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5 Reasons to Avoid Cheap or Free Cloud Hosting

Category: Growth Hacks

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Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Reasons to Avoid Cheap or Free Cloud Hosting

There is a plethora of choices available when it comes to choosing your web host. Cloud based hosting has become the norm now and there are several options to choose from. However, it is important that you undertake serious analysis before deciding to go with a particular course of action. While you may want to keep your costs down and opt for free or cheap cloud hosting, you should ensure that such freebies do not come with hidden costs. In many cases, such cheap services may actually cost you a lot more in terms of lost sales or credibility. Here are some of the top reasons why going with a free or cheaper cloud hosting option may not be the best choice.

Reliability: The dependability of the service provider is one of the biggest criteria while choosing a hosting partner. This will ensure that your website is up at all the times and will run in a smooth manner. These factors are essential for providing the best services to your clients. In the case of free or cheap cloud hosts, there may not be any certainty about the longevity of their business. If they decide to close their business at any point of time, you will be left with a non-functional website. You may have to incur high expenses to transfer your content to an alternate site. Apart from causing financial loss, this situation will also hamper your daily operations.

Security Issues: Security should be foremost in your mind while selecting a web host. This is especially important if you are hosting an e-commerce website. In such cases, there is a lot of sensitive information at stake. Your free or cheap cloud host may provide unsatisfactory security measures or none at all. Since their servers are shared by a number of websites, the security issues may become even more pertinent. Further, the lack of security tools for the purpose of cost cutting may make things worse. Ultimately, such cheap services may prove to be far more expensive for you.

Poor Performance: There are several factors which determine the efficacy of a website. Some of the main performance metrics are page-load speed, loading error and downtime. Page load speed denotes the time a website takes to display its content. Your free or cheap cloud host may not be able to provide enough bandwidth for the speedy loading of your website. This situation may translate to dissatisfied clients who may choose to take their business elsewhere. Furthermore, many search engines use loading speed as a criterion for ranking purposes. In such cases, you may incur further losses as your website may be ranked lower solely due to its poor loading speed.

Technological Issues: If your host does not have the right technology then your website may show loading errors, again leading to loss of business. If your website frequently faces loading errors, then your clients may switch to a different service provider to avail seamless services. Free or cheap cloud hosts may also experience more frequent downtime, again leading to client loss. Such downtime may be scheduled but they ultimately eat into your business and may cause client dissatisfaction. Such issues are more prevalent with free or cheap cloud host since they may not have resources to offer the latest technological tools.

Lack of Support System: If you do choose a free or cheap cloud host, you may have to run your website without much support. These hosts generally do not provide any support system. In case of any website issues, you are on your own to figure out the problems and resolve them. Further, you may also receive a limited set of features which might not let you design your website according to your requirements. They may only have set templates which you can choose from, limiting your creativity and hampering the productivity of your website. Free or cheap cloud hosts generally provide limited storage and bandwidth which may not be enough to fulfill your requirements.

This is why you can safely conclude that free or cheap cloud hosts are only suitable for temporary websites or when you are just starting out to test the waters. If you are running a professional website and hoping to provide a seamless and fuss-free experience to your clients, you may want to look at other options available in the market.

5 years ago
PayTabs
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Why Do Online Payments Fail?

Making online payments is a complex process. Transactions can fail to materialize many times and there may be several reasons behind them. In order to fully understand the reason behind such failures, it is imperative to look at the various components of the payment processing chain. Any one glitch at any stage may cause the payment to collapse. Not only do these payment processes involve money but also highly sensitive data related to a business and its clients. This is why it is important that such instances of payment failure are dealt with properly and in a timely fashion.

Types of Payment Failures

Payment failures can be broadly divided into two categories. The two types of failures are a) where the amount is not charged and b) where the amount is charged. In the first instance there is less to worry since no money was transferred, but it is still important to look into the reasons behind such failure. In the second case, there is bigger cause for concern since the money has left the person’s bank account but cannot be traced further without deeper analysis. Whatever the case may be, you are advised to undertake proper investigation in either of the circumstances as the incident may reveal some other issues in the processes.

Reasons for Payment Failure

Following are some of the most common reasons which may lead to payment failure.

Connectivity: Since payment processing uses internet, any issue with the connectivity may cause the payment process to stop midway. Even if there is only fluctuation in the speed of the network, the payment may fail. In other cases, the user may have unwittingly closed the browser before the process was completed. The payment process will fail in all such scenarios.

Downtime: Online payment process entails several intermediaries such as payment gateways, banks and credit card firms among others. If any of these constituents are undergoing downtime, the payment may fail. In most of the cases, the companies announce their downtime ahead of time, so that their clients may schedule their payments accordingly. However, in other cases, such downtime may be unscheduled. It is also important to adhere to any applicable time constraints. For example, certain transactions may be undertaken only during scheduled hours. If you attempt a transaction outside such limit, your payment is bound to fail.

Security Issues: Financial intermediaries may refuse to process the payment if they are not convinced about the authenticity of the transactions. Such refusal causes the payment process to fail. The reason may be as simple as the bank not finding the transaction to be as per the customer’s usual spending pattern. This generally happens when there is a charge from a foreign country. The customer’s bank may flag the transaction if it detects any security threat. In other cases, the payment gateway may decline the payment if it is above the threshold set by the merchants.

Wrong or Missing Data: Online payments have very stringent requirements when it comes to authenticating the data. The transactions are bound to decline if there is even a slight mismatch between the data and your credentials. If the customer enters the wrong password or OTP, the banks may choose to decline the payment. In order to ensure the security of financial payments, the financial institutions may also impose time limits within which the transaction is must be completed. It is important to adhere to such directions. Even if the data is entered correctly but an element is missing, the payment transaction will be declined.

Other Reasons: Apart from these broad categories, there are several other reasons why a payment may fail. Sometimes, the reason may be as simple as there not being sufficient balance in the customer’s account. If the transaction they are undertaking is beyond the limit of their debit or credit card, then the payment will be declined. Another reason may be that their chosen payment method may not be on the list of approved methods.

Payment failures may adversely impact an online business in a significant manner. Apart from causing financial loss, it may also lead to loss of reputation and trust among your clients. In order to provide the best services to your customers, you should look into each and every incident of payment failure to find out the underlying reason.

5 years ago
PayTabs
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

How To Get Increased Brand Loyalty Through M-commerce

Brand loyalty is vital for the long term survival of a business. The term refers to the tendency of customers to keep dealing with a particular business over others. Brand loyalty ensures a long lasting and trusting relationship between a business and its customers. This concept makes sure that by providing superior services and economical pricing, a business can keep its customers coming back.

With the rise in e-commerce, the rules of driving brand loyalty have changed a little. Businesses are now required to have specific strategy for fostering brand loyalty amongst its customers. The rules of the game have been modified further by the introduction of m-commerce or mobile commerce. As more and more people are now shopping on their phones, it has become necessary for businesses to adapt their customer centric policies to accommodate the requirements of m-commerce. Here are our top tips to help you achieve brand loyalty in the age of M-commerce.

Create your Brand: As intuitive as it sounds, this vital step towards achieving brand loyalty is generally forgotten by many businesses. Creating your brand image online requires concentrated efforts and comprehensive strategy. Whether you are using social media to promote your business or are going for paid advertisements, it is important that you offer a consistent message. Apart from the message, you may also create a unique brand identity by using the same color scheme, identical logos and consistent artwork. You should also properly analyse your products and services to identify your USP or Unique Selling Point. This USP will help you stand out in the crowd and create your own following.

Simplify: An important step towards achieving brand loyalty through the use of M-commerce is to simplify all your processes. The main reason behind this approach towards simplicity is that in the case of M-commerce, resources are at premium. The customer has extremely limited screen space on their phone. Further, despite vast improvements in technology, the internet and processing speed on a mobile phone are still slower as compared to mainframe computers. In order to ensure that the client is able to follow through all the requirements for making a successful purchase, it is imperative that various processes are kept as simple as possible. This will allow the customers to make faster purchases, adding to your bottom line.

Make an Offer: While the right type of messaging and efficient processes are big draws for clients, they also tend to respond well to financial incentives. In order to build brand loyalty, you may think about changing your pricing strategy and offer some discounts to your clients. The main purpose is to induce customers to make purchases repeatedly. To achieve this end, you may introduce loyalty points where the clients are able to use incentives to get discounts on their bills. Another strategy is to remarket, which is a tool aimed at customers who have not purchased anything recently. You can reach out to these customers with some offers, so that they are enticed back to your business.

Omnichannel Promotion: Once you have identified your USP, simplified your processes and started offering incentives, it is time to let people know about all your efforts. In order to succeed in the highly competitive world of M-commerce, it is important to take a comprehensive approach towards marketing and promoting your business. You should ensure that you are making optimal use of all the tools available to you. It pays in the long run when you take the time to align your email marketing with your social media promotions. This type of planning will ensure that you are able to provide a cohesive message which resonates with your USP. You can also start a blog to interact with your customer base. However, keep in mind that the quality of your content will determine your ultimate success.

Engage and Follow up: It is highly important that you maintain contact with your clients even after the transaction is over. After sales customer care is also necessary as it shows your commitment to quality. The key to keep people coming back to your business is to maintain a rapport with them even if they are not making any business transaction with you.

With these steps you can easily build brand loyalty in the age of M-commerce.

5 years ago
PayTabs
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

6 Tips to Improve Your Business’ Cash Flow

Effective management of cash flow is crucial for any business. While you may have good turnover and profit, but you may lack liquidity if you do not manage your cash flow in an efficient manner. Cash flow management essentially entails keeping proper record of money coming in and going out. The analysis of this record may let you see the gaps and fill them accordingly. Here are some tips which will let you manage your cash flow easily.

Develop a Plan and Forecast: planning and forecasting involves you looking at your finances and then draw inferences for your future. While the task may seem daunting at first but with the availability of a number of software for cash management, your task may be eased to a certain extent. You can choose to use simple spreadsheet or some sophisticated software specially designed for this purpose, the choice is yours. You will be required to record your opening cash and bank balance and all the inflows and outflows there from. When you start seeing a pattern, you will be able to forecast your future transactions. This exercise will allow you to plan your spending accordingly.

Speed up Your Inflows: businesses need to provide credit line to their customers, which may lead to delay in cash inflow. However, curtailing such terms and conditions may lead to loss of revenue as your customers may shift to another vendor with liberal credit terms. In such cases, it is essential that you reconcile your objectives of achieving higher revenue and improving cash inflow. You may offer incentives for faster payments. Such incentives may or may not be financial in nature. For example, top fast payers may receive advance information about new product arrival. You may also institute late payment fees to discourage lax customers.

Control your Outflows: managing cash inflows is one facet of cash management system. The other side is to manage your cash outflows. The best policy is to talk with your vendors and seek more relaxed terms. You may also use your impeccable payment history to make your case. If you are able to extract a few more days for payment from your vendors, then it may work wonders for your cash flows.  However, never try to take a shortcut or default on any of your payments as it may impair your relationship with your vendors on permanent basis.

Finance your Inventory: liquidity is related to cash which is often tied up in acquiring other assets such as inventory.  Take proper record of your inventory and analyze it. You may find that your funds are unnecessarily tied up in old inventory which is not moving. In such a case, you may want to liquidate the inventory and free up your cash. Further, if you have excess of any asset including tools and raw material then re-sell them to obtain cash. You may have to sell them at deep discount but some money is better than the money tied up.

Use Professional Services: for better management of your cash flow, you may want to engage the services of professionals. This is especially important if your business is growing at a fast pace and the requirement for liquidity is high. You may engage factors for the timely collection of your invoices. Factoring works by providing you cash on the basis of invoices generated by you. It can be excellent way of availing short term finance. You are also not required to take any drastic step with regard to the collection of bills. However, factors charge fee or commission, which may not be affordable to many businesses.

Take Advance Payments: you may introduce new terms to your sales whereby you require the deposit of payment before the delivery is undertaken. This arrangement is especially helpful if you are engaging in a large order. Taking advance will lower your risk of default and will also improve your liquidity. Such advance payment may also be used for funding the transaction so that you do not have to look for alternative financing arrangements.

Cash flow management does not have to be an odious task. With these pointers you may manage your cash flows in an easy manner.

5 years ago