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The Power Of A Facebook Store

April 8th, 2012

It’s a big announcement, and though you’re reading this here and now, it was first announced on our Facebook page.. Why you may ask? Well this announcement has to do with the power of SHARING and the persuasiveness and advocacy in brand marketing. It was only fair to divulge this first on Facebook.. For those of you who haven’t heard..

Our newly designed and SOCIALLY loaded Facebook store is now out!

The New Design
With the new Timeline for business pages, the area allows for more space, so we had to take advantage of this, and allow for more categories per page view. Add the search ability for easier browsing, as well as a clear layout for custom pages so you’re sure your offerings are clearly visible to help you sell on Facebook. We’re pretty proud of this new look, but this is just a little taste..

The Shopping Experience
In line with our mission to keep customers engaged within your website and brand, the new Facebook store, allows your customers to browse products for sale, share their favorites with friends, and complete a purchase within the Facebook shopping cart. Yes the entire process can be completed without leaving your Facebook page! Using payment gateways like PayPal Payments Pro and Authorize.net, the customer pays and is never directed elsewhere. And now the payment gateway PayPal Express, brings them back to your Facebook page to confirm the transaction. We hope this decreases the number of abandoned carts and gives you a boost in sales.. But wait that’s not all…

The Capitalization of Sharing
Facebook is all about sharing, and now your customer can become your advocate. After a purchase is made, customers can share their excitement with a single click and post their purchase to their own Timeline and share with friends. This is done without authorizing an app, just a simple share button that we’re all used to. Your customers can now become your own marketing tool. Yes this is all about REACH.. If you like the sound of reach and fcommerce advocacy, we’ve got more for you..

More features with the Facebook store include the ability to preview audio before purchase, allowing musicians and artists to showcase their tunes and sell music directly to fans within Facebook. They can sell songs, sell CD’s or even autographed prints! Looking for more? Well how about multiple language support, zoomed picture view, sharing to social platforms like Twitter and Want, and include related products for cross selling.

We mentioned it’s a big release, and we must say, we’re not finished yet! Stay tuned for more exciting releases from Wazala coming very soon!

Monitoring Your Ecommerce Business

March 7th, 2012

In order to have a successful business, one must constantly reflect and measure certain key factors. Here are 3 components worth evaluating on a consistent basis.

The Budget
If you don’t keep track of your cash flow, your business will likely fail. Keep your finances in order. You need to be aware of how much money you have coming in, and how much you’re allocating for different aspects of your business. Spending with abandon, and without keeping accurate records is a recipe for disaster.Asses your budget, and see which purchases and investments you can make now, and which ones you should hold off on until you have more free cash. Keep this up and you will increase profit.

Online Presence
Keeping track of online store web traffic is pivotal to any ecommerce business success. To do this, you need to have a way to monitor and analyze how many people are visiting your site. Google Analytics is a free tool that can help you in this respect. It also paints a detailed picture of your customers behaviors and inclinations as they browse your page, and gives you detailed reports on conversion rates that will allow you to make informed decisions about what is working and what is not. Wazala integrates with Google Analytics, and if you’re new to this, Google provides a good starting guide here.

Customer Satisfaction
This one is obvious, customers satisfaction is paramount to a healthy business, so keep tabs. Are you using a support desk to communicate? Many email solutions like Zendesk offer the ability to engage and ask customers for a satisfaction rating this will help automate your communication as well as report satisfaction. Engaging customers via social media is another effective way to keep a finger on the pulse of their contentment. This will allow you to address any complaints or concerns your customers might have before they evolve into a bigger issue. Also you may consider sending out a brief survey after each purchase is delivered. Knowing your positive and negative attributes will help you build a better service.

Just like you have to continually exercise to keep in shape, you must regularly monitor these elements in order to keep your business in tip-top condition. It’s an ongoing process, but if you follow through, you will find yourself reaping the rewards that accompany knowing where your business stands.

New Orders Are Now Simpler To Deal With!

February 6th, 2012

Our team has been working on a new Order tab design, that not only allows you to sift through your orders with ease, but helps making your order fulfillment faster. It’s out, it’s colorful and we hope you like it as much as we do.

The latest release of the Order Page allows you to clearly mark orders that require your attention with different statuses and colors. The hover-over preview allows you to take a quick look at the order without loading a new page, and of course, searching for a specific order is now even easier!

An added bonus we’re sure you would love to know about is the ability to print out an order receipt (with the order total) or a packing slip (with no mention of payment total). This is found in every order view page, click on Print to preview and proceed.

And last, for those orders you wish to remove from your daily view, a newly added Archive status allows you to store this order away and come back to it at anytime if you need to.

Hope these features improve your fulfillment of orders! And stay tuned for a lot more to come!

Musicians This One Is For You!

February 1st, 2012

We’re happy to announce the release of SoundCloud integration within Wazala! This integration allows you to set up a music shop with a few clicks, and grab music you wish to offer for sale, from SoundCloud into your Wazala store. We feel many musicians already using SoundCloud will benefit from the easy upload and set up of their music for sale. Not having to go through the creations of separate products, waiting for loading time and doing it over and over again.

The process is quite simple. In the Product tab, you will find the option of importing your tracks from SoundCloud, Once you click on that, an authorization page appears and you need to login into SoundCloud.

Once you allow Wazala access, your tracks will be listed. Here you can choose which tracks to import, state the price and if you wish to activate them for sale. Wazala can also import the genres as categories.

The import will start once you confirm. Depending on the size of your files, this should not take long. Once the import is complete click on Done, and you will be able to see your tracks listed as products for sale.

Customers will as usual, be able to preview the song, and once purchased the delivery is automated and secure through a masked Wazala URL.

It’s that simple, it’s quick and the best thing you can make money selling your music! Rock on!

Some Tips For Showing Customers You Care

January 15th, 2012

As we move forward into the new year, it is important to not only focus on attracting new customers, but to focus on keeping those customers once they bite. Here are a few tips on providing an incentive for customers to stick with you for the long haul.

1. The first time a customer orders from you, throw in a little something extra. This will give the customer the impression that you value their business, and that you are all about loyalty. In addition, if they order from you a lot, reward them with a similar gift. Show some love to your customers and they are bound to show some back.

2. Make sure that your stocked up on your products, and that once a purchase is made facilitate the order fullfilment right away and update your customer with an email that the shipment is on its way. People don’t like to wait, so the less they have to wait the happier and more impressed they will be with your business.

3. Give them a money back guarantee. Customers want to know that if they aren’t satisfied with a product, even if its not your fault, they should be able to return it at no cost. This will help instill confidence in the buyer, and establish a trust relationship between you and the customer, which is a necessary component for repeat business.

4. Offer special discounts spontaneously. This will keep people checking your site and inject some excitement into the buying process. With Wazala, configuring a discount is extremely easy. Make sure to advertise your discounts on all your social media pages to get a buzz going.

Happy Selling!

Promoting Your Store With Love

January 15th, 2012