Blog: Read the latest eCommerce & Retail posts from Venditan
Offline-first apps: Why Your eCommerce App Should Work Offline
3 MIN READ Most apps work best when connected to wifi or a strong mobile data connection. However, there are loads of times when your customers will be suffering the frustration of poor connectivity. Whether that’s because they’re commuting to and from work,...
7 Ways To Drive Social Media Traffic To Your eCommerce Website
9 MIN READ The more traffic you get to your website, the more chance you have of increasing your conversions. Driving relevant traffic to your website should be a priority for eCommerce businesses, and there’s a variety of ways you can do so. Having a presence on...
How To Start A Blog For Your eCommerce Website
4 MIN READ As a retail business owner, you’ll understand the importance of marketing. You need to build your eCommerce presence online, create attention-grabbing in-store displays and build an audience on social media, and for email marketing. (That’s with juggling...
How To Give Your Customers The Best Click and Collect Experience
10 MIN READ Click and collect is a fundamental part of the omnichannel ecosystem and a great addition for eCommerce retailers to add to their strategy. Giving your customers the best possible click and collect experience is extremely important as it’s becoming a more...
Report: The Importance Of Mobile Experience In eCommerce
15 MIN READ Introduction We recently set out to look at what retailers and eCommerce professionals think of mobile eCommerce. We’ve found a very varied landscape, where the businesses adapting to the popularity of mCommerce are reaping the rewards, whereas those who...
5 Ideas For Sustainable eCommerce Packaging
3 MIN READ More people are taking their environmental impact into consideration when buying. The eco-shopper is well and truly on the rise and retailers are taking notice. It’s a costly investment in terms of budget and resources, especially for smaller, independent...
How To Make Your Customer Returns Process More Efficient
5 MIN READ Dealing with customer returns is an inevitable part of retail. There are measures you can take to reduce returns, but you also need to know how to manage the returns you do get. In order to keep your costs down and give a great customer experience at the...
16 Must-Have eCommerce App Features
7 MIN READ More and more retailers are seeing the benefits of improving their mobile offering, whether that is through taking the initial steps of getting a mobile-responsive site or diving into the exciting world of app commerce. The impact of mobile shoppers habits’...
10 Brilliant Push Notification Ideas For Your eCommerce App
3 MIN READ If you’re venturing into the exciting world of app commerce, you’re going to want to be clued up on push notifications and how to efficiently use them as a part of your eCommerce strategy. They’re a great way to support marketing campaigns and the customer...
How To Delight Your Customers With Memorable Unboxing Experiences
5 MIN READ More people than ever before are looking for memorable unboxing experiences when shopping. The need to provide an amazing customer experience doesn’t end at the checkout. A beautifully packaged and thoughtfully curated display for your products will delight...
7 Simple Ways To Drive Traffic To Your eCommerce Store
5 MIN READ Consumers have more choice than ever before when it comes to where to shop. It can seem like an impossible task just getting noticed amongst all the noise out there. The thing is, you don’t need a huge budget or ad spend to attract more people to your...
Ecommerce Apps: 8 Reasons Your Business Needs One
4 MIN READ Increasing numbers of people are shopping on their mobile phones. According to BrizFeel, 49% of consumers use mobile to shop. The popularity of shopping on eCommerce apps is, in turn, rising as people seek convenience and seamless experiences. People are...
What To Look For In An SEO Friendly eCommerce Platform
5 MIN READ From new recipes to new cars, settling a debate or discovering a new brand, whatever you’re looking for online, most searches start with a Google. It’s so important for retailers to find an SEO friendly eCommerce platform to help them rank and stand out...
How The Rise Of Eco-Friendly Shoppers Is Influencing Sustainable Fashion
5 MIN READ The retail industry is currently seeing rapid growth in the popularity of eco-friendly shopping and the demand for sustainable fashion. The fashion industry isn’t always the most obvious when it comes to environmental impact. However, the UN Environment...
How To Pick The Best eCommerce Platform For Your Business
5 MIN READ Choosing the best eCommerce platform for your business is one of the most important decisions you’re going to have to make. Using the right eCommerce software to support your business is fundamental to your success. Getting this wrong can cause issues and...
Overcome The Most Common Payment Challenges In Retail
5 MIN READ The payments industry is a really exciting one and is seeing huge amounts of innovation and change. Keeping up with it all can be a hard task for retailers. Advances in technology are facilitating this fast-paced payments scene with FinTech gaining massive...
Creative Ways You Can Use Video To Increase Sales
8 MIN READ Video is fast becoming the most popular form of media to be consumed online and is a powerful addition to any eCommerce strategy. According to Hubspot, 78% of people watch videos online every week, and 55% of people watch videos online every day. There’s a...
Is Moving From Magento 1 to Magento 2 Right For You?
3 MIN READ If you’re a retailer still using Magento 1, you’ll be well aware by now that Magento 1 End of Life is fast approaching. Of course, it’s an inconvenience if you’ve been trading on this platform for some time, but it’s also a great opportunity to reflect on...
Press Release: Venditan secure partnership with Openpay capping off year of investment
1 MIN READ Manchester, UK. Press Release, Venditan and Openpay: Manchester-based Venditan, a technology business headquartered in the city centre, has partnered with next-generation, interest-free payment solution, Openpay, to become the UK’s exclusive first...
Retail and eCommerce Trends 2020: What The Experts Think
5 MIN READ There’s so much to get excited about for the future of retail and eCommerce trends; its an industry seeing massive amounts of growth and change right now. There are many viewpoints being shared right now on what's in store for the coming year, but we wanted...
An exciting year for Venditan: A look back at 2019
5 MIN READ For us here at Venditan, 2019 has been a really pivotal year - we’ve seen exciting growth in terms of clients, partnerships, new team members and product updates. I wanted to share with you some of the highlights of the year in a little more detail, and if...
Why You Should Offer Live Chat On Your eCommerce Website
5 MIN READ If you’re looking for a way to connect and communicate with your online customers as you do in-store, you might want to consider implementing live chat for your eCommerce website. Done well, it’s the perfect way to bring the personable and supportive...
How To Get Last-Minute Shoppers Through Your Door This Christmas
5 MIN READ Christmas is in full swing which is a great time for retailers, and it’s not over yet - you’ve still got a really important segment of your customer base to think about before the big day hits! It’s time to start thinking about how you can get these...
How To Create A Successful Subscription Box Model In eCommerce
7 MIN READ Are you thinking of starting a subscription service as a part of your eCommerce business? Over recent years there’s been a massive increase in popularity of subscription-based eCommerce driven by growing consumer demand. There’s a huge opportunity here for...
The Great Venditan Bake Off For Forever Manchester
2 MIN READ We’re no strangers to raising money for the fantastic Forever Manchester, having competed in their 7-a-side football tournament previously. When the opportunity came up to take part in fundraising for them again, we couldn’t pass it up and took part in this...
Ditch The Dull Product Images And Sell More
7 MIN READ Could the imagery on your product pages do with a spruce up? A vital part of your product page anatomy is the imagery you choose to represent your product. The right image makes a huge difference when it comes down to buying decisions, and improving your...
5 Things Retailers Need To Know About Magento 1 End Of Life
2 MIN READ If your website is running on Magento 1, by now you’ll probably know about the end of support coming in June 2020. But what does this mean? And do you really need to migrate your website? Here are 5 things you need to know if you’re considering staying on...
5 Ways To Improve Website Form UX
4 MIN READ One of the most important elements to any website is the forms the user is required to complete while visiting, which are often the only way to get the information you need to capture. As they are direct requests for information, if designed correctly,...
Why Having A Mobile-First Website Is Critical To Your eCommerce Success
4 MIN READ Long gone are the days of physical keypads, downloading ringtones and playing Snake on your phone. Now, our smartphones are built to do so much more, supporting pretty much every aspect of our lives. They’re intuitive and thanks to advances in Machine...
How To Use Customer Reviews As A Powerful Way To Boost Sales
6 MIN READ Customer reviews are extremely important for eCommerce websites. They’re a wonderful way to build your reputation, trustworthiness and inspire conversions, driving sales efficiently. Someone else talking about how great your product is is way more authentic...
10 Reasons People Are Leaving Your Website…And How To Get Them To Stay
5 MIN READ It’s one thing getting people to visit your website, it’s another getting them to stick around and buy something. You need a website that is aesthetically pleasing, super-fast and offers a wonderful user experience. Unfortunately, there are many...
State of the Art eCommerce: Venditan & Baymard
3 MIN READ Stop making the wrong choices when it comes to growing your eCommerce business. It’s a highly competitive market out there for retailers and standing out is essential if you want to succeed. With the unparalleled research that Baymard conducts into...
9 Ways You Can Create A Hassle Free Mobile Checkout Process
9 MIN READ Creating a hassle-free mobile checkout process is a guaranteed way to convert more users and boost sales as numbers of mobile shoppers continue to increase. Some retailers are still not seeing mobile as an integral part of their eCommerce strategy, but...
Turning Showroomers Into Shoppers: Converting Your Bricks & Mortar Visits
Showrooming: the practice of visiting a shop or shops in order to examine a product before buying it online at a lower price. - Oxford Dictionary Showrooming is not a new phenomenon, it’s been a hot topic amongst retailers for years. Driven by our desire to touch and...
The Rewards of Cloud Hosting For Your eCommerce Website
5 MIN READ It’s a highly competitive market out there for retailers and to keep up, you need to make sure you're providing the best customer experience possible. This means taking steps to ensure your website is secure, super-fast, can grow with your business and...
Small Business Saturday Ideas For Retailers 2019
6 MIN READ Taking place on Saturday, December 7th this year, Small Business Saturday is a campaign encouraging consumers to shop locally and support small, independent businesses that are at the heart of communities. Since 2013 here in the UK, following suit from...
Christmas Shipping For Retailers: All You Need To Know For 2019
7 MIN READ Getting your retail Christmas shipping strategy in place is key for holiday success. To ship your customer’s all-important presents, party outfits, or table wear in time for their preferable delivery date is a true marker of Christmas shipping success. In...
Which Online Payment Methods Should You Use For eCommerce?
7 MIN READ Let’s go back 25 years to 1994. It was a pretty big year. The Channel Tunnel had just opened, you could catch classics like Forrest Gump and The Shawshank Redemption at the cinema, and Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around” dominated the charts for 15 weeks at...
5 Reasons To Take Your Distribution Business Online
4 MIN READ Driven by the demands of millennial trade customers and the need for real-time visibility of sales and stock, many distributors are choosing to take their businesses online. If you’re still unsure about the opportunities digitalisation could bring and...
Not Another Black Friday Survival Guide: For Retailers Not Taking Part
4 MIN READ Black Friday - you either love it or hate it. Regardless of which side of the fence you land on, its undeniable how much of an impact this American import has had on consumers in the UK. If you’re one of the retailers not taking part in Black Friday, and...
How You Can Save Money On Merchant Acquiring Fees
3 MIN READ The British Retail Consortium report that in 2018 almost 80% of retail sales were paid for by card. As convenient as that is for the consumer, it does mean one thing for the retailer; Card payment fees! They are, unfortunately, a necessary expense when it...
Advanced Mobile Optimisation Tips for eCommerce Websites
6 MIN READ As a society, we’re plugged in and switched on around the clock. More so than ever before, people interact with brands across a variety of platforms and devices - whenever and wherever. This means that mobile optimisation is a huge factor to consider for...
Loyalty And Other Customer Retention Strategies
4 MIN READ Research by Hubspot has indicated that a huge 93% of customers are more likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service. Ask any retailer and they’ll tell you that their most profitable customers are the ones who...
16 Ways To Increase Your Average Order Value Effectively
8 MIN READ No matter what you’re selling, you want your customers to be buying more of it. Increasing your average order value is a fantastic way to boost your sales, but it’s often overlooked. This guide is for you if you’re looking for how to increase your average...
Reduce Checkout Abandonment With These 7 Easy Tips
5 MIN READ We don’t have to tell you how disheartening it is when you see customers making it all the way through the buying stages to drop at the final hurdle and abandon their cart. They’ve found your website, chosen their products, but something has gone awry at...
Our Killer Guide To Writing Product Descriptions That Sell
5 MIN READ Could your product descriptions do with a freshen up? Are they sounding a bit dull and lacklustre? Not helping convert visits to sales? Or, worse still, maybe you don’t have any at all? Not to worry, this guide is for you. We're going to show you how to...
Boost Your eCommerce Sales With These 4 Strategies
5 MIN READ Looking for ideas on how your can give your online revenue a boost? Here are four effective strategies you can adopt to grow your eCommerce business in 2019.1. Optimise your checkout for mobile conversions Thanks to the recent rise in mobile-first...
Dos & Don’ts Of An eCommerce Replatforming Project
5 MIN READ Moving to a new eCommerce platform better suited to your needs can present huge growth opportunities for your online business. However, eCommerce replatforming can still be a daunting task with a number of considerations and risks involved. Here At Venditan...
End Of Life For Magento 1: Everything You Need To Know
Back in November 2015 when the highly-anticipated Magento 2 was released, merchants and developers were made aware that it would only be a matter of time before Magento 1 became obsolete. An original end date for support of November 2018 created panic within...
The 7 Steps To International eCommerce Success
International eCommerce is booming. With cross-border shopping growing rapidly across the globe, demand in our nearest markets shows no signs of slowing down. European B2C market growth is running at an impressive 14% every year, while Southern Europe just hit a...
6 Essential Mobile First Features For Your eCommerce Site
3 MIN READ mCommerce sales account for 43.3% of all UK retail ecommerce sales. - The London Economic Mobile commerce is growing at a rapid rate - according to eMarketer, mobile now accounts for almost 60% of total global eCommerce sales. New functionality, such as...
3 Ways Retailers Can Prepare For The Rise Of Voice Search
3 MIN READ 20% of searches in the Google App are now by voice. - Google DataThe past couple of years have seen a huge increase in the number of searches completed using voice assistants. So much easier than typing out a query, voice search is the perfect fit for...
Tips To Make Your eCommerce Store More Sustainable
8 MIN READ Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of consumers around the world will buy or boycott a brand solely because of its position on a social or political issue. - Edelman Over the past few years the issue of climate change and the impact our daily lives have on the...
How To Create A Great Online Shopping Experience
5 MIN READ There’s no question that customer demands and expectations are higher than ever when it comes to buying online. We are finding that this is persuading retailers to get back to basics and focus on creating better websites and more convenient buying journeys....
Top Signs That You Should Replatform Your eCommerce Store
4 MIN READ If you are still using your business’s first eCommerce platform, it can be tricky to recognise the tipping point when your current solution begins to hinder your growth. Online retail markets are competitive, so it’s essential that you provide your...
eCommerce Replatforming: 3 Crucial Considerations
3 MIN READ Replatforming is sometimes essential to enable an eCommerce business to grow. As customer expectations increase, retailers must keep up with trends in website functionality and the experience they provide. The prospect of replatforming can be daunting but...
5 Mistakes With eCommerce Website Translation You Need To Avoid
3 MIN READ Translating your eCommerce website is key if you want to engage with your international customers and provide them with an experience that competes with local retailers. 9 out of 10 Europeans say they always prefer to shop on sites in their own language...
Here’s How To Reduce Returns In 8 Steps
6 MIN READ Reduce your product returns, protect your profits and increase customer satisfaction with our top tips. In a recent study, Barclaycard calculated that UK shoppers are returning £7 billion of purchases every year [1]. Online retailers need to give the...
Global Dominance: Breaking into the US Market
5 MIN READ In 2018 total ecommerce sales across the US were worth over 500 billion dollars. And the growth does not stop there. By the year 2022 the US ecommerce market is forecast to be worth a staggering 700 billion dollars¹.For many UK based ecommerce businesses,...
Don’t Believe the Hype: 3 Core eCommerce Trends in 2019
Heading up an eCommerce business can feel like a brave new world every day. Total industry growth is awe-inspiring. According to data from Statista, global eCommerce sales will hit £3.2 trillion in 2021—that’s a jaw dropping 246% increase in online revenue from 2014....
Increase Google Shopping ROAS With These 5 Tips
As an e-tailer you know how important it is to make sure your products are appearing in the Google Shopping results as these listings increasingly dominate the SERPs for product-related long-tail search queries.With the peak shopping period fast approaching then, this...
Does Virtual Reality Have A Place In eCommerce?
Back to the Future My first encounter with Virtual Reality (VR) was in 1992 in the Trocadero off Piccadilly Circus, London. The Virtuality 1000CS arcade machine they had was pretty much the state of the art at the time and I duly paid over the exorbitant asking price...
10 Tips On Clearing Surplus Sale Stock
Are your stockrooms and warehouses getting more and more jam-packed by the day? Are you struggling to shift your surplus summer stock and still make a profit? Fear not! Our top 10 tips for clearing sale stock will have you freeing up storage space for your new autumn...
Making the Most of Mobile Shopping: Where Should You Invest?
The rise of mobile shopping really is unstoppable. With consumers getting more and more comfortable shopping from their phones, it’s no exaggeration to say this channel is changing the face of eCommerce.Mobile commerce more than doubled since 2010, from 7% to 17% and...
Fulfilment, Logistics & Stock Management
Getting customers to your site and selling a product is just half the battle. Fulfilment is just as key.Here's a few thoughts and recommendations from the team at Venditan to round off the week... Fast or free? Delivery options range – make sure you give the...
Battle of the Buzzwords: Why ‘Omnichannel’ Beats ‘Multi-Channel’ eCommerce
Believe it or not, there’s a gulf between ‘multi-channel’ and ‘omnichannel’ eCommerce.Yes, they’re both buzzwords. Yes, they were both born out of the ongoing explosion in different sales channels. And yes, they’ve both been said so many times and for so long that...
The Cost of Convenience: Can Your Business Afford Free Delivery?
Consumer demands for delivery are blowing through the roof. Today’s online shoppers don’t just want hyper-convenient delivery and returns—they expect your business to provide them..."The Amazon effect has raised everyone's expectations about how fast products should...
Going Global: 5 Steps to eCommerce Internationalisation
“There are two big things you need for successful internationalisation,” says Venditan Managing Director Chris Maule. “Yes, you’ll need budget—but more importantly, you’ll need patience.” Our nearest markets have seen Southern European B2C market growth running at a...
Irrational Shoppers: 3 Ways to Boost eCommerce Conversions With Behavioural Economics
It’s easy to slip into thinking that consumers do their shopping based on cold, hard facts. Get the right product, set the right price, display it clearly on your site and there: conversions will take care of themselves. Right? Well not quite. The truth is emotion...
Venditan: Proud Sponsors of Swinton Lions RLFC
Manchester based E-Commerce & Retail Software specialists, Venditan, are pleased to announce a new strategic partnership with Swinton Lions RLFC.Swinton Lions compete proudly in the Bet Fred Championship, the second tier of English Rugby League. However,...
How To Make Your Clearance Sale Work Harder
Are your stock rooms overflowing but January sales losing momentum by the day?If you feel like you’re struggling to clear last season’s stock to make way for your new arrivals then here are our five tips on how to make your clearance sale work harder.1. Upselling at...
5 Tips On How To Make The Dispatch Process More Efficient
Streamline your dispatch process, cut costs and improve customer service with our top tips. With most retailers going into end-of-season sale this weekend, warehouse teams are likely to have a busy day next Wednesday! So this week we thought we’d talk about warehouse...
Reducing Online Returns – What Can Fashion Retailers Do?
In a competitive online market, how you handle online returns can be a key differentiator between you and the competition, but still it remains one of the more difficult areas of eCommerce customer service to get right.How helpful, quick, simple and flexible your...
Venditan Lake District Hike
A day in the hillsWith the weather taking a turn for the better, four Venditan team members escaped Manchester for the day to enjoy the fresh air of the Lake District. The lighter and longer days meant the team took the opportunity to conquer one of the highest...
Forever Manchester Football Tournament Raises £2,250 For Local Causes
15 businesses from across Greater Manchester dust off their shin pads to help raise money and awareness for some worthy local causes!Last Friday, Venditan took part in the annual 7-a-side Forever Manchester Football Tournament. The 15 team competition was staged on...
Migrating To Kubernetes
Quarter 4 2016 saw us embark on the first stage of our migration to the cloud, starting with planning out the migration of our eCommerce websites to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Container Engine. Firstly, a bit of background to our previous infrastructure: Each...
25 Ways To Optimise Your eCommerce Product Pages
Spring has finally sprung!With temperatures forecast to reach 20 degrees later this week, there is no doubt that spring has finally sprung! Hopefully you'll have now have taken delivery of lots of new spring/summer stock ready for the longer and warmer days to come....
Amazon Marketplace Management: Increasing Sales & Improving Customer Experience
The opportunity presented by the Amazon marketplace is huge - access to millions of customers across the globeHowever, many retailers who have listed their products on the marketplace are failing to see as many sales as they hoped for. Competition on Amazon is high,...
Meet The Team: John Coyne, Commercial Director
Our Commercial Director John Coyne, shares a bit about his job role here at Venditan, how he spends his day, and his ecommerce predictions for 2017.Q) Tell us a little bit about yourself I’m a North West lad born-and-bred. I’ve worked at Venditan for such a long time...
Warehouse Management – Thinking About Efficiency
No matter what size operation you're running, warehouse organisation, inventory management and fulfilment are key to the successful running of a retail business. From single store rooms to multiple warehouse locations, improvements can always be made to help with...
Taking Advantage Of Google’s Mobile-First Index
2019 update This summer Google has announced they will be indexing all new sites, “previously unknown to Google search”, mobile-first. This means now more than ever, it’s so important that your website is optimised for mobile. According to Search Engine Land, over...
What Does Brexit Mean For eCommerce In The UK?
As everyone is well aware by now, on June 23rd the British public voted to leave the European Union. It was a momentous decision, the long-term effects of which are still unknown. The short-term saw the FTSE plummet, although it has recovered and stabilised somewhat...
Programmable Infrastructure Vs Infrastructure As Code
Programmable Infrastructure, Infrastructure as Code? If you've never heard of these terms, you're probably wondering what the hell they are. There is no competition between the 2 phrases as they both refer to the same concept dependent on which side of the buzz word...
Manchester To Sydney In Less Than 2 Hours!
According to the research institution eMarketer, UK retail eCommerce sales are expected to top £60 billion by the end of 2015, with revenue from outside of the UK the fastest growing part of this total. And according to Internet Retailer Magazine the rate of this...
Terminal Velocity – 4 Great Ways To Work With Automatic Expansion In The Shell
With so much getting done in the shell, lots of little shortcuts can all add up to make things quicker in the future. After seeing people doing it the long way round, here’s the first in our series on efficiency hacks. Note that in this series I'm only going to cover...
SSL and PHP Streams – You Are Doing It Wrong
The upcoming PHP 5.6 release brings with it a number of improvements to encrypted PHP streams, both internally and externally. In these articles I will try to cover the most important changes, and how they affect your code. This article will focus on how to get the...
Meet Yaf… What?
At Venditan, we like to keep up with the latest technology to assist us to build fantastic websites for our clients. In January of last year, the stable 2.2.9 release Yaf (Yet Another Framework) was released and we just had to have a play. Yaf is the first PHP MVC...