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February 2013

Screen Size Diversity – Sizing Up Man’s New Best Friend

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By 2014, comScore predicts that web traffic on mobile devices will exceed traffic from laptop and desktop computers, and with it screen size diversity will increase drastically. At Mobify, we’re already seeing an explosion in the variety of devices accessing our customers’ websites. We analyzed the 2012 activity of 200 million shoppers on e0commerce websites powered by Mobify Cloud. What we discovered should help web designers and developers stop chasing their tails.

Global Top Ten Screen Size Diversity & Popularity

  • 320 x 480 (many smartphones including iPhone) – 11.4%
  • 768 x 1024(iPads and 10 inch netbooks – horizontal) – 7.3%
  • 1024 x 768 – 7.8%
  • 1280 x 800 (common 12 inch netbook resolution) – 19.5%
  • 1280 x 1024 – 6.5%
  • 1366 x 768 – 13.5%
  • 1440 x 900 (common in larger laptops) – 7.3%
  • 1600 x 900 – 3.8%
  • 1680 x 1050 – 5.1%
  • 1920 x 1080 (common for HD displays, also known as 1080p) – 6.1%

mobile-screen-size-diversity

The Advantage of the Magento Celebros Plug-in

Magento Celebros

Hara Partners is proud to offer the integration of the Magento Celebros plug-in. This cutting edge e-commerce site search engine is designed to be customer friendly while outfitting the etailer with a variety of tools which help drive business expansion.

Celebros has been at the forefront of e-commerce site-search for over a decade. Celebros has become a world leader by specializing in intelligence based search and conversion technologies. They employ the most advanced Natural Language Processing in seven languages. Celebros has hundreds of large and small clients from all over the world in a variety of industries.

The Magento Celebros plug-in provides several advantages for the etailer. The Semantic Site Search accurately determines the consumer’s request and returns the most relevant results on the first page. The site-search includes an auto-complete option which fills in the most relavant popular items as the customer types, greatly speeding up their search.

The plug-in includes tools for your Magento store which allow you to quickly and easily build landing pages and banner campaigns to promote sales. Celebros also helps analyze your Magento store so that you can build intelligent strategies on how to convert your site visitors into actual customers.

The Magento Celebros plug-in is capable of a guided multi select navigation which allows the customer to decide how in-depth their search will be. By allowing multiple value and attribute selection in an instant single search the plug-in puts the customer in control.

Another great feature of the Magento Celebros plug-in is the Product Finder. It’s like a digital concierge and salesperson in one. By asking customers questions prior to a search it helps them decide exactly what they should be looking for and instantly brings up the results.

Hara Partners integration of the Magento Celebros plug-in is a phenomenal way to expand your business and analyze the results. Its consumer friendly design helps you attract and retain customers who leave satisfied knowing that they purchased exactly what they wanted in the quickest amount of time.

How to Create Killer e-Commerce Product Pages

  • The average abandonment rate of shopping cart is 65.23%
  • The average conversion rate of E-commerce store is only 2.13%

Product page effectiveness rate = # of add to cart/visitors to product pages

The higher the average order value the lower the product page effectiveness rate is:

  • For websites with AOV less than $50, the effectiveness rate is at 25%
  • For websites with AOV above $2000, the effectiveness rate is at 4-5%

 

Most important Features That Influence The Buyer’s Decision

  • Free Shipping – 73%
  • Free Returns – 70%
  • Special Sales and Discounts – 62%
  • Discount Coupons – 56%
  • Rewards and Loyalty Points – 46%
  • Free Gifts – 31%

 

21 Steps to Effective e-Commerce Product Pages

  • High Quality Product Images
  • Highlight Discounts
  • Product Zoom Feature
  • Multiple View Images of Single Products
  • Product Demo Videos
  • User-Friendly Navigation
  • Have Clear Call to Action
  • Product Search Function
  • Create Killer Product Copy
  • Free Shipping
  • User Friendly Fonts
  • Use Emotional Triggers
  • Offer Product Customization When Possible
  • Consumer Reviews
  • Show Similar Products
  • Social Media Buttons
  • Email a Friend Button
  • Live Chat Feature
  • Maximize Trust Factor
  • Building Customer Confidence
  • Remove Unnecessary Elements

product-pages

Magento NetSuite Integration: Part I – Why Choose These Platforms

Magento NetSuite Integration

Win the Battle for Online Supremacy with Today’s Top Tech.Magento Netsuite Integration

At first glance today’s global, internet-based marketplace would be all but unrecognizable to even the most imaginative merchant from any of a thousand bygone eras. But in one area it’s unchanged, remaining exactly the same as every bazaar, souk or mall that preceded it: the competition is cutthroat. Entering the online arena, like its more tangible predecessor, with a less-than ideal arsenal is to tempt fate by handing your opposition the advantage that may ultimately lead to your online demise; as Machiavelli said best, “before all else, be armed”. Today, in lieu of chest-plate and shield retail gladiators turn to a more sophisticated, high-tech suite of weaponry like industry specific back-end business solutions, customized storefronts and targeted marketing. And like the massive and bloody campaigns of the great Caesars, success online more-often-than-not hinges on superior technology.

What Makes Magento Special?

When it comes to e-commerce there is no tech that outguns Magento. Built on an open source core for limitless expansion and boasting an unrivaled arsenal of extensions and add-ons, Magneto is the aircraft carrier of the e-tail battlefield. And with over 12 million on(line)trepreneurs already using Magento as their platform of choice, it has the popularity to match its credentials.
Magento comes stocked with all the pieces necessary to run your business: marketing, promotional and SEO tools; a robust analytics and reporting suite; and an advanced shipping interface for your back end. And for the front end, a shopping cart with one-page checkout capabilities, and product search and comparison functionalities. In short, you can create a robust and fully functional e-commerce website right out of the box. And Magento’s user friendly interface will leave even the computer illiterate smiling. In fact, one of Magento’s strengths is the ease with which e-tailers and their customers can comfortably use the platform with little-to-no learning curve. What makes Magento truly special, however, is its open source core, which allows anyone access to the code used in building the platform and gives them the freedom to manipulate it for a given task. This has led developers to create a vast resource of high-quality apps, add-ons and extensions for the platform, which makes Magento adaptable for just about any undertaking. Additionally, this malleability has created a marketplace in which each product is available in multiple iterations, each with a slightly different focus or specialization. Finally, Magento’s open source code allows developers to integrate Magento with virtually any other business software, giving e-tailers almost unlimited customizability.

To begin transforming your E-commerce experience now Magento NetSuite Connector.

Read more about integrating Magento and NetSuite

In Part II of Magento + NetSuite we’ll take a look at why NetSuite is the ideal ERP for your e-commerce site.

In Part III of Magento + NetSuite we’ll discuss what is entailed in integrating the two systems and examine an actual integration case study.

Mobile Commerce Infographic

The wizards over at KISSmetrics put together a fantastic infographic on the state of mobile commerce. Let’s dive into some statistics and see what conclusions can be drawn!

 

Mobile Commerce Highlights

 

  •  The lion’s share of U.S. web traffic (80%) originates from desktops, with 85% of that traffic belonging to Windows users. Of the remaining 20%, however, Apple dominates with 95% of tablet traffic and 72% of phone traffic.
  • While the use of web-enabled devices is generally trending upward, it appears as if 2013 will be the Year of Mobile with an estimated 1.82 billion units globally (vs. 1.78 billion desktops).
  • Still a ways to go: the threshold for site abandonment by impatient consumers caps at five seconds on mobile devices compared to three seconds on desktops.
  • Consumers need some time before they’re comfortable enough to make a purchase: 44% of eventual buyers won’t make a purchase until 10 or more mobile sessions have elapsed.

 

mobile commerce

 

Magento Emails leverages Zend Framework

Magento Email

One of the most important functions of a Magento based store is to send and receive invoices, shipping and order conformations to its customers. Magento email is built on the Zend Framework and it uses the Zend_Mail class to send and receive mail. Knowing how Magento email works is invaluable when troubleshooting your store’s email issues.

Zend Framework is an object oriented toolkit based on PHP (hypertext preprocessor). PHP is one of the first open source scripting languages designed for web development in HTML. Utilizing PHP tools Zend Framework makes it easier for developers to create dynamic websites with minimum coding.

Zend Framework uses the MVC (Model View Controller) paradigm which allows for easy website development while protecting the intellectual properties of its users. It institutes the MVC software architecture pattern which allows for easier programing. The “model” in Model View Controller is the logic and functions of the program whereas the “view” is the output such as diagrams, charts, and pictures. The “controller” connects everything together by mediating input and converts the commands for both the model and view.

Zend_Mail is a Zend Framework component that provides generalized functionality to compose and send text and MIME-compliant multipart emails. Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an email extension that allows emails to support text in character sets other than ASCII, non-test attachments, message bodies with multiple parts, and header information in non-ASCII character sets. The advantage of a Zend_Mail component for Magento email is that it allows companies to easily keep track of invoices and order conformations in one central location for easy reference and analysis.

 

How much is a Facebook Like worth?

The question of “ how much is a Facebook Like worth ” comes up time and again, when we sit down with a client for a Facebook campaign. The client, and even our co-workers ask this very legitimate question – “how much is a Facebook Like worth?”  Or how much should you pay for a campaign and what can you expect for that money.

It’s a very hard question and there are many opinionated “answers”. An objective assessment should be based on facts. We have done some testing on Facebook and Twitter to evaluate follower behavior. According to PC World, a Facebook Like worth can range from nothing at all, or as little as $3.60, to as much as $22.93 for a running business or an astonishing $214.81 for a nonprofit organization. (http://www.pcworld.com/article/2011309/whats-a-facebook-like-worth.html)

So how do you decide how much your Facebook Likes are worth? How much money should you spend and what does your return on investment look like?

Here are some questions you should ask yourself.

  1. How many Facebook Likes did your page generate so far?
  2. How many of your Facebook Likes are paid Likes and how many are irrelevant (friends, family, people not part of your target audience)?
  3. What is your niche and how much competition does your niche have?
  4. What is the purpose of your Facebook page?

For example:

If your answer to question 1 is “I try every day to ask people to like my page”, are they coming from your products or services? Chances are they will not necessarily buy a product/service that you are offering. And by speaking to the wrong audience, you may be seen as bother when you post updates on their Facebook feeds.

If you are paying for your Likes, are the right people liking your Facebook page? Again, if your products and services or your great content surrounding them can attract a following and Facebook Likes, then you are speaking to the right audience. People attracted by your content are more likely to engage with you, which can mean they may buy from you or recommend you.

If your niche is small and focused or your Facebook page does not have much competition, the value of your Facebook Likes goes up drastically. Your Facebook Likes are an indicator of your reach as well as how engaged your audience is. And with an engaged following you will be more likely to attract more qualified prospects.

Last but not least, what is the purpose of your Facebook page?

Is it brand awareness and confidence – a prospect who sees 300,000 Likes for your Facebook page will definitely perceive this as a strong endorsement, or is your Facebook page an additional active venue to promote and sell your products or services?

 

Despite the obvious difficulty to attach an objective dollar value to each and every Facebook Like, it is definitely possible to estimate a value based on your situation and objectives.

If you are asking yourself what the potential value of engaging your audience on Facebook is and if you want to learn more about this, feel free to contact us and ask (http://www.harapartners.com/contact-us/)

 

About the author:

David Markovich has an extensive history in online and offline marketing. He has acquired hundreds of thousands of Facebook Likes for numerous clients and projects. David currently holds the position of VP of Business Development at Hara Partners. He has been involved with numerous start-ups and businesses to help with marketing and SEO.

 

 

 

NetSuite Cloud Advantage

NetSuite cloud
credit: swktech.com

 

Charles Simmons, Senior Strategic Alliance Director, BPO/BPaaS at NetSuite, recently delivered cogent remarks on the state of global enterprise with regard to the NetSuite cloud service package. He pays special attention to the evolving needs and concerns of corporate IT. Read on for a quick summary of his major points:

 

NetSuite Cloud to the Rescue

 

Certain inescapable realities—escalating costs, customer expectations, capital improvement necessities—perennially pressure enterprise decision makers. Cloud computing is a panacea of sorts for organizations facing such difficult budgets; its potential to alleviate formerly intractable business snarls almost defies belief. Let’s break it down, point by point:

 

Version Lock: a Thing of the Past

 

Customizations often paint IT infrastructure into a corner—as soon as you’re satisfied with the current layout, you run into compatibility issues during the upgrade. And things only get worse when you need to extend to new business processes. NetSuite cloud products neatly sidestep the enormous capital expenditure associated with traditional IT, instead pitching its services as operational expenditures. The takeaway? Higher sales velocity, long-term revenue potential, and streamlined project lifecycles.

 

Put Your Energy Where It’s Needed

 

Logistics quickly become overwhelming in the realm of commodity IT hardware. It was all many businesses could do just to keep their existing customers satisfied in the wake of constant maintenance issues and restless technology thresholds. In the NetSuite cloud, businesses can proactively reclaim that lost bandwidth and apply it towards premium customer service, collaborative undertakings, and even one-off consultation. NetSuite’s powerful SaaS model coordinates the details with ease, freeing your employees to invest effort in the enterprise as a whole.

 

Service Foremost

 

Extensible by nature, NetSuite cloud hosts an impressive array of development tools, including SuiteTalk, SuiteFlow, and SuiteBundler. Value-added services are the name of the game here, and the company prides itself on developer-friendly architecture based on trusted standards. Your developers will be able to jump right in, which pays off in the long run with rapid, exceptionally flexible deliverables.

 

Recognize the Landscape

The industry as a whole is converting to the cloud at an incredible pace. The fact is, cloud computing aligns with clients’ demands. They want transparent, unlimited access to global markets for both labor and customers. They expect record-breaking time-to-market. They want to do something about exorbitant capital outlay associated with IT facilities. NetSuite cloud surpasses expectations in these areas and more, and it’s presented as a scalable, operational expenditure model.

 

We offer Magento NetSuite integrations as well as a variety of auxiliary e-commerce services. See what we can do for your business—contact us!

Magento Flavor Picker – What’s Your Flavor?

Flavor Picker

The Hara Partners Flavor Picker has found another home! Our design team created this incredibly easy to use tool to help bakeries improve their online shopping experience and emulate the friendly vibe that customers experience when visiting a bakery in real life. MacaronCafe, a Macaroon bake shop in Midtown Manhattan, is the latest beneficiary of this novel technology.  The shop has been a fixture for several years and recently unveiled a new redesigned website to sell their historic pastries.

Macaroons have been around for over 500 years and the basic recipe hasn’t changed in nearly as long. Traditionally considered to have been invented  in a monastery in Italy during the 9th century macaroons were adopted by the French following the French Revolution when two Italian nuns came to seek asylum and paid their rent by baking and selling macaroons. The pastry was an instant hit and since then variations of the macaroon have spread all over the world.

At Hara Partners we aren’t out to re-invent the macaroon but we would like to make it easier for you to enjoy them. Using our popular Flavor Picker that we recently installed on MacaronCafe.com, you can find flavors that match your mood, your personality, or your cravings.

Our talented and perpetually hungry team of coders have been cooking up this innovative feature for several weeks and they sauteed the Flavor Picker to perfection. Initially developed for Crumbs.com, the Flavor Picker provides customers with a virtual basket into which they can drag their choice of treats right off the site. If they change their mind at any point in the selection process a simple click will take the unwanted confection out of the basket leaving an empty space for a new one.

If you want us to help add some flavor to your site visit: harapartners.com!

Magento Extension Marketplace Ratings and Reviews

 

The Magento Connect team recently announced brand-new functionality enabling ratings and reviews in their popular Magento extension Marketplace. The new tools allow developers to easily leverage the Magento community to promote and support extensions. Merchants, in turn, will find it easier to select best-fit Magento extensions.

 

The ratings and reviews system goes live on February 19, 2013. This helpful chart from Magento details relevant features (for best results, follow recommended actions):

 

Magento extension

Magento extension

 

 

Magento Extension Marketplace Concerns

 

Business owners and administrators should take note of these pointers:

 

  • The popularity score will persist on the site undisturbed.
  • Because ratings are a new feature, default sort will be based on the popularity score. This will switch to ratings once a sufficient number of reviews accumulate.
  • Beginning February 19, 2013, the Magento Connect team will remove existing reviews with unanswered questions or inappropriate content. We recommend that you address existing support questions by 11:59 PM on February 13 (post-launch reviews will be moderated through the new process).
  • The new moderation process will henceforth reject all support questions posted in reviews. Users will be notified if their post is rejected and presented with three options:
    • Rewrite the review

     

    • Locate the question in the Q&A widget on the Magento extension profile

     

    • Contact the developer directly via the support link on your Magento extension page

     

     

  • Moderation will remove the following from user reviews: support questions, profanity, inappropriate comments directed towards other users or companies, reviews seeking to direct business elsewhere, competitor references, and meaningless work strings.

 

  • In order to give merchants more information and developers a bigger picture of Magento extension use habits, Magento Connect asks you to include other extensions available in your store on each Magento extension page. Think of this feature as a suggestive tool much like “users also bought…” Many merchants are concerned about combining Magento extensions; this encourages smarter purchasing decisions.

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