Mohit Tater's Blog, page 670

5 Best Practices for Building a Website for Your Startup

Only 52% of small businesses have websites. That is an astonishing number in 2016. If you want to stay competitive in the modern marketplace, your startup needs a website—an actual website, not a Facebook public profile.

Building a website is easy. You can use a free CMS like WordPress and download a great theme. Designing the site to drive traffic and conversions and to capture leads is the hard part. Here are some tips to help you create an attention-grabbing website for your startup:

1. Use a Simple and Clean Theme

Your site should be designed to make an impression and entice visitors. The theme you choose should reflect the unique nature of your brand as well. So, don’t download a free theme and risk making your site look like a thousand others. Instead, spend some money on a top-notch theme that offers a sleek and professional look for your site.

The overall layout of your website should be kept minimalistic. A straightforward and clean design will keep your site slim, and will also be easier to navigate. Do not clutter your site with unnecessary components that distract the visitors from the main aspects: your brand and products.

2. Show Products or Services on the Homepage

Obviously, the point of your website is to sell a product. You will not sell this product or service unless it is prominently featured on the home page. Use your images and concise text copy to show off your products on the homepage.

However, don’t show all the products on the home page. Show one or two that are the most important. Don’t go overboard with graphics either. To show visitors the benefits of your products, list them, don’t write paragraphs about them.

3. Make Sure the Site Loads Fast

Site speed directly correlates with conversion rates. A desktop site should load in under 3 seconds, and a mobile site should ideally load in under 5 seconds. If your site takes longer to load, you will lose more than half of your visitors.

Keep the design simple, as mentioned above, to reduce unnecessary bulk that adds to loading time. Keep the source code clean. Compress graphics and remove unwanted plugins to improve page speed.

4. Optimize User Experience

User experience is everything when it comes to e-commerce sites. If your site is uninteresting, hard to navigate or to load very slowly, users will be unimpressed and leave for a competitor’s website. Therefore, try to see your site from a user’s perspective to improve the experience.

If you organize the website well, you can immensely improve the user experience. For example, put CTA buttons above the fold, and keep disclaimers at the bottom. Make sure the fonts you use are easy to read. There should be enough white space around each component, so the site does not look cluttered.

5. The Site Must be Accessible

The people who visit your site will come from all walks of life. Some will have certain disabilities that need addressing, like color blindness. Individuals with disabilities are your customers too. So you need to make your site accessible.

Use disability-friendly colors that everyone can see on your site. Also, do consider people with slow internet connections. Offer a basic HTML version if someone’s connection is too slow to load graphics.

The above are only the tip of the iceberg. However, try to get them right first before you move onto other aspects of SEO. Having a clean, appealing, and easy to navigate site will drive your startup’s conversions like nothing else.

The post 5 Best Practices for Building a Website for Your Startup appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

What Facebook’s Algorithm Change Means for Small Business Social Media Marketing

Several weeks ago, Facebook announced a major change to the social network’s algorithm. It was upgraded, or rather, amended, so the content a user sees on his or her newsfeed comes mainly from friends and family, and not from brands or adverts.

For content marketers and publishers, this brings forth huge challenges. Many have relied on Facebook to share content like blog posts, or to drive traffic to dedicated landing pages. Facebook is now focused on severely limiting advertising links and penalizing clickbait. This raises interesting questions regarding how companies, especially small businesses, can continue to market on the world’s largest social network.

Assessing the Impact

A good majority of marketers rely on Facebook for significant amounts of traffic. If a business used to rely on clickbait headlines (“click here to see this”) to drive traffic to landing pages, that practice is no longer viable. Brand reach is now limited on Facebook. Brands have to disclose partnerships, which slightly reduces the impact of native advertising. (However, advertisers will get better access to individual post data using social media analytics tools.)

There are plenty of things to consider cost wise as well. Advertisers will need bigger budgets in the future to buy Facebook ads to increase reach. Also, Facebook ad costs will most likely go up as well. In this environment, how can a small business with a limited budget continue to market on Facebook?

How to Drive Traffic on New Facebook

Small businesses need to rethink their Facebook strategy in light of the algorithm change. However, if you understand what’s changing and what’s not, it’s still possible to run a successful Facebook marketing campaign without spending an arm and a leg.

Improve Quality of Content

The biggest way to boost your content on Facebook without getting penalized for clickbait is to improve the quality of the content. Rather than publishing a dozen insta-articles per day, focus on publishing a handful of top-notch articles per week. Aim to provide genuine and interesting information to readers, rather than aiming to get them to click. From now on, use social media management dashboards to assess how people respond to your posts based on quality, not clicks or views.

Focus on Making Business Page Better

The Facebook profile pages for businesses are still a huge deal. Facebook itself has recommended businesses to focus on these. This is the best place to create brand awareness posts that resonate with audiences. Instead of peddling your products on the Facebook page, try to generate real conversations. Instant brand awareness will follow.

Get Shares Using Word of Mouth Strategy

Instead of relying on strategies like click bait to get shares, rely on word of mouth. Facebook is prioritizing friends and family over businesses. That means your small business has the best chance of appearing on a user’s newsfeed if a friend of the user shares one of your posts or mentions your brand.

Don’t rely on tired old methods to continue to promote your brand on Facebook. Unless your small business has plenty to spend on ads, carefully consider the above points.

The post What Facebook’s Algorithm Change Means for Small Business Social Media Marketing appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Liberty Media take a slice of the fast lane – now teams can too

For those who haven’t been keeping up with Liberty Media’s recent share purchase in Delta Topco, the parent company of F1, the most recent development is that Bernie Ecclestone will retain his role as Chairman for at least the next 3 years, and that teams will be given the chance to invest in the sport with several having already expressed interests.

While spread betting players will have seen Liberty Media’s stock fall slightly in the last few days and may be tempted to shy away, several big investment funds are adding them to their portfolios as the future of the company suddenly seems a bit brighter. This could be a sign that for the first time, with Delta Topco having been a private company and therefore untradeable, that teams and the public can participate in the growth and decline of the sport (and potentially even turn enough of a profit to cover the expensive tickets for the races).

So who would take up the option? Well the major players are likely to be Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren who all have the finances to be able to back it and will be looking to cement a stake in a business that has grown nicely over the last few years. The additional enhancements that will likely come from Liberty Media owning a large stake in TicketMaster and the addition of Chase Carey, who has worked alongside Rupert Murdoch for many years, will just be icing on the cake for the potential of the brand.

However, the race is far from the finish line, with the consent of the FIA and European Commission still needed to ratify the sale of the controlling stake, and a little caveat behind the scenes. Investment Group CVC Capital Partners invested $965.6m in 2006 in Liberty and courtesy of the recent events, look set to make a whopping 532% gain on their original purchase, generating a sizeable $6.1bn return. But, the interesting footnote is that CVC granted the FIA a 1% stake in Topco Delta 3 years back, and should the sale progress, the FIA stand to make nearly 100x their return. With financial interests a key metric in the validation of the sale, the fact that the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile will turn a large profit may be seen by some as a conflict of interest and create new hurdles to overcome.

To stay up to date with all the developments of the F1 controlling stake sale and spread bet a guess at what will happen to Liberty Media’s share prices, be sure to keep up with our blog and check out some of the leading spread betting brokers in the markets today.

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What Makes an Effective Leader

Before investments and elaborate business plans, there are most important things that matter if you want to succeed in your job. First of all, a person who wants to reach success in his business must obtain leadership skills that are a guarantee of your competitive ability.  The presence of leaders in the company is vital because they direct behaviors of workers in order to reach common goals. If you want to turn co-workers into a team and motivate them to reach success you must become an effective leader.  The following tips will lift the veil on the qualities of him.

Commitment

How can a leader motivate coworkers to unite and dedicate themselves to the challenging task? He must show an exceptional example. If you show incredible devotion to the business and succeed you will motivate the others.  It is the way to share your hardworking energy among others. If you are enthusiastic and initiative prove it on practice! Then the others will follow you and show surprising results.

An ability to build a team

Relationships between people are very complicated. It often happens that people of different characters and views must get along with each other and work together. However, it is a challenge to make them work in unison. That is why an effective leader must be experienced in human relationships. He should be aware how to communicate to people of different temperaments and psychic types. A basic knowledge of  psychology and personal experience are essential qualities of a leader who wants to unite people into the team.

Perspicacity

This characteristic is a sign that the leader is able to find the solution for existing problem in a right way. With perspicacity one can find roots of the issue, improve his own ways of problem-solving. An effective leader must evaluate all possible ways of the solution and find the most appropriate one for the certain situation. In business incisive wit is a tool of progress because everyone can notice causes that are on the surface, but a key for successful solution hides deeper.

Concentration

An ability to be focused on the issue is an important characteristic of the leader. He can set priorities, but without enough level of concentration, he can fail in the  accomplishments of his tasks. To be really effective a leader must focus 70% on his strengths, focus 25% on new things and devote 5% of his concentration to his weaknesses.

Ability to deal with changes

If in the middle ages a noble knight had to kill a dragon to prove his power while a modern leader must be able to manage changes. This leader must not only maintain stable progress in the company. He should find triggers to create substantial reforms. Don`t confuse it with people who always tend to radical actions. An effective leader permanently tends  to improve the state of the company gradually with visible progress. It is essential for the leader to acquire new skills and enrich his competence in different fields in order to create positive shifts in business. An effective leader must have a prospective vision and share it with his team.

Positivity
In order to succeed, you must maintain optimistic worldview. Business is a sequence of ups and downs, but the prevalence of positivity will keep the system going. It is an art to keep looking for positive sides in completely negative situation. If the leader has an optimistic state of mind he will be able to show find solutions in the most helpless situations. For example, if one of workers is a student that gave up to complete assignment suggest him term paper writing service.

Ability to combine different leadership styles

The constants of leader behaviour already exist. Although, an effective leader must adjust his leadership style to the needs and demands of the certain group of people. That is why we suggest you to be aware of the leadership styles and create your own according to demands of your team:

The authoritative leader unites the team toward a common vision and to current goals, leaving the ways to each individual. This style is important for the team that lacks new vision and needs a confident guide. Leaders of such type inspire an enthusiastic spirit  for the mission.  Authoritative leader must gain trust and respect of the team if he wants them to follow him doubtlessly.
The duty of affiliative leader is to enable the feeling of belonging to the team among workers. All people have emotions, so if there is a person who is about to have a breakdown the immediate help must be given to her. The overall mood of the team risks to decline even because of one member. The leader is the member of a team who can create such atmosphere where reasons to get upset lower and positive emotions rise.
The coaching leader is important to maintain key skills of the team and develop them for future. He must stimulate people to change themselves and learn for the challenges and tasks they may face in the future.
The coercive leader is the one who demands immediate obedience. This person must be in charge in case of possible emergencies. He must have both cold mind and heart to solve urgent problems.
The servant leader is the one who leads people by serving them. He reflects his positive attitude and devotion to the team through acts of help. This type must serve as a role model for everyone. Because the company won`t reach success if they do not take care of each worker as a separate person with his own needs.

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Ideas for Epic Business Blog Posts

Despite your blog have a definite purpose you must always keep your audience. You should cheery our readers with creative and epic posts. Sometimes it seems to be impossible to surprise people with the new posts. Because lots of topics have been already covered either in your business blog or in the others. Fortunately, it is not a dead end. If you find a new approach you can bring any topic  to life! The following ideas for blog posts can inspire you to create material that will being at demand of audience.

Give an advice

The life of every business is not calm. Many cases happen everyday. Try to pickup an urgent problem and create a post with experts advice for the solution. It is better to gather different points of view and show the example how to solve this problem in practice. The problem may be ordinary and be covered in other posts, but your advice is unique. For example, if an expert gives a sudden advice to invest money into new kind of business, most will listen to him and act as he suggested.

Arrange a contest

If you encourage your followers to compete the level of their engagement in your blog will be higher. The best blogs are those where the audience show excellent performance. Within the scope of the business blogs, you should make people compete for the doubtlessly useful prize. The best object for the prize is some rare object like a book with limited circulation or with the signature of the outstanding and respectable writer. It is the thing that will motivate them to compete.

Contests are usually made in order to promote your website because users always share such posts in social networks. However, do not overdo with such posts. Create them rarely and try to post them during the holidays when people are in special need of presents.

Make a quiz

The interactive kinds of content bask in popularity. Quizzes are perfect to learn the information about blog readers and select content according to their preferences. You can dedicate one post the quiz itself and these can done later where you will present the results with their thorough analysis. The audience enjoy squizzes because they feel as a part of an important survey and this is an honor for them to contribute to the work of blog they read.

 

The destruction of myths

Our world is full of myths, stereo types and superstitions. People believe in them because they are too lazy to analyze and dig to the core. The number of the myths is so immense, so you will always have a material to the well upon. Try to choose myths that are related to work of famous business brands because they are always actual. For example, you can demolish a myth about essay writing services and show the Edubirdie as an example.

Celebration post

You can always find a person to congratulate everyday!  It refers especially to business professionals, the information about which will be essential for your readers. This is a good opportunity to create a post about a person born this day and focus on the story of his success.

The day in the company

People read business blogs to learn experience from those who are in the same area with them. Every businessman has a model of  the company that he tries to imperfect. It is very useful for them to read posts about successful companies and learn principles of their work, features of management or leadership system. It will be greatify ouput into a post an interview with CEO and manager to make your material more accurate.

Post funny material

You might consider business blogs to be extremely serious kind of website. However, blogs must not only inform people but  also entertain them. If you include from time to time a post with the amusing material in your blog feed you may satisfy readers` need in entertainment. Another question is how to make a truly funny post. You must use various stylistic devices that will make your text humorous. Also, you can pick really ridiculous topic and make an elaborate survey during the creation of the post. To make up unusually funny topic you have an option to compare two, from the first sight in comparable concepts, objects, companies, personalities, etc. For instance, try to compare brand Coca-Cola with (no, not Pepsi) some rock band or the character from the cartoon? Every object in the world has common and distinctive features with the other objects. That is why it is a limitless source of the ideas.

Promote the best

Readers always want the best for themselves. That`s because they think that if they choose something of exceptional they feel special. Posts with digests of best companies, products, books, etc, go a bomb. Indeed, there is a simple explanation of it. Why should you buy an ordinary product, watch a typical film, keep to traditions of an unpopular company if you know what is the best for sure. It is convenient to organize items in such posts into lists. Readers will likely read lists than text with  traditional structure because they resemble people an exact  plant which they must keep to. Infact, this is an illusion of self-discipline, but it is a good tool to engage the audience too.

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Here is What You Didn’t Know About Indian Fashion

It is the nature of human beings to want to have something that serves more than one purpose. More so for those of you who have tight budgets to work with. You need to find a point where the balance strikes; a point where you can have what you want and at an affordable price.

You must be having that one pair of jeans that you know how well you can match it up with many different tops to give it an all new exciting look, as if it were another totally different pair of trousers. Indian attire is just like that pair of versatile trousers. You may not know this, but Indian fashion has become quite popular especially in the west, thanks to its very versatile nature.

This is not just because of the beautiful and elegant outfits they are rich in, but also the way you can put together different attires and come up with something exciting and impressive to the eye. You must be wondering what exactly makes the Indian fashion versatile. Well, here are some of the factors that make the Indian attire versatile:

Variety

Nothing beats fashion more than variety. Variety is everything in the fashion world. It would be so boring if you walked into a store or if you visited a store online and all you can see is black pants. I mean there is literally nothing to choose from. The biggest advantage of the Indian attire is that it is rich in variety. This is in terms of the color, designs, materials and many other things.

You can now buy designer kurti online where you can get to choose from the wide range of the kurtis in the store. There are no limitations when it comes to Indian fashion. You can have just what you want and how you want it. From the formal kurtis, to the party wear kurtis, to the men’s kurtis, there is a lot in store for you.

Flexibility

This is basically how you can wear specific Indian attire to a certain occasion and wear the same attire for another different event and still look good and make sense. One of your fears as a lady is to be irrelevant in your dressing, i.e. when you go for a wedding ceremony but you have worn an attire that suits a funeral. You always want to be relevant in terms of your dressing.

Indian fashion comes in to make things easier for you.

Indian attire is just the best in the fashion world. You may not know this but even Hollywood stars rock Indian attire to the red carpet. How amazing is that! There is one too many reasons as to why you should try out Indian fashion. You will surely not be disappointed. The good thing about Indian fashion is that it does not limit in terms of age or gender. There are attires for both children and adults and men and women alike.

BIO

Humphrey Onil is a 35 year old gentleman who is crazy about the Indian attire. Humphrey especially loves to buy designer kurti online where he can get variety. During his free time, he loves to spend time with his family.

The post Here is What You Didn’t Know About Indian Fashion appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

How to Keep the Premium for Your Car Insurance under Check

Car insurance could be an important tool for saving your precious car and your hard-earned money in the event of theft or damage as a result of some undesirable situation. You would be incurring an extra expense by buying car insurance, but it could help save you a considerable amount of money provided you keep a number of things in mind. You should always take perfect information regarding the chosen policy and try your best to get the most out of it. You could easily have the best car insurance policy simply by comparing policies offered by different insurance companies.

Effective Comparisons: A Must

You should shop around a few car insurance companies because rates would be varying from one provider to another and sometimes, up to 400%. You should consult your friends, family, and even colleagues to share their knowledge and give you a solid advice on car insurance. However, you must do ample research on your own for effective comparisons.

Techniques for Reducing Insurance

Get in Touch with a Reputed & Reliable Insurance Provider

You must get your car insured with a well-known household insurance company that would be yielding a discount of five to ten percent of your premium. Make the most of the insurer’s discount, generally 5 to 10 % of your premium. Most insurance firms would be offering discounts for all cars fitted with automatic seat belts, airbags, anti-lock brakes and anti-theft devices. Many insurers provide you with low-mileage discounts and even discounts for over one car and no claims. Drivers over 50 or 55 years of age with driver training courses and also diligent students could get special discounts. Drivers over 65 years of age would enjoy three-year impressive discounts on their car insurance premiums if they succeeded in completing a mature driving course.

Avoid Uninsured Motorist Cover

It is better not to opt for uninsured motorist policy unless it is mandatory by your state law. If in case you are injured or hit by any uninsured motorist, medical bills, and repair would be covered by collision insurance, PIP  cover, and some other medical insurance.

Drop Rental Car

You could cut out the expenses related to the rental car. If two cars are owned by your family, you could do without any rental car when one car goes for servicing. Any auto insurance company would be having some limits and restrictions on rental car payments.

Avoid Medical Insurance Duplication

You may cut down auto insurance medical payments if you are having employee hospitalization plan that would be duplicating medical insurance.

 

Avoid the Use of Emergency Towing Services

You could stay away from using the emergency towing services that would not be required anyways unless you are having an old car that is vulnerable to breakdowns. Insurance companies would be limiting the amount that they offer to you for a tow that is anyways too little. You could consider joining the AAA or maybe some other automobile club that would provide emergency towing services.

Opt for a Low Profile Vehicle

Consider buying a relatively low profile car. Do not make your car a status symbol. A low profile car should be offering low insurance rating. Also, opt for a suitable low insurance area if you are thinking of shifting base.

Conclusion

One thing you should never do for saving money on auto insurance is cutting down your liability limits. You must realize and appreciate that there is absolutely no correlation between the service quality and the premium paid. Drivers pay almost twice the standard premium amount for three years if they are banned because of dangerous or drunk driving. Keep in mind that your policy could stand canceled if you are proven guilty of recklessness, speeding or drunk driving causing death or injury.

Author Bio: Walter moore is an insurance agent who has served with a private firm in Texas for more than five years. He is an expert on car insurance, valuation, and leasing, and also runs a successful blog. He provides an effective auto insurance guide.

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Ugh! Signs to Get with the Times in Design

Have you ever walked into a shop and immediately felt turned off by their choice in décor?

Used furniture that’s showing visible stains
Tacky signage that doesn’t hit that vintage feeling
Stacks of hard copy with the front-desk scrambling to organize
Lighting fixtures you could swipe an inch of dust off

The perceived value of your business is heavily invested in your ability to adapt with the times. It’s why we tend to either like sleek and modern or rustic and vintage feels to the shops we use. That middle ground that looks like it came from a tacky yard sale haul just doesn’t cut it.

Outdated décor makes the business:

Feel like they’re lagging in the industry (leading to guessing if they have modern offers)
Don’t care much for their presentation (leading to the same thought about service)

If you’re reading this while eyeballing that 70’s burgundy set of chairs and that bamboo coffee table in the front office strikes you as a “this definitely has to go” item, then you’re in luck because – after all – they are just cosmetic so some touch ups will bring some new life (and pride) to the business.

Here’s what I’d recommend:

Start with a fresh coat of paint
Add decorative art and murals to create visual contrast
Leave ample space for products
Demo your services in a live fashion
Update the workwear

The first is easiest though it may be the most time consuming. Essentially all you’re wanting to do is to dump whatever design you have now on the walls and go with a fresh coat of paint. To do a small store you could be set back a couple hundred bucks but it’s well worth it when the location transforms from “kooky dive” to open and inviting.

Read more: How To Use Color Psychology To Give Your Business An Edge

The second is to add in art to give the eyes a dynamic shift from what’s on the floor. Shops that want to focus on the product may want to go with minimal designs. Those shops that are eclectic may want something busy like graffiti, a wall mural design, or an abstract painting. Photography is always a great blend, too, because it gives your customers something to bring up if they want to do small talk.

Read more: 11 Eye-catching Stores

The third comes down to the furniture (or actually the lack thereof). Modern furniture nails it with their sharp designs and clean look; giving these pieces plenty of open space allows the person to wander around without the shop feeling overbearing. The opposite end is to go with rustic and antique type furniture if it’s an “old” type business which gives it a vintage look and feel.

Read more: How To Create Retail Store Interiors That Get People To Purchase Your Products

The fourth is to get your service out there front and center by making it readily available. Apple does this spectacularly with their stores because people can dip in, ask questions, get help, and then have time to browse around for other items on the shelves. Show off what you have and let people play with it; when they want to know more don’t pass them a brochure – interact with them with a demo! Since you’re going this route it will naturally lead to new items and design such as integrating modern televisions, computers, and tablets; it may also require new layouts for a comfortable demo area.

Read more: Engage Customers with In-Store Demos

The fifth is that the business should take a good, hard look at the work attire and give it a modern update. That professional look may have been fantastic selling mattresses in the 70’s and 80’s but when someone approaches you overdressed it’s real easy to feel overwhelmed – that same feeling you get when a sleazy car salesperson jumps on you. Go with what’s comfortable, but professional, which is relaxed but also good for getting to business. Casual business… more or less. Much of this can be matched through color palettes with how you paint and the furniture (and products) you have in store.

Read more: What Should Employees Wear to Work?

Now over to you. What visual upgrades would you do to an outdated business atheistic?

The post Ugh! Signs to Get with the Times in Design appeared first on Entrepreneurship Life.

Top PayPal Plugins for WordPress

When deciding whether to take your products online, the question of accepting payments is often the most worrisome. The online market is huge. With the net’s ability to target your unique target method, unimpeded by geographical restrictions, online retailing is a fantastic way to boost sales. However, the setup process is commonly littered with pitfalls. The most confusing of which can often be setting up a payment procedure.

Companies operating in all manner of sectors incorporate online payment services. PayPal is often a popular choice thanks to its uncomplicated setup process for consumers. Many people now use PayPal, as it offers quick and secure payments. This something that www.newpaypalbingo.comknow all about, having utilised at many paypal bingo hubs for easy deposits. However, you don’t need to be an online gaming firm to see the benefits of the service. If you have a WordPress site then you’re in luck. We’ve made a list of the top PayPal plugs in for WordPress that are currently on the market.

WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping

You’ve got the investors, you’ve set up the site. Now it’s time to allow your customers to shop. This simple plugin is an extremely easy way to place an ‘Add to Cart’ tab on your site. After you’ve installed the plugin, you can add this button to any post or any page that you like. Be sure to sync it to your PayPal account. Then, you’re ready to start accepting payments.

This is a free plugin. However, there still plenty capabilities. Buttons can be customised with shortcode. It sends a confirmation email to your customers. You can customise this email from your end in the back office of your email. You may want to add promotional content or discount codes for future orders.

Easy PayPal Payment Accept

This plugin allows you to accept payment on posts, pages or in your sidebar. You’ll be able to create Buy Now buttons which can be embedded via a shortcode. Choose which currencies you wish to accept and it can even let users choose the size of their payment. This can be fantastic when you’re setting up a bidding frenzy.

Ready! Ecommerce Shopping Cart

Running an e-commerce store? Then you’ll need a plugin that fits the bill. In addition to working with PayPal, this payment plugin is compatible with SagePay, Skrill, Google Wallet and much more. If your products are likely to need to be shipped then this plugin can help you tackle this too. There are extensions for popular shipping companies such as FedEx and UPS.

Paid Memberships Pro

Looking to offer subscriptions or memberships? Then this a fantastic plugin that will help you make certain aspects exclusive. These can include downloads, videos, in addition to general pages and posts.

You’ll be able to configure the plugin to set the number of membership tiers that you desire. In terms of payments, there are four different options. One of these is PayPal. You can even integrate this app with MailChimp to send out mailers.

There are plenty of options out there if you’re looking to start accepting payments online. However, the ones listed above are the best of the bunch in our opinion.

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4 Reasons Why Keeping Track of Inventory Is Important to a Small Business

Your inventory is where a lot of your business’s money is cached. It’s potential income and also potential loss if you don’t sell it. When you keep paper records of your inventory, you’re crippling your business because you can’t evaluate your inventory in real time. Paper records are harder to back up, harder to examine, and have a high potential for sustaining damage. Here are four important reasons for digitally keeping track of your inventory.

Know What You Have and Need

If you are running a small business, your inventory storage space is not an infinite number of shelves where nothing ever goes bad or gets damaged. You have a finite amount of space, and you need to use that space intelligently. That means keeping detailed records of what you have and how much of it you need.

Buying inventory is a careful balance of predicting what you’ll need, when you’ll need it, and how much you’ll require so you don’t run out of the things you sell quickly. You also have to take into account the products you don’t need to order as often, the products that may perish or go out of style before you use them, and how much space you have for everything. The process of storing inventory is complicated enough when your records are impeccable. Don’t make it harder on yourself by trying to keep paper records, or worse, by keeping no records at all.

Respond to Customer Needs Quickly

When the inventory in your stock room is a mess, responding to customer requests is difficult. How long will they wait in your shop while you dig around in the back? Do you even know if you have the item they’re looking for? Digital inventory records make it simpler for you to respond to customer needs, especially if you organize your stock room using an app like Stockroom Management. Whether this person is visiting you one time and looking for a special item, or wants to make a weekly stop at your shop for a consistent order, you need digital records to serve that customer well.

Search Your Stores Easily

Searching through paper records for items is time-consuming, and may yield inaccurate results. Whether you’re checking your stock for a customer or figuring out what you need to reorder, digital records tell you in real time how much of each product you have in stock. Instead of heading to the stock room to count boxes and bags, you simply check a digital list to figure out how much of something you have or need to order. It’s easier to keep track of how much you ordered last time, too.

With some simple data entry combined with vendor management, your inventory becomes a searchable, backed-up document. Go for a system that integrates with as many business aspects as possible. Sage 50 accounting is easy to use because it works with your finances, your inventory management, your projects, and more, while offering scalability as your business grows.

Evaluate Orders as You Use Them

Let’s say you run a bakery, and the milk you ordered went sour a week before its expiration date. With paper inventory, you might not be able to track that mistake and contact the vendor in time to rectify the situation. You could end up dumping money down the drain, literally, with that bad quality product because you didn’t keep track of when you received it.

You want to constantly evaluate your inventory, including quality and price, as you use it. That way, you’d know if that milk went sour because someone forgot about it or because the milk vendor made a mistake and shipped it too late. Plus, when you notice you’re running out of something faster or slower than usual, you can adjust your ordering methods in real time and not at the end of the month when you’re poring over all your papers.

You’ll save time, money, and headaches if you keep digital track of your inventory. Your small business depends on your efficiency, so don’t let messy paper records cause any glitches in your system!

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