Power from Knowledge: Site Search Analytics

Alexander NicolaidesApril 29, 2022

Information is power. Search boxes can help your customers navigate your site, find what they want, and purchase it quickly. Not only does it help the user find what they’re looking for, but it can also help narrow down what you want to show them, as you are able to segment your products to cater to that specific customer.

You can break down the site search analytics to show user search results: popular searches (what they want), filter usage (how they find it), and click through rate (what they do when they find it).

The Numbers

Up to 30% of site users use a search box when one is offered to them and that can count for up to 45% of revenue. Not only that, but 84% of users want to solve their own problem and one of the ways they can do that is by using a search box. And did you further know that as many as 68% of users will not return to the site if they did not have a satisfactory search box experience? Here’s how to use your analytics to improve that user experience.

Learn What Your Customers Need

Learning what your customers need and supplying it to them is Business 101. Having access to analytics is a straightforward way to both create a content strategy and restructure your inventory management and segmentation. If your customers or site users are consistently searching for “eco-friendly office paper”, you can take that as an opportunity to create a new Landing Page for all Sustainable Products.

You can also craft an email for your lists that direct them on how to purchase those products or services. Having ease of access to what your customers want most is what will keep them coming back to you.

Learn What Your Customers Can’t Find

When you go to a site and are unsure of how to find what you want, you may go to the search box, hoping to get guidance. If you are noticing that customers are searching for something that may be somewhat tough to find on your site, it may also be an opportunity to restructure and re-segment your site for more ease of access.

Acquire More Conversions

Having a site search option can help your business acquire almost twice as many conversions as without. Being able to search a site optimizes user experience which will increase not only conversion rates but also sales rates. This can help you create more meaningful content and website changes to appeal to your client base.

How to Find Search Queries in 7cart

To view your search queries within 7cart, go to your store admin. Go to the top navigation bar and select Reports -> Misc -> Keyword Searches. You will then see a list of query phrases, which are the keywords that your customers are using. “Count” means how many times that query was searched for. Product count will give you how many products are generated within the search results for the query phrase.

What to Do Next

Learning what your users need and want is important to your growth as a business. Use these strategies to create conversions and content that will appeal to your client base. Those clients will be the ones who help your company acquire more clients and ultimately achieve more success.

Learn about how to use video to engage your clients and create more conversions

Seasons Change: Tips & Tricks for Capitalizing on Seasonal Products

AlexJuly 1, 2019

Selling Your Seasonal Wares

Certain items you sell are more desirable during specific seasons, and this is something you need to stay on top of if you want to maximize profits. For example, school supplies sell the best in late summer and early fall, while snow gear sells the best during winter. By making the right moves, you can capitalize on this and make a big profit. With these tricks, you can do just that, while also learning what to do when products are out of season.

Know How to Price Seasonal Items

To make the most money during a particular season, you need to know how to price the seasonal products you want to push. These items will be in high demand, so the trick is to set a price that is desirable to consumers, but also high enough so you make a profit. Checking on the competition is a good place to start; browse your competitors’ sites to see what prices they are selling their seasonal items at.

In regards to seasonal pricing, you have to get used to the idea of changing prices to take advantage of popular shopping periods. While products are in high demand, raise the prices a little bit so you can make more money as people come in. Keep your competitors’ offerings in mind so you can offer a more enticing price tag.

As the season comes to an end, lower the prices of seasonal products so you can still sell them just before the season concludes.

Know Which Seasons to Focus On

Here is an important thing to keep in mind about seasonal products: you will not always have products to sell for each season of the year. Depending on the products you have in stock, you might only be able to sell seasonally during only one or two seasons, and this is perfectly fine.

The best thing you can do is focus on the seasons that are suitable for the products you want to sell. If your seasonal items consist of swimwear and snow gear, you should focus on selling for summer and winter. This way, you have more time to develop stronger strategies for these seasons. During the spring and fall, focus on your evergreen products so you can continue making money.

Seasonal products are not just limited to the four seasons; they also refer to products you can sell during holidays, like Christmas. The same applies here: try to focus on selling seasonal products during the holidays you have suitable products for.

Create Seasonal Content

A fun way to get people interested in buying seasonal items is to theme your content and advertisements around the current season. Build images of the beach into your summer ads, and during the winter try writing blog posts on popular winter activities. Sharing seasonal content with your customer base is a good way to promote items that you want to sell.

When you are developing your content, bring up seasonal problems that people can solve with the products you sell. For example, you can write a blog post on shoveling snow, and you can promote snow shovels you sell at the end. Get creative, and be sure to work specific holidays into your content when it the timing seems appropriate.

Be sure to plan your seasonal content well in advance, because if you wait too long it will be too late to use it properly.

What to Do in the Offseason

One of the issues with focusing on seasonal products is that demand for them decreases once the season they are designed for ends. Obviously, school supplies will not be in high demand once the school year ends. At this point you have to pull your focus away from these items, but there are some things you can do to keep some momentum going.

If you want to clear out your seasonal items to make room for new products, a clearance sale can help you. Do you ship to a global market? Seasons are different across the world, so you might be able to sell seasonal items overseas. These strategies will give you more room in your inventory, and you get to make some money in the process.

During the offseason, use your time to review how well you performed during the past season. Use this information to get ahead of the game and decide on the products you want to push when that shopping season rolls around again.

Want to know how you can keep customers engaged during the summer shopping season?

Why You Should Be Encouraging Customers to Review Products

AlexJune 12, 2019

Getting Shoppers to Leave Reviews

The importance of online reviews cannot be understated for eCommerce business owners. When a product has positive reviews, customers are more inclined to buy it, since it is clear that others think highly of it. In addition, reviews can also help you improve your site’s search rank, since they show search engines that you are releasing quality content. Keep reading to see why you should always encourage your customers to leave reviews online.

Reviews Influence Shopping Decisions

One of the biggest challenges of selling products online is that customers are not able to see your products in person. Besides a product’s description and images, customer reviews are some of the only ways shoppers can gauge the quality of a product. Customer reviews are especially useful, since they give buyers the chance learn more about products through the personal experiences of those who bought them.

When customers see that others enjoy using a product, they will be more included to purchase it. This is why you have to do what you can to get people to leave reviews after they buy your products. If a product has no reviews, customers may be wary about buying it, since they have no way to tell if anyone enjoyed using it.

An easy way to do this is to make sure the process of reviewing products as simple as possible. By doing this, customers feel naturally obligated to write their own reviews.

Reviews Are Free Marketing

Did you know that product reviews almost act as free advertising? Online shoppers are more willing to trust the words of other shoppers, since they assume sellers are obligated to speak highly of their products. When shoppers see reviews from regular people, they feel as though they can get unbiased opinions on things they want to buy.

By encouraging previous customers to review your products, you can get people to buy more products without the need to write new content. After a product is delivered, wait a few days and send an email asking for feedback. Plenty of customers enjoy leaving feedback, but simply forget to do so right away, so giving reminders is always helpful.

Improve Search Engine Rank

Besides enticing new customers to buy your products, reviews also help your website stay well-ranked on sites like Google. This is because any review that is added to a product page serves as a new piece of content for your site. Search engine algorithms react to specific keywords that reviewers are typing out, and your site has the chance to get much better visibility as a result.

Not only that, Google algorithms usually react to positive reviews when they are posted online. They take product ratings into consideration, and rank product pages higher if people enjoy the items being shown. Basically, if you sell products that people enjoy using and convince people to review them, you can dramatically increase traffic to your site.

Learn Where You Can Improve

A handful of online sellers try to dissuade people from reviewing their products if they fear the reviews will be negative. Reviews that criticize products usually scare customers away, and can make it harder for a sale to be made. Despite this, you should not be afraid of negative reviews, because you can learn a lot of things from a customer’s critiques.

If people say that a particular item is of low quality, you should check and see what the problem is. If you find that there are significant issues with the product, you now know that you have to fix it if you want people to leave better reviews. If you choose to disable reviews, you will not know if people have issues with a product, and if people stop buying it you will not be able to figure out why.

Not all customer reviews are going to be positive, but not all negative reviews are inherently bad.

Planning to work with Logicblock’s 7cart system? Here is how you can enable customer reviews on your site.

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Customer Spotlight: Day to Day Essentials

AlexApril 9, 2019

Working with Day to Day

Located in Fairfield, NJ, Day to Day Essentials is one of many companies that is partnered with Logicblock. After struggling with its initial website launch, the company’s founders took interest in our 7cart system, and a partnership grew from there. Learn more about Day to Day, and see how the company and its owners have benefited from using the 7cart eCommerce platform.

The Company’s History

Day to Day Essentials was founded in 2010 by Mike Colli and Ahmad Kahf, who have been friends since childhood. Since the beginning, their goal has been to help customers save money, while maintaining strong core values, including respect, flexibility, and trust. Their company primarily focuses on selling to small and large businesses in the New York/New Jersey area.

Colli and Kahf started selling paper products and trash bags, but their selection has expanded dramatically over the past decade. Not only do they offer cleaning chemicals and packaging materials, they also work to repair cleaning equipment as well. There have been challenges along the way, but the two founders have always managed to find a way to overcome them.

Partnering with Logicblock

Day to Day has been partnered with Logicblock for almost two years now. When Colli and Kahf originally launched their business they did so with their own website. However, they had trouble figuring out what they wanted to do with the site, and this led to a lot of money being wasted.

After talking with some of their vendor partners, the two eventually came across Logicblock and the 7cart system. They were impressed with all of the system’s features, as well as how easily they could be implemented. Not long after, Day to Day and Logicblock partnered up, and have been working together ever since.

How Day to Day Has Benefited

Colli and Kahf utilize all the different features included with the 7cart system, including the tools for price comparison and product updates. Kahf has said that he enjoys the price comparison tool in particular. Since partnering with Logicblock, he has noticed that customers have been buying much larger orders.

Since the 7cart tools are automatically updated within the system itself, the two founders only have to worry about handling a few select tasks at a time. This eases up their workload, giving them more time to focus on other important matters. Overall, by partnering with Logicblock Day to Day has been able to expand much further than it could before.

Relationship with Logicblock

Kahf briefly discussed his relationship with Logicblock, and he has been very pleased with how things have been so far. He stated that the company has been very helpful, and has responded quickly to any ticket requests that have been issued. He also discussed how the platform is easy for novice workers to figure out, which is helpful for any company trying to break into the online scene.

Kahf had worked with two previous companies for website design, but had not been pleased with the results overall. With Logicblock, he feels that his company has all the tools it needs to succeed online. As this point in time, he does not see himself working with any other online shopping platform.

Keep Driving Sales After the Holidays Conclude

Alexander NicolaidesJanuary 18, 2019

Keeping a Steady Pace

The holiday season is a key period for online sellers, since this is when sales tend to peak over the course of the year. Thanks to an abundance of sales and marketing campaigns, most companies see major profits during this time. However, once this period ends things must go back to normal, and companies run the risk of suffering from a sales slump as a result.

Use these tips and tricks to drive sales after the holidays so you do not run into a slump.

Don’t Be Quiet After the Holidays

Typing on Laptop

One common mistake that online sellers make is being too quiet after the holiday season. At the start of the year, most sellers slow down a bit with their marketing campaigns. This happens because some marketers get tired from producing multiple holiday ad campaigns, and most shoppers start getting sick of seeing all the emails advertising holiday sales.

It is not inherently bad to slow down after the holidays, but it is not a smart move to go completely radio silent. Advertisements help pull in potential buyers, and if you stop with emails and other ads completely you could risk losing their attention. You do not have to go

crazy with ad campaigns, but it is important for you create new advertisements that target people who saved money to use after the holidays.

Try More Discounts

Shopping Discounts

Online shoppers are never tired of finding discounts, even after they have finished buying gifts for the holidays. People are always trying to find the best prices online, not just during big shopping periods. Adding to this, lots of people will want to break in the gift cards they received from friends and family over the holiday period.

It might be a good idea to offer discounts on your winter products during this time, because when spring rolls around it will be harder to sell them. This can help you clear out your old inventory so you can make room for new items later down the road.

It can be tiring to offer so many discounts in such a short amount of time, but if you are willing to go through with it you can retain a lot of holiday customers.

Introduce New Products

Shopping Bags

A smart way to keep consumers interested in your brand is to introduce some new products at the start of the year. If you do not think customers would be interested in discounts on your leftover items, refresh your inventory with some new products people might need for the rest of winter. While your competitors focus on restocking after the holidays, you can catch them off guard with new items that they do not offer.

New products entice consumers, and they can help you attract new customers while other sellers slow down after the busy shopping season. If you plan to start selling the new products in January, it is important that you promote these items while the holiday traffic is still high.

Market Around New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s Fireworks

Another tactic you can try is to gear your products and advertisements towards people who are looking to fulfill their New Year’s resolutions. Most people like to let loose and have fun during the holidays, but when the New Year rolls around they start setting resolutions so they can better themselves. The key to success early in the year is to market towards people who have this mindset.

For example, some people like to start exercise programs after the holidays, so if you sell fitness items you should focus on advertising them. Try setting up a section of your site that focuses on items that will help people fulfill their resolutions. Shoppers want to get a fresh start for the New Year, and you can succeed by selling products that will help them do just that.

Give Loyalty Rewards to Frequent Customers

Your most loyal customers are some of your greatest assets, especially when sales slow down after the holiday rush. They are the source of most of your income, and if they are happy to shop from you they might recommend you to their friends. Therefore, you should definitely focus on loyalty rewards at this time of year so you can keep them invested in your brand.

At the start of the year, offer your most loyal customers some rewards, including discount codes and coupons. You might want to give them a couple of extras so they can give them to their friends. Not only does this keep your current customers happy, but it could potentially bring in some new customers as well.

With these tactics in hand, you can mitigate the slowdown in sales that typically starts at the beginning of the year.

The Top Holiday eCommerce Trends For 2018

Alexander NicolaidesSeptember 14, 2018

Popular Trends for the Holiday Season

The holiday season is quickly approaching, and online sellers are already preparing for the influx of holiday shoppers. If you are preparing for the holiday shopping season, it might be a good idea to get an idea of how this shopping season will be different from last year’s. Prepare for the holiday shopping season by checking out some big trends that are expected to make a strong impact this year.

eCommerce Sales Are Going Up

Pile of Coins

While many people still visit shops during the holidays, the amount of people who shop online for gifts is steadily increasing. According to Digital Commerce 360, it is believed that U.S. shoppers will spend $119.99 billion during the 2018 holiday season. This is a 15.5% increase over the previous year’s total of $103.88 billion, and this is definitely a strong jump up.

As the eCommerce industry continues to grow, more people are adapting by making more purchases online. According to an Internet Retailer survey conducted earlier in the year, 76% of shoppers from the United States said they bought around 25% of their gifts from online shops. Online retailers can make it big during the holiday season, so long as they are prepared.

Mobile Will Likely Dominate

Man Using Smartphone

Shopping on mobile has been on the rise over the past few years, and this trend will only go up during the 2018 holiday season. According to comScore, shoppers spent around $31.8 billion on gifts during Q4 2017 through the use of tablets, phones, and other mobile devices. Though not all shoppers make purchases on mobile devices, many use them to compare prices and see what items are currently in stock. As a result, mobile usage plays an important role in the holiday shopping season.

As the amount of mobile shoppers continues to grow, some are expecting mobile purchases to overtake desktop purchases for the first time this year. Many outlets, including Salesforce, expect mobile users to account for 68% of the eCommerce visits made at the end of the year. Whether or not this ends up being true, the point to take away is that you must optimize your site for mobile users if you want to succeed during the holidays.

Branding & Savings for Shipping Boxes

Another trend that is expected to pick up over the holidays is the use of shipping boxes for the purposes of branding. Custom shipping boxes are easier to afford nowadays, and they can help personalize any orders you ship out. Personalization helps make an impression on buyers, and if you make a strong enough impression you can draw those people back in after the holidays.

If you can avoid buying unnecessarily large boxes, you can save a lot of money on this process. In addition, you can also personalize the inside of a box by including information about sales or a personal thank you note to new clients. Make a strong impression on your customers so they come back long after the holiday season concludes

Customers Expect Faster Shipping

Shipping Truck

Faster shipping times continue to be a crucial part of the holiday shopping season. Buyers need to have their products before holidays like Christmas arrive, and online sellers are expected to ship items quickly as a result. As major online retailers continue to deliver products in record time, smaller companies are expected to keep up.

When deciding on a warehouse to partner with, make sure you select one with an ideal location so you can quickly deliver products to a wide selection of people. If you have a physical location, same-day pickup might be a smart option to include for last-minute shoppers. No matter what you do, if you can get products into shoppers’ hands faster you will be much better off during the holidays.

Need help preparing for the holiday shopping season? We have gathered some tips and tricks you can use to prepare for this busy period.

Customer Spotlight: Office Supply America

AlexJune 15, 2018

Meet Office Supply America

Located in San Antonio, Texas, Office Supply America is a major supplier of office supplies, office furniture, and computer supplies. The company was not satisfied with the platform it was using previously, and it wanted a new website that had more flexibility. This ultimately led to the company partnering with Logicblock in 2015. We spoke with Tim Kreusel, the president of Office Supply America, to learn more about how his company has benefitted from using our 7cart system.

About Office Supply America

Office Supply America is a family-run business that originally opened in 1976. It primarily serves clients in the San Antonio area, and focuses on selling office furniture, computer supplies, office supplies, and other products.

The main products offered by Office Supply America come from the general SP Richards catalog, though the company does offer products from some other manufacturers. The company also helps out with office floor planning, and offers furniture installation services for local companies that purchased their products.

Partnering with Logicblock

Tim’s previous provider was Britannia, and he was very satisfied with the partnership. As time went on, however, ECI purchased Britannia, and Tim had to partner with ECI so he could keep his website running. Moving to a new platform cost Tim a lot of money, and while he worked with ECI he saw that there were practically no reductions to his monthly bill. To make matters worse, Tim was forced to sign up for a new platform every time

changes occurred, and if he did not make the move quickly he would lose the functions of his original Britannia system. Tim did not feel secure with this set up, and as time went on he realized that he needed to find a new partnership.

When Tim first spoke with Logicblock he was impressed with how easy it was to understand the 7cart system. After the partnership was set in stone the Logicblock staff designed the basic site that Office Supply America currently uses. After the design was finished Tim made a few minor changes to the design so it would accommodate the needs of his company. Office Supply America launched its new website with Logicblock in August 2015.

Benefits of Using the 7cart System

Office Supply America Office Chairs
One of the reasons Tim decided to partner with Logicblock was because of how easy it was for him to get his questions answered. He likes the help ticket system in particular, because it allows him to get quick responses to his questions. In addition, it also allows him to store a complete record of questions and answers that he can call back to at any time.

Office Supply America benefits from many different parts of the Logicblock platform, including the more efficient site layout. Tim believes that his company’s new website is much better presented than the one he used previously. He stated that many of his clients speak with him to praise the website’s straightforward design, since it makes it easy for them to search for particular products. He also praised the 7cart system for offering a lot of flexibility, since it allows him to easily make changes when he needs to.

Relationship with Logicblock

Tim is very grateful for how well his partnership with Logicblock has turned out. He said that the training Logicblock gave his company before the launch of the new website was very effective, and he was very pleased with how everything turned out.

The thing that Tim is most grateful for, however, is how he and his company always feel appreciated. Tim prefers to work on a platform that is not constantly changing, and he is grateful that he has never felt pressured to continuously make drastic upgrades to his website while working with us. This, on top of how helpful the Logicblock staff has been with answering his questions, makes Tim very appreciative of the partnership he has in place.

Common Problems Customers Face & How to Avoid Them

AlexJune 4, 2018

Solve Your Customers’ Biggest Issues

Shopping online is a great luxury for many people, but that does not mean it is always a smooth experience. Every once in a while shoppers deal with annoyances that can make it difficult for them to buy the things they want. As an online seller, you have to make your customers happy so they stick with you in the future. If you would like to learn how you can help your customers have a smoother shopping experience, please continue reading.

Vague/Unclear Return Policies

Cardboard Box

Return policies are important for online sellers, because your customers may need to return products they bought. There will be times when products are damaged during the delivery process, and other times customers may buy the wrong items by mistake. Having a well-defined return policy is crucial, because your customers should be able to easily return products if they are having issues with them. Customers are more likely to shop from you again if you help them with any issues they have as soon as possible.

If you do not put a lot of effort into crafting your return policy your customers may have trouble figuring out how to send products back to you. When you are writing your return policy make sure you write a detailed and fair return policy that customers can easily understand. Also, make sure that your customers can easily find your return policy so they can read it over before making any purchases.

Not Enough Information on Product Page

Browsing on a Tablet

One of the biggest challenges of selling products online is getting someone to buy something he or she cannot physically hold. Product pages are extremely important for online sellers, because they contain all the information that customers would want to know about the items you are selling. However, customers can get frustrated quickly when they cannot find useful information about products they want to buy.

When you are writing copy for a product page you should talk about all the important details, including available sizes and colors. On top of this, the page should have high-quality images and demonstration videos so you can properly show off the product. Try to include as much information as you can on the product page, as this will increase the chance that shoppers will buy your wares.

Navigation Problems

Another common issue that online shoppers face involves navigation. Customers should be able to easily navigate your online store on both a desktop computer and a mobile device. If shoppers have trouble figuring out how to navigate your site they might get frustrated and click off.

Simplicity is key, so when you design your storefront make sure your customers do not have to work too hard to get around. Try to keep your website from getting too cluttered, because customers will have a hard time getting around if they presented with too many images on one page. You should design your website in a way that minimizes the amount of clicks your customers have to make to reach a certain page.

Connection Issues and Digital Payments

Wired Internet Connection

Online shoppers are able to use many different payment options when they make purchases. However, if an online store suffers from a server error while someone is finalizing an order the payment may have issues going through. In some situations, customers may be charged without the seller receiving the payment, and when this happens it can be troublesome for the buyers to get a refund.

When an online transaction is made it has to go through a few different digital entities so it can be completed. If one of these entities suffers from a technical issue the transaction may have problems going through. You should always test your servers so you can ensure that your website is running properly at all times. If your website is suffering from connection issues you should speak with your web host to get the problem fixed as soon as possible.

Poor Customer Service

Woman Speaking with Earpiece

Customer service is one of the most important aspects of operating an online business. Not all customers want to immediately return products when they have issues, mainly because they believe that someone at the company can help find a solution. Sellers who have mediocre customer service skills will not be able to help their customers with their problems, so you should make customer service a high priority.

Create a “Contact Us” page on your website so customers can quickly contact you if an issue comes up. Always respond to your customers as quickly as possible, because if you wait too long they might take their business elsewhere. If you are too busy managing other parts of your business you might want to hire someone to manage customer service for you. If you see that people ask a lot of similar questions, write up a FAQ section so people can have their questions answered without having to contact you.

Making your customers happy is the key to having them return to your store in the future. Keep this information in mind and you should be able to help them avoid major issues while they shop.