Top 100 Startups In The Middle East – 2018
October, 2018: Happy to announce that PayTabs has once again made it to the Forbes Middle East list of the top start up’s in the Middle East. Read the full story here
Benefits of mada for merchants
All about mada and how it benefits online merchants
Saudi Arabia now has an advanced electronic payment network known as mada that works throughout the country and involves the use of a debit card, which can be used at ATMs, POS or point of sales as well as for online shopping! Those who have mada cards can use it to withdraw money from their bank accounts through ATMs, shop for goods and services online, and even pay utility bills. mada cards are issued by local banks in Saudi Arabia and come with the latest security features and value added services. The mada payment network connects with other major payment systems like MasterCard, American Express, GCC Net and VISA so that mada debit card holders can make cashless online transactions both locally and globally, seamlessly. Just like a regular ATM card, a mada card features a 16-digit number, CVV and expiry date.
mada is not just for consumers
The best thing about mada is that, it encourages people in Saudi Arabia to shop from local online merchants, as the latter can accept payments through this card easily. Rather, this card will be the primary mode of payment! If you are wondering how far the mada network is going to boost the growth graph for e-stores, here are some figures that will help. Currently, there are 16 local banks in Saudi Arabia that are issuing mada debit cards for use at POS, ATM as well as web stores. 29 million mada cards have been issued already and 22 million out of them work smoothly with international payment schemes like MasterCard and Visa.
mada and PayTabs
Being one of the leading online payment gateway services’ technology in the Middle East, PayTabs now supports mada debit cards that are used on e-stores, websites and merchant portals in Saudi Arabia. This ensures that online transactions are secure, fast and protected against frauds like identity thefts, phishing etc. Besides mada, PayTabs also lets merchants offer many other payment options to shoppers, making it easy for small businesses to grow.
PayTabs is enabling mada as a new accepted card scheme, just like VISA, American Express and MasterCard. This means that the customer will go through the same payment steps as before, and the checkout experience will be as smooth with a mada card as it is with a VISA or others.
What benefits does mada offer to merchants?
Accepting mada debit cards as the primary mode of payment on your website through PayTabs, has multiple benefits:
- Your sales will receive a boost as more and more people in Saudi Arabia are embracing mada and carrying out their online transactions through this versatile debit card.
- Shoppers will be able to make payments seamlessly and without any hassle, just like when they do with their regular debit or credit cards. By accepting mada as a payment, you will simply give them more flexibility and convenience when they are buying products or paying bills online.
- Thanks to the special value added services that mada provides, you will gain more financial control over your business, and daily purchase volume will go up.
- Human processes like bookkeeping, tracking daily inventories and revenues will become automated with mada, thereby reducing the risk of human errors.
- You will be able to keep an eye on cash flow and all sales transactions with better ease and efficiency.
How should merchants get started?
As you are now aware of the many benefits that accepting mada cards on your website can bring you, here is what you have to do to get started with this process:
- You will need an active account with PayTabs first, as this gateway ensures smooth, secure transactions as well as more growth opportunities for your business.
- You will also need to have an active account with any of the partner banks in Saudi Arabia
- A business or commercial license will have to be issued to you by Saudi Arabia.
- Next, you will need to sign the Bank/mada agreement, as the banks and the mada payment network work together to offer you the many benefits mentioned above.
- Finally, you can integrate mada service into your website and start accepting safe, simple and smart payments from mada cardholders.
Do note that this process can take anywhere from 5 to 7 working days. However, once it is set up, you will see significant improvement in website traffic and sales. So, choose PayTabs and mada together if you wish to stay ahead of competition in the cut-throat eCommerce landscape.
How to use Price Localization for Increasing Global Sales?
The price of a product or service is the most influencing factor for a buyer. Of course, there are other factors affecting online sales, such as geographic location, currency, user experience, and so on. When we talk about price localization, we incorporate all these factors to render a customized shopping experience. According to a study, a group of SAAS companies confirmed that sales performance increased by 30% when price localization was implemented.
You can simply make changes in a payment gateway process by accepting local currencies and adjust pricing according to the market demand to successfully implement price localization. In addition to these, there are other ways as well. Here, we highlight the importance of price localization, and how it will affect your international business.
Cosmetic Localization versus True Localization
Price localization happens at various levels, depending on your goals. For example, if you have a product that sells really well, you can apply basic changes to boost global sales. But if you are entering a new market, you have to consider multiple aspects. Based on these two situations, there are two localization types – Cosmetic localization and true localization.
- Cosmetic Localization
Currency Exchange – Under this strategy, you can provide competitive exchange rates when converting the price of the product in local currency. Further, ensure minimum payment gateway charges to reduce additional costs, besides the product price.
Local Currency – You can also simply eliminate the need to provide an exchange facility by showing prices in local currency. This will improve the user experience, resulting in higher chances of customer acquisition.
Local Language – Translating website content into the local language is another way of tapping local customers. According to a study by KPMG and Google in India, 68% internet users prefer content in local language rather than in English.
- True Localization
Market Demand – You just cannot change the price and currency, and expect a rise in sales. When cosmetic localization doesn’t work, true localization comes in. The foremost influencing factor is market demand, and whether the market is saturated or not. For example, if the product demand is high in Europe but the competition is low, you can sell the product at a higher price.
Buyer Personas – The price is influenced by buyer personas as well. This involves customer’s demographics, buying behavior, and other factors. You have to customize a package, design, or features according to the customer’s preference. For example, some products may work well in the USA but they won’t sell in India unless you customize it according to buyer persona.
Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)
The price localization depends on the purchasing power of the currency. The purchasing power is determined by considering factors like income levels, cost of living, and so on. The purchasing power parity (PPP) aims at striking the balance between two currencies. In other words, as per PPP, the cost of a product should be the same in both currencies. For example, if a pair of shoes cost $50 in the USA, it should cost Rs 2500 in India, if the conversion rate is 50.
But the currencies, in comparison to US dollar, are either undervalued or overvalued. Now if you keep the prices same for the global market according to the PPP, the sales may get hampered. So on the basis of the conversion rate, exchange rate, and customer’s willingness to pay a particular price; you should adjust the selling price so that customers don’t hesitate to pay the price.
Customer’s Sensitivity
A customer is sensitive to various factors, not just the price and benefits. While pricing the product for a targeted audience, analyze factors like customer’s income, lifestyle, spending pattern, preferences, market demand & supply, the local language, and so on. Conduct surveys or deploy big data analytics to accrue information. The price localization works effectively when you create value according to customer’s sensitiveness and set a suitable price tag.
The Final Words
Price localization is an effective strategy of catering to the targeted audience, thereby, boosting local sales. It’s not just an option but a dire need if you want to tap the global market. Understand the market demand, and step into the market with the right product and price tag before you lose the ground to your competitors.
5 Google Analytics Tips for eCommerce Websites
Traditional shopping is a passing fad and now shopping from food to clothes is mostly done via internet. However, there is no dearth of online shopping portals that are vying for customers’ attention across the globe. So, how do they manage to stay ahead in the race?
Well, the answer lies in a four letter word – DATA. Those, who are analyzing data 24×7 to understand who their average customer is and are making suitable changes, are beating the competition. And one of the most effective tools available for data analysis is Google Analytics (GA), which can help any eCommerce player to actually see if their online marketing strategies are working and optimizing sales.
Here are 5 tips on Google Analytics to understand customer behavior and raise your profits.
Tracking campaigns
E-commerce players keep experimenting. Some click, some fail. But to get a better understanding of why a certain campaign did or didn’t work, use GA campaign tracking. It gives you the data behind the strategy for you to see where you won/lost. All you need is to create a special URL for the campaign and see its statistics and assess the ROI after the campaign is over. You also need to take out referral spam aka ghost traffic or spam crawlers to get clean data, which will tell you if a campaign is truly working or not. The Site Search feature reveals what your users search for on your site. You can capitalize on the search terms to optimize the page where the keyword is primarily targeted.
Tracking Bounce Rate
While, a bounce rate of less than 40% is considered okay, anything more is bad for business. Faulty website design or pages taking several seconds to load can put off the visitor. Sometimes, when the content is irrelevant, it makes the potential customer leave the site immediately. With GA, you can take corrective measures as it helps in detecting weak spots and getting your conversion funnel streamlined.
Know your customer
This is possibly the most important use of GA. It helps you discover who your customers are – age, gender, region wise. You can plan your campaigns better knowing who is most likely to buy from you and their purchasing habits like the size and frequency of their purchase. You can also get to know which digital platform – desktop or mobile – are they using and optimize that platform. The purpose of acquisition reports and conversion rates, assist you in eliminating factors that hamper the webpage traffic and investing more in channels that bring you more buyers.
Using annotations
Once you have identified the customers, now use Annotations in GA to understand sales report. It tells you the top performing products in your store. It not only tracks fall and rise in sales but also suggest factors that might have led to it. For example, it will show if your sales increased because of the free coupons you were offering during the long weekend. You can also use GA to compare to see how you are faring against the competition.
Customizing reports
If you want specific set of data to understand the dynamics, GA offers that too. You can create your own custom report to retrieve the required information by simply clicking on the ‘customize’ feature and choose options you want. GA with all its infographs helps you prepare comprehensible reports for board meetings with partners and investors. And in case you have lost track of several reports you have prepared, you can always use the option “Find Reports & More” and browse through the existing documents quickly.
Conclusion
It’s imperative for E-commerce players to use digital tools for identifying who, among the huge global audiences, can be their customer. And since, not everyone has the budget like Amazon or Walmart to set up a whole team to do that, they can bank on Google Analytics. Though to understand a few detailed processes, you might take the help of a web developer, GA largely presents statistics that are easy to evaluate and if acted upon intelligently, it can help boost your eCommerce website.
Launching an E-Commerce Business? Here are 7 Web Design Mistakes To Avoid
The growth of e-commerce is simply phenomenal. In 2017 alone, the ecommerce industry accounted for around $2.3 trillion in sales, and the number will grow to $4.5 trillion in 2021 according to Statista. In the U.S., e-commerce accounts for 10% of retail sales with a projected increase of 15% each year. But it is not all rosy because millions of ecommerce stores collapse within a few months of launch. According to a Fortune Report, more than half of startups fail, and this should be a warning sign. One of the main reasons for such failure is poor web design. Now that all your transactions will happen online, you need a professionally designed website to meet growing demand from your customers. Many online retailers rush to set up stores only to experience hiccups arising from unreliable e-commerce designs.
This article highlights some of the most common design mistakes that online retailers make and proposes tips to avoid them. Read on.
- Poor Image Quality
The power of visuals in marketing cannot be overemphasized. Your e-commerce website images are the first thing visitors will see and if they are not impressive, it is likely you will lose business. The online shoppers have many choices with other online stores competing for their attention. If you don’t display high-resolution product images, you risk turning off potential buyers because they will question your credibility. Investing in high-resolution images is similar to a brick-and-mortar store investing in lighting and other techniques to improve product displays.
- Confusing/ Scanty Product Descriptions
When potential customers visit your ecommerce store, they expect to get all the information they need about your products or services. A major pitfall in ecommerce web design is a failure to include clear, helpful product description or worse still, using scanty and confusing descriptions. Good copywriting and product descriptions are integral in your e-commerce web design to avoid high bounce rates and high cart abandonment rates. Provide relevant information but avoid overloading the product descriptions as this might confuse the readers.
- Limited Payment Methods
One of the most important aspects of a good e-commerce web design is seamless user experience. To provide this, you not only have to take payments online but you must make the process fast and easy. You should use a payment gateway that allows multiple payment options to deliver an enjoyable user experience. Your e-commerce design must integrate multiple payment options to avoid cart abandonment and to ensure the customer completes the purchase journey.
- Lack of Customer Support Information
While online shopping has increased tremendously over the years, most shoppers still need a lot of information before completing purchases. For this reason, your e-commerce web design must integrate a well-detailed contact page for easy communication. Include all communication channels including phone, email, social media networks, and live chat among others. If a customer needs to contact your store, it should be a quick and simple process. For this reason, add your contact information in strategic places on the web pages.
- Failure to Include Shipping Information
A quick glance at most online customer complaints shows that shipping is a very critical issue. It can make or break your e-commerce store. If you want to create a seamless user experience, make sure you provide comprehensive shipping information on your e-commerce website.
Failure to include shipping details including proper shipping rates, timelines, product tracking and other details is a common web design mistake that you have to avoid. It leads to low revenues because shoppers need these details before making a purchase.
- Cluttered/Over-Crowded/ Complicated Design
Don’t fall for the temptation to include everything in your website because this will lead to loss of business. Online shoppers have a short attention span and they want to find whatever they need fast. Avoid an overcrowded web design as it is ugly and confuses potential buyers.
- A Non- Mobile-Friendly Web Design
Google has already indicated that mobile internet has surpassed desktop access and this is enough reason to invest in mobile-friendly web designs. A responsive e-commerce website helps leverage the growing mobile internet market. With Mobile First Index, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project and other initiatives emphasizing the importance of mobile, you can only overlook a mobile-friendly web design at your own peril.
There are many other web design flaws such as slow loading time, complicated sign-up forms, dated design, lack of clear call to action (CTA) among others. Avoid these web design mistakes to deliver a world-class customer experience which in turn leads to reduction in bounce rates, higher sales conversion, customer loyalty, and a good brand image.
