10 Must-Have Features for Your Retail POS

Point of Sale (POS) software has become an integral component of a wide variety of establishments. From restaurants to retail, POS systems have solidified their position as an irreplaceable element in the sales process. Given the sheer volume of retail transactions that take place each day, it is no surprise that retail POS software have become ubiquitous.

Billing software has become a necessity for retail establishments. The deluge of retail POS software flooding the software market today certainly indicates this state of affairs. And this can certainly overwhelm retailers. But if they know what essential features a good retail POS should have, which of those pertain to the needs of their own business, and which of those could help them grow, it should not be such a feat to find the perfect retail POS.

Let’s take a look into some of the features your retail POS software should possess in order to be a valuable investment for your organization:

1. Multiple Payment Modes

We’ve come a long way from cash and credit as modes of payment. Depending on the volume of your business and the preferences of your regular clientele, your ideal POS system should contain multiple modes of payment. It should accept mobile payments as easily as cash, credit or debit. Moreover, customers should have the option to split their payment across various modes. Your billing software should facilitate such transactions easily.

2. Mobile Access

The world is becoming increasingly mobile with every passing day. And your retail store should too! Your retail POS solution should have mobile capabilities. It allows associates to move through the store and record a sale anywhere, without having to be physically present at the sales register. The sales register becomes mobile. A mobile retail POS software will allow much more flexibility while also being cheaper in terms of hardware costs incurred by the outlet.

3. Digital Receipts

When is the last time you remember getting a paper receipt from a retail outlet and using bit for anything meaningful? Paper receipts are not only bad for the environment; they truly add nothing to the retail experience, imparting no particular utility to either the buyer or the seller. Your billing software can simply send copies of the digital receipt generated in a transaction to the buyer. In doing so, it will also function as a CRM tool, in that it will save the customer’s name, contact, and other pertinent details. This can serve as the convenient starting point of establishing a successful customer relationship and enhance the customer experience.

4. Defined Permissions and User Accounts

Unless you’re a sole proprietor, your retail outlet has at least some sales representatives and other staff not directly connected to sales. The retail POS software should allow for the creation of multiple users who can individually access their accounts using a unique ID and password. With such a system in place, you can track each and every sale made, or discount given by your sales reps. This allows you to ascertain their actual productivity and how well they are meeting their sales goals. It gives a complete view of their performance, helping the supervisors/managers decide if a particular sales rep needs additional training or a change in his/her job role.

5. Inventory Management

Inventory is of prime importance when it comes to retail. No POS system, be it a restaurant POS system or a retail POS solution is worth your time if it does not possess inventory capabilities. You would have to invest separately in an inventory software for no good reason. Your POS system should definitely have basic inventory systems such as stock visibility and integrated accounts, auto-ordering, product variants, and more. For larger outlets/ businesses with multiple stores, a greater variety of features such as stock transfer, barcode scanning and printing, etc are needed. The point is that your retail point-of-sale system should have inventory capabilities in line with the needs of your retail enterprise.

6. Tax Compliance

Proper compliance with tax laws and government directives is essential in order for your business to remain above board. It makes auditing more efficient and easier. For businesses with stores in multiple states, it helps the business to manage the tax regulations of different states. Sales Tax and other taxes that might be levied on different kinds of products will all be taken care of in a systematic manner.

7. Reporting

Reporting is an essential component for retail. Reports help businesses track performance across every department, be it sales, marketing, operations or finance. A good retail POS software should provide product reports, employee reports, customer reports, and any other kind of custom reports that you might require in order to get a 360o view of the organization’s performance. Most cloud-based retail POS software provides flexible reporting capabilities which can be customized to fit the needs of your company.

8. CRM Integration

One of the main benefits of a retail POS system is that it can effortlessly capture customer data with every sale. If your organization uses a CRM or ERP software, which it most likely does, being part of the retail industry, your POS solution should have the ability to integrate seamlessly with the CRM tools. This way, the managers are able to manage customer data better, be it from the store front or the back-end.

9. Discounts, Coupons, and Gift Cards

Discount schemes, coupons, and gift cards make for excellent supplements to promotional and loyalty programs for any retail store. Your POS system should provide easy-to-use functionalities regarding these features. The system should store the price changes and calculate discounts quickly so that customers don’t have to wait for hours in a line. Similarly, coupon generation and scanning should be seamless. It will make the checkout process much faster for both the customer and the cashier. If your POS software can generate gift cards, you will be able to get quite a few new customers you would not have gotten organically. So, a good retail POS system can help enhance your sales as well!

10. Offline Mode

Your retail store may not be open 24/7 but for the hours that it is functional, it has to run without interruptions. Inevitably, interruptions continue to plague operations, but your store can take effective measures to combat the same. Especially when it comes to point-of-sale. Suppose you’ve got a long queue of customers waiting to get checked out but there have been problems with the internet. In such a situation, your retail POS software ought to be able to process payments and generate receipts offline too. The absence of such a feature will cause huge inconvenience to the customer and reflect badly on your store. To avoid such a scenario, your retail POS solution should offer robust offline capabilities in addition to the features mentioned above.

In the retail industry, it is all about meeting the customer’s needs. But with better tech comes better service and higher expectations. To manage these expectations, and deliver the best customer experience, investing in the right retail POS system will go a long way. Make sure to keep these features in mind when on the lookout for the right POS system for your retail store. A retail POS solution with features that align with the specific requirements of your business can do wonders for your retail store!

8 Tips To Start Building User-friendly eCommerce Website Development

eCommerce, a big-time word which we hear every day. Whether, big or a small enterprise, eCommerce website development is an unsaid must for your business if you are into trading.
You must be wondering why do I put compulsion in that? I will tell you.

Well, do I need to tell you that?

With the digitalization, customers now prefer to shop online more than they do for offline. Thus, it is the mandatory stand for business now to consider going online and be available there where their customers prefer to go.

ECommerce Website development asks you a sort of investment and being a business owner; you want some numbers to justify that need.

Well, here we are with some statistics. A survey on eCommerce anticipates an increase of 246.15% in the global eCommerce sales, from the US $1.3 Trillion in 2014 to $4.5 trillion in 2021. That is a vast number to turn the tables.

You have got the statistics now; however, I would like to share some tips before you start building your online store with eCommerce Website Development with some of the top eCommerce development services.

1. START AUTHORIZED AND STEADY

You involve your business into commerce, where it very much necessary to have the legal authority of trading those particulars products and services.

Understand thoroughly and pin down the rules and regulations about trading certain products whether online or offline.

Also, you need to register yourself with the authorities to trade as all the banking transactions will occur from legal bank accounts and it is horrible if it makes unreliable to transact.

Register with the authorities. Make sure you get the relevant certificates from them and make it accessible on your online store as well if the customers want they can review your credibility.

You have got the authorities but wait; don’t hurry your launch yet.

Your eCommerce website is the online store of your business.

Treat its opening as cherishable as you would do for your physical store.

Make necessary advertisements online. Create the buzz, tell people that something grand is coming. Delay the launch if possible, but make sure it is worth the delay.

2. PERFECT AND ROBUST PARTNERS

Getting the functioning and dynamic eCommerce website solutions are not enough to run the eCommerce store effectively.

You need to have some perfect and robust partners by your side.

First of all, you need to partner with an eCommerce development company who is proficient in providing eCommerce website development services as per the business requirements and niche.

A best eCommerce website design company can help you get the best eCommerce store developed and designed for your business because they understand what having and being the best means.

Browse through the top eCommerce development companies and then hire eCommerce Development services suitable to your business requirements.

Secondly, for an eCommerce store, it is highly necessary to have a shipping partner who is reliable and active.

You need to maintain specific promises with your customers. A customer while placing an order online, checks how soon they can get the delivery in their hands.

You need to mention on your store the specific number of days it may take to reach the delivery.

Making the promises to customers means you need to stand by your words. Thus, you need to have a promising shipping agent by your side, which takes care of your deliveries to the customers in time and with perfection.

3. FOCUS ON CUSTOMERS’ CHOICE

eCommerce is sheerly focusing on customer requirements.

Smart business owners know what their customers want and accommodate their services according to the customer requirements and likings.

Keep the trend maintaining in all your products. Check if it is matching your niche.

Assure customers of full comfort from your products and show them that you stand by your words, while they surf on your store and while they receive their package.

Along with products, focus on the design of your store.

Get the most compelling eCommerce website design services for your online store as it is a branch of your business in itself.

Check that it is easy to navigate through the pages, products, and services.

A user will turn into a customer only when he finds what he wants on your online store.

4. MAKE YOUR STORE MOBILE AS WELL

You are a smart entrepreneur and aware of the fact that mobile has become an all-time tool in every other person’s hand around us.

Well, if you keep a step back while eCommerce development of your store for your mobile, I am sure you are losing thousands of customers.

However, I know that you are smart and would not make such a mistake.

Make your online store mobile responsive and friendly.

Develop it as easy to use on the mobile phones as well. Take assistance from a mobile app development company who is proficiently an eCommerce website development company as well. Check the same aspects as you checked on the desktop version of your online store. Customers love mobiles; remember, to trade you should consider what the customers like.

5. SUPPORT AND POLICIES

When you hire eCommerce Development service, you need to make sure that you cover all the aspects for your online store.

Don’t skip out the essential things such as the –

“About Us” page – It seems quite creepy to not know the people you are trading with. Update the page with all the necessary information about your company and the dealings.

Active Support system – you expect your customer to be online on your store any and every time of the day; so you need to make sure that you provide them the active support at any hour of the day.

Refund and Return policies – It is not necessary always that the product will look the same way as it looked online and whether the customer will like it the same way as they did online

Keep friendly return and refund policies. It is okay if they returned once but open the doors wide enough for them to come and shop again.

Payment Options – With the variety of products, customers prefer a variety of payment options as well. Try to keep as many payment options as possible for your business to handle. Also, don’t forget to allow the choice of cash on delivery.

6. ANALYZE AND ENHANCE

Like the way you analyze in your business about the possible profits and losses; you need to examine your online store as well.

Collect essential data and researches. Check the traffic and conversions.

Analyze them. Build up new strategies. You are the captain of the ship to take charge. Enhance with new tactics. Apply new strategies.

If you are falling short of the strategies, take assistance from the top eCommerce development service that you hired for the eCommerce development. They are proficient with these and always up with the market trends.

7. TESTING

Once you have completed the eCommerce website development process, you need to test every aspect of your store.

Take assistance of the eCommerce website development company to apply relevant testing techniques on your application and website to check if there exist any bugs or are there any flaws in the store.

Check it yourself once again; as a user, how does it look like, how it is likely to feel and how it is likely to use and navigate.

Make the amendments whatever necessary to remove the flaws and improve the usability of your online store.

8. SEO AND OTHER SOCIAL ELEMENTS

Optimize your online store efficiently for the search engines.

Create efficient SEO strategies and make sure you apply them in the stipulated timeline before launching the store.

Also, consider marketing on social media as well. The more people know about your services coming, the more traffic you will get after you launch your store.

Further, consider hiring eCommerce development service who are proficient with the SEO part and know how to bring out the results.

Conclusion

Moreover, the above are the prime basics which being a business owner you should not avoid implementing in your online store. Keeping a keen eye on all these aspects can make your online store soar up high in the competition with impressive economic numbers. Also, consider hiring the top eCommerce development services whenever you think of initiating the eCommerce website development.

The E-commerce Trends Gearing Up For Impact in 2019

The online retail industry isn’t one to stand still, and according to industry insiders, 2019 will be no exception.

As 2018 comes to a close and workers across the country are switching off and preparing for a week of feasting and celebrating, we took a moment to talk to a selection of retailers and solution providers to see what they think the next 12-months will hold.

Billy Huynh, Founder and CEO, Interior Secrets

Voice search is an exciting one! We’ve seen the capabilities of Siri, Alexa and Google assistant. I think the voice-centric world is still in its early days, however, the thought of being able to search for the best price for a particular product simply by saying the product name to your phone is probably as convenient as it gets. Online retailers could create content that answers common questions asked through voice assistants.

Small or large, brand value will matter. With smaller retailers, in particular, we are seeing more creative ideas emerge. A clear digital strategy will be critical for retailers to survive in a growing competitive landscape. We’ve overhauled our digital strategy at least six times in the last year, and our new website is set to launch in January 2019.

Retailers with increased store numbers will advance there supply chain making it possible for retailers to capture and fulfil orders quicker. We launched our first experience store in the heart of Southbank directly opposite Crown Casino last year, the second store happening in Sydney next year. When we first opened, we had in-store sale targets and focused heavily on closing the sale with every visitor that walked through the door. Now, we’re centred on providing exceptional customer service. Often, we would assist a customer in the store in the morning, and soon after would see their name pop up in the back end of the sales system.

Phil Suggate, Co-Founder, EasyShed

Retail overall in 2019 will continue to perform strongly. Retailers continuing to ignore the essentiality of integrated e-commerce platforms and the rapidly changing shopping habits and expectations of their customers will continue to struggle and die. However, retailers that are providing a well-integrated and engaging omnichannel experience (both online and offline) will see strong growth and continue to rapidly gain market share.

James Tinsley, Founder, FitMyCar

I really hate seeing the bad news stories about established bricks-and-mortar brands collapsing because they haven’t adopted digital and e-commerce strategies. So my hope for 2019 will be seeing good new stories about iconic brands kicking goals in the digital marketing and e-commerce space, embracing social media and being rewarded for it.

Mike Wilson, Founder, TinyMe

Certainly the big trends such as mobile, social, video, on-site personalisation and relevance, speed and contextual commerce are as big for us as they are for everyone else in e-commerce. We are, however, primarily a design and manufacturing business with core capabilities in software and engineering automation interested in building direct-to-consumer brands. In this sense, the trends affecting us go well beyond e-commerce and are more into areas such as mechatronics, robotics and automation, as well as global logistics, large data wrangling etc.

Dion Appel, Chief Revenue Officer, Openpay

2018 was a big year for e-commerce with a number of changes and developments, and we’re most excited to see how things will continue to grow in 2019 – especially the continued growth of digital payment solutions. Convenience will be key for consumers and there are so many ways this can be achieved, with payment methods at the forefront, allowing e-commerce sites to increase conversions and shopping basket sizes to remain competitive.

We also see the online retail industry continuing to grow and evolve at a rapid pace with payment solution offerings leading the way. The rising popularity of buy now, pay later providers has proven that customers want an online shopping experience that is tailored to their individual preferences. They want to be in control of how they shop and the industry will need to continue to evolve to keep up with that.

How will AI change the web development in future?

Artificial Intelligence is present everywhere – from chatbots to virtual assistants, AI is used in day to day activities. Virtual assistants like Siri and Cortana are helping the users by processing their queries on the internet via voice. They are capable of performing the simple task like playing music, setting the alarm, and providing weather reports. Home assistants like Google home and Amazon Echo are also offering the users simple activation of home appliances. AI is slowly but certainly creeping in our daily lives.

The goals of AI are (“Artificial Intelligence Overview”, 2018) to create expert systems and to implement Human intelligence in machines. Machine learning a branch of AI which allows the web applications to adapt by observing and learning from users’ habits, idiosyncrasies and preferences.

Web development is a highly popular field as users are always looking for a rich and personalized content. Nothing is better than hyper-customized user experience. The web development companies are facing challenges to move away from the traditional approaches in web development. Therefore, the need for AI and the related tools is felt. Automating the web development put less stress on the web developers. With the involvement of AI in the process, web developers can leave the cumbersome task on the AI and focus on the value-adding aspects of the web application development like planning rich user experience, formulating the design strategies and other related activities. In-fact Human-machine collaboration can revolutionize the field of web development.

Some companies have already introduced a DIY website platform like The Grid. This is an AI-powered website designer which automatically decides the color, theme, and style of your website. The Grid optimizes, arranges and designs the website according to the preference, theme, and content. Other AI integrated website builders that were highly talked about this year are Firedrop, Molly and Wix’s ADI.

There are so many ways by which modern artificial intelligence solutions can improve the web development:

1. AI virtual assistants simplifying the web development – AI can simplify the tedious task of designing basic layouts and templates of web pages. AI virtual assistants can create personalized content by asking questions from the website owner.

2. We analytics with AI – Many web analytics tools can help you with SEO strategies however only human can interpret this data. AI can analyze and mine the data from the web analytics tools and can generate ideas to eliminate the irregularities in the architecture of the website. It can also highlight the bad content from the SEO point of view.

3. AI web development provides superior end-user experience – Chatbots can take care of the customers’ queries. A chatbot integrated with AI can simulate the real conversations by learning from the past conversation and adopting the responses and actions accordingly. These chatbots can respond to the queries and comment on the blog posts along with providing real-time assistance.

Future of web design with AI

There are so many things that AI can offer to different industries, and web designing is not untouched. AI can do tedious tasks in web designing which will relieve the designers from making a website from scratch. It can analyze the content and user preferences to personalize the website. It can assist the expert and beginner alike, and it can enable a novice to manage their own website without problems.

• Cognitive abilities – Artificial Intelligence machines can create designs with their cognitive abilities. Machines can perceive the surroundings with the help of sensors and IoT which can be helpful in simulating the fantasy and utilizing it to build some attractive and eye-catching graphics. Like a human, it can search the references from the internet to produce some beautiful graphics.

• Context Apprehension – There is one significant difference between a non-efficient program and a smart algorithm which is that first one will do the same sequence of tasks without considering the context. A smart algorithm understands what the user wants, and it does that by considering the context. Because of the cognitive capabilities of the Artificial intelligence, it can pick up the color that will suit the tone of the website and the preference of the user.

• Design inconsistencies – Most of the website fails because of the design inconsistency. The inconsistencies are too low to be recognized by the designers, but it affects the user experience in a very bad manner. Machines are very useful in picking up the inconsistencies and fixing them. Because of the unmatched cognitive abilities AI can quickly pick up the inconsistencies and can fix the issue using the combination of machine learning and context apprehension abilities.

• Structure identification – Modern AI can quickly detect the slightest variations in the images. Images are actually made up of tiny pixels, and each one of them is responsible for creating an ultimate piece of art. AI can read and differentiate each pixel in an image. It can identify the object present in the image by differentiating the pixels in images. Similarly, artificial intelligence programming can train it to identify different structures on similar websites.

AI – A boon or bane debate

AI is generating fear among the people that it will soon replace the human workforce (Beauchamp & Beauchamp, 2018). However, the technology today completely relies on the humans to train them on what they should do. Google’s AI experiment Quick draw shows how AI guesses on the past inputs that were created by other people. No matter where we stand with the technology people still values the human touch. AI cannot work successfully without human intervention.

Statements by Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have created doubts in the mind of people, and they are forced to think that Artificial Intelligence is going to take away their jobs. We still have a long way to go before we need to start this debate. As for now, AI is a completely safe technology, and it’s making the job of the web developers easy and manageable.

Conclusion

To evolve, we have to accept and embrace the technological changes which surround AI. AI development is one of the doorways to the future which may bring a lot of good.

Top 7 E-commerce Web Design Trends to Adopt In 2019 – WondersMind

E-commerce sales worldwide accounted for $1.915 trillion in sales up to the end of 2016. It is predicted that e-commerce sales will reach $27 trillion by the year 2020. E-commerce is fulfilling some increasingly diverse roles in the world of online selling and has come along way since the days when a little known startup called Amazon began selling books over the internet. The sector now encompasses a vast range of services, and virtually every physical product imaginable, from land to automobiles, is now available for purchase from anywhere in the world.

For a long time, e-commerce was something conducted from computers and laptops at home, but increasingly we are now making purchases on the go using cell phones and tablets. The increasingly mobile nature of the e-commerce market is set to be one of its defining features over the next few years with a steady rise in the number of apps available for buying and selling online, as well as an increasing number of web based companies offering mobile friendly versions of their site to encourage more users, regardless of their preferred browsing devices.

While brick and mortar stores continue to account for the majority of money spent in retail, there is a clear trend towards e-commerce giants such as Amazon, and it will be quite some time before e-commerce becomes the dominant force it has the potential to be. In the meantime, however, it is still an integral part of the retail landscape and something that all business owners should be keeping a close eye on. Below are some of the emerging trends within the e-commerce sector, which are proving to be a real boon to businesses that adopt them.

1. Mobile Friendly Design:

It’s still possible to find examples online of some of the early e-commerce websites. They are notable for design practices that would make a modern web designer wince. Cluttered designs which try to throw far too much information at the user from the moment the page loads were one of the main problems. That’s assuming pages loaded neatly. In the pre-broadband days of the internet, pages often loaded in stages, and this perhaps goes some way to explaining the different design priorities. While modern e-commerce sites are very much designed with the smooth user experience in mind, the modest demand of running embedded scripts was an obstacle early web designers had to contend with.

Now that our computers and our internet connections are considerably faster, we can do a lot more under the hood of a website than was previously possible, while having a minimal impact on the user experience. Increasingly, websites are designed with mobile in mind and some neat web design tricks allow for the design of a web page that will load in one configuration on a desktop or laptop, and in another for mobile and tablet. Even sites which also offer an app are increasingly looking to make their browser based offerings mobile friendly.

2. Templates:

Many people assume that using a template is a sign of laziness or, at the very least, a lack of creative vision. However, this is not necessarily the case. After all, there is a good reason that the vast majority of smart phones now feature essentially the same design and layout, minus a few individual tweaks depending on the manufacturer; it’s because those designs work well.

In 2014, Google launched what it dubbed its’ ‘Material Design’ motif, which is essentially a template for designing Android applications. As with all things Android, there is plenty of room for customization so using the Material Design motif doesn’t necessarily mean your app will appear identical to others. An increasing number of websites are following the same design principles that Material Design is based on. You should check out the motif for inspiration on designing your own site.

3. Efficient Loading and Layout:

For many mobile users, data usage is still a real concern. While the packages offered by different cell service providers are undoubtedly becoming more generous, savvy website designers should still be looking to maximize efficiency by only loading what is necessary. In the context of e-commerce sites, this is mostly applicable to product listings.

Rather than listing 100 products on a single page, it is much more efficient to load the first 10 and then only load subsequent sets of 10 if the user scrolls to the bottom of the existing list. E-commerce sites that efficiently handle loading times are much more likely to appeal to mobile customers than those that are data hungry.

4. Hamburger Menus:

Hamburger menus have become an increasingly common sight across a variety of website types as they offer a convenient way to hide and reveal a menu as necessary, making the sites much easier to navigate for the user, particularly on smaller screens.

Hamburger menus are identifiable by the three horizontal lines that the user must tap or click on to reveal the underlying menu, pressing the bars again will hide the menu. Hamburger menus are simple, efficient, convenient, and save a considerable amount of space compared to a menu displayed within a frame.

5. Cinemographs:

The GIF used to be the undisputed king of embedded animations on the web, however animated GIFs are prohibitively resource intensive for most mobile users. Individually GIFs aren’t particularly large files, but when there is a whole series of them or different ones on each page, the data requirements start to add up.

Cinemographs represent a midway point between an animated GIF and a still image. They consist of an image, usually a photograph, which either features text animated over it or in some cases, a small section of the image itself is animated.

6. Adaptation:

Websites that adapt to the device they are being viewed on is nothing new. In the future, however, sites might be able to adapt not just to the device but to the user themselves. For example, based on the user’s age and visual acuity, the website could reorder itself to include larger, more prominent elements.

For users who are right or left handed, the site could shift some elements to the other side of the screen, and for colourblind individuals the site could alter its colour palette to compensate. More personalised computing experiences look set to be a big part of future innovation.

7. Grids:

From smartphone operating systems to the Amazon website, grids have proven themselves as one of the simplest yet most effective forms of design. Grids are not only clear and easy to navigate, they use the space available efficiently. A common trend among e-commerce sites now is to adopt the grid layout but to remove borders, allowing the grid to blend in to the rest of the page.

Keeping up with the curve is the next best thing to being ahead of it, and e-commerce site operators should always be on the lookout for new opportunities to show off their design prowess and hopefully pick up loyal customers in the process and some new.

Professional website design tips for small business

Every business, big or small, requires a professional website these days. However, getting started can be quite intimidating for those that have never handled a website before. A website can be one of the most important elements of a business, helping build trust amongst clients or turning away potential customers.

The 10 tips listed below will help your small business website get noticed and generate the desired impact.

1. Clutter Free:

A small business website design should be simple yet captivating. Too much information or a complicated design can overwhelm the viewer. An uncluttered design also sends across the message of professionalism. Allow your website to breathe and your users to have a pleasant viewing experience.

2. Google should be able to find your site easily:

An uncluttered site, clear content, proper URLs, sitemap, and relevant keywords will allow search engines like Google to index your small business website with ease. Website design for small business should include at least basic SEO. It is important to find a good SEO friendly CMS to build and maintain your website.

3. Mobile friendly:

After Google’s announcement of mobile-first index, it would be almost suicidal not to have your small business website responsive. This merely means that your site will adapt and rearrange when viewed on mobile devices. But that in itself will not make your website mobile friendly. You will need to insure that your website provides a user friendly experience across all devices.

4. Inbound Leads:

One of the most important functions of any small business website is to focus on the inbound leads and capture as many as possible. Usually before purchasing a product people like to do an initial research and comparison, and may not be ready to buy immediately. This time should be utilized in acquiring their e-mail addresses so that you can keep them informed and gauge as to when they are ready to purchase. However, you should avoid being too persistent as this could annoy a potential customer.

5. Contact details easily visible:

This may seem like the most obvious thing to do but small business website design companies tend to overlook this factor at times. Your phone number and e-mail address should be displayed prominently on the website and, if possible, at the top and bottom of every page. Create a ‘CONTACT’ page at the end which includes not just the contact numbers but email address, physical address of the company, and a map, along with directions to and hours of operation of your company.

6. Branding should be professional:

Avoid any frivolity on your small business website and focus on giving it a professional look which is consistent with your brand. Use colours that are prominent in your brand logo. Hire a small business website design company, if required, to give your website a professional look. Choose one or two fonts and ensure that they are used consistently throughout the website. The graphics and the images that you use should also be in sync and complement the website.

7. Design should be simple and unique:

Whether you are designing your website on your own or hiring a small business website design company, your goal should be to create a website that reflects your brand. The first impression is the most important and will either attract or repel viewers. If you use any run-of-the-mill template and your website resembles thousands of others on the net, you will never be able to create an impact on the viewer’s mind. The homepage of any website is what will clinch the deal for you so ensure that this becomes the anchor for your entire site and is impressive enough to catch the viewer’s attention.

8. Products and services should be showcased well:

Several small business web designs are unable to showcase their products effectively or show too many products and services on one page and clutter it. Remember that you only have the luxury of a few seconds to win or lose a potential customer. So make sure that the first impression is professional. If you are a company selling products online then the product photos, images, and descriptions should be crisp and appropriate. If you have a great website design but your products have not been displayed well, your customers will think twice before buying from you.

9. Quick Site load time:

Viewers get impatient if a site takes too much time to load. Ensure that your small business website design has the right server infrastructure and bandwidth to support it. A graphically intense design could eat into your loading time and put off prospective customers. Site load time can also be improved by picking up good hosts.

10. Content:

Last but not the least is the relevance of content on your small business website. This plays a major role in getting indexed by search engines. The more qualitative and quantitative your content, the easier it is for search engines to find and index your site. Poor or irrelevant content is also a game changer when it comes to attracting or putting off viewers. Headlines are where you need to pay extra attention as this will decide the difference between a visitor leaving your site or continuing further to browse the rest.

The lack of a dedicated and updated small business website can impact your business. Without a website you may not only fall behind your competition but may also miss the opportunity to connect and engage with prospective customers. Before purchasing a product or service, customers would like to know and see more about your company, and the perfect platform to showcase these is a professional website. The above mentioned tips will help you when designing a website for your small business.

Web Design Trends in 2019 - WondersMind

Find out what the biggest web design trends will be in 2019.

Staying current on web design trends is crucial to the success of your website. A lot changes every twelve months in terms of popularity with visuals, algorithm updates, and best practices.

A website that looks sleek and modern today could look outdated and cheesy in just a few months’ time. That’s why knowing the difference between a trend in the industry and a passing fad is so important when designing a website — you want to ensure that your design will look great for several years and not reminiscent of a Geocities message board from 1996.

2019 will be all about delivering on user experience: web design trends will prioritize speed and mobile design, eye-catching simple designs with asymmetrical layouts, immersive video backgrounds, and more.

Speed

How much time do you think that you get to make a good impression with a potential customer? If you’re talking about interacting with them online, you have less than three seconds.

As you can see, a beautiful site is a beautiful site, but if the design is so data-heavy that it takes too long to download, you could be losing loads of revenue due to no one sticking around to even look at your site. Even worse, with the Google Speed Update that went into effect in July 2018, Google has begun prioritizing rankings for sites that load faster than others, and it’s likely that other search engines are soon to follow. What all of this means is that as websites need to load faster, so does website design need to prioritize speed during the design process. Web designers can’t simply rely on the developer to turn their work into something that will both look good and rank well — speed needs to be a design parameter.

Flat Design

In 2017, designers and developers began creating clean and simple websites for better mobile performance. Since then, the number of mobile searches has gone ever-upward, and mobile-first design for websites is now a necessity, not just an option. Image-heavy websites load slowly and frustrate mobile users, as we discussed earlier.

Mobile First

Speed isn’t just the only ruler that Google has been using to measure websites by. In 2015, mobile searches overtook desktop searches overall, making mobile search the highest search form worldwide. In accordance with this, Google has changed which sites they index first — they now prioritize mobile sites over sites that aren’t mobile friendly.

With mobile sites taking priority away from desktop sites, it’s no wonder that mobile first design has become a trend. Mobile first web design is about changing the way that websites are designed fundamentally. The standard used to be that a site would only be designed for a desktop or laptop computer and a mobile-friendly or mobile responsive design might be added as well. Mobile first design does just the opposite: it starts with designing the site for the mobile user first before creating a version that will also work for a desktop user.

Broken Grid/Asymmetrical Layouts

In 2019, web design trends are all about thinking outside the box, or rather, the grid. Broken grid and asymmetrical designs are leaving their mark across the web design industry in a big way. In spite of the push from many web designers towards flat, fast, minimalist design, there’s also a large contingent of designers advocating for the fresh, striking look of broken layouts.

When we talk about broken grids or asymmetrical layouts, this refers to the grid system that has been used for decades on all kinds of layouts, from web pages to newspapers to print and outdoor ads. A grid system helps a designer maintain alignment and consistency easily when they are adding content — images, headlines, copy, calls-to-action — to whatever medium they are working in, maintaining the structure of the grid in the underlying layout while generally maintaining symmetry as well.

Shapes

As a middle ground trend between the minimalism of flat design and the controlled chaos of broken grid lies the trend of geometric shapes. If you think this refers to simple, Euclidean geometric shapes that you learned about in middle school such as triangles, hexagons, and circles, then you’re absolutely right.

Shapes can bridge the gap between flat and broken grid because of how easily they can be integrated to a design. Simple geometric shapes with bright colors can create interesting edges and load quickly while still being engaging. Designs that compost shapes with photography and type or that use shapes to create repeating patterns can result in the dynamism and depth present in broken grid or asymmetrical layouts.

Single Page Design

Speed and minimalism are the trends that come up again and again when talking about web design in 2019, which is a major reason why single page design, also known as pageless design, has also become a 2019 web design trend. Single page design is a very descriptive title — it refers to websites that have only one page instead of multiple service pages or blog articles all neatly arranged under a siloed hierarchy.

Video Backgrounds

In spite of the minimalist, quick-loading, flat design trends, video backgrounds are still incredibly popular as a trend going into 2019. You might think with speed being such a huge factor this year that videos would bog down a site too much, but, interestingly, video backgrounds have been shown to increase conversions.

Videos are simply more compelling than text or images ever will be. You’ll likely have seen this trend appear on social media platforms like Facebook over the last couple of years. Video posts are prioritized over other kinds of posts. They even made it easier to watch videos by auto-playing on mute while you scroll through your feed.

Micro-Animations

A subtle but noticeable 2019 trend in web design is micro-animations. Micro-animations are a powerful way to provide an intuitive and satisfying experience to your user as they browse your website. This is accomplish through small animations that help the user understand the site and validate them when they mouse over or click on an element, such as changing the color of a button when the cursor moves over it, or a menu expanding when they click on the hamburger.

In 2019, this technology will continue to be perfected and incorporated into company websites. Soon, web interactions will become seamless. Imagine a website that already knows exactly what your customer is looking for by simply analyzing their past interactions with your web design company. Customer service via the web is becoming faster and more efficient every day thanks to these new technologies.