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Beneficial Extra Functions To Add To Your E-Commerce Site

Published June 22, 2022

There are tons of compelling reasons to consider starting an e-commerce business this year. And just one of the more significant reasons is that e-commerce continues to show exceptional growth as the pandemic and lockdown regulations encouraged consumers to opt for the convenience of online shopping. And the new increasing demand is definitely here to stay despite the end of the pandemic.

So, if you’re starting your own e-commerce business, you’ll need a few things to get started, and these include a professional and functional website, social media profiles, and, of course, a list of products.

In addition, it’s also essential to stay compliant with various e-commerce and online regulations. The accessible Canada act encourages website owners to enhance accessibility for all, so be sure to follow these requirements.

That said, your website is an essential aspect of your business, so you should prioritize efforts to ensure your site has all the basics and these extra functions.

The Basics

First, your e-commerce website must be easy to navigate for users. The site must be professional and optimized for mobile use. In addition to this, it’s also essential to include a variety of relevant site policies.

Standard policies to include are a privacy policy, terms of use, a disclaimer, shipping, and returns. These policies will effectively protect your business from legal repercussions right from the start.

Beyond website policies, your website should also include basics like a call-to-action, options to sign up for newsletters, an about page, and business contact details. It’s also wise to have a chat function for customer service purposes; including chatbots is exceptionally beneficial for any business website.

You can rely on professional web developers to craft your site or opt for free website builders. Even though free website builders have limited functions, you will be able to create a professional website in a matter of moments. Once your basic website is live, you can keep adding to your site and even later rely on web developers to fine-tune your efforts.

Age Verification

If your product list targets adults, you will need to secure your site from child visitors for various obvious reasons. And the original method of including a question box that simply asks the visitor’s age is definitely not nearly secure enough anymore.

Instead, you should ensure your site has an effective age verification process. This function is vital for fraud prevention as well. And a suitable process function will require site visitors to verify themselves with identification numbers and an image of their face.

Convenient Check-Out Process

Should any of your site visitors find your product line attractive and decide to make a purchase, only to find that the check-out process is time-consuming, confusing, and not entirely convenient, they could, unfortunately, change their mind at the last minute and decide to shop elsewhere.

So, be sure to optimize the check-out process by including more than one payment method. In addition, you should also ensure your site is mobile-friendly, as this will prevent lagging during check-outs.

Regarding payment options, consider credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers, mobile payments, PayPal, and cash on delivery. You can also consider including credit options for customers that prefer paying later. The more payment options you add to your website, your customers will have more convenience when shopping.

Product Suggestions

When optimizing your e-commerce site, be sure to add the function of product recommendations. If your site makes product suggestions for visitors, you are significantly more likely to increase sales. This function can increase conversion rates dramatically.

Your product recommendations should suggest similar products to items visitors are currently looking at, along with products that would go well together or have previously been purchased together.

That said, it’s’ also essential that product images are high-quality yet optimized. If image file sizes are too large, website pages will load slowly and crash, which is frustrating for website users.

Detailed Product Descriptions

Product descriptions are substantially more important than most would care to realize. If your product descriptions are bland and barely there, shoppers will likely feel the product is not likely quality. On the other hand, the more details you include in product descriptions, the more shoppers know about what they are buying, and the more likely they are to make a purchase.

In addition to detailed product descriptions, you should also include a section of product pages that allows your customers to leave product reviews. This will serve as a personal experience, and if your products are great, it will help compel other shoppers to buy the same products with good ratings.

An Engaging Blog

Regardless of the kinds of products or services, you will be offering on your website, having a blog is a really wise decision. A blog can generate traffic and effectively keep your audience engaged.

While it’s essential to create fresh and original content, it’s also crucial to optimize your content for Search Engine Optimization; including relevant keywords in posts will improve your search engine rankings and enhance traffic numbers dramatically.

Content needs to be niche-specific, so opt for topics that complement your industry and your products. Some excellent blog options are how-to guides, tutorials, factual articles, and industry insights.

And even though you can rely on a content writing team or an agency, you can also consider creating content yourself. There are several short courses readily available to guide you through the basics. Nevertheless, relying on a content agency is typically affordable, and this is the best way to generate a constant stream of high-quality content.

A successful e-commerce store has various features and functions. And while building a successful site with great products can take some time, the more functional and appealing your site is, the more likely it will find success. With this, it’s essential to maintain your website over time by updating code, adding fresh content, and keeping product listings valid. In addition to this, you must also implement cybersecurity measures to protect your business and your customers’ sensitive information.

The post Beneficial Extra Functions To Add To Your E-Commerce Site appeared first on Jobacle.com.

Published November 14, 2023

3 Reasons To Quit Pursuing Career Happiness

This may be controversial, but as a 20-year career coaching veteran, I think one of the biggest mistakes people are making post-pandemic is they are overly focused on trying to pursue career happiness when in reality you should be focused on building career resilience.

Career Happiness Is Elusive. Building Career Resilience Will Give You Career Satisfaction.

There are three reasons why career happiness is very difficult to achieve. First, career happiness is a state of mind. So if you’re sitting here and wondering, “How can I just be happier in my career today?” you can’t. Instead, certain things need to happen that are going to make you stronger and more resilient, feel more in control, and give you more satisfaction.

Career satisfaction will make you feel happy.

The second reason you should quit trying to pursue career happiness is that it constantly evolves. It’s like a moving target. The moment that you start to feel happy, the situation will change, or your circumstances will change. So it’s not a one-and-done sort of thing. Many people struggle with the concept of “happiness,” and say something like, “I was happy here and now I’m not. I’ll never be able to achieve this.” That’s not true at all. Happiness is a constantly moving state.

The third reason you don’t want to focus on career happiness is that it’s different for every person. I coach people every day who tell me they tried something that worked for someone else, but they didn’t get the same results, and now they feel bad about itâabout themselves, their situation, etc. You can’t compare someone else’s success, someone else’s perceived happiness, with your own ideas of success and happiness.

Career happiness just isn’t the right thing to pursue for all three of these reasons.

So, what do you do instead? You focus on building up your career resilience. Why do you do that? Because the stronger you get, the more in control you will feel, and the more satisfied you will be with your careerâand that will make you feel happy.

How To Build Career Resilience

Happy man at his dream job

There are three things you need to build career resilience. First is the environment. You need to surround yourself with a community of people who are all focusing on career resilience as well. What happens is you end up learning from these people. In fact, they show you things you didn’t know you needed to know. But also, candidly, you look around the room and you go, “These people aren’t any better than me. I can do this.” And that’s going to give you motivation, which many people lack.

The second thing you’re going to need is coaching. You’re going to need people who have done this, who have hacks, who have tips, who have tricks, who are keeping up with the latest techniques, who can understand your particular situation and get you the advice you need. Think about all the people in your life you use when you can’t get results on your own. They’re essentially coaches. That’s what you need right now to get you to the next level. If you think about it, coaching isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s the path to greatness, especially in things like sports. And this is no different. You’re playing a sport here in your career.

The third thing that you’re going to need is knowledge. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is the one thing nobody can take away from you. Employers can never take away your knowledge. That’s your power. That’s your value. That’s your worth when it comes to work.

When you gain new insights, when you learn new things, it is going to make you much smarter. You’re going to make more informed decisions, and you’re going to take yourself from being an employee who feels like they don’t have any power to an employee who realizes they’re a business-of-one, and you want to be a partner with that employer. They’re not any better than you. You want to partner up, and you want the mutual trust and respect that you deserve. But that only comes when you build up that resiliency.

I like to call people who build career resiliency “Workplace Renegades” because they get off the hamster treadmill, think for themselves, and learn how to take ownership of their carer using the right environment, the right community, the right education, the right courses and knowledge, and then the right coaching, the right support.

If you would like some help building resiliency in your career, become a Work It DAILY member today. Sign up for our 7-day FREE trial and see how easy it is to get the results you want and deserve.

Good luck, and go get ’em!

Published September 16, 2022

How To Mention Unrelated Work Experience On Your Resume

Many candidates who come to us for resume help have the same question. They have years of professional work experience, but a lot of it isn’t relevant to the position they’re currently seeking.

On the one hand, they don’t want to waste resume space detailing work that doesn’t relate to their application. On the other hand, they don’t want to omit years of work that developed them as a professional.

How do you mention unrelated work experience on your resume?

The Right Phrase

Woman adds work experience to her resume

We use a magic phrase to address this issue: “additional experience.” It’s perfectly fine to sum up large portions of your career in one section that lists previous employers, positions, leadership roles, certifications, associations, publications, awards, volunteer experience, and even significant hobbies (as long as the experience supports your professionalization in some way).

If you spent the first 10 years of your marketing career performing lower-level tasks, in your “Additional Experience” section at the end of your resume you could say: “Marketing positions with ABC, DEF, and XYZ (1990-2000).”

If your previous work was in an unrelated field, you can simply list the companies: “Positions with ABC, DEF, and XYZ.”

Whatever additional experience you decide to include on your resume, make sure you demonstrate why it’s important to the job you’re applying for by quantifying the work experience and your accomplishments.

The Age Game

Man looks at the work experience on his resume

This technique can also be very helpful for those who are concerned about age discrimination. We summarized the first 15 years of one candidate’s career into one sentence to downplay the fact that she was 55. Because her experience was relevant to her field, removing it from her resume entirely would have been a disservice, but we did not include the years that experience encompassed in her “Additional Experience” section.

The Experience Issue

Woman adds additional experience to her resume

We recently worked with another candidate who needed to show that she was a more experienced professional than her education suggested. This woman had worked for 10 years before going back to complete her bachelor’s degree. From looking at her graduation dates, you would assume she was in her 20s. In fact, she was an experienced manager in her 30sâa fact that was important to show for the level of job she was seeking.

By adding an “Additional Experience” section and putting her “Work History” section before her “Education” section, she was able to show employers that her graduation dates were not an indication of how much experience she had. Just because her work experience occurred before graduating doesn’t mean it was unrelated work experience. The right resume format will make it much easier to mention any kind of significant work experience you’ve had in your career.

Many of us have work experience that doesn’t fit neatly with our current goals and objectives. If you don’t feel comfortable leaving it off your resume altogether, using an “Additional Experience” section can help you mention the experience quickly without wasting precious resume space.

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This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Published August 8, 2022

4 Tips To Change Management You Might Not Know

The world has changed considerably since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Weâve been going through so many changes, on various levels. Still, change is hard for so many reasons and people respond to it quite differently. The change management tips to know are about people, technology, self-awareness, and sustainability.

1. People

Coworkers meet about a project

âFor enterprise-level systems or technology change projects, there are so many moving parts. Companies could forget to engage their most valuable resources, the people who will be impacted by the change. In that case, thereâs confusion about why the change is valuable and how the change affects the day-to-day work.

When change is communicated properly and messaged in a clear way, it can be empowering. The stakeholders understand the purpose of the change and directly how it will influence them. This could be managed by conducting a stakeholder impact and analysis, creating a stakeholder engagement committee, and nominating change champions throughout the company.

2. Technology

technology, laptop

Naturally, technology is continually changing, and change is still hard for most people. Although the business knows some changes (such as year-end upgrades) are required, it will still make some groups anxious and put them on edge. Having a strong change management process is critical to ensure the change is successful.

Identify the change details such as the purpose, impact, timing, etc. Communicate this information to make sure the business has a clear understanding. Then get the key stakeholders to approve the change. Once the change has been implemented, you want to review to make sure the desired results were achieved. Make sure you report the results (successes) to the organization. With each successful change, it will make the organization more comfortable with the next change.

3. Self-Awareness

self-awareness concept

Experiencing change, itâs not just for everyone else. Many times, you will experience change, as well as manage it. And itâs not as easy as we preach. We all have our own things that we hold on to and itâs somewhat surprising when you find yourself in the resistance category. Not only is it surprising, but itâs also difficult to recognize in ourselves.

Are you avoiding attendance to a training session? Are you leaving out pertinent information to messages? Orâmy favoriteâare you having trouble making definitive decisions related to the change? These are only a few signs of change resistance but taking a few moments to reflect on our own behavior will alert us to any of our own resistance and then we can take steps to figure out what we need to move forward.

Many times, resistance is centered around losing control of something we have invested in emotionally. Recognizing this fear helps us deal with our emotions constructively, find ways to honor our investment, and then enter into a new change mindset that is open to new emotional investments.

4. Sustainability

change concept

Building on the changeâthe change work isnât done when everyone celebrates the âgo liveâ day. To get the full value of the investment and have the change stick, an organization must plan and execute for ongoing commitment, consistency, and keeping value creation in focus. Among companies that report successful completion of change initiatives, most will report 1-2 years later that the success wasnât sustained, or it looks measurably different from what was first celebrated. Why is that? If people donât see and experience the promised value of changes, they have no reason not to go back to what they were familiar with before. If the new way isnât line of sight, relatable, and delivers consistently better results for ALL the stakeholders involved, then disappointment will lead to confusion, followed quickly by abandonment.

Yet it doesnât have to happen this way. Understanding that change is a process, not an event, and putting into place âscaffoldingâ that supports the right conditions for the change to take hold and visibly produce value makes all the difference. Every change project is an opportunity to build the capacity for adaptability and responsiveness within an organization because there will be more changes to come in the future. Organization leaders and project sponsors who make clear the importance of the change and remain present not just for accountability but also for engaging in sense-making conversations create confidence that the change is driven by a âwhyâ and not just a âwhat.â When people connect these dots together, they see a way to collaborate and win as a team, and who doesnât enjoy winning?

Published May 11, 2023

How Important Is Up-To-Date System Documentation?

Your organization bought an expensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, and it came with a comprehensive set of documentation including user manuals, training materials, and technical guides. You utilized the documentation and successfully implemented the system, but how much have you used the documentation since then?

Technology is an investment. You want to maximize the use of the system, including that the systemâs operations are consistent and reliable. You regularly update the system for upgrades and patches. Itâs crucial to make sure your corresponding documentation is up to date because it enables employees to be knowledgeable about the updated system.

Documentation captures critical information preserving that knowledge and making it available to all appropriate individuals. If only a few specific individuals know how the system works, what happens when they get sick, go on vacation, or resign? The solution is to make sure the information is written down and to document that knowledge.

User-Related Documentation

User documentation supports onboarding and training to ensure employees know how to properly use the system. This allows employees to get familiar with the system so that they can leverage it effectively. User manuals provide end users with guidelines including step-by-step instructions on how to use the system. Security roles identify what the staff can/canât do versus what requires a supervisor to override. If youâve added a module, make sure you add the new feature/functionality details so that the documents arenât incomplete or missing information.

Training materials (e.g., instructor/student manuals, cheat sheets) are used to train both new and existing employees poised for promotions and transfers. Training materials can be used for scheduled training classes or for train-the-trainer scenarios wherein designated trainers (department super users or subject matter experts) train the rest of the organization.

If the documentation isnât up to date, it can confuse or make it difficult for end users to properly use the system. Allow users to submit feedback (e.g., via a service ticket) regarding documentation such as unclear steps, incorrect screen print, or missing information.

IT-Related Documentation

For the IT staff, documentation serves as a reference for how the system is intended to be used. This includes system setup/configuration, system maintenance, as well as troubleshooting.

Many organizations operate 24/7 so itâs crucial that the IT staff be able to minimize any downtime. Some key documents are:

1. System architecture documents â provide an overview of the system components and interfaces that are interconnected. If you need to migrate your environment from on premises to the cloud, having current architecture documents can minimize the uncertainty of what components you have and how theyâre connected.

2. Data-related documents (e.g., data dictionaries and data flow diagrams) â document the data structures. If a table is dropped, do you know which processes including reports will be affected?

3. System maintenance documents â did the upgrade affect the patching process? Does the nightly processing schedule need to be updated? Or any of the backup schedules (daily, monthly, quarterly, etc.)?

4. Troubleshooting documents â guidance on diagnosing and resolving common technical issues. When you upgraded the database version, did you become familiar with the new system messages and codes in advance?

When the system has been changed, make sure the documentation has been updated to reflect those changes. You can use a date stamp in the footer and turn on versioning to identify when the documentation was last updated.

Also, donât forget to update the disaster recovery and business continuity documents. In the event of a disaster, you want to ensure the organization can minimize any business disruption. It can be chaotic when a disaster occurs, and up-to-date documentation can reduce stress, especially for employees filling in for absent employees.

For more information on the importance of keeping system documentation up to date, follow me on LinkedIn!