The team at InstanteStore are passionate about helping merchants sell online.
We’ve been helping merchants sell online since 2001 when our founder and CEO, Charles Tang started InstanteStore due to the overwhelming requests to create online stores by merchants from around the world.
Recently, we had the privilege to help another international client get her business online with immediate results making it a successful online store.
About Sagiri Dayal Jewellery
Meet Sagiri Dayal, a jewellery designer based in Hong Kong.
She specialises in Jade and Chinese Knotting, combining these elements with traditional Indian jewellery from her heritage.
Sagiri has been holding shows all around the world – Hong Kong, London, New Delhi and New York, showcasing her jewellery pieces.
Though the road shows were very successful, she found it hard to reach out to her customers and updating them whenever she’s got a new line out.
So last year, together with her daughter, Keya, she decided to take the leap of faith and bring her business online.
It was a very daunting move for her as she’s not particularly tech savvy.
Understanding Our Customer Needs
Through a series of Zoom calls, the InstanteStore team got to know more about her business goals (increase sales!) along with the challenges she faced.
Among some of the issues she faced with the current offline business model were:
Limited Reach – Audience is restricted to the locations of the road shows and their physical location or brick and mortar store.
Limited Customer Engagement – Limited opportunities for continuous engagement with customers after road shows. Once a purchase is made, the customer may wish to purchase additional pieces but do not know when or where the new products are made available.
Lack of Analytics – Gathering customer data and insights for targeted marketing can be challenging in an offline setting making it difficult to analyze customer preferences and tailor products or marketing strategies accordingly. In other words, many merchants would not know much or have any information about their customers – their preference, products they purchased, what they are interested in, budget or taste preferences.
Lack of Technical Know-How – As Sagiri is more of an artisan / designer, she is anxious when it comes to technology. Many artisans, designers do not have the technical knowledge on how to run an online business as they usually spend the bulk of their time focusing on designing and creating their master pieces.
Payment Challenges – Accepting only cash payments for designer pieces may limit sales as some customers prefer digital payments. And because artisans / designers sell their products at physical locations, customers may not have enough cash to purchase if the merchant do not accept other forms of onlnie payment like credit cards or e-wallets.
The Solution? InstanteStore White Glove Service
After listening to Sagiri’s challenges, the InstanteStore team came up with a targeted proposal to help her business.
Though InstanteStore is a Point & Click ecommerce platform that allows merchants to quickly and easily set up their own online store, for Sagiri, due to the tight timeline till launch date (1 month to get it all done!) we suggested the White Glove Setup Service.
With the White Glove Setup Service we will handhold you right from the beginning, coming up with a customized webstore design, help you to populate your store products, set up shipping, payment and run through the testing stage to ensure that the whole buying experience on the store goes smoothly.
InstanteStore Ecommerce Features That Helped Get The Sales In
We advised Sagiri and Keya to set up a pre-launch campaign where they set up a temporary page to start collecting customer emails for those who were interested in their products. These customers who get first dibs when the site is launched plus a 10% discount!
Newletter Module – this allows for early bird sign up on her online store as we wanted to help her reach out to those who signed up during the pre-launch. The idea was to give her customers a taste of what is to come and to build anticipation.
Automatic Discounts – We helped her create pre-set automatic discounts which were to be applied by her customers only for the pre-launch dates. This gives customers an incentive to come to the online store knowing they will get a special discount when they make any purchase on the specific pre-launch date.
Integrated Payment – we helped her set up quick and easy online payment option for her customers to pay with online. A smooth checkout process is a good customer experience.
Downloadable Keys – these are digital gift certs which customers can purchase from Sagiri’s online store that is easily downloadable upon purchase which can be a gift or even an incentive to customers to come back for repeat purchases.
Store Launched With Immediate Sales!
It’s the final stretch! We worked tirelessly with the team at Sagiri Dayal Jewellery running tests on her website to address and deal with any issues as well as answer all of Sagiri and Keya’s questions to ensure that it was a smooth buying process.
For the Pre-Launch and Launch Day Sales, there were a total of 170 subscribers with 43% Open rate and 28% Click Through rate which led to steady sales as soon as the store was launched.
“Last year, I decided to start an online business and I was introduced to Charles & Sui Sim and it was the most wonderful thing that could have happened! I was really nervous as we had a really tight launch date but they held my hand every step of the way and they made it happened! They were also very responsive and just alleviated all my fears…”
“Up until last year, we have only been selling jewellery at in person shows around the world. In 2023, we had ambitious plans to build an online website. Initially we thought we would go with a large online platform such as Shopify but then we got introduced to the InstanteStore platform. I’m really happy we went with IES, it has gone off completely flawlessly! During the launch, people were just buying off our site without a hitch. Even for ourselves, the backend was so easy to navigate…”
The InstanteStore team are truly honored to be part of their online journey to help them GROW their business further.
InstanteStore is not just another ecommerce platform, more like your partners who only want the best for your business and helps you to achieve it quickly, efficiently and at very affordable prices.
We take the time to listen and understand your business challenges and help you to work through them with the InstanteStore platform. The InstanteStore platform is built in-house by our very own InstanteStore team, which makes it easy for us to customize the modules to your business needs. We are here to help your business grow and streamline your process. We allow you to do what you do best – MARKET your store and leave the tech to us!
Need a revamped customized online store for your business?
Stripe recently entered the Malaysian payment gateway market in October 2019 and is already gaining ground with ecommerce platforms and local businesses. A Stripe account setup is simple and fast.
Their pricing rates are definitely more competitive than what PayPal is charging. Check out what other Malaysian payment gateways are charging.
However, most businesses may have heard of PayPal but when you mention Stripe, they tend to be a bit clueless.
That’s because Stripe Malaysia became available in late 2019 as previously Stripe was not available in Malaysia.
Fret not, for businesses who are currently on PayPal or who are new and would like to sign up for a Stripe merchant account, the process is simple and straightforward.
I’ll walk you through the Stripe Account Setup process :
Sign up by providing the email address that will be receiving customer orders and billing.
Stripe Account
Once done, you’ll land in the Dashboard. Click Verify your email.
You’ll receive a verification email. Click Verify email address that was sent to your registered email address :
After verifying your email, click Activate Stripe account on the Dashboard > Start now
Fill up your company address and business details
You’ll be required to fill up Business Owners’ details as well (anyone with 25% ownership of the company)
Please add in their name and email address
After that, add in Customer Statement Information :
Statement descriptor : [name of your company] Shortened descriptor : leave it as Business for now Customer support phone number : [company phone number]
Next, key in your Bank details – Bank Name, Bank Account Number (without the -)
Two Step Authentication – choose either SMS or App Authenticator
The final step would be Verification Summary which please ensure all details are correct before you click Submit.
Once you’ve completed all these steps, you will need to link your Stripe account to your ecommerce site.
Make sure your ecommerce provider is already integrated with Stripe.
Don’t worry, it’s quite simple as well.
Here’s a look at what’s required by InstanteStore :
In your Stripe Dashboard, just click on API keys.
You’ll need to look for the Publishable Key and copy the entire string of code to paste to the Publishable Key field.
Next, you’ll need the Secret Key.
Click the Reveal live key button. Stripe will prompt you.
Click the Reveal button and copy the Secret Key to paste to the Secret Key field.
Make sure you set it to Live / Production Mode and click Save Settings in InstanteStore.
Remember to Publish your store to make the changes effective.
That’s it! Your Stripe account has been set up and linked to your ecommerce store.
Simple right?
To test out your Stripe account, just create a RM1 or $1 test product and make a purchase with your credit card.
You can login to your Stripe account to refund your credit card but please note that Stripe would have charged a transaction fee of 3% + RM1 per transaction.
Bear in mind that this is just the basic Stripe account setup and linking to your ecommerce store.
How to TURN ON FPX, GrabPay, AliPay in Stripe
Please note that when you first register for a Stripe account, it does not automatically have FPX (online banking), GrabPay and AliPay turned on.
You will need to turn it on yourself but it’s super easy.
Just login to your Stripe dashboard :
On the top right hand corner click on the Settings or gear icon.
You’ll then come to this page :
Under Payments, click on Payment methods and you’ll come to this page :
Just click Turn On for FPX, GrabPay or AliPay but please remember the transaction fees that Stripe will charge for these payment methods :
Payment gateways provide the service to process online payments from customers to merchants securely. When integrated with any ecommerce website, the role of payment gateways is to allow customers to pay for their online purchases using either credit or debit cards or via online banking smoothly.
Here’s a look at some of the best Malaysia payment gateway providers used by the majority of Malaysian online sellers.
You’ll find the best payment gateway in Malaysia comparison chart at the later part of this article.
PayPal
PayPal Malaysia
PayPal is well known internationally as it’s widely used by both local and international sellers.
Customers DO NOT NEED to have a PayPal Malaysia account to make payment on a website that is using PayPal as their payment gateway processor.
Customers can just use their credit or debit card when they land on PayPal’s site during the checkout process by clicking the “Pay with credit card” link.
PayPal checkout with credit card or debit card
PayPal is a flexible payment gateway Malaysia that is both popular and easy to manage.
PayPal Malaysia does not require any sign up fee or yearly fee to use their online credit card processing Malaysia feature making it highly recommendable for new startups to begin accepting credit / debit card payments from customers immediately.
However, please note that while PayPal is easy to set up and use, their transaction fee is 3.9% + RM2 for credit / debit card online transactions for Malaysian customers whereas international customers buying from you will be charged at 4.4% + RM2 per transaction.
PayPal Fees
However, setting up a PayPal Malaysia account to accept payment is easy and fast.
Just go to PayPal Malaysia’s site and sign up for a business account.
Key in your details and remember to link your PayPal account to your online store to start accepting online payments.
PayPal Malaysia does not offer FPX online banking.
You’ll need to transfer the funds from your PayPal account to your local bank account.
If the amount is less than RM400, there’s a RM3 charge by PayPal. There’s no charge if the amount is RM400 and above.
Braintree
Braintree Malaysia
Braintree is an ecommerce payment gateway that was acquired by PayPal in 2013 with the goal of propelling the payment platform on a global scale.
All kinds of businesses use Braintree to accept payments in mobile apps and websites as they have experience working with new business models.
Merchants in Malaysia can accept PayPal, Apple Pay, Android Pay, and cards on the Visa and Mastercard networks as long as the cards are enabled for online use.
Braintree Pricing
Please note there’s a RM90 flat rate for chargebacks.
Signing up for a Braintree Malaysia account may take a bit of time as the company requires your business registration details (Malaysian IC, Business Registration Forms, Utility Bills with business registered address, Malaysian Bank Account Statement that is registered with the business, etc) to verify that you’re a valid legal business before opening a Braintree account for you.
The good thing about Braintree is that they offer a lower credit / debit card transaction fee (3.4% + RM2) compared to PayPal (3.9% + RM2) and that all payment is pushed to your local bank account on a daily basis.
And like PayPal, Braintree does not charge any Setup Fee or Yearly Fee at all.
Braintree Malaysia does not offer FPX online banking.
Braintree will automatically push all payment amount to your local bank account on a daily basis with no minimum amount.
Stripe
Stripe
Stripe is an international payment gateway provider that is somewhat similar to PayPal in which there’s no Setup Fee or Annual Fee charged for opening a merchant account with them.
You can have your own account set up within minutes with them.
Stripe Pricing
Stripe’s pricing is definitely better than PayPal or Braintree at 3% + RM1 per transaction.
However, with international payment gateways, transaction fees tend to be higher compared to our own Malaysian payment gateway providers.
Stripe Payment Charges
Here’s the rundown :
Local Credit / Debit card for Visa/Master : 3% + RM1 Foreign credit card for Master/Visa : 4% + RM1 IF Currency conversion is required : additional 2% Online Banking (FPX) : 3% + RM1 GrabPay : 3% AliPay : 2.9% + RM1
If you’re planning on accepting a lot of foreign credit / debit card transactions to your local Malaysian website, the cost in transaction fees is going to add up to a big sum especially when currency conversion is required to convert into Malaysian Ringgit.
Please note that there will be a RM90 charge per dispute (also known as chargebacks for card transactions).
iPay88
iPay88 Malaysia
iPay88 is one of Malaysia’s leading payment gateway ecommerce providers.
Their headquarters is located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and they have a presence in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.
iPay88 was acquired by NTT DATA, a Japanese system integration company in 2015 and continues to strengthen their presence in the ecommerce and mobile commerce field in the whole of South East Asia.
iPay88 Malaysia offers 3 different plans to meet your business needs.
If you’re only looking for a payment gateway for online store in Malaysia FPX feature to accept payment via online banking and e-wallets from customers, then you can consider iPay88’s SME Plan. It comes with a one time Setup Fee of RM488 (wef 20 March 2020).
Bear in mind their FPX rate for the Start Up Plan is 2.7% or RM0.60 per transaction whichever is higher.
Their SME Plan comes with online banking, credit / debit card (UnionPay at 2.7%) and e-wallets.
iPay88 Online Banking
Their Enterprise Plan offers online banking, credit/debit card processing (Visa/Master/UnionPay) and e-wallets.
For credit card processing (Visa/Master/UnionPay), they’ll be using local banks to process those payments at a lower transaction rate (2.3%) while debit card (Visa/Master) is at 2% which is better than you using a direct PayPal account (3.9% + RM2 per transaction).
Their Enterprise Premium Plan are comes with a Setup Fee of RM2888 and a yearly maintenance fee of RM700.
These 3 plans come with a Setup Fee of RM488, RM1888 and RM2888 respectively.
Merchants who choose their SME Plan will have to pay RM500 for Annual Fee and RM600 Annual Fee for the Enterprise Plan while the Credit Card Application Fees of RM900 is waived by iPay88 for all 3 plans.
All 3 plans include e-walletsBoost (1.5%), MBBQR (1.5%), GrabPay (1.5%), TouchnGo (1.5%), ShopeePay (1.5%), NetsQR (1.5%) and MCash (1.5%).
For those who wish to add on AliPay, there will be an additional Setup Fee of RM1000 (IF getting with any iPay88 plan) and Annual Fee of RM500 (IF choosing only standalone AliPay).
iPay88 eWallets
iPay88 will pay out twice a week to your local bank account but the minimum amount in your iPay88 account must be RM10 for them to do so.
eGHL
eGHL Malaysia
eGHL was founded in 2013 and functions as an internet payment arm of GHL Systems Berhad.
You’ll notice quite a number of physical card payment terminals in physical stores and retail are using GHL as their credit / debit card payment processor.
So it comes as no surprise that the company entered the ecommerce payment gateway market with their internet payment arm, eGHL.
eGHL is a Malaysia payment gateway that offers a secure internet payment solution which covers both card and non-card payment channels for online businesses throughout the South East Asia region.
eGHL Online Payment
eGHL offers a lower transaction fee for credit / debit card (1.4% – 2.4%) and FPX payments (1.6% – 2.4% or RM0.60 whichever is higher) depending on the plans you take.
They have 3 plans to meet your business needs : Standard / Premium / Corporate which charges a Setup Fee of RM499 / RM2500 / RM 5000 that you need to pay when you sign up with them. Please note that the fee is subject to 8% SST (wef 1st March 2024).
Startups which choose the Standard and Premium plan will need to pay a Monthly Fee of RM25 + 8% SST per month IF total monthly transactions are less than RM15k for the month.
Starting from 1st March 2024, eGHL has switched to charging their merchants a Monthly Fee instead of the usual Annual Fee. Those who are on the Corporate Plan will need to pay RM50 per month.
eGHL is an excellent payment gateway provider to consider if your business has consistent growing volume to justify the Monthly Fee while you enjoy lower transaction fee for credit / debit card and FPX payments.
Here’s a rundown of their 3 plans with e-Wallet rates (wef 27 February 2024) :
Standard Plan Credit / Debit card for Visa/Master : 2.4% + 1% for non-MYR processing + RM0.50 (for transactions less than RM40) Online Banking : 2.4% or RM0.60 (whichever higher) Boost, MCash, GrabPay, TouchnGo, ShopeePay : 1.5% Maybank QRPay (MAE) : 1% Monthly Fee : RM25 + 8% SST per month (waived IF total monthly transaction volume more than RM15k per month upon request)
Premium Plan Credit card for Visa/Master : 2.0% Debit card for Visa/Master : 1.8% International Credit/Debit for Visa/Master : 3% + RM0.50 (for transactions less than RM40) Online Banking : 2.0% or RM0.60/transaction OR Fixed Rate RM1.50/transaction Boost, MCash, GrabPay, TouchnGo, ShopeePay : 1.3% Maybank QRPay (MAE) : 1% Monthly Fee : RM25 + 8% SST (waived IF transaction volume exceed RM15k per month upon request)
Corporate Plan Credit card for Visa/Master : 1.6% Debit card for Visa/Master : 1.4% International Credit/Debit for Visa/Master : 3% + RM0.50 (for transactions less than RM40) Online Banking : 1.6% or RM0.60/transaction OR Fixed Rate RM1.00/transaction Boost, MCash, GrabPay, TouchnGo, ShopeePay : 1.2% Maybank QRPay (MAE) : 1% Monthly Fee : RM60 + 8% SST (waived IF transaction volume exceed RM15k per month upon request)
eGHL eWallet Acceptance
Processing Fee for all 3 plans Refund : RM0.50 per transaction Chargeback : RM5 per transaction Settlement : No charge to Malaysian local bank, USD30 to Foreign Bank
eGHL offers GrabPay Postpaid, GrabPay BNPL Installment and Atome BNPL as optional add-ons for FREE.
They also offer Visa Installments option for FREE with HSBC Bank with the following rates : 3 Months – 2.65% per transaction 6 Months – 3.0% per transaction 9 Months – 3.5% per transaction 12 Months – 4.0% per transaction 18 Months – 5.0% per transaction 24 Months – 6.0% per transaction 36 Months – 8.0% per transaction
eGHL Installment Acceptance
The Visa Installment Plan will be offered with Standard Chartered Bank and AmBank soon as well.
Payments are pushed to your local bank account on a weekly basis with no minimum amount requirement.
Kiple Pay
Kiple Pay Malaysia
KiplePay is one of the fastest growing ewallet in Malaysia. Their mission is to be the market leader for FinTech in an increasingly cashless, tech-powered society.
KiplePay is owned by Green Packet Berhad which is an established multinational digital technology organization with expertise in telecommunications, media and technology.
Green Packet was founded in California’s Silicon Valley in 2000 and was listed in the Malaysian Stock Exchange in 2005.
Kiple Pay offers one SME Plan for online merchants which is pretty simple and straightforward.
SME Plan Credit card for Visa/Master : 1.5% Debit card for Master/Visa : 1% Foreign credit card for Master/Visa : 2.5% Online Banking (FPX) : RM1 Boost, KiplePay, Maybank MAE, GrabPay, TouchnGo, ShopeePay, WeChatPay, AliPay : 1.5% Setup Fee : RM500 Annual Fee : RM500 (first year WAIVED)
Billplz
Billplz Malaysia
Billplz is another Malaysian payment gateway that has been gaining lots of traction lately with their no frills online payment gateway service.
The difference between them and other Malaysian payment gateways is that they do not charge any Annual Fee or Setup Fee for their Basic Plan which is a big help for Startups who are starting to sell online for the first time with their own website.
However, they do charge a Per Payment Order Fee of RM1.10 and RM0.70 and a Billing API Fee of RM0.60 per SMS for their Basic and Standard Plan.
These charges are on top of the FPX Fee that merchants will need to pay if clients use Online Banking or when they make any payment with credit / debit card or eWallets.
Billplz offers 3 membership plans for merchants to choose from :
Billplz Pricing
Basic Plan Credit card for Visa/Master : 1.8% Debit card for Master/Visa : 1% Foreign credit card for Master/Visa : 4.4% Online Banking (FPX) : RM1.10 Per Payment Order Fee : RM1.10 Billing API : RM0.60 per SMS Setup Fee : FREE Annual Fee : FREE
Standard Plan Credit card for Visa/Master : 1.8% Debit card for Master/Visa : 1% Foreign credit card for Master/Visa : 4.1% Online Banking (FPX) : RM0.70 Per Payment Order Fee : RM0.70 Billing API : RM0.60 per SMS Setup Fee : FREE Annual Fee : RM999 + 8% SST (wef 1st March 2024)
For Buy Now and Pay Later : Grab Pay Later : 6.5% for 1-4 monthly installments Atome : 6% for 3 monthly installments
Their Enterprise Plan is subject to Bank’s Offer.
Best Malaysia Payment Gateway Comparison Chart
Best Malaysian Payment Gateway Comparison Chart
The Best Malaysia Payment Gateway Comparison Chart gives an overview of the payment gateway Malaysia fees for credit / debit card and FPX online banking, set up fees, yearly fees and minimum withdrawal amount to local bank account giving new and existing merchants the choice to sign up or switch to different providers.
Merchants who are interested to enjoy the transaction rates mentioned can contact us and we will help them register for a new account with the respective Malaysia payment gateways.
For Ecommerce Startups And New Businesses
For startups and new businesses who are very budget conscious, we would normally recommend that they sign up with a PayPal direct account or Stripe first while pending their application for any of the payment gateway providers of their choice.
Most like the word ‘FREE’ so they’ll usually go for the Billplz Basic Plan where they do not need to pay any set up or yearly fee while enjoying access to both credit / debit card processing, FPX Online Banking and eWallets.
For Ecommerce Sites With Volume Transactions
For ecommerce businesses that have a considerable amount of daily, weekly and monthly volume transactions, they would usually go for Kiple Pay as they offer one of the lowest credit / debit card and FPX transaction fees.
The other option would be eGHL where those businesses have both an ecommerce and physical presence as eGHL offers a range of payment processing features across different channels.
Which Payment Gateway Options In Malaysia Should I Choose?
The best Malaysia payment gateway provider really depends on the merchants’ business needs.
If you want something fast and ‘free’ without the hassle of paying setup fees and yearly fees, PayPal Malaysia, Braintree Malaysia, Stripe and Billplz’s Basic Plan are suitable.
If you have a tonne of transactions to process for both online and physical retail, then Kiple Pay and eGHL will be able to meet those needs.
Regardless of volume transactions, it’s vital that any ecommerce business must have an online credit card processing Malaysia feature on their site as majority of buyers prefer to pay with credit / debit cards.
This payment gateway Malaysia comparison chart acts as a guide for new and existing sellers to consider which Malaysia payment gateways can best meet their business needs.
If you have any question or feedback about the mentioned payment gateways, please reach out to us at InstanteStore as we’re constantly working to help businesses sell more online.
Holiday season is just around the corner, can you smell the pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks already? Mmmm.. Retailers are all gearing up for two of the biggest shopping events of the year, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday is when most retailers earn back their yearly profits. Also, these two sale days are perfect for people who are looking to save some money on their Christmas shopping. Here are some tips to help your business stay competitive in this very popular sale season:
Make Sure Your Site Is Mobile Friendly
People today enjoy shopping from the comfort of their home, instead of lining up outside a mall right after Thanksgiving dinner. More and more customers are shopping online and on their mobile devices today. With the most recent Singles Day Sale just passing, Alibaba reported that 90% of its sales came from mobile devices which is higher compared to 82% in 2016 and 69% in 2015. According to an article by Forbes, they have predicted that smartphone and tablet visits to retail sites will account for 54% of all visits.
As you can see purchasing through mobile is a familiar option to many shoppers today. Because of this, a mobile friendly site will play a huge part in helping online businesses benefit the most from the Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic.
Whether they are waiting for the train or riding in a bus, there’s plenty of reasons for them to buy stuff online. So, with more consumers than ever before planning to make the shift towards mobile this holiday season, be sure not to ignore the mobile commerce wave! InstanteStore is already mobile commerce ready. All you have to do is ACTIVATE it. If you haven’t done so for your store, it’s pretty easy.
Here’s how:
Login to your admin, search for Mobile Commerce. Next step: Click on Activate and your mobile store is ready to go. Simple! Anyone could do it.
E commerce giants like Amazon are offering its customers FREE next day delivery or same-day delivery if they were to order before a certain time. They have definitely spoiled the market for other businesses. Customers today are expecting the same level of convenience from the other retailers. At the end of the day everyone loves free stuff! This will give your customers that extra push to make a purchase during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Here’s how:
Offer your customers free delivery with no minimum purchase for the holiday sale season or an option to pay less for next day delivery as an incentive to get them to buy more.
If you have a brick and mortar store, give your customers a click and collect option with same day pick up.
Treat The Black Friday Sales and Cyber Monday Sales Like A Product Launch
With all the hype that is created when it comes to discounts and offers during the holiday sales season, more companies all over the world are joining in every year. It is easy for customers to get lost in the shuffle.
However, if you take a different approach and treat the sale like a product launch and build excitement around it, this will definitely set you apart from your competitors.
Here’s how:
Send out newsletters to customers who you want to be the first to hear about the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales . Offer these special customers a head start on the discounts before everything is sold out!
Instantestore has a feature where you can customize who you want to send your emails to.
Create excitement around the launch of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale with a countdown clock or calendar on your e-commerce site.
Create a social media campaign around your Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale and get your customers to share what they bought on their social media sites.
Live chats are especially great during holiday sale seasons. Why? Because there are going to be customers who have never bought from you before entering your website with no clue about your your business or your products. An online chat system will provide these customers an immediate access to any help they need. It is much more convenient compared to a call center. Also, customers can multitask when waiting for a reply.
It is great to have someone online who can immediately walk them through a sale if a customer becomes confused or has a question that could potentially make or break a sale. A live chat will help eliminate shopping cart abandonment this upcoming holiday sale season.
InstanteStore has its very own free live chat software that can be downloaded and applied onto your e commerce store.
The Microsoft .Net Framework is required for the installation. Windows Vista and Windows 7 should already have this installed. Some versions of Windows XP may require you to install this separately, though. If you have any issues installing or running the live chat software, then click here to go to Microsoft’s website to download and install it.
Once installed, double-click the InstanteStore Live Chat icon at the desktop, or click on ‘InstanteStore Live Chat -> InstanteStore Live Chat’ from the Programs folder to launch the live chat application.
The first time the live chat software launches, the LiveChat Signup page will be displayed. Just fill in the necessary details and click the SIGNUP button to register your Live Chat username.
Once you’ve signed up, an email containing the activation code will be sent to the email address you used to register. Copy and paste this activation code into the Activation Code field at the live chat window, then click on the ACTIVATE & LOGIN button.
At the Install livechat code page, copy the displayed code.
For InstanteStore Users
Go to your store’s administrator control panel, and go to ‘Manage Your Store -> Design/Customization -> Customize Template’.
Click on the Click to Edit button at either the left or right border of your store’s template, depending on where you want your live chat icon to be displayed.
Click on the Additional HTML tab at the following page.
Select the Add Extra HTML: radio button and paste the code at the appropriate text area, depending on whether you want the live chat icon to be displayed at the top or the bottom of the left/right border.
Click the PUBLISH CHANGES button to finalize your changes.
The live chat icon will now be displayed at the appropriate location on your store template. Click on the GO CHAT NOW button to start taking customer requests.
For non-InstanteStore Users
Just paste the livechat code from Step 6 above at the appropriate location at your website.
The live chat icon will now be displayed where you’ve placed it at your site. Click on the GO CHAT NOW button to start taking customer requests.
Retailers who invested in a marketing strategy which includes mobile, email and social media last year did 30% better compared to their competitors who didn’t take advantage of all their marketing platforms during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
However, its not all just about the number of channels used. It is more of how you use these channels to reach your audience. It is important to know where majority of your audience are, which platform they are using and from there pursue them. Your goal here is to consistently message your followers and remind them to buy from you this holiday sale season. According to research, it takes at least three repetitive marketing posts to capture someones’ attention.
How to:
Use your existing followers/audience to spread the message
Offer your followers incentives for helping you share the messages with extra discounts or promos.
Make sure all of your marketing channels are sharing the same message and is following a strategic flow.
Some of you might not be aware of what the 11.11 Global Shopping Festival is. The 11.11 global shopping festival, or November 11 is an online Sale which starts on November 11 at 12.00 PST, according to the LA/Vancouver, BC/Seattle/San Diego/Baja California time zone. It is also referred to as Single’s Day sale, hence the repeating ones in the date.
My previous article mentioned China’s ecommerce and mobile commerce spending power which they showcase to the world come every November 11th during Singles Day making more than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
South East Asia Is The Next BIG Mobile Commerce Powerhouse
Not far behind with tremendous huge growth and development status would be South East Asia (SEA) which is made up of 11 countries (Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam).
SEA have a total population of 648 million (and growing fast!).
The top countries in this region that is leading the way in massive digital ecommerce spending would be Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Here’s a glimpse of their digital population. If taken as a single bloc, SEA’s large population of digital users can stand in comparison with leading global markets like US, Europe and China for all digital activities (internet, social media, mobile and mobile social) :
According to eMarketer, digital ad-spending for these 6 countries will increase by double digits in 2017 and 2018 while mobile ad spending will more than double during the forecast period surpassing $2.20 billion and accounting for nearly 69% of digital ad expenditures by the year 2021.
Heavy Smartphone Adoption Spurs Mobile Commerce Growth
Thanks to heavy smartphone adoption, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam will see the strongest growth in mobile ad spending among SEA.
Why are companies willing to invest so much moolah into mobile ad spending in SEA? Because the region has such a HIGH volume of mobile users which presents a HUGE opportunity for mobile commerce, hence the massive amount allocated for mobile ad spending.
Mobile commerce is skyrocketing in South East Asia as more consumers there are getting more familiar to spending online with their mobile devices.
With such tremendous ecommerce growth opportunities, many online businesses have been scrambling to improve their mobile site experience and to ensure that their business is omni-channel to cater to the growing consumer segment from developing countries.
Omni What?
Omni-channel. It means having a multi-channel sales approach providing consumers with a smooth integrated shopping experience.
The customer can be shopping online from a desktop or mobile device where they can easily locate the product from your site or social media with the ability to make payment seamlessly.
With omni-channel, your online business is available and integrated with your brick and mortar (if you have one) where customers can call in to place an order with the phone or complete the checkout process via social media like FB, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
The omni-channel sales experience is crucial to ensure that your customers have a good buying experience be it in person, mobile, desktop and social media.
What Do Businesses Need To Do?
For a start, make sure your online business have a mobile friendly and responsive site so consumers can have a good mobile shopping experience with your site.
Ensure that your business is found on social media like Facebook where visitors can complete their purchase directly in FB without being bounced all over in the checkout process.
If you’re selling items that are :
Fashion related stuff : clothing, accessories, sport wear, eye wear, watches, jewelry, etc
Beauty : skin care, cosmetics
Food & drinks
Baby products
Pet products
Crafts
Consumer electronics
Auto accessories
(I may have missed out some other categories as these are the main ones)
Please have an Instagram and Pinterest account to upload images of your product being worn and used in every day life scenarios to make it easily shareable.
The new generation of mobile shoppers rely on image heavy social media recommendations from friends.
And they love to share and communicate via mobile.
We have a WhatsApp share feature where visitors can easily share your site and product page to their friends on WhatsApp which is great tool for product recommendations.
If you need help getting your online business to be mobile friendly, omni-channel with a good marketing strategy, contact us and we’ll be more than happy to help.
From the team at InstanteStore to you, Happy Selling as you prepare for the holiday shopping crowd.
The fourth quarter of the year is usually the time when retailers go all out to capture the holiday shopping crowd before year end closing. So how big can it possibly get?
Singles Day Keeps Getting Bigger
For China, the biggest online shopping day of the year falls on 11th November, known as Singles Day.
Last year’s Singles Day 2016 smashed sales records when it brought in a total of $17.8 billion in 24 hours. Talk about raining money!
AliPay which is the Chinese equivalent of PayPal processed more than a billion transactions on that day alone while Alibaba’s logistics arms Cainao helped deliver 657 million packages!
The whole of China and the surrounding region went online shopping that day with Jack Ma laughing all the way to the bank!
But What About Black Friday And Cyber Monday?
To put things in perspective, last year’s Black Friday sales brought in $3.34 billion. Mobile accounted for $1.2 billion out of the $3.34 billion showing a 33% increase compared to the year before.
Cyber Monday sales netted in $3.45 billion with $1.07 billion done via mobile shopping.
Not even HALF of what Singles Day brought in within 24 hours.
Will Black Friday 2017 exceed last year’s records? Or will Cyber Monday 2017 blow everyone’s expectations?
Mobile Shopping Continues To Rise
What we can notice clearly is that more and more consumers have been using their mobiles to buy online.
Mobile shopping alone accounted for 82% of sales for Singles Day. That’s about $14.6 billion worth of sales transactions made via mobile in one day alone!
The Chinese would have made the mobile shopping experience buttery smooth to be able to chalk up those figures. It also shows the spending power of the Chinese.
Let’s not forget the huge amount of logistics and integrated courier and transportation service involved to move $17.8 billion worth of goods within a few days after the dust settles! Talk about efficiency.
Is Your Site’s Mobile Shopping Experience Ready For The Holiday Crowd?
This year, Black Friday falls on 24th November 2017 for the long Thanksgiving weekend.
Singles Day 2017 precedes Black Friday on 11th November 2017 which given the amazing track record they’ve been experiencing looks like it’ll get even bigger.
So is your site ready for the holiday shopping crowd?
Is Your Site Mobile Friendly And Responsive?
Some key questions to think about.
Is your site mobile friendly and responsive? Not sure?
If it isn’t, let us know and we can help move your existing site to our FREE mobile friendly and responsive templates for existing merchants.
If you’re using a different ecommerce platform that’s not mobile friendly, we can migrate your site over and make it mobile friendly and responsive for a small fee.
When it comes to mobile shopping, a mobile friendly and responsive site makes it easier and faster for visitors to select your products and checkout.
Is Your Site’s Checkout A Turn Off?
Having a mobile friendly and responsive site doesn’t guarantee sales.
Especially if your mobile checkout process looks like multiple pages for visitors to fill up on their mobile screens.
Coupled with a lag in data connection speed or time outs will definitely result in a lot of abandoned carts.
Check your mobile checkout process to ensure customers only have to fill the necessary information on one page to complete their purchase.
It needs to look and feel easy and fast to use.
If you need help with your mobile checkout, please contact us as well.
Got Your Special Offers Ready?
People love to snag a good bargain but what’s the point if it’s out of stock or the item they want does not have the color, size or type that they want to buy?
Frustrating right?
We have a Notify Me When Stock Becomes Available feature which allows customers to enter their details so the moment stock returns, you’ll be able to notify them knowing that they wanted to purchase the item.
It’s a good initiative to communicate as quickly as possible with the customer. Let them know when stock will be back and if you can maintain the same special pricing offer, am sure they’ll return to complete the purchase.
Time is ticking. Make the most of it.
So whatever special offers that you’re planning to throw out, make sure you have a backup plan for it if it runs out of stock as you want the same customers to come back to buy from you.
WhatsApp Mobile Share Feature
This feature makes it EASY for anyone who wants to share your product or site with their Whatsapp contacts.
Kind of like when you find something AMAZING and you can’t wait to share it with your friends via Whatsapp.
If you need this activated for your store, click here to find out how to do it.
It’s FREE.
The Rundown
Regardless on whether you’re targeting the holiday shopping crowd or not, your site needs to be mobile friendly and responsive coupled with a smooth and fast mobile checkout.
As more consumers embrace mobile shopping, you’ll need to make sure that your site is both appealing on mobile and provides a good shopping experience to consumers.
With any new relationship, trust is always the first emotion we need to feel toward each other in order to move forward. In this case, your customer needs to be able to trust you before buying something from you. They need to trust that you are who you claim to be and your products are what you say they are. But how do you get a complete stranger to trust you when they probably know nothing about you? This post will cover 5 ways you can gain a customer’s trust just by using your website.
3 Mistakes E-commerce Businesses tend to make. Building your own e-commerce store might be easy, however it does involve quite a bit of thought and dedication. This blog post will show you the 3 main mistakes people tend to make when starting up their online business.
Everyone loves a good discount, I know I do. You’re probably wondering how offers and discounts can be an advantage you. Yes, your profit might not be that much. However, at the end of the day you’re still profiting (at least a little) from the sale. Which is not completely a bad thing! And here’s why…
