Premium Akaun : RSS Feed untuk Kedai Anda

Salah satu ciri-ciri baru yang kami perkenalkan dalam Akaun Premium adalah RSS feed.

RSS di alamat kedai anda

RSS (Really Simmple Syndication) merupakan cara mudah mudah untuk menyebarkan maklumat tentang produk baru dalam kedai anda. Dengan RSS, setiap kali anda mengemaskini kedai anda, semua pelanggan (yang melanggan RSS feed kedai anda) akan diberitahu tentang produk tersebut secara langsung.

Contoh RSS dalam paparan Google Reader

Bagi yang menggunakan media sosial seperti Facebook, Twitter dan blog  untuk memajukan perniagaan mereka, RSS merupakan kombinasi yang sangat berkesan.

Anda boleh langgankan RSS secara automatik dalam FB Page anda (lihat sini bagaimana). Setiap kali anda tambah produk, ia akan dipaparkan secara langsung ke wall FB Page anda. Begitu juga sekiranya anda menggunakan Twitter(lihat sini bagiamana), blog(lihat sini bagaimana) dan sebagainya.

Dengan kemudahan RSS ini, kami yakin, maklumat tentang kedai anda akan dapat disebarkan secara lebih pantas dan berkesan.

Apa tunggu lagi, upgrade akaun anda ke akaun Premium hari ini dan sebarkan kemaskini kedai anda dengan pelanggan secara langsung.

Premium Akaun : Lebih Pilihan Untuk Katalog Anda

Penyampaian produk di dalam kedai online amat penting dan boleh mempengaruhi jualan produk anda. Tidak seperti perniagaan offline, di internet katalog produk anda perlu jelas dan teratur kerana ia membantu keputusan pelanggan untuk membeli.

Ini kerana:

1. Cara penyampaian produk boleh mempengaruhi cara pelanggan membeli produk di kedai anda.
2. Penyampaian produk yang teratur, sistematik dan jelas memudahkan pelanggan membuat pilihan.
3. Gambar produk yang jelas mampu memberi gambaran jelas tentang rupa bentuk sebenar produk anda.

Oleh itu, peniaga online harus bijak mengatur dan mempamerkan produk dengan cara yang betul kerana ia mampu meningkatkan jualan anda.

Atas sebab itu, dengan akaun Premium, anda mempunyai pilihan untuk mengubah saiz gambar produk dan cara produk di pamerkan. Jika anda ingin mengubah saiz atau rekabentuk produk yang ingin di pamerkan, anda boleh masuk ke admin panel, kemudian pada bahagian Setting > Store dan kemudian ke tab Catalog.


Di sini, anda mempunyai pilihan untuk menukar saiz gambar produk anda. Anda mempunyai pilihan untuk menggunakan sama ada saiz gambar yang kecil, sederhana atau besar.

Anda juga boleh menukar jumlah produk yang di pamerkan di bahagian depan dan dalam catalog. Ini boleh di lakukan dengan mengubah jumlah dan baris yang ingin di pamerkan.


Biasanya, pada akaun basic baris produk default yang di pamerkan ialah 4 tetapi dengan akaun Premium anda bebas memilih bilangan produk di bahagian depan dan dalam catalog. Setelah anda memilih rekabentuk yang anda inginkan, klik pada butang Save. Produk anda kini akan kelihatan lebih jelas dan teratur, sedia untuk di pamerkan kepada pelanggan.

Apa tunggu lagi, upgrade akaun anda ke akaun Premium hari ini dan dapatkan lebih pilihan untuk konfigurasi katalog anda. 

Premium Akaun : Lebih Kebebasan Rekabentuk Kedai

Salah satu ciri menarik akaun Premium ialah kebebasan yang diberikan untuk pemilik kedai mereka bentuk kedai mereka. Sekiranya untuk kedai percuma, reka bentuk hanya dihadkan dengan 4 pilihan skin dan pilihan latar belakang yang sedia ada, anda mempunyai lebih kebebasan untuk mereka bentuk kedai anda.

Lebih pilihan skin
Pengguna akaun Premium akan mendapat pilihan skin Premium yang hanya dikhaskan untuk pengguna akaun Premium sahaja. Skin Premium akan ditandakan dengan •. Lebih skin Premium akan ditambah dari masa ke semasa.

Reka sendiri skin anda menggunakan custom CSS
Bagi pengguna yang mahir menggunakan CSS, anda boleh mereka bentuk kedai mereka sendiri menggunakan custom CSS. Dengan menggunakan ciri ini, anda boleh menghasilkan reka bentuk yang unik milik kedai anda sahaja. Kami juga telah menyediakan guide untuk anda menghasilkan custom CSS anda. Untuk mengetahui lebih lanjut tentang custom CSS ini, sila rujuk guide yang telah disediakan.

Gunakan sebarang grafik untuk latar belakang kedai anda
Kami telah menyediakan ratusan grafik latar belakang yang boleh digunakan pada kedai anda. Namun sekiranya anda ingin menggunakan grafik sendiri, anda boleh gunakannya dengan akaun Premium. Sekarang anda boleh memiliki latar belakang yang sama untuk kedai, blog dan website anda. 

Sembunyikan iklan, credit Lot.my dan sebagainya
Sekarang anda mempunyai pilihan untuk menyembunyikan iklan Lot.my yang kami sediakan. Malah anda juga boleh menyembunyikan semua link ke laman Lot.my. Sekiranya anda menggunakan domain sendiri, tiada siapa boleh menjangkakan anda menggunakan perkhidmatan dari Lot.my!

Apa tunggu lagi, upgrade akaun anda ke akaun Premium hari ini dan dapatkan lebih pilihan untuk mencantikkan kedai anda ini.

Premium Akaun : Domain .COM Percuma

Ya, anda tidak tersilap membaca tajuk entry kali ini. Bagi setiap pemilik akaun Premium Lot.my, anda akan diberikan domain .COM anda secara percuma. Anda boleh turut serta tudscarf.com, calamusgiftland.com, ukursolution.com, gnsbullion.com dan ramai lagi pengguna akaun Premium yang telah mendapatkan domain .COM percuma mereka.

Domain .COM ini akan menjadi alamat domain kedai anda selagi anda masih menggunakan akaun Premium Lot.my.

Sekiranya anda sudah memiliki akaun premium tapi belum mendapatkan domain .COM anda, sila berhubung dengan support team kami.

Tawaran ini hanya untuk masa yang terhad. Jadi sekiranya anda masih belum upgrade kedai anda ke akaun Premium, inilah masa yang terbaik.

Apa tunggu lagi, upgrade akaun anda ke akaun Premium harini ini dan dapatkan domain .COM percuma anda hari ini.

Premium Akaun : Domain Anda Sendiri

Sebagimana yang anda sedia maklum, setiap kedai di Lot.my boleh diakses dengan domain lot.my sahaja. Namun bagi pengguna akaun Premium, anda boleh memilih segala domain untuk alamat kedai anda.  

Domain seperti .com, .com.my, .net, .co.uk, malah apa sahaja domain yang anda mahukan boleh diletakkan sebagai alamat kedai online anda.

Calamus Gitland menggunakan domain www.calamusgiftland.com

Bukan itu sahaja, sekiranya anda sudah memiliki laman web sendiri dengan domain sendiri, anda boleh menggunakan subdomain laman anda sebagai alamat kedai Lot.my anda. Sebagai contoh Secret Garden memiliki laman sendiri di secretgarden.com.my. Untuk alamat kedai Lot.my, mereka menggunakan subdomain shop.secretgarden.com.my.

Untuk mendapatkan domain sendiri hanya perlu 3 langkah seperti mana yang ditulis dalam artikel wiki ini.

Apa tunggu lagi, upgrade akaun anda ke akaun Premium harini ini dan dapatkan kemudahan menggunakan domain sendiri untuk kedai anda.

Premium Akaun : Support Di Mana-mana Sahaja.

Kami memahami kehendak pengguna Lot.my yang datang dari pelbagai latarbelakang. Ada yang sudah mahir dengan ICT, ada juga yang baru mula-mula berjinak dengan teknologi internet ini. Oleh yang demikian, dengan wujudnya akaun Premium ini, kami berpeluang untuk membantu pengguna-pengguna dengan pelbagai cara.

Kami tahu setiap peniaga Lot.my sangat sibuk menguruskan perniagaan dan kehidupan seharian mereka. Oleh yang demikian kami menyediakan pelbagai kemudahan bagi pengguna Lot.my menghubungi kami bagi menyelesaikan masalah mereka.

Pengguna akan premium Lot.my akan dapat berhubung terus dengan kami sama ada melalui Telefon, SMS, Email ataupun Online Chat.

Untuk mendapatkan online support, sila login ke admin page dan pergi ke Help > Online Support

Kemudian, anda akan mendapat paparan seperti di bawah untuk menghubungi kami.

Apa tunggu lagi, upgrade akaun anda ke akaun Premium harini ini dan nikmati layanan mesra dari kami.

Premium Akaun : Tambah Had Limit Akaun Anda

Salah satu permintaan yang paling kerap kami terima sepanjang tahun lepas ialah penambahan jumlah limit di dalam kedai Lot.my.

Pada masa ini, akaun Basic Lot.my menghadkan jumlah produk, kategori dan laman statik. Jumlah yang disediakan untuk akaun Basic sudah cukup bagi peniaga yang ingin memulakan perniagaan mereka. Namun bagi peniaga yang ingin terus maju dan menambah lebih jualan, akaun Premium adalah pilihan yang terbaik.

Penambahan had bagi akaun Premium adalah seperti rajah di bawah:

Kini dengan akaun Premium, anda boleh menyenaraikan sehingga 100 produk dengan 10 kategori berbeza. Dengan akaun Premium juga anda boleh menambah sehingga 10 laman statik dalam kedai anda.

Apa tunggu lagi, upgrade akaun anda ke akaun Premium harini ini dan nikmati lebih had limit untuk kedai anda.

Tips #6 - Customers your #1 Asset

There are many proverbs or quotes to emphasize how important is your customers. “Customer is always right”, “Customer is King”, “If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will”, etc. It is very clear that in business, customers is your #1 priority. It is your asset.

Like any other assets, you must take a good care of it. It must be taken care of and maintain all the time. So this week tips are on how you could take care of your No. 1 asset.

First of all, make sure your contact information, including a phone number, is easy to find on every page of your website and on every email that you send. Put your full address and how you can be contacted. This is the first thing to do to start good relationship with your customer. For you to know them better, you must let them know your better first! You can also create 'about us' page where you can tell more about you and your business. For inspirational, you can check Lot.my’s About Us page.

Once they become your customer, you need to spend a little more time with them. If you take care of your customers, they will be more inclined to both come back and send you referrals when you ask them to. Here are some ways to make sure you can always do a good job so your customers will always stay loyal to you:

• Ask for feedback. Listen to them and always reply back.
• Always tell the truth.
• Use personal touch in your communication.
• Take all your complaints seriously.
• Be accessible. Let them contact you easily via phone, email, instant messenger, facebook, etc
• Lenient Return Policy. Make it easy for them to return purchased products.
• Offer a strong guarantee. Reduce the risk for the customer to buy from you.
• Thanks them every time. And make it personal

As the proverb earlier said, I suggest you to treat your customer like a king. In return, they’ll bring in more “king” [pronounced $$$] to you!

Tips # 5 Don't Forget to Cross-Sell

In your product details, please do cross-selling. You can cross selling by displaying similar and related products to the one that your customer is currently viewing. The good news is Lot.my allowed you to do all this easily.

Customers don't always know exactly what they want or need. To solve this problem, take a cue from traditional retail stores. Think about how they group particular items together so that customers can compare similar items or purchase related products. Online stores should duplicate this practice by displaying alternative or complimentary products that the customer has selected.

For example, if you're are selling Malaysia home jersey, make sure you show other type of items that related to Malaysian  team. You can display Malaysia away jersey, polo shirt, women shirt and more.

Be creative on how you want to cross sell. Here are some do and don't for cross selling.

Do

• Only feature highly relevant items such as accessories directly related to the product
• Choose items that sell well and have higher margins whenever possible
• Keep your cross-sells down to four suggestions. This seems to be the magic number to create interest while not overwhelming or distracting your customer from making a choice
• Whenever possible, show the most obvious choices someone would want to go along with their purchase such as a matching necklace to go along with diamond earrings
• Continually test your cross-selling tactics and work at improving them for maximum effectiveness

Don't

• Never, ever, show items that are not directly related to the main product
• Don’t show items that are out of stock
• Don’t use cross-selling to simply try unloading unwanted inventory. The goal is to maximize your overall sales totals and conversion rates. Unwanted inventory can have its own area on your site such as a Clearance or Specials section
• Don’t try cross-selling big-ticket items. As a general rule the cross-sell should be in the range of 10% to 25% of the price of the original item on the product page

Remember, cross selling is one of the key to sell more!

Tips #4 As Detailed As Possible

Today I would like you to suggest you to include plenty of product details to your product description.

Unlike brick and mortar stores (shops on the street), ecommerce websites do not allow customer to check or try out the product. Make sure your customer know exactly what they are getting by providing detailed product description. Remember, you rely on your product descriptions to convince customers to buy your product.

Make the product description as detailed as possible. Here is the list of product details you can include

• Size and Measurements
  Always include height, width, and depth of your product. It always good to make size comparison of the product (example: You can fill the lunch box with 8 slices of bread)
• Color and Pattern
  Colors should be described precisely because colors can be displayed differently on computer monitors. You can write "pale baby pink", "medium rose pink", or "hot fuchsia pink" to describe the exact shade of pink. If your item has a pattern, you should make every effort to describe it in detail. You could also display the close-up photo of the pattern.
• Materials
  Your product description should include what the item is made from. This lets the customer know several things that may be of interest before they make a purchase: whether they like the fabric, possible allergies, durability, weight, and feel.
• Options Available
  If customers have a choice when it comes to a particular product, you should make that known clearly in the product description. Size and color are two possible options. With Lot.my, these choices can be easily included with a drop down box. Feel free to take full advantage of this feature.
• Possible Usage
  Customers may not be swayed to buy an item by reading the basic product description alone. A good rule of thumb is to mention a possible use for the item you are trying to sell. "This shirt is great for running marathon!" or "The Enviropurer will reduce dust and dirt in your baby's room" or "The Navi GPS can help you find a petrol station nearby".
• Features Details
  If the shirt you are selling has pearl buttons and a ruffle on the collar, you should tell the customer that. If the stereo equipment has a bass boost and mp3 capabilities, you should make that known. Every detail of your product can help people decide whether they want to purchase the item or not.

In addition, don't forget Tips # 2, to include many photos of your product.

Writing a quality product description is very important. While most ecommerce sites lack articles and other keyword rich content, they get most of their copy from the product descriptions. Write them well, and they will attract visitors to your site, and turn those visitors into paying customers.

Tips #3 Apa Nama?

This tips will be one of the important business tips (for online and offline business). Have the right NAME for your business.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet." That is from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. Good name reflects positive image as Juliet said.

But good name is not enough. You need more that that. You need a marketable name.

The name must be easy to say and to remember.

Cthulhu, Qashqai and Wachovia are both hard to say and to remember. Bad names stop word of mouth.  If people can not recall your name, they will not talk about you.

This is great lesson for anyone naming a business or a product. If you want someone to talk about it, you need to give it a name that people can remember and say.

That is why only the hand phones with good names get word of mouth: the iPhone, the Blackberry. Sorry, LG VX-6700, I loved you, but your name never left my mouth.

Here are some of lot.my stores with good name.Moleq, Tefta, Secret Garden, Ruang

Tips #2 Picture Perfect

‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ is especially true when selling online.

Normal physical (brick and mortar) stores have the advantage that allow customers to look, touch and even try out their products. But online store don’t have this privilege.

To overcome, online stores have to provide a lot of information and most importantly detailed pictures. The bottom line is, your potential customers should have no questions about what they would be purchasing after seeing those pictures.

Regardless of what you sell, poor photos can be a sign of a poor quality store and its services.

So the trick to improve your online store is by improving the photos of your products:

Use Large High Quality Product Photo
Make sure you have a large, clean photo for viewing your products in more detail. Lot.my displays your product photos in thumbnail that can be click to view larger size.
Avoid the usability mistake of having the customer click only to see the same size image. That common mistake can be highly annoying and cause visitors to leave immediately.

Multiple Angles
Many visitors will be doing research to find out which product is right for them. Sometimes showing one extra angle of a product could be enough to convince a visitor to buy. Take advantage of Lot.my features that allow you to upload unlimited product photos. The rules here is ‘the more the better’.

Humanize Your Products
Lifestyle images can be a great way to keep visitors on your site longer and prompt them to buy. Show photos of boys and girls using your products. Selling clothing online? Include pictures of attractive models wearing them. Just like what Threadless did. You could also asked you customer to send you their photos while using your product. And of course you need to give them some incentive to get them excited.

More of the user’s time is spent on the product detail page than any other. And remember, most of the time, the product photos does all the talking..

Tips #1 Just Do It

There are so many tips and tricks to successfully run online store. I'm planning to share a new one (or more) out each week as time permits. If you have any tips to share jut drop me an email at akmal@lot.my. Here is the first tips.

For all those who have long been thinking and researching and planning to start an online business but haven't entered the ecommerce world yet, now is the time to do it.

Don't hesitate, stop procrastinating and planning, get started and you'll learn more about your brand and your customers in months than you would do otherwise in years.

"Cari ilmu dan juga perbaiki perniagaan kita along the way. Tak perlu tunggu sampai segala-galanya 100% perfect!" - Irfan Khairi

The forecasts for ecommerce in 2010 look good. Projections indicate that ecommerce will continue to grow even if the economy hasn’t yet fully recovered from the downturn. This can be attributed to many factors but all of which point to the same conclusion: this is a good time to start a profitable online business. If you’ve got an income opportunity home based business idea, don’t just sit on it – start a profitable online business now!

Make 2010 the year when you actually keep to your resolutions by making resolutions which will bring real, genuine, tangible rewards so you are celebrating your online store's success this time next!

Now, The Backend Sneak Peek

Have you see the demo page we posted few days back? Now it is the time you check the backend of the system. Feel free to explore the back-end. Click any button you want!

Check the demo back-end at: http://demo.lot.my/admin. (password: password)

Demo Store Created

We're finishing few final touch-up of the system and happy to announce that we're going to start private testing this week. Wait for our announcement, if you are interested to be our tester, just let me know. Write to me at akmal[at]lot[dot]my

I've just created a demo store. I was following Tour de France (during the summer football break) and enjoyed every minute of it, so I choose to create a bike store for a demo. Just for fun.

While waiting for the testing announcement, you could have a peek at our demo store

Just click here: http://demo.lot.my/