce is at the forefront of the mobile revolution. Customers are shopping through the mobile like never before. As per latest data, over 2 Billion mobile and tablet consumers will engage in some form of mobile commerce transaction by the end of 2017*. The gateway you select should provide a seamless shopping experience for the customer, irrespective of the type of device.
  4. Merchant Support: Payment Gateway technology support is critical to the success of your e-commerce portal in today’s day and age. 24×7 dedicated support is an imperative for you. It is basic but very critical for you.
  5. Currencies and Alternative Payment Methods: The world has indeed become a small place and the consumer can be located anywhere. It is therefore a necessity in today’s global marketplace that a payment gateway has provisions for payments in multiple currencies and a plethora of alternative payment methods to enhance customer experience.
  6. Fees: The operative word in the realm of fees is transparency. Set up fees, transaction fees, net banking transaction fees, different transaction fees on different cards, annual maintenance fees, etc…. The entire gambit of fees can be burdening for an e-commerce entrepreneur. They key is to select a gateway, which has no hidden fees. All their fees need to be disclosed, before you sign on the dotted lines.

For more insights, you can subscribe to our blog alerts.

Moreover, you can evaluate the features on PayTabs and should you be interested in a free demo, you can sign up here.

*Data Source: E-Marketer & E-Consultancy

8 years ago